Thursday 11 June 2020

Is Rupert Right?

A Midsummer Tempest, ii.

I will summarize his views, commenting only if I have some disagreement.

(i) He dislikes the "'...sour and canting creed..." (p. 12) of the Puritans.

(ii) He tries "'..to be a proper Protestant...'" (ibid.) If my beliefs were Christian, then I would not accept specifically Catholic doctrines so that would make me Protestant.

(iii) "'...yet not cast off what's good from olden time.'" (pp. 12-13) We would have to discuss "what's good" and that will differ between our timeline and his.

(iv) He prefers services to rants.

(v) He does not think that his "'...Romish friends are damned...'" (p. 13)

(vi) He does not agree with persecution of the Jews.

(vii) He would not hang old women as witches.

(viii) He captured Lichfield and "'...was glad to let its staunch defenders leave with honors.'" (ibid.)

(ix) In Lichfield, he strongly disliked the "'...desecration [that] had been wrought on ancient lovely halidoms -'" (ibid.)

(x) He defends absolute monarchy in a civil war against a parliament. Disagree.

3 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I would have to disagree with you and Prince Rupert about point "ii"! There are so many thousands of different and contradictory kinds of Protestants that I simply can't take the "Reformed" churches seriously. For many reasons that would take too long to enumerate here.

As for point "x", I don't think either Prince Rupert or Charles I wanted an "absolute monarchy," the quarrel between King and Parliament was over the proper DEFINING of the rights and powers of the Crown and Parliament.

Ad astra! Sean

S.M. Stirling said...

Note that Parliament didn't represent "the people"; it represented landowners. The English Civil War was a war -within- the ruling class, in which other groups had mainly walk-on parts.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Mr. Stirling!

And you raised a point I should have included in my first comment here.

Ad astra! Sean