Magna Carta

Morning everyone! 
It's June 15, Father's Day here in the UK, but also - as I was reminded this morning by Dan Snow on Twitter - the 799th anniversary of King John's seal being affixed to Magna Carta in a field in Surrey. I'm not going to do a massive blog on this, although the subject is perhaps worthy of such, but instead wanted to share with you all some observations. 

The document was drawn up to by the barons as an attempt to curtail the power of the king, who had been running somewhat amok, playing fast and loose with his position as an absolute monarch. Magna Carta is frequently held as an example of triumph of the people, democracy in action, and generally a victory for civil liberty everywhere, when in fact it is more an affirmation of the feudal rights of the nobility and their power over their lands. 

Nevertheless, Magna Carta is an immensely important document, not only for showing us what the Angevin nobility thought was an important part of their role, but also for the power it gave them through the so-called "Clause 61". In medieval England - and elsewhere - a practice similar to forfeit was common, called distraint. Should a tenant be unable (or unwilling) to pay his rent, for example, his landlord could quite legally seize all of the tenant's assets and sell them to cover his costs. Clause 61 applied distraint to the monarch for the first time ever, and was quite explosive. 

Of the original clauses, three still remain as statute law in Britain today. First, the freedom of the English Church. Second, the "ancient liberties" of the City of London are to be upheld. And finally, the right of any man to due process - that is, essentially, trial by jury. John had been guilty of ravaging the monasteries and churches for money, and imprisoning people arbitrarily for years, so these laws severely curtailed his power in these respects. 

John, notoriously distrusting of everyone, affixed his seal to Magna Carta very much under duress, but almost immediately ignored its precepts and had the Pope legally revoke him from his oath to uphold it. The barons had pretty much expected this, anyway, and set about John's deposition almost immediately. They sought to replace him with the dauphin of France, Louis (later Louis VIII 'the Lion'), who landed at Thanet in Kent in 1216 amid the uproar of the First Barons War. Louis was actually proclaimed King at St Paul's Cathedral, but John's sudden death lost his entire support to John's heir, Henry III. William Marshal, acting as regent, led the opposition to Louis, who was defeated at Lincoln in May 1217. He was eventually paid off, and left the country under the promise never to invade again. He didn't have to wait long until he inherited the throne of France, anyway. 

Hugh de Wells, Bishop of Lincoln, was one of the many witnesses to the document. It is at Lincoln Cathedral that one of the four surviving copies of Magna Carta is displayed today:

Richard Strauss

It's June 11th! Today marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of Richard Strauss, one of the greats of the Late Romantic era. I just wanted to do a little blog here to mark the occasion, since he is one of my favourites, though I do have quite a complex relationship with his music! I'm no expert, but want to share some of his music while rambling about him.

Also Sprach Zarathustra has got one of the most-recognised openings in perhaps the entire history of western music, and yet the remaining half-hour of music is barely known, if it's even that lucky. This seems to sum up my relationship with his music, unfortunately, though. There are moments that I absolutely adore, the lush, grand sweep of the late Romantic glamour that envelops you and sends tingles all along your body, but then I find myself zoning out of the rest of it. I am quite often a very lazy listener, and have been trying to better my rapport with the man, but so far, not much has happened. 

The Dance of the Seven Veils is enough of a bleeding chunk that it is sufficiently well-known outside the context of the opera Salome, not least because of its raunchiness, but I find myself otherwise lost in this opera. Elektra is a bit more enjoyable, perhaps ironically, as it is much more dissonant and much less "late romantic".

But I suppose this really sums up how weird my feelings about Strauss' music are. I do enjoy the romantic "sweep", but I'm still discovering stuff, and I'm guilty of not trying, sometimes; of not giving it the time it deserves. As a final video snippet, something I've only recently discovered, but is really quite wonderful - the final trio from Der Rosenkavalier.

So there are some minor rambles on Richard Strauss, in celebration of his 150th. Hopefully I've inspired, at any rate!

#DDay70 - a commemoration

There are some moments in the study of history where you feel so unutterably humbled that it seems no words can suffice. 6 June 2014 marks the 70th anniversary of D-Day, part of Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of Northern Europe. While the war was to rage on for almost another year, D-Day has always struck me as something of a turning point, but as such it has always been almost overlooked: it is merely a vanguard for the more important VE Day in May 1945. But today, when the internet is commemorating the Normandy landings, there are some that have really stood out for me, and I've been overcome with a sense of the enormity of the sacrifice that these men made seventy years ago. It's truly a humbling moment. So here they are.