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London was founded by the Romans in 43 AD. It was called Londinium. The history of London is different from the history of other great cities if the world. It is impossible to point out all English historical buildings to be the work of this or that architect or builder. The Westminster Abbey, for instance, built by Edward the Confessor, who died in 1066. William the Conqueror was crowned King of England the same year in the cathedral. Nearly all English kings and queens were crowned in the Abbey since the time of the Conquest. The official residence of the Queen is the Buckingham Palace.

Another old historical building in London is the White Tower, built by monk Gimdulf.

When we speak about London we must, of course, remember of the London Bridge. The Bridge was a sort of town to itself. Men born and reared upon the Bridge found life dull and inane elsewhere.

Also we can see many interesting places in London today. For example, the Trafalgar Square (It's the heart of London), Tate Britain, Covent Garden, British Museum, St Paul's Cathedral, Victoria & Albert Museum, Camden Markets, Hyde Park, Holland Park and ofter places.

Great Britain is one of the most interesting and picturesque countries of the world. It is impossible to describe all of its sight. I think, that it is better to see all by the eyes!

2. The abstract

In my course work I want to tell you about Great Britain and its capital - London. We learn slightly about their history, people living in England, and that can see in London today.

So,the United Kingdom of Great Btitain and Northern Ireland is situated off the Northwest coast of Europe. The UK lies on the British Isles. There are some 5.500 islands. The two main islands are: Great Britain and Ireland. The west coast of the country is washed by the Atlantic Ocean and the Irish Sea, the east coast is washed by the North Sea. The area of the UK is some 244,100 km2. Its population is over 57 million people.

English is the official language, but it is not the only language which people speak in the country.

The Romans conquered most part of Britain, but were unable to subdue the independent tribes in the West and .in the North. For many centuries this country was known simply as England. It had a strong army and navy. It waged numerous colonial wars. In the modern world England was the first country, where capitalism was established.

Geographically Great Britain is divided into Lowland Britain and Highland Britain. Lowland Britain comprises Southern and Eastern England. Highland Britain includes Scotland, Wales, the Pennines and the Lake District. The country is not very rich In natural resources.

There are many rivers in Great Britain.

London is the capital of the UK.

The largest cities of Great Britain besides London are: Birmingham, Glasgo, Liverpool, Manchester, . Sheffield, Bristоl, Leeds, Edinburgh.

Great Britain is a constitutional monarchy. The powers of the British Queen are limited by Parliament. The British Parliament consists of the sovereign, the House of Lords and the House of Commons.

Throughout British history religion has been closely connected with kings, queens and politics. England was a Roman Catholic country until 1534. Why did this change?

In 1525 King Henry VIII decided to divorce his queen, Catherine of Aragon who, at the age of forty, was five years older than Henry. He fell in love with Anne Bolleyn who was younger, but when Henry asked the Pope for permission to divorce Catherine, he refused. Henry was so angry with the Pope that he ended all contact between England and Rome, divorced Catherine of Aragon without the Pope's permission and married Anne Boleyn. In 1534 Parliament named Henry head of the Church of England. This was the beginning of the Anglican Church. This quarrel with Rome was political, not religious. The Anglican Church did not start as a Protestant Church and Henry certainly did not regard himself as a Protestant. When Henry quarrelled with Rome and ordered the Bible to be translated into English, the way was open for Protestantism to spread in England. Over the years many people changed to this new religion.

By the way son Генри VIII was Edward VI.

This English king (prince at the beginning) was meant Mark Twain when he wrote his "The Prince and the Pauper". Of course, the boy did not change clothes with a pauper boy just before his father's death and did not brood through his country in rags, this is the author's fancy. In reality Henry the Eighth had made a will, appointing a council of sixteen to govern the kingdom for his son while that latter was under age, and another council of twelve to help the first one. The most powerful of the first council was the Earl of Hertford, the young King's uncle, his late mother's brother, who lost no time in bringing his nephew with great state up to Enfield, and thence to the Tower.

So, the Earl of Hertford made himself Duke of Somerset, and made his brother Edward Seymour a baron. To be more dutiful, they made themselves rich out of the Church lands, and were very comfortable. The new Duke of Somerset proclaimed himself Protector of the kingdom, and was, indeed, the King, as the chief power was all in his hands. He was an ardent Reformer and very soon introduced great changes, not in Church government, but in doctrine and ritual. When the Duke of Somerset was still Lord Protector, he was anxious to have the young King engage in marriage to the young Queen of Scotland (Mary Stuart) in order to prevent this princess from making an alliance with any foreign power; but as a large party in Scotland were unfavourable to this plan, he invaded that country. His excuse for doing that was that the Border men -- that is, the Scotch who lived in that part of the country where England and Scotland joined -- troubled the English very much. However, the Protector invaded Scotland. The ground for four miles, all the way to Edinburgh, was strewn with dead men, and with arms, and legs, and heads.

In Norfolk the popular leader was a man named Robert Ket, a tanner of Wymondham. There was a large oak-tree in that place, on a spot called Moushold Hill, which Ket named the Tree of Reformation; and under its green boughs he and his men sat, in the midsummer weather, holding courts of justice, and debating affairs of state. Ket and his men became stronger than ever, until the Earl of Warwick went after them with a sufficient force and cut them all to pieces. A few were hanged, drawn, and quartered, as a traitors, and their limbs were sent into various country places to be a terror to the people.

As we already mentioned, the Duke of Somerset was arrested as a traitor and took to the Tower.

In 1533 Mary, Henry's daughter by Catherine of Aragon, became Queen of England. Because she was a Roman Catholic, the country re-entered the Roman Church. While Mary was Queen, many Protestants were burned at the stake for their beliefs. She also put her non-Roman Catholic sister, Elizabeth (the daughter of Henry and Anne Boleyn), into prison in the Tower of London.

Edward always viewed it with horror. In 1552 very soon after Somerset's execution, the Second Prayer Book of Edward VI was published, and it was distinctly Protestant in tone.

Protestants were glad when Mary died in 1557 and Elizabeth became Queen. Elizabeth also became Head of the Anglican Church, like her father, and Roman Catholicism was never again the established (official) religion in England.

After Elizabeth became Queen, a group of Protestants wanted to "purify" the Church of England of all Roman Catholic influence. These people were called Puritans -- they were the English Protestants. When James I was King (1603 -- 1625) the Puritans were often put in prison and sometimes even killed.

Today the Church of England -- or the Anglican Church-- is still the established church in England, and the British king or queen is still head of the Church. There are, however, many other churches to which people belong: for example Roman Catholics and the basically protestant Methodists, Congregationalists, Baptists and other smaller groups. In Scotland the Presbyterian Church (called the kirk) is the established church and it is completely separate from the Church of England. Although there is a complete religious freedom in Britain today, there is still tension between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, where religion is still caught up with politics.

In spite of the great variety of forms of worship, only a minority of people regularly go to church in Britain today. Most people see Sunday as a day for relaxing with the family.

For example they very much love to read the newspapers

More daily newspapers are sold per person in the UK than in almost any other country: there are twelve national daily newspapers and evelen national Sunday ones. While the more serious newspapers, also called quality papers (for example, the "Daily Telegraph", the "Guardian", "The Times", the "Independent", the "Financial Times", the "Sunday Times", the "Observer", etc), have a lot of home and international news, some of the more popular "tabloids" (so called because of their size, for example, the "Sun", the "Daily Mirror", the "Daily Mail", the "Daily Express", the "Daily Star", etc) concentrate on the more spectacular and scandalous aspects of life in Britain. Although newspaper sales have fallen slightly over the past few years, newspapers have an important effect on public opinion. Most British newspapers are owned by big business and although they are not directly linked to political parties, there are strong connections. The majority of newspapers -- even those which carry serious news -- are conservative in outlook.

Competition for circulation is intense and newspapers have tried several methords to increase the number of people who read them, including the use of colour, competitions and national bingo games.

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Broadcasting in the United Kingdom is controlled by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA). BBC Radio broadcasts five national services to the United Kingdom plus regional services in Wales (ineluding programmes in Welsh), Scotland and Northern Ireland. These are:

Radio 1: pop and rock music;

Radio 2: light music, drama, documentaries and sport;

Radio 3: classical music, drama, documentaries and cricket;

Radio 4: news, documentaries, drama

and entertainment and educational programmes for schools and adults;

Radio 5: sport, educational programmes and children's programmes.

There are also thirty-two BBC Local Radio stations and a number of independent local stations. There is advertising on the independent commercial channels. -The External Service of the BBC broadcasts over 700 hours of programmes a week in 37 languages, including the English-language World Service and BBC English by Radio and Television. It is estimated that over 120 million people listen to the service.

Watching television is one of the great British pastimes! By the middle of the 1980s there were four channels on British TV: BBC1 and BBC2 plus the two independent channels, ITV and Channel 4.

The first television broadcasts began in 1936.

TV and radio are also two of the main teaching channels used by the Open University. This "university of the air" allows many thousands of students to study at home for degrees they never would have obtained in the main educational system.

The 1990s may well see many changes in British TV and Radio.

One of the biggest changes in the way people in Britain have spent their leisure time in recent years has been the increase in the amount of time spent watching television. As you might expect, television viewing is less popular in summer than in winter and more popular with old people than with any other age group. On average, women watch more than men.

British TV has an international reputation for producing programmes of a high quality such as documentaries, nature programmes, comedies and drama series and according to the government there should be a combination of "competition, quality and choice" in any plans for the future of TV.

Now we shall speak a little about the capital of England, of its history, what was the sight of the city several centuries ago and who built it. It's political, economic and commercial centre. London is one of the largest cities in the world and the largest city in Europe.' Its population is about 8 million.

London is one of the oldest and most interesting cities in the world.

London was founded by the Romans in 43 AD. It was called Londinium. The history of London is different from the history of other great cities if the world. London was a wilderness when the Romans came here. Had they stayed they would have made it a great city. But they were called home to defend their own capital, and London was burnt again and again by the rough men from over the seas. The Saxons and Danes were an uneducated people, who thought of little more than war and the chase, not of building noble cities. The Normans, who conquered England, in the eleventh century, were a more educated people, and we find traces of their buildings in London and many parts of England. But their kings were warlike men who never thought of making a beautiful London. When the tome came for giving London wealth and power, the people were too busy with trade and travel to think much of making a stately city.

It is impossible to point out all English historical buildings to be the work of this or that architect or builder. The Westminster Abbey, for instance, was begun on the site of older churches built by Edward the Confessor, who died in 1066. During the reign of several kings the building of Westminster Abbey was continued. Sir Christopher Wren (1632 - 1723) built one of the most beautiful additions. Nearly all English kings and queens were crowned in the Abbey since the time of the Conquest, while there are buried in it thirteen kings of England and many queens.

Here is an extract from Mark Twain's "The Prince and the Pauper":

“The hours drag along tediously enough. All stir ceased for some time, for every gallery has long ago been packed. We have to view the whole of the great north transept -- empty, and waiting for England's privileged ones. Within a seat of the throne is enclosed a rough flat rock -- the stone of Scone -- which many generations of Scottish kings sat on to be crowned, and so it in time became holy enough to answer a like purpose for English monarchs. Stillness reign, the torches blink dully, the time drags heavily.

At seven o'clock the first break in the drowsy monotony occurs; for on the stroke of this hour the first peeress enters the sept, clothed like Solomon for splendour, and is conducted to her appointed place by an official clad of in satins and velvets, whilst a duplicate of him gathers up the lady's long train, follows after, and, when the lady is seated, arranges the train across her lap for her. The scene is animated enough now. There is stir and life, and shifting colour everywhere. After a time quite reigns again; for the peeresses are all come, and are all in their places.

At last, the deep booming of artillery told that the King and his grand procession had arrived at last; so the waiting multitude rejoiced. Now the dressed and mitred great heads of the church, and their attendants, filed in upon the platform and took their appointed places; these were followed by Lord Protector and other great officials, and these again by a steel-clad detachment of the Guard.

There was a waiting pause; then, at a signal, a triumphant peal of music burst forth, and the little king, clothed in a long robe of cloth of gold, appeared at a door, and stepped upon the platform. The Archbishop of Canterbury lifted up the crown of England from its cushion and held it out over the king's head".

Another old historical building in London is the Tower, the oldest fortress-prison in this city and in the whole Europe. London was always the first important place to be seized when enemies invaded the land, and the site of Tower was seen by all soldiers to be the best for defence. They say that Julius Caesar has built a fortress at this place. London was often burnt and pillaged -- it was once so ruined by the Danes that the whole city was desolate, with no one living in it, for thirty years. But when people returned and the wars died down, they always gathered about the Tower as a place of defence and strength. Alfred the Great was the founder of modern London, and he is said to have built another great fortress where the Romans had first built the tower.

But it was William the Conqueror who began the Tower which is so famous today. And who do you think he got to built the Tower for him? It was a monk. His name was Gundulf, and he was bom in Normandy in 1024, and was forty-six when William called him to England to begin this great work.

He founded the Tower. He made a strong fortress for his king who rewarded him by letting him build Rochester Cathedral and become the first bishop of Rochester.

He built first a great watch-tower, or barbican. That old tower is now the Hall Tower, or as it is commonly called, the Jewel Tower. In it the King keeps his crown and all the state jewels.

Another tower which Gimdulf built was the White Tower.

Afterwards the English kings taxed the people without mercy to continue the work of building the Tower. It was a strange and savage age when the Tower was rising to strength and size. An old writer says that the mortar in which the stones were set was mixed with the blood of beasts. Blood enough of human beings flowed in the Tower to make the blood of beasts unnecessary. Most of the terrible deeds of which we read in the history of England were done in the grim Tower.

When we speak about London of late middle ages we must, of course, remember Mark Twain's charming book "The Prince and the Pauper". The story of changing the Prince and the Pauper in only the author's imagination, but to write the story he had to read many historical books and chronicles. And here is his description of London of the period when Edward VI had to change Henry VIII, and it is indeed very truthful.

"London was fifteen hundred years old, and was a great town -- for that day. The streets were very narrow, and crooked, and dirty, especially in the part which was not far from London Bridge. The houses were of wood, with the second story projecting over the first, and the third sticking its elbows out beyond the second. They were skeletons of strong criss-cross beams, with solid material between, coated with plaster. The windows were small, glazed with little diamond-shaped panes, and they opened outward, on hinges, like doors".

And now we shall remember the description of the London Bridge which was a town itself within London.

The Bridge was a sort of town to itself; it had its inn, its beer-houses, its bakeries, its haberdasheries, its food markets, its manufacturing industries, and even its church. Children were bom on the Bridge, were roared there, grew to old age and finally died without ever having set a foot upon any part of the world but London Bridge alone.

Men born and reared upon the Bridge found life unendurably dull and inane elsewhere.

In the times of which we are writing, the Bridge furnished "object lessons" in English history, for its children -- namely, the livid and decaying heads of renowned man impaled upon iron spikes atop of its gateways.” (Mark Twain, "The Prince and the Pauper", chapter XII).

What is in London today? There we can see:

Trafalgar Square

It's the heart of visitors' London, beating with tour buses, cameras and flocks of persistent pigeons. On the square's northern edge is the cash-strapped National Gallery, which has one of the world's most impressive art collections. Also in the vicinity are the National Portrait Gallery, a place to see lots of faces from the Middle Ages to modern times, and St Martin in the Fields, with an adjoining craft market and a brass-rubbing centre in the crypt.

Westminster Abbey

Houses of Parliament

The building includes the House of Commons and the House of Lords, so the grandeur of the exterior is let down only by the level of debate in the interior.

Tate Britain

The Tate Britain is the keeper of an impressive historical archive of British art. Built in 1897, the Tate is currently undergoing an ambitious programme of expansion. The Tate Modern displays the Tate's collection of international modern art, including major works by Bacon, Dali, Picasso, Matisse, Rothko and Warhol, as well as work by more contemporary artists. The building is as exciting as the art.

Buckingham Palace

This is the official residence of the Queen.

Not far off and definitely worth a stroll is St James's Park, which is the neatest and most royal of London's royal parks. St James's Palace is the only surviving part of a building initiated by the palace-mad Henry VIII in 1530. Just near the park's northern edge is the Institute for Contemporary Art, a great place to relax, hang out and see some cutting-edge film, dance, photography, theatre and art.

Covent Garden

British Museum

Bloomsbury is a peculiar mix of the University of London, beautiful Georgian squares and architecture, literary history, traffic, office workers, students and tourists. Its focal point, Russell Square, is London's largest square.

St Paul's Cathedral

The venerable building was constructed by Christopher Wren between 1675 and 1710, but it stands on the site of two previous cathedrals dating back to 604.

Victoria & Albert Museum

The Victoria & Albert Museum, on Cromwell Rd in South Kensington, has an eclectic mix of booty gathered together under its brief as a museum of decorative art and design.

Also on Cromwell Rd, the Natural History Museum is one of London's finest Gothic-revival buildings.

Camden Markets

The markets include the Camden Canal Market (bric-a-brac, furniture and designer clothes), Camden Market (leather goods and army surplus gear) and the Electric Market (records and 1960s clothing).

After Camden Market, the colourful Portobello Market is London's. It's full of antiques, jewellery, ethnic knick-knacks, second-hand clothes and fruit and veg stalls.

Hyde Park

It is now a place of fresh air, spring colour, lazy sunbathers and boaters on the Serpentine. Features of the park include sculptures by Jacob Epstein and Henry Moore and the Serpentine Gallery, which holds temporary exhibitions of contemporary art.

Kew Gardens

Kew Gardens, in Richmond, Surrey, is both a beautiful park and an important botanical research centre. It's one of the most visited sights on the London tourist agenda.

Highgate Cemetery

Highgate Cemetery can't be beaten for its Victorian Gothic atmosphere and downright eeriness. Kensal Green and Brompton cemeteries are also Victorian delights, complete with catacombs and angels.

Holland Park

Holland Park is both a residential district, full of elegant town houses, and an inner-city haven of greenery, complete with strutting peacocks and scampering bunnies, the restored remnants of a Jacobean mansion (now set aside for the world's backpackers), two exhibition galleries and formal gardens. Nearby, the Arabesque splendour of Leighton House is full of pre-Raphaelite paintings of languorous, scantily dressed Grecian ladies slipping their hands into the milky waters of public baths.

Great Britain is one of the most interesting and picturesque countries of the world. It is impossible to describe all of its sight. I think, that it is better to see all by the eyes!

2. Great Britain

The United Kingdom of Great Btitain and_northern Ireland is situated off the Northwest coast of Europe. The UK consists of four parts. They are: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The UK lies on the British Isles. There are some 5.500 islands. The two main islands are: Great Britain and Ireland. They are separated from the continent by the English Channel and the Strait of Dover. The west coast of the country is washed by the Atlantic Ocean and the Irish Sea, the east coast is washed by the North Sea. The area of the UK is some 244,100 km2. Its population is over 57 million people.

English is the official language, but it is not the only language which people speak in the country.

Britain has been many centuries in the making. The Romans conquered most part of Britain, but were unable to subdue the independent tribes in the West and .in the North. Other invaders were Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Vikings and Normans. For many centuries this country was known simply as England. It had a strong army and navy. It waged numerous colonial wars. In the modern world England was the first country, where capitalism was established.

Geographically Great Britain is divided into Lowland Britain and Highland Britain. Lowland Britain comprises Southern and Eastern England. Highland Britain includes Scotland, Wales, the Pennines and the Lake District. The highest mountain -- Ben Nevis -- is in Scotland. The flora of the British Isles is much varied and the fauna is similar to that of the north-west of Europe. The country is not very rich In natural resources.

There are many rivers in Great Britain. The Severn is the longest river, the Thames is the most important one.

London is the capital of the UK.

The largest cities of Great Britain besides London are: Birmingham, Glasgo, Liverpool, Manchester, . Sheffield, Bristоl, Leeds, Edinburgh.

Great Britain is a constitutional monarchy. The powers of the British Queen are limited by Parliament. The British Parliament consists of the sovereign, the House of Lords and the House of Commons.

Throughout British history religion has been closely connected with kings, queens and politics. England was a Roman Catholic country until 1534. Why did this change?

In 1525 King Henry VIII decided to divorce his queen, Catherine of Aragon who, at the age of forty, was five years older than Henry. Also, she had only given him a daughter, and Henry wanted a son. He fell in love with Anne Bolleyn who was younger, but when Henry asked the Pope for permission to divorce Catherine, he refused. Henry was so angry with the Pope that he ended all contact between England and Rome, divorced Catherine of Aragon without the Pope's permission and married Anne Boleyn. In 1534 Parliament named Henry head of the Church of England. This was the beginning of the Anglican Church. This quarrel with Rome was political, not religious. The Anglican Church did not start as a Protestant Church and Henry certainly did not regard himself as a Protestant. In fact, the Pope had given Henry the title of "Defender of the Faith" in 1521 for words he wrote attacking Martin Luther, the German Protestant. (British kings and queens still have this title, and you can see the letters FID DEE or F. D. on British coins today. However, the Protestant movement in Europe was growing very strong at this time. When Henry quarrelled with Rome and ordered the Bible to be translated into English, the way was open for Protestantism to spread in England. Over the years many people changed to this new religion.

By the way son Генри VIII was Edward VI.

This English king (prince at the beginning) was meant Mark Twain when he wrote his "The Prince and the Pauper". Of course, the boy did not change clothes with a pauper boy just before his father's death and did not brood through his country in rags, this is the author's fancy. I think that his father was not so fond of him as he is described in the book, because Henry VIII was not the like person to be attached to somebody -- but, however, "The Prince and the Pauper" is a fiction book and the author had his right to show the circumstances just as he imagined them, as he was close to the historical truth in main things and in details.

In reality Henry the Eighth had made a will, appointing a council of sixteen to govern the kingdom for his son while that latter was under age, and another council of twelve to help the first one. The most powerful of the first council was the Earl of Hertford, the young King's uncle, his late mother's brother, who lost no time in bringing his nephew with great state up to Enfield, and thence to the Tower. It was considered at the time a striking proof of virtue in the young King that he was sorry for his father's death.

There was a curious part on the late King's will, requiring his executors to fulfil whatever promises he had made. So, the Earl of Hertford made himself Duke of Somerset (in Mark Twain's book Tom Canty did it!), and made his brother Edward Seymour a baron. To be more dutiful, they made themselves rich out of the Church lands, and were very comfortable. The new Duke of Somerset proclaimed himself Protector of the kingdom, and was, indeed, the King, as the chief power was all in his hands. He was an ardent Reformer and very soon introduced great changes, not in Church government, but in doctrine and ritual. The young Edward the Sixth had been brought up in the principles of the Protestant religion, and all the Protestants therefore knew that their day of triumph had come, they committed all manner of excesses, breaking images and otherwise insulting the majority of their countrymen. The Act of the Six Articles was repeated, and violent hands were laid on church property.

These religious changes, sufficiently unpopular with the majority of Englishmen, were accompanied by social evils not altogether unconnected with them.} The new landowners, selfish and grasping, keener on enclosing common lands than on providing work for the rural population, compared badly with their predecessors, the monks. Devon and Norfolk rose in revolt, and although the Duke of Somerset, who understood the causes of the rising well enough to symphathise with them, more or less succeeded in restoring order, the Council was able to put the blame for misgov-ernment upon him, and ordered his imprisonment. His successor, the Duke of Northumberland, ambitious and unscrupulous, did all in his power to further the Reformation as the best means to wealth and power. But while he and his friends grew rich the country at large grew poorer, and some helped to overthrow the government with the help of Somerset.

When the Duke of Somerset was still Lord Protector, he was anxious to have the young King engage in marriage to the young Queen of Scotland (Mary Stuart) in order to prevent this princess from making an alliance with any foreign power; but as a large party in Scotland were unfavourable to this plan, he invaded that country. His excuse for doing that was that the Border men -- that is, the Scotch who lived in that part of the country where England and Scotland joined -- troubled the English very much. But the English Border men troubled the Scotch too; and through many long years there were perpetual border quarrels which gave rise to numbers of old tales and songs.

"High upon Highlands And laigh upon Tay, Bonny George Campbell Ride out on a day: Saddled and bridled, So gallant to see, Home came his good horse, But never came he.

Saddled and bridled

And booted rode he

A plume to his helmet,

A sword at his knee;

But toom came his saddle

A bloody to see,

О home came his good horse,

But never came he!"

However, the Protector invaded Scotland; and the Scottish Regent with an army twice as large as his, advanced to meet him. They met on the banks of the river Esk, within a few miles of Edinburgh; and there the Protector promised to retire if the Scotch would only engage not to marry their princess to any foreign prince, and the Scottish Regent thought the English were afraid. But in this he made a horrible mistake; for the English soldiers on land and the English sailors on the water, so set upon the Scotch, that they fled, and more than ten thousand of them were killed. It was a dreadful battle. The ground for four miles, all the way to Edinburgh, was strewn with dead men, and with arms, and legs, and heads. Some hid themselves in streams and were drowned; some threw away their armour and were killed while they run; but in this battle of Pinckey (1547) the English lost only two or three hundred men. They were much better clothed than the Scotch.

Now, we must return to the story of Devonshire and Norfolk revolts. In Devonshire, the rebellion was so strong that ten thousand men united within a few days, and even laid siege to Exeter. But the rebels were defeated, and one of the leaders, the vicar, was hanged on his own church steeple.

In Norfolk the popular leader was a man named Robert Ket, a tanner of Wymondham. The mob were, in the first instance, excited against the tanner by the one John Flowerdrew, a gentlemen, whc owned him a grudge; but the tanner soon got the people on his side, and established himself near Norwich with quite an army. There was a large oak-tree in that place, on a spot called Moushold Hill, which Ket named the Tree of Reformation; and under its green boughs he and his men sat, in the midsummer weather, holding courts of justice, and debating affairs of state. They even allowed some rather tiresome public speakers to get up into that Tree of Reformation; and point out their errors to them, while they lay listening in the shade below. At last, one sunny July day, a herald appeared below the tree, and proclaimed Ket and all his men traitors, if they did not disperse and go home at once, in which case they were to receive a pardon. But Ket and his men became stronger than ever, until the Earl of Warwick went after them with a sufficient force and cut them all to pieces. A few were hanged, drawn, and quartered, as a traitors, and their limbs were sent into various country places to be a terror to the people. Nine of them were hanged upon nine green branches of the Oak of Reformation; and so, for the time, that tree may be said to have withered away.

As we already mentioned, the Duke of Somerset was arrested as a traitor and took to the Tower.

He was ordered to be headed on the Tower Hill at eight in the morning, and proclamations were issued bidding the citizens keep at home until after ten. They filled the streets, however, and crowded the place of execution as soon as it was light; and with sad faces and sad hearts saw the once powerful Duke ascent the scaffold to lay his head upon the dreadful block. While he was yet saying his last words to them with manly courage, and telling them, in particular, how it comforted him to have assisted in reforming the national religion, a member of the Council was seen riding up on horseback. They again thought that the Protector was saved, and again shouted with joy. But the Duke himself told them they were mistaken, and laid down his head and had it struck off at a blow.

Many of the bystanders rushed forward and steeped their hand kerchiefs in his blood, as a mark of their affection.

It is not very pleasant to know that while his uncle was in prison under sentence of death, the young King was being vastly entertained by plays, and dances, and sham fights: but there is no doubt in it, for he kept a journal himself.

There were only two victims in this period who perished because of their holding the Catholic religion. One of them, a woman Joan Bucher, the other -- a Dutchman. Edward was, to his credit, exceedingly unwilling to sign the warrant for the woman execution and shed tears before he made so.

Edward's sister Mary, whose mother had been Catherine of Aragon, and who inherited her mother's gloomy temper, and hated the reformed religion as connected with her mother's wrongs and sorrows - she knew nothing about it, always refusing to read a single book in which it was truly described - the Princess Mary held by the unreformed religion too, and was the only person in the kingdom for which the old Mass was allowed to be performed. In 1533 Mary, Henry's daughter by Catherine of Aragon, became Queen of England. Because she was a Roman Catholic, the country re-entered the Roman Church. While Mary was Queen, many Protestants were burned at the stake for their beliefs. She also put her non-Roman Catholic sister, Elizabeth (the daughter of Henry and Anne Boleyn), into prison in the Tower of London.

Edward always viewed it with horror; and when he fell ill -- first of the measles, and then of the small-pox, he was greatly troubled in mind to think that if he died, and Mary was the next heir to the throne succeeded, the Roman Catholic religion would be set up again. In 1552 very soon after Somerset's execution, the Second Prayer Book of Edward VI was published, and it was distinctly Protestant in tone.

Protestants were glad when Mary died in 1557 and Elizabeth became Queen. Elizabeth also became Head of the Anglican Church, like her father, and Roman Catholicism was never again the established (official) religion in England.

After Elizabeth became Queen, a group of Protestants wanted to "purify" the Church of England of all Roman Catholic influence. These people were called Puritans -- they were the English Protestants. They dressed very simply and believed that all pleasures, such as fine clothes and the theatre, were wicked.

When James I was King (1603 -- 1625) the Puritans were often put in prison and sometimes even killed. Some of them decided to leave England to find freedom in a new country.

They sailed from Plymouth in 1620 in a ship called "Mayflower", and these "Pilgrim Fathers" -- as they were called -- started a new life in America.

Under the rule of James I's son, Charles I, the Puritans were treated even worse. Many people sympathized with the Puritans, and the Court was unpopular because it was suspected of being a centre of Roman Catholicism. (This was because S Charles's wife was a Roman Catholic). This religious split between the Puritans and the Court was one cause of the outbreak of civil war in 1628 and the eventual execution of Charles I. Following this, from 1649 to 1660, Britain was a republic for a short while.

2.1 Religion today

The Church of England -- or the Anglican Church-- is still the established church in England, and the British king or queen is still head of the Church. There are, however, many other churches to which people belong: for example Roman Catholics (6 million) and the basically protestant Methodists (1,150,000), Congregationalists (372,000), Baptists (338,000) and other smaller groups. The Methodists and Baptists are particularly strong in Wales.

In Scotland the Presbyterian Church (called the kirk) is the established church and it is completely separate from the Church of England. The Presby-terain Church is based on a strict form of Protestantism which was taught by a French reformer, Calvin, and brought to Scotland by John Knox.

Although there is a complete religious freedom in Britain today, there is still tension between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, where religion is still caught up with politics.

Britain's immigrants have also brought with them their own religions which they continue to practise. There are Muslims, Hindus, and Sikhs from the Indian subcontinent, Rastafarians from the West Indies, and the largest group of Jews living in Europe. In spite of the great variety of forms of worship, only a minority of people regularly go to church in Britain today. Most people see Sunday as a day for relaxing with the family or for doing jobs around the house and the garden.

2.2 Newspapers

Fleet Street in London used to be the home of most national daily and Sunday newspapers. People often said "Fleet Street" to mean "the press". Today the old image of London's Fleet Street as the centre of the newspaper printing and publishing world has changed, and in fact all the big newspapers have moved from Fleet Street to more modern premises.

More daily newspapers are sold per person in the UK than in almost any other country: there are twelve national daily newspapers and evelen national Sunday ones. While the more serious newspapers, also called quality papers (for example, the "Daily Telegraph", the "Guardian", "The Times", the "Independent", the "Financial Times", the "Sunday Times", the "Observer", etc), have a lot of home and international news, some of the more popular "tabloids" (so called because of their size, for example, the "Sun", the "Daily Mirror", the "Daily Mail", the "Daily Express", the "Daily Star", etc) concentrate on the more spectacular and scandalous aspects of life in Britain. Although newspaper sales have fallen slightly over the past few years, newspapers have an important effect on public opinion. Most British newspapers are owned by big business and although they are not directly linked to political parties, there are strong connections. The majority of newspapers -- even those which carry serious news -- are conservative in outlook.

New technology has altered the whole shape of the newspaper industry. One of the beneficial results of computerised production has been improved graphics and photographs. The tendency has been for newspapers to become smaller but to contain more pages. Sunday papers have colour magazines and several of the dailies have weekend supplements. Competition for circulation is intense and newspapers have tried several methords to increase the number of people who read them, including the use of colour, competitions and national bingo games.

Running a newspaper is an expensive and competitive business and several newspapers started and .failed during the 1980s. Me

2.3 Radio and Television

Broadcasting in the United Kingdom is controlled by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA). The BBC receives its income from the government, but the private companies controlled by the IBA earn money from advertising.

BBC Radio broadcasts five national services to the United Kingdom plus regional services in Wales (ineluding programmes in Welsh), Scotland and Northern Ireland. These are:

Radio 1: pop and rock music;

Radio 2: light music, drama, documentaries and sport;

Radio 3: classical music, drama, documentaries and cricket;

Radio 4: news, documentaries, drama

and entertainment and educational programmes for schools and adults;

Radio 5: sport, educational programmes and children's programmes.

There are also thirty-two BBC Local Radio stations and a number of independent local stations. There is advertising on the independent commercial channels. -The External Service of the BBC broadcasts over 700 hours of programmes a week in 37 languages, including the English-language World Service and BBC English by Radio and Television. It is estimated that over 120 million people listen to the service.

Watching television is one of the great British pastimes! By the middle of the 1980s there were four channels on British TV: BBC1 and BBC2 plus the two independent channels, ITV and Channel 4. Independent channels get their income from advertisements but there is no advertising on the BBC channels: instead the BBC's revenue comes from licence fees, payable by everybody who has a television, plus some additional funds from Parliament. Both the BBC and ITV sell programmes overseas which adds to their revenue.

The BBC is incorporated under a Royal Charter, which means it is a state organization but not government controlled. The first television broadcasts began in 1936. The Independent Television Authority was created by Act of Parliament in 1954 to provide an additional television broadcasting service. Commercial television consists of fifteen ITV programme companies providing programmes in fourteen different regions. An increasing number of programmes are now made by independent production companies. A second BBC channel (BBC2) began broadcasting in

1964 and a second commercial channel (Channel 4) in 1982.

Channels are generally expected to provide programmes which do not overlap with other channel's productions and there is a Broadcasting Standards Council which is designed to make sure that unsuitable programmes are not shown.

In general, people think the programmes offered on British television are of a very high standard. Some people, however, are becoming worried about the amount of violence on TV, and the effect this may have on young people.

TV and radio are also two of the main teaching channels used by the Open University. This "university of the air" allows many thousands of students to study at home for degrees they never would have obtained in the main educational system. They also have to do without sleep as most of their programmes are broadcast early in the morning or late /at night!

New technology has made it possible for viewers to receive many more programmes into their homes through sattelite TV. The 1990s may well see many changes in British TV and Radio.

Who watches what?

One of the biggest changes in the way people in Britain have spent their leisure time in recent years has been the increase in the amount of time spent watching television. The average winter viewing figures are now about twenty-eight hours per week.

As you might expect, television viewing is less popular in summer than in winter and more popular with old people than with any other age group. Viewing also aries according to social class, with professional and managerial classes watching less than the unskilled and the unemployed. On average, women watch more than men.

British TV has an international reputation for producing programmes of a high quality such as documentaries, nature programmes, comedies and drama series and according to the government there should be a combination of "competition, quality and choice" in any plans for the future of TV. However, not everyone agrees that more TV means better TV and it has been argued that the standard of programmes may drop in the future with companies concentrating on making programmes with a mass appeal such as soap operas, quiz shows, and situation comedies. "Minority" programmes, such as many of those broadcast on BBC2 and Channel 4, might disappear.

2.4 Rock Music

When the American rock-and-roll singer Chuck „Berry first sang "Roll over Beethoven and tell Tchaikowsky the news!" in the 1950s, he was telling the world that the new music, Rock-'n'-Roll, was here to stay. Over the last forty years it has had an enormous effect on people's lives, and especially on the kind of clothes they wear.

The first group to be seerfin the newspapers in the late 50s were the Teddy Boys. Their clothes were supposed to be similar to those worn in Edwardian England: long jackets with velvet collars, drainpipe trousers (so tight they looked like drainpipes!) and brightly coloured socks. Their shoes had very thick rubber soles and their hair was swept upwards and backwards. Before the arrival of the Teddy Boys young people had usually worn what their parents wore. Now they wore what they liked.

In the mid 60s the Mods, (so called because of their "modern" style of dressing) became the new leaders of teenage fashion. Short hair and smart suits were popular again. But perhaps the Mods' most important possessions were their scooters, usually decorated with large numbers of lights and mirrors. They wore long green anoraks, called parkas, to protect their clothes.

The Mods' greatest enemies were the Rockers who despised the Mods' scooters and smart clothes. Like the Teds, Rockers listened mostly to rock-and-roll and had no time for Mod bands.

3. London

Now we shall speak a little about the capital of England, of its history, what was the sight of the city several centuries ago and who built it. It's political, economic and commercial centre. London is one of the largest cities in the world and the largest city in Europe.' Its population is about 8 million.

London is one of the oldest and most interesting cities in the world.

London was founded by the Romans in 43 AD. It was called Londinium. The history of London is different from the history of other great cities if the world. The splendours of Babylon and Nineveh cost little, for there were thousands of slaves to do the work for scarcely more than the cost of their food. Rome was made splendid by emperors who ruled all the known earth. They had countless slaves. They robbed every country to make their own city gorgeous, and with the great wealth of the world they built palaces and halls and theatres and circuses grander than any which have since been made. Florence was built by rulers who loved art and beauty. They lived in an age when the greatest sculptors and painters could be employed for as little cost as an ordinary workman of today.

London was a wilderness when the Romans came here. Had they stayed they would have made it a great city. But they were called home to defend their own capital, and London was burnt again and again by the rough men from over the seas. The Saxons and Danes were an uneducated people, who thought of little more than war and the chase, not of building noble cities. The Normans, who conquered England, in the eleventh century, were a more educated people, and we find traces of their buildings in London and many parts of England. But their kings were warlike men who never thought of making a beautiful London. When the tome came for giving London wealth and power, the people were too busy with trade and travel to think much of making a stately city.

It is impossible to point out all English historical buildings to be the work of this or that architect or builder. The Westminster Abbey, for instance, was begun on the site of older churches built by Edward the Confessor, who died in 1066. A foreigner, William the Conqueror, was crowned King of England the same year in the cathedral where Edward wanted to bury his own bones. During the reign of several kings the building of Westminster Abbey was continued. Sir Christopher Wren (1632 - 1723) built one of the most beautiful additions. Nearly all English kings and queens were crowned in the Abbey since the time of the Conquest, while there are buried in it thirteen kings of England and many queens.

Here is an extract from Mark Twain's "The Prince and the Pauper":

"It was four o'clock in the morning of the memorable Coronation day. We find the torch-lighted galleries already filling up with people who are well content to sit still and wait seven or eight hours till the time shall come for them to see what they may not hope to see in their lives -- the coronation of a King. Yes, London and Westminster have been astir ever since the warning guns boomed at three o'clock, and already crowds of untitled rich folk who have bought the privilege of trying to find sitting-room in the galleries are flocking in at the entrances reserved for such as they!

The hours drag along tediously enough. All stir ceased for some time, for every gallery has long ago been packed. We may look here and there and yonder, through the dim cathedral twilight, of portions of many galleries and balconies being cut off from sight by intervening pillars and architectural projections. We have to view the whole of the great north transept -- empty, and waiting for England's privileged ones. We see also the ample area of platforms, carpeted with rich stuffs, whereupon the throne stands. The throne occupies the centre of the platform, and is raised above it upon an elevation of four steps. Within a seat of the throne is enclosed a rough flat rock -- the stone of Scone -- which many generations of Scottish kings sat on to be crowned, and so it in time became holy enough to answer a like purpose for English monarchs. Both the throne and its footstool are covered with cloth of gold.

Stillness reign, the torches blink dully, the time drags heavily. But at last the lagging daylight asserts itself, the torches are extinguished, and a mellow radiance suffers the great spaces. All features of the noble building are distinct now, but soft and dreamy, for sun is lightly veiled with clouds.

At seven o'clock the first break in the drowsy monotony occurs; for on the stroke of this hour the first peeress enters the sept, clothed like Solomon for splendour, and is conducted to her appointed place by an official clad of in satins and velvets, whilst a duplicate of him gathers up the lady's long train, follows after, and, when the lady is seated, arranges the train across her lap for her. He then places her footstool according to her desire, after which he puts her coronet where it will be convenient to her hand when the time for the simultaneous coroneting of the nobles shall arrive.

The scene is animated enough now. There is stir and life, and shifting colour everywhere. After a time quite reigns again; for the peeresses are all come, and are all in their places. There are all ages here: brown, wrinkled, white-haired dowagers, who are able to go back down the stream of time, and recall the crowning of Richard HI and the troublous days of that forgotten age; and there are handsome middle-aged dames; and lovely young matrons; and gentle and beautiful young girls with beaming eyes and fresh complexion.

About nine, the clouds suddenly break away and a shaft of sunshine cleaves the mellow atmosphere, and drifts slowly along the ranks of ladies. Presently a special envoy from some distant corner of the Orient, marching with the general body of foreign ambassadors, crosses this bar of sunshine, and we catch our breath, the glory that streams and flashes and palpitates about him is so over-. powering; for he is crusted from head to heel with gems, and his „slightest movement showers a dancing radiance all around him.

At last, the deep booming of artillery told that the King and his grand procession had arrived at last; so the waiting multitude rejoiced. All knew that a further delay must follow, for the King must be prepared and dressed for solemn ceremony. All the peers were / conducted ceremoniously to their seats and their coronets placed conveniently at hand; and meanwhile the multitude in the galleries were alive with interest, for most of them were beholding for the first time, dukes, earls, and barons, whose names had been historical for five hundred years. When all were finally seated, the spectacle from the galleries was complete.

Now the dressed and mitred great heads of the church, and their attendants, filed in upon the platform and took their appointed places; these were followed by Lord Protector and other great officials, and these again by a steel-clad detachment of the Guard.

There was a waiting pause; then, at a signal, a triumphant peal of music burst forth, and the little king, clothed in a long robe of cloth of gold, appeared at a door, and stepped upon the platform. The entire multitude rose, and the ceremony of the Recognition ensued.

At last, the final act was at hand. The Archbishop of Canterbury lifted up the crown of England from its cushion and held it out over the king's head".

Of course, Mark Twain describes the ceremony of the coronation using his own fancy, but not only that: he had read old Chronicles and followed them.

Another old historical building in London is the Tower, the oldest fortress-prison in this city and in the whole Europe. Much of the buildings which we can see today, standing in gloomy strength overlooking the Thames, has stood there almost 900 years. But under the present tower are remains of another fortress, which is a thousand years older than this.

London was always the first important place to be seized when enemies invaded the land, and the site of Tower was seen by all soldiers to be the best for defence. They say that Julius Caesar has built a fortress at this place. Certainly the White Tower is built upon Roman foundations; and remains of Roman walls are to be found in other parts of the Tower. London was often burnt and pillaged -- it was once so ruined by the Danes that the whole city was desolate, with no one living in it, for thirty years. But when people returned and the wars died down, they always gathered about the Tower as a place of defence and strength. Alfred the Great was the founder of modern London, and he is said to have built another great fortress where the Romans had first built the tower.

But it was William the Conqueror who began the Tower which is so famous today. Although he had conquered England, he felt that he would never be safe until he had built himself a great castle in which he could be surrounded by troops who would keep him safe in case the Saxons should rise in rebellion against him.

And who do you think he got to built the Tower for him? It was a monk. His name was Gundulf, and he was bom in Normandy in 1024, and was forty-six when William called him to England to begin this great work.

Gundulf was a learned man. He had made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and by living in the East had learned many of secrets by which the Saracens made their buildings beautiful. Ha had closely studied the simple grandeur of Norman architecture, too, and was able to combine the two styles. He had lived many years in monasteries in Normandy. Life to him was very sad. He did not believe that Christian men ought to be happy. He was always sorrowful and when at work or at prayer, at meals or when resting, he was so often given to tears that he was called Gundulf the Weeper.

No matter how he wept, he was a great and grand builder. He founded the Tower. He made a strong fortress for his king who rewarded him by letting him build Rochester Cathedral and become the first bishop of Rochester.

He built first a great watch-tower, or barbican. From this the surrounding country could be viewed, and the approach of an enemy sighted in time to prepare for defence. That old tower is now the Hall Tower, or as it is commonly called, the Jewel Tower. In it the King keeps his crown and all the state jewels.

Another tower which Weeping Gimdulf built was the White Tower, you may still see it nowadays in good order.

Afterwards the English kings (beginning from William Rums) taxed the people without mercy to continue the work of building the Tower. The people complained that the Tower was beginning to the big and strong not for defence of London, but so that the king might have a strong place, in which to defy the people when he did wrong.

It was a strange and savage age when the Tower was rising to strength and size. An old writer says that the mortar in which the stones were set was mixed with the blood of beasts. Blood enough of human beings flowed in the Tower to make the blood of beasts unnecessary. Most of the terrible deeds of which we read in the history of England were done in the grim Tower. Though kings were bom and lived and were married there, it was in the Tower that kings and princes, and queens and princesses, were murdered; that great and good men imprisoned, tortured, and sometimes killed. Had Gundulf the Weeper known what a place of agony he was creating when he built the Tower, he would have wept still more, and with better reason.

When we speak about London of late middle ages we must, of course, remember Mark Twain's charming book "The Prince and the Pauper". The story of changing the Prince and the Pauper in only the author's imagination, but to write the story he had to read many historical books and chronicles. And here is his description of London of the period when Edward VI had to change Henry VIII, and it is indeed very truthful.

"London was fifteen hundred years old, and was a great town -- for that day. It had a hundred thousand inhabitants -- some think double as many. The streets were very narrow, and crooked, and dirty, especially in the part which was not far from London Bridge. The houses were of wood, with the second story projecting over the first, and the third sticking its elbows out beyond the second. The higher the houses grew, the broader they grew. They were skeletons of strong criss-cross beams, with solid material between, coated with plaster. The beams were painted red or blue or black, according to the owner's taste, and this give the houses a very picturesque look. The windows were small, glazed with little diamond-shaped panes, and they opened outward, on hinges, like doors".

And now we shall remember the description of the London Bridge which was a town itself within London.

"Our friends threaded their way through the throngs upon the Bridge. This structure, which had stood for six hundred years, and had been a noisy and populous thoroughfare all that time, was a curios affair, for a closely packed rank of stores and shops, with family quarters overhead, stretched along both sides of it, from one bank of the river to the other. The Bridge was a sort of town to itself; it had its inn, its beer-houses, its bakeries, its haberdasheries, its food markets, its manufacturing industries, and even its church. It looked upon the two neighbours which it linked together--London and Southwark -- as being well enough, at suburbs, but not otherwise particularly important. It was a close corporation, so to speak; it was a narrow town, of a single street a fifth of a mile long, its population, and everybody in it knew all his fellow-townsmen intimately, and had known their fathers and mothers before them -- and all their little family affairs into the bargain. It had its aristocracy, of course - its fine old families of butchers, and bakers, and what-not, who had occupied the same old premises for five or six hundred years, and knew the great history of the Bridge from the beginning to end, and all its strange legends; and who always talked bridgy talk, and thought bridgy thoughts, and lied in a long, level, direct, substantial bridgy way. It was just the sort of population to be narrow and ignorant and self-conceited. Children were bom on the Bridge, were roared there, grew to old age and finally died without ever having set a foot upon any part of the world but London Bridge alone. Such people would naturally imagine that the mighty and interminable procession which moved through its street night and day, with its confused roar of shouts and cries, its neighings and bellowings and bleatings and its muffled thundertramp, was the one great thing in this world, and themselves somehow the propriators of it. And so they were, in effect -- at last they could exhibit it from their windows, and did -- for a consideration -- whenever a returning king or hero gave it a fleeting splendour, for there was no place like it for according a long, straight view of marching columns.

Men born and reared upon the Bridge found life unendurably dull and inane elsewhere. History tells of one of these who left the Bridge at the age of seventy-one and retired to the country. But he could only fret and toss in his bead; he could not to go to sleep, the deep stillness was so painful, so awful, so oppressive. When he was worn out with it, at last, he fled back to his old home, a lean and haggard spectre, and fell peacefully to rest and pleasant dreams under the lulling music of the lashing waters and the boom and crash and thunder of London Bridge.

In the times of which we are writing, the Bridge furnished "object lessons" in English history, for its children -- namely, the livid and decaying heads of renowned man impaled upon iron spikes atop of its gateways". (Mark Twain, "The Prince and the Pauper", chapter XII).

What is in London today?

Trafalgar Square

It's the heart of visitors' London, beating with tour buses, cameras and flocks of persistent pigeons. On the square's northern edge is the cash-strapped National Gallery, which has one of the world's most impressive art collections. Famous paintings include Cezanne's The Bathers and van Eyck's Arnolfini Wedding. Entry to the gallery is free, which means if you feel like dropping in and looking at just one or two pictures, you can do so at your leisure without feeling obliged to cover extensive territory.

Also in the vicinity are the National Portrait Gallery, a place to see lots of faces from the Middle Ages to modern times, and St Martin in the Fields, with an adjoining craft market and a brass-rubbing centre in the crypt.

Westminster Abbey

The resting place of the royals, Westminster Abbey is one of the most visited churches in the Christian world. It's a beautiful building, full of morose tombs and monuments, with an acoustic field that will send shivers down your spine when the choirboys clear their throats. The roll call of the dead and honoured is guaranteed to humble the greatest egoist, despite the weighty and ornate memorabilia. In September 1997, millions of people round the world saw the inside of the Abbey when TV crews covered Princess Di's funeral service. Since then the number of visitors has increased by 300%, and the visit is now more restricted, with some areas cordoned off.

Houses of Parliament

The awesome neo-Gothic brilliance of the Houses of Parliament has been restored thanks to a recent spring clean of the facade. The building includes the House of Commons and the House of Lords, so the grandeur of the exterior is let down only by the level of debate in the interior ('hear, hear'). There's restricted access to the chambers when they're in session, but a visit around 6pm will avoid the worst of the crowds. Check the time on the most recognisable face in the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben.

Nearby, Downing St, the official residence of the prime minister (no 10) and the chancellor of the exchequer (no 11), has been guarded by an imposing iron gate since the security forces realised that the lone iconic bobby outside Maggie's door was not sufficient to stop the IRA mortar bomb attack in 1989.

Tate Britain

The Tate Britain is the keeper of an impressive historical archive of British art. Built in 1897, the Tate is currently undergoing an ambitious programme of expansion. When all is complete, there will be six new galleries for temporary exhibition and nine new or refurbished ones for the Tate's permanent collection of peerless Blakes, Reynolds, Gainsboroughs, Hogarths, Constables, Turners and Pre-Raphaelite beauties.

Its sister gallery, the brand-spanking new Tate Modern, is housed in the former Bankside Power Station. The Tate Modern displays the Tate's collection of international modern art, including major works by Bacon, Dali, Picasso, Matisse, Rothko and Warhol, as well as work by more contemporary artists. The building is as exciting as the art: gorgeous industrial-strength red brick with a 325ft-high (99m-high) chimney. The former turbine hall, below street level and running the length of the vast building, now forms the awe-inspiring entrance to the gallery.

Buckingham Palace

The Queen opened Buckingham Palace to the public for the first time in 1993 to raise money for repairs to Windsor Castle. The interiors range from kitsch to tasteless opulence and reveal nothing of the domestic life of the Royal Family apart from a gammy eye when it comes to interior decor. The changing of the guard is a London 'must see' - though you'll probably go away wondering what all the fuss was about.

Covent Garden

Once a vegetable field attached to Westminster Abbey, Covent Garden became the low-life haunt of Pepys, Fielding and Boswell, then a major fruit and veg market, and is now a triumph of conservation and commerce. The car-free piazza is surrounded by designer gift and clothes shops, hip bars and restaurants. Stalls selling overpriced antiques and bric-a-brac share the arcaded piazza with street theatre, buskers and people-watchers.

British Museum

The most trafficked attraction in Bloomsbury, and in the entirety of London, is without a doubt the British Museum. It is the oldest, most august museum in the world, and has recently received a well-earned rejig with Norman Foster's glass-roofed Great Court. The museum is so big and so full of 'stuff' collected (read: stolen?) by Victorian travellers and explorers that visitors often make the mistake of overdosing on the antiquities. See as much as you want to see, not as much as you believe you should. Highlights include the weird Assyrian treasures and Egyptian mummies; the exquisite pre-Christian Portland Vase and the 2000-year-old corpse found in a Cheshire bog. With the removal of the British Library to St Pancras, the Reading Room is now open to the public, sadly making Reader's tickets a thing of the past.

St Paul's Cathedral

Half the world saw the inside of St Paul's Cathedral when Charles and Di tied the knot here in 1981. The venerable building was constructed by Christopher Wren between 1675 and 1710, but it stands on the site of two previous cathedrals dating back to 604. Its famous dome, the biggest in the world after St Peter's in Rome, no longer dominates London as it did for centuries, but it's still quite a sight when viewed from the river. Visitors should talk low and sweetly near the whispering gallery, which reputedly carries words spoken close to its walls to the other side of the dome.

Victoria & Albert Museum

The Victoria & Albert Museum, on Cromwell Rd in South Kensington, has an eclectic mix of booty gathered together under its brief as a museum of decorative art and design. It sometimes feels like an enormous Victorian junk shop, with nearly four million artefacts on display. It's best to browse through the collection whimsically, checking out the Chinese ceramics, Japanese swords, cartoons by Raphael, sculpture by Rodin, the Frank Lloyd Wright study and the pair of Doc Martens.

Also on Cromwell Rd, the Natural History Museum is one of London's finest Gothic-revival buildings, but even its grand cathedral-like main entrance can seem squashed when you're confronted with hordes of screaming schoolkids. Keep away from the dinosaur exhibit while the kids are around and check out the mammal balcony, the Blue Whale exhibit and the spooky, moonlit rainforest in the ecology gallery.

Camden Markets

The huge Camden Markets could be the closest England gets to free-form chaos outside the terraces of football stadia. They stretch between Camden and Chalk Farm tube stations, incorporating Camden Lock on the Grand Union Canal, and get so crowded on weekends that you'll think you're in the Third World. The markets include the Camden Canal Market (bric-a-brac, furniture and designer clothes), Camden Market (leather goods and army surplus gear) and the Electric Market (records and 1960s clothing).

After Camden Market, the colourful Portobello Market is London's most famous (and crowded) weekend street market and is best seen on a Saturday morning before the gridlock sets in. It's full of antiques, jewellery, ethnic knick-knacks, second-hand clothes and fruit and veg stalls. Starting near the Sun in Splendour pub in Notting Hill, it wends its way northwards to just past the Westway flyover.

Hyde Park

Humongous Hyde Park used to be a royal hunting ground, was once a venue for duels, executions and horse racing, and even became a giant potato field during WWII. It is now a place of fresh air, spring colour, lazy sunbathers and boaters on the Serpentine. Features of the park include sculptures by Jacob Epstein and Henry Moore and the Serpentine Gallery, which holds temporary exhibitions of contemporary art.

Near Marble Arch, Speaker's Corner started life in 1872 as a response to serious riots. Every Sunday anyone with a soapbox - or anything else to stand on - can rant or ramble on about anything at all.

Kew Gardens

Kew Gardens, in Richmond, Surrey, is both a beautiful park and an important botanical research centre. There's a vast expanse of lawn and formal gardens and two soaring Victorian conservatories - the Palm House and the Temperate House - which are home to exotic plant life. It's one of the most visited sights on the London tourist agenda, which means that it can get very crowded, especially in the summer. And with nearby Heathrow continuously spitting out jets, there isn't much chance of total peace and quiet.

Off the Beaten Track

Hampstead Heath is one of the few places in London where you can actually forget that you're in the middle of an 800-sq-mi (1300-sq-km) city. There are woods, meadows, hills, bathing ponds and, most importantly of all, lots of space. After a brisk walk on the heath, pop into the Spaniard's Inn for a tipple or have a look at Robert Adam's beautiful Kenwood House and wander around its romantic grounds. You can lose the 20th century altogether in Church Row, Admiral's Walk and Flask Walk, which have intact Georgian cottages, terraces and houses.

Highgate Cemetery

Highgate Cemetery can't be beaten for its Victorian Gothic atmosphere and downright eeriness. Its extensive and overgrown grounds include cypress trees, Egyptian-style catacombs, enough chipped angels to please the most discerning Joy Division fan, Karl the more serious Marx brother and personalised tombs reflecting their eccentric inhabitants.

Kensal Green and Brompton cemeteries are also Victorian delights, complete with catacombs and angels.

Holland Park

Brick Lane Market

Sunday morning means bagels for breakfast at Brick Lane market in the East End. The ground is strewn with blankets covered in everything from rusty nails to gold watches. Haggling's the key, though consonants drop off vowels faster than zeros drop off prices.

Ye olde Kensington Market is the place to go to replace your punk mohair jumper, bum bag and kilt, and why not get a haircut, tattoo, pierced upper ear and a new slogan painted on your leather jacket while you're there?

For a pot of treasure at the Victoria Line's end, head south to Brixton Market, a cosmopolitan treat made up of a rainbow coalition of reggae music, slick Muslim preachers, halal meat and fruit and vegetables. Its inventory includes wigs, homeopathic root cures, goat meat and rare records.

The list of the used literature

1. Г.С.Усова. История Англии: текст для чтения на англ.яз. СПб.: Изд-во «Лань», 1999.- 256 с.

2. Ю.Галицинский. Великобритания. СПб.: Изд-во «Каро», 1999 - 460с.

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Great Britain

Great Britain

Тула, 2006

Table of contents

The summary

1. The abstract

2. Great Britain

2.1 Religion today

2.2 Newspapers

2.3 Radio and Television

2.4 Who watches what?

2.5 Rock Music

3. london

The list of the used literature

1. The summary

In my course work I want to tell you about Great Britain and its capital - London. We learn slightly about their history, people living in England, and that can see in London today.

So, the United Kingdom of Great Btitain is situated is over 57 million people. London is the capital of the UK.

Great Britain is a constitutional monarchy.

Now we shall speak about the capital of England. London is one of the largest cities in the world and the largest city in Europe. Its population is about 8 million. London is one of the oldest and most interesting cities in the world.

2. The abstract

In my course work I want to tell you about Great Britain and its capital - London. We learn slightly about their history, people living in England, and that can see in London today.

English is the official language, but it is not the only language which people speak in the country.

Geographically Great Britain is divided into Lowland Britain and Highland Britain. Lowland Britain comprises Southern and Eastern England. Highland Britain includes Scotland, Wales, the Pennines and the Lake District. The country is not very rich In natural resources.

London is the capital of the UK.

The largest cities of Great Britain besides London are: Birmingham, Glasgo, Liverpool, Manchester, . Sheffield, Bristоl, Leeds, Edinburgh.

Great Britain is a constitutional monarchy. The powers of the British Queen are limited by Parliament. The British Parliament consists of the sovereign, the House of Lords and the House of Commons.

Throughout British history religion has been closely connected with kings, queens and politics. England was a Roman Catholic country until 1534. Why did this change?

By the way son Генри VIII was Edward VI.

As we already mentioned, the Duke of Somerset was arrested as a traitor and took to the Tower.

Edward always viewed it with horror. In 1552 very soon after Somerset's execution, the Second Prayer Book of Edward VI was published, and it was distinctly Protestant in tone.

Protestants were glad when Mary died in 1557 and Elizabeth became Queen. Elizabeth also became Head of the Anglican Church, like her father, and Roman Catholicism was never again the established (official) religion in England.

For example they very much love to read the newspapers

.

Radio 1: pop and rock music;

Radio 2: light music, drama, documentaries and sport;

Radio 3: classical music, drama, documentaries and cricket;

Radio 4: news, documentaries, drama

and entertainment and educational programmes for schools and adults;

Radio 5: sport, educational programmes and children's programmes.

Watching television is one of the great British pastimes! By the middle of the 1980s there were four channels on British TV: BBC1 and BBC2 plus the two independent channels, ITV and Channel 4.

The first television broadcasts began in 1936.

TV and radio are also two of the main teaching channels used by the Open University. This "university of the air" allows many thousands of students to study at home for degrees they never would have obtained in the main educational system.

The 1990s may well see many changes in British TV and Radio.

British TV has an international reputation for producing programmes of a high quality such as documentaries, nature programmes, comedies and drama series and according to the government there should be a combination of "competition, quality and choice" in any plans for the future of TV.

London is one of the oldest and most interesting cities in the world.

Here is an extract from Mark Twain's "The Prince and the Pauper":

But it was William the Conqueror who began the Tower which is so famous today. And who do you think he got to built the Tower for him? It was a monk. His name was Gundulf, and he was bom in Normandy in 1024, and was forty-six when William called him to England to begin this great work.

He founded the Tower. He made a strong fortress for his king who rewarded him by letting him build Rochester Cathedral and become the first bishop of Rochester.

He built first a great watch-tower, or barbican. That old tower is now the Hall Tower, or as it is commonly called, the Jewel Tower. In it the King keeps his crown and all the state jewels.

Another tower which Gimdulf built was the White Tower.

In the times of which we are writing, the Bridge furnished "object lessons" in English history, for its children -- namely, the livid and decaying heads of renowned man impaled upon iron spikes atop of its gateways.” (Mark Twain, "The Prince and the Pauper", chapter XII).

2. Great Britain

English is the official language, but it is not the only language which people speak in the country.

There are many rivers in Great Britain. The Severn is the longest river, the Thames is the most important one.

London is the capital of the UK.

The largest cities of Great Britain besides London are: Birmingham, Glasgo, Liverpool, Manchester, . Sheffield, Bristоl, Leeds, Edinburgh.

Great Britain is a constitutional monarchy. The powers of the British Queen are limited by Parliament. The British Parliament consists of the sovereign, the House of Lords and the House of Commons.

Throughout British history religion has been closely connected with kings, queens and politics. England was a Roman Catholic country until 1534. Why did this change?

By the way son Генри VIII was Edward VI.

"High upon Highlands And laigh upon Tay, Bonny George Campbell Ride out on a day: Saddled and bridled, So gallant to see, Home came his good horse, But never came he.

Saddled and bridled

A plume to his helmet,

A sword at his knee;

But toom came his saddle

A bloody to see,

О home came his good horse,

But never came he!"

Now, we must return to the story of Devonshire and Norfolk revolts. In Devonshire, the rebellion was so strong that ten thousand men united within a few days, and even laid siege to Exeter. But the rebels were defeated, and one of the leaders, the vicar, was hanged on his own church steeple.

As we already mentioned, the Duke of Somerset was arrested as a traitor and took to the Tower.

Many of the bystanders rushed forward and steeped their hand kerchiefs in his blood, as a mark of their affection.

Protestants were glad when Mary died in 1557 and Elizabeth became Queen. Elizabeth also became Head of the Anglican Church, like her father, and Roman Catholicism was never again the established (official) religion in England.

When James I was King (1603 -- 1625) the Puritans were often put in prison and sometimes even killed. Some of them decided to leave England to find freedom in a new country.

They sailed from Plymouth in 1620 in a ship called "Mayflower", and these "Pilgrim Fathers" -- as they were called -- started a new life in America.

2.1 Religion today

In Scotland the Presbyterian Church (called the kirk) is the established church and it is completely separate from the Church of England. The Presby-terain Church is based on a strict form of Protestantism which was taught by a French reformer, Calvin, and brought to Scotland by John Knox.

Although there is a complete religious freedom in Britain today, there is still tension between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, where religion is still caught up with politics.