These fledgling democracies in the Middle East, they’re actually fighting for their freedom. And what are they rioting for in England? Leisurewear. Noel Gallagher
They’ll always be an England, even if it’s in Hollywood. Bob Hope
Grim Reaper: Englishmen, you’re all so fucking pompous. None of you have got any balls. Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life 1983 starring Graham Chapman & John Cleese & Terry Gilliam & Eric Idle & Terry Jones & Michael Palin & Carol Cleveland & Matt Frewer et al, director Terry Jones, Death to dinner party
They are not as stupid as they look. The Italian Job 1969 starring Michael Caine & Noel Coward & Benny Hill & Raf Vallone & Tony Beckley & Maggie Blye & Rossano Brazzi & Irene Handl & John Le Mesurier & Michael Standing et al, director Peter Collinson, Italian Mafia to American Mafia over dinner
From this amphibious ill-born mob began
That vain, ill-natured thing, an Englishman. Daniel Defoe 1660-1731, The True-Born Englishman, 1701
Your Roman-Saxon-Danish-Norman English. ibid.
Ideal perfection is not the true basis of English legislation. We look at the attainable; we look at the practical, and we have too much English sense to be drawn away by those sanguine delineations of what might possibly be attained in Utopia, from a path which promises to enable us to effect great good for the people of England. W E Gladstone, Reform Bill speech House of Commons 28th February 1884
I will venture to say, that upon the one great class of subjects, the largest and most weighty of them all, where the leading and determining considerations that ought to lead to a conclusion are truth, justice, and humanity – upon these, gentlemen, all the world over, I will back the masses against the classes. W E Gladstone, speech 29th June 1886
They’ll always be an England
While there’s a country lane. Ross Parker & Hugh Charles, 1939 song
The English, the English, the English they are best;
I don’t give tuppence for all the rest. Flanders and Swann, A Song of Patriotic Prejudice
Those [WWII] fighters showed a confidence that the English have always had and still do. It’s given this corner of this island a belief in its own importance. Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch, How God Made the English I: A Chosen People? BBC 2012
For over a thousand years they believed that they possessed the greatest asset we could hope for: God. ibid.
Religion: a force that shaped the English soul. ibid.
His name was Bede and in the course of his life as a Monk he wrote a book that more than anything else shaped the soul of the English. ibid.
Bede was describing something that didn’t even exist. ibid.
Alfred’s genius was to pick up Bede’s big idea and run with it. ibid.
English identity is always evolving. ibid.
Arrogance can have dark consequences. ibid.
Britain led the way in abolishing the slave trade. ibid.
He [God] seemed to have forgotten His side of the bargain. ibid.
The gunpowder plot ... The potential for destruction on a 9/11 scale; now these people would be seen as terrorists; they were the Al Qaeda of their day – Catholics. Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch, How God Made the English II: A Tolerant People?
A time when this nation was one of the least tolerant in the world. ibid.
At the heart of that change was the Christian Church. ibid.
The English ruthlessly used and then abused the Jews. In 1290 they expelled them altogether. ibid.
A thousand years of history was going to be junked ... The Reformation was a watershed. ibid.
For the next three hundred years Catholics would be excluded from all positions of power. ibid.
The Civil War had created a new climate: the first time in their history the English could openly express ideas about tolerance. ibid.
The Glorious Revolution: James II fled abroad. ibid.
The English are suffering an identity crisis. Just look at the national flag ... But there are others with their own idea about English who also use it. Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch, How God Made the English III: A White and Christian People?
What’s it mean to be English? ibid.
Just like ancient Israel, only better. ibid.
Did He also make them White and Christian? ibid.
One of the most persistent ideas about the English is that they descend from northern Europeans ... the Anglo-Saxons. It’s a potent idea ... But how true is it? ibid.
According to genetic science the roots of the English are not Anglo-Saxon but Spanish. ibid.
There’s more to identity than genetics alone. ibid.
Isn’t the English way of life and cultural thinking indebted to the people from Germany? ibid.
There never was a mass [Anglo-Saxon] invasion. ibid.
The beginnings of Englishness are in a blending of cultures. ibid.
Hot on the heels of the Anglo-Saxons came a new band of warriors in the ninth century. ibid.
The Normans came next. ibid.
Each wave of immigrants offered something different. ibid.
And a particular kind of Christianity at that. ibid.
2An all-embracing Anglicanism ... I knew that the Church of England didn’t mean the same for everyone. ibid.
The English Church was born in the sixteenth century out of that revolution in Christianity we call the Protestant Reformation. ibid.
From Ranters and Diggers to Baptists and Unitarians ... The English were already a pretty mixed bunch. ibid.
A continuous reinvention of something much older. You can see it in the nation’s plethora of chapels and meeting houses. ibid.
English heritage is much more diverse ... They’ve made this country and especially England where most of them have settled more various than ever. ibid.
There’s no shared identity. If you don’t have one system of values for everyone to buy into then you create a void and into that void rush all sorts of passionate opinions. ibid.
You might call it secular liberalism. ibid.
I see the Church of England as an icon of English plurality. ibid.
The singular ill-luck of this my dear country, which, as long as ever I remember it, and as far back as I have read, has always been governed by the only two or three people, out of two of three millions, totally incapable of governing, and unfit to be trusted. Lord Chesterfield, 1694-1773
An Englishman, being flattered, is a lamb; threatened, a lion. George Chapman, 1559-1634
Smile at us, pay us, pass us; but do not quite forget.
For we are the people of England, that never have spoken yet. G K Chesterton, 1874-1936, The Secret People
Our cloudy climate, and our chilly women. Lord Byron
For what were all these country patriots born?
To hunt, and vote, and raise the price of corn? Lord Byron
The English landscape at its finest – such as I saw this morning – possesses a quality that the landscapes of other nations, however more superficially dramatic, inevitably fail to possess. It is, I believe, a quality that will mark out the English landscape to any objective observer as the most deeply satisfying in the world, and this quality is probably best summed up by the term ‘greatness’. Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day
The French want no-one to be their superior. The English want inferiors. The Frenchman constantly raises his eyes above him with anxiety. The Englishman lowers his beneath him with satisfaction. On either side it is pride, but understood in a different way. Alexis de Tocqueville, Voyages en Angleterre et en Irlande