Up a Tree

We return to Sharon's 10th great-grandfather and his place in English history. The last time I dealt with him, we saw that he had been elected a knight of the shire, which made him a sir and a member of Parliament.  His biography in The History of Parliament concentrates on his career in that body, as you would expect, and presents few other details of his life. Though his mother was a convicted Catholic, his father was Protestant and urged his son to align with this side of the family.   The History gives a listing of the various committees Sir John served on during his terms. His first appointment made him part of the group in the House of Commons that laid out its findings in a dispute over a parliamentary election in Buckinghamshire. Apparently, King James had issued a proclamation before the election stating that only men of good character and livelihood could be elected. But the electors chose a man named Francis Goodwin, an outlaw. A court overturned that election ...

We often celebrate various events with proclamations of Thanksgiving, especially when we've undergone some traumatic event we think people should collectively remember that event in the future. Leaders down through U.S. history have issued such proclamations, and eventually we settled on one day in November as a national day of thanksgiving, with Congress passing legislation to set the fourth Thursday in November to be our official day of Thanksgiving.  The English sorta did it the other way around. A year after the failed attempt by Guy Fawkes and his coconspirators to blow up Parliament with the king and his wife in the building Parliament passed the Observance of the Fifth of November Act, subtitled "An act for a publick thanksgiving to Almighty God every year on the fifth day of November."  The opening lines credit God with the deliverance of his church and the protection of religious kings and states and aver that no nation has been blessed with greater benefits than...