- published: 23 Oct 2011
- views: 207781
- author: frankturner
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- Aescwine of Wessex
- Aethelbald of Wessex
- Aethelwulf of Wessex
- Albany Major
- Alfred the Great
- Alvingham
- Anachronism
- Angles
- Anglo-Saxon
- Anglo-Saxon paganism
- Anglo-Saxons
- Annales Cambriae
- Archæology
- Arlingham
- Arosæte
- Association football
- Athelstan of England
- Attributed arms
- Azure (heraldry)
- Baptism
- Basingas
- Bath, Somerset
- Battle of Aclea
- Battle of Edington
- Battle of Hastings
- Battle of Natanleod
- Bayeux Tapestry
- Beachhead
- Bede
- Beorhtwulf of Mercia
- Beormingas
- Beornwulf of Mercia
- Berkshire
- Bernicia
- Bilsæte
- Birinus
- Blazon
- Bournemouth
- Bretwalda
- Bristol
- British Army
- Britons (historic)
- Britons (historical)
- Bronze Age
- Brython
- Buckinghamshire
- Burford
- Burghal Hidage
- Cadet branch
- Caedwalla of Wessex
- Calshot
- Canute the Great
- Caradoc
- Cassivellaunus
- Ceawlin of Wessex
- Centwine of Wessex
- Cenwealh
- Ceol
- Ceolwulf of Wessex
- Cerdic of Wessex
- Chandler's Ford
- Chilterns
- Christianity
- Cilternsæte
- Cirencester
- Coat of arms
- Coenberht of Wessex
- College of Arms
- Cornwall
- Cotswolds
- Crosses in heraldry
- Cynegils of Wessex
- Cynric of Wessex
- Cædwalla
- David Dumville
- Deira
- Denmark
- Devolution
- Devon
- Dorset
- Dragon
- Duddeston
- Dudley
- Dumnonia
- Ealdorman
- Earl of Wessex
- Earldom
- East Anglia
- Edgar of England
- Edred of England
- Edward the Confessor
- Edward the Elder
- Edwy of England
- Egbert of Wessex
- Ellendun
- Elmetsæte
- Essex
- Ethelbert of Wessex
- Ethelfleda
- Exeter Cathedral
- Frank Turner
- Gaini
- Gewisse
- Gloucester
- Gloucestershire
- Gyrwas
- H. R. Loyn
- Haestingas
- Hampshire
- Harold Godwinson
- Harold II of England
- Henry III of England
- Henry of Huntingdon
- Heptarchy
- Herald
- Hertfordshire
- Highbury
- History of Banbury
- Humber
- Husmerae
- Hwicce
- Icelingas
- Icknield Way
- Ine of Wessex
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- Ireland
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- John Speed
- Jude the Obscure
- Jutes
- Kent
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- Late West Saxon
- Latin
- Lindisfaras
- London
- Lyonesse
- Magonsæte
- Martlet
- Meonwara
- Mercia
- Middle Angles
- Middle Saxons
- Middlesex
- Monarchy
- Mons Badonicus
- Netley Marsh
- North Charford
- North Mercians
- Northumbria
- Old English
- Old English language
- Old Sarum
- Or (heraldry)
- Oxford
- Oxfordshire
- Pecsæte
- Pencersæte
- Penda
- Penda of Mercia
- Pilgrimage
- Pressure group
- Reading, Berkshire
- Readingas
- Religious conversion
- River Avon, Bristol
- River Severn
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- Roman Empire
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- Saxons
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- Seaxburh of Wessex
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- Somerset Levels
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- Southampton
- Southampton Water
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- Sweordora
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- The Wash
- The Wessex Stadium
- Thomas Hardy
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- Traditional county
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- Victorian era
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- Wikipedia Link rot
- Wilton, Wiltshire
- Wiltshire
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- Witan
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-
Alvingham
Coordinates: 53°24′01″N 0°02′57″E / 53.400392°N 0.049266°E / 53.400392; 0.049266
Alvingham is a village that lies on a small back road leading east out of Louth, Lincolnshire, England.
In the west of the parish, it borders Keddington. The parish boundary meets Brackenborough with Little Grimsby, east of Brackenborough Wood. Passing northwards, it meets Yarburgh, and crosses the Alvingham-Yarburgh road near Newholme. It follows Black Dike in a north-east direction, north of America Farm. Where it crosses the north-south Louth Canal, it briefly meets Grainthorpe.
On Alvingham Fen it meets Conisholme and the Seven Towns North Eau, a one of the constituents of the River Lud as it approaches the coast. Directly to the east is a large wind farm on Conisholme Fen. The boundary follows the Seven Towns North Eau southwards, to the west of Nunnitts Farm (outside the parish). It meets North Cockerington at the point the Seven Towns North Eau, Seven Towns South Eau, and Old Eau meet to form the River Lud. The river (and parish boundary) runs parallel, to the south, to the Louth Canal.
wn.com/Alvingham -
Arlingham
Coordinates: 51°47′46″N 2°25′26″W / 51.796°N 2.424°W / 51.796; -2.424
Arlingham is a village and civil parish in the Stroud District of Gloucestershire, England. The 200 Census recorded a parish population of 410. The parish occupies a peninsula on a sharp bend in the River Severn. The next parish to the east is Fretherne with Saul.
In Passage Road is a fish restaurant called the Passage Inn. Arlingham FC, based near the parish church, is in Stroud League Division Four. The church has some of the oldest stained glass windows in Gloucestershire.
A Ham class minesweeper was named after the village - HMS Arlingham.
The centre of the village is built around The Cross and includes the Red Lion, a large public house partly dating from the 16th century. The village shop closed in 2007.
Arlingham is on the course of a Roman road which crossed the Severn (by a ford or ferry) to Newnham. The ford was in use until the 19th century but a change in the course of the river in 1802 made the ford difficult. The ferry continued in use until after the Second World War. In 1810 the Severn Tunnel Company secured an Act of Parliament to build a tunnel under the river here, and there were various schemes for a bridge, most recently in 1950.
wn.com/Arlingham -
Bath, Somerset
Coordinates: 51°23′N 2°22′W / 51.38°N 2.36°W / 51.38; -2.36
Bath (
/ˈbɑːθ/ or /ˈbæθ/) is a city in the ceremonial county of Somerset in the south west of England. It is situated 97 miles (156 km) west of London and 13 miles (21 km) south-east of Bristol. The population of the city is 83,992. It was granted city status by Royal Charter by Queen Elizabeth I in 1590, and was made a county borough in 1889 which gave it administrative independence from its county, Somerset. The city became part of Avon when that county was created in 1974. Since 1996, when Avon was abolished, Bath has been the principal centre of the unitary authority of Bath and North East Somerset (B&NES).
The city was first established as a spa with the Latin name, Aquae Sulis ("the waters of Sulis") by the Romans in AD 43, although verbal tradition suggests that Bath was known before then. They built baths and a temple on the surrounding hills of Bath in the valley of the River Avon around hot springs.Edgar was crowned king of England at Bath Abbey in 973. Much later, it became popular as a spa town during the Georgian era, which led to a major expansion that left a heritage of exemplary Georgian architecture crafted from Bath Stone.
wn.com/Bath,_Somerset -
Battle of Hastings
Coordinates: 50°54′43″N 0°29′15″E / 50.91194°N 0.4875°E / 50.91194; 0.4875
The Battle of Hastings occurred on 14 October 1066 during the Norman conquest of England, between the Norman-French army of Duke William II of Normandy and the English army under King Harold II. It took place at Senlac Hill, approximately 10 km (61⁄4 miles) northwest of Hastings, close to the present-day town of Battle, East Sussex, and was a decisive Norman victory.
Harold II was killed in the battle—legend has it that he was shot through the eye with an arrow. He was the last English king to die in battle on English soil until Richard III was killed at the Battle of Bosworth Field. The battle marked the last successful foreign invasion of the British Isles. Although there was further English resistance, this battle is seen as the point at which William gained control of England, becoming its first Norman ruler as King William I.
The battle also established the superiority of the combined arms attack over an army predominately composed of infantry, demonstrating the effectiveness of archers, cavalry and infantry working cooperatively together. The dominance of cavalry forces over infantry would continue until the emergence of the longbow, and battles such as Crecy, Poitiers and Agincourt in the Hundred Years War.
wn.com/Battle_of_Hastings -
Berkshire
Berkshire ( /ˈbɑrkʃər/ or /ˈbɑrkʃɪər/, abbreviated Berks) is both a ceremonial county and a historic county of England. The administrative county of Berkshire including the Berkshire County Council were abolished in 1998. The county is often referred to as the Royal County of Berkshire because of the presence of the royal residence of Windsor Castle in the county; this usage, which dates to the 19th century at least, was recognised by the Queen in 1957, and letters patent issued confirming this in 1974.
The ceremonial county has the same boundaries as the former administrative county, but historically the county was not co-terminous with this. The county borders the counties of Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Surrey, Wiltshire and Hampshire. Historically the county included several towns to the northwest of the county (including Abingdon, Didcot and Wantage) that were moved into Oxfordshire in 1974 boundary changes. At the same time the town of Slough was moved into Berkshire from Buckinghamshire.
wn.com/Berkshire -
Bristol
Bristol
i/ˈbrɪstəl/ is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone (LUZ) with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007. It is England's sixth and the United Kingdom's eighth most populous city, one of the group of English Core Cities and the most populous city in South West England.
Historically within Gloucestershire, the city received a Royal Charter in 1155 and was granted County status in 1373. From the 13th century, for half a millennium, it ranked amongst the top three English cities after London, alongside York and Norwich, on the basis of tax receipts, until the rapid rise of Liverpool, Birmingham and Manchester during the Industrial Revolution in the latter part of the 18th century. It borders the counties of Somerset and Gloucestershire, and is also located near the historic cities of Bath to the south east and Gloucester to the north. The city is built around the River Avon, and it also has a short coastline on the Severn Estuary, which flows into the Bristol Channel.
wn.com/Bristol -
Burford
Coordinates: 51°48′29″N 1°38′13″W / 51.808°N 1.637°W / 51.808; -1.637
Burford /ˈbɜrfərd/ is a small town on the River Windrush in the Cotswold hills in west Oxfordshire, England, about 18 miles (29 km) west of Oxford, 22 miles (35 km) southeast of Cheltenham and only about 2 miles (3 km) from the Gloucestershire boundary. The toponym derives from the Old English words burh meaning fortified town or hilltown and ford, the crossing of a river.
Burford Priory is a country house that stands on the site of a 13th-century Augustinian hospital. In the 1580s an Elizabethan house was built incorporating remnants of the priory hospital. It was remodelled in Jacobean style, probably after 1637, when the estate had been bought by William Lenthall, Speaker of the House of Commons in the Long Parliament. The house and later the chapel were restored for the philanthropist Emslie John Horniman, M.P., after 1912 by the architect Walter Godfrey.
From 1949 Burford Priory housed the Society of the Salutation of Our Lady, a community of Church of England nuns. In the 1980s, its numbers dwindled, so in 1987 it became a mixed community including Church of England Benedictine monks. In 2008 the community sold the property and it has now returned to being a private house.
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Calshot
Coordinates: 50°48′37″N 1°19′22″W / 50.810410°N 1.3227964°W / 50.810410; -1.3227964
Calshot is a coastal village in Hampshire, England at the west corner of Southampton Water where it joins the Solent. A settlement at the site is believed to have existed since the fifth century AD. It is mentioned as "Cerdicesora" in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.
In 1539, Henry VIII ordered the construction of Calshot Castle, at the end of Calshot Spit, to defend the port of Southampton from attack. Its strategic importance continues to the present day, and there is still a military presence in Calshot, though the castle is no longer a manned fort.
Calshot is notable for its role in the development of aircraft and flying boats. In 1913 the Royal Flying Corps established Calshot Naval Air Station (later known as RNAS Calshot and RAF Calshot) at the end of Calshot Spit. It was also at one point home to Lawrence of Arabia.
wn.com/Calshot -
Chandler's Ford
Coordinates: 50°59′02″N 1°22′45″W / 50.984°N 1.3792°W / 50.984; -1.3792
Chandler's Ford (originally The Ford and historically Chandlersford) is a largely residential area and civil parish in the Borough of Eastleigh in Hampshire, England, with a population of 20,071 in the 2001 UK Census.
Chandler's Ford lies on the old Winchester to Southampton road and the 'Ford' is thought to refer either to the ford of Monks Brook on the Hursley Road (shown on the Hursley map of 1588 as "Charnells foord") or on the Winchester-Southampton road. The "Chandler's" prefix was added in the late 16th century, and is derived from the surname, Chaundler, of a family in the area from the 14th Century.
Chandler's Ford is served by Chandler's Ford railway station.
The head offices of Draper Tools and B&Q are located in Chandler's Ford. Draper Tools has recently announced that they plan to move to Test Valley where they are currently building a new complex.
Hiltonbury Farm (now a public house) appeared on a map of 1588 and may originally have been owned by the Hursley Park Estate in nearby Hursley. It was later sold to Cranbury Park Estate and stopped being a working farm in the late 1970s, when the surrounding area was developed. Other communities revolved around other farms in the area but Chandler's Ford was very sparsely populated until the 19th century.
wn.com/Chandler's_Ford -
Chilterns
The Chiltern Hills form a chalk escarpment in South East England. They are known locally as "the Chilterns". A large portion of the hills was designated officially as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in 1965.
The Chilterns cover an area of 833 km2 (322 sq mi) and are 18 km (11 mi) at their widest and stretch 74 km (46 mi) in a southwest to northeast diagonal from Goring-on-Thames in Oxfordshire, through Buckinghamshire, via Dunstable Downs and Deacon Hill in Bedfordshire, to near Hitchin in Hertfordshire.
The boundary of the hills is clearly defined on the northwest side by the scarp slope. The dip slope, by its nature, merges with the landscape to the southeast. Similarly, the Thames provides a clear terminal to the southwest, whereas northeast of Luton the hills decline slowly in prominence.
wn.com/Chilterns -
College of Arms
The College of Arms or Herald's College is a royal corporation consisting of professional officers of arms, with jurisdiction over England, Wales, Northern Ireland and some Commonwealth realms. The heralds are appointed by the British Sovereign and are delegated authority to act on her behalf in all matters of heraldry, the granting of new coats of arms, genealogical research and the recording of pedigrees. Though a part of the Royal Household of the United Kingdom the College is self-financed, unsupported by any public funds.
Founded by royal charter in 1484 by King Richard III, the College is one of the few remaining official heraldic authorities in Europe. Within the United Kingdom, there are two such authorities, the Court of the Lord Lyon in Scotland and the College for the rest of the United Kingdom. The College has had its home in the City of London since its foundation, and has been at its present location on Queen Victoria Street since 1555. The College of Arms also undertakes and consults on the planning of many ceremonial occasions such as coronations, state funerals, the annual Garter Service and the State Opening of Parliament. Heralds of the College accompany the sovereign on many of these occasions.
wn.com/College_of_Arms -
Cornwall
Cornwall ( /ˈkɔrnwɔːl/ or /ˈkɔrnwəl/;Cornish: Kernow [ˈkɛrnɔʊ]; Latin: Cornubia or Cornuvia) is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of 537,400 and covers an area of 3,563 km2 (1,376 sq mi). The administrative centre and only city is Truro.
The area now known as Cornwall was first inhabited in the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic periods. It continued to be occupied by Neolithic and then Bronze Age peoples, and later (in the Iron Age) by Brythons with distinctive cultural relations to neighbouring Wales and Brittany. There is little evidence that Roman rule was effective west of Exeter and few Roman remains have been found. Cornwall was a division of the Dumnonii tribe—whose tribal centre was in the modern county of Devon—known as the Cornovii, separated from Wales after the Battle of Deorham, often coming into conflict with the expanding English kingdom of Wessex before King Athelstan in AD 936 set the boundary between English and Cornish at the Tamar. From the early Middle Ages, British language and culture was apparently shared by Brythons trading across both sides of the Channel, evidenced by the corresponding high medieval Breton kingdoms of Domnonee and Cornouaille and the Celtic Christianity common to both territories.
wn.com/Cornwall -
Cotswolds
The Cotswolds are a range of hills in southwestern and west-central England, an area 25 miles (40 km) across and 90 miles (145 km) long. The area has been designated as the Cotswold Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The highest point in the Cotswolds range is Cleeve Hill at 1,083 ft (330 m), 2.5 miles (4 km) to the north of Cheltenham.
The Cotswolds lie mainly within the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire, but extend into parts of Wiltshire, Somerset, Worcestershire and Warwickshire. The hills give their name to the Cotswold local government district in Gloucestershire, which administers a large part of the area.
The name Cotswold is sometimes attributed the meaning sheep enclosure in rolling hillsides, incorporating the term wold meaning woodland. The English Place-Name Society has for many years accepted that the term Cotswold is derived from Codesuualt of the twelfth century or other variations on this form, the etymology of which was given 'Cod's-wold', which is 'Cod's high open land'. Cod was interpreted as an Old English personal name, which can be recognised in further names: Cutsdean, Codeswellan, and Codesbyrig, some of which date back to the eighth century AD. It has subsequently been noticed that "Cod" could philologically derive from a Brittonic female cogname "Cuda", which is the name of a mother goddess recognised in the Cotswold region.
wn.com/Cotswolds -
Denmark
The Kingdom of Denmark (Danish: Kongeriget Danmark, pronounced [ˈkɔŋəʁiːəð ˈdanmɑɡ̊] (
listen)) is a constitutional monarchy and sovereign state consisting the country of Denmark in northern Europe and two autonomous constituent countries, the Faroe Islands in the North Atlantic and Greenland in North America. The kingdom is a unitary state with some power being devolved from Denmark proper to Greenland and the Faroe Islands; this polity is referred to as the Danish Realm. Denmark proper is the hegemonial area, where judicial, executive, and legislative power resides. The Faroe Islands are defined to be a community of people within the kingdom, and the Greenlandic people are defined as a separate people with the right to self-determination.
Denmark is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, located southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. The country consists of a large peninsula, Jutland and many islands, most notably Zealand, Funen, Lolland, Falster and Bornholm, as well as hundreds of minor islands often referred to as the Danish Archipelago.
wn.com/Denmark -
Devon
Coordinates: 50°42′N 3°48′W / 50.7°N 3.8°W / 50.7; -3.8
Devon ( /ˈdɛvən/) is a large county in southwestern England. The county is sometimes referred to as Devonshire, although it has never been officially "shired" and that use often indicates a traditional or historical context. Nowadays, "Devonshire" is mostly a demonym.
The county shares borders with Cornwall to the west and Dorset and Somerset to the east. Its southern coast abuts the English Channel and its northern coast the Bristol Channel and Celtic Sea. The name "Devon" derives from the ancient Dumnonia, which was home to the independent kingdom of Brythonic Celtic speaking people who inhabited this area of the southwestern peninsula of Britain continuously from through the Roman era until partial absorption into the English-speaking Kingdom of Wessex some time in the eighth or ninth century, with some emigration to the sister Kingdom of Domnonee in Brittany taking place.
Devon is the fourth largest of the English counties by area and has a population of 1,141,600 making it the 11th most populous. The county town is the cathedral city of Exeter. In addition to Devon County Council, the county contains two unitary authorities (independent from Devon County Council's control): the port city of Plymouth and Torbay, a conurbation of seaside resorts. Plymouth is also the largest city in Devon. Much of the county is rural (including national park) land, with a low population density by British standards. It contains Dartmoor 954 km2 (368 sq mi), the largest open space in southern England. It is the only English county to have two separate coastlines – a north and southern coastline.
wn.com/Devon -
Duddeston
Duddeston is an inner-city area of the Nechells ward of Birmingham, England. It was part of the Birmingham Duddeston constituency until that ceased to exist in 1950.
The name Duddeston comes from Dud's Town, with Dud being the Saxon proprietor, Lord of Dudley who probably had a seat in Duddeston. It was speculated that Duddeston came from Dudda's tun but nothing is known of Dudda.
Duddeston is first mentioned in a charter granted to Wulfget the Thane by Eadgar, King of the Angles in 963. There is no mention of Duddeston for another 200 years until it said that the Holte family were the residents of Duddeston Manor, a large house located next to the River Rea. This had been purchased by the family in 1365 by the family who also owned the manor of Nechells and were related to a prominent family in Erdington. Their wealth of land expanded two years later when the manor of Aston was bestowed upon them.
100 years later, Thomas Holte became the Chief Justice of Wales and a close friend of King Henry VIII. In 1546, Thomas died and Duddeston Hall was a sign of his wealth. His grandson, also called Thomas Holte, supplied a small army in defending Ireland and for this he was knighted. He commissioned the construction of Aston Hall soon after.
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Dudley
Coordinates: 52°30′43″N 2°05′45″W / 52.5119°N 2.0957°W / 52.5119; -2.0957
Dudley (i/ˈdʌdli/ DUD-lee) is a large town in the West Midlands county of England, and the administrative centre of the wider Metropolitan Borough of Dudley. At the 2001 census (according to the Office of National Statistics), the Dudley Urban Sub Area had a population of 194,919, making it the one of the largest settlements in England, the second largest town in the United Kingdom behind Reading, and the largest settlement in the UK without its own university.
Dudley is part of the West Midlands conurbation, and is located south of the city of Wolverhampton. It is the largest town in the Black Country region of England, and for many years the town (but not the castle, which was classed as part of Staffordshire) formed part of an exclave of the county of Worcestershire. Despite the more recent changes in county borders, the town still remains part of the Anglican Diocese of Worcester.
Dudley unsuccessfully bid to receive city status in 2012, losing out to Chelmsford, Perth and St. Asaph.
wn.com/Dudley -
East Anglia
East Anglia is a traditional name for a region of eastern England, named after an ancient Anglo-Saxon kingdom, the Kingdom of the East Angles. The Angles took their name from their homeland Angeln, in northern Germany. East Anglia initially consisted of Norfolk and Suffolk, but upon the marriage of the East Anglian princess Etheldreda, the Isle of Ely also became part of the kingdom. Formerly a standard statistical region, for administrative purposes East Anglia now forms part of the East of England government office region and is defined as a Level 2 Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics, comprising the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire including the city of Peterborough unitary authority area.
The Kingdom of the East Angles, formed about the year 520 by the merging of the North and the South Folk (Angles who had settled in the former lands of the Iceni during the previous century) was one of the seven Anglo-Saxon heptarchy kingdoms (as defined in the 12th century writings of Henry of Huntingdon). For a brief period following a victory over the rival kingdom of Northumbria around the year 616, East Anglia was the most powerful of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England, and its king Raedwald was Bretwalda (overlord of the Anglo-Saxons kingdoms). But this did not last: over the next forty years, East Anglia was defeated by the Mercians twice, and it continued to weaken relative to the other kingdoms until in 794, Offa of Mercia had its king Æthelberht killed and took control of the kingdom himself.
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Gloucester
Gloucester (i/ˈɡlɒstər/ GLOS-tər) is a city, district and county town of Gloucestershire in the South West region of England. Gloucester lies close to the Welsh border, and on the River Severn, approximately 32 miles (51 km) north-east of Bristol, and 45 miles (72 km) south-southwest of Birmingham.
Gloucester was founded in AD 97 by the Romans under Emperor Nerva as Colonia Glevum Nervensis, and was granted its first charter in 1155 by King Henry II. Economically, the city is dominated by the service industries, and has a strong financial and business sector, being home to the bank Cheltenham & Gloucester and historically was prominent in the aerospace industry.
The existence of a British settlement at Gloucester (Caer Glow, Gleawecastre, Gleucestre) is not confirmed by any direct evidence, but Gloucester was the Roman municipality of Colonia Nervia Glevensium, or Glevum, founded in the reign of Nerva. Parts of the walls can be traced, and many remains and coins have been found, though inscriptions are scarce. Evidence for some civic life after the end of Roman Britain includes the mention in the Historia Brittonum that Vortigern's grandfather ruled Gloucester. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Gloucester was part of Wessex from the Battle of Deorham in 577 until 584, when it came under the control of Mercia.
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Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire (i/ˈɡlɒstərʃər/ GLOSS-tər-shər; abbreviated Glos.) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn, and the entire Forest of Dean.
The county town is the city of Gloucester, and other principal towns include Cheltenham, Cirencester, Stroud, and Tewkesbury.
When considered as a ceremonial county, Gloucestershire borders the preserved county of Gwent in Wales (now Monmouthshire), and in England the ceremonial counties of Herefordshire, Worcestershire, Warwickshire, Oxfordshire, Wiltshire and Somerset. Ceremonially, it includes the area covered by the South Gloucestershire unitary authority.
According to a 2002 campaign by the charity Plantlife, the county flower of Gloucestershire is the Wild Daffodil.
Gloucestershire is a historic county mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in the 10th century, though the areas of Winchcombe and the Forest of Dean were not added until the late 11th century. Gloucestershire originally included the then "small town" of Bristol. The "local" rural community moved to the port city, (as Bristol was to become) and Bristol's population growth accelerated during the industrial revolution. Bristol became part of the administrative County of Avon in 1974.
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Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire (i/ˈhɑrtfərdʃɪər/ or /ˈhɑrfərdʃər/; abbreviated Herts) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England. The county town is Hertford.
Hertfordshire is one of the home counties and lies inland, bordered by Greater London (to the south), Buckinghamshire (to the west), Bedfordshire (including the unitary authorities of Luton and Central Bedfordshire to the north), Cambridgeshire (to the north east) and Essex (to the east).
Hertfordshire was originally the area assigned to a fortress constructed at Hertford under the rule of Edward the Elder in 913. The name Hertford is derived from the Anglo-Saxon heort ford, meaning deer crossing (of a watercourse). The name Hertfordshire first appears in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in 1011. Deer feature prominently in many county emblems.
There is evidence of human beings living in Hertfordshire since the Middle Stone Age. It was first farmed during the Neolithic period and permanent habitation appeared at the beginning of the Bronze Age. This was followed by tribes settling in the area during the Iron Age.
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Highbury
Coordinates: 51°33′07″N 0°05′49″W / 51.552°N 0.097°W / 51.552; -0.097
Highbury is a district in the London Borough of Islington.
The area now known as Islington was part of the larger manor of Tolentone, which is mentioned in the Domesday Book. Tolentone was owned by Ranulf brother of Ilger and included all the areas north and east of Canonbury and Holloway Road. The manor house was situated by what is now the east side of Hornsey Road near the junction with Seven Sisters Road. After the manor decayed, a new manor house was built in 1271 (see below) to the south-east; to differentiate it from the original manor and because it was on a hill, it was called Highbury, from which the area takes its name.
The site for Highbury Manor was possibly used by a Roman garrison as a summer camp. During the construction of a new Highbury House in 1781, tiles were found that could have been Roman or Norman; unfortunately these have been lost.
Ownership of Highbury eventually passed to Alicia de Barrow, who in 1271 gave it to the Priory of St John of Jerusalem, also known as the Knights Hospitallers in England. The wealthy Lord Prior built Highbury manor as a substantial stone country lodging with a grange and barn.
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History of Banbury
Banbury ( /ˈbænbəri/) is a circa 1,500 year old market town and civil parish on the River Cherwell in the Cherwell District of Oxfordshire, England. It is 64 miles (103 km) northwest of London, 38 miles (61 km) southeast of Birmingham, 27 miles (43 km) south of Coventry and 21 miles (34 km) north northwest of the county town of Oxford.
The toponym "Banbury" derives from "Banna", a Saxon chieftain said to have built a stockade there in the 6th century, and "burgh" meaning settlement. One Saxon spelling was Banesbyrig. The name appears as Banesberie in Domesday Book. Another known Medieval spelling was 'Banesebury'
The derivation of the name of the Grimsbury, now part of Banbury, is of early Saxon type, and is the corruption of word for a defended enclosure (burh) belonging to a person called ‘Grim’.
Banbury stands at the junction of two ancient roads: Salt Way (used as a bridle path to the west and south of the town), its primary use being transportation of salt ; and Banbury Lane, which began near Northampton and is closely followed by the modern road. It continued through what is now Banbury High Street and onwards to the Fosse Way at Stow-on-the-Wold. The earliest settlement at Banbury was in the British Iron Age. The remains of a settlement with circular buildings dating back to 200 BC were found in 2002 during excavations for the foundations of a building in Hennef Way. The site contained around 150 pieces of pottery and stone.
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Humber
The Humber ( /ˈhʌmbər/) is a large tidal estuary on the east coast of Northern England. It is formed at Trent Falls, Faxfleet, by the confluence of the tidal River Ouse and the tidal River Trent. From here to the North Sea, it forms part of the boundary between the East Riding of Yorkshire on the north bank and North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire on the south bank. Although the Humber is an estuary from the point at which it is formed, many maps show it as the River Humber.
Below Trent Falls, the Humber passes the junction with the Market Weighton Canal on the north shore, the confluence of the River Ancholme on the south shore; between North Ferriby and South Ferriby and under the Humber Bridge; between Barton-upon-Humber on the south bank and Kingston upon Hull on the North bank (where the River Hull joins), then meets the North Sea between Cleethorpes on the Lincolnshire side and the long and thin (but rapidly changing) headland of Spurn Head to the North.
Ports on the Humber include Kingston upon Hull (better known as simply Hull), Grimsby, Immingham, New Holland and Killingholme. The estuary is navigable here for the largest of deep-sea vessels. Inland connections for smaller craft are extensive but currently only handle one quarter of the goods traffic handled in the Thames.
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Icknield Way
Coordinates: 51°50′40″N 0°36′12″W / 51.8445°N 0.6034°W / 51.8445; -0.6034
The Icknield Way is an ancient trackway in southern England. It follows the chalk escarpment that includes the Berkshire Downs and Chiltern Hills.
It is generally said to be one of the oldest roads in Great Britain, being one of the few long-distance trackways to have existed before the Romans occupied the country, of which the route can still be traced. However, this has been disputed, and the evidence for it being a prehistoric route has been questioned.
The name is Celto-British in derivation, and may be named after the Iceni tribe, who may have established this route to permit trade with other parts of the country from their base in East Anglia. It has also been suggested that the road has older prehistoric origins. However, the name is also said to have been initially used for the part to the west and south (i.e. south of the River Thames) but now refers usually to the track or traces north of the Thames.
From ancient times, at least early as the Iron Age period (before the Roman invasion of 43 AD) and through Anglo-Saxon times, it stretched from Berkshire through Oxfordshire and crossed the River Thames at Cholsey, near Wallingford.
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Ireland
Coordinates: 53°20′N 08°00′W / 53.333°N 8°W / 53.333; -8
Ireland (pronounced [ˈaɪrlənd] ( listen); Irish: Éire [ˈeːɾʲə] ( listen); Ulster Scots: Airlann or Airlan) is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth. To its east is the larger island of Great Britain, from which it is separated by the Irish Sea.
Politically, Ireland is divided between the Republic of Ireland, which covers just under five-sixths of the island, and Northern Ireland, a part of the United Kingdom, which covers the remainder and is located in the northeast of the island. The population of Ireland is approximately 6.4 million. Just under 4.6 million live in the Republic of Ireland and just under 1.8 million live in Northern Ireland.
Relatively low-lying mountains surrounding a central plain epitomise Ireland's geography with several navigable rivers extending inland. The island has lush vegetation, a product of its mild but changeable oceanic climate, which avoids extremes in temperature. Thick woodlands covered the island until the 17th century. Today, it is one of the most deforested areas in Europe. There are twenty-six extant mammal species native to Ireland.
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Isle of Wight
The Isle of Wight is a county and the largest island of England, located in the English Channel, on average about 2–5 miles (3–7 km) off the south coast of the county of Hampshire, separated from the mainland by a strait called the Solent. The Island has many resorts which have been holiday destinations since Victorian times.
The Island has a rich history, including a brief status as an independent kingdom in the 15th century. Until 1995, like Jersey and Guernsey, the Island had its own Governor—most notably Lord Mountbatten from 1969 to 1974, after which he became Lord Lieutenant until his assassination in 1979.
It was home to the poets Swinburne and Alfred Lord Tennyson, and to Queen Victoria, who built her much-loved summer residence and final home Osborne House at East Cowes. The Island's maritime and industrial history encompasses boat building, sail making, the manufacture of flying boats, the world's first hovercraft and the testing and development of Britain's space rockets. It is home to the Isle of Wight International Jazz Festival, Bestival and the recently revived Isle of Wight Festival, which, in 1970, was the largest rock music event ever held. The Island has some exceptional wildlife and is one of the richest locations of dinosaur fossils in Europe.
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Kent
Kent /ˈkɛnt/ is a county in South East England, and one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of Medway. Kent has a nominal border with France halfway through the Channel Tunnel. Maidstone is its county town and historically Rochester and Canterbury have been accorded city status, though only the latter still holds it.
Kent's location between London and the continental Europe has led to its being in the front line of several conflicts, including the Battle of Britain during World War II. East Kent was known as Hell Fire Corner during the conflict. England has relied on the county's ports to provide warships through much of the past 800 years; the Cinque Ports in the 12th–14th centuries and Chatham Dockyard in the 16th–20th centuries were of particular importance to the country's security. France can be seen clearly in fine weather from Folkestone, and the iconic White Cliffs of Dover.
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Kingdom of England
The Kingdom of England was, from 927 to 1707, a sovereign state to the northwest of continental Europe. At its height, the Kingdom of England spanned the southern two-thirds of the island of Great Britain (including both modern-day England and Wales) and several smaller outlying islands; what today comprises the legal jurisdiction of England and Wales. It had a land border with the Kingdom of Scotland to the north. At the start of the period its capital and chief royal residence was Winchester, but Westminster and Gloucester were accorded almost equal status, with Westminster gradually gaining preference.
England as a state began on 12 July 927 after a gathering of kings from throughout Britain at Eamont Bridge, Cumbria, but broadly traces its origins to the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain and the Heptarchy of petty states that followed and ultimately united. The Norman invasion of Wales from 1067–1283 (formalised with the Statute of Rhuddlan in 1284) put Wales in England's control, and Wales came under English law with the Laws in Wales Acts 1535–1542. On 1 May 1707, England was united with Scotland to create the Kingdom of Great Britain under the terms of the Acts of Union 1707. Though no longer a sovereign state, modern England continues as one of the countries of the United Kingdom.
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London
Londoni/ˈlʌndən/ is the capital city of England and the United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its founding by the Romans, who named it Londinium. London's ancient core, the City of London, largely retains its square-mile mediaeval boundaries. Since at least the 19th century, the name London has also referred to the metropolis developed around this core. The bulk of this conurbation forms the London region and the Greater London administrative area, governed by the elected Mayor of London and the London Assembly.
London is a leading global city, with strengths in the arts, commerce, education, entertainment, fashion, finance, healthcare, media, professional services, research and development, tourism and transport all contributing to its prominence. It is the world's leading financial centre alongside New York City and has the fifth-largest city GDP in the world (and the largest in Europe). London has been described as a world cultural capital. It was the world's most visited city during 2011 and London Heathrow is the world's busiest airport by number of international passengers. London's 43 universities form the largest concentration of higher education in Europe. In 2012 London will become the first city to host the modern Summer Olympic Games three times.
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Mercia
Mercia ( /ˈmɜrsiə/, /ˈmɜrʃə/) was one of the kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy. It was centred on the valley of the River Trent and its tributaries in the region now known as the English Midlands. The name is a Latinisation of the Old English Mierce or Myrce, meaning "border people".
Mercia's neighbours included Northumbria, Powys and the kingdoms of southern Wales, Wessex, Sussex, Essex and East Anglia.
The name Mercia is still in use today by a wide range of organisations, including military units, public, commercial and voluntary bodies; and occurs as a female given name.
Mercia's exact evolution from the Anglo-Saxon invasions is more obscure than that of Northumbria, Kent, or even Wessex. Also, Mercia developed an effective political structure and adopted Christianity later than the other kingdoms. Archaeological surveys show that Angles settled the lands north of the River Thames by the 6th century. The name Mercia is Old English for "boundary folk" (see Welsh Marches), and the traditional interpretation is that the kingdom originated along the frontier between the native Welsh and the Anglo-Saxon invaders. However, P. Hunter Blair argued an alternative interpretation: that they emerged along the frontier of Northumbria and the inhabitants of the Trent river valley.
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Middlesex
Middlesex ( /ˈmɪdəlsɛks/; abbreviated Middx) is one of the 39 historic counties of England and the second smallest by area. The low-lying county contained the wealthy and politically independent City of London on its southern boundary and was dominated by it from a very early time. The county was significantly affected by the expansion of the metropolitan area of London in both the 18th and 19th centuries, such that from 1855 the south-east was administered as part of the metropolis. When county councils were initially introduced in England in 1889 about 20% of the area of Middlesex, along with a third of its population, was transferred to the County of London, and the remainder formed a smaller county, in the north-west, under the control of Middlesex County Council.
In the interwar years urban London had further expanded, with increasing suburbanisation, improvement and expansion of public transport, and the setting up of new industries outside the inner London area. After the Second World War, the population of the County of London and inner Middlesex was in steady decline, with new population growth only experienced in the outer suburbs. After a Royal Commission on Local Government in Greater London, almost all of the original area was incorporated into an enlarged Greater London in 1965, with small parts transferred to neighbouring Hertfordshire and Surrey. Despite the disappearance of the county council, Middlesex is still used as an area name and was retained as a postal county; which is now an optional component of postal addresses.
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North Charford
Coordinates: 50°58′41″N 1°45′54″W / 50.978°N 1.765°W / 50.978; -1.765
North Charford is a hamlet in the New Forest district, in Hampshire, England, near the Wiltshire border. Historically the name refers to a manor which is now in the civil parish of Breamore on the west bank of the River Avon.
North and South Charford are usually identified with the "Cerdic's ford" which appears twice in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. It first is mentioned under the entry for the year 508 when we are told that following a battle to the east "the land as far as Cerdic's ford was named Natanleaga" For the year 519 we are told that "Cerdic and Cynric succeeded to the kingdom [of the West Saxons]; and in the same year they fought against the Britons at a place called Cerdic's ford". If a battle really did take place here then it is possible that the boundary of Hampshire was first established here.
In the time of the Domesday Book of 1086, North Charford (Cerdeford) was a fairly large settlement of 29 households. The lands were split between the Earl of Salisbury and "Alwy son of Turber". That which Alwy owned may subsequently have become the manor of Hale.Richard II was overlord of North Charford in 1397, but subsequently the Bulkeleys claimed the overlordship, asserting that the manor was held of them as of their manor of Nether Burgate and their hundred of Fordingbridge. This was denied by Edward Abarowe, lord of North Charford in 1563, but seventy years later Sir William Bulkeley was stated to be the overlord.
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Northumbria
Northumbria (Old English: Norþanhymbra / Norþhymbre) was a mediæval kingdom of the Angles, in what is now Northern England and South-East Scotland, becoming subsequently an earldom in a united Anglo-Saxon kingdom of England. The name reflects the approximate southern limit to the kingdom's territory, the Humber Estuary.
Northumbria was formed by Æthelfrith in central Great Britain in Anglo-Saxon times. At the beginning of the 7th century the two kingdoms of Bernicia and Deira were unified. (In the 12th century writings of Henry of Huntingdon the kingdom was defined as one of the Heptarchy of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms.) At its greatest the kingdom extended at least from just south of the Humber, to the River Mersey and to the Forth (roughly, Sheffield to Runcorn to Edinburgh) – and there is some evidence that it may have been much greater (see map).
The later (and smaller) earldom came about when the southern part of Northumbria (ex-Deira) was lost to the Danelaw. The northern part (ex-Bernicia) at first retained its status as a kingdom but when it become subordinate to the Danish kingdom it had its powers curtailed to that of an earldom, and retained that status when England was reunited by the Wessex-led reconquest of the Danelaw. The earldom was bounded by the River Tees in the south and the River Tweed in the north (broadly similar to the modern North East England).
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Oxford
Oxfordi/ˈɒksfəd/ is a city in central southern England, the home of the University of Oxford. The city is the county town of Oxfordshire, and forms a district within the county. It has a population of just under 165,000, of whom 153,900 live within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles (80 km) north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames (also sometimes known as the Isis locally) run through Oxford and meet south of the city centre.
Oxford has a diverse economic base. Its industries include motor manufacturing, education, publishing and a large number of information technology and science-based businesses.
Buildings in Oxford demonstrate an example of every English architectural period since the arrival of the Saxons, including the iconic, mid-18th century Radcliffe Camera. Oxford is known as the "city of dreaming spires", a term coined by poet Matthew Arnold in reference to the harmonious architecture of Oxford's university buildings. The University of Oxford is the oldest university in the English-speaking world.
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Oxfordshire
Oxfordshire ( /ˈɒksfərdʃər/ or /ˈɒksfərdʃɪər/; archaically the County of Oxford; abbreviated Oxon from the Latinised form of "Oxford", Oxonia) is a county in the South East region of England, bordering on Warwickshire and Northamptonshire (to the north/northeast), Buckinghamshire (to the east), Berkshire (to the south), Wiltshire (to the southwest) and Gloucestershire (to the west).
The county has major education and tourist industries. The area is noted for the concentration of performance motorsport companies and facilities. Oxford University Press is the largest firm among a concentration of print and publishing firms; the University of Oxford is also linked to the concentration of local biotechnology companies.
The main centre of population is the city of Oxford. Other significant settlements are Banbury, Bicester, Kidlington, and Chipping Norton to the north of Oxford; Witney to the west; Thame and Chinnor to the east; and Abingdon, Wantage, Didcot, Wallingford and Henley-on-Thames to the south. Future population growth in the county is hoped[clarification needed] to be concentrated around Oxford, Banbury, Bicester, Didcot and Witney, near the South Midlands growth area.
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Reading, Berkshire
Reading (i/ˈrɛdɪŋ/ RED-ing) is a large town and unitary authority area in England. It is located in the Thames Valley at the confluence of the River Thames and River Kennet, and on both the Great Western Main Line railway and the M4 motorway, some 40 miles (64 km) west of London.
The Borough of Reading has a population of 145,700 (2008 estimate) and the town formed the largest part of the Reading/Wokingham Urban Area which had a population of 369,804 (2001 census). The town is currently represented in the UK parliament by two members, and has been continuously represented there since 1295. For ceremonial purposes the town is in the county of Berkshire and has served as its county town since 1867, previously sharing this status with Abingdon.
The first evidence for Reading as a settlement dates from the 8th century. Reading was an important centre in the medieval period, as the site of Reading Abbey, a monastery with strong royal connections. The town was seriously impacted by the Civil War, with a major siege and loss of trade, and played a pivotal role in the Revolution of 1688, with that revolution's only significant military action fought on the streets of the town. The 19th century saw the coming of the Great Western Railway and the development of the town's brewing, baking and seed growing businesses.
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Salisbury
Coordinates: 51°04′26″N 1°47′37″W / 51.0740°N 1.7936°W / 51.0740; -1.7936
Salisbury ( /ˈsɔːlzbri/ SAWLZ-bree or /ˈsɒlzbri/ SOLZ-bree, or locally /ˈsɔːzbri/) is a cathedral city in Wiltshire, England and the only city in the county. It is the second largest settlement in the county (the largest being Swindon). It has also been called New Sarum to distinguish it from the original site of settlement to the north of the city at Old Sarum, but this alternative name is not in common use.
The city is located in the south-east of Wiltshire, near the edge of Salisbury Plain. It sits at the confluence of five rivers: the Nadder, Ebble, Wylye and Bourne are tributary to the Avon, which flows to the south coast and into the sea at Christchurch, Dorset. Salisbury railway station serves the city, and is the crossing point between the West of England Main Line and the Wessex Main Line, making it a regional interchange.
Although the actual city was not established until 1220, there has been a settlement in the area since prehistory. There is evidence of Neolithic settlement on the hilltop of Old Sarum, which became a hill fort in the Iron Age. The Romans called this fort "Sorviodunum" and may also have occupied the fort. The Saxons established themselves there called it "Searesbyrig" and the Normans built a castle or "Seresberi". By 1086, in the Domesday Book, it was called "Salesberie".
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Scotland
Scotland (Scottish Gaelic: Alba ([ˈalˠ̪apə] listen (help·info))) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the southwest. In addition to the mainland, Scotland constitutes over 790 islands including the Northern Isles and the Hebrides.
Edinburgh, the country's capital and second largest city, is one of Europe's largest financial centres. Edinburgh was the hub of the Scottish Enlightenment of the 18th century, which transformed Scotland into one of the commercial, intellectual and industrial powerhouses of Europe. Glasgow, Scotland's largest city, was once one of the world's leading industrial cities and now lies at the centre of the Greater Glasgow conurbation. Scottish waters consist of a large sector of the North Atlantic and the North Sea, containing the largest oil reserves in the European Union. This has given Aberdeen, the third largest city in Scotland, the title of Europe's oil capital.
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Sherborne
Coordinates: 50°56′57″N 2°31′06″W / 50.9491°N 2.5183°W / 50.9491; -2.5183
Sherborne is a market town in northwest Dorset, England. It is sited on the River Yeo, on the edge of the Blackmore Vale, 6 miles (9.7 km) east of Yeovil. The A30 road, which connects London to Penzance, runs through the town. The population of the town is 9,350 (as of 2001). 27.1% of the population is aged 65 or older.
Sherborne is famous for its historic buildings, including its abbey, a manor house, its famous independent schools, and two castles (the 'old castle' ruins of a 12th century fortified palace, and a 'new' 16th century mansion, known as Sherborne Castle, built by Sir Walter Raleigh). Much of the old town, including the abbey and many medieval and Georgian buildings, is built from the distinctive ochre-coloured ham stone. The picturesque town is a popular, though relatively unknown,[clarification needed]tourist town.
The town is served by Sherborne railway station.
The town was named scir burne by the Saxon inhabitants, a name meaning "clear stream" (see: Bourne (placename)) and is referred to as such in the Domesday book.
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Silchester
Coordinates: 51°21′11″N 1°06′04″W / 51.353°N 1.101°W / 51.353; -1.101
Silchester is a village and civil parish about 5 miles (8 km) north of Basingstoke in Hampshire. It is adjacent to the county boundary with Berkshire and about 9 miles (14 km) south-west of Reading.
Silchester is most notable for the archaeological site and Roman town of Calleva Atrebatum, which was first occupied by the Romans in about AD 45 and includes what is considered the best-preserved Roman wall in Great Britain.
The present village is centred around Silchester Common. It is about 1 mile (1.6 km) west of the Church of England parish church and former manor house (now Manor Farm), which are in the eastern part of the former Roman town.
Silchester is a civil parish with an elected parish council. Silchester parish is in the ward of Pamber and Sichester, part of Basingstoke and Deane District Council and of Hampshire County Council and all three councils are responsible for different aspects of local government. The ward returns two councillors to the borough council. The 2001 census recorded a parish population of 918.
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Somerset
The ceremonial and non-metropolitan county of Somerset (i/ˈsʌmərsɛt/ or /ˈsʌmərsɨt/) in South West England borders Bristol and Gloucestershire to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east, and Devon to the south-west. It is partly bounded to the north and west by the Bristol Channel and the estuary of the River Severn. Its traditional northern border is the River Avon, but the administrative boundary has crept southwards with the creation and expansion of the City of Bristol, and latterly the county of Avon and its successor unitary authorities to the north. Somerset's county town, Taunton, is in the south.
Somerset is a rural county of rolling hills such as the Blackdown Hills, Mendip Hills, Quantock Hills and Exmoor National Park, and large flat expanses of land including the Somerset Levels. There is evidence of human occupation from Palaeolithic times, and of subsequent settlement in the Roman and Anglo-Saxon periods. The county played a significant part in the consolidation of power and rise of King Alfred the Great, and later in the English Civil War and the Monmouth Rebellion.
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Southampton
Southamptoni/saʊθˈhæmptən/ is the largest city in the county of Hampshire on the south coast of England, and is situated 120 kilometres (75 mi) south-west of London and 30 kilometres (19 mi) north-west of Portsmouth. Southampton is a major port and the closest city to the New Forest. It lies at the northernmost point of Southampton Water at the confluence of the River Test and River Itchen, with the River Hamble joining to the south of the urban area. The local authority is Southampton City Council, which is a unitary authority.
The city represents the core of the Greater Southampton region, and the city itself has an estimated population of 239,700 Southampton combines with Portsmouth to form a single metropolitan area; with a population of over a million this makes the region one of the United Kingdom's most populous metropolitan areas. The city's name is sometimes abbreviated in writing to "So'ton" or "Soton", and a resident of Southampton is called a Sotonian.
Significant employers in Southampton include the University of Southampton, Southampton Airport, the Ford Transit factory, Ordnance Survey, BBC South, the NHS, ABP and Carnival. Southampton is noted for its association with the RMS Titanic, the Spitfire and more recently a number of the largest cruise ships in the world.
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Southampton Water
Southampton Water is a tidal estuary north of the Solent and the Isle of Wight in England. The city of Southampton lies at its most northerly point. Along its salt marsh-fringed western shores lie the New Forest villages of Hythe and "the waterside", Dibden Bay, and the Esso oil refinery at Fawley. On the slightly steeper eastern shore are the Southampton suburb of Weston, the villages of Netley and Hamble-le-Rice, and the Royal Victoria Country Park.
Together with the Solent, Southampton Water is world-renowned for yachting. It served as one of the sailing events for the 1908 Summer Olympics.
Geographically, Southampton Water is classified as a ria, or drowned valley, of the English Channel. It was formed by the rivers Test, Itchen and Hamble which flow in to it, and became an inlet of the sea at the end of the last ice age when sea levels rose, flooding many valleys in the south of England.
Southampton's emergence as a major port, and particularly as a port handling very large vessels, depended partly on certain geographical features of Southampton Water. Its depth, even in its undeveloped state, was generous; this depth of water has been increased over the years with comparative ease since the soft silt of the river-bed allows for easy dredging. An additional factor is the phenomenon of the "double tide", which results in unusually prolonged periods of high water. This greatly facilitates the movements of very large ships.
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Sunningas
Coordinates: 51°24′18″N 0°39′22″W / 51.405°N 0.656°W / 51.405; -0.656
Sunninghill is a village in the civil parish of Sunninghill and Ascot in the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead in the English shire county of Berkshire
It is south west and about 12 miles (19 km) from Heathrow Airport and 26 miles (42 km) from Central London. It is just outside Ascot, one of the UK's most famous locations for horse racing. It is close to Sunningdale, Bracknell, Windsor Great Park and Wentworth Golf Club. The town of Windsor is about 7 miles (11 km).
Junction 3 of the M3 motorway and the A30 road are within 1 mile (2 km) at Lightwater. M25 London Orbital motorway junctions 3 at Staines and 11 at Chertsey are both 7 miles (11 km).
The nearest railway stations are Ascot and Sunningdale on the London Waterloo to Reading line.
The village is part of the of Sunninghill and Ascot Parish Council area with an office in Ascot.
The name Sunninghill means "the home of Sunna's people, that is, the Anglo-Saxon Sunningas tribe".
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Surrey
Surrey /ˈsʌri/ is a county in the South East of England, and one of the home counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire, and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford.Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of Greater London since 1965. The London boroughs of Lambeth, Wandsworth and Southwark were considered part of Surrey until 1889; and Croydon, Kingston, Merton, Sutton, Barnes and Richmond - all now reclassified as part of Greater London - were part of Surrey until 1965.
Surrey is divided into 11 boroughs and districts: Elmbridge, Epsom and Ewell, Guildford, Mole Valley, Reigate and Banstead, Runnymede, Spelthorne, Surrey Heath, Tandridge, Waverley, Woking. After the elections of 1 May 2008, the Conservatives are in control of 10 out of 11 councils in Surrey, with Epsom and Ewell in Residents Association control. The Conservatives hold all 11 Parliamentary constituencies within the county borders.
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Thames Valley
The Thames Valley Region is a loose term for the English counties and towns roughly following the course of the River Thames as it flows from Oxfordshire in the west to London in the east. It includes parts of Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, North Hampshire, Surrey and west London. It does not include the source of the Thames at Thames Head in Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, central or east London or the outflowing of the Thames into the Thames Estuary.
The phrase Thames Valley Region should not be confused with the term M4 Corridor which denotes the route of the M4 motorway which provides East/West travel on a more southerly route extending from Hammersmith through Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Wiltshire and over the River Severn via the Second Severn Crossing Toll Bridge into South Wales.
The Thames Valley region is one of the wealthiest regions in the European Union, helped by good communications, a well educated work force, proximity to London and strong local employers. Its economy was valued at £32 billion in 2007.
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The Wash
The Wash is the square-mouthed bay and estuary on the northwest margin of East Anglia on the east coast of England, where Norfolk meets Lincolnshire. It is among the largest estuaries in the United Kingdom. It is fed by the Rivers Witham, Welland, Nene and Great Ouse.
The Wash shows as a large indentation in the coastline of the map of Eastern England, separating the curved coast of East Anglia from Lincolnshire. It is formed by a large bay with three roughly straight sides meeting at right angles, each about 15 miles (25 km) in length. The eastern coast of the Wash is entirely within Norfolk, and extends from a point a little north of Hunstanton in the north to the mouth of the River Great Ouse at King's Lynn in the south. The opposing coast, which is roughly parallel to the east coast, runs from Gibraltar Point to the mouth of the River Welland, all within Lincolnshire. The southern coast runs roughly northwest-southeast, connects these two river mouths and is punctuated by the mouth of a third river, the River Nene.
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Wales
Walesi/ˈweɪlz/ (Welsh: Cymru;Welsh pronunciation: [ˈkəm.rɨ] ( listen)) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain,bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km2 (8,023 sq mi). Wales has over 1,200 km (750 mi) of coastline, including its offshore islands; the largest, Anglesey (Ynys Môn), is also the largest island in the Irish Sea. Wales is largely mountainous, with its highest peaks in the north and central areas, especially in Snowdonia (Eryri), which contains Snowdon (Yr Wyddfa), its highest summit.
During the Iron Age and early medieval period, Wales was inhabited by the Celtic Britons. A distinct Welsh national identity emerged in the centuries after the Roman withdrawal from Britain in the 5th century, and Wales is regarded as one of the modern Celtic nations today. Gruffydd ap Llywelyn was recognised as King of Wales in 1057. Llywelyn ap Gruffydd's death in 1282 marked the completion of Edward I of England's conquest of Wales. The castles and town walls erected to ensure its permanence are now UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Owain Glyndŵr briefly restored independence to what was to become modern Wales, in the early 15th century. Wales was subsequently annexed by England under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535–1542 since when, excluding those matters now devolved to Wales, English law has been the legal system of Wales and England. Distinctive Welsh politics developed in the 19th century. Welsh Liberalism, exemplified in the early 20th century by Lloyd George, was displaced by the growth of socialism and the Labour Party. Welsh national feeling grew over the century; Plaid Cymru was formed in 1925 and The Welsh Language Society in 1962. The National Assembly for Wales, created in 1999 following a referendum, holds responsibility for a range of devolved policy matters.
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Wessex
The Kingdom of Wessex ( /ˈwɛsɨks/) or Kingdom of the West Saxons (Old English: Westseaxna rīce) was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the West Saxons in South West England, from the 6th century until the emergence of a united English state under the Wessex dynasty in the 10th century. It was to be an earldom after Canute the Great's conquest of 1016, from 1020 to 1066. After the Norman Conquest there was a dissolution of the English earldoms and Wessex was split among the followers of William the Conqueror.
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Wilton, Wiltshire
Coordinates: 51°04′48″N 1°51′50″W / 51.080°N 1.864°W / 51.080; -1.864
Wilton is a town in Wiltshire (of which it was once the county town), England, with a rich heritage dating back to the Anglo-Saxons. Today it is dwarfed by its larger and more famous neighbour, Salisbury, but still has a range of notable shops and attractions, including Wilton House.
The confluence of the rivers Wylye and Nadder is at Wilton.
The history of Wilton dates back to the Anglo-Saxons in the 8th century AD, and by the late 9th century it was the capital of Wiltunscire, a region of the Kingdom of Wessex. It remained the administrative centre of Wiltshire until the 11th century. Wilton was of significant importance to the church, with the founding of Wilton Abbey in AD 771 and a number of other establishments. In AD 871 Alfred the Great fought and lost an important battle there against the Danish armies, leaving him in retreat for several years.
Despite further attacks, Wilton remained a prosperous town, as recorded in the Domesday book. The building of Salisbury Cathedral nearby, however, caused Wilton's decline, as the new site of Salisbury, with a new bridge over the River Avon, provided a convenient bypass around Wilton on the trade routes.
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Wiltshire
Wiltshire ( /ˈwɪltʃər/ or /ˈwɪltʃɪər/, formerly /ˈwɪlʃər/; or the County of Wilts) is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset, Somerset, Hampshire, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire. It contains the unitary authority of Swindon and covers 3,485 km2 (1,346 square miles). The ancient county town was Wilton, but since 1930 Wiltshire County Council and its successor Wiltshire Council (from 2009) have been based at Trowbridge.
Wiltshire is characterised by its high downland and wide valleys. Salisbury Plain is famous as the location of the Stonehenge and Avebury stone circles and other ancient landmarks and as the main training area in the UK of the British Army. The city of Salisbury is notable for its mediaeval cathedral. Important country houses open to the public include Longleat, near Warminster, and the National Trust's Stourhead, near Mere.
The county, in the 9th century written as Wiltunscir, later Wiltonshire, is named after the former county town of Wilton, itself named after the river Wylye, one of eight rivers which drain the county.
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Winchester
Coordinates: 51°03′48″N 1°18′31″W / 51.0632°N 1.3085°W / 51.0632; -1.3085
Winchester (archaically known as Winton and Wintonceastre) is a historic cathedral city and former capital city of England. It is the county town of Hampshire, in South East England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government district, and is located at the western end of the South Downs, along the course of the River Itchen. At the time of the 2001 Census, Winchester had a population of 41,420.
Winchester developed from the Roman town of Venta Belgarum. Winchester's major landmark is Winchester Cathedral, one of the largest cathedrals in Europe, with the distinction of having the longest nave and overall length of all Gothic cathedrals in Europe. The town is also home to the University of Winchester and the famous public school, Winchester College. The city's architectural and historic interest, and its fast links to other towns and cities have led Winchester to become one of the most expensive and desirable areas of the country. A person who is from or resides in Winchester is sometimes locally known as a Wintonian.
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Aescwine of Wessex
Æscwine was a King of Wessex from about 674 to 676, but was probably not the only king in Wessex at the time.
Bede writes that after the death of King Cenwalh in 672: "his under-rulers took upon them the kingdom of the people, and dividing it among themselves, held it ten years". According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle Cenwalh was succeeded as ruler for about one year by his wife Seaxburh. Æscwine reigned from about 674 to 676. Another source claims that Æscwine's father, Cenfus (Old English: Cēnfūs), ruled for two years after Seaxburh.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle supplies a genealogy, making him a fifth-generation descendant of Cynric. Bede's dismissal of Æscwine as a mere sub-king may represent the views of the supporters of the King Ine, whose family ruled Wessex in Bede's time, as Ine's family were bona fide descendants of Cynric through Ceawlin's son Cuthwine.
In 675, Æscwine defeated an invasion of Wessex led by the Mercian King Wulfhere at Biedanheafde, a location which has not been certainly identified.
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Aethelbald of Wessex
King Æthelbald of Wessex or Ethelbald (Old English: Æþelbald; means roughly 'Noble Bold') was King of Wessex from 858 to 860. He was the second of the five sons of King Æthelwulf of Wessex and Osburh.
He witnessed his father's charters as a kings' son in the 840s, and in 850 he received the rank of Ealdorman. In 855 he became regent of Wessex while his father, Æthelwulf, visited Rome, his elder brother Æthelstan having died in 851 or shortly after. His younger brother Æthelbert became king of Kent.
Æthelwulf returned a year later, having taken as his second wife, the Carolingian King Charles the Bald's thirteen-year-old daughter Judith. According to Alfred the Great's biographer, Asser, during Æthelwulf's absence there may have been a plot hatched to prevent the king's return either by Æthelbald, or by Ealhstan, Bishop of Sherborne and Eanwulf, Ealdorman of Somerset, or by all three. It is probable that Æthelbald was involved in such a plot due to hearing about his father's marriage to Judith. The marriage to a Frankish princess who had her own royal lineage could have produced heirs more throne-worthy than Æthelbald.
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Aethelwulf of Wessex
Æthelwulf, also spelled Aethelwulf or Ethelwulf; Old English: Æþelwulf, meaning "Noble Wolf", was King of Wessex from 839 until his death in 858. He is the only son who can indisputably be accredited to King Egbert of Wessex. He conquered the kingdom of Kent on behalf of his father in 825, and was sometime later made King of Kent as a sub-king to Egbert. He succeeded his father as King of Wessex on Egbert's death in 839, at which time his kingdom stretched from the county of Kent in the east to Devon in the west. At the same time his eldest son Æthelstan became sub-king of Kent as a subordinate ruler.
Historians give conflicting assessments of Æthelwulf. According to Richard Humble, Æthelwulf had a worrying style of Kingship. He had come to the throne of Wessex by inheritance. He proved to be intensely religious, cursed with little political sense, and with too many able and ambitious sons. To Frank Stenton, "Æthelwulf seems to have been a religious and unambitious man, for whom engagement in war and politics was an unwelcome consequence of rank." However, Janet Nelson thought that his reign has been under-appreciated in modern scholarship, and that he laid the foundations for Alfred's success, finding new as well as traditional answers, and coping more effectively with Scandinavian attacks than most contemporary rulers. In Simon Keynes's view, "it was he, more than any other, who secured the political fortune of his people in the 9th century, and who opened up channels of communication which led through the Frankish realms and across the Alps to Rome."
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Alfred the Great
Alfred the Great (Old English: Ælfrēd, Ælfrǣd, "elf counsel"; 849 – 26 October 899) was King of Wessex from 871 to 899.
Alfred successfully defended his kingdom against the Viking attempt at conquest, and by his death had become the dominant ruler in England. He is the only English monarch to be accorded the epithet "the Great". Alfred was the first King of the West Saxons to style himself "King of the Anglo-Saxons". Details of his life are described in a work by the 10th century Welsh scholar and bishop Asser. Alfred was a learned and merciful man who encouraged education and improved his kingdom's legal system and military structure.
Alfred was born in the village of Wanating, now Wantage, Oxfordshire. He was the youngest son of King Æthelwulf of Wessex, by his first wife, Osburh.
In 853, at the age of four, Alfred is said to have been sent to Rome where, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, he was confirmed by Pope Leo IV who "anointed him as king". Victorian writers interpreted this as an anticipatory coronation in preparation for his ultimate succession to the throne of Wessex. However, his succession could not have been foreseen at the time, as Alfred had three living elder brothers. A letter of Leo IV shows that Alfred was made a "consul"; a misinterpretation of this investiture, deliberate or accidental, could explain later confusion. It may also be based on Alfred's later having accompanied his father on a pilgrimage to Rome where he spent some time at the court of Charles the Bald, King of the Franks, around 854–855.
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Angles
The Angles is a modern English term for a Germanic people who took their name from the ancestral cultural region of Angeln, a district located in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. The Angles were one of the main groups that settled in Britain in the post-Roman period, founding several of the kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon England, and their name is the root of the name "England".
The name of the Angles is first recorded in Latinized form, as Anglii, in the Germania of Tacitus. The name is usually derived from a toponym, Angeln, from a Germanic word *anguz meaning "narrow" (of an estuary) or "angular" (of the shape of the Jutland peninsula).
Gregory the Great in an epistle simplified the Latinized name Anglii to Angli, the latter form developing into the preferred form of the word. The country remained Anglia in Latin. King Alfred's (Alfred the Great) translation of Orosius' history of the world uses Angelcynn (-kin) to describe England and the English people; Bede used Angelfolc (-folk); there are also such forms as Engel, Englan (the people), Englaland, and Englisc, all showing i-mutation.
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Anglo-Saxons
The term Anglo-Saxon is used by some historians to designate the Germanic tribes who invaded and settled the south and east of Britain beginning in the early 5th century and the period from their creation of the English nation up to the Norman conquest. The Anglo-Saxon era denotes the period of English history between about 550 and 1066. The term is also used for the language, now known as Old English, that was spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons and their descendants in England (and part of southeastern Scotland) between at least the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century.
The Benedictine monk Bede, writing in the early 8th century, identified the English as the descendants of three Germanic tribes:
Their language, Old English, which derived from Ingvaeonic West Germanic dialects, transformed into Middle English from the 11th century. Old English was divided into four main dialects: West Saxon, Mercian, Northumbrian and Kentish.
The term Anglo-Saxon can be found in documents produced in the time of Alfred the Great, who seems to have frequently used the titles rex Anglorum Saxonum and rex Angul-Saxonum (king of the English Saxons). The Old English terms ænglisc ('Angle-kin') and Angelcynn ('gens Anglorum') had already lost their original sense of referring to the Angles, as distinct from the Saxons, when they are first attested. In their earliest sense they referred to the nation of Germanic peoples who settled eastern Britain from the 5th century.[citation needed] The indigenous Britons, who wrote in both Latin and Welsh, referred to these invaders as 'Saxones' or 'Saeson' – the word Saeson is the modern Welsh word for 'English people'; the equivalent word in Scottish Gaelic is Sasannach and in the Irish language, Sasanach.
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Arosæte
The Arosæte were an Anglo-Saxon tribe that lived in the Kingdom of Mercia. According to the historian D. P. Kirby the Arosæte territory, valued at 600 hides by the Tribal Hidage, probably followed the valleys of the two River Arrows, the Worcestershire Arrow which stretches from south Warwickshire to Worcestershire and the Herefordshire Arrow in Herefordshire and Powys. With the Weorgoran to the southwest, and other tribes to the north and east, their territory may have been close to Droitwich.
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Athelstan of England
Æthelstan or Athelstan (Old English: Æþelstan, Æðelstān; c. 893/895 – 27 October 939) was the King of England from 924 or 925 to 939. He was the son of King Edward the Elder and his first wife, Ecgwynn. Æthelstan's success in securing the submission of Constantine II, King of Scots, at the Treaty of Eamont Bridge in 927 allowed him to claim the title of 'king of the English', and even "by wishful extension" 'king of Britain'. Victory over Scottish and Viking forces at the Battle of Brunanburh in 937 confirmed his prestige. His reign has been overlooked, overshadowed by the achievements of his grandfather, Alfred the Great, but he is now regarded as one of the greatest kings of the West Saxon dynasty. Æthelstan was the first king of a unified England from 927, and his reign was of fundamental importance to political developments in the 10th century.
The materials for a life of Æthelstan are very limited, and the first biography, by Sarah Foot, was only published in 2011. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in this period is principally devoted to military events, and as Æthelstan's achievements were mainly in the reconstruction of the church and government, it is largely silent during his reign apart from recounting his military triumphs. The main source for his life is the twelfth century chronicle of William of Malmesbury, but historians are cautious about accepting his testimony, much of which cannot be verified from other sources. David Dumville goes so far as to dismiss William's account entirely, regarding him as a "treacherous witness" whose account is unfortunately influential. However, Sarah Foot is inclined to accept Michael Wood's argument that William's chronicle draws on a lost life of Æthelstan, while cautioning that we have no means of discovering how far William 'improved' on the original.
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Basingas
The Basingas were an Anglo-Saxon tribe who settled in the Loddon Valley in approximately 700. Their leader, Basa, gave the tribe its name which survives today in the names of Old Basing and Basingstoke, both in Hampshire.
Old Basing was first settled around 700 by an Anglo-Saxon tribe known as the Basingas, who give the village its name (the meaning is "Basa's people"). It was the site of the Battle of Basing on 22 January 871, when a Danish army defeated Ethelred of Wessex. It is also mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086.
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Bede
Bede ( /ˈbiːd/ BEED; Old English: Bǣda or Bēda; 672/673 – 26 May 735), also referred to as Saint Bede or the Venerable Bede (Latin: Bēda Venerābilis), was an English monk at the Northumbrian monastery of Saint Peter at Monkwearmouth and of its companion monastery, Saint Paul's, in modern Jarrow (see Monkwearmouth-Jarrow), both in the Kingdom of Northumbria. Bede's monastery had access to a superb library which included works by Eusebius and Orosius among many others.
He is well known as an author and scholar, and his most famous work, Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (The Ecclesiastical History of the English People) gained him the title "The Father of English History". In 1899, Bede was made a Doctor of the Church by Leo XIII, a position of theological significance; he is the only native of Great Britain to achieve this designation (Anselm of Canterbury, also a Doctor of the Church, was originally from Italy). Bede was moreover a skilled linguist and translator, and his work with the Latin and Greek writings of the early Church Fathers contributed significantly to English Christianity, making the writings much more accessible to his fellow Anglo-Saxons.
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Beorhtwulf of Mercia
Beorhtwulf (also spelled Berhtwulf) (died 852) was King of the Mercians from 839 or 840 to 852. His ancestry is unknown, though he may have been connected to Beornwulf, who ruled Mercia in the 820s. Almost no coins were issued by Beorhtwulf's predecessor, Wiglaf, but a Mercian coinage was restarted by Beorhtwulf early in his reign, initially with strong similarities to the coins of Æthelwulf of Wessex, and later with independent designs. The Vikings attacked within a year or two of Beorhtwulf's accession: the province of Lindsey was raided in 841, and London, a key centre of Mercian commerce, was attacked the following year. Another Viking assault on London in 851 "put Beorhtwulf to flight", according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle; the Vikings were subsequently defeated by Æthelwulf. This raid may have had a significant economic impact on Mercia, as London coinage is much reduced after 851.
Berkshire appears to have passed from Mercian to West Saxon control during Beorhtwulf's reign. The Welsh are recorded to have rebelled against Beorhtwulf's successor, Burgred, shortly after Beorhtwulf's death, suggesting that Beorhtwulf had been their overlord. Charters from Beorthwulf's reign show a strained relationship with the church, as Beorhtwulf seized land and subsequently returned it.
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Beormingas
The Beormingas ( /ˈbeɪ.ɔərmɪŋɡəs/; from Old English) were a tribe or clan in Anglo-Saxon England, possibly forming an early administrative unit of the Kingdom of Mercia. The name literally means "Beorma's people" in Old English, and Beorma is likely to have been either the leader of the group during its settlement in Britain or a real or legendary tribal ancestor. The name of the tribe is recorded in the place name Birmingham, which means "home, homestead or land-unit of the Beormingas".
It has been suggested that the Beormingas occupied a wider area, much larger than Birmingham's manor and parish and including many surrounding settlements scattered along the River Tame. Such beorminga or "Beorming" settlements could have come together in much the same way as The Rodings, a cluster of Anglo-Saxon villages established by the tribe of Hroða, who sailed up the River Thames to settle in Essex. It is possible that Anglo-Saxon place-names still in modern usage near Birmingham (Bearwood, Berwood, Brewood, Bromford, Little Bromwich, West Bromwich and Bromsgrove, for example) may reflect a link to beorminga settlements across northern parts of the Forest of Arden in Staffordshire and Warwickshire.
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Beornwulf of Mercia
Beornwulf (died 825) was King of Mercia (now the Midlands of England) from 823 to 825. His short reign saw the collapse of Mercia's supremacy over the kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy.
Beornwulf's ancestry is practically unknown. His father was a Mercian nobleman, ealdorman Beorhtweald (died 796). A man named Beornwulf is mentioned as having witnessed a charter of King Coenwulf in 812 and another of King Ceolwulf in 823, but his position on each of these charters suggests he was not of an exceptionally high rank.
Ceolwulf I was overthrown in 823, and Beornwulf became king. Powys was conquered by the Mercians at about this time, but it is unclear which of the two kings was ruling when it occurred. It has been argued that the known record suggests Beornwulf was more vigorous and likely to wage such a campaign than Ceolwulf, and that the conquest of Powys may have therefore been accomplished by Beornwulf at the beginning of his rule. Soon after he rebuilt the Abbey of St. Peter (later Gloucester Cathedral). He presided over two synods at Clofesho (an unknown location believed to be near London) with archbishop Wulfred of Canterbury, in 824 and 825.
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Bernicia
Bernicia (Old English: Bernice, Beornice; Latin: Bernicia) was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom established by Anglian settlers of the 6th century in what is now southeastern Scotland and North East England.
The Anglian territory of Bernicia was approximately equivalent to the modern English counties of Northumberland and Durham, and the former Scottish counties of Berwickshire and East Lothian, stretching from the Forth to the Tees. In the early 7th century, it merged with its southern neighbour, Deira, to form the kingdom of Northumbria and its borders subsequently expanded considerably.
Bernicia is mentioned in the 9th-century Historia Brittonum (§ 61) under the Welsh name of Berneich or Birneich and in Old Welsh poetry and elsewhere under the name of Bryneich or Brynaich. This may reflect the name of a preceding Brythonic kingdom or province, which was subsequently adopted by the Anglian settlers and rendered as Bernice or Beornice in the Old English tongue. If such forms represent a Welsh version of Bernicia, it is unclear why Welsh would need to borrow a 'foreign' name for the area, so the former hypothesis is usually accepted, although no etymological analysis has produced a consensus. The etymology which is most widely cited is that tentatively proposed by Kenneth H. Jackson, which gives the meaning "Land of the Mountain Passes" or "Land of the Gaps". The earlier derivation from the tribal name of the Brigantes has been dismissed as linguistically unsound. In 1997 John T. Koch suggested the conflation of a probable primary form *Bernech with the native form *Brïγent for the old civitas Brigantum as a result of Anglian expansion in that territory during the 7th century.
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Birinus
Birinus (c. 600–649), venerated as a saint, was the first Bishop of Dorchester, and the "Apostle to the West Saxons".
After Augustine of Canterbury performed initial conversions in England, Birinus, a Frank, came to the kingdoms of Wessex in 634, landing at the port of "Hamwic", now in the St. Mary's area of Southampton. During Birinus's brief time at Hamwic, St. Mary's Church was founded.
Birinus had been made bishop by Asterius in Genoa, and Pope Honorius I created the commission to convert the West Saxons. In 635, he persuaded the West Saxon king Cynegils to allow him to preach. Cynegils was trying to create an alliance with Oswald of Northumbria, with whom he intended to fight the Mercians. At the final talks between kings, the sticking point was that Oswald, being a Christian, would not ally himself with a heathen. Cynegils then converted and was baptized, and he gave Birinus Dorchester-on-Thames for his episcopal see. Birinus's original commission entailed preaching to parts of Britain where no missionary efforts had reached, and may have included instructions to reach the Mercians. But he ultimately remained in the kingdom of West Saxon kingdom, or Wessex as it became known.
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Caedwalla of Wessex
Cædwalla (c. 659 – 20 April 689) was the King of Wessex from approximately 685 until he abdicated in 688. His name is derived from the British Cadwallon. He was exiled as a youth, and during this time attacked the South Saxons and killed their king, Æthelwealh, in what is now Sussex. Cædwalla was unable to hold the territory, however, and was driven out by Æthelwealh's ealdormen. In either 685 or 686 he became king of Wessex. He may have been involved in suppressing rival dynasties at this time, as an early source records that Wessex was ruled by underkings until Cædwalla.
After his accession Cædwalla returned to Sussex and won the territory again, and also conquered the Isle of Wight, engaging in genocide and extinguishing the ruling dynasty there and forcing the population of the island at sword point to renounce their faith for Christianity.. He gained control of Surrey and the kingdom of Kent, and in 686 he installed his brother, Mul, as king of Kent. Mul was burned in a Kentish revolt a year later, and Cædwalla returned, possibly ruling Kent directly for a period.
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Canute the Great
Cnut the Great (Old Norse: Knútr inn ríki;c. 985 or 995 – 12 November 1035), also known as Canute, was a king of Denmark, England, Norway and parts of Sweden. Though after the death of his heirs within a decade of his own and the Norman conquest of England in 1066, his legacy was largely lost to history, historian Norman F. Cantor has made the paradoxical statement that he was "the most effective king in Anglo-Saxon history".
Cnut was of Danish and Slavic descent. His father was Sweyn Forkbeard, King of Denmark (which gave Cnut the patronym Sweynsson, Old Norse Sveinsson). Cnut's mother was the daughter of the first duke of the Polans, Mieszko I; her name may have been Świętosława (see: Sigrid Storråda), but the Oxford DNB article on Cnut states that her name is unknown.
As a prince of Denmark, Cnut won the throne of England in 1016 in the wake of centuries of Viking activity in northwestern Europe. His accession to the Danish throne in 1018 brought the crowns of England and Denmark together. Cnut held this power-base together by uniting Danes and Englishmen under cultural bonds of wealth and custom, rather than sheer brutality. After a decade of conflict with opponents in Scandinavia, Cnut claimed the crown of Norway in Trondheim in 1028. The Swedish city Sigtuna was held by Cnut. He had coins struck which called him king there, but there is no narrative record of his occupation.
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Ceawlin of Wessex
Ceawlin (also spelled Ceaulin and Caelin, died ca. 593) was a King of Wessex. He may have been the son of Cynric of Wessex and the grandson of Cerdic of Wessex, whom the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle represents as the leader of the first group of Saxons to come to the land which later became Wessex. Ceawlin was active during the last years of the Anglo-Saxon invasion, with little of southern England remaining in the control of the native Britons by the time of his death.
The chronology of Ceawlin's life is highly uncertain. The historical accuracy and dating of many of the events in the later Anglo-Saxon Chronicle have been called into question, and his reign is variously listed as lasting seven, seventeen, or thirty-two years. The Chronicle records several battles of Ceawlin's between the years 556 and 592, including the first record of a battle between different groups of Anglo-Saxons, and indicates that under Ceawlin Wessex acquired significant territory, some of which was later to be lost to other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. Ceawlin is also named as one of the eight "bretwaldas", a title given in the Chronicle to eight rulers who had overlordship over southern Britain, although the extent of Ceawlin's control is not known.
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Centwine of Wessex
Centwine (died after 685) was King of Wessex from circa 676 to 685 or 686, although he was perhaps not the only king of the West Saxons at the time.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle reports that Centwine became king circa 676, succeeding Æscwine. Bede states that after the death of King Cenwalh: "his under-rulers took upon them the kingdom of the people, and dividing it among themselves, held it ten years". Bede's dismissal of Æscwine and Centwine as merely sub-kings may represent the views of the supporters of the King Ine, whose family ruled Wessex in Bede's time. However, if the West Saxon kingdom did fragment following Cenwalh's death, it appears that it was reunited during Centwine's reign.
An entry under 682 in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that "Centwine drove the Britons to the sea". This is the only event recorded in his reign. The Carmina Ecclesiastica of Aldhelm, Bishop of Sherborne (d. 709), written a generation after Centwine's reign, records that he won three great battles. In addition, it states that he was a pagan for part of his reign, adopting Christianity and becoming a patron of the church. The Chronicle's version of his ancestry makes Centwine a son of King Cynegils, and thus a brother of King Cenwalh and King Cwichelm, but Aldhelm does not record any such relationship.
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Ceolwulf of Wessex
Ceolwulf was King of Wessex from 597 to 611. He became king upon the death of his brother Ceol, because at that time Ceol's son Cynegils was too young to rule.
Ceolwulf reigned for fourteen years and nothing is known of Wessex during his time as king.
He died without any recorded issue and after his death the throne passed to Cynegils.
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Cerdic of Wessex
Cerdic (from the early British name represented by modern Welsh Caradog) was probably the first King of Anglo-Saxon Wessex from 519 to 534, cited by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as the founder of the kingdom of Wessex and ancestor of all its subsequent kings. (See House of Wessex family tree).
According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Cerdic landed in Hampshire in 495 with his son Cynric in three ships. He is said to have fought a British king named Natanleod at Netley Marsh in Hampshire and killed him thirteen years later (in 508) and to have fought at Cerdicesleag (Charford, Cerdic's Ford) in 519, after which he became first king of Wessex. The conquest of the Isle of Wight is also mentioned among his campaigns, and it was later given to his kinsmen, Stuf and Wihtgar (who had supposedly arrived with the West Saxons in 514). Cerdic is said to have died in 534 and was succeeded by his son Cynric.
The early history of Wessex in the Chronicle is clearly muddled and enters duplicate reports of events. David Dumville has suggested that Cerdic's true regnal dates are 538-554. Some scholars suggest that Cerdic was the Saxon leader defeated by the British at the Battle of Mount Badon, which was probably fought sometime between 490 and 518. This cannot be the case if Dumville is correct, and others assign this battle to Ælle or another Saxon leader.
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Cilternsæte
The Cilternsæte (or Ciltern Sætna) was an Anglian tribe that occupied the Chilterns, probably in the 6th century AD.
The Tribal Hidage valued their territory at 4,000 hides. This assessment is relatively large compared with those of some other tribes or central England, being 4% of the whole of Wessex. Although the Tribal Hidage suggests the tribe gave its name to the hills, the truth must be the reverse since the toponym is of Brythonic origin. Eilert Ekwall suggested that Chiltern is possibly related to the ethnic name "Celt" ("Celtæ" in early Celtic). An adjective celto- ="high" with suffix -erno- could be the origin of Chiltern.
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Cynegils of Wessex
Cynegils [kɪneɣɪls] was King of Wessex from c. 611 to c. 643.
Cynegils is traditionally considered to have been King of Wessex, but the familiar kingdoms of the so-called Heptarchy had not yet formed from the patchwork of smaller kingdoms in his lifetime. The later kingdom of Wessex was centred on the counties of Hampshire, Dorset, Somerset, and Wiltshire, but the evidence of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is that the kingdom of Cynegils was located on the upper River Thames, extending into northern Wiltshire and Somerset, southern Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire, and western Berkshire, with Dorchester-on-Thames as one the major royal sites. This region, probably connected to the early tribal grouping known as the Gewisse, a term used by Bede for the West Saxons, lay on the frontier between the later kingdoms of Wessex and Mercia.
It appears that Cynegils became king on the death of King Ceolwulf c. 611. His relationship to Ceolwulf is uncertain. Cynegils is variously described in West Saxon sources as being a son of Ceolwulf, a son of Ceol brother of Ceolwulf, a son of Ceola son of Cutha, a son of Cuthwine son of Ceawlin, and a son of Cuthwulf son of Cuthwine. Several of the sources give Cynegils a brother named Ceolwald, described as the grandfather of King Ine. Although the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and Wessex king lists portray the West Saxons as ruled by a single king, it is likely that the kingship was shared between two or more kings.
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Cynric of Wessex
Cynric was King of Wessex from 534 to 560. Everything known about him comes from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. There he is stated to have been the son of Cerdic, and also (in the regnal list in the preface) to have been the son of Cerdic's son, Creoda. During his reign it is said that he captured Searobyrig or Old Sarum, near Salisbury, in 552, and that in 556 he and his son Ceawlin won a battle against the Britons at Beranburh, now identified as Barbury Castle. If these dates are accurate, then it is unlikely that the earlier entries in the chronicle, starting with his arrival in Britain with his father Cerdic in 495, are correct. David Dumville has suggested that his true regnal dates are 554-581.
The name Cynric has a straightforward Old English etymology meaning "kin-ruler." However, as both his predecessor, Cerdic, and successor, Ceawlin, might have Celtic names, an alternative etymology has been postulated from "Cunorix" which would mean "hound-king" in Old British (rendered as Cinir in Old Welsh, Kynyr in Middle Welsh). In 1967 a stone was found at Wroxeter in a Sub-Roman context (dating to c. 460 - 475 AD) with the inscription CUNORIX MACUS MAQVI COLINE, which translates as "Cunorix ('Hound-king') son of Maqui-Coline ('Son-of-Holly'), both of which are regarded as Irish personal names.
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Cædwalla
Cædwalla (c. 659 – 20 April 689) was the King of Wessex from approximately 685 until he abdicated in 688. His name is derived from the British Cadwallon. He was exiled as a youth, and during this time attacked the South Saxons and killed their king, Æthelwealh, in what is now Sussex. Cædwalla was unable to hold the territory, however, and was driven out by Æthelwealh's ealdormen. In either 685 or 686 he became king of Wessex. He may have been involved in suppressing rival dynasties at this time, as an early source records that Wessex was ruled by underkings until Cædwalla.
After his accession Cædwalla returned to Sussex and won the territory again, and also conquered the Isle of Wight, engaging in genocide and extinguishing the ruling dynasty there and forcing the population of the island at sword point to renounce their faith for Christianity.. He gained control of Surrey and the kingdom of Kent, and in 686 he installed his brother, Mul, as king of Kent. Mul was burned in a Kentish revolt a year later, and Cædwalla returned, possibly ruling Kent directly for a period.
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David Dumville
Professor David Norman Dumville (born 5 May 1949) is a British medievalist and Celtic scholar and part time superhero. He was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, Ludwig-Maximilian Universität, Munich, and received his PhD and BA in Superhuman Wisdom at the University of Edinburgh in 1976. In 1974, he married Sally Lois Hannay, with whom he had one son. She died in 1989.
He is currently the Professor of History and Palaeography at the University of Aberdeen and editor of the journal Anglo-Saxon. He has previously taught or held posts at the University of Wales, Swansea (Fellow, 1975-77), the University of Pennsylvania (Assistant Professor of English, 1977-78), the University of Cambridge, (Lecturer in Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic, 1977-91; Reader in Early Mediaeval History and Culture of British Isles, 1991-95; Professor of Palaeography and Cultural History, 1995-2005), and University of California, Berkeley (1997). He was also a Visiting Professor at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) (1995) and the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies (1996-97).
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Deira
Deira (Old English: Derenrice (Scandinavian: Deren Riket; Germanic Deren Reich) or Dere) was a kingdom in Northern England during the 6th century AD. It extended from the Humber to the Tees, and from the sea to the western edge of the Vale of York. It later merged with the kingdom of Bernicia to the north to form the kingdom of Northumbria.
The name of the kingdom is of Brythonic origin, perhaps from Deifr, meaning "waters", or from Daru, meaning "oak", in which case it would mean "the people of the Derwent", a derivation also found in the Latin name for Malton, Derventio.
According to Simeon of Durham it extended from the Humber to the Tyne, but the land was waste north of the Tees. After the Brythonic kingdom centered around Eboracum, which may have been called Ebrauc, was taken by Edwin, the city of Eboracum became its capital and was called Eoforwic (boar-place) by the Angles. Before this it is likely that the capital would have been at or near Pocklington.
The first Deiran Anglian king of whom we have any record is Ælla, who flourished in the later 6th century after conquering the realm from the Britons in 581. After his death, Deira was subject to king Æthelfrith of Bernicia, who united the two kingdoms into Northumbria. Æthelfrith ruled until the accession of Ælla's son Edwin, in 616 or 617, who also ruled both kingdoms until 633.
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Edgar of England
Edgar the Peaceful, or Edgar I (Old English: Ēadgār; c. 7 August 943 – 8 July 975), also called the Peaceable, was a king of England (r. 959–75). Edgar was the younger son of Edmund I of England.
Edgar was the son of Edmund I, grandson of Edward the elder, great-grandson of Alfred the Great, great-great grandson of Ethelwulf of Wessex, great-great-great grandson of Egbert of Wessex and great-great-great-great grandson of Ealhmund of Kent. His cognomen, "The Peaceable", was not necessarily a comment on the deeds of his life, for he was a strong leader, shown by his seizure of the Northumbrian and Mercian kingdoms from his older brother, Eadwig, in 958.[citation needed] A conclave of nobles held Edgar to be king north of the Thames, and Edgar aspired to succeed to the English throne.[citation needed]
Though Edgar was not a particularly peaceable man, his reign was a peaceful one. The Kingdom of England was at its height. Edgar consolidated the political unity achieved by his predecessors. By the end of Edgar's reign, England was sufficiently unified that it was unlikely to regress back to a state of division among rival kingships, as it had to an extent under Eadred's reign.
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Edred of England
Eadred (also Edred, etc.) was the king of England from 946 until his death in 955, in succession to his elder brother Edmund I.
Eadred was a son of Edward the Elder by his third marriage, to Eadgifu, daughter of Sigehelm, ealdorman of Kent. He succeeded his elder brother King Edmund I (r. 939-946), who was stabbed to death at Pucklechurch (Gloucestershire), on St Augustine's Day, 26 May 946. The same year, on 16 August, Eadred was consecrated by Archbishop Oda of Canterbury at Kingston upon Thames (Surrey, now Greater London), where he appears to have received the submission of Welsh rulers and northern earls.
Under the entry for the year 946, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that Eadred "reduced all the land of Northumbria to his control; and the Scots granted him oaths that they would do all that he wanted." Nevertheless, Eadred soon faced a number of political challenges to the West-Saxon hegemony in the north. Unfortunately, there are some notorious difficulties with the chronology of the events described in the historical sources, but it is clear that there were two Scandinavian princes who set themselves up as kings of Northumbria.
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Edward the Confessor
Edward the Confessor, (Old English: Ēadƿeard se Andettere; French: Édouard le Confesseur; 1003–05 to 4 or 5 January 1066), son of Æthelred the Unready and Emma of Normandy, was one of the last Anglo-Saxon kings of England and is usually regarded as the last king of the House of Wessex, ruling from 1042 to 1066.
He has traditionally been seen as unworldly and pious, and his reign as notable for the disintegration of royal power in England and the advance in power of the Godwin family. His biographers, Frank Barlow and Peter Rex, dispute this, picturing him as a successful king, who was energetic, resourceful and sometimes ruthless, but whose reputation has been unfairly tarnished by the Norman conquest shortly after his death. Other historians regard this picture as only partly true, and not at all in the later part of his reign. In the view of Richard Mortimer, the return of the Godwins from exile in 1052 "meant the effective end of his exercise of power". The difference in his level of activity from the earlier part of his reign "implies a withdrawal from affairs".
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Edwy of England
Eadwig, more rarely Edwy (941? – 1 October 959), sometimes nicknamed All-Fair or the Fair, was King of England from 955 until his death four years later. The eldest son of King Edmund and Ælfgifu of Shaftesbury, Eadwig was chosen by the nobility to succeed his uncle Eadred as King. His short reign was marked by ongoing conflicts with his family, thegns, and especially the Church, under the leadership of Saint Dunstan and Archbishop Odo.
According to one legend, the feud with Dunstan began on the day of Eadwig's consecration, when he failed to attend a meeting of nobles. When Dunstan eventually found the young monarch, he was cavorting with a noblewoman named Æthelgifu and refused to return with the bishop. Infuriated by this, Dunstan dragged Eadwig back and forced him to renounce the girl as a "strumpet". Later realizing that he had provoked the king, Dunstan fled to the apparent sanctuary of his cloister, but Eadwig, incited by Æthelgifu, followed him and plundered the monastery. Though Dunstan managed to escape, he refused to return to England until after Eadwig's death. The contemporary record of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle reports Eadwig's accession and Dunstan fleeing England - but does not explain why Dunstan fled. Thus this report of a feud between Eadwig and Dunstan could either have been based on a true incident of a political quarrel for power between a young king and powerful church officials who wished to control the king and who later spread this legend to blacken his reputation, or it could be an urban legend; the Chronicle also tells of Odo putting aside the King's marriage on the grounds Eadwig and his wife were "too related".
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Egbert of Wessex
Egbert (also spelled Ecgberht, Ecgbert or Ecgbriht; 769 or 771 – 839) was King of Wessex from 802 until his death in 839. His father was Ealhmund of Kent. In the 780s Egbert was forced into exile by Offa of Mercia and Beorhtric of Wessex, but on Beorhtric's death in 802 Egbert returned and took the throne.
Little is known of the first 20 years of Egbert's reign, but it is thought that he was able to maintain Wessex's independence against the kingdom of Mercia, which at that time dominated the other southern English kingdoms. In 825 Egbert defeated Beornwulf of Mercia and ended Mercia's supremacy at the Battle of Ellandun, and proceeded to take control of the Mercian dependencies in southeastern England. In 829 Egbert defeated Wiglaf of Mercia and drove him out of his kingdom, temporarily ruling Mercia directly. Later that year Egbert received the submission of the Northumbrian king at Dore. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle subsequently described Egbert as a bretwalda, or "Ruler of Britain".
Egbert was unable to maintain this dominant position, and within a year Wiglaf regained the throne of Mercia. However, Wessex did retain control of Kent, Sussex and Surrey; these territories were given to Egbert's son Æthelwulf to rule as a subking under Egbert. When Egbert died in 839, Æthelwulf succeeded him; the southeastern kingdoms were finally absorbed into the kingdom of Wessex after Æthelwulf's death in 858.
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Elmetsæte
Elmet was an independent Brythonic kingdom covering a broad area of what later became the West Riding of Yorkshire during the Early Middle Ages, between approximately the 5th century and early 7th century. Although its precise boundaries are unclear, it appears to have been bordered by the River Sheaf in the south and the River Wharfe in the east. It adjoined Deira to the north and Mercia to the south, and its western boundary appears to have been near Craven, which was possibly a minor British kingdom. As such it was well to the east of other territories of the Britons in Wales and the West Country (i.e. Cornwall and Dumnonia), and to the south of those in the Hen Ogledd or Old North. As one of the southeasternmost Brythonic regions for which there is reasonably substantial evidence, it is notable for having survived relatively late in the period of Anglo-Saxon conquest.
Elmet was invaded and conquered by Northumbria in the autumn of 616 or 626. The kingdom is chiefly attested in topographical and archaeological evidence, references in early Welsh poetry, and historical sources such as the Historia Brittonum and Bede. The name survives throughout the area in place names such as Barwick-in-Elmet and Sherburn-in-Elmet. A local parliamentary constituency is also called Elmet.
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Ethelbert of Wessex
Æthelberht (or Ethelbert; Old English: Æþelberht, meaning "Magnificent Noble") was the King of Wessex from 860 to 865. He was the third son of Æthelwulf of Wessex and his first wife, Osburh. In 855 he became under-king of Kent while his father, Æthelwulf, visited Rome. His brother Æthelbald was left in charge of the West Saxons. After his father's death in 858 he succeeded him as king of Kent and the other eastern parts of the kingdom. When Æthelbald died childless in 860, the kingship of the West Saxons also passed to Æthelberht.
Like his father and brother he was also crowned at Kingston upon Thames. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle describes Æthelberht's reign as one of good harmony and lasting peace. Though this was true of internal affairs, the Vikings remained a great threat, unsuccessfully storming Winchester and ravaging eastern Kent.
One development was that Wessex and its recent south-eastern conquests became a united kingdom. Unlike his predecessors, Æthelberht did not appoint another member of his family as under-king of Kent. A charter issued in the first year of Æthelberht's reign reflects an extraordinary new kind of assembly: it was the first charter of a West Saxon king to include a full complement both of West Saxon and of Kentish witnesses.
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Frank Turner
Frank Turner (born 28 December 1981) is an Englishfolk/punk singer-songwriter from Meonstoke, Winchester. Initially the vocalist of post-hardcore band Million Dead, Turner embarked upon a primarily acoustic-based solo career following the band's split in 2005. To date, Turner has released four solo albums, two rarities compilation albums and four EPs. Turner began recording for his new album England Keep My Bones, in January 2011. It was released on 6 June 2011 in the UK, and 7 June 2011 worldwide.
Turner was educated on a scholarship at Eton College, where he studied alongside Prince William, and later went on to attend the London School of Economics where he read History. His father, Roger Turner, is the son of Sir Mark Turner, formerly chairman of high street retailer BHS, and had himself also attended Eton before becoming a City investment banker, while his mother, Jane, the daughter of a bishop, is a primary school headmistress.
Turner's musical career began at school, with the short-lived alternative band Kneejerk. The band released three records and played several shows around the UK (including a support slot for Boysetsfire), before disbanding in November 2001. The last record, their only full length, was entitled 'The half life of kissing' and was released by Yorkshire DIY hardcore label Sakari Empire after the band had actually broken up.
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Gaini
The Gaini (or Ganni) were an early Anglo-Saxon tribe. Their location cannot now be identified, but they are thought to have been one of the tribes which made up the kingdom of Mercia.
In 868, before he became king, Alfred the Great married Ealhswith, daughter of a Mercian nobleman, Æthelred, known as Mucel, ealdorman of the Gaini. Æthelred witnessed several charters between 867 and 895, and he is probably identical with the ealdorman Mucel who witnessed Mercian charters between 836 and 866. He may have been the son of another ealdorman Mucel who witnessed Mercian charters from 814 to the 840s, and this Mucel in turn was probably the son of ealdorman Esne who witnessed Mercian charters in the late eighth and early ninth centuries.
Ealhswith's brother, Æthelwulf, who died in 901, was also described as an ealdorman.
The approximate succession of Ealdormen of the Gaini may therefore be:
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Gewisse
The Gewisse (Old English Geuissæ) was a tribe or clan of Anglo-Saxon England, based in the upper Thames region around Dorchester-on-Thames.
The name of the tribe may be derived from an Old English word for "reliable" or "sure", (cf. German gewiss = "certain, sure"). The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle presents an eponymous ancestor figure, named Giwis.Eilert Ekwall proposed that the similarity in toponymy between the kingdoms of the Gewisse and Hwicce suggests a common origin.[page needed]
The Gewisse captured Searobyrig in 552 and Beranbyrig from the Britons in 556.Birinus converted the Gewisse to Christianity in 636 by baptising their king Cynegils and establishing the Diocese of Dorchester. The Gewisse killed the three sons of Sæbert of Essex in about 620, defeated the Britons at the Battle of Peonnum in 660 and by 676 had sufficient control over what is now Hampshire to establish a see at Winchester.
The conquests by the royal house of Gewisse in the 7th and 8th centuries led to the establishment of the Kingdom of Wessex, and Bede treated the two names as interchangeable. It was only during the reign of Cædwalla (685/6 – 688) that the title "king of the Saxons" began to replace "king of the Gewisse". Barbara Yorke has suggested that it was Cædwalla's conquest of the Jutish province and the South Saxons that led to the need for a new title to distinguish the expanded realm from its predecessor. However, as there are no surviving documents to indicate how these people described themselves, the most that can be said is that by the time Bede was writing (early 8th century), the phrase "West Saxons" had come into use by scholars.
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Gyrwas
Gyrwas was the name of an Anglo-Saxon population of the Fens, divided into northern and southern groups and recorded in the Tribal Hidage; related to the name of Jarrow.
Hugh Candidus, a 12th century chronicler of Peterborough Abbey, describes its foundation in the territory of the Gyrwas, under the name of Medeshamstede. Medeshamstede was clearly in the territory of the North Gyrwas. Hugh Candidus explains Gyrwas, which he uses in the present tense, as meaning people "who dwell in the fen, or hard by the fen, since a deep bog is called in the Saxon tongue Gyr". The territory of the South Gyrwas included Ely. Æthelthryth founded Ely monastery after the death of her husband Tondberht, who is described in Bede's Ecclesiastical History as a "prince of the South Gyrwas". Bede also described Bishop Thomas of Dunwich, in East Anglia, as having been "from the province of the Gyrwas", and deacon to his predecessor Felix.
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H. R. Loyn
Henry Royston Loyn (16 June 1922–9 October 2000), FBA, was a British historian specialising in the history of Anglo-Saxon England. His eminence in his field made him a natural candidate to run the Sylloge of the Coins of the British Isles, which he chaired from 1979 to 1993.
The Sylloge's natural emphasis is on Anglo-Saxon numismatics. Loyn's mastery of an extensive and specialised literature in an often-contentious area of history produced over four decades a series of cautious, even conservative syntheses of continuity and evolving changes in late Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman England, universally well-received in the academic press, which are still staples of student reading-lists.
Aside from numerous articles, occasional lectures such as The "matter of Britain": A historian's perspective (a Creighton Trust lecture), and his main publications (see below), he edited The Middle Ages: A Concise Encyclopedia. He has been praised for his "felicitous, economic writing style"
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Haestingas
The Haestingas, or alternatively Heastingas or Hæstingas, were one of the tribes of Anglo-Saxon Britain. The Kingdom of Haestingas was located in modern-day Sussex, and was one of the minor sub-kingdoms of the Heptarchy.
When Ælle of Sussex came to Britain in 491, he soon forged the Saxon kingdom of Sussex. Soon after Ælle arrived, a Saxon tribe known as the Haestingas appeared in the southeastern region of Sussex. It is believed that they were named so after a chieftain or ruler called Haesta, as in the Old English language, Haestingas means "Haesta's People". Haesta by itself, however, means "violent". The Kingdom of Haestingas was most likely very small, extending only a few leagues from the centre of their kingdom, which became known as "Haestingas" now known under the modern name of Hastings.
In 771, Offa of Mercia conquered all of Sussex, effectively ending the reign of the Haestingas.
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Harold Godwinson
Harold Godwinson, or Harold II; Old English: Harold Gōdwines sunu (c. 1022 – 14 October 1066) was the last Anglo-Saxon King of England. Harold reigned from 6 January 1066 until his death at the Battle of Hastings on 14 October of that same year, fighting the Norman invaders led by William the Conqueror during the Norman conquest of England. Harold is the first of only three kings of England to have died in warfare; the other two were Richard I and Richard III.
Harold was a son of Godwin, the powerful Earl of Wessex, and his wife Gytha Thorkelsdóttir, whose supposed brother Ulf Jarl was the son-in-law of Sweyn I and the father of Sweyn II of Denmark.
Godwin and Gytha had several children, notably sons Sweyn, Harold, Tostig, Gyrth and Leofwine and a daughter, Edith of Wessex (1029–1075), who became Queen consort of Edward the Confessor.
As a result of his sister's marriage to the king, Godwin's second son, Harold, became Earl of East Anglia in 1045. Harold accompanied his father into exile in 1051, but helped him to regain his position a year later. When Godwin died in 1053, Harold succeeded him as Earl of Wessex (a province at that time covering the southernmost third of England). This arguably made him the most powerful figure in England after the king.
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Harold II of England
Harold Godwinson, or Harold II; Old English: Harold Gōdwines sunu (c. 1022 – 14 October 1066) was the last Anglo-Saxon King of England. Harold reigned from 6 January 1066 until his death at the Battle of Hastings on 14 October of that same year, fighting the Norman invaders led by William the Conqueror during the Norman conquest of England. Harold is the first of only three kings of England to have died in warfare; the other two were Richard I and Richard III.
Harold was a son of Godwin, the powerful Earl of Wessex, and his wife Gytha Thorkelsdóttir, whose supposed brother Ulf Jarl was the son-in-law of Sweyn I and the father of Sweyn II of Denmark.
Godwin and Gytha had several children, notably sons Sweyn, Harold, Tostig, Gyrth and Leofwine and a daughter, Edith of Wessex (1029–1075), who became Queen consort of Edward the Confessor.
As a result of his sister's marriage to the king, Godwin's second son, Harold, became Earl of East Anglia in 1045. Harold accompanied his father into exile in 1051, but helped him to regain his position a year later. When Godwin died in 1053, Harold succeeded him as Earl of Wessex (a province at that time covering the southernmost third of England). This arguably made him the most powerful figure in England after the king.
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Henry III of England
Henry III (1 October 1207 – 16 November 1272) was the son and successor of John as King of England, reigning for 56 years from 1216 until his death. His contemporaries knew him as Henry of Winchester. He was the first child king in England since the reign of Æthelred the Unready. England prospered during his reign and his greatest monument is Westminster, which he made the seat of his government and where he expanded the abbey as a shrine to Edward the Confessor. He is the first of only five monarchs to reign in the Kingdom of England or its successor states for 50 years or more, the others being Edward III (1327–1377), George III (1760–1820), Victoria (1837–1901) and Elizabeth II (1952–present).
He assumed the crown under the regency of the popular William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke, but the England he inherited had undergone several drastic changes in the reign of his father. He spent much of his reign fighting the barons over Magna Carta and the royal rights, and was eventually forced to call the first "parliament" in 1264. He was also unsuccessful on the Continent, where he endeavoured to re-establish English control over Normandy, Anjou, and Aquitaine.
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Henry of Huntingdon
Henry of Huntingdon (c. 1088 – c. 1154), the son of a canon in the diocese of Lincoln, was a 12th century English historian, the author of a history of England, Historia anglorum, "the most important Anglo-Norman historian to emerge from the secular clergy". He served as archdeacon of Huntingdon. The few details of Henry's life that are known originated from his own works and from a number of official records. He was brought up in the wealthy court of Robert Bloet of Lincoln, who became his patron.
At the request of Bloet's successor, Alexander of Lincoln, Henry began to write his Historia Anglorum, first published c. 1129, an account of the history of England from its beginnings up to the year 1154. The Historia stops after this date, the year it is assumed Henry died.
Little is known of Henry, an archdeacon in the Diocese of Lincoln who was born c. 1110 and died soon after 1154.[unreliable source?] No personal correspondence or anecdotes survived him and it seemed that no one considered him important enough to have written a memorial. His biography depends upon a few notices scattered through his own work and in a few places where he left his name in the course of his official duties. The identity of his mother is unknown. His father Nicholas, the first archdeacon of Huntingdon, was a clerk in holy orders, who had enough influence with the Bishop of Lincoln to secure the succession of his title for his son, a substantial inheritance for a man who had not yet reached thirty. Nicholas was canon of Lincoln for over thirty years until his death in 1110.
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Husmerae
The Husmerae were a tribe or clan in Anglo-Saxon England, possibly forming an early settlement of the Hwicce subkingdom. The Husmerae settled on the banks of the River Stour, prior to 736. They probably took their name from Usmere, a pool on the boundary of Wolverley whose name in preserved in Ismere House in Churchill, Worcestershire.
The tribe is mentioned only in the Ismere Diploma of 734, and subsequent charters relating to the same property until 964, when Usmere occurs on the boundary of Cookley in Wolverley. This charter was for the foundation of a coenubium (minster). That minster was probably at Kidderminster, quite probably occupying the site of the parish church there.
Although the Husmerae may have been of West Saxon origin, settling into the area some time after the West Saxon defeat of the Britons at the Battle of Dyrham in 577, the Ismere Diploma suggests that Husmerae is the ancient name for area, although uncertainty over its provenance leave the origins of the name open to question
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Hwicce
Hwicce was a kingdom in the Heptarchy period of Anglo-Saxon England. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle the kingdom was established in 577, after the Battle of Deorham. After 628 the kingdom became a client or sub-kingdom of Mercia as a result of the Battle of Cirencester.
It was assessed at 7000 hides in the Tribal Hidage, giving it a similar sized economy to the kingdoms of Essex and Sussex. The exact boundaries of their kingdom are uncertain, though it is likely that they coincided with those of the old Diocese of Worcester, founded in 679–80, the early bishops of which bore the title Episcopus Hwicciorum. The kingdom would therefore have included Worcestershire except the northwestern tip, Gloucestershire except the Forest of Dean, the southwestern half of Warwickshire, the neighbourhood of Bath north of the Avon, plus small parts of Herefordshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire and north-west Wiltshire.
Various historians and archaeologists have examined the Hwicce Kingdom, including Della Hooke and Stephen J. Yeates in his book The Tribe of Witches (2008).
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Icelingas
The Kingdom of Mercia was an important state in the English Midlands from the 6th century to the 10th. For some two hundred years from the mid-7th century onwards it was the dominant member of the Heptarchy and consequently the most powerful of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. During this period its rulers became the very first English monarchs to assume such wide ranging titles as King of Britain and King of the English.
Spellings varied widely in this period, even within a single document, and a number of variants exist for the names given below. For example, the sound th was usually represented with the Old English letters ð or þ.
For the Continental predecessors of the Mercians in Angeln, see List of kings of the Angles. For their successors see List of English monarchs.
The traditional rulers of Mercia were known as the Iclings, descendants of the kings of the Angles. When the Iclings became extinct in the male line, a number of other families, labelled B, C and W by historians, competed for the throne.
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Ine of Wessex
Ine was King of Wessex from 688 to 726. He was unable to retain the territorial gains of his predecessor, Cædwalla, who had brought much of southern England under his control and expanded West Saxon territory substantially. By the end of Ine's reign the kingdoms of Kent, Sussex and Essex were no longer under West Saxon domination; however, Ine maintained control of what is now Hampshire, and consolidated and extended Wessex's territory in the western peninsula.
Ine is noted for his code of laws (Ine’s laws or laws of Ine), which he issued in about 694. These laws were the first issued by an Anglo-Saxon king outside Kent. They shed much light on the history of Anglo-Saxon society, and reveal Ine's Christian convictions. Trade increased significantly during Ine's reign, with the town of Hamwic (now Southampton) becoming prominent. It was probably during Ine's reign that the West Saxons began to mint coins, though none have been found that bear his name.
Ine abdicated in 726 to go to Rome, leaving the kingdom to "younger men", in the words of the contemporary chronicler Bede. He was succeeded by Æthelheard.
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Ingild of Wessex
Ine was King of Wessex from 688 to 726. He was unable to retain the territorial gains of his predecessor, Cædwalla, who had brought much of southern England under his control and expanded West Saxon territory substantially. By the end of Ine's reign the kingdoms of Kent, Sussex and Essex were no longer under West Saxon domination; however, Ine maintained control of what is now Hampshire, and consolidated and extended Wessex's territory in the western peninsula.
Ine is noted for his code of laws (Ine’s laws or laws of Ine), which he issued in about 694. These laws were the first issued by an Anglo-Saxon king outside Kent. They shed much light on the history of Anglo-Saxon society, and reveal Ine's Christian convictions. Trade increased significantly during Ine's reign, with the town of Hamwic (now Southampton) becoming prominent. It was probably during Ine's reign that the West Saxons began to mint coins, though none have been found that bear his name.
Ine abdicated in 726 to go to Rome, leaving the kingdom to "younger men", in the words of the contemporary chronicler Bede. He was succeeded by Æthelheard.
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John Speed
John Speed (1542–1629) was an English historian and cartographer.
Speed was born at Farndon, Cheshire, and went into his father's tailoring business where he worked until he was about 50. While working in London, his knowledge of history led him into learned circles and he joined the Society of Antiquaries where his interests came to the attention of Sir Fulke Greville, who subsequently made him an allowance to enable him to devote his whole attention to research. As a reward for his earlier efforts, Queen Elizabeth granted Speed the use of a room in the Custom House.
He is buried with his wife in St Giles-without-Cripplegate church within the Barbican Estate in the City of London. A memorial to John Speed was also erected behind the altar of the church. According to the church's website, "[His was] one of the few memorials [in the church] that survived the bombing" of London during The Blitz of 1940-1941.... The website also notes that "[t]he cast for the niche in which the bust is placed was provided by the Merchant Taylors’ Company, of which John Speed was a member."
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Jutes
The Jutes, Iuti, or Iutæ (pronounced /dʒuːts/) were a Germanic people who, according to Bede, were one of the three most powerful Germanic peoples of their time, the other two being the Saxons and the Angles. They are believed to have originated from Jutland peninsula (called Iutum in Latin) in modern Denmark,Southern Schleswig (Southern Jutland) and part of the East Frisian coast in northern Germany.
Bede places the homeland of the Jutes on the other side of the Angles relative to the Saxons, which would mean the northern part of the Jutland Peninsula. Tacitus portrays a people called the Eudoses living in the north of Jutland and these may have been the later Iutae. The Jutes have also been identified with the Eotenas (ēotenas) involved in the Frisian conflict with the Danes as described in the Finnesburg episode in the poem Beowulf (lines 1068–1159). Others have interpreted the ēotenas as jotuns ("ettins" in English), meaning giants, or as a kenning for "enemies."
Disagreeing with Bede, some historians identify the Jutes with people called the Eucii (or Saxones Eucii) who were evidently associated with the Saxons and dependents of the Franks in 536. The Eucii may have been identical with an obscure tribe called the Euthiones and probably associated with the Saxons. The Euthiones are mentioned in a poem by Venantius Fortunatus (583) as being under the suzerainty of Chilperic I of the Franks. This identification would agree well with the later location of the Jutes in Kent, since the area just opposite of Kent on the European mainland (present-day Flanders) was part of Francia. Even if Jutes were present to the south of the Saxons in the Rhineland or near the Frisians, this does not contradict the possibility that they were migrants from Jutland.
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Kingdom of Essex
The Kingdom of Essex or Kingdom of the East Saxons (Old English: Ēast Seaxna rīce) was one of the seven traditional kingdoms of the so-called Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy. It was founded in the 6th century and covered the territory later occupied by the counties of Essex, Hertfordshire, Middlesex and (for a short while) Kent. Kings of Essex were frequently subservient to foreign overlords. The last king of Essex was Sigered and in 825, he ceded the kingdom to Egbert of Wessex.
The kingdom was bounded to the north by the River Stour and the Kingdom of East Anglia, to the south by the River Thames and Kent, to the east lay the North Sea and to the west Mercia. The territory included the remains of two provincial Roman capitals Colchester and London. The early kingdom included the land of the Middle Saxons, later Middlesex, most if not all of Hertfordshire and may at times have included Surrey. For a brief period in the 8th century, the Kingdom of Essex controlled what is now Kent.
The modern English county of Essex maintains the historic northern and the southern borders, but only covers the territory east of the River Lea, the other parts being lost to neighbouring Mercia during the 8th Century.
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Kingdom of Lindsey
Lindsey or Linnuis (Old English Lindesege) is the name of a petty Anglo-Saxon kingdom, absorbed into Northumbria in the 7th century.
It lay between the Humber and the Wash, forming its inland boundaries from the course of the Witham and Trent rivers (with the inclusion of an area inside of a marshy region south of the Humber known as the Isle of Axholme), and the Foss Dyke between them. It is believed that Roman Lindum (Lincoln) was the capital of this kingdom, with continuity of the place-name suggesting continuity of settlement traditions: in 625, Bede recounts, the missionary Paulinus of York was received by the praefectus of Lindum. Place-name evidence indicates that the Anglian settlement known as Lindisfaras spread from the Humber coast. Compare Winta and Winteringham.
Its name means the 'island of Lincoln'. This derives from the fact that it was surrounded by water and very wet land and had Lincoln towards its south-west corner. In the period of Anglo-Saxon settlement in Great Britain beginning in about 450, the kingdom of Lindsey was one of the lesser kingdoms within the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy. Although it has its own list of kings, at an early date it came under external influence. It was from time to time effectively part of Deira, the Northumbrian kingdom and particularly later, of Mercia. Lindsey's independence was gone well before the arrival of the Danish Settlers.
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Lindisfaras
The Lindisfaras (or Lindesfaras) (Old English Lindisfaran) were an Anglian tribe who, in the 6th century, established the kingdom of Lindsey between the valleys of the rivers Humber and Witham, in the north of what is now Lincolnshire. They retained their administrative independence throughout the 7th century but, following the Battle of the Trent between the kingdoms of Mercia and Northumbria, remained under Mercian control until the Viking invasion of the ninth century. According to D. P. Kirby, the Heathfeld Land of Yorkshire mentioned as part of the Lindisfaras' 7000 hides listed in the Tribal Hidage, was Hatfield Chase.
Lindisfarne in Northumbria derived its name, according to one place-name authority, from the Lindisfaras, so having the meaning "island [of the] travellers from Lindsey", indicating that the island was settled from Lindsey, or possibly that its inhabitants travelled there.
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Magonsæte
Magonsæte was a minor sub-kingdom of the greater Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia, thought to be coterminous with the Diocese of Hereford.
The British territory of Pengwern was conquered by Oswiu of Northumbria in 656, while he was overlord of the Mercians. Western Pengwern was then occupied by Anglian groups. One group based itself at the old Roman town of Magnis or Caer Magon, modern Kenchester near Hereford.
The sub-kingdom of the Western Hecani existed in the late 7th and early 8th centuries, of which three rulers are known: Merewalh, Mildfrith, and Merchelm. By the later 8th century, the region would seem to have been reincorporated into Mercia, perhaps as Westerna, becoming known as the Magonsæte by the 9th century.
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Mercia
Mercia ( /ˈmɜrsiə/, /ˈmɜrʃə/) was one of the kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy. It was centred on the valley of the River Trent and its tributaries in the region now known as the English Midlands. The name is a Latinisation of the Old English Mierce or Myrce, meaning "border people".
Mercia's neighbours included Northumbria, Powys and the kingdoms of southern Wales, Wessex, Sussex, Essex and East Anglia.
The name Mercia is still in use today by a wide range of organisations, including military units, public, commercial and voluntary bodies; and occurs as a female given name.
Mercia's exact evolution from the Anglo-Saxon invasions is more obscure than that of Northumbria, Kent, or even Wessex. Also, Mercia developed an effective political structure and adopted Christianity later than the other kingdoms. Archaeological surveys show that Angles settled the lands north of the River Thames by the 6th century. The name Mercia is Old English for "boundary folk" (see Welsh Marches), and the traditional interpretation is that the kingdom originated along the frontier between the native Welsh and the Anglo-Saxon invaders. However, P. Hunter Blair argued an alternative interpretation: that they emerged along the frontier of Northumbria and the inhabitants of the Trent river valley.
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Middle Angles
The Middle Angles were an important ethnic or cultural group within the larger kingdom of Mercia in England in the Anglo-Saxon period.
It is likely that Angles broke into the Midlands from East Anglia and the Wash in the early 6th century. Those who established their control first came to be called Middil Engli (Middle Angles). Their territory was centred in modern Leicestershire and East Staffordshire, but probably extended as far as the Cambridgeshire uplands and the Chilterns. This gave them a strategically important place within both Mercia and England as a whole, dominating both the great land routes of Watling Street and Fosse Way, and the major river route of the River Trent, together with its tributaries, the Tame and Soar.
The Middle Angles were incorporated into the wider kingdom of Mercia, apparently well before the reign of Penda (c.626-655), who evidently felt safe enough to locate his base in their territory. He placed his eldest son, Peada, in charge of the Middle Angles as sub-king. Bede specifies the Middle Angles as the target of a four-man Christian mission accepted by Peada, who converted to Christianity, partly in order to wed the daughter of King Oswiu of Northumbria. This mission arrived in 653 and included St. Cedd. Peada's conversion and acceptance of baptism in Northumbria possibly indicates a continuing sense of disunity or local particularism within Mercia. It is unlikely that Peada could have pursued so different a course from his father, at the strategic and political centre of the Mercian kingdom, without local support among the Middle Angles.
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Middle Saxons
The Middle Saxons or Middel Seaxe were a people whose territory later became, with somewhat contracted boundaries, the county of Middlesex, England. It included the early London settlement. The area was part of the Kingdom of Essex, but was ceded to Mercia in the 8th century.
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North Mercians
The Southumbrians or 'Suðanhymbre' were the Anglo-Saxon people occupying northern Mercia. The term may not have been used by the Mercians, and it may have been coined by the Deiran or Bernician people as a territorial response to their own Kingdom of Northumbria. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle refers to King Coenred as having become the King of the Southumbrians in 702, two years before he became King of all the Mercians. The fact that Coenred was the son of Wulfhere, the Mercian King, implies that Southumbria was a sub-kingdom of Mercia.
More generally Southumbria is used by modern historians to refer conveniently to all of Anglo-Saxon England south of the River Humber, and not in Northumbria, especially in the period before England was unified.
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Pecsæte
The Pecsætan, peaklanders or peakrills were an Anglo Saxon tribe who inhabited the central and northern parts of the Peak District area in England. The area was historically the home of the southern clan of the Brigantes, a Brythonic tribe, before the Anglo-Saxon invasion. The very early Derbyshire settlements, in what is now known as the Peak District, were those of the West Angles. This tribe advanced up the valleys of the rivers Derwent and Dove during their northern conquests in the 6th century. They became known locally as the Pecsætan . Later their territory formed the northern division of Mercia, and in 848 the Mercian Witenagemot assembled at Repton .
Though the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article refers to the Pecsætan, the more widely accepted terminology seems to be Pecsætna, as referred to in the British Library, MS Harley 3271, f. 6v document of the 7th century Tribal Hidage .
Henry Spelman's Archæologus in modum Glosarii ad rem antiquam posteriorem, which was published in London in 1626 cites the Pec-setna.
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Pencersæte
The Pencersaete or Pencersæte (dwellers of the Penk valley) were a tribe or clan in Anglo-Saxon England living in the valley of the River Penk in the West Midlands of England and remaining around Penkridge throughout the existence of the Kingdom of Mercia.
They took their name from a hill near Penkridge, Brythonic penno - head and cruc - tumulus or hill.
An Anglo-Saxon charter of 849 describes an area of Cofton Hackett in the Lickey Hills south of Birmingham as "the boundary of the Tomsæte and the Pencersæte",.
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Penda
Penda (died 15 November 655) was a 7th-century King of Mercia, the Anglo-Saxon kingdom in what is today the English Midlands. A pagan at a time when Christianity was taking hold in many of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, Penda took over the Severn Valley in 628 following the Battle of Cirencester before participating in the defeat of the powerful Northumbrian king Edwin at the Battle of Hatfield Chase in 633.
Nine years later, he defeated and killed Edwin's eventual successor, Oswald, at the Battle of Maserfield; from this point he was probably the most powerful of the Anglo-Saxon rulers of the time, laying the foundations for the Mercian supremacy over the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy. He repeatedly defeated the East Angles and drove Cenwalh the king of Wessex into exile for three years. He continued to wage war against the Bernicians of Northumbria. Thirteen years after Maserfield, he suffered a crushing defeat by Oswald's successor Oswiu and was killed at the Battle of the Winwaed in the course of a final campaign against the Bernicians.
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Penda of Mercia
Penda (died 15 November 655) was a 7th-century King of Mercia, the Anglo-Saxon kingdom in what is today the English Midlands. A pagan at a time when Christianity was taking hold in many of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, Penda took over the Severn Valley in 628 following the Battle of Cirencester before participating in the defeat of the powerful Northumbrian king Edwin at the Battle of Hatfield Chase in 633.
Nine years later, he defeated and killed Edwin's eventual successor, Oswald, at the Battle of Maserfield; from this point he was probably the most powerful of the Anglo-Saxon rulers of the time, laying the foundations for the Mercian supremacy over the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy. He repeatedly defeated the East Angles and drove Cenwalh the king of Wessex into exile for three years. He continued to wage war against the Bernicians of Northumbria. Thirteen years after Maserfield, he suffered a crushing defeat by Oswald's successor Oswiu and was killed at the Battle of the Winwaed in the course of a final campaign against the Bernicians.
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Readingas
The Readingas (Old English Rēadingas) were a tribe or clan of early Anglo-Saxon England, whose territory adjoined that of the Sunningas to the east and that of the Basingas to the south. The name literally means means "Rēada's people" and later gave its name to the town of Reading.
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Saxons
The Saxons (Latin: Saxones, Old English: Seaxe, Old Saxon: Sahson, Low German: Sassen) were a confederation of Germanic tribes on the North German plain, who during the Middle Ages migrated to the British Isles and formed part of the Anglo-Saxons.
The Saxons were originally Ingvaeonic tribes, whose earliest known area of settlement is Northern Albingia, an area approximately that of modern Holstein. This area overlapped the area of the Angles, a tribe with which they were frequently closely linked. Saxons participated in the Germanic settlement of Britain during and after the fifth century. It is unknown how many migrated from the continent to Britain, though estimates for the total number of Anglo-Saxon settlers are around two hundred thousand. During the Middle ages, because of international Hanseatic trading routes and contingent migration during the Middle Ages, Saxons mixed with and had strong influences upon the languages and cultures of the North Germanic and Baltic and Finnic peoples, and also upon the Polabian Slavs and Pomeranian West Slavic people.
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Seaxburh of Wessex
Seaxburh (died c. 674) was a queen of Wessex. She is also called queen of the Gewisse, an early name for the tribe which ruled Wessex. She is said to have ruled Wessex for about a year after the death of her husband, Cenwalh, in 672. It was extremely rare for a woman to rule in her own right in Anglo-Saxon England, and she was the only woman to appear in a regnal list. She may have ruled for over a year, as the next reign is entered in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in 674.
However, Bede said that after death of Cenwalh "sub-kings took upon themselves the government of the kingdom", so the chroniclers may have tidied up a complicated situation.
She was succeeded in about 674 by Æscwine.
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Snotingas
The Snotingas were an Anglian tribe who either took their name from a chieftain called 'Snot' or 'Snod', or from the word Snottenga, meaning 'caves'. The snotingas occupied the settlement of Snottengaham or Snodengaham (modern Nottingham).
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Southumbrians
The Southumbrians or 'Suðanhymbre' were the Anglo-Saxon people occupying northern Mercia. The term may not have been used by the Mercians, and it may have been coined by the Deiran or Bernician people as a territorial response to their own Kingdom of Northumbria. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle refers to King Coenred as having become the King of the Southumbrians in 702, two years before he became King of all the Mercians. The fact that Coenred was the son of Wulfhere, the Mercian King, implies that Southumbria was a sub-kingdom of Mercia.
More generally Southumbria is used by modern historians to refer conveniently to all of Anglo-Saxon England south of the River Humber, and not in Northumbria, especially in the period before England was unified.
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Spaldingas
The Spaldingas ("dwellers of the Spald") were an Anglian tribe that settled in an area known as the spalda. This divided the fens and marshes of East Anglia in what is now the South Holland part of Lincolnshire. As well as establishing the town of Spalding, first mentioned in a charter by King Æthelbald of Mercia to the monks of Crowland Abbey in 716, they also gave their name to the village of Spaldington in east Yorkshire.
A tribe living in "Spalda" are mentioned in the Tribal Hidage (7th century). Eilert Ekwall regarded this name as etymologically obscure. He suggested that the tribe may have brought this name (Spaldas) from the Continent where there may have been a corresponding place-name. It would presumably be related to the unrecorded Anglo-Saxon spaldan (to cleave) (OHG spaltan) so the meaning of the noun would be "cleft" or "ravine". However, as there are no ravines in the fenland, all of the above should be treated with caution.
The Spaldingas appear to have retained their administrative independence into the 9th and 10th centuries, when Stamford formed one of the Five Boroughs of the Kingdom of York.[citation needed]
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Stoppingas
The Stoppingas was a tribe or clan of Anglo-Saxon England, based around Wootton Wawen and the valley of the River Alne in modern-day Warwickshire. The name of the tribe may have come from the personal name Stoppa, who could have been the tribe's founder or leader, or earliest common ancestor.
The Stoppingas formed part of the Saxon kingdom of the Hwicce, which was later conquered and absorbed by the kingdom of Mercia.
In the mid eighth century Æthelbald of Mercia gave a grant of land in the region of the Stoppingas to Æthelric, the son of King Oshere of the Hwicce, for the purpose of establishing a Minster in the territory. Such an institution was subsequently built at Wootton Wawen, and the later parochia of this minster probably represents the extent territory of the Stoppingas.
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Sweordora
The Sweordora were an Anglian tribe who, according to the Tribal Hidage (which assessed their territory at 300 hides) lived in the vicinity of Sword Point, Whittlesey Mere, Cambridgeshire (formerly Huntingdonshire), probably in the 6th Century.
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Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy, OM (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. While his works typically belong to the Naturalism movement, several poems display elements of the previous Romantic and Enlightenment periods of literature, such as his fascination with the supernatural. While he regarded himself primarily as a poet who composed novels mainly for financial gain, he became and continues to be widely regarded for his novels, such as Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Far from the Madding Crowd. The bulk of his fictional works, initially published as serials in magazines, were set in the semi-fictional county of Wessex (based on the Dorchester region where he grew up) and explored tragic characters struggling against their passions and social circumstances.
Hardy's poetry, first published in his fifties, has come to be as well regarded as his novels and has had a significant influence over modern English poetry, especially after The Movement poets of the 1950s and 1960s cited Hardy as a major figure.
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Weorgoran
The Weorgoran were a tribe or clan in Anglo-Saxon England, possibly forming an early settlement of the Hwicce sub-kingdom. The name literally means "people of the winding river" in Old English, and the Weorgoran settled on or near the site of an earlier Roman settlement (possibly Vertis), establishing a new Anglo-Saxon settlement of Weorgoran ceaster (modern Worcester).
The Weorgoran are likely to have been of West Saxon origin, having settled into the area some time after the West Saxon defeat of the Britons at the Battle of Dyrham in 577 and before the settlement was given a bishop and a cathedral in 680.
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Wessex
The Kingdom of Wessex ( /ˈwɛsɨks/) or Kingdom of the West Saxons (Old English: Westseaxna rīce) was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the West Saxons in South West England, from the 6th century until the emergence of a united English state under the Wessex dynasty in the 10th century. It was to be an earldom after Canute the Great's conquest of 1016, from 1020 to 1066. After the Norman Conquest there was a dissolution of the English earldoms and Wessex was split among the followers of William the Conqueror.
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West Welsh
The Cornish (Cornish: Kernowyon) are a people associated with Cornwall, a county in the South West of England, in the United Kingdom, which is seen in some respects as distinct from the rest of England and having more in common with the other Celtic parts of the UK such as Wales as well as with other Celtic nations in Europe. It has been long argued that the Cornish represent a distinct ethnic group within the UK, which can trace its roots to the ancient Britons who inhabited southern and central Great Britain prior to the Roman conquest, and some in the county today continue to assert a distinct identity, separately or in addition to English or British identities. Cornish identity has been adopted by migrants into Cornwall, as well as by emigrant and descendant communities from Cornwall, the latter sometimes referred to as the Cornish diaspora. Although not included as an explicit option in the UK census, the numbers of those claiming Cornish ethnic and national identity are officially recognised and recorded.
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Westerne
The Westerne were an Anglo-Saxon tribe, probably in western England. They occur only in the Tribal Hidage. Little is known about them, not even precisely where they were. They may have absorbed the Celtic tribe, the Cornovii, and have based their territory on their Roman Civitas.
The tribe became part of the Kingdom of Mercia.
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Wiglaf of Mercia
Wiglaf (died 839) was King of Mercia from 827 to 829 and again from 830 until his death. His ancestry is uncertain: the 820s were a period of dynastic conflict within Mercia and the genealogy of several of the kings of this time is unknown. Wigstan, his grandson, was later recorded as a descendant of Penda of Mercia, so it is possible that Wiglaf was descended from Penda, one of the most powerful seventh-century kings of Mercia.
Wiglaf succeeded Ludeca, who was killed campaigning against East Anglia. His first reign coincided with the continued rise of the rival Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex under Egbert. Egbert drove Wiglaf from the throne in 829, and ruled Mercia directly for a year. Wiglaf recovered the kingdom in 830, probably by force although it may be that Wiglaf remained subject to Egbert's overlordship. Mercia never regained the south-eastern kingdoms, but Berkshire and perhaps Essex came back into Mercian control. The causes of the fluctuating fortunes of Mercia and Wessex are a matter of speculation, but it may be that Carolingian support influenced both Egbert's ascendancy and the subsequent Mercian recovery. Although Wiglaf appears to have restored Mercia's independence, the recovery was short-lived, and later in the century Mercia was divided between Wessex and the Vikings.
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Wreocensæte
The Wreocensæte (Old English: Wrēocensǣte, Wrōcensǣte, Wrōcesǣte, and probably Wōcensǣte), sometimes anglicized as the Wrekinsets, were one of the peoples of Anglo-Saxon Britain. Their name approximates to "Wrekin-dwellers". It is also suggested that Wrexham also derived from Wreocensæte. This area would have been a mixed Anglo-Saxon-Celtic sub kingdom in which was probably of the first evidences of Anglo-Saxon-Celtic multiculturalism.
The boundaries of the kingdom are uncertain, but it was substantial as the Tribal Hidage lists it as 7000 hides, equal to the kingdoms of the East Saxons and South Saxons. The evidence suggests that the Wrekinset were the most northerly of the three large Mercian subject kingdoms facing Wales, with the Magonsæte to their south, and the Hwicce farthest south. The chief place was seemingly the former Roman Viroconium Cornoviorum (modern Wroxeter), the former civitas of the Cornovii and close to the hill fort known as The Wrekin. The kingdom may have covered much of modern Cheshire, Shropshire and into North East Wales, Wrexham, Denbighshire and Flintshire. The border between Wales and Wreocensæte would have been Offa's Dyke.
wn.com/Wreocensæte -
Wulfhere of Mercia
Wulfhere (died 675) was King of Mercia from the end of the 650s until 675. He was the first Christian king of all of Mercia, though it is not known when or how he converted from Anglo-Saxon paganism. His accession marked the end of Oswiu of Northumbria's overlordship of southern England, and Wulfhere extended his influence over much of that region. His campaigns against the West Saxons led to Mercian control of much of the Thames valley. He conquered the Isle of Wight and the Meon valley and gave them to King Æthelwealh of the South Saxons. He also had influence in Surrey, Essex, and Kent. He married Eormenhild, the daughter of King Eorcenberht of Kent.
Wulfhere's father, Penda, was killed in 655 at the Battle of Winwaed, fighting against Oswiu of Northumbria. Penda's son Peada became king under Oswiu's overlordship but was murdered a year later. Wulfhere came to the throne when Mercian nobles organized a revolt against Northumbrian rule in 658 and drove out Oswiu's governors.
By 670, when Oswiu died, Wulfhere was the most powerful king in southern Britain. He was effectively the overlord of Britain south of the Humber from the early 660s, although not overlord of Northumbria as his father had been. In 674, he challenged Oswiu's son Ecgfrith of Northumbria, but was defeated. He died, probably of disease, in 675. Wulfhere was succeeded as King of Mercia by his brother, Æthelred. Stephen of Ripon's Life of Wilfrid describes Wulfhere as "a man of proud mind, and insatiable will".
wn.com/Wulfhere_of_Mercia -
Æbbingas
Abingdon and Abingdon Abbey was founded in Saxon times, possibly the 7th century but its early history is confused by numerous legends, invented to raise its status and explain the place-name. The name seems to mean 'Hill of a man named Æbba, or a woman named Æbbe', possibly the saint to whom St Ebbe's Church in Oxford was dedicated (Æbbe of Coldingham or a different Æbbe of Oxford). However Abingdon stands in a valley and not on a hill. It is thought that the name was first given to a place on Boars Hill above Chilswell, and the name was transferred to its present site when the Abbey was relocated.
wn.com/Æbbingas -
Æthelstan
Æthelstan or Athelstan (Old English: Æþelstan, Æðelstān; c. 893/895 – 27 October 939) was the King of England from 924 or 925 to 939. He was the son of King Edward the Elder and his first wife, Ecgwynn. Æthelstan's success in securing the submission of Constantine II, King of Scots, at the Treaty of Eamont Bridge in 927 allowed him to claim the title of 'king of the English', and even "by wishful extension" 'king of Britain'. Victory over Scottish and Viking forces at the Battle of Brunanburh in 937 confirmed his prestige. His reign has been overlooked, overshadowed by the achievements of his grandfather, Alfred the Great, but he is now regarded as one of the greatest kings of the West Saxon dynasty. Æthelstan was the first king of a unified England from 927, and his reign was of fundamental importance to political developments in the 10th century.
The materials for a life of Æthelstan are very limited, and the first biography, by Sarah Foot, was only published in 2011. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in this period is principally devoted to military events, and as Æthelstan's achievements were mainly in the reconstruction of the church and government, it is largely silent during his reign apart from recounting his military triumphs. The main source for his life is the twelfth century chronicle of William of Malmesbury, but historians are cautious about accepting his testimony, much of which cannot be verified from other sources. David Dumville goes so far as to dismiss William's account entirely, regarding him as a "treacherous witness" whose account is unfortunately influential. However, Sarah Foot is inclined to accept Michael Wood's argument that William's chronicle draws on a lost life of Æthelstan, while cautioning that we have no means of discovering how far William 'improved' on the original.
wn.com/Æthelstan
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Frank Turner - Wessex Boy (Official HD Video)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:33
- Updated: 30 Nov 2012
bit.ly Official video for the single "Wessex Boy" taken from the album "England Keep My Bones", out now on Xtra Mile Recordings Ltd (UK/Ireland) and Epitaph (everywhere else). Video shot by Ben Morse and Greg Nolan, edited / directed by Ben Morse. Starring Frank, The Sleeping Souls and lots of awesome buskers in Winchester!
http://wn.com/Frank_Turner_Wessex_Boy_Official_HD_Video
bit.ly Official video for the single "Wessex Boy" taken from the album "England Keep My Bones", out now on Xtra Mile Recordings Ltd (UK/Ireland) and Epitaph (everywhere else). Video shot by Ben Morse and Greg Nolan, edited / directed by Ben Morse. Starring Frank, The Sleeping Souls and lots of awesome buskers in Winchester!
Westland Wessex HC2 of 60Sqn at RAF Gütersloh in 1992
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:17
- Updated: 01 Oct 2012
These Wessex HC2 helicopters of No 60 Squadron were present in Gütersloh for an exercise in October 1992. ( by O. Kestin - www.sg-etuo.de )
http://wn.com/Westland_Wessex_HC2_of_60Sqn_at_RAF_Gütersloh_in_1992
These Wessex HC2 helicopters of No 60 Squadron were present in Gütersloh for an exercise in October 1992. ( by O. Kestin - www.sg-etuo.de )
- published: 20 Jul 2008
- views: 14854
- author: psychonaut1979
The Only Way is Wessex - Fanny
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:40
- Updated: 27 Nov 2012
Bathsheba's head is getting well done in as she tries to choose between three Wessex geezers; the shepherd, the farmer and the especially nice abusive Sergeant Major prone to violent fits.
http://wn.com/The_Only_Way_is_Wessex_Fanny
Bathsheba's head is getting well done in as she tries to choose between three Wessex geezers; the shepherd, the farmer and the especially nice abusive Sergeant Major prone to violent fits.
- published: 20 Feb 2012
- views: 9266
- author: BBCComedy
RAN FAA Wessex 31B Helicopter four formation
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 9:58
- Updated: 19 Oct 2012
Four Wessex 31B (now Utility) helicopters take off in formation from NAS Nowra to over fly the RANC (Naval College at Jervis Bay and then fly over Beecroft Range, the Drum and Drumsticks. They fly down the Shoalhaven River to Nowra township to turn left to return to the airfield for a formation break into the circuit. Music by David Bowie and Bachmann Turner Overdrive.
http://wn.com/RAN_FAA_Wessex_31B_Helicopter_four_formation
Four Wessex 31B (now Utility) helicopters take off in formation from NAS Nowra to over fly the RANC (Naval College at Jervis Bay and then fly over Beecroft Range, the Drum and Drumsticks. They fly down the Shoalhaven River to Nowra township to turn left to return to the airfield for a formation break into the circuit. Music by David Bowie and Bachmann Turner Overdrive.
- published: 09 Sep 2008
- views: 7418
- author: bengello
Frank Turner - "Wessex Boy"
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:33
- Updated: 30 Nov 2012
Distributed by WMG 2011 "Wessex Boy" by Frank Turner from his new album 'England Keep My Bones,' in stores now! Get it at www.epitaphstore.com Visit us! http Subscribe to Epitaph: www.youtube.com Facebook: www.facebook.com Twitter: twitter.com Google +: plus.google.com
http://wn.com/Frank_Turner_Wessex_Boy
Distributed by WMG 2011 "Wessex Boy" by Frank Turner from his new album 'England Keep My Bones,' in stores now! Get it at www.epitaphstore.com Visit us! http Subscribe to Epitaph: www.youtube.com Facebook: www.facebook.com Twitter: twitter.com Google +: plus.google.com
- published: 25 Oct 2011
- views: 95894
- author: EpitaphRecords
Thomas Hardy Wessex Tales
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 4:45
- Updated: 21 Jul 2012
Thomas Hardy Wessex Tales A Tradition Of Eighteen Hundred And Four read by Alison Gayler
http://wn.com/Thomas_Hardy_Wessex_Tales
Thomas Hardy Wessex Tales A Tradition Of Eighteen Hundred And Four read by Alison Gayler
- published: 21 Aug 2009
- views: 4584
- author: JustAudio2008
Thomas Hardy's Wessex (trailer)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 2:35
- Updated: 18 Oct 2012
Wessex is the ancient name for the south-west part of England which was the stronghold of the old kings of Anglo-Saxon England. The modern name for this county is now known as Dorset, with Dorchester as its country home. This short documentary takes the viewer to the birth home of Thomas Hardy. Hardy is best known for his richly charactered novel "Tess of the d'Urbervilles" and much poetry. Set against the magnificent backdrop of the region can be heard extracts of Hardy's bleak, retrospective, but moving poetry. Visit www.wynterseaproductions.ca
http://wn.com/Thomas_Hardy's_Wessex_trailer
Wessex is the ancient name for the south-west part of England which was the stronghold of the old kings of Anglo-Saxon England. The modern name for this county is now known as Dorset, with Dorchester as its country home. This short documentary takes the viewer to the birth home of Thomas Hardy. Hardy is best known for his richly charactered novel "Tess of the d'Urbervilles" and much poetry. Set against the magnificent backdrop of the region can be heard extracts of Hardy's bleak, retrospective, but moving poetry. Visit www.wynterseaproductions.ca
- published: 01 May 2011
- views: 1755
- author: wynterseaproductions
Princesses of The World - Sophie, Countess Of Wessex: The Joy And Sadness
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:03
- Updated: 16 Nov 2012
Presenting a fascinating portrait of the most beautiful and beloved royal women of the past 50 years, we take a regal tour of the romance, heartache, tragedy and controversy that is the life of these modern day fairytale princesses. Social pressure and family expectations conspire to make the lives of these princesses far more diverse and engaging than any fictional tale could offer. Princesses Diana, Grace, Fergie and more in this very special collection Now Available on iTunes and YouTube! iTunes - goo.gl YouTube Movies - goo.gl
http://wn.com/Princesses_of_The_World_Sophie,_Countess_Of_Wessex_The_Joy_And_Sadness
Presenting a fascinating portrait of the most beautiful and beloved royal women of the past 50 years, we take a regal tour of the romance, heartache, tragedy and controversy that is the life of these modern day fairytale princesses. Social pressure and family expectations conspire to make the lives of these princesses far more diverse and engaging than any fictional tale could offer. Princesses Diana, Grace, Fergie and more in this very special collection Now Available on iTunes and YouTube! iTunes - goo.gl YouTube Movies - goo.gl
- published: 29 Feb 2012
- views: 8737
- author: inceptionmg
- published: 30 Mar 2012
- views: 3842
- author: MrMojomc
Wessex Home Lift
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 9:00
- Updated: 15 Aug 2012
WESSEX HOME LIFT - the through floor vertical lift range. Designed for safety, flexibility and independence. The advanced design of the Wessex Home Lift affords greater benefits to the user. Designed for independence Illuminated, ergonomically designed internal controls for ease of use. Powered door option for greater independence. Large-Buttoned remote control now available. Flexibility of Installation Locations Free-standing design does not require load bearing wall. Door opening and internal controls may be either left or right and can be changed from side to side, enabling relocation of lift. Choice of Models Available in six models to suit a wider range of applications. Attention to Safety Wessex Home Lifts, VM range, are EC Type tested by a notified body and comply with Schedule 4 of "The supply of machinery safety regulations 1992". All Wessex lifts are CE marked in compliance with European Regulations, and comply with BS 5900 1999. (Special safety features are detailed below). Installation, Instruction and After Sales Care Our Area Sales Manager will advise on necessary building work required prior to installation. The lift will be installed by Wessex trained personnel, who will also give comprehensive training on lift operation and advice on service and maintenance. An operations manual is given to the user for future reference.
http://wn.com/Wessex_Home_Lift
WESSEX HOME LIFT - the through floor vertical lift range. Designed for safety, flexibility and independence. The advanced design of the Wessex Home Lift affords greater benefits to the user. Designed for independence Illuminated, ergonomically designed internal controls for ease of use. Powered door option for greater independence. Large-Buttoned remote control now available. Flexibility of Installation Locations Free-standing design does not require load bearing wall. Door opening and internal controls may be either left or right and can be changed from side to side, enabling relocation of lift. Choice of Models Available in six models to suit a wider range of applications. Attention to Safety Wessex Home Lifts, VM range, are EC Type tested by a notified body and comply with Schedule 4 of "The supply of machinery safety regulations 1992". All Wessex lifts are CE marked in compliance with European Regulations, and comply with BS 5900 1999. (Special safety features are detailed below). Installation, Instruction and After Sales Care Our Area Sales Manager will advise on necessary building work required prior to installation. The lift will be installed by Wessex trained personnel, who will also give comprehensive training on lift operation and advice on service and maintenance. An operations manual is given to the user for future reference.
- published: 24 Jun 2008
- views: 6486
- author: Wessexlifts
Wessex Pfeife
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:13
- Updated: 27 Aug 2010
Meine Wessex XL Pfeife - von Danpipe
http://wn.com/Wessex_Pfeife
Meine Wessex XL Pfeife - von Danpipe
- published: 25 Oct 2009
- views: 872
- author: harryheilbutt
Lowestoft Factory Fire - Wessex Foods - Carlton Colville
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 2:21
- Updated: 16 Nov 2012
Drove past the fire not long after it started and before roads were closed.
http://wn.com/Lowestoft_Factory_Fire_Wessex_Foods_Carlton_Colville
Drove past the fire not long after it started and before roads were closed.
- published: 11 Jul 2010
- views: 31174
- author: Stuart Gibbs
WESTLAND WESSEX
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 2:17
- Updated: 16 Aug 2012
Westland wessex, hc2, setting up govner mode down at the local park.
http://wn.com/WESTLAND_WESSEX
Westland wessex, hc2, setting up govner mode down at the local park.
- published: 24 Oct 2010
- views: 6687
- author: catbalu58
Wessex Blades BushCraft Bartons Challenge using a Swiss Army Knife
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 19:21
- Updated: 27 Oct 2012
www.youtube.com www.youtube.com After collecting a range of trash on the way and at my personal space I put 3 items(4 if you count the umbrella to catch glass shards) towards making an expedient atl atl..and I know it also was a Swiss Army Knife Challenge but that is just how efficient and creative I can be,,one trip,,one SAK,,a few items of rubbish and a stick,,all the best to all other entries..that pouch is awesome!!!
http://wn.com/Wessex_Blades_BushCraft_Bartons_Challenge_using_a_Swiss_Army_Knife
www.youtube.com www.youtube.com After collecting a range of trash on the way and at my personal space I put 3 items(4 if you count the umbrella to catch glass shards) towards making an expedient atl atl..and I know it also was a Swiss Army Knife Challenge but that is just how efficient and creative I can be,,one trip,,one SAK,,a few items of rubbish and a stick,,all the best to all other entries..that pouch is awesome!!!
- published: 25 Sep 2011
- views: 813
- author: bassfuryvi
The Arrival of the House Wessex - History of England Podcast
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:09
- Updated: 29 Nov 2012
Weekly Podcast at www.historyofengland.typepad.com on the history of England. This video's about the arrival of Cerdic and the Saxon tribe called the Gewisse, who created the kingdom of Wessex.
http://wn.com/The_Arrival_of_the_House_Wessex_History_of_England_Podcast
Weekly Podcast at www.historyofengland.typepad.com on the history of England. This video's about the arrival of Cerdic and the Saxon tribe called the Gewisse, who created the kingdom of Wessex.
- published: 31 Aug 2011
- views: 915
- author: historyofengland
Wessex Blades - The Assassin Field test part 1
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 15:50
- Updated: 16 Nov 2012
Whilst field testing The Assassin knife made by Scott Williams from Wessex blades I chose to test it to skin and butcher a fox. This knife was commissioned by Survival Mike. www.youtube.com/user/bassfuryvi www.youtube.com/user/survivalmike follow me at www.silverfoxbushcraft.co.uk www.youtube.com/user/seanmulhall www.facebook.com/seanmulhall www.twitter.com/SeanSilverFox
http://wn.com/Wessex_Blades_The_Assassin_Field_test_part_1
Whilst field testing The Assassin knife made by Scott Williams from Wessex blades I chose to test it to skin and butcher a fox. This knife was commissioned by Survival Mike. www.youtube.com/user/bassfuryvi www.youtube.com/user/survivalmike follow me at www.silverfoxbushcraft.co.uk www.youtube.com/user/seanmulhall www.facebook.com/seanmulhall www.twitter.com/SeanSilverFox
- published: 08 Jan 2012
- views: 3022
- author: seanmulhall
Two Westland Wessex Cosford 91
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:26
- Updated: 01 Oct 2012
These Two machines from No 2 FST based just up the road at Raf Shawbury do an early demo of what the Raf were using the Wessex for in 1991.The two machines featured here are XR521 WD (fate unknown) and XT672 WE which is still about as she is the current gate guardian at RAF Shawbury (as of March 2012)
http://wn.com/Two_Westland_Wessex_Cosford_91
These Two machines from No 2 FST based just up the road at Raf Shawbury do an early demo of what the Raf were using the Wessex for in 1991.The two machines featured here are XR521 WD (fate unknown) and XT672 WE which is still about as she is the current gate guardian at RAF Shawbury (as of March 2012)
- published: 29 Apr 2008
- views: 7412
- author: 264flight
Wessex Blades The Assassin Field test part 2
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 21:47
- Updated: 16 Nov 2012
Whilst field testing The Assassin knife made by Scott Williams from Wessex blades I chose to test it to skin and butcher a fox. This knife was commissioned by Survival Mike. www.youtube.com/user/bassfuryvi www.youtube.com/user/survivalmike Unfortunately this fox I put into a second hand freezer that I bought so I could store it until I had time to work on it. 3 weeks later when I opened up the freezer I discovered that the freezer did not work. The fox rotted along with 40 squirrels, pheasant, duck and badger. So I will video the taxidermy process on the next fox I find. follow me at www.silverfoxbushcraft.co.uk www.youtube.com/user/seanmulhall www.facebook.com/seanmulhall www.twitter.com/SeanSilverFox
http://wn.com/Wessex_Blades_The_Assassin_Field_test_part_2
Whilst field testing The Assassin knife made by Scott Williams from Wessex blades I chose to test it to skin and butcher a fox. This knife was commissioned by Survival Mike. www.youtube.com/user/bassfuryvi www.youtube.com/user/survivalmike Unfortunately this fox I put into a second hand freezer that I bought so I could store it until I had time to work on it. 3 weeks later when I opened up the freezer I discovered that the freezer did not work. The fox rotted along with 40 squirrels, pheasant, duck and badger. So I will video the taxidermy process on the next fox I find. follow me at www.silverfoxbushcraft.co.uk www.youtube.com/user/seanmulhall www.facebook.com/seanmulhall www.twitter.com/SeanSilverFox
- published: 08 Jan 2012
- views: 2031
- author: seanmulhall
Frank Turner performs "Wessex Boy" in Studio Q
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:28
- Updated: 17 Nov 2012
www.cbc.ca UK singer-songwriter, Frank Turner, performs the song "Wessex Boy" from his latest album "England Keep My Bones" in Studio Q.
http://wn.com/Frank_Turner_performs_Wessex_Boy_in_Studio_Q
www.cbc.ca UK singer-songwriter, Frank Turner, performs the song "Wessex Boy" from his latest album "England Keep My Bones" in Studio Q.
- published: 04 Jul 2012
- views: 1841
- author: Qtv
Lindsay Jay Fitness - Wessex House Zumba
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 0:55
- Updated: 27 Nov 2012
lindsayjay.co.uk Clapham Junction Night Club Zumba Classes Lindsay Jay Fitness offers a wide range of fitness, yoga and dance sessions, including Zumba® -- an exhilarating, effective, easy-to-follow, Latin-inspired, calorie-burning dance fitness-party™ that lets you shimmy and shake your way into fantastic shape. Check out the class timetable for more information about Zumba® and our other fitness classes Keep in touch:- For more information on LJFitness and what we do please visit lindsayjay.co.uk or 'like' Lindsay Jay Fitness on facebook www.facebook.com Also for motivation, competitions and class updates follow us on twitter: LJFitness - twitter.com
http://wn.com/Lindsay_Jay_Fitness_Wessex_House_Zumba
lindsayjay.co.uk Clapham Junction Night Club Zumba Classes Lindsay Jay Fitness offers a wide range of fitness, yoga and dance sessions, including Zumba® -- an exhilarating, effective, easy-to-follow, Latin-inspired, calorie-burning dance fitness-party™ that lets you shimmy and shake your way into fantastic shape. Check out the class timetable for more information about Zumba® and our other fitness classes Keep in touch:- For more information on LJFitness and what we do please visit lindsayjay.co.uk or 'like' Lindsay Jay Fitness on facebook www.facebook.com Also for motivation, competitions and class updates follow us on twitter: LJFitness - twitter.com
- published: 09 Feb 2012
- views: 15881
- author: Lindsay Jay
Class 442 'Wessex Electrics' in 2004
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 9:35
- Updated: 03 Jun 2012
This is a remake of the previous 'Class 442 'Wessex Electrics' in 2004' which was on here. I have included some new clips and spruced it up a bit!
http://wn.com/Class_442_'Wessex_Electrics'_in_2004
This is a remake of the previous 'Class 442 'Wessex Electrics' in 2004' which was on here. I have included some new clips and spruced it up a bit!
- published: 22 May 2007
- views: 3771
- author: alrispoli
Wessex Wheelchair Lift Video - Dolphin Lifts
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:38
- Updated: 10 Nov 2012
www.dolphinlifts.co.uk Supplied and installed throughout the UK by Dolphin Lifts the Wessex Wheelchair Lift is a domestic through the floor lift for disabled people.
http://wn.com/Wessex_Wheelchair_Lift_Video_Dolphin_Lifts
www.dolphinlifts.co.uk Supplied and installed throughout the UK by Dolphin Lifts the Wessex Wheelchair Lift is a domestic through the floor lift for disabled people.
- published: 02 Feb 2012
- views: 1324
- author: dolphinlifts
35028 Clan Line The Royal Wessex 27/04/2012.
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:39
- Updated: 04 May 2012
35028 Clan Line 1Z97 on the Royal Wessex trip to Swanage (Victoria—Swanage—Southampton—Waterioo) departing Victoria 5 minutes late.
http://wn.com/35028_Clan_Line_The_Royal_Wessex_27_04_2012
35028 Clan Line 1Z97 on the Royal Wessex trip to Swanage (Victoria—Swanage—Southampton—Waterioo) departing Victoria 5 minutes late.
- published: 27 Apr 2012
- views: 765
- author: OLDBOYSTEAMING
"West Saxons" redirects here. For other meanings of Wessex or West Saxons, see Wessex (disambiguation).
| Kingdom of Wessex Westseaxna rīce |
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Wyvern of Wessex |
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| Capital | Winchester[1] | |||
| Language(s) | Old English (Englisc) | |||
| Religion | Paganism Christianity |
|||
| Government | Monarchy | |||
| Monarchs (see full list) | ||||
| - 519–534 | Cerdic | |||
| - 688–726 | Ine | |||
| - 871–899 | Ælfrēd the Great | |||
| - 925–927 | Æþelstān | |||
| Legislature | Witan | |||
| History | ||||
| - Established | 519 | |||
| - Unification of England by Æthelstan | 927 | |||
The Kingdom of Wessex ( /ˈwɛsɨks/) or Kingdom of the West Saxons (Old English: Westseaxna rīce) was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the West Saxons in South West England, from the 6th century until the emergence of a united English state under the Wessex dynasty in the 10th century. It was to be an earldom after Canute the Great's conquest of 1016, from 1020 to 1066. After the Norman Conquest there was a dissolution of the English earldoms and Wessex was split among the followers of William the Conqueror.
Contents |
Origin[link]
According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (ASC) Wessex was founded by Cerdic and Cynric, chieftains of a clan known as "Gewisse". They are said to have landed on the Hampshire coast and conquered the surrounding area, including the Isle of Wight. However, the specific events given by the ASC are in some doubt; archæological evidence points instead to a considerable early Anglo-Saxon presence in the upper Thames valley and Cotswolds area, entered from The Wash along Icknield Way.[2] The centre of gravity of Wessex in the late sixth and early seventh century seems to have lain farther to the north than in later periods, following successful expansion to the south and west. Bede states that the Isle of Wight was settled not by Saxons but Jutes, who also settled on the Hampshire coast (known as the Meonsæte) and that these areas were only acquired by Wessex in the later seventh century. It is therefore possible that the ASC account is a product of the circumstances of the eighth and ninth centuries being projected back into the past to create an origin story of the ruling kinship appropriate to the contemporary form of the kingdom.[3] It may also be noted that the names of some of the early West Saxon leaders appear to be Brythonic in origin, including the dynastic founder Cerdic (being a form of Ceredic or Caradoc) and Cædwalla (from Cadwallon, a Welsh name derived from Caswalawn a Brythonic version of Cassivellaunus). These are interspersed with Old English names such as Ceolwulf, Coenberht and Aescwine. This variation might suggest the early rulers came from a hybrid Anglo-British dynasty or that the rule of early Wessex shifted between more than one royal clan, but this is conjecture.
The two main sources for the names and dates of the kings of Wessex are the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and an associated document known as the West Saxon Genealogical Regnal List. The Chronicle gives small genealogies in multiple places, under the annals for different years. These sources, however, conflict in various ways and cannot be fully reconciled. A recent analysis by David Dumville that has produced a set of plausible dates for the West Saxon kings has been used by other scholars but cannot be regarded as definitive. Dumville's dates are used in the historical outline below, with reference to the original sources to highlight some of the conflicts. The later genealogies may have been contrived with the intent of connecting all lineages to Cerdic, and this has introduced additional inconsistencies which cannot all be resolved.
Though the Chronicle gives 495 as the date for Cerdic's arrival in Britain
"495. There came two eaorlmen to Britain, Cerdic and Cynric his son, with five ships, to a place called Cerdicesora, on the same day they fought the Welsh."
F. M. Stenton[4] gives evidence of doubled entries in the Chronicle, which suggests an early sixth-century date for the landing of the ancestor of the Wessex ruling kinship.
Most historians appear agreed that the location of Cerdicesora or "Cerdic's Shore" is somewhere on Southampton Water, perhaps Calshot. After making a beachhead and consolidating their position they next appear to have attacked the area around Southampton at the Battle of Natanleod. The location of this Natanleod has been placed at Netley Marsh.
"508. This year Cerdic and Cynric killed a British king named Natanleod, and five thousand men with him. After that the land was known as Natanleag up to Cerdicesford."
The location of Cerdicesford has been placed at various locations in southern Hampshire including Chandler's Ford. The historian Albany Major places the site at Charford at the crossing of the River Avon (Hampshire) close to the border with Wiltshire.
"514. The West-Saxons came to Briton with 3 ships to a place called Cerdicesora and in the same year they fought the Britons and put them to flight."
"519. Cerdic and Cynric received the West-Saxon kingdom, and the same year they fought with the Britons, in a place now called Cerdicesford. The royal line of Wessex ruled from that day."
Despite the repetition there is no reason to presume there were not multiple landings along a coast known to the Saxons as Cerdic's Shore. It is likely that both Winchester and Silchester would have fallen to the West Saxons between the years 508 and 514, but this transition is only suggested by the absence of these important towns in the later annals of the British scribes. A later thrust up the Hampshire Avon towards Old Sarum in 519 appears to have been checked by the Britons at Charford. Albany Major in Early Wars of Wessex makes the case that the borders of the traditional county of Hampshire probably match those of the first West Saxon kingdom established by Cerdic and his son. Evidence of this comes from the border between Hampshire and Berkshire which follows generally the line of the Roman road that ran east and west through Silchester but is deflected in the north in a rough semicircle, in such a way as to include the whole district around the town. He argues that the capture of Silchester, of which no record has been passed down to us, was not the work of Mercian Angles but of the West Saxons probably striking north from Winchester and possibly acting in concert with a separate force making its way up the Thames Valley towards Reading. Silchester was left desolate after its fall and it is most improbable that any regard would have been paid to its side of the border had the fixing of the county boundary been made at a later period.[5]
File:Wessex 2 Silchester pic.jpg
The traditional border between Berkshire and Hampshire showing the buffer zone north of Silchester which is thought to be evidence that the county of Hampshire was created while Silchester was still inhabited by Britons, according to Albany F. Major (1912).
Study of the borders between Hampshire and Wiltshire also seem to suggest the West Saxons' westward advance was checked by about 519AD. The area north of Charford This would corroborate the date given in the Annales Cambriae for the crucial British victory at the Battle of Mons Badonicus in 517AD which is believed to have stopped further Anglo-Saxon encroachments in south-west and midland Britain for at least a generation.
The length of Cerdic's reign is unclear but the throne passed to Cynric in about 554. Cynric is Cerdic's son according to some sources and Cerdic's grandson in others, which name Creoda, son of Cerdic, as Cynric's father. Cynric was in turn succeeded by Ceawlin, who was probably his son, in about 581.
Ceawlin's reign is thought to be more reliably documented than those of the earlier kings, though the Chronicle's dates of 560 to 592 are substantially different from the revised chronology. He overcame pockets of Britons to the northeast in the Chilterns and in Gloucestershire and Somerset the captures of Cirencester, Gloucester and Bath (577), after a long pause caused by the battle of Mons Badonicus, opened the way to the southwest. Ceawlin is one of the seven kings named in Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People as holding "imperium" over the southern English; the Chronicle later repeats this claim and refers to Ceawlin as a bretwalda, or "Britain-ruler".
Ceawlin was deposed, perhaps by his successor Ceol, and died the following year. Ceol was the son of Ceawlin's brother, Cutha. Six years later, in about 594, Ceol was succeeded by Ceolwulf, his own brother; and Ceolwulf was succeeded in his turn in about 617 by Cynegils. The genealogies are remarkably inconsistent on Cynegils' pedigree: his father is variously given as Ceola, Ceolwulf, Ceol, Cuthwine, Cutha, and Cuthwulf.
Christian Wessex and the rise of Mercia[link]
It is in Cynegils' reign that the first event in West Saxon history that can be dated with reasonable certainty occurs: the baptism of Cynegils by Birinus, which happened at the end of the 630s, perhaps in 640. Birinus was then established as bishop of the West Saxons, with his seat at Dorchester-on-Thames. This was the first conversion to Christianity by a West Saxon king, but it was not accompanied by the immediate conversion of all the West Saxons: Cynegils' successor (and probably his son), Cenwealh, who came to the throne in about 642, was a pagan at his accession. However, he too was baptised only a few years later and Wessex became firmly established as a Christian kingdom. Cynegils's godfather was King Oswald of Northumbria and his conversion may have been connected with an alliance against King Penda of Mercia, who had previously attacked Wessex.
These attacks marked the beginning of sustained pressure from the expanding kingdom of Mercia. In time this would deprive Wessex of its territories north of the Thames and the Avon, encouraging the kingdom's reorientation southwards. Cenwealh married Penda's daughter, and when he repudiated her, Penda again invaded and drove him into exile for some time, perhaps three years. The dates are uncertain but it was probably in the late 640s or early 650s. He spent his exile in East Anglia, and was converted to Christianity there. After his return, Cenwealh faced further attacks from Penda's successor Wulfhere, but was able to expand West Saxon territory in Somerset at the expense of the Britons. He established a second bishopric at Winchester, while the one at Dorchester was soon abandoned as Mercian power pushed southwards. Winchester would eventually develop into the effective capital of Wessex.
After Cenwealh's death in 673, his widow, Seaxburh, held the throne for a year; she was followed by Aescwine, who was apparently descended from another brother of Ceawlin. This was one of several occasions on which the kingship of Wessex is said to have passed to a remote branch of the royal family with an unbroken male line of descent from Cerdic; these claims may be genuine, or may reflect the spurious assertion of descent from Cerdic to legitimise a new dynasty. Aescwine's reign only lasted two years, and in 676 the throne passed back to the immediate family of Cenwealh with the accession of his brother Centwine. Centwine is known to have fought and won battles against the Britons, but the details have not survived.
Centwine was succeeded by another supposed distant relative, Caedwalla, who claimed descent from Ceawlin. Caedwalla reigned for just two years, but achieved a dramatic expansion of the kingdom's power, conquering the kingdoms of Sussex, Kent and the Isle of Wight, although Kent regained its independence almost immediately and Sussex followed some years later. His reign ended in 688 when he went on pilgrimage to Rome, where he was baptised by the Pope and died soon afterwards.
His successor was Ine, who also claimed to be a descendant of Cerdic through Ceawlin, but again through a long-separated line of descent. Ine was the most durable of the West Saxon kings, reigning for 38 years. He issued the oldest surviving English code of laws apart from those of the kingdom of Kent, and established a second West Saxon bishopric at Sherborne, covering the territories west of Selwood Forest. Near the end of his life he followed in Caedwalla's footsteps by abdicating and making a pilgrimage to Rome. The throne then passed to a series of other kings who claimed descent from Cerdic but whose supposed genealogies and relationship to one another are unknown.
During the 8th century Wessex was overshadowed by Mercia, whose power was then at its height, and the West Saxon kings may at times have acknowledged Mercian overlordship. They were, however, able to avoid the more substantial control which Mercia exerted over smaller kingdoms. During this period Wessex continued its gradual advance to the west, overwhelming the British kingdom of Dumnonia and absorbing Devon. As a result of the Mercian conquest of the northern portion of its early territories in Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire, the Thames and the Avon now probably formed the northern boundary of Wessex, while its heartland lay in Hampshire, Wiltshire, Berkshire, Dorset and Somerset. The system of shires which was later to form the basis of local administration throughout England (and eventually, Ireland, Wales and Scotland as well) originated in Wessex, and had been established by the mid-eighth century.
The hegemony of Wessex and the Viking raids[link]
In 802 the fortunes of Wessex were transformed by the accession of Egbert who came from a cadet branch of the ruling dynasty that claimed descent from Ine's brother Ingild. With his accession the throne became firmly established in the hands of a single lineage. Early in his reign he conducted two campaigns against the "West Welsh", first in 813 and then again at "Gafulford" in 822. During the course of these campaigns he conquered the western Britons still in Devon and reduced those beyond the River Tamar, now Cornwall, to the status of a vassal.[6] In 825 he overturned the political order of England by decisively defeating King Beornwulf of Mercia at Ellendun and seizing control of Surrey, Sussex, Kent and Essex from the Mercians, while with his help East Anglia broke away from Mercian control. In 829 he conquered Mercia, driving its King Wiglaf into exile, and secured acknowledgment of his overlordship from the king of Northumbria. He thereby became the Bretwalda, or high king of Britain. This position of dominance was short-lived, as Wiglaf returned and restored Mercian independence in 830, but the expansion of Wessex across south-eastern England proved permanent.
Egbert's later years saw the beginning of Danish Viking raids on Wessex, which occurred frequently from 835 onwards. In 851 a huge Danish army, said to have been carried on 350 ships, arrived in the Thames estuary. Having defeated King Beorhtwulf of Mercia in battle, the Danes moved on to invade Wessex, but were decisively crushed by Egbert's son and successor King Aethelwulf in the exceptionally bloody Battle of Aclea. This victory postponed Danish conquests in England for fifteen years, but raids on Wessex continued.
In 855-6 Aethelwulf went on pilgrimage to Rome and his eldest surviving son Aethelbald took advantage of his absence to seize his father's throne. On his return, Aethelwulf agreed to divide the kingdom with his son to avoid bloodshed, ruling the new territories in the east while Aethelbald held the old heartland in the west. Aethelwulf was succeeded by each of his four surviving sons ruling one after another: the rebellious Aethelbald, then Ethelbert, who had previously inherited the eastern territories from his father and who reunited the kingdom on Aethelbald's death, then Aethelred, and finally Alfred the Great. This occurred because the first two brothers died in wars with the Danes without issue, while Aethelred's sons were too young to rule when their father died.
The last English kingdom[link]
In 865 another enormous Danish army arrived in England. Over the following years this army overwhelmed the kingdoms of Northumbria and East Anglia. Wessex was invaded in 871, and although Aethelred and Alfred won some victories and succeeded in preventing the conquest of their kingdom, a number of defeats, heavy losses of men and the arrival of a fresh Danish army in England compelled Alfred to pay the Danes to leave Wessex.[7] The Danes spent the next few years subduing Mercia and some of them settled in Northumbria, but the rest returned to Wessex in 876. Alfred responded effectively and was able with little fighting to bring about their withdrawal in 877. A portion of the Danish army settled in Mercia, but at the beginning of 878 the remaining Danes mounted a winter invasion of Wessex, taking Alfred by surprise and overrunning much of the kingdom. Alfred was reduced to taking refuge with a small band of followers in the marshes of the Somerset Levels, but after a few months he was able to gather an army and defeated the Danes at the Battle of Edington, bringing about their final withdrawal from Wessex to settle in East Anglia.
Over the following years Alfred carried out a dramatic reorganisation of the government and defences of Wessex, building warships, organising the army into two shifts which served alternately and establishing a system of fortified burhs across the kingdom. This system is recorded in a 10th century document known as the Burghal Hidage, which details the location and garrisoning requirements of thirty-three forts, whose positioning ensured that no one in Wessex was more than a long day's ride from a place of safety.[8] In the 890s these reforms helped him to repulse the invasion of another huge Danish army – which was aided by the Danes settled in England – with minimal losses.
Alfred also reformed the administration of justice, issued a new law code and championed a revival of scholarship and education. He gathered scholars from around England and elsewhere in Europe to his court, and with their help translated a range of Latin texts into English, doing much of the work in person, and orchestrated the composition of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. As a result of these literary efforts and the political dominance of Wessex, the West Saxon dialect of this period became the standard written form of Old English for the rest of the Anglo-Saxon period and beyond.
The Danish conquests had destroyed the kingdoms of Northumbria and East Anglia and divided Mercia in half, with the Danes settling in the north-east while the south-west was left to the English king Ceolwulf, allegedly a Danish puppet. When Ceolwulf's rule came to an end he was succeeded as ruler of "English Mercia" not by another king but by a mere ealdorman named Aethelred, who acknowledged Alfred's overlordship and married his daughter Ethelfleda. The process by which this transformation of the status of Mercia took place is unknown, but it left Alfred as the only remaining English king.
The unification of England and the Earldom of Wessex[link]
After the invasions of the 890s Wessex and English Mercia continued to be attacked by the Danish settlers in England and by small Danish raiding forces from overseas, but these incursions were usually defeated, while there were no further major invasions from the continent. The balance of power tipped steadily in favour of the English. In 911 Ealdorman Aethelred died, leaving his widow, Alfred's daughter Aethelflaed, in charge of Mercia. Alfred's son and successor Edward the Elder, then annexed London, Oxford and the surrounding area, probably including Middlesex, Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire, from Mercia to Wessex. Between 913 and 918 a series of English offensives overwhelmed the Danes of Mercia and East Anglia, bringing all of England south of the Humber under Edward's power. In 918 Aethelflaed died and Edward took over direct control of Mercia, extinguishing what remained of its independence and ensuring that thenceforth there would be only one Kingdom of the English. In 927 Edward's successor Athelstan conquered Northumbria, bringing the whole of England under one ruler for the first time. The Kingdom of Wessex had thus been transformed into the Kingdom of England.
Although Wessex had now effectively been subsumed into the larger kingdom which its expansion had created, like the other former kingdoms it continued for a time to have a distinct identity which periodically found renewed political expression. After the death of King Eadred in 955, England was divided between his two sons, with the elder Edwy ruling in Wessex while Mercia passed to his younger brother Edgar. However, in 959 Edwy died and the whole of England came under Edgar's control.
After the conquest of England by the Danish king Cnut in 1016, he established earldoms based on the former kingdoms of Northumbria, Mercia and East Anglia, but initially administered Wessex personally. Within a few years, however, he had created an earldom of Wessex, encompassing all of England south of the Thames, for his English henchman Godwin. For almost fifty years the vastly wealthy holders of this earldom, first Godwin and then his son Harold, were the most powerful men in English politics after the king. Finally, on the death of Edward the Confessor in 1066, Harold became king, reuniting the earldom of Wessex with the crown. No new earl was appointed before the ensuing Norman Conquest of England, and as the Norman kings soon did away with the great earldoms of the late Anglo-Saxon period, 1066 marks the extinction of Wessex as a political unit.
Symbols[link]
Wyvern or dragon[link]
Wessex is often symbolised by a wyvern or dragon.
Both Henry of Huntingdon and Matthew of Westminster talk of a golden dragon being raised at the Battle of Burford in AD 752 by the West Saxons. The Bayeux Tapestry depicts a fallen golden dragon, as well as a red/golden/white dragon at the death of King Harold II, who was previously Earl of Wessex. However, dragon standards were in fairly wide use in Europe at the time, being derived from the ensign of the Roman cohort, and there is no evidence that it identified Wessex.[9]
A panel of 18th century stained glass at Exeter Cathedral indicates that the association of a dragon with the kingdom of Wessex pre-dates the Victorians. Nevertheless, the association was popularised in the 19th century, particularly in the writings of E A Freeman. By the time of the grant of armorial bearings by the College of Arms to Somerset County Council in 1911, a (red) dragon had become the accepted heraldic emblem of the former kingdom.[10] This precedent was followed in 1937 when Wiltshire County Council was granted arms.[11] Two gold Wessex dragons were later granted as supporters to the arms of Dorset County Council in 1950.[12]
In the British Army the wyvern has been used to represent Wessex: The 43rd (Wessex) Infantry Division adopted a formation sign consisting of a gold wyvern on a black background, and both the Wessex Brigade and Wessex Regiments used a cap badge featuring the heraldic beast.
When Sophie, Countess of Wessex was granted arms, the sinister supporter assigned was a blue wyvern, described by the College of Arms as "an heraldic beast which has long been associated with Wessex".[13]
The Wessex Society have promoted the use of a flag, designed by William Crampton, which features an heraldic golden wyvern on a red background.
Attributed coat of arms[link]
A coat of arms was attributed by medieval heralds to the Kings of Wessex. These arms appear in a manuscript of the thirteenth century, and are blazoned as Azure, a cross patonce between four martlets Or.[14] The assigning of arms to the West Saxon kings is prochronistic as heraldry did not develop until the twelfth century. These arms continued to be used to represent the kingdom for centuries after their invention.[15]
Wessex, a region[link]
Further information: Thomas Hardy's Wessex
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This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (November 2011) |
The English author Thomas Hardy used a fictionalised Wessex as a setting for many of his novels, adopting his friend William Barnes' term Wessex for their home county of Dorset and neighbouring counties in the South and West of England. His Wessex did not include Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire (although the city of Oxford, renamed "Christminster", is visited as part of Wessex in Jude the Obscure), along with Devon. He gave the counties the following fictionalised names: Berkshire = North Wessex; Devon = Lower Wessex; Dorset = South Wessex; Hampshire (including the Isle of Wight) = Upper Wessex; Somerset = Outer Wessex; Wiltshire = Mid-Wessex. Neighbouring Cornwall was described as Off-Wessex or Lyonesse.
There is a movement in south-central England to create a regional cultural and political identity for Wessex. This consists of three distinct but interlinked organisations. The Wessex Regionalist Party is a registered political party which contests elections. The Wessex Constitutional Convention is an all-party pressure group in which those sympathetic to Wessex devolution who are not members of the Wessex Regionalist Party can also be represented. The Wessex Society is a cultural society which promotes the distinctive identity of the region while remaining neutral on questions of politics, including the devolution espoused by the Wessex Constitutional Convention and the Wessex Regionalist Party. The Wessex Constitutional Convention and the Wessex Regionalist Party do not believe that Cornwall should form part of the devolved Wessex Region, which they wish to see replace the South West region of England.
The boundaries of the proposed Wessex region remain unclear. The Wessex Constitutional Convention and Wessex Society added Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire to Hardy's list. Because it does not take a political position regarding devolution to a strictly defined territory, the Society can afford to assume a relaxed position about where exactly the boundaries of cultural Wessex lie. The Wessex Regionalists had used Hardy's definition of Wessex for their political Wessex Region, but today the party also includes Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire. In the 2010 UK General Election the Wessex Regionalists contested the West Oxfordshire parliamentary seat of Witney. Most definitions exclude Cornwall. In addition there are some (e.g. within Devon) who would identify with a Dumnonian regional identity that is not so geographically broad, and would include Cornwall. An eight county definition of Wessex has been criticised from a number of quarters. Some people regard Hardy's definition as correct on the grounds that the counties north of the Thames, along with Berkshire and north-east Somerset, were part of Mercia for much of the Anglo-Saxon period. Others would argue that such references to the Dark Ages are not relevant to a modern region defined by its geography.
The Wessex regionalist organisations justify their eight-shire definition of Wessex in terms both of modern regional geography and (less convincingly) early English history. They point to the impossibility of pleasing everyone as an argument against change to their definition of Wessex at the present time, though they do not rule out the possibility of change in the future if the popular will demands it.
The name 'Wessex' in use[link]
- Wessex Synod of the United Reformed Church (URC)[16]
- Wessex Institute of Technology
- Wessex Stadium, home to Weymouth F.C.
- 43rd (Wessex) Brigade – British Army's regional command for the South West region
- Royal Wessex Yeomanry – British Army territorial unit
- Wessex Archaeology – an educational charity and the largest UK archaeological practice[17]
- Wessex culture – an archæological label used to describe a Bronze Age culture whose remains are found in the Wessex area
- Wessex League – football league covering Hampshire and parts of the surrounding counties
- Wessex Sound Studios – a renowned former recording studio, in Highbury, London
- Wessex Trains – train operating company that used to operate in much of the South West region
- Wessex Water – water supply and sewage company that covers much of the South West region
- Wessex Cyclists Touring Club – cycling and events across the region[18]
- University of Southampton sports teams have adopted 'Wessex' as a group identity[19]
- Southampton University Rugby Football Club players are called Wessex Rangers.
- University of Reading halls of residence adopted 'Wessex' as its name.[20]
- Wessex Scene – a student newspaper produced by Southampton University Student's Union (SUSU)
- Westland Wessex – a British built helicopter
- Wessex Saddleback – a pig breed originating from Wessex
- Thomas Hardy's Wessex the semi-fictional region described in the novels of Thomas Hardy
- A338 – known locally as the Wessex Way, a road linking Bournemouth to the A31 and leading to Salisbury
- Wessex Deanery – responsible for the organisation and assessment of junior doctors training within the area[21]
- Wessex Boy - song by folk/punk singer Frank Turner
Earl of Wessex[link]
Main article: Earl of Wessex
In an unusual move, The Prince Edward was made Earl of Wessex and Viscount Severn in honour of his marriage to Sophie Rhys-Jones. The previous earl, King Harold Godwinson, was famously killed at the Battle of Hastings in 1066.
See also[link]
References[link]
- ^ Winchester was not the capital consistently. Previous capitals were Sherborne, Dorset and Wilton, Wiltshire.
- ^ Hampshire and Wiltshire, well covered by archaeologists, are "singularly unproductive in finds suggestive of early Anglo-Saxon settlement" (H. R. Loyn, Anglo-Saxon England and the Norman conquest, 2nd ed. 1991:34).
- ^ Loyn 1991:34: "The Chronicle relates the story of a ruling kin, while the archaeologist reveals the mass of settlement".
- ^ Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England 19–25, noted in Loyn 1991:34 note 54.
- ^ Major, Albany F Early Wars of Wessex (1912, 1978) p.17
- ^ Major, Albany F. Early Wars of Wessex, p.105
- ^ "Alfred the Great (849 AD - 899 AD)". http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/alfred_the_great.shtml.
- ^ The Burghal Hidage: Alfred's Towns, Alfred the Great website
- ^ J. S. P. Tatlock, The Dragons of Wessex and Wales in Speculum, Vol. 8, No. 2. (Apr., 1933), pp. 223–235.
- ^ "The Coat of Arms". Somerset County Council. http://www.somerset.gov.uk/oldtourism/residents/pages/coatofarms.htm. Retrieved 14 January 2008. [dead link]
- ^ "Civic Heraldry of England and Wales – Cornwall and Wessex Area – Wiltshire County Council". Civicheraldry.co.uk. http://www.civicheraldry.co.uk/cornwall_wessex.html#wiltshire%20cc. Retrieved 6 August 2011.
- ^ "Civic Heraldry of England and Wales – Cornwall and Wessex Area – Dorset County Council". Civicheraldry.co.uk. http://www.civicheraldry.co.uk/cornwall_wessex.html#dorest%20cc. Retrieved 6 August 2011.
- ^ "The Arms of the Countess of Wessex". Royal Insight. Royal.gov.uk. 28 October 2010. http://www.royal.gov.uk/OutPut/Page4491.asp. Retrieved 28 November 2010. [dead link]
- ^ College of Arms MS L.14, dating from the reign of Henry III
- ^ For example in Divi Britannici by Winston Churchill, published in 1675 and Britannia Saxona by G W Collen published in 1833
- ^ URC Wessex Synod Website, http://www.urcwessex.org.uk
- ^ "Wessex Archaeology – One of the UK’s leading heritage practices, and an educational charity". Wessexarch.co.uk. http://www.wessexarch.co.uk. Retrieved 28 November 2010.
- ^ "Cycling in Wessex – CTC Wessex Homepage". Wessexctc.org. http://www.wessexctc.org. Retrieved 28 November 2010.
- ^ "succ.tk". succ.tk. http://www.succ.tk. Retrieved 28 November 2010.
- ^ "Wessex Hall @ University of Reading". Reading, Berkshire. http://www.reading.ac.uk/life/accommodation/acc_Wessex.aspx. Retrieved 23 June 2011.
- ^ "NESC NHS Education South Central". Nesc.nhs.uk. http://www.nesc.nhs.uk. Retrieved 28 November 2010.
External links[link]
- The Case for Wessex (devolutionary movement)PDF (863 KB)
- The Burghal Hidage
- Thomas Hardy's Wessex Research site by Dr Birgit Plietzsch
- The History Files: Kings of the West Saxons
- Wessex Law Academy
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http://wn.com/Wessex
Related pages:
http://it.wn.com/Regno del Wessex
http://cs.wn.com/Wessex
http://id.wn.com/Wessex
http://es.wn.com/Reino de Wessex
http://ru.wn.com/Уэссекс
http://nl.wn.com/Koninkrijk Wessex
http://pt.wn.com/Reino de Wessex
http://pl.wn.com/Wessex
http://fr.wn.com/Wessex
http://de.wn.com/Wessex
This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wessex
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This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
For the actor sometimes credited as Frank Turner, see F. A. Turner. For people with a similar name, see Francis Turner (disambiguation).
| Frank Turner | |
|---|---|
 Frank Turner at a radio session for XFM in London. |
|
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Francis Edward Turner |
| Also known as | Frank 'Dave' Turner |
| Born | (1981-12-28) 28 December 1981 (age 30) Manama, Bahrain |
| Origin | Meonstoke, England |
| Genres | Folk, folk-punk, hardcore punk, alternative rock |
| Occupations | Singer-songwriter |
| Instruments | Guitar, Vocals |
| Years active | 2001–present |
| Labels | Xtra Mile Recordings (UK), Epitaph, Paper + Plastick |
| Associated acts | Million Dead, Reuben, The Record Buying Public, Kneejerk, Badger Doritos, Albuquerque Meat Hat, Dive Dive |
| Website | frank-turner.com |
Frank Turner (born 28 December 1981) is an English[1] folk/punk singer-songwriter from Meonstoke, Winchester. Initially the vocalist of post-hardcore band Million Dead, Turner embarked upon a primarily acoustic-based solo career following the band's split in 2005. To date, Turner has released four solo albums, two rarities compilation albums and four EPs. Turner began recording for his new album England Keep My Bones, in January 2011. It was released on 6 June 2011 in the UK, and 7 June 2011 worldwide.
Contents |
Early life[link]
Turner was educated on a scholarship at Eton College, where he studied alongside Prince William,[2] and later went on to attend the London School of Economics where he read History. His father, Roger Turner, is the son of Sir Mark Turner, formerly chairman of high street retailer BHS, and had himself also attended Eton before becoming a City investment banker, while his mother, Jane, the daughter of a bishop, is a primary school headmistress.
Musical career[link]
Beginnings and Million Dead (Up to 2005)[link]
Turner's musical career began at school, with the short-lived alternative band Kneejerk. The band released three records and played several shows around the UK (including a support slot for Boysetsfire), before disbanding in November 2001. The last record, their only full length, was entitled 'The half life of kissing' and was released by Yorkshire DIY hardcore label Sakari Empire after the band had actually broken up.[3]
In 2001, Turner joined London post-hardcore band Million Dead at the invitation of former Kneejerk drummer Ben Dawson.[4] In 2005, after four years and two albums, the band announced that they were parting ways, as "irreconcilable differences within the band mean that it would be impossible to continue."[4]
[edit] Sleep is for the Week and Love Ire & Song (2005-2008)
Turner's first solo shows took place prior to the break-up of Million Dead, with a set at the Smalltown America all-dayer at 93 Feet East in London. After the band's split, Turner felt that "it seemed like the logical thing to do to try my hand at playing these songs more publicly and more concertedly than before".[5] Turner states that "when Million Dead finished, I wanted to stay on tour, but I didn’t want the hassle of putting a band together."[6]
After a split EP with rock band Reuben, Turner's first solo EP, Campfire Punkrock, was released in May 2006 on Xtra Mile Recordings, with him being recorded and backed by Oxford band Dive Dive who he had met while out on tour with Reuben.[5][7] Band members Tarrant Anderson, Ben Lloyd and Nigel Powell would become his backing band from this point on, with most of his subsequent UK headline tours being full band shows. After touring in support of American singer-songwriter Jonah Matranga, the two released a split EP in August 2006. In September, he was the last act to appear on Steve Lamacq's "Lamacq Live" show on BBC Radio 1.[8] Turner's debut full-length studio album, Sleep Is for the Week was released in January 2007, again recorded at Dive Dive's studio, produced by their guitarist Ben Lloyd[9] and featuring drummer Nigel Powell.
After an extensive tour, including dates supporting yourcodenameis:milo and Biffy Clyro, and an appearance at SXSW,[10] Turner released an EP, The Real Damage, in May 2007. After a further tour with Jonah Matranga and Jacob Golden, the "All About The Destination" DVD was released in October, before returning to the studio in Hampshire to record his second album. The album, Love Ire & Song again saw Ben Lloyd from Dive Dive in the producer's seat,[11] and was released on 31 March 2008, followed by an extensive UK tour with Andy Yorke and Chris T-T. T-T also joined the live lineup on keyboards through summer 2008.
During summer 2008, Turner made several festival appearances, including sets at Y Not Festival, Two Thousand Trees Festival, the Cambridge Folk Festival, Truck, Glastonbury, Jam By The Lake (in Durham) and the Reading and Leeds Festivals.
In October/November, during his 2008 UK Tour for the Love, Ire and Song album, he became ill with gastroenteritis, and was forced to leave the stage in Nottingham halfway through his set. All remaining shows, which included Nottingham, Liverpool and Ireland, were cancelled - the first time that Turner had cancelled any show in ten years.[12] He went on to reschedule all cancelled shows in January 2009.
File:Frankturner.JPG
Frank Turner at The Park in Peterborough 2007
[edit] Poetry of the Deed (2008-2010)
In December 2008 Turner released The First Three Years, a compilation of demos, b-sides and covers that are not featured on either of his studio albums. In January 2009, he released a combined package of The First Three Years and Love Ire & Song, and supported The Gaslight Anthem on their tour of the UK and Europe, demoing several new songs and announcing his plans to record a new album in May. The album was produced by Alex Newport, as previously suggested in interview by Turner.[13] His band at the time still consisted of Ben Lloyd, Tarrant Anderson and Nigel Powell from Dive Dive, with keyboardist Matt Nasir having been added on the Love, Ire and Song tour.
Prior to recording Poetry of the Deed, Turner stated that:[14]
| “ | The new album is about 75% written - in the sense that the songs, as skeletons, are done, but this time round I’m rehearsing the material with my band before we record, so I’m sure that some things will change in terms of structure and arrangement as we settle into them. We’re recording the album as a band this time round, I’m really excited about it, the guys I play with are phenomenal musicians, and hopefully this way I’ll be able to close the gap a little between live and studio. Material-wise I’m really happy about where I am at the moment, though not complacent; there’s a fair amount of pressure for this record, from me more than anyone else. The album is going to be called Poetry Of The Deed. | ” |
Turner was announced as the support act on The Offspring's summer tour, during which he documented his travels with a blog on British music website NME.[15] Regarding the support slot, Turner stated: "Smash was one of the first punk records I ever bought, and I’m blown away to even be considered for the shows. From a “career” point of view, it’s also great - playing to many thousands of people a night across the States is an opportunity not to be sniffed at."[16]
On 28 April, Turner signed with Epitaph Records for releases outside the UK.[17]
Preceded by the single "The Road", Turner's third studio album, Poetry of the Deed, was released on 7 September 2009 and reached #36 in the UK album chart. The following month he embarked upon a UK tour with his band in support of the album (with singer/songwriter Beans On Toast and US band "Fake Problems" as support acts), culminating in a sell-out show at the O2 Shepherds Bush Empire on 29 October 2009. A live DVD/CD, entitled Take to the Road, documenting two shows from the tour - Shepherds Bush Empire and the Union Chapel - was released in the UK in March 2010. In November 2009, Turner began a tour of the US which moved to Europe from 28 November and returned to the UK on 19 December. He completed the year with a New Year's Eve show at The Spiegeltent in Gloucester.
In early 2010, Turner played several more UK gigs, with Chuck Ragan and Crazy Arm supporting. He also accompanied Flogging Molly and The Architects on the 2010 Green 17 Tour, and announced via his Twitter that he was working on new songs.[18]
In June, he supported Green Day on their stadium shows, and also featured as the cover star of Kerrang! magazine for the first time, with an article inside documenting his solo career up to that point.
[edit] Rock & Roll EP and England Keep My Bones (2010-present)
Turner played at many festivals throughout the summer, including his headlining appearance at the Two Thousand Trees Festival, playing his new song I Still Believe. The song was released first as a single and then appeared on his Rock and Roll EP. I Still Believe appeared on Turner's most recent album, England Keep my Bones, released on 6 June 2011.[19] Turner also contributed one song, a cover of Build Me Up Buttercup, to Centrepoint's 2010 Charity cover album 1969 Key to Change.[20] On 25 January 2011 he was nominated for two Shockwaves NME Awards, for best Solo Artist and best Band Blog or Twitter.[21]
Turner announced on his Twitter on 24 February 2011 that his fourth studio album would be called England Keep My Bones and that it would be released in the UK on 6 June 2011 and worldwide on 7 June 2011. He also announced details of solo tours in Australia, Germany, UK, and the US & Canada.[22] Frank started recording of this album on 10 January 2011 [23] and finished recording on 20 January 2011,[23] with mixing completed in February 2011. In March 2011, Turner stated that:[24]
| “ | I wanted this album to feel more like a solo record made with a band, whereas the last record was more of a band album overall. There's still a fair bit of ‘rock’ material on the record, but there's a lot more folky, acoustic material this time around than last time. I'm not taking any drastic stylistic turns here, but there are little forays into new territory at the edges. ‘Poetry’ was definitely off to one side of the spectrum for me. This record is a bit more down the middle. There's even an [sic] acappella tune on there. But then there's a pretty full-on hardcore song as well. | ” |
On 21 March 2011, it was announced that Turner would be making the step up to the main stage at Reading and Leeds in August 2011.[25] He spoke about the "perks" of playing Reading in a recent interview with 6 Towns Radio.[26] He will also be playing Download, Blissfields and Cambridge Folk festivals, as well as many other festivals across Europe.
Several songs from England Keep My Bones were debuted at Playfest (a new music festival in Norfolk) on 28 May.
Turner leaked new song, "I Am Disappeared" to YouTube on 29 March 2011, later making it available for free download through Xtra Mile. He also announced on the 29th that he would soon be releasing "Peggy Sang the Blues" as the first single from the album.
In early 2011, Turner was booked to play as a headliner at Blissfields Festival.
During his May 2011 tour, Turner played a new song, tentatively titled "Rod Stewart." This song later became retitled as "Sailors Boots" and features as the B-side to "If Ever I Stray".
England Keep My Bones entered the UK chart at number 12 on its week of release, Turner's highest charting album to date.[27]
Turner later released a rarities compilation, titled The Second Three Years, on 18 November 2011 through Xtra Mile Recordings and 16 January 2012 through Epitaph Records. The album compiles material recorded after the release of Turner's first compilation, The First Three Years, that does not appear on either of Turner's two successive studio albums, including tracks from EPs, singles, covers and unreleased material.
On 21 April 2011 Frank played his 1000th solo show at the Strummerville festival in Shoreditch, London.
In spring 2012, he is scheduled to play several dates in Canada as an opening act for Joel Plaskett.[28]
On Friday 13th April 2012, Frank headlined Wembley Arena to a sold out crowd of 12,000[29][30]. Support for the show came from Beans On Toast, dan le sac vs Scroobius Pip and Billy Bragg.
Backing band[link]
Turner's band, 'The Sleeping Souls',[31] both live and in the studio, consists of:
- Ben Lloyd - guitar, harmonica, mandolin
- Tarrant Anderson - bass
- Matt Nasir - piano, organ, guitar, backing vocals
- Nigel Powell - drums, percussion, backing vocals
Discography[link]
Main article: Frank Turner discography
Studio albums[link]
- Sleep Is for the Week (2007)
- Love Ire & Song (2008)
- Poetry of the Deed (2009)
- England Keep My Bones (2011)
TBA (2013)
Videography[link]
- Casanova Lament (unaired)
- Vital Signs (2006)
- The Real Damage (2007)
- Photosynthesis (2008)
- Reasons Not to Be an Idiot (2008)
- I Knew Prufrock Before He Got Famous (2008)
- Long Live the Queen (2008)
- The Road (2009)
- Poetry of the Deed (2009)
- Isabel (2010)
- Try This at Home (2010)
- I Still Believe (2010)
- Peggy Sang the Blues (2011)
- If Ever I Stray (2011)
- Sailor's Boots (2011)
DVDs[link]
- All About the Destination (22 October 2007)
- Take to the Road (22 March 2010)
Awards and nominations[link]
|
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| Totals | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Awards won | 3 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Nominations | 8 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Category | Result | |
|---|---|---|
| Kerrang Awards 2010 | No Half Measures Award | Won |
| Shockwaves NME Awards 2011 | Best Solo Artist | Nominated |
| Best Band Blog or Twitter | Nominated | |
| Shockwaves NME Awards 2012[32] | Best Solo Artist | Nominated |
| Best Band Blog or Twitter | Nominated | |
| Bandit Rock Awards 2011[33] | Best International Breakthrough | Nominated |
| AIM Awards 2011[34] | Best Live Act | Won |
| Hardest Working Artist | Won |
References[link]
- ^ http://www.skiddle.com/news/all/Interview-Frank-Turner/7159/
- ^ http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/music/article-23761754-frank-turner-from-punk-rocker-to-self-taught-troubadour.do
- ^ "Kneejerk official site". Archived from the original on 2009-10-26. http://www.webcitation.org/query?url=http://www.geocities.com/nowwemust/main.html&date=2009-10-25+23:50:00. ("Authorised mirror of Kneejerk official site". http://kneejerk.sampablokuper.com. )
- ^ a b "Archive of defunct Million Dead official site". http://www.hippieburner.com/MDsite/index2.html.
- ^ a b "Biography on Frank-Turner.com". http://www.frank-turner.com/bio.html.
- ^ http://stereokill.net/2008/11/11/interview-frank-turner/
- ^ "Frank Turner Interview". http://rosannahynes.blogspot.com/2010/04/frank-turner-interview.html.
- ^ "Frank Turner blog archive – January 2006". http://www.frank-turner.com/2006_09_01_archive.html.
- ^ "Sleep Is For The Week album credits". http://www.citizendia.org/Sleep_Is_for_the_Week.
- ^ "Frank Turner blog archive - March 2007". http://www.frank-turner.com/2007_03_01_archive.html.
- ^ "Room Thirteen Album Review". http://www.roomthirteen.com/cgi-bin/feature_view.cgi?FeatureID=570.
- ^ http://www.frank-turner.com/2008_11_01_archive.html
- ^ "Frank Turner interview on Stereokill". Stereokill.net. 11 November 2008. http://stereokill.net/2008/11/11/interview-frank-turner/.
- ^ Miller, Campbell (2009-04-04). "Interview: Frank Turner". Stereokill.net. http://stereokill.net/2009/04/04/interview-frank-turner-2/. Retrieved 2009-04-06.
- ^ "Modest Mouse Confirm EP Details". idiomag. 23 July 2009. http://www.idiomag.com/peek/93275/modest_mouse. Retrieved 2009-07-24.
- ^ Lindsay, Andrew (2009-04-09). "Frank Turner to tour with The Offspring". Stereokill.net. http://stereokill.net/2009/04/09/frank-turner-to-tour-with-the-offspring/. Retrieved 2009-04-09.
- ^ http://stereokill.net/2009/04/29/frank-turner-signs-to-epitaph/
- ^ http://twitter.com/fthc/status/7993947688
- ^ http://frank-turner.com/blog/2010/10/ep-day-approacheth/
- ^ http://www.centrepoint.org.uk/key-to-change
- ^ http://www.nme.com/news/arcade-fire/54667
- ^ https://twitter.com/#!/fthc/status/40700277711581184
- ^ a b https://twitter.com/#!/fthc/status/24391040723058688
- ^ http://www.stereoboard.com/content/view/163890/44
- ^ http://www.readingfestival.com/
- ^ http://6towns.co.uk/news/2011/06/terry-bossons-interviews-frank-turner-bossons-about
- ^ http://www.chartstats.com/release.php?release=50331
- ^ "Joel Plaskett's Announces 'Scrappy Happiness' LP, Canadian Tour with Frank Turner". Exclaim!, 6 January 2012.
- ^ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/live-music-reviews/9209172/Frank-Turner-Wembley-Arena-review.html
- ^ http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/reviews/frank-turner-wembley-arena-7647370.html
- ^ Turner, Frank (21 March 2011). "Festival Frenzy". http://frank-turner.com/blog/2011/03/festival-frenzy/. Retrieved 5 April 2011.
- ^ http://www.nme.com/awardsvote
- ^ http://www.bandit.se/rockawards/voting.php
- ^ http://www.musicweek.com/story.asp?storycode=1047431
External links[link]
Interviews[link]
- Frank Turner Interview
- Frank Turner on England Keep My Bones, libertarianism, Brian May and more
- Frank Turner invites Virgin Red Room to his gorgeous garden for an interview on England Keep My Bones.
- YuppiePunk Q&A on pop songwriting, punk rock capitalism and social media
- 26 Sept. 2009 Interview with ThePunkSite.com
- Stereokill Interview: 29 October 2008
- Stereokill Interview: 4 April 2009
- GiggingNI.com talks to Frank Turner
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfT0b2INxO4&feature=avmsc2
- Frank Turner Photo Interview
- Stereoboard Interview: March 2011
- Frank Turner on 6 Towns Radio with Terry Bossons: 20 May 2011
- A snapshot into the mind and musings of Frank Turner
- Folk-punk musician Frank Turner - PRI's The World interview with Marco Werman: 19 April 2011
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| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| Name | Turner, Frank |
| Alternative names | |
| Short description | English singer-songwriter |
| Date of birth | 28 December 1981 |
| Place of birth | Manama, Bahrain |
| Date of death | |
| Place of death | |
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This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
For other people named Thomas Hardy, see Thomas Hardy (disambiguation).
| Thomas Hardy | |
|---|---|
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| Born | (1840-06-02)2 June 1840 Stinsford, Dorchester, Dorset, England |
| Died | 11 January 1928(1928-01-11) (aged 87) Dorchester, Dorset, England |
| Resting place |
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| Occupation | Novelist, Poet, and Short Story writer |
| Alma mater | King's College London |
| Literary movement | Naturalism, Victorian literature |
| Notable work(s) | Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Far from the Madding Crowd, Collected Poems |
| Spouse(s) |
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Influences
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Thomas Hardy, OM (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. While his works typically belong to the Naturalism movement, several poems display elements of the previous Romantic and Enlightenment periods of literature, such as his fascination with the supernatural. While he regarded himself primarily as a poet who composed novels mainly for financial gain, he became and continues to be widely regarded for his novels, such as Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Far from the Madding Crowd. The bulk of his fictional works, initially published as serials in magazines, were set in the semi-fictional county of Wessex (based on the Dorchester region where he grew up) and explored tragic characters struggling against their passions and social circumstances.
Hardy's poetry, first published in his fifties, has come to be as well regarded as his novels and has had a significant influence over modern English poetry, especially after The Movement poets of the 1950s and 1960s cited Hardy as a major figure.
Contents |
Life[link]
Thomas Hardy was born in Upper Bockhampton, a hamlet in the parish of Stinsford to the east of Dorchester in Dorset, England in 1840. His father Thomas (d.1892) worked as a stonemason and local builder. His mother Jemima (d.1904) was well-read. She educated Thomas until he went to his first school at Bockhampton at age eight. For several years he attended Mr. Last's Academy for Young Gentlemen in Dorchester. Here he learned Latin and demonstrated academic potential.[1] However, a family of Hardy's social position lacked the means for a university education, and his formal education ended at the age of sixteen when he became apprenticed to James Hicks, a local architect.[2] Hardy trained as an architect in Dorchester before moving to London in 1862; there he enrolled as a student at King's College, London. He won prizes from the Royal Institute of British Architects and the Architectural Association. Hardy was in charge of the excavation of the graveyard of St Pancras Old Church prior to its destruction when the Midland Railway was extended a new terminus at St Pancras.[3]
Hardy never felt at home in London. He was acutely conscious of class divisions and his social inferiority. However, he was interested in social reform and was familiar with the works of John Stuart Mill. He was also introduced to the works of Charles Fourier and Auguste Comte during this period by his Dorset friend, Horace Moule. Five years later, concerned about his health, he returned to Dorset and decided to dedicate himself to writing.
In 1870, while on an architectural mission to restore the parish church of St Juliot in Cornwall,[4] Hardy met and fell in love with Emma Lavinia Gifford, whom he married in 1874.[5][6] Although they later became estranged, her death in 1912 had a traumatic effect on him. After her death, Hardy made a trip to Cornwall to revisit places linked with their courtship, and his Poems 1912–13 reflect upon her death. In 1914, Hardy married his secretary Florence Emily Dugdale, who was 39 years his junior. However, he remained preoccupied with his first wife's death and tried to overcome his remorse by writing poetry.[7]
Hardy became ill with pleurisy in December 1927 and died at Max Gate just after 9 pm on 11 January 1928, having dictated his final poem to his wife on his deathbed; the cause of death was cited, on his death certificate, as "cardiac syncope", with "old age" given as a contributory factor. His funeral was on 16 January at Westminster Abbey, and it proved a controversial occasion because Hardy and his family and friends had wished for his body to be interred at Stinsford in the same grave as his first wife, Emma. However, his executor, Sir Sydney Carlyle Cockerell, insisted that he be placed in the abbey's famous Poets' Corner. A compromise was reached whereby his heart was buried at Stinsford with Emma, and his ashes in Poets' Corner.
Shortly after Hardy's death, the executors of his estate burnt his letters and notebooks. Twelve records survived, one of them containing notes and extracts of newspaper stories from the 1820s. Research into these provided insight into how Hardy kept track of them and how he used them in his later work.[8] In the year of his death Mrs Hardy published The Early Life of Thomas Hardy, 1841–1891: compiled largely from contemporary notes, letters, diaries, and biographical memoranda, as well as from oral information in conversations extending over many years.
File:Thomas Hardy's heart.JPG
Grave of Thomas Hardy's heart at Stinsford parish church
Hardy's work was admired by many writers of a younger generation including D. H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf. In his autobiography Goodbye to All That, Robert Graves recalls meeting Hardy in Dorset in the early 1920s. Hardy received him and his new wife warmly, and was encouraging about his work.
In 1910, Hardy was awarded the Order of Merit.
Hardy's cottage at Bockhampton and Max Gate in Dorchester are owned by the National Trust.
Novels[link]
File:Thomas Hardy's Cottage, Bockhampton, Dorset.jpg
Thomas Hardy's birthplace at Higher Bockhampton, where Under the Greenwood Tree and Far from the Madding Crowd were written
Hardy's first novel, The Poor Man and the Lady, finished by 1867, failed to find a publisher and Hardy destroyed the manuscript so only parts of the novel remain. He was encouraged to try again by his mentor and friend, Victorian poet and novelist George Meredith. Desperate Remedies (1871) and Under the Greenwood Tree (1872) were published anonymously. In 1873 A Pair of Blue Eyes, a novel drawing on Hardy's courtship of his first wife, was not published under his own name. The term "cliffhanger" is considered to have originated with the serialised version of this story (which was published in Tinsley's Magazine between September 1872 and July 1873) in which Henry Knight, one of the protagonists, is left literally hanging off a cliff.
Hardy said that he first introduced Wessex in Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), his next novel. It was successful enough for Hardy to give up architectural work and pursue a literary career. Over the next twenty-five years Hardy produced ten more novels.
The Hardys moved from London to Yeovil and then to Sturminster Newton, where he wrote The Return of the Native (1878). In 1885, they moved for the last time, to Max Gate, a house outside Dorchester designed by Hardy and built by his brother. There he wrote The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), The Woodlanders (1887), and Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891), the last of which attracted criticism for its sympathetic portrayal of a "fallen woman" and was initially refused publication. Its subtitle, A Pure Woman: Faithfully Presented, was intended to raise the eyebrows of the Victorian middle-classes.
Jude the Obscure, published in 1895, met with even stronger negative outcries from the Victorian public for its frank treatment of sex, and was often referred to as "Jude the Obscene". Heavily criticised for its apparent attack on the institution of marriage through the presentation of such concepts as erotolepsy, the book caused further strain on Hardy's already difficult marriage because Emma Hardy was concerned that Jude the Obscure would be read as autobiographical. Some booksellers sold the novel in brown paper bags, and the Bishop of Wakefield is reputed to have burnt his copy.[8] In his postscript of 1912, Hardy humorously referred to this incident as part of the career of the book: "After these [hostile] verdicts from the press its next misfortune was to be burnt by a bishop – probably in his despair at not being able to burn me".[9]
Despite this criticism, Hardy had become a celebrity in English literature by the 1900s, with several highly successful novels behind him. Even so, he felt disgust at the public reception of two of his greatest works and gave up writing fiction altogether. Other novels written by Hardy include Two on a Tower, a romance story set in the world of astronomy. With some notable exceptions - for example the 1979 Roman Polanski film Tess, an adaptation of Tess of the D'Urbervilles - and unlike the novels of Charles Dickens and George Eliot, Hardy's novels do not beg to be filmed or to be adapted for the stage. Some scholars have suggested that this is due to the absence of a flair in Hardy for the overtly dramatic.[citation needed]
Literary themes[link]
Hardy criticises certain social constraints that hindered the lives of those living in the 19th century. Considered a Victorian Realist writer, Hardy examines the social constraints that are part of the Victorian status quo, suggesting these rules hinder the lives of all involved and ultimately lead to unhappiness. In Two on a Tower, Hardy seeks to take a stand against these rules and sets up a story against the backdrop of social structure by creating a story of love that crosses the boundaries of class. The reader is forced to consider disposing of the conventions set up for love. Nineteenth-century society enforces these conventions, and societal pressure ensures conformity. Swithin St Cleeve's idealism pits him against contemporary social constraints. He is a self-willed individual set up against the coercive strictures of social rules and mores.
| “ | In a novel structured around contrasts, the main opposition is between Swithin St Cleeve and Lady Viviette Constantine, who are presented as binary figures in a series of ways: aristocratic and lower class, youthful and mature, single and married, fair and dark, religious and agnostic…she [Lady Viviette Constantine] is also deeply conventional, absurdly wishing to conceal their marriage until Swithin has achieved social status through his scientific work, which gives rise to uncontrolled ironies and tragic-comic misunderstandings (Harvey 108). | ” |
Hardy’s characters often encounter crossroads, which are symbolic of a point of opportunity and transition. But the hand of fate is an important part of many of Hardy's plots. Far From the Madding Crowd tells a tale of lives that are constructed by chance. “Had Bathsheba not sent the valentine, had Fanny not missed her wedding, for example, the story would have taken an entirely different path.”[10] Hardy's main characters often seem to be in the overwhelming and overpowering grip of fate.
Poetry[link]
- For the full text of several poems, see the External links section
In 1898 Hardy published his first volume of poetry, Wessex Poems, a collection of poems written over 30 years. Hardy claimed poetry as his first love, and after a great amount of negative criticism erupted from the publication of his novel Jude The Obscure, Hardy decided to give up writing novels permanently and to focus his literary efforts on writing poetry. After giving up the novel form, Hardy continued to publish poetry collections until his death in 1928. Although he did publish one last novel in 1897, that novel, The Well-Beloved, had actually been written prior to Jude the Obscure.
Although his poems were not initially as well received by his contemporaries as his novels were, Hardy is now recognised as one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century. His verse had a profound influence on later writers, notably Philip Larkin, who included many of Hardy's poems in the edition of the Oxford Book of Twentieth Century English Verse that Larkin edited in 1973.
In a recent biography on Hardy, Claire Tomalin argues that Hardy became a truly great English poet after the death of his first wife, Emma, beginning with the elegies he wrote in her memory, calling these poems, "one of the finest and strangest celebrations of the dead in English poetry."[11]
Most of Hardy's poems, such as "Neutral Tones'" and "A Broken Appointment", deal with themes of disappointment in love and life (which were also prominent themes in his novels), and mankind's long struggle against indifference to human suffering. Using stylistic patterns similar to those that he used in his novels, Hardy sometimes wrote ironic poems, like "Ah, Are You Digging On My Grave," in which he employed twist endings in the last few lines or in the last stanza to convey that irony. Some, like "The Darkling Thrush" and "An August Midnight", appear as poems about writing poetry, because the nature mentioned in them gives Hardy the inspiration to write. His compositions range in style from the three-volume epic closet drama The Dynasts to shorter poems such as "A Broken Appointment." A particularly strong theme in the Wessex Poems is the long shadow that the Napoleonic Wars cast over the nineteenth century, for example, in "The Sergeant's Song" and "Leipzig".
A few of Hardy's poems, such as "The Blinded Bird" (a melancholy polemic against the sport of vinkenzetting), display his love of the natural world and his firm stance against animal cruelty, exhibited in his antivivisectionist views and his membership in the RSPCA.[12]
A number of notable composers, including Gerald Finzi, Benjamin Britten, and Gustav Holst, have set poems by Hardy to music.
Religious beliefs[link]
Hardy's family was Anglican, but not especially devout. He was baptised at the age of five weeks and attended church, where his father and uncle contributed to music. However, he did not attend the local Church of England school, instead being sent to Mr Last's school, three miles away. As a young adult, he befriended Henry R. Bastow (a Plymouth Brethren man), who also worked as a pupil architect, and who was preparing for adult baptism in the Baptist Church. Hardy flirted with conversion, but decided against it.[13] Bastow went to Australia and maintained a long correspondence with Hardy, but eventually Hardy tired of these exchanges and the correspondence ceased. This concluded Hardy's links with the Baptists.
Although Hardy’s faith remained intact, the irony and struggles of life led him to question the traditional Christian view of God:
| “ | The Christian god – the external personality – has been replaced by the intelligence of the First Cause…the replacement of the old concept of God as all-powerful by a new concept of universal consciousness. The 'tribal god, man-shaped, fiery-faced and tyrannous' is replaced by the 'unconscious will of the Universe' which progressively grows aware of itself and 'ultimately, it is to be hoped, sympathetic'.[14] | ” |
Hardy's religious life seems to have mixed agnosticism, deism, and spiritism. Once, when asked in correspondence by a clergyman about the question of reconciling the horrors of pain with the goodness of a loving God, Hardy replied,
| “ | Mr. Hardy regrets that he is unable to offer any hypothesis which would reconcile the existence of such evils as Dr. Grosart describes with the idea of omnipotent goodness. Perhaps Dr. Grosart might be helped to a provisional view of the universe by the recently published Life of Darwin and the works of Herbert Spencer and other agnostics.[15] | ” |
Nevertheless, Hardy frequently conceived of and wrote about supernatural forces that control the universe, more through indifference or caprice than any firm will. Also, Hardy showed in his writing some degree of fascination with ghosts and spirits.[15] Despite these sentiments, Hardy retained a strong emotional attachment to the Christian liturgy and church rituals, particularly as manifested in rural communities, that had been such a formative influence in his early years, and Biblical references can be found woven throughout many of Hardy's novels.
Hardy's friends during his apprenticeship to John Hicks included Horace Moule (one of the eight sons of Henry Moule), and the poet William Barnes, both ministers of religion. Moule remained a close friend of Hardy's for the rest of his life, and introduced him to new scientific findings that cast doubt on literal interpretations of the Bible,[16] such as those of Gideon Mantell. Moule gave Hardy a copy of Mantell's book The Wonders of Geology (1848) in 1858, and Adelene Buckland has suggested that there are "compelling similarities" between the "cliffhanger" section from A Pair of Blue Eyes and Mantell's geological descriptions. It has also been suggested that the character of Henry Knight in A Pair of Blue Eyes was based on Horace Moule.[17]
Locations in novels[link]
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This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2009) |
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This section may stray from the topic of the article into the topic of another article, Thomas Hardy's Wessex. Please help improve this section or discuss this issue on the talk page. (August 2010) |
Further information: Thomas Hardy's Wessex
Berkshire is North Wessex, Devon is Lower Wessex, Dorset is South Wessex, Somerset is Outer or Nether Wessex, Wiltshire is Mid-Wessex,
Bere Regis is King's-Bere of Tess, Bincombe Down cross roads is the scene of the military execution in A Melancholy Hussar. It is a true story, the deserters from the German Legion were shot in 1801 and are recorded in the parish register. Bindon Abbey is where Clare carried her. Bournemouth is Sandbourne of Hand of Ethelberta and Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Bridport is Port Bredy, Charborough House and its folly tower is the model for Welland House in the novel Two on a Tower. Corfe Castle is the Corvsgate-Castle of Hand of Ethelberta. Cranborne Chase is The Chase scene of Tess's seduction. (Note – Bowerchalke on Cranborne Chase was the film location for the great fire in John Schlesinger's 1967 film Far from the Madding Crowd.) Milborne St Andrew is "Millpond St Judes" in Far From the Madding Crowd. Charborough House is located between Sturminster Marshall and Bere Regis. Charborough House and its folly tower is the model for Welland House in the novel Two on a Tower by Thomas Hardy.[18] Little England Cottage, Milborne St Andrew being the location of Swithin St Cleeves home and remains as described to this day. Dorchester, Dorset is Casterbridge, the scene of Mayor of Casterbridge. Dunster Castle in Somerset is Castle De Stancy of A Laodicean. Fordington moor is Durnover moor and fields. Greenhill Fair near Bere Regis is Woodbury Hill Fair, Lulworth Cove is Lulstead Cove, Marnhull is Marlott of Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Melbury House near Evershot is Great Hintock Court in A Group of Noble Dames. Minterne is Little Hintock, Owermoigne is Nether Moynton in Wessex Tales.
Piddlehinton and Piddle Trenthide are the Longpuddle of A Few Crusted Characters. Puddletown Heath, Moreton Heath, Tincleton Heath and Bere Heath are Egdon Heath. Poole is Havenpool in Life's Little Ironies. Portland is the scene of The Pursuit of the Well-Beloved. Puddletown is Weatherbury in Far from the Madding Crowd, River Frome valley is the scene of Talbothays dairy in Tess. Salisbury is Melchester in On the Western Circuit, Life's Little Ironies and Jude the Obscure etc. Shaftesbury is Shaston in Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure. Sherborne is Sherton-Abbas, Sherborne Castle is home of Lady Baxby in A Group of Noble Dames. Stonehenge is the scene of Tess's apprehension. Sutton Poyntz is Overcombe. Swanage is the Knollsea of Hand of Ethelberta. Taunton is known as Toneborough in both Hardy's novels and poems. Wantage is Alfredston, of Jude the Obscure. Fawley, Berkshire is Marygreen of Jude the Obscure. Weyhill is Weydon Priors, Weymouth is Budmouth Regis, the scene of Trumpet Major & portions of other novels; Winchester is Wintoncester where Tess was executed. Wimborne is Warborne of Two on a Tower. Wolfeton House, near Dorchester is the scene of The Lady Penelope in a Group of Noble Dames. Woolbridge Manor House, close to Wool station, is the scene of Tess's confession and honeymoon.
Influence[link]
Hardy provides the springboard for D. H. Lawrence's Study of Thomas Hardy (1936). Though this work became a platform for Lawrence's own developing philosophy rather than a more standard literary study, the influence of Hardy's treatment of character and Lawrence's own response to the central metaphysic behind many of Hardy's novels helped significantly in the development of The Rainbow (1915, suppressed) and Women in Love (1920, private publication). Hardy was clearly the starting point for the character of the novelist Edward Driffield in W Somerset Maugham's novel Cakes and Ale. Thomas Hardy's works feature prominently in the narrative in Christopher Durang's The Marriage of Bette and Boo, in which a graduate thesis analysing Tess of the d'Urbervilles is interspersed with analysis of Matt's family's neuroses.
Works[link]
Prose[link]
Hardy divided his novels and collected short stories into three classes:
Novels of Character and Environment
- The Poor Man and the Lady (1867, unpublished and lost)
- Under the Greenwood Tree (1872)
- Far from the Madding Crowd (1874)
- The Return of the Native (1878)
- The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886)
- The Woodlanders (1887)
- Wessex Tales (1888, a collection of short stories)
- Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891)
- Life's Little Ironies (1894, a collection of short stories)
- Jude the Obscure (1895)
Romances and Fantasies
- A Pair of Blue Eyes (1873)
- The Trumpet-Major (1880)
- Two on a Tower (1882)
- A Group of Noble Dames (1891, a collection of short stories)
- The Well-Beloved (1897) (first published as a serial from 1892)
Novels of Ingenuity
- Desperate Remedies (1871)
- The Hand of Ethelberta (1876)
- A Laodicean (1881)
Hardy also produced a number of minor tales and a collaborative novel, The Spectre of the Real (1894). An additional short-story collection, beyond the ones mentioned above, is A Changed Man and Other Tales (1913). His works have been collected as the 24-volume Wessex Edition (1912–13) and the 37-volume Mellstock Edition (1919–20). His largely self-written biography appears under his second wife's name in two volumes from 1928–30, as The Early Life of Thomas Hardy, 1840–91 and The Later Years of Thomas Hardy, 1892–1928, now published in a critical one-volume edition as The Life and Work of Thomas Hardy, edited by Michael Millgate (1984).
Short stories (with date of first publication)
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Poetry collections[link]
- The Photograph (1890)
- Wessex Poems and Other Verses (1898)
- Poems of the Past and the Present (1901)
- The Man He Killed (1902)
- Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses (1909)
- The Voice (1912)
- Satires of Circumstance (1914)
- Moments of Vision (1917)
- Collected Poems (1919)
- Late Lyrics and Earlier with Many Other Verses (1923)
- Human Shows, Far Phantasies, Songs and Trifles (1925)
- Winter Words in Various Moods and Metres (1928)
- The Complete Poems (Macmillan, 1976)
- Selected Poems (Edited by Harry Thomas, Penguin, 1993)
- Hardy: Poems (Everyman's Library Pocket Poets, 1995)
- Thomas Hardy: Selected Poetry and Nonfictional Prose (St. Martin's Press, 1996)
- Selected Poems (Edited by Robert Mezey, Penguin, 1998)
- Thomas Hardy: The Complete Poems (Edited by James Gibson, Palgrave, 2001)
Drama[link]
- The Dynasts (verse drama)
- The Dynasts, Part 1 (1904)
- The Dynasts, Part 2 (1906)
- The Dynasts, Part 3 (1908)
- The Famous Tragedy of the Queen of Cornwall at Tintagel in Lyonnesse (1923) (one-act play)
Notes[link]
- ^ Claire Tomalin, Thomas Hardy: the Time-torn Man(Penguin, 2007) pp.30,36.
- ^ Walsh, Lauren. Introduction. The Return of the Native. By Thomas Hardy. New York: Barnes & Noble Classics, 2005. Print.
- ^ Burley, Peter (2012). "When steam railroaded history". Cornerstone 33 (1): 9.
- ^ Gibson, James (ed.) (1975) Chosen Poems of Thomas Hardy, London: Macmillan Education; p.9.
- ^ Hardy, Emma (1961) Some Recollections by Emma Hardy; with some relevant poems by Thomas Hardy; ed. by Evelyn Hardy & R. Gittings. London: Oxford University Press
- ^ "Thomas Hardy – the Time-Torn Man" (a reading of Claire Tomalin's book of the same name), BBC Radio 4, 23 October 2006
- ^ "Thomas Hardy at Stourhead" BBC Online, 10 March 2004 (Retrieved: 7 September 2009)
- ^ a b "Homeground: Dead man talking" BBC Online, 20 August 2003 (Retrieved: 7 September 2009)
- ^ Hardy, Thomas (1998). Jude the Obscure. Penguin Classics. p. 466. ISBN 0-14-043538-7. http://books.google.com/books?id=txZevBW0iX0C&printsec=frontcover&#PPA466.
- ^ "Far from the Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy – Introduction" (Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Ed. Linda Pavlovski. Vol. 153. Gale Group, Inc., 2005. eNotes.com. 2006. 12 March 2008) eNotes.com (Retrieved: 7 September 2009)
- ^ Tomalin, Claire. "Thomas Hardy." New York: Penguin, 2007.
- ^ Herbert N. Schneidau. Waking Giants: The Presence of the Past in Modernism. http://books.google.com/books?id=utjWx0SznGIC&pg=PA35&lpg=PA35&dq=%22the+blinded+bird%22. Retrieved 16 April 2008. (Google Books)
- ^ Claire Tomalin, Thomas Hardy, The Time Torn Man(Penguin, 2007), pp.46–47.
- ^ Wotton, George. Thomas Hardy: Towards A Materialist Criticism. Lanham,: Rowan & Littlefield, 1985, p.36.
- ^ a b Ellman, Richard, & O'Clair, Robert (eds.) 1988. "Thomas Hardy" in The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry, Norton, New York.
- ^ "Biography: Thomas Hardy" wps.Ablongman.com, (Retrieved: 7 September 2009)
- ^ "Adelene Buckland: ''Thomas Hardy, Provincial Geology and the Material Imagination''". http://www.19.bbk.ac.uk/index.php/19/article/viewFile/469/329. Retrieved 2011-12-10.
- ^ "Charborough House - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia". En.wikipedia.org. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charborough_House. Retrieved 2011-12-10.
References[link]
- Armstrong, Tim. "Player Piano: Poetry and Sonic Modernity" in Modernism/Modernity 14.1 (January 2007), 1–19.
- Blunden, Edmund. Thomas Hardy. New York: St. Martin's, 1942.
- Brennecke, Jr., Ernest. The Life of Thomas Hardy. New York: Greenberg, 1925.
- D'Agnillo, Renzo, "Music and Metaphor in Under the Greenwood Tree, in The Thomas Hardy Journal, 9, 2 (May 1993), pp.39–50.
- D'Agnillo, Renzo, “Between Belief and Non-Belief: Thomas Hardy’s ‘The Shadow on the Stone’”, in Thomas Hardy, Francesco Marroni and Norman Page (eds), Pescara, Edizioni Tracce, 1995, pp.197–222.
- Deacon, Lois and Terry Coleman. Providence and Mr. Hardy. London: Hutchinson, 1966.
- Draper, Jo. Thomas Hardy: A Life in Pictures. Wimborne, Dorset: The Dovecote Press.
- Ellman, Richard & O'Clair, Robert (eds.) 1988. "Thomas Hardy" in The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry, Norton, New York.
- Gatrell, Simon. Hardy the Creator: A Textual Biography. Oxford: Clarendon, 1988.
- Gibson, James. Thomas Hardy: A Literary Life. London: Macmillan, 1996.
- Gittings, Robert. Thomas Hardy's Later Years. Boston : Little, Brown, 1978.
- Gittings, Robert. Young Thomas Hardy. Boston : Little, Brown, 1975.
- Gittings, Robert and Jo Manton. The Second Mrs Hardy. London: Heinemann, 1979.
- Gossin, P. Thomas Hardy's Novel Universe: Astronomy, Cosmology, and Gender in the Post-Darwinian World. Aldershot, Ashgate, 2007 (The Nineteenth Century Series).
- Halliday, F. E. Thomas Hardy: His Life and Work. Bath: Adams & Dart, 1972.
- Hands, Timothy. Thomas Hardy : Distracted Preacher? : Hardy's religious biography and its influence on his novels. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989.
- Hardy, Evelyn. Thomas Hardy: A Critical Biography. London: Hogarth Press, 1954.
- Hardy, Florence Emily. The Early Life of Thomas Hardy, 1840–1891. London: Macmillan, 1928.
- Hardy, Florence Emily. The Later Years of Thomas Hardy, 1892–1928 London: Macmillan, 1930.
- Harvey, Geoffrey. Thomas Hardy: The Complete Critical Guide to Thomas Hardy. New York: Routledge (Taylor & Francis Group), 2003.
- Hedgcock, F. A., Thomas Hardy: penseur et artiste. Paris: Librairie Hachette, 1911.
- Holland, Clive. Thomas Hardy O.M.: The Man, His Works and the Land of Wessex. London: Herbert Jenkins, 1933.
- Jedrzejewski, Jan. Thomas Hardy and the Church. London: Macmillan, 1996.
- Johnson, Lionel Pigot. The art of Thomas Hardy (London: E. Mathews, 1894).
- Kay-Robinson, Denys. The First Mrs Thomas Hardy. London: Macmillan, 1979.
- Langbaum, Robert. "Thomas Hardy in Our Time." New York: St. Martin's Press, 1995, London: Macmillan, 1997.
- Marroni, Francesco, "The Negation of Eros in 'Barbara of the House of Grebe’ ", in "Thomas Hardy Journal", 10, 1 (February 1994) pp. 33–41
- Marroni, Francesco and Norman Page (eds.), Thomas Hardy. Pescara: Edizioni Tracce, 1995.
- Marroni, Francesco, La poesia di Thomas Hardy. Bari: Adriatica Editrice, 1997.
- Marroni, Francesco, "The Poetry of Ornithology in Keats, Leopardi, and Hardy: A Dialogic Analysis", in "Thomas Hardy Journal", 14, 2 (May 1998) pp. 35–44
- Millgate, Michael (ed.). The Life and Work of Thomas Hardy by Thomas Hardy. London: Macmillan, 1984.
- Millgate, Michael. Thomas Hardy: A Biography. New York: Random House, 1982.
- Millgate, Michael. Thomas Hardy: A Biography Revisited. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
- Morgan, Rosemarie, (ed) The Ashgate Research Companion to Thomas Hardy, (Ashgate publishing), 2010.
- Morgan, Rosemarie, (ed) The Hardy Review,(Maney Publishing), 1999–.
- Morgan, Rosemarie, Student Companion to Thomas Hardy (Greenwood Press),2006.
- Morgan, Rosemarie, Cancelled Words: Rediscovering Thomas Hardy (Routledge, Chapman & Hall),1992
- Morgan, Rosemarie, Women and Sexuality in the Novels of Thomas Hardy (Routledge & Kegan Paul), 1988;paperback: 1990.
- David Musselwhite,Social Transformations in Hardy's Tragic Novels: Megamachines and Phantasms,Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.
- O'Sullivan, Timothy. Thomas Hardy: An Illustrated Biography. London: Macmillan, 1975.
- Orel, Harold. The Final Years of Thomas Hardy, 1912–1928. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1976.
- Orel, Harold. The Unknown Thomas Hardy. New York: St. Martin's, 1987.
- Phelps, Kenneth. The Wormwood Cup: Thomas Hardy in Cornwall. Padstow: Lodenek Press, 1975.
- Pinion, F. B. Thomas Hardy: His Life and Friends. London: Palgrave, 1992.
- Pite, Ralph. Thomas Hardy: The Guarded Life. London: Picador, 2006.
- Saxelby, F. Outwin. A Thomas Hardy dictionary : the characters and scenes of the novels and poems alphabetically arranged and described (London: G. Routledge, 1911).
- Seymour-Smith, Martin. Hardy. London: Bloomsbury, 1994.
- Stevens-Cox, J. Thomas Hardy: Materials for a Study of his Life, Times, and Works. St. Peter Port, Guernsey: Toucan Press, 1968.
- Stevens-Cox, J. Thomas Hardy: More Materials for a Study of his Life, Times, and Works. St. Peter Port, Guernsey: Toucan Press, 1971.
- Stewart, J. I. M. Thomas Hardy: A Critical Biography. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1971.
- Turner, Paul. The Life of Thomas Hardy: A Critical Biography. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998.
- Weber, Carl J. Hardy of Wessex, his Life and Literary Career. New York: Columbia University Press, 1940.
- Wilson, Keith. Thomas Hardy on Stage. London: Macmillan, 1995.
- Wilson, Keith, ed. Thomas Hardy Reappraised: Essays in Honour of Michael Millgate. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006.
- Wilson, Keith, ed. A Companion to Thomas Hardy. Wiley-Blackwell, 2009.
- Wotton, George. Thomas Hardy: Towards A Materialist Criticism. Lanham: Rowan & Littlefield, 1985.
- Letter from Hardy to Bertram Windle, transcribed by Birgit Plietzsch, from CL, vol 2, pp.131–133 The letter is contained in the maps section of the TTHA website.
External links[link]
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This article's use of external links may not follow Wikipedia's policies or guidelines. Please improve this article by removing excessive or inappropriate external links, and converting useful links where appropriate into footnote references. (May 2011) |
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Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Thomas Hardy |
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Wikisource has original works written by or about: |
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Thomas Hardy |
- The Thomas Hardy Association (TTHA)
- Works by or about Thomas Hardy in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
- Works by Thomas Hardy at Project Gutenberg
- Works by Thomas Hardy at Internet Archive
- Works by Thomas Hardy in audio format from LibriVox
- Poems by Thomas Hardy at Poetry Foundation
- Poems by Thomas Hardy at PoemHunter.com
- A Hyper-Concordance to the Works of Thomas Hardy at the Victorian Literary Studies Archive, Nagoya University, Japan
- "The Dead Man Walking" (1909) and other Hardy poems at poetry-archive.com
- Thomas Hardy's Wessex Research site, including maps, by Dr Birgit Plietzsch
- Works by Thomas Hardy in e-book version
- Thomas Hardy's ashes at Westminster Abbey
- Pictures of Thomas Hardy visiting Marie Stopes at her lighthouse home on Portland, Dorset
- The Thomas Hardy Society
- The Life and Death of Thomas Hardy @ Ward's Book of Days
- Hardy Collection at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| Name | Hardy, Thomas |
| Alternative names | |
| Short description | |
| Date of birth | 2 June 1840 |
| Place of birth | Stinsford, Dorchester, Dorset, England |
| Date of death | 11 January 1928 |
| Place of death | Dorchester, Dorset, England |
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"Countess of Wessex" redirects here. For the title, see Earl of Wessex.
| Sophie | |
|---|---|
| Countess of Wessex (more) | |
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| Spouse | Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex (m. 1999) |
| Issue | |
| Lady Louise Windsor James, Viscount Severn |
|
| Full name | |
| Sophie Helen[1] | |
| House | House of Windsor |
| Father | Christopher Rhys-Jones |
| Mother | Mary Rhys-Jones |
| Born | (1965-01-20) 20 January 1965 (age 47) Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford |
| Religion | Anglican (Church of England) |
Sophie, Countess of Wessex GCVO (Sophie Helen; née Rhys-Jones; born 20 January 1965), is the wife of Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex, and member of the British Royal Family. Her husband is the youngest son of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. Married in 1999, she worked in public relations until 2002 and now supports her husband in his Royal duties. The Earl and Countess have two children, Lady Louise Windsor and James, Viscount Severn.
Contents |
Early life[link]
Sophie Helen Rhys-Jones was born at Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford, on 20 January 1965, the second child and first daughter of Christopher Bournes Rhys-Jones (born 1931), a retired tyre salesman, and his wife, Mary (née O'Sullivan; 1934–2005), a secretary,[2] who already had a son, David. Sophie was named after her father's sister, Helen, who died in a riding accident more than a decade before Sophie was born. Her godfather, actor Thane Bettany, is her father's stepbrother;[3] both men spent their early life in Sarawak, North Borneo, then a British Protectorate ruled by the White Rajahs.[4]
While she was still young, the Rhys-Jones family moved from Wales to Brenchley, Kent. She began her education at Dulwich Preparatory School, before moving on to Kent College, Pembury where she was friends with Sarah Sienesi, with whom she subsequently shared a flat in Fulham and who later became her Lady-in-Waiting. She then trained as a secretary at West Kent College, Tonbridge.[citation needed]
Career[link]
She began a career in public relations, working for a variety of firms, including four years at Capital Radio, where she was assigned to the press and promotions department, as well as public relations companies The Quentin Bell Organisation and MacLaurin Communications & Media. She also worked as a ski representative in Switzerland and spent a year travelling and working in Australia. In 1996, with enough experience behind her, Rhys-Jones then launched her public relations agency, RJH Public Relations, which she ran with her business partner, Murray Harkin.
In 2001, a News of the World undercover reporter, Mazher Mahmood, posing as a sheikh, recorded the Countess making disparaging comments about certain members of the British Government and appearing to use her royal status in order to gain clientele. The comments were subsequently published in The Mail on Sunday newspaper, and then by other media outlets. Buckingham Palace released a statement saying the reported comments were 'selective, distorted and in several cases, flatly untrue'.[5] Subsequently, in 2002, both the Earl and Countess announced that they would quit their business interests in order to focus on royal duties and aid The Queen in her Golden Jubilee year.[6]
Marriage[link]
See also: Wedding dress of Sophie Rhys-Jones
The engagement of Sophie Rhys-Jones and The Prince Edward, the youngest son of The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh, was announced on 6 January 1999. Their wedding took place on 19 June of the same year at St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle, a break from the weddings of Edward's older siblings, which were large, formal events at Westminster Abbey or St Paul's Cathedral.
The couple had met six years earlier, in 1993, at a charity event, and began their relationship soon afterwards.[7]
On the day of their marriage, The Queen declared her youngest son would eventually be created Duke of Edinburgh, once that title reverts to the Crown, ie. after both The Queen and Prince Philip die and Charles as heir apparent to his father's titles as well as those of his mother becomes King – Sophie should then assume the title of Duchess of Edinburgh. Until then The Prince Edward will be Earl of Wessex and Viscount Severn, the latter title reflecting his bride's Welsh origins. Upon her marriage Rhys-Jones became Her Royal Highness The Countess of Wessex. After the union, the couple moved to Bagshot Park, in Surrey.
In December 2001, the Countess was taken to the King Edward VII Hospital after feeling unwell, whereupon it was discovered that she was suffering from a potentially life-threatening ectopic pregnancy. Two years later, she gave birth to a daughter, Lady Louise Windsor, on 8 November 2003. It was a premature birth, resulting from a sudden placental abruption that placed both the mother and child at risk, and the Countess had to undergo an emergency caesarean section at Frimley Park Hospital, while The Earl of Wessex rushed back from Mauritius. The Countess returned to Frimley Park Hospital on 17 December 2007, to give birth, again by caesarean section, to her son, James, Viscount Severn.[8] The children, per prior agreement between The Queen and their parents, will either not have or use (depending on interpretation) the titles of Prince and Princess, nor the style Royal Highness.
Further information: on her children's titles and styles
The Countess of Wessex is particularly close to her mother-in-law, The Queen, with whom she rides and shares an interest in military history. The Countess is reported to be the first of The Queen's children-in-law with whom she has enjoyed a permanently warm relationship.[9] Due to this fact, The Countess is privileged enough to be the only member of the Royal Family to ride in the State Limousine with The Queen at Sandringham on Christmas Day.[10]
Royal duties[link]
File:Wessex-TD.jpg
The Earl and Countess of Wessex, along with former Lieutenant Governor of Ontario Lincoln Alexander, unveil a Ontario Heritage Trust plaque in front of the Toronto Dominion Centre, 2006
The Countess of Wessex began to take on royal duties after her wedding, with her first overseas tour being to the Canadian province of Prince Edward Island in 2000.[11] She also became patron of a number of organisations, including the SAFC Foundation (the charitable arm of Sunderland AFC), and Girlguiding UK. In 2006, the Countess also lent her support to the Born in Bradford research project, which is investigating causes of low birth weight and infant mortality.
| The Royal Family of the United Kingdom and the other Commonwealth realms |
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HM The Queen
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The Earl and Countess of Wessex are the primary representatives of The Queen at foreign royal events. In this capacity, the Countess has attended the weddings of Prince Haakon of Norway, Princess Martha Louise of Norway, Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark, Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden, the 40th birthday celebrations for Prince Willem-Alexander and the coronation and the wedding of Prince Albert II of Monaco.
In December 2011, the Countess of Wessex joined her husband visiting troops in Afghanistan. On the same trip, the royal couple visited Bahrain, and received two gifts of jewels from the Bahraini royal family and Prime Minister. Given concern about human rights abuses in Bahrain, this gift attracted controversy, with calls for the jewels to be sold, and the proceeds used for the benefit of the Bahraini people.[12] In February and March 2012, The Earl and Countess visited the Caribbean for the Diamond Jubilee, visiting St Lucia; Barbados; St Vincent and the Grenadines; Grenada; Trinidad and Tobago; Montserrat; St Kitts and Nevis; Anguilla; Antigua and Barbuda. Highlights of the tour included the 50th Anniversary Independence Day celebrations in St. Lucia, a joint address from both houses of the Barbados Parliament and a visit to sites affected by the recent volcanic eruptions in Montserrat [13]
Criticism[link]
The Countess of Wessex has been criticised for accepting two sets of jewels from the royal family of Bahrain during an official day-long[14] visit to the country in December 2011, as she and her husband returned to the UK from a trip to Afghanistan. She was given one set by Bahrain’s king and a second set by the country’s prime minister, Sheikh Khalifa ibn Salman Al Khalifa. Her husband, the earl, received a pen and a watch as well as a silk rug from the Crown Prince of Bahrain, Prince Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa, who also gave the countess a silver and pearl cup. The value of the jewellery has not been estimated and its precise contents were not disclosed.[15]
Critics said the countess should sell the gems and give the proceeds to political protesters in Bahrain. Denis MacShane, a former Foreign Office minister, said: “Given the appalling suffering and repression of the Bahraini people, it would be a fitting gesture for the Countess of Wessex to auction these trinkets and distribute the proceeds to the victims of the regime.”[15]
Gift guidelines[link]
Royal Family guidelines and procedures relating to gifts drafted in 2003 state that "before accepting any gift, careful consideration should always be given, wherever practicable, to the donor, the reason for and occasion of the gift and the nature of the gift itself (..) Equally, before declining the offer of a gift, careful consideration should be given to any offence that might be caused by such action."[14]
Titles, styles, honours and arms[link]
| Royal styles of The Countess of Wessex |
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| Reference style | Her Royal Highness |
| Spoken style | Your Royal Highness |
| Alternative style | Ma'am |
Titles and styles[link]
- 20 January 1965 – 19 June 1999: Miss Sophie Helen Rhys-Jones
- 19 June 1999 – present: Her Royal Highness The Countess of Wessex[16][17]
Sophie's style and title in full: Her Royal Highness The Princess Edward Antony Richard Louis, Countess of Wessex, Viscountess Severn, Dame Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order, Dame of Justice of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem.[17]
Honours[link]
See also List of honours of the British Royal Family by country
Decorations[link]
2004 – : Member of the Royal Family Order of Queen Elizabeth II[18][19]
2005 – : Dame of Justice of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem (DStJ)[18]
2010 – : Dame Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order (GCVO)[19][20]
_ribbon.png){kind=small}
Medals[link]
- 23px 2002: Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal
7 June 2005: Commemorative Medal for the Centennial of Saskatchewan[21]
2012: Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal
Honorary military appointments[link]
Canada
Colonel-in-Chief of the South Alberta Light Horse (since 2005)[22]- Colonel-in-Chief of the Lincoln and Welland Regiment
United Kingdom
Colonel-in-Chief of the Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps- Colonel-in-Chief of the Corps of Army Music
- Royal Colonel of the 5th Battalion The Rifles
Honorary Air Commodore Royal Air Force Wittering
Ship's Sponsor of HMS Daring
Arms[link]
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Issue[link]
| Name | Birth | Marriage | Issue | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lady Louise Windsor | 8 November 2003 | |||
| James, Viscount Severn | 17 December 2007 | |||
Ancestry[link]
Sophie is the 11th cousin once removed of her husband, through their common ancestors Nicholas St John of Lydiard Tregoze and his wife, Elizabeth (née Blount, a relative of royal mistress Elizabeth Blount). She is also of Welsh and Irish ancestry, through her father and her mother respectively, as well as distantly of French ancestry, being a descendant of King Henry II of France, which also makes her a distant descendant of Henry III of England. Sophie's paternal grandmother was a member of the family of the Viscounts Molesworth. Sophie is also a descendent of the Welsh prince and warrior Elystan Glodrydd by her father.
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See also[link]
References[link]
- ^ As a titled royal, Sophie holds no surname, but, when one is used, it is Mountbatten-Windsor.
- ^ "Countess of Wessex's mother dies". BBC. 29 August 2005. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4194720.stm. Retrieved 27 October 2008.
- ^ Peerage genealogy
- ^ Biography of Paul Bettany
- ^ "Palace denies reports of Sophie insults". BBC News. 2 April 2001. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1255645.stm. Retrieved 8 July 2011.
- ^ "Sophie and Edward quit business roles". BBC News. 2 March 2002. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1850847.stm.
- ^ "History - Prince Edward's wedding (pictures, video, facts & news)". BBC. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/events/prince_edwards_wedding. Retrieved 2011-12-27.
- ^ "Countess gives birth to baby boy". BBC. 17 December 2007. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7148830.stm. Retrieved 27 October 2008.
- ^ Kay, Richard; Levy, Geoffrey (4 August 2010). "Do they really have to look so glum? What these pictures tell us about the Royals". London: Dailymail. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1300096/What-pictures-say-Royals.html?ito=feeds-newsxml. Retrieved 4 August 2010.
- ^ "Sophie Wessex is Kate Middleton’s Steadying Hand". DailyExpress. 21 November 2010. http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/212744/Sophie-Wessex-is-Kate-Middleton-s-steadying-hand.
- ^ Scott, Burke; Aimers, John (October 2001). "Wessexs' Tour a Triumph". Canadian Monarchist News (Monarchist League of Canada) (Autumn 2001). http://www.monarchist.ca/cmn/2001/wessex.htm. Retrieved 27 October 2008. [dead link]
- ^ Sawer, Patrick (8 January 2012). "How a routine royal visit spelt trouble for the Countess of Wessex". The Daily Telegraph (London). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/theroyalfamily/8999872/How-a-routine-royal-visit-spelt-trouble-for-the-Countess-of-Wessex.html.
- ^ Carolyn Harris Royal Historian http://www.royalhistorian.com/royals-of-the-caribbean-the-2012-diamond-jubilee-commonwealth-tours-begin/
- ^ a b Staff writer (7 January 2012). "Countess of Wessex's Bahrain jewel gift criticised". BBC. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16452634. Retrieved 9 January 2012.
- ^ a b Andy Bloxham (6 January 2012). "Countess of Wessex criticised for accepting jewels from Bahrain". London: The Daily Telegraph. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/theroyalfamily/8999280/Countess-of-Wessex-criticised-for-accepting-jewels-from-Bahrain.html. Retrieved 9 January 2012.
- ^ The style "Princess Sophie", although often uses by the public and the media, is always incorrect. With rare exceptions (such as Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester) only women born to the title (such as The Princess Anne) may use it before their given names. After her marriage Sophie is officially styled HRH The Countess of Wessex.
- ^ a b "The Countess of Wessex – Titles". royal.gov.uk. http://www.royal.gov.uk/ThecurrentRoyalFamily/TheCountessofWessex/Stylesandtitles.aspx. Retrieved 10 April 2012.
- ^ a b "Sophie, Countess of Wessex". Regiments.org. http://www.regiments.org/biography/royals/1965sopW.htm. Retrieved 27 October 2008. [dead link]
- ^ a b Mad Hattery, pictures during Princess Victoria of Sweden's wedding
- ^ "The Countess of Wessex appointed to the Royal Victorian Order" (Press release). Queen's Printer. 20 January 2010. http://www.royal.gov.uk/LatestNewsandDiary/Pressreleases/2010/TheCountessofWessexappointedtotheRoyalVictorianOrd.aspx. Retrieved 20 January 2010.
- ^ "The Earl and Countess of Wessex Receive Centennial Medal" (Press release). Government of Saskatchewan. 7 June 2005. http://www.gov.sk.ca/news?newsId=6f57e213-b361-4db4-99d0-08daa71a484e. Retrieved 27 October 2008.
- ^ "South Alberta Light Horse". Salh.net. http://www.salh.net/colonel-in-chief.php. Retrieved 2011-12-27.
- ^ a b Sophie's new coat. BBC News. 19 May 1999. Retrieved 14 November 2010.
| Orders of precedence in the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by The Duchess of Cornwall |
Ladies HRH The Countess of Wessex |
Succeeded by The Princess Royal |
External links[link]
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Sophie, Countess of Wessex |
- "Official website of the British monarchy – HRH The Countess of Wessex". Royal Household. http://www.royal.gov.uk/ThecurrentRoyalFamily/TheCountessofWessex/The%20Countess%20of%20Wessex.aspx.
- www.burkespeerage.com
- Sophie, Countess of Wessex at the Internet Movie Database
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| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| Name | Wessex, Sophie |
| Alternative names | Mountbatten-Windsor, Sophie Helen; Rhys-Jones, Sophie Helen |
| Short description | Wife of Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex |
| Date of birth | 20 January 1965 |
| Place of birth | Oxford, United Kingdom |
| Date of death | |
| Place of death | |
http://wn.com/Sophie,_Countess_of_Wessex
Related pages:
http://it.wn.com/Sophie Rhys-Jones
http://cs.wn.com/Sophie, hraběnka z Wessexu
http://es.wn.com/Sofía de Wessex
http://ru.wn.com/Софи, графиня Уэссекская
http://nl.wn.com/Sophie Rhys-Jones
http://pt.wn.com/Sophie, Condessa de Wessex
http://pl.wn.com/Sophie Rhys-Jones
http://fr.wn.com/Sophie Rhys-Jones
http://de.wn.com/Sophie Mountbatten-Windsor, Countess of Wessex
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This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
