User talk:Spider Jerusalem
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Royal descendents.
Stuart blood only made its way into America through the Calverts of Maryland, right? When and how did Tudor blood on its own make its way here, or is it all through the Stuarts? What about the Suffolks? It is true that all British alive today have Plantagenet and Stewart blood, but what about Tudor and Stuart? Only the upper class minority has Hanoverian and Windsorian blood, right? Furthermore, don't people with feudal origins specific in their family to fiefdoms have likelier chances of genetic relations with the lords of those lands? This is counting on before absentee landlordism and rent practices, right? I know that the Palatine Germans came in numbers, but what was their relation to the rest of our Anglo-world? Does Richard of Cornwall have anything to do with their presence, or just Elizabeth Stuart and Prince Rupert (or Anne of Kleves or the Orange-Nassau house)? Could you tell me anything about the Breton contribution to the Battle of Hastings and the Breton landowners in England after 1066? I'm looking for info about their lordships and honours. IP Address 07:30, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
I meant that the difference between being descended from a Stewart is just a Scottish monarch, whereas being a scion of the Stuarts makes one descended from a British monarch. When I am considering all Britons descended from them, I am going all the way back to Robert II of Scotland and counting all their bastards since then and before King James I/VI. Or if one combines the two branches, then one gets many non-royal nobles and share a Lennox ancestor with the British Stuarts. Presidential candidate Howard Dean of Vermont has Ludovic Stuart as an ancestor but Dean's recent ancestral families are not as illustrious as some of my own, which leads me to consider that I might have a closer relationship to the monarchy than he. When I was talking about close familial relations with feudal lords, I meant in a way that one was tied to the lordship and his house. Or if not that, is it true that we usually bear the political stripes of our old feudal lords? Do we not pass them down to our children as our parents have done to us, urbanites descended from mediaeval burghers and country folk from the gentry etc? I was thinking that depending on where one was born at a particular time period, one would fight on the Lancastrian or Yorkist side, or fight on the Royal or Parliament side, or if one was a tenant of the Stuarts they might support them over the Hanoverians etc. I have noble ancestors involved in the Virginia Company, other parallel descendents were Viceroys of India and one UK PM at least (misc government offices held) and another became baronets in Ulster under Charles the First--these are rather contemporary. I have discovered that my paternal line goes to Brittany from the Conquest, but none with my father's surname have held any political office until a few years ago in County Durham (in the Labour Party; not our original county, which was Richmondshire). I find it interesting that my paternal family has been a nexus for noble and gentry families via marriages, but doing my homework takes me back to the Conquest era in which better detailed information is found. Being an American of recent British, Irish and Canadian French (with original Colonist and Founding Father) origins makes me tied to idealism as well as our particular British institutions and I am divided in spirit. IP Address 16:42, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
What I meant was: it's more likely to be closer related to the feudal landlords from locales whence our families came, rather than the monarchy as a broad-arching "national institution of family". Is it correct that feudalism was sort of Balkanist and filled with soap-opera type gang-affiliation? That would be most true during the era of bastard feudalism. For the seats of royalty to have been in Northern England during the late Mediaeval period, would that not have influenced the "backwardness" of affairs and their adherence to Catholicism for instance (in the minds of the Puritans)? Or, would it have rather to do with the counts palatine and marcher lords--or all of it combined? I did research and found that the Calverts sprung 5-10 miles away from my own ancestral estate; my immediate conclusion was that our family harboured similar inclinations as they. Besides Scotland supporting the Stuarts, one must recall the film Braveheart's notorious depiction of the Royal Contenders' English connections. King James's father was born in Yorkshire, while Lord Darnley's own mother the Countess of Lennox was born in Northumberland. I have this sense that folks from my part of England and the "Celtic outliers" were once regarded with scorn as "lesser people" and shared a common culture that led us to a similar economy and political stances. Even the names "Jimmy", "Robbie" and "Billy" are associated with lowbrow culture, but they are natural forms of Christian names in my own family. I can count Nevilles, Percys, Cliffords, Plantagenets, Metcalfes, Calverts, Robinsons, Robsons, Wests, FitzAlans, FitzHamons, Wyvills, Scropes, etc in my intimate circle back in England during feudal times. I assumed as you do, that the Plantagenet dynasty was the most recent for myself, but then reconsidered since I do not have ALL of my facts on paper. The instance between Richard III and Henry VII was played out extremely dramatically in my own backyard over in England, which makes the subject dear to my heart--I know matter-of-factly that I'm descended from both Plantagenet Lancastrians and Yorkists, but further royal stems (Tudor-unsure, Stuart-who bloody knows?) I am unsure of.
Given the circumstances, I do not know which side they took, but also I descend from the Wood family which owned Warwick and Richard's Middleham Castle and is connected in so many ways (chiefly economic) to other families (the Baron Masham for instance) which owned it that we are probably all intimately related. Then again, the Duke of Brittany supported Henry Tudor and our family was historically tied to Brittany as well as Richmond Castle. These feudal plots, twists and turns are so intermingled that I lose focus and can't determine with total accuracy either way. I don't see how supporting one side politically rules out familial affiliation with the other (Warwick and Clarence teamed up with Margaret of Anjou, for instance). In this respect, I am glad that we do not live in feudal times! It is interesting to note that Albion's Seed has a lot of interesting points, but I don't know if I agree with a lot of the author's own interpretations of the data--he is a German and they are notorious for misperceptions on the English. He is right on one thing though; I can't count any recent East Anglian ancestors, just the "Dark Corners of England" (in Puritan eyes) and Normandy (oh God, they hate our Norman ancestors like the Plague!). Then again, Fischer states that Massachusetts bore most colonists from Suffolk and got me thinking of a Margaret Tudor/Stuart and Mary Tudor/Brandon descendent rivalry, as Virginians were Stuart supporters (many Episcopalian Scots went to the Carolinas) and we all know how New England and Virginia don't get along. The Dudleys used Lady Jane Grey for their Puritan mission in Holland under Robert (New Amsterdam sound familiar?), supposedly Elizabeth's lover. Is the royal family still suffering from this type of internal division and strife between liberals and conservatives? I am willing to bet that there are a lot of Henry Tudor's descendents floating about in America, but mostly focused in the New England/Virginia areas and those migration streams. Why else do we continue their extreme politics and partisanry like it was long ago? But then again, Tudors and Stuarts did not mingle with their subjects as Plantagenets did.