Clay Lane
Posts in The Copybook credited to ‘Clay Lane’
Scottish King David I hoped to exploit the unpopularity of the Normans by trading on his own English heritage.
Arguably, David I of Scotland’s invasion of England in 1138 was a legitimate attempt to keep England English, after the Kings of the House of Wessex were usurped in the Norman invasion of 1066. David certainly argued it that way, but his rabble of an army had less lofty goals in mind.
A civilian ferry captain was court-martialled by the Germans for thumbing his nose at their U-Boats.
Captain Fryatt was a civilian, in command of passenger ferries in the perilous waters between Britain and the Netherlands during the Great War. With U-Boats patrolling the Channel and regarding civilian shipping as fair game, it was no longer clear what the rules of engagement were, but unlike the enemy, Captain Fryatt conducted himself with courage and honour to the end.
To prove that steam power was the future of railways, George Stephenson held a truly historic competition.
The Liverpool and Manchester Railway, opened in 1830, was the first passenger-carrying line to be operated exclusively by steam locomotives (horses were still sometimes used on the Stockton and Darlington). Initially, there was some hesitation among investors over safety and reliability, so the matter was put to the test near St Helens, at the Rainhill Trials.
Our hero is sent to deal with some man-eating birds, but cannot reach their lakeside refuge.
Still working off his debt to the gods after killing his children in a blind rage, Heracles is now despatched by his envious cousin King Eurystheus to rid a village of some man-eating birds. However, not everyone is against him.
The saintly Bishop helped the captain of a merchant ship to cut through the red tape, and save his town from starvation.
St Nicholas (d. 343) was Bishop of Myra, a town in the Roman Province of Lycia, on the southwest coast of Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey). According to his 9th-century biographer, Michael, one miracle in particular gained him a reputation in the Imperial capital itself.
The Northumbrian saint warned of an enemy who would stop at nothing to silence the good news.
While he was a monk at Melrose in the Scottish Borders, then part of the Kingdom of Northumbria, St Cuthbert used to visit lonely villages to tell people about a God very different from the capricious pagan spirits they feared and worshipped. He became a popular figure, able to draw surprising crowds.