Seldom did a son contrast so strangely with his father as did Edward of Carnarvon with Edward the Hammer of the Scots. The mighty warrior and statesman begot a shiftless, thriftless craven. Charles William Chadwick Oman, A History of England p171, 1895
Oh! The insane stupidity of the king of the English, condemned by God and men, who should not love his infamy and illicit bed, full of sin, and should never have removed from his side his noble consort and her gentle wifely embraces, in contempt of her noble birth. Flores Historiarum p224
Right across Britain archaeologists are unearthing the relics of ancient lives. Julian Richards, Stories from The Dark Earth: Meet the Ancestors Revisited: Pagans of Roman Britain, BBC 2013
Cracks were starting to appear in that [Roman] empire’s authority. ibid.
An odd eastern cult called Christianity. ibid.
One dig in Dorset unearthed remains so well preserved that we were able to reveal the lives of an entire Stone Age family. Julian Richards, Stories From the Dark Earth II: Meet the Ancestors Revisited: Families of the Stone Age, BBC 2013
The Dorset Cursus today – old earthworks barely visible after five thousand years of erosion. ibid.
The remains of a teenage girl crouched in a rubbish pit ... Dramatic insights into the world of a whole Iron Age community. Julian Richards, Stories from the Dark Earth: Meet the Ancestors Revisited III: Sacred Women of the Iron Age
The Anglo-Saxons: invading warriors who came to Britain in the wake of the Roman Empire. Julian Richards, Stories from the Dark Earth: Meet the Ancestors Revisited IV: The First Anglo-Saxons
On 18th July 1290 King Edward I expelled the Jews from England. Simon Schama, The Story of the Jews II: Among Believers, BBC 2013
From its earliest days, Britain was an object of desire. Tacitus declared it pretium victoriae – ‘worth the conquest’, the best compliment that could occur to a Roman. He had never visited these shores but was nonetheless convinced that Britannia was rich in gold. Simon Schama, A History of Britain: Beginnings, BBC 2000
There are the remains of stone-age life dotted all over Britain and Ireland. But nowhere as abundantly as Orkney. ibid.
By 1000 B.C. things were changing fast: all over the British landscape a protracted struggle for good land was taking place. Forests were cleared. ibid.
So why did the Romans come here to the edge of the world and run the gauntlet of all these ominous totems? There was the lure of treasure of course. ibid.
In 55 B.C. Julius Caesar launched his galleys across the Channel. ibid.
If we can now imagine Hadrian’s Wall as not such a bad posting it’s because our sense of what life was like at the time has been transformed by one of the most astonishing finds of recent archaeology: the so-called Vindolanda Tablets – scraps of Roman correspondence. ibid.
Bede was not just the founding father of English history, arguably he was also the first consummate story teller in all of English literature. ibid.
Canute ... he went out of his way to change nothing. Simon Schama, A History of Britain: Conquest
The Normans were descendants of Viking raiders but had long since traded in their longboats for powerful warhorses, and the Duchy of Normandy was in no sense just a piece of France. ibid.
Finally the foot soldiers breaking into a run behind. And then there was just the murderous smashing and crashing of horses, the slicing and thrusting of weapons, screams, cries of the wounded and dying. ibid.
William was crowned at Westminster, Christmas Day 1066. ibid.
Hot on the heels of massacre and starvation came plague. ibid.
30,280. And then there appeared a young King – brave and charismatic who stopped the anarchy. His name was Henry and he would become the greatest of all our medieval kings ... The King who ordered the murder in the Cathedral. Or as the father of the much more famous impossibly bad King John, and the impossibly glamorous Richard the Lionheart. Simon Schama, A History of Britain: Dynasty
Henry II, his wife Eleanor and their children Richard and John were the most astonishing of all the family firms to run the enterprise of Britain. ibid.
In 1128 Matilda married Geoffrey of Anjou nicknamed Plantagenet ... His family emblem was three lions. ibid.
Henry had established permanent professional courts sitting at Westminster or touring the counties. ibid.
It was not, ‘Will no-one rid me of this turbulent priest?’ But a much more alarming outcry: ‘What miserable drones and traitors have I nourished and brought up in my household who let their Lord be treated with such shameful contempt by a low-born cleric?’ ibid.
In 1189 Richard declared war on his father. This time Henry faced defeat. ibid.
England’s own home-grown Caesar - Edward I. Simon Schama, A History of Britain: Nations
Edward could be called the first really English King. ibid.
Early in his reign Edward, perhaps acting from religious conviction, outlawed money-lending, and so put most of England’s Jews out of business. He then forced them to wear yellow felt badges of identification ... A year after his invasion Edward arrested all the heads of the Jewish households, and hanged nearly three hundred in the Tower. ibid.
It was Scotland that was destined to be on the end of Edward’s power games. ibid.
Just as he had ripped the heart out of the Welsh sense of independence by carrying off their sacred relics, Edward now took the Stone of Scone, the symbol of the independent Scottish Crown, to Westminster. ibid.
Having won a victory on the battlefield if not the war itself, the Scots now sought international recognition of their newly won liberty. The occasion was a letter sent to the Pope. ibid.
For a century and a half there had been an entrenched English colony in east and north Ireland, often safe only in castles ... A bitter civil war broke out between native Irish supporters of both sides. ibid.
In the summer of 1348 the English could be forgiven for thinking themselves unconquerable. They had vanquished the old enemies – the Scots and the French. Their King – Edward III – seemed the most powerful ruler in Europe. But they would be conquered ... [by] King Death. His weapon was plague ... Almost half the country would be dead. Simon Schama, A History of Britain: King Death
Despite his famous victory at Agincourt Henry V remains a might-have-been, dead at the age of thirty five from dysentery. ibid.
The competing wings for the Plantagenet family: for thirty years the Houses of York and Lancaster slogged it out in a roll call of battles we know as the Wars of the Roses. ibid.
From the Roman occupation of two thousand years ago to our own day the story of Britain is revealed through art. David Dimbleby, Seven Ages of Britain 1/7: Age of Conquest, BBC 2010
The Romans changed the face of England. ibid.
The British Isles was emerging as a cultural force in its own right. ibid.
Nordic invaders – The Vikings – sailed across the North Sea to plunder Britain's riches. ibid.
The Middle Ages: a time of faith and a time of fear. In Hereford monks created a work of art designed to make sense of the unknown. This is Mapa Mundi: a map of the world as it was known around 1300. David Dimbleby, Seven Ages of Britain 2/7: Age of Worship 1170 to 1400
As the Middle Ages unfolded a new way of seeing the world emerged that would unite church and crown. It was inspired by heroic tales and ancient legends. They called it Chivalry. ibid.
King Richard II wanted the crown itself to be an object of worship. His vanity and ambition created an era of magnificence. The artistic pinnacle of the Middle Ages. ibid.
He therefore again asked, ‘What was the name of that nation?’ And was answered that, ‘They were called Angles.’ ‘Right,’ said he, ‘for they have an Angelic face, and it becomes such to be co-heirs with the Angels in heaven. What is the name,’ proceeded he, ‘of the province from which they are brought?’ It was replied that the natives of that province were called Deiri. ‘Truly are they De ira,’ said he, ‘withdrawn from wrath, and called to the mercy of Christ. How is the king of that province called?’ They told him his name was Ælla. And he, alluding to the name said, ‘Hallelujah, the praise of God the Creator must be sung in those parts.’ Venerable Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People II:I