Philippe II & Felipe II: two successful Philips
Felipe II painted by Antonio Moro / blogs.ua.es There were nearly two hundred years between the births of these two triumphant kings of France and Spain respectively. I shall use the anglicised version [...]
What was that Eastern Question?
Turkey was known by the unfriendly sobriquet of ‘The Sick Man of Europe’ during most of the 19th century; the Eastern Question is a collective term for the problems in south-eastern Europe accelerated and exacerbated [...]
What was ‘The Black Hand’?
The Black Hand, a gang involved in the murder of Franz Ferdinand and his wife in Sarajevo / weebly.com Often appearing in early spy novels, such as the works of John Buchan, Dornford [...]
The Confederate States of America
In a recent post on the General-History blogsite, mention is made of these confederate states. Their importance in history, especially American history, is that they were a direct cause (with others) of the Civil War [...]
Virginia & the Virginia Campaigns
At one time a British colony, Virginia is a state in North America that consists of ‘tide-water’ land in the central-Atlantic coastal plain of the United States of America. The waters drain into Chesapeake Bay [...]
Two very bad English kings
Henry III, bad thing & bad king / esacademic.com Two of the worst of a bad bunch of English kings were a father and a son. John I was a son, however, of [...]
Bond films that weren’t, thanks to Harry
Caine in The Ipcress File produced by Harry Saltzman / esbilla.wordpress.com We’ve been having a bit of a Michael Caine season recently. We’ve seen the masterpiece Sleuth, the original of course, with old [...]
What is ‘primogeniture’?
The word comes from the Latin, as do so many words connected with the Law. Nevertheless, the law of primogeniture is still operative in many originally Anglo/Saxon states, whereas it has been partially phased out [...]
Puritans
Pioneering pilgrim Puritans / endtimepilgrim.org These Godless days, the word ‘Puritan’ has come to be more of an adjective than a collective term. ‘Mr Brown had rather a Puritan nature’ said the newspapers [...]
A tangled skein: the War of the Spanish Succession
A battle in the War of the Spanish Succession / historyfiles.co.uk Not even Frodo trying desperately to cut his way out of Shelob the Spider’s thick cobwebs is like my trying to explain [...]
How much truth is there in fiction?
The shortest, and probably the most effective piece of drama Shakespeare wrote was Macbeth. Even the least educated among us will quote from this play, perhaps without knowing we are doing so. ‘Is this a [...]
Charles ‘the Bold’, Philip ‘the Good’ & Philip ‘the Bold’ (of Burgundy)
Burgundy was an important former duchy in south-central France, originally settled by a German tribe called the Burgundii, there in the 5th century. It was first under Merovingian control, and later was absorbed into the [...]
The sad story of ‘Sissi’
Sad end of ‘Sissi’ / waymarking.com The Emperor Franz-Josef of Austria and Hungary was one of the last really powerful heads of state in Europe who was not only a monarch but a [...]
The House of Habsburg
The Habsburg family tree drawn by Ed Stephen / paradocplace.com I know that many people who should know better write the above name as Hapsburg. I am not among them, perhaps because I [...]
A Brief History of the Tudor Dynasty
Henry the usurping Seventh, founder of The Tudors / historylearningsite.co.uk The royal line of the Tudors lasted from 1485 to 1603. one hundred and eighteen eventful years. They will be remembered for ‘the [...]
The Thirteen Colonies (or should it be fourteen?)
If you are a crow, living in the United States of America, and on a whim you decided to fly directly north to the northernmost part, from the southernmost part of the most southerly of the [...]
The English Monarchs
Modern historians do not ascribe as much importance to the kings and queens of Britain as they used, say in the time of G.M. Trevelyan. Nevertheless, these tiresome but oil-annointed ladies and gentlemen (some were [...]
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