All this goes to prove, apart from that the Irish will forever be Irish regardless of anyone who dares to say otherwise, is that at any number of points in history the French could have become English and the English, French. It was perhaps only due to William the Conquerors lack of English that the good old Anglo-Saxon peasant persisted as a stubborn Anglo-Saxon and that most very English of things, the Class System was born. To this day, the vast majority of English still consider themselves working class, even though the definition has, in truth, been mostly lost and they cling as stubbornly to the notion of ‘us and them’ as much as any self respecting Medieval subdjugated English peasant. ‘Them’ of course encompassing any person of noble birth or person in a position of authority and, by extension and virtue of the Normans, the French.
The French v The English – All the same under the skin
