King Philip V of Spain sent a second Spanish Armada against Britain, but it suffered much the same fate as the first.
The Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 forbade Philip V of Spain, grandson of Louis XIV of France, to claim the French throne. But his chief minister, Italian cardinal Giulio Alberoni, egged him on, triggering the ‘War of the Quadruple Alliance’.
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South African settlers of Dutch descent could not escape the march of the British Empire.
In 1881 and again in 1899, Britain was drawn into a conflict with settlers of Dutch descent in the South African Republic, also known as Transvaal, as her Empire continued to grow apace under the twin forces of colonial emigration and international trade - much to the chagrin of her colonial rival, Germany.
The night before the Comte de Lavalette was to be executed, his wife Émilie came to visit him with a proposal that left him speechless.
Antoine, Comte de Lavalette, had been Napoleon’s Adjutant, and his wife Émilie had been maid of honour to Josephine. After Napoleon’s fall, Antoine was arrested by the Ultra-Royalists and on November 21st, 1815, sentenced to death. He realised that hopes of a reprieve were an illusion when a female warder burst into his room weeping and kissed his Legion d’Honneur medal. Émilie had already reached the same melancholy conclusion.
In the family of Samuel Pepys, the Feast of the Epiphany was kept with music, cake and quaint traditions.
Twelfth Day, the Feast of the Epiphany, is kept on January 6th each year and marks the end of the Christmas season. Samuel Pepys, never one to miss the opportunity for a glass of good cheer and some venison pasty, took care to make a family party of it — even if his duties as paymaster for the Treasury meant a slow start to the festivities.
The Indian Mutiny began with a revolt among disgruntled soldiers, and ended with the making of the British Raj.
By 1857, the East India Company, a British government agency, had been running India for a hundred years. The Company’s ruthless acquisition of territory, and its high-handed treatment of respected figures and institutions, alienated Indians of all classes; and that May, soldiers in the Company’s militia rose up against their officers. Jawaharlal Nehru explains what happened next.
Incompetence, arrogance and some mischievous propaganda all conspired to throw India into chaos.
In 1757, the British East India Company took control of most of India on behalf of the British Government. The Company employed a large number of Indian-born soldiers in their private army, including Muslims and Sikhs, and in 1857 some of these ‘sepoys’ rose up in rebellion. The reasons were complex, but clearly explained here by two Indian schoolmasters, writing in 1944.
The British Empire may be said to have started when Elizabethan importers got into a fight with the Dutch over the price of pepper.
The English were more interested in war than trade in the days of Henry VIII, but in the reigns of Henry’s daughters Mary I (1553-1558) and Elizabeth I (1558-1603) English mariners began to imitate their Continental neighbours and reach out to the Far East. This did not greatly please their neighbours, who resented the competition.
The Sultan of Aceh in northern Sumatra welcomed his guests from Christian England with an unexpected gesture of friendship.
In 1601, Sir James Lancaster set out in four ships for India and the Far East, seeking trading partners for England on behalf Queen Elizabeth I and the newly-formed East India Company. He visited the Kingdom of Achin (Aceh) in the north of Sumatra the following year, where the Sultan was graciously pleased to receive this emissary from a backward, cold and infidel land far, far away.