Joseph, brother of Napoleon Bonaparte /fuenterrebollo.com
Napoleon Bonaparte decided he would imitate the Roman emperors. Instead of listening to his better senses, he invaded the Peninsula of Spain and Portugal, causing one of the Napoleonic Wars, and a very great deal of unnecessary bloodshed. Spain is included in the very short list of nations it is unwise to invade or attempt to occupy. (more…)
William III / livius.org
Of all the wars known by duration in years, the least well-known is the Nine Years War (1688 – 97). Nevertheless this conflict has its important side, as it involved the Sun King himself, Louis XIV of France, and Britain under her Dutch-born monarch, William III. (more…)
Alnwick Castle in Northumberland / tumblr.com
This is more usually a first or Christian name, and sometimes encourages unfair laughter: “Come on Percy, show ‘em wot you got!” As a surname or family name it should inspire respect, possibly awe because the Percy family have figured in British history almost since the damp mists of Time.
The Percys were marcher lords (q.v.) in the far north-east of England. A William de Percy was given vast lands by William the Conquerer in return for helping him conquer England. He fought beside Duke William the Norman bastard at the Battle of Hastings (1066). (more…)
Algonquin Chief Pontiac / macmillanmh.com
Some of our many readers will be disappointed that this post is not composed about the finely-produced American quality motorcar that I fear has passed away and perhaps been buried. No, I talk about Pontiac, born around 1720, leader of a ‘Native America’ confederacy of tribes, most of his life a faithful friend to the French in North America.
The Home Guard in training / dacorumheritage.org.uk
Thanks to a BBC-made TV series stretching from the early Sixties to the late Seventies, a phenomenon from the Second War has become memorable. The series was written about a force of elderly men and teenage boys raised in Britain as a home defence organisation, in case of invasion by Nazi hordes. (more…)
William ! of Prussia / en.wikipedia.org
Of all the great and influential German families, descending from the mists of time, always involved in something – providing kings, making a nuisance of themselves, being or not being involved in charitable causes etc., the Hohenzollern top the list. There are still plenty of them around, but their power has waned. (more…)
English and Welsh bowmen (and King Henry V) at Agincourt / lookand learn.com
An archer was a soldier, usually professional, armed with a bow and a quiver full of arrows. It would be difficult to estimate how long this lethal weapon has been in use, but woodcuts exist of Scythian archers employed by the Romans. The bow was not long, because the Scythians fought on horseback, but the arrow seems to have been at least two and a half feet long from goosefeather guide to the iron arrowhead. (more…)
Sir Richard Hawkins / thebiggeststudy.blogspot.com
Sir John and Sir Richard Hawkins or Hawkyns would have preferred to be called seamen, or navigators, or simply sailors. That is how British history books describe them. French, Dutch and especially Spanish historians prefer to say corsarios or piratas. But then most European historians describe any man (or woman) who sailed across the seven seas with a crew and attacked other shipping or a passing port – as long as they were British – as pirates or corsairs. The Spanish even call Admiral Lord Nelson a pirate, despite the awkward fact that he was a professional navy man who assaulted Spanish-held ports or Spanish ships when England was officially at war with Spain (or France for that matter). One could claim that that was his job. Hawkins however was by no means indefatigable, losing a sea battle to the Spanish at San Juan de Ulúa (more…)
Canute was King of England, Denmark and Norway. There are various distinct ways of spelling his name, but he will always stay in the memory because of something he did which has either been misconstrued intentionally by historians and jesters, or properly interpreted, which I hope we will do here. (more…)
The new SIS headquarters on the Embankment, London / en.wikipedia.org
Where dictators or democratically elected governments rule, they need organisations dedicated to the gathering and evaluation of information, mainly concerning the intentions of other states that may not have their best wishes at heart. These are the intelligence services, and they have been in active operation for much longer than many students think.
Some historians insist that it was Queen Elizabeth I, with her faithful Walsingham and his ring of spies, who was the first absolute ruler to insist on full intelligence gathering. This is patently untrue. (more…)