Multicultural Britain tells itself stories in order to live. One such story is that the island has always been a diverse, cosmopolitan place. On social media, graduate degree holders will eagerly tell you that Britain’s patron saint is Turkish, its alphabet Roman, its religion Middle Eastern, and its royal family German. A more sophisticated version can be found in a recent issue of The New Statesman, where Tanjil Rashid writes, “The multiculturalism of today’s England arose out of a history genuinely rooted and centuries old. From its inception, Britishness was a composite identity, formed in the aftermath of the union of England and Scotland, capable of absorbing both nations, alongside the Welsh, the Irish and the myriad nationalities that would be absorbed (and invented) by the British empire.” 

This story has wormed its way into all levels of British cultural output. Blitz, Steve McQueen’s 2024 film about the Luftwaffe bombing of London, featured an improbably mixed-race protagonist. Other examples would make a Soviet propagandist wince. In 2022, a black man dressed as a Roman centurion sang,  “We’ve been here from the start” for a BBC children’s program called, appropriately enough, Horrible Histories.

What happens when the new story of Britain collides with an older one? Until recently, the Norman conquest of England was one of the most famous historical episodes in Anglo-American culture. A climactic scene from Errol Flynn’s 1938 film version of Robin Hood starts with Robin telling Prince John, the villainous Norman usurper, that “[he’ll] never rest until every Saxon in this shire can stand up........

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