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....
Elizabeth II has passed
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.
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| “Sign HERE, Johnny-boy.” |
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 ...
Missing no more: King Richard III found at last!
They paved Plantagenet and put up a parking lot.
Richard III of England, in better days I, that am rudely stamp’d, and want love’s majesty
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 ...