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cahnBackground: The kids' school has a topic for "Unit" every trimester that a lot of their work (reading, writing, some math) revolves around. These topics range from time/geographic periods ('Colonial America') to geography ('Asia') to science ('Space') to social science ('Business and Economics'). (I have some issues with this way of doing things, but that's a whole separate post.) Anyway, for Reasons, they have had to come up with a new topic this year, and E's 7/8 class is doing "World Fairs" as their new topic.
Me: I know E's teacher is all about World Fairs and I know she is great and will do a good job. But I feel like if we had a different teacher who wasn't so into World Fairs, they wouldn't do such a good job and another topic would be better.
Me: Like... the Enlightenment!
D: Heh, you could teach that! But you'd have to restrain yourself from making everything about Frederick the Great.
Me: But that's the thing! Everyone does relate to each other in this time period! Voltaire -- and his partner Émilie du Châtelet, who was heavily involved in the discourse of conservation of energy and momentum -- well, I've told you Voltaire had a thing with Fritz -- and then there's Empress Maria Theresa, who went to war with him a few times -- and Catherine the Great --
D, meditatively: You know --
Me: *am innocently not warned even though this is the same tone of voice that is often followed by, say, a bad pun*
D: -- it's impressive how everyone from this 'the Great' family is so famous!
Me: *splutters*
D, thoughtfully: But of course there's probably selection bias, as the ones who aren't famous don't get mentioned. You never see 'Bob the Great' in the history books...
Me: *splutters more*
Me: I know E's teacher is all about World Fairs and I know she is great and will do a good job. But I feel like if we had a different teacher who wasn't so into World Fairs, they wouldn't do such a good job and another topic would be better.
Me: Like... the Enlightenment!
D: Heh, you could teach that! But you'd have to restrain yourself from making everything about Frederick the Great.
Me: But that's the thing! Everyone does relate to each other in this time period! Voltaire -- and his partner Émilie du Châtelet, who was heavily involved in the discourse of conservation of energy and momentum -- well, I've told you Voltaire had a thing with Fritz -- and then there's Empress Maria Theresa, who went to war with him a few times -- and Catherine the Great --
D, meditatively: You know --
Me: *am innocently not warned even though this is the same tone of voice that is often followed by, say, a bad pun*
D: -- it's impressive how everyone from this 'the Great' family is so famous!
Me: *splutters*
D, thoughtfully: But of course there's probably selection bias, as the ones who aren't famous don't get mentioned. You never see 'Bob the Great' in the history books...
Me: *splutters more*
Stuarts and Scotland
Date: 2023-10-27 06:29 am (UTC)Mary, Queen of Scots: I left the country as a toddler, was raised in France and came back basically a contintal Catholic Princess in the midst of the Scottish Reformation. The majority of my nobles and much of the commoners kept rebelling against me, and after the death of my no good husband Darnley, they openly called me a murderous whore. Only when Elizabeth executed me two decades later did the Scots suddenly discover they loved me and were indignant on my behalf, though my son was not. Thanks, I guess?
James I and VI: Born and bred a Scot, no one can deny it, and I maintained my strong accent till my dying day. Also, when I left Scotland after Elizabeth's death to take over the English neighbourhood, I promised my Scottish subjects I would be back soon, and would not neglect them. This wasn't exactly the truth. In fact, I only returned once, many, many years later, and it wasn't a long visit. Now, there were good reasons, not the least of which was that my English subjects were absolutely paranoid about my Scottish ones, but nonetheless, I wasn't exactly homesick, and my faraway ordered reforms for Scotland did try to make it more like England, though never to the degree my unfortuante son tried. And of course the whole "King of Great Britain" concept was my idea, even though no one liked it, other than me. Well, given my childhood and youth consisted of abusive bigotted dickheads trying to beat me into their image, feel free to speculate I did not have the fondest memories of ye olde country.
Charles I: I left as a toddler - hi, Grandma! -, and did not show up to be crowned in Scotland for over a decade after I was crowned in England. I did not get the Scots at all, which I proved every time we clashed. Cue two lost Bishops Wars, which forced me to recall Parliament after eleven years, and we all know how that ended up. My belated attempt to switch from solving my Scottish problem via my English subjects to solving my English problem via my Scottish subjects did not work out, either, as the Scottish Covenanters saw the English Junto (yes, Junto, not Junta, and yes, they were called that) as their natural allies and forgot all about hating the English when they could blackmail their King instead. By the time they rediscovered hating the English, it waws too late for me.
Charles II: So here I am in The Hague, a very young man who just learned his father has been executed. Now, the Scots actually proclaimed me as Charles II upon learning of Dad's death, much to Cromwell's disgruntlement, so my advisor Hyde points out that the Scots were who I had to come to terms with if there was any chance of winning the still ongoing Civil War. The idea was to go to Scotland, get crowned there, and then, backed up by Scots, cross the border into England. (High, grandnephew Charlie!) Well, the coronation thing happened. After they made me sign any number of ridiculous terms they and I damn well knew NO King of England could ever follow through with, such as forcing the entirety of England to become Presbyterians. But they were content with this? No. They even made me sign a declaration saying I was ashamed of my executed father and Catholic mother. Look, I'm a cynic in the making and a life long pragmatist and survival expert. But that, months after Dad's execution, was just gratitiously cruel, and my sympathy for Scotland and the Scots sank below zero at this point. So no. I never did like that wretched country, and you bet I stayed away after the Restoration.
James II: Charles made me Lord High Commissioner of Scotland for a while. Luzula would know better whether or not I did a good job there, but when I became King, there was promptly another Scottish uprising, by the Duke of Argyll who coordinated his rebellion with that of my nephew Jemmy of Monmouth. Naturally I crushed both and had them executed. I then followed my policy of freedom of religion. For Roman Catholics, that is, not for Scottish Presbyterians. Scotland reacted predictably. But when I was deposed by my daughters and living in exile in France, I seem to have started my and my descendants careers as icons of Scottish liberty!
=> History is bonkers
Re: Stuarts and Scotland
Date: 2023-10-28 05:37 pm (UTC)Only when Elizabeth executed me two decades later did the Scots suddenly discover they loved me and were indignant on my behalf, though my son was not. Thanks, I guess?
I... guess... it's easier to be sympathetic to a dead woman and not an inconveniently alive one?
My belated attempt to switch from solving my Scottish problem via my English subjects to solving my English problem via my Scottish subjects did not work out, either, as the Scottish Covenanters saw the English Junto (yes, Junto, not Junta, and yes, they were called that) as their natural allies and forgot all about hating the English when they could blackmail their King instead.
Heh. Charles I really did make a lot of problems for himself, didn't he?
They even made me sign a declaration saying I was ashamed of my executed father and Catholic mother.
Aw, yeah, that's a bit much :(
Re: Stuarts and Scotland
Date: 2023-10-29 03:36 pm (UTC)But even if you see it from the perspective of a true believer who (presumably) thinks they're doing everyone else a favour by forcing them to convert, that still leaves the demand to sign a publish trashing of one's parents. And that is simply not explainable by anything but the wish to humiliate young Charles and glory in just how much they have the upper hand bcause he desperately needs military support.
Whereas this is just funny:
Archibald Campbell, 1st Marquess and 8th Earl of Argyll: Hi! So, when my Dad embarrassed the family by becoming a Roman Catholic while James was King. I took over and went in the other direction: yay Presbyterianism, that's me! I was part of Charles I's Privy Council for a while but fell out of favour when he wanted to Anglicize our glorious Scottish Kirk. I called for the cancelling of all Bishops and got kicked out of the council, but I became a Scottish national hero. Because I was the darling of Team Covenant in Scotland, part of the peace conditions they gave to Charles I. after he lost the Bishops' Wars was that he had to make me a Marquess. Sweet! I basically was boss in Scotland and negotiated first with the Junto and later with Cromwell. It all went swimmingly until the English had to go and behead Charles I. Now look, I wasn't a fan, obviously, but that was just too much, and not what we Scots had signed up for. We wanted a constitutional monarchy! NOT BEHEADING! Not to mention: now Cromwell didn't need us anymore, and did you see what he did to the Irish? Time to switch teams, says I, and open up negotiations with young Charles, ready to take him to the cleaners while absolutely sincerely wanting him as King.
Now you know most of our conditions and demands, but what you don't know is one demand I added because look, why not? I said to Charles he was supposed to marry my daughter as soon as we had him crowned. For some reason, he wasn't eager and kept fobbing me off with "war first, marriage later" and other excuses like that, and given Cromwell was right THERE with his army, I couldn't disagree. Anyway, Charles loses at Worcester and then has that mysteriously unfilmed getaway while I had to come to terms with Cromwell (again). Cromwell wasn't impressed my my temporary switching, but knew I was the man, and he needed one in Scotland, so... happy ending, I guess. For a while. After the Restoration, I offered my services, but wouldn't you know it - I ended up as one of the ca.30 people who'd gone to war against Charles I whom no longer that young Charles II didn't forgive in his otherwise general civil war amnesty. Instead, he had me beheaded for treason. I mean: how was I to know he'd hold that much of a grudge about having to trash his parents and almost becoming my son-in-law?
Re: Stuarts and Scotland
Date: 2023-10-30 08:22 pm (UTC)Also, the group of Scottish nobles who plotted leading up to the 1708 Jacobite almost-rebellion were called the Juncto.
Re: Stuarts and Scotland
Date: 2023-10-31 11:51 am (UTC)Re: Stuarts and Scotland
Date: 2023-10-31 07:17 pm (UTC)Re: Stuarts and Scotland
Date: 2023-11-01 09:24 am (UTC)Re: Stuarts and Scotland
Date: 2023-11-01 02:43 pm (UTC)Wikipedia also tells me about another Junto:
In North America, the Whig Junto was the inspiration for Benjamin Franklin's Junto in 1727 Philadelphia upon his return from London.
It concludes:
The term "Junto" is derived from "Junta", a Hispano-Portuguese term for a civil deliberative or administrative council, which in 18th-century English had not yet gained its present association with the governments of a military dictatorship.
Which is why when Selena wrote "the English Junto (yes, Junto, not Junta, and yes, they were called that)" it took me a minute to figure out why that would be noteworthy at all. I'm just too used to seeing Juntos in this period, it's my primary association. ;)
Not my first time and won't be my last of being more familiar with the 18th century than the modern day; I still remember arguing with a modern map about the German/Polish border as a teenager, only to belatedly realize that my mental map owed a lot to Fritz. :'D
Re: Stuarts and Scotland
Date: 2023-11-03 12:03 am (UTC)Re: Stuarts and Scotland
Date: 2023-11-04 04:44 am (UTC)Re: Stuarts and Scotland
Date: 2023-11-04 07:22 am (UTC)Now of course Miss Campbell the Marquess of Argyll's daughter did come with advantages, but Charles due to having agreed to all the other humiliating conditions first knew he'd get the Scottish army anyway at this point. I mean, Argyll was the unofficial regent of Scotland, but he knew that if after they'd gotten Charles to promise basically everything everyone else had wanted, including making the entire island and Ireland adhere to the Scottish Kirk, he'd have refused support just because Charles didn't want to marry his daughter, all the other Scots nobles would have been after his blood. Also, again, Cromwell and his army were already in Scotland and mightily pissed off their former Covenant allies were now on Team Stuart, and Cromwell had come straight from Ireland where he'd infamously committed massacres to subject the Irish. If there was ever a chance to solve the Civil War militarily left, they needed to invade England now; the idea was to leave Cromwell and his New Model Army, who'd beaten the Scots at Dunbar, tied up there and invade England where people would flock to the new young King's banner so that by the time Cromwell had caught up with them, their armies would be at equal size, swelled by popular support. Except popular support didn't come, Cromwell moved fast, and was one of the great generals of the era.
(Life lesson learned by young Charles II: if the Restoration will happen, it won't happen via foreign armies, which was how the Scots were perceived by even the royalist English. Even if you remove Oliver Cromwell and his personal competence from the equation, and indeed when Oliver C. died, the transition to his son happened smoothly - it was then, when Richard C. took power, that it became evident the Protectorate was too unstable to survive without one specific guy at the helm. But even then, Charles remained on the continent and waited until the Protectorate had crashed and burned and a free Parliament had been elected while negotiating with General Monck, and then still waited until said Parliament explicitly called him back, instead of trying to push things by showing up in person and backed up by exiles and foreign soldiers the way he had done twelve years earlier.)
Anyway, it does say something about how intensely Charles II resented Argyll that he refused his offer of service and instead had him executed after the Restoration, though, because he wasn't vendetta minded as a rule. Yes, anyone still alive who had personally signed Charles I. death warrant was excempted from the general Civil War amnesty Charles II, Monck and Parliament had agreed upon, but that was a given. Getting Cromwell's body out of his grave, beheading him and putting his head on a pike was symbolic; by contrast, and much to the indignation of many a royalist exile, Cromwell's surviving sons, Henry and Richard, were allowed to keep all of their (considerable) possessions and lived out their lives comfortably and in obscurity. Thomas Fairfax, who had been just as important as Oliver Cromwell, if not more so (because he was the top Commander of the New Model Army and Cromwell his right hand man until Fairfax resigned in the wake of Charles I's execution), for the victory of Parliament over Charles I, was treated with respect and even took part in Charles II's entry into London. (Okay, Fairfax had famously only attended the first day of Charles I.'s trial and then excused himself because he did not think this was a just court, his wife, who remained, had openly protested what was going on during the trial, and Fairfax had refused to sign Charles I's death warrant and resigned his army command over this. It would have looked badly if he'd been treated as a rebel. But still, Henrietta Maria, Charles' mother, certainly still resented him for having defeated her husband in the first place, and didn't understand why Charles was treating him as an honorable veteran.
Anyway, my point being: Charles II in general wasn't acting vengeful during the Restoration, the thirty something people directly involved in Charles I's execution excepted, and one could make a case that subjects executing their King had set such a dangerous precedent that he pretty much had to go after them. Otherwise, reconciliation was the word of the day. But not with Argyll, who hadn't been involved in Charles I's execution. Yes, he had very much contributed to Charles I' ending up defeated and in Parliament's hands in the first place, but then so had Thomas Fairfax. Both had explicitly been against the execution. But Fairfax hadn't put a young and grieving Charles through the extortion and humiliation wringer, and I think that was a difference. (That, and Argyll's position in Scotland wasn't one a truly sovereign King of Scotland could have allowed to continue, there was that as well.)
Re: Stuarts and Scotland
Date: 2023-11-26 06:43 pm (UTC)Ah, got it! -- why give up his trump card until he absolutely has to?
But even then, Charles remained on the continent and waited until the Protectorate had crashed and burned and a free Parliament had been elected while negotiating with General Monck, and then still waited until said Parliament explicitly called him back, instead of trying to push things by showing up in person and backed up by exiles and foreign soldiers the way he had done twelve years earlier.
Charles is really the Picard of the Stuarts, isn't he! (Well, at least in regards to the politics, if not the reputation with women.)
by contrast, and much to the indignation of many a royalist exile, Cromwell's surviving sons, Henry and Richard, were allowed to keep all of their (considerable) possessions and lived out their lives comfortably and in obscurity.
Huh, that's great.
Okay, Fairfax had famously only attended the first day of Charles I.'s trial and then excused himself because he did not think this was a just court, his wife, who remained, had openly protested what was going on during the trial, and Fairfax had refused to sign Charles I's death warrant and resigned his army command over this.
Ohhhh, that's awesome. Go Fairfax.
But still, Henrietta Maria, Charles' mother, certainly still resented him for having defeated her husband in the first place, and didn't understand why Charles was treating him as an honorable veteran.
Lol Henrietta Maria. I mean, I have got the impression there are a lot of things she didn't see the same way...
Re: Stuarts and Scotland
Date: 2023-10-30 08:14 pm (UTC)Luzula would know better whether or not I did a good job there
I can't track down the reference now, but I remember at least one historian who wasn't in general partial to James II say that he did do a fairly good job in the Highlands before he was king, at least.
Re: Stuarts and Scotland
Date: 2023-10-31 12:33 pm (UTC)Oh, absolutely, and since he never reigned, no one ever needed to get disillusioned as to whether he'd have been any good at it.
It's not just the monarchs to whom this applies. Because there hadn't been a Parliament in eleven years, people had invested such great hopes and mystical belief in it when Charles I. finally had to call one, and were ready to defend it at all costs - they thought it would really fix every grievance. And ironically enough, the monarchy was restored for the same reason. The Long Parliament - the very same everyone had invested so much into - didn't get along with Cromwell much better than it had with Charles I, then Cromwell with the army purged it of any MPs disagreeing with him and reduced it to the Rump, then England got the Protectorate with Cromwell as a dictator in all but name and went through two different attempts at a constitution to justify it, then Cromwell dies and his son Richard really isn't up to the job, and army amd Rump Parliament are at odds again, and by the time General Monck marches to London, everyone calls again for a Parliament freely elected with the same mystical belief it would fix everything they had back in Charles I's day. With the awareness that what a free Parliament would do would be most likely to call the Stuarts back, because the attempt to keep the Commonwealth going sans Oliver Cromwell had completely crashed and burned.
(
James II doing well in Scotland while still James, Duke of York: it's possible! Especially since back then, he did not have the power to do anything re: Catholic toleration or Prebyterian discrimination. And hey, he was fairly popular as Lord Admiral, too, Pepys, who worked for him, liked him well enough. He strikes me as one of those royals who are competent sidekicks but should never ever get into a situation where they need to do the top job.
It's interesting to do a compare and contrast between France and Great Britain in which effect their respective revolutions had on them. I mean, while you had the Napoleonic Empire and two Bourbon Restorations after the great French Revolution, it's still a fact that they kept going back to Revolutions and attempts at a Republic, with the post great Revolution monarchies feeling like the aberrations, not the norms. While in England and Scotland, there wasn't agreement as to which monarch they wanted, but there was no popular movement for a Republic anymore. An increasingly constitutional monarchy was what everyone went for. And yet the Cromwell years were in terms of English power fairly successful ones. His government was acknowledged by all European powers, he had a treaty with several of them - including Catholic France -, and while it wasn't fun to live in a state without theatre, Christmas or parties, there was never a Terror period, either.
Then again: I'm not sure you can call those Long Parliament/Cromwell years a genuine Republic, while the first French Republic definitely was one. Yes, the French had the guillontine and the Terror years in between. But even during the Terreur, elections kept happening. (Until the Empire and Napoleon.) Whereas there's a reason why nothing after the calling of what turned out to be the Long Parliament counts as a free election. In addition to the increasing role the army played, you also had constant redefinitions as to who got to vote at all, till only a tiny part of the (male) population was left. So ironically, what turned the Brits off Republicanism wasn't even a genuine attempt at same.
And when you compare the dynasties: Tallyrand famously said about the Bourbons, meaning Louis XVI's two brothers, "they had forgotten nothing and learned nothing" re: the Revolution, which applies for part of the Stuarts (James II, majorly so), but not for all of them (Charles II as well as nieces Mary and Anne certainly had learned something), plus the post Charles XIII Bourbons didn't have the particular constellation of several kingdoms, with one like Scotland able to romantisize them being in an oppressed situation vis a vis the other, and then the Bonapartes were ever so much better at cornering the grandiose dreams market as a competing exiled family anyway.
I still want to someone to write the AU where William of Orange adopts kid FW as he intended to for a hot minute and thus inflicts the Hohenzollern instead of their Hannover cousins as the next German dynasty on England, though. Presumably it would not have made much of a difference to the Jacobites as to whether they were rebelling against a George or a Frederick William, but FW's brand of Protestantism might have been more sympatico to at least part of the Scots, what with his austere Calvinism, while conversely the English nobility would have been horrified to discover their German king expected them to drink the Prussian cool aid and go for army service, hard drills and a modest life style.
FW: They could still go hunting, though. I like hunting! But no more debut balls, that's rubbish.
Re: Stuarts and Scotland
Date: 2023-10-31 08:45 pm (UTC)When I read Tom Paine's The Rights of Man, I just felt kind of sad when he wrote that in a republic, no one would ever complain about taxes again, because they had the power to influence them. And then you look at some of the suffragettes, who thought that if only women had the vote, there wouldn't be poverty, or children suffering, or whatever, anymore.
If we just Fix This Thing, everything will be fine!
I still want to someone to write the AU where William of Orange adopts kid FW as he intended to for a hot minute and thus inflicts the Hohenzollern instead of their Hannover cousins as the next German dynasty on England, though.
Would read!
Re: Stuarts and Scotland
Date: 2023-11-01 09:22 am (UTC)Sigh, yes. And in terms of the British section of women's rights, there's the sadness that even before they ever got the right to vote, they got disillusioned in that regard, what with WWI causing a split right through the Pankhurst family, with Emmeline and Christabel being pro war (and fond of slogans like "Britain for the British") while Sylvia the socialist was anti war and against the property franchise related voting rights aimed at by her mother.
All of which doesn't mean change isn't worth aiming for, of course. The monarchy that came back to Britain in 1660 was already irrevocably different (as James II found out), even if the Glorious Revolution still needed to happen, and the idea of ruling without Parliament entirely the way Charles I had done for eleven years just wasn't on the cards anymore. And while the overall politication of the population could have dark sides, one should never ignore the good sides. People identifying with their Parliament and seeing it as quintessential in the governing process is a good thing, even if it can never deliver the perfect government so many imagine.
Re: Stuarts and Scotland
Date: 2023-11-01 12:52 pm (UTC)No, of course not! Just that everything is always more complicated and the work is never done.
Re: Stuarts and Scotland
Date: 2023-11-04 05:13 am (UTC)Heh, that is very true.
the "Long Parliament" is called that
Ah, thank you! I think the phrase has come up before but it never occurred to me to ask why it was called that!
and while it wasn't fun to live in a state without theatre, Christmas or parties, there was never a Terror period, either.
Huh. ...I don't know that it would be inconsistent with human nature to conclude that people would rather live with the Terror than without parties. (Or, rather, think they would rather, after both periods are safely behind them.)
FW: They could still go hunting, though. I like hunting! But no more debut balls, that's rubbish.
Heeee!
Re: Stuarts and Scotland
Date: 2023-11-04 07:38 am (UTC)Clearly, I need to make this a poll: would you rather live in the Commonwealth under Oliver Cromwell or in France when the Committee of Public Safety is in charge?
Catholics, the Irish as a whole and Royalists in the Vendee as well as the good citizens of Lyon: We have a very different opinion here than your avarage Parisian or Londoner would have.
FW: They could still go hunting, though. I like hunting! But no more debut balls, that's rubbish.
Heeee!
I do wonder whether FW would have the same problem his cousin G2 had, to wit, not getting the English obsession with fox hunting. Remember, G2 had continental preferences in this regard (boars and deer, yay, foxes, nay! "You can't even see a fox from your horse, what even is the point?") But otherwise, hunting is basically the only arena where the English nobility would not have been aghast when confronted with their new sovereign.
FW: Händel, I like you, but, as Nicolai and my son tell us, only in arrangements for military musicians. That's me defunding opera and theatre right here. Must save money! And why the hell would I need yet another palace? One as a London residence, one for summer and autumn for hunting, that's it. All the others get closed or sold or rented. Now, what's this I hear about tall brave Highlanders?
Re: Stuarts and Scotland
Date: 2023-11-26 06:44 pm (UTC)Oh nooooo! I am now noping right out of this AU :)