British London

I sometimes find that a small incident in my research opens up into a whole spectrum of things. That’s how King James I and VI has affected me. James went to London and several Scots followed him and that started a train of thought. London isn’t English, it really belongs to all of uss, including those beyond the Watford Gap or Hadrian’s Wall.

London was a trading post for the Celts, the Ancient Britons before the Romans came. The Romans enlarged it. But who were the Romans? A collection from around the known world; Africans, people from the Near East, people from East and West Europe, even people from Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

Then came the Angles and the Saxons – Germans. Followed by the Vikings from Denmark and Scandinavia, and it seems, Scots, Irish and Welsh, who had taken to the lifestyle. Although we won’t go into their methods, the Vikings expanded the port and its trade.

Then we have the House of York and Lancaster taking over and adding to its historical richness. They were followed by the Scot, King James Stuart; his son-in-law, the Dutchman, William, who, coming from a trading nation, may have talked some sense into their heads over a 100% tax on tea, which only encouraged smuggling of our national drink.

It must also be remembered that, when Dundas was head of the East India Company, there were complaints about it being a Scottish colony. Then again, Ramsay MacDonald’s ancestry is from Ulster, Scotland’s Western Highlands, and Glen Coe.

So, who made London? Not the urchins born within the sound of Bow Bells, but all of us, from every part of the British Isles, including the present Republic of Ireland. London isn’t English, it’s London, the place we British choose to have our desk and do our business, and the profits from there belong to the British as a nation, not the stockbroker belt around our capital.