When 'Rule Britannia' was written in 1740 fine weather, bumper harvests and slave plantations were putting more and more money into the pockets of the English aristocracy. It took a group of religious fanatics using the Dutch banking system to work out what to do with all the cash.
By the time these social outcasts had finished investing other people's money into their own profit-making plans, the old rural England had gone for good. Modern commercialism had arrived. In its wake packhorses gave way to a mass movement; afternoon tea became a five-course meal; and the Scottish distilleries provided the drive to turn the landscape inside out.
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