The Copybook

Short passages for reading, drawn from history, legend, poetry and fiction.

217

© kladcat, via Penn Libraries and Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.

The Doom of the Danaides Clay Lane

By day Danaus had to watch his fifty unhappy daughters marry their fifty cruel cousins, but the wedding night was yet to come.

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218

© Voshubert65, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0.

The Siege of Saint-James Edward Hall

Henry VI’s campaign to confirm himself as King of France looked to be in trouble after the Duke of Brittany switched sides.

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219

By Bill Ingalls, NASA, via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.

George VI to Elizabeth II Clay Lane

The final part of this series is dedicated to Queen Elizabeth II, the country’s longest-serving monarch and arguably the most popular in our history.

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220

© Peter, Wikimedia Commons. Licence CC BY-SA 2.0.

Fuel of Freedom Alfred Marshall

Victorian economist Alfred Marshall argued that it was no accident that free societies and coal-powered industries are found together.

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221

© Peter Trimming, Geograph. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.

A Tail of Woe William Caxton

Reynard the Fox was mortified to hear his efforts to rescue Isegrim’s wife from a frozen lake had been misinterpreted.

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222

Winslow Homer (1836–1910)

‘If They Can Stand It I Can’ Abraham Lincoln

However loud his critics shouted their disapproval, Abraham Lincoln would neither deprive them of free speech nor change his opinions.

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