1321
A brief introduction to England’s rulers, beginning with the only one named ‘the Great’.
At the end of the 9th century, the eastern side of England was occupied by Danish invaders with their own government (‘the Danelaw’), and King Alfred of Wessex on the south coast inherited a kingdom on the edge of extinction. Little more than a century later, his successors had united all England under them.
Picture: © David Dixon, Geograph. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.. Source.
Posted July 18 2016
1322
England’s rulers from the king who lost his crown to the Danes, to the French duke who took the crown from the English.
The House of Wessex consolidated its rule in 10th-century England, until Ethelred ‘the Unready’ came to the throne in 978. Thereafter, the kingdom was weakened by corruption and intrigue at court, and in 1013 the Danish King Sweyn took the English crown...
Picture: Via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.. Source.
Posted July 18 2016
1323
William Murdoch’s experiments with steam traction impressed his next-door neighbour, with world-changing results.
The clever hand-powered wooden tricycle that a young William Murdoch built with his father made a triumphant reappearance many years later as a miniature steam-powered vehicle. That in turn led to the railway revolution – courtesy of his next-door-neighbour.
Picture: © Philip Halling, Geograph. Licence: CC-BY-SA 2.0.. Source.
Posted July 15 2016
1324
Young William’s hat caught the eye of Matthew Boulton, and the world was never the same again.
The invention of the steam engine and the railways changed the world out of all recognition. It might never have happened had the firm of Boulton and Watt, pioneers in the steam engine, not employed a self-taught Scotsman with a very unusual hat.
Picture: © Philip Halling, Geograph. Licence: CC-BY-SA 2.0.. Source.
Posted July 15 2016
1325
Mr Snawley has two stepsons he would like to offload, and Mr Squeers seems just the right person to help him.
Mr Wackford Squeers, headmaster of Dotheboys Hall in Yorkshire, is in London looking for clients. He is approached at the Saracen’s Head by a Mr Snawley, step-father to two small boys, who is looking for a cheap, far-off boarding school with none of those ill-judged holidays ‘that unsettle children’s minds so’.
Picture: © N Chadwick, Geograph. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.. Source.
Posted July 10 2016
1326
Cuthbert trusted that keeping his promised fast would not do him any harm.
A shieling is a temporary stone hut, built for the summer months when sheep or cattle are taken to higher ground. Bede tells us that a near-contemporary, the seventh-century saint Cuthbert, once had a remarkable experience in one of these huts, as he was journeying across the empty moorland of Northumbria.
Picture: © Mike Quinn, Geograph. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.. Source.
Posted July 10 2016