It might seem odd that, in the 1920s, some thought Elgar unrepresentative of British music; there is no doubt that he had been held as supremely British – or at least English – during the Edwardian era, and he was to become regarded thus again. But this exception does go some way to prove the rule that no music is essentially intrinsic to any nationality: certain traits may become associated with nationhood, as much by the composer as by the audience, but these associations are just as provisional as any other connotations music might hold. To Ponsonby's generation, Vaughan Williams and his generation had tapped the roots of Englishness by rediscovering the folk repertory and returning to the idioms of the Tudor and Elizabethan eras. Elgar's idiom lacked this purity, perhaps even representing the false imperial optimism that lay at the roots of the Great War; moreover, Elgar did not have the luxury of erasing his Germanic musical roots – as the royal family had managed to do with its dynastic title.