O Lord, our God, Arise: More Weekly Reports from England

Scattered, horribly out of context "praise" for this AAR:

"Boo! " -Morsky
"Immoral!" "Highly disappointing." -Kurt_Steiner
"Meh." -RGB




The History of England to 1419

Tens of thousands of years ago, the climactic changes associated with the ice ages created a large gap of water between the continent of Europe and the new island, Great Britain. The western and northern parts of the new island were and still are quite mountainous, but the rest was and still is a mostly flat region, all close to the sea, that in time came to be known as England.

The first recorded inhabitants of the region were not English but instead the ancestors of the Welsh, then far more numerous. Britain's main claim to importance at this time was tin, a vitally important metal during the Bronze Age and still of much use after iron came into use. The Greeks and Carthaginians had intermittent contact with the island for several centuries until a man by the name of Gaius Julius Caesar arrived.

Caesar's invasion was one of his few defeats, gaining the region a century of breathing room. It was not enough, however, and in the 40s AD the Roman emperor Claudius returned, with enough force to subjigate the southern half of the island. The division between that half and the north began then, symbolized by the creation of a later emperor: Hadrian's Wall, built in the 2nd century AD.


The remains of Hadrian's Wall

The wall and Roman authority held for two centuries; but while the provinces of Britannia were relatively peaceful, elsewhere things were not. By the 4th century Rome was beginning to succumb to pressures both internal and external, one of them being civil war. It was from Britannia that Constantine the Great led his legions to overthrow Maximian. Eventually, Rome fell into disarray, and the legions left the island in 410 to help defend the city itself.

Three of the Germanic tribes who were looking for new land to take were the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. The Angles came from the German region of Holstein, along the Baltic coast; the Saxons came, as would be expected, from Lower Saxony along the North Sea, and the Jutes from the mainland of Denmark. Leading them at first were Hengest and Horsa, Jutish brothers who were invited as mercenaries to help protect the British from invasions coming from modern Ireland and Scotland.


Hengest, in a later depiction

This was a vast mistake. The British leadership had opened the door for the tribes to move to Britain en masse, rapidly taking large portions of the southern and eastern lowlands for themselves; it was only tenacious defence in modern Wales, Northumberland, and Cornwall that saved those regions from immediate conquest. From the Angles came a new name for the lowlands they had occupied, Englaland, which soon spread to the territory of the Saxons and Jutes as well.

Amongst the Saxons who came over was an earl named Cerdic.* Along with his son Cynric, he established himself over a small region near the Isle of Wight and by 519 became leaders of the West Saxons. Their kingdom would come to become known as Wessex, and become a major force in the southern parts of England. They, like the other Anglo-Saxon rulers, claimed descent from the old Germanic gods:

"Cerdic son of Elesa, Elesa son of Esla, Esla of Gewis, Gewis of Wig, Wig of Freawine, Freawine of Frithogar, Frithogar of Brand, Brand of Baeldaeg, Baeldaeg of Woden [Odin]."
--Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, A.D. 552

Said gods were on their way out, however. The British people they had pushed out were Christians, and over the next four centuries the English joined the rest of Europe in converting to that religion. Monasteries appeared throughout England, the most prestigious being that of Lindisfarne, where wonderfully decorated gospels were written.

It was at that monastery that the next part of English history began in blood.
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*The form "Cedric" is a 19th-century error.

Olaus Petrus: Yep, I hope to gather at least a few people who didn't read the original (although it would be nice if they did).

Kurt_Steiner: Don't get your hopes too high, I'm not that good at it.

Llywelyn: I should hope so, that's the proper Anglo-Saxon name. Any complaints can be forwarded to them.

Lining up isn't the problem. The problem is those random spaces that keep showing up in there.

Lindisfarne is generally known as the first major attack, but the first appearance of the Vikings in England occured in 787 when three ships attacked Portsmouth. The arrival of the Vikings unsurprisingly caused great concern for the English. Despite this, however, the English continued to fight amongst themselves in their various kingdoms, whilst the Vikings made a few raids and then returned home. This situation continued for several decades, until, in 854, the Vikings decided to stay in one of the places they raided. A few years later, in 865, they came in true force: the "Great Heathen Army", as the Chronicle called them, landed in Kent. After taking that region, they continued to ransack more of England: East Anglia in 866, York in 867, Mercia in 868.

With their control of most of England complete, they soon marched southward, to defeat the last remaining English kingdom: Wessex. In 871, there was a battle at Reading, led by King Aethelred I. Despite the fact that the people of Wessex were able to hold their own, Aethelred was killed, leaving his brother Alfred to hold the Northmen off. This he was able to do, and the Vikings soon returned to Northumbria.

But they returned in 878. Alfred was at first defeated, but he refused to give in. The Vikings finally decided to go to greener pastures, namely London and France. What would normally have been merely a footnote was that one group of them settled in the northern part of the country, calling themselves the Normans.


A later depiction of Alfred I the Great

Alfred's stout defence gained him the support of the rest of the English. He was the first one to do so and become a proper King of the English, and it was this that gained him the name of "the Great"--one of only two kings in English history to be so called. England became divided between the new Kingdom of England, in the south, and the "Danelaw" in the northeast. This region was to leave a permanent mark on England, not only politically but ethnically and linguistically. Many Norse words found their way into the English language, making the invasion as important as the Breton invasions 400 years later.

Slowly, the Danes were pushed out and England united under one kingdom. They would return, however, and in even greater force, in the early 1000s. The weak rule of Aethelred II brought two foreign kings: first Sweyne Forkbeard, who never ruled unopposed, and a few years later Canute (Cnut in Old English), who easily took full control. For the next two decades he would rule Denmark, England, and Norway in the most extensive kingdom of the Vikings before and since, and thus came to be known as Canute the Great.

Canute spent no little amount of time in England, and was generally considered by the English to be a good king despite his foreign origin. After his death, however, there was war between his sons Harold and Hardicanute, ending ultimately in victory for the latter. The English had had enough of Vikings, and chose a member of the old royal dynasty of Wessex, Edward III. Edward was so devoted to the church that he never sired an heir, resulting in a crisis when he died in January of 1066. The English chose Harold Godwinson, who had a weak claim to being of the same royal family; also claiming the throne were Harald Hardrade of Norway (his claim coming through Canute), and William, Duke of Normandy (his claim coming through an earlier marriage).

Harold met the Norwegians at Stamford Bridge, and after a quick battle Hardrade was killed, supposedly by a man named Siward, descendant of the old Kings of Essex. Harold rushed south, and met William near the town of Hastings along the coast. William was killed, but at the cost of Harold's life as well.


Norman knights being thrown back during the Battle of Hastings, from the "Canterbury Tapestry", comissioned by Queen Edith, widow of Edward III

The only remaining person to take the throne was Edgar II, son of Edward III's nephew. Edgar began to look outward, fighting against the Moors in Spain, but he soon had domestic problems and could not continue. Worse, he also died without an heir, and the kingdom fell to Osric, son of the aforementioned Siward.

Osric quickly put England into order through diplomacy alone, convinced the Welsh and Scottish to stay out, and then led his armies back to the Moors. The "Second Crusade", as it would come to be known,* destroyed the power of the Murabitids in Morocco, set up a temporary Christian kingdom in the area, placed a more permanent kingdom in Portugal and allowed the Spanish to complete the First Reconquista within a decade (gains which would be lost in the 14th century).

Under Osric's son Aethelwulf II, the English then moved into Wales, taking the entire country within his reign. The next king, Eanbert, began the conquest of Ireland by taking Ulster and later Dublin. His successor, Sigehelm, took Holland and continued in Ireland, but incited revolt in his kingdom and was killed in battle against one of his nobles.

For a short time during the reign of Sigehelm's son Osric II, England was united with even as far away a land as Poland, but he was forced to give up that land, being unable to hold it. He completed the conquest of Ireland, and then began with Scotland, a conquest completed by his nephew Sigeric. This was the beginning of the period of the Borkalans, an originally Hungarian dynasty which would prove incredibly devoted and useful to the English monarchy for centuries to come.

Through the 1200s, however, the House of Siward began to fall into decline. War became more common, especially civil war, and several kings fell in battle. This finally came to a head in Osric III, last of the dynasty, whose refusal to even marry led England into complete and destructive anarchy. Osric himself went insane, and upon being dethroned in 1266, the kingdom passed out of the Siwarding dynasty and even the English, to the Breton lord Alderic de Cornouaille.
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*The first was the successful conquest of Jerusalem, later lost; the third was the destruction of the massive pagan Finnish empire of the 12th century, and the fourth was a failed attempt by the Italians to retake Jerusalem.

Olaus Petrus: Same here, actually. Especially Osric... to quote "Beowulf", þæt wæs god cyning: "He was a good king!"

JimboIX: Ah, yes. They never missed an opportunity to deal with the ladies, even if it was at a bad time...




The "Breton Invasion" of 1266 was not a sudden outpouring of French armies onto the island, with one quick battle, a crowning, and maybe one or two more rebellions; it was a slow, grinding process, aided only by the chaos England had been pushed into over the previous decades. What it did do was add large swathes of territory to the possession of the English crown, even if not all of it would be kept.

The warfare continued for half a century. The first three Breton kings of England would die a violent death, capped by the actions of the insane kinslayer Renaud. So horrible were his deeds that said name has become anathema amongst English speakers. It was only the ruthless efficiency by which the de Cornouaille dynasty purged the English nobility that kept them in power, by ensuring that there was always an overwhelming base of French and Bretons to support them.

By the time of the accession of Renaud's nephew John in 1321, England was done with fighting itself for a while. John turned the nobles' attention outwards, first diplomatically gaining a foothold in Scotland and then crushing the others in that country. An attempt at invading France in 1339, however, was cut short by a more insidious enemy than foreign hordes or rebellious nobles: The bacterium Yersinia pestis, cause of the three deadly forms of the plague.

John led his court away from that contagion, choosing to be on crusade in unaffected Greece while his homeland suffered. It was a better decision than one might think, however, for rather than losing a dynamic young ruler permanently the country only lost him for a short time. Once he returned in 1344, he set the kingdom back aright and laid the way for his son, William I.

William conquered the islands of Iceland and Ireland, placing the entirety of northwest Europe in the hands of the de Cornouaille dynasty. He also saw the placement of his own brother Alfred onto the throne of St. Peter as Pope Paschalis III, a vital ally for the dynasty. They would need him for the dark years ahead.

First, William's son Alfred II was in his minority when he took the throne. Worse, once he did he almost immediately caught the plague and died, leaving a four-month-old David as king. Once again England threatened to fall into chaos, but William's brothers Duke Adam of Cornwall and Pope Paschalis, came to his nephew's rescue and cowed the nobles into submission, one with the threat of force and the other with the threat of eternal damnation.

David also marked a new thread in English history, as he took the Welsh name Dewi and allowed that small nation its own share in England's governance. Dewi soon had troubles of his own, as a bloody war with France ended in practical stalemate. He continued to look to that country as a place to take for himself, but before he could do so, he died in late 1418.

Olaus Petrus: Next week is what I intend.

Kurt_Steiner: You've got 3,000 posts already? Nice work, and I imagine all of those are insightful comments and such...

thrasing mad: As I said, next week when we get into the game.

JimboIX: Yep... bleed indeed...

Chief Ragusa: That's actually what I could have brought to bear in Dewi's war with the French (I still used about 70,000 men); I won't spend the money to use quite so many in the next war, but I'll still have a decent number to throw at them.

I've begun playing the game now; it's just a matter of getting a few decades to a century ahead of the AAR so I can put in implications and such here.

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The governance of the various parts of the de Cornouaille domains is a haphazard affair, one which neither the kings nor the local authorities have generally cared to put in any sort of order. The main unifying force of the whole kingdom is very simply the royal family, the de Cornouailles. From their royal residence at Reading, which had been used for that purpose since the times of the Siwarding dynasty, they manage the affairs of several separate lands: the kingdoms of England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland; the lordships of the Scottish and the Greek Isles; the duchies of Normandy, Bretagne, Poitou, Holland, and Iceland; and the counties of Guines [Calais] and Navarre.


The lands of Malcolm de Cornouaille. Not depicted are Navarra, which I couldn't put in properly because in-game Navarra doesn't have sea access; and the Scottish Isles, which the game doesn't have at all; and Greenland, which is part of Iceland.


The most important of the various legislative bodies in England is the Parliament of England and Wales, generally known as the Anglo-Welsh Parliament. Over the years since its institution in the early 14th century (as a replacement of the old Anglo-Saxon Witanagemot), it has rapidly gained power at the expense of the King. Parliament now controls the raising of special taxes and thus can pressure the King into accepting legislation from them. A large number of Welsh are in the Parliament to ensure that that small region has enough of a voice to keep from having laws passed against it by the English lords. It is not a coincidence that the Welsh members are often more supportive of the King.



The Scottish Parliament developed independently of the Anglo-Welsh one, but is very much the same in function, if not even more powerful. Despite being disrupted by two English invasions and the lack of a king during the late 13th and early 14th centuries, it has remained quite active since its development into a proper body. Unlike the Anglo-Welsh Parliament which meets irregularly, the Scottish Parliament is very often in session.



Even more powerful than the two British parliaments, and centuries older, the Alþing is basically the ruler of Iceland much more than King Malcolm. The Alþing is open to attendance by all free adult males of Iceland, although the most important part of it is the Lögrétta, an elected body of 36 men who make the main legislative decisions. The Alþing also serves as a judicial body, with an overall court known as the Fimmtardómur.



The French form of the parlement serves more as a court of law and does little legislative work. Most laws in the royal French possessions are decreed by the King himself.



These assemblies currently meet very rarely and mostly do as the King tells them to.

thrashing_mad: There'll be one more pre-game post after this one, showing the European political situation.

JimboIX: And that authority will fluctuate quite a bit over the next few hundred years...

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The only major branches of the de Cornouaille dynasty proper that still continue are the Wales line (through King William's second son, King Alfred II) and the Cornwall line (through his third son, Adam, 1st Duke of Cornwall). The family has close connections with other notable families in England, especially the Borkalan dukes of Lothian, the de Windsor dukes of Connacht, and the Dunkeld dukes of Deheubarth. Foreign families closely tied to them include the dukes of Flanders, the d'Altavilla Kings of Italy, and the von Zaehringen Holy Roman Emperors.

King Malcolm at the moment has no male heirs, but is still young and should reign for at least a few more decades.*



Descendants of North German tribes who came across the sea in the late 5th and early 6th centuries, the English are an odd cultural mix of the various peoples who have taken over the land now named for them: the British, the Romans, the Anglo-Saxons proper, the Vikings, and the Franco-Bretons. Their language shows the signs of these various groups, adding to a German core considerable Norse, French, Welsh, and Latin vocabulary and even grammar, not to mention an adapted Latin alphabet marked with Germanic runes and some French orthography.

The concept of the "Liberties of Englishmen" has already taken root with these people, and it is the English sections of the Anglo-Welsh Parliament who have begun to challenge the absolute authority of the monarch, not because of his Welsh leanings but because such a challenge is at the very core of the English political world view, filled throughout with the German sense of individualism.

The English are not a monolithic lot; they stretch from the barely anglicized Frenchmen of Normandy to the Northumbrians who still speak something nearly the same as old Anglo-Saxon to the Hiberno-English of Dublin and Leinster.


At this point in time the Netherlands is not even much of an ethnic reality, much less a political one. The Dutch are divided between the English lands of Holland and Calais, the counties of Geldre and Friesland, and various minor lands. They are beginning to properly separate themselves from the High Germans, however, and have already developed their reputation as the great traders of northern Europe.

The relationship between the English and the Dutch, especially with the wool trade to Antwerp and Brugge, has ensured a sense of commonality between the two for now. English and Dutch are, at this time, still mostly mutually understandable, at least when spoken. Dutch nationalism is a nacent concept, but it may appear at some point--or it may be subsumed into England or Germany.



The people of Iceland are descendants of Vikings who left Norway in the 9th and 10th centuries to see what else was out there. The island is not much from outside appearances, but there is enough to support a resonably-sized community of people. The authority of Iceland extends as far as Greenland and, theoretically, to Vinland (although that area has not been settled for several centuries). The people are very independent, even if they pay nominal homage to their Duke, Maelgwn de Cornouaille.




The Welsh and the Cornish are the last remaining descendants of the pre-Saxon inhabitants of England, the British. Separated by the later conquests, they have developed somewhat independently and with varying levels of success. The Welsh have survived better thanks to their mountainous homeland, but the Cornish still survive in their communities on the western tip of England.

The appearance of the Bretons saved these nationalities, threatened with extinction by the English. Their languages were protected, their nobility restored, and representation given in the Witenagemot of England. With King Dewi a greater change came along, as the King himself was a Welsh-speaker. Despite their small number, the Welsh continue to be able to assert their own place and wield power out of proportion.



The main inhabitants of what is now Scotland during Roman times were the Picts, a more British-style Gaelic nation. After that time, however, an Irish group known as the Scots came across and over a period of a few centuries took over the land. These new inhabitants had just enough time to assert themselves and organize a medieval state before the English began invading in the 12th century. Since their conquest, the Scots have developed two identities: a still mostly Gaelic one in the northern highlands, and a more Anglicized identity in the lowlands.


Unlike their other cousins in Great Britain or Europe, the Irish have the luck of having an entire island to themselves. They managed to avoid conquest by the Romans, and yet were the ones to maintain Christianity and Roman culture after the fall of that empire. It was the Irish who made the British Isles Christian again.

Ireland soon fell into decline, however. The old High Kingship lost its power to the local kings, and soon became irrelevant. The last High King to bear any sort of real power was the early 11th century Brian Boru, defeater of the Viking invaders of that island. Soon England would come in, destroy the kingdoms, and create a single, regular Kingdom of Ireland--for the English, of course. Ireland was the last part of Great Britain to be reconquered after the Breton Invasion, succumbing to William I in the 1350s.



While the Welsh and Cornish remained in England after the destruction of the old British kingdoms, the Bretons fled across what is now the English Channel to settle in the northwestern corner of the old Roman region of Gaul. Their Gallic relatives were soon pushed out, however, by Germanic invaders known as the Franks. The Bretons continued to assert their independence, however, to a considerable extent.

The short-lived attack by the Moors into Aquitaine just before the Second Crusade allowed Bretagne to pick up the pieces. Conquering Aquitaine and Burgundy, they soon became as powerful as the French Kings. The ducal family, the de Cornouailles, became as important as kings. Soon enough, they would be kings, as Alderic inherited the English throne. The Breton connection with their insular bretheren has been restored, and the Bretons remain fiercely loyal to the English king even if his French subjects are not so enthusiastic.
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*[/irony]