I thought that "bathos" described the following passage but had to google the word to make sure.
When Kathryn McCormac has explained that Governor Aaron Snelund squeezes wealth out of Sector Alpha Crucis because he intends to return to Terra and become the power behind the throne, Flandry asks:
"'Hm. Does His Majesty know this?'
"'Snelund claims the two've them plotted it before he left, and've kept in touch since.'
"Flandry felt a sting." (p. 417)
It stings Flandry to learn this about his Emperor? No:
"His cigarette had burned down to his fingers." (ibid.)
But the fact the he had let happen shows how he has been affected by Kathryn's account of rape by Snelund.
Funeral here tomorrow.
11 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And Flandry then went on to say it was actually Snelund who did the planning and thinking--all while convincing Josip HE had done at least as much of that planning. It's part of the manipulation of a weak Emperor, to make Josip think he was clever too.
And it was saddening that Josip was so unworthy an Emperor, esp. when compared to his far better father Georgios.
Ad astra! Sean
Well, monarchy is a lottery. Especially a non-constitutional one like the Roman (or apparently, Terran) Empire.
(Medieval kings didn't have anything like the power of a Roman emperor, btw.)
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
All political systems have elements of a lottery in them. And the Empire did have some kind of constitution, btw. I remembered Flandry mentioning in THE REBEL WORLDS that it would take a constitutional crisis for Josip to be deposed, if that was what it would take to stop Snelund. And Poul Anderson mentioned in one of his letters to me that the Empire's constitution was a body of law and precedent that it felt bound, up to at least Josip's day, to observe.
Medieval European kings were far more like modern day constitutional monarchs than the "absolute" monarchs of the 1500's thru 1700's.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: medieval kings were also limited by the means available to them -- they didn't have standing armies, apart from small royal guards, nor police forces (a 17th-century development in France, 19th-century in England), nor much of a bureaucracy.
Ruling a medieval kingdom required support both from the nobility and the local gentry. Kings had to negotiate constantly, and they had to operate within the expectations of the ruling class, their perceptions of what constituted acceptable behavior from a king.
That was one of the weaknesses of GAME OF THRONES. It's based on late-medieval England, but the rulers operate more like absolute monarchs.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I thought so. I remember reading of many English and French kings ruling precisely like that, obtaining support from barons and gentry, negotiating, living with what was expeced of them, etc. And having to make do with very modest military forces.
Frankly, I would far prefer all gov'ts, republics or monarchies, to govern like that!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: well, that means living with the local Big Man telling everyone what to do. A baron was a lot closer to your house than the king.
And as the Loyalist saying went in the American Revolutionary period: "Better one tyrant three thousand miles away, than three thousand tyrants one mile away."
Kaor, Paul!
oh, I agree! A democratic legislative assembly can be as tyrannical as any king or president or General Secretary.
And local Big Men can be a baron, mayor, or commissioner!
I was thinking of political systems, republic or monarchy, where power is dispersed, distributed, or under some kind of checks and balances.
Ad astra! Sean
After the Norman invasion of Ireland, some local Irish kings/chieftains preferred a King in England to a High King in the center of Ireland.
Kaor, Paul!
Yes, but those High Kings seldom exercised or held much real power. It might have been different if Brian Boru, an unusually active and able High King who had been unifying the Irish kingdoms, had survived the Battle of Clontarf in 1014.
But, yes, many of the Irish and Anglo/Irish barons did prefer, after the Norman Invasion, that the English Lords of Ireland were mostly content for centuries to let them run affairs in Ireland. So much so that English "rule" scarcely extended further than the Pale of Dublin for long periods.
Ad astra! Sean
European countries where the barons came out decisively on top in their long struggles with the local Crown tended to be Really Bad Places to be a commoner -- Mecklenberg or Poland, for instance. England hit the Goldilocks spot: the executive and the baronage basically called it a draw, but the way the Crown preserved its authority was to appeal to the local gentry (and to involve them in government) against the peers.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree! It was esp. bad in Poland after the extinction of the Jagiellon dynasty in 1572. Poland became an elective monarchy where the kings became steadily more impotent and ineffectual. And to compound it, the Sejm became totally unable to provide any kind of effective leadership because of the "liberum veto," which allowed any SINGLE member of Parliament any proposed action he did not like.
I have sometimes thought it was a great pity the Estates General fell into disuse in France after 1614. A strong French parliament would have checked a strong Crown, ending in that kind of "draw" that was so useful to England.
Ad astra! Sean
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