2. BRIEF REVIEW OF TRADITIONAL CONCEPT OF ENGLISH HISTORY
2.3. An overview of traditional concept of English history.
2.3.1. Scotland and England: two parallel "dynastic streams".
Fig.1a and Fig.1b show a rough scheme of the English history as it is considered today. The beginning of English history is placed in the 1st century B.C. (Julius Caesar's conquest of England). Starting at this moment and going up to 400 A.D., English chronicles talk in fact about Roman history. Sometimes they only mention that certain Roman emperor visit England. According to English chronicles there were no independent kings in England before 400 A.D.
We will take J.Blair's "Chronological tables" as a source of information about general structure of English chronology. These tables were compiled in the end of 18th c., but the new information which became available after that time, have not changed the whole picture of English history and so this information is not very important for us now.
In 5th century A.D. the Roman power in England came to the end and in that time the first English kings appeared. It was a moment when English history divided into:
a) history of England, and b) history of Scotland.
In other words, two dynastic streams began in 5th c.:
a) English stream, and b) Scottish stream.
These two dynastic streams develop in parallel up to 1603 when they transformed into a single dynastic stream of the Great Britain.
In 404 A.D. the long dynasty of Scottish kings began with the king Fergus I. It ends in 1603 when a united kingdom of Great Britain appeared with it's first king Jacob I (1603-1625). Scottish dynasty looks "very good organized": it practically does not have simultaneous reigns of different kings, it does not have breaks and epochs of anarchy also. Being represented graphically on a time axis, this dynasty covers a 1200-year time interval from 404 to 1603 A.D. in a very nice, extremely "regular" manner: reigns of Scottish kings cover one by one without intersections all this time interval. It is a fine example of "carefully written history". See dotted line in the Fig.1a and Fig.1b The absence of simultaneous reigns suggests that Scotland was a "geographically homogeneous" kingdom: it never was divided into several independent parts. English history shows a strong contrast to Scottish one in it's structure.
2.3.2. English history. Epoch from 1st to 445 A.D. England as the Roman colony.
Time period from 60 B.C. to the beginning of the era A.D. is considered today as an epoch of conquest of England by Roman army under the command of Julius Caesar.
Period from 1st century A.D. to 445 A.D. is considered to be an epoch of Roman occupation of England. England was a Roman colony at that epoch, and there were no English kings, because England was ruled formally by Roman emperors themselves. The description of this period in Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is in fact a compilation from Roman history of 1st - 5th (middle) centuries A.D. as it appears in Scaliger's version of chronology.
It was 409 A.D. when, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Romans were defeated by Goths, leave England and their power was never restored after that date: "In this year the city of Romans was taken by assault by the Goths, eleven hundred and ten years after it was built. Afterwards, beyond that, the kings of the Romans ruled no longer in Britain; in all they had reigned there four hundred and seventy years since Julius Caesar first came to the country" ([2],p.11).
2.3.3. Epoch from 445 to 830. Six kingdoms and their union.
From 445 A.D. we see six kingdoms on the English land. Each of these kingdoms has it's own dynastic stream of rulers. Namely they are
Brittany = Britain,
Saxons = Kent,
Sussex = South Saxons,
Wessex = West Saxons,
Essex = East Saxons,
Mercia.
These six kingdoms exist up to 828 A.D. when they all are destroyed in a war and instead of them one kingdom is established – the kingdom of England. It is the time of Egbert, who becomes the first king of united England. The time of about 830 A.D. could be called, following [6],[7], as the end of Six Kingdoms. "It was 829 A.D., the time of Wessex king Egbert, when all Anglo-Saxon kingdoms united into one feudal kingdom" [11, p. 172]. See Commentary 2 which speaks about the term "Saxon".
2.3.4. Epoch from 830 to 1040. This epoch is finished by Danish conquest and then by disintegration of Dutch kingdom in England.
Beginning from 830 A.D. English chronicles speak about only one dynastic stream of kings (in united kingdom of England).
In the period 1016-1040 A.D. there was a crucial point in English history. In 1016 Danish king Cnut Danish the Great occupied England. He becomes the king of England, Denmark and Norway simultaneously. But his state proved to be not stable and after his death in 1035 it was divided. A representative of old English dynasty Edward "The Confessor" (1042-1066) became a king in England after that division. The year 1040 is represented in the Fig.1b as one of the most important break points in English history.
2.3.5. Epoch from 1040 to 1066. Epoch of the Old Anglo-Saxon dynasty and it's fall.
The reign of Edward "The Confessor" finished in 1066 A.D., which is a well-known date in English history. In that year Edward died and after that England was occupied by Normans with their leader William I Conqueror the Bastard. In 1066 William the Conqueror defeated English-Saxon king Harold in Hastings battle and as a result became an English king himself. Period of his reign was 1066-1087. This well-known date (1066 A.D.) is also represented in the Fig.1b .
2.3.6. Epoch from 1066 to 1327. Norman dynasty and after it - Anjou dynasty. Two Edwards.
This epoch starts with the beginning of Norman dynasty which ruled England up to 1153 or 1154 ([7], p. 327). Just after it the next, Anjou dynasty started in England. It existed from 1154 to 1272 ([7], p. 327).
In 1263-1267 a civil war broke out in England ([11], p.260). After that, in the end of 13th c.- beginning of 14th c., the new monarchy was established in England. First kings in this new dynasty were Edward I (1272-1307) and Edward II (1307-1327). In the end of the considered time period there was a war between England from one side and Wells, Scotland and Ireland from another side. England tried to occupy these regions but it's attempt was not successful. In 1314 Scots won.
2.3.7. Epoch from 1327 to 1602.
This period is started with the reign of Edward III (1327-1377) and is finished with the establishment of Great Britain as a union of England and Scotland.
The last period from 1600 to the present time is a well-known history, which we do not doubt and do not analyse here.
RESUME.
We see that English history could be divided into several periods which are separated by well-known "break point" dates. We argue that these division is not occasional one. It reflects the existence of duplicates and chronological shifts in English history.
