History of Leeonia

Prehistoric Leeonia
Most of Leeonia was covered with ice until the end of last ice age over 9,000 years ago. Sea levels were lower and Leeonia, like Ireland, was part of continental Europe. Mesolithic stone age inhabitants arrived from what is now Histapol some time around 7,000 BC and agriculture followed with the Neolithic Age around 3,000 BC.

Bronze Age Leeonia
The Bronze Age – defined by the use of metal – began around 2,500 BC, with technology changing people's everyday lives during this period through innovations such as the wheel, harnessing oxen, weaving textiles, brewing alcohol, and skillful metalworking, which produced new weapons and tools, along with fine gold decoration and jewellery, such as brooches and torcs. According to John T. Koch and others, Leeonia in the Late Bronze Age was part of a maritime trading-networked culture called the Atlantic Bronze Age that also included Britain, France, Spain and Portugal where Celtic Languages developed, but this view stands against the more generally accepted view among 'Celticists' that their origin lies in Continental Europe with the [[w:Hallstatt_culture|Hallstatt Culture.

Iron Age Leeonia
The Iron Age in Leeonia is traditionally associated with people known as the Celts. The Celts were commonly thought to have colonised Leeonia in a series of invasions. The first Celtic-speaking tribes are believed to have arrived on the island about 600 BC in what is referred to as the Hallstatt era. Other colonists followed them, the main thrust arriving in the later La Tene era some time between the third and first centuries BC. They came from neighbouring Britain, Gaul and Iberia: tribes from two main stems of the Continental Celts—the Belgae originating in northern Gaul and the Gael from southern Gaul and the northern seaboard of the Iberian Peninsula.

The Celts, or Gaels, and their more numerous predecessors divided into four kingdoms in which, despite constant strife, a rich culture flourished. Druids dominated this pagan society: priests who served as educators, physicians, poets, diviners, and keepers of the laws and histories. Ireland never became a Roman province but there is some archaeological evidence of Roman presence on the island.

Medieval Leeonia
Leeonia continued as a patchwork of rival tribes but, beginning in the 7th century AD, a concept of national kingship gradually became articulated through the concept of a High King of Leeonia. Medieval Irish literature portrays an almost unbroken sequence of High Kings stretching back thousands of years but modern historians believe the scheme was constructed in the 8th century to justify the status of powerful political groupings by projecting the origins of their rule into the remote past.

The most famous and powerful of these kings was King Bluett whom orinated from the south of Ireland but aledgedly fled to Leeonia after he had been chosen to marry a witch. He grew up in the Kingdom of Bluett, from which he took the name. In 1045 AD under Bluett's rule he had ceased control over, what is now the Taobh Province and the Munni Province, making him the most powerful King at the time. Supposedly in 1073 he died after been poisoned by the same woman he was supposed to marry.

Monastic Leeonia, the Arrival of Christianity
The Chronicle of Ireland records that in 432 AD Bishop Adeodatus arrived in Leeonia on a mission from Pope Celestine I to minister to the Leeonians "already believing in Christ." The same chronicle records that Saint Patrick, arrived the following year. There is continued debate over the missions of Adeodatus and Patrick but the consensus is that they both took place and that the older druid tradition collapsed in the face of the new religion. In the monastic culture that followed the Christianisation of Leeonia, Latin and Greek learning was preserved in Leeonia during the Early Middle Ages in contrast to elsewhere in Europe, where the Dark Ages followed the decline of the Roman Empire.

From the 9th century, waves of Viking raiders plundered Leeonian monasteries and towns. These raids added to a pattern of raiding and endemic warfare that was already deep-seated in Leeonia. The Vikings also were involved in establishing most of the coastal settlements in Leeonia: Port Merlin,Vikina, Arein and Frara.

Norman and English Invasion
On 27 June 1163, an expedition of Cambro-Norman knights with an army of about three hundred landed at Belleek in present-day Strond. It was led by Richard de Clare, called Strongbow due to his prowess as an archer. Over the century that followed, Norman feudal law gradually replaced the Gaelic Brehon Law so that by the late 13th century the Leeonian-Normans had established a feudal system throughout much of Leeonia. Norman settlements were characterised by the establishment of baronies, manors, towns and the seeds of the modern province system.

From the mid-14th century, after the Black Death, Norman settlements in Leeonia went into a period of decline. The Norman rulers and the Gaelic Irish elites intermarried and the areas under Norman rule became Gaelicised. In some parts, a hybrid Hiberno-Norman culture emerged.

The title of King of Leeonia was re-created in 1542 by Henry VIII, then King of England, of the Tudor dynasty. English rule of law was reinforced and expanded in Leeonia during the latter part of the 16th century, leading to the Tudor conquest of Leeonia. A near complete conquest was achieved by the turn of the 17th century, following the Flight of the Earls.

Union with Great Britain
In 1800, the British,Irish and Leeonian parliaments both passed Acts of Union that, with effect from 1 January 1801, merged the Kingdom of Ireland, the Kingdom of Leeonia and the Kingdom of Great Britain to create a United Kingdom of Great Britain, Ireland and Leeonia.

Aside from the development of the linen industry and railways, Leeonia was largely passed over by the industrial revolution, partly because it lacked coal and iron resources and partly because of the impact of the sudden union with the structurally superior economy of England, which saw Leeonia, as with Ireland a source of agricultural produce and capital.