Frans Stamkart: Salome (1910 - 1915)

"This world won't allow what couldn't ever come about."

A point comes when I can no longer comprehend the context within which I find myself dabbling, for I can no more than dabble in the incomprehensible British peerage system. My forebears did not lose all their standing when they were forbidden the right of ascension. They entered the netherworld of dukes, earls, and sirs alien to the American all-men-created-equal creed. Infinitesimal differences seemed to yield enormous shifts. Even seven or eight generations after JohnOfGaunt's era, his X-times great-grandaughters remained in The Peerage, and marriage to them elevated their husband's standing. Through successive marriages, the bloodline migrated to Ireland, where generations of husbands and sons participated in the subjugation of Irish natives.

The British colonized everything they could. They created plantations on land they'd stolen fair and square according to their own priorities and swords. They assigned generations of lord commissioners who lived in castles and enforced some of the most oppressive laws ever known in this world. Vanquished Scots were duly imported to work the land for their English overlords, with the only escape headright indenture, a transfer to the New World in the hopes that they might survive their obligation to become landowners themselves. They fled to Massachusetts, Maryland, Virginia, and Rhode Island. The ones in my succession survived, if not necessarily, or immediately succeeding.

My forebears mainly were the landowners and representatives thereof until some point when they were no longer in charge. The soap opera quality of British and Irish political life guaranteed frequent plot twists. There were always new conspiracies and controversies to which those in charge could fall prey. These might seem petty today, but they could and did have significant ramifications. Seven generations after John Of Gaunt, his 7X great-granddaughter, Margaret Forster, married John Dungan, Earl of Limerick Ireland, Viceroy or Governor General of Ireland, in 1578. Two generations later, their grandson William would die in London in 1636 at 29, leaving his widow, Frances (Latham) Dunham, my 9th great-grandmother, with an infant, Thomas, my eighth great-grandfather.

A year later, the widow and son would end up in Rhode Island Colony, the origin of King Philip's War, just as that uprising began. They apparently fled to Bucks County, Pennsylvania, perhaps seeking safety from the brutality, Bucks being securely on the far side of the Dutch Colonies and far enough away from the volatile Eastern British Colonies. They returned to Rhode Island after the hostilities, Thomas marrying and raising his children there before returning to Bucks County sometime before 1697. His daughter Sara would live to see eighty-five years in Bucks County, dying there just before the start of the Revolutionary War.

In this world, a new nobility emerged. It took many slow-moving generations before the heritage shifted from one governed by who your X-times great-grandfather was to what you did yourself. Had we not managed to break free of that poisonous tradition, we'd doubtless still be choosing our leaders via history-twisted lottery. The British Peerage produced some of the worst leaders this world has ever seen. It produced some winners, too, but the belief that blood rather than accomplishment determines qualifications couldn't have survived our post-evolution world. Though it's true that some conservatives sure seem to lust after that delusional past, they're unlikely to succeed in manifesting what they claim to desire. This world won't allow what couldn't ever come about.

©2024 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

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