I'm not familiar with this part of England's history. What can keep the Four Kingdoms apart?
Keep the Danes out of England. The Viking invasions swallowing up all the extant kingdoms except Wessex gave the West Saxon rulers both an opportunity to unify the southern half of the island (given that all their non-Viking rivals had just been wiped out) and a strong incentive to do so (the Vikings evidently posed an existential threat, so it's not hard to make the case that the survivors need to unify to resist them).I'm not familiar with this part of England's history. What can keep the Four Kingdoms apart?
Well, the number of "important" ones waxed and waned, especially since some were absorbed by others at different times, so sometimes the magic number really was four.4? My man there was like 7
Keep the Danes out of England. The Viking invasions swallowing up all the extant kingdoms except Wessex gave the West Saxon rulers both an opportunity to unify the southern half of the island (given that all their non-Viking rivals had just been wiped out) and a strong incentive to do so (the Vikings evidently posed an existential threat, so it's not hard to make the case that the survivors need to unify to resist them).
So, uh, somehow butterfly the Great Heathen Army and you should be set.
...four?I'm not familiar with this part of England's history. What can keep the Four Kingdoms apart?
Maybe that indeed is the key. Keep Wessex from annexing Sussex, Essex and Kent to prevent it becoming the most powerful of the four kingdoms....four?
So you screw Wessex perhaps by having Dublin/Scotland win BrunanburhMaybe that indeed is the key. Keep Wessex from annexing Sussex, Essex and Kent to prevent it becoming the most powerful of the four kingdoms.
I'm not familiar with this part of England's history. What can keep the Four Kingdoms apart?
Depends on when you do the count and what you consider a Kingdom. The 7th century Tribal Hidage counted over 30 separate "kingdoms" of varying sizes. Though most would have been tributaries of nearby major Kingdoms. It also excluded Northumbria, itself a very early 7th century fusion of two Kingdoms (Deira and Bernicia) that had absorbed lands from Celtic Kingdoms like Rheged.Wasn't there something like five or even seven Anglosaxon kigndoms?
Not sure if it is even possible since some onf them would eventually become strong enough to conquer other ones.
Make it Norse, those fens could be very defendable anchorage for a longship and ties to Scandanavia could bind it/make it more "foreign".East Anglia having a mass exodus, perhaps?
From that I could see Scotland taking one kingdom at a time through the centuries because Northumbria use to be all the why up to the Scottish lowlands and Edinburgh.I'm not familiar with this part of England's history. What can keep the Four Kingdoms apart?
That's after they've already been unified. Losing that battle would only delay it IMO, since strong Anglo-saxon kings would try to emmulate Aethelstan in his unification of the Anglo-saxonsSo you screw Wessex perhaps by having Dublin/Scotland win Brunanburh
The Great Heathen Army finds the English landscape and climate too similar to Scandinavia so they bypass the island and look at West Francia as a more desirable place to raid and eventually settle.Keep the Danes out of England. So, uh, somehow butterfly the Great Heathen Army and you should be set
IMO this is really the key. With only four, reasonably big, kingdoms being reasonably viable the area, almost inevitably IMO, entered a dynamic of shifting hegemony, with Northumbria, Mercia and Wessex all having their turn, and there is no reason per say East Anglia couldn't have had theirs at some point. Someone was bound to ''clinch it'' at some point...Strengthen the smaller kingdoms and break the bigger ones, maybe. Give Essex, Sussex, and Kent a bit more of an advantage somehow, keep Northumbria separated into Deira and Bernicia, prevent Mercia from taking Hwicce and Lindsey, have a stronger Cornwall keeping Wessex in check in the Southwest.
Maybe some Frankish influence. If say, Kent and Sussex get protection from Europe’s most powerful rulers, that’s going to make Wessex and Mercia think twice before meddling around in that area.
Something else could be Scotland, Powys, and Stracthclyde getting more involved, allying with some Anglo-Saxon rulers and against others, keeping them more divided via their regional allies, with no common enemy