The Copybook

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

523

By Marjorie Acker Phillips (1895-1985), Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.5.

Henry Goes a-Maying John Stow

King Henry VIII was riding out with Queen Catherine one May Day, when they found themselves waylaid by Robin Hood and two hundred archers.

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524

By Cassandra Austen (1773-1845), via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.

‘I Shall Keep This for Aunt Jane’ James Edward Austen-Leigh

James Edward Austen-Leigh tells us what it was that made his aunt, the celebrated novelist Jane Austen, so remarkable.

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525

By Charles François Jalabert (1819–1901), via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.

Jibe and Joke Sir Richard Steele

Sir Richard Steele takes up arms against the kind of wit who thinks you can be as nasty as you like provided you make people laugh.

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526

© Herbythyme, Wikimedia Commons. Licenc e: CC BY-SA 4.0.

The Martyrdom of King Edward Roger of Wendover

After the death of King Edgar, powerful court factions struggled for power by hiding behind his two sons, twelve-year-old Edward and his younger step-brother Ethelred.

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527

© Tom Parnell, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0 generic.

Dunstan’s Deliverance Roger of Wendover

In 978, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dunstan, was being battered in a stormy meeting when he — along with England’s rich monastic heritage — had a miraculous escape.

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528

© Martin Cigler, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0.

Cuthbert’s Christmas Clay Lane

One Christmas Eve back in the twelfth century, a monk keeping midnight vigil in Lindisfarne priory watched spellbound as two great doors opened all by themselves.

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