Stuart Era
Posts in The Copybook tagged ‘Stuart Era’
It was during the troubled reign of Charles I that the very first bananas seen in Britain went on display.
The runaway success of Alicia Amherst’s History of Gardening in England (1895) surprised nobody more than its modest author. Plenty of horticultural manuals offered practical advice but Amherst and her contemporary Gertrude Jekyll helped put gardening into its wider social context. In this passage, she records the first appearance of a much-loved fruit but also gives us a glimpse of a courageous man.
King Charles I ended two years of uneasy peace with his Parliament by bursting into the Commons with a heavily-armed tactical unit.
For eleven years, King Charles I did not consult his Parliament at all, turning a deaf ear to their ever louder complaints about the country’s finances and about religious and civil liberties. In 1640 he relented, acceding to most of their demands; then on January 4th, 1642, Charles burst into the Commons to arrest in person five MPs on a charge of treason. It was to prove the opening shot of the Civil War.
Highwayman Claude Du Vall robbed a carriage on Hampstead Heath in the most courteous manner imaginable.
Claude Du Vall (1643-1670) was brought over to England by Royalist exiles shortly after the restoration of Charles II in 1660, as a stable-hand. He rose to footman under Charles Stewart, 3rd Duke of Richmond, but fell into debt through drinking, and embarked on a new career as a highwayman. Yet Du Vall was ever a gentleman, and in all the carriages he robbed, he apparently never shot anyone...
Lord Halifax tacks gratefully into the Winds of Liberty, though he trims his sails to avoid being blown into republicanism.
Following the Restoration of King Charles II in 1660, opponents of George Savile, Marquess of Halifax, dubbed him ‘the Trimmer’ for charting a nice course between the King’s claims on power and Parliament’s defence of liberties. Halifax gleefully embraced the label, and privately circulated The Character of a Trimmer (1685) to champion a liberal constitution years ahead of its time.
Following the Restoration of King Charles II, the country charted a well-planned course between the extremes of civil licence and Government control.
George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax, won for himself the nickname of ‘the Trimmer’ for his ability to sail a course between political extremes. It was intended as a snub, but he wore the badge with pride, maintaining that we needed both Charles II’s strong government and also Parliament’s vigorous defence of civil liberties in order for our country to prosper.
After getting lost on a woodland walk and spraining his ankle, Samuel Pepys felt amply compensated when he stumbled across a flock of sheep.
On Sunday 14th July, 1667, Samuel Pepys took his party for a woodland walk in Epsom, near the home of his cousin John. Much to Samuel’s chagrin, he managed to get them lost, so they never found the pleasant woodland paths he had been looking forward to. And indeed, it seemed that things were fated to get worse before they got better.