This article investigates the perceptions and visualizations of British ancestry in the historical writing of late Tudor and early Stuart England. In a broader sense, early modern English historical writing included written works produced by chroniclers, antiquaries, and genealogists, and many of their works contained visual illustrations. Their enquiries into ancient British history took in the origin of the first inhabitants of Britain, of the name of this island and its inhabitants, political organization, social life and cultural development. The interest in British national origins was reinforced by at least two factors. The first was the influence of Renaissance historiography, which stimulated scholars to restore antiquity and pay more serious attention to classical sources instead of medieval inventions. Second, the study of the British past was invested with strong political meaning in this period when both Queen Elizabeth (r. 1558-1603) and King James VI and I (r. 1603-1625) were haunted by the question of Britain and the nature of the relationship between England and Scotland. The historical accounts and visual representations of Ancient Britons would then come to be the foundation of early modern British identity that encompassed both England and Scotland. This article particularly focuses on the shift of historical narratives and the change of perceptions and representations of British ancestry in this period. It traces the story back to Historia Regum Britanniae (c. 1138) of Geoffrey of Monmouth in order to provide a long-term historical background to this shift. Then this article differentiates two modes of narratives for recounting the lives of British ancestors. One is a “narratives of heroes,” following the Trojan myth elaborated by Geoffrey of Monmouth; the other is a “narratives of primitive mankind,” relying on various classical writings and referring to American Indians for understanding the civilizing process in Britain. The second and newer narrative mode gradually became the accepted view of the ancient in the seventeenth century, and it gave momentum to British identity in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, even though the union of England and Scotland was not realized until the early eighteenth century.