Kingdom of Angla
 | This article is a work-in-progress because it is incomplete and pending further input from an author. Note: The contents of this article are not considered canonical and may be inaccurate. Please comment on this article's talk page to share your input, comments and questions. |
| Kingdom of Ængla | |||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1278–1554 | |||||||||||||||
| Coat of arms | |||||||||||||||
| Location of Angla within the Holy Levantine Empire in 1545 | |||||||||||||||
| Status | Kingdom | ||||||||||||||
| Capital | Holchester | ||||||||||||||
| Common languages | Aenglish | ||||||||||||||
| Religion | Protestantism (from 1523), Catholic (to 1523) | ||||||||||||||
| Demonym(s) | Ænglish | ||||||||||||||
| Government | Monarchy | ||||||||||||||
| King | |||||||||||||||
| History | |||||||||||||||
| • | 1278 | ||||||||||||||
| • | 1554 | ||||||||||||||
| Currency | Taler | ||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
The Kingdom of Angla or Ængla was a dominion established in the 13th century following the elevation of the Margrave of the Ænglish March to the rank of King. From 1278, the Kingdom of Angla played an important role in the politics of the central Holy Levantine Empire, and it served as an important buffer between Urcea and the Kingdom of Dericania. Following King Godwin II's conversion of the Kingdom to Protestantism in 1523, the Kingdom's relationship with the Holy Levantine Empire became increasingly antagonistic before the Emperor of the Levantines waged war on the Kingdom in the Nordmontaine War. Following the destruction of the Kingdom and the subsequent Great Confessional War, its territory was dissolved into the constituent duchies of the Kingdom. The Duchy of Hollona was incorporated in the Kingdom of Dericania as well as duchies which became part of the Eastvale territories, Urcea, Kronenia, Orclenia, and several "free duchies". These "free duchies" would reunify to form Anglei in the 19th century.
History
See Also: Ænglish March
Ænglish people lived in the territory comprising the Kingdom of Angla at various points following the out-migration of Gothic people and collapse of Great Levantia, though the permanent settlement of the region by the ancestors of the Ænglish people occurred in the late 7th century. Recognizable Ænglish principalities followed in the collapse of the Latin League as Ænglish warlords and tribes began to settle in previously Latinic cities, ruling over Latinics and intermarrying with them. The area became loosely part of the Holy Levantine Empire under Conchobar I, Emperor of the Levantines and then part of the Eastern and Western Kingdoms of the Levantines beginning in 917. The later fall of the Western Kingdom lead to consistent Gothic incursions into the newly reformed Holy Levantine Empire beginning in 965; the non-Christianized Goths indiscriminately targeted border populations of the Empire, leading to decades of fighting between the Ænglish and Goths. In 1042, Emperor Leo II issued a Golden Bull reorganizing what would later become Angla into the Ænglish March in order to provide a firmer border defense for the Empire. The newly created March encompassed all lands settled by Ænglish people in addition to all other western border territories not part of Carolina. Duke of Holchester Edmund II Æthelsbert, previously a vassal of the Emperor under the Kingdom of Dericania, was elevated to Margrave of the Ænglish and given Imperial immediacy.
In 1278, the power and prestige of the expanded March was such that the Emperor of the Levantines elevated the Margrave of the Ænglish to royal dignity, creating the Kingdom of Angla, also sometimes referred to as "Anglia", "Ænglia", or "Ænglaland".
In 1464, the Ultmar Crusade was largely complete, creating the predecessor of modern Yonderre. The creation of this crusader state ended more than five centuries of the Ænglish serving as the western protectors of Christendom and the Holy Levantine Empire. With the Ænglish state's original raison d'etre now exhausted, the Kings of Angla began to increasingly turn to the internal affairs of the Holy Levantine Empire.
Religious upheaval and disagreement dominated Angla throughout much of the 15th and 16th centuries. The Kingdom was the site of a major civil war between orthodox Catholics and ultraquists from the 1460s onward. The lack of religious cohesion lead to the rise of other Catholic heresies throughout the Kingdom, creating an environment of considerable skepticism towards Catholic orthodoxy. Many novel Christian sects rose and were subsequently destroyed in the 1460s and 1470s. Although the Ultraquist War ended in 1478, the religious upheaval allowed proto-Protestants and, later, early Protestant reformers to make large converts among the Ænglish population. Consequently, the Kingdom was among the first realms to convert to Protestantism, as King Godwin II embraced it in 1523. By 1530, most modern scholars estimate a full sixty percent of Ænglish within the Kingdom were Protestant, though inter-Protestant disputes soon continued the century of religious disagreements and occasional violence that plagued the Kingdom.