Patriotism and the Lord of the Rings

[William Cloud Hicklin]

do you not find it interesting that in the play Henry V there is an entire scene where the king's dialogue is in French?

Actually a scene where the king, once, attempts to communicate with Katherine in astoundingly *bad* French, which is the point:

"I will tell thee in French, which I am sure will hang upon my tongue like a new-married wife about her husband's neck, hardly to be shook off. Je quand sur le possession de France, et quand vous avez le possession de moi - let me see, what then? St Denis be my speed! -done votre est France et vous etes mienne. It is as easy for me, Kate, to conquer the kingdom as to speak so much more French. I shall never move thee in French, unless it be to laugh at me."

Of course Will is taking licence: the real Henry spoke perfectly good French.

(Plantagent: yes, from Geoffrey comte d'Anjou- but it remained the English royal surname down to Bosworth Field).

Taxes increased due to resulting lack of funds being siphoned from France, and the spiralling inflation led to the Peasant Revolt under Wat Tyler and John Ball.

together with the Black Death and the resultant ill-considered Statute of Labourers....

Moving back in time, though: I doubt that even the fyrd at Hastings was devoid of patriotism, or at least a recognition that their freedom was under threat from a foreign culture and political system (as it was).

Sure, the Free Companies were hyenas- but they preyed on French (including nominal English subjects when they could get away with it). The rise of patriotism runs in parallel with the rise of nation-states of a more-or-less ethno-linguistic character. While mercenaries were employed in most wars from the medieval period right down to the modern age, the two conflicts characterized by armies composed almost entirely of mercenaries were the arenas in which national formation had been arrested: Renaissance Italy and the Thirty Years' War.