Letter: In the world cup tonight my beloved England can emulate Aethelstan's great victory to become the first English ruler on July 12 927
A letter from Dr Gerald Morgan:
Northern Ireland has on July 12 just celebrated the victory of King William in 1690 at the Battle of the Boyne.
More than 750 years earlier, on July 12 927, it was of course Aethelstan, grandson of the more famous Alfred the Great, who was the first King of England that day at Eamont Bridge: Alfred the Great wasn’t so great.
A decade later, at Brunanburh in 937, Aethelstan solidified his power as king of England and defeated a combined force of Vikings from Dublin and Scots.
At long last, there has been a renewed historical interest in Aethelstan.
Can England in the world cup emulate his victory at Brunanburh in 937 and reaffirm the unity of England as a nation?
The time has surely come for the English to recover and know the truth of our own history as a nation.
With all due respect to the brilliant historian David Starkey, the nation of England does not begin 800 years ago with Magna Carta in 1215. It begins 800 years before that, with the arrival of Hengest and Horsa in the fifth century.
We are a Germanic people not a Celtic people. We are an Anglo-Saxon and a Viking nation. We did not invade Ireland. The Irish invaded us, or rather, Olaf Guthrithson, King of Dublin, invaded us in 937 along with Constantine II, King of Scotland/Alba, and Owain, King of Strathclyde.
As every English school child ought to know, the Anglo-Saxon English were defeated at Hastings in 1066.
Do not blame the English as such for the conquest of Ireland. The Irish experienced at the hand of the Normans in 1167 what we, the English, had experienced a century earlier.
I came to Trinity College Dublin from Oxford and the Forest of Dean in 1968. Call me an English blow-in if you like. I am still living in Dublin after all these years.
I like to think that most of my friends are Irish. I hope I am not deluded in this respect.
Aethelsan won our first great English victory at Brunanburh as it is set down in the famous Old English poem.
Does no one read Beowulf these days, even in one of the many English translations?
As for example by the Ulsterman Seamus Heaney?
Like us, our Norwegian friends at the weekend stood on the verge of the semi-finals of the World Cup. And having defeated Brazil and Mexico deservedly so. The Norwegians are our friends and allies. We fought and died with them in 1939-1945.
It was England who won on Saturday and got through to the semi-finals, and who are playing Argentina tonight.
May the better team win.
Dr Gerald Morgan, Lydbrook School (1946-1953), Monmouth School (1953-1961), Meyricke Exhibitioner, Jesus College, Oxford (1961-1964), D.Phil. (Oxon.), 1973, FTCD (1993), Director, The Chaucer Hub, Dublin 4