The Copybook

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

361

By Jebulon, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.

St Nicholas and the Deadly Gift by Clay Lane

The Bishop of Myra’s ceaseless toil to put an end to the worship of Artemis made him some dangerous enemies.

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362

© Aleksandr Zykov, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC-BY-SA 2.0.

The Grandest of All Sepulchres by Thucydides

On the annual Remembrance Day of ancient Athens, Pericles rose to remind the people of the City that grief alone was not the best way to honour the fallen.

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363

By W. Fordyce, via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.

The Richmond Shilling from The London Journal of Arts and Sciences

For centuries our coal industry was plagued by regulations and taxes, but a tax imposed in 1667 seemed to have nothing to do with coal at all.

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364

Thomas Rowlandson (1756–1827), Public domain.

‘Have a Care What You Do’ by Charles Dickens

Lord George Gordon marched at the head of 50,000 protestors to the House of Commons, to demand that George III’s England did not become like Louis XVI’s France.

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365

By an anonymous artist of the English School, circa 1560, via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.

The Little Flower Boy by John Foxe

Mary I’s fear for her throne had risen to such a pitch that her Chamberlain felt threatened by a three-year-old child.

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366

After Samuel Cooper (1609–1672), via the National Portrait Gallery and Wikimedia Commons. Licence: ? Public domain.

Christmas Under Cromwell by John Evelyn

In 1657, Sir John Evelyn celebrated Christmas in a church for the first time in years. Unfortunately, someone told the authorities what he was doing.

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© Nicholas Armitage / Clay Lane, 2025

May 1 NS

April 18 OS

Flying Scotsman : In 1928, a train service linking London and Edinburgh became the world’s longest non-stop run.
Two Letters Home : A German soldier stopped the Great War so he could ask Captain Hulse to post a letter for him.
Smile : Choose adjectives of praise for these nouns, at about the 7/10 level.
The Making of Mark : St Mark wrote his Gospel as a summary of the preaching of St Peter.
Zheng He and the Rise of Malacca : Malacca became a refuge from the overbearing empires of the Far East, thanks to a celebrated Chinese admiral.
Confusables : Compose sentences to bring out the similarities and differences between these words.
Jill and I : Include yourself in these sentences about Jill.
Saddled : Use these words in sentences, and see if you can use one of them as a verb.
Russia’s Heroic Stand : In 1941, with much of the West subdued, Adolf Hitler bent the full force of his hatred on Moscow.
Approachable : Replace the verb ‘can’ with these alternatives, and explain how the meaning of the sentence has changed.
The First Easter : In a translation from the Authorized Version of the Bible, published in 1611, St Mark recounts the discovery of Christ’s empty tomb.
A Collect for Easter Day : A short prayer from the Book of Common Prayer, for the day of Christ’s resurrection.
The Gambler : Which well-known expression is Dr Johnson talking about here?
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