Clay Lane

The Copy Book

A Library of History and Literature in English

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835

Leg Glance

A sportsman and an officer lays a wager that he can make a trigger-happy Irishman go barefoot in public.

It is a familiar scene: the legendary gunslinger in the saloon, the young upstart ragging on him, and a table of fellow-gamblers urging the reckless boy to think better of it. In this case however, it all took place in a coffee-house in Georgian London, and the upstart was a middle-order batsman for the MCC.

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Picture: By Edward Henry Corbould (1815-1905), Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.. Source.

836

Perkin Warbeck

With the Lambert Simnel affair not yet forgotten, another boy claims to be the rightful King of England.

After Henry Tudor seized the crown in 1485, he could take some comfort in the fact that his most credible rivals, Edward IV’s sons Edward and Richard, had been murdered by their uncle Richard III. But as their fate was only a rumour, they became magnets for impostors, first Lambert Simnel in 1487, and in 1491 the rather more dangerous Perkin Warbeck.

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Picture: From Wikimedia Commons. Licence; Public domain.. Source.

837

Sign of Deliverance

While the besieged citizens of Novgorod huddled for protection in the city gaol, Archbishop John remained in his cathedral to pray.

After the death of his father Yuri Dolgoruky, Prince of Kiev, in 1157, Andrey Bogolubsky, Prince of Vladimir, Rostov and Suzdal, began to pursue his dream of ruling all Rus’. He drove Prince Mstislav II from Kiev in 1169, and in February 1170 a little matter of unpaid tribute gave him an excuse to besiege Mstislav’s son Roman in the historic city of Veliky Novgorod.

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Picture: From Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.. Source.

838

Green for Jealousy

The scheming Iago warns Othello against falling victim to jealousy.

Othello, a General in the Venetian army, has promoted Cassio to Lieutenant instead of Iago; in revenge, Iago has hinted at an intrigue between Cassio and Desdemona, Othello’s wife. Othello is beside himself to hear more, but Iago teasingly clams up, as if worried about Cassio’s reputation.

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Picture: © Gianfranco, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC-BY-SA 3.0.. Source.

839

The Ghosts of Edgehill

The first battle of the English Civil War was a cautious affair, but rumours persisted that it went on long after it had finished.

The Battle of Edgehill in Warwickshire on October 23rd, 1642, marked the opening exchanges in the English Civil War. It was indecisive, and neither side could have foreseen the military coup in December 1648 that would lead so quickly to a brief Republic. Indeed, following the skirmish King Charles was more interested in paranormal activity.

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Picture: By Charles Landseer (1799-1879), via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.. Source.

840

The Theotokos of Vladimir

It is one of the world’s most recognisable works of art, and a symbol of God’s blessing on all Christian Rus’.

The Theotokos of Vladimir is an icon of Mary embracing her child Jesus, which came to Kiev from Constantinople in the 1130s. Not only has it become one of the world’s most recognisable works of sacred art, but on several occasions it has been credited with delivering the Christians of Rus’ from seemingly inevitable disaster.

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Picture: From the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, via Saint Tikhon’s Orthodox University of Humanities. Licence: None stated (public domain assumed).. Source.