History of the British national debt History of the British national debt The history of the British national debt can be traced back to the reign of William III, who engaged a syndicate of City traders and merchants to offer for sale an issue of government debt, which evolved into the Bank of England. In 1815, at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, British government debt reached a peak of £1 billion (that was more than 200% of GDP). At the beginning of the 20th century the national debt had been gradually reduced to around 30 percent of GDP. However, during World War I the British
History of the Church of England was only brought within the jurisdiction of English bishops several centuries later. The Church of England became the established church by an Act of Parliament in the Act of Supremacy, beginning a series of events known as the English Reformation. During the reign of Queen Mary I and King Philip, the church was fully restored under Rome in 1555. However, the pope's authority was again explicitly rejected after the accession of Queen Elizabeth I when the Act of Supremacy 1558 was passed. Catholic and Reformed factions vied for determining the doctrines and worship of the church. This ended with the