People From London

"Blessed is the giver, richer through the giving of a gift."

"In an age when so many memoirs, narratives, and pieces of history come out as it were on purpose to justify the taking up arms against that king, and to blacken, revile, and ridicule the sacred majesty of an anointed head in distress; and when so much of the sense of religion to God, and of allegiance and duty to the crown is so defaced that it is already within little more than fifty years since the murder committed on that pious prince by some men made a mystery to judge on whose side was the right and on which the Rebellion is to be charged."

"Charles I was] brought, by unaccountable administrations on the one hand, and by vile contrivances on the other, into the greatest difficulties and distresses throughout all his kingdoms; then left and abandoned by most of his servants, whom he had himself raised to the greatest honours and preferments; thus reduced to have scarce one faithful able counsellor about him, to whom he could breathe his conscience and complaints, and from whom he might expect one honest, sound, disinterested advice: after this, how he was obliged to take up arms, and to contend with his own subjects in the field for his crown, the laws, his liberty, and life; there meeting with unequal fortune, how he was driven from one part of the kingdom, and from one body of an army to another, till at last he was brought under the power of cruel and merciless men, imprisoned, arraigned, condemned, and executed like a common malefactor."

"Sir B. Bathurst sent me Ld Clarendons history last week, but haveing not quite made an end of ye first part, I did not unpack it, but I shall have that Curiosety now, to See this extraordinary dedication, which I should never have looked for in ye Second part of a book, & me thinks it is very wonderfull that people that dont want sense in some things, should be soe rediculous as to shew theire vanity."

"He had excellent parts, which had been improved by parliamentary and diplomatic experience; but the infirmities of his temper detracted much from the effective strength of his abilities. Negotiator and courtier as he was, he never learnt the art of governing or of concealing his emotions. When prosperous, he was insolent and boastful; when he sustained a check, his undisguised mortification doubled the triumph of his enemies: very slight provocations sufficed to kindle his anger; and when he was angry he said bitter things which he forgot as soon as he was pacified, but which others remembered many years. His quickness and penetration would have made him a consummate man of business but for his selfsufficiency and impatience. His writings prove that he had many of the qualities of an orator: but his irritability prevented him from doing himself justice in debate: for nothing was easier than to goad him into a passion; and, from the moment when he went into a passion, he was at the mercy of opponents far inferior to him in capacity. Unlike most of the leading politicians of that generation, he was a consistent, dogged, and rancorous party man, a Cavalier of the old school, a zealous champion of the Crown and of the Church, and a hater of Republicans and Nonconformists. He had consequently a great body of personal adherents. The clergy especially looked on him as their own man, and extended to his foibles an indulgence of which, to say the truth, he stood in some need, for he drank deep, and when was in a rage—and he very often was in a rage—he swore like a porter."

"Above all things I wish God's glory and next the queen's safety."

"Now wheras I have alwayes noted your wisdome to have had a speciall care of the honor of her Majesty, the good reputation of our country, & the advancing of navigation, the very walks of this our Island, as the oracle is reported to have spoken of the sea forces of Athens: and whereas I acknowledge in all dutifull sort how honorably both by your letter and speech I have bene animated in this and other my travels, I see my selfe bound to make presentment of this worke to your selfe, as the fruits of your owne incouragements, & the manifestation both of my unfained service to my prince and country, and of my particular duty to your honour"

"I see this wicked creature ordained of God to punish us for our sins and unthankfulness."

"It became normal to have at each of the major courts a resident “ambassador”—a word defined by the English poet and diplomat Sir Henry Wotton in a punning epigram as “a man sent to lie abroad for his country’s good.” Given the time required for travel, and the hazards en route—especially in an age of dynastic and religious warfare—permanent ambassadors offered a convenient substitute for personal summitry. And their detailed reports required the attention of specialist secretaries who oversaw foreign affairs, such as Francis Walsingham in Elizabethan London or Antonio Perez at the court of Philip III. Day-to-day diplomacy tended to slip out of the hands of rulers."

"Henrico regi Angliæ natus est filius, quem ab Othone legato baptizatum, in honorem gloriosissimi confessoris et regis Edwardi, Edwardum vocavit."

"A son was born to Henry, King of England, whom the ambassador Otto baptized and named Edward in honour of the most glorious confessor and King Edward."

"As he lay dying he sent his last words of counsel to his absent son. He urged him to persevere in the subjection of Scotland, and to avoid unworthy favourites. His last thoughts turned to the two great enterprises on which he had bent his mind—the subjection of Scotland and the recovery of the Holy Land. Even after his death he longed to share in those great works. He begged his son to carry his bones about with him in his Scottish campaigns, so that even the dead Edward might still lead his warriors to victory against the hated enemy. He also requested that his heart should be sent to the Holy Land with a train of a hundred knights to fight for the recovery of the Sepulchre of the Lord."

"It is true that Edward I has been far less roughly handled by historians than have some of the English kings. He has not suffered the fate of Charles I, who has been arraigned, tried and sentenced over and over again since he faced his judges in Westminster Hall, although in these later proceedings not his life but his reputation has been at stake. On the other hand, Edward's posthumous career among scholars has not been as spectacular as that of the Conqueror, but it is not entirely unremarkable. During the last two centuries he has been turned from a strong ruler into a national king; from a national king into an aspiring tyrant; and now from an aspiring tyrant into a conventional, if competent, lord. That these changes represent a growth of knowledge about him and his age is clear enough. What is no less important, they represent a growth of understanding as well."

"That Edward was above all things an English king, no one will deny. That the most important results of his work were seen in the organisation of English institutions and in the attempted extension of English rule over the rest of the British Islands is equally plain. But it is a very false and one-sided view that ignores his constant and vivid interest in his Aquitanian inheritance, and that puts aside as of no account his watchful care of English interests in Europe, and his constant efforts, in cases where direct English interests were very little involved, to uphold some sort of European balance, while strenuously striving to preserve or restore the peace of Europe."

"When all deductions are made, Edward remains one of the greatest of English kings even in his foreign relations. He won for England a sure and foremost place in the councils of Europe. His honesty of purpose and his ability of conception have won the warmest praises both from his own contemporaries abroad and from those modern foreign writers to whose works we must, to the disgrace of English scholarship, have recourse if we wish to learn how truly great was the great English king when all Europe welcomed him as the mediator of peace, when his friendship was sought by every power of Western Europe, and when he made the name of England respected and feared in Germany, in France, in Spain, and in Italy."

"No king laid more emphasis on his duty to hold his own and to recover what he had lost. And it was a social duty, to be enforced on him by his counsellors if he neglected it himself. In matters touching his state he insisted on discussion in council, sometimes in parliament, before he had made a decision... The king takes good and learned counsel. He and his vassals are one. Justice must be observed, self-help restrained, corruption—the curse of social relationships everywhere—investigated and punished."

"The enterprizes finished by this prince, and the projects which he formed and brought very near to a conclusion, were more prudent, more regularly conducted, and more advantageous to the solid interests of his kingdom than those which were undertaken in any reign either of his ancestors or his successors. He restored authority to the government, disordered by the weakness of his father; he maintained the laws against all the efforts of his turbulent barons; he fully annexed to his crown the principality of Wales; he took the wisest and most effectual measures for reducing Scotland to a like condition; and tho' the equity of this latter enterprize may reasonably be questioned, the circumstances of the two kingdoms promised such certain success, and the advantage was so visible of uniting the whole island under one head, that those who give great indulgence to reasons of state in the measures of princes, will not be apt to regard this part of his conduct with much severity."

"Which puissant Princes raigne and life, wee cannot heere shut up with a nobler Euloge, than that where-with our Great and Judicious Antiquary [William Camden] hath already deportrayed him, as a Prince of chiefe renowne, to whose heroicke minde God proportioned (as a most worthy Mansion) a bodie answerable, so that as well in beautie and goodly presence, as in wisedome and valour, hee was sutable to the height of his Regall Dignitie, whose flourishing youth his Destinie did exercise with many warres and troubles of the State, so to frame & fit him for the British Empire; which, being King, he so managed with the glory of his Welsh and Northern victories, that by due desert he is to be reputed a chiefe honour of Britannie."

"Edward, however exceptionable his character may appear on the head of justice, is the model of a politic and warlike King: He possessed industry, penetration, courage, vigour, and enterprize: He was frugal in all expences that were not necessary; he knew how to open the public treasures on a proper occasion; he punished criminals with severity; he was gracious and affable to his servants and courtiers; and being of a majestic figure, expert at all bodily exercises, and in the main well proportioned in his limbs, notwithstanding the great length and the smallness of his legs, he was as well qualified to captivate the populace by his exterior appearance, as to gain the approbation of men of sense by his more solid virtues."

"But the chiefe advantage which the people of England reaped, and still continue to reap, from the reign of this great prince, was the correction, extension, amendment, and establishment of the laws, which Edward maintained in great vigour, and left much improved to posterity: For the work of wise legislation commonly remain; while the acquisitions of conquerors often perish with them. This merit has justly gained to Edward the appellation of the English Justinian."

"On the 21st September [1274] Burnell was made Chancellor. From that date, and with the able assistance of that minister, began the series of legal reforms which have gained for Edward the title of the English Justinian; a title which, if it be meant to denote the importance and permanence of his legislation and the dignity of his position in legal history, no Englishman will dispute."

"The royal hero of this time was Edward I, a tall and relentless king who was said to be so fierce that he once literally scared a man to death. Under Edward's belligerent leadership, the English were finally induced to cease fighting one another and turn their attentions on their neighbours: Scotland and Wales. Edward I's brutal attempts to become the master not only of England but the whole of Britain are the subject of the 'Age of Arthur.' The popularity of Arthurian tales and relic-hunting increased as a new mythology of English kingship was explored. Edward cast himself as the inheritor of Arthur (originally a Welsh king) who sought to reunite the British Isles and usher in a great new age of royal rule. Despite flurries of outrage form his barons, who began to organize political opposition through the nascent political body known as parliament, Edward very nearly succeeded in his goals, and his influence over England's relations with Scotland and Wales has never entirely waned."

"In Edward the line of English Kings begins once more. After two hundred years of foreign rule, we have again a King bearing an English name and an English heart—the first to give us back our ancient laws under new shapes, the first, and for so long the last, to see that the Empire of his mighty namesake was a worthier prize than shadowy dreams of dominion beyond the sea. All between them were Normans or Angevins, careless of England and her people. Another and a brighter æra opens, as the lawgiver of England, the conqueror of Wales and Scotland, seems like an old Bretwalda or West-Saxon Basileus seated once more upon the throne of Cerdic and of Æthelstan."

"With the single exception of the accession of Elizabeth, no such fortunate event ever occurred in English history as that which placed Edward I. upon his father's throne. By him the bases were settled upon which the English constitution rests. With marvellous sanity he comprehended the purport of every true thought which was floating on the surface of the age in which he lived. Perhaps no man, excepting Cromwell, possessed of equal capacity for government, ever showed less inclination to exercise arbitrary rule. He knew how to mould his subjects to his own wise will, not by crushing them into unwilling obedience, but by inspiring them with noble thoughts. When he first reached man's estate, he found his countrymen ready to rush headlong into civil war. When he died, he left England free as ever, but welded together into a compact and harmonious body. There was work enough left for future generations to do, but their work would consist merely in filling in the details of the outline which had been drawn once for all by a steady hand. All the main points of the constitution were accepted at his death. That the law was to be supreme; that that law was to be obtained from a body which should represent all the various classes and interests of the kingdom, and which was therefore most likely to look with fairness upon all; that power was to be lodged in the hands of the Government sufficient to combat against anarchy, whilst it was powerless to encroach upon the rights of the subjects—were means fully acknowledged by that great King, and brought out by him into practical operation."

"In his own time, and amongst his own subjects, Edward was the object of almost boundless admiration. He was in the truest sense a national king. At the moment when the distinction between conquerors and conquered had passed away, and England felt herself once more a people, she saw in her ruler no stranger, but an Englishman. The national tradition returned in more than the golden hair or the English name which linked him to her earlier kings. Edward's very temper was English to the core. In good as in evil he stands out as the typical representative of his race, wilful and imperious as his people, tenacious of his rights, indomitable in his pride, dogged, stubborn, slow of apprehension, narrow in sympathy, but in the main just, unselfish, laborious, conscientious, haughtily observant of truth and self-respect, temperate, reverent of duty, religious."

"Here is Edward the First, Hammer of the Scots, 1308. Keep the Vow."

"He was so handsome and great, so powerful in arms, That of him may one speak as long as the world lasts. For he had no equal as a knight in armour For vigour and valour, neither present nor future."

"When you get rid of a turd, you do a good job."

"Perhaps he will be rightly called a leopard. If we divide the name it becomes lion and pard; lion, because we saw that he was not slow to attack the strongest places, fearing the onslaught of none. ... A lion by pride and fierceness, he is by inconstancy and changeableness a pard, changing his word and promise, cloaking himself by pleasant speech."

"A strange tenderness and sensitiveness to affection lay in fact beneath the stern imperiousness of his outer bearing... He is the first English king since the Conquest who loves his people with a personal love, and craves for their love back again. To his trust in them we owe our Parliament, to his care for them the great statutes which stand in the forefront of our laws."

"Edwardus Primus Scotorum Malleus hic est, 1308. Pactum Serva"

"The laws the Irish use are detestable to God, and so contrary to all law that they ought not to be deemed law."

"A prince unequalled by any who had reigned in England since the Conqueror for prudence, valour and success."

"Terra Walliae cum incolis suis, prius regi jure feodali subjecta."

"Edward had friends, but no favourites; he picked out suitable or congenial men as he pleased, but it never enterred his mind to "pack" his court. He was the king. He used aliens freely and had foreign friends, but he did not put them in positions of permanent trust at the centre of affairs, nor did he admit them to the intimate places of household administration. There were few foreign clerks in the wardrobe during his reign. The court was so English that the large number of aliens in Edward's service raised no outcry."

"I mention this because, for a long time, the Government for excellent reasons has preferred the world to think that we still held some scruples and attacked only what the humanitarians are pleased to call Military Targets. . . . I can assure you, Gentlemen, that we tolerate no scruples."

"It's nonsense to talk about the war on Islamic terrorism as a clash of civilisations. The distinction is between civilisation and chaos. Whatever people may claim - and the desire to cut through the political processes can be very powerful - there is never any justification for violence."

"It's no coincidence that most terrorists are males aged between 18 and 30. One terrorist from the 1960s recently said, 'we half-read a whole lot of theories that we fully understood' - and the same probably applies to Islamic terrorists today. Few have any background in religion, and most are ignorant of Islam. They've just ingested it as slogans, either from the internet or radical clerics, and attached it to some grievance about the persecution of Muslims in other parts of the world."

"Between 1939 and 1945 the Nazis systematically murdered as many as 200,000 mentally ill or physically disabled people whom they stigmatised as 'life unworthy of life'. This covert and complex series of operations was known as the ‘euthanasia programme.’"

"Within a remarkable short time totalitarian rule had been reimposed on half a continent using a combination of force and fraud. . . Although they were subjected to relentless assault from state-sponsored atheism, the Christian Churches remained the only licensed sanctuaries from the prevailing world of brutality and lies. Appropriately enough . . . they played an important role in the overthrow of Communism forty years later."

"The advent of Bolshevik, Fascist and National Socialist regimes in Russia and Europe successively between 1917 and 1933 led some contemporary intellectuals to wonder whether their own terminology adequately conveyed the scope of these regimes’ pretentions or the horrors they were responsible for. Of course, many intellectuals did not view them as horrors at all, but rather collateral costs of supposedly bright future."

"A persuasive way of understanding the collapse of Communism in Europe and the Soviet Union is to think of nineteenth- or twentieth-century slum clearance. For in many respects the Soviet Empire was a slum of continental proportions. Beyond the grotesque architectural assertions of an alien ideology, public housing – almost all housing – consisted of anomic and primitive concrete barracks where the smells of cabbage, damp and low-grade tobacco combined. Rivers and lakes were polluted by chemicals, with the Pleisse river in East Germany alternately turning first red then yellow."

"In Poland, which was crucified between two thieves, both the Communists and the Nazis sought to extirpate Christianity, although only the Nazis attempted to reduce the Poles to helotry in the remnants of their former state. White Europeans were treated ‘like the blacks in the colonies’, as the metropolitan of Lwów put it. Six million Poles were killed, half of them Christians, half of them Jews."

"Historically, of course, as has been pointed out by such thinkers as Marcel Gauchet and George Weigel Christianity had much to do with the notion of the autonomous, sacrosanct individual, with the preservation of a sphere beyond the state that anticipated civil society, with the notion of elected leadership, and with holding rulers accountable to higher powers."

"In 1920 the British philosopher Bertrand Russell spent five weeks in Bolshevik Russia as a member of a Labour Party delegation. The group hoped to discover a promised land, breaking into spontaneous choruses of the Internationale and Red Flag on spying the first Red banners across the border. After twenty-four hours Russell realized that there was not much to sing about."

"On the eve of the Bolshevik coup d'état, the Orthodox Church claimed a hundred million adherents, two hundred thousand priests and monks, seventy-five thousand churches and chapels, over eleven hundred monasteries, thirty-seven thousand primary schools, fifty-seven seminaries and four university-level academies, not to speak of thousands of hospitals, old people’s homes and orphanages. Within a few years, the intuitional structures were swept away, the churches were desolated, vandalized or put to secular use. Many of the clergy were imprisoned or shot; appropriately enough the first concentration camp of the gulag was opened in a monastery in Artic regions."

"Although Christianity was an integral aspect of many early socialist movements – and in Britain remains so to this day – in general the Churches arranged themselves on the side of conservatism, partly as a result of their traumatic experience at the hands of democratic mobs in revolutionary France and elsewhere. This alliance of throne and altar duly broke down as the temporal power of the Churches was challenged by the nation states which vied for ultimate human loyalties."

"Just as the SS was the most implacable in its persecution of racially unwanted, so it single-mindedly pursued the goal of integrating all Germans on the basis of racial equality. Himmler sincerely meant it when he warned his German SS men to behave respectfully towards their foreign racial comrades."

"Many of history’s murderers have staked out the moral high ground, killing for love of confession or country, or in the name of social equality."

"In the place of democracy, Fascism offered a militarised hierarchy, and the abolition of any distinction between the political and the private, the essential totalitarian aspiration, albeit like most aspirations rarely totally realized. Possession of a PNF card became the key to advancement in virtually every walk of life from inspecting fish to awarding literary prizes; the meaning and value of an individual life was weighed in terms of how it advanced the greatness of the state, a form of state-worship that such Catholic opponents as Luigi Sturzo dubbed ‘statolatria’."