Ancient Britons in the context of "Northumberland"

British people or Britons, also known colloquially as Brits, are the citizens and diaspora of the United Kingdom, the British Overseas Territories, and the Crown dependencies. British nationality law governs modern British citizenship and nationality, which can be acquired, for instance, by descent from British nationals. When used in a historical context, "British" or "Britons" can refer to the Ancient Britons, the Celtic-speaking inhabitants of Great Britain during the Iron Age, whose descendants formed the major part of the modern Welsh people, Cornish people, Bretons and considerable proportions of English people. It also refers to those British subjects born in parts of the former British Empire that are now independent countries who settled in the United Kingdom prior to 1973.

Though early assertions of being British date from the Late Middle Ages, the Union of the Crowns in 1603 and the creation of the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707 triggered a sense of British national identity. The notion of Britishness and a shared British identity was forged during the 18th century and early 19th century when Britain engaged in several global conflicts with France, and developed further during the Victorian era. The complex history of the formation of the United Kingdom created a "particular sense of nationhood and belonging" in Great Britain; Britishness became "superimposed on much older identities", of English, Scots and Welsh cultures, whose distinctiveness still resists notions of a homogenised British identity. Because of longstanding ethno-sectarian divisions, British identity in Northern Ireland is controversial, but it is held with strong conviction by Unionists.

Watling Street is a historic route in England, running from Dover and London in the southeast, via St Albans to Wroxeter. The road crosses the River Thames at London and was used in Classical Antiquity, Late Antiquity, and throughout the Middle Ages. It was used by the ancient Britons and paved as one of the main Roman roads in Britannia (Roman-governed Great Britain during the Roman Empire). The line of the road was later the southwestern border of the Danelaw with Wessex and Mercia, and Watling Street was numbered as one of the major highways of medieval England.

First used by the ancient Britons, mainly between the areas of modern Canterbury and St Albans using a natural ford near Westminster, the road was later paved by the Romans. It connected the ports of Dubris (Dover), Rutupiae (Richborough Castle), Lemanis (Lympne), and Regulbium (Reculver) in Kent to the Roman bridge over the Thames at Londinium (London). The route continued northwest through Verulamium (St Albans) on its way to Viroconium Cornoviorum (Wroxeter). Watling Street is traditionally cited as having been the location of the Romans' defeat of Boudica, though precisely where on the route is disputed.

Urien ap Cynfarch Oer (Welsh pronunciation: [ˈɨ̞riɛn ap ˈkənvarχ oːɨ̯r]) or Urien Rheged (Welsh pronunciation: [ˈɨ̞riɛn ˈr̥ɛɡɛd], Old Welsh: Urbgen or Urbagen, Old Welsh pronunciation: [ɨ̞rβ(ə)ˈɣɛn]) was a powerful sixth-century Brittonic-speaking figure who was possibly the ruler of the territory or kingdom known as Rheged. He is one of the best-known and best documented of the British figures of the Old North. His kingdom was most likely centred around the Solway Firth. According to the section known as the "Northern History" of the Historia Brittonum (c. 829–30 AD), Urien gained a decisive advantage in a conflict against the Anglo-Saxons in northern Britain while leading an alliance with three other kings: Rhydderch Hen, Gwallog ap Llênog, and Morgan. The alliance led by Urien penned the Anglo-Saxons in at Lindisfarne, though this siege came to an abrupt end when Urien was murdered on the orders of his erstwhile ally Morgan.

The most secure evidence for his existence comes the Historia Brittonum and eight praise-poems in Middle Welsh orthography dedicated to him surviving in a fourteenth-century manuscript. Despite their being found in later orthography, the poems may possibly reflect early material, even material contemporaneous to Urien. One of these poems is explicitly attributed to the famed poet Taliesin in the manuscript. The "Northern History" in the Historia Brittonum also roughly synchronises Taliesin's career to the reign of Ida of Bernicia (547 × 549). Some of the Beirdd y Tywysogion (c. 1100–1283) also allude to this strong association between Taliesin and Urien. The panegyric attributed to Taliesin concerning Urien is particularly significant because if it truly originates in the sixth century it, together with the poetry attributed to Aneirin, would be the earliest vernacular post-Classical European literature.