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Article: BOOK REVIEW / A charge into the footnotes of history
- Article from:
- The Independent (London, England)
- Article date:
- March 23, 1996
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 1996 The Independent - London. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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In March 1914 the officers of the British Third Cavalry
Brigade, stationed at the Curragh in Ireland, put paid to Herbert
Asquith's Irish Home Rule Bill by making it clear that they would
never go into action against the militant Unionists of Ulster. They
doubtless agreed with their commanding general, Sir Arthur Paget,
that they would not take orders from "those swines of politicians",
only from His Majesty the King.
This fateful insubordination was perhaps the last decisive
intervention of the equestrian classes in British history - the
last insolent gesture of the knights who had for so many centuries
clanked and jangled their lordly way through the nation's affairs.
It opens this ...