English History

In 1884, following the Third Reform Act, a movement started in earnest in Great Britain, seeking direct representation of working class interests in Parliament. The movement was naturally revolutionary, but not violent. Britons are neither Russian or French.

The Labour Party actually started in Scotland, a part of the United Kingdom to be found north of Yorkshire and Lancashire, known for its clans, kilts and haggis. Scotland and her sister Wales have always figured in British history because the English were forced to build a line of castles in early medieval times on the borders, which were troublesome. They had to invent a title for the fighting landowners who occupied in these defensive (and frequently aggressive) castles built to contain the Scots and Welsh. These were the ‘Marcher Lords’ q.v.’. (more…)

William Pitt (the Elder) / commons.wikimedia.org

William PItt, 1^st Earl of Chatham, sometimes known as Pitt the Elder, was born in 1708, narrowly avoiding the tumultuous seventeenth century in Europe. He joins the brief list of brilliant orators and parliamentarians who rose to become Prime Minister (1756-61, 1766-68). Politically, he was Whig – a liberal of the original stamp who earned the mistrust of Hanoverian George II. (more…)

Archbishop Scrope came to a bad end / commons.wikimedia.org

Before anything else the careful writer must define the phrase ‘ruling classes’. In these peculiar days of forced equality, where the American rule of political correctitude insists on the total exclusion of old-fashioned terms such as ‘the lower, middle and upper classes’, the term ‘ruling classes’ is not elitist. It defines the kind of people who tend to make a career out of ruling over others – politicians for instance. (more…)

Equestrian statue of Richard the Lionheart outside the Palace of Westminster / common.wikimedia.org

Though they were called Richard(s) I, II, and III none was father or son to another. If you like dates, remember these: Richard I, 1157 – 99: Richard II, 1367 – 1400: Richard III, 1452 – 1485. Not one of the three reached fifty years of age.

Richard I, known as ‘Lionheart’ was the third son of Henry II (qv) and Eleanor of Aquitaine. He was a duke at twelve years old, and a terrible nuisance to his father. He made a good soldier, however, which was an essential in the medieval epoch. In 1173 he joined his brothers Geoffrey and John in irritating conspiracies, and all three were banged up in gloomy prisons by Henry II for varying periods.

Richard only spent six months of his entire life in England, being much more of a French knight than an English one. Henry II at last died, having made the remarkable discovery that his sons were revolting. The king too had spent most of his life at his castle in Chinon, which history tourists might like to know is still there. Henry died in 1189, worn out by his clever, extremely rich and permanently scheming wife, and dissatisfied with his sons Henry, Richard, John and Geoffrey. (more…)

The Palace of Westminster

Senior legislature in Great Britain and Northern Ireland in the Houses of Parliament comprises the Sovereign (Head of State), and the Lower and Upper Chamber, known as the House of Commons (or commoners) and the House of Lords respectively. Together, these chambers occupy the Palace of Westminster. The latter (in Parliament Square, London) may look medieval or Gothic, but it is a 19^th century building designed by the architect of St. Pancras Station. (more…)

George V / silverinvestor.com

In a previous post, we examined four Hanoverian Georges, one of whom (the III) lost the American colonies for Britain, thus engendering the United States of immortal memory. Here we look at one of the sons of the great womaniser Edward VII, and at his son, immortalised by his courage and his stammer; and his indefatigable lady wife, Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, of unreproachable memory.

George V was King of Great Britain and (from 1920) Northern Ireland, dependencies overseas (once known as The Empire), and Emperor of India (1910 – 36). Proud of the independence and intellectual fortitude of the House of Lords, he insisted on a concept unthinkable today – that a general election should precede any reform of them. This insistence he provided during 1911, a period when the Empire was at its zenith, through threatened by black clouds and ill omen.

It was George V who brought together party leaders, at the Buckingham Palace Conference, where Irish home rule was discussed. He accepted with tolerance the socialist Ramsay Macdonald as Prime Minister of a minority government in 1924, and also a national or coalition government in 1924. In both he showed a distinctive element of personal choice which has been much criticised ever since by the Right. His wife was Queen Mary, a royal lady of firm tastes and strength of mind, well able to deal with her husband’s tantrums and salty language – “Bugger Bognor!” were said to be the monarch’s last well-chosen words when he was desperately ill and his wife wanted to take him to recover at this hardly-known Sussex resort. He was the unaffectionate father of Edward VIII, whom they knew as David – the king who gave up the throne because he was not allowed to marry a twice-divorced American adventuress. George V was a Victorian born in 1865; he died, mourned by the British, as a modern constitutional monarch, in 1936. (more…)

George I / fanpop.com

The first George (1660 – 1727) was a German-speaking Elector (royal rank) of Hanover. How did a German come to be invited to be King of England? Not only that, but found a dynasty named after Hanover? George’s mother was Sophia (died 1714), granddaughter of James I, King of England (and VI of Scotland). Sophia’s children were recognised as heirs to the English throne in an Act of Settlement (1701); this Act was specifically designed to keep Roman Catholics off the throne, and the Electors of Hanover were Protestants. James Stuart had been protestant too, though his son Charles I (executed by Parliament) could be described as a kind of Anglo-Catholic, while his brother James II was wholly Catholic, driven off the throne for religious reasons. The wives of all three, James I, Charles I and James II were Catholic. (more…)