Gratuitous Historickal Posting

Last evening I popped in a DVD of Captain Blood, the old Errol Flynn swashbuckler. Sometimes you just need a bit of silly escapism. And if it includes the extremely lovely Olivia de Havilland, so much the better. (This will set the Scarlett-centric GroovyVic into paroxisms of rage, but if I had to choose between Olivia and Vivian Leigh, I'd go with Olivia every time - all of the beauty and none of the bat-shite crazy.)

If you're not familiar with the film, it tells the story of how peaceable Dr. Peter Blood, minding his own business in the time of James II, gets wrongly taken up for a rebel and transported as a slave to the Caribbean. There, having proved his noble spirit and bushwhacked a bunch of Spaniards, he takes up as a pirate, having a successful career (and incidentally running Basil Rathbone through for the first of many times) until turning hero again by saving Port Royal from a French attack. It's okay, though, because in the meantime James has been chased out of England, William & Mary have taken over, and Blood has been appointed governor of the colony. And of course, he gets the girl (not that it would have mattered that much to him - HEY-O!).

I mention all this because at the beginning of the story Blood faces trial before the insidious and blood-thirsty George Jeffreys, 1st Baron Jeffreys, aka Judge Jeffreys, the "Hanging Judge". Now owing to some quirk in my yoot, I grew up associating the name Judge Jeffries not with late-Stuart England, but with the Old West. And even to this day, I have to consciously untangle him from this association.

It somehow fits, though, don't you think?

Jeffries: What you got, Hoss?

Sheriff: Judge, this here's Rattlesnake Jack. He's charged with con-spirin' an takin' part in the Monmouth Rebellion. We done caught him near Sedgemoor tryin' to run guns to the Earl of Argyll. Also, he done robbed the Laredo Stage.

Jeffries: Git a rope. Next case.

If Monty Python didn't do a skit along these lines, they should have.

UPDATE:

Yes, indeedy. Mmm...mmm...mmm.