At the blog Circa1865, there is a piece about the visit to Virginia, by English PM Lloyd George, during the War Between the States.

Ironically, so many outside the South were conditioned to regard the Southron military leaders like General Lee and Thomas ‘Stonewall’ Jackson as ‘traitors’, while in the South they both had the reputation of being true Christian gentlemen as well as outstanding military men.

The thought of Lloyd George visiting those memorials, laying wreaths upon them in honor of Lee and Jackson, and then the thought of “our own” present-day rabble tearing down the monuments and statues of our great men — how did we get from there to here?

There was considerable sympathy toward the Southern cause on the part of the English. Some of that sympathy is credited to the fact that the South exported a lot of cotton and other goods to England, so the need for the cotton, especially, meant keeping the goodwill of the South. But it was not only economic factors that influenced England.

Here, at the Sons of the South website you will find articles from Harper’s Weekly magazines from the 1860s, dealing with the South and its relationship with England and the English people. And after all, most of the White population of the South had English roots. Despite some false claims about General Robert E. Lee’s ancestry, he was of English blood, and descended from a distinguished family there. General Jackson was, at least on one side, descended from English stock.