The Kingdom of England Listeni/???l?

nd/ was a sovereign state on the island of Gre

at Britain from the 10th centurywhen it emerged from various Anglo-Saxon kingdomsunt
il 1707, when it united with Scotland to form the Kingdom of Great Britain.
In the early 11th century the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, united by ?thelstan (r. 927C9
39), became part of the North Sea Empire of Cnut the Great, a personal union bet
ween England, Denmark and Norway. The Norman conquest of England in 1066 led to
the transfer of the English capital city and chief royal residence from the Angl
o-Saxon one at Winchester to Westminster, and the City of London quickly establi
shed itself as England's largest and principal commercial centre.[1]
Histories of the kingdom of England from the Norman conquest of 1066 conventiona
lly distinguish periods named after successive ruling dynasties: Norman 1066C1154
, Plantagenet 1154C1485, Tudor 1485C1603 and Stuart 1603C1714 (interrupted by the I
nterregnum of 1649C1660). Dynastically, all English monarchs after 1066 ultimatel
y claim descent from the Normans; the distinction of the Plantagenets is merely
conventional, beginning with Henry II (reigned 1154-1189) as from that time, the
Angevin kings became "more English in nature"; the houses of Lancaster and York
are both Plantagenet cadet branches, the Tudor dynasty claimed descent from Edw
ard III via John Beaufort and James VI and I of the House of Stuart claimed desc
ent from Henry VII via Margaret Tudor.
The completion of the conquest of Wales by Edward I in 1284 put Wales under the
control of the English crown. Edward III (reigned 1327C1377) transformed the King
dom of England into one of the most formidable military powers in Europe; his re
ign also saw vital developments in legislation and governmentin particular the evo
lution of the English parliament. From the 1340s the kings of England also laid
claim to the crown of France, but after the Hundred Years' War and the outbreak
of the Wars of the Roses in 1455, the English were no longer in any position to
pursue their French claims and lost all their land on the continent, except for
Calais. After the turmoils of the Wars of the Roses, the Tudor dynasty ruled dur
ing the English Renaissance and again extended English monarchical power beyond
England proper, achieving the full union of England and the Principality of Wale
s in 1542. Henry VIII oversaw the English Reformation, and his daughter Elizabet
h I (reigned 1558C1603) the Elizabethan Religious Settlement, meanwhile establish
ing England as a great power and laying the foundations of the British Empire by
claiming possessions in the New World.
From the accession of James I in 1603, the Stuart dynasty ruled England in perso
nal union with Scotland and Ireland. Under the Stuarts, the kingdom plunged into
civil war, which culminated in the execution of Charles I in 1649. The monarchy
returned in 1660, but the Civil War established the precedent that an English m
onarch cannot govern without the consent of Parliament, although this concept be
came legally established only as part of the Glorious Revolution of 1688. From t
his time the kingdom of England, as well as its successor state the United Kingd
om, functioned in effect as a constitutional monarchy.[nb 5] On 1 May 1707, unde
r the terms of the Acts of Union 1707, the kingdoms of England and Scotland unit
ed to form the Kingdom of Great Britain.[2][3]