English

The English are England's people, forged from Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Romano-British after Roman withdrawal. The Angelcynn were united into an English kingdom in the tenth century under Wessex; Viking conquest of the Danelaw had added a Norse element. The Norman Conquest of 1066 placed a French-speaking aristocracy over them; fusion of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Norman layers through common law and Parliament made English identity.

In 1337 England entered the Hundred Years' War; the Black Death of 1348 and the Peasants' Revolt of 1381 loosened serfdom and hastened the rise of yeoman society. The Wars of the Roses ended in Tudor accession in 1485, Henry VIII's 1534 break with Rome made the Church of England the national church, anchoring identity in Protestantism through the defeat of the Armada in 1588 and the 1611 King James Bible.

Civil wars of the 1640s and the 1688 Glorious Revolution confirmed parliamentary monarchy; the 1707 Acts of Union joined England to Scotland. London became a maritime empire hub; Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions made the English the first industrial nation.