RECOMMEND: Good Books

[The Duke]

For those of you who find time to read something besides a playbook, I just finished 1776 , it is a great book. It was very interesting and easy to read.

[PawneeSports]

http://img68.imageshack.us/img68/5228/1776coverpage0ov.jpg

[PawneeSports]

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On the afternoon of Thursday, October 26, 1775, His Royal Majesty George III, King of England, rode in royal splendor from St. James's Palace to the Palace of Westminster, there to address the opening of Parliament on the increasingly distressing issues of war in America.

The day was cool, but clear skies and sunshine, a rarity in London, brighten everything, and the royal cavalcade, spruced and polished, shone to perfection. In an age that had given England such rousing patriotic songs such as "God Save the King" and "Rule Britannia," in a nation that adored ritual and gorgeous pageantry, it was a scene hardly to be improved upon.

An estimate 60,000 people had turned out. They lined the whole route through St. James's Park. At Westminster people were packed solid, many having stood since morning, hoping for a glimpse of the King or some of the notables of Parliament. So great was the crush that latecomers had difficulty seeing much of anything.

One of many Americans then in London, a Massachusetts Loyalist named Samuel Curwen, found the "mob" outside the door to the House of Lords too much to bear and returnded to his lodgings. It was his second failed attempt to see the King. The time before, His Majesty had

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been passing by in a sedan chair near St. James's, but reading a newspaper so close to his face that only one hand was showing, "the whitest hand my eyes ever beheld with a very large rose diamond ring," Loyalist Curwen recored.

The King's procession departed St. James's at two o'clock, proceeding at walking speed. By tradition, two Horse Grenadiers with swords drawn rode in the lead to clear the way, followed by gleaming coaches filled with nobility, then a clattering of Horse Guards, the Yeomen of the Guard in red and gold livery, and rank in footmen, also in red and gold. Finally came the King in his colossal golden chariot pulled by eight magnificent cream-colored horses (Hanoverian Creams), a single postilion riding the left lead horse, and six footmen at the side.

No mortal on earth rode in such style as their King, the English knew. Twenty-four feet in length and thirteen feet high, the royal coach weighed nearly four tons, enough to make the ground tremble when under way. George III had had it built years before, insisting that it be "superb." Three gilded cherubs on top--symbols of England, Scotland and Ireland--held high a gilded crown, while over the heavy spoked wheels, front and back, loomed four gilded sea gods, formidable reminded that Britannia ruled the waves. Allegorical scenes on the door panels celebrated the nation's heritage, and windows were of sufficient size to provide a full view of the crowned sovereign within.

It was as though the very grandeur, wealth, and weight of the British Empire was rolling past--an empire that by now included Canada, that reached from the seaboard of Massachusetts and Virginia to the Mississippi and beyond, from the Caribbean to the shores of Bengal. London, its population at nearly a million souls, was the largest city in Europe and widely considered the capital of the world.

George III had been twenty-two when, in 1760, he succeeded to the throne, and to a remarkable degree he remained a man of simple tastes and few pretensions. He liked plain food and drank but little, and wine only. Defying fashion, he refused to wear a wig. That the palace at St. James's had become a bit dowdy bothered him not at all. He rather liked

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To be continued...

[robotorgo]

If any of you like Science Fiction try Harry Turtledove: Guns of the South is a time travel civil war story. The best of his stuff, IMO is his WorldWar Series. It consists of seven books. It involves an invasion of the Earth by Reptilian Aliens during World War 2. It blends historical figures and fiction.