British History
Posts in The Copybook tagged ‘British History’
While Joseph is away trying to find light for the darksome stable, Mary brings into the world the Light of everlasting Day.
The Tilers and Thatchers of fourteenth-century York continue their Nativity play, with Mary alone in the ramshackle Bethlehem stable — Joseph her betrothed guardian has gone out into the cold night air to find some light. She is praising God, and awaiting the birth of the miraculous child foretold to her by the archangel Gabriel nine months ago in Nazareth.
The chill of the night is relieved by the warmth of the beasts in their stalls, prompting Mary and Joseph to reflect on the promises of Scripture.
The Tilers and Thatchers of fourteenth-century York bring their Nativity play to a close, back in the Bethlehem stable where Mary and her guardian Joseph have been forced to find shelter. Mary has given birth to a son and laid him in a manger, while her guardian Joseph was out looking for candles. Now he has returned, to find that his candles are superfluous for another Light is shining in the darkness.
Like the legendary phoenix, the Christian must spend his life making a nest fit for his rebirth in fire.
In The Phoenix, the author (possibly Cynewulf, certainly an admirer of his work) mused on the legend of the firebird that dies in its nest, and is reborn in fire. A godly man builds himself a nest out of his repentance and his love and charity with all men; in life the nest protects him from spiritual enemies, and in death the nest is consumed in fire so that the man may be reborn in a mansion of glory.
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.
In 1649, the execution of King Charles I left England in the hands of a Parliament of hardline Protestants determined to purge the Church of superstitious mumbo-jumbo. On Christmas Day 1657, Sir John Evelyn avoided the now dirty, unloved churches, clumsily improvised prayers and muddle-headed preachers, and found an old-fashioned Prayer Book service; but he did not enjoy it in peace.
‘Rain stopped play’ but it did not stop the ladies of Surrey and Hampshire from finishing their epic struggle at the Newington ground.
The first recorded game of cricket between two all-women teams took place back in 1745, but we must fast-forward to 1811 for the first county match, pitting Surrey against Hampshire on neutral ground in Middlesex. Thanks to the enthusiasm of the players and a fashionably boisterous crowd, even ‘rain stopped play’ could not dampen the occasion and a good time was had by all.
Sir John Eliot told the Commons that what worried him wasn’t the sabre-rattling of foreign leaders, it was incompetence and corruption at home.
Soon after King Charles I came to the throne in 1625, relations with his Parliament became strained over taxation, foreign affairs and the Church. In 1627, Sir John Eliot (1592-1632) was sent to prison for leading the outcry at the King’s bungled campaign against Spain in the Thirty Years’ War. Following his release, Eliot warned the Commons that the threat was as great as ever.