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cahnUnfortunately, there was then at Berlin a King who pursued one policy only, who deceived his enemies, but not his servants, and who lied without scruple, but never without necessity.
(from The King's Secret - by Duke de Broglie, grand-nephew of the subject of the book, Comte de Broglie, and grandfather of the physicist) )
(from The King's Secret - by Duke de Broglie, grand-nephew of the subject of the book, Comte de Broglie, and grandfather of the physicist) )
James VI and I: Crying Murder Most Foul!
Date: 2023-10-05 01:12 pm (UTC)Well, one year later, all these factors combine with a new one. In the meantime, Parliament has okay'd the war, Buckingham, who among his many other titles is also Lord Admiral of England, organized a fleet for some merry war making, plundering, town burning on the Spanish coast, everyone was sure this would result in a glorious rerun of the Elizabethan Age's greatest hits... and then they got routed by the Spaniards. Turns out Cadiz - which the Earl of Essex Elizabeth's Fave had burned down back in the day - had been refortified, as were those other coast towns. Turns out there were Spanish ships prepared to receive the Brits, because they hadn't been very discreet with their intentions. Turns out that at a certain level of universal corruption with titles and offices, you end up with lousy supplies for your soldiers and sailors, so badly that they're forced to try to land days before reading Cadiz to resupply themselves (hence the Spaniards being well prepared). In short, it was an utter fuck up and a national humilation.
What's more, after selling this war as being FOR PROTESTANT FREEDOM FUCK YEAH!, Charles of course was still in need of a wife and an alliance with a mighty Catholic power now that he was going up against Spain, to wit, Spain's arch rival France, so he married Henrietta Maria, youngest sister of Louis XIII, future hardcore Catholic grandma of Jemmy,
Buckingham's innumerable enemies in the House of Lords and Commons: Let's impeach him!
(Yes, Impeachment was a thing. Parliament had done this with two of James' officials, Francis Bacon and Cranfield, and James had thrown both of them to the dogs.)
William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, one of the two candidates for Mr. W.H., the fair youth from Shakespeare's sonnets, now a middle aged guy proud of his political savvy: Guys, I'm so with you there, but there's just one problem: Fucking up as Lord Admiral and hording titles and offices isn't against the law. Also, Charles will just say that Buckingham did everything on his orders. If you haven't noticed, he's not a pragmatist like his Dad. He will shield Buckingham.
Earl of Bristol: I'm living in genteel house arrest since my fuming return from Spain, sort of accused of being in Spanish pay but not really, with a trial endlessly delayed because James simply hadn't wanted me to make life difficult for Buckingham but also didn't want to put me on trial for treason. I had to live with Buckingham in Spain for months, he ruined my life's work, I hate him more than you, and I have a brilliant idea: Let's impeach him for killing James!
The Commons and Lords: Say what?
Bristol: Surely you've heard the rumors. What you don't know yet is that shortly before his death, James was totally willing to hear me out and believed me there was no evil Spanish scheming, that it was all Buckingham's fault, and now I'm sorry I told him because a week later he was dead. COINCIDENCE? I think not! Also, if you guys accuse Buckingham of regicide, Charles CANNOT shield him. He can't say he ordered hm to do it, he can't pardon him after you proclaimed him guilty. It's THE BEST METHOD EVER to get rid of Buckingham! I will totally testify for you!
Most of The Commons and Lords: We like it!
Pembroke: I like it, too, because I want Charles to see me as his buddy's savior and make me the new Buckingham, and for that I need you guys to apply pressure. But not to much. If you openly accuse Buckingham of regicide, you better have the receipts ready. Just in case you don't and it's more circumstantial evidence, let me suggest that you impeach him for being high handed with James' medicine. Because he did bring some home remedies along for that last week of James' life. We can then massively imply he did so with a sinister intention without saying so out loud, and Charles won't dissolve the Parliament outright, which I guarantee you he'll do if you accuse Buckingham point blank of murdering James in as many words.
The Commons and Lords: Okay, let's do that. Buckingham, you're impeached for fifteen reasons, among them hording too many offices and titles and fucking up the war against Spain, but the most sensational charge is being high handed with the late King James' medicine, by which we mean you totally did poison James.
One of the MP's reading out the charges: Just to be careful, I will add that I'm of course not claiming our new King Charles had anything to do with that!
Another MP: I, by contrast, don't want to be careful. I'm totally comparing Buckingham with Sejanus. Make up your own minds whether I'm casting James or Charles or both as Tiberius in that constellation.
Charles: Did I hear that right? Not only are you accusing my BFF Buckingham of killing my Dad, but you're as good as saying I was in on it by claiming you're not saying that which everyone knows means you're thinking it? And whom are you calling Tiberius?!?????!!!!! Okay, that's it. You two MPs are arrested. And you, Bristol, go from genteel housearrest in your own countryside mansion to the Tower. So does the Earl of Arundel for good measure.I know he's neck deep in this outrageous slander against Buckingham and me plot!
Pembroke: OMG, that escalated too quickly. Your Majesty, you can't arrest two MPS if you want Parliament to give you money which you really really need given there's no nice Spanish treasure so far to make up for the war debts!
Charles: My Dad arrested MPs, too.
Pembroke: Not during a freaking session of Parliament! He had them arrested when Parliament was already over and had closed shop!
Charles: I don't care. These bastards are trying to rob me of my only friend AND they're claiming he poisoned my Dad which he so did not, AND they're comparing Dad and self to Tiberius.
Commons: *go on strike* (this is done by being utterly silent but sitting around, so no other business can be discussed*
Charles: *really needs the money*
Buckingham: How about you make a good will gesture and release the MPs? Surely they're now shocked out of their cheekiness and will stop this ridiculous impeachment business.
Charles: *releases the MPs*
House of Commons: BUCKINGHAM IMPEACHMENT NOW! BUCKINGHAM DIE DIE DIE!
Charles: That's it. I'm offically dissolving Parliament. I think I'm gonna reign without Parliament now.
Bristol: In case anyone cares, I got released from the Tower and back to genteel housearrest in my own estates as well. And Buckingham got to fuck up relationships with France next. Whether or not I truly believed he poisoned James, we'll never know. All I'm saying is that if Charles had thrown him to the dogs, history might have played out quite differently...
Ghost of James VI and I: *facepalms*
Re: James VI and I: Crying Murder Most Foul!
Date: 2023-10-06 03:06 pm (UTC)LOL!
I love the Commons going on strike.
Re: James VI and I: Crying Murder Most Foul!
Date: 2023-10-07 05:46 am (UTC)Huh, who would have thought! says everyone presiding over universal corruption, even in the current day :P
I have a brilliant idea: Let's impeach him for killing James!
I did not expect this to go there!
let me suggest that you impeach him for being high handed with James' medicine. Because he did bring some home remedies along for that last week of James' life. We can then massively imply he did so with a sinister intention without saying so out loud
Wooooow. I am totally into this.
I'm totally comparing Buckingham with Sejanus. Make up your own minds whether I'm casting James or Charles or both as Tiberius in that constellation.
Okay, I consulted Wikipedia on Sejanus and Tiberius (why is James Kirk's middle name Tiberius, which was the principal association I had with that name?), and for once it did actually give me enough info that I could make sense of that, but I'm just going to note here that I bet salon knows way more juicy gossip than Wikipedia does :D
All I'm saying is that if Charles had thrown him to the dogs, history might have played out quite differently...
Charles II: Yeah, I'm not doing it that way.
This was great and I'm very pleased in how you have been filling in the gaps for me between Henry VIII/Elizabeth (which I did in fact know something about) and the previous excellent coverage of Charles II in salon, so now I have some idea of how one got here from there...
Re: James VI and I: Crying Murder Most Foul!
Date: 2023-10-07 08:04 am (UTC)Unfortunately for the MPs, the royal doctors when questioned wouldn't play along, and not because Buckingham intimidated them by the sound of it, because they sounded very annoyed about him bringing along home remedies and interfering with their treatment of James but said what he brought was typical quack stuff and not actively harmful, he just was a know-it-all who wouldn't listen when they, as learned doctors, knew better.
Sejanus: as Wiki will have told you, THE template for Evil Favourite of All Powerful Ruler, also the first memorable head of the Pretorian Guards who'd go on to play a big role in the Emperor making of the Roman Empire. Memorably played by a younger Patrick Stewart in the 1970s Tv version of I, Claudius. Since Claudius' sister Livilla kills her husband so she can have more sex ith Sejanus,
One more thing: while Sejanus was undoubtedly a piece of work, it's worth pointing out that all the bad press came of course after his downfall, by senatorial historians who had hated him for being an upstart even aside from his actual misdeeds. The only historian writing when Sejanus was still alive and in power, Velleius Paterculus, dedicates one of his books to him and raves on what a wonderful guy Sejanus is and of how his relationship with Tiberius is totally the mirror image of that between Augustus and Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, friends sharing each other's workload
Why Kirk's parents named him Tiberius is an unsolved mystery for the ages. Tiberius has his defenders and revisionists, but he's still no one's favourite Roman Emperor.
Two scenes from I, Claudius:
Tiberius and Sejanus (this is after Livilla has poisoned her husband, Tiberius' son, in order to have more sex with Sejanus than she's already having and he decides to officially ask to marry her, which would make him part of the Imperial family)
Sejanus gets tricked and arrested scene
Charles II: Yeah, I'm not doing it that way.
Indeed. Charles II was a respectful son, but he does show a consistent tendency of "think about how Dad did it, then do the opposite". Unlike brother James, whose idea seems to have been "like Dad, only more so!"
Re: James VI and I: Crying Murder Most Foul!
Date: 2023-10-09 03:24 am (UTC)ahahahaha this is great, I love this too! (Although what would make this even more hilarious, admittedly in a somewhat dark way, would be if Buckingham was like, "I have a great idea, you shouldn't bleed him!" and the docs were all "What a quack!")
with the most vicious aspect of his death
Oh nooooo. That's horrible!
Sadly, I cannot watch the videos due to copyright shenanigans :(
Unlike brother James, whose idea seems to have been "like Dad, only more so!"
OH JAMES NO.
Re: James VI and I: Crying Murder Most Foul!
Date: 2023-10-09 07:03 am (UTC)Although what would make this even more hilarious, admittedly in a somewhat dark way, would be if Buckingham was like, "I have a great idea, you shouldn't bleed him!" and the docs were all "What a quack!
LOL, I wouldn't be surprised, old school medicine being what it was.
OH JAMES NO.
James, Henrietta Maria and Tim Blanning, apparantly, forming a triad of people thinking Charles I. was a role model as a monarch. Mind you, I always thought Charles I. had a lot in common with his grandmother Mary Queen of Scots - they weren't good monarchs, but they were at their best facing their deaths with dignity and great courage. (Also during their respective trials before that. This is independent from the legal guilt fact. Mary undoubtedly did participate in and encourage conspiracies against Elizabeth. Charles did make agreements with Parliament only to break them. Both of them still had a point (and made it) that their respective trials were show trials with a predetermined outcome (can you imagine either Mary or Charles being declared innocent and let go under ANY circumstances?), and that according to the law as it was at this point in time their judges were not qualified to judge them. (Yes, Charles, too, because as he himself pointed out during his trial, he wasn't judged by Parliament (which consisted of Commons and Lords alike), but of a part of the Commons appointed by the army, leaving aside the whole problem of putting a King on trial.
(I mean, I'm against Kings being given free license to do whatever they want, obviously! Monarchy bad, democracy good. Also I think their respective actions did bring both Mary and Charles to their ends. But the legality of it even from a contemporary pov is questionable, to put it mildly, and even their worst enemies did not deny they were at their best in their trials and facing their deaths.)
Incidentally, you can see why historical fiction had problems with both James (I and VI, not James II his grandson) and Charles (I) if we talk about fiction putting them in the center, not giving them cameo appearances in someone else's story. James fits neither in the heroic King facing Big Evil (Foreign) Enemies narrative (NOT going to war is awfully difficult to dramatize) nor in the Evil Tyrant King narrative. Even stories where he shows up as a villain/antagonist - i.e. anything Walter Raleigh centric - don't really make him the final big bad but show him as a tool of Robert Cecil and/or Gondomar. As for Charles I., he works as a villain if you show him ordering MP's to be arrested from the MP's pov, obviously, but he's very much not the stereotype of the decadent tryannical tuler muwahhaing over his enemies' pains, and his civic virtues (i.e. good husband and father, stubbornly loyal to friends even and especially if it would serve him politically not to be) means you can't present him as exploiting his subjects and abusing his Faithful Lieutenants, either, as Evil Overlords usually do.
The most memorable Charles in fiction I know of is the one played by Alec Guinness (who is superb, of course) in the 1970s movie Cromwell - which as a critic once jested could be called "Charles and Oliver" for all the narrative space Charles gets - where he is the shades of grey antagonist. Richard Harris is Oliver Cromwell. Mind you, the movie while doing a reasonably good job of presenting both the bad and good of Charles edits out Cromwell's most problematic side, i.e. anything to do with Ireland. No massacres committed by this Oliver Cromwell. Helped by the fact the only Catholics showing up are Queen Henrietta Maria and a slimy Italian Cardinal Up To No Good, not starving Irish peasants. Also, the movie weirdly picks Edward Hyde, of all the people, to go through the reverse arc he did in real life. RL: Edward Hyde starts out on the side of Parliament, switches sides to become a Royalist, and by the time Charles I. gets executed is already in exile with young Charles (II), whom he mentors for the entire Interregnum. He then gets rewarded by becoming the de facto first PM of Charles II's reign but is promptly hated on by a lot of courtiers, including Buckingham and Barbara Villliers, and vilified by the people with the mind boggling charge that he deliberately picked Catherine of Braganza as a bride for Charles because he knew she wouldn't give birth to living children, all so his daughter Anne - who married James (the future II after James first got her pregnant and then tried to weasel out of it, remember) could become Queen. Anyway, this same Sir Edward Hyde shows up in Cromwell at Charles I's trial testifying against him, which, well, physically impossible - him being in the Netherlands with young Charles (II) - and also completely against his CV.
I haven't yet seen the two parter Gunpowder, Treason and Plot which has Robert Carlyle as James I and VI, who is at least bound to be memorable, so so far, the most memorable James in fiction remains Alan Cummings in the Doctor Who episode I showed you clips from. My definite Charles I is Sir Alec, of course. Most memorable and convincing Charles II is the one in the novel The King's Touch, with Rufus Sewell in Charles II: The Power and the Passion getting second place.
Philippe Auguste and Ingeborg
Date: 2023-10-10 12:20 pm (UTC)Hahaha, so the day you posted this, my French practice in a biography of Philippe II Auguste (12-13th century) had me reading about how he treated his second wife very badly, locking her in a castle with inadequate basic necessities, assigning her ladies in waiting whose job was to verbally abuse her, and denying her priests and doctors. At one point, she's sick, and she can't even be bled!
Me: Weeelllll...The abusive asshole might have accidentally done her some good there, ha.
(Why did he treat her this way, you ask,
Because Philippe's and Ingeborg's claims were the reverse of Bob's and Frances's, Philippe did not feel compelled to run around showing everyone he could get an erection with anyone but his wife. :P
P.S. My French streak is still going!