16. Myth, Empire, & Utopia: The Rise and Rule of Britannia, Pt. 2 – Empire & Utopia: Britain Unlimited
The Story of Nowhere – Studies in Utopianism and Humanity
The Story of Nowhere (available as eBook, Audiobook, & Paperback): https://storyofnowhere.com/book/
The Story of Nowhere Podcast Introductory Episode—“Episode Zero”: https://storyofnowhere.com/zero/
A Brief History of Critical Thinking Full Series
Myth, Empire, & Utopia: The Rise & Rule of Britannia Full Series
The School Sucks (Final) Podcast: “GRADUATION.”
Music Credits:
- “Rule Britannia”
- “Modern Major General” (“Pirates of Penzance”)
- “Greensleeves” (Renaissance Style)
- “Te Deum (Prelude)” – Charpentier
1. THE GOLDEN AGE OF CAMELOT
“King Arthur” – World History Encyclopedia
- “King Arthur is among the most famous literary characters of all time. The Arthurian legend of the Knights of the Round Table, Camelot, the Quest for the Holy Grail, the love affair of Lancelot and Guinevere, and the wizard Merlin have informed and inspired literary, musical, and other major artistic visions for centuries. There have been countless books, major films, operas, television shows, games, toys, plays, and graphic novels either re-telling or inspired by the Arthurian legend which developed in Europe between 1136-1485 CE, was revived in the 19th century CE, and remains popular in the present day.”
Historia Regum Britanniae (c. 1135; Contained in Six Old English Chronicles, pp. 87-292 (in-document pagination) / 114-318 (Archive pagination)) – Geoffrey of Monmouth
2. ARTHURIAN RIPPLES
Historia Brittonum (c. 828) – Nennius (Attributed)
“Pseudo-History or Famed Fiction? Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia” – Ancient Origins
Le Morte d’Arthur (The Death of Arthur; 1485) – Thomas Malory
“Wars of the Roses” – World History Encyclopedia
“Richard III of England” – World History Encyclopedia
“Henry VII of England” – World History Encyclopedia
“Tower of London” (1939) – IMDb
“Descendants of Llywelyn the Great (c. 1173-1240)” – Flying Fish Creations
“The Tudor Connection to King Arthur” – Sean Poage
- “When Henry crossed the English Channel and landed in Wales with his army of English and Welsh exiles and French mercenaries, he was heralded by the Welsh bards as “The Son of Prophecy”, and Henry flew the Red Dragon of Arthur and Cadwaladr. These came from the writings of Geoffrey of Monmouth, who wrote that Cadwaladr had relinquished his throne when a prophetic voice promised his sacrifice would mean that a great leader would one day return to free the Britons from their English oppressors. The Red Dragon banner, long a symbol among the Welsh, was from another of Geoffrey’s writings, in which he described the prophecy of Merlin explaining the Red Dragon of the Britons eventually conquering the White Dragon of the Saxons.”
“King Arthur, ‘Once and Future King’” – BBC History
“King Arthur and His Possible Tudor Descendants” – Children of Arthur
- Queen Elizabeth I continued the Arthurian tradition in the family. Brinkley declares that ‘the Arthurian ancestry of Elizabeth was given especial emphasis at the time of her coronation.’ When Elizabeth visited Kenilworth in 1575, an Arthurian costume party and masque were held. Upon the queen’s arrival, she was met by a woman dressed as Morgan le Fay, who greeted the queen as Arthur’s heir. During the revels, a set of trumpeters signified that the men of Arthur’s day were superior to modern men. Elizabeth talked with the Lady of the Lake, and her presence allowed her to free the Lady of the Lake from the persecutions of Bruce sans Pitee. A song was also sung of Rience’s demand for Arthur’s beard. It is clear that these events of Kenilworth were based upon Malory’s writings (Merriman 201), and the masque in Chapter 37 of Sir Walter Scott’s Kenilworth borrows and fictionalizes from this historical event.
“Henry VIII of England” – World History Encyclopedia
“Elizabeth I of England” – World History Encyclopedia
“Spanish Armada” – World History Encyclopedia
3. JOHN DEE, THE MAN
“Dee, John (1527-1608)” – Dictionary of Welsh Biography
John Dee: The Politics of Reading and Writing in the English Renaissance (1995) – William Sherman
General and Rare Memorials Pertayning to the Perfecte Arte of Navigation (1576) – John Dee
England Under Protector Somerset (1900) – A.F. Pollard
“John Dee, Humphrey Llwyd, and the Name ‘British Empire’” – Bruce Ward Henry
“Llwyd (Lhuyd), Humphrey (1527-1568)” – Dictionary of Welsh Biography
“Inventor of Britain: The Life and Legacy of Humphrey Llwyd” – The National Library of Wales
- “Humphrey Llwyd, an antiquary and mapmaker born in Denbigh, is thought of by many as the Inventor of Britain, having been credited with inventing the term British Empire, but he was also the man who put Wales on the map by producing the first published map of Wales as a country.”
Commentarioli Britannicae Descriptionis Fragmentum (1568, Latin) – Humphrey Llwyd
“Making the Empire British” – David Armitage
“The Elizabethan Idea of Empire” – David Armitage
“On the Term ‘British Empire’” – James Truslow Adams
4. JOHN DEE AND THE BRITISH EMPIRE
“Dr. John Dee: The Original 007” – The World of English
“The First James Bond? John Dee was the Original 007” – Books Tell You Why
- “Dee often corresponded with the queen on confidential matters. He took to signing his letters “007” to designate letters for the queen’s eyes only. The zeroes represented eyes, and the seven was thought to be a lucky number that offered protection. Many scholars believe that Dee was one of Elizabeth’s spies, and that his travels throughout Europe were not for “spiritual conferences,” but rather to gather intelligence. It’s known that Elizabeth employed a number of spies, especially after the Pope declared her an illegitimate ruler in 1570. She was constantly threatened by conspiracy plots, all of which were quashed by her secret service. Dee would have been a formidable member of this team; his reputation for magic preceded him, and he was obviously well connected through his position at court.”
“Discourse on History, Geography, and Law” (Abstract) – University of Toronto Press
- “Using history, geography, and law as his supporting evidence, the English polymath John Dee (1527-1608) helped the British crown to define and defend the limits of its empire. In a series of works prepared for Queen Elizabeth and her senior advisors between 1576 and 1580, Dee argued for the existence and recovery of a vast British Empire. He based these arguments principally on the nascent precepts of international law. Dee proclaimed the queen’s right to trade in new found lands by natural law, and to draw into her dominion those lands that were discovered by English subjects and were not currently in the actual possession of a Christian prince by civil law, canon law, and the law of nations. He laid the foundation for the British claiming territory by effective occupation rather than mere discovery. He also challenged Spain’s and Portugal’s claims of dominion by taking on the explicit language of Alexander VI’s papal bull awarding all terra incognita to the Iberian countries. Although they were developed within specific contexts, Dee’s arguments were well-enough grounded in scholarship and sufficiently influential to germinate into long-term intellectual justifications for claiming sovereignty. These arguments came to be used by the crown in letters patent and official memoranda, and in disputes with other European nations who challenged England’s title to overseas territories.”
5. THE LIMITS OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE
The Limits of the British Empire (1578; Edited by Ken MacMillan & Jennifer Abeles, 2004) – John Dee
“John Dee’s ‘Brytanici Imperii Limites’” – Ken MacMillan
6. GEOGRAPHICAL REFORM
“Gerardus Mercator” – Online Encyclopedia Britannica
“Mercator Projection” – Online Encyclopedia Britannica
“Francis Drake” – The Ages of Exploration
“Martin Frobisher” – World History Encyclopedia
“Humphrey Gilbert” – Online Encyclopedia Britannica
“Walter Raleigh” – World History Encyclopedia
“Muscovy Company” – Online Encyclopedia Britannica
“North-West Passage” – Online Encyclopedia Britannica
7. LEGAL PRECEDENT
“Discourse on History, Geography, and Law,” (Published in Limits, edited by MacMillan & Abeles, 2004) – Ken MacMillan, p. 28
- Dee’s Contribution to the Drake-Mendoza Affair
“International Law Under Queen Elizabeth” – Edward P. Cheyney
“Justinian I” – World History Encyclopedia
“Corpus Juris Civilis” – World History Encyclopedia
The Digest of Justinian, Vol. I (533; Translated by Theodor Mommsen & Paul Krueger) – Justinian I
8. HISTORIA IMPERIUM BRITANNIAE
“King Arthur in William Lambarde’s Archaionomia (1568)” – A. Kent Hieatt
“A Letter Dated 1577 From Mercator to John Dee” – Internet Archive
- “That great army of Arthur’s had lain all the winter (of 530 AD) in the northern islands of Scotland. And on May 3 a part of it crossed over into Iceland. Then four ships of the aforesaid land had come out of the North, and warned Arthur of the indrawing seas. So that Arthur did not procveed further, but peopled all the islands between Scotland and Iceland, and also peopled Grocland. (So it seems the Indrawing Sea only begins beyond Grocland). In this Grocland he found people 23 feet tall, that is to say of the feet with which land is measured.”
“John Dee, King Arthur, and the Conquest of the Arctic” – Thomas Green
- “Abstract: A detailed study of John Dee’s late sixteenth-century claim that King Arthur conquered the far northern world and North America. Although sometimes treated as Dee’s own invention, the concept of Arthur as a conqueror of the Arctic and even parts of North America clearly antedates Dee. One witness to it is the Gestae Arthuri, which was seen and summarized by Jacob Cnoyen, who probably wrote in the fourteenth century. This medieval document apparently described Arthur’s attempts to conquer the far north, including an expedition launched against the North Pole itself. Another witness is the Leges Anglorum Londoniis Collectae, which dates from the start of the thirteenth century and provides a list of Arthur’s northern conquests, including Greenland, Vinland and the North Pole. On the basis of these and other documents, it would appear that the concept of Arthur as an Arctic conqueror can be traced at least to the later twelfth century, if not before.”
“King Arthur’s Last Men: Stranded in the Arctic North?” – Strange History
“Erik the Red” – The Mariners’ Museum and Park
“Leif Eriksson” – The Mariners’ Museum and Park
“Leif Erikson: First European in North America” – Thought Co.
- “Leif Erikson, by all accounts, set foot in North America some five centuries before Christopher Columbus. Norse colonization continued in Vinland, but didn’t last long. In 1004 c.e. Erikson’s brother Thorvaldr came to Vinland but caused problems when he and his men attacked a group of indigenous people; Thorvaldr was killed by an arrow, and hostilities continued for another year or so, until the Norse vacated the area. Trade voyages continued into Vinland for another four centuries.”
“The Voyages of the Venetian Brothers, Nicolò & Antonio Zeno” (1558) – Nicolò Zen the Younger
Observations Made During a Voyage Round the World, Volume I (1777) – Georg Forster
“St. Brendan History” – St. Brendan the Navigator
“The Discovery of America… by a Welsh Prince” – Historic UK
- “A Welsh poem of the 15th century tells how Prince Madoc sailed away in 10 ships and discovered America. The account of the discovery of America by a Welsh prince, whether truth or myth, was apparently used by Queen Elizabeth I as evidence to the British claim to America during its territorial struggles with Spain. So who was this Welsh Prince and did he really discover America before Columbus?”
9. EFFECTS OF LIMITS
“Polydore Virgil” – 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica
Discourse on Western Planting (1584) – Richard Hakluyt
“Charter to Sir Walter Raleigh” (1584) – Yale Law School
- “Knowe yee that of our especial grace, certaine science, and meere motion, we haue given and graunted, and by these presents for us, our heires and successors, we giue and graunt to our trustie and welbeloued seruantWalter Ralegh, Esquire, and to his heires assignee for euer, free libertie and licence from time to time, and at all times for ever hereafter, to discover, search, finde out, and view such remote, heathen and barbarous lands, countries, and territories, not actually possessed of any Christian Prince, nor inhabited by Christian People, as to him, his heires and assignee, and to every or any of them shall seeme good, and the same to haue, horde, occupie and enjoy to him, his heires and assignee for euer, with all prerogatives, commodities, jurisdictions, royalties, privileges, franchises, and preheminences, thereto or thereabouts both by sea and land, whatsoever we by our letters patents may graunt, and as we or any of our noble progenitors haue heretofore graunted to any person or persons, bodies politique.or corporate: and the said Walter Ralegh, his heires and assignee, and all such as from time to time, by licence of us, our heires and successors, shall goe or trauaile thither to inhabite or remaine, there to build and fortifie, at the discretion of the said Walter Ralegh, his heires and assignee, the statutes or acte of Parliament made against fugitives, or against such as shall depart, romaine or continue out of our Realme of England without licence, or any other statute, acte, lawe, or any ordinance whatsoever to the contrary in anywise notwithstanding.”
10. COMMERCE & CONQUEST INTERNATIONAL
“A Short History of Jamestown” – National Park Service
“James I” – Online Encyclopedia Britannica
Daemonologie (1591) – King James I
Act of Union (1707) – WikiSource
- “That the Two Kingdoms of Scotland and England, shall upon the 1st May next ensuing the date hereof, and forever after, be United into One Kingdom by the Name of GREAT BRITAIN: And that the Ensigns Armorial of the said United Kingdom be such as Her Majesty shall think fit, and used in all Flags, Banners, Standards and Ensigns both at Sea and Land.”
The Oxford History of the British Empire (1998-9)
“Sir Edward Coke” – Online Encyclopedia Britannica
“Bartolomé de Las Casas” – Online Encyclopedia Britannica
“John Locke” – Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Two Treatises of Government (1689) – John Locke
A Defense of the New England Charters (1721) – Jeremiah Dummer
- “The crown, strictly speaking, neither did nor could grant the soil, having no right in itself. Queen Elizabeth gave out the first patent to Sir Walter Rawleigh in 1584; and if she had any right, what was it and whence derived? … Nor could the claim by the prior discovery or pre-occupancy, as the Civilians speak, because that gives a right only to derelict lands, which these were not, being full of inhabitants, who undoubtedly had as good a title to their own country, as the Europeans have to theirs.”
The Commonwealth of Oceana and A System of Politics (1656; posth. 1700) – James Harrington
