We are having a child. And the child's name will of course reflect its status as a member of the English royal family. We have decided she shall be christened "Eleanor I, by the Grace of God, Queen of England and France, Defender of the Faith, Lady of Ireland and the Church of England in Earth Supreme Head, Dykhuizen." Amongst playmates she may affectionately be referred to as "E.I.G.G.Q.E.F.D.F.L.I.C.E.E.S.H." She may not be referred to with the vulgar appellation "Ellie." Such calumny shall be considered an affront against God's representative upon Earth, and justice shall swiftly be brought upon the guilty party.
The nature of said punishment will depend upon the progress of my newly engaged effort to restore Eleanor to the throne as the rightful heir to Henry III. As you all are of course aware, I am the great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandson of King Henry III. I am one of only ten million or so people to be able to make such a claim.
My task is then simple: Gather an army, hie myself to England, and kill everyone with a better claim to the throne. While such a task may have appeared Herculean in the days of my vaunted forefather, advances in modern weaponry make this a relatively easy task. For too long, the House of Minnesota has been ignored in affairs of state! Once more unto the breach, my good men (and women, because my marauding horde is an Equal Opportunity Employer)!
However, in my extensive studies of my illustrious ancestors (I read two books), I must say I've gained new appreciation for democracy. We may occasionally elect an idiot, but hell, at least we don't have wars to decide it. And even George W. Bush looks like a Rhodes scholar compared to some of England's past rulers. To wit:
Henry VI, who ruled England for about half of the 1400s, was pretty clearly what we would call nowadays "developmentally disabled." He was the immediate successor to Henry V, who was the one played by Kenneth Branagh and says "We few, we happy few, we band of brothers ... come upon this field of glory to kick ass and drink beer, and we're all out of beer ... we must protect this hoooouuuse!" Then he went on to win the Battle of Agincourt, defeating Mothra in ten rounds. I think that was how it went, anyway. I was reading all this as I was watching late-night TV, so I'm not sure I got it all right.
Point is, his son Henry VI had quite a legacy to live up to. And boy, did he ever not. He was not only born into the Hundred Years' War against France; he was also heir to the Wars of the Roses, in which different branches of the royal family, those of York and Lancaster, killed each other regularly and traded the throne back and forth. Meanwhile, Henry VI was terrified by war, which is a problem when you're the commander-in-chief of two of them. He was reportedly very meek and gentle, in a way that would be cute if he were a greeter at Wal-Mart, but extremely dangerous for someone trying to lead England. He would blush whenever anyone mentioned sex and sincerely believed his son was created by the Holy Spirit. His solution to the Wars of the Roses was to stage what he called a "loveday," in which members of the York and Lacanster clans would all have a public ceremony together. Mind you, these were people who killed each other's children, a lot. Their beefs are not likely to be smoothed over by a public smooch-fest. Henry thought they would.
The end result of Henry VI's incompetence was that England lost all the gains in France made by Henry V, with Joan of Arc being the symbol of the reconquest. Meanwhile, for the most part, the Wars of the Roses only killed of the members of the nobility, leaving peasants and middle-class folks out of it -- that is, until King Henry's forces looted and pillaged a bunch of towns of Southern England. Imagine that for a second -- imagine if the Republicans and Democrats were killing each other over who would be in power. I think our first reaction would be "Yeah! Cool! Is it on TV?" But then imagine if the Republicans, under their retarded leader George W. Bush, decided to just raze and burn Iowa for no good reason. I think even Fox News would have to turn against them then.
King Henry VI came along for all this countryside brutality, but was likely oblivious, allegedly laughing and singing in his private camp during the carnage. The people of London reacted to the spree by literally shutting the door on Henry and the Lancastrians (they had real doors to cities then, with real keys -- hence the term "the key to the city") and declaring a new king, Edward IV.
Normally things weren't as bad as all this -- normally it would just take one civil war to figure out who the next leader would be. Just a few hundred lives lost over a year or two, something like that. In general, though, we see the danger of letting someone be king just because his father was. Well, we see it, but the English didn't. They kept on with the tradition, because they didn't know anything else.
So imagine what a huge step forward it was to try democracy instead. These days, it's old hat, but then democracy was revolutionary in a way that is hard for us to fathom. It was radical. It was a intellectual, long-shot idea based on cutting-edge theory that turned out to be extremely right.
So that's what I hope we all celebrated over Independence Day: radical solutions to longstanding problems, solutions based on the latest in intellectual thought. That's our true legacy, that willingness to try something that's very new and is based on the creativity of the most probing minds. Innovation, in business-speak. Let's try to keep that in mind before we hate on Obama and the Democrats for trying an innovative solution on health care, or before we reflexively crap on other new ideas in immigration, energy policy, etc. The country is seeming a little afraid of change lately, and fear of change is not what we were founded on.
4 comments:
People are always talking about how they're related to English royalty, and where they stand in the line of succession. On occasion, people will dream about installing their unborn child on the throne in Westminster Abbey. I have to tell you, though, that seems awfully unrealistic to me. I mean, like HRH Ed I of Minnesota said, there are millions of people in that line of succession. That's a lot of rivals and pretenders to vanquish.
The way I see it, there are only two viable ways to become head of state. One is to run for president. This one is dumb, because even though people will tell you that hey, anyone in this country can become president, therein lies the problem - ANYONE IN THIS COUNTRY CAN BECOME PRESIDENT. You still have hundreds of millions of people to vanquish, electorally speaking. You might as well join Ed's army and plot your bloody coup (I'm already working on my overthrowing skills).
The other, much more sensible solution, is to declare your house (or maybe your favorite tree in some park) a sovereign nation, with you as head of state. You may now do with your sovereignity whatever you wish. Wield it wisely and make friends with your neighbor, the U.S. Abuse it, and you may find yourself taken into custody by your neighbor the U.S. (possibly in violation of international law, but good luck getting the U.S. to submit to international court jurisdiction to resolve your dispute).
I would personally suggest that you allow the U.S. to take care of foreign affairs and defense, but really, it's up to you. Maybe you want to make some stamps, or create an elaborate royal crest. Go for it.
While I'd like to discuss Eleanor I, or Ed's grand claims about his ancestry, I'm just so charmed by the story of Kinney, Minnesota, that I thought I'd share it with you here:
In 1977, Kinney, MN had a failing water system and desperately needed funding to fix it. Their attempts to get state and federal funding were unsuccessful, so they decided to secede from the US, declare war, and lose quickly and therefore receive foreign aid. They sent the following letter to the US Secretary of State:
"BE IT RESOLVED that the City Council of the City of Kinney, in Kinney, Minnesota, has decided to secede from the United States of America, and become a foreign country. Our area is large enough for it. We are twelve square blocks, three blocks wide and four blocks long. We will be similar to Monaco. It is much easier to get assistance as a foreign country, which we need badly, and there is no paper work to worry about. If necessary, we will be glad to declare war and lose. However, if this is a requirement, we would appreciate being able to surrender real quick, as our Mayor works as a nurse in a hospital, and most of our council members work in a nearby mine and cannot get much time off from work."
Gotta love those wacky Minnesotans. "...Real quick..." Where else would such a letter be written?
The happy ending to the story is that national attention brought them the funds they needed from a northern Minnesota mining grant and, donated by Duluth's Frozen Food King Jeno Paulucci, a 1974 police car with "Republic of Kinney" painted on the side and 10 cases of Jeno's Sausage Pizza Mix.
The secession was never recognized by the United States, but many in Kinney still claim independence. They have even issued passports.
Hey, you guys both need to read a great book I got recently called "Lost States." It has the stories of dozens of failed attempts at establishing new American states. Many were ideas in the colonial days for how to divide up territories, but some stories are much wackier.
For instance, in the mid-1800s there was a town in the Nevada territory called "Rough and Ready." It was settled by a bunch of former Wisconsites of German ancestry, and when the surrounding area decided to ban alcohol, they seceded and declared Rough and Ready its own country. The new country didn't last, though, because July 4 was coming up, and they realized they couldn't celebrate July 4 if they weren't part of the States (that was their story to save face, anyway).
Here's a fun blog done in connection with the book: http://loststates.blogspot.com/
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