[hider= The Empire of Britannia] 
[center][img]http://i.imgur.com/GN54iwM.jpg[/img]
[h1][color=red]The Empire Of Britannia[/color][/h1] 
[sub][i]"Our Crusader Kingdom is belov'd of God. A proud boast but true all the same."[/i][b]Harold Drakewine[/b][/sub][/center]

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's 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 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.)

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 to the new Britannian Crown, bought and sold for English gold. 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 of Asia Minor and the western coastlands of the black sea in 1213, bringing the British border to that of Lustania. The Islamic world 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. 
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 British Isles themselves, however, were not reclaimed and remained under the Celtic consortium. The truth about the ultimate British loss was, not entirely incongruent with the praise the Celts lump on their historic leader, that the power of the lord's had become centralised in the middle east by necessity. The British king spent much of he life away from Britain, ruling indirectly through some dubiously loyal and mostly self interested vassals at the best of times. Ironically by the time these vassals realised that the rebellion posed a greater threat to them than an opportunity, they were sent packing. The Emperor was furious and ensured they held no power ever again... Worse yet, the lack of finance at this time caused by the reunification of the Empire precluded any expensive overseas war voyage or crusade.
The colonialism that arose after this time proved to be a relatively lucrative venture for the Empire and may have prevented a second attempt at retaking the island; the world was changing rapidly and Britannia flowed with the tides. Britannia spread its flags across the indian ocean and established a vast colonial empire in Indonesia, Australia and later Africa and through to the Americas. 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 considerable 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 West Africa, maintaining control only over part of eastern Africa and focusing their attention away from Africa and to its more profitable eastern holdings.
In the modern day, the Empire is a titanic first world county; Its vast supplies of oil, trade links with the Indians and mercantile dominance of the Indian ocean 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 the proposed drafting of an official constitution which some on the right feared could mean the end of monarchy.
The Current Monarch of the nation is His Imperial Majesty Harold IV of House Drakewine, Emperor of Britannia, (titualar) King of England, King of Jerusalem, Syria and Arabia, (titular) Duke of Mercia and York, Duke of Jerusalem and Damascus, King of Kings (among other honourary titles...)
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[hider= Edwin of Britannia]
 [center][h2][color=red] Prince Edwin of Britannia [/color][/h2]
[img]http://sharpefilm.net/cast%20images/lyndon%20davies.jpg[/img]
[sub][i]"Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all."[/i][b]Alfred Tennyson[/b][/sub][/center]

[indent] Edwin Harold Drakewine[/indent]

[b][u]Nickname:[/u][/b] Ed

[b][u]Birth date and age:[/u][/b] 26 April (17)

[b][u]Sexuality:[/u][/b] Heterosexual

[b][u]In Depth Appearance:[/u][/b]
Edwin stands at a 6', slightly shorter than his 6'1 father; He is not exceptionally strong though he is physically fit, courtesy of his training with the household guard, as is tradition for the heir. He has inherited the typical brown hair and eyes of the Drakewine family. His hair refused to be made neat and by this point he has pretty much given up on ever taming it, much to his fathers chagrin. Outside of occasions, he typically dresses 'smart casual', never dressing too casually. On special occasions however, such as when away on important affairs, he wears full military dress as is customary for male members of royal family, who typically have positions within the military. The bright colours of his uniform stand in stark contrast to his usually dull clothing and he has a strong air of authority around him on these occasions. 
He has a deep scar along the back of his right hand that was caused by an accident while learning to ride a bike as a child, and has a small scar along his right shoulder which was caused by a fencing accident. 

[b][u]Personality:[/u][/b]
[center][u]• Curious • Stubborn • Intellectual • Ambitious • [/u][/center]

Edwin is a scholarly man, as is the tradition of the British Emperor. He frequently visits the Imperial Library which spans many texts, with thousands of gigabytes worth of electronic documents filed. He has spent excessive amounts of time in this place, enjoying books and reading more than most.
Edwin was raised as a "true emperor of Britain", taught not to give in to the demands of others. Edwin has taken this somewhat to heart; He typically stands his ground firmly in arguments and negotiations. He is willing to concede defeat should his point be proven wrong in debate and is willing to forge agreements if need be, but typically he doesn't budge.
He is motivated primarily by his desire to be a great leader; Britannia has a very impressive history with many stand out Emperors and Empresses... And like any great nation, it also has a lot of mostly forgotten rulers. Edwin would far prefer to be the former.
Beneath this apparent confidence however, lies a fearful teenager. He is almost self loathing, thinking of himself as being incompetent and weak. This doubt drives him to overcompensate at everything his does; nothing he does is ever good enough, it always fall short of what he was aiming for. Truth be told, even when he achieves a goal, he always finds something wrong with the way he did it.

[b][u]Likes:[/u][/b]
[list][*] Books
[*] Order
[*] History
[*] Drawing
[*] Outsmarting or impressing other people
[*] Puzzles
[*] Politics
[/list]

[b][u]Dislikes:[/u][/b]
[list][*] Alcohol
[*] Priests 
[*] Cowards 
[*] The Britannic Union Party
[*] The Press
[*] Disorder
[/list]

[b][u]Fears:[/u][/b]
[list][*] Being publically humiliated
[*] Death
[*] Heights
[*] Failing at his duty as the future emperor
[*] Being forgotten
[*] Causing the death of someone he cares about [/list]

[b][u]Biography:[/u][/b] Heir to the throne of Britannia, the 'Kingdom of Heaven', Edwin's training began practically from the day he was born. His childhood was dominated by his royal status; Order and structure were the name of the game, the schedule being very much the same for the majority of his childhood. What free time he did have was often spent with the same few people, palace life being what it was. 
His father was kept away by the demands of running the monolithic empire its self and his mother had died giving birth to his sister when he was only 6. It was inevitable that the boy would find a parental figure in his tutors, namely one Richard Gibbs. Richard was the captain of His Majesty's Household Guard, but doubled as the boys tutor for politics. It was Richard who gave Edwin the confidence he lacked, who taught him how to hold his own in an argument, who actually taught him about the value of responsibility rather than simply commanding him to take it, and showed the world to him.
Shortly before his 16th Birthday, Edwin started a relationship with a middle class girl he had met while spending the night out in the city. Initially, Edwin and Sara's relationship was tolerated by the royal family; Edwin had several short relationship with noble girls by this point and his father assumed that his interest would quickly wane within a few months as was typical for his age. The relationship appeared to be far more stable than any of his previous ones, however, as he had matured quickly as he had approached his coming of age (Ironically due to King Harold's own command to Richard to teach the boy to be more responsible), and as Sara and Edwin's relationship became public knowledge, opinion began to turn on her, seeing her as a social climber due to her lack of noble lineage. Their relationship was quickly broken up by Edwin's father and the two were forbidden from meeting. Naturally, this did little but increase their desire to see each other and the two began to meet in secret, often just outside the castle grounds. Richard humoured Edwin for a while, figuring it best to let the relationship run its natural course and end.
After less than a month had passed, however, the press managed to pick up on the secret relationship and once again there was public outrage about the relationship with a commoner. Sara's family had already been significantly affected by the power of public opinion and on May 11th, Sara reluctantly ended the relationship for the final time. On May 14th, a pair of right wing extremists broke into the family house and killed the entire family; Both daughters, the son, the mother and the father.
Overnight, public opinion did a u-turn. The King declared a period of mourning and initiated a manhunt for the extremists responsible upon there arrest had them prosecuted swiftly. They were sentenced to life imprisonment and are currently held in an undisclosed location. 
Edwin was guilt stricken and inconsolable, blaming himself for Sara's death. It was the first time the cold hard reality of having ones life be almost entirely public truly hit him; He had known it would cause problems to be sure, but he never knew that it could have such severe consequences. He locked himself in his room and remained in there for three days before Richard finally convinced him to come back out to attend the funeral. He became something of a recluse, fearful of forming connections with others in order to protect himself from losing people. To this day he blames himself for the deaths of the family and is excessively cautious with his movements, distrusting the press above all else. Less than a few months after this tragic event, Edwin's father began to search for a potential betrothal for his son, entering talks with several prominent families within and without the kingdom. Edwin was understandably furious and left the palace entirely for two weeks before his sister convinced him to return and speak to his father. After a long conversation, Edwin finally agreed to go through with the plan.


Theme Song: 
[url=https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=F9hagVL-__c] Way to Fall - Starsailor [/url]
[sub][i] Son
You'd better take it all
They'll tell you what is yours
But they'll take mine
[/i][/sub]

[center][sub][i]"Do I feel good about this meeting? No, I don't. Its not just nerves either. Its very complicated; I half feel like I am doing something wrong, to be honest." [/i][b]Prince Edwin Drakewine[/b][/sub][/center]
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