On Twitter, losers in the Scottish referendum have taken to calling themselves

#the 45. In point of actual fact, only 44.7% of the electorate backed
independence but decimel points and hashtags tend not to go together. As a
result, there has come to hang over the aftermath of the vote something of the
aura of an earlier episode in Scottish history: Bonnie Prince Charlies Jacobite
rebellion in 1745. Landing in Scotland to claim the British throne, the Young
Pretender managed to raise the Highlands, lead an invasion of England, and
briefly menace London only then to be forced into retreat and roundly
defeated the following year at the battle of Culloden. Bonnie Prince Charlie
himself, after fleeing the slaughter, made a getaway to France disguised as a
ladys maid, and spent the rest of his life as the very archetype of the gallant
loser. Ever since, the 45 has served Scotland as shorthand for a thrilling,
romantic, but ultimately doomed insurgency. Its appearance this week as a
Twitter hashtag, then, appears not a little fitting.

All of which demonstrates that history, in a country as old as Britain, can
sometimes prove hard to escape. This is especially the case when an issue as
momentous as the possible break-up of the United Kingdom rears its head.
Much was made by supporters of the Yes campaign in the referendum of the
perceived differences between Scotland and England, with the Scots cast as
more progressive, and altogether less prone to feeding babies to bankers, than
the English; but this was overdone. Surveys have repeatedly shown that, give
or take the odd percentage point, social attitudes are fairly uniform across the
UK. What, then as a German journalist asked Alex Salmond shortly before
the referendum is the big difference between the Scots and the English? The
question rattled the First Minister, and he blustered rather than give a direct
reply. The answer, though, was perfectly self-evident: what distinguishes the
Scots from the English is the fact that, prior to the Act of Union, they lived in
separate countries.

Salmond himself, as a graduate in medieval history, knows this perfectly well,
of course. His reluctance to acknowledge it openly did not stop him sounding
the occasional dog-whistle of which the staging of a 700
th
anniversary
extravaganza at the site of the battle of Bannockburn was the most obvious. In
general, though, there was no need for the Yes campaign to play at being
Bravehearts. The identity of Scotland as a distinct nation, with borders, flags
and traditions derived from its medieval past, was so secure that it could be
taken for granted. The result was a nationalism able to cast itself as civic:
open, optimistic, progressive. If the chanting and the brandishing of saltires
did occasionally become a bit much for No supporters, then by and large the
Yes campaign was able to channel a sense of optimism and excitement that
even those who disagreed with it could hardly help but find invigorating. No
mean feat: to articulate a sense of identity rooted in medieval history that was
at the same time thoroughly 21
st
century.

What might be the lesson of this for the rest of us in our still-united kingdom?
There is no reason why the dynamism which has electrified Scottish politics
should not now energise the rest of the UK too. The devolution promised to
Scotland and which the Westminster parties cannot possibly wriggle out of
without placing the Union under perhaps terminal strain provides a readily
applicable model for Wales and Northern Ireland. England, though, is more
of a challenge. This is not because the English are any less of a nation than the
Scots far from it. For a thousand years and more now, England has been a
unitary state: a degree of precocity without rival in Europe. Yet to grant
England a parliament would instantly be to put all the various other
parliaments in the United Kingdom Westminster not least in the shade. Of
such knotty problems are constitutional conundra made.

Perhaps, though, a possible solution does lie to hand. Game of Thrones might
not, on the face of it, seem obvious reading for anyone concerned to map a
path for a 21
st
century Britain. Featuring as it does murderous power-
struggles, internecine civil wars and dragons, it puts even the Scottish
referendum campaign in the shade. Nevertheless, its sheer popularity has
served to remind the English of a period of their history that rarely tends to
feature in schools. Westeros, the fictional realm which lies at the heart of
George RR Martins epic tale, was once a heptarchy: a land of seven
kingdoms. The historical model for this is obvious: Dark Ages England. Once,
before a unitary state was forged by the family of Alfred the Great, the land of
the Angles was made up of many kingdoms. Vanished though the realms of
Northumbria and Mercia, of the East Angles and West Saxons, of Essex, and
Sussex, and Kent may be, the memory of them still abides. The potential focus
they provide for regional loyalties is, in the context of the most centralised
state in Western Europe, a resource too valuable to go to waste. Bringing to
light the constituent elements of the United Kingdom of England, and letting
their ancient contours show again, might well facilitate something very much
needed: a localism capable of going with, not against, the grain of English
history.

A decade ago, John Prescotts cloth-eared plan to divide England up into nine
separate zones never made it past the first public vote on his proposal. Who
could possibly feel any sense of identification with a North West Regional
Assembly? Such a body would have had no history, no poetry, no roots.
These, as the Scottish referendum has powerfully demonstrated, do still
matter; and if the best way to invoke them in the regions of England is to
restore a Council of the North to York, or to raise the Golden Dragon of
Wessex above a parliament in Winchester, then so be it.

The vote in Scotland demonstrated, to widespread relief elsewhere in the
United Kingdom, that Britishness still has a viable future. Ironically enough,
though, it was not only those formally backing the Union who suggested this.
The mingled utopianism and resentment of Westminster articulated by many
supporters of Scottish independence find ready echoes elsewhere across
Britain. A measured programme of devolution, one that can enable people to
feel that their voices are being heard, while still affirming the bonds of
citizenship that unite us all, should not be impossible to fashion. If successful,
then perhaps the 45, as their Jacobite forebears ultimately did, will feel able
in due course to commit to Britain. Certainly, passionate as they are in their
desire for a new politics, and comfortable within their medieval borders, they
have blazed a path for everyone else in the United Kingdom to follow. It is
one that the English in particular, proud as they are of their sense of irony,
should not hesitate to explore. What, after all, could be more exquisitely ironic
than to revitalise the regions, and make England fit for the 21
st
century, by
looking back to the Dark Ages?