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William Cowper told Lady Hesketh about a walk beside the river at Olney, and the affecting behaviour of his spaniel Beau.
In June 1788, William Cowper wrote to his friend Lady Hesketh about a remarkable act of devotion from his spaniel Beau. It all happened when Cowper, who now lived a rather retired life owing to his shattered nerves, was taking a break from his books with a walk by the River Great Ouse near Olney in Buckinghamshire. The following month he cast the tale into verse.
Posted April 28 2022
260
Sir Philip Francis told the House of Commons that it must not let ministers manufacture crises as an excuse for grabbing more power.
In 1794, Great Britain was braced for an invasion by neighbouring France, and King George III, as hereditary Elector of Hanover, decided that the situation warranted stationing Hanoverian troops in Britain. Sir Philip Francis, among others, demanded to know why the Commons had not been consulted, and was told that in desperate times His Majesty’s Government can take desperate measures.
Posted April 25 2022
261
Scottish scholar and clergyman Gilbert Burnet sets before us a picture of a King who was something of a Solomon in his virtues and his vices.
In 1683, some of Gilbert Burnet’s friends were executed for complicity the Rye House Plot, and when James II came to the throne in 1685 he emigrated to Holland, a country he knew well and admired for its religious tolerance. Meanwhile, Burnet, a Scottish clergyman and distinguished scholar, had jotted down his impressions of James’s elder brother King Charles II, some of which are given here.
Posted April 24 2022
262
The lives of men are like voyages across stormy seas, but we no longer have to sail them as if they were uncharted waters.
Christ is a long narrative poem by Cynewulf, a poet writing in Old English at the turn of the ninth century, about seventy years after the death of St Bede. In the following extract, he likens human life to the tossing of ships on stormy seas, and the Christian gospel as a chart to bring our ‘sea-steeds’ safely to heaven’s harbour.
Posted April 21 2022
263
Cynewulf encourages his listeners to remain committed to the Christian life, by reminding them of the reward that awaits them.
What shines out of every page of the New Testament is the promise of eternal life. In Christ, a narrative poem written in Old English sometime around 800, the poet Cynewulf drew together a number of Scriptural quotations to remind his listeners of the reward that awaits those who do not turn aside.
Posted April 21 2022
264
In April 1653, Oliver Cromwell learnt that Parliament was planning to prevent him from packing the Commons with yes-men.
In the Spring of 1653, General Oliver Cromwell, England’s commander-in-chief and de facto ruler, was heaping pressure on Parliament to dissolve itself for fresh elections, and so give him an opportunity to pack the Commons with his own men. The Commons, however, guessed his mind, and on April 20th were ready to vote on a Bill of dissolution carefully designed to maintain their independence.
Posted April 19 2022