Thomas Williams > Quotes

“Its subtext – that the ‘Anglo-Saxon’ English were chosen by God, that they were inherently superior to the native British people whom they displaced, that their Christianity elevated their morality, that their violence against others was justified by the providential ends it served – provided a template to excuse and even celebrate the brutal treatment of both ‘Celtic’ and non-Christian people and their cultures wherever they were encountered across the globe. E. A. Freeman, the famous nineteenth-century historian of the Norman Conquest whose assessment of Alfred’s character is quoted above, wrote of America that ‘This would be a grand land if only every Irishman would kill a negro, and be hanged for it’.”
― Thomas Williams, Lost Realms: Histories of Britain from the Romans to the Vikings

“Of all the compass points from which terror might emanate, there was one which held the greatest dread. This was not just because the sea had repeatedly disgorged boatloads of child-snatchers and hall-burners from precisely this direction, nor indeed because empirical observation demonstrated that this was the horizon over which the most wretched weather tended to hurtle, but because the Anglo-Saxons already knew full well that it was here that Satan had set his throne. This was the medieval world’s heart of darkness: the North.”
― Thomas J.T. Williams, Viking Britain: An Exploration

“This is the standard version of early English and British history: an Anglo-centric account of unfolding national greatness that congealed in the nineteenth century, stuffed full of familiar and outdated themes of English Christian nationalism. And, despite being factually incorrect in a number of ways and deeply questionable in others, it has exercised a powerful grip.”
― Thomas Williams, Lost Realms: Histories of Britain from the Romans to the Vikings