^
Births
which occurred on a 19 June:
2001 Two Hundred Years Together, 1795-1995, about
the relations of Russians and Jews, by Russia's Nobel laureate author and
historian Alexander Solzhenitsyn, goes on sale in Moscow.
^
1947 Salman Rushdie,
in Bombay, novelist. In1961 he
emigrated to Britain, studied history at Cambridge, then: worked as
an independent journalist. In 1981 he published the novel Midnight's
Children (surrealist fiction that deals with the history of India
from 1910 to the declaration of the emergency in 1976 through the
eyes of Saleem Sinai, born on the stroke of Midnight August 15, 1947.
It is at once the history of a sub-continent, the story of a boy's
coming to age, the saga of a family and the off-key liberation-song
of a people).
In 1988 he publishes the novel:
The Satanic Verses which earn him a death penalty (fatwah)
for blasphemy against Islam, decreed by Iran. Rushdie had to go into
hiding for many years. His style is a mixture of realism, fantasy
and grotesque tales, using historical facts and real political events,
often allusions and language games. [Webcurrents
review] A more recent novel
of Rushdie is The Moor's Last Sigh (1995--Whitbread novel
of the year), a playful family epic told by a descendant of the explorer
Vasco da Gama who was born with a strange condition that makes him
age twice as fast as everyone else. [links
to reviews] Other books by
Rushdie are The Ground beneath Her Feet (1999): a novel about
"the triangle of art, love, and death" inspired by the Orpheus
myth, which describes the life of an Indian rock singer Vina Aspara,
and the ground beneath her feet shakes in an earthquake.
-- Haroun and the Sea Stories (1990) -- about Khattam-Shud, the
cult-master, whose goal was to drain the sea of stories, silencing
creative expression.
East, West: Stories (1994) -- three stories set in the East,
three in the West, and the final three about expatriates from the
East living in the West. [Indolink
review]
Grimus (1975): A wandering Indian seeks the island of immortality,
but once there must fight Grimus, a mysterious malevolent ghost.
Shame (1983--Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger): a novel
about the shame of being humiliated, and the shame of the resulting
destructive violence--
Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 1981-1991(1991) --
See
the list of some 70 essays
The Jaguar Smile: A Nicaraguan Journey (1987): a diary of Rushdie's
visit to Nicaragua in 1986 and a testament of a revolution led by
warrior-poets, with Rushdie's analysis of the political situation
in central America.
Summary
of The Satanic Verses: Chapter
I: The Angel Gibreel: The novel opens with the two main characters,
Gibreel Farishta and Saladin Chamcha, falling to earth because the
plane they have been flying in has just been blown up by the terrorists
who have hijacked it. We are then told a good deal of detail about
their backgrounds, their occupations, their love affairs, and how
they happened to find themselves together on the plane. Then the story
of the hijacking is told, leading up to the moment of explosion which
began the novel. Chapter II: Mahound: Gibreel
falls asleep and "dreams" the beginning of the other main plot of
the novel, the story of Mahound, more or less closely based on the
traditions surrounding Muhammad and the founding of Islam in the seventh
century. It is this plot that resulted in the attacks on Rushdie by
Muslim critics. We see Mahound surveying the city of Jahilia and are
introduced to various significant locales. The period corresponds
historically to the early days of Muhammad's preaching in Mecca, where
he was not widely accepted, and the Ka'ba was still filled with pagan
idols, including those of the three goddesses who are the focus of
the "satanic verses." Mahound's preaching has earned the hatred of
the ruler of Jahilia, Abu Simbel, whose fortune is derived from worshippers
at their temples. Abu Simbel, aware that Baal is his wife Hind's lover,
blackmails the poet Baal to satirize the Mahound and his companions.
But then he tries a more effective
alternative to render the prophet harmless by offering him toleration
if he in turn will acknowledge the three goddesses whose temples he
and his wife receive their income from. Mahound horrifies his followers
by seeming to be willing to deviate from his message of strict monotheism.
He consults with the Angel Gibreel, who has up to this point been
dictating holy scripture to him, and becomes convinced that the "satanic
verses" acknowledging the three goddesses, should be proclaimed as
inspired, though the narrator hints that they have been inspired not
by God, but by the devil. Mahound's
decision produces an orgy of celebration which results in death for
some, and he himself wakes up in Hind's bedroom. Mahound realizes
the "satanic verses" are indeed satanic, and goes to the Ka'ba to
repudiate them. A fierce persecution of Mahound's followers is unleashed,
and he has to flee to Yathrib. Gibreel dreams that he is being attacked
by the goddesses, for in his dream-role as the archangel/devil he
has been responsible both for suggesting the verses and repudiating
them. Chapter III: Ellowen Deeowen: Rosa Diamond,
an old woman who spends much of her time dreaming about the past (the
Norman Invasion and her own, in Argentina), witnesses Gibreel and
Saladin's descent to earth and rescues them; but Saladin is arrested
as an illegal immigrant, while Rosa dies. The police strip and humiliate
Saladin, who discovers that he is turning into a hairy, goatlike creature.
In a bizarre secret hospital where animal/human experiments reminiscent
of H. G. Wells' The Island of Doctor Moreau are being carried out
he is befriended by a physiotherapist and escapes.
The scene shifts to Saladin's home where his wife Pamela, rather than
grieving for him, has started an affair with Jumpy Joshi, and does
not welcome the news that he is still alive. The two lovers flee and
engage in an orgy of lovemaking until Saladin finds them in his goatlike
form. On the train to London Gibreel is bored by an American fundamentalist
with the same name as a "false prophet" in Islamic tradition: Maslama.
Various signs convey to Gibreel that he is evolving into an angel.
This scene shifts to introduce Alleluia Cone, former lover of Gibreel,
speaking to a class of schoolgirls about her career as a mountain-climber.
Gibreel, entering London, haunted by the ghost of another lover--Rekha
Merchant--runs into her on the street. Chapter IV: Ayesha:
Gibreel's dreams resume with a narrative imitation of a long zoom
shot focussing in on the fanatical Imam, in exile in London. This
figure is clearly based on the Iranian Muslim fundamentalist leader,
the Ayatollah Khomeni. His companions are named after prominent companions
of Muhammad, and his enemy in his homeland of Desh is named after
Muhammad's favorite wife. Gibreel as angel carries the Imam to the
capital city of Desh, as the Islamic Gibreel had carried Muhammad
to Jerusalem. They witness a popular revolution in which the evil
Ayesha dies. From her dead body springs the spirit of Al-lat, one
of the three goddesses of the "satanic verses," but she is defeated
by Gibreel. The Imam triumphs and tries to freeze time by destroying
all the clocks in the land. Rushdie provides his own commentary on
this image in discussing the Iranian revolution: ". . . the revolution
sets out quite literally to turn back the clock. Time must be reversed".
A separate plot now begins, involving
Mirza Saeed Akhtar, his wife Mishal, and the mystical, mysterious
and beautiful Ayesha (a quite different figure from the Ayesha of
the Desh plot, but in the long run equally destructive). As Mirza
watches the butterfly-clad Ayesha, he longs for her. A long flashback
tells of Ayesha's girlhood and introduces us to several characters
from the village of Titlipur. Mirza Saeed tries to transmute his lust
for the girl into passion for his wife, but it is Mishal who becomes
close to Ayesha. This intimacy is a disaster, for the seemingly insane
girl claims to have been told by the Angel Gibreel that Mishal has
breast cancer. The only cure, she pronounces, is to make a foot-pilgrimage
to Mecca. Unfortunately, this involves walking across the Arabian
Sea. The skeptical and furious Mirza Saeed cannot stop his wife from
going, but decides to accompany them in hopes of somehow saving her.
Chapter V: A City Visible but Unseen: Back in contemporary
London, the guilt-ridden Jumpy Joshi takes the goatlike Saladin Chamcha
back to his apartment above the Shaandaar Café, dominated by Hind,
the wife of Muhammad Sufyan. This Hind is not as lascivious as the
one in the "satanic verses" plot, but she is almost as fierce. She
has two teenaged daughters--Mishal and Anahita--who will become fascinated
with the strange man/devil that Saladin has become. We pause in the
plot to learn more about the family and its interrelationships. Hind
muses on the disgusting weirdness that is London.
A dream provides details of Saladin's escape from the "hospital."
He phones his old work partner, Mimi Mamoulian, only to find that
he has lost his job. He briefly encounters the name of Billy Battuta,
who will figure prominently in the novel later. His old boss, Hal
Valance, explains why his television series has been cancelled. He
is enraged to learn that Gibreel is alive, and--far from helping him
out in any way--is claiming he missed Flight 420 and seems to be engaged
into making his "satanic verses" dreams into a movie. Meanwhile his
wife has become pregnant by Jumpy. Everything seems to be conspiring
against Saladin; and, battered into submission by fate, he loses his
supernatural qualities after a visit to the bizarre Hot Wax nightclub.
A subplot involves a series of gruesome murders of old women for which
the black militant leader Uhuru Simba is arrested.
The next section returns to the story of Allie Cone, detailing her
childhood and young adulthood. Her reunion was Gibreel is passionate,
but it will be spoiled by his insane jealousy. Again haunted by Rekha
Merchant, a deranged Gibreel tries to confront London in his angelic
persona, but he is instead knocked down by the car of film producer
S. S. Sisodia, who returns him to Allie and signs him up to make a
series of films as the archangel of his dreams. Again he tries to
leave Allie, but a riot during a public appearance lands him back
again, defeated, at Allie's doorstep. At the end of the chapter we
learn that a most uncharacteristic heat wave has broken out in London.
Chapter VI: Return to Jahilia: This chapter, the
most controversial in the novel, returns us to Jahilia, from which
Mahound had fled (historically this corresponds to the Prophet Muhammad's
flight from Mecca to Medina). Mahound is returning to his home city,
having gained many followers while he was away. The monstrous Hind,
miraculously unaged, continues her reign of terror over the city.
The cynical Poet Baal encounters Salman, now disillusioned with Mahound.
He says that in Yathrib the prophet has become obsessed with laying
down various restrictive laws, some of which parallel parts of the
Sharia, traditional Islamic law. This passage has been widely attacked
by Muslim scholars as inaccurate and blasphemous, but clearly Rushdie
was not attempting a scholarly discourse on Islamic law. It is, however,
a satire on restrictive moral codes. He also describes what he takes
to be the origins of the religion's restrictions on women.
Salman, noting that the revelations Mahound received were very convenient
for the Prophet himself, has begun to test him by altering the revelations
given to Mahound when they are dictated. He has realized that Mahound
is far from infallible; and, terrified that his changes to the sacred
text will be discovered, he has fled to Jahilia. Muslims who see this
as a satire on the dictation of the Qur'an find it highly offensive,
for the sacred scripture of Muslims is held to be the exact and perfectly
preserved word of God in the most literal sense.
The aged Abu Simbel converts to the new faith and surrenders the city
of Mahound. At first Hind resists, but after the House the Black Stone
is cleansed of pagan idols (as the Ka'ba was similarly cleansed by
Muhammad), she submits and embraces the new faith as well. Bilal manages
to save Salman from execution; but Baal flees, hiding in a brothel
named Hijab. The prostitutes there have blasphemously taken on the
names of the Prophet's various wives. No scene in the novel has been
more ferociously attacked, though as Rushdie points out it is quite
inaccurate to say that the author has made the Prophet's wives into
whores. Rather the scene is a commentary on the tendency of the profane
to infiltrate the sacred. Nevertheless, the imagery and language of
this section has offended readers mightily. Baal becomes a sort of
pseudo-Mahound, by making love to each of the prostitutes in turn.
Salman visits Baal and tells him a story that implies the real Ayesha
may have been unfaithful to Mahound.
The brothel is raided, Baal sings serenades to the imprisoned whores
and is himself arrested and condemned to death. Hind, meanwhile, retreats
to her study, evidently practicing witchcraft. It is revealed that
her "conversion" was a ruse to divert Mahound's attention while she
trained herself in the magical powers necessary to defeat him. Ultimately
she sends the goddess Al-Lat to destroy the Prophet who, with his
dying breath thanks her for killing him. Chapter VII:
The Angel Azraeel: This is by far the most eventful chapter
in the novel, and the one in which readers are most likely to get
lost. The Saladin/Gibreel plot resumes as the former meditates on
his two unrequited loves: for London and for Pamela, both of whom
have betrayed him. He calls on his wife, now pregnant by Jumpy Joshi,
and says he wants to move back into his home, although he seems to
have fallen out of love with her. Back in his room at the Shaandaar
Cafe, he watches television and muses on various forms of transformation
and hybridism which relate to his own transmutation and fantasizes
about the sexy teenaged Mishal Sufyan. The first-person demonic narrator
of the novel makes one of his brief appearances. The guilty Jumpy
coerces Pamela into taking Saladin home. The pair is involved in protests
against the arrest of Uhuru Simba for the Granny Ripper Murders. Saladin
goes with them to a protest meeting where an encounter with Mishal
makes him feel doomed. Jumpy mentions Gibreel to him. After hearing
evangelist Eugene Dumsday denounce evolution on the radio, he realizes
that his personal evolution is not finished.
A heat wave has hit London. At a bizarre party hosted by film maker
S. S. Sisodia, Saladin meets Gibreel again. He starts out to attack
him, furious at the latter's having abandoned him back when the police
came to Rosa Diamond's house; but enraged by the beautiful Alleluia
Cone, he more effectively avenges himself accidentally by blurting
out the news of his wife's unfaithfulness, unaware of the effect this
will have on Gibreel, who is extremely prone to jealousy. Gibreel
insanely assaults Jumpy Joshi, whom he fears is lusting after Allie.
Allie, driven to distraction by Gibreel's
jealousy, invites Saladin to stay with her and the sedated Gibreel
in Scotland. The two lovers are bound in an intensely sexual but destructive
relationship which makes Saladin more than ever determined to take
his revenge on Gibreel, whom he takes to the Shaandaar Café, where
they encounter drunken racists. On the way back to Allie's flat Saladin
plants the seeds of his campaign against Gibreel's sanity by telling
him of the jealous Strindberg. He begins to use his talent for imitating
many voices to make obscene and threatening phone calls to both Allie
and Gibreel, and he succeeds in breaking the couple up.
Gibreel, now driven completely insane, is suffering under the delusion
that he is the destroyer angel Azraeel, whose job is to blow the Last
Trumpet and end the world. A riot involving both Blacks and Asians
breaks out when--after Uhuru Simba dies in police custody--it is made
clear that he was not the Granny Ripper. Gibreel is in his element
in this apocalyptic uprising. It is not always clear in what follows
how much is Gibreel's insanity and how much is fantastic reality:
but he experiences himself as capable of blowing streams of fire out
of his trumpet to incinerate various people, including a group of
pimps whom he associates with the inhabitants of the Jahilian brothel
in his dream. On a realistic level, the ensuing fires are probably
just the result of the rioting that has broken out around him. Jumpy
Joshi and Pamela die when the Brickhall Community Relations Council
building is torched either by Saladin, or by the police. When Saladin
returns to the Shaandaar Café he finds it ablaze as well, and plunges
in to try to rescue the Sufyan family, but instead he is rescued by
Gibreel. As an ambulance takes the two men away, Gibreel lapses back
into madness and dreams the next chapter. Chapter VIII:
The Parting of the Arabian Sea: It is important to know that
the events in this chapter are based on a real occurrence. In 1983
thirty-eight fanatical Shi'ites walked into Hawkes Bay in Karachi
(the site of the Rushdie family home in Pakistan). Their leader had
persuaded them that a path through the sea would miraculously open,
enabling them to walk to the holy city of Kerbala in Iraq
The story of the mystical Ayesha from the end of Chapter IV resumes.
One disaster after another assails the pilgrims following Ayesha in
her march to the sea; but she insists on continuing, as does Mishal,
Mirza Saeed's wife, despite his repeated attempts to dissuade her.
He tries to persuade Ayesha to accept airplane tickets to complete
the pilgrimage to Mecca (which is in fact the most common way for
pilgrims to make the hajj today); but she refuses. Her fanaticism
makes her more and more ruthless, unmoved even by the deaths of fifteen
thousand miners nearby. She behaves like the evil Ayesha of the Desh
plot when an Imam announces that an abandoned baby is a "Devil's Child,"
and allows the congregation of the mosque to stone it to death. Finally,
the horrified Mirza Saeed watches as his wife and others walk into
the sea and are drowned; though all other witnesses claim that the
sea did miraculously open as Ayesha had expected and the group crossed
safely. Mirza Saeed returns home and starves himself to death, in
his dying moments joining his wife and Ayesha in their pilgrimage
to Mecca, though probably only in his mind. Chapter
IX: The Wonderful Lamp A year and a half later, Saladin flies
home to be with his dying father. He has heard that Gibreel is now
making films based on the "dreams" which have alternated with the
present-day plot throughout the novel. On the plane he reads of various
scandals and disasters taking place in India: clearly it is no utopia.
Whereas Saladin resents the former maidservant who has married his
father and taken on his mother's identity, his lover/friend Zeeny
Vakil immediately sympathizes with her. After years of hostility to
his father, Saladin finds no support in those surrounding him for
his attitude. As he sits by his father's bedside the two are finally
reconciled. Saladin has inherited his father's estate and is now rich.
Meanwhile a dispute over a film on Indian sectarianism has become
the center of a censorship controversy in a way that ominously forshadows
the treatment which Rushdie's Satanic Verses was to receive upon publication.
Gibreel has also returned to Bombay,
depressed and suicidal. The movie he tries to make is a "satanic"
inversion of the traditional tale from the Ramayana, reflecting his
disillusionment with love after having been rejected by Allie. Ultimately
he goes entirely mad, kills Sisodia and Allie (hurling the latter
symbolically from the same skyscraper from which Rekha Merchant had
flung herself). Visiting Saladin, he confesses, then draws a revolver
from the "magic" lamp Saladin had inherited from his father, and shoots
himself. Zeeny Vakil's final words to Saladin, "Let's get the hell
out of here," may be ambiguous: they could mean only "Let's leave,"
but she may also be inviting him to leave the the realm of the Satanic
in which he has been living for so long. Note:
The Satanic verses, according to one Islamic tradition, were inserted
in Quran 53:21-22 by the devil, taking advantage of Muhamad's desire
for reconciliation with his tribe, which believed in the three "daughters
of God" mentioned in Quran 53:19-20: "Have you thought upon
al-Lat and al-Uzza And Manat, the third, the other?" to which
the Satanic verses are appended: "These are the exalted cranes
(intermediaries) Whose intercession is to be hoped for." However
the angel of revelation, Jibril, returned Muhamad to strict monotheism
by substituting the correct verses: "Are yours the males and
His the females? That indeed would be an unfair division!" |
--^
1945 Aung
San Suu Kyi, Myanmar (former Burma) opposition
leader, human rights activist, 1991
Nobel Peace Prize laureate, persecuted by the Myanmar government.
[2002 photo >]
Her mother is Khin Kyi, a prominent Burmese diplomat, and her father
is Aung San [1914 – 19 Jul 1947] who was assassinated when he
was de facto prime minister of what would shortly become independent
Burma. Aung San Suu Kyi attended schools in Burma until 1960, when
her mother was appointed ambassador to India. After further study
in India, she attended the University of Oxford, where she met her
future husband, Michael Aris [–27 Mar 1999]. She had two children
and lived a rather quiet life until 1988, when she returned to Myanmar
to nurse her dying mother. There the mass slaughter of protesters
against the brutal and unresponsive rule of the military strongman
Ne Win led her to speak out against him and to begin a nonviolent
struggle for democracy and human rights. The newly formed group with
which she became affiliated, the National League for Democracy, won
82% of the parliamentary seats that were contested in 1990, but the
results of that election were ignored by the military government.
Aung San Suu Kyi was placed under house arrest and held incommunicado
from July 1989. The military offered to free her if she agreed to
leave Myanmar, but she refused to do so until the country was returned
to civilian government and political prisoners were freed. She was
freed from house arrest on 10 July 1995, but placed under it again
in September 2000, released on 06 May 2002, attaqued by a government
mob (which killed or injured some 100 of her supporters) and arrested
once more on 30 May 2003. |
1935 Rodrigo Borja Cevallos, político ecuatoriano.
^
1934 Nathanael West's A Cool Million
is published
Nathanael West's novel A Cool Million, a satire of rags-to-riches
morality tales, is published. West, the son of Jewish immigrants,
was born in New York in 1903. He attended Brown University, then went
to Paris to write for about a year and a half, during which time he
wrote his first novel, The Dream Life of Balso Snell, about
disgruntled characters inside the Trojan Horse. Only 500 copies of
the book were printed when it was published in 1931.
West returned to New York, where he took a job managing a hotel. He
frequently gave free or cheap rooms to struggling fellow writers,
including Dashiell Hammet and Erskine Caldwell. In 1933, he published
his novella, Miss Lonelyhearts, about a male reporter who
becomes increasingly troubled by the pitiful letters he answers in
his advice column. In the 1930s, West moved to Hollywood to write
screenplays, and in 1939 he published The Day of the Locust,
considered one of the best novels written about early Hollywood.
West and his wife, Eileen McKenney,
were killed in an automobile accident in California in 1940. Although
West was not widely read during his lifetime, his popularity grew
after World War II and after the publication of The Complete Works
of Nathanael West in 1957. |
1923 Andrés Rodríguez Pedotti, militar y político paraguayo,
ex-presidente de Paraguay. 1922 Aage Niels Bohr Denmark,
son of Niels Bohr [07 Oct 1885 – 18 Nov 1962], Aage is a Danish physicist
who shared the 1975 Nobel Prize for Physics with Ben R. Mottelson [09 Jul
1926~] and James Rainwater [09 Dec 1917 – 31 May 1986] for their work
in determining the asymmetrical shapes of certain atomic nuclei. 1910
Abe Fortas (US Supreme Court Justice). He died on 06 April 1982.
1909 Tsushima Shuji Osamu Dazai Japan, novelist.
Author of Bannen (1936; "The Twilight Years", short stories), Otogi
zoshi (1945; "Fairy Tales", new versions of traditional tales), Tsugaru
(1944), Shayo (1947; The Setting Sun), Biyon no Tsuma
(1947; Villon's Wife), Ningen Shikkaku (1948; No Longer Human).
He committed suicide on 13 June 1948, leaving uncompleted a novel entitled
Goodbye. . 1903 Henry Louis Gehrig first
baseman (NY Yankees) "Iron Horse" (Baseball Hall of Famer: NY Yankees: 7
World Series; his uniform was the first to be retired). He suffered for
two years from amyotrophic
lateral sclerosis, dying of it on 02 June 1941, giving it his name.
1902 Wallace
John Eckert, US astronomer who died on 24 August 1971.
1897 Moe Howard comedian (3 Stooges) 1896
Bessie Wallis Warfield Spencer Simpson, Duchess of Windsor, who
died on 24 April 1986. Bessie Wallis Warfield was born in Pennsylvania.
She married Earl W. Spencer, a navy pilot, in 1916 and divorced in 1927.
In England for a visit, she met Ernest A. Simpson, a U.S.-born British subject;
they married in 1928. Wallis Simpson met Edward [23 Jun 1894 – 28
May 1972], then the prince of Wales and they fell in love. Wallis sued for
divorce from her second husband in July 1936, with the apparent intention
of marrying Edward (who had become King Edward VIII). Edward renounced the
British throne on 10 December 1936 (confirmed by the Declaration of Abdication
Act the following day), in order to marry Simpson. He was named duke of
Windsor by his brother, now George VI [14 Dec 1895 – 06 Feb 1952].
Wallis Simpson's divorce became final in May 1937, and she had her name
changed legally to Mrs. Wallis Warfield, and married the duke of Windsor
on 03 June 1937. They lived in France. In July 1940 King George VI named
his brother governor of the Bahama Islands, where the duke and duchess remained
through most of World War II. [click on image for full photo >]
The duke resigned his post in early 1945, and the couple moved back to France.
In 1956 the duchess of Windsor published her autobiography, The Heart
Has Its Reasons. 1889 Enrico
Celio, in Ambri, Ticino, president of Switzerland (1943, 1948),
of the Schweizerische Konservative Volkspartei, who died on 23 February
1980. 1881 James J. “Jimmy”
Walker, New York City politician who died on 18 November 1946.
The son of Irish Catholic immigrants who lived in New York's Greenwich Village,
Walker attended Saint Francis Xavier College and graduated from New York
Law School in 1904. After graduation, however, he began frequenting Broadway's
theatres and vaudeville, writing popular songs and eventually marrying (in
1912) a musical comedy singer. In that same year he was admitted to the
New York State bar. Already gravitating toward politics, he became a district
captain and a member of the Assembly (1909) and, under the tutelage of Alfred
E. Smith [30 Dec 1873 – 04 Oct 1944], was elected to the State Senate
(1914). With the backing of the Tammany organization and Governor Smith,
Walker was nominated in 1925 as the Democratic mayoralty candidate in the
primary elections. He served as mayor of New York City for two terms. During
his first term he created the Department of Sanitation, brought about unification
of the city's public hospitals, and made considerable improvements in the
playgrounds and park systems; and, under his guidance, the Board of Transportation
approved contracts for the construction of an elaborate subway system. Reelected
to office in 1929, he came under critical fire from several sources. In
1931 the New York legislature formed a committee to investigate the affairs
of New York City. As a result of this investigation, extensive corruption
was revealed and 15 charges were levelled against Walker. Accused, among
other things, of being actuated by improper and illegal considerations and
of being unable to explain satisfactorily the large sums of money deposited
in his bank account, he resigned on 01 September 1932. He then went to Europe
with his showgirl-mistress and did not return to the United States until1935.
He was named chairman of the National Cloak and Suit Industry in 1940; he
later became the president of the Majestic Records Company.
1878 James M Kilroe, priest of St Mary Star of the Sea, in the
Bronx 1872 Charles D. Ward, British artist.
1861 José Rizal, escritor y político, caudillo destacado
de la independencia filipina.
^
1861 José Protasio
Rizal Mercado y Alonso Realonda, Filipino peaceful
patriot, physician, and man of letters, shot by the Spanish colonialists
on 30 December 1896. The son
of a prosperous landowner, Rizal was educated in Manila and at the
University of Madrid. A brilliant medical student, he soon committed
himself to the reform of Spanish rule in his home country, though
he never advocated Philippine independence. Most of his writing was
done in Europe, where he resided between 1882 and 1892.
In 1886 Rizal published his first novel, Noli me tangere,
a passionate exposure of the evils of Spanish rule in the Philippines.
A sequel, El filibusterismo (1891), established his reputation
as the leading spokesman of the Philippine reform movement. He published
an annotated edition (1890) of Antonio Morga's Sucesos de las
Islas Filipinas, hoping to show that the native people of the
Philippines had a long history before the coming of the Spaniards.
He became the leader of the Propaganda Movement, contributing numerous
articles to its newspaper, La Solidaridad, published in Barcelona.
Rizal's political program included integration of the Philippines
as a province of Spain, representation in the Cortes, the replacement
of Spanish friars by Filipino priests, freedom of assembly and expression,
and equality of Filipinos and Spaniards before the law.
Rizal returned to the Philippines in 1892. He founded a nonviolent-reform
society, the Liga Filipina, in Manila, and was deported to Dapitán
in northwest Mindanao. He remained in exile for the next four years.
In 1896 the Katipunan, a Filipino nationalist secret society, revolted
against Spain. Although he had no connections with that organization
and he had had no part in the insurrection, Rizal was arrested and
tried for sedition by the military. Found guilty, he was publicly
executed by a firing squad in Manila. His martyrdom convinced Filipinos
that there was no alternative to independence from Spain. On the eve
of his execution, while confined in Fort Santiago, Rizal wrote “Mi
Último Adiós”, a masterpiece of 19th-century Spanish verse.
MI ÚLTIMO ADIÓS
|
Adios, Patria adorada, región
del sol querida,
Perla del Mar de Oriente, nuestra perdido Eden!
A darte voy alegre la triste mustía vida,
Y fuera más brillante, más fresca, más florida,
Tambien por ti la diera, la diera por tu bien.
En campos de batalla, luchando con delirio
Otros te dan sus vida sin dudas, sin pesar;
El sitio nada importa, ciprés, laurel o lirio,
Cadalso o campo abierto, combate o cruel martirio,
Lo mismo es si lo piden La Patria y el hogar.
Yo muero cuando veo que el cielo se colora
Y al fin anuncia el día tras lobrego capuz;
Si grana necesitas para tenir tu aurora,
Vierte la sangre mía, derrámala en buen hora
Y dórela un reflejo de su naciente luz
Mis sueños cuando apenas muchacho adolescente,
Mis sueños cuando joven ya lleno de vigor,
Fueron el verte un día, joya del Mar de Oriente
Secos los negros ojos, alta la tersa frente,
Sin ceno, sin arrugas, sin mancha de rubor.
Ensueño de mi vida, mi ardiente vivo anhelo,
¡Salud te grita el alma que pronto va a partir!
¡Salud! ah, que es hermoso caer por darte vuelo,
Morir por darte vida, morir bajo tu cielo,
Y en tu encantada tierra la eternidad dormir.
Si sobre mi sepulcro vieres brotar un día
Entre la espesa yerba sencilla, humilde flor,
Acércala a tus labios y besa el alma mía,
Y sienta yo en mi frente bajo la tumba fría
De tu ternura el soplo, de tu hálito el calor.
Deja la luna verme con luz tranquila y suave;
Deja que el alba envíe su resplandor fugaz,
Deja gemir al viento con su murmullo grave,
Y si desciende y posa sobre mi cruz un ave
Deja que el ave entone su cántico de paz.
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Deja que el sol ardiendo las lluvias
evapore
Y al cielo tornen puras con mi clamor en pos,
Deja que un ser amigo mi fin temprano llore
Y en las serenas tardes cuando por mi alguien ore
¡Ora tambien, Oh Patria, por mi descanso a Dios!
Ora por todos cuantos murieron sin ventura,
Por cuantos padecieron tormentos sin igual,
Por nuestros pobres madres que gimen su amargura;
Por huérfanos y viudas, por presos en tortura
Y ora por ti que veas tu redención final.
Y cuando en noche oscura se envuelva el cementerio
Y solos solo muertos quedan velando alli
No turbes su reposo, no turbes el misterio
Tal vez acordes oigas de citara o salterio,
Soy yo, querida Patria, yo que te canto a ti.
Y cuando ya mi tumba de todos olvidada
No tenga cruz ni piedra que marquen su lugar,
Deja que la are el hombre, la esparza con la azada,
Y mis cenizas antes que vuelvan a nada,
El polvo de tu alfombra que vayan a formar.
Entonces nada importa me pongas en olvido,
Tu atmósfera, tu espacio, tus valles cruzaré,
Vibrante y limpia nota seré para tu oído,
Aroma, luz, colores, rumor, canto, gemido
Constante repitiendo la esencia de mi fe.
Mi Patria idolatrada, dolor de mis dolores,
Querida Filipinas, oye el postrer adiós.
Ahí, te dejo todo, mis padres, mis amores.
Voy donde no hay esclavos, verdugos ni opresores,
Donde la fe no mata, donde el que reina es Dios.
Adiós, padres y hermanos, trozos del alma mía;
Amigos de la infancia en el perdido hogar,
Dad gracias que descanso del fatigoso día.
Adiós, dulce extranjera, mi amiga, mi alegria!
Adiós, queridos seres. Morir es descansar.
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1856 Elbert Green Hubbard US editor/publisher/author.
He and his wife died on 07 May 1915 in the sinking of the Lusitania.
A freelance newspaperman and head of sales and advertising for a manufacturing
company, Hubbard retired in 1892 and founded his Roycroft Press in 1893
at East Aurora NY, on the model of the communal Kelmscott Press of William
Morris [24 Mar 1834 – 03 Oct 1896], which he had visited in England.
Beginning in 1895 he issued monthly the famous “Little Journey” booklets.
These were pleasant biographical essays on famous persons, in which fact
was interwoven with comment and satire. Hubbard also began publishing The
Philistine, an avant-garde magazine, which he ultimately wrote single-handedly.
In an 1899 number of The Philistine, A
Message to Garcia appeared, in which the importance of perseverance
was drawn as a moral from a Spanish-American War incident. In 1908 Hubbard
began to edit and publish a second monthly, The Fra. His printing
establishment in time expanded to include furniture and leather shops, a
smithy, and an art school, as had the operations of William Morris. Hubbard's
writings contain a bizarre mixture of radicalism and conservatism. He apotheosized
work and efficiency in a vigorous, epigrammatic style. Valuable collections
of his writings are Little Journeys (14 vol. 1915), and Selected
Writings (14 vol.1923). His Scrap Book (1923) and Note
Book (1927) were published posthumously.
1854 Jacob Simon Hendrik Kever, Dutch artist
who died in 1922. 1838 Charles Joseph Staniland,
British artist who died in 1916. 1824
Adolf Stademann, Munich German artist who died on 30 October 1895.
— links to two
images. 1815 Cornelius David Krieghoff, Dutch Canadian
painter who died on 08 (04?) March 1872. MORE
ON KRIEGHOFF AT ART 4 JUNE
with links to images. 1783 Thomas Sully, in England,
US portrait painter (Queen Victoria). He died in 1782 in Philadelphia. —
Andrew Jackson Patrick
Henry Boy
in a Torn Hat 1771 Joseph
Diaz Gergonne, French mathematician who died on 04 May 1859.
From 1810 to 1831 he published the journal Annales de mathématique pures
et appliquées commonly known as Annales de Gergonne. His name
is also attached to Gergonne's theorem [diagram >].
1764 José Gervasio Artigas, soldier and revolutionary
leader who is regarded as the father of Uruguayan independence, although
that goal was not attained until several years after he had been forced
into exile. As a youth Artigas was a gaucho in the interior of what is now
Uruguay. In 1797 he entered the Spanish military forces, which then were
mainly engaged in exterminating bandits. Several years later (1810) he offered
his services to the Buenos Aires junta that was leading an independence
movement against Spain. After winning a brilliant victory at Las Piedras,
he besieged Spanish-held Montevideo for a time. In the face of superior
Portuguese forces (called in from Brazil by the Spaniards), Artigas led
a dramatic withdrawal of about 16'000 persons from the region into Argentine
territory. Artigas then became the champion of federalism against the efforts
of Buenos Aires to assert centralized control over the whole Río de la Plata
region. In 1814 this struggle became a civil war. At first Artigas ruled
as jefe supremo de las Provincias Unidas del Río de la Plata, about 900'000
square km of what is now Uruguay and central Argentina. His hold, however,
was weakened by his insistence on decentralized government and was finally
broken by a Portuguese invasion, which he resisted for three years. From
1820 he lived in exile in Paraguay, where he died on 23 September 1850.
The independence of his native Uruguay was achieved on 27 August 1828.
1705 José Galván, Spanish artist who died
on 21 February 1766. 1669 Leonty
Filippovich Magnitsky, Russian mathematician who died on 30
October 1739, professor since 1702 and director since 1715 of the Navigation
School in Moscow, founded by Peter the Great in 1701. Author of Arithmetic
(1703), Tables for Navigation (1722). 1640 Johann
Heiß, Schwabian artist of the Baroque Era who died in 1704.
^
1623 Blaise Pascal,
French writer, religious
philosopher, and physicist, also a prominent mathematician.
[click on eye for portrait >]
The son of a judge in the French tax court, the teenage Pascal invented
a calculating device to help his father's tax computations. The counting
device relied on a series of wheels divided into ten parts each, representing
the integers 0-9. The wheels, which were connected by gears and turned
by a stylus, kept track of sums as numbers were added and subtracted.
In mathematics he worked on conic sections and produced important
theorems in projective geometry. In correspondence with Fermat he
laid the foundation for the theory of probability. Blaise
Pascal (mort le 19 Aug 1662), philosophe, mathématicien, savant et
inventeur (le calcul des probabilités, la machine à calculer), un
des génies de ce XVII° siècle français, si fécond en génie de toutes
sortes. La condition de l’Homme sur la terre conduit le mathématicien
inquiet à parier sur l’existence de Dieu. Pesons
le gain et la perte, en prenant croix [c.à d. face, jouons à pile
ou face] que Dieu est. Estimons ces deux cas. Si vous gagnez, vous
gagnez tout. Si vous perdez, vous ne perdez rien. Gagez donc qu’il
est, sans hésiter! Ses
Pensées restent une source inépuisable de réflexion encore
très moderne au niveau existentiel. Le moi est haïssable,Pensée
fait la grandeur de l’Homme, Le nez de Cléopâtre, s’il
eût été plus court, toute la face de la terre aurait changé,
L’Homme n’est qu’un roseau, le plus faible de la nature, mais
c’est un roseau pensant, Le cœur a ses raisons que la
raison ne connaît point, L'affection ou la haine changent
la justice de face.
PASCAL ONLINE: La
machine d'arithmétique Lettres
(sur le vide, aux Roannez,...) Petits
écrits philosophiques et religieux Pensées
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^
1566 James
VI of Scotland (king since 1567) and cumulatively James I
of England since the death of Elizabeth I [07 Sep
1533 – 24 Mar 1603]. He was the first Stuart king of England,
calling himself “king of Great Britain.” James was a strong advocate
of royal absolutism, and his conflicts with an increasingly self-assertive
Parliament set the stage for the rebellion against his son and successor,
Charles I [19 Nov 1600 – 30 Jan 1649]. James I died on 27 March
1625. He is best remembered for authorizing the 'King James Version'
of the Bible. — Click on image for full portrait (196x120cm;
907x527pix, 118kb) of James I by van
Somer [1576-1621] >>> —
James was the only son of Mary, Queen of Scots [08 Dec 1542 –
08 Feb 1587], and her second husband, Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley.
Eight months after James's birth his father died when his house was
destroyed by an explosion. After her third marriage, to James Hepburn,
Earl of Bothwell, Mary was defeated by rebel Scottish lords and abdicated
the throne. James, one year old, became king of Scotland on 24 July
1567; Mary left the kingdom on 16 May 1568, and never saw her son
again. During his minority James was surrounded by a small band of
the great Scottish lords, from whom emerged the four successive regents,
the earls of Moray, Lennox, Mar, and Morton. There did not exist in
Scotland the great gulf between rulers and ruled that separated the
Tudors and their subjects in England. For nine generations the Stuarts
had in fact been merely the ruling family among many equals, and James
all his life retained a feeling for those of the great Scottish lords
who gained his confidence. The
young king was kept fairly isolated but was given a good education
until the age of 14. He studied Greek, French, and Latin and made
good use of a library of classical and religious writings that his
tutors, George Buchanan and Peter Young, assembled for him. James's
education aroused in him literary ambitions rarely found in princes
but which also tended to make him a pedant.
Before James was 12 he had taken the government nominally into his
own hands when the Earl of Morton was driven from the regency in 1578.
For several years more, however, James remained the puppet of contending
intriguers and faction leaders. After falling under the influence
of the Duke of Lennox, a Roman Catholic who schemed to win back Scotland
for the imprisoned Queen Mary, James was kidnapped by William Ruthven,
1st Earl of Gowrie [1541 – 02 May 1584], in 1582 and was forced
to denounce Lennox. Though pardoned for this conspiracy Ruthven continued
to plot against the king in conjunction with the earls of Mar and
Angus; and he was executed for high treason.
In 1583 James escaped from his Protestant captors and began to pursue
his own policies as king. His chief purposes were to escape from subservience
to Scottish factions and to establish his claim to succeed the childless
Elizabeth I upon the throne of England. Realizing that more was to
be gained by cultivating Elizabeth's goodwill than by allying himself
with her enemies, James in 1585–1586 concluded an alliance with England.
Thereafter, in his own unsteady fashion, he remained true to this
policy, and even Elizabeth's execution of his mother drew from him
only formal protests. In 1589
James was married to Anne, the daughter of Frederick II of Denmark,
who, in 1594, gave birth to their first son, Prince Henry. James's
rule of Scotland was successful. He was able to play off Protestant
and Roman Catholic factions of Scottish nobles against each other,
and through a group of commissioners known as the Octavians (1596–1597),
he was able to rule Scotland almost as absolutely as Elizabeth ruled
England. The king was a convinced Presbyterian; in 1584 he secured
a series of acts that made him the head of the Presbyterian church
in Scotland, with the power to appoint the church's bishops.
On 05 August 1600 king James VI rose
early to hunt in the neighborhood of Falkland Palace, about 20 km
from Perth. Just as he was setting forth in company with the duke
of Lennox, the earl of Mar, Sir Thomas Erskine, and others, he was
accosted by Alexander Ruthven (known as the master of Ruthven), a
younger brother of John Ruthven, 3rd earl of Gowrie [1577 –
05 Aug 1600], son of William Ruthven, 1st Earl of Gowrie (the 2nd
earl was the oldest brother who died in 1588). This much is uncontroverted
but what follows is according to James and witnesses (though contradicted
by others and doubted by many). Alexander Ruthven said that he had
ridden from Perth that morning to inform the king that he had met
on the previous day a man in possession of a pitcher full of foreign
gold coins, whom he had secretly locked up in a room at Gowrie House.
Ruthven urged the king to ride to Perth to examine this man for himself
and to take possession of the treasure. After some hesitation James
gave credit to the story, suspecting that the possessor of the coins
was one of the numerous Catholic agents at that time moving about
Scotland in disguise. Without giving a positive reply to Alexander
Ruthven, James started to hunt; but later in the morning he called
Ruthven to him and said he would ride to Perth when the hunting was
over. Ruthven then sent a servant, Henderson, by whom he had been
accompanied from Perth in the early morning, to tell Gowrie that the
king was coming to Gowrie House. This messenger gave the information
to Gowrie at about 10:00. Meanwhile Alexander Ruthven was urging the
king to lose no time, requesting him to keep the matter secret from
his courtiers, and to bring to Gowrie House as small a retinue as
possible. James, accompanied by some fifteen persons, arrived at Gowrie
House at about 13:00, Alexander Ruthven having spurred forward for
a couple of kilometers to announce the king's approach. But notwithstanding
Henderson's warning some three hours earlier, Gowrie had made no preparations
for the king's entertainment, thus giving the impression of having
been taken by surprise. After a meager meal, for which he was kept
waiting an hour, James, forbidding his retainers to follow him, went
with Alexander Ruthven up the main staircase and passed through two
chambers and two doors, both of which Ruthven locked behind them,
into a turret-room at the angle of the house, with windows looking
on the courtyard and the street. Here James expected to find the mysterious
prisoner with the foreign gold. He found instead an armed man, who,
as appeared later, was Gowrie's servant, Henderson. Alexander Ruthven
immediately put on his hat, and drawing Henderson's dagger, presented
it to the kings breast with threats of instant death if James opened
a window or called for help. An allusion by Ruthven to the execution
of his father, the 1st earl of Gowrie, drew from James a reproof of
Ruthven's ingratitude for various benefits conferred on his family.
Ruthven then uncovered his head, declaring that James's life would
be safe if he remained quiet; then, committing the king to the custody
of Henderson, he left the turret, ostensibly to consult Gowrie, and
locked the door behind him. While Ruthven was absent the king questioned
Henderson, who professed ignorance of any plot and of the purpose
for which he had been placed in the turret; he also at James's request
opened one of the windows, and was about to open the other when Ruthven
returned. Whether or not Alexander had seen his brother is uncertain.
But Gowrie had meantime spread the report below that the king had
taken horse and had ridden away; and the royal retinue were seeking
their horses to follow him. Alexander, on re-entering the turret,
attempted to bind James's hands; a struggle ensued, in the course
of which the king was seen at the window by some of his followers
below in the street, who also heard him cry treason and call for help
to the earl of Mar. Gowrie affected not to hear these cries, but kept
asking what was the matter. Lennox, Mar, and most of the other lords
and gentlemen ran up the main staircase to the king's help, but were
stopped by the locked door, which they spent some time in trying to
batter down. John Ramsay (afterwards earl of Ruthvegs. Holdernesse),
noticing a small dark stairway leading directly to the inner chamber
adjoining the turret, ran up it and found the king struggling at grips
with Ruthven. Drawing his dagger, Ramsay wounded Ruthven, who was
then pushed down the stairway by the king. Sir Thomas Erskine, summoned
by Ramsay, now followed up the small stairs with Dr. Hugh Herries,
and these two coming upon the wounded Ruthven killed him with their
swords. Gowrie, entering the courtyard with his stabler Thomas Cranstoun
and seeing his brothers body, rushed up the staircase after Erskine
and Herries, followed by Cranstoun and others of his retainers; and
in the melée Gowrie was killed. Some commotion was caused in
the town by the noise of these proceedings; but it quickly subsided,
though the king did not deem it safe to return to Falkland for some
hours. The tragedy caused intense
excitement throughout Scotland, and the investigation of the circumstances
was followed with much interest in England also, where all the details
were reported to Elizabeth's ministers. The preachers of the Kirk,
whose influence in Scotland was too extensive for the king to neglect,
were only with the greatest difficulty persuaded to accept James's
account, although he voluntarily submitted himself.to cross-examination
by one of them. Their belief, and that of their partisans, influenced
no doubt by political hostility to James, was that the king had invented
the story of a conspiracy by Gowrie to cover his own design to exterminate
the Ruthven family. James gave some color to this belief, which has
not been entirely abandoned, by the relentless severity with which
he pursued the two younger, and unquestionably innocent, brothers
of the earl. Great efforts were made by the government to prove the
complicity of others in the plot. One noted and dissolute conspirator,
Sir Robert Logan of Restalrig, was posthumously convicted of having
been privy to the Gowrie conspiracy on the evidence of certain letters
produced by a notary, George Sprot, who swore they had been written
by Logan to Gowrie and others. These letters, which are still in existence,
were in fact forged by Sprot in imitation of Logan's handwriting;
but it seems that the most important of them was either copied by
Sprot from a genuine original by Logan, or that it embodied the substance
of such a letter. If this be correct, it would appear that the conveyance
of the king to Fast Castle, Logans impregnable fortress on the coast
of Berwickshire, was part of the plot; and it supplies, at all events,
an additional piece of evidence to prove the genuineness of the Gowrie
conspiracy. Gowrie's two younger brothers, William and Patrick Ruthven,
fled to England; and, after the accession of James to the English
throne, William escaped abroad, but Patrick was taken and imprisoned
for nineteen years in the Tower of London. Released in 1622, Patrick
Ruthven was granted a small pension by the crown. He married Elizabeth
Woodford, widow of the 1st Lord Gerrard, by whom he had two sons and
a daughter, Mary; who entered the service of Queen Henrietta Maria,
and married the painter van
Dyck [22 Mar 1599 – 09 Dec 1641], who painted several portraits
of her, in addition to 35 of Queen Henrietta Maria, of which here
are links to a few reproductions: Charles
I of England and Henrietta of France (796x892pix, 87kb),
Queen
Henrietta Maria (1635; 815x642pix, 33kb) , Charles
I and Queen Henrietta Maria with Charles, Prince of Wales and Princess
Mary (1632; 741x620pix, 41kb), Henrietta
Maria with her Dwarf, Sir Jeffrey Hudson (1633; 1000x632pix,
200kb) When James at length succeeded
to the English throne on the death of Elizabeth I, he was already,
as he told the English Parliament, “an old and experienced king” and
one with a clearly defined theory of royal government. Unfortunately,
neither his experience nor his theory equipped him to solve the new
problems facing him; and he lacked the qualities of mind and character
to supply the deficiency. James hardly understood the rights or the
temper of the English Parliament, and he thus came into conflict with
it. He had little contact with the English middle classes, and he
suffered from the narrowness of his horizons. His 22-year-long reign
over England was to prove almost as unfortunate for the Stuart dynasty
as his years before 1603 had been fortunate. There was admittedly
much that was sensible in his policies, and the opening years of his
reign as king of Great Britain were a time of material prosperity
for both England and Scotland. For one thing, he established peace
by speedily ending England's war with Spain in 1604. But the true
test of his statesmanship lay in his handling of Parliament, which
was claiming ever-wider rights to criticize and shape public policy.
Moreover, Parliament's established monopoly of granting taxes made
its assent necessary for the improvement of the crown's finances,
which had been seriously undermined by the expense of the long war
with Spain. James, who had so successfully divided and corrupted Scottish
assemblies, never mastered the subtler art of managing an English
Parliament. He kept few privy councilors in the House of Commons and
thus allowed independent members there to seize the initiative. Moreover,
his lavish creations of new peers and, later in his reign, his subservience
to various recently ennobled favorites loosened his hold upon the
House of Lords. His fondness for lecturing both houses of Parliament
about his royal prerogatives offended them and drew forth such counterclaims
as the Apology of the Commons (1604). To parliamentary statesmen used
to Tudor dignity, James's shambling gait, restless garrulity, and
dribbling mouth ill-befitted his exalted claims to power and privilege.
When Parliament refused to grant
to James a special fund to pay for his extravagances, he placed new
customs duties on merchants without Parliament's consent, thereby
threatening its control of governmental finance. Moreover, by getting
the law courts to proclaim these actions as law (1608) after Parliament
had refused to enact them, James struck at the houses' legislative
supremacy. In four years of peace, James practically doubled the debt
left by Elizabeth, and it was hardly surprising that when his chief
minister, Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury [01
Jun 1563 – 24 May 1612], tried in 1610–1611 to exchange
the king's feudal revenues for a fixed annual sum from Parliament,
the negotiations over this so-called Great Contract came to nothing.
James dissolved Parliament in 1611. The abortive Great Contract, and
the death of Cecil in 1612, marked the turning point of James's reign;
he was never to have another chief minister who was so experienced
and so powerful. During the ensuing 10 years the king summoned only
the brief Addled Parliament of 1614. Deprived of parliamentary grants,
the crown was forced to adopt unpopular expedients, such as the sale
of monopolies, to raise funds. Moreover, during these years the king
succumbed to the influence of the incompetent Robert Carr, Earl of
Somerset [1590 – Jul 1645]. Carr was succeeded as the king's
favorite by George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham [28 Aug 1592 –
23 Aug 1628], who showed more ability as chief minister but who was
even more hated for his arrogance and his monopoly of royal favor.
In the king's later years his
judgment faltered. He embarked on a foreign policy that fused discontent
into a formidable opposition. The king felt a sympathy, which his
countrymen found inexplicable, for the Spanish ambassador, Diego Sarmiento
de Acuña, Count of Gondomar. When Sir Walter Raleigh, who had gone
to Guiana in search of gold, came into conflict with the Spaniards,
who were then at peace with England, Gondomar persuaded James to have
Raleigh beheaded. With Gondomar's encouragement, James developed a
plan to marry his second son and heir Charles [19 Nov 1600 –
30 Jan 1649] to a Spanish princess, along with a concurrent plan to
join with Spain in mediating the Thirty Years' War in Germany. The
plan, though plausible in the abstract, showed an astonishing disregard
for English public opinion, which solidly supported James's son-in-law,
Frederick, the Protestant elector of the Palatinate, whose lands were
then occupied by Spain. When James called a third Parliament in 1621
to raise funds for his designs, that body was bitterly critical of
his attempts to ally England with Spain. James in a fury tore the
record of the offending Protestations from the House of Commons' journal
and dissolved the Parliament. The
Duke of Buckingham had begun in enmity with Prince Charles, who became
the heir when his brother Prince Henry died in 1612, but in the course
of time the two formed an alliance from which the king was quite excluded.
James was now aging rapidly, and in the last 18 months of his reign
he, in effect, exercised no power; Charles and Buckingham decided
most issues. James died at his favorite country residence, Theobalds,
in Hertfordshire. Besides the
political problems that he bequeathed to his son Charles, James left
a body of writings which, though of mediocre quality as literature,
entitle him to a unique place among English kings since the time of
Alfred. Chief among these writings are two political treatises, The
True Lawe of Free Monarchies (1598) and Basilikon Doron
(1599), in which he expounded his own views on the divine right of
kings. The Poems of James VI of Scotland were edited by James
Craigie (2 vol.1955, 1958). The 1616 edition of The Political
Works of James I was edited by Charles Howard McIlwain (1918).
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