BBC英国史(四)：Nations英国的民族

1、第04 章Nations英国民族（12161348 )威尔士，苏格兰和爱尔兰在放弃取走他们的民族统一身份之后，统一了他们的思想，宣言要从Edward I残暴统治下独立。苏格兰对英格兰发动战争，并请威尔士加盟一同反对他们的最高统治者。而这却导致了爱尔兰血灾。威尔士，紧接着苏格兰，一个个倒在爱德华一世 的铁锤下。爱德华一世建立了自罗马以来的最强大的帝国系统。英语字幕文本：In the last decades of the 13th century, the nations of Britain found their voices-loud, con fide nt and defia nt -

2、 and they were raised aga in st En gla nd.(WELSHMAN) The people of Sno wdo n assert that even if their prince should giveoverlordship of them to the English king, they would refuse to do homage to anyforeig ner of whose Ian guage, customs and law they were ignorant.(IRISHMAN) On acco unt of the perf

3、idy of the En glish and to recover our n ativefreedom, the Irish are compelled to en ter a deadly war.(SCOTSMAN) For as long as but a hun dred of us rema in alive, we will yield in noleast way to En glishdominion . We fight not for glory, nor riches, nor honour,but for freedom. We know these voices.

4、Theyve bee n with us a long time now.All the same, its a shock to hear them this early, to discover the politics ofbirthplace uttered with such passi on and such pain.Once said, they could not be un said.When the Welsh, the Scots and the Irish acted on their words, the bloody wars of the British n a

5、ti ons became in evitable.And these would not just be battles about territories - they were battles forideas, ideas about what a sovereig n n ati on should be.An exte nsion of the rulers will or someth ing wider - somethi ng in volvi ng thepeople as well as the prince, something called the community

6、 of the realm.Those battles would be fought betwee n the peoples of Brita in.Welshme n would die in Scotia nd, Scotsme n would perish in Irela nd, the En glish would kill and be killed everywhere.For the fight to the death between princes and principles, the battle for the making of a n ati on would

7、 begi n in the very heart of En gla nd.One man was resp on sible for provok ing the peoples of Brita in into an aware ness of their n ati on hood, and he was En gla nds own home-grow n Caesar - Edward I.In 1774, those made curious by his fearsome reputation opened his tomb.The man in side was as awe

8、some as con temporaries had recorded, dressed in the purple robe of a Roma n emperor, an impressive six foot two tall, fully justify ing his n ick name, Lon gsha nks.Upon that stark marble tomb, the only ornamentation reads.Edwardus Primus Scottorum malleus hic est. Hammer of the Scots.After a cen t

9、ury of rule by kings who were esse ntially Fren chme n, Edward can be called the first truly En glish king - give n an old An glo-Sax on n ame and imbued with the frighte ning certa inty that it was En gla nds imperial missi on to take its rule to the four corners of the British islands.His many en

10、emies compared him to one of the big cat predators.Perhaps he will rightly be called a leopard, Leo - brave, proud and fierce, the powered, wily, devious and treacherous.The Leopard Prince was born to splendid, impossible expectations.His father, Henry III, had n amed his son for En gla nds royal sa

11、int, Edward the Con fessor - the parag on, it was thought, of kin gly perfect ion.(MONKS CHANT) Though the Co nfessor had bee n dead for almost 200 years, Henry ate, drank and worshipped him, and fin ally created for the Ion g-dead king a shrine of unparalleled magnificenee.Of course, such a shri ne

12、 would n eed a home that equalled its sple ndour - the new Westm in ster Abbey.Henry demolished the old basilica at Westminster and replaced it with animmense Gothic abbey, a building that now fitted his vision of an awe-inspiring En glish mon arch.From now on, Westmi nster would be the symbolic hea

13、rt of the kin gdom, theplace where all En glish mon archs would be crow ned and buried.His father, King Henry III, reigned for 56 years.Hes not remembered for any stirri ng achieveme nt or blood-soaked conq uest,but Hen rys time on the throne was drive n by a magnificentobsessi on - hewan ted to tur

14、n the mon archy into En gla nds dominant power.Henrys great gift to the nation was more than just a fine new church.Its secular coun terpart was the great hall of the Palace of Westmi nster.The palace was both the seat of gover nment and a reside nee for Henry who,un like his An gevi n an cestors, d

15、id nt much like being in the saddle.And the hall was a court in both the sen ses the word suggests - a place of judgeme nt and a theatre of cere mony.At Westminster, the king had to be seen to be magnificent, but the king had alsoto be seen to be just.Westm in ster may have bee n the creati on of th

16、emon archy , but it also bel on gedto England - a nation of laws, the nation of Magna Carta.Henry had grow n up with the charter, sig ned by his father King Joh n in 1215, which put real limits on the power of the king.A bit of a blow for a king who wan ted absolute authority.Kings could no Ion ger

17、ignore the compla ints of their subjects.They could be forced to submit to a council of the baro ns.That council thought of itself as the voice of the community of the realm, and even now bega n to be called parliame nt.Its role would be to hold the ki ng to his con tract. Si nee Henry had become ki

18、 ng as a boy of nine, hed had no choice but to swallow this bitter pill.However, as he grew older, Henry burned with frustrati on and becamedeterm ined to get free of its shackles - to restore the un challe nged authority of the crow n.Knowing that this could nt happen without a fight, Henry accepte

19、d a compromise position for many years, that the king was not free to govern through pure royal will.But Henry III was also a Pla ntage net, and Pla ntage nets dreamed dan gerous dreams - expensive dreams of campaigns far abroad which no one in York or Can terbury could quite see the point of.When P

20、lan tage nets thought they might get un welcome advice, they stopped liste ning - un til, that is, they were made to.In 1258, in the very hall that defined his majesty, Westminster, seven of the most powerful barons confron ted the king.Fully armed, they paused only to leave their swords outside.The

21、y demanded that Henry meet them at a parliament in Oxford and stop trying to turn his European dreams into reality.The baro ns were led, in all but n ame, by the most improbable revoluti onary in all of British history - Simon de Mon tfort.Here at Ken ilworth, he presided over a little empire of cul

22、ture.A French aristocrat who in herited the earldom of Leicester, Simon became convinced that he was more En glish tha n the En glish.What was good for de Montfort was good for the n ati on.Love him or hate him, every one knew that Simon de Mon tfort was a man with a missio n.That missi on, embarked

23、 on with his fellow barons, was to bring the wayward, self-glorify ing mon archy to book, to make it the serva nt, not the master of the realm.At Oxford, amidst wildfire rumours, a camp of soldiers, and the growli ng hun ger of a famine, Henry III was treated to the emasculati on of his sovereig nty

24、.A docume nt was draw n up for the king to sig n - not discuss, just to accept.What it said was so startli ng, so genuin ely revoluti on ary, that 1258 ought to be one of those dates en graved on the n ati onal memory.The Provisi ons of Oxford were at least as importa nt as Magna Carta.In effect, th

25、e crow n had bee n replaced by a new coun cil of n obles and clergy.That council now virtually ruled En gla nd.Foreig n courtiers were made to disappear.It has bee n orda ined that there are to be three parliame nts a year to view the state of the kin gdom.It is provided that from each county there

26、are chosen four worthy knights to hear all compla ints for the com mon ben efit of the whole kin gdom. When the assembled com munity of the realm, in cludi ng the king and Prince Edward, swore an oath to uphold the provisi ons, they could have bee n in no doubt about its sig ni fica nce for the fate

27、 of the n ati on.And so Henry IIIs facade of omn ipote nt rule had come crash ing dow n around his ears.But he was not the only royal with a stake in events.How did the 19-year-old Edward feel about the drastic shrinkage in the power of the crow n - his crow n?Well, for some time, even the prince wa

28、s dazzled by the intense magnetism of Simon de Mon tforts pers on ality, and, for a while, Edward went along with it.But, in evitably, divisi ons ope ned up betwee n the reformers.It was all very well to make the king an swerable to the barons, but ought the barons be an swerable to their in feriors

29、?De Mo ntfort thought yes.The earls thought no.And as those divisions opened wider, the Leopard Prince began to change his spots and sharpe n his claws.It became increasingly clear that the struggle over who was to rule England and how they were going to do it cen tred on two men - Sim on and Edward

30、.Neither could prevail without the others total defeat.Over five years, Henry and Edward mano euvred aga inst de Mon tfort for power un til, fin ally, words ran out.For this was no three-month paper revolution, like the original signing of the Magna Carta.The issue could now only be settled on the f

31、ield of battle.For the first time since the Norman Conquest, the political fate of England was completely fluid, its even tual outcome un certa in.In 1264, de Montfort won the first round at the Battle of Lewes on the Sussex Downs.King Henry and Edward were both take n pris oner.The year which follo

32、wed, with de Mon tfort in charge, was the closest En gla nd came to a republic un til the days of Oliver Cromwell.And in Parliame nt, not just aristocrats and bishops, but ordinary kni ghts of the shire and even burgesses from the tow ns presumed to discuss the fate of their superiors - a prince and

33、 a king.But like the later republic, this one quickly gained the attributes of a dictatorship.With power going to his head, Simon seemed more the vain glorious adve nturer than a messia nic reformer.In the end, he simply repelled more people tha n he attracted.With the impotent Henry III firmly unde

34、r lock and key, the crowns future lay with Edward, who outwitted his captors and made a dash ing horseback getaway.Even at this stage, there was someth ing extraord inary about Edward.He radiated the kind of charisma that drew con fused resp on ses of both fear and adorati on.He purposely kept his s

35、ig nals mixed - the better to convert them into loyalty.Edward led his followi ng to Evesham in Worcestershire, where de Mon tforts now out nu mbered army camped n ear the abbey.Un der stormy skies, the battle was a slaughter.(BATTLE CRIES) Told that his son had bee n killed, Sim on replied, Then it

36、 is time to die.He charged into the fray and was sla in on foot, his devoted kni ghts falli ng with him.Edward ignored the rules of war.The woun ded were stabbed where they lay.Simons head, han ds, feet and testicles were cut off.the gen itals hung around his no se.The crow n had won, but only after

37、 overcoming Ken ilworths mighty defe nces in a siege that lasted nine mon ths.But Edward had bee n give n a serious early less on in the political realities of En gla nd.He would nt cringe before the barons, but he would have to make them his allies.As partners, they would go on to create an English

38、 empire of their own, the reincarn ati on of Roma n Brita nnia.In 1274, Edward Is coron ati on fin ally took place in a magnificent san ctuary created by his father.The Westm in ster in which he was crow ned would, if Edward had anything to do with it, be the capital not just of En gla nd, but of Br

39、ita in.It was in Wales that Edward first made the seriousness of his ambitions clear.Here, the dominant prince was Llewell yn ap Gruffydd, ruler of the mountainous kin gdom of Gwyn edd, Greater Sno wdo nia.Knowing that the difficult, not to say impossible terra in of his country had bee n the gravey

40、ard of En glish armies, Llewell yn was determ ined to resist attempts to subdue cen tral Wales.Here, the n ative Welsh clung on to their Ian guage, customs and laws, lords in their own Ian ds, but still subjects of the En glish king.By the 13th cen tury, Wales had become divided into the Prin cipali

41、ty of Gwyn edd, the disputed cen tre, and the en croach ing En glish baronial and crow n Ian ds.En croach ing, that is, un til 1258, whe n Llewell yn was stro ng eno ugh to have himself declared pri nceps Wallie - Prince of Wales.Exploiting the civil war in England and allying with de Montfort, Llew

42、ellyns armies overra n the now un defe nded cen tre.But he the n overreached himself, marryi ng de Mon tforts daughter, an offence Edward was un likely to forgive or to forget.Years later, Llewelly n han ded Edward the perfect pretext for retributi on.He failed to show up at Edwards coronation and i

43、gnored a total of five sum mon ses to pay homage to his new king.Edward, who n eeded no tutorials on the connection betwee n ceremonies and power, immediately took this as a slap in the face, an act of virtual rebellion.In 1276, a huge army, the biggest see n in Brita in since the Norma n Conq uest,

44、 in vaded Gwyn edd, pen etrat ing right to its furthest corn ers, to Sno wdo nia and to An glesey.Faced with this invasion, Llewellyn was forced to surrender.But, as so often in these years, humiliation bred defianee.In 1282, the Welsh launched a surprise attack on an English garrison.Edward now bor

45、e dow n aga in with an even bigger army, but this campaig n was far from being a walkover.Realis ing this, the Archbishop of Can terbury attempted to con ciliate betwee n the warring factions, offering Llewellyn land and title in England if he would renounce his rights in Wales.And the an swer to th

46、is offer was blunt.That they must sta nd by their laws and rights in defe nee of all Wales.The people preferred to die rather than to live under English rule.They would not do homage to any stra nger of whose Ian guage, manners and laws they were ignorant.They would fight in defence of nostra natsu

47、- our nation against the English.When the war was ren ewed, it was with fresh and un spari ng savagery.No quarter was give n by either side.The Welsh exploited the land, ambushed slow-mov ing compa nies of kni ghts, and the n disappeared off aga in into the hills and forests.(BATTLE CRIES) The n, in

48、 a minor skirmish in cen tral Wales, Llewellyn was killed by an anonym ous En glish spearma n.The finalann ihilati onof resista nee took ano ther six mon ths before the kingcould claim Wales to be pacified.However, the subjugatio n of Wales was far more subtle tha n the surgical applicati on of brut

49、e force.Edward had the chilli ng, uncann ily-moder n kno wledge that to break your en emy you must strip him of his cultural ide ntity.Before this place became called Con way by the En glish, it was Aberc on wy.It was a mon astery that housed the tomb of the most powerful Welsh prince and was home t

50、o a sacred relic that the Welsh believed to be a piece of the true Cross.Naturally, the monastery became a fortress and the Cross was taken to London along with Llewelly ns crow n.The lords call themselves Princes of Wales.Fine.From 1301, they will be the most En glish of the En glish, the first son

51、 of the king, the heir to the thro ne, the emperor in wait ing.The most tita nic of all the sig ns of the En glish empire were its castles, a gran ite ring of fortresses stretch ing from Builth to Hope, most of them supplied from the sea, depriving the Welsh of any hope of liberation.For the Welsh o

52、f Sno wdo nia, the great stone fortresses in their midst were what one of them called the magnificent badges of our subjecti on.The symbol not of imperial grandeur, but of crushing national annihilation;a perma nent, daily, wounding remin der of conq uest and humiliati on.The most colossal exercise,

53、 in fact, i n colo nial domin ati on any where in medieval Europe.Ben eath the lion sta ndard of Edward Pla ntage net, the Welsh in habita nts had now become sec on d-class citize ns in their own coun try.Well, those n atives were treated for the most part like n aughty childre n, not allowed to bea

54、r arms, of course, but even forced to ask permissi on if they wan ted stra ngers to stay at their house overni ght.Worst of all, I think, the Welsh were doomed by English superiority to become objects of term inal qua intn ess.The qua int Ian guage, the qua int son gs, those amus ing choirs and cha

55、nts.It could have bee n worse, and for the Jews of En gla nd, it was.The Welsh wars cost ten times the kings annual revenue, and the price of victory and castle buildi ng had so exhaustively bled the Jews - the usual source of loans and taxation - that they had nothing left to yield, and so could be

56、 dispe nsed with altogether.Early in his reign, Edward, perhaps acting from religious conviction, outlawed money lending, putt ing most of En gla nds Jews out of bus in ess.He then forced them to wear yellow felt badges of identification and so be recog ni sed as the sub-species of huma nity he un d

57、oubtedly believed they were.A year after his first Welsh invasion, Edward arrested all the heads of the Jewish households and han ged n early 300 in the Tower.Not satisfied with this, he expelled the entire community, perhaps 3,000 people, in 1290, an act so overwhel min gly popular, especially with

58、 the Church, that it awarded him a huge tax grant.So its Edwards England which became the first country to perform a little act of eth nic clea nsing on its Jews, the viole nt uprooti ng of com mun ities in York, Lin col n and London. (MOURNFUL SINGING) It was n ot plain saili ng for the Jews on one deportati on boat in the Thames.At Quee nborough, the capta in en couraged his Jewish passe ngers to stretch their legs as the ship beached on the recedi ng tide.As it retur ne