When The Captains And Kings Depart

Once again avoiding the political and financial turmoil for the sake of another debate on what is right and what is not right it seems that members of the Plantagenet Alliance are thinking of mounting a legal action with the intention of having the remains of King Richard III reburied at York Minster.

They are all people who claim to have members of his close family in their ancestry, although not direct descendants.  There are none known but you never know if some dedicated antiquarian may not come up with one after long hard go at records, much as Patrick Montague-Smith stumbled on proof of ancestry of the Carew of Beddington family in an obscure entry in The Pipe Rolls.

The University of Leicester, responsible for both the archaeology and the DNA testing are bound by the terms of the license and agreement made with the authorities, which was to have any remains reburied at Leicester Cathedral, only yards away from the original resting place. 

This apparently is in line with established practice in archaeology where the original site may have major disadvantages or just be impractical, like having an office block built on top of it.  But if it were not to be Leicester, then there are other potential options for various reasons.

Then if the Plantagenet Alliance is making its legal claim on the basis of the need for the family to be consulted before licences are given and agreements made there are some serious basic problems.  One is that the Plantagenet Alliance, however scholarly or praiseworthy its activities are represents a small lobby group in this matter.

The total number of potential family who are around at present is very large indeed.  The University of Leicester suggests a figure of tens of thousands from the siblings alone.  Should wider family be taken into account, cousins etc. then the figures are huge.  If the benchmark were descent from Lionel of Antwerp, son of King Edward III and direct forebear of King Richard III then they would be even larger.

Consultation on this basis would be international and vast.  With the internet it might be possible to have a shot, but then verification of the right to claim would add too greatly in terms of cost and time. 

Another matter is that it is York Minster that is suggested on the grounds that he grew up in and was identified as a Yorkshire magnate.  The Minster is a major religious centre but not a Royal burial place. 

Richard was born at Fotheringhay Castle.  It is now a ruin but the local Parish Church of St. Mary and All Saints does have the tombs of his immediate family and it would certainly be appropriate for him to be laid to his final rest there.  However if a Cathedral is necessary then Peterborough Cathedral is the closest. 

This is where Catharine of Aragon, firstly wife of Prince Arthur and secondly on his death the first wife and Queen of King Henry VIII is buried.  However it would be a twisted logic for King Richard III being buried adjacent to the daughter-in-law of the man who defeated him at Bosworth, King Henry VII.

For many the major alternative is Westminster Abbey with it many Kings and Queens or perhaps St. Georges Chapel at Windsor.  But there are Roman Catholics who suggest that an Anglican Church is not appropriate and a suitable Roman Catholic one be sought, although where is another question.

In that case in Leicester the obvious choice, quite near to the old Greyfriars where he was originally buried, would be the Holy Cross Priory Church, which is a Priory of the Dominican Order.  A catafalque, as above at Roskilde, would make an excellent shrine for the faithful.  Any other Catholic church, including Westminster Cathedral does not seem quite right.

But this may not be the only King seeking a final resting place.  Faversham Abbey is another long gone religious establishment.  It was the burial place of King Stephen, and his wife Matilda.  Above it there are playing fields and now moves to start a major dig there.

Where’s the spade?

Thinking Of Moving?

Ever since the hominids emerged from the dust they have been moving about.  We are now beginning to realise that these movements could be over long distances.  Also, at one time journeys over water were thought to be highly limited because of the technical and other problems posed.

It is now being argued that the scale of movement and ability to cross different forms of terrain and negotiate the use of both waterways and the sea were a lot greater than assumed.  Our distant ancestors were cleverer than we thought.  They were also very tough and enduring.

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/348856/description/Ancient_people_and_Neandertals_were_extreme_travelers

The why’s and wherefore’s of all this are very complicated.  We can assume that the needs for foods and water were paramount but it may be that the need for certain plants and natural deposits could also play a part. 

What is still a matter of debate is how long it took a group to take and extract from its immediate environment most of its food sources etc. and therefore have to move on elsewhere.

There are the problems of contending with other forms of predatory and feeding life and when the human population is growing continually having to contest territory and claims to resources as they collided in their travels.

At some stage farming began and with it more settled locations and communities that developed different structures and thought systems.  Small communities became larger and more complex and greater structures emerged often with a warrior come priestly elite to defend and control their territory.

In our recent history; that is since the last major Ice Age, there has been a huge increase in human population, especially in the last brief period of a couple of hundred years. 

Civilisations and empires, not necessarily the same thing, have risen and fallen; there have been incessant wars, conflicts and troubles with associated human movement.

With modern transport and communications it is now possible to move people on a world scale that would have been impossible in the even near past.  To assume that this can be done without some problems does not fit either the history of movement or the immediate and long term effects. 

This given the pressure on existing resources, food supplies and financial structures will have implications far beyond those assumed in the mid 20^th Century or earlier.  You have only to look at the size, complexity and demands of the growing mega-urban areas to see this.

During our period of Empire it was a matter of pride that the Atlantic Isles, with a relatively small population could both assert global power and export so many of its people, remember the scale of emigration from England was just as much as from other parts.  Now this past has come back to haunt us.

The populations of the Atlantic Isles in the past were a group of minorities collected into one nation state.  As this dissolves, destroyed by the centralised political and financial powers that created it, we are only a collection of small minorities in world terms. 

The last UK government decided that inward migration of multi-million assorted peoples would suit its political interests.  Not only did this add many more minorities, divergent rather than diverse, into the mix, there are now some parts of the Atlantic Isles where those deriving from the 1700-1950 population period of occupation are in the minority.  These are mostly in highly urbanised areas.

Again, with the prospect of human movement increasing well beyond the existing millions the governments of very many countries as well as those of the Atlantic Isles are going to have to face up to the consequences, both human and political.  These are going to be challenging and difficult to control.

Currently, we have a breakdown of administration in London, problems in Dublin and Edinburgh at present is an unknown quantity.  Cardiff is another issue. 

Amongst all the other questions is what happens if one part of the Atlantic Isles attempts to run a population and migration policy different from any of the others.  This suggests strict border controls in one form or another.

For example, will Scotland fence off England or vice versa?

The Bells, The Bells!

More briefly, this is the second post on religion, this time a bigger Church but a shorter post.  In Paris at the Cathedral of Notre Dame the towers now have a set of new bells replacing those of the past.

The history of all this is complicated but is covered in the section on Bells in the Wikipedia article “ Notre Dame de Paris”.  It is a tale of revolution, removals, rebuilding in part and “restoration”.  What you see or hear is not what was seen or heard in the long past.

The original bells were cast in tune, but how far time meant that this remained is not known.  What is, according to the reports, was that the more recent bells have not. 

The reason for this is unclear.  It may have been that a cut price job was done.  More likely is that in the France of the 19^th Century the endemic corruption and inefficiency of the state made it very difficult to do anything much properly.

For most people Notre Dame means Quasimodo, the hunchback and Esmeralda the Gypsy girl he loved and tried to protect made famous in film.  Victor Hugo’s story, published in 1831 is set in 1482 during The Feast of Fools so refers to a particular period when France was then the major and richest power in Europe. 

Also, it is a time when the old bells were both major features of the sound world of Old Paris and still in tune.  They marked the passing of the time as well as being a call to faith.  The state was the monarchy and divinely blessed by The Church.

There was then a stratified society of an elite class, the aristocracy with below them a small middle and merchant class and then the peasantry and rest.  These could be troublesome, notably in Paris where the lowest could become the mob.

So who will the new bells in tune be representing?  Do they celebrate a new form of monarchical type and aristocratic rule, also European in scope in purpose?  Are they there to tell us what to believe and how and to mark our days?

Or are they to announce the rule of the mob and maybe the Quasimodo’s of our time?

Sheep May Not Safely Graze

Two churches are in the news this weekend although there is quite a difference between them, ignoring Rome and Canterbury.  Both in their way have a message for our times.  The first is St. Peter and St. Paul’s at East Sutton, Kent and the other the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, which will be another post. 

East Sutton is a small village one would have thought far from media interest.  But at the end of the 19^th Century one of its more prominent residents was John Corlett, a newspaperman, proprietor of “The Sporting Times”, more popularly called “The Pink ‘Un”.  Also, the village was the country home of the respected Filmer family, baronets once significant political figures.

It is in the news because Vicky Pryce has been sent there, to HMP East Sutton at the old house to serve out her sentence having been found guilty of perverting the course of justice.  Her trials were something of a debacle.  According to “Private Eye” this week, between her lawyers and the Sunday Times contact for whom she was a source she was shopped and sunk.

Long before the village was best known as the location of a property once called The Pleasure House.  In the 1890’s this had housed the local vicar and his family but later was the location for Alice Keppel to meet with King Edward VII for some of their extra marital assignations.

They lived in a happier time when the press was more circumspect in dealing with the Royal Family and in the UK were rarely if ever pursued by posses of photographers looking for a fast but revealing shot.  If only because the camera’s of the period were heavy and slow.

East Sutton church has a relatively ordinary set of memorial inscriptions but there is one close to the entrance of the main churchyard which tells onlookers to gaze upon the graves with respect because they will be joining the occupants soon enough.  This may not have been noticed by the photographers who have congregated there because it overlooks East Sutton Park or HMP East Sutton. 

There has been a row between Professor Greenslade, Emeritus Blogger to The Guardian, no less and the British Press Photographer’s Association, over the intrusion of the photographers at East Sutton and their behaviour, he says they are paparazzi they say, honest Guv’ we are just doing our job:

http://thebppa.wordpress.com/2013/03/22/another-open-letter-to-professor-greenslade/

The Park has advantages over the usual urban prison but is not a “cushy number”.  There is proper full time work to be done with real plants and animals because the farm has to supply a number of local outlets with reliable and good quality products, meats, salads, vegetables and garden plants. 

But the photographers had better be careful.  Not only is there The Curse of East Sutton as on the memorial they have treated with scant respect, it may be soon that it is the time and season on the farm for those learning the traditional trades in husbandry to get out the butcher’s cleavers, the shears and the big secateurs.

They could find out what the word “bullocks” really means.  Now that would make a good story; never mind the pictures.

More Wandering About

In the 1950’s a couple of my former school mates found themselves in Cyprus in the military.  Both regarded the spell as the least enjoyable two years of their lives and swore never to return.  What will happen next there is becoming difficult to work out and all I can do is stick to Zero Hedge and hope this is good enough.

As the row on privacy and Government regulation of the press rumbles on The Economist, a journal I have read for sixty odd years makes its displeasure clear about what is being proposed, elsewhere in the real world, privacy is no great matter. 

The supermarket we have to use for a few items has mailed me with a personalized effort which clearly shows where we shop, at what times and by an analysis of the spending what sort of meal we would like on Easter day with the recommended wine.

There is one thing that they have not picked up on yet, however.  We have ceased to use their lavatory paper for reasons I do not wish to divulge on grounds of privacy. 

But it will be only a matter of time before they offer me personalized rolls or at least by looking at my age profile make suggestions about texture and capability.

The trouble is that as the post below indicates, the techies are always ahead of the game when it comes to security and privacy.

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/03/when_technology.html

Another false dawn is all the spin, spout and shout about budgets etc. in the UK, the USA, the EU and the rest of the world.  What really matters is what the money men are going to do and how. 

When Mark Carney takes over at the Bank of England we are promised a very new strategy and attack on the economic problems.  This could be the economic equivalent of the 1^st July 1916 when in the Battle of the Somme after nearly two years mostly on the back foot, the British Army attacked in the hope of pushing the Germans out of France.

At least there has been some entertainment.  The Daily Mail today had a piece about the life and larks of Sir Winston Churchill in the first decade of the 20^th Century when a young man about town. 

He comes across as perhaps a model for the character of Bingo Little (see Wikipedia) in Wodehouse’s stories about Jeeves and Wooster.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2297235/Winston-Churchill-proposed-society-beauties-youth.html

This is not Churchill as we know him.  More to the point a short while ago I posted on Leslie Stuart, (see Wikipedia) born Thomas Barrett, of humble origins who made it to the top in show business at the time.  In the same decade he was making a great deal of money and spending even more.

One interest that Leslie and Winston had in common and it seems at the same time and in the same places was entertaining chorus girls and not stinting on the champagne.  Leslie was unlucky falling into bankruptcy and divorce. Winston on the other hand was bankrolled by press barons and married well.

Curiously, these two men were not quite so far apart as they might have believed and I do not mean in terms of which particular girl or girls whose company may have delighted them.

Trawling around the primary sources, it appears though from decidedly humble origins one of Stuart’s/Barrett’s relations by marriage was from a family where some had gone down but one part had decidedly gone up.  They were connected to the family of one of Churchill’s forlorn female hopes.

But another had been one of the leading huntsmen of his day riding the same country and with the same packs as Bay Middleton (see Wikipedia), now alleged to be the real father of Clementine Hozier, the eventual wife of Sir Winston.

Which brings us back to the beginning.  Between 1924 and 1929 Churchill was Chancellor of the Exchequer in a Conservative Government that had declared that its mission was to clear up the mess in the economy but failed. 

A major reason was putting too much trust in and following the advice of Montague Norman, the Governor of the Bank of England.  The Great Crash that followed, involving Wall Street, European funny money and the rest is one of the dark periods of history. 

At the time, one of relatively recent acquisitions of Empire was Cyprus where we were then busy building up our army and naval bases.

That’s the trouble with wandering you finish up back where you started from.

Wandering Thinking

There is too much going on out there to pull together.  That is to us who go on about chaos, complexity and uncertainty we are all living in Snafuland, if you know where that is.  If you don’t you might be better off, or not, or maybe.

The third link of the four below, the LSE one on where the UK state is going ends by saying:

Quote:

The government is currently making big choices about the shape of the state as well as about its size. On current plans, we are moving ever more rapidly towards a state focused on welfare and particularly on health and on pensions.

As the population ages, this focus on health and pensions will become still more evident. However, whether spending a diminishing fraction of national income on other public services is a sustainable choice is an open question.

Unquote.

So the question is what may be the answers to the open question.  Along with all this is the row about “Freedom Of The Press” which begs the question freedom to do what?  EU Referendum points out that this valued freedom is little deserved. 

One major and crucial area of UK activity is our agriculture.  There have been things going on in Brussels which have been barely mentioned never mind reported on there which will impact significantly on the whole future of farming and food supply in the UK.

http://www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=83729

Out there has been the ongoing crisis of Cyprus, now more complicated with the potential intervention of the Russian’s and Gazprom.  If Russia does get its hands on the rights to the fuel resources of Cyprus then The Great Game has been well and truly lost. 

This article however is about bank deposits and how we are all fools in our beliefs about it.  Sorrowfully, he comes to the view that the EU may be right and not just the shareholders but the depositors must expect to take the hit instead of the taxpayers.  It is longish but provoking.

http://www.cobdencentre.org/2013/03/cyprus-and-the-reality-of-banking-deposit-haircuts-are-both-inevitable-and-the-right-thing-to-do/

Below, this longish one from the LSE, as stated, is about just where are we going with the UK public finances.  The suggestion is not where we think or will be good for us.

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/archives/31746#more-31746

All the above is as of now, but there is the future.  Peter Sutherland is still very much around and has the status of one of the High Priests of the Left.  Whatever the Labour Party may say publicly today, it is Sutherland and his associates who may be determining the future.

In this short case he is clear that mass migration is a fact of life and we might as well sit back and enjoy it because it is claimed to be the necessity of development.  The numbers he suggests are probable for the near future are very much higher than the relatively trivial ones we have been arguing about recently.

http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/migrants-and-the-post-2015-global-development-agenda-by-peter-sutherland

Where any of this leaves us in relation to the vaudeville routines of today in Parliament is anybodies guess.

The trouble is we could all be wrong.

What Might Have Happened

Press Internet Sundry Sources OFFice,

Harold Laski Towers,

Clare Market,

London.

31^st September, 2007.

Dear Mr. Demetrius O’Blimey,

I regret that a number of issues have been drawn to our attention relating to comments and other material that have been posted on a web site in your name.  To the best of our knowledge and belief we understand that you are both the writer and publisher from an analysis of the content and advice from a secure source.

There has been a formal complaint from HM Treasury regarding your item on Endogenous Growth Theory in the construction of Budgetary financial strategy under the heading “Dumping The Wrong Stuff In The Wrong Bog”. 

You will appreciate that the critical management basis for addressing the nation’s finances is a key area that is regarded as confidential to the whole process and is better that it should not be questioned publicly because of the effects of international markets. 

The Chancellor in particular has objected to your thesis that he is barmy, boozed or brain dead.  There is no evidence for this and it is an uninformed opinion that this Office regards as potentially actionable under the terms of the Act.

The Office of the Prime Minister has raised objections to your view on the deployment of British troops in Iraq under the heading “The Wrong Men In The Wrong Place At The Wrong Time” and suggesting that they were sent there on the basis of false intelligence and the deliberate misleading of the public.

This Office considers that your periods of serving in an armoured formation, knowing leading Iragi’s in the 1960’s, and academic studies on the modern history of the Middle East are not sufficient to allow you to make public comments in this form of publication and we must ask that any other matter you intend to publish has to be submitted to this Office for formal clearance.

Additionally, the partner of our Prime Minister, a lady who is a distinguished member of the legal profession and key adviser in many areas objects to being referred to as a “Scouser”.  This is considered by the Office to be a serious invasion of privacy and additionally ethnically discriminatory. 

The facts that you were born in a Workhouse in Liverpool, have hundreds of relatives in that vicinity and could be very distantly related are not relevant.  Your item “It Takes One To Know One” has been withdrawn on the instructions of this Office.

There are a number of other complaints from companies engaged in the City of London and connected places to the effect that your claims of economic difficulties that will arise will be largely due to reckless trading, dishonesty, theft and fraud are wholly unjustifiable. 

This Office considers that these represent a flagrant and prejudiced attitude to a sector of the economy that is providing sustainable long term economic growth which will deliver rising prosperity and a secure future for us all.  Any further suggestions of wrong doing or deficient work in this sector are now forbidden under the terms of the Act.

Any breach of the requirements of this letter could lead to prosecution and possible imprisonment should a guilty verdict be found.  The specialist courts set up to deal with these cases on a confidential basis will make their judgement accordingly.

You will appreciate that it is our duty to protect the public and people from assaults on their confidence in the machinery of government and the valuable work of those engaged in the tasks of managing our futures.

Yours faithfully,

Signature unreadable.