Ken Valentine Wrote:Wales and Scotland, are two vestigial countries separate from England . . . sorta. Welsh and Scots are British, but not English.
It would be similar -- but not exactly comparable -- to say that Canadians and Mexicans are Americans, but not United Statesians.
(Now I've got her REALLY confused. Heh. )
Ken V.
Maybe the best way to explain is that what are now the British Isles were inhabited by various Celtic tribes at the time of the Roman Conquest. Among these were the Picts, in present day Scotland. The Romans built Hadrian's Wall to keep the Picts from surging Southward into Britainnia, the area they had conquered (modern-day England). The Romans first conquered, then assimilated the British tribes south of Hadrian's Wall into their empire. When the empire was imploding in the Fifth Century A.D., the Romans withdrew, leaving the British to the less than tender mercies of the Germanic tribes from modern-day Denmark and the Low Countries of Northern Europe. These tribes were the Jutes, Angles and Saxons. Over a span of a couple hundred years, the Anglo-Saxon tribes pushed the British tribes West into Cornwall and Wales (ironically "Welsh" is derived from a Saxon word for foreigner). British also fled across the Channel to Britainny and Normandy. "England" is not named for its original inhabitants, but for the Angles--Germanic invaders. The Normans (who were supposedly British, although they may have intermarried with Norsemen in the intervening centuries, and certainly with Franks as well) invaded England in 1066, defeated the last Saxon (and last "English") king, Harold, at the Battle of Hastings, and the rest is History.
Thus "English" is not the same as "British". Modern Brits can trace their roots to Celtic, Germanic, French, Norse, and Roman origins.
BTW, this all happened during the "Dark Ages", so some of the geneology may be open to conjecture. The Scots, Irish and Welsh have been around the whole time though.