Early Believers in Hebrew Ancestry.
Early British Israelites.
Slightly Adapted and re-posted with permission from:
ANCIENT ROOTS OF BRITISH-ISRAELISM
by Craig White.
https://www.friendsofsabbath.org/iframe/Further_Research/Lost_Tribes_British-Israel/Ancient_Roots_of_BI/Ancient_Roots_index.htm
The belief that the British and related peoples dwelling in Northwest Europe (and their descendants around the world) are the direct descendants of ancient Israel, has been around for centuries in some form or other.
The idea that this doctrine only arose in the late 18th century or sometime in the mid-19th is not true or an accurate record of history.
British-Israelism as it began to gain traction and books published mentioning it (such as that of the Richard Brothers and John Sadler's) it is important to note that "In either case, each of these grew out of earlier puritan works and Millenarism fervor." (Levi Keach, Justifying Belief within the Christian Identity Movement: An Exercise in Memetics, University of Kansas, Dec 2011, p. 4)
Aidan Cottrell-Boyce, "Jewish Christians in Puritan England, " 2021:
Queen Elizabeth was crowned as a new Deborah, King James as a new Solomon(p. 31) And the King thought of an 'Israelite England' that he was ruling over (ibid).
'In the sixth century, the chronicler Gildas associated England with the polity of Israel.' (p. 33)
Noted Sabbatarian Thomas Totney believed that the Saxons were traceable back to the Biblical Israel:
Thomas Totney referred to himself 'as a Jew [i.e. Israelite] of the tribe of Reuben' (p. 161) and he 'traced his lineage back to ancient Israel.' (p. 188)
'The notion that a millennial reign of the saints would dawn, that the Jews [ie Israel] would be repatriated to Jerusalem ...'
But the Sabbatarians and pockets of Protestants such as the Fifth Monarchists held to this view.
A number of books and articles concerning the ancient roots of British Israelism are available online...:
https://www.friendsofsabbath.org/iframe/Further_Research/Lost_Tribes_British-Israel/Ancient_Roots_of_BI/Ancient_Roots_index.htm
The collection includes such works as:
A Revealed Knowledge of the Prophecies and Times by the Richar Brothers (1796)
A History of Greater Britain (1521)
Alexander Cruden (1737)
Rights of the Kingdom by John Sadler (1649)
A View of the Hebrews. Or the Tribes of Israel in America by Ethan Smith (1825)
Le Triomph De La Providence Et Da La Religion by Jacques Abbadie (1654) See pages 177-78)
Ogygia. Or a Chronological Account of Irish Events by Roderic O'Flaherty (1793)
The True and Noble Origins of the Anglo-Israel Message by Alan Campbell
Alfred the Great by Dr Peter Hammond
How Long have we been aware of our Identity? Wake Up magazine, July/Aug 1989, p. 5
John Sadler (1615-1674) by Pranav Kumar Jain, University of Chicago (2015). "He has also been described as perhaps the first proponent of the powerful idea that the people of England are direct descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel." (p. 8)
Evidence of lost Israel in early annals by Jory Brooks
How Old is this Anglo-Israel Truth? The Kingdom Herald, July-Aug 1981
The Antiquity of the Anglo-Israel Thesis by Reed Benson
Plus much more.
cf. Alexander Cruden (1699 - 1770) Scottish author of an early concordance to the Bible:
"May the great God be the guide of your life, and direct and prosper you, that it may be said by the present and future ages, that King George the Third hath been an Hezekiah to our British Israel."