Vice-Regal Saint: Why we must fight the "History Wars"
Over the last few years I have become aware of the phrase "History Wars", which seems to be a serious attempt by the Politically Correct brigade to reinterpret, and in some cases completely rewrite, history.
As we approach the anniversary of the regicide of that glorious saint and King – Charles I, it is a good time to look at one of the most shameful rewritings of history I have ever seen (up there with the holocaust deniers). Mr. Geoffrey Robertson's book "The Tyrannicide Brief", the basic argument of which is to say that the illegal trial and execution of King Charles I was the first time the people put on trial a tyrant and then set about establishing a utopian new society under Oliver Cromwell.
When I first heard Mr. Robertson put forward his views in an interview on ABC Radio National I was shocked: could this educated man be serious, "Cromwell was a good man and did the right thing by the people and God?!" As any encyclopaedia will inform you, Cromwell could not get his way with Parliament to put the King on trial, so he excluded the House of Lords from the vote and when he was no more successful with the House of Commons, he arranged for Colonel Pride to prevent around 150 members of the house from entering so that he then had the numbers to win the vote!
Robertson's attempts to make John Cooke into a hero is as absurd as it is wicked. Not only was His Majesty the King denied the fundamental right of the presumption of innocence, he was told in the "trial" that he was to be convicted. The King was placed before a hand-picked biased tribunal. The law had never received Royal Assent. Add to this the fact that none of the existing high court judges agreed to preside over the court and you get the basic idea. I will not go in to too much detail, as readers can seek out the finer details in any good book on the subject. Cromwell simply wanted the King dead at any cost.
The other thing Cromwell is remembered for is his hatred of Roman Catholics and the killing of many thousands of innocent people in Ireland.
So why does Mr. Robertson rewrite history? The answer might be one of the views he often puts forward in interviews and in his writings, that is that he believes the UK, Australia and other realms of the Queen should become republics. So instead of articulating a republican model, he engages in twisting the truth to hoodwink the ignorant.
His Majesty King Charles I was the last person to be made a Saint by the Anglican Church due to the fact that Cromwell offered him his life if he would abandon episcopacy but he refused, for this would have taken the Church of England away from being part of 'the one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church' and made Her into a sect.
I would urge readers to visit this link and read the very fine article by Tasmanian MP Michael Hodgman, QC, “The Right of Reply the King never had”
I would urge readers to visit this link and read the very fine article by Tasmanian MP Michael Hodgman, QC, “The Right of Reply the King never had”
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13 comments:
Quite right. I agree that Cromwell was a dictator, but the fact is that the King was badly abusing his authority. He was in fact by the time of his trial a userper. So was Cromwell, but needs must etc.
I think you might find that the problems were developing under Henry VIII. When he made seizure of the endowments of religion led to the development of over-mighty subjects that by the time of Charles I were ready to challenge the Kings power. Also from the Middle Ages Customs grants had been given to the king for life on his accession by Parliament. When Charles I came to the throwne Parliament did not grant him this. Parliament was moving faster than the Crown to modify government but the law was still on the side of the King.
First, if parliament had not ated to restrit tunage and pondage, the crown could have ruled without parliment and we would have ended up like france. It may have violated tradition not to grant T&P for life, but it was a tradition parliment had the right to violate in as far as it had the right to grant or withhold T&P.
Second did the denial of T&P for life justify leveling ship money on inland provinces ountrary to tradition and without parlimentary grant?
Third if the crown had sheparded its resoures after the seazure of the hurch lands, there would have been no need for the additional revenue.
Adam, you make interesting points and I would never say Charles I did not make mistakes and had short coming as King but he was also a great man, if not a successful one.
Remember the seizure of Church lands happened under Henry VIII and mismanaged under the sad reigns of his children. Too firmly entranced by the time of Charles I.
Also there was no law at that time that said a sovereign must hold parliaments every three years. After reading a great deal about him I stand by the view that in his trial he more than made up for any mistakes to become the greatest King of all time, in my opinion. For his dignity in standing up to an illegal show trial and defence of the rule of law assured that the Monarchy would be restored and survive into our times.
I must say I have never been so offended by this blog itself. The divine right of kings? Please. That went out along with phrenology.
Time to abolish the tyrranical monarchy throughout the world and establish heads of state native to their respective countries.
God save us from the queen!
Interesting that you are so proud of your views that you could not even put your name to them.
Time to abolish the tyrranical monarchy throughout the world and establish heads of state native to their respective countries.
Interesting that someone can label the emasculated monarchs of our time as tyrannical. Very interesting indeed!
Perhaps time to abolish the tyrannical, kleptocratic, pervasive mobocracy?
God save us from from King Demos!
How about god save us from all forms of absolutism.
As I have said before and will say again, the voice of the people is the voice of god is as bad a principal of government as the devine right of kings.
The idea of shared power between several diferent locuses of power and the rule of law not men has been the glory of our civilization.
Adams,
You may be right that royal and democratic absolutism are equally bad in principle.
In any case, in practice the latter has turned out worse.
I used to believe that both forms of absolutism were equally bad. I still don't endorse any of the forms of absolutism.
My views are now more in line with Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn:
There are totalitarian and monolithic tendencies inherent in democracy that are not present even in a so-called absolute monarchy, much less so in a mixed government which, without exaggeration, can be called the great Western tradition.
a quote I understand you also partly agree with.
Adams, you seem to have missed the whole point and spirit of my article. Time for you to read it again and the article it links to and just accept you are barking up the wrong tree. The Crown pre-dates parliament and latter they both evolved into what we have today. You should, if you are anything of a monarchist be out there with me in condemning Robertson’s book.
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