Quite what the relative merits of the effectively pan-European Royal class has got to do with the Ashes I'm not sure, but George V denied his cousin Nicolas asylum against the wishes of Lloyd George (who it could be argued was still in thrall to the concept of Victoria as the Grandmother of Europe and that the family should look after each other). His reasoning was that the British people viewed Nicolas as a tyrant at worst and a throwback to earlier times as an unconstitutional monarch and that Alexandra was pro-German (well she was German).
By allowing him in he was worried that this would cause ferment amongst the British working class (who had felt the effects of the three year war more than anyone elase) and that they'd all be up against the wall.
At this time the primary concern of many of the European ruling classes was revolution (and the war of course) so that's why he justified what he did. Perhaps Nicolas should have gone to his other cousin, Wilhelm. He seemed like a lovely chap as well.
Not that I think the behaviour of a load of inbred rulers a hundred years ago has much bearing on whether Haddin is a decent keeper or if Ian Bell is a bottle merchant!
Excellent response.
Agree on some points.
Asking cousin Wilhelm was not on for two main reasons:
a/ Germany was an opponent - and the Russian royal family fleeing to Germany would have been a massive propaganda coup for the Bolsheviks who would have held them up as exhibit A for treachery to Russia (even the Bolsheviks themselves had been supported by the Germans in order to destabilzie Russia).
b/ Kaiser Willy had to go into exile not long later anyway.
The German usurpers that is your royal family were extremely concerned, as you mentioned, that the working classes who had been decimated by the war would also ferment rebellion against the monarchy in the UK. The Fabians and the Scottish shipyard workers amongst others were quite influential in the UK at this time. So the royals, not for the first, nor last time, pragmatically protected their own selfish interests.
Czar Nicholas and family were slaughtered, the German Saxe-Coburgs underwent a witness protection type of identity change to the fictitious "Windsor" in order to (publically at least) distance themselves from their Germanic roots and sympathies and all the while, the true English monarch headed to live in Australia in the 1950's.
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Topic: The Ashes 2013 (Read 150505 times)