The Empire Of Britannia
"Deus Vult." National Motto
Kingdom Colors: White and Red
King and Queen: 
Emperor Harold
The Tomb of Empress Juliana
What the Kingdom is Known For: Riches and fortune, Centuries of bloody history, an extremely long lived royal family, 'The Kingdom of Heaven'
Kingdom History: The Empire of Britannia is a long standing empire that spans vast tracts of land. Theirs is a proud history, filled with military conquests and defences against the odds, littered with great heroes such as Ealdwulf the Hammer ("Protector of the Faith", the monarch responsible for many of the initial holy wars against the Caliphates in the middle east, Ealdwulf had a remarkable record considering the muslim rulers typically had more soldiers than he did.) Harold the Conqueror ("Lord of the Three Empires", the first British King to claim land in India. Despite the title, Harold did not really conquer much territory when compared to other kings) and Catheryn the Wise (The queen who outwitted the Byzantine Emperor and put the final nail in the coffin of the Byzantine Empire, managed to end the near constant stream of rebellions within Arabia. Despite this, she is probably best known for a folk story of her winning a theological argument with the Pope in order to secure her daughter a divorce from an abusive Polish duke, a story which became immortalised in British folktales.)
How the Drakewine family came to the throne involves a political alliance between two houses and a bloody struggle for the throne in the wake of the Norman's unsuccessful invasion in 1066. Suffice it to say that the Drakewine family was on the throne by 1072.
The Empire has its origins in the crusades of the late 1000's, when the English joined Pope Innocent VII crusade to reclaim Jerusalem. For their efforts in the crusades, the English monarchy was rewarded with the Crown of Jerusalem. The English, however, must have half wished they had never received it; Almost annually, the muslim caliphs called Jihads against the occupying English, forces vast amounts to be spent on maintenance of the holy land. The English may have been pushed out entirely were it not for a second crusade; The Seljuk had seized Anatolia from the Byzantines, and the Christian world was once again up in arms. Once more, the English were rewarded greatly for their efforts, earning the crown of Anatolia. With their powerbase in the east effectively doubled, the English began a series of holy wars against the Muslims. Over the course of 180 years, the Islamic nations would be slowly pushed out of the middle east as the English and later the British expanded their eastern holdings into a full fledged Empire.
The Empire of Britannia its self formed in the 1100's. The English had seized control of Scotland and Wales and officially formed the empire. With a few well placed bribes, the majority of the Irish lords swore allegiance. Only Connacht resisted all efforts. In 1103, it would be invaded and seized by the British; The count was deposed and the second son of a duke from England was installed in his place.
By 1250, the British controlled an immense volume of land; The Byzantines had slowly been whittled down by the British and their Croatian allies until the British had finally seized total control in 1213. The Islamic middle east was slowly but surely giving way to Catholicism. The Seljuk and Fatimid were all but destroyed following the final major holy wars in 1233 and 1239 respectively. In 1242, the college of cardinals was over half British, though by 1261 the British presence in the college of Cardinals had shrunk dramatically. The British crossed blades with almost every neighbouring nation at some point during this period.
The years 1267-1294 were very calm by comparison; The ruler, Ealdulf, was a far less ambitious man than his predecessors and was more than content with what he had. It was only once his grandson ascended to the throne in 1294 that British expansion was again a reality; It was in this period of time that the British began to acquire sections of India; Most of these were only held for a few years at a time, though Punjab was taken by British forces in 1301 and remains held to this very day.
From the years 1337-1363 the Empire entered a period of decline under Henry IV, a controversial monarch who was completely unsuited to the burdens of leadership. He rarely made public appearances and he was generally a weak willed man who was easily manipulated by the nobles on his court. Slowly but surely, the selfish machinations of the nobility eroded away the integrity of the empire, and by Henry's death it had fractured into many parts. The French and Iberian holdings began to break away and the Scandinavian holdings were assaulted by the Norge. Though the French lands were eventually brought back under control and Britannia retained control of some of northern Spain, it's Western European powerbase was greatly diminished.
Henry's son, Richard II, was likewise a poor ruler. The new king, however, caught pneumonia two years into his reign and died. Had Richard continued to rule, many believe the Empire would have declined further still. Whatever the case, fourteen year old queen Edith inherited a nightmarish scenario when she came to the throne. By the time of her death some five decades later, the Empire had been mostly reunited; The remaining two independent duchies would be absorbed back into the empire around the year 1426
The colonialism that arose after this time proved to be a relatively lucrative venture for the Empire; Britannia spread its flags across the indian ocean and established a vast colonial empire in Indonesia, Australia and later East Africa. Though any major territories in the Americas have long since vanished, with the only remnants of the colonialism being a handful of islands in the Bahamas, the expansion eastwards has been more permanent, with Britannia retaining control over Australia by proxy (It is technically its own independent Kingdom, but its monarchs are from a cadet branch of the Drakewine family and typically acquiesce to their demands) and from there exercising considerably influence over the surrounding islands. Their abandonment of their most unprofitable African colonies during the late 19th century inadvertently sparked a period of decolonisation as colonised peoples realised that they could force out their colonial overlords through passive resistance; Before long, the British terminated the last of their colonies in Africa and instead focussed on the prosperity of their territories further to the east.
In the modern day, the Empire is a titanic first world county; Its vast supplies of oil have made it immensely rich. The nation broken down into many different administrative districts along ancient county and ducal lines, in an attempt to manage its vast size and population. This was an ongoing process over many decades; Earlier attempts at breaking the empire down into more manageable chunks created several de jure independent kingdoms such as the Kingdom of Australia, for all intents and purposes puppets of the Crown. With the advent of the internet and near instant communication, the empire has become far more manageable and efficient, a far cry from its 19th century counter part which was characterised by common breakdowns of communication (A common joke claimed that entire countries were lost during filing); though said problem has been fixed, it nonetheless caused considerable damaged the prestige of the nation and even now its commonly brought up to disparage the British.
The nation in the modern day is an economic power house. Its politics are generally left wing, however there is a small but very vocal far right group known as the Britannic Union Party who have become increasingly prominent in recent years, particularly following the increasing secularisation of the British government and monarchy which many conservatives feel to be a shift away from the roots of "The Kingdom of Heaven".
The Current Monarch of the nation is His Imperial Majesty Harold IV of House Drakewine.
Notes: King Harold's picture is Ian McKellen in King Lear. The effigy is of Queen Berengaria
