The Years of Expansion
The year 1350 BC saw the founding of Warwick in the middle reaches of the Coventry River.  Further colonists were dispatched from London to the mouth of the Coventry, passing Visigoth envoys who came to offer tribute in the form of an advanced government: The Republic.  The Blessed King William, not feeling the need for representative government just then, thanked them politely, then proceeded to forget the idea.
 
By 1200 BC, England was growing by leaps and bounds.  Newcastle was founded to the north of London, and Oxford was founded at the mouth of the Coventry River soon after.  On the diplomatic front, Caesar of the Romans was persuaded to give up his maps of the world for a small amount of gold, and a minor emergency was declared when the Blessed King William was unable to stop laughing and almost died[1].  Soon after, techniques for riding horses were developed, although they would be of limited use since there appeared to be a complete lack of the beasts near England.  It was generally agreed that England had entered a grand new age in her development.
 
In 1175, Iroquois warriors were spotted near Oxford.  Their leader was a half-naked savage named Hiawatha, and they appeared to have an unhealthy preference for the color purple.  Despite being a savage, however, this Hiawatha ruled over the most advanced, richest civilization yet contacted by the English.  For the gift of Polytheism to his backwards culture, Hiawatha offered his maps and the entire contents of his treasury, 100 sacks of gold.  These maps revealed a middling civilization, far less than the might of the English, but in what appeared to be a fertile spot.  What's more, these Iroquois had an abundance of horses, though they appeared to not understand their uses.

Iroquois Lands, 1175 BC:

By 1050, Leeds, Liverpool, and Brighton had been founded, and expansion continued at a rapid pace.  The people of Leeds were saved from a vicious sacking by nearby barbarians when a lowly Aztec jaguar warrior intercepted the barbarians and turned them back.  The Blessed William ordered that a note of thanks be sent to Montezuma for this deed.
 
900 saw an encounter with a civilization to the southwest of England, who called themselves the Japanese, and used a color like that of dried blood.  Their leader, one Tokugawa, appeared to be a most violent-looking man.  His lands were mid-sized, and, like all others in the lands, was backwards almost beyond belief[2].

Japanese Lands, 900 BC:

In 570, progress on great Pyramids in London was disrupted when word came of a similar project being completed in Paris.  The Blessed William swore, then ordered the project be changed to the Chichen Itza, instead.  Meanwhile, great road building and settling projects occupied the English, as well as the building of large temples to the Voice.  These projects continued for hundreds of years, during which almost nothing of note happened, except the foundation of a number of cities and the completion of many temples[3].  Finally, in 310 BC, the Chichen Itza was completed in London.  Converted from the half-finished Pyramids, the Chichen Itza was a great temple to the Voice, which blessed the new temple by handing down a new code of laws to the Blessed William, who ordered great pillars erected across the length and breadth of England with these new laws carved into them[4].
 
In 1 AD, a prophet arose in Rome named Julius Caesar.  Given that the name of the ruler of the Romans was also Julius Caesar, this proved to be a very unwise career move for Julius (the prophet) since Julius (the ruler) decreed that all persons bearing the royal name were to be executed, which disturbed Julius (the prophet) to no end, because unlike many prophets, this one had no intention of being killed in some highly unpleasant way, and so Julius (the prophet) fled to England, hotly pursued by the troops of Julius (the ruler).  Rather liking the idea of having a pet religious figure, the Blessed William sent Julius (the prophet) off to Nottingham and told Julius (the ruler) to piss off.  Since England was about ten times the size of all of Rome, Julius (the ruler) did indeed piss off, whereupon Julius (the prophet), greatly relieved, set about prophesizing great things about the Blessed William.  Thus it was that the Hanging Gardens were built in Nottingham in 10AD, since Julius (the prophet) rather missed the stinking, pest-filled jungles of his Roman homeland and refused, for some inexplicable reason, to go move to Portsmouth or some other English city with its own stinking, pest-filled jungles.  Somewhere in the intervening nine years, Julius (the prophet) came up with a new calendar, based on his flight from Julius (the ruler).  For some reason or another, everyone in the world immediately loved this new calendar, possibly because of the rumors that the abbreviation "AD" stood for "After Disco."  Despite the fact that disco hadn't been invented yet, the people were greatly relieved by this revelation that the age of disco had ended before it even started, and thus it was that England acquired both a calendar and a great wonder of the world.
 
In 30 AD, all England became riveted on the small town of Bath in the south, where a massive uprising by barbarians was stopped by brave English spearmen after the barbarian horsemen got roaring drunk and decided to ride across the river and attack.  Unfortunately for them, being drunk as they were, most fell off their horses and drowned in the river, and the remnants were dispatched with great ease by the defenders.
[1] - The Mighty Roman Empire: <snicker>


[2] - Thank you, goody huts.
[3] - Oh, and researching Engineering at minimum science rate.
[4] - If you'll remember, CI gives courthouses in all cities.

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