Edward IV of England
Edward IV was the King of England from 4 March 1461 to 3 October 1470, again from 11 April 1471 until his death. He was the first Yorkist King of England; the first half of his rule was marred by the violence associated with the Wars of the Roses, but he overcame the Lancastrian challenge to the throne at Tewkesbury in 1471 to reign in peace until his sudden death. Before becoming king, he was Duke of Earl of March, Earl of Cambridge and Earl of Ulster. Edward of York was born at Rouen in Normandy, the second son of Richard, 3rd Duke of York, Cecily Neville, he was the eldest of the four sons. He bore the title Earl of March before his accession to the throne. Edward's father Richard, Duke of York, had been heir to King Henry VI until the birth of Henry's son Edward in 1453. Richard carried on a factional struggle with the king's Beaufort relatives, he established a dominant position after his victory at the First Battle of St Albans in 1455, in which his chief rival Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, was killed.
However, Henry's Queen, Margaret of Anjou, rebuilt a powerful faction to oppose the Yorkists over the following years. In 1459 Margaret moved against the Duke of York and his principal supporters—his brother-in-law Richard Neville, Earl of Salisbury, Salisbury's son Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, who rose in revolt; the Yorkist leaders fled from England after the collapse of their army in the confrontation at Ludford Bridge. The Duke of York took refuge in Ireland, while Edward went with the Nevilles to Calais where Warwick was governor. In 1460 Edward landed in Kent with Salisbury and Salisbury's brother William Neville, Lord Fauconberg, raised an army, occupied London. Edward and Fauconberg left Salisbury besieging the Tower of London and advanced against the king, with an army in the Midlands, defeated and captured him in the Battle of Northampton. York returned to England and was declared the king's heir by parliament, but Queen Margaret raised a fresh army against him, he was killed at the Battle of Wakefield on 30 December 1460, along with his second surviving son Edmund, Earl of Rutland, the Earl of Salisbury.
This left Edward, now Duke of York, at the head of the Yorkist faction. He defeated a Lancastrian army at Mortimer's Cross in Herefordshire on 2–3 February 1461, he united his forces with those of Warwick, whom Margaret's army had defeated at the Second Battle of St Albans, during which Henry VI had been rescued by his supporters. Edward's father had restricted his ambitions to becoming Henry's heir, but Edward now took the more radical step of proclaiming himself king in March 1461, he advanced against the Lancastrians, having his life saved on the battlefield by the Welsh Knight Sir David Ap Mathew. He defeated the Lancastrian army in the exceptionally bloody Battle of Towton in Yorkshire on 29 March 1461. Edward had broken the military strength of the Lancastrians, he returned to London for his coronation. King Edward IV named Sir David Ap Mathew Standard Bearer of England and allowed him to use "Towton" on the Mathew family crest. Lancastrian resistance continued in the north, but posed no serious threat to the new regime and was extinguished by Warwick's brother John Neville in the Battle of Hexham in 1464.
Henry VI had escaped into the Pennines, where he spent a year in hiding, but was caught and imprisoned in the Tower of London. Queen Margaret fled abroad with many of their leading supporters. Edward IV had deposed Henry VI, but there was little point in killing the ex-king as long as Henry's son remained alive, since this would have transferred the Lancastrian claim from a captive king to one, at liberty. At the age of nineteen, Edward exhibited remarkable military acumen, he had a notable physique and was described as handsome and affable. His height is estimated at 6 feet 4.5 inches, making him the tallest among all English and British monarchs to date. Most of England's leading families had remained loyal to Henry VI or remained uncommitted in the recent conflict; the new regime, relied on the support of the Nevilles, who held vast estates and had been so instrumental in bringing Edward to the throne. However, the king became estranged from their leader the Earl of Warwick, due to his marriage.
Warwick, acting on Edward's behalf, made preliminary arrangements with King Louis XI of France for Edward to marry either Louis' daughter Anne or his sister-in-law Bona of Savoy. He was humiliated and enraged to discover that, while he was negotiating, Edward had secretly married Elizabeth Woodville, the widow of John Grey of Groby, on 1 May 1464. Edward's marriage to Elizabeth Woodville has been criticised as an impulsive action that did not add anything to the security of England or the York dynasty. A horrified Privy Council told him with unusual frankness, when he announced the marriage to them, "that he must know that she was no wife for a prince such as himself, for she was not the daughter of a duke or earl... but a simple knight." Christine Carpenter argues against the idea that it had any political motivation, that Edward's creation of a strong Yorkist nobility meant that he did not need the "lightweight connections" of the Woodvilles, whereas Wilkinson described the marriage as both a "love match, a cold and calculated political move".
J. R. Lander suggested in 1980 that the King was "infatuated," echoing P. M. Kendall's view that he was acting out of lust. Elizabeth's mother was Jacquetta of Luxembourg, wi
Denmark
Denmark the Kingdom of Denmark, is a Nordic country and the southernmost of the Scandinavian nations. Denmark lies southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, is bordered to the south by Germany; the Kingdom of Denmark comprises two autonomous constituent countries in the North Atlantic Ocean: the Faroe Islands and Greenland. Denmark proper consists of a peninsula, an archipelago of 443 named islands, with the largest being Zealand and the North Jutlandic Island; the islands are characterised by flat, arable land and sandy coasts, low elevation and a temperate climate. Denmark has a total area of 42,924 km2, land area of 42,394 km2, the total area including Greenland and the Faroe Islands is 2,210,579 km2, a population of 5.8 million. The unified kingdom of Denmark emerged in the 10th century as a proficient seafaring nation in the struggle for control of the Baltic Sea. Denmark and Norway were ruled together under one sovereign ruler in the Kalmar Union, established in 1397 and ending with Swedish secession in 1523.
The areas of Denmark and Norway remained under the same monarch until Denmark -- Norway. Beginning in the 17th century, there were several devastating wars with the Swedish Empire, ending with large cessions of territory to Sweden. After the Napoleonic Wars, Norway was ceded to Sweden, while Denmark kept the Faroe Islands and Iceland. In the 19th century there was a surge of nationalist movements, which were defeated in the 1864 Second Schleswig War. Denmark remained neutral during World War I. In April 1940, a German invasion saw brief military skirmishes while the Danish resistance movement was active from 1943 until the German surrender in May 1945. An industrialised exporter of agricultural produce in the second half of the 19th century, Denmark introduced social and labour-market reforms in the early 20th century that created the basis for the present welfare state model with a developed mixed economy; the Constitution of Denmark was signed on 5 June 1849, ending the absolute monarchy, which had begun in 1660.
It establishes a constitutional monarchy organised as a parliamentary democracy. The government and national parliament are seated in Copenhagen, the nation's capital, largest city, main commercial centre. Denmark exercises hegemonic influence in the Danish Realm, devolving powers to handle internal affairs. Home rule was established in the Faroe Islands in 1948. Denmark negotiated certain opt-outs, it is among the founding members of NATO, the Nordic Council, the OECD, OSCE, the United Nations. Denmark is considered to be one of the most economically and developed countries in the world. Danes enjoy a high standard of living and the country ranks in some metrics of national performance, including education, health care, protection of civil liberties, democratic governance and human development; the country ranks as having the world's highest social mobility, a high level of income equality, is among the countries with the lowest perceived levels of corruption in the world, the eleventh-most developed in the world, has one of the world's highest per capita incomes, one of the world's highest personal income tax rates.
The etymology of the word Denmark, the relationship between Danes and Denmark and the unifying of Denmark as one kingdom, is a subject which attracts debate. This is centered on the prefix "Dan" and whether it refers to the Dani or a historical person Dan and the exact meaning of the -"mark" ending. Most handbooks derive the first part of the word, the name of the people, from a word meaning "flat land", related to German Tenne "threshing floor", English den "cave"; the -mark is believed to mean woodland or borderland, with probable references to the border forests in south Schleswig. The first recorded use of the word Danmark within Denmark itself is found on the two Jelling stones, which are runestones believed to have been erected by Gorm the Old and Harald Bluetooth; the larger stone of the two is popularly cited as Denmark's "baptismal certificate", though both use the word "Denmark", in the form of accusative ᛏᛅᚾᛘᛅᚢᚱᚴ tanmaurk on the large stone, genitive ᛏᛅᚾᛘᛅᚱᚴᛅᚱ "tanmarkar" on the small stone.
The inhabitants of Denmark are there called "Danes", in the accusative. The earliest archaeological findings in Denmark date back to the Eem interglacial period from 130,000–110,000 BC. Denmark has been inhabited since around 12,500 BC and agriculture has been evident since 3900 BC; the Nordic Bronze Age in Denmark was marked by burial mounds, which left an abundance of findings including lurs and the Sun Chariot. During the Pre-Roman Iron Age, native groups began migrating south, the first tribal Danes came to the country between the Pre-Roman and the Germanic Iron Age, in the Roman Iron Age; the Roman provinces maintained trade routes and relations with native tribes in Denmark, Roman coins have been found in Denmark. Evidence of strong Celtic cultural influence dates from this period in Denmark and much of North-West Europe and is among other things reflected in the finding of the Gundestrup cauldron; the tribal Danes came from the east Danish islands and Scania and spoke an early form of North Germanic.
Historians believe that before their arrival, most of Jutland and the nearest islands were settled by tribal J
Eiríkr Hákonarson
Eric Håkonsson was Earl of Lade, Governor of Norway and Earl of Northumbria. He was brother of the legendary Aud Haakonsdottir of Lade, he participated in the Battle of Hjörungavágr, the Battle of Svolder and the conquest of England by King Canute the Great. Eric is referred to by modern scholars, he most witnessed charters as Yric dux but his name is spelled Yric, Iric, Eiric or Eric in 11th-century Latin and Old English sources. In Old Norse sources, using normalized orthography, he is most Eiríkr jarl or Eiríkr jarl Hákonarson, but sometimes as Eirekr. Modern historians use a variant of Eiríkr/Eirik/Eric and his patronym, Hákonarson/Hakonarson/Hakonson, meaning "son of Haakon". In modern Norwegian, it would be Eirik Håkonsson; some English works prefer Eric of Norway. Principal sources on Eric's youth are Heimskringla, they relate that Eric was the son of Hákon Sigurðarson and a woman of low birth whom Hákon bedded during a sojourn in Oppland. Hákon gave him to a friend of his to raise. On one occasion when Eric was eleven or twelve years old he and his foster father had harboured their ship right next to earl Hákon.
Hákon's closest friend, Skopti and asked Eric to move away so that he could harbour next to Hákon as he was used to. When Eric refused, Hákon sternly ordered him away. Humiliated, Eric had no choice. In the following winter he avenged the humiliation by killing him; this was Eric's first exploit, as commemorated by his skald Eyjólfr dáðaskáld who mentions the incident in his Bandadrápa. The sagas say that after killing Skopti, Eric sailed south to Denmark where he was received by king Harald Bluetooth. After a winter's stay in Denmark, Harald granted Eric earldom over Romerike and Vingulmark - areas in the south of Norway long under Danish influence. In Heimskringla this information is supported with a somewhat vague verse from Bandadrápa; the Battle of Hjörungavágr was Eric's first major confrontation. The battle was fought between the earls of Lade and a Danish invasion fleet; the battle is described in the Norse kings' sagas—such as Heimskringla—as well as in Jómsvíkinga saga and Saxo Grammaticus' Gesta Danorum.
Those late literary accounts are fanciful but historians believe that they contain a kernel of truth. Some contemporary skaldic poetry alludes to the battle, including verses by Þórðr Kolbeinsson and Tindr Hallkelsson. Hákon Sigurðarson was a strong believer in the Old Norse gods, when King Harald Bluetooth attempted to force Christianity upon him, Haakon broke his allegiance to Denmark. A Danish invasion force was defeated at the battle of Hjörungavágr in 986. According to Heimskringla, Eric reconciled with his father, commanded 60 ships in the battle and emerged victorious. After the battle he gave quarter including Vagn Ákason. In 995, as Óláfr Tryggvason seized power as King of Norway, Eric was forced into exile in Sweden, he allied himself with King Olof of King Sweyn whose daughter, Gyða, he married. Using Sweden as his base he launched a series of raiding expeditions into the east. Harrying the lands of King Vladimir I of Kiev, Eric looted and burned down the town of Staraya Ladoga. There are no written continental sources to confirm or refute this but in the 1980s, Soviet archaeologists unearthed evidence which showed a burning of Ladoga in the late 10th century.
Eric plundered in western Estonia and the island of Saaremaa. According to the Fagrskinna summary of Bandadrápa he fought Vikings in the Baltic and raided Östergötland during the same time. In the Battle of Svolder in 1000, Eric and Olof, ambushed king Óláfr Tryggvason by the island of Svolder; the place cannot now be identified, as the formation of the Baltic coast has been much modified in the course of subsequent centuries. Svolder was an island on the North German coast, near Rügen. During the summer, King Olaf had been in the eastern Baltic; the allies lay in wait for him at the island of Svolder on his way home. The Norwegian king had with him seventy-one vessels, but part of them belonged to an associate, Jarl Sigvaldi, a chief of the Jomsvikings, an agent of his enemies, who deserted him. Olaf's own ships went past the anchorage of Eric and his allies in a long column without order, as no attack was expected; the king was in the rear of the whole of his best vessels. The allies allowed the bulk of the Norwegian ships to pass, stood out to attack Olaf.
Olaf refused to flee, turned to give battle with the eleven ships about him. The disposition adopted was one, found recurring in many sea-fights of the Middle Ages where a fleet had to fight on the defensive. Olaf lashed his ships side to side, his own, the Long Serpent, the finest war-vessel as yet built in the north, being in the middle of the line, where her bows projected beyond the others; the advantage of this arrangement was that it left all hands free to fight, a barrier could be formed with the oars and yards, the enemy's chance of making use of his superior numbers to attack on both sides would be, as far as possible, limited — a great point when all fighting was with the sword, or with such feeble missile weapons as bows and javelins. Olaf, in fact, turned his eleven ships into a floating fort. Norse writers, who are the main authorities, gave all the credit to the Norwegians, according to them all the intelligence of Olaf's enemies, most of their valour, were
Coprolite
A coprolite is fossilized feces. Coprolites are classified as trace fossils as opposed to body fossils, as they give evidence for the animal's behaviour rather than morphology; the name is derived from the Greek words κόπρος and λίθος. They were first described by William Buckland in 1829. Prior to this they were known as "fossil fir cones" and "bezoar stones", they serve a valuable purpose in paleontology because they provide direct evidence of the predation and diet of extinct organisms. Coprolites may range in size from a few millimetres to over 60 centimetres. Coprolites, distinct from paleofaeces, are fossilized animal dung. Like other fossils, coprolites have had much of their original composition replaced by mineral deposits such as silicates and calcium carbonates. Paleofaeces, on the other hand, retain much of their original organic composition and can be reconstituted to determine their original chemical properties, though in practice the term coprolite is used for ancient human faecal material in archaeological contexts.
In the same context, there are the urolites, erosions caused by evacuation of liquid wastes and nonliquid urinary secretions. The fossil hunter Mary Anning noticed as early as 1824 that "bezoar stones" were found in the abdominal region of ichthyosaur skeletons found in the Lias formation at Lyme Regis, she noted that if such stones were broken open they contained fossilized fish bones and scales as well as sometimes bones from smaller ichthyosaurs. It was these observations by Anning that led the geologist William Buckland to propose in 1829 that the stones were fossilized feces and name them coprolites. Buckland suspected that the spiral markings on the fossils indicated that ichthyosaurs had spiral ridges in their intestines similar to those of modern sharks, that some of these coprolites were black with ink from swallowed belemnites. By examining coprolites, paleontologists are able to find information about the diet of the animal, such as whether it was a herbivorous or carnivorous, the taphonomy of the coprolites, although the producer is identified unambiguously with more ancient examples.
In some instances, knowledge about the anatomy of animal digestive tracts can be helpful in assigning a coprolite to the animal that produced it, one example being the finding that the Triassic dinosauriform Silesaurus may have been an insectivore, a suggestion, based on the beak-like jaws of the animal and the high density of beetle remains found in associated coprolites. Further, coprolites can be analyzed for certain minerals that are known to exist in trace amounts in certain species of plant that can still be detected millions of years later. In another example, the existence of human proteins in coprolites can be used to pinpoint the existence of cannibalistic behavior in an ancient culture. Parasite remains found in human and animal coprolites have shed new light on questions of human migratory patterns, the diseases which plagued ancient civilizations, animal domestication practices in the past. Organic molecules found in fossil faecal matter can be very informative about the producer of the coprolite, its diet, or the paleoenvironment where it was deposited.
The application of the faecal biomarker approach in archaeological sites has provided groundbreaking evidence in key questions such as the peopling of the Americas, the Neanderthal diet, the origin of the domestication of animals. The recognition of coprolites is aided by their structural patterns, such as spiral or annular markings, by their content, such as undigested food fragments, by associated fossil remains; the smallest coprolites are difficult to distinguish from inorganic pellets or from eggs. Most coprolites are composed chiefly of calcium phosphate, along with minor quantities of organic matter. By analyzing coprolites, it is possible to infer the diet of the animal. Coprolites have been recorded in deposits ranging in age from the Cambrian period to recent times and are found worldwide; some of them are useful as index fossils, such as Favreina from the Jurassic period of Haute-Savoie in France. Some marine deposits contain a high proportion of fecal remains. However, animal excrement is fragmented and destroyed, so has little chance of becoming fossilized.
In 1842 the Rev John Stevens Henslow, a professor of Botany at St John's College, discovered coprolites just outside Felixstowe in Suffolk in the villages of Trimley St Martin and Kirton and investigated their composition. Realising their potential as a source of available phosphate once they had been treated with sulphuric acid, he patented an extraction process and set about finding new sources. Soon, coprolites were being mined on an industrial scale for use as fertiliser due to their high phosphate content; the major area of extraction occurred over the east of England, centred on Cambridgeshire and the Isle of Ely with its refining being carried out in Ipswich by the Fison Company. There is a Coprolite Street near Ipswich docks; the industry declined in the 1880s but was revived during the First World War to provide phosphates for munitions. A renewed interest in coprolite mining in the First World War extended the area of interest into parts of Buckinghamshire as far west as Woburn Sands.
Bromalite Fecalith Fossil Fossils and the geological timescale Gastrolith Lloyds Bank coprolite Regurgitalith Spencer, P. K.. "The "coprolites" that aren't: the straight poop on specimens from the Miocene
Eric Bloodaxe
Eric Haraldsson, nicknamed Eric Bloodaxe, was a 10th-century Norwegian ruler. It is speculated that he had short-lived terms as King of Norway and twice as King of Northumbria. Historians have reconstructed a narrative of Eric's life and career from the scant available historical data. There is a distinction between contemporary or near contemporary sources for Eric's period as ruler of Northumbria, the saga-based sources that detail the life of Eric of Norway, a chieftain who ruled the Norwegian Westland in the 930s. Norse sources have identified the two as the same since the late 12th century, while the subject is controversial, most historians have identified the two figures as the same since W. G. Collingwood's article in 1901; this identification has been rejected by the historian Claire Downham, who argued that Norse writers synthesized the two Erics using English sources. This argument, though respected by other historians in the area, has not produced consensus. Contemporary or near-contemporary sources include different recensions of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Eric's coinage, the Life of St Cathróe, skaldic poetry.
Such sources reproduce only a hazy image of Eric's activities in Anglo-Saxon England. Strikingly, Eric's historical obscurity stands in sharp contrast to the wealth of legendary depictions in the kings' sagas, where he takes part in the sagas of his father Harald Fairhair and his younger half-brother Haakon the Good; these include the late 12th-century Norwegian synoptics – Historia Norwegiæ, Theodoricus monachus' Historia de antiquitate regum Norwagiensium, Ágrip af Nóregskonungasögum – and the Icelandic kings' sagas Orkneyinga saga, the Heimskringla ascribed to Snorri Sturluson, Egils saga, Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar en mesta. In what sense the Eric of the sagas may have been based on the historical Eric of Northumbria, conversely, to what extent evidence might be called upon to shed light on the historical figure, are matters which have inspired a variety of approaches and suggestions among generations of historians. Current opinion veers towards a more critical attitude towards the use of sagas as historical sources for the period before the 11th century, but conclusive answers cannot be offered.
Eric's soubriquet blóðøx, ` Bloodaxe' or ` Bloody-axe', is of uncertain context. It is arguable whether its preservation in two lausavísur by Egill Skallagrímsson and a contemporary skald genuinely dates to the 10th century or had been inserted at some stage when Eric was becoming the focus of legend. There is no guarantee that it predates the 12th-century narrative tradition, where it is first attached to him in Ágrip and in Latin translation as sanguinea securis in the Historia Norwegiæ; the sagas explain it as referring to Eric's slaying of his half-brothers in a ruthless struggle to monopolise his rule over Norway. Fagrskinna, on the other hand, ascribes it to Eric's violent reputation as a Viking raider; the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle describes Eric laconically as ‘Harold’s son’ assuming some familiarity on the reader's part. In the early part of the 12th century, John of Worcester had reason to believe that Eric was of royal Scandinavian stock; this appears to match with independent tradition from Norwegian synoptic histories and Icelandic sagas, which are explicit in identifying Eric of Northumbria as a son of the Norwegian king Harald Fairhair.
The skaldic poems ascribed to Egill Skallagrímsson may offer further reassurance that the sagas are on the right track, although doubts have been expressed about the date and integrity of the verses in the form in which they have survived. One of Egill's lausavísur speaks of an encounter in England with a man of "Harald's line", while the Arinbjarnarkviða envisages a ruler at York, a descendant of Halfdán and of the Yngling dynasty. If genuine, the latter identification would form the only direct clue in the contemporary record which might link Eric with the Norwegian dynasty. Another Harald known from this period is Aralt mac Sitric, king of Limerick, the probable father of Maccus and Gofraid; this may be relevant, since both these brothers and a certain Eric have been described as rulers of'the Isles'. In a letter addressed to Pope Boniface VIII, King Edward I remembered a certain Eric as having been a king of Scotland subject to the English king. In the 19th century, a case had been made for Harald Bluetooth King of Denmark as being Eric's true father.
J. M. Lappenberg and Charles Plummer, for instance, identified Eric with Harald's son Hiring; the only authority for this son's existence is Adam of Bremen, who in his Gesta claims to cite the otherwise unknown Gesta Anglorum for a remarkable anecdote about Hiring's foreign adventures: "Harald sent his son Hiring to England with an army. When the latter had subjugated the island, he was in the end betrayed and killed by the Northumbrians." If Eric's rise and fall had been the inspiration for the story, the names are not identical and Harald Bluetooth's floruit does not sit well with Eric's. In the account cited in the Latin text of the North Sagas entitled, Morte Rex Eilricus, copied long ago from th
Henry II of England
Henry II known as Henry Curtmantle, Henry FitzEmpress or Henry Plantagenet, ruled as King of England, Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, Count of Anjou and Nantes, Lord of Ireland. Before he was 40 he controlled England, large parts of Wales, the eastern half of Ireland and the western half of France—an area that would come to be called the Angevin Empire. Henry was the son of daughter of Henry I of England, he became involved by the age of 14 in his mother's efforts to claim the throne of England occupied by Stephen of Blois, was made Duke of Normandy at 17. He inherited Anjou in 1151 and shortly afterwards became the Duke of Aquitaine by marrying Eleanor of Aquitaine, whose marriage to Louis VII of France had been annulled. Stephen agreed to a peace treaty after Henry's military expedition to England in 1153, Henry inherited the kingdom on Stephen's death a year later. Henry was an energetic and sometimes ruthless ruler, driven by a desire to restore the lands and privileges of his grandfather Henry I.
During the early years of his reign the younger Henry restored the royal administration in England, re-established hegemony over Wales and gained full control over his lands in Anjou and Touraine. Henry's desire to reform the relationship with the Church led to conflict with his former friend Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury; this controversy lasted for much of the 1160s and resulted in Becket's murder in 1170. Henry soon came into conflict with Louis VII and the two rulers fought what has been termed a "cold war" over several decades. Henry expanded his empire at Louis' expense, taking Brittany and pushing east into central France and south into Toulouse. Henry and Eleanor had eight children -- five sons. Three of his sons would be king, though Henry the Young King was named his father's co-ruler rather than a stand-alone king; as the sons grew up, tensions over the future inheritance of the empire began to emerge, encouraged by Louis and his son King Philip II. In 1173 Henry's heir apparent, "Young Henry", rebelled in protest.
France, Brittany and Boulogne allied themselves with the rebels. The Great Revolt was only defeated by Henry's vigorous military action and talented local commanders, many of them "new men" appointed for their loyalty and administrative skills. Young Henry and Geoffrey revolted again in 1183; the Norman invasion of Ireland provided lands for his youngest son John, but Henry struggled to find ways to satisfy all his sons' desires for land and immediate power. By 1189, Young Henry and Geoffrey were dead, Philip played on Richard's fears that Henry II would make John king, leading to a final rebellion. Decisively defeated by Philip and Richard and suffering from a bleeding ulcer, Henry retreated to Chinon castle in Anjou, he was succeeded by Richard. Henry's empire collapsed during the reign of his youngest son, John. Many of the changes Henry introduced during his long rule, had long-term consequences. Henry's legal changes are considered to have laid the basis for the English Common Law, while his intervention in Brittany and Scotland shaped the development of their societies and governmental systems.
Historical interpretations of Henry's reign have changed over time. In the 18th century, scholars argued that Henry was a driving force in the creation of a genuinely English monarchy and a unified Britain. During the Victorian expansion of the British Empire, historians were keenly interested in the formation of Henry's own empire, but they expressed concern over his private life and treatment of Becket. Late-20th-century historians have combined British and French historical accounts of Henry, challenging earlier Anglocentric interpretations of his reign. Henry was born in France at Le Mans on 5 March 1133, the eldest child of the Empress Matilda and her second husband, Geoffrey the Fair, Count of Anjou; the French county of Anjou was formed in the 10th century and the Angevin rulers attempted for several centuries to extend their influence and power across France through careful marriages and political alliances. In theory, the county answered to the French king, but royal power over Anjou weakened during the 11th century and the county became autonomous.
Henry's mother was King of England and Duke of Normandy. She was born into a powerful ruling class of Normans, who traditionally owned extensive estates in both England and Normandy, her first husband had been the Holy Roman Emperor Henry V. After her father's death in 1135, Matilda hoped to claim the English throne, but instead her cousin Stephen of Blois was crowned king and recognised as the Duke of Normandy, resulting in civil war between their rival supporters. Geoffrey took advantage of the confusion to attack the Duchy of Normandy but played no direct role in the English conflict, leaving this to Matilda and her half-brother, Robert of Gloucester; the war, termed the Anarchy by Victorian historians, degenerated into stalemate. Henry spent some of his earliest years in his mother's household, accompanied Matilda to Normandy in the late 1130s. Henry's childhood from the age of seven, was spent in Anjou, where he was educated by Peter of Saintes, a noted grammarian of the day. In late 1142, Geoffrey decided t
Jutland
Jutland known as the Cimbric or Cimbrian Peninsula, is a peninsula of Northern Europe that forms the continental portion of Denmark and part of northern Germany. The names are derived from the Cimbri, respectively; as the rest of Denmark, Jutland's terrain is flat, with a elevated ridge down the central parts and hilly terrains in the east. West Jutland is characterised by open lands, heaths and peat bogs, while East Jutland is more fertile with lakes and lush forests. Southwest Jutland is characterised by the Wadden Sea, a large unique international coastal region stretching through Denmark and the Netherlands. Jutland is a peninsula bounded by the North Sea to the west, the Skagerrak to the north, the Kattegat and Baltic Sea to the east and Germany to the south. Geographically and Jutland comprises the regions of South Jutland, West Jutland, East Jutland and North Jutland. Since the mid-20th century, it has become common to design an area as Central Jutland, but its definition varies a lot.
There are several historical subdivisions and regional names, some of which are still encountered today. They include Nørrejyllland, Sydjylland and others. Politically, Jutland comprises the three contemporary Danish Administrative Regions of North Jutland Region, Central Denmark Region and the Region of Southern Denmark, along with portions of the German state of Schleswig-Holstein; the Danish part of Jutland is divided into three administrative regions: North Jutland Region, Central Denmark Region and Region of Southern Denmark. The northernmost part of Jutland is separated from the mainland by the Limfjord, a narrow stretch of water bisecting the peninsula from coast to coast; the Limfjord was a long brackish water inlet, but a breaching North Sea flood in 1825 created a coast to coast connection. This area is called the North Jutlandic Island, Vendsyssel-Thy or Jutland north of the Limfjord; the islands of Læsø, Anholt and Samsø in Kattegat and Als at the rim of the Baltic Sea are administratively and tied to Jutland, although the latter two are regarded as traditional districts of their own.
Inhabitants of Als, known as Alsinger, would agree to be South Jutlanders, but not Jutlanders. The Danish Wadden Sea Islands and the German North Frisian Islands stretch along the southwest coast of Jutland in the German Bight; the largest cities in the Danish section of Jutland are as follows: Aarhus Aalborg Esbjerg Randers Kolding Horsens Vejle Herning Silkeborg FredericiaAarhus, Billund, Kolding, Vejle and Haderslev, along with a number of smaller towns, make up the suggested East Jutland metropolitan area, more densely populated than the rest of Jutland, although far from forming one consistent city. Administratively, Danish Jutland comprises three of Denmark's five regions, namely Nordjylland and the western half of Southern Denmark, which includes Funen; the five administrative regions came into effect on 1 January 2007, following a structural reform. The southern third of the peninsula is made up of the German Bundesland of Schleswig-Holstein; the German parts are not seen as Jutland proper, but described more abstract as part of the Jutlandic Peninsula, Cimbrian Peninsula or Jutland-Schleswig-Holstein.
Schleswig-Holstein has two historical parts: the former duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, both of which have passed back and forth between Danish and German rulers. The last adjustment of the Danish–German border followed the Schleswig Plebiscites in 1920 and resulted in Denmark regaining Northern Schleswig; the historical southern border of Jutland was the river Eider, which forms the border between the former duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, as well as the border between the Danish and German realms from c. 850 to 1864. Although most of Schleswig-Holstein is geographically part of the peninsula, most German residents there would not identify themselves with Jutland or as Jutlanders, but rather with Schleswig-Holstein; the medieval law Code of Jutland applied to Schleswig until 1900, when it was replaced by the Prussian Civil Code. Some used clauses of the Jutlandic Code still apply north of the Eider; the largest cities in the German part of the Jutland Peninsula are Flensburg. Geologically the Mid Jutland Region and the North Jutland Region as well as the Capital Region of Denmark are located in the north of Denmark, rising because of post-glacial rebound.
Jutland has been one of the three lands of Denmark, the other two being Scania and Zealand. Before that, according to Ptolemy, Jutland or the Cimbric Chersonese was the home of Teutons and Charudes. Many Angles and Jutes migrated from Continental Europe to Great Britain starting in c. 450 AD. The Angles themselves gave their name to the new emerging kingdoms called England. Saxons and Frisii migrated to the region in the early part of the Christian era. To protect themselves from invasion by the Christian Frankish emperors, beginning in the 5th century, the pagan Danes initiated the Danevirke, a defensi
