History
Posts in The Copybook tagged ‘History’
A French sea-captain let his tongue wag over dinner, and New Zealand’s destiny took a different turn.
When Britain finally decided to make a colony of New Zealand, she sent Captain William Hobson (1792-1842) of the Royal Navy to North Island, as Lieutenant to the Governor of New South Wales in Australia. He landed at Kororareka (now Russell) in the Bay of Islands on January 29th, 1840.
Edmund Burke warned that the French Revolution could have a devastating effect on British and European culture.
Edmund Burke (1729-1797) regarded the fates of England and France as closely intertwined, and consequently the catastrophic events of the French Revolution in 1789 made him afraid for England. If France falls into tyranny and moral decline, he warned, it will be that much harder for England to resist going the same way.
After a hundred and forty-two slaves were tossed overboard in an insurance scam, Granville Sharp wouldn’t let the matter rest.
The scandal of the slave-ship ‘Zong’ was one of the turning points in the campaign to end slavery throughout the British Empire. As so often, the quest for justice was led by self-taught jurist Granville Sharp, who turned to the Press after a sensational court case had failed to deliver any kind of justice at all.
Royalist soldier Sir Jacob Ashly exemplified a Christian gentleman in the heat of battle.
As secretary to the Chancellor of Oxford University, William King moved among elevated but sometimes tactless company. He remembered one dinner-time conversation in 1715 during which Sir William Wyndham, former Chancellor of the Exchequer, joked about prayer right in front of Lord Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester.
Lord Macaulay believed that the disastrous reign of King John brought the country together.
Lord Macaulay argued that ‘bad’ King John’s reign did England a lot of good. It pulled the country away from Continental Europe, forcing the supercilious Normans in government to feel less European and more English, and to connect with their everyday countrymen after generations of neglect.
After the kingdoms of Great Britain were absorbed into the Roman Empire, the promises of prosperity and civilisation came only to a favoured few.
When the kingdoms of Britain joined the Roman Empire – some willingly, some not – their peoples found that it brought great benefits. Unfortunately, most never got to experience them. City-dwellers fared well and lived comfortably, if they were good Romans, but everyone else existed for their convenience.