England

===Middle Ages===
{{Main|England in the Middle Ages}}
[[File:Sutton Hoo replica (face).jpg|thumb|alt=Studded and decorated metallic mask of human face.|Replica of the 7th-century ceremonial [[Sutton Hoo helmet]] from the [[Kingdom of East Anglia]]]]

[[Military of ancient Rome|Roman military]] withdrawals left Britain open to invasion by pagan, seafaring warriors from north-western continental Europe, chiefly the Saxons, [[Angles (tribe)|Angles]], [[Jutes]] and Frisians who had long raided the coasts of the Roman province. These groups then began to settle in increasing numbers over the course of the fifth and sixth centuries, initially in the eastern part of the country.<ref name="james_anglosaxons">{{Cite web |last=James |first=Edward |title=Overview: Anglo-Saxons, 410 to 800 |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/anglo_saxons/overview_anglo_saxons_01.shtml |access-date=3 December 2010 |publisher=BBC}}</ref> Their advance was contained for some decades after the Britons' victory at the [[Battle of Badon|Battle of Mount Badon]], but subsequently resumed, overrunning the fertile lowlands of Britain and reducing the area under [[Britons (historical)|Brittonic]] control to a series of separate enclaves in the more rugged country to the west by the end of the 6th century. Contemporary texts describing this period are extremely scarce, giving rise to its description as a [[Dark Age]]. Details of the [[Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain]] are consequently subject to considerable disagreement; the emerging consensus is that it occurred on a large scale in the south and east but was less substantial to the north and west, where Celtic languages continued to be spoken even in areas under Anglo-Saxon control.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Dark |first=Ken R. |date=2003 |title=Large-scale population movements into and from Britain south of Hadrian's Wall in the fourth to sixth centuries AD |url=https://www.reading.ac.uk/web/files/GCMS/RMS-2003-03_K._R._Dark%2C_Large-scale_population_movements_into_and_from_Britan_south_of_Hadrian%27s_Wall_in_the_fourth_to_sixth_centuries_AD.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210601080017/https://www.reading.ac.uk/web/files/GCMS/RMS-2003-03_K._R._Dark%2C_Large-scale_population_movements_into_and_from_Britan_south_of_Hadrian%27s_Wall_in_the_fourth_to_sixth_centuries_AD.pdf |archive-date=1 June 2021 |access-date=20 June 2020}}; {{Cite book |first=Toby F. |last=Martin |title=The Cruciform Brooch and Anglo-Saxon England |publisher=Boydell and Brewer Press |date=2015 |pages=174–178}}; {{Cite web |last=Coates |first=Richard |title=Celtic whispers: revisiting the problems of the relation between Brittonic and Old English |url=https://ul.qucosa.de/api/qucosa%3A31804/attachment/ATT-0/ }}; {{Cite web |last=Kortlandt |first=Frederik |year=2018 |title=Relative Chronology |url=https://www.kortlandt.nl/publications/art320e.pdf }}; {{Cite web |last=Fox |first=Bethany |title=The P-Celtic Place Names of North-East England and South-East Scotland |url=http://www.heroicage.org/issues/10/fox.html }}</ref><ref name="Härke, Heinrich 2011">{{Cite journal |last=Härke |first=Heinrich |date=2011 |title=Anglo-Saxon Immigration and Ethnogenesis |journal=Medieval Archaeology |volume=55 |issue=1 |pages=1–28 |doi=10.1179/174581711X13103897378311 |s2cid=162331501}}</ref> Roman-dominated Christianity had, in general, been replaced in the conquered territories by [[Anglo-Saxon paganism]], but was reintroduced by missionaries from Rome led by [[Augustine of Canterbury|Augustine]] from 597.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Christian Tradition |url=http://www.picturesofengland.com/history/england-history-p4.html |access-date=5 September 2009 |website=PicturesofEngland.com}}</ref> Disputes between the Roman- and Celtic-dominated forms of Christianity ended in victory for the Roman tradition at the [[Council of Whitby]] (664), which was ostensibly about [[tonsure]]s (clerical haircuts) and the date of Easter, but more significantly, about the differences in Roman and Celtic forms of authority, theology, and practice.<ref name="Lehane" />

During the settlement period the lands ruled by the incomers seem to have been fragmented into numerous tribal territories, but by the 7th century, when substantial evidence of the situation again becomes available, these had coalesced into roughly a dozen kingdoms including [[Northumbria]], [[Mercia]], [[Wessex]], [[Kingdom of East Anglia|East Anglia]], [[Kingdom of Essex|Essex]], [[Kingdom of Kent|Kent]] and [[Kingdom of Sussex|Sussex]]. Over the following centuries, this process of political consolidation continued.{{Sfn|Kirby|2000|p=4}} The 7th century saw a struggle for hegemony between Northumbria and Mercia, which in the 8th century gave way to Mercian preeminence.{{Sfn|Lyon|1960|p=23}} In the early 9th century Mercia was displaced as the foremost kingdom by Wessex. Later in that century escalating attacks by the [[Danes (Germanic tribe)|Danes]] culminated in the conquest of the north and east of England, overthrowing the kingdoms of Northumbria, Mercia and East Anglia. Wessex under [[Alfred the Great]] was left as the only surviving English kingdom, and under his successors, it steadily expanded at the expense of the kingdoms of the [[Danelaw]]. This brought about the political unification of England, first accomplished under [[Æthelstan]] in 927 and definitively established after further conflicts by [[Eadred]] in 953. A fresh wave of Scandinavian attacks from the late 10th century ended with the conquest of this united kingdom by [[Sweyn Forkbeard]] in 1013 and again by his son [[Cnut the Great|Cnut]] in 1016, turning it into the centre of a short-lived [[North Sea Empire]] that also included [[Kingdom of Denmark|Denmark]] and [[Norway]]. However, the native royal dynasty was restored with the accession of [[Edward the Confessor]] in 1042.

[[File:King Henry V at the Battle of Agincourt.jpg|thumb|upright|alt=King Henry V at the Battle of Agincourt, 1415.|[[King Henry V of England|King Henry V]] at the [[Battle of Agincourt]], fought on [[Saint Crispin's Day]] and concluded with an English victory against a larger French army in the [[Hundred Years' War]]]]
A dispute over the succession to Edward led to an unsuccessful Norwegian Invasion in September 1066 close to York in the North, and the successful [[Norman Conquest]] in October 1066, accomplished by an army led by [[William the Conqueror|Duke William of Normandy]] invading at Hastings late September 1066.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Overview: The Normans, 1066–1154 |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/normans/overview_normans_01.shtml |access-date=3 December 2010 |publisher=BBC}}</ref> The [[Normans]] themselves originated from [[Scandinavia]] and had settled in Normandy in the late 9th and early 10th centuries.<ref>{{harvnb|Crouch|2006|pp=2–4}}</ref> This conquest led to the almost total dispossession of the English elite and its replacement by a new French-speaking aristocracy, whose speech had a profound and permanent effect on the English language.<ref>{{Cite news |date=20 February 2008 |title=Norman invasion word impact study |publisher=BBC News |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/mid/7254446.stm |access-date=3 December 2010}}</ref>

Subsequently, the [[House of Plantagenet]] from [[Duchy of Anjou|Anjou]] inherited the English throne under [[Henry II of England|Henry II]], adding England to the budding [[Angevin Empire]] of fiefs the family had inherited in France including [[Duchy of Aquitaine|Aquitaine]].<ref name="Bartlett p124">{{harvnb|Bartlett|1999|p=124}}.</ref> They reigned for three centuries, some noted monarchs being [[Richard I of England|Richard I]], [[Edward I of England|Edward I]], [[Edward III of England|Edward III]] and [[Henry V of England|Henry V]].<ref name="Bartlett p124" /> The period saw changes in trade and legislation, including the signing of [[Magna Carta]], an English legal charter used to limit the sovereign's powers by law and protect the privileges of freemen. Catholic [[monasticism]] flourished, providing philosophers, and the universities of Oxford and Cambridge were founded with royal patronage. The [[Principality of Wales]] became a Plantagenet fief during the 13th century<ref>{{Cite web |title=Edward I (r. 1272–1307) |url=http://www.royal.gov.uk/OutPut/Page61.asp |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080624181028/http://www.royal.gov.uk/OutPut/Page61.asp |archive-date=24 June 2008 |access-date=21 September 2009 |website=Royal.gov.uk}}</ref> and the [[Lordship of Ireland]] was given to the English monarchy by the Pope. During the 14th century, the Plantagenets and the [[House of Valois]] claimed to be legitimate claimants to the [[House of Capet]] and of France; the two powers clashed in the [[Hundred Years' War]].{{Sfn|Fowler|1967|p=208}} The [[Black Death]] epidemic [[Black Death in England|hit England]]; starting in 1348, it eventually killed up to half of England's [[Medieval demography|inhabitants]].<ref>{{harvnb|Ziegler|2003|p=230}}; {{harvnb|Goldberg|1996|p=4}}.</ref>

Between 1453 and 1487, a civil war known as the [[War of the Roses]] waged between the two branches of the royal family, the [[House of York|Yorkists]] and [[House of Lancaster|Lancastrians]].{{Sfn|Crofton|2007|p=111}} Eventually it led to the Yorkists losing the throne entirely to a Welsh noble family the [[House of Tudor|Tudors]], a branch of the Lancastrians headed by [[Henry VII of England|Henry Tudor]] who invaded with Welsh and Breton mercenaries, gaining victory at the [[Battle of Bosworth Field]] where the Yorkist king [[Richard III of England|Richard III]] was killed.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Richard III (r. 1483–1485) |url=http://www.royal.gov.uk/output/Page50.asp |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080710093939/http://www.royal.gov.uk/output/Page50.asp |archive-date=10 July 2008 |access-date=21 September 2009 |website=Royal.gov.uk}}</ref>