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William the Conqueror’s chaplain used to tell this story to those who doubted his master’s claim to the English crown.
In 1063, against the advice of King Edward the Confessor, Harold, son of Earl Godwin, crossed the Channel to Normandy. There, young Duke William welcomed him with a degree of warmth that was faintly troubling. William made of Harold his especial friend, and shared with him his ambition to be named Edward’s heir. Would Harold help him? William asked, and Harold mumbled something vague.
Picture: From the Bayeux Tapestry, via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.. Source.
Posted November 18 2024
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The honours that come from God and those that come from men need to be put in the right order.
Mencius (?371-?289) or ‘Master Meng’ spent his career advising Chinese regional governments on public policy during a low-point in the Zhou Dynasty. Regional barons squabbled, taxed cruelly and chopped off heads, and all was flattery, corruption and ambition. Mencius saw no hope for the State in institutional reforms: each man must undertake his own personal reformation.
Picture: By an anonymous artist, 16th century. Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.. Source.
Posted November 17 2024
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The Peasants’ Revolt was a turning point in the relationship between the people and their elected representatives.
In 1381, a tax collector came to Wat Tyler’s home in Kent and demanded his daughter pay the new poll tax — a desperate attempt to raise money for war in France from a workforce depleted by the Black Death. The taxman indecently assaulted her, and Tyler killed him. This was the spark that lit the Peasants’ Revolt, which GK Chesterton saw as a turning-point in the history of Parliament.
Picture: © Udit Kapoor, Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 4.0.. Source.
Posted November 14 2024
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In 1381, young King Richard II was faced with a popular uprising against tax rises.
After the Black Death wiped out nearly three-quarters of England’s population in the 1340s, fit working men were scarce, and wealthy landowners had to bid for every labourer’s favour. The Government hurriedly capped wages and banned labouring men from buying luxury food or clothing. Astonishingly, London then raised taxes to pay for the faltering Hundred Years’ War.
Picture: By Jean Froissart (1337-1410), Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.. Source.
Posted November 14 2024
65
Jack Cade brought a protest to London with right on his side, but then threw it all away.
In 1450, King Henry VI was embroiled in the Hundred Years’ War with France. He was losing the war, and everyone knew it; but his noblemen were making a lot of money out of trampling on the rights of Englishmen in the war’s name. Kent was especially hard hit, and late that May Jack Cade emerged as the leader of the county’s discontent. This was how Charles Dickens told his story.
Picture: © Peter Jeffery, Geograph. CC BY-SA 2.0.. Source.
Posted November 13 2024
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On the same day in 1537, so the story goes, two baby boys were born, but the similarity between them ended there.
In 1527, courtiers began to whisper of Henry VIII’s rising obsession with finding a male heir, calling it the King’s ‘Great Matter’. After Queen Catherine had been put away, and Queen Anne had been beheaded, his prayers were answered when in 1537, Queen Jane bore him a son, Prince Edward. It was against this historical background that Mark Twain opened the tale of The Prince and the Pauper, published in 1881.
Picture: Attributed to William Scrots (fl. 1537-1553), via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.. Source.
Posted November 10 2024