Not much is known of the hidden history of Britain before the Middle Ages. Most of the stories told of these days include piecemeal accounts of the struggle between Roman Ventrue and Scottish Gangrel or Celtic druids and missionaries from the church in Rome. All that is known for sure is that by the time of the Norman Conquest, the lands of the south were firmly under the influence of the Ventrue Mithras, while the north consisted of a hodge podge of local lords succumbing to various influences. Meanwhile, Catholicism had been accepted by much of the Celtic population, partially due to the adoption of many of their beliefs and prominent figures into Christian faith.
Accompanying the church, however, were members of the Celestial Chorus and Gabrielites. The former were mostly responsible for the good relations with the native people, while the latter concentrated their efforts on the old Roman territories, coordinating with other members of the fledgling Order of Reason. Thier efforts resulted in Magna Carta, which gave the guilds of London control over the city proper and ensured the rights of craftsmen, merchants, and the church, in addition to the petty lords. This is often marked by historians of the order as the first step towards control of the British Empire in the 19th century.
While the Order was concentrating on legal issues, the Ventrue of Britain were concerned with the Brujah incited peasant revolt led by Wat Tyler and the Anarch Revolt which hid within its midst. For the next two hundred years, the struggle between elders and their progeny intensified until the Convention of Thorns resulted in the formation of the Camarilla and, later, the Sabbat. With the revolt quelled, the Kindred of Britain returned to power struggles. Conflicts between the Princes of individual cities were numerous and often quite heated. The only figure of authority whom all respected was Mithras of London, who took little interest in matters which did not somehow effect his city. Still, this made him difficult to predict. His centuries of existence allowed him to see connections which lesser creatures could not even grasp and it was not uncommon for him to get involved in a conflict for no discernable reason.
The struggles between the kindred of Britain continued like this for most of the Middle Ages, while the rift between the Choristers and the Gabrielites grew until the latter sided with Martin Luther, convincing Henry VIII to break with the Roman church and bring Protestantism to the nation. What followed was a bitter struggle, starting with the dissolution of monastaries and leading to the pillaging of Glastonbury Tor and the hanging of its abbot. The Abbey there had long been a symbol of the uniting of the Choristers and their Celtic allies and its destruction was tantamount to war between the two religious sects.
The religious conflicts of the next century and a half hide the activities of both groups in their efforts to drive the other from power. The crowning of Lady Jane Grey was a desperate attempt by the Gabrielites to keep the throne from Mary and her Catholic supporters which failed. The resulting persecution of Protestants throughout the kingdom nearly decimated them, but subtle manipulation and the efforts of the Ksifari helped them to reassert control after the crowning of Elizabeth, whose long reign allowed them time to cement their efforts to turn the church to their political ends with the Thirty-Nine Articles of 1563.
The schism between the Anglican Church and the Roman also had its effect on the Kindred, as Lasombra who were struggling from within their positions of power in the church to resist Ventrue attempts to purge them, found their influence and properties suddenly forfeit to the agents of their enemies. The short restoration of the Catholic bishops during Mary's rule did not help much. The damage had already been done and the Lasombra were driven from the cities by Camarilla forces. Further, Toreador influence was also irreperably damaged, leading to their decline as a political power among British Kindred, though the Tremere usurpers were quick to take their place.
Meanwhile, the Order of Reason exercised some of its new control over the kingdom by helping to advance the cause of their brothers the Void Seekers by funding expeditions such as those of Sir Francis Drake and the explorers of the New World. The introduction of the King James Bible and expansion of trade also helped to reinforce their position.
These years, while good for the Order, were not so kind to the Camarilla, which was torn apart by conflicts between the Brujah and Ventrue as the former sought to undermine the power of the nobility, the traditional sphere of influence of the latter. The Gunpowder Plot and the struggles of Kings James and Charles against the Parliament mirrored the war of influence which often erupted into violence, as with the civil war that resulted in Cromwell's rule over the new commonwealth. While the nobility were finally able to wrest control back, some have suggested that the Great Fire of London in 1666 was a backlash, set by Brujah in a frustrated attempt to wipe out Mithras and his Ventrue supporters.
The Order watched this affair with detached interested for the most part. It wasn't until James II took the throne and attempted to reinstate Roman Catholicism that they were motivated to reinvolve themselves in national politics. They then conspired through their members in the Parliament to offer the crown to William of Orange, leading to the Glorious Revolution. In order to prevent further shifts in royalty from interfering with their plans, they helped to draft the Bill of Rights which established the constitutional monarchy and lessened the religious tension which had dominated the political scene for the last century and a half by allowing for freedom of worship.
This did not stop the Kindred struggle for power, though, it merely became more subtle. The Ventrue were forced to accept Parliament as an institution and shifted their strategy to try and gain control of it through its noble and aristocratic members. Most of the 18th century was spent by the clan in trying to reassert their control through the Tories, who best reflected the interests of their ghouls, the landed gentry. The Whigs, representing new money and the consent of the masses, continued to back Brujah interests and became their primary tool.
This subtle political game continued until the more pressing matter of the Sabbat in North America distracted them. Their agents were able to arrange British acquisition of Canada and the Mississippi Valley from the French following the Seven Years' War, which was considered a decisive blow against the sect until the American Revolution removed the colony from British hands completely. Using their last strongholds in Canada to drive out what Sabbat they could, they might have lost any influence at all in the New World if not for the Sabbat Civil War.
These events, however, were of little concern to the Order of Reason, whose interests in the new United States were already secured through their Masonic allies and who were celebrating the fruits of imperialism with the capture of India from the French and the establishment of the British Museum, future home to many of the artifacts collected by the Void Seekers in their quest to define reality's geographic parameters and spread the paradigm of the Order to the far reaches of the world. Further, the technological advances of the end of the century were the result of the smooth progression of their plans for the future as Britain entered into the Industrial Age.
This is not to say that there weren't problems. In fact, one of the most bitter and potentially destructive schisms in the Order was birthed during this age of revolution. Rationalist philosophy had begun to take a secular turn and many within the Order, noting the tendency of religion to sow conflicts rather than unite people, expressed the opinion that mysticism should be abandoned altogether in favor of a scientifically created philosophy. This route was approved around the turn of the century, with the advent of Utilitarianism, among violent disagreement from the Cabal of Pure Thought and members of other conventions whose beliefs harkened back to old Masonic beliefs.
The turn of the century also saw turmoil in the politics of the Kindred, as the Ventrue-backed Tories finally regained control of the Parliament as Brujah pawns fell victim to corruption at the hands of Tremere agents like Sir Francis Dashwood, founder of the infamous Medmenham Club (more commonly known as the Hellfire Club). The Tremere also managed to undermine Ventrue control in the Tories with their influence over Lord Bute, Treasury Minister to George III.
During this time, the Order of Reason began to push forward with its new direction. Through Prime Minister Peel, they established the Metropolitan Police at Scotland Yard which became the means of transforming the mysterious Ksifari into the New World Order which would replace the Cabal of Pure Thought as the Order's leadership. Religious reform laws previously backed by the Duke of Wellington had broken the political power of the Anglican Church, striking what some consider the death blow to the struggling Cabal. Resurgence of Roman Catholic hierarchy within the Empire and the formation of evangelical movements helped to further undermine their influence, particularly among the poor and immigrant populations.
This new direction of the Order's had its effects on other hidden people within the Empire. The rise of industrialism and the teachings of many of the major evangelical figures of the turn of the century that children were inherently evil and their will should be broken and imagination quelled hurt the fae folk of Britain enormously and resulted in a dramatic rise in the number of striplings in the shadowlands. With the reign of the romantics giving way to the practical Utilitarians and respectable Victorian social mores, the fae fled the cities in droves with the notable exception of the sluagh, whose role had always been to punish naughty children. The choking of the city with industrial pollution, on the other hand, further darkened the city's underworld reflection, leading the Stygian hierarchy to reinforce the city proper and appoint Regents to try and control spectral and renegade outbreaks outside the walls.
The 1830s proved to be the height of this period of change and conflict. Beginning with the loss of Tory power over the Parliament and ending with the crowning of Queen Victoria, the balance of power shifted firmly in the favor of the Brujah and the new Technocracy. Abolishing of slavery throughout the Empire managed to achieve three goals for the Brujah. First, it destroyed the West Indies, which severly hurt the interests of plantation-owning Ventrue pawns as well as crippling Sabbat in that region. Second, it was a decisive victory for the evangelical movement, who had been calling for the ban. Lastly, it served the higher ideological purpose of freedom.
The Brujah coup was only matched by the crowning of Queen Victoria, who served as the head of the new Technocracy throughout her reign, giving the old Order its present form. While the purge of the Cabal was far from complete, it was officially disbanded and the New World Order given its place among the conventions. The next fifty years saw unprecendented activity among the Order, as new scientific developments were honed and released to the public almost daily, barely outpacing the new social developments and imperial expansion that also marked this age.
Resistance by the old school members of the Order, however, persisted thoughout, and in 1850 the New World Order backed the re-establishment of the Catholic hierarchy in Britain in order to finally drive the last nail in the coffin of the persistant Cabal of Pure Thought. It was not until the very end of the era that the last remnants of the old Order were removed, partially due to a desperate bid for survival that saw many of the old masonic technocrats making alliances with the Order of Hermes and Celestial Chorus that helped to form the resurgence in Masonry and interest in the occult that marked the last two decades of the century.
The rest of the century sees the Ventrue and Tremere trying, with varying success, to adapt to the modern order as their aristocratic ties cease to have any real power within the Empire, while the Brujah attempt to take advantage of their position despite conflicts within the clan between elders, who use organizations like the newly forming Labour Party and Fabian Societies to achieve their ends, and more radical neonates backing extremist groups like the Irish nationalists and Dynamiters.