Anglia Isle

The Kingdom of Cymru took advantage of political unrest, following the creation of the new Queendoms, and invaded neighbouring West Mercia. The previous English armed forces had been decimated and West Mercia had not yet established its own army. As a result, the fledgling Queendom was no match for the Cymraeg forces. A Queendom for only six weeks, West Mercia had no choice but to surrender, becoming part of Cymru.

Aside from the Archmarcdom of the North – merged from Durham, Furness and Northumberland – the term Queendom was exclusively used, reflecting the continuing matriarchy of the new Second Age of Hycath that would continue for approximately three centuries.

Acorn Uprising and Beyond

The Second Age of Hycath culminated in a battle with the Olivers, originally a Founding Family of East Mercia. The Olivers’ forebears had been exiled from the Queendom early 4th Century YE for attempting a coup, eventually settling in Rochdale. The Olivers were at odds with the continuing matriarchal and matrilineal system under which the Anglia Isle operated. By this time they had designs on refashioning England as a single monarchy under their rule. To these ends, they murdered the Hycathic Queen Alviva of East Mercia and her only daughter and heir. This set in motion the chain of events that would lead to the Acorn Uprising and the final battle in YE 533. At this battle, Jonathan Fitzwalter – heir to the throne of East Mercia and Queen Alviva’s brother – and his wife Eleanor Loxley defeated the Olivers with the help of Cymru, Ripon and the Archmarcdom of The North.

A further punishment dealt upon the family brought more geopolitical changes to the Anglia Isle. Rochdale was disintegrated and swallowed up by East Mercia. East Mercia would expand further in the decades that followed and conquered the Queendoms of Ripon and Beverly and eventually managed to bring half of the original West Mercia territories under their banner. In the southwest, the Queendom of Wessex absorbed that of Penzance, the only Queendom left untouched in the South by the merger three centuries previously. A couple of decades later Wessex also absorbed what was left of Gloucester after Cymru and East Mercia conquered some of its territories. The number of countries was thus reduced from thirteen to seven.

Jonathan’s crowning as King of East Mercia ended the strict matriarchy of Hycath Ages past and ushered in a new Age of Equality where rulers were not subject to gender norms and discrimination. Over time, the countries of the Anglia Isle would interrogate the classification of Queendom, some choosing to retain it and others adopting different terms in accordance with their evolving national identities. This accounts for the spread of terminology in today’s countries.

The Change

The Great Torrent of YE 781 was so physically devastating to the Anglia Isle that major restructuring of its countries was needed to make up the shortfall. The heaviest land losses were observed along the eastern coastline of the Isle, with East Mercia and East Anglia severely reduced. The west was not spared, with Wessex somewhat depleted and Cymru losing small parcels of land land.

The Torrent had its most definitive effect on cities and towns, with many lost – Gloucester and London most notably. As such, it became unsustainable for countries to have multiple large settlements, and capital cities inevitably became the main residence of the surviving populations. As a result, countries were restructured around these cities, especially in the hardest-hit southeast, where a city-state of New London was founded to the west of the original site, and the State of Norbridge crystallised around the new city of Norbridge, a portmanteau replacement for the now-submerged Norwich and Cambridge.

The Torrent also left many former eastern territories as islands. The Archmarcdom of The North and East Mercia have kept their claim to those islands in their sphere of jurisdiction, whereas a series of island remnants of the former East Anglia seceded to form the Eastern Isles.

With the splitting of East Mercia into five sovereign countries, the total number of autonomous countries on the Anglia Isle was restored to it’s original number of eleven.