England
England is the largest and most populous
constituent country of the
United Kingdom. It accounts for more than 83% of the total UK population, occupies most of the southern two-thirds of the island of
Great Britain and shares land borders with
Scotland to the north and
Wales to the west. Elsewhere, it is bordered by the
North Sea,
Irish Sea,
Atlantic Ocean, and
English Channel.
England is named after the
Angles (Old English genitive case, "Engla" - hence, Old English "Engla Land"), one of a number of
Germanic tribes believed to have originated in
Angeln in northern
Germany, who settled in England in the 5th and 6th centuries. This is also the origin of its
Latin name,
Anglia. Originally, England was a geographical term rather than a state, until the the separate kingdoms were unified under the king of Wessex in the 10th century. Briefly, the unified England became part of a Danish empire under Cnut, then regained independence for a short period, before being conquered by the
Duke of Normandy in 1066.
The next few hundred years saw England as an important but not central part of expanding and dwindling empires based in
France, with the "King of England" being a subsidiary title of a succession of French-speaking Dukes of territories in (what is now) France. Only when English kings realised that their losses in France meant that England was now their richest and most important possession, did they accept the same "nationality" and language as their subjects in England.
They continued to use England as a source of troops to enlarge their personal holdings in France for many years (Hundred Years War); in fact the English crown did not relinquish its last foothold on mainland France until Calais was lost during the reign of Mary Tudor (the Channel Islands are still crown dependencies, though not part of the UK).Since the
promulgation of the 1284
Statute of Rhuddlan and the
Laws in Wales Acts 1535-1542,
Wales has shared a
legal identity with England as the joint entity originally called
England and later
England and Wales. Since then, "England" has not officially had a separate identity (until modern times, even the name "England" used in any official sense meant "England/Wales").
Even this "England" lost its political (though not legal) identity in 1707, when the Scottish and "English" Parliaments merged to form the
Kingdom of Great Britain under the
Act of Union. The union changed its name twice: first on the merger with Ireland ("United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland") and then with the secession of the southern Irish counties to form the Republic of Ireland ("United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland"). Throughout these changes, "England" (ie England/Wales) retained a separate legal identity from its partners (with a separate legal system from those in Northern Ireland and Scotland)and eventually the strong feelings of the Welsh were acknowledged when it was decided that the name would henceforth be "England and Wales". Wales gained even more of an identity when (like Scotland) it gained its "own" department of the UK government.
In 1999, the "singleness" of "England and Wales" was blurred even further when Wales, like Scotland, gained a semi-independent legislature (
Scottish Parliament,
Welsh Assembly) and an executive accountable to it. However, as England still lacks these, it is not too fanciful to say that the only legal meaning of "England" is
The bit of "England and Wales" that is not "Wales".
Despite the lack of official identity, England's much greater size and population (and perhaps the fact that UK institutions had evolved from English ones) have tended to give it a dominant role in the UK. The bulk of English people rarely noticed their lack of a separate identity: because, until recently, they regarded "Great Britain" or "the United Kingdom" as simply synonyms for "England" : this usage can still be found in many older books, and in most foreign languages. Starting in the early 20th century, the rise of nationalism in Wales and, particularly, Scotland has made the English (though not as yet many visitors) realise that this usage is unacceptable.
[Discussion from the alt.usage.english homepage] See also
British Isles (terminology). England's
football team and its fans use only the "St. George cross", and hence its use is now becoming increasingly popular among the English people in lieu of the UK flag.
The Scottish and Welsh devolved institutions were created by the UK parliament, and are not, in the last resort, independent of it — however, they give England's partners a distinct political identity, leaving England as the only part of the Union directly ruled in nearly all matters by UK institutions.
* Regarding parliamentary matters, a long-standing anomaly called the "West Lothian question" has come to the fore. Before Scottish devolution, purely-Scottish matters were debated at Westminster, but under a subject to a convention that only Scottish MPs could vote on them. The "Question" was that there was no "reverse" convention: Scottish MPs could and did vote on issues relating only to England and Wales. Welsh devolution has removed the anomaly for Wales, but not for England : Scottish and Welsh MPs can vote on English issues, but Scottish and Welsh issues are not debated at Westminster at all.
* As far as administration goes, England's affairs are managed by a combination of the
UK government, the UK parliament, a number of England-specific
quangos, such as
English Heritage, and the Regional Development Authorities (a kind of nascent executive for each English Region).
Some people are calling for a
devolved English Parliament, and some English people go further and support their Scottish and Welsh Nationalists in calling for the dissolution of the Union entirely. However, the approach favoured by the current
Labour government was (on the basis that England is too large to be governed as a single sub-state entity) to propose the devolution of power to the
English Regions. Referendums would decide whether people wanted to vote for
regional assemblies to watch over the work of the non-elected RDAs.
During the campaign, a common criticism of the proposals was that England "did not need another layer of bureaucrats". On the other hand, many said that they were not
decentralising enough, and amounted not to devolution, but to little more than local government reorganisation, with no real power being removed from central government, and no real power given to the regions, which would not even gain the limited powers of the
Welsh Assembly, much less the tax-varying and legislative powers of the
Scottish Parliament (note: Welsh powers are now being expanded). They said that power was simply re-allocated within the region, with little new resource allocation and no real prospects of Assemblies being able to change the pattern of regional aid. Late in the process, responsibility for regional transport was added to the proposals. This was perhaps crucial in the North East, where resentment at the
Barnett Formula, which delivers greater regional aid to adjacent
Scotland, was a significant impetus for the North East devolution campaign. However, a
referendum on this issue in
North East England on
4 November 2004 rejected this proposal, and plans for referendums in other Regions ((such as Yorkshire) were shelved.
In Cornwall (much smaller than the large South West England Region) there has been a campaign for a
Cornish assembly along Welsh lines by political parties such as
Mebyon Kernow, which recently collected 50,000 signatures in support. (
Cornwall has historically been a very distinct county: many residents say they are going "to England" when crossing the Tamar to Devon ).Conventionally the national capital of England is
London, although technically speaking it would be more exact to call London the capital of "England and Wales" given England's lack of a distinctive political identity separate from the Principality.
Winchester served as the country's first national capital until some time in the late 11th century after the
Norman Conquest. The
City of London became England's commercial capital, while the
City of Westminster (where the
Royal court was located) became the political capital.
Historically, the highest level of local government in England was the
county. These divisions had emerged from a range of units of old, pre-unification England (such as the Kingdoms of
Sussex and
Kent) and further Medieval reorganisations (sometimes using
duchies such as
Lancashire and
Cornwall). These
historical county lines were usually drawn up before the
industrial revolution and the mass urbanisation of England. The counties each had a
county town and many county names were drawn from these (for example
Nottinghamshire, from
Nottingham).
Since the latter part of the
19th Century there has been a series of local government reorganisations. The solution to the emergence of large urban areas was the creation of large
metropolitan counties centred on cities (an example being
Greater Manchester). In the
1990s reform of local government, there began the creation of
unitary authorities, where
districts gained the administrative status of a county. Today, there exists some confusion between the
ceremonial counties (which do not necessarily form an administrative unit) and the
metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties.
Non-metropolitan counties (or "shire counties") are divided into one or more
districts. At the very lowest level, England is divided into
parishes, though these are not to be found everywhere (many urban areas for example are
unparished). Parishes are prohibited from existing in Greater London.
England is now also divided into
9 regions, which do not have an elected authority and exist to co-ordinate certain local government functions across a wider area.
London is a special case, and is the one region which currently has a representative
authority as well as a directly elected
mayor. The 32
London boroughs and the
Corporation of London remain the local form of government in the city.
Other than
London, the official regions are:
*
North East England*
North West England*
Yorkshire and the Humber*
West Midlands*
East Midlands*
East of England*
South West England*
South East England |
A satellite view of England and Wales. |
England comprises the central and southern two-thirds of the island of
Great Britain, plus offshore islands of which the largest is the
Isle of Wight. It is bordered to the north by
Scotland and to the west by
Wales. It is closer to continental Europe than any other part of Britain, divided from France only by a 38 km (24
statute mile or 21
nautical mile) sea gap.
Most of England consists of rolling hills, but it is more mountainous in the north with a chain of low mountains, the
Pennines, dividing east and west. The dividing line between terrain types is usually indicated by the
Tees-Exe line. There is also an area of flat, low-lying marshland in the east, much of which has been drained for agricultural use.
The list of England's largest cities is much debated because in
English the normal meaning of
city is "a continuously built-up urban area"; these are hard to define and various other definitions are preferred by some people to boost the ranking of their own city. However, by any definition
London is by far the largest English city.
Manchester and
Birmingham now vie for second place. A number of other cities, mainly in central and northern England, are of substantial size and influence. These include:
Leeds,
Liverpool,
Newcastle,
Sheffield,
Bristol,
Coventry,
Leicester,
Nottingham and
Hull.
The
Channel Tunnel, near
Folkestone, directly links England to the
European mainland. The English/
French border is halfway along the tunnel.
The largest natural harbour in England is at
Poole, on the south-central coast. Some regard it as the second largest harbour in the world, after Sydney Australia, although this fact is disputed (see
harbours for a list of other large natural harbours).
Climate
England has a
temperate climate, with plentiful
rainfall all year round, though the
seasons are quite variable in
temperature. However, temperatures rarely fall below −5°C (23°F) or rise above 30°C (86°F). The prevailing
wind is from the southwest, bringing mild and wet weather to England regularly, from the
Atlantic Ocean. It is driest in the
east and warmest in the
southeast, which is closest to the
European continent.
Snowfall can occur in
Winter and early
Spring, though it is not that common away from high ground.
The highest temperature ever recorded in England is 38.5
°C (101.3
°F) on
August 10,
2003 at
Brogdale, near
Faversham, in
Kent. [
1]. The lowest temperature ever recorded in England is −26.1
°C (−15.0
°F) on
January 10,
1982 at
Edgmond, near
Newport, in
Shropshire. [
2]
Major rivers
*
Severn (the longest river in
Great Britain)
*
Thames*
Trent*
Humber*
Tyne*
Tees*
Ribble*
Ouse*
Mersey*
Dee*
AvonMajor conurbations
The largest cities in England are much debated but according to the urban area populations (continuous built up areas) these would be the 15 largest conurbations. (Population figures taken from 2001 census)
#
Greater London (8,278,251)#
West Midlands ('Greater Birmingham') (2,284,093)#
Greater Manchester (2,244,931)#
Leeds/
Bradford (1,499,465)#
Liverpool (816,216)#
Tyneside (756,765)#
Nottingham (666,358)#
Sheffield (640,720)#
Bristol (551,066)#
Brighton (461,181)#
Portsmouth (442,252)#
Leicester (441,213)#
Coventry (436,000)#
Bournemouth/Poole (383,713)#
Reading (369,804)#
Teesside (365,323)
England is both the most populous and the most ethnically diverse nation in the United Kingdom with 50 million inhabitants [
3], or 83.7% of the UK's total. The 2001 census records roughly around 9% of England's inhabitants as being non-white in origin [
4].
The country's population is 'ageing', with a declining percentage of the population under age 16 and a rising one of over 65. Population continues to rise and in every year since
1901, with the exception of
1976, there have been more births than deaths [
5]. England is one of the most densely populated countries in Europe, second only to the
Netherlands.
There is a debate over the extent to which the population of England (and indeed that of
Britain as a whole) is composed of long-standing indigenous stock or descended from various groups of settlers and immigrants who have arrived over millennia. The
Cheddar Man has been cited as demonstrating that a substantial proportion of the present day population may be descended from groups that populated the island in
prehistory (
The Times,
8 March 1997). The often given view of English ethnicity is that it is a mixed one with large influences from various waves of
Celtic,
Norse,
Roman,
Anglo-Saxon and
Norman invasions.
The general prosperity of England as the largest partner of the UK, has also made it a destination for economic migrants from
Scotland,
Wales and
Northern Ireland.
The simplest view is that an English person is someone who is from England and holds British nationality, regardless of his or her racial origin. It has, however, been a notoriously complicated and controversial identity to delimit [
6].
This is partially because inhabitants of England quite commonly refer to themselves as "British" rather than "English"; centuries of English dominance within the United Kingdom has created a situation where to be English is, as a
linguist would put it, an "unmarked" state (i.e. a British person, institution, custom, city, etc. is often assumed English unless specified otherwise). The English frequently include their neighbours in the general term "British" while the Scots and Welsh tend to be more forward about referring to themselves by one of those more specific terms. This reflects a more subtle form of
patriotism in England -
St George's Day, the country's national holiday, is barely celebrated [
7] - and there is an apathy to the nation outside the sporting arena.Although a part of England, a small, but noticeable, minority of those living in
Cornwall feel similarly, considering themselves ethnically
Cornish first.
English national identity is often taken to have been appropriated by
far right organizations such as the
British National Party and the
English Democrats Party [
8]. This radicalising of identity is often seen to be a problem. The English musician
Morrissey expressed this sentiment in the lyrics of his 2004 single "Irish Blood, English Heart", having been criticised as being
racist when he aligned himself to the English flag in the 1990s: "I've been dreaming of a time when / To be English is not to be baneful / To be standing by the flag / Not feeling shameful / Racist or partial". Presumably controversies like this arise because "English" is for some reason seen as an ethnicity, while "British" is a simple statement of fact: it is often said that English-born people who self-identify as black are proud to be "black British" but do not feel able to say "black English".
This means that English identity is - for better or worse - often closely associated with
English nationalism. Some English nationalists claim that the 'original culture' of England is comprised of legacies of
Brythonic tribes of Celts and
Anglo-Saxons appearing in waves of gradual migration. It also is seen as being influenced by the Scandinavian legends such as
Beowulf and the
Norman Conquest. The
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is a common early location for English identity.
Attempts have been made to de-radicalise English identity. Modern English identity is often built around its sports, one field in which the British
Home Nations often compete individually. In particular the English
Association football team,
Rugby Union team and
Cricket team often cause increases in the popularity of 'Englishness'.
English identity is also affected by the divisions in lifestyle between its north and south (see
North-South divide in the United Kingdom).
The culture of England is sometimes difficult to separate clearly from the culture of the United Kingdom, so intertwined are its composite nations.
England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including
William Shakespeare, arguably the most famous in the history of the English language,
Daniel Defoe,
Jane Austen,
Charles Dickens,
Virginia Woolf,
George Orwell and
Harold Pinter. Others, such as
J.R.R. Tolkien,
Agatha Christie,
Enid Blyton and
J.K. Rowling have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century. Among the
poets,
Geoffrey Chaucer,
Lord Byron,
John Keats,
John Milton,
Samuel Taylor Coleridge and many others remain read and studied around the world.
Composers from England have often not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and particularly during the nineteenth century were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, the work of earlier composers such as
Henry Purcell and
Thomas Tallis is still frequently performed today, and a revival of England's musical status began during the twentieth century with the prominence of composers such as
Edward Elgar,
Gustav Holst and
Benjamin Britten.
In popular music, English bands such as
The Beatles,
The Rolling Stones,
Queen,
Black Sabbath,
The Who,
Iron Maiden,
Led Zeppelin,
The Sex Pistols and
Pink Floyd have all been cited as among the most influential and best-selling
Rock bands of all time. England is also credited with being the birthplace of many pop-culture movements such as
punk and
acid house.
London in particular is an internationally important venue for
theatre. England also has a small
film industry, while the
BBC (and, latterly, other organisations) are well-regarded in
television production.
Significant figures in
English art range from
William Blake,
William Hogarth,
J.M.W. Turner and
John Constable in the 18th and early 19th centuries, through to the influential
William Morris in the late 19th, to names such as
David Hockney and
Damien Hirst in the present day.
Sport
Sport is very popular in England. The country, during the
nineteenth century, was the location of the codification of a number of modern sports, including
association football (soccer),
cricket,
tennis,
rugby league,
rugby union and
badminton. Of these, association football remains the country's most popular spectator sport. England contains more
UEFA grade A stadiums than any other, and is home to some of the sport's top
clubs such as
Liverpool F.C.,
Arsenal F.C.,
Chelsea F.C., and
Manchester United F.C.. The
England national football team won the
1966 FIFA World Cup, which was hosted in England, and is one of the game's superpowers: although they have not won the
FIFA World Cup since.
The
England national rugby union team and
England cricket team are often among the best in the world, with the rugby union team winning the
2003 Rugby World Cup. Rugby union clubs such as
Leicester Tigers have had success in the
Europe-wide
Heineken Cup. At
rugby league, the
England national rugby league team are to compete more regularly after 2006, when England will become a full test nation in lieu of the
Great Britain national rugby league team.
As its name suggests, the
English language, today spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, originated as the language of England, where it remains the principal tongue today (although not officially designated as such). An
Indo-European language in the
Anglo-Frisian branch of the
Germanic family, it is closely related to
Scots and
Frisian. As the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged into England, "
Old English" emerged; some of its literature and poetry has survived.
Used by aristocracy and commoners alike before the
Norman Conquest (1066), English was displaced in cultured contexts under the new regime by the
Norman French language of the new Anglo-French aristocracy. Its use was confined primarily to the lower social classes while official business was conducted in a mixture of
Latin and French. Over the following centuries, however, English gradually came back into fashion among all classes and for all official business except certain traditional ceremonies, some of which survive to this day. But
Middle English, as it had by now become, showed many signs of French influence, both in vocabulary and spelling. During the
Renaissance, many words were coined from
Latin and
Greek origins; and more recent years,
Modern English has extended this custom, being always remarkable for its far-flung willingness to incorporate foreign-influenced words.
The law does not recognise any language as being official, but
English is the only language used in England for general official business. The other national languages of the UK (
Welsh,
Irish and
Scottish Gaelic) are confined to their respective nations, and only Welsh is treated by law as an equal to English (and then only for organisations which do business in Wales).
The only non-
Anglic native spoken language in England is the
Cornish language, a
Celtic language spoken in
Cornwall, which became extinct in the 19th century but has been revived and is spoken in various degrees of fluency by around 3,500 people. This has no official status (unlike Welsh) and is not required for official use, but is nonetheless supported by national and local government under the
European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Cornwall County Council has produced a draft strategy to develop these plans. There is, however, no programme as yet for public bodies to actively promote the language.
Scots is spoken by some adjacent to the Anglo-Scottish Border.
Most
deaf people within England speak
British sign language (BSL), a
sign language native to Britain. The
British Deaf Association estimates that 250,000 people throughout the UK speak BSL as their first or preferred language [
9], but does not give statistics specific to England. Unlike Cornish, BSL is an official language of the UK although most British government departments and hospitals still do not cater to deaf people. The
BBC broadcasts several of its programmes with BSL interpreters.
Different languages from around the world, especially from the former
British Empire and the
Commonwealth of Nations, have been brought to England by immigrants. Many of these are widely spoken within ethnic minority communities, with
Hindi,
Bengali,
Punjabi,
Urdu,
Polish,
Greek,
Turkish and
Cantonese being the most common languages that people living in Britain consider their
first language. These are often used by official bodies to communicate with the relevant sections of the community, particularly in big cities, but this occurs on an "as needed" basis rather than as the result of specific legislative ordinances.
Other languages have also traditionally been spoken by minority populations in England, including
Romany.
Despite the relatively small size of the nation, there are a large number of distinct
English regional accents. Those with particularly strong accents may not be easily understood elsewhere in the country. Use of foreign non-standard varieties of English (such as
Caribbean English) is also widespread.
The country is named after the Angles, one of several
Germanic tribes who settled the country in the 5th and 6th centuries.There are two distinct linguistic patterns for the name of the country.
The majority of European languages use names similar to "England":
*"England" (
Danish,
German,
Icelandic,
Norwegian,
Scots,
Swedish)
*"Engeland" (
Dutch)
*"Inglismaa" (
Estonian)
*"Angleterre" (
French)
*"Англија" (Angliya) (
Macedonian)
*"Англия" (Angliya) (
Russian,
Bulgarian)
*"Anglaterra" (
Catalan)
*"Inghilterra" (
Italian)
*"Ingilterra" (
Maltese,
Egyptian)
*"Inglaterra" (
Spanish,
Portuguese,
Galician)
*"İngiltere" (
Turkish)
*"Anglia" (
Latin,
Hungarian,
Polish,
Romanian,
Albanian)
*"Anglija" (
Slovene,
Lithuanian,
Ukrainian)
*"Engleska" (
Croatian,
Serbian,
Bosnian)
*"Αγγλία" ("Anglía") (
Greek)
*"Englanti" (
Finnish)
*"Ingalaterra" (
Basque)
The
Celtic names are quite different:
*"Bro-Saoz" (
Breton)
*"Pow Sows" (
Cornish)
*"
Sasana" (
Irish)
*"
Sasainn" (
Scottish Gaelic)
*"
Lloegr" (
Welsh) — but "Saeson" for the inhabitants.
*"Sostyn" (
Manx)Except for
Lloegr, which is an ancient geographic term, these names are all derived from the
Saxons, another family of Germanic tribes which arrived at about the same time as the Angles.
The names in Asian languages:
*"ﻥﺎﺘﺴﻠﮝﻨﺍ" ("Inglistan") (
Persian)
*"אנ'לי"" (Anglia) (
Hebrew)
*"イングランド") (
Japanese)
*"Engalaantha" (
Sri Lankans (Sinhalese))
*"இங்கிலாந்து" (Ingilaandhu) (
Sri Lankans (Tamils)
*"Nước Anh" (
Vietnamese))
See:
Wiktionary:England for a further list of non-English names for England.
"England" is sometimes mistakenly used to refer to the entire
United Kingdom or the island of
Great Britain. Frequently the English use the less-specific "Britain" or "the UK", even when "England" is technically correct and commonly also use "England" when "Britain" would be correct.
Alternative names include:
*the slang "Blighty", from the
Hindustani "bila yati" meaning "foreign" (which coincidentally resembles "Britain")
* "
Albion", an ancient name popularised by
Pliny the Elder and
Ptolemy in the 1st century. Supposedly referring to the white (
Latin alba) cliffs of
Dover, this term has also been interpreted as a relative of
Alba, today the
Scots Gaelic name for Scotland. Whatever its origins, "Albion" originally referred to the whole island of
Great Britain and is still sometimes seen that way today — but is more often used for England.
*More poetically, England has been called "this sceptred isle...this other Eden" and "this green and pleasant land", quotations respectively from the poetry of
William Shakespeare (in
Richard II) and
William Blake (
And did those feet in ancient time).
The inhabitants of England are the
English. The slang terms sometimes used for them include "Sassenachs" (from the
Scots Gaelic), "Limeys" (in reference to the
citrus fruits carried aboard English sailing vessels to prevent
scurvy) and "Pom/Pommy" (used in
Australian English and
New Zealand English), but these may be perceived as offensive. Also see
alternative words for British.
The two traditional symbols of England are the
St George's cross (the
English flag) and the
Three Lions coat of arms (see above), both derived from the great European powers that formed the monarchy – the Cross of
Aquitaine and the Lions of
Anjou. The three lions were first definitely used by
Richard I (
Richard the Lionheart) in the late 12th century (although it is also possible that
Henry I may have bestowed it on his son Henry before then). Historian
Simon Schama has argued that the Three Lions are the true symbol of England because the English throne descended down the
Angevin line.
A red cross acted as a symbol for many
Crusaders in the 12th and 13th centuries. It became associated with
St George and England, along with other countries and cities (such as
Georgia,
Milan and the
Republic of Genoa), which claimed him as their
patron saint and used his cross as a banner. It remained in national use until 1707, when the
Union Jack (more properly known as the Union Flag, except when used at sea) which English and Scottish ships had used at sea since 1606, was adopted for all purposes to unite the whole of Great Britain under a common flag. The flag of England no longer has much of an official role, but it is widely flown by
Church of England properties and at sporting events. The Flag of St. George has gained popularity in recent years, and is widely seen flown out of houses, or on cars during important football tournaments in which England is competing. (Paradoxically, the latter is a fairly recent development; until the late 20th century, it was commonplace for fans of English teams to wave the Union Flag, rather than the St George's Cross).
The
rose is widely recognised as the
national flower of England and is used in a variety of contexts. Predominantly, this is a red rose (which also symbolises
Lancashire), such as the badge of the
England national rugby union team. However, a white rose (which also symbolises
Yorkshire) or a "
Tudor rose" (symbolising the end of the
War of the Roses) may also be used on different occasions.
The Three Lions badge performs a similar role for the
English national football team and
English national cricket team.
Although the UK as a whole has "
God Save The Queen" as the national anthem, England does not as yet have an official anthem of its own. The following though are widely regarded as English national hymns:
*"
Jerusalem": Words by
William Blake, Music by
Hubert Parry is the official anthem of English cricket, and widely considered the overwhelming favourite to be confirmed as the English National Anthem at some point in the future.
*"
I Vow to Thee, My Country": Words by
Cecil Spring-Rice, Music by
Gustav Holst*"
Land of Hope and Glory": Words by
A C Benson, Music by
Edward Elgar (although this refers to all of the
United Kingdom, not only England)
*"
Nimrod": Music by
Edward ElgarTo a lesser extent,
Heart of Oak, the unofficial
Royal Navy anthem has also been proposed. Music by Dr. William Boyce (1711-1779). English words by the famous actor David Garrick (1716-1779) in 1759.
"
God Save The Queen" (the national anthem for the UK as a whole) is usually played for English sporting events (e.g. football matches) against teams from outside the UK (although "Land of Hope and Glory" has also been used as the English anthem for the
Commonwealth Games and the
England national rugby league team). "Jerusalem" has been sung before England cricket matches. "
Rule Britannia" (Britannia being the Roman name for England and Wales combined but also a personification of the United Kingdom) was often used in the past for the
English national football team when they played against another of the
home nations but more recently "God Save The Queen" has been used by both the
rugby union and football teams. Upon hearing the orchestral version for the first time,
King George V said that he preferred that "Jerusalem" replace "
God Save The King" as the English National Anthem.
*
English law*
English people*
List of monarchs of England –
Kings of England family tree*
List of English people*
Angeln (region in northern
Germany, presumably the origin of the
Angles after whom England is named)
*
UK topics*
List of not fully sovereign nations*
Office for National Statistics*
The official website of the English Tourist Board — Enjoy England*
BBC Nations: articles on England and her neighbours
*
Campaign for an English Parliament: campaigning for devolution.
roa-rup:Anglii
