An idea for this blog...

I have political opinions, which you may have observed. I'd like to express these. But it would be much better if I presented historical evidence to back those opinions up, wouldn't it?

So I'll be doing that, starting with a post regarding the connection between women's health and the availability of safe abortions. Suck it, Harper.

In Need of Direction

Welp, my Meliorist column has ended with the passing of the semester. As I'm sure you've noticed, that was my go-to for content this past while.

So what do I do instead? Having to stick with a schedule was good for me and I should probably continue with that. But I want to do something different than the 'humourous history' schtick I had going on. It doesn't have to do with history, although I'd still write on this blog.

Here are some ideas I have:
1) A short fiction blog, with a minimum of 2000 words of story per week. (As a point of contrast, the Things in History You Should Know articles went from 700-1000 words.) Self-contained stories or tied together? I don't know.
2) A reader request article series on this blog. Suggestions are given for a topic, I choose one, and I do my level best to write a thousand word article on it in a week.
3) A video blog (because it might be fun) with reviews of what I've read in the past week.
4) I've noticed that a lot of my friends like writing but find it difficult to write much. I could expand the short fiction blog idea to include whoever's interested, with the requirement that they post a set amount of words per week (which they would set).

Which of these do you like? What tweaks do you suggest? Is there anything really cool that I haven't thought of?

I'm courting your thoughts here. Would they like flowers? I'll get them flowers.

Things in History You Should Know: George IV and Maria Fitzherbert and Caroline of Brunswick

Well. This is the last installment of Things in History You Should Know, originally published here. Odd.

~

Welcome to the third week of our Historical Relationships That Ended Badly Month! Like last week, it involves royalty. Like the week before, it involves religion. And royalty + religion = fun times.

You may be vaguely aware that over the course of several centuries, or at the very least since Henry VIII decided divorce was for him, England had issues with religion.

In order to address these, they set themselves up with a brand new church (aptly named the Church of England) and set the monarch up as the head of this church. And after they realized the incredible awkwardness of having a Catholic heading a Protestant church (see the examples of Bloody Mary and James II), they enacted certain “laws.”

Laws that stated that a Catholic was ineligible to succeed to the throne, and that any descendent of George II absolutely could not go get married all willy-nilly without the reigning monarch’s consent.
Naturally, during the reign of George III, his eldest son (George, Prince of Wales) fell in love with and secretly married a twice-widowed Catholic woman, Maria Fitzherbert. She was pretty, common, educated, pleasant and a completely inappropriate wife for the heir to the throne.

Obviously, they couldn’t keep it secret forever (how else would you be reading this?) and knowledge of it came out at pretty much the worst possible time for Prince George. Namely, when he was in debt on a gargantuan scale and asking Parliament for money.

So he was obliged to, through the medium of the leader of the Whig party, publically deny association with that floozy, Mrs. Fitzherbert. This pissed her off severely, but not so much that she broke it off with him. For what it’s worth, Pope Pius VII was on her side, but he was Catholic, so who cares?

Well, they continued to associate with each other, of course, and George III had the wretched luck to slowly succumb to madness over the course of a few decades. But in 1795, well before he was forced to hand the reigns of what passed for ruling over and thus begin the Regency period, George III decided his son had to marry. Properly, this time. To someone who wasn’t Catholic: the prince’s cousin, Caroline of Brunswick. Did the prince consent to this? Yes. Why, when as far as he was concerned, he had a perfectly cromulent wife already? Because he was in debt, again, and wouldn’t get the cash otherwise.

Now, Caroline was neither pretty, common or educated, and she was a bit too crude to be considered pleasant, but she certainly didn’t deserve being married to Prince George. The prince, not apparently having looked in the mirror lately or having noticed the ever-increasing size of his trousers, thought she was ugly, hideous, etc.

They only managed to overcome their mutual disgust enough to have sex three times, which was enough to conjure up a daughter, Charlotte. After that? They kept as far away from each other, living in separate households, and carrying on with other people.

For the prince, this included Mrs. Fitzherbert and his mistress and Caroline’s former Lady of the Bedchamber, Lady Jersey. For further lemon juice in the paper cut, he drew up a new will, leaving everything to Maria, with a tiny exception for Caroline; she got a shilling.

On the plus side for her, she was much, much, much more popular than the prince, whom everyone regarded as a corpulent jerkface. This is because he was, in fact, a corpulent jerkface. She also got to visit her daughter frequently and adopt a whole mess of foster children. One of these, a wee little baby named William Austin, caused a speck of trouble for her when she fell out with the neighbours.
Years passed, until we reach 1811. George III is declared insane and the Regency officially begins. The prince used his new powers to be a dick and keep Caroline from their daughter Charlotte. Propaganda was flung in both directions,

In the meantime, Princess Charlotte, heir to the throne after her father and whom everyone thought was awesome, was married. In short order, she got pregnant. The child was stillborn and Charlotte died soon after the birth. The prince didn’t even bother to write a quick note to tell Caroline, foisting off the duties on some other poor, grief-stricken schmuck. That note never got written, but the prince’s letter to the pope did. The one that suggested that Caroline’s marriage was invalid. And that’s how she found out her daughter was dead.

In 1820, the prince became King George IV and Caroline returned to England to get her rights all recognized – such as her right to become queen, for instance. George didn’t play ball. He locked the doors to his own coronation ceremony leaving her banging on them during the event. He even offered her money to just go away and when that failed, tried to divorce her on grounds of adultery.
For her part, Caroline denied committing adultery, except in the case of Mrs. Fitzherbert’s husband. Zing.

Needless to say, the attempt failed and Caroline continued to be popular with everyone including the reformers until she died the next year. Riots broke out when it was discovered that the powers that be diverted her funeral procession from London. George died in 1830 after years of excess. Maria outlived them all, dying in 1837, now well regarded by the royals and having turned down the offer of a duchy.

At least they didn’t end up like the Hapsburgs or Romanovs.

Things in History You Should Know: Padme Amidala... and Anakin Skywalker

As originally published in the Meliorist, on April 1st. Yes.


Greetings, and welcome to week two of Historical Relationships That Ended Badly Month! And boy, do I have a treat for you today.

A long time ago (say, about 500,000 years ago) in a galaxy far, far away (the Sunflower Galaxy, perhaps), politics were giving everyone grief. Into this fraught atmosphere came a young queen, Padme Amidala of Naboo, elected to great acclaim by her people. During the subsequent confrontations with the Trade Federation, she spent a great deal of time running about, speaking to the Galactic Senate, recruiting young slave boys and other allies, and generally getting things done.

Eventually, the Trade Federation embargo was brought to an end by means of action sequences and cunning. She let loose the aforementioned slave boy, one Anakin Skywalker, to the care of the Jedi, and carried on ruling for another eight years. These were prosperous years for Naboo, so prosperous that she had to publically refuse to defy the constitution and run for the position of queen for yet another term. She was soon thereafter appointed – not elected – to represent Naboo in the Galactic Senate. Work that one out.
Two years after becoming senator, Padme took an unpopular stance against the Military Creation Act.

Justifiably, as it turned out, she feared the implications of militarization and their potential to undermine the democratic nature of the Senate. After numerous assassination attempts sparked by this stance, she was forced to go into hiding lest she wind up in a pine box. It was during this time that all of her work against the MCA was undermined by the individual who was brought in to provide a temporary replacement for her. The identity of this individual is lost to the mists of time, but doubtless once it is learned, it will be a focal point for curses the like this universe has never known.

Up to this point, I have made little mention of young Anakin, Jedi warrior. Allow me to redress this point. It so happens that Padme’s bodyguard during her temporary exile was none other than him and that he still remembered their previous acquaintance with much fondness. How could he not? She and her compatriots did deliver him from a lifetime of slavery, after all. Given all this, the fact that he was four years her junior and Padme’s purported beauty and charm, it is only natural that the young man would become smitten with his charge in defiance of Jedi prohibitions against attachments of the heart.

But Padme would not be wooed so easily. It would take several action sequences, the likes of which would stress our modern workstations to their utmost, before she could allow his courtship of her to continue. Once this was done and Anakin received the artificial hand he required as a result of his troubles, she was happy to let the courtship and marriage proceed so long as they did so under terms of strictest secrecy. The young Jedi was comely, for certain, but she could not let marriage of any sort damage her political reputation and influence.

Then the Clone Wars began and everything went to hell.

Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, formerly occupying Padme’s own position as senator of Naboo, had been granted any number of emergency powers since the onset of the war with the Separatists. (Not to be confused with Quebecois separatists, who still do not have access to neither droids nor Sith.) This alone was a subject of concern for Padme, who feared not only his becoming a dictator of sorts but the dangerous activities of her husband in the course of his many exciting action sequences.

To further her anxiety, she discovered that she was pregnant with twins prior to Anakin’s return to Coruscant. As she knew that the Jedi Council were intelligent enough to put two and two together, what with her close acquaintance with Anakin and the timing of her pregnancy and all, she endeavoured to keep the matter secret for as long as possible. Historians speculate how she planned to deal with the matter once the twins were born; inconclusive evidence has been found that indicates that she intended to give birth on Naboo and pass the infants off as belonging to her sister.

Whatever her intentions were, her husband went, how shall we say, completely fucking crazy – a process that included killing off an entire temple full of children, among other misdeeds. Padme braved a confrontation with Anakin, which came to naught. Seeing that he was beyond help, she left him to his own devices and involved herself with the burgeoning rebel movement against the newly deemed Emperor Palpatine before the onset of labour. Anakin, meanwhile, become Darth Vader. You may have heard of him.

The chronicler George Lucas states that upon giving birth to the eventual heroes, Leia and Luke, Padme “died of grief.” Mere words cannot describe the silliness of this medical diagnosis, especially in light of Princess Leia’s testimony that she possessed memories of her mother.

So what explanation can serve for Lucas’ inaccuracy? Think of his patrons, the American film industry – he was just as beholden to them as Shakespeare was to Elizabeth I and James I. As we are all aware, the presence of a woman who has not only birthed, is no longer beholden to her love interest and holds a position of authority is anathema to them. Padme proved resistant to further director-enforced romantic tension and so, she had to die.

In defiance of Lucas, the historical record indicates that the twins’ birth went off without a hitch. She sent Luke off into hiding with his step-relatives, whom she had previously met, and sent herself into hiding. Passing off Leia as the child of her good friend, Bail Organa, she posed as a servant of his household while secretly conducting the activities of the newborn Rebel Alliance. This continued until she came down with a nasty case of food poisoning when she was thirty-two, to which she succumbed. Such is the reason for the blackened cuisine for which Alderaan was known before it was destroyed.

Darth Vader became a lackey and then died.

Things in History You Should Know: Heloise and Abelard

As originally published in the Meliorist.

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Greetings, and welcome to :Historical Relationships That Ended Badly” Month!

The first up on our list is a particularly intelligent teenager and her philosopher teacher (twenty-two years her senior) who loved her. It is a tale part romantic and part squick-inducing.

First, the hero: Peter Abelard, born in 1079, philosopher and Breton. After being educated in the Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris, he spent much time setting up schools in the area by which he could annoy his philosophical rivals. Things he liked included science and debating.

Next, the heroine: Heloise, born in 1101, skilled with pen and languages – in addition to her native French, she also understood Latin, Hebrew and Greek. Her uncle Fulbert was a canon in, you guessed it, Paris, and she was his ward. Fulbert thought she needed a teacher. He picked Abelard. Trouble ensued: seduction. In case they had any ambitions of hiding that fact, so ensued a pregnancy and a son. It seems that giving your spawn a weird ass name is hardly a modern phenomenon, as evidenced by the name they gave the babe, Astrolabe.

Fulbert, quite naturally, was somewhat less than amused. A marriage was proposed so that the uncle wouldn’t knock Abelard’s block off and while Heloise didn’t think much of the idea, the couple went through with it anyway. The matter and marriage was kept hush hush until Uncle Fulbert started prattling on about it in public. Heloise didn’t hesitate in denying it and to escape her uncle’s wrath, she hurried off to visit a convent at Abelard’s suggestion.

Out of doubtless many decisions of dubious quality, this was probably the worst decision Abelard had made in his lifetime.

One of these two things happened: either Fulbert thought Abelard was being a sneaky bastard on him and that he’d left his niece to be eaten by wolves somewhere (this is the most commonly accepted view), or other members of the Clan Heloise and got royally ragey. Then, well…

Men, cross your legs. Abelard was castrated.

So he became a monk and Heloise was forced to become a nun. (For the love of criminy, doesn’t she get a say in anything that happens to her?) Heloise wasn’t too keen on the career change at all, but again, no one gave her much choice in the matter. On a positive note, the church wasn’t too shabby a place for a woman back in those days, at least compared to the other options. Being married to Jesus (even if you were already bigamously married to Abelard) gave them a chance for authority they’d seldom see in the secular realm. Heloise herself became in turn a prioress and then an abbess.

Abelard continued to have his enemies and his students, although the former were to have their licks in. They managed to get banned and burned his collection of theological lectures on account of heresy – “Yes, we know you’ve been feeling very down about the whole ‘balls chopped off’ incident. However, we’d very much like to destroy your life’s work.” After that, he got forced in a monastery himself.
There, he annoyed and was made annoyed by the monks, shoved off, and became a hermit. Eventually, roaming packs of students found him out and he was obliged to teach again and set up an oratory.
For which he, after taking his leave, successfully angled for Heloise to become a prioress of. Huzzah!

We’re not sure where he himself ended up, but he took up writing again, both for philosophy and for Heloise. This included songs, hymns for her priory and love letters. It’s obvious that they still loved each other dearly, but it wasn’t an easy matter to deal with. Nevertheless, when Abelard died in 1142, while in the midst of still more troubles with the church, his body was taken to Heloise in accordance to his wishes. When she died twenty-two years later, she was buried beside him.

As for Astrolabe, it appears that he entered the church – or at least, Abelard intended for him to enter the church – and he died in 1150. Nothing else is known.

The nice thing about this story is that the tragedy of it was largely contained to the two protagonists. The subjects of the next three weeks were not quite so lucky.

Things in History You Should Know: Charlotte Corday

As originally published in the Meliorist.

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Assassins are largely either assholes or not on speaking terms with reality. Often both. When we think of John Wilkes Booth nowadays, we do not think of his famed skill as a Shakespearean actor. Nay, we think, “Man, he was an almighty asshole for assassinating Lincoln.” So allow me to express my admiration of and wish to high five Charlotte Corday, slayer of Jean-Paul Marat!

Once upon a time, there was a revolution. A French one. They saw what the Americans did with theirs and were like, “Dude. We want some of that. Only more hardcore.” The country was bankrupt, the peasantry (the Third Estate, if you will) was sick of being oppressed by the nobility and the clergy, so why the hell not? The kick-off in 1789 went pretty well considering, but in 1793, it had all gone to hell.

The Legislative Assembly had fallen the previous year, with massacres occurring fast on its heels. Louis XIV, now known as Citizen Capet, was executed in January, and his wife and children were still imprisoned. The Committee of Public Safety formed in April, signifying the victory of the radical Jacobins over the republican Girondists. And who was egging on all this? You guessed it: Marat!

Here is where Corday enters the picture. Born of a minor aristocratic family, educated in a convent, and a big fan of Rousseau and Plutarch with an extra helping of Voltaire, she knew what she was about. Things she was for: the Girondists. Things she was against: executing deposed monarchs, violent and bloody civil war, and assholes like Marat who thought that item number two was fantastic so long as it ensured the survival of his version of what the revolution should look like. Corday’s thought processes thus went that if she took down Marat, with all his lovely rhetoric in his lovely little newspaper (called The Friend of the People, because it sounds more cuddly that way), further violence could be prevented.

Well, she was wrong on that front, but you can’t blame a woman for trying. She skedaddled off to Paris on July 9th and bought herself a kitchen knife with a six-inch blade as soon as she got there. And man, if you’ve ever sliced your finger open whilst chopping vegetables, you know what those suckers can do. Also, it could fit snugly into Corday’s corset – you know that’s what all the fashionable revolutionaries were doing anyway. She wrote a nice letter explaining why she was going to knife some punk and on the 13th, and went out in the fresh afternoon air to do it.

She called on Marat at his home at noon, asking for an audience on grounds that she knew of some fiendish Girondist hijinks and oh, did she mention that she had some names to give him? Enemies of the state and what have you? Scintillating stuff. But she was turned away by his wife, Simonne Everard, because her husband was busy having a bath. So she came back several hours later. Marat was still in the bath, Everard still didn’t want to let her in, but he decided that the business of revolutionizing could not wait and had her brought in.

Corday spilled the artificial beans while Marat wrote it all down. (He was still in the bathtub, but had a plank placed across it as a writing desk.) They had a good, long chat, finishing with his pleasant statement that everyone she named was totally going to have their heads chopped off. Then Corday had to ruin their burgeoning friendship by taking out that kitchen knife and going all stabby on him. Marat called out for Everard, but it was too late and he was made holey by Corday’s attentions.

Needless to say, she didn’t get away and she was put on trial. And, well, they didn’t really believe in long, drawn-out trials in that day and age. Not being overly impressed with her statement that “I killed one man to save 100,000,” they quickly decided that hey, the guillotine might be a fine place for her! So they shoved her neck under the blade on July 17th, a mere eight days since she left for Paris and a mere four since she went all Brutus on Marat’s ass. She was ten days shy of twenty-five.

Alas for Corday, Marat achieved martyr status and the Reign of Terror got into full swing. A whole motherlode of people got guillotined over the course of two years – estimates run as high as 40,000. Oops.

So, do we congratulate Corday for her courage in taking out someone who really was doing his level best to decrease the peace and effectively willing to go to her death for it as such a young age? Or do we condemn her for the violence that her actions sparked, even if it was unintentional? Do we have a glass of wine and marvel at how f*cked up that entire revolution was?

The answer is: yes.

History Makes Fantasy Better

Well, it does.

We're well aware of the standard ur-setting that fantasy authors tend towards - medieval, quasi-European. Probably akin to either a) Tolkien's Middle Earth or b) Robert E. Howard's Conan stomping grounds. Or a violent, pointy-eared offspring of the two. Or urban fantasy. These works are not to be dismissed out of hand, for a skilled author can make even the most cliche premise awesome with the right sort of zazz. (If you'll forgive the term.)

But you know, honestly, if an author even keeps the magic and just uses another place or era for the basis of the setting, she or he can make their story plenty more interesting even if they're not the most fantastic of authors.

Steampunk is an excellent example of this, especially as I firmly consider the subgenre to be fantasy, not science fiction. (The only reason most examples of it are shelved with the scifi is because it wouldn't exist without Jules Verne and he's been grandfathered into the larger genre because they didn't know the stuff in his books was impossible at the time. I make an exception for Neal Stephenson's Diamond Age because it's actually set in the future.) Victoriana can be used without the steampunk tropes, though, and used effectively.

Why limit yourself to just the nineteenth century, though? Authors, both would-be and otherwise! You have the entire march of history to work with! With many fine historians and archaeologists having done the lion's share of work providing you with the details of practically any past world that catches your fancy, it's worldbuilding made easy.

Imagine, if you will. Paleolithic fantasy. Canadian fantasy (and no, I don't mean urban fantasy set in Ontario, with respects to Charles de Lint). Russian. African. Motherlovin' Aztec. Or Inca. Or Mayan. The mere thought of such settings sparks my imagination and distracts me from projects I'm already determined to see to completion.

History can even make the standard setting better, giving one a better sense on the grand scope of it - how things kept happening, how technologies kept evolving, even if according to our stereotypes, they spent a long time standing still on that front. They were using cannons during the Hundred Years' War, remember. The art of shipbuilding was continuously adjusted until they had vessels that could make a transatlantic crossing, remember. Firearms cropped up in the 1300s, remember. And the moveable type printing press? Fifteenth century!

What did they eat? Where did they live? What was their philosophy? Their religion? Their livelihood? What did they celebrate? What was their government? Their view of their own history? Their ideal man? Their ideal woman? Every culture, both past and present, had and has their own answers to these questions and even one differing answer can make one hell of a story. Read about them, learn, and be inspired.

To finish, here is a brief and woefully incomplete list of otherwise-settled fantasy novels.

Steampunk:
Boneshaker, by Cherie Priest
Mainspring, Escapement and Pinion, by Jay Lake
Court of the Air, Rise of the Iron Moon, Kingdom Beyond the Waves and Secrets of the Fire Sea, by Stephen Hunt
Whitechapel Gods, by S.M. Peters

Asia:
Green, by Jay Lake
The Tales of the Otori series, by Lian Hearn

Middle East:
In the Night Garden and In the Cities of Coin and Spice, by Catherynne Valente

North America:
The Thirteenth Child, by Patricia C. Wrede
The Sharing Knife series, by Lois McMaster Bujold
(Note: It would be nice to find some fantasy based on Native history without the colonials sticking their noses in. Anyone know of any?)

Elizabethean:
Midnight Never Come, by Marie Brennan (Its sequel, In Ashes Lie, is set during the Restoration.)
Ink and Steel and Hell and Earth, by Elizabeth Bear

Regency:
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, by Susanna Clarke
The Magicians and Mrs. Quent, by Galen Beckett

Victorian: (Not quite steampunk!)
Freedom & Necessity, by Steven Brust and Emma Bull

France:
The Cardinal's Blades, by Pierre Pevel
The Privilege of the Sword, by Ellen Kushner
The Phoenix Guards and Five Hundred Years After, by Steven Brust (well, it's a pastiche of Dumas)

Greece:
Lavinia, by Ursula K. Le Guin

Also, practically everything written by Guy Gavriel Kay, with the exception of The Fionavar Tapestry. I say this even though I've mixed feelings about his work; many people with good taste enjoy it, so there you are.

My challenge to my readers (I know of two of you) is this: think of a history book you've read. Or an anthropology or archaeology book, if you're fancies run that way, for they certainly can be included in the larger thrust of my argument. Think of a fantasy story that could be written based on that book. Imagine how awesome it could be. Beccarae, I'm thinking specifically of The Ghost Map for you, because I know it could be amazing. Write your ideas down if you want to and have the time.

But at the very least, just think about it.

Quick note before bed. (11:57)

I'm starting in on Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War. After that, Herodotus' Histories. Why? Because giant ants will wait for no man. Suetonius' Lives of the Caesars next? I won't read it for accuracy, but what the hell.

A proper update will come in the morrow, but before that, here's what happened in 1157, according to Wikipedia!

" * January 12–March 16 – Caliph Al-Muqtafi Successfully defended Baghdad against the coalition forces of Sultan Muhammad of Hamadan,and Atabeg Qutb-adin of Mosul
* Albert I of Brandenburg begins his ruthless program to pacify the Slavic region.
* June 11 – Albert I of Brandenburg, also called, The Bear (Ger: Albrecht der Bär), becomes the founder of the Margraviate of Brandenburg, Germany and the first Margrave.
* August 21 – Sancho III and Ferdinand II, the sons of King Alfonso VII of Castile, divide his kingdom between them upon his death.
* October 23—Battle of Grathe Heath: A civil war in Denmark ends with the death of King Sweyn III. Valdemar I of Denmark becomes king of all Denmark and restores and rebuilds the country.
* Henry II of England grants a charter to the merchants of Lincoln (approximate date).
* Henry II of England invades Wales and is defeated at the Battle of Ewloe by Owain Gwynedd."

Things in History You Should Know: Wolfe Vs Montcalm

Originally published in the Meliorist. Pretty picture snagged from Wikipedia, bless their hearts.

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The thing you must remember about James Wolfe and Louis-Joseph de Montcalm, aside from being the two generals who were involved in the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, which ended in French-owned Canada being taken over by those dastardly Brits, is that they both kind of sucked. The truth is that the destiny of our nation was decided in a race to prove which of these dudes was more incompetent than the other.

First, let’s look at the broader conflict here. This battle in question took place during the French and Indian War, which was in itself a sideshow to the Seven Years’ War. Basically, the latter came because it been a full eight years since the last European war and everyone was bored. The former actually broke out before it, because, you know, colonials, and lasted from 1754 to 1763. Effectively, it was World War Beta.

Enter Montcalm and Wolfe.

Montcalm, commander of the French forces in North America since 1756, was a major general of the noble class and thus would’ve been one of those up against the wall when the Revolution came. He had a pretty miserable time in New France. Sure, he wasn’t a complete dud militarily speaking, but he missed his family, no one would give him any of the crap he needed to actually do his job, and he and the governor hated each other’s guts.

This had something to do with the fact that Governor de Vaudreuil kept pointing out that guerrilla tactics had been working out pretty well so far for both the French and Native troops. Wouldn’t it be a good idea to keep doing something that works, rather than that European stuff?

Montcalm thought this was a stupid thing to think and Governor de Vaudreuil was a stupid person for thinking it. Also, that every Canadian official sucked and was corrupt and ugly. Probably smelled, too. All in all, though, Montcalm would have probably been a better guy to hang out with that Wolfe.

The thirty-two year old, who’d been in the military since he was a pup, was a very fastidious sort of man who would inspect the lavatories to ensure that those laggardly troops had been cleaning them to a sparkly finish. He suffered from rheumatism and dysentery and all sorts of fun things, making him such an irritable prick that his subordinates wanted nothing to do with.

1759. September. The month of reckoning.

Why then? Because afterwards, the St. Lawrence would freeze up and Montcalm would have shit all to worry about until spring, aside from living through a Quebec winter. Wolfe decides that the best option was to be all sneaky-like.

This was the plot: the 4800-strong British forces would take a lovely night-time boating trip, climb up a cliff, knock out the teeny tiny garrison that was up there, and get ready to kick some ass. Sounds clever, right? It was. It also had some great, glaring flaws in it.

Such as, how did Wolfe propose to retreat if the plot went pear-shaped, given that there was a cliff and a river behind and below them? This would be a very likely conundrum to be faced with if Montcalm and his officers been on the ball with keeping a proper watch, which would have allowed them to put a kibosh on the landing party well before the entire lot of British soldiers could clamber up the hill and make ready.

Or maybe get the guy who was supposed to patrol in those parts another horse after his got nicked. Or not shift a regiment over from the north side (where our action occurs) to the east side. Or not dismiss an escapee from the attacked garrison as a crazy person. You know, stuff like that. Thus, you understand me when I say that Wolfe’s plan was ludicrous and Montcalm was just sloppy enough to make it work.

After that, given that they had the better ground and better unit cohesion – Montcalm’s tactics didn’t mesh well with the militiamen, you see – the 4,800-strong British defeated the 4,400-strong French defenders. Wolfe still got that romantic death on the battlefield he was gunning for, although probably his troops weren’t all that distressed about it. Montcalm was also wounded and died later that day, probably wishing he had never come to the stupid country to begin with.

It was all over for a French-owned Canada after the battle, even though the war technically sputtered on for another few years. Since then, the Plains of Abraham have morphed from simple farmer’s field to battlefield to political powder keg. This has included Francophones painting this as the end of the entire frickin’ world and Anglophones bestowing upon Wolfe the Custer treatment (i.e., he was the best ever guys, really). His inadequacies as a leader? Never happened!

This became especially obvious just this past year during the 250th anniversary commemoration. A re-enactment was proposed, then cancelled because of threats of violence from radical separatist groups who didn’t learn a dratted thing from the FLQ Crisis. Then there was the controversial decision to read out the FLQ Manifesto during the festivities, along with 149 other relevant documents from Quebec’s history. In both instances, the unwashed masses on both sides went wild, sending frothing letters to the editor and what have you.

I, for one, am proud to have as part of my country a province from which sprung Unibroue. Try their beers! They are very nice.

You'll pry my historical fiction out of my cold, dead hands.

I've read this little article on the Globe and Mail recently, which is an interview with Claire Harman. She likes to write biographies on Jane Austen. Asks the interviewer, "Jane herself has been turned into a fictional character. How do you feel about taking real figures and imputing behaviour, emotions and language to them?"

Responds Harman, "As a biographer, I find it a bit dodgy. Why not just make the characters totally fictional? It's hard enough writing biography and getting the facts right. If you've got something to say about a character, you could manage it in another way than suggesting the possibility that it happened."

Ha ha ha. Yeah.

Don't get me wrong. I see where she's getting at. Yes, maybe historical figures such as Jane Austen would be pissed that people are projecting their murder mystery solving or vampire fantasies onto her. But seriously? This shit's as old as literature and it ain't ever going away. Why? Because it's pretty fucking entertaining.

Take, for example, that hack Alexandre Dumas. Take his treatment of Cardinal Richelieu in The Three Musketeers, to say nothing of the holy man's treatment in the various adaptations of the novel. In real life, he was not a nice man, true. But he was a not-nice man in service of the king and pretty firmly so. He liked power, but he used it to benefit Louis XIII and France. But let's face it: he makes a fine villain.

And what of Shakespeare? He surely wouldn't stoop so low as to debase the memory of deceased individuals solely to further his own writing - oh wait! He did! With a whole whackload of history plays! I'm sure Richard III would be pleased as punch over being portrayed as a murderous hunchback. Oh wait, we don't care. Because Richard III is an awesome play.

And we all know of the myriad treatments of the tale of Robin Hood and their nuanced treatment of King Richard I, who left England for years and years to go off warring in the Holy Land because he didn't give a shit about that country and liked killing things, and Prince John, whose initial problems were largely caused by Richard's screwing off and leaving behind a whole hell of a lot of debt. Because even crusades cost money, go figure.

The point I'm getting at here is that as far as fiction goes, historical purity doesn't matter. The worst case scenario is that the consumer of said fiction goes away with an inaccurate picture of a historical personage without a burning desire to learn the real story. This is not, to my mind, appreciably worse than them not knowing about that personage in the first place. The best case scenario? They think, "Oh! That character was cool! And s/he was based on a real live person! I will read about it." In which case, they might seek out a nicely written biography and educate themselves. People like Harman might even get an uptick in sales. Everyone wins.

(Has this happened to me? Yes. That is why I get every book on Sir Francis Walsingham, badass Elizabethean spymaster, that I can lay my grubby mitts on.)

So bring on the historicals, the mysteries, the horrors, the comedies the Roosevelt-in-Space serials. It's all in good fun and far be it for us to be bitching about other people's reading habits when it's lovely that they're reading, period. Better that than supposed non-fiction that has only a glancing relationship with reality. Alison Weir, I'm looking at you, you hack.

I'll go breathe now.

12:15 AM Secret Update!

This is what happened on December 15th, according to Wikipedia:

" * 1467 – Troops under Stephen III of Moldavia defeated the forces of Matthias Corvinus of Hungary in present-day Baia, Romania.
* 1791 – The first ten amendments to the United States Constitution, collectively known as the United States Bill of Rights, were ratified.
* 1864 – American Civil War: Union troops essentially destroyed the Army of Tennessee, one of the largest Confederate forces, at the Battle of Nashville.
* 1942 – World War II: The Americans engaged Imperial Japanese forces at the Battle of Mount Austen, the Galloping Horse, and the Sea Horse in the hills near the Matanikau River area on Guadalcanal during the Guadalcanal Campaign.
* 1964 – The six-month long Canadian Great Flag Debate effectively ended when the Canadian House of Commons voted to replace the de facto national flag of Canada, the Canadian Red Ensign, with an official one designed by historian George Stanley, the Maple Leaf Flag (pictured)."

The more you know.

Canada's National Anthem: A Controversy!

There is a kerfuffle in regards to the proposed alteration to the lyrics of our believed national anthem. Our citizenry up in arms! Blood in the streets! Etc!

Firstly, the proposed change: "in all our sons' command" -> "dost thou in us command." It scans a bit weird, but - wait! No! Enough of this political correctness run amuck!

Well, except for the fact that "dost thou in us command" was used in the original 1908 version. And it wasn't even our national anthem until 1980 - prior to the year, there was a debate between that, God Save the Queen, and the Maple Leaf Forever. And the fact that it was changed in 1980 to add references to God.

Some got pissed about that then, with a bit more cause. Some of the some continued singing the old lyrics and the rest? They sung the new ones and most forgot that a change had been made to begin with. Certainly, our generation has come under the impression that the anthem is writ in stone and is sancrosanct.

It's not. And if it's changed, it'll mean for us a short period of adjustment before we forget there was even a change to begin with.

There are reasons to be angry with the proposed change, although it more has to do with the sentiment behind the measure than the content of the measure itself. "Women of Canada," they are saying. "Forget about the national childcare program we scrapped! Or our measures against women seeking equity! And the murdered aboriginal women! And the fact that our definition of 'women's health' doesn't include access to safe abortions! We can change three words in a symbolic gesture and that will make everything all better!"

And for that, I flip the Conservative government the bird, for that is exactly the sort of condescending nonsense that landed Sarah Palin the vice presidential nominee gig.

Things in History You Should Know: Richard III

Originally posted here.

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If you’re up on your Shakespeare, you know this dude: the hunchbacked, conniving Duke of Gloucester who engaged in behaviour not acceptable in polite company, such as murdering practically everyone including his brother and nephews to use their bodies as makeshift stairs so he could reach the throne.

However, like the screenwriters of today, ol’ Billy was very fond of “dramatic license” and wasn’t really concerned with historical accuracy so much as entertaining the masses for money. So it shan’t surprise you at all that the real King Richard wasn’t such a cackling, iconic villain.
For starters, the hunchback? Didn’t have one. Nor was he incredibly deformed and ugly, nor did he come crawling out of his mother’s womb with hair and a full set of teeth. Honestly, how do these rumours get started?

The real Richard was born in 1452, the eighth and youngest child of Richard Duke of York and Cecily Neville. He was but eight when both dear old dad and brother Edmund got themselves killed at the Battle of Wakefield on account of their quarrels with Henry VI – more accurately, Henry’s queen, Margaret of Anjou.

Unlike her husband, she was perfectly sane, realized that she had her son’s interests to protect, and recognized that she couldn’t have rival claimants to the throne running about causing a ruckus. Pity for her that Richard’s brother Edward got it together, seized the throne, and became king at the precocious age of nineteen. They grow up so fast.

Richard didn’t live such a bad life for a few years after that. His brother was king, he got to go live with his cousin, the Earl of Warwick, and had all sorts of fun knightly training. Plus he got made the Duke of Gloucester – good times. Then it all went to shit.

The problem with Edward IV was this: he couldn’t keep it in his pants. Elizabeth Woodville, a Lancastrian widow quite a ways below his station, knew this and took advantage of it. Specifically by demanding marriage before she would make sweet love to him. Edward agreed. They got hitched and kept it secret.

Unfortunately, the Earl of Warwick had arranged a more royal, continental match for him. And when he found out about Woodville, boy, was he ever mad. Enough to enter into an alliance with Margaret of Anjou and the Lancaster faction. Henry VI became king once again and Edward IV was forced to hightail it to Burgundy to seek refuge with one of his sisters and her husband. Richard, then seventeen, took Edward’s side and followed him into exile.

Now, the fifteenth century wasn’t known for its surplus of nobility who would cut their losses and call it a day. Edward found himself some troops, he and Richard crossed back over the English Channel, kicked some ass, and he got to be king! Again! Warwick and the Prince of Wales got themselves killed (no, Richard had nothing to do with it) and Henry VI got murdered in the Tower of London, and Richard may have had something to do with this one – he was constable of the Tower at this time.

Time passed. Richard wedded the very same Anne Neville who was once saddled with the Prince of Wales, Edward and Elizabeth had a couple of boys and a lot more girls, and George got himself executed for being a whiny would-be traitor all the frickin’ time. (No, Richard didn’t off him either.) The Duke of Gloucester serves his brother with loyalty, yadda yadda yadda.

We’ve got Queen Elizabeth and the Woodvilles. The Woodvilles are unpopular. They’ve got the boys – both of ‘em. They want Edward V crowned tout suite so that they can crowd out the official Protector dude, Richard, and continue to enjoy sweet, sweet power. Richard also wants to enjoy sweet, sweet power. Custody of the king and his bro – the so-called “Princes in the Tower” – is seized, the coronation is called off, Richard goes to London, happy day.

Richard supposedly finds evidence that the princes are illegitimate – due to the whole secret marriage thing -disinherits them, gets himself proclaimed king, and becomes Richard III. The princes get lodged up in the Tower of London (you must remember that it didn’t have its horrible reputation yet) and are never seen alive again. All is well in Gloucester land.

Then Richard’s son dies, then his wife dies, then one of his former allies, the Duke of Buckingham, rebels against him and is executed. Then there’s this brat, Henry Tudor, over in France causing trouble…
1485 arrives. The armies of Richard and Henry convene on Bosworth Field in August, but the former falters while charging right for the latter. Henry Tudor is crowned Henry VII and as such, he gets the privilege of writing the history books. Or the history plays, as it were. Richard’s body gets mutilated and chucked in a river.

Things in History You Should Know: Great Vancouver

As originally published in the Meliorist.

~

Britain, you may have heard, once had an impressive naval fleet and when the Europeans were taking a break from warring (which wasn’t often; they really liked a good war), Britain often put that fleet of theirs towards the purposes of filling out those maddeningly blank portions of the map. With any luck, they’d get more land. And if there’s anything Europeans loved more than warring, it was land.

George Vancouver was born in 1757 of Dutch, wealthy, but certainly not noble stock. Vancouver managed to score a coveted spot as a midshipman on James Cook’s second outing on the HMS Resolution at the age of fourteen. This is like Captain Kirk deciding that yes, he would love for you to be an officer on the Enterprise and he won’t even make you wear a red shirt and beam down to the planet’s surface.

He carried on in the navy afterwards, doing nothing really exciting. This changed after the Nootka Crisis, a little spat between Spain and Great Britain over who got to have Nootka Sound. (What, the people who lived there? Don’t be ridiculous.) Spain eventually gave up its claim over it, averting war and preventing everyone from having a good time, and so Vancouver was sent off in 1872 in his old ship, the Discovery, to go poke about in the area and do some exploring.

He did it without pissing off either the Spanish or the various native groups he came across, with the exception of an altercation up Alaska way. The bit with the Spanish is perhaps most extraordinary when you consider that they were about ready to come to blows over the region but a few short years prior.

This becomes especially clear when you look at his dealings with Bodega y Quadra, Spanish commander at Nootka Sound. He not only partied with Vancouver and his men, but he fully cooperated with his explorations. When Vancouver discovered that the area was on an impressively sized island, they were happy to write it into the charts as Quadra and Vancouver Island. I think we can all appreciate the truncation of the name in the decades afterwards.

In addition to getting along with whatever foreigners he came across, Vancouver mapped the hell out of the west coast, venturing into the Burrard Inlet and what have you. Somehow, he missed the Fraser and Columbia Rivers, despite finding a heck of a lot of other smaller rivers, but we shan’t hold that against him.

But alas, for all his accomplishments during that voyage, Vancouver managed to piss off some folk on his vessel. Important folks. Like the cousin of William Pitt, the frickin’ prime minister of Great Britain.

Thomas Pitt managed to score a berth on the Discovery despite Vancouver having a full roster of midshipmen thanks to his swanky family connections and Vancouver’s reluctance to piss off anyone of that family. Most lads who had the fortune or misfortune to get signed up with the British Navy had more sense than to fall asleep whilst on watch, break shit, do a little under the table trade with the natives and attempt to get a native girl to put out in exchange for broken barrel hoop. To be fair, being flogged a few times, placed in irons and sent back home with his tail presumably in between his legs would rankle any lad.

Vancouver and Pitt managed to get home in the same year, 1795, the former beating out the latter. Upon his own arrival, the latter set out to destroy the former, as any contrite fellow would do. This included challenging him to a duel. When Vancouver brushed him off, Pitt took the perfectly sensible action of stalking then assaulting him on the streets of London. Vancouver was legally prohibited from fighting back, but happily, he had his brother with him and said brother happily defended him until Pitt was restrained.

Years and years of traversing the world’s oceans, braving storm and scurvy on a filth-ridden wooden vessel crammed with men who haven’t bathed since time immemorial, isn’t typically good for one’s constitution. Thus it was that poor George Vancouver, his reputation in tatters, found himself on his deathbed in 1798, aged merely 41 years. It might have comforted him to know that Pitt, the little twerp, outlived him by but six years.

As for the Canadian city which bears his name? The area was once again visited by a European in 1808, in the person of Simon Fraser who managed to both find that damned river and cross the whole continent overland. Actual settlement by Europeans within what are now Vancouver city limits didn’t begin until the 1860s, thanks to the Coast Salish peoples who already lived there.

And the city itself wasn’t incorporated until 1886, after those fat cats in Ottawa decided it would be a lovely terminus point for the Canadian Pacific Railway. It had actually been known as Granville and popularly Gastown before that, but the name was changed in order to avoid association for the drunken debauchery for which Gastown was known. ‘Vancouver’ was deemed acceptable because of the nearby and better-known Vancouver Island.

Now it hosts sporting events. Huzzah.

Death of Montcalm, Revised Edition

Those who follow Kate Beaton's Hark! A Vagrant comics may remember this strip concerning the death of General Montcalm.

Naturally, one of her followers, Aaron Kaplan, has taken comic!Montcalm's painting suggestion into account. Behold.

That is all. Is your day brighter? I hope it is.

Things in History You Should Know: Pierre Trudeau

Originally published in the dead tree version of the Meliorist, this article was deemed too hot for the internet... until now!

(Or rather, it was right before the winter break and all the staff were too drunk to care. You got to get through those essays somehow.)

December 9, 2009: Pierre Trudeau

Screw it. For what’s very probably my last article for this esteemed chronicle of news – hurrah for imminent graduation! – I’m going to piss off as many Albertans as possible. Because I will move away, and you will not find me.

That’s right. It’s Pierre Trudeau time. And I will start off by saying this: he was a better than average prime minister. If you wish to argue with me on this point, attempt to name a Tory PM that was better than him. Mulroney? Harper? Thor forbid, Diefenbaker? Sorry, Macdonald and Borden were the only awesome ones. So what did this chap do, in his multitude of years in office (1968-1979, 1980-1984, apologies to Joe Clark) to merit my relatively high opinion of him? Dude, I will tell you.

He made the world give two shits who the Canadian prime minister was. This was likely aided by Richard Nixon being the US president during a respectable chunk of his tenure, an ugly sort of man in every possible way. But even if Nixon had been a worthwhile human being, Trudeau had him bang to rights on the charm and wit front. Which is why John Lennon chose to hang out with him. (Nixon did get to talk football with Hunter S. Thompson, though.)

He rocked as Minister of Justice, which was what Lester Pearson, our nicest PM, made him in 1967. What on earth did he do in that position? Well, I’ll tell you! He legalized contraception and homosexuality, and shoved a foot in the door for the eventual legalization of abortion by making it legal to perform the act if the mother’s life was in danger. Oh, and he made it illegal for you to drive if you had one too many. All of this came from the massive Bill C-150, which also placed restrictions on harassing phone calls, gun ownership, and animal cruelty. Separate from all this, he further enabled one to leave one’s loveless sham of a marriage, should one please.

He was kind of bad ass. This was a man who just sat there calmly while separatists chucked bottles and rocks at him on the very eve of his first election as Prime Minister and leader of the Liberal Party, while everyone went and hid like the sensible people children that they were. His successors in the party tended to exercise this trait as well, with Turner saving Diefenbaker from drowning and Chretien’s development of the Shawinigan Shake. Ignatieff must learn from these exalted examples if he is ever to become PM.

He introduced official bilingualism. Yes, this is a virtue. Whether we like to admit it or not, historically speaking, French language rights in this country – not just in Quebec, mind you – have been kicked repeatedly in the teeth. Frankly, having that bit of extra text on your cereal box or having that additional bit of a requirement if you intend to enter certain sectors of the federal bureaucracy is not an overwhelming sacrifice to redress this.

He engineered the patriation of the Constitution. It is a rather ridiculous thing that for 165 years after Confederation, we did not have the ability to tinker with our own constitution. Nay, we had to go all the way to the British Parliament and ask nicely, perhaps bringing along a tasteful gift basket with a nice selection of tea and biscuits. Regardless of the political circus that surrounded the process (Night of the Long Knives, anyone?), it was something that needed to be done if we were ever going to become independent from Britain on paper as well as in fact.

His newfangled constitution included the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Diefenbaker’s Bill of Rights of 1960, while well-intentioned, was toothless. True, it caused the dawn of judicial activism in Canada, bringing forth such terrible thing as full abortion rights and same-sex marriage and Native land claims. (Note: the word ‘terrible’ in the last sentence is sarcastic. I can hear your hands wringing, campus Right to Lifers.) Plus, it has been argued that such activism limits democracy in this fair country. However, I would argue that human rights should not be subject to the whims of the electorate because if history has shown us anything, it’s that the electorate haven’t been too great on that count. Pity about that notwithstanding clause, though.

Oh yes, National Energy Program – the implementation of this is a legitimate gripe, no matter how well-meaning it was, although it may have sheltered Canada as a whole from the worst effects of the global recession that was all the rage at the time. And there was the whole ‘invoking the War Measure Act’ thing with the FLQ Crisis. Still, my filthy lefty self can’t help but appreciate Trudeau, ginormous faults and all.

And as a final, I’d like to say this: the brands of small ‘c’ and big ‘c’ conservatism to be found in this province are rubbish, the tar sands are rubbish too, ‘feminism’ is not a cuss word, and your wind is far too apt to cause shenanigans (such as making me feel like frickin’ Shackleton whilst out walking last weekend). But what the hell, Alberta beef is still delicious.

Farewell, all! I head now for hillier climes.

No doubt!

There are two particular words that annoy the teeth out of me when they're placed together in a history book. Take a wild guess what they are!

All too often, these innocent words are forced into duty by unscrupulous authors to bolster their argument without anything so tawdry as 'evidence'. Take Private Demons: The Tragic Personal Life of John A. Macdonald by Patricia Phenix. (My copy is in a box, unfortunately, so my ranting is from memory.) The book does not use citations - fair enough, for quite a number of popular histories don't. They should, but they don't.

Perhaps because of this, Phenix is particularly fond of the words 'no doubt.' Through them, she can make all sorts of assertations. You know, like Macdonald chose his wives on basis of their supposed resemblance to his mother, that he was carrying on an affair with Mrs. Grimason and his second wife Agnes found it oh so difficult to maintain civility with her because of this. She doesn't even bother to off-handedly quote some diary entry or letter or what have you.

Why does this bother me so much? Because it is indicative of an author who is so in love with their notion that they absolutely must put it in their book. But evidence is missing; what to do? They simply put those two words in front of the sentence and voila, it is proven. False aura of authority attained, no citations needed.

Note that this isn't half so annoying if the author can back it up with either a citation or a relevant quotation. Nevertheless, it must be one hell of an example of either to justify 'no doubt' or 'doubtless,' for they imply that no further argument can be made. The author is right, you are wrong, suck it.

Ah, hell! Whatever. No doubt this just ticks me off because the uncertainty that forever lodged itself in my psychological make-up when I found out Santa wasn't real. That has to be it.

The Lion in Winter

My charming mother recommended that I in turn recommend The Lion in Winter (1968) for those interested in a cinematic depiction of Henry II and his dysfunctional family. It stars Katharine Hepburn and Peter O'Toole as Eleanor and Henry and my word, is that a young Anthony Hopkins as an equally young Richard the Lionheart? Why, I do believe it is!

There is also a version done in 2003 which stars Patrick Stewart and Glenn Close. I cannot attest to its quality, having not seen it, but dude. Patrick Stewart.

To top off the Henry II movie smorgasbord, I inform you of Becket (1964), which I have also not seen. But it managed to net a few Oscar nominations for best acting and the award for best screenplay, so what the hell. It stars Peter O'Toole as Henry (what, again?) and Richard Burton as Thomas Becket.

But yes. See the first on the list, definitely, if you don't have an unnatural prejudice against old movies.

Things in History You Should Know: Henry II

As originally appeared in the latest issue of the Meliorist, the University of Lethbridge's student newspaper. I like to write articles for them. It is fun.

~

It occurs to me that I spend far less time than I should writing about history’s greatest dysfunctional family. No, not the Tudors; the Tudors inherited their dysfunction from these guys. I speak of the Plantagenets and particularly the first of the bunch, Henry II (of England, that is. Not France, Castile, Navarre, or the Holy Roman Empire. They weren’t particularly creative with names back then.).

Henry was the eldest son of Empress Matilda, who you may remember from another article. If not, here’s a refresher: her pops, Henry I, managed to only have one surviving child who was also the child of his wife. He makes her his heir. Cool! He dies and the English barons are all like, we don’t want no lady cooties on our throne, so we’ll make her cousin king instead. Civil war ensues! Matilda ultimately loses and goes back to the continent. We’ll get back to this.

So young Henry Plantagenet was nineteen years old in 1152. Five years ago, he was helping his dear mother invade England, but now he was slumming it in the French court. Louis VII reigned over it; Eleanor of Aquitaine was his queen. Their relationship? On the rocks. That’s what happens to a couple when they go crusading with one another and even the fear of losing each other at sea and the bloody Pope stepping in to patch things up didn’t help. Furthermore, Eleanor had the unmitigated audacity to have a second daughter instead of a son, like she was supposed to. Women! The Pope knew a lost cause when he saw it and annulled the marriage, on the grounds that they were distant cousins.

Eleanor didn’t long suffer as a single woman, because hey, there was this strapping young lad running about. He was twelve years younger than her, had lots of land, and had claims to a lot more land. What was there not to like? The two got hitched just two months after the annulment, making Eleanor the only woman in history to have been both a queen of England and France (there were others, like Elizabeth I, who claimed to be queen of both. That was very wishful thinking).

Henry celebrated his nuptials by crossing to England the next year, with 3000 of his closest friends, to visit family. His mother’s cousin, King Stephen, was so pleased by the visit that he made him his heir. (Stephen’s son thought this gift a bit too much, but who cares? He soon died.) Stephen further increased his thoughtfulness by kindly passing away in 1154. Henry became king, Eleanor became queen, Matilda was so proud. Everything was peaches and cream for the royal couple from there on out.

Or rather, everything progressively went further and further to pot.

First, let’s talk about his accomplishments. Bear in mind that the medieval definition of “accomplishments” didn’t much allow for being nice to your neighbour and other now-established norms of civilized behaviour. You may recall a landmass – an isle, if you will – just to the west of Britain. It is called Ireland and I hear it’s very lovely. Henry stuck his nose in the business of the Irish when Diarmat Mac Murchada, King of Leinster, came to him asking for help getting his kingdom back. Henry and his Norman lords agreed and did so, out of the goodness of their hearts (this included Richard de Clare, nicknamed “Strongbow.” You may recognize him from your cider. He had a battlefield marriage with Diarmat’s daughter – how sweet!)
King Henry called on Ireland again shortly afterwards, in 1171. He declared himself Lord of Ireland. The Irish were displeased, but the English so enjoyed lording it over them that they kept at it for over seven hundred years. He also beat back a Scottish invasion and most importantly of all, did some serious, hardcore reforming of the legal system. This included the introduction of an embryo version of trial by jury – basically, a “justice in eyre” would come to town and call twenty-four free men together to let him know about any crimes committed in the area and they’d figure out who did them. The accused would have the option of trial by combat, but if they won, they’d still be subject to banishment. Also, getting your nearest and dearest to swear in court that they really, really believed you didn’t do it (a practice called compurgation) didn’t work anymore. Believe it or not, this was all an improvement and it also helped lay the groundwork for the common law we’re subject to today. This led to a problem.

See, Henry wanted this to apply to the clergy as well. Ecclesiastical courts were generally slacker than secular courts, after all – a fact which amazingly, some clergy would abuse. Entirely coincidentally, he wanted to increase his power of the church in England, rather than do what the Pope said all the time. So he made his best dude, Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury. Becket immediately went all holy on him and started obstructing his attempts at reform. This made Henry angry. Like, “shouting ‘who will rid me of this turbulent priest!’ in front of some way too eager knights” angry.

Those knights, thinking they were being very helpful, went to Canterbury Cathedral and found Becket. Becket refused to flee. The knights proceeded to murder him in a most grisly and excessive fashion.

Well, so much for the “church” plank of his legal reform. Some hardcore penance also had to be done, but everyone took a dim view of Henry’s role in the affair thereafter.
Another problem that Henry had, one that was to recur for many of his descendents, was an excess of sons. Yep, Eleanor, despite the age difference and despite her so peevishly having only daughters with Louis, managed to produce with Henry three daughters and five sons. Five! That was so many that Henry didn’t have enough lands to divvy up between all of them – poor John got squat (hence the nickname “Lackland”) until that whole bit with Ireland.

The eldest son, William, helpfully died before he could get up to too much trouble. But the remaining four (Henry, Richard, Geoffrey, and John, and yes, that’s THE Richard and John) spent much of their time from 1172 to Henry’s death in 1189 engaging in some rather epic teenage rebellion and warring against each other. Further exacerbating matters was Queen Eleanor helping out her favourite, Richard, against her husband, leading to the royal couple’s estrangement and Eleanor’s house arrest.

When Henry perished, two of the Devil’s brood (the younger Henry and Geoffrey) beat him to the punch, but that didn’t change the fact that he was alone and friendless when he did so. Such a shame. It sucks to be the king.

Greetings, all!

Behold, the inaugural post!

I like history. I like history a lot. It's for that reason that I got my history degree, as opposed to the incredible career prospects I was promised when I signed up for it.

Furthermore, I like writing about history, teaching others about it, and many other things besides. This includes, but is not limited to: composing very unscholarly articles my university's student newspaper, drunkenly extolling the awesomosity of John A. Macdonald on the appropriate holidays, ranting about sloppily written histories (and praising the good ones when they appear), and being far more obsessed with the field than is really necessary for any living being.

This, therefore, is my outlet. Links of interest will be posted (including my Meliorist articles), along with reviews of both books and movies, and whatever else I feel is relevant. I hope you'll enjoy it as much as I'll be.