Introduction: remembering Britain

Shakespeare's ‘Quarrel Honourable’ and Gentili's ‘Iusta Contentio’:Henry Vand the Forging of the Nation

“…Proving to be much less irresponsible than he had seemed, young Henry successfully takes up his father's advice. Those same Englishmen, Welshmen, Irishmen, and Scots who had revolted against Henry IV will now be all rallied to fight against a common enemy in the name of an all‐inclusive ‘England’ (Schwyzer :1–12). As a matter of fact, this was a common political strategy that sovereigns had been using for centuries, as Niccolò Machiavelli had already shown in his work The Prince , when writing about Ferdinand of Aragon's successful campaigns (Petrina ; Petrina and Arienzo ):

At the start of his reign he attacked Granada .

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“…The essence of belonging to a nation is to know – by an act of faith that can never be verified through first‐hand knowledge – that there are more of you than are there. (Schwyzer :144)…”