"El imperio en el que nunca se pone el sol." or 'the sun never set on your empire' was a remark attributed to a loyal courtier of the Holy Roman Empire Charles V. His possessions spanned the globe. Philip II gambled its power on the Spanish Armada. Filthy weather in the Channel thwarted his desire to conquer Britain and by the18th Century the English crowed the same sentiment as the hildagos.
"On her dominions the sun never sets; before his evening rays leave the spires of Quebec, his morning beams have shone three hours on Port Jackson, and while sinking from the waters of Lake Superior, his eye opens upon the Mouth of the Ganges."
Throughout the 19th Century one point the tiffs and teabags dominated a quarter of the world's population. Maintenance of this empire sapped the Home Countries of capital and manpower. Sea to Sea to sea drained the vitality of the nation. Victorianism led to the noble massacres of Flanders and the Somme. WWII wiped out another generation and the Empire collapsed with the surrender of its Crown Jewels to the niggers, wogs, micks, and chinks.
Winston Churchill was furious. He was English 100%. His mother was an American. Her beauty was international. As an historian Churchill understood the weight of time on power.
"The empires of the future are the empires of the mind." 1943.
Britain's remaining oversea possessions consists of Gibralter, the Falklands, Bermuda, St. Helena, Ascension, British Antarctica, the South Georgia Islands, Tristan de Cunha, the South Sandwich Islands, Akrotiri and Dhekelia, the Pitcairn Islands, British Indian Ocean Territory, The British Virgin Islands, The Turks and Caicos Islands, Anguilla, Montserrat, and The Cayman Islands. Margaret Thatcher fought a long distance war against Argentina to reconquer the South Atlantic islands. The last ten years the UK has waged a war in the Middle East against Islamist extremists. The cost of that campaign became clear this last week.
Last week after the beheading of an American journalist by ISIS militants, a British friend was calling for the re-invasion of Iraq to wipe the Muslims off the map.
I reminded him that the British Empire was forged by Celts of Ireland and Scotland.
These people were its foot soldiers.
They are no more.
The days of empire are over for England.
If only America could see that truth.
ps Free Northern Ireland.
