England has always played the most powerful part in the history of the British Isles. However, the other three countries, Wales, Ireland and Scotland, have a different history. There were 3 Celtic Kingdoms.
Wales
By the eighth century most of the Celts had been driven into the Welsh peninsula. These Celts, called Welsh by the Anglo-Saxons, called themselves cymry, "fellow countrymen".
Because Wales is a mountainous country, the cymry could only live in the crowded valleys. The rest of the land was rocky and too poor for anything except keeping animals. For this reason the population remained small. It only grew to over half a million in the eighteenth century. Life was hard and so was the behaviour of the people. Slavery was common, as it had been all through Celtic Britain.
Society was based on family groupings, each of which owned one or more village or farm settlement. One by one in each group a strong leader made himself king.
The early kings travelled around their kingdoms to remind the people of their control.
Life was dangerous, treacherous and bloody.
In 1039 Gruffydd ap (son of) Llewelyn was the first Welsh high king strong enough to rule over all Wales. He was also the last, and in order to remain in control he spent almost the whole of his reign fighting his enemies. Like many other Welsh rulers, Gruffydd was killed by a cymry while defending Wales against the Saxons. Welsh kings after him were able to rule only after they had promised loyalty to
Edward the Confessor, king of England. The story of an independent and united
Wales was over almost as soon as it had begun.
Ireland
Ireland was never invaded by either the Romans or the Anglo-Saxons. It was a land of monasteries and had a flourishing Celtic culture.
Five kingdoms grew up in Ireland: Ulster in the north, Munster in the southwest, Leinster in the southeast, Connaught in the west, with Tara as the seat of the high kings of Ireland.
Christianity came to Ireland in about AD 430. The beginning of Ireland's history dates from that time. because for the first time there were people who could
write down events.
This period is often called Ireland's "golden age". Invaders were unknown and culture flowered. But it is also true that the five kingdoms were often at war, each trying to gain advantage over the other, often with great cruelty.
This "golden age" suddenly ended with the arrival of Viking raiders, who stole all that the monasteries had. Very little was left except the stone memorials that the Vikings could not carry away.
The Vikings, who traded with Constantinople (now Istanbul), Italy, and with central Russia, brought fresh economic and political action into Irish life.
Viking raids forced the Irish to unite. In 859 Ireland chose its first high king, but it was not an effective solution because of the quarrels that took place each time a new high king was chosen. Viking trade led to the first towns and ports. For the Celts, who had always lived in small settlements, these were revolutionary. Dublin, Ireland's future capital, was founded by the Vikings.
Scotland
As a result of its geography, Scotland has two different societies. In the centre of Scotland mountains stretch to the far north and across to the west, beyond which lie many islands. To the east and to the south the lowland hills
are gentler, and much of the countryside is like England, rich, welcoming and easy to farm.
Iona, the western Scottish island on which St Columba established his abbey or in AD 563 when he came to Ireland. From Iona Columba sent his missionaries to bring Christianity to the Scots. The present cathedral was built about 1500.
Scotland was populated by four separate groups of people. The main group, the Picts, lived mostly in the north and northeast. They spoke Celtic as well as another, probably older, language completely unconnected with any known language today, and they seem to have been the earliest inhabitants of the land.
The Picts were different from the Celts because they inherited their rights, their names and property from their mothers, not from their fathers.
The non-Pictish inhabitants were mainly Scots. The Scots were Celtic settlers who had started to move into the western Highlands from Ireland in the fourth century.
In 843 the Pictish and Scottish kingdoms were united under a Scottish king, who could also probably claim the Pictish throne through his mother, in this way obeying both Scottish and Pictish rules of kingship.
The third group were the Britons, who inhabited the Lowlands, and had been part of the Romano-British world. Finally, there were Angles from
Northumbria who had pushed northwards into the Scottish Lowlands.
Unity between Picts, Scots and Britons was achieved for several reasons common Celtic culture, language and background. Their economy
mainly depended on keeping animals. The common economic system increased their feeling of belonging to the same kind of society and the
feeling of difference from the agricultural Lowlands.
The spread of Celtic Christianity also helped to unite the people. The first
Christian mission to Scotland had come to southwest Scotland in about AD
400.
The Angles were very different from the Celts. They had arrived in Britain in family groups, but they soon began to accept authority from people outside their own family.
Although they kept some animals they spent more time growing crops. Land was distributed for farming by the local lord.
Finally, as in Ireland and in Wales, foreign invaders increased the speed of
political change. In order to resist them, Picts and Scots fought together against the enemy raiders and settlers. When they could not push them out of the islands and coastal areas, they had to deal with them politically.
However, as the Welsh had also discovered, the English were a greater danger than the Vikings. In 934 the Scots were seriously defeated by a Wessex army pushing northwards. The Scots decided to seek the friendship of the
English. England was obviously stronger than Scotland but, luckily for the Scots, both the north of England and Scotland were difficult to control from London. The Scots hoped that if they were reasonably peaceful the Saxons would leave
them alone.
Scotland remained a difficult country to rule even from its capital, Edinburgh. Anyone looking at a map of Scotland can immediately see that control of the Highlands and islands was a great problem. Travel was often
impossible in winter, and slow and difficult in summer. It was easy for a clan chief or noble to throw off the rule of the king.
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