Oh Lord, who looked over the Battle of Hastings and cast thy comet into the sky to terrify that useless get Harold.
WHAT ABOUT THE CELTS?
AND THE BEAKER FOLK?
AND THE PICTS?
I suppose you just expected us to light a few tea lights, play a bodhran and bear with it in thy divine mercy,
What is this germanocentric attitude to the world of the 11th Century that sees the whole thing in terms of a fight between a Saxon kingdom and a French one - when in fact the Normans were bloody Scandinavians and the whole thing was basically an interdynastic row between two bunches of Germans?
Have you forgotten what the Normans did to the Welsh? And the Irish? Those castles didn't just appear all by themselves. And Godwinson was just a jumped up yokel who was in the right place at the right time.
And then there was that whole "Battle of Stamfordbridge" thing. Didn't get its own collect. Presumably because the English won that one, so there was no need for liberal angst.
So we remember all those people who were already in the British Isles when the Saxons turned up - who were ignored by the Normans, the Saxons and - let's face it - the Church of England while God and his angels slept.
Whose side was God on? Not ours, if you ask the C of E.
Erm, there were Celts in England at that time too, you know! And they were Christians before that arrogant Johnny-come-lately Augustine got there. And the Celts themselves were invaders. They interbred with generations of the earlier invader tribes, of whom the Beaker Folk were one, and later the product hung on and interbred with the Anglo-Saxons in turn.
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