1315
James calls Fr Huddleston to his brother’s deathbed, ready for a most delicate task.
As King, Charles II was officially the Head of the Church of England, an ever-so-modern, Protestant church. But like his father before him, and his brother James, his sympathies lay with the older Roman ways, and in 1685, lying in his bed at Whitehall Palace and facing his last hours on earth, he had an agonising decision to make.
Picture: © Brian Robert Marshall, Geograph. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.. Source.
Posted July 28 2016
1316
The wronged hero vanquishes a dreadful monster with the help of a winged horse, but then it all goes to his head.
The detailed myth of Bellerophon comes from a variety of ancient sources, but the basic tale is found in Homer’s ‘Iliad’. It is a tale of the ‘pride that goeth before a fall’ (Proverbs 16:18), and has a starring role for that most noble of all mythological figures, Pegasus, the winged horse.
Picture: © William Neuheisel, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.. Source.
Posted July 26 2016
1317
Mary Mason could not forgive herself for a past misdeed.
Lady Mary Mason inherited Orley Farm from her husband, Joseph Mason of Groby Park, Yorkshire, who was forty-five years her senior and had a son of his own. A bitter, damaging court-case ensued. The Will was upheld, but later on Mary privately admitted she had forged it, and she never forgave herself.
Picture: © Chris Paul, Geograph. Licence: CC-BY-SA 2.0.. Source.
Posted July 25 2016
1318
The blushing clergyman’s daughter is recognised today as one of the great figures of English literature.
Jane Austen (1775-1817) was not especially well-known in her own day, but has subsequently become recognised as one of the foremost novelists in English. Her dry wit, sparkling characters and radical themes have endeared her novels and herself to millions, not least Winston Churchill.
Picture: © Neil Clifton, Geograph. Licence: CC-BY-SA 3.0.. Source.
Posted July 22 2016
1319
King Canute enacted a memorable demonstration of the limits of government power.
This famous story is regarded as a fable by many but it is a very early one, being already established only a century or so after the time of King Canute (Cnut), who reigned from 1016 to 1035. It is important to be clear that Canute was not trying to prove he could ‘turn back the tides’. He was trying to prove that he couldn’t.
Picture: © David Dixon, Geograph. Licence: CC-BY-SA 2.0.. Source.
Posted July 20 2016
1320
The Persian King felt that a lord of his majesty should not have to take any nonsense from an overgrown river.
In 483 BC, Xerxes I (r. 486-465 BC) rallied all Persia for a second attempted conquest of Greece, after the failure of Darius I at Marathon seven years earlier. He planned his route meticulously, throwing two bridges across the Hellespont, the narrow stretch of water between the mainland of Asia Minor and the Gallipoli peninsula in what is now Turkey, but it was not a straightforward business.
Picture: © Jorge Láscar, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC-BY-SA 2.0.. Source.
Posted July 20 2016