Modern History

Young Montague Bertie, Lord Willougby, tended his dying father behind enemy lines.

At eight o’clock on the morning of the 23rd of October, 1642, King Charles I gazed down on the field of Edgehill, and the Parliamentarian army that awaited him there. It was the start of the English Civil War, which would all but end with the King’s execution in January 1649.

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Cromwell’s killjoys almost silenced the English Christmas, but thanks to a royal family tradition the message is still being proclaimed.

England lost many long-standing folk-traditions during the republican Commonwealth (1649-1660), which banned Christmas celebrations along with music, plays and dancing. Some were reinstated after the Restoration in 1660, but there was plenty of room for fresh ideas.

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French revolutionaries in a fleet of four ships attempted to spark a revolution in Britain.

In 1789, the French toppled their monarchy with a bloodthirsty revolution. Its leaders could not stand idly by, however, while their near-neighbours groaned under the heartless oppression of King George III.

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High praise from someone who knew him better than most.

The Revd Alexander Scott was the chaplain on Nelson’s ship, and was with him when the great Admiral died at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. This is what he wrote about his friend.

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King James II was forced off the throne in favour of his daughter Mary, and a new English constitution was born.

James II was England’s first Roman Catholic monarch for a hundred and fifty years (if you don’t count his brother Charles II’s deathbed conversion). At any rate, Parliament was determined that he would be the last, and in 1688 they took drastic action to make sure that England did not become a vassal of the powerful and ambitious French King, Louis XIV.

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The Puritans said it was unfit for God-fearing men, but George I thought it fit for a King.

The Sunday before Advent is known as ‘Stir Up Sunday’, after the opening words of a Church prayer on that day. Appropriately, it is also the day for stirring up your Christmas plum pudding.

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