The Copybook
Short passages for reading, drawn from history, legend, poetry and fiction.
Short passages for reading, drawn from history, legend, poetry and fiction.
Before Siraj ud-Daulah became Nawab of Bengal in 1756, his grandfather begged him to keep the English sweet, and put no trust in Jafar Ali Khan. If he had only listened...
Robert Clive’s victory on June 23rd, 1757, over the Nawab of Bengal at Plassey near Murshidabad was vital to Britain’s successful defence of her colonies in the Seven Years’ War (1756-63) against Louis XV of France, and fixed the British East India Company as the Mughal Emperors’ chief European trade partner. For Hari Charan Das, it was also a judgment on the Nawab’s refusal to listen to his grandfather.
When Alexander the Great threatened the people of Scythia, their ambassadors reminded him that a conqueror has many more burdens to carry than an ally has.
In 329 BC, during his Persian Campaign, Alexander the Great defeated the Scythians at the Battle of Jaxartes near Cyropolis, now Khujand in Tajikistan. Prior to the battle, the Scythians (a people of the steppes) warned him that allies were better then enemies, and customers better than slaves, and that those who thought themselves exceptional should not behave like everyday tinpot tyrants.
When Julius Caesar defied the Senate’s explicit order to resign his military command, he knew there could be no turning back.
Success in the Gallic Wars (58-51 BC) made Julius Caesar, the great Roman general, a popular hero to the Republic. His bitter rival in the Senate, Pompey, found him increasingly difficult to handle, but on January 1st, 49 BC, Pompey managed to get the Senate to overrule the tribune Gaius Scribonius Curio, who had been blocking him at every turn, and require that Caesar lay down his military command.
In 1327, Mohammad bin Tughluq gave every man, woman and child in Delhi just three days’ notice to quit.
The Delhi Sultanate ruled wide realms in India between 1206 and 1555, but the aspiration of Sultan Mohammad bin Tughluq (r. 1325-1351, a contemporary of England’s Edward III) to be Alexander and Solomon rolled into one brought only bankruptcy and revolt. Especially disastrous was his snap decision in 1327 to walk the entire population of Delhi to a new capital over six hundred miles away.
William Herschel showed that variations in the brightness of the sun were causing climate change, but hardly anyone believed him.
In 1782, astronomer William Herschel set himself to examine a theory that the brightness of stars varied over time. There was no agreed classification for brightness, and no comprehensive record of observations, but it all had to do with a question that to Herschel was of the very first importance: whether the sun’s brightness also varies, and whether this has had any effect on earth’s climate.
It was a bitter moment for Anne Boleyn when she saw that what she herself had done to poor Catherine of Aragon, Jane Seymour was about to do to her.
Jane Seymour, sister of the Duke of Somerset, was maid of honour to Queen Catherine, wife of King Henry VIII, and later to Queen Anne, who took Catherine’s place and crown in 1533. To Anne’s consternation, and apparently to her surprise, Jane supplanted her in Henry’s affections and within a fortnight of Anne’s execution in 1536, Henry and Jane were married.