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Prince Rupert of the Rhine, Charles I nephew and cavalry commander, was son of the Elector Palatine who lost his kingdom to Catholic Armies. Sir John Leslie, commander of the Scot's Army was a veteran of the 30 Years War, as were several of his staff. In Scotland the National Covenant was a specific reason for the outbreak of the entire conflict, as the Presbyterian Church resisted the Laudian reforms of Charles I. The eventual Commonwealth Church was to be Presbyterian. Charles I was suspected of being a closet Catholic and his mother Anne of Denmark was also reputedly leaning towards Catholicism, while his wife openly conducted diplomatic correspondence with Rome. At the outbreak of the war Charles I was in receipt of a French pension i.e. subsidy, which allowed him to ignore Parliament and his Queen raised funds for him in Catholic Europe.

PJ Crowley Former US Assistant Secretary of State in an opinion piece on the situation in Egypt made the statement "true democracy rests on constitutions not elections". Living in Britain where we do not have a Constitution and even our most basic laws can be over-turned by a simple majority in Parliament that seems a very American way of looking at things. Constitutionalism actually pre-dates democracy historically, and the the US Constitution was written for a pre-democratic nation.

What do you think?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-20563551

I've had some of the usual FedEx spam mail, which goes straight into my Spam folder, but Yahoo Webmail does not allow me to report or block these. By now they should be blocked at the central mail server.

We are all aware of the legacies of the Spanish, Portuguese, British and French Empires, but the Dutch Empire seems to have left little even in Indonesia, one of the oldest and largest of all the European colonies.

Compared with the young of other mammals human babies invite attention by their loud cries. Other mammals would be at risk of being eaten if they did this, and there are tales of human mothers smothering their infants to avoid detection. Why are humans different?

A large number of recent questions on the history pages repeat the same questions about Hitler and Germany / Austria. It seems to me this is trolling. Should we (can we) report this as abuse under the Community guidelines?

I am constantly surprised how many defence related organisations still have their supposedly secure networks open to the WWW. If your network links to the Web it can be attacked. The latest victim is Lockheed Martin. Can anyone explain why this is so?

I believe the British Military did invest in a closed system. Surely it is not impossible to separate your general traffic through the WWW and your secure traffic through a closed system, preferably using a closed telecommunications system.

The US Constitution does not actually mention foreign residents so it would appear that any legal rights and protections for foreigners is a matter of custom and practise rather than enforceable up to the Supreme Court. Is what lies behind some of the Patriot Act legislation and the failure of some States to allow people access to their Consuls. What does it mean for people extradited to the US?