Clay Lane
Posts in The Copybook credited to ‘Clay Lane’
John Heathcoat’s lace-making machine created thousands of jobs, and gave ordinary people clothes they could never have dreamt of.
The industrial revolution improved the living standards of the poor not by robbing Peter to pay Paul, but by making Peter’s luxuries so cheap that Paul could afford them too. This win-win arrangement was made possible by the self-sacrifice and determination of inventors like John Heathcoat (1783-1861).
South African settlers of Dutch descent could not escape the march of the British Empire.
In 1881 and again in 1899, Britain was drawn into a conflict with settlers of Dutch descent in the South African Republic, also known as Transvaal, as her Empire continued to grow apace under the twin forces of colonial emigration and international trade - much to the chagrin of her colonial rival, Germany.
Shortly after Askold and Dir founded Kiev in 862, they launched a brazen but ill-fated assault on the capital of the Roman Empire.
In the 860s, just as the Great Army led by Vikings Ingwaer and Halfdan was swarming over England, Viking warlords Askold and Dir were establishing the great cities of Novgorod and Kiev as the foundations of Rus’. Almost at once the pagan settlers set their sights on the greatest prize of all, Constantinople, capital of the Roman Empire.
Heracles shows his capacity for thinking outside the box, but spoils it by trying to be just a little bit too clever.
Heracles has murdered his children in a fit of anger, and is performing a series of ‘Labours’ for his cousin King Eurystheus, to work off his guilt. Eurystheus would be just as happy if Heracles perished in his Labours, and in sending him now to clean out the stables of Augeas, King of Elis, appears to hope he can disgust him to death.
In 1553, Richard Chancellor set out on a perilous voyage to Russia in order to bypass the Hanseatic League’s customs union.
Richard Chancellor (?1521-1556) was the first Englishman to establish diplomatic relations with Russia, following an arduous, four-month voyage through uncharted Arctic waters. Tsar Ivan IV was delighted with his new trade partners, despite complaining that English merchants make money for themselves, and not for their princes.
Hapless extremists try to wipe out a miraculous icon of the Virgin Mary.
This is far from the only tale of its kind concerning the ‘Kursk Root’ icon, named after its discovery in the 13th century among the shrubs of a forest near the ruins of Kursk in Russia. The icon, which escaped both the USSR and the Nazis, is kept today in New York, and last visited England in 2012.