1051
William Gladstone explains that a truly ‘exceptional nation’ respects the equality and rights of all nations.
In 1879, William Gladstone MP berated his rival Benjamin Disraeli, the Prime Minister, for turning Russia into Europe’s bogeyman. Patriotism, Gladstone said, is a healthy thing, but the true patriot is generous, and never claims for his own country rights and dignities he denies to others.
Picture: © Alex ‘Florstein’ Fedorov, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0.. Source.
Posted September 20 2017
1052
George Stephenson won the admiration of French navvies by showing them how a Geordie works a shovel.
George Stephenson was arguably history’s most influential engineer, yet he never really gave up being a Northumberland miner. He always retained his Geordie ordinariness, and was never happier than when he was among his fellow working men.
Picture: © Velvet, via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0.. Source.
Posted September 18 2017
1053
Lemuel Gulliver finds that the people of Balnibarbi just don’t appreciate their hardworking academics.
Lemuel Gulliver is visiting the distinguished Academy in Balnibarbi, where absent-minded professors pursue countless schemes for bettering society. In the School of Languages, for example, some experts plan to do away with verbs, participles and words of more than one syllable, but their colleagues are far bolder.
Picture: © David Iliff, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC-BY-SA 4.0.. Source.
Posted September 16 2017
1054
By the early eighth century, sacred art was thriving in newly-Christian England, but in the East seeds of doubt and confusion had been sown.
Although we associate icons with Eastern Christianity, many churches in Britain prior to the Reformation, and especially in the Anglo-Saxon era before the Conquest of 1066, were wall-to-wall, floor-to-roof, a patchwork of frescoes of saints, Biblical scenes, flowers and animals. Indeed, it was in the East that doubts about sacred art first arose.
Picture: From the British Library, via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.. Source.
Posted September 15 2017
1055
Charles Dickens tells the story of King Henry II and the enchantingly beautiful Rosamund Clifford.
The story of Rosamund Clifford, mistress of a young Henry II, is one of the great romances of English literature. Disappointingly (or perhaps not, since it is a bitter tragedy) apart from the most essential facts it is a legend. The best one can do is to ask one of our great novelists, Charles Dickens, to let us down gently.
Picture: By John William Waterhouse (1849-1917), via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.. Source.
Posted September 12 2017
1056
Richard I thought a veteran Crusader and conqueror of Saladin could handle a few French peasants.
Richard the ‘Lionheart’ is best remembered today as the King of England during the time of Robin Hood, an association made for us by Sir Walter Scott’s novel ‘Ivanhoe’. He was an inspiring general in the Third Crusade, courageous and ruthless, but his death was testimony to the caprices of Fortune.
Picture: © Jonathan Cardy, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0.. Source.
Posted September 9 2017