Pray For England's Queen Mother. It's The Hardest Of All.

BBC ^ | 2/13/02 | BBC

[Bogie]

#147

Very well said!

[A CA Guy]

We are Englands bastard child. That is OK and they are pretty loyal to us and we them. Israel as well.

[nopardons]

Of course I know that the England sided with the South , during the Civil War ; however , they weren't the North's ( who had the French in their side ) the specific " enemy ". That's why I left that debacle alone. : - )

[metesky]

We certainly wouldn't want some of the usual suspects to turn a prayer thread into another chance to refight the Civil War (The Late Unpleasantness). ;O)

[nopardons]

Am I THAT obvious ? Okay, I do admit that that was a major reason for the omission. : - )

[Tanya Featherstonehaugh]

That's right.

Well remembered!

[MadIvan]

Nenike nopardons! Hogy vagy? ;)

Just to correct you slightly - England was officially neutral during the American civil war. While it is true that the dock yards of Liverpool built some of the Confederacy's greatest raiding ships, including the CSS Shenandoah, the British public was deeply divided - there were strikes at Manchester cotton mills because the workers disapproved of slavery, even though they were reliant on American cotton for their livelihood.

Regards, Ivan

[Bogie]

Dear Ivan,

You must be thinking of the CSS Alabama. It is one of the most amazing stories in all of naval history.

It was built in England, on the Themes I believe, but don't hold me to that,had a rifled breach loading cannon, wind power for the long haul, and steam power for control in battle.

Because of the Alabama only, the American flag is, to this day, still not the flag of choice for the high seas!

The CSS Alabama

[MadIvan]

Nope - here is some information about:

CSS Shenandoah

One of the most feared Confederate raiders along with the Alabama.

Regards, Ivan

[Southern Federalist]

There are a lot of wierd posts on this thread. Wierdest is the idea that the British monarchy is tyrannical. The British spent two hundred years - most of the 17th and 18th centuries - gradually denying all arbitrary power to their monarchs. What was left was a monarchy whose function was to symbolize the nation and its history. It is a job, people. The Queen works long days doing unspeakably boring things, and she has done if for 50 years with dignity and devotion. The British are by and large willing to spend money on their royals precisely because it is a symbolic institution. The money spent honors the nation.

I do think that the British monarchy has been slowly coming unstrung, especially in the 20th century. Victoria perfected the modern monarchy. Her son Edward was a bad lad but became a decent enough king. His son was a straight-laced naval officer, but in the next generation things began to disintegrate. Edward VIII was a jackass who didn't know what duty meant. Fortunately for Britain, as WWII loomed, his brother George did. In the next generation, Elizabeth got it, but Margeret never did. And I don't see any sign of anyone in the next two generations getting it, though I am not a close watcher of the present royals.

It is a job which puts those who have it under intense scrutiny, which has been magnified a thousandfold by the modern media. Since no one can fully live up to such a symbolic role, it requires people who are willing to stay altogether out of the public eye except when in costume. The British monarchy will only work with a royal family that is willing to subordinate private life and personal "self-realization" to public duty consistently and unstintingly. The combination of the stress and temptation coming from modern media, along with the modern culture of "self-expression," is simply proving more than the Windsors can withstand. Or that's what it seems like to me.

The Queen Mother and Elizabeth embody what the monarchy is supposed to be about. But I'd like to hear from British posters how the British deal with the prospect of having the fool Charles dressed up as the symbol of the British nation. I worry about this, because it seems to me that under Charles the British monarchy could easily either go the way of Scandinavian self-trivialization or make itself so odious that it gets abolished. That would leave a hole in Britain that I suspect would be harder to deal with than glib anti-monarchists talking cost-benefit analysis can imagine.

[MadIvan]

Here you can read a little about the captain of the Shenandoah:

Link 1
Link 2

I've always been fascinated by the story about him continuing raids long after the Confederacy fell. ;)

Regards, Ivan

[MadIvan]

I'm not all that worried to tell the truth, all indications are that Charles will be too old to ascend to the throne by the time his mother passes on. It is likely that it will go to young Wills. And he is showing signs of being modest and restrained like his great grandfather. All may yet be well.

But let's give Charles his due. He was the only world leader to tell Jiang Xemin to get stuffed and refuse to meet with him on moral grounds.

Regards, Ivan

[yarddog]

bump for later.

[Bogie]

OK, it's a numbers game. How many did the the Shenandoah send down, against how many the Alabama sent down. If I'm wrong, I'll "eat crow" on this forum.

[MadIvan]

Oh I am sure the Alabama took more down, I was just saying the Shenandoah was one of the most feared. Which is true.

Regards, Ivan

[Bogie]

By the way, it is well known thet England did not enter the war because of its adversion to slavery.

However, the importation of slaves was promoted by Charles the 1st, as a way to raise money through the sugar trade. (The purpose: To build an army against Cromwell.)

Well, he got his, didn't he? Along with Bishop Laud,who sent my, and President George Bush's 8 times great grandfather, in a trial that he personally presided over,to Klink Prison in London, because he dared to hold church services outside the Church of England.Yikes! But that is digression. The English were against slavery by the time the American Civil War came about.

[yarddog]

You are both forgetting another famous raider. The "CSS Florida" It took around 50 yankee ships before being captured in Brazil while most of it's officers were ashore and it's guns unloaded.

Since the ship was in a neutral port, there was no effort made to defend against the Union ship also in the port.

This was a particularly blatant violation of international law and the U.S. Navy later court martialed the Captain and found him guilty tho he was never punished.

The Florida was built in Liverpool and most of it's crew were British.

[Bogie]

Yes, I remember reading something about the Florida!

[Southern Federalist]

Perhaps Wills will turn out to be one of the dedicated Windsors. I hope so. I've argued with Britons on FR whose individual attitudes I didn't like, but at bottom I believe that our political tradition is a gift of British history to which we have added our own developments.

I don't think the admittedly shining moment in Charles's career that you mention outweighs his general foolishness. When is the eldest child of the reigning monarch "too old" to succeed to the throne? Of course, if the Queen takes after her Mum, Charles may be in deep personal conversation with his Maker well before that becomes an issue.

[nopardons]

Yoi Istanem, your Hungarian is getting SO good ! I am impressed, Madmuska.

There was some English sympathy and some animosity towards the South. Soooooo, I just left it out. : - )