The Copybook

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

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© Steven C. Berger, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0.

The Battle of Gettysburg by D. H. Montgomery

Two years into the American Civil War, the Union army responded to a dispiriting defeat at Chancellorsville with a decisive and historic victory at Gettysburg.

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668

© Tanya Dedyukhina, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0.

The Battle of Lewes by D. H. Montgomery

The Battle of Lewes in 1263 took place just a few miles from the Battle of Hastings two centuries before it, and was arguably as important.

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669

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

The Provisions of Oxford by D. H. Montgomery

When King Henry III’s barons turned up to his council wearing full armour, he realised he had to mend his ways.

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670

© Niki.L, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC-BY-SA 4.0.

The Harrowing of Hell by William Langland

Will Langland tells how after the crucifixion, the soul of Christ went down to Hades to fetch Piers the Ploughman and the rest of hopeless humanity.

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671

From the Vaux Passional, via the National Library of Wales and Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.

Trial and Crucifixion by William Langland

In ‘Do-bet,’ the sequel to his popular ‘Vision of Piers the Ploughman,’ Will Langland dreams about the trial of Jesus Christ before Pontius Pilate, and what followed.

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672

From the Benedictional of St Athelwold, via the British Library and Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.

The Triumphal Entry by William Langland

Will Langland, a contemporary of Geoffrey Chaucer, dreams he is looking for his old friend Piers the Ploughman in Jerusalem just when Christ rides in on a donkey.

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© Nicholas Armitage / Clay Lane, 2025

April 29 NS

April 16 OS

A Literary Mystery : In 1798, ‘Plays on the Passions’ appeared in London bookstores, but no one seemed to know who had written them.
Smile : Choose adjectives of praise for these nouns, at about the 7/10 level.
The Making of Mark : St Mark wrote his Gospel as a summary of the preaching of St Peter.
Zheng He and the Rise of Malacca : Malacca became a refuge from the overbearing empires of the Far East, thanks to a celebrated Chinese admiral.
Confusables : Compose sentences to bring out the similarities and differences between these words.
Jill and I : Include yourself in these sentences about Jill.
Saddled : Use these words in sentences, and see if you can use one of them as a verb.
Russia’s Heroic Stand : In 1941, with much of the West subdued, Adolf Hitler bent the full force of his hatred on Moscow.
Approachable : Replace the verb ‘can’ with these alternatives, and explain how the meaning of the sentence has changed.
The First Easter : In a translation from the Authorized Version of the Bible, published in 1611, St Mark recounts the discovery of Christ’s empty tomb.
A Collect for Easter Day : A short prayer from the Book of Common Prayer, for the day of Christ’s resurrection.
The Gambler : Which well-known expression is Dr Johnson talking about here?
If I Had But Two Little Wings : Samuel Taylor Coleridge holds on to those precious moments when loneliness is a problem for tomorrow.
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