Posted on 02/12/2006 7:23:58 PM PST by B-Chan
Some Conspiracies are Real
Today, 13 February 2006, is the 318th anniversary of the so-called "Glorious Revolution" -- the coup d'etat that deposed the rightful King of England, HM James II Stuart, and imposed the rule of the Dutch prince William of Orange and his wife Mary upon the United Kingdom.
This was not the result of some minor dynastic quibble. There was no doubt in anyone's mind that James II was the rightful king. His deposition was instead the result of a genuine conspiracy between a group of traitors to overthrow the native-born Catholic King of England and award his crown by force of arms to a Protestant foreigner.
Yes, James II made some mistakes: he was a coward and a weakling; he remained loyal to his brother monarch Louis XIV Bourbon of France against all opposition; he pushed for religious toleration and freedom of worship; and he refused to assent to the Whig idea that the will of the people was in any way equivalent to the Will of God which had put him on the throne. For these crimes he was chased from his homeland by rebel bishops, machine politicians, demagogues, a foreign army, and his own traitorous daughter Mary -- the wife of his greatest enemy. One of the descendants of that daughter is the Queen of England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland today -- de facto, but never de jure.
(FYI: Though he does not claim the title, HM Francis II is the real King of England, Scotland and Northern Ireland today.)
Not every conspiracy is the product of the paranoiac imagination. Sometimes they are very much real. In 1688 the legitimate government of the United Kingdom was usurped at the instigation of one such conspiracy. That they made a revolution is a fact. To call the revolution they fomented "glorious", however, is to mock everything Western civilization once stood for.
It happened to James II in 1688. Who is to say it can't happen here?
Not de jure? Sound like the jury returned its verdict 318 years ago, and was upheld on appeal at every level.
Nonsense. James II was not the lawful king (of England) either, because he was a Stuart, descended from Tudors, and the Tudors were never the rightful monarchs --- Henry Tudor usurped Richard III illegally. Of course you can go back and declare the Norman Conquest, Danish, Saxon, Roman and Celtic invasions to be illegal as well. Probably some Pict is the rightful King.
And I'd remind you, if James had stayed in power and the Indulgence Act had been instituted, history probably would have turned out a lot differently, especially for our own union of states.
As a meritocrat, I believe in personal merit, no hereditary title has any meaning in my eyes because any title must be earned by a person before one gets it. And not be given based on birth. Down with all monarchies!
James II was the syphillitic brother of King Charles II. Their father, Charles I, was relieved of his head by Oliver Cromwell after a nasty civil war. I believe Parliament saw the same personality problems (arrogance, self righteousness, paranoia, pig headedness) in James that caused them to have to expend so many lives to get rid of his Father. His devotion to the absolutist French Monarch Louis XIV ran strongly against the constitutionalist Monarchy that England had bled to create, and which was still tottery. After attempting to regain his throne with a French army failed at the Battle of the Boyne in Ireland, 1690, James fled to Paris where Louis rewarded him with an estate upon which he lived as a virtual Frenchman for the remaining eleven years of his life.
No the lawful Lord Protector of England today is Cyrus Judah Cromwell. Those conspiracy guys removed Richard Cromwell after Oliver's death and things have not gotten back to the Republic since then....Ha!
"Probably some Pict is the rightful King"
Only Arthur is the rightful once and future King...;]
"Cromwell"
If you're Irish, I must assume that you immediately spat after typing that....;D
Hey, I'll bet 10 quatloos on a descendant of King Harold as the true King of England.
Read Tom Reilly's book, CROMWELL AN HONORABLE ENEMY. Reilly very Irish and makes the point that the English Royalists played the Cromwell-was-so-bad card to the Irish for centuries.
Reilly has written three books on Drogheda. He simply reviews the record of the Royalists and the record of the Protectorate and finds the Protectorate less anti-Irish. He well knows that there were Royalists at Drogheda and that battle's aftermath was hardly unique among any of the Irish power players.
The few factually correct statements in the posted screed are those describing who James II was. The remaining conclusions are contradicted by many chapters of English history texts. The coup was a legitimate form of revolution recognized by international law as a method of governmental change. Of course, Hugo Groutius and his seminal work on the law of war and peace (De Jure Belli Ac Pacus) was not extant in 1688 and the guy with the more sword carrying supporters made the rules. James II retired to France without a fight and lived in luxury until his death. The House of Orange rule was legitimatized by the proper bodies and resulted in the House of Windsor dynasty that rules today.
The Stuarts descended from the Tudors? Hardly. The Tudor line ended with Elizabeth, the virgin queen, who never married. When Elizabeth died, James VI of Scotland, son of Mary Queen of Scots and grandson of Mary de Guise came to the throne that united Scotland and Britain under one throne, becoming James I.
And though I myself am descended from Scots, there never was a Stuart monarch worth a bucket of warm spit. Charles I lost his head literally (thanks, Oliver Cromwell), Charles II lost his figuratively, and James (II of England and VII of Scotland) came to the throne. He was descenced from some Pict, and not from the Tudors.
Had the lily-livered James sought the aid of Louis XIV, England might be part of France today, and Rowan William's boss would be Benedict XVI.
Conspiracy? Hell yes. Thank goodness it succeeded. Dutch William was far better for the realm than any Stuart would have been. The Irish have the right name for him -- Seamus a Chaca. I won't translate that from the Gaelic -- it won't do to have Free Republic sullied by the sort of language commonly used on the Democrat Underground.
Next time you're in Munich, buy Frankie a stein of beer for us all.
Dex
What the James II/Jacobites stood for:
* freedom of conscience for all;
* freedom of worship (or to not worship) for all;
* "federalism" -- independent regions united by freely-given allegiance to central government
What the liberals/deomcrats/republicans stood for:
* religious intolerance towards Catholics and other non-Protestants;
* required attendance at Protestant religious services;
* historically independent regions united by military force under powerful central government
From the above it's pretty easy to see that the bad guys won in 1688.
Be a bit hard to convince me.
That's how my kin got to this country in the first place....;D
[an Irish grudge is rarely rational but always immutable]
Queen Mary II has no surviving descendants because she was childless. The British royal family is descended from Elizabeth Stuart -- the daughter of James I.
ping
"...an Irish grudge is rarely rational but always immutable"
Ha...Love it...Well I'm afraid my economy of words did Tom Reilly unfairly. But Reilly was born in Drogheda in 1960 and is one of those true maverick types. You might just give his brain a thumb through at some point.
I laugh that the Irish in me explains my laziness but in all seriousness I'm never one to deny my Irish Catholic grandfather.
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