Dean Swift

The Valois of France

The Valois of France

France was ruled by the Valois Dynasty from the accession of Philip VI (Count of Valois, 1328) to the death of Henry III in 1589. Two hundred and sixty-one years of almost constant warfare. The Valois kings could not trust their dastardly cousins the English, but founded a tradition of trusting ( and funding) the Scots.

The succession was kept in the direct male line from the fourteenth century until the Orléans branch (q.v.) put the French crown on the head of their Louis XII in 1498. Something then went badly wrong, for the last three Valois monarchs, Francis II (died 1560), Charles IX (died 1574) and Henry III (died 1589) had no legitimate children. The Valois were replaced by the Bourbons, first king Henry IV – of no blessed memory. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2014-04-01T13:32:37+00:00 October 30th, 2013|British History, English History, French History, World History|0 Comments

Reformation in England and the Dissolution of the Monasteries

The Reformation in England was the process by which the English Church rejected the authority of the Roman Catholic Church and established a Litany and Doctrine of its own. The reformation in other 16^th century European countries was doctrinal in principle and practice, but the English was not. It was precipitated by the monster king Henry VIII, second of the Tudor dynasty, after the Pope, his cardinals and archbishops and clergy had rejected his petition for divorce against his Queen, Katherine of Aragon. She had been unable to give him a male heir, and he wished to marry Anne Boleyn to try again.

The brute’s response was to use Parliament to pass acts separating the English Church from Rome. The English clergy were to be permitted to recognise Henry, rather than the Pope, as Supreme Head of the Church (1531). Three years later the Act of Supremacy ended the Pope’s authority in England. In the late 1530s all the monasteries in that country were to be dissolved and their properties and revenues were to be made forfeit to the Crown. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2014-04-01T13:32:41+00:00 October 28th, 2013|British History, Church history, English History, History of Rome, World History|2 Comments

Nicolae Ceausescu

This Romanian politician was born in the last year of the Great War. His was a poor family working mostly on the land, and young Nicolae was pleased to leave the grinding poverty behind and join the Communist Party in 1936 when he was just eighteen years old.

He was thrown into prison in the same year for ‘anti-government activities’, which could mean anything. There he languished furiously for two long years, before being released. He became a member of the Central Committee of the Romanian Communist Party in 1952. Then he moved into the Politburo (1955)

Ten years of plotting and planning followed, and in 1965 he became effective Party leader at less than fifty years of age. He was General-Secretary of the RCP in that year and its first President in 1967. He was flying high, and under his leadership Romania became increasingly independent of Soviet Russia (not an easy task, and dangerous as well). His foreign policy drew the admiration of other European states; but his internal affairs programme, however, was as Stalinist in concept as had been that of his predecessor Gheogio-Dej, or more so. Things started to go wrong, as they always seem to, when he began filling important government posts with members of his family, including his not terribly popular wife Elena.

Husband and wife photographed in happier times / antena3.ro

He was eager to manipulate Romanian nationalism and forced racial minorities to adapt to Rumanian culture, language and education. He ‘systemized’ (his word) the country, uprooting whole villages, and there was an international outcry against his policies in late 1985.

Ceausescu went too far, as his kind always seem to, and he was summarily deposed in 1989, almost certainly with the clandestine help of certain powerful nations which had been closely observing the Ceausescu regime. A popular revolt led by elements in the Army put him and others on trial before a military tribunal. Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife Elena, whom he had put into the number two position of power in the country, were later shot, with plenty of cameras present to record their death.

By Dean Swift| 2014-04-01T13:32:44+00:00 October 25th, 2013|World History|0 Comments

The Treaty of Trianon (1920) and its effect on Hungary

This treaty is another good example of the collateral damage to be expected when states join in wars with the express intention of gaining territory, though the war in question has nothing or little to do with them. In the First or Great War of the 20^th century, Hungary, because of its alliances with Austria, fought against the Western allies. Romania, sensing a chance to do well out of it, declared for the allies.

The Treaty of Versailles decreed that Hungary, among the states which fought for the loser, Germany, should share the blame and pay the price. After the four terrible years spent mostly advancing and retreating over the trenches were over, Hungary became a Republic, but a Communist revolt established a Communist administration in 1919. This failed, and a monarchical regime (in name only) was introduced with a new constitution, under the leadership of Admiral Horthy. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2014-04-01T13:32:46+00:00 October 24th, 2013|Austrian history, Czech History, EU History, German History, History in The Balkans, History of Czechoslovakia, Romanian History, Russian history, Today, World History|0 Comments

The struggle for independence: Rhodesia

Ian Smith of Rhodesia, died 2007 / forumparadoxplaza.com

It would seem clear that Cataluña will, by one means or another, free herself from Spain, of which she has always been an integral part. All the signs are there; Catalan politicians speak in Catalan on national TV, so the rest of the nation must either know Catalan, or remain ignorant of what is being said. The President of Cataluña, Mr Artur Más, talks of his region being ‘a nation within a nation’, as if that were possible. At meetings of Spanish regional leaders you can be sure of his absence. There are weekly demonstrations in Barcelona and other key cities designed to show that all Catalan peoples support the idea of unilateral independence – that is to say, total independence without consulting or listening to the national government in Madrid. Catalans speaking with persons from other nations – such as Spain – claim the national government steals from Catalan pockets. Let us examine what happened some nearly fifty years ago in Africa, when a British colony decided to break the chains with Britain, rather in the style of thirteen American colonies across the Atlantic two hundred years before. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2013-10-23T10:00:07+00:00 October 23rd, 2013|African History, British History, Commonwealth History, US History, World History|0 Comments

Stephen, the last Norman King of England

Stephen was born in or around 1097; anyway it is safe to assume his birth took place at the end of the 11^th century. His mother was Adela, a daughter of William I, a.k.a. ‘The Conquerer’, and his father was Stephen, Count of Blois in France. Stephen had promised to accept a daughter of Henry I King of England as Queen of that country. She was the Empress Matilda, ‘Empress’ because she was the widow of Emperor Henry V of Germany (also known as Maud, which brings on the problems we have with confusing Maud with Maud!) (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2014-04-01T13:33:32+00:00 October 22nd, 2013|British History, English History, French History, Scottish history, World History|4 Comments

‘Stadhouder’: what was a ‘stadholder’?

The names in Dutch and English are similar; this was the office of the chief executive of the Dutch Republic when Holland was a republic and not, as it is now, a Monarchy. Once, the Stadholder had been the King’s representative (and military commander) in any one of the many districts.

When the northern part of the Netherlands, also called the Low Countries because most of the land was below sea level, broke formally (and finally violently) with the Spanish king in 1581 the provincial assemblies or stads decided that they would appoint their own Stadholder. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2014-04-01T13:33:36+00:00 October 21st, 2013|British History, Dutch History, History of the Low Countries, Today, World History|2 Comments

That Special Relationship

This is a favourite (or favorite term) used mainly by British social commentators and diplomats to describe what they like to see as special Anglo-American relations. The term reflects language ties as well as cultural ones; shared values and interests. There is no truth in it: it is nothing but a very large dose of wishful thinking on the part of wistful British statesmen. There is an astonishing lack of realism in this romantic idea of a ‘special relationship’ between the United States and Britain.

At the end of the nineteenth century and up to the beginning of the Great War in 1914, Americans regarded Great Britain’s astonishing Empire (more than a sixth of the world’s land surface) with jealousy. Many US presidents wondered openly how they could wrest it away from the Limeys, and perhaps form their own, even bigger Empire. A wonderful opportunity arose when Europe caught fire following the killing of the Austrian arch-duke and his wife in Sarajevo. War broke out in Europe in 1914, but the enormous might and weight of the States did not enter it until 1917, after three years of slaughter, when it was calculated that Britain, France and indeed Germany were so exhausted physically and economically that they could do no more. This was the moment when Uncle Sam got there, and her commanders reversed the maps to their advantage. It was indeed a ‘special relationship’. The pathetic Brits breathed a sigh of relief; they lost on average one man (or boy fresh from the classroom) from every family in the most savage and futile war that has ever been fought. ‘The Yanks are Here!’ they sang, having little or no idea of the harshness of all international relations. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2014-04-01T13:33:41+00:00 October 18th, 2013|A History of North America, British History, French History, German History, History of Egypt, Philosophy, Today, US History, World History|2 Comments

Switzerland and the Swiss Guards

Originally named Helvetia, this is a landlocked democratic European republic, with boundaries to the east with Liechtenstein and Austria, to the south with Italy; the west by France and finally to the north with Germany. The official name now is the Swiss Federation.

In the tenth century Switzerland was a small part of the Holy Roman Empire (q.v.) but the Swiss Confederation was established in 1291, when the ‘cantons’ or regions of Uri, Schyz and Unterwalden formed a mutual league for defence. There was a brief period of Austrian domination, producing among other things the ‘William Tell Incident’ in which a Swiss archer of note was supposed to have shot an arrow through an apple balanced (how?) on his son’s head and followed this remarkable feat by putting a second arrow through an Austrian official’s heart. The stuff of dreams, perhaps, but the Swiss believe it. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2014-04-01T13:33:43+00:00 October 16th, 2013|Austrian history, French History, German History, Italian History, Swiss History, World History|0 Comments

The Khmer Rouge (and Pol Pot)

A great deal more is known about the Khmer Rouge than about Cambodia’s Pol Pot. To most history-subjected magazines Pol Pot was just another of those dictators who bumped off a few million of his own countrymen, and would probably have liked the opportunity to do the same to many more millions who were not his countrymen. But first we look at the unattractively-named Khmer Rouge: (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2014-04-01T13:33:46+00:00 October 15th, 2013|Asian History, French History, History of the Far East, World History|0 Comments

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