Introduction

Abstract

Ever since the Romans abandoned the province of Britain in the early fifth century, historians, philosophers and even untutored kings had attempted to revive the concept of a heritage common to all people dwelling in these rather sparsely-populated islands off the north-west coast of Europe. Usually, such revivals coincided with yet another attempt by the bellicose kings of England to subjugate the troublesome Welsh, Scots or Irish. For centuries, the claim to rule all of Britain was an empty boast, part of the rhetoric by which rival kings played the ritualised chess game that passed for power politics in their day. But during the sixteenth century and, even more, the seventeenth century, a new urgency, and indeed a new reality, infused men’s descriptions of the intrinsic and inviolable unity of Britain. By the middle of the eighteenth century there was not only a single king for all three nations of Britain but also one government whose policies were determined by British experiences and dictated by genuinely British needs.