811
The Roman Emperor offered to unite the world’s squabbling churches – but it was the kind of offer you can’t refuse.
English bishops met at Hatfield in 680, on the eve of a major Church Council at Constantinople. In the Imperial capital, the talk was all of uniting the world’s churches, but Pope Agatho wanted Britain’s support for something more radical: he meant to declare the gospel, even if he went the way of his predecessor, Martin.
Posted September 30 2018
812
King John had already lost most of the Crown’s lands in France, but when Aquitaine was threatened Edward III knew he must act fast.
‘The Hundred Years’ War’ is a nineteenth-century term for the Anglo-French wars of 1337-1453, a tussle for control of various provinces in France inherited by the English kings, chiefly the highly lucrative Aquitaine. But some famous victories in battle could not hide that for England the war was a long and costly defeat.
Posted September 27 2018
813
Leigh Hunt reflects on the civilising effect of the game of cricket.
Essayist Leigh Hunt was a cricket-lover, and panegyrics on the game and its health-giving properties pepper his writing. He was also of the opinion that those whose got out to play the game gained an appreciation for the countryside and a perspective on the world denied to many others.
Posted September 24 2018
814
A sportsman and an officer lays a wager that he can make a trigger-happy Irishman go barefoot in public.
It is a familiar scene: the legendary gunslinger in the saloon, the young upstart ragging on him, and a table of fellow-gamblers urging the reckless boy to think better of it. In this case however, it all took place in a coffee-house in Georgian London, and the upstart was a middle-order batsman for the MCC.
Posted September 23 2018
815
With the Lambert Simnel affair not yet forgotten, another boy claims to be the rightful King of England.
After Henry Tudor seized the crown in 1485, he could take some comfort in the fact that his most credible rivals, Edward IV’s sons Edward and Richard, had been murdered by their uncle Richard III. But as their fate was only a rumour, they became magnets for impostors, first Lambert Simnel in 1487, and in 1491 the rather more dangerous Perkin Warbeck.
Posted September 21 2018
816
While the besieged citizens of Novgorod huddled for protection in the city gaol, Archbishop John remained in his cathedral to pray.
After the death of his father Yuri Dolgoruky, Prince of Kiev, in 1157, Andrey Bogolubsky, Prince of Vladimir, Rostov and Suzdal, began to pursue his dream of ruling all Rus’. He drove Prince Mstislav II from Kiev in 1169, and in February 1170 a little matter of unpaid tribute gave him an excuse to besiege Mstislav’s son Roman in the historic city of Veliky Novgorod.
Posted September 19 2018