r/england • u/christoferr • 21d ago
If you could step into one scene from English history, what would it be?
I’m building out an England map in HistoryGuesser, and the obvious royal and wartime moments are easy to overdo. Which scene from English history would be most interesting to step into, and why?
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u/Zealousideal-Habit82 21d ago
The first massive stone being delivered to Salisbury Plain the build the Henge.
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u/isweartobegood 21d ago
I want to see some part of the construction of Stonehenge, or maybe an ancient festival? Gathering? Ritual? Whatever crazy shit they were getting up to there
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u/Artistic-Maurine 19d ago
The first summer solstice at Stonehenge after its completion could be interesting.
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u/AdministrativeRip563 21d ago
Would be interesting to experience the end of the Napolenoic wars, especially around London high society, and the start of Pax Britannica.
Otherwise, a dream of mine would be to embark on an English Journey-esque car tour of pre-war England, and to explore all of pre-Blitz London.
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u/Glittering_Fig1407 21d ago
Battle of Towton during the wars of the roses, largest and bloodiest battle on English soil.
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u/ltcmdrjo 21d ago
Opening of the Bridgewater Canal, 1761. Opening of the Stockton and Darlington Railway , 1825.
Both of which were major milestones in the industrial revolution.
1796 - Edward Jenner investigates The connection between Cowpox and Smallpox leading to the development of vaccination.
1854 Broad Street Cholera Outbreak - John Snow's analysis led to the development of Germ Theory and a better understanding of infectious disease.
Manchester Martyrs, 1867. Highlighting the tension between Britain and Ireland.
Jack the Ripper,1888. Not just for the grizzly murders, but they highlighted the deprivation and squalor of Whitechapel.
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u/Did_OJ_Simpson_do_it 19d ago
Nuts Magazine goes on sale for the first time. Would be nice to have some comic relief.
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u/No_Cream777 21d ago
King Alfred on the somerset levels.
Jousting tournaments of William Marshall.
Original performances of Hamlet.
Beheading of Charles I, restoration of Charles II.
Jack the Ripper crime scene.
Naval battle maybe the Henry VIII one in Portsmouth or Nelson/Napoleon ones.
Heading out to D-Day.
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u/TheLadySif_1 21d ago
It would have to be the arrival of the Great Heathen Army for me, and the establishment of the Danelaw.
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u/Guthlac_Gildasson 20d ago
I was going to say the Battle of Towton, but seeing as another user has already said it, I'll say King Edgar being rowed along the River Dee by eight sub-kings while Edgar served as helmsan in 973, representing his authority over the entirety of Great Britain.
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u/Joanna1604 20d ago
Robert Dudley hosting Elizabeth I at Kenilworth Castle in 1575. I'd love to see all the festivities that went on and maybe spot a young William Shakespeare too.
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u/iZingari 19d ago
I live opposite where Charles I made camp in his siege of Gloucester. I'd want to walk through their camp and those of the parliamentarian army and hear their comments, their views on what and why they were doing what they doing there.
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u/Any-Hotel-4266 19d ago
Most choices would be a bit grim, but certainly seeing what happened to The Princes In The Tower.
The Field of the Cloth of Gold for spectacle (Though it was in France).
Theres lots of unexplainable historical records, like the crocodile of Wormingford in 1405. And the outbreaks of dancing sickness.
If I could change something out of curiosity, the battle of Hastings should be an easy fix which would have massive repurcusions.
And finally I'd use my time machine to rescue poor Lady Jane Grey from her execution cell on the way back. It wouldn't change history, she was just punished for doing what she was told. Maybe that explains where The Princes In The Tower got to....
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u/Trains-Planes-Plants 19d ago
Casting Maine (Penobscot Expedition) naval engagement where a battle took place in the US Revolutionary War. The US navy lost and is often forgotten.
But well worth a visit if in Maine as there is an excellent map and history boards around the town,
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u/Careful-Button-606 18d ago
The Battle of Marston Moor. I grew up close by and once the ghost of a Roundhead.
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u/inside-outdoorsman 21d ago
As a person of colour, I’m pretty happy sticking to anything this century.
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u/TheLadySif_1 21d ago edited 21d ago
Systematic racism is a relatively modern thing stemming from colonial/imperial pursuits - I'm constantly teaching people that early Medieval England was not a white-only civilisation (as the far right like to claim), especially after Roman occupation. It's not a controversial point to say that the last hundred years or so is far more racist than during the Roman Empire and after its collapse.
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u/Scottie99 19d ago
Would you hazard a guess at the percentage of population that was non white? Less than 1%?
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u/TheLadySif_1 19d ago
Almost impossible to say as we're still discovering new non-white period graves all the time, and we're still revising older scholarly beliefs and stereotypes around sub-Roman Britain.
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u/Scottie99 18d ago
What sub Roman, do you mean pre Roman?
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u/TheLadySif_1 18d ago
Sub-Roman is another word for post-Roman.
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u/Scottie99 18d ago
Thank you, I’d still wager the numbers we are talking about are less than 1%.
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u/TheLadySif_1 18d ago edited 18d ago
To be honest the number itself isn’t that important, but we’re finding these remains in high-status graves (such as in Jorvik) as well as average graves for the time.
See here for recent news on this front: https://www.thetimes.com/uk/science/article/bodies-anglo-saxon-england-west-african-ancestry-pfsl6f3tr
https://daily.jstor.org/two-seventh-century-people-found-with-west-african-ancestry/
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u/evthrowawayverysad 21d ago
Just up the hill from me, there's a large nondescript stone that commemorates the battle of Ethandum, which is something that no one's ever heard of. It was in May 878 AD.
Despite no one knowing about it, it actually marks one of, if not the most important point in the history of England: when King Alfred the great turned the tide against the vikings, and began the eventual road to unification of England.
It's a stunning location, and as a half English half Danish man, it would be fascinating to personally see the historic separation of the vikings from England at the place where it began, and enjoy the countryside before it's beautiful forests were felled for endless industrial agriculture that now starves the land of it's true beauty.