Extracts from Mediaeval Literature
Posts in The Copybook tagged ‘Extracts from Mediaeval Literature’
Posts in The Copybook tagged ‘Extracts from Mediaeval Literature’
Magnus had just reasserted Norway’s authority over The Isles and Man, when he stumbled into a party of Normans harassing the King of Gwynedd.
In 1098, Magnus III ‘Barelegs’, King of Norway, boldly reasserted Norway’s authority over the Isles and Man, a realm of islands around Scotland’s coastline which the Vikings had dominated for over two centuries. Pleased with his progress, Magnus sailed on south to Anglesey, where he stumbled upon a party of Normans celebrating victory over Gruffudd ap Cynan, King of Gwynedd.
Barely a generation after Harald Hardrada narrowly missed out on taking the English crown, his grandson Magnus re-asserted Norway’s authority over The Isles and Man.
Vikings increasingly dominated the northern coasts of the British Isles after King Harald Fairhair united Norway’s petty kingdoms in 872, at the Battle of Hafrsfjord. After Godred Crovan, lord of The Isles and Man, died in 1095 his successor Ingimundr was assassinated, and King Magnus III ‘Barelegs’, who had chosen him, was not pleased. In 1098, Magnus set out from Trondheim with a large fleet.
Henry VIII and his mistress Anne Boleyn were disappointed once again in their hopes of catching Thomas More with his fingers in the till.
After the breakdown of Henry VIII’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon, the King and his new love Anne Boleyn explored every avenue to the removal of Henry’s Chancellor Thomas More, who was the country’s chief judge and Catherine’s most outspoken champion. William Roper tells us that they hoped to catch him out in accepting some bribe, however small, but were never able to do so.
Henry VII made sure that he had eyes and ears wherever they were needed to put an end to thirty years of political conspiracy.
King Henry VII, so Sir Francis Bacon tells us, aspired to be held in awe by his subjects, rather than in love. To this end he employed spies not only in the courts of his European neighbours but also in England, and kept abreast of all that was going in his own court by compiling private notebooks in which the words and deeds of every courtier were carefully recorded.
On July 5th, 1535, the night before he was to be executed by order of King Henry VIII, it seemed that Sir Thomas More was the only man in the Tower of London who was happy.
So highly did Henry VIII regard Sir Thomas More (1477-1535) that he made him Chancellor in 1529, even though More took Catherine of Aragon’s part in the divorce saga. Three years later the opening moves in the Protestant Reformation drove More to resign, and in 1534 he was confined to the Tower, awaiting execution. There on July 5th, 1535, Sir Thomas Pope paid him a farewell visit.
Orderic Vitalis regrets the passing of a society far more refined and advanced than that which supplanted it.
Many have portrayed the Norman Invasion of 1066 as a welcome injection of Continental sophistication into a rustic England, but that was not the opinion of Orderic Vitalis (1075-?1143) somewhat nearer to the action. He was inclined to acquit William himself, but regarded his French lieutenants as barbarians unworthy of the civilisation they had ruined.