Lorna Hutson: England's Insular Imagining

How have the English conceived of Scotland? How should we understand the narrative of British nationhood? How did the Elizabethans use literature in the form of Spenser’s Faerie Queen and Shakespeare’s Henry V to justify England’s claim to superiority over its northern neighbour and refusal to acknowledge Scotland as a sovereign nation?

Lorna Hutson is Professor of English Literature, Merton College, University of Oxford.