British

The British group includes the English, Welsh, Scots, Highland Gaels and Cornish, and the English settlers of Ireland. Celtic Britons first held the island, and it became the Roman province of Britannia in the first century. After Roman rule ended in the fifth century, Anglo-Saxon settlement displaced the Britons in the east and south, and Gaelic speakers from Ireland settled in the north.

The Normans conquered England in 1066 and Edward I took Wales in 1283. Scotland's victory at Bannockburn in 1314 led to English recognition of its independence in 1328. In 1337 Edward III opened the Hundred Years' War against France. England and Scotland merged in 1707.