WE WILL, WE WILL, WE WILL BE FREE!

In March 1834 the authorities ordered the arrest of six men: James Brine, James Hammett, George Loveless, James Loveless (George's brother), George's brother in-law, Thomas Standfield and his son, John Standfield.

The six were arrested for unlawful assembly and charged with 'administering unlawful oaths'. Although the Trade Union was perfectly legal they had made the mistake on its formation of taking a pledge of loyalty. The Unlawful Oaths Act had been passed in 1797 to deal with a naval mutiny, but never repealed. It was for breaking this law that they were brought for trial at the Dorchester Assizes.

During the trial John Toomer, (a local farmer), described how he found union rules in a box in the house of George Loveless. As expected the jury, (which included John Bond, John H.Calcraft, James C.Flyer, George Pickard Junior and Nathaniel Bond), found them all guilty as charged despite the fact that James Hammet (22), although a member of the Friendly Society of Agricultural Labourers, had not been present at the meeting.

On 19^th March, 1834 the men were sentenced. The judge under pressure from the government of the day sentenced sent George Loveless and his companions to seven years transportation to the penal colony in New South Wales, Australia, 'not for anything they had done, but as an example to others'.

However the six men had became popular heroes, and a large protest movement formed. One of their supporters Lord John Russell in his argument to the Prime minister, Lord Melbourne to pardon the Tolpuddle Martyrs stated "that if being members of a secret society and administering secret oaths was a crime, the reactionary Duke of Cumberland as head of the Orange Lodges was equally deserving of transportation".

When sentenced to seven years' transportation, George Loveless wrote on a scrap of paper the following lines:

God is our guide! from field, from wave,

From plough, from anvil, and from loom;

We come, our country's rights to save,

And speak a tyrant faction's doom:

We raise the watch-word liberty;

We will, we will, we will be free!

Such was the furore surrounding the fixed trial and harsh sentence that 800,000 signed a petition in their favour, and all bar one were released within two years, the other a year later. Five of the men decided to seek freedom elsewhere and eventually emigrated to Canada. The last died there in 1902. 

This cartoon was part of the public campaign fought on behalf of the Tolpuddle Martyrs. The men are shown begging for mercy from the king. 

JUST GOING OUT

Two very different kinds of resignation took place on the 16^th March.

On the 16^th March 1912, Lawrence Oates, an ill member of Robert Falcon Scott’s South Pole expedition, left the tent to die, saying: "I am just going outside and may be some time."

Scott wrote in his diary, "We knew that poor Oates was walking to his death, but though we tried to dissuade him, we knew it was the act of a brave man and an English gentleman".

On 16^th March 1976, British Prime Minister Harold Wilson surprised the nation by announcing his resignation as Prime Minister (taking effect on 5 April 1976). He claimed that he had always planned on resigning at the age of 60, and that he was physically and mentally exhausted. As early as the late 1960s, he had been telling intimates, like his doctor Sir Joseph Stone, that he did not intend to serve more than eight or nine years as Prime Minister. Roy Jenkins has suggested that Wilson may have been motivated partly by the distaste for politics felt by his loyal and long-suffering wife, Mary. Beyond this, by 1976 he might already have been aware of the first stages of early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, which was to cause both his formerly excellent memory and his powers of concentration to fail dramatically.

Queen Elizabeth II came to dine at 10 Downing Street to mark his resignation, an honour she has bestowed on only one other Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill.

LIVES THAT MADE A DIFFERENCE

  

On the 15^th March 44BC, 2056 years ago, Julius Caesar was stabbed to death in the Roman Senate. The assassination of Julius Caesar was the result of a conspiracy by approximately 60 Roman Senators who called themselves Liberators. Led by Gaius Cassius Longinus and Marcus Junius Brutus, they stabbed Caesar to death in the Theatre of Pompey. Publius Servilius Casca Longus was allegedly the first to attack Caesar with a blow to the shoulder, which Caesar blocked; however, upon seeing Brutus was with the conspirators, (so it is reported)he covered his face with his toga and resigned himself to his fate. The conspirators attacked in such numbers that they even wounded one another. Brutus is said to have been wounded in the hand and in the legs.

I have often referred to this event and used Shakespeare’s play as a reference to it. A friend reminds me that Shakespeare is not history. Agreed. But, there was a conspiracy, a plot was afoot. Conspiracies are hatched in whispers in the corridors. So why not an orchard ? Surely the group would have discussed the fate of Caesars right hand man. Shakespeare’s imagined version is just as good as anyone’s, if not better. It may not be fly on the wall documentary, but as a dramatized rendition it’s not too shabby.  

The ramifications of the assassination were far-reaching - civil war and a host of Emperors that are the stuff of legend. Had the conspirators dealt with Marc Antony, would Octavian Caesar Augustus have been able to establish his authority on his own? Would there have been Tiberius, Caligula. Claudius and Nero? Without Tiberius would there have been a Pontius Pilate? Without Pilate would there have been a crucifixion?  Where would Christianity be were it not for the fact that Brutus talked Cassius et al, out of taking out Antony. Not only would we not have had Taylor and Burton, but we might not have had the Christian Church.

It was also on the 15th March 1990, that Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev was elected as the first executive President of the Soviet Union. Some peoples lives and deedS really can change history.

IF YOU DECIDE TO TAKE CARE OF BUSINESS, TAKE CARE OF BUSINESS

In the small hours of the 14^th- 15^th March 44 BC, certain conspirators against Caesar gathered in an orchard and decided Mark Anthony should stay alive. ‘Let us be sacrificers not butchers’.

DECIUS BRUTUS

Shall no man else be touch'd but only Caesar?

CASSIUS

Caesar

Decius, well urged: I think it is not meet,

Mark Antony, so well beloved of Caesar,

Should outlive Caesar: we shall find of him

A shrewd contriver; and, you know, his means,

If he improve them, may well stretch so far

As to annoy us all: which to prevent,

Let Antony and Caesar fall together.

BRUTUS

Our course will seem too bloody, Caius Cassius,

To cut the head off and then hack the limbs,

Like wrath in death and envy afterwards;

For Antony is but a limb of Caesar:

Let us be sacrificers, but not butchers, Caius.

We all stand up against the spirit of Caesar;

Antony

And in the spirit of men there is no blood:

O, that we then could come by Caesar's spirit,

And not dismember Caesar! But, alas,

Caesar must bleed for it! And, gentle friends,

Let's kill him boldly, but not wrathfully;

Let's carve him as a dish fit for the gods,

Not hew him as a carcass fit for hounds:

And let our hearts, as subtle masters do,

Stir up their servants to an act of rage,

And after seem to chide 'em. This shall make

Our purpose necessary and not envious:

Which so appearing to the common eyes,

We shall be call'd purgers, not murderers.

And for Mark Antony, think not of him;

For he can do no more than Caesar's arm

Brutus

When Caesar's head is off.

CASSIUS

Yet I fear him;

For in the ingrafted love he bears to Caesar--

BRUTUS

Alas, good Cassius, do not think of him:

If he love Caesar, all that he can do

Is to himself, take thought and die for Caesar:

And that were much he should; for he is given.

To sports, to wildness and much company.

TREBONIUS

There is no fear in him; let him not die;

For he will live, and laugh at this hereafter.

………………

Big mistake? Whose to say, but it would most certainly have changed things. 

NON VIOLENT CHALLENGES

A couple of events challenging authority occurred on the 12^th March, one eventually more effective than the other. Both were the begun as a non violent challenge, sort of.

In Turkey on the 12 March 1971, the Chief of the General Staff,  Memduh Tağmaç, handed prime minister Süleyman Demirel a memorandum, really amounting to an ultimatum by the armed forces. It demanded "the formation, within the context of democratic principles, of a strong and credible government, which will neutralise the current anarchical situation and which, inspired by Atatürk's views, will implement the reformist laws envisaged by the constitution", putting an end to the "anarchy, fratricidal strife, and social and economic unrest". If the demands were not met, the army would "exercise its constitutional duty" and take over power itself. Demirel resigned after a three-hour meeting with his cabinet; veteran politician and opposition leader İsmet İnönü sharply denounced any military meddling in politics. While the precise reasons for the intervention remain disputed, there were three broad motivations behind the memorandum. First, senior commanders believed Demirel had lost his grip on power and was unable to deal with rising public disorder and political terrorism, so they wished to return order to Turkey. Second, many officers seem to have been unwilling to bear responsibility for the government's violent measures, such as the suppression of Istanbul workers' demonstrations the previous June; more radical members believed coercion alone could not stop popular unrest and Marxist revolutionary movements, and that the social and economic reformism behind the 1960 coup needed to be put into practice. Finally, a minority of senior officers concluded that progress within a liberal democratic system was impossible, and that authoritarianism would result in a more egalitarian, independent and "modern" Turkey; other officers felt they had to intervene, if only to forestall these radical elements.

Demiral

Known as the "coup by memorandum", which the military delivered in lieu of sending out tanks, as it had done previously, it came amid worsening domestic strife, but ultimately did little to halt this phenomenon. It seems the aspirations of the coup met with little success, but it may be the first time a military coup was handled with a memorandum - truly an effective piece of performance writing. Was it more like a threatening note? “I have a gun in my pocket – resign”. Perhaps I’m wrong.

Süleyman Demirel, a survivor of several ‘coups’, did go on to serve five more times as Prime Minister  and as the ninth President of Turkey.

The Salt March, also known as the Salt Satyagraha began with the Dandi March on 12^th March, 1930, and was an important part of the Indian Independence movement. It was a direct action campaign of tax resistance and nonviolent protest against the British salt monopoly in colonial India, and triggered the wider Civil Disobedience Movement. This was the most significant organized challenge to British authority since the Non-cooperation movement of 1920–22, and directly followed the Purna Swaraj declaration of independence by the Indian National Congress on 26^th January, 1930. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi  led the Dandi march from his base, Sabarmati Ashram near Ahmedabad, to the sea coast near the village of Dandi.