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a little more about the Isle of Wight
 Some of the first recorded settlements are of the beaker people, arriving c1900 BC, naming the Island With meaning 'what rises over the sea'. Four hundred years of peaceful Roman rule, from AD43, preceded a period of strife starting with the Saxons, until in 686AD the West Saxon King conquered the island introducing Christianity. The island remained peaceful for two centuries prior to decades of 'burning and killing' persecution from the Danes. At the time of the Norman Conquest, William the Conqueror granted overlordship of the Isle of Wight. The lordship passed to the De Redvers family in 1101, until the last survivor in the family sold the Island to Edward 1 in 1293 for six thousand marks. In 1444 one of the lords of the Island was actually given a title of King to the Isle of Wight by Henry V1. The strategic importance of the Island increased with the development of Portsmouth as a permanent naval base. In the nineteenth Queen Victoria took advantage of the island's new accessibility by rail, using it as her retreat. When the Island gained full County status under the Local Government Act in 1972, Earl Mountbatten was appointed the Island's first Lord Lieutenant.
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