Wednesday 29 August 2012

Monarchy in Britain

Can a Human Family Require Worship of the People?
In Britain there is one family which claims to be the head of just about everything. The Windsor family. They claim to be the head of the English Church, the head of the Government, the head of the State, the head of the Armed Forces, and the head is always seen on money and postage stamps.

But are we required to worship this family? It is unelected yet claims to be omnipresent in our lives, over our institutions, and is surrounded by thousands of guards. The same family has at its exclusive disposal palaces, castles and vast estates, and receives payments in money from the British State and even from the European Union.
However, for all their luxury and financial wealth, no-one is obliged to worship them, for they cannot rule over the soul of other people.


The Celestial Monarchy
Prosperity comes from High, from where life on earth has its origin, namely from the High City that is House to the Throne of God. Our Saviour is Jesus Christ, whom the Father sent to us as Shepherd, showing us the gate to Life Eternal. He did not say that we have to worship a human family and call them head of the Church and head of the State.

For this reason alone the Windsor family cannot require worship from us, as they have not been given divine authority to do so. They do not receive our prayers and do not give prosperity, they cannot command the Spirit, and their luxurious way of life is not even in consonance with the message of the Gospel.

The Windsor family is not the founder of the English Church, which came into being through the Kentish king Ethelbert and his Christian wife Bertha, precisely in Kent, and also in Northumbria through the Celtic missionaries from the Scottish island of Iona.

Elected Government in Britain
Our chosen form of government in Britain is democracy and the House of Commons. Through democratic election we are entitled to periodically elect the Lower House of Parliament, where elected common people are expected to govern our Country to the benefit of the British People.

Written by D. Alexander
The Origins of the English Church:





Tuesday 14 August 2012

Austerity Destroying Britain

The financial crisis is having a negative impact on Britain's society, effectively destroying people's health and even physically destroying Society.

Choosing Desolation
Britain's economy could prosper, we could be planting more orchards, increasing agricultural output, producing textiles and electronics and so many other things our economy once excelled in; but instead, our society is degenerating into poverty and desolation.

An article published on Sky News on 14 August 2012, under the title: Health Suffering in Austerity Britain, reveals the results of a survey among British GPs. According to this survey, an increasing number of women are requesting abortion because of their financial situation.

Children who would be born into our society are being aborted, their developing phase of life within the womb is being terminated as a result of Britain's fall into desolation. All this is happening while bankers and chief executives of large share-companies are battling to maintain their right to receive millions of pounds a year in annual bonuses to add to their top wages.

An End to Sport Activity in Return for Anxiety
Three quarters of the 300 GPs involved in the survey stated that the economic situation is making their patients unhealthier.
Doctors are saying that 60% of their patients have given up sports activities through lack of financial means, while an increasing number of people are seeking medical help for anxiety-related problems caused through financial stress. Indeed, they have reported a rise in heart disease and cancer for these very reasons, caused by stress and anxiety.

Britain's Families at Risk of Breaking up
Another cause for concern is an increase in alcohol abuse owing to finance-related stress problems. Unemployment is one major cause for stress, and so too is the knowledge that one may become unemployed any time soon. Parents with children, with rent or mortgage bills to pay, or who risk having to mortgage their house in order to access money, are at risk of falling into Britain's increasingly vicious private debt spiral.

Shark loans are common practice in Britain, when banks decline to give a loan and people turn to the shark loan scene. British Law does not pose any limit on interest rates, and so extortionate interest rates can be exacted on loans, such as 40% interest a month, or 4000% interest a year.

In Britain, this is perfectly legal, and the result it has on people's health, and on the breaking up of families, does not seem to bother in the least the high-class wealthy society of the rich. The money-lenders are quite happy to exact their pound of flesh on desperate folk, squeezing blood from a stone, as our society is being sacrificed to poverty, home-eviction and desolation.

Written by D. Alexander

For Sky News article see the following link:

news.sky.com/story/972215/health-suffering-in-austerity-britain

Flowers of the Forest played by the Scots Guards:
http://youtu.be/0k7c6croM-I



Friday 3 August 2012

The English Civil War: Battle of Edgehill

In 1642, at the start of the English Civil War, two English armies headed into battle to solve a constitutional dispute between King and Parliament.

On Sunday 23 October 1642, the first major battle of the English Civil War was fought at Edgehill in Warwickshire. On one side stood the army loyal to King Charles I, who was marching on London; on the other were the forces sent out by the English Parliament to prevent him reaching the capital.

Military Preparations Prior to the Battle of Edgehill

After falling out with Parliament, King Charles departed from London on 10 January 1642 and with his retinue travelled around England, testing the level of support among the people in his cause against Parliament. Having failed to gain possession of an important military arsenal in the walled port of Hull, the King left Yorkshire and headed south to the Midlands, with a military force numbering 2,000 men on horse and as many infantry.

Charles reached Nottingham, where he raised his standard on 22 August, declaring his intention to march on London and confront Parliament with force of arms. The King's cavalry was under the command of his nephew, Prince Rupert of the Rhine, the twenty-three year-old son of the Elector Palatine. Having seen combat in the Netherlands and in Germany's Thirty Years War, Rupert was considered the most experienced cavalry commander in the King's service.

As Summer drew into Autumn, thousands of volunteers assembled at the Royalist encampment, and the army's numbers swelled to over ten thousand, many equipped with standard fighting weapons, others with implements such as pitchforks and cudgels. During this time, aristocratic families all over England were sending donations of money and silver to the King's headquarters, thus enabling the commanding officers to provide for their men and purchase fodder for the horses.

Meanwhile, London's local militia, known as the London Trained Bands, had been mobilised by Parliament. Numbering around 7,000 men at arms, the capital's Trained Bands rapidly developed into a standing army, with thousands more men arriving in London to increase the numbers.

From the outset of the military preparations, the English Parliament lacked sufficient funds to finance a large and improvised military force, and having gained the loyalty of the English Navy in a preemptive move before it could pass over to King Charles's cause, the treasury was obliged to meet the combined costs of both the fleet and the army.

Command over the parliamentary army had been assigned to the Earl of Essex, a veteran who, like Rupert, had seen action in the Netherlands and in Germany. At the outbreak of the war, Essex's forces numbered 21,000 infantrymen and 4,200 cavalry, and with 46 pieces of field artillery and numerous horse-drawn supply wagons, his army was effectively a fully fledged fighting force.

Military training among the soldiers, however, was far from complete, and there were as yet no reconnaissance units that could give the commanders vital information on the movements and numbers of the Royalist forces. When on the march, Parliament's army used forced requisition of food as a means to supply the troops.

Heading Towards English Civil War

In the month of September 1642, the two opposing English armies began to march out of their bases, located respectively at Nottingham and London, to fight what they believed would be a single battle to solve the constitutional dispute. Neither side knew that the first battle would give way to a prolonged civil war.

The Royalists crossed through the Midlands, reaching Stafford and then Shrewsbury, continually increasing in numbers as more men joined King Charles's regiments. As was the case with Essex's army, the Royalist forces were not fully trained and were equally without any form of intelligence network.

The Earl of Essex assembled his troops at Northampton, and on 14 September headed towards Coventry. He then turned west towards Worcester in order to block the road to London, this being his first and foremost objective in order to prevent Charles from reaching England's capital, London.

On 23 September, advancing cavalry units of the opposing armies engaged in combat near the Worcestershire village of Powick. In this first skirmish of the English Civil War, Prince Rupert was able to demonstrate his commanding abilities, routing a large column of parliamentary cavalry while leading a surprise attack.

The Royalist army continued to slowly advance on London, and by 22 October Charles approached Banbury, commanding an army of 15,000 men, including over 3,500 cavalry, and an artillery train of 20 cannon of various calibres. On their arrival, no-one in the Royalist army was aware that the Earl of Essex, after marching out of Worcester, had assembled the larger part of his army – around 12,000 infantry and 3,000 cavalry – outside the nearby village of Kineton.

About one third of the parliamentary army was still heading towards Kineton when news reached Essex's headquarters that the King's army was encamped only four miles away upon a ridge, holding a strong defensive position overlooking the road to London. The parliamentarian soldiers abruptly realised that the King had overtaken them along the route to England's capital.

Edgehill, the Opening Battle in the English Civil War

The following day, 23 October 1642, the Earl of Essex paraded his infantry on the plain below the ridge known as Edgehill, hence the name of the battle that was about to take place there. Twelve parliamentary regiments were deployed in three brigades, flanked on each side by the bulk of the cavalry; two more regiments of horse remained in reserve, spread out among the infantry.

Rather than conducting an uphill attack on the strongly defended positions held by the Royalists, Essex gave orders to hold firm on the plain, as the rest of the infantry and artillery would arrive within a day. He knew that the King's forces entrenched on the heights would be obliged to come down in order to have access to food from the surrounding villages, and, more importantly, to avoid being surrounded from two sides after the arrival of the parliamentary reinforcements.

It was around 2 in the afternoon when King Charles's regiments marched down in full force, advancing within half a mile of the opposing army. Three brigades held the front line, with two behind flanked by Rupert's cavalry. Several regiments of horse were kept in reserve, with orders given them by Rupert to actively support the infantry as soon as they engaged in battle.

The footsoldiers on both sides included units of musketeers and pikemen, the 16-foot long pikes being an effective defence against a cavalry onslaught. With both armies remaining immobile, the only contact came about through exchanges of artillery fire. At 3 o'clock the first hand to hand fighting took place as Rupert, moving from the right with a great number of the King's cavalry, took on Essex's left flank, careering head-on towards the parliamentary cavalry gathered on that part of the field.

Then the left flank of the Royalist horse charged down, sweeping upon Essex's right flank and taking on all his cavalry positioned there. Within minutes, the parliamentary riders on both flanks turned and fled, heading back in the direction of Kineton towards their base, some three miles away. Rupert's mounted men pursued them, riding far from the battlefield and eventually coming upon their opponents' supply wagons in Kineton.

Unknown to Rupert was the spontaneous decision of all the mounted Royalist reserve units to join in the pursuit. In so doing they disobeyed his orders, for King Charles's infantry had meanwhile moved forward engaging the opposing foot regiments, but found themselves exposed to Essex's two reserve regiments of horse, which, being positioned among the infantry, had avoided the Royalist cavalry onslaught.

The tables were turned, and now it was Essex's remaining cavalry charging upon the king's infantry and artillery, unopposed by Rupert and his cavalrymen who had effectively abandoned the field. The Royalist riders returned shortly before nightfall, exhausted, to find the two contending armies in a position of stalemate, with neither side having obtained a military advantage.

The battle rapidly concluded as the parliamentary army withdrew from the field under cover of darkness, heading back to Kineton. King Charles's army withdrew to the heights, and one thousand five hundred men lay dead and dying below Edgehill.


Written by D. Alexander