THE BRITISH

Technically at least, a Briton is any inhabitant of the British Isles, a group of over 1000 islands off the north-west coast of the continent of Europe. In common usage the phrase refers to an inhabitant of the United Kingdom, the larger of the two countries therein. But who really are the British? This page looks at the history of the islands, and what has made them what they are today.

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Continental drift has reshaped the lands of the world many times during its lifetime, and the north-western end of Europe has on several occasions oscillated between becoming a peninsula and an island. About 7000 or so years ago island status was resumed, and history has never been the same since.

The island was, both before and after this break, subject to a whole host of invaders. The Celts were the last major settlers, and between 600 and 300 BC they virtually exterminated the previous incumbents and got comfortably esconsed in some twenty or so kingdoms. Unfortunately for them they were hopelessly divided, and shortly after BC became AD, were crushed by the Roman Empire. The Celts having sacked Rome in 390 BC, the Romans adopted the simple tactic of picking off the divided tribes one after the other. They didn't really want to conquer the British Isles, but support from the Celts here to Celts on the Continent made it inevitable. Geography meant that they only made tentative attempts to conquer what later became Scotland, their control over Wales and the south-west remained loose and Ireland was ignored altogether (a wise move).

For all the apparent magnificence of the Roman Empire, its political constitution was always rickety at best, and weakness in this coincided with a rise in its enemies' powers to all but finish it off around the fifth century. The outer provinces were naturally abandoned first, and Britannia was left to fend for itself in 410 AD. The original Celtic kingdoms immediately emerged, but could do little against the new threat - the Germanic peoples. These were led by the Angles and Saxons from around what is now northern Germany and Denmark, plus their near-neighbours the Jutes, Franks and Frisians.

The Celts now made a terrible error of judgment. The Romans had for a long time adopted the policy of the 'Saxon Shore, basically giving the coastal fringe of what is now south-eastern England to Saxon settlers in return for their defending it against new Saxons. This was fine whilst they had the whole weight of Empire ready to fall on them at the first sign of trouble, but the Celts had no such power, and so to continue the policy was clearly lunacy. So when they did it, they could hardly be surprised that the new Saxon kingdoms spent the next centuries slowly but inexorably destroying them.

By about the ninth century the Anglo-Saxons occupied the better half of the larger island (roughly modern England) leaving the Celts to the fringes (Cornwall, Wales, Ireland, Cumberland, Man and Scotland). There were three large Anglo-Saxon kingdoms - Wessex (south), Mercia (midlands) and Northumbria (north) - and one smaller one in the east, East Anglia. The Celts were split into two groups; the Goidelic in Scotland, Ireland, Cumberland and the Isle of Man, and the Brythonic in Wales, Cornwall and Brittany (now part of France). Scotland was marginally more united than Wales or Ireland, but none had yet achieved much in the way of unity.

However, the Anglo-Saxons were in for a rude shock - for new invaders were about to roll up. The Vikings, pirates from Scandinavia, came in and all but destroyed the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. Only one, Wessex (south) put up any resistance, and eventually drove the enemy back with such force that the Vikings agreed to split the land with them. A line was drawn between London and Chester, and basically everything south of that line was Free England whilst everything north of that line was Viking land ('Danelaw'). It took the English a few generations to conquer their neighbours, but in 927 Athelstan could proudly proclaim himself first full King of England.

There have been many other immigrations over the past millennium or so, but these have mainly had a regional effect, and are covered on the appropriate regional page.