how did the British royalty become “ royal”. What started this 1000 years ago?

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how did the British royalty become “ royal”. What started this 1000 years ago?

In: 1643

30 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Nobility arose from the willingness to be violent in the pursuit of resources. The meanest and most violent of the bunch ended up royal because they killed anyone who stood in their way.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Nobility arose from the willingness to be violent in the pursuit of resources. The meanest and most violent of the bunch ended up royal because they killed anyone who stood in their way.

Anonymous 0 Comments

How any royals become royal. They got together with their mates and killed the previous royals, then claimed that God wanted them to be the royalty and that’s why they won.

Anonymous 0 Comments

How any royals become royal. They got together with their mates and killed the previous royals, then claimed that God wanted them to be the royalty and that’s why they won.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Hereditary rule is as old as humans it helps create stability. It’s just a hyper ritualised form of it.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Hereditary rule is as old as humans it helps create stability. It’s just a hyper ritualised form of it.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Some guy started wielding supreme executive power, because some watery tart threw a sword at him. I mean, if I ran around saying I was an emperor, just because some moistened bint lobbed a scimitar at me, *they’d put me away!*

Anonymous 0 Comments

Some guy started wielding supreme executive power, because some watery tart threw a sword at him. I mean, if I ran around saying I was an emperor, just because some moistened bint lobbed a scimitar at me, *they’d put me away!*

Anonymous 0 Comments

The idea of British royalty really started with the Romans.

Pre-Roman Britain was composed *more or less* three cultures. You had the Picts, the Goidelic, Brittonic cultures, and each culture had various tribes that lived that culture, and each tribe had varying levels of local power in their region. But all of them had very poorly developed, and therefore lacked a lot of things like institutions that would even allow a ruler to emerge.

Basically, the highest it went was a sort of “petty king”. If you think of a tribe as having a leader, and that leader is a chief. Maybe that chiefs son marries a neighbouring chiefs daughter, united the tribe. Well now you have a bigger tribe, and you can absorb other tribes around you more easily. Once you get sufficiently big, you can just coerce other tribes to pay a tithe to you, in return for things like… protection, access to their markets for trade. Suddenly, the chief has become a chief of many other chiefs. A sort of early “king”. But it’s not exactly a king as you’d imagine it, all regal and splendid etc.

That changed when the Romans came a long. Now *they* had the institutions to allow for big government… And the government of the day, was kings and emperors. Well, when emperor Claudius invaded Britain, it took him 45 years to crush most of the biggest opponents on the isle. Thus starting over 400 years of imperial rule in Britain, and changing the fabric of the country forever.

A lot of things change in 400 years, especially when you don’t have much of a culture to begin with. Britain was truly influenced by Roman culture. It had been built up by Rome, and exploited of course, but the institutions that were built were there to stay. When the Roman empire started to decline, the Roman ruling class left, and were replaced by locals essentially. Rome was busy getting its ass handed to it by various Germanic tribes. Britain was seen as a sitting duck for these attacks, so imperial rule escaped *real quick.* No Roman wanted to be stuck on an island about to be invaded by tribespeople that *hated* them. And invasion did indeed come. Germanic tribes settled in the East of what would be England. There were small civil wars in lands that can be summed up as pro-Roman vs anti-Roman.

Britain violently broke down and reverted back to their tribal identities. But this time, the people in power had the wealth, and manpower to better develop their claims. The fuzzy and often loose authority the previous tribes had held were no more. These were now certified kingdoms, and plenty of them. The difference is, that there is now a new kid in town, the Saxons. They came in large migration waves. Slowly absorbing Eastern English kingdoms. The transition took 100’s of years, but by about 570AD, Britons had lost control of about half of England and Wales to the Saxons.

This basically continued for another 500 years or so. Kingdoms vied for control, Vikings got involved, and a precedent of who owned what was heavily set across the isle. Inheritance was super important, because the inheritor theoretically had all the power… And of course, if they didn’t… Well, lets just say they wouldn’t last very long.

This is when William the Bastard comes into the picture. Arguably the most important King in British history. He was descendant from Vikings who invaded land in Northern France, and set up their own dynasty. The Normans were about as French as French Fries, but none-the-less, the land that was Normandy was owned by the Normandy family, who were vassals to the French King. William had a bit of a rocky time becoming Duke of Normandy, but once he was, he did pretty well in the role by all accounts.

So well in fact, that when childless king Edward of England died, he (apparently) nominated William Normandy as his heir, on account of William being the grandson of his maternal uncle (yeah, pretty suspiciously loose connection, eh?). So William was duke of a pretty sizeable land in northern France, has a small (but still legit) claim to England. The game really began when Harold was crowned king of England.

Basically, the coronation was surrounded by controversy. The pope said it was no bueno, there were *lots* of powerful claimants to the throne other than Harold, like Harold’s brother Tostig, and Harald Hardrada, king of Norway. Lots of people had claims for various reasons, William had relatively little claim. Attacks started on England, with the Norwegians doing small probing attacks on the East. William was preparing a sizeable naval invasion, banking on the fact that King Harold would stand down his army as the harvest began so the men could work the fields.

William seized his opportunity after Harold marched his army north to defeat Tostig. William attacked in the south, and won at the battle of Hastings, in which Harold was killed with an arrow through the ol’ peeper. William and his allies at the battle had won the day, killed the king, and then proceeded to march on London. While he was waiting for them to surrender, his forces were busy taking key cities along the coast. Eventually though, the sitting royal family submitted to William, and William had won the crown by the time tested “might is right” rule. i.e, submit to me, or I’ll kill you. Pretty convincing argument to a lot of people apparently.

William turned out to be a pretty effective king… Not *good…* I’d hesitate to say that any king was good, but he was good at being a king. He compiled a book called the Domesday book, which was basically a big, expensive, census that accurately documented everything he could tax in the country. His solid administration of his new kingdom is basically how it not only survived, but thrived. England was ruled by house Normandy for precisely… 2 generations… Henry I and Good Queen Maud gave birth to Empress Matilda, so England was now ruled by the Plantagenet dynasty. This carried on until the English civil war, which was House Lancaster vs House York. Lancaster won, and the Lancaster dynasty ruled until Henry VII married Elizabeth of York, creating the Tudor dynasty. And the Tudor dynasty continued right up until Queen Elizabeth 1, who died childless, so the crown passed to a *Scottish king* who formed the union of Scotland and England, creating modern Britain. He was from the Stuart dynasty. The Stuarts ruled until House Hanover, And house Hanover ruled until House “Saxe-Coburg and Gotha”, who changed their name to “Windsor” during World War 1 in order to sound “less German”. And 5 generations of that later, here we are with King Charles III.

That’s basically it.

TL;DR Bigger army diplomacy, owning all the land personally, and keeping it in the family does wonders for longevity. And it’s all thanks to what was essentially a “tech boost buff” Britons received from the Romans.

Edit: Saxe-Coburg and Gotha changed their name to Windsor in WWI, not WWII

Anonymous 0 Comments

The idea of British royalty really started with the Romans.

Pre-Roman Britain was composed *more or less* three cultures. You had the Picts, the Goidelic, Brittonic cultures, and each culture had various tribes that lived that culture, and each tribe had varying levels of local power in their region. But all of them had very poorly developed, and therefore lacked a lot of things like institutions that would even allow a ruler to emerge.

Basically, the highest it went was a sort of “petty king”. If you think of a tribe as having a leader, and that leader is a chief. Maybe that chiefs son marries a neighbouring chiefs daughter, united the tribe. Well now you have a bigger tribe, and you can absorb other tribes around you more easily. Once you get sufficiently big, you can just coerce other tribes to pay a tithe to you, in return for things like… protection, access to their markets for trade. Suddenly, the chief has become a chief of many other chiefs. A sort of early “king”. But it’s not exactly a king as you’d imagine it, all regal and splendid etc.

That changed when the Romans came a long. Now *they* had the institutions to allow for big government… And the government of the day, was kings and emperors. Well, when emperor Claudius invaded Britain, it took him 45 years to crush most of the biggest opponents on the isle. Thus starting over 400 years of imperial rule in Britain, and changing the fabric of the country forever.

A lot of things change in 400 years, especially when you don’t have much of a culture to begin with. Britain was truly influenced by Roman culture. It had been built up by Rome, and exploited of course, but the institutions that were built were there to stay. When the Roman empire started to decline, the Roman ruling class left, and were replaced by locals essentially. Rome was busy getting its ass handed to it by various Germanic tribes. Britain was seen as a sitting duck for these attacks, so imperial rule escaped *real quick.* No Roman wanted to be stuck on an island about to be invaded by tribespeople that *hated* them. And invasion did indeed come. Germanic tribes settled in the East of what would be England. There were small civil wars in lands that can be summed up as pro-Roman vs anti-Roman.

Britain violently broke down and reverted back to their tribal identities. But this time, the people in power had the wealth, and manpower to better develop their claims. The fuzzy and often loose authority the previous tribes had held were no more. These were now certified kingdoms, and plenty of them. The difference is, that there is now a new kid in town, the Saxons. They came in large migration waves. Slowly absorbing Eastern English kingdoms. The transition took 100’s of years, but by about 570AD, Britons had lost control of about half of England and Wales to the Saxons.

This basically continued for another 500 years or so. Kingdoms vied for control, Vikings got involved, and a precedent of who owned what was heavily set across the isle. Inheritance was super important, because the inheritor theoretically had all the power… And of course, if they didn’t… Well, lets just say they wouldn’t last very long.

This is when William the Bastard comes into the picture. Arguably the most important King in British history. He was descendant from Vikings who invaded land in Northern France, and set up their own dynasty. The Normans were about as French as French Fries, but none-the-less, the land that was Normandy was owned by the Normandy family, who were vassals to the French King. William had a bit of a rocky time becoming Duke of Normandy, but once he was, he did pretty well in the role by all accounts.

So well in fact, that when childless king Edward of England died, he (apparently) nominated William Normandy as his heir, on account of William being the grandson of his maternal uncle (yeah, pretty suspiciously loose connection, eh?). So William was duke of a pretty sizeable land in northern France, has a small (but still legit) claim to England. The game really began when Harold was crowned king of England.

Basically, the coronation was surrounded by controversy. The pope said it was no bueno, there were *lots* of powerful claimants to the throne other than Harold, like Harold’s brother Tostig, and Harald Hardrada, king of Norway. Lots of people had claims for various reasons, William had relatively little claim. Attacks started on England, with the Norwegians doing small probing attacks on the East. William was preparing a sizeable naval invasion, banking on the fact that King Harold would stand down his army as the harvest began so the men could work the fields.

William seized his opportunity after Harold marched his army north to defeat Tostig. William attacked in the south, and won at the battle of Hastings, in which Harold was killed with an arrow through the ol’ peeper. William and his allies at the battle had won the day, killed the king, and then proceeded to march on London. While he was waiting for them to surrender, his forces were busy taking key cities along the coast. Eventually though, the sitting royal family submitted to William, and William had won the crown by the time tested “might is right” rule. i.e, submit to me, or I’ll kill you. Pretty convincing argument to a lot of people apparently.

William turned out to be a pretty effective king… Not *good…* I’d hesitate to say that any king was good, but he was good at being a king. He compiled a book called the Domesday book, which was basically a big, expensive, census that accurately documented everything he could tax in the country. His solid administration of his new kingdom is basically how it not only survived, but thrived. England was ruled by house Normandy for precisely… 2 generations… Henry I and Good Queen Maud gave birth to Empress Matilda, so England was now ruled by the Plantagenet dynasty. This carried on until the English civil war, which was House Lancaster vs House York. Lancaster won, and the Lancaster dynasty ruled until Henry VII married Elizabeth of York, creating the Tudor dynasty. And the Tudor dynasty continued right up until Queen Elizabeth 1, who died childless, so the crown passed to a *Scottish king* who formed the union of Scotland and England, creating modern Britain. He was from the Stuart dynasty. The Stuarts ruled until House Hanover, And house Hanover ruled until House “Saxe-Coburg and Gotha”, who changed their name to “Windsor” during World War 1 in order to sound “less German”. And 5 generations of that later, here we are with King Charles III.

That’s basically it.

TL;DR Bigger army diplomacy, owning all the land personally, and keeping it in the family does wonders for longevity. And it’s all thanks to what was essentially a “tech boost buff” Britons received from the Romans.

Edit: Saxe-Coburg and Gotha changed their name to Windsor in WWI, not WWII