AUSTRALIA
THE MAKING OF THE UNITED KINGDOM AND ITS UNIQUE HISTORY
The nation of Australia was created from the British colonies under the rule of the United Kingdom. When examining the creation of Australia it is critical to understand the history and the creation of the United Kingdom, a history of war and conquest that dwarfs any conflict that took place on the continent that would become Australia.
The United Kingdom is the amalgamation of the countries of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. It is the history of often brutal invasions, occupation, assimilation and settlement and assimilation of various peoples of the British isles and the peoples of Europe. These people now see themselves as the people of the United Kingdom. From a diverse range of people and with a past often involving brutal and protracted wars and conquest, a small island nation would rise to dominate the world in both a military sense and in the spread of civilisation and ideas.
The vast historical records which detail the history or England cannot be condensed into a simple website and are only presented here as a guide to understanding the Australia's founding nations history. There is virtually no nation which has not been involved in conquest, invasion or violent conflict. In all instances it has resulted in the loss of life, causalities and in some cases the defence of lands and in others, the change of ownership of those lands.
ENGLAND - CONQEURED, CONQUERED AND CONQUERED
English and British history usually begins 2,000 years ago with an indigenous population known as Celtic Britons or Ancient Britons which occupied the lands that would become England.
These primitive peoples were invaded by the Romans in 42 AD who occupied and ruled the lands for 500 years. There was no treaty offered by the Romans. There was no concession or negotiations with the Romans about their absolute rights. They brought with them their laws and absolute control of the newly acquired lands.
After the withdrawal of the Romans at the collapse of Empire, the Anglo-Saxons settled Britain which is often regarded as the origin of England. The Anglo-Saxons were a collection of Germanic peoples and established several kingdoms.
Raids by Vikings became frequent after about AD 800, and the Norsemen settled in parts England.
During this period, several rulers attempted to unite the various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, an effort that led to the emergence of the Kingdom of England by the 10th century.
In 1066, a Norman expedition invaded and conquered England taking control from the Anglo-Saxons. The Normans were an ethnic group that arose from contact between Norse Viking settlers of a region in France, named Normandy after them, and indigenous Franks and Gallo-Romans.
All inter married with their predecessors and all conquerors assimilated the local populations into their kingdoms.
WALES A CONQUERED COUNTRY.
The Kingdom of England, formed in 927, gained the first state other than itself through invasion. In the late 13th century, King Edward I conquered the western Principality of Wales, claiming it as a territory of England.
Wales, remained a conquered territory. Wales was not an official part of the Kingdom of England until the 1530s. Under King Henry VIII, England passed Acts of Union extending English laws and norms into Wales.
SCOTLAND – A POLITICAL UNION
The Romans attempted to invade Scotland and despite the very significant superior military force of the Roman Empire, the Romans were repelled with the eventual building of Hadrian's wall by the Romans to divide the Roman lands in the South from Scotland in the North. [The Aboriginals never mounted any effective resistance and did not retain their lands]
After conquering Wales, King Edward I invaded the northern Kingdom of Scotland but Scotland emerged from the First and Second Wars of Scottish Independence with its sovereignty intact. Despite 2 attempts to conquer Scotland, the Scottish once again faced a superior military force and defended their lands against conquest and invasion. And for this the Scottish remained sovereign in their own lands.
When Queen Elizabeth I died in 1603, the next person in line to the throne was her cousin, King James VI of Scotland. Now, he gained a second name: King James I of England.
Even though Scotland and England shared the same king, they were still two politically separate kingdoms, each with their own parliament. Over the next century, there were several failed attempts to merge them into one nation. These attempts ended in 1707, when England and Scotland united as “Great Britain” under Queen Anne.
There were several reasons for this union which included the fact that Scotland was in debt after trying to establish a colonial empire in the Americas the same way that England, Portugal and Spain had done and that Scotland was in need they needed the support of a stronger maritime power, which was England.
Many Scots also saw the union as a way of preventing the Catholic Stuarts from reinstating an absolute monarchy, and securing Scotland’s future under a Protestant constitutional monarchy. For England, there was concern that if it did not unite with Scotland, the country might side against England with France in the War of the Spanish Succession. So in 1707, England agreed to give Scotland money to pay off its debts, and both countries’ parliaments passed the Acts of Union to become one nation.
IRELAND – BROUGHT INTO THE UNION
British rule in Ireland began with the Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland in 1169.
In the 1540s, Ireland had become a dependent kingdom of England, and the 1542 Crown of Ireland Act mandated that the king of England was now the King of Ireland. At the time the King of England was Henry VIII. In 1603 King James VI of Scotland became the King James I of England and also became King James I of Ireland.
Using the model for the English/Scottish union of 1707, in 1801 Ireland became part of the United Kingdom.
The Irish union didn’t last. Between 1919 and 1921, the Irish Republican Army fought for independence from the U.K. The Irish War of Independence ended with the division of Ireland into northern and southern regions in 1922.
The northern region remained a part of the U.K., which changed its title to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The southern region became the Irish Free State which is now known as Ireland or the Republic of Ireland
THE UNION JACK
The Union Jack is the amalgamation of the flags of England, Scotland and Ireland and is the flag of the United Kingdom. The flag of Wales, being a conquered country, is not incorporated into the flag of the United Kingdom.
The War of the Roses 1455 - 1487 Est. in 32 years of War over 28,000 people died
English Civil War 1642 - 1651 Est. in 9 years of War over 84,000 deaths and another 100,000 died from war injuries or related diseases
Napoleonic Wars 1793 -1815 Est. in 23 years of War over 30,000 deaths and another 100,000 died from war injuries and diseases.
First and Second World Wars Est deaths 1,000,000
In Australia it is estimated that 20,000 Aboriginals were killed in over 100 years as colonies expanded control of the lands of the continent - this equates to 200 people per year.
