Clay Lane

Nicholas used his inheritance to help three vulnerable girls escape a life of exploitation.

St Nicholas (d. 330) came from Patara in Lycia, now in south east Turkey. The following story is the basis of the ‘Santa Claus’ legend, but there is nothing whatever improbable about it; on the contrary, it fits perfectly with the society and values of pagan Rome at the time.

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St Adamnán worked tirelessly to secure protection, rights and dignity for the women of Ireland.

St Adamnán was Abbot of Iona, an island on the west coast of Scotland, in the 7th century. The traditional culture of what was still in many places a pagan land had treated women as disposable property.

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After surviving a terrible storm, a crew-member on St Nicholas’s ship met with a tragic accident.

St Nicholas (d. 343), who became Bishop of Myra in Asia Minor, is known as the patron of seamen, and it is a pity that a sea-faring nation such as Britain should have largely forgotten about him. Here is one of many miracles attributed to him.

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Cromwell’s killjoys almost silenced the English Christmas, but thanks to a royal family tradition the message is still being proclaimed.

England lost many long-standing folk-traditions during the republican Commonwealth (1649-1660), which banned Christmas celebrations along with music, plays and dancing. Some were reinstated after the Restoration in 1660, but there was plenty of room for fresh ideas.

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French revolutionaries in a fleet of four ships attempted to spark a revolution in Britain.

In 1789, the French toppled their monarchy with a bloodthirsty revolution. Its leaders could not stand idly by, however, while their near-neighbours groaned under the heartless oppression of King George III.

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King James II was forced off the throne in favour of his daughter Mary, and a new English constitution was born.

James II was England’s first Roman Catholic monarch for a hundred and fifty years (if you don’t count his brother Charles II’s deathbed conversion). At any rate, Parliament was determined that he would be the last, and in 1688 they took drastic action to make sure that England did not become a vassal of the powerful and ambitious French King, Louis XIV.

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