There were fifteen prime ministers, many James Bonds, four Beatles, and thirteen Doctor Whos... but there was only one Queen.
Thinking of her family and this blog's friends throughout the Commonwealth, on this sad occasion.
Showing posts with label england. Show all posts
Showing posts with label england. Show all posts
Thursday, September 08, 2022
Elizabeth II has passed
Saturday, June 13, 2015
Magna Carta: 800 and counting!
Worth noting that we are currently in the midst of the eighth-hundred anniversary of Magna Carta: the founding document of English law and a cornerstone of liberty for many nations down through the ages. Including the United States.
Ahhh yes: John, King of England. A monarch so disastrously bad that not once since and never again has England put a king named "John" on the throne. He spent years wrecking havoc on the country he was supposed to be leading (sort-of like the past three or four presidential administrations here), wasting money and manpower and countless lives on wars in France and such.
Finally, enough was enough. A bunch of the barons of England decided that the time had come to lay the smack down on King John. So they showed up in force, arrayed in their armor and finest weaponry and, ahem... "invited" John to come down to a meadow at Runnymede near Windsor. Because they had a list of demands and if he knew what was good for him, he was going to read it and sign it.
The document which would come to be called Magna Carta ("Great Charter" in Latin, because of its large size compared to other documents of the era) curtailed the powers of the king so as to assert the rights of the barons, delineated individual rights such as jury trial and fair justice, and laid down the groundwork for what would become parliamentary law.
John looked around at all of those armored barons and their retainers and quickly arrived at the conclusion that Runnymede was not the place to get all uppity. With all the barons witnessing, he signed the Magna Carta on June 10th, 1215. A few days later on June 15th the barons pledged fealty, which is kind of a way of saying that the Magna Carta was officially ratified.
It was all well and good, but pretty soon neither party really upheld their terms of the agreement. Magna Carta went for awhile annulled by the pope, but after a bit of a civil war and the coming to the throne of Henry III it became the consensus of most that the treaty was a pretty good idea after all. From that point on, it's remained one of the basic elements of English law. And consequently, a progenitor of the Declaration of Independence in the United States.
So, happy birthday to Magna Carta! Looking not too shabby for something eight centuries old.
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| "Sign HERE, Johnny-boy." |
Finally, enough was enough. A bunch of the barons of England decided that the time had come to lay the smack down on King John. So they showed up in force, arrayed in their armor and finest weaponry and, ahem... "invited" John to come down to a meadow at Runnymede near Windsor. Because they had a list of demands and if he knew what was good for him, he was going to read it and sign it.
The document which would come to be called Magna Carta ("Great Charter" in Latin, because of its large size compared to other documents of the era) curtailed the powers of the king so as to assert the rights of the barons, delineated individual rights such as jury trial and fair justice, and laid down the groundwork for what would become parliamentary law.
John looked around at all of those armored barons and their retainers and quickly arrived at the conclusion that Runnymede was not the place to get all uppity. With all the barons witnessing, he signed the Magna Carta on June 10th, 1215. A few days later on June 15th the barons pledged fealty, which is kind of a way of saying that the Magna Carta was officially ratified.
It was all well and good, but pretty soon neither party really upheld their terms of the agreement. Magna Carta went for awhile annulled by the pope, but after a bit of a civil war and the coming to the throne of Henry III it became the consensus of most that the treaty was a pretty good idea after all. From that point on, it's remained one of the basic elements of English law. And consequently, a progenitor of the Declaration of Independence in the United States.
So, happy birthday to Magna Carta! Looking not too shabby for something eight centuries old.
Monday, February 04, 2013
Missing no more: King Richard III found at last!
They paved Plantagenet and put up a parking lot.
Regardless of the nasty propaganda that the Tudors disseminated about him (and which Shakespeare unwittingly helped to perpetuate) it can't be denied: Richard III had a severe case of scoliosis.
I, that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majesty
Richard III of England, in better days
To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;
I, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
Deformed, unfinish'd, sent before my time
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,
And that so lamely and unfashionable
That dogs bark at me as I halt by them;
Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,
Have no delight to pass away the time,
Unless to spy my shadow in the sun
And descant on mine own deformity:
And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,
To entertain these fair well-spoken days,
I am determined to prove a villain
And hate the idle pleasures of these days.
-- Richard III
Act I, Scene 1, by William Shakespeare
The realms of history and archaeology are run amok with chatter this day with the news that the remains of King Richard III, the last of the Plantagenet monarchs, have been positively identified. The bones were discovered last year beneath, of all places, a parking lot in Leicester.
(Does this renew hope that Jimmy Hoffa will yet be found, or what?)
Richard III ruled England from 1483 to 1485... and what wild years they were! It was the War of the Roses between the houses of York and Lancaster. And then that upstart Henry Tudor crashed the party. Richard III and his army fought the Tudor boys at the Battle of Bosworth Field on August 22, 1485. It did not go well: Henry Tudor won the day (before going on to become King Henry VII) and Richard III was killed in manner most foul!
So history tells us that afterward some Franciscan monks took poor Richard's body to their church in Leicester and buried him there. And then decades later in 1538 that bastitch Henry VIII was hellbent on destroying many churches and monasteries throughout his lands. The site of the church - and Richard III's resting place - wound up neglected and ultimately forgotten. It might have remained so, were it not for a group of researchers from the University of Leicester who last year, working through "map regression" of recent geography back through to the Middle Ages, rediscovered the site. In the process they came across this skeleton...
Anyhoo, it's really him! The wounds found on the skull correspond with reports of those Richard received at Bosworth Field. And analysis of mitochondrial DNA from the bones and those of Michael Ibsen - a descendant of Richard's sister, Anne of York - have confirmed it.
And where has Richard III been for many of the past 528 years? Buried beneath a modern parking lot in Leicester.
It's been announced that Richard III will be re-buried - this time with a coffin and proper honors - at Leicester Cathedral. But I'm certainly not alone in the desire that some day Richard III will be given the resting place due him in Westminster Abbey.
Wheverever it is he winds up now, it's awesome news that Richard III has been found at last. The king is dead. Long live the king!
