BbC H1st0ry Magazine 2015-04.Bak

How Ricmedievfinest w

LIONHEART King of the Crusaders

ELIZABETH I: A JEALOUS QUEEN?

MAGAZINE

BRITAIN’S BESTSELLING HISTORY MAGAZINEApril 2015 • www.historyextra.com

Leadership secrets of Saladin

PLUS

Why the Suffragettes turned to violence

Dan Snow on the “doomed”

Spanish Armada

Five myths

real reasonsThea First World for

War disaster W

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The Face of Evil

Rise & Fall of Third ReichDamn the Dardanelles

With Prof Gary SheffieldBerlin at War

Life under the NazisBrothers in Arms

The Spanish Civil WarStrange Meetings

Poets of the Great War

HISTORICAL

T R I P S

Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité

The French Revolution

Never a Greater Crime

Istanbul & the Fourth Crusade

10 Days that shook

the World The RussianRevolution

War and Wine

Great French Vineyards& Nazi Occupation

Secret Reich

Technology & Terror inHitler’s Germany

The Road to Runnymede

with Dr David Starkey

Rise and Fall

Of Venice

The Great War

An Introduction to the Western Front

Poland at War

Poland During the Second World War

Palace

A History of Britain throughits Royal Residences

The Making of a Tyrant

with Dr Suzannah Lipscomb

The Heretics of

Carcassonne

The French Cathars

“It really was the trip of a lifetime. I felt privileged to be travelling with brilliant historians... and to have visited so many of the places I have read about for so many years.”Debbie Frattoroli, guest

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HISTORICAL

T R I P STHE HISTORY THAT SHAPED US

3

THIS ISSUE’S CONTRIBUTORS

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APRIL 2015

WELCOME

CONTACT USPHONE Subscriptions & back issues0844 844 0250 – Those with impairedhearing can call Minicom 01795 414561Editorial 0117 314 7377EMAIL Subscriptions & back [email protected] [email protected] Subscriptions & back issuesBBC History Magazine, PO Box 279,Sittingbourne, Kent ME9 8DFBasic annual subscription rates:UK: £59.80, Eire/Europe £62, ROW: £64Editorial BBC History Magazine, ImmediateMedia Company Bristol Limited, Tower House,Fairfax Street, Bristol BS1 3BN

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How Ricmedievfinest wa

hard I becameal Europe’sarrior

LIONHEARTKing of the Crusaders

ELIZABETH I: A JEALOUS QUEEN?

MAGAZINE

BRITAIN’S BESTSELLING HISTORY MAGAZINE£4 60 • April 2015 • www historyextra com

Leadershipsecrets ofSaladin

PLUS

Why the Suffragettesturned to violence

Dan Snow onthe “doomed”Spanish Armada

Five mythslipoliareal reasons

Thea First World

forWarW disaster

* Subscribers to BBC History Magazine receive FREE UK P&P on this collector’s edition. Prices including postage are: £11.49 for all other UKeresidents, £12.99 for Europe and £13.49 for Rest of World. All orders subject to availability. Please allow up to 28 days for delivery ** Calls tothis number from a BT landline will cost no more than 5p per minute. Calls from mobiles and other providers may vary. Lines are open 8am–8pm weekdays and 9am–1pm Saturday.

Dan Snow

The defeat of the Spanish

Armada is one of England’s

most well known naval

victories, but Philip II’s

invasion was doomed

to fail from the outset, as

I discover in my new

BBC series.

Dan discusses theSpanish Armada on page 28

Ruth Scurr

The antiquary and

biographer John Aubrey

offers an informal and

intimate view of the 17th

century. Through his eyes

we see the great people,

places and events of the

age anew.

Ruth Scurr talks aboutJohn Aubrey on page 48

Gary Sheffield

With the centenary of the

Gallipoli campaign falling this

year, it is worth taking a long,

hard look at this battle. Was it

the great ‘might have been’ of

the First World War? Having

looked at the evidence, I’m

not so sure.

Gary writes about Gallipoli on page 54

In February, Barack Obama cited the crusades as evidence

of the historic wrongs committed “in the name of Christ”.

By doing so he sparked outrage in some quarters and

reignited the debate about the morality of the medieval invasion

of the Holy Land. It’s a debate that has lasted for centuries, as

Europeans and inhabitants of the Middle East have propagated

different views of the rights and wrongs of the crusades.

This month, we focus on arguably the best-known leaders of the

Christian and Islamic forces: Richard the Lionheart and Saladin . On

page 30, Thomas Asbridge shows how Richard I honed his martial

skills in the Holy Land, before returning to Europe as the continent’s

greatest warrior. Then, on page 37, Saladin’s latest biographer, John

Man, reveals the leadership secrets behind his military victories.

More recently, the battle of Gallipoli is another event that attracts

contrasting opinions. The attempt to knock the Ottoman empire out

of the First World War proved a disaster but is still remembered with

pride by Australians and New Zealanders. On the

centenary of Gallipoli, we cover both perspecttives,

with Gary Sheffield’s myth-busting piece on paage 54

followed by an interview with Australian authoor

Peter FitzSimons.

It’s not all about war this month, though. We’rre also

exploring the court of Elizabeth I , the travails of

suffragettes and the lives of medieval immigrants,

among other topics. I hope you will find plenty to

interest you in the pages that follow.

Rob Attar

Editor

MAGAZINE

4

Features Every month

BBC History Magazine

APRIL 2015

CONTENTS

6 ANNIVERSARIES

11 HISTORY NOW 11 The latest history news

14 Backgrounder: Greek bailout crisis

16 Past notes

18 LETTERS

20 MICHAEL WOOD’S VIEW

52 OUR FIRST WORLD WAR

65 BOOKS Experts review new releases,

plus Steven Weinberg discusses his

new book on the history of science

77 TV & RADIO The pick of this month’s history

programmes

80 OUT & ABOUT 80 History explorer:

the fight for women’s votes

84 Ten things to do in April

86 My favourite place: Ethiopia

97 MISCELLANY 97 Q&A and quiz

99 Sam’s recipe corner

100 Prize crossword

106 MY HISTORY HERO

John Sergeant chooses

Arthur Ransome

USPS Identification Statement BBC HISTORY (ISSN 1469-8552) (USPS 024-177) April 2015 is published 13 times a year under license from BBC Worldwide by Immediate Media Company Bristol Ltd, 9th Floor, Tower House, Fairfax Street, Bristol BS1 3BN, UK. Distributed in the US by Circulation Specialists, Inc., 2 Corporate Drive, Suite 945, Shelton CT 06484-6238. Periodicals postage paid at Shelton, CT and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to BBC HISTORY, PO Box 37495, Boone, IA 50037-0495. B

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Find out what Elizabeth really wanted from her courtiers, on page 22

22 Elizabeth I: jealous queen?

The Tudor monarch’s relationships with

her courtiers were shaped by politics, not

sex, says Susan Doran

28 Dan Snow on the Armada

The TV presenter argues that the Spanish

attempt to invade England in 1588 was

doomed from the outset

30 King of the crusaders

Thomas Asbridge traces Richard the

Lionheart’s rise from callow commander

to Europe’s finest warrior

37 How to lead like Saladin

John Man reveals the eight attributes

that place the Muslim hero in the

pantheon of great rulers

43 Medieval immigrants

Did the English welcome Scottish, Welsh

and Irish migrants with open arms? Mark

Ormrod and Jessica Lutkin investigate

48 An eye for trouble

Ruth Scurr explains what John Aubrey’s

chronicles can tell us about England’s

turbulent 17th century

54 Five myths of Gallipoli

Gary Sheffield argues that not everything

we think we know about the ill-fated First

World War campaign is true

60 Tales of the diggers

Peter FitzSimons explains why

his fellow Antipodeans show such

reverence for the Gallipoli campaign

43 What kind of

challenges confronted

Celtic immigrants to

medieval England?

62 SUBSCRIBE

Save 27% when you subscribe*

to the digital edition

*All offers, prices and discounts are correct at the time of being published and may be subject to change

48

The man whose words

shine a light on England

during the Civil War


30“RICHARD WAS THE FOREMOST MILITARY COMMANDER OF HIS GENERATION”

28

“When the Spanish Armada set sail from Lisbon

on 28 May 1588 it was almost certain to fail”

37

Why Saladin’s enemies

loved him almost as

much as his own men

54

We explode the myths

of a Great War debacle

80

The state’s “disgraceful”

treatment of suffragettes


Dominic Sandbrook highlights events that took place in April in history

ANNIVERSARIES29 April 1429

Joan of Arc arrives at siege of Orléans

She frees the city in a turningpoint in the Hundred Years’ War

24 April 1915

Armenian killings begin

The Ottoman government takes the first step leading to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of its Armenian subjects

By late April 1429, English forces had been besieging the city of Orléans

for almost six months. Many French nobles had given up hope that the city could be relieved. But at least one of Charles VII’s subjects was convinced that they could snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. A few weeks earlier, the king had first laid eyes on a teenage peasant girl from Domrémy in north-east France, who was probably called Jehanne Darc – or as we know her today, Joan of Arc. But Joan often preferred a different name. She called herself La Pucelle – the Maid.

On 29 April, Joan’s relief convoy, with several hundred soldiers, approached the gates of Orléans. Filled with religious enthusiasm, Joan wanted to take on the English straight away, but wiser heads prevailed. While skirmishers distracted the English besiegers, boats carried Joan, supplies and some 200 men down the Loire towards the city.

For the townsfolk, Joan’s arrival seemed like a moment of divine salvation. “At eight o’clock in the evening,” wrote one chronicler, “she entered fully armed, mounted on a white horse; and borne before her, her standard, which was likewise white, and which had two angels holding each a lily flower in her hand; and on the pennon was painted the Annunciation.”

Around her clustered the people of Orléans and the mood was one of jubilation. It was an extraordinary scene. They had suffered so much but now, “they felt wholly comforted, and as if freed from siege by the divine virtue which they had been told was in the simple Maid, whom they regarded most affectionately”. On May 8, the siege of Orléans was finally broken, and the English retreated.

A t eight o’clock on 24 April 1915, the Ottoman empire’s interior

minister, Talaat Pasha, handed down one of the most infamous orders in history. The empire was at war, and for months there had been a swirl of propaganda warning that Constantinople’s Armenian ethnic minority would inevitably betray the Ottomans to their British, French and Russian enemies.

As Talaat’s order explained, it was time to move against the Armenians, who were a danger to “the future of the country”. All Armenian political organisations were now banned, and Talaat instructed police to arrest “the leaders and the members of the committees”, and all “the Armenians who are well known by the police forces”.

By the following day, about 250 prominent Armenians – intellectuals,

journalists, teachers, politicians, priests and even doctors – had been rounded up, with hundreds more arrested over the next few weeks. A month later, they were deported to Ottoman-occupied Syria.

So began the horrific process that many historians describe as the Armenian genocide. By summer 1915, hundreds of thousands of deportees had effectively been abandoned to die in the Syrian desert. “The roads and the Euphrates,” reported the New York Times that August, “are strewn with corpses of exiles, and those who survive are doomed to certain death. It is a plan to exterminate the whole Armenian people.” Many Turks (Turkey is the successor state of the Ottoman empire) vigorously contest that sentence; what is beyond doubt is that this was one of the darkest moments of the 20th century.

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Armenian refugees camp out on the deck of a French ship that had rescued them from persecution by the leaders of the Ottoman empire in 1915

BBC History Magazine 7

Dominic Sandbrook recently

presented Tomorrow’s Worlds:

The Unearthly History of

Science Fiction on BBC Two

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Joan of Arc, depicted in a c1505 manuscript, had her first military victory when she led the forcesthat broke the English siege of Orléans in 1429, during the Hundred Years’ War

8 BBC History Magazine

Anniversaries

20 April 1968

In the Midland Hotel, Birmingham,

Enoch Powell delivers a controversial

speech warning that mass immigration

will unleash racial conflict in Britain.

1 April 1854

Charles Dickens’s magazine Household

Words begins its serialisation of his

latest novel, the blisteringly anti-

utilitarian Hard Times.

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Captain Cook takes possession of the east coast of the Australian continent on behalf of the British crown in 1770. He calls his landing point Botany Bay, after the impressive variety of plants found there

I n April 1770, the 41-year-old explorerCaptain James Cook had been at sea

for almost two years.On the instructions of the Royal

Society, Cook had sailed south-east toTahiti to record the transit of Venusacross the sun, before opening sealedorders from the Admiralty, whichinstructed him to search the Pacificfor signs of the mysterious southerncontinent of Terra Australis.

14 April 1205

In Adrianople (in modern-day Turkey),

Tsar Kaloyan defeats the army of the

Fourth Crusade, capturing Baldwin I, first

Latin Emperor of Constantinople.

29 April 1770

Captain Cook lands in Australia

The explorer makes landfall in a sheltered bay on the eastern coast – and then deliberates over what to call it

By the end of April, Cook’s ship, the Endeavour, had not only sailed around New Zealand, diligently mapping its coastline, but had now reached the eastern coast of Australia. On Saturday 28 April he spotted “a bay which appeared to be tolerably well sheltered from all winds”, and the following day he made landfall. When he and his men went ashore, they found “several of the natives and a few huts”, but the

inhabitants scattered when Cook fired his musket. In woods beyond the beach, he wrote, they came across “small huts made of the bark of trees in one of which were four or five small children with whom we left some strings of beads &c”.

At first, Cook called the bay Stingray Bay, after “the great quantity of these sort of fish” that he and his men had caught there. But when he thought about it, he was equally impressed by the enormous variety of plants that the Endeavour’s naturalists Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander had found on land. So when he wrote his journal, he called it Botanist Bay. Then he had another thought, struck a line through the word Botanist, and wrote instead the word ‘Botany’. And that, of course, is the name that has endured.


Booth’s bullet released Lincolnfrom the burdens of office, sent his

wife, Mary, spiralling into inconsolablegrief, aroused white-hot feelings ofvengeance across the Union, and plunged the Confederate South into paroxysms of fear over the price it might have to pay.

Lincoln’s standing in the Republican-Union party had never been higher (as are-elected president who had secured the congressional passage of an emancipa-tion amendment and ended the rebellion). His successor, former Democrat AndrewJohnson, however, had little status among Republicans and lacked Lincoln’s craftand progressive views. His conservative

reconstruction settlement returned power to Confederate leaders and endorsed their harsh controls over freedmen (the Black Codes). Overturning Johnson’s arrangements, Republicans coalesced around a brief programme of Radical Reconstruction that extended the civil rights of southern blacks, but this shrivelled in the face of the forceful resistance of southern whites.

Lincoln’s death prompted an explosion of global public mourning. Even before death, Lincoln had touched the lives of common people. His death crystallised his reputation as the archetypal self-made man and heroic tribune of the people,

winning the acclaim of radicals and nation-builders whose own lives were devoted to the same universal democratic principles.

COMMENT / Professor Richard Carwardine

“Lincoln’s death crystallised his reputation as a heroic tribune of the people”

Professor Richard Carwardine is the author of several books on Abraham Lincoln, including Lincoln: A Life of Purpose and Power (Knopf, 2006) and The Global Lincoln, edited with Jay Sexton (OUP USA, 2011)

14 April 1865

Lincoln is assassinated

American president is targeted after promising the

vote to former slaves

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I t was lunchtime on 14 April 1865. In the lobby of Washington’s National

Hotel, actor John Wilkes Booth scribbled a last note to his mother. As he later recalled, he had decided that “our cause being almost lost, something decisive and great must be done”.

Booth had been born in Maryland, but he always saw himself as a Southerner, sympathised with the slave-owning Confederacy and hated the Union president, Abraham Lincoln. But by April 1865 the American Civil War was all but over. Three days earlier, in a crowd outside the White House, Booth had heard Lincoln promise to give the vote to former slaves. For the actor, that was the final straw. “Now, by God, I’ll put him through,” he declared. “That is the last speech he will ever give.”

Just before 10.30 on the evening of the 14th, Booth made his way towards the

presidential box at Ford’s Theater, where he knew Lincoln and his wife would be enjoying the comedy Our American Cousin. He knew the play, and timed his move for when the laughter would be loudest. On stage, the actor Harry Hawk said: “Don’t know the manners of good society, eh? Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, old gal; you sockdologizing old man-trap!”

The audience roared. Booth swung open the door of the president’s box,

levelled his pistol, and fired. Lincoln fell immediately. In the confusion, Booth stabbed the president’s friend Major Rathbone in the arm and tried to leap from the box onto the stage, but one of his riding spurs caught in the flag decorating the box and he landed awkwardly. Many of the audience still believed he was something to do with the play. But Booth raised his bloody knife over his head. “Sic semper tyrannis!” he yelled – “thus always to tyrants!”

Doctors examine a comatose President Lincoln after he had been shot in the head during a visit to the theatre. He died the following morning

Beautiful new editionsFROM THE FOLIO SOCIETY

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To see the full range of distinctive history titles visit

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‘If the Ricardian case isundeniably an attractiveone, the harsh reality is

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DESMOND SEWARDREVISED

EDITION

‘He was the most terrifying man ever to occupy the English

throne …’ Desmond Seward’s bestselling biography of

Richard III paints a vivid picture of a ‘Machiavellian

genius’ who would stop at nothing in his bid for power:

the role he played in the murder of Henry VI, his failure

to prevent the bizarre and brutal execution of his

brother George, and his disposal of the ‘Princes in the

Tower’. This newly revised edition includes a new

foreword by Thomas Penn, author of Winter King: The

Dawn of Tudor England. With a gold-blocked buckram

binding inspired by Richard’s coat of arms, a new

chronology and index, and over a dozen pages of

illustrations, including recent images such as the king’s

skeletal remains, this is a keepsake edition of Desmond

Seward’s celebrated ‘attempt to produce a truer

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EXCLUSIVE TO

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The latest news, plus Backgrounder 14 Past notes 16

HISTORY NOW

On a site on the muddy banks of the river Thames in the City of London, archaeologists have been

picking their way through a diverse array of historic artefacts: leather shoes, medieval tools, and the remains of timber structures. Among this diverse collection – situated in what is essentially a historical landfill – one item stands out: a rare 14th-century devotional panel, intricately cast from metal. It’s a remarkable find, and the finest example of its kind yet discovered.

The panel, likely created in the mid to late 1300s, commemorates the arrest, trial and execution of Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, a cousin of King Edward II. Experts from Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA), which is carrying out the project, think that it may have been mass-produced to sell to pilgrims venerating his death, perhaps at St Paul’s Cathedral in London.

Lancaster was one of a group of barons who tried to curb Edward’s power and that of the king’s favourites, Piers Gaveston and Hugh Despenser. He ordered the capture of Gaveston in 1312 and forced Edward to banish Despenser and his son nine years later. However, he found himself increas-ingly isolated and was defeated by Edward M

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Have a story? Please email Matt Elton at [email protected]

Final days This 14th-century devotional panel depicts, clockwise from top left, the capture, trial, public condemnation and execution of the Earl of Lancaster. The artefact became a symbol of popular opposition to Edward II

Uncovered: London’s grim tribute to a medieval martyrA rare metal artefact discovered in

the capital tells the story of the final

days of a rebellious nobleman – and

is one of the finest examples of its

kind yet found. Matt Elton reports


History now / News

at the battle of Boroughbridge in 1322.The devotional panel tells the story

of what happened next in four scenes,running clockwise from top left belowa depiction of Christ and the Virginlooking down from heaven ready toreceive Lancaster’s soul. In the firstscene, the earl is captured (he was thentaken to Pontefract Castle in Yorkshire).The text, in slightly garbled Frenchbeneath the image reads: “Here I amtaken prisoner.” The second scene showshim held by an official and set before ajudge. Its legend reads: “I am judged.”

The third scene depicts the earlcondemned and set on a mount before a hostile crowd (“I am under threat”),while the final image shows him beingexecuted with a sword, which initiallyfails to sever his neck. The final caption states, somewhat tersely: “La mort“ .”

Following Lancaster’s executiona political and religious cult built uparound him and acted as a focal point forpopular opposition to Edward II. Withinsix weeks of his death, miracles had beenattributed to his burial place in Ponte-fract Priory, including the apparentresurrection of a child. Pilgrims beganto travel to Pontefract, where a chantrychapel was eventually built. However,a place of veneration also developed in St Paul’s in London, where a tablet had

been erected in 1311 commemoratingLancaster’s work reforming the royalhousehold. This proved to be such apopular destination for pilgrims that,in 1323, the king ordered the bishopof London to stop people praying there.

The panel is also interesting because itrepresents the increasing tendency withinthe medieval period for propaganda tovenerate political figures. “Lancaster wasnot a particularly saintly character inlife, but in death he became a politicalmartyr,” said Jackie Keily, curator at theMuseum of London, which is displayingthe panel until September. “He can there-fore be seen as belonging to a broadertrend of English medieval politicalpropaganda, and viewed alongsidefigures including Thomas Becket.Edward’s son, Edward III, even went sofar as to petition the pope for Lancaster’scanonisation, but this never happened.”

Despite the remarkable preservationof the panel due to the wet conditions of the site near the Thames, it’s unclearwhether it is complete. The existence ofa stylistically inferior version with twoside panels, held at the British Museum,suggests that this newly discoveredartefact may have formed the centralpanel of a triptych – although there areno marks indicating where additionalpanels would have been attached.

“Lancaster’s story shows how politicalmartyrs can be elevated to sainthoodafter death regardless of what they werelike when alive,” said Keily. “In the run-up to the 2015 UK general election thisis, perhaps, a timely reminder of thedangers of political ambition: Thomassought to control the king’s power, butpaid the ultimate price.” A

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Holy site? A 17th-century depiction of Pontefract Castle in Yorkshire, whereThomas, Earl of Lancaster was held three centuries earlier. His execution madehim a martyr figure, with pilgrims travelling to the town to pay their respects

HISTORY NEWS IN BRIEF

English Heritage to split

into two organisationsIn the most significant change to itsrunning since it was founded in 1983,English Heritage is to be split intotwo organisations from 1 April. Thefirst, Historic England, will work toprotect the nation’s historic environ-ment. The English Heritage Trust will,meanwhile, be an independentcharity responsible for protectingthe National Heritage Collection, alist of hundreds of sites includingStonehenge and Dover Castle.

History Hot 100:

Who gets your vote?BBC History Magazine wants toknow which historical figures you’remost interested in at the moment– whether they’re the subject of arecent book or drama, or someoneyou’re studying. You can choose upto three people who died before 1985,and give your reasons for your votes.

The poll will close on 3 April. Wewill then compile a list based on howmany times each person is chosen,revealing the figure at the top of thehistory charts for 2015. To take part,visit historyextra.com/historyhot100.

Anglo-Saxon pendant

uncovered by studentA piece of Anglo-Saxon jewellerydescribed by experts as being of“national significance” has beendiscovered by a student in Norfolkfarmland. The gold pendant, inlaidwith garnets, was found along withthe skeleton of a woman, coins andjewellery. The coins suggest thatthe entire haul dates from between630 and 650 AD.Stay up to date with the latest stories

at historyextra.com/news

The 7cm gold pendant,found inNorfolk,is inlaidwithgarnets


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Battered and scarred, theremains of a 17th-century

BC pharaoh are revealing newdetails about the role thatsuch rulers may have playedin ancient Egyptian warfare.

The discovery of the body ofSenebkay, at Abydos in centralEgypt, was made by experts fromthe University of Pennsylvaniaand marks the first time that theremains of a pharaoh have been found with such extensive battletrauma. The skeleton features 17unhealed injuries, which expertsare analysing to discover precisely how the pharaoh died.

The osteological (bone- derived) evidence suggests that he was mounted on a horse whenhe was surrounded by enemy troops, who used bladed weaponsto inflict injuries on his lower legsand slice through his left ankle.

It appears that they then succeeded in dragging him off his horse and were consequentlyable to attack his upper torso and head, probably with short swords and battle-axes. He triedto shield his face with his hands,sustaining serious injuries to hisfingers in the process, before receiving three major blows to his skull. The most serious of these – a deep battle-axe cut through his cranium – almost certainly killed him.

An examination of the ways in which particular muscles

were attached to the pharaoh’sbones has confirmed that herode a horse, as muscle-inducedbone growth on his upper legbone and pelvis is similar to thatof modern horse riders. The findrepresents the earliest knownhuman osteological evidence forhorse-riding in ancient Egypt,and precedes the introduction ofthe chariot by around a century.

The discovery also stronglysuggests that ancient Egyptianpharaohs regularly fought in thethick of their battles. Althoughit is possible that Senebkay waskilled in an ambush, the battletheory is strengthened by asubstantially healed, but veryserious, weapon impact injurysustained between 6 and 12months earlier. That injury, tothe right side of Senebkay’s face,was caused by a powerful bluntweapon, such as a mace.

It’s interesting that the onlyother battle-scarred remains of

ANCIENT EGYPT

Face of a fighter The site in Abydos where Senebkay’s bones were found and (left) an artist’s impression of his face. His remains suggest he would have been at the heart of battle

Remains reveal the secrets of the warrior pharaohsA skeleton in Egypt is offering new clues

about the role of the country’s ancient

rulers, and suggests some were brave,

horse-riding fighters. By David Keys

a pharaoh ever discovered – those of a ruler called Seqenenre – also date from the same politically and militarily unstable era of Egyptian history, the so-called Second Intermedi-ate Period, when the country was divided into rival kingdoms and the Nile Delta was occupied by Middle Eastern invaders.

The only other evidence for warrior pharaohs comes from wall paintings, public inscrip-tions and official accounts that portray Egyptian rulers as desperately fighting in the thick of battle. This means that it has, until now, been impossible for scholars to definitively conclude whether such vivid representa-tions were not simply macho pharaonic PR.

The forensic examination of Senebkay’s skeleton, carried out by Dr Maria Rosado and Dr Jane Hill of Rowan University, New Jersey, has revealed that his nose was displaced to the right and that he was unusually tall for an

ancient Egyptian, at around 5ft 8ins. This would have been much more imposing than the average adult male height of 5ft 3ins. The pharaoh’s corpse had substan-tially decomposed by the time it was buried, suggesting that the battle took place a considerable distance from his territory. It’s therefore possible that he was killed in a battle with Middle Eastern occupiers of northern Egypt in a frontier zone some-where south of modern Cairo. While there is no definitive way of knowing who won the battle, the pharaoh’s troops must have been successful enough to be able to recover Senebkay’s body.

The expedition leader, University of Pennsylvania Museum Egyptologist Dr Joe Wegner, told BBC History Magazine: “Forensic analysis has provided new answers about the life and death of this ancient Egyptian king, while raising a host of new questions both about him and the period of which he was part.”

“Until now, experts have been unable to conclude whether representations of warrior pharaohs have simply been macho PR”


History now / Backgrounder

Many Greekssuspect that

Germany is flexingits muscles again,exercising a kind ofhegemony in theEuropean UnionARISTOTLE KALLIS

Negotiations over Germany’s bailout of its troubled southern

neighbour have been blighted by decades of mutual distrust.

Two historians offer their take on a crisis in the eurozone

Interviews by Chris Bowlby, a BBC journalist specialising in history

There has been a great deal of apprehension in Greece – and not only within Syriza, the victorious party in January’s election – about the new role of Germany in Europe. It’s an idea of Germany flexing its muscles again, exercising a kind of hegemony in the European Union. Some people go further: Iffikratis Amyras, a former candidate for Syriza, has talked about a ‘Fourth Reich’.

On the left, there are also historical references that resonate. The movement resisting Nazi occupation in Greece in the 1940s was to a large extent of the left. One of Syriza’s current members of the European parliament is Manolis Glezos, who led a daring raid on the Acropolis in 1941, tearing down the Nazi flag. He’s been critical of recent concessions to the Germans and the EU. So there’s long been a kind of leftwing patriotism, a spirit of independence. That

goes too with an idea of Greek uniqueness – “because we are small and relatively weak, we have to fight hard to preserve our specificity”. And that has come back strongly as a result of austerity imposed by the EU.

There are also more specific grievances, such as compensation claims for wartime massacres. The president of the Greek parlia-ment has announced a new committee looking into war reparations. There’s always been a feeling – often aired by politicians of the left such as Glezos – that Germany was treated leniently after the Second World War, after having occupied Greece and exploited its resources. That resentment lurked under the surface of politics, ready to break out – and the opportunity came as a result of the recent economic crisis. More broadly, it’s believed that Germany has benefited exceptionally from European integration.

How deep are Greece’s historical roots in the EU? When it was negotiating entry into the European Community there was an argument that ran: “Regardless of econom-ics, Greece doesn’t really belong culturally, religiously.” However, the idea that it was symbolically important for Greece, with its history and ancient democracy, to join European integration weighed more heavily – as did confirmation of Greece turning its back on the era of civil war and the military junta that ruled in the 1960s and 1970s. As a result, Greece joined the community in 1981.

For Greeks, part of the European project

has always been psychological – their nation emerging, if you like, from a vortex of history. In some nationalist arguments it goes back to 1453 and the fall of Constanti-nople, after which Greece came under Ottoman domination and was removed from ‘Europe’. Joining an elite organisation like the European Community was seen as sending out a message: “We’re back.”

There’s always been a feeling in Greece of “we’re not there yet”, in terms of economic development, but we have to hold onto this European membership come what may.

Despite this, I would not be surprised if there is a sea-change in Greek attitudes. There is still a lot of goodwill among Greeks towards their European partners. But if the current negotiations go badly, and the Greek government plays it well, making conces-sions and saying: “We have appealed to the goodwill of our partners but look how we were treated” – support for the European

project in Greece could be dealt a grievous blow.

Aristotle Kallis is a professor at the University of Lancaster, specialising in the history of fascism

The historians’ view…

Why is there such antipathy between Greece and Germany?

Greeks take to the streets of Athens to protest against the imposition of further austerity measures on their country, 15 February 2015


The first thing that strikes anybody on the outside looking at German politicians and public opinion is the extreme sensitivity to inflation – the legacy of hyperinflation after the end of the First World War and another currency devaluation in the 1930s. There was always the feeling that the euro is a possibly dangerous project. When Mario Draghi was appointed head of the European Central Bank in 2011 there were headlines in the German mass-circulation newspaper Bild, saying: “With Italians, inflation is a way of life, like tomato sauce with pasta.”

Another point that doesn’t get so much attention but is important in German B

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Harold James is a professorat Princeton University andco-author of Making theEuropean Monetary Union(Harvard, 2012)

psychology is that it is a country with a tradition of federalism. If you’re a federal country – like Switzerland or the US – you have to have a strong legal framework, mechanisms to ensure that one bit of the country can’t hold the rest of it to ransom.

Federalism works very much on rules. Germany had this federal system during the Weimar republic. Then, from 1933, the Nazis eroded all the federal rights. They made it a very centralised state. One of the things done after 1945 was to build in permanent protection for the states, including a constitu-tional court much admired by Germans. Thiscourt has actively commented on the need to make any German participation in fiscal transfers to other countries as part of the eurozone subject to parliamentary consent.

Germany had a bad experience in the 1990sin the aftermath of the country’s reunifica-tion. There were enormous fiscal transfers from west to east and western Germans are still paying a solidarity tax to support the east.But far from making eastern Germany more competitive it made it less so. Every German can see that Poland and the Baltic states are doing much better. Those countries reformedand became dynamic precisely because they didn’t have the prospect of outside help. That’s an argument that many – not just the

Germans – will use about the dangers of fiscaltransfers to Greece.

So is this strict German approach to moneyand economics shared by most northernEuropean nations? In the 1860s and 70s, itlooked as if the world was moving towards asingle currency. But Walter Bagehot, a famouseconomic commentator at the time, wrotethat there should be “one Teutonic moneyand one Latin money; the latter mostlyconfined to the west of Europe, and theformer circulating through the world”.However, in the current crisis the division’snot quite like that. The countries that aremost hostile to making concessions to Greeceare probably those in the south that havealready made painful reforms.

Would today’s crisis have shocked pioneersof European integration? The originalfounders had the idea that imperfectionswould gradually be worked out, but only incrises. There would be upheavals, and in eachcase the solution would be to move forwardwith integration. That’s my interpretation ofwhat’s happening at the moment. But there isalways a risk that a crisis can be so large thatthe whole, rather precarious structure will

fall apart.

German soldiers raise the Swastika over the Acropolis in May 1941. Yet they were to face stiff resistance from Greek partisans

BOOK

The Tyranny of Greece over Germany by Eliza Butler (Beacon Press, 1958)

DISCOVER MORE

Germans believe that, in a federal

system, you have to have mechanisms that ensure that one area can’t hold the rest to ransom HAROLD JAMES


History now / Past notes

In 1876, the horrors of being aVictorian cat lady were reported in

graphic detail by the Illustrated PoliceNews. A lady, described as being “as richas she is eccentric”, had spent the lastfour years creating a large menagerie ofevery species of domestic cat she couldfind. Recently, she had also started toadd to the collection any member of thefeline species that took her fancy –domestic in origin or not. In June, hercollection was rocked by tragedy, whena sudden fire broke out in her home,which also housed her cats.

Two young maid servants weredispatched to the basement, wherethe lady had decided to place her catcollection in what the paper describedas “a sort of shed or cage”. The fire haddecimated a large portion of the houseand was close to becoming atowering inferno, driving thecaged animals into a stateof madness and fear. Asthe maidsunlocked thedoor to rescuethe cats theywere knockedto theground bythe terrifiedanimals,and thendevoured bythe remainingcollection asthe fire ragedaround them.News story sourced frombritishnewspaperarchive.co.ukand rediscovered byFern Riddell. Fernregularly appears onRadio 3’s Free Thinking.

OLD NEWS

Flames give felines a

ferocious appetite

Illustrated Police News / 22 July 1876

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When was income tax first levied?Earlier than you might think. Experi-mental taxes on income were tried inthe 15th century. However today’sIncome tax has its roots in 1799,when prime minister William Pitt theYounger introduced it as a temporarymeasure to fund the war againstFrance with the rate set at 10 percent of incomes over £60. A short-lived peace saw its abolition but itwas quickly reintroduced when warbroke out again in 1803.

Has it ever been abolished since?Yes. Income tax was abolished afterthe battle of Waterloo in 1815, andparliament dealt with the concernthat the tax intruded into people’s privacy by ordering the destruction of the documents connected with it. (Yet they seem to have forgotten that duplicates had already been sent to the King’s Remembrancer.)

When was it reintroduced?Although prime minister Robert Peel spoke out against the tax during the 1841 general election, a shortage of government funds led to its surprise return in 1842. For much of the century it was the same story, with prime ministers William Gladstone and Benjamin Disraeli criticising the

tax (Disraeli called it “unjust, unequal and inquisitorial”) and announcing their intentions to withdraw it – but neither actually doing so.

How many people paid the tax?Initially, very few. Indeed in 1874income tax contributed just £6m to government revenues of £77m. But the 20th century and the two world wars in particular saw a steadyincrease in the numbers paying the tax and the revenue raised by it. By 1945, 14 million people were paying £1,400m and the PAYE system had been introduced to facilitatecollection. In the postwar period, as the state increased its range of responsibilities, income tax became the principal means of public funding, and debates now focus not on whether it should exist but on how much should be paid.

When did it become a permanent tax?It never has done. It expires each year on 5 April and parliament has to reapply it by an annual Finance Act. It takes up to four months before the act becomes law but there’s no escape – the Provisional Collection of Taxes Act 1913 ensures we still have to pay during that period.

At the beginning of a new financial year, Julian

Humphrys investigates the history of income tax

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In this cartoon from 1798, John Bull scratches his head at prime minister William Pitt the Younger’s introduction of income tax

www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk

@BNArchive

TheBritishNewspaperArchive

Mozart visited London as a child, astonishing an audience with his musical skills

Mozart visited London as a child, astonishing an audience with his musical skills

1765

An octopus attacked a group of women bathing in the sea

1896

A huge brown bear interrupted a church service after it escaped from a travelling showman

1854

Princess Elizabeth marriedLt. Phillip Mountbatten

1947

Over 200 years of history10 million pages covering all aspects of life

Enter the code HISTA15Offer valid until 30th April 2015


Your views on the magazine and the world of history

LETTERS

I am a 30-something wife and mumand I love to get out and aboutwith the family and visit places ofhistorical interest. The thing is, I

have severe rheumatoid arthritis andI’m a wheelchair user.Some historical places are truly excellent

for access. Our favourites are OsborneHouse on the Isle of Wight and theexcellent Hampton Court Palace. Bothof these allow back access to much of thehouses; they’ve really thought about theperspective of the wheelchair. You get to goround the back and see bits the public don’tsee. (The broken window from the chapelat Hampton Court was amazing – still bitsof glass in there from Oliver Cromwell’stime!). Some gardens will hire power chairsout, offer sensory support, dog loo areasfor assistance dogs. It takes thought andplanning but some are doing it and doing itwell, whereas others seem to think disabledaccess adjustment rules do not apply tothem. It would be good to see these placesraise their game.

At the Tudor House in Southamptonthey’ve really got the idea and done itso well. Our seven-year-old loved going

History for everyone

We reward the writer ofthe letter of the month withour ‘History Choice’ book ofthe month. This issue it isThe Fall of the Ottomans byEugene Rogan. Read thereview on page 69

Where the barons metI was disappointed that Bury StEdmunds and St Albans were notincluded in your Magna Carta Trail(March, UK editions). Both of thesehistoric towns feature in the annals ofMagna Carta and are both members ofthe Magna Carta Trust.

Bury St Edmunds has always had atradition that the barons did meet atSt Edmund’s shrine in 1214 to swearan oath to compel John to agree toMagna Carta. Recently this wasverified as having happened byProfessor David Carpenter.Martyn Taylor, Bury St Edmunds

Editor replies: We’re sorry that weweren’t able to include all the locationswith a connection to Magna Carta inthis supplement. The author, SophieAmbler, did suggest Bury St Edmundsbut because of space reasons, and in

order to provide a broader geographical range, it didn’t make the cut.

Was Edward really killed?In his review of Kathryn Warner’s book on Edward II (Books, February),Professor Nicholas Vincent dismisses thenarrative of the king’s survival in 1327 as“entirely speculative”. This is misleading:it is based on contemporary evidence. Itis even more disappointing to see hiscomment that “readers should bewarned that this is neither proved norprobable”. In fact, dozens ofwell-connected men in 1330 considered it “probable”, includingthe archbishop of York and a lordwho had been custodian of the castlewhere Edward II was lodged. I thinksuch individuals in a far betterposition than a modern academicto deem whether it was“probable” or not.

Readers should be warned that somesenior academics have an anti-revisionist prejudice in this matter. They tend to regard all ‘revisionism’ as alike, if itthreatens to undermine their pastcertainties, and they readily portrayit as amateurish or unprovable. WhatProfessor Vincent should have said isthat Warner’s book builds on the factthat it has been proved in the scholarly press that the news that Edward II diedin September 1327 was based on a single message that the sender himself lateradmitted in parliament was a lie. It hasalso been proved that it was not possiblefor the veracity of that message to bechecked before it was announced.

There is nothing “speculative” aboutthese things: in fact it rather puts the boot on the other foot – it isconsequently “entirely speculative” thatthe man died in 1327 – because the basis for believing that has been shown todepend on a self-confessed falsehood.

The profession as a whole should stepbeyond traditional views and look anewat the evidence in a more sophisticatedway. Kathryn Warner and myself haveboth done that, and published ourfindings in the academic press. Senior academics should hesitate before“warning” readers not to trust those of uswho are prepared to go the extra mile totest the veracity of medieval propaganda.Ian Mortimer, Devon

Rumours of warI write in response to your article onBritain and Vietnam (February). In the

late 1960s I was serving on theaircraft carrier HMS Eagle.

Crossing the Indian Ocean,supposedly heading forSingapore, the ship was

swept by rumours thatHarold Wilson was being leaned on by LyndonJohnson to divert theship to Vietnam inexchange for a large US

The tomb of Edward II.Ian Mortimer believesthat he may have lived

beyond his tradi-tional date of death

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round and exploring with me and findingout things. We could go together as I couldget round almost all of it. There’s none ofthe “here’s something to read about what’supstairs”, which feels a bit like you’ve enteredBullseye in 1987 and are hearing about whateyou “cudda won”!

When you do your excellent write-upsabout places to visit, holidays, trips andhistory on home soil, can you please, pleasetell us what the disabled access is like.Jenni B–L, Hampshire

Editor replies: It’s great to see that manyheritage attractions do now have suchimpressive access facilities. Within themagazine, we focus more on the historicalsignificance of sites than practical visitorinformation and we would recommend allvisitors check relevant details in advanceon the locations’ websites or by phone.

The opinions expressed by our commentators are their own and may notrepresent the views of BBC History Magazine or the Immediate Media Company


SOCIAL MEDIAWhat you’ve been saying

on Twitter and Facebook

WRITE TO USWe welcome your letters, whilereserving the right to edit them.We may publish your letters on ourwebsite. Please include a daytimephone number and, if emailing, a postaladdress (not for publication). Lettersshould be no longer than 250 words.

email: [email protected]

Post: Letters, BBC History Magazine,Immediate Media Company

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loan. With the recent release of thecabinet papers for this period, it seemsthat ship rumour was essentially correct.

The ship did eventually dock inSingapore after all but I’ve wonderedever since whether I might have earneda Purple Heart!James Wells MRINA, Essex

A fitting monumentAs Kate Mosse writes, regarding EdithCavell (My History Hero, January):“Numerous memorials were later erectedin her [Cavell’s] honour.” But whatgreater monument can there be thanMount Edith Cavell in Jasper NationalPark, Alberta, Canada?Simon J Lucy, Winnipeg

Importance of the HolocaustIn his letter (March), Bob Britnellrightly draws attention to the need tounderstand the Second World War inEurope in its totality, but he is wrong towrite that the Holocaust was not itsdefining feature. On the contrary, itis of primary importance for ourunderstanding of the war’s origins andits progress.

The war from its onset was of racialand ideological intent. It was Hitler’s aimto create a new Germania, racially pureand enormously engorged by militaryconquest, and to do so through thesubjugation, and later the annihilation,of the conquered peoples of the east, withthe Jews as the first of the Untermenschento be destroyed. However, Hitler wasno administrator, and it required manyothers in the Nazi system to develop and

operate the means to bring about hisdystopia, and it is through the study oftheir actions that we can best examinehow Nazi Germany functioned and howit prosecuted its war.

Because it was European Jewry thatwas the primary target, and because theJews suffered 6 million dead, it isthrough the Holocaust that we can bestapproach the true nature of the Nazistate and the war it brought about. Whenconsidered alongside the other crimesof the conflict, we see to the destructiveheart of the Nazi regime and its war.We also realise the true horror of thefetishisation of death embodied in themonstrous vision of Adolf Hitler and theconflict he unleashed.

The Holocaust is not the SecondWorld War, but it is the catastrophethrough which the war can best beunderstood.David K Warner, Hampshire

Corrections In the review of Conquests,Catastrophe and Recovery (Books,March) we stated that Henry I invadedIreland in 1171, when the king involvedwas in fact Henry II.

@HistoryExtra: The #WolfHall team tried to ensure the show is historically accurate. But does it matter?

Mary Schrader Furnish Yes, it does.

The only way some people get any

knowledge of history is from shows

like this. And those who are aware

are frustrated with misinformation

Jeannine Schenewerk I accept

that sometimes, due to time

constraints, we’re receiving the

‘condensed’ version of history.

But blatant historical inaccuracies

are unforgiveable!

@NerdyBluez It is a disservice

to both those who lived it & to

future generations to not depict

history accurately

Chelsea Meckel They are dramas,

not historical artefacts. If you want

‘real’, research it. Experience it

through historical documents and

primary sources for yourself. Don’t

take another’s romanticised version

as complete fact

@Erin_bee All history = subjective,

so who writes the ‘facts’ historical

fiction is measured against?

@Hobbes1218 If you care nothing

about history, then it matters little.

If you do care, discrepancies jar

Virginia Royals Yes, it matters! The

accurate representation of history

helps people to understand the

world they live in. It gives them a

life-saving perspective on interna-

tional events of our times

Ollie Maxwell I think as long as a

period drama has done its best to

get central important things

accurate (ie key characters,

order of events etc), then small

inaccuracies can be allowed

You’ve also been saying...

@Rushman07 I was very happy

to have stumbled upon the

@HistoryExtra podcast, an

extremely informative and

entertaining show #HistoryMatters

@Clairabelle1991 I have copies

of BBC History Magazine going

back to July 2012. I’m not sure

if that’s impressive or sad!

@kagaaju Your podcasts are the

most educative I’ve come across.

I always enjoy the discussions.

Mount Edith Cavell in Canada is named after a British nurse executed in the First World War

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Comment

Michael Wood on… China at war

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We’ve been filming in China on and offfor many months now, and still enjoyingevery minute. It’s nearly 30 years sinceI spent a lot of time here, and there have

been massive changes since Deng Xiaoping’s ‘opening up’that began in the late 1970s. But some things don’tchange, the Chinese people’s habitual hospitality beingone of them, as well as their love of family and friends.

I have also been struck by their fascination withhistory. Every site we have visited, from Sun Yat-sen’smemorial to the Terracotta Army, from the Great Wallto the historic cities of the Yangtze valley, has beencrammed with visitors: China’s internal history tourismis on a staggering scale. At Shaoxing, a town of greatwriters from Zhang Dai, the Ming Proust, to the feministpoet Qiu Jin (executed here in 1907) and Lu Xun, China’sgreat modern radical writer, you could hardly move forthe weekend crowds. Hasty vox pops elicited scores ofopinions on which was their favourite story, and howLu Xun had ‘given voice to the nation’.

All of which underlines how easy it is to see historyfrom our own point of view, and to not put ourselves inothers’ shoes: an essential exercise for historians, asindeed for all of us. Thinking of China, I was remindedof this while watching the commemorations for the FirstWorld War at the Cenotaph on Armistice Day. It wasextraordinarily moving to see veterans of the SecondWorld War marching past, perhaps for the last time;and also to see representatives from Commonwealthcountries laying wreaths.

But having been working in China over the last coupleof years, and trying to see things from the Chinese side,as one must, strange as it may sound I found myselfthinking: why aren’t ‘we’ there? After all, 100,000 Chineseworked in the British Army Labour Corps on the westernfront, a fascinating tale told in a book by Xu Guoqi,Strangers on the Western Front (HUP, 2011). Another40,000 worked for the French. As Xu shows, they didn’tkowtow meekly to their European masters. In often grimconditions they kept up their cultural traditions,

brightening up their camps with Chinese lanterns andornate artwork. They printed their own newspaper, flew painted kites, held stilt-walking contests and, eventhough dressed in regulation puttees and khaki, held with dignity onto their Chinese identity. Historians estimatethat at least 10,000 died, maybe twice that. Some 2,000have known graves, including a few in UK cemeteries, in Plymouth, at Shorncliffe near Folkestone and at Anfield in Liverpool. The biggest is that at Noyelles-sur-Mer by the mouth of the Somme, looking over the English Channel, where a Chinese gateway leads to 842 tombstones, in the standard white stone of the War Graves Commission, but carved with Chinese characters and Confucian as well as Christian tags: “A good reputation lasts forever.”

The war played an important role in Chinese historytoo: for it was partly in response to the blatant injustices of the Treaty of Versailles (the Japanese were allowed tohold onto their gains on the Chinese mainland, and were given the confiscated German concessions) that thefamous student protest of 4 May 1919 gave expression to the seething discontents of the Chinese people: one ofChina’s modern moments of destiny.

The Second World War (as we often forget) was also of massive import for China: it started two years earlier, and went on longer than ‘our’ war. The Japanese had invaded Manchuria in 1931 (on which the League of Nations, the predecessor of the UN, was shamefully silent). Then insummer 1937 they attacked China itself; massacring the people of Nanjing that December, as one may now seecommemorated in a harrowing museum in the city. The Second World War continued in China till the Japanese surrender in September 1945, a huge part of the war inthe Pacific (where half of all casualties were Chinese).

Few countries suffered more from war, famine anddestruction in the 20th century, and the Chinese like topoint out that, along with the UK, USA and USSR, China was the ‘Fourth Ally’ against fascism. For that reason,might one hope that the next time we commemorate the war dead who fought in or with the British Army, weinvite our Chinese friends and fellow citizens too?

Michael Wood

is professor of

public history at

the University of

Manchester. His

most recent TV

series was King

Alfred and the

Anglo-Saxons

Surely we should invite our Chinese friends to the Cenotaph

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THE HISTORY ESSAY

PERSONAL POLITICS IN ELIZABETH I’S COURT

The Virgin Queen’s possessive treatment of her favourite advisors and maids

of honour was driven more by political motives than by petty jealousy

By Susan Doran

Elizabeth I’s courtiers carry her aloft in a c1601 procession. The queen didn’t promote the likes of Robert Dudley and Walter Ralegh because she had a weakness for their sex appeal, says Susan Doran, but because they exuded glamour and political acumen

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Elizabeth I


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marrying in secret, but the penalty in their case was among the most severe. Although released after a few months, Ralegh lost his offices, was banished from court, and waited five years before the queen con-sented to speak to him again. Bess remained imprisoned until the end of the year and was permanently excluded from the court.

In October 1599, Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, another roy-al intimate, was placed under house-arrest after storming unan-nounced into the queen’s bedchamber while she was still in her night clothes, minus her wig, and devoid of heavy make-up. Essex was seeking to explain to her why he had failed to suppress rebellion in Ireland, but Elizabeth was unimpressed, ordered his detention, and refused to see him, despite his many appeals over the next year or so. Stripped of his offices and lucrative royal patents, the desperate earl took to the streets of London in February 1601 with the intention of forcing his presence on the queen, or possibly mounting a palace coup. A second leader of the rising was his friend Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton, another courtier who had lost the queen’s favour after marrying a maid of honour. Both earls were charged with treason. Although Southampton was reprieved, Essex died on the scaffold.

The queen’s treatment of these men is usually regarded as grossly unfair. In the instances of Ralegh and Southampton, popular media present Elizabeth as guilty of petty spite against male court-iers who failed to give her the sole adoration that she craved, and of sexual jealousy towards the young, pretty maids of honour, who proved successful rivals for her favourites’ attention. As for Essex, he is often portrayed as a tragic figure who for years had been forced to dance attendance on the queen, when he would havemuch preferred to fight in England’s wars, and who fa-tally believed that their personal intimacy gavehim the right to enter her private apartmentswithout leave.

In this narrative, Elizabeth comes off verybadly. Writers sympathetic to Essex see her as unreasonable in depriving him of his liberty and offices, while even the earl’s detractors criticise the queen for her absurd infatuation with a man young enough to be her grand-son. Her failure to rein him in on many ear-lier occasions, they claim, left him feeling free

to disregard royal orders in Ireland and break court protocol on his return. The headline in the Daily Mail, advertising AN Wilson’s The Elizabethans, said it all: “Elizabeth I and the men she loved: how the queen gave an Essex toyboy her heart, then lopped off his head.”

In all these works, the relationships between Elizabeth and her courtiers – both male and female – are seen in largely personal terms. Whether displaying affection or anger, Elizabeth is characterised as reacting emotionally as a private person rather than a public figure. The same kind of analysis predominates when the queen’s other rela-tionships are described: so, for example, we learn in many histories that Elizabeth was deeply jealous of Mary, Queen of Scots; hated and treated cruelly her cousins Katherine and Mary Grey; and flew into rages when slighted by her councillors.

While not denying that Elizabeth experienced strong emotions at times, I believe that the queen had no private life. As she well knew, all her utterances and doings took place on a public stage and, conse-quently, had a political purpose and were expected to conform to political norms. Only very rarely did Elizabeth behave otherwise, most noticeably when she fell in love with Robert Dudley at the out-set of her reign. Customarily, when interacting with her kin, court-iers, or councillors, she operated at a political level, even when her conduct appeared personal. For all 16th-century monarchs – not just Elizabeth – the personal was always political.

This can best be appreciated when considering Elizabeth’s rela-tionships with her so-called favourites. Mistakenly, it is often stated that the queen promoted Dudley (later Earl of Leicester), Christo-pher Hatton, Ralegh and Essex simply because of their good looks,

fine physiques, and superficial charm. In these accounts, Elizabeth has a weakness for men with sex appeal. Cer-

tainly, her favourites were handsome, dashing and athletic, but such attributes were essential for

courtiers who were to act as a master of the horse, a gentleman pensioner, or an esquire of the body, their first positions at court. Even so, their rise to power was not the result of the queen falling for their good looks.

Dudley and Essex came from families that the queen wished to promote for politi-

cal reasons, while Hatton and Ralegh had in-fluential patrons who brought them to the

In the summer of 1592, Elizabeth I’s captain of the guard, Sir Walter

Ralegh, and her maid of honour, Bess Throckmorton, were committed

to the Tower of London after the queen was told of their clandestine

marriage and the birth of their baby boy. This was neither the first

nor the last time that Elizabeth punished her courtiers for

Katherine Grey with her son, Edward Seymour. Her marriage to the Earl of

Hertford landed her in the Tower of London


THE HISTORY ESSAY

ships with many of her male courtiers, for she and they exploited the language and coded behaviour associated with courtly love and the chivalric discourse of the late 16th century. Elizabeth would ex-change personal gifts and share private jokes with favoured courtiers; she addressed them affection-ately, often by particular nicknames; she allowed them, or their rep-resentatives, easy access into her privy apartments, and would visit their homes or offer them her physician during periods of sickness.

Such displays of intimacy signified to the political world that these courtiers were especially close to the queen, and raised their status as men of influence and patronage. On their side, Elizabeth’s courtiers expressed a love and adulation for the queen in letters and poems that to today’s readers appear genuinely romantic or erotic but were, then, understood to be written in the highly stylised language of courtly love. Elizabeth did not demand such declarations to satisfy her personal vanity; their purpose was to create and strengthen the bonds of loyalty and service of elite men to a female monarch with-out eroding their masculinity.

When angered, Elizabeth also performed within the conventions of courtly love by distancing herself from those who had caused offence: expressing her ire, and withdrawing her affection. This often happened when her intimates wed, espe-cially when they did so without her con-

sent. Perhaps it was to avoid the queen’s displeasure that Hatton chose not to marry. In the case of Essex, the queen’s annoyance did not last long, even though she considered his bride – the widow of Sir Philip Sidney and daughter of Sir Francis Walsingham – a socially unsuitable match for a nobleman. But Leicester never fully regained

the queen’s trust, after his secret marriage to Lettice Knollys. This, however, was a special circumstance – the earl had long pursued Elizabeth’s hand in marriage, the last time just a few years prior to his secret wedding. He had also kept his mar-riage to Lettice quiet for as long as he could.

Ralegh had gone even further in deceiving the queen. He had denied that he and Bess were married when Sir Rob-ert Cecil, the acting principal secretary, questioned him about their relationship, while his wife had lived in close

proximity to the queen, pretending to be still single, hiding her pregnancy, and slipping away to deliver the child. For Elizabeth, their dishonesty came close to sedition; and their punishment was intended as a warning to maids of honour who might follow Bess’s example.

Other maids did follow suit, and they were, likewise, severely punished. Two years after

the Ralegh scandal, Bridget Manners (daughter of the 4th Earl and Countess of

“Despite rumours to the contrary, it is highly unlikely that

Elizabeth had a sexual relationship with any of her favourites. She

was far too shrewd and cautious to risk discovery or pregnancy”

queen’s notice. All four men later became close to the queen because they were excellent courtiers, entertaining her with their dancing, card playing, jousting, witty exchanges and cultured conversation. They also brought glamour to the court, not only in their own per-sons but also by hosting magnificent feasts for foreign visitors and arranging exciting entertainments and tournaments that impressed foreigners and English guests alike.

In this way, they were instrumental in helping Elizabeth’s court gain international prestige and recognition. In otherways, too, they used their positions and money inthe service of the crown, financing and managingspies, privateering expeditions and military cam-paigns. All four men were intelligent and able. By thetime that Dudley, Hatton and Essex were promotedto the privy council, they had already carried outsuccessful political apprenticeships as administrators orsoldiers, and as unofficial advisers.

It is highly unlikely that Elizabeth had a sexual relationshipwith any of her favourites; she was too shrewd and cau-tious to risk discovery or pregnancy. Besides, tosafeguard her sexual reputation, Elizabeth al-ways had at least one of her privy chamberwomen present in her company and sleepingin her bedchamber, and no gossip slander-ing the queen came from their quarter.

Nonetheless, there was a semi-erotic and flirtatious quality that marked out the queen’s relation- T

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Bess Throckmorton felt Elizabeth I’s full fury after secretly marrying Walter Ralegh. The queen’s maid of honour was thrown into prison and permanently excluded from court

A c1560 portrait of Robert Dudley who, it seems, was the only man to

capture the queen’s heart


THE HISTORY ESSAY

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Elizabeth is Pax, holding an olive branch and standing on the sword of Justice, in the Wanstead Portrait (c1578–85). Despite this depiction of a conciliatory ruler, Elizabeth demanded absolute loyalty from her courtiers – often at the expense of their family lives


THE HISTORY ESSAY

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Rutland) also married without royal permission. Elizabeth had giv-en her a month’s leave from court because the girl was said to have caught the measles and needed to recuperate at home. Bridget, though, did not return, preferring life with her husband. When the queen learned the truth, she was furious with the married couple and “highly offended” with Bridget’s mother, who had connived at the deception. For several months the bride was placed in the keeping of the Countess of Bedford, and her husband languished in the Tower.

The queen did not always object to courtiers’ marriages, and when she did deny them permission to marry, she usually had a sound rea-son for doing so. Most often it was because she considered that the couple seeking marriage were of unequal status; sometimes it was because of their youth; and on a few occasions, objections to a match could be political. The union of a potential heir to the throne (such as Katherine Grey) to a man from a powerful noble family (like the Earl of Hertford) held obvious political dangers. Elizabeth could also be concerned that courtiers would put their responsibilities to their new spouses before their service to their queen. For this reason, she pre-ferred that the wives of certain courtiers were kept away from court.

Those that stayed on were at all times expected to show total dedica-tion to their queen at the expense of their family life.

Elizabeth claimed that she always furthered “any honest or honor-able purposes of marriage or preferment to any of hers, when without scandal and infamy they have been orderly broken unto her”. And, in general, this was true. When permission to marry had been request-ed and granted, the queen provided generous gifts to the brides and happily attended their weddings. She ordered a black satin gown as a wedding present for her chamberer, Dorothy Broadbelt, and she gave her maid of honour Margaret Edgecombe a pair of richly embroi-dered gloves. We do not know what gift another maid of honour, Frances Radcliffe, received, but we do know that the queen attended the nuptial supper, masques and dances. She also attended Anne Russell’s wedding to the Earl of Warwick, which was performed in the Chapel Royal at Whitehall Palace, and the celebratory banquet and tournament that were held afterwards at court.

The queen’s anger at the men and women who married without her permission soon abated, if she was especially fond of them and their fault was not judged too great. Elizabeth had delivered “blows and evil words” to her chamberer and cousin Mary Shelton on learn-ing of her secret marriage to the gentleman pensioner John Scuda-more – another unequal union. But before long, the queen welcomed both back into her service and showed the couple great favour. Mary was one of her preferred sleeping companions and also acted as a frequent intermediary for the queen, delivering messages and receiv-ing gifts on her mistress’s behalf. John was later knighted and after-wards appointed the standard-bearer of gentlemen pensioners.

Let’s turn now to Elizabeth’s relationship with Essex. Was she really as besotted with him as is commonly believed? Undoubtedly, during his first decade at court, Elizabeth bestowed upon him all the signifiers of intimacy outlined above, but she was never infatu-ated or in love with the earl. He was certainly not Elizabeth’s sole male companion and initially had to

tolerate the equal favour she showed to Ralegh and Southampton. Furthermore, Essex never enjoyed the full confidence and trust of the queen. She was wary of his advice to pursue an offensive war strategy, suspecting that he was too partial to the French king, Hen-ry IV, and too ready to be reckless with royal funds. She disliked his attempts at self-aggrandisement, as when he tried to take full credit for the successes of a 1596 expedition to Cadiz. She grew irritated by his attempts to badger her into promoting his friends to positions they did not deserve. It is true that she forgave his insubordination and difficult moods too readily, but she was induced to do so by privy councillors who mediated on his behalf because they recognised the earl’s worth to the state and importance to the war effort.

However, by 1599, Essex had lost his powerful mediators with the queen. With the deaths of key supporters on the council – Hatton in 1591, Sir Francis Knollys in 1596, even Lord Burghley in 1598 – Essex

“Essex fell from power not because Elizabeth saw sense and was

shaken out of her infatuation with her unreliable ‘toyboy’, but

because he badly overplayed his hand in a political power struggle”

Elizabeth I was never in love or infatuated with Essex, seen here in a contemporary portrait, argues Susan Doran


THE HISTORY ESSAY

Emphasising the political and public nature of Elizabeth’s rela-tionships makes them no less fascinating. On the contrary, settingthem within their cultural and political contexts adds a richness andcomplexity to our readings of the reign. The stories surrounding thequeen’s relationships remain enthralling and also provide importantinsights into the workings of the court and political life, especiallywhen approached from multiple perspectives: how the queen relatedto her circle; how her kin, courtiers and councillors viewed and dealtwith her; and how these stories were constructed by contemporariesand later historians.

Susan Doran is a senior research fellow at Jesus College, Oxford, and a

tutorial fellow at St Benet’s Hall, Oxford

“The queen’s anger at the men and women who married without

her permission soon abated, if she was especially fond of them and

their fault was not judged too great”

should have built up strong alliances with the new generation of Eliz-abethan privy councillors. Instead he came to alienate the most in-fluential – Sir Robert Cecil and Charles Howard, Earl of Nottingham– by treating them as political enemies. By the late 1590s, Essex wasconvinced that they and their friends comprised a narrow cabal ofevil councillors and corrupt politicians, who were poisoning thequeen against him. It was fear that they would present his failure inIreland in the worst possible light – even as treason – that led the earlto dash to court in 1599 to explain his actions face to face with thequeen, even though she had ordered him to stay put in Ireland. WhenElizabeth consulted her councillors after her unexpected interviewwith the earl, unsurprisingly no one close to her spoke up for him.

Essex’s political isolation at the heart of government continueduntil his death. He had many supporters in the army and London,but at court he had to rely on female relatives to plead for his rein-statement with the queen, and inevitably their voices were notenough. Essex fell from power not because Elizabeth saw sense andwas shaken out of her infatuation with her unreliable ‘toyboy’ butbecause he badly overplayed his hand in a political power strugglethat should never have happened.

BOOK

Elizabeth I and Her Circle by Susan Doran (OUP, 2015)ON THE PODCAST

Listen to historian Lisa Hilton explore the life of Elizabeth I onour 29 January podcast. Go to historyextra.com/podcasts

DISCOVER MORE

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This sculpture in the grounds of Hatfield House shows Elizabeth with her courtiers. The queen’s “semi-erotic” relationship with her male councillors was designed to “strengthen the bonds of loyalty and service of elite men to a female monarch”


Spanish Armada

The defeat of the Spanish Armada has long

been celebrated as one of England’s greatest

naval victories. But was the Spanish

campaign doomed to fail from the start?

Charlotte Hodgman speaks to Dan Snow,

presenter of a three-part BBC series on the

attempted invasion, to find out more

Accompanies the BBC Two series Armada: 12 Days to Save England

All at sea

One popular belief is that England’s

victory against the Spanish Armada

was won against all the odds. Do you

agree with that view?

Not at all. When the Spanish Armada set sail from Lisbon on 28 May 1588 it was almost certain to fail. Philip II was a complete control freak who refused to allow his commanders the autonomy to make their own decisions. It was probably the most rigid campaign plan with which any force has ever gone to sea or marched.

It was the worst of both worlds for Philip’s commanders – particularly the Duke of Medina Sidonia, who didn’t want to assume command of the fleet in the first place. One of the documents we look at in the new series is a letter written by the duke that makes it clear just how reluctant he was!

Aside from Philip’s unwillingness to

delegate command, why else was the

Spanish campaign doomed to failure?

There were huge flaws in the entire invasion plan. It was simply unworkable. The fleet was meant to meet up with the Duke of Parma – who was commanding Spanish forces in the Netherlands – before loading men onto the ships and continuing to England, where the recently boosted army would then launch an invasion. But for various technical reasons – tides, timings and the boats themselves – that plan could never have worked. The Spanish were sailing up the Channel with the utmost guarantee of failure, which is a curious idea.

What’s even stranger is that Philip seems to

have been undaunted by the military concerns being raised by his commanders. He was convinced God would provide a way of assuring that his army in the Netherlands met his navy, and that they would all somehow get across the Channel. It’s a campaign plan that historians Sam Willis and Saul David try and get to grips with in the series.

You mention that the armada itself

was a weakness in the Spanish

invasion plan. Surely, a fleet

comprising some 130 huge warships

can’t be classed as a problem?

The problem wasn’t so much with numbers – though the Spanish forces were depleted as a result of their failure to meet with the Duke of Parma as planned. Rather, the issue was the design of the ships themselves.

England’s ships were built to fight. They were designed to movefast, to sail upwind and packa big punch, with lots ofcannon onboard.

The Spanish, on the otherhand, had ships that weredesigned for all sorts ofdifferent purposes, but whichdidn’t fulfil any of theseparticularly well. Big,bulky and unwieldy,Philip’s ships weredesigned to pull upalongside Englishvessels at sea

and fight as if in a land battle: soldiers would leap aboard the enemy ships and fight hand to hand. There just wasn’t the same emphasis on artillery fire that the English had. If the Spanish had had enough men onboard, the fleet might have been able to land in Cornwall, Devon or Hampshire and march on London, much as William of Orange did a century later. The fact is, though, they just didn’t have that manpower. The invasion was really a watershed moment in naval history

as artillery-firing ships began to dominate the maritime battlefield.

How aware was Philip of

England’s naval strength? After

all, he had been married to

Mary I of England for four years

During his relatively short stay in England, Philip correctly identified

that the country’s chief line of defence lay at sea. Ironically, he actually recommended building as many ships as possible for the defence of the English realm. Little did

This late 16th to early 17th-century engraving by Hogenberg depicts the Spanish fleet being dealt a heavy blow. The defeat at Gravelines ended any threat to the English throne, says Dan Snow


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a curious idea29

Dan Snow is a historian and broadcaster

TELEVISION

Armada: 12 Days to SaveEngland, presented by Dan Snow,airs on BBC Two this spring

Turn to page 78 for more information

DISCOVER MORE

it did oversee the building of some very goodso-called race-built galleons. And it couldmobilise sailors using an almost uniquesystem of conscription. I’ve seen contempo-rary documents in the British Library thatlist every ferryman, riverman and fishermanwho could be mobilised for naval action.

So it’s fair to say England was prepared

for an invasion?

Yes and no. The story of the Spanish Armadais one of Elizabeth’s penny-pinching asmuch as anything else. Her ships ran out ofammunition because she failed to providethe necessary funds, and provisioning wasalso quite poor, to the extent that manysailors became pretty ill.

England’s land forces were totally useless and could have been defeated in no time, but the navy was prepared, within the financial constraints under which Elizabeth found herself.

England’s navy was designed for coastal defence, perfect for nipping out of port, battering an invading force and then dashing back into port again.

Another popular story is that England

owed its victory to the weather...

Let’s get one thing straight. The Spanish Armada was catastrophically defeated at the battle of Gravelines. After the battle, the damaged Spanish fleet was driven towards the shallows off the coast of the Netherlands, but a change in wind direction actually enabled it to limp off into the North Sea, away from the English navy. It was only as the remains of the armada sailed around northern Scotland and past the east coast of Ireland that it was battered by the elements. Any strategic threat the Spanish fleet had posed to the English throne had already been destroyed at Gravelines.

he know that some of these new ships would later take on his armada! But even Philip couldn’t have anticipated the extraordinary ability of the Tudor state to mobilise as many men and good ships as it did.

Elizabeth’s regime was far from perfect but

Richard I knew the business of war from his early experience in Fra

the English king honed his military genius. On his return to the wes

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Richard the Lionheart (right) demonstrated his military acumen during clashes with the French king Philip Augustus at the key strategic stronghold of Gisors in the 1190s

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nce. But, says Thomas Asbridge, it was in the Third Crusade that

st, Richard proved himself the best commander of his generation



Richard the Lionheart

On 25 March 1194, Richard I, the Lionheart, laid siege to Nottingham Castle. Intent upon reasserting his authority over England, the king directed the full force of his military genius

and martial resources against this supposedly impregnable, rebel-held fortress.

Eleven days earlier, Richard had landed at Sandwich in Kent, setting foot on English soil for the first time in more than four years. During his prolonged absence – first waging a gruelling crusade in the Holy Land, then enduring imprisonment at the hands of political rivals in Austria and Germany – the Lionheart’s devious younger brother, John, had sought to seize power. Richard thus returned to a realm threatened by insurrection and, though John himself soon scuttled across the Channel, Nottingham remained an outpost of those championing his dubious cause.

King Richard I fell upon the stronghold with chilling efficiency. He arrived at the head of a sizeable military force, and possessed the requisite tools to crack Nottingham’s stout defences, having summoned siege machines and stone-throwing trebuchets from Leicester, 22 carpenters from Northampton, and his master engineer, Urric, from London. The castle’s garrison offered stern resistance, but on the first day of fighting the outer battlements fell. As had become his custom, Richard threw himself into the fray wearing only light mail armour and an iron cap, but was protected from a rain of arrows and crossbow bolts by a number of heavy shields borne by his bodyguards. By evening, we are told, many of the defenders were left “wound-ed and crushed” and a number of prisoners had been taken.

Having made a clear statement of intent, the Lionheart sent messengers to the garrison in the morning, instructing them to capitu-late to their rightful king. At first they refused, apparently unconvinced that Richard had indeed returned. In response, the Lionheart deployed his trebuchets, then ordered gibbets to be raised and hanged a number of his captives in full sight of the fortress. Surrender followed shortly thereafter. Accounts vary as to the treatment subsequently meted out to the rebels: one chronicler maintained that they were spared by the “compassionate” king because he was “so gentle and full of mercy”, but other sources make it clear that at least two of John’s hated lackeys met their deaths soon after (one being imprisoned and starved, the other flayed alive).

With this victory Richard reaffirmed the potent legitimacy of his kingship, and support for John’s cause in England collapsed. The work of repairing the grave damage inflicted

was perfectly placed to make his mark on the Third Crusade, waging a holy war to recover Palestine from the Muslim sultan Saladin. The contest for control of Jerusalem between these two titans of medieval history is presented as the high point of Richard I’s martial career – the moment at which he forged his legend.

However, this approach understates some issues, while overplaying others. He em-barked upon the crusade on 4 July 1190 as a recently crowned and relatively untested king. Years of intermittent campaigning had given him a solid grounding in the business of war – particularly in the gritty realities of raiding and siege-craft – but to begin with at least, no one would have expected Richard to lead in the holy war. That role naturally fell to Emperor Frederick Barbarossa of Germany, Europe’s elder statesmen and veteran campaigner, and it was only Barbarossa’s unfortunate death through drowning en route to the Levant that opened the door for the Lionheart.

Arguably, the extent and significance of Richard’s achievements in the Holy Land also have been exaggerated. True, he brought the crusader siege of Acre to a swift and success-

by John’s machinations upon his family’s extensive continental lands would take years – the majority of Richard’s remaining life in fact – but the Lionhearted monarch had returned to the west in spectacular fashion. Few could doubt that he was now the warrior-king par excellence; a fearsome opponent, unrivalled among the crowned monarchs of Europe.

Rex bellicosus Richard I’s skills as a warrior and a general have long been recognised, though, for much of the 20th century, it was his supposedly intemperate and bloodthirsty brutality that was emphasised, with one scholar describing him as a “peerless killing machine”. In recent decades a strong case has been made for the Lionheart’s more clinical mastery of the science of medieval warfare, and today he is often portrayed as England’s ‘rex bellicosus’ (warlike king).

Current assessments of Richard’s military achievements generally present his early years as Duke of Aquitaine (from 1172) as the decisive and formative phase in his develop-ment as a commander. Having acquired and honed his skills, it is argued, the Lionheart B

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Richard I and Philip Augustus lead the siege of Acre (1189–91). Of the two men, the English monarch learned more from his experiences during the Third Crusade


The near east on the eve ofthe Third Crusade

ful conclusion in July 1191, but he did so onlyin alliance with his sometime-rival KingPhilip Augustus of France (of the Capetiandynasty). The victory over Saladin’s forceslater that year at the battle of Arsuf, on7 September, appears on closer inspection tohave been an unplanned and inconclusiveencounter, while Richard’s decision to twiceadvance to within 12 miles of Jerusalem (onlyto retreat on both occasions without mount-ing an assault) suggests that he had failed tograsp, much less harness, the distinctive devo-tional impulse that drove crusading armies.

This is not to suggest that Richard’s expedi-tion should be regarded as a failure, nor to denythat his campaign was punctuated by momentsof inspired generalship – most notably inleading his army on a fighting march throughMuslim-held territory between Acre and Jaffa.Rather, it is to point out that the Lionheart wasstill sharpening his skills in Palestine. TheThird Crusade ended in stalemate in September1192, but it was in the fires of this holy war, asRichard and Saladin fought one another to astandstill, that the English king tempered hismartial genius.

He returned to the west having acquireda new depth of experience and insight, andproved only too capable of putting the lessonslearned in the Levant to good use as he strovefirst to subdue England, and then to reclaim thelikes of Normandy and Anjou from Philip ofFrance. It is this period, between 1194 and 1198,which rightly should be recognised as thepinnacle of Richard I’s military career.

By the time he reached England in March1194, the 36-year-old Richard had maturedinto an exceptionally well-rounded com-

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mander. As a meticulous logician and acool-headed, visionary strategist, theLionheart could out-think his enemy; but healso loved frontline combat and possessed anexuberant self-confidence and inspirationalcharisma, allied to a grim, but arguably neces-sary, streak of ruthlessness.

All of these qualities were immediatelyapparent when Richard marched on rebel-held Nottingham. This veteran of the siege ofAcre – one of the hardest-fought investmentsof the Middle Ages – understood the value ofcareful planning, the decisive capability of heavy siege machinery and the morale-sappingimpact of calculated violence. Though onecontemporary claimed Nottingham Castlewas “so well fortified by nature and artifice”that it seemed “unconquerable”, Richardbrought its garrison to the point of surrenderin less than two days. Other striking successesin siege warfare followed, not least when theLionheart captured the mighty fortress ofLoches (in Touraine) in just three hoursthrough a blistering frontal assault.

Sparring with the enemyWhile campaigning on the continent torecover Angevin territory from PhilipAugustus, Richard also demonstrated aremarkably acute appreciation of the preceptsgoverning military manoeuvres and engage-ments. During the crusade he had sparredwith Saladin’s forces on numerous occasions,through fighting marches, exploratory raidsand in the course of the first, incrementaladvance inland towards Jerusalem conductedin the autumn of 1191.

This hard-won familiarity with thesubtleties of troop movements and martialincursion served the Lionheart well when, inthe early summer of 1194, Philip Augustusadvanced west towards the town of Vendôme(on the border between the Angevin realmand Capetian territory) and began to threatenthe whole of the Loire Valley.

Richard responded by marching into theregion in early July. Vendôme itself was notfortified, so the Angevin king threw up adefensive camp in front of the town. The twoarmies, seemingly well-matched in numericalterms, were now separated by only a matter ofmiles. Though Philip initially remainedblissfully unaware, from the moment that theLionheart took up a position before Vendôme,the Capetians (French) were in grave danger.Should the French king attempt to initiate afrontal assault on the Angevin encampment,he would have to lead his troops south-westdown the road to Vendôme, leaving theCapetian host exposed to flanking andencircling manoeuvres. However, any moveby the French to retreat from the frontlinewould be an equally risky proposition, as they

The seal of Richard the Lionheart depictsthe ultimate medieval warrior-king, who

eagerly threw himself into the heat of battle

“As a meticulous

logician and a

visionary strategist,

the Lionheart could out-think his enemy;

but he also loved

frontline combat”

would be prone to attack from the rear and might easily be routed.

At first, King Philip sought to intimidateRichard, dispatching an envoy on 3 July towarn that a French offensive would soon belaunched. Displaying a disconcertingconfidence, the Lionheart apparently repliedthat he would happily await the Capetians’arrival, adding that, should they not appear,he would pay them a visit in the morning.Unsettled by this brazen retort, Philip wavered over his next step.

When the Angevins initiated an advancethe following day, the French king’s nervebroke and he ordered a hurried withdrawal north-east, along the road to Fréteval(12 miles from Vendôme). Though eager toharry his fleeing opponent, Richard shrewdlyrecognised that he could ill-afford a headlongpursuit that might leave his own troops indisarray, perilously exposed to counterattack.The Lionheart therefore placed one of hismost trusted field lieutenants, WilliamMarshal, in command of a reserve force, withorders to shadow the main advance, yet holdback from the hunt itself and thus be ready tocounter any lingering Capetian resistance.

Having readied his men, Richard began hischase around midday on 4 July. Towards dusk,Richard caught up with the French rear guard


The contested borderzone between Normandyand French lands

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and wagon train near Fréteval, and as the Angevins fell on the broken Capetian ranks, hundreds of routing enemy troops were slain or taken prisoner. All manner of plunder was seized, from “pavilions, all kinds of tents, cloth of scarlet and silk, plate and coin” according to one chronicler, to “horses, palfreys, pack-hors-es, sumptuous garments and money”. Many of Philip Augustus’s personal possessions were appropriated, including a portion of the Capetian royal archives. It was a desperately humiliating defeat.

Richard hunted the fleeing French king through the night, using a string of horses to speed his pursuit, but when Philip pulled off the road to hide in a small church, Richard rode by. It was a shockingly narrow escape for the Capetian. The Angevins returned to Vendôme near midnight, laden with booty and leading a long line of prisoners.

The power of a castle By the end of 1198, after long years of tireless campaigning and adept diplomacy, Richard had recovered most of the Angevin dynasty’s territorial holdings on the continent. One crucial step in the process of restoration was the battle for dominion over the Norman Vexin – the long-contested border zone between the duchy of Normandy and the Capetian-held Ile-de-France. Philip Augustus

had seized this region in 1193-94, while Richard still remained in captivity, occupying a number of castles, including the stronghold at Gisors. Long regarded as the linchpin of the entire Vexin, this fortress was all-but impregnable. It boasted a fearsome inner-

Richard the Lionheart

A manuscript thought to depict Richard I fighting Saladin during the Third Crusade, where the Lionheart honed the military skills for which he became famous

CRUSADER TO

WAR KING

8 September 1157Richard is born, son of Henry II

of England and Eleanor ofAquitaine (right), founders of

the Angevin dynasty

June 1172Invested as Duke of Aquitaine in the abbey church of St Hilary in Poitiers

11 June 1183His elder brother dies. Richard becomes

heir to the English crown and Angevin realm (including Normandy and Anjou)

Autumn 1187Saladin reconquers Jerusalem. Richard is

the first nobleman north of the Alps to take the cross for the Third Crusade

3 September 1189Having rebelled against his father Henry’s authority and hounded the old king to his

death, Richard is crowned king

4 July 1190Sets out on crusade to the Holy Land,

leaving younger brother, John, in Europe

Summer 1191Richard seizes Acre from Saladin’s

forces. He marches to Jaffa, defeating the Muslim army at Arsuf en route

2 September 1192After abortive attempts on Jerusalem,

Richard agrees peace with Saladin

December 1192Travelling home, Richard is seized by

Leopold of Austria, then held by Henry VI of Germany until 1194

26 March 1194Richard (shown in a Victorian

statue) takes Nottingham Castle. His brother John’s cause in England collapses

1196–98Richard spends £12,000 on ‘Chateau

Gaillard’ which helps him reassert Angevin dominance in northern France

6 April 1199Richard dies during the siege of Chalus


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The Reign of Richard Lionheart byRalph Turner and Richard V (Heiser, 2000) Richard I by John Gillingham (Yale, 1999) The Greatest Knight: The RemarkableLife of William Marshal, the Power BehindFive English Thrones by Thomas Asbridge(Simon & Schuster, 2015)

DISCOVER MORE

Dr Thomas Asbridge is reader in medieval history

at Queen Mary, University of London. He is

currently writing a new biography of Richard I

for the Penguin Monarchs series

Gisors and reassert Angevin influence overthe Vexin. First, he built a vast new militarycomplex on the Seine at Les Andelys (on theVexin’s western edge) that included a fortifiedisland, a dock that made the site accessibleto shipping from England and a loomingfortress christened ‘Chateau Gaillard’ – the‘Castle of Impudence’ or ‘Cheeky-Castle’.Built in just two years, 1196–98, the projectcost an incredible £12,000, far more thanRichard spent on fortifications in all ofEngland over the course of his entire reign.

Les Andelys protected the approaches to theducal capital of Rouen, but more importantlyit also functioned as a staging post for offensiveincursions into the Vexin. For the first time,it allowed large numbers of Angevin troopsto be billeted on the fringe of this border zonein relative safety and the Lionheart set aboutusing these forces to dominate the surroundingregion. Though the Capetians retainedcontrol of Gisors, alongside a number of otherstrongholds in the Vexin, their emasculatedgarrisons were virtually unable to venture

“He was the foremost military commanderof his generation – a rex bellicosus whose

martial gifts were refined in the Holy Land”

beyond their gates, because the Angevins basedout of Les Andelys were constantly rangingacross the landscape.

One chronicler observed that the Frenchwere “so pinned down [in their] castles thatthey could not take anything outside”, andtroops in Gisors itself were unable even to drawwater from their local spring. By these steps,King Richard reaffirmed Angevin dominancein northern France, shifting the balance ofpower back in his favour.

In the end, Richard’s penchant for siegewarfare and frontline skirmishing cost himhis life. One of the greatest warrior-kings ofthe Middle Ages was cut down in 1199 by acrossbow bolt while investing an insignificantAquitanean fortress. The Lionheart’s death,aged just 41, seemed to contemporaries,as it does today, a shocking and pointlesswaste. Nonetheless, he was the foremostmilitary commander of his generation – a rexbellicosus whose martial gifts were refined inthe Holy Land.

keep enclosed within an imposing circuit of outer-battlements and, even more importantly, could rely upon swift reinforcement by French troops should it ever be subjected to enemy assault.

The Lionheart was uniquely qualified to attempt the Vexin’s reconquest. In the Holy Land, he had painstakingly developed a line of defensible fortifications along the route linking Jaffa and Jerusalem. Later, he dedicated himself to re-establishing the battlements at Ascalon because the port was critical to the balance of power between Palestine and Egypt. Richard might already have possessed a fairly shrewd appreciation of a castle’s use and value before the crusade, but by the time he returned to Europe there can have been few commanders with a better grasp of this dimension of medieval warfare.

Drawing upon this expertise, Richard immediately recognised that, in practical terms, Gisors was invulnerable to direct attack. As a result, he formulated an inspired, two-fold strategy, designed to neutralise

Turn the page for a feature on

Saladin’s leadership skills

Richard’s Chateau Gaillard (meaning ‘Castle of Impudence’) allowed him to neutralise his

enemies in the Norman Vexin

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Pompeii: Daily Life in an Ancient Roman CityTaught by Professor Steven L. TuckMIAMI UNIVERSITY

LECTURE TITLES

1. Refl ections on and of Pompeii

2. Geology and Geography on the Bay of Naples

3. The Rediscovery of Vesuvian Lands

4. Etruscan Pompeii—5th Century B.C.

5. Samnite Pompeii—2nd Century B.C.

6. Building the Roman Colony—80 B.C.

7. Villa of the Papyri and Life with Piso

8. Marriage and Mysteries—Rites of Dionysus

9. Eumachia, Public Priestess

10. A Female Slave in Pompeii

11. Governing in the 1st Century A.D.

12. Games and Competition for Offi ces

13. Riot in the Amphitheater—A.D. 59

14. The House of the Tragic Poet

15. Pompeii’s Wool Industry

16. Pompeii’s Wine and Vineyards

17. Earthquake—A.D. 62

18. Rebuilding after the Earthquake

19. Wall Paintings in the House of the Vettii

20. A Pompeian Country Club

21. Worshipping the Emperors at Herculaneum

22. Visiting a Villa at Stabiae

23. Pliny Narrates the Eruption of Vesuvius

24. The Bay of Naples after Vesuvius

Pompeii: Daily Life in an Ancient Roman CityCourse no. 3742 | 24 lectures (30 minutes/lecture)

Experience Everyday Life in Ancient PompeiiOne of the most iconic natural disasters in ancient history was the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79, which destroyed the now-famous Roman city of Pompeii. Discover what careful excavations of this archaeological site reveal about the everyday activities of commerce, agriculture, politics, and private life with Pompeii: Daily Life in an Ancient Roman City.

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Listen toJohn Man

ON TH EPODCAST

You don’t succeed in uniting much of the Muslim world and

striking fear into the heart of the Christian west without

being a brilliant ruler. John Man reveals the eight qualities

that made Saladin one of the greatest leaders of them all

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HOW TO LEAD LIKE SALADIN

Saladin, seen in a 12th-century portrait, led Muslim opposition to the crusaders and united much of the Middle East

38

How to lead like Saladin

1 Learn from the bestAn inspirational ruler and awarrior uncle were key toSaladin’s rise

One key to Saladin’s leadership skillssurely lay in his childhood. This is anassumption, for almost nothing is knownabout the young Saladin. But somethingcan be deduced from his later success.He was raised in a violent world, yetgained emotional security from religionand family.

In Outliers, his 2008 book analysingattributes that distinguish the mostsuccessful people from the rest, MalcolmGladwell points out that a key element intheir rise to greatness is a mentor, aguiding light, someone who provides bothan example and a helping hand.

If his father provided for his emotionalsecurity, then Saladin’s two mentors wereShirkuh, his hard-fighting uncle, and Nural-Din, the inspirational ruler of Aleppoand Mosul – anti-crusader, would-beunifier of Islam, and Saladin’s masterand employer.

It was Nur al-Din who gave Saladin hisbig break, sending him off with an army toEgypt, his idea being that Egypt’s wealthwould provide a basis for unifying Islamand confronting the crusaders. WithoutShirkuh and Nur al-Din – one a campaign-er, the other a ruler – Saladin might have remained insignificant.

2 Show no mercyOne of the most effective weapons in Saladin’s armoury was thecapacity to brutalise

Leadership is often equated withruthlessness. One exponent was the Chinesetheorist of leadership, Lord Shang, writingwhen China was torn by rival states in about400 BC. He advised rulers that humanbeings are idle, greedy, cowardly,treacherous and foolish, and the only way to deal with them is to entice, terrify, rewardand punish. Two thousand years later,Machiavelli, confronted by Italy’s warringmini-states, made the same point: only theruthless exercise of power can guaranteethe continuity of the state, in peace.

In some circumstances, Saladin too knewhow to use force, even brutality. His newposition in Egypt presented problems. SunniSyrians and Shia Egyptians were old rivals.Each despised the other. Each had a caliph.In Egypt Saladin could rule only by force andduplicity. He collaborated in the murder ofthe vizier (high-ranking minister) Shawar,built up a formidable army, and bullied theyoung Egyptian caliph Al-Adid into naminghim vizier with power over both governmentand armed forces. He also engineered plots,arrested and tortured the plotters, anddismissed troublesome members of theEgyptian army and palace guards. Then heended the Cairo-based caliphate, scatteredthe caliph’s library, divided Cairo’s palacesamong his family, crushed revolts – evencrucified two ringleaders in central Cairo –and spread his control to Yemen.

Later, after the battle of Hattin, one of hiscaptives was French crusader Raynald ofChâtillon, a man he had sworn to kill inrevenge for his brutal and treacherousbehaviour. In one account, Saladin killed himwith one stroke of his sword and beheadedhim. Soon afterwards, volunteers executed afurther 200 captives, while Saladin lookedon approvingly. G

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Nur al-Din (right), whowanted to unify Islam,was an inspiration tothe young Saladin

Saladin, shown behead-ing the captive Raynald of Châtillon, was not afraid to use force

Saladin’s achievements

– uniting much of the

Middle East under one

vast Muslim

empire, and

crushing a

crusader army

in 1187 – mark

him down as

one of the most

accomplished

rulers in history.

Here are the eight

secrets behind

his incredible success…

Saladin’s CVBORN: To a family of Kurdish ancestry, in Tikrit (modern-day Iraq), in c1137/38

BEST REMEMBERED FOR: Defeating a crusader army at the 1187 battle of Hattin (in present-day Israel),

and seizing Jerusalem from the crusaders later that year

OTHER KEY ACHIEVEMENTS:

Establishing a mighty Muslim empire that encompassed today’s Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian territories and Yemen

REVERED BY: The Muslim world, especially his fellow Sunnis.

But he was also greatly respected by his sworn enemies, the crusaders,

who, it’s said, regarded him as highly as their own leaders

DIED: Of a fever inDamascus in 1193

BURIED: In the Umayyad Mosque,

Damascus

39

4 Be prepared to negotiateSaladin quickly learned that he couldn’t always bludgeon his way to power

3 Have a cause

worth fighting forSaladin’s rallying cry – holy war – proved irresistible to thousands of his followers

From his youth, Saladin was in some sense programmed for leadership, which he seized in Egypt. For his next move, he needed to inspire. One vital element for a leader – some say the most vital – is the agenda, the vision. Effective leaders need a noble cause, something bigger than the leader himself.

As psychologist Daniel Goleman and his co-authors comment in Primal Leadership (2013), those with vision “exude resonance: They have genuine passion for their mission, and that passion is contagious.”

Saladin’s vision was powerful and simple: an Islamic world unified and free from the non-Islamic, anti-Islamic crusaders. He did not even have to originate it. The cause had been in the air for a generation, since the arrival of the crusaders in 1096. His mentor, Nur al-Din, had preached jihad – or holy war – against them.

Saladin took up the cry: “Do battle not for my cause, but for God’s cause.”

But now what? Egypt’s wealth was the key to power, but the door to Islamic unity and jihad was Syria. By about 1170, it was obvious that Saladin was a rival to his master, Nur al-Din. There could have been civil war – except that the two shared the same vision, and both held back from outright confrontation for three years.

Then Nur al-Din’s death gave Saladin a chance to claim his former master’s realm. This would not be easy, because major cities – Damascus, Aleppo, Mosul, Homs, Hama, Baalbek – were held by Nur al-Din’s heirs or allies. It was now that Saladin’s leadership skills came to the fore. He became an expert in what leadership theorists call ‘soft power,’ in which persuasion trumps force.

His task was to usurp power, while pretending deference to Nur al-Din’s lineage. There was no point forcing himself on other Muslims, if by doing so he turned them from rivals into enemies. If he besieged a city, he did so with restraint.

In victory, he took care not to pursue, slaughter and pillage. He often wrote to the caliph in Baghdad, asking for his backing.

It took 10 years of steps forward, steps back, negotiations, appeals and shows of force followed by displays of magnanimity – but in the end it worked. The caliph granted him a ‘diploma of investiture’, and Saladin became ruler of Syria as well as Egypt. He had the legitimacy he needed to turn his unified army against the crusaders, achieving his stunning victory in the battle of Hattin in 1187 and following this up by seizing Jerusalem.

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of his soft leadership was that he applied it in his dealings with his enemies. He probed, retreated, consulted, negotiated, exchanged prisoners, changed his mind with changing circumstances, and dealt courteously with his enemies. He acted like this partly because that was his character, and partly because it worked, saving much fruitless fighting and unnecessary losses.

“His vision was an Islamic world unified and free from

the non-Islamic, anti-Islamic

crusaders”

This 13th-century French manuscript shows Saladin’s troops wreaking devastation on the Holy Land, taking prisoners and stealing cattle


How to lead like Saladin

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Saladin: Life, Legend, Legacy byJohn Man is published by Bantam Press this monthLISTEN AGAIN

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Third Crusade on In Our Time atbbc.co.uk/programmes/p00547ls

DISCOVER MORE

ON THE PODCAST

John Man is a historian and travel writer, whose

books include The Mongol Empire: Genghis Khan,

His Heirs and the Founding of Modern China

(Bantam Press, 2014)

6 Live a simple, austere lifeThe most powerful man in theMuslim world resisted thetemptation to amass riches

Embracing danger is one way of demon-strating your willingness to share yourfollowers’ pain. Another is to refuse the urgeto amass riches. This is a rare quality,because it works best in combination withadversity. Kublai Khan ruled China with amassive display of wealth. However, hisgrandfather Genghis Khan, from whomKublai inherited a vision of world rule, madea virtue of austerity, adopting the guise of asimple Daoist sage: “In the clothes I wear orthe meats I eat, I have the same rags and thesame food as the cowherd or the groom.”

Saladin too considered his followersbefore himself, so much so that in life he wasoften rebuked by histreasurer, and in death hehad nothing to his namebut his sword, coat ofmail and horse. He builthimself no palaces,and wanted only asmall mausoleum.

7 Keep yourpromisesTrust was the key to buildinga stable alliance against thecrusader armies

Saladin kept his word. Lord Shang andMachiavelli were all for duplicity, if itserved the leader’s purpose. That was notSaladin’s way. Keeping promises is afundamental attribute of good leadership,for without it the trust of allies and thosefurther down the chain of commandvanishes, morale plummets, and con-certed action becomes impossible. Thiscreates what Daniel Goleman (see no 3)refers to as a “toxic organisation”, inwhich “resonance” gives way to “disso-nance”. “If we refuse what we havepromised and are not generous with the

benefits,” said Saladin, “no one will evertrust us again.”

8 Extend the hand of friendshipThe great nemesis of the crusaderswas capable of surprising acts of generosity towards them

Despite his commitment to jihad, Saladinretained his respect for individuals – as isproved in the following incident, whichhappened in the summer of 1187, betweenthe battle of Hattin in July and the seizure ofJerusalem in October.

Balian of Ibelin, head of one of the mosteminent of crusader families, escaped fromHattin and took refuge in Tyre. With Saladin’sH tti d t k f i T With S l di ’army controlling the surrounding territory,Balian’s wife, Maria, was stuck in Jerusalem.Balian sent a message to Saladin, asking tobe allowed to get her. Saladin agreed – onthe understanding that Balian spent only one night in Jerusalem.

But when Balian arrived in the city hefound it leaderless. He stayed to lead itsdefence, sending profuse apologies toSaladin for breaking his promise. Saladinchivalrously accepted the apology, and thensent an escort to convey Maria to Tyre, whileher husband set about finishing Jerusalem’sdefences. Such actions won Saladin theadmiration of his Christian enemies, whocame to think of him as more worthy than their own leaders.

5 Put your life on the lineTo inspire true loyalty, Saladinwas prepared to go where onlythe bravest would follow

Another element of Saladin’s rule was hisreadiness to share adversity. The natureof revolutionary leadership demands it.In the words of the American politicalscientist James MacGregor Burns: “Theleaders must be absolutely dedicated tothe cause and able to demonstrate thatcommitment by giving time and effort toit, risking their lives, undergoing imprison-

ment, exile, persecutionand continual hardship.”Saladin risked his life inbattle, and at the age of50 almost died fromdisease caught whilecampaigning.

Shared suffering doesnot guarantee success,but a refusal to do somay open the door tofailure. Saladin is ingood company.

Successful revolutionary leaders who suf-fered for their cause include Alexander,Jesus, Mohammed, Genghis Khan, Mao,Lenin, Castro and Mandela.

“Despite hiscommitment to

jihad, Saladinretained his

respect forindividuals”

Like his contemporaryGenghis Khan,

Saladin made avirtue of austerity

Saladin could be magnanimous. This image shows him taking Jerusalem in 1187, but not before he had the wife of one of the crusaders escorted to safety

John Man discusses Saladin’saccomplishments on our weekly podcasthistoryextra.com/podcasts

Like Mandela, Saladin suffered for his cause

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Where history lives


The residents of medieval England didn’t always roll out

the red carpet for Welsh, Scottish and Irish immigrants.

Mark Ormrod and Jessica Lutkin describe the

challenges and stereotypes confronting Celts trying to

carve out a new life in their adopted homeILLUSTRATIONS BY LYNN HATZIUS

“They’re heavy drinkers, barbarous and

full of guile”

Latest researchMedieval immigration

44

Medieval immigrants

In 1413, Henry V’s government offered licences to hundreds of Welsh and Irish residents of England, allowing them to remain in the kingdom under the king’s protection.

Those who came forward were a varied and far-flung group. They

included the Irishman Thomas Roche, running his drapery business in Oxford; Richard Basset, another Irishman, who worked as a slater in Leicester; three ‘London Welsh’ – John Neuborgh, John Neuton and Thomas Gwyn; and Thomas Phelippes, the Welsh-born priest in charge of the rural parish of Hemingby in Lincolnshire.

This set of snapshots – drawn from a major research project on immigration to medieval England in which we’ve been participating – is a reminder of the complicated relationship that existed between the ‘four nations’ of the British Isles in the later Middle Ages. England and Scotland were independent kingdoms, and were usually at war. Ireland had been a lordship of the English crown since the 12th century, though significant parts of the island were beyond its effective control. Colonisation and conquest had also made most of Wales subject to the English crown by the later 13th century, though resistance continued for many years.

For those who moved from other parts of the British Isles to England, these distinctions had real consequences. There were no immigration procedures and the land and sea borders remained open to all comers. But this also meant that most of those who migrated to England had no formal guarantees of rights. For the Scots, as enemies, this was a particular challenge. The Welsh and the Irish seemed, on the face of it, to have it easier; and yet they too were subject to discrimination.

A tax on foreigners

The licences granted in 1413 were in part a response to the revolt of Owain GlyndŴr in Wales, and the urgent need to provide reassurances to Welsh-born residents in England that they would not be subject to the punishments being meted out against their families and friends back home.

Such measures formed part of a wider pack-age of guarantees worked out for foreign residents during the later Middle Ages. In the 13th century, people born outside England began to be admitted as freemen of self-gov-erning towns. And in the late 14th century, the crown devised the process known as denization, whereby aliens could renounce their original allegiance and become what we would now call naturalised citizens. These were valued and sought-after rights. But they also cost money, and tended only to be taken up as a last resort.

Medieval immigrants

All this explains the disquiet when, in 1440, the English parliament announced a special tax on those residents born beyond the realm. The main aim was to take a census of the continental Europeans living in England. The Scots were also, inevitably, included on the list. Much more controversial, however, was the decision to include those from the wider dominions of the English crown. Suddenly, the Irish and the Channel Islanders, not to mention those from the Plantagenet duchy of Aquitaine, were being treated as aliens. The only group to escape was the Welsh, whosecomplex legal status left them in a rareposition of privilege.

The survey that resulted offers us the most complete picture of the movement of people around the British Isles in the Middle Ages. All told(though excluding the Welsh), about 20,000 people were assessed for the 1440 tax. While the number may seem small, we need to remember that the population of England

45

was little over 2 million at this time; thosedefined as aliens for this purpose thereforecomprised around 1 per cent of the total.

Only around a quarter of this total – justunder 5,000 people – were listed with distinct nationalities, and we have to multiply ourfigures by a factor of four to understand thelikely totals. Among those from the BritishIsles, by far the largest groups came fromScotland (1,046 named, so probably at least4,000 in total) and Ireland (773 named, and perhaps 3,000 overall). The Scots, not surprisingly, were concentrated in the north of England, though they were also to be found in small numbers in almost every county from Cornwall to Lincolnshire.

The Irish were more widely and thinly spread; the majority lived in the South West, but there was also a significant contingent in Leicestershire and Northamptonshire. In the survey, 63 Channel Islanders were also assessed (mainly from Guernsey), all but one of them living in the South West.

Personal livesBeyond these bald numbers, the real fascina-tion of these records lies in the detail they can provide about the personal lives of medieval migrants. Many surnames, presumably acquired in England, denoted the person’s country of origin. Marcus Scot was a fisherman in Whitby (North Riding of Yorkshire), and Nicholas Irissmane was working as a ploughman for St Katherine’s priory, Lincoln. Many other names were occupational: Peter Tailur (Tailor), a Guernseyman living at Leigh in Dorset, was obviously involved in the clothing trade, and had two servants or apprentices, presumably also Channel Islanders, living with him.

In other cases, occupations were specified: John Dondre (or Thunder), an Irish priest, had been living in England for at least 10 years and worked as a chaplain at Woodchurch in Kent. The Scottish couple John and Joan Webster kept a residence and workshop in Cambridge, where John worked as a weaver.

Joan Webster’s case alerts us to the fact that significant numbers of women were caught in

“England’s borders were open to all comers. But this meant that most immigrants had no formal guarantees of rights”

As this illustration shows, England in the mid-15th century was home to thousands

of immigrants from Scotland, Wales, Ireland and the Channel Islands, many of

whom were significantly boosting local manufacturing and agricultural economies

ILLUSTRATION BY LYNN HATZIUS


Mark Ormrod is professor of history at the

University of York and Jessica Lutkin is a research

assistant and impact officer based at the National

Archives. Both are participating in the AHRC

funded project, England’s Immigrants 1330 1550

WEBSITE

For more on the England’s Immigrants1330–1550 project please visitenglandsimmigrants.com

DISCOVER MORE

Medieval immigrants

Immigrants at workHow aliens from the Celtic nations

and Channel Islands earned a living

in 15th–century England

Andrew Desauger Higher rate taxpayer from Guernsey

The Guernseyman Andrew Desauger had to pay the higher tax rate as a result of the 1440 tax on aliens. He was recorded as living in St Stephens by Saltash in Cornwall, and may have been a mariner or businessman. The Channel Islands had been annexed by the Duchy of Normandy in the 10th century and remained in English possession after Normandy was lost to France. The Channel Islanders were the first group to achieve exemption from the tax on foreigners, and Andrew therefore disappears from later collection records.

Alice, Joan and Joan Iryssh Skilled spinners

from across the Irish Sea

While many unmarried migrant women were poor and unskilled, others brought their own distinctive trades to England. Three such – Irish women Alice, Joan and another Joan – worked as spinners in Meriden, Allesley and Warwick in Warwickshire.

Their trade wasn’t highly paid and they ‘lived in’ with their employers. Yet they probably enjoyed more independence than domestic servants. Most Irish women for whom an occupation was recorded in 1440 were in some form of service, and some English craft masters depended on Irish immigrant labour.

James Ramsey Scottish surgeon enticed to London

As a surgeon living in Billingsgate ward, London, in 1483, the Scotsman James Ramsey was a rather unusual individual. Foreign surgeons and other medical practitioners were not uncommon in England, but most came from southern Europe, and Scottish surgeons were rare. In the same year, two other foreign surgeons were recorded in London – from France and Germany.

It is possible that a man of Ramsey’s skill was enticed to London for its opportunities to cater for the merchant elite, the aristocracy and the royal court.

the 1440 tax net. Agnes Hirde, an Irishwomanliving in Kendal (Westmorland), kept her own household and ran her own baking business. More usually, single women appeared as the dependants of English masters. In Bristol, for example, Anastasia Irissche (Irish) was described as a servant anda kempster (wool comber).

Not all who moved to England found life easy. A significant number of Scottish women,who were scattered across the villages and smaller towns of the north in 1440, were described as vagabonds, a term that denotes amigrant casual worker. For some, prostitutionmay have been a final, necessary resort.

The insistence of the tax collectors of 1440 that all foreigners should be included in the survey throws up some surprises. At the top end of the social range was the Scottish Earl of Menteith, under house arrest as a hostage of war at Pontefract Castle in the West Riding of Yorkshire. At the other extreme we find the Irishman John Irlond at Milton Abbas in Dorset, described as a beggar. Whether John and others like him were actually capable of paying the tax was of less consequence than the strong desire to ensure that everyone born outside England was included in the census.

Zealous officialsAll of this was to the considerable frustration of those who claimed to have been born under the jurisdiction of the crown of England. The Channel Islanders and the Irish, along with the Gascons (from Aquitaine), protested that they were loyal subjects of King Henry VI. They had their way, and were allowed exemption in subsequent collections of the tax – though over-zealous officials continued to assess small numbers of Irish people. In London, where the civic authorities were especially keen, there was even an attempt to tax half a dozen Welsh people in 1441. This may explain why in the same year Meredydd Morgan, originally from Carmarthen, secured letters of denization to reside securely in England.

The special taxes on aliens continued intermittently for more than 40 years, the last being collected in 1487. Generally speaking, the later taxes were notable mainly for the increasing numbers of exemptions allowed and evasions condoned.

In London, however, vigilance prevailed and the level of enumeration remained high. In 1483, the assessors in the capital flushed out 163 Scots. This cross-section of immi-grant life included servants and labourers living in multiple-occupation boarding houses, more prosperous men and women keeping their own households and working in the building, brewing and clothing trades, and the occasional professional.

The presence of significant numbers of

Scots, Irish and Welsh sometimes created tension. By the 14th century the English had a clear notion of their own cultural superiority over the ‘barbarous’ Celts. Ranulph Higden, a monk of Chester, described the Welsh as heavy drinkers, so lazy that they preferred to steal their food than to grow it. All the Celtic nations were assumed to be deceitful and treacherous: “Watch the Scots,” said the English poet Lawrence Minot, “they’re full of guile.” Language, in particular, was a marker of difference: the English government was constantly vigilant about Anglo-Irish gentry who adopted the Gaelic tongue. Yet none of this rhetoric precludes the real possibility of friendly interaction and effective coexistence.

Most Scots, Irish and Welsh arrived in England not as wealthy merchants or prosperous craftspeople but as unskilled labourers. Some made for places where they knew there were others like them: Irish to Bristol, Scots to Newcastle, Welsh to Shrewsbury, and so on. The most striking feature of the 1440 tax survey is the degree to which people also spread themselves across the English rural landscape. At a time of low population, economic migrants were both necessary and welcome to the agricultural and manufacturing economies.

If Welsh, Irish and Scottish incomers suffered occasional mistreatment at the hands of their English neighbours, none of this stopped a significant number of them from making a success of their lives in a new and not-so-foreign land.

“Scottish women were often described as vagabonds, denoting migrant casual workers. For some, prostitution may have been a final resort”

£

WE WILL REMEMBER THEM: This year marks the centenary of the First World War, the “war to end allwars”. There are generations alive today who have no direct knowledge of this conflict or of the sacrifice madeby all who fought for their country, making it more important than ever that we remember them with a lastingcommemoration using the words from the famous 1914 war poem known as the ‘Ode Of Remembrance’.

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He was a pioneering antiquar-ian, a fellow of the RoyalSociety and witnessed theCivil War, the Restoration anthe Great Fire of London. But

above all John Aubrey was a writer at a timeprint culture was blossoming. He investigatethe past, he recorded the world in which helived, and in his acclaimed Brief Lives wrotebiographies of eminent people that he knewThe result is a unique record of his time.

Aubrey, born a gentleman in Wiltshire on12 March 1626, lived through key events ofthe 17th century. The Civil War began whilhe was a student at Oxford and he was 22when Charles I was executed in 1649. He sawOliver Cromwell’s rise to power as lordprotector of the Commonwealth, experi-enced the restoration of Charles II andwitnessed the Glorious Revolution thatbrought William of Orange to the throne.

From an early age Aubrey was drawn toantiquities. As a child he loved the storiesof older people, whom he saw as “livinghistories”, and he was pained to see oldmanuscripts used to cover schoolbooks.Later he took Charles II to see the megalithsat Avebury and campaigned to stop localsusing the stones for building. He workedout that Stonehenge was neither Romannor Danish – as was then thought – andhe offered as a ‘probability’ his theory that

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Druids erected it. It is now known topre-date the Druids by thousands of years,but in his time he was closer to the truththan anyone else.

Aubrey became a fellow of the RoyalSociety in 1663. He participated in thesearch for scientific knowledge alongsidesuch luminaries as Robert Hooke, RobertBoyle and Isaac Newton, and was consciousof living through a revolution in printculture, bookselling and journalism. Mostbooks then were sold in London at booksell-ers’ shops or stalls clustered around St Paul’schurchyard, and so the Great Fire of Londonof 1666 – which Aubrey chronicled – was acatastrophe for the booming book trade.

Aubrey undertook surveys of Wiltshireand Surrey. He collected notes on architec-ture, handwriting, clothing, old place namesand folklore. Most importantly of all, hecollected notes on his contemporaries anddeposited his Brief Lives manuscripts in theAshmolean Museum in Oxford before hedied in 1697. Much of what we know of thelives of the most eminent men of the 17thcentury – philosophers, mathematicians,scientists, doctors, astrologers, soldiers,sailors, lawyers, dignitaries of the state andthe Church of England – we owe to Aubrey.As the examples over the page prove,through him we see the 17th centuryvividly and intimately…


John Aubrey chronicled one of the most turbulent periods

in English history. Ruth Scurr reveals what his writings tell

us about episodes such as the Civil War, Great Plague and

Restoration, and the remarkable characters that shaped them

A portrait of the writer and antiquarian John Aubrey. Like

Samuel Pepys, Aubrey’s chroni-cles offer us a window into the

lives of some of the leading figures of his age – men like Charles I,

Oliver Cromwell and John Milton

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OXFORD IN THE CIVIL WAR

John Aubrey was in Oxford in 1643, when Charles I, after the battle of Edgehill (the first pitched battle of the Civil War) entered the city “like Apollo” and took up residence in Christ Church College. Queen Henrietta Maria moved into Merton College, and a special path was laid through the grounds of Corpus Christi College for them to visit each other. Crammed full of court followers, soldiers and horses, Oxford was soon disease-ridden, and Aubrey saw people hungry and dying in the streets. He caught smallpox at this time, but recovered.

DR WILLIAM HARVEY Harvey (above) was the king’s physician and was one of the court followers who came to Oxford with Charles I. Aubrey records that Harvey used to visit a fellow scientist, Ralph Bathurst, in Trinity College to conduct experiments on hens’ eggs. Harvey was hoping to understand how chicks were generated.

Aubrey says that after De Motu Cordis, Harvey’s book on the circulation of the blood, came out in 1628, his medical practice declined mightily, since “the vulgar believed that he was crack-brained” and all the physicians were against him and envied him.

THOMAS HOBBES Aubrey first met philosopher Hobbes (above) in 1634 when he was eight – Hobbes had returned to Malmesbury, where he was born, to visit his old school teacher, who was then teaching Aubrey. Hobbes fled to France before the Civil War – fearing he might be calledto account for his argument that sovereignty must beabsolute. Aubrey records that when the booksellerMr Crooke at the Green Dragon in St Paul’s churchyardprinted Hobbes’s Leviathan in 1651, “it flew forth,passionately attacking those who failed to see that themonarch – not the parliament under him – was theabsolute representative of his people”.

THE DEATH OF OLIVER CROMWELL Oliver Cromwell died of quartan ague on 3 September 1658. Aubrey noted that a short while before, Cromwell was “troubled” by a whale that came into the river Thames and was killed at Greenwich.

Aubrey recorded that there is a maxim of astrology that a person who has a satellitium, or grouping of several planets, inhis ascendant becomes more eminent in hislife than other people. He noted that OliverCromwell had this, and so did Hobbes.

LEADING REPUBLICANS Aubrey was ‘an auditor’, or listener, at JamesHarrington’s Rota Club, a coffee club that metin the Turk’s Head, New Palace Yard. Themeetings were a forum for republican views

– Aubrey said the discourses were“the most ingenious and smartthat ever I heard, or expect tohear”. In December 1661, Harrington (left) was arrested, and held in the Tower of London,

although later released.

JOHN MILTON The republican polemicist Milton (above) was, recorded Aubrey, a man, “of middling stature, scarcely as tall as I am”. He says that when Milton’s The Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth was printed in 1660, the people had already turned strongly against republicanism. Under the Restoration, Milton was arrested and his books were burned.

THE EXECUTION OF CHARLES I In June 1647, Cromwell’s New Model Army took Charles I prisoner. Aubrey believed his mother had seen a portent of this news when she observed the sun caught between two rainbows in the sky. Aubrey’s kinsman Sir John Danvers served on the committee that tried the king and was one of those who signed the death warrant. Aubrey records that James Harrington and Thomas Herbert, who were appointed to the King’s Bedchamber by parliament, were with Charles at his execution (above) and that, before he died, the king gave them watches.

John Aubrey reports on…

51BBC History Magazine

THE MAJESTY OF AVEBURY

Aubrey thought that: “Avebury excels Stonehenge as a cathedral does a parish church.” He first came across it when hunting in 1648. He took Charles II to see the stones in 1663 and the king issued a Royal Command that Stonehenge and Avebury be investigated. Aubrey says that as they were leaving Avebury, the king cast his eye on Silbury Hill, about a mile away, and asked to see it. Aubrey climbed to the top with him and showed the king his kingdom from a new prospect.

BOOK

John Aubrey: My Own Life by Ruth Scurr (Chatto & Windus, 2015)

DISCOVER MORE

Dr Ruth Scurr is a historian at the University of

Cambridge. Her books include Fatal Purity:

Robespierre and the French Revolution (Vintage,

2007). She will be speaking at the York Festival

of Ideas on 15 April yorkfestivalofideas.com

CHARLES II’S RESTORATION Aubrey wrote of the joy with which the people greeted Charles II’s restoration in 1660: “As the morning grows lighter and lighter and more glorious until it is perfect day, so now does the joy of the people. Maypoles, which were banned in hypocritical times, have been set up again at crossroads. At the Strand… the tallest maypole ever seen was erected with help from seamen.”

THE POPISH PLOT

On 20 June 1679 the Jesuit William Barrow (known as Father Harcourt) and four others accused of the ‘Popish Plot’ were executed for conspiring to kill Charles II and

subvert the Protestant religion. Aubrey recorded the story that when Father Harcourt’s entrails were tossed into the brazier (a container for burning coals) by the hangman,

“a butcher’s boy resolved to have a piece of his kidney, which was broiling in the fire, so burnt his fingers snatching it

from the flames”. After the plot, severe penal laws were introduced against Roman Catholics who would not receive the Sacrament

according to the Church of England in their parish churches.

MONMOUTH’S REBELLION Charles II died on 6 February 1685 and was succeeded by his brother James II (and VII). On 11 June 1685, Aubrey was visiting a friend at Chedzoy, Bridgewater, on the night that the Duke of Monmouth, (Charles II’s Protestant bastard son), landed at Lyme Regis to begin his rebellion. Monmouth’s soldiers broke into the house Aubrey was staying in and entered his chamber as he lay in bed. They took away horses and arms.

The Duke of Monmouth was proclaimed king at Taunton but his plan to capture Bristol was thwarted. He was captured on Shag Heath, and executed on 15 July 1685.

THE GLORIOUS REVOLUTION In November 1688, William Prince of Orange landed at Torbay. A few weeks later, James II fled England. In London, Aubrey recorded that the rabble “demolished popish chapels and the houses of several popish lords, including Wild House, the residence of the Spanish ambassador”. Aubrey was afraid the unrest would spread to Oxford and his papers would be destroyed. Fortunately this did not happen. The papers were deposited in the Ashmolean Museum before he died and transferred to the Bodleian Library, where they are still.

THE GREAT PLAGUE In June 1665 the Royal Society suspended its weekly Wednesday meetings because so many of its members had left London fearful of the plague. Aubrey commented that: “In Mr Camden’s Britannia there is a remarkable astrological observation, namely that, when Saturn is in Capricornus, a great plague is a certainty in London. Mr Camden, who died in 1623, observed this in his own time, as had others before him. This year, 1665, Saturn is so positioned, as it was during the London plague of 1625.”

Aubrey combined his belief in astrology with an interest in science. He noted that: “It is said that the party who is first infected in a family with smallpox has the disease most mildly. Those that are infected by that person have it more malignlyby degrees, and so the more who are infected, the morepestilent the disease becomes, until at last it is a plague.”

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THE FIRE OF LONDON The Great Fire of 1666 made thousands homeless, but boosted the study of antiquities. Aubrey records that he “visited the apothecary and collector John Conyers, who has premises in Shoe Lane. After the Great Conflagration he collected a world of antique curiosities during the excavations of the ruins of London. There are many Roman antiquities in his collection.” He also noted that, since the fire, many of the inscriptions in the city’s churches were not legible any more. A year after the fire he found that “all the ruins in London are overgrown with herbs, especially one with a yellow flower. On the south side of St Paul’s church it grew as thick as could be, even on the very top of the tower. The herbalists call it Ericolevis Neapolitana, small bank cresses of Naples.”


WWI eyewitness accounts

“Our First World War”In part 11 of his personal testimony series, Peter Hart takes us to April 1915, when the

Allies attempted landings at Gallipoli and the Germans unleashed a new weapon.

Peter will be tracing the experiences of 20 people who lived through the First World

War – via interviews, letters and diary entries – as the conflict’s centenary progresses

ILLUSTRATIONS BY JAMES ALBON

PART 11

Australian troops picturedamong the dead and woundedon the beach at Anzac Cove,25 April 1915

On the morning of Sunday25 April 1915, the Allied forcesmade a daring attempt toland at several beaches onthe Gallipoli peninsula. Theiraim was to brush aside theTurkish forces and overwhelmthe forts that defended theDardanelles strait. The ideawas to allow the British andFrench naval squadrons toburst through into the Sea ofMarmara, from where theycould rain down destructionon Constantinople (nowIstanbul) and knock Turkeyout of the war.

The British landed at Helles,at the tip of the peninsula, andthe French at Kum Kale, onthe Asiatic side of the strait.But most famous was thelanding by the Australians andNew Zealanders at what wouldbecome known as Anzac Cove.Corporal Thomas Louch andthe 11th (Western Australia)Battalion were part of the firstbrigade to storm ashore.

A string of lifeboats was then taken in tow by a

naval picket boat. There were four naval ratings in each boat torow the last few yards after we had cast off from the tow. Their job was then to row the boat backand pick up more troops. It was just light enough for us to see the

outline of the land, but our approach was not seen by the Turks until we were two or three hundred yards from the shore.

As the first wave approached a yellow flare went up and theTurks opened fire.

Our boat grounded just round the corner of Ari

Burnu and came under fire fromthe direction of the Sphinx [a rocky outcrop that resembled the Egyptian monument]. We leapt out and waded ashore in water up to our waists. Crerar was killed as he reached the shore. As instructed, we shed our packs, lay down and awaitedorders. Colonel Johnston, who had come in another boat, flopped down beside me and I asked him what we were to do. He said that we had landed in the wrong place, and there was no organisation. A bullet spattered into the sand just clearof our noses, and I decided that the beach, where there was no cover, was no place for dallying.

The Australians charged forward into a chaotic terrain of steep ridges riven by deep chasms. Their battalions fragmented; they were soon bogged down and facing stern

Thomas Louch

Thomas was born the son of an archdeacon in Geraldton, Australia in 1894. He worked asa law clerk in Albany, Western Australia until war broke out. As soon as he could, he joinedthe Australian Imperial Force (AIF).

Turkish resistance. Louch wasisolated in a series of shallowrifle pits in Wire Gully, just infront of the main Australianline on Second Ridge. Even indesperate circumstances theAustralians were capable ofan impressive wry humour.

Captain Croly waswounded at about this

time. He was some distanceaway to our left and out of sight– but what he had to say aboutthe Turk could be heard all overthe battlefield. In a torrent ofinvective he traced the ancestryof his assailant through a seriesof irregular liaisons right back tothe time of the Prophet.

Captain Arthur Croly’s armwas badly shattered, but hesurvived his painful injury.

After dark there was a lot of movement in front of

us. The Turks were shouting “Allah, Allah!”, blowing bugles like those used by the tram drivers in Cairo. We stood to, expecting an attack, but after a time we fired a few rounds in the direction of the noise and the Turks departed.

We were too worked up and tired to get any sleep, and the night wore on. At first light we saw Turks digging in, but they were being covered by snipers. In no time, Clayden, in the next pit, was shot in the head and my rifle was knocked out of my hand by a Turkish bullet – just as I was about to fire. My face was spattered by steel splinters which

drew blood but, though a sorry sight, I was more frightened than hurt.

Since the Sunday morning I had had nothing to drink other than the water in our water-bottles, and we had had little sleep. By Wednesday, we were so dazed that we hardly knew what we were doing.

It was a brave fight but the landings failed. The Allies had got ashore but were penned far from their objectives. Soon, trenches snaked across the peninsula. There was to be no easy route to victory at Gallipoli.

Turn the page to read our feature

on the myths of Gallipoli


BOOK

Gallipoli by Peter Hart(Profile Books, 2013)WEBSITE

You can read previousinstalments of “Our First WorldWar” at historyextra.com/ourfirstworldwarTV AND RADIO

The BBC’s First World Warcoverage is continuing –please check the TV & Radioupdates onhistoryextra.com

DISCOVER MORE

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Peter Hart is an oral historian at the

Imperial War Museum, and the

author of several books about the

First World War

APRIL 1915

NEXT ISSUE: “Bullets were hitting the sand, spraying us; we were spitting it out of our mouths.”

I don’t know how they managed,struggling along past us, heads down, not a word to each other and not a word to us.

We arrived at Ypres in the market place. Across the cobbled square was the cloth hall blazing, all in ruins. The shells were dropping and shrapnel was flying all over. We thought: “Well, this is war.”

On arrival, Dorgan and his comrades were thrown straight into the fight with an attack on the village of St Julien on the afternoon of Monday 26 April. These raw soldiers were far from ready for such an ordeal.

As we were going forward, men were being

shot down, wounded and killed.Sergeant Pick lay in the middle of a field, swearing and tearing, shouting for help. You could see chaps had gone forward to help

The western front remained of prime importance to the Germans, as they demonstrated on 22 April by launching a vicious attack using their terrible new weapon. Greenish-tinged clouds of deadly chlorine gas were unleashed on the French and Canadian troops holding the line on the low ridges in front of Ypres. In the panic that followed, the territorials of the 50th Division were thrust forward. Private Jack Dorgan was with the 1/7th Northumberland Fusiliers as they moved along roads packed with refugees.

Mainly old men, women and children. Never a

sound, just mooching along without a word; their spirit seemed to be broken. They carried mostly bedding and personal things. Children were carrying as much as they could.

Jack Dorgan

Northumberland-born Jack Dorgan was 21 years old in 1915. He had worked at Ashington Colliery for seven years before the outbreak of war. In April his battalion travelled through France to Flanders.

him because there they were lying dead in the field alongside. Yet he still kept shouting for somebody to help him. The stretcher bearers were running around carrying our wounded away, leaving the dead for later.A batch of us lay behind a hedge, resting. We never saw an enemy; never saw anybody to shoot at.

A shell dropped right in among us. When I pulled myselftogether, I found myself lying in a shell hole. There was one othersoldier who, like me, was unhurt, but two more were heavily wounded, so we shoutedfor stretcher-bearers. The other chap says to me: “We’re not all here, Jack.” So I climbed out of the shell hole and found two more of our comrades lying just a few yards away.

They had their legs blown off. All I could see was their thigh bones. I will always remember their white thigh bones; the rest of their legs were gone. Private Jackie Oliver was one of them; henever recovered consciousness. But the other, Private Bob Young, was conscious right to the last. I lay alongside of him and said: “Can I do anything foryou Bob?” He said: “Straighten my legs, Jack.” But he had no legs. I touched the bones and that satisfied him.

Then he said: “Get my wife’s photograph out of my breast pocket.” I took the photograph out and put it in his hands. He couldn’t move – he couldn’t lift a hand, couldn’t lift a finger – but he held his wife’s photo-graph on his chest. And that’s how Bob Young died.

Today on the Menin Gate memorial, their names are recorded as having no known graves. When I’ve stood and looked at them, I’ve sometimes thought: “How lucky I am to be able to be here, 70 years after.”

In his later years, Jack Dorgan took considerable umbrage at the way this terrible incident was written up by his officer.

Captain Watson Armstrong writes about

that incident where Bob Young and Jackie Oliver were killed. “Bob Young, I understand, was singing Tipperary when he died.” Which of course was nonsense! I was there when Bob Young died. He had no thoughts of singing Tipperary; his voice was getting fainter and fainter all the time until he pegged out. What the captain was trying to imply was that the morale of the Northumberlands was high – but it didn’t happen that way.

There would be many more battles for Dorgan and his comrades. The Germans were held back at Ypres, but it would be a close-run thing. The Germans were the main enemy; the western front was the main front. Gallipoli would prove a mere diversion.

“They had their

legs blown off.

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Gallipoli / Myths


THE MYTHS

GALL

Bound for failure This image, which appeared in The War Illustrated on 19 June 1915, shows a church service aboard HMS Queen Elizabeth during the ill-fated Dardanelles campaign. The caption for the image ended: “In the distance is seen the heights of the Gallipoli peninsula, where our gallant troops are fighting the empire’s battle against the Turks”


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A century after the disastrous campaign

in the Dardanelles, Gary Sheffield

challenges some commonly held

assumptions about this failed attempt to

change the course of the First World War

Complements the upcoming BBC Two documentary Gallipoli

IPOLI

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Gallipoli / Myths

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In 1930 General Sir George MacMunn wroteof Gallipoli that: “Mr Winston Churchill’sconception was magnificent.” However, hewent on to say it was also “the most damnablefolly that ever amateurs were enticed into”.

Today, it is still believed by many thatChurchill had produced a strategic master-stroke that was only let down by the poorexecution of naval and military commanders.However the weight of recent historicalscholarship has come to a very differentconclusion: that the concept (for whichChurchill was not wholly to blame) was vastlyoverambitious, that planning and intelligencewere defective, that the resilience and fightingability of the Turks was grossly underesti-mated, and that the operation was poorlyresourced. In short, far from being a brilliant,potentially war-winning strategy, it was apiece of folly that was always likely to fail.

Initially, the plan was based on British andFrench warships forcing their way throughthe Dardanelles, and eventually arriving off

The campaign was a good idea let down by poor executionWas it really a strategic master-piece – or just wishful thinking?

Myth

1

In a decidedly unglamor-ous war, Gallipoli providesa splash of colour. It was adramatic strategic stroke,

originating in the imaginationof Winston Churchill, whichsent soldiers and sailors farfrom the drab trenches ofFlanders to a romantic country– familiar, from the pages ofHomer, to the classicallyeducated officers whoserved there.

Conceived at a time whenBritain’s leaders grappled withthe unpalatable reality of dead-lock on the western front, theDardanelles campaign utilisedBritain’s major asset, seapow-er. A British-French fleet wouldforce its way through theDardanelles, the narrow straitsthat separate the Gallipolipeninsula in Europe from Asia,and reach Constantinople,capital of Germany’s allyOttoman Turkey. With Turkeyout of the war, this would aidRussia and allow a large armyprovided by Balkan states suchas Romania and Greece to beunleashed in the Balkans. Thiswould tilt the odds decisively inthe favour of the Allies.

The reality was to be verydifferent. Throwing awaystrategic surprise by bombard-ing Turkish coastal defences inFebruary 1915, the fleetsuffered heavy losses frommines and shore batterieswhen on 18 March it attemptedto force the straits. Thecampaign moved into a newphase on 25 April when theBritish 29th Division landed onthe tip of the Gallipoli penin-sula, at Cape Helles; theuntried Australian and NewZealand Corps (ANZAC) landed at what became known asAnzac Cove; and a Frenchforce landed, as a diversion,on the Asiatic shore.

While the French re-em-barked, according to plan,the men of 29th Division werepinned down at the water’sedge on the two main landingbeaches. By the end of the day,the 29th had established aprecarious toehold, but at thecost of terrible casualties. AtAnzac Cove, the Australasianspushed inland only to becounterattacked by theTurks and pushed backalmost to the beach – again, losses were heavy.

Just like on the westernfront, trench warfare ensued.Conditions were even moreprimitive, and fighting tookplace under a burning sun.Over the next few months theAllies and the Turks launchedattacks to try to breakthe deadlock, but allmet with bloody failure.

On 6 August theBritish made freshlandings at Suvla Bayand a major effort wasmade to break out ofthe Anzac Covebeachhead. Like theearlier pushes, theAugust offensive was afailure. Deciding not tothrow good money after bad,the Allies evacuated Gallipoli intwo stages, in December 1915and the following January.

The Dardanelles campaign,hi h h d i d hwhich had promised so much,

ended in disaster. Yet, for allthat, it has earned near iconicstatus. An avalanche of books,films and newspaper articleshave given it a colourfulafterlife – one in which factshave had to share space withmyth and legend. Here, overthe following pages, I willattempt to distinguish theformer from the latter.

Retreat in disarraySoldiers and guns

are evacuated fromSuvla in December

1915 after thecomplete failure of

the Dardanellescampaign


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The fighting at Gallipoli was mainly an Anzac affairIt may be the Australian casualties that are remembered inpopular history, but the conflict was a multinational campaign

Largely because of the importanceof the campaign in the shaping ofAustralian and New Zealand identity,the participation of troops of othernationalities has been marginalised inpopular memory. An even moreextreme view is that it was an Australian campaign: it is worthremembering that the ‘NZ’ in Anzac stands for ‘New Zealand’.

In reality, Gallipoli was a multina-tional operation, involving troops fromthe United Kingdom (England, Scotland, Wales and undividedIreland), Newfoundland, British India(including Gurkhas from Nepal),France, the French empire (includingnorth Africans and Senegalese),Russian Jews (who wanted to fight theOttomans as a first step to establishinga homeland in Palestine), as well asAustralians and New Zealanders, thelatter including Maori. Anzacs formeda relatively modest proportion of thetotal. The initial landing force on 25 April 1915 consisted of 18,100 men in the ANZAC Corps, 16,800 French, and 27,500 British.

The total number of British soldiers that served at Gallipoli far outnum-bered Australians. Indeed more Frenchtroops fought on the peninsula than didAustralians. However, the Australianshad the second highest casualties. The

figures for Allied killed and woundedmake sobering reading. The Britishsuffered 70,700 casualties (of which26,000 were killed); Australians, 25,700(7,800 killed); French, 23,000 (8,000killed); New Zealanders, 7,100 (2,445killed) and Indians, 5,500 (including1,682 killed).

Aside from the fighting at AnzacCove, some actions involved sizeablenumbers of troops from particularcountries. The landing at V Beach atCape Helles on 25 April involved twoIrish battalions, 1st Royal DublinFusiliers and 1st Royal MunsterFusiliers. However, two English County regiments, 2nd Hampshires and4th Worcestershires, fought there too.England, the largest and most populous part of the UK, not surprisinglyprovided the backbone of the Alliedforce on the peninsula.

The defending forces were commonlyreferred to as ‘Turks’ but this was not entirely accurate. Formally, theybelonged to the army of the Ottomanempire. Like its British and Frenchcounterparts, this was a polyglot entitywhich encompassed many differentpeoples. Greeks, Turks, Jews, Arabs andArmenian troops, and German officers, served with the Ottoman army.Nonetheless, British empire troopscalled their adversary ‘Johnny Turk’.

the Ottoman capital, Constantinople. This‘ships alone’ plan failed. Even if a militaryforce had been sent initially to support thefleet, it would have needed to be significantly larger than the one that was actually de-ployed, as it would have had to operate onboth shores of the straits, to clear the coastaldefences. Such a force was simply notavailable in March 1915.

Even if the mines in the straits had beencleared and the battleships had got through(and it was not a given that the fleet wouldarrive at Constantinople unscathed) thequestion remains: what would happen next?The foreign secretary, Sir Edward Grey,admitted it was hoped that the presence of ahostile fleet would bring about a coup d’étatthat would lead to Turkey dropping out of thewar. There is no credible evidence that such acoup would have been triggered. If that didn’thappen, and lacking soldiers to fight a groundcampaign, the fleet would have had littlechoice but to turn tail and retrace its steps,humiliated. The whole concept was founded,to a remarkable degree, on wishful thinking.

Multinational force Many different nationalities from the British and Frenchempires fought in the Dardanelles. Here Indian troops are seen at Cape Helles


“Recent scholarship

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The August Offensive nearly succeeded in breaking thedeadlock on the peninsulaIn fact the so-called ‘lost victory’ never stood a chance

On the night of 6/7 August 1915British IX Corps was landed atSuvla Bay as part of a major effortto break the deadlock on theGallipoli peninsula. Legend has itthat it failed by a narrow margin,and that a wonderful opportunityto win the campaign was missed.

British troops, despite facingminimal opposition, failed topush on boldly off the beaches.As a result the Ottomans wereable to move troops to seal off thepotential breakthrough. Worse,while the British were, accordingto one version, brewing tea on thebeaches, Australian soldiers werefighting and dying in a diversionat Lone Pine and a major attackon Sari Bair ridge. The failure atSuvla ensured the Anzac assaultwould also fail.

Thus was lost the chance ofthe Allies finally breakingthrough the Turkish trenches,reaching the west bank of theDardanelles and commencing theclearance of the coastal defencesprior to the fleet finally forcing itsway through the straits andheading for Constantinople.

This ‘lost victory’ view is afantasy. The main attack waslaunched from Anzac Cove, not

Suvla. Britain’s IX Corps was putashore not to carry out somegreat Napoleonic masterstroke,aiming deep at the Ottoman rear,but to secure the bay as a logisticbase for the operations againstSari Bair and beyond. Lieutenant-General Sir Frederick Stopfordwas clearly not the most dynamicof commanders, but he cannot beblamed for failing to convert anoperation intended to do onething into something entirelydifferent. What happened atSuvla had no bearing on the bitterstruggle for Sari Bair.

The attack failed there becausethe plan was deeply flawed andimmediately went awry. Even ifSari Bair had been taken andheld, as Australian historianRhys Crawley has shown inmeticulous detail, the obstaclesthat remained were formidable:punishing terrain to be crossed,insufficient numbers of troopsand guns, woefully inadequatelogistic support, and a deter-mined and tenacious enemy.

These factors meant that, farfrom the August Offensive failingnarrowly, the plan was horriblyoverambitious and effectivelydoomed from the beginning.

The fiasco turnedAustralia from a Britishcolony into a nationDid one event really forge Australia’s identity?

Australia emerged as a nation on 25 April 1915. On thisfirst Anzac Day, nationhood was baptised with the bloodof young Australians sacrificed by incompetent Britishcommanders – or so a crude version of the origins ofAustralian nationalism argues. The reality was morecomplex. April 1915 was an important moment in theemergence of an Australian identity, in particular inAustralians defining themselves in opposition to theEnglish. However, most Australians throughout the FirstWorld War, and long after, regarded themselves as in somesense ‘British’.

A critical figure in the emergence of Australian identitywas Charles Bean. He served as official Australian warcorrespondent at Gallipoli and onthe western front, and after the warwrote influential volumes of officialhistory. Bean celebrated theordinary ‘digger’ (slang for soldier),highlighting the values of ‘mate-ship’, courage, ‘larrikinism’(spirited irreverence) and disre-spect for authority, and the fact thatAustralians were natural soldiers.He drew a clear comparison with English troops, and, inJenny Macleod’s words (in her book Gallipoli: Making

History), helped “codify what it was to be anralian”. Gallipoli thus became a keyoint in the transformation fromritish colony to nation. Historiansave critiqued this ‘Anzac Legend’: the

posedly egalitarian nature of theustralian Imperial Force has beenxaggerated, while larrikinism shadedinto racism and criminality.

As for the idea of natural soldiers,Anzac forces were poorly trainedand badly disciplined, which toldagainst them when faced with

etermined Turks on 25 April.Australian troops in time becamehighly effective, but this was largelythe product of experience, training,and tactical and technologicalimprovements common to Britishempire armies. Nonetheless, a crudeversion of the Anzac legend hasembedded itself in Australian

ular culture – Peter Weir’s 1981 filmipoli is an example – and in the lateand early 21st centuries helped fuelralian nationalism.


“A crude version

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BOOKS

Gallipoli: Making History byJenny Macleod, ed, (Routledge, 2014) Gallipoli: The End of the Mythby Robin Prior (Yale, 2009)TELEVISION

A BBC Two documentary, Gallipoli,is due to air in April on BBC Two

DISCOVER MORE

Turn the page for an interview with

Australian writer Peter FitzSimons

about his new book on Gallipoli

It was a heroic-

romantic campaign

Early historians glamorisedGallipoli, but fighting there differedlittle from the western front

The experience of the ordinary British soldierat Gallipoli did not differ in essentials fromhis counterpart on the western front.However, in contrast to the Somme andPasschendaele, the British have constructedwhat historian Jenny Macleod has called a“heroic-romantic myth” around the fightingat the Dardanelles.

It joins a select band of aspects of the FirstWorld War that have received this treatment– the exploits of air aces over the trenches andTE Lawrence’s role in the Arab Revolt are twoothers. The bloody attritional battles on thewestern front simply did not lend themselvesto being romanticised, although heroic actsby individuals were plentiful.

Why Gallipoli was treated this way is acomplex question. Some, at least ex-publicschool officers, were thrilled to be fightingalmost within sight of the ruins of Troy, anarea which had a glamour absent from, say,the slag heaps and mining cottages of theLoos area of northern France.

Perhaps looking back on glorious defeatin an enterprise that apparently came closeto shortening the war offered somepsychological compensation for veterans of

Gary Sheffield is professor of war studies at the

University of Wolverhampton. His books on the

First World War include A Short History of the

First World War (Oneworld, 2014)


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the campaign and for the bereaved. Certainlysome of the key figures in romanticisingGallipoli through their writings, men suchas General Sir Ian Hamilton, whocommanded the Allied forces, and WinstonChurchill, had good reason to rewrite historyto defend their reputations.

For the ordinary soldier the campaign wasbereft of glory and romance. Instead therewere primitive trenches that were so close tothe beaches that even in rear areas it wasimpossible ever to be completely free ofdanger, vermin, dust that got into food andtea, and the ever-present flies: “They were allaround your mouth and on any cuts or soresyou’d got, which all turned septic through it,”Private Harold Boughton remembered.

Above all there was the fear of death andwounding, the strain of combat, and of coursethe awful sights and sounds produced by20th-century industrialised warfare. PrivateErnest Lye wrote of “the cries of the woundedand see[ing corpses] rotting in the glare of thesun”. These were the aspects of Gallipoli thathave been airbrushed out of the potentheroic-romantic myth.

“Corpses rotting in

the sun… have been

airbrushed out of the

heroic-romantic myth”

Little sign of glory At rest in the trenches, Suvla Plain, August 1915. Despite trench warfare conditions similar to those of the western front, the Dardanelles campaign was romanticised afterwards

Myth

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No lost victory British gunners at Suvla.

The purpose of landing troops at Suvla Bay has frequently

been misunderstood


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their pocket every night, so they were the firstin line. Tragically a lot of soldiers got venerealdisease and were sent home in disgrace.

Were the Australian troops surprised

by the ferocity of the fighting that they

encountered at Gallipoli?

I think so. It was certainly hell on earth. Atthe battle of the Nek [on 7 August] you hadAustralian soldiers charging about 50 yardsacross open ground with no bullets in theirrifles into open machine gun fire and artillery.

And yet the veterans of Gallipoli who thenwent on to the western front all said: “Look,we thought Gallipoli was bad but we’ve got tothe western front and realised we didn’t knowanything.” There, the German artillery was sooverwhelming and so precise that someAustralians almost looked back on Gallipoliwith nostalgia. We lost 46,000 killed on thewestern front, which almost makes the 9,000lost at Gallipoli pale into insignificance. Butstill Gallipoli is writ so large in the Australian

Why do you think that so many

Australians volunteered to fight

in the war in Europe?

The romantic reason was to fight for Britain– and that was certainly true of many of them.Andrew Fisher, who became Australian primeminister (for a third time) soon after the warbegan, proclaimed to great acclaim: We willfight for Great Britain to the “last man andthe last shilling”. There were lots of patriotswho left accounts saying that the mothercountry had called on her lion cubs to cometo her aid and that’s what they were doing.

Others joined for adventure and still othersjoined – and this was not an insignificantreason – for “six shillings a day, mate”. Itwasn’t bad pay. The British soldier was gettingpaid just one shilling a day. In my book I tellthe story of the Australians who wentabsolutely crazy in the red light district ofCairo. Our soldiers were very well known inthe city and all the ladies of the night wantedan Australian because they had six shillings in

Australian writer Peter FitzSimons, author of a new history of

Gallipoli, talks to Rob Attar about the experiences of his

compatriots in the battle and explains why it has become

such a defining moment in the country’s history

Tales of the diggersListen to

PeterFitzSimons

ON TH EPODCAST

Why does the battle of Gallipoli seem to

have so much more importance for

Australians than for people in Britain?

In 1901 all the colonies of Australia cametogether to become a country but there wasa view at the time that you weren’t a seriousnation until you had shed blood – both yourown and that of your enemies.

Our great revered poet, Banjo Paterson,wrote a poem when the news came throughof the Gallipoli landings: “…We’re not State children any more/We’re all Australiansnow…!/The mettle that a race can show/Isproved with shot and steel,/And now we know what nations know/And feel what nationsfeel…” There in that poem you have got the”exultation that took place in Australia; ourdiggers (slang for Antipodean soldiers) hadfought for the British empire and they haddone well. There is a pretty strong argument– which I have come to believe in – that whileAustralians went to that war as loyal sons ofGreat Britain, they came back as Australians.

Galllipoli // Interview Australian troops (widely known as‘Diggers’) at Anzac Cove in April 1915.Their exploits at Gallipoli would help toforge a nation, says Peter FitzSimons

BBC History

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psyche. I think if you tapped most Australians for their military knowledge, 90 per cent of it would start and finish at Gallipoli and 90 per cent of that would centre on the first day.

How did the Australians view the Turks

they were fighting?

Early on they had little respect for them: “Let us at these Turks and we’ll sort them out.” Yet, even though the Ottoman empire was on its knees by this time, it was nevertheless an empire with hundreds of years of martial tradition. These men knew what they were doing; they believed in their cause; they were very courageous and fought very hard.

The story I most love in my book concerns an incident on 24 May 1915. After one month of fighting, no man’s land at Anzac Cove was filled with stinking dead bodies, and a truce was arranged. Both sides came up waving flags and the Turks and Australians began to talk to each other. The Turks had one particular question for the Australians, which was: “Who are you?” The Australians would explain: “We’re from Australia.” “Yes, yes we know that,” the Turks would reply, “we looked in the atlas, but why are you here?” And then the Australians would have to explain about being part of the British empire.

The Turks had a respect for the Australians because they knew the punishment they had taken and still held on. And the Australians had a respect for the Turks because they saw the way they kept charging onto their guns, which was extremely courageous. From then on there was empathy between the two sides.

Three days after that meeting, something thumped in front of the Australian trenches and for the first time it didn’t explode. It was a package with a note that said: “To our heroic enemies.” Inside were Turkish cigarettes, which our blokes smoked and thought were pretty good. They wanted to send something back and all they could find were cans of bully beef – some dating back to the Boer War, reputedly. They threw some over to the Turks and a minute later it cameback with a note: “No morebully beef!”

Recently I was speaking toour former prime ministerBob Hawke and I asked himwhat was the most movingtime in his period of office.He said that it was the

75th anniversary of the Gallipoli landings, in 1990. They flew back 53 diggers – most of whom were 90 or 95 years old – and when they got there, who should pull up, but 100-odd Turkish soldiers of the same vintage?These two groups of very old men walked towards each other across the same no man’s land where they had first met 75 years earlier. Our blokes put out their hands – let bygones be bygones – but that wasn’t good enough for the Turks. They pushed away their hands andgave them bear hugs, kissing them on both cheeks. There was still this extraordinary respect between the Turks and Australians.

That’s a remarkable story, considering

that the Australians had originally

come to invade their country...

It’s very interesting you use that phrase. In my introduction, I explain how, like most Australians, I took Gallipoli in with my mother’s milk. I studied it at school and at university. It’s in my bones, part of the Australian birthright.

Then, in 1999, I was listening to ABC Radio in the car and a historian said, “when Australia invaded Turkey” and I just about

ran off the road! ‘Invaded’ seemed like such an ugly word but then thinking

about it that’s what it was, really. But inAustralia we just didn’t think of it as an invasion – I dare say similar to the fact that we still don’t think of our dis-

possession of the indigenous people as an invasion. But

what else would you call it if you were an indigenous

person and you saw the big ships arrive?

One debate you

bring out in the

book is the

question of how

‘Invaded’ seemed

like such an

ugly word, but

that is what it

was, really. Yet

in Australia we

didn’t think of it

as an invasion

61

Peter FitzSimons is an Australian journalist and

author whose work includes several history books

BOOK

Gallipoli by Peter FitzSimons(Bantam Press, 2015)

DISCOVER MORE

Listen to more from this interview withPeter FitzSimons on the History Extra podcast this month www.historyextra.com/podcasts

ON THE PODCAST

heroic the Australian troops really

were at Gallipoli. Have you formed a

view about that issue?

Cecil Aspinall-Oglander was on the staff of [Gallipoli commander] General Hamilton and became a British war historian after-wards. He wrote that some of the Australians had run away on that first day – which does not fit with our national image – but I imagine that some of it was true.

I often wonder what I would have done if I had been in the third wave at the battle of the Nek. The first wave of 150 Australian soldiers was just completely slaughtered, as was the second one. If I would have been in the third wave, would I have given in to civilian sanity and said: “I’m not going to do that. My job is not to give my life for my country, my job is to make some other poor bastard give his life for his country”? Had I landed on the shores of Gallipoli, looked up and seen machine guns firing and shrapnel coming down at me, what would I have done? The numbers are disputed, but certainly some Australians gave in to that and refused to fight – just as I dare say some Brits did at Cape Helles – but the majority went forwards.

Against all the accusations of cowardice, when I go to Anzac Cove and see that beach, I look up and think: “God help me, how the hell did those bastards hold on for as long as they did? They never had the higher ground, never had sufficient supplies, never had as many machine gun bullets, or as much artillery, or as many men.” There is no doubt the Australians did very well, as did the Kiwis and the Brits, to hold on against overwhelm-ing numbers.

How do you think we should remember

the Gallipoli campaign now?

I strongly believe that we should commemo-rate, not celebrate, this centenary. When I wander through the graveyards and see the ages of those who died and read about the circumstances of their deaths, I feel that we need to understand their world, what they did and why it happened. As that great line from Rudyard Kipling says: “Lest we forget.”

Turkish andAustralian troopsgrew to respect

each other,says Peter

FitzSimons,pictured

here

to the digital edition

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king johnby William Shakespeare

at temple church 10 – 19 april

at shakespeare’s globe 1 – 27 june

#KingJohn #MagnaCarta

A co-production between Shakespeare’s Globe

and Royal & Derngate, Northampton

Also performing at Salisbury Cathedral, Salisbury Festival

and Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Northampton


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Experts discuss and review the latest history releases

BOOKS Steven Weinberg photographed at theUniversity of Texas. “We build on thepast, and that, I think, is one of thereasons why the writing of science islegitimately different from art history or even political history,” he says

Photography by

Matt Valentine

INTERVIEW / STEVEN WEINBERG

“The history of science can prevent us

from making the mistakes of the past”

Steven Weinberg talks to Matt Elton about his new book which explores thousands of years of scientific discovery, from the ancient Greeks to the present day


Books / Interview

STEVEN WEINBERGBorn in New York City in 1933, Weinberg began his career at the University

of California, Berkeley before lecturing at institutions including Harvard and

the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His work in the field of theoretical

physics has won numerous awards, perhaps most notably the Nobel Prize in

Physics in 1979. He is currently a professor at the University of Texas at Austin.

What inspired you to write this book?

I had been teaching an undergraduate coursein the history of physics and astronomy forstudents who didn’t already know a lot aboutit. As I taught, I became aware that things inthe past were quite different from what I hadthought. It’s not true to say that scientistswere reaching for the same goals as us andthat they were simply not getting as close aswe’ve come. In fact, they really had no ideaof the kind of things that can be learnedabout the world and the way to learn it. AndI began to see the history of science not asthe accumulation of facts and theories, but asthe learning of a way of interacting withnature that leads to reliable knowledge.It’s surprised me how far the great naturalscientists of the past were from anything likeour modern conception of science.

Heading to the start of this story, how

much do we owe the ancient Greeks?

I think the people of the scientific revolutionowed them a tremendous amount, particu-larly the Greeks of the Hellenistic (roughlythe third, second and first centuries BC) andRoman periods. For example, Copernicusdid not base his theory of the Earth goingaround the sun on his own observations orthose of his contemporaries in Europe, buton the earlier work of the Greeks, particularlyPtolemy. He saw that Ptolemy’s theory couldbe rectified and made understandable by justchanging the point of view from a stationaryEarth to a stationary sun with the Earthorbiting it. The peculiarities of Ptolemy’stheory were simply due to the fact that weobserve the solar system from a movingplatform – the Earth. But Copernicus madeno significant observations of his own: he

was relying on what Ptolemy had alreadydone. There are many similar examples, too.

However, while we refer to Isaac Newton’swork to explain the mechanics of motionand gravity in physics courses today, wedon’t go back to the Greeks. They are part ofour heritage, but their value was mostly inmaking the scientific revolution of the16th and 17th centuries possible.

Why were the ancient Greeks able to

produce so much important work?

Well, not all of them were. The period thatmany people think of as the golden age ofancient Greece – the Hellenic period (thefifth and fourth centuries BC), when Athenswas at the centre of intellectual life – was notvery productive, scientifically. They madesome qualitative advances (for example, thephilosopher and scientist Aristotle gave anice argument for why the Earth is a sphere)but the detailed mathematical confrontationof theory and observation we associate withmodern physics and astronomy didn’t exist.That began in the Hellenistic period, whenthe centre of Greek thought moved toAlexandria, and the Greek city-states wereabsorbed into empires, first the Hellenistickingdoms and then the Roman empire.

I don’t know precisely why the changehappened at that point. Greek thought ingeneral took a less aristocratic tone, andpeople who did science also began to beconcerned with its practical application.They also became much less religious: thereligiosity you find in the work of Plato,which is largely gone with Aristotle, seems tobe completely absent by the time you get tothe great Hellenistics leading up to Ptolemy.

How far did the Middle Ages set the

ground for the scientific revolution?

The Middle Ages certainly provided an insti-tutional framework in the form of the greatuniversities. Copernicus was educated at

universities in Italy; Galileo taught at Paduaand was then a professor at Pisa, although hedidn’t teach; Newton was always associatedwith the University of Cambridge. Theseuniversities were offshoots of the cathedralschools that had begun a kind of intellectualrevolution in the 11th century in Europe.They kept alive the idea of a rationaluniverse governed by law, and in particularwhen the teachings of Aristotle becamefirmly fixed in the academic curriculum,the idea of a rational, understandable worldbecame dominant in European thought.

But it wasn’t a scientific world. No onein the Middle Ages really had anythingapproaching our modern conception ofscience, and they made very little progresstowards actual scientific knowledge. Therewere arguments about the possible movementeof the Earth, but in the end they didn’t leadto anything like the Copernican theory. TheMiddle Ages was not an intellectual desert,but it wasn’t a period that resembles eitherthe Hellenistic age that went before or thescientific revolution that came afterwards.

What was the contribution of Islamic

thinkers in this period?

After the decline of the Roman empire in thewest, science became, I would say, ineffectiveand largely absent in the Greek half of theRoman empire. You find no scientific work – at least, I’m not aware of any – duringabout 1,000 years of the Byzantine empire.During that period, science was kept alivein the world of Islam, first in the form oftranslations of the great accomplishmentsof the Greeks, and in original work that builton and improved on what the Hellenistic and Roman Greeks had done.

Some of it was very impressive: I think ofthe work of al-Haytham in optics, who forthe first time understood why light is bentwhen it goes, for example, from air intowater. However, although Islamic science inone form or another continued for a few cen-turies, its golden age was really pretty muchover by 1100. If you list the great names ofIslamic science, they’re all before that date.

Why that’s the case is an endlesslyinteresting issue. It may have something todo with the appearance of a fiercer version ofIslam: for example, Spain was taken over bypeople from north Africa who formed theAlmohad caliphate, which was extremelyrepressive. There were episodes in which

“The study of the

history of science

is the best antidote

to the philosophy

of science”

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PROFI LE

The developmentof scientific thought – broadly, theattempt to make sense of the physicaluniverse – is generally understoodto have undergone particularly rapidprogress in two periods. The ancientGreek world saw contributions fromfigures including polymath Ptolemy,while the developments of the 16thand 17th-century scientific revolutionwere generated by thinkers includingphysicists and mathematicians IsaacNewton and Galileo Galilei, astronomerNicolaus Copernicus and philosopherand scientist René Descartes.

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books of scientific or medical techniquewere burned by Islamic authorities, and the11th-century philosopher and theologianAl-Ghazali argued explicitly against sciencebecause he saw it as a distraction from Islam.

So had Islamic science run out of steam,or was it suppressed by changes in Islam?I don’t know the answer, but it’s a similarquestion to that about Greek science. Didthat simply run out of steam around 400 or500 AD, or was it suppressed by the adoptionof Christianity? I think that there are goodarguments on both sides of both questions.

Are there any characters in this story

that particularly stand out for you?

If I understand that in the sense of who I’dlike to have a beer with, Christiaan Huygensis a strong contender. He was a 17th-centuryDutch polymath who did a huge variety ofthings: he discovered the rings of Saturn andthe formula for centrifugal force, heinvented the pendulum clock... I could go on!

But what stands out for me is that he veryexplicitly understood the relationshipbetween science and mathematics in a waythat had always been muddled. Before him,and perhaps a few other people around at thesame sort of time, there had been a largebody of thought that felt that science was abranch of mathematics and that its truths

could be determined by purely mathemati-cal reasoning. This goes all the way back toPlato, who thought that it wasn’t necessaryto look at the sky in order to do astronomy – that pure reason was all you needed.

Huygens specifically said, we can onlymake our assumptions because we intend towork on their consequences and see if theyagree with observation – and if they don’t,we will abandon them. This attitude is oneyou just don’t find very much before.

I also think I’d have liked Ptolemy: heexpressed his joy of astronomy in a way thatwas lovely. In just a few lines he wrote that,when he studied the wheeling motions of theplanets, he felt his feet leave the ground andstood with the gods drinking nectar.

Are there any misconceptions about

science and its history that you’d like

this book to change?

One misconception that’s been foisted onus by a generation of philosophers of scienceis the idea of the 20th-century physicistand philosopher Thomas Kuhn that scienceundergoes discontinuous changes afterwhich it’s impossible to understand thescience of a former age. I think that’s wrong.I think that, even though you can marvel atthe importance of every great change inphysics, you see the roots of that change in

what went before – and you don’t forgetabout it. Indeed, you see the new theoryas an improvement on the old theory, not an abandonment of it.

We build on the past, and that, I think, isone of the reasons why the writing of scienceis different from art history or even politicalhistory. We can’t say that the Impressionistswere right to abandon the photographicrealism of the Romantic period, or that theNorman conquest was a ‘good’ thing. Thatkind of judgment is silly. On the other hand,we can certainly say that Newton was rightand Descartes was wrong about what keepsthe planets going around the sun – there is adefinite sense of discovering right and wrong.

That’s another important point: science isnot just an expression of a cultural milieu, assome historians and sociologists of sciencehave argued. It’s the discovery of truths thatare out there to be discovered, and it can helpprevent us from making the same mistakesas the past. As I was once crass enough to say,

the study of the history ofscience is the best antidote tothe philosophy of science.

To Explain the World:

The Discovery of Modern

Science by Steven Weinberg

(Allen Lane, 432 pages, £20)

“It’s surprised me how far the

great natural scientists of the

past were from anything like our

modern conception of science”

In partnership with the National Maritime Museum and National Museum of the Royal Navy

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dealt the fatal blow to Vice-Admiral Nelson generously

lent by Her Majesty The Queen from the Royal

Collection; alongside fine art, models, original letters,

plans and a stunning decorative sword on loan from the

National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.

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The Fall of the Ottomans

by Eugene RoganAllen Lane, 512 pages, £25

In his 1950 bookPortrait of a TurkishFamily, Irfan Orga re-called a family row in1914 as war broke out.His father proposedthey sell their homeand business. “Non-sense!” his grandma

snapped, “Why should a war in Europemake any difference in our lives?”

As Eugene Rogan recounts in this

clear, authoritative book, others wereless sure. A Lebanese cleric noted inAugust 1914 how people in his villagefeared “the outbreak of a murderouswar that would devour the cultivatedlands and the dry earth”. Sadly, theywere right. Orga’s grandmother wouldlose two sons: one was Orga’s father,who died en route to the Dardanelles.

As the Gallipoli centenary approaches,this is a new history of the war in theMiddle East. Whereas most previousworks have focused on the Allied sideof individual campaigns, Rogan offersan Ottoman perspective, describinga failing empire beset by secessionists

encouraged by circling foreign powers.As with his superb The Arabs: A History(Penguin, 2011), this book is distin-guished by its ambitious scope anduse of Turkish and Arabic sourcesthat will be new to most British readers.I learned a huge amount.

Central to Rogan’s story is EnverPasha, leader of political reformmovement the Young Turks. Rogan’sdescription of Enver is vivid; it’s just ashame that those of other charactersdon’t match it.

An over-confident chancer, Enveronce removed a prime minister atgunpoint and “contemplated marchingthrough Afghanistan to India”. Enverhad wanted to stand back and let theGreat Powers destroy one another. Buthis attempt to do so via secret dealswith both Germany and Russia wasruined by the independent-mindedGerman commander who sailed offwith two warships and bombarded theRussian port of Sevastopol.

The Ottomans were thus dragged intoa war that would destroy them. Eggedon by the Germans, the sultan, in hisrole as caliph, declared a jihad againsttheir common enemy. The Germanshoped that the call would turn millionsof Muslims into a liability for the Britishand French empires in which they lived.

From then on, “much of the Alliedwar effort in the Middle East was drivenby what proved to be an unwarrantedfear of jihad,” says Rogan. Britain’s con-sequent desire to quickly eliminate theOttomans explains why Gallipoli waschosen a landing site. “Win the ridge

and we should win the Narrows,” anAnzac officer wrote. “Open the Nar-rows to the navy and Constantinople

was ours.”The British underestimated both the

geography and their opponents, whomRussia had just hammered in the Cau-casus. “The country is much more dif-ficult than I imagined,” admitted Kitch-ener, when finally he saw the battlefield

The end of the OttomansJAME S BARR commends an account of how a historic, butweakened, empire was finished off by the First World War

“Eugene Rogan’s

book is distinguished

by its ambition”BR

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First World War Ottoman troops shelter in trenches in the Dardanelles. “While most previousworks have focused on the Allied side, Rogan offers an Ottoman perspective,” says Barr

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Books / Reviews

Arrogance and atrocityGARY SHEFFIELD admires a fresh interpretation of Germany’s ambitions of taking Moscow during the Second World War

The Battle for Moscow

by David StahelCambridge University Press, 455 pages, £25

Operation Barbarossa,the German invasionof the Soviet Union in 1941, rested on flimsy foundations. Axis forces needed to smash the Red Army quickly, in the USSR’s borderlands. Other-

wise the Germans, at the end of lengthy supply lines, would be at a huge disad-vantage in the fighting. Arguably, by failing to win decisively in June and July 1941, Hitler’s army lost the war in the east, although it took four bloody years before the Soviets sealed the victory.

A chance for the Germans to turn the tables when Army Group Centre pushed into the outskirts of Moscow in Novem-ber failed after a counterattack on5 December by fresh Red Army forces. The near-success of Operation Typhoon, the German drive on Moscow, was thus one of the great ‘might have beens’ of the war – or so received wisdom has it.

David Stahel, in his excellent book, shows that this ‘missed opportunity’ theory has no basis in fact. The effort of getting forces to Moscow gravely weakened the attackers, which put a major assault on the heavily fortified city beyond their capabilities. In military jargon, the advance had ‘culminated’.Marshal Georgi Zhukov was able to say to Stalin with complete confidence: “We will, without fail, hold Moscow.” Soviet high command amassedsignificant reserves in the Moscow sector, which were unleashed withdevastating effect against the attackers slogging forward.

Stahel exploits German archives to great effect to tell his story. His tracing of the influence of the experience of theFirst World War on the German

decision-makers of 1941 is particularly interesting. Tannenberg, the great battleof encirclement against tsarist forces in 1914, was interpreted in cultural and racial terms as an example of Germans using skilful manoeuvre to overcome greater numbers of Russian barbarians. This fed into the ludicrous over- confidence of Barbarossa. Another battle that influenced German thinking in1941 was the Marne, the turning point on the western front in September 1914. This was viewed (erroneously) as a great missed opportunity; if German commanders had held their nerve and pushed on rather than retreating, things could have been very different. This ‘Marne complex’ shaped the thinking that kept German armies pushing towards Moscow.

Stahel writes well. He is particularly good on the war of annihilation wagedby German forces, with soberingly graphic descriptions of atrocities. He also provides fascinating detail about the daily life of ordinary German soldiers many miles away from their loved ones. This sensitive handling of such material means this is not just a significant piece of scholarship, but a readable one.

Gary Sheffield is author of d A Short History

of the First World War (Oneworld, 2014)

himself. “I don’t order you to fight, I order you to die,” barked Mustapha Kemal. His tenacious soldiers obeyed, in appalling numbers. Gallipoli casualty figures show that ‘Little Mehmet’ was twice as likely to die once wounded as his Tommy counterpart.

Far from bringing the war to an early close, Gallipoli prolonged it. The victory led Bulgaria to join the Central Powers, establishing a direct link between Istan-bul and Berlin. The Turks embarked ona massacre of their Armenian subjects, who had rebelled simultaneously.

The British tried to put off any em-boldened jihadis by throwing themselvesat Baghdad. It ended in the humiliating surrender at Kut. In an example of how

“The war had profound

consequences for

the Middle East.

The Ottoman empire

was carved up”

COMING SOON…

“Next issue’s reviews span a huge range of history, from the

ancient Greeks to the life of a Cold War scientist (and possible

spy). Plus, I’ll be talking to David Starkey about Magna Carta,

his look at the story behind the famous charter and its

continuing importance today. ” Matt Elton, reviews editor

Rogan knits together different fronts, he argues that the surrender was forcedon the British by a Turkish general try-ing to salvage Ottoman prestige afteranother cataclysmic Caucasus defeat.

It was not until late 1916 that British fortunes improved, after the outbreak of the Arab revolt in Mecca. In 1917 the Turks, ground down by disease, famine, pyrrhic victories and still more terrible defeats, lost Baghdad then Jerusalem.More enterprising tactics, including theextensive use of deception, helped secure British victories in Palestine that hadeluded the plodding planners of Gallipoli.

The irony was that, while the fighting in the Middle East had no impact on the final outcome of the war, the outcome of the war had profound consequences forthe Middle East. The Ottoman empire was carved up by its vengeful European rivals, along lines devised secretly in thewar, creating the states, and enmities,that we recognise today.

James Barr is author of A Line in the Sand:

Britain, France and the Struggle that Shaped

the Middle East (Simon & Schuster, 2012)t

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German soldiers pictured in Russia, c1941. David Stahel’s

book shows how “the effort of getting forces to Moscow

gravely weakened the attackers”


“Beckert’s book lets us

see how the tectonic

plates of globalisation

were shifting”BR

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Fields of goldFRANK TRENTMANN on a compelling account that traces the growth of theworldwide cotton industry, and the regional problems caused by its success

Empire of Cotton

by Sven BeckertAllen Lane, 640 pages, £30

Cotton was first grownand made into cloth5,000 years ago inwhat is today Pakistan.The ancient Greeksadmired Indian cotton;it flowered in Mexicoand Peru before theEuropean conquest;

and, in China, many people were wearingit by 1650. Europeans knew it then as thefruit of the ‘vegetable lamb’ but virtuallyno one was able to enjoy its soft touchand, instead, dressed in linen or wool.

By the 19th century, Europeans hadseized control of cotton. In recent years,historians have shown how importedIndian cottons with their bright coloursand artistic patterns set in motion majorchanges in taste, fashion, sociability andtechnology in 18th-century Britain. SvenBeckert’s interests lie elsewhere. The risein demand is a backdrop to a larger storyof how Europeans came to take over pro-duction and connect land and labour ina new European-dominated world order.By the mid-20th century that controlhad, once again, been lost to Asia.

A generation ago, economic historiansdowngraded the ‘industrial revolution’to slow and gradual growth, turningtheir attention away from big indus-tries and factories to smaller trades andworkshops. Empire of Cotton returnsour attention to the fabric at the heartof industrial capitalism by giving it newrelevance to our times. Unlike any othermaterial, cotton linked factories at homewith millions of slaves and peasantscultivating the fibre across the world.Britain did not only seize spinning andweaving from India, but worked hard tocontrol cultivation and supply. Capital,land and labour were integrated in apreviously unknown and uneven globalsystem. This ambitious and compelling

book lets us see how the tectonic plates of globalisation were shifting.

What emerges is not an older story ofBritain’s ‘genius’ for innovation and ex-change, but the centrality of war, empireand violence. In the late 18th century,cultivation was extended to the WestIndies, and afterwards to Brazil and theUnited States. The British East IndiaCompany used taxes and coercion tomake Indian weavers work for them ex-clusively. When the American Civil Warled to the reduction of US cotton exports,British state power again helped, by ex-panding cultivation in India, redefiningcontracts and squeezing common land.

One of the delights of this book is itsgeographic range. Profits made by Britishcotton-masters set off an internationalrace to develop the next generation offactories. Why did such projects succeedin Belgium and Mexico but fail in Egypt?

‘War capitalism’, to use Beckert’s term,enabled a nation to attract factories butwas not enough, on its own, for industrialdevelopment. That also needed favour-able institutions, such as wage labour anda state capable of protecting its own mar-ket while it nursed infant industries toadulthood. Egypt had neither whereas, in Mexico, the state policed the marketplace.

In the early 20th century, control ofcotton started moving back to where ithad been before the industrial revolu-tion: Asia. Rising labour costs pricedEuropean cotton textiles out of the worldmarket. Wages in Japan, Beckert remindsus, were even lower than those in India.Spindles also multiplied in China, manyowned by Japanese firms. Today, almosthalf the world’s spindles and looms standin China. Once again, the state plays a central role in development.

So soft on the skin, cotton has a his-tory drenched in violence, enslavementand suffering. Recent deaths in Asianfactories are reminders that inhumaneworking conditions persist, while peoplein rich and developing countries buy evercheaper clothes ever more frequently.

Frank Trentmann, Birkbeck

Workers on a plantation in the US state of Georgia, 1895. Sven Beckert’s historyof cotton “returns our attention to the fabric at the heart of industrial capitalism”


Books / Reviews

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power and the brutal conditions in theearly concentration camps. The authorsteers a confident course, telling his story with considerable flair.

There are a few minor caveats. Given the book’s relatively short timeframe,there is some repetition and it sometimes feels a little padded. Also, for all itsthoroughness, it would have benefitedfrom a look at Dachau’s later develop-ment, particularly as that early phase wasinfluential in the reorganisation andregulation of the entire camp system.

More seriously, the extent to whichRyback can legitimately describe thosekilled at Dachau in April 1933 as the “first victims of the Holocaust” is highlydebatable. They were Jewish, but alsocommunist sympathisers, and, marketing

In search of the truthROGER MOORHOUSE on an engaging study exploring oneman’s investigation of the early brutality of the Nazi regime

How to catch your manJOANNA BOURKE learns how to be the ‘perfect 1950s woman’in a book that evocatively explores the tensions of the decade

Hitler’s First Victims and

One Man’s Race for Justice

by Timothy W RybackBodley Head, 288 pages, £16.99

On 13 April 1933,a Munich deputyprosecutor, JosefHartinger, was calledin to investigate anincident at a ‘detentionfacility’, where fourprisoners had beenshot, apparently trying

to escape. That ‘facility’ was Dachau, oneof a rash of so-called ‘wild’ concentra-tion camps set up to intimidate politicalopponents after Adolf Hitler’s rise topower that year. Its prisoners were amongthe first of Hitler’s millions of victims.

This engaging and illuminating booktells the story of Hartinger’s investiga-tion. In Dachau, under the psychopathicSS-commandant Hilmar Wäckerle,prisoner abuses and even murder wereintegral to the regime. Most of Dachau’svictims that spring bore horrific wounds

Perfect Wives in Ideal Homes:

The Story of Women in the 1950s

by Virginia NicholsonViking, 544 pages, £16.99

An 11-page pamphlet in1951 told women how to snare a husband. Incapital letters, they weretold: “NEVER TALKABOUT YOURSELF”and reminded: “It is oftennecessary to lose in order

to win.” Doe-eyed women were informed:

caused by regular, systematic beatings.Clearly Wäckerle and his men consideredthemselves above the law.

To some extent, they were. Hartingerwas conservatively-minded, but hebelieved in the German republic and so,unlike many colleagues, pursued Naziand communist miscreants with equalvigour. His efforts to uncover the truthwould reveal not only Nazi barbarity, buta Bavarian judiciary and politicalestablishment already compromised andslipping into collaboration with the Nazis.

Ryback’s is a meticulous micro-history,which, through Hartinger’s brave,abortive efforts to bring the Dachauperpetrators to justice, sheds light on anumber of related topics, including themechanics of the Nazi consolidation of

“Men are terrified of brainy women” so“Be childlike and feminine at all times.”

We have no idea how much they took such advice to heart, but there is nodoubt that the 1950s saw confrontationsbetween different conceptions of what itmeans to be a woman. This book is anerudite reflection on such tensions, butalso fun, witty, and irreverent. It may notbe to everyone’s taste. I am unsure aboutNicholson’s over-arching argument, andby prioritising personal anecdotes overthe interpretation of economic facts orpolitical contexts, she risks trivialising

1950s culture. Many will be better servedby the histories written by Ina Zweiniger-Bargielowska and Jane Lewis.

However, Nicholson excels at bringingthe period to life. Marriage was laudedabove all, even among the rebelliousTeddy Girls, despite their glam hairdosand knives tucked into their stocking tops. Women worshipped home, sweethome; they “felt like the Queen” whenthey installed new television sets andpearly-white, purring refrigerators.

Yet it was not all domestic bliss.Keeping up with the Joneses causedanxiety levels to soar. Women whofought to go to university foundthemselves treated as appendages to theirhusbands as opposed to intellectuals in their own right. It was arguably worsefor women who had children out of

A roll-call in Dachau concentration camp, c1933. Timothy Ryback’s account is a

“fascinating, meticulously researched and elegantly written” study of one man’s

bid to uncover the truth behind the site

“This is a fascinating

study, meticulously

researched and

elegantly written”


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wedlock: they were shunned and oftenforced to hand over their babies foradoption. From 1955, the world-annihilating capabilities of the H-Bombterrified more and more women. Postersdisplayed in London’s streets asked:“Mothers, would you let your sons dropthis Bomb?” The first Aldermastonmarch was evidence that many Britishwomen were repudiating the advice to“Be childlike and feminine at all times”.

Nicholson tells the story through thevoices of women. A brilliant storyteller,she makes a significant contribution toour understanding of 1950s Britain, andoffers a glimpse into what it must havefelt like growing up in that time.

Joanna Bourke is professor of history

at Birkbeck, University of London

Highs and Lows in IndiaDENIS JUDD meets a colourful cast of characters whose storyilluminates British involvement in India in the 19th century

For reviews of hundreds of recent

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Despite Mount’s skilful prose, thematerial is not always easy to navigate,and the bibliography has some puzzlingomissions. The remarkable characters,however, swarm through the pages andcarry the day, rather as the British as animperial power strode to subcontinentalsupremacy. Pride of place among theliterary Lows of India must go to great-aunt Ursula: “Not unlike Miss Marple asplayed by Joan Hickson… she woretweed in various shades of oatmeal andbeige.” More importantly she wrote abook, Fifty Years with John Company:from the Letters of General Sir John Low ofClatto, Fife, 1822-1858. Unread by most of the family, this 434-page volume wascrucial in inspiring Mount to write hisaccount. The book is even more intrigu-ing because the Lows were the author’sancestors – and forebears of currentBritish prime minister David Cameron.

Apart from Ursula, there is copiousand vivid testimony from the Lows atlarge. Readable as it is, none of it rewritesour understanding of British rule inIndia, but it does confirm the intensity,depth, variety and complexity of whatwas arguably the most extraordinary chapter in Britain’s imperial story.

Denis Judd is the author ofd Empire: The

British Imperial Experience from 1765 toBritish Imperial Experience from 1765 to

the Present (IB Tauris 2011) t

The Tears of the Rajas: Mutiny,

Money and Marriage in India,

1805–1905

by Ferdinand MountSimon and Schuster, 784 pages, £25

British involvement inIndia lasted for a littleunder 350 years, andthe literature assessingthis undertaking isimmense. Among themost valuable of therecords of British ruleare the memoirs of

those who went out as administrators,soldiers, merchants and teachers, and ofcourse as wives and families. Many wereborn in India and lived and died there.

In Ferdinand Mount’s account, onesuch family – the formidable Lows ofClatto, Fife – are described in minute,often loving, detail. Their lives, conjuredup through letters and diaries, and evena book, tell not merely their own storiesbut also the history of the Raj from theyear of Britain’s victory at Trafalgar, viathe tumult of the Great Rebellion of 1857,to the tranquility of the Edwardian age when constitutional reform seemed to

set India on the road to self-rule. It’s aset India on the road to self rule. It s a timely reminder of how vitalScotland’s contribution was to soScotland s contribution was to somuch of Britain’s global success.

hyperbole aside, it seems sensible tosuggest they were murdered for their opposition to Nazi rule rather than solely their race. In 1933, of course, thesystematic killing of Jews was some eight years away.

But these are minor points. This is afascinating, meticulously researched andelegantly written study. It illuminates anintriguing period of flux, in which it wasjust possible that the horrors of Nazi rule could still have been averted, if onlymore Germans had reacted with thesteadfastness, morality and bravery of the man at the heart of the story.

Roger Moorhouse is the author of The Devils’

Alliance: Hitler’s Pact with Stalin, 1939–1941

(Bodley Head, 2014)

Rickshaw transport in 1920s India.Ferdinand Mount’s book features

“copious and vivid” accounts of British experiences in the subcontinent

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Books / Paperbacks

PAPERBACKS

Magna Carta

Translated with a new commentary by David CarpenterPenguin Classics, 624 pages, £10.99

The 750thanniversaryof Magna Cartain 1965 wasmarked by thepublication ofMagna Cartaby JC Holt –

for a half-century the essentialcommentary on the charter.

In this new commentary, forthe 800th anniversary, DavidCarpenter tips his hat to Holt,and even includes an anecdotein which he was scolded by thegreat man for attempting to puthim straight on a minor point.Such modesty is becoming butunnecessary. Carpenter’s bookmatches Holt’s as vital reading.

It includes a new translationof Magna Carta 1215: thestarting point for a discussionof its origins, a descriptionof events at Runnymede anda valuable treatment of thecharter’s spread and legacy inthe 13th century, when it was

A Visitor’s Companion

to Tudor England

by Suzannah LipscombEbury Press, 336 pages, £8.99

Thanks tothe huge successof HilaryMantel’s WolfHall – both inlprint and in therecent televisionadaptation –

the subject of Tudor history ismore popular than ever before.It is perfect timing, then, forthe arrival in paperback of abook that claims to enable thereader to experience places,people and events “through Tudor eyes”.

Suzannah Lipscomb’s booktakes the reader on a tour ofsome of England’s best-knownTudor sites, such as the Towerof London and HamptonCourt, as well as lesser known treasures such as KirbyHall in Northamptonshireand Thornbury Castle in Gloucestershire.

The format means that thereis some degree of repetition,which makes this more of abook to dip into than to readfrom cover to cover. Althoughthey are sometimes curiouslyplaced within the flow of thebook, the thematic sections –covering subjects includingclothing, food and entertain-ment – have merit.

It may lack the lively detail ofother books of its genre, butLipscomb’s study provides auseful gazetteer for all thosewishing to explore the physicalremains of our Tudor past.

Tracy Borman is joint chief curator

of Historic Royal Palaces and the

author of Thomas Cromwell:

The Untold Story of Henry VIII’s

Most Faithful Servant (Hodder

and Stoughton, 2014)

Ping-Pong Diplomacy:

Ivor Montagu and the

Astonishing Story Behind

the Game that Changed

the World

by Nicholas GriffinSimon and Schuster, 352 pages, £8.99

Glenn Cowanis an unlikelyperson to havebrought about a thawingof Sino-USrelations.A dope-

smoking hippy who worepurple bell-bottoms, he wasalso a key member of theUnited States table tennis team.

At the 1971 Japanese worldchampionships, he inadver-tently caused a diplomaticsensation. The Chinese wereforbidden from talking to theirUnited States rivals, but whenCowan boarded the Chineseteam bus, he forced a dramaticrapprochement – one thatwould help bring the Cold Warto an end.

Nicholas Griffin’s book tellsthe extraordinary story of tabletennis in international affairs.But the book is about a greatdeal more than diplomacy. Itrecounts the game’s historythrough the eyes of the wealthy aristocrat, Ivor Montagu. Hewas passionate about ping-pong(as well as being a Soviet spy)and first introduced the game to the Chinese.

Griffin’s book is wellresearched, entertaining andfilled with a colourful cast ofcharacters. It’s also a compel-ling story, one that reminds usthat sport and politics areinextricably linked.

Giles Milton is the author of

Russian Roulette: A Deadly Game:

How British Spies Thwarted Lenin’s

Global Plot (Sceptre, 2013)((

privately copied and officiallyreissued many times.

Much is new, not least the announcement that themutilated British Libraryengrossment (sealed version)of Magna Carta was originallysent to Canterbury Cathedral: we may now call it ‘theCanterbury Magna Carta’instead of using its less sexy previous name, ‘Ci’.

There is deep textual analysishere, but Carpenter also writespassages worthy of any leadingnarrative historian. His visionof Corfe Castle could be froma Game of Thrones screenplay,yet makes a crucial historicalpoint about John’s paranoia.

For obvious reasons, there isno mention of the very latestresearch: Nicholas Vincent’sdiscovery of a 1300 editionof the charter at Sandwich,announced in February.Magna Carta scholarshipis still moving fast. But it hasa new first base for years tocome in this learned and very enjoyable work.

Dan Jones is the author of

Magna Carta (Head of Zeus, 2014)AL

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The sealing of Magna Carta as depicted in a stained glass window at Mansion House, London. David Carpenter’s new commentary on the document “features deep textual analysis”

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THREE MORE NOVELS STARRING THE NORMANS

Nick Rennison is the author of Carver’s

Quest (Corvus, 2013)t

Devil

by David ChurchillHeadline, 480 pages, £14.99

William theConqueror makesa good subject forfiction. His life isfascinating but there are enough gapsin the historicalrecord to provideroom for a novelist’s

imagination. Devil, the first of anintended trilogy entitled The Leopards of Normandy, adroitly combines yresearch and inventiveness.

In this opening volume William isa boy. The focus is on his father, DukeRobert of Normandy. Initially Count ofHiémois, and subordinate to his olderbrother Richard, Robert takes posses-sion of the castle at Falaise and defendsit against Richard’s demands that it bereturned. While out hunting, Robertchances upon a beautiful young womannamed Herleva and is immediatelyenamoured. Although she is just thedaughter of a tanner, he takes her to hisbed and their passionate affair producesa child – the future Conqueror. Follow-

ing his brother’s mysterious death, Rob-ert becomes Normandy’s duke and isforced to forswear Herleva for dynasticreasons. The boy William, however, isdeclared his heir. At the same time twoEnglish princes, Edward and Alfred,exiled in Normandy, plot their returnto their native land and a disaffectedfamily of thuggish Norman aristocratsrises up against Robert’s rule.

This all makes for a lively, engrossingnarrative in which the historical figurescome to life and a number of inventedcharacters, most notably a smoothlysinister poisoner named Jarl the Viper,add to its twists and turns.

Churchill isn’t entirely comfortablewith his story’s love scenes, which tendto veer between the bluntly sexual andmedieval Mills & Boon, but he’s veryadept at portraying the intrigue andpolitics surrounding Robert’s court. This is a world in which trust is a scarcecommodity and victory usually goesto the strong and the ruthless. It’s theworld in which William the Conquerorgrew up and Churchill recreates it withsome skill.

Here come the NormansNICK RENNISON delves into a skilful re-creation ofthe world in which William the Conqueror grew up

FICTION

Books / Fiction

The Conqueror

Georgette Heyer (1931)

Georgette Heyer isnow known primarilyas the author ofRegency romancesbut she also wrote anumber of novels setn the medieval period.First published in the

1930s but still in print, this is anenergetic account of William’s lifefrom his birth to his conquest ofEngland, seen through the eyes ofhis (fictional) friend Raoul deHarcourt. Like all Heyer’s work, it isboth readable and rooted in basichistorical facts.

Odo’s Hanging

Peter Benson (1993)

Odo is William theConqueror’shalf-brother, bishopof Bayeux, and the‘hanging’ in thisclever and unusualnovel is the tapestryhe commissions to

commemorate the Norman victoryat Hastings. The tapestry’sdesigner, the irascible artist Turold,travels to England to oversee itscreation and the narrative, told inthe words of his apprentice Robert,describes the clash between hisideas of what the work should beand those of his patron.

Sworn Sword

James Aitcheson (2011)

Three years havepassed since theNorman invasion andthe knight Tancred aDinant is one of asmall army ofWilliam’s followersthat marches to

Northumbria to crush continuingSaxon opposition. Amid the chaoshe stumbles across evidence ofa plot that threatens all that theNormans have achieved. In the firstnovel in an ongoing series, JamesAitcheson neatly mixes action andintrigue in equal measure.

OCho‘cnh

GnaRbniF

TpNtDsWt

William the Conqueror, seen in a 12th-century manuscript, is the subject of David Churchill’s “lively and engrossing” novel that explores his early life


TV&RADIOJonathan Wright previews the pick of upcoming programmes

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Codes That Changed the World

Radio Radio 4,weekdays from Monday 6 April

It’s easy to see the history of comput-ing as being all about hardware,

about how the devices we increasinglyrely upon have become smaller andfaster. Yet that’s an approach thatignores one of the fundamentalquestions of the digital age: how dowe talk to our machines in order to get them to do useful things?

“The software side of things hasalways been glossed over,” says PeterMcManus, producer of a new series(presented by Aleks Krotoski) on thehistory of computer languages. If thatsounds dry, it’s a tale that throws upsome remarkable characters, notablyRear Admiral ‘Amazing’ Grace Hopper(1906–92), who pioneered the idea ofportable computer programs ratherthan programs specific to one machine.

“[She] came up with this notion that ifyou could create a list of instructions fora computer in a way that human beingscould understand, and then find a wayof translating that into the binary onesand zeros the computer could under-

Military disasterGallipoli

TV BBC Two,scheduled for April

The Gallipoli campaign of 1915 – theAllied attempt to knock Turkey out ofthe First World War – is widely remem-bered as one of the most humblingdefeats of the conflict. But how did thismilitary disaster come about? It’s aquestion explored in a documentarythat draws on the accounts of ordinarysoldiers and leaders such as WinstonChurchill and Lord Kitchener. There’salso an interview with Rupert Murdoch,who discusses his father Keith’s role in bringing the campaign to an end.For more on Gallipoli, turn to page 54

Unknown treasuresThe Quizeum

TV BBC Four,scheduled for April

Hosted by comedian Griff Rhys Jones,here’s an eight-part panel series whereevery episode is recorded at a differentmuseum around the country. Why?“There are spectacular treasures in allof our museums,” says Rhys Jones.“The Quizeum will uncover the storiesbehind some of the lesser-known ones.”

Expect a show where artefacts fromthe collections of such institutions as theNational Maritime Museum and Oxford’s Ashmolean inspire questions.Panellists so far confirmed includeMichael Scott, Dan Cruickshank,Janina Ramirez, Kate Williams andAdmiral Lord West.

“It’s a tale that throws

up some remarkable

characters, like Rear

Admiral ‘Amazing’

Grace Hopper”

stand, then you’d have a means bywhich you could create a programthat could run on different machines,”says McManus.

This idea may seem obvious to ustoday, but that in itself is a measure ofhow profound was Hopper’s insight.She was remarkable in other ways too.When the Japanese attacked PearlHarbor, Hopper was working as a mathsprofessor. Despite being in her mid-30s and “massively underweight”, shebecame a naval officer and was sent toHarvard to be part of the team workingon the Mark I computer, used forcalculations essential to the ManhattanProject (to build the first atomic bomb).

Hopper later became a key figurein the development of the computerlanguage COBOL, which showed how computers could be used for suchbusiness processes as inventory, payrolland accounting. First developed in 1959, COBOL is still in use today, despitebeing likened by one contributor to theshow as the computer languageequivalent of the Vogons in TheHitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy:“Not actually evil, but bad-tempered,bureaucratic, officious and callous.”

Seeing the lightHow a “massively underweight” maths professor transformed our relationship with computers

77

Grace Hopper was a determined pioneer of computer programs that weren’t restricted to individual machines

Griff Rhys Jones is hosting a quiz in eight venerable British museums

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For king and countryHome Fires

TV ITV,scheduled for April

On 5 September 1939, shortly afterBritain had declared war, Lady Denman,chair of the National Federation ofWomen’s Institutes, wrote to the WarOffice. She pointed out that a network of5,600 institutes was potentially a hugely valuable resource.

“The WI has three levels – national,county and village,” says historian JulieSummers, author of Jambusters: TheStory of the Women’s Institute in theSecond World Wa “Information feedsrr

up and down the chain, so with onephone call the government had the earsof 328,000 country women.”

The WI went on to play a crucial roleon the home front as it helped with suchtasks as housing evacuees, and feedingtroops and farm workers.

This role is celebrated in a new dramabased on Summers’ book, and whichstars Francesca Annis (Cranford) andSamantha Bond (Bond films) as leadinglights in a Cheshire WI.

Summers acted as historical consul-tant. “The first day [I was on set]knocked my socks off,” she says. “Theworld I have known in black and white,static and old, was suddenly brightlycoloured, moving, smelling, makinga noise. That was intensely moving.”

78

Landmark seriesWolf Hall

DVD (BBC/2entertain, £25.52, Cert: 15)

According to Hilary Mantel, whenshe first saw Wolf Hall, it didn’t justmeet her already high expectations,it exceeded them. It seems she’s notalone in thinking this because, as itaired on BBC Two, it rapidly becameclear we were seeing a classic seriesunfold before our eyes, a show we’llbe talking about for years.

This is, to a large extent,thanks to Mark Rylance,who plays Henry VIII’senforcer ThomasCromwell with astill intensity that’seerie, mesmerising.Re-watching theseries on DVD,his performance

loses none of its power, yet there’ssomehow also more time to take inthe nuances of character conveyedby the supporting cast – witness theway Claire Foy quite brilliantly teetersbetween needy brattishness andcalculating cruelty as Anne Boleyn.

A second viewing throws up othersurprises too. You may find yourselfquestioning just how much you sidedwith Cromwell first time around. Forall that he’s portrayed sympathetically,in Mantel’s retelling, this is a man who

sets a trap for himself with hisown ambition.

The two-disc DVD setof the series features

more than 30 minutesof extras, includinginterviews withthe stars and keymembers of thecrew, featurettes and

deleted scenes.

Having previously charted thelife of St Paul by journeying in hiswake, David Suchet now turns hisattention to another of the Apostles.David Suchet: In the Footsteps

of St Peter (BBC One, April) seesthe actor travelling to Galilee,Jerusalem, Turkey and Rome ashe tries to understand how a lowlyfisherman became the first bishopof Rome. (To listen to Suchetdiscussing St Peter on our weeklypodcast, go to historyextra.com/podcasts)

Armada: 12 Days to Save

England (BBC Two, date yet to beconfirmed) mixes up Dan Snowinterviewing experts and viewinghistorical documents with dramaticreconstructions in order to recallhow England fought off Spanishinvasion in 1588. (See our featureon page 28 for more.)

On Yesterday, Castle Builders

(Tuesday 14 April) is a three-partseries that looks at the history ofcastles across Europe, beginning with an episode about thosewho commissioned and builtthese structures.

For those with satellite, Escape in

the Pacific (PBS America, Saturday 4 April) tells the story of the onlysuccessful group escape from aJapanese camp, when 10 AmericanPoWs made a break from the DavaoPenal Colony on the southernPhilippine island of Mindanao.

The Assassination of Abraham

Lincoln (PBS America, Sunday 12April) recalls the last two months ofthe president’s life, from his secondinaugural address to his murder by John Wilkes Booth.

David Suchet follows in the footsteps of St Peter on BBC One

TV & Radio

Members of the WI preserve summer fruitcrops by making jam, eastern England, c1940

Mark Rylance playsThomas Cromwell withmesmerising intensity

ww nw ac gr u

Find ou moreut

MA in The Making of the Modern World

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On 10 October 1903, agroup of women gatheredin the parlour of 62Nelson Street, one of apair of Victorian villaslocated in Chorlton-on-Medlock, a suburb of

Manchester. Their host was Mrs EmmelinePankhurst, a widow who had moved to thehouse – with her four children – in 1898following the death of her husband.

But this was no social gathering. Thewomen were meeting to discuss the creationof a new, militant women-only organisationthat would join the 40-year fight to win theparliamentary vote for women. Its name,they decided, would be the Women’s Socialand Political Union (WSPU); its motto,‘Deeds, not words’. A new chapter in thecampaign for women’s suffrage had begun.

Tucked away amid the concrete and glassbuildings of Manchester Royal Infirmary,62 Nelson Street – which opened as thePankhurst Centre in 1987 and now extendsinto the adjoining villa – isn’t a site onemight automatically stumble on during atrip to Manchester. Only a blue plaque onthe wall by the front door of the Grade IIlisted building marks it as the bi h lof the suffragette movement.

Inside, three downstairs roare dedicated to the story ofwomen’s suffrage, with artefaand information panels relatithe cause, and to the Pankhufamily itself. The rest of thecentre houses variouswomen’s organisations, and

is a women-only space, offering advice,support and educational services.

But, for many visitors, the highlight of avisit is the small parlour where the WSPUwas born, now recreated with Edwardian-style furniture and fittings to give visitors asense of what it may have looked like whenthe Pankhursts lived there. The room is amemorial to the suffragette movement, withWSPU sashes from various decades drapedover chairs, and quotes from EmmelinePankhurst’s 1914 autobiography, My OwnStory. The upright piano, now silent, wasyonce played by Emmeline’s eldest daughterand co-founder of the WSPU, Christabel.

Radical roots

Emmeline Pankhurst (née Goulden) wasborn in 1858, into a family known for itsradical views. Her mother, Sophia, was anardent feminist and Emmeline accompaniedher to women’s suffrage meetings from anearly age. In 1879 she married barrister andcommitted socialist Richard Pankhurst –himself an advocate for women’s suffrage –and the pair had five children (one of whomdied in infancy). Their three daughters –Christabel, Sylvia and Adela – would all

b i volved in the battle to gain ther women.hough we might automaticallyof the Pankhursts whenssing the fight for women’sge, women were campaigningright to vote for some 40 yearsthe WSPU was formed,”

ays Professor June Purvis ofPortsmouth University. “The

HISTORY EXPLORER

The fight forfiwomen’s suffrageProfessor June Purvis and Charlotte Hodgman visit

the Pankhurst Centre in Manchester to discover

more about the remarkable women who risked life

and limb for the right to vote

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The parlour at 62 NelsonStreet where the Women’sSocial and Political Unionwas formed in 1903. ThePankhursts lived in thehouse between 1898 and1906, after the death of Richard Pankhurst

e birthplace

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“Alththink odiscussuffra

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The “fiery, passionate and determined”Emmeline Pankhurst was utterlydedicated to women’s suffrage


“It was in a climate of disillusionment

and frustration that a new breed of

suffragist was born”PROFESSOR JUNE PURVIS


Out & about / History Explorer

campaign is generally seen as beginning in1865, when MP John Stuart Mill presented apetition to parliament to bring in a bill forwomen’s suffrage. Although unsuccessful,his actions encouraged groups of women toform suffrage societies, the largest being theNational Union of Women’s Suffrage Society(NUWSS) led by Millicent Garrett Fawcett.”

Known as ‘suffragists’, such groupsemployed peaceful means to advancetheir cause. But by 1903, four decades ofconstitutional, legal methods ofcampaigning, such as writing to MPs, hadfailed to achieve the longed-for vote. It wasin this climate of disillusionment andfrustration that a new breed of suffragist wasborn – under the leadership of Emmelineand Christabel Pankhurst. Women, declaredChristabel, needed to put off their “slavespirit” and start demanding the vote.

“The violence so often associated withthe suffragettes – a derogatory label firstcoined by the Daily Mail in 1906 to describelthe more radical and militant elements ofthe suffrage movement – didn’t actuallybegin until around 1912,” says Purvis.“Initially, the WSPU, too, employed peacefulmeans of protest, but took care to deploytactics that would gain them the mostpublic attention.”

Such activities included standing on streetcorners or outside factory gates in anattempt to attract a crowd, persuadingpeople to support the campaign, anddelivering petitions to parliament. Hugerallies took place across England and Wales,including in Hyde Park, London, in 1908, anevent that attracted crowds of up to 300,000

people. Rallies were carefully orchestrated to achieve maximum impact. Suffragettescarrying huge banners, clad in white dresses,and wearing purple, white and green WSPUsashes – symbolising dignity, purity andhope – would walk through the streets as asingle body, to the beat of marching bands.

Rachel Lappin, Pankhurst Centre manager, comments: “One act that gainedthe attention of press and public – and canperhaps be seen as one of the first acts of suffragette militancy – took place inManchester in 1905. During a talk by Liberalparty MP Sir Edward Grey at Manchester’sFree Trade Hall – now a luxury hotel –Christabel Pankhurst and a friend, AnnieKenney, were forcibly removed from thebuilding after Grey ignored repeatedquestions about whether votes for womenwould be granted under a Liberalgovernment. The pair were arrested and, incourt the next day, chose a prison sentence(seven days for Christabel; three for Annie)over a fine.” In doing so, they earned thefight for women’s votes more attention thanit had ever enjoyed before, and encouragedwomen across the country to join the WSPU.

Change of tactics

“By 1912, nine years of relatively peacefulcampaigning had failed to yield success,”says Purvis, “and Emmeline – by now livingin London – decided the movement neededto be more assertive in its demands.” As aresult, more violent tactics began to beemployed alongside constitutional methods.

The suffragettes employed a range ofmilitant activities to draw attention to theircause, including window smashing, settingfire to postboxes and empty buildings,cutting telephone wires and even burning“votes for women” into golf greens.

“It is important to remember that at nopoint did the suffragettes seek to threatenhuman life,” argues Purvis. “Their attackswere designed to demonstrate that thegovernment valued property more than itvalued women, especially hunger-strikers inprison who were being forcibly fed.”

But the move towards violence caused riftswithin the WSPU, and even within the

“ACC0UNTS OF FORCE FEEDING ARE TRULY

HORRIFYING. FOR MANY, THE PROCESS WAS

EXPERIENCED AS A FORM OF RAPE”

Pankhurst family itself. Where Emmelineand Christabel were pro-vandalism in thename of women’s suffrage, Sylvia – asocialist and pacifist – and her youngersister Adela disagreed vehemently with the decision. But one belief all fourwomen shared was a complete commitment to the cause.

Says Purvis: “Too much emphasis hasbeen placed on the violence carried out by suffragettes and not enough on thedisgraceful, and harmful, way these womenwere treated by the state. Many werepunched and kicked by policemen even when protesting peacefully for theirdemocratic rights. And those who wereimprisoned were denied the status of political offenders and treated very badly.

“By the end of September 1909, forcefeeding was being deployed in prisons toprevent women from using hunger strikes as a way of protesting against their B

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Sylvia Pankhurst wrote her 1911 bookabout the suffragettes on this typewriter –now on show at the Pankhurst Centre

VISIT

The Pankhurst Centre

60-62 Nelson Street, Manchester, M13 9WPOpen Thursdays, 10–4. Wheelchair accessible thepankhurstcentre.org.uk


Christabel Pankhurst’s piano still sits in the parlour at 62 Nelson Street

1 Hyde Park, LondonWhere thousands of women gathered

The suffragette rally on 21 June 1908 wasthe first grand-scale meeting organised bythe WSPU and saw the largest number ofpeople gathered in Hyde Park for apolitical purpose. Specially charteredtrains brought women to the venue from allover Britain for marches, banner parades and to listen to 80 speakers.royalparks.org.uk/parks/hyde_park

2 Epsom Downs racecourseSurreyWhere a suffragette became a martyr

On 4 June 1913, Emily Wilding Davisonsuffered a fractured skull after running infront of the king’s horse as it rounded theTattenham Corner during the Derby, andnever regained consciousness. Archivefootage of the incident, as well as thereturn train ticket and writing materialsfound on her person, indicate that Emily did not intend to commit suicide.epsomderby.co.uk

3 Llanystumdwy, GwyneddWhere Lloyd George was heckled

When prime minister Lloyd George arrivedin his native village of Llanystumdwy toopen their village hall in 1912, he found hisspeech constantly interrupted by cries of“votes for women” from many in thecrowd. The protest turned violent with onewoman nearly thrown over the bridge intothe river Dwyfor and others physically assaulted. llanystumdwy.com

4 National Gallery, LondonWhere a symbolic act was carried out

On 10 March 1914, suffragette MaryRichardson walked into the NationalGallery and attacked the Rokeby Venus,by Velázquez, with a meat cleaver. Herdesire to “destroy the picture of the mostbeautiful woman in mythological history”,she explained, was in protest against thegovernment’s treatment of EmmelinePankhurst, “the most beautiful characterin modern history”. nationalgallery.org.uk

5 Princes Street, Edinburgh

Where Scots took up the gauntlet

In a 1909 edition of the suffragette paper,Votes for Women, Scottish women wereurged to take up the cause. In Octoberthat year some 1,000 women marcheddown Princes Street to campaign forwomen’s suffrage. edinburgh.gov.uk

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SUFFRAGETTES: FIVE MORE PLACES TO EXPLORE

after the so-called ‘Cat and Mouse Act’,which allowed ill women to leave prisonuntil they were well enough to return andcomplete their sentence.

“Force feeding was a disaster for thegovernment,” says Purvis. “At first, therewas little sympathy for suffragette prisoners,but by the beginning of 1913, the sight ofthese visibly frail women who were preparedto undergo such a horrific process over and over again shocked many.”

The death of suffragette Emily WildingDavison in June 1913 was another turningpoint for the movement. Her death – a resultof injuries sustained after she was struck by George V’s horse at the Epsom Derby –shocked the nation, and her funeralprocession drew crowds of over 250,000.

“Many believe it was the First World Warthat finally won the vote for women”, saysPurvis. “After all, the 1918 Representation ofthe People Act granted the vote to womenover the age of 30 who met a propertyqualification. But the vast majority ofwomen were still excluded, including many young women war workers, and thecampaign for votes for all women continuedduring and after the conflict. Emmelineencouraged women to engage in war work,believing they would gain enfranchisementas a result, but many felt betrayed by herpatriotism, and further rifts appeared in theWSPU and within the Pankhurst family.”

A new wave of feminists carried thecampaign forward after the war and womenwere finally granted equal suffrage with menin 1928, just weeks after Emmeline’s death atthe age of 69.

“Emmeline Pankhurst shaped an idea ofassertive womanhood that is quite modernin many ways,” concludes Purvis. “Fiery,passionate and determined, she valuedwomen’s suffrage above anything – includingfamily unity. But whether the vote couldyhave been won through peaceful meansalone is doubtful. A combination of tacticswas needed to achieve what, in 1903, musthave seemed impossible.”

Historical advisor: June Purvis

(left), professor of women’s

and gender history at

Portsmouth University.

Words: Charlotte Hodgman

treatment. The harrowing accounts of thesewomen are truly horrifying. For many, theprocess was experienced as a form of rape.”

Force feeding involved forcing a tubedown the throat, or up the nose – althoughthere are accounts of women being ‘fed’through the vagina or rectum – into which agreasy mixture was poured. The tubes wereoften too wide or had not been cleanedproperly, and women were physicallyrestrained by prison wardresses. Thepainful, intrusive procedure was repeateda number of times a day, with little or nonutritional benefit.

The mental and physical damage causedby force feeding was particularly prolonged

A meeting of the WSPU in c1907. Christabel (second from left) and

Emmeline Pankhurst (second from right) advocated the use of

violence to further their cause

LI STE N TO JUNEPURVI S

historyextra.com

/podcasts


TEN THINGS TO DO IN APRIL

Out & about

EXHIBITION / FREE ENTRY

Fully Fashioned:The Pringle ofScotland Story

National Museum ofScotland, Edinburgh10 April–16 August 0300 123 6789 nms.ac.uk

An exhibition marking the200th anniversary of one ofScotland’s best-knowncompanies, featuring earlyknitwear and film footage.

EXHIBITION

Love is Enough:William Morris andAndy Warhol

Birmingham Museum& Art Gallery25 April–6 September 0121 348 8000 birminghammuseums.org.uk

View iconic and rarelyseen works by two greatartists of the 19th and 20thcenturies – William Morrisand Andy Warhol.

REOPENING

ham PalaceElth

enwich, LondonGreem 3 AprilFrom

20 8294 254802 nglish-heritage.org.uken

e Grade II listedTheuse reopenshollowing a £1.7mfolnovation andre

improvementproject, with fivenew rooms.


Lusitania: Life, Loss, Legacy

Merseyside Maritime Museum,LiverpoolFrom 27 March 0151 478 4499 liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/maritime

On 7 May 1915, the 32,500-tonLiverpool-based passenger ship

RMS Lusitania was torpedoed by theGerman submarine U-20 as it travelledfrom New York to Liverpool. The vesselsank in under 20 minutes with the lossof 1,191 lives (four others died later fromtheir injuries). This month, MerseysideMaritime Museum will be marking the100th anniversary of the disaster with anew exhibition that explores the story ofthe ship, its role in the First World War,and the lives of those onboard.

Eleanor Moffat, curator of theexhibition, says: “The tragic story ofthe Lusitania is one that continues toresonate strongly with the people ofLiverpool, and is an event that stillinspires debate today. Most of the ship’screw came from the city, so the impact ofthe loss was devastating – some 404 crew

“The tragic story of the

Lusitania is one that still

resonates strongly”

members died during the sinking.“We’ve brought together a number of

objects for the exhibition that shed lighton the lives of many of those lost, andsaved, during the sinking. These includea tiny baby shoe carrying the inscription‘lest we forget’ on its sole – which wasgiven to Able Seaman Joseph Parry by alady passenger after he saved her and herbaby – to a life jacket from the ship thathas never been displayed before.”

The exhibition is divided into threesections. The first looks at the ship’srelationship with Liverpool and the storyof its building. The second puts the lossof the Lusitania into the context of theFirst World War at sea, while the finalsection examines the sinking itself.

“One particularly moving piece onshow is a letter written by a mother toher son before she set sail,” says Moffat.“In it, we see her fear of travelling by seaduring wartime. Tragically both she andher husband died during the sinking.

“Some of the pieces on show are aresult of an appeal by the museum tothose with family connections to theLusitania. We’ve had an overwhelmingresponse but we’d love to have morestories to add to our collection. If youhave a story to share, please contact themuseum via the website.”

Look out for our feature on the sinking

of the Lusitania in the May issue

Liverpool remembers

Thomas Alcock by Samuel Cooper, c11650k

EXHIBITION

Great BritishDrawings

Ashmolean Museum,Oxford26 March–31 August 01865 278000 ashmolean.org

Trace the history ofdrawing in Britainthrough more than100 works by artistssuch as JMW Turneer.

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ONLI NESLI DE SHOW

historyextra.com

/lusitania

ONLI NESLI DE SHOW

historyextra.com

/drawings

tory MagazineBBC Hist 85

Charlotte Hodgman previews some of the

latest events and exhibitions

EXHIBITION

Indigenous Australia: Enduring Civilisation

British Museum, London23 April–2 August 020 7323 8181 (ticket line) britishmuseum.org

The first major exhibition to present ahistory of indigenous Australia throughobjects opens at the British Museum thismonth. Among the pieces on show areworks of art such as Uta Uta Tjangala’s 1981Yumari, which appears on Australianpassports; items dating to the early colonialperiod (1770–1850); and turtle-shellmasks used in ceremonies before thearrival of Christian missionaries.

REOPENING

Lincoln Castle Revealed

LincolnFrom 1 April 01522 852283 historiclincolntrust.org.uk/lincoln-castle-revealed

The three-year, £22m restoration of Lincoln Castle is revealedthis month, as the site opens its doors to the public. For thefirst time, visitors can walk the battlements around the wholecastle, while the Victorian prison, with its ‘separate system’chapel, has been reinterpreted with films, panels and digitalinteractive screens.


The Innovation Race: Manchester’s Makers Join the First World War

Museum of Science and Industry, ManchesterFrom 28 March 0161 832 2244 mosi.org.uk

Manchester’s response to the munitions crisis of 1915comes under the spotlightthis month in an exhibitionof artefacts, photographsand documents. Among the pieces on display are aselection of original diaries,company archives, sketchesand letters from Oldhamfactory owner and electrical engineer Sebastian deFerranti, whose domestic goods factory beganproducing shells and fusesin wartime.


Strange Creatures:The Art of UnknownAnimals

Grant Museum ofZoology, UCLUntil 27 June 020 3108 2052 ucl.ac.uk/museums

An exploration of animalrepresentation throughhistory – from medievalaccounts to art from theages of exploration.

EXHIBITION

Gallipoli: Mythand Memory

National Museum of theRoyal Navy, Portsmouth28 March–31 January 2016 023 9272 7562 royalnavalmuseum.org

Exhibits and witnessaccounts tell the story ofthe often misunderstoodGallipoli campaign of 1915.Read more about Gallipoli

on page 54

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A turtle-shell maskfrom Torres Strait,

Queensland, pre-1855

in the Ferranti Hollinwoodfactory, 1917/18

The Sinking of the Lusitaniaby an unknown 20th-century

artist. When a Germansubmarine torpedoed the

ship off the coast of Irelandin May 1915, 1,191 passen-

gers and crew lost their lives

ONLI NESLI DE SHOW

historyextra.com

/indigenous

ONLI NESLI DE SHOW

historyextra.com

/innovation


MY FAVOURITE PLACE

Out & about

Northern Ethiopia

first introduction to Ethiopia, and it is every inch the modernAfrican capital city. The centreof the country since the late19th century, it was chosen for its climate and beautifullocation. Alongside the chaos ofeveryday life – buzzing minivans plying for trade and one ofAfrica’s largest open air markets– are a fine selection of muse-ums and galleries and a livelynightlife including a wonderfulmusic scene. Regular calls of‘ferenji’ (foreigner) leave theoverseas visitor in little doubtthat they are in an alien land. It is all good-natured andEthiopians are proud of theirheritage, and highly welcoming.

It is when leaving Addis,however, that Ethiopia begins toreveal itself, and to take a flightnorth into green, hilly territory is to step back in time. To thenorth of the capital are foundfour main historical centres: Lake Tana’s island monasteries,Gonder’s surreal Arthuriancastle, Lalibela’s rock-hewnchurches and Aksum’s under-rated ancient remains – and thatArk. Everywhere you’ll findtraditional and distinctiveEthiopian artwork depicting

RO

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RT

HA

RD

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/AL

AM

Y/M

AP

:MA

RT

INS

AN

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by Tom Hall

This African highlight off rs historic castles,

ancient churches hewn from rock and,

according to legend, the Ark of the Covenant

Ethiopian artwork – likethis madonna in thechurch of Bet Emanuel,Lalibela – is colourful

and distinctive

Ihave yet to travel toanywhere quite likeEthiopia, and suspect Inever will. It is Africa’shistorical highlight, home

to medieval castles and amazingreligious art and architecture,sprinkled with the evocativeleftovers of a brief period ofItalian colonial rule. It is even, iflegend is to be believed (andmany locals do), the final restingplace of the Ark of the Covenant.The country may be vast, but it isan easy place to travel around.

A journey to Ethiopiainevitably reveals the richness ofthe country’s history. A skeletonof an early hominid, dubbedLucy, is on display in the National Museum in AddisAbaba. From here travellers canwander through millennia of little-known heritage: themysterious stelae of the Ak-esumite empire (which flourishedfrom the 2nd to 9th centuriesAD), Ethiopian Christianity’sunique legacy and centuries of lively imperial history.

Ethiopia was the onlyAfrican state to have stoodalone from Europeancolonisation – until Italianoccupation in the 1930s. Thatbrief period also left its markon the country in the form of astill-discernible Italian architec-tural influence.

It was the Ark legendthat first drew me to

Ethiopia, through readingGraham Hancock’s book TheSign and the Seal, a pseudo-historical page-turner devotedto his search for the ancient relic. His travels round Ethiopiaclimaxed with an encounterwith the enigmatic monkguarding the treasure in Aksum,the northern city where the Ark is said to reside. This adventureinspired my own first visit,which set out to retrace hisfootsteps. I ended up, as usual, wandering far off course.

It was divertingly easy to doso. Though road transportremains slow, internal flightswith Ethiopian Airlines are efficient and excellent value. Ina fortnight it is easy to exploremany of the country’s highlights– just don’t expect two weeks tobe any more than an introduc-tion to this fascinating place.

Addis Ababa is most people’s

historical and religious scenes.Much of it is painted in acolourful folk style that’senjoyable and slightly eccentric.

Lalibela is unquestionablythe highlight, partly for theincongruity of the place. Onarrival you find yourself in anunremarkable highland markettown, mainly notable for thebeautiful mountains around it.Then you see the 11 churchesdating from the late 12th andearly 13th century; some plain,others rich in detail, all sur-rounded by Ethiopian Orthodox hermit monks squirrelled inniches, the smell of incense inthe air. The largest and finest

Bet Giorgis is one of 11 late 12th/early 13th-century churches hewn from solid rock at Lalibela, the highlight of a journey around Ethiopia

87

first time around. For me, theremote mountain churches ofthe Tigray region, 19th-centurybattlegrounds and the wildDanakil Depression – a vast desertbasin that was home to nomadicsalt traders for millennia – all remain to be explored.

Tom Hall is editorial director forl

Lonely Planet.com and a regular

contributor to BBC History Magazine

Read more about Tom’s

experiences in northern Ethiopia

at historyextra.com/ethiopia

Next month: Vanessa

Collingridge visits the

Great Wall of China

ADVICE FOR TRAVELLERS

BEST TIME TO GOIt’s best to avoid the June toOctober wet season, but anyother time is generally warmand dry. January’s Timkat(epiphany) celebrations are anexciting time to be in Lalibelaand Goner.

GETTING THEREBest-value flights are usuallyvia the Arabian peninsula onone of the national carriers.Direct flights throughEthiopian Airlines and BritishAirways are also available.

WHAT TO PACKArm and leg-covering clothesare useful as you tour religioussites, as is a sun hat and apullover for chilly nights ataltitude.

WHAT TO BRING BACKEthiopia’s crafts are as uniqueand varied as the countryitself, and you’ll find fineearthenware art for salewherever you visit, mostnotably Addis Ababa’ssprawling Merkato. A simplecoffee pot as used in homesacross Ethiopia makes for anaffordable and distinctive gift.

FURTHERINFORMATIONRead up on the UK govern-ment’s travel advice beforeyou go at: gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/ethiopia

Been there…

Have you been to Ethiopia?Do you have a top tip forreaders? Contact us viaTwitter or Facebook

twitter.com/historyextra

facebook.com/historyextra

The largest and finest church, Bet Giorgis, is surely one of the wonders of the world… It is impossible not to be awed

church, Bet Giorgis, is surely oneof the wonders of the world, andis approached so your feet arelevel with its roof. It is impos-sible not to be awed. BeyondLalibela are more noteworthyancient churches, rewarding those who trek into surroundinghills and grassy uplands.

Ethiopia’s Islamic heritage,which dates back to the earliestdecades of the faith, is bestunderstood by heading to

neighbouring Djibouti. To thesouth of Djibouti (and in easternEthiopia) is Harar, the fourthholiest city in the Islamic world.It’s quite a journey to reach thisfascinating walled city but it’sworth the effort. Here tiny,timeless mosques are every-where – one even built inside atree. The French poet ArthurRimbaud lived here in the 1880s, first as a trader and then as agun-runner, and an excellentmuseum, in an Indian merchanthouse, bears his name.

Like all the best historicaldestinations, the visitor toEthiopia is lured back by whatthey didn’t have a chance to see

Advertisement Feature

Hidden HERITAGE

With spring here at last, and 2015 being

such a big year for historical anniversaries, there really is

no better time to explore some of Britain’s fantastic heritage sites

for yourself. There are events happening throughout the year, so head out and support Britain’s heritage and enjoy a great day out.

HERITAGE SITES RAILWAYS ACCOMMODATION

HYLANDS HOUSE

Essex

Hylands House is a beautiful

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Hylands House, Hylands Park,

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hylands

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HERITAGE SITES

SYON PARK

Middlesex

Syon House is the London

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[email protected]

ST MARY’S HOUSE & GARDENS

Bramber, West Sussex BN44 3WE

Enchanting medieval timber-

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in Simon Jenkins’ England’s

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01903 816205

www.stmarysbramber.co.uk

[email protected]

CAERHAYS ESTATE

Gorran, St Austell, Cornwall PL26 6LY

Caerhays Castle and Gardens

– History and Beauty on the

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Caerhays Castle, which is

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The Castle was built by the

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Work started in 1807 and was

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The Castle is open for guided

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The castle gardens are open

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For more information please

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01872 501310

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VISIT ESSEX

Essex

With the 800th anniversary of

the Magna Carta there’s never

been a better time to discover

Essex’s connection to this

iconic document. Did you know

that Hedingham Castle was the

ancestral home of Robert de

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one of the 25 Barons who

compelled King John to sign the

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castle and if you are lucky you

might just meet the direct

descendants of de Veres.

Throughout the county there

are many other important

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examples are the magnificent

Jacobean stately home Audley

End House, Britain’s tallest

Tudor Gatehouse Layer Marney

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which has been the ancestral

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the reign of Henry VIII. Explore,

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that has been shaped by varied

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FURTHER INFORMATION

Visit these websites for

inspirational ideas.

www.visitessex.com

www.hedinghamcastle.co.uk

www.english-heritage.org.uk/

audleyend

www.layermarneytower.co.uk

www.ingatestonehall.com

www.mountfitchetcastle.com

SUDELEY CASTLE & GARDENS

Winchcombe, Nr Cheltenham, Gloucestershire GL54 5JD

Sudeley Castle & Gardens has

played an important role in the

turbulent and changing times of

England’s past. The castle was a

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Four of England’s queens – Anne

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Visitors can view her tomb,

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While at the castle discover the

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Open daily from 10am to 5pm.

A full calendar of events is

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Sudeley Castle & Gardens,

Winchcombe, Nr Cheltenham

GL54 5JD

01242 604 244

www.sudeleycastle.co.uk

[email protected]


HERITAGE SITES

HERITAGE SITES

SULGRAVE MANOR

Manor Road, Sulgrave, Banbury OX17 2SD

The Birthplace of the United

States!

This 16th Century Manor

House, the ancestral home

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lay claim to this remarkable

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Tours are led by guides who tell

the story of the house and its

status as being a place from

which sentiments of friendship

between the two countries will

forever radiate.

01295 760205

www.sulgravemanor.org.uk

enquiries@sulgravemanor.

orgg.uk


DODDINGTON HALL

Lincoln, Lincolnshire LN6 4RU

Built in 1595 by Robert

Smythson, Doddington Hall

has never been sold or cleared

out since. An example of a fine

late Elizabethan mansion, it is

still a lived-in and much loved

family home, alive with history

and interest. There are seven

acres of romantic walled and

wild gardens to explore, plus a

productive vegetable garden

supplying the award-winning

Farm Shop and Restaurant.

Hall and Gardens open from

5 April, Wed, Sun, BH Mon

from 12- 4pm until 27

September. Groups by

special appointment.

‘Voices From The Inside’,

14 June – 31 August on

standard opening days.

Lincoln LN6 4RU

01522 694308

www.doddingtonhall.com

BURGHLEY HOUSE

Stamford, Lincolnshire PE9 3JY

Cecil family for over 400 years is

one of England’s Greatest

Elizabethan Houses. Burghley

was built between 1555 and

1587 byWilliam Cecil, later Lord

Burghley,principal adviser and

Lord HighTreasurer to Queen

Elizabeth I.Burghley contains one

of the largest private collections

of Italian art,unique examples of

Chinese andJapanese porcelain

and superb items of 18th Century

furniture. Principal artists and

craftsmen of the period are to

be found at Burghley,Antonio

Verrio,Grinling Gibbons and

Louis Laguerre all made major

contributions to the beautiful

interiors. The House is set in a

300 acre deer park landscaped

by‘Capability’Brown.

01780 752451

www.burghley.co.uk

MELBOURNE HALL GARDENS

Melbourne, Derbyshire DE73 8EN

Melbourne hall has a well

documented history and all

centuries from the 16th to the

21st have left their mark on the

fabric. This, combined with the

fact that Melbourne remains a

family home creates a warm,

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now the home of Lord and Lady

Ralph Kerr, Lord Ralph being a

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Coke who made Melbourne his

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Melbourne Hall Gardens are

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best surviving example from

the reign of Queen Anne.

Open April – September, Weds,

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open in August (every day 1.30

– 5.30pm except Mondays).

01332 862502

www.melbournehallgardens.

com


RAILWAYS

T E F S

North Wales

The Ffestiniog & Welsh

Highland Railways celebrate

the best of Welsh heritage and

scenery. Two of the Great Little

Trains of Wales, the narrow

gauge trains run through some

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the Snowdonia National Park.

The Welsh Highland runs coast

to coast from beside the castle

in Caernarfon to Porthmadog

Harbour – a run of 25 miles

through farmland and forest

across the slopes of Snowdon.

The Ffestiniog then runs up

from Porthmadog to the

famous slate mining town of

Blaenau Ffestiniog.

The tradition of narrow gauge

steam is strong in North Wales

– The Ffestiniog is celebrating

150 years of passenger services

in 2015. Yet in spite of its age, it

continues to be a trendsetter

with modern comfortable

carriages being built in its own

workshops right alongside

Victorian carriages lovingly

restored. This really is history

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Trains run daily from 21st March

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are both enthusiast and family

events throughout the year.

For information on these and

the timetable of services,

please check out the website.

The Ffestiniog and Welsh

Highland Railways are a great

excuse to visit some of Wales’

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01766 516000

www.festrail.co.uk

Brecon Beacons

Enjoy the beautiful scenery of

the National Park from an ideal

position – in a narrow gauge

steam train!

Travel in one of our all-weather

observation carriages behind

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Torpantau high in the Brecon

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Trains run from February to

the end of October and at

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licensed restaurant, gift shop,

walks, picnic areas, children’s

play area, model railway,

locomotive workshop, steam

museum, special events,

free car and coach parking.

01685 722988

www.breconmountainrailway.

co.uk

enquiries@breconmountain-

railway.co.uk

Llanberis

Come and ride on our historic

steam trains along the shore

of Padarn Lake.

See magnificent views of

the mountains, including

mighty Snowdon, from

vantage points inaccessible

by car. A 60 minute, five mile

trip at a low cost: trains run

most days from Easter to

October. A great day out for all

the family!

Llanberis lake Railway,

Llanberis, Gwynedd

LL55 4TY

01286 870549

www.lake-railways.co.uk

[email protected]

ACCOMMODATION


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Q&A

Q Fictional accounts ofQ

the 1914 Christmas truceinclude volunteers, but Ithought they didn’t arriveon the western front until1916. Which is true?

Rosie Vinson, Brighton

AVolunteers would have beenextremely rare on the western front

at Christmas 1914. Some 1.1 millionmen had enlisted into the army sincethe war’s outbreak in August, but nearlyall were still training in home depots.Lord Kitchener’s New Army divisions,in which the majority served, began toarrive in France only from May 1915.

In December 1914, volunteers werenot yet needed to replace casualties inthe regular army on the western front.The army lost 90,000 officers and men insummer and autumn campaigns, but145,000 ex-soldiers of the Army Reservehad filled gaps in the ranks, though halfhad already been used to bring tostrength regular units at mobilisation inAugust. The shortfall was covered by theSpecial Reserve, 64,000 peacetime-trained part-time soldiers.

A few volunteers may have reachedthe western front in time for the truces.The novelist Robert Graves, enlisting inAugust, had officer training at schooland thought only his adjutant’s opinionof him as unsporting prevented histransfer to France in 1914. LondonTerritorial battalions serving with regulardivisions in December may have had afew wartime volunteers. Still, fictionalaccounts notwithstanding, thefraternisation was overwhelminglyinitiated and experienced by regularBritish soldiers and reservists.

Dr Alexander Watson, Goldsmiths,

University of London

MISCELLANY

Q Who was the first English monarch

able to speak English fluently?Kenneth Seeskin, Chicago

AWe don’t know for certain, andwe’re assuming you don’t mean any

of the Anglo-Saxon crowd before theNorman conquest. Our new mastersarrived in 1066 speaking a variety ofdialects from northern and westernFrance that a modern French personwould find hard to comprehend.

What developed from there was anew French dialect, unique to England,known as Anglo-Norman. England’slively medieval literary culture led tomany of the earliest examples of writtenFrench being penned here, while allFrance has from the same period aredocuments in Latin. Norman andPlantagenet royals and grandees werefor several generations far more at homespeaking to one another in ‘French’.

Of course, they encountered English;it’s said that even William I tried tolearn it.

The lesser nobility would encounterit in day-to-day dealings with locals,while a fascinating and plausibletheory holds that grandees would havepicked it up from English servants –particularly nursemaids.

Edward I, Edward II and Edward IIIwere probably familiar with English,but we can’t be sure. Henry II and hissons Richard and John are not thoughtto have used it. Richard II was a patron of Chaucer and other English poetsbut was a Francophile with no evidentinterest in Chaucer’s language.

The first monarch whom we cansay for certain was comfortable withEnglish was King Henry IV, who sworehis coronation oath in English, andwas the first ruler since the Conquest to do so.

Eugene Byrne, author and journalistGL

EN

MC

BE

TH

ILLUSTRATION BY GLEN MCBETH

Mark Twain, author of The Adventures ofHuckleberry Finn, created a board game eventually marketed as ‘Mark Twain’sMemory Builder’. Twain patented thedemanding game of historical trivia,intended to help people remembersignificant dates in the past, in 1885. Nick Rennison

DID YOU KNOW...?


Miscellany

QUIZBY JULIAN HUMPHRYS

Try your hand at this month’s

history quiz, compiled by

Julian Humphrys

AMost of the combatant nationshave already repaid their debts

from this period. Britain’s First War World allies,

including the United States and France,took many years to make payments ontheir bonds. The US loans were some of the first significant debts that thecountry had incurred, borrowing some$337bn in current money, mostly paidback in the 1920s and 1930s to the banksand businesses it borrowed from.

France used moderate inflation in the1920s to significantly reduce the value ofits debts and refinanced most after the Second World War.

The largest debtor, Germany, paid off its loans from the two world wars in2010. Initially worth about 96,000tonnes of gold after the First World War,the amount Germany owed was reduced

in 1929 to about £1tn in current values,and payments were not made from 1933until the end of the 1952. Terms forpaying these loans back were generouslyextended after the Second World Warwhen West Germany became a ColdWar ally against the Soviet Union.

But what of Britain? Well, the UKgovernment has just announced that itwill pay off £218m of its £2bn FirstWorld War debt by refinancing bondsoriginally issued by Winston Churchill.The British have been smart financiers:unlike other governments in Europe,Britain withheld paying these bondsback because the interest rates of 2.5 to4 per cent were below current marketrates for perpetual long-term debt.

Dr Eric Golson, department of economics,

University of Warwick

QUIZ ANSWERS 1. They were all carried out by bastards. Williamthe Bastard of Normandy conquered England; Thomas the Bastardof Fauconberg attacked London; and John the Bastard Heronrescued Edmund Howard. 2. The Match Girls’ Strike. 3. An unpopu-lar English medieval tax on wool exports. 4. In Joseph Goebbels’living room. 5. When the dean of St Giles Cathedral, Edinburghstarted reading from it, she threw her stool at him.6. It was built using timbers from USS Chesapeake, which wasfamously captured off Boston by HMS Shannon in June 1813.nPHOTO CHALLENGE ANSWER: Manya Sklodowski, later known as Marie Curie

GE

TT

Y/A

KG

ONLI NE QUI Z EVE RY

FRI DAYhistoryextra.com

/quiz

Q What happened to the debt of the nations

that fought in the two world wars?Keith Dear, by email

These fuel cars bear inscriptions protestingagainst the dismantling of German industrialplants to help clear the country’s debt following the Second World War

1 . What links the Norman

conquest, an attack on

London in May 1471 and the

rescue of Edmund Howard

at the battle of Flodden in

September 1513?

2. What is the 1888 strike at the

Bryant and May factory in Bow,

London, better known as?

3. What was the Maltolt?

6. What links this building with the

War of 1812?

4 . In October 1936 socialite DianaI O b 1936 i li Di

Mitford (pictured above) married

British Union of Fascists leader

Oswald Mosley in Berlin. Where?

5. How did Jenny Geddes reputedly

demonstrate her disapproval of the

introduction of the Book of Common

Prayer in Scotland, in 1637?

4

6

99BBC History Magazine

SAMANTHA’S RECIPE CORNER

Every issue, picture editor Sam Nott

brings you a recipe from the past.

This month it’s a rich and tasty fruit

cake traditionally eaten at Easter

Simnel cakeThis delicious fruit cake hasbeen around since medievaltimes and is often connectedto Mothering Sunday, whendomestic servants weregiven the day off to visitfamily and would take thistreat back to their mothers.In the late 19th and early20th centuries Simnel cakebecame associated withEaster and was decoratedwith 11 marzipan balls torepresent the apostles(minus Judas).

INGREDIENTSTo make almond paste:• 14oz icing sugar• 9oz ground almonds• 2 eggs, beaten• 1 tsp almond essence

To make the cake:• 6oz butter or margarine• 6oz soft brown sugar• 3 eggs, beaten (plus 1beaten egg for glazing)• 6oz plain flour (I used selfraising by mistake and itwas fine)• Pinch of salt• ½ tsp ground mixedspice (optional)• 12oz mixed raisins,currants and sultanas• 2oz chopped mixed peel• ½ lemon (grated zest)• 1-2 tbsp apricot jam

METHODAlmond paste:Put icing sugarand groundalmonds in a

bowl and add enough eggso you can mix it to a firmconsistency. Add almondessence and knead untilsmooth.

Roll a third of the almondinto a circle 7 inches indiameter – keep remainderfor cake topping. Preheatoven to 140C/gas mark 1.Grease and line a 7 inchcake tin.Cake: Mix butter and sugaruntil pale and fluffy. Beat ineggs slowly and then siftflour, add salt and mixedspice. Add mixed dried fruit,peel and zest.

Put half the mixture in thetin, smooth over and add thecircle of almond paste. Addthe rest of the mixture andsmooth over the top. Covertin in baking paper and placein the oven for 100 mins oruntil cooked.

Brush cooled cake withapricot jam. Place one half ofremaining almond paste ontop of cake and make 11balls with the rest. Placeballs on top and brush withbeaten egg. Place under grillfor 1-2 mins or until marzipan starts to go brown.

Recipe adapted frombbc.co.uk/food/recipes/simnelcake_792

Difficulty: 4/10Time: 2.5 hours

Fruity andfilling, Simnelcake makesa tasty Easter treat

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PICTURE CHALLENGEName the little girl on the rightwho became the first female professor at the University of Paris

Jemmy HirstA Yorkshire eccentric who often rode a bull namedJupiter instead of a horse and regularly used pigsinstead of pointer dogs when hewas out shooting, Jemmy Hirstwas born near Goole in 1738.Hirst’s oddities were such that hecame to the attention of George IIIwho invited him to London. Afterfirst claiming that he was too busytraining otters to fish for him, Hirsteventually travelled south and met theking, addressing him (according tosome reports) with the unorthodoxgreeting: “Well, I’m right glad to see theesuch a plain owd chap.” Hirst died at theage of 91, leaving £12 in his will for 12 oldmaids to follow his coffin to the grave.Nick Rennison

CURIOUS CHARACTERS

Write to BBC History Magazine, Tower House, Fairfax Street,

Bristol BS1 3BN. Email: [email protected]

or submit via our website: historyextra.com

GOT A QUESTION?

ILLUSTRATION BY BEN JONES

100

Miscellany

PRIZE CROSSWORDYou may photocopy this crossword

Across1 Remains of early holycity south of Alexandria,named after a Christianmartyr, now a WorldHeritage site (3,4)5 Robert, leader of 1605gunpowder plot (7)10 Nickname for (young)US soldier, particularly inUS Expeditionary Forcesin First World War (8)11 A dismissive 1980sterm for a type ofaspirational, well-to-doyoung professional (6)12 See 25 across.13 Byzantine general,a great military leader, inservice of Justinian I (10)14 Anglo-Saxon kingwho brought Northumbriaunder English control (6)17 Deliberative assembly,often the upper house,originating in ancientRome (6)19 Creatures of Greekmythology, eg naiads,dryads and oceanids (6)21 ___ House, associated with dukesof Wellington, popularly known as‘Number One, London’ (6)23 Pioneer of aviation, the first womanto complete a solo flight from Englandto Australia (3,7)25/12 across Term once applied tothe 5th to 10th centuries AD, nowconsidered inaccurate (4,4)26 Argentina’s name derives from theLatin word for this (6)27 Long-serving Swedish PM, duringwhose tenure many of the country’ssocial welfare laws were passed (8)28 District of SE London, once amarket garden centre and finalstopping point for drovers takinglivestock to the capital (7)29 The Greek shipping magnate whomarried Jackie Kennedy in 1968 (7)

Down2 Henry, a 19th-centurylord chancellor afterwhom a one-horse,four-wheeled carriage isnamed (8)3 In ancient Persia, amember of the priestlyclass; name oftenappearing in the(Latin) plural (5)

4 Anglo-Indian term for person ofgreat wealth, originally applied toa European who made a fortune inthe east (5)6 Former name of the east Africancountry of which Menelik II was a greatleader from 1889–1913 (9)7 One of the two rivers that defined theregion the ancient Greeks called‘Mesopotamia’ (9)8 Middle Eastern capital, damagedby earthquakes in Roman timesand ravaged by conflict in moderntimes (6)9 Lebanese port, one of oldestcontinuously inhabited cities in world (6)15 The seat, since the mid-1840s, ofone of the world’s oldest parliaments,the Althing (9)16 Respiratory illness of whichPrincess Alice, daughter of Queen

Victoria, died in 1878 (9)18 The last British monarchto be born outside of theUnited Kingdom (6,2)

20 Alfred, English painterborn in Paris, one of the creators

of French Impressionism (6)22 19th-century French

neo-Classical style, eg inwomen’s high-waisteddresses (6)

24 Australian artist well known for hisseries of works featuring thebushranger, Ned Kelly (5)25 Invaders restricted to north, central,and east England by Alfred the Great (5)

Compiled by Eddie James

CROSSWORD COMPETITION TERMS & CONDITIONS The crossword competition is open to all residents of the UK (inc. Channel Islands), aged 18 or over, exceptImmediate Media Company Bristol Limited employees or contractors, and anyone connected with thecompetition or their direct family members. By entering participants agree to be bound by these terms andconditions and that their name and county may be released if they win. Only one entry permitted per person. The closing date and time is as shown under How to Enter, above. Entries received after that will not beconsidered. Entries cannot be returned. Entrants must supply full name, address and daytime phone number.Immediate Media Company (publishers of BBC History Magazine) will only ever use personal details for theeepurposes of administering this competition, and will not publish them or provide them to anyone withoutpermission. Read more about the Immediate Privacy Policy at immediatemedia.co.uk/privacy-policy/ The winning entrants will be the first correct entries drawn at random after the closing time. The prize andnumber of winners will be as shown on the Crossword page. There is no cash alternative and the prize will notbe transferable. Immediate Media Company Bristol Limited’s decision is final and no correspondence relatingto the competition will be entered into. The winners will be notified by post within 20 days of the close of thecompetition. The name and county of residence of the winners will be published in the magazine within twomonths of the closing date. If the winner is unable to be contacted within one month of the closing date,Immediate Media Company Bristol Limited reserves the right to offer the prize to a runner-up. Immediate Media Company Bristol Limited reserves the right to amend these terms and conditions or tocancel, alter or amend the promotion at any stage, if deemed necessary in its opinion, or if circumstancesarise outside of its control. The promotion is subject to the laws of England.

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FIVE WINNERS OF GREAT MAPSK Foulkes, Lancashire; P Barry, Surrey; D Green, West Midlands; L Goddard, Hampshire; B Petticrew, Northamptonshire

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King John

By Marc MorrisDiscover the story of one ofEngland’s most controversialmonarchs – from his hungerfor power and the loss of hiscontinental empire, to the sealingof Magna Carta, 800 years ago.

Published in hardback by Cornerstone, £25

HOW TO ENTER Open to residents of the UK,(inc. Channel Islands). Post entries to BBC HistoryMagazine, April 2015 Crossword, PO Box 501,Leicester LE94 0AA or email them [email protected] by 5pmon 22 April 2015. Entrants must supply name,address and phone number. The winners will bethe first correct entries drawn at random after theclosing time. Winners’ names will appear in theJune 2015 issue. By entering, participants agreeto be bound by the terms and conditions shown infull in the box below. Immediate Media CompanyLimited, publishers of BBC History Magazine,would love to keep you informed by post ortelephone of special offers and promotions fromthe Immediate Media Company Group. Pleasewrite ‘Do Not Contact Magazines’ or ‘Do NotContact IMC’ if you prefer not to receive suchinformation by post, email or phone. Write ‘NoEmail BBCW’ if you do not wish to receive similaroffers via email from BBC Worldwide. Please writeyour email address and mobile phone number onyour entry so that BBC History Magazine can keepeyou informed of newsletters, special offers andpromotions via email or free text messages. Youmay unsubscribe from receiving these messagesat any time. For more about the BBC Privacy Policy see the box below.

From what respiratoryillness did QueenVictoria’s daughterAlice (right) suffer?(see 16 down)

E

John

Menelik II (right) was leader of where? (see 6 down)

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EDITORIAL

Editor Rob Attar [email protected]

Features editor Charlotte [email protected]

Reviews editor Matt Elton [email protected]

Production editor Spencer MizenPicture editor Samantha Nott [email protected]

Art editor Susanne FrankDeputy art editors Rachel Dickens and Rosemary Smith

Website editor Emma McFarnonr [email protected]

LusitaniaSaul David explores the

controversial sinking of

a great ocean liner in the

First World War

Vote winnersDominic Sandbrook

explains how the past

MAGAZINE

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er as

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Civil War misconceptionsLeading historians challenge conventional views of Cromwell, Charles I and the armies that battled to control the British Isles

explains how the past

25 general elections

were won and lost

Magna CartaDavid Starkey opin

on the great charte

its 800th annivers

approaches


My history hero

Arthur Ransome is best known for writing the classicSwallows and Amazons series of young people’s novels,set in the Lake District and the Norfolk Broads. Earlierin his career, he worked as a literary writer and as aforeign correspondent, reporting on the First World

War and the Russian Revolution. Ransome was also acquaintedwith Lenin and Trotsky and in 1924 the latter’s former secretary,Evgenia Petrovna Shelepina, become his second wife.

When did you first hear about Arthur Ransome?As a child, when I read Swallows and Amazons, and then moreimportantly when I had a family of my own – and we regarded itnot so much as a work of fiction, but as a guide book. We’d visitthe Lake District or the Norfolk Broads most years and go sailingor camping, and do all the things that Ransome wrote about.

What kind of person was he?First and foremost, a very good children’s writer – and there wasan innocence about him that shone through in his books. Hewasn’t at all the sort of person that you’d expect to cover theRussian Revolution. He’d originally gone to Russia to write aboutits folklore but when war and revolution broke out found himselfin the middle of this wild struggle; I think he found himself outof his depth. He was accused of sucking up to the Bolsheviksand on his return to Britain was interviewed by Special Branchand asked if he was a communist sympathiser. When asked whathis politics were, he replied “fishing”, and I think he said sowithout irony.

What made him a hero?He taught us to take childhood seriously. The Victorians thoughtyoungsters should be seen but not heard – that’s a big mistake.Childhood is something that you should put in a bottle, and everynow and then take a swig from: there’s a difference between beingchildish and childlike and I think Ransome subscribed to that.His stories are terrific escapism and bring alive the romance of theLakes, while never patronising or talking down to young people.I am also fascinated by the fact that he was there at these amazing moments in history, like the Russian Revolution.

What was Ransome’s finest hour?Settling down in the Lake District, which he’d known as a child,with Trotsky’s former secretary – and creating the world ofSwallows and Amazons. He put away his journalist’s pen andconjured up what it was like to have this idyllic childhood. Heknew children wanted adventure and to widen their experiences,and do all the things he has them doing: be it sailing or fishing.He explained how to do these things in an engaging way, givinghis stories a guidebook quality. I think his children’s books werein part a reaction to the horrors he’d witnessed in Russia.

Is there anything you don’t particularly admire about him?He was a bad father to his only daughter and he wasn’t very nice tothe real-life children who inspired his fictional characters whenthey grew up. I also find it rather reprehensible the extent to whichhe glorified the Russian revolutionaries; he clearly got a bit carriedaway by them.

Are there any parallels between his life and your own?Well, I too covered wars as a young reporter – and while I don’twant to exaggerate my role, like him I went to a lot of dangerousplaces. I also have a Russian connection: my maternal grand-mother was Russian, and my mother was born in Odessa andalways felt Russian in some ways. Moreover, my father spokeRussian – my parents would speak Russian if they didn’t want usto hear what they were saying. Lastly, there’s our shared love ofsailing. Unlike Ransome though, I’ve never fancied trying my luckas a children’s writer. It’s a tremendous skill and I just think it’sbeyond me!

If you could meet Ransome, what would you ask him?I’d ask a series of boating-related questions: the best place in thecountry to moor a boat, the best boat for young people, the bestboat for older people? That sort of thing.John Sergeant was talking to York Membery

“He conjured up what it was

like to have this idyllic

childhood. He knew children

wanted adventure and

explained how to do these

things in an engaging way”

John Sergeant, broadcaster, chooses

Arthur Ransome1884–1967

John Sergeant is a former political editor of ITV and chief political

correspondent of the BBC. His ITV series, Barging Round Britain,

concludes in April. His accompanying book is published by Michael Joseph MA

RY

EV

AN

S

“Ransome’s books were in part a reaction to the horrors he’d witnessed in Russia,” says John Sergeant

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moleiro.com/online

Tel. +44 (0)20 7193 4986

£10

Join now and

SAVE an extra*

Prices start at just £36*

Join online at www.hrp.org.uk

call us on 0844 482 7788

FREE entry to all six palaces, all year round!

+ 3 months

FREE

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*First year only when paying by Direct Debit

Prices correct up to 1 March 2015

Documents

BbC H1st0ry Magazine 2015-04.Bak