Early History of the Kingdom of England

So, as we said LAST TIME, in 829, Wessex managed to gain supremacy over the rest of the kingdoms of the Heptarchy, though the union did not officially become a thing before 927, under King Ethelstan. 

And now, with all kingdoms united, one would say that the Anglo-Saxons could live happily ever after. Right?

WRONG!

You see, fellows, there were still several factors preventing them from enjoying life. For one thing, neither condoms nor toilet paper had been invented yet, and it's hard for one to enjoy life without either of those. Also, there was that problem that the Danes posed.

But, who were the Danes?

Well, the Danes were a Germanic race which inhabited (as one can easily infer from their name) the area which is nowadays the state of Denmark.

By the time the Heptarchy era was over, the aforementioned people had invaded Great Britain. Needless to say, the Anglo-Saxons, the Germanic race already inhabiting England, were not cool with another Germanic race slaughtering them and taking away from them the property that was rightfully theirs, since they had slaughtered the Celts and taken it away from them fair and square a few centuries prior.

Even though King Alfred the Great crushed the Danes at the Battle of Edington in 878, he had no other choice but to allow them to occupy a large part of Northeast England, which was named Danelaw after them.

King Alfred the Great. Drool over him, ladies!

 

However, soon, the Danes decided that the land they already possessed was not enough, so they went like, 'Screw the treaty. We're gonna conquer the whole England, baby.'

Despite having their asses handed to them by King Ethelstan at the Battle of Brunanburh in 937, they persisted.

Despite, on the 13th of November 1002, King Ethelred was like, 'Hey, guys, do you know what the best way of celebrating the advent of the new millennium is? Execute all Danes living in my kingdom!', they persisted.

Talk about being persistent! Those Danes guys were even worse than me when I try to sell my Amazon books to Facebook groups members!

Nevertheless, their stubbornness eventually paid off. Sweyn Forkbeard conquered England for one year in 1013. His son, Cnut the Great, conquered it again in 1016 and, after also inheriting from his old man the crowns of Denmark, Norway and Southern Sweden, found himself head of a vast empire (lucky bastard!)

However, the Anglo-Scandinavian empire was short lived. You see, after Cnut's death (1035), his sons began fighting over the throne and, therefore, they were too busy to get laid, so they died without having left any male offspring.

Edward the Confessor, a royal from the Anglo-Saxon line who had been exiled to Normandy, exploited that situation and ascended to the throne in 1042. 

Eddie died in 1066 and was succeeded by his brother in law, Harold Godwinson.

Unfortunately (well, unfortunately for him; personally, I couldn't care less), Harold stayed neither in power nor alive for much longer. You see, the throne was also claimed by two other dudes: Harald Hardrada, King of Norway, and William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy.

The latter was like, 'How dare you take what is rightfully mine? I mean, Edward was my first cousin once removed. On top of that, you owe me one, dude. You owe me big time! Have you forgotten that I saved your life once, when you got shipwrecked close to Ponthieu?'

Harold was like, 'And I have to give you my kingdom as a reward? Can't I just buy you an ice cream cone or something?'

'No,' William insisted. 'I want the kingdom.'

'Then come and get it, jackass,' Harold provoked him. 

And come and get it he did! Although Harold defeated Harald at the Battle of Stamford Bridge, he was soon after defeated and killed by William at the Battle of Hastings. 

Chateau de Falaise, a cool Normandic castle.

 

Predictably, Willie favored the Norman nobility over the Anglo-Saxon one. Equally predictably, that caused many rebellions over the first years of his reign. But William managed to suppress all of them. Then he could focus on the organization of his new kingdom. Domesday Book, a list of who owned what throughout the kingdom, was compiled during that monarch's reign and is still one of the most remarkable statistical documents in the history of Europe.

Anyway, that's enough for today. In the next post under the 'british isles' label, I'll tell you the story of an adorable little boy (no homo or pedo!)

Till then, don't forget to buy my novels on Amazon (my author page HERE) and share my posts on social media.