Resist

Never before after World War II has there been a country or a leader in the Western civilisation that made people feel like they are right now. Outrage, anger, dispair, disbelief, you name it.
President Trump has, within his first week,  made it all 'possible'. He has given each and everyone of us an uneasy and unsafe feeling. The world is changing, has changed. Espacially since the Muslim ban. When people couldn't even get off the planes and there was chaos and despair.
It all started with the Women's March the day after the Inaugeration. All over the world women (and men ) were protesting against his presidency. He didn't win, Hillary had 3 million more votes, so why on Earth is he now president! He is a narcissist, a white surpremacist, a fascist, need I go on?
All his actions from the last week speak for themselves.

Angela Merkel, the German prime minister (who now is the leader of the Free West to be honest) was the one who had to remind mr Trump of the Geneva convention. She had to call him and tell him.
Trump, having once said he didn't read, doesn't know about the Geneva Convention?
He has forbidden scientist to publish their findings, or to communicate on Social Media, which provoked  protests and rogue accounts.
He still wants to build his stupid wall to keep the Mexicans out and let Mexico pay for it (which they won't) He has whiped away women's rights in one sweep. Planned parenting, abortion, everything America has built through the years is being whiped clean even the websites of the Government.
Trump doesn't believe in Climate change, it's a hoax, so whipe away all data so it doesn't exits anymore.

There once was a country in 1938 where a leader stood up. People started to like him, what he said. he blamed minorities, Jews, gypsies... He didn't talk but screamed his words to get his point across.
He was elected and then the Second World War started.
Millions of Jews, Gypsies and homosexuals were killed.
Later some Germans said; 'Ich habe es nicht gewußt!' (I did not know)
But did they? Or did they just turn away, didn't they just want to know?

What we're seeing now in America is that people are resisting, are protesting, they don't want this, they don't want to be ruled by a demagogue and a tirant.
They don't want history to repeat itself only this time it's not Jews, it's Muslims.
Let's all resist, in every country. Don't let the Nazis win again. It doesn't matter where you live or if they call themselves 'alt-right' they are Nazis, plain and simple and we won't stand for it. We won't stay silent!

Resist!

© KH

Richard III The Reburial of a King

King Richard III of England died (the last King of England who died on the battlefield actually) in 1485.

Richard, the last Plantagenet king, was killed in battle against Henry Tudor in 1485 and buried hastily without a coffin in a long-demolished monastery.

His bones weren't found until 2012, when archaeologists excavated them from a Leicester parking lot. DNA tests, bone analysis and other scientific scrutiny established that the skeleton belonged to the King.

On Sunday, yesterday, a hearse carrying the monarch's remains, sealed inside an oak coffin, processed through Leicestershire's countryside to Bosworth, the battlefield where the monarch fell. Crowds lined the route of the cortege, and re-enactors in costume fired cannons in a 21-gun salute. Unfortunately Channel 4 aired that so we couldn't watch that. I just saw bits and pieces of it online. 

Remarkable to witness a reburial of a King after all those years! It brought a tear to my eye even though this particular King does have kind of a reputation; like I talked about recently in my Art on Friday blog about Richard III  .

The coffin will lie in Leicester Cathedral, where it will be lowered into a tomb on Thursday.

Richard III was also a play by Shakespeare. But this will now have an end no one could have ever guessed. Not even the great bard. 

© KH

Source

History; Richard III - War of the Roses

King Richard III

History, I love it, always have especially British history. I love reading historical novels and curently I'm reading about the War of the Roses- Stormbird by Conn Iggulden. 

My favorite actor Benedict Cumberbatch is as we speak busy playing Richard III for the BBC for the Hollow Crown series. 

 Benedict Cumberbatch as Richard III

But who was Richard III and what is the War of the Roses? 

War of the Roses

Maybe this family tree clarifies it better. 

In the opening battle of England's War of the Roses, the Yorkists defeat King Henry VI's Lancastrian forces at St. Albans, 20 miles northwest of London. Many Lancastrian nobles perished, including Edmund Beaufort, the duke of Somerset, and the king was forced to submit to the rule of his cousin, Richard of York. The dynastic struggle between the House of York, whose badge was a white rose, and the House of Lancaster, later associated with a red rose, would stretch on for 30 years.
Both families, closely related, claimed the throne through descent from the sons of Edward III, the king of England from 1327 to 1377. The first Lancastrian king was Henry IV in 1399, and rebellion and lawlessness were rife during his reign. His son, Henry V, was more successful and won major victories in the Hundred Years War against France. His son and successor, Henry VI, had few kingly qualities and lost most of the French land his father had conquered. At home, chaos prevailed and lords with private armies challenged Henry VI's authority. At times, his ambitious queen, Margaret of Anjou, effectively controlled the crown.

 Margaret d'Anjou

In 1453, Henry lapsed into insanity, and in 1454 Parliament appointed Richard, duke of York, as protector of the realm. Henry and York's grandfathers were the fourth and third sons of Edward III, respectively. When Henry recovered in late 1454, he dismissed York and restored the authority of Margaret, who saw York as a threat to the succession of their son, Prince Edward. York raised an army of 3,000 men, and in May the Yorkists marched to London. On May 22, 1455, York met Henry's forces at St. Albans while on the northern road to the capital. The bloody encounter lasted less than an hour, and the Yorkists carried the day. The duke of Somerset, Margaret's great ally, was killed, and Henry was captured by the Yorkists.
After the battle, Richard again was made English protector, but in 1456 Margaret regained the upper hand. An uneasy peace was broken in 1459, and in 1460 the Lancastrians were defeated, and York was granted the right to ascend to the throne upon Henry's death. The Lancastrians then gathered forces in northern England and in December 1460 surprised and killed York outside his castle near Wakefield.
York's son Edward reached London before Margaret and was proclaimed King Edward IV. In March 1461, Edward won a decisive victory against the Lancastrians at the Battle of Towton, the bloodiest of the war. Henry, Margaret, and their son fled to Scotland, and the first phase of the war was over.

Yorkist rivalry would later lead to the overthrow of Edward in 1470 and the restoration of Henry VI. The next year, Edward returned from exile in the Netherlands, defeated Margaret's forces, killed her son, and imprisoned Henry in the Tower of London, where he was murdered. Edward IV then ruled uninterrupted until his death in 1483. His eldest son was proclaimed Edward V, but Edward IV's brother, Richard III, seized the crown and imprisoned Edward and his younger brother in the Tower of London, where they disappeared, probably murdered. In 1485, Richard III was defeated and killed by Lancastrians led by Henry Tudor at the Battle of Bosworth Field.

Henry Tudor was proclaimed King Henry VII, the first Tudor king. Henry was the grandson of Catherine of Valois, the widow of Henry V, and Owen Tudor. In 1486, he married Edward IV's daughter Elizabeth of York, thereby uniting the Yorkist and Lancastrian claims. This event is seen as marking the end of the War of Roses; although some Yorkists supported in 1487 an unsuccessful rebellion against Henry, led by Lambert Simnel. The War of Roses left little mark on the common English people but severely thinned the ranks of the English nobility.


source 

© KH