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Pre-1066Understand that this is written as the average person knows it. I may add more, I may not. If anyone wants to know why Britain didn't get invaded that often, it's called the Channel. We're a set of islands. You needed a boat to get to us until recently. Bloody difficult to get a large enough lot of them to go at once as it is, then factor in the fact that getting from Europe to Britain is rough water. Bad tides, bad weather, etc. Actually a lot easier to go the other way. Pre-Romans In the beginning, there were Celts. And Picts. And Scots, who were technically from Ireland. And... er... people before them. Mostly referred to as 'little dark people'. No, you're not allowed to confuse them with the Welsh or Cornish. Stoppit. And no, we weren't all painted savages, people just tended to see us when we had got really, *really* drunk. You know what happens when people get drunk, they get tattoos or things painted on them. But, y'know, decent trading already set up with Mediterranean merchants. Then Julius Caesar invaded in 52 BC. He got a little way in, but not that far, and that was about it. It was a PR thing. Claudius invaded a few years down the line. Also a PR thing, but also a riches thing (we had iron and tin and fertile land) and a 'bloody Gauls keep popping over the channel to their cousins to thumb their nose at us' thing. Successive emperors expanded further north. Some of them built walls to keep the Scots and the Picts out, or at least regulate the trade. They stopped trying with Wales because the Welsh had a thing for retreating from a hill fort and then coming back when the legions got bored. Roman period Er.... Boudicca sacked London after her hubby got too in with the Romans and they ran roughshod over him. She got defeated later and drank poison. Hadrian built the most impressive wall. Other people built walls further north, but this was the one that stuck. The current border to Scotland is a bit further north, considering Wallsend is part of Newcastle. In Northumbria, home of the Geordies. Also the Percys. Er. Try to ignore that bit, you'll only get confused. (oh, sod it : Geordies : name for the people who live there. As far as most of the rest of the country are concerned, incomprehensible accent/dialect, can and will wear bugger all in deepest winter. The joke about 'how do you know you've got near the North Pole? You see a Geordie in a t-shirt.' ? We're not kidding. Anyone who watched the recent King Arthur film and noted how little Keira Knightley was wearing? She was wearing too much for a native. Do not confuse with Maccams, aka Sunderland inhabitants on pain of death. Percys : family who ruled Northumberland.) In 410 AD, the Roman Empire decided it had too many troubles of its own and couldn't afford to continue to commit resources to what was basically a cold, wet border outpost. Yes, this is one more date that causes a giant twitch when Hollywood gets it wrong. The 'look to your own' letter's date gets hammered into us around the same time as 1066. Post-Romans, aka the Dark Ages Sometime around this period, we think King Arthur happened. Or at least the Battle of Camlann did. Lots of legends, other stories got tacked on, Le Morte D'Arthur was written in Tudor times by a bloke locked up in the Tower of London for rape, larceny and being an all-round tosser. Arthur's originally Welsh. Saxons, Angles and Jutes invaded. The Saxons got the glory, the Angles got to name *everything* after themselves, including the language and country. The Jutes... er... we think they kept their heads down and said 'doing very nicely, thankyou, don't mind us.' A lot of Celts went west to Wales and Cornwall, or buggered off to Brittany in France. Note : the name Wallace, or Walsh, or Welsh? Is not Scots. All it means is 'not Saxon'. Hence the Welsh getting called it by the English. At one point the Vikings invaded the North of England on a regular basis, and they rather liked to sack monasteries because they had a lot of riches and monks in Britain aren't exactly versed in Kung Fu. A lot of them settled there. They're basically responsible for the accent in the North of England. Once they really settled down, they started making the southern kings pay the Danegeld, which was 'pay us or we'll attack you' tax. Erm. We also had King Alfred, who apparently burnt someone's cakes whilst hiding out in the marshes from the vikings. Set up a lot of laws and so on. Also King Canute, or Cnut. All-round hard bastard. Imported, as many kings are, and the 'ordering the waves to go back' thing? He was taking the piss out of his more obsequious advisers. Then we get to Edward the Confessor, who had bugger all backbone and made a lot of promises to Normandy. (Normans : technically Vikings, not French) He was succeeded by Harold Godwinson, who by all appearances was a fairly decent king and good in battle. Well, except for his last one. |