What If... The Vikings Never Came?

The crisis in the Eurozone has been only a secondary story in England this week; the big question here is whether the English Penny can survive. Following yesterday's talks at Tamworth, the Mercian Finance Minister, George Osborne, has expressed some hope for the single currency, but it all depends on massive cuts to public spending which the Northumbrian Ealdorman, John Prescott, argues that his region can ill afford. Meanwhile, Presidents Salmond, Adams and Heseltine of Scotland, Ireland and Wales have issued a joint statement calling for swift actions lest their economies get harmed too; the pressure on the UK is really hotting up. Of course, these regional differences are nothing new; indeed they have haunted the United Kingdom of England since its formation in the 1400s. Given the long lasting division of the four kingdoms which make up the UK (Wessex, East Anglia, Northumbria and Mercia), this is hardly surprising.

It is odd that this island was spared the Viking onslaught of the eighth and ninth centuries, which might otherwise have transformed the history of the English kingdoms, as happened in France and Ireland. Many historians attribute this to the quick actions by a West Saxon reeve in 789, defeating a Viking party as it came ashore in Dorset. With a lack of easy plunder, the Vikings apparently turned to France, Ireland and to exploring further afield in East and West. Had they focused their efforts on England, it is impossible to know what damage they would have wreaked upon the English kingdoms.

Instead, the delicate power balance between Mercia, Wessex, East Anglia and Northumbria remained in place for much of the Middle Ages, with one state unable to totally dominate the others. The Mercian dominance of the eighth century gave way to a fine balance between Wessex and Mercia through much of the ninth and tenth centuries. In this time of relative peace, the great cultural outpouring of the eighth century continued. The chief military and foreign policy challenges were Welsh or Scottish raiders, or dealing with the odd incursion from Viking Ireland.

This isolated paradise began to change in the eleventh century, when the Viking descended Dukes of Normandy managed to seize control of Wessex in 1066, placing Duke William on the throne as King. This gave Wessex a much more Continental flavour than its Anglo-Saxon cousins, and even today Wessex is the only region to elect a President rather than an Ealdorman, while it insists on calling the Federal Witan a 'Parliament'.

The massive social upheaval caused by the Black Death in the 1340s, and the Hundred Years' War between Wessex and Mercia, caused these kingdoms to decline severely, while East Anglia benefited from the rise in late medieval trade to became immensely rich. The East Anglian King Athelstan XI (1387-1404) has gone down in history as the man who set in motion the United Kingdom of England, by marrying the daughter of Leofwine VI of Northumbria (1340-1392). When, in 1471, the exhausted Royal Family of Wessex ended with the death of the last Plantagenet King Henry VI, the West Saxon Witan invited Athelstan XV (1469-1492) of East Anglia/Northumbria to be its King too. Once secure on the West Saxon throne, Athelstan invaded Mercia, and at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485 defeated the last native Mercian King, Offa XX (1483-1485), who would forever be vilified in history for his murder of his two nephews.

Ever since, the United Kingdom of England has sort of muddled through, always operating as one kingdom through the Federal Witan and central government at Tamworth in Mercia. Over time, the Witan became an elected body, as did the local Witans and Chief Ealdormen. This strong sense of local identity is reflected in the strong regional dialects we have, which makes even reading road signs from one region to the next hard. While the wars of the twentieth century helped to bind the UK together, more recent economic woes have started to pull at the threads. With a Northumbrian referendum on independence pencilled in for 2016, it looks like a rough ride ahead for the Chief Ealdorman David Cameron; it'll take some explaining to Queen Ealhswith II if he has to break up her United Kingdom of England.