Dont't let historical dates turn you mad, a sequel to DIARY OF A MADMAN by Nicholai Gogol

_{I hope they soon will arrive and pick me up. I can't wait to get inside a nice big building where a room is waiting for me - free of rent, with full board and soft upholstered walls. To get my place there I had to write a report, well sort of, or perhaps a “confession” might be a more suitable description. No, a statement offering proof, evidence at least, that the dates marking the beginning and ends of the reigns of British monarchs conform to a system that surfaces in a string of digits.}

_{I’ll begin with: 7 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 7.}

_{Here we note three noughts flanked on either side by 7, which evinces a certain symmetry. This row is derived from the final digit in the following sequence of dates: 1837. 1830, 1820, 1760 and 1727. These dates in turn mark the first or final year of the following monarchs in reverse order/ Queen Victoria, William IV, George VI, George III and George II.}

_{Edward VII’s reign followed that of Queen Victoria. It began in 1901 and ended in 1910, the year of two notable comets. 1910 poses a rearrangement of 1901. We find another such case in the pair 1066 and 1660. which could point to the possibility that Oliver Cromwell was able to interrupt - but not totally rescind - the line of monarchs numbered from 1066. This continuum reconstituted itself like the terminators we encounter in a number of popular films.}

_{Excuse me while I go to the window and check if an ambulance has arrived….. No, not yet evidently. Now for the next case.}

_{7 – 7 – 7/7/7.}

_{As in the earlier example the digits are the final ones in the dates that mark the beginning or end of the reign of a British monarch. These are the dates in question.}

_{1377, 1327, 1307. In reverse order again the last year in the reigns of Edward III, Edward II and Edward I, who died on the seventh day of the seventh month, the 7th of July. After Edward III came Richard II, whose reign ended in 1399. Richard the Lion Heart’s reign ended in 1199.}

_{The shortest reign in English history lasted only nine days as a result of the deposition of Lady Jane Grey in 1553. The next shortest was that of Edward V in 1483. This lasted only two months due to the usurpation of Richard III. Only two kings reached an 8 after their names; Henry VIII and Edward VIII. Funny, the first divorced his first wife and detached the Church of England from the Papacy. The second was forced to abdicate by the same church for his insistence on marrying a divorced woman. Funny, too, that a Philip wanted to wed Elizabeth I but couldn’t. A Philip succeeded in marrying a bride who became Elizabeth II. Then what about the tragic deaths of Mary Queen of Scots and Princess Diana in 1587 or 1997? Both were something of a nuisance from the point of view of the royal establishment and both were related by family history oddly enough.}

_{I think the ambulance has arrived. I’ll go to the window and see.}

_{Funny, a vehicle has drawn up, a black limousine, not an ambulance. Some men have just got out, but they are not wearing white coats, - black suits, to be precise, and they are all wearing dark glasses. Shoot! I should have kept off politics.}

_{Please excuse me. I have just remembered an urgent appointment, and must leave immediately.}

Comments