I Am Royalty

I have a child. And the child's name of course reflects her status as a member of the English royal family. She was christened "Eleanor I, by the Grace of God, Queen of England and France, Defender of the Faith, Lady of Ireland and the Church of England in Earth Supreme Head, Dykhuizen." Amongst playmates she may affectionately be referred to as "E.I.G.G.Q.E.F.D.F.L.I.C.E.E.S.H." She may not be referred to with the vulgar appellation "Ellie." Such calumny shall be considered an affront against God's representative upon Earth, and justice shall swiftly be brought upon the guilty party.

The nature of said punishment will depend upon the progress of my newly engaged effort to restore Eleanor to the throne as the rightful heir to Henry III (1207-1272). You see, I confirmed through Ancestry.com long ago that I am the great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandson of King Henry III. It's true. I am one of only ten million or so people to be able to make such a claim.

My task is then simple: Gather an army, hie myself to England, and kill everyone with a better claim to the throne. While such a task may have appeared Herculean in the days of my vaunted forefather, advances in modern weaponry make this a relatively easy task. For too long, the House of Minnesota has been ignored in affairs of state! Once more unto the breach, my good men (and women, because my marauding horde is an Equal Opportunity Employer)!

However, in my extensive studies of my illustrious ancestors (I read two books), I must say I've gained new appreciation for democracy. We may occasionally elect an idiot, but hell, at least we don't have wars to decide it. And even George W. Bush looks like a Rhodes scholar compared to some of England's past rulers. To wit:

Henry VI, who ruled England for about half of the 1400s, was pretty clearly what we would call nowadays "developmentally disabled." He was the immediate successor to Henry V, who was the one played by Kenneth Branagh and says "We few, we happy few, we band of brothers ... come upon this field of glory to kick ass and drink beer, and we're all out of beer ... we must protect this hoooouuuse!" Then he went on to win the Battle of Agincourt, defeating Mothra in ten rounds. I think that was how it went, anyway. I was reading all this as I was watching late-night TV, so I'm not sure I got it all right.

Point is, his son Henry VI had quite a legacy to live up to. And boy, did he ever not. He was not only born into the Hundred Years' War against France; he was also heir to the Wars of the Roses, in which different branches of the royal family, those of York and Lancaster, killed each other regularly and traded the throne back and forth. Meanwhile, Henry VI was terrified by war, which is a problem when you're the commander-in-chief of two of them. 

He was reportedly very meek and gentle, in a way that would be cute if he were a greeter at Wal-Mart, but extremely dangerous for someone trying to lead England. He would blush whenever anyone mentioned sex and sincerely believed his son was created by the Holy Spirit. His solution to the Wars of the Roses was to stage what he called a "loveday," in which members of the York and Lancaster clans would all have a public ceremony together. Mind you, these were people who killed each other's children, a lot. Their beefs are not likely to be smoothed over by a public smooch-fest. Henry thought they would.

The end result of Henry VI's incompetence was that England lost all the gains in France made by Henry V, with Joan of Arc being the symbol of the reconquest. Meanwhile, for the most part, the Wars of the Roses only killed of the members of the nobility, leaving peasants and middle-class folks out of it -- that is, until King Henry's forces looted and pillaged a bunch of towns of Southern England. 

Imagine that for a second -- imagine if the Republicans and Democrats were killing each other over who would be in power. I think our first reaction would be "Yeah! Cool! Is it on TV?" But then imagine if the Republicans, under their leader George W. Bush, decided to just raze and burn Iowa for no good reason. I think even Fox News would have to turn against them then.

King Henry VI came along for all this countryside brutality, but was likely oblivious, allegedly laughing and singing in his private camp during the carnage. The people of London reacted to the spree by literally shutting the door on Henry and the Lancastrians (they had real doors to cities then, with real keys -- hence the term "the key to the city") and declaring a new king, Edward IV.

Normally things weren't as bad as all this -- normally it would just take one civil war to figure out who the next leader would be. Just a few hundred lives lost over a year or two, something like that. In general, though, we see the danger of letting someone be king just because his father was. Well, we see it, but the English didn't. They kept on with the tradition, because they didn't know anything else.

So imagine what a huge step forward it was to try democracy instead. These days, it's old hat, but then democracy was revolutionary in a way that is hard for us to fathom. It was radical. It was a intellectual, long-shot idea based on cutting-edge theory that turned out to be extremely right.

So that's what I hope we all celebrate when we celebrate America: radical solutions to longstanding problems, solutions based on the latest in intellectual thought. That's our true legacy, that willingness to try something that's very new and is based on the creativity of the most probing minds. Innovation, in business-speak. Let's try to keep that in mind before we hate on Obama and the Democrats for trying an innovative solution on health care, or before we reflexively crap on other new ideas in immigration, energy policy, etc. The country is seeming a little afraid of change lately, and fear of change is not what we were founded on.