Britain's Problem
The Nobs did, in fact, have a substantial problem, and that problem was them. The wealthy of Britain, mostly with incredibly long lineages, stretching back in one way or another to 1066, or thereabouts, when the Normans invaded, smashed the English, and instituted a cruel, repressive regime which they managed to keep in place with only gradual improvements over the next 700 years. Not to mention much of the last 200. Any move to change the way things were done was met with incredibly brutal violence.
Yes, there were minor setbacks, like Charles II's execution. But they got their own back. They sent a kidnap team to the Netherlands to illegally grab one of the men responsible for sentencing Charles to death, put him on what would have been a joke of a trial if its consequences weren't so incredibly serious, and executed him by hanging, drawing, and quartering, a process so very medieval and revolting we're not going to describe it. The dead men, like Oliver Cromwell, had their corpses dug up, hanged in chains for a day for the good folk of London to come and check out, apart from common comment they do not seem to have been drawn and quartered, then what remained of their heads was cut off, Cromwell's apparently came off with great difficulty, and stuck on spikes. That'll teach them!
Cromwell's head, the head of the man who ordered that Charles' head be sewn back on so his family could come and say their farewells, stayed up there for around thirty years, when it fell down and launched a life, if that's the right word, of its own. It spent some time up a chimney, then became a commercial item, and had a career as a public entertainer, until it eventually came into the hands of the one family for 150 years, until one family member with a conscience gave it to Cromwell's old school, which buried it in a secret location in the school grounds. And at last it was at rest. The rest of Cromwell's body was dumped in a public pit for the corpses of the hanged at Tyburn gallows.
Of course, there are the stories of the maltreated corpse not being Cromwell's. Even that it was Charles I's. But while interesting, and certainly raising some doubt as to whether or not it was Cromwell's body that was paraded around for burial at the official funeral, two years before his execution, it seems pretty likely that it was Cromwell. Well, his corpse, at least. Cromwell himself ceased to exist some two years earlier.
Lex, what are you doing? I go out for a cup of tea and when I come back I find you waffling on about rotten heads.
It wasn't rotten, it was embalmed.
I don't care if it was sent to South America and shrunk, it's nothing to do with Macquarie or New South Wales.
Yes, but it shows how vengeful the nobs could be.
Hmph. Can we get back on topic, please?
Okay, okay. But there are so many wonderful stories that it's hard not to try and tell them all. But, all right, back to Lachie it is. Or at least the lead-up to white settlement and Lachlan's governorship.
Right, now, for most of the 700 years leading up to New South Wales' settlement by the British, the majority of the population, mostly illiterate peasant farmers, were pretty easily kept in their place. The population was not that large, and amazingly violent repression kept most of them under control. But gradually, over time, with the growth of trade, especially international trade in very valuable products like wool, a new class began to grow, the middle class.
With the growth of the middle class, land possession was not the only way to gather wealth, the towns they lived in began to develop, and the benefits of education began to spread among the sons of the middle class. It was largely this, with the growth of various protestant religious sects, that led to Charles II's much deserved death. Not, of course, that we're in favour of capital punishment. Except, perhaps, for cruel tyrants. Mind you, there had been much worse than poor stupid, manipulating, lying, conniving, incompetent Chas.
Yes, there were minor setbacks, like Charles II's execution. But they got their own back. They sent a kidnap team to the Netherlands to illegally grab one of the men responsible for sentencing Charles to death, put him on what would have been a joke of a trial if its consequences weren't so incredibly serious, and executed him by hanging, drawing, and quartering, a process so very medieval and revolting we're not going to describe it. The dead men, like Oliver Cromwell, had their corpses dug up, hanged in chains for a day for the good folk of London to come and check out, apart from common comment they do not seem to have been drawn and quartered, then what remained of their heads was cut off, Cromwell's apparently came off with great difficulty, and stuck on spikes. That'll teach them!
Cromwell's head, the head of the man who ordered that Charles' head be sewn back on so his family could come and say their farewells, stayed up there for around thirty years, when it fell down and launched a life, if that's the right word, of its own. It spent some time up a chimney, then became a commercial item, and had a career as a public entertainer, until it eventually came into the hands of the one family for 150 years, until one family member with a conscience gave it to Cromwell's old school, which buried it in a secret location in the school grounds. And at last it was at rest. The rest of Cromwell's body was dumped in a public pit for the corpses of the hanged at Tyburn gallows.
Of course, there are the stories of the maltreated corpse not being Cromwell's. Even that it was Charles I's. But while interesting, and certainly raising some doubt as to whether or not it was Cromwell's body that was paraded around for burial at the official funeral, two years before his execution, it seems pretty likely that it was Cromwell. Well, his corpse, at least. Cromwell himself ceased to exist some two years earlier.
Lex, what are you doing? I go out for a cup of tea and when I come back I find you waffling on about rotten heads.
It wasn't rotten, it was embalmed.
I don't care if it was sent to South America and shrunk, it's nothing to do with Macquarie or New South Wales.
Yes, but it shows how vengeful the nobs could be.
Hmph. Can we get back on topic, please?
Okay, okay. But there are so many wonderful stories that it's hard not to try and tell them all. But, all right, back to Lachie it is. Or at least the lead-up to white settlement and Lachlan's governorship.
Right, now, for most of the 700 years leading up to New South Wales' settlement by the British, the majority of the population, mostly illiterate peasant farmers, were pretty easily kept in their place. The population was not that large, and amazingly violent repression kept most of them under control. But gradually, over time, with the growth of trade, especially international trade in very valuable products like wool, a new class began to grow, the middle class.
With the growth of the middle class, land possession was not the only way to gather wealth, the towns they lived in began to develop, and the benefits of education began to spread among the sons of the middle class. It was largely this, with the growth of various protestant religious sects, that led to Charles II's much deserved death. Not, of course, that we're in favour of capital punishment. Except, perhaps, for cruel tyrants. Mind you, there had been much worse than poor stupid, manipulating, lying, conniving, incompetent Chas.