Discussed here. If they’re any similar to the Highlander clans, the northern hill clans follow the custom of fictive kinship, in which the smallfolk of House Wull are considered Wulls themselves, with certain rights that pertain to that.

Now, that doesn’t mean the distinction between high and low is less relevant – being a crofter in the Highlands was not an easy life, even before the enclosure movement and the Industrial Revolution – just that it takes different forms. 

Well, the Anglo-Saxon version of jarl is actually “earl.” In Anglo-Saxon England, earls were powerful regional lords who controlled multi-shire domains – Wessez, East Anglia, Northumbria, etc. – who had the right to the “third penny” (i.e, one third of all royal revenue collected), and who had broad authority both military and judicial over their earldoms.

“Thane” means servant, but it efers to specifically the (usually military) retainer of a king or nobleman who is themselves of noble birth but who lacks the status of an earl or high-reeve. Thanes were given land by their overlord to support them and the men they were supposed to bring with them to serve their king in war, thanes had a role in local administration and criminal law, and they could only be judged by their overlord. Thanes were below earls and aethelings, but above carls.

Aetheling means a (male) member of the royal family, someone eligible for the kingship, but as I mentioned earlier this meant any of the sons or brothers of the king. 

Oversimplified? Yeah, somewhat. 

But I do want to push back a little bit: we have evidence of previous religious wars, from the Revolt of the Faithful to the Andal Invasion to the Blackwood Rebellion against the Teagues. And arguably the idea of the “Old Gods and the New” is a form of syncretism. 

And in the wake of the Sparrow Movement, can we really call them toothless?

They could be from almost anything: the right to farm taxes in a given area, a percentage on Lannisport harbor fees, a part-share in a mine, some urban real estate, or they could be straight-up pensions. 

John Churchill? Do you mean this John Churchill?

Enormously capable and skilled at war, diplomacy, and politics; capable of both surprising acts of loyalty and betrayal; and ultimately a man who liked fighting and intrigue too much to ever be trusted.

opinions-about-tiaras:

Both one of the few people in the 17th century who embraced the idea of separation of Church and State 

Wait, what?

I’m not a Cromwell expert, obviously, but my understanding as that Cromwell was absolutely committed to using the power of the state to crush Catholicism both in Great Britain and Ireland. That doesn’t sound like the action of someone who embraces the idea of the separation of Church and State to me, as using state power for explicitly sectarian means is usually seen as not being religiously neutral even if the government, itself, is not functioning explicitly as an arm of any one specific church.

Or am I entirely misinformed? I am wrong a lot.

This is what makes this period so difficult to understand to us moderns; Cromwell was at one and the same time “absolutely committed to using the power of the state to crush Catholicism” but also a fierce opponent of using the power of the state to establish Presbyterianism or Episcopalianism, and in his first address to the Protectorate Parliament in 1654, he stated as one of his four “fundamentals”  of government:

racefortheironthrone:

A profoundly strange character. 

Both one of the few people in the 17th century who embraced the idea of separation of Church and State and a man who genuinely believed that he was God’s own general placed on earth to do His Will. 

Both a man who ran the New Model Army on strict grounds of merit against fierce opposition from those who believed that noblemen should lead and the man who crushed the Levellers in the name of property rights. 

Both a man committed to republicanism to the extent of turning down a crown and a man who engineered legislative purges again and again, but also a man who tried repeatedly to hold elections and write constitutions that would create a legimitate and effective government – trying to force a country to be the Republic he wanted versus the one they wanted. 

If not for him, Charles I might never have died “with the crown on,” but because of him the English Commonwealth would not survive his death. 

“is not liberty of conscience in religion a fundamental? So long as there is liberty of conscience for the Supreme Magistrate to exercise his consicence in eeretign what form of church-government he is satisfied he should set up…why should not he give it, “the like liberty,” to others? Liberty of conscience is a natural right; and he that would have it, ought to give it…Every sect saith “Oh, give me liberty!” But give him it, and to his power he will not yield it to anybody else….Liberty of consicence – truly that’s a thing ought to be very reciprocal….all the money of this nation would not have tempted men to fight upon such an account as they have here been engaged in, if they had not hopes of liberty of conscience better than they had from Episopacy, or than would been afforded them from a Scottish Presbytery – or an English either…”

A profoundly strange character. 

Both one of the few people in the 17th century who embraced the idea of separation of Church and State and a man who genuinely believed that he was God’s own general placed on earth to do His Will. 

Both a man who ran the New Model Army on strict grounds of merit against fierce opposition from those who believed that noblemen should lead and the man who crushed the Levellers in the name of property rights. 

Both a man committed to republicanism to the extent of turning down a crown and a man who engineered legislative purges again and again, but also a man who tried repeatedly to hold elections and write constitutions that would create a legimitate and effective government – trying to force a country to be the Republic he wanted versus the one they wanted. 

If not for him, Charles I might never have died “with the crown on,” but because of him the English Commonwealth would not survive his death. 

I’d question the premise a little: the monarchs of Europe were actually somewhat slow to react to the French Revolution (in part because it came at a time when France had been a major hegemonic power in Europe that everyone else was trying to contain), and were kind of waiting for the thing to collapse from the inside until the Girondins decided to pre-empt what they saw as a monarchist/Austrian plot against the Republic (and to give themselves a political edge against the Mountain by emphasizing military patriotism vs. further republican levelling) by going to war with everyone, and then when they realized that A. the French Republic could kick their ass, and B. their own subjects might be interested in this whole republic thing, they realized they were in an existential conflict and settled in to fight it out to the end.

Whereas with the English Civil War, you had a very different European context. The religious wars in France, Germany, etc. and the

big geostrategic conflict between France, the Hapsburgs, and the Ottomans

were the main centers of attention. To the extent that there was international involvement/interest in the English Civil War, it had to do with that conflict would affect the other – was England going to side with Catholic France against Protestant Holland or vice versa? Another big difference is that the English Republic wasn’t that evangelical in either sense – the Republic didn’t try to promote republican uprisings in Europe, and didn’t engage in foreign policy on Protestant terms. They went to war with Protestant Holland over trade, and they went to war with Spain (allying with Louis XIV! talk about strange bedfellows) to get their hands on Spanish commercial colonies in the Caribbean, not because of Spain’s Catholicism. 

1. That’s the plan!

2. Kind of already did with the Laboratory of Politics series.