745
Niobe, daughter of Tantalus, was so proud of her fourteen children that she brazenly claimed the privileges of a goddess.
Niobe was a legendary Queen of Thebes with fourteen lovely children. In a moment of motherly pride, she scoffed at the goddess Leto, mother of just two. But they were Apollo and Artemis; and Niobe had unleashed an unstoppable divine feud that would make her name synonymous with tears.
Posted February 19 2019
746
The Maharaja of Jodhpur called on his subjects to do their bit and stop the Nazis.
On May 15th, 1942, Maharaja Sir Umaid Singh of Jodhpur spoke at the inauguration of the National War Front in Jodhpur. Already many thousands of Indians had volunteered to help stop Nazi Germany from taking Britain’s place as India’s Presiding Power, and now His Highness addressed himself to those left behind.
Posted February 18 2019
747
Two British spies look out over war-torn Belgrade, and find the inspiration they need to go on with their dangerous mission.
In John Buchan’s Great War novel ‘Greenmantle’, published in 1916, Richard Hannay and Peter Pienaar are spying for the Allies, making their way under cover through occupied lands to Constantinople. At Belgrade, recently captured by Austria-Hungary, they look on the devastation of war and their hearts go out to the brave people of Serbia.
Posted February 17 2019
748
Even before he was born, St Dunstan was marked out to lead the English Church and nation to more peaceful times.
In 793, Vikings swept across Northumbria and extinguished the beacon of Lindisfarne, symbol of England’s Christian civilisation. Much of the land lay under a pagan shadow for over a century, but St Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury in the reign of King Edgar (r. 959-975), helped to rekindle both Church and State.
Posted February 15 2019
749
A February celebration for which the faithful have brought candles to church since Anglo-Saxon times.
Candlemas is the English name for a Christian feast also known as the Presentation of Christ, the Purification of the Virgin, and the Meeting of the Lord. It is kept on February 2nd, forty days after Christmas, and in Anglo-Saxon times was a night of candle-lit processions and carol singing almost on a par with Easter.
Posted February 14 2019
750
Edith left behind her a distraught Archbishop Dunstan, but also a legacy of love for the suffering.
Edith of Wilton died on September 16th, 984, at the age of just twenty-three. That August, the elderly Archbishop of Canterbury, Dunstan, had crowned a project dear to her, the building and beautifying of a chapel dedicated to St Denis of Paris, with a personal visit, and had taken to her right from the start.
Posted February 13 2019