Britain

* Who are the Britians? (Google Drive*)

The United Kingdom in evolving forms was established under the Act of Union in 1800 and was later transformed to include Ireland in a Union with Scotland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

Empire and the tides of power turned about intrusions and war, trade and marriages, settlement and obligations. Immediately following the time of Christ, Emperor Claudius in AD 43, dispatched a Roman army of 40,000 men and cavalry to conquer the tribes of Britain and so followed a Roman occupation and influence with the nation through to the 5^th Century AD. This was followed by three powerful Germanic tribes, forcing Romano Britons into the current Welsh communities where they have not been ascendant since. The conquerors comprising:

• • Angles from modern Germany (root of the term Engla land or Ængla land) from Angeln),

  • Saxons from lands amidst the North Sea and reaches of the River Elbe,

  • Jutes from modern Denmark and Jylland (northern Germany) gained occupancy on the coastlines to East and South of Britain in the late 5th. century and by 650 AD had established their dominance.

From the late 8th Century, Vikings or Norsemen of Scandinavia raided the coasts of north-west France, Britain, the Scottish coast to Ireland and escaped with riches and slaves to be sold. In Ireland from AD 835 - 851 Viking raiders set up camps on the Loughs and conducted raids and pillaged monasteries, churches, the fortresses of Irish Lords and farms and these settlements developed and flourished. By 851 Viking attention turned to Britain and the Isle of Man, enabling the Irish to defeat them between AD 848 - 902 and regain the townships of Cork, Waterford, Youghal and Dubhlinn which was a settlement supplying slaves and became a major merchant town. A second wave of Viking attacks began in AD 914 with the recapture of Vadrefjord and Dublin and ran deep into Munster, Cork, Lismore and Aghaboe and by AD 937 regained their former towns and developed instead as traders settling the land they named Danelaw. In 952, Dublin split from the Danelaw and came under a dynasty of Viking Kings and in England the Vikings settled into life as farmers and fishermen and in France formed the Kingdom of Normandy on the north coast.

William II, Duke of Normandy in AD 1066 landed at Pevensey and defeated the armies of King Harold II and so begun the reign of William I, the Conqueror, first Norman - French King of England and Scotland in AD 1072.

Crusades (11th - 13th century) or religious military campaigns began in 1095; Pope Urban II on appeal from Byzantine Emperor Alexius I called upon all Christians to join a war against the Turks; In 1099 Jerusalem was captured in the first Crusade only to be lost again in 1187 and Crusades continued until the 17th Century. Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa of Germany, King Philip II Augustus of France and King Richard the Lion-Hearted of England established a Third Crusade to reverse this defeat, however only Richard stayed on and in 1191 captured the island of Cyprus, which then served as an operations center until 1571. The campaign recaptured the city of Acre and Jaffa and was within sight of Jerusalem when Richard, believed his army would return home after battle and they would not hold Jerusalem, negotiated a treaty with Saladin, which gave pilgrims free access to Jerusalem. It has been argued that these continuous campaigns embittered some peoples toward the Christian faith and may have influenced the ground swell of reformation and establishment of the Church of England.

The Irish of the 16-19th. Centuries were raised on talk of landlords and tenants and oppression and dispossession. The children's education was firstly supportive of their livelihood, and the fortunate whose family could afford it,

employed tutors, and would learn to read and write, languages and the history of Ireland, before other concerns of trade and the standards of English schooling.

Naval expansion and military battles founded some formidable Empires, Dutch, Spanish and the largest which was Britain, made up of dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and territories ruled or administered by Great Britain. The British Empire spread from Europe, the Middle East, South Africa, India, the Americas and Islands of the Pacific and Asia, arriving in Australia in 1788 as colonists.