With Brexit, the Scottish referendum, and the threat to the Irish Peace Agreement if the open borders arrangement ends, England risks returning to its origins as a single-country state, which it was for 500 years from 1066 until 1603. It is worth looking back at that period, the last time that England faced Europe alone, to assess how it fared then and suggest what is likely to happen in the future. England's history was a period of glorious events, great personages and the flowering of English cultural achievement that still stands as the greatest body of literary work in the World. Brexiters delight in recalling these moments, the last successful invasion of England that started it in 1066, the exploits of Richard the Lionheart, the Magna Carta, the crushing victories of the Hundred Years' War, the destruction of the Spanish Armada, the works of Shakespeare. Yet, though based on real events, England's view of its history is just a myth: these were not glorious events in a period of plenty, but the miserable outcome of oppressive poverty brought about by tax-collectors who sacrificed their tax-payers, the English population, for their personal glory and profit. The myth was written by the survivors, the victors, the successors who won; it was not written by the dead, the exiled, the predecessors who lost. The winners have a clear objective, to justify the murder and rape, to assuage their guilt, if they feel any, and to provide the authority to extract taxes in the territory. Generation after generation, this myth has built up, woven from half-truths, lies, omissions and insinuations to make up English history. To criticise this version of England is to attack the very being of Englishness, the membership of the English tribe. It is tabou. Even to suggest that the world is more complex, that there are shades, that others have a valid opinion is unacceptable to some. Yet English history is more complex than a simple succession of victorious battles and great admirals and generals. There is the history of those who did not live to write their side, those who paid for the English empire, with their property, their wealth, their health or their life. Those who have otherwise no voice. The tax-payer, the slave, the soldier. This is their book. The truth of English history is not to refute the myth at all, but to build it up, to include all of its participants, in particular those most responsible for it, those who sacrificed the most. England did play a major role in European affairs from 1066 to 1603. A role, economic and military, that was belied by its tiny size and miserable population, by its few natural resources and little good agricultural land. For England was an almost unique political entity: one of the largest customs unions in the world, and specifically organised to enable the efficient extraction of taxes. These taxes were the source of power for English kings, and allowed them to outperform their European neighbours, but only at enormous cost to the English tax-payer. This book reinterprets English history, and allocates England's successes and failures as an empire-conqueror to a small number of critical decisions. These range from the organisation of Norman England for taxation, to the massive expenditure that eventually brought the empire down. This reinterpretation suggests that for many who voted to exit Europe, the decision will result in the creation of a similar myth, of glorious events and great people, of battles with Brussels. But the reality will be of extreme suffering for whatever underclass of Englishman has to pay for it. While the Brexiters remain in power, the victims are likely to be the Remainers. But throughout the period between 1066 and 1603 there were regular political changes, and it is likely that after 2016 there will also be regular changes in government. Eventually it will be those who voted for Brexit who will most lose.
About the Author: England's mythical history involves its neighbours Wales, Scotland, France and Spain. This myth includes the great castles of Wales, the massacres of French nobility at Crècy and Agincourt, the flourishing of the Royal Navy, the battles against the Spanish Armada, the singeing of the King of Spain's beard at Cadiz, the burning of Valparaíso and the sack of Panama by Drake. Tony Milne was born in Scotland, son of Scottish and Spanish parents. He married a Welsh girl, lived in England most of his life and holidayed in Spain every year. He served in the Royal Navy and visited Cadiz, Valparaíso and Panama; he wrote a play about the period immediately after Agincourt. He has lived in France for 15 years. He has visited hundreds of castles, including most of those in Wales. He speaks Spanish, French and English fluently and reads widely the history of these countries in their original languages.