British History
Posts in The Copybook tagged ‘British History’
A. A. Milne warns that marketing cricket to people who don’t like the game must not spoil it for those who do.
Even in the days of Jack Hobbs and Wilfred Rhodes people were talking about the need to ‘brighten up’ the game of cricket, much as they do today. Writing shortly after the end of the Great War, ardent cricket fan A. A. Milne (of Winnie-the-Pooh fame) just wanted his beloved game back.
In 655, the future of England as a Christian nation hung by the slenderest of threads.
Following the conversion of Ethelbert, King of Kent, in 597, one after another the Kings of England’s kingdoms were baptised; Sigeberht of the East Angles even resigned his crown to his brother Anna, in order to become a monk. But Cenwalh of Wessex remained unmoved, as did his brother-in-law Penda, mighty lord of Mercia.
An attempt to pay down the National Debt provoked a frenzy of financial speculation.
In 1711, a new joint stock company called the South Sea Company was announced, akin to the successful East India Company (1600) and Hudson’s Bay Company (1670). In 1719, it was awarded the job of paying off the national debt, promising investors eye-catching returns for upwards of £1000 per share, and sparking a frenzied optimism among investors that copycat companies were happy to share in.
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.
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.
After King Edward the Confessor died childless, Europe’s princes stepped forward to claim the prize of England’s crown.
When King Edward the Confessor died in 1066, he left no clue as to who was to succeed him; or rather, he left too many. Within months, no fewer than four credible claimants had presented themselves, and two were formidable foreign lords, King Harald of Norway and William, Duke of Normandy.