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August 29th  On this day in 1842:  the Treaty of Nanking

At midnight, July 1, 1997, in an elaborate pageant that marked the end of a historical epic, the sovereignty of Hong Kong was transferred from Great Britain to China. Concluding their 156-year rule of the colony, the British departed with pomp and ceremony: splendid uniforms, regimental bands, and formal banquets. It is a British art. However, the Chinese were in business suits, and showed no nostalgia for the Victorian relics. Britain’s Prince Charles and China’s President Jiang Zemin stood on the same dais, the personifications of their countries in this historical act: the old empire was giving ground to the new world power.

Ironically, that was how the history of Hong Kong began. In the early 19th century, however, China was the old empire and Britain the new world power. China had become the relic of a great nation. When Europe was stirring from the Middle Ages, China’s might, culture and wealth were unmatched. In the 15th century an emperor had disbanded the Chinese navy. The outside world could not threaten his empire and had nothing to offer it. His arrogance would become China’s policy for the next four centuries. The Chinese civilization acclaimed by Marco Polo, the culture that invented gunpowder, the printing press and eyeglasses became complacent and stagnant. The Chinese had the first cannons but they had not improved them since the 16th century. Against the encroaching powers of Europe, China could not even defend herself. Foremost of these new powers was Great Britain.

In the 18th century, British ships were plying China’s shores, eager to trade for silk, porcelain and especially tea. This trade, however, was one way. China was selling but not buying. The imperial government regulated commerce, restricting European imports into the empire. Furthermore, China would only accept silver bullion as legal payment. (The Chinese had invented paper money but evidently did not trust anyone else’s.) This trade deficit with China–and the drain on bullion–was undermining Britain’s economy. British merchants, however, eventually found a way to reverse the trade imbalance: selling opium.

Smoking opium was a vice long known to China, and the opium poppy was easily cultivated in British-controlled India. (The local rajahs did not care, so long as the opium was only for export.) A ready supply of the drug increased the Chinese demand for it. In the 1770s, the British were importing 75 tons of opium a year into China; the imperial officials initially overlooked it. By the1830s, the opium traffic had grown to 1400 tons a year. Now, China was running a trade imbalance with Britain; worse, an estimated 4 million Chinese men were opium addicts. Confronted with this crisis, China sought to stop the opium trade.

In 1839 an imperial viceroy confiscated 1200 tons of opium from British merchants. He further threatened prosecution of traders and sailors involved in the drug traffic. The viceroy even wrote an open letter to Queen Victoria, criticizing her for permitting her barbarians to poison the Chinese people with opium. Her Majesty may never have seen the letter, but the British press certainly did. You can imagine the headlines: “Heathen Chinee Insults Our Queen”; “Opium Fiends Call Us Barbarians.” (Rupert Murdoch had his role models.) While the British government could hardly condone the specific opium trade, it could champion the general principles of the Free Market. Furthermore, it would never allow British subjects to be tried by a foreign power, especially one that insulted the Queen. So, for such impeccable causes as free trade, sovereignty and royal dignity, Britain went to war with China.

Britain had a population of 26 million; China had over 400 million people. Yet, it was China that proved hopelessly outmatched. Britain had the best navy in the world and her army was equipped with modern weapons. This conflict, known as the First Opium War lasted from 1839 until 1842 but only because the British were in no hurry. “I say, shall we take Canton this afternoon or would you rather play cricket?” With their unchallenged mobility and superior firepower, the British were free to blockade, raid and conquer at their leisure. In 1841, the British seized a large island a mile off the Southern coast of China. With its deep-sea anchorage this island–Hong Kong–made an excellent base. The war ended with the Treaty of Nanking, signed August 29, 1842; the humiliated Chinese basically turned over their ports and customs enforcement to the British, they paid for the confiscated opium, and ceded Hong Kong to its conquerors.

So, you can understand if, 156 years later, China’s President did not seem nostalgic for the departing British. Indeed, if he had a sense of whimsy, he was imagining a different history; with the fleet of Imperial China anchored in the Thames as Chinese merchants exploited the British addiction to tea.

August 28th On this day in 1619: Ferdinand Hapsburg Gets the Family Job

Charles V (1500-1558) was no fool.  Being King of Spain, Duke of the Low Countries, Holy Roman Emperor, and landlord of Italy obviously had its perks, but the job did come with enemies.  Occupying Hungary in the east and the Balkans in the South, the armies of the Ottoman Empire were nerve-wracking neighbors.  And France seemed always ready for another defeat.  So Charles really did not need the distraction and devastation of a civil war in Germany.  The Emperor never had difficulty ignoring Popes, so he disregarded the fulminating demands to eradicate Protestantism in Northern Europe.  Charles knew that the task was probably impossible and the cost certainly inconceivable.

Yes, when the Protestants princes forgot their deference to their Catholic Emperor, Charles could wage a humbling tutorial.  A recalcitrant Prince of Saxony found himself reduced to a country squire.  But Charles was not prepared to destroy northern Germany simply to reinstate bishoprics there.  Indeed,  in one of the last acts of his reign, Charles consented to the Treaty of Augsburg (1554) which guaranteed the status quo within Germany.   “Cuius regio, eius religio”:  the faith of the sovereign would be the official religion of his realm.  So Northern Germany was conceded as being irretrievably Protestant.

If the Princes of Germany were granted religious freedom, it did not necessarily mean that their subjects would have the same right.  The Catholic in Prussia and the Lutheran in Bavaria were wise to maintain a low profile on Sundays.  But most of the princes did not interpret the Treaty as their right to persecute alternative views of communion.  On the contrary, in the second half of the 16th century, an ecumenical peace prevailed throughout Germany.  This was while Catholics and Protestants were slaughtering each other in France and the Low Countries.

As I said, “most” princes; of course, there was one notable exception:  Ferdinand Hapsburg (1578-1637).  Unfortunately, he was more that just the terror of his archdiocese.  Ferdinand was the heir to Austria, Hungary, Bohemia and the Holy Roman Empire.  When all of 18, Ferdinand was entrusted with the rule of most 0f Austria.  Although Austria was predominantly Catholic, it was not homogenously so.  Ferdinand undertook to correct that, subjecting Protestants to the confiscation of their property and banishment.  (Well, he was named for his great-great-grandfather in Spain–although that involved a different minority group.)  Depending on your theology, Ferdinand’s policies were either acclaimed or condemned.  The Emperor Matthias did not actually approve of his cousin’s intolerance, but the laws of heredity can also be dogmatic.  Ferdinand was the indisputable heir, but it was hoped that practical responsibilities might temper the Archduke’s bigotry.  Bohemia was a Protestant enclave within the Hapsburg realm; assigning it to Ferdinand might prove an edifying experience.  After all, it is hard to persecute a majority.

Ferdinand was appointed King of Bohemia in 1617, and he did demonstrate some sense of tolerance by simply avoiding the province.  But he did choose Catholic administrators to rule in his place, and they evidently were not much more endearing than Ferdinand.  In 1618, a Protestant mob in Prague seized the two councilors, hurled them out a window and onto a manure pile.  What might seem a joke was in fact the beginning of a war.  The Bohemians rose against Ferdinand, declaring their independence and inviting a Protestant prince to be their king. Their defiance incited Protestant rebellions in Austria and Hungary.

On this day in 1619, Ferdinand did find a few supporters: the Catholic princes who elected him the Holy Roman Emperor.  The Catholic alliance crushed the Protestant rebellions by the end of 1620.  Alarmed by both Ferdinand’s reputation and the prospect of Hapsburg domination of Germany, the Netherlands and the northern German states formed an alliance.  Of course, the Spanish–good Catholics and Hapsburg cousins–were always happy to fight the Dutch; in fact, they had been doing so since 1568.  So, the Imperial armies concentrated on crushing Northern Germany.  The Hapsburg successes prompted the intervention of the Danes in 1625 and the Swedes in 1630 to  save their fellow Protestants.  The Swedish army was so good that it averted an almost certain Hapsburg victory.  Nonetheless, the Hapsburgs seemed to be ahead on body count, forcing Cardinal Richelieu to make a remarkable decision.  Thinking as a French statesman rather than a Prince of the Church, he had more to fear from victorious Hapsburgs than an irate God.  So in 1636 he had Catholic France intervene on the Protestant side.

Neither Richelieu nor Ferdinand would live to see the end of the war in 1648.  They both succumbed to natural causes; that cannot be said of the millions who died in the Thirty Years War.  An estimated one third of the German population was killed.  That reflected the nature of the war.  Both sides, but especially the Hapsburgs, employed armies of mercenaries whose pay was whatever they could loot. Since it is always easier to rob a corpse, the mercenaries were eager to cause those corpses.  Cities and towns in Germany were put to the sword simply to feed and pay the soldiers.

And after 30 years of slaughter, the Treaty of Westphalia largely repeated what the Treaty of Augsburg had established 94 years earlier.  The Church had gained little, although the Catholics were now the majority in Bohemia. The Protestant states had survived, and two–Sweden and Prussia– had emerged stronger from the war.   The Hapsburgs had lost, destroying any hope of creating a genuine empire in Germany, and they saw their rival France emerge as the greatest power in Europe.

The Thirty Years War was the disaster that Charles V had imagined:  an impossible cause at an inconceivable cost.   Ferdinand II was not so prescient.

Rome wasn’t built in a day, and it also took three days to sack. The Visigoths ended their rampage on this day in 410.

At the time, Rome was little more than a very rich mausoleum. The Eastern–more stable–half of the Roman Empire was ruled from Constantinople. The Western, reeling half was now tenuously ruled from Ravenna. The Roman Empire had dispensed with Rome. Nonetheless, the former capital contained the accumulated treasures of Rome’s past glories, and the Visigoths wanted to pay their respects.

But where was the Roman army to prevent the barbarian rampage? Well, the barbarian horde was the Roman army–although flagrantly A.W.O.L. For some 20 years, the Visigoths had served the Empire fighting other barbarians, but it had not been the most gratifying experience. Under Roman command, they found themselves expendable and unappreciated–the heaviest casualties but the last to be paid. So the Visigoths decided that being Rome’s enemy would be more fulfilling and lucrative.

Led by Alaric, the Visigoths rampaged through Greece, the Balkans and then Italy. Of course, Rome was part of the itinerary, and there really was nothing to stop them. Yet, the old capital was surrounded by stout walls and should have withstood the barbarian attack. The Visigoths actually lacked the manpower to completely surround and besiege Rome; they only managed to blockade Rome’s gates. They also lacked the siege equipment to breach Rome’s walls. Yet, those walls did lack the real deterrent: anyone to man them. The Romans now were so craven that treachery prevailed. Someone opened a gate to the Visigoths. There was some Roman resistance; it lasted a day.

The Visigoths sacked the city: looting and rape were wholesale, and the slaughter–more limited–but still an enthusiastic demonstration of long-held grudges. Yet, the Visigoths did adhere to one restraint. They were Christian–albeit Arians who confused Jesus with Thor–and so spared the churches, which only recently had confiscated the wealth of the Pagan temples. Nonetheless, there still were government buildings and palaces to loot, and citizens to rob. The Visigoths also qualified as liberals; they freed slaves–a considerable segment of the Roman society.

Alaric died soon after sacking Rome. Let’s face it, his life would have been anticlimactic after that. He was succeeded by his kinsman Ataulf (yep, that’s the fifth century form of Adolf) who led the Visigoths into Spain, which they conquered and ruled until the Moors dropped by. There are some traces of the Visigothic presence in Spain today. Juan Carlos certainly is one; the family tree has Visigothic roots. And there is a region of Spain originally named Gothalonia; the Spanish now mispronounce it as Catalonia.

And in 455, the Vandals sacked Rome. They refrained from rape and slaughter, but they did rob the Churches. So, Visigoth or Vandal: guess who has the worse reputation?

Today we commemorate a duo-bacle of military ineptitude.

I. On this day in 1071, Andronicus Ducas became the inadvertent father of Turkey. The Byzantine general simply wanted to kill his emperor Romanus IV but was too finicky for an assassination. Ducas waited until the imperial army was fighting Turkish nomads in eastern Anatolia, near the town of Manzikert. He then ordered a retreat, abandoning the emperor to the enemy. Ducas rushed backed to Constantinople to install his cousin on the now empty and available throne.

(In fact, the Emperor Romanus was captured alive. Under the circumstances, the Turkish Sultan could coerce a favorable treaty. Romanus was soon after released; but his return to Constantinople was unappreciated by his usurping successor. The Byzantine retirement package consisted of blinding and exile.)

Unfortunately, the Byzantine Empire was in just as miserable shape. Andronicus Ducas had overestimated the army’s ability to retreat. It disintegrated, leaving Anatolia — half the empire — defenseless. The Turks weren’t nomads after that. Anatolia is now called Turkey.

II. On this day in 1346, the French thought that they had caught the English army near the village of Crecy.  For a trapped army the English had placed themselves in an excellent defensive position, astride a ridge. The English had a lovely view, one that wouldn’t be wasted on archers with excellent eyesight and a remarkable new weapon called the longbow. For some reason, the English did not seem to mind that they were outnumbered three-to-one.

The French confident in their numerical superiority and–no doubt–better sense of fashion–did not really bother to organize their plan of battle. They simply charged. Unfortunately, the French knights first had to ride over the French infantry. The aristocrats certainly didn’t mind and the commoners were used to it, but the horses actually were upset. (Of course, they would be more liberal than the knights.) It created quite a chaotic traffic jam, which the English archers further aggravated by perforating everyone within their considerable range.

With the horses so uncooperative, the French knights decided to dismount and, in full armor, attempted to march up the hill to attack the English. The English may have been in more danger of asphyxiation from laughter. The Oxford graduates would have enjoyed the farce, but the archers–being Benny Hill types–missed the irony and simply continued to slaughter the French. In the few hours of the battle, the French casualties were in thousands, the English casualties in the dozens.

You would think that the French would have realized that they were doing something wrong. In fact, ten years later, they used the “tactics” at the battle of Poitiers. At Poitiers, however, they added the innovation of letting the French king be captured.

In time, the French would master the techniques for winning a battle.
1. Be led by a mad, cross-dressing shepardess.
2. Be led by an Italian whose megalomania compensates for shortness.
3. Let the Americans do it.

p.s.  Happy Birthday, Prince Albert:  https://finermanworks.com/your_rda_of_irony/2008/08/26/questionable-birth-announcements/

Russians don’t need an excuse to drink: their government, their climate and Dostoyevsky more than justify self-pity. However, they don’t have much of a chance to celebrate: just chess tournaments and sacking Berlin. But today the Russians can drink both for commiseration and celebration: it is the birthday of Ivan the Terrible (1530-1584).

For a murderous tyrant, Ivan the Terrible (the IV on his business cards) is far luckier than Richard III. First, Ivan was actually guilty, so he couldn’t be slandered. And his crimes apparently had an upside. He evidently was killing the right people. Even his critics acknowledged that he made a very effective tsar, expanding the Moscovite principality into the Russian state.

The Soviets made him into a hero, dismissing his victims as reactionaries and traitors. When Stalin commissioned Sergei Eisenstein to make a biographic series on the Tsar, it was intended to be a paean (as well as a thinly veiled tribute to the reigning Soviet tsar).  Eisenstein completed two of the three projected films. In the first film the young heroic Tsar must defend himself against the treacherous nobility. In the sequel, the now middle-aged Tsar is showing maniacal streaks in his wars and purges. If Stalin could see himself in the first film’s Ivan, everyone could see Stalin in the second film’s Ivan. There never was a third film. Eisenstein was denounced and apparently died of a heart attack soon after.

A third film would have shown Ivan killing his oldest son and heir. Like Ben Cartwright, Ivan had three sons. (Considering that the sire had eight wives, he was not an impressive sire.) In a fit of rage (Ivan’s normal temper), the Tsar smashed the skull of his oldest son Ivan(played by Pernell Roberts). After Prince Ivan’s death, the succession passed to Prince Feodor, who was retarded. (Dan Blocker obviously)

Now, however, our story has the Russian equivalent to Richard III: Boris Godunov. (Yes, he is the inspiration for Boris Badenov.) He was the son-in-law of Ivan the Terrible and chosen to be regent after Ivan’s death. Upon his father’s death, Feodor became Tsar but the country was governed by his brother-in-law Boris, who proved very competent and certainly enjoyed ruling. The third and youngest son of Ivan IV was Dmitri. (Michael Landon) He would have been the successor of his brother, but the youngster apparently died of an accident while playing with a knife. With Dmitri conveniently out of the way, Boris then became the heir apparent to Feodor. Upon Feodor’s death (a natural one), Boris ascended the throne.

However, Boris’ reign (1598-1605) was turbulent. His rule was undermined by plots and rebellions. An imposter claimed to be Prince Dmitri, and Boris’ enemies rallied around the fraud. The false Dmitri–as he is known in history–received substantial financial and military support from Poland and the Jesuits. Boris died while the rebellion was gathering strength. His son and successor Feodor II was murdered soon after, and the false Dmitri took the throne–although he couldn’t hold it for long.

After eight years of chaos and civil war, some more in-laws of Ivan the Terrible (his serial marriages creates a lot of in-laws) seized and actually held the throne. Their name was Romanov. (And they would give the Russians even more reason to drink.)

Yevgeny

James I of England loved the company of attractive younger men. He elevated one, George Villiers, to Duke of Buckingham and let him run the country. This was the same Duke of Buckingham who was rumored to be a lover of Anne of Austria, Queen of France. Think about it: one man having simultaneous affairs with the King of England and the Queen of France.

Unfortunately, Villiers’ talents were limited to the royal bed chambers. As a soldier and government minster, he was a disaster. The King’s Chief Minister lost armies and provoked international crises. He so offended Parliament by both his presumptuous demands and extravagant appearance as to turn the once compliant assembly into an unyielding foe.

When James I died, you would imagine that Buckingham’s future would have shared the grave. However, the Duke remained a platonic favorite of Charles I. Buckingham continued to misrule the realm. His arrogance, corruption and ineptitude so outraged Parliament that a protective Charles I felt obliged to dismiss the legislature. An officer and Puritan named Fenton expressed his opinion of the Duke with a knife…on this day in 1628.

Of course, novelists like to complicate matters and Hollywood takes them literally.  So, if you have read or seen “The Three Musketeers” (and if you haven’t, you obviously skipped high school)  you are convinced that France’s Cardinal Richelieu was behind the assassination of Buckingham.  According to Alexander Dumas and at least 15 films, Richelieu finds Buckingham’s policies (amatory and political) are a threat to France, and the Cardinal decides to be rid of him.  Naturellement, the French have aesthetic standards even in their assassination plots, so the Cardinal assigns  the task to the lovely but evil Milady DeWinter.  (Depending on your generation that would be either Lana Turner, Faye Dunaway or Rebecca DeMornay.)  The temptress applies her wiles to Fenton and he becomes an impuritan;  the seduced fool is manipulated into killing Buckingham.  That is a great script but implausible history.

Buckingham was a nuisance to Richelieu, leading failing invasions of France and lending inadequate support to Huguenot rebellions.  But would the wily Richelieu want to be rid of such an incompetent opponent?  On the contrary, the Cardinal would have cherished Buckingham’s ineptitude.  Pursuing his policies of strengthening the monarchy and breaking the Hapsburg’s power in Europe, Richelieu would have been grateful to the gorgeous buffoon who made Britain a joke rather than a threat.  The Cardinal would never have dispensed with Buckingham unless he could be sure of someone even worse replacing him.

Of course, Richelieu did know Henrietta Marie, the blundering battleaxe who married Charles I.

August 22, 1485:  Henry VII Becomes King; Machiavelli and MBAs Get a Role Model

Today is the anniversary of the battle of Bosworth Field. In tribute to the fallen and vilified Richard III, please hunch your shoulder.

History indeed is written by the victors, and the usurping Tudors had some extraordinary flacks in their service. The first “official” biography of Richard III was written in 1518 by an ambitious lawyer named Thomas More. More’s history could have been a Wes Craven screenplay; Richard is depicted as a physical monster. In this portrait, a hunchback may be Richard’s most attractive feature. More grafts upon Richard a withered arm and a limp; furthermore, More’s caricature was born with a full–and threatening– set of teeth. The real Richard had none of these disabilities and distortions, and actually was more attractive than Henry VII–who looked like a constipated actuary.

In 1592 a young playwright named Shakespeare was eager to ingratiate himself to the public and rich patrons, so he wrote a gushingly Pro-Tudor dramatization of the War of the Roses. The four plays, the Henry VI trilogy and Richard III, are a slapdash concoction of convoluted history and overripe melodrama. In “Henry VI, part III”, Richard is depicted as gleefully waging war when, in fact, he was only three years old.  However inaccurate the plays, the audience loved them.  (Indeed, Richard III is still popular–and today is considered much funnier than Shakespeare’s intentional comedies.) Shakespeare would have been gratified–if amazed–to know that his melodrama has become the common perception of King Richard.

Of course, Richard has his defenders. A number of historians and novelists have attempted heroic exonerations of the vilified king; but it remains an uneven match: their facts against St. More’s reputation and Shakespeare’s talent.   You may number me among the vicarious Yorkists. Let’s deal with the most notorious charge against Richard: the killing of the Little Princes.

I think that Richard is innocent of killing his nephews. They certainly were an inconvenience to him (don’t we all have nephews like that!) but he could have found better ways to remove them than an unexplained disappearance. He could even have blamed the Lancastrian/Tudor partisans for the princes’ deaths. In fact, he should have if they really were dead. However, their disposal was not urgent or even necessary. Parliament had already declared them illegitimate; and there was little political support for them. Their mother’s family, the Woodvilles, was hated by the old nobility.

However Henry VII would have had to kill them. His claims to royal lineage were tenuous and illegitimate. (The Lancastrians had proved obligingly sterile, allowing Tudor–a half-second cousin, once removed, from Wales–to represent the dynasty.) Any Yorkist prince or princess was a threat to him. Other than the Yorkist princess he coerced into marriage, Henry had his in-laws executed, imprisoned or cloistered.

Perhaps Richard had already done him the favor of killing the Princes. But Henry’s behavior was suspicious and incriminating.

It is interesting to note that when Henry VII ascended to the throne, he had Parliament issue a list of Richard’s crimes. The murder of the Princes was not cited, a rather surprising omission. Since Henry married their sister, you think that he have noticed their absence when they didn’t respond to the wedding invitations.

Didn’t anyone notice that the Princes were missing? Perhaps the Queen Mother did. For some reason, she was suddenly imprisoned in 1487 for being a supporter of Richard III. Would she really have supported the man who had murdered her sons? That may have been Henry’s reason for imprisoning her.

In fact, it wasn’t until 1495 and the attempted coup by Perkins Warbeck, a charlatan claiming to be one of the Little Princes, that Henry finally announced the deaths of his brothers-in-law. He also ordered the execution of Richard’s henchman Sir James Tyrrell. The one incongruity with that revelation was that Tyrrell had been a favorite of Henry’s and had enjoyed promotions under the Tudors.

Furthermore, although Henry seemed to know the details of the murders, he didn’t make any effort to exhume the bodies and give them a Christian burial. That gesture of decency didn’t occur until the reign of Charles II.

I am inclined to one theory that would explain Richard’s silence and Henry’s reticence. The crime might have been committed by the Duke of Buckingham, a proclaimed Yorkist partisan and a covert Tudor conspirator. The Duke was in charge of the Tower and had the opportunity to kill the princes. He could have committed the crime and then assured both sides he had done it as a favor to them. He may have been expecting rewards from both sides. However, Richard seemed anything but grateful. The King rebuffed his old ally, driving the Duke to rebellion. The Duke lost the battle and his head. However Richard may have felt too incriminated by his past association to announce the murder of the Princes.

Of course, this is just speculation.

Ironically, while I defend Richard’s innocence, I must admit that Henry VII was one of England’s greatest kings and the founder of a brilliant dynasty.

August 17th

Upon ascending the throne, handsome young Henry VIII knew how to ingratiate himself with his subjects. On this day in 1510  he executed his father’s two most unpopular ministers

Edmund Dudley and Richard Empson had been geniuses at collecting taxes, to the delight of Henry VII. The first Tudor was stingy by nature, perhaps the consequence of his early life as a penniless adventurer–the dubious and none-too-legitimate claimant to the English throne. But like everything else in the wily Welshman, even the vices of Henry VII were prudent.

The purpose of his tax policy was to drain the nobility into a passive stupor. The taxes were never onerous enough to incite a revolt, just heavy enough so that the aristocracy could no longer afford their own militia. Toward that end, Henry VII surrounded himself with a group of mercenaries who were as bellicose and ruthless as the nobility but also viciously intelligent: lawyers. Edmund Dudley and Richard Empson were part of this English Inquisition.

The King’s policy was expressed by the Lord Chancellor, John Morton: “If the subject is seen to live frugally, tell him because he is clearly a money saver of great ability he can afford to give generously to the King. If, however, the subject lives a life of great extravagance, tell him he, too, can afford to give largely, the proof of his opulence being evident in his expenditure.” In other words, damned (taxed) if you do, damned (taxed) if you don’t.

Morton died of natural causes in 1500, avoiding Henry VIII’s idea of a retirement. Empson and Dudley obviously did not have such a good sense of timing. They were beheaded, which Henry VIII considered a generous departure. Empson was irrefutably middle-class and could have been hanged, drawn and quartered. Dudley was of minor nobility but just the younger son of a younger son of a baron, so he barely qualified for the privilege of decapitation.

Of course, their estates were confiscated–and Dudley had somehow amassed a considerable one. In 1513, the handsome, young but increasingly mercurial Henry VIII decided to restore the estates to the widows. The Empson family felt itself lucky to regain its property and has since avoided the notice of history. The Dudleys, however, evidently like the politics and the prominence, attaining both dukedoms and executions for their efforts. John Dudley, the son of Edmund, ingratiated, intrigued and actually deserved power. A capable soldier and excellent administrator, he successfully manuevered himself to become the regent of Edward VI–ruling the country (very well!) in the name of the boy king. When Edward died, the scheming Dudley was loathe to relinquish power and so attempted to foist his daughter-in-law Lady Jane Grey on the throne. That didn’t end well. This time, his right to decapitation was never in doubt–and no one thought him innocent.

By the third generation, the Dudley ability had completely dissipated although the ambition had not. Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, thought himself  both a statesman and a general, proving himself a man of expansive ineptitude. Henry VII would never have trusted him with a tollbooth, Henry VIII would have killed the blundering dolt, but Elizabeth thought him charming. So he died of natural causes–unlike his clever grandfather and his conniving father.

Ironically, Robert Dudley was exactly the kind of upper-class fool that Edmund Dudley would have exploited.

Today is the birthday of Margaret, Countess of Salisbury.   Born in 1473, the poor woman had a miserable sense of timing from the start.  By the time she was four, she had been declared a traitor by her uncle King Edward IV–who executed his own brother and stripped the ensuing orphans of their property.  Her nicer uncle was Richard III, who restored young Margaret’s and her brother’s legitimacy and estates.   Margaret’s luck lasted two years–the same length as Richard’s reign.  Being a Yorkist heiress and a legitimate Plantagenet did not improve her prospects with the new king  Henry VII–who was not a legitimate anything.  Her brother Edward would spend the rest of his short life in prison; although mentally-retarded, that was a minor handicap for royalty and his pedigree made him a threat to the Tudors.  Edward was executed in 1499 at the age of 24.  Margaret was kept under a more comfortable confinement until Henry decided her fate–specifically which of his lackeys deserved a rich, young wife.

The lucky–and unctuously loyal–groom was Henry’s cousin Richard Pole.  Pole married Margaret in 1494, and apparently he did not mind at all.  There were five children within ten years, and I would like to tell you that the Pole family lived happily ever after.  Well, Richard did; he had the prudence to die in 1505.  But Margaret and her children did not.  They  lived on into the reign of Henry VIII.

He was Margaret’s first cousin, once removed, and he took the removal quite seriously.  The Poles were staunch Catholics, and they would be providing executioners with steady work for the next two generations.  Margaret was never implicated in any plots, but her decapitation in 1541 was Henry’s way of congratulating her son Reginald for becoming a Cardinal.

In Tudor England beheading was considered a privilege. It was performed before a select audience in a upper class setting. In return, the victims were expected to behave with stoic dignity. Most did.  The Countess of Salisbury definitely was the exception. The frail 67 year-old woman did not want to be executed and would not cooperate. She had to be dragged to the scaffold and would not passively place her head on the block. The executioner required assistance to hold down the struggling lady. She writhed and wiggled so effectively that the axeman missed her neck, slashing instead her shoulder. In the confusion, the Countess tried to make a run for it. She only managed to dodge around the scaffold and she was just one wounded old lady against an armed killer and his staff. The outcome was inevitable but she gave an unprecedented resistance.

The Church beatified her in 1886.  Given her surprising dexterity, you’d think that a Catholic school would have named a gym for her.

On this day in 1833,  200 zany optimists started a settlement on land mocked by the Indians,  shunned by the French and jinxed by the U.S. government.  If you looked on the map, you’d see the geographic hub of the Midwest, where the Great Lakes and the great rivers converge.  But if you had actually looked at the land, you would have seen a swamp.   The  Potawatomi tribe certainly did not entice realtors by naming the miasma “Wild Onions”: Checagou. 

Even if the Indians were too fastidious for Checagou, you wouldn’t think that the French would be.  New Orleans was built on a sandbar.   Vicennes, Indiana was founded for its strategic control of the Wabash River.  But a Fleur-de-Lys where the Rive Des Plaines meets Lac de Michigan?  The French had their chance. In 1673, their explorers landed on those shores, and ignored them. 

Between us, I blame Pere Jacques Marquette.  The man was Jesuit, and the local Indians probably just did not meet his standards.  A Franciscan would have been eager for converts:  “Jesus and I love you, but the armed contingent with me probably doesn’t.  So a little baptism might be prudent.”  And a Dominican would have insisted on a settlement, if only for the fun of using the Indians as slave labor.  But a Jesuit would have presented the Potawatomi a 15-page questionnaire, with the essays to be answered in Latin, and concluding  “I’ll let you know if we are interested.”  (Of course, most tribes could not pass; but if the Priest infected them with small pox, they received a complimentary conversion.) 

So someplace else was named for St. Louis.  As of 1763, the Potawatomi swamp became part of the British Empire, and it remained just as desolate.   The British could not colonize Illinois when they were preoccupied trying to civilize Massachusetts.  So the strategic miasma would not be named for a British cabinet member or one of his racehorses.  Finally in 1803, someone finally realized the value of this real estate. So, on behalf of Thomas Jefferson, let me introduce you to Fort Dearborn, Illinois.  The renown of Henry Dearborn, the Secretary of War, has not lasted; neither did the fort.   The Potawatomi did not appreciate it, and the result is known as the Fort Dearborn massacre.  In the War of 1812, it was one of the few battles that actually occurred that year.

Yet, the settlers kept coming, undeterred by the swamp but with a healthy superstition about the name Dearborn. Having taken the land from the Potawatomi, they took the local name, too.  Within four years of the town’s founding, the community had grown to 4,000.  Checagou now qualified as a city, however tenuously built over a swamp.  In its corporate charter, the city assumed a more dignified spelling:  Chicago.  

How many major cities are named for a vegetable?