Queen Victoria - A series in several parts

It's quite staggering to me that, even after all these years and the vast amount of available information, many people still view Queen Victoria as a humourless and very stern widow. Often, I have asked schoolchildren what they know of her and they invariably say, "She always wore black...she was not amused....she was very strict...."
For this reason we (Hilliard & Croft) are making a series of videos, intending to show her lighter and more human side. We intend to alternate the narration of the videos and this is the first, while I have narrated - and which I hope you will enjoy. The second video in the series will be available shortly.  (The still image is not what we would have chosen, and that will be rectified very soon with a more attractive image!)

A New Video

I have a new video of the background to 'Most Beautiful Princess':

Please make allowance for my cold!! (The weather has been very damp of late!!)

Happy Birthday, Ella

Remembering Grand Duchess Elizabeth, born 1st November 1864

False Flags and Fantasies

Few things in the recorded history of ‘world events’ are ever as simple as they first appear and, when it comes to wars and the lust for power, things become very murky indeed. The relatively recent term ‘false flag’ refers to events wherein an atrocity or other emotive event is committed by one group of people (often against their own people) disguised as enemies in order – quite often - to provoke their own people to rise up in indignation or even go to war. The term comes from the naval practice of flying an enemy’s flag rather than one’s own while engaging in ‘dastardly deeds’.

As Bonfire Night draws nigh, the shops are already beginning to sell fireworks to celebrate the 5th November, the date on which in 1605 the Catholic plot to blow up the king and the Houses of Parliament was foiled. 400 years later, there are several unanswered questions relating to this alleged plot (who wrote to Monteagle to inform him of the conspiracy? What was the fiercely anti-Catholic Cecil’s role in this? Why did the first search of the cellars overlook the barrels of gunpowder etc. etc.?) Some historians suggest that the whole thing was a deliberate ploy by Cecil, who, with Monteagle as his spy, engineered the whole event in order to provoke anti-Catholic feeling which would then facilitate a purge of the Catholics. Insufficient information is available to know whether or not this is so, but it would make a lot of sense in the light of the murky dealings which continue in politics to this day. Monteagle, however, did, I believe, do rather well out of the whole affair and if it were a false flag event, it was very successful since we even celebrate it today!

I believe that the murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand was another false flag event. He was, of course, murdered by Gavrilo Princip, but who set that young lad up? Who provided him and his equally bungling co-conspirators (no different from Guy Fawkes’ co-conspirators) with weapons and the perfect place to stand to fire his gun? Who gained from his murder? Well...the answer to that is quite obvious – the ministers who feared his accession and the bankers who loaned huge sums of money to governments to stage a war and then charged exorbitant interest on their loans. And for this so many millions of people died!

What goes on behind the scenes is so appalling that the majority of us cannot believe it to be true. It is written off as ‘conspiracy theory’ or wacky delusional people seeking some explanation for the atrocities that are so often committed in our name but even a cursory glance into the pages of history shows that very few wars have been fought for a genuine reason; very few – if any! - persecutions have had any genuine benefits for anyone other than the few who love to control and to satisfy their own lust for power. Nowadays, when everything is so much more politically correct, we don’t persecute others or wage wars to promote our own interests....no, we do it now to protect innocent people in foreign lands (as long as those lands have oil and gold).

The Downfall of Tyrants

The downfall and death of tyrants is a very murky subject and one which leaves me wondering why anyone with even the slightest knowledge of history, psychology or spirituality could ever want power. There are, however, two factors which seem worth mentioning. Firstly, the effect on the tyrant, and secondly the bizarre behaviour (not to mention hypocrisy) of those who seem to gloat in the death of any other human being.
Shakespeare captured it all so perfectly in ‘Macbeth’ wherein the eponymous hero descends into a mental abyss which eventually drives him into delusional insanity, despair and ultimately a very unhappy death.

William the Conqueror – not a likeable man by any means but one who was filled with an overriding personal ambition and who is best remembered for his success at the Battle of Hastings – was eventually killed from an abdominal wound and his naked corpse was deserted by his former ‘friends’ and left lying alone for a whole day and worse was to come:

An interesting post


Ivan the Terrible, saw his country spiral into chaos and lived in terror before he suffered a stroke and died. According to Trotsky, (who was killed after being hit on the head with an ice-pick!) death for Lenin was “a deliverance from physical and moral suffering.” I have been told by various people that Lenin’s brain rather resembled a walnut, so destroyed was it by syphilis (which, at that time, was known to cause insanity). Stalin, having lived in fear of so many of his enemies, suffered a stroke and was left to die untended in his own excrement. Hitler, in despair, killed himself. It is impossible not to think that if someone is so filled with darkness, they are bound to meet a terrible end, not only physically but - far more horrifically - morally/psychologically/spiritually – basically an end in complete despair and terror, which is surely even worse than any physical suffering. It is, perhaps, significant that Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and King Louis XVI of France, both of whom were later quite irrationally branded as tyrants, met their end with great dignity and, in spite of the tragedy, appeared to be at peace within themselves.

In recent time we have been presented with horrific images of the downfall of tyrants and, while on the one hand, it is to be expected that tyrants meet such unhappy ends, on the other it seems more than a little odd to me that nowadays they are always found hiding in holes and are then butchered in self-righteous mania. Gadaafi had indeed committed appalling crimes, as had Saddam Hussein but to see graphic images of any man – whatever his crimes – being killed in such circumstances is, to my mind, beneath the dignity of humanity. Nor can these relatively recent images be overlooked:

In his satirical novel, Joseph Andrews, Henry Fielding described the difference between vanity and hypocrisy. Vanity, he said, is a person doing good in order to be seen and praised. Hypocrisy is a person doing evil disguised as good. One minute the world rulers are befriending this man. The next we hear that his crimes have been going on for 40 years. Then why were people shaking him by the hand so recently? If I recall correctly, the West was funding the Taliban when the Russians were involved in Afghanistan...but then the Taliban were our enemy. Saddam Hussein was also funded by the West during the Iran-Iraq War....And of course, to go back a little further, Churchill, who spoke so dramatically of the ‘Iron Curtain’ was a one-time ‘friend’ of Stalin...

When I see one man crawling out from a hole, looking like a terrified rat, and then being killed by those he has harmed, I find it shocking. When I see another man allegedly being found in some remote compound and then being dropped from a ship before anyone can see him, I find it a little stage-managed. When I see a third person appearing in a blood-soaked shirt, begging for mercy and being killed, I find it repulsive. It is even more repulsive when, in the same news report, there is a mention that happily Libya’s oil-production is now returning to normal.

Well....whatever really goes on behind the scenes, I cannot think of a worse end than that of a tyrant, whether he be one who is blatantly a criminal, or one who manipulates from behind the scenes = the 'dark forces' that Queen Elizabeth once spoke of...

Bismarck and Karma

While researching – for a new novel based on the life of Moretta of Prussia – I have been quite fascinated by the relationship between Bismarck and the German Emperor’s family and cannot help thinking of the irony of his ultimate downfall. The ‘Iron Chancellor’ is credited with having

successfully brought about German Unification (though the part played by Crown Prince Frederick of Prussia – later Frederick III – was deliberately written out of the history of this) and he had undoubtedly a great deal of political nous and foresight (he predicted with uncanny accuracy that the First World War would occur twenty years after his fall from power and also said it would spring from some minor event in the Balkans). His methods, however, were utterly ruthless and while, on the one hand, he is seen as a great statesman who did a great deal of good for the people, on the other he sometimes seems to be a megalomaniac who would use any underhand means to dispose of his enemies. He deliberately incited various ethnic groups in Austria-Hungary to cause trouble for their Emperor; he deceitfully provoked the Franco-Prussian War, he suppressed any group which he perceived to be a threat to his plans (Catholics and socialists were his main target), and he often used invented scandals to destroy his political opponents.

“I wonder why he does not say straight out,” wrote the then Crown Princess Victoria, “ ‘as long as I live both Constitution and Crown are suspended’ because that is the exact state of the matter. No doubt his is patriotic and sincere and thinks it for the good of Germany. He thinks that a great central power is necessary and that one will must decide and that state be everything and do everything like one vast set of machinery – say the ‘Inflexible’ for instance where the captain works everything alone and directs the ship by electricity etc. So Prince Bismarck wishes, with the press of a little finger, to direct the whole....”

It is unsurprising that the Crown Princess (later Empress Frederick) was so opposed to the Chancellor. Not only were his policies totally contrary to her own more liberal views, and not only had he purposely side-lined her husband, but he had deliberately denigrated the Crown Princess herself, inventing scurrilous stories to destroy her reputation and, perhaps most cruelly of all, had played a major part in turning her eldest son – Wilhelm – against her.

To Bismarck it seems that Wilhelm was something of a puppet. Having flattered him as he was growing up and filled his head with a sense of his own importance, he (Bismarck) almost seemed to believe that he would always be able to manipulate his protégé. The fatal illness and untimely death of Wilhelm’s father must have appeared as a miracle for the elderly statesman who, even as Frederick was dying, was encouraging Wilhelm to step into his shoes as Emperor. In 1888, Wilhelm became Kaiser Wilhelm II and the Chancellor surely expected to be able to manipulate him as he had manipulated his grandfather. He was in for a rude awakening as the arrogance which he himself had fostered in the prince, was to turn against him as though like Dr. Frankenstein he had created a monster which he could not control.

I do not for a moment, however, think Wilhelm was a monster. In the days after his father’s death, he behaved appallingly – surrounding and ransacking the palace where his mother was grieving, in search of private papers; he then basically threw her out of the palace until, for a while, she and her younger daughters had no idea where they would live; he changed the name of the palace to obliterate his father’s memory and in his first speech made strong references to his grandfather but none whatsoever to his father. But Wilhelm’s relationship with his mother was extremely complicated. Bismarck had truly turned him against her and yet, on some level, as a chid and beyond he had adored her (even writing her disturbing letters which sound almost like love letters, and which she felt it prudent to ignore) and I cannot help wonder whether what happened next had something to do with his getting revenge on the man who had treated her so badly.

Far from being a puppet, Wilhelm had strong views of his own and – surprisingly, perhaps, to those who see him a a ‘warlord’ – one of his main concerns at the beginning of his reign, was the welfare of workers. Bismarck, in his determination to crush all opposition,planned to employ a strategy that he had employed before to good effect – he wished to provoke the socialists into an armed uprising so that the police/armed forces could be called in to crush them completely. Wilhelm, who was far more sympathetic to the workers’ demands, was appalled when he discovered this plan and absolutely refused to turn his troops on his own people. Eventually he left the Chancellor no option but to resign. His unceremonious departure must, on some level, have given Wilhelm the sense of having repaid him for his treatment of his parents. The most ironic part of all – true Karma! – came when Bismarck approached Wilhelm’s mother, whom he had treated so badly for so long, and, in desperation, asked her to speak on his behalf to her son. Empress Frederick – without any bitterness (she actually wrote that she felt sorry for Bismarck) – replied in all honesty that she had no influence whatsoever over Wilhelm since Bismarck himself had deliberately destroyed the bond between them.

Karma indeed.....

Not Born to Rule?

Doesn’t it seem a bit odd that the majority of the monarchs who reigned during the First World War had come to the throne either by ‘chance’ or rather sooner than expected? Most of them were not born as heirs, and those who had been prepared from childhood to rule, succeeded following the premature deaths of their fathers.

In Britain, George V had not expected to be king but the untimely death of

his elder brother, Albert Victor, led to his eventual accession. In Austria-Hungary, the aged Franz Josef only became Emperor when his uncle was forced to abdicate during the many upheavals of 1848. When Franz Josef died in the middle of the wa

r, the crown passed to Karl, who would not have become emperor were it not for the suicide (murder?) of Franz Josef’s son, Rudolf, and the murder of Karl’s uncle, Franz Ferdinand. In Belgium, the deaths of his cousin, Leopold, and his elder brother, Baudouin led to King Albert’s accession; while in Italy, King Victor Emmanuel succeeded his assassinated father. Kaiser Wilhelm II and Tsar Nicholas II might have known from their earliest years that one day they would become emperors, but neither expected their fathers to die so soon. Wilhelm’s father reigned only for three months, while Nicholas’s father died rather suddenly at the age of only 49. The kings of Roumania and Bulgaria and were foreign ‘imports’ who were somewhat unexpectedly offered the thrones; while in Greece, King George I was a Danish prince whose murder led to the accession of son, Constantine; and shortly before the outbreak of war the war, the Serbian King Peter handed over authority to his son, Alexander, who acted as his regent.

Perhaps all of this has no real meaning but it does strike me as rather strange....

(For more about the royalties in the First World War, please visit the site: Shattered Crowns

19th Century Royalties

I am gradually compiling a guide to the 19th centuries royalties, with particular emphasis on Queen Victoria's family. The intention is to provide information, links (to relevant sites and blog posts from all over the net) and book recommendations. This is very much in the early stages - merely an introduction and outline of Queen Victoria's children and grandchildren - over 3 pages so far (please check the links at the top of the 'About' page)but if I would welcome any recommendations of blog posts, the links to which might be added. If you have written a post about any of Queen Victoria's children or grandchildren, please feel free to contact me.

Queen Victoria & Other 19th Century Royalties

Queen Victoria's Favourite Authors

Alongside being a prolific letter-writer and lover of poetry, Queen Victoria greatly enjoyed contemporary novels, particularly those about the lives of ordinary people. Among her favourite authors were Dinah Craik, whose novel John Halifax, Gentleman was probably her most successful work (and, incidentally, made into a BBC television series in the 1970s).

Of Mrs. Craik, Queen Victoria wrote to her eldest daughter, Vicky,:
“Have you ever read two pretty, simple but very pleasantly written novels called ‘A Noble Life’ by the authoress of ‘J. Halifax’ and ‘Janet’s Home’? They have both been read to me of an evening and I like them so much. Not sensation novels but pretty, simple stories, full of truth and good feeling.”

Mrs. Oliphant was another of the Queen favourite authors and, with her love

of all things Scottish, she greatly enjoyed ‘Merkland’ which she described as ‘An old – but excellent Scotch’ novel.’ In 1868 the Queen met Mrs Oliphant whom she considered, “very pleasant and clever looking.’




Naturally, her friendship with the Prime Minister, Disraeli, led her to

greatly appreciate his novels, too, and when her own ‘Leaves from a Highland Journal’ was published, she was greatly flattered when he spoke to her as a fellow-writer, “We authors, ma’am…”

Marie Correlli - a writer of popular novels – also appealed to the Queen, as did Wilkie Collins, Dickens and George Eliot, regardless of the scandal of the latter’s private life. Harriet Beecher-Stowe’s biography of Byron, however, Queen Victoria considered shocking since it included information about the poet’s incestuous relationship with his sister.

“That Byron scandal is too shameful; I have not read it as I have a particular horror of scandal and gossip, and it is quite untrue. Mrs. Stowe has behaved shamefully.”

Queen Victoria and Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Continuing the theme of royalties and the arts, Queen Victoria’s friendship with Alfred, Lord Tennyson is very fascinating. Being a neighbour on the Isle of Wight, Tennyson was sometimes invited from his home, Farringford (now The Farringford Hotel ), to Osborne House where Queen Victoria, who enjoyed his work, liked to spend time in his company, though, as she wrote to her daughter, Vicky, she found him rather dark and gloomy at times and described him as looking ‘very old’.

The rest of this post has been temporarily removed due to an agreement re. the recent publication of my book "Queen Victoria's Granddaughters 1860-1918".

Royal Patronage of the Arts

In the guidebook to Frogmore House and the Royal Mausoleum, there is a photograph of a fan designed and painted by Queen Victoria’s eldest daughter, Vicky, and presented to her mother in 1856. Alas, I cannot scan or post the photograph, and a description will not do it justice. The detail of flowers, an angel and a classical figure are so exquisite that it is difficult to believe that this was not created by a professional artist with many years of experience but by a sixteen year old girl (and it certainly puts many modern works of so-called art to shame!).
Although Vicky continued to paint throughout her life, it is not easy to find copies of her work and this is surely a great loss to the art world.

Many members of Queen Victoria’s family were gifted artists. Members of the Royal Academy said that Prince Albert, some of whose painting hang on the walls of Osborne House, could have been a professional artist had he not been a prince (and, incidentally, the composer Mendelsohn said he could have been a successful composer);

Vicky’s sister, Princess Louise, was an equally accomplished sculptor who created this statue of Queen Victoria, which stands in Kensington Gardens; and Queen Victoria herself was skilled in watercolours and oils as her painting of Prince Albert shows.

Artistic and musical themselves, Queen Victoria’s family – like many other royal families of Europe – were also great patrons of the arts and they were aware that their patronage was not simply a matter of personal gratification but that they were preserving some of the greatest works of art for the nation. The much-maligned Grand Duke Serge of Russia, husband of Grand Duchess Elizabeth, was renowned for his art collections and he made it clear that he wished to ensure that these treasures were being kept for Russia, not for his own pleasure (though he undoubtedly took pleasure in them, too). Queen Victoria, despite her initial reluctance to be seen on photographs,was also an early patron of photography as this article shows.

Queen Victoria and Photography

Kaiser Wilhelm – an enthusiastic archaeologist – was also eager to continue in the tradition of Frederick the Great in cultivating the art, poetry and literature of his country.

Another interesting article shows the importance of royal patronage for French artists and how their careers suffered during and after the revolution.

French Royal Patronage

It often seems to me that it is possible to judge the state of civilisation in a nation not only by the way it treats its animals but also by its contribution to art, literature and music and, alongside their many other contributions to society, I think the role of royalties in patronising the arts cannot be underestimated.

Queen Marie of Roumania's Appreciation of Beauty

Queen Marie of Roumania - herself one of the most beautiful princesses of her age - was cousin to Grand Duchess Elizabeth of Russia: "The most beautiful princess in Europe". She wrote of her:

"...This faculty of enjoying beauty as a whole and in detail has followed me all through life. Line, colour, form, and the sounds and scents belonging to each picture, have made life extraordinarily rich, and with every one of those unforgettable impressions comes always that feeling of gratitude for each new beauty revealed to my soul.

Today I still feel grateful to beloved Queen Alexandra for the vision of beauty she was to me...This other beautiful woman had a tragic and terrible fate. She was the Grand Duchess Elisabeth of Russia, my cousin, sister of the late Czarina. She had married one of my mother's younger brothers, the Grand Duke Serge. He was blown up by Nihilists, long, long before the revolution, whilst governor of Moscow. She then entered holy orders, building a convent in which she lived; but her holy life brought her no mercy from the Bolsheviks. She was abominably slaughtered in Siberia, but, curiously enough, her body was found and later on transported to Jerusalem, where it now lies in the Holy Land.
She was quite newly married when her beauty burst upon me as a marvellous revelation. Her loveliness was of what used to be called the "angelic" kind. Her eyes, her lips, her smile, her hands, the way she looked at you, the way she talked, the way she moved, all was exquisite beyond words; it almost brought tears to your eyes."

Shattered Crowns: The Scapegoats

I am very happy to say that "Shattered Crowns: The Scapegoats" is now available in paperback.

Shattered Crowns: The Scapegoats

'In England Now'

Some years ago someone whose opinion, spirituality and intelligence I trust said that there is a small group of people (eight families, I believe) who wish to control the world and this group of people have been working through various means to achieve that end for the past 150 years or more. It seemed so bizarre and contrary to all I had learned, lived by, my spirituality and my world-view that I couldn’t make sense of it and so, without disputing it, I simply decided to watch from an impartial standpoint and see what I saw. Since then, I have discovered and seen many things. I have read the biographies of people who, with amazing courage and great honesty, wrote of how they were hired by various government agencies to incite revolutions (notably in South America in the 1980s) in order to pressurise the presidents or governments there into handing over their most arable land to fruit producing companies. I have read sermons from priests about their work among the poor of Africa and how the people have been deprived of their usual crops and compelled to buy seed from big companies who have genetically manipulated those seeds so that they do not naturally reproduce the following year. I have observed the way in which animals are appalling treated and how pharmaceutical companies introduce dangerous toxins into the food chain, then provide cures for the results and keep people on medication for their entire lives (at great profit to themselves). I have seen, too, how the American Constitution – that flagship of freedom!! - appears to be being deliberately dismantled and how the countries of Europe are being compelled to hand over their independence to a central body in Brussels and how just about everything I was taught about the history of the world since about 1789 was inaccurate or, to be honest, a lie.

To be frank, I am not a conspiracy theorist – not because I doubt that there are conspiracies but because I not really very interested in what politicians do or don’t do and who is right and who is wrong. Most of the time it seems a bit silly to me – little boys (and now girls) playing little power games. I would much rather walk in the woods, look at trees, ducks, flowers, goats, dogs, the sky and read poetry, listen to music and commune with nature; and I believe – or rather know with all my heart and soul – that there is a far greater and more beautiful power beyond all the childishness of power-seekers - but sometimes it just feels right to speak out.

In the light of recent events, England must appear as a very sorry place to

be: a place of mindless violence, unrest, riots and discord. Firstly, these events took place in relatively small areas of the country. Secondly, is it really possible that this violence erupted spontaneously and on such a scale from people who – let’s be honest – appear to be so easily led by a mass mentality and not to be able to think for themselves. Something or someone co-ordinated it. Thirdly, what is the significance and relation to this of the recent Bilderberg meetings? Is there a connection or not? Why is Bilderberg so secret? Why are we suddenly intervening in Libya? Why are we in Afghanistan? Why is someone creating a constant climate of fear? Why are people like Peter Mandelson (one time member of the Young Communist League) living in luxury and appearing at Bilderberg meetings, created as Peers of the Realm? Why is Tony Blair, who lied to Parliament about Iraq’s supposed W.M.D.s making a fortune from oil-producing countries now? Why was President Obama awarded the Nobel Peace Prize simply for being elected president? We have let things go on unchecked for too long and now, this past week's chaos appears like the oubreak of a fever that signifies the bringing to a head of an illness that is being cured.

Happily, something really wonderful is coming out of all of this mayhem. If you want to destroy a nation – as Russia was destroyed in 1917 and Germany a year later, and as many S. American countries were destroyed in the 1980s – first you must create chaos. The South American countries, re-invented themselves. Now, they seem like the safest places on earth. The recent chaos in England has brought out the true English and wonderfully multi-cultural character! Far from creating a climate of fear, these events have created an amazing awareness of who we really are! I have yet to see a more dignified response to something so horrific, as the response of

Mr. Tariq Jahan to the murder of his son. This Moslem gentleman, to whom all our hearts and love go out, spoke so powerfully as he called for peace and of his faith. Then there were the Sikhs who silently stood outside their Temple to prevent any attack. They did not want violence. They simple stood there to protect what was sacred to them. The brilliantly outspoken Christian Archbishop of York, John Sentamu,

who cut up his clerical collar and refuses to wear it again until there is freedom in Zimbabwe, and who has done so much for the local community, appeared on the BBC saying that if attackers approached his door, he would defend his family and his home with a cricket bat if necessary. And hundreds of ordinary English people appeared on the streets not to act as vigilantes but to protect their own communities and clear up the mess left by the riots. This is England. Immediately we all step into the ‘spirit of the blitz’ and this normally reserved nation suddenly remembers that we are proud of our communities and our tolerance and way of life. It might take a riot or two to remind us who we are but, after years of socialist propaganda and the attempts to create fear, we are still a nation of eccentrics and communities; a tolerant nation and a nation of individuals.

It seems to me that these recent events have achieved the very opposite effect than was planned. Now, perhaps, they will attempt to police the internet in the name of protecting us, but really it won’t work. There is a power far greater than any material, financial or political machine, and it simply cannot be eradicated. That is the power that lives within all of us -the beauty and divinity and sacredness of humanity and the soul that cannot be crushed.

The Art of Distraction

A conjuror appears on the stage and, with dance-like movements, draws our attention to his right hand while his left hand – unseen – cleverly conceals the trickery that leaves us amazed by his magic. Sometimes I try to look away from what the right hand is doing or from what we are being guided to see, but most accomplished conjurors are so skilled in the art of distraction that their performances are successfully deceptive and we see only what they want us to see.

Since the advent of newspapers and, more effectively, since the advent of televised news and 24 hour news, the art of the political conjuror has been honed in to perfection. It used to seem odd to me that one day there would be some ‘major’ government crisis in the news or, more poignantly, some jiggery-pokey with financial markets and within a day or two we were threatened by a terrible health scare or some outside threat that drove all coverage of the government/banking mess from the headlines. At one time there was SARS (and we would within a few weeks all be walking around wearing masks). Then there was bird flu – which would wipe out half the country if we weren’t careful. More recently (during our last Labour government’s mess) there was swine flu – the threat of which was so great that the government saw fit to put a glossy leaflet through the letter box of every house in the country, telling us to ‘dispose of tissues carefully’ and wash our hands after blowing our noses. Dear me, we must have been in a very sorry state to have to be taught basic hygiene! I also recall various bombings of embassies and even a war or two, when a British Prime Minister or an American President was coming under attack. On a wider scale, this goes beyond presidents and Prime Ministers, to what led to the outbreak of the First and Second World Wars – who had anything to gain? What was happening with the financial markets?

For the past few nights England, it seems, is being distracted by the riots in the cities – or at least in some parts of some cities. I do not underestimate the extent of the damage, or the horrendousness of what is happening, the devastation to some people’s businesses and their loss of livelihood and the fear evoked in particularly in some parts of London. If you look at the British newspapers’ headlines, you see images of burning buildings, looted shops and lines that shout ANARCHY! What is making everyone aghast is that there seems to be no reason behind this outbreak of madness. Those involved are mostly children or teenagers, running amok through their own communities and creating misery and terror. Here are some thoughts, though:

This is not about starving people looting shops because they are hungry; nor is it about government cuts or anything of the sort. This is a well-orchestrated series of events, led by people who are, according to eye-witnesses, guiding the rioters away from the police and who are in constant communication with each other. Who are these people and who is behind them? Children are very easy to lead; disaffected youths are even easier to provoke into violence, as Hitler knew so well. And while we are distracted by this mayhem – this orchestrated work of destruction – what is happening in the financial world? (Interesting that only a few months before the murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and the outbreak of WW1, the Federal Reserve was set up in America?).

A great light in the middle of this: today in Chapeltown, Leeds – an area of the city that was involved in the 1981 riots – a peace rally was held by local business people and residents of all ages, stating their commitment to their community and demonstrating a spirit that goes beyond the manipulation of trouble-makers. In London, many young people went out into the streets to clear up the mess left by the nights of rioting. No matter how this is reported in the media and no matter how widespread it appears, this is not the true face of England, which remains filled with people who do care for one another and do not live by this manipulated mentality. England today still look like this:

and this:





And, turning from the distraction, what is going on with the financiers and the small group of people who would like to destroy the individuality of nations and the freedom of individuals?