One has to put aside the popular notion that language and culture are endlessly passed on from generation to generation, rather as if 'Scottishness' … - Norman Davies

Arguably, the only fruit of the Crusades kept by the Christians was the apricot.

The debased coinage of his reign bore his initials, ICR: Iohannes Casimirus Rex. These were taken to stand for Initium Calamitatum Reipublicae, the Beginning of the Republic's Catastrophes.

That the United Kingdom will collapse is a foregone conclusion. Sooner or later, all states do collapse, and ramshackle, asymmetric dynastic amalgamations are more vulnerable than cohesive nation-states. Only the 'how' and the 'when' are mysteries of the future. An exhaustive study of the many pillars on which British power and prestige were built — ranging from the monarchy, the Royal Navy and the Empire to the Protestant Ascendancy, the Industrial Revolution, Parliament and Sterling — indicated that all without exception were in decline; some were already defunct, others seriously diminished or debilitated; it suggests that the last act may come sooner rather than later.110 Nothing implies that the end will necessarily be violent; some political organisms dissolve quietly. All it means is that present structures will one day disappear, and be replaced by something else.