Historical figures random facts: List of the most notable men in British history. Let's have a closer look at.
1. Alfred the Great (849–99)
Alfred the Great is really the father of England. Before Alfred the idea that you could unify quarrelsome Saxon kingdoms and the Celtic kingdoms of the southwest and Britons of the northwest was a pipe dream. But he achieved that. To start with, he was a great military ruler: as King of Wessex he saw off the Vikings, who had threatened to carve up England. By inventing a system of fortified towns – a military innovation – he protected Wessex. The Vikings were tough and scary, but what they couldn’t do was besiege. They came by boat and couldn’t bring heavy equipment: put a wall in front of them and they were in trouble.
Alfred had a profound effect not just in terms of the military, but also on learning and education. He was far-sighted: it was he who started the codification of the English legal system. He was a founding father of the English project – he began to call himself King of the Angles and Saxons – and his descendants, particularly his grandson Athelstan, went on to conquer the whole of England. He was altogether a really extraordinary man who began the movement to a more integrated British Isles.
2. Robert the Bruce (1274–1329)
Robert the Bruce was someone who was as important in the history of Scotland as Alfred was in the history of England. He is one of the most important Britons ever – I’m often asked about top British people and no one mentions anyone who lived outside England. He was the first King of Scotland: he crowned himself at Scone – very symbolic as Edward I, King of England, had removed the Stone of Scone to form part of the Coronation Chair in Westminster Abbey.
It is thanks to Robert the Bruce, and virtually him alone, that there was no lasting conquest of Scotland. When Scotland and England did later join together to form Britain, it was as equal partners rather than one as a conquered nation. What most people know about him is the legend of the spider that is supposed to have inspired him when hiding in a cave, but the important thing is his massive impact on British history.
Robert the Bruce’s actions explain why there are two separate countries of England and Scotland – it was the result of Robert the Bruce’s seemingly hopeless opposition to King Edward I and Edward II. He was a great leader and a great warrior: he managed to put together a coalition and defeat a massive English army and establish an independent Scotland. Bannockburn was by far the most significant and far-reaching English defeat. After that, there was no serious attempt to annexe Scotland.
3. William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
William Shakespeare is absolutely a man of history, one of the most significant human beings that has ever lived. He is the finest writer of English and probably the greatest wordsmith in history. If you are going to talk about the English language – or even just language – you have to talk about Shakespeare: he means something to everyone. He has been translated all over the world. It’s almost ironic to put him in a list of Britons: he doesn’t really belong to any one place, I don’t think, though of course he was born and raised in England, in Stratford-upon-Avon. Shakespeare is for everyone. His history plays alone have coloured every succeeding generation’s view of the kings of England. Richard still languishes in ignominy while King Henry V is an unblemished hero.
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4. Thomas Cromwell (1485-1540)
When he was chief minister to King Henry VIII, as touched upon in the BBC’s recent adaptation of Wolf Hall, Thomas Cromwell engineered the break with Rome. But he did more than advocate the Reformation – he started to define the rights and status of the English Parliament in England and the King’s relationship with Parliament: the idea that the highest law of the land is that which is voted for in Parliament and assented to by the King is one that remains to this day.
He was also a terrifically good organiser and a moderniser. It was he who instituted the registration of births, marriages and deaths in each parish, for example. He tried to break the power of the church, of aristocratic privileges; he sorted out the anomalies left over from medieval history, he brought in legislation to make things uniform, and to help the state to tax people effectively. He started to turn England into a modern power.
5. John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough (1650-1722)
I wanted to include a general and decided that Marlborough was more significant than even the Duke of Wellington, who famously won the Battle of Waterloo, and Montgomery of Alamein, who helped turn round the Second World War. He was a particularly extraordinary general who won very significant battles against King Louis XIV of France, who at that time was the most powerful man in Europe.
Interestingly, he was also a diplomat and a politician – his wife was Queen Anne’s best friend – and he was a man who moved in the highest circles of governmental life, as well as the military. His diplomatic skills were fundamental to holding together the Grand Alliance, the coalition against Louis XIV. He lived to be a fine old man – he was 72 when he died. And, of course, he had a famous descendant – Sir Winston Churchill was born in the house that Marlborough built, at Blenheim Palace – named after one of his victories.
6. Joseph Banks (1743–1820)
Just as Shakespeare had an impact on global culture, I wanted to choose someone who had an impact on the birth and growth of science – and Joseph Banks had a huge effect both in his own work – he took part in one of the most significant scientific explorations with Captain Cook through the South pacific on Endeavour, bringing back hundreds of botanical specimens – but almost more importantly, as a hub for other scientists. He got Kew Gardens up and running, but he was also patron of Herschel, one of greatest astronomers and discoverer of Uranus, and the chemist and inventor of the Davy miner’s lamp, Humphrey Davy. He was a kind of one-man lobbying group for science, as President of the Royal Society for 41 years. He was at the centre of this remarkable upsurge in science and exploration, taking Britain to the very forefront of world science. Much of that research would allow Britain to develop the biggest economy in the world, and would lead on to real economic benefits in a generation.
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