Britannia - English with a touch of Italian, German, Viking, French...

It was left to David Dimbleby's Seven Ages of Britain - a look at the history of Britain through art - to remind us of a historical truth.

Far from being bloody but unbowed we Brits have been conquered again and again.

We got routed by the Romans, stuffed by the Anglo Saxons, vilified by by the Vikings, and even filled in by the French but still managed to create our own mashed-up identity.

Each successful invasion added its own layer on the British landscape and national character.

The first programme looked at art in Britain during the so-called Age of Conquest from AD43 to 1066.

Despite the potentially dry subject matter it was a fascinating look at history.

Who would have thought that one of the treasures of Florence, a lavishly illustrated Bible, was created at a monastery in Jarrow?

It was so good, Dimbleby said, that some thought it was made in Italy by religious craftsmen.

But the experts have proved it was English through and through.

Well, English with a touch of Roman and Anglo-Saxon but you know what I mean.

The foot-high Bible - the oldest complete Latin Bible in the world - was apparently on its way to Rome as a gift for the Pope when the abbot charged with getting it there died en-route.

No-one knows how it ended up in Florence.

The programme was a reminder that the most sophisticated part of the Western world at the time - the must-be place for sober intellectuals - was Northumberland.

Next week on Seven Ages of Britain: It all goes wrong when they build the Bigg Market.