Whigs
The Whigs were a British political party and an aristocratic 'jobs for the boys' organisation who were formed originally in the 1670s to prevent Charles II marrying one of his Catholic girlfriends and making his pet spaniel 'Marbles' Prime Minister of Great Britain. In the course of this struggle they eventually established the superiority of 'Whiggery' over monarchy which was to lead eventually to the American Revolution, the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution and[1] Simon Cowell.
Introduction:Definition of a Whig
To be a Whig in early British politics you needed (A) money, (B) mistress and (C) A Pompous Expectation of Self Worth. They were not so much a political party as a political class whose main aim was to redistribute the powers held by monarch to themselves. In other words they were really oily oligarchs rather than demented democats in the political parlance of the time. For populist reasons, the Whigs preferred to pretend that they represented the best of human development and that if society stayed under the guidance of them, all would be well and indeed swell for the Whigs. It didn't in the end turn out that way and eventually the Whigs would die out at the end of 19th century by killing too many of each other in tragic hunting accidents[2] or, more usually, rendered impotent from contracting venality disease from a desire for money. In the end, those who were left and still had their breeding bloodlines intact abandoned the sinking ship of the British Liberal party and merged into the Conservatives. This was really the same as being a Whig but without the hypocrisy or good table manners[3]
The Whigs are also famous for their lax attitude to sexual morality. This was odd as many of the older Whigs had fought for Mr Stiff Moral Rectitude Oliver Cromwell against the Vauxhall Cavaliers. However, after the The Restoration, the Whigs became a byword for sexual incontinence which was to later influence to liberalism and be one of its rallying banners against conservatives. But the Whig ruling elite wanted to make sure none of their elevated hanky-panky would not be imitated by the 'lower classes' in Britain. Any servants caught trying to ape the sexual foibles of their masters were quickly shipped off to a penal colony in the New World or later on, Australia.
Short History of the Whig Party in Great Britain
Condensed. Edited with all the rude stuff kept it.
Whigs, Wags and Toerags
The Whigs got their name from an advertisement seen in hairdressers salon in London offering 'Powdered Whigs For Real Gentlemen'. When one of their leaders asked who was responsible for the 'Miss Spelling', a colonial hairdresser called Tory thought they were talking about her and lost her job as the result. The Whigs liked their new political name - so much better than the less catchy 'Stop-The-King-Marrying-a-Papist-Whore Party' they had been previously used. However they had made an enemy with Tory Spelling who called all her friends for a sleep over and formed her own organisation known as 'Tory Spelling's Party and I Can Cry If I Want to Alliance' which was thankfullly shortened to the simpler Tory Party[4] Soon the Whigs and Tories were trading insults in the House of Commons and accusing each other of illegitimacy, illiteracy and inconstancy. The Whigs called the Tories 'Royal Toerags' whilst the Tories said the Whigs were 'Regicidal Maniacs'. So was born the art of modern political discourse.
The first Whig leaders included Lord Rochester (and his WAG wife Jane Eyre), his diseased brother Lord Sittingbourne and Lord Russell Brand, a well known sexual boaster who liked to mix political principle and pornography in equal measures. The only faintly normal Whig leader was Long John Locke who liked to write standing up on one leg and with a parrot on his shoulder. Together they formed a strange team but King Charles blinked first and sent his old girlfriend away. 'Marbles' was returned to his kennel and Charles resumed being the 'Merry Monarch' and drank all the sherry supplies in Whitehall Palace before his death in 1685.
Glorious Revolution - Jobs for Life!
James II wanted to return to the 'Good Old Days' and ordered the execution of Lord Rochester for writing filthy poetry criticising his love life. Lord Sittingbourne was locked in a wardrobe with his brother's mad wife whilst Russell Brand had his leather trousers cut off and burnt before his eyes before he was eviscerated in the name of 'Family Values'. Only John Locke was spared but his parrot got stuffed alive and was placed in James's private collection.
The King believed he had the Whigs licked and proudly announced that his wife Queen Mary of Post-Modena had given birth to a son called James Jacobite Junior He then decided to do without without parliament as it was full of corrupt politicians who were claiming expenses for cleaning their dirty moats and fumigating their servants. However the Whigs had a friend in Holland in the boney shape of King Dutch William. He promised to come over and chase King James out of England. William eventually arrived but then demanded the British pay 50% of his bills or was heading back to home to sulk and suck tulips. The Whigs agreed and worked their oily charms (and hands) on William's wife Mary who told her husband to stay put. King James escaped his enemies on a pedalo and made his way to France to see if could cadge a spare army from Louis XIV. Back in England and Wales everyone celebrated and were told to call it the 'Glorious Revolution'. However the Irish and Scots stayed true to the Jacobites who were to cause trouble with their comeback tours as the Great Pretender and Young Pretender double act for the next seventy years.
The Whigs didn't care about James. Their enemies the Tories had backed both King James and King William and were therefore revealed to be 'double dealing toss pots'. The Whigs grabbed all the best jobs and got all their friends to join them in Parliament to run the country as 'The Old Corruption'. When William's gross sister-in-law Anne died in 1714, the Whigs blithely sold the British Throne to a the Elector[5] George of Hanover in Germany who now moved his family and mistresses to London to become King George I. He couldn't speak any English but for the Whigs that was a positive advantage for them and their leader Robert Walpole. Now even the King couldn't interfere and the Whigs got on with what they liked doing most - looking after their own interests first and marrying each other to create a self perpetuating elite. Their opponents the Tories were labelled as 'treasonous' for staying loyal to the Jacobites and were excluded from political power. King George I went along with that as did his son and successor King George II (Herr Von Vatso). He had learned English but sounded like a bad actor playing a TV Nazi. This was all jolly good news for Whigs who continued to grow fat, stinking rich and complacent in their monopoly of power.
Georgy Porgy Makes Whigs Cry
The British political scene changed in 1760 with the succession of King George III. Unlike George I and his grandfather George II, the new King spoke English without a comic German accent. He was at this stage not very mad. But he was Mad with the Whigs for filling their long pockets with government money and decided he would like to choose his own ministers. After some experimentation with various politicians, in 1770 the King selected Lord North as prime minister. North was geographically incorrect as he liked to live in Surrey and play golf. He claimed to be a 'Whig' but had long been friends with the Tories who had renamed themselves The King's Chums to increase their chance of political trough feeding.
Over in American colonies, their political leaders complained about sending money to help King George pay the mortgage for the empire. Fed up with this financial arrangement, in 1776 the Americans rebelled and labelled all those who supported the British oppressors as 'Tories' or 'Canadians'[6] To them Whiggery was freedom - and in honour of John Locke, they even designed a flag with a parrot on it that had the legend 'Don't Squawk On Me'. It was latter changed to a rattlesnake by order of the avianphobic George Washington[7]
Eventually in 1781 the Americans posted their divorce petition from King George and went off to create the USA which they said was built on 'solid whig principles'[8]. A distraught George then sacked Lord North, and in rapid succession, hired and fired as prime minister men like Lord South, Lord South East and finally Lord John West, a well known man of processed tuna fish chunks. When these all failed, the King was forced to turn to the Whigs and their leader Lord Hoots Mon ('there's a moose loose aboot this hoose!') Rockingham and his ten close colleagues. They also included a certified reprobate known as Charles James Fox who would only become politically coherent once he had a good 'skinful' and singing naked outside Westminster Hall.
The Whigs drove a hard bargain and removed a lot of the King's friends from office and confiscated their pensions. However Lord Rockingham then died in the arms of his mistress after a night of vigorous political discussion which gave George the flimsy excuse to dismiss the Whigs and bring in his childhood friend, the weedy and bandy-legged William Pitt the Younger as Prime Minister. The Whigs were out of office again and were soon arguing, fighting and tripping each other up in London.
Charles 'Jacobin' Fox
The French Revolution was at first welcomed by the Whigs who thought their neighbours across the English Channel were following the same political route as the 'sensible chaps' in London. Removing King Louis XVI's powers and forcing to walk around in funny red cap looked like progress and the Whig Leader Charles James Fox even opened up his Facebook account to make friends with the French revolutionary leaders. He made a speech in the House of Commons to emphasise his point.
This chance of change in France offers peace and friendship between our two great nations who have been beating the effluent out of each other since 1066. I say to France - let us be friends once again and whilst we are about, our best Englishmen will travel to your country to teach you the civilized game of Cricket.
A crack team of Whig players led by the Scarlet Pimpernel, the Red Baron, the White Knight and the Jolly Green Giant left for Dover and headed to Paris for an inaugural game against the Girondists - the leading party in the French assembly. However when the team turned up - they met their opponents literally 'head to head' as both teams were dispatched to the guillotine by the new boys in town - The Jacobins.
The news that their best players had all been given 'out' by new French leaders led to a split in the Whig party. Most of them followed the Duke of Portland (who had made his money in cement and tacky christmas gifts) and joined the Tories in a coalition government. This left just a rump (a collective name for a bunch of arseholes) of Whigs to stew alone in opposition. They were led by Charles James Fox, a rancid playwright called Richard Sheridan and Lord Howick (Charles Grey) who was perfecting his tea blends but hoping his father would die so he could market them as Earl Grey Tea.
Prime Minister William Pitt then declared war on France and all those who opposed it including the 'Foxy Poxy Whigs' were labelled 'Jacobins'. Fox had his gaming club membership cards ripped up and was barred from court by King George. So he now Fox now discovered that he needed 'political principles' to make the Foxy Whigs sound a plausible party of government and argued that Britain would have to one day talk to the new French government. However, such was the anti-French fear whipped up by the Tories, that Fox and his Whig friends were forced to walk around incognito - and horror of horrors - even stop wearing their wigs[9] anymore.
A Government of All The Talents But No Morals
The Whigs remained out of power until Pitt's government dissolved into an arse kicking mess in 1801 over whether it was politically correct to be constitutionally beastly to the Irish or not. King George insisted they should so Pitt resigned.
Some of those Whigs who had wandered off with the Tories now came back. This encouraged the Whigs that they were going to be filling their boots again with gold and cheered when they heard in 1806 that William Pitt had died in an explosion when he bit into a pork pie filled with dynamite. This time round even King George put up no resistance but the old monarch was rapidly losing his marbles and could be seen in Windsor shaking hands with trees and running through the royal corridors wearing nothing but his slippers.
The new administration was labelled the 'Government of All the Talents' and even managed to bring on board a few Tories looking for an office of state to snuggle into. The only thing they managed to do was to ban the Slave Trade but not slavery as this was against the economic interests of various important Whig benefactors. Fox by now decided he wasn't going to hang around anymore and died a few months later in the arms (and bared bosoms) of his various 'lady friends'.
Shafted By Prinny
With Fox dead and out of the way, the Whigs chose Earl Charles Grey 'The Tea Man' to lead them. However the King then nearly choked on one Grey's special brews and banished the Whigs again from government. Disappointed, Grey retired to his country house to continue experiments with flavoured tea and playing dissolute games of backgammon with his old friend, the King's eldest son George 'Prinny' Prince of Wales. He reassured Grey and his party colleagues that once his father was fitted up with a Savile Row straitjacket, he would invite them back into government.
This future offer of nice juicy jobs again got the Whigs all excited and indeed from around this time, a number of them preferred to wear their hair 'au naturel' and dispensed with make up (though not make-up girls of course). Their hopes were helped when the Tories started to shoot each other at cabinet meetings which even by the standards of the 19th century was taking it a bit too far and thought it might encourage voters to do it as well. A short time after the then the Tory Prime Minister Frank Spencer Percival had a little accident when he was gunned down in the House of Commons by a lunatic who claimed he was from Assassins for Justice in 1812.
Eagerly, the Whigs waited for the Prince Regent to give them the call and invite them back into government to shove their superior noses in the trough again. George as Prince of Wales had been an ardent Whig but when he changed his job to Prince Regent by finally dispatching his mad eyed father to the padded cell in Windsor Castle[10], George had a change of mind about his old pals. He announced at a meeting of his ministers that they were 'the perfect government' and that he was now 'an erect Tory'. As for the Whigs, the Prince Regent said '..those damned Whigs could go back home and shag themselves stupid with their whores'[11] for all he now cared.
Drugged Out on Tea
Disappointed, the Whigs now considered if they needed a 'new name' to improve their profile. A few were tried out 'the Nearly Whig Party' or 'Whigs Once..Now For Something Else..' but once again they drifted into indifference and allowed the Tories a free run for the next thirty years. There only sign of defiance was to blow raspberries at the enthronement of the Prince Regent as King George IV and to listen to bed room gossip provided by his estranged wife Queen Caroline.
However one particular Whig was using his time away from politics more profitably. Earl Grey had finally perfected his tea 'blend' and put on sale 'Earl Grey's Best Opium Flavoured Tea'. Sales in the Great Britain were slow to start with but his tea greatly appealed to the Chinese Triads who ordered fifty tonnes of the stuff from the Indian tea plantations and poppy fields to sell back home. This is the origin of the political tradition of copious drug addiction that has always been linked with the spread of liberalism since those times.
Tories Shooting Themselves Again
Once again Whig hopes for a political office improved when the Tory Prime Minister Duke of Wellington decided to carry on his party's tradition of bloody internal disputes by shooting cabinet ministers for daring to argue with him. By now the Tories were chronically split about what and who they hated the most - the Irish, Catholics, Communists, Catholic Communists, Killer Trains and Reform - that they failed to notice that King George IV had died and that his brother William IV had succeeded as King
The new monarch wanted an easier life after his years serving in the navy as Admiral Nelson's bitch back in 1805. He liked Wellington but thought the boots he wore as 'positively agricultural' for someone in his political position. Perhaps more importantly, William was also addicted to Grey's 'jolly tea' after a career drinking Old Navy Lark rum for the past sixty years. In short, the King was hooked and made Grey Prime Minister to guarantee supply. This meant the Whigs were back in power and they could stand up after nearly fifty years of unenforced idleness.[12]
Fade to Grey
The Whigs had a list of reforms they wanted to implement. What is called 'The Great Reform Act' of 1832 was a typical piece of Whig trickstering in that they gave the vote to their own friends but denied it to the rest on grounds of cleanliness. So to participate in British elections after 1832, you had to have a good wash first otherwise your ballot would be disqualified on the grounds that is was a 'dirty vote'. The Whigs thought this was very funny.
However, despite their restrictions, the Whigs found they now had to share their party with people who called themselves 'radicals'. They hated these unwanted allies as 'counter jumping oiks' and often, religious fanatics who were always thinking of ways to morally change them as well. But however much the Whigs would hold their noses every time a radical came over for the chat, they needed them to help win elections.
Lord Grey was in the meanwhile losing interest in British politics and becoming keener to push his tea instead. A nice little colonial war would help gain brand awareness so Grey resigned as Prime Minister and left to stir up a war with China where they had banned British tea for its opium content.[13]
Melbourne, Brisbane and Wagga Wagga
Following Grey's departure, the new Whig leaders were Lord Cuckold of Melbourne, Sir Sydney Brisbane and Lord Walter 'Wally' of Wagga Wagga. All of them were later honoured by having Australian cities named after them. They decided Grey's tea addiction had harmed their party's interest and were also bit scared of the Radicals. So the Whig government passed the Anti-Poor People Act which followed the good Whiggish principle that if you had no money or walked around in rags, the best place to put you was in a house with no windows or beds. This way you would fear being broke and would mend your ways. If not it was the rope or a ticket to Australia to work outdoors for the next 20 years. The Whig M.P. Sir Thomas Gradgrind heartily approved of this approach and sued Charles Dickens when he criticised him in the book Hard Cheese Orphans.
Lord Melbourne also followed the Whig tradition of seduction and flattery. When King William died after over dosing on his tea in 1837, his niece the new British ruler Queen Victoria needed a 'sugar daddy figure' to look after her. The old rogue Melbourne happily obliged and he impressed the young Queen with his succession of filthy stories and graphic miming. Victoria happily said she was 'as randy as a Whig' after listening to her Prime Minister and asked him to fix up a date with Prince Albert of Alto-Saxophone in Germany. Disappointed that his sexual availability had been rejected by the Queen, he eventually sent a second class train ticket to Albert and invited him the Britain to work like a Dirty Bertie to provide Victoria with a clutch of new British princes.
Pip Squeaker Russell
In 1841 the Whigs lost the election to the Tories but instead of returning to their old habits of whoring and drinking, the more sober elements tried to make the party a bit more modern. Their preferred leader was Lord Russell (a descendant of Russell Brand) who was so small he could be carried into the House of Commons in a medical jar. He was highly unlikely to achieve much and spent a lot of the time trying to get out and take his seat in the debating chamber. However once again the Whigs natural political position of indolence and lethargy was disrupted when Tories turned on each other on the issue of Free (Sex) Trade and started shooting each other and catapulting horses at their leader Sir Robert Peel who died as a result. Russell was sent for by the Queen in a toy carriage and the Whigs (luck seemed to be always on their side) were back to grabbing the baubles of office.
The Whigs agreed with the Free Sex Law and it was rapidly passed with the codicil that it only applied to them. When the Irish found out about this - they stopped sending potatoes to London and in revenge, the Whigs imposed a famine on the island for their impudence. Many Irish died, some tried alternative careers as size 0 catwalk models in London but many others took a boat and fled to the USA to become Irish-Americans and be free to drink green coloured beer on Saint Inebriate's Day.
Pam-Pam the Dirty Old Man
Russell's biggest political enemy was Lord Palmerston - a former Tory who had cleverely avoided being shot at by his own side and joined the Whigs. This suited him as he didn't have many other ideas except to be rude to foreigners. Lord Palmerston's 'Anglo-Saxon inexactitudes' upset the other European leaders and he would with dull regularity drop his pantaloons and ask the despots of France and Russia to 'kiss my British Arse'. Palmerston also liked to remove his pants for other reasons and that was to chase women around the Buckingham Palace when Queen Victoria and Prince Albert weren't looking. In the end the Queen asked 'Pipsqueak' to sack the priapic Palmerston and send him to a Victorian Sexual Addiction Clinic. The Mini Man obliged and then was booted out of office by Palmerston's dissolute buddies in revenge.
The Whigs now sat in opposition to the new Tory administration led by Lord Epsom-Salts of Derby and his sidekick Benjamin Disraeli, a Jewish born writer and fantasist who was able to tickle women with his honey dipped tongue. However Disraeli was especially disliked by the Peelites who blamed him for kicking their beloved former leader Sir Robert Peel in the political nuts in the struggle between Free Sex and Super Lubricated Protection.
Following the death of Peel after he was sat upon by a confused horse, the Peelites had then made a tacky restaurant their leader in the oblong shape of Lord 'Beefy' Aberdeen Angus Steakhouse. With the Peelites was the young William Gladstone. Emotionally Gladstone was still a conservative but erotically he was already drifting away in the direction of the liberals as he tried to deal with his urgings to help loose women which was at least something he had in common with Lord Palmerston and the other Whig leaders. So the Whigs and Peelites were able to make common cause and formed a government in 1852.
To commemorate their alliance, the Whigs, Radicals and Peelites decided to prove their macho worthiness by going to war. After some thinking...they decided the Russians needed a bash as they had been 'threatening India'. The Whigs even decided their old friends the Jacobins (now back in power in France as Emperor Napoleon III) would be an excellent military ally and together they declared that the Crimean War had commenced and sent off an army in colonial shorts to head into the Black Sea.
The resulting conflict was good for poetry[14] but poor on results. Scared they were going to lose the war, the Whigs decided to dispense with 'Beefy' and the piss poor Peelites and brought Palmerston out of his sex addiction clinic to become Prime Minister. He helped to finish the Crimean War and declared it had been a 'Victory' for the British. The Whigs were overjoyed - they had been in charge of a war and had won it. Palmerston now became 'The Chosen Pam' and marked his victory by fighting an election against all his political enemies and winning with a bum slapping majority.
Creation of the Liberal Party and the Permissive 1860s
Lord Palmerston's successful return to the premiership saw a couple of new wars to contend with: one in India and another in China - about Earl Grey tea again. The Whig government decided to settle both with war and sent more British soldiers in shorts to take on the 'mutineers' in India. With China, however there was a complication this time round as the French wanted to join in and so Palmerston travelled to Paris to persuade them to 'buzz off' in person.
However the French Emperor Napoleon III knew all about Palmerston's taste for the ladies and arranged a prominent 'Madame Horizantal' to seduce the old lecher when he was perambulating around Versailles. Obtaining a photographic plate of Palmerston ..exploring a new intimate vista with his old Regency poker.., the French emperor demanded from the British prime minister an equalling billing in the forth coming war with China or he would release the picture to the press. Reluctantly, Palmerston agreed but somehow, the photo appeared anyway.
Once back in London, the news that the French were in on the expedition to China led to calls for the Prime Minister to resign. Queen Victoria gladly let it be known that she 'wasn't amused...or tickled by the activities of Palmerston..' and secured a permanent residency in the official Royal George Funny Farm for Sex Addicts. The Queen dismissed the rest of the Whigs and told them she wouldn't let them back in until they had been dusted for venereal disease. Meantime, she would let the Tories 'mind the shop'.
Palmerston went back to his sexual addiction clinic to 'continue the treatment'. His rival 'Wee Jock Russell' became the Whigs leader again though he was still suffering from the shrinking disease. But the Whigs political fortunes continued to wallow and their former allies wondered off, not wishing to be associated with 'a collection of limp Whigs'. Things got so bad that the Peelites (now basically Gladstone, his family and an assortment of lady friends) considered returning to the Conservatives, though their request that Disraeli be persuaded to jump into the River Thames without a life jacket was proving to be a stumbling block. Then everything began to change again for the Whigs and it was all thanks to a nice pot of tea.
In 1859 at a party to celebrate the life of Earl Grey and his famous tea, Whigs, Peelites, Radicals and others got on so well they decided that it would a fun thing to form one unified party and call it the Liberal Party. Even Palmerston was there by chance (on day release ) and before his doctors could bundle him away again, the Liberals said he was now their leader. Palmerston returned to the House of Commons and within hours, the Liberals were back in government. Palmerston was prime minister again but his sexual energy remained undimmed.
Conclusion:The Whigs Pass Out from the Saloon Bar of History
Though Palmerston was now back on top[15], the Whigs found that they now overshadowed by Gladstone and the radicals. They still expected to be given offices and titles but bit by bit, they lost their political influence. Palmerston carried on as prime minister - still chasing women as usual (old habits died hard for him) - until even his main organ gave out on him in mid misadventure in 1865.
Little Russell became prime minister again but vanished completely the following year whilst making a speech about Britain standing tall. No other capable (or incapable) Whig came forward to become Liberal party leader or prime minister, so Gladstone got the job by default. As he had never been a Whig, Gladstone was pretty happy to see the old party name disappear and be replaced by Liberal.
For many Whigs the new Liberal party was for them too vulgar and they preferred to maintain the traditional Whig pastimes of hunting, shooting, adultery and sex scandal. One of their last leaders of note was the Marquis of Hartington, a beardy man who kept himself company by openly borrowing a fellow peer's wife to make up the numbers at the Whigs 'country house weekends'[16]. Gladstone kept giving them jobs in Government even though most were too shagged out to be useful. Other Liberals complained so Gladstone decided the Whigs had too many bolt holes in Ireland for their ingrained immorality and proposed to give the Irish their own parliament to impose local fornication taxes.
This was the final humiliation for the Whigs. They decided they had no future with the Liberals and formed an alliance with the Conservatives against Gladstone in 1886. For a few years the Whigs ran their own party and called it the Whiggery-Jiggery-Pokery-Party or Liberal Unionists for short but even that was too much for an effort and by the dawn of the twentieth century, they had faded like a bad hangover and merged with their political partners. Only a few sad historians could remember who the Whigs had once been and would still chuckle at the ancient homophonic joke about false hair. It was really all the Whigs deserved in the end.
Footnotes
- ↑ Perhaps the most insidious of historical legacies
- ↑ The famous 1876 Balmoral Castle Grouse Moor Massacre comes to mind
- ↑ Many Tories still looked upon the Whigs as infected from their years of liberalism. The great Tory peer Lord Salisbury said Whigs were men he would trust with his life but not his wife.
- ↑ Tory Spelling's role in the foundation of the Tory or Conservative party as it is now has been overlooked by stuffy historians.
- ↑ In Germany at that time only nine people could vote. George was able to vote for any Holy Roman Emperor of his choice - as long as it was a member of the Austrian Habsburg family.
- ↑ Canada's origin as a country for political losers dates from this time.
- ↑ George Washington wrote of his fear of the '..feathered fraternity..' in a letter to Benjamin Franklin.
- ↑ The Americans skated over the sexual side of Whiggism as they didn't want it believed that their nation was built on the moral foundations of a boudoir.
- ↑ It was an era of changing male fashions. Out went wigs and stockings, in came blow waved hair and trousers or pantaloons as they were called as only an idiot would wear them.
- ↑ Being bat shit insane was not a disqualification to rule a country or empire if you were a monarch. See also Caligula for example.
- ↑ Prince Regent's diary entry for that day. Since lost
- ↑ The shock of getting back in power finally killed off a number of the old guard Whigs who were still stuck morally in the 18th century.
- ↑ (see the Opium Wars and how two tins of tea got the British Hong Kong.
- ↑ Without the Crimean War, who would now have remembered any of Alfred, Lord Tennyson's writings?
- ↑ Except in the bedroom where he preferred to take the 'lower bunk position'
- ↑ . This was the Whig code for flagrant wife swapping, with perhaps a few servants thrown in for 'roughage'
See also
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