Teasing out the forgotten parts of England's history

THERE is a common misconception that English history starts in 1066.

Or at least that's the earliest significant date that many of us remember from our school history lessons. It is one of those headline events, along with the English Civil War, the Battle of Agincourt and the two world wars, that have become ingrained in our collective consciousness.

But there is, of course, much more to English history than these monumental chapters in our historical back pages, as Richard Tames's new book England's Forgotten Past seeks to prove. The book's sub-title The Unsung Heroes and Heroines, Valiant Kings, Great Battles and Other Generally Overlooked Episodes in Our Nation's Curious History may sound a bit long-winded, but don't worry – it isn't some pious tome that requires a three-month sabbatical in order to wade through. It's actually a rather witty and engaging journey that travels from Roman times right the way through to the 20th century, giving time and space to those characters and events that hitherto have been little more than footnotes in the colourful history of our sceptred isle.

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Tames has written more than 20 books on various aspects of English history but feels that too much has slipped off the radar. "I've been teaching and learning about history for 40 years and yet I found out that Charles II built a naval base in Tangiers which I'd never heard about. This was the biggest project of its time and cost three times the amount to build St Paul's Cathedral. It took 20 years to build and was supposed to allow us to keep an eye on enemy bases in Toulon and Cadiz and give the empire a doorway into Africa and yet it's as though it never existed."

Tames doesn't think it was a deliberate attempt to airbrush history, but more a case of a nation not wishing to dwell on its failures.

"The more you look, the more you discover things you didn't know. For instance, I found out that during the American War of Independence Florida remained a loyal British colony that didn't revolt

and to this day you can still find events there commemorating the English."

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He fears that too much history is being squeezed into the margins. "Americans have an annual holiday to mark when their nation began, but the English have largely forgotten how theirs did. We know about the Tudors and Nazi Germany, but who knows that Athelstan was the first king of England? Most people have never heard of him," he says.

"There's a huge range of things to choose from and as a result we have buried or forgotten a lot of them, which is a shame because our past is full of great characters who have been overlooked."

Among those celebrities of their day who have since sunk into obscurity are Nicholas Breakspear, the only English Pope, and the Venerable Bede, who wrote St Cuthbert's biography.

"Bede was the first person to talk about the English people rather than Anglo-Saxons and the English were the first people in Europe to write their own history in English, rather than Latin," explains Tames.

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Charlotte "Lottie" Dod is another "star" who people have largely forgotten about. "She became the youngest ever Wimbledon women's singles winner at the age of 15 and went on to win the title another four times before retiring at the age of 21 because she was bored. She also won the British Ladies Golf Championship and got a silver medal in archery at the Olympic Games. She led an extraordinary life but many people today have no idea who she was."

It's not just people that get lost in the mists of time, historical events do, too. "Schools tend not to 'do' the War of the Roses any more, which is probably why many people don't know that the biggest and bloodiest battle in English history was probably at Towton.

"Historians often disagree on how many people were killed but it may have been as many as 28,000, and interestingly the next bloodiest battle was Marston Moor."

Tames believes our past is a rich tapestry that is constantly evolving, rather than being set in stone. "We have a national narrative which reminds us that history is not about the past, but what we do with it," he says. "We have the ability to reformulate our history and we need to ask the past new questions all the time because the past is all we have, and there's a lot more of it than we realise."

England's Forgotten Past, published by Thames & Hudson, priced 12.95 is out now.

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