Innholdsfortegnelse for January 2019 i History Extra

“Welcome to our first issue of 2019. If you’re looking to escape the January blues this month then a trip to the cinema might well be in order as two major historical films will soon be hitting the screens. First up is The Favourite, which stars Olivia Colman and takes a somewhat unconventional look at the Stuart court. That’s followed by Tudor biopic Mary Queen of Scots, which is based on a biography by historian John Guy. In this month’s edition we bring you the history behind both of these films. In our cover feature, on page 40, Kate Williams considers who was ultimately responsible for Mary, Queen of Scots’ downfall. Was it Elizabeth I, Lord Darnley or even Mary herself? Then, on page 60, Hannah Greig, consultant on The…

For its critics, the arrival of the London Underground marked the moment the capital descended into bedlam. The idea of a subterranean train had first been mooted in the 1840s, but work did not begin on what became the Metropolitan Railway until 1860. What sceptics called “the Drain” was not universally popular. Some warned that the tunnels would collapse under the weight of the houses above; others thought an underground railway so infernal that convicted criminals should be “condemned to round trips”. And the construction work infuriated locals. It was all a “monstrous tyranny and oppression”, one grumbled. But by January 1863, the first trains were ready to roll. On Friday 9 January, a special train packed with politicians made the first journey – though the prime minister, Lord Palmerston,…

“Gandhi’s death occurred at a critical moment in Indian history, poised between the empire and the postcolonial state. India had passed through violent turmoil in the months of 1947 and early 1948. Some 15 million refugees had been created across the region’s new borders after the new states of India and Pakistan were carved out of the old Raj. Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs had all been affected by violence and at least a million died. The question of Indian citizenship still hung in the balance. Prior to independence, south Asia had a population that was 25 per cent Muslim. After partition and the creation of Pakistan, Muslims still made up 10–15 per cent of the population of India, scattered throughout the subcontinent. The prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, spoke up loudly…

THE LEANING TOWER OF PISA Engineering experts have stated that Pisa’s leaning tower has straightened up by 4cm over the past 20 years. Prior to restoration work between 1990 and 2001, the tower’s lean was 5.5 degrees – this has now reduced to 3.99 degrees. TREASURE HUNTERS  metal detectorist in A south Pembrokeshire has unearthed what is thought to be the first Celtic chariot burial to be uncovered in Wales. Among the items found is a Celtic horse harness dating from around 600 BC.…

A man of his time I enjoyed reading Lucy Worsley’s article about Abraham Lincoln and even learned from it. I did not know the sad story of Jefferson C Davis and Ebeneezer Creek, surely a war crime. However, I must write in defence of Lincoln, who was a man of his time, believing in the myth of race that still deceives so many people today. He saw that what had been done to African-Americans was criminal, and he believed sending them ‘back’ might atone for it, not realising that they were as American as he was. His great concern was the preservation of the union, for which he was willing to give all (and indeed he did give all, including his son, his wife’s sanity and his own life). And…

1615 John Lilburne is born in Greenwich to a gentry family from County Durham 1631 Lilburne is apprenticed to a clothier 1637 He is arrested for importing seditious books, and refuses to answer charges 1638 Lilburne is whipped and imprisoned for contempt of court. Undeterred, he publishes from prison 1642 Lilburne joins the parliamentarian army and fights at Edgehill and Brentford, where he is captured by Charles I’s (right) forces 1645 Due to doubts over war aims and tactics, Lilburne quits the army 1646 Lilburne is detained by the authorities for contempt of the House of Lords 1646-48 Lilburne emerges as a key figurehead and writer in Leveller campaigns 1648-49 He is active in drafting the third Agreement of the People, and attends Whitehall debates about the future constitution of…

Devices and Desires: Bess of Hardwick and the Building of Elizabethan England By Kate Hubbard Chatto & Windus, 384 pages, £20 In 1570, the imprisoned Mary, Queen of Scots came face to face with her greatest adversary. This was not her cousin Queen Elizabeth I, who stayed well away and was largely ambivalent about Mary’s fate, but William Cecil, secretary of state, who was quite clear on his condemnation of the Scottish Catholic queen. The parties negotiated for two weeks, though their accords were never acted upon, leaving Mary to stew and scheme for another 17 years before Cecil finally succeeded in removing her as a threat. Kate Hubbard’s Devices and Desires draws our attention to the setting for this historic meeting, Chatsworth House, and a figure in the background…

The Story of Greece and Rome by Tony Spawforth Yale, 392 pages, £20 Before reading this book I was amazed that anyone could attempt to recount the story of Greece and Rome in one volume, even a reasonably substantial one as this is. But it soon became clear that Tony Spawforth’s plan is a lot subtler than that. His main focus is how Greek history and culture developed, and how we have the Romans to thank for preserving so much of it that it was able to have a huge impact on the medieval, Renaissance and modern world. The author is at pains to emphasise that, although we know there was much about the classical world that was “disturbing” (his word), it shouldn’t prevent us from taking pleasure in all…

The Witch: A History of Fear, from Ancient Times to the Present by Ronald Hutton Yale, 376 pages, £11.99 For most people, in most of history, there was nothing but magic. When afflicted by sickness, death, severe weather or agricultural failure, you quickly blamed your chosen local scapegoat. In Europe this would typically be either the vampire, the fairy or the witch. Of these, only the witch could suffer violence as a living person. Before, during and after the official witch craze (1424–1782), both official trials and spontaneous popular violence against ‘witches’ resulted in countless deaths and serious injuries. Hutton reveals that in Italy, in around 180 BC, over 5,000 people were legally executed for what may have been witchcraft, while in the 1960s one Mexican town had a homicide…

Key figures Icons TV BBC Two Scheduled for Tuesday 8 January This major new series selects key players in different fields – leaders, scientists, activists, artists, revolutionaries, inventors and entertainers – and tells the story of the 20th century through their lives. Icons builds to a show in February where the results of a public vote to select the ultimate icon of the 20th century will be revealed. As we went to press, the BBC was being tight-lipped about who will feature in the series. See our feature on page 20 about how individuals shape history. Handmade history The Victorian House of Arts and Crafts TV BBC Two Scheduled for January Viewing industrialisation as a dehumanising process, Arts and Crafts luminaries William Morris, John Ruskin and Gertrude Jekyll looked back…

1 HunterianMuseum GLASGOW Where artefacts from the Antonine Wall can be found Alongside its anatomy and zoology displays, the Hunterian is home to a permanent exhibition on the story of the wall, from its construction and habitation to its archaeological rediscovery. Many artefacts uncovered along the wall are on display here. As well as the distance slabs, there are everyday items such as a bronze lamp, gaming board (pictured left), leather tent and the children’s shoes found at Bar Hill fort. • gla.ac.uk/hunterian 2 Vindolanda NORTHUMBERLAND Where life in a Roman garrison was recorded for posterity Occupied from c85–370 AD, Vindolanda is one of the most impressive forts along Hadrian’s Wall. The extensive remains of the garrison are still being explored – visit between April and September and you may…

BEST TIME TO GO Chiang Mai’s tropical savanna climate means it has warm to hot weather all year. Temperatures are lower between November and February (around 25ºC during the day). The Loi Krathong festival, which sees Thai people make wishes as they launch small portions of food on rivers and ponds, usually falls in November. Chiang Mai flower festival takes place in early February, with glorious displays of yellow and white chrysanthemums and damask roses. GETTING THERE Chiang Mai international airport is 3km south-west of the old city. Direct flights from Bangkok to Chiang Mai take around 60-70 mins – travelling by train is cheaper but significantly longer (between 12 and 15 hours). WHAT TO PACK The countryside around Chiang Mai is mountainous, so bring hiking boots and plenty of…

1. How did seafaring Thomas FitzStephen go down in history in 1120? 2. What ended a potential diplomatic spat between Britain and Portugal in 1811 over ownership of the Atlantic island of Sabrina? 3. Of what event was assistant surgeon William Brydon initially thought to have been the only survivor? 4. What did Isabella MacDuff, Countess of Buchan do to attract the ire of Edward I of England? 5. What was first clarified by Angelo Barovier, a 15th-century resident of Murano? 6. Where is this and which superlative did Sir Walter Scott use to describe it? QUIZ ANSWERS 1. He was captain of the White Ship, which sank in the English Channel with the loss of nearly everyone on board, including the son of Henry I. 2. It disappeared beneath…

Richard III was king of England from 1483 until his death at the battle of Bosworth. He was the final king of the House of York and the Plantagenet dynasty. Accused of murdering the princes in the Tower, his reputation was blackened – some say unfairly – by Shakespeare’s depiction of him as the murderous ‘hunchback king’. In 2012 his body was discovered under a Leicester car park; three years later he was reburied in Leicester Cathedral. When did you first hear about Richard III? As an actor – although it was only when I played him in a Royal Shakespeare Company production on tour and in London’s West End in the late nineties that I really got to know the full story. I grew up in a Derbyshire mining…

Hannah Greig Acting as historical consultant to The Favourite provided a welcome opportunity to revisit my research and long-standing interest in the early 18th-century court and the politically influential women who surrounded it. • Hannah introduces us to the powerful women of Queen Anne’s febrile court on page 60 Piers Brendon My feature on 20th-century leaders reflects themes in my most ambitious book, The Dark Valley: A Panorama of the 1930s. This opens up the age through mini-studies of key figures such as Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Franco and Mao Zedong. • Piers reappraises the Great Man theory of history on page 20 Eric Lacey The Anglo-Saxons were astute observers of their natural world. This is sometimes overlooked because they rationalised it through recourse to supernatural agency. • Eric…

A man-made cave in Hertfordshire – thought by some to have been used as a hiding place for members of the Knights Templar from 1307, after the order’s suppression – has been added to Historic England’s At Risk register. Royston Cave sits just inches below street level and boasts an extensive range of mystical carvings and possible pagan symbols on its walls, including the figure shown here. Water penetration and worm activity have caused some of the carvings to deteriorate.…

Domesday Book full of fed-up people A historian from the University of Illinois has claimed that Domesday Book – the huge survey of land probably commissioned by William the Conqueror in 1085 – is based on the accounts of Anglo-Saxon peasants who allegedly saw it as a chance to air their grievances against the Normans. Professor Carol Symes also claims that creating the public record took far longer than originally thought, with Domesday Book not produced until several years later. Egyptian tombs reveal cat and scarab mummies Excavation work at a site near the King Userkaf pyramid complex in Saqqara, south of Cairo, has unearthed a collection of mummified cats and scarab beetles. The finds, which date back more than 4,000 years, were made across seven sarcophagi, three of which…

Although ghostly castles are well known today, back in 1952 Warwick Castle’s local newspaper published a surprising exposé. It was a secret carried by generations of odd-job handy men, maids and even the earls themselves: Warwick Castle was haunted. Revealing the story in a talk to local townswomen, Mr PW Hollyoak, agent to the Castle Estates for more than 50 years, shared his experiences of ghostly footsteps pacing along the corridors of the castle. “Mr Hollyoak said that for several generations the measured tread of footsteps had been heard occasionally in a corridor ending near the chapel at the castle,” the newspaper reported. Hollyoak had heard the footsteps himself, and 70 years ago, in the 1880s, the present earl’s great uncle and his agent had sat up for three weeks,…

I write regarding your article on Abraham Lincoln (Lincoln and Slavery, November). I am an avid reader of your magazine – I have English ancestors who settled in America – but I take exception to the idea America has poor tools for nation-building. We do have centuries of history, plus we have natural borders in our oceans, the Great Lakes and Saint Lawrence and Rio Grand rivers, and our constitution dates back to 1787! We didn’t have a “powerful monarchy” to force us together, but rather the common love of rights. I think that our laws are stronger than within a monarchy. Other countries have modelled their constitutions after our constitution, which allows for democratic updates to reflect cultural evolution. In England, it wasn’t until 1689 that the king or…

Every reader is invited to sign up for a free three-month Gold subscription to TheGenealogist, where millions of birth, marriage and death records from England and Wales are accessible, as well as other records from Scotland and overseas, including census returns, parish registers, wills, military records, landowner returns, an image archive and many other valuable resources. The website has everything you need to start building your family tree from scratch, and for seasoned researchers, TheGenealogist’s unique, powerful tools help to bust those brick walls, using the Master Search and SmartSearch to home in on elusive forebears. First Steps With the General Register Office indexes to births, marriages and deaths available on TheGenealogist from 1837–2005, you can build your family tree working back through time. The certificates need to be ordered…

The mother of Great Britain Queen Anne Anne (1665–1714) is remembered as an ineffective monarch, one beset by illness and shyness and dependent on court favourites. More recent biographies have revised that view, recognising the flourishing of culture during her reign, as well as the important constitutional and political moments she oversaw – not least of which was the 1707 Acts of Union, aligning the kingdoms of England and Scotland in a single sovereign state, Great Britain. The ‘she-dictator’ Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough Born into Hertfordshire gentry, Churchill (1660–1744) found her way to power through a childhood friendship with the future Queen Anne, and marriage to John Churchill, who would become a military hero. Emerging as Duke and Duchess of Marlborough, they had extraordinary political influence. After she lost…

Seapower States: Maritime Culture, Continental Empires and the Conflict that Made the Modern World By Andrew Lambert Yale University Press, 424 pages, £20 The age of seaborne sail and steam may be over, but the period of premodern ‘seapower states’ was crucial in shaping our current moment of globalisation, driven as it is by cultural interdependence yet characterised by conflicts over wealth and resources. Andrew Lambert’s magisterial new book offers a provocative yet persuasive account of how five historical seapowers – Athens, Carthage, Venice, the Dutch republic and Britain – shaped our global social, economic and political identity. Much has been written about seaborne empires, often romanticising their achievements. What distinguishes Lambert’s clear-eyed assessment of seapower states is his argument that rather than just possessing powerful navies, their national and…

The Jamestown Brides: The Untold Story of England’s ‘Maids for Virginia’ by Jennifer Potter Atlantic, 384 pages, £20 In 1621, the Virginia Company put out a call for “young, handsome and honestlie educated” maids to travel across the Atlantic to marry English settlers in the colony of Virginia. Fifty-six women made the journey. They were not the first English women to go to Jamestown – the first two had travelled to Virginia as early as 1608. But these 56 were part of a concerted scheme by the Virginia Company to root English settlers to the land through marriage and family. In Jennifer Potter’s new book, we discover how, from its beginning, Jamestown was a place where six out of every seven colonists died from starvation, conflict or a “lethal brew…

Death Comes as the End Agatha Christie (1944) Not all of the queen of crime’s fiction was set in the 20th century. Her second husband was an archaeologist, and she had a deep interest in the past. In Death Comes as the End, Christie deployed the skills she had developed writing about Poirot and Miss Marple in a story from ancient Thebes. After mortuary priest Imhotep introduces a new concubine into his troubled household, a series of murders occurs. Murder in the Place of Anubis Lynda S Robinson (1994) A US writer of both crime fiction and romances, Lynda S Robinson is best known for a sequence of enjoyable historical whodunnits featuring Lord Meren, the ‘eyes and ears’ of the boy-king Tutankhamun. In the first book of the series, Meren…

Education for all was introduced in the late Victorian era. In the years since, as Back in Time for School (BBC Two, January) explores by sending three teachers and 15 teenagers on a time-travelling odyssey, schooling has changed – a lot. Presented by Sara Cox and Polly Russell, the series sees how its subjects react, for example, to the strict discipline of a 1950s grammar school or the rather more relaxed environment of a progressive comprehensive. Along the way, school dinners are compulsory. Over on Radio 4, highlights include The Battles That Won Our Freedom (7 January), a series that explores the origins of liberties we now take for granted. Meanwhile, Curtain Down at Her Majesty’s: A Play in Five Acts (Radio 4, New Year’s Eve) looks back at the…

EXHIBITION Roman Vishniac Rediscovered Jewish Museum London Until 24 February - 020 7284 7384 • jewishmuseum.org.uk The first UK retrospective of Russian-born photographer Roman Vishniac is currently on show in London, examining Jewish life in eastern Europe between the two world wars. Vishniac emigrated from Russia to Berlin in 1920, in his early twenties, and later turned his photographic attention to the huge political changes that took place in Germany after Hitler’s rise to power in 1933. He documented the growing signs of oppression, the insidious propaganda that was such a feature of the Nazi state, and the ensuing genocide of the Jewish people. In 1935 Vishniac was commissioned by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee to travel to eastern Europe and take photographs that would draw attention to Jewish…

Amygdalota Somewhere between soft marzipan and hard amaretti biscuits, these chewy and delicately flavoured almond cookies are a traditional sweet hailing from the Greek islands. The castle town of Monemvasia and the island of Mykonos both pride themselves on their impeccable amygdalota. Almonds have been a staple of Greek cuisine for millennia and these sweet treats take their name from amygdalo, the Greek word for the nut. Traditionally, the flourless almond mixture would be served up unbaked, moulded to resemble small pears. Since the mid-20th century, a half-moon shape has been more popular, but if you want to embrace the classic fruit shape, you can even add a clove to the top of the cookie to replicate a pear’s stem. Using only five ingredients, the recipe is very simple and…

Few pamphlets have ever caused a greater stir than Thomas Paine’s Common Sense. After it was published in Philadelphia on 10 January 1776, it became a huge success in the American colonies and was popular in Britain and France too. Such was the demand that in the first year alone it went through some 25 editions, not including summaries and copies. Probably no printed publication in history had ever had such an immediate impact: as one historian remarked two centuries later, a modern equivalent would have to sell millions of copies within a few months to cause a similar furore. Born in Norfolk, England, Paine had been in the American colonies for barely a year when he decided to put pen to paper. Although fighting between the colonists and the…

“Historical anniversaries, as we have often remarked in these pages, are thought-provoking affairs that invite us to look at ourselves – at who we are and where we have come from: the meaning of history. In the era of fake news, good history is even more important for our understanding of the world around us. This year, I’m especially hoping to learn more about three centenaries of events that came about in the fallout from the First World War: in Russia, India and China. Five years of First World War commemorations ended in November 2018 with moving ceremonies and Peter Jackson’s extraordinary film They Shall Not Grow Old. However, the 1918 ceasefire and armistice (a formal end to hostilities was not achieved until June 1919) did not mark the end…

Historically inaccurate but still good fun: what’s your ‘guilty pleasure’ historical film or television series? @ZoeWelch1 The Tudors. So inaccurate and too many pretty people, but really puts women to the forefront despite Henry being the face. It makes you sympathise with each wife and daughter for what they suffered. Also, the best Anne Boleyn portrayal I’ve seen so far. @holmeandaway I’ve been watching Medici: Masters of Florenceon Netflix. Completely inaccurate but lots of fun! I think it’s a good way of getting people interested in the period. @TomK_1234 Despite being English, Braveheart. As a kid I loved it. As an adult I love pointing out the mistakes. Battle of Stirling BRIDGE! @TrainTraveller5 No-one’s mentioned Blackadder. Utterly inaccurate but hilarious and an ending that still has an impact. @finnellaoleary Outlanderhas…

Peterloo: The Story of the Manchester Massacre Jacqueline Riding Head of Zeus, 386 pages, £25 This year marks the bicentenary of the Peterloo massacre, when a peaceful mass protest in support of political reform held on Manchester’s St Peter’s Field was charged by cavalry, resulting in at least 15 deaths, with hundreds more left injured. Awareness of the anniversary has been heightened by the recent release of Mike Leigh’s feature film Peterloo. Jacqueline Riding acted as historical consultant to Leigh, and in this book provides a vivid, engrossing and well-researched narrative to accompany the film. Bloody slaughter ensued as the Hussars used sabres to disperse the crowd Riding begins by setting out the immediate historical context: the aftermath of Waterloo and the nature of Manchester at this time – its…

A World on Edge: The End of the Great War and the Dawn of a New Age By Daniel Schönpflug Macmillan, 368 pages, £25 This is a refreshing book for a German historian to write. Most such Teutonic tomes are from academics writing for other academics: thick, turgid and often tedious. But this skims along like a butterfly, briefly alighting in one place before fluttering on to the next. It is enjoyable, easily read and speedily digested. Daniel Schönpflug selects a score of eyewitnesses to the world-shaking events of a century ago, and recounts their experiences and reflections between the end of the First World War and the spring of 1919 in his words and theirs. His choices are eclectic. Some (like Matthias Erzberger and Ferdinand Foch, who signed the…

Death of an Eye by Dana Stabenow Head of Zeus, 256 pages, £18.99 Best known for a series of contemporary crime novels featuring Kate Shugak, a private investigator in Alaska, Dana Stabenow has turned her attention to ancient Egypt for her new book. The setting is Alexandria in the time of Cleopatra. Multicultural and multi-ethnic, the city is the capital of the queen’s realm and a hotbed of intrigue and potential treachery. Cleopatra is the latest monarch in a Greek dynasty, ruling over native Egyptians, but only with the co-operation of the real power in the Mediterranean: the expanding Roman empire. She has enemies on all sides, from her conniving, dissipated brother and co-ruler, Ptolemy, eager to seize the throne for himself alone, to the Romans jostling for position in…

Snaking across the width of Scotland’s central belt, mostly now underground and largely invisible, weaves the Antonine Wall. This mammoth fortified barrier once marked the northernmost frontier of Rome’s empire, cleaving Scotland down the middle to defend Roman territory from troublesome Caledonian tribes to the north. Traces of the wall’s route can still be found at a series of archaeological sites speckled along its length. Just west of Falkirk, hidden in the woods behind the staggeringly modern Falkirk Wheel boat lift, you can find one of the best-preserved sections of the wall, at the fort of Rough Castle. Here, you can still see where Britain’s Roman conquerors manipulated the landscape more than 1,800 years ago. With grassy verges rising and falling steeply, Rough Castle looks at first glance more like…

It’s not that Chiang Mai tries to hide its history. Not one bit. In fact, the place presented by the slick Thai tourism industry is a sparkling city of ancient traditions and timeless culture. But Chiang Mai has veiled its past under more layers of modernity than it would perhaps care to admit. Plush hotels and luxury spas serve an international clientele; markets hum with trade; motorbikes, tuk-tuks and songthaews (cheap passenger vehicles) buzz purposefully along built-up streets. The stench of gasoline sits heavy in the air, where it mingles with the earthy smoke of the streetside grills. Yet under Chiang Mai’s layers of noisy modernity there lies an ancient capital: the tantalising, enticing heart of a long-lost kingdom. “I will build a truly large city,” announced King Mangrai at…