ENGLAND
and their
Kings and Queens

Remember this is not only a history of the English Royal Family but also of the people and those neighbouring countries which effected the History of England.

Who was the first King of all England?

Alfred the Great of Saxon descent from Wessex who ruled between 871-899, many historians consider the first king but this was 450 years after the Romans left. Prior to this the country became divided into 7 self ruled kingdoms, Kent, Sussex, Wessex, Essex, East Anglia, West Anglia or Mercia and Northumbria.

The first “Anglo Saxon King” who came to power almost 50 years after the Romans left was in fact a Jute duo (from Jutland). The war lords Hengist and Horsa, and they only ruled in Kent. The first King of Saxon Wessex (around Winchester) was Cerdic who ruled some 40 years later, 90 years after the Romans left. The ancestry of all the Kings and Queens of England can be traced to Cerdic including the present queen, Elizabeth 2nd.

Others early regional Kings who were powerful and ruled or influenced nearly all England were:

• Ethelburt a Jute 580, ruled from Kent
• Ethelfrith an Angle 670 who ruled from Northumbria
• Penda an Angle 735 who ruled from Mercia
• Offa an Angle 757 who ruled from Mercia
• Egbert a Saxon 802 who ruled all except Northumbria from Wessex
• Alfred a Saxon 871 who ruled all England from Wessex.

Who was the first female ruler?

Queen Mary Tudor 1553

And the best female ruler, probably her sister

Queen Elizabeth Tudor 1558, why? She founded the Church of England (The Anglican Church) and presided over the famous victory against the Spanish invading fleet who were sent by the Pope to kill her because of her religion. (The Spanish Armada 1588). “The golden days of good Queen Bess”.

Who was England’s most famous man?

Winston Spencer Churchill 1874-1965, why? In a similar way to Elizabeth 1st he inspired the English nation to keep the invading Germans out of England during the Second World War so they attacked Russia instead. Churchill was a Prime Minister not a King. In England an elected Prime ministers became more powerful than the King commencing around 1720. (Walpole was made the first Prime Minister because the King could not speak English)

When did Christianity comes to Britain

Dates to remember

300 The Roman Empire splits into two, one headquartered in Constantinople (Istanbul) and one in Rome or more accurately Milan. The Roman Empire adopts Christianity as its sole official religion and the persecution of Jews commences.

Note St Alban predates this (c. 250), showing Christians were in Britain prior to it becoming the official religion.

400 Englishman St Patrick kidnapped by Irish slave hunters from the west of England. He becomes the founder of Christianity in Ireland.

400 The Germanic Franks invade Roman ruled Gaul, (present day France)

The formation of England

After 400 years in Britain the Romans leave

410 Honorius, Roman Emperor in Britain says he must return to Rome to defend his home land from attacks by Germanic tribes and the British must take over the responsibility of defending themselves from Jutes, Angles, Saxons, Picts and Scots.

433 Attila the Hun whose ancestors were from Mongolia or Eastern Russia arrives with the first horse mounted archers seen in Europe and soon dominates all the territories north of the old Roman Empire from Moscow west to the North Sea forcing the Jutes, Angles and Saxons to look westwards over the sea towards Britain. Frankish territories south of the huge river Rhine remain intact.

A Kingdom in Kent is formed

449 40 years after the Romans have left, Vortigen a local ruler in Kent, invites Jutes from Jutland Denmark, as mercenaries to fight against the invading Picts and Scots. Having beaten the Picts and Scots they turn on Vortigen and settle in Kent and choose the Jutes leaders, Hengist and Horsa as their rulers (455).

Some put Hengist and Horsa as the first post Roman Germanic Kings of England.

450 Britians from the south west of England flee to France and colonize the area now known as Brittany.

452 Attila dies and his empire is divided amongst too many sons to be a further threat. Some Huns remain in present-day Hungary but the majority return to the east by-passing Byzantium and Persia to threaten India.

The Kingdom of Sussex

477 Ella, a southern Saxon lands in Pevensey Bay and after a bloody war lasting some months, he kills most of the local Britains and forms Sussex. (South Saxons)

493 Clovis King of the Franks (in France) marries a Christian. Under Clovis the Franks become Christian and rule the western half of present-day France and Germany to become the most powerful force in Western Europe.

The Kingdom of Wessex

495 More Saxons arrive and land in the Southampton area, capture the old Roman town of Winchester and the land of the West Saxons in born, ruled by Cedric. All subsequent Kings and Queens of all England are related to Cedric.

516 Battle of Badon Hill. A West Saxon expansion westwards is halted for some years by perhaps a King Arthur one of the last Romanised Britians in England.

The Kingdom of Essex

527 The 3rd and last Saxon tribe arrives this time landing probably via the Thames just east of London and they settle in the land from the Thames to St Albans. Essex, the land of the East Saxons. Including the site being prepared for the 2012 Olymics

The Kingdom of Northumberland

547 Now it’s the turn of the Angles who avoid the Saxons and settle north of the river Humber (North- Humbria)

The Kingdom of East Anglia

575 Two further tribes of Angles land in what is now called East Anglia. They settle in two groups forming Norfolk and Suffolk. (North Folk and South Folk)

The Kingdom of Mercia

586 This area now called the East Midlands, was also overrun by Angles as they colonised the last remaining part of Romanised Britain.

585 England is thus divided into 7 separate Kingdoms all ruled by separate Germanic Kings. Some 200,000 Angles, Saxons and Jutes (from Jutland) are now living in England and the majority of British males have now been killed or have fled to Wales, Scotland or Cornwall. The new Germanic tribes spend much of their time fighting between themselves.

Meanwhile in the remaining Eastern Roman Empire- Byzantium:

527 Justinian became Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium) and commences the battle to retake Rome and the Western Roman Empire.

537 Church of St Sophia completed in Constantinople. This incredible building still stands and is similar in size to the present St Paul’s Cathedral in London and demonstrates along with still present aquifers, the engineering know-how of the Romans still very much present in their Eastern Empire.

Commencement of a religious disaster for the Christians which has lasted to the present day. The birth of Islam.

Just east of the Christian Byzantium borders:

570 The Prophet Muhammad, the founder of Islam is born in Mecca in Arabia. By the time he dies in 632 he has united all the nomadic tribes in Arabia under a new religious army, fuelled by holy war or jihad, to expand west to Spain via North Africa and east to Persia, Afghanistan, India and beyond. Islam is seen by Christians of the time to be a barbaric religion which spreads rapidly with the threat of the sword. Not peacefully as proscribed by Jesus and it diminishes the status of women by permitting numerous wives. Eventually some Muslims rulers (Sultans) have more than 1000 wives. Worse the Christians are mortified when Muslims over run and claim rights to the holy city of Jerusalem sacred to both Jews and Christians when their founder never visited the place. (Other than in a dream) See the Crusades.

570 continued.

In Western Europe, the Franks, neighbours of the Saxons, not only rule Gaul but also much of present day Germany, Switzerland and Austria. Whereas the pagan Angles and Saxons annihilated the Britians, the Franks integrated with the Gauls and adopted their civilising Christianity.

Back in England

580 King Ethelbert of Kent marries Princess Bertha, the Christian granddaughter of Clovis the Frank. Ethelbert, a pagan, is persuaded by his wife to allow Christianity to be preached in England.

597 The Pope in Rome hears of this and sends St Augustine to help with the conversion. Augustine settles in Canterbury in Kent where parts of his church still remain.

600 England now had boundaries similar to today. All the Romanised Britains had been driven west into Wales, over the rivers Seven and Wye or north into Scotland over Hadrian’s Wall. Important towns in England include:

London on the south east borders of Mercia, (capital Tamworth.)
Winchester the capital of Wessex
Canterbury the capital of Kent and the religious centre of England
York the capital of Northumbria
Jarrow, Irish influenced Christian centre on the north east Northumbrian coast.

At the same time as the boundaries of England were settled, in the more civilised Eastern Roman Empire:

The Byzantium Empire, expanded under Emperor Justinian (482-565) was under attack again from the Persians and the new Turkish threat from their north.

600 Following the rule of Justinian the east Romans have re-conquered most of Italy, North Africa, the Levant, the Balkans and Greece. Nomads from the Russian steppes including the awesome archer cavalries of Huns and the Turks threaten their northern boarders and the great Persian Empire as always threatens the Romans just east of present day Baghdad.

602 The Byzantine Empire attacked simultaneously by the Avars (Turks) who now control all of Eastern Europe (as we know it now) and by the Persians from the east who take Jerusalem (614), Egypt and Eastern Anatolia. By 630 under Byzantium Emperor Heraclius and with the help of his superior Navy he regains Jerusalem and all other lands lost in the east and west.

625 The Huns settle north of the Black Sea in present day Ukraine and change their name to Bulgars (hence later Bulgaria).

634 Mohammed leaves Medina with the first Arab militia united under his new Islamic religion and in 20 years, to the astonishment of the Byzantiums and the Persians, the Islamic Arabs had made themselves an Empire to rival old Rome. This is no religion of peace as preached by Jesus but a jihad, fighting all before it with the might of the sword on Camel Cavalry. Jerusalem and Palestine fall in 636, Mesopotamia is taken from the Persians in 637. Syria and Egypt fall in 637. All of Persia and Afghanistan taken by 651. The Arabs conquered the Berbers in 702 and were set to enter Spain from present day Morocco. The Islamic armies had only existed for 70 years.

661 Muslims split between the orthodox and fundamentalist Sunni who claim a direct line with Mohammed and the more powerful Shia who prefer elected leaders and gain political control.