Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof

That’s from the Bible, Leviticus 25:10 in the Old Testament. And it is engraved (or cast or however they did it) on the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia.

(“Liberty Bell 2008” by Tony the Misfit on Flickr - Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons)

The first time I saw the Liberty Bell (in 1955) it was located inside Independence Hall, not out on the mall as it is today. In fact, the first time I saw the Liberty Bell there was no mall at all -- just urban blight. Independence Hall, the place where 56 men pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor when they signed the Declaration of Independence, was surrounded by a rundown, decaying neighborhood. Urban blight had won the day.

The clearing of the eyesores, the creation of the mall itself, and the relocation of the Liberty Bell from where it had been for more than 200 years to its new outdoor home occurred as part of preparing for America's bicentennial celebration in 1976.

I have seen the bell out on the mall too, but the effect just isn’t the same as standing inside the sacred space that is Independence Hall.

In preparing for this post, two questions occurred to me. I have done the research so that you don’t have to do it yourself. I’m sure that both Yorkshire Pudding and Adrian especially appreciate this.

1. What relation is Queen Elizabeth II to King George III?

The answer is that he was either her 3rd great-grandfather or her 4th great-grandfather depending on which line you follow. If you follow the line of succession on her grandfather’s side - George VI (father), George V (grandfather), Edward VII (great-grandfather), Victoria (2nd great-grandmother) , Edward Duke of Kent (3rd great-grandfather), George III (4th great-grandfather) - then he was her 4th great-grandfather. However, her grandmother Queen Mary of Teck was also descended from George III - she and her husband George V were 2nd cousins once removed. If you follow Queen Elizabeth’s line through her grandmother - George VI (father), Queen Mary (grandmother), Mary Adelaide (great-grandmother), Adolphus of Hanover (2nd great-grandfather), George III (3rd great-grandfather) - he is more closely related as her 3rd great-grandfather.

And the most important question of all:

2. Is David Cameron descended from royalty? How close would he be in line to the throne?

David Cameron, the current British Prime Minister, is the great-great-great-grandson of Elizabeth Fitzclarence (Jan 17, 1801 - Jan 16, 1856) who was an illegitimate daughter of William IV and his mistress Irish actress Dorothea Bland who was known by her stage name as ‘Mrs Jordan’. They lived together for 20 years when he was Duke of Clarence and had 5 sons and 5 daughters. When he became heir to the throne William married Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen but they had no surviving children so when he died having no legitimate children his niece Victoria became Queen.

Therefore, David Cameron is the 5th cousin, twice removed of Queen Elizabeth II, but illegitimate lines have no claim to the throne. The Royal Marriage act of 1772, instigated by William IV’s father George III, requires members of the royal family to obtain permission from the monarch to marry. So William and Dorothea would have had to get permission from his brother George IV to marry and it would also have required ratification by Parliament. She was Catholic and would have had to renounce her Catholic faith for William to remain in the line of succession to the throne. In the very unlikely event that they had been allowed to marry and had done so before their children were born then their eldest son George Augustus would have had a claim to the throne. His great-grandson Geoffrey Fitzclarence, 5th Earl of Munster, was a Conservative politician in Winston Churchill’s government. David Cameron’s line through their 3rd daughter Elizabeth would have had only a very remote claim.

Although I am a self-confessed Anglophile, I’m glad we Americans do not have to deal with all that folderol.

I do wish a happy Fourth of July, America’s Independence Day, to all, even to our English friends. Have a cup of tea on us. We put some in Boston Harbor in 1773 especially for you.

Say what?

I am indebted to the History News Network at George Mason University for the following information, which was first published on their website on June 30, 2001.

America’s independence was actually declared by the Continental Congress on July 2, 1776, not July 4. The night of the second the Pennsylvania Evening Post published the statement: “This day the Continental Congress declared the United Colonies Free and Independent States.”

So what happened on the Glorious Fourth? The document justifying the act of Congress--you know it as Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence--was adopted on the fourth, as is indicated on the document itself, which is, one supposes, the cause for all the confusion. As one scholar has observed, what has happened is that the document announcing the event has overshadowed the event itself.

When did Americans first celebrate independence? Congress waited until July 8, when Philadelphia threw a big party, including a parade and the firing of guns. The army under George Washington, then camped near New York City, heard the news July 9 and celebrated then. Georgia got the word August 10. And when did the British in London finally get wind of the declaration? August 30.

John Adams, writing a letter home to his beloved wife Abigail the day after independence was declared (that is, July 3), predicted that from then on “the Second of July, 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. I am apt to believe it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival.” A scholar coming across this document in the nineteenth century quietly “corrected” the document, Adams predicting the festival would take place not on the second but the fourth.

Hanging in the grand Rotunda of the Capitol of the United States is a vast canvas painting by John Trumbull depicting the signing of the Declaration. Both Thomas Jefferson and John Adams wrote, years afterward, that the signing ceremony took place on July 4. When someone challenged Jefferson’s memory in the early 1800’s Jefferson insisted he was right. The truth? As David McCullough remarks in his new biography of Adams, “No such scene, with all the delegates present, ever occurred at Philadelphia.”

So when was it signed? Most delegates signed the document on August 2, when a clean copy was finally produced by Timothy Matlack, assistant to the secretary of Congress. Several did not sign until later. And their names were not released to the public until later still, January 1777. The event was so uninspiring that nobody apparently bothered to write home about it. Years later Jefferson claimed to remember the event clearly, regaling visitors with tales of the flies circling overhead. But as he was wrong about the date, so perhaps he was wrong even about the flies.

The truth about the signing was not finally established until 1884 when historian Mellon Chamberlain, researching the manuscript minutes of the journal of Congress, came upon the entry for August 2 noting a signing ceremony.

(end of article)

Pondering whether an announcement of an event can overshadow the event itself brings to mind the old question, “If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?” Maybe yes, maybe no, since any sound waves traveling through the air don’t encounter an ear to detect their presence, but there can be no dispute that the forest is changed and will never be the same as before. Something happened in the world on July 2, 1776, and while the sound waves may not have registered on public ears until July 4th, the world has never been the same.

[Update: In commenting on this post, Jeannelle from Iowa wrote something astounding: “Maybe God created humans so there would be receptors for His Word.” Now there’s a statement really worth pondering.]