The English Nation is proving heavy going. I think I’m going to put it aside until I’ve got a better understanding of the timeline of the last two millennia. The central argument, however, is powerful. The ‘official’ history of Britain, the one used by anti euro politicians and tabloids, is a lie. Our island nation’s thousand uninterrupted years of existence independent of mainland Europe never existed, and the history that proves it was actually a retcon that Henry VIII and his deputy Thomas Cromwell used to justify the Reformation. The severing of the ties to Rome kick-started the splintering of Europe into nation states with the associated chauvinism, parochialism and nationalism that saw their final expression in WW1 and WW2. In the age of age of The War Against Terrorism it’s a warning against accepting, promoting or allowing to go unquestioned the government version of events.

All of this because a fat man with a comedy beard was having marriage problems.

(PS retcon comic geek phrase, short for retroactive continuity, meaning to adjust, reframe or just plain ignore the events of previous tales to suit the story currently being told.)