Albion (Fidem Pacis)

The United Kingdoms of Albion (Cymraeg: Teyrnasoedd Unedig o Alban, Gaeilge: Riochtai Aontaithe na Albain, Frisk: Unigde Kungkrice af Albion) are a sovereign state located off the north-west coast of continental Europe. The country includes the island of Albion, also known as Britain, and many smaller islands. The UK has no land borders with any other country, but is separated from Eriu and France by the narrow Irish Sea and British Sea respectively.

The UK is a constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system of government. The capital city is Caerloyw. The UK consists of three constituent countries: Wales (known locally as Cymru or historically Prydain), England and Friesland, all of which have devolved administrations based in their capitals of Caerloyw, Edinburgh and London. In personal union with the UK, but not part of it, are the independent states of Eriu and Norway, and the Crown Dependencies of Orkney, Shetland and Mann.

The UK is a developed country and has the world's fifth largest GDP. Until the late 19th century it was the world's foremost power, with a large colonial empire, but since then it has declined as many of the larger colonies have been granted independence. Albic influence can still be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many former colonies.

History
Albion was first settled by modern humans in waves beginning around 30,000 years ago. By around 600 BC large-scale immigration from the continent had introduced Celtic culture and languages, which came to dominate all of Eriu and southern Albion. The modern-day Welsh people claim to be direct descendent of these Britons, as they are known, though DNA testing suggests that the story is more complicated than that.

The Roman conquest of Albion began in AD 43 during the reign of the Emperor Claudius. Imperial rule lasted for the next 400 years, during which the Romanised Britons gradually diverged from their Pictish cousins. From the late 4th century onwards Albion came under pressure from the Gaels in Eriu, the Picts to the north, and Germanic pirates from across the sea, eventually causing Rome to gradually abandon the island.

At around this time there were mass immigrations of Germanic peoples to Albion, including Angles, Jutes, Frisians, Saxons and others. After some early disagreements with the Britons, they established their own kingdoms by taking much of the eastern half of Albion for their own. For a time the Anglo-Saxon influx west seemed impossible to stop, even after they were Christianised, but a British victory at the Second Battle of Badon in AD 665 allowed them to reclaim much of the Midlands and the south coast, and later Powysian victories would lead to the reconquest of Ebrauc and the southern half of Northumbria. Perhaps the Britons could have driven the invaders out altogether, but new arrivals of Frisians all along the east coast put an end to that ambition.

This situation - with a number of British kingdoms and principalities in the west, a Frisian-dominated kingdom in the east, and an Angle-dominated kingdom in the north, slowly taking over its Gael and Pict neighbours - would prove to be remarkably resilient in the next thousand years.

From the late 8th century onwards the Vikings, Scandinavian raiders leaving their homelands for whatever reason, began to attack the coasts of Albion. In AD 865 a Great Heathen Army landed in Friesland for the purpose of conquest and settlement, but was paid off by King Edmund. Instead it marched on Ebrauc, conquering the British realms one by one, until at last only the southern kingdom of Dumnonia remained.

Dumnonia however was able to resist, and the following century reconquered the Danelaw bit by bit. The Scandinavians who remained were Christanised and had a great influence on the language and culture of northern Albion. But the most significant impact was that Dumnonia had united all the Britons for the first time since the departure of the Romans, and established a single kingdom called Prydain.

In AD 1066 a succession dispute brought Prydain into conflict with the Normans, a group of Norsemen who had created a semi-independent duchy in western Spain, and subsequently been assimilated. William of Normandy, with a fatwa from the Caliph in Mecca, invaded Prydain with an army of Normans and Visigoths and took the throne by force. He and his successors ruthlessly suppressed any dissent, imposed the use of the Spanish language in law and politics, and began a feudal system of land distribution to reward his followers.

Section heading
Write the second section of your page here.