History
Posts in The Copybook tagged ‘History’
At first, John Milton struggled to come to terms with the loss of his eyesight.
In 1649, John Milton (1608-74) was appointed Latin Secretary to the Council of State, a Parliamentary role accountable to Oliver Cromwell, the country’s military ruler following the execution of King Charles I that year. By 1655, Milton was losing his sight, and as his condition worsened he was tempted to complain that God was robbing him of any chance to continue serving him.
Embarrassed by the behaviour of his Norman bishops and abbots, King William I asked monk Guitmond to come over and set an example.
After seizing the English crown in 1066, William the Conqueror appointed French clergyman as bishops and abbots across England. Many were contemptuous and greedy, few spoke English and some used gendarmes to enforce their French ways. William begged Guitmond of the Abbey of St Leufroi in Normandy to set a better example, but Guitmond said the problem went deeper than that.
Charles Dickens tells the story of Hereward the Wake, the last Englishman to stand up to William the Conqueror.
After seizing King Harold’s crown at Hastings in 1066, William of Normandy had to face a series of challengers from among the English and their friends in Ireland and Scotland. William crushed the revolt of Harold’s sons Edmund and Godwin, visited slaughter and burning on Durham, bought off the Danes and the Earls Edwin and Morcar — and left one man to lead the rebels in a last desperate stand.
Jack Curran’s career as a defender of victims of political prejudice got off to a stuttering start.
John Philpot Curran (1750-1817) was a eloquent campaigner for civil rights in Ireland, then governed from London. Small, ungainly and plagued by a stammer, Curran overcame his inhibitions and impediments by a strenuous regimen of reading aloud, behaviour changes and mental rehearsal that transformed him into a fluent speaker, a clear thinker and a persuasive advocate.
The Sheriff of Northumberland allows wealth and power to go to his head — and his digestion.
In the 680s, St Cuthbert was Bishop of Lindisfarne, an island just off the Northumberland coast, though he lived alone on neighbouring Inner Farne. His remains were later brought to Durham, where in 1093 a large priory was begun in his honour. Reginald, a monk in the priory, recorded dozens of miracles at Cuthbert’s Durham shrine, but some still went to Farne to seek his help.
Louis XIV picked up the reins of power in France vowing to drive the national economy in the common interest, not his own.
Louis XIV of France (r. 1643-1715) ruled France for seventy-two years, and as Victor Duruy records here, his intentions were good. He aspired to be a father to his subjects, to better their lives by skilfully-crafted legislation, to support their daily needs and to narrow the gap between rich and poor. He also records that the king’s well-meant management of other people’s lives ended as it usually does.