Thread: BETTY & BORIS

Well, the UK Supreme Court has decided that Boris misled Betty in order to prorogue Parliament.

Can you imagine his fate if he did this a few centuries ago. "Take him to The Tower." "Off with his head". "Who will rid me of this troublesome Boris?"

Or a few centuries earlier still when rulers were of a more robust outlook. Harald Bluetooth beat Bisho Poppo to death with the bishop's own gold crucifix.

Originally Posted by RANDLOVER

That's HRH Queen Betty to you, but you are right, in the good old days Monarchs led from the front, hence a few were killed in battle. People don't understand what things like fox/stag/bear hunting and trooping the colour, are really about. Hunting is preparation for war, that is the way they found out, who was a good horseman, archer, or at setting up camp, cooking, etc, all the skills that were needed on a campaign, "trooping the colour" is not just about the troops being able to recognise their standard/flag in battle, but also in the days of yore, a title like Duke, Earl, Marquis, etc carried a responsibility to say, provide 100 knights c/w horses and armour, 500 archers each with 100 arrows, 1000 infantry with pikes, etc and the monarch would go on inspection tours to make sure the said title holder had the men and equipment.

In the system introduced by William !, all holders of manors in fief to the Crown had a quota of knights, men at arms, archers to be provided to the King when called upon. Numbers were dependent on the capacity of the manors to provide them. Willy's system provided that the Crown owned or licensed everything and users had to pay. If one wanted the right to hold markets, a toll bridge, a mill, etc then show us your gold.

Hunting game and food animals was a right of the upper classes. A forest was not then a wood lot but a royal hunting preserve. Woe betide any peasant caught hunting in a forest. Riding to hounds or fox hunting became a pastime of the rich in the 18th. century and reached its peak during Victorian times when the fox population in England was so reduced that foxes were imported from Europe and released. This is how rabies entered Britain.