Short passages for reading, drawn from history, legend, poetry and fiction.
From Book I of the Mendel Twelve Brothers Foundation ‘house book’, via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.
By the Great Charter of 1215, King John promised that his ministers would not meddle in the Church or stuff his Treasury with taxes on trade.
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By Jean-Pierre Houël (1735–1813), via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.
Edmund Burke would not congratulate the French revolutionaries on their ‘liberty’ until he knew what they would do with it.
© Russel Wills, Geograph. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.
A monk living in the tumbledown hermitage that had once belonged to St Cuthbert reluctantly decided that it needed more than repairs.
© Kresten Hartvig Klit, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0.
As various ball sports began to take hold in England, King Edward III became convinced that Government action was required.
Grigoriy Myasoyedov (1834–1911), via the National Museum of Warsaw and Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.
When the capital of the Roman Empire was in the grip of a violent earthquake, it fell to one small child to save all the people.
From a manuscript of Froissart’s ‘Chronicles’ (?1470-72), via the British Library and Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.
On October 13th, 1399, Henry Bolingbroke was crowned King Henry IV of England in Westminster Abbey.