Extracts from Literature
Posts in The Copybook tagged ‘Extracts from Literature’
John Milton reminded Parliament that the Truth wasn’t what they and their fact-checkers in Stationers’ Hall made it.
In 1643, shortly after the Civil War with Charles I (r. 1625-1649) began, Parliament ordered a crackdown on what we would call fake news and disinformation, censoring and licensing political comment and telling the public only what Parliament thought it was good for us to know. John Milton, himself a Parliamentarian, felt obliged to publish an anguished protest at such cowardly behaviour.
Richard Cobden told his audience in the London Tavern that however much sabre-rattling was heard in St Petersburg, the average Russian was a man of peace.
In the opinion of Richard Cobden, the Rochdale MP, Emperor Nicholas I of Russia wasn’t a proper Russian. In his fondness for meddling in the affairs of other European countries he resembled the colonially-minded politicians of the West more than his fellow Russians, for whom the thought of being conscripted for military adventures beyond Holy Russia was abhorrent.
Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Chancellor of the Realm and Imperial Regent of Japan, was inclined to encourage Christianity until he found out why European Powers were so keen on it.
Within fifty years of Fr Francis Xavier’s mission to Japan in 1549, there were a million Japanese Christians. Even Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1537-1598), Chancellor of the Realm and Imperial Regent of Japan, was intrigued, and he received further missionaries from Portugal and Spain, and even Papal ambassador Alessandro Valignano (1539-1606), most courteously — until a bluff ship’s captain let the cat out of the bag.
Two monks vying for the abbot’s chair at one of England’s prestigious monasteries each promised King William Rufus handsome rewards for his favour.
William II Rufus became King of England following the death of his father William the Conqueror in 1087. Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury, prevailed on the Norman barons to crown William instead of his brother Robert, and thereafter kept William on a short leash. The death of his mentor in 1089 marked a sharp decline in William’s character, but memories of better days remained.
Edmund Burke explained to the Duke of Bedford that in politics there is very great difference between change and reform.
In 1789, the leaders of the French Revolution promised liberty, equality and fraternity to the downtrodden people of France, and Francis Russell (1765-1802), 5th Duke of Bedford, admired them for it. But Edmund Burke warned him that to France’s new elite, righting the wrongs of the poor was infinitely less exciting than the chance to conduct a relentless socio-economic experiment on the peoples of Europe.
Snorro Sturluson records some of the miracles attributed to Olaf II, King of Norway, after Englishman Bishop Grimkell declared him a saint.
King Olaf II Haraldsson (?995-1030) ruled Norway from 1015 to 1028. A year after Olaf died in the Battle of Stiklestad on July 29th, 1030, Grimkell, English-born Bishop of Nidaros (Trondheim), glorified him as a saint. Here, Snorro Sturluson records some of the miracles that were reported at Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim, St Olaf’s shrine, where building began in 1070.