"In the context of Brexit, as the rethinking of Europe and its borders is very much part of an enterprise bound up with memory of conquest, empire, and independence, this is a book that will get students reading, critics thinking, and people talking." Willy Maley, University of Glasgow

"Hopkins concludes her compelling study with the statement that there 'is a recurrent acknowledgment that a purely British identity is no longer possible (if indeed it ever was), because bloodlines have been diluted by wave after wave of invasion, but there is also a sense of a link between land and identity' (191). Hers is a book that presents a wealth of material and offers intriguing insights on questions of identity, succession, legitimacy, but also on how early modern writers viewed the distant past and gave it political significance." --Nicole Nyffenegger, University of Bern, Switzerland

Lisa Hopkins is Professor of English at Sheffield Hallam University. She is co-editor of Shakespeare, the journal of the British Shakespeare Association, and of the Arden Early Modern Drama Guides.

Introduction Part One: Legacies "Bisson Conspectuities": Language and National Identity in Shakespeare's Roman Plays Profit and Delight? Magic and the Dreams of a Nation "A Borrowed Blood for Brute": From Britain to England Part Two: Ancestors and Others Queens and the British History Dido in Denmark: Danes and Saxons on the Early Modern English Stage Valiant Welshwomen: When Britain Came Back Athelstan, the Virgin King Conclusion Works Cited