The next 100 years 1660 to 1760 and on to 1900
This period is dominated by another 100 years war with the old enemy France. The winner was to become the world superpower so that post 1815 to 1900 all nations kowtowed to England or better Great Britain as Scotland, Wales and Ireland were all ruled from London.

North American Colonial Expansion.

The English Civil war of 1642-1651 temporally brought a halt to emigration from England to the American colonies. Indeed many Puritans from New England returned home to join the Puritan Oliver Cromwell who eventually over threw the King (Charles 1st). Cromwell was well known for fighting Catholic uprisings particularly in Ireland in a ruthless fashion but should also be remembered for:

• Realising the potential economic importance of the embryonic colonies, the expansion of the Navy to defend the colonies and commencing hit and run wars against the French and the Spanish in their profitable Caribbean sugar islands.
• Agreeing to a request from some European Jews to settle in England as Cromwell saw the improvement to Dutch government finances they had facilitated.

After 1651 emigration form England to North America recommenced and was equalled by Catholics fleeing Ireland oppressed Scots from the Highlands. They were joined by religiously persecuted Protestants and Catholics from Europe who gravitated to those colonies who were set up to practice religious tolerance. These included Rhode Island, Pennsylvania and later Georgia. Most of the territorial expansion followed to fertile river valleys which flowed into the Atlantic from the Appellations. Pennsylvania was the exception. Run by Quakers who are pacifists and also religiously open they were soon outnumbered by non English speaking Europeans who generally could live with Quaker fundamentalists who were not out to impose their tough rules. Pennsylvania is the only one of the 13 colonies which straddled the Appellation Mountains and held a unique position on a high plateaux in these mountains and westwards to the Ohio river valley where they were the first to discover the hated French already there, be they in small numbers largely as hunter trappers and explorer mappers, rather than farmer settlers.

The French were ahead of the English to North America thanks to seaman and navigator Jacques Cartier who, sponsored by his King, Francis 1st went looking for the North West Passage (to China) in 1534 but along with everybody else failed to find it. However in 1536 on his second trip he sailed up the St Lawrence River to Montréal and founded a colony in 1536. (Montréal of course did not exist at the time neither did he call his colony Montréal). However he called the land Canada which corresponded to a French pronunciation of a local Indian word probably meaning place. Later French settlers never tried to sell the concept of a New France to any French King as they considered the land adjacent to the St Lawrence river too cold to cultivate and concentrated on trapping Beaver for fir hats or rather as did the English, further north in Hudson Bay, they traded goods including firearms with the local Indian tribes, for Beaver pelts. French explorers ventured south and found the Great Lakes and the Mississippi river which lead them south all the way to the Mexican Gulf by way of Detroit and Des Moines to New Orleans. The only French King with a credible expansionist policy outside Europe was their "Sun King" Louis 14th 1643-1715. However his real thinking was always to expand France in Europe north into the Rhine Valley and south to rule Spain thereby picking up all Spain's overseas colonies. The English realised they could not let him achieve this ambition and hence the "War of Spanish Succession" which was a battle within the 100 years campaign between England and France. The French had effectively previously shot themselves in their religious feet when in 1589 they took away the religious rights of the French Protestants (Huguenots) who happened to account for 90% of their skilled seamen plus many manufacturing skills. These men and their families made new homes for themselves in England and the new English American Colonies.

The 100 years war with France for world domination which included domination of the North American Continent.

Please note that generally historians do not call this period a "Hundred Years War" as the name is already given to the Medieval "Hundred Years War" between England and France of 1337-1453 when five consecutive English Kings tried to regain the land they had lost in France (Normandy south to the boarders with Spain). The great Medieval English King Henry 5th won all this land back but died before he could marry the French Princess Catherine of Valois and secure the French throne. The Kings son Henry 6th was as useless as his father had been great and almost immediately lost all the gains achieved to the now famous female military leader, Joan of Arc.

The Hundred Years War we look at now, won by England over France made England the world's undisputed Super Power from 1760 until about 100 years ago (c1900).

The important battles were:

• 1689-97 The Nine Years War. Known in America as King Williams War. William was now ruling England as well as his native Holland and needed to stop King Louis 14th of France from taking over the Hapsburg dynasty of Austria which was ruling Hungary, Bohemia and Spain, together with much of Italy. Ended in stalemate with no major territorial exchanges.
• 1702-14 The War of Spanish Succession. England against France and Spain commenced by England to stop France taking over all Spain's territories including their vital colonies
• 1739-48 The War of Austrian Succession. England supported Austria against designs by the French on the Austrian throne, again!
• 1756 -63 The Seven Years War. Called in America the French and Indian Wars. This was a global battle between England and France where the main theatres of war were Europe, India and North America. In Europe, England went to defend Hanover (the base of the German English Georgian Kings) against Invasion by France supported by Austria, Russia and Spain. In India the Englishman Clive fought France and the Bengali Prince for domination of Bengal (now Bangladesh). In North America the English under Wolfe fought the French in the Ohio valley and Canada (Quebec). The English won all three of these major battles for territorial domination ending up as the undisputed world superpower. It was an astonishing achievement bearing in mind France at the time had a population of 25 million to England's 8 million. The Key was the superior English Navy which blockaded the French sea ports and the English financial system created through Jewish backed loans. These victories were confirmed along with England as the world superpower in the Treaty of Paris 1763.

These Victories put England in a position where they could dominate world trade which took the form of shipping goods out of India to the Colonies in North America and vice versa always, by law, in English ships. All in the English Garden was however not rosy.

• The huge territories now controlled by England needed standing armies in case of attack.
• Similarly the Navy needed expanding to protect the huge merchant shipping fleets. More costs for England who was already saddled with huge war loans.
• The Kings of England, the Georges, were German not English appointed because they were the nearest Protestants to the English royal linage. Neither George 1st 1714-27 nor George 2nd 1727-60 spoke English which at least forced them to appoint an elected Prime Minister (for the first time) to run the country.
• While Englishmen were valiantly expanding the Empire their Kings were servicing their numerous mistresses. George 2nd had more then 100 regulars. By the same token the English aristocracy many of them being parliamentarians lived at a time when the majority regularly slept with high class society prostitutes called courtesans.
• The Englishman of the moment was William Pitt who had military, moral and economic naus to rule an Empire but became too ill to regularly take his seat in Parliament
• Benjamin Franklin an American, born in Boston and brought up in Philadelphia lived in London as representative of a number of American Colonies and observed the corruption endemic in the Royal Family and the ruling classes of the most powerful nation in the world. He also observed the plight of the poor and the birth of the Industrial and Agricultural revolutions. He was also directly aware of the writings of the Enlightenment philosophers Englishman John Locke and Frenchman, exiled to London, Voltaire. Both preaching the rights of the individual against the state.

In America after the end of the seven years war and the fall of French controlled Canada to the English.

• The English gave control of the vast lands west of the Appellation Mountains in the Ohio and northern Mississippi valleys to their new French speaking subjects in Quebec. The loyal English Americans were flabbergasted as this was land adjacent to the 13 colonies and scheduled for their expansion.
• The Parliament in London decided to impose taxes on the American colonists to help pay for the 7 Years War and support a standing English army in North America. The taxes levied added up to much less than the taxes being paid by tax payers in England but not withstanding this, the colonialists objected to taxation without representation in the London Parliament. These taxes were opposed by the Pitt but he was too ill to force his views through parliament. The new King now 20 year old George 3rd supported the concept of getting taxes from the stupid colonists but his views were from a "child" who had hardly ventured outside his palace at Kew before he became King.
• Not surprisingly a revolutionary spirit was brewing in the American colonies led in Boston by the brewers son Samuel Adams. Today he would have been described as a leftwing rabble rouser and was regularly seen in the Boston portside inns drumming up support from dockers for a militia. The concept of American Independence was not popular however either in America, where support was probably less than 10% or in England were the common man organised rallies calling for the abolition of these taxes on their brothers in America. Indeed in America the call for independence was seen as a civil war of brother against brother and father against son. The most famous example of the latter being the separatist Benjamin Franklin against his loyalist son.
• Together with King George 3rd the two parliamentary ministers responsible for dreaming up and implementing these taxes were Prime Minister and Chancellor Lord George Grenville followed by Chancellor Charles Townsend. The Grenville taxes were from 1764, on imported Sugar, then the Quartering act of 1765 which forced householders to billet English soldiers, then the 1765 Stamp Act which put a stamp duty on every form of transaction like invoices and purchases to printed matter like newspapers and playing cards. Thanks partly to Samuel Adams no Stamp duty was ever collected. PM Grenville was forced to resign. The new Chancellor Townsend limited his taxes to import duties on glass, paper, lead, paint and tea. The latter led to the so called "Boston Tea Party" where some of Adams' men dressed up as Indians tipped a shipload of tea into Boston Harbour. The response from England was to close the Harbour and so the livelihood of Samuel Adams' thugs. Such a move was enforced by the small standing army the English employed in each colony.
• The Lexington conflict. 19th April 1775. Who fired the first shot? The English army in Boston was made up from English Red Coat regulars augmented by German mercenaries, in all only a few hundred men. Spies had told them that the American militias has a huge cache of firearms in Concorde a few miles outside Boston so they were instructed to find and destroy them. Halfway there they stopped in Lexington where they were surrounded by a gang of Adams' men and they eyed each other defiantly. Bang! Nobody knows who fired the first shot but it gave the excuse for the highly nervous English soldiers to fire a series of volleys, which they were very good at, into the crowd. Many American fell wounded and the soldiers marched on to Concorde found the arms cache and destroyed it. Adams saw his chance and quickly sent messages to his many militia to harass the soldiers all the way back to Boston. They were very good at it and when the bedraggled English returned to barracks they effective never ventured out again. A ship was sent to England to request reinforcements but on seeing the request George 3rd was livid wondering why the most powerful nation in the world could be humiliated by a bunch of colonial thugs. The request was denied. In Boston the fastest horseman was dispatched south to spread the astonishing news to the other 12 colonies.
• George Washington was a wealthy landowner typical of the Virginian gentry who had fought alongside the English against the French where he distinguished himself though his military acumen and natural leadership. The news of the Lexington massacre and the subsequent dousing of the English Red Coats, caused all 13 colonies to meet (for the first time) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Washington was elected to organise an American army to fight the English from the various colonial militias. Independence was declared on 4th July 1776 and the interested European observers thought the English would win easily but after two years when it was seen that this was not the case all the European countries who were jealous of the world domination of the English joined the fight on the American side who achieved surrender by the English in 1783.
• America could now be divided into two with English Canada moved back to north of the 48th parallel giving the 13 colonies now under one leader for the first time, (George Washington) the freedom to move west over the Appellations into uncharted Indian country.

This is not the end of the story of the English in North America, far from it. After Independence there was a huge influx (50,000 people) of American Loyalists (to England) who moved north into Canada and settled west of French speaking Quebec in modern day Ontario. The French speakers could have requested to pledge their allegiance to France but they preferred rule by the British! English Canada was bourn. (The population of French speakers in Quebec at the time was only some 50/60,000 people.) On the west coast south of present day British Columbia was a huge unpopulated area then called Oregon which stretched south to Spanish California and East to the Dakotas. It was agreed to share this between the English and the Americans. As with the rest of the Wild West the Americans had a policy of populating these territories as fast as possible and soon they out numbered English and Spanish settlers by 5 to 1. American annexed the Oregon territories peacefully and Texas which was part of Mexico declared independence initially and then joined the United States. California was purchased. The last time the English fought on American soil was in 1812. France had declared war on England, (again!) in a quest under Napoleon Bonaparte to conquer the whole of Europe (Again!) The all powerful English navy could not (or did not bother to) discriminate between French and American shipping on the high seas and America declared war on England. The English had Canada to defend and so attacked and burnt down Washington DC. The Americans retaliated by burning down Toronto. The English sent a fleet to attack New Orleans but peace had already been declared. The American won the battle of New Orleans in vain. The English and Americans have been friends ever since!