Mr Tuttle said the current embassy would be available for sale almost immediately, as long as the move was approved by US Congress and planning authorities in Britain.
He said the announcement was only the start of a “multi-year, multi-stage” process which could take up to five years.
The current embassy was always an oddity in the US diplomatic set-up because of the lease arrangement with the Duke of Westminster – virtually every other major mission is owned outright by the US.
The Duke reportedly said he would only sell if the US government returned his family’s land, confiscated during the American War of Independence.
His property company the Grosvenor Group refused to comment on the move.
American links with the square date back to the 1780s when John Adams lived in London before becoming US president.
The embassy has been there since 1938 and moved into the present nine-storey building – with its distinctive golden eagle on the roof – in 1960.
Its central location made it an obvious target for its detractors and in 1968 the square had to be closed because of the strength of protest over the Vietnam war.
Trump also criticised the Obama administration of selling the current site for “peanuts”. “Bad deal,” he added.
Although we don’t know how much the current site was sold for when it was flogged to the Qatari sovereign wealth fund in 2009, experts estimated it was worth as much as £500m – but that was before it was given its Grade II listing.
The current site is also the one of the few US embassies in the world to which the US does not own the freehold. A report by the LA Times in the 1980s suggested back in the 1940s, the second Duke of Westminster, whose Grosvenor Estate owns the freehold, was asked to hand it over to the US government. He responded by insisting he would only give it up if the US returned 1,200 acres of prime Florida real estate which had been confiscated after US independence. It politely declined.
This year the MoD has reduced it to three days due to visitors “attempting to access restricted areas”.
It was just before Christmas 1943 that Imber villagers were ordered to pack up and leave to provide a training area for American troops preparing for the invasion of Europe during World War Two.
They were never allowed to return and the village vanished off the map.
Since then, up to 50 days of public access is granted each year by the MoD.
St Giles Church will only be open to the public from 26 to 28 August
But this year it has been “significantly reduced”, according to Neil Skelton, custodian of the church, because visitors have been “trespassing in the restricted areas” of the deserted village.
“Last August, we had probably around 4,000 to 5,000 people over the two weeks and at Easter it was manic,” he said.
“It’s the sheer numbers, we’re attracting so many people but if you reduce the number of days, you’ll be squeezing more people in to fewer days.”
‘Public in danger’
It is feared people are putting their lives at risk by trespassing in to areas where there could be “unexploded ordnance”.
A Ministry of Defence spokesman who wished to remain anonymous said keeping visitors to Imber village safe was a “top priority”.
He said: “Unfortunately we have received numerous reports of members of the public placing themselves and others in danger during previous open days by attempting to access restricted areas.
“Following these reports a risk assessment was carried out which resulted in the decision to reduce public access periods to the village.”
The single-lane road cuts through an almost empty grassland plateau. Every so often there are signs warning drivers not to wander, at risk of death from unexploded bombs. A burned-out tank punctuates the horizon, its gun raised in salute. The road continues like this for a good twenty minutes before reaching a small car park outside a village church. On the morning of New Year’s Day the car park was almost full. People were getting out of their cars and making their way up the hill to the church: families with children and elderly relatives, a dog-walker in a camouflage anorak, a young couple in quilted jackets and Union Jack wellies.
Several times a year, the church at Imber, a ghost village on Salisbury Plain, is opened to the public. In 1943 the Ministry of Defence, which owns much of the surrounding area, evicted Imber’s 150 or so residents so that the village could be used to train American troops preparing for the D-Day landings. The villagers thought they would be allowed back when the war ended, but the MoD kept them out, instead using Imber to train successive generations of soldiers in urban combat. Most of the original houses have been demolished and replaced with a replica of a 1980s Belfast housing estate. More recently, soldiers have been trained here before deployment to Afghanistan and Iraq.
The church, built in the 14th and 15th centuries (the earliest recorded mention of a settlement at Imber is in the 10th century) has been preserved, its yard surrounded by a chain-link fence with signs that tell visitors not to stray out, and soldiers not to stray in. On 1 January there was the atmosphere of a fête inside. Tables with gingham cloths were set out for guests; a stall offered mulled wine and orange squash. Display boards told the history of the village, alongside black and white photos of thatched cottages. The visitors peered at the boards, or sat and chatted quietly. A set of 15th-century frescoes have been removed to a safer location, but I could make out what looks like a horned figure traced in red pigment where a painting of the Seven Deadly Sins once sat.
At first, nobody was allowed to visit Imber at all, but in January 1961 two thousand protesters forced their way past the security checkpoints that surround the MoD training ground, to demand that the community be allowed back. Today, the MoD permits access for up to 50 days a year, although this is often curtailed at short notice. ‘We were supposed to open for three weeks in summer, but they only let us open for three days,’ the woman pouring drinks said.
In The Village that Died for England, Patrick Wright explores Tyneham in Dorset, another settlement that was forced to make way for the war effort. Once abandoned, Tyneham was ‘reborn’ in media coverage ‘as a perfect English village of the mind’, with patriotic villagers who dutifully left their homes when the hour came; a fantasy of England as rural, pre-industrial, white, enduring. A number of Tyneham’s buildings have been meticulously restored and the village has been used as a film set. Imber is too diminished by use for that. Looking downhill from the church, you can see the ‘Belfast’ houses. They are made of brick, and have sloping metal roofs, but there are no windows, and scorch marks line the walls. As one version of England is briefly revived inside the church, another carries on outside.
In the churchyard, some gravestones are clearly postwar. They are memorials for former villagers – the Imber ‘diaspora’, as a local newspaper article puts it – who died in the 1970s and 1980s. Many of the older stones are completely overgrown, covered by clumps of uncut grass, and starting to look like miniature Stone Age barrows – remnants of another culture that had its own ways of imagining the eternal, to which England now lays claim.
Many of Britain’s largest cities are refusing to reveal information regarding the private ownership of seemingly public spaces, the Guardian has discovered, fuelling concerns about a growing democratic deficit within local city government.
A Guardian Cities investigation earlier this summer revealed for the first time the spread of pseudo-public space in London – large squares, parks and thoroughfares that appear to be public but are actually owned and controlled by developers and their private backers – and an almost complete lack of transparency over secret restrictions imposed by corporations that limit the rights of citizens passing through their sites.
The Guardian has since requested data on pseudo-public spaces, which are sometimes known as privately owned public spaces (Pops), from the country’s biggest urban centres beyond the capital.
Councils were asked about the extent of existing pseudo-public spaces in their area and details of any upcoming development plans that will include such spaces in the future. They were also questioned on how local citizens could access information about pseudo-public spaces, and about the nature of any private restrictions imposed by corporate landowners which may prevent members of the public from holding protests, taking photos, or exercising many of the other rights they are entitled to on genuinely public land.
Out of 14 local authorities contacted, only two – Cardiff and Cambridge – provided some details of pseudo-public sites under their jurisdiction. Belfast and Edinburgh councils said they were unable to share that information. Other city administrations, including Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Nottingham, Leicester, Bristol, Sheffield and Newcastle, declined to comment.
‘[Open spaces] should be subject to the same laws and rules as everywhere else in our country and not indistinct restrictions’ … Andy Burnham, mayor of Greater Manchester. Photograph: Chris J Ratcliffe
“It’s really shocking,” said professor Richard Sennett, a prominent sociologist at the London School of Economics whose work explores the politics of urban development. “What are local councils so afraid of? Conditions could be placed on new developments that force the creation of real public space and full transparency about land ownership and public rights.
“But in Britain we’ve long had this attitude of appeasement towards developers. If planning authorities were strong, rather than constantly bending over backwards to show how development-friendly they are, they would find that the companies fall into line.”
The revelation comes as pressure mounts on the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, to use his forthcoming London Plan – which provides an overarching development strategy for the city – to push back against the creeping privatisation of public space.
Following the Guardian’s initial investigation, national political leaders including Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn, the Liberal Democrats’ Vince Cable and Caroline Lucas of the Green Party all spoke out on the subject.
Shortly thereafter, a motion was passed in the London Assembly urging Khan to take a firm stance on the issue.
“Being able to know what rules you are being governed by, and how to challenge them, is a fundamental part of democracy,” said Sian Berry, a London Assembly member for the Green Party who proposed the motion.
The Liverpool One shopping development, which involved the corporate enclosure of several previously public streets.
“Increasingly, London’s public space is in private hands and there is very little transparency around which individuals and groups can have access,” added Labour’s Nicky Gavron. “These are Londoners’ outdoor living rooms and it is appalling that access can be restricted.”
Several assembly members pointed out that City Hall itself is located on open but private land controlled by the sovereign wealth fund of Kuwait, which refuses to allow journalists to operate in the area without corporate permission.
The Mayor of London has vowed to establish new guidelines covering privately-owned “public” sites, designed to “maximise access and minimise restrictions, as well as enabling planners to establish potential restrictions at the application stage for new developments.”
But Gavron insisted that this was not enough. “The next London Plan should go further and establish real public transparency and accountability for setting rules to govern these spaces through the lifetime of developments, not just at the application stage,” she argued.
Although London is at the centre of Britain’s trend towards the creation of pseudo-public spaces, budgetary pressures on local authorities and growing partnerships with the private sector have resulted in a number of similar developments emerging in other cities, including Liverpool One – a huge retail and leisure complex on the city’s waterfront which involved the corporate enclosure of several previously public streets – and the Spinningfields and First Street districts of Manchester.
Manchester’s under-construction NOMA neighbourhood, which is currently the largest development project in the north-west of England, is set to include two pseudo-public spaces; when asked about what agreements Manchester’s planning authorities had reached with the landowner regarding protecting public rights on these sites, the city council refused to comment.
Directly elected mayors responsible for some of Britain’s biggest urban regions told the Guardian that transparency and accountability in the governance of supposedly public spaces was vital.
“I’m deeply committed to creating a civic realm that is open, accessible and democratic,” said Steve Rotheram, mayor of the Liverpool City Region. “This is an integral part of civilised urban life and any erosion of public space or the privatisation of the civic realm is something that I would seek to oppose in terms of my powers and influence as Metro Mayor.”
A spokesperson for Andy Burnham, mayor of Greater Manchester, told the Guardian that all of the city’s open and public spaces “should be subject to the same laws and rules as everywhere else in our country and not indistinct restrictions. While landowners have rights over their property, the Mayor believes it is crucial all of our public spaces are welcoming and genuinely open.”
Huw Thomas, the Labour leader of Cardiff city council, echoed those sentiments. “With council budgets being slashed we have had to find new ways of delivering for Cardiff and its residents,” he said. “We believe in positive partnerships with the private sector, but this doesn’t have to mean citizens lose their rights.”
James Palmer – mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, and the only Conservative local leader to respond to the Guardian’s enquiries – said that it was “only fair that individual owners decide how to manage their property when it is privately owned,” but added that “it is vital that those areas which are enjoyed by the public, and appear to be within the public realm, are not policed in an inappropriate, or aggressive, fashion.”
All the leaders quoted claimed that pseudo-public space, and associated issues regarding public rights and democratic accountability, were not as pervasive in their areas compared to London. The directly elected mayors of Bristol, the West of England and the West Midlands declined to comment.
Ultimately, some experts conclude, any widespread challenge to the spread of pseudo-public spaces may come from citizens themselves rather than top-down institutional leaders.
“The planning process is supposed to be democratic,” Adam Fineberg, an expert adviser on public services, observed. “The people responsible for drawing up planning policies and sitting on planning committees are elected representatives. So if citizens are concerned about this issue in their local areas, they can campaign and put pressure on representatives through the ballot box and try to ensure that future planning applications by developers are required to meet clear and strong conditions regarding public access and open governance. There’s nothing stopping planning authorities making approval dependent on those conditions being met. It’s a question of local democracy.”
Paramilitary eviction squads, High Court injunctions, deportations, torched dwellings – these are the legacy of the 2012 anti-squatting laws, writes TONY GOSLING, reporting from Bristol.
Before dawn on 23 November 2016 around 25 men dressed in black with masked faces, turned up equipped with sledgehammers, crowbars and dogs at a squat in a commercial building in Barton Hill, Bristol. They broke in through a window and two doors and once inside ordered the six petrified Spanish residents to “get on the floor”. Eventually, the squatters were ordered to leave the premises with their hands up in the air. When the police turned up in response to the squatters’ 999 call they spoke to the bailiffs only, before driving off.
This was the first strike by the firm Graham Rose Consultants (GRC) who see themselves as “entrepreneurs” opening up a new market in illegal evictions. They claim to help landowners use so called “Common Law” to evict gypsies and travellers trespassing on open land, and will remove squatters “without the need to go through a lengthy court process.”
GRC bailiffs at February 2018 eviction in Plymouth (Herald article)
Since then GRC have carried out several other evictions by force and without court orders. On 14 February 2017, about ten of their bailiffs arrived with power cutters at 6am at the empty Greencore warehouse in Bristol’s St Philip’s district occupied by two squatters. On 18 May, eight bailiffs broke into the abandoned Bristol Tile Factory warehouse in Fishponds Road to evict half a dozen squatters from a retail unit where local groups have campaigned against a planned McDonalds.
GRC’s business model is to break in to lawfully occupied buildings before the police arrive, hoping that residents will be intimidated out, vigilante style. This is illegal so the raids are organised with military precision since they have to commit the criminal damage and gain entry to the property under cover of darkness and before police arrive. The fact that such a confrontation will, on occasions, turn violent seems to be part of the adrenalin draw for those they employ, who are always dressed in black and wear balaclavas – in the Greencore operation, one wore a skull mask. In the Tile Factory attack, they carried CS spray canisters, side batons and body armour along with the usual sledgehammers.
Squatters have described the GRC masked bailiffs as behaving like riot-trained police officers, down to the barked orders and mannerisms. Many of them have Welsh accents and one has a Welsh red dragon flag sewn onto his black jacket. Squat- ters have not forgotten that it was mostly Welsh police who were brought over to Bristol to kick off Stokes Croft’s so-called “Tesco riots” in April 2011.
The clauses criminalising squatting in residential properties and removing legal aid for the homeless in the 2102 Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act are ideal for unscrupulous bailiffs like GRC. This law tends to force squatters into industrial estates away from eyewitnesses, and encourage landlords and bailiffs to carry out criminal evictions in the knowledge that without legal aid, squatters are less likely be able to challenge them through the courts. News of these violent evictions has spread around the Bristol homeless community, discouraging people from squatting commercial properties.
Tent City
As squatting buildings becomes more difficult, homeless people are resorting to living in tents. There are several encampments tucked away in parks and scraps of wood- land within a mile of Bristol’s city centre. Until now the bailiffs have left them alone, but the tent dwellers face other hazards.
First of these is Bristol Council, which in 2016, under the Labour mayor Marvin Rees, engaged personnel to wait until tent dwellers left their site empty in order to confiscate their tents. Since this was theft, the council was forced to abandon this policy. Instead it applied for an injunction against a “Tent City” of ten residents in Peel Street Park in the Easton area of Bristol, forbidding them to camp on any council-owned parks and derelict spaces. Bristol Housing Action Movement (BHAM) initiated a fundraising campaign and engaged Derek McConnell from South West Law, who managed to get the ban reduced to just that park for only six months. Tent City moved to another site.
Another hazard is the charity St Mungo’s whose outreach team roam the streets engaging and identifying the city’s rough sleepers, ostensibly with a view to getting them one of the rare available beds in a hostel. Identity checks by these “helpers of the homeless” are being handed on to the Home Office eager to deport any migrant with no visible means of support. In May two Polish men living at Tent City were jailed for several months in the former Navy prison at Portland, and one was sent back to Poland. St Mungo’s, some readers may recall, was a partner in Ealing Council’s award-winning “beds in sheds” enforcement campaign, which was specifically designed to “tackle illegal immigrants and illegal employment practices.” (See The Land 19 p 59).
Then one evening in September 2017 the occupants of Tent City left the site to visit a soup kitchen. They returned to find that arsonists had torched many of their tents with all their belongings inside. BHAM again came to the rescue: it found alternative squatted accommodation and organised an appeal for money to replace the burnt possessions. One of the activists told the Bristol Post: “With winter a few months away it is very important that we provide the duty of care that Bristol City Council will not”. Thanks to Isabel Burnett – who helped research GRC and submitted an article to The Bristol Cable in early summer 2017, which wasn’t published.
Contrary to BBC Radio-4 and BBC TV News bulletins, the following BBC News Online report doesn’t mention that Michael Gove announced that a future post-brexit UK Agricultural subsidy system will support provision by landowners for public access as well as environmental measures which it does cite below such as farmers rewarded for planting woodland, boosting wildlife, improving water quality and recreating wildflower meadows.
Plans for the way farming subsidies will be dealt with after Brexit have been set out by Michael Gove.
Farmers will receive payments for “public goods”, such as access to the countryside and planting meadows.
The environment secretary told farmers the government would guarantee subsidies at the current EU level until the 2022 election. There would then be a “transitional period” in England.
The National Farmers Union said it was time for “a new deal” for the UK.
Fergus Ewing, the Scottish rural economy secretary, said Mr Gove had left “too many questions unanswered”.
Meanwhile, a report warns Brexit trade deals could threaten UK food security.
MPs and peers in the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Agroecology (APPGA) say ministers must ensure farmers are not undermined by future trade deals which permit imports of food produced with lower welfare or environmental standards.
Farm subsidies ‘must be earned’ – Gove
Countryside faces ‘damaging uncertainty’
Five times food fights have had an impact on trade talks
Mr Gove, who has promised that standards will not be compromised after Brexit, addressed two farmers’ conferences in Oxford on Thursday.
His speeches came ahead of the government’s agriculture plans being published this spring.
The current payment system – £3bn a year to UK farmers – is based on the amount of land farmers own.
Detailing how the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) will be replaced after Brexit, Mr Gove said the CAP was “unjust” and “doesn’t really reward efficiency”.
The government has agreed to maintain current subsidies for three years after Brexit, until 2022, and Mr Gove said the payments could continue until 2024 but the length of time would be down to “consultation”.
Mr Gove said during that time he aimed to reduce the largest subsidies, with a maximum cap or a sliding scale of reductions.
He said there should be a “smooth path” towards a new way of paying farmers when EU subsidies ended and that a new method would “use public money for public goods”.
The plans would see farmers rewarded for planting woodland, boosting wildlife, improving water quality and recreating wildflower meadows.
Speech ‘no comfort’
The environment secretary said he was “confident” about the future of British farming and that Brexit would allow the UK to “leverage” the advantages of Britain producing “the best food in the world” and “some of the most innovative farmers in the world”.
New trade deals with other countries outside the EU would provide new markets for the “superb food” Britain’s farmers produce, Mr Gove said.
Minette Batters, deputy president of the National Farmers Union, welcomed incentives to protect the environment but said her key concern was over future trade deals.
She said: “We’re very proud of our high standards of environmental protection, of welfare, in the UK and we want those to be respected in any trade negotiation and we do not want to see cheaper food produced to lower standards.”
Mr Gove’s counterpart in Scotland, Mr Ewing, said Mr Gove’s speech “leaves far too many questions unanswered for any comfort to be taken“.
He said it did “not cover a whole variety of vital support schemes“, such as environmental programmes, “which are crucial to ensure the continued economic well-being of all of Scotland’s rural communities“.
For many years the government has argued that EU farm policy is wasteful and bad for the environment.
It has driven birds out of the countryside, led to soil erosion, and caused the loss of woodlands and wildflower meadows.
Over many years, attempts to reform the policy have been resisted by farm unions, especially in France.
But Brexit has given Mr Gove the opportunity to produce a farm policy made in Britain.
His changes will alarm those farmers who will need to change their whole business model to get subsidies after Brexit.
It will be welcomed by some efficient modern farmers who have already accepted that being paid by the public for owning land can’t be justified.
The changes will impact on the countryside and food production.
It’s too soon to tell exactly how.
‘Best possible deal’
Mr Gove’s speech comes as the APPGA report says post-Brexit trade deals could pose the biggest peacetime threat to the UK’s food security.
According to the group, the import of cheaper foods that are produced to lower safety and welfare standards could place UK farmers at a disadvantage.
“To compete with these lower prices, domestic farmers could seek to tighten their margins and therefore cut corners with regards to environmental regulations,” the AAPG said.
“If the UK is unable to protect its farmers from being undermined by lower welfare imports, farmers are likely to resist improvements and may even press for UK standards to be lowered
Community Land Trusts (CLTs) are a form of community-led housing, set up and run by ordinary people to develop and manage homes as well as other assets important to that community, like community enterprises, food growing or workspaces. CLTs act as long-term stewards of housing, ensuring that it remains genuinely affordable, based on what people actually earn in their area, not just for now but for every future occupier.
There are now over 225 Community Land Trusts in England and Wales, and the sector has grown six-fold in the last six years. The largest Community Land Trusts have over 1000 members each. Community Land Trusts have developed over 700 permanently affordable homes to date and will have developed a further 3000 homes by 2020.
A 1658 engraving which depicts Oliver Cromwell as the Lord Protector of England, surrounded by the symbols of Freemasonry, in traditional Masonic commemorative and triumphal style.
In 1746, the Abbe Larudan, a critic of Freemasonry, published his Les Franc-Macons Ecrasses [see key extract translated into English below], apparently the child of the author’s imagination, in which he asserted that Cromwell, in 1648, at a dinner attended by Parliamentarians, Presbyterians, and Independents, first indicated his intentions to form such a society.
The development of this scheme was related by the Abbe with particularity and in detail. Cromwell, he tells us, held his confidants in suspense for four days, after which, he consummated the enterprise in dramatic fashion. Conducting his guests into a dark room, he prepared their minds for what was to follow by a long prayer in which he pretended to be in communion with the spirits of the blessed. After this, he explained his purpose to found a society to encourage the worship of God and to restore peace. Informing the company that they must all pass through a certain ceremony, and, gaining their consent, he appointed a Master, two Wardens, a Secretary, and an Orator. The visitors were then removed to another room in which was a picture of the ruins of Solomon’s Temple. They were next blindfolded, removed to another apartment and invested with the secrets, after which, Cromwell delivered a discourse on religion and politics, so impressing the novices that all sects united with Cromwell’s army in forming a secret association to promote the principles of the love of God and liberty and equality among men, but the real objective of which was the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of the Commonwealth.
The Temple of Solomon, said the Abbe, was used as the symbol of glory or the primitive state of man, which, after some years, was destroyed by an army representing pride and ambition, the people being led away captive. Finally, the Freemasons were privileged to rebuild the Temple. The Order was divided into three degrees, the Master’s degree having a Hiramic legend differing somewhat from that later adopted. The death of Hiram represented the loss of liberty, and the confusion among the workmen represented the state of the people who were reduced to slavery by the tyrants. Cromwell is then said to have spread the Society over England, Scotland, and Ireland, the members being first called Freemasons, then Levelers, then Independents, next Fifth Monarchy Men, and, finally Freemasons.
The Abbe Larudan, like other fabricators, fell into the trap of his own ignorance. He did not know that Elias Ashmole had been made a Mason two years before Cromwell’s supposed theatrical performance, or that lodges had existed in most of the principal cities of Scotland before Cromwell was born, or that the Master’s degree was unheard of, and the Hiramic Legend, too, until sixty-five years after Cromwell’s death. The Abbe’s absurd story appears to have been composed by paraphrasing Edward Ludlow’s Memoirs in which he described Cromwell’s intrigues for the organization of a new political party, but in which nothing was said about Freemasonry.
Have you ever wondered whether the two important Cromwells in British history were related?
Henry VIII’s chief minister Thomas Cromwell who administered the takeover and sell-off, or dissolution of the monasteries in the 1530s…
and Oliver Cromwell, Puritan, roundhead & general of the parliamentary army in the 1640s English Civil war…
Yes, indeed they were. Thomas’ sister Katherine was the great-great grandmother of Oliver. Oliver was the great-great grandson of Thomas’ sister,
Oliver’s great-great-grandfather, Morgan Williams, had married Thomas Cromwell’s sister Katherine in 1497. Their three sons, Richard, another Richard and Walter, began the practice of calling themselves Cromwell in place of their true surname of Williams, in honour of their famous maternal uncle.
The Two Cromwells: Destroying Monasteries And Democracy, A Century Apart
Oliver Cromwell was a blood descendent, of Henry VIII’s smasher and grabber of the monasteries, Thomas Cromwell. Both knew the best way to attack Christendom was to pose as Christian men themselves. Thomas the reformer, Oliver the Puritan
Thomas Cromwell was the brother of Oliver Cromwell’s great, great grandmother. So Oliver Cromwell was the great, great grandson of Thomas Cromwell’s sister Katherine. The line went as follows: Katherine married Morgan Williams who were the parents of Richard Williams-Cromwell. His son Henry Williams-Cromwell’s son Robert Cromwell, was Oliver Cromwell’s father.
The Freemasons Crushed translated into English – Les Francs-Maçons Écrasés; Suite Du Livre Intitulé: L’ordre Des Francs-Maçons Trahi by Abbe Larudan (Amsterdam 1778)
Published over a century after the 1642-49 English Civil War Larudan’s ‘Freemasons Crushed’ was based on various rumours and sources which had been passed down in France. Charles’ wife Henrietta Maria had acted as a Paris magnet for pre-restoration exiles from England. This was published over a century after the events when their significance had been understood only after Freemasonry began to come out into the open in the mid 1700s.
Cromwell knew that whilst he held the king captive on the Isle of Wight he had to find some ‘legal’ means to execute him or Charles would continue as a political force after the war and may well succeed in having him, Cromwell, executed.
With some old wives tale about a (revived Knights Templar myth) ‘noble cause’ of restoring Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem, he hand picked self-seeking men from all political factions and initiated them into a classic secret society with the usual bloodthirsty oaths and penalties, with the object of the judicial murder of the king.
Cromwell’s cult began secretly gathering opinions of all the Long Parliament’s MPs on whether the king might have a role in a future settlement. On 6th December 1649 he ordered his son-in-law Colonel Thomas Pride to arrest 140 MPs of all parties who wanted to negotiate with the king, the infamous ‘Pride’s Purge’, thus ensuring the vote on whether or not to try the king for treason would go his way.
Extract from Les Francs-Maçons Écrasés, pp. 76 ff. Abbe Larudan – translated by former GCHQ linguist Alexander Thomson
In 1640, Cromwell, conversing one day with Sir [Thomas] Chicheley about religion, spoke to him in these terms: “I could very well tell you what I would not like, but I cannot tell you what I would like.” Ambiguous words, and ones which contain the design in which Cromwell was to lay the foundations of a Society in which all religious affiliations would be irrelevant. This is in fact easy to conceive of, if one considers the way in which he sought to reconcile, in 1648, a multitude of different denominations. Such, for example, were the Presbyterians; the Independents, who flattered themselves that they could exist under any kind of government; the Agitators, whose army supported the interests of, and who fought, they said, for the free exercise of the Anglican denomination; the Levellers, whose aim was the abolition of all monarchical power; in a word, so many other parties divided in their interests and sentiments, which his approach found the means to unite together.
The first undertaking that he managed to accomplish successfully, and that for some time he would not drop except to take care of another which seemed to him no less worthy of his attention, was the reform of politics among the English; a task which a heated dispute between Parliament and the soldiers in 1647 gave him an opportunity to bring about. Parliament, still attached to the party of King Charles, was trying maintain him against the Army, which had become his adversary; but Cromwell was so good at handling the divided sentiments that he was able to head off the uprising by making them understand that they would soon have satisfaction anyway. But this calm which he had just re-established was merely a favourable time that he had wished to buy for himself to sound out people’s feelings cunningly, and to exploit their varying attitudes to bring about the massive projects which he was incessantly pushing. And indeed, in 1648, he was not backward about making known the fruits he had plucked from this interval. Having arrived one day in Parliament with Ireton, his confidant, he held forth in a monologue in which he declared loudly: “King Charles has ceased to be the father of the people, becoming its tyrant; not only does England no longer belong to him as a subject, but moreover this nation is from now on going to have to govern itself. If Parliament is not disposed at once to make work of restoring liberty, I shall have no further obligation to him for the benefits which the nation might produce for him; but I shall owe it all to my belief in the spirit of the soldiers who fight before my eyes, and whose value is going to become England’s sole resource.”
Let it not be imagined here that Cromwell’s purpose in these discourses was only the exclusion of the King, to introduce democratic government: no; his views extended even further, since in the very time when he was enticing the Royalists, the Presbyterians, and the Independents with the hope of an elusive peace, his project was taking on new strengths. He had already communicated it to some of his friends, such as Algernon Sidney, Newell, Martin Wildeman, Harrington, Monk, Fairfax, and a great many others, all of them behind-the-scenes enemies of the King and Parliament. They had even already held some secret meetings, to plot the means of establishing [the plan] with safety, and to lead it with prudence: which brings me inexorably to relate what went on among them, the first day that Cromwell addressed them on this topic.
In the year 1648, a meal which he gave to his friends, at his expense and at the expense of those who knew his purpose, was the favourable moment which he seized to open up to the company. After there had been heavy drinking by all, and some vague speeches given on religion and politics, Cromwell — in the presence of all the guests, among whom were several Members of Parliament, together with some Presbyterians and Independents, broached the topic of the sad state of England: he made them feel pathetically how much this unfortunate nation was having to suffer from all the differences in religion and politics; what a shame it would be for minds as enlightened as they were, not to put an end to these evils which were cruelly tearing the nation apart. Scarcely had Cromwell reached this point when Ireton, who had had the opportunity to prepare his speech, rose abruptly, and looking penetratingly at the whole company, assured him of the necessity of reconciling together, for the public good, so many contrary parties which were its scourge. He added vehemently that he would not hesitate to sacrifice his goods and his blood to remedy so many misfortunes, and to show men the path they must take to shake off the yoke that oppressed them, and to shatter the iron sceptre under which they were being made to groan; but that to begin this great work worthily, it was first necessary to destroy all power which had betrayed the nation’s interests.
After this, he turned to Cromwell, urging him to explain what he thought of the matter. Never was a request more promptly indulged. Cromwell duly rose; and after endless grimaces, accompanied by so many metaphors, the better to prepare his audience, he set forth in ambiguous terms the duty of worshipping God, the necessity of repelling strength by force, of delivering our fellow-creatures from oppression and tyranny; and finishing his speech at once, he desired to pique the curiosity of all the guests by making them understand that he knew an infallible means of succeeding in this great enterprise, of restoring to England the peace which she longed for, by drawing her from the abyss into which she had been plunged; and that this means, communicated to the universe to draw the same advantage in it, would warrant the recognition of men, to the extent of causing the memory of its author to live on to the most remote posterity.
Cromwell was soon satisfied; no sooner had he ceased to speak than every guest prayed him, begged him to reveal this admirable expedient. But far from yielding to their eagerness, he only annoyed them even more by contenting himself with answering modestly that such a prodigious achievement surpassed man’s strength; that being merely the one man who was starting it, by the rectitude of his intentions and the firmness of his courage, but at the same time unable to accomplish it without help, he preferred to groan in secret, and to share in a common [to society] misfortune, than to expose to the most terrible danger men who were perhaps weak enough to be frightened by [the solution].
What address, what ruse [has ever been] better concerted! What political background could have been more ingenious to disguise his designs, and to bring them unwittingly to their purpose! Of all those who were at table with Cromwell, there was none of whose character he was unaware. This remarkable [intelligence] penetration, which revealed to him even the slightest movements afoot in the heart of his enemies, had evidently not abandoned him in the choice of those whom he intended to serve as a support for his project. He spent a few moments, during which he amused himself only by laughing and joking with his friends, making sure of them even more perfectly, and drawing from each heart its last secret, even while shrouding his own in impenetrable darkness. Thereafter, the proceedings recommenced, and they became more lively than before, especially on the part of his confidants, whom he had expressly urged that they should press him unyieldingly.
Cromwell, therefore, consented to open up, and after having greatly impressed upon the guests the value of a confidence such as this, he told them that he was ready to communicate a great plan to them, on the condition, however, that every guest should engage in an oath to reveal nothing to anyone, and to consider his design, and the plan he was going to propose, with an entirely calm spirit. The conditions were accepted unanimously, and Cromwell, having obtained what he had demanded, began by kneeling, and raising his hands to heaven, taking God and all the heavenly powers to witness to the innocence of his heart and the purity of his intentions. This prayer was accompanied by a pompous mass of emphatic expressions, after which, addressing the guests, he told them that the moment had not yet come for to reveal to them what he had promised; that a celestial inspiration which he had just felt obliged him to postpone for four days, at the end of which interval he urged them to reconvene at King’s Street, at six o’clock in the evening. However desire there was, then, however much keenness everyone felt to know this important secret, it was necessary to postpone the party to the day appointed by Cromwell, and to go their separate ways [for now], but not before having renewed the promise to disclose nothing of what they had witnessed: a promise all the less difficult to maintain, since Cromwell had not yet made anything known.
At last, on the fourth day, everyone went to the appointed place, still in fear, however, that Cromwell had not yet received a visit from the Holy Ghost, who might send him away as before. But this time, he had been so comfortable with Heaven that the ceremony could begin. So he led his band into a dark room, where he prepared them by long prayers, in which he behaved such a way as to make known that he was really in communion with the blessed spirits. This prelude done, he spoke to the whole assembly, saying that his purpose was to found a society whose sole object was to restore to God the worship which is due to Him, and to England the peace which she desired; but that a project of this consequence required consummate prudence and infinite skill. Then, taking the world’s most subtle censer [of incense or meant figuratively of speech], he lavished all its vapours on all those whom the room contained; and after having put them in the most favourable moods, by these praises and elegies with which he overwhelmed them, he made them understand that this had come to him in the spirit of practising a certain ceremony for the reception of every new member which he would have to undergo; that since this ceremony contained nothing relating to the Divinity, it seemed to him a most promising thing to establish, provided, however, that the band consented to accept it.
The proposition was universally received; and Cromwell having received the vote of all present, he chose five from among them, to occupy the places of which we shall speak later; that is, two Surveillants, a Secretary, a Speaker, and a Master; such were the titles which he gave them himself. This new promotion made, he made his band change rooms, introducing them to another prepared for the purpose, and on whose floor one saw a representation of the ruins of the Temple of Solomon: we will have occasion to speak about this anon. From this new room, he passed to yet another, where he advised them to redouble their prayers to be found worthy of finally entering the one that was the centre of this light which was to enlighten them. For his own part, having taken the lead, he sent to his disciples a Surveillant charged with asking each one politely to be willing to allow that his eyes be blindfolded until he had been introduced to the place destined to receive him. The desire to see things more clearly made each one willing to consent to lose his sight of the light for a moment; which was accomplished without having to blandish any of them.
All the ceremonial performed, and the blindfold removed from each man, Cromwell’s conversation turned first to politics and religion. He set out the Presbyterians and the Independents were to be mutually reconciled, exhorting them to abandon all these trivial disputes, which, not at all bearing upon the essence of the matter, merely embittered men’s souls and changed the most tender love into the most irreconcilable hatred.
Former English Civil War Army Officer, now ‘Leveller’ John Lilburne captured by Cromwell’s ‘Council of State’ in 1649
In March, 1649, leading Leveller writers John Lilburne, William Overton and Thomas Prince published ‘England’s New Chains Discovered’. They attacked the ‘arbitrary government’ of Oliver Cromwell pointing out: “They may talk of freedom, but what freedom indeed is there so long as they stop the Press, which is indeed and hath been so accounted in all free Nations, the most essential part thereof. What freedom is there left, when honest and worthy Soldiers are sentenced and enforced to ride the horse with their faces reverst, and their swords broken over their heads for but petitioning and presenting a letter in justification of their liberty therein?”
When Lilburne was jailed in the Tower of London there was uproar. Voices throughout England’s Leveller movement called for his release. This included Britain’s first ever all-women petition, supported by over 10,000 signatures. A group including John’s wife Elizabeth Lilburne, and one Katherine Chidley, presented the petition to the House of Commons on 25th April, 1649.
Pauline Gregg, Free-Born John: A Biography Of John Lilburne (1961) page 270
Although he agreed with some of the Leveller’s policies, including the abolition of the monarchy and the House of Lords, Cromwell refused to increase the number of people who could vote in elections. Lilburne attacked Cromwell’s suppression of Roman Catholics in Ireland and Parliament’s persecution of Royalists in England and the decision to execute Charles I.
In February, 1649, he published England’s New Chains Discovered. “He appealed to the army and the provinces as well as Londoners to join him in rejecting the rule of the military junta, the council of state, and their ‘puppet’ parliament. Leveller agitation, inspired by his example, revived. He was soon in the Tower again for the suspected authorship of a book which parliament had declared treasonable”.
In another pamphlet Lilburne described Cromwell as the “new King.” On 24th March, Lilburne read his latest pamphlet, out loud to a crowd outside Winchester House, where he was living at the time, and then presented it to the House of Commons later that same day. It was condemned as “false, scandalous, and reproachful” as well as “highly seditious” and on 28th March he was arrested at his home.
Richard Overton, William Walwyn and Thomas Prince, were also taken into custody and all were brought before the Council of State in the afternoon. Lilburne later claimed that while he was being held prisoner in an adjacent room, he [put his ear to the keyhole and] heard Cromwell thumping his fist upon the Council table and shouting that the only “way to deal with these men is to break them in pieces … if you do not break them, they will break you!”
Exclusive: Plans to build 200,000 homes for first-time buyers and help more people access Right to Buy are excluded from latest plan amid ‘complete rethink’
Ben Kentish @BenKentish 20 hours ago – 275 comments
Two of the Conservatives’ flagship housing policies have been dropped from a key government document, raising questions about the future of the plans.
The new “single departmental plan” published by the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) does not include a single reference to Starter Homes, which form a central plank of the Government’s commitment to increase home ownership, or of the planned extension of Right to Buy.
The document, which forms part of the guidance for civil servants working on housing, is in stark contrast to the previous plan published last year, in which the two policies featured prominently and were mentioned several times as part of the Conservatives’ housing strategy.
In the latest version, five specific pledges to boost home ownership, including delivering Starter Homes and the extension of Right to Buy, have been downgraded to a single-line promise to “increase home ownership through schemes including Help to Buy”.
Fewer social homes being built than at any time since Second World War
Furthermore, a specific commitment to “increasing home ownership” has been absorbed into the broader aim of fixing “the broken housing market”.
Starter Homes are properties supposedly affordable to first-time buyers because they are offered at a 20 per cent discount.
Ministers had promised to build 200,000 of them by 2020 but The Independent revealed last month that not a single Starter Home has yet been built. This led to officials admitting the policy remained an “ambition” – but have now removed all mention of it from DCLG’s housing objectives.
The previous iteration of the departmental plan included a clear commitment to the policy. It said: “We are delivering a major boost to affordable home ownership with Starter Homes and extending Right to Buy to housing association tenants.”
It reiterated a pledge to build 200,000 Starter Homes, including 30,000 on brownfield land – former industrial sites earmarked for development.
References to the planned extension of Right to Buy to 1.3 million housing association tenants have also been quietly dropped from the latest document.
Whereas the 2016 document promised to “implement a voluntary agreement with housing associations and the National Housing Federation that will extend Right to Buy level discounts to 1.3 million housing association tenants, giving them the opportunity to buy their own home”, the latest version includes no mention at all of the controversial Right to Buy scheme.
The omissions will probably fuel speculation the Government is wavering in its commitment to two of its most contentious housing policies – especially given the delays in implementing them.
Amid widespread concern about the future of social housing, Sajid Javid, the Communities Secretary, admitted in October the Conservatives had “failed” on housing in recent years and promised a “complete rethink of our approach to social housing” in the wake of the Grenfell Tower disaster.
That revaluation could have consequences for the two policies not included in the latest DCLG plan, both of which are predicted to accelerate the loss of social housing – something highlighted by the Grenfell tragedy. The extension of Right to Buy is expected to lead to the loss of 75,000 social homes, while Starter Homes will be built at the expense of other types of affordable housing, including those for social rent.
Flagship government housing plan fails to deliver a single home in three years
Labour said the omissions in the new document showed the Government had “given up” on helping first-time buyers.
John Healey, the party’s Shadow Housing Secretary, said: “With home ownership at a 30-year low and the number of younger homeowners in free fall, the Government has now given up on first-time buyers.
“We need much more affordable housing for younger people looking to buy their first home but ministers have erased new housing for first-time buyers from the Communities Department’s official objectives.
“After seven years of failure on housing, the Conservatives have no plan to fix the housing crisis. Ministers should back Labour’s plan to build 100,000 FirstBuy homes linked to average incomes to give first-time buyers the chance to own their home.”
The Department for Communities and Local Government said the new strategy document was a “high-level summary” and did not reflect a change in policy.
A spokesperson said: “This single departmental plan is not an exhaustive list of all of the department’s policies. This is a high-level summary of our priorities and overall aims for the Government.”
The latest plan was published as ministers said the implementation of a third major Tory housing policy is to be be pushed back until 2019 at the earliest. Controversial measures introduced in the Housing and Planning Act 2016 will force local councils to sell off their most valuable council homes in order to fund the extension of Right to Buy.
Town hall leaders say the policy will lead to a huge loss of social housing at a time when waiting lists are already up to 10 years in some parts of the country, while housing charity Shelter estimates that up to 113,000 council homes could be sold off under the plans.
The policy had already been delayed until at least 2018 and Mr Javid confirmed last week that it will be pushed back again, until 2019 at the earliest. A government spokesperson said ministers were “considering” how to implement the policy.
A homeless man has to pay £115 – after being locked up for falling asleep in the doorway of a hotel in Bath.
When 51-year-old Eli John James refused to leave the doorway of the Westgate Buildings Travelodge in Bath city centre on Saturday, December 9, he was arrested and dragged before the courts.
Two days later at Bath Magistrates Court James pleaded guilty to sleeping in the doorway without a reasonable excuse and was sentenced to three weeks in jail.
The Travelodge in Westgate Buildings is the company’s third in Bath
The court imposed a £115 victim surcharge.
Mr James, of no fixed address, was in violation of a criminal behaviour order imposed by Salisbury Court in May of this year when he refused to leave the Travelodge doorway.
James has to pay a £115 victim surcharge
Bath Magistrates Court also noted that the offence was so serious because of Mr James’s previous breaches of the order, and because the breach was aggravated by the defendant’s previous offending.
St Giles Church will only be open to the public from 26 to 28 August
