The II Earl

Good morning all & on this day in 1649, King Charles I was murdered and martyred in London after a heinous show trial instigated by a thoroughly illegitimate Parliamentary regime. "I shall go from a corruptible to an incorruptible Crown". The King's final word: "Remember".

The Reform Club is a private members' club on the south side of Pall Mall in central London, England. As with all of London's original gentlemen's clubs, it comprised an all-male membership for decades, but it was the first to change its rules to include the admission of women on equal terms in 1981. Since its founding in 1836, the Reform Club has been the traditional home for those committed to progressive political ideas, with its membership initially consisting of Radicals and Whigs. However, it is no longer associated with any particular political party, and it now serves a purely social function. The building is said to have been based on Palazzo Farnese in Rome. At least in terms of the facade, that is an understatement. Without a visual reference you’d be hard pressed to say if you are looking at the Reform or the Palazzo Farnese from a little further away (the latter is slightly larger). In the 1830s, the success of the Reform Act had led to a h...

Phi Beta Kappa began as a secret society for the educated elite, but the society soon decided to emerge above ground, which greatly angered the Yale valedictorian, which is why he created the Order of Skull & Bones in 1832 after spending a summer in Germany. Bones was based off a fraternity William H. Russell had joined while in Germany. Russell’s family ran the North American opium cartel. The rituals of Bones bear a close resemblance to the rituals of Adam Weishaupt’s original Bavarian Illuminati, which took elements from an earlier Spanish secret society. The Bush family is the most important family inside Bones today, and during WWII Prescott Bush would supervise Union Bank’s extensive trading with the Nazis during the war. The Boners are seeking to perfect themselves through the application of Hegelian rationalism. The original name for the Illuminati was “the perfectibilists.” Of course, perfection is a vain and insurmountable objective, and it’s only the bait that draw...

Cricket at Frenchay in Gloucestershire in the club's centenary year, 1946. Now close to the encroaching Bristol and with a motorway in the rumbling proximity, but back then an oasis of tranquillity where WG Grace, who grew up in the next village, once captained

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that." — Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

“‘You’re a gentleman, Chevalley, and I consider it a privilege to have met you; you are right in all you say; your only mistake was saying “the Sicilians must want to improve.” I’ll tell you a personal anecdote. Two or three days before Garibaldi entered Palermo I was introduced to some British naval officers from one of the warships then in harbour to keep an eye on things. They had heard, I don’t know how, that I own a house down on the shore facing the sea, with a terrace on its roof from which can be seen the whole circle of hills around the city; they asked to visit this house of mine and look at the landscape where Garibaldini were said to be operating, as they could get no clear idea from their ships. In fact Garibaldi was already at Gibilrossa. They came to my house, I accompanied them up on to the roof; they were simple youths in spite of their reddish whiskers. They were ecstatic about the view, the vehemence of the light; they confessed, though, that they had been horrified...

As long as man has been alive, he has been collecting little sayings about how to live. “To improve is to change, so to be perfect is to have changed often.” — Winston Churchil While this is probably not a Churchill original (he most likely borrowed from Cardinal Newman : “In a higher world it is otherwise, but here below to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often”), Churchill certainly abided this in his life. He’d even quip about his constant change of political affiliation: “I said a lot of stupid things when I worked with the Conservative Party, and I left it because I did not want to go on saying stupid things.” As Cicero would say when attacked that he was changing his opinion: “If something strikes me as probable, I say it; and that is how, unlike everyone else, I remain a free agent.” There is nothing more impressive — intellectually or otherwise — than to change long held beliefs, opinions, and habits. The more you’ve changed, the better you probably ...

Over almost a century and a half, Brooks England has grown from a small workshop to a byword in quality craftsmanship. Back in 1865, John Boultbee Brooks left his hometown of Hinckley in Leicestershire with just £20 in his pocket. He headed for Birmingham, where in 1866 he established a business in horse harnesses and general leather goods in Great Charles Street under the name JB Brooks & Co.In 1878, the unfortunate death of Mr Brooks’ horse led to a stroke of inspiration. Unable to afford another horse, he borrowed a bicycle in order to commute to work. But he found the seat so uncomfortable that he vowed to do something about it. On 28 October 1882, Mr Brooks filed his first saddle patent.

'Behind the perfection of a man's style, must lie the passion of a man's soul.' ~ OSCAR WILDE

"Young fogey" is a term with humor, in the British context, to some younger generation, and unbridled writers and journalists, such as Simon Heffer, Charles Moore and, for a while, A. N. Wilson. This term is attributed to Alan Watkins writing in 1984 in the spectator. "Young fool," is still used to describe conservative young men aged approximately 15 to 40 years, who dress in vintage style is usually that in the 1920-ies-1930-ies, also known as the "Brideshead" look for the influence of Evelyn Waughs novel Brideshead revisited. Young cranks tend towards erudite, conservative culture, especially art and architecture, not sports. Young fogey style of dress also has some superficial similarities with American preppy, but endogenous to the UK and Anglo-centric within the British Commonwealth, such as Australia, Canada and New Zealand. The movement reached its peak in the 1980-ies with Champions such as A. N. Wilson, Gavin stamp and John Martin Robins...

“Roger Scruton was so good, regardless of our political differences. I loved his mind, his writing, his humour. He taught me so much about music, beauty and life.”

Roger Scruton is a  writer and philosopher This article originally appeared on Conservative Home on January 6th 2014 Conservatives believe that our identities and values are formed through our relations with other people, and not through our relation with the State.  In the modern world the State’s role is inevitably extensive, but Conservatives believe its reach should always be subject to challenge. 1. The Nation State is the sole vehicle for democratic legitimacy. New Labour sought to weaken the nation externally and divide it internally – externally by its unquestioning acceptance of the primacy of EU supranational authority, internally by indiscriminate immigration and class warfare, which were at the top of the domestic agenda in the time of Blair and Brown. We need to remind the people that as the most elected party in history the Conservatives are dedicated to forging a new unity for...

DESPITE its title “The Protestant Establishment” is not a book about religion or the church. It is a book about America's white Anglo‐Saxon Protestant upper crust whose members, sometimes referred to as “WASPS,” dominated for many years the nation's business, education, law, art and politics. It is E. Digby Baltzell's contention, documented with lively and nonstatistical detail, that this establishment has degenerated since 1930, that it is schizophrenic in its attitudes towards Negroes, Jews and “hyphenated‐Americans,” that it is, because of this, increasingly cut off from the rest of society, and therefore it cannot properly fulfill the leadership role of an establishment. These essays are indebted to E. Digby Baltzell (1915-1996), the University of Pennsylvania sociologist and author of The Protestant Establishment : Aristocracy and Caste in America (Random House, 1964). He is widely and correctly credited with popularizing the term “WASP” within the American lexicon, b...

New Englanders are inclined to differentiate between good and bad by determining whether it’s old or new. Frugality, reluctance to change, reliance on the “tried and true”, abhorrence of things showy or gaudy, pride in the past, a strong need for tradition and continuity – all these natural inclinations in our personalities result, not surprisingly, in our wearing slightly threadbare old clothes, joining old, comfortable not-posh social clubs, owning old boats, attending old schools and colleges, living in old houses, marrying into old families, and so forth. Judson Hale, Inside New England (New York: Harper & Row, 1982), 141.

It’s a shame that in today’s world, we would need a list of gentleman books every guy should read to lean how to be a better man. To learn how to be a proper gentleman. It goes without saying that well-read men often have superior intellect in comparison to men who flirt with the funny pages. When I took writing from a pastime to a career one piece of advice I got that stuck with me was to just keep reading.Read everything, regardless of what it’s about. The stack of magazines in my bathroom and the book shelves in my home and office are proof of that advice come alive. I’ve always been a reader, and granted my tastes have changed over the years, there are certain books that stick out as the best reading experiences I’ve ever had. There are millions of published books for sale at any given time. So many that it would be impossible to read them all. So I’ve gone out of my way to help you, my reader, build a library of the best literature ever written.

Dapper yet dashing—that is the quintessential British club fashion that GQ Style UK September issue succeeds in capturing. As one of GQ’s go-to editorial photographers, Gutzman’s contribution is not to be overlooked, yet it is the styling (as always) that makes this spread so debonair. GQ (UK) — SEPTEMBER 2009 THE GQ COLLECTIONS: AUTUMN/WINTER 2009 photographer: Guzman stylist: Jo Levin MODELS: Alastair Coldrey; Alex Gilbert; Chris Doe; Fionn Macdiarmid; Jamie Jewitt; Matt Benstead

“By endurance we conquer.” Ernest Shackleton [15th February 1874 – 5th January 1922] Irish explorer Ernest Shackleton and two members of his expedition team pose with a Union Jack within 111 miles of the South Pole in 1909.

In 1974, Barbour received a Royal Warrant for Waterproof and Protective clothing from His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh. Awarded to companies around the world that provide the Royal Family with products or services, the Royal Warrants are recognised as a mark of quality around the world from the United States, throughout Europe, to Asia.

"The love between man and dog is the heart of fox-hunting, and one of the reasons why hunting with hounds has been so often on the tip of the poet's tongue and so often exalted in paint or marble or music. It is a refreshing love based in realistic perceptions and shared utility" - Roger Scruton ღஜღ~ Hunting has been regarded variously as a recreational pastime, a pest control measure, or a cruel and inhumane blood sport? It has been one of the most divisive political issues of recent years. Although all forms of hunting are controversial, fox hunting was the most widespread form of hunting with dogs, and as such, has been the focus of public and political attention. What is hunting with dogs? Hunting with dogs has been practised widely across rural Britain, involving the pursuit and usually killing of animals with one or more dogs, frequently followed by riders on horseback. A number of different animals have been hunted with dogs, including foxes, deer, hares...