Sketch of English history

The course of English history before 1688 in outline

The main periods of English history (to 1714):

Roman Britain	Anglo-Saxon England
Medieval England	The Tudors
The Stuarts

Roman Britain

Julius Caesar	55 and 54 BC Julius Caesar led expeditions against the British
43 AD Under the Emperor Claudius, the Romans renewed their attacks on Britain. They conquered and occupied the southeast and later also annexed much of the north and west. Britannia was a province of the Roman Empire until the fifth century AD.	Claudius

Anglo-Saxon England

	c. 450-600 AD Most of England was settled by Angles, Saxons and Jutes. Cornwall, Wales and parts of Scotland remained inhabited by the native Celts. The fifth-century Celtic resistance to the Anglo-Saxon influx was possibly led by a real King Arthur - whose deeds were later much embroidered and exaggerated in legend.

The Anglo-Saxon invaders established a number of rival kingdoms, of which the most powerful were Mercia, Northumbria and Wessex. The borders between these kingdoms were continually disputed.
From 787 the Saxons were under frequent attack by Vikings (Norsemen from modern Denmark and Norway). The Vikings were eventually defeated by King Alfred of Wessex in 878 and 885-6, but retained control of much of the North and West of England - an area known as Danelagh or Danelaw. [The boundary was approximately that of Watling Street - colored red on the map].
Alfred's son, Edward the Elder, regained control of much of the Viking/Danish in central England areas by 924.