Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2019 i History Extra

“As we go to press, the news agenda in Britain continues to be dominated by Brexit. And while it would be dangerous to predict how things will have developed by the time you read these words, it’s clear that both the country and parliament are divided. Of course, history provides several examples of similar periods of flux, and in this month’s issue we’re zoning in on 1979 when political tensions were also running high. On page 30, BBC journalist and producer Phil Tinline takes the mood of the country 40 years ago. The ultimate outcome of this period was 11 years of rule by Margaret Thatcher’s Conservatives. On the anniversary of her accession to power, we’ve asked four experts to reflect on this pivotal period of British history. Was it…

Shakespeare’s plays often provoke strong feelings, and Macbeth is no exception. Even so, when the British actor William Charles Macready arrived in New York in 1849 to play the Scottish usurper, he could hardly have expected that local objections to his performance would see at least two dozen people killed and more than a hundred injured. The violence on 10 May was rooted in the long-running rivalry between Macready, probably the finest Shakespearian actor of his generation, and his American rival Edwin Forrest. Both men had toured in Britain and the US, with Macready enjoying the greater success. Even in New York, discerning patrons agreed that Macready was better. But in the aggressively nationalistic, anti-English climate of the 1840s – especially among Irish immigrants – it was dangerous to say…

“The most ‘objective’ record we have on the attack on Bolton is the parish register, which states that 78 inhabitants were killed. Too many, of course, but hardly in keeping with the bloodier figures you sometimes see. The main royalist newspaper reported triumphantly that at least 800 ‘rebels’ had been killed, but other Cavalier accounts give an even bigger figure: 1,600 to 2,000. The military significance of what happened that day was fairly minimal. Prince Rupert went on to take Liverpool, before tramping across the Pennines to oblivion at Marston Moor. The north fell to parliament. But the event’s propaganda value was considerable. In August, a tract entitled An Exact Relation of the Bloody and Barbarous Massacre at Bolton in the Moors in Lancashire hit the London bookstalls. Allegedly by…

ENGINEERING Margaret Partridge (above), an early pioneer of electrical engineering for women, is to be honoured with a blue plaque at her former home in Devon. Partridge, who died in 1967, set up her own electric power supply company after the First World War, bringing electricity to rural communities in Devon. HERODOTUS Historians may be forced to reassess Herodotus, following the discovery of a shipwreck in Thonis-Heracleion, Egypt. In the fifth century BC, the Greek historian described an unusual type of Nile river boat, known as a ‘Baris’, but his claims were dismissed due to a lack of evidence. The new find appears to prove him right.…

Cardinal David Beaton made a lot of enemies during his short career as lord chancellor of Scotland. Serving from 1543–46, the fiercely Catholic Beaton first enraged Scotland’s Protestants by arresting a friar called John Rogers for preaching heretical doctrine, and throwing Rogers into a dungeon at St Andrews Castle, his seat of power. Beaton then incurred the wrath of the influential reformist, John Knox, by having George Wishart, a Protestant preacher and Knox’s mentor, burned at the stake. But of all the foes that Beaton made in the 1540s, none was more powerful than King Henry VIII. Beaton had been one of the most vigorous opponents of Henry’s attempts to impose greater English influence on Scotland, and he had helped the papal ambassador Mark Grimani evade a kidnap attempt by…

Gregory Botolf, known as ‘Gregory Sweetlips’ for his preaching skills, was chaplain to Viscount Lisle, Calais governor, who plotted to capture the English stronghold and surrender it to Henry’s chief target, Cardinal Pole. Henry offered Botolf the trap of a wealthy benefice (a church appointment) in Calais that required his “immediate repair thither”. The bait proved untempting. Botolf was later imprisoned at Diest (in modern-day Belgium) while diplomatic efforts were made to extradite him but papal influence soon won his release. Botolf planned to free Margaret Pole, Cardinal Pole’s mother, who was held in the Tower of London for treason. The conspiracy came to nought and Sweetlips then disappears from the historical record. However, two others innocently caught up in Botolf’s treason failed to escape Henry’s clutches. Edmund Brindholm, a…

Complements the five-part BBC Two series Thatcher Margaret Thatcher’s premiership is widely regarded as one of the most radical in modern British history. How much of a political shift was her election as prime minister in May 1979? Richard Vinen: Well the extent of the shift was not obvious at the time because I think that most people, including most Tory ministers, were sceptical about the prospects of introducing radical change. In some ways, her first two years in office went so badly that many people thought that the chances of radical change from the left had actually increased. The real turning point was probably her second election victory in 1983, when the Conservatives came in with an increased majority and a clearer sense of what they were going…

The brilliant comic Nellie Farren (1848–1904) aspired to be a tragic actress, but found fame in the burlesque roles she played at the Olympic Theatre. She and her husband, Robert Soutar, had a long relationship with the Gaiety Theatre, which they joined in 1868. Although her singing and speaking voice was mediocre, Farren was a formidable comic talent, whose slim frame made her suited to breeches roles. The sublime satirist WS Gilbert (1836–1911) is best known for the comic operas he created with Arthur Sullivan. However, earlier in his career Gilbert honed his talent for satire and musical comedy as a writer of burlesques. His first was written in 10 days; Dulcamara, or the Little Duck and the Great Quack was based on Donizetti’s opera L’Elisir d’Amore. Gilbert wrote five…

A Short History of Brexit: From Brentry to Backstop by Kevin O’Rourke Pelican, 384 pages, £20 Few industries have embraced Brexit with more enthusiasm than publishing. The presses are busy producing new titles on the subject, of which this is the latest. Kevin O’Rourke is an Irishman who defines himself as a European and who says of EU citizenship that “it is only when you are deprived of it that you realise just how precious it is”. Unsurprisingly, then, he takes a dim view of Britain’s decision to leave the Union, referring to the referendum vote and the election of Trump as “the disasters of 2016”. Further, O’Rourke is an economics professor at Oxford, “a middle-of-the-road Keynesian”, who views the austerity programme of David Cameron and George Osborne as “the…

Even in an era when monarchs are no longer expected to lead the charge, there’s nevertheless an expectation that those with blue blood will serve in the military. Royals on the Frontline (Yesterday, Monday 6 May) charts what happens when a member of the royal family goes into a war zone, as Prince Philip did as a naval officer during the Second World War and, more recently, when Prince Harry went to Afghanistan. On Sky One, Jamestown (Friday 26 April) is the final series of the drama centred on life in the first permanent English settlement in north America. There’s more period drama, albeit with more blood and guts, in the fifth season of Vikings (History, Tuesday 16 April). In Our Time (Radio 4) is a more sedate affair, although…

1 The Bill Douglas Cinema Museum EXETER Where rare Lumière artefacts are held Named after the late filmmaker and collector Bill Douglas (1934–91), this museum and research centre at the University of Exeter houses more than 75,000 items relating to the history of cinema and optical entertainment. There are 1,000 items on public display in the galleries, ranging from magic lantern slides to early film posters. The collection even includes an original 1896 Cinématographe Lumière and letters signed by the brothers themselves. • bdcmuseum.org.uk 2 Cineworld LEICESTER SQUARE, LONDON Where the Cinématographe was presented as a music hall act Located on the north side of Leicester Square, the Empire Cinema (below right) was originally a theatre and ballet venue, before reopening as a music hall known as the…

WHAT TO PACK Comfortable shoes are essential for navigating the maze of cobbled streets. Pack a cover-up for bare shoulders if entering the city’s stunning churches. To conjure the grandeur of ancient Rome, take a copy of Robert Graves’s I, Claudius (1934), a historical novel told from the perspective of the first-century Roman emperor Claudius. GETTING THERE The city is served by two airports, Ciampino and Leonardo da Vinci-Fiumicino. There are direct flights to Rome from many UK airports and flight times are approximately 2 hours 40 minutes from London. BEST TIME TO GO April, May and September are great months to visit the city. Avoid August when the oppressive heat and crowds can be overwhelming. WHAT TO BRING BACK Replicas of ancient artefacts and jewellery – or, for a…

1. What links Blackadder (below) and the Tudor revolution in government? 2. In 1895, what did Lilian Lindsay become the first woman in Britain to do? 3. Who commanded the minesweeper HMS Bronington for 10 months in 1976? 4. What links William de Tracy, Reginald Fitzurse, Hugh de Morville and Richard le Breton? 5. What was the ‘Trail of Tears’? 6. What is the secret of this house at Kelvedon Hatch in Essex (pictured below)? QUIZ ANSWERS 1. The Eltons. Ben Elton wrote for Blackadder ; his uncle Geoffrey was a leading historian whose highly influential book The Tudor Revolution in Government was published in 1953. 2. Qualify as a dentist. 3. Prince Charles. 4. They were the knights who murdered Archbishop Thomas Becket in 1170. 5. The forcible relocation…

Sir Wilfred Thesiger was a British explorer, writer and military officer. The Old Etonian is best known for his travel books such as Arabian Sands (1959), which tells the story of his foot and camel crossing of the Empty Quarter of the Arabian peninsula, and The Marsh Arabs (1964), about his time living in the marshes of Iraq. He served in the Special Operations Executive and the SAS during the Second World War. On his death in London, aged 93, he donated his collection of 38,000 travel photographs to the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford. When did you first hear about Wilfred Thesiger? My mother, who had met him in the 1950s, bumped into Thesiger on a London bus in 1977, when I was 16, and said I had to meet…

Sarah Knott My feature highlights the large transformation I discovered in writing Mother: An Unconventional History. From the 17th century, declining family sizes had a significant impact on women’s lives. • Sarah traces the west’s fertility decline from the 17th to 20th centuries on page 60 Anita Anand The Raj is still evoked as a golden age of British might, but it’s useful to remember what was needed to achieve that might. • Anita discusses her new book on one man’s quest to avenge the Amritsar Massacre on page 67 Joanne Cormac I’m fascinated by 19th-century music and culture, and love unearthing entertainments that were hugely popular to the Victorians but have since fallen out of fashion. • Joanne introduces the mixture of titillation and elitism that was Victorian burlesque…

A work of art, believed by some to be Leonardo da Vinci’s only surviving sculpture, has been unveiled in Italy. The Virgin with the Laughing Child, pictured here, has previously been attributed to Italian sculptor Antonio Rossellino, a contemporary of da Vinci, but Italian scholar Francesco Caglioti has claimed it is the work of da Vinci himself. The small terracotta sculpture, which has been in the V&A collections since 1858, is on show at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence until 14 July.…

Edward III marriage contract auctioned The marriage contract between the future Edward III and 11-year-old Philippa of Hainault has sold for £150,062 at auction. The contract, dated August 1326, contains a promise by Edward to wed Philippa within two years of its being drawn up. The pair married in January 1328. Traces of Nazi massacre found in Germany Around 400 artefacts, including shoes, buttons, bullets and Soviet coins, have been unearthed in the Westphalia-Lippe region of Germany. The objects belonged to 208 Polish and Russian forced labourers who were murdered by the Nazis over the course of a few days in March 1945. Black Death may have reached sub-Saharan Africa Researchers claim they have evidence to suggest that the Black Death reached medieval sub-Saharan Africa. It’s traditionally been believed that…

Henry’s chief target was undoubtedly Cardinal Reginald Pole. Pole was the third son of Sir Richard Pole (1458/59–1505) and Margaret, Countess of Salisbury (born 1473), who was beheaded for treason in 1541. Pole warned Henry of the dangers in divorcing his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. He had been  tipped as the next archbishop of York, but preferment disappeared like incense in a draughty church because of this stance. Pole enraged Henry further by writing Pro Ecclesiasticae Unitatis Defensione (‘Defence of the Unity of the Church’), an attack on the king’s decision to declare himself head of the English church. Created cardinal in 1536, Pole embarked on a seditious mission in Europe, supporting rebellions against Henry in the north of England. Henry ordered his ambassadors to kidnap him. Thomas Cromwell…

Amy Edwards is a lecturer in modern British history at the University of Bristol with a particular research interest in Thatcherism and the 1980s Dominic Sandbrook is a historian, author and broadcaster, specialising in postwar Britain. His upcoming book charts the early years of Margaret Thatcher’s premiership Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite is a historian of 20th-century Britain based at University College London who focuses on social change Richard Vinen is professor of history at King’s College London and author of Thatcher’s Britain: The Politics and Social Upheaval of the Thatcher Era (Simon & Schuster, 2009)…

She-Merchants, Buccaneers & Gentlewomen: British Women in India 1600-1900 by Katie Hickman Virago, 400 pages, £20 Maud Diver opens her 1909 apologia on The Englishwoman in India by noting that no pen – not even that of Kipling or Mrs Steel – could capture the experiences of this mysterious, multifaceted and much-maligned figure. Diver would be both impressed and heartened by Katie Hickman’s endeavour to reveal the lives of British women in India from 1600 to 1900. As Hickman admits, the stereotype of the languid and frivolous memsahib has had incredible endurance in popular perceptions of British women’s encounters in India. Variations on the memsahib theme have dismissed women as nabobinas, husband-hunting members of the ‘fishing fleet’, and birds of passage. While there is plenty in Hickman’s book to substantiate…

Walter Gropius: Visionary Founder of the Bauhaus by Fiona MacCarthy Faber & Faber, 560 pages, £30 There are two contrasting ways of seeing Walter Gropius (1883-1969). In one he is a man of deep emotion who lived through stirring times; in the other, a cold, calculating operator in his roles as architect, director of the Bauhaus art school and movement, and propagandist for his own achievements. Both are true, although the cold side has probably been exaggerated over time. Two other star architects who worked alongside Gropius, Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe, have both received in-depth biographical studies, from which their more romantic and human aspects have emerged. Gropius only had a hagiography from an American colleague, Reginald Isaacs – informative, but not a study of psychological depth.…

Crane Pond Richard Francis (2016) The Salem witch trials of 1692-93 are probably the most famous in history. The presiding judge in that case, who sentenced so many innocent women to death, was Samuel Sewall. Later, Sewall came to realise how wrong he had been and was wracked with guilt. Richard Francis’s unusual and absorbing novel looks at the events through the eyes of one of the persecutors, exploring the inner life of an idealistic man who nonetheless committed terrible crimes. The Witchfinder’s Sister Beth Underdown (2017) On the death of her husband, Alice Hopkins is obliged to leave London and return to her home town of Manningtree in Essex where her brother Matthew is a man of growing consequence. England in the 1640s is ravaged by civil war, and…

EXHIBITIONS AND EVENTS Queen Victoria & Prince Albert’s Bicentenary V&A, London Until 1 September 2019 - 020 7942 2000 • vam.ac.uk/va-200 Marking 200 years since the births of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, the V&A Museum has launched a season of events and exhibitions to commemorate the lives of one of history’s most famous royal couples. The highlight of the celebrations is the addition to the V&A’s jewellery collection of the sapphire and diamond coronet designed for Queen Victoria by Prince Albert in 1840. The piece will be on permanent public display from 11 April in the museum’s newly refurbished jewellery rooms. Several other displays will also be on show throughout the season, including ‘Prince Albert: Science & the Arts on the Page’, which examines the prince consort’s contributions to…

The Negroni Typically drunk as an apéritif, the Negroni is a strong, bitter, gin-based cocktail with a distinctive and rich red colour. While nobody can be certain of the drink’s origins, it’s widely thought to have been invented at Caffè Casoni in Florence, Italy in 1919. Count Camillo Negroni, a colourful character who it’s said became a cowboy in the USA in the 1920s and may not have been entitled to use a noble title, wanted to give his favourite cocktail, the Americano, more of a kick. He asked bartender Forsco Scarselli to substitute gin for the Americano’s soda water. Scarselli obliged and, with a professional flourish, also replaced the Americano’s lemon garnish with orange. Whatever the truth behind this story – and others claim it was military man General…

“This story opens a window on how society and class work” “Historians should always particularise: so said the great landscape historian Bill Hoskins. Tell the story of Britain through one place, and the particularity can be riveting. Even the tale of a single house and who lived in it can be revealing. And the same goes for a street. As Hannah Barker shows in her fascinating recent book Family and Business During the Industrial Revolution, the mundane story of the high street is a fascinating subject. Close to where I live today in north London is Englands Lane, a name ripe for metaphor. Walk down it and you see how every street is a barometer of our social history. It was built in 1865, with a few well-to-do villas, one…

As a culture, do we focus too much on monarchs and leaders, over ‘ordinary’ lives? @AlisonRBaxter Family historians are researching ordinary lives all the time. And they often turn out to be extraordinary! @kesiatk Probably in the media, yes. But most historians I know aren’t actually doing this anymore. And, if you look at the large number of living history sites in the UK and North America, you’ll notice a lot of people presenting and consuming the history of ‘ordinary’ lives. @NavalAirHistory Yes, definitely. I wonder if there’s also an argument that when we do consider ‘great men’ (ugh) we look more at the effect of their actions on ‘ordinary’ people? @RobeH2 There’s room for both. The trouble with cutting out monarchs and ‘great men’ etc is that they often…

Little is known about the fugitive nicknamed ‘Blanche Rose’, who triggered a powerful dread in Henry VIII because of his claim to be a Yorkist pretender to the crown of England. In reality, Rose was Dick Hosier, born in Wales and the son of a cobbler or tailor. He fled to France for reasons now unclear, although Henry maintained he was a rebel, “a detestable traitor and common murderer”. After diplomatic pressure was applied, Hosier spent eight years in a Parisian gaol, but was later freed. Repeated efforts to extradite him failed, with the French maintaining he was a subject of Francis I. A final demand for the Blanche Rose’s extradition appeared in Henry’s ultimatum of demands made in June 1543 as a prelude to war with France. The demand…

On 21 December 1865 a fashionable crowd gathered at the Prince of Wales’s Theatre in the heart of London’s West End. Respectable ladies and gentlemen alighted from their carriages to settle into the theatre’s comfortable, cushioned seating. They engaged in a little star-spotting, hoping that the Prince of Wales himself might be among the company. They admired their sumptuous surroundings, their eyes drawn to the proscenium arch, decorated with the Prince of Wales’s heraldic badge. Then they fell silent and the curtain rose… What exploded onto the stage can only be described as a riotous medley of elite culture and bawdy comedy. In one scene the audience was titillated by a young actress in tight breeches attempting to seduce an older, bearded actor, unconvincingly costumed as a young girl. A…

Da Vinci was born in Vinci, Tuscany in 1452, the illegitimate son of a Florentine notary and a young peasant. Little is known of his childhood, but his artistic talent must have been apparent at an early age for, at 14, he was apprenticed to one of the most well-known Florentine workshops of the day: that of painter and sculptor Andrea del Verrocchio. In 1482, now an artist in his own right, da Vinci moved from Florence to Milan in search of new work. There, he began working as a military engineer for Ludovico Sforza, future Duke of Milan, designing many of his famous war inventions. It was also during his time in the city that da Vinci created one of his most famous works, The Last Supper. Da Vinci…

In 1919, British troops led by Reginald Dyer opened fire on unarmed Indian civilians at Jallianwala Bagh gardens in Amritsar, leaving hundreds dead. The lieutenant governor of Punjab at the time, Sir Michael O’Dwyer, defended the actions of his troops as necessary to prevent rebellion. More than 20 years later, in 1940, an Indian nationalist named Udham Singh shot O’Dwyer in London – citing the massacre as his motivation. After a trial, he was hanged at Pentonville prison. Anita Anand’s latest book tells the story of Singh’s quest for vengeance.…

A History of the Bible by John Barton Allen Lane, 512 pages, £25) The appearance of this strikingly accessible yet wonderfully erudite volume will be welcomed by many. Its author, John Barton, a retired professor of biblical studies from Oxford University, discusses an array of significant topics, including the content of the Bible; the history of its text and formation; and its interpretation, which shows up both changes and interesting continuities over the centuries. Barton is constantly mindful that the majority of the texts which he is discussing, namely those which Christians have come to call the Old Testament, are Jewish texts, and is keen to play up differences (and some similarities) in the history and interpretation of the Bible from the contrasting perspectives of Jews and Christians. For Christians…

Origins: How the Earth Made Us by Lewis Dartnell Bodley Head, 352 pages, £20 Big history is back. To understand the profound changes that gave rise to the current moment of globalisation requires historical interpretation embracing long periods of time. The turn to big history draws on environmentalism, archaeology and even geology in understanding longterm change as we enter the new age of the Anthropocene, in which human activity is regarded as the dominant influence on climate and the environment. There can be no bigger history than Lewis Dartnell’s exciting panorama of how the geological forces that created the Earth over billions of years have in turn determined the nature of humanity and its civilisations. There is an exuberant, almost aggressive geological determinism to Dartnell’s argument. “We are all apes,”…

Spy stories The Battle of San Pietro Radio Radio 4 scheduled for Saturday 27 April The work of British novelist Eric Ambler (1909–98) from the 1930s both captured the sense of dread that began to grip Europe in the run-up to the Second World War and ushered in a new, grittier kind of espionage tale. Radio 4 is celebrating his life and work in a short season starting with the biographical drama The Battle of San Pietro, focusing on his relationship with American film director John Huston, with whom he worked on Second World War propaganda films. Also scheduled are adaptations of Journey into Fear (28 April) and Epitaph for a Spy (12 May). Bread and circuses Secrets of the Roman Chariot Race TV Channel 4 scheduled for…

There are many ways to describe Italy’s ‘eternal’ capital, but 20th-century writer Anatole Broyard captured it most eloquently when he declared that Rome is “a poem pressed into service as a city”. Put simply, Rome assaults the senses and expands the mind. Every nook of the ancient metropolis oozes history and culture; every cobbled street reveals something new. Getting the most out of the city requires a delicate balancing act. Cram too much into a short stay and Rome will leave you feeling exhausted and shortchanged. The trick is to plan ahead and make time for the most iconic sites alongside more restful hours spent soaking up the atmosphere in a scenic spot. Most visitors flock to the historic heart of the city (Centro Storico), which can be chaotic and…