Enemies and Allies: Seven Days of Destiny

By Joel Z. Wagman

This Tenth Anniversary Edition of Mr. Wagman's" Enemies and Allies", comprises his fifth work in ten years , and, is a review and analysis of the past decade, which demonstrates that the more things change : The more they stay the same."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 28, 2020
• ISBN: 9781664146235

Joel Z. Wagman

This Tenth Anniversary Edition of Mr. Wagman's" Enemies and Allies", comprises his fifth work in ten years , and, is a review and analysis of the past decade, which demonstrates that the more things change : The more they stay the same."

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Copyright © 2021 by Joel Z. Wagman.

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Rev. date: 12/04/2020

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CONTENTS

Author’s Note to The Reader Concerning

The Tenth Anniversary Edition

Acknowledgement

Foreword

Prelude

Day One

Afternoon at Agincourt Agincourt Castle:

Azincourt, France 4 PM: October 25, 1415

Churchill and Tuchman

On The Way to A Day of Destiny August

2, 1914: The River Tyne: Scotland

Day Two

An Appointment with Destiny

Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire,

England November 30, 1874

Epilogue To A Day Of Destiny

Digging Into The Past

Day Three

Morgenthau Constantinople:

The Ottoman Empire, August 9, 1914

Day Four

Souchon, Morgenthau and

Churchill Sevastopol Burns:

The Black Sea October 29, 1914

Day Five

Morgenthau’s Moment Constantinople:

The Ottoman Empire August 28, 1914

Day Six

Imperial Germany to The Rescue

Ministry of Foreign Affairs:

Berlin September: 1914

Day Seven

Morning at Mons South East

Belgium: Dawn: August 23, 1914

An Afterword

Authors Notes and Comments

Bibliography

AUTHOR’S NOTE TO THE

READER CONCERNING

THE TENTH ANNIVERSARY EDITION

D URING THE SEMINAL year of 1849, the then editor of the popular Parisian journal, Le Figaro Jean- Baptiste Alphonse Karr introduced: the memorable axiom: Le plus ca, plus c’est la meme chose, which in English translates as the equally memorable The more things change: the more they remain the same. Those words probably were highly appropriate in view of the 1848 election of Louis Napoleon, nephew of Napoleon I, as the President of France. In 1852, the one and the same Louis Napoleon, President of the Republic of France, in what amounted to a self-actuated-coup d’état, succeeded himself as Napoleon III: Emperor of Fr ance

From the vantage of the passage of 182 years – since Karr’s incisive axiom — what was — la meme chose (the same thing), respecting a Middle East peace accord, after centuries of conflict and strife — suddenly changed on September 15, 2020 and October, 23 2020 when Israel, entered into Treaties with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Sudan As a result, it’s probable, that further Arab states, such as: Morocco, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, Syria and Lebanon, will establish beneficial diplomatic relations with their former enemy: thereby forging the initial links of not only an advantageous commercial and defensive Sunni -Islamic-Israeli Middle East confederacy, but as well a long overdue prosperous era of peace. This nascent and hopeful future confederacy combining Israeli technology, Arab-Sunni wealth, and the labour and dreams of multitudes of Moslems, Christians and Jews will be a great boon to world peace. Significantly, these multi-lateral peace accords are referred to as the Peace of Abraham – in memory and honour of their common father.

During the intervening decades, the main point of contention relating to an omnibus regional peace accord, has been resolution of the underlying question as to whether Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. The answer – crystallized during the course of millennia, must be a resounding: Yes! For the holy city of Jerusalem, has been Israel’s capital ever since the peerless King David proclaimed it as such. From Israel’s May, 1948, independence; this vexing problem has been the consequence of neither tradition, nor history, but the continuing intransigence of various Arab nations regarding the creation of a Palestinian state, and, its corollary— the recognition of Israel’s sovereignty. To which, must be added the current and past collateral political agendas, of the European Union and other global power blocs, which have served to impede a meaningful Middle East peace.

The marshaling of the salient facts concerning the resolution of conflict among Israel, the Arab states, and in particular – Palestine, was powerfully posited by Raymond J. de Souza, in Canada’s National Post (September, 17 2020) : de Souza’s reasoning is cogent and irresistible in its logic and historicity. Proving – once more, that it is futile to resist an idea whose time has arrived. Among those compelling facts, submitted by de Souza are: The United Nations recognizes Palestine as a non-member state – although that incipient nation, by any measure, thus far, is a failure. Moreover, Palestine, enjoys diplomatic relations with most countries; and (de facto), as a result of the 1993 Oslo Accords. . . there exists a treaty (of sorts), between Israel and the Palestinians: the region has long since moved beyond . . . diplomatic consensus. The transfer of the U.S. embassy (to Jerusalem), did not set alight the supposedly perpetually inflammable Arab street. More than anything (the street’s silence), indicated a willingness to recognize the reality that had already taken shape, decades earlier.

Although published in early Spring 2012, the writing of the First Printing of Enemies and Allies : Seven Days of Destiny" laboriously began during the Autumn of 2009. Its Forward, however, was not completed until just prior to its publication. After, reviewing the First Printing’s Foreword, I am fully persuaded that what I wrote in 2012, is as applicable currently, as it was then: perhaps, in retrospect, even more. For, both September 15, and October, 23 2020 must as well, unquestionably, be added, as further days of destiny. Having endured the two administrations of the American President Obama, and their unsuccessful Middle East policies; and witnessed the realistic regional policy of President Trump during the past four years, it may well be, the only thing, which can spoil, diminish, or destroy this much longed-for, Israeli-Arab accord, is a general regional war to become manifest neither by the action of the Arab states (including the Palestinians), nor the Israelis : but by regional interlopers, such as China, Russia and Iran.

Notwithstanding that this Book in its various Printings essentially is a work of history, and that I’d rather look back in scholarly sagacity, than declare bleak prognostication : with pragmatic hope, I can state such regional war and its dire consequences can be avoided, if theocratic Iran, and its incongruous Russian-Chinese allies, together with their Hezbollah acolytes, fully abandon their vain ambition, of an Islamic Shiite hegemony, resulting in Iranian-Chinese-Russian domination of the still mutating, still fragile, Middle East. Such hope for an enduring peace quietly resides in the time-proven adage, that in the Middle East, nothing ever is as it appears. During the coming months, that insight, may yet, prove applicable. To that effect The Afterword of the 2012 second printing, should be carefully reviewed, by the reader. For, its content clearly demonstrates that indeed the more things change: the more they stay the same.

This Tenth Anniversary Edition is

dedicated to those persons of my past and present, whose love, patience and understanding turned an idea into reality. To my revered parents Adeline and Albert; my beloved life partner, Georganne; and, to my grandchildren Katie Baltman, Linsey Baltman, Shira Greenstein and Emily Greenstein

Additionally, I dedicate this work to the diligence and devotion of all Canadian historians – academic and popular, who over the years have toiled, without sufficient praise, plaudit, or compensation. Included among them are such outstanding examples, as: Pierre Berton, Margaret MacMillan, John English, Peter C. Newman, and Lord Conrad Black, whose monumental Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom (2003) is of special merit. The bright Black star shines in the underappreciated firmament of Canadian writers of history.

Finally, this book is dedicated to the men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces, whose tireless service and sacrifice continues to make possible our nation’s democratic society. I was one of them.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I TAKE PLEASURE IN acknowledging the assistance of Barbara Lavoie, as to the First Printing. Her skill and spirituality were an inspiration and warmth. I further recognize the contributions of my colleague, Matthew Gaasenbeek III, as well, I extend my continuing gratitude to my friends Hal Roback and Barbara Coven, who encouraged me to write the various Printings of Enemies and Allies: Seven Days of Des tiny .

FOREWORD

E NEMIES AND ALLIES: Seven Days of Destiny , is not a book of academic history: far from it. Nonetheless, it is about history, and the synchronicity of events comprising history. This book does not purport to be a work of primary research and scholarship, nevertheless, the events, persons and places related are supported by information, from credible, if secondary sources.

In two respects, the book admittedly contains a minimal amount of historic fiction. The brief Prelude is entirely of my own making, intended to establish an overarching mood for the Seven Days, which follow. And while fictional, the character John Churchill who went to France with Henry V in Day One is based on information derived from Volume One of Churchill’s: Marlborough His Life and Times (1933). The introduction of the medieval man-at-arms John Churchill is meant to establish an early and evolving leitmotif in the person and memory of Sir Winston Spencer Churchill (1874-1965), whose hallmark, charisma and genius run throughout the Seven Days of Destiny.

Beginning with the German historian Oswald Spengler’s The Decline of the West (1918-1922), and continuing into contemporary years with Samuel Huntington’s The Clash of Civilizations (1996) until Niall Ferguson’s Civilization (2011) those authors ask, are we witnessing the dénouement of the influence of Western Civilization? A Civilization based on science, the arts and human rights, which since the seventeenth century, has dominated global culture, trade and financial matters. Is Western Civilization, defined by Huntington, as: North America, Australasia and Western Europe, doomed to terminate, and be replaced by a hegemony of a renascent China, or perhaps a renascent militant Islamic league, led by Turkey, Iran, or both? Every portent regarding the rise and fall of civilizations unhappily indicates that such may be the case.

I was born one third distant from the nineteenth century and two thirds from the twenty-first. At the time of writing Allies and Enemies, I am nearing completion of my seventh decade cause enough to ponder how the world became the tremulous, uncertain, place that it is. All consideration has persuaded me that the consequences of the Great War for Civilization (1914-1918) (also known as World War One), not only substantially underpin present events, but persistently remain unresolved.

One of the major consequences of the Great War was that out its carnage, and twenty years later, due to the even more cataclysmic World War Two, there arose the Nazi horror, suffering and genocide of European Jewry, known in Hebrew as the Shoah, and in English as the Catastrophe, from which, in 1948, miraculously emerged the modern State of Israel. The foundation of that nation was laid over a century ago by the humanitarian efforts of a few brave men and women, who are now largely forgotten. The astounding story of those heroes – both Christians and Jews – is recalled on the pages which, follow. For the future of Israel, like the last song of a canary in a gaseous mine, may presage the direction of the world.

I am neither a professional historian, nor a philosopher-intellectual, who has or pretends to have any answers regarding which nation, or group of nations, will be paramount, or whether Western Civilization will in fact survive as the supreme arbiter of the future. To the despair of its multitudes, this earth may not become the better place of higher good, which the social, economic and technological advances of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, forecast, or that the sacrifices of the First and Second World Wars, had promised.

Nevertheless, changes to the world order, presently anchored upon the continuing fortitude of the American nation, the free enterprise dynamic and the expansion of parliamentary democracy – need not be negative. The world-wide dispersal of ideas by means of information technology does bring hope to the enslaved of mind and body; and, the steady progression of liberty in a growing environment of democratic societies will continue to blossom and endure.

Indeed, it was the storied Sir Winston Churchill who said that the last century, was the terrible twentieth. My intention in writing this book has been to describe the events of seven fateful days that caused the twentieth century to be so terrible, so perilous, and which may have initiated the slide into the decline of Western Civilization. As has been so capably demonstrated by Ferguson in Civilization:

"Churchill captured a crucial point when he defined the ‘central principle of [Western] Civilization’ as ‘the subordination of the ruling class to the settled customs of the people and to their will as expressed in the Constitution’:

‘Why [Churchill asked] should not nations link themselves together in a larger system and establish a rule of law for the benefit of all? That surely is the supreme hope by which we should be inspired. . .

‘But it is vain to imagine that the mere . . .declaration of right principles. . . will be of any value unless they are supported by those qualities of civic virtue and manly courage – aye, and by those instruments and agencies of force and science, which in the last resort must be the defense of right and reason.

‘Civilization will not last, freedom will not survive, peace will not be kept, unless a very large majority of mankind unite together to defend them and show themselves possessed of a constabulary power before which barbaric and atavistic forces will stand in awe.’

In 1938 those barbaric and atavistic forces were abroad, above all in Germany. Yet, as we have seen, they were as much products of Western civilization as the values of freedom and lawful government that Churchill held dear. Today, as then, the biggest threat to Western civilization is posed not by other civilizations, but by our own pusillanimity – and by the historical ignorance that feeds it.

I have attempted to lift the fragile veil of historical ignorance covering the eyes of the present, to see beyond the clouded past, so that my readers are not only better informed, but inspired to be of courage in their quest for knowledge. For it is the indelible beauty of knowledge within an environment of democracy and human rights, which enlightens the mind, making Western Civilization ever wondrous and worthy of our best endeavors to preserve it. Joel Z. Wagman, Q.C (July: 2012)

PRELUDE

A N HOUR AFTER sunrise during the first week of April in the promising year of peace: 1920, a French farmer began plowing a field whose earth had not been turned in six years, intending to plant wheat seed recently arrived from a government depot in pale grey sacks, marked American Relief Organization . The flat four-hectare field was edged by low lying trees, which during the past two weeks had blossomed into green and welcome early Spring, foliage. The farm, the field, the trees and the overcast morning, were unremarkable and similar in most respects to similar fields, farms, trees and bleak April skies, normally found in that part of northern France, known as Le Cateau-Cambrésis.

The farmer’s name was Maurice Lavoie, and every day he gave silent, profuse thanks that he and his farmhouse had survived the war, albeit injured, but in one piece. Seeking to join the French army, in late August, 1914 as had the fathers and sons of his neighbours, with feelings of patriotic fervor and regret, he left his wife and two young sons, and made his way southwesterly in advance of the retreating British. Five days later – tired and hungry — Maurice arrived in Calais, where he happily found a recruiting sergeant and after swearing his allegiance on the tri-couleur de France – served for the duration of the War — with the 154th Infantry Regiment, in the privation and sudden death of the trenches of France. By the Grace of God, except for an almost healed wound in his left thigh, which bothered him only infrequently, he was little worse the wear from his four years and three months of the Great War. In March, 1919, Maurice returned to Le Cateau, a decorated Corporal relieved to find his wife and children looking older, grown and somewhat thin, but nonetheless safe, smiling, and living with his parents in their cramped, familial, stone farmhouse.

Maurice briefly looked toward the darkening clouds, felt a momentary pang of hunger, and, as so often happened on damp days, noticed a familiar painful throb where the shrapnel of Verdun once had been embedded. After a minute’s deliberation, he decided that due to the impending rain, and his troubled leg, he had done enough for the day and would return to the house for his petite déjeuner of a boiled egg, black coffee and buttered bread. He unhitched Grand Jacques his great Percheron horse, left the plow where it stood, and slowly began leading the horse back to the barn. As he walked, probably because of his aching thigh – Maurice’s thoughts returned to the War. A profound sense of ennui caused a long sigh, when he sadly remembered that unlike so many of his fellows and comrades, he still lived.

Then, without warning, it happened! He abruptly fell forward through the unshaven sod, which disguised a large hole. As he fell, Maurice braced his arms, arriving at the hole’s bottom with little more damage than two sore wrists. He lay face forward for a few seconds; shocked and startled – then, quickly sat up, looked above at the still darkening sky, and momentarily took note of his wet, murky, surroundings.

The hole was about five feet long, three feet deep and four feet wide, pieces of wood and unrecognizable debris jutting from its perpendicular sides. From his personal experience Maurice knew that he had fallen into a soldier’s pit, dug to provide protection from bullets and exploding shells. Directly to his front, he was amazed to observe what appeared to be the cuff of a dark brown sleeve. Without thinking, Maurice reached for the sleeve – grasped it with all ten fingers, and using considerable effort pulled it toward him. The sleeve not wishing to be disturbed, most reluctantly, unwillingly and stubbornly, came out of its earthly imprisonment. It was attached to decaying, moist, cloth.

Maurice became excited, no longer feeling the pain in his right thigh or wrists. Oui, Oui, he thought – he had seen enough of them to know – it was the left side of an officer’s tunic, a British officer’s tunic. There were no buttons – they would have been on the other side – the right side. But the wide bellows pocket and the two diamond shaped rank insignia on the lower part of the sleeve, un-mistakenly confirmed that what Maurice held, were the remnants of a British Lieutenant’s tunic.

With awkward difficulty and discomfort, Maurice pulled himself out of the confining pit, and carefully clutching the half-tunic, walked as fast as possible to the farmhouse. As he pushed open the simple slab door — he quietly said, Marie, café s’il vous plait. After placing the tattered tunic on their sole table, he rapidly put his calloused right hand into its pocket and to his utter shock removed an oil-skin packet. He immediately emptied its contents across the table. They were few in number: a half empty package of Players Navy Cut cigarettes, a box of matches, a folded well-used map, and a piece of faded notebook paper bearing several English words. Maurice looked at the piece of paper, moving it first at arm’s length, and then closer to his eyes. Without question, it was a letter!

He gently spoke to his wife Sit down ma chère, and while still holding the letter, uttered; During the War, I learned some English, I’ll try to read what is written. These are the words of the unsent letter, which hesitatingly and laboriously, was read aloud by Maurice:

"26 Aug 14

"Darling Georganne,

We met the Boche at Mons and thought we had a victory. My lads performed flawlessly but our Gen. French ordered a retreat and presently we are in northern France with Gen. Dorien-Smith at a place called Le Cateau. I can hear the sound of distant artillery; it must be German, we don’t have any, and it’s getting louder by the minute. In a few days or so, you will hear or read of Angels being at Mons and what happened while we were there. Believe me dearest it was no mirage. It was real. I saw them. I saw bowmen and arrows flying through the air. I know it sounds incredulous but it’s true. The wind clearly carried the names Agincourt! Agincourt! St. George! St. George! Over and over, again! Then suddenly, archers appeared in the sky and on the ground in front of us. We were down to our last few rounds of ammunition, but the mass of grey clad Germans kept coming closer. Then, remarkably, arrows flew at them, from far above us – from the sky, and the enemy in their hundreds, harshly and hurriedly, fell, struck by the arrows. It was real. It happened. I saw it. I was there. The angels above us: saved us: Indeed, my darling, the bowmen of yesteryear were in the sky — there at Mons. They were there with us! I love you, sweetest heart. When I return for my leave, even if it’s only for a few days we must marry. I won’t take no for an answer. The letter was unsigned."

Maurice nodded to his wife, inaudibly mumbled incroyable, incroyable, replaced the letter on the table and after a moment’s hesitation, returned everything to the oil-skin envelope. Tomorrow he remarked I’ll take everything to the Mayor’s office in Cateau, perhaps, he will know what to do with them.

After a restless night, at 10 A.M., the following morning Maurice met with the Mayor, reviewed what had happened when he suffered the fall – and permitted him to read the letter. Both searched for a name on the tunic, or some other clue, which would tell them who once had worn the garment. However, there was neither name nor regimental number to identify the owner. Maybe, they agreed, the person’s name was on the tunic’s other half. The Mayor politely asked Maurice to leave with him the remains of the tunic and pouch, informing Maurice that in about a week’s time he was expecting representatives of the British War Graves Commission, with whom he gladly would discuss the matter. After all, the Mayor commented, whoever wore it was an Englishman. Perhaps the Mayor repeated, perhaps, they will have a suggestion as to what should be done with it.

As anticipated, ten days later, the British Commissioners arrived in Le Cateau, searching for make-shift gravesites or whatever remained, of the deceased soldiers of the British Expeditionary Force. When the Mayor gave them half a tunic, caked in dry mud, they were highly surprised. Their business was bodies: Burying the dead: Paying respect to their memory: But there was no body, no gravesite, just a dirty half a tunic, an oil-skin pouch, and its contents. In due course, the Commissioners decided that in the circumstances the only appropriate place for relics of an unknown British Lieutenant, was in London, at the recently inaugurated Imperial War Museum. And, there, for 74 years the tunic and pouch lingered — unrecognized curiousities in a cabinet.

At about 9:30 A.M. on November 11, 1994, a middle-aged Canadian couple from Toronto on vacation in the United Kingdom, visited the vaunted Museum to view a special 80th Anniversary Exhibition of the Great War. At approximately 10:30 A.M., the couple entered a semi-dark gallery and above a small showcase, observed a sign lit by bright bulbs on each of its sides; saying:

"Found in a pit at the site of the

Battle of Le Cateau, France, 1920".

The couple was drawn to the cabinet, which displayed the frayed left side of an unknown British Lieutenant’s tunic, an oil-skin pouch and several other items. Included, were the letter, a type written duplicate, permitting members of the public to more easily read it; and, an explicatory five inch by five inch card describing particulars as to not only how the objects had been discovered, came to be in the Museum’s possession.

Both husband and wife were professionally interested in the objects. He, at 65, was a not quite retired Professor of Modern History at the University of Toronto, and she whose name was Carole, somewhat younger, a teacher of English literature at Bishop Strachan School. The husband, who preferred Al, instead of Albert, his formal given name, half-turning to Carole, inquired:

Have you read the letter? And before she could reply – asked: Wasn’t your grandmother’s name, Georganne?

Yes she replied, yes to both your questions and suddenly visibly enthused, said "of course, I remember! I remember it now — the Angels of Mons. The tale of how Henry the Fifth’s bowmen from the Battle of Agincourt, five hundred years earlier — miraculously arrived at almost the last moment to rescue the British Army from disastrous defeat at Mons. I was often told the story by my mother, who had heard different versions of the tale from my grandmother. Everyone who’s written about Mons — and supposedly, what happened there, including: the famed popular historian Barbara Tuchman, has made mention of The Bowmen. But no one has believed a single word of it. So what happened at Mons – if it ever happened, has been generously called a legend."

Until now Al responded until now.

Yes, of course Carole calmly replied, the significance of each item reposing in the showcase, penetrating her mind and memory.

"And that letter to Georganne – may I say — to my grandmother – it must have been written by my grandfather. His name was Clifford: Major Clifford Henley.

A moment’s pause: the booming of a bell.

"Listen Al, it’s Big Ben, look at my watch she said, moving her arm toward him it’s 11 minutes to 11 A.M.

To which, he immediately added on the 11th day of the 11th month.

The seventy-four-year mystery regarding Maurice Lavoie’s extraordinary find of the left side of a British junior officer’s tunic, in a field at Le Cateau, seemed to be solved – at least, as to who had worn it. But that is all. For the Legend of the Angels of Mons, and the rescue of the British Army remains as fresh today, as it was then.

In 1923 Carole’s grandparents Major (Retired) Clifford Henley DSO MC late of the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, and his wife Georganne emigrated from Oxford, England, to Toronto, Ontario, in the Dominion of Canada. Seven years later the retired British Major was admitted to the Bar of Ontario as a Barrister and Solicitor by The Law Society of Upper Canada.

Clifford died in 1933 at age 44 from the corrosive effects of mustard gas, which he had too deeply inhaled in 1916, while leading his decimated Company at the Somme. His last thoughts were of Georganne and the Angels he had seen that day at Mons, August 25, 1914.

DAY ONE

Afternoon at Agincourt Agincourt Castle:

Azincourt, France 4 PM:

October 25, 1415

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; for he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother; be he ne’er be so vile, this day shall gentle his condition: and gentlemen in England now a-bed shall think themselves accursed they were not here, and hold their manhoods cheap whiles he speaks that fought with us upon St. Chrispen’s day.

William Shakespeare: Henry V

I

N O LESS A person than Winston Churchill depicted him as a perverted weakling ¹ and a degenerate ² who still stands accused by history as taking too much delight in sodomy. Caring little for the craft of kingship or affairs of the realm, he abused both, and consequently was neither liked, loved nor respected by his subjects. In denial of his heritage he abhorred warfare, the manly arts of battle and wasteful spilling of blood, much preferring song, dance and frivolity. He was the unlikely successor to Edward I of England, his bellicose and capable father, who because of his muscular length of legs, was known to enemy and ally alike as Edward Long Shanks.

Neither soldier nor statesman he was delicate, generous, tactless and mostly inept, yet established at each of Oxford and Cambridge, colleges of early profound learning. He was the first Prince of Wales, given to the Welsh with the half-hearted promise he would speak their lilting language rather than guttural English, or alien French. He was given in marriage to the sister of the King of France, performing his connubial duty by siring two sons and two daughters. His first born would become an ambitious, warrior king, who determined England’s course and direction for the next 600 years. His reign is remembered as a remorseful, mean, inglorious era, causing his subjects and peers to wish he had never been born. In the greatest of despair, bereft of hope or choice, crying, lonely, wretched and friendless, he was compelled to abdicate his throne allegedly for the sake and safety of the kingdom.

On September 21, 1327, at age 43, he was murdered by the agents of Roger Mortimer, co-regicide and lover of his perfidious wife, Queen Isabella. By the infinite Grace of God, he was Edward II, King of England, whose greatest service to his family and contribution to his nation was being the father of Edward III, who subject to a regency imposed by his father’s murderers, ascended the throne of England shortly after his 14th birthday.

The young Edward III whatever the follies of his father, wisely comprehended that murder, and murder alone had placed upon his head the crown of England. The twisted path to his throne was still wet with the blood of his father, and littered with the spite of his mother, when this third Edward concluded nothing could assuage his grief or expunge the crimes of the past, other than final and sure retribution. Such was his sorrow: Such was his vengeance: Such was his patrimony.

He thus grew ever more restive, daily detesting the demeaning Regency. Nonetheless, he had learned well from his odious mother and her lover’s foul ways, and vowed neither figurehead nor puppet would he be. On the night of October 19, 1330, with the support of but a few sympathetic, trusted, nobles, who hated Mortimer and his mother no less than he; lest they usurp Edward’s throne – he struck. Overthrowing the Regency, hanging Mortimer and exiling his mother – great with Mortimer’s bastard, in Castle Rising, where she remained in luxurious and chaste retirement. In due course, Isabella progressed from being the she wolf of Europe, to an exemplary mother-in-law and doting grandmother; dying in 1358, forgiven, honoured and respected by her son — the undisputed King of England.

Edward’s determination to revive the policy, assist the claims and restore the glories of his grandfather, soon became apparent throughout the English Kingdom. No time being lost in dealing with the unfinished business of the Scots, who, in 1333, were severely routed at the Battle of Halidon Hill. The defeated Scots’ leadership found refuge in France, which over the ensuing four hundred years, not only succored Scotland, but fostered an unhappy antagonism between the English and Scottish people. Eventually, after centuries of antipathy, England and Scotland were joined in 1707 by an Act of Union, becoming Great Britain — which Act amended in 1999 — permitted Scotland once more to enjoy the fruits of its own domestic Parliament.

II

In the glory days of the strident Roman Empire, when Caesar’s Legions strode through Gaul, casting fear and death among its inhabitants; along the shores of the narrow River Luts – which then, slowly ran through the dense marsh of what are now the lowlands of Holland – there abundantly grew, tall, majestic plants whose yellow flowers, reaching out of the murk of knee high fog, reflected the sparkle of the sun’s golden hue. These were the lands of the ancient Franks, which came to be ruled by the saintly Clovis and his Burgundian wife, the future St. Clothilda. In the passage of time, the yellow Iris and its six petals – three of them combining at their tops to form an interwoven leaf – became known as the flowers of Luts. ³ Centuries later in stylized shape, the Irises of Luts emerged from myth as the Fleur de Lys of France.

During the reign of the holy French king, Louis IX; the petals of the Iris were thought to represent faith, wisdom and chivalry, signifying divine favour upon France. Understanding that providence favors the bold and confident that in him reposed endless spiritual benevolence, Edward III turned his keen attention across the English Channel to his disgraced mother’s ancestral lands. Upon his father’s demise in 1328, Edward III, through Isabella’s lineage, inherited the strongest of claims to the crown of France. Not to be denied the promise of his puissant right, and to clearly proclaim such to his French cousins, in 1340, Edward ordered the Fleur de Lys of France to be quartered with the rampant lions of England on his personal coat of arms. There, they stayed blue, gold and lovely, until 1808, when George III finally renounced the long abandoned specious claim to the throne of France.

This newly regnant Edward III was tall, of sturdy physique and full bearded. He had wavy yellow hair tinged with copper red, deep blue eyes and even more than his father and grandfather, whose good looks had been universally held in high regard – was elegantly handsome. He possessed an intimidating demeanor, which despite his youth undeniably spoke to everyone that he would broach neither disrespect nor disobedience. To any eye – critical or not, he was every inch a king, admired by his magnates and loved by his subjects; with whom – lord, villein and serf alike, he soon developed a compassionate, life-long rapport.

Over the more than fifty years of his reign, he brought those whom he ruled more glory than pain, more triumph than tragedy, and unfailingly could rely on the social orders of his realm never to waiver in their commitment to his person and policies. Although, as events later proved, too impatient to be a statesman, his innate qualities of character and personality, had he chosen, would have made him as adept at statecraft as they had in the feats of war.