chickenfeet

Being a meditation on the relative obscurity of Hereward the Wake.

I have come to the conclusion that there is a fundamental difference in how the English define a "national hero" compared to the other inhabitants of the British isles.

The first essential is success. The success should be spectacular and involve lots of dead Frenchmen. At a pinch Germans will do. This is the second hero criterion, credible opposition. Scots, Welsh, Irish etc don't count. Like in the Six Nations, victory is expected. Winning against the S/W/I may be cause for mild satisfaction. Losing to them makes you a big girl's blouse.

Now we turn to the S/W/I. Here there are also two criteria for national herodom. The first is that you must not achieve anything of lasting value (in the case of the Irish you don't even have to try though I think you get a bonus if you do). But the crucial qualification is that to be a SWI hero you have to be executed, preferably horribly and preferably by the English. (The Scots though allow execution by other Scots).

Now to flesh out the paradigm with examples. The quintessential English hero is Nelson. He won against proper opposition (even if the French were handicapped by the Spanish), he killed lots of them and he gets bonus points for being killed romantically in the process.

The typical Scots hero is William Wallace who didn't do anything much except get executed in the approved manner. Montrose is a good example of being a national hero despite only ever fighting other Scots and getting executed by them.

The typical Irish hero is Kevin Barry. They still sing songs about the little shit whose only claim to fame is that he shot a policeman in the back and was dragged screaming to the gallows.

The Welsh are a bit harder to pin down as it's been so long since they have had any heroes but the various Llywellyns and Glyndwrs were a bit like Welsh three quarters. Brilliant in a flashy way for about five minutes then completely disappearing from sight or getting cut up by the English.

Thus we see that Hereward never had a chance. If he'd been Welsh he'd probably be on the back of a commemorative 5p piece or something.