EXT4- OLD ENGLAND—A “DRONE VIEW” ON THE TIME PLANE

 By PragyanSharma Polavarapu

(1)INTRODUCTION

People all over the world in this modern age are getting educated. Everybody is eager to know ancient history of their country .History sites offer some good old history and people feel thrilled. But the modern man’s mind is deeply worried. There is a desire and dream never fulfilled. On planet Earth there should be only affection and love between religions, languages, races and countries. There should be no horrible wars with nuclear bombs , no mountainous hatreds in hearts and no ICBMs destroying G+10 , G+20 ,G+30 or even taller buildings in seconds.

Now coming to the main story of my interest. I greatly like old English classics and wish to create such interest in others . Book reading was the route how Indians in old times gathered knowledge about old history and old literature of England.(There was no TV, no radio and no Internet) . There were only printed books .

People wish for books of high intellectual content. Some great old classical English books can be good for readers of even future centuries. Old English literature casts a spell on the readers . There are novels on a wide variety of subjects. For example there are books of Sir Walter Scott about heroic old world of knights on flying steeds speeding through thick forests --a picture ever loved by children . The books of Charles Dickens tell about simple lives of factory slum dwellers and about their innocent little joys in spite of the difficult lives. The books of Thomas Hardy tell tragic stores of rural poor of pre-Industrial Revolution period and the tragic tales remind us of ancient Greek Tragedy dramas. The wonderful novels of Sir Arthur Connan Doyle are about scientific detectives with razor sharp minds. Jules Verne in 19th century, having knowledge about universal gravity and radio communication , wrote about space rockets and earth orbiting communications satellites . And masterly novelist Jane Austen (1775-1817) wove in her novels gripping family stories of domestic romances, prejudices, jealousies etc similar to those we enjoy in modern TV serials.

Then there are great poets who have painted pen pictures of extreme beauty.There are most beautiful poems of Wordsworth, Shelley , S.T.Coleridge, Keats, Byron etc. Above all shines the genius of William Shakespeare with his inimitable dramas written in old classical English in a style reminding of the slow stately movement of royal elephants. All these English classics are a big treasure of the whole world.

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Now a little of the geography and history of England—just for fun and enjoyment. These my descriptions are not like camera pictures taken from a speeding car but are like drone views from a high altitude. To say in a more abstract way of a physics student ,it is like a journey on the Time Axis(negative direction) on the Space-Time graphs of Dr Einstein. He is a scientist who played with other moons, other earths and other suns of the endless universe --as if those celestial spheres are laboratory toys. I write with my very limited knowledge of English history. A rough picture just sufficient in accuracy for school children and general readers .

However,while recounting history of our planet ,we can not ignore the horrible wars and other tragedies . During last 500 years there were large religious wars, sea battles between powerful European countries, later wars for getting raw materials from distant lands and for establishing colonies at those far off places, wars in course of slave trade for two centuries etc. There were prolonged wars of independence. There were revolutions -- the French revolution , the Russian revolution , the Chinese revolution,the Vietnamese revoltion etc. There were the great World Wars One and Two in which millions of people died or were injured or displaced . Even later, in spite of sincere peace efforts there occur horrible wars even in the present times. Let us pray for birth of a new world of Love, Peace and Morality.

(2)A LITTLE OF HISTORY OF ENGLAND

Since 3000 years or more , there lived in British Isles various peoples of European origin. One of such most ancient people are Celts who once lived in central Europe and later spread to many parts of western Europe including British Isles, France etc . The earlier Celtic people were of Bronze Age when people used soft metals like bronze for weapons and implements . The later Celts belonged to Iron Age when tough iron weapons and implements were started to be used. The Celts rode chariots and created most beautiful artistic helmets, shields etc with bronze and gold with most intricate designs. This clearly proves that the Celts were a highly cultured intelligent people .They appear to have practiced a religion of nature - worship and worshipped nature gods. They had a tough caste of priests called Druids who guided all people in religion and education . The Celts were expert warriors using horse- drawn chariots. 3000 years ago they spread all over British Isles.

Then much later ,another European people known as Anglo-Saxons who spoke old Germanic languages started to settle in England around 5th century AD. They were the people who brought an ancient un-understandable English language which was not much different from a German dialect. Both Celts and Anglo- Saxons were European people but became strangers living separately for 3000 or 4000 years or more. Modern English is a language that developed after a long period of 1300 long years from time of arrival of Anglo-Saxons in England ---with slow changes in hundreds of years absorbing many French, Greco-Roman words.

During and after the “Norman Invasion” Norman noble families came from ancient Romanized France . It is said that much landed property changed from Anglo-Saxons to Norman families. After the Norman invasion England was ruled by kings of Norman origin for about 90 years but Norman culture invaded Anglo-Saxon England and pervaded for 200 years and merged into English culture and became indistinguishable.

Old Celtic culture was submerged in dominating Anglo-Saxon culture and later in the continental culture of Romanized France called Norman culture. In modern England many people with Celtic links preserve some of their much loved Celtic dialects in their families . But in modern times all people including the Celtic origin people switched over to English language . This is because modern English language acquired extremely great importance in this high technology age. English is all pervasive in commerce ,banking and economics and administration in many parts of the world. It is given wide importance in many areas of knowledge—science ,literature, arts, philosophy, banking, diplomacy, international relations , computer science and other modern technologies. In many countries of the world efforts are made to get their people familiar with English language so that they can travel to and work in any part of the world and succeed in this high technology jet age .

Celtic languages are spoken and fondly preserved in Scotland and Wales and other areas in England and in Republic of Ireland. But It is mostly for enjoyment at home as a precious treasure. Modern English is the language of whole country.The people realized that English is a most powerful international language widely spoken all over the world .

(3) RECOUNTING OLD HISTORY

Let us again recount history so that we can properly understand how modern English developed. Since about 1500 years the British Isles had people of two slightly different cultures –the Celtic people and the Anglo-Saxons people. Around 500 AD the Anglo-Saxon people who originally lived in their German homelands migrated to British Isles. In the begining they perhaps came in small groups. In Northern Europe near their ancient homelands melting polar ice caused frequent flooding. The people decided to migrate to nearby Britain which was very near and across a little section of the sea.The ancient people called Angles, Saxons and Jutes united and were collectively called as Anglo-Saxons. They felt that the land-- the rainy lush green landscape , low hills and vast undulating meadows in southern England—was suitable for settling down . The sea being very near to the islands, there are many periods of rainy days and slate- colored skies.

The period of earliest Anglo-Saxon raids on eastern shores of England and the earlier centuries was a period when the mighty Roman Empire ruled most of western Europe. Roman emperors with their highly disciplined armies conquered all of Mediterranean lands in course of centuries and made Mediterranean sea their private sea! The powerful Roman imperial armies had firmly ruled over Celtic southern England for nearly four long centuries,historians say, in the period 43AD to 410AD! But they could not control the rebellious people of Scotland .The Celtic people within Roman- conquered south England also were rebellious and often created troubles.

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The anglosaxons started to settle in England around 500 AD after the powerful Roman imperial armies were leaving England permanently. The Anglo-Saxons settled near to rivers and seaside wetlands . At some places they had to drain away water and at some places build seawalls to keep the sea out. Many people were engaged in fisheries .In upland areas small-scale farms were built. After centuries of wars with Celts of Scotland and Wales and perhaps also of Ireland ,the Anglo-Saxons established powerful kingdoms in southern England and became dominant in southern England.

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Christian religion entered England in ----and brought the greatest transformation and unification and also a kind of modernization in all society. Christianity first entered England through the preachings of great Irish saints. There were already many small Irish churches and monasteries before monks from the continent came. But the powerful Roman Catholic church(which controlled all church activity from Rome, capitol of the empire) took over the English church. There was uniform cultural transformation all over British Isles. Money poured in for church administration and many magnificent churches were built .

Great universities which spread education were opened in Europe and also England. Education and knowledge was being spread in society. Scotland and Ireland remained areas of the great Celtic culture . England was becaming a prosperous and quite powerful unified kingdom under great Anglo-Saxon kings. King Alfred the Great was a mighty military conqueror .He not only drove out many Scandinavian and other pirates but also established a strong government. In addition he took special interest in developing and standardizing Old English language.

After the Norman Invasion (about 200 years after the reign of Anglo-Saxon king Alfred the Great) the British Isles were brought into continental Roman cultural influence and Roman Catholic religion. In course of a few centuries England became far more powerful and one of the dominant powers of Europe. The English throne controlled entire British Isles except some strongly independent Irish Celtic chiefdoms. We can say modern history of British Isles (Great Britain) began.

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The kingdoms of Scotland and England merged and the country came to be called Great Britain. The country became prosperous and became a powerful naval power and had much influence and prestige in Roman Catholic Europe. The Protestant Revolution was not yet born and all Europe including England followed the Roman Catholic Christian religion controlled from Rome. But there were endless power struggles in royal families ,there were many royal factions backed by powerful army lords and noble families. The powerful “Wars of the Roses” is famous . The royal flags of different royal factions had icons of roses of different colors. So the wars became famous as Wars of the Roses.