England Is 1099 Years Old Today, Maybe Anniversary Comics For 2027?

Posted in: Comics, Rebellion / 2000AD, Titan | Tagged: england, King Æthelstan, uk

England is 1099 years old today… might we get anniversary comic books for the 1100th anniversary next year?

Today, the 12th of July, is the 1099th anniversary of England. While some dispute the date or its significance, the 12th of July 927 was the moment England became a unified realm in its own right. In the early 10th century, the island of Britain was fragmented among Anglo-Saxon, Viking-controlled, and Celtic territories. King Alfred The Great was King of the West Saxons from 871 to 886, and of the Anglo-Saxons from 886 until his death in 899. It was his descendants, as the House of Wessex, who had been pushing back against Viking invasions and gradually expanding their influence.

The pivotal moment arrived in 927 when King Æthelstan, Alfred’s grandson and king of the Anglo-Saxons, convened a meeting at Eamont Bridge, then Eamotum, in Cumbria. On the 12th of July, rulers including Constantine II of Scotland, Hywel Dda of Deheubarth in Wales, Ealdred of Bamburgh, and Owain of the Cumbrians, accepted Æthelstan’s overlordship. This gathering effectively brought the last major Viking-held territory in Northumbria under southern control, allowing Æthelstan to style himself Rex Anglorum, or King of the English, or even Rex Totius Britanniae, King of all Britain, although a good chunk still wasn’t having that. For the first time, a single ruler exercised authority over a territory broadly corresponding to modern England. Historians widely regard this as the birth of England as a unified political entity. And while some details will be argued about what happened in the decades before and after, if you need a date, the 12th of July 927 is the most accepted one in recent years.

In 1927, however, no one seemed to care about the thousandth anniversary. Well, with the official renaming of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, after certain recent unpleasantnesses, it might have seemed a little ironic, and given the state of the Union, maybe a specific English celebration was not on the cards.

Anyway, back to 927 and King Æthelstan, an educated legislator and military tactition, bringing in new laws, coinage reforms to prop up confidence in the currency, and alliances with those within and without of the borders, laid the foundations for a cohesive English kingdom that would outlast him, and survive Norman and Plantagenet invasions, and civil wars, and allowed the Tudor lineage to found what would become the British Empire, and colonise the world, as King James VI/I unified England and Scotland into the United Kingdom that followed and (mostly) remains.

But that July 12th, 927, is the big date to be pretty much ignored today, but maybe next year something bigger for an anniversary year with two, if not three, zeroes on the end? Followed in twenty years from now for the 100th anniversary of 1066? And looking at how American comic books went all in their meagre 250th anniversary, should British comics take heart and start planning a similar approach? 2000 AD, Phoenix, Beano, Titan, Viz, I am looking at you. Can we have 1100th-anniversary comic book specials for England at this time next year? Or am I going to have to publish my own? 2000 AD could give us a 927 AD special, Viz could give us Stan The Wessexisty, Titan could publish King Conan Vs King Æthelstan, and The Beano could delight us with the Watling Street Kids. While Panini UK, with the Marvel license, could give us Æthelstan Lee Presents…

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