643
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.
Following the Norman Invasion in 1066, Prince Edgar, whose claim to the throne was at least as strong as William of Normandy’s, allied with King Sweyn II of Denmark (who also had a decent claim) to unseat William. However, the crafty William bought Sweyn off at the last moment, leaving Edgar and his sisters little option but to flee into Scotland.
Picture: By William Hole (1846-1917), via the Scottish National Portrait Gallery and Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.. Source.
Posted April 20 2020
644
Berwick Sayers tells how his friend, the composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, set out on his last voyage.
Composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912) died of pneumonia at the age of thirty-seven, leaving behind him his wife Jessie and two children, and a treasury of tuneful and often innovative music that is beginning to be appreciated again today. A close family friend, Berwick Sayers, tells of his last hours.
Picture: © Matt Brown, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.. Source.
Posted April 18 2020
645
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.
The Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania ended on July 3rd 1863 in victory for the Union against the Confederate South. Yet it came hard on the heels of a bruising defeat at the hands of General Robert E. Lee at Chancellorsville, and the great issues that hung upon the American Civil War were, for a few days, very much in the balance.
Picture: © Steven C. Berger, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0.. Source.
Posted April 16 2020
646
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.
The Battle of Gettysburg ended on July 3rd 1863 in victory for the Union against the Confederate South. On November 19th, US President Abraham Lincoln delivered an address at the battlefield cemetery. He rightly guessed that the battle had turned the American Civil War; but in thinking that ‘the world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here’ he was touchingly mistaken.
Picture: © Henry Hartley, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0.. Source.
Posted April 16 2020
647
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.
Henry III (r. 1216-1272) allowed extravagance and extortionate taxation to drive his noblemen to the brink of rebellion. When in 1258 he did as his father John had done, and signed the Great Charter only to break it soon after, civil war beckoned. Yet the conflict proved a blessing, for as American historian David Montgomery explains, it led to ‘government by the people.’
Picture: © Tanya Dedyukhina, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0.. Source.
Posted April 15 2020
648
When King Henry III’s barons turned up to his council wearing full armour, he realised he had to mend his ways.
When King John died in 1216, England was in civil war. A series of cool-headed regents for John’s nine-year-old son Henry III steadied the kingdom, but when Henry took over from them in 1236 he immediately undid all their good work. His spending was so lavish (he tried to buy Sicily) and he levied such cruel taxes to fund it, that his barons longed for the days when Henry had left government to them.
Picture: © NotFromUtrecht, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0.. Source.
Posted April 14 2020