The Most Powerful Woman in the World

Her life had more drama and plot twists than any fictional tale Hollywood could ever dream up for her. During her lifetime she was quite possibly the most powerful woman in the world. She broke the gender boundaries of her generation and yet still managed to work within her culture to achieve her goals. Ruler of her own vast lands, she ended up becoming queen of first France and then later of its bitter rival, England. Not content to sit at home while the men went off to war, she went along with her husband on a crusade to free the Holy Land. She survived dangers, intrigues, a revolt that she possibly helped mastermind, and years as a prisoner. And if this was not enough, she fathered two of the most famous kings from English history and literature, Richard the Lion-hearted and his scheming brother, John. Although virtually unremembered today except by students of history, Eleanor of Aquitaine was truly a wonder in her time.

To read more about this fascinating figure from history, please follow the links below.

http://www.royalty.nu/Europe/England/Angevin/Eleanor.html

http://www.historynet.com/magazines/british_heritage/3034121.html

http://www.womeninworldhistory.com/heroine2.html

Cousins in Crisis

Family squabbles are normal, but when you are royalty your fights can affect nations. Throughout history we have seen the armies of royal relatives duke it out over lands, crowns, and religions, with disastrous consequences for thousands. But one royal feud between cousins tops them all in casualties, a war that cost millions of lives and transformed the globe forever: World War I.

In all fairness, the cousins involved, George V of Britain, Wilhelm II of Germany, and Nicholas II of Russia (or Georgie, Willy, and Nicky as their family affectionately called them among themselves), would have had a hard time preventing war. Too many other factors such as jealousy over who had the better colonies, a complicated alliance system, nationalistic fervor, and an arms race between Britain and Germany had created such an atmosphere of tension in Europe that it only took one spark to set the world of 1914 ablaze. Still, the cousins did little to stop the war, either. (Nicky and Georgie are pictured.)

Probably one of the saddest chapters in the family saga was when Nicky and his family were ousted by the Bolsheviks during the Russian Revolution and sought asylum in Britain. The family was all packed and relieved to be going, but at the last minute Georgie, fearing that taking in his cousins might destabilize his own country, refused to grant them refuge. The result was the murder of the Romanov family and the end of a dynasty.

To read more about on the subject, check out the following websites. The bottom two links give descriptions of two books on the ill-fated cousins.

http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/H/history/t-z/threekings.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_V_of_the_United_Kingdom

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?z=y&EAN=9780802716231

http://www.dymocks.com.au/ProductDetails/ProductDetail.aspx?R=9780750933728

A Man For The People

He meant well, he really did, but he couldn’t quite pull it off. Even being Emperor has its limitations. Joseph II, heir to the Habsburg throne in Austria and Holy Roman Emperor, was the most “enlightened” of the “enlightened monarchs” during the 18th century. Joseph seemed to really care for his people, and would on occasion disguise himself so that he could walk among them unrecognized to learn the truth about how they lived. Once able to rule with a free hand after the death of his powerful mother, the Empress Maria Theresa, he set about trying to reform his lands at lightning speed.

In a whirlwind of activity, Joseph strove to better the lives of the peasantry by eliminating serfdom, allowing peasants to marry whom they chose, move from one place to another, etc. This basically broke the back of the old feudal system. Additionally, Joseph started orphanages, hospitals, and poorhouses. He made moves to reform education, abolished torture and the death penalty, and issued the Edict of Tolerance in 1781 which gave Protestants almost the same rights as Catholics. He even worked to help the Jews, a group that had been historically discriminated against throughout Europe.

Unfortunately, the result of giving the downtrodden more meant that the privileged had less, which didn’t set well with the nobility. His mother, a bit of a reformer herself, had known how to tread softly with the upper classes, but Joseph’s bullheaded approach merely angered them. Sensing that most of his efforts at change would be undermined after his death by the noble class that hated him, he instructed that his epitaph be written as follows: “Here lies Joseph II, who failed in all he undertook.”

For more on A Man For The People, follow the links below:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_II%2C_Holy_Roman_Emperor

http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/people/A0826616.html

http://staff.gps.edu/mines/Age%20of%20Absol%20-%20Enlightend%20Despots.htm

The Emperor's New Clothes

He was born only a few months before the world his ancestors had carved out for themselves was shattered forever. Prince Mutsuhito was too young to understand the significance of the “Black Dragons” that sailed into Edo Bay in July, 1853, but his people weren’t. The stronger, more militaristic groups resisted the pressure to open trade relations with the “friendly” visitors. Then one group, the Choshu, fired upon the foreign ships sailing in their waters and watched in disbelief as Dragon cannons leveled their strongholds. Their resolve to resist strengthened even in defeat, the traditionalists rebelled against the wavering leadership of the country and restored the authority of the emperor in the person of the 15-year-old, Mutsuhito.

Quiet, passive, and a lover of poetry (he wrote around 100,000 poems during his life), the young emperor was more of a figurehead than a ruler, as the reins of the government were really in the hands of the Satsuma and Choshu clans. Still, the people revered their emperor as a god and imitated whatever they saw him do.

Ironically, the clans decided the best way to combat their perceived enemies from the West was to become just like them. Mutsuhito’s role in this cultural shift became crucial. As the Emperor adopted foreign dress and ways, so to did his people. In just a few short years, the influence of the Emperor and the political maneuvering of the clans brought the island nation of Japan out of its isolation and onto the world stage. This became known as the era of the Meiji (enlightened government), and its young ruler took his place in history as the man who brought his people into the modern age, the Emperor Meiji.

www.hyperhistory.net/apwh/bios/b3meiji.htm

www.artelino.com/articles/emperor_meiji.asp

The Boy in the Rain

The boy waited in the rain for hours. He had been given a tremendous honor, to give the welcoming speech (in Latin) for the newly crowned king and his young queen. But the king and queen were late, and the boy was wet. Finally, the royal coach arrived, and the boy’s moment of glory arrived. Only the royal couple never exited the coach, probably due to the weather, and so one wonders if the king ever heard the carefully prepared words or not, since he signaled his driver to leave even before the boy was finished.

Life is full of ironies. As the young boy bowed his head to his sovereign, who could predict that in just a few short years that very same ruler, Louis XVI of France, would find his own head bowed down onto the guillotine at the command of the boy from the rain, Maximilien Robespierre.

For further reading follow the links below:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robespierre

www.moonlit.org.uk/robespierre/childhood.htm

www.loyno.edu/history/journal/1983-4/mcletchie.htm

"Mythstakes": Napoleon Bonaparte

Few historical figures are as widely imitated (and ridiculed) in movies and commercials as Napoleon Bonaparte. He is usually portrayed as a short, fiery, selfish, little man who constantly walked around with his hand stuck inside his shirt. Comedians make him look like a buffoon, a fool. In actuality, Napoleon was of average height for his time period (five foot six inches by British standards). Yes, he had a temper, but he was also known to be very calm and easygoing much of the time. His care and friendliness with his troops earned him their almost fanatical loyalty, and it was said that he was very approachable. Was he selfish? Probably, but no more so than most other world leaders of the era. And as for the hand in his shirt, it was merely a popular painting pose of the time. As for him being a fool, nothing could be further from the truth. Rather, he was considered by many of his contemporaries to be a genius. Yet there is a fine line between genius and madness, and that he stepped over that line into megalomania appears obvious in studying his later years.

Read more about the real Napoleon by following these links:

www.napoleon-series.org/research/napoleon/c_description.html

www.napoleonguide.com

Now Play Nice, Little Lodhi.

Frankly, Ibrahim Lodhi was not a nice guy. Taking on the mantle of the Sultan of Delhi and ruler of a large portion of India after the death of his father in 1517, Ibrahim immediately began making people angry. Unjust, cruel, and insulting, he made his nobles so mad they decided to call for help from Babur, an up-and-coming Mughal invader. Babur agreed, but taking out the heavily armed Lodhi would be a challenge.

Babur knew that Lodhi’s forces of armed men and war elephants outnumbered him and his troops by as much as ten to one, but Babur also knew what kind of man Lodhi was. Gambling on his enemy’s pride and overconfidence, Babur set a trap that would ultimately cost the haughty Lodhi his empire and his head.

Read more by following the links below.

www.indhistory.com/mughul-dynasty-panipat.html

www.iloveindia.com/history/medieval-india/delhi-sultunate/lodi-dynasty.html

http://sify.com/itihaas/fullstory.php?id=13268446