Urien, King of Rheged/High King of the Britons circa 590 AD.

Urien was one of the many kings of northern Briton feuding over the remnants of a great British nation called Coel Hen (itself a remnant of an even greater Brigante nation preceding and surviving the roman occupation.

After spending 40 years squabbling with (proto) welshmen over the remnants of Coel Hen, Urien apparently had vision enough to foresee that if the lightning invasions of the Saxons and other easterlings (552 onwards) continued all of Briton would fall. With this in mind he in his late fifties dedicated his life to the slaying of Germans (particularly north Umbrian’s) and shockingly, proved to be quite adept at it. After several battles he had assembled a vast and varied Celtic army, the most impressive seen since the days of antiquity, made up of Britons from Strathclyde, Elmut, Bryneich and aided from the sea by the men of Ulster, (particularly impressive as this meant that they had sailed all the way around Scotland) as was expected these combined arms slaughtered and separated the combined Saxon-Bernicians set against them. It seemed that Urien was merely one battle away from destroying Saxon power in the north and marching against them in the south.





However this meteoric success in battle made him a target to many of the decedent royal families now living in his shadow. A failing contender to the title of High King of Briton (or possibly just High King of Coel Hen) Morgan Bolc decided that Urien was a threat to his desired position and had him assassinated.

The alliance assembled under Uriens dynamic rule ended, the Irish led by King Fiachna owed Morgan Bolc very little and had his own affairs to attend to and the other British kings contested Morgan’s foul move. For a time it seemed like Uriens son Owain would carry on his fathers legacy, however Morgan Bolc put an end to that threat as well before himself dieing in obscurity.

British power in the area was broken for 500 years before the territory fell into the homogeny of Breton nobles after 1066 and today very few of the occupants seem to feel particularly Celtic.

Much of the background is inspired at least thematically by [link] Candlel1ghts photographs of Scotland (Urien carried very little territory in Scotland and non of the Highlands but hey Candles photographs are awesome anyways, check them out.)

colored in an hour and one minute.

[link] B&W version