Dital Harp

Saw one of these bizarre monstrous hybrids in the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool today; described Here as '...essentially a cross between a harp and a guitar. They were fashionable for a short period after the instrument was patented in 1816.' Another essential slab of English culture!

I'm certainly not the English Gandhi

Ghandi was racist too - see here. A super-calloused-fragile-mystic-hexed-by-halitosis...

at this stage...

You really ought to write a book on modesty, WAV.

but as he kept spinning his Indian wheel, so shall I keep playing my English flute

The recorder was a continental European innovation for the baroque orchestra, called English to differentiate it from the transverse or German flute, and reaching its apotheosis as virtuoso solo instrument in concertos by Marcello et al. Not only this, but it was revived as an Early Music instrument in the early 20th century by Dolmetsch. So not actually an English flute any more than a Cor Anglais is an English horn; and not in the least bit traditional, continuous, or even appropriate to folk music in any shape or form, and certainly not according to your own rather limited remit. A foreign import in every sense. But you've been told this before...