United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, more commonly known simply as the United Kingdom, is a European sovereign state which includes the island of Great Britain, the northern part of Ireland, and many other small islands.

Before the United Kingdom was formed, Great Britain consisted of two sovereign states, the Kingdom of Scotland and the Kingdom of England, which united in 1707 to form Great Britain. Later still, the Kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland were merged in 1801 to create the United Kingdom, the current ruling body. The city of London had been established as the capital of England - and its successor states - since the Norman conquest of 1066.

Renaissance
"Henry VII of the House of Tudor rules England with unflinching power. Though England enjoys peace and stability under his command, he may soon become a victim of Templar manipulation."

- An Assassin's observation, 1503.

During the mid-Renaissance era, London was ruled by King Henry VII, and the Templars Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbeck made attempts to obtain the English throne for their Order. However, their plans were thwarted by King Henry, as he imprisoned Lambert, and had Perkin hanged.

In 1503, Ezio Auditore da Firenze, the Mentor of the Italian Assassins, sent a group of his Assassin recruits to London to aid King Henry, and eliminate any remaining power the Templars held in the country. After convincing him that they had similar interests, the Assassins were sent after Simnel and Warbeck's co-conspirator, Margaret of York, and in November of that year, they made sure she died a "natural death" by using a discreet poison.

Soon after, the other conspirators fled to smaller villages, and began to rally the civilians there to rise up against their king. The Assassins targeted only members of the Templar Order, and killed all but one. In exchange for his life, the Templar revealed that his Order had infiltrated King Henry's Star Chamber, the secret high court in the Palace of Westminster.

The apprentices quickly began a search for the infiltrators, and eventually tracked down a group of Englishmen signing documents for the Templar-affiliated Borgia family. As a reward for eliminating them, King Henry offered the Assassins a seat in the Star Chamber.

In 1553, Mary I became queen. She wished to restore England to Roman Catholicism, and in the process, she had almost 300 religious dissenters burned at the stake. The Assassins monitored her for a while before they finally assassinated her on the 17th of November in 1558.

After Mary, her half-sister Elizabeth I became the queen, and undid the damage that Mary had caused to England. During her reign, she had an Apple of Eden in her possession, and remained as Queen of England until her death in 1603.

Restoration era
"I am invited to England to receive my crown. I must prepare for my return. There are many things I must do once I am there. Many wrongs I must right!"

- Charles II, 1660.

In 1642, the English Civil War began between and the forces of the English Parliament led by Oliver Cromwell. King Charles eventually lost this war, and was beheaded on January 30, 1649. His son, the future King Charles II, attempted to regain power, but lost the war at the and fled to France.

During Charles' time in the Dutch Republic, Cromwell became Lord Protector, and was in charge of the country until Charles II was finally restored to the throne on 29 May 1660, with the help of General George Monck. At his crowning, King Charles noticed a man holding a sphere wrapped in a thick piece of cloth, who conversed with his General.

West Indies
The British Empire was utilized by the Templars as a way to exert their control over the New World. It was noted to have ruled over various parts of the Caribbean including Jamaica, the Bahamas and the Cayman Islands. Throughout the 17th and 18th century, this region experienced a rise in piracy, and as such the era became known as the Golden Age of Piracy. This was epitomized by a number of conflicts such as the declaration of a pirate republic in Nassau, resulting in a bloody conflict and the re-establishment of British control in the Bahamas. British poccessions in the west Caribbean dwindled during the 1960s' and 1970s' following the independence of Jamaica and the Bahamas. The Cayman Islands remains under British rule as a self-governing overseas territory.

Thirteen Colonies
During the 18th century, Britain ruled the Thirteen Colonies of North America. Following the costly French and Indian War, many British Americans grew disgruntled with taxation and lack of representation in Parliament. Following incidents such as the Boston Massacre and Boston Tea Party, the American Revolutionary War broke out and the colonies declared their independence. By 1783, the British Army lost the war and signed a peace treaty which resulted in the independence of the United States of America and marked the end of the First British Empire.

Modern times
In the late nineteenth century, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn was founded in London, led by William Robert Woodman, William Wynn Westcott, and Samuel Liddell Mathers. The organization was closely tied to the occult, which was frowned upon by the society, and was therefore forced to stay secret. However, due to tensions and a struggle for power, the Order soon started to decline, until it eventually fell apart.

A century later, the United Kingdom was involved in World War II, a Templar plot devised to create their New World Order. The Prime Minister at the time, Winston Churchill, was secretly a Templar puppet, and worked with the man that was supposed to be his greatest enemy, Adolf Hitler, in order to orchestrate the transfer of a Piece of Eden.

From 1979 to 1990, Margaret Thatcher held the position of Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and she too was manipulated by the Templar shadow-company Abstergo Industries. During her reign, she installed Boris Yeltsin, a fellow Templar, as Russia's new president.