British History
Posts in The Copybook tagged ‘British History’
The invading Danes fought so fiercely that Edmund Ironside, the young English king, threw all caution to the wind.
In 1016, Cnut the Great, King of Denmark, attempted to build a North Sea empire that encompassed the British Isles. In a bruising series of battles, Cnut had learnt that Edmund, the young English king, was a steely warrior worthy of respect, and that English nobleman Edric, who had defected to Edmund’s side, could not be trusted. Both lessons were confirmed on October 18th that year.
Edmund Ironside, King of England, and Cnut the Great, King of Denmark, fought hand-to-hand for one of European history’s richest purses.
In 1016, King Cnut of Denmark led a series of bruising attacks on King Edmund of England, hoping to add the English crown to the crowns of Denmark and Norway. Six times Edmund and Cnut had met in battle, and at the sixth attempt Cnut had captured the crown jewels. But whereas Edmund’s warrior-courage had earned Cnut’s abiding respect, the English nobles were anxious only to save their own skins.
Edric’s treason handed the crown of England to Cnut the Great, but Cnut was not so poor a judge of character as to believe that a traitor could be trusted.
Henry of Huntingdon has told us how in the autumn of 1016, King Cnut of Denmark and Norway finally managed to subdue the English King, Edmund, thanks to repeated betrayals by Edmund’s treacherous counsellor, ealdorman Edric. Edmund agreed to be known henceforth as King of Wessex only, leaving Cnut as the more powerful King of Mercia, but the two warriors nevertheless cherished great mutual respect.
William Pitt was a rising star of British politics in 1741, so much so that Horace Walpole MP felt he needed his wings clipped — an operation fraught with peril.
On March 10th, 1741, veteran MP Horace Walpole (1678-1757), the Prime Minister’s brother, fancied that he would silence that upstart William Pitt (1708-1778) by drawing attention to his inexperience, and scolding him for his theatrical manners of speech and gesture. He drew a reply of such withering sarcasm that it merely confirmed Pitt as the rising statesman of his generation.
William Murdoch and Samuel Clegg brought warmth and light into the country’s streets, factories and homes, but the public didn’t make it easy.
Before natural gas there was coal gas, which warmed living rooms and lit streets all over the United Kingdom until the 1960s. Coal gas does not occur naturally, and Archibald Cochrane (1748-1831), 9th Earl of Dundonald, discovered it only by chance, while making coal tar near Culross Abbey in the 1780s. It fell to another Scotsman to make coal gas commercially viable.
The Tilers and Thatchers of fourteenth-century York tell how Joseph and Mary fared after they were turned away by the innkeepers of Bethlehem.
From at least the 1370s, a series of pageants was put on in the city of York for Corpus Christi, a summertime Church festival dedicated to the Eucharist. Dramatising the life of Jesus Christ, the plays were performed by members of the Guilds of skilled trades or ‘mysteries’ (hence ‘mystery plays’). The Nativity fell to the Tilers and Thatchers, who began with Joseph and Mary trying to settle into a tumbledown Bethlehem stable.