Princess Elizabeth, Duchess of Edinburgh, accedes to the throne: ‘WE, therefore, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal of this Realm….’

On this day in 1952, Princess Elizabeth, Duchess of Edinburgh, acceded to the throne, becoming Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. She is the longest-reigning monarch in British history, having been Queen for 68 years. Earlier today, soldiers from the King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery, in full dress uniform, rode from London’s Wellington Barracks past Buckingham Palace to nearby Green Park.

Seventy-one horses pulled six First World War-era 13-pounder field guns to the north of the park on Thursday, where the 41-gun salute was fired.

The bells of Westminster Abbey, the gothic church where the Queen was married and crowned, also rang out to mark Accession Day.

And at the Tower of London, the Honourable Artillery Company staged a 62-gun salute, with the extra 21 guns demonstrating the City of London’s loyalty to the 93-year-old monarch.

Queen Elizabeth II has ruled for 24,837 days, passing her Silver, Golden, Diamond and Sapphire Jubilees.

She became the United Kingdom and Commonwealth’s longest reigning monarch in September 2015, after overtaking Queen Victoria.

The Queen acceded to the throne on the death of her father King George VI.  Princess Elizabeth was in Kenya on an official royal tour of what was then known as the British Commonwealth, and which was also to take in Australia and New Zealand, when she learnt that she had become Sovereign. It was a tense time for colonial-indigenous relations in many British Commonwealth countries, including Kenya, and the royal tour was aimed at shoring up flagging support for the colonizers from the colonized. By 1952 Kikuyu fighters, along with some Embu and Meru recruits, were attacking political opponents and raiding white settler farms and destroying livestock. Mau Mau supporters took oaths, binding them to their cause. In October 1952, just eight months after the royal visit, the British declared a state of emergency and began moving army reinforcements into Kenya.

Now known simply as the Commonwealth, it is today a voluntary association of 54 independent and equal countries. It is home to 2.4 billion people, and includes both advanced economies and developing countries.  Maldives, a small island nation in South Asia, located in the Arabian Sea of the Indian Ocean, southwest of Sri Lanka and India, and about 1,000 kilometres from the Asian continent, became the the 54th member when it officially re-joined the Commonwealth  last Saturday, having left it in 2016.

On the morning of Feb. 6, 1952, the King’s valet, James McDonald, alongside page Maurice Watts, discovered King George had died in his sleep.  A doctor was called, and after he confirmed the King’s death, “Hyde Park Corner,” the code words to be used in the event of the monarch’s death, were uttered, and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was informed at once.

It was Philip who told Elizabeth of her father’s death. They were at Sagana fishing lodge 20 miles away from the Treetops Lodge Nyeri, when he told her. The news had first reached Nairobi at offices of a local newspaper, which informed the royal household. The source of the news from Sandringham came from journalist Granville Roberts, who worked on the East African Standard in Nairobi and was covering the royal visit. Roberts said that Reuters had run a flash simply saying: “The King is dead.”

Roberts immediately asked a receptionist to fetch Lt. Col. Martin Charteris, who was Elizabeth’s private secretary, to inform him of the news the Daily Mail reported in a Jan. 9, 2012 story (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2083889/King-George-VI-True-story-day-Queen-Elizabeth-learned-fathers-death.html)

Asked if the message was correct, he simply replied: “Quite sure.”

Roberts then telephoned  Cmdr. Michael Parker, Philip’s private secretary to deliver the news, which was later confirmed by radio when Parker tuned to the BBC.

Parker awoke the Duke of Edinburgh from an afternoon nap to tell him of the death. He is said to have reacted like he had been hit by a thunderbolt. The official call was routed through a small country post office, as Elizabeth and Philip had spent the night in a jungle tree-top bungalow at Treetops Lodge Nyeri, a tree-house lodge on stilts located in the Aberdare National Park, where Elizabeth, “Clad in brown slacks and a yellow bush shirt … watched by moonlight the parade of African animals which included a rhinoceros,” United Press (UP), later to become United Press International (UPI), reported in a Feb. 6, 1952 story headlined “New ruler weeps at news of king’s death” (https://www.upi.com/Archives/1952/02/06/New-ruler-weeps-at-news-of-kings-death/5417153021042/).

The staff decided not to alarm Elizabeth until confirmation came from Buckingham Palace. It took nearly 30 minutes to get the radiotelephone call from London connection through and four hours in total before the news of her father’s death reached her.

The new Queen personally ordered a plane prepared at once for her departure for London to take her place at the head of the British Commonwealth and Empire. The plane flew them from Nanyuki, a nearby town, to Entebbe where another plane was waiting.

Meanwhile, the ensign aboard the ship Gothic, which was to leave the following day with the royal couple for Australia via Ceylon, now known as Sri Lanka, was lowered to half mast, as were all flags throughout Kenya. They were delayed by several hours by a thunderstorm in Entebbe but they left at around midnight.

During the flight, another problem arose in that the Queen’s mourning outfit had already gone ahead and she only had a floral dress to wear.

They decided to land at El Adem, Libya in North Africa to avoid British-occupied Egypt in the wake of the “Cairo Fire” (حريق القاهرة‎), also known as Black Saturday, on Jan. 26, 1952, marked by the burning and looting of some 750 buildings retail shops, cafes, cinemas, hotels, restaurants, theatres, nightclubs, and the city’s opera house in downtown Cairo.

A message was sent ahead and a second black outfit was taken to London airport.

Upon the flight’s arrival, the dress was taken aboard after it stopped in the remote area of the airport.

The Queen changed quickly before emerging, meeting a line-up including her uncle the Duke of Gloucester and Churchill.

Maj. Eric Sherbrooke Walker built the Treetops Lodge Nyeri in 1932 on a “mugumo” (fig) tree for his wife Lady Bettie.

A hotelier and founder also of the Outspan Hotel in Kenya, Walker was a decorated military officer who had run a bootlegging business, smuggling liquor into America during the Prohibition era, while his fiancée Lady Bettie worked as social secretary in the British Embassy in Washington. When Walker shot and wounded a corrupt state trooper who had tried to steal his cache of whiskey, the couple fled to Canada. Walker later wrote The Confessions of a Rum-Runner under the pseudonym of “James Barbican” about his life during this period.

Initially, only open on Wednesday nights to overnight guests as a night-viewing platform, it was purposely built beside a waterhole where animals would come for refreshment and natural salt lick. Treetops opened to the public Nov. 6, 1932 with two beds selling at ₤10 per person. The Treetops Lodge had grown to a three-bedroom, eight-bed lodge when Princess Elizabeth climbed into it almost 20 years later on Feb. 5, 1952 and descended the next day as Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

“For the first time in the history of the world, a young girl climbed into a tree one day a princess and after having what she described as her most thrilling experience she climbed down from the tree next day a queen,” noted Jim Corbett, the famed British hunter, tracker, naturalist, and author, who hunted a number of man-eating tigers and leopards in India, but who had retired to Kenya in 1947, wrote famously in the hotel’s visitors’ register.

Elizabeth, now Queen of Kenya and of Her other Realms and Territories, Head of the Commonwealth, as her title was styled in Kenya, immediately flew home. Aged 25, many were initially skeptical about her competency, including Churchill.

Elizabeth’s succession to the throne was proclaimed at an Accession Council. This took place in St James’s Palace and was attended by members of the Privy Council, the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of the City of London.

The Accession Council met twice at St. James’s Palace: first at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 6, before the new Queen had returned from Kenya, to make their proclamation declaring the accession of the new sovereign, as the late king’s successor in accordance with the line of succession to the British throne.

The Accession Council’s proclamation was published Feb. 6,1952 in a supplement to that day’s London Gazette.

“Upon the intimation that our late Most Gracious Sovereign King George the Sixth had died in his sleep at Sandringham in the early hours of this morning the Lords of the Privy Council assembled this day at St. James’s Palace, and gave orders for proclaiming Her present Majesty.
“WHEREAS it has pleased Almighty God to call to His Mercy our late Sovereign Lord George VI

“— King George the Sixth of Blessed and Glorious memory, by whose Decease the Crown is solely and rightfully come to the High and Mighty Princess Elizabeth Alexandra Mary:

“WE, therefore, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal of this Realm, being here assisted with these His late Majesty’s Privy Council, with representatives of other Members of the Commonwealth, with other Principal Gentlemen of Quality, with the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Citizens of London, do now hereby with one voice and Consent of Tongue and Heart publish and proclaim that the High and Mighty Princess Elizabeth Alexandra Mary is now, by the death of our late Sovereign of happy memory, become Queen Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God Queen of this Realm and of all Her other Realms and Territories, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith, to whom Her lieges do acknowledge all Faith and constant Obedience with hearty and humble Affection, beseeching God by whom Kings and Queens do reign, to bless the Royal Princess Elizabeth the Second with long and happy Years to reign over us.

“Given at St. James’s Palace this Sixth Day of February in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and fifty-two

“Brief pause for trumpets. And then shouts

“GOD SAVE THE QUEEN.”

The second meeting of the Accession Council began at 10 a.m. on Friday, Feb. 8, when the new Queen was personally present, to receive her oath for the security of the Church of Scotland and her own personal declaration, pledging that she would always work to uphold constitutional government and to advance the happiness and prosperity of her peoples all the world over.

“By the sudden death of my dear father I am called to assume the duties and responsibilities of sovereignty,” said the Queen. “My heart is too full for me to say more to you today than I shall always work, as my father did throughout his reign, to advance the happiness and prosperity of my peoples.”

Her declaration for securing the Protestant succession, as required by the 1689 Bill of Rights and the Accession Declaration Act 1910, was made later, at her first State Opening of Parliament on Nov. 4, 1952.

You can also follow me on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/jwbarker22

Louis Riel: 21st century hero to the Métis of Manitoba; Rogers Hometown Hockey tour set to roll into Thompson, Manitoba’s hockey hotbed

Louis Riel, the Métis leader hanged for high treason on Nov. 16, 1885 at Regina, was the driving force behind Manitoba becoming Canada’s fifth province and is thought of by many as to be the “Father of Manitoba,” the only Canadian province born in blood. Does that history matter today and what legacy has it left Manitobans? “Welcome to Winnipeg: Where Canada’s racism problem is at its worst,” Maclean’s, Canada’s national magazine, headlined its lead story Jan. 22.

Not all Manitobans, of course, share that view of Riel as victim of colonial racism by any means. But history has a way of refining our judgments and dampening or softening excessive passions. Thus, the 19th century’s traitor can be reasonably seen as the 21st century’s hero as we take a longer and more inclusive view of our collective history.

Up here in Thompson we apparently don’t have a race problem, although a regular-season hockey game last Sunday between the Thompson King Miner Midget “AA” and the Norway House North Stars was ended by officials with Thompson leading 4-2 with 8:53 left in the second period when the North Stars, who had already had a player and coach ejected, left the ice following an altercation between their goaltender and a Thompson player at the same time that a scuffle erupted in the stands, soon leading to a parade of RCMP officers in their cruisers escorting players from both teams safely out of the C.A. Nesbitt Arena at the Thompson Regional Community Centre (TRCC), after racial slurs may or may not have been uttered whiles moms and dads scrapped in the stands with their counterparts from the opposing team. Older guys in Thompson remembered decades ago similar incidents where they said they had to be escorted out of places like Norway House or Cross Lake in similar circumstances. Seventeen-year-old King Miner right winger Lucas Hanlon apparently self-identified himself as Métis to the Winnipeg-based Aboriginal People’s Television Network (APTN) in making two points: he didn’t think the Feb, 8 fracas in Thompson was about race, and, in any event, there are a lot of aboriginal players on the Thompson team.

Thompson is atop of the midget AA league standings, with a 13-4-3 record for 29 points, the same as the second-place The Pas Huskies, who have played one more game than Thompson. The King Miner’s next scheduled game is tomorrow when they are due to play the Split Lake Eagles in Split Lake.

 “I am a Metis player myself,” Hanlon reportedly told APTN “We have a lot of aboriginal players on our team,” he said. “We have just as many people with aboriginal roots in our community as anywhere else.”

Hanlon said he didn’t hear any racial taunts hurled at the Norway House players. He said the Norway House fans called him “white trash.” He said racial slurs are hurled by both sides during games. “You get kind of used it from playing against those teams for so long. It happens both ways. I personally don’t because I come from both backgrounds,” he said.

A player for the Norway House North Stars team and two parents told APTN National News Feb. 10 that some “Thompson fans hurled racial epitaphs at the Norway House team.” They also said one player was confronted by three Thompson fans, two men and a woman, who used racial slurs, and claimed one Norway House player had his helmet cracked by a slash to the head.

Hanlon told APTN he “didn’t see anyone get slashed in the head with enough force to crack a helmet: that’s reassuring. However, he was very likely on to something – something that really matters to Thompson residents, both aboriginal and non-aboriginal, when Hanlon said many in the “Thompson hockey community are now worried the planned Rogers Hometown Hockey tour stop scheduled for the community on March 7 and 8 may be scuttled because of the bad press stemming from the weekend’s incident.” It was announced last September that Ron MacLean, who has played straight man to Don Cherry on Coach’s Corner for years, will be here in 3½  weeks as part of the Rogers Hometown Hockey Tour, presented by Dodge and Scotiabank, for a weekend of hockey festivities and to host a pre-game show followed by a viewing party for a March 8 Calgary Flames-Ottawa Senators game that will be broadcast across the country.

The tour, which began last Oct. 11-12 in London, Ont., is criss-crossing Canada, stopping in Manitoba three times – it was in Selkirk for its second broadcast and in Brandon last Nov. 30 – before making the late-season trip to Thompson.

Other activities leading up to the weekend-capping broadcast will include meet-and-greet sessions with NHL alumni and local hockey heroes, a Hockey Night in Canada viewing party, a KidZone with hockey-themed activities, skills and drills competitions and live performances by local musicians, as well as ticket and merchandise giveaways.

MacLean will host a half-hour pre-game show live from the Sportsnet Mobile Studio in Thompson prior to the broadcast, and will also make appearances in intermission and post-game shows. Included on the broadcast will be interviews with local guests and grassroots hockey stories.

Should Thompson residents be worried about bad press press from the Thompson King Miner Midget “AA” and Norway House North Stars game Feb. 8 jinxing the arrival of the Rogers Hometown Hockey tour March 7? Probably not, even given the fact there are a couple of inconvenient stories from APTN now circulating on television and online, including, “Manitoba RCMP escorted First Nation hockey team from rink after game took racial turn” at http://aptn.ca/news/2015/02/10/manitoba-rcmp-escorted-first-nation-hockey-team-rink-game-took-racial-turn/ and “Metis player disputes race played role in Manitoba hockey fracas” at http://aptn.ca/news/2015/02/11/metis-player-disputes-race-played-role-thompson-man-hockey-fracas/

But long before APTN broke its two stories, Tuesday, 48 hours after the game was over, there already had been hundreds of comments and a number of photos on the emerging story on social media, mainly Facebook, by Sunday at 7 p.m., just hours after the melee at the hockey game. “Facebook,” as former Thompson Citizen and Nickel Belt News columnist Donna Wilson, who is now the general manager of Thompson’s Quality Inn & Suites on Moak Crescent, but who also still writes for the paper occasionally, has observed many times since 2010, “is how Thompson gets its news.”

RCMP also seized video of the game from veteran Thompson Shaw TV producer Paul Andersen, who tweeted in his own inimitable style, “19 years of broadcasting hockey games, I have never had my footage become ‘exhibit c’ in the court of law,#norwayhousevsthompson.”

Louis Riel Day falls this year next Monday on Feb. 16. In 2008, the NDP provincial government invited Manitoba schoolchildren to name the province’s newest statutory holiday, commencing on the third Monday in February in 2009, and 114 schools responded with suggestions: of that number a dozen suggested Louis Riel Day or some close variation.

Other suggestions included Neil Young Day, Family Get Together Day, February Fun Day, (The) Polar Pause, Duff Roblin Day (Duff’s Day), Our Parents Need a Break Day and Magical Manitoba Monday.

Riel was born at Red River Settlement on Oct. 22, 1844 and educated at St Boniface. A Roman Catholic, he studied for the priesthood at the Collège de Montréal. In 1865 he studied law with Rodolphe Laflamme, and he is believed to have worked briefly in Chicago and Saint Paul before returning to St Boniface in 1868.

Without re-telling the entire history of the Red River Rebellion, or Red River Resistance, as it is also known, here or the North-West Rebellion in Saskatchewan 15 years later, the abridged version is that in 1869, the federal government, anticipating the transfer of Red River and the North-West from the Hudson’s Bay Company to their jurisdiction, appointed William McDougall as lieutenant-governor of the new territory and sent survey crews to Red River.

The Métis, worried about the implications of the transfer and wary of Anglo-Protestant immigrants from Ontario, organized a “National Committee” of which Riel was secretary. The committee halted the surveys and prevented McDougall from entering Red River. On Nov 2, 1869, Fort Garry was seized by the committee, which invited the people of Red River, however, both English and French- speaking, to appoint delegates.

When armed resistance, led by John Christian Schultz and John Stoughton Dennis followed, the federal government postponed the transfer planned for Dec. 1, 1869. Riel issued a “Declaration of the People of Rupert’s Land and the Northwest” and on Dec. 23, 1869 became head of the “provisional government” of Red River.

Meanwhile, a force of some of those who had escaped from Riel’s men earlier, mustered by Schultz and surveyor Thomas Scott, a Protestant Presbyterian Ontario Orangeman, gathered at Portage la Prairie, but were quickly rounded up by the Métis, who imprisoned them again at Fort Garry. Riel appointed a military tribunal, presided over by his associate, Ambroise Dydine Lépine, of St. Vital, to try Scott for treason. Scott was convicted, sentenced to death and executed by a firing squad in the courtyard of Fort Garry on March 4, 1870.

In Ontario, it was Riel, however, who was widely denounced as Scott’s “murderer” and a reward of $5,000 was offered for his arrest. In Québec he was regarded as a hero, a defender of the Roman Catholic faith and French culture in Manitoba.

Anxious to avoid a volatile political confrontation between Ontario Protestants and Quebec Catholics, never mind Manitoba’s Métis, Conservative Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald tried to persuade Riel, who had gone into voluntary exile in the United States, to remain there, even providing him with funds.

Instead, encouraged by supporters, Riel entered federal politics and won a seat in a byelection in October, 1873 and was re-elected in the general election of February 1874 and re-elected for a third time in the Provencher constituency in a September 1874 byelection. He was expelled from the House of Commons before taking his seat. Riel and Lépine were convicted of murdering Scott in October 1874 and sentenced to death, but Governor General Lord Dufferin commuted the sentences in January 1875 to two years imprisonment. A month later, Prime Minister Alexander Mackenzie’s Liberal government granted amnesty for Riel and Lepine, on the condition that both remain in exile for five years.

Early in 1885, then living in present day Saskatchewan, Riel seized the parish church at Batoche, armed his men, and formed a provisional government and demanded the surrender of Fort Carlton. The North-West Rebellion lasted from March 26 to May 12 before Riel surrendered at the Battle of Batoche and on July 6, 1885, he was charged with high treason.

Riel was convicted, and the federal cabinet, with Macdonald again as prime minister, declined to commute the death sentence imposed by Lt.-Col. Hugh Richardson, a stipendiary magistrate of the Saskatchewan District of the North-West Territories. Riel’s body was sent to St Boniface and interred in the cemetery in front of the cathedral.

You can also follow me on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/jwbarker22