Kind hearts more than coronets
•
by Alphabethis
Kind hearts more than coronets and simple faith more than Norman
blood.
I first saw this sentence in an English course of mine, many, many
years ago. It sounds so beautiful and deep, specially the "kind hearts and
coronets" that I'd join erepublik again just to write an article with
such a gem of the language.
The sentence comes from a Tennyson poem and it appears in a film
(which was reviewed in my old course):
"The film's title derives from Tennyson's 1842 poem Lady Clara Vere de
Vere: "Kind hearts are more than coronets, And simple faith than
Norman blood." (wikipedia)
Needless to say, it's easy for anyone to identify who our "kind
hearts" are, the likes of Don Dapper, Hugh, Sexagenarian,.. and even
easier which are the coronets ( or the pretending coronets).
Yes, New Era has the simple faith, and the simple strength of the
simple truth, ours is not "strength in unity", but strength in faith
for a better eUK, more inclusive and free, with less "norman blood".
I personally don't have anything against elites as long as they do
their job, and as they're removed when the smell is just too strong,
like right now in eUK. Yes, politicians and diapers should be changed
often and for the same reason. A new elite will come, and it'll
corrupt itself, but meanwhile, we'll have a working elite, not the rubbish we
have now.
This "ethernal" fight between old-corrupt-elites and the people
demanding a new and clean "elite" is as old as man. My avatar, the
sword, is a photo of "Tizon" (firebrand), one of the swords of "El Cid"
( Rodrigo Diaz de
Bivar), the first castilian heroe, banished from Castile and who
conquered and commanded, with a handful of castilian knights, a land the size of Scotland,
full of moors. "El Cid", among many other things, is the symbol
of uncorruptible loyalty ( he was loyal to his dead king, probably
assesinated by his brother) and his independence of power. In the
poem "Poem of El Cid" you can encounter sentences like this:
- "you, king, banishes me for one year, but I'll banish myself for
seven", or
- "what a good vassal, if there were such a good Lord".
The impact of such a real heroe ( not invented "a la French") in
Spain's history is huge, and probably, many other heroes who followed,
specially the Conquistadors, tried to emulate him.
In "El Cid"'s time, Castille was not the bigger nor the most powerful,
nor the most noble kingdom, yet, it was the braver and more austere,
"kind hearts but not coronets", while the old kingdom of Leon ( lion,
but it's a matter of fact a derivation of "Legio VIII Gemina") was
full of counts, dukes and nobility, yet it was rather incapable, helpless. Yes,
Castille was the young, strong and vibrant, but not of high noble blood. That was
the spirit of "El Cid" and Castille. In the end, the kindness and
Castilian (even the language) prevailed over Leon, even the rest of
the Iberian peninsula, and it invaded literally half the world. Of
course, decadence would come afterwards, as it usually happens with
any living entity, any elite, any kind country or person.
I won't bore you any more ( for this article only, I have plenty of
new articles to bore you).
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Thanks for this article. Gave me a reason to read a bit more of Tennyson.
Didn't get the reference to French invented hero, to whom do you refer ?
Regarding El Cid, he is also the main character in the most renown play of Corneille (one of the greatest french dramatist), called "Le Cid".
To the point that most of the kids in France know extract of this play.
In French it is amazing, in English a bit less powerful, but I guess it must be beautiful in Spanish too (being a latin language).
beaumanoir, French , real life french, won the "battle" of culture and literacy, that's obvious. Spanish won real glory, real epic. "Invented" hero is almost a tradition, starting with early "troubadours", Roland and alia. I can't think of any other example now, perhaps just a rant of mine,....
Some quotes from the play (1636):
"True, I am young, but for souls nobly born
Valor doesn’t await the passing of years."
"Rodrigue, have you any courage?
Anyone but my father
Would find out on the spot."
"Oh! how many actions, how many fabulous exploits
Remain without glory in the midst of the night. "
"To conquer without risk is to triumph without glory"
Well troubadours had mostly invented stuff actually.
Almost half of the knights of the round table authors were French and Lancelot didn't really existed 😁.
As for the French won the battle of culture... well I don't know.
But culture didn't stop the Huns in 451, the Gallo-Romans and Franks did.
Literacy didn't end the Arabs western invasion, Charles Martel did.
Art didn't conquer Charlemagne empire, or the Christian realm in the middle-east...
Huns were stopped by Visigoths, which eventually refuged to Spain, and comprise the germanic share of the average spaniard. About Charles Martel, yes. Visigoths elites converted to islam, massively. Wulfilas bible is the largest early germanic book. It's hard to tell what "spanish" mean, or "french". For example, north west region of Galicia was populated by french people in X, XI century, that's why we have surname such as "Franco", literally Frankish, French. Many of them were french jews.
And I could go on. Not saying you guys didn't have your load of epicness and fights though. Just that France is not the biggest country in western Europe, being surrounded by the UK, the Netherland (used to), Germany, Italy and Spain, because its ennemies were peacemonger...
And look after le Chevalier de Bayard, not as interesting as El Cid, but a good and gallant fighter too.
even in "modern times", 1700. we have migrations of french and german people in some towns of Andalusia, "La Lusiana" ( Louis X??), "La Carolina" ( Karl, German)... , We have even a town which embraced a handful of samurais in XVIII century, they still bear the surname "Japon" ( Japan).
A lot of Visigoths during the battle of the Catalaunique plain... but the Visigoth were part of, not those who stopped.
Come on, don't insult Aetius the last roman. The guy is epicness incarnated.
I'm not saying french were unable to fight. Yet, they still lack the "spanish touch" of crazyness and epic. France got a "critical mass" and they had the largest armies of knights for centuries. Only Spanish tercios in 15th-16th century were able to stop them, defending against bigger armies.
Romans were worthless at those times, they had disbanded the heavy infantry and the legions were a joke, a ghost of what they used to be. Attila opposed his army against goths, just mockering romans.
another example , Vigil de Quiñones and a group of Spanish soldiers endured a siege of three hundred and sixty days enclosed in a church in the Philipines wars, just imagine one year living in a church , surrounded by enemies. Yes, epic, crazy.
Francisco Pizarro disembarked somewhere in Venezuela, with 100-200 men, and some horses, travelled some thousand kilometers in unknown territory , and then , at the very first opportunity , just when they were in presense of Inca king, a Spanish priest started to pray to try to convert them to cristianity and a cavalry charge captured the Inca king. 100 spanish invading a country of 15 million, epic? crazyness? spanish.
We sure had a lot of knights, alas they fought with their guts rather than their brains unlike the British 😑. And the Spanish were the most powerful country in europe in the 16th (and a bit more before/after), and tercios the ultimate fighting formation at this period of time I'm okay with that. But the French also fought and often defeated all Europe united in many of our wars.
Regarding crazyness and epic... I don't know. We likely all see our country like epic and crazy.
Charging an entranched army, small group after small group because no one was willing to wait for the fight to begin... and the King arriving on the battlefield, seeing his army annihilated but charging nonetheless is pretty much the apex of epicness and crazinnes (or stupidity your pick) yet that's what arrived at Crecy...
French were always intelligent and massive and united. English were always wise, technologically superior and excellent organized ( except in this damned game). Agincourt was the typical example of english technology ( arches) and wisdom, against massive French. And all Napoleon stuff may be resumed in Le Grand Armee, 2 million soldiers when other countries managed 100k.
Well Bayard holding a bridge alone against 200 spanish during the Italian war was not so bad neither.
For Quinones never heard of it... strange though because the US soldiers had artillery... why not blow the church?
As for Pizarro, yes, one of the most amazing thing which happens in military history ^ ^.
I.... really enjoyed both the article and the comments. Nice to have some proper culture in erepublik sometimes.
Absolutely not... the napoleonic war were so much more than sheer numbers. And the French were actually almost always in massive inferiority (in terms of number). That's a very very poor resumed.
Quiñones was surrounded by native philipines, American army was about to reach them with a cannon but they were intercepted by native philipines rebels which were fighting then with the new masters, Americans.
I mean, there were times when we had number superiority, but the strenght of the Grande armée, was conscription. Line of command base on ability rather than birth. Better artillery. Better understanding of artillery tactics. And very potent generals (my own favorite being Davoult, the Iron Marshall... quite a man too).
Beaumanoir, except in Austerlitz, all the other battles, French have mobile artillery ( by horses) and loads and loads of soldiers. Yet, they were defeated in Bailen by regular Spanish forces (180😎, the first defeat. Again decaying elites ( the Borbons) and a political takeover ( Jose Bonaparte as a king) were the cause of the initial "victory" of the French.
Wikipedia : " C'est finalement l'artillerie française, mise en batterie sur la rive opposée, qui contraint les Espagnols à refluer et met fin à la bataille." , the artillery , mate, I was surprised that by sword or spear, French would have stopped Tercios at their best.
They sure had loads and loads of soldiers, but no more than those in front, and most of the time far less.
One example with the rather unknown battle of Auerstaedt (while the much more renown battle of Iena was talking place and where Napoleon was also in number/artillery inferiority):
Davoult with his corps, encounter the main Prussian army.
25000 frenchmen and about fifty canons against 65000 Germans and five times more canons.
Yet in the end, French victory.
The Prussian Generalissime is killed and Davoult enter in Berlin.
For the stopped tercios at their best part... well we didn't, the Garigliano battle was a Spanish victory . Yet Bayard alone stand against countless spanish and one after an other killed a lot of them... covering the French retreat a sword in the hand. To cover Bayard retreat they had to use artillery though (otherwise he would have been killed or captured likely at one point or an other).
Very likely, Bayard was an excellent swordman, and much more skilled, and he faced one by one. Most tercios didn't have that such a good military education. I see it as more education than epic, but epic nonetheless.
Grande Armee was more a masterwork of logical use of current technology than anything really, really new, of course improving lots of technology, and Napoleon had an IQ of 150 ( studied and proved), but Swedes have had much more advanced armies and they never got to conquer europe, you need a couple of million of soldiers for that. Gentle French countryside can nourish such a big population. France has simply the best climate and best agriculture of whole Europe, that's simply a fact.
Facing on a bridge a small army by your own. It might be more education but not a lot of educated men could do that 😁. The man was likely the most amazing swordman of his time and few men in history have done such thing (and Garigliano wasn't ofc his only feat of epicness).
As for the Grand Armée, I concurre, nothing really new. Just a people army through conscription, a better artillery, gifted individuals at key positions (rather than often not so competent noble borns)...
...a greater understanding of movement and use of canons for the French.
And a couple of million soldiers... but that's the case of every army who had marched successfully through Europe. Swiss had always been amazing fighters, but they sure lack numbers also.
Yet most of the battle were fought in numerical inferiority for the French (simply because more at home doesn't mean more in the others homes ^ ^).
Wow didn't expect that, very interesting thanks.
We need more of this around here.
nice article (no offence) but normally every comment in your articles is flaming you and saying what you have written is a load of rubbish(I don't always agree that it is), but this is a good article