The Capet Dynasty dominated France for over three hundred years. The dates are 987 to 1328. Before them were the Carolingians, and it was one Hugh Capet who…
Category: French History
The Ist Duke of Berwick, illegitimate and Jacobite
James Fitzjames was born in 1670. His father was James II of England and VII of Scotland, younger brother of Charles II. His mother was Mrs Arabella Churchill,…
The Barbary Coast, and Wars
It is difficult to find any time since the Byzantine Empire when the North African coast from Morocco to Libya was not infamous for piracy. The worst period…
Two unfortunate (royal) children
It was difficult enough merely to survive childhood in earlier times, with nearly certain death in childbirth or later in infancy – through lack of hygiene, lack of…
Appeasement
A bit of a dirty word since 1938 but it shouldn’t be. There is enough appeasement going on now over the disgusting situation in Syria to fill the…
The Normans & the Norman Invasion of England
Normans were and are inhabitants of Normandy, a picturesque western coastal part of France. They are of mixed descendence, much of their blood being of Scandinavian or Viking…
The Battles of Copenhagen
When the history student thinks of Denmark, he will not think of that Scandinavian country as a bristling enemy of Britain, except possibly during Denmark (and Norway’s) Viking…
Commerce in History: the slave trade
Thinking people still get hot under the collar when the subject of the trade in slaves looms. But then, more nonsense is spoken about the slave trade by…
1936: The Remilitarization of the Rhineland
The ill-prepared and unfortunate Treaty of Versailles (q.v.) had left the left bank of the Rhine plus an area 50 kilometres deep on its right bank permanently demilitarized…
The International Brigade(s)
Volunteers from countries foreign to Spain rushed from around the world to aid the republican cause during the Spanish Civil War (1936 – 1938). Contrary to popular literature’s…