ABSTRACT
The use of individual ancient Britons as national heroes by late Victorian and Edwardian authors drew upon the problematical idea that these people were the ancestors of the current generations of the English. We have seen that in a range of cases these ancestral figures had a particular value because of the role that they were made to fulfil in the discourse of British imperialism. Cowper’s poem helped with this identification in drawing Boadicea into the orbit of British imperialism and other ancient Britons were used in comparable ways.
