The true origins of Britain and Britishness

This relates to a discussion with someone on Twitter who declared that Britain as a geographical entity existed long before Scotland.

The modern state of Britain was deliberately named after the ancient Roman colony of Britannia (ie the Roman name for England) and this state which was created in 1707 has no actual connection with the ancient Britons (who were in fact Celtic Gaels who eventually ended up pushed into the ancient countries of Cornwall and Wales) and is in fact an attempt to impose a false identity on modern Scotland, Wales and Ireland.

Even in Roman times Scotland (Caledonia) and Ireland (Hibernia) were recognised as seperate geographical entities from England and the islands were occupied by our ancestors for a long time before the Romans tried to conquer and take notice of us. So why should we be currently dominated by their terms for what they would have considered barbarian tribes?

Britannia is in fact their slave name for an area they conquered.

Britain and the 'British Isles' is described in these terms today because of the historical dominance of the Union over the last 300 years and the name was chosen deliberately to hark back to the terminology used by the Romans.  

My debator believes that it is a geographical term with no political significance whatsoever, however I say that if Scotland and England's fortunes were reversed then we would now be sitting in a Scots dominated state called Greater Caledonia and only the most gullible Englishman would think that this state was representative of England or the English!

This may seem a small point but I think it cuts to the quick of British propaganda and the constant talk of ancient and stone age Britain is a slight of hand which defies the truth, that Britishness is and was a false identity imposed upon the true identities of the Scots and Welsh and Irish and it has only actually genuinely existed (in historic terms) in a comparitively recent period.

Here are some facts:

With the Roman conquest of England the Latin term Britannia was used for the island of Great Britain, and later Roman occupied Britain south of Caledonia.

In this post-Roman period, as the Anglo-Saxons advanced, territory controlled by the Britons became confined to what would later be Wales, Cornwall and North West England.

The Historia Brittonum claimed legendary origins as a prestigious genealogy for Brittonic kings, followed by the Historia Regum Britanniae which popularised this pseudo-history to support the claims of the Kings of England.

During the Middle Ages, and particularly in the Tudor period, the term British was applied to the Welsh people.

King James VI and I advocated full political union between England and Scotland and on 20 October 1604 proclaimed his assumption of the style "King of Great Britain" though this title was rejected by both the Parliament of England and the Parliament of Scotland and so had no basis in either English law or Scots law.

Despite opposition from much of the Scottish and English populations a Treaty of Union was agreed in 1706 that was then ratified by each parliament passing Acts of Union 1707. With effect from 1 May 1707, this created a new sovereign state called Great Britain.

After 1707, a British national identity began to develop though initially resisted—particularly by the English —the peoples of Great Britain had by the 1750s begun to assume a "layered identity", to think of themselves as simultaneously British and also Scottish, English, or Welsh.

(Note that this wasn't long after 1745 so the population had just been brutally ethnically cleansed of Catholics, Gaelic Highlanders and other Jacobite Scots independence supporters. It is also notable that for the first fifty years of union our economy had actually declined, so much for an instant age of prosperity!)

It is also forgotten that for much of our history Scotland was effectively a police state and those who argued for political reform were sent to Botany Bay. Thomas Muir is an obvious example, while some of the rebels of 1820 who marched under the Banner 'Scotland Free or a Desert' were actually hung by the state. There was also a vast network of informers and bribery led by the Dundas brothers so for some considerable time it wasn't exactly easy to state any opinion against the status quo!

Particularly in the 19th century, "North Britain" or "N.B." was widely used for postal addresses in Scotland, a fact which annoyed Robert Louis Stevenson:

"Don’t put N.B. on your paper; put Scotland and be done with it. Alas, that I should be stabbed in the house of my friends! The name of my native land is not North Britain, whatever may be the name of yours."

from a letter written by Robert Louis Stevenson in April 1888

Britishness became "superimposed on much older identities", of English, Scots and Welsh cultures, whose distinctiveness still resist notions of a homogenised British identity.

- Colley, Linda (1992), Britons: Forging the Nation, 1701–1837, Yale University Press, ISBN 978-0-300-05737-9

So what does it matter if the state we live in is effectively called Greater England? It matters because politically that is precisely what it is. A false state which amplifies English power internationally at the expense of the individual identities of Scotland and Wales. This fact has already been admitted by Jack Straw:

“historically England called the shots to achieve a union because the union was seen as a way, among other things, of amplifying England’s power worldwide.

A broken-up United Kingdom would not be in the interest of Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, but especially not England. Our [England’s] voting power in the European Union would diminish. We’d slip down the world’s GDP tables. Our case for staying in the G8 would diminish and there could easily be an assault on our permanent seat in the UN.”

Scotland is not British and Britishness has never represented our interests. It is a false identity which has been imposed by politicians who want to ignore us so yes names matter and we should not be afraid to shout the fact that we are not 'British' and never have been.

In actual fact the reverse of the simplistic British view of history are true and in fact England was once part of a larger Celtic Alba according to Dr Alex Woolf (who lectures in medieval history at St Andrews:

"When the Romans occupied the island they gave the name Britannia to their province, with its fluctuating boundaries, and it is probably their failure to gain any lasting foothold in Ireland that gradually led to that island becoming ‘less British’ than this one.

The two islands had their own names, Iwerijo for Ireland, and Albijo for the larger island. These names survive as Eire and Alba, the Gaelic names for Ireland and Scotland respectively."

Andy Murray: "He's a Brit if he wins, a Scot if he loses."

This article (see below) shows the ripe old hypocrisy of the English press. It's conclusions are probably true, Murray will never be truely loved by Britain's tennis fans for the simple fact that he's a Scot first and foremost.

That's entirely in his favour. I think it is astonishing that he has to defend himself against accusations of being ant-English (even though as he has felt forced to point out, sad in itself, his coach is English, his girlfriend is English and much of his family is English).

Murray is a potentially great tennis player, potentially a world champion. He is also a Scot who likes to wave the Saltire. That doesn't make him anti-English, it just makes him pro Scottish.

He has played in British teams in the Davis cup, sometimes risking his personal health to do so but for little reward.

It is obvious that the English would have preferred 'one of their own' like Henman to win Wimbledon, even if ultimately he just didn't have the talent. If Andy manages it they will no doubt try to drape him in a UJ and claim him as the 'best of British' but in reality they would just as easily drop him, if he loses.

Andy is Scottish, he is a source of pride for our country. If the discredited union leads some to be jealous of him and unwilling to cheer him for his talent, that makes them anti-Scottish but it does not make him anti-English.

Good luck Andy and if in the future you lose, don't worry about it because you have plenty of time and the ultimate talent to be world No. 1 not just British No. 1.

You have a long lustrous career ahead of you and on current probability most of it will be within a proudly independent Scottish state. So if some people won't clap you or support you ignore them because they are just plain jealous.

This article aptly sums them up:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2008/jun/29/andymurray.wimbledon1

Murray's a winner - but not yet a heroTim Adams watches as Andy Murray advances to the next round at Wimbledon but fails to inspire Henman-style hysteria
Tim Adams The Observer, Sunday June 29, 2008 Article historyThough Andy Murray overcame the occasionally stubborn challenge of German Thomas Haas at Wimbledon yesterday to advance to the fourth round of the tournament for the second time, 'Andymonium' has yet officially to break out in SW19. Partly, this looks like a question of flags. Outside Centre Court there was not a Union Jack to be seen except as a detail on the caps of a contingent of Aussies 'jeez mate-ing' loudly about paying forty-eight quid for a tray of Pimm's.

This evidence of the slow disintegration of the union seemed to be gathering pace by the big screens. Nobody was making their way to Murray Mound; Henman Hill, it seems, will be forever English. Perhaps there was something in the air: forget Scottish independence, this week has seem something of an assertion of devolution for the Home Counties. First there was the by-election at Henley in which the party of the Scottish Prime Minister was outflagged by the BNP; now there was this comparative apathy toward the progress of Murray - a living embodiment of the Midlothian question. (It seemed somehow symbolic that as he took to the court, Labour's Scottish leader, Wendy Alexander, 'bring it on' challenger to Alex Salmond, resigned her post.)

The Wimbledon crowd, anyhow, had not forgotten how to respond to one of their own: before Murray's match the very-nearly-14-times-champion Tim Henman was introduced to the crowd from the Royal Box, and the response on his eponymous hill were the discreet whoops that pass for mania in Dorking. The emergence of Murray provoked a more muted kind of murmur.

Wandering among the crowd I eventually come across some red, white and blue draped around the shoulders of Rebecca Lynch, up from Brighton. She had camped out overnight with her mate, Melanie Cole, who had confused the issue of identities by bringing out her full St George's Cross attire - a relic, she admits from her decade supporting Henman. Murray's Scottishness isn't a problem for them, 'though he is a bit miserable'. 'I'm half Scots anyway,' Melanie suggests, from beneath her bowler hat. 'Let's just say if he wins he's British; if he loses he's a Scot.'

Others are more robust in their opinion. 'He's a f**** moaning Scot who hates the English, but he's the best we have,' offers Charlie Robson, who has just done his A levels in Twickenham. That's pretty much a general feeling, though expressed more genteelly elsewhere. 'He's a bit scruffy,' says Christine from Oxshott, 'and he looks permanently in pain'. I glance up to the screen where Murray is warming up. It is hard to argue with this assessment. Practising his serve, he wears the look of a man regretting a pre-match pickled herring.

The resultant absence of jingoism is quite a pleasant surprise. Though Murray is playing a German, and we are enjoying a long afternoon in the sun, there are no Dambuster refrains; a stag-nighter in an afro wig who climbs on to a table to conduct a chorus of Rule Britannia ends up singing solo before falling off.

Some of this ambivalence, I'm repeatedly told, goes back to the throwaway remark Murray made the last time he played here in 2006. When asked who he was supporting in the World Cup, he replied 'anyone but England'. After he made that original remark he was shocked to hear a woman on her mobile phone exclaim: 'That Scottish wanker Murray has just walked past!' As a result he launched a cross-border charm offensive at the outset of this year's tournament. He was, he said, a quarter English through his gran; his physiotherapist was English, and, despite the name, so was his coach, Miles Maclagan.

'My girlfriend's English, too,' he went on, in some desperation, 'and I live in London. I'd have qualified to play football for England but probably wouldn't have got into the team!' Despite his efforts, the offensive doesn't seem to be working.

Far more patriotic excitement was garnered by Chris Eaton earlier in the week, with his tales of driving up from Surrey to the tournament in a sports car held together with duct tape. Eaton's appearance at the tournament excited not only a high-pitched entourage of fans, but also a lively correspondence in the Telegraph, the house journal of Surrey sports-car-with-duct-tape drivers; one observer seemed to voice the opinion of many when he noted: 'How nice to see a player that actually enjoys his tennis and showed true deference to the traditions of Wimbledon, rather than the truculence and downright rudeness of Andrew Murray and his appalling family! Well done, Eaton, see you next year. Here's hoping we see the last of the miserable Murrays in the next round!'

For a while in the second set against Haas, which he chucked away, it seemed possible that that particular wish would be granted; but, in the end, Murray won with some style. Maybe that's the other reason, beyond the state-of-the-union issues, that Andymonium has yet to ignite here. Murray has not yet put us through the wringer enough times to excite general national neurosis. Though he makes a gesture toward the style of tennis that British Wimbledon fans have come to expect of their heroes - the sublime touch followed by the embarrassing mis-hit - in general he is far too much in control to count yet as a national treasure. He's winning too easily; he just hasn't suffered enough and neither have we. No doubt in the coming week all of that will be put right.