英文版英国历史简介（1）The History of Britain（Part One）

今天是Robert老师带我们打开尘封的英国历史，一起翻阅英国那些最辉煌最具纪念意义的传奇～~早期凯尔特人、罗马不列颠、盎格鲁撒克逊、威廉征服者、末日审判书、英法战争、 金雀花王朝、百年战争、黑死病、玫瑰战争。

                                                 By Robert        Summarised by  Arthur

Before the first ice age, Europe was connected to Mesolithic Britain and so people migrated from Europe. After the ice age ended, the melted ice flooded the pathway and so it became an island. 

The people are called Celts and a lot of their stuff is still here such as the Celtic language that is spoken in Ireland, Scotland and Wales. They settle and start kissing under the Mistletoe. Two facts: Fact one: Mistletoe in the Inuit language means ‘hill of dung’.Fact Two:In the Norse myth ‘death of Baldor’(also known as Baldr or Balder), it was Loki who used mistletoe to kill Baldor in the myth. Another fact: Easter and Christmas were both Celtic festivals

In the year 48AD, the Romans invaded Britain and gave it a name: ‘Britannia’( it literally meant ‘land of tin’). A Roman emperor Constantine the great was born in York and later York became the capital of the empire. The Celts benefited from the Romans as they could trade with the rest of the empire. Of course, some of them didn’t like being controlled such as Boudicca. She led a famous rebellion against the Romans but failed.

The Romans brought to Britain…Under floor heating, sewers, pipes, money etc.

After Edward the Confessor died, he told Harold I to be his successor but William of Normandy ( William the Conqueror) thought he was the successor so he sent an army of 1000 to England to fight at Hastings; the cause of the Battle of Hastings. And Harold died in the battle of an arrow to the eye. This marked the start of the start of dynasties. So far, there are 6 dynasties, Normans (William the Conqueror), Plantagenet ( ruling for 300 years after the Death of Stephen after the war with his cousin Matilda) Tudors, (starting with Henry Tudor, a Welshman ), Stuarts (after Elizabeth I told James VI of Scotland to take over and become James I of England), the Hanoverians( starting with George I from Hanover in Germany, the Second king of England who couldn’t speak English) and Windsors (the name used to be Saxe-Coburg-Gotha but when Britain was fighting the Germans, they disliked the name and so they changed the name to Windsor, like the castle).

The Normans were basically Vikings that settled in France and learnt French (from grrr to le’grrr). They also started feudalism. It meant that everything was in a type of pyramid.The king was at the top with the church very close next to him as the church could stop people going to heaven ( people were very superstitious then). Then it was a bunch of barons William had brought from France to rule with him and then it was the knights. Then at the very bottom, there were peasants. After the Stephan; the last Norman died, a distant cousin of William called Henry II took over and then the Plantagenet dynasty ruled for another 300 years. It ended when Richard the III (who had a deformed back) was found by Henry Tudor’s wife: Elizabeth of York, that Richard had starved Richard and Edward ( it was Richard of Shrewsbury and Edward V which were her sons and also the famous ‘princes in the tower’). After he was killed in the battle of Bosworth Field ( the last battle in the Wars of the Roses), he was buried in an unmarked grave and in 2012, while workers were digging a car park in Leicster, they found an ‘R’ in one of the spaces. They joked,’it’s Richard III!’. But when they dug it, they found a skeleton with a deformed back. As DNA studies show, it was the bones of King Richard III. At that time, the Hundred years war was still going and the reason England won the majority of battles was because they used a secret weapon: longbows. The French could use it but it was hard to use and took a long time to learn how to use it. The way the English used it was because at the time, there was a law that every person had to practice the longbow for at least two hours. There was also a peasants’ revolt because of the Hundred years war (it actually lasted for 116 years so it should be called the 116 years war). It was led by a person called Wat Tyler . It happened because of funding for the Hundred Years War, and at that that time, there was the Black Death ( a name for the Plague) there so they thought it was a good time to launch a rebellion.  At the time he reached London, he had a big peasant mob following him. Then, a someone under the command of the 14 year old king Richard II, rode up to him and said to Tyler: Wat, you’re the greatest thief and robber in the whole of Kent. Tyler then drew his dagger and tried to stab the king. But the Mayor of London( William Walworth) and the King’s Squire (Ralph Standis), went and stabbed Tyler many times before he was rescued and nursed for a while by his friends before the king’s men decapitated him. He was probably dead already. After Wat was killed, no one else wanted the risky job so they all went home. The peasants also sang a song about killing the Wren bird. It was because at that time, people thought the Wren was the King ( or Queen) of birds so killing the Wren basically meant killing the king.

Key words:

legacy 遗赠，遗产

pagan  异教徒

ruler  统治者

the throne  王位

dynasty  朝代

succeed (as in "follow")  and successor  继承，继承者

excommunicate  把…逐出教会

Archbishop  大主教

feudalism  封建制度

a peasant  农民

a baron  男爵

Hundred Years' War   百年战争，是1337年至1453年期间，发生在金雀花王朝治下的英格兰王国和瓦卢瓦王朝治下的法兰西王国之间，针对法兰西王国统治权的战争。

Wars of the Roses  玫瑰战争（1455年─1485年）是英王爱德华三世（1327年-1377年在位）的两支后裔——兰开斯特家族和约克家族的支持者为了争夺英格兰王位而发生断续的内战。两大家族都是金雀花王朝王室的分支。玫瑰战争是约克家族的爱德华三世的第五代、第六代继承人对兰开斯特家族的爱德华三世的第四代、第五代继承人的王位战争。“玫瑰战争”一名当时并未出现，而是在16世纪莎士比亚在历史剧《亨利六世》中以两朵玫瑰被拔标志战争的开始后才成为普遍用语。此名称源于两个家族所选的家徽，兰开斯特的红玫瑰和约克的白玫瑰。