British History
Posts in The Copybook tagged ‘British History’
In April 1653, Oliver Cromwell learnt that Parliament was planning to prevent him from packing the Commons with yes-men.
In the Spring of 1653, General Oliver Cromwell, England’s commander-in-chief and de facto ruler, was heaping pressure on Parliament to dissolve itself for fresh elections, and so give him an opportunity to pack the Commons with his own men. The Commons, however, guessed his mind, and on April 20th were ready to vote on a Bill of dissolution carefully designed to maintain their independence.
Edmund Burke begged the clergy of England to give us all a break from the twenty-four-hour news cycle.
On November 4th, 1789, not yet five months into the French Revolution, Dr Richard Price delivered a sermon at the Presbyterian Chapel in Old Jewry entitled ‘On the Love of Our Country’, in which he called upon all patriotic Englishmen to support the French rebels as a matter of Christian duty. Writing to a French correspondent, Edmund Burke complained that it was grossly inappropriate.
William Dampier describes the hand-to-mouth existence of the aborigines of northwest Australia, and reveals a people far advanced in charity.
From January 5th to March 12th 1688, Englishman William Dampier, on the first of his record-breaking three circumnavigations of the globe, explored the northwest coast of Australia (or as he knew it, New Holland) aboard the ‘Cygnet’. He declared the natives ‘the miserablest people in the world’, but testified to their remarkable unselfishness.
Edmund Burke would not congratulate the French revolutionaries on their ‘liberty’ until he knew what they would do with it.
In 1789, the French Parliament relieved King Louis XVI of his constitutional privileges, and amidst chaotic scenes proclaimed that henceforth ‘liberty, equality and fraternity’ would define their Government. Some believed that France was becoming more like England, and that Louis would be retained to add, like England’s George III, regal pomp to a liberal democracy. Edmund Burke wasn’t convinced.
Thomas Wright offers his readers a way of thinking about the enormous distances involved in any description of the solar system.
As an astronomer, Thomas Wright was particularly struck by the sheer size of the universe, “the secret Depths of Infinity, and the wonderful hidden Truths of this vast Ocean of Beings”. He often found that others, though fascinated by the solar system, had no conception of the distances involved, so he came up with this homely illustration.
Though some other sciences may seem to destroy it, astronomy restores a sense of religious awe.
Astronomer Thomas Wright approached his subject not only with passion but also with reverence. In a preface to his collection of nine ‘Letters’, in which he discussed fifteen years of observations, he told his unnamed correspondent that in common with many heroes of science and literature, he had found his religious belief deepened by studying the stars.