Think of England
James Hawes’s “England: the nation that never was” (Aug/Sept) blithely combines three elementary historical fallacies: determinism (the past dictates the future), presentism (the climax of history is us), and exceptionalism (we are different from everyone else). This permits bold predictions: the UK will fragment as soon as the pandemic is over, and England will follow shortly thereafter. This, Hawes reveals, is because England is not a nation at all—never has been, despite staggering on for 1,000 years or so.
One problem with exceptionalism is that it suggests that those expounding it don’t know much about anywhere else. England is no nation, says Hawes, because since the 11th century it has been ruled by foreigners; well, 12 of the 15 western European kingdoms (including Scotland) were ruled by descendants of the Franks. England didn’t have a culture because the educated used Latin and French: I wonder which languages Hawes thinks were used in other European countries (Hungary, to pick just one example, used Latin officially until the 1840s). England is doomed because it is being torn apart by geological, cultural and political differences. If we applied the Hawes formula generally, we would confidently predict the collapse not only of England, but of Scotland, Wales, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Belgium, Canada, the United States, China and India for a start.
Ah, but there is a crucial difference, as becomes steadily clearer: this whole argument is really about Brexit. From King Cnut onwards, we were moving fatefully towards 2016, and an ancient Tory plot to break up the UK and govern forever. Boris Johnson is the heir to William the Conqueror, Elizabeth I, Robert Cecil, and those “populists” Henry IV and Oliver Cromwell. Historically illiterate Remainers must get dour satisfaction from this downbeat pastiche of 1066 and All That: England is Bottom Nation, and history comes to a.
Robert Tombs, Cambridge