"Decisive battle" (I use quotes because it's kind if a textbook example of Sun Tzu's maxim about winning 100 battles and still losing...) for May up at GFT.
Cavaliers, Roundheads, severed limbs, breasts (OK, one breast)...it's like Jerry Springer with matchlocks.
Feel free to dissect and dissent.
Good post Chief. Good insight on tactical victories vs strategic failures. And someone's good insight on the the "Taliban of Scotland". But then the the rest of northern, southern, and eastern Europe for hundreds of years on both sides of 1645 was overrun by Talibs, Wahhabis, and other religious fanatics on both sides. All sides I should say.
ReplyDeleteGreat painting you posted also, 'The Wounded Cavalier'. Not sure I believe all the suggested symbolism that has been written about this piece. But you can clearly see that a dying Royalist (possibly Anglican or Catholic?) is being comforted by a Puritan(?) lass. Not sure I believe that the scene ever happened in real life. Some of the founding sisters of Puritanism would have danced on his grave, and his female relatives would have been just as bad to a fallen Roundhead. But the painting does appear to speak out against religious warfare.
But a 3:57 AM post??? You need to take a warm glass of milk before bed before those late hours kill you.
mike
mike
mike: The location I found it claimed that the "Wounded Cavalier" painting was supposed to be a Shakespearean allegory. WTF? I did like it as an illo for the post for all the reasons you mentioned.
ReplyDeleteAnd, yes, the 17th Century has always been the poster boy (poster century?) for me for the reasons that religion makes for such bad politics. Religious rule is nearly always disastrous for everyone except the hierophants. One reason for NOT getting involved further in the hinterlands of central Asia is that they haven't figured this out, and we risk being pulled back into sectarian conflict when we do. Not smart - let them welter in their own theocratic Dark Age...
And the bottom line is that with the kidlets, the only time I have to blog is after they go to bed. I wanted to get this one done and with a weekend morning ahead it was worth the late night/early morning...
Thanks for the observations.