Roman Invasions: the British History, Protestant Anti-Romanism, and the Historical Imagination in England, 1530-1660.(Book Review)

by John E. Curran, Jr (Newark: U. of Delaware P., 2002; pp. 325. 44 [pounds sterling]).

The central argument of Roman Invasions is that Galfridian British history lived on in England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, well after its lack of proper historical grounding had been exposed in the early 1500s by Polydore Vergil, and the 'historical revolution' of the last years of the century had drawn historians' attention to the need for close critical attention to historical sources. Its longevity is explained by the fact that it served a crucial need, that of bolstering an English sense of independence from the rest of Europe and helping to establish a …