Survival --


The Windsors -- 72 min
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House of Hanover

George I 1714 - 1727
Upon his arrival in London to be crowned King of England George I spoke no English and had a very limited understanding of English affairs of state as his native Electorate of Hanover (later the Kingdom of Hanover) had no representative assembly to interfere in the legislative process.

George I was the great-grandson of King James VI & I on his mother's side and on her mother's side. The Electors of Hanover were hereditary members of the Electoral Collage who "elected" the Holy Roman Emperor.

Of course, foreign princes had worn the English Crown before. You may recall, that fully eight generations of Plantagenet Kings had ruled over the English before one made a public address in the English Language.

All the same these difficulties were a little bit harder on George I as, at age fifty-four, he was old and stuck in his ways and he faced a sticky situation as the two-party system, which had grown up under his predecessor was at an all time high. It is not surprising then, that George was known to escape back to Hanover every chance he had.

The chief supporters of George's successon had been the Whig Party and they were rewarded with the bulk of top jobs in the government. We wouldn't consider the Whigs of George's time "liberals" today but due to their tendency to support weaker executive powers to the benefit of Parliament (still "over-mighty" aristocrats for the most part) they were considered quite liberal and even radical in their own time. It was unusual for the Monarch to side with the Whigs but it certainly makes sense for George I to have in light of the little interest he had shown in personally ruling the realm.

George faced a challenge from the old regime within a year of taking the throne. King James VII & II's son, James Francis Edward Stuart - known as "The Old Pretender," supported by the French King Louis XIV arrived in Scotland in support of an uprising known as "The Fifteen" which was squashed in the Battle of Preston in Northern England and the Battle of Sheriffmuir in Scotland. George's government received quite a boost from the the squashing of this uprising and the Jacobite's reputation was never to recover. At that time, there really wasn't any discontentment or, for that matter, much interest in politics at all on the part of the vast majority of Britains.

Another attempt to enthrone the Old Pretender would take place in 1719. This time the rebels were backed by Spanish soldiers who were similarly beaten into submission by the English at the Battle of Glen Shiel in Scotland. This would prove to be the last attempt to place the Old Pretender on the Throne by military force during George I's reign.

Not long after George I had had assured military security by crushing the Jacobite revolt, financial whoas struck England when the South Sea Bubble hit in 1720. An attempt to refinance a huge portion of the Kingdom's National Debt through a trading house led a bubble and widespread fraud in the equities markets as this debt was confused for investable funds and used to back further debt. Don't you hate when that happens? When the bubble burst many fortunes were lost causing the economy to become depressed and George I and his ministers to become increasingly unpopular.

The resulting wave of resignations inspired the rise of the most enigmatic figure to arise from George I's association with the Whigs, Prime Minister Robert Walpole, the first man who would hold that title which would one day surpass the influence of the title held by King George I himself. Walpole largely took over the financial and diplomatic functions of Government leading to a rapid acceleration of the trend toward a weakened Crown and a more politically influential Parliament. He was also the longest serving Prime Minister in British History.

George's relationship with his son George Augustus, Prince of Wales was to set a precedent that continues to this day of Hanoverian/Windsor male heirs not getting along with their regent father's at all. The younger George was actually kicked out of the Royal Dwelling at the insistence of the Elder George whose policies young George Augustus had been undermining and whose ministers young George had severely offended.

When George I died at the age of sixty-seven he was not a popular King. In part this was due to his being foreign and in part this was due to his treatment of his wife, Sophia Dorothea of Celle. But George I was not really a "bad King." George was very much an Enlightenment figure and England was, by no means, the police state it had been under the Stuarts or that it would become a century later under his successors.

George II
1727 - 1760
Early in the reign of King George II the pattern of Hanoverian Kings not getting along with their eldest sons was engraved into stone as the new King fueded with his own heir-apparent Frederick, Prince of Wales who was similarly banished from enjoying the company of the royal family.

George also feuded with Walpole, though the latter retained his position until 1742 when he was fairly close to retirement anyway.

Of course readers of this blog know George II quite well owing to his classic showdown with Bonnie Prince Charlie in 1745 which culminated in the Battle of Culloden where English forces loyal to George and commanded by William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland (Cumberland the butcher) slaughtered Jacobite forces in a short but violent battle which has come to be known as "the Highlanders Last Stand."

In the aftermath of the battle Cumberland undertook what he called "the Pacification of the Highlands" burning villages and banning the wearing of clan Tartans or any other trapping of Highland national pride or Highland national history.

The Scots will give you a heavily romanticized version of the story of Bonnie Prince Charlie while the English do their best to portray him as a buffoon, at best, and a terrorist at worst. As always, the answer lay somewhere in between. There was significant Jacobite sentiment in Northern England and the young Pretender probably did come a good deal closer to capturing the Crown than the English would like to admit. The Young Pretender's popularity, unquestionably, post-dates his own life-time and given the great cruelty with which his ancestors: King James II and King Charles I governed England it seems unlikely that he would made a more enlightened Monarch than King George II. Both the Scots and the English will tell you that he was "pig-headed" which appears to have been a Stuart family trait. In the wake of the battle, the Highland way of life was essentially wiped out and a ginormous reward was issued for the capture of the Highland Prince who spent five months wandering the Highlands, legend has it disguised as a women, but "no Scotsman, no matter how poor, was base enough to betray the Bonnie Prince." This fact, of course, speaks more to the character of the Highlanders than to that of Charlie himself.

King George primarily saw the Highland situation as an unwanted distraction from his ambitions on the continent vis a viz his participation in the War of the Austrian Succession. That policy would prove George II's last initiative of any kind, however, Britain's Empire which would one day cover a quarter of the Globe began to spread its' roots during George's reign as did the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution.

George was the last British Monarch to have been a naturalized citizen and he was also the last British King to personally lead troops into battle. They were, however, Hanoverian troops defending George's lands in Germany. George's son and heir, Prince Fredrick, preceded him in death, allegedly having been hit in the head with a cricket ball and the succession passed to his Grandson .

George III 1760-1820
If you are an American you have read extensively (I hope) about King George III whether you know it or not. The third section of The United States Declaration of Independence contains twenty sentences that begin "He has" in reference to George III and ends: "[a] Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people."

Ouch! Not much change for a quarter in that assessment. Based on this document and George's well-know bouts of insanity, decades later, one might have the idea that King George III's reign would have been something of a disaster for the British and one could not be more wrong. The reign of George III was, in fact, characterized by remarkable financial prosperity and military success and George remains beloved by the English to this day. Of course, unless you are American, you already knew that.

Having reigned nearly sixty years throughout the most turbulent period up to that point in history, one might assume the British Empire were at a distinct disadvantage for having so unstable a figure at its' head. But by that point in British History the Crown had become so irrelevant politically that the goings on inside the head upon which it sat mattered little.

Having crowded out France and gained control of most of North America early in the reign of George III the English did what they did best and started to tax the living crap out of their colonial subjects leading to the famous Boston Tea Party which is, of course, the inspiration for the Teabagger or Teahadist Movement in America today where welfare recipients get drunk on moonshine and picket US Landmarks with misspelled signs demanding that their welfare benefits be cut off.

In the Revolutionary War that followed George III was widely pamphleteered against as a villain. Said Atheist hero Thomas Paine: "[h]e that rebels against reason is a real rebel, but he that in defence of reason rebels against tyranny has a better title to Defender of the Faith, than George the Third. " This is completely unfair. There really is no evidence of George doing anything to provoke the Revolution or anything at all as King for that matter, in this period or subsequently.

However, on July 4, 1776 the American colonies famously declared independence from the British Empire and George obstinately pursued five years of gorilla warfare in the American forests ending with the British defeat and American Independence was officially recognized in 1783 when George signed the Peace of Paris.

But Revolution in North America was not to be contained there. Much of the anti-Monarchical propaganda which had been published in America during their Revolution managed to reach the streets of France who had been America's most important ally in the struggle. Coincidentally, at the very outbreak of revolution in France, George III had just recovered from the first round of the reoccurring fits of madness which would plague his entire reign and his son, George, Prince of Wales (whom George detested, naturally) was given regency powers by Parliament.

On July 14, 1790 the residents of Pairs began creating open war on their Monarch via the Storming of the Bastille which is still celebrated as a holiday today in spite of the Reign of Terror and other unpleasantness which followed the Beheading of Louis XVI in 1793.

For some reason, in spite of their own, long, history of regicide (Edward II, Richard II, Henry VI, Edward V and Charles I plus a few that were killed in battle), the English public was SCANDALIZED by French's execution of the French King. France declared war on Great Britain before the body of Louis XVI was even cold.

Civil liberties were severely curtailed in Britain following the French Revolution as most of the revolutionary tracts which inspired the French to guillotine their King had been written in English and were clearly directed at George III. While technically still at war with France, though French internal difficulties left the two nations in a state of cease-fire for much of the period from 1798 to 1804 when Napoleon Bonaparte turned the conflict into an all out war for the future of Europe, great constitutional liberties could be taken and the British seemed willing to go along with it in light of the much more extreme violations of liberty that were taking place south of their borders.

The rise of Napoleon, who was crowned Emperor of France in 1804, coincided with yet another fit of madness upon George III's part beginning a clear deterioration of both his neurological and general health leading to his being declared unfit to exercise regency in the realm in 1811. This, Regency Period was practically the early reign of King George IV rather than the later reign of George III.

George was at the height of his popularity when the final bout of madness, from which he never recovered, hit. The Regency is widely remembered as a golden age of aristocratic excess as the free-spending Prince of Wales added several digits to the National Debt building or rebuilding most of London's most popular tourist attractions. However, it was also during the Regency Period that Napoleon was defeated. As King George IV the Prince Regent would go on to become, perhaps, the most unpopular King in the history of the Islands, however, his time as Regent show him to be a man who was not without talent nor incapable of hard work. He may very well have been the worst King in the history of Britain but he was one of the finest Princes of Wales as well.

George IV 1820 - 1830
George IV was a bad King but I'm unsure if that is really why the English hate him so much. And they absolutely did despise the King and still do. Said the Times of London shortly after George IV's death in 1830: "[t]here never was an individual less regretted by his fellow-creatures than this deceased king. What eye has wept for him? What heart has heaved one throb of unmercenary sorrow? " Not much change for a fifty-cent-piece there.

The one thing everyone remembers about King George was that he was fat, 300 lbs. He apparently spent the last eight years of his reign in a room right next to the palace Kitchen: laying bed, snacking, taking opium for his gout and washing it all down with bottle after bottle of cherry brandy. A personal assistant of his claimed to have watched him eat a steak, an entire chicken and a whole pie "and that was just before breakfast." This King could EAT!

The first two years of George IV's reign were a little more active than that and following a unsuccessful attempt to divorce his wife Caroline of Brunswick, who he also bared from his coronation ceremony, he became the first King to visit Ireland since Medieval times and the first King since Charles II signed the National Covenent (in bad faith) to visit Scotland. His visit to Scotland is remembered for the introduction of "tartan fever" whereby Scotland's history was rewritten making them all: kilt-wearing, bagpipe-blowing, Highlanders. In truth, Southern-Scotland had no tradition of clan-tartans of any kind before George's visits and many such tartans and even the clans themselves were created "out of whole cloth" in consequence of George's visit in 1822. No, William Wallace never wore a Kilt but he may have had a braid in his mullet.

Prior to his succession to the Crown George had been an ardent Whig and a supporter of Catholic Emancipation but historians now believe that Prince George only took on these political views as a means of annoying his father, King George III, who, like any good Hanover, the younger George despised and, of course, the feeling was mutual. As King George IV did not, as had been expected of him, install a Whig government and fought the Catholic Relief Act tooth and nail sighting his Coronation Oath as a Protestant King as reason.

Aside from the issue of Catholic Relief, George involved himself in politics precious little following his return from Scotland in 1822. George's debasement of the Crown via his unapologetic gluttony forced the British Royal Family to have to reassess their roll in the realm. Steps were quickly taken to "so tie his successor's hands" that nothing like a reign of George IV could ever happen again essentially stripping the Monarch of his or her remaining administrative responsibilities and transforming the institution into one primarily focused upon ceremony.

William III & IV 1830 - 1837
William III & IV is sometimes called "the Sailor King" due to his long and distinguished naval career prior to his succession to the British Crown. William was the third son of King George III and both of his legitimate children had died prior to his becoming King.

William was a truly moderate and conciliatory figure. This was something he he took some abuse for in his own time, however, coming on the toes of his unpopular brother, "Georgie Porgy," who had shamefully eaten himself to death at public expense and humiliated the British people with his bohemian lifestyle and obnoxious personality, I cannot see how William could have acted any differently than he did.

Sadly, this was an era when nuance was sorely unappreciated. For the most part, William's attempts to find middle ground between the increasingly radical Whigs and their growingly reactionary Tories were widely chalked up to indecisiveness. William would stand his ground, however, when the situation called for it.

While some of the more bellicose partisans of the day did not care for William, he deserves much priase for his to his assiduous avoidance of luxury and formality. Unlike any British Monarch before him or since, William was a "man of the people."

It was the 1831 Parliamentary Elections which first exposed the King to charges of indecisiveness. Electoral reform was badly overdue in the House of Commons which was dominated by ministers elected from scantly populated "Rotten Boroughs" in consequence of the electoral map having been last updated two-and-a-half centuries before.

It was clear that ministers from these districts were unlikely to support their own removal and so William was pressured into dissolving Parliament (one of the very few Royal Prerogatives that remained available to the King) in spite of the fact that elections had taken place only a year before. This was intended as a national referendum on Electoral Reform and William participated in it only, very reluctantly.

While the subsequent elections produced an overwhelming mandate for reform the House of Lords used its' veto power to kill a second attempt at reform. William was forced to create new peers in the upper house equal to the number needed to pass the Final Reform Bill in 1832 but refused to force the bill's passage doing great harm to the King's popularity.

Though an isolationist personally, William's conciliatory attitude went far in the diplomatic arena particularly in the United States whose work-ethic and independent spirit William is said to have greatly admired. William also declined to involve Britain in the turbulent political climate of Continental Europe.

This attitude bore fruit a decade later as Britain was largely spared the fires and turmoil of the Revolutions of 1848 and the United States would make a great ally when it would grow into the powerhouse it would become over the next century. Widely dismissed in his own time as a dullard, William was, in fact, a man well above his time in many respects.

Apart from a single incident in 1834 where William unsuccessfully attempted to apply his Royal Prerogative to the selection of a Torrie Prime Minister against the will of Parliament William's interference in legislative affairs was at an end following the Reform Crisis. From the Glorious Revolution to William's time the trend in British politics was to shift from the personal rule of the Monarch to the two houses of Parliament. William's reign was marked by the shift of influence from the unelected House of Lords to the popularly elected House of Commons.

Victoria 1837-1901
The sixty-four years that Victoria sat upon the throne are known as "the Victorian era" where Britain took her turn as the central power player in international politics. Of course Victoria was only the symbolic Head of State, however her name will forever be associated with British Imperialism and fine manners, nonetheless.

Victoria was the daughter of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, the fourth son of King George III and had thus led a life of comparative austerity when compared to the luxurious, and often decedent, surroundings in which her predecessors had been reared. Although raised to be a staunch Whig, power shifted to the Tories early in her reign, a position of dominance that they would maintain throughout.

One of the most powerful women in history, Victoria does not figure prominently at all in the history of women's liberation due to her often caustic lack of sympathy for the plight of other members of her own gender. On the subject of Women's Suffrage the queen famously quipped: "[t]he Queen is most anxious to enlist every one who can speak or write to join in checking this mad, wicked folly of 'Woman's Rights', with all its attendant horrors, on which her poor feeble sex is bent, forgetting every sense of womanly feeling and propriety."

She did stand up for the right of women to be allowed anesthesia during childbirth in spite of the ridiculous opinion of the time that the pain of childbirth was a part of God's plan and should not be mitigated. In truth the clumsy administration of chloroform provided to women at that time in history was quite dangerous but that's not the part of the story we like to remember and sometimes it really is the thought that counts.

The first twenty years of Victoria's reign consisted practically of a co-regency with her husband Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Though we would not consider him to be a liberal or a progressive today Prince Albert's interest in science and technology stands out in his own time when such occupations as "the mechanical arts" were considered beneath the dignity of the high-born and science was widely viewed as a threat to traditional values.

Albert was very much a traditionalist however his organization of the futuristic Crystal Palace Exhibition could only be the brainchild of a man far ahead of his time. The Crystal Palace was not, by any means, symbolic of social or political reform, however, the exhibits were clearly the result of the blossoming of that capitalist-industrial Britain which the burgeoning Labour movement, who had set much of Continental Europe alight three years before had so lamented as the tools of all of their oppression and misery.

When Prince Albert died in 1861 Victoria very nearly withdrew from public life completely and spent the rest of her reign (forty years) cloaked in back and in a state of mourning. This has caused much speculation as to the Queen's psychological state which continues to this day but it is somewhat understandable as Prince Albert was indeed an extraordinary individual whose talents and hard work as Prince Consort to Queen Victoria have gone largely unappreciated by the British public both in his own time and subsequently.

Although only a symbolic Head of State it needs to be remembered that Victoria was symbolically at the head of the most powerful state the world had ever known (only Genghis Khan could be said to have had more subjects than she) thus when her daughter Princess Victoria was betrothed to Prince Frederick of Germany the heir to the German Imperial throne there was a fear that Victoria would be outranked by her younger namesake. Thus Britain took the extraordinary step of creating the elder Victoria as Empress of India in 1877 a title that would be formally abandoned by the Crown following the appearance of Mahatma Gandhi during the reign of Victoria's great-grandson King George VI in the late 1940s.

In 1896 Victoria became the longest reiging Monarch in the history of Britain (or England if you will) coinsiding with the Queen's unprecedented Diamond Jubilee. It does look as if the present Monarch Queen Elizabeth II will survive to see her own Diamond Jubilee celebration scheduled for February 6, 2012 given that Elizabeth II's mother Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon lived to the unheard of age of 102 but, for now, Victoria is unique in her longevity as queen.

Victoria would be remembered over the next couple of generations as the "Grandmother of Europe" owing to the marriages that she arranged for her several children among the few remaining royal houses in Europe. In World War I her grandchildren undertook to feud among themselves destroying much of the infrastructure of the continent in the process. Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany, Czar Nicholas of Russia and King George V of England were all first cousins prompting Lenin to refer to WWI as a "family squabble" that had gotten out of hand. Near the end of the War, one by one, the great royal houses of Europe began to fall until every other Monarchy in Europe had either been abolished or was as insignificant as the British Crown had become. In this, the British could be said to have been centuries ahead of their time.

In her last years Victoria was very popular but quite cranky about making public appearances and so-forth prompting much criticism in the British press. This was understandable for a women of her age, however, the royal household was still supported by tax-dollars and seemed to many a rather expensive luxury not to be enjoyed. Following her death in 1901 her son would rectify this oversight on his mother's part taking pomp and ceremony to new heights in what is remembered as, yet another, Golden Age of the British Monarchy.

The House of Windsor

Edward II & VII 1901-1910
As I have mentioned before, Edward II & VII was actually the tenth King named Edward to rule over England and only the second with that name to rule Scotland (in fact many lists of Kings of the Scots omit Edward Balliol who was a pretender backed by the English). Though born Albert Edward Saxe-Coburg-Gotha the new King took the name of "Edward" upon his coronation against the last wishes of his mother, perhaps in continuation of the Hanoverian/Windsor tradition of eldest sons despising their fathers. In spite of Victoria's complete and utter disregard for her duties as Queen Regent in the years following the death of her husband, Prince Albert, the future King Edward had largely been on the coldest of terms with the rest of the Royal-Family throughout his mother's reign largely due to his reputation as a playboy and a partier. Victoria also unfairly blamed the Prince for the death of the elder Albert.

Black-sheep though he was Edward Albert took a shine to public life in a way no Prince of Wales before him had done. He had a knack for courting public popularity which would allow him to become, perhaps, the most beloved Monarch the Islands had ever known.

As King Edward was largely occupied with foreign affairs spending much of his time abroad. The isolationist policies with regard to the continent which had permeated the reigns of his predecessors were largely reversed as Edward hobnobbed with the regents of the various royal houses, most of whom were his nephews and nieces, and he is sometimes referred to as "Uncle of Europe."

Edward is mainly remembered for his concoction of elaborate ceremonies in which he was the center of attention and for his impact on English fashion which still blights the Island's to this day. Edward introduced such monstrosities as: bowler hats, tweed jackets, cardigan sweaters, plaid pants and wing-tips which remain the uniform of snotty upper-class douchebags and elitist, right-wing University Professors throughout the English-Speaking World and undoubtedly will continue to warn innocent bystanders of oncoming bombardments of douchebaggary from miles away, for generations to come.

His speeches and domestic policy initiatives were universally drafted by advisors and his foreign policy consisted primarily of good-will missions which Edward treated as extended sight-seeing holidays.

Nevertheless the treaties which were amassed upon these missions substantially affected the realm four years after his death. The dominoes were all in place when Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated by Serbian nationalists in 1914 as one by one a series of treaty arrangements required one nation after another to declare war upon the previous "domino" embroiling the Continent in its' most destructive war ever.

George V 1910 - 1936
The first King to take the name of Windsor, "Saxe-Coburg-Gotha" being ever so slightly too German a name for the Royal House at war the Imperial Power, George was different kind of King than his predecessors in many respects. For instance, George loved his father King Edward I & VII breaking the Hanoverian curse of family cannibalism that had so scandalized public opinion throughout the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries.

In my opinion George V's greatest achievement was his Irish Policy which very nearly ended the civil strife on the Emerald Isle that had soaked that nation in blood was was now threatening to leak over into the UK Parliament as a whole. At George's prompting an act was passed allowing Irish to declare themselves as citizens of: Ireland, England or both on an individual basis undermining the labeling efforts of revolutionary Irish Nationalists and reactionary Unionists who had been insisting on one or the other designation being forced upon all Irish irregardless of individual wishes.

If continued reconciliatory maneuvers had been applied to Irish situation the next eighty years of Civil War may very well have been mitigated if not avoided altogether but the First World War and its' aftermath detracted most of the governments attention from internal affairs for the next several years of George's reign. I don't want to spoil the ending, but Britain and her allies won! Yay!

A public relations nightmare occurred shortly after Germany's taking up arms prompting Britain to enter the First World War in that the Hanovers, from whom George had inherited the Crown and their cousins, the Dukes of Saxe-Coburg were themselves German and the British Royal family were heirs to great Estates and titles within the German Imperial Peerage which they had but little choice to abdicate to avoid the appearance of conflict of interest. George officially changed the family name from "Saxe-Coburg-Gotha" to "Windsor" at the same time the German Shepard was changed to "Alsatian." I'm afraid I don't know much about dog breeds but I don't believe that name is still in use today, however, the name of Windsor, with its' inherent Englishness arising through Shakespeare's Merry Wives thereof and the classic battle between Good King Richard the Lionheart and Evil Prince John at the end of the classically ahistorical Ivanhoe, by Sir Walter Scott stuck.

Toward the end of the conflict the German's appeared to have gotten the upper hand due to the Russian Revolution of 1917. The Bolsheviks owed the success of their rebellion to Kaiser Wilhelm and quickly made peace with the Germans allowing them to shift their efforts to the Western Front meaning heavy bombardment of Britain. But the German's made the tactical error of employing submarines in the North Atlantic inspiring the wrath of the Industrial Powerhouse, the United States of America who tipped the scales in favor of the Britain and her Allies.

Though hostilities ended fairly quickly after the American's involvement the politics of the day would remain oriented toward foreign affairs for many years to come owing to the multiplicity of treaties which George would need to be present to sign although they had been substantially negotiated by others. George would not regret the abdication of his family's German claims as one of the first acts of the new Weimar Republic was to abolish all Princely titles. In the wake of the actions of the Russians two years before in executing their Royal Family and declaring themselves a Socialist Republic this left Georges Crown, which had been widely mocked among the other royal houses for its' political weakness, the strongest Monarchy remaining in Europe.

British Dominions were not completely unaffected by the onslaught of Republicanism that swept the World in the aftermath of the Great War. George acquiesced to ending the Iron-fisted colonial policy among the nation-states of Britains mighty Empire reorganizing them into a loose confederacy of autonomous nations still known today as the British Commonwealth, not to be confused with the English Commonwealth which was a period of Martial Law and religious extremism that briefly overtook the English Nation following the tragic and thoroughly unjustified beheading of Saint Charles Stuart in the mid-seventeenth Century ... Ah but digress.

George V was the first King to address the British people via radio. He died in 1936 having issued the following, prophecy in regards to his eldest son and heir: "After I am dead, the boy will ruin himself within 12 months ..."

Edward VIII 1936
George V could not have been more right about Prince Edward had he traveled to the future and saw for himself the mess that his son Edward would make for himself and the Crown. Edward was a notorious playboy which wouldn't normally be a problem but for his tendency to carry on these affairs with women who were already married to men of great importance in the public limelight.

Correspondence between Edward and his future-wife Wallis Simpson reveal Edward to be a richly romantic character but also betray him as exceedingly emotionally dependent upon Simpson for a man of his: age, background and class. Come-on ladies, you know the type, needed a "mommy to look after him." His character simply did not befit the office of King and he would have undoubtedly been forced to abdicate over some other screw-up.

As prophesied by the Old King, less than a year after his accession and before his coronation Edward was forced to abdicated his throne over his intention to marry Wallis Simpson who was already married to a prominent US businessman leading to Mrs. Simpson being named Time Magazine - Man of the Year for 1936. Many feel that the Wallis Simpson controversy was a cover for a more disturbing flaw in Edward's character, that he was a NAZI sympathizer.

A year after the high-profile abdication Edward visited Germany with his wife as a guest of Adolf Hitler. After World War II had ended, the couple, now styled Duke and Dutches of Windsor, eventually settled in France where they kept company with a wide array of notorious fascists

George VI 1936
1936 - 1952
For much of George VI's reign Britain was under siege affording the British little opportunity for the pomp and ceremony which had come to define the Monarchy in the years after the Glorious Revolution. Needless to say, the politics of the time were also deadly serious meaning the British could no longer pretend that their beloved and ancient governing institution had any bearing upon the great issues of the day.

The complexities of modern society called for very specialized and highly skilled professionals in whom the public had absolute confidence to steer the boat of State to safety and any hint of interference by the Monarch in politics simply would not do. George VI largely sat on the sidelines and watched as the British Empire, which had reached its' peak in the regime of his grandfather, King Edward I & VII, went into decline.

Mistakes were made, and nearly everyone acknowledges Neville Chamberlain's appeasement policies toward Adolf Hitler rank right up there with Ethelred the Unready's payment of the Danegeld to Sweyn Forkbeard in the Early Eleventh-Century as one of those things which must have somehow seemed like a good idea at the time. The King himself appears to have been taken in by Chamberlain but within two years of his Coronation: the appeasement policy had failed, the Nation was at war and it was time for the Royal Family to step out of the way.

George and his family sacrificed much for the war effort steadfastly refusing to relocate during the seven years of brutal bombardment which the city of London was subjected to. Of course it is Prime Minister Winston Churchill who is pictured seated a Yalta with Franklin D. Roosevelt and Josef Stalin with the King nowhere in sight, however, the King did prove useful to the war effort in his capacity as a ribbon-cutter rallying the British public, who were still happy play the role of his faithful subjects, into new heights of nationalist fervor in speaking campaigns and tours of bombed out cities and munitions factories.

Following the War the process of disintegration of the once mighty British Empire, which had begun in the reign of his father George V, was formalized and the, largely symbolic at this point, titles of: King of Ireland and Emperor of India had to be abandoned by George in favor of the completely symbolic Leadership of the Commonwealth title to which no formal authority was attached. The Commonwealth realm has, from its institution, largely organized competitive sporting events and plays no role whatsoever in the governance of the vast majority of its' member states.

A heavy smoker George VI was taken prematurely from lung cancer in 1952. His concession that the Royal Family were no longer a force at all in British politics has been compared to WWE President Vince McMahon's concession that Professional Wrestling is Fake. There are those who look to the great revolutions of: Magna Carta, Simon de Montfort, the Lords Appellant and Oliver Cromwell after which, respectively, it was said that the political influence of the Monarchy was dead and warn readers not to discount completely that the current Monarchy could return as a political force to be reckoned with in Britain. To me this seems unlikely, instead I think that there is still a politically influential monarchy in Britain but rather than the deriving from the hereditary line of Kings and Queens descended from King Egbert power has shifted to the elective monarch, beginning with Robert Walpole.

Elizabeth I & II 1952 - present
I know that Elizabeth is NEVER referred to with dual Roman Numerals but Queen Elizabeth I's dominion only included England, Ireland and Wales, not Scotland. A quick scan of a list of Scottish Monarchs contains no other person with that name.

It would be the understatement, perhaps of a generation, to state that Elizabeth II is not a great woman like Elizabeth I but it also wouldn't be entirely fair. Like stating that a Washington Apple doesn't taste as good as a Florida Orange. A Washington Apple could easily still taste better than a Florida Apple.

Elizabeth's legacy will undoubtedly relate to her decision to give the media remarkably more access to the Royal family than the behavior of the media probably warrants. This generosity has been repaid with repeated reporting on the sexual proclivities of Elizabeth's children and their estranged spouses which always manages to scandalize the general public for some reason.

I have never understood this feigned indignity by the public when such reports come forward. It's not as though any Prince or Princess has been caught with a gimp chained up in their basement or something, well not yet at any rate.

Throughout Elizabeth's "reign", of course, the Monarchy has largely been a clearing house for charitable endeavors which are all that separate the Royal Family, at present, from being little more than the last vestige of the idle rich. Let us be honest, the jobs of members of the Royal Family involves little more than flaunting obscene amounts of wealth in the faces of their, increasingly economically strapped, fellow citizens and the British LOVE them for it. This may be why no one has been caught with a gimp-toad yet, they don't need one, they have the entire general public.

This charitable bend worked at snowing the public for a while but in recent years concern has been expressed by many regarding charities promoting useless and even harmful Alternative Medical Practices which are notoriously corrupt financially.

To her credit, she did change the rules of succession so that in the future female members of the Royal Family no longer have to "go to the back of the line" so to speak. This won't probably take effect for a couple of generations due it not being retroactive and their having been males nearer the front of the line at the time the change was made.

Elizabeth also willingly submitted to pay some taxes, the first Monarch in history to do so, and gave up a great deal of the staff and other privileges that British taxpayers had been lavishing on the Royals prior to the 1992 Windsor Castle fire. And there is not a hint of any infidelity of any kind in her own marriage to Prince Philip in spite of all the digging around the Royal Family's interpersonal relationships that the media has engaged in over the past twenty years.

After World War I most of Western Europe chose to kill their Monarchies while the British chose instead to have their's defanged so they could keep their's as a pet and the last 300 years of the British Monarchy have witnessed the once mighty Lion of Britain devolving into a house-cat whom the British appear to take great personal satisfaction in publicly shaming when it pees on the rug. That these celebrities we whose sex lives we can't get enough of are still the decedents of great heroes like Alfred the Great and Henry V only shows that the complexities of modern society require a more sophisticated form of government than hereditary Monarchs can provide. Neither of those men would probably be in a more dignified situation were they alive today.

In closing I would like to point out that the history of the British Monarchy: from Ælle of Sussex, through Egbert of Wessex and William the Conqueror up until Henry VIII through to today, is not the history of Britain or even of England but only the stories of the tiniest of tiny elites who happened to live in those lands at certain times in history. Reading the history of the Monarchy as a means of learning the history of a nation or her people is analogous to to reading a several thousand page book by only looking at the bookmarks.

Survival --


The Windsors -- 72 min
www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=FB081AAB22F398B9

House of Hanover

George I 1714 - 1727
Upon his arrival in London to be crowned King of England George I spoke no English and had a very limited understanding of English affairs of state as his native Electorate of Hanover (later the Kingdom of Hanover) had no representative assembly to interfere in the legislative process.

George I was the great-grandson of King James VI & I on his mother's side and on her mother's side. The Electors of Hanover were hereditary members of the Electoral Collage who "elected" the Holy Roman Emperor.

Of course, foreign princes had worn the English Crown before. You may recall, that fully eight generations of Plantagenet Kings had ruled over the English before one made a public address in the English Language.

At the same these difficulties were a little bit harder on George I as, at age fifty-four, he was old and stuck in his ways and he faced a sticky situation as the two-party system, which had grown up under his predecessor was at an all time high. It is not surprising then, that George was known to escape back to Hanover every chance he had.

The chief supporters of George's successon had been the Whig Party and they were rewarded with the bulk of top jobs in the government. We wouldn't consider the Whigs of George's time "liberals" today but due to their tendency to support weaker executive powers to the benefit of Parliament (still "over-mighty" aristocrats for the most part) they were considered quite liberal and even radical in their own time. It was unusual for the Monarch to side with the Whigs but it certainly makes sense for George I to have in light of the little interest he had shown in personally ruling the realm.

George faced a challenge from the old regime within a year of taking the throne. King James VII & II's son, James Francis Edward Stuart - known as "The Old Pretender," supported by the French King Louis XIV arrived in Scotland in support of an uprising known as "The Fifteen" which was squashed in the Battle of Preston in Northern England and the Battle of Sheriffmuir in Scotland. George's government received quite a boost from the the squashing of this uprising and the Jacobite's reputation was never to recover. At that time, there really wasn't any discontentment or, for that matter, much interest in politics at all on the part of the vast majority of Britains.

Another attempt to enthrone the Old Pretender would take place in 1719. This time the rebels were backed by Spanish soldiers who were similarly beaten into submission by the English at the Battle of Glen Shiel in Scotland. This would prove to be the last attempt to place the Old Pretender on the Throne by military force during George I's reign.

Not long after George I had had assured military security by crushing the Jacobite revolt, financial whoas struck England when the South Sea Bubble hit in 1720. An attempt to refinance a huge portion of the Kingdom's National Debt through a trading house led a bubble and widespread fraud in the equities markets as this debt was confused for investable funds and used to back further debt. Don't you hate when that happens? When the bubble burst many fortunes were lost causing the economy to become depressed and George I and his ministers to become increasingly unpopular.

The resulting wave of resignations inspired the rise of the most enigmatic figure to arise from George I's association with the Whigs, Prime Minister Robert Walpole, the first man who would hold that title which would one day surpass the influence of the title held by King George I himself. Walpole largely took over the financial and diplomatic functions of Government leading to a rapid acceleration of the trend toward a weakened Crown and a more politically influential Parliament. He was also the longest serving Prime Minister in British History.

George's relationship with his son George Augustus, Prince of Wales was to set a precedent that continues to this day of Hanoverian/Windsor male heirs not getting along with their regent father's at all. The younger George was actually kicked out of the Royal Dwelling at the insistence of the Elder George whose policies young George Augustus had been undermining and whose ministers young George had severely offended.

When George I died at the age of sixty-seven he was not a popular King. In part this was due to his being foreign and in part this was due to his treatment of his wife, Sophia Dorothea of Celle. But George I was not really a "bad King." George was very much an Enlightenment figure and England was, by no means, the police state it had been under the Stuarts or that it would become a century later under his successors.

George II
1727 - 1760
Early in the reign of King George II the pattern of Hanoverian Kings not getting along with their eldest sons was engraved into stone as the new King fueded with his own heir-apparent Frederick, Prince of Wales who was similarly banished from enjoying the company of the royal family.

George also feuded with Walpole, though the latter retained his position until 1742 when he was fairly close to retirement anyway.

Of course readers of this blog know George II quite well owing to his classic showdown with Bonnie Prince Charlie in 1745 which culminated in the Battle of Culloden where English forces loyal to George and commanded by William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland (Cumberland the butcher) slaughtered Jacobite forces in a short but violent battle which has come to be known as "the Highlanders Last Stand."

In the aftermath of the battle Cumberland undertook what he called "the Pacification of the Highlands" burning villages and banning the wearing of clan Tartans or any other trapping of Highland national pride or Highland national history.

The Scots will give you a heavily romanticized version of the story of Bonnie Prince Charlie while the English do their best to portray him as a buffoon, at best, and a terrorist at worst. As always, the answer lay somewhere in between. There was significant Jacobite sentiment in Northern England and the young Pretender probably did come a good deal closer to capturing the Crown than the English would like to admit. The Young Pretenders popularity, unquestionably, post-dates his own life-time and given the great cruelty with which his ancestors: King James II and King Charles I governed England it seems unlikely that he would made a more enlightened Monarch than King George II. Both the Scots and the English will tell you that he was "pig-headed" which appears to have been a Stuart family trait. In the wake of the battle, the Highland way of life was essentially wiped out and a ginormous reward was issued for the capture of the Highland Prince who spent five months wandering the Highlands, legend has it disguised as a women, but "no Scotsman, no matter how poor, was base enough to betray the Bonnie Prince." This fact, of course, speaks more to the character of the Highlanders than to that of Charlie himself.

King George primarily saw the Highland situation as an unwanted distraction from his ambitions on the continent vis a viz his participation in the War of the Austrian Succession. That policy would prove George II's last initiative of any kind, however, Britain's Empire which would one day cover a quarter of the Globe began to spread its' roots during George's reign as did the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution.

George was the last British Monarch to have been a naturalized citizen and he was also the last British King to personally lead troops into battle. They were, however, Hanoverian troops defending George's lands in Germany. George's son and heir, Prince Fredrick, preceded him in death, allegedly having been hit in the head with a cricket ball and the succession passed to his Grandson .

George III 1760-1820
If you are an American you have read extensively (I hope) about King George III whether you know it or not. The third section of The United States Declaration of Independence contains twenty sentences that begin "He has" in reference to George III and ends: "[a] Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people."

Ouch! Not much change for a quarter in that assessment. Based on this document and George's well-know bouts of insanity, decades later, one might have the idea that King George III's reign would have been something of a disaster for the British and one could not be more wrong. The reign of George III was, in fact, characterized by remarkable financial prosperity and military success and George remains beloved by the English to this day. Of course, unless you are American, you already knew that.

Having reigned nearly sixty years throughout the most turbulent period up to that point in history, one might assume the British Empire were at a distinct disadvantage for having so unstable a figure at its' head. But by that point in British History the Crown had become so irrelevant politically that the goings on inside the head upon which it sat mattered little.

Having crowded out France and gained control of most of North America early in the reign of George III the English did what they did best and started to tax the living crap out of their colonial subjects leading to the famous Boston Tea Party which is, of course, the inspiration for the Teabagger or Teahadist Movement in America today where welfare recipients get drunk on moonshine and picket US Landmarks with misspelled signs demanding that their welfare benefits be cut off.

In the Revolutionary War that followed George III was widely pamphleteered against as a villain. Said Atheist hero Thomas Paine: "[h]e that rebels against reason is a real rebel, but he that in defence of reason rebels against tyranny has a better title to Defender of the Faith, than George the Third. " This is completely unfair. There really is no evidence of George doing anything to provoke the Revolution or anything at all as King for that matter, in this period or subsequently.

However, on July 4, 1776 the American colonies famously declared independence from the British Empire and George obstinately pursued five years of gorilla warfare in the American forests ending with the British defeat and American Independence was officially recognized in 1783 when George signed the Peace of Paris.

But Revolution in North America was not to be contained there. Much of the anti-Monarchical propaganda which had been published in America during their Revolution managed to reach the streets of France who had been America's most important ally in the struggle. Coincidentally, at the very outbreak of revolution in France, George III had just recovered from the first round of the reoccurring fits of madness which would plague his entire reign and his son, George, Prince of Wales (whom George detested, naturally) was given regency powers by Parliament.

On July 14, 1790 the residents of Pairs began creating open war on their Monarch via the Storming of the Bastille which is still celebrated as a holiday today in spite of the Reign of Terror and other unpleasantness which followed the Beheading of Louis XVI in 1793.

For some reason, in spite of their own, long, history of regicide (Edward II, Richard II, Henry VI, Edward V and Charles I plus a few that were killed in battle), the English public was SCANDALIZED by French's execution of the French King. France declared war on Great Britain before the body of Louis XVI was even cold.

Civil liberties were severely curtailed in Britain following the French Revolution as most of the revolutionary tracts which inspired the French to guillotine their King had been written in English and were clearly directed at George III. While technically still at war with France, though French internal difficulties left the two nations in a state of cease-fire for much of the period from 1798 to 1804 when Napoleon Bonaparte turned the conflict into an all out war for the future of Europe, great constitutional liberties could be taken and the British seemed willing to go along with it in light of the much more extreme violations of liberty that were taking place south of their borders.

The rise of Napoleon, who was crowned Emperor of France in 1804, coincided with yet another fit of madness upon George III's part beginning a clear deterioration of both his neurological and general health leading to his being declared unfit to exercise regency in the realm in 1811. This, Regency Period was practically the early reign of King George IV rather than the later reign of George III.

George was at the height of his popularity when the final bout of madness, from which he never recovered, hit. The Regency is widely remembered as a golden age of aristocratic excess as the free-spending Prince of Wales added several digits to the National Debt building or rebuilding most of London's most popular tourist attractions. However, it was also during the Regency Period that Napoleon was defeated. As King George IV the Prince Regent would go on to become, perhaps, the most unpopular King in the history of the Islands, however, his time as Regent show him to be a man who was not without talent nor incapable of hard work. He may very well have been the worst King in the history of Britain but he was one of the finest Princes of Wales as well.

George IV 1820 - 1830
George IV was a bad King but I'm unsure if that is really why the English hate him so much. And they absolutely did despise the King and still do. Said the Times of London shortly after George IV's death in 1830: "There never was an individual less regretted by his fellow-creatures than this deceased king. What eye has wept for him? What heart has heaved one throb of unmercenary sorrow? " Not much change for a fifty-cent-piece there.

The one thing everyone remembers about King George was that he was fat, 300 lbs. He apparently spent the last eight years of his reign in a room right next to the palace Kitchen: laying bed, snaking, taking opium for his gout and washing it all down with bottle after bottle of cherry brandy. A personal assistant of his claimed to have watched him eat a steak, an entire chicken and a whole pie "and that was just before breakfast." This King could EAT!

The first two years of George IV's reign were a little more active than that and following a unsuccessful attempt to divorce his wife Caroline of Brunswick, who he also bared from his coronation ceremony, he became the first King to visit Ireland since Medieval times and the first King since Charles II signed the National Covenent (in bad faith) to visit Scotland. His visit to Scotland is remembered for the introduction of "tartan fever" whereby Scotland's history was rewritten making them all: kilt-wearing, bagpipe-blowing, Highlanders. In truth, Southern-Scotland had no tradition of clan-tartans of any kind before George's visits and many such tartans and even the clans themselves were created "out of whole cloth" in consequence of George's visit in 1822. No, William Wallace never wore a Kilt but he may have had a braid in his mullet.

Prior to his succession to the Crown George had been an ardent Whig and a supporter of Catholic Emancipation but historians now believe that Prince George only took on these political views as a means of annoying his father, King George III, who, like any good Hanover, the younger George despised and, of course, the feeling was mutual. As King George IV did not, as had been expected of him, install a Whig government and fought the Catholic Relief Act tooth and nail sighting his Coronation Oath as a Protestant King as reason.

Aside from the issue of Catholic Relief, George involved himself in politics precious little following his return from Scotland in 1822. George's debasement of the Crown via his unapologetic gluttony forced the British Royal Family to have to reassess their roll in the realm. Steps were quickly taken to "so tie his successor's hands" that nothing like a reign of George IV could ever happen again essentially stripping the Monarch of his or her remaining administrative responsibilities and transforming the institution in one primarily focused upon ceremony.

William IV 1830 - 1837
William IV is sometimes called "the Sailor King" due to his long and distinguished naval career prior two his succession to the British Crown. George was the third son of King George III and both of his legitimate children had died prior to his becoming King.

William was a truly moderate and conciliatory figure. This was something he he took some abuse for in his own time, however, coming on the toes of his unpopular brother, "Georgie Porgy," who had shamefully eaten himself to death at public expense and humiliated the British people with his bohemian lifestyle and obnoxious personality, I cannot see how William could have acted any differently than he did.

Sadly, this was an era when nuance was sorely unappreciated. For the most part, Williams attempts to find middle ground between the increasingly radical Whigs and their growingly reactionary Tories were widely chalked up to indecisiveness. William would stand his ground, however, when the situation called for it.

While some of the more bellicose partisans of the day did not care for William, he deserves much priase for his to his assiduous avoidance of luxury and formality. Unlike any British Monarch before him or since, William was a "man of the people."

It was the 1831 Parliamentary Elections which first exposed the King to charges of indecisiveness. Electoral reform was badly overdue in the House of Commons which was dominated by ministers elected from scantly populated "Rotten Boroughs" last updated two-and-a-half centuries before.

It was clear that ministers from these districts were unlikely to support their own removal and so William was pressured into dissolving Parliament (one of the very few Royal Prerogatives that remained available to the King) in spite of the fact that elections had taken place only a year before. This was intended as a national referendum on Electoral Reform and William participated in it only, very reluctantly.

While the subsequent elections produced an overwhelming mandate for reform the House of Lords used its' veto power to kill a second attempt at reform. William was forced to create new peers in the upper house equal to the number needed to pass the Final Reform Bill in 1832 but refused to force the bill's passage doing great harm to the King's popularity.

Though an isolationist personally, William's conciliatory attitude went far in the diplomatic arena particularly in the United States whose work-ethic and independent spirit William is said to have greatly admired. William also declined to involve Britain in the turbulent political climate of Continental Europe.

This attitude bore fruit a decade later as Britain was largely spared the fires and turmoil of the Revolutions of 1848 and the United States would make a great ally when it would grow into the powerhouse it would become over the next century. Widely dismissed in his own time as a dullard, William was, in fact, a man well above his time in many respects.

Apart from a single incident in 1834 where William unsuccessfully attempted to apply his Royal Prerogative to the selection of a Torrie Prime Minister against the will of Parliament William's interference in legislative affairs was at an end following the Reform Crisis. From the Glorious Revolution to William's time the trend in British politics was to shift from the personal rule of the Monarch to the two houses of Parliament. William's reign was marked by the shift of influence from the unelected House of Lords to the popularly elected House of Commons.

Victoria 1837-1901
The sixty-four years that Victoria sat upon the throne are known as "the Victorian era" where Britain took her turn as the central power player in international politics. Of course Victoria was only the symbolic Head of State, however her name will forever be associated with British Imperialism and fine manners, nonetheless.

Victoria was the daughter of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, the fourth son of King George III and had thus led a life of comparative austerity when compared to the luxurious, and often decedent, surroundings in which her predecessors had been reared. Although raised to be a staunch Whig, power shifted to the Tories early in her reign, a position of dominance that they would maintain throughout.

One of the most powerful women in history, Victoria does not figure prominently at all in the history of women's liberation due to her often caustic lack of sympathy for the plight of other members of her own gender. On the subject of Women's Suffrage the queen famously quiped" "[t]he Queen is most anxious to enlist every one who can speak or write to join in checking this mad, wicked folly of "Woman's Rights", with all its attendant horrors, on which her poor feeble sex is bent, forgetting every sense of womanly feeling and propriety."

She did stand up for the right of women to be allowed anesthesia during childbirth in spite of the ridiculous opinion of the time that the pain of childbirth was a part of God's plan and should not be mitigated. In truth the clumsy administration of chloroform provided to women at that time in history was quite dangerous but that's not the part of the story we like to remember and sometimes it really is the thought that counts.

The first twenty years of Victoria's reign consisted practically of a co-regency with her husband Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Though we would not consider him to be a liberal or a progressive today Prince Albert's interest in science and technology stands out in his own time when such occupations as "the mechanical arts" were considered beneath the dignity of the high-born and science was widely viewed as a threat to traditional values.

Albert was very much a traditionalist however his organization of the futuristic Crystal Palace Exhibition could only be the brainchild of a man far ahead of his time. the Crystal Palace was not, by any means, symbolic of social or political reform, however, the exhibits were clearly the result of the blossoming of that capitalist-industrial Britain which the burgeoning Labour movement, who had set much of Continental Europe alight three years before had so lamented as the tools of all of their oppression and misery.

When Prince Albert died in 1861 Victoria was nearly withdrew from public life completely and spent the rest of her reign (forty years) cloaked in back and in a state of mourning. This has caused much speculation as to the Queen's psychological state which continues to this day but it is somewhat understandable as Prince Albert was indeed an extraordinary individual whose talents and hard work as Prince Consort to Queen Victoria have gone largely unappreciated by the British public both in his own time and subsequently.

Although only a symbolic Head of State it needs to be remembered that Victoria was symbolically at the head of the most powerful state the world had ever known (only Genghis Khan could be said to have had more subjects than she) thus when her daughter Princess Victoria was betrothed to Prince Frederick of Germany the heir to the German Imperial throne there was a fear that Victoria would be outranked by her younger namesake. Thus Britain took the extraordinary step of creating the elder Victoria as Empress of India in 1877 a title that would be formally abandoned by the Crown following the appearance of Mahatma Gandhi during the reign of Victoria's great-grandson King George VI in the late 1940s.

In 1896 Victoria became the longest reiging Monarch in the history of Britain (or England if you will) coinsiding with the Queen's unprecedented Diamond Jubilee. It does look as if the present Monarch Queen Elizabeth II will survive to see her own Diamond Jubilee celebration scheduled for February 6, 2012 given that Elizabeth II's mother Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon lived the the unheard of age of 102 but, for now, Victoria is unique in her longevity as queen.

Victoria would be remembered over the next couple of generations as the "Grandmother of Europe" owing to the marriages that she arranged for her several children among the few remaining royal houses in Europe. In World War I here grandchildren undertook to feud among themselves destroying much of the infrastructure of the continent in the process. Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany, Czar Nicholas of Russia and King George V of England were all first cousins prompting Lenin to refer to WWI as a "family squabble" which had gotten out of hand. Near the end of the War, one by one, the great royal houses of Europe began to fall until every other Monarchy in Europe had either been abolished or was as insignificant as the British Crown had become. In this, the British could be said to have been centuries ahead of their time.

In her last years Victoria was very popular but quite cranky about making public appearances and so-forth prompting much criticism in the British press. This was understandable for a women of her age, however, the royal household was still supported by tax-dollars and seemed to many a rather expensive luxury not to be enjoyed. Following her death in 1901 her son would rectify this oversight on his mother's part taking pomp and ceremony to new heights in what is remembered as, yet another, Golden Age of the British Monarchy.

The House of Windsor

Edward I & VII 1901-1910
As I have mentioned before, Edward I & VII was actually the tenth King named Edward to rule over England and only the first with that name to rule Scotland. Though born Albert Edward Saxe-Coburg-Gotha the new King took the of Edward upon his coronation against the last wishes of his mother, perhaps in continuation of the Hanoverian/Windsor tradition of eldest sons despising their fathers. In spite of Victoria's complete and utter disregard for her duties as Queen Regent in the years following the death of her husband, Prince Albert, the future King Edward had largely been on the coldest of terms with the rest of the Royal-Family throughout his mother's reign largely due to his reputation as a playboy and a partier. Victoria also unfairly blamed the Prince for the death of the elder Albert.

Black-sheep though he was Edward Albert took a shine to public life in a way no Prince of Wales before him had done. He had a knack for courting public popularity which would allow him to become, perhaps, the most beloved Monarch the Islands had ever known.

As King Edward was largely occupied with foreign affairs spending much of his time abroad. The isolationist policies with regard to the continent which had permeated the reigns of his predecessors were largely reversed as Edward hobnobbed with the regents of the various royal houses, most of whom were his nephews and nieces, and he is sometimes referred to as "Uncle of Europe."

Edward is mainly remembered for his concoction of elaborate ceremonies in which he was the center of attention and for his impact on English fashion which still blights the Island's to this day, Edward introduced such monstrosities as: bowler hats, tweed jackets, cardigan sweaters, plaid pants and wing-tips which remain the uniform of snotty upper-class douchebags and elitist, right-wing University Professors throughout the English-Speaking World to this day). His speeches and domestic policy initiatives were universally drafted by advisors and his foreign policy consisted primarily of good-will missions which Edward treated as extended sight-seeing holidays.

Nevertheless the treaties which were amassed upon these missions substantially affected the realm four years after his death. The dominoes were all in place when Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated by Serbian nationalists in 1914 as one by one a series of treaty arrangements required one nation after another to declare war upon the previous "domino" embroiling the Continent in its' most destructive war ever.

George V 1910 - 1936
The first King to take the name of Windsor, "Saxe-Coburg-Gotha" being ever so slightly too German a name for the Royal House at war the Imperial Power, George was different kind of King than his predecessors in many respects. For instance, George loved his father King Edward I & VII breaking the Hanoverian curse of family cannibalism that had so scandalized public opinion throughout the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries.

In my opinion George V's greatest achievement was his Irish Policy which very nearly ended the civil strife on the Emerald Isle that had soaked that nation in blood was was now threatening to leak over into the UK Parliament as a whole. At George's prompting an act was passed allowing Irish to declare themselves as citizens of: Ireland, England or both on an individual basis undermining the labeling efforts of revolutionary Irish Nationalists and reactionary Unionists who had been insisting on one or the other designation being forced upon all Irish irregardless of individual wishes.

If continued reconciliatory maneuvers had been applied to Irish situation the next eighty years of Civil War may very well have been mitigated if not avoided altogether but the First World War and its' aftermath detracted most of the governments attention from internal affairs for the next several years of George's reign. I don't want to spoil the ending, but Britain and her allies won! Yay!

A public relations nightmare occurred shortly after Germany's invasion of Austria prompted Britain to enter the First World War in that the Hanovers, from whom George had inherited the Crown and their cousins, the Dukes of Saxe-Coburg were themselves German and the British Royal family were heirs to great Estates and titles within the German Imperial Peerage which they had but little choice to abdicate to avoid the appearance of conflict of interest. George officially changed the family name from "Saxe-Coburg-Gotha" to "Windsor" at the same time the German Shepard to "Alsatian." I'm afraid I don't know much about dog breeds but I don't believe that name is still in use today, however, the name of Windsor, with its' inherent Englishness arising through Shakespeare's Merry Wives thereof and the classic battle between Good King Richard the Lionheart and Evil Prince John at the end of the classically ahistorical Ivanhoe, by Sir Walter Scott stuck.

Toward the end of the conflict the German's appeared to have gotten the upper hand due to the Russian Revolution of 1917. The Bolsheviks owed the success of their rebellion to Kaiser Wilhelm and quickly made peace with the Germans allowing them to shift their efforts to the Western Front meaning heavy bombardment of Britain. But the German's made the tactical error of employing submarines in the North Atlantic inspiring the wrath of the Industrial Powerhouse, the United States of America who tipped the scales in favor of the Britain and her Allies.

Though hostilities ended fairly quickly after the American's involvement the politics of the day would remain oriented toward foreign affairs for many years to come owing to the multiplicity of treaties which George would need to be present to sign although they had been substantially negotiated by others. George would not reject the abdication of his family's German claims as one of the first acts of the new Weimar Republic was to abolish all Princely titles. In the wake of the actions of the Russians two years before in executing their Royal Family and declaring themselves a Socialist Republic this left Georges Crown, which had been widely mocked among the other royal houses for its' political weakness, the strongest Monarchy remaining in Europe.

British Dominions were not completely unaffected by the onslaught of Republicanism that swept the World in the aftermath of the Great War. George acquiesced to ending the Iron-fisted colonial policy among the nation-states of Britains mighty Empire reorganizing them into a loose confederacy of autonomous nations still known today as the British Commonwealth, not to be confused with the English Commonwealth which was a period of Martial Law and religious extremism that briefly overtook the English Nation following the tragic and thoroughly unjustified beheading of Saint Charles Stuart in the mid-seventeenth Century ... Ah but digress.

George V was the first King to address the British people via radio. He died in 1936 having issued the following, prophecy in regards to his eldest son and heir: "After I am dead, the boy will ruin himself within 12 months ..."

Edward VIII 1936
George V could not have been more right about had he traveled to the future and saw for himself the mess that his son Edward would make for himself and the Crown. Edward was a notorious playboy which wouldn't normally be a problem but for his tendency to carry on these affairs with women who were already married to men of great importance in the public limelight.

Correspondence between Edward and his future-wife Wallis Simpson reveal Edward to be a richly romantic character but also betray him as exceedingly emotionally dependent upon Simpson for a man of his: age, background and class. Come-on ladies, you know the type, needed a "mommy to look after him." His character simply did not befit the office of King and he would have undoubtedly been forced to abdicate over some other screw-up.

As prophesied by the Old King, less than a year after his accession and before his coronation Edward was forced to abdicated his throne over his intention to marry Wallis Simpson who was already married to a prominent US businessman leading to Mrs. Simpson being named Time Magazine - Man of the Year for 1936. Many feel that the Wallis Simpson controversy was a cover for a more disturbing flaw in Edward's character, that he was a NAZI sympathizer.

A year after the high-profile abdication Edward visited Germany with his wife as a guest of Adolf Hitler. After World War II had ended, the couple, now styled Duke and Dutches of Windsor, eventually settled in France where they kept company with a wide array of notorious fascists

George VI 1936
1936 - 1952
For much of George VI's reign Britain was under siege affording the British little opportunity for the pomp and ceremony which had come to define the Monarchy in the years after the Glorious Revolution. Needless to say, the politics of the time were also deadly serious meaning the British could no longer pretend that their beloved and ancient governing institution had any bearing upon the great issues of the day.

The complexities of modern society called for very specialized and highly skilled professionals in whom the public had absolute confidence to steer the boat of State to safety and any hint of interference by the Monarch in politics simply would not due. George VI largely sat on the sidelines and watched as the British Empire, which had reached its' peak in the regime of his grandfather, King Edward I & VII, went into decline.

Mistakes were made, and nearly everyone acknowledges Neville Chamberlain's appeasement policies toward Adolf Hitler rank right up there with Ethelred the Unready's payment of the Danegeld to Sweyn Forkbeard in the Early Eleventh-Century as one of those things which must have somehow seemed like a good idea at the time. The King himself appears to have been taken in by Chamberlain but within two years of his Coronation: the appeasement policy had failed, the Nation was at war and it was time for the Royal Family to step out of the way.

George and his family sacrificed much for the war effort steadfastly refusing to relocate during the seven years of brutal bombardment which the city of London was subjected to. Of course it isPrime Minister Winston Churchill who is pictured seated a Yalta with Franklin D. Roosevelt and Josef Stalin with the King nowhere in sight however the King did prove useful to the war effort in his capacity as a ribbon-cutter rallying the British public, who were still happy play the role of his faithful subjects, into new heights of nationalist fervor in speaking campaigns and tours of bombed out cities and munitions factories.

Following the War the process of disintegration of the once mighty British Empire, which had begun in the reign of his father George V, was formalized and the, largely symbolic at this point, titles of: King of Ireland and Emperor of India had to be abandoned by George in favor of the completely symbolic Leadership of the Commonwealth title to which no formal authority was attached. The http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth realm has, from its institution, largely organized competitive sporting events and plays no role whatsoever in the governance of the vast majority of its' member states.

A heavy smoker George VI was taken prematurely from lung cancer in 1952. His concession that the Royal Family were no longer a force at all in British politics has been compared to WWE President Vince_McMahon's concession that Professional Wrestling is Fake. There are those who look to the great revolutions of: Magna Carta, Simon de Montfort, the Lords Appellant and Oliver Cromwell after which, respectively, it was said that the political influence of the Monarchy was dead and warn readers not to discount completely that the current Monarchy could return as a political force to be reckoned with in Britain. To me this seems unlikely, instead I think that there is still a politically influential monarchy in Britain but rather than the deriving from the hereditary line of Kings and Queens descended from King Egbert power has shifted to the elective monarch, beginning with Robert Walpole.

Elizabeth I & II 1952 - present
I know that Elizabeth is NEVER referred to with dual Roman Numerals but Queen Elizabeth I's dominion only included England, Ireland and Wales, not Scotland. A quick scan of a list of Scottish Monarchs contains no other person with that name.

It would be the understatement, perhaps of a generation, to state that Elizabeth II is not a great woman like Elizabeth I but it also wouldn't be entirely fair. Like stating that a Washington Apple doesn't taste as good as a Florida Orange. A Washington Apple could easily still taste better than a Florida Apple.

Elizabeth's legacy will undoubtedly relate to her decision to give the media remarkably more access to the Royal family than the behavior of the media probably warrants. This generosity has been repaid with repeated reporting on the sexual proclivities of Elizabeth's children and their estranged spouses which always manages to scandalize the general public for some reason.

I have never understood this feigned indignity by the public when such reports come forward. It's not as though any Prince or Princess has been caught with a gimp chained up in their basement or something, well not yet at any rate.

Throughout Elizabeth's "reign" Of course, the Monarchy has largely been a clearing house for charitable endeavors which are all that separate the Royal Family, at present, from being little more than the last vestige of the idle rich. Let us be honest, the jobs of members of the Royal Family involves little more than flaunting obscene amounts of wealth in the faces of their, increasingly economically strapped, fellow citizens and the British LOVE them for it. This may be why no one has been caught with a gimp-toad yet, they don't need one, they have the entire general public.

This charitable bend worked at snowing the public for a while but in recent years concern has been expressed by many regarding charities promoting useless and even harmful Alternative Medical Practices which are notoriously corrupt financially.

To her credit, she did change the rules of succession so that in the future female members of the Royal Family no longer have to "go to the back of the line" so to speak. This won't probably take effect for a couple of generations due it not being retroactive and their having been males nearer the front of the line at the time the change was made.

Elizabeth also willingly submitted to pay some taxes, the first Monarch in history to do so, and gave up a great deal of the staff and other privileges that British taxpayers had been lavishing on the Royals prior to the 1992 Windsor Castle fire. And there is not a hint of any infidelity of any kind in her own marriage to Prince Philip in spite of all the digging around the Royal Family's interpersonal relationships that the media has engaged in over the past twenty years.

After World War I most of Western Europe chose to kill their Monarchies while the British chose instead to have their's defanged so they could keep their's as a pet and last 300 years of the British Monarchy have witnessed the once mighty Lion of Britain devolving into a house-cat whom the British appear to take great personal satisfaction in publicly shaming when it pees on the rug. That these celebrities we whose sex lives we can't get enough of are still the decedents of great heroes like Alfred the Great and Henry V only shows that the complexities of modern society require a more sophisticated form of government than hereditary Monarchs can provide. Neither of those men would probably be in a more dignified situation were they alive today.

In closing I would like to point out that the history of the British Monarchy: from Ælle of Sussex, through Egbert of Wessex and William the Conqueror up until Henry VIII through to today, is not the history of Britain or even of England but only the stories of the tiniest of tiny elites who happened to live in those lands at certain times in history. Reading the history of the Monarchy as a means of learning the history of a nation or her people is analogous to to reading a several thousand page book by only looking at the bookmarks.

As the Senate bid farewell to Robert Byrd, whose eloquence and fealty to decorum recalled a bygone era, lawmakers reminded us why the late West Virginia senator was such a walking anachronism. Jim McDermott accused Republicans of engaging in class warfare, Lindsey Graham lashed out at the Tea Party and Chuck Schumer took a break from pickle hunting to remind air travelers that there's probably a tentacle in their chicken. Happy Canada Day, everyone, this is HUFFPOST HILL for Thursday, July 1st, 2010:

KAGAN DAY FOUR: CAN I GET A WITNESS? - After delaying the hearing out of respsect for Robert Byrd, who had lain in repose in the Senate chamber earlier, the Judiciary Committee reconvened its confirmation hearing of Eleana Kagan this afternoon. This time, the panel heard testimony from a range of legal experts and other witness testifying both in favor of, and in opposition to, Kagan's elevation to the high court. One witness was Lilly Ledbetter, who spoke favorably of Kagan's nomination. Ledbetter's legal battle with Goodyear Tire helped provide the impetus for last year's legislation extending the statute of limitations for pay discrimination. "My case shows that it matters who's on the Court," she said. "If one more person like [John Paul] Stevens -- who knows what the Court's decisions mean for ordinary people -- was on the Court, I may have gotten my fair pay." Also testifying was Flagg Youngblood, an Army captain who has claimed in the press that Kagan did not favorably treat the army while dean of Harvard Law. Follow the hearing with SCOTUSBlog's liveblog: http://bit.ly/cEMMNV

House War Vote Tonight - In five steps, the House will vote to approve war funding this evening without ever voting to approve war funding. The first vote will be on the rule that allows this to happen. The vote on the rule is the key vote for or against the war -- unless you're a House Republican, in which case you'll vote against it because it's a bunch of hocus pocus proposed by Democrats. Next will come a separate vote on a Dave Obey-sponsored amendment to add social spending -- for teachers, Pell grants, jobs, border security, oil clean-up. Next will come three votes that will give us a window into where the House is when it comes to ending the war in Afghanistan, which is now 104 months old: Jim McGovern's to create a timeline for withdrawal, another to strike military spending from the bill altogether and a third, sponsored by Barbara Lee, to only allow funds to be used for an orderly withdrawal. If all four of those amendments fail, the bill dies. But a Democratic leadership aide tells HuffPost Hill that they have the votes they need to pass Obey's amendment, so this thing's going through. It won't get to Secretary Bob Gates by his Fourth of July deadine, but the military has money to get itself into August, say Democrats.

WHITE HOUSE THREATENS TO VETO SUPPLEMENTAL - The White House has threatened to veto the $75 billion supplemental spending bill if it includes an offset in the package that would cut funding from the Department of Education's Race to the Top program.

BREAKING: LINDA RICHARDSON (D-CALIF.) CLEARED BY HOUSE PANEL - CongressDaily: "The House Ethics Committee today announced it has cleared Rep. Laura Richardson, D-Calif., of allegations she received preferential treatment from her lender, Washington Mutual, relating to a purchase, foreclosure or loan modification relating to her home in Sacramento, Calif." http://bit.ly/bSB4WK

GEITHNER AND BERNANKE KNOWINGLY PUSHED JUNK ASSETS ON TAXPAYERS - Whoops! Bloomberg is reporting that back in 2008, when Tim Geithner was the New York Fed chief, he and Ben Bernanke testified before the Senate Banking Committee that billions of dollars worth of shaky Bear Sterns bonds the government agreed to purchase were "investment-grade." Turns out by the time the two appeared before Congress, at least $40 million of those assets had been downgraded and the Fed KNEW IT. http://bit.ly/cs3IEQ

The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC) convened today, insisting Goldman Sachs hand over information relating to its derivatives trading activities. "It's crazy. It doesn't make any sense," panel member Byron Georgiou said to Goldman's CFO David Viniar. "Goldman Sachs is, if not the most sophisticated investment bank, certainly one of the most sophisticated investment banks in the world -- and nobody here believes you don't know how much money you're making on various aspects of your business. It doesn't make any sense." Shahien Nasiripour: http://huff.to/dvNV4o

Scott Brown homefront FAIL: The Massachusetts senator should probabaly be worried when the Boston Globe runs a headline that concludes "GOP, Brown block unemployment extension." http://bit.ly/9wsJJ1

TOMORROW'S PAPERS TODAY - The Hill: Jared Allen and Bob Cusack interview Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), who in many ways is following in the footsteps of Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). Washington Post: Eugene Robinson on the Republican party which, with a worldview an ant could love, should employ a slogan for November that reads: "It's all good. Except for that Obama guy. And Nancy Pelosi."

ANTIWAR DEMS: PAY FOR YOUR GUNS - Progressive Democrats challenged Republican and Blue Dog backers of the wars today to pay for the wars as long as they'll insist on paying for unemployment insurance and anything else. Raul Grijalva: "And here we are, prolonging a war that most of the American people oppose and not paying for it. That's the essential hypocrisy. We are required to offset anything for education, we are required to offset anything for jobs, and now this war is reaching $280 billion for taxpayers, all under an emergency supplemental category which doesn't require offsets of pay-fors. You know this, from the time of the Tonkin resolution to the end of the end of that conflict in Vietnam, 103 months. We are now at our 104th month in Afghanistan, right now, with no end in sight. So the people that have been going around that the sky is falling because of the debt and the deficit, we're asking them to put up." WATCH: http://bit.ly/bUGMbL

OBAMA SLAMS GOP FOR IMMIGRATION PLATFORM - In a speech on today, the president implied that Republicans are holding up comprehensive immigration reform, citing "political posturing and special interest wrangling" as roadblocks to overhaul. "It won't work," he said. "Our borders are just too vast for us to be able to solve the problem only with fences and border patrols." AP: http://huff.to/9UdgJF

This comes a day after the ACLU issued a travel advisory to individuals headed to Arizona. "American Civil Liberties Union affiliates in Arizona, New Mexico and 26 other states put out the warnings in advance of the Fourth of July weekend. The Arizona chapter has received reports that law enforcement officers are already targeting some people even though the law doesn't take effect until July 29, its executive director said." AP: http://yhoo.it/aZloZH

House Passes Unemployment Bill, Class Warfare Continues - After the House approved a moot measure to reauthorize lapsed benefits for long-term layoff victims, bill sponsor Jim McDermott told HuffPost's Arthur Delaney that the Defict versus Unemployment fight is "a class warfare issue." He said the GOP's obstruction amounts to an assault on the New Deal: "The Social Security Act of 1935 made these entitlements, Social Security and unemployment insurance and welfare," he said. "The Republicans have been after all three of those programs ever since 1935. They got welfare a few years ago, because that's poor people. They could jump on them. But unemployment and Social Security is middle-class people -- they haven't been able to get them, but it isn't because they're not willing to try." Story: http://huff.to/c3vUb5

Some Democratic lawmakers are bristling at the president's criticism of their insistence on an Afghanistan withdrawal timetable. Sam Stein reports: "On Wednesday, two of those Democrats -- Reps. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) and Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) -- pushed back against the president's complaint that the July 2011 deadline for the beginning of troop withdrawals has become an 'obsession' among lawmakers. 'With respect to the president, it is not that we are obsessed we are just deeply concerned," said McGovern. 'I mean more and more of our men and women are dying in Afghanistan and with each passing day we read about the setbacks.'" http://huff.to/aA2UbZ

Ben Nelson announced today that he plans on running for reelection in 2012. "I'm raising money and at this point in time I think I'd have to say that I'm going to run," Nelson said on KLIN-AM radio this morning. VIA Political Wire: http://bit.ly/bMzPO4

Lynn Sweet outlines a curious court decision in Illinois that may force citizens there to vote in a two-tiered Senate election this November: "If the ruling stands, Illinois voters on Nov. 2 will have two Senate elections on the ballot: one for a new term starting in January, 2011, where the major contenders are Democrat Alexi Giannoulias and Republican Mark Kirk; the other for the 62 days left in Obama's original term. Since it takes a month to certify an election, the time in the Senate would probably be for about 30 days." http://bit.ly/dvTYgu

Don't be bashful: Send tips/stories/photos/events/fundraisers/job movement/juicy miscellanea to huffposthill@huffingtonpost.com. Follow us on Twitter - @HuffPostHill

ROBERT BYRD MAKES FINAL TRIP TO THE SENATE - The late West Virginia Senator's body lay in repose in the Senate today. After an honor guard carried his closed casket into the chamber, it was placed on the Lincoln Catafalque in the Senate well, where it was draped with an American flag. A bouquet of white roses sat on his empty desk, covered with a black cloth. Visitors filed in, paying their respects to the Senator and members of his family who were gathered in the chamber to receive guests. It was the first time since 1959, Byrd's first year as a United States Senator, that a deceased lawmaker received the honor. The proceedings caused the Senate to come to a screeching halt, canceling floor business and committee hearings including Elena Kagan's confirmation. Carl Hulse: http://nyti.ms/dCk872

Ed O'Keefe on some juicy procedural minutiae: "President Obama on Wednesday ordered all American flags to fly at half staff until the evening of Sen. Robert Byrd's burial, scheduled for next week. But in a twist of fate that the West Virginia Democrat -- a stickler for federal rules and procedure -- would likely relish, Obama's proclamation conflicts with elements of the Federal Flag Code. The code states that a president can order flags to half staff whenever he chooses, but it also says that Old Glory must fly at full staff on 14 specific days of the year, including Independence Day. Since Obama's proclamation conflicts with July 4th, he also ordered flags to fly at full staff on Sunday 'in honor and tribute' to Byrd, who he called 'a great patriot.'" http://bit.ly/d6Oxs2

OK, we'll bite: Chuck Schumer is going after the one cuisine even more disgusting than the Schumwich (seen here: http://bit.ly/bwG8Jz ). In an e-mail blast to reporters today, the New York senator announced his opposition to "Airline caterers that prepare food in roach-filled kitchens." He wants stiffer fines for airlines and catering companies that violate health codes and would revoke access to airports if airlines do so egregiously. Schumer's office, likely too busy tracking down pickles, did not respond to our request for comment.

LINDSEY GRAHAM PROFILE RAISING EYEBROWS - Totally not gay Senator Lindsey Graham has reiterated that he is totally not gay. In a New York Times magazine profile running this weekend, the South Carolina senator dismissed rumors about his sexuality. "I know it's really gonna upset a lot of gay men -- I'm sure hundreds of 'em are gonna be jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge," Graham said, "but I ain't available. I ain't gay. Sorry." Entire NYT story: http://nyti.ms/dmeOQQ

Graham is catching flak for saying in the Times piece that the Tea Party movement will die out. "The problem with the Tea Party, I think it's just unsustainable because they can never come up with a coherent vision for governing the country. It will die out," Graham said. Sam Stein: http://huff.to/af4fhI

If you think we're flip, check out this classic Pete Stark clip, where the California Dem sarcastically tells some Minutemen at his town hall meeting to get more guns so they can go down to the border and kill everyone. http://bit.ly/cPk2oE

Mike Huckabee will debut a new TV show on July 26th, set to air on Fox affiliates. "The Huckabee Show" will run a six-week test in seven markets including New York, Dallas and Boston. The former Arkansas governor will continue his hosting duties at his weekend program "Huckabee." http://bit.ly/bHfn4H

The federal government today launched HealthCare.gov, which aims to help citizens make sense of the new health insurance framework. Christian Science Monitor : "The website is mandated by the new law, as is its July 1 start date. It is intended to be both a one-stop-shopping site for individuals looking to see what their insurance options are, and a central repository for news and information about the health bill's rollout. 'Healthcare.gov will take some of the mystery out of shopping for health insurance,' said Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius on the White House blog Thursday morning." http://bit.ly/b5OttC

JEREMY THE INTERN'S WEATHER REPORT - I feel like I'm in Southern California. Tonight: Good luck finding a cloud (no, vapor trails don't count). High 60s. Tomorrow: It'll barely touch the 80s. This might be the most pleasant week we've seen in a long time. Thanks, JB!

COMFORT FOOD

- The 100 greatest movie insults of all time. http://bit.ly/9Fklx7

- This prehistoric whale was SO HUGE that it ate other whales. http://n.pr/c06N9D

- Cruel and unusual: BP's offices will be serenaded by 100 Vuvuzelas in protest of the company's activities. http://bit.ly/cmORCc

- The department of redundancy department proudly presents: A collection of (especially) geeky Star Wars costumes. http://bit.ly/dBhSof

- A volcanic eruption from space. http://bit.ly/ubFXG

- From the makers of Guitar Hero... Vuvuzela Hero. http://bit.ly/cVYGAJ

- Some retro products that never quite caught on. http://huff.to/9RzE10

TWITTERAMA

@carriedann: Thanks, Draper & Sen. Graham, for prompting me to spend time today mentally assigning Star Wars characters to members of Sen. Armed Services

@chrislhayes: BREAKING: Obama positions himself in the sensible center of contentious debate, acknowledges arguments on both sides.

@StephenAtHome: if you google "google" do you go into an infinite loop? is there something about it on yahoo answers?

@kingsthings: There are lots of things I can do now, but at the top of the list is getting a tattoo & a motorcycle. What's something you'd never do?

@AndrewWK: HAPPY CANADA DAY! In all my adventures, I've been shown over and over that NO ONE PARTIES HARDER THAN CANADIANS!

THE TUBE

TONIGHT: Xavier Becerra discussed President Obama's immigration initiative on Ratigan. Jack Kingston and Richard Trumka appear on Hardball. Debbie Stabenow , Chris Van Hollen and Brian Bilbray talk to Chris Hays, who is subbing for Schultz. Arianna discusses health care with Olbermann. Our own media watchdog Jason Linkins talks to Maddow.

ON TAP

TONIGHT

6:30 pm: Even with Strasburg, a Nationals game isn't worth $1,500. Wally Herger (R-Calif.) and Tom Price (R-Ga.) host a campaign function at the Nats versus Mets game [Nationals Park, 1500 South Capitol Street SE].

6:30 pm: The Phillips Collection will stage a dramatic reading of "Art," Yasmina Reza's Tony award winning play about the tyranny of subjectivity... or something [The Phillips Collection, 1600 21st Street NW].

8:00 pm: Islands, who we love, perform at Black Cat. They are joined by Active Child and the Steel Phantoms [Black Cat, 1811 14th Street NW].

TOMORROW

8:00 pm: Brooklyn alt-pop group Sleigh Bells performs at Rock and Roll Hotel. They are joined by Nerve City and Po Po [Rock and Roll Hotel, 1353 H St NE].

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