Think your 'Harry is Merlin's spawn, Arthur's brother and God Almighty's personal butler' stories are good? Try my 'Abbreviated History of How Harry Potter is the Descendent of Arthur, Charlemagne, William the Conquerer, Sweyn Forkbeard, Some Random Doge of Venice, Some Random Flemish Count, the Earl of Oxford, Tsar Nicholas and therefore probably Ivan the Terrible... I haven't researched it... Let me know if I forget anyone...
The line of the Most Ancient and Most Noble House of Potter started with a Roman cavalryman, Lucius Artorius Castus, Arthur the Potter, named for his skill moulding the clay of the land into art. Once Legatus Legionis of the Sixth Legion, he had remained in Britain after the exit of Roman forces from the country, fighting against incursions by the Angles, the Saxes and the Jutes. Marrying the daughter of a Briton Clan Chieftain, his line continued until the Angles and the Saxes joined forces as the Anglo-Saxons.
The Saxon kings relied greatly on House of Potter for military power, with them serving most often as Huscarls to the King, until Aethelred Unræd 'the Unready' sat on the throne. Mistrusted by many nobles who stood alongside the Potters, he was swiftly deposed from the crown in 1014 and replaced by the Danish King Sweyn Forkbeard.
Wulfric Potter was head of the family and a minor earl at the time, though with a large number of allies due to his descent from Aelfwynn of Mercia, last Queen of Mercia and his grandmother. Having effectively brought Sweyn Forkbeard to the throne, he arranged the marriage of his son Dunstan, who was yet to reach his teens, to the similarly aged Kaja, the youngest, near-forgotten daughter of Sweyn Forkbeard and his wife, the Princess Gunhild of Wenden. Though her name was to be lost to the mists of history, it was around this time that the family came to true power. Allied with Sweyn for the length of short reign, Wulfric's betrothal of his son and the princess brought great lands and a significant dowry to see to the good keeping of the Princess Kaja.
However, when Sweyn died within five weeks of taking the throne, Wulfric Potter arranged, in return for great swathes of land and monetary gifts, to restore Aethelred, returning him from exile in Normandy. Despite the mutual mistrust, the reinstitution of the House of Wessex was in Wulfric's favour as he organised a pact between the king and the allied noblemen of mutual loyalty, a mere five weeks were needed to take the Potters from an ancient family of old to the height of political and military power.
Then, in 1016, Aethelred died and his son was swiftly fought into submission by Sweyn's son Cnut, who regarded the Potters as great allies, who had failed to assist Edmund Ironside in battle, preferring to side with the Danes. Then, in 1041, with Dunstan Potter and his wife Kaja as heads of the family, Harthacnut, King of England took ill with no heir to the throne apparant.
At the instigation of Dunstan Potter, now Earl of Ravenscroft, Harthacnut met on neutral land with Edward of Wessex, a Saxon noble in exile who had the highest claim to the throne. Taking place before the Potters and all the Thegns of England, Harthacnut adopted Edward as his brother and heir. So when Harthacnut died less than a year later, the Potters were favoured in his will, and gained the royal favour of Edward, who enjoyed the power granted to him by the force raised by the Potter family to defend their immense lands. With raiders coming from Wales and Scotland, the Potter family rebuilt old Roman forts and encircled them with defences learnt from the French, in stone rather than the wood favoured in England.
The titles of Earl of Caereryr, 'Eagle's Fort', their Welsh outpost in the Cambrian Mountains and Earl of Mindrum, their fortress next to the Kielder Forest, on the Scottish Border were swiftly granted as the raids began to decrease with increased border patrols. A watchful peace followed for over twenty years with the borders becoming the sites of frequent skirmishes, but the throne for once was kept by the same man for any length of time.
Edward of Wessex married Edith, the daughter of Godwin, Earl of Wessex and then upped and died in 1066. In London, Harold Godwinson, Edward's brother-in-law proclaimed himself king, Dunstan stormed out of the court in disgust, making for Normandy to deliver the news, as he knew of the oath sworn on the magic of the land and on Holy Relics by Harold to William of Normandy, and of the consequences of breaking it.
Dunstan's eldest son, Philip, joined him in Normandy, and Dunstan's daughter, Ella, married a Norman nobleman of lesser standing, becoming subjugated to the House of Potter due to their primacy. However, it gave them continental lands and an 'in' with the Duke of Normandy, William, who upon learning of the extent of the power of his new ally, offered a betrothal of a member of his family from the moment he was sat on the English throne.
At Hastings, it was Philip Potter who was so famously shown on the Bayeux tapestry, striking Harold Godwinson from horseback with a sword after the Saxon had been struck by an arrow. Harold Rex Interfectus Est. After Hastings, Philip became an adventurer, returning a few years later, married to a Christian convert Moor, Princess Boteina, daughter of King Motamid of Seville and his wife, Al-Rumaikiyya and with a son of the same age of Agathe.
Many at the Norman Courts in London and Winchester were displeased with the marriage of the heir to one of the most powerful nobles to an outsider who had not been born a Christian, and indeed the ageing Dunstan and Kaja were somewhat unhappy. It did not take long for the beautiful princess, who had learnt the craft of the language from her mother and father, through the translations of her husband, captivate the nobles, along with her parents-in-law.
William, who had taken a neutral stance on the marriage, frequently had Philip and Boteina at the Court as favourites, and betrothed Agathe, his youngest daughter to the infant Simon Potter, with a quite significant dowry and the headship of the House of Mercia. These arranged marriages were frequent, but often, they developed into genuine affection, and always had a clause for the cancellation of the betrothal if the two didn't get along.
Though rebellions were frequent, the Potter Family continued to expand its wealth throughout to the reign of King William, participating in the Siege of Norwich Castle and witnessing the Oath of Salisbury. Dunstan and Kaja passed on during this time, leaving Philip and and Boteina as heads of the family. Ella, Philip's sister, having found her husband to be utter scum, swiftly disposed of him and took possession of his lands on behalf of her family and remained unmarried to her dying day.
When the Domesday Book was compiled, in Britain, the family held three castles, one palace, three-dozen manors, each housing a knight and his retainers, the various serfs, mills and other expected contents. Each knight had on retainer ten mounted sergeants and an assortment of bowmen and militia.
Simon Potter married Agathe of Normandy when they came of age and took headships of the family from Philip and Boteina as they wanted to return to exploring. After William of Normandy's death, Simon sided with William Rufus against his brother, Robert Curthose, until William paid him and the Potter Family great insult. Days later, William Rufus was struck down by an arrow fired by a master archer in the employ of the family, blamed since on a hunting accident.
Serving Henry I, Simon led the defence against Robert Curthose's invasion of Portsmouth in 1101, and in 1106 fought in the Battle of Tinchebray, decisively defeating Curthose and conquering Normandy. Around this time Dunstan and Boteina returned from their penultimate, and after a few years, quietly passed onto their final adventures. Further fighting took place in the 1110's, in France and Wales, with Caereryr Castle and Château de Leon (a castle inherited through Ella) in Northern France being heavily involved in the fighting. Finally, in 1120, the war in France petered out with a final truce between Henry and Louis, with Simon being granted land in Normandy for his services. The land he found to be suitable for fortifying, and what emerged was to become one of the greatest fortresses in Northern Europe. The only other interesting event in his reign as Earl Potter was the need to dispose of the new Flemish King, William Clito, arouse. Poison always worked.
Aged nearly sixty, Simon established himself and his family of one son and two daughters in the Château la Sombre, his newly-built fortress to fend off a rebellion by the Southern Norman barons in France. Unfortunately, around this time, his twenty-five year old son, James, grew bored and might have accidentally started 'The Anarchy' when he loaded a ship in Barfleur with barrels of wine from one of the family's extensive vineyards and then allowed William, Henry I's only legitimate male heir to use the vessel, along with his retinue and court.
The following war had Simon, until he died, James and his sisters siding with Robert of Blois against Matilda, while also having to defend their lands on the Scottish and Welsh borders, as well as Normandy, from frequent attacks. Sibylla and Alice prove themselves capable commanders, despite the rarity of women participating in combat.
When the civil war finally ended, Matilda controlled some of south-western England, the rest up to the Midlands being in the hands of Steven, and the North being under the control of barons who did their own will, which meant that the Potters, whose lands were spread out, had a hard time keeping their dominance. Yet they still controlled the borders with Scotland, Wales and if necessary, could have retreated to Normandy.
James served for a couple of years as Stephen's ambassador to the Byzantine Empire and married Zoe Komnene, the youngest sister of John II Komnenos, the Byzantine Emperor before returning to Britain with his bride. Despairing of the blood on her hands from the civil war, Alice joined a monastery and lived out her life there, while Sibylla, after years and years of independence decided that being home-wife and court-decoration weren't for her, staying unmarried, became a soldier of fortune for many years.
Three children came of James and Zoe's marriage, Alexander, Roger and Hadrian. Still in his teens, Roger, the younger of the two had been attending the court of Frederick, the Holy Roman Empire, when he'd met the Emperor's eldest daughter, Beatrice, who was betrothed to the Sicilian King. Despite her also being in her early teens, they had mutually fallen in love. As with every Potter since Lucius Artorius Castus' son, he was a sorcerer, and with her father's permission due to Sicily opposing the Holy Roman Empire in its wars in Italy, faked her death and they departed for England.
In Britain, Stephen of Blois had been dead for twenty years, Henry II taking the throne. Hadrian, the youngest and most rebelliousof James and Zoe Potter, had run away from home, and eventually found his way into Henry's army as a siege engineer when Henry marched on Ireland in the early 1170s. A few years later, he'd departed for the Holy Land, not to return until 1199 as Count Hadrian of La Bana, a powerful Crusader lord of the Kingdom of Jerusalem who had fought in every major battle the kingdom had seen, and married Maria of Jerusalem and taking her sister as a mistress, saving them both from an epidemic which claimed their mother, the former Queen of Jerusalem.
Alexander took over from his father as Earl Potter, marrying Alice de Vere, daughter of the Earl of Oxford, and with his brother, Roger, quietly began putting Fidelius enchantments on several castles around Britain as Henry slighted many of those built without the permission of the crown during the anarchy, and partook in the castle-building fashion in Ireland, having unknowingly fought in the same wars as his missing youngest brother, Hadrian, but as a knight. He and his brother also fought against the various baronial revolts throughout Normandy and England, as well as the Flemish and French invasions of Normandy.
With Richard an absentee king, the two Potters tried to maintain the stability of the nation, amassing a significant army to repulse a Welsh attack in the early 1190s which saw Caereyr heavily besieged. They were summoned to the Royal Court a few years later where, with Prince John looking on, Eleanor of Aquitaine demanded a quarter of the value of their lands and moneys in silver to pay for the ransom of Richard when he was taken prisoner by the Duke of Austria and held in the custody of the Holy Roman Emperor, Roger's brother-in-law and the only man in Germany who knew that Zoe had not in fact died.
Alexander, in an utter fury, swore not to give a penny toward the ransom as he felt releasing Richard would do more harm than good to Britain, and when threatened by the Queen Mother, replied that if she wanted to make war on them, that they would happily return the favour, before storming out.
When Richard returned, the Potters continued to refuse to attend the court, remaining behind firmly closed gates and impenetrable walls. In the time that followed, Richard attempted to strip them of their titles, only to find that the writs granting them had been very carefully worded so that there was simply no legal way to remove said titles. He returned to France and died in battle there, slain by a child.
Hadrian returned to Britain from the Holy Land and reunited with his family, who received the favour of King John for their defiance of his brother, though still there were grudges against them in the English court. During John's reign, despite many disagreements with the monarch, the three, Alexander, Roger and Hadrian, fended off many attacks on England, the five-hundred assorted horsemen and thousand infantry and archers the youngest had brought back with him from the Holy Land proving themselves useful.
Roger retired from battling, going with his wife Beatrice into obscurity, both tiring of the constant fighting. They had no children, nor did Hadrian, the youngest, most warlike of the three, who prosecuted the war with the rebel barons and the invading Prince Louis with great vigour before going on, at an ever-advancing age, to fight in Henry III's late 1220s invasion of France, becoming ever more impulsive in battle after Alice and Maria passed on. Finally, over eighty, he fought in several skirmishes in which he accounted for himself well before being struck down by a French knight's lance. At the orders of the sixteen-year old King Louis, his body was taken from the battlefield and laid to rest in the Basilica of St. Denis.
As the last surviving, and the eldest brother, Alexander and his wife Alice handed the reigns of the family to his son, Robert, who was married to Princess Constance of Navarra, while Robert's son, Fredrick was married to Susanna ferch Llywelyn. When Henry III issued gold pennies, the Potters hoarded them, hiding away a phenomenal amount of the precious metal in the treasuries of their castles, which were constantly having their defences improved as war brewed once again. Soon in the hands of Fredrick Potter, with his grandfather Alexander and father Robert dying of old age, war broke out in England again, with Henry III's war in Sicily draining the Crown Treasury and the poor company he chose in his court stirring the barons into rebellion.
Once again, the Potter family was put to the test, with Fredrick, Susanna and their children Ceridwin and Cedric having to fend off attacks by the rebels when they decided that the crown must prevail, however much reforms were needed. It ended in the late 1160s with the crown prevailing, and for their steadfast service, the Potters continued to be rewarded, and within a few years, the king was dead.
Throughout the reign of Edward Longshanks, the ageing Frederick fought against the Welsh rebels, ironic that his father-in-law had been de-facto ruler of Wales. He fought to protect their interests in the west while the king continued prosecuting a war with Scotland to no avail.
Cedric, his son, married Countess Phillipa, daughter of Count Guy of Flanders and had one son, Charles, who inherited the estates, along with a significant German one after his sister Ceridwin's childless marriage to one of Germany's feudal princes when both died, leaving him mourning for his sister and having to become involved in the mess of German politics. It was due to a threat during these times that he repeated the actions of his great-grandfather's middle brother, Roger, in faking his wife's death in Paris in 1306.
However, overseas politics and defending against Welsh incursions kept Cedric Potter out of the civil war in England until he was bidden by Edward to join him against the Earl of Lancaster. He was paid a great fortune to raise an army from Flanders through his wife, and within days of having the treasure placed, was campaigning against Edward and his 'favourite' Hugh Despenser.
It was some time and great bloodshed on the King's part to force the Potters to Caereryr where they held up behind impressively powerful and complex enchantments, as well great fortifications. There they stayed for two years before Isabella of France, the Queen, returned from the continent with an army of sufficient size that the King was overthrown, and the forces besieging the Potters were utterly destroyed in a single fell swoop from both sides, attacked by the invaders and attacked by a force sallying out from the castle.
The royal favour of the Potter family was reaffirmed by Isabella and her lover Roger Mortimer for their holding out against Edward for two long years, and though the noblemen of England were worried by the power that was being amassed by successive generations of the Earls Potter, Cedric never tried to wield that power save once, when he assembled a great plethora of siege engines to besiege Caerphilly Castle, which took several months to surrender and hand over Hugh Despenser, the son of Hugh Despenser (who coincidentally was the son of Hugh Despenser).
Precedent was set for how the family would act for centuries to come. Thomas Potter, who was head of the family at the time that the War of the Roses drew to a close, threw his lot in with the House of York... for as long as it took for the great amount of money granted from the crown to raise an army to be transported to Caereryr Castle. From the moment that the heavily-escorted caravan carrying the chests of gold was within the courtyard of the fortress, Thomas was with the Lancastrians.
The only other major interventions by members of the Potter family were by Edward Potter and his wife Lucretia Vendramin, daughter of Doge Vendramin of Venice, when they quietly forced Henry VIII to add an exception Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542 so that the Potters would remain 'Marcher' Lords, and when the couple again, did much to fight against the Reformation, hiding numerous Catholics in the walls of their homes. Then Edward and Lucretia's son, Peter Potter would go on to serve against the Armada, leading a squadron of ships in battle.
Centuries later, Andrew Potter entered Russia in the midst of the Bolshevik Revolution and, in Yekaterinburg, found the badly injured Grand Duchess Anastasia lying in a heap of bodies, he quickly removed her, healed what he could and, upon finding out her identity, smuggle her from the country. The traumatised Anastasia refused to leave the company of Andrew until her death, thinking that with him present that no harm could come to her.
Their sons Charlus and Oliver were the last to intervene in Britain on a large scale. Charlus ran spy cells across Europe through the Second World War and the Cold War up until his death in 1970, while Oliver flew in the RAF during WWII, and after the war, stayed in the service until the Dhofar Rebellion, when he threw his lot in with Qaboos bin Said al-Said, radically modernising Oman and becoming extremely wealthy in his own right. Staying a bachelor until his death, Oliver's fortune, and a large number of aircraft he and Charlus had collected from the 1930s onwards went to the Potter Family, a special airfield being constructed to take the aircraft.
It was this heritage, this hardware which Hadrian, son of James and grandson of Charlus was to inherit.