The 350th Anniversary of the Restoration

Parliament had ordered the 29th of May, the King’s birthday, to be forever kept as a day of thanksgiving for our redemption from tyranny and the King’s return to his Government, he returning to London that day.

— Samuel Pepys’s Diary 1st June 1660

Oak is the national tree of the English people. It represents strength and endurance. Oak is traditionally seen as the protector of our way of life. Royal Oak Day (also known as Oak Apple Day or Restoration Day) marks the restoration of England’s Monarchy. It recalls how Charles II hid in an oak tree to escape following his defeat in the battle of Worcester.

Many who fought the king and his troops under the military command of Cromwell were fuelled with outrage at high taxes and the unaccountable lavish lifestyle of their Monarchy. They were united in a desire for freedom and political liberties.

As a political leader, Cromwell placed the interests of his elite minority above the civil liberties of our nation. There were many problems, arguments and new laws based on his strict puritanism. Cromwell considered many things English people enjoyed as sins to be outlawed - eating plum pudding, theatres, singing and dancing were made against the law. Cromwell ruled by force – not by the will of the people.

Cromwell’s dictatorship and tyranny was not acceptable to those who opposed Charles II. Not long after Cromwell’s death, many of those who had previously fought the king under Cromwell united with English royalists to secure the king’s peaceful return. Charles II arrived in London on his 30th Birthday - 29th May 1660.

Charles II’s arrival marked the beginning of Restoration - the return of Monarchy for England. And this time not only Royalists welcomed him. His arrival meant everyone could enjoy singing, dancing, and plum pudding once more. On the day of his arrival there were fireworks, bonfires, dancing in the streets; church bells rang and cannons roared!

Royal Oak Day is a celebration of our freedom, liberty and nationhood - all of which are depicted in the strength and stability of the Oak. Royal Oak Day traditions such as enjoying plum pudding and ale are specific reminders of our redemption from tyranny.

This day was celebrated nationally throughout England for over 200 years. It has been customary to wear a sprig of oak on this day for centuries. There have been numerous naval ships, a train and a London underground station named ‘The Royal Oak’ and it remains a popular name for our pubs and hotels. The image of the Royal Oak continues to be found on our stamps and coins. Yet apart from within a few English village communities, this important day and its traditions have now almost been forgotten. As we mark the 350th Anniversary of this celebration in 2010, let us consider its significance and forever keep the 29th May as a day of thanksgiving for our redemption from tyranny – this Royal Oak Day you are free to wear a sprig of oak and enjoy traditional English plum pudding!

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Happy Victoria Day

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The Lullaby of Death

Requiem Kyrie, the Roman Catholic Mass for the Dead by Gabriel Fauré



Fauré on his Requiem, an inclination towards human tenderness: "It has been said that my Requiem does not express the fear of death and someone has called it a lullaby of death. But it is thus that I see death: as a happy deliverance, an aspiration towards happiness above, rather than as a painful experience...Everything I managed to entertain by way of religious illusion I put into my Requiem, which moreover is dominated from beginning to end by a very human feeling of faith in eternal rest."

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Handsome Heraldry

Heraldry has been described as the "floral border in the garden of history", which originated with the need to distinguish participants in combat whose faces were hidden by iron and steel helmets, and progressively developed into the complex system of rules that preserve its medieval beauty today.

The handsome practice of displaying blazoned coats of arms can be seen in the gorgeous tincture of the royal arms depicted above, the various colours and metals that make up its heraldic design. The Canadian shield in the upper left corner is a wonderful example of marshalling, the quartering of the field into divisions to combine several coats of arms into one shield, in this case to express the kingdom's sovereign claim over its constituent provinces.

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Victoria R

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The Tories bring back the Wigs

It has been said that the English have developed an admirable tolerance for anachronisms. The position of Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, leading member of that fountainhead of ritual and hereditary nobility - the House of Lords, the best club in the world - has been described as "older than democracy, older than parliament, older than Magna Carta, older [even] than the Norman Conquest." The Tories are to be commended for returning a little medieval pomp to the "keeper of the royal conscience", after Labour unceremoniously dewigged the men in gold brocade gowns, silk stockings and brogues.

Nice Togs: Tory Kenneth Clarke, the new Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain displays his full finery - wig, robes, tights and buckled shoes.

The Lord Chancellor walks in procession to the Royal Courts of Justice to be sworn in.

The Lord Chancellor of Great Britain shares a laugh with the Lord Chief Justice

Wigged out: Solicitor General Edward Garnier (left) and Attorney General Dominic Grieve

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Now You See His Majesty, Now You Don't

The visit of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth (later the Queen Mother) to Canada and the United States on this day 17 May 1939 was truly historic, the first time a reigning monarch had visited North America.

The Prime Minister of Canada relished the limelight so much that he diminished the role of the Governor General, and literally airbrushed the King of Canada from this - perhaps the most famous photograph of the royal tour.
William Lyon Mackenzie King is often considered to be one of Canada’s greatest political minds. King, who trained as a lawyer and worked as a professor before becoming a politician, eventually rose to the office of Prime Minister, where he served for twenty-one non-consecutive years. But like most brilliant individuals, privately, King was off-his-rocker. He frequently held séances in which he communicated with his dead mother, Sir Wilfred Laurier, Leonardo Da Vinci, and later, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The latter is almost certainly false though, as privately, FDR didn’t like King.

Although King managed to keep his fascination with the occult secret during his lifetime, many of his decisions were still guided by his ego and eccentricities. Such was the case, when he decided to doctor a photograph, taken in 1939, of King George VI, Queen Elizabeth (the Queen Mother), and himself at Banff National Park in Alberta. In the original photo, the three are enjoying a laugh amid the scenery. Though we doubt George would be amused if he knew that he would later be erased from history.


The original photo of Mackenzie King, King George VI, and Queen Elizabeth in Banff, Alberta. (1939)


The doctored photo of Mackenzie King and Queen Elizabeth. (1939-1940)

By today’s standards, the doctoring job is almost childish. At close inspection, George has clearly been painted over with a tree and some flowers, the shadow where he was standing is still visible, and the brick underneath looks warped. However, it seems that this forgery was good enough to fool the Canadian public, as the doctored photo was used in a campaign poster for the Prime Minister’s reelection bid.


Written by The Intrepid

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Dizzy and the Canal

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Britain's Top Ten Prime Ministers

As second guessing the professional media is the raison d'être of this, and come to think of it, most blogs, we provide a counter list to the Top 50 British Prime Ministers proposed by the Times. My criteria? High marks for successful leadership in a conflict which threatened the survival of Britain. Pushing through a major piece of constitutional reform - Mr Blair's efforts were not reform but a vanity inspired bit vandalism - is also a big plus. Generally keeping in mind that people create wealth, not governments, also earns high marks in calculating the following list. The goal here is more to show those who most influenced the course of subsequent history, rather than those whom the author personally admirers.

10. Margaret Thatcher (1979-1990) - Saving Britain from socialist driven collapse was, of course, her signature achievement. Playing Robin to Reagan's Batman in the last days of the Cold War, enough alone to earn her that statue in the Parliamentary lobby. The Falkland War was significant not for its military success, it could easily have become a disaster, but its symbolic importance. A free nation had not tamely submitted to a brazen act of aggression. Having left the NHS in place was her greatest failure, yet like Canadian Medicare, the reverence for this socialistic relic made it politically untouchable. Her biggest mistake was in cutting defense spending in real terms through out her eleven years in office. In early 1982 she had approved of major cuts to the navy, including the sale of the two aircraft carriers, HMS Invincible and HMS Hermes. Had the Argentinian invasion come a year or so later, when the cuts had taken effect, the Falkland campaign could not have been fought.

9. David Lloyd George (1916-1922) - One of my least liked PMs, yet he would no doubt have made a fascinating dinner guest. I can imagine him and Dizzy trying to one-up the other. Who would be more charismatic, the smooth talking Welshman or the elegant lapsed Jew? The headline accomplishment for Lloyd George was having held the country together during the last two years of the First World War. A politician of lesser talent could have let the Empire and even the country fall to bits. He is today better remember for emasculating the House of Lords, and being - along with his predecessor H.H. Asquith - a major architect of the British welfare state. I rank him so high not, I repeat, out of personal admiration but recognition of his enormous influence on subsequent British history. Even if most of that influence was bad.

8. Herbert Henry Asquith (1908-1916) - If David Lloyd George was Britain's Trudeau, then its Pearson was H.H. Asquith. Contrasting sharply with the Welshman's easy eloquence and keen sense of high drama, Asquith's understated style, and careful plotting, gave ballast and direction to one of the most influential ministries in British history. Along with Lloyd George, and a very young Winston Churchill, he helped lay the foundations of the British welfare state. He was broken by the First World War, driven from power just shy of the half-way mark of Europe's first serious attempt at mass suicide.

7. Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey (1830-1834) - Napoleon had a brandy named after him, Wellington a dinner course and the shepherd of the Great Reform Act of 1832 and the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833, a tea. The simplest thing to say about Earl Grey is that he fought for all the right causes, in about as intelligent a manner as possible, for most of the right reasons, for pretty much the whole of his career. He was, instinctively a Burkean, indeed he even helped manage the Warren Hastings trial, and wherever possible tried to introduce change gradually, allowing people time to adjust to new circumstances. He pushed for dramatic change only when necessary. In describing his landmark Reform Act of 1832, which dramatically increased the number of people who could vote, he said that any further expansion of the electoral roles would be done "according to the increased intelligence of the people, and the necessities of the times." He was no starry eyed utopian, but a practical statesman of shrewd vision.

6. William Pitt, the Younger (1783-1801, 1804-1806) - His career beggars belief. This Minerva-like political genius became Prime Minister just before his twenty-fifth birthday, and this was after he had been Chancellor of the Exchequer at twenty-three. His meteoric ascent was due to good fortune, most of the other plausible candidates (Shelburne, Rockingham) had died unexpectedly, were discredited (North) or viscerally despised by George III (Charles Fox). After the third request, Pitt accepted George III's offer to form a government. Despite losing a succession of parliamentary votes, including clear no confidence measures, Pitt hung onto power with the King's support. Eventually the opposition collapsed and Pitt's power was only seriously threatened again by the temporary madness of the King. The French Revolution ended Pitt's plans for parliamentary reform, as well as his elaborate Sinking Fund for paying off the national debt. It solidified his hold on power and the opposition shrunk to a handful of members. He died with Napoleon dominating much of Europe, yet he had laid the foundations for eventual British victory nearly a decade later.

5. William Pitt, the Elder (1766-68) - The year was 1759, the annus mirabilis. Pitt was not Prime Minister then, yet from his perch as Secretary of State for the Southern Department (a kind of super-ministry that combined elements of defense, home, colonial and foreign affairs) he dominated the Duke of Newcastle's ministry. In his youth he had opposed Sir Robert Walpole's refusal to intervene in continental affairs, and had an uneasy relationship with George III, particularly when the monarch tried to force an early end to the Seven Years War. It was in that war that Pitt engineered a military turnaround unprecedented in the country's history. From the verge of defeat, with only Prussia as an ally, Pitt snatched key French colonies in North America, the Caribbean and India, while laying the groundwork for later successful attacks on Cuba and a defense of Portugal from Franco-Spanish invasion in 1762. It was from this point on that Britain assumed its place as a global power, which it would retain until the Suez Crisis almost exactly two centuries later. His actual time as Prime Minister was short and disastrous. A defender of the interests of the American colonists, he was too ill to resist the meddling efforts of his ministers, especially Charles Townshend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and his government succeeded only in further alienating America. For the remainder of his political career he continued to fight for American liberty, only to be dismissed as a spent force at home, and as a hypocrite in America for having allowed Townshend to impose a new series of taxes without American consent. His last days were, like so much of his life, something out of Grand Opera. Delivering an impassioned speech in the House of Lords, urging reconciliation with America, pleading once again for the liberties of the subject, he collapsed. "If we must fall, let us fall like men" were suppose to have been his last words before being carried home. He could not have chosen them better.

4. Sir Robert Peel (1834-5, 1841-1846) - Like his hero Pitt the Younger, Peel was a prodigy, being made Chief Secretary for Ireland (effectively running the Irish government) while still in his twenties. At 34 he was made Home Secretary and launched a series of sweeping legal reforms, simplifying and consolidating the criminal law and reducing the number of capital crimes. In 1828 he established the world's first professional police force for Metropolitan London. An opponent of Catholic Emancipation - the granting of civil liberties of Catholics - he gave way out of fear of widespread unrest in Ireland. He made another vain effort to prevent the passage of the Great Reform Act. It's immediate effect was to make the old aristocratic Tory party obsolete. Issuing the first campaign manifesto in history, named after his family seat at Tamworth, he remodelled the Tories party so as to appeal to the new middle class electors. It is from this point that the modern Conservative Party marks its origins. His first ministry was unsuccessful, but in returning to power in 1841 he began gradually striping away Britain's long standing mercantilist policies, abolishing or reducing tariffs on some 1200 items. The last major hurdle to free trade, the necessity of which Peel had been convinced of for decades, was a series of tariffs on the importation of grain, know as the Corn Laws. The wealth of much of his agrarian political base was tied to high tariffs on grain imports, and they rejected his proposals. In 1846 Peel, with the support of the Whig opposition, passed a phased abolition of the Corn Laws. Shortly thereafter his own backbenchers combined with the Whigs to vote him out of office. In his last speech as Prime Minister he declared:

I shall leave a name execrated by every monopolist...but it may be...sometimes remembered with expressions of goodwill in the abodes of those whose lot it is to labour and to earn their daily bread in the sweat of their brow, when they shall recruit their exhausted strength with abundant and untaxed food, the sweeter because it is no longer leavened by a sense of injustice.

3. William Ewart Gladstone (1868-74, 1880-85, 1886 and 1892-4) - A keen student of mathematics and classics, he retained all his life a mastery of numbers and details. He once spent an hour, from memory, explaining to his cabinet colleagues the details of a budget he had just finished drafting. Beginning his career as the most reactionary of Tories, he at one point argued that the slaves members of his family owned were quite happy, he entered parliament in 1832. It was the beginning of a three decade long odyssey which saw Gladstone move from High Torydom to becoming the paragon of Victorian classical liberalism. His political Damascus moment, an appropriate metaphor given Gladstone's piety, was his appointment to Sir Robert Peel's second cabinet. Peel gradually talked Gladstone out of his reactionary and paternalistic attitudes, including one bizarre proposal to nationalized the new railroad industry. He followed Peel into opposition, and after the great man's death became one of the leaders of the Peelite faction in the Commons. By 1859 he brought the Peelites, and what remained of the Whig party under Lord Palmerston, to help form the new Liberal Party. It was in his role as Chancellor of Exchequer that he continued to reduce taxes and government spending wherever possible. He was obsessed with abolishing the income tax, introduce by the Younger Pitt to fight Napoleon, and re-introudced by Peel to help finance the transition to free trade. A naval arms race with France prevented Gladstone from achieving his goal. He did succeed, after much opposition, in abolishing taxes on paper, a long-standing policy intended on limiting newspaper distribution among the working class. The Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter hailed Gladstone's time as Chancellor:

Gladstonian finance was the finance of the system of 'natural liberty,' laissez-faire, and free trade...the most important thing was to remove fiscal obstructions to private activity. And for this, in turn, it was necessary to keep public expenditure low. Retrenchment was the victorious slogan of the day...it means the reduction of the functions of the state to a minimum...retrenchment means rationalization of the remaining functions of the state, which among other things implies as small a military establishment as possible.

Upon becoming Prime Minister in 1868 he fought to separate - disestablish - church and state in Ireland, despite his strong Anglican convictions. He pushed for an expansion of the franchise (the right to vote). The Army, the Civil Service and the Poor Laws were all modernized. His view of the emerging socialist movement was blunt:

...they are not your friends, but they are your enemies in fact, though not in intention, who teach you to look to the Legislature for the radical removal of the evils that afflict human life...It is the individual mind and conscience, it is the individual character, on which mainly human happiness or misery depends.

One could elicit Gladstone's sympathies for the sick and lame, for the rent seekers, of all classes, he had only implacable scorn. He was not consistently laissez-faire, having ordered the nationalization of the telegraph network, and the transformation of the Post Office into a kind of savings bank, yet he did more than any other Victorian figure to liberate British economic, political and social life. His few remaining statist instincts were mostly driven by a desire to help the thrifty and industrious poor who, through little fault of their own, fell on hard times or on a scanty retirement. He opposed socialism and collectivism, though perhaps not as heartily as he could have, thanks to his altruistic instincts. He stunned much of Europe by his regular support for trade unions and even large scale strikes, such as those of the London dock-workers in 1889. So strong was the legend of Gladstone that even Asquith and Lloyd George, fearing the rise of the socialist Labour party, invoked his memory on several occasions.

2. Sir Robert Walpole (1721-1742) - Fat, machiavellian, pragmatic and corrupt enough to have grown very rich from his two decades at the head of national affairs. His art collection was so famous that, after his death, it was bought by Catherine the Great of Russia, forming the nucleus of the Hermitage's collection of paintings. He is one of the least inspiring figures, as well as the first, to have occupied No 10 Downing Street. His enormous importance consists in having, essentially, created the office of Prime Minister. Unlike the office of President of the United States, for most of British history there was no statutory definition of the powers of the office of Prime Minister, or even the procedure for appointment. The term Prime Minister first appears in legal documents, a treaty, in 1878. In Walpole's day it was actually a term of abuse, suggesting that the minister in questions was beholden to the King and not Parliament. The office of Prime Minister was not so much created by Walpole as congealed by him over his time in power, establishing precedent with actions rather than through any expounded theory of government. With the emergence of Parliamentary supremacy after the Glorious Revolution of 1688, there became a practical constitutional issue of who wielded day to day executive power. If the King did, then what was the role of Parliament? If Parliament was to wield executive powers, who was to be invested with those powers? For practical purposes a nation cannot be run by some 650 MPs, someone has to be in charge, and after the authoritarian bungling of the Stuarts, it was less and less likely to be the monarch.

Walpole essentially bridged the constitutional gap, taking the existing office of First Lord of the Treasury, effectively the government financial controller, and leveraged its power over his colleagues in the Cabinet. By happy coincidence the reigning monarch, George I, spoke little English and stopped chairing cabinet meetings. Walpole simply replaced the King at the head of the table. While he disliked cabinet meetings, preferring to deal with ministers directly (making them easier to bully), his pre-eminence over this cabinet colleagues came from his delicate balancing of monarchical and parliamentary will. By holding the confidence of both Parliament and the King, he could effectively rule the country. This remarkable power was due to Walpole's personality, there being little legal or constitutional underpinning for his efforts. Yet it established a template, which, over the next century evolved into something resembling a modern prime ministership, including collective cabinet responsibility, non-confidence motions and the right choose ministers, regardless of the wishes of the monarch. It was the office of Prime Minister that allowed for the gradual shifting of executive powers from Crown to Parliament. It was a vital constitutional bridge, however improvised, that allowed Britain to become a modern liberal democracy, with little blood being spilled. Matched with his constitution making, though he rejected suggestions he was being innovative, was Walpole's focus on low taxation and peace. His power, he understood, came from the support of landowning backbenchers, who paid much of the country's taxes. Any increase in expenditure, sooner or later, would result in a tax increase, which would threaten Walpole's political position. The expense of war, he understood, would ruin him, as it ultimately did. He strove for peace among the Great Powers, because in peace lay his position. Taxation were generally abhorrent to Walpole, not out of deep personal conviction - he had few - but an old fashioned sense of political self-preservation. Born a few years after Walpole's political accession, Adam Smith noted the effects of the first Prime Minister's policies on the British economy, it boomed for twenty years after the collapse of the South Sea Bubble. All the while the French economy, and those of the other principal European powers, stagnated. More by accident than design, Walpole had demonstrated that less government leads to more prosperity.

1. Sir Winston Churchill (1940-1945, 1951-1955) - He was right about so many things, when so much of the political establishment was wrong. He was right to try to stop the spread of Bolshevism, including his dispatching of British and Imperial troops to aid the Whites, and assassins to kill Lenin. He was right about returning Britain to the gold standard after the inflationary growth of the First World War, though he set the price of gold in sterling at far above the market rate, forcing the Bank of England to hike interests rates to economy crippling heights. He saw the dangers of socialism, yet as one of the welfare state's godfathers he proved an inarticulate of critic of the Labour Party's post-1945 plans. During a notorious radio broadcast he said that Labour would need a "sort of Gestapo" to run the country. He saw the anarchy that would descend on much of the world when the British Empire collapsed, yet could offer only sentimental nostalgia for keeping it together. His brilliant mind saw opportunities where others saw the impossible. Sometimes the bungling of lesser men destroyed the opportunities, and nearly Churchill himself, as with the Gallipoli fiasco. He was brave to the point of reckless, having to be convinced not to join the early waves at Normandy by George VI. His faults mixed easily with his virtues. Yet at that precise moment in the history of civilization, when totalitarianism was at its maximum strength, when his ill-prepared country stood alone, he knew to act and how. In the flux of inter-war international politics, he saw the constancy of the threat. A handful of his distinguished predecessors had saved their country from its mortal enemies. In the Spring of 1940, he saved more than his country, he saved the very idea of liberty his nation had bequeath to the world.

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Pikemen and Musketeers

The Company of Pikemen and Musketeers are veteran members of the Honourable Artillery Company, the oldest regiment in the British Army. The HAC can trace its history as far back as 1296, and received a Royal Charter from Henry VIII on 25 August 1537.

The Company of Pikemen and Musketeers welcomed the monarch and Duke of Edinburgh to their headquarters today. The Queen reviewed her pikemen and musketeers at Armoury House, London, 12 May 2010.


The pikemen and musketeers wear the uniform of the period of Charles I and can be seen at state and civic occasions and serve as the Lord Mayor of London's bodyguard. The company is made up of military veterans (many of which are of flag rank) who have served with the Honourable Artillery Company, a Territorial Army unit, that has the Queen as its Captain-General.


© Press Association

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"Dave" becomes the 12th Prime Minister of the Queen's long reign

Between Churchill and Cameron, Her Majesty has worked with dozens of prime ministers of course, but there have been a grand total of twelve of them in Britain alone. Ministries come and go, but the monarchy is forever.

Gerald Warner has entertained us throughout the campaign with descriptions of "Cast-Iron Cameron" and the "Vichy Tories" for selling their soul in order to gain power. Dave is now Prime Minister in what the British call a "Hung Parliament", and what we across-the-pond continentals have normalized as rather routine minority government. Whereas Harper would rather play off parties against each other, Dave is content on entering into a partnership with progressives. I don't think this bodes well for the future of conservatism and the Tory long game. Much better to sit this one out, and let the Labour-Lib-Dem progressives bankrupt themselves into oblivion. Dave is now completely beholden to Nick Clegg and will do pretty much anything to not let go. The two are joined at the neck. The Tories call this a victory?

To paraphrase Churchill: some victory...some neck.

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The Grenadier Guards

The Grenadier Guards is the most senior regiment of the Guards Division of the British Army, and, as such, is the most senior regiment of infantry. Originally raised in 1656 by the exiled king, Charles II, they are the only regiment in the British Army to win its name in battle, having defeated the Grenadiers of the French Imperial Guard at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.

The Queen inspects 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards before presenting them with their new colours (regimental flags) in the gardens at Buckingham Palace, 11 May 2010. In her speech at the event, Her Majesty spoke of the 'immense debt of gratitude and sympathy' owed by the country to soldiers who had been injured or lost their lives in conflict.
© Press Association

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Combined Cavalry Old Comrades Parade

The Combined Cavalry Old Comrades Association Parade and Memorial Service was held in Hyde Park, 9 May 2010.

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The Marlboroughs

"Darling, it's getting a little cramped...should we build another wing?"

Hat tip: Admiral Cod, including the comment from "Belle de Ville".

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Good King Edward

For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground

And tell sad stories of the death of kings

Richard II (III, ii)

His funeral, almost exactly a century ago, was described by the historian Barbara Tuchman as "the greatest assemblage of royalty and rank ever gathered in one place and, of its kind, the last". That funeral, with which Tuchman began her classic work on the Great War, The Guns of August, was certainly the last "event" before the horrors of the Somme and Verdun. The Edwardian Era, stretching from the death of Queen Victoria in January of 1901, to Edward VII's own death in May of 1910, is regarded as a sort of Indian Summer for the British Empire, and indeed for European Civilization. The restraint and propriety that was a hallmark of Victorian Britain loosened under Edward. Among his first royal commands was ending his mother's ban on smoking at Court. With the simple words "Gentlemen, you may smoke" the new King, a keen smoker himself, signalled that his reign was going to be, quite simply, a lot more fun.

Excluded from real power during Victoria's long reign, Edward became the leading playboy of the civilized world. As Prince of Wales he travelled to Canada, America, Germany, Egypt, Palestine and India. His personal style set trends through out the world, making fashionable tweed, Homburg hats and Norfolk jackets and the wearing of black ties with formal dinner jackets. Even his usual Sunday lunch influenced British culinary habits for decades. He once reproached the Prime Minister, the Marquess of Salisbury, for inappropriate dress during an international crisis. The PM explained weakly that "my mind must have been occupied by some subject of less importance."

His many dalliances were the subject of widespread gossip. His wife, the Danish Princess Alexandra, accepted these affairs as the fate of a royal consort. The future king's good nature, easy charm and surprisingly careful attention to public duties - which his mother scorned - made him enormously popular with friends and the Empire at large. In the wake of the Fashoda Crisis, it was Edward who did more than anyone to ease away the old Anglo-French rivalry, and help establish the Entente Cordiale that was to do so much to save the free world in the first half of the twentieth century. He annoyed many by his flouting of the bigotry of the age, openly socializing with Jews and remarking, during his visit to India, that: "Because a man has a black face and a different religion from our own, there is no reason why he should be treated as a brute." Repeatedly he condemned the use of the word "nigger" when it was still in widespread use.

Even his death, most likely from bronchitis, became him. The Prince of Wales, the future George V, informed the dying monarch that his horse had won at Kempton Park that afternoon. "I am very glad," replied Edward. Those were his last words. He lost consciousness soon after and died a few hours later.

The image his name most easily conjures is that of a portly man, on the comfortable side of middle age, dressed in tweed and holding a shotgun. The man of leisure out for a casual hunt, as opposed to the formal scarlet colours of the fox hunt. The Edwardian stepping down of restraint also begat an increasing informality to dress and manners. For much of the rest of the century the process of dressing down would continue, from Edward's casual elegance to the current ubiquity of denim. It is unlikely that the King would have approved of the descent.

The Edwardian Gentleman, like his sovereign, dressed in tweed while in the country. A bowler hat for work days in the City. Generous in disposition, though not to the point of familiarity. Mindful of private and public duties, yet far from zealous. Tolerant of others, yet certain of the moral and intellectual world he inhabited and was sworn to defend. Upon the last years of European pre-eminence he gazed with detachment and subtle irony. Conscious of his solemn upbringing and open to the possibilities which the new century, with its new technology and attitudes, promised to provide. His education had been classical. He knew far more of Horace or Cicero than differential equations or the new discoveries in electro-magnetism, yet strove to understand the modern. The smattering of Latin he still recalled was a hallmark of his social status. His distant ancestors had been violent brutes. A little further forward we find their humble piety slipping into religious fanaticism. His great-grandfather was perhaps a Georgian rake, his father obsessed with respectable conduct. He stood at the end of the line. The last gentleman in an age where the term was used, by all, neither ironically or indifferently.

In 1935 George Dangerfield wrote The Strange Death of Liberal England. It sought nominally to explain the decline of the Liberal Party, yet showed a glimpse of something more profound, the death of the liberal spirit that animated the Edwardian Gentleman. The violence of the suffragettes, the threat of Civil War in Ireland and Asquith and Lloyd George's attacks on the House of Lords, in the years immediately proceeding and following Edward's death, marked the passing of the deferential, and largely peaceful, England that had come into being in the last decades of Victoria's reign. The nineteenth century had begun in violence and social unrest, yet ended in peace and prosperity. The twentieth century began like a lamb and yet its first half witnessed a resurgent barbarism, made all the more horrible by the power of modern technology. The Edwardian Gentleman could not have foreseen the Somme, or fascism, or the Battle of Britain, or nuclear weapons or the slow rot of democratic socialism. It was not merely that these things came as a surprise to him, if he lived long enough to see them, but that they were so alien to his nature and being. Having gotten "far enough ahead of barbarism" a slide back was inconceivable. A century after Good King Edward's death we honour his memory, and provide for ourselves and our posterity, by seeking to revive the sprit he and his age represented. We borrow the old cry, which greeted the accession of his son George V, to new and old purposes:

The Edwardian Gentleman is Dead! Long Live the Edwardian Gentleman!

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A Funeral: When the sun of the Old World set in a dying blaze of splendour never to be seen again

The Funeral 100 years ago of His Imperial Majesty, King Edward the Seventh.



SO GORGEOUS WAS THE SPECTACLE on the May morning of 1910 when nine kings rode in the funeral of Edward VII of England that the crowd, waiting in hushed and black-clad awe, could not keep back gasps of admiration. In scarlet and blue and green and purple, three by three the sovereigns rode through the palace gates, with plumed helmets, gold braid, crimson sashes, and jeweled orders flashing in the sun. After them came five heirs apparent, forty more imperial or royal highnesses, seven queens—four dowager and three regnant—and a scattering of special ambassadors from uncrowned countries. Together they represented seventy nations in the greatest assemblage of royalty and rank ever gathered in one place and, of its kind, the last. The muffled tongue of Big Ben tolled nine by the clock as the cortege left the palace, but on history’s clock it was sunset, and the sun of the old world was setting in a dying blaze of splendor never to be seen again.

In the center of the front row rode the new king, George V, flanked on his left by the Duke of Connaught, the late king’s only surviving brother, and on his right by a personage to whom, acknowledged The Times, “belongs the first place among all the foreign mourners,” who “even when relations are most strained has never lost his popularity amongst us”—William II, the German Emperor. Mounted on a gray horse, wearing the scarlet uniform of a British Field Marshal, carrying the baton of that rank, the Kaiser had composed his features behind the famous upturned mustache in an expression “grave even to severity.” Of the several emotions churning his susceptible breast, some hints exist in his letters. “I am proud to call this place my home and to be a member of this royal family,” he wrote home after spending the night in Windsor Castle in the former apartments of his mother. Sentiment and nostalgia induced by these melancholy occasions with his English relatives jostled with pride in his supremacy among the assembled potentates and with a fierce relish in the disappearance of his uncle from the European scene. He had come to bury Edward his bane; Edward the arch plotter, as William conceived it, of Germany’s encirclement; Edward his mother’s brother whom he could neither bully nor impress, whose fat figure cast a shadow between Germany and the sun. “He is Satan. You cannot imagine what a Satan he is!”

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This verdict, announced by the Kaiser before a dinner of three hundred guests in Berlin in 1907, was occasioned by one of Edward’s continental tours undertaken with clearly diabolical designs at encirclement. He had spent a provocative week in Paris, visited for no good reason the King of Spain (who had just married his niece), and finished with a visit to the King of Italy with obvious intent to seduce him from his Triple Alliance with Germany and Austria. The Kaiser, possessor of the least inhibited tongue in Europe, had worked himself into a frenzy ending in another of those comments that had periodically over the past twenty years of his reign shattered the nerves of diplomats.

Happily the Encircler was now dead and replaced by George who, the Kaiser told Theodore Roosevelt a few days before the funeral, was “a very nice boy” (of forty-five, six years younger than the Kaiser). “He is a thorough Englishman and hates all foreigners but I do not mind that as long as he does not hate Germans more than other foreigners.” Alongside George, William now rode confidently, saluting as he passed the regimental colors of the 1st Royal Dragoons of which he was honorary colonel. Once he had distributed photographs of himself wearing their uniform with the Delphic inscription written above his signature, “I bide my time.” Today his time had come; he was supreme in Europe.

Behind him rode the widowed Queen Alexandra’s two brothers, King Frederick of Denmark and King George of the Hellenes; her nephew, King Haakon of Norway; and three kings who were to lose their thrones: Alfonso of Spain, Manuel of Portugal and, wearing a silk turban, King Ferdinand of Bulgaria who annoyed his fellow sovereigns by calling himself Czar and kept in a chest a Byzantine Emperor’s full regalia, acquired from a theatrical costumer, against the day when he should reassemble the Byzantine dominions beneath his scepter.

Dazzled by these “splendidly mounted princes,” as The Times called them, few observers had eyes for the ninth king, the only one among them who was to achieve greatness as a man. Despite his great height and perfect horsemanship, Albert, King of the Belgians, who disliked the pomp of royal ceremony, contrived in that company to look both embarrassed and absentminded. He was then thirty-five and had been on the throne barely a year. In later years when his face became known to the world as a symbol of heroism and tragedy, it still always wore that abstracted look, as if his mind were on something else.

The future source of tragedy, tall, corpulent, and corseted, with green plumes waving from his helmet, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir of the old Emperor Franz Josef, rode on Albert’s right, and on his left another scion who would never reach his throne, Prince Yussuf, heir of the Sultan of Turkey. After the kings came the royal highnesses: Prince Fushimi, brother of the Emperor of Japan; Grand Duke Michael, brother of the Czar of Russia; the Duke of Aosta in bright blue with green plumes, brother of the King of Italy; Prince Carl, brother of the King of Sweden; Prince Henry, consort of the Queen of Holland; and the Crown Princes of Serbia, Rumania, and Montenegro. The last named, Prince Danilo, “an amiable, extremely handsome young man of delightful manners,” resembled the Merry Widow’s lover in more than name, for, to the consternation of British functionaries, he had arrived the night before accompanied by a “charming young lady of great personal attractions” whom he introduced as his wife’s lady in waiting with the explanation that she had come to London to do some shopping.

A regiment of minor German royalty followed: rulers of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Waldeck-Pyrmont, Saxe-Coburg Gotha, of Saxony, Hesse, Württemberg, Baden, and Bavaria, of whom the last, Crown Prince Rupprecht, was soon to lead a German army in battle. There were a Prince of Siam, a Prince of Persia, five princes of the former French royal house of Orléans, a brother of the Khedive of Egypt wearing a gold-tasseled fez, Prince Tsia-tao of China in an embroidered light-blue gown whose ancient dynasty had two more years to run, and the Kaiser’s brother, Prince Henry of Prussia, representing the German Navy, of which he was Commander in Chief. Amid all this magnificence were three civilian-coated gentlemen, M. Gaston-Carlin of Switzerland, M. Pichon, Foreign Minister of France, and former President Theodore Roosevelt, special envoy of the United States.

Edward, the object of this unprecedented gathering of nations, was often called the “Uncle of Europe,” a title which, insofar as Europe’s ruling houses were meant, could be taken literally. He was the uncle not only of Kaiser Wilhelm but also, through his wife’s sister, the Dowager Empress Marie of Russia, of Czar Nicolas II. His own niece Alix was the Czarina; his daughter Maud was Queen of Norway; another niece, Ena, was Queen of Spain; a third niece, Marie, was soon to be Queen of Rumania. The Danish family of his wife, besides occupying the throne of Denmark, had mothered the Czar of Russia and supplied kings to Greece and Norway. Other relatives, the progeny at various removes of Queen Victoria’s nine sons and daughters, were scattered in abundance throughout the courts of Europe.

Yet not family feeling alone nor even the suddenness and shock of Edward’s death—for to public knowledge he had been ill one day and dead the next—accounted for the unexpected flood of condolences at his passing. It was in fact a tribute to Edward’s great gifts as a sociable king which had proved invaluable to his country. In the nine short years of his reign England’s splendid isolation had given way, under pressure, to a series of “understandings” or attachments, but not quite alliances—for England dislikes the definitive—with two old enemies, France and Russia, and one promising new power, Japan. The resulting shift in balance registered itself around the world and affected every state’s relations with every other. Though Edward neither initiated nor influenced his country’s policy, his personal diplomacy helped to make the change possible.

Taken as a child to visit France, he had said to Napoleon III: “You have a nice country. I would like to be your son.” This preference for things French, in contrast to or perhaps in protest against his mother’s for the Germanic, lasted, and after her death was put to use. When England, growing edgy over the challenge implicit in Germany’s Naval Program of 1900, decided to patch up old quarrels with France, Edward’s talents as Roi Charmeur smoothed the way. In 1903 he went to Paris, disregarding advice that an official state visit would find a cold welcome. On his arrival the crowds were sullen and silent except for a few taunting cries of “Vivent les Boers!” and “Vive Fashoda!” which the King ignored. To a worried aide who muttered, “The French don’t like us,” he replied, “Why should they?” and continued bowing and smiling from his carriage.

For four days he made appearances, reviewed troops at Vincennes, attended the races at Longchamps, a gala at the Opéra, a state banquet at the Elysée, a luncheon at the Quai d’Orsay and, at the theater, transformed a chill into smiles by mingling with the audience in the entr’acte and paying gallant compliments in French to a famous actress in the lobby. Everywhere he made gracious and tactful speeches about his friendship and admiration for the French, their “glorious traditions,” their “beautiful city,” for which he confessed an attachment “fortified by many happy memories,” his “sincere pleasure” in the visit, his belief that old misunderstandings are “happily over and forgotten,” that the mutual prosperity of France and England was interdependent and their friendship his “constant preoccupation.” When he left, the crowds now shouted, “Vive notre roi!” “Seldom has such a complete change of attitude been seen as that which has taken place in this country. He has won the hearts of all the French,” a Belgian diplomat reported. The German ambassador thought the King’s visit was “a most odd affair,” and supposed that an Anglo-French rapprochement was the result of a “general aversion to Germany.” Within a year, after hard work by ministers settling disputes, the rapprochement became the Anglo-French Entente, signed in April, 1904.

Germany might have had an English entente for herself had not her leaders, suspecting English motives, rebuffed the overtures of the Colonial Secretary, Joseph Chamberlain, in 1899 and again in 1901. Neither the shadowy Holstein who conducted Germany’s foreign affairs from behind the scenes nor the elegant and erudite Chancellor, Prince Bülow, nor the Kaiser himself was quite sure what they suspected England of but they were certain it was something perfidious. The Kaiser always wanted an agreement with England if he could get one without seeming to want it. Once, affected by English surroundings and family sentiment at the funeral of Queen Victoria, he allowed himself to confess the wish to Edward. “Not a mouse could stir in Europe without our permission,” was the way he visualized an Anglo-German alliance. But as soon as the English showed signs of willingness, he and his ministers veered off, suspecting some trick. Fearing to be taken advantage of at the conference table, they preferred to stay away altogether and depend upon an ever-growing navy to frighten the English into coming to terms.

Bismarck had warned Germany to be content with land power, but his successors were neither separately nor col- lectively Bismarcks. He had pursued clearly seen goals unswervingly; they groped for larger horizons with no clear idea of what they wanted. Holstein was a Machiavelli without a policy who operated on only one principle: suspect everyone. Bülow had no principles; he was so slippery, lamented his colleague Admiral Tirpitz, that compared to him an eel was a leech. The flashing, inconstant, always freshly inspired Kaiser had a different goal every hour, and practiced diplomacy as an exercise in perpetual motion.

— Barbara Tuchman, The Guns of August

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According to the Prime Minister, it still is the Royal Canadian Navy

Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced today that the Government of Canada is designating May 4th, 2010, as Canadian Navy Centennial Day to mark the Royal Canadian Navy's 100th anniversary of service. The announcement was made during a ceremony in the Senate Chamber on Parliament Hill during which a ship’s bell was presented to the people of Canada by the Navy to show their continued commitment to serve.

"The founding of Canada's navy represents a proud milestone in our history,” said Prime Minister Harper. “In the past 100 years our sailors have developed a reputation for bravery, skill and professionalism from combat in both world wars and Korea to current actions such as delivering aid to Haiti and combating piracy and terrorism in the Arabian Sea. Our Government will continue with its efforts to re-equip Canada’s navy, providing them with the new ships and upgrades needed to get the job done.

“This is a momentous occasion. The navy is honoured by today’s proclamation, and we hope that Canadians will join us in recognizing this milestone in Canadian history," said Vice-Admiral Dean McFadden, Chief of the Maritime Staff.

“The Centennial Bell rededicates the Navy’s commitment to the people of Canada for the next 100 years of service. It stands as a symbol that honours the past, celebrates the Royal Canadian Navy’s achievements and recognizes the navy’s safeguarding of Canadian values of freedom, democracy, respect for human rights and the rule of law,” said Peter MacKay, Minister of National Defence.

The Royal Canadian Navy is planning several events on May 4th and throughout 2010 to mark this significant moment in Canada's naval history within the context of the centennial theme of "Bring the Navy to Canadians." Events are aimed at honouring the past, showcasing the current navy and reinforcing the requirement for the future navy.

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YOUR HELP NEEDED URGENTLY TO RESTORE THE TITLE "ROYAL CANADIAN NAVY"

The Government of Canada reinstates the Elliott's Eye. Now restore the RCN!


What is known as the executive curl, the ring above an officers' gold lace or braid, is said to date from the Crimean War when it was called 'Elliott's Eye' in commemoration of a Captain Elliot who carried his wounded arm in a sling under heroic circumstances. The term also refers to an eye in a hemp rope, said to be a memento of the Honourable William Elliot, a member of the Board of Admiralty 1800-1801. It is worthy of note that of almost all of the seagoing nations of the world the French and American and Canadian are the only navies whose officers do not wear 'Elliott's Eye'.

Onto the next campaign: the restoration of the Royal designation to the Canadian Navy in time for the naval centennial and the Queen's visit next month. The Monarchist League of Canada has finally and enthusiastically taken up the cause that we have been pushing for the last two years:

The restoration of the proud and historic title “Royal Canadian Navy” to the maritime element of the Canadian Forces has long been a goal of a number of serving officers and other ranks, as well as of many of our veterans, whose valour gives them a unique standing to advocate for this cause.

Until now, however, there has not been the political will - or a body of opinion deemed significant enough by Ottawa's decision-makers - to make the restoration of this nomenclature a real possibility.

However, the League has good reason to believe that the climate has changed. Given both the positive attitude towards the Crown frequently manifested by the Harper Government and the forthcoming presence of The Queen in Nova Scotia during her Canadian Homecoming in the summer, there is a distinct possibility that the "Royal Canadian Navy" could again become a reality.

Your immediate action will help show the government that a grass-roots sentiment in favour of this revival exists.

No matter how loyal, politicians like to see a concrete manifestation of public opinion when they consider any change to existing policy, which in this case would involve making a recommendation to The Sovereign.

May I ask that you as soon as possible email the Prime Minister to urge him to restore the Royal Canadian Navy as the official title of the sea element of our Forces. And that you circulate this email to your friends, work colleagues, members of your faith community. social club, Legion Branch and so forth - to anyone who might be sympathetic to this very special Canadian terminology being restored.

Emails should go to pm@pm.gc.ca - obviously it is of particular interest to the Prime Minister's staff to know if the writer has a Naval association of some sort, but of course the views of every member of the public is significant in this campaign.

Thank you for your loyalty and quick action on this.

I would of course echo the Dominion Chairman's words. It is now or never. Based on the results of the online petition that this little blog here established some time ago, there are presently four thousand, two hundred and eighty-four reasons why the Government should immediately do this! Sign the petition and call the Prime Minister today!

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Thatcher's Last Stand

From Margaret Thatcher's last House of Commons Speech on November 22, 1990, where she addresses income inequality and a single currency.



Thatcher was a Whig more than a Tory, very much a philosophical heir to Gladstone and 19th century classical liberalism and who had very little in common with the aristocratic conservatism of Salisbury, her great Tory predecessor. Whig or Tory, the greatest leaders (the ones who hold our respect even if we don't agree with them some or all of the time) are the ones who know where they stand, have honest opinions and defend them with a conviction akin to moral absolutism. Moral relativists don't know where they stand, and therefore are forced to rely predominantly on spin to defend themselves along with the clever use of other highly skilled confidence tricks to deliver the message. That's the real difference between Thatcherism and Blairism, and we all know which camp Nick, Dave and Gordon belong don't we. Those three follow the politically correct fashions of the day - they don't swim against the tide like Thatcher did. It's called leadership, and Britain hasn't had it in twenty years.

Hat tip: Brits at their Best

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