547
Months after promising England would help Holland escape the clutches of Catholic Europe, Charles II did a secret deal with France to sell out Holland and England together.
In 1668, Charles II formed the ‘Triple Alliance’ to stop Louis XIV of France from forcing Holland, a Protestant country, into a European league of Catholic states. Just two years later, egged on by his brother James, Duke of York, Charles not only offered to carve up Holland with Louis, but engaged to bring England along too. Barely a soul knew until Sir John Dalrymple broke the story a hundred years later.
Picture: By Peter Lely (1618–1680), via the National Maritime Museum and Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.. Source.
Posted November 14 2020
548
In all his years of soldiering at home and abroad, Major-General George Younghusband had never heard British soldiers talk like those in Kipling’s tales.
‘Tommy Atkins’ is the name given to the average British foot-soldier in the Great War. He is affectionately pictured as chirpy and a trifle insubordinate, always up to some lark, but brave as a lion when required. Major General Sir George Younghusband was in no doubt that Tommy was a literary fiction, but one that had become a living fact, and also that Rudyard Kipling had created him.
Picture: National Library of Scotland, via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.. Source.
Posted November 9 2020
549
Grand Duke Dmitri of Moscow loosened the grip of the Tartar Horde on the people of Russia, but treachery robbed him of triumph.
The tale of St Dmitri of the Don is a tale of the quest to free a people from foreign domination, of hard-fought victory and of wholly avoidable defeat. In 1380, Grand Duke Dmitri I of Moscow, aged just twenty-nine, freed the city from generations of vassalage to the Tartar Golden Horde, only for treachery to bring all that he had achieved to nothing in the very hour of triumph.
Picture: By Ernst Lissner (1874-1941), via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.. Source.
Posted November 8 2020
550
A young man abandons the family farm and goes looking for happiness in the pleasures of the city.
Many Jews in first-century Judaea compromised with Roman ways, and even collaborated with the invading power. Those who came to regret their choices found in Jesus a firm yet gentle mentor, but others grumbled at the welcome he gave. “There is joy in the presence of the angels of God” Jesus reminded them “over one sinner that repenteth”, and he told them this tale.
Picture: © Wolfgang Rieger, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.. Source.
Posted November 6 2020
551
God alone can save civilisation, said Socrates, when clever campaign strategists teach aspiring politicians how to play on the public’s hopes and fears.
Socrates has been telling Adeimantus (Plato’s brother) that it is almost impossible for a young man not to run with the crowd, because peer pressure is made even stronger by ‘sophists’ — educators and opinion-formers who work democratic assemblies as an lion-tamer works his cats, and who resort to ‘the gentle force of attainder, confiscation or death’ when words are not enough.
Picture: By Sir Edwin Henry Landseer (1802-1873), via the Yale Center for British Art and Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.. Source.
Posted November 6 2020
552
Goliath, a giant of a man from Philistia, has challenged Israel’s warrior-heroes to meet him in single combat, but only a shepherd boy is brave enough to step up.
When Goliath, a mountain of a man from Philistia, challenged Israel’s warrior-heroes to mortal combat only David, a shepherd boy, stepped up. King Saul felt shame that only this brave but hopeless boy was ready to fight for the nation. On the other hand, the prophet Samuel had foretold that a man ‘better than thou’ would take Saul’s crown, and it was a relief to know that there was no such man in all his kingdom.
Picture: © Lostinafrica, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0.. Source.
Posted November 2 2020