English nationalism
[1] Patrick Wormald has claimed that England was a nation by the time of the Venerable Bede, who wrote the Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (Ecclesiastical History of the English People) around 730.
[3] Bede uses the label "English" to describe the Germanic peoples who inhabited Britain: Angles, Saxons and Jutes, and excluding Britons, Scots and Picts.
William of Malmesbury, a chronicler of mixed Anglo-Norman descent writing in the twelfth century, described the Battle of Hastings as: "That fatal day for England, the sad destruction of our dear country [dulcis patrie]".
Today, no Englishman is earl, bishop, or abbot, and newcomers gnaw away at the riches and very innards of England; nor is there any hope for an end of this misery".
[9] Another chronicler, Robert of Gloucester, speaking in part of earlier centuries, in the mid to late thirteenth century: ...the Norman could not speak anything then except their own speech, and they spoke French as they had done at home, and had their children taught it, too, so that important men in this country who come from their stock all keep to that same speech that they derived from them; because, unless a man knows French, he is thought little of.
[11][12] In the Cursor Mundi, an anonymous religious poem in northern Middle English dating from approximately 1300, appears the words: "Of Ingland the nacion".
I am speaking to the English layman...[14]In 1323, Henry Lambard, a cleric, was brought before a court and asked how he wished to clear himself of charges of theft.
After the Siege of Calais of 1346, King Edward III expelled the inhabitants of that city because, in his words, "I wolde repeople agayne the towne with pure Englysshmen".
[24] In Chichester in 1368 a guild was founded "to the honour of the holy Trinity and of its glorious martyr George, protector and patron of England".
[25] Laurence Minot, writing in the early fourteenth century, wrote patriotic poems celebrating Edward III's military victories against the Scots, French, Bohemians, Spaniards, Flemings and the Genoese.
[30] Wycliffe justified his translating the Bible into English: "The gospels of Crist written in Englische, to moost lernyng of our nacioun".
[33] The Act in Restraint of Appeals 1533 famous preamble summarised this theory: Where by divers sundry old authentic histories and chronicles it is manifestly declared and expressed that this realm of England is an empire...governed by one supreme head and king having the dignity and royal estate of the imperial crown of the same, unto whom a body politic, compact of all sorts and degrees of people divided in terms and by names of spiritualty and temporalty, be bounden and owe to bear next to God a natural and humble obedience.
[37] When Mary I (daughter of Henry and Catherine of Aragon) became Queen in 1553, she married Philip II of Spain and sought to return England to Roman Catholicism.
[38] Mary wanted to marry a Spaniard and Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, chose Philip II (also his son and heir).
[40] A courtier, Sir Thomas Wyatt, headed a rebellion to try to stop the marriage, motivated by a "nationalist resentment at the proposed foreign king".
[41] Supporters of the insurgency urged Londoners to join to stop the English becoming "slaves and vilaynes", which was met with the response that "we are Englishmen".
[42] The uprising was defeated, and Wyatt at his trial justified his actions by saying: "Myne hole intent and styrre was agaynst the comyng in of strangers and Spanyerds and to abolyshe theym out of this realme".
"[44]The excommunication of Elizabeth by Pope Pius V's papal bull (Regnans in Excelsis) of 1570; the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre of 1572; the publication of Foxe's Book of Martyrs; the Spanish Armada of 1588; and the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 all contributed to an English nationalism which was "thoroughly militant and Protestant".
[45] An example of this nationalism can be seen in Lord Chancellor Sir Christopher Hatton's opening speech to Parliament in 1589 in the aftermath of the defeat of the Armada.
[46] It was fiercely anti-Catholic (the Pope was a "wolfish bloodsucker"), execrated Englishmen who turned against their native country, and appealed for England's defence: "Shall we now suffer ourselves with all dishonour to be conquered?
The perceived rise in English identity in recent years, as evidenced by the increased display of the English flag (particularly during international sporting competitions i.e. FIFA World Cup and UEFA European Championship), is sometimes attributed in the media to the increased devolution of political power to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
[58] One possible incentive for supporting the establishment of self-governing English political institutions has been the West Lothian question: the constitutional inconsistency whereby Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish MPs in the UK Parliament have been able to cast votes on bills which will apply only to England while English MPs have had fewer such rights in relation to Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish legislation, which is in many cases handled by the devolved legislatures.
[66] In the same month, an ICM Omnibus poll commissioned by the Progressive Partnership (a Scottish research organisation) showed that support for full English Independence had reached 31% of those questioned.
[69] A YouGov survey for the BBC in 2018 found young people are less likely to feel proud to be English than older generations; further, the further someone lives from London, the more likely they are to identify with a particular part of England.
