697
Charles II was thinking about handing Bombay back to the Portuguese, when an Indian rebel stepped in.
The great cities of Madras and Calcutta sprang up from the energy and enterprise of British merchants, but Bombay’s history was different. It was a gift from the Portuguese, and for some years it looked as if the beneficiary, Charles II, would be only too pleased to give it back.
Picture: © Chinmaya Panda, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0.. Source.
Posted September 30 2019
698
When Lord Cochrane went to a fancy dress ball in Valetta, his costume nearly got him killed.
In February 1801, Thomas Cochrane took HMS Speedy to Malta in search of supplies. Also on the island was a regiment of French Royalists, allies in the French Revolutionary Wars against the Government that had assassinated King Louis XVI; but allies or not, they found Lord Cochrane’s sense of humour a little too sans-culotte.
Picture: By Thomas Rowlandson (1756–1827), via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.. Source.
Posted September 26 2019
699
Between 1536 and 1539, King Henry VIII’s government divided up the Church’s property amongst themselves and left a trail of devastation.
In 1534, Henry VIII declared political and religious independence from Rome; but two of his closest friends, John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, and Sir Thomas More, his Chancellor, defied him and were executed. What followed has left a more lasting and visible mark on the country than any other event in English history, and we must let Charles Dickens recount it at length.
Picture: © Neil Reed, Geograph. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.. Source.
Posted September 25 2019
700
At sixty-seven, Alexander Forbes rode to war with Bonnie Prince Charlie, and over a decade afterwards was still a hunted man.
In 1688, King James II (who was also James VII of Scotland) unwillingly abdicated in favour of his daughter Mary and her Dutch husband William, Prince of Orange. Many who had sworn loyalty to James felt obliged to support the Jacobite Rebellions of 1715 and 1745, and at the age of sixty-seven Alexander, 4th Lord Forbes, of Pitsligo in Aberdeenshire, found himself a fugitive from justice.
Picture: By Alexis Simon Belle (1674–1734), via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.. Source.
Posted September 16 2019
701
According to legend, when the Venetians tried to kidnap it the Holy Table of St Sophia in Constantinople made a dramatic escape.
In 1204, Crusaders sacked and desecrated Constantinople, capital of the Roman Empire and most honoured See of the Greek Orthodox Church. For almost sixty years thereafter, the communion Table in the grand basilica of Holy Wisdom (Agia Sophia) suffered itself to be used for Roman Catholic services, but in 1261 the retreating Latins tried to carry it away with them to Italy, and enough was enough.
Picture: © FaceMePLS, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC-BY-SA 2.0 generic.. Source.
Posted September 12 2019
702
Japan’s first Shogun owed his life and his rise to power to a spider and two harmless doves.
This tale from Japanese history tells how Minamoto no Yoritomo (1147-1199), a contemporary of Henry II and Richard the Lionheart, rose to power and became the first of the Shoguns, military dictators who sidelined the Emperors and wielded supreme authority in Japan until 1868.
Picture: © 掬茶 (Kiku cha), Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0.. Source.
Posted September 11 2019