Posted on 10/13/2007 7:53:43 AM PDT by Frank Sheed
“the Indian populations survived in large numbers in the Spanish Empire, while they were almost entirely wiped out in English North America”
Huh? The Spanish enslaved and exterminated native populations far beyond the weak efforts of English speaking people in North America. While Mexico, Peru and Bolivia retain a much larger percentage of native peoples, around 30, 45 and 55 % respectively, the USA has just a slight percentage less than countries like Argentina, Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Cuba and have larger native populations than Uruguay, Puerto Rico, and another Catholic country, Brazil.
The relationships between Ireland and England are a bit more relevant than those between the Gaul and the Romans. Otherwise there would not still be the unsettled matter of Catholics vs. Protestants in Ulster, or I shouild say between Irish nationalists and Unionists. There are tens of thousands of people still alive who were young people when the Irish Free State was created, many more who can remember DeValera, who kept Ireland neutral while Britain fought for her life against Nazi Germany.
Probably will see the movie when it comes out on DVD. I like Blanchett, and liked her in “Elizabeth.” That film, however, suffered also from a lack of balance. Like the part where Walsingham kills his assassin. Sure enough, assassination was —and is—a political tool. Many an attempt was made on Pole, whose claim to the throne was as good as Elizabeth’s or Mary Stuart.
William of Orange was taken out, of course. Does the film deal with the Dutch question in any depth? I have yet to see a film where it was made clear that the English were aiming to prevent the Armada from reaching the Netherlands to pick up Spanish troops poised. to invade England.
Don’t confuse Elizabeth with Jane Grey. Lady Jane was, like Edward, pious, as was the Catholic Mary, but Elizabeth was a political animal. You should know that no one every accused her of piety. For about ten years she held out the possibility that she might marry a Catholic prince. That ended, of course, after Pope Pius V, denounced her as a heretic. She had, of course, by that time renounced the Spanish alliance and had begun to intervene in the Netherlands and she would do what she could to helpo the Huguenots in France. Soon she would legitimize the piracy of Drake and others. As for her religious policy is concerned, England was slowly turning Protestant as the older generations died off. The Jesuits had entered the country both to rally the Catholics and to undermine her government. But the defeat of the Armada affirmed the Protestant Character of England and the Guy Fawkes episode—talk about a 9/11 event—discredited Catholicism.
The English Reformation took an anti-papal turn because of the divorce. Lutrheranism was not the only reform movement. Thomas More was as much a religious reformer as Thomas Cromwell, his successor, but he couldn’t give the king what he wanted. What occured, of course, was a revolution from above where the religion of the people was suppressed and tthe religion of Reformers like Cranmer was imposed. It was accomplished by the co-operation of the bishops and nobility. Only the prestige of the king prevented wide-spread resistance as in the case of the Pilgrimage of Grace.
The Spanishmay have “enslaved” the Indians, but they did not exterminate them. Why kill off workers of the land and mines? Disease did indeed decimate the Indian population. It is estimated that the population of Mexico went from about 15 million to one million between 1500 and 1600, when the Spanish took their first census. But it was bad policy to kill Indians after they could no longer fight, especially after they began to adopt the Chirstian religion. The Spanish system was based on the Latifunida system which the Spanish nobility had taken from the Romans. As to the English, it is ironic that after they created the Black Legend—which you repeat without question the English behaved exactly the same in their colonies inf New England and Virginia. But the indians in English North America were too thin on the ground to be enslaved. After being defeated in war, the Indians moved out of the way, for the most part. New England was indeed like Old England, and Virginia was colonized by importing white servants snd black slaves.
I think it would be a mistake to put too much history onto this, or for that matter any other contemporary "Hollywood" vehicle, though this seems to have been made internationally and shot entirely within the British Isles. It dis-suspends belief and lets un-imagination rule one's thoughts, thus to undermine the the sense of "the play"...with any and all apologies to Shakespeare.
Best....
I consider the ongoing War on Terror to be a religious war against Islamic Fascism.
Much obliged.
The reason for the enslavement was gold, a resource which North America was thought to be lacking at the time of colonization. I did not mean to imply that the Catholic Church itself was to blame for mistreatment of natives, nor that the English were loving and tender with the Indians they encountered. However the claim that the Spanish treated natives to the south so much better than the English did to the north is laughable, and yes, in some areas of Central and South America they were much better at extermination than the English were.
If it's a movie, I probably haven't seen it. Our family goes to the movies once or twice a year. We're very careful about what we support.
Sadly, this propaganda will have its effect, just like the Da Vinci crap.
And what choice in the matter did the Roman Emporer give to his citizens when he outlawed all religoins except Christianity and imposed that religion on all citizens?
Neutral because so many Irish were on the side of the Nazis.
A political animal? Of course, she was the queen of England. It was her political skills that made her one of the most effective sovereigns in English history. And she had no intention of marrying a Catholic king. She keep lots of man hanging on, with the hope all in the other direction.
From The Western Heritage by Donald Kagan, Steven Ozment, Frank M. Turner:
Despite proven cases of Catholic treason and even attempted regicide, she [Elizabeth] executed fewer Catholics during her forty-five years on the throne than May Tudor had executed Protestants during her brief five-year reign.I tend to trust anything with Donald Kegan's name attached to it.
So what sources are you quoting from?
So, in a very real sense, Copernicus escaped religious persecution by dying before the publication of his work.
And let us note that some sixty years later, Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake for espousing Copernicus’ cosmological theory, and that later Galileo himself was convicted of heresy for the same crime. Galileo officially recanted his work, but never truly gave it up.
You state that the Church can and has thrived in many different socio-political-intellectual milieux - this much is true. History has clearly shown us that where the Christinaity in general and in particular, the Catholic branch has erred, it has always been in the pursuit of unbridled power and the corruption that accompanies such pursuits. Christianity's great strength is that, unlike Islam, it has and will continue to reform itself.
Neutral because the Germans had since the First War were willing to aid the Irish against the English. No particular love for the Nazis.
She had no intention of marrying a Catholic prince because her strength was in thje Protestant faction in the country. The Catholic faction had no one to oppose her, except Mary Stuart and she was a weak reed. But again, her religious sentiments were not strongly reformist, which is why a Puritan faction in the Church began to develop during the 1560s. Because she kept to the Prayer Book, Catholics could always hope that she might swing back in their direction, at least to the same place as Henry VIII.
Not much, which all goes to show that religious toleration as we understand it is a fairly recent concept, starting round about the time of Locke, and even he excepted Catholics from his regime of toleration.
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