Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2015 i History Extra

“I like her not! I like her not!” were Henry VIII’s words on first encountering his soon-to-be fourth wife, Anne of Cleves, on New Year’s Day 1540. History, it’s fair to say, hasn’t shown much regard for Anne either, dismissing her as the ‘ugly wife’ and frequently ignoring her in favour of some of the more glamorous Tudor queens. Yet, far from being a failure, Anne may have benefitted more from her relationship with Henry than any of his other five wives and remained good friends with the king long after their marriage had ended. On the 500th anniversary of Anne’s birth, Tracy Borman seeks to change our understanding of a much-maligned figure. You can read that article on page 34. Sticking with the royal theme, this month will see…

“In late September 480 BC the ancient Greek world was on a razor’s edge: in the west the Greeks of Sicily were under threat from an imminent invasion by the Carthaginians of north Africa (modern Tunisia). In the Aegean heartland a small handful of Greeks, led by Sparta and Athens, were daring to defy an actual invasion by a huge Persian-led amphibious force. Thermopylae had been defended but lost. Salamis – a tiny islet in Athens’ possession, not far from Athens itself – was the scene of a life-and-death naval battle. It was a battle not just for Greek independence, but for Greek civilisation. This was a civilisation of democracy, theatre, philosophy, science and history – and of piety towards the many gods and goddesses of the Greek pantheon. It…

Millions of dogs were mummified in Egypt The remains of 8 million animals, the majority of which are dogs, have been found in catacombs in Egypt. The bodies, which date from between roughly 750 and 30 BC, were mummified and stacked in the caves at Saqqara, a vast burial site in the north of the country. It’s known that ancient Egyptians regarded animals as sacred – numerous cults centred on specific species – but a mass burial on this scale was unexpected. Big history names will gather at new festival Simon Schama, Tracy Borman and Melvyn Bragg are among the experts and broadcasters confirmed to be speaking at a major new festival launching in September. The Radio Times Festival, organised by Immediate Media, the company that publishes BBC History Magazine,…

What a refreshing innovation to have a magazine that combines the visual and audio in such an imaginative way. As someone who has a love of history and suffers from dyslexia it is such a boon to be able to hear the correct pronunciation while following the words in an article. Over the years I have had to overcome the pains of reading at a rate much slower than perhaps the average person, and as such, get frustrated that my reading speed restricts the amount of information I can cover. This innovation for BBC History Magazine has not only given me a new experience, it has helped my reading and enabled me to explore more areas of history. Audio books can be very good, but to be able to follow…

Where in the world do you feel most connected to the past? Be it a battlefield, a castle, a church or a city, we’re asking would-be authors to write about their favourite historical place – and inspire us to visit. In 400 words or less, we want you to tell us why your chosen location is so special. This is no tour guide – we’re looking for creative, inspiring writing that communicates the reasons for your enthusiasm. Your choice of place can be any location that you deem to be historic, and it can be absolutely anywhere in the world. It does not need to be a famous heritage site, nor somewhere where something momentous happened, but if it is such a place, that’s fine. Wherever you choose, you need…

Though he had ruled Britain for seven years, in 1721 King George I’s grip on the throne remained far from secure. Ever since the Protestant William of Orange had ousted the Catholic Stuart James II as king in 1688, the so-called Jacobites had dreamed of returning a Stuart ruler to the throne – and had launched a series of failed uprisings to achieve that aim. In the early 1720s, they continued to cast a long shadow over the monarchy. The year 1721 was also a perilous one for Britain’s Whig government, which fiercely opposed the prospect of a Catholic king. Having just presided over the ‘South Sea Bubble’ financial crisis – when stocks in the South Sea Company crashed, ruining thousands of investors – it found itself deeply unpopular with…

Wally Thompson was a hardworking thief who always looked to exploit a situation. During a heavy air raid in 1941, he drove a stolen lorry into a narrow street in London Bridge. An air raid precaution (ARP) member, Thompson was wearing his uniform; it allowed him to move around London freely and unsuspected. Alongside him in the lorry were the members of his gang – Batesy, Bob and ‘Spider’. The gang’s plan was to break into a warehouse, pick up a safe from the office and drive it away. As anti-aircraft fire raged and bombers droned, Batesy jumped out and opened the warehouse gates with a cloned key. Spider – an experienced burglar – ran forward and forced a window, before jemmying the main door open from the inside. Within…

Landscapes of Communism: A History Through Buildings by Owen Hatherley Allen Lane, 624 pages, £25 This is an informative, thought-provoking book that, among other things, provides unique insights into the governments and people of half of Europe. In particular, it is an informal history of architecture and its patronage by state and party in the ‘Eastern bloc’ from the 1920s to the collapse of European communism in the 1980s. Owen Hatherley does not pretend to be comprehensive in his coverage of the history of architecture under socialism and communism (ideologies thoughtfully delineated here). Although broad in scope, this book is not a Pevsner Architectural Guide: it does not cover all regions of the former USSR, nor all parts of the bloc. Communist China appears only in a fascinating coda. The…

Xerxes: A Persian Life by Richard Stoneman Yale University Press, 288 pages, £25 This book opens with the claim that it is the “first attempt at a serious biography of Xerxes, or any Achaemenid [Persian] king since Plutarch’s Life of Artaxerxes, written in the second century AD”. What follows is an erudite insight into the problems of writing about the ancient world when the surviving sources do not, or have chosen not to, speak to a particular topic. The sources relating to the life and character of the Achaemenid rulers, and particularly those of Darius and Xerxes – the two Persian kings who attempted and failed to conquer Greece in 490 BC at Marathon and 480–79 at Thermopylae, Salamis and Plataea – are a mix of heady victorious rhetoric and…

Girl with a Pearl Earring Tracy Chevalier (1999) In this reconstruction of the world reflected in the golden age of Dutch painting, Tracy Chevalier cleverly takes a well-known painting by Vermeer and provides a story to explain the enigmatic woman who appears in it. Griet is 16 when she arrives in Vermeer’s household and is slowly drawn, despite the difference in age and social class, into an increasingly intimate relationship with her master, eventually coming to act as his muse and his model. The Passion of Artemisia Susan Vreeland (2002) Susan Vreeland’s novel vividly recreates the turbulent life of the early baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi. From the high points of her career under the patronage of the Medicis to the tragedies of her rape by a colleague and her torture…

1 The White Tower, London Where William asserted his authority The White Tower was William I’s ultimate power statement. Begun on the edge of the largest city in his new kingdom, it was built to awe Londoners and to demonstrate authority. The stone keep was probably completed by 1100 – it remains the centrepiece of the Tower of London, Britain’s most popular tourist attraction. hrp.org.uk/TowerOfLondon 2 Winchester Cathedral Where Norman architecture hit its zenith Few Norman buildings can match Winchester Cathedral in terms of scale and beauty. In many ways, the building is typical of the Norman conquest: the old Anglo-Saxon minster was reduced to rubble and in its place, completed in 1093, appeared a building boasting the longest nave in Europe. But multiculturalism is present again – a major…

BEST TIME TO GO A visit in mid-late spring means you avoid the heat of the Portuguese summer or the often unpredictable winter weather. Carnival season takes place in June, when Lisbon’s patron saints, Peter, John and Anthony, are widely celebrated. GETTING THERE You can fly to Lisbon from most UK airports, including London, Edinburgh, Newcastle, Birmingham, Bristol and Manchester. WHAT TO PACK Both an umbrella and sun cream if you’re going in spring. The weather can switch from Atlantic rain to summer heat very suddenly. WHAT TO BRING BACK Your house name or number in azulejos – a form of glazed ceramic tilework. READERS’ VIEWS Go up into the hills & see beautiful town of Sintra – where Arthur Wellesley once signed a truce that almost ended his career…

Coronation chicken Coronation chicken was created in 1953, when renowned florist Constance Spry and cordon bleu chef Rosemary Hume catered for a banquet to celebrate the coronation of Elizabeth II. It is believed to be inspired by the ‘Jubilee Chicken’ created for George V’s silver jubilee in 1935. At the time the recipe was widely published so it could be enjoyed at street parties across Britain. But, with postwar rationing still in place, the ingredients would have been hard to come by. INGREDIENTS • 2 roasting chickens(I used 2 3/4 lbs chicken drums and thighs)• water and a little wine• 1 carrot• 1 bouquet garni• salt and 3–4 peppercorns For the sauce:• 2oz chopped onion• 2 tsp curry powder• 1 tsp tomato purée• 1 wine glass of red wine• 3/4 wine glass of water• 1 bay leaf• salt, sugar, pepper• 1–2 slices of…

Joshua Levine The Blitz is a more interesting period than the clichés normally allow. Fear and chaos led to shared purpose, extremes of behaviour – and the turning of ordinary people into criminals. • Joshua writes about Blitz criminals on page 50 Christopher Tyerman One of the things that this book tries to do is to locate crusading in the widest context of western European society, and not see it as a phenomenon that’s somehow separate, or different, or peculiar. • We interview Christopher about his new book on the crusades on page 65 Marisa Linton I’m looking behind the iconic myths of the French revolutionary Terror, bringing to light the passions and fears that drove its leaders. The guillotine was hanging over them too if they failed. • Marisa…

A Little History of the United States James West Davidson As E. H. Gombrich brought the sweep of history alive in A Little History of the World, now James West Davidson explores the vast panorama of U.S. history to the delight of readers young, old and in-between. Fast-paced chapters make for exciting reading while inspiring deeper thinking about such fundamental American values as freedom, equality and unity. 11 maps + 40 b/w illus. Hardback £14.99 The Age of Catastrophe A History of the West 1914–1945 Heinrich August Winkler As Germany takes its place at the helm of a unified Europe, a leading German historian looks back at the years between 1914 and 1945, examining how and why that nation so radically broke with the normative project of the West and…

@HistoryExtra: Do you think Britain should pay reparations to India? Andrew Ellis We do pay, through the International Development Fund and other charity and aid. Should we demand payment for creating a unified Indian state and its railway? We gave them a governmental structure and a legal system Roger Stevenson Where does it stop? Will Normandy pay reparations to Yorkshire for the Scouring of the North? Dan Brown It’s true Britain drained India’s wealth, but it also gave them modern education, law, a parliamentary system and science and technology. Let’s be friends instead of counting and tallying this old stuff Sarah Rawlins As I come to understand it, this isn’t about money but reparations. I think it’s slight arrogance on the English part to think that anything we did to…

By the spring of 1794, the French Revolution had been raging for nearly five years. The revolutionaries of 1789 had set up a constitutional monarchy with a National Assembly, and the king’s absolute powers were curbed by law. But many royalists refused to accept it; they fled France to become émigrés, and urged the foreign powers to make war on revolutionary France. In June 1791 French king Louis XVI attempted to become an émigré, fleeing with his family, but was intercepted at Varennes and returned to Paris. In 1792 war broke out with Austria and Prussia; it went badly from the start. On 10 August the Parisian street radicals, the sans-culottes, led a pitched battle to overthrow the monarchy. A new Assembly was set up, the National Convention, which declared…

Bombardier Alf Jones was one of the ‘old sweats’ of the 23rd Field Regiment, Royal Artillery. He’d enlisted in 1931, aged 17, and served three years in India before joining the reserve list in 1938. Returning to his native Port Talbot, Jones worked in the tin mines but he re-enlisted on the outbreak of war. A few weeks later, at the end of September 1939, Jones and his regiment sailed for France and were ordered to dig-in close to the Maginot Line. When the Nazi war machine rolled through the Low Countries into France in May 1940, Jones was one of scores of artillerymen captured. But not for long. The enterprising Welshman made his escape in Belgium while being transported to Germany. It was the start of a flight that…

BITING Mad dogs and paranoid Frenchmen Dog bites alarmed many Parisians, as fears of rabies stalked the 19th-century city. Rabies anxieties led some doctors, vets and other commentators to call for the eradication of dogs from French cities. Among them was army officer Alexandre Roger, writing in 1813, who lamented how rabies could strike anyone, rich or poor. To minimise the risk of rabid dog bites, the police prescribed the muzzling of dogs in public places and targeted unmuzzled dogs for destruction. But the muzzling orders were often ignored and poorly enforced, while some doctors and vets labelled them dangerous because ‘spontaneous rabies’ was more likely to develop in restrained and repressed dogs. Animal protectionists, for their part, portrayed muzzles as cruel and ineffectual. The French chemist Louis Pasteur’s development…

A war on worship The 18th century began badly for England’s Catholic community. In 1700, ‘An Act for Further Preventing the Growth of Popery’ systematised existing anti-Catholic legislation, continuing Elizabethan and Jacobean restrictions on Catholic worship, and on educating children in the Catholic religion. The act was enforced via a system of payments to informers. Prison awaits Even pieces of legislation that appeared to take the heat off Catholics were in fact intended to do the opposite. The translation of the death penalty to life imprisonment for Catholic priests was really designed to ensure its effectiveness: it was believed that more judges would convict Catholic priests if a custodial rather than a capital sentence was imposed. Paying double Post-revolutionary laws also targeted Catholics economically: the Land Tax first imposed in…

1 Killing spree In the summer of 1940, John Fulljames, a student at University College Oxford, opened fire with a rifle on fellow students. Tried for murder, Fulljames was described to the jury as having a “split-mind” in the fashion of Dr Jekyll. He was committed to Broadmoor where the authorities rejected the court’s finding of insanity. 2 Future gangster Seventeen-year-old James Harvey was robbed and killed by a gang of youths in Elephant and Castle – a no-go area due to the blackout and the absence of police. The leader of the gang, 21-year-old Jimmy Essex, was initially charged with murder. But he was eventually sentenced to just three years in prison for manslaughter, leading to an outcry from furious local residents. Essex went on to become a notorious…

The Guns at Last Light by Rick Atkinson Abacus, 877 pages, £14.99 This take on the last days of the Second World War in Europe is reminiscent of Cornelius Ryan’s books The Longest Day and A Bridge Too Far: fat page-turners packed with anecdote and human interest. Rick Atkinson is a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist, and I was hooked from the first page. One of Atkinson’s strengths is his ability to paint vivid word-pictures. His description of the seizure of the bridge across the Rhine at Remagen in March 1945 by a US patrol under lieutenant Karl H Timmerman is almost cinematic in quality – another reminder of Cornelius Ryan. Atkinson is also a master of the telling quotation. He cites the view of supreme Allied commander-general Dwight D Eisenhower that…

FESTIVAL 350th Anniversary of the Great Plague Various locations, London 4–6 September • talesofplague.co.uk/festival In September 1665, London saw its highest number of casualties to the bubonic plague that had broken out in the city. Up to 100,000 Londoners or more are thought to have died during the outbreak – the worst since the Black Death of 1348 – which peaked in September when 7,165 Londoners died in just one week. This month, Londoners will commemorate the 350th anniversary of the outbreak with a three-day festival of music, drama, talks, walks, exhibitions and workshops. The programme opens with a procession – complete with replica plague cart, used to ferry the dead – to the historic church of St Botolph’s, Aldgate, site of the Great Plague pit. Elsewhere, the Wellcome Collection…

SKIPTON CASTLE Guardian of the Gateway to the Yorkshire Dales for over 900 years, Skipton Castle is one of the best preserved and most complete medieval castles in England. A fascinating and delightful place to explore. The Castle stands at the head of the bustling award winning High Street of this unspoilt market town. Contact us for bookings, enquiries, up-to-date information and events. Skipton Castle, North Yorkshire BD23 1AW 01756 792442 info@skiptoncastle.co.uk www.skiptoncastle.co.uk CAREW CASTLE AND TIDAL MILL Where the magic of history lives on! Open daily 10am – 5pm Come and explore the magnificent Castle, visit the only restored Tidal Mill in Wales and stroll around the 23 acre Millpond enjoying spectacular scenery in the heart of the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park. A wide range of events held throughout…

Charles Rennie Mackintosh was a Scottish architect, artist and designer – and a prominent member of the ‘Glasgow School’, a circle of influential modern artists and designers. He is best known for designing the Glasgow School of Art, which was badly damaged in a fire last year – but he also worked in interior design, furniture and textiles. In later life, he and his wife, Margaret, moved to France where he painted watercolours. He died in London. When did you first hear about Mackintosh? Probably in my late teens – although I was aware of his work before I was really aware of him. The teachers never taught us about Mackintosh at school but, growing up, I just became aware of his architecture walking around my Glasgow hometown. I remember…

28 September 1975 A Spaghetti House hostage crisis grips the nation The press and police descend on a London restaurant “like a besieging army” after an armed robbery goes wrong Late on 28 September 1975, the nine staff members at the Spaghetti House restaurant in Knightsbridge were counting up the week’s takings. The total came to around £13,000 – not a bad haul, by the standards of the time. It was then that the gunmen struck. Three armed men burst into the restaurant, jabbing guns into the faces of the terrified restaurant employees. As the invaders led their captives down towards the basement, one staff member managed to get away. But the others – all Italians – were shoved into a tiny storeroom, crammed with tins of food. There, for…

The most notable precedent for the government’s ‘Northern Powerhouse’ initiative was a series of measures in the 1930s that designated Tyneside and Cumberland as ‘special areas’, and employed government funds to build Team Valley trading estate and encourage new industries. These have rarely been remembered for bequeathing positive legacies, but rather as marking the north as an area of industrial blight and high unemployment. This image has proved difficult to shake off, and was often misplaced, especially as the ‘north’ is a surprisingly diverse region. The Special Areas recommendations of 1934 excluded Middlesbrough and Darlington because they were bucking the regional unemployment trend thanks to industries ranging from electrical engineering to brewing and retailing. Many of these provided new work opportunities for women, a fact often overlooked in the familiar…

A much-needed museum In your social media section in the August issue (Letters), you posited the question: “Do we need a National Women’s History Museum?” I don’t ‘do’ social media for various reasons, so come to your question late. But personally I find it absolutely staggering that in the 21st century this country can have: a Dog Collar Museum; a Pram Museum; a Lawnmower Museum; a Lock and Key Museum; a Pencil Museum; and in Dundee there is the Verdant Works, which has a collection that explores the history of jute. And yet your question still needs to be asked! Of course we need a National Women’s History Museum! The contribution of women to arts, science, engineering and humanities MUST be recognised in this way. For shame that it doesn’t…

“When work takes me to BBC Broadcasting House in London, sitting in the reassuring surroundings of the art deco foyer, I often find myself reflecting on the history of public service broadcasting. There, above the lifts, is what one might call the BBC’s foundation stone: “This Temple is dedicated to the Arts and Muses by the first Governors of Broadcasting in the year 1931, Sir John Reith being director-general. It is their prayer that good seed sown may bring forth a good harvest, that all things hostile to peace or purity may be banished from this house, and that the people, inclining their ear to whatsoever things are beautiful and honest and of good report, may tread the path of wisdom and uprightness.” In our sceptical age, such idealism may…

Camille Desmoulins (1760-94) Desmoulins’ attempts to make a career as a lawyer suffered due to his stammer. In July 1789 he was in a cafe at the Palais Royal, where he urged people to storm the Bastille. He became a talented, volatile journalist and wrote Le Vieux Cordelier , the chief vehicle for the ‘Indulgent’ faction to attack the revolutionary committees and the Terror. He was arrested in March 1794, tried and executed. Georges Danton (1759 –94) At the outbreak of revolution, Danton (left) was a lawyer. After the monarchy fell, he became minister of justice. He had undisclosed sources of wealth, and was probably corrupt. He called for a Revolutionary Tribunal, saying: “Let us be terrible to spare the people from being so.” He sat with the Jacobins in…

Anne of Cleves has gone down in history as the ugly wife. Henry VIII was so revolted when he first clapped eyes on her that he immediately instructed his lawyers to get him out of the marriage. Thereafter, his poor, spurned fourth queen retreated quietly into obscurity to hide her face from the world, while Henry joyfully married the infinitely more desirable Catherine Howard. Anne, who was born 500 years ago this month, was Henry’s wife for just six months, making her the shortest reigning of all his queens. And so she has been dismissed as little more than a blip in the history of England’s most-married monarch. The true story of Henry VIII’s fourth wife is entirely different to this humiliating fiction. Anne may not have been to the…

Joe Murray Joe grew up in a County Durham mining community. He arrived in Gallipoli with the Hood Battalion of the Royal Naval Division in April 1915 and was soon moved to engineering duties as a sapper. At Gallipoli, following the failure of the August offensive intended to break out from Anzac and the new Suvla landings, the fighting had settled into a grim stalemate. By this time Ordinary Seaman Joe Murray was attached to the VIII Corps Mining Company and engaged in an underground game of chess. Both sides were driving out tunnels under the trenches seeking to lay huge mines to blow up their enemies. Both were listening out for the tell-tale sounds of underground digging. When detected, a camouflet mine would be set and detonated to destroy…

1 Make an impact It’s all very well living to a ripe old age, but you’ll ultimately be judged by your achievements, however long your reign Longevity is a great personal achievement for a monarch, although it is not a marker of success on its own. Queen Victoria’s 63 years and 216 days defined an age in British history; but in terms of relative accomplishment and reputation-building, Henry V’s nine years and 163 days – during which he won at Agincourt and conquered France – were pretty potent too. That being said, a long reign can be a good way to earn a lasting reputation. Elizabeth I (44 years) and Edward III (50 years) were both remarkably tenacious rulers, and although both eventually went rather stale, they were…

Romantic Outlaws by Charlotte Gordon Hutchinson, 672 pages, £25 It may come as a surprise that two of the most outspoken women of the Georgian era, Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–97) and Mary Shelley (1797–1851), were mother and daughter. It’s equally surprising to discover that their lives have as yet never been examined together in a single work. Charlotte Gordon’s fascinating double biography remedies this omission while shedding new light on both lives. Gordon’s narrative history is a skilful interweaving of the two stories. Although Wollstonecraft’s relationship with her daughter was brief – she died of puerperal fever 10 days after her birth – her influence remained ever-present. By juxtaposing their experiences, Gordon presents a compelling comparison of their struggles, adventures, romantic entanglements and, ultimately, the uniquely personal philosophies that helped to…

Willoughbyland: England’s Lost Colony by Matthew Parker Hutchinson, 288 pages, £16.99 Readers will probably be more familiar with John Willoughby, the fictional rogue in Jane Austen’s novel Sense and Sensibility, than with his real-life eponymous 17th-century predecessor, Sir Francis Willoughby. It is Sir Francis who is at the heart of Matthew Parker’s book, and yet the lives of both share a complex interweaving of romantic designs, deceit and the drive for wealth. As Parker’s lively narrative relates, Willoughby was inspired by Sir Walter Ralegh’s late 16th-century account of the fabulous wealth to be found in El Dorado, a mythical city located somewhere in inland South America between the Orinoco and Amazon rivers. A turncoat in the Civil War, Willoughby decided to flee to the continent and found a colony whose…

It’s hard to imagine the Norwich skyline without its great Norman keep. It’s there – staring imposingly down on you from atop its lofty motte – when you step out into the city from its bus station. It’s there as you pick your way through Norwich’s market place, the so-called French borough. It’s even there, in the middle distance, as you approach the city’s other triumph of Norman architecture, Norwich Cathedral. Today, the castle is a popular tourist destination, a fascinating symbol of Norwich’s rich history. Yet, 900 or so years ago – as it was constructed, partly from massive Caen stones shipped across the Channel on behalf of England’s new masters – it would have had many meanings to a local population reeling in the aftershock of regime change.…

From the ramparts of the medieval castle of St George, perched high above the city, it’s possible to understand why Lisbon exists. I’ve been coming here to research Portugal’s voyages of exploration and have grown to love this surprising place, rich in history. With its line of hills and the river Tagus beyond, wide as the straits between continents, gleaming in the sunlight, Lisbon is a gateway to the Atlantic. The Tagus gifted Lisbon the finest harbour on Europe’s western seaboard. From the Phoenicians onwards everyone has stopped off here. The Arabs held it for four centuries; their original settlement, Alfama, a dense souk of steep lanes through which antique trams hurtle, bells clanging, is where I like to stay. You can get pleasurably lost in its evocative labyrinth, eat…

1. What was set in 1846 at 4 ft 8 ½ ins? 2. What medieval custom caused William Ashford to abandon his appeal in 1818 against the acquittal of Abraham Thornton of the murder of his sister? 3. Which organisation was first set up in 1909 by Captain Sir Mansfield Cumming? 4. Why was the Parliament of Bats, which was held in Leicester in 1426, so called? 5. In February 1864, a 16-year-old actress married a 46-year-old artist in St Barnabas Church in Kensington. Who were they? 6. What originally stood on the roof of this building? QUIZ ANSWERS 1. The gauge (distance between the two rails) of a British railway line. 2. Thornton challenged him to trial by combat, an age-old right that had never been repealed. The case…