Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2017 i History Extra

“When Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg (as the story goes), few could have predicted the seismic impact this event would have on the history of Europe. The Reformation that followed led to an outpouring of new ideas but also created bitter divisions across the continent. It is sometimes said that the English version of the Reformation was a more peaceable affair. Yet, according to Peter Marshall, author of this month’s cover feature, the reality was several decades of bloodshed. You can read his argument on page 28. Then, on the following pages, Diarmaid MacCulloch picks out the key moments of the European Reformation, as we approach its 500th anniversary. Another important milestone we are marking this month is the 800th…

The date was 8 May 1373, and in Norwich an obscure woman now known as Julian, about 30 years old, was approaching the end of her life. Stricken with an unidentified illness, perhaps plague, she had been weakening for days, and a priest had been called to administer the last rites. The priest held up the cross. “I have brought thee the image of thy maker and saviour: look thereupon and comfort thee therewith,” he said. And then the visions began. Later, Julian remembered that “it was all dark about me in the chamber, as if it had been night, save in the image of the cross whereon I beheld a common light; and I wist not how. All that was away from the cross was of horror to me,…

“Two days after the Defenestration, Count Thurn and his associates published an ‘Apology’ explaining why they had thrown the emperor’s representatives “out of the window in accordance with the old custom” – a remark deliberately linking their actions to the killing of seven Prague councillors that had started the Hussite revolt in 1419. In both cases, disaffected Bohemians sought to assert political and religious freedoms against a ‘foreign’ ruler. The Hussite revolt was contained and eventually defused through limited concessions, which isolated the movement’s radical faction. Two centuries later, the circumstances were very different. Europe was now irrevocably split along religious lines – a fact reinforced by the acrimonious first centenary of the Reformation in 1617. The Bohemian ‘Apology’ appealed for external assistance against the “evil and turbulent clergy and…

Isaac Newton was master 1 of the Mint In spring 1696, Isaac Newton was appointed warden of the Royal Mint, his first public office. Among his known duties were supervising experiments on the purity of copper and conducting interviews with criminals and informers. The Royal Mint was housed 2 at the Tower of London In 1278/79, with England’s ageing currency in crisis, Edward I moved the Royal Mint to the Tower of London, increasing the size and security of the site. The Royal Mint remained at the Tower until 1810 when it was relocated to nearby Tower Hill. The hand-striking of coins 3 was abandoned in 1663 English coins were traditionally struck between a pair of hand-held dies, but the minting process was mechanised in 1663. Steam-powered machinery to cast…

Early female voters I saw your news item about Frances Connelly casting her vote in 1911 (March). It seems Lily Maxwell may have beaten her to the title of Britain’s first female voter – by 44 years! Lily is said to be the first woman to cast a vote in a parliamentary election after being included on the electoral register by accident in 1867. Although she cast her vote, it was eventually disallowed. Gemma Robbins-Flowerdew, Singapore A disastrous queen The interview with Professor Duffy (Books Interview, March) suggests that some academics still support the chimera of a Catholic restoration taking root under a longer reigned Mary Tudor. The implausibility of Mary as a Catholic saviour is demonstrated by a single fact: the rise of Puritanism, which would have occurred whichever…

“We live in strange times. What was once accepted as fact can now be ‘fake news’. Online political debates show this is seeping into views of history too. Of course it is the very nature of history that it should be rewritten by every generation, as events are given a new spin, a new interpretation, from the Reformation and the Civil War to the miners’ strike and the Iraq War. You can see this in the new books and films about the British partition of India 70 years ago, which led to the creation of India and Pakistan at a cost of a million deaths and the migration of maybe 12 million people: Muslims into Pakistan and Sikhs and Hindus into India. It’s a chapter in our common history which…

In the years before Ælfthryth, the status of royal women varied significantly. The dynasty that united England in the early 10th century was that of Wessex (south of the Thames), and prevailing attitudes were drawn from there. At the time of Alfred the Great, the king’s Welsh biographer, Bishop Asser, criticised the “strange” West Saxon tradition of denying royal consorts the title of queen – a custom that reportedly went back to the king Beorhtric in the early ninth century (r786–802), whose wife accidentally poisoned him! This is the stuff of legend, but whatever the real grounds, West Saxon royal women – aside from Judith, crowned queen of the West Saxons in 856 – did not have a high profile. Elsewhere, matters were different. In the Midlands kingdom of Mercia,…

“The search for Arthur is compromised by the lack of surviving sources from ‘Dark Age’ Wales” Is it possible to say with any certainty whether or not a historical Arthur existed? There is no shortage of modern books claiming to reveal the ‘real’ Arthur. They place him in locations and historical periods as wide-ranging as pre-classical Greece and Roman Dalmatia to ‘Dark Age’ Britain. British Arthurs remain the most popular but they are far from mutually compatible – identified with regions as far-flung as Cornwall and Argyle. In fact, there are so many of them that they tend to cancel each other out. Academic specialists often argue that Arthur was purely a figure of mythology, or they suggest that, while he may have existed, we’re not in a position to…

This Orient Isle by Jerry Brotton Penguin, 356 pages, £10 When, in 1570, Pope Pius V issued a bull of excommunication against the ‘heretic queen’ Elizabeth I, she became the prime focus for aggressive action by European rivals. Surrounded by the Catholic superpowers of France and Spain, her ‘sceptred’ isle seemed suddenly vulnerable. What Elizabeth desperately needed were allies. And they came from an unexpected source: not the Protestant states of Europe, but the three great powers of the Islamic world – Persia, the Ottoman empire and Morocco. Anglo-Islamic relations actually reached their zenith during Elizabeth’s reign. In this fascinating, surprising and extremely pertinent book, Jerry Brotton explores the evolution of England’s relations with the Muslim world during this time. Drawing on sources as wide ranging as diplomatic reports to…

A remarkable 16 of the academics she helped would go on to win a Nobel Prize Miss Simpson’s Children RADIO BBC Radio 4 scheduled for Friday 12 May It was when working on a forthcoming group biography of the Vienna Circle that writer and broadcaster David Edmonds first came across the name Esther ‘Tess’ Simpson. Many in the circle, active in the 1920s and 1930s, and comprising academics with an interest in philosophy, were Jewish or left-leaning, and thus had particular reason to fear the rise of Hitler. Simpson, Edmonds realised, had later helped at least four of his subjects make new lives in the UK. But who was she? “I began to investigate and found the tens of thousands of letters [she had written] on behalf of the [Academic…

Designed in the Greek revival style favoured by the early Victorians, its grand entrance a huge four-pillared portico, the Ashmolean building oozes education and learning. Inside, half a million years of art and archaeology are laid out across six floors, from Anglo-Saxon treasures to contemporary art and sculpture. Curious tourists, excitable neon-clad school children and history buffs alike stroll around the vast space, peering at printed information plaques or plugged in to the museum’s audio guide. But if you can tear yourself away from the ancient Egyptian mummy of Djeddjehutyiufankh – known affectionately as ‘Jed’ – a walk downstairs to the museum’s lower level will reveal the history of the Ashmolean museum itself, a story that begins in the 17th century with the collections of a father and son in…

“In 1248, Fernando rode his horse up the Giralda bell tower, then the minaret of Seville’s Great Mosque As a biographer of Edward II, for years I yearned to visit Andalusia in southern Spain, homeland of his mother, Eleanor of Castile. Seville is especially strongly associated with Edward’s family. His grandfather, Fernando III, king of Castile and Leon and later canonised as a saint, captured the city in 1248 after almost 550 years of Muslim rule, and is now the patron saint of Seville. San Fernando’s son and successor, King Alfonso X ‘the Learned’ (died 1284) is, like Fernando himself, buried in the Capilla Real or Royal Chapel in Seville Cathedral; another of Edward II’s uncles, Don Felipe, served as archbishop of Seville. When I finally got the chance to…

1. EREWASH MUSEUM Erewash Museum, Derbyshire Museum of The Year 2011, 2012 and 2016. Visit our fascinating local history museum and art gallery. Explore our gardens or try afternoon tea in our brand new tea room. erewashmuseum.co.uk | 01159 071141 2. FROGMORE MILL, HEMEL HEMPSTEAD Learn about the history of paper, make your own sheet, see a working 1902 paper machine and much more at the world’s oldest mechanised paper mill. thepapertrail.org.uk | 01442 234600 3. MUSEUM OF WITCHCRAFT & MAGIC Contains the world’s oldest and largest collection relating to witchcraft, magic and the occult in the world. Located in the historic harbour of Boscastle, Cornwall museumofwitchcraftandmagic.co.uk 4. CALKE ABBEY As more of Calke’s secrets and stories are revealed this year, discover the mansion’s object of the month, putting the spotlight on…

Levi Roach We often think of medieval politics as being dominated by men. Yet the life of Queen Ælfthryth, the mother of Æthelred ‘the Unready’, provides a timely reminder of the important roles played by women. • Levi tells the story of England’s first queen Peter Marshall The Reformation divided England down the middle. I am fascinated not only by its capacity for generating violence, but by how it forced ordinary people to decide where they stood on the ultimate questions. • Peter follows the English Reformation’s bloody trajectory Annie Gray Food was a lifelong love for Queen Victoria and a source of comfort through some of her darkest days. Discovering what – and how much – Victoria ate can tell us so much about her life and reign. •…

The Mongols and the Islamic World From Conquest to Conversion Peter Jackson An unmatched historical study exploring the brutal Mongol conquest of the Middle East and the spread of Islam during the years of non-Muslim rule. ‘This accessible study is the most important book on the history of the Mongol Empire to have been published in years.’ – David Morgan, author of The Mongols 7 b/w illustrations, 8 maps + 6 tables Hardback £30.00 Praetorian The Rise and Fall of Rome’s Imperial Bodyguard Guy de la Bédoyère This riveting account of ancient Rome’s imperial bodyguard explores the colourful history of the select soldiers who wielded the power to make – or destroy – the emperors they served. ‘[De la Bédoyère’s] book can be most warmly recommended both to aspiring tyrants…

Medieval villagers mutilated the dead A study of bones from the 11th-14th centuries may reveal medieval attempts to prevent people rising from the dead. The remains, from North Yorkshire, show burn marks and cuts on skulls and upper-body bones, made after death. Arsenic nearly blinded Jane Austen Experts at the British Library believe Jane Austen’s deteriorating eyesight could have been caused by arsenic used in medicines for rheumatism that the author may have taken. By the end of her life, Austen was nearly blind. Ancient Egyptian tomb discovered The 3,800-year-old tomb of Shemai, one of the most important governors of the Twelfth Dynasty, has been discovered at Qubbet El-Hawa, near Aswan, Egypt. The tomb contained Shemai’s mummy as well as funeral goods. Hunt for Caligula’s pleasure ship Divers from Italy’s…

1517 Luther takes the pope to task Martin Luther, a devout Augustinian friar and university lecturer at Wittenberg in Saxony, north Germany, launches an attack on indulgences, which the church grants to believers to shorten the time they spend in purgatory in the afterlife, before entrance into heaven. He outlines a critique in 95 propositions (theses) for debate on this aspect of the official theology of salvation, prompted by fury at a crude sales campaign for an indulgence financially benefiting the pope and Luther’s own local bishop Albrecht, a great German nobleman. To Luther’s surprise, his initiative sparks excitement across Germany. Discovering a gift for popular communication – despite having published virtually nothing before – he begins writing a stream of pamphlets and books explaining his ideas in vigorous German.…

Winchester Friday 6 October – Sunday 8 October 2017 York Friday 24 November – Sunday 26 November 2017 WINCHESTER Highlights of the History Weekend in Winchester A selection of Britain’s finest popular and academic historians will be descending on Winchester as we return to the city for the second time. Among them are a number of stars of BBC television and radio including Janina Ramirez, Anita Anand, David Olusoga (left), and Michael Wood, whose reflections on the Anglo-Saxon era should chime perfectly with the setting in the former capital of Wessex. You will also get a chance to hear from a selection of fantastic history writers, including Dan Jones, who will be discussing his new history of the Templars, Jenny Uglow (right), reflecting on the life of Edward Lear, and…

When the Stuarts came south to unite the two crowns ofBritain, the curse of the firstborn struck The Prince Who Would Be King: the Life and Death of Henry Stuart by Sarah Fraser William Collins, 352 pages, £25 History has seen its fair share of promising heirs cut down before they reached the throne. The wreck of the White Ship in 1120 took 17-year-old Prince William, only legitimate son of King Henry I. In the 14th century Edward the Black Prince, famed for his military exploits in the Hundred Years’ War, was much older (45) but succumbed to a debilitating illness before the death of his father, Edward III. Prince Arthur, the eldest son of Henry VII, carried the hopes of the new Tudor dynasty but died at the age…

The Butcher, the Baker, the Candlestick Maker by Roger Hutchinson Little, Brown, 340 pages, £20 In his new book, Roger Hutchinson repackages the census in the stories and ambitions of its creators, adversaries and shifting populations. He finesses narratives of the lives of migrating workers, the unhappily married, the enterprising and troubled across 19th and early 20th-century Britain. His book is timely, as the appreciation of the reliability of census data is undergoing a re-evaluation among scholars. This is a book about people, not statistics, although there are plenty of the latter. Hutchinson uses rich biographical detail to connect the dots, beginning with John Rickman who convinced parliament of the usefulness of knowing the actual population. He drafted the 1800 Census Act, and was responsible for the census for the…

A Tale of Two Sisters TV Yesterday scheduled for Thursday 18 May It’s 80 years since Amelia Earhart’s plane disappeared as she attempted to fly around the world. One reason we remember Earhart’s exploits is because of her sister, Pidge, who kept her sibling’s name alive. But, as this new three-part series explores, not all historically significant sisterly relationships have been so supportive. Jackie Kennedy Onassis, for example, was fiercely competitive with her sister, Caroline Lee Radziwill (née Bouvier). The situation with the Mitfords was even more complex and, in the case of leftwing Jessica and fascist Diana, Oswald Mosley’s wife, a strong bond ultimately gave way to estrangement.…

DVD (Spirit Entertainment Ltd, £21.99) On 14 October 1066 the Anglo-Saxon world was swept aside. It was, says Dan Snow, “the greatest rupture in our history”. But how did the rulers of a “tiny region of France” come to wield such power? In a three-part series first shown on BBC Two, Dan Snow traces a remarkable tale of intrigue, rebellion and bloodshed. And a remarkably convoluted story too, because Snow’s narrative encompasses not just William and Harold, nobles who had a fatal falling out over who should succeed Edward the Confessor, but also how Harold’s brother, Tostig, and the Viking monarch, Harald Hardrada, cast greedy eyes on England. The series uses dramatic reconstructions extensively – Clive Russell of Ripper Street fame, for example, plays Harald – but these rarely overpower…

1 British Museum LONDON Where a gift was made to the nation Hans Sloane collected more than 71,000 items during his lifetime, which he bequeathed to George II for the nation. A museum to house the collection was agreed in 1753 and it opened its doors six years later. Entry was free to “all studious and curious persons”. britishmuseum.org 2 National Museum of Scotland EDINBURGH Where collections were merged Today’s museum incorporates the collections of the former National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland, and the Royal Museum. The combined collections were housed from 1891 until 1995 in specially built galleries in Queen Street as a museum to reflect Scottish history. nms.ac.uk 3 Garden Museum LAMBETH Where the Tradescants are buried The Garden Museum is housed in the deconsecrated church of…

BEST TIME TO GO May, early June and September. July and August, when temperatures climb into the high thirties and forties, are best avoided. Semana Santa or Holy Week (Easter), and Feria de Abril (April Fair) two weeks later are the city’s biggest annual festivals, but it can be hard to find somewhere to stay during these popular times. GETTING THERE Easyjet flies direct to Seville from London Gatwick once a day. From elsewhere in Britain you can fly cheaply to Málaga and take a train to Sevilla Santa Justa station (about two hours). WHAT TO PACK A Spanish phrasebook is very helpful. Reading the story of Don Juan – ‘The Trickster of Seville’ – written in c1630, will get you in the mood for your visit. WHAT TO BRING…

Wars often start strangely, and the Thirty Years’ War – which ravaged Bohemia, killed perhaps a fifth of the adult population in Germany and saw swathes of central Europe devastated by famine, disease and murder – was no exception. It began, in fact, with three men being thrown out of a window. The deeper causes of the war were fiendishly complex, but what happened on 23 May 1618 was reasonably simple. Under the rules governing the Holy Roman Empire, individual princes could determine the religion of their own subjects. But in Bohemia the imperial authorities, which were Catholic, had begun cracking down on Protestant churches. So the Protestant nobles called an assembly at Prague Castle, and demanded that the emperor’s four Catholic regents answer for their actions. The four regents…

What is significant about the files? We now have a full collection of witness testimonies for thousands of men and women – civilians, military personnel, spies, resistance workers and deliberately persecuted ethnic groups – who suffered at the hands of the Nazis. Who qualified for compensation? Those who had been detained in a concentration camp (or comparable institution) for the deliberate infliction of organised torture, suffering and death in furtherance of Nazi ideology. This scheme was never meant to support prisoners of war or civilians – the laws of war allowed both to be interned if treated appropriately. As a result, of the 4,000 applications, only 1,015 received compensation. Did any of the stories particularly stand out for you? The case of Fay Simon is particularly sad. She was a…

A major collaboration between the BBC and the University of Sussex has been launched, bringing the BBC’s past to life through the voices of the people who have worked there – from broadcasters to directors – and politicians involved in broadcasting policy. The project, funded by a grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, will pull together hundreds of rarely seen video and audio interviews into a digital catalogue that will allow the public to search people, places and events across BBC broadcast history. Sir David Attenborough, politicians Tony Benn and Harold Wilson and BBC pioneer Grace Wyndham Goldie are among the interviewees featured in the digital archive. David Hendy, professor of media and cultural history at the University of Sussex and curator of the new archive, comments: “The…

What do you think about the representation of female historians on TV? John White I think they all show their enthusiasm and love of history. Mary Beard’s programme on Rome was just brilliant. It must be wonderful to do a job you have so much love for @TheTalkingOak In general I think the current crop of female presenters are fantastic but we do need more voices from BAME communities @latar There is a lack of colour and diversity. It sometimes feels like we’ve literally gone back in time @toowackajack I’m interested in content & delivery not whether they’re male or female @fleurfarrell Would like to see a wider selection other than Lipscomb, Worsley, etc. Also more emphasis on knowledge and less on looks @RebeccaRideal It’d be nice to hear a…

The greatest knight William Marshal (died 1219) Born the landless younger son of a minor Anglo-Norman noble, Marshal rose through the ranks to become one of the Angevin dynasty’s leading servants. The mastermind of the royalist victory at Lincoln made his name as a tournament champion and fought as a crusader in the Holy Land. The battling bishop Peter des Roches (d1238) Originally from the Touraine in northwestern France, Peter was consecrated as a bishop in 1205. However his propensity for battle saw him nicknamed the ‘warrior of Winchester’ – and his discovery of a weakness in Lincoln’s defences was critical to the royalist victory in 1217. John’s evil ally Faulkes de Bréaute (d1226) Accused of murder in his youth, Faulkes was lifted to prominence in England by King John’s…

If any medieval English queen deserves to be a household name , it is Ælfthryth If asked to name a medieval queen of England, most would probably fasten upon Eleanor of Aquitaine, the influential wife of Henry II, made famous by Katharine Hepburn in The Lion in Winter . A few Plantagenet and Tudor enthusiasts might think of Elizabeth Woodville, the capable consort of Edward IV and grandmother to Henry VIII. One or two of the more adventurous might even fix upon Emma of Normandy, the indomitable wife of King Cnut in the early 11th century. Many would struggle to think of any at all. But very few indeed would name Ælfthryth, the third wife of King Edgar (reigned 959–75) and mother of Æthelred ‘the Unready’ (r978–1013 and 1014–16). This…

Fry was appalled at prison conditions, and most affected by the sight of two women taking the clothes from a dead baby to dress a living one In May 2017 the ‘Fry fiver’ will be officially withdrawn from circulation, replaced by the new polymer note featuring the wartime leader Winston Churchill. Incidentally, Fry’s retirement coincides with the 200th anniversary of her most famous philanthropic project, reform of the female side of Newgate Gaol, the act chosen for commemoration on our national currency. A fitting moment, then, to revisit Fry’s life and consider her legacy. If the passage of time has increased her obscurity, she has not become irrelevant. Although best remembered for her work among female prisoners, Fry’s activism and influence extended to other important areas of social policy and…

Largely thanks to Pablo Picasso’s searing painting, Guernica is now remembered as the place where a new and horrific modern warfare came of age. Picasso had previously avoided creating explicitly political art but the Spanish Republic was keen to get the world’s most famous artist to identify himself with its cause. In January 1937, he responded positively to an invitation to contribute to the Spanish pavilion at the World Fair in Paris scheduled for later in the year. That contribution would be Guernica. In fact the painting, begun on 1 May, a matter of days after the bombing, is not just about what happened in the Basque town. There were three prior influences: the savage bombing of Madrid in October and November 1936 and again throughout April 1937; the suffering…

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Churchill and the Dardanelles by Christopher M Bell OUP 464 pages £25 In The March of Folly (1984), US historian Barbara Tuchman analysed instances from the Siege of Troy to the Vietnam War when individuals and institutions indulged in ‘mission creep’: stubborn persistence with a policy foredoomed to failure. In this book, Bell examines a glaring example – the desperate attempt by the Allies in 1915 to force the Straits of the Dardanelles, against ferocious Ottoman Turkish resistance. Bell focuses on the role of its chief architect Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty. As a maritime historian, Bell concentrates on the conception of the Dardanelles campaign, and its initial naval phase, rather than the subsequent troop landings on the Gallipoli peninsula, when the gruelling fighting cost more than 320,000…

Lenin the Dictator: An Intimate History by Victor Sebestyen Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 569 pages, £20 Victor Sebestyen does an impressive job of telling Lenin’s life story. His title and subtitle present a no doubt self-conscious contradiction, between the dictator and the intimate, and it is in dealing with the latter side that the book is fuller and stronger. The structure reflects this emphasis on the human Lenin. It begins with the chaotic goings-on of the October 1917 revolution but then runs the reader through 300 pages covering Lenin’s childhood, relationships, intellectual formation and wanderings across Russia and western Europe as a member of the revolutionary underground. Lenin lived in a mobile but close-knit family milieu, with an important role played by his mother, his sisters, his wife Nadezhda Krupskaya and…

Tipping the Velvet Sarah Waters (1998) In Waters’ picaresque debut novel, her heroine, Nan Astley, embarks on a voyage of sexual self-discovery when she meets Kitty Butler, a male impersonator treading the boards in a provincial music hall. When Kitty gets to perform in London, she takes Nan with her. First Kitty’s dresser, then her partner on and off stage, Nan is introduced to a riotous demi-monde of gender-bending entertainers, Sapphic aristos and socialist dreamers. Kitty Peck and the Music Hall Murders Kate Griffin (2013) Dancing girls have been going missing, presumed dead, from the music halls owned by Lady Ginger, an opium-smoking gang boss in Victorian London’s east end. Lady Ginger singles out the teenage Kitty Peck to be transformed into ‘the Limehouse Linnet’, a musical aerialist who performs…

Our Man in the Middle East Radio BBC Radio 4 scheduled for Monday 15 May Jeremy Bowen has been reporting on the Middle East since the build-up to the first Gulf War. He’s now the BBC’s Middle East editor, and a man who has interviewed many of the region’s most famous and infamous figures. It’s expertise he brings to bear on a 25-part series that looks back at a quarter of a century of history in the region. In the first tranche of shows, he considers such themes as US involvement in the Middle East under George W Bush, the history of the Kurds and the effect of Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination in 1995 on the peace process.…

It’s five centuries since Martin Luther’s Ninety-five Theses kickstarted the Reformation, an anniversary reflected in Sunday Feature: Reformation 500 (BBC Radio 3, Sunday 7 May), which looks at what Luther has meant for Germans down the centuries. A toy figure of Luther, we learn, has become the fastest selling Playmobil product ever. Costing the Earth (BBC Radio 4) continues to offer an environmental spin on history. Exploding Penguins (Tuesday 9 May) outlines how penguins have thrived on heavily mined beaches in the wake of the Falklands War. Meanwhile, Reforesting Britain (Tuesday 23 May) marks the 800th anniversary of the Charter of the Forest, which returned many of the rights to exploit forest land that had been removed by the Normans. For In Our Time (BBC Radio 4, Thursday 4 May),…

5,000 years of history GALLERY OPENING / FREE ENTRY Ancient Egypt: A journey through time World Museum, Liverpool From 28 April 0151 478 4393 • liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/wml Liverpool’s World Museum is opening its new ancient Egypt gallery this month, giving visitors the chance to explore 5,000 years of Egyptian history – from the first settlers in the Nile valley, to the impact of the Roman empire. Some 1,000 objects from this, one of the UK’s most significant collections of ancient Egyptian and Nubian antiquities, will be on show in the 1,000 square-metre space, making it Britain’s largest ancient Egypt gallery outside of the British Museum. The gallery will be presented in seven themes and will include items that have never been on public display before. Among these will be Djedhor’s Book…

CHIRK CASTLE Construction of Chirk Castle began in 1295 during the reign of Edward I, part of his ring of fortifications in North Wales. The home of the Myddelton family since 1595, visitors can explore dank dungeons, lavish interiors, award-winning gardens and over 480 acres of landscaped parkland. Visit the Chirk Castle website to stay up to date with what’s on throughout the summer. www. nationaltrust.org.uk/chirk-castle  // 01691 777 701 LEEDS CASTLE The 12th Century Leeds Castle in Kent is set within 500 acres of beautiful parkland. Originally a Norman stronghold, it was the private property of six medieval queens, a palace used by Henry VIII and an elegant early 20th century retreat. With daily events and attractions, it’s not just the glorious history of Leeds Castle that brings…

1. Which important play was written in 1894 in a house on Worthing’s Esplanade? 2. Which tea connoisseur and reformer was born at Fallodon, Northumberland in 1764? 3. They cost 2s 6d each and more than 200,000 were bought and signed by members of the public between 1952 and 1961. What were they? 4. Which war began on Horsell Common near Woking? 5. Who was found not guilty by Josephine Tey in 1951? 6. Which queen paid a visit here in 1566 and why? QUIZ ANSWERS 1. The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde. 2. Charles, Earl Grey, prime minister at the time of the Great Reform Act. 3. Bricks for the new Guildford Cathedral. 4. HG Wells’s The War of the Worlds. 5. Richard III, of the…

Sack posset Posset was originally a hot, spiced drink, often thickened with bread or almonds to provide sustenance if you were unwell. Originating in the medieval era, people eventually began drinking it for its taste – rather than its medicinal qualities – with those who could afford it adding cream instead of milk to make it a fancier custard-style pudding. A posset pot was often used – a teapot-type vessel that enabled drinkers to suck the alcoholic liquid from beneath the curdled cream/custard. Today, posset is usually served as a chilled dessert but this recipe for sack posset (sack being a type of fortified wine) can also be enjoyed warm. In fact, when heated, it feels more like a Christmas-type pudding, rich with sherry. If you’re a fan of decadent…

Richard Wagner was a German composer. Born in Leipzig, Germany, from boyhood he was interested in combining music and drama. This led to him writing operas such as Tannhäuser (1845), Tristan and Isolde (1857–59) and his famous four-part cycle The Ring of the Nibelung (completed in 1874). In 1872 he settled in Bayreuth, where he created a theatre to perform his own works. Wagner’s music is banned to this day in Israel, as a result of his anti-Semitism and his music’s appropriation by the Nazis. When did you first hear about Wagner? My grandmother, a singer, had lots of old 78rpm classical records, and the first Wagner record I ever heard was the overture to Tannhäuser. I was only about eight years old at the time but I fell in…