Re: The Wars of the Roses

[Andrew Smith <hobbit@mail.earthlight.co.nz>]

On Thu, 16 Apr 1998, John Cowan wrote:

> I think I have figured out how the Wars of the Roses come out *There*.
> Nice Guy Richard of York supports his nephew's claims, acts as Regent
> until Edward VI is adult (grabbing plenty of gelt for himself on the
> way, to be sure), and then relinquishes power to become the King's Good
> Left Arm.  Edward's younger brother Richard dies of a flux of the bowels
> (or was it a surfeit of eels?).  Edward has only one daughter, Margaret,
> whom he offers to James IV of Scotland.  Their eldest son James V/I
> inherits both thrones without opposition, to the relief of all concerned,
> including Cambria, which has been watching carefully (as it did in the
> time of King Stephen) and doing as little as possible.  "The Cambrians,
> throughout the war, did nothing in particu-lar/And did it very well."
> -- W.S. Gilbert.
>
Workable.  Now, how does the Federation avoid becoming a Union, and
evolve into a constitutional monarchy?  Where are the *Magnae Cartae of
the Federal Kingdoms.  Who writes them, who signs them? 
> 
> That way, we avoid the Great Divorce, the Dissolution of the Monasteries,
> and the Church of England.  James V did create a quasi-episcopal Protestantism
> (bishops are just administrative priests with no special hieratic position),
> and perhaps a compromise with Knox was worked out to create Calvinist-
> Episcopalianism, the position of the Church of Scotland *There*.
> 
A Catholic monarchy becomes the head of a established Protestant church in
part of his hegemony?!  Cuius regio, eius religio.

You mentioned in a previous letter a reference to Nixon being a
second-hand cardealer in California, did I detect a reference to the works
of Harry Turtledove, an author I have been following since I read his
novel "A Agent of Byzantium"?

As requested, I have sent an invite to Frank George Valocs.  I hope he
will come and sit in with us.

- andrew.
Andrew Smith                                  <hobbit@earthlight.co.nz>

MAN, despite his artistic pretensions, his sophistication, and his many
accomplishments; still owes his existence to a six-inch layer of topsoil
and the fact that it rains.
							   - Anonymous