Bolingbroke, the Englishman, was a pioneer in the 
     expounding of a formal doctrine of nationalism. It was 
     natural, therefore, that any Englishman who would enter 
     the lists against Jacobinism should be arrayed in 
     trappings of nationalism.

     So writes Hayes on page 86 of Historical Evolution of  
Modern Nationalism . Similar testimony of English precedence in 
national unity comes from a sixteenth century Venetian 
ambassador:

          In 1557 the Venetian ambassador Giovanni Micheli 
     wrote to his government: ‘In so far as religion [in England] 
     is concerned, the example and authority of the sovereign 
     are all-important. The English esteem and practise their 
     religion only in so far as thereby they fulfil their duty as