[WWI] Caproni Ca3 Walk Around

[Douglas Anderson]

I am replying on list for a reason, to apologise
The comment I made was simply historical and was not meant to offend any-one.
If I did so i apologise

--- On Sat, 12/20/08, Helen and Chris <2kermavio at orange.fr> wrote:

From: Helen and Chris <2kermavio at orange.fr>
Subject: Re: [WWI] Caproni Ca3 Walk Around
To: "World War I Modeling Mailing List" <wwi at wwi-models.org>
Date: Saturday, December 20, 2008, 2:13 AM





Douglas wrote:-

"Well, you are both right; it shows the prejudice of the English. Doric is the scottish Dialect of the Lowland Scots. This has spread to the North East, hence being found in the Fraserburgh area. It also is used to describe a very simplistic form of architecture. 

Originally the Athenians thought the Dorians inferior, backward. Hence the word has eneterd the English language as a synonym for rustic (euphamism). ie. backward, simple. The English used it to describe the language spoken in Northumbria and the lowlands of Scotland."

Douglas, I was tempted to reply to you off list, but as I was attacked on list, I felt it was only correct to reply through the same channel.  Whilst historical, this has nothing to do with WW1, so to other listees I apologise for being ot. Switch off and delete now.  But if you want an insight into a scrap that's being going on since the Celts and the Picts fell out........

I think you are being a bit unfair to use the lack of knowledge of one person as an illustration of the prejudice of an entire nation!  Thank you for enlightening me.  I think you noted that I was unsure of the spelling of the dialect, so spelt it the way I knew in architecture.

I cannot say which invasion brought my ancestors to Englands shores, but the earliest confirmed record I have of them so far involves a land transaction in County Durham in 1194.  Having a "Saxon" sirename denoting a probable chieften, they were probably Danes and not indigenous Celts.

Growing tired of rape and pillage (you can have too much of a good thing), they discovered it's a lot safer and easier to develop your own land than to run the risk of death or serious injury trying to nick someone elses possesions.  So we became landowners and farmers.  

The Normans turned up in 1066, subjugated most of England and created the Doomsday Book in the same year.  One of the bits they didn't subjugate was the North East. 

Being used fighting, it took the Normans until 1068 to impose their will and the Bolden Boke was compiled that year.  Why were we used to fighting?  We found, as the Romans did many centuries before, that the bloody Scots turned up, usually late summer or early autumn, to try and filch our harvests.  They usually got no further than Durham.  It's a lovely city and we would have welcomed them as tourists.  But they wanted to run the show.  Sometimes it took a couple of years to get shot of them.  But get shot of them we did!

Unusually for a Saxon family, we held on to our lands, which were quite profitable and fertile.

It is worth noting that the Scots purpose was to arrive. And, perhaps, plunder if they remembered.  Despite Mel Gibsons valient efforts, the Scots are generally described at this time as being great lumps of tartan and hair.  We, on the other hand, did have a purpose.  We called it civilisation!  

So we had an agreement with our feudal lords that we would only join their army's and fight for them between the River Tyne in the north and the Tees in the south.  In one of the numerous routs of the Scots, one aristo (it was either a Neville or a Percy) had them in full flight north of Hadrian's Wall*, which (for the benefit of non-UK residents) is north of the Tyne.  He was most disgruntled when we said he could carry on but we've got farms to run and we're going home to run them.

Fast forward to the 1600's.  The Scots are still invading the north east as they have done, mindlessly, for the past fifteen billion years.  They think they may have an angle as one of their countrymen now occupies the English throne.  Charles 1st.  A far better king and administrator than he is generally given credit for, he was also a libertine in an era of increasingly repressed morals.  Which was, ultimately, his downfall.

He was also a politician, promising but never quite delivering.  Scotland in his day was fiercely Presbyterian.  And the Presbyterians fought tooth and nail against the imposition of the Anglican church Parliament wanted.  Sympathetic to the Presbytarians, he didn't give them what they wanted until 1647.  Betrayed by his countrymen at Newark in 1645, he escaped and negotiated the acceptance of the Presbyterian chuch in Scotland and its recognition in England within three years in return for an army.  And a Scottish withdrawal from the north east.  One of the few times we couldn't get rid of them.

The Scots went home - it turned out not to be much of an angle - but the army lost.  Goodnight, Charlie 1.  Hello Cromwell.

By the time Cromwell died in 1658, England is heartily sick of the repressive Puritans. Hence the restoration of Charles ll in 1660.  Generally regarded as a period of artistic rebirth and a release from constraint, Charles ll reign was blighted by the legacy of the Puritans. England was skint.  But Charlie ll was probably an even better administrator, politician and King than his admirable father.  Despite being a Scot, Douglas, Charlie ll was probably the second best king England has had in recent history.  And the best, a hundred years before him, was a bloody Welshman!!  

But the Stuarts (the Charles's surname) had a flaw.  Although they tried to hide it, they were, at heart, Catholics.  As an agnostic, it is hard for me to try and imagine the strength of feeling modern day Catholics have.  So to try and practice your faith when it is all but banned............?    Especially when the king is also the head of the protestant Church of England!

Charles ll died a Catholic.  He also died without a legitimate male heir.  Tons of illegitimate ones, but none "legal".  So his brother, James Vll Scotland and ll England became king.  Briefly.  James was more openly Catholic than his elder brother. Although reacting against the constraints of Puritanism, neither Parliament nor the populace could take a Catholic head of the Protestant Church of England.

So the sister of Charles ll and James, Mary, took the throne from James with her husband.  He was the Protestant Dutchman, William of Orange.

And this is where the Scots and the English REALLY fall out.

If it is true that the winners write the history, then it is also true that the losers have selective memories.

For what it is worth, Douglas, I believe that under the strict rules of primogeniture, the Stuarts and their descendants had/have the right to the throne.  State and Church can be easily seperated.

The Scots will tell you that the dreadful English overthrew the rightful king.  Which, as far as it goes, is true. But what they won't tell you is the religeous aspect which caused the overthrow in the first place.  Nor will they tell you that, for precicely the same reasons, most of James' supporters deserted him when William landed at Brixham.  Nor will they tell you that without Presbytarian support, James had no chance.  The Scots betrayed his father and they betrayed him.
 
Fact.
 
You can blame the English until you are blue in the face and until the cows come home, but it won't alter what happened.  We shoved, the Scots pushed.
 
Nothing personal.
 
I hope I may be able to get to meet you at Phillipe's do next November, but it is a bit too early for me to make a commitment.  Yeah, I know,  typical Brit!
 
Best Regards,
 
Chris.


      
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