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Winstanley College
History Magazine October 2014 Edition
Please note that any views or opinions expressed in this magazine are the views of
the author, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Winstanley College, or its
History Society.
Contents:
1.
Editorial:
Welcome to this year’s first edition of
the Winstanley History Magazine! 2014
so far has seen a number of events that
have shaken the world, the annexation
of Crimea, the shooting down of flight
MH17 and the rise of Islamic State in
Iraq to name a few. Closer to home we
have also seen the referendum on
Scottish independence and the subse-
quent resignation of Alex Salmond.
Most of these events have their
groundings in the past, Crimea as a
former territory of the USSR, the rise of
Islamic State in the 2006-7 Iraqi civil
war and possibly even stretching back
to the colonial era, and arguments over
Scottish independence from the medi-
eval period to the 1707 Act of Union,
and these recent developments will
most likely continue to shape our per-
ceptions and the ways in which the
world works for many years to come.
Keeping with the theme of Scotland, in
this edition we have a fascinating arti-
cle on why the Romans never managed
to take Scotland, or Caledonia as it was
known back then. On the theme of An-
cient History, similarly intriguing is the
debate over which form of Ancient
writing came first: hieroglyphics or cu-
neiform, as covered by Emma Porter.
Moving away from the ancients, in this
edition we also challenge the concept
that celebrity scandal is reserved for
the 20th Century, with articles on a
number of scandalous historical figures
such as Isabella of France and the Bor-
gia family. The Renaissance period is
also expanded upon through an en-
grossing exploration of the effects of
the Reformation on the monarchy.
More modern topics covered include
the civil rights movement, especially
poignant with the events currently un-
folding in Ferguson after the shooting
of Michael Brown, and a case study of
the effects of the Nagasaki atom
bomb.
Two other fascinating articles on The
Seven Years War and how it related to
WW1, and the Kwangju uprising also
pose the age old question– do we ever
learn from history?
Enjoy!
Maddie and Sally
Editors.
'You must always know the past, for there is no real Was, there is only Is.' -William Faulkner
2.
3.
On 6th October 1762, as part of the Seven
Years' War, the British beat the Spanish at
the Battle of Manila, only to occupy the Phil-
ippines' capital until the end of the war, by
then just a year away. This was a war that
reverberated across continents and whose
effects may be seen in the outbreak of war
in the 20th century.
The Seven Years' War is called many names
across the nations and continents it affect-
ed, which included Europe, North America,
Central America, the West African coast, In-
dia, and the Philippines. Despite technically
lasting nine years, its fever pitch lasted the
seven year period from 1756 to 1763 hence
the name 'The Seven Years' War'. The war
was primarily driven by the colonial and im-
perialistic tendencies of Europe's greatest
powers such as Great Britain, France and
Spain, as well as the power disputes of Prus-
sia and Austria. The various alliances be-
tween the aforesaid countries cooked up a
huge conflict which culminated in the Seven
Years' War. This feature alone foreshadows
the events in the build up to WWI, where
the Triple Entente and Triple Alliance played
a vital role in the spread of war across Eu-
rope.
Not only in its outbreak are the similarities
to WWI particularly striking: the outcome
bears a remarkable likeness, too. First of all,
the post-war negotiations of the Seven
Years’ War between the great powers were
held in Paris and the subsequent treaty
drawn up as a result of these negotiations is
known as the 'Treaty of Paris': Versailles, the
scene of the post-WWI negotiations, is itself
a district of Paris.
4.
As at Versailles there were notable absen-
tees at the Paris negotiations in 1763 who
had contributed to the build-up of war,
though at Paris it was Austria and Prussia,
as opposed to Austria-Hungary and Germa-
ny at Versailles. Even so, the actual land ar-
ea covered by the former and the latter
countries hardly differ, despite the 150 year
time lapse between them. The only differ-
ence is that the biggest losers in the Seven
Years’ War were involved in the subsequent
negotiations, as France and Spain teamed
up with the victorious Britain to form the
Treaty.
As in the wake of Versailles, the landscape
of Europe changed with the Treaty of Paris
and the subsequent treaty, 'The Treaty of
Hubertusburg’, which did include Prussia
and Austria. Like after WWI, European bor-
der disputes were resolved and they re-
turned to the 'Status quo ante bellum' - as
they were before the Seven Years' War
broke out. In a sense, important countries
that would play a significant role in the fu-
ture were formed: the negotiations created
the modern Germany as it is now known, as
Prussia gained huge influence in Europe at
the expense of the Holy Roman Empire.
This was a move of paramount importance
for the future of European relations, espe-
cially when considering the unequivocal
role played by Germany in the two world
wars of the 20th Century.
Moreover, Britain gained colonies and ex-
panded her Empire. Perhaps an interesting
contrast between the treaties of Versailles
and Paris is that the Paris negotiations en-
couraged colonialism, whereas Wilson's in-
sistence at Versailles encouraged European
self-determination. Britain's occupation of
much of North America as a result of the
Treaty of Paris could also be viewed to be
of huge significance in 20th century war-
time and the inter-war years. After WWI,
the American move towards Harding's
'normalcy' in the 1920's was born partially
out of the desire to return to a White Anglo
Saxon Protestant (WASP) society as created
by their British ancestors, which in turn
kept them out of the League of Nations - a
factor many believe to be crucial in the fact
that WWII was not prevented. This can
therefore clearly be linked to the British oc-
cupation of most of North America after
the Seven Years' War, in that their occupa-
tion would have encouraged British emigra-
tion to the USA, and hence established the
WASP ancestry of the USA.
The economy of Britain verged on bank-
ruptcy following the Seven Years' War. In
attempting to pacify the French and the Ro-
man Catholics based in Canada - which Brit-
ain acquired as a result of the Treaty of Par-
is - the British were forced to keep Canada
and appease their needs, which came at
huge expense. Economically, these post-
war events again strike chords similar to
that of WWI’s aftermath where Britain was
forced to pacify the Americans who were
keen to end their ties with Europe and
were demanding Britain to pay up the huge
outstanding debts caused by the borrow-
ing of money from the US to invest in the
war effort. The difference was that Britain
began to recover within a decade of The
Seven Years' War due to the beginning of
the Industrial Revolution, where industri-
alists such as Richard Arkwright came to
the fore to establish an era of economic
excellence for Britain, even on an interna-
tional stage. This harshly contrasts to the
stagnant economy of the 1920's where
the effects and the debts of the war
loomed over the British economy, fol-
lowed up by the collapse of the New York
Stock Exchange and the start of the Great
Depression within a decade of the Treaty
of Versailles.
And so I pose the question: was the Seven
Years' War a warning to the world of what
was to come in the future? Is it even com-
parable to WWI in its aftershocks and
effects, and from a British perspective is it
worthy of comparison when we gained
massively as opposed to the losses of
WWI and its negative impact on the econ-
omy?
To attempt to answer his vast question,
the context must be considered. Without
the Industrial Revolution, with financial
outgoings and investments going to Cana-
da, and new colonies, I doubt whether the
British economy could have survived hav-
ing neared bankruptcy immediately after
a war of this scale - naturally, one would
require an astute understanding of eco-
nomic to make such a claim with certain-
ty, but it certainly seems unlikely that a
pre-Industrial Britain would have borne
these costs easily. Furthermore, the mass
transfer of territorial ownership and land
that would later be the cause of dispute
does reflect much of the controversy of
the Treaty of Versailles a century and a
half later. In addition, the unquestionable
links between the political mood of North
America post-WWI and the British occu-
pation of land masses in North America as
a result of the Treaty of Paris 1763, and
the transferral of power to Prussia that
would later form the Germany at the
heart of WWI, to me seem to prove that
the Seven Years' War not only foreshad-
ows but lays the foundations for the First
World War. Obviously, the Seven Years’
War is followed by revolutionary social
and economic changes in Europe and oth-
er political conflicts that have an impact
on the course of history that leads inevita-
bly to WWI, but the link remains.
Can we therefore pin the First World
War’s causes on events one hundred and
fifty years prior? I think not. This being
said, undeniably, the Seven Years' War
bears some influence on international
events and theatre of war that struck up
the calamitous world wars of the 20th
century.
By Harry Griffiths.
5.
Ok, I know what you’re thinking: why
should I care about two dead languages
which I can’t read, and have no intention of
ever learning to read? “I’m interested in
WWII”, you might scoff, or, alternatively,
you may be thinking “Cuneiform, you idiot!
Are you just plain stupid?”
However, while it’s widely accepted by
some historians and language specialists
that Cuneiform came first, others say it did-
n’t and that there is no reason to go mak-
ing wild accusations and hurting the hiero-
glyphics feelings. It’s just plain rude. (And
you should totally care about hieroglyphics
vs. cuneiform because it’s…because
it’s….because it’s just cool alright? Go with
it. For me. Please? Thank you!)
Cuneiform
To start, if you’re wondering what cunei-
form and hieroglyphics are, I’ll give you a
brief (ha!) introduction. Firstly, the word
cuneiform means “wedge-shaped”, as all
cuneiform symbols have wedges in them.
Essentially, any wedge-shaped text/symbols
can be classed as cuneiform. Also, it wasn’t
a language. It was a picture-writing system
that used symbols, like hieroglyphics. In An-
cient Mesopotamia, it was universally un-
derstood, whether the reader was Akkadi-
an, Sumerian, or Babylonian. Each symbol
was the same word; just in different lan-
guages.
Cuneiform was developed from a Mesopo-
tamian accounting system of clay tokens.
Around 8000 BC, clay counters were used
to count goods in agricultural communities. 6.
An early form (not fully developed) of cu-
neiform script was used on the tokens and
on containers of tokens to show how much
there was inside. Goods such as cattle, ce-
real and textiles were documented on these
tokens and later on clay tablets.
Around 3100 BC, the symbols developed.
Mesopotamian authorities seemed to have
made it law to have the names of the indi-
viduals buying or selling the goods to be
recorded on these tablets. It was extremely
hard to do, as the current state of cunei-
form was logographic (1 symbol=1 word).
Therefore, there were too many names, too
many words to remember what all of them
meant. That meant it had to be developed
so that scribes wrote people’s names logo-
phonetically (1 syllable = 1 symbol). This
took a few centuries to develop, but even-
tually, cuneiform developed into this form,
used by Babylonians and Assyrians.
But the cuneiform I’m talking about is Su-
merian script. (I know, I’m confusing you.
Sorry!) At this time, 3200 BC, Sumerian cu-
neiform was read and written from top-to-
bottom and the symbols weren’t wedge
shaped. At this time, it wasn’t fully devel-
oped, but it was advanced and a form of
proto-writing. This is the script we’re talking
about. Over 200 years it developed into the
wedge shaped Sumerian cuneiform we
know and love and became read from left
to right. So, cuneiform as a true writing
form came into being around 3200-3000
BC, agreed? Agreed.
(The Sumerians don’t agree – they say that
the god Enlil created writing. Well, each to
their own, eh?)
Egyptian Hieroglyphics
Hieroglyphics on the other hand are much
less well documented than cuneiform.
They seem to have appeared suddenly
around the time 3100 BC. This is 100 years
later than cuneiform coming into being.
(‘Cuneiform came first!’ ‘Be quiet!’)
Egyptian Hieroglyphics were the writing sys-
tem of the Ancient Egyptians. According to
the Egyptians themselves, hieroglyphics
were given to them by the god Thoth,
(Dhwty in Egyptian); the scribe and histori-
an of the gods. There are three types of Hi-
eroglyphics: hieroglyphic, hieratic, and de-
motic. Hieroglyphic is inscribed on stones in
monuments; Hieratic is the "priestly" script,
used on manuscripts and paintings, and a
form of monumental hieroglyphics; and fi-
nally, demotic is a cursive script that re-
placed hieratic as the script for everyday
use from 600 BC onward. Got it? Good.
Hieroglyphics were also logophonetic, how-
ever the Ancient Egyptians wrote only in
consonants. This meant that the same
glyphs could be used to write a word, but
the word had different vowels in it – came
and come for example, would be written
with the same glyphs as they have the same
consonants. How would it be separated you
ask? Well, I answer. The signs in Egyptian
hieroglyphics were separated into 3 groups
– logograms, phonograms and definitive. 7.
Don’t worry; I’ll walk you through the jar-
gon. Logograms were signs that wrote out
the consonants or morphemes (smallest
meaningful part of a word i.e. in-com-ing
making incoming. The separate parts of the
word are morphemes). Phonograms were
the signs that represent the sound or
sounds, and the definitive weren’t spoken,
but they helped determine the meaning of
the words that preceded them i.e. finding
out if the word is come or came.
(Phew, glad that’s over!)
The Argument and The Evidence
The development of Egyptian Hieroglyphics
is less well documented than that of cunei-
form. The fully formed words seem to have
suddenly appeared in history. One of the
ideas on how hieroglyphics formed was that
Mesopotamian writing influenced it and
brought about the idea of a more complex
system of writing and recording, around the
time of 3100 BC. This is evidenced by certain
styles of architecture, use of cylinder seals
and decorative patterns which show fantas-
tical animals, all of which are connected to
Mesopotamia and could have influenced it.
It’s quite damning evidence of Mesopotami-
an influence on Egyptian culture. However,
there is little to no evidence of Egyptian in-
fluence on Mesopotamian culture, sug-
gesting the idea that Mesopotamia influ-
enced Egypt, but Egypt didn’t influence Mes-
opotamia. It leads credence to the idea that
Mesopotamia helped create Egyptian
writing, or certainly the idea of it.
The dates are particularly damning
when deciding which came first. Mesopota-
mian cuneiform has tablets dating to 3200
BC. Hieroglyphics, 3100 BC. Therefore cunei-
form came first. There. End of. Language ex-
perts agree with me, such as Geoffrey
Sampson, who says that Egyptian hiero-
glyphics “came into existence a little after
Sumerian script and is thought probably to
have been invented under the influence of
the latter”. So there.
“Aha!” Says the other side. There is proof
that it may not have come from the Meso-
potamians. So there!
Pottery vessels, bone and ivory tags, clay
seal impressions, all discovered in Abydos in
Egypt in the 1990’s, depict hieroglyphics
which were dated between 3400 and 3200
BC. That doesn’t compute with the theory
that Sumerian Cuneiform came before Egyp-
tian Hieroglyphics. Cuneiform came about in
3200 BC. If the cuneiform influenced the hi-
eroglyphics, how can they be dated 3400
BC?
By Emma Porter
8.
Born in 1431, Alexander VI, formerly Rodrigo
Borgia, would come to be one of the most
scandalous Popes in history, his name forev-
er interwoven with the greed, corruption
and nepotism that was rife in Renaissance
Italy in the 15th century. Made Cardinal of
the Holy See of Valencia at just 25 by his un-
cle Calixtus III, Rodrigo quickly rose through
the clerical ranks to the position of Vice
Chancellor of the Holy Roman Church at just
27. His securing of the post was less than
noble, largely achieved through nepotism,
bribes and underhanded favours; however
he was described by Calixtus’ successor Pius
II as “an extraordinarily able man.” He used
both his intelligence and connections to
amass an extraordinary fortune and en-
hance his influence within the conclave,
playing a vital role in the election of Sixtus IV
in 1471. He also managed to amass the
bishoprics of Albano, San Nicola and
Santa Maria, as well as being appointed
the Papal legate to Spain in 1172. Rodrigo’s
personal life was equally intriguing and even
more scandalous; despite his vow of chasti-
ty, he was a renowned womanizer and fa-
thered four legitimized children by his mis-
tress Vannozza de’ Catanei and countless il-
legitimate ones by a number of women.
In 1492, Rodrigo was elected Pope and be-
came Alexander VI. His election was secured
largely through bribes; with Florentine au-
thor Francesco Guicciardini writing in the
15th century that “his election was due to
the fact that he had unashamedly bought
the votes of many cardinals in a manner that
was unprecedented in those times.” Despite
coming to power through largely unscrupu-
lous means, it was accepted that the Papacy
needed a strong, competent and intelligent
heir to calm the anarchy that had emerged
under the ineffective leadership of Innocent
VIII, and Alexander VI matched all of these 9.
qualities. He was also committed to restor-
ing order in Rome and the Papal States,
setting up prison inspectors and police com-
missioners, whilst ordering complete admin-
istrative reorganisation. However, Alexander
was also determined to establish his family
among the elite European nobility and was
willing to use any of the means at his dis-
posal in order to achieve this.
Before Alexander had been elected as Pope,
he had already promised his daughter Lu-
crezia to two different men, first to a young
Spanish nobleman, Don Juan de Centelles, a
match abandoned as soon as a more advan-
tageous one arose, and second to a Spanish
grandee, Don di Procida. The contract with
di Procida was still being arranged when Al-
exander was elected Pope, meaning he
could set his sights much higher, and so he
“gave the young man 3000 ducats to buy his
silence and break the contract” according to
Buchard, the Vatican’s Master of Ceremo-
nies. A match was then arranged with Gio-
vanni Sforza, cousin to the Duke of Milan,
whom Lucrezia married in June 1493. How-
ever, after three years the match had de-
clined it its political usefulness and Alexan-
der demanded a divorce, another practice
forbidden by the Catholic Church. This di-
vorce was justified by the loose claim by Lu-
crezia that the marriage had never been
consummated; with Sforza being told to de-
clare that he was impotent. At first, he re-
fused this humiliating demand and request-
ed the support of his uncle, Ludevico of
Milan, in retaining his marriage and po-
sition. However, Ludevico was reliant on
the Pope for protection against the impend-
ing invasion of Italy by Charles VIII of France,
and therefore on the threat of being dis-
owned, Giovanni was forced to agree to the
divorce and declared himself impotent. He
did not take this indignity lying down, and
spread vicious rumours about incest be-
tween Lucrezia, her brother Cesare, and Al-
exander himself, an allegation which would
follow all of them for the rest of their lives
and was a source of endless disgust
throughout Europe. However, this was only
the beginning of the intrigue surrounding
Lucrezia’s marriages. Whilst still embroiled
in her divorce, Lucrezia, the ‘virgo intacta,’
was already pregnant, either by Giovanni or
a valet she had been having an affair with.
Sadly the child was stillborn, although this
opened the way for a match to be arranged
between her and Alfonso of Aragon, the ille-
gitimate son of the King of Naples, whom
she married in July 1498. This marriage ce-
mented the alliance of Naples, Spain and
Italy against the adamant claims of the
French monarchy to Naples. However, as the
military supremacy of France became ap-
parent, Alexander VI once again changed his
mind. In Rome on July 15th 1500 Alfonso
was strangled to death by Lucrezia’s brother
Cesare, leaving the Pope able to negotiate
with France. The lack of outrage at his mur-
der further demonstrates the absolute pow-
er and absolute corruption of the Renais-
sance Papacy.
10.
However, Alexander was not done with his
daughter yet. He decided on a new hus-
band, Alfonso d’Este, son of the Duke of
Ferrera, as his estate bordered the Ro-
magne where Cesare was currently under-
taking a campaign of conquest for himself.
When the Duke declined Alexander’s offer,
he persuaded him through both bribery and
the threat of Cesare invading his territory.
However, this was to prove a much more
lasting union, from 1502 until her death in
1519, as Alexander turned his attention
from Lucrezia to Cesare.
Cesare Borgia, born around 1486, was an
equally controversial figure in European
politics, and not just for the aforemen-
tioned allegations of murder and incest.
Cesare inherited his father’s love of extrava-
gance and decadence, his devotion to
which was completely uninhibited by his
selection as a Cardinal at just 18 years of
age. Wherever he travelled, wild parties
often followed, as did frequent bouts of the
mal de francese, known today as syphilis.
However, at 22, with Alexander’s other
male heirs either dead or considered impo-
tent, Cesare became the first Cardinal in
history to leave the Church, or “put off the
robe” as Buchard referred to the highly un-
usual situation as. Cesare left the Church so
that he could take up an offer made to him
by the new King of France, Louis XII, in
which if Cesare betrayed his old allies, the
Sforza’s, and helped France to conquer Mi-
lan, he would provide him with his own ar-
my, and an advantageous marriage to a
French noblewoman, Charlotte d’Al-
bret. And so Cesare, driven purely by the
pursuit of power, cast away his devotion to
the Church and to old allies, and began his
secular career. From 1499, Cesare used his
connections to France and to the Papacy to
bring most of Southern Italy and the Roma-
gna under his control state by state, his con-
quests usually following the same pattern.
The Pope would declare some miniscule
wrong committed by the region’s leader,
and Cesare would swoop in to right this
wrong, adding the territory to his ever
growing empire in the process. Cesare’s ar-
my was financed by Alexander, who raised
funds by creating new Cardinals in ex-
change for gold, often at the despair of the
College of Cardinals, who saw the increase
in numbers as a threat to the prestige and
sanctity of their position. However, when
his father died, Cesare was imprisoned in
Spain and his lands were reclaimed by the
Papacy under Julius II. After managing to
escape, he was killed whilst fighting to re-
gain his lands in July 1507.
Alexander VI died in August 1503, allegedly
after drinking poisoned wine. Whilst many
of his predecessors could not be described
as paragons of virtue, it is Alexander and his
children who have come to embody the li-
centious and unending scandal of the Re-
naissance Papacy. An autocratic ruler in his
own right, Alexander simply ignored all of
the conditions of his position, engaging in
murder, incest and betrayal along with ex-
traordinary shows of glamour and deca-
dence. Alexander was not greatly loved, on
his death many criticisms of him were 11.
voiced, for example Machiavelli once said
“in the Pope’s saintly footsteps came his
three servants and beloved handmaidens,
extravagance, simony, and cruelty,” but the
trail of scandal and intrigue that followed
him all of his life has ensured he will never
be easily forgotten.
By Madeleine McDonagh
12.
In 55 BC, the Roman army fought its way on-
to British shores for the first time, under the
command of Julius Caesar. Poorly equipped
and under-prepared, they won only token
victory. One year later, they tried again, this
time succeeding in their mission (to return
the ousted King Commius, Caesar’s ally, to
the Atrebatic throne). Still, Caesar returned
to his campaigning in Gaul disappointed. In a
letter to the philosopher, Marcus Tullius Cic-
ero, he complained that there was nothing
of value to be had in Britain. Then, less than
a century later, Britain was invaded again.
The Emperor Claudius launched his full scale
invasion in AD 43, lighting the flames Roman
occupation in Britain for the next 400 years.
Yet, in all this time, the occupation was nev-
er complete. Ancient Scotland, known to the
Romans as Caledonia, was never fully sub-
dued. It is one of history’s greatest mys-
teries that this country, populated only
by disparate, less-advanced tribes,
seems to have been host to one of the few
Roman failures.
Some scholars and, indeed, many people
like to believe that the Britons of the North
were too warlike for the Romans. Cassius
Dio said the tribesmen were ‘fond of plun-
dering; consequently they choose their bold-
est men as rulers.’ He goes on to paint a pic-
tures of this war-based society, in which
men are reared to be ferocious fighters, un-
der the command of strong powers. But,
Dio, like all Roman contemporaries, is frus-
trating in that he is very fond of spouting hy-
perbole. To see the truth, we must pick out
the finer details and look at them in context.
Tacitus wrote: ‘they [the Caledonians] go in-
to battle in chariots, and have small, swift
horses; there are also foot-soldiers, very
swift in running and very firm in standing
their ground.’ 13.
We can probably accept that the Britons
were war-like, but they were certainly not as
disciplined or skilled in combat as the Ro-
man fighters, even the auxiliaries (soldiers
recruited from conquered lands). Moreover,
it is a fact that the Chariot, by the time of
Agricola’s campaign (of which Tacitus is
wrote), was an obsolete machine, aban-
doned in the rest of Western Europe. What-
ever the case, the Roman army had definite-
ly encountered more organised, well-
equipped foes and bested them, the Gauls
being just one example.
Another suggestion is that the geography of
Northern Britain was too treacherous for the
Roman force to endure, but this is, perhaps,
an even weaker argument. Tacitus mentions
the ‘roughness of the ground’ and says ‘our
infantry had only a precarious foothold.’
However, as precarious as the terrain may
have been, it did not match the danger of
that found elsewhere in the empire. Spain
and Dalmatia, for instance, have much high-
er mountains and much hotter climates.
If physical factors did not stop the Romans,
what did? It may be that the Romans did not
place enough value in Britain to motivate a
total conquest. Caesar was certainly de-
terred by Britain’s lack of value to him. Taci-
tus imagined the speech of a Caledonian
leader: ‘What men know nothing about they
always assume to be a valuable prize. But
there are no more nations beyond us; noth-
ing is there but waves and rocks.’ It is unlike-
ly that Tacitus would entertain a contradic-
tory viewpoint like this without purpose.
Perhaps, then, Tacitus genuinely thought the
campaign was, to some extent, a wasted
effort. The uneven land and alien tribes had
little to offer the Romans in the long run, not
least because they had no coinage, and
would struggle to pay taxes. Groenman van
Waateringe suggested a successful occupa-
tion was only possible in ‘regions where the
Romans were confronted with a well-
organised proto-urban or urban structure,
which they could utilise for the supply of
their armies and… project gradually their so-
cial and administrative system.’ Northern
Britain was no such place. It was an agricul-
tural regime, in which farmers grew just
enough to sustain themselves, with a small
excess for the ruling classes. However, to
suppose that the Romans could not bend
their system to accommodate for a strange
culture is, perhaps, to underestimate the Ro-
man ability. Even if a revolt occurred, the Ro-
mans did not struggle to deal with such
things. The question is, if Caledonia had no
value, why were so many attempts made to
take it?
Agricola, Severus and Antoninus all led or
commissioned campaigns in the north for
one reason, to bolster their prestige. For
them, Caledonia needed no value. Provided
its inhabitants put up a fight, it was a victory
worth having. Even Julius Caesar first came
to Britain in an attempt to garnish his victo-
ries on the continent with another beyond
the sea. Politics played a central role in Ro-
man conquest and, as such, may be the
cause of this Roman failure.
14.
Following Agricola’s climactic battle at Mons
Graupius, in AD 84, the Emperor Domitian
put a stop to the campaign. ‘If the valour of
the Roman army and the glory of the Roman
name had allowed it, a stopping place would
have been found within Britain,’ writes Taci-
tus, clearly insinuating the Emperor’s inter-
vention, by reference to the ‘glory of the Ro-
man name.’ Domitian ordered the with-
drawal of Legio II Adiutrix and, soon after,
recalled Agricola to Rome under mysterious
circumstances. It is commonly believed that
the emperor was jealous of the governor’s
achievement. Unlike Agricola, Antoninus Pi-
us never intended to conquer the rest of
Britain. He simply wanted to out-do his pre-
decessor, Hadrian. This was accomplished
by the building of the Antonine Wall, on the
Forth-Clyde line. As for the Emperor Seve-
rus, he was in failing health even before his
campaign. He also made the fatal mistake of
bringing his sons on campaign, so that when
he died, at York, in AD 211, they made
peace with the Britons and hurried back to
Rome to quarrel over the throne. Herodian
said that Severus’s favoured heir, Caracalla,
‘paid little attention to the war, but rather
attempted to gain control of the army.’ It
seems that, in bringing his sons, politics
doomed Severus’s march from the outset.
Thus, it seems, the strongest argument,
gives us our ultimate reason for this failed
conquest. Politics was the reason for every
expedition to Caledonia and, as a result, it
was the reason for its loss.
By Nathanial Lamb 15.
Although Isabella of France is often de-scribed as a ‘She-Wolf’, was she really that bad?
In terms of the political arena that was oc-curring under Edward II’s reign – her hus-band- she can be seen as the voice of the people; Edward was far more interested in his ‘favourites’ Piers Gavestone, and later Hugh Despenser than retaining the control over Scotland that his father, Edward I had gained.
Isabella could be seen as unfortunate in her coronation as queen to Edward II. She was ultimately overshadowed on her own coro-nation day to become the Queen of England as it was abundantly clear who his attention belonged to; Piers Gavestone, whom he dressed in imperial purple silk embroidered with pearls. Witnesses described Gavestone as ‘more splendidly dressed than the king himself’. The King’s questionable relation-ship with Gavestone was ended when, on the 19th June 1312, Gavestone was bru-tally murdered and decapitated by the
Earls who felt drastic action needed to be taken to wake Edward II from his ‘love struck’ dream and face the realities of turbu-lent Scotland rebelling and taking back their land.
With Gavestone gone and Isabella the moth-er to a son, Edward III, she finally had the power to become the Queen she so desper-ately wanted to embody.
However, this was impossible with Edward II finding a new ‘favourite’ soon after Gavestone’s death; Hugh Despenser the Younger. Isabella found herself marginalised in her own rule and subsequently she need-ed to assert her power and she had the per-fect tool for this; her son as the heir to the throne.
She used her opportunity whilst in France to publicly declare her power. Contemporaries report that Isabella publically declared that ‘someone has come between my husband and myself’
16.
and she would not return to England until
‘this intruder has been removed’.
Isabella challenged the whole view of wom-en in the political arena in the medieval era; she imprisoned her husband and acknowl-edged him as dead, ruling in his absence as her son, Edward III’s regent.
However, her need for control which caused her to be described as the ‘she-Wolf of France’ ultimately led to her downfall. With Edward III feeling that he was being derived of his rule, he rebelled against his mother and came to power.
Isabella is one of the strongest female char-acters in the medieval era, should this really be embodied with the negative term of a ‘She-Wolf’? Rather, I believe she is a politi-cal genius.
By Sally Dickens.
17.
The declaration of martial law and the as-
sassination of the then acting President and
Dictator of South Korea, Park Chung-Hee, as
well as the now new found freedom of the
ROK (Republic of Korea) army General Chun
Doo-Hwan led to the unlawful massacre of
reportedly 2,000 South Korean civilians and
students in the city of Kwangju in the year
of 1980. The uprising is considered a major
landmark in the struggle for South Korean
democracy, it also marked the beginning of
anti-American sentiment in South Korea.
In the frenzy after Park’s demise students
and some professors led a huge movement
for democracy, however General Chun Doo-
Hwan had seized power and threatened vio-
lence if the protests were to continue, and
with the approval of the United States mili-
tary some of the most well trained para-
troopers were dispatched to teach the city
of Kwangju a lesson. The first confronta-
tion began on the morning of May 18th in
1980 when some 200 Chonnam university
students had gathered and began demon-
strating in the morning and by 2:00 PM had
been joined by more than 800 additional
demonstrators, when the city police were
unable to control the crowd the army were
dispatched and so unlawful violence en-
sued, a deaf 29-year-old, Kim Gyeong-cheol,
became the first fatality; he was simply in
the wrong place at the wrong time, but the
soldiers beat him to death. “A cluster of
troops attacked each student individually.
They would crack his head, stomp his back,
and kick him in the face. When the soldiers
were done, he looked like a pile of clothes
in meat sauce." (Lee Jae-Eui, Kwangju Diary:
Beyond Death, Beyond the Darkness of the
Age, p. 46)
Through-out the next two days more and
more infuriated citizens of Kwangju would
join the protests out of sheer disgust for the
violence and unjust murder that littered the
streets 18.
19.
On May 19th people from all walks of life
marched with the students, some throwing
Molotov cocktails at the soldiers whilst oth-
er demonstrators hurled rocks, however it
escalated to the point where soldiers would
beat to death anyone they came across in
the streets. By the morning of May 20th
more than 10,000 people were protesting in
downtown Kwangju, that day the army sent
an additional 3,000 troops to ‘control the
situation’, what ensued was no less than
barbaric. The Special Forces beat and muti-
lated people with their bayonets, troops
shot dead twenty girls at Kwangju’s central
high school, one hundred students who
took shelter in the Catholic centre were
slaughtered and university and high school
students that were captured had their
hands tied behind their backs with barbed
wire and many were then later executed,
even taxi drivers and ambulances trying to
help the wounded were shot.
May 21st can be seen as the climax as the
violence reached all new heights, people
fought back with bats, pipes, iron bars and
hammers. Students and civilians even broke
into police headquarters and gathered am-
munition to fight back against the army, stu-
dents mounted one of the machine guns on
the roof of the medical university. The local
police refused to help the army, subse-
quently many were beaten to unconscious-
ness for attempting to help the injured.
However, by 5:30 that evening the army
were then forced to retreat from downtown
Kwangju and by the morning of May 22nd
the army were forced to withdraw from
Kwangju, however they kept a blockade
around the city, when a bus of civilians
attempted to escape the army open fired
killing 17 of the 18 passengers aboard, that
same army-troops accidently killed 13 of
their own in a friendly-fire. Meanwhile in
the city of Kwangju students and profession-
als came together to form committees to
provide medical care for the wounded, fu-
nerals for the dead and even compensation
for those who had lost their loved ones. In-
fluenced by Marxist ideals, some of the stu-
dents arranged to cook communal meals for
the people of the city. For five days, the peo-
ple ruled Kwangju. Word of the massacre
spread fast leading to anti-government pro-
tests in neighbouring cities like Mokpo,
Gangjin, Hwasun and Yeongam.
Such peace didn’t last long, as on May 27th
at 4:00 AM the army moved back in down-
town Kwangju, students attempted to stop
their entering the city by lying in the streets
whilst the armed civilian militia prepared for
a new fight, after only an hour and half of
desperate fighting the army took control of
Kwangju.
Concerning the number of casualties, the
new Chun Doo-Hwan government issued a
statement saying that 144 civilians, 22
troops and 4 police officers had been killed
during the uprising however census reports
reveal that nearly 2,000 Kwangju citizens
went missing during this time. A small num-
ber of students who mostly died of May 24th
are buried in a cemetery just outside of
Kwangju, however several eyewitness ac-
counts report seeing hundreds of bodies
piled into mass graves on the outskirts of
the city.
In the aftermath of the massacre, the then
government lost a lot of its legitimacy in the
eyes of the Korean public, and anti-
government, pro-democracy protests con-
tinued to run throughout the 1980’s de-
manding that the perpetrators for the
Kwangju massacre be punished. Kim Dae-
Jung, a politician from Kwangju who had
previously been sentenced to death on
charges of formulating the rebellion ran for
president but did not serve as president un-
til 1998 to 2003, and went on to receive a
Nobel peace prize in 2000. The former pres-
ident at the time was then sentenced to
death in 1996 for corruption and his part in
the massacre.
The slaughter at Kwangju paved the way for
democracy in South Korea and though it
would take nearly a decade to obtain,
Kwangju was the turning point in the long
struggle. However, the horrors of those few
days will never be forgotten as historian
George Katsiaficas said “The liberated reality
of the Commune in Kwangju contradicts the
myth that human beings are essentially evil
and therefore require strong governments
to maintain order and justice. Rather, it was
the forces of the government, not the un-
governed people that acted with great bru-
tality and injustice.” Even now in Hong Kong
protests for democracy rage on, I only hope
that the government has learnt from past
events and refrains from acting with “great
brutality and injustice”.
By Sophie Scott
20.
21.
Black Americans make up about 12% of all
US citizens. They are descended from the
slaves brought over from Africa to work the
tobacco, cotton and sugar plantations. They
were supposedly at liberty in 1863, but still
suffered from poverty, segregation and dis-
crimination of all kinds. In the southern
states of the USA, for example Mississippi
and Alabama, black American citizens had
their own transport, cafes, cinemas, toilets
and schools. There were even posters put
up on shop windows exclaiming ‘Whites on-
ly’. This was all because of Jim Crow Laws,
which prevented blacks from voting and en-
forced separate, and unequal, schools.
These were state laws that forced, for exam-
ple, blacks to pass tests in order to vote,
which they obviously were not going to pass
due to the fact that they were less well edu-
cated than white children due to the segre-
gated, unequal schools. Thirty-two states
had segregated schools. The aim of the Civil
Rights Movement was desegregation, voting
rights, civil rights and an end to discrimina-
tion. The methods which they used in order
to try to obtain these aims included legal
action through courts, violent protest, non-
violent protest and civil disobedience.
Firstly, legal action through courts was par-
tially successful in trying to achieve the aims
of the Civil Rights Movement. In order to try
to force industry to employ blacks, Roose-
velt, the President of America from 1933 to
1945, issued Executive Order 8802 in 1941.
This prevented discrimination in industrial
and governmental jobs. In 1941, Roosevelt
also set up the FEDC (Fair Employment Prac-
tices Committee) to enforce the order. How-
ever, he had no power to force companies
to follow his policy. After Roosevelt died in
1945, he was succeeded by Truman. In
1946, Truman formed a President’s Com-
mittee for Civil Rights and he produced
a programme of reforms in 1947. This in-
cluded a proposal to outlaw lynching and
also ban Jim Crow laws. However, this was
crushed by congress. In 1948, Truman is-
sued an Executive Order which ended segre-
gation in units of the armed forces. This
came into effect in 1950 and was in force
during the Korean War. Also, in 1950, the
Supreme Court declared that black and
white students could not be segregated in
the same school and that the education pro-
vided in segregated schools had to be equal
in every respect. This gave the NAACP an
important foothold because segregated
schools were rarely equal in every respect.
The whole point of segregation was to en-
sure privileged for some. Their big oppor-
tunity came in 1954, with the Brown V To-
peka Case in which Oliver Brown was told
by the Topeka board of Education in Kansas
that his seven year old daughter, Linda,
could not attend her nearest school. This
proves that the Supreme Court ruling was
not effective. Brown used the Supreme
Court ruling to take the City of Topeka to
court for forcing his daughter to attend a
school a far away, instead of being allowed
to go to the nearby whites’ only school. The
NAACP supported the case and Brown was
represented by Thurgood Marshall, who lat-
er became the first black member of the Su-
preme Court. Eventually, Oliver Brown won
his case. In 1954, the Supreme Court de-
clared that all segregated schools were ille-
gal, because separate must mean unequal.
The following year, the Supreme Court
ordered all states with segregated
schools to integrate black and white school
children. However, this was easier said than
done. In 1956, the University of Alabama
refused to accept Authorine Lucy as a stu-
dent despite a government court order.
Therefore, equality in education was not
achieved.
Secondly, violent protest was moderately
successful in trying to achieve the aims of
the civil rights movement. Race riots broke
out in Detroit in June 1943 and thirty-four
people were killed and $2,000,000 worth of
damage was caused. Black soldiers also riot-
ed in nine army training camps because
they were receiving unequal treatment. By
the end of the war, some units of the army
were desegregated. General Eisenhower,
the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe,
personally supported integrated units. At
the beginning of the war, there were only
twelve black officers in the US army and
black soldiers were often given routine tasks
to perform. By the end of the war, much
had changed. Black officers were appointed
in all three services and the Air Force began
to train black pilots, six hundred in total, by
the end of the war. Altogether, about
1,000,000 black Americans served in the
armed forces. They found themselves in-
volved in a struggle against a racist dictator,
while they were themselves subject to racist
discrimination at home. However, many
were sent to Europe where they had no ra-
cial bars. When they returned to the USA in
1945, it was even harder to accept the re-
turn to discrimination. 22.
Whatever the experience of black Americans
during the war, in 1945 they returned to the
USA where many were unable to vote and
were condemned to be second class citizens.
In this respect, the war was a big boost to
the civil rights movement, motivating black
Americans to fight harder for their rights.
Thirdly, non-violent protest was partially
successful in achieving the aims of the civil
rights movement. In 1957, Elizabeth Eckford
along with eight other black students tried
to enrol at Little Rock High School in Arkan-
sas. She was stopped by the state governor,
Orval Faubus, who surrounded the school
with the state National Guard. When the
nine students tried to enrol on 5th Septem-
ber, they were faced by a crowd of more
than 1,000. After lunch, they were escorted
home by the police. Press and TV coverage
in the USA and across the world was a seri-
ous embarrassment to the USA – a country
which apparently championed freedom and
equality. President Eisenhower sent federal
troops to escort and protect Elizabeth Eck-
ford and the other students. After a month,
the federal troops were replaced by National
Guardsmen under the orders of the Presi-
dent. They stayed at the school for a year.
This caused Eisenhower to finally introduce
the first Civil Rights Act since 1875. It set up
a commission to prosecute anybody who
tried to deny American citizens their rights.
The demonstrations were seen on television
and in newspapers across the world. Many
US citizens saw, for the first time, the racial
hatred that existed in the southern
states. Governor Faubus attempted to
get around the President’s action by closing
all the schools in Arkansas in September
1958, but he was forced to reopen them to
black and white students by the Supreme
Court. Despite these events at Little Rock,
progress on integration was slow. By 1963,
there were only 30,000 children at mixed
schools in the South, out of a total of
2,900,000 and none at all in Alabama, Mis-
sissippi or South Carolina.
Fourthly, non-violent civil disobedience was
the most successful method in achieving the
aims of the Civil Rights Movement. One inci-
dent was the Montgomery Bus Boycott in
1955, in which Rosa Parks was arrested in
Alabama for refusing to give her seat up on
a bus to a white man. The Montgomery Im-
provement Association (MIA) was set up to
organise a boycott of buses, led by local
church minister, Martin Luther King. Martin
Luther King organised a boycott of the buses
which lasted a year. All the Black Americans
in Montgomery and the surrounding area
walked rather than use the buses. Eventual-
ly, the bus company was compelled to give
in and desegregate the buses. Throughout
the boycott, there were appeals to the Su-
preme Court challenging segregation on
buses. In 1956, the Supreme Court said that
segregation on buses was also illegal. A
peaceful approach had brought about a sig-
nificant victory. It had shown that black
Americans could organise themselves. The
boycott established King as the leader of the
Civil Rights Movement. His energy and en-
thusiasm were a major reason for the suc-
cess of the campaign. 23.
King set up the Southern Christian Leader-
ship Conference (SCLC) and became its pres-
ident in 1957. He organised sit-ins with the
first one being at Woolworth’s in Greensbo-
ro North Carolina, in which eighty-five stu-
dents demanded to be served at a white’s
only counter. When they were refused, they
sat at the counters waiting to be served but
did not react to intimidation, threats or
abuse. Altogether, 70,000 took part and
3,600 went to jail. When whites turned vio-
lent, there was widespread television cover-
age and support for Civil Rights. Other varia-
tions of sit-ins developed to try to end seg-
regation for example ‘kneel-ins’ in Churches,
‘wade-ins’ in swimming baths and ‘read-ins’
in libraries. By 1961, 810 towns and cities
were desegregated. The civil rights move-
ment gained much publicity when television
highlighted the non-violence of the protes-
tors in the face of violence from some white
racists. Martin Luther King additionally set
up the Freedom Riders. The Supreme Court
decided in December 1960 that all bus sta-
tions and terminals that served interstate
travellers should be integrated. In 1961,
King and the Congress of Racial Equality
(CORE) wanted to test that decision by using
the tactic of the freedom ride. The Freedom
Riders began to make bus journeys to break
Jim Crow Laws. The first of the freedom rid-
ers was in May 1961, when thirteen CORE
volunteers left Washington DC by bus to
travel to New Orleans. At Anniston, Ala-
bama, a bus was attacked and burnt. In Bir-
mingham, there was no protection and
the freedom riders were attacked by an
angry mob. The police chief, Bull Connor,
had ‘conveniently’ given the police the day
off. Nevertheless, they had gained tremen-
dous publicity. The Freedom Riders wanted
to put pressure on Kennedy. They succeed-
ed – later the same year, all railway and bus
stations were desegregated by the Inter-
state Commerce Committee.
In conclusion, the most successful method
in achieving the aims of the Civil Rights
Movement was non-violent civil disobedi-
ence, organised by Martin Luther King. He
followed the methods used by Gandhi when
campaigning for independence for India.
Martin Luther King created so much publici-
ty about the civil rights movement that
President Kennedy even began to appoint
black Americans to important positions.
John F Kennedy’s brother Robert, who was
Attorney General, prosecuted people who
tried to prevent blacks from voting.
By Emma King.
24.
Henry VIII was no Protestant. In fact, he hat-
ed the tenets of Protestantism and fancied
himself as an amateur theologian and wrote
and published a response to the reformist
preacher Martin Luther. For this, the Pope
was most grateful. So, how did Henry get
from here – being the Pope’s pet – to the
Reformation? As most of you will know this
was bound up with his wish to marry Anne
Boleyn. After many years of trying to get a
divorce, he turned to Protestantism. As Su-
preme Head of the Church of England, he
could marry and divorce whomever he
pleased. And he did. This involved shutting
down the monasteries, confiscating Church
lands, and virtually declaring himself at war
with every kingdom in Europe. Worst of all,
this meant change. If Henry wanted to make
England a Protestant country, then he would
have to change England irretrievably
and beyond recognition.
The trouble was that, because this change
of the established religion occurred over
night and not for religious reasons, nobody
really had any idea what to change. Thus,
Catholics were killed, Church treasure loot-
ed, preachers flooded in, but there was no
common direction to it all. And this was un-
derstandable. Even if Henry had turned Eng-
land Protestant because he felt swayed by
the arguments of the Lutherans, this would
mean that England had converted to Luther-
anism and not the various other versions of
Protestant worship. Catholicism is Catholi-
cism, or, rather, it is what the Pope says it is,
whereas Protestantism at the time of the
English Reformation could be Lutheranism,
Calvinism, or Presbyterianism – today the
choice is wider still. This makes any kind of
top-down Reformation – one imposed by
the king or parliament – difficult, because it
excludes the other kinds of Protestantism, 25.
but at least if Henry had picked one of
them, he would have chosen a door for
England to go through. Instead, what he did
was he boarded up the door of Catholicism
and simply pushed the English down the
corridor of Reformation. And for at least a
hundred and fifty years, we paced up and
down, unsure of which handle to turn.
Henry’s son and heir, Edward, was brought
up a fanatical and zealous Protestant and,
backed by the Greys, he acted where he
thought his father had dithered; the last
years of Henry’s reign had been seen as a
stalling of the Reformation, with a drifting
back to more conservative values. Icono-
clasm – smashing up churches and religious
art – became the order of the day in true
Protestant fashion. On top of this, a new
Book of Common Prayer was written,
stripped of all Catholic-leaning worship. On-
ly a few years later, the Holy Communion
was dramatically simplified as were the
vestments – clothing – of English priests.
The Church was now becoming strongly Cal-
vinist.
With Edward’s premature death came the
accession to power of a Catholic Queen.
England once again became a Catholic
country: Protestants were burned; a new
Book of Common Prayer was written; and
the English monarch was now married to a
Spanish king. What could go wrong?
Mary I died on the 17th November 1558,
the last openly Catholic monarch England
was to have for almost one hundred
and thirty years. Elizabeth, her sister,
and the last of the Tudor monarchs, learned
from the mistakes of her siblings, Mary and
Edward, and aimed for an equilibrium be-
tween Catholicism and Protestantism in
England, knowing that Catholicism was still
very much alive and kicking, and that Prot-
estantism would have to be appeased to
some extent to make up for the wrongs of
the preceding reign.
The Elizabethan Religious Settlement was
made into law by the Act of Supremacy –
making her Supreme Governor of the
Church of England – and the Act of Uni-
formity – republishing the 1552 Book of
Common Prayer with minor alterations and
enforcing church attendance once a week.
In addition to these Acts, the harsh laws
against Roman Catholics were repealed,
attacks on the Pope were removed from An-
glican prayers, and belief in the Catholic
concepts of transubstantiation and Real
Presence during the Holy Communion was
permitted by changes in the litany. Elizabeth
allowed for the foundation and develop-
ment of Anglicanism: a rich, diverse, liberal
form of Protestantism, unique to England is
this respect, with a High Church and a Low
Church, which every one of her successors
preferred immensely to any of the purist
alternative forms.
However, during Elizabeth’s reign the lines
of fire became clearer: on the one side
were the Puritans who wanted to scrap the
Book of Common Prayer and governance of
the Church by bishops and archbishops –
known as episcopacy; on the other side,
Catholic-minded, yet anti-Roman Catholic 26.
Episcopalians, meaning those who believed
in rituals and in bishops, who came to be
known as Anglicans. It was to be the aboli-
tion of the Book of Common Prayer and
episcopacy that was the main rallying cry of
the Puritan dominated Parliaments of the
late 1630s and the 1640s leading ultimately
to the English Civil War.
During the reign of Charles I, William Laud
became Archbishop of Canterbury. Laud had
more in common with the pre-Reformed
Catholics than with the Protestant non-
conformists in England. Since the Elizabe-
than Religious Settlement of 1559, the pre-
dominant theological makeup of the English
Church had been a mixture between Calvin-
ism and Lutheranism, with the idea of pre-
destination being one central unifying fea-
ture of this theology. Laud was not a predes-
tinarian, but an Arminian – one who believes
in the free will of all men to achieve salva-
tion.
Laud managed to upset a balance which had
been shown to work, for the most part,
since 1559. The Puritans, at the same time,
were quickly becoming paranoid and hysteri-
cal: the Protestant states in the Thirty Years’
War were taking a thrashing; the ecclesiasti-
cal hierarchies were shown to be incredibly
corrupt; and Laud was transforming the
Church in England into something almost
Catholic.
Events came to a head when King Charles I
tried unsuccessfully to impose the Anglican
Book of Common Prayer on the Scots.
The Scots had had a much more thor-
ough Reformation than the English, with the
established church – or Kirk – in Scotland be-
ing Presbyterian – both Calvinist and with-
out bishops. The Puritans perhaps had every
reason to be frightened that they would be
the next targets of some large anti-
Protestant conspiracy.
The Puritans were not drawn from the nobil-
ity, but were largely members of a new class
of men: the gentry. The gentry had been on
the rise since the early 17th century and by
the late 1630s the Puritans had some control
over the House of Commons. Now, with the
Scots invading England over the Book of
Common Prayer, the King needed the sup-
port of Parliament to fight them off. But
when Charles called a Parliament, he found
that the Scottish invasion was the last thing
they wanted to discuss: they would rather
call for the abolition of episcopacy and a cur-
tailing of the feudal rights of kingship. Here,
Charles seems to have been unable to
choose between a compromise with the
Scots and a compromise with his own Parlia-
ment; neither were very promising. Any
compromise would involve the abolition of
the bishops and a more reformed version of
the Anglican Church.
The Puritans succeeded in seizing power –
not that it is clear whether this was ever
their aim. In fact, the lack of any clear direc-
tion in the Puritan Commonwealth would
suggest that they had never planned to do
what they actually did.
27.
The Great Rebellion, as it was known, would
not have occurred without the Reformation.
The Reformation gave legal sanction to the
kinds of ideas which brought down the
monarchy in the mid-17th century, but,
luckily for the monarchy, not to the kind of
men who would keep it down – the Puritans
were largely unsuccessful in holding on to
power. The monarchy came back in 1660
stronger than before and the Puritans were
brought into disrepute by the horrors of
Cromwell’s Lord Protectorship. The Angli-
cans, too, came back and in a much stronger
state than before: everyone was tired of
conflict and needed something reliable to
fall back on. The Anglicans could now say
that they had been right all along about the
Puritans and they now more than ever sup-
ported and were supported by the monar-
chy.
These Anglicans, too, were partly responsi-
ble for the Glorious Revolution of 1688: a
cross-party coup to remove James II in fa-
vour of William of Orange. James was a
Catholic and managed even to annoy the
Anglicans and the Tories – the political party
most closely aligned with the monarchy.
However, James’ two daughters had been
raised Protestant and so the established au-
thorities took it as read that the next mon-
arch would be a Protestant.
On 10th June 1688, James Francis Edward
Stuart, Prince of Wales, was born. This was a
disaster for the political and religious au-
thorities and they began to become
quite hysterical about this birth, claim-
ing that the child had been smuggled into
the Queen’s bedchamber in a warming pan.
The handling of the birth was perhaps not
very tactful on the part of the king: those to
witness the birth were few, and Catholic.
Still, whether the child was the Queen’s or
not, this was irrelevant; the future of the
Anglican Church and the freedom of the ar-
istocracy to do as they wished were now in
danger, according to the Tories and the
Whigs. Again, had the Reformation not tak-
en place, the key players in this event – in
this case the Anglicans and not the Puritans
– would not have even existed.
The result of the Glorious Revolution was
undoubtedly as step in the direction of de-
mocracy and parliamentary superiority for
England. In the early 17th century, it was
not uncommon for the King to rule without
parliament for long periods, whereas after
1688, parliament was in almost continuous
session. Not only this, but parliament decid-
ed to abrogate to itself the right to change
the succession laws, suggesting that parlia-
ment was now very much the senior partner
in the relationship between crown, lords
and commons. After 1688, taxes, debt, and
government spending rocketed due to the
fact that government was no carried out
mainly by ministers – elected representa-
tives or aristocrats –who: weren’t personally
liable for the debt incurred; weren’t spend-
ing their own money, but the crown’s; and
who knew the king would take the blame
when times were bad. In conclusion, then,
the Reformation changed the nature of Eng-
lish government irreversibly. 28.
29.
First we saw attempts at violent and radical
further reform under Edward and then an
equally violent, reactionary counter-reform
under Mary. Some balance was achieved
under Elizabeth which lasted almost a cen-
tury, but ultimately the ‘broad church’ was
made up of warring parties: the Anglicans
and the Puritans. Roused by the action of
Charles I and his Archbishop of Canterbury
and a general lust for change, in the 1640s
the Puritans brought down the monarchy.
Roused by the threat of change, the Angli-
cans played a leading part in the removal of
our last Catholic monarch James II. Only the
Glorious Revolution, however, set a new
precedent: that of ‘legally’ removing a king
through parliament. This precedent sig-
nalled the end of the theory of the divine
right of kings and absolute monarchy and
clearly showed that parliament and the An-
glicans had won in the long drawn out inter-
nal religious conflicts of the latter half of
the 16th century and the majority of the
17th century. England henceforth was a
constitutional monarchy – as we remain to
this day.
By Keir Martland.
At 11:02am on the 9th of August in 1945 a
bomb exploded 503m above the city of Na-
gasaki in the South-West of Japan. The radi-
ation, intense heatwaves and blast force
that followed the explosion created massive
and instantaneous destruction, that year
70,000 people died.
One building that mostly remained standing
was Shiruyama Primary School. It was made
from reinforced concrete and withstood
most of the effects of the blast. That day
138 people died on campus leaving only 20
survivors, the Vice-Principal Hideo Arakawa
was one of the twenty. There were two
wings to the school, the North and the
South, the North was where the lessons
were held, however this particular day the
children were told to stay at home so it was
mostly teachers in that building. However,
the South Wing was at this time used as the
Mitsubishi Arms Factory where many
students had gotten jobs, this is the
building that held the most casualties; one
part of the Northern building still stands to-
day, preserved. Inside shows the scars of
what happened, the marks from the heat
waves and intense pressure and extreme
heat that destroyed the iron window frames
and scorched the wood black.
Vice-Principal Hideo Arakawa kept records
of interviews that he held with other survi-
vors as well as the relatives of victims and
his own experience of the explosion. “The
blast blew away the windows, scattering
shards of glass like sharp knives, the roof
and the ceiling collapsed and the thick plas-
ter crumbled as a result many people died
from the initial blast or burned to death”. So
where was Arakawa when the explosion oc-
curred?
He was in a meeting with four other teach-
ers, including the principal Sukeo Shimizu,
concerning procedures to take during an air-
strike. 30.
He recounted his experience in his notes
“Mr Kinoshita – wounds on the back of his
head, glass shards were embedded there.
The principal was on the floor face down
under a massive square timber, lying across
his neck and lower back. He’d been crushed
to death under the rubble of partition walls
and shelves smashed by the blast. Ms Og-
awara was also crushed, she was grasping
the Principal’s trousers calling for help when
she died, later when someone tried to un-
clench her tight grip the skin of the palm
suck to the hem and her hand couldn’t be
removed”.
The Principal’s office was in a corner
towards the back of the school, so how did
it retain so much damage? The school itself
was hit by a horizontal wall of force at
around 8400 tonnes, this horizontal wall is
called the Mach Stem, the Mach Stem was
created when the bomb exploded 503m
above the ground of Nagasaki, the shock-
waves of the explosion expanded in a ball-
like shape, when the waves hit the ground
they were reflected and when the two
waves merged they more than doubled the
individual pressure and expanded horizon-
tally, as it did so it grew in height and
strength. This Mach Stem began 300m from
ground zero and hit Shiruyama Primary
School 0.9s after the bomb exploded. The
Principal’s office is next to the courtyard in
the school, so the Mach Stem hit the front
wall of the school and passed through the
building, when it came to the back wall it
reflected and turned back on itself,
strengthening the force before com-
bining with the waves from the courtyard
and annihilating the office, killing 4 of the 5
people there.One month after the explo-
sion, American troops went to investigate
and survey the damage done, they also in-
terviewed survivors and relatives of victims
to gather as much detail as possible. They
made records of casualties, one of which
was for Shiruyama Primary School, deaths
were identified as a circle, if black they died
instantly, if half black and half white, they
died later on. The records made consisted
of numbers for the deceased with name,
age and cause of death just after. For exam-
ple:
No 33 – Aiko Tenaka – Died from the
blast – Age 22
No 07 – Wayata Fujiwana – Crushed –
Age 30
No 34 – Sachiko Yamazaki – Didn’t dis-
tinguish corpse/Body unidentifiable – Age
20
The U.S. Military used this data in their nu-
clear weapons development programs to
improve the damage made by Plutonium
bombs like that used on Nagasaki.Another
survivor was Hiroko Kanaya, she was 17 at
the time of the explosion and was working
with three other girls Chiyoko Nakamura,
Hisako Nomoto and Sanae Oku, as account-
ants in the Mitsubishi Arms Factory, in the
southern wing of the school. Just a few
minutes before the bomb exploded, Kanaya
had made her way to her shift in digging out
the air raid shelter, there she survived the
explosion but but still experienced the
shockwaves “I heard this tremendous noise 31.
and was flung off my feet to the back wall”
after she dragged herself out of the shelter
she described what she saw “Everything
looked completely different, all the glass was
gone it was like a warzone with everything
incinerated and all the people had terrible
injuries, their clothing was in shreds stained
red with blood, they’d stagger out and col-
lapse, some were crawling on their stom-
achs, it was a scene from hell”. She also re-
counted finding the three other friends she
worked with who were on the 3rd floor at the
time “Nakamura had shattered glass stuck all
over her body I said ‘Oh no, that must hurt
so much’ she said something like ‘I feel
numb beyond pain’. Nomoto too, I told her
‘Your eyeballs are sticking out a bit, are you
alright? Can you see?’ she said ‘No, not real-
ly, your face looks a bit blurry I can see only
half of it’ her eyeballs were protruding by
about 2cm, I’d never seen anything like that”
As for her friend Sanae Oku, she was num-
ber 63, she died from the blast. When Ka-
naya asked about her during the final mo-
ments of her friends’ lives, they told her she
could not move her body and gestured with
her eyes to them ‘go on without me’.
t was also recently discovered through re-
search found by Tetsuya Fujita, a scientist
who invented the F-Scale for measuring the
intensity of tornadoes, who visited Nagasaki
eleven days after the explosion that the
most destruction was done on the outskirts
of the blast. Also, top secret documents
from the U.S. government were uncovered,
revealing the meticulous calculations that
went into creating the nuclear bomb, nick-
named ‘Fat Man’ as it caused 30% more
destruction than that in Hiroshima,
which destroyed Nagasaki. One of the docu-
ments is minutes from a meeting of the Tar-
get Committee which were primarily focused
on picking a city to bomb, in such meetings
the strength of the Mach Stem was inten-
sively discussed. U.S. Brig. Gen. Thomas Far-
rell, a member of this committee said
“Correlate the data on the size of the bomb
burst, the amount of damage expected and
the ultimate distance at which people will be
killed”. The American Government wanted
to create the largest amount of destruction
they could and so calculated the perfect
height to detonate the bomb. At 1,000m the
explosion would spread too large and the
Mach Stem would cause little damage, at
100m the Mach Stem was created too near
ground zero, and although the damage
would be substantial it wouldn’t spread far
enough, and so it was decided on 503m
from the ground, where the optimum
amount of damage was created. Assistant
Professor at Stevens Institute of Technology;
Alex Wellerstein said “they were measuring
success on how many metres of the city they
destroyed…they considered the blast effect
to be the primary effect, it will destroy al-
most everything”, the U.S. forces fully in-
tended for this intensity of destruction to
take place.
Every morning, when students of the newly
renovated Shiruyama Elementary School ar-
rive they bow and say good morning to a a
shrine commemorating those lost due to the
explosion, and on the 9th of every month
32.
the children pray in front of the preserved
building and listen to survivors’ accounts of
the event. Only until July 2014 has the sister
of Sanae Oku been able to visit the site
where her sister died, meeting Kanaya for
the first time and taking some of the
schools soil as a memento of the site. Such
an event will never be forgotten when thou-
sands of innocent lives were unnecessarily
taken, unfortunately things such as this con-
tinue to happen, and so I wonder, will hu-
manity ever really learn from mistakes of
the past?
By Sophie Scott
33.
Want to get involved in the His-
tory Society?...
History society events!
Come and see how you can get in-
volved by joining the History Society;
keep an eye out for any changes on
the History notice board outside of
A4... 34.
Winstanley College History Society
2014-2015…
PRESIDENTS Cameron Fleming &
Zara Andrews
SOCIAL MEDIA Harry Griffiths
HISORICAL DRAMA Vanessa Holt
TOTAL WAR TOURNAMENTS! Dominic Doran
HISTORY MAGAZINE CO-
EDITORS
Maddie McDonagh &
Sally Dickens
MAGAZINE EDITORIAL TEAM Keir Martland, Ethan Freeman,
Elizabeth Cunliffe & Emma
Porter
35.
Come down to mentoring at 1:30 at Thursday
lunchtimes in A4
For more information contact:
Anya Lyon-Fraser W4652
Saffy Lowsley W4101
36.
Then join the
History Society’s
Social Media
pages!
Featuring:
Articles
Revision Hints
Event updates
Topical news
Find us on
Twitter & Facebook:
@WinHist
www.facebook.com/WinstanleyHistory
NEW VACANCY
We are looking for an enthusiastic,
social-media-active student to help run the
pages. Please email Harry via the History Society
or speak to any of the History staff for details!
37.
WIGAN FAMILY and LOCAL HISTORY SOCIETY
Meetings held at St. Andrews Parish Centre
Woodhouse Lane - Wigan - WN6 7LZ On the
2nd Wednesday of the month at 7:15pm.
Wednesday 12th November 2014. SPEAKER : David Fearnley
The Lancashire Fusiliers and their links with the Gerard’s of Ashton.
Wednesday 14th January 2015. THEME : Researching your Family Tree
Interested in your family History? Would you like discover more? Why not join us this evening when
members will be on hand to help you get started, attempt to iron out any problems and point out the best
way forward. NOTE This meeting will be held at the Museum of Wigan Life, Library Street, Wigan., from
4:00pm to 8:30pm.
Wednesday 11th February 2015 SPEAKER : William “Bill” F Ashurst.
Ex Wigan, Penrith Panthers, Wakefield and Runcorn Rugby League Player, who will share
thoughts of his playing days in contrast to present day.
Wednesday 11th March 2015 SPEAKER : Alex Miller
Alex is the Archivist Manager for Wigan and Leigh Archives who will talk on the Archives and
how to use them.
Thursday 26th March. 2015 1:30pm Visit to the Wigan and Leigh Archives
Further information will be given nearer the time.
Wednesday 8th April 2015 SPEAKER : Mrs Marion Howell
Marion is the Community Heritage Manager for the LCC and will give a talk on George Lyon,
Highwayman.
Wednesday 13th. May 2015 SPEAKER : MRS KATE HURST.
Catholics Priests in Wigan.
NON-MEMBERS MOST WELCOME TO ALL MEETINGS
A small charge will be made for Tea, Coffee & Biscuits
38