Here's a very short summary of the significant events that affected the development of the English language (note that I use "England" to refer to the British Isles in general, unless I specify otherwise):
- Original inhabitants of the British Isles spoke Celtic dialects
- Rome invades England in the 1st century A.D. and controls the country, Latin is the language of government
- Roman army leaves in the 5th century as the empire is collapsing
- Anglo-Saxon (people from the modern northwest of Germany and "Lowland Countries" along the North Sea that spoke Teutonic/Germanic languages) invasion occurs following the departure of Rome in 5th century, they dominate the country, displacing the Celtic speakers to modern day Wales, Cornwall, and Scotland
- Anglo Saxons control most of England until the Viking (people from the modern day Scandinavian countries like Denmark and Norway that spoke other Teutonic languages) invasions of the 9th century, Vikings establish many permanent settlements particularly in northern England, control of the majority of the country swings back and forth several times between Saxon and Viking forces until the early 11th century
- country essentially collapses into small fiefdoms in early 11th century
- William of Normandy invades England in 1066, over time establishes control over the entire country, Norman-French (a Romance language) becomes the language of the upper class for the next 300 years and also becomes the language of the government, the Norman spoken in England came to be called Anglo-Norman
- in this period, other words came into England that were directly from French that were not Norman specifically
- over time, the use of Anglo-Norman as a separate language disappeared, but much of its vocabulary had spread into use by all levels of society and consequently counteracted many of the Germanic/Teutonic elements of English
I hope that's given some insight into why English is such a convoluted language. On a semi-related note, in case you weren't aware, the initial "E" in continental Germanic languages (at least I think all of them) is pronounced like the English alphabet letter "A," like the sound in "may," "bay," "day," so England would have originally been pronounced like "Angle Land" (Land of the Angles) which is the origin of the name.