Following on from MM's posts, taking issues to the people may have had a very different outcome in many a ground breaking decision- add or comment on this selection if you like;

Roman deciding to consolidate its strengths with a big withdrawal from UK

Henry Vlll's break away from Papal Rome

Lopping off Charles 1's head

(I was    pretty sure that the Leavers would win around here - to use a local expression, 'they always  do what their belly guides them.'  There is a thinly veiled attitude to anything foreign. The radius for that has extended about 15 miles in my lifetime where it was once a mile; progress of sorts. And 'youff' here is taken up with events at Glastonbury and similar - which, so i am told, is massive in the current style-genre called, 'Grime.'  - not thread related guff I ought know better.

I like the idea of a Rexit - vote Leave 1533.

Question on ballot paper: Who should be Head of the Church in England?

His Majesty, our liege lord, Henry, the Eighth of that name.

That useless so-and-so in Rome, His Holiness, Pope Clement VII.  

Imagine having to tell Henry that the people had voted to stay with Clement - and most of them would have. Not people in London, though.

Yes ... at the beginning of the 16th century weren't the English generally thought to be very religious and devout ? (to the catholic faith obviously).  France might have been considered the first Son of Rome (mostly for very old historical reasons), but I think England wasn't far behind. Indeed until Henry's schism I believe England could usually be relied upon to tow the Papal line as equally, if not even more asiduously, than France itself. And far from the stiff-upper-lip, stoic, steady-in-adversity, image that was cultivated in late Georgian/Victorian times, weren't early Tudor Englishmen (and women) renowned throughout Europe as being firey, hot tempered, and quick to find offence and argue. So generally they were considered a bit like the late 20th century TV stereotype of the hot-blooded, passionate, quick-tempered, yet deeply religious, "latin" from say Italy or Spain.

In the same vein i wonder what would have been the result if Catherine of Aragon's "Great Question" had been put to a general referendum, rather than just Parliament. She certainly had a lot of popular support amongst the common people ... particularly, as is well recorded, amongst women (but who of course wouldn't get any say in any government matters until several centuries later). Nevertheless Henry's action of "putting aside the queen" and declaring himself "head of the English church" was widely seen as going against the Pope, against the will of God, and against the whole order of things. I don't think it would have been popular if put to a general vote ..... and so the whole of England's subsequent history would have been different (no Elizabeth I for a start).

Odd that even back then Scotland and London were thinking along the same - then Protestant - lines. Perhaps Scotlond always was/is a good idea.

Knox wasn't too keen on the Auld Alliance with France, though: he'd have had no truck with the EU.

PS I looked up the origin of "to have no truck with":

We are all familiar with trucks as carts and road vehicles, but that's not what's being referred to in 'have no truck with'. This 'truck' is the early French word 'troque', which meant 'an exchange; a barter' and came into Middle English as 'truke'. The first known record of truke is the Vintner's Company Charter in the Anglo-Norman text of the Patent Roll of Edward III, 1364. This relates to a transaction for some wine which was to be done 'by truke, or by exchange'.

So, to 'have truck with' was to barter or do business' with. In the 17th century and onward, the meaning of 'truck' was extended to include 'association'/'communication' and 'to have truck with' then came to mean 'commune with'.

In modern French the verb troquer still means to barter, or trade with. I suspect it is related to the verb truquer meaning to fraudulently rig or fix, as in rigging an election, from which derives the noun truquer (or the feminine truqueuse) for a cheat. A truc however usually just means a thing, thingummy, thingumabob, or whatsit .... but can also mean a trick or effect, such as a card trick, or a theatrical lighting effect, so again implying a clever, albeit possibly artful, deceit.