Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851) was an English painter who stood out thanks to his extraordinary watercolour landscapes and oil paintings. The particular confusion between brilliance and madness…
Category: British History
Henry M. Stanley, explorer and journalist
Henry M. Stanley, explorer and journalist One is not too sure that modern schoolchildren are taught about persons like Henry Stanley, or for that matter Dr. Livingstone, with…
A bracing brace of Bentincks
Hans Willem, Baron Bentinck was born in the middle of the seventeenth century. An aristocrat by birth, he served as a page to the Stadholder (q.v.) William. Surviving…
Further thoughts on Thomas Becket, martyr and saint
Thomas Becket, or Thomas à Becket as he was called by my teacher of History, was not a Saxon. He was a son of a wealthy Norman merchant…
Queen Elizabeth I (the ‘Virgin Queen’)
The only half-decent member of the infamous Tudor dynasty was Elizabeth, born in 1533. She was the daughter of Henry VIII and his second wife Anne Boleyn. It…
A seventeenth century diarist – Samuel Pepys
History too is re-cycled, like glass, water, paper and other essenials. A history book is nothing more than a re-thinking, in some cases revising as well, of what…
Some ineffectual prime ministers
Britain has had some seventy-five prime ministers since the year 1721. Many in the earlier days came from the higher aristocracy, were landed and naturally unpaid. Many, but…
Further thoughts on John of Gaunt & his son Henry Bolingbroke
In early February, 1399, John of Gaunt died in Leicester. He was fifty-eight years old – not a bad age-scale for the fourteenth century. His body was brought…
Further thoughts on Edward I of England
On the afternoon of 7th July, 1307, the Plantagenet king of England Edward I died on his way north with a huge army. His intention had been, again,…
An infamous trio, Darnley, Bothwell & Rizzio
These three sixteenth century men had a lot in common, though the first had royal blood, the second noble blood, and the third was a foreign commoner. What…