Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2017 i History Extra

“If you Romans choose to lord it over the world, does it follow that the world is to accept slavery?” These defiant words were addressed – according to the historian Tacitus – to the Roman emperor Claudius by a captured leader of the British resistance named Caratacus. Boudicca might be the most celebrated British rebel of the Roman invasion period, but according to Miles Russell, author of this month’s cover feature, Caratacus deserves far greater recognition. Find out more on page 20. The rebellious theme continues on page 28 where Stephen Bates revisits the Pentrich Uprising of 1817. Though small in scale and pathetic in its outcome, the revolt was the last armed insurrection to take place in England and makes an interesting comparison with far more dramatic uprisings across…

It was just after midnight on 5 June when, to the roars of his supporters, Senator Robert F Kennedy emerged into the glare of the ballroom at the Ambassador Hotel, Los Angeles. After one of the most turbulent campaigns in living memory, he seemed to have taken a decisive step towards the Democratic presidential nomination, having narrowly defeated his rival anti-war senator, Eugene McCarthy, in the California and South Dakota primaries. For months Kennedy had hesitated to challenge President Lyndon Johnson over the Vietnam War, but at last the prize was within sight. Now, as the crowd pressed urgently around him, his aides propelled him towards the press room, taking a short cut through the hotel kitchen. It was there that a 24-year-old Palestinian drifter, Sirhan Sirhan, enraged by Kennedy’s…

“Anne Frank has been both a blessing and a curse for Holocaust studies. There’s a risk that she is made somehow saintly, yet many people are not even aware of her tragic death. Anne was a historian of sorts. She was very much aware of the catastrophe unfolding across Europe and took pains to document its effects. She edited her diary for publication, even choosing a title for her future book: The Room Behind the House. After her death, Anne’s words were edited again by her father, who removed more personal details from the text – not least Anne’s arguments with her mother. But the diary proved hard to publish and had a small initial print run. It was only when translated into English, and given a new title, The…

It wasn’t actually signed 1 on 4 July 1776 4 July is traditionally celebrated as the day on which the US declared its independence from Britain. Yet the declaration had actually been signed two days earlier. The final wording of the Declaration of Independence was approved on 4 July, however, which was also the date on which it was printed and circulated throughout the new nation. News of the declaration 2 started a riot When news of the declaration reached New York and the document was read aloud by George Washington, a jubilant crowd tore down a statue of British king George III. The statue was later melted down and used to create more than 42,000 musket balls. The signatures were 3 kept secret The names of the men who…

“As a Canadian, I listened with incredulity to talk of the old empire – especially Australia, Canada and New Zealand – waiting for British leadership again”MARGARET MACMILLAN It is interesting how in major debates or elections history gets dragged in. The talk of ‘making America great again’ or of ‘Christian Europe’ appeals both to a sense that something has gone wrong with our own societies and a hankering for a simpler world supposed to exist back in the past. That nostalgia is sentimental, frequently unrealistic, and usually based on bad or at least imperfect history and delusions about the present. During the EU referendum, as a Canadian I listened with incredulity to talk in some pro-Brexit circles about Britain soaring into a position of global leadership once it had cast…

“Ovid sang of the streets of Rome, making it an erotic memory room” “As I write this, I’m about to fly to Romania – to Constanūa on the Black Sea. I’m making a film about the Roman poet Ovid, who died there 2,000 years ago, having been exiled by the Roman emperor Augustus. Sometimes poets are uniquely great windows on history. Ovid is one such – a voice that influenced the whole of the western tradition in literature and art, but also a critical witness to one of the most fascinating periods in the ancient world. Ovid was born in Sulmona in Abruzzo, east of Rome, during the violent death throes of the Roman republic, a year after the assassination of Julius Caesar. The fields of Italy were ravaged by…

Holland focuses equally on strategy, the economic sinews of the struggle and the soldiers’ frontline experiences The War in the West: A New History. Volume 2: The Allies Fight Back, 1941-43 by James Holland Bantam, 752 pages, £25 How many general heavyweight histories of the Second World War can the market endure? Shelves are already groaning with big books on the subject in recent years from big hitters like Max Hastings, Norman Davies, Antony Beevor and the indefatigable Andrew Roberts – and many lesser luminaries besides. Now the equally prolific James Holland has reached the halfway point of his massive but readable chronological trilogy on the conflict with this impressive second volume. So how does Holland’s work stand out in a very crowded field? There are two aspects of Holland’s…

Poldark TV BBC One Scheduled for June It’s back. Less than a year since series two concluded, the BBC’s drama of life in Cornwall in the late 18th century returns to our screens this summer with nine new episodes. Joining brooding Ross (Aidan Turner), proud Demelza (Eleanor Tomlinson) and other familiar characters, we can expect new faces as writer Debbie Horsfield works her way through Winston Graham’s novels. These include Elizabeth’s cousin Morwenna (Ellise Chappell) who, to support her sisters and widowed mother, takes a job as a governess in the household of dastardly George Warleggan (Jack Farthing). Somehow, you know that this can’t end well……

Jackie DVD (Entertainment One, £14.99) In December 1963, Life published “An epilogue” to the life of John F Kennedy. Based on an interview with Jackie Kennedy, reporter Theodore H White’s article enshrined the idea of JFK’s White House as “Camelot”. It’s an encounter that acts as a framing device for Chilean director Pablo Larraín’s study of the former First Lady. This is an account of a life that has become fractured and fragmentary, an idea reflected in the film’s storytelling, which moves back and forward in time. That things never become too confusing speaks volumes about Natalie Portman’s performance as Jackie, which anchors the film. As Jackie seeks to maintain the outward cool that was her trademark, and necessary to get her through days in which she has to bury…

1 The Historic Dockyard CHATHAM, KENT Where Victory was constructed Victory was built at Chatham, and returned here in the 1790s for a major refit (after narrowly avoiding being sent into semi-retirement as a hospital ship). The dockyard is now home to three historical vessels: HMS Cavalier, HMS Gannet and HM Submarine Ocelot. thedockyard.co.uk 2 HMS Trincomalee HARTLEPOOL Where a historic warship resides The oldest warship afloat anywhere in the world is now the centrepiece of the Historic Dockyard Museum in Hartlepool. She was built in Bombay just after the Napoleonic Wars and went on to quell riots in Haiti, stop a threatened invasion of Cuba, and serve on an anti-slavery patrol. hms-trincomalee.co.uk 3 Buckler’s Hard museum NEW FOREST, HAMPSHIRE Where a private shipyard prospered Much of the Georgian navy…

“This is very much Benjamin Franklin’s city. It was here he achieved his fame and fortune” Philadelphia prides itself on being the United States’ number one historic visitor destination. It does so with every justification, because this is where the new nation began. It is where the Declaration of Independence was made and the war for it was fought (with Philadelphia itself being lost and won on several occasions). Philadelphia was also the new country’s capital before Washington took over in 1800. It is a place of great history and it knows how to celebrate it, without having to try too hard. Philadelphia has charming 18th-century areas near the Independence National Historical Park (INHP), set on a grid system planned by William Penn, the Quaker who founded the city in…

1. Juliana Popjoy was the mistress of Richard Beau Nash, Bath’s 18th-century master of ceremonies. Where did she live after parting from Nash? 2. What links the writer JD Sallinger (left), film director John Ford and actor Richard Todd? 3. What was wicked about the 1631 ‘Wicked Bible’? 4. How did a grey horse called Billie help save the day on 28 April 1923? 5. Where would you find Leanach Cottage and the Culwhiniac Enclosure? 6. Which sport is associated with this bridge in Ashdown Forest, Sussex? QUIZ ANSWERS 1. In a hollow tree near Warminster. 2. They all landed in Normandy on D-Day. 3. Due to a printing error it omitted the ‘not’ in the Seventh Commandment, thus telling the reader “thou shalt commit adultery”. 4. By helping to…

Andrea Clarke Huge numbers of letters and documents survive from the Tudor period. They provide a wonderful ringside view of great moments and events in Tudor history and fascinating glimpses into the personalities of England’s most famous ruling dynasty. • Andrea explores the Tudor monarchs’ letters and diaries on page 33 Matthew Hughes The Six-Day War has shaped the modern Middle East, and understanding how it happened gives vital insights into how poor diplomacy leads to war, and how events on the ground can outpace planned decision-making. • Matthew offers a blow-by-blow account of the Six-Day War on page 50 Lucy Worsley One of the reasons that Jane Austen had difficulty getting published is that she was writing biting, critical novels about Georgian society. People felt uncomfortable about that –…

An Auxiliary Territorial Service ‘spotter’ scans the skies at a 3.7-inch anti-aircraft gun site in December 1942. This image is among a collection of rare colour photographs taken during the Second World War and now released for public publication for the first time by the Imperial War Museum. You can see these extraordinary images, taken by official photographers, in The Second World War in Colour , a new book published by the Imperial War Museum.…

This month we relaunch BBC History Magazine’s annual poll to find out which historical figures have got you talking over the past 12 months. Now entering its third year, the History Hot 100 survey gives you the chance to nominate the people who fascinate you the most – from the books you’re reading, to the films you’re watching. In 2016, Richard III took the top spot for the second year running – but can he make it a hat-trick? Tudor royals also fared well last year, with Elizabeth I, Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII taking second, fourth and fifth places respectively. And in a year when the anniversaries of Second World War events such as Operation Barbarossa hit the headlines, Adolf Hitler moved up five places from 15 to 10.…

Words of war I was interested to see the record of Soviet army graffiti in the Reichstag in History Now (April). You might like to know that some of it still exists. When the Reichstag was renovated to become the current seat of the German parliament, a lot of the graffiti was found to be still in place. After much debate among members, it was finally decided to leave it in place – including a contribution from a British soldier from the Royal Horse Artillery (see photograph, left). Clearly it is a Russian military tradition. In 2008, I and several other defence attachés were shown around the Georgian barracks in Gori by the Georgian Ministry of Defence. The barracks had been occupied by the Russian army during the invasion of…

1710 Embattled Whigs gamble – and lose WHY WAS IT CALLED? Early 1710 saw the ruling Whig party coming under pressure on a number of fronts. Firstly, they failed to negotiate peace in the War of the Spanish Succession, thus losing popularity with a public (and monarch) weary of the costs of war. Secondly, they tried to prosecute the clergyman Henry Sacheverell, who had delivered a sermon at St Paul’s Cathedral attacking the Whigs’ policy of religious toleration. Sacheverell was found guilty – but the light sentence he received made the Whigs look weak. Queen Anne was losing confidence in the Whigs’ allies, Lords Marlborough and Godolphin, and in August 1710 dismissed Godolphin as Lord Treasurer, replacing him with the Tory Robert Harley who became chancellor of the Exchequer. This…

The Rise and Fall of Owain Glyn Dwr ^ by Gideon Brough IB Tauris, 320 pages, £25 Owain Glyndwr^ , the Welsh leader who in 1400 launched what would prove to be a lengthy but ill-fated uprising against English rule, has long inspired writers. Shakespeare’s Owen Glendower in Henry IV Part I is a potent, mystical figure – perhaps the image that inspired William Blake’s wild-looking ‘visionary head’ sketch. Scholars, too, have scrutinised the life and exploits of Owain Glyndwr ^ (alternatively rendered as Glyn Dwr^ ), with benchmarks set by Sir JE Lloyd’s fine narrative history of 1931 and Sir Rees Davies’s magisterial The Revolt of Owain Glyn Dwr ^ (1995). Yet gaps in our knowledge remain – not least how, when and where the rebel, by 1412 essentially…

So High a Blood: The Life of Margaret, Countess of Lennox by Morgan Ring Bloomsbury, 368 pages, £25 Margaret Douglas possessed that most dangerous of qualities in Tudor England: royal blood. The half-sister of James V of Scotland, she was only denied a place in the succession because her uncle, Henry VIII, had barred his Scottish relatives from inheriting the English throne. But this did little to stop the indomitable matriarch from scheming endlessly to seize power for herself and her family. And as Henry and his descendants struggled to produce heirs, Margaret moved closer to her ambition of seeing her family rule a united, Catholic Britain. During Elizabeth I’s reign, she arranged for her son Henry Darnley to marry the Virgin Queen’s deadliest rival: Mary, Queen of Scots. Disastrous…

The Last English King Julian Rathbone (1997) As he travels across the Near East, Walt Edwinson recounts the history of his life and the tumultuous events of the years before the Norman Conquest to his companion, a vagabond monk named Quint. Rathbone’s novel is a tongue-in-cheek, sometimes deliberately anachronistic, romp through the decline and fall of Anglo-Saxon England, as revealed in the story of Edwinson – the only one of King Harold’s elite bodyguard to survive the battle of Hastings. Hild Nicola Griffith (2013) A young woman, born into one of seventh-century Britain’s royal families, gains a reputation as a prophetess and as an advocate of the emerging new religion of Christianity. In this powerful and cleverly written novel, Nicola Griffith reconstructs an often alien historical world with great precision,…

The album spread the “opulent revolutionary optimism of psychedelia” Sgt. Pepper’s Musical Revolution TV BBC Two, scheduled for early June Though it’s perennially “20 years ago today” since “Sergeant Pepper taught the band to play”, it’s now half a century since the Beatles released their eighth studio album, on 1 June 1967. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band topped the UK album chart for 27 weeks and provided the soundtrack to a psychedelic summer that saw a collision between mainstream society and the counterculture represented by the hippies. The BBC’s anniversary season is anchored by Sgt. Pepper’s Musical Revolution, a documentary including material never before accessible outside Abbey Road. Broadcaster and composer Howard Goodall presents an insightful take on the Fab Four’s world as, having given up touring in 1966,…

Even with an archive of more than 150 episodes available on the BBC website, magazine show Making History (Radio 4, June) shows no sign of running out of creative energy. In a new series, presenters Helen Castor and Tom Holland promise to take listeners beneath the world’s oldest cathedral, consider a Dutch view of the battle of the Medway, and offer an archaeological take on the UK’s 1930s housing policy. On Yesterday, RoyalMurderMysteries (Monday 12 June) is a six-part series from the makers of Medieval Murder Mysteries, looking anew at the circumstances surrounding the deaths of figures such as Louis XVII, Prince George, the Duke of Kent and William the Conqueror. That channel also sees the return of Forbidden History (Thursday 8 June), presented by Jamie Theakston. The series begins…

BEST TIME TO GO Spring and autumn. Weather is variable, but when it gets really hot in the summer months the heat bounces around the red brickwork in the Old City – though there is summer relief in some really impressive thunder storms. GETTING THERE If arriving in the daytime, there is a good rail connection from Philadelphia International Airport to Center City. There you can choose between walking, public transport and cabs. WHAT TO PACK George Boudreau’s Independence: A Guide to Historic Philadelphia is exactly that. To bring 18th-century Philadelphia to life, I also recommend Zara Anishanslin’s Portrait of a Woman in Silk. Both authors live in Philadelphia. WHAT TO BRING BACK To find a gift that’s artistically interesting and handcrafted, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts –…

1. BLARNEY CASTLE Situated 8 km from Cork City, this historic castle is most famous for its stone, which has the traditional power of conferring eloquence on all who kiss it. info@blarneycastle.ie  | 00 353 21 438 5252 2. THE LIBRARY AND MUSEUM OF FREEMASONRY Visit our exhibition at Freemasons’ Hall, London to discover three centuries of English freemasonry and explore how modern freemasonry fits into today’s world. libmus@freemasonry.london.museum 3. THE SPRING ARTS & HERITAGE CENTRE One of the UK’s few integrated arts and heritage centres. Visit us to explore our local history museum, watch a performance, view our exhibitions and relax in our café. thespring.co.uk  | 023 9247 2700 4. CHILLINGHAM CASTLE Grade 1 Star Listed Chillingham Castle, with its fine rooms, gardens, lakes, fountains and tea room is…

The date was 12 June 1942, and in Amsterdam, a 13-year-old girl awoke with a thrill of excitement. It was Anne Frank’s birthday and she could barely contain her anticipation. For almost an hour, though, she forced herself to stay in bed, knowing that her parents would be cross if she got up too early. “A little after seven,” she wrote two days later, “I went to daddy and mummy and then to the living room to open my presents.” There, on the table, were Anne’s gifts: a blouse, a game, a bottle of grape juice, a puzzle, a jar of cold cream, some money, a gift token for some books, and lots of sweets and cakes. With Amsterdam under Nazi occupation, times were hard, but her parents had done…

Who was sent to borstal? From 1908, all offenders aged 16–21 who were sentenced to prison would be subject to the borstal system. Its principal architect was the prison commissioner Sir Evelyn Ruggles-Brise, who envisaged the system as “a halfway house between the prison and the reformatory”. Why has the borstal system been overlooked by historians? The history of borstal is a surprisingly neglected area of academic study, partly because many of the institutional and inmate records were closed for much of the 20th century. Because it is now more than 30 years since the borstal system was abolished, records are becoming increasingly accessible. This project will draw on inmate records from the early system, and oral histories and autobiographical materials for the later period, to explore the inmate experience.…

Archbishops’ remains discovered in London The remains of five archbishops of Canterbury, dating from the 17th century onwards, have been discovered beneath the church of St Mary-at-Lambeth. In a hidden crypt beneath the church, which was deconsecrated in 1972, lay a pile of 30 lead coffins, one topped with a red-and-gold mitre. Among those buried in the crypt was Richard Bancroft, the archbishop who oversaw the production of the King James Bible. UN ›iles on Holocaust released to the public Early records of Holocaust death camps are among thousands of files from the archive of the UN War Crimes Commission that have been released to the public. The archive contains documents from the Allied powers relating to the handling of war crimes between 1943 and 1949, including lists of alleged…

What’s your favourite museum and why? Javaneh Fennell The Musée d’Orsay in Paris! The layout is phenomenal (it’s an old train station) and the artwork there is truly breathtaking. The clock upstairs allows you to peek out at the city Nathan McGrath St Fagans near Cardiff. It has buildings rebuilt from all over Wales. Absolutely amazing. From a Celtic roundhouse to a miner’s terrace via a medieval church and cockfighting ring! Liz Goodwin Bluff Cove, because someone actually built a museum in this remote part of the Falklands in the first place. Exhibits show the farming gear used by the first settlers, and a local lady plays guitar out front Les Pilling IWM Duxford. You can touch and smell the exhibits, which transports you back in time. The atmosphere stepping…

Luddites cause havoc Between 1811 and 1816, there were numerous outbreaks of Luddism across the Midlands and the North. Gangs of weavers thrown out of work or fearing the loss of wages following the introduction of weaving frames wrecked machinery at mills and factories under the leadership of the mythical Ned Ludd. Government hijacking plot In November and December 1816, meetings at London’s Spa Fields – held to present a petition demanding parliamentary reform to the Prince Regent – were hijacked by radicals trying to incite an uprising to overthrow the government. There was arson and violence as a group marched towards the Bank of England, before being dispersed. The march of the blanketeers In March 1817, around 5,000 unemployed weavers, known as the Blanketeers because they carried blankets, attempted…

James McCudden James had joined the Royal Engineers as a boy bugler in 1910. In 1913 he transferred into the Royal Flying Corps as a mechanic. He qualified as a pilot in 1916 and shot down his first aircraft in September. He became a 2nd lieutenant at the end of 1916. After a tour of duty flying DH2 scouts on the western front, McCudden was back in England, employed in lecturing new pilots on the latest aerial tactics. However, in June 1917 the Germans began a series of daylight Gotha bomber raids in an attempt to bomb London. McCudden wanted to be ready to respond and armed his Sopwith Scout aircraft with a Lewis gun mounted on the upper wing to allow him to fire upwards at the high-flying Gothas.…

by Peter Jackson Mongol rulers did not relish ruling a sullen Muslim population Yale, 640 pages, £30 Genghis Khan’s decision to divide his domain between his four sons was not supposed to break up his empire, but inevitably that was what happened. Although his grandson Kublai ruled the Yuan empire (China and Mongolia), the other three sectors – the Ilkhanate (roughly Iran), the Jagatai khanate (central Asia) and the Golden Horde (Russia) – became independent kingdoms in all but name. Even more astonishingly, given Genghis’s annihilation of the Muslim empire of the Shah of Khwarezmia, stretching from Iraq to Afghanistan, within 100 years of this shattering psychological blow to Islam, the three western Mongol kingdoms had converted to the religion of Muhammad. In a massively scholarly, compendious survey, Peter…

Rebel Cities: Paris, London and New York in the Age of Revolution by Mike Rapport Little, Brown, 464 pages, £25 This book has an excellent introduction, which places Paris, London and New York as commercial centres of the 18th-century transatlantic world and stresses the monumental importance of the Seven Years’ War, for the victorious British empire as well as for the defeated French. For all three featured cities there were severe political consequences, even for New York where victory brought economic dislocation when it ceased being the HQ of Britain’s forces in North America. Mike Rapport is right to put Paris first in his list of cities in this quasi-comparative history. Whether he refers to the fortress of the Bastille, the open space of the Place de la Revolution or…

The Reith Lectures RADIO Radio 4 Tuesday 13 June According to George MacBeth’s poem The Cleaver Garden, “All crib from skulls and bones who push the pen/Readers crave bodies”. It’s a quote Wolf Hall novelist Hilary Mantel draws on when discussing how, in historical fiction, the dead take on a new, simulated life. Over five lectures Mantel explores such issues, and also how we police our own imaginations so that we don’t stray into areas where myth, collective memory and fact get dangerously muddled. See our interview with Hilary Mantel on page 25…

Fighting for the throne EXHIBITION Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Jacobites National Museum of Scotland 23 June–12 November - 0300 123 6789 • nms.ac.uk/national-museum-of-scotland In 1688, James II and VII was deposed by his daughter Mary and her husband William of Orange in what became known as the Glorious Revolution. A movement to reinstate James and his heirs to the throne sprang up the same year, known as the Jacobites – from Jacobus, the Latin for James. Five Jacobite challenges to the throne were made between 1688 and 1746. This month, the National Museum of Scotland is launching an exhibition – the largest of its kind in Scotland for 70 years – that challenges the misconceptions surrounding this period of history. More than 300 items will be on display, from…

Carl Jung was a Swiss psychologist and psychiatrist. He enjoyed a close personal friendship with Sigmund Freud, the Austrian neurologist and ‘father’ of psychoanalysis, until the two fell out, in part over Freud’s emphasis on sexuality. Jung went on to develop some of the best-known psychological concepts, such as the collective unconscious, the psychological complex, extraversion and introversion. When did you first hear about Carl Jung? It was in my late twenties, when a shrink I was seeing told me about him. I was immediately interested in finding out more and was intrigued to learn that, unlike Freud, he didn’t think everything was sexual. Jung believed that we had to know ourselves better, and understand the ‘conscious’ and ‘unconscious’. And his teachings have had a profound influence on me. He…