Great Moments in Stupidity VIII: The House of Stuart

Some of the best arguments against the monarchial form of government can be found in the history of during the period of time beginning with the coronation of James I and ending with the abdication (a politer way of saying "got out of town three steps ahead of the lynch mob") of James II. The combined acts of stupidity that originated within the House of Stuart monarchy were of such magnitude and impact that the question of stupid genetics versus stupid environment was first posed and is still being hotly debated today.

The entire mess began when Queen Elizabeth I died without leaving an heir to the throne. Her closest relative was her half-sister, Mary Queen of Scots, who was unavailable because Elizabeth had ordered beheaded in 1587 on a shaky charge of treason. Mary's son, James, had become King James VI of while still an infant and had been placed under the "guardianship" of a succession of Barons, Earls, and other minor nobilities that bombarded him with a succession of different religious denominations, political theories, personal opinions, and private grudges.

By the time he had reached the age at which he could officially assume the throne of Scotland James had observed that, if he avoided getting too friendly with his mother's French relatives and kept his affiliation with the Catholic Church in the background, he had a shot at becoming King of England as well as . When his aunt Elizabeth died in 1603, James was indeed invited to come to and rule as King James I.

James may have been a fairly competent King of Scotland but he was well out of his league when it came to being King of England. Beginning at the time he literally first set foot on English soil he was embroiled in confrontations with the Church of England (that didn't trust James because of his Catholic background), the Puritans (who wanted James to force their beliefs onto the Church of England), the Catholic Church (who wanted James to first execute the leaders of both the Puritans and the Church of England and then to lead the English back into the arms of the True Faith), and above all he ran head-on into the English Parliament (which didn't buy the "divine right of kings" theory that was central to James' beliefs about governing and had the power of financial authority over the Crown, meaning if James wanted money for something or another he had to ask Parliament for it or had to pay for it out of his own pocket, which also went against his "divine right" beliefs).

Should you, gentle reader, ever succeed to the throne of anything, there are certain things that you must do to make your transition as smooth as possible:

1) Do not get involved in religious wars if any are in progress or threatening to flare up. Do keep your religious beliefs to yourself (actually, you'll be better off without any religious beliefs), worship in private, and refuse to debate theology with anyone.

2) Do not piss off your Parliament, Congress, aristocracy, or any other group that has control of the public treasury. Do play along, kiss the appropriate ass (asses), and weasel out enough money to maintain a comfortable lifestyle.

3) Do not get yourself or your country mixed up in a foreign war, regardless if one of your relatives, in-laws, or drinking buddies happens to be involved. Do be prepared to have your country sell the warring parties anything they may need to kill each other, but stay neutral. This will be to your benefit in case you have to fight either side later on.

4) Keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer (I don't remember who said that, but it makes damned good sense).

5) Mobs of angry people that are carrying pots of tar, bags of feathers, ropes and other assorted farm implements that suddenly appear under the royal balcony are generally not there to sing "Happy Birthday to You" or to tell you what a nice person you are. Always have a secret way out of the castle.

James I, of course, did everything he was not supposed to do. First he pissed of Parliament by making an end run around their power of the purse strings by selling titles such as "Baron," Duke," "Earl," or some other impressive designation that really wasn't worth the paper it was printed on but made the new "noble" a member of the aristocracy.

Then he got the church crowd into an uproar over his blatant Catholicism; but his refusal to order the disbandment of the Church of England didn't sit well with the Pope or with the Papal hired guns, the French and the Spanish, who started talking war.

The church crowd had control of Parliament which, in turn, had an almost limitless supply of the one thing that James I didn't have (excluding a brain): money. Parliament told James to get his act together or they would take away his allowance. James, with all the tact and grace of a grounded teenager, rebelled at such an affront to his Divine Right to do as he damn well pleased. This resulted in a few armed confrontations but James I died before things could degenerate into a full blown civil war. James' death led to the coronation of an even bigger idiot, in the person of James' son, as King Charles I.

From almost his first day on the job Charlie One was doomed to failure. His idiot father had attempted to arrange a marriage between Charles and a daughter of the King of Spain. The idea of a Queen of England who was both Spanish and Catholic proved none to be none too popular with Parliament, which meant trouble when declared war on . Charles became even more unpopular when, by following the advice of his mostly French advisors, he managed to lose the war with . The Scots took note of this, promptly rebelled, and were well on their way to London before Parliament saved Charles' hide from a bunch of irate Calvinist Scotsmen. In return for saving him from the Bagpipe Band from Hell you might have thought that Charlie and Parliament would have decided to play together in the same sandbox. You would be wrong because this is Charles I, son of James I, and heir to a long line of undistinguished genetics.

Charles decided that if Parliament wouldn't go along with the game plan then, by sending Parliament to bed without their collective supper, they would eventually see things his way. This also proved very unpopular with Parliament. When the Speaker of the House attempted to stand and read the King's proclamation, two members literally sat on him to keep him quiet while the rest of that body made speeches interlaced with numerous prayers to the High God of Puritans while passing Acts of Parliament at a rate that would bring tears of joy to the eyes of any bureaucrat. Clueless Chuck would not call another session of Parliament for 11 years. When he finally did get around to calling another session, the Puritan-dominated Parliament issued an order that the English Army take its orders from them and not the King. Charles didn't like that idea either and issued his own orders that the army should report to him.

As in any military organization when there are conflicting orders, some units obey one set and some units obey the other. Some of the English Army was loyal to Charles and the rest were loyal to anyone but Charles. This led the English Civil War in which:

1) Charles got his royal ass kicked

2) Following the above-mentioned trauma to Charles' posterior; Parliament put him on trial for treason, found him guilty, and beheaded his anterior, which resulted in;

3) Oliver Cromwell

If anything good could be said about Oliver Cromwell it was that he proved to be more incompetent than Charles I and soon had the Protestants and the Catholics wishing that they hadn't been so rough on Charles. Upon Cromwell's death Parliament couldn't figure out who or what to appoint as Lord Protector and, forgetting what the English Civil War had been about in the first place, asked Charles' son to come back from exile to run the show as Charles II. With a string attached, of course.

The string was that now would be a constitutional, rather than an absolute, monarchy and Second Charley would have only ceremonial duties such as calling Parliament into session so that they could in turn tell him what to do. Charles, figuring that one headless horse's ass in the family was enough, went along with the new game plan and kept his nose clean. Upon his death, his son became King James II. All hell broke loose shortly thereafter.

James II was having none of this constitutional nonsense and promptly tried to pick up where Charles I left off. Realizing that another civil war was just around the corner, Parliament cut a secret deal with William of Orange; who happened to be married to James' protestant daughter Mary. As soon as William landed in , James II abdicated and fled to . In return for his being a nice guy William got the job of co-ruler of with his wife. They were in turn succeeded by Queen Ann, who produced some nice chairs but no children. This led to the Settlement Act (with its central provision that no Roman Catholic could ever again sit upon the English throne) and the appointment of the German-speaking and, more importantly, Protestant elector of Hanover as King George I.

In one of those great ironies of history, the English would spend the better part of the 20th century trying to keep the Germans out of .

And, as a further consequence of the antics involving the House of Stuart, no member of the English royal family has been named "James" since that time.

Who says that God doesn't have a sense of humor?