When was england born

Athelstan is buried in Malmesbury, Wiltshire. EDMUND — Succeeded his half-bother Athelastan as king at the tender age of 18, having already fought alongside him at the Batlle of Brunanburh two years earlier.

He re-established Anglo-Saxon control over northern England, which had fallen back under Scandinavian rule following the death of Athelstan. Aged just 25, and whilst celebrating the feast of Augustine, Edmund was stabbed by a robber in his royal hall at Pucklechurch near Bath. His two sons, Eadwig and Edgar, were perhaps considered too young to become kings.

He followed in the family tradition of defeating Norsemen, expelling the last Scandinavian King of York , Eric Bloodaxe, in A deeply religious man, Eadred suffered a serious stomach ailment that would eventually prove fatal.

Eadred died in his early 30s, unmarried and without an heir, at Frome in Somerset. He is buried in Winchester. Perhaps unimpressed by the interruption, Eadwig had Dunstan exiled to France. Eadwig died in Gloucester when he was just 20, the circumstances of his death are not recorded. Following his carefully planned by Dunstan coronation in Bath in , Edgar marched his army to Chester, to be met by six kings of Britain. The kings, including the King of Scots, King of Strathclyde and various princes of Wales , are said to have signalled their allegiance to Edgar by rowing him in his state barge across the River Dee.

Although supported by Archbishop Dunstan, his claim to the throne was contested by supporters of his much younger half-brother Aethelred. The resulting dispute between rival factions within the church and nobility almost led to civil war in England.

He died just 5 weeks later. Following the death of his father, he was chosen king by the good folk of London. Following his defeat at the Battle of Assandun, Edmund made a pact with Canute to divide the kingdom between them. This treaty ceded control of all of England, with the exception of Wessex, to Canute. It also stated that when one of the kings died the other would take all of England… Edmund died later that year, probably assassinated. The son of Sweyn Forkbeard, he ruled well and gained favour with his English subjects by sending most of his army back to Denmark.

Perhaps inspired by his pilgrimage to Rome in , legend has it that he wanted to demonstrate to his subjects that as a king he was not a god, he ordered the tide not to come in, knowing this would fail.

Harold was the illegitimate son of Canute; he claimed the English crown on the death of his father whilst his half-brother Harthacanute, the rightful heir, was in Denmark fighting to protect his Danish kingdom.

Harold died three years into his reign, just weeks before Harthacanute was due to invade England with an army of Danes. He was buried in Westminster Abbey before Harthacanute had his body dug up, beheaded, and thrown into the Thames. His bits were later gathered and re-buried at St. Clement Danes in London. Harthacanute died at a wedding whilst toasting the health of the bride; he was aged just 24 and was the last Danish king to rule England.

A deeply pious and religious man, he presided over the rebuilding of Westminster Abbey , leaving much of the running of the country to Earl Godwin and his son Harold. Edward died childless, eight days after the building work on Westminster Abbey had finished.

With no natural successor, England was faced with a power struggle for control of the throne. The election result failed to meet with the approval of one William, Duke of Normandy, who claimed that his relative Edward had promised the throne to him several years earlier.

Harold defeated an invading Norwegian army at the Battle of Stamford Bridge in Yorkshire, then marched south to confront William of Normandy who had landed his forces in Sussex. William came to England from Normandy, claiming that his second cousin Edward the Confessor had promised him the throne, and defeated Harold II at the Battle of Hastings on 14th October In the Domesday Survey was begun and all of England was recorded, so William knew exactly what his new kingdom contained and how much tax he could raise in order to fund his armies.

William died at Rouen after a fall from his horse whilst besieging the French city of Nantes. He is buried at Caen. He never married and was killed in the New Forest by a stray arrow whilst out hunting, maybe accidentally, or possibly shot deliberately on the instructions of his younger brother Henry. Walter Tyrrell, one of the hunting party, was blamed for the deed. Well educated, he founded a zoo at Woodstock in Oxfordshire to study animals.

His two sons were drowned in the White Ship so his daughter Matilda was made his successor. She was married to Geoffrey Plantagenet. When Henry died of food poisoning, the Council considered a woman unfit to rule and so offered the throne to Stephen, a grandson of William I. A decade of civil war known as The Anarchy ensued when Matilda invaded from Anjou in A brilliant soldier, he extended his French lands until he ruled most of France.

He laid the foundation of the English Jury System and raised new taxes scutage from the landholders to pay for a militia force. His sons turned against him, even his favourite John. By the age of 16, he was leading his own army putting down rebellions in France. Although crowned King of England, Richard spent all but 6 months of his reign abroad, preferring to use the taxes from his kingdom to fund his various armies and military ventures.

He was the leading Christian commander during the Third Crusade. On his way back from Palestine, Richard was captured and held for ransom. The amount paid for his safe return almost bankrupt the country. Richard died from an arrow-wound, far from the kingdom that he so rarely visited. He had no children. Short and fat, he was jealous of his dashing brother Richard I whom he succeeded. He was cruel, self-indulgent, selfish and avaricious, and the raising of punitive taxes united all the elements of society, clerical and lay, against him.

The Pope excommunicated him. On 15th June at Runnymede the barons compelled John to sign Magna Carta , the Great Charter, which reinstated the rights of all his subjects. John died — from dysentery — a fugitive from all his enemies. Brought up by priests he became devoted to church, art and learning. Henry was the greatest of all patrons of medieval architecture and ordered the rebuilding of Westminster Abbey in the Gothic style.

He formed the Model Parliament in , bringing the knights, clergy and nobility, as well as the Lords and Commons together for the first time. Aiming at a united Britain, he defeated the Welsh chieftains and created his eldest son Prince of Wales.

When his first wife Eleanor died, he escorted her body from Grantham in Lincolnshire to Westminster, setting up Eleanor Crosses at every resting place.

He died on the way to fight Robert Bruce. He was beaten by the Scots at the Battle of Bannockburn in Edward was deposed and held captive in Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire. His wife joined her lover Mortimer in deposing him: by their orders he was murdered in Berkley Castle — as legend has it, by having a red-hot poker thrust up his anus!

The two great victories at Crecy and Poitiers made Edward and his son, the Black Prince , the most renowned warriors in Europe, however the war was very expensive. In came the Peasants Revolt , led by Wat Tyler. The rebellion was put down with great severity. The sudden death of his first wife Anne of Bohemia completely unbalanced Richard and his extravagance, acts of revenge and tyranny turned his subjects against him. Richard was murdered, probably by starvation, in Pontefract Castle in Henry spent most of his 13 year reign defending himself against plots, rebellions and assassination attempts.

Back in England, Henry had great difficulty in maintaining the support of both the clergy and Parliament and between the Percy family launched a series of rebellions against him. Henry, the first Lancastrian king, died exhausted, probably of leprosy, at the age of The support of the Frankish rulers in modern day France was vital to his work. He many even have crowned Pippin the first Carolingian king in AD.

He resumed missionary work among the Frisians in AD, but was murdered by them shortly afterwards. The ensuing civil war saw Offa emerge as his successor and become the most powerful of the English kings of the later 8th century. His name survives to this day in 'Offa's Dyke', the mile-long earthwork which marked his border with the Welsh kingdoms. After ruling the West Saxons for 31 years, Cynewulf was attacked by Cyneheard, the brother of a man Cynewulf had exiled.

Both men were killed in the battle and the heroism of their bodyguards caused the event to be recorded in the 'Anglo-Saxon Chronicle', the oldest surviving piece of narrative prose in English. Between them they visited all the kingdoms and held reforming councils. Offa, king of Mercia, was given an archbishopric for his lands in the short-lived metropolitan see of Lichfield. Later generations of Scottish monarchs claimed Constantine as a king of the Scots, but he seems to have been king of the Picts, a tribe that inhabited much of northern Scotland.

The St Andrew's sarcophagus, one of the finest pieces of sculpture from Europe at this time, may belong to his reign. The reeve of Dorchester a local high-ranking official went to greet them after they landed, perhaps accustomed to welcoming Scandinavian merchants.

He was killed. Viking attacks increased in intensity over the coming decades, until the Vikings assembled a 'Great Army' equipped for conquest in about AD. He heard about the attack on the monastery in his native Northumbria and wrote: 'Never before has such an atrocity been seen.

Iona was attacked in AD and again in AD. In the third attack, in AD, 68 monks were killed and most of the rest fled to safety in the monastery of Kells County Meath, Ireland.

They took with them the gospel book now known as the 'Book of Kells', a lavishly illuminated manuscript, which is one of the greatest treasures of Celtic art. Egbert, king of the West Saxons, had already established himself as the most powerful ruler in southern England. But in AD he not only conquered Mercia, but forced the Northumbrians to submit as well. From then on, Wessex retained its dominance in England. Egbert's grandson, Alfred, initiated the creation of the single kingdom of England.

Some sources suggest that around AD the kingdom of the Scots and the Picts was amalgamated, and that from this date historians can speak of a 'kingdom of Scotland'. Egbert, king of Wessex, had made his second son Athelstan king of Kent. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Athelstan fought a sea battle against the Vikings off Sandwich, capturing nine ships and putting the rest to flight.

The Vikings - who had assembled a 'Great Army' equipped for conquest rather than raiding - took advantage of the opportunity to defeat and kill both kings. They also slaughtered many people both inside and outside the city, before moving south. The city became Yorvik, the Viking capital in England. The Viking army that had captured Yorvik York in AD used the area as a stable base for deeper incursions into England.

He was beheaded and his head thrown away to prevent proper burial. Much later, his head was finally reunited with the body, and both were buried in the royal residence, which later became known as Bury St Edmunds. Dumbarton, 'the fortress of the Britons', also known as Alcuith or Clyde Rock, was at the centre of the kingdom of Strathclyde, in northern Britain.

They took booty and captives, including the king of Strathclyde, back with them to Dublin, their capital in Ireland. None of these battles were decisive. Their army then moved south from Repton into Mercia where they were met by King Burhred, who was driven overseas and died in Rome. Rhodri Mawr, also known as Rhodri the Great, was one of the powerful kings of early Wales, ruling over both Gwynedd and Powys. He returned in AD and was killed, although the precise manner of his death is unclear.

In January, the Vikings succeeded in taking Wessex. Alfred, king of Wessex, took refuge in the marshes of Athelney Somerset. After Easter, he called up his troops and defeated the Viking king Guthrum, who he persuaded to be baptised. He later brought Guthrum to terms and created a settlement that divided England.

Alfred and Wessex retained the west, while the east between the Thames and Tees rivers was to be Viking territory - later known as the 'Danelaw' - where English and Danish Vikings were equal in law. Alfred, king of Wessex, was the only English ruler to earn the moniker 'the Great'. At the time of his death, his kingdom was the only English realm that had preserved its independence from the Vikings. Under his son, Edward the Elder, the armies of Wessex began the conquest of the rest of England from the Vikings.

She built fortresses and pushed into the territory of the Danes Vikings. Leicester submitted to her without a fight. She died just after receiving a formal offer of allegiance from the men of Yorkshire. At the beginning of the 10th century, Ireland suffered a fresh wave of Viking raids. Niall was slain along with 12 other kings.

Olaf Guthfrithson was king of the Dublin Vikings and commanded a large fleet. He joined with the kings of Strathclyde and the Scots to invade England. No one knows where Brunanburh is, but the sources all agree that Athelstan of Wessex, with an army of West Saxons and Mercians, inflicted a crushing defeat on the invaders. Athelstan, king of Wessex, pushed the boundaries of his kingdom to their furthest extent, until he could rightfully be described as the king of England.

The five Welsh kings submitted to a huge annual tribute and he also subdued Cornwall. In AD, he defeated a combined invasion force at the Battle of Brunanburh. He was buried in Malmesbury Abbey. Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets CSS if you are able to do so. This page has been archived and is no longer updated. Find out more about page archiving. The Anglo-Saxons. The term Anglo-Saxon is a relatively modern one. It refers to settlers from the German regions of Angeln and Saxony, who made their way over to Britain after the fall of the Roman Empire around AD Hands on History: Ancient Britain.

Travel back in time to Ancient Britain and create your own stone circle. Eric voiced by Daniel Roche visits Roman Britain , where he lives a life of privilege.

Settings Sign out.