Utopia, you are standing in it!

In the fourth in our series on the tumultuous events of the winter of 1648-9, and following on from the trial of Charles I, we turn now to the consequence of a guilty verdict. Dr Patrick Little of the House of Commons 1640-1660 considers the process whereby one MP became a signatory to the death warrant for Charles I, executed at Whitehall on this day 370 years ago, 30 January 1649…

King Charles I’s death warrant was signed on 29 January 1649 by 59 men; no doubt there were 59 individual reasons for doing so. One might mention the army radicals, such as Oliver Cromwell, committed republicans, including Henry Marten, or religious zealots, like Sir John Bourchier, or Edmund Ludlowe, whose rationale for ‘Delivering justice’ was quoted in the previous post in this series. But rather than attempt to provide a group portrait, this post concentrates on the experience of…

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland has recently surpassed Franz Joseph, Emperor of Austria and King Hungary (1848-1916) to become Europe’s third longest reigning monarch.

Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary (August 18, 1830 – November 21, 1916) was Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary, King of Bohemia, and monarch of many other states of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, from December 2, 1848 to his death. From May 1, 1850 to August 24, 1866 he was also President of the German Confederation, the state that replaced the Holy Roman Empire which had been ruled by a Hapsburg emperor for centuries. He was the longest-reigning Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary, and is now as the fourth-longest-reigning monarch of any country in European history, after Louis XIV of France and Navarre, Johann II of Liechtenstein, and now, Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, in that…

[image credit: beforeitsnews.com]
In short, Scottish wind power often produces too much for the electricity system to handle, yet more is planned. Meanwhile the super-expensive Western Link is failing miserably to draw off the excess power. Matt Ridley is trying to blow the whistle on this fiasco in the House of Lords, with some success.

Last weekend the Italian cable manufacturing company, Prysmian, released a statement announcing to the markets that the Western Link High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) interconnector between Hunterston and Deeside had failed again, on the 10th of January, says the Renewable Energy Foundation.

This grid link, which is a joint venture between Scottish Power Transmission (SPT) and National Grid (NG), employs cables manufactured by Prysmian.

This £1 billion project has a peak transit capacity of 2.25 GW and was designed solely to facilitate the export of Scottish wind power to the English and Welsh…

John Stuart Mill [left] and Jean-Luc Picard [right, drawing by gerardtorbitt]

This is the penultimate post of our five-week roundtable on science fiction and imperial history, co-edited by Marc-William Palen and Rachel Herrmann. You can read our call for posts here, and the other posts in the series here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. We look forward to hearing your thoughts!

“No starship may interfere with the normal development of any alien life or society.”

— Prime Directive (United Federation of Planets General Order 1)

“The Prime Directive is not just a set of rules; it is a philosophy…and a very correct one. History has proven again and again that whenever mankind interferes with a less developed civilization, no matter how well intentioned that interference may be, the results are invariably disastrous.” – Capt. Jean-Luc Picard

The Victorian political philosopher…

Charles was moved to Hurst Castle at the end of 1648, and thereafter to Windsor Castle. In January 1649, the Rump House of Commons indicted him on a charge of treason, which was rejected by the House of Lords. The idea of trying a king was a novel one. The Chief Justices of the three common law courts of England – Henry Rolle, Oliver St John and John Wilde – all opposed the indictment as unlawful.

The Rump Commons declared itself capable of legislating alone, House of Lords passed a bill creating a separate court for Charles’s trial, and declared the bill an act without the need for royal assent. The High Court of Justice established by the Act consisted of 135 commissioners, but many either refused to serve or chose to stay away. Only 68 (all firm Parliamentarians) attended Charles’s trial on charges of high treason and “other high…