The Duke of Wellington and his army of British

The Duke of Wellington and his army of British and Portuguese gradually pushed the French out of Spain and in early 1814, as Napoleon was being driven back in the east by the Prussians, Austrians, and Russians, Wellington invaded southern France. After Napoleon's surrender and exile to the island of Elba, peace appeared to have returned, SONY VGP-BPS4 battery but when he escaped back into France in 1815, the British and their allies had to fight him again. The armies of Wellington and Von Blucher defeated Napoleon once and for all at Waterloo. Simultaneous with the Napoleonic Wars, trade disputes and British impressment of American sailors led to the War of 1812 with the United States. SONY VGP-BPS5 battery A central event in American history, it was little noticed in Britain, where all attention was focused on the struggle with France. The British could devote few resources to the conflict until the fall of Napoleon in 1814. American frigates also inflicted a series of embarrassing defeats on the British navy, which was short on manpower due to the conflict in Europe. SONY VGP-BPS5A battery A stepped-up war effort that year brought about some successes such as the burning of Washington D.C., but many influential voices such as the Duke of Wellington argued that an outright victory over the US was impossible. Peace was agreed to at the end of 1814, but not before Andrew Jackson, unaware of this, SONY VGP-BPS8 battery won a great victory over the British at the Battle of New Orleans in January 1815 (news took several weeks to cross the Atlantic before the advent of steam ships). The Treaty of Ghent subsequently ended the war. As a result, the Red River Basin was ceded to the US, and the Canadian border (now fixed at the 49th parallel) completely demilitarised by both countries, although fears of an American conquest of Canada persisted through the 19th century. SONY PCG-8Y2M battery Britain emerged from the Napoleonic Wars a very different country than it had been in 1793. As industrialisation progressed, society changed, becoming more urban and less rural. The postwar period saw an economic slump, and poor harvests and inflation caused widespread social unrest. Europe after 1815 was on guard against a return of Jacobinism, SONY PCG-7Z1M battery and even liberal Britain saw the passage of the Six Acts in 1819, which proscribed radical activities. By the end of the 1820s, along with a general economic recovery, many of these repressive laws were repealed and in 1828 new legislation guaranteed the civil rights of religious dissenters. SONY PCG-6W2M battery A weak ruler as regent (1811–20) and king (1820–30), George IV let his ministers take full charge of government affairs, playing a far lesser role than his father, George III. The principle now became established that the king accepts as prime minister the person who wins a majority in the House of Commons, whether the king personally favors him or not. SONY PCG-8Z2M battery His governments, with little help from the king, presided over victory in the Napoleonic Wars, negotiated the peace settlement, and attempted to deal with the social and economic malaise that followed.^[27] His brother William IV ruled (1830–37), but was little involved in politics. His reign saw several reforms: SONY PCG-8Z1M battery the poor law was updated, child labour restricted, slavery abolished in nearly all the British Empire, and, most important, the Reform Act 1832 refashioned the British electoral system.^[28] There were no major wars until the Crimean War of 1853–56.^[29] While Prussia, Austria, and Russia, as absolute monarchies, tried to suppress liberalism wherever it might occur, the British came to terms with new ideas. SONY PCG-8Y3M battery Britain intervened in Portugal in 1826 to defend a constitutional government there and recognising the independence of Spain's American colonies in 1824.British merchants and financiers, and later railway builders, played major roles in the economies of most Latin American nations.Sony PCG-61211M battery The British intervened in 1827 on the side of the Greeks, who had been waging a war of independence against the Ottoman Empire since 1824. The Whig Party recovered its strength and unity by supporting moral reforms, especially the reform of the electoral system, the abolition of slavery and emancipation of the Catholics. Sony PCG-71213M battery Catholic emancipation was secured in the Catholic Relief Act of 1829, which removed the most substantial restrictions on Roman Catholics in Britain.^[32] The Whigs became champions of Parliamentary reform. They made Lord Grey prime minister 1830–1834, and the Reform Act of 1832 became their signature measure. Sony PCG-71311M battery It broadened the franchise and ended the system of "rotten borough" and "pocket boroughs" (where elections were controlled by powerful families), and instead redistributed power on the basis of population. It added 217,000 voters to an electorate of 435,000 in England and Wales. The main effect of the act was to weaken the power of the landed gentry, Sony PCG-71212M battery and enlarge the power of the professional and business middle-class, which now for the first time had a significant voice in Parliament. However, the great majority of manual workers, clerks, and farmers did not have enough property to qualify to vote. The aristocracy continued to dominate the government, the Army and Royal Navy, and high society.^[32] Sony PCG-71313M battery After parliamentary investigations demonstrated the horrors of child labour, limited reforms were passed in 1833. Chartism emerged after the 1832 Reform Bill failed to give the vote to the working class. Activists denounced the 'betrayal' of the working class and the 'sacrificing' of their 'interests' by the 'misconduct' of the government. Sony VAIO PCG-31111M battery In 1838, Chartists issued the People's Charter demanding manhood suffrage, equal sized election districts, voting by ballots, payment of MPs (so poor men could serve), annual Parliaments, and abolition of property requirements. Elites saw the movement as pathological, so the Chartists were unable to force serious constitutional debate. Sony VAIO PCG-31112M battery Historians see Chartism as both a continuation of the 18th century fight against corruption and as a new stage in demands for democracy in an industrial society.^[33]In 1832 Parliament abolished slavery in the Empire with the Slavery Abolition Act 1833. The government purchased the slaves for £20,000,000 (the money went to rich plantation owners who mostly lived in England), and freed the slaves, especially those in the Caribbean sugar islands. Sony VAIO PCG-31113M battery Prime Ministers of the period included: William Pitt the Younger, Lord Grenville, Duke of Portland, Spencer Perceval, Lord Liverpool, George Canning, Lord Goderich, Duke of Wellington, Lord Grey, Lord Melbourne, and Sir Robert Peel. The Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's rule between 1837 and 1901 which signified the height of the BritishIndustrial Revolution and the apex of the British Empire. Sony VAIO PCG-31114M battery Scholars debate whether the Victorian period—as defined by a variety of sensibilities and political concerns that have come to be associated with the Victorians—actually begins with the passage ofReform Act 1832. The era was preceded by the Regency era and succeeded by the Edwardian period. Sony VAIO PCG-31111V battery Victoria became queen in 1837 at age 18, after a difficult childhood under the control of her mother. Her long reign saw Britain reach the zenith of its economic and political power. Exciting new technologies such as steam ships, railroads, photography, and telegraphs appeared, making the world much faster-paced. Britain again remained mostly inactive in Continental politics, and it was not affected by the wave of revolutions in 1848. Sony VAIO PCG-31112V battery The Great London Exhibition of 1851 clearly demonstrated Britain's dominance in engineering and industry; that lasted until the rise of the United States and Germany in the 1890s. Using the imperial tools of free trade and financial investment,^[35] it exerted major influence on many countries outside Europe, especially in Latin America and Asia. Thus Britain had both a formal Empire based on British rule and an informal one based on the British pound. Sony VAIO PCG-31113V battery One nagging fear was the possible collapse of the Ottoman Empire. It was well understood that a collapse of that country would set off a scramble for its territory and possibly plunge Britain into war. To head that off Britain sought to keep the Russians from occupying Constantinople and taking over the Bosporous Straits, as well as from threatening India via Afghanistan.^[37] Sony VAIO PCG-31114V battery In 1853, Britain and France intervened in the Crimean War against Russia. Despite mediocre generalship, they managed to capture the Russian port of Sevastopol, compelling Tsar Nicholas I to ask for peace.^[38] A second Russo-Ottoman war in 1877 led to another European intervention, although this time at the negotiating table. Sony VAIO PCG-GRS100 battery The Congress of Berlin blocked Russia from imposing the harsh Treaty of San Stefano on the Ottoman Empire.^[39] Despite its alliance with the French in the Crimean War, Britain viewed the Second Empire of Napoleon III with some distrust, especially as the emperor constructed ironclad warships and began returning France to a more active foreign policy. Sony VAIO PCG-41111M battery But after Napoleon's downfall in the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, he was allowed to spent his last years exiled in Britain. During the American Civil War (1861–1865), British leaders personally disliked American republicanism and favoured the more aristocratic Confederacy, as it had been a major source of cotton for textile mills. Prince Albert was effective in defusing a war scare in late 1861. Sony VAIO PCG-41112M battery The British people, who depended heavily on American food imports, generally favoured the United States. What little cotton was available came from New York, as the blockade by the US Navy shut down 95% of Southern exports to Britain. In September 1862, during the Confederate invasion of Maryland, Britain (along with France) contemplated stepping in and negotiating a peace settlement, Sony VAIO PCG-41111V battery which could only mean war with the United States. But in the same month, US president Abraham Lincoln announced the Emancipation Proclamation. Since support of the Confederacy now meant support for slavery, there was no longer any possibility of European intervention.^[40] Sony VAIO PCG-NV100 battery Meanwhile the British sold arms to both sides, built blockade runners for a lucrative trade with the Confederacy, and surreptitiously allowed warships to be built for the Confederacy. The warships caused a major diplomatic row that was resolved in the Alabama Claims in 1872, in the Americans' favour. Sony VAIO PCG-V505 battery In 1867, Britain united most of its North American colonies as the Dominion of Canada, giving it self-government and responsibility for its own defence, but Canada did not have an independent foreign policy until 1931. Several of the colonies temporarily refused to join the Dominion despite pressure from both Canada and Britain; the last one, Newfoundland, held out until 1949. Sony VAIO PCG-Z1A battery The second half of the 19th century saw a huge expansion of Britain's colonial empire in Asia and Africa. In the latter continent, there was talk of the Union Jack flying from "Cairo to Cape Town", which only became a reality at the end of World War I. Having possessions on six continents, Britain had to defend all of its empire with a volunteer army, for it was the only power in Europe to have no conscription. Sony VAIO PCG-Z1A battery Some questioned whether the country was overstretched, and in 1905 the British foreign minister said that the "empire resembles a huge, gouty giant with its fingers and toes extended all over the globe, which cannot be approached without eliciting a scream." Sony VAIO PCG-3C1M battery The rise of the German Empire since 1871 posed a new challenge, for it (along with the United States) threatened to take Britain's place as the world's foremost industrial power. Germany acquired a number of colonies in Africa and the Pacific, but Chancellor Otto von Bismarck succeeded in achieving general peace through his balance of power strategy. Sony VAIO PCG-3F1M battery When William II became emperor in 1888, he discarded Bismarck, began using bellicose language, and planned to build a navy to rival Britain's.^[42] Ever since Britain had taken control of South Africa from the Netherlands in the Napoleonic Wars, it had run afoul of the Dutch settlers who further away and created two republics of their own. Sony VAIO PCG-3H1M battery The British imperial vision called for control over the new countries and the Dutch-speaking "Boers" (or "Afrikaners") fought back in the War in 1899–1902. Outgunned by a mighty empire, the Boers waged a guerilla war, which gave the British regulars a difficult fight, but weight of numbers, superior equipment, and often brutal tactics eventually brought about a British victory. Sony VAIO PCG-3J1M battery The war had been costly in human rights and was widely criticised by Liberals in Britain and worldwide. However, the United States gave its support. The Boer republics were merged into Union of South Africain 1910; it had internal self-government but its foreign policy was controlled by London and was an integral part of the British Empire. Sony VAIO PCG-8141M battery Part of the agreement which led to the 1800 Act of Union stipulated that the Penal Laws in Ireland were to be repealed and Catholic Emancipation granted. However King George III blocked emancipation, arguing that to grant it would break his coronation oath to defend the Anglican Church. A campaign under lawyer and politician Daniel O'Connell, and the death of George III, Sony VAIO VGN-S battery led to the concession of Catholic Emancipation in 1829, allowing Catholics to sit in Parliament. O'Connell then mounted an unsuccessful campaign for the Repeal of the Act of Union. When potato blight hit the island in 1846, much of the rural population was left without food because cash crops were being exported to pay rents. SONY PCG-7113M battery British politicians such as the Prime Minister Robert Peel were at this time wedded to the economic policy of laissez-faire, which argued against state intervention of any sort. While enormous sums were raised by private individuals and charities (American Indians^[who?] sent supplies, while Queen Victoriapersonally gave the present-day equivalent € 70,000), SONY PCG-7112M battery lack of adequate action let the problem become a catastrophe. The class of cottiers or farm labourers was virtually wiped out in what became known in Britain as 'The Irish Potato Famine' and in Ireland as the Great Hunger. Most Irish people elected as their MPs Liberals and Conservatives who belonged to the main British political parties (note: the poor didn't have a vote at that time). SONY PCG-8Z3M battery A significant minority also elected Unionists, who championed the cause of the maintenance of the Act of Union. A former Tory barrister turned nationalist campaigner, Isaac Butt, established a new moderate nationalist movement, the Home Rule League, in the 1870s. After Butt's death the Home Rule Movement, or the Irish Parliamentary Party as it had become known, Sony VAIO PCG-8161M battery was turned into a major political force under the guidance of William Shaw and in particular a radical young Protestant landowner, Charles Stewart Parnell. The Irish Parliamentary Party dominated Irish politics, to the exclusion of the previous Liberal, Conservative and Unionist parties that had existed. Sony VAIO PCG-3C2M battery Parnell's movement proved to be a broad church, from conservative landowners to the Land League which was campaigning for fundamental reform of Irish landholding, where most farms were held on rental from large aristocratic estates. Parnell's movement campaigned for 'Home Rule', by which they meant that Ireland would govern itself as a region within the United Kingdom, SONY PCG-7122M battery in contrast to O'Connell who wanted complete independence subject to a shared monarch and Crown. Two Home Rule Bills (1886 and 1893) were introduced by Liberal Prime MinisterEwart Gladstone, but neither became law, mainly due to opposition from the House of Lords. The issue divided Ireland, for a significant unionist minority(largely though by no means exclusively based in Ulster), SONY PCG-7121M battery opposed Home Rule, fearing that a Catholic-Nationalist parliament in Dublin would discriminate against them and would also impose tariffs on industry; while most of Ireland was primarily agricultural, six counties in Ulster were the location of heavy industry and would be affected by any tariff barriers imposed. SONY VAIO PCG-7192M battery The Queen gave her name to an era of British greatness, especially in the far-flung British Empire with which she identified. She played a small role in politics, but became the iconic symbol of the nation, the empire, and proper, restrained behaviour.^[46] Her strength lay in good common sense and directness of character; SONY VAIO PCG-7194M battery she expressed the qualities of the British nation which at that time made it preeminent in the world. As a symbol of domesticity, endurance and Empire, and as a woman holding the highest public office during an age when middle- and upper-class women were expected to beautify the home while men dominated the public sphere, SONY VAIO PCG-7195M battery Queen Victoria's influence has been enduring. Her success as ruler was due to the power of the self-images she successively portrayed of innocent young woman, devoted wife and mother, suffering and patient widow, and grandmotherly matriarch. Disraeli and Gladstone dominated the politics of the late 19th century, Britain's golden age of parliamentary government. SONY VAIO PCG-7196M battery They long were idolized, but historians in recent decades have become much more critical, especially regarding Disraeli.^[48][49] Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881), prime minister 1868 and 1874–80, remains an iconic hero of the Conservative Party. He was typical of the generation of British leaders who matured in the 1830s and 1840s. SONY VAIO PCG-7191V battery He was concerned with threats to established political, social, and religious values and elites; he emphasized the need for national leadership in response to radicalism, uncertainty, and materialism.^[50] He is especially known for his enthusiastic support for expanding and strengthening the British Empire in India and Africa as the foundation of British greatness, SONY VAIO PCG-21211M battery in contrast to Gladstone's negative attitude toward imperialism. Gladstone denounced Disraeli's policies of territorial aggrandizement, military pomp, and imperial symbolism (such as making the Queen Empress of India), saying it did not fit a modern commercial and Christian nation. Disraeli drummed up support by warnings of a supposed Russian threat to India that sank deep into the Conservative mindset. SONY VAIO PCG-21212M battery Disraeli's old reputation as the "Tory democrat" and promoter of the welfare state fell away as historians showed he that Disraeli had few proposals for social legislation in 1874–80, and that the 1867 Reform Act did not reflect a vision Conservatism for the unenfranchised working man.^[51] However he did work to reduce class anatagonism, for as Perry notes, SONY VAIO PCG-21212V battery "When confronted with specific problems, he sought to reduce tension between town and country, landlords and farmers, capital and labour, and warring religious sects in Britain and Ireland—in other words, to create a unifying synthesis." William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) was the Liberal counterpart to Disraeli, Sony VGN-NR11S Battery serving as prime minister four times (1868–74, 1880–85, 1886, and 1892–94). His financial policies, based on the notion of balanced budgets, low taxes and laissez-faire, were suited to a developing capitalist society but could not respond effectively as economic and social conditions changed. SONY VAIO PCG-21213V battery Called the "Grand Old Man" later in life, he was always a dynamic popular orator who appealed strongly to British workers and lower middle class. The deeply religious Gladstone brought a new moral tone to politics with his evangelical sensibility and opposition to aristocracy. His moralism often angered his upper-class opponents (including Queen Victoria, who strongly favoured Disraeli), SONY VAIO PCG-21214V battery and his heavy-handed control split the Liberal party. His foreign policy goal was to create a European order based on cooperation rather than conflict and mutual trust instead of rivalry and suspicion; the rule of law was to supplant the reign of force and self-interest. This Gladstonian concept of a harmonious Concert of Europe was opposed to and ultimately defeated by the Germans with a Bismarckiansystem of manipulated alliances and antagonisms. Sony VAIO PCG-5N2M battery Historians portray Conservative prime Minister Lord Salisbury (1830–1903) as a talented leader who was an icon of traditional, aristocratic conservatism.^[54] Robert Blake considers Salisbury "a great foreign minister, [but] essentially negative, indeed reactionary in home affairs".Professor P.T. Marsh’s estimate is more favourable than Blake's, Sony VAIO PCG-5P1M battery he portrays Salisbury as a leader who "held back the popular tide for twenty years."^[56] Professor Paul Smith argues that, "into the ‘progressive’ strain of modern Conservatism he simply will not fit."^[57] Professor H.C.G. Matthew points to "the narrow cynicism of Salisbury".^[58] One admirer of Salisbury, SONY VAIO PCG-81212M battery Maurice Cowling largely agrees with the critics and says Salisbury found the democracy born of the 1867 and 1884 Reform Acts as "perhaps less objectionable than he had expected—succeeding, through his public persona, in mitigating some part of its nastiness." The Victorian era is famous for the Victorian standards of personal morality. Sony Vaio VGN-CR13/R Battery Historians generally agree that the middle classes held high personal moral standards (and usually followed them), but have debated whether the working classes followed suit. Moralists in the late 19th century such as Henry Mayhewdecried the slums for their supposed high levels of cohabitation without marriage and illegitimate births. SONY PCG-8113M battery However new research using computerized matching of data files shows that the rates of cohabitation were quote low—under 5%—for the working class and the poor. By contrast in 21st century Britain, nearly half of all children are born outside marriage, and nine in ten newlyweds have been cohabitating. SONY PCG-8112M battery