The Codebreaker Girls – Only 99c!
2 months ago
Showing posts with label English history. Show all posts
Showing posts with label English history. Show all posts
October is full of battle anniversaries and this one is extremely important. The history of this country and, let us not mince matters, of Europe changed on October 14, 1066 when William, Duke of Normandy and his French/Viking army defeated Harold Godwinson and his Anglo-Saxon army. The battle lasted the whole day, which as this article points out, is a long time for mediaeval engagements. Both sides fought valiantly, with the Normans finally securing victory by pretending to retreat.
The article has one of those jocular titles that we have all become used to: Battle of Hastings 950 year anniversary: the 9 things you might not know. Well, the first thing we might not know is that the anniversary falls on Saturday as it does not - it falls on Friday, that is today. The second thing we might not know, though too many people believe it, is that it was the last successful invasion of England. For some reason Henry Tudor's invasion with a French army, bolstered by some traitors and William of Orange bringing over far more Hollanders than expected are always forgotten.
Today, we must think of the Battle of Hastings, its place in the various changes in Europe in the eleventh century, the Viking expansion and the history of England as it emerged from the continuing battle between the Normans and Saxons. Here is another account and a more detailed one. But, perhaps, the best written and most imaginative interpretation of the tale are the first four stories and poems in Kipling's Puck of Pook's Hill.
Tomorrow is St Crispin's Day and 600 years ago it was the day upon which the Battle of Agincourt was fought. Here, as you would expect, is the speech made on the eve of the battle in Shakespeare's play by Sir Laurence Olivier:
And here is part of the battle from the same film:
One of the most famous battles in English history, a stupendous achievement by English arms but did it achieve anything? Well, it made the English temporarily victorious in the Hundred Years' War, created a great legend, which, oddly enough was largely true - the English and the Welsh army was considerably smaller than the French, which they defeated - and staved off the war between the House of York and the House of Lancaster.
Here is a useful account and a list of ten reasons why the French were defeated by numerically inferior forces.
Tory Historian is aware of some controversy about the latest addition, the fountain in front of the House itself but comes down on the side of those who like it. The title Renaissance recalls past glories and the golden globe that rises and falls in the water is a reminder of those elaborate renaissance structures as well as a play on the original meaning of the word, rebirth. Yes, it is very modern but that adds to the attraction. Hatfield House is still the home of the Marquess of Salisbury and his family; even the stately rooms are used for such events as Christmas dinner and the present holder of the title takes his duties to the name, the estate and the house seriously. That means adding new furniture, new structures, new decorations - Hatfield is part of English history and that goes on.
What of the pictures and furniture inside? Readers must forgive TH's particular interest but this Primrose League cover caused much delight.
A more recent involvement in British political and literary life by members of the Cecil family was illustrated in one of the drawing rooms by a display of copies of the Salisbury Review.
A lion that guards the entrance:
And a lion that makes music on the stairs:
For the moment we shall stop here. Another posting will have portraits of Queen Elizabeth I and of members of the Cecil family.
Do not let the French fool you. Waterloo was a victory for the Allied armies, commanded by the Duke of Wellington and the Prussians, commanded by Marshal Blücher. Furthermore, the defeat was catastrophic for France as, indeed, Napoleon's victorious and not so victorious wars had been. It was the end of France as a great power and even the attempt to create a European Union on French lines is not turning out to be the success it had been hoped for. Well, not for France.
First a notice of what promises to be an interesting talk at the British Library about the other Charters. It is called Statutes, Constitutions and a Golden Bull: Early European Parallels to Magna Carta. The Golden Bull has been mentioned on this blog before but the others,the Statute of Pamiers (1212, the Constitutions of Melfi (1231) and the imperial land peace of Mainz (1235) sound very interesting as well. If humanly possible, I shall be there and report on the event.
Meanwhile, I have been reminded by a blog reader of the chapter on King John (An Awful King) and the Magna Charter in that best of all history books, 1066 And All That. (Here is an excellent history quiz published in the Guardian that is taken from the test papers of that fine book; here is the text of the book but I would still recommend that people acquire a paper edition for the illustrations if nothing else.)
Meanwhile, what do the authors say in Chapter 19?
"Magna Charter
There also happened in this reign the memorable Charta, known as Magna Charter on account of the Latin Magna (great) and Charter (a Charter); this was the first of the famous Chartas and Gartas of the Realm and was invented by the Barons on a desert island in the Thames called Ganymede. By congregating there, armed to the teeth, the Barons compelled John to sign the Magna Charter, which said:
- That no one was to be put to death, save for some reason - (except the Common People).
- That everyone should be free - (except the Common People).
- That everything should be of the same weight and measure throughout the Realm - (except the Common People).
- That the Courts should be stationary, instead of following a very tiresome mediaeval official known as the King's Person all over the country.
- That 'no person should be fined to his utter ruin' - (except the King's Person).
- That the Barons should not be tried except by a special jury of other Barons who would understand.
After this King John hadn't a leg to stand on and was therefore known as 'John Lackshanks'."
That, I think, makes it all crystal clear. I shall be asking questions later.
Really, I should not spend so much time on detective stories and matters related but Martin Edwards's recent book on the Detection Club and its denizens is good enough and important enough to merit a long posting on the secondary blog.
The last lines of Mr Edwards’s book are:
The last word belongs to Christie. In 1940, at the height of the Blitz, when she could not know if she or her family and friends would survive for long, she inscribed a copy of Sad Cypress: “Wars may come and wars may go, but MURDER goes on forever!”How right she was. Furthermore, despite all predictions to the contrary, traditional murder and detective fiction go on forever. Nothing could prove that more clearly than the popularity of the British Library series of reprints, first of Victorian but more recently of various half-forgotten Golden Age detective novels and collections of short stories, all of which have been immensely popular.
Martin Edwards’s role in publishing and publicizing the series cannot be overestimated. He has chosen the books, provided highly knowledgeable introductions to a number of them and edited collections of short stories. While doing all that he has been writing his own books and running a blog about detective fiction that is to be recommended to anyone who is even half-way interested in the subject. His greatest achievement to date, however, is this massive volume, a history of the Detection Club in the thirties and forties, a collection of biographies of the extraordinary people who were its members and, incidentally, a history of the genre in the period. That is what I call a useful book.
The rest of this posting is here and the details of the book are:
The rest of this posting is here and the details of the book are:
Martin Edwards: The Golden Age of Murder
The Mystery of the Writers Who Invented the Modern Detective Story
2015 London
HarperCollinsPublishers
And here is Dorothy L. Sayers with Eric the Skull:
Today is Magna Carta Day as the great document was signed on June 15, 1215, though there is a slight problem with it all as dates before September 14, 1752 were in the Julian Calendar, the ones after, in the Gregorian Calendar. The Wikipedia entry gives a reasonable background and explanation of its importance at the time and even greater importance since (though, as we know, the document was not unique in the thirteenth century).
This might be of interest to this blog's readers: only three of the clauses have remained in English law but they are of great importance:
I. FIRST, We have granted to God, and by this our present Charter have confirmed, for Us and our Heirs for ever, that the Church of England shall be free, and shall have all her whole Rights and Liberties inviolable. We have granted also, and given to all the Freemen of our Realm, for Us and our Heirs for ever, these Liberties under-written, to have and to hold to them and their Heirs, of Us and our Heirs for ever.Some useful (or more or less useful) links on the subject:
IX. THE City of London shall have all the old Liberties and Customs which it hath been used to have. Moreover We will and grant, that all other Cities, Boroughs, Towns, and the Barons of the Five Ports, as with all other Ports, shall have all their Liberties and free Customs.
XXIX. NO Freeman shall be taken or imprisoned, or be disseised of his Freehold, or Liberties, or free Customs, or be outlawed, or exiled, or any other wise destroyed; nor will We not pass upon him, nor condemn him, but by lawful judgment of his Peers, or by the Law of the land. We will sell to no man, we will not deny or defer to any man either Justice or Right.
The British Library, though it is hosting the biggest and most important exhibition on the Magna Carta, has recently adopted a rather jocular style on its website, which I find rather irritating. Nor do I think someone from the Monty Python team is the best person to narrate the story but that is what the powers that be at the BL have decided. For those of greater tolerance than the author of this posting, here is the link.
A better summary on the BBC History Magazine website. The best collection of articles are in two very different publications: spiked-online and the latest issue of History Today. In particular, here is a selection of the most important and interesting books on the subject, chosen by Nigel Saul.
Of course, what really matters today of all days is the actual text of the document. without it we cannot even begin to discuss what influence it has had in various countries and centuries and whether any of the clauses can or should be revived for our own use. Here is the English translation of the 1215 text.
Early in the afternoon of January 30, 1649, Charles I, who, apparently, insisted on wearing three shirts so he would not shiver from cold, stepped through the window of Whitehall Palace's Banqueting Hall to the scaffold. His execution did not solve the various issues of the Great Rebellion as Lord Clarendon called it or the Civil War. It was, nevertheless, a shattering event. Kings had been deposed and murdered before in English, Scottish and other histories. But no King had ever been tried before for treason.
Here is the document that can be said to be the beginning of modern political thought, the Death Warrant of Charles I, agreed on by a number of Parliamentarians who had the unbelievable imagination to separate the person of the King from the institution of Kingship and State or, as they are known by some, the Regicides.
For many, it is the figure of the sad, misguided but, ultimately very brave King that is of significance, as can be seen in this picture of Charles the Martyr:
But to me it is the people who dared to think otherwise even when they thought they were looking back to Biblical and Ancient precedents who remain fascinating. As it happens, I was recently sent Charles Spencer's book, Killers of the King, subtitled The Men Who Dared To Execute Charles I. I am greatly looking forward to reading it and writing about it.
Tory Historian does not find it particularly shocking that the Leader of Her Majesty's Mostly Loyal Opposition should suddenly find his own God or religion after a lifetime of secular atheism as several elections start looming. The one that really matters will be next year but it is as well to prepare oneself in time.
Mr Miliband has not only decided to "do God" in political terms - an unwise decision in TH's opinion - but has announced that he was looking forward to being Britain's first Jewish Prime Minister. There was a general outcry of people who seem to know basic facts of this country's political history better than Mr Miliband. Have we not had a Jewish Prime Minister already in the nineteenth century? And did not Mr Miliband quote him or, to be quite precise, misquote him not so long ago, when he told the listening world that Labour was now the party of "One Nation", a phrase usually though erroneously associated with Benjamin Disraeli.
Ah yes, we are told, not least by Mr Miliband and his media minions, but Disraeli had been baptized in the Anglican Church and was, indeed, a practising member of it. Well, Mr Miliband was brought up as a secular, Marxist atheist and has, until now, been certainly a practising member of the last group. (We can discuss the Marxist part separately.) Where is the difference? Certainly, Disraeli's contemporaries thought of him as Jewish and called him that, whether in admiration, as Bismarck did, or not so much as various Liberals in Britain did.
Furthermore, Disraeli was all his life fascinated by Judaism and inserted ideas about it into his speeches and even more into his novels. Until this moment nothing has been heard from Mr Miliband on the subject.
It is, perhaps, time for Tory Historian to alert ambitious women politicians in the Labour Party: should one of them become Prime Minister one day (at present an unlikely contingency but events might intervene), she will not be the first woman Prime Minister in Britain. As with the Jewish one, the Conservative Party got there first.
The other book is the Northamptonshire Record Society's edition of the later diaries of Lady Knightley of Fawsley. Lady Knightley was a remarkable woman and a separate posting about her when TH has finished reading her diaries will follow. She was married to Sir Rainald Knightley, later Lord Knightley of Fawley, a Tory MP of outstandingly old-fashioned views on politics and Parliament.
She, therefore, spent much time in political social circles and recorded her impressions of the people she met and of the various events as they unfolded. She campaigned for her husband, which he was rather uneasy about as he did not think that women should speak in public but, apparently, accepted. She was one of the earliest Dames of the Primrose League about which she wrote with characteristic vigour and humour on May 12, 1885:
This morning I spent on a Girls' Friendly Society Committee [one of many organizations Lady Knightley was active in]; then came back here to receive a visit from Lady Wimborne [sister of Lord Randolph Churchill] and be enrolled as a 'dame' in the Primrose League... It sounds all rubbish but the objects, 'the maintenance of Religion, of he Estates of the Realm and of the ascendancy of the British Empire', are excellent and I can quite believe that the paraphernalia helps to keep the Conservatives together; means, in short and army of unpaid canvassers.
The rest of the day's entry presents a picture of a day that is exhausting to read about, never mind experience.
Despite all the activity, she found time to keep a diary throughout most of her life. The early parts of the journal were edited by Julia Cartwright, later Mrs Ady and published in 1915 and are now available on line. The journals of the years 1885 to 1913 (when she died) were edited and exhaustively annotated by Peter Gordon and published 1999. These are the ones TH has been reading. They are not for the faint-hearted but are, nevertheless engrossing. In both these attributes Politics and Society: The Journals of Lady Knightley of Fawsley 1885 to 1913 resemble A Ride to Khiva.
Oliver Cromwell becomes Lord Protector on December 16, 1653. This was England's only experiment with a republic and a military dictatorship (the two are not necessarily the same). It was not altogether a success though I have always liked Cromwell for two reasons: the well-spoken way in which he got rid of that pesky Rump Parliament in April 1653 ("You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately... Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!") and for abolishing Christmas celebrations. That might not be entirely accurate but I think of the Lord Protector with gritted teeth as I fight my way through crowds with large shopping bags, avoid horrible decorations and try to block out tinny versions of whichever Christmas song has taken the version of the shop I have to enter or, at least, pass.
The Sackville family became great supporters of cricket on their estate and, indeed, played it themselves, putting together teams at various times to play others.
In 1783 the third Duke of Dorset was appointed ambassador to the court of Louis XVI. By all accounts, he was a lazy and not very intelligent though amiable sort of chap, who was fond of cricket, tennis and billiards as well as society gossip. He did manage to be on very good terms with Marie Antoinette but had little appreciation of the storm that was brewing in France during his term as ambassador.
One thing he did try to achieve, with indifferent success, was to introduce cricket to the French society. As Robert Sackville-West says, the historian G. M. Trevelyan claimed that
If the French noblesse had been capable of playing cricket with their peasants [as the English aristocracy and their tenants and labourers did] their chateaux would never have been burnt.Which suggests that if the British ambassador had been successful in getting the French aristocracy to play cricket, preferably with their peasants, which begs the odd question, the French Revolution might never have happened. A sobering thought.
The Georgian Gentleman blog came my way because of its highly entertaining posting on coalitions then and now, complete with a Gillray cartoon of Charles James Fox and the 2nd Earl of Guilford, that can be described as "robust" and an updated version that used some version of photoshop. There seems to have been a good deal less snivelling among politicians at the time and they often gave as good as they received.
The blog, by Mike Rendell is based on diaries, letters and miscellaneous papers he inherited from his ancestor, Richard Hall, "a hosier who lived at One London Bridge, who saw and felt the changes with his own eyes, who shared the general thirst for knowledge, and who made and lost a fortune".
Edward believed passionately in monarchy, but in a monarchy limited by the rule of law and by the obligation to work with the Church and with Parliament. So finely tuned was the constitution which he and his allies upheld that any monarch would necessarily, and instinctively, seek to maintain a sense of harmony, generally by asking consent for his actions. Edward's attitude to the Petition of Right hardened to one of outright opposition because he believed there was no need for Parliament to prescribe, and legislate for, this delicate balance; and that any attempt to do so was as an unacceptable limitation on the King's prerogative and instinctive good sense.As he and his allies found, that delicate balance was very hard to hold. National tragedy resulted in the short term but a stronger constitutional structure in the long.
Given the terms on which those two parted, it is questionable whether either would find any joy in the idea of a reunification, though Catherine would, undoubtedly, have seen it as her duty to strive towards it. So, perhaps, she would be happy or, at least, content at being part of the second most popular exhibit in Gallery 1 of the National Portrait Gallery, the first being Richard III, the Tudors' bogeyman.
The story (and here) of the portrait being re-identified (though why it was mis-identified in the first place is a mystery, considering other available portraits) is fascinating but even more interesting is the fact that the portrait, most unusually, is in its original frame, carefully restored, and clearly meant to echo the colours of the painting.
There can be little more said on the subject until we hear definitely on whether Leicester Cathedral will reinter the bones and what kind of ceremony will be put together. However, there is some interest in the reconstruction of King Richard's face on the basis of the skull and using advanced computer technology together with older fashioned wax modelling.
The article in the Independent seems to have been written by someone who has not seen the famous portrait in the National Portrait Gallery, the starting point of Inspector Alan Grant's investigation in Josephine Tey's excellent Daughter of Time.
All known portraits of Richard III were painted after his death and do not show him in a particularly flattering light, which suited the Tudor’s dynasty’s portrayal of him as one of the great villains of history.
In fact, the fascinating aspect of the reconstruction, pace the journalist in the Independent is how close that face is to the portrait. Either those who worked on the reconstruction were influenced by the portrait or the latter was very life-like.
Would he have been a better and, most importantly, a more intelligent king than his brother became? Would he have ended up on the scaffold? We cannot tell, for despite the wealth of material in the exhibition and despite a determined attempt to draw a picture of the prince as a forward looking king in training who was a determined Protestant, loved art, architecture and jousting and was interested in kingly matters such as relations with other countries and dynasties, the truth remains that we do not know enough about him. Detailed letters written to him by members of his circle chosen by his father and books dedicated to him mean little unless we have his responses, which, apparently, we do not. We do know, however, that he was inordinately fond of jewellery and of armour.
Here is Brian Sewell's amusing and perceptive review of the exhibition.
TH was touched and amused by a letter from James I to a very young Prince Henry in which he praises the boy for his improved handwriting (which, indeed, was mostly terrible) but expresses the strong suspicion that the boy did not write the Latin lines himself but copied them from somewhere else.
For many reasons, to do with fears of instability and James I's unpopularity a sort of mythology grew up around the successor and his early death in 1612 caused what seems to be a genuine outpouring of national grief. This did not last long and did not cause the dynasty to become any more popular.
This is probably the nearest England comes to having a special historical anniversary and a truly gruesome tale it is, too. It's quite a treat to see the horror that dawns on faces of Americans or Europeans as one explains to them what it is exactly that we are celebrating. "That guy is a symbol of the fact that the badly tortured Guy Fawkes who then confessed was hung, drawn and quartered before being burned to death. Let me explain what hanging, drawing and quartering means." Pale faces all round.
A couple of links that are of interest. History Today has an article about the various alternatives that Catholics faced in Jacobean England and why this group decided on terrorism. There are many interesting points in that article, which gives a very coherent analysis of the situation and of the options available. It is worth remembering that any group that wanted to dispose of the existing monarch and put a Catholic one in his place had in mind a complete destabilization of the country, something Elizabeth and her advisers understood very well. A glance across the Channel, the war in the Low Countries and the civil war in France, would have shown what that would entail.
The article touches on the various legends and theories that have been woven round the Plot. Here is a slightly less well written piece that discusses the possibility that it was all either set up or exaggerated by Robert Cecil, the first Earl of Salisbury.
There was a time when every school boy and girl knew the name of the first railway casualty. William Huskisson, MP for Liverpool and former Cabinet Minister was attending the opening of the Manchester-Liverpool railway on September 15, 1830. He got out of his carriage and went to another one to speak to the Duke of Wellington (yes, yes, him again). As he climbed in he slipped and fell into the path of the Rocket, Stephenson's great engine, which ran over his leg and caused severe bleeding of which he died though he was immediately taken to a hospital by Stephenson himself.
That is all one mostly knew about him though Huskisson did have quite a distinguished career.
There is a strong possibility (though at present no more than that) that the archaeological dig in Leicester has, apart from making all sorts of other interesting discoveries, may have uncovered the body or, rather the skeleton of Richard III.
The University of Leicester has made a statement about it in which they explain:
We have exhumed one fully articulated skeleton and one set of disarticulated human remains. The disarticulated set of human remains was found in what is believed to be the Presbytery of the lost Church of the Grey Friars. These remains are female, and thus certainly not Richard III. The articulated skeleton was found in what is believed to be the Choir of the church. The articulated skeleton found in the Choir is of significant interest to us. Dr Jo Appleby has carried out a preliminary examination of the remains.So this could be the remains of the last Plantagenet king and the statement proceeds to give reasons why that is very possibly so. What of that crucial question: was he a crookback or not? The fifth point made states:
The skeleton found in the Choir area has spinal abnormalities. We believe the individual would have had severe scoliosis – which is a form of spinal curvature. This would have made his right shoulder appear visibly higher than the left shoulder. This is consistent with contemporary accounts of Richard’s appearance. The skeleton does not have kyphosis – a different form of spinal curvature. The skeleton was not a hunchback. There appears to be no evidence of a “withered arm”.Before we all start rejoicing in our mighty victory over Tudor
