Authors:
  • From the 15th century to 1688, England and Wales, like Scotland, had been peripheral kingdoms in the European power game, more often at war with each other that with Continental powers, and - except under Oliver Cromwell - scarcely very successful on those occasions when they did engage the Dutch, or the French, or the Spanish.

    Linda Colley (2005). “Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707-1837”, p.53, Yale University Press