Britain: The Empire On Which The Sun Never Sets
The British started of in northern France. Then, they were barbarians named the Britons, Celts, Picts, and others. After the Romans conquered Britain in the first century, it advanced to be a Roman Province. However, after the Romans gave up Britain, it got a head start in the Dark Ages. It quickly advanced beyond France and Germany, and became several large kingdoms.
Britain was divided into three source tribes, the Norse, the Celts (pronounced
kelts), and the English. The English easily united and William the
Conqueror took the rest of England. The Celtic tribes in Scotland,
Ireland, and Wales considered themselves united only in wartime. The
English made campaigns into all three lands but were driven back, as was the
case with William Wallace.
England would never be at ease with the rest of Europe, and often went into wars
against France, claiming the land should be theirs. Then England would go
into a different war, The Crusades, in which their Great king Richard the
Lionhearted, who learned his generaling skills battling his own father, would
fight Saladin of the Saracens, with the help of Barbarossa's armies, even though Barbarossa was
dead.
The British, after the Crusades, continued their warlike rule. But now, as usual, they went to battle France. Gunpowder and the longbow added to British superiority, and the seemingly immortal British armies destroyed what ever got in their way. The French specialty, cavalry, was easily confronted by the Longbowmen, when they fired a barrage of arrows at the charging opponent.
As the war seemed to be won, the enemy started a new campaign to strike back. They first attacked at Orleans, a city that seems to be under siege quite a lot. The English were defeated and lost the city. The English then decide to call in their allies in Burgundy to battle once more, but again were defeated at Rheims.
The English and Burgundians agreed to pay the French for their secret weapon, and it worked. The French attacked Paris in an attempt to liberate it, the attack failed and the forces retreated to a nearby town. Then Joan of Arc was left outside the gates and captured by the English. She was tried for being a heretic, and was executed under a holy courts ruling. But the victory was short lived. Instead of the desired effect of demoralizing the French, which it did do temporarily, they were infuriated and unleashed all the power they could put out. The English lost one battle after another until their backs were to the Channel.
This put the French and English once again at peace. But the English would later defeat the Spanish Fleet, and obtain naval superiority, and never did quite become allies with the French until the World Wars. And as the British Armada controlled the world, Britain began making colonies in North and South America, Africa, India, and China, and they now called thamselves an empire, wanting to copy Rome. Then came the phrase the sun never sets on the British empire, which meant it was to extensive for it to be night time everywhere in the Empire.
The pictures at the top from ensemblestudios.com