jonadab said: Of course they live in England. Scotland and Wales are provinces in England, and have been throughout all of modern history and for that matter a large part of the middle ages. Yes, when the English took control of Wales and Scottland and, later, other places, they invented new names for their nation so as to soothe the newly conquered provinces, but fundamentally, whatever it's called on paper, it's still the same country -- it's still England. Whatever semantic games were played, it still boiled down to the English being in charge and the Scots and Welsh being subject to them.

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I really cannot let this pass; you're over simplifying things in one of my pet subjects! :)

1) There is a very significant difference between 'the English being in charge' and 'it's ... still the same country. For example, I think no one would argue that Iraq was part of the United States during the time that the US was directly in control of the country, right?

2) Wales is more complex, but Scotland was unequivocably not an English province. Scotland was a self-governing, independent country (if often coerced into yielding to England on many issues) with its own monarch until the Scottish King James VI inherited the English throne from Queen Elizabeth I. Even then England and Scotland mantained separate parliaments until the Acts of Union about 100 years later (the very early 1700s, I think). The Acts of Union was not an assimilation of Scotland into England, but the creation of a new entity "Great Britain".

3) Despite the power of the British Empire, it was a network of sovereign states, not of provinces - although, again, Britain had a great deal of power/influence in each country under its dominion... they were, however, still distinct countries. Consider, again, the power wielded by the United States, the influence it has over many other sovereign nations, but one cannot with truth say they are all part of the United States....

4) Wales, as I said, is more complex, and was certainly *treated* as a province after Edward I. Gwynedd (spelling?) was conquered in the late 13th century, but Wales was not officially annexed by England until Henry VII's reign. This annexation gave Welsh citizens (theoretical) equality under English law and (hurrah!) elminated the 'Marcher Lords' (the roles, not the individuals); it also, oddly enough, defined the borders of Wales...

I will try to clean up this post later today - we're taking our menagerie of little people to the zoo now!

Eliana