Hello everyone and welcome back to the History of England, Episode 81, The Great Calls.

Firstly I polled with the Grology, Graham has pulled me up on some basic facts.

In Episode 79 I said Maximus was the father of Constantine, which is of course twaddle.

As you were all no doubt thinking, hey, hang on, wasn't the father of Constantine that

constantius bloke?

If you were, you were right, well done, and Graham thanks for pulling me up.

Last time I left you all with what I imagined was a puzzle that you have worried and scratched

your head about for all of five seconds.

I, the death of a seven-year-old girl in the Orkney Islands.

To explain why this would kick off one of the great conflicts in British history, we're

going to have to go back a bit further.

To us Brits, antagonism between the Scots and the English, is a kind of immutable law

of life.

You know, the sun rises in the morning, bears poo in the forest.

The Scots will always despise the English.

In fact, the same applies pretty much to any Celt in the English, but we'll leave that

for another day.

But I have news for you, it was not always thus.

In the unlikely event that there are any Scots listening to this podcast, I imagine what

I'm about to say will seem, frankly, reasonable, but here it is.

Once upon a time, the Scots rather looked up to the English.

Even more, the two nations got on really rather well.

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