British Historical Context
A
history of England to accompany and contextualise the genealogical history
|
Return to the Home
Page of the Farndale Family Website |
The story of one
family’s journey through two thousand years of British History |
The 83 family lines
into which the family is divided. Meet the whole family and how the wider
family is related |
Members of the
historical family ordered by date of birth |
Links to other pages
with historical research and related material |
The story of the
Bakers of Highfields, the Chapmans, and other related families |
Headlines are in brown.
Dates are in red.
Hyperlinks to
other pages are in dark
blue.
References and
citations are in turquoise.
Context and local
history are in purple.
Geographical
context is in green.
This page
provides an index to pages exploring the wider national and local context to
support the genealogy. It is generally structured as a series of timelines, to
provide an easy interface when exploring the gernealogy.
The Periods of English and
British History
The
British Isles before the Norman Conquest
The Houses of Lancaster and York
The period of the House of Hanover
The modern period
of the House of Saxe Coburg Gotha and the House of
Windsor
Themes of national History
The Church and religion
Individuals
Places
Culture
Events
Social History
Wider context
In Our Time Podcasts
The following In
Our Time podcasts are helpful:
The Ice Ages. See Farndale Prehistory.
Doggerland, and the humans, plants and animals once
living on land now under the North Sea, submerged in the Stone Age. See Farndale
Prehistory.
The Bronze Age collapse,
sudden, chaotic change around 1200 BC, mainly in the eastern Mediterranean. See Farndale
Prehistory.
The dawn of the European Iron Age, a period of great upheaval when technology
and societies were changed forever. See Farndale
Prehistory.
The Picts. See Farndale
Prehistory.
Roman Britain. See Farndale
Prehistory.
Boudica. See Farndale
Prehistory.
The causes and events leading to the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century and
assesses the role of Christianity, the Ostrogoths, the Visigoths and the
Vandals. See Farndale
Prehistory.
The Celts. See Farndale
Prehistory.
The Druids. See Farndale
Prehistory.
Alcuin, the cleric, educator and poet from York who
put learning for its own sake at the heart of the Carolingian Renaissance. See Alcuin of York.
King Alfred and the defeat of the Vikings at Battle of
Edington and Alfred's project to create a culture of Englishness. See Farndale
Prehistory.
The reign of King Athelstan, whose military exploits united much of
England, Scotland and Wales under one ruler for the first time. See Farndale
Prehistory.
The Danelaw. See Farndale
Prehistory.
Cnut. See Farndale
Prehistory.
The Battle of Stamford Bridge, the
decisive English victory over Viking forces which took place in September 1066.
See Farndale Prehistory.
the Domesday Book. See Domesday
Book.
‘The Norman Yoke’ – the idea that the Battle of Hastings
sparked years of cruel Norman oppression for the Anglo Saxons. See Norman Domination.
The Davidian Revolution and
the great changes in Scotland associated with David I (c1084 to 1153), from the
founding of trading towns such as Edinburgh to new monasteries and new ways of
governing. See the Normans.
Roger Bacon, the medieval English scholar, an early
pioneer of science who became known as Doctor Mirabilis. See Culture
and Writing.
Thomas Becket (c1118 to 1170). See the Plantagenets.
Eleanor of Aquitaine (c1122-1204), who was a ruler in her own
right as well as married to the king of France and then to the king of England.
See the Plantagenets.
The Third Crusade, from death of the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick
Barbarossa, to the famous encounter between Richard I and Saladin. See
the Plantagenets.
The Knights Templar and the growth and great military and
financial strength of the famous order whose knights had a mission to protect
pilgrims in the Holy Land. See the Plantagenets.
The Twelfth Century Renaissance. See Culture and
Writing.
Medieval chivalry. See the Plantagenets.
The
centuries old myth of the most romantic noble outlaw, Robin
Hood and whether he was a yeoman, an aristocrat, an anarchist or the
figment of a collective imagination. See Robin Hood.
Magna Carta. See the Plantagenets.
The Battle of Lincoln, fought on 20 May 1217 between the forces of
the boy-king Henry III, led by William Marshal, and supporters of Louis of
France. See the Plantagenets.
The Second Baron’s War
(1264 to 1267) and Simon de Montfort's seizure of power from Henry III and his
family while supporting new, broader parliaments. See the Plantagenets.
Shakespeare and
the Plantagenet plays. See the Plantagenets.
The Battle of
Bannockburn of 1314, an
important victory for Scotland in its fight to win independence from England.
See the Plantagenets.
Crecy,
1346. See the Plantagenets.
The Black Death. See the Black Death.
The religious orders of the Dominicans
and the Franciscans, the Blackfriars and Greyfriars, who
were a great force for change in Catholic Europe. See the
Church.
Margery Kempe (1373 to 1438) and English Mysticism, and
English mystic who went to Jerusalem and dictated her life story, said to be
the first autobiography in English. See Culture
and Writing.
The Peasants’ Revolt, 1381. See the Plantagenets.
the
defeat of the French at Agincourt in 1415, and
explores the cultural legacy of this emblematic victory. See Lancaster and York.
The Siege of Orléans in 1428, when Joan of Arc came to the rescue of France and routed
the English army with the help of God. See Lancaster and
York.
The Wars of the Roses, the 15th century wars between the royal
Houses of Lancaster and York, whether they represent the breakdown of the
feudal system or whether the political instability been overstated. See Lancaster
and York.
Margaret of Anjou,
Henry VI’s Queen from 1445 to 1461. See Lancaster
and York.
The role of the
Tudor dynasty in reshaping the British state and whether their government of
England laid the political foundations of our own age. See the Tudors.
The Field of the Cloth of Gold in
1520, one of the greatest and most conspicuous displays of wealth and culture
that Europe had ever seen. See the Tudors.
Hans Holbein's role in the Tudor Court,
painting Henry VIII as he asserted himself as supreme head of the Church during
the Reformation. See the Tudors.
Humanism. See the Church.
Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries,
asking whether Henry’s policy was an act of grand larceny or the pious
destruction of a corrupt institution. See the Tudors.
William Cecil, the 1st Baron Burghley, Elizabeth I's
powerful Secretary of State who advanced England's interests throughout her
reign. See the
Tudors.
Mary Queen of Scots. See the Tudors.
The infamous St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre in
1572 when the River Seine ran red with Protestant blood. See the
Tudors.
The Spanish Armada, the fleet which attempted to invade
Elizabethan England in 1588. See the Tudors.
The death of Queen Elizabeth I and
its immediate impact, as a foreign monarch became King in the face of plots and
plague. See the
Tudors.
Mercantilism. See Trade and Commerce.
The Divine Right of Kings. See the
Stuarts.
The Thirty Years War (1618 to 1648). See the
Stuarts.
The Pilgrim Fathers and why their 1620 voyage on the Mayflower
has become iconic in the American imagination. See the
Stuarts.
The Covenanters, Scottish Presbyterian pledges to advance
their beliefs in the face of episcopacy and Roman Catholicism, and their impact
across Britain and Ireland. See the Stuarts.
The trial of Charles I,
recounting the high drama in Westminster Hall and the ideas that led to the
execution. See the Stuarts.
The Interregnum (1649 to 1660) between the execution of
Charles I and restoration of Charles II including the impact in Scotland and,
infamously, Ireland. See the Stuarts.
How English republicanism has developed from Cromwell to the present
day, and examines whether it is embedded as a sentiment deep within the culture
of England. See the Stuarts.
The Putney Debates of 1647, when factions of the New Model Army
considered a possible new constitution for England. See the Stuarts.
The reign of Charles II and discusses
whether the Restoration
brought peace and prosperity to England or was an unstable period that
culminated in revolution. See the Stuarts.
The Great Fire of London in
1666 and how the city rose from the ashes. See the Stuarts.
Titus Oates and his Popish Plot. See the Stuarts.
The Glorious
Revolution of 1688. See the
Stuarts.
The Gin Craze
in the 18th Century and the moves to control it. See the
Stuarts.
The Jacobite
Rebellion, the Stuart dynasty's final attempt to reclaim the throne of
England. See the Hanoverians.
The East India
Company. See the Stuarts.
The South Sea
Bubble, the speculation mania in early 18th-century England which ended in
the financial ruin of many of its investors. See the
Hanoverians.
The 18th and 19th century enclosure movement which
divided the British countryside both literally and figuratively. See the Hanoverians.
The part British thinkers played in the Enlightenment in the
18th century. See the Stuarts.
The emergence and impact of the
Scottish Enlightenment which was led by the philosopher David Hume and the
father of modern economics, Adam Smith. See the Stuarts.
Adam Smith's celebrated economic treatise The Wealth of Nations. See
the Stuarts.
The pioneering British Enlightenment thinker Mary Wollstonecraft (1759
to 1797). See the Stuarts.
The Gordon
Riots of 1780, and why a Westminster protest against 'Popery' in June 1780
led to widespread rioting across London, lethally suppressed. See the Hanoverians.
The
Bluestockings, a group of prominent women intellectuals in 18th-century
England. See Women.
The Irish
Rebellion of 1798, led by the United Irishmen, who were inspired by
American and French revolutions, and the impact this had across Ireland. See the Hanoverians.
The Battle of
Trafalgar (1805). See the Hanoverians.
The 1807 Abolition of the Slave Trade, and the life of William Wilberforce. See the Hanoverians.
The War of
1812, the conflict between America and Great Britain which is sometimes
referred to as the second American War of Independence. See the Hanoverians.
The Great
Reform Act of 1832, a landmark in British political history. See the Hanoverians.
The Corn Laws,
cause of one of the most explosive political debates in the 19th century. See the Hanoverians.
Chartism.
See the Hanoverians.
The Industrial
Revolution. See the Industrial
Revolution.
The far-reaching consequences of the Industrial Revolution,
which brought widespread social and intellectual change to Britain. See the Industrial Revolution.
David Ricardo
and his argument for free trade after the Napoleonic Wars. He argued that
Britain's economy was being held back by the interests of landlords and
protectionism, and his call for free trade. See the
Hanoverians.
The
Poor Laws, the 19th century legislation intended to discourage poor people
from seeking relief instead of work, with handouts replaced by the workhouse. See the Hanoverians.
Isambard
Kingdom Brunel, the Victorian engineer responsible for bridges, tunnels and
railways still in use today. See the Industrial Revolution.
The 1851 Great
Exhibition, housed in the magnificent Crystal Palace, the exhibition
showcased Victorian Britain's technical ingenuity and industrial might. See the Hanoverians.
The Great
Stink of 1858 and the work of Joseph Bazalgette to fix it. See the Hanoverians.
The Charge of
the Light Brigade. See John Farndale (FAR00337).
Charles Booth
and the Labour Survey, to discover how many people in late Victorian London
were living in poverty, and understand why. See Poverty.
The Victorian reformer Octavia Hill, pioneer of
social housing and campaigner for public open spaces. See Home Life.
Suffragism.
See Women.
The history of English
national identity and examines how the concept of the Nation State can
defend itself against the forces of globalisation.
The history of
education which examines whether its modern purpose is to teach us the
nature of reality, or to give us the tools to deal with it. See Education.
Whether we can
ever predict the future by understanding the past. What kind of lessons is
it possible for leaders, governments or people to take from history? See Recalling
the Past.
The writing of
history has changed over time, from ancient epics to medieval hagiographies
and modern deconstructions. See Recalling
the Past.