A year ending in 15 has enormous
centennials. 2015 was the 1700th
anniversary of the Christian cross and Chi-Rho, the 800th anniversary
of Magna Carta, 500th anniversary of Luther’s beginning as a
reformer, 400th anniversary of the probable death of William
Shakespeare, 300th anniversary of the Jacobite uprising and
beginning of English Parliament’s accendancy over kings, 200th anniversary
of Waterloo and the end of the War of 1812, 150th anniversary of end
of the Civil War, 70th of WWII and 40th of Vietnam.
Some weird twists happened with many of
these. In 312 Constantine crossed the Rubicon and defeated a rival for Caesar. Christian father and historian Eusebius
dutifully recorded that Constantine told him that he had a dream to “conquer in
this sign”, the cross, which he had his soldiers put on their shields. But was Constantine telling the truth? Other
witnesses to the battle for Rome say that a cross was implanted in a circle
which was the symbol for the unconquered sun of Rome’s religion and the
Manichean religion. It may have been
that Constantine was just playing to unity with both a Christian cross and a pagan
symbol. A lot of his soldiers were
converts of these two non-mainstream religions. He may have just been a shrewd
politician playing his power with the changing times. We do know this. In 313, Constantine made Christianity the
official religion. By 315 AD Christianity had swelled to 36 million of 100
million Romans and Constantine first began to mint coins showing him wearing a
helmet with a Chi-Rho embossed on it. (Greek
letters superimposed and standing for “Jesus Christ”) His mother became a devout
Christian convert. The church, which had
for 3 centuries used a fish as their symbol, abruptly began using the
cross. It is almost as if the shame of a
crucifixion was too much to publicly advertize until then. Wearing crosses
around the neck would be like you and I running around with little electric
chair necklaces.
The Magna Carta was signed by King John at
Runnymede on June 15, 1215--a desperate king trying to buy time. He’d lost most of his French territories even
after cutting deals with the Holy Roman Emperor (Germany-Italy) and Pope. Noblemen at home were rebellious over the war
taxes and autocratic atrocities and so in order to keep his throne, he signed
their wish list—trial by jury, independence of the church, trial by an assembly
of peers and right to justice, limited taxes, and an approval committee of
nobles for royal wars and treaties. John
slyly knew that the Pope would nullify this as a worthless piece of paper and a
month later he did. But then a year later John died and his boy-king successor’s
regent revived the Magna Carta to mollify the nobles. Thus in the next centuries, Englishmen would
come to claim the Magna Carta as applicable to not just nobles but all
men. The superiority of the church to
king became the superiority of your chosen faith to government. “Assembly of
peers” became trial by jury. Right to
justice became the right to a speedy trial. Limited taxation became the concept
of limited government. And the committee
of approving nobles became English Parliament. Thus we recognize the first
constitution in European history. It might be noted however, that King John
surrounded himself with diehard statists that have descended down to this day known
as the Democratic Party.
Martin Luther began publishing his lecture
notes in 1515. About the only men who
could read in the Dark Ages were churchmen, and the tradition of illiterate
knights and nobles (warriors, not scholars!) continued for centuries. Luther was a born-again scholar of scriptures
with much zeal, and his Compendium of
Romans, published in 1515 was a stunning summary of grace and started him
as the world’s first prolific, best-selling author. In 36 months he published 30 books and oh, by
the way, led much of the Protestant Reformation.
Shakespeare wrote his last play in 1613 and
died 2 or 3 years later in obscurity, 1615 or 1616. We don’t know the true date
of his death! Wrote 38 plays and many poems.
Considered the father of modern drama, his plots and characters have
inspired hundreds of knock-offs in theatre and movies ever since. And Hollywood
refuses to pay Shakespeare’s heirs a dime, retaining a bevy of trial lawyers to
protect what they consider “their own creations.”
1715 was the year that English kings gave way
to prime ministers and parliament. It
started in 1701 when the British came together to write the Act of Settlement. Queen Anne had lost her son, William, leaving
the country without a clear line of succession, so the Act of Settlement
defined all future kings and queens as must-be-Protestant heirs to the Stuart
line. But there was so much division in
the Stuart house. And, like they say,
where there’s a will, there’s relatives.
Louis XIV of France wanted to declare his son as James III, but he wasn’t
Protestant. The nearest Protestant
relative was Sophia of Hanover (German kingdom). Alas, she died just a month before Anne died in
1714 and her son, George I became king of the United Kingdom of Britain and
Scotland. The Scots choked on this
choice of a Lousy Kraut who couldn’t even speak English and wanted Lousy Louis’s
son instead. Known as Jacobites, these
Scots held an uprising, but the Brits put them down in 1715. George, who had just arrived the previous
fall, and was more of a playboy (main interests were wine, women and horses)
than being a strong monarch, went back to the security of Hanover and his
mistresses, leaving government in the hands of Parliament. A few years later,
Robert Walpole emerged as the first Prime Minister and was often de facto head
of state in the absence of George I. And thus we also see members of the royal
family have carried on the tradition of wine, women and horses.
So, 2015? I say it is the year of PARIS.
P—Prevarication of Hillary over her emails
and Benghazi
A—Alliance of Gays in Marriage as it became
legal
R—Race Riots, attributed to killings by
police of innocent black young men, but really Democrat exploitation
IS—Islamic State and the bewilderment of the
West about what to do
And of course Paris, where Europe seems to
have lost it’s non-chalance about terrorism.
Extensive but interesting.
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