Better ask your French (Plantagenet) kings who spent a century trying to "reclaim" the French throne. Or the Habsburg rulers of Austria, Spain, and the Netherlands. The idea of nationalism did not exist until well into the 18th century. In Europe, peasants had a provincial identity and a Christian identity. For European nobles, dynastic ties and power politics were the main motivating forces. It wasn't until the French Revolution and Napoleon's conquest of much of present-day Germany that nationalism became a real force in politics (which coincided with rising nationalism in places like England, present-day Italy, Belgium, etc.).