British History

How hard-pressed Christians on the Welsh border won a battle without bloodshed.

In the 5th century, the spread of Christianity was a growing threat to the pagans’ hold of fear and ignorance over ordinary people. The pagans’ answer was (as always) violence.

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King Harold died at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. Or did he?

Harold Godwinson was killed at the Battle of Hastings on England’s south coast in 1066, pierced through the eye by an arrow. But that wasn’t the tale they told up north in the city of Chester...

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A King and Queen gentler than the times in which they lived.

The powerful Earl Godwin, a rough Saxon and an ambitious man, gave his support to King Edward the Confessor on condition that he marry Godwin’s daughter Edith.

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A popular tale of scorched cakes and a scolded king.

King Alfred the Great ruled from 871 to 899. He did more than any other king to unite the English as a nation, but first he had to overcome an invasion of Danes from across the North Sea, and a very cross housewife.

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‘Rule Britannia’ was a discreet way of telling a German prince what was expected of a British King.

The British patriotic song “Rule Britannia” is sadly misunderstood. The short drama ‘Alfred’ from which it comes was not a shrill declaration of British power abroad but a tactful way of telling King George II’s son, a German-speaking Prince, that his job was to defend his people from invasion, and then leave them to enjoy fruits of their own labours.

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How appropriate that the comic opera ‘Patience’ should introduce the world to the results of thirty years of labour.

Local boy Joseph Swan (1828-1914) worked for his brother-in-law in the pharmaceutical firm of Mawson, Swan and Morgan in Newcastle. He can claim to be one of the architects of modern living.

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