Kings of England, Emperors of Britain 1269-1381, Emperors of Britain, Kings of Sweden 1381-1397, also Kings of Denmark 1397-, Emperors of All the North 1441-
(975-1003) Edward II (House of Wessex) [1]
(1004-1014) Sweyn I (House Tvaeskegg) [2]
(1014-1023) Æthelstan II (House of Wessex) [3]
(1023-1066) Edward III (House of Wessex)
(1066-1084) Oswald I (House of Northumbria) [4]
(1084-1111) Oswald II (House of Northumbria)
(1111-1143 ( Edmund II "the Good" (House of Northumbria)
(1143-1189) Edmore I "The Lonely King" (House of Northumbria) [5]
(1189-1202) English Civil War [6]
(1202-1216) Arthur I (House of Cornwall) [7]
(1216-1218) Enide I "The Maid of Tintagel" (House of Cornwall) [8]
(1218-1264) William I "the Conqueror" (House of Normandy) [9]
(1264-1269) Second Conquest of the English
(1269-1300) Ragnar I "the All-Highest" (House Crovan) [10]
(1300-1318) Ragnar II, "the Saint" (House Crovan) [11]
(1318-1369) Godred I, "the Spyder" (House Crovan)
(1369-1381) Skule I, "the Reckless" (House Crovan) [12]
(1381-1411) Godfried I, "the Glorious" (House Crovan-Bjalbo) [13]
(1411-1430) Godred II, "the Grateful" (House Crovan-Bjalbo)
(1430-1469) Harald I "the Great" (House Yngling) [14]
(1469-1480) Sweinn I "the Righteous" (House Yngling) [15]
(1480-1555) Sweinn II "the Resolute" (House Yngling) [16]
[1] Edward the Martyr isn't murdered and goes on to reign for 28 years. Later historians would go on to categorise him as Edward II following on from Edward the Elder (Alfred the Greats son).
[2] Following Edward's death, Aethelred and several others put forth claims to the throne. After the debate ended in a brawl and swords were drawn, a feud between the members of the House of Wessex ensued, with Aethelred fighting against his young nephew Eadmor. During this calamity, after the death of Eadmor, Sweyn Forkbeard landed in Yorkshire, taking in all those who had supported Eadmor and now feared for their lives.
[3] After Sweyn's death, Edward's eldest surviving son, Æthelstan Ætheling, returns from exile in Normandy and after beating Sweyn's son Cnut at the Battle of Loughborough, is able to restore the House of Wessex to the English Throne.
[4] Edward III died with no sons leaving only his daughter Edith of Wessex. Witanagemot was assembled in 1066 to decide on the new king. They choose Oswald of Northumbia who was the most powerful noble in land. To secure his claims to the throne Oswald married the teenage Edith. His reign was marked by its stability and time of increased economic activity espically with trade with more and more trade with Europe. Oswald did expand the kingdom by annexing the land of the Wales. Wales was brought sharply and quickly to heal . Oswald to help secure his legitimacy he married his children with grand houses of Europe in hope of making England a key player in Europe. He died in his sleep in 1084 aged just 57 surronded by his family.
[5] When Edmund died, he left his kingdom, or what remained of it after 50 years of Scottish incursions into his territory, to his only surviving son, Edmore, known as the lonely, as when he died, every member of his family was dead, all his sons slain or stillborn, and his cousins, many of whom betrayed him in 1176 during a Scottish invasion, also dead or exiled.
[6] With Edmore's death, no successor was appointed or ready to take over the throne. This resulted in the Civil War as ambitious families wanted to put their own kin on the throne and to control all England. This was not helped by the Scottish King making advances himself into England.
[7] Winner of the civil war.
[8] Eldest daughter of Arthur's first wife, the Swedish warlord's daughter Astrid; Enide tenuously occupied her father's seat during the internecine struggle among Arthur's sons by his second wife. She fought to control the throne for her own son, Ban.
[9] The Duke of Normandy, William took advantage of the turmoil which took place during the reign of Enide and, with careful planning, invaded England. He defeated and killed both Enide and Ban, proclaimed himself King of England, and established the House of Normandy. William replaced Anglo-Saxon and Danish noblemen with French and Norman officials. He introduced the Norman system of feudalism, reorganized the administrative system, and abolished the Witan, replacing it with a Privy Council. William secured his hold on the border regions with Scotland, up the Fifth of Firth, while also annexing most of Wales.
[10] Ragnar was the son of William's daughter Emma and Crovan king of Scotland. He took advantage of the death of William's capable heir Serlo to invade England once more, raising many exiled or unruly nobles to his banner, drawing particular support from the Britons and the Norse nobility. He managed to slay Williams other son, Robert, in the Battle of Hastings in 1268, and was crowned Emperor of Brittania, King of the Scots, Britons and Angles in 1269. From that point, Ragnar consolidated his rule, abolished the nascent French feudalism and ensured noble loyalty by crushing their powers. The serfs were either dead or free, and the towns of the realm boomed in his reign. The capital was made in Glasgow, and much of the economic wealth of the south was reconcentrated in Wales, York, Edinburgh and Glasgow. Scottish nobility ruled over much of the far south, and the Empire of Brittania was given capable administration and stability, free of French influence. The Scots language was given cultural prestige by the conquest, and the beginning of the British language (a mishmash of Scots Gaelic, Brythonic, Norman, Norse and other languages) begins with Ragnar the All-Highest.
[11] Second son of Ragnar I, he ascended to his father's seat upon the early death of the Duke of Orkney, Cedric, Ragnar's first son and heir. Ragnar II's Queen was the Cornish noblewoman, Elowen, herself the descendant of the House Cornwall, via the second of the sons of Arthur I, Bedver, whose line survived the the First Conquest of the English and the massacre of Arthur's line by William I. Ragnar was a scholarly, devout man, pious in his Christianity, and set about establishing a robust British monastic tradition within the Catholic Church. These efforts were centered on Whitby, setting his younger brother Aelfred up as the Bishop of Whitby. He founded monastaries all over Scotland and Northern England, and began construction on a large church in Cornwall dedicated to St. Enide, who acquired matyrdom status and whose prolonged captivity and execution at the hands of William became identified with the brutal conquest by and eventual overthrow of the Norman occupiers.
[12] Descended from Ragnar I's third son Malcolm, Godred was raised both as a capable administrator and as a cunning spymaster and diplomat. He managed to assassinate the other lines of royal succession, and married the one, illegitimate daughter of Ragnar II to the Dukes of Normandy. When Ragnar II's one son died of plague, Godred was first in line for succession as the great-grandson of Ragnar I, and ultimately became king. Married to the Irish princess Brigid O'Brian, he also had marital claim to the chaotic island of Ireland through the last Ard Ri Seamus II O'Brien. In the 1330s, Godred invaded Ireland and subjugated the island, integrating certain noble branches of families into loyal nobility and assassinating the rest. For the rest of his reign, Godred mainly ran the realm as a tight ship, centralized in the new capital in Jorvik. The culture of the realm flourished in the long peace, and the nobles were kept in line with bags of gold and dagger and poison. He also kept the church in line when a British Archbishop was made Pope, and tithes were carefully regulated. He died with a stable succession, an efficient administration across both Isles, and a general peace in Britain. Relative to its neighbors, Britain was both stable and uninvolved in continental affairs.
[12] He lacked much of Godred's patience and cunning, but possessed enough of his wit to be dangerous to both enemies of the kingdom and the kingdom itself. He envisioned a northern hegemony of all the Scandinavian states and Britain under one banner: his. The First Northern Expedition began with a significant invasion of Norway in 1374, and lost steam in the Battle of Ref in 1379. It finally ended in defeat after the Battle of Fimreite, where Sigurd IV and Skule both suffered severe injuries in the fight. Where Sigurd IV survived (he would forever be missing his eyesight and much of his face), Skule would die of his own three weeks later.
[13] Having become romantically involved with the daughter of king Haakon Haakonsson of Sweden, Godfried took the throne of his fathers kingdom on the field of Fimreite, and, when his father in law died during the retreat, he claimed the throne of Sweden as well. He went on to conquer Denmark and the North German Coast, but he died on campaign near the city of Brandenburg in 1411, surrounded by his brood of Base and True sons
[14] A descendant of the fifth son of Godfried I (one of his three surviving sons), Harald Yngling was born a noble in Norway with a marital inheritance in the Danelaw. He managed to press these clames extremely well, and eliminated the competition by means fair and foul. He then conquered the rest of Norway, replacing some jarls with loyal followers from the islands. The first Yngling Emperor, Harald beautified Jorvik and invigorated the Empire of Brittania and Scandinavia with cultural and administrative achievements. He also conquered the Finns, leading to two of the great elite units of the Empire- the Haakepelitta knights, turned into armored light cavalry, and the Welsh longbowmen, useful in sniping the Finns. He also defeated abortive French claims at Imperial land, and was crowned Emperor of All the North in 1441. He died in 1469, one of the most respected rulers in all of Europe.
[15] The Great Builder., he constructed many Cathdrals in Northern Gothic Style from across much of his Empire. He died in a fall from the Newly Reconstructed Jorvik High Cathedral.
[16] Barely days old upon his father's death, Sweinn was placed under regency for 16 years before claiming the throne proper. During this period, many pretenders rose and were defeated by pro-Yngling forces across the entire empire, but it was only after the rebellion of his brother Ragnar shortly after the end of his regency when Sweinn's regime was throroughly tested. After a six-year civil war, which at one point saw the entirety of Finland under Ragnar's yoke, Sweinn captured his brother and had him humiliated, executed, and buried in an unmarked grave. Despite the ferocity of his actions, the strength with which he ruled earned him great respect, and prompted no more rebellions within the Empire. Instead, Sweinn turned his attentions to further wars and territorial conquest - against various Russian principalities in the west, and for the Duchy of Brittany in 1543.
