September 3

1752, 1658

Actually, there is no September 3 1752, not in British history anyway. "The Calendar (New Style) Act" of 1750 received royal approval in May 1751, and came into effect on Wednesday September 2 1752... but in order for the new calendar, the Gregorian, to concur with all the other countries of the world that had already adopted it – as with the Euro and so much else, the whole continent had made the switch a century ago, but Britain clung to the anachronism of its sovereign autonomy, until eventually it was obliged to give it up - it was necessary to reduce the year by eleven days, and so the day following September 2 was... September 14.

Until that time, and despite the efforts of Fra Roger Bacon both to explain the errors and to demonstrate their solution as long ago as the 13th century, the Christian world had stuck religiously to the Julian calendar, attributed to Julius Caesar but actually borrowed by him from the "New Egyptian" system: a 365 day year with a quadrennial leap year (see Feb 29). What Fra Bacon demonstrated ("Opus Majus", 1266) was that this depended on Earth rotating fully every 365 days and 6 hours; but it doesn't; it rotates every 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 45 seconds, adding disparity by the tick and implication by the tock - more than 11 minutes every year, a whole day approximately every hundred years.

And in the Christian world, this mattered, because the Council of Nicea in 325 had fixed the date of Easter at the spring equinox; but by the late Middle Ages the rebirth of fertility at Oester (they spelled it that way back then, from the Greek oestrus, "egg") was slipping back into no-buds-yet still-winter, making something of a mockery of the Resurrection. Bacon's mathematics were accepted, but his suggestion that the calendar be adjusted by a single day every 125 years was rejected, because that still didn't solve the problem; nonetheless it provided a starting-point for the work of others (you can read the full tale in my novel "The Persian Fire - click here), and a new calendar was adopted during the papacy of Gregory XIII in 1582 - the reason for its eponym - achieved through the immediate loss of ten days in order to correct the slippage, and the introduction of an additional new leap day for centenary years, divisible by 400. The eleventh day in Britain reflected the further slippage over the 190 years before it finally stepped into line, and this despite eurosceptic mobs - poor souls deprived of that year's birthday party, or whose heroics might now not be commemorated - who flocked the streets, demanding “give us back our eleven days” (click here).

This blog is trying, desperately sometimes, to record the positives of history; but sometimes the negatives are of such significance that they cannot be ignored or overlooked. So, today, is Oliver Cromwell's day – and threefold: the Battle of Dunbar in 1650, of Worcester in 1651, of his death in 1658. Oliver Cromwell, that nauseating stinkpot of mediaeval political correctness, the founding patron of the New Model Army which still barricades our culture with its intellectual fascism, still pickets our brains, and still demands that the most narrow-minded of bigotry be declared an inalienable human right. The spiritual father of "Woke" and "Cancel". If you are looking for Oliver Cromwell on the Index to this blog, you won't find him; he is listed among the GERs.

Worse even than Henry Tudor's ransack of the monasteries, the zeal with which Cromwell's devotees gouged out the eyes of gargoyles and reduced the life of the spirit of Man to mere sackcloth and ashes. Cromwell who suppressed the Levellers, who shut down the theatres and the art workshops, who subdued Eireland, who prorogued the elected Parliament in favour of the Barebones Parliament, and when it failed to achieve its grandiose and vainglorious ambition – to establish World Puritanism, to build the Kingdom of the God of Uncreation, bible-black, morbid and morose, life-hating, a universal deity with his headquarters in Westminster – he threw out even the Barebones, and set himself up as the One and Only Ruler in their place. Lord Protector! Lovely euphemism that. Napoléon Buonaparte did the same to the French Revolution. Several African and South American dictators come to mind who regard themselves in the same light. 

There is – but only just – an argument in favour of Cromwell. That he did good things during his dictatorship. And so did Mao, Franco, Caucescu, Milosevich, Mussolini, and no doubt, if one looked hard enough, Stalin and Hitler too. It is not a defence however; only, at best, a mitigation; and even then only partial. That he reorganised, for example, the Church of England – except that he excluded Papists, Prelatists, and Anti-Trinitarians. That he established the United Kingdom – a boon for Englishmen, but a form of servitude for Gaels and Celts. That he enhanced the universities – with men of his own kind at the helm. And no doubt Jack the Ripper once helped an old lady across the street, and the Boston Strangler was notoriously kind to dogs.

As with all tyrants, his death nourished anarchy, because he left behind no other structure of government than edicts and sycophancy. And as to his legacy; what he destroyed is unrestorable. What he failed to destroy his disciples are still working at, the Ironsides of Political Correctness, the worshippers of his second epiphany, who has come in several would-be forms, the most recent obvious examples being Margaret Thatcher and Donald Trump. In the bowels of Christ, let them recognise how far they are mistaken!

That's his funeral escutcheon, below

Amber page

1718

1976: Viking 2 (US) softlanded on Mars.