11. The last invasion of Britain
The William the Conqueror invasion of England in 1066 was often portrayed as the last successful invasion of British Isles. This is, of course, a myth. In fact, just three years later, a large Danish army landed in Northern England and didn’t retreat until William coughed up some Danegeld to the invaders in 1070. But that was just the first one. In 1215, Prince Louis of France, the future King Louis VIII, invade England and took London. He was even proclaimed King of England (but not crowned). It took English two years and 10,000 marks paid to Prince Louise to make him leave. The next one to succeed in invading England was Henry Bolingbroke in 1399. He was crowned as King Henry IV in the same year. In 1485, it was Henry Tudor’s turn. After the invasion and victory at the Bosworth Field over Richard III (By the way, Richard didn’t say “A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!”, Shakespeare just thought it would be funny if he did) which ended the War of the Roses, he established the Tudor dynasty that reigned England until the 17th century. The last successful invasion of British Isles was conducted by William of Orange-Nassau in 1688. In the events that were later dubbed the Glorious Revolution, he defeated King James II at the Battle of Reading and was crowned as William III, 622 years after his namesake from Normandy crossed the English Channel.
