Theme Major Events

England as an Heptarchy

The birth of a nation and the emerging dominance of House of wessexe House of

7 Kingdoms Making 1 England with Alfred uniting the enterprise and the Vikings creating the climate in which English Unification was a better option that continuing domination of the Vikings. The Kingdoms hold the key into how these regions fought and conquered and rose up against the invaders to reverse the fortunes of England and set in place what would hold until the Norman Conquest, how would we turn the corner and become one people as Bede had alluded to…

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King Ine of Wessex 688-726

King Ine started British Law Code and ruled in Wessex, founding the stone church at Gastonbury Abbey and abdicating to go on a pilgrimage Rome, He did not expand his dominion of Wessex but he made other notable contributions and was committed to the early Christian Church.

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Henry III Plantagenet King 1207-1272

King Henry III Plantagenet
This entry is part 4 of 7 in the series Plantagenet Monarchs

His father King John was not much of a role model, so how would his son inheriting at just 9 years of age cope? He started with guidance of great statesmen but would he be governed by their wise council? What would Henry III contribute to the development of a nation…

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Treaty of Amiens 1802

Treaty of Amiens

Good intentions by the British but no change of ambitions of the french, the treaty of Amiens set the course for outright war which would become known as the Napoleonic Wars, find out what lit the tinder box..with the first in our series on the human, social and economic impact of this 23 year war…

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The Crusades A Background

Crusades

The Crusades are a well recognized part of our history but what do we know about the background to the crusades of the C11th and C12th. What motivated men to take up arms and travel hundreds of miles to fight in a land and against a people they knew little or nothing about?

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Eleanor of Aquitaine Mother of English Kings

Mother of Kings Henry III Richard I and John

Wealthy educated and powerful and that was just at 15, married to the Kings of France and England, forging the most powerful alliance in Northern Europe with the Angevin Empire created with the marriage to Henry II, through their complex family relationships, two sons would be King of England and many of her grandchildren would form the basis of the bloodlines of the important European Kingdoms for centuries to come, this was a woman on which history pivots…

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Richard I Coeur de Lion Plantagenet King

This entry is part 3 of 7 in the series Plantagenet Monarchs

Richard the First, Richard Coeur de Lion the Lionheart, hero or villain? How does he fit in history why was he so absent from England. A formative member of the House of Angevin as son of Henry II…was he a better King than his younger brother King John?

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Angevin and Plantagenet Empire

Fontevraud Abbey

What led to the downfall of the Anjevin Empire? Where does the word Plantagenet come from? When did the French last successfully invade england? A converging and connecting point in history between empires and dynasties find out more with this linked chrnology…

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