109
Frances Colenso admired the gallantry of the men who defended the fort at Rorke’s Drift, and the restraint of the men who attacked it.
On January 22nd, 1879, some 150 British soldiers repelled an attack by several thousand Zulu warriors on a tiny garrison at Rorke’s Drift. It was a gallant action in an otherwise dubious war: the British colony of Natal had picked a quarrel with King Cetshwayo of the Zulus as an excuse to annex his realm. Frances Colenso, daughter of the Bishop of Natal, appreciated the Zulus’ restraint.
Picture: By Alex Bassano, published 1885. Public domain.. Source.
Posted June 26 2024
110
There is plenty of work in the garden of England for everyone, whether he has a green thumb or not.
A School History of England (1911) was a collaboration between C. R. L. Fletcher, an Oxford historian, and Rudyard Kipling, who wrote this closing poem as a call to citizenship. The citizen he admired wasn’t the one who shouted noisily for the flag or paraded in some highly-paid profession, but the one who was quietly busy keeping the garden of England beautiful.
Picture: © Len Williams, Geograph. CC BY-SA 2.0.. Source.
Posted June 26 2024
111
Frances Colenso warned that if the British did not learn to treat the Africans with respect, a higher Power would soon teach them some manners.
In the 1880s, competition for Africa’s resources drove European powers to a frenzy of colonial exploitation. Frances Colenso, daughter of the Bishop of Natal, acknowledged that Britain had brought technology and education to Africa; but if the average African was still a child in some matters, that did not mean that we should treat Africans as if they were children. If we continued to do so, she warned, there would soon be a reckoning.
Picture: By Marcin Mlynczak. Public domain.. Source.
Posted June 22 2024
112
During a severe sickness, John Donne, Dean of St Paul’s, asked of God three boons.
John Donne had been a soldier and assistant to prominent lawyer Sir Thomas Egerton; but James I encouraged him to be ordained in the Church of England, and in 1621 he was appointed Dean of St Paul’s in London. A life-threatening bout of illness in 1623 caused him to reflect deeply and not a little anxiously on where he stood with God.
Picture: © Edward Prentis (1797-1854), via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.. Source.
Posted June 14 2024
113
In time of crisis, so the legend goes, Sir Francis Drake will come to our aid again, as once he did against the Spanish Armada.
Drake’s Drum is a snare drum painted with the arms of Sir Francis Drake, which went with him on his historic voyage around the world in 1577-80. It is said that before his death, he instructed his heirs to keep it safe at Buckland Abbey, his family home in Devon, and promised that if ever England were under threat the people should beat the drum, and he would return. The drum survives to this day.
Picture: By Thomas Davidson (1842-1919). Public domain. . Source.
Posted June 12 2024
114
Ralph Waldo Emerson traced a common thread running throughout English literature.
In English Traits (1856), American essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson set himself to examine what it was that made English literature so characteristically English. He came to the conclusion that it was a fondness for robust, grounded language, and for descriptions and ideas that were similarly plain and unaffected.
Picture: By Paul Sandby (?1730-1809). Public domain.. Source.
Posted June 12 2024