An unwanted immigrant: This demented duchess

It's not every day a com moner is graced with the personage of a card-carry ing, blue-blooded, bone headed duchess. But Sarah Ferguson irritably dragged her hips into the Javits Center yesterday at the crack of 8:30, and proceeded to whine, kvetch and play the victim in a British accent as impenetrable as Scotland Yard.

And, judging from the crowd she attracted, which coated the convention center like a lover's saliva on Fergie's well-traveled toes, the world's greediest, tackiest and brokest royal is quickly accomplishing a feat that has eluded her back home in England, where the weary populace is ready to lop off her head: She's royally cashing in.

James II failed because he was stabbed in the back by a number of people he helped, such as a John Churchill, a distant ancestor of Winston Churchill. James II wanted to extend religious toleration to Catholics in England, but fanatic Protestants found this toleration of Catholics unacceptable.

William III was a disgusting little dwarf who waged a brutal religious war in Ireland against the Catholics, having changed his own religion from Catholic to Protestant, to suit his own political needs.

His treatment of his father-in-law and treatment of her father by his consort were despicable.

If you are a fanatic Protestant, I guess you find William III a positive character and James II a negative one.

John Churchill stood by King James, as did many, many others, but in the end had to desert him - because he deserted them. More is expected of Kings than well intentioned policies. They have to lead as well. He could have chosen to muster his armies and do battle with William's rebels, but he didn't. He bottled it. He lost his nerve. I'm not quite sure why - he was an experienced warrior who had fought very bravely (if ineptly) in the naval wars against the Dutch. This aspect of his character reoccured later at the Battle of the Boyne, where he left his loyal subjects to get crushed by the Williamite army. That is why he is still known in Ireland as "James the shit".

I think you simplify James' religious policies. Our modern world has made tolerance the highest of all virtues, so stressing that his objective was extention of tolerance for Catholics makes him seem wonderful. In fact, Catholicism at the time was strongly tied to the most reactionary despotisms in Europe. People were really frightened that his tolerance for Catholics was the first step to a return of England to Catholicism, and thereby absolutist rule, and frankly they were probably right.

William was not an archetypal hero. He was short, he was stooped, his face was badly scarred from a bout of smallpox. He suffered from asthma and epilepsy and basically spent most of his life struggling with poor health. However, none of those things were in his control. Your assertion that he was a "disgusting little dwarf" is no better than condemning a man for having blue eyes, or black skin. And unlike James William did lead his troops from the front. He very nearly drowned crossing the Boyne.

It's not a question of being a fanatic protestant who finds William a positive character and James a negative one. Personally, I think they both had positive and negative features. But William was the better king, because basically he was prepared to take advice, whereas James (like most of the Stuarts) simply didn't.

If there were not an England, there would not have been an America.

I have no quarrel with the English - I just don’t like the House of Windsor or their Hanoverian Predecessors. I like the Stuarts and REALLY like the Plantagents - historical warts and all.

And I am an American too - first, last, always and exclusively.

Have a great Memorial Day Weekend also.

That’s quite detailed and I agree with some of it, possibly most of it.

We get into such interesting discussions on this forum.

The Scots referred to William, I believe as Wee Little Willie.

The thing that really repels me was William’s ability to change religion as advantage suited him, as well as the shabby way he treated his stepfather.

I understand the fear of the Papacy in England at the time,
but somehow I don’t think that the distinction between Protestant believers in freedom and Catholic supporters of Autocracy were as well-defined as we have been led to believe.

Henry VIII, the Founder of the Anglican Church, was as willing to burn what he viewed as Protestant Heretics at the stake as Catholics.

The connection between disloyalty to the ruler’s version of the true faith, and treason against the state was connected at the time.

I admit to a romantic attachment to the Stuarts. William III and the Hanoverians never appealed to me.

Well, the catholic/protestant thing was in some flux at the time. It certainly wasn't as clearly defined as it is now. Henry VIII was not a protestant. He changed England from being a Roman Catholic country to being an English Catholic country. He had no problems with Catholic theology, he just didn't like the pope being at the top of it. Politics and religion were pretty much one and the same thing at the time, so while changing one's faith for political reasons seems anathema to us today, at the time it was not unusual.

I am not in any way saying that Protestantism always equals freedom and Catholicism is neccesarily totalitarianism. But at that moment in history the great Catholic States were unashameadly absolutist monarchies. It was the protestant emphasis on the idea of a personal relationship with God that first put a crack in that paradigm, that was eventually to lead to the English Civil War, the glorious revolution and the American declaration of independence.

In any case, whether a Catholic return in England would have led to absolutism is immaterial. The point is that Englishmen at the time THOUGHT it would have. Just like today, politics is perception. :)

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