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REFLECTIONS ON THE PAST MILLENNIUM

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In 1758, Benjamin Franklin wrote in his Poor Richard's Almanac the now-familiar lines: "For want of a nail, the shoe was lost; for the want of a shoe, the horse was lost; and for the want of a horse the rider was lost."

It is an entertaining–if rather profitless–exercise to wonder how history might have unfolded differently had a few seemingly trivial events, like a nail that goes missing, unfolded differently. Would Britain at the dawn of the next Millennium look substantially different if things had taken another turn at just a few such crossroads during the past 1,000 years? Arguably, the broad sweep of history would have brought us to roughly the same end even had such momentous events as the Battle of Hastings never occurred. It is not unlikely that England would have prospered as much under Saxon rule as under the Normans. The differences would be many–school children today, for example, would be required to memorize an entirely different succession of royal names (probably in an "English language" bearing scant resemblance to that understood today), but "Angle-land" itself would inevitably have risen to a prominence not altogether different from its historical role.

The unifying and stabilizing influence of the Church would have ensured that Britons deviated little from their ordained social, moral, artistic, and intellectual paths. The nation's relations with the Continent would perhaps have been more eastward-facing, towards Scandinavia rather than France, and thus the Hundred Years' War would probably have been avoided–replaced, perhaps, by some prolonged Anglo-Danish squabbles. The Domesday Book and the Bayeaux Tapestry would never have come to be, and Shakespeare's history plays would have drawn inspiration from a different stock of characters, but one can still picture a recognizable British Empire under a beloved King Ethelbert VIII.

Could other twists of fate have led to more fundamental changes? Imagine, for example, that Robert the Bruce, instead of taking inspiration from a persistent spider, had impulsively flattened the loathsome arachnid with a rock. (Of course, the story of Bruce and the spider is of doubtful authenticity, so this is really a double "what-if.") Having killed the bug, Bruce might well have brooded over the fragility of life and the futility of all our deepest ambitions and, in a state of despair, have given up the fight for Scottish independence. Afterwards, England would have consolidated its control over Scotland, the Auld Alliance would never have formed, and Scotland would have become a junior partner to its southern neighbour. The Act of Union, however, ultimately accomplished many of the same things, so in the long run, Bruce's insecticide would have resulted in no great upheaval in history's timeline.

Another English military "turning point" hinged on the decision made by the Maid of Orleans, Joan d'Arc, to lead the French into battle against the English. What if Joan, instead of climbing into the saddle, had sought psychiatric help when she began hearing voices from God? Well-meaning friends, it might well be imagined, could have compelled her to take some bedrest, accompanied by a regime of ineffectual folk remedies that only served to make her light-headed and lethargic. Without her inspiring brand of leadership, the French might never have lifted the siege of Orleans, turned the tide against the English, and gone on to recover most of the lands lost during the Hundred Years' War. Instead, the British Empire might have gotten off to an early start by annexing the Crown's substantial Continental territories, and France would today be a name found only in history books alongside such realms as Aragon and Castille.

But imagination must give way to probability. While Joan d'Arc's presence undeniably lifted French morale and contributed to a reversal of French military fortunes, she probably only hastened the inevitable. Within a few years, the Wars of the Roses forced English monarchs to turn their attention inward, and any hope of defending far-off lands in France would have melted away on the fields of Barnet, Tewkesbury, and Bosworth. So once again, fate would have returned history to its expected course.

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