Call me crazy, but I think that whole standing up to Hitler thing was a bit more significant and more indicative of his character than a position on Indian independence.
Sir Francis Galton deserves a mention for writing stuff like this:
the opinion of the present day repudiates the belief that the negro is an extremely inferior being, because there are notorious instances of negroes possessing high intelligence and culture, some of whom acquire large fortunes in commerce, and others become considerable men in other walks of life. The truth appears to be that individuals of the mental caliber I have just described are much more exceptional in the negro than in the Anglo-Saxon race, and that average negroes possess too little intellect, self-reliance, and self-control to make it possible for them to sustain the burden of any respectable form of civilization without a large measure of external guidance and support.
Wasn’t that a fairly common opinion in Victorian times?
I see it happen all the time on this board. If you offer an explanation for an opinion, people assume you must be agreeing with that opinion. People act like understanding other points of view is a sign of weakness.
Didn’t Idi Amin claim to be a Scottish king? Would that make him English through some technicality?
It does credit to the English people that the body counts for the “most evil person in British history” tends towards three figures (not including political people, of course, and even they weren’t “let’s mass-murder our way through the Asian steppes” bad, but more “we can ignore the savages” indifferent. Which is still bad.)
I’m thinking that if you ranked each country by it’s most “evil” representative, the English would be pretty far down that list.
Anyway, my answer is Captain John Hawkins, the first English slave trader. I’m sure there were English traders afterward who sold more people or were more ruthless, but their names are unknown to me. This guy isn’t, and he is the first representative of what grew to be the greatest slave trading empire in human history.
To clarify, he can’t be a bad person, because he wouldn’t allow his country to be subjugated under a foreign power. He led his nation in a defence of its independence. He made certain that no marauding invaders would be able to take over and rule our country, displacing the native leadership, destroying our culture, stripping us of our resources, treating our people like slaves in their own land. Hard to disagree with that.
Do you think he would eventually have opposed our independence from Germany?
Thank you Teacake for that, cometh the time cometh the Man.
I’m dubious about the whole concept of ‘moral equivalence’, however as an individual who carried the free world, essentially the Empire alone against the Nazis, Churchill carried the yoke of military failures and successes, a point forgotten by many who assume that World War Two started with Pearl Harbour.
As to the OP’s question…well George Washington was born in England, Emperors Trajan and Constantine were both acclaimed here on the death of their predecessors.
Actually going back to a previous poster England does remarkably poorly, mercifuly, as a country that’s produced misanthropes, Simon Cowell excepted, you’re welcome to him, please.
Peter
Doubtlessly there were many who thought that Black Africans and other races were inferior. Galton’s major contribution was to claim that he had scientific proof for ranking races as superior or inferior, and that action could and should be taken to make sure that superior races spread while inferior ones were eliminated. His ideas contaminated a lot of scientists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and lead to the eugenics movement, and by a series of steps had obvious influence on the Nazis.
That’s horrid, I was going to make a post defending him based on his restraint using poisoned gas and biological weapons against Germany, but judging from his casual use of them in Iraq, it seems it was only the fear of retaliation stopping him.
Still, I think his opposition to the Morgenthau plan, the insane forced deindustrialisation of Germany at least saves him from being the evilest evil Englishman.
OLIVER CROMWELL damn him, hands down. You kiddin?
I once read a recipe for Irish coffee that began “Take coffee, black as Cromwell’s heart…”
I’ve never heard that about him specifically, and I’m fairly versed with the legends. But many Irish were sent by various British rulers to the Caribbean as slaves or indentured servants.
Trevelyan was more willfully bad, but other than that he was just some guy. Cromwell was a religious extremist who went to war in Ireland (not specifically bad) but used total war techniques (bad).
Eh? Don’t think many people in the UK these days considers Washington bad, and Trajan is at the top of the “best emperors” list. Constantine was a dick, granted, but raised up due to the Christianity thing, but certainly not Elagabalus-evil. All killed people but that’s hardly a rare thing back then.
Now just hold on a moment—*what *George Washington? :dubious: He was born in Virginia, as were both his parents, plus his grandparents. Washington’s great-grandfather was the one who immigrated from England (but great-grandmother Anne Pope was born in Virginia).
Hey, what did Elagabalus do that was particularly evil? Sure, he was … a trifle odd … but evil? 
And Trajan had already been designated as heir to the throne by his predecessor Nerva (who was childless) and was campaigning on the German frontier not in Britain when he received word of Nerva’s death.
Not at all. There’s a statue of him outside the National Gallery in London (sitting on Virginia soil apparently).
I thought we were reasonably sure he was Martin Kominski, a schizophrenic tailor immigrant from the Russian Empire.
What? No votes for the Kray Twins?
That isn’t always indicative of popular support.
Marx has a statue at highgrove cemetery
…or Myrah Hindley and Ian Brady?