Patriotism in Tudor England: How a Nation Learned to Love Itself

It's Memorial Day, and I've been thinking about patriotism -- where it comes from, why people feel it so strongly, and whether Tudor people felt anything like it at all.

The answer is more interesting than I expected. In 1485, when Henry VII takes the throne after the Battle of Bosworth Field, England is basically a collection of feudal relationships. Loyalty runs to your lord, your family, your region -- not to some abstract idea of "England."

There's no standing army, no national church, no real sense of a shared national identity.

And then the Reformation happens. And everything changes.

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