English national identity

A national identity of the English as the people or ethnic group native to England developed in the Middle Ages arguably beginning with the unification of the Kingdom of England in the 10th century, but explicitly in the 11th century after the Norman Conquest, when Englishry came to be the status of the subject indigenous population.

From the eighteenth century the terms 'English' and 'British' began to be seen as interchangeable to many of the English.

While the official UK census does record ethnicity, English/Welsh/Scottish/Northern Irish/British is a single tick-box under the "White" heading for the answer to the ethnicity question asked in England and Wales (while making the distinction of White Irish).

Although Englishness and Britishness are used synonymously in some contexts, the two terms are not identical and their relation to each other is complex. Englishness is often a response to different national identities within Britain such as Scottishness, Irishness, Welshness.