ABSTRACT
The loss of the colonies in America and the generation of a compensatory concept of imperial greatness in the east produced a notion of Britishness because it forced the peoples of the Atlantic archipelago to think about the nature of the 'British empire'. In the high middle ages, England attempted to keep a toe-hold in its continental empire, but Richard II tackled the fourteenth-century equivalent of the Irish problem, losing his English throne as a consequence; Edward III and Henry IV looked to Wales; and a succession of English and Scottish monarchs tried to define their mutual border rivalry through recourse to arms. The Scottish scholars to emerge from continental exile gave Scotland a wider status. John Knox was a figure of international significance, not least for the part he played in tying Scottish politics to those of England. The parallel process by which religious practice and expression was defined seemed a way to forge a shared island culture.
