Serene Falcon

The Condition Of All Earthly Things

March 3rd, 2010 at 6:00 pm (Charles I, Correctitude, Other, Royalism, Spengler, Stuarts)

If all these things aforesaid were indeed performed, as we haue shewed them in words, you should haue a perfect Orchard in nature and substance, begunne to your hand; And yet are all these things nothing, if you want that skill to keepe and dresse your trees. Such is the condition of all earthly things, whereby a man receiueth profit or pleasure, that they degenerate presently without good ordering. Man himselfe left to himselfe, growes from his heauenly and spirituall generation, and becommeth beastly, yea deuillish to his owne kind, vnlesse he be regenerate No maruell then, if Trees make their shootes, and put their spraies disorderly. And truly ( if I were worthy to iudge ) there is not a mischiefe that breedeth greater and more generall harme to all the Orchard ( especially if they be of any continuance ) that euer I saw, ( I will not except three ) then the want of the skilfull dressing of trees. It is a common and vnskilfull opinion, and saying. Let all grow, and they will beare more fruit: and if you lop away superfluous boughes, they say, what a pitty is this ? How many apples would these haue borne? not considering there may arise hurt to your Orchard, as well ( nay rather ) by abundance, as by want of wood. Sound and thriuing plants in a good soile, will euer yeeld too much wood, and disorderly, but neuer too little. So that a skilfull and painfull Arborist, need neuer want matter to effect a plentifull and well drest Orchard: for it is an easie matter to take away superfluous boughes ( if your Gardner haue skill to know them ) whereof your plants will yeeld abundance, and skill will leaue sufficient well ordered. All ages both by rule and experience doe consent to a pruining and lopping of trees: yet haue not any that I know described vnto vs ( except in darke and generall words ) what or which are those superfluous boughes, which we must take away, and that is the chiefe and most needfull point to be knowne in lopping. And we may well assure our selues, ( as in all other Arts, so in this ) there is a vantage and dexterity, by skill, and an habite by practise out of experience, in the performance hereof for the profit of mankind; yet doe I not know ( let me speake it with the patience of our cunning Arborists ) any thing within the compasse of humane affaires so necessary, and so little regarded, not onely in Orchards, but also in all other timber trees, where or whatsoeuer.

Of the right dressing of trees

William Lawson — A New Orchard And Garden : Or, The best way for planting, grafting, and to make any ground good, for a Rich Orchard: Particularly in the North and generally for the whole kingdome of England, as in nature, reason, situation, and all probabilitie, may and doth appeare. 1631

A. Al these squares must bee set with trees, the Gardens and other ornaments must stand in spaces betwixt the trees, & in the borders & fences.

B. Trees 20. yards asunder.

C. Garden Knots.

D. Kitchen garden.

E. Bridge.

F. Conduit.

G. Staires.

H. Walkes set with great wood thicke.

I. Walkes set with great wood round about your Orchard.

K. The out fence.

L. The out fence set with stone-fruite.

M. Mount. To force earth for a mount, or such like set it round with quicke, and lay boughes of trees strangely intermingled tops inward, with the earth in the midle.

N. Still-house.

O. Good standing for Bees, if you haue an house.

P. If the riuer run by your doore, & vnder your mount, it will be pleasant.

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The Expression Of Correct Concepts

February 21st, 2010 at 8:15 pm (Correctitude, High Germany, Manners not Morals, Other, Royalism)

        I have never attached another value to words than that of the expression of correct concepts, to theories never the value of deeds, and I have always regarded preconceived systems as the product of leisured heads or the outburst of emotional minds.
        Not in the struggle of society towards progress, but rather in progression towards the true goods: towards freedom as the inevitable yield of order; towards equality in its only applicable degree of that before the law; towards prosperity, inconceivable without the foundation of moral and material peace; towards credit, which can rest only on the basis of trust — in all that I have recognised the duty of government and the true salvation for the governed.
        I have looked upon despotism of every kind as a symptom of weakness. Where it appears, it is a self-punitive evil, most intolerable when it poses behind the mask of promoting the cause of freedom.

        The concept of the balancing of powers ( proposed by Montesquieu ) has always appeared to me only as a conceptual error of the English constitution, impractical in its application, because the concept of such a balancing is rooted in the assumption of an eternal struggle, instead of in that of peace, the first necessity for the life and prosperity of states.
        The care for the inner life of states has always had for me the worth of the most important task for governments.
        As the foundations for politics I recognise the concepts of right and equity and not the sole calculations of use, whilst I look upon capricious politics as an ever self-punitive confusion of the spirit.

        My conduct is a prosaic and not a poetical one. I am a man of right, and reject in all things appearance where it divides as such from truth, thereupon deprived as the foundation of right, where it must inevitably dissolve into error.

        For me the word “freedom” has not the value of a starting-point, but rather that of an actual point of arrival. The word “order” denotes the starting-point. Only on the concept of order can that of freedom rest. Without the foundation of order, the call for freedom is nothing more than the striving of some party after an envisaged end. In its actual use, the call inevitably expresses itself as tyranny. Whilst I have at all times and in all situations ever been a man of order, my striving was addressed to true and not deceptive freedom. In my eyes, tyranny of any kind has only the value of absolute nonsense. As a means to an end, I mark it as the most vapid that time and circumstance is able to place at the disposal of rulers.
        The concept of order in view of legislation — the foundation of order — is, in consequence of the conditions under which states live, capable of the most varied application. Considered as constitution, it will prove itself best for any state that answers to the demands of both the material conditions and those moral conditions peculiar to the national character. There is no universal recipe for constitutions, just as little as there is some universal means for the boosting of health.

        I did not govern the empire. Therein the powers at every level were not just strictly administered and directed to their competences, but rather in this regard were even relinquished to trepidation, which brought hesitancy to the course of affairs. The principle of government of the Emperor Francis was set forth in the motto “Justitia regnorum fundamentum”, not only as it lay in his spirit and character, but also as it served him as strict guide in all governmental affairs. He agreed with my observation that the axiom, correct in its point of origin, could be abrogated in the excessive practice of particular cases, but he usually added: “I was born and through my status appointed for the execution of justice; the inevitable hardness in particular cases is better than the slackening of rule through too many exceptions.” My motto is “Strength in Right”. Both sayings run together in meaning, except that the imperial motto has an abstractly judicial significance, whereas mine has a significance more grounded in state law. In this regard, the motto “Recta tueri”, suggested by me to Emperor Ferdinand upon his most supreme accession, bids a further nuance.

Excerpts from The Political Testament of Klemens Wenzel Nepomuk Lothar, Fürst von Metternich-Winneburg zu Beilstein, as translated by Deoholwulf, Keeper of The Joy of Curmudgeonry

Full text here.

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The Glass House

May 29th, 2008 at 2:00 am (Art, Generalia, Royalism, Self, Stuarts)

Still ill…

Apparently there’s another jacobite in Suffolk: The Jacobite Intelligencer; which must restore the county average. Eventually we may not have enough for a Rising, but definitely sufficient for a small sedate party.

Still, I bought the wheel bit of an old roulette wheel yesterday, for no other reason that it is slightly weird; but I can’t see it providing even minutes of fun…

In the meantime I temporarily decided on an attraction to reading about greenhouses for no particular reason ( being averse to gardening beyond watering a plant or two ), which led to a/ the grander type of conservatory, such as that at Laeken; and thence to palatial gardening — Prussian Palaces has Peacock Island, which is pretty… and b/ to the Crystal Palace of 1851. Found a thread five pages long with hundreds of images of the original Crystal Palace; this the Alhambra Lion Court

 
 
Apparently Maximilian II immediately built a rather stiff tribute Glaspalast in Munich in 1854; and even the Americans also copied the concept a year earlier, for the New York Crystal Palace. Walt Whitman wrote an advertising jingle which exemplifies both his virtues, unmatched facility and prettiness, and his faults: sincerity, the inane repellent Early American Braggadocio incompatible with delicacy, and pedestrian triumphalist ideology…

 
Aphrodite, Killer of Men, emerged on this rock in Cyprus: note the adorable placing of both tarmac and roadsign to enhance the veneration of her holy place…

 
Returns to mind-glazing anime…

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Brought Most Near To God

April 21st, 2008 at 6:45 am (Melancholy, Other, Royalism, Self, The King of Terrors)

Some serious illness, which alternated between lung cancer, cardiovascular disease and sudden death, but which resolved itself into influenza was followed by a customary melancholy which both intensified the taedium vitae of a depressive and left neither time nor interest in this blog. Possibly things may improve slightly ( although normal pessimism urges caution… ). In the meantime:

 
Monarchy is first proved to be the true and rightful form of government. Men’s objects are best attained during universal peace: this is possible only under a monarch. And as he is the image of the divine unity, so man is through him made one, and brought most near to God. There must, in every system of forces, be a ‘primum mobile’; to be perfect, every organisation must have a centre, into which all is gathered, by which all is controlled. Justice is best secured by a supreme arbiter of disputes, himself untempted by ambition, since his dominion is already bounded only by ocean. Man is best and happiest when he is most free; to be free is to exist for one’s own sake. To this noblest end does the monarch and he alone guide us; other forms of government are perverted, and exist for the benefit of some class; he seeks the good of all alike, being to that very end appointed.

James Bryce’s summary of Dante’s De Monarchia

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For Love Of Marie-Jeanne

March 25th, 2008 at 3:30 am (Literature, Other, Royalism, The King of Terrors, War)

Ivanov Seven is an excellent boys’ book by Elizabeth Janeway, and regards a mid-19th century recruit into the Russian army who is fortunate enough to return home to the hills with a charming little howitzer named Katya for his very own > which is the sort of souvenir no-one could resist; particularly a Prussian ornate cannon that is antique bronze inscribed:

Anyway, during the royalist war in the Vendée against the brutish scum of the French Republic, there was another notable piece with a sweet name. She was a bit bigger, but just as lovable.

Really, the only engaging with life which makes the curious matter of existence endurable is to destroy republicans… And maybe, to collect cannon. Not only for that good purpose, but just because… I find myself unable to believe God created us in order that we might worship Him — although He would have every right so to do if He so Chose ( that’s the arbitrary and unfettered bit that is the essence of power; which we must try to mirror, howsoever unsuccessfully here on earth, at least for His equally arbitrarily Chosen lieutenants… ) — and His reasons for creation must remain a mystery, but fighting on the right side each time consoles us at least during each such struggle.

 
The soldiers reassembled in large numbers, till, with Bonchamps’ division, there were close on forty thousand, but destitute of powder; the army spent the night before La Châtaigneraie, which had been re-occupied by the Republicans. At daybreak the town was found to have been evacuated, all the Blues having fallen back on Fontenay. The Catholic Army marched forward without delay and towards noon reached Pissotte, three-quarters of a league from Fontenay; the Blues, to the number of ten thousand, with upwards of forty pieces of cannon, were drawn up in battle array before the town. The priests were asked to give the men absolution before the battle. “We have no powder, boys“, the generals said to them; “Come on and recapture Marie-Jeanne with your cudgels, as you did at first. See who can run fastest, for we cannot stop to fire this time.” M. de Lescure was in command of the left wing; his men showing a disposition to hang back, he was obliged to ride on alone forty paces ahead of them; then, pulling up, he called out “Vive le Roi !” He was instantly greeted with six rounds of grapeshot, for the enemy had aimed at him as though he was the bullseye on a target; by a veritable miracle he was not wounded, though his clothes were riddled, his left spur shot away, and also a large piece of his boot from the right calf. Turning round he called out to the men, “You see, boys, the Blues cannot shoot. On with you ! Forward !” The men, carried away with enthusiasm, rushed forward at such a pace that my husband had to break into a quick trot in order to keep at their head. Just then the peasants, catching sight of a mission cross, fell on their knees around it, though within range of the cannon. More than thirty balls passed over their heads. At that point there were only MM. de Lescure and de Baugé on horseback. The latter would have had my husband bid them go on. “No, let them finish their prayers first“, he answered quietly. At length they sprang up and rushed upon the enemy. Meanwhile M. de Marigny fired off the few charges we had with good effect. M. de la Rochejaquelein had put himself at the head of the cavalry with MM. de Dommaigné and de Beaurepaire; they all displayed the utmost gallantry, while Henri distinguished himself by a judgment beyond his years. After repulsing the Repub­lican cavalry, instead of pursuing it, he fell upon the flank of the enemy’s left wing, which till then had been maintaining the fight with some success, and by so doing placed the victory beyond a doubt. I wish I could give further details with regard to the circumstances of this battle, but I can only say what I know for certain.

The Blues, appalled by the desperate onslaught of the Vendeans, were completely routed in three quarters of an hour. The left wing, under the command of M. de Lescure, reached the gate of the town, and he himself was the first to enter, but his men, to begin with, had not the courage to follow him. MM. de Bonchamps and Forest, spying him from a distance, dashed forward to join him ; it was high time, for he was alone and in a very perilous situation. The three officers together were rash enough to penetrate into the town, though the streets were still crowded with over four thousand Blues, who, paralysed with terror, fell on their knees and began begging for quarter. When they had reached the square they separated and took three different streets, likewise thronged with armed volunteers, to whom they cried, “Surrender, down with your arms ! Vive le Roi ! We will do you no harm.” Scarcely had he parted from M. de Lescure, however, than M. de Bonchamps was wounded. One of the soldiers, after laying down his musket and crying for quarter like the rest, picked it up again as soon as he had passed, and fired, shooting him through the arm and fleshy part of the breast and inflicting four wounds upon him : luckily our troops were just then crowding into the town in the wake of their generals. Bonchamps’ men in their fury closed in on the street and slaughtered about sixty Blues who were in it, so that the guilty one should not escape their vengeance.

As for M. de Lescure, he had the greatest pleasure a man can experience ; on leaving M. de Bonchamps and Forest he had taken the Street of the Prisons, which he caused.to be thrown open, to the cry of Vive le Roi, and flung himself into the arms of M. de la Marsonniere and the two hundred and forty prisoners confined along with him. This officer and several of the men were to have been guillotined the following morning; he had shown at his examination a nobility and greatness of character worthy of the highest praise. M. de Lescure had hastened to deliver them for fear they should be mas­sacred by the Blues, and having done so flew at once to another prison in which were confined the relations of émigrés and other suspected persons, to the number of over two hundred. They had viewed the battle from afar and barricaded themselves on the inside for fear of being butchered by the patriots. M. de Lescure knocked repeatedly, crying, “Open, in the King’s name !” Immediately the doors flew open, while the prison rang with cries of Vive le Roi ! All the captives embraced M. de Lescure, but without recognizing him, even though a great many were relations or friends of his ; after telling them his name he left them, to engage in the pursuit of the patriots like all the other officers.

Forest had taken the street leading to the Niort road, and accordingly found himself at the very head. Every­one’s chief concern was to recapture Marie-Jeanne, the idol of the army, while the Blues, who were aware of this, used every endeavour to save her. They were already well over a league from the town. Forest had pushed forward so far that he found himself in the midst of over a hundred gendarmes ; fortunately he had the horse, saddle and weapons of a gendarme he had killed in a previous engagement, besides which, he was not dressed like a peasant and had no white cockade, and as at that time most of the Republican regiments were full of new recruits not yet in uniform, the Blues took him for one of their own men. “Comrade,” said one of them, clapping him on the shoulder, “there is a reward of twenty-five thousand francs for those who save Marie-Jeanne; she is in danger; let us turn back and prevent her from being taken.” All the Blues promptly turned back, whereupon Forest began to play the hero, declaring that he must be the foremost, and so gradually worked his way forward till he found himself leading, some way ahead, and followed only by the two boldest. When he was only a short distance from our men, he turned round with a cry of Vive le Roi ! and killed the two Blues who were following him, while the Vendeans, recognizing him, fell upon the enemy and captured Marie-Jeanne who was defended by some foot. To bring the history of this gun to a conclusion, I will add that she was brought back by the soldiers in triumph to La Vendée, where, in all the villages, the women came out to meet her, embracing her and covering her with flowers and ribbons.

Memoirs of the Marquise de La Rochejaquelein [ trans : Cecil Biggane ]

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And We Have Not

March 17th, 2008 at 3:00 am (Correctitude, Melancholy, Other, Royalism)

A number of tragedies were encompassed within the assassination of Lincoln — including no doubt that event itself — not least the peculiar judicial executions of his purported murderers; yet if the greatest was the destruction of the Emperor of Mexico, far exceeding in magnitude the elimination of a mere president, the next must be that the plotters did not succeed entirely in carving through the neck of Seward.

Still, for the Empress Charlotte the major villain was Louis-Napoleon, of whom to her husband she wrote in a vivacious style after the final betrayal.

Darling:
In the morning I am leaving for Miramar via Milan, which will prove to you that I have achieved exactly nothing… But there remains the satisfaction of having defeated their arguments, torn down their dishonest pretexts, and in the end having won a moral victory for you. Nevertheless, He has turned against us, and no power on earth is of any avail, for He has Hell on his side and we have not. You must not believe that the opposition comes from outside, for He himself appoints legislative bodies to do his will; nor is this professed anxiety about the United States the real reason for his stubbornness. He wants to commit a long premeditated crime, not through fear or change of heart, or for any motive whatever, but only because He is the incarnation of villainy on earth and means to destroy what is good. It is because men do not see the perversity of his ac­tions that they adore him.
Up to the last I interrupted him pour parer et ignorer le refus [ in order to parry and prevent his refusal ], but it is obvious that He alone chooses to be unmerciful, for the least of his ministers would have softened. I can assure you of this much, that for me He is the Devil in person; at our last meeting his expression would have made your hair stand on end, and this ugliness was a reflection of his soul… He has never loved you, for He is incapable of loving. Like a viper He fascinated you with tears that were as false as his words, and with deeds that were perfidy. You must be freed from his claws as soon as possible.
Even while delivering his final no, by which He knew you would be ruined, his conduct was oily. A genteel Mephistopheles, He kissed my hand; but I can recognize pantomime, for I have seen through him twice. It still appalls me to realize that the world has never known and never will know his like, but le règne louche à sa fin [ the reign touches its end ] and soon we shall again be able to get our breath.
You probably think I am exaggerating, but con­ditions here absolutely resemble the Apocalypse, with Babylon on the Seine fitting the picture; it makes hardened skeptics believe in God when they can see the Devil so close at hand …
As a direct result of my visit le vin est dévoilé [ the wine has certainly been spilled ] for humanity to judge and condemn. I got a peep at the records of the Fi­nance Commission, another putrid affair from start to finish. Count de Germiny promised to pay the poor legations, which will be something at least — provided he does it; everything they tell you here is untrue. But you must not believe that I grovel before these people. I just tear off their masks and then thunder at them, without getting vulgar, to be sure. They have prob­ably never in their lives been more mortified …
I can not understand their willingness to let you abdicate. It seems, to me that you ought to hold on, because the day is coming when He will be dethroned and France as well as the whole of Europe will see that their interests are furthered by an empire in Mexico. The Old World is crumbling because He has his finger in every pie; you can smell him in the bloodshed of all the nations struggling for unity. He uses Prim and Bismarck as his agents and spreads a network of propaganda across the map, laughing at those whom He has victimized. There’s no defying him except from the other side of the Atlantic.
Austria is changing into a Magyar state and will soon collapse. In Italy they have a financial depression, while Spain is ablaze with unrest. You have nothing to hope for in this hemisphere where He would des­troy you with his hate, for He can scarcely bring him­self to utter your name. I advise you to dismiss his hirelings and to control your army without French interference, otherwise you will be lost. The whole military question proves this. If you can enlist native sympathy success is still possible, but never again put your trust in the French. If the truth about your sit­uation were really known abroad, money would pour into your treasury from all sides, for even the French people are materially concerned in this matter in view of their foreign trade.
I shall be overjoyed when you send for me. Don’t plan to come to Europe yourself because He will crush you; He wants to own everything from the North Cape to Cape Matapan. Call me back after you have eman­cipated yourself from him in Mexico. It is quite appar­ent that my presence here has been the worst blow He has had in years. I must also add that many charm­ing people are taking a real interest in me.

I embrace you with all my heart. Always your faithful

Charlotte

P.S. Naturally I have not lived here in the style you expected… But now I am receiving my inher­itance and some very fine jewels, among them a mag­nificent Gold Fleece for you …

 
She was rather obviously mistaken as to Otto v. Bismarck’s role, of course *meditatively* Yet it is nice to note that towards the end of her maddened life the German troops ordered past her retreat in Belgium were detailed to pass by without singing or disturbance to shelter her from their ineluctable entry into the land of her birth…

Arthur Hughes painted Ophelia a number of times…

The more usual version:
 

 

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Fat Shubin

March 3rd, 2008 at 2:30 pm (Other, Royalism, The Building Blocks of Democracy, War)

Comte Louis de Robien was a cynical French diplomat attached to St. Petersburg during the First World War: in his diary of the final years he detailed the Revolutions and that curious time when at any given time Tsarists, democrats, bolsheviks, socialists, the German army, Ukrainians and many other groups of varying sizes could be either fighting each other, or in very temporary alliance contesting the other groups singly or in concert…

 
Monday 9th April 1917
Shubin is still very worried. The apparent orderliness of the demon­stration in honour of the victims of the revolution does not re­assure him.
He analysed the psychology of Russian crowds to us with great shrewdness — he understands them better than we do, their men­tality is so far removed from ours.
“I saw,” he told us, “a troop of a thousand demonstrators in a small side-street, waiting their turn to take up their position in one of the processions. There they stood, each one in his place, from ten o’clock in the morning until eight o’clock at night, marking time in the melting snow without the slightest sign of impatience, with nothing to eat and nothing to drink, without asking for anything from the neighbouring houses. The bearers laid five or six red coffins down on the bare earth, and none of this great crowd gave any sign of impatience. And yet, on the banners which they carried, the most extreme and violent demands were inscribed. From time to time a leader raised his baton, giving the note, and they began to sing: ‘We will pillage ! — we will kill ! — we will cut throats ! — to the gallows with the Tsar ! — the bourgeois are vampires !‘ etc. . . . The tenors cried out for the heads of the aristocrats, the sopranos for that of the Tsar, the basses wanted no one spared. Then, when the verse was over they rested for ten minutes and then, at a new signal, they started again. It wasn’t until that night that the procession could start marching, the bearers lifted the coffins on to their shoulders, and the crowd left in an orderly fashion, singing: ‘We will pillage ! — We will murder !‘ etc. . . .”
Fat Shubin mimed the scene all the while he described it, rolling his pale blue eyes, beating time, singing first in a tenor voice, then in a bass… and then marching across the drawing-room with superb calm.
He was most amusing. But his observation is very exact. In no other country could people confine themselves to words like this, without breaking into action. But how dangerous it all is ! Because, once let loose, these brutes are terrifying. In 1905 there were atrocious scenes and the moujiks, so mild in appearance, pillaged everywhere with sadistic cruelty. Someone told me about one ‘estate’, where the peasants cut three legs off all the sheep. In other places they tore out the cattles’ tongues and put out their eyes. Let us hope that we do not see horrors like these !

Wednesday 8th August 1917
Everyone is interested in the battalions of women soldiers who exercise in the courtyard of the Paul Palace on the Fontanka . . . people talk of the ‘heroism of the Russian women‘ and they get all excited about it… as for myself, I feel that it is rather unpleasant histrionics. As far as fighting goes these women can only be thinking of the rough-and-tumble !

Tuesday 14th August 1917
What strikes one about the present events is the lack of men … the Kadets, who stirred up so much trouble in the opposition under the old regime, have shown themselves to be lamentably incompetent when in power. It makes one wonder whether the Emperor wasn’t quite right in not calling on their help. If he had given them power, far from saving him they would have precipitated his downfall, because they have shown themselves to be doctrinaires, muddlers and blunderers. . . .
During the first days of the revolution one of these brilliant theoreticians came to see Shubin, completely panic-stricken. Shubin expressed astonishment at his being in such a state at the moment when the event which he had spent his whole life preparing for was actually taking place…. “Yes,” his visitor replied, “the revolution is all very well, but it is not happening the way I wrote about it in my book….” The whole history of the Kadet party is contained in that answer.

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Plus Royaliste Que Le Roi [ Remerciez Un Dieu ]

February 25th, 2008 at 11:30 am (Correctitude, Manners not Morals, Royalism)

The centralisation of the directing organs of royal government and their permanent establishment in what was swiftly becoming the greatest city in France strengthened the administration and gave it cohesion, so that its different sections were able to agree on joint policy and then move to common action, pool their resources, and undertake mutual aid, and draw all the important business of state into their hands. In these circumstances the ordinary routine of administration, centred on Paris, was bound to work towards the unification of France under the monarchy. But the king’s idea of political unity was not that of his officials. He wished to bind his realm together with feudal ties alone, and saw only good in the existence of the great fiefs, provided that their lords scrupulously performed their feudal services and honoured their feudal obligations. His officials wanted a single authority to rule in the land unchallenged, the authority which the king had delegated to them. Their devotion to the royal power was almost mystical in its intensity, and they regarded any limitation placed on it as an anomaly which it was their duty to extirpate. This attitude became much more pronounced when their ranks were swollen by new colleagues recruited from the dynasty’s newly acquired southern territories, where the Roman Law idea of the prince whose will alone is law reigned supreme.

They believed that the king should be absolute master in his kingdom, the sole fountainhead of legislation and justice, un­trammelled in his control of the crown’s financial and military resources. The means they used to these ends were far from characteristic of their royal masters. Although they were capable of dying heroically on the field of battle, like Pierre Flote at Courtrai, they were fundamentally bureaucratic, and seized on law as their indispensable weapon. They developed an insatiable curiosity to discover the origins of any rights which conflicted with those of the king and placed checks on his power. This curiosity had important consequences in a society the basis of which was the usurpation of regalian rights. The royal officials were hostile to every method of invoking force to settle a dispute in law, and sought to abolish private war and the judicial duel. Nor would they admit any right to be established until its origin had been explained and its history reconstructed for them. In the course of this kind of historical research, they plunged into endless discussions of the titles submitted to them, and frequently revealed that their good faith was only relative, subjecting documents put in evidence against them to pitiless scrutiny, but resting content with dubious proofs of the validity of the rights they claimed for the crown.

It is not surprising that the royal officials incurred unpopularity in their own day and have not escaped the censure of modern historians. Their challenge to the status quo led them to be taken for revolutionaries, though they imagined their goal to be the restoration of the conditions of a remote past. Their aversion to the use of force and preference for the processes of law won them the reputation of being unscrupulous and tortuous. But it is pointless for the historian to subject them to moral judgments. What matters is their achievement, and that was considerable.

Robert Fawtier : The Capetian Kings of France

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Faith’s Sure Defender

February 4th, 2008 at 3:00 am (Correctitude, Other, Royalism, Self)

He was handsome, but his good looks made you want to shiver… The swiftly receding forehead, together with a lower jaw overdeveloped at the expense of the cranium, expressed inflexible will-power and feebleness of thought, and more cruelty than sensitivity. But the eyes were the main thing. They were wintry eyes without warmth or pity.

Alexander Herzen : Beloye I dumy [ On Nicholas I ]

Herzen was an ineffable, if affable, idiot, and more a father of modern libertarianism than a revolutionary torch-bearer for socialist causes; but he was capable of a graceful tribute to his enemy… Who was in turn the enemy of redundant emotional excess.

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The Queen Of The Raging Host Passes : Present Arms

January 27th, 2008 at 3:30 am (High Germany, Norse, Other, Royalism, Self)

The dusk of evening has fallen over Berlin. A great yet silent crowd is rapidly moving through the chief street towards the royal palace, and every now and then a low whisper is heard, in which can be distinguished the words: “The King is very ill.” In the palace itself yet greater silence reigns. The King’s guardsmen stand motionless, the servants’ steps are inaudible on the carpets of the corridors and the rooms. Now the tower clock strikes mid­night; all at once a door opens, and through it glides a ghostly woman, tall of stature, queenly of bearing.

She is dressed in a trailing white garment, a white veil covers her head, below which her long flaxen hair hangs, twisted with strings of pearls; her face is deathly pale as that of a corpse. In her right hand she carries a bunch of keys, in her left a nosegay of Mayflowers. She walks solemnly down the long corridor. The tall guardsmen present arms, pages and lackeys give way before her, the guards who have just relieved their comrades open their ranks; the figure passes through them, and goes through a folding door into the royal ante-room.

“It is the White Lady ; the King is about to die,” whispers the officer of the watch, brushing a tear from his eye.

“The White Lady has appeared,” is whispered through the crowd, and all know what that portends.

At noon the King’s death was known to all. “Yes,” said Master Schneckenburger, “he has been gathered to his fathers. Mistress Berchta has once more announced what was going to happen, for she can foretell everything, both bad and good. She was seen before the misfortunes of 1806, and again before the battle of Belle-Alliance. She has a key with which to open the door of life and happiness. He to whom she gives a cowslip will succeed in what­ever he undertakes.”

Schneckenburger was right. It was Bertha, or Berchta, who made known the King’s approaching death, but she was also the prophetess of other important events. Berchta ( from percht, shining ) is almost identical with Holda, except that the latter never appears as the White Lady. Many Germanic tribes wor­shipped the Earth-goddess under the name of Berchta, and there are numbers of legends about her both in North and South Germany.

One evening in the year was dedicated to her, and was called Perchten-evening ( 30th December or 6th January ), when she was sup­posed, as a diligent spinner, to oversee the labours of the spinning-room, or, magic staff in hand, to ride at the head of the Raging Host, in the midst of a terrific storm. She generally lived in hollow mountains, where she, as in Thuringia, watched over and tended the “Heimchen,” or souls of babes as yet unborn, and of those who died an early death. She busied herself there by ploughing up the ground under the earth, whilst the babes watered the fields. Whenever men, careless of the good she did them, disturbed her in her mountain dwelling, she left the country with her train, and after her departure the fields lost all their former fruitfulness.

Once when Berchta and her babes were passing over a meadow across the middle of which ran a fence that divided it in two, the last little child could not climb over it; its water-jar was too heavy. A woman, who a short time before had lost her little baby, was close by, and recognised her dead darling, for whom she had wept night and day. She hastened to the child, clasped it in her arms, and would not let it go.

Then the little one said : “How warm and comfortable I feel in my mother’s arms ; but weep no more for me, mother, my jar is full and is growing too heavy for me. Look, mother, dost thou not see how all thy tears run into it, and how I’ve spilt some on my little shirt ? Mistress Berchta, who loves me and kisses me, has told me that thou shouldst also come to her in time, and then we shall be together again in the beautiful garden under the hill.”

Then the mother wept once more a flood of tears, and let the child go.

After that she never shed another tear, but found comfort in the thought that she would one day be with her child again.

2 Comments

Deny’d In Heaven The Soul He Held On Earth

January 5th, 2008 at 10:00 am (Animals, High Germany, Other, Royalism, Self, Stuarts, The Building Blocks of Democracy)

C. Van Carter has two good blogs, Across Difficult Country, and Craptocracy.

From the first is an old post Arrival: Vaduz, where he rightly says:

What truly sets Liechtenstein apart as a country is that it has not succumbed to the foolish democracy fad which has ruined all other modern nations. Liechtenstein is still ruled by a monarch, as it has been since the the Middle Ages (not coincidentally the last decent period in human history). The current head of state is Prince Hans-Adam II of Liechtenstein, a rather dashing fellow, and over dinner at Vaduz Castle he describes to me the wealth and happiness that flows to Liechtenstein’s people as a result of its monarchical system

I may add that Princess Sophie of Bavaria, Hereditary Princess of Liechtenstein — daughter-in-law to Hans-Adam II and wife of Prince Alois, the Regent of Liechtenstein — is, after her father Prince Max, heir to the Stuart regalities when the Stuart-Wittelsbach conjunction ceases.

*****

And from the second, a more recent post discusses some absurd fellow who seeks the equally absurd position of president to the USA: never heard of him, but a Mr. Hucklebee. This unsavoury little chap wishes to ban smoking throughout the American dominions — admittedly one may say ‘fat chance‘ sceptically, but Yanks do adore ploughing their economy into pointless wars, and an extension of the War on Terror into a Second Front against domestic smoking will certainly appeal to the moral retard majority… — and there’s a nasty story regarding his son — who recently was fined for having a loaded gun whilst travelling through an airport [ don't try this whilst devoutly reading the Qur'an and mumbling ] — hanging a dog at Scout Camp. Something he later claimed was done since the animal was sick and suffering: must account for the rows of gallows adjacent to every retirement home… His benighted father is alleged to have attempted to interfere with the administration of justice. His Chief of Staff admitted asking the Director of State Police who was afterwards fired by Governor Hucklebee: “Is it normal for the state police to … investigate something that happened at a Boy Scout camp ?”

Kinda… police in most jurisdictions, even perhaps Pakistan, are going to get active over any allegations of torture unconnected to their own activities. It’s what makes us civilised.

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Ah, Take One Consideration With Another

January 1st, 2008 at 7:00 am (Melancholy, Royalism, Self, The Building Blocks of Democracy, War)

Parts 1 – 4 of Erik Jorgensen’s award-winning video of anti-war protests in Northern California in 2003′.

Quite apart from the fact that protests rarely succeed in altering anything, any more than voting does, or contacting one’s — and I may add that I take it as a deep and perpetual insult to suppose that anyone can ‘represent’ me — representatives does; ultimately protesters and fascistic guardians are locked in a dance, and in the longer run keep exchanging roles. As Göring once affably pointed out to some ( agreeing ) communist prisoners: it could have easily been him in jail and them as the jailers. In this case I prefer the protesters philosophically, and despise the rigid guardians > yet in another I would as easily crush the iron heel down on protesters I personally despised… And in this case, neither side are efficient — beyond the habitual national characteristic of inefficiency — mainly because each claims to be speaking on behalf of ‘The People’: an entity, who like the Almighty, to which any assorted randomly chosen beliefs and feelings may be attributed. Oddly enough, the protesters prefer not to point out that thus they are speaking on behalf of redneck gun-toting anti-commies who gibber for Bush; whilst the state spokespeople equally refrain from acknowledging part of their constituency are shiftless liberal slackers who would elect for all war-mongers to be hung from apple-trees. Which is one of the prime jokes of conceptual democracy.

But anyway, this is funny and exquisitely chosen: for a state with such a worldwide reputation for wackiness ranging from hippydom to the extreme marcusian egalitarianism enshrined in PC to various cults, Californian policing appears to be modelled on the vague inchoate fascisimo of a Latin American country run by a demented authoritarian general who has been delaying death from extreme old age for thirty years during the mid twentieth century.

 
As a bon-bouché for a reprise…

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The Tongue No Man Can Tame

December 28th, 2007 at 5:00 am (Correctitude, Other, Royalism, Stuarts)

From the religious opinions of a people, the transi­tion is natural to their political partialities. One great political change has passed over Scotland, which none now living can hardly be said to have actually witnessed; but they remember those who were contemporaries of the anxious scenes of ‘45, and many of us have known determined and thorough Jacobites. The poetry of that political period still remains, but we hear only as pleasant songs those words and melodies which stirred the hearts and excited the deep enthusiasm of a past generation. Jacobite anecdotes also are fading from our knowledge. To many young persons they are unknown. Of these stories illustrative of Jacobite feelings and enthusiasm, many are of a character not fit for me to record. The good old ladies who were violent partisans of the Stuarts had little hesitation in referring without reserve to the future and eternal destiny of William of Orange. One anecdote which I had from a near relative of the family may be adduced in illustration of the powerful hold which the cause had upon the views and consciences of Jacobites.

A former Mr. Stirling of Keir had favoured the Stuart cause, and had in fact attended a muster of forces at the Brig of Turk previous to the ‘15. This symptom of a rising against the Government occasioned some uneasi­ness, and the authorities were very active in their endea­vours to discover who were the leaders of the movement Keir was suspected. The miller of Keir was brought forward as a witness, and swore positively that the laird was not present. Now, as it was well known that he was there, and that the miller knew it, a neighbour asked him pri­vately, when he came out of the witness-box, how he could on oath assert such a falsehood. The miller replied, quite undaunted, and with a feeling of confidence in the right­eousness of his cause approaching the sublime — “I would rather trust my soul in God’s mercy than trust Keir’s head into their hands.”

A correspondent has sent me an account of a curious ebullition of Jacobite feeling and enthusiasm, now I suppose quite extinct. My correspondent received it himself from Alexander, fourth Duke of Gordon, and he had entered it in a common-place book when he heard it, in 1826.

“David Tulloch, tenant in Drumbenan, under the second and third Dukes of Gordon, had been “out” in the ‘45 — or the fufteen, or both — and was a great favourite of his respective landlords. One day David having at­tended the young Lady Susan Gordon (afterwards Duchess of Manchester) to the “Chapel” at Huntly, David, per­ceiving that her ladyship had neither hassock nor carpet to protect her garments from the earthen floor, respectfully spread his plaid for the young lady to kneel upon, and the service proceeded; but when the prayer for the King and Royal Family was commenced, David, sans ceremonie, drew, or rather “twitched,” the plaid from under the knees of the astonished young lady, exclaiming not sotto voce, “The deil a ane shall pray for them on my plaid !” ”

I have a still more pungent demonstration against praying for the king, which a friend in Aberdeen assures me he received from the son of the gentleman who heard the protest. In the Episcopal Chapel in Aberdeen, of which Primus John Skinner was incumbent, they com­menced praying in the service for George III. immediately on the death of Prince Charles Edward. On the first Sunday of the prayer being used, this gentleman’s father, walking home with a friend whom he knew to be an old and deter­mined Jacobite, said to him, “What do you think of that, Mr. — ?” The reply was, “Indeed, the less we say about that prayer the better.” But he was pushed for “further answer as to his own views and his own ideas on the matter,” so he came out with the declaration, “Weel, then, I say this — they may pray the kenees aff their breeks afore I join in that prayer.”

The following is a characteristic Jacobite story. It must have happened shortly after 1745, when all manner of devices were fallen upon to display Jacobitism, without committing the safety of the Jacobite, such as having white knots on gowns ; drinking, “The king, ye ken wha I mean.”, uttering the toast “the king” with much apparent loyalty, and passing the glass on the one side of the water-jug from them, indicating the esoteric meaning of majesty beyond the sea, — etc. etc.; and various toasts, which were most important matters in those times, and were often given as tests of loyalty, or the reverse, according to the company in which they were given. Miss Carnegy of Craigo, well known and still remembered amongst the old Montrose ladies as an uncompromising Jacobite, had been vowing that she would drink King James and his son in a company of staunch Brunswickers, and being strongly dissuaded from any such foolish and dangerous attempt by some of her friends present, she answered them with a text of Scripture, “The tongue no man can tame — James Third and Aucht,” and drank off her glass !

E. B. Ramsey, Dean of Edinburgh : Reminiscences of Scottish Life And Character

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Lion Of The North

December 18th, 2007 at 9:30 pm (Correctitude, Generalia, Melancholy, Royalism, Self, The Enemy)

“Now then, me Bullies: would you rather do the Gallows’ Dance — and hang in chains ’till the crows pick your eyes from your rotting skulls — or would you feel the roll of a stout ship beneath yer feet again ?”
Captain Kidd film

The last ship of Captain Kidd has been found and coincidentally I watched the above film with Charles Laughton: the acting, with of course the exceptions of both him and Mr. Carradine, was rather stilted, but the actress was very pretty.

As for Kidd, it scarcely matters whether he swung unjustly or not. He should have been deaded for serving William of Orange anyway; as should anyone who served that usurper and all his successors; and indeed, so should William himself, ‘The Unhung Thief‘, as Cabell dubbed him.

Life as a legitimist monarchist has the added bonus of making a very large percentage of human existence very cheap indeed; so saving one from getting worked up over mass inevitable mortality — no matter how randomly purposed.

 
Sweden, despite still having a remarkably tough military, has never been the same since the affair of the Masked Ball… that hideous snivelling progressiveness so redolent of all the Scandinavian countries has never been so well epitomised as in the castrating of the Royal Lion. Apparently ‘female soldiers‘ from a rapid reaction force made a sudden swift surgical whine regarding the fact that an animal has genitalia and the Army, instead of telling them to take a long walk off a short pier, caved in with an abasing alacrity that would have delighted the soviets had they invaded. The original designer from the Nation Archives is naturally deeply pissed.

‘Female Soldiers‘ are in any case a modern joke of course, and were not present in the Armies of Gustavus Adolphus, Queen Christina or Charles XII when those not wholly admirable monarchs’ armies were the Swedish Terror of — Northern — Europe: so, really, if any military has declined in spirit enough to have such beings, then one must just expect attendant lunacies to come along with them.

 
 
It’s a relief to turn to a purer aspect of Scandinavia. I’ve never owned, nor wanted, a bicycle, but this blog on Copenhagen bicycling is rather fascinating.

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Since Then None Of These Can Be

November 19th, 2007 at 4:16 am (Charles I, Other, Poetry, Royalism, Stuarts)

LONG in thy Shackels, liberty,
I ask not from these walls, but thee ;
Left for a while anothers Bride,
To fancy all the world beside.

Yet e’re I do begin to love,
See ! How I all my objects prove ;
Then my free Soule to that confine,
‘Twere possible I might call mine.

First I would be in love with Peace,
And her rich swelling breasts increase ;
But how alas ! how may that be,
Despising Earth, she will love me ?

Faine would I be in love with War,
As my deare Just avenging star ;
But War is loved so ev’ry where,
Ev’n He disdaines a Lodging here.

Thee and thy wounds I would bemoane
Faire thorough-shot Religion ;
But he lives only that kills thee,
And who so bindes thy hands, is free.

I would love a Parliament
As a maine Prop from Heav’n sent ;
But ah ! Who’s he that would be wedded
To th’ fairest body that’s beheaded ?

Next would I court my Liberty,
And then my Birth-right, Property ;
But can that be, when it is knowne
There’s nothing you can call your owne ?

A Reformation I would have,
As for our griefes a Sov’raigne salve ;
That is, a cleansing of each wheele
Of State, that yet some rust doth feele :

But not a Reformation so,
As to reforme were to ore’throw ;
Like Watches by unskilfull men
Disjoynted, and set ill againe.

The Publick Faith I would adore,
But she is banke-rupt of her store ;
Nor how to trust her can I see,
For she that couzens all, must me.

Since then none of these can be
Fit objects for my Love and me ;
What then remaines, but th’ only spring
Of all our loves and joyes ? The KING.

He who being the whole Ball
Of Day on Earth, lends it to all ;
When seeking to ecclipse his right,
Blinded, we stand in our owne light.

And now an universall mist
Of Error is spread or’e each breast,
With such a fury edg’d, as is
Not found in th’ inwards of th’ Abysse.

Oh from thy glorious Starry Waine
Dispense on me one sacred Beame
To light me where I soone may see
How to serve you, and you trust me.

Richard Lovelace : To Lucasta, from Prison — An Epode.

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Towards The Wintry Sea

November 13th, 2007 at 3:06 am (Correctitude, Other, Poetry, Royalism, Stuarts, The King of Terrors, War)

Come hither, Evan Cameron !
Come, stand beside my knee —
I hear the river roaring down
Towards the wintry sea.
There’s shouting on the mountain side,
There’s war within the blast —
Old faces look upon me,
Old forms go trooping past.
I hear the pibroch wailing
Amidst the din of fight,
And my dim spirit wakes again
Upon the verge of night !

‘Twas I that led the Highland host
Through wild Lochaber’s snows,
What time the plaided clans came down
To battle with Montrose.
I’ve told thee how the Southrons fell
Beneath the broad claymore,
And how we smote the Campbell clan
By Inverlochy’s shore.
I’ve told thee how we swept Dundee,
And tamed the Lindsay’s pride;
But never have I told thee yet
How the Great Marquis died !

A traitor sold him to his foes;
O deed of deathless shame !
I charge thee, boy, if e’er thou meet
With one of Assynt’s name —
Be it upon the mountain’s side,
Or yet within the glen,
Stand he in martial gear alone,
Or backed by armed men —
Face him, as thou wouldst face the man
Who wronged thy sire’s renown;
Remember of what blood thou art,
And strike the caitiff down !

They brought him to the Watergate,
Hard bound with hempen span,
As though they held a lion there,
And not a ‘fenceless man.
They set him high upon a cart —
The hangman rode below —
They drew his hands behind his back,
And bared his noble brow.
Then, as a hound is slipped from leash,
They cheered the common throng,
And blew the note with yell and shout,
And bade him pass along.

It would have made a brave man’s heart
Grow sad and sick that day,
To watch the keen malignant eyes
Bent down on that array.
There stood the Whig west-country lords
In balcony and bow,
There sat their gaunt and withered dames,
And their daughters all a-row;
And every open window
Was full as full might be,
With black-robed Covenanting carles,
That goodly sport to see !

But when he came, though pale and wan,
He looked so great and high,
So noble was his manly front,
So calm his steadfast eye; —
The rabble rout forebore to shout,
And each man held his breath,
For well they knew the hero’s soul
Was face to face with death.
And then a mournful shudder
Through all the people crept,
And some that came to scoff at him,
Now turn’d aside and wept.

But onwards — always onwards,
In silence and in gloom,
The dreary pageant labor’d,
Till it reach’d the house of doom.
Then first a woman’s voice was heard
In jeer and laughter loud,
And an angry cry and a hiss arose
From the heart of the tossing crowd:
Then as the Græme look’d upwards,
He saw the ugly smile
Of him who sold his king for gold,
The master-fiend Argyle !

The Marquis gaz’d a moment,
And nothing did he say,
But the cheek of Argyle grew ghastly pale
And he turn’d his eyes away.
The painted harlot by his side,
She shook through every limb,
For a roar like thunder swept the street,
And hands were clench’d at him;
And a Saxon soldier cried aloud,
“Back, coward, from thy place !
For seven long years thou hast not dar’d
To look him in the face.”

Had I been there with sword in hand,
And fifty Camerons by,
That day through high Dunedin’s streets,
Had pealed the slogan cry.
Not all their troops of trampling horse,
Nor might of mailed men —
Not all the rebels of the south
Had borne us backwards then !
Once more his foot on Highland heath
Had trod as free as air,
Or I, and all who bore my name,
Been laid around him there !

It might not be. They placed him next
Within the solemn hall,
Where once the Scottish Kings were throned
Amidst their nobles all.
But there was dust of vulgar feet
On that polluted floor,
And perjured traitors filled the place
Where good men sate before.
With savage glee came Warristoun
To read the murderous doom,
And then uprose the great Montrose
In the middle of the room.

“Now by my faith as belted knight,
And by the name I bear,
And by the bright Saint Andrew’s cross
That waves above us there —
Yea, by a greater, mightier oath —
And oh, that such should be ! —
By that dark stream of royal blood
That lies ‘twixt you and me —
I have not sought in battle-field
A wreath of such renown,
Nor dared I hope, on my dying day,
To win the martyr’s crown !”

“There is a chamber far away
Where sleep the good and brave,
But a better place ye have named for me
Than by my father’s grave.
For truth and right, ‘gainst treason’s might,
This hand hath always striven,
And ye raise it up for a witness still
In the eye of earth and heaven.
Then nail my head on yonder tower —
Give every town a limb —
And God who made shall gather them:
I go from you to Him !”

The morning dawn’d full darkly,
The rain came flashing down,
And the jagged streak of the levin-bolt
Lit up the gloomy town:
The thunder crash’d across the heaven,
The fatal hour was come;
Yet aye broke in with muffled beat
The ’larum of the drum.
There was madness on the earth below
And anger in the sky,
And young and old, and rich and poor,
Came forth to see him die.

Ah, God ! that ghastly gibbet !
How dismal ’tis to see
The great tall spectral skeleton,
The ladder and the tree !
Hark ! hark ! it is the clash of arms —
The bells begin to toll —
“He is coming! he is coming!
God’s mercy on his soul !”
One last long peal of thunder:
The clouds are clear’d away,
And the glorious sun once more looks down
Amidst the dazzling day.

“He is coming ! he is coming !”
Like a bridegroom from his room,
Came the hero from his prison
To the scaffold and the doom.
There was glory on his forehead,
There was lustre in his eye,
And he never walk’d to battle
More proudly than to die:
There was color in his visage,
Though the cheeks of all were wan,
And they marvell’d as they saw him pass,
That great and goodly man !

He mounted up the scaffold,
And he turn’d him to the crowd;
But they dar’d not trust the people,
So he might not speak aloud.
But he look’d upon the heavens,
And they were clear and blue,
And in the liquid ether
The eye of God shone through;
Yet a black and murky battlement
Lay resting on the hill,
As though the thunder slept within —
All else was calm and still.

The grim Geneva ministers
With anxious scowl drew near,
As you have seen the ravens flock
Around the dying deer.
He would not deign them word nor sign,
But alone he bent the knee;
And veiled his face for Christ’s dear grace
Beneath the gallows-tree.
Then radiant and serene he rose,
And cast his cloak away:
For he had ta’en his latest look
Of earth, and sun, and day.

A beam of light fell o’er him,
Like a glory round the shriven,
And he climbed the lofty ladder
As it were the path to heaven.
Then came a flash from out the cloud,
And a stunning thunder roll,
And no man dared to look aloft,
For fear was on every soul.
There was another heavy sound,
A hush and then a groan;
And darkness swept across the sky —
The work of death was done !

William Edmondstoune Aytoun : The Execution of Montrose

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But Of All The Lights

October 25th, 2007 at 2:00 am (Charles I, Other, Poetry, Royalism)

The man o’ the moon for ever!
The man o’ the moon for ever!
We’ll drink to him still
In a merry cup of ale
Here’s the man o’ the moon for ever!

The man o’ the moon, here’s to him !
How few there be that know him !
But we’ll drink to him still
In a merry cup of ale
The man o’ the moon, here’s to him !

Brave man o’ the moon, we hail thee,
The true heart ne’er shall fail thee;
For the day that’s gone
And the day that’s our own
Brave man o’ the moon, we hail thee.

We have seen the bear bestride thee,
And the clouds of winter hide thee,
But the moon is changed
And here we are ranged
Brave man o’ the moon, we bide thee.

The man o’ the moon for ever !
The man o’ the moon for ever !
We’ll drink to him still
In a merry cup of ale
Here’s the man o’ the moon for ever !

We have grieved the land should shun thee,
And have never ceased to mourn thee,
But for all our grief
There was no relief
Now, man o’ the moon, return thee.

There’s Orion with his golden belt,
And Mars, that burning mover,
But of all the lights
That rule the nights
The man o’ the moon for ever !

Cavalier Song c1647

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Words To Live By

October 9th, 2007 at 12:01 am (Correctitude, High Germany, Other, Royalism)

“The King of Prussia and the German Emperor must always be in a position to say to any lieutenant: ‘Take ten men and shoot the Reichstag !’”

Herr von Oldenburg auf Januschau

[ To an applauding Reichstag. ]

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Jena Is Ever Within Our Hearts

October 4th, 2007 at 6:50 am (Correctitude, High Germany, Places, Royalism, Self, Spengler, Videos, War)

Although uninterested in automobiles, I’m terribly fond of my little Pajero, ‘Baby’, as I call her without the faintest trace of mawkishness. Certainly she may lack a dainty grace, but she could go through a large crowd of people in 10 seconds. She looks like this ( except goldish champagne ):

Yesterday I went to the dentist in Ipswich keeping a wary eye out for cop-cars; keeping to the correct mileage to the sulphurous annoyance of the drivers behind; and inter alia running a red light unnoticed. After picking up some more boxes from the garage, glancing without pleasure at the rest to be moved — since we’ve not really had a summer the cold and wet inculcates mould —- I left Baby in a multi-story since cars there attract less attention than on the road. Unfortunately there were a couple of hours to kill, and this not merely reinforced my distaste for a place where I had been far too often, but emphasised how further along the road to booklessness towns are on. Two books only could I buy: of thousands of books most were modern trash, and the rest either uninteresting or read. On my own road to perdition, it shewed that I have, on most subjects, read as much as I shall ever want to. And of the few types of books I still do want to read, these are unobtainable in shops… Which is one form of defeat.

Still, and this is more a subject for a separate paper, Defeat is illusory — as much as is Victory — vital, and necessitous. It is not only part of the human condition, but the major part; and is far more enriching than the equally temporary feat of victory. Apart from the fact that without defeat we could no longer fight —- I have never heard of any commander who, lying, didn’t proclaim the ultimate aim was universal peace; peace on their terms no doubt, but boring deadly peace nonetheless — it may not be the lostness of lost causes that is the potent attraction, but that those causes being more correct than others were bound to lose, and gain a shining aura in the process. The Prussians were powerfully beaten at Jena, but their fighting there should be as cherished as that in any of their victories. And… in Valhalla both victors and defeated are created anew to battle the next day…

On the other hand, for a future post on Himmelstürmers, I came across this related page on the new GMC Yukons with pop-up Gatlings, and I can honestly say that if I ever wanted another SUV than my sweet Baby, it would be one of these. The Prussians could have used one at Jena; and it would be useful if I ever visited Jena, Louisiana.

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American Idiot: The Funeral Version

September 30th, 2007 at 4:23 am (Correctitude, Royalism, Self, Spengler, The Enemy)

America is a mistake, a giant mistake. Sigmund Freud

But… there’s no point to America anyway. It has no hereditary King or Emperor to provide a meaning or centre or source of law, merely a flag and whatever significance the individual places upon that object, whether entire people; particular section of the people with whom the individual identifies; continent; laws; congress; temporary chief officer, or any number of interpretations that do not coalesce into anything real. Notably because they are mere abstractions: notions with which each individual invests with his own misty preconceptions and unformed wishes. Therefore, America is not so much a mistake, as a conglomeration of millions of individual mistakes. So it has to be with all republics, including Rome and all the pseudo- [ non absolutist hereditary ] monarchies of today… Homer Simpson’s agonized question in the film from which the above title is purloined, though uniquely American in it’s self-misunderstanding, “Why does everything I whip leave me ?” is why Americans cannot combine moral courage and realism, even if — exceptionally rarely, as in the case of the current president — they possess the former quality. It is not enough to maintain a whip, whether right or wrong to wield it, there has to be a purpose in doing so: comfort, rightly derided by the Prussian exponents of Kultur against the concept of mere civilisation, is — like patriotism — not enough. The dearth of courage is not merely a consequence of the decline of the culture — this is shared in Europe and all westernised nations — nor solely from the idiots’ political system, but also stems from the very bases of the American Idea.

 
“A decline in courage may be the most striking feature which and outside observer notices in the West today. The Western world has lost it’s civic courage, both as a whole and separately, in each country, in each government, in each political party and, of course, in the United Nations. Such a decline in courage is particularly noticeable among the ruling and intellectual elites, causing an impression of a loss of courage by the entire society. There remain many courageous individuals, but they have no determining influence on public life. Political and intellectual functionaries exhibit this depression, passivity and perplexity in their actions and in their statements, and even more so in their self-serving rationales a to how realistic, reasonable and intellectually and even morally justified it is to base state policies on weariness and cowardice… Must one point out that from ancient times a decline in courage has been considered the beginning of the end ?…”

Alexandr Solzhenitsyn
Cambridge, Massachusetts, June 8, 1978

He added:
“The human soul longs for things higher, warmer, and purer than those offered by today’s mass living habits, exemplified by the revolting invasion of publicity, by TV stupor, and by intolerable music.”

They still don’t like Alexandr…Rigour and unsentimentality repel the satisfied, complacent and weak; yet as Hermann Hesse pronounced: “People with courage and character always seem sinister to the rest.”, so it will never bother the great witness of our times.

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In The Kingdom Of God

September 16th, 2007 at 11:00 pm (Charles I, Correctitude, Other, Royalism, Stuarts)

Hobbes, in the first place, is not here arguing for one form of government more than for another. He prefers monarchy; but his special point is that in every form, monarchic, aristocratic, or democratic, there must be a “sovereign” — an ultimate, supreme and single authority. Men, he says, admit the claim of a popular State to “absolute dominion,” but object to the claim of a king, though he has the same power and is not more likely, for reasons given, to abuse it. The doctrine which he really opposes is that of a “mixed government.” As “some doctors” hold that there are three souls in one man, others hold that there can be more souls than one in a commonwealth. That is virtually implied when they say that “the power of levying money, which is the nutritive faculty,” depends on a “general assembly”; the “power of conduct and command, which is the motive faculty, on one man; and the power of making laws, which is the rational faculty, on the accidental consent, not only of those two last, but of a third”: this is called “mixed monarchy.” “In truth it is not one independent commonwealth, but three independent factions; nor one representative person but three. In the Kingdom of God there may be three persons independent without breach of unity in God that reigneth; but where men reign that be subject to diversity of opinions, it cannot be so. And therefore if the king bear the person of the people, the general assembly bear the person of the people, and another assembly bear the person of a part of the people, they are not one person, nor one sovereign, but three persons and three sovereigns.” That is to say, the political, like the animal organism, is essentially a unit. So far as there is not somewhere a supreme authority, there is anarchy or a possibility of anarchy. The application to Hobbes’s own times is obvious. The king, for example, has a right to raise ship-money in case of necessity. But who has a right to decide the question of necessity ? If the king, he could raise taxes at pleasure. If the parliament, the king becomes only their pensioner. At the bottom it was a question of sovereignty, and Hobbes, holding the king to be sovereign, holds that Hampden showed “an ignorant impatience of taxation.” “Mark the oppression ! A parliament man of £500 a year, land-taxed 20s.” Hampden was refusing to contribute to his own defence. “All men are by nature provided of notable multiplying glasses, through which every little payment appeareth a great grievance.” Parliament remonstrated against arbitrary imprisonment, the Star Chamber, and so forth; but it was their own fault that the king had so to act. Their refusal to give money “put him ( the king ) upon those extraordinary ways, which they call illegal, of raising money at home.” The experience of the Civil War, he says in the Leviathan, has so plainly shown the mischief of dividing the rights of the sovereign that few men in England fail to see that they should be inseparable and should be so acknowledged “at the next return of peace.”

Men did in fact come to acknowledge it though not for some generations, and then by virtually transferring sovereignty from the king to the parliament. A confused state of mind in the interval was implied in the doctrine which long prevailed, of the importance of a division between the legislative, executive, and judicial powers, and in the doctrine that the British constitution represented a judicious mixture of the three elements, aristocracy, monarchy, and democracy, whose conflicts were regulated by an admirable system of checks and balances. Whatever truth may have been expressed in such theories, they were erroneous so far as inconsistent with Hobbes’s doctrine. A division of the governmental functions is of course necessary, and different classes should be allowed to exercise an influence upon the State. But the division of functions must be consistent with the recognition of a single authority which can regulate and correlate their powers; and a contest between classes, which do not in some way recognise a sovereign arbitrator, leads to civil war or revolution. Who is the sovereign, for example, was the essential question which in the revolt of the American colonies, and in the secession of the Southern States had to be answered by bullets. So long as that question is open, there is a condition of unstable equilibrium or latent anarchy. The State, as Hobbes puts it, should have only one soul, or as we may say, the political organism should have the unity corresponding to a vital principle.

The unity of the Leviathan seemed to imply arbitrary power. Since the king had the power of the sword, said Hobbes, he must also have the power of the purse. The logic might be good, but might be applied the other way. The true Englishman was determined not to pay the money till he knew how it was to be spent; and complained of a loss of liberty if it was taken by force. Hobbes’s reply to this is very forcible and clears his position. He agreed with Johnson that the cry for liberty was cant. What he asks, in his De Cive, is meant by liberty ? If an exemption from the laws, it can exist in no government whatever. If it consist in having few laws, and only those such as are necessary to peace, there is no more liberty in a democracy than in a monarchy. What men really demand is not liberty but “dominion.” People are deceived because in a democracy they have a greater share in public offices or in choosing the officers. It does not follow that they have more liberty in the sense of less law. Hobbes was putting his finger upon an ambiguity which has continued to flourish. Liberty may either mean that a man is not bound by law or that he is only bound by laws which he has made ( or shared in making ) himself. We are quite aware at the present day that a democracy may use the liberty, which in one sense it possesses, by making laws which are inconsistent with liberty in the other sense.

Leslie Stephen : English Men of Letters — Hobbes

Sir Leslie Stephen was, of course, the author of Virginia Woolf, but we mustn’t hold that against him.

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Propaganda 101 — A Small Black Pig

September 8th, 2007 at 12:20 pm (Animals, Other, Royalism, The Enemy)

The Terrible Verdict

Roger of Wendover was a monk of St Albans who wrote a great chronicle that began with the creation of the world. Some ten years after John’s death he set down an account of the reign. What is immediately striking about this is that he seems to know more about John’s reign than men who were writing shortly after the events they described. He knows what John said to his nephew Arthur before he made away with him. He can give illustrations of the way the king terrorized the clergy: crushing an archdeacon under a cope of lead, threatening to slit the noses of papal servants and to pluck out their eyes. There is a story of a Jew of Bristol who had a tooth knocked out daily until he revealed where he had hidden his treasure. He gives John’s blasphemous oath ( ‘By God’s teeth’ ), and tells how he made free with the wives and daughters of his barons. He explains that John lost Normandy to the king of France because at the critical stage of the campaign he was uxorious and idle: ‘Let be, let be, whatever he now takes I shall one day recover.’ Historians have often used these stories freely: here at last is the meat after a diet of thin gruel. Now we can know what John was really like, for here are anecdotes that clearly characterise him.

What the historians who use these anecdotes about John seldom make clear, however, is that Wendover’s chronicle is full of anecdotes of a highly dubious nature. There is one about a washerwoman who tried to earn an extra penny by plying her trade on the Sabbath, and was sucked dry by a small black pig as punishment. There is one ( it is eighteen pages long ) about a peasant named Thurkhill from the village of Twinstead in Essex who, in 1206, was led through the realms of Purgatory by St Julian. As Wendover tells it the story has many realistic touches, from the man’s name and the place where he lived to precise details about the torture chambers of the underworld: in one, for example, stand cauldrons of inky water so bitter that if a piece of wood is thrown in the bark instantly peels off it. It is a grim and lively story; but is it true ? Wendover certainly seems to think it as authentic as his stories about John; and it is difficult to see on what grounds historians should reject the former while accepting the latter.

W. L.. Warren : King John

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Not Without My Parrot

August 20th, 2007 at 12:57 am (High Germany, Other, Royalism, War)

From Christopher Duffy’s magisterial Frederick The Great – A Military Life

Scenes of Rossbach:

Frederick left Gotha on 16 September, and the next day the allied commanders Soubise and Hildburghausen arrived there on a recon­naissance in force with nine or ten thousand men. Seydlitz arranged his 1,500 troopers outside in a thin but impressive-looking line, and sent a ‘deserter’ and some peasants into the town to announce that Frederick was on his way with the main army. The allies evacuated Gotha in some alarm. Eighty soldiers were captured by the Prussian hussars, together with a huge booty of clerks, lackeys, cooks, ladies, perfumes, dressing gowns and parrots.

Frederick’s outward cheerfulness, and the army’s enjoyment of the comedy at Gotha, gave no hint of the disintegration in Prussia’s wider strategic affairs.

***

[November]
Once aroused, Frederick acted with all possible vigour to head off the advance of the allies and attack them on the march. He im­mediately seized on the potential of the long, low ridge of the Janus Hill for screening a clockwise movement of the army out to the north-east, and on by a broad sweep south and west to embrace the allied columns. The cavalry had the furthest to go, and Frederick gave the newly promoted Major-General Seydlitz full authority over the disposable thirty-eight squadrons. Seydlitz duly rode up to the caval­ry generals and announced: ‘Gentlemen, I obey the king, and you will obey me !‘

***

Seydlitz now committed the eighteen squadrons of the second line in a double flanking attack which embraced not only the Austrian and German cavalry but the twenty-four squadrons of French which now arrived the scene. The Low German cry of ‘Gah to !” burst from the Brandenburgers and Pomeranians of the cuirassiers, giving one of the French officers occasion to wonder what kind of men were these who went into battle crying ‘Cake !”

***

Few details have been transmitted of the ensuing infantry battle, which lasted a matter of minutes and involved only seven of the Prussian battalions. The leading French infantry regiments of Piemont and Mailly braved the fire of the artillery and approached to within forty paces of the Prussian line before being shredded by the salvoes of Kleist and Alt-Braunschweig . It was then or shortly afterwards that Frederick strayed in front of the muskets, and the Magdeburgers of Alt-Braunschweig called out: ‘Father, please get out of the way, we want to shoot !‘

***
The battle ended in scrappy fighting west of Pettstadt, when the light detachments of Saint-Germain and Loudon came south to cover the retreat. A French soldier approached the plainly dressed Frederick and declared: “Corporal, I want permission to go back to Auvergne. That’s where I come from” . . . ‘While we were chatting he espied one of our NCOs gathering all the prisoners and arranging them in three ranks. “Hey, corporal, look at that bugger over there. He wants to line us up like Prussians, and we’ve only been here a couple of minutes !” ‘

By 5 p.m. the field was shrouded in darkness. Frederick had intended to lodge for the night in the castle of Burgwerben, but he found all the rooms full of wounded French officers. Rather than disturb these gentlemen, he established himself in a servant’s room in a nearby house.

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Book-Sorting II : A Small Suitcase

July 23rd, 2007 at 3:41 am (Charles I, High Germany, Literature, Royalism, Self)

It continues, as cheerful a task as picking samphire, hanging with one hand to the cliff-edge. The boxes are too large, yet the only bulk purchase available and strong enough, so they’ll do for storage at least; the trouble being that for the top 3″ one has to add light goods, of which the stock is diminishing.

A brighter note ensued after a visit to the damp garage I maintain far away, filled with boxes that are to be transferred here. Among those I retrieved was a wooden-framed leatherette suitcase, just 12″ x 18″ x 6″. Inside were some things I hadn’t seen for at least four years.

Item: Sismondi’s History of the Italian Republics, interpreted and recast by Willam Boulting around 1900. I adore this book: admittedly they are just a bunch of republics, and de Sismondi was a 19th century liberal; but… he’s not biased against the Ghibellines, either the Imperial earlier type or the later party type. There’s just so much there…

Item: Two casts of seals, riders on horse: one, Richard III ( ? ); one Charles II. Typical Victorian plaster-of-paris stuff.

Item: Two stiffed wrist-watches.

Item: Two German Reichbanknotes 1912, 1000 marks each; one 10 mark note of the state of Altona, Oct 1918; three 50 pfennig notes of 1921, two of Mühlhausen, one of Württemberg.

Item: A reproduction set of Mlle. Lenormand’s Fortune Telling Playing Cards. Unused. As they shall remain to be.

Item: Perhaps the oldest book I have, a tiny broken 1643 copy of John Sleidan’s 1556 ‘Of The Foure Chiefe Monarchies – or – The Key Of History‘ ( De quator summis Imperiis libri tres ). A previous owner was Richard Hurt who repeats his signature seven times and the date, 31st May 1661, twice all on one page. One wonders what side he took in the Civil Wars… ( Sleidan died of melancholy. )

Item: assorted paperback histories, modern.

Item: Two small, very old teaspoons; one bronze and perhaps formed with a mallet.

Item: A nibble stick for a hamster. I have never owned a hamster.

Item: Edwardian postcards of Gabrielle Ray.

Item: Edwardian postcards of cats.

Item: sub-MacGill seaside postcards, rather vulgar.

Item: A silver coin of Charles I.

Item: Ripped-off pb covers of girls.

Item: a modern faded reproduction of Durer’s squirrels.

Item: A Roman military buckle.

Item: A corkscrew. I don’t drink wine.

Item: Assorted magazines

Item: A packet of Wild Forest Blackberry herb teabags. It is totally unlikely I would try any herb tea; and certainly not one whose sell-by date states 1995, so I can only guess I kept in for the box.

Item: An insane pamphlet about the pseudo-royal family, the RCs, the Germans, British Intelligence, The Templars. etc. etc.
Maybe it’s unfair to call it insane, since as the author ( N. H. Merton, 1994 ) is democratic, republican, nationalist, and cromwellian, it is as sane as any other production of the minds of people who adhere to any of these creeds. — It warns that Charles of Windsor understands himself to be the reincarnation of Adolf Hitler, and that he has plans for his oldest son’s birthday

‘The Prince and his supporters now want William ritually slaughtered when he reaches the age of eighteen on the first summer solstice of the millennium.’

Maybe it rained.

 
There’s more in the box, but that’s enough to rifle through.

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Gil-Martin Tripping The Antinomialist Light Fantastic In The Parish Of Colmonel

July 18th, 2007 at 8:11 pm (Correctitude, Generalia, Royalism, Self, Spengler, The Enemy)

‘It is impossible to evaluate the moral compass of George W. Bush without reference to James Hogg’s The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner’

Not only because of the theology involved, nor yet additionally because it is one of the most influential and greatest of Scots novels, explaining much about Knox’s corrupting legacy that sours that troubled land.

But because i wanted to say that.

The innate manic manichaism of the pressie’s inmost self does at least add an extra edge to the stern boredom of contemporary international politics: the particular wars may be strictly dumb, yet without war we are nothing; so at least he’s fulfilling at least one useful function: entertainment. Much like Arnold Bennet’s famous Denry Machin, ‘The Card‘, “he’s identified with the great cause of cheering us all up.” Future generations — if they retain the habit of reading — will consider the War on Terror much as the same as la Grande Peur, or previous American hysteria over bolshevism…

After the Russian Revolution, Americans based their ideas of Bolshevism on the sensational half-truths of newspaper reports and on the portrayals of Communist activity in films like Dangerous Hours… . In this picture, Russian infiltration of American industry was foiled by Lloyd Hughes. The political complexities were ludicrously simplified. Audiences were shown the most heinous crime of all time: the nationalization of women. This abominable act involved a number of extras on horseback rounding up women, throwing them into dungeons, and beating them.

Kevin Brownlow – The Parade’s Gone By

With all that to be said for Bush though — and I should quote Solzhenitsyn’s gnomic Russian saying that those who speak for the wolf should also speak against him, were it not for that fact that identifying Americans with lupines seems so terribly, terribly wrong, they being much the same as the stalwart, yet not immensurately daring, Slavs, as Mencken noted in the last century: ‘ …nearer to the Russians than any Europeans. Russia was not like Europe, but it was strangely like America. In the same way the Russians were like Americans. They, too, were naturally religious and confiding; they, too, were below the civilized average in intelligence; and they, too, believed in democracy, and were trying to give it a trial.‘ — the lack of character consequent to the Calvinist doctrine of the Elect — it makes men mere puppets in the end — shall finally condemn him as it condemned the deluded Wringham.

The Cloud of Witnesses

Damn good job well done too.

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