The history, heritage and culture of the English is rich, diverse and ever changing, even prior to the immigrations of the twentieth century it is not a country of a single people.
The English Culture still today bears the hall-marks of its tribal history. Two thousand years after the Romans invaders first set foot on the southern shores of England and found the land populated by the strange tribes of blue people, the "blue" appertaining to the propensity of the populace to paint their bodies with woad a body paint made from some form of plant extract the exact nature of which has long since been forgotten, areas of the country still today hold strong affections for their tribal heritage.
A person from Cornwall is still Cornish before being English, right across the land people are Cumbrian, East Anglian, Northumbrian and so on. A few years ago you would find few of these places on a map, so what or where are they? Its quite simple really they are the tribal homelands that are thousands of years old. The departure of the Romans around 450AD left an enormous power vacuum. There was a sudden emergence of many tribal kingdoms but most were doomed to failure as they were either absorbed by the bigger and more powerful ones. The boundaries of these kingdoms moved continuously as the power of successive kings waxed and waned. Some disappeared altogether as they were either defeated in war or absorbed by marriage.
In modern times these areas are re-appearing, Cumbria is now a county, and talk is that the Government is considering establishing Regional Assemblies, what's the betting that they follow these original tribal boundaries. And quite right too, as the population increases and other aspects of life rapidly change, we are all finding it necessary to hold on to some form of identity. One cannot change people from what they are, recognising our English History and identifying with our English Culture is probably the best way to ensure the stability of our nation for the millennium to come.
We should not shy away from the new cultures that have found a home in this "Green and Pleasant Land" but welcome them and show to them and the rest of the world that we too have a distinct culture of our own, a culture that for many years has embraced all who have made England their home.
The Saxon King Egbert of the House of Wessex is usually considered as the first true king of England. Although neither he nor his immediate descendants ruled the entire country. It would be many years until the Union when the whole of Great Britain would be ruled by one sovereign.
Prior to King Egbert the country was divided into a number of small kingdoms each ruled by what in effect were tribal chiefs although they styled themselves as "kings". The exception being the Roman period of between 45BC and around 450AD when the country was controlled to some degree by the Roman Emperor.
For the Welsh Kings prior to the Act of Union in 1536 go to the Welsh Site on British Towns Network and for the Scottish Kings prior to the Act of Union in 1707 go to the Scottish Site
