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To understand the confusion between British and English you must look back into British history. Before the large scale migrations of the 20th century the British Isles were very broadly made up of four distinct cultural groupings. The English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish.

The word "Britain" derives from Briton, who were the predominant people who occupied the area of modern England, Scotland and Wales in ancient times. In broad cultural terms the Scottish and Welsh are the direct descendants of the ancient Britons. In the period after the collapse of the Roman Empire a power vacuum emerged in Britain and the whole of what is now England was plunged into a prolonged period of violent struggle for supremacy. The Romans had brought legions to Britain from all over mainland Europe and the Germanic legions had settled communities within Britain based on their legionary centers. After Roman rule ended the various pro and anti Roman groupings fought for supremacy and to inherit the mantle of rulers of Britain.

The English are the cultural descendants of the Germanic Roman legionaries and later were bolstered by large scale migrations to these shores from Germany and the low countries after the Romans departed. All these are broad cultural generalizations.. there are many English people who have settled in Scotland and have become Scottish and the same applies to each of the British nations. But within each British nation there are still distinct cultural differences and shared beliefs that make them distinct culturally. The Scottish and Welsh both have ancient histories that pre-date English history, English history fizzles before the 10th c and sort of tags itself onto the older British tradition. This essentially is the reason why we are both English and British at the same time. The legendary British hero King Arthur is in fact a "Briton" fighting to repel the Anglo Saxon's (English) from what is now England. He almost certainly spoke Welsh or an earlier version of Welsh and the early English language would almost certainly have been alien to him.

The Anglo Saxon (English) migrations from Germany proceeded in the main from the south and east towards the north and west of what is now England. The Scottish and Welsh are broadly speaking the descendants of those who resisted the Anglo Saxon incursions and its not a co-incidence that these countries are to the north and west of the expanding state of England. Until the 12c a large swathe of territory now in the west of England was claimed as ancestral by the Kingdom of Strathclyde in Scotland.

The Scots, Irish and Welsh continued to struggle to against the rule of England until relatively modern times. In my region there are many fortifide houses "Peel Towers" built as defensive fortifications against Scottish incursions and in the 17th C Bonny Prince Charlie brought his Jacobites here on their way south from Scotland.

The Act of Union essentially set in stone the supremancy of Westminster and effectively ended the claims of Scotland for complete independence and the United Kingdom was created which included Wales and for a time all of Ireland. Fuelled by the industrial revolution the British Empire was growing and was expanding across the globe, and Scotland and Wales cultures were on the defesive. But this is far from the end of the story, as the recent emergence of the Scottish nationalists as a serious poltical force and the increasing demands for more effective English representation at Westminster confirm.

Learn more about this author, Andrew Mercer.
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