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Messages - mcdnab

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46
The Tudors / Re: The Crimes of Richard III
« on: December 13, 2011, 05:59:54 PM »
Just to add my points to this
1) Richard of Gloucester was loyal to his brother throughout his life - but being a loyal brother doesn't necessarily continue after the said brother is dead - particularly if you are being urged to take over the throne by friends and supporters.
2) There is NO evidence that Edward IV named a protector in his will, a) his will doesn't survive and b) a King's will was not binding in law and as in earlier cases was often ignored by his council.
3) No one took up arms against Richard of Gloucester following Edward's death in fact Rivers progress south with the young King was nothing if not slow which suggests he saw no threat.
4) The only real bad blood that existed was between Hastings and Dorset - Richard until 1483 was on reasonable terms with Rivers, the Queen and Dorset - he'd knighted the Queen's brother during the war with Scotland a year earlier.
5) The King and his brother were not seen after the summer of 1483 that suggests they died of a) natural causes one of them maybe but both is unlikely b) were murdered by Richard or one of his supporters with access to the tower or c) were perhaps killed in a botched escape attempt or d) escaped to quiet anonymity. Richard had forced Parliament to declare them illegitimate (which was in fact the job of the church not parliament) therefore he ahd little to gain for letting someone see them to prove rumours of their deaths were false that he didn't is to me damning.

I agree that no modern court would convict but i can assure you a medieval one would have done

47
The Windsors / Re: Movies about the British Royal family
« on: December 13, 2011, 05:47:04 PM »
The whole premise is rather pointless as an illegitimate child would have no rights of inheritance anyway even if you remove the thousands of people currently entitled to the British throne under the terms of the Act of Settlement.

48
Couple of repeat points about the last two posts:

1) The reason they remained under arrest despite the provisional government finding nothing to charge them with was because the Provisional Govt was exceptionally weak and was forced to come to terms with the Bolsheviks who were explicit in their criticism of the "freedom" being allowed the Imperial family and those members who had not been arrested primarily the Empress Dowager and GD Mikhail.
2) As has been stated numerous times the British offer of asylum was made by the British Govt - it attracted criticism and was withdrawn at the urging of the King via his Private Secretary - in fact its withdrawal came after Kerensky had already promised the Soviet that N & A would not be allowed to leave Russia and in fact the Petrograd gov thanked the British for withdrawing the offer. I would also point out that unlike Nicholas George V was a Parliamentary Monarch and therefore had to at least look like he listened and considered the views of a) his elected government and b) his people whatever their political views.

Whatever you think of Nicholas he had to a certain extent made his own bed and it is a bit rich to expect his cousins (whose style of constitutional monarchy he had disparaged) to bail him out at the risk of their own thrones.
And cousin George V wasn't the only one who could have offered asylum or help - there was Denmark (maternal cousin) or Norway (double maternal cousin) for example both a damn site nearer and in one case sharing a land border with Russia.

I have always believed that for all his post revolution posturing had Kerensky acted he could have got most of the Romanov's to safety - even if it had meant arresting some of them and forcing them across the border....particularly as his gov began to collapse.

49
Well seeing as i think i was one of those who said i thought Nicholas and Alexandra made a dreadful mistake in not trying to get their daughter's out and in part they should have been more aware of the risks so I should respond.

The debate is interesting for a number of reasons -

1) It became clear early that Nicholas and those around him had been warned that he should get out whilst he could. During his final meeting with his mother before the deposed Emperor returned to the capital saw a senior figure tell her he shouldn't return to Petrograd but get out.
2) The thought they would be sent to England and then later when that faded to the Crimea seemed to have sustained them and perhaps gave them a false sense of their own security.
However the treatment they received from the Kerensky Government and its appointees at the Alexander Palace was hardly polite and must have given them pause to consider their own future safety and that of their son and daughters.
3) Some of their own household offered to take the children out of Russia but the offer was declined.
4) Kerensky was forced pretty early to make guarantees to the Duma and the Soviet that the former Emperor and members of his family would not leave Russia - making an officially sanctioned exit difficult if not impossible - despite that Kerensky continued to provide visas for other members of the Imperial Family. - I believe it would have been possible for the daughter's to have got out had they been willing to go.....Finland and crossing to Sweden being the obvious and probably the safest route.
5) Nicholas and Alexandra were not unique within the wider family at not wishing to leave the country - Michael Alexandrovitch left it till the last minute and like his brother paid with his life (his wife and son were not so unfortunate) as did many other family members.
6) Even the most simplistic reading of history shows that deposed monarchs and their families did not have good long-term survival prospects. Mary Stuart, Charles I, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette and more recently the deposed Emp of Mexico. The latter decades of the 19th century and first of the 20th century has seen Royal personages under increasingly violent attacks that would have been very clear to Nicholas (who had lost a grandfather and an uncle in that way) and to Alexandra, whose cousin's Spanish wedding had been marred by violence for example. Whilst it is true that the children of deposed royalties tended to fair better there were no guarantees.
7) It was pretty clear to almost everyone that the provisional government was exceptionally unstable and that it was fighting to hold together a number of factions and its committment to the war was causing increasing strain on it. Putting your faith in Kerensky was a pretty foolhardy thing to do.

I stick by my view that however happy as a family unit N and A made a terrible mistake in keeping the family together even though on a human level I think we can all understand why an essentially close knit family would want to.

I think it is right to say that they had an almost fatalistic view of their futures during their final months and kind of sleep walked to the end.

I think both are deeply flawed individuals who for a variety of character traits and circumstances (some not their own fault) were heading for disaster long before 1917/8.

They are not to me "tragic" figures their children I think are.

On some of the other issues mentioned in this thread:

I think many of you are right in how history will view the post 9/11 attack on Afghanistan and then Iraq and the causes and legality of the action by The USA and Great Britain in particular.

It isn't really appropriate on this thread but i will say historical views of these kind of things tends to change- Now we have very strong views on the so called "moral" or "justified" war - although how killing anyone can be anything but immoral is beyond me.

It is generally assumed that WWII is a moral war but WWI isn't - despite the fact that some historians are now changing opinions on the First World War and what might have been the effects of an unchallenged German military machine at that period.

Equally I think most of us would honestly admit that the world almost 7 decades after the Second World War is still incapable of dealing with dictators or regimes that treat their people with repression and a lack of basic human rights and that the mechanisms for "legalising" a conflict are rather pointless and dependent on a variety of backroom deals that equally have little to do with any kind of "morality".

Do I think the published reasons given to the American Congress and the British Parliament to justify the invasion of Iraq were accurate, truthful or honest - No I don't - do i think the world and Iraq are a better place without Saddam Hussein - on balance probably which in itself should be enough justification - the resulting mess is in part and genuinely i mean no offence down to the American Government which has never been in the business of nation building after a conflict beyond handing out bucket loads of cash and was completely unprepared for what to do in Iraq once Saddam was gone.

Do I think the West was right to support the popular risings across the Middle East and North Africa - probably - do i think it makes the world safer - I am reserving judgement. THose regimes were perhaps keeping Islamic Fundamentalism at bay but at the same time through their authoritarian ways were driving more of their citizens towards it....look at what is happening to the sizeable Coptic Christian Minority in Egypt - not treated brilliantly well by Mubarak but at least given some semblence of protection - not anymore.

Should we ever take preemptive action just in case - well legally it is a bit of a grey area - does it alway work - nope but it can sometimes - and is one successful pre-emptive strike worth ten failed pre-emptive strikes - maybe.

50
The Windsors / Re: Government starts effort to change succession law
« on: October 20, 2011, 10:33:35 AM »

Few points:

Personally I don't have a problem with a switch to gender-blind primogeniture - I would rather it was done quickly and limited to the descendants of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. (given that the first three people in the line of succession are male)
I would also like to see a change in the rules of the Duchy of Cornwall so that it is free to go to the eldest child of the sovereign rather than the current eldest son - otherwise the usual income of an heir to the throne could end up with a younger brother.
Wales is in the gift of the sovereign and one would assume with any change in the rules that future King's with an older daughter as heir would create her Princess of Wales.


On religion I am pretty undecided.

Respecting differing religions is one thing but Britain is still essentially a Protestant nation.

I continue to have a historical and personal view that it is incompatable for a Head of State to owe allegiance to another ruler (whether religious or otherwise) - especially given the Roman Catholic church as an organisation continues to argue its right to discriminate on religious grounds against numerous people.

My understanding that the Protestant Oath and the Coronation Oath regarding upholding the Protestant Faith applies only to Britain anyway now and not the commonwealth nations of whom the British Monarch remains sovereign.

Britain (and the Commonwealth nations) are not unique in requiring their monarchs to be of a certain faith - for a variety of historical reasons.

The Bill of Rights 1689 is quite clear - "it hath been found by experience that it is inconsistent with the safety and welfare of this Protestant kingdom to be governed by a popish prince, or by any king or queen marrying a papist"

51
Nicholas II / Re: Nicholas II was Unprepared to Rule. Why?
« on: October 17, 2011, 02:47:37 PM »
In those early days after his father's death and his marriage to Alexandra it was very clear to her that he wasn't being treated as she felt he should have been - his Uncles towered over him, his mother was devastated and kept herslef closeted with her sister, one of his brother's was too ill to be much help the other too young - bolstering him up became her job for good or for bad.
She was offended on his behalf that the entire imperial household in the Crimea seemed to fall apart with the Emperor's death and didn't immediately look to Nicholas for a lead in how to proceed. - the following months whilst they lived at the Anitchkov with the Dowager with them effectively playing second fiddle to the Empress Dowager also seemed to spur Alexandra on in bucking him up and urging him to take charge.
I don't think he ever questioned his right to succeed or his intention to reign as an autocrat like his father before him - both Alexander III and NIcholas II's views regarding any form of constitutional change was completely coloured by Alexander II's assasination and never changed.
PS Vladimir wasn't even heir presumptive even if you discount George Alexandrovitch due to his poor health, Michael Alexandrovitch was a fit, healthy teenager.

52
Final point on all this:

Women throughout history are always blamed whether they were responsible or not - in this arguement it is always Elizabeth "the vindictive" or the "saintly wartime queen" against Wallis "the king stealling tart" or "half of the greatest love story of all time".
I think it is time the men took their fair share of responsiblity.
Quite frankly I don't think Elizabeth was particularly vindictive nor do i think she was a saint, I don't think Wallis was either.
If anyone got a raw deal then it was Wallis but ironically like her sister in law she'd made her bed and decided to lie on it.
The shallow and rather pathetic life the Windsors lead (granted in considerable style) was by enlarge dictated by Edward and like most of George V's children he was badly educated, pretty uncultured and rather self indulgent.
Ironically all George V's children found spouses who 'improved' them (perhaps with the exception of Edward VIII and the Princess Royal)

53
Firstly i think it is important to acknowledge that following the establishment of the Provisional Government - Nicholas and Alexandra were technically under house arrest, rumours of offers of asylum were met with dismay by the Soviet who put enormous pressure on the weak, rocking PG to ensure that they didn't leave.
Despite the offers of people to take the children out (which might have been possible) via Finland it was clear that the parents couldn't bear the thought of that happening.
I believe both were exceptionally short-sighted or exceptionally stupid or exceptionally trusting given that the precedent for deposed monarchs and their families wasn't a good one.
I think had Nicholas had some foresight and given the character of Kerensky the children could have relatively easily been moved to Finland and then out via neutral Sweden as they recovered from their illness - certainly people at the Alexander Palace offered to escort them.
I have to say that from everything we know then it is likely that the elder girls would have been extremely reluctant to have left without their parents.
After the second revolution I think that window vanished for good as most of the remaining Romanov's in Russia were arrested ..even Michael Alexandrovitch had left it too late (and he was on the point of leaving Russia when the OCtober Revolution occurred)

54
Sorry continued from above

George VI had an absolute and understandable desire to keep his brother out of England. He never overcame his own feelings of inferiority to his glamorous older brother and irrespective of his own immense popularity especially after the war he couldn't quite believe that given a choice people still wouldn't opt for his brother.

Edward VIII had plenty of choices about where he lived in the 40s it was himself who insisted on the one thing none of the Royal family were keen on - his wife being received and it being recorded in the Court Circular - Hence Elizabeth's letter to Queen Mary on their return from the Bahamas "What are we to do about Mrs S Mama?" or words to that effect - the Duke's main reason for wanting some kind of official position was to be able to avoid paying tax.

Elizabeth's letter to the foreign office reference the appointment to the Bahamas was in her own words a view given that the appointment was already a fait d'accomplit given that Churchill and the King wanted the Windsor out of harms way for the duration down in part to his own behaviour (anyone thinking Churchill was still sympathetic should read his telegrams on the issue including the one that was ammended because it was so inflammatory).

Certainly the US Government at the time were equally unsympathetic to the appointment and had their own concerns about the Duke and his asssociates.

With regard the Windsors treatment by official Britain in their exile - there were concerns at the Palace and in the Foreign Office in the aftermath of the abdication about the Duke's acitivities overseas adn the cosiness of certain British ambassadors who were either friends or aquaintances  (long before the German trip) and the official advice was that he was to be treated as if he were "a member of the Royal family" on holiday along with a raft of advice about the position if a foreign head of state wished him to attend an official function etc. The bottom line was that if in doubt about how to proceed then London was to be contacted for an official view.

It can read today as rather petty and perhaps it was (particular who should meet him on arrival etc) but it was in keeping with precedent for junior members of the royal family on non official trips overseas.

Yes cutting them adrift allowed them to fall in with people and organisations who used them for their own ends but that wouldn't have been possible if the DUke in particular had not been so keen to maintain some kind of position (which is why the idea of him trooping round England undertaking the kind of duties he'd hated as Prince of Wales and King on behalf of his younger brother is laughable).

In later years memories of her own courtiers suggest that the Queen Mother as she became was not filled with any particular hatred for Wallis - I don't doubt that their life fascinated her but she like the King she was never going to countenance anything that "didn't make sense of the past".
And the one thing Elizabeth was in widowhood was determined to protect her husbands reputation, views and opinions - as a biographer said in any discussions with her family about a change she didn't approve of her favourite line to indicate disapproval was  "the King wouldn't have liked it."
The invitation to the Queen Mary memorial in the sixties was a rare exception but as i think Vickers pointed out "she wouldn't have had them for lunch though, they went to the Gloucesters".

55

I've commented before so if I repeat myself I apologise - few points I would like to add to the discussion though:
In Elizabeth's defence one moment she was happily married, with two small daughters and a devoted husband and family, the next she is Queen Consort with a husband who is petrified he isn't up to the job - I think it is perhaps forgiveable that she found it hard to be charitable to the woman who in her view caused it all.
Now don't get me wrong i tend to agree with a certain courtier about the Duchess of York - "My reading of history is that she was quite happy as Duchess of York etc.....that doesn't mean to say she wouldn't want NOT to be Queen now."
Elizabeth was pretty much a typical example of a woman of her time, her class and her upbringing - as the first commoner to marry into the British Royal Family since Anne Hyde she was perhaps as Eleanor Roosevelt commented a bit "self-conciously regal" or as one politician put it a very conservative woman from a "pretty reactionary stable".
She was also popular, had a very mixed circle of friends and tended to be loyal to them.
During the early years of her marriage she was close to the Duke of Windsor and aware of the constraints put upon him and the difficulties he had with his parents in particular his father George V (as atttested to in some surviving letters from her to him).
I think it is common to suggest that Elizabeth was the power in the marriage whilst i think her influence and support were essential to the King - I don't think it is natural to read that she dictated attitudes to the Windsors - in fact the King's most recent biographers have been pretty clear that his views (particular in relation to the HRH) were very much his own. Even when the legal advice he received as King was contrary to his own insincts.
A number of recent biographers have also indicated that her longevity, popularity and strength have tended to downplay how reliant on her husband she was.
As Duke and Duchess of York, George and Elizabeth got on very well with the then Prince of Wales and certainly accepted and spent time with both Freda Dudley Ward (who Elizabeth once commented must be a most remarkable woman for certain things not to have happened) and with Lady Furness (who herself in her own biography was quite complimentary to the then Queen Mother perhaps unsurprisingly).

Wallis was different and I think to be fair the whole Royal Family felt the change quite deeply (particularly the Yorks and the Kents) - the Prince's behaviour changed and the things about Wallis that charmed him (her candour, humour, and the way she treated him as just a man rather than as some kind of demi-god) were the things that most puzzled and embarrassed his relations (and many others in his circle). But his determination to marry her was the key to the reaction of his family.
As is often the case the family chose to blame the cause, Wallis, rather than the person who was really to blame, Edward.
I don't know when Wallis and Edward began their derogatory comments about the Duchess of York - I suspect it was after his accession when there were some very uncomfortable moments - but to be fair by then Edward had reduced the time he saw his brothers and their families to the bare minimum (the Kents who had been very close to him felt it rather keenly) everything including his Royal duties came second to his all-consuming passion for Wallis.
The infamous meeting at Balmoral (as featured in the Kings Speech and in numerous biographers) is debated as whether it happened.

Certainly those comments became cattier and more unpleasant as time continued. On the other side we know Elizabeth enjoyed derogatory comments about Wallis (Joseph Kennedy's comment whilst at dinner at Windsor, the Queen's reference to "that woman" for example).

She certainly was infuriated by what she saw as attempts to brow-beat the King with constant telephone calls from Austria and then France and the Duke's  high profile visits and trips and speeches which to be fair horrified the government, the court aswell as the Royal Family..

To be fair to Edward he wasn't used to having time on his hands nor to being ignored and not able to have it all his own way...he tended in conversation to continue to treat his younger brother as a younger brother rather than his sovereign which increasingly frustrated and irritated both sides.

His own lies about his financial position didn't help relations between the brothers which went quite frankly from bad to worse.


56
From memory

The bulk of the allowances that George V paid to the Grand Duchess Xenia and the Empress Dowager would come from what then would have been regarded as private income. Certainly the property that she occupied seems to have been maintained at what now might be regarded public expense (althout at that time the board of public works would have had responsibility for all these occupied Royal buildings) - it seems that as a grace and favour resident even then it was practice for people to pay for any works done however the King made it explicit that he didn't want the Grand Duchess bothered with such matters and one assumes he picked up the costs.
I also believe that initially Xenia rented a property for herself in London before George V eventually stepped in after her various financial problems and embarrasments - I think the best look at her life in exile is in the excellent "Once a Grand Duchess" which I heartily recomend to any who haven't already read it.
I know that later in the war the Grand Duke MIchael Alexandrovitch was still paying rent for the English Country house he'd rented whilst in exile before the war - he was apparently asked to stop sending money to the Princess Victoria for expenses with regard his English property. After the war his wife and son lived in England until she moved to France (where it was cheaper to live)
Grand Duke George Michaelovitch's wife (the former Princess Marie of Greece) remained in England throughout the war with her daughters.
Grand Duke Michael Michaelovitch and his morganatic wife were already living in England before the Revolution - their daughter's marriages saved them from financial ruin after the revolution though.
Grand Duke Dimitri Pavlovitch ended up in Britain after the war to the fury of the Foreign Office solely due to the independent view of the British Ambassador in Tehran.
I don't think there was any bar on Felix Yusupov visiting England (where he did have an apartment) he did visit as did his wife when they could afford too which wasn't often.

57
I've mentioned the documentation on another thread -
A couple of points:
1) It is easy to forget that Nicholas II's personal reputation as a monarch was the principal hindrance on any western power taking him in - he was even amongst moderates regarded as a tyrant
2) George V's principal responsibility as a constitutional or parliamentary monarch was to safeguard his own throne and nation - offering refuge to his autocratic cousin could have had a significant negative effect on his own popularity (even after the war when the Empress Dowager arrived in England one left-wing paper described her, unfairly, as the "evil genius" behind Nicholas II's regime). The Empress' german birth at a time when George V was distancing his family from their Germanic connections would have also been a significant problem.
3) In between the initial offer from the British Government and its withdrawal (down to the intervention of the King's secretary Lord Stamfordham acting on the King's concerns about the offer) Kerensky had been forced to guarantee that the Imperial Family wouldn't leave Russia to the Soviet. Even at this period the window for escape was narrowing.
4) It seems likely given the rumours that certain attempts to look at the possibility of rescuing them after the bolshevik takeover did exist however fanciful some of them might have been.
5) Kerensky may well have regretted not just packing them on a train to Finland but for much of his life in exile preferred to heap the blame for their fate on other countries as their deaths marred his ideal of a bloodless revolution. Ultimately he not the British, the French or anyone else was responsible. He was relatively happy for many of the family to slope off out of the country but wasn't particularly pro-active in urging them to it.
6) The British attitude officially hardened in the last year of the war and we know that as Russia dissolved into civil war the embassy refused Michael Alexandrovitch's plea for a visa and turned down at least one other Grand Duke's request (George Michaelovitch i think). And certainly during the 20's Grand Duke's with the exception of Dimitri Pavlovitch were refused visa's to enter Britain. On the other hand George V was personally both generous and kind to his aunt, the Empress Dowager and his cousin Xenia Alexandrovna both of whom in exile were frequently included in Royal Family events and certainly he was their principal (though other family helped) source of financial support for the remainder of their lives.



58
The Windsors / Re: Queen Mary- part 4
« on: February 19, 2011, 03:49:31 AM »
None of the Royal Family were particularly tall - not helped by Victoria's tiny height.Also it is worth bearing in mind that Edward VII's descendants had a double height handicap as Alexandra of Denmark's family weren't particularly tall something Marie Feodorovna of Russia passed to her children (though Michael took after the Romanov's in height)


Bear in mind that Queen Victoria was under 5ft, and so pulled down the height of her descendants.

59
The Windsors / Re: King George VI and Queen Elizabeth (nee Bowes Lyon)
« on: February 19, 2011, 03:45:45 AM »
I think the quote (how accurate it is i can't remember) was"Elizabeth is my pride,Margaret my joy."

I think most courtiers thought Margaret was the naughty one whilst Elizabeth was more dutiful (and perhaps more aware of what awaited her). The King was according to some biographers simply amazed by Margaret's beauty but took immense pride in Elizabeth.

60
The Windsors / Re: King George VI and Queen Elizabeth (nee Bowes Lyon)
« on: February 16, 2011, 07:21:49 AM »
The real tension was that the King was very protective of his daughters and believed that the present Queen was too young to fly the nest so to speak. A lot of courtiers weren't keen on the match (partially because of Philip's relations particularly his germanic ones) the Queen would have perhaps initially preferred a British aristocrat to Prince Philip but they got on relatively well - both the King and Queen were under no illusions about Louis Mountbatten's influence which was one source of tension but both realised that the Princess was absolutely determined.

Very, very, very close.  The King and Queen spoke of "we four".  They appear to have been rather an insular family, trying to protect eachother from the outside world.  The only real moment of tension was when the present Queen was determined to marry Philip of Greece, rather against her parent´s wishes.

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