The Incredible Union: An Anglo-Saxon UK

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“Glory, glory to the Union,
Glory to a realm of noble men!
For the darkest foes rout,
When emerges Bryten’s shout,
Glory, glory to the Union!”
No ceremony may ever overtake 1698’s proclamation of the Union for sheer opulence. Housed in the setting of the cavernous Palace of the Angels in the heart of Lynden, every nobleman and noble family was crammed in. But, as one remarked, it was not for the coronation of a King but for a new nation. Indeed the king, Ian V, was watching silently from the side amongst his thegns as though he were just another member of the nobility. And really, he was now. Instead, the Archbishop of Canterbury was delivering holy rites to a man who had been born from peasants. Osborne MacÓgán was an odd man, one who never felt as though he belonged where he did. Many agreed with him. Many of his own colleagues had trouble understanding his gruff Dundalk accent but he must have had some ability to communicate because he’d risen to command the Royal Army, a beneficiary of Ian IV’s liberalisation of the promotion system depending promotion on ability, and then been thrust into the Witanegamot. It was ironic that MacÓgán, who was only there because of royal actions against the nobility, had gotten to his supreme position thanks to the very nobles antagonised by this.

The Kingdom of Bryten, barely a century old after the Union of the Isles, was dead. So too was half a millennium of struggle between the monarchy and the Witan for supremacy. Put simply, the King had lost. Ian V had fallen to his knees in tears when he learned he was expected to abandon his Lynden properties and call the vast, cold castle at Wyndser his home. Lynden was the Witan’s now. The King, an avid student of history, had thankfully learned the lessons of the War of the Menace and not pushed his Witan too far. For it was not his Witan anymore. The Duarchy which had governed the realm since Æriht was gone, and without a drop of blood being shed the Witan had ensured that Bryten was to be a republic in all but name. Not that the nation’s name itself wouldn’t be altered to reflect the new scenario. The Kingdom became the Union of Bryten, representing the marriage not just of the nations of Angland, Scotland, and Eire but also the fusion of Bryten to its new settlement. Certainly, there were concessions. The King retained the right of veto on Witan legislation, but on the knowledge that to do so almost certainly meant overthrow by the efficient, professional army his father “had been foolish enough to create.”

For many, Osborne MacÓgán was more of a king than Ian V could ever be. While Ian was a prisoner during the Domination, MacÓgán was leading the Royal Army in Northumbria. Outnumbered and outmatched by the occupying French and Castilian armies, the restoration of Catholicism seemed certain. Then came the impossible victory in the misty moorland at Stannersburn and MacÓgán was within just three months leading his men to a final crushing win on the Kent coast which elevated him to the level of Harold the Great and his victories at Stamford Bridge and Hastings. Bryten owed its freedom from the Pope’s holy armies to him. So if Ian V thought he could reassert royal power after inviting the foreign coalition onto Brytish shores, only for them to betray and imprison him, and then pretend to be a victim after his rescue, he was delusional. The Witan thought so too. So it was that the direct descendant of the greatest figures of Brytish and Anglish history was shunted unceremoniously aside in favour of this Irish peasant. It was the rise of the nobody. Osborne MacÓgán was to be the first Elderman of Bryten; “the great servant.” The lavish ceremony concluded with a ritual which became perhaps Bryten’s most sacred, when Ian V himself spontaneously approached the new Elderman. Guards reached for the handles of their swords. Then, looking up at the elevated Irishman, the King bowed. Some observers fainted. But this willing transfer of power, effectively offering to the Witan the authority ordained by God himself, set in stone that Bryten was never going to stop being perhaps the most unique nation in all of Europe. Soon she would be even more than that.
 
Okay, this has my interest! Very interested beginning, to say the least - I love when a timeline starts a while after the POD and the author then goes back to fill in the pieces.
 
Okay, this has my interest! Very interested beginning, to say the least - I love when a timeline starts a while after the POD and the author then goes back to fill in the pieces.
Seconded especially as the King is called Ian (and there have been five of them!).
 
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