Today is a day for decision-makers.
On 10 January 1750, Thomas Erskine was born. Often held the greatest advocate of the English bar, his success came upon his earlier life in the navy. A Captain Baillie had been appointed Lieutenant Governor of Greenwich Hospital, where he uncovered and reported upon abuses sourced to Lord Sandwich, First Lord of the Admiralty.
Ever the whistle blower’s fate, Baillie was rewarded with a criminal prosecution. Erskine was Baillie’s fourth counsel, by far the youngest and by far the poorest. Three preached settlement, to which Erskine said:
My advice gentlemen, may savour more of my late profession than my present one, but I am against compromising.
Erskine later claimed that when he rose to address the judges in bold and uncompromising terms, he felt his children plucking at his gown and crying “Now is the time, Father, to get us bread”.
Apt enough, as Sandwich, the patron of Captain Cook among others, gave his name to the convenience food. The first sandwich was a slice of salt beef between two toasted breads.
As for bread, in 1789 Marie Antoinette is said to have uttered “Qu’ils mangent de la brioche”. The queen’s words became known, the revolution followed.
Marie Antoinette was the daughter of a Holy Roman Emperor aka Imperator Romanorum aka Kaiser der Römer. Yet history’s most famous kaiser, Julius Caesar, was never emperor. To the contrary, his rise was upon a public and illegal assertion of a right to command, or “imperium”.
Caesar made good on his assertion on 10 January 49 BC, 1799 years before Erskine’s birth, when he and his Legio XIII Gemina crossed the Rubicon. Dining on the eve, he had observed alea iacta est, or “The die is cast”.
