The Magna Carta, The Tudors, The Stuarts, a family feud results in a synthesis of idealism.

The English were the country that the United States won independence from. Philosophers like John Locke, Montsequieu and John Stuart Mill had a profound influence on the America’s founding fathers. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson debated the importance liberty and equality after the English and French philosophers had synthesized these ideas. Americans tend to think of the English as an aloof and cold people. Their enlightenment philosophies were able to simmer in the kettle of American thought. T.S Elliot a poet in the early 20th century was from America and interpreted British virtue after the age of Imperialism. Sometimes the best person to interpret the virtue of a people is an outsider who lives among the people for a prolonged period. Elliot was able to synthesize reserve, patience and order from an aloof and cold temperament.

The Magna Carta was signed by King John of England in 1215. The Barons of the day had won individual rights from their king. This represented a significant breakdown in the feudal system. With Eleanor of Aquitaine we have a joining of potentially three cultures resulting in a synthesis of thought. The Basque independence, and French fraternity and Anglo Saxon fair play resulted in an English idealism that permeates the British people even today.
After Richard “the lion hearted” and then John “the same John that battled with Robin Hood” we have Tudor England. After the English civil war the Stuarts take over. After Elizabeth, James the VI of Scotland began the stuart dynasty and united Scotland with Britain. The galvanizing of Britain into the United Kingdom was the beginning of an idealism that transferred the British idealistic values into an economic domination known as imperialism.

The English have a rich tradition of idealism. Perhaps my favorite statesman of the enlightenment era was Thomas Moore. He chose principal over the wealth, power and influences that Henry the Eighth could have bestowed. Henry’s and Ann Boleyn’s Daughter Elizabeth is perhaps the most important monarch in the History of the United Kingdom. Please read Elizabeth’s parting words to her Navy before they faced the Spanish Armada. Elizabeth’s sacrificial character trait is exemplary of the British people she ruled. We see these types of sacrifices in Kipling’s poem “The white mans burden” and in the Duke of Wellington’s patriotism. These examples of British sacrifice and duty pushed the British people into an imperial empire which rivaled ancient Rome. Like ancient Rome they were not without their mistakes. Wellington’s sacrificial example at Waterloo was followed by an aggressive British officer in Amritsar who slaughtered hundreds of women and children in a court yard in British controlled India. Did the white man’s burden give the British people license to economically conquer the world? In the end the answer was no. Gandhi had the school children of Britain reading his letters to the editor and writing their own letters in British newspapers. There was a real disconnect with economic domination and a people who valued self government. It could be said that The British Empire’s fall was based on this disconnect of virtue.

Idealism is a noun in the language of virtue. It consists of sacrifice, duty, patience and reserve.



Taken from http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/elizabeth.htm

My loving people, we have been persuaded by some, that are careful of our safety, to take heed how we commit ourselves to armed multitudes, for fear of treachery; but I assure you, I do not desire to live to distrust my faithful and loving people. Let tyrants fear; I have always so behaved myself that, under God, I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and good will of my subjects. And therefore I am come amongst you at this time, not as for my recreation or sport, but being resolved, in the midst and heat of the battle, to live or die amongst you all; to lay down, for my God, and for my kingdom, and for my people, my honor and my blood, even the dust. I know I have but the body of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart of a king, and of a king of England, too; and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realms: to which, rather than any dishonor should grow by me, I myself will take up arms; I myself will be your general, judge, and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field. I know already, by your forwardness, that you have deserved rewards and crowns; and we do assure you, on the word of a prince, they shall be duly paid you. In the mean my lieutenant general shall be in my stead, than whom never prince commanded a more noble and worthy subject; not doubting by your obedience to my general, by your concord in the camp, and by your valor in the field, we shall shortly have a famous victory over the enemies of my God, of my kingdom, and of my people.
Elizabeth I of England – 1588


Taken from http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/Kipling.html

Rudyard Kipling, The White Man's Burden, 1899
Take up the White Man's burden--Send forth the best ye breed--Go bind your sons to exileTo serve your captives' need;To wait in heavy harness,On fluttered folk and wild--Your new-caught, sullen peoples,Half-devil and half-child.Take up the White Man's burden--In patience to abide,To veil the threat of terrorAnd check the show of pride;By open speech and simple,An hundred times made plainTo seek another's profit,And work another's gain.Take up the White Man's burden--The savage wars of peace--Fill full the mouth of FamineAnd bid the sickness cease;And when your goal is nearestThe end for others sought,Watch sloth and heathen FollyBring all your hopes to nought.Take up the White Man's burden--No tawdry rule of kings,But toil of serf and sweeper--The tale of common things.The ports ye shall not enter,The roads ye shall not tread,Go mark them with your living,And mark them with your dead.Take up the White Man's burden--And reap his old reward:The blame of those ye better,The hate of those ye guard--The cry of hosts ye humour(Ah, slowly!) toward the light:--"Why brought he us from bondage,Our loved Egyptian night?"Take up the White Man's burden--Ye dare not stoop to less--Nor call too loud on FreedomTo cloke your weariness;By all ye cry or whisper,By all ye leave or do,The silent, sullen peoplesShall weigh your gods and you.Take up the White Man's burden--Have done with childish days--The lightly proferred laurel,The easy, ungrudged praise.Comes now, to search your manhoodThrough all the thankless yearsCold, edged with dear-bought wisdom,The judgment of your peers!