D. H. Montgomery
Posts in The Copybook credited to ‘D. H. Montgomery’
An attempt to pay down the National Debt provoked a frenzy of financial speculation.
In 1711, a new joint stock company called the South Sea Company was announced, akin to the successful East India Company (1600) and Hudson’s Bay Company (1670). In 1719, it was awarded the job of paying off the national debt, promising investors eye-catching returns for upwards of £1000 per share, and sparking a frenzied optimism among investors that copycat companies were happy to share in.
After the kingdoms of Great Britain were absorbed into the Roman Empire, the promises of prosperity and civilisation came only to a favoured few.
When the kingdoms of Britain joined the Roman Empire – some willingly, some not – their peoples found that it brought great benefits. Unfortunately, most never got to experience them. City-dwellers fared well and lived comfortably, if they were good Romans, but everyone else existed for their convenience.
Rome’s greedy tax policy in Britain and Gaul left farmers with little to show for their labours but the stripes on their backs.
Admission to the Roman Empire brought an unfamiliar prosperity and ease to the former kingdoms of Britain, but American historian David Montgomery emphasised that much of it was a sham. Behind the facade lay a culture of corruption and exploitation fed by government greed, which was not limited to the miserable slaves labouring in mines or brickworks.
American historian D. H. Montgomery saw Britain’s ‘isolation’ as the very thing that has made her people more cosmopolitan, and her government more liberal.
Much is said, not all of it complimentary, about Britain’s changeable weather and her isolation from Continental Europe. But American historian D. H. Montgomery believed that wind and wave had helped make Britain into a more stable, more diverse, more harmonious and more liberal country.
American historian David Montgomery credited King Edward VII with bringing peace to Europe, the Empire and the world.
American historian D. H. Montgomery gave this assessment of the reign of King Edward VII in 1912, two years after the king died and two years before war broke out across the world. Whereas some historians like to focus on Edward’s scandals and family quarrels, Montgomery saw quite a different side to the King.
American historian David Montgomery explains why Britain’s Empire Day really was a cause for celebration.
American historian D. H. Montgomery lays out the background to the establishment of Empire Day in 1904. He describes a global Empire which had discovered ever closer union not by more centralisation but by less, a Britain that was no longer a colonial power but the mother of a federation of independent states.