History
Posts in The Copybook tagged ‘History’
Vige was the inseparable companion of swashbuckling Viking warlord Olaf Tryggvason, who picked him up in Ireland.
During the reign of Ethelred the Unready (r. 978-1016) the coasts of the British Isles were plagued by Viking warlords, none of whom was more trouble than Norwegian prince Olaf Tryggvason. In 988 he became a Christian and married Gyda, an Anglo-Irish heiress, but he did not settle down. Olaf and his Viking band continued to sail around the coasts, taking whatever they needed or wanted.
On the night when Edward IV won his crown back from Henry VI, he had to decide how to deal with those who had still been backing Henry during the day.
In 1461, Edward of York crushed Henry VI at Towton, and at just eighteen was proclaimed king of England. Henry was captured in 1465 and sent to the Tower. In September 1470, his supporters turned the tables and drove Edward onto the Continent, but their songs died on their lips the following April, when Edward IV came storming back, and the citizens of London welcomed him with open arms.
Richard Cobden told an Edinburgh peace conference that the biggest threat to the United Kingdom’s security was her own foreign policy.
In May 1853, Russia took military action to liberate Christians in Moldavia and Wallachia (modern-day Romania) from Turkey’s harsh rule. In England, the talk was of sending troops to defend poor Turkey, and of Russia’s secret designs on western Europe. That October, Richard Cobden told a peace conference in Edinburgh that our fears and economic hardships were all of our own making.
As Christian is making his way along the highway that leads to the Celestial City, he finds his way barred by a foul fiend.
In John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress, Christian has left his home, knowing it will be destroyed, and set out for safety in the Celestial City. Barring his way is Apollyon, a hideous, scaly monster with a dragon’s wings and a lion’s mouth, wreathed in smoke and fire. Christian’s polite request to let him pass so he can pay his respects to the Prince of all the lands only makes the fiend more angry.
In the thirteenth century, wealthy English homeowners began to think more about the inside of their stately homes.
For many years, the Norman barons who dwelt in English castles took more interest in wide estates for hunting, and a large retinue for serving and entertainment, than in soft furnishings or dainty ornaments. But from the time of Henry III (r. 1216-1272) that began to change, and one of the new fashions in interior decoration was the ‘halling’ — a tapestry for one’s Hall.
In January 1807, newspapers breathlessly reported that Napoleon Bonaparte’s rampage across Europe was at an end — but was it true?
In January 1807, as Napoleon Bonaparte’s armies swept across the Continent building his French Empire, British newspapers printed a cheering story about how the Russians had inflicted a calamitous defeat on Napoleon. William Cobbett didn’t believe a word of it, and expressed his doubts in a masterly metaphor which made ‘red herrings’ into a household proverb.