Not Groaning but Roaring: A History of Pridaen

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Andrew

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]I thought I should have a go at writing a timeline, so here it is. It’s not the most original conceit in the world – the native Britons doing better against the Anglo-Saxons – but hopefully it will prove interesting to someone. Any advice, comments or (constructive) criticism will be gratefully received.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]I thought I’d do it in the style of a *modern ATL history book, so perforce it sha’n’t be detailed enough for all tastes; if anything seems lacking in explanation or cause, please let me know and I’ll try to expand on it.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]First part coming up...[/FONT]
 

Andrew

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Not Groaning but Roaring: A History of Pridaen[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]1 Romani Eunt Domum[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]By the start of the fifth century, although it may not have been apparent at the time, the Western Roman Empire was in a terminal decline from which it could not recover. Under pressure from revolts within and enemies without, the military might of the Empire was no longer sufficient to meet all the challenges asked of it. The fourth century had seen several revolts in Pridaen [1], or Britannia as the Romans called it, culminating with Magnus Maximus who led his legions and a large contingent of native troops across the Channel in the 380s to stake his claim for the imperial title. Although his Roman troops performed famously, with his cavalry slaying the emperor Gratian after he had fled the battle, the Prydeeneg men were poorly trained and inexperienced and did not acquit themselves well. Magnus sent them back to Pridaen with the orders that henceforth, Prydeeneg men would stand on the front line against the Picts and on the Saxon Shore. They would learn to fight or die trying. By the end of the decade, Magnus Maximus was dead, but the policy of using Prydeeneg troops to defend their island would continue [2].[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Pridaen was, by the early 400s, proving to be literally more trouble than it was worth. Its provinces were among the least valuable in the Empire, but the troops stationed there had produced a succession of usurpers, pretenders and rebels for over a century. Naturally Britannia was among the first parts of the Empire to be abandoned as it began to crumble. By 410, the legions had completely withdrawn, and the Roman administrative apparatus had gone with them. The natives were left to fend for themselves, with increasingly bold incursions from Picts, Irish, Angles and Saxons to contend with. Their first step was to mimic the Roman political arrangement: The famous King Coel [3] took the place of the old Dux Britanniarum, defending the north from the Picts, although we know little of him that is not obscured by legend. The limits of his power probably followed Hadrian’s Wall, which is known to still have been garrisoned at this time. In the west, the old Roman province of Britannia Prima [4] fractured among local strongmen as the coasts came under attack from Irish raids. As for the rest, although central authority was weak the local petty kings who began to appear still seem to have looked to the old capital of the Roman province of Maxima Caesariensis, Londinium (Lliindaen), for leadership.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]One may ask why these petty kings appeared at all, when the Prydeeneg were copying the Roman system. There are two main reasons for this: first, the natives, lacking the literate bureaucratic class and administrative experience of the Romans, simply could not effectively govern large areas from a central point at this time. The second reason lies in the ancient traditions of inheritance which still held among the Prydeeneg.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]The Romans had a well-developed system of inheritance laws that would not seem too strange to us today, being based on written wills; but the Prydeeneg had an uncodified system of division of property among all the sons of the deceased. ‘Property’, to the Prydeeneg of this time, meant not just land and chattels, but also titles and positions of authority. So, for example, when King Coel died, the old north was split between his two sons, and on their death was split further; when kings died without sons, their lands tended to revert to whichever other kingdom they had most recently been split from, although this was by no means always followed consistently and a great deal of squabbling often accompanied any new partition or adjunction. Since no detailed genealogical records were kept, there was a limit to how convoluted the land could become, but it should come as no surprise that within a century of the Romans’ leaving the country was fractured, and the beginnings of the familiar sub-kingdoms of mediaeval Pridaen were already apparent.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Ultimately, while in the north the Prydeeneg held, and over the rest of the century pushed back almost to the old Antonine Wall, and in the west the Irish were never much more than coastal raiders, it was in the south east that the biggest threat emerged. Beginning in the late 420s, the Germanic tribes who had been harassing the coasts for decades, primarily Angles from the southern part of peninsular Denmark, began trying to settle. It would not be until the 450s that they would start arriving in great numbers, and at this stage they seem to have even been occasionally useful to the natives as mercenary troops; but on the whole the natives preferred to fight their own battles, basing their armies on the companies raised by Magnus Maximus in the 380s.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Apart from the semi-legendary Coel, one of the earliest native leaders whose name has come down to us is Gurtheirn [5]. Unlike Coel, Gurtheirn is remembered as a villain, his name a byword for incompetent leadership. In Gurtheirn’s case, however, we can remove some of the accumulated folklore, and find a little of the historical character beneath. He was certainly a powerful ruler, and according to some sources may have been a prototype High King (although such a post would not have officially existed yet), so he must have commanded some respect from his peers. He ruled for about thirty years; if he had been as incompetent as folk memory tells, he would surely not have survived that long.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]In the 440s, an appeal to the Roman military commander Aetius on behalf of the Prydeeneg is believed to have originated from Gurtheirn’s court. We should treat this claim with some scepticism, since it was made by later writers who had every reason to discredit Gurtheirn’s memory; but regardless of where it originated, the appeal was definitely made by someone:[/FONT]

“[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]To Aetius: the groans of the Britanni: The barbarians come from the sea, and drive us into the sea. We are being killed by one and the other.” [6] [/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]It should, perhaps, trouble us to question the standard version of history: for the impression given by this appeal is of a far weaker Pridaen than we are usually led to believe. Nevertheless, no help from Rome was forthcoming, and the Prydeeneg would be forced to stand alone. Just a few years later, the first barbarian invader whose name is recorded would pose the first major challenge to Prydeeneg control of their own land since the Romans had left, though he was not an Angle. He was a Jute, and his name was Hengest.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif][1] Obviously, with a POD in the late fourth century, our ATL contemporaries are going to be speaking languages that would be completely incomprehensible to any of us. Therefore, where available, I’ll use OTL English terms and names (with the exception of cities, where I’ll always use the ‘native’ names, even if a OTL name exists, for consistency). In this case, “Britain” would be a poor translation for Pridaen-as-a-political-and-cultural-entity, so I’m using the native name.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]The Prydeeneg language, as you might expect, is *Welsh, but its phonology is different: most obviously, it’s suffered a vowel shift and presciptive spelling reforms. If you don’t speak Welsh, it probably needn’t matter that much, and if you do speak Welsh, then I apologise for bludgeoning your language. If it’s any consolation, other languages don’t end up any better.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif][2] IOTL, the Britons who went with Magnus Maximus probably didn’t come back. Little is known of what did happen to them, but one theory holds that they were the origin of British settlement in Brittany. In any case, even if they did return to Britain, it is unlikely that the Romans would lay on a schedule of training and fighting to toughen them up, which is essentially what’s happening here. This decision is the POD. I’m assuming – for the sake of keeping things simple early on – that the subsequent history of Magnus Maximus is not affected by this decision. In other words, history on the continent carries on as per OTL for now. Don’t worry, it’ll diverge later on.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif][3] Old King Cole, a.k.a. Coel Hen in Welsh.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif][4] Roughly OTL modern Wales, the West country and some of the nearby parts of modern England.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif][5] Whom we know as Vortigern.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif][6] The appeal is essentially the same as OTL’s; our version was recorded by Gildas over a century later, and the ATL version was probably passed down similarly, hence the textual differences.[/FONT]
 

Andrew

There seem to be as many interpretations of what actually went on during the period as there are historians studying it. There's a reason it's called the Dark Ages, after all. So all I can reasonably do is choose one interpretation and run with it.

But that's one advantage of the conceit I'm adopting: the alt-historian might be just as wrong (or right) as the non-revisionist standard view of what happened OTL, but in a sense it doesn't matter; as long as it's internally consistent and plausible, it's tolerable.
 

Cydonius

I'd agree with the notion that the Dark Ages would be just as poorly documented in an ATL as in OTL, so if the mainstream historiography of OTL's early mediaeval period includes Hengist and Horsa I see no reason why thy shouldn't also feature in an ATL history.

I like the idea of this: I know other people have looked at it before, but it's a period that seems so fundamental to what modern England has become, yet is so poorly documented, that it seems to offer lots of room for manoeuvre :)

I'm intrigued to see how this plays out.
 

Andrew

Battlestar_Cydonia said:
I'd agree with the notion that the Dark Ages would be just as poorly documented in an ATL as in OTL, so if the mainstream historiography of OTL's early mediaeval period includes Hengist and Horsa I see no reason why thy shouldn't also feature in an ATL history.
Click to expand...

Oh, I'm not having Horsa. I'm not that opposed to historicity. ;)
 

Cydonius

Lol :D

But seriously, I like the notion of rewriting early mediaeval history - it has so much potential for unexpected outcomes.
 

Andrew

Thanks, I'll try my best. For the time being I'm just going to be concentrating on our Septic Isle, but later on things will be messed around further afield.

I'm aiming to put Part 2 up tomorrow (or later today, depending on your personal experience of time).
 

Andrew

Thanks Battlestar and G.Bone, and Josephus too. Next part coming up: hopefully it won't be too GAH-worthy, as it involves some more convergent history with events that may have been apocryphal.
 

Andrew

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]2 Knives Out[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Hengest is thought to have been leader of a group of mercenaries stationed on the Pictish frontier around 450. This was a period in which, the later chronicles tell us, the Prydeeneg were proving quite capable of handling the Picts alone, so it is unclear why mercenaries were needed. Nevertheless, they may have been there for a few years. They must have proved their worth, for the next we know of them, they are being employed by Gurtheirn as a personal guard. This is a very telling development; Gurtheirn must have become deeply unpopular with his own people if he trusted barbarians over his own countrymen. This fits with the traditional description of Gurtheirn: paranoid and despised. Such was Gurtheirn’s attachment to Hengest, that he had even granted him part of Kent to rule as a kingdom in his own right, in the very shadow of a ruined Roman fort that had once defended the ‘Saxon Shore’ [1].[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]But Gurtheirn was right to be paranoid: his reign was coming to an end, and his enemies were uniting against him. We should not exaggerate his unpopularity; there were plenty of petty kings still willing to fight for him and with him, as they saw him as the legitimate ruler of Pridaen. The ingredients were there for civil war, which would no doubt have greatly satisfied Hengest and his Angle allies. Indeed, skirmishes had already taken place between the newcomers and the natives; it was surely only a matter of time until the natives started to fight each other.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]The invaders did not get their satisfaction. Gurtheirn’s enemies, united around the charismatic young Kentish king Gurangon, hatched a plot that would be remembered down the centuries. Gurtheirn, together with his leading Prydeeneg allies, plus Hengest and the foremost Angle leaders, were invited to a meeting of reconciliation and treaty at Gurangon’s palace near modern-day Cairgaent (Roman Durovernum Cantiacorum) [2].[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Naturally, the attendees would not bear weapons. The meeting would be a jovial and friendly banquet, not an armed confrontation. And then, at the appropriate juncture, once his foes had drunk their fill, Gurangon’s men would enter and slay the treasonous Gurtheirn and his barbarian allies.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]It did not happen like that. Hengest was no fool, and had had a very similar plan himself. The barbarians pretended to be unarmed, but carried seaxes (long knives) under their cloaks. They, too, planned to bide their time and slaughter their enemies when their guard was down.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]The result was a bloodbath. Later chroniclers regale us with long lists of the dead, but since they often contradict each other there is no need for us to dwell too long on the minor characters. The important thing for history was that the anti-Angle Prydeeneg won: Gurtheirn was dead, as was Hengest, and as were all the Angle chieftains. But their was much blood spilt on both sides. Most of the leading enemies of Gurtheirn were dead, including Gurangon himself: tradition has it that he was hacked down by Hengest.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Tradition also has it that Hengest was slain a moment later by one man who would survive the night: Amris Uladeg, a noble leader, possibly of Roman ancestry, from near Cairsallog (Roman Sorviodunum) [3]. In the aftermath, Amris made the most of the power vacuum in the south-east to replace Gurtheirn as, for all practical purposes, ‘High King’. He would reign for thirty years, and be fondly remembered forevermore.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]As proof that propaganda is no recent invention, the events were recorded and remembered as the Betrayal of the Long Knives [4]. The Prydeeneg had gone to the meeting with the best of intentions, and Gurangon’s ‘guards’ only entered the fray once the barbarians had begun their attack. Even the chroniclers of a few centuries later heavily implied that this was not an accurate version of events; and folk tales, which are often overlooked as a part of the historical record, celebrate the Prydeeneg behaviour in rather less honourable terms. They celebrate it nonetheless: at Cairgaent, the Angles were stopped, and Prydeeneg unity triumphed over the divisive treachery of Gurtheirn. Of course, no-one should believe this either: the Angles were only delayed, and the unity of Pridaen was far from certain.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Looking back, it seems inevitable that a unified nation would be forged. It would do us well to remember that with hindsight, many things appear inevitable that at the time seemed anything but. Pridaen was a mass of rivals and competing interests: those in the west were concerned with the Irish, those in the north with the Picts. Along the east and south coasts, and in much of the south-eastern interior, it was the Angles who worried them; and in the rest of the country, across the plains and hills of Pridaen, the people were struggling to adjust to post-Roman life: to the absence of the order, and the trading opportunities, that the Romans had brought. What concern was it to the men of Eboracum or Deva [5], watching the old fortresses, and the old ways of life, decay, if the far north was put to the sword? Why should the tin miners of the south west, always fearful of sea-borne raiders, care if Kent was being plundered by new enemies? It would take leadership to forge these disparate peoples into one. It would take foresight to recognise that if they stood together, Pridaen might prevail; but if they fell apart, they would be destroyed one by one until there was no-one left. Fortunately for Pridaen, it had just such a far-sighted leader ready to take on the mantle, in Amris Uladeg.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif][1] This “kingdom” is on the Kent side of the river Rother, probably around Hythe (bearing in mind the coastline has changed markedly over the centuries). The Saxon Shore fort mentioned is Portus Lemanis, or modern Lympne. Incidentally, the name of Kent is of Celtic origin so I’m happy to use it; the ATL region will have a similar name in Prydeeneg. IOTL, the equivalent of this land grant was Margate and Ramsgate, so perhaps Hengest got a better deal here.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif][2] Canterbury.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif][3] Amris is Ambrosius Aurelianus, a.k.a. Emrys Wledig in Welsh. Sorviodunum is Old Sarum, near OTL modern Salisbury.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif][4] This is based on a OTL event, the original Night of the Long Knives, also called the Betrayal of the Long Knives by the Welsh. In OTL, the Anglo-Saxons were armed and the Britons weren’t. You can guess the rest.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif][5] York and Chester: used as examples of typical legionary fortresses, around which civilian settlements had sprung up.[/FONT]
 

Omnibus

I'm not knowledgeable enough about this time period to offer any criticisms, so I'll just give my gut-level, n00bish opinion.


More, more, more!
 

Andrew

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]3 Footprints in the Sand[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Armchair generals and re-writers of history sometimes wonder why, following the massacre of the Angle leaders at the Betrayal of the Long Knives, Amris did not gather his forces, descend upon the invaders’ settlements in Kent, and finish the job. This is overestimating Amris’s position; at this stage, the forces of Pridaen were not his to gather, and the armed might of the Angles was still more than a match for them.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Gurtheirn had become the nominal leader of the Prydeeneg by acclaim, and had remained so simply because no-one had replaced him. Amris was now well regarded by many of the petty kings of the south east and the interior, for he had proved that the Prydeeneg could be more than the passive victims of foreign armies; but in order for that acclaim to mean anything, he would have to work with his kinsmen across the country, to ensure that even if the embattled north and west could not send help to the south east, at least they would not try to grab land from those that could. Amris had correctly assumed that one of the main factors inhibiting the various petty kings from sending men was the fear that their lands would be stolen by their rivals.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Amris therefore toured the country, encouraging local rulers to recognise and guarantee each other’s territory. Thus land ownership, and authority, started to achieve the first footings of a legal basis; it brought security to the interior, allowing militias to be turned into armies to fight the three enemies on Pridaen’s borders. The simple act of inspiring Prydeeneg to work with Prydeeneg against a common enemy, known in later times as the Coordination of Amris Uladeg, is traditionally seen as the birth of Prydeeneg national consciousness.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]The most immediate effects of Amris’s efforts came in the west. Irish raids may have been diminishing for some time, as the natives grew stronger, but after the Coordination the raids dropped sharply. Before, the Irish had sometimes been able to penetrate several miles inland in search of slaves with complete impunity; now, coastal garrisons and local militia forces were often able to surprise the raiders and wipe out the landing parties. On a small scale, raiding would continue for centuries, but by the late fifth century it no longer threatened the security of the west.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]In the north, on the other hand, the Prydeeneg were already winning. The unity of Coel Hen’s rule, and the alliance of his sons, meant that the old north had not fractured into petty kingdoms in quite the same way as the rest of the country. The northerners had long experience of fighting together against the Picts, who were already retreating from Hadrian’s Wall towards the Antonine Wall. The effects of the Coordination may have helped in another way, however: the Irish, finding the Prydeeneg to be a sterner enemy then they had once been, began raiding further north in earnest, weakening the Picts in the same territory that they were defending against the Prydeeneg [1]. Soon enough, the Irish found themselves encountering Prydeeneg armies further and further north, which pushed the Irish target yet further north, to the islands of the Hebudes [2]. The populations here were insufficient to maintain slave raiding, but the Irish would soon begin to settle, forming the nucleus of what would later become the kingdom of Dalriada. But we are getting ahead of ourselves.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]For in the south east, Angles were still arriving, and in ever greater numbers. The strength of the Prydeeneg men in Kent seemed sufficient to prevent the invaders breaking out of the land granted to Hengest by Gurtheirn, but this just drove incomers to find other landing places. In 478 an armada of Angle ships arrived on the then sparsely populated coast between the old Saxon Shore forts of Anderitum and Portus Adurni [3]. The forts were still garrisoned by the Prydeeneg, and there was also a substantial population in the former Roman settlement at Maisnauidh (Noviomagus Reginorum) who provided further manpower for the army that went to expel the invaders.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]There had been battles between the natives and the barbarians before, but in truth they were little more than skirmishes. Now, the Battle of Glinban (the precise location of which has been lost) saw a major portion of the Prydeeneg might in the region thrust against a large body of Angle warriors, ably led by a young king called Aelle. The men of Pridaen were not so ably led: failing to follow Amris’s example, the men converging on the Angles from east and west did not attempt to coordinate their actions, and so the men from Anderitum found themselves facing the enemy before their allies had arrived. The Angles were not going to wait, and so battle was joined; few details are recorded, as few men on the Prydeeneg side survived to record them. By the time the men of Portus Adurni and Noviomagus Reginorum reached the battle, the field was red with their cousins’ blood. If the newcomers were hoping that the Angles would be wearied by their exertions, this was swiftly disabused; on the contrary, the Angles were full of confidence and eager to fall upon the remaining Prydeeneg. The second part of the battle was somewhat less disastrous than the first: a large part of the Prydeeneg host fled the field, and therefore lived to fight another day. But the humiliation was complete.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]The Battle of Glinban was a major shock to the native population. They had assumed that, by fighting off invasions and slowly building their strength, the result achieved in the west would be repeated in the south and east: the shore would become secured, and Pridaen would be free from the barbarian threat forever. Now, the possibility was slowly dawning that Pridaen would never free itself of the Angles. Even if Aelle’s army could be defeated, more would come, and yet more, until the Prydeeneg would have to accept the inevitable, draw a line across the island, and withdraw behind it.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Amris never accepted such defeatist (though justified) opinions, and swore to expel every barbarian from Pridaen’s shore, or die in the attempt. But that was precisely what the defeatists were afraid of: the Prideeneg might kill themselves fighting for the whole island, rather than live in a diminished realm.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Amris was in the process of summoning the largest alliance of Prydeeneg troops yet formed, in order to fight Aelle, when a new cohort of barbarians arrived. This new invasion, led by a Saxon called Isc, landed to the south-east of Cair Colim (Roman Camulodunum) [4]. Amris changed his plans, and decided that this new invasion should be dealt with first, in order to avoid giving them time to establish a foothold and therefore being harder to dislodge later on. In retrospect, this seems perfectly reasonable, but it was not a popular decision at the time; many of the petty kings, especially on the south coast, were eager to avenge Glinban, and feared that the longer Aelle’s new kingdom persisted, the more likely it would be to become permanent. Nevertheless, Amris won the argument, and the massed forces of Pridaen moved east, to drive Isc back into the sea.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif][1] The coasts of OTL Dumfriesshire, Galloway, and southern Ayrshire.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif][2] The classical name for what we call the ‘Hebrides’, which is itself based on a misreading of the word ‘Hebudes’.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif][3] Pevensey and Portchester (near Portsmouth). Noviomagus Reginorum is Chichester. The precise area of landing is around OTL Brighton.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif][4] Colchester. This landing is around OTL Clacton on Sea.[/FONT]
 

Andrew

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]4 The Finest Drops[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]By the time Amris and his allies had reached the new invaders, the latter were already besieging Cair Colim. Fortunately, the Roman walls had been well-maintained, and the defenders were successfully holding out. Isc was not as able a commander as Aelle, and the attentions of the Saxons were fixed only on the town rather than keeping watch for any relief forces that might arrive. Amris split his armies, aiming to surround the barbarians, and ultimately crush them against the walls of Cair Colim. The Prydeeneg forces outnumbered the Saxons by at least two-to-one, and Amris wanted to make the most of this numerical advantage to crush the invaders utterly and prevent any of their number escaping and regrouping.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]The strategy worked as intended; if Glinban was a humiliation for the Prydeeneg, the Battle of Cair Colim restored their pride, and their faith in their own capability. The Saxons were crushed utterly, Isc himself killed by the town’s defenders who had sallied out to join the slaughter.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]The stage was therefore set for one of the most potentially decisive battles in Pridaen’s history. The armies of Amris had a new confidence, and a new determination, but the forces of Aelle seemed as ruthless and dangerous as ever. The victors of Cair Colim marched south west with Saxon blood still damp on their blades. The Angles, for their part, had been consolidating their position; Aelle had moved east with a part of his forces to take Anderitum, the garrison of which had been wiped out at Glinban. Now he was moving west, towards Portus Adurni and Maisnauidh. It was one thing to lose a Saxon Shore fort like Anderitum, but to lose a major regional population centre like Maisnauidh would be a severe blow to Pridaen. Amris therefore ignored the main bulk of the new Angle realm, spread along forty miles of coastline from Anderitum through their initial beachhead and west towards Maisnauidh, and headed to intercept the army led by Aelle himself that was pushing west to attack that very town.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Like Cair Colim, Maisnauidh had been fortified by the Romans and had possessed an imposing set of stone walls. However, the town had been almost abandoned in the late fourth century as the Saxon threat increased and Roman power declined. Although it had been repopulated in recent decades, the walls had not been restored to full strength. With many of the fighting men of the town killed at Glinban, it was likely that the town would prove unable to hold out for long against Aelle.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]As Aelle came up from the coast to approach the town, it must have seemed eerily deserted. The crumbling fortifications had been hastily reinforced with wooden ramparts, but the men defending them were just too few to pose too much of a challenge to Aelle.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Fortunately, they did not have to. Unbeknown to Aelle, Amris and his Prydeeneg armies had arrived down Stane Street just two days previously. Amris planned something of a repeat of Cair Colim: to allow the Angles to approach Maisnauidh, and then surround and crush them against the walls.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Aelle, being a competent commander, had enough men scouting the surrounding land that he was apprised of the situation before being drawn into the trap. Rather than dispersing his men around the walls of Maisnauidh, therefore, he drew them up in front of the town as if for battle and proceeded to march around the walls to Amris’s men’s encampment on the far side. The Prydeeneg were ready for them, and for all the attempts at traps and surprises, a perfectly conventional battle began. The natives were the larger force by far, but Aelle had his best men with him, men who had spent years fighting side-by-side, destroying less disciplined opponents.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]It is therefore disappointing that none of the later chroniclers describe the battle itself in any detail. But perhaps that is to be expected, given the result and the consequences; not for nothing did later historians call Maisnauidh “our Asculum”. True, the Prydeeneg won the day, and Aelle lost a great part of his men (though he escaped himself). But the natives lost many of their captains, many of the vital petty kings and princes who inspired the anti-Angle cause.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]And they lost Amris, the great coordinator, who had done so much to unite the men of Pridaen into a capable force. It is said that throughout the land, when news of the death of Amris and his faithful peers reached them, people truly wept and groaned for the first time since the barbarian raids began. More and more did the struggle resemble an achingly slow, yet inevitable, defeat. One anonymous survivor of the Battle of Maisnauidh perhaps said it best (though the speech may be apocryphal), echoing the words of Pyrrhus: “We can afford no more victories like this”.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]No more. Pridaen was exhausted by the stream of invaders, and needed a respite. It did not seem as if the Angles would comply: in 491, the old lands of the Iceni [1] were hit by a new invasion, led by an Angle called Hryp. The effect this had on the mood of the natives was to drain morale yet further. And yet, Hryp’s invasion resembled Hengest’s tentative foothold on the shore rather than Aelle’s large military occupation. Although it is impossible to provide anything but the most tentative statistics, it is generally held that the volume of Germanic barbarians making their way across the sea was declining as the end of the century approached. Perhaps there was an end in sight for Pridaen, an end different from collapse and defeat. Perhaps, once these interlopers were dealt with, there really would be no more.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif][1] Norfolk. The exact location of this landing is not known for certain, but is thought to be near OTL Cromer.[/FONT]
 

Nicomacheus

Andrew,

A very, very nice start. I like your take on the names, though I must say a map would be great to sort out where everything is. Pridaen has a nice ring to it. Always fun to see an alt-medieval TL.

Any thoughts on how and when events outside Pridaen might change?

Best of luck,

Nico
 

Andrew

Nicomacheus said:
Andrew,

A very, very nice start. I like your take on the names, though I must say a map would be great to sort out where everything is. Pridaen has a nice ring to it. Always fun to see an alt-medieval TL.

Any thoughts on how and when events outside Pridaen might change?

Best of luck,

Nico
Click to expand...

Thanks. I'm trying to minimise overseas butterflication at the moment, purely for my own convenience, but the next part will deal broadly with the situation on the continent. Spoiler: it's incredibly similar to OTL! How boring.

And a rough map with all (I think) the places I've mentioned so far:

SE Pridaen 500.png

SE Pridaen 500.png
 
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