LONDON, PARIS and ROME-- European leaders have been holding a special meeting at the invitation of British Prime Minister Tony Blair to discuss what he calls "the strategic issues facing Europe in the years ahead."
Blair wanted this to be a really informal gathering. The setting was the delightful Hampton Court Palace just outside London, a sprawling Tudor Palace built by Cardinal Thomas Wolsey -- in effect the English shogun of his day -- during the reign of quarrelsome King Henry the Eighth (1509-1547). Unfortunately the cardinal got the wrong side of his increasingly impatient and somewhat brutal master -- over the matter of the king's divorce (before Henry went on to marry five more wives) -- and was ousted. His palace was grabbed by the king and remains a royal possession to this day.
"Oh put not your trust in princes" murmured Wolsey ruefully on his deathbed, quoting from the Bible (Psalm 146). The question now is whether we should feel the same about the political princes who have been gathering there this time -- around 480 years after the cardinal's downfall.