For a bit of historical context on this Who Deserves to be English discussion, I recommend "Shakespeare and the Jews," by James Shapiro. Many of the arguments here closely mirror the arguments that surrounded the "Jew bill" [chapter 7] of 1753, which takes up the final chapter of the book. The tumult, jingoism and the results were similar. I find it hard to accept that we have not progressed in almost 3 centuries. By the way, if you go to page 279 of the same book you will find that whether or not The kingdom was united by act of Parliament it was treated de jure as though it was. On the question of unification, note 70 reads "The best known example of this problem in early modern England was the 1609 case of Calvin, a young boy born in Scotland whose right to benefit from freehold tenements in London was contested on the grounds that he was an alien. Luckily for Calvin, legal experts decided that he was born after King James had come to the English throne and thus was technically English and therefore eligible to hold property in England. His case gives some inkling of how disputed the legal status of aliens was at this time." [Notes re: chapter 6, "Race, Nation or Alien] This also suggests that it may be harder to do an actual separation than it appears at first glance.
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