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In this gallery of eight maps, we examine the history of Britain by looking at the four great challenges faced from the outside: Rome, Scandinavia, Normandy, and Spain, as well as that which came from within and the chaotic civil war of the mid-17th century.
Beyond the days of Roman rule, with Britannia, a distant province of the Roman Empire, through King Cnute's North Sea Empire, the Norman Conquest of William the Conqueror in 1066, and the Wars of the Roses in the 15th century, the British Isles have witnessed long and bitter struggles for dominance and power. The Spanish Armada's attempted invasion in 1588 marked a pivotal moment in the islands' history, asserting England's naval prowess and global ambitions, and the 17th-century Civil Wars and the execution of King Charles I shaped a trajectory towards parliamentary governance.
A map illustrating the expanding control and organization of Roman rule in Britain between c. 43 and 410 CE. It took about a century between Julius Caesar’s 55 BCE foray across BritannicusOceanus (known today as the English Channel) and the 43 CE full-scale invasion and conquest of Britain during the rule of Emperor Claudius to bring what was to become the province of Britannia in the political union that covered most of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. The new rulers introduced centralized governance, money and taxes, towns and roads, baths, and circuses. Many Britons became urbanized and Romanised - wore togas, spoke Latin, and enjoyed exotic imports. It all lasted nearly four hundred years until the constant harassment by Hibernians, Caledonians, Picts, and northern European raiders became too much, and the Western Roman emperor Honorius withdrew the Roman Army from Britannia. Not all Romans left with the military though – many retired legionaries, government employees, and settlers had nothing to return to in their countries of origin and stayed on the Isles.
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