This is being reposted from last week because more has been added to it.
The murder of the three girls in Southport triggered riots across England. But if these murders had not happened the riots would have eventually happened anyway. Something else would have triggered it. Here is why I claim that. Just remember that history is a very powerful force.
There are three things that characterize the four episodes of rioting in England in recent decades.
1) Race and ethnicity were a factor, in some way, in all four episodes, such as alleged police mistreatment of minorities.
2) British politics bounces between left and right, Labour and Conservative, about every 15 years or so. All four episodes of major rioting occurred not long after, relatively speaking, a change in power.
3) Relative to population, northern England is disproportionately involved in the uprisings. This is interesting because northern England is known for being friendlier and more communal than the south. It is often said that "In England the further north you go the friendlier the people get".
Margaret Thatcher led the Conservatives to power in 1979. The worst of the four episodes of rioting in recent decades was the anti-Thatcher uprising of 1981. People on the east coast of Ireland could see the glow in the sky at night from fire across the sea in Liverpool. This is the only one of the four episodes that had a clear connection to the political order, other than the timing described in point 2).
Tony Blair led Labour back to power in 1997. This was followed by riots in several northern cities in 2001. This was the least serious of the four episodes.
David Cameron returned the Conservatives to power in 2010. This was followed by the uprising of 2011. It began in London but quickly spread to northern England.
Keir Starmer brought Labour back with a landslide victory in 2024. It was followed almost immediately by the recent uprising. The present uprising began in northern England and is concentrated there.
To understand what is happening we have to go back more than four hundred years. Never forget how important history is. We tend to repeat history, sometimes intentionally but often without realizing it.
The victor in the War of the Roses, between the two cadet branches of the royal House of Plantagenet, was Henry Tudor. This began the House of Tudor, or Tudor Dynasty, with Henry taking the throne as Henry VII in 1485. His son and successor was the famed Henry VIII (The Eighth). The major event of the reign of Henry VIII was to join the Protestant Reformation that was already going on in Europe. Henry VIII began the process of closing Catholic monasteries across England.
Edward was the son and successor of Henry VIII. Edward was a devout Protestant but was in poor health and named his cousin, Lady Jane Grey, as his successor. But she was outmaneuvered by Mary, daughter of Henry VIII, who was a committed Catholic and had earlier been removed from the line of succession.
The result was the five year reign of Mary I, and her attempt to bring England back to Catholicism by force. The attempt was ultimately unsuccessful but she did get a mixed drink named for her, the "Bloody Mary". My information is that Mary was willing to let the overthrown teenage Lady Jane Grey live, but the devoutly Protestant Jane wouldn't be quiet in criticism of Mary's faith and it cost her life.
The death of Mary was followed by the reign of her half-sister, another daughter of Henry VIII, Elizabeth I. The long reign of Elizabeth I brought the golden age, known as the Elizabethan Era. Elizabeth was a Protestant who founded the Anglican Church. Today the Anglican Communion is the largest single Protestant denomination. But Mary's attempt to bring the country back to Catholicism had failed and the Protestant order was here to stay.
The Anglican Church kept much of the Catholic liturgy that people were familiar with. Protestant church leaders are usually called "ministers", but Anglican leaders are still called "priests". The Anglican Church had a structure similar to the Catholic Church, with archbishops in York and Canterbury. The difference from Catholicism is that the Anglican Church was led by the English monarch, instead of the pope, and people were free to read the Bible for themselves and to set up other churches.
Elizabeth's new church didn't please everyone. Some chose to remain Catholic, which they were free to do. Others wanted nothing to do with anything resembling Catholicism, even a church that retained the Catholic liturgy. These would be called Puritans and there would be civil war between the Anglicans and Puritans. Some of the Puritans would ultimately leave England altogether and this is where America's Pilgrims and Puritans came from.
The northern part of England remained the most Catholic. After the reign of Elizabeth began it became clear that England was definitely going to be majority Protestant, although there was freedom of religion. A short-lived uprising began in northern England in an attempt to oust the new Protestant order and restore Catholicism. This uprising became known as the "Rising of the North".
This is what these periodic uprisings in England are. The repetition of history is a very powerful force. A while after a new government comes to power, whether Labour or Conservative, there is a brief uprising, just as there was when a new Protestant queen took the throne. This is a reenactment of England's history, except that today it is secularized around politics and race or ethnicity, instead of around monarchy and religion and tends to be focused, relative to population, on northern England.
ISLAM AND THE UPRISING IN ENGLAND
Many have questioned why the recent uprising in England was directed against mosques and Islam, as well as new arrivals to the countrywhen the murders in Southport, which triggered the uprising, was committed by someone who was born in Britain and was not a Moslem.
The answer is simple but it involves the power of history. In the Sixteenth Century England had been Catholic for a thousand years, from long before it was a united country. Henry VIII (The Eighth) broke with the Catholic Church and supported the Protestant Reformation, which was already going on in continental Europe. But his daughter Mary, who had been removed from the line of succession because she insisted on Catholicism, eventually managed to gain the throne and tried, unsuccessfully, to bring the country back to Catholicism by force. But she did get a mixed drink named after her, the Bloody Mary.
When Mary died her half-sister, another daughter of Henry VIII named Elizabeth, took the throne. She made it clear that the new Protestant order was here to stay, although she did start the Anglican Church as an attempt at compromise and today the Anglican Communion is the largest single Protestant denomination.
But there were still a considerable number of Catholics, concentrated in northern England, and they wanted the old order back with the Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots, on the throne. They began a short-lived rebellion, the "Rising of the North".
The recent uprising in England, centered around the northern part of the country, was a reenactment of the Rising of the North". Just as the original uprising followed the change from a Catholic to a Protestant queen, these periodic brief uprisings in England come after a change in power between Labour and Conservative, which happens on average about every 15 years or so. The original uprising was about religion so this reenactment had to focus on the new Islamic order, just as the original uprising focused on the new Protestant order.
Why did the rioters try to torch a hotel where new arrivals to Britain were staying? Remember the posting "The Far-Reaching Story Of Guy Fawkes", April 2022. The attempt to destroy the Parliament building with gunpowder later followed the Rising of the North, and they were just reenacting that.
THE REVERSE MARTIN LUTHER KING
One thing that I have never seen written about the modern era of periodic xenophobia in Britain is it's connection to Martin Luther King. In 1967 Martin Luther King came to Britain to receive an award and made a speech at Newcastle University. He was especially known for his earlier "I Have A Dream" speech. It was a time of racial turmoil in the U.S.
A few months later a British politician, apparently looking to make a name for himself, copied Martin Luther King, but in reverse. His name was Enoch Powell and he made his notorious "Rivers Of Blood" speech, warning against migration to Britain.
The news following the speech focused on a white girl who was supposedly the only white student in her class at school. She didn't get much help from the teacher because the teacher was too busy trying to teach the other students how to speak English. But the school wasn't named. It is now widely believed that this was "fake news", and the school wasn't named because it didn't exist.
THE MODERN ERA OF NATIONALISM
One thing that we rarely stop to think about is that the modern concept of the nation-state is a relatively recent development. Even early in the Twentieth Century there were quite a few people in remote areas who weren't sure which nation they belonged to. It wasn't really that important because the tribe or religion was what counted.
When people went to war in the Middle Ages it wasn't their country that they were fighting for, it was their god. A country was just a collection of people with something in common. The idea of giving one's life just for one's country was somewhat absurd.
In the late Nineteenth Century secularism increased. But people are designed to believe in something and if they lose faith or don't believe in God they will just replace Him with something else. That "something else" is often nationalism, political-economic ideologies or, racism. How many people have you known whose "religion" is their country or their political-economic ideology? The thing that is especially attractive about racism is that it not only gives people something to believe in but, unlike traditional Christianity where one has to admit their sinfulness, everything is the fault of the other group.
Can you believe that, around the beginning of the Twentieth Century, there were people saying that, because most wars are about religion the coming century should be very peaceful. Yet the Twentieth Century was the century of nationalism and political-economic ideologies and was the deadliest century yet.
THE LEGEND OF KING ARTHUR
With people arriving in Britain by boat being such an issue nowadays why don't we review the Legend of King Arthur.
King Arthur is the probably legendary English king who defended the island against Anglo Saxons. Fortunately he was less than successful and Brits today are sometimes referred to as "Anglo Saxons".
The Anglo Saxons are one of the several groups that mixed to form England. The others being the original Britons, Vikings, Danes and, Normans. The original Britons are from when the island was linked to Europe, before the last ice age as we saw in the posting "Natural History" May 2022, the others arrived in Britain by boat.
The arrival of the Vikings and Normans, who were descendants of Vikings, was more like organized raiding and invasion but the most important group of all, the Anglo Saxons, were arrivals of migrants by boat. The migration of Anglo Saxons was probably driven mostly by Feudalism. Property was inherited by the oldest son, leaving the others to consider seeking their fortune on the island out in the sea.
The arrival of the Anglo Saxons was ironically just like that of the people in boats today. History is repeating itself, as it so often does. The boat arrivals that are so scorned today are the modern incarnation of the Anglo Saxons that are so central to British history.
This is just like a play about King Arthur. The British Prime Minister is in the role of King Arthur, trying to defend the island against the arrivals by boat. The government ministers are playing the Knights of the Round Table. Those trying to get into Britain by boats don't know it but they are playing the role of the Anglo Saxons.
Shakespeare never wrote a play about King Arthur, or about reenacting the Rising of the North, but I'm sure he would be absolutely delighted with this, the entire nation staging a play.
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