Dark Earth General Discussion

Would have love to see the DE Coronation Fleet Review, would have been spectacular.

As a related note, with the absence of an English Civil War and the interregnum of the Commonwealth, the Crown Jewels were not destroyed or remade as in @. Additionally, the Three Brothers and Mirror of Great Britain were not pawned in Amsterdam under Charles I, but remain as parts of the collection. There are several pieces that stretch back to the days of Richard the Lionheart and Alfred the Great and a special few from the days of Arthur.

Excalibur is separate from the Crown Jewels as a Treasure of the Realm. It doesn’t just have a ceremonial role.

"Succeeding James to the throne was King Charles I (reigned 1625-1650), whose rule would be dominated by the Thirty Years' War on the Continent. He encountered many struggles with Parliament regarding his religious policies, his marriage to a Roman Catholic queen and the questions of absolute monarchy and the divine right of kings. These were subsumed by the wider conflict against the Holy Roman Empire, Austria and Spain in the Thirty Years' War, where England's forces were vital to the Protestant cause. Fighting took place not only in Europe and the Americas, but in Africa and Asia in what would be the model for many wars to come. Charles I's nephew, Prince Rupert of the Rhine, was one of the great Protestant field commanders of the war, his successes bettered only by the English general Sir Oliver Cromwell and King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden.

Rebellions in Ireland and Scotland were suppressed, but Charles was forced to bow to the will of Parliament in order to fund the campaigns and dismissed several key advisers. The Grand Settlement of 1642 instituted a system of mixed government, preventing the growing spectre of open conflict between the Royalist and Parliamentarian parties of the realm, but proving to be only a temporary compromise. King Charles was stricken by terrible apoplexy and slowly recovered over the next three years, constraining the direct exercise of royal authority. The final years of his reign saw his earlier ardour tempered by a preference for consensus, but he is not regarded as one of England's finer kings.

Charles II (1650-1685) was far more successful and popular, winning renown as the 'Merry Monarch' as the profile of Puritanism faded. At home, the Great Plague and the Great Fire of London caused substantial damage and disruption. Two political parties, the Tories and Whigs, began to emerge at this point as the nation continued to transition to a mixed constitutional monarchy. England gained control over Dunkirk and Tangiers through careful diplomacy in the early part of his reign and extended its colonial empire in the Americas and Asia, particularly through the expanded influence of the East India Company. The Anglo-Dutch Wars that raged through much of the second half of the 17th century saw England's naval superiority seriously threatened, but ultimate victory was gained by 1680 in the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War after many defeats. Piracy was a particular scourge in the Caribbean during the Caroline period and the Royal Navy established several permanent squadrons in foreign waters as a consequence. The Scientific, Commercial and Arcane Revolutions all reached their high points under Charles II and England supplanted the Netherlands as the wealthiest power in Europe by 1685.

The death of Charles without a male heir saw the throne pass to his brother James, Duke of York. He faced immediate rebellions in Scotland and Ireland from Protestant aristocrats who feared the prospect of a Catholic heir and his Declaration of Indulgence was met with substantial opposition from the Church of England. His moves towards religious toleration were seen as thinly disguised attempts to promote Catholicism. In what was known as the Glorious Revolution of 1688, a group of Protestant nobles invited William of Orange, son-in-law of James II, to invade and take the throne. In a brief campaign, James was routed and forced to flee to the sanctuary of the court of King Louis XIV of France. Parliament passed the Bill of Rights the next year, declaring that James had abandoned his throne and prohibiting any Roman Catholic from ascending to the throne of England or marrying an English monarch. It also set out a number of certain fundamental rights and liberties of Englishmen that remain at the heart of the unwritten Constitution and English law."

So what happen with Prince Rupert of the Rhine, with no English Civil War.