Queen Elizabeth’s “Annus Horribilis” and it’s English ancestor, the “Annus Mirabilis”…

On November 24, 1992, Elizabeth II gave a speech in London to mark the 40th anniversary of her Accession as Queen of England and “the Commonwealth realms.”

The speech immediately became famous for her reference to the year 1992 as an “Annus Horribilis” — which means “horrible year” in Latin.

“1992 is not a year on which I shall look back with undiluted pleasure,” the Queen said. “In the words of one of my more sympathetic correspondents, it has turned out to be an ‘Annus Horribilis.’ I suspect that I am not alone in thinking it so.”

The year 1992 certainly was not a good one for Elizabeth and England’s Royal Family.

In March, it was announced that the Queen’s second son, Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, would separate from his wife Sarah.

In April, her daughter Princess Anne divorced Captain Mark Phillips.

In May, the publication of the bombshell book Diana: Her True Story in Her Own Words made it clear that the marriage between Elizabeth’s oldest son, Prince Charles, and the lovely Princess Diana was also on the rocks. The book revealed that Charles had been having an affair with his old girlfriend, Camilla Parker-Bowles and that Diana was unhappy with him and the way she had been treated by the Royal Family.

In August, the Sun tabloid newspaper ran a story about the “Squidgygate” tapes — intimate conversations between Diana and former EastEnders actor James Gilbey (who called Diana by the affectionate nickname “Squidgy”).

Also in August, The Daily Mirror tabloid published photos of Duchess Sarah, topless, apparently sucking the toes of American financial tycoon John Bryan.

In September, the Sun revealed that Diana may have had an affair with British Army officer James Hewitt.

In early November, The Daily Mirror revealed the “Camillagate” tapes, secretly recorded phone conversations between Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles in which Charles said (among other embarrassing things) that he wanted to be Camilla’s tampon.

Then, on November 20, just four days before Queen Elizabeth’s speech, a fire broke out in Windsor Castle, the official Royal residence in London, destroying historic sections of the building.

Given all this, the Queen’s choice of the words “Annus Horribilis” is understandable. And, the fire at Windsor Castle made the phrase oddly ironic.

“Annus Horribilis” is a twist on an older phrase made famous by the British poet John Dryden. In 1667, Dryden published a poem titled “Annus Mirabilis,” meaning “a year of miracles” (or marvels, or wonders) in Latin.

Dryden’s poem described several historic events that occurred in 1666. First, it recounts a series of English victories in battles with the Dutch. Then it talks about the Great Fire of London in September 1666. Although large areas of London were burned, the Great Fire was stopped before it destroyed the entire city.

Dryden took these events as signs that God had performed miracles to save England from destruction and looked fondly on the expansion of the British Empire — thus making 1666 an “Annus Mirabilis” in his view.

I don’t know if Queen Elizabeth’s description of 1992 as an “Annus Horribilis,” a few days after the Windsor Castle fire, was purposefully ironic. If so, I’d say she has a very wry sense of humor indeed.

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Related reading…

The Gettysburg Address – and Lord Buckley’s “hipster version”

On November 19, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln delivered what came to be known as “The Gettysburg Address” at the dedication of the cemetery for Union soldiers who were killed in that bloody Civil War battle four months earlier.

His brief speech includes two of the most famous of many famous Lincoln quotations.

One is the opening sentence:

“Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

The other is in the closing line, which contains the oft-cited phrase: “government of the people, by the people, for the people.”

As noted in The Quote Verifier and other sources, this is the best known use of the of/by/for the people formula, but Lincoln probably adapted his version from a similar phrase used in the 1850s by abolitionist preacher Theodore Parker. And, there are other versions that predate Parker’s.

In commemoration of the anniversary of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, I’m posting the entire speech below.

And, in commemoration of one of my other favorite orators – Lord Buckley – I’m posting his great “hipster version” of the Gettysburg Address next to Lincoln’s original words.

Richard Buckley (1906-1960) performed as a vaudeville-style comedian from the late 1920s to the late 1940s.

Starting in 1947 and throughout the 1950s, he performed as the character “Lord Buckley,” an ultra-cool cat who told stories and recited poems using the hipster slang of black jazz musicians and beatniks.

In 1956, HIP Records released a recording of Lord Buckley doing his “hip translation” of the Gettysburg Address. You can hear it on the CD His Royal Hipness.

And, now ladies and gentleman, cats and kitties, here — in a historic side-by-side appearance — are President Abraham Lincoln and Lord Buckley...

Abraham Lincoln: The Gettysburg Address***	Lord Buckley: The hip translation…
“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.	“Four big hits and seven licks ago, our before-daddies swung forth, upon this sweet groovy land a swingin’, stompin’, jumpin’, blowin’, wailin’ new nation, hip to the cool groove of liberty and solid sent with the ace lick dat all the studs, chicks, cats and kitties – red, white, or blue – is created level in front. In straight talk, the same, dig what I mean?
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure.	Now we are hung with a king-size main-day civil drag, soundin’ of whether that nation or any up-there nation, so hip and so solid sent can stay with it all the way.
We are met here on a great battlefield of that war.	We’s here to dig this chop-beatin’ session on the site of the worst jazz blown in the entire issue – Gettys-mother-burg.
We have come to dedicate a portion of it as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live.	We have stomped out here to turn on a small soil stash of the before-mentioned hassle site, as a final sweet sod pad for those who laid it down and left it there, so that this jumpin’ happy beat might blow forevermore.
It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.	And we all dig that this is the straightest lick ever dug.
But in a larger sense we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled, here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract.	But diggin’ it harder from afar, we cannot take no wailin’ bows, we cannot mellow, we cannot put down the stamp of the Nazz on this sweet sod, ‘cause the strong non-stop studs, both diggin’ it and dug under it, who hassled here have mellowed it with such a wild mad beat that we can hear it, but we can't touch it.
The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but can never forget what they did here.	Now the world cats will short dig, you hear what I say, short dig nor long stash in their wigs what we is beatin’ our chops around here, but it never can successively shade what they vanced here.
It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they have, thus far, so nobly carried on. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us.	It is for us, the swingin’, to pick up the dues of these fine studs who cut out here and fly it through to Endsville. It is hipper for us to be signifyin’ to the glorious gig that we can’t miss with all these bulgin’ eyes.
That from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom; and that this government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” ***NOTE: There are five written versions of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, with slight wording variations among them. The version above is from the “Hay Copy,” stored in The Library of Congress. Some scholars believe it is the version Lincoln used, but this is not known with certainty.	That from all these A-stamp studs we double our love kick, to that righteous ride for which these cats hard sounded the last 'nth bong of the bell of their bell. That we here want it stuck up straight for all to dig that these departed studs shall not have split in vain; that this nation, under the great swingin’ Nazz, shall ring up a whopper of endless Mardi Gras, and that the Big Law of you straights, by you studs, and for you kitties, shall not be scratched from the big race.”

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Further reading and listening…

“Nothing is certain except death and taxes.”

One of the most famous quotations by Benjamin Franklin is: “Nothing is certain except death and taxes.” (Commonly heard as “Nothing is certain but death and taxes.”)

The source of this oft-cited quip is a letter Franklin wrote to French scientist Jean-Baptiste Leroy on November 13, 1789.

But there are some interesting things about the quote that are less well known.

One is that Franklin wrote the letter in French, which he spoke, read and wrote fluently.

Another is that Franklin’s famous maxim was used in reference to the Constitution of the United States of America, which had been adopted by the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia two years earlier on September 17, 1787.

Two decades before the Constitution was adopted, during the height of the American Revolution, Franklin had served as the U.S. Ambassador to France. There, he played a vital role in gaining French support for the American cause, including desperately needed loans that helped fund the Continental Army.

Franklin became a huge celebrity in France during his term as Ambassador from 1776 to 1785.

But long before that he was already well known to French scientists. His groundbreaking experiments with electricity and his theories on its mysterious properties had been studied and debated in France and other European countries since the mid-1750s.

One French scientist who was an early admirer and later a friend of Franklin was Jean-Baptiste Leroy. Leroy was a physicist and member of the Academe des Sciences in Paris. Like Franklin, he was also a pioneer in the study of electricity.

Leroy and Franklin began corresponding before Franklin became the U.S. Ambassador to France. They became friends during Franklin’s tenure in Paris and kept in touch by mail after Franklin returned to the United States in 1785.

When Franklin wrote his letter to Leroy on November 13, 1789, the French Revolution had been underway in earnest for several months. Franklin had not heard from Leroy for more than a year and was concerned that he may have been killed or executed.

Franklin wrote (as translated to English):

“Are you still living? Or has the mob of Paris mistaken the head of a monopolizer of knowledge, for a monopolizer of corn, and paraded it about the streets upon a pole. Great part of the news we have had from Paris, for near a year past, has been very afflicting. I sincerely wish and pray it may all end well and happy, both for the King and the nation. The voice of Philosophy I apprehend can hardly be heard among those tumults. If any thing material in that way had occurred, I am persuaded you would have acquainted me with it. However, pray let me hear from you...a year’s silence between friends must needs give uneasiness.”

The next sentence, which mentions the relatively new U.S. Constitution, contains Franklin’s famous “death and taxes” quote. He tells Leroy:

“Our new Constitution is now established, everything seems to promise it will be durable; but, in this world, nothing is certain except death and taxes.”
 
(In the original French, what Franklin wrote was: “Notre constitution nouvelle est actuellement établie, tout paraît nous promettre qu’elle sera durable; mais, dans ce monde, il n’y a rien d’assure que la mort et les impôts.” The English translations vary.)

Jean-Baptiste Leroy did indeed survive the French Revolution. He died in 1800 at the age of 80.

Quotation mavens like Barry Popik have noted that Franklin wasn’t the first person to write something about the inevitability of death and taxes. For example, in 1726, Daniel Defoe wrote in his book The Political History of the Devil: “Things as certain as death and taxes can be more firmly believed.”

However, Franklin’s formulation is clearly the best known.

In 1789, when he wrote his “death and taxes” letter to Leroy, Franklin was 83 years old and sensed that his own end was near.

In the next to last paragraph of the letter, he noted:

“My health continues much as it has been for some time, except that I grow thinner and weaker, so that I cannot expect to hold out much longer.”

Five months later, on April 17, 1790, Benjamin Franklin died. On April 21st, with an estimated 20,000 mourners looking on, he was buried in Philadelphia.

Although there continues to be heated debates about the meaning of key provisions of the U.S. Constitution, it has — as Franklin hoped – proven to be quite durable.

Further reading:

• The full (translated) text of Franklin’s letter to Jean-Baptiste Le Roy, November 13, 1789

• More about Franklin’s electricity experiments

• Bio of Jean-Baptiste Leroy

• The David Dodge Companion site (in case you’re a fan of vintage pulp fiction)

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Comments? Corrections? Post them on the Famous Quotations Facebook group.