The beginning of equality under the law; the advent of due process; the birth of human rights. Whatever. For the British, this year’s truly momentous anniversaries do not concern Magna Carta. We should instead celebrate 1415 and 1815, the battles of Agincourt and Waterloo. Not only did they involve Britain’s favourite historical activity of beating the French, they contrived to achieve it in the most British way possible: by getting the enemy stuck in the mud.

The United Kingdom is a wet, boggy island. Our comparative advantage is our willingness to wallow happily in the rain and mire while luring wimpier nations outside for a fight.

Agincourt has been turned by Shakespearean propaganda into the myth of a brave and brilliant young king winning a famous victory in France with his legendary English longbow archers (in fact largely Welsh but no need to spread the credit too thinly).