FinermanWorks

October 12, 1492:  The Great Cultural Exchange

Christopher Columbus offered this introduction to the New World: “Hi, we’re here to trade small pox for syphilis.”

October 12, 1216:  The Further Misadventures of King John

On this day in 1216, King John lost the crown jewels in a flood. John was fleeing from his nobles; they seemed a bit upset after he reneged on the Magna Carta. The barons had decided to oust the little weasel and invited the French crown prince Louis (what else) to be king of England.

In his flight from the realm of England’s Louis I, John took a route along the eastern coast. Unfortunately, he had not quite mastered the concept of incoming tides. In an estuary known as the Wash, John’s baggage train was washed away.

John had an obvious talent for losing. Understandably the least favorite child of Eleanor of Aquitaine, John also had lost Normandy to the French, and his power to the barons. He would have lost the throne, too but for his rare instance of decisive initiative. He dropped dead. The death was suitably ridiculous: a surfeit of peaches and ale. Yet, it effectively ended the rebellion.

(The barons realized that John’s heir, his nine year-old son Henry, would make a much more malleable king than an adult French prince. In return for the barons’ allegiance, the regency of Henry III un-reneged the Magna Carta.)

Yet, for all of John’s losing, he could keep a woman. John and Isabelle d’Angouleme had an unique courtship. Upon seeing the beautiful twelve-year-old, John was so obsessed that he kidnapped her and coerced her into marriage.

For some reason, John never quite trusted her. He suspected that she was having an affair with a young noble, so the King arranged a surprise for his queen. She found the murdered noble hanging in her bedchamber.

Queen Elizabeth is a descendant of this happy union.

You know the adage about “the best laid plans of mice and men.”  On this day in 1214 the scheming rodent happened to be King John of England.  He had devised a brilliant plan to crush King Philip II of France, a monarch who showed the annoying promise of being the greatest king of France since Charlemagne.  Upon his succession to the throne in 1199, John ruled more territory in France than Philip did:  Normandy, Brittany, Gascony and Aquitaine.  In effect, John owned all of western France.  By 1206, John only had Gascony left.  Through conquest and diplomacy, Philip had acquired everything else.  Craven and inept on the battlefield, John also had the type of personality that made entire provinces defect to Philip.  If Eleanor of Aquitaine couldn’t stand her son, the rest of her duchy was not likely to be any more tolerant of John.

But John had a plan to get back his French lands.  He still had one relative who liked him, his nephew Otto.  Through the vagaries of German politics–plots, civil war, excommunications and a very opportune assassination–Otto had become the King of Germany and the Holy Roman Empire.  Phillip had backed Otto’s rival; furthermore,  the French king was encroaching on territories of the Empire.  Those were two good reasons as well as family loyalty for Otto to ally himself with Uncle John and crush Philip.

Here was the plan.  In the summer of 1214, the English army would invade Aquitaine and then push northeast to Paris.  At the same time (allowing for 13th century punctuality), Emperor Otto and the German army would attack France through the low countries.  (That would prove to be a very popular itinerary, but this time the Flemish were siding with the Germans.)  Philip would be trapped between his two armies and would be lucky to keep a pew at Notre Dame Cathedral.  So what could go wrong?  John was leading the English army.  His forces landed at La  Rochelle and at the first sign of French resistance, he retreated back to La Rochelle.

Philip predicted that John would do that, so he only dispersed a token force to intimidate the English.  Most of the French army moved north to confront the Germans.  Although Philip had the smaller army, he did have both the element of surprise and the better cavalry.  On this day in 1214 at Bouvines, a village in northern France, Philip won a resounding victory.  Otto managed to avoid capture; most of his commanders did not.  However, upon returning to Germany, he was stripped of power and title.  He didn’t even manage to keep his hereditary duchy of Saxony.

The English nobles weren’t much kinder to John.  Disgusted with his incompetence, the following year they revolted and forced John to sign some charter.  Yes, habeas corpus is very nice, but those nobles really would have preferred keeping their estates in France.

As for Otto, having lost his title, power and estates, he was ruined.  He was so depressed that he permitted himself to be beaten to death as penance.  (Why wait for purgatory?)  At least his family–the Welfs– did retain a few minor estates.  But after being the Duke of Saxony, having  just Hanover was a tremendous letdown.  Indeed, in 1714 a descendant of the family became a migrant worker in London.   Fortunately, the work proved steady.

Yes, the family’s real name was Welf.  Did you actually think that Hanover was a last name?

Fortunately, King John was Anti-Semitic; so it was unlikely that he would have married Ayn Rand. She would never have let him sign the Magna Carta on this–or any other day–in 1215.

You could imagine their conversation at Runnymede.

John: Well, I’ve lost another war. This never happened to Richard. Perhaps heterosexuals don’t belong in the army. In any case, the barons are demanding that I sign this charter guaranteeing them all sorts of rights and protections.

Ayn: Only a weakling wants anything in writing. If these barons want their rights, they must seize them.

John: If I don’t sign, they’ll kill me.

Ayn: Only a weakling dies.

But John did sign–and immediately reneged on the terms. The barons decided to oust the little weasel and invited the French crown prince Louis (what else) to be king of England.

John, who had the remarkable ability of being both unscrupulous and incompetent, was losing this war, too. England seemed likely to be ruled by King Louis I. But John took the initiative and actually did something decisive that completely undermined his opposition: he dropped dead. The death was suitably ridiculous: a surfeit of peaches and ale. Yet, it effectively ended the rebellion.

The barons realized that John’s heir, his nine year-old son Henry, would make a much more malleable king than an adult French prince. In return for the barons’ allegiance, the regency of Henry III un-reneged the Magna Carta. And it has been in effect ever since.

On this day in 1216, King John lost the crown jewels in a flood. John was fleeing from his nobles; they seemed a bit upset after he reneged on the Magna Carta. The barons had decided to oust the little weasel and invited the French crown prince Louis (what else) to be king of England.

In his flight from the realm of England’s Louis I, John took a route along the eastern coast. Unfortunately, he had not quite mastered the concept of incoming tides. In an estuary known as the Wash, John’s baggage train was washed away.

John had an obvious talent for losing. Understandably the least favorite child of Eleanor of Aquitaine, John also had lost Normandy to the French, and his power to the barons. He would have lost the throne, too but for his rare instance of decisive initiative. He dropped dead. The death was suitably ridiculous: a surfeit of peaches and ale. Yet, it effectively ended the rebellion.

(The barons realized that John’s heir, his nine year-old son Henry, would make a much more malleable king than an adult French prince. In return for the barons’ allegiance, the regency of Henry III un-reneged the Magna Carta.)

Yet, for all of John’s losing, he could keep a woman. John and Isabelle d’Angouleme had an unique courtship. Upon seeing the beautiful twelve-year-old, John was so obsessed that he kidnapped her and coerced her into marriage.

For some reason, John never quite trusted her. He suspected that she was having an affair with a young noble, so the King arranged a surprise for his queen. She found the murdered noble hanging in her bedchamber.

Queen Elizabeth is a descendant of this happy union.

According to Director OIiver Stone, George Bush has “set America back ten years.” How inaccurate! It seems that Stone’s arithmetic is as bad as his history. (Considering Bush’s English and Stone’s everything else, shouldn’t Yale lose its accreditation?) Ten years minus 2006 would place us back in the prosperous, peaceful if somewhat venereal Clinton days. George Bush has regressed this country much further than that. He has reestablished the hereditary rule of WASP upper class twits. In short, it could be 1774 again.

But wait, it is unfair to compare our reigning Commandude with England’s George III. At least the British monarch never presumed the Divine Right of Kings. On the contrary, he knew that his dynasty had been hired by Parliament, on the Hanoverian merits of being breathing Protestants.

A Parliament with authority and respect? The 18^th century is too avant-garde for our sovereign!

No, we are going back to the 1530s. That was the Golden Age for the Executive Branch, when Henry VIII even had right to fire God. Henry’s Parliament knew how to behave: a royal kennel of happy curs who only required an occasional kick.

But wait, paper-training a Parliament is still a bother. No, our descent is to to a time when there was no Parliament or even a bureaucratic nuisance like habeas corpus. King John was frivolous, petulant, tyrannical and incompetent: an obvious role model.

So welcome back to 1214.  And hope for some barons!