The Copybook

Short passages for reading, drawn from history, legend, poetry and fiction.

661

By Nicholas Chevalier (1828-1902), via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.

Unbroken Amity John Bright

The Foreign Office had a long tradition of regarding a strong Russian Empire as ‘not in the British interest,’ but John Bright saw only mutual benefit in it.

Read

662

Via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

A Dream of Independence John Bright

In 1877, John Bright told a meeting of the Manchester India Association that he had wanted to put India on the path to independence nearly twenty years before.

Read

663

Photo by Elliott and Fry, from the National Portrait Gallery, via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.

The Repeal of the Corn Laws John Bright

Richard Cobden realised that John Bright, overcome with grief after seeing his young wife die, needed something worthwhile to live for.

Read

664

By William Hole (1846-1917), via the Scottish National Portrait Gallery and Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.

St Margaret of Scotland The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

When Malcolm III, King of Scots, met Princess Margaret of Wessex, he knew at once that he had found a woman capable of setting an example to a whole nation.

Read

665

© Matt Brown, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.

Deep River William Charles Berwick Sayers

Berwick Sayers tells how his friend, the composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, set out on his last voyage.

Read

666

© Henry Hartley, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0.

The Gettysburg Address Abraham Lincoln

Following a decisive victory in the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln urged his supporters to make sure that liberty’s advantage was not squandered.

Read