His father had been disinherited for rejecting the family's Catholic faith in favor of Protestantism, but, in England, where Henry VIII had brought about the Protestant Reformation, in the fifteen-thirties, for the purpose of remarrying, the lines between faith, political conviction, and personal expediency were particularly thin.
The courage to stand upon one's own convictions -- or maybe, as we've seen these past few weeks across the country, the courage to throw conviction out the window for personal or political expediency.
"He has disowned this war for reasons of political expediency and personal grievances," says one of his former cabinet colleagues.
It is a half-measure backed by half a government, mired in political expediency and personal grandstanding.
But what we see is that this seems to be subject to personal whim, to political expediency, perhaps to blackballing by individuals.
At 631 pages, The Deliverance of Evil by Italian Roberto Costantini (Quercus, £14.99, translated by NS Thompson) would have benefited from some trimming, but this sprawling tale of personal and political corruption, expediency and revenge engages, despite the sometimes ponderous pace.
Churchill argues that the United States instituted blood quantum laws based upon rules of descendancy in order to further goals of personal enrichment and political expediency.
This is more than a double standard imposed on homosexual relationships, but the worst combination of personal hypocrisy with political expediency that has become the means by which millions of Americans are disenfranchised from their full access to civil rights.
Gengler concludes that the rise of the Khawalid brothers "owes therefore to a combination of personal relationships, shared background in the military, and political expediency".
This interference of the family was dictated by expediency, for in July 1824 the marchese Michele had obtained for Camillo the appointment as personal page to Charles Albert.
Its true-life tale of unity in the face of cultural apartheid and political expediency remains as relevant as ever in these divided times, but it is Asante's talent for making the personal political – and vice versa – that is the real story here.
