247
As Christian is making his way along the highway that leads to the Celestial City, he finds his way barred by a foul fiend.
In John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress, Christian has left his home, knowing it will be destroyed, and set out for safety in the Celestial City. Barring his way is Apollyon, a hideous, scaly monster with a dragon’s wings and a lion’s mouth, wreathed in smoke and fire. Christian’s polite request to let him pass so he can pay his respects to the Prince of all the lands only makes the fiend more angry.
Picture: By Joseph Edgar Boehm (1834-1890), photographed by Simon Speed, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.. Source.
Posted July 13 2022
248
When literary critics decide that a book is not worthy of their notice they expect the public to follow their lead, but ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’ was different.
In 1672, Charles II relaxed the Conventicle Act that had imprisoned preachers who were not members of the Church of England. The authorities duly released John Bunyan (1628-88) from Bedford gaol, and at once he returned to preaching. Six years later he published ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’, an immensely popular allegory of the Christian life for which literary experts had nothing but scorn.
Picture: By Pietro Bellotti (1625-1700), via the Dallas Museum of Art and Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.. Source.
Posted July 12 2022
249
In the thirteenth century, wealthy English homeowners began to think more about the inside of their stately homes.
For many years, the Norman barons who dwelt in English castles took more interest in wide estates for hunting, and a large retinue for serving and entertainment, than in soft furnishings or dainty ornaments. But from the time of Henry III (r. 1216-1272) that began to change, and one of the new fashions in interior decoration was the ‘halling’ — a tapestry for one’s Hall.
Picture: By Poliphilo, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.. Source.
Posted July 10 2022
250
In January 1807, newspapers breathlessly reported that Napoleon Bonaparte’s rampage across Europe was at an end — but was it true?
In January 1807, as Napoleon Bonaparte’s armies swept across the Continent building his French Empire, British newspapers printed a cheering story about how the Russians had inflicted a calamitous defeat on Napoleon. William Cobbett didn’t believe a word of it, and expressed his doubts in a masterly metaphor which made ‘red herrings’ into a household proverb.
Picture: © Michael Garlick, Geograph. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.. Source.
Posted July 7 2022
251
When Saint-Mars arrived to take over as warden of the Bastille in 1698, staff at Paris’s most famous prison had eyes only for his prisoner.
When in 1660 King Charles II quitted the French court and returned to England, the parliamentary restraints laid upon him left Louis XIV aghast, and the ‘Sun King’ made sure to radiate his power through a network of chosen ministers, soldiers, civil servants and innumerable spies. Many illustrious names were gaoled without appeal or hope of release, but the most famous prisoner has no name at all.
Picture: © mags, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.. Source.
Posted July 3 2022
252
The interminable squabbling among the Slavic peoples around the southeast Baltic prompted their leaders to drastic action.
In 865, a large and unwelcome army of Vikings swept across the North Sea, but within sixty years Vikings and English had together established a new, united Kingdom of England. Just three years earlier, the squabbling Slavic peoples of the Baltic’s southeastern shores had actually invited the Vikings over, and within a generation the foundations of Russia had also been laid.
Picture: Viktor Mikhailovich Vasnetsov (1848–1926). Source.
Posted July 1 2022