The Copybook
Short passages for reading, drawn from history, legend, poetry and fiction.
Short passages for reading, drawn from history, legend, poetry and fiction.
The simple melody of the United Kingdom’s national anthem has stirred the souls of some great composers.
‘God Save the King’ was an eighteenth theatre song composed to keep English hearts strong in the face of a Scottish rebellion whipped up by France. Later, it was hailed across oppressed Europe as the anthem of popular liberty, and became one of Ludwig van Beethoven’s favourite tunes.
Alban voluntarily swapped places with a priest, and was executed for being a member of a banned religious sect.
The Roman city of Verulam was later named St Albans, after England’s first martyr. He was executed on June 22, possibly in AD 305, during the reign of the Roman Emperor Diocletian. The authorities held that religion was a social good so long as no one questioned the official values of the Roman state, and everyone regarded all gods as equally valid. Christians came up short on both counts.
Britain never knew she was a nation of voracious readers until printing entered the steam age.
Scholary discussions of rising Victorian literacy rates focus on the educational policies of Church and State. But the problem wasn’t a lack of schools, teachers or investment. The problem was that print technology was stuck in the Tudor age.
Julius Caesar came over from France expecting to silence the noisy neighbours, but things did not go according to plan.
In 55 BC, Julius Caesar crossed the Channel from Gaul to Britain. British tribes were supporting the Gallic resistance, and he thought they needed to be taught a lesson. That proved to more difficult than he had hoped, and it is perhaps unsurprising that after this, the Roman authorities pursued a policy towards Britain that Emperor Augustus christened ‘masterly inactivity’.