The Golden Age is Over

In 632 AD, the year of Our Lord, the Arab world was set ablaze with a new crusading religion — Islam, or ‘Submission’ — as King Edwin of Northumbria was defeated and killed in battle against King Penda of Mercia.

In his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, the Venerable Bede wrote of a peace under Edwin’s wise rule that was so complete that “a woman with her newborn babe might walk throughout the island, from sea to sea, without receiving any harm”.

This will be cold comfort to the three women sexually assaulted by Qais Al-Aswad from Syria; to the 13 year-old raped by Afghan man Abdul Khan after he posed as a teenager on Snapchat; to the woman raped on Brighton beach by Egyptian Ibrahim Alshafe and Iranian Abdulla Ahmadi while Egyptian Karin Al-Danasurt filmed it; to the woman raped in Worthing by Pakistani man Suleman Mukaish; to the multiple women raped in Manchester by Algerian Sid Ali Djelid; to the family of Rhiannon Whyte, murdered by Deng Chol Majek from Sudan; to the two women raped by Eritrean Radiet Meles.

It might seem disingenuous to present a list of rapes and sexual assaults by asylum seekers and immigrants, hailing from Muslim majority countries. I could present an equivalent list of crimes committed by British nationals. It would be fairer, in fact, to present cold statistics — but accurate figures on crime by asylum seekers and immigrants are not readily available. Nevertheless, the stories rain upon us, seemingly daily, building a sense of crisis by volume alone. I could have produced a list of hundreds from my quick search this morning.

But people increasingly ask that, as this country has plenty of problems of its own, why import more? It now no longer feels safe for a woman to walk from sea to sea without receiving any harm.

While I must acknowledge that Bede was not the most impartial, the ‘Father of English History’ gave us richly textured detail and in this case a proverb that tells us something powerful about how Edwin’s Christian kingship over a large part of the country was remembered. And he offers a second example: that Edwin had drinking vessels set by springs along the highways, which nobody dared steal, “either through the dread they had of the king, or for the love which they bore him”.

Edwin — the country’s Bretwalda, a supreme overlord among kings, and one of the island’s first Christian rulers — enforced order through a mixture of awe and affection. After his victory, Penda, known as one of the last pagan kings in England, went on to ravage the land of the Northumbrians, ending this short golden age.

A golden age can be cut short in a single decisive battle. Or it can die more slowly.

Piddington, a village of 350 in Oxfordshire, has just voted in a ‘mock’ referendum to secede from the United Kingdom. Of 312 ballots cast, 285 backed independence and 26 voted to remain. The village is now calling itself the Principality of Piddington.

This symbolic vote has come about because the residents of Piddington are dismayed and fearful that they too have been called up to do their “share”, as Prime Minister Andy Burnham exhorts the nation, and receive approximately 1,250 asylum seekers, to be housed in a disused MOD base outside the village.

One hundred and thirty-three of the village’s women signed an open letter to the Government warning that their “safety, security and freedoms will be under threat”. Some have started self-defence classes.

Not everyone in the village agrees. One resident named Rachel told BBC Newsnight she has lived in England for almost 40 years and loves it “for the diversity and the richness of it”. Although it must be pointed out she has chosen to live in a small pocket of the country which is very white and not renowned for its diversity. She claimed that “most people in Piddington would be concerned with 1,250 men from anywhere being based here”.

This is clearly untrue. This disused MOD base was once used for logistics and storage, it wasn’t a garrison with living quarters. But let’s play the thought experiment anyway. Would 133 female residents write to the Prime Minister to beg him to reconsider were British military men to be housed there? Would the vast majority of the village want to be independent from the rest of the country? I think we know the answer. British soldiers are bound by an oath to protect the British people. The people of Piddington know that the same cannot be said of 1,250 foreign asylum seekers who are about to be deposited on their doorstep.

Rachel should enjoy her position on the moral high ground while she can. It might be about to change.

The golden age when a woman with her newborn babe could walk throughout the Principality of Piddington, from edge to edge, without receiving any harm, may be coming to a close.

This article was first published on Laura’s Substack, the Free Mind. Subscribe here.