950 years ago today England and the world changed

a reply to: corblimeyguvnor

NOT really ME ,there..BUT "F" bomb punctuated conversation CAN be off putting.

originally posted by: jellyrev
You would have thought if the normans were really French, The English and the French would have stopped warring with each other, but it was only the beginning.

The Norman conquest of England was pretty much the driving force behind the wars that followed as the Norman kings used English resources to prosecute their claims to the French throne.

a reply to: SprocketUK

One far further-reaching consequence of the Norman invasion was the rise of a 'ruling class' that was distinct from the conquered Britons. This is still reflected today in the fact that wine is regarded as a sophisticated drink and beer isn't. And in the fact that the meat the Norman rulers ate has 'table names' that are different from the animal names, and those table names are still recognisably French (beef/bouef, mutton/mouton, pork/porc, etc) whereas the food the peasants ate aren't (chicken, fish, that sort of thing).

The wine-versus-beer distinction in particular was perpetuated in the American colonies and survives in the US to this day, quite probably in a stronger form than it does in Britain, which has had more European influences for the last half-a-century. UK posters of a certain age *cough mumble* can almost certainly remember a time when there were only about three brands of wine on sale in British shops, and being a wine aficionado was a sign of stratospheric poshness.

originally posted by: CJCrawley

None of this would have happened had the English been victorious that day. The Anglo Saxons had shown no appetite for overseas conquest, merely for consolidating and defending their own territory.

It's doubtful they would have even got round to uniting Britain under one banner. Did they, for example, deal with the pesky Welsh marauders by invading Wales? No, they built Offa's Dyke. And I feel they would in time have beefed up Hadrian's wall to deal with the Scots. It sounds like a people, and a country, I could identify with.

I feel bad that the English lost the Battle of Hastings, and not only for patriotic reasons.

Yes and no. Anglo-Saxons had already inter married into Welsh aristocracy way before 1066 and King William's subsequent sparring partner was Malcolm Canmore, King of Scotland (who took the throne from Macbeth) - Canmore was married to Margaret, the sister of Edgar the Atheling (and true heir to the Cerdician throne). Other Anglo-Saxons already had positions of real power in Scotland also at this point.

Indeed, the aristocracy of Northern England - Southern Scotland was very intermingled. Whilst raids and wars went on, it was more almost a game at that time. Aethelstan and subsequent Kings had brought the individual nations much closer together - Aethelstan was pronounced High King of Britain as one example. This is another reason for Offa's Dyke; rather than full scale invasion it was for containment.



This all changed with the Normans.

a reply to: LABTECH767

Not a nice guy but arguably the worst crime of the Norman's was to inflict the bowl hair cut upon the nation that hung around for a very long time.

Now what would the Beatles have been without the Bowl Haircut.

a reply to: jellyrev

Germans are the largest ancestry group in the United States, now and probably all throughout history.

The House of Windsor is also German.

The House of Windsor is the royal house of the United Kingdom and the other Commonwealth realms. The dynasty is of German paternal descent and was originally a branch of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha..

- House of Windsor

originally posted by: nOraKat
a reply to: jellyrev

The House of Windsor is also German.

I think that since they've been living in Britain* since before the USA was even a nation, we can probably count the Windsors as naturalised British by now!

* = Not the exact Windsors we have now, I mean, unless that vampire stuff is true.

a reply to: audubon

No that is not totally correct but I get your point the royal families of Europe are very much the upper crust hillbilly's of the world and very inbred indeed, to the point were congenital errors and diseased are rife in there line's.

There were some marriages into Charlemagne's line but the house of Hapsburg and the Hanoverian's only really got a grip in about the 1700's really solidifying it through prince billy and co (William of orange and his supporters though technically he was of the house of Baux) whom as you also know did not have a legitimate claim to the English throne (let alone the Scot's throne) but was convenient as a stand in for those that FEARED that the Stuart house was too catholic.

In fact it is the period when the WAS Monarch moved aside by Parliament as they (the house of Hanover) were CONTRACTED by parliament (or rather by some in parliament) to take over from the more direct rule of the Stuart's and other supposedly legitimate heirs to the British monarchy.

Technically due to the legal contract's placed out in the Magna Carta as it has never been rescinded due to vested interest in the entitled heredatory nobility this act of Parliament which replaced the legitimate heir to the throne was a totally illegal action but history is what it is and anyway non of the supposed legitimate heirs had any real claim either.

a reply to: LABTECH767

? My post only concerned the fact that the Royal Family has lived in Britain for about three centuries and cannot by any reasonable standard be thought of as German by this stage.

As it happens, William of Orange's wife Mary was the first-born child of England's King James. So there was a legitimate claim to the throne by Mary. But that changed when James had a son (male primogeniture being the rule in those days).

James was such a tyrant that the establishment of a Catholic succession in England (through his son) was deemed unacceptable. And no wonder, out of the (Catholic) House of Stuart, we had already had one tyrant (Charles I) and to end up with another one (James) just a generation later seemed a bit more than bad luck.

So the British establishment of the day invited Mary's husband to invade, which he did. James fled Britain, and this was deemed an abandonment of the throne (which it was, obviously). There was no legal mechanism by which he could be removed, so that option was never available. Once the Oranges had settled in Britain, we got the Bill of Rights, which laid out in law for the first time the fundamental English principles that James had broken - the aim of this being to ensure it didn't happen again. So legally we locked the door once James had left, rather than pushing him out through it.

It was all a bit mediaeval in practice, because of the lack of legal framework (which was set out properly later on), but it worked.

Scotland had a faction that still held out for James, but even they gave him up as a lost cause when a letter from James was leaked to them, showing how James had planned to punish Scots in the event he managed to hold on to the throne of Scotland. So Scotland decided that the Scottish throne was now vacant too, and William and Mary filled that, too.

Technically, the throne should have been Mary's alone, and William her prince consort, but he stubbornly refused to settle without becoming King, so we ended up with a joint Monarchy between the couple (William III and Mary II).

The general principle then (and now) is that unless something is specifically forbidden by law then it is perfectly acceptable. There was no law preventing all this from happening!

(None of this was affected by Magna Carta. In fact, after the 'Glorious Revolution', it was found that the same principles in Magna Carta still applied, even though it was drawn up at a time before Parliament existed.)

Anyway, that didn't turn out too well and we ended up with the House of Hanover. They are not inbred. The only consanguinous marriage in the line was (rather shockingly) Albert and Victoria, who were first cousins.

The Hapsburgs on the other hand... absolutely shocking inbreeding, and their family tree makes for both grim and hilarious reading. My favourite tangled relationship is the one between Philip II of Spain and Albert VII of Austria: Albert was Philip II’s nephew, his brother-in-law, and his son-in-law all at the same time. But the Hapsburgs (thank the stars) never got so much as a sniff at Britain.

a reply to: audubon

Only as legitimate as that family's claim which was in fact not legitimate as far as the English throne was concerned, the Plantagenat line still existed and despite having been deposed they still technically had and have prior (but let's be fair not true) claim to the English throne.

The Rightful King of England as far as his prior claim was concerned was tracked down by Tony Robinson of the Time Team fame to a small town in the outback of australia and it turned out he already knew his rightful claim, that gentlemant has since passed away though and his son a very Australian sounding guy would therefore now have prior claim to the English throne to Charles etc.

Now if you were to look at Diana's line though perhaps not in direct succession her son's do have a legitimate claim to the Scot's throne.

Now personally I have to state that though I am technically an Aristocrat (though flat broke and brassic) I am not a royalist and my personal sentiment lie's with the Lord Protector's statement that There is no king but Christ though it is based upon religious belief and that is that since Christ is risen if we be a christian nation then HE is the only legitimate king.

a reply to: nOraKat

Germans are the largest ancestry group in the United States, now and probably all throughout history

As The Germans never had Colonies in North America i would doubt that claim.

The House of Windsor is also German.

Queen Elizabeth II mother has Scottish ancestry.

a reply to: LABTECH767

Only as legitimate as that family's claim which was in fact not legitimate as far as the English throne was concerned, the Plantagenat line still existed and despite having been deposed they still technically had and have prior (but let's be fair not true) claim to the English throne.

Well, both sides in the War of the Roses were Plantagenets. It's just that the York branch lost and the Lancaster branch won, but by then the Lancaster branch had run out of heirs and so only Henry Tudor (with a claim to the throne that was very vague indeed, via his mother) was left standing at the front of the queue as the oldest heir available. All in all, York lost but it was something (!) of a Pyrrhic victory for Lancaster.