Clay Lane
Posts in The Copybook credited to ‘Clay Lane’
A survivor of the infamous massacre of Chios in 1821 goes to Marseilles, but discovers he has not entirely left the Turks behind.
In the 1850s, Britain was allied with Turkey against Russia. Charles Dickens said all the right things, but felt compelled to remind his British readers of a little recent Turkish history, the brutal massacre of Chios on March 31st, 1821, and then added this modest tale of revenge.
Henry VII’s great-granddaughter Mary never grasped that even royalty must win the people’s respect.
Perhaps it was spending her formative years in the French court that did it, but after the teenage widow came back to be Queen of Scots, she never seemed to understand that on this side of the Channel, people-power was on the rise, and royalty could no longer behave as they pleased.
The martyr St Euphemia played a vital role in preventing the message of Christmas from being watered down.
In 314, the Roman Empiror Costantine lifted all restrictions on Christianity, but intellectuals still held the philosophy of Plato in awe. Sometimes the Greek view of the Divine – remote, impersonal, unsullied by contact with Creation – tempted Christian clergy to back-peddle on the much more characterful God of Israel, who will dare all for love.
At twenty-five and owner of his own business, Walter Wilding thought his world was secure, but it was about to be rocked to its foundations.
‘No Thoroughfare’ came out in 1867 as both a novel and a play, and was co-authored by Charles Dickens and his friend Wilkie Collins. It is essentially a thriller, but it has some familiar Dickensian touches, such as the moral that character is what matters, not parentage or wealth.
One of the best-known of all battles in English history, but not because of the conflict of which it was a part.
Agincourt is not remembered today for its place in the Hundred Years’ War, a dispute over the royal family’s inherited lands in France, which England lost. Thanks to a 1944 movie version, it is remembered as a symbol of Britain’s backs-to-the-wall defence against Nazi Germany, which the Free French helped us to win.
The textile moguls of Manchester and Liverpool engaged the Stephensons to complete their link to the capital.
After the Liverpool and Manchester Railway was linked to Birmingham by the Grand Junction Railway, it made sense for the business tycoons of the North West to extend this exhilarating new form of transport to London, and George and Robert Stephenson were given the job.