Part 1….
Minor’s Orders and Minority Interests
Born to rule – 
Today it is a phrase sardonically employed to describe a social structure that enables a privileged few effortlessly to sustain positions of political influence. By way of satirical irony those whom it is used against often portray themselves as victims of an inverted social prejudice by those who would turn an accident of birth into a political crime.
Inevitably those born into privilege rarely see that they enjoy any particular advantages over their fellow man or woman. From their perspective being ‘born to rule’ imposes limitations upon freedom of choice. Though they exercise power through family, through wealth and through patronage, their lives are also circumscribed by those very privileges that make them powerful – just as others, they would argue, are empowered by the absence of such constraints.
So it seems a telling phrase only ever tells us part of any story.
Born to rule –
In the sixteenth century this phrase conveyed a simple political reality that was as unremarkable as it was determining.
And on 28th January 1547 it once again in its proper turn became a governing reality for a new king and his kingdom. On that cold January day King Henry VIII died holding the hand of Archbishop Thomas Cranmer. And his nine year old son succeeded as King Edward VI…..
This article appears in full under the History section of the Web Page….