What specifically did America inherit from Britain in terms of our political system, law, and language?

Luv2singnbling asked:


Isolated from the European continent, rain-drenched and often fogged in but also green and dotted with thatched cottages, quaint stone churches, and mysterious stone ruins, the island of Great Britain seems made of elves, legends, and poets. If this land of mystery, beauty, melancholy weather has produced Stone-henge, Robin Hood, and Shakespeare, it has also produced the theory of gravity, the Industrial Revolution, radar, penicillin, and the Beatles.

The British Legacy
We tend to associate the British with their monarchy and their former empire. We should also remember, however, that while most of the world suffered under various forms of tyranny, the British from the time of the Magna Carta (1215) were gradually creating a political system “by and for the people” that remains today a source of envy and inspiration for many nations. Although Americans rebelled against British rule in 1776, the U.S. wouldn’t be what it is today without the legacy of British common law-with its emphasis on personal rights and freedom. Nor would the U.S. be what it is today without the British parliamentary government, British literature, and the English language.

This relatively small island of Great Britain has been invaded and settled many times: first by ancient people we call the Iberians, then by the Celts (kelts), by the Romans, by the Angles and Saxons, by the Vikings, and by the Normans. Whatever we think of as British today owes something to each of these invaders.

The Spirit Of The Celts

When Greek travelers visited what is now Great Britian in the fourth century B.C., they found an island settled by tall blonde warriors who called themselves the Celts. Among these island Celts was a group called Brythons-Britons-who left their permanent stamp in one of the names eventually adopted for the land they settled (Britain).
The religion of the Celts seems to have been a form of animism, from the Latin word for “spirit.” The Celts saw spirits everywhere- in rivers, trees, stones, ponds, fire, and thunder, These spirits, or gods, controlled all aspects of existence, and they had to be constantly satisfied. Priests, called Druids, acted as intermediaries between the gods and the people. Sometimes ritual dances were called for , sometimes even human sacrifice. Some think that Stone-henge–that array of huge stones on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire–was used by the Druids for religious rites having to do with the lunar and solar cycles.

The Celtic Heroes & Heriones: A Magical World
The mythology of the Celts has influenced British and Irish writers to this day. Sir Thomas Malory, in the fifteenth century, having time on his hands while in jail, gathered together the Celtic legends about a warrior named Author. He mixed these stories generously with chivalric legends from the Continent land produced “Le Morte d’Arthur”, about the king who ultimately became the very embodiment of British values.
Early in the twentieth century, William Butler Yeats used the Celtic myths in his poetry and plays in an attempt to make the Irish aware of their lost heroic past.
The Celtic stories are very different from the Anglo-Saxon tales that came later, although it’s the Anglo-Saxon myths that we tend to study in school. Unlike the male-dominated Anglo-Saxon stories, the Celtic legends are full of strong women, like the tall and fierce and very beautiful Queen Maeve of Connacht in Ireland. Maeve once led her troops in an epic battle over the ownership of a fabulous white bull whose back was so broad the ownership the fifty children could play upon it. Celtic stories, unlike the later, brooding Anglo-Saxon stories, leap into the sunlight (no matter how much blood is spilled). Full of fantastic animals, passionate love affairs, and incredible adventures, the Celtic myths take you to enchanted lands where magic and the imagination rule.

The Romans: The Great Administrators
Beginning with an invasion led by Julius Caesar in 55 B.C. and culminating in one organized by Emperor Claudius about a hundred years later, the Celts were finally conqeured by the legions of Rome. Using the administrative genius that enabled them to hold dominion over much of the known world, the Romans providedthe armies and organization that prevented further serious invasions of Britian for several hundred years. They built a network of roads (some still used today) and a great defensive wall seventy-three miles long. During Roman rule, Christianity, which would later become a unifying force, gradually took hold under the leadership of European missionaries. The old Celtic religion began to vanish.
If the Romans had stayed, Londoners today might speak Italian. But the Romans had troubles at home. By A.D. 409, they had evacuated their troops from Britian, leaving roads, walls, villas, and great public baths, but no central government. Without Roman control, Britain was a country of seperate clans. The resulting weakness made the island

Tracy