The Copybook
Short passages for reading, drawn from history, legend, poetry and fiction.
Short passages for reading, drawn from history, legend, poetry and fiction.
A crackdown on dissent in England’s established Church drove a band of Nottinghamshire townspeople to seek new shores.
‘Mayflower’ was the ship taken by just over a hundred settlers in 1620, hoping to make a new life in England’s American colony of Virginia. Most were economic migrants, domestic servants or merchants, but those who emerged as leaders were Christians from the little village of Scrooby in Nottinghamshire.
The spread of Western civilisation must not be credited to European policy, but to a culture of curiosity, enterprise and defiance.
Adam Smith, writing in 1776, the year that her American colonies declared independence from Great Britain, reminded his readers that the Americans had no obligations towards London. The thirteen colonies had been founded by Englishmen, but not by England. No European colony abroad had come into being through Government policy.
Edmund Burke takes time off from campaigning for liberty to reflect on the delights of captivity.
Edmund Burke remains one of the most significant statesmen in British history, who spoke up for the American colonists and the people of India as well as the English working man. Around the time of his marriage to Jane Mary Nugent in 1757, Burke also shared with us some thoughts on his ‘Idea of a Woman’.
John Milton shows his appreciation for noble words and music in uplifting harmony.
Milton’s celebration of noble poetry set to music, which he presents as an echo of the music of heaven itself, is couched in terms of the Sirens of Greek mythology, two mysterious winged women hidden in cliff-tops whose enchanting song drew sailors irresistibly.
George Canning warned the Commons to be very careful about their plans for reform.
In 1820, republican reformers called for the way MPs were elected to be standardised, and for the composition of the Commons to reflect modern society. But George Canning – MP for Liverpool, irreverent rhymester, and illegitimate son of an actress – had little wish for any system crafted by career politicians to favour their own well-bred clones.
George Canning urged Britain not to bring Continental Europe’s topsy-turvy politics home by getting too closely involved.
George Canning MP was grateful for the British Constitution’s balance between monarchy and democracy. He saw no such balance on the European Continent, still reeling from Napoleon’s grab for power, and during a speech in Liverpool in 1820 warned against letting our neighbours’ confusion spread here.