Shaking the Tree: A TLIAW

Indigo

Indigo

Shaking the tree.jpg

What is this? Oh god I'm the bolded text aren't I?

Yes, yes, nothing but text corresponding to a tired format people follow. You were saying?

What is this TLIAW about exactly? Some sort of horticultural revolution? Baobabs become a domesticated animal?

I can't wrap my mind around how off-base that guess is - literally, I mean I have no mind I'm just unbolded text. I will say this - this is meant as a distraction from the circus of horrors that is electoral politics right now.

Ok, I'm completely satisfied by that description.

Oh fuck - that's not how the script goes, you know that. Come on, ask me when the POD is. Do it.

And when exactly does our botanical adventure begin?

I'm oh so glad you asked. It all begins in a cold January - just over 197 years ago.
 
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Steve Brinson

Steve Brinson

Well, this is interesting!
I can't find anything in the historical calendar that seems to correspond to anything you've mentioned, so I'm quite looking forward to seeing the PoD.
 
Indigo

Indigo

wolfram said:
Well, this is interesting!
I can't find anything in the historical calendar that seems to correspond to anything you've mentioned, so I'm quite looking forward to seeing the PoD.
Click to expand...
Thanks - I got the time messed up actually; 1820 not 1821 is what I meant.
 
Knightmare

Knightmare

Indigo said:
If you're going off of the picture - close but far. It'll become more obvious with the first post but - one last chance for anyone guess correctly and get a cookie.
Click to expand...
No, just googled Africa 1820, some of the first answers came up about South Africa.
 
Indigo

Indigo

Edward VII.jpg

Edward VII (1837-1851)

The End of an Era

The Duke of Kent and Strathearn's accession to the throne on the death of his brother William was an entirely expected affair - he was healthier and significantly younger than his older brothers - and unlike George, Frederick, or William - he had an heir; the free-spirited Princess Alexandrina Victoria of Kent. Still hale and hearty at 69 - Edward VII took an interest in reforms across the board; his backing of the Melbourne ministry throughout the Jamaican Affair probably prevented the government's collapse (and he would be even more keen on Melbourne's successor Thomas Spring Rice) - and alongside Prime Minister Hagerman he is known as one of the key Fathers of Confederation - some scholars suspect that without King Edward's advocacy we would never even have had the 1837 British North America Act. Edward's reign would take a tragic turn, however, in 1840 - bare months after Princess Alexandrina Victoria had married her cousin the happy couple was assassinated by Edward Oxford - shooting them on a side street after the carriage had taken a wrong turn. Alexandrina Victoria would be eulogized as "the People's Princess" and remembered for a life tragically cut short - and the King was left devastated. He became a retiring figure for the remainder of his reign - his absence from the scene is one of the factors attributed to increased parliamentary power over the time period. In the end, the man who had once been a harsh disciplinarian and an activist king was just a tired remnant of his former self - and a figure of pity for many when he passed away weeks after his 84th birthday.​
 
Indigo

Indigo

George.jpg

George V (1851-1904)

The Very Model of a Monarch Major-General
​
For most of his early life George of Cambridge was at best a distant royal - at Edward's accession in 1837 he was in fact fifth in line to the throne - behind Princess Alexandrina Victoria, Ernest, Duke of Cumberland (and Teviotdale), Prince George of Cumberland, and his own father Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge. That all changed when Princess Alexandrina Victoria and George of Cumberland were shot to death just weeks after their wedding - and George, who had been preparing for a career in the army - was suddenly third in line, and with his father and uncles ancient, the almost certain heir to the throne. George was rather hastily recalled from Ireland for what would be a period of intense preparation - and George learned the basics of statecraft - with one exception.
His covert marriage to Sarah Fairbrother in 1847 very nearly capsized the monarchy. The weak-willed prince had compromised the honor of the royal family - and were it not for Edward's increasing senility and the desire of many to avoid another shock to the succession - George would have been stricken from the succession. As it was, the whole matter was hushed up - but with the consequence that the promiscuous George never married legitimately. Both of his cousins had died in holy matrimony - while he would be known absurdly as the Virgin King.
His popularity would only further dip with the Crimean War - when the King's desire to meddle in military matters meant he made a fool of himself in a war that was increasingly becoming known as a bloodbath. Bruised by the whole affair, George V assumed a very low profile - one that would last until World War 1.

Bismarck's invasion of Hanover in 1866 - in hopes that George would accept the loss of part of his domain as a fait accompli - was a fatal mistake. Initial absurdly optimistic predictions of a war only seven weeks long gave way to a brutal conflict - and Britain was pivotal to the course of the war; decimating the Italian Navy - and the landings in Bremerhaven were key to the Kaiser finally suing for peace in 1871. George V would forever be associated with the war and with a name change for the monarchy (and Wilhelm's dumb quip about the University of Hanover as well.)

The rest of his reign, caught up in power struggles between Gladstone and the "Sephardic Sorcerer" Benjamin Disraeli, and a host of foreign conflicts of a thankfully smaller scale - would be a long anticlimax. When he died in 1904, the British people would be caught up in fond memories for a man who had been the last of the old warriors.
 
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