"For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday: Seeing that is past as a watch in the night. As soon as thou scatterest them they are even as a sleep: And fade away suddenly like the grass. In the morning it is green, and groweth up: But in the evening it is cut down, dried up, and withered." --Anglican Prayer Book, 1662: Psalms 90: 4-6

Summary

The current 64-year cycle diagram shows dates around the circle clockwise from the top as follows: *c=1024, *S=1032, *M=1040 (right point), *U=1048, *A=1056 (mid point), *J=1064, *G=1072 (left point), *R=1080, *c=1088. Outside the circle are printed significant historical events in blue [normal/upright style] or in red {italic/slanting style}. For the following cycle diagrams, all of which are circles, only the cardinal points will be summarised.

"Control" diagram?

Some of the characterisations may be questionable -- the "brutality" of Harold I and Hardecnut, for example, could in principle be a manifestation of oppression, or of reaction to a revolutionary mood.... I have chosen the former interpretation. But I hope that the basic system of notation is clear from this diagram. If the result of selecting and summarising significant events in this way does sometimes bear an unfortunate resemblance to "1066 And All That", well, that can't be helped: it's what tends to happen when one stands a very long way back from historical events. The descriptions here are England-centred, in the sense that if no national description is given, England should be assumed. They are also characterised in relation to England, as the political "centre" of Britain.

It's fairly clear that there is no visible pattern here: the events which may be characterised as expressing politically "right" tendencies are pretty much mixed up with those of the "left", as one might expect. I've spent quite a long time staring at the rather more detailed cycle diagram from which this one evolved, and I'm pretty sure there is no asymmetry about it at all (I also believe I know why this is so, but we shall come to that later: at a stage when it should be apparent why we need to ask why). This cycle diagram may therefore be taken as a control of sorts, an image of the sort of thing we should expect if no pattern is to be found.

Previous cycle

This appearance of relatively random distribution is not characteristic of the preceding cycle 960-1024ce (*M/right point: 976ce; *A/mid point: 992ce; *G/left point: 1008ce). Contrast the relatively stable reigns of Edgar the Peacable (959-975) and Edward the Martyr (975-978), to that of Ethelred the Unready or Unraed [evil counsel] (978-1013 & 1014-16), which was characterised by the steady undermining of royal authority.

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