Guest Author - Nicola Jane Soen

These next articles will look at the English and war. From once being crushed and conquered repeatedly the English rose to own one of the largest Empires in the world, only to lose it. England itself was built by war.

Often others have judged the English because of the fact they invaded other countries and made them subservient. This was very wrong of the English, and a high price has been paid ever since, by the English. However, before one judges, one needs to understand the history of why a crushed nation, who never learned to quit; rose to become a great empire on which the sun never set.

Although England was once a great empire; there is in fact in reality no true blooded English person, however many born in England (including myself) claim English, not British nationality. It is very elusive to define, but it is, to the English at least, a very clear definition!

Although there is now evidence of settlers as early as 700,000 years ago, this is still being dated and the site excavated in Pakefield. So I do not include that information here, not knowing enough to substantiate it.
Early Saxons were invaders; the Angles were actually early Germanic settlers. It was Alfred the Great (c. 848 to 901 AD) who actually called himself ‘The King of the English’.


But no matter who ruled, Norman or Roman, the English people had some traits that shone brightly, no matter who actually ruled them. Maybe because as a nation early on England suffered so much conquest, strife, and defeat and because England had been raided and pillaged by Danes, Celts, Picts, Normans, Romans and Saxons, all on either small border skirmishes or major invasions, it made the English spirit indominitable.

The will to survive; in English persons own unique way was a belief of the ‘English’ for centuries. An excellent example of this is the Roman invasion, over 400 years of enforced rule and occupation, left nearly no mark. The English left Roman houses; with their beautiful architecture, spacious rooms and central heating to rot and ruin; and carried on with their own traditional wattle and daub (mud and stick) houses.

So by 1066, the famous Battle of Hastings(William the Conqueror), England, in its seven major segments of Kent, Sussex, Wessex, Essex, East Anglia, Northumbria and Mercia had already been fought over, invaded and defeated many times before!

This invasion really polished off any original English royal claim, after Henry I married into the last Saxon house (really she was Mathilda of Scotland, yet another anomaly of the true ‘English’ person!) and then lost his children in the tragedy of the white ship. The throne was then in the hands of Steven of Blois, not because of conquest but due to the fact that Henry’s final heir had been a woman, Matilda his surviving daughter, who was considered not suitable to rule because she was female.

This caused major strife between the warring Barons, some who supported Matilda’s son, Henry of Anjou, later known as Henry II and others who served Steven. Wars over who really ruled England carried on. During Stevens rule England was also attacked by the Welsh and Scots, which was often ongoing.