今天是Robert老師帶我們打開(kāi)塵封的英國(guó)歷史，一起翻閱英國(guó)那些最輝煌最具紀(jì)念意義的傳奇～~早期凱爾特人、羅馬不列顛、盎格魯撒克遜、威廉征服者、末日審判書、英法戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)、 金雀花王朝、百年戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)、黑死病、玫瑰戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)。

? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?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 遺贈(zèng)，遺產(chǎn)

pagan? 異教徒

ruler? 統(tǒng)治者

the throne? 王位

dynasty? 朝代

succeed (as in "follow")? and successor? 繼承，繼承者

excommunicate? 把…逐出教會(huì)

Archbishop? 大主教

feudalism ?封建制度

a peasant ?農(nóng)民

a baron? 男爵

Hundred Years' War ? 百年戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)，是1337年至1453年期間，發(fā)生在金雀花王朝治下的英格蘭王國(guó)和瓦盧瓦王朝治下的法蘭西王國(guó)之間，針對(duì)法蘭西王國(guó)統(tǒng)治權(quán)的戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)。

Wars of the Roses ?玫瑰戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)（1455年─1485年）是英王愛(ài)德華三世（1327年-1377年在位）的兩支后裔——蘭開(kāi)斯特家族和約克家族的支持者為了爭(zhēng)奪英格蘭王位而發(fā)生斷續(xù)的內(nèi)戰(zhàn)。兩大家族都是金雀花王朝王室的分支。玫瑰戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)是約克家族的愛(ài)德華三世的第五代、第六代繼承人對(duì)蘭開(kāi)斯特家族的愛(ài)德華三世的第四代、第五代繼承人的王位戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)。“玫瑰戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)”一名當(dāng)時(shí)并未出現(xiàn)，而是在16世紀(jì)莎士比亞在歷史劇《亨利六世》中以兩朵玫瑰被拔標(biāo)志戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)的開(kāi)始后才成為普遍用語(yǔ)。此名稱源于兩個(gè)家族所選的家徽，蘭開(kāi)斯特的紅玫瑰和約克的白玫瑰。