BBC History Magazine 2014-04

SHAKESPEARE: SEX, SCHOOL AND MONEY MAGAZINE BRITAIN’S BESTSELLING HISTORY MAGAZINE

April 2014 s www.historyextra.com

HITLER MYTH

Was it really R i c h a rd I I I i n the c a r park?

THE

Ian Kershaw on how the Nazi leader invented his own image

PLUS

ntas Pocaho ever Why she n trusted the English

Francis Drake’s African allies

HENRY VI al How this weak mediev king became a saint

APRIL 2014

WELCOME This month we’re marking the anniversaries of two historical figures of great importance, but with very different legacies. For our cover feature, we’re asking why it is that Adolf Hitler (born 125 years ago) continues to exert such a hold on the historical imagination. There’s no doubting the enormity of his crimes and his impact on the 20th century, but similar things could be said about both Stalin and Mao, neither of whom receive the same level of attention. To tackle this question we’ve turned to Professor Sir Ian Kershaw, the foremost biographer of the Nazi leader. You can read his analysis on page 32. It is now 450 years since the birth of William Shakespeare, who remains Britain’s best-known cultural figure and whose works continue to be as popular as ever. Yet how much do we really know about the man himself? Paul Edmondson brings us up to date with the latest thinking on the Bard’s life on page 54. Shakespeare was, of course, the author of many famed love stories and sonnets, but one thing that these works rarely included was vegetables. Perhaps, though, he was missing a trick. According to the research of historian Jennifer Evans, beans and pulses were considered to be powerful aphrodisiacs in the early modern period. Head to page 45 to find out how these store-cupboard essentials became Cupid’s companions.

ON THE COVER: ADOLF HITLER, CA 30S–1940S; PHOTOGRAPH BY HEINRICH HOFFMANN: CORBIS. THIS PAGE: JE NOTT/OLIVER EDWARDS

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THIS ISSUE’S CONTRIBUTORS

CONTACT US Ian Kershaw Being asked to write a feature to coincide with the 125th anniversary of Hitler’s birth prompted me to reflect a little on the reasons for the widespread macabre – and often weird – fascination we continue to have with Hitler, but with few other murderous dictators.

쎲 Read Ian’s feature on why Hitler continues to fascinate on page 32

Miranda Kaufmann People don’t realise that there were Africans living all over Britain in Tudor and Stuart times. It was great to explore a replica of Francis Drake’s Golden Hind – one of various privateering ships that brought them here. 쎲 Find out about Miranda’s visit to the Golden Hind in Brixham on page 80

Helen Rappaport As a lifelong lover of Chekhov, the parallels between the three sisters of his haunting play and the four Romanov girls have always resonated. Stuck in captivity, they longed to see what they called the ‘outside life’ but were never able to catch more than glimpses of it. 쎲 Helen discusses the lives of the Romanov sisters on page 63

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APRIL 2014

CONTENTS Features

Every month 7 HISTORY NOW 7 The latest history news 10 Backgrounder: Britain on strike 12 Lessons from history 15 Past notes

30 BBC Two: from troubled beginnings to national treasure

16 ANNIVERSARIES 20 LETTERS 23 MICHAEL WOOD’S VIEW

Desmond Seward considers how a king who lurched from one disaster to the next came to be venerated by his people

77 TV & RADIO

30 The growing pains of BBC Two

80 OUT & ABOUT

32 The long shadow of Adolf Hitler

77 The pick of April’s history programmes

80 History explorer: Miranda Kaufmann on Africans in Tudor and Stuart Britain 84 Ten things to do in April 86 Ye olde travel guide: Savannah, 1859

Ian Kershaw asks why the Nazi leader fascinates us far more than any other despot of the 20th century

97 MISCELLANY

39 Searching for Pocahontas

106 MY HISTORY HERO

54 Shakespeare uncovered On the 450th anniversary of the Bard’s birth, Paul Edmondson takes a closer look at England’s greatest playwright

Is this what

espea ak

IG

B

Martin Thomas considers the downfall of the British and French empires in the wake of the Second World War

Save 27% when you subscribe * to the digital edition

T HE

49 Empires under fire

The life of William Shakespeare

genius

looks like? Did Shakespeare grow tired of his wife? Why was he so wealthy? And which portraits of him can we trust? On the 450th anniversary of the writer’s birth, Paul Edmondson asks some of the most pressing questions about his life

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re

Jennifer Evans reveals why flatulent foods were once hailed for their fertilityboosting qualities

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45 Beans: the food of lust

Tanni Grey-Thompson chooses Aneurin Bevan

GETTY IMAGES/ALAMY

Susan Castillo Street reveals a woman far removed from the ‘noble savage’ of Disney fame

97 Q&A and quiz 99 Prize crossword

QU ES

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How do we know when he was born?

It seems that England’s greatest poet first appeared on the world’s stage on the feast day of England’s patron saint: St George’s Day, Sunday 23 April 1564. The parish register of Holy Trinity Church, Stratfordupon-Avon records Shakespeare’s baptism on 26 April. According to the Book of Common Prayer, r babies had to be baptised either on the next saint’s day after their birth or on the following Sunday. In baby Shakespeare’s case, the next saint’s day was St Mark’s Day, the stolen patron saint of Venice, just two days after his birth. However, Elizabethan folk superstition considered this day to be unlucky, so Shakespeare was baptised after morning or evening prayer on the following day. For corroborative evidence that Shakespeare was born on 23 April we can look to his monument on the north chancel wall of Holy Trinity Church. This tells us that he died on 23 April 1616, aged 53 – that is at the beginning of his 53rd year. Hence the assumption that he was born and died on the same date. Shakespeare’s baptismal entry tells us that he is “Gulielmus filius Johannes Shakespeare”: William, the son of John Shakespeare. Only one person of that name lived in the town. The master bedroom of the house now presented as Shakespeare’s Birthplace was upstairs, overlooking the street – the same room that people have been visiting in homage to Shakespeare since the 18th century. On John’s death in 1601, William inherited the whole of his estate (John had left no will). William allowed his sister, Joan Hart, and her family to live in part of the building (as her descendants did until 1806) and leased another part to become a pub, the Swan and Maidenhead. The house today is a Victorian renovation of the site and buildings purchased by public subscription in 1847. The Birthplace and four other houses associated with Shakespeare’s life are cared for and conserved by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

The Cobbe portrait, which dates from c1610. This image’s “provenance and claim to be painted from life make a compelling case” for it being an accurate likeness of William Shakespeare, says Paul Edmondson

William Shakespeare was born on the site of this Stratford-upon-Avon building on St George’s Day, 1564

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*All offers, prices and discounts are correct at the time of being published and may be subject to change USPS Identification Statement BBC HISTORY (ISSN 1469-8552) (USPS 024-177) April 2014 is published 13 times a year under license from BBC Worldwide by Immediate Media Company Bristol Ltd, 9th Floor, Tower House, Fairfax Street, Bristol BS1 3BN, UK. Distributed in the US by Circulation Specialists, Inc., 2 Corporate Drive, Suite 945, Shelton CT 06484-6238. Periodicals postage paid at Shelton, CT and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to BBC HISTORY, PO Box 37495, Boone, IA 50037-0495.

SCHERL–SZ FOTOS/BBC/AKG IMAGES/BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY/ALAMY/JENI NOTT

On its 50th birthday, Joe Moran chronicles the rise of a channel that gave us Life on Earth, Pot Black and The O Office

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Experts review new releases, plus Helen Rappaport discusses her book on the lives of the Romanov sisters

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24 The miracle of Henry VI

63 BOOKS

IO

Read about the off-stage life of England’s most famous playwright on p54

Adolf Hitler pictured in ‘civilian clothes’ in the 1920s

BBC History Magazine

39 How much do we really know about the elusive Pocahontas?

24 The reinvention of Henry VI

49 The true cost of war for the empires of Britain and France

32 “THE NAZI LEADER CONTINUES TO CAST A LONG SHADOW OVER THE WORLD” BBC History Magazine

80 “Francis Drake’s privateering escapades inevitably led to encounters with Africans”

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The latest news, plus Backgrounder 10 Lessons from history 12

HISTORY NOW Have a story? Please email Matt Elton at [email protected]

Was the skeleton in the car park really Richard III?

UNIVERSITY OF LEICESTER

The discovery of the king’s remains in Leicester in 2012 made worldwide headlines, but now experts have raised doubts about whether we can truly say the bones are his. Emma McFarnon reports

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rchaeologists “cannot say with any confidence” that bones found in Leicester are those of Richard III, leading experts have claimed. Speaking exclusively to BBC History Magazine, Michael Hicks, head of history at the University of Winchester, and Martin Biddle, archaeologist and director of the Winchester Research Unit, raised concerns about the DNA testing, radiocarbon dating and damage to the skeleton. Biddle also notes that the team of archaeologists from the University of Leicester is yet to make excavation field records publicly available.

Hicks said he is not convinced that the remains are those of the king. Instead, he argues, they could belong to a victim of any of the battles fought during the Wars of the Roses, of which the 1485 battle of Bosworth – at which Richard was killed – was the last significant example. While the location of the grave in the former site of the Grey Friars priory matches information provided by John Rous, an associate of Richard’s, Hicks notes that “lots of other people who suffered similar wounds could have been buried in the choir of the church where the bones were found”. He also queried the project’s

Grave doubts This skeleton has been identified as that of Richard III, yet Michael Hicks has concerns about the strength of the claim. “It’s extremely rare that archaeologists find a known individual, let alone a king of England,” he says

BBC History Magazine

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Death of a king A portrait of Richard III. “It would be wise to be certain the body really is his – something akin to a coroner’s court should be set up to consider all the evidence,” says Professor Martin Biddle

use of radiocarbon dating, which dates the bones to the period of Richard’s death. “Such a technique is imprecise,” he said. “It will give you an era, but nothing more. In this case, it covers a period of 80 years.” Hicks raised concerns, too, about the prominence given to DNA testing in claims about the identity of the remains. “Mitochondrial DNA is traced through the maternal line, and does not change over time,” he said. “Therefore, the DNA match from the Leicester skeleton could equally be the result of the bones being those of someone descended in the female line from Richard’s mother, Cecily Neville, including her two daughters. It could also be those traceable from the other daughters of Cecily’s mother, Joan Beaufort, any daughters of her grandmother Katherine Swynford, and so on. “Joan Beaufort had 16 children, which made her the ancestor of much of the nobility of the Wars of the Roses – quite a few of whom died violently in those conflicts. There is some scientific debate about the accuracy of matching mitochondrial DNA in this way, but even if it is precise in this case, I’d argue it does not pinpoint these bones as Richard’s. “I’m not saying that it’s not Richard – it’s perfectly conceivable that it is – but we are not in a position to say with any confidence that it’s him. Similarly, while the curved spine suggests the skeleton is Richard’s, the presence of scoliosis does not represent conclusive proof. Indeed, it is very hard to prove that the skeleton

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belongs to a specific person. The Leicester team themselves acknowledge that it’s extremely rare for archaeologists to find a known individual, let alone a king.” Professor Biddle, emeritus fellow of medieval archaeology at the University of Oxford, also raised concerns. “While some evidence has been presented in peer-reviewed journals, it’s the field records from the dig we need to see,” he said. “I asked in a letter to The Times in 2012 for details about the shape and size of the grave pit but, as far as I know, this material is still not in the public domain. “The skull was damaged during the excavations, and was later replaced more or less where it seemed to have been. Yet it is a cardinal rule of burial excavation that everything is left in position until the whole body has been uncovered. And, while the excavators say the feet were removed by an undefined Victorian disturbance, anyone viewing the Channel 4 documentary on the dig will see that the lower legs were hit and moved by a mechanical digger. “We also know very little about the graves in the east end of the church. How many burials were made there in the

“It’s perfectly conceivable the skeleton is Richard III’s, but we are not in a position to say with any confidence that it’s him”

three centuries of the friary’s existence, and indeed after the battle of Bosworth? Without further excavation there is no way of knowing, and hence no certainty about the burial that it has been claimed was that of Richard III. Before all this goes any further, it would be wise to be certain the body really is his. Something akin to a coroner’s court should be set up to consider all the evidence.” Philippa Langley, who commissioned and paid for the excavation, spoke to BBC History Magazine in response to Hicks’ comments. She said: “Taking a sceptical view is good for vigorous debate, but to say it cannot be claimed ‘with any confidence’ that this is Richard is quite puzzling. Given the totality of the evidence, it can surely be said with considerable confidence. Hicks says that there may have been ‘lots of people with similar wounds’: perhaps he could name one who fits the bill?” A spokesperson from the University of Leicester said: “The identification was made by combining different lines of evidence. These include the fact that the location of the grave matches the information provided by John Rous, and that the nature of the skeleton – the age of the man, his build, injuries and scoliosis – is in agreement with historical accounts. Biddle suggests that the skeleton’s feet were damaged during the dig, but as they were not in the grave when we found it there must have been a prior disturbance. “The radiocarbon dating places the skeleton to the period of Richard’s death, and while the nature of his burial and grave is highly unusual for Leicester at the time, it fits with the known facts. Two direct female-line descendants of Richard’s sister, Anne, were also found to share a rare mitochondrial DNA type with the skeletal remains. “The strength of the identification is that different kinds of evidence all point to the same result. Hicks is entitled to his views, but we would challenge and counter them. Our forthcoming papers will demonstrate that many of his assumptions are incorrect. Our field records are also set to become available, as is normal procedure.” Have your say on this story at historyextra.com/richardiiidebate

BBC History Magazine

UNIVERSITY OF LEICESTER

History now / News

WHAT WE’VE LEARNED THIS MONTH…

The remains of an Indus settlement in Harappa, eastern Pakistan

Nazi foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, right, shakes hands with Vyacheslav Molotov during talks about the USSR joining the Axis pact, 1940 SECOND WORLD WAR

DAS BUNDESARCHIV/ALAMY

Stalin pushed for closer ties with the Nazis, study shows T

he extraordinary lengths to which Josef Stalin went to encourage political co-operation between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany in the opening years of the Second World War have been revealed in a new study of Soviet records. The analysis of secret documents drawn up by the Moscow headquarters of the international communist movement, the Comintern, shows both that Stalin gave political support to the Nazis and hoped to persuade Hitler to accept the Soviet Union as an official member of the Axis powers’ co-operation and defence pact. Most significantly, the analysis shows, for the first time outside of Russia, the entire range of covert efforts to make communist parties around the world – including in Britain – support Nazi Germany. Given the unambiguously anti-Nazi stance and actions of the Soviet government and the international communist movement prior to 1939, this shift was one of the most remarkable in modern political history. Typical of the Comintern records is an instruction to the German, Austrian and Czech communist parties, ordering them to find common cause with the Nazis. This makes it clear that it was necessary to “unite the National Socialist, Social Democratic, Catholic and communist workers for the struggle against imperi-

BBC History Magazine

alism and war for peace and socialism”. In the Kingdom of Bulgaria, meanwhile, Stalin ordered the state’s Communist party not to pursue an anti-monarchical or anti-bourgeois policy in case it upset the government and prevented what was an avidly pro-German country from signing a co-operation agreement with the Soviet Union. According to one key document, the head of the Comintern, Georgi Dimitrov, met Stalin in November 1940 and was told that “we not only have no objection to Bulgaria joining the [Axis Powers’] tri-partite pact but we ourselves will, in that event, also join the pact”. The analysis of more than a thousand Comintern documents has been carried out by Russian archivist and historian Fridrikh Firsov and US historians Harvey Klehr and John Earl Haynes, and will be published this summer in Secret Cables of the Comintern, 1933-1943 (Yale University Press). “These records reveal the extent to which foreign communist parties were Soviet puppets whose job was to support Soviet foreign policy,” Klehr told BBC History Magazine. “They show how, on Moscow’s instructions, they changed from being anti to pro-fascist – and how the Comintern desperately tried to portray Nazi Germany as a positive force against imperialism and for world peace.” David Keys

Climate linked to fall of Bronze Age ‘megacities’ Changes in climate may have been a factor in the decline of the city-building Indus civilisation in Pakistan and India 4,100 years ago, according to a study by a team from the University of Cambridge. Analysis of oxygen isotopes in snail shells preserved in an ancient lake bed in the Indian state of Haryana suggests a weakening of summer monsoon rainfall, which – after a long drought – may have led to major cities being abandoned. For more on climate change, see Michael Wood’s column on page 23

Viking code was 13thcentury ‘text message’ A Norwegian runologist has solved an ancient Norse code to reveal what it is thought may have been the Viking equivalent of text messages. K Jonas Nordby cracked the jötunvillur cypher on a 13th-century ‘rune stick’ found in Norway, with the resulting text pointing to such codes being used to convey informal messages or as a way of teaching runic systems.

Ancient Apollo statue goes missing... again A 2,500-year-old statue thought to be of the Greek god Apollo is missing after being found by a fisherman off the coast of Gaza in 2013. Jawdat Abu Ghurab passed the artefact to a member of the military wing of the Hamas government to keep it safe, but it then appeared on eBay with a price of $500,000. Its current location is unknown, although local people say that it is still being held by militants. Stay up to date with the latest stories at historyextra.com/news

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History now / Backgrounder

Industrial action

Can Britain’s unions still hit employers where it hurts? A London Underground strike brought travel chaos to the capital in February. So, asks Chris Bowlby, have reports of the decline of the union movement been greatly exaggerated?

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t used to be commonplace; these days, it seems more like a ghostly echo. The recent London Underground strike, led by union boss Bob Crow before his sudden death in March, was a rare example of trade union action having a major impact on society. Such disputes attract immense media and political attention. But how much has industrial action achieved down the decades? The 30th anniversary of the 1984 miners’ strike this year will prompt renewed debate about the role of the strike in industrial and broader British history. And that debate can be highly political, and emotional. Trade union power was long feared by the political right. Meanwhile the trade union movement, as historian and former union official James Moher puts it, “is very romantic in its outlook towards its history… there’s very little critical analysis”. Peter Ackers of Loughborough University suggests several phases in the history of strike action in Britain. “Fairly high levels” can be seen in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, especially focused on recognition of unions’ right to organise. Strikes occurred too in response to economic turbulence, such as that accompanying demobilisation after the First World War. The General Strike of 1926 promised much, as the Trades Union Congress (TUC) mobilised other unions in support of miners striking against pay cuts. Yet the TUC gave up after only nine days, and the miners were forced back to work several months later. Alongside such visible action, argues Professor

Ackers, lay broader union achievements, working in co-operation with employers and the state. During the First World War, “the state realised it needed a good relationship with the unions to mobilise industry”. From the General Strike until the 1950s there were “quite low levels of strike activity”. The Depression made workers fear unemployment, the Second World War saw more emergency restrictions on strike action, and conflict was reduced, says Ackers, by a “very stabilised system of industry-level collective bargaining”. However, the fraying of that system led to more disruption from the mid-50s to 1979. Independent-minded shop stewards led numerous so-called ‘wildcat’ strikes – symbolised in popular culture by the film I’m Alright Jack, in which Peter Sellers played a union official who loved nothing better than downing tools. Coal mining and engineering, especially car manufacturing, were particularly affected. Union members were emboldened to take more action during a period of more or less full employment, while management, able to sell as much as it could produce, agreed to

Hammersmith Broadway grinds to a halt during 1926’s General Strike, when the TUC mobilised hundreds of thousands of workers in support of industrial action

Female machinists from the Ford plant in Dagenham campaigned for equal pay by striking in 1968

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BBC History Magazine

“Union membership has declined from a peak of over half of the workforce... to more like a quarter” Pickets at Thoresby coal mine, 20 March 1984. The failure of the miners’ strike transformed industrial relations in the UK

GETTY IMAGES/REX FEATURES

Millions of passengers’ journeys were disrupted when transport unions in London staged a series of strikes in February in protest at plans to cut jobs and close ticket offices

BBC History Magazine

many union demands in order to keep factories going. What changed in the 1970s was that industrial action – such as the first miners’ strike – started to affect society as a whole. While “no one might have noticed a walk-out at the Longbridge car factory”, argues Ackers, once you get power cuts or uncollected rubbish in the streets in the famous ‘Winter of Discontent’, strikes risk alienating public opinion. The Thatcher government, sensing public disapproval, introduced “much tougher restrictions on strike action” after 1979. By 1984, Ackers feels the second miners’ strike became a “defensive strike against pit closures”. In the early 1970s the miners had struck when oil prices had just shot up, government was desperate for reliable energy supplies, and a “fairly indulgent state” allowed the increasingly radicalised National Union of Mineworkers to use mass picketing. But by the 1980s those running the Tory government had “really toughened up their attitude”. Coal had been stockpiled in preparation. As in 1926, embittered miners and the communities that supported them were forced in the end to accept defeat. Also significant was the mid-1980s defeat of the print unions’ attempts to stop Rupert Murdoch from producing newspapers at Wapping without traditional union agreements. Some unions, notably the electricians, were beginning to make ‘no-strike’ deals with employers, promising to subject disputes to binding arbitration. These agreements helped secure inward investment by, for example, foreign car manufacturers. This, says James Moher, prompted anguished union debate, with many having “a very negative attitude

towards that kind of unionism”, seen as “having no philosophy, no roots”. Now, in the 21st century, unions can mobilise in fewer and fewer workplaces. Membership has declined from a peak of over half of the workforce when Margaret Thatcher came to power to more like a quarter. The heavily unionised old industrial sectors have faded fast. And looming over union decisions more and more is globalisation. When petrochemical workers in Grangemouth in Scotland threatened to strike over the treatment of a trade unionist last autumn, the owner forced a rapid climbdown by threatening to close the plant permanently and use facilities elsewhere. Another change is that a majority of union members are now women. As the match girls’ strike of 1888 and the campaign for equal pay at the Ford Dagenham plant in 1968 showed, women have proved effective strikers at times. However, women today – and a less industrial, more ‘white collar’ workforce overall – may be less susceptible to the mythology of industrial action. Strikes may have a patchy record in securing permanent gains. But all the while, away from the drama of walkouts or picket lines, unions have secured steady improvements in their members’ lives. Unfortunately, the stuff of painstaking works council negotiations or deals on long-term pay or safety was never going to provide vivid enough material for union banners and defiant songs. Chris Bowlby is a presenter on BBC radio, specialising in history DISCOVER MORE CONFERENCE 왘 Peter Ackers and James Moher are

taking part in a History and Policy conference and project to mark 30 years since the miners’ strike. For more information go to historyandpolicy.org

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History now / Backgrounder

Lessons from history: Living in the shadow of the workhouse The Poor Law was created over 400 years ago but its core principles still pervade today, as Pat Thane explains national Poor Law, providing publicly funded poor relief, was introduced in England and Wales in 1601. As it evolved in practice, it soon came to include sanctions against what are now called ‘benefit tourists’; administrators insisted that no one should receive benefits larger than the income of the poorest worker and on measures to drive everyone deemed fit enough into work. It also enforced a perception of benefits as stigmatising, a view still prevalent four centuries on. Those unable to work due to age or disability were allowed relief, only if no close family member could support them. This relief was minimal to deter the dreaded scroungers, and was claimable only by those born, married (if female), living and (crucially) working in the parish for some time. In-migrants, generally seeking work, could be ejected. With a few variations, these remained the basic Poor Law principles until 1834. As industrialisation expanded they were tightened up, further prioritising the deterrence of fit workers from claiming and the ‘less eligibility’ principle that paupers should not live more comfortably than the poorest worker. The 1834 reform was designed to eliminate state-funded ‘generosity’. Instead, forbidding workhouses were constructed throughout the country to incarcerate ‘able-bodied’ people unable to support themselves. The system was highly effective in making pauperism a shameful deterrent.

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The inmates’ dining hall at the Poplar Poor Law Union workhouse in London, 1903. Though it was widely reviled, the Poor Law would survive for another 45 years

“The workhouse system was highly effective in making pauperism a shameful deterrent” The Second World War inspired plans for a better postwar world. William Beveridge’s report of 1942 proposed extending National Insurance to cover all classes, providing a range of benefits sufficient to live on. After the war, the Labour government broadly adopted Beveridge’s proposals and achieved sustained full employment for the first time when the country was at peace. Benefits improved until the mid-1970s, when the global economic crisis, followed by the Thatcher governments, resulted in cuts in welfare and a widening wealth gap. This led us back to something very like the principles of the old Poor Law – though not to workhouses yet. Pat Thane is professor of contemporary history at King’s College London. She is co-author of Sinners? Scroungers? Saints? (OUP, 2013)

BBC History Magazine

MARY EVANS

Then, in the later 19th century, intellectuals began to understand how economies created periodic unemployment, which was not the fault of feckless shirkers. A growing labour movement challenged the system, organised marches of unemployed men to workhouses and demanded admission. In doing so, it exposed the system’s inability to cope if every person impoverished through no fault of their own claimed relief. In the early 20th century, such pressures led to the introduction of less-stigmatising forms of state welfare, such as free school meals for the poorest children (1906), National Health and Unemployment Insurance (1911) and minimal pensions for the poorest over-70s (1908). These enabled manual workers to contribute to benefits that were a right, not a hand-out. Between the wars these and other benefits gradually expanded. The Poor Law survived as a residual, vastly unpopular fall-back until its abolition in 1948.

PAST NOTES ST GEORGE

WHAT THE PAPERS SAID

Some claim that April Fools’ Day stems from France’s adoption of the Gregorian calendar in 1582. Here, we examine what the media has said about the day across the decades “For successful April fooling, it is necessary to have some considerable degree of coolness and face” Huddersfield Chronicle / 1887

“The day for the resuscitation of such prehistoric customs as the placing of hot pennies on the pavement” The Evening Post / 1901

“April fools carry raincoats in the sun” Hull Daily Mail / 1948 “This was a day when pranks caused smiles rather than upbraidings” Western Morning News / 1937 “‘Walk wary and suspect everyone’ is an excellent adage for the occasion” The Evening Post / 1905

“The demand for ‘pigeon’s milk’ and ‘strap oil’ is large on All Fools’ Day” The Graphic / 1875

GETTY IMAGES/MARY EVANS

“The fortune of war yielded one of her fleeting smiles to the Boers on All Fools’ Day” Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser / 1900 “Among the young folk the playing of practical jokes on All Fools’ Day still retains its hold, even in war-time” Aberdeen Evening Express / 1916

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“Cry God for Harry, England and St George,” is the renowned speech from Shakespeare’s Henry V, Act III. But who exactly was St George?

With St George’s Day approaching, Julian Humphrys examines the story of England’s patron saint What do we know about the actual man? Very little. Stories developed that he was born in Cappadocia (now part of Turkey), became a soldier, protested against Rome’s persecution of Christians, was imprisoned and tortured, but stayed true to his faith, wrought numerous miracles and was beheaded in Palestine in the early fourth century. Yet the Roman church had its doubts. In the sixth century it declared that George was “one of the saints who were rightly reverenced by men, but whose deeds were known only to God”. However, this intervention had little effect and legends associated with St George spread through Europe. How did this martyr develop into a dragon-slaying knight? When it was claimed that a number of saints appeared to help the crusaders at Antioch in 1098, St George was one of them – probably because of the belief that he had been a soldier. The story of his dragon-slaying, a popular metaphor for the triumph over evil, originated in the Byzantine world and was later popularised by the writings of 13th-century Italian chronicler James of Voragine.

Was he England’s first patron saint? No. Although St George was well known in early medieval England, Edmund the Martyr, Gregory the Great and Edward the Confessor were chief contenders for the title of the country’s patron saint. So why the rise in popularity? Although Edward I’s armies fought the Welsh under the banner of St George, it was Edward III who gave the saint his unique position. When he established the Order of the Garter he made St George its special patron and rededicated its chapel at Windsor in his honour. Edward’s successors retained this special affection for George and the victories of Henry V cemented his standing as not just a royal favourite but as a national saint. Indeed, during the Protestant Reformation it was his importance as a national symbol that ensured he survived the suppression of other saintly cults, including that of the Virgin Mary. Does he just belong to England? No, the English share him with a number of other countries, including Portugal and Georgia, and groups ranging from cavalrymen to sufferers from syphilis and the Scout movement.

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Dominic Sandbrook highlights events that took place in April in history

ANNIVERSARIES 19 April 1897

6 April 1994

An alien being crash-lands in Texas. Or does it?

Up to a million die as Rwanda falls into the abyss

hen the people of Dallas, Texas opened the local Morning News on 19 April 1897, they were in for a shock. “A Windmill Demolishes it”, read the headline on a story by one SE Haydon. Two days before, at six in the morning, an airship had fallen onto the little town of Aurora. “It sailed over the public square,” Haydon explained, “and when it reached the north part of town collided with the tower of Judge Proctor’s windmill and went to pieces with a terrific explosion.” But the real surprise came in the wreckage. The dead pilot was badly burned, but it was clear “that he was not an inhabitant of this world”. Indeed, “Mr TJ Weems, the US signal service officer at this place, and an authority on astronomy, gives it as his opinion that

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he was a native of the planet Mars”. The story of the Aurora crash (the ‘Texas Roswell’) has fascinated UFOwatchers ever since. In fact, it was almost certainly a hoax. Decades later, the former mayor of Aurora, Barbara Brammer, investigated the story and discovered that Haydon was actually a well-known local joker. The truth is that Aurora was in trouble in the late 1890s. Boll weevils had destroyed the town’s cotton crop, while the residents had suffered the misfortunes of a major fire and an outbreak of spotted fever. Above all, plans for a rail link to Dallas had just been shelved. “The town was dying,” one resident recalled years later. So Haydon decided to get them a little publicity.

An illustration shows an airship in flight in 1887. Ten years later, a newspaper claimed that a similar airship – with Martian pilot – had crash-landed in Aurora

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President’s murder sparks three months of horrific bloodletting hortly after eight on the evening of 6 April 1994, the presidential plane appeared over Kigali. Aboard was the president of Rwanda, Juvénal Habyarimana, returning from a regional conference in Tanzania with his guest, Burundi’s president Cyprien Ntaryamira. At 8:20 the plane began its final descent towards the Rwandan capital. A few moments later, two missiles smashed into the aircraft. There were no survivors. What followed was total chaos. Nobody knew who was responsible; to this day, some blame Rwanda’s Tutsi rebels, others its Hutu-dominated army. The moderate prime minister, Madame Agathe Uwilingiyimana, tried to appeal for calm. But before she could reach the radio station, she and her Belgian UN escort were captured and murdered by presidential guards. That night, soldiers and militiamen roamed the streets of Kigali. Among their victims were the president of the Constitutional Court, the minister of agriculture and the leader of the Liberal party. In the next few days the killing escalated. Tension between Hutus and Tutsis dated back to independence in 1962, and had provoked a civil war in the early 1990s. But this was murder on an entirely different scale. In roughly three months, Hutu militiamen killed, raped and mutilated hundreds of thousands of people, most of them (but not all) Tutsis. The end came only when the Tutsidominated Rwandan Patriotic Front captured Kigali and toppled the government, installing a new regime under Paul Kagame. But the scars of the genocide may never heal; many experts put the death toll at about a million, perhaps one in seven of the population.

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BBC History Magazine

BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY

“A native of the planet of Mars” breathes new life into the declining town of Aurora

REX FEATURES

Dominic Sandbrook’s latest book is Seasons in the Sun: The Battle for Britain, 1974–1979 (Allen Lane). He recently presented the series Strange Days: Cold War Britain on BBC Two

Hutu recruits train with wooden rifles in Kigali, capital of Rwanda, 1994. That same year, Hutu soldiers and militiamen slaughtered hundreds of thousands of people – most of them Tutsis – in what would become known as the Rwandan Genocide

BBC History Magazine

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Anniversaries 30 April 1975 As US embassy officials are helicoptered to safety, communist North Vietnamese troops (left) smash their way into Saigon’s presidential palace, marking the end of the Vietnam War.

23 April 1343 On St George’s night, the Estonian people rise up against their Danish and German overlords, t iggering a three-year war. The Danes eventually sell Estonia to the Teutonic Knights.

2 April 1801 Off Copenhagen, Nelson defeats a Danish fleet allied to Napoleon Bonaparte. Nelson disregards a si l to withdraw; holding a telescope to his blind eye, claims: “I really do not see the signal.”

16 April AD 74

Masada’s Jewish defenders choose suicide over surrender Roman siege of the Dead Sea fortress reaches a bloody end he siege of Masada is one of the most controversial moments in Jewish history. In AD 66, anti-tax protests in the Roman province of Judaea had escalated into a general uprising. But the Romans fought back, and by the spring of 74, the last rebels had been cornered in the great fastness of Masada, overlooking the Dead Sea. The siege lasted for months. The Jewish defenders made no attempt to

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break out, merely waiting as the Romans built their ramps and siege engines. At last, recorded the Romano-Jewish historian Josephus, the attackers managed to set Masada’s wooden wall on fire. That evening, they “returned to their camp with joy, and resolved to attack their enemies the very next day”. As dawn broke on 16 April, the Romans prepared for the final assault. Yet as they approached the smouldering

fortress, they heard not a sound. There was only a long, dead silence. At last, they found two women, hiding in a cistern, who told them the awful truth. The evening before, the Jewish leader, Eleazar ben Ya’ir, had persuaded the defenders to commit mass suicide. They had, he said, “resolved never to be servants to the Romans, nor to any other than to God Himself”; now it was time to make good on their pledge. They “chose 10 men by lot among them to slay all the rest”. When the 10 men had done their work, they drew lots again; one killed the others, and then turned his sword on himself. According to Josephus, the Romans did not at first believe it. But as they made their way into the fortress, they realised the terrible truth. There were 960 bodies in all.

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ALAMY/GETTY/NATIONAL MARITIME MUSEUM

The vertiginous Herod’s Palace at Masada, where 960 Jews took their lives after resolving “never to be servants to the Romans”

17 April 1521

Martin Luther stands firm at Worms A landmark meeting heralds the opening of a great chasm in Christendom n the spring of 1521, Europe was in ferment. A few years earlier, Martin Luther’s Ninety-five Theses, challenging what he saw as the abuses of the Catholic church, had sent a tremor through Germany. Now Luther had been summoned to Charles V’s imperial assembly (the ‘Diet’) in the town of Worms, on the river Rhine, for one of the pivotal encounters in world history. On 17 April, Luther walked into the town hall, where “the emperor, the electors and the princes” were waiting. A thin, pale man of medium height, he admitted later that he was “physically fearful and trembling”. The presiding official, Dr Johann Eck, asked if Luther had indeed written the offending words, and invited him to retract them. “It would be rash and dangerous for me to reply to such a question,” Luther insisted,

Martin Luther (standing, right) comes face to face with Holy Roman Emperor Charles V in this 19th-century depiction of the Diet of Worms. The emperor would soon declare Luther a heretic

until he had had time to think it over. Very well, his interrogators agreed: they would meet again the following day. The next morning, Luther was summoned to meet Charles’s bishops. He would not, he said, retract his books attacking the abuses of the church. “If I now recant these,” he explained, “I would be doing nothing but strengthening tyranny.” He was not prepared to bow to the judgment of the pope; he had “no other guide but the Bible, the Word of God”, and could not

act contrary to his conscience. “My God help me,” he said firmly. “Amen.” According to Protestant tradition, Luther ended with the words, “Here I stand, I can do no other,” but this was probably a later invention. What is certain is that a few days later, Luther disappeared, probably going into hiding. This was, it seems, a wise move: on 25 May, Charles V declared him a heretic and demanded his arrest. Though few at the time could have realised it, a great chasm had opened in Christendom.

COMMENT / Dr Bridget Heal

AKG IMAGES

“Martin Luther was a ‘media star’ and Worms a very public event” In 1521 Luther was already a famous man. He was a bestselling author, even a ‘media star’. Worms was very much a public event, and was watched closely by friend and foe. For both Charles and Luther the meeting was a decisive turning point. Charles sought a recantation; Luther still hoped to be able to persuade the young emperor to support his reforming ideas. Both were disappointed. After Worms, Luther, now under imperial ban, was taken into protective custody by Frederick the Wise, spending almost a year at the Wartburg, one of Saxony’s mightiest castles. During this time Luther wrote

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extensively, working in particular on his German translation of the New Testament. Luther saw himself above all as an instrument of God’s will. His famous speech at Worms professed his dependence on holy scripture: “My conscience is captive to the Word of God.” The defiant “Here I stand, I can do no other” was added by contemporaries to published accounts of the events at Worms. Luther was already, in the eyes of his supporters, a hero. Commentators in the 18th century saw his defiance as a step towards spiritual freedom and the triumph of reason. The 19th century incorporated Luther into German national history,

making him part of a pantheon that included Gutenberg, Dürer, and Goethe. Luther celebrations are in vogue again in the lead-up to the 500th anniversary of his 95 Theses, in 2017. Dr Bridget Heal is a senior lecturer at the University of St Andrews and co-editor of The Impact of the European Reformation: Princes, Clergy and People (Ashgate, 2008)

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Your views on the magazine and the world of history

LETTERS

Ominous echoes of July 1914 Listening to and watching news of the Ukraine crisis, I’m sure many of the readers of BBC History Magazinee will look back with some trepidation to the events of 1914. For Bosnia and Herzegovina read Ukraine, for Austria-Hungary – Russia, for NATO – the Entente Cordiale and Triple Alliance. LETTER Could the events we read about in OF THE Christopher Clark’s The Sleepwalkers MONTH and Max Hastings’ Catastrophee be about to be repeated in 2014? Or do we really learn lessons from history? NA Webber, Bristol 쎲 We reward the writer of the letter of the month with our ‘History Choice’ book of the month. This issue it is Lawrence in Arabia by Scott Anderson. Read the review on page 65

The wrong wronged party The Niall Ferguson interview in the February issue (It Was the Biggest Error in Modern History) y was a really interesting piece to read. However, I had to note that for some reason a crucially important fact was completely left out from the text about the causes of the war’s outbreak. As many well know, the casus belli for the proclamation of war was the assassination of the heir to the AustroHungarian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, on 28 June 1914. Ferguson consequently states that “the Austrians were the wronged party”. He seems to forget the very reason the attack happened in the first place – but which throws new light on the whole case. The archduke went to Bosnia to observe military manoeuvres. His visit was scheduled on the 28th, which is actually a day of national mourning in Serbia: it was on this day in 1389 that the battle of Kosovo Field took place where Serbia lost its independence to the Ottoman empire. The archduke’s visit could not have been organised more unluckily – if we somehow accept that the Austrians

just forgot about the mourning day, which reveals great ignorance. A more probable explanation is open provocation, which should be frowned upon. Ferguson adds that, later on, “the Serbian government refused pretty reasonable demands… to co-operate”. Well, Austria previously ignored the pretty reasonable case of mourning, so it should not have come as a surprise. Orsolya Szabó

Southampton

Asquith’s dark legacy I disagree with many of Niall Ferguson’s arguments, especially the idea that politicians virtually sleepwalked into war, for small stakes. As Thucydides might well have said, the truest casus belli, but one not overtly articulated, seems pedestrian yet clear: a fear of German (or specifically Prussian) hegemony in Europe. And for Ferguson to say “a better strategy would have been to wait,” displays little understanding of how politicians, fallible and fearful beings, think in such situations, either then or now. His argument, therefore, has little predictive power. More generally, it is not the historian’s task to pontificate on what should have happened. It is better, having understood the ‘how’ and ‘why’ in any given situation, to then distill and apply such general principles as might be gleaned. One such principle relates to the Liberal government’s stance in the weeks prior to the conflagration. It is one applicable now, to potential stand-offs in the Gulf and the East and South China Seas: namely, that a power’s diplomatic and military stance whose aim is deterrence, is only as good as the effectiveness or clarity with which it is communicated. President Kennedy understood this in 1962. So, if divided counsels in the Liberal party (which Ferguson clearly notes) caused grave misunderstandings in Niall Ferguson (left) ignores a crucial cause of war in 1914, argues reader Orsolya Szabó

Berlin, that is a dark legacy indeed bequeathed to us by the man ultimately responsible: HH Asquith. Peter Lambri

London

Ferguson wins the day The arguments for and against declaring war on Germany in 1914 are strong, but for me Niall Ferguson wins the day. Declaring war by sending our relatively puny army to engage in a continental land conflagration was indeed “the biggest error in modern history”. We were a sea-going country protected by the largest and most powerful navy in the world. The biggest threat we faced was the build-up of the German battle fleet. Let out from its north German ports the new Kreigsmarine would indeed have challenged the Royal Navy’s protection of Britain and its vital trade routes. Therefore we should have focused entirely on the cheaper and more effective imperative of keeping the Kreigsmarine bottled up. Professor Vaughan Grylls

Canterbury

Britain versus Napoleon In his thought-provoking article, Niall Ferguson challenges the concept that Britain always opposed any foreign power gaining control of the channel ports. Indeed he states that this argument contains a “massive flaw”, in that Britain tolerated Napoleon having overrun the European continent. This in itself is a flawed argument; firstly Britain was at war with Napoleon (except for the brief Peace of Amiens). Secondly, during the pre-Napoleonic war against Revolutionary France in 1793/94, the British Army had intervened in Flanders and northern France. But, because it was a military disaster, there was little enthusiasm to repeat the experience against Napoleon. Robert Riggs

Surrey Ed replies: Thanks to the many of you who wrote in with comments about the Niall Ferguson interview. Due to space constraints we have only been able to include a small selection here but we

The opinions expressed by our commentators are their own and may not represent the views of BBC History Magazine or the Immediate Media Company

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BBC History Magazine

The Trevithick Monument in Merthyr Tydfil. The Welsh town was once “the iron capital of the world,” says Non Thomas

SOCIAL MEDIA What you’ve been saying on Twitter and Facebook

@HistoryExtra: Was Britain right to fight the First World War? Leon Dark It was as warranted as any war where a nation (and its dominions) stood against the tyrannies committed by a belligerent nation

have been interested to read all of your thoughts about this topic.

Merthyr’s forgotten history I was so proud to read the story about the Pen-y-Darren locomotive in your February edition (Anniversaries). I was born and raised in Penydarren in Merthyr Tydfil and feel that this historic event has for far too long been overshadowed by Stephenson’s Rocket. During the 18th and early 19th centuries, Merthyr Tydfil was the iron capital of the world and overtook Swansea (which was the copper capital of the world) to become the largest town in Wales. Cardiff only developed on the strength of the industries in the Merthyr and Rhondda Valleys, with the need for docks to export their products (a fact conveniently forgotten). Sadly Merthyr and Swansea’s vital contribution to the industrial development not just of Britain, but of the entire world, has been overshadowed here in Wales, so your article was a welcome surprise. Non Thomas Swansea

ALAMY

The lessons of Majuba Hill The article about Majuba Hill (Anniversaries, February) was a timely reminder, as the article makes clear, that there were in fact two Boer Wars. This is not as well known as it should be. As a former assistant charity commissioner, I have vivid memories of having to brief journalists along these lines, while explaining that it was the disastrous defeat of the British forces at Majuba Hill which caused rifle and pistol

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clubs to be granted charitable status. Back in Britain, such was the shock of the defeat, along with the realisation that our soldiers were only being trained to shoot forwards, with little emphasis on accuracy, that it was considered in the public interest to encourage rifle and pistol practice as a way of reducing the chance of further disasters like Majuba. More recently, following well-known ‘gun sprees’ in Hungerford, Dunblane and Cumbria, it has been claimed that the charitable status of rifle and pistol clubs was no longer appropriate. Whether withdrawing or refusing charitable status for gun clubs is a convincing way of stopping this kind of crime or not is a separate question. But the historical context, which caused such clubs to be treated as charities in the first place, should not be overlooked. Hugh Rogers Ashby

Corrections

쎲 Several readers point out that Bob Dylan’s song ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’ was first released in 1965 and not after 1967 as is implied in D-Day for God (February)

WRITE TO US We welcome your letters, while reserving the right to edit them. We may publish your letters on our website. Please include a daytime phone number and, if emailing, a postal address (not for publication). Letters should be no longer than 250 words. email: [email protected] Post:

Richard Ariail Britain was correct in going to war with Imperial Germany because of the German violation of Belgian neutrality. Germany’s barbaric behaviour in Belgium confirmed that Britain’s declaration of war was soundly based on moral and ethical grounds. Britain was the only Great Power that sought to avoid war, and was forced into it by German disregard of the rights of other nations, and German arrogance that Britain would not fight @ShelaghEa My grandfather fought in WW1. Judging with hindsight shows disrespect to him and all the forces involved @nick8t4 Sorry, I think it’s a bit late for that now @HistoryExtra: Are we too obsessed with the Second World War, to the detriment of other periods in history? @FamilyTreeNat No, all history is important, and the more recent it is the more we know about it and can identify with it. That’s all @candaceshaw Yes! And even though I’m very interested in some parts of the Second World War, there are hundreds of fascinating years that get little coverage @Historyandlife Certainly not. The most life-changing event in civilisation must be studied in order to have a greater understanding of humanity Karen Madsen Densford When all of the lessons from this period are learned it will be time to move on, not before. @Debs_Dwelling Much of what happened in the Second World War happened to our fathers, uncles and grandfathers, so we were raised in its aftermath. It’s still fresh @TheCastleGuy Yes. It’s getting almost voyeuristic, the volume of programmes on TV. More variety, more balance across all periods is needed!

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22 MARCH – 13 JULY 2014

WILLIAM KE NT Designing Georgian Britain

Nationalities & Parliaments Now: What Can We Learn From the Past?

FREE EVENT Tuesday 13 May, 6–7.30pm This panel discussion will explore how the fit between democratic institutions and national identities and aspirations is being challenged across Europe. FIND OUT MORE: www.britishacademy.ac.uk/events BOOK NOW www.vam.ac.uk * #WilliamKent

In association with

V&A MEMBERS GO FREE Victoria and Albert Museum u South Kensington/Knightsbridge Organised by the Bard Graduate Center, New York City and the V&A

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An Insight into The Great War a three night holiday at wolfson college oxford | 4 July 2014

Our special weekend based at Wolfson College, Oxford will look at many aspects of the war both from a historical and military point of view as well as how the arts responded to the brutality of war though words, poetry, music and painting. The weekend will be introduced by military historian Hugh MacdonaldBuchanan and Dr Neil Faulkner. They will be joined by writer and biographer Peter Parker. Price £995 per person including breakfast, lunch, dinner, morning coffee and afternoon tea each day, nine lectures, two concerts and two walking tours of Oxford.

Istanbul & Gallipoli a eight night escorted holiday with dr neil faulkner | 3 June 2014

From Homer’s Troy to Rupert Brooke’s Gallipoli the military history and legacy of the Trojans, Greeks, Byzantines and the Ottomans will be explored on this holiday to one of the world’s great melting pots. After four nights in Istanbul during which we visit Haghia Sophia, Topkapi Palace, the Archaeological Museum, the Naval Museum and the Florence Nightingale Museum the tour will move to Çanakkale. Visits will be made to Troy and to the Gallipoli battlefield sites at Cape Helles and the Anzac site. Price £1,990 per person including flights, six dinners, four lunches and the services of our Tour Lecturer Dr Neil Faulkner, editor of Military History Magazine.

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Charles Dixon, The landing at Anzac, 1915

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Comment

Michael Wood on… climate change

“We haven’t faced anything like this since prehistory”

Michael Wood is professor of public history at the University of Manchester. His most recent TV series was King Alfred and the Anglo-Saxons

agency in climate change. But no major government initiatives were taken, and the industrial-military complex and the oil industry carried on with business as usual, gambling that when the crunch came, technology would find a way out. Meanwhile across the planet, traditional peoples had begun to observe changes in their habitats, and, as the global village began to connect up, to understand that these changes were more than cyclical, more than the fluctuations they had lived with from time immemorial; in fact more than anything that humanity had known since prehistory. Making films across the world over the last 30 years, we have seen these changes ourselves. In the Indian subcontinent, nearly a billion people are dependent on the monsoon-fed rivers of the Himalayas. More than a fifth of humanity live here, and since the dawn of civilisation they have worshipped the rivers and snow-capped mountains, in the belief that their water was the source of life itself. In the last few decades pilgrims who make the age-old journey to the source of the Ganges have reported that its glaciers are receding, and now scientists predict that the river will be seasonal in less than 40 years’ time. In the high Andes, long before the Europeans, the Incas went up to the glaciers to worship the ‘old fathers’, the mountains whose icy streams gave life. Here too, after their night-long dances on the ice, today’s pilgrims told us that the glaciers are diminishing. Meanwhile in Africa, the transhumant peoples who still live the old ways are increasingly forced to migrate, and even to fight for their dwindling share of the Earth’s resources. In Darfur nomads take up arms against settlers as towns spread and grazing lands shrink. Over the border, Lake Chad has suffered devastating decline in just 50 years, forcing more populations to move. These of course are old battles in the human story. But it is through history that we can understand them; and as we see it now, climate change is surely one of the most momentous of all history’s narratives.

REX FEATURES

The Earth from space: there is no more amazing and meaningful image from the whole of human history. A fragile translucent blue, hanging in infinite blackness. Now look again as it turns to night and you see another story: the spread of artificial light to almost every corner of the landmasses of the world. Our ancestors only became modern humans 200,000 years ago. Homo sapiens left Africa maybe 70,000 years ago. That’s not long ago at all as scientists measure these things – in fact, it’s so recent that bushmen still exist alongside investment bankers and pet beauticians. We were a few tens of thousands then; now we are seven billion. Forget world wars, religions and empires. This is the biggest story in history. And as we now know, it’s the exponential rise of humanity that endangers all life on the planet. The big acceleration has come since 1500. World population doubled in the next 300 years, and doubled again in little more than a century. But since 1900 there has been a four-fold increase. Feeding and clothing the rising population was made possible by the industrial revolution and a new kind of mass society. And back then, there also came the first warnings. In the 1790s in England, Gilbert White recorded temperature data and noted the ominous ‘blue cloud’ of pollution from London. In the 1820s Joseph Fourier (who had accompanied Napoleon in Egypt in 1798) made the first observations about the insulating effect of Earth’s atmosphere, and then in the 1860s in Belfast the scientist John Tyndall speculated that carbon dioxide might be related to climate change – the greenhouse effect. Finally in 1896 the Swedish Nobel prize winner Svante Arrhenius showed that changes in the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could substantially alter the surface temperature of the Earth. So the key questions were posed, and the answers were soon given. In the 1960s the first detailed calculations of the greenhouse effect were made, and in the 70s the US National Research Council made a clear case for human

ILLUSTRATION BY FEMKE DE JONG

BBC History Magazine

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Henry VI of England

THE MIRACLE OF

HENRY VI In life, Henry lurched from one disaster to the next. Yet in death, his countrymen venerated him as a saint. Desmond Seward, author of a new history of the Plantagenet kings, explains this miraculous turn of events

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verybody knows that Geoffrey Chaucer’s pilgrims – as related in his worldfamous tales – were on their way to St Thomas Becket’s shrine at Canterbury. Fewer realise that a hundred years later far more pilgrims went to Windsor than Canterbury, to the shrine of Henry VI, whom they credited with working miracles. When, during the early 1480s, Thomas Fuller of Hammersmith was hanged on a false charge of stealing cattle, he prayed to the king, whom he said kept him alive for a whole hour by thrusting a hand between the rope and his windpipe until he was cut down. There were many stories like this about late medieval England’s most popular saint (an informal title – he was never officially canonised). Yet Henry failed spectacularly as a ruler, losing two kingdoms. Son of the victor of

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One of 500 pilgrim badges of Henry VI that have been excavated in London alone. This one shows the king holding an orb and sceptre

Agincourt, not only did he lose Lancastrian France but his inability to provide good government resulted in the Wars of the Roses and eventually in his own murder. His father, Henry V, had conquered north-western France, marrying the daughter of the French king Charles VI, who recognised him as his heir. When both the English and French monarchs died in 1422, Henry became king of England and France as Henry VI. He wasn’t even a year old. Thanks to his exploits in France, Henry V was always going to be a tough act to follow – and, from an early age, it was obvious that his son wasn’t up to the job. One of his earliest, and most damaging, errors was to

hand over Maine, the gateway to Lancastrian Normandy, to the French. As Henry had impoverished the crown by giving away royal manors, there was no money to maintain proper garrisons. When the French attacked Normandy in 1449, English resistance collapsed. In July 1450 John Paston heard how “Shirburgh [Cherbourg] is gone and we have not now a foot of land in Normandy”. Settlers streamed back over the Channel, to parade through Cheapside with their bedding, and to beg in the City’s streets. All England felt humiliated. The Duke of Suffolk, Henry’s first minister, was lynched, his head hacked off over the gunnel of a boat as he attempted to sail to Calais. Jack Cade’s rebels stormed into London, hoping to kill the king’s other ministers, because of whom, said Cade, “his lands are lost, his merchandise is lost, his commons destroyed, the sea is lost, BBC History Magazine

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Henry VI depicted in a c1535 oil on panel painting. His reign was a sorry tale of madness and failure, yet by the time of this portrait, he was being credited with bringing plague victims and seemingly dead children back to life

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Henry VI of England

TIMELINE

The life and afterlife of Henry VI In May, the English burn at the stake Joan of Arc, who had taken up arms against their occupation of France. Later that year, Henry is crowned king of France in Paris

1422

Henry V’s son becomes king of England and France as Henry VI. The new king is less than a year old

1431

Henry marries Margaret of Anjou who, according to Shakespeare, possessed a “tiger’s heart, wrapped in a woman’s hide”

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Henry VI depicted seated with his wife, Margaret of Anjou, in the 1444/45 Shrewsbury Talbot Book of Romances

A 15th-century illumination shows Henry VI being crowned king of the French

1450

1453 Final loss of Gascony. Henry goes temporarily insane and the Duke of York becomes protector. Birth of the king’s son, Edward of Westminster

1455 A miniature showing the battle of Formigny, a decisive French victory over the English

First battle of St Albans, during which the Duke of York kills his Lancastrian enemies, making the Wars of the Roses inevitable 1461

Edward IV’s Yorkist army annihilates the Lancastrians at Towton and Henry VI ceases to be king of England, taking refuge in Scotland

Henry’s son, Edward, was born during one of the king’s bouts of insanity

1465 Capture of the ex-King Henry VI, who for five years is imprisoned in the Tower, where he survives an attempt to murder him National shrine: Henry’s grave in St George’s Chapel

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1470

Richard III has Henry reburied in St George’s Chapel, Windsor, where his grave attracts pilgrims from all over England in search of healing

The Earl of Warwick restores Henry VI in the ‘readeption’

1471 Edward IV returns and defeats Henry’s Lancastrian forces at Tewkesbury. Henry VI is murdered 1484

Edward IV, who brought Henry’s reign to a bloody end

BBC History Magazine

AKG IMAGES/BRIDGEMAN/BRITISH LIBRARY/TOPFOTO

The English are defeated at Formigny. All Lancastrian Normandy falls to the French. Jack Cade’s rebels occupy London

himself so poor that he may not pay for his food and drink”. (Curiously, no one blamed Henry.) English pride was momentarily soothed when Lord Talbot reoccupied Gascony in 1452, to be further bruised by his total defeat and death at Castillon the following year. The king had replaced Suffolk with his (Henry’s) cousin, the Duke of Somerset, the man largely responsible for losing Normandy. Outraged, the Duke of York (heir to the throne) led the opposition, with little effect until 1453 when Henry’s mind gave way at the news of the Castillon debacle. The king fell into a coma that lasted for 18 months and York briefly became lord protector (regent).

Slaying Somerset

KING’S COLLEGE CAMBRIDGE ARCHIVES

On recovering, Henry was astonished to find his wife had given birth to a son, Edward, during his illness. He then reinstated Somerset as his first minister – a move that merely led to Somerset’s death at the hands of York’s men at the battle of St Albans in 1455. The king seems never to have fully recovered from his breakdown. His tigerish French queen, Margaret of Anjou, who was determined to save the throne for their son, took Somerset’s place as the court faction’s leader and tried to destroy York and his allies. She failed. York laid claim to the throne and England descended into the struggle between the houses of York and Lancaster that later became known as the Wars of the Roses. On 29 March 1461 York’s son Edward IV annihilated the royal army at Towton near Tadcaster in the bloodiest battle ever fought on English soil. Henry fled to Scotland, before returning to Northumberland where his supporters occupied a few castles along the coast. However, the last Lancastrian army was

“There was widespread pity for a king who was treated as a thief, then put to death without having committed a crime” destroyed at Hexham in 1464. For over a year, the ex-king hid in remote houses in Lancashire and Westmorland, but was finally captured in June 1465 while fording the Ribble at Bungerly Hippingstones with only three companions. On his way to imprisonment at the Tower, he was derisively paraded through London, wearing an old straw hat with his feet tied beneath his horse’s belly. Then the Earl of Warwick – the ‘king maker’ – fell out with Edward IV, who fled into exile, and in October 1470 Henry was recrowned. His second reign, known as the ‘Readeption’, lasted for less than a year. Edward returned next spring, wiping out the Lancastrians at Barnet and Tewkesbury, killing both Henry’s son, Edward, and Warwick, and capturing Queen Margaret. On the day Edward IV returned to London from his victory at Tewkesbury, according to the Cambridge don Dr Warkworth: “King Harry being inward in prison in the Tower of London was put to death, the 21st May, on a Tuesday night between 11 and 12 of the clock, then being at the Tower the Duke of Gloucester, brother to King Edward, and many other.” (When Henry’s skeleton was examined in 1910, his hair was found to be matted with blood, suggesting a blow to the

head.) After being put on show in an open coffin at St Paul’s, the body was buried in Chertsey Abbey. Politically, Henry VI’s reign had been an unmitigated disaster. Besides lacking the qualities essential for a medieval monarch, he was – as a 17th-century historian put it – “over subjected and over-wived”. Not only had he inherited an unwinnable war in France but most of his time on the throne coincided with the ‘Great Slump’ (caused by a shortage of bullion), during which trade declined and standards of living fell. Though he tried to ensure that justice was administered fairly – he travelled all over England to hear appeals in provincial law courts – law and order had broken down even before the conflict between York and Lancaster. Despite all of these failings, something remarkable was soon unfolding: rich and poor across England were beginning to regard the dead king as a saint. By 1473 prayers were being said and lights lit before his statue on a stone screen at York Minster by an everincreasing number of pilgrims. In 1479 King Edward had the statue removed and tried to stop pilgrims from flocking to Chertsey. In 1484, however, Richard III – possibly motivated by guilt – had Henry’s remains reburied in St George’s Chapel at Windsor. It was to become a national shrine. So how did this come about? There is no evidence that Henry’s subjects saw him as a saint in his lifetime. They were, however, impressed by his generosity, and by his compassion – as when he ordered a traitor’s impaled quarter to be taken down, commenting: “I will not have any Christian man so cruelly handled for my sake.” Undoubtedly, he inspired affection and loyalty in those around him. Above all, he had

Seat of learning A detail from the foundation charter of King’s College, Cambridge (1446). In it, Henry VI (right) is shown with the charter, announcing: “Be it done to thy praise, glory and worship.” Among the group behind him is the lord chancellor, Archbishop Stafford BBC History Magazine

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Henry VI of England

Pure, honest, holy After 1485, Henry VII petitioned three popes in succession to canonise his uncle. Excusing his inadequacy as a statesman, Polydore Vergil (Henry’s tame historian) wrote how he had been “a man of mild and plain-speaking disposition, who preferred peace before wars, quietness before troubles, honesty before utility… there was not in this world a more pure, honest, and more holy creature”. A book was compiled of 174 miracles performed by him between 1471 and 1495. A servant of Lord Stourton, unjustly accused of a capital offence in 1484, was saved – as Thomas Fuller had been – by a ghostly royal hand thrust between his neck and the gallows’ rope. Wearing the king’s red velvet bonnet, which was kept at Windsor, cured ‘headaches’ (brain tumours?). Henry was credited with bringing back to life victims of the plague or seemingly dead children. Henry was commemorated in churches and cathedrals, in stained-glass windows or on rood screens, with votive lights burning 28

Hero worship Two English ‘martyrs’ – Henry VI (right) and St Edmund of East Anglia – are celebrated in this detail from the rood screen at St Catherine’s Church in Ludham

“Henry’s cult became so popular that the abbots of Chertsey and Westminster both tried to secure possession of his body. Even Henry VIII venerated him” before his image, while the dagger that killed him was displayed for veneration at Caversham Priory in Oxfordshire. Hymns, litanies and prayers were composed in his honour, more pilgrim badges being produced for Windsor than Canterbury. (Some 500 of these have been excavated in London alone.) As the Victorian historian William Stubbs put it, Henry “left a mark on the hearts of Englishmen that was not soon effaced… the king who had perished for the sins of his fathers and of the nation”. His cult became so popular that the abbots of Westminster and Chertsey both tried to secure possession of his body. Henry VII planned the great chapel that he built at Westminster as a shrine for his saintly kinsman, who would be reburied there when canonised. However, diplomatic problems with Rome blocked the canonisation.

Until the day he died, Henry VIII venerated his great-uncle. In 1528, he asked that he should be canonised. Even after breaking with the papacy and ending pilgrimages to Windsor, he left instructions in his will for the tomb in St George’s Chapel to be made more imposing and for the banner of ‘King Henry the Saint’ to be carried at his funeral. Recusant Catholics continued to venerate him, Alexander Pope referring to the ‘Martyr-King’ in his poem Windsor Forest. During the 1920s there were attempts to secure his canonisation and he became one of the author Evelyn Waugh’s favourite saints. The 1970s witnessed another, unsuccessful, campaign to have him canonised. Henry VI may have impressed all-too few of his countrymen during his life, but there’s little doubt that he more than made up for it in the centuries following his death. Desmond Seward is a historian and author who specialises in the 15th century. In the autumn the Folio Society are republishing his Richard III: England’s Black Legend DISCOVER MORE BOOK 왘 The Demon’s Brood: A Plantagenet

Gallery by Desmond Seward (Constable, September 2014) LISTEN AGAIN 왘 Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss

the Wars of the Roses on In Our Time at bbc.co.uk/ programmes/p00546sp BBC History Magazine

BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY

the gift of forgiving and forgetting. On Good Friday 1452, after an abortive rebellion by the Duke of York, he issued 144 pardons, while time and again he tried to reconcile Yorkists and Lancastrians. But what made people decide that Henry was a holy man was his murder. There was widespread pity for a king who, after his deposition, was treated as a thief, then put to death without having committed any crime. About 1484, John Blacman, a Carthusian monk who had been a fellow of Eton and a chaplain to Henry, wrote an admiring memoir of his old master, to show how even a great man could be a saint. Blacman emphasised Henry’s piety and simplicity – shabby clothes with a hair shirt beneath them – and a sexual puritanism that seems odd to modern minds. He claimed that the king had had visions of Christ, the Virgin and of the saints. Interestingly – as a Carthusian accustomed to identifying qualities that suited men for a hermit life, one of which was sanity – Blacman did not see him as having a mental disability. We know that Henry practised the Devotio Moderna – a movement for religious reform that advocated humility and obedience. He meditated on the sufferings of Christ, probably to the point of hallucination, and enjoyed staying in monasteries. As a young man, Henry’s best friend was the short-lived Duke of Warwick, who read the entire 150 Psalms every day. (Monks took a week to recite them.) Henry took special care in appointing bishops. His colleges at Eton and King’s College, Cambridge were essentially religious foundations.

COLCHESTER CASTLE

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50 years of BBC Two

Technical disasters and dull programming beset the early years of Britain’s third TV channel, which launched 50 years ago this month. Joe Moran chronicles its difficult birth – and subsequent success

THE GROWING PAINS OF BBC TWO

T

C Worsley, TV critic for the Financial Times in the 1960s and 1970s, rightly called it “the ephemeral art”. Television is a transient medium, and only a small percentage of its voluminous output survives in either historical record or collective memory. Consider BBC Two. It turns 50 years old this month, a taken-forgranted part of the broadcasting furniture. Few now recall its early days, and how its torturous beginnings caused many to question the merit of its very existence. The misfortunes began on its opening night. On the evening of 20 April 1964, a huge power failure in west London paralysed BBC Television Centre and Lime Grove Studios. Viewers tuning in for the launch of BBC Two instead saw the newsreader Gerald Priestland, filmed in the Alexandra Palace newsroom

in a non-regulation V-neck jumper and tie, reading the news from cards. “I ploughed on through every scrap of unedited Reuters tape they could feed me,” Priestland wrote later. “After what seemed like an eternity of ad-libbing about Japanese fishery disputes and trains derailed in Tunisia, I was taken off the air.” The entire opening-night schedule – including a lavish production of Cole Porter’s Kiss Me, Kate and a firework display from Southend pier unhappily billed as Off With a Bang – had to be abandoned. The following evening’s schedule opened with presenter Denis Tuohy blowing out a candle in a darkened studio – a wry commentary on the previous night’s disasters. And the channel’s painful birth pangs continued. The 1962 report of the Pilkington Committee on Broadcasting had recommended that the BBC should be awarded a new channel, but the corporation had launched it hastily and on a tight budget. After a few weeks, the press consensus was that BBC Two’s output was dull and unappetising. The schedule featured lots of repeats, dry educational programmes with titles such as Materials for the Engineer, and

low-budget fillers including a youth theatre production of Julius Caesar from the Ashcroft Theatre, Croydon. The BBC’s director of television, Kenneth Adam, announced that the new channel called on the viewer “occasionally to stretch himself a little further” and “to push back the horizon a little”. According to a poll conducted in June 1964, viewers were not keen on having their horizons pushed back. Nearly half of those who had seen BBC Two thought its programmes worse than those on ITV and BBC One. The new channel’s regular viewers numbered twice as many men as women – probably, said the polling company, “due only to male intellectual curiosity”. Then, in 1965, an up-and-coming BBC executive took over as controller of the new channel, and it was under the four-year tenure of David Attenborough that BBC Two slowly established itself. His big idea was that output should contrast as starkly as possible with that shown on the other channels. So he introduced coverage of sports including rugby league and one-day

FIVE KEY BBC TWO PROGRAMMES The Football League was so worried about the effect televised games would have on crowd numbers that Match of the Day was initially aired on BBC Two – seen by a tiny audience and only in the London area. The first programme was presented by Kenneth Wolstenholme (left), later famed for his commentary of the 1966 World Cup final.

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Pot Black 1969 This series, a snooker tournament of single-frame matches, was the brainchild of Grandstand producer Philip Lewis, who realised this was a sport that would be enhanced by colour TV. First broadcast in 1969, Pot Black quickly became one of BBC Two’s most popular programmes – even though most viewers were watching in black and white. BBC History Magazine

BBC

Match of the Day 1964

cricket, and – at a time when documentaries rarely lasted longer than half an hour – long-format series including Chronicle and Horizon. The channel became truly indispensable when it broadcast the most ambitious serialisation yet undertaken by the BBC: The Forsyte Saga, shown on Saturday nights from January 1967. At the time, BBC Two was available to only 8 million potential viewers. Many people, particularly in Scotland and Wales, still could not receive it – new transmitters would need to be built to broadcast its higher-definition, 625-line signal, and many did not want, or could not afford, the requisite new 625-line TV sets. Some John Galsworthy fans were unhappy about not being able to view the Forsytes. “My own small gesture will be to cancel the regular order for the Radio Times,” wrote Sigrid Morden from Catford to The Times. But the Saga succeeded in attracting a new audience to BBC Two, with viewing figures growing at a rate of 200,000 a week, eventually climbing to 6 million. Another key moment came in 1967 with the arrival of colour television. At that time, the high-definition BBC Two was the only channel with the technology to broadcast in colour. Attenborough had the idea of making the first colour transmission, on 1 July 1967, a live broadcast from Wimbledon – there was a shortage of

“BBC TWO’S MISFORTUNES BEGAN ON ITS OPENING NIGHT WHEN A HUGE POWER FAILURE PARALYSED TELEVISION CENTRE” colour cameras, and tennis could be filmed with just three of them. Though only about 10,000 viewers watched it on the tiny number of colour TV sets across the country – 5,000 fewer than were watching in real colour on Centre Court – BBC Two’s understated, naturalistic colour tones were widely praised.

Natural selections Some of the channel’s most popular programmes in the first years of colour were the oft-repeated films of the BBC’s Natural History Unit, such as The Major, a tender study of a year in the life of a village-green oak tree, and The Private Life of the Kingfisher, noted for a stunning underwater shot of a bird diving to catch a fish in the river Test in Hampshire. Attenborough also commissioned a new, big-budget documentary series, Kenneth Clark’s Civilisation, specifically to show off the new colour technology. By the time the series ended in March 1969, Clark was receiving 50 fan letters a day; nine would-be suicides even told him that watching his series had given them a reason to go on living. By the 1970s, when almost the whole country could tune in to BBC Two, it had consolidated its role as a home for the kind of television that couldn’t be found on the other channels. Alongside esoteric programmes such as classical music concerts and science documentaries, it brought idiosyncratic interests to new audiences. One Man and His Dog, for instance, introduced viewers to a traditional rural skill and turned the border collie into a folk hero. In the early 1980s,

8 million vicarious, sofa-dwelling shepherds were tuning in to watch it on Tuesday nights. Another unlikely hit was snooker. BBC Two turned a slow-moving, undramatic sport into a national craze through the series Pot Black and blanket coverage of the World Championships every spring. In our multichannel era, BBC Two’s unique character has, inevitably, been diluted; the special-interest programmes it pioneered now often appear on BBC Four instead. But it is still the place to find unpredictable successes such as Coast, Eggheads or The Great British Bake Off, which acquire a popular momentum of their own and become unlikely cults. BBC Two, in other words, still carries a residue of the unique identity forged in its difficult birth. Professor Joe Moran is a cultural historian based at Liverpool John Moores University DISCOVER MORE BOOK 왘 Armchair Nation: An Intimate History

of Britain in Front of the TV by Joe Moran (Profile Books, 2013) EVENT 왘 Joe Moran will be speaking at a 50th

anniversary conference about BBC Two at the Science Museum on 25 and 26 April. sciencemuseum.org.uk

Life on Earth 1979 David Attenborough insisted on arranging this 13-episode series chronologically, beginning by introducing the most basic organisms. Some BBC executives feared this approach would mean that the ‘most interesting’ animals would appear last – by which time viewers could have switched off. That fear proved unfounded: Life on Earth was seen by an estimated 500 million worldwide.

BBC/NPL

Boys from the Blackstuff 1982 Alan Bleasdale’s series about a Liverpudlian tarmac gang coping with unemployment, broadcast on BBC Two in autumn 1982, built up an audience of 5 million and was rewarded with a prime-time BBC One re-run early the following year. Yosser Hughes’s repeated plea: “I can do that – gizza job!” rang true for many in the recession-hit north. BBC History Magazine

The Office 2001 The kind of slow-burn success in which BBC Two specialises, the first series of The Office in 2001 attracted fewer than 1.5 million viewers and scored poorly in audience-appreciation indices. But viewers gradually tuned into its wavelength and by the end of the second series it was seen as a modern-day classic.

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The Hitler enigma

THE HISTORY ESSAY

THE LONG SHADOW OF ADOLF HITLER

The Nazi leader was not the only monster of the 20th century – so why, 125 years after his birth, does he fascinate us more than any other despot? By Sir Ian Kershaw

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BBC History Magazine

PICTORIAL PRESS–ALAMY

Adolf Hitler mounts the steps at the Harvest Festival Rally at Bückeberg in 1934. Extraordinary demonstrations of power such as this were key in strengthening the growing personality cult surrounding the führer, says Ian Kershaw

THE HISTORY ESSAY

GETTY

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dolf Hitler occupies a unique place in history. One hundred and twenty five years after his birth in the small Austrian town of Braunau am Inn, on 20 April 1889, the Nazi leader continues to cast a long shadow over the world. Our enduring fascination with his personality far outstrips our

interest in any other dictator. But why? In a most obvious sense, the answer seems clear: Hitler was the chief author of the most devastating war, and the most terrible genocide, that the world has yet known. Certainly, that is reason enough to register his unparalleled impact on world history. It is also a good part of the reason why there have probably been more publications about Hitler than any other historical figure – apart, perhaps, from Jesus. Hitler’s primary responsibility for the colossal inhumanity of the Nazi regime warrants, of course, another question: what sort of individual could be capable of such unimaginable brutality? But we don’t seem to be as concerned about answering this question when it comes to Stalin or Mao, both of whom were also responsible for the deaths of millions. Nor, in the case of Stalin or Mao, do we experience anything like the fascination that the minutiae of Hitler’s character continue to exert. This macabre fascination became more than evident to me from the flood of correspondence that followed the publication of the two volumes of my Hitler biography, in 1998 and 2000. Among the zanier missives I received, I was asked whether Hitler drank Tokaji wine at his wedding to Eva Braun, only hours before their joint suicide in 1945. Almost certainly he didn’t – but what difference would it have made had he done so? Another correspondent suggested that Hitler was descended from the British royal family, claiming that his ear measurements were (allegedly) identical to those of Prince John, the son of George V and Queen Mary. The canard about Hitler visiting Liverpool in 1912 (he didn’t) still surfaces repeatedly, despite all efforts to put it to rest. And the drama in the Berlin bunker at the end has woven its own spell, unmatched by the interest in the circumstances of the death of any other modern despot. Stalin’s paranoid refusal to believe that Hitler was dead (though the Soviets had been presented with a piece of jawbone in a cigar box, which could be authenticated as Hitler’s) invented mystery where none existed and prompted persistent rumours that Hitler and Eva Braun had somehow been spirited away at the

last to South America. I had numerous enquiries about the nature of Hitler’s physical or mental illnesses, and various speculative diagnoses of these. The unstated implication was that if such an illness could be definitively established (it can’t), that would be enough to explain world war and genocide; that, if Hitler could be shown to be mad, it would somehow account for the actions of the millions of sane individuals who were nonetheless anxious to put his ideas into practice. If some of these examples are patently absurd, they serve to highlight the extremes of the continued fascination with Hitler. In part this reflects an adherence to the ‘great man’ approach to history, bestowing on Hitler a sort of ‘negative greatness’, as some interpreters have done. Of course, some individuals – and Hitler was certainly one of them – have played major personal roles in shaping history, whatever the circumstances and impersonal determinants that conditioned those roles. However, the enduring preoccupation with Hitler goes far beyond a conventional interest in historical figures of great power and influence. This stems, in some measure, from our continued sense of astonishment at a story without close parallel in modern history. Here was an individual who, for the first 30 years of his life, was a complete unknown, without education, qualifications, training, military leadership or family connections. Yet in the subsequent 25 years before his death, this figure was able to gain supreme power in one of the most sophisticated, cultured nations on earth. He went on to plunge Europe and the world into a war that cost more than 50 million lives, to instigate a genocide that aimed to wipe out 11 million Jews for no other reason than their ethnicity, and then to ke his own life with the enemy lmost literally at his door, his country ruined and occupied by enemy forces and the European continent utterly devastated. We look for answers in an individual personality commensurate with the enormity of his impact, his hold over much of the German population, the power he wielded, the destructiveness that he prouced – but we fail to find hem.

This rare still of Hitler and his mistress (later, wife) Eva Braun is from a private home movie made by Braun’s sister Gretl in the early 1940s

BBC History Magazine

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The Hitler enigma THE HISTORY ESSAY

“Hitler isolated his private sphere from his public life – and in an era before prying 24/7 television news and social networks, he was able to sustain this separation to the end” We see nothing in his odd personality, not to speak of his repulsive ideas, to explain such a devastatingly unique historical impact. Hitler remains an enigma. Partly this is because he cultivated a sense of mystery; indeed, he would not even let himself be photographed until 1923. His bizarre outward appearance carried its own appeal in the cultured salons of Munich’s upper crust in the 1920s. He was acutely aware of the importance of public image long before that became a feature of political life. Though mocked by his adversaries, his trademark moustache was just that – a deliberately distinctive feature. On his path to power, and especially after he became Germany’s leader in 1933, propaganda outpourings embellished the enigmatic aura. His ‘court’ photographer, Heinrich Hoffmann, produced a series of bestselling books of pictures that popularised the sense of mystery. They aimed to show Hitler as a man of the people and, at the same time, the political philosopher of genius in lofty isolation, among the mountains that surrounded his Alpine retreat near the

town of Berchtesgaden, Bavaria, as he pondered Germany’s future and bore the entire burden of responsibility on his shoulders. Hitler himself ensured that little material could be produced by his enemies to challenge or undermine the constructed imagery of heroic genius. The Gestapo seized and destroyed whatever documents they could find relating to his early life; indeed, much of what we know about his time in Linz and Vienna before the First World War is dependent on loaded ‘memoirs’ by a number of individuals who knew him reasonably well. Only fragmentary evidence remains to elucidate a vital period of his development: a handful of his letters surviving from the First World War, a few official military records, and some recollections of contemporary comrades seen through the distorting mirror of his later fame. Hardly any later personal letters or memorabilia of Hitler himself have survived, because he ordered them all to be destroyed just before his death. He even kept his mistress a secret. Before the demise of the Third Reich, Eva Braun was a name known to hardly anyone in Germany outside Hitler’s inner circle. This demonstrates his success in isolating his private sphere from his public life – and in an era before prying 24/7 television news and social networks, he was able to sustain this separation to the end.

Hitler poses with his propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, the latter’s wife, Magda, and three of their children

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BBC History Magazine

MARY EVANS–ALAMY

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itler purposely built up a wall of aloofness that very few were allowed to penetrate. He had hardly any intimates or genuine personal friends. Any urge for relaxation was tempered by the need to uphold his image. He did sometimes show a human side to his character: for example, playing with the Goebbels children; in his passionate love of Wagner’s music, proclaimed during his visits to the Wagner clan at Bayreuth; or in biting mimicry when among his usual circle at his retreat on the Obersalzberg, near Berchtesgaden. But he was an excellent actor who could play many parts without allowing the mask of his leader’s position ever to drop completely. In his private sphere, Hitler was surrounded by fully fledged adepts of the personality cult of the leader: his regular entourage included his ubiquitous organiser and factotum, Martin Bormann; his adjutants and manservants; his secretaries; his close party cronies and their wives; one or two favourites, such as his propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, and his wife, Magda; and the architect Albert Speer. They spent time with him at close quarters but, though Goebbels especially was capable of critical insight, swallowed any criticism in favour of adulation. Hitler’s ‘achievements’ were magnified. Above all, his ‘vision’ seemed incomparable. Even at Hitler’s Obersalzberg home, the Berghof, there was no real discussion in his presence. When Hitler spoke, everyone listened. No one sought to contradict him or enter into genuine argument. Whether met with rapt fascination or with bored passivity (his audience having often heard similar expositions many times before), the ‘genius’ of the führer was never questioned.

UIG VIA GETTY IMAGES

THE HISTORY ESSAY

Polish prisoners at Buchenwald concentration camp near Weimar, c1943. The world continues to ask itself what sort of individual could be capable of the brutality displayed by Hitler. Yet it doesn’t seem so concerned with asking the same question of Stalin or Mao

BBC History Magazine

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The Hitler enigma THE HISTORY ESSAY

“Hitler was a masterly demagogue. More than any other contemporary German politician, he spoke in a language that gave voice to the anger and prejudice of his audience” confines of his limited, inflexible taste – and enough to pontificate about history, religion and culture. This was the knowledge of the opinionated autodidact – but many highly respected politicians have known less, about less. As his path to power and then his dominance of European politics during the 1930s showed, he was also politically astute, especially adept at dividing his opponents and going for the jugular where he detected weakness. It is impossible, however, to separate his talents from the aura of power that was constructed around him – an aura that certainly owed something to his own manufacture but was largely the creation of others.

Hitler makes a speech in 1934. He was among the first leaders to utilise radio and film for disseminating propaganda

Hitler was not without ability or knowledge. He was, of course, a masterly demagogue – the basis of his early dominance within the Nazi Party. More than any other contemporary German politician, he spoke in a language that gave voice to the anger and prejudice of his audience. It was effective because the message was both simple and radical – and because it was not the contrived product of a team of advisers and backroom spin-doctors but, rather, reflected his own burning hatreds. He wrote his own speeches and paid great attention to their delivery. Far from mere rants, they were finely attuned to the mood of the audience as he expertly played on the feelings his rhetoric awakened. He also read a lot, if superficially and essentially to bolster his own prejudice. His excellent memory enabled him to recall information on many subjects. This impressed not only those around him and others who were already susceptible to his message, but also experienced ministers and foreign diplomats who were surprised at his detailed grasp of a complex brief, and military leaders whom he could outwit by his awareness of technical specifications of weapons or operational dispositions. He knew a great deal about aspects of classical music, art and architecture – if within the

Benito Mussolini’s dictatorship has cast a far smaller shadow than Hitler’s

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BBC History Magazine

ALAMY/AKG IMAGES

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his aura was elaborated through the regime’s extraordinary demonstrations of power: the spectacular Nuremberg Rallies; the pervasive death cult manifested in the annual march through the streets of Munich to commemorate the fallen ‘martyrs’ of the failed putsch of 1923; or the monumental building plans intended to match those left behind by Pharaonic Egypt or classical Greece and Rome. He and Mussolini were also the first state leaders to maximise the use of radio and film for propaganda purposes. Hitler was the clear focal point of these displays of power. Those of Fascist Italy, of Stalin’s USSR, of Mao’s China, of present-day North Korea and of other modern despotisms seem somehow less remarkable. It may be no coincidence that militaria fetishists appear to be far more captivated by German uniforms and SS paraphernalia than by those of Stalin’s or any other army. Why is this? Could it be that there is a certain awe, if in a purely negative sense, at the nature of Hitler’s vision – the scale of his megalomaniac dreams and ambitions? In the parade of 20th-century despots, Mussolini seems, however misleadingly, not just a scarcely credible buffoon but one whose territorial ambitions betray him as little more than an old-fashioned imperialist in modern garb. Franco seems a dull dictator – highly repressive, but in personal terms an uninteresting, narrow-minded bigot. Stalin looks like a modern variant of Russian tyranny down the ages, his mass murder (largely of his own citizens) mind-boggling yet somehow unsurprising. Even more remote to our mentality is Mao’s China, where the horrors – as in Cambodia under Pol Pot or, more recently, in Rwanda – seem unimaginable in scale but to pose no great mystery. Hitler, on the other hand, triumphed in a liberal democracy in a country not far away and not enormously different from our own. How he was able, in a short time, to transform that country into one engaged on a mission of racial conquest and genocide still seems scarcely explicable. And the vision of such horrific megalomania – the obliteration of major cities such as Leningrad or Moscow, the ‘ethnic cleansing’ of the entire continent and, of course, the death sentence pronounced on millions of Jews – still

THE HISTORY ESSAY

“Hitler triumphed in a liberal democracy in a country not far away and not enormously different from our own. The horrors of Pol Pot or, more recently, Rwanda, are more remote to our mentality”

TOPFOTO

A man examines the bones of some of the hundreds of thousands of victims of Pol Pot’s regime in Cambodia. What happened here, while “unimaginable in scale”, seems to pose “no great mystery”, says Ian Kershaw. Yet Hitler’s crimes appear scarcely explicable

leaves us spellbound at the sense of the total, unconstrained power that Hitler embodied. The unprecedented steepness of the descent into untold inhumanity is what underpins the continuing search for a better understanding of the man at its head. Hitler is the face of evil of the 20th century. Yet so successfully did he efface his own biographical remnants that even a most crucial question remains unanswered: we cannot be sure precisely when, why and how he became the pathological anti-semite without whom the Holocaust – the central emblem of his political evil – is unlikely to have happened. So should we be marking the 125th anniversary of his birth? I must confess that I do not greatly warm to the fad for historical anniversaries, and I am still less a fan of the ‘great man’ approach to historical explanation. To my mind, the eccentricities of Hitler’s personality are less crucial than the reasons why the people of Germany were prepared to implement what they saw as Hitler’s will. Still, Hitler’s imprint on history was profound. So the anniversary is worth noting, not for any quirky obsessiveness with the minutiae

of his character but because it reminds us of the most catastrophic collapse of humanitarian values – values that had lain at the heart of western political and moral thinking since the Enlightenment. And if this collapse happened once in European history, could it do so again? Professor Sir Ian Kershaw is a historian formerly based at the University of Sheffield, and is the best-known modern biographer of Adolf Hitler DISCOVER MORE BOOKS 왘 Ian Kershaw’s biography of Hitler, originally published in

two parts as Hitler 1889–1936: Hubris (Penguin, 1998) and Hitler 1936–1945: Nemesis (Penguin, 2000), has since been compiled into a single volume, Hitler (Penguin, 2009) LISTEN AGAIN 왘 Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Hitler on In

Our Time at bbc.co.uk/history/people/adolf_hitler

Next month’s essay: Lucy Worsley explains why the Georgians are every bit as fascinating as the Tudors

BBC History Magazine

37

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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS/AKG IMAGES

In search of the real Pocahontas Susan Castillo Street looks beyond the ‘noble savage’ of Disney fame to reveal a woman who played a critical role in the survival of England’s Jamestown colony

Portrayals of Pocahontas are dominated by the image of the “acculturated, docile Indian” (shown above in a 1616 engraving) who was famed for saving John Smith’s life (right)

BBC History Magazine

39

Pocahontas

ocahontas, despite her iconic stature in AngloAmerican colonial history, remains an elusive figure. We can only catch fleeting glimpses of her through the words and images of others – some with elements of accuracy, others complete distortions. Artistic representations of Pocahontas do little for her public image – ranging as they do from Disney’s ‘noble savage’, to the anglicised, Christianised woman seen in contemporary portraits. We know that she was intelligent and charismatic, one of the favourite daughters of Powhatan, the paramount chief of a large confederation of tribes who lived in the Tidewater area of Virginia at a time when the English were attempting to establish a permanent foothold in the New World. Numerous myths have grown up around Pocahontas. These include her alleged love affair with mercenary English soldier John Smith, whose life she is said to have saved, to her supposed rejection of her Nativ American roots follo her marriage to John Rolfe. So who was the real Pocahontas? Well, as the following episodes from her remarkable life prove, here was a woman who played a far more active role in the survival of England’s Jamestown colony than she is oft given credit for. All th she seems to have become increasingly concerned about the English colonists’ intentions towards her fellow Native Americans… 40

Pocahontas’s rescue of John Smith may have been a figment of his imagination The episode in Pocahontas’s life that has had greatest impact on the popular imagination is the one recounted in John Smith’s 1624 Generall Historie of Virginia, New England and the Summer Isles, according to which Pocahontas saved his life. Unfortunately, it probably didn’t happen. John Smith was a former mercenary soldier who had fought against the Turks and, in accounts of his military exploits, he repeatedly alludes to being rescued by beautiful women, in incidents to which he is the only witness.

Rather than fall in love, Smith and Pocahontas may have taught each other their respective languages

Smith played a key role in the Jamestown project. Unlike many of his fellow colonists, he was an eminently pragmatic individual, with an uncommon ability to process information regarding the natural environment and indigenous peoples of the New World in order to ensure his own survival and that of his fellow colonists. While on an expedition up the Chickahominy river, scouting for food and provisions, Smith was taken prisoner and brought before Powhatan. There, according to Smith’s own account, he was made to kneel

Was her love affair with John Smith mere myth? If you’ve heard the Peggy Lee song ‘Fever’ aptain Smith and Pocahontas/had a very mad affair” – or watched the 1995 alt Disney film Pocahontas, then you can be forgiven for believing that th English mercenary and Native American were lovers. Yet there is no historical evidence to indicate that this was the case. When the English arrived in Jamestown in 1607, Pocahontas was only a child. William Strachey, a contemporary ource, comments that Pocahontas would come to the fort and turn carteels with other Indian children “whom she would follow and wheel so herself ed as she was all the fort over”.

BBC History Magazine

John Rolfe wasn’t Pocahontas’s first husband

An engraving shows Pocahontas throwing herself on John Smith as he is about to be bludgeoned. This wasn’t the first time that Smith reported being rescued by a beautiful young woman

BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY/AKG IMAGES/2013 CULTURE CLUB/ALAMY

before the great chieftain. Just as he was about to have his brains beaten out with stones, Pocahontas lay her head over his in order to prevent him from being killed. Although Smith may have genuinely believed that he was about to die, recent anthropological and historical studies have offered compelling evidence that what may really have taken place was a ritual adoption ceremony in which Smith was undergoing a symbolic death in order to be reborn as a werowance or subordinate chief in Powhatan’s empire. Smith may have embellished his account with the vision of his rescue by a besotted Pocahontas. It is perhaps significant that Smith’s version of events was first published in 1624, when there was no one left alive to refute it.

Strachey points out, however, that Algonquin women, once they reached puberty, would wear leather aprons and were “very shamefast to be seen bare”. What is likely, however, is that Pocahontas and John Smith, who needed to know the Algonquin language in order to secure provisions for the colony, gave each other language lessons. In a vocabulary list, which is part of Smith’s Map of Virginia (published 1612), there appears an intriguing item: “Bid Pokahuntas bring here two little baskets, and I will give her white beads to make her a chain.” So where does the myth of the love affair come from? It seems that it hails in part from the venerable ‘Dusky Maiden’ stereotype, in which indigenous women were sexualized by European explorers. Books, plays and broadsides of the period did much to support this stereotype, such as Tirso de Molina’s Spanish work Amazonas en las Indias.

BBC History Magazine

Pocahontas is famed for marrying an Englishman. Yet what isn’t so well known is that he was her second husband. William Strachey makes reference to Pocahontas in 1612 as Powhatan’s daughter, “…using sometimes to our fort in times past, now married to a private captain called Kocoum some two years hence”. Nothing else is known about this first husband Kocoum, but some historians have suggested that he was from the Patawomeck nation. In 1613 Pocahontas was taken hostage by the English when she was visiting relatives among the Patawomeck. She was escorted to Jamestown where she began to receive instructions in Christian doctrine from Reverend Alexander Whitaker. It was there that she met John Rolfe, a young widower. It’s impossible to know what Pocahontas’s feelings were for her first husband, Kocoum, and later for Rolfe. What is clear, however, is that Rolfe was besotted with her. In a letter to Sir Thomas Dale, acting governor of the Jamestown colony, in which he asks permission to marry Pocahontas, Rolfe describes her as: “Pocahontas, to whom my hearty and best thoughts are and have been a long time so entangled and enthralled in so intricate a labyrinth, that I was even a-wearied to unwind myself thereout.” Rolfe couched his passion for Pocahontas as an altruistic initiative designed to win her conversion to Christianity. It is unlikely that the Jamestown authorities would have allowed the match if Kocoum had still been alive, and it is possible that he had been killed in combat. Pocahontas, after her marriage to Rolfe and the birth of her son Thomas, was viewed in the 19th century as the Mother of Two Nations – a convenient notion for proponents of the ‘Noble Savage’ stereotype that emerged. In reality, indigenous people were either being assimilated or violently erased from American history.

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF POCAHONTAS c1595 Pocahontas, also known as Amonute and Matoaka, is born

1606 The Virginia Company y – whi has been created to colonis the territories to which England had laid claim – receives a new crown patent from James VI and I. (A seal of the Virginia Company is shown right)

1607 A group of English colonists s landfall in Virginia and establishes the settlement of Jamestown

1609–10 Jamestown is decimated in the Starving Time. Only around 60 of the initial 500 English colonists survive

c1610 Pocahontas marries her first husband, Kocoum, possibly one of her father Powhatan’s private guard

1613 Pocahontas is taken prisoner by the English captain Argall when visiting her husband’s family. She is taken to Jamestown, where she receives instruction in Christian doctrine from Rev Alexander Whitaker

1614 Pocahontas marries John Rolfe, a young evangelical Protestant widower, and becomes known as Lady Rebecca, settling on a farm near Jamestown. In 1616, the couple travel to England, where the image of the anglicised, docile young Native

1617

The Sedgeford Portrait, which is said to show Pocahontas and her young son, Thomas

Pocahontas dies and is buried in Gravesend (home of the statue, right). Tensions escalate between the Jamestown colonists and Powhatan tribes after her death, resulting in an uprising, in 1622, in which 347 colonists die

41

Pocahontas

Pocahontas’s marriage to Rolfe benefited natives and colonists alike When Pocahontas married John Rolfe, she took the name Rebecca, and was known as Lady Rebecca Rolfe. She continued to improve her English and adopted English styles of dress. Despite this, however, Pocahontas never turned her back on her people, and was certainly capable of making her own decisions. Although Pocahontas was Powhatan’s daughter, her mother was not one of his more important wives, so she lacked political significance. However, as with European royal families, alliances were often sealed by strategic marriages. This is probably how Powhatan viewed his daughter’s union with Rolfe, and she never lost sight of her obligations to her father.

When Rolfe went to ask for Pocahontas’s hand in marriage, he was received by Opechancanough, an important secondary chieftain, who gave assent on Powhatan’s behalf. Following the marriage to Pocahontas, John Rolfe began to rise to prominence as a tobacco planter. Although he brought tobacco seeds from the Spanish Indies, it is thought that he may have learned techniques of tobacco cultivation from Pocahontas. It is certainly the case that the period of peace with the Indians that followed the marriage of Pocahontas and John Rolfe enabled the colony to thrive and become, through tobacco cultivation, an economic success.

‘Lady Rebecca’ was sceptical about the colonists’ intentions towards her people When Pocahontas and John Rolfe visited England in 1616, there were clear propaganda benefits for the Virginia Company (the joint-stock organisation behind the The ‘anglicised’ Pocahontas seen in a 1616 portrait. She may have worn English clothes but that didn’t stop her telling John Smith that “…your countr men will lie much”

settlement of Jamestown) in presenting an attractive young indigenous woman as the embodiment of the acculturated, Christianised, docile Indian that prospective settlers

John Rolfe and Pocahontas in an 1845 painting. Did the wife school her husband in the art of tobacco cultivation?

would encounter in the New World. Pocahontas, however, was accompanied by her father’s chief adviser, Uttamatomakin – whose mission was to report back to Powhatan about the strength of the English – and by a retinue of Indian attendants. During her time in England, Pocahontas attended a masque, and was seated in a place of prominence; contemporary observers highlight the dignity and composure of her bearing. When John Smith came to visit her, she upbraided him as she believed he had broken the bonds of kinship with her people, adding tartly: “For your countrymen will lie much.” Pocahontas clearly had few illusions about the purity of her hosts’ intentions toward her own people, and subsequent events would validate her scepticism.

Susan Castillo Street is professor of American Studies at King’s College London. Her books include Colonial Encounters in New World Writing, 1500-1786: Performing America (Routledge, 2005) DISCOVER MORE

nough: Three Indian Lives Changed by Jamestown by Helen C Rountree (University of Virginia Press, 2005) 왘 Pocahontas and the Powhatan Dilemma by Camilla Townsend (Hill & Wang, 2004) LISTEN AGAIN 왘 Melvyn Bragg and Susan Castillo Street

discuss Pocahontas on In Our Time at bbc.co.uk/ programmes/b03hwn09

42

BBC History Magazine

BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY

BOOKS 왘 Pocahontas, Powhatan, Opechanca-

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When

beans were the food of lust Four centuries ago, flatulent foods such as beans and chickpeas were hailed as a cure for a flagging libido. Jennifer Evans investigates our ancestors’ passion for pulses ILLUSTRATIONS BY CLAIR ROSSITER

T

he London Cuckold, a ballad printed between c1685 and 1688, describes a man who takes leave of his “witty Wife” to “behold the glory” of the army on campaign at nearby Hounslow Heath. On his return, unaware that his wife has been unfaithful, he is lavished with attention: “When he came home she gave him Kisses, and Sack-Posset very good, Caudles too, she never misses, for they warm and heat the Blood Such things wilt create desire, And new kindle Cupid’s Fire; These things made him kiss his Wife, And to call her Love and Life.” It’s an amusing image: the guilty wife feeding her cuckolded husband with treats intended to “kindle Cupid’s fire” – stoke BBC History Magazine

amorous affection and increase arousal – to make him enamoured anew and even, perhaps, more sexually appealing. But it’s her choice of foods that is most interesting: a taste of the diverse range of putative aphrodisiacs in early modern England. Caudle, a warm drink of thin gruel mixed with wine or ale and sweetened or spiced, was believed to be arousing, as was sweet-posset, another mildly alcoholic confection. But the array of aphrodisiacs also included some surprises. Along with produce from kitchen garden and hedgerow (such as parsnips, carrots and nettles), warming spices including

cinnamon, anise seed and coriander were high on the list. So were birds like pheasants and sparrows, as well as animal genitalia – the pizzle (penis) and testicles of bulls, boars, goats and stags. Yet, perhaps most surprising was the belief that flatulent foods such as beans and pulses increased libido. For early modern men and women, though, these foods were more than just sexual curiosities. They were inherently understood to be treatments for infertility, not just stimulants for increasing arousal.

45

Pulses and passion

This understanding drew upon the medical idea that sexual desire and pleasure were fundamental to fertility – without them, conception was unlikely to occur, not least because men and women would be less likely to engage in intercourse. As the early 18th-century surgeon and medical writer John Marten argued: “God Almighty has… endured each [sex] with natural Instincts, prompting them to the use thereof with desire, in order to perpetuate the Species, by producing new Creatures to supply the room of those who are gone; without which desire, what rational Creature would have taken delight in so filthy, so contemptible and base thing as Venery [sexual intercourse] is?”

Windy meats Aphrodisiacs were believed to act in several different ways. They could heat the body; they could provide nutrition for the production of seed (sperm); and they could provide salt, to make the seed more titillating. Pulses, beans and other flatulent foods were thought to mainly affect men, and to function by creating wind and inflating the body. Angus McLaren, a historian of

reproduction, noted that in the early modern period men were frequently recommended flatulent foods such as apples to stimulate lust. Audrey Eccles, in her work on Tudor and Stuart obstetrics and gynaecology, identified these as a category of stimulants widely known as ‘windy meats’. Medical authors of this era explained that erection of the male genitalia was caused by a combination of factors: blood, imagination, muscles, pressure, seed and wind. Helkiah Crooke’s 1616 book, Mikrokosmographia: A Description of the Body of Man, vividly invoked the roles of blood, spirits and wind in this process: “When as in venerious appetites, the bloud & the spirits do in great quantity assemble themselves out of the veines and arteries, that member is as it were a gutte filled with winde, presently swelling and growing hard.” Though Crooke used wind as a metaphor for the biological processes occurring during arousal, he also noted later in his treatise that “the efficient cause [of an erection] is heate, spirites and winde, which fill and distend” the hollow parts of the penis. Medical writers agreed that foods releasing wind into the body

“‘Windy meats’ were promoted only for men. In fact, flatulence was thought to be particularly damaging to women” 46

enabled men to get and sustain an erection. This was important not just for the act itself, but also for ensuring that impregnation resulted. Medical doctrine explained that male seed was potent and fertile because it was hot, as well as being spirituous and salty. The heat of the seed was maintained during intercourse because it remained insulated inside the man’s body until it was placed directly into the womb or neck of the womb. As Alessandro Massaria’s medical book for women from the turn of the 17th century explained: “Another cause of barrenness, by the defect of the yard [penis], is too much weakness and tenderness thereof, so that it is not strongly enough erected, to inject the seed into the womb; for the strength and stiffness of the yard, very much conduces to conception, by reason of the forcible injection of the humane seed into the womb.” In other words, more wind meant a stiffer erection, more direct placement of seed and a better chance of conception. Wind also made seed more stimulating and more potent. Medical writers asserted that seed titillated and irritated the sensitive skin of the reproductive organs as it passed through them, cau ing arousal. And in his Secret Miracles of Naturee (1559), Lævinus Lemnius explained that seed was made from the “windy superfluity of blood” and that foods that “will make men lusty” should create “plenty of seed, and a force of BBC History Magazine

nourish more, they provoke venery, and is thought to increase sperme.” Another flatulent food described by botanical treatises as an aphrodisiac was the aubergine, or ‘mad apple’. “They breed much windinesse, and thereby peradventure bodily lust,” commented Parkinson. Likewise, William Salmon wrote in the early 18th century that “they yield but little Nourishment, and breed much Wind, whereby ’tis possible they may provoke Bodily Lust”.

Thunder but no rain

WWW.CLAIRROSSITER.COM

“Wind enhanced both the amount and potency of the seed and the function of the male reproductive organs” a flatulent spirit, whereby the seed may be driven forth into the Matrix [womb].” So wind enhanced both the amount and potency of the seed and the function of the male reproductive organs. Unlike categories of aphrodisiacs recommended for consumption by both men and women, these ‘windy meats’ were promoted only for men. In fact, wind and flatulence were thought to be particularly damaging to women. Philip Barrough’s 16th-century medical treatise warned that “windinesse ingendered in the wombe, doth let the fertilitie or conception, & causeth barennesse”. Jane Sharp, 17th-century author of the first femaleauthored midwifery manual, suggested that wome should take juniper berries every morning to prevent wind from collecting in the womb and damaging fertility. Beans and pulses, particularly chickpeas, BBC History Magazine

were among a host of foods identified by early modern medical authors as ‘windy meats’. B rrough, for example, argued that w en a man could not fulfil his marital duties (sexually satisfy his wife and make her a mother) “windie meates a e go d for him, as be chiche pea on, beanes, scallions [onions], leekes, the roote and seed of persneppes, pine nuttus, sweet almonds… and other such like”. The English translation of Jacques Ferrand’s 1623 treatise Erotomania sim larly listed various foods he believed would, through their heat and flatulence, provoke lust, including soft eggs, pine nuts, pistachios, carrots, parsnips, onions, oysters, chestnuts and chickpeas. Herbals produced by botanical writers offered s milar ideas. John Parkinson’s Theatrum Botanicum of 1640 stated that: “Cicers [chickpeas], as Galen saith, are no lesse windy meate than Beanes, but yet

However, not all medical writers agreed that ‘windy meats’ boosted fertility. Even Lemnius stated that: “Some of our lascivious women will say, that such men that trouble their wives to no purpose, do thunder, but there follows no rain, they do not water the inward ground of the matrix. They have their veins puffed up with wind, but there wants seed.” This insinuated that wind, though allowing men to engage in sexual activity, did not enhance the quality of a man’s seed and, thus, did not improve fertility. Similarly, a late 17th-century medical tract by Swiss physician Théophile Bonet confidently dismissed windy meats, stating: “It is commonly reported of Aphrodisiacks, that Flatus or wind is necessary t Venery: but though in Boys erection or distension of the Penis may seem from Flatus, and these may concur by accident, yet they cannot nor ought not to be reckoned among Aphrodisiacks; those things indeed that exci the Spirits stir up Venery, and so make he Seed t rgid but so do not those things that breed or excite wind.” Bonet, again, did not discount the idea that wind could cause the penis to swell, but observed that ‘windy meats’ did not improve the quality of a man’s seed, so did not deserve to be classified as s x al stimulants. These criticisms became more common as the period progressed and, by the 18th century, windy meats had lost their prestige. New understandings of the anatomy of the pen s reveale that wind did not inflate the pen s or enhance male potency and attention shifted to the role muscles and blood flow played in sexual abilities. Jennifer Evans is a historian at the University of Hertfordshire, with a sp cial interest in medicine and sexual health in early modern Britain DISCOVER MORE BOOK 왘 Aphrodisiacs, Fertility and Medicine in

Early Modern England by Jennifer Evans (‘Royal Historical Society Studies in History Series’, Boydell and Brewer, August 2014)

47

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INDIAN TROOPS IN FRANCE, SECOND WORLD WAR – ALAMY

Empires under fire For Britain and France, victory in the Second World War came at a price, says Martin Thomas: the bloody, chaotic unravelling of their imperial projects

BBC History Magazine

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n the spring of 1939, four young French army officers stepped astride motorbikes outside the Paris Military Academy. They were cheered along the Champs de Mars as they began an epic journey to Dakar, French West Africa’s federal capital. Reports from their road trip were relayed home to enliven a two-week ‘imperial market fair’ held in April, with a galaxy of colonial products on display to help distract Parisians from the ominous threat of Nazis massing across the Rhine. Some three miles of roadside stalls lined city boulevards, offering something exotic from the colonies to suit every taste and pocket. Intricate African carvings sat alongside Malagasy vanilla pods, musky Vietnamese perfumes and leopardskin coats. ‘Buy empire’, a slogan to which British consumers were by now well attuned, echoed through Paris. As war loomed, this colonial product placement invited the French public to take solace in the vastness of their imperial assets. But could the empire continue to deliver such bounty when peace turned to conflict? The arrival of total war challenged those who ruled the British and French empires to fashion their overseas possessions into strategic assets – global power systems

rather than the existing diffuse collections of territories, peoples and interests. More than ever, raw materials, colonial revenues, strategic bases and, above all else, additional manpower were the hard currency of imperial power. But far-flung colonies, distant naval bases and other coveted prizes were exposed and hard to defend. Imperial resources and empire attachments might be precious, but the financial and strategic implications of keeping global empires intact against up to three powerful enemies – Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and imperial Japan – were terrifying. The predicament created painful choices. The surest protection against Nazi invasion was a western front manned by forces from the respective empires of Britain and France, as well as home troops. Yet exposed colonial territories could only be protected by conserving their own limited military capacity, which in turn reduced the resources available for the war in Europe. Policy-makers on both sides of the Channel thus came to regard some colonial settlements – French Saigon and British Hong Kong, for instance – as hostages to fortune. While a number of colonies became warehouses, their raw material exports indispensable, several dependencies faced hostile occupations. Yet the challenges facing the world’s two 49

The Second World War

The French empire implodes 1 France

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great imperial powers didn’t end there. Though they may not have realised it at the time, the ways in which Britain and France went about coercing colonial populations into serving the war effort would have a catastrophic impact on the very future of their empires. Indeed, in those locations where anti-colonial sentiment was most virulent – India, Burma and Palestine among British territories, Algeria and Vietnam among French ones – the Second World War would spark outbreaks of anti-colonial violence that would herald the first wave of decolonisation.

Entente cordiale? Britain and France entered the conflict as European allies, but were they imperial partners as well? Franco-British staff held talks in London, Beirut, Singapore and Aden over the summer of 1939 to map out regional strategies for the protection of neighbouring imperial territories. These meetings were certainly panoramic: a ‘Balkan front’ alongside Turkey, naval co-operation in the South China Sea, a joint defence plan for the Indian Ocean. But their results were limited. Turkey, having signed a tripartite alliance with Britain and France on 19 October, stayed out of the war, alarmed by the implications for its northern frontier of the August 1939 Nazi-Soviet pact. In the far east, British naval planners remained unwilling to venture into the waters off French-ruled Cambodia and Vietnam. The picture of closer Franco-British partnership with limited outcomes was equally apparent in economic affairs. Joint discussions on inter-imperial economic cooperation got under way in London in January 1940 but unrestricted trade between British and French territories was never really considered. Despite this, Britain was to bankroll those French colonies that ‘rallied’ to General 50

in the months following France’s fall to Germany in June 1940. Much of Francophone black Africa fell in with Britain’s war effort, supplying primary products in return for the cash needed to finance de Gaulle’s supporters. Part military force, part quasi-governmentin-exile, Free France was determined to keep fighting the Axis powers. But it operated outside France for most of the war. Until mid-1943 its principal assets were in sub-Saharan Africa. But the Free French should not be confused with the numerous civilian resistance networks to emerge inside France. Indeed, these mainland resisters vied with Free France for influence once the collaborationist Vichy regime in southern France, established under Marshal Pétain, started to work more closely with the Germans from 1941 onwards. Meanwhile, because their movement coalesced around General de Gaulle in London and among his supporters in the colonies, followers of Free France – a politically diverse group of armed forces personnel, politicians, diplomats, bureaucrats, and African colonial troops – were often misleadingly described by the catch-all term ‘Gaullists’.

“Most of the fighting within the colonies was Franco-French, a civil war between Vichy and its domestic enemies”

For some, support for the general and his unique vision of French greatness – or grandeur – was almost messianic. For others, de Gaulle’s attractions were incidental to the more urgent priorities of fighting fascist occupation, overthrowing Vichy, and restoring republican democracy to France. As for Free France’s colonial troops, who fought in north Africa, Italy and southern France, serving de Gaulle was, initially at least, as much circumstantial as deliberate. It usually reflected the particular location of a garrison or the loyalties of its senior officers, not the political leanings of the rank-and-file. The estimated 16,500 Free French military losses during campaigning in north Africa and Italy were primarily colonial. Villages in Morocco, Mali and Algeria, not Brittany, the Ardèche or the Pas-de-Calais, mourned the largest numbers of soldiers killed in French uniform after June 1940. Yet there’s a great irony here. For much of the Second World War, the French weren’t fighting the Axis powers, but themselves – in an undeclared civil war, prosecuted on colonial territory, between Vichy and its domestic enemies. This internecine struggle was about the future of France, not its colonies. Yet it was fought in the midst of colonial subjects and frequently exploited them to do the actual fighting. All the while, it remained curiously removed from the daily lives of colonial communities for whom more fundamental questions of food supply, employment and basic rights proved more pressing. Even when the wider war interceded, as, for instance, when Japanese forces occupied Southern Indochina in 1941, or when US and British imperial forces fought to expel Erwin Rommel’s army from French Tunisia in 1943, the quarrels between Vichy supporters and their resistance opponents predominated in French minds. Empire provided the terrain BBC History Magazine

GETTY IMAGES/BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY/MAP: MARTIN SANDERS–MAPART.CO.UK

The French empire in 1939. This included much of north and west Africa, Syria, Madagascar, Indochina, Lebanon and islands in Polynesia and the Caribbean

Fearing French warships falling into German hands, Winston Churchill (shown in the propaganda poster, above) orders British ships to attack the Algerian naval base of Mers el-Kébir, killing 1,297

3 “Three colours, one flag, one empire” A c1940 Vichy government poster paints a picture of unity across north and sub-Saharan Africa and Indochina to recruit soldiers in its fight against Free French forces in the colonies

4 Indochina Japanese troops occupy Saigon in 1941. Viet Minh resistance to Japan, along with famine caused by rice requisitioning, turned local sentiment against France

but not the agenda for the French leadership contest fought out between 1940 and 1945. The British empire, of course, was also fighting for its existence, a fact that left no room for sentiment about the fate of former allies. The British naval bombardment of French Mediterranean fleet warships at anchor in the Algerian port of Mers elKébir on 3 July 1940 drove the point home. Intended to nullify the risk of the French vessels falling into Axis hands, Royal Navy shelling killed 1,297 French sailors. The inevitable cries of Perfidious Albion went up loudest among French naval commanders – and their anger had longterm implications. Several French admirals, notably Jean-François Darlan, scaled the political heights of the Vichy regime as ministers and colonial governors. This made the task of persuading French colonial administrations to join the Allied cause all but impossible.

neutral Ireland contributed 43,000 volunteer servicemen and women. It was Canada, however, that made the most decisive Dominion contribution to the British empire’s struggle for survival. Over 85 per cent of the 1,086,771 male and female service personnel from Britain’s oldest Dominion were volunteers. So many passed through Britain that the BBC Forces Programme broadcast ice hockey highlights on Sunday evenings. Many were lost in dreadful circumstances – as members of the isolated Hong Kong garrison that surrendered to a rapacious Japanese assault on Christmas Day 1941; or as the hapless assault force cut down in the August 1942 Dieppe Raid. India’s contribution to Britain’s war effort was larger still in human terms but its involvement in the war – demanded, rather

5 C sablanca con erence, January 1943 (L to R): General Giraud, commander of French forces in Africa, meets President Roosevelt, Charles de Gaulle and Winston Churchill. Nascent independence struggles and fighting between Gaullist and Vichy forces dominated France’s African colonies

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Mental somersaults Following the fall of France, British military engagements took a more desperate turn. After an abortive September 1940 attempt to install de Gaulle as political supremo in French West Africa, Britain’s colonial secretary, Lord Lloyd, put things bluntly: “Since the French collapsed we have had to do a complete mental somersault… The magnitude of our African interests is out of all proportion to our defences.” The British empire’s war thereafter was one of paradoxes, revealing the best and the worst of imperial connections. Dominion engagement was, for the most part, willingly offered. Only Eire chose neutrality, although Afrikaner opinion in South Africa initially favoured it as well. Once committed, every Dominion provided invaluable support. Even BBC History Magazine

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More than 200,000 tirailleurs sénégalais – west African soldiers – were recruited by France. Many experienced degrading treatment, fuelling anti-colonial sentiment

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than requested, by Viceroy Lord Linlithgow in September 1939 – exposed the fallacy of British claims to fair and equal treatment of its subjects overseas. The All India National Congress, although internally divided over its attitude to the war, was uniformly outraged at Britain’s suspension of reform. Congress representatives promptly resigned from seven of India’s 11 provincial governments, a forewarning of what would later emerge as the ‘Quit India’ movement.

Popular discontent Several ministers in Churchill’s coalition wanted to restart negotiations, most famously Stafford Cripps. Instrumental in thawing relations with Soviet Russia as ambassador to Moscow, Cripps was rewarded with the post of Lord Privy Seal in early 1942. He quickly harnessed growing public support for talks with Indian leaders. As George Orwell commented, the subsequent ‘Cripps Mission’ was “a bubble blown by popular discontent”. During March and April 1942 Cripps and his advisors – known as ‘the Crippery’ – tried to persuade Congress and the All India Muslim League to join India’s wartime administration. The British didn’t promise national independence – at least, not for now, leading to Gandhi’s well-known dismissal of Cripps’ proposals as a “post-dated cheque” from a failing bank. A harsh judgment perhaps, but thereafter, as Yasmin Khan has suggested, India occupied an uncomfortable, median position between loyal imperial home front and restive, quasi-war zone. Even so, the Indian contribution to British empire defence was staggering. Aside from becoming a major lender to the British Treasury, India raised a military force of 2.5 million, of whom 24,338 were killed and 79,489 taken prisoner, mostly by the Japanese. 52

Other colonial peoples made significant sacrifices in defence of the empire, whether eagerly or not. In their cases the discomfiting juxtaposition between imperial patriotism and the empire’s structural racism was even harder to ignore. The colour bar that prevented non-white service personnel from becoming officers was formally relinquished in October 1939. But its spirit lived on. Black African troops fought Italians in Ethiopia and Japanese in Burma, but still in white-officered colonial units. To avoid ‘cross-contamination’, even military blood banks kept separate stocks for whites and non-whites. Beyond the military, some 5,000 merchant seamen, from the Caribbean, Africa and Asia, gave their lives – almost a sixth of the merchant navy’s total losses. Yet, despite the massive contribution to the war effort made by empire peoples, nothing could mask the cracks that began to appear in both British and French empires as the conflict unfolded. Throughout the war years, hyper-inflation, food shortages, social exclusion and political repression were to have a far greater impact on colonial lives than the progress of Allied campaigns or political changes at the top of the colonial tree.

“Bengal’s agony, wrote Nehru, revealed the chasm between British rhetoric and the reality of mass starvation”

In January 1944 the governors of the Free French empire assembled in Brazzaville, the sleepy Congolese capital of French Equatorial Africa, to consider how to put the empire back together. Their discussions were profoundly cautious. Those regions where wartime disruption and dissent ran deepest were scratched from the conference agenda. As a result, neither France’s three north African territories of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, nor the Indochina Federation of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, were discussed at all. Plans for administrative restructuring, economic diversification and greater electoral representation in territories south of the Sahara were framed – but not in terms of preparation for independence. In other words, wider citizenship rights, greater inclusion and improved living standards were intended to make colonial peoples more French, not less. Meanwhile, Britain’s efforts to spread limited military resources widely enough to safeguard its empire against all potential threats had met their nemesis once Japan began its southward drive towards the oil wells of the Dutch East Indies. The fall of Singapore in February 1942, the worst military reverse of the British empire’s Second World War, was, in human terms, eclipsed by the social calamity of famine in north-east India during 1943 and 1944. Determined to speak for the famine’s 3 million victims, Jawaharlal Nehru, imprisoned for his role in the ‘Quit India’ movement in August 1942, took up his pen in Ahmadnagar fort. Their deaths, he noted, bore witness to the chasm between the Allies’ ‘Four Freedoms’ rhetoric (one of which was ‘Freedom from want’) and the reality of mass starvation in a colonial society. The Bengal famine not only exposed the emptiness in British claims of effective BBC History Magazine

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The British empire in 1939. This spanned east, southern and west Africa, the Middle East, India, Canada, Australasia and Malaysia, with outposts in Central and South America

British women and children board a ship sailing to the Philippines during the evacuation of Hong Kong before the territory fell to Japan in December 1941

colonial administration but revealed something deeper about the war’s impact on colonial rule. The stresses of trying to maintain a global empire intact in wartime had undermined the entire construct. The door was thereby opened to those demanding colonial change as soon as the fighting ceased. Britain’s postwar turn towards imperial withdrawal, soon to reach fulfilment in the Indian subcontinent, was rendered possible, imperative even, by the preceding commitment to keep the empire together during global conflict. This connection between victory and empire dissolution was, at once, paradoxical and remarkably simple. The imperial cost of Britain’s triumph of arms was decolonisation.

2 Canada joins the fight Canadian soldiers return from the failed raid on Dieppe in August 1942. Canada provided nearly 1.1 million service personnel; more than 45,000 were killed

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The cost of victory For the French, the collapse of empire was no less dramatic. From June 1940 until Japan’s military occupiers finally overthrew the proVichy colonial regime in Vietnam on 9 March 1945, the French empire was torn apart by the undeclared war between the politicians, soldiers and administrators who ran it. Its endless factionalism antagonised the local elites who were essential to the day-to-day running of empire affairs. More radical anticolonial groups like Algeria’s People’s Party, driven underground by a legal ban in 1939, and the Vietnamese communists, who had been fighting the Japanese since 1941, acquired wider popular support, thanks in large part to their wartime activities. Famine struck in Vietnam as well, the result of punitive rice requisitioning. Entire villages perished, some families clustering inside their homes to die. Others fled to Hanoi where residents described a nightmarish streetscape: “Elderly twisted women, naked kids huddled against the wall or lying inside a mat, fathers BBC History Magazine

3 India rises – and starves Britain sought support from Indian leaders (notably Nehru, pictured left, with Stafford Cripps in 1942) by offering dominion status. Famines killed 3 million, underlining flaws in colonial administration

and children prostrate along the road, corpses hunched up like foetuses, an arm thrust out as if to threaten.” Ultimately, though, it was Japan that did most to knock over France’s house of colonial cards. Its occupation of Indochina, partial at first, total and brutal at last, catalysed the first of France’s major wars against decolonisation. What followed was an eight-year conflict against Ho Chi Minh’s communists that reverberated throughout south-east Asia and the colonial world. The Second World War triggered a crisis of legitimacy that the French empire never quite shook off. Now it was paying the heaviest of prices.

Martin Thomas is professor of imperial history at the University of Exeter. His book Fight or Flight: Britain, France and their Roads from Empire was published in March by Oxford University Press

DISCOVER MORE BOOKS 왘 The Empire Project: The Rise and Fall

of the British World System, 1830–1970 by John Darwin (Cambridge, 2011) ON OUR WEBSITE 왘 Read about the propaganda war

between the Vichy regime and the Free French at: historyextra.com/airwaves

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The life of William Shakespeare

Is this what

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looks like? Did Shakespeare grow tired of his wife? Why was he so wealthy? And which portraits of him can we trust? On the 450th anniversary of the writer’s birth, Paul Edmondson asks some of the most pressing questions about his life

The Cobbe portrait, which dates from c1610. This image’s “provenance and claim to be painted from life make a compelling case” for it being an accurate likeness of William Shakespeare, says Paul Edmondson

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How do we know when he was born?

It seems that England’s greatest poet first appeared on the world’s stage on the feast day of England’s patron saint: St George’s Day, Sunday 23 April 1564. The parish register of Holy Trinity Church, Stratfordupon-Avon records Shakespeare’s baptism on 26 April. According to the Book of Common Prayer, babies had to be baptised either on the next saint’s day after their birth or on the following Sunday. In baby Shakespeare’s case, the next saint’s day was St Mark’s Day, the stolen patron saint of Venice, just two days after his birth. However, Elizabethan folk superstition considered this day to be unlucky, so Shakespeare was baptised after morning or evening prayer on the following day. For corroborative evidence that Shakespeare was born on 23 April we can look to his monument on the north chancel wall of Holy Trinity Church. This tells us that he died on 23 April 1616, aged 53 – that is at the beginning of his 53rd year. Hence the assumption that he was born and died on the same date. Shakespeare’s baptismal entry tells us that he is “Gulielmus filius Johannes Shakespeare”: William, the son of John Shakespeare. Only one person of that name lived in the town. The master bedroom of the house now presented as Shakespeare’s Birthplace was upstairs, overlooking the street – the same room that people have been visiting in homage to Shakespeare since the 18th century. On John’s death in 1601, William inherited the whole of his estate (John had left no will). William allowed his sister, Joan Hart, and her family to live in part of the building (as her descendants did until 1806) and leased another part to become a pub, the Swan and Maidenhead. The house today is a Victorian renovation of the site and buildings purchased by public subscription in 1847. The Birthplace and four other houses associated with Shakespeare’s life are cared for and conserved by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

William Shakespeare was born on the site of this Stratford-upon-Avon building on St George’s Day, 1564 BBC History Magazine

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Questions about Shakespeare’s marriage and sexuality have divided generations of scholars and critics, and continue to do so. When he was just 18, William married Anne or Agnes Hathaway (those first names were interchangeable). She was 26 and already pregnant. It has been estimated that around a quarter of late 16th-century women were pregnant before marriage. Another illuminating statistic has been deduced by local historian Jeanne Jones from records curated by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. Between 1570 and 1630 the average age for men to marry in Stratfordupon-Avon was 24. In that 60-year period, and out of 106 cases, there were only three men who married under the age of 20. Of those three, Shakespeare was the youngest and the only one whose wife was already pregnant. They had three children: Susanna (born 1582) and then boy-and-girl twins Hamnet and Judith (born 1585; Hamnet died in 1596). But were William and Anne happily married? Katherine Duncan-Jones thinks not. In her Ungentle Shakespeare: Scenes from His Life (2001), she presents a Shakespeare who is trapped in his marriage. In Shakespeare’s Wife (2007), Germaine Greer describes the Shakespeares’ relationship as “a demanding and difficult way of life”. Certainly Shakespeare spent long periods of time in London, but that does not mean that he never saw his wife and children. Townsmen frequently travelled between Stratford-upon-Avon and London. The commute took three days by horseback. Some commentators have pounced upon Shakespeare’s decision to leave Anne his “second best bed with the furniture” to question the state of his marriage. True, this bequest could have been a put-down. But it could also have been a romantic souvenir, or even, perhaps, a codified permit for Anne to remain resident in the family home, New Place. Most of the speculation on Shakespeare’s sexuality has been based on his works – for example, the same-sex relationships in his plays. Evidence from his life reveals little. In fact, the only surviving contemporary anecdote of Shakespeare’s personal life is to be found in the diary of John Manningham, a trainee lawyer at Middle Temple. The diary relates how Shakespeare arranged to meet a woman with his fellow actor Richard Burbage, yet got there early to have sex with her before Burbage arrived: “Shakespeare caused return to be made that William the Conqueror was before Richard the Third.” BBC History Magazine

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The curriculum was highly demanding. The pupils studied Terence, Virgil, Tully, Sallust, Palingenius, Mantuanus, Cicero, Susenbrotus, Erasmus, Quintilian, Horace, Juvenal and Ovid in their original Latin. The latter’s Metamorphoses seems to have been Shakespeare’s favourite book from his school days, and he alluded to it many times in his work. The only writing in Greek to feature on the syllabus was the New Testament. Shakespeare’s grammarschool education is writ large across the whole body of his work. Above all, it taught him eloquence. As an education it was rigorous but limited and did not, for example, include numeracy.

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From the ages of 8 to 15, William Shakespeare would have found himself at Stratford-upon-Avon’s grammar school, which had been established under Edward VI to offer a free education to all of the town’s boys. Founded in 1553 and based on Humanist ideals, Tudor grammar schools were a key element of the government’s stated aim of ensuring that “good literature and discipline might be diffused and propagated throughout all parts of our kingdom, as wherein the best government and administration of affairs consists”. These were establishments that took education very seriously indeed. Shakespeare would have gone to school six days a week throughout the year, starting at 6am in the summer and 7am in winter, and staying until dusk (though there were half days on Thursdays and Saturdays). The major Christian festivals provided the few annual holidays. There was little respite, even in the playground, where the boys were expected to talk to each other in Latin. The emphasis of the whole educational enterprise, in light of the teachings of the 16th-century Dutch scholar Desiderius Erasmus (1469–1536), was on the development of eloquence in speech and writing. A key textbook was William Lily’s Short Introduction of Grammar (1540), through which Shakespeare became familiar with a vast range of rhetorical devices.

We don’t know what Anne Shakespeare looked like, but here is an 18th-century artist’s impression

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Of the numerous portraits of Shakespeare, which is the most accurate?

Two images are widely accepted as being accurate depictions of Shakespeare, both of them posthumous: the engraving (below, right) by the artist Martin Droeshout on the title-page of Master William Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies of 1623, and the memorial bust (below, left) in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon. This was installed some time between 1616, when Shakespeare died, and 1623, when it is first mentioned in Leonard Digges’s commendatory verse in a collected edition of Shakespeare’s work. It is possible that both the engraving and the bust were approved by Shakespeare’s widow, family and friends. The playwright Ben Jonson, in his verse printed opposite the engraving, describes it as a good likeness. The bust was made by Gerard Janssen who, in 1614, had also carved the Stratfordupon-Avon tomb effigy for Shakespeare’s friend John Coombe. Janssen’s workshop was in Southwark, near the Globe, so he too probably knew what Shakespeare looked like. Two portraits of Shakespeare have good provenance and may have been painted from life. One is the Chandos portrait (below, centre); the other is the Cobbe portrait

(pages 54/55), which won the support of the world’s leading Shakespeare scholar, Stanley Wells, in 2009. It has been suggested that the Chandos portrait was painted by John Taylor (an actor from Shakespeare’s period), and was bequeathed to William Davenant, who liked to say he was Shakespeare’s illegitimate son. From here it eventually came into the possession of the Duke of Chandos. The Cobbe portrait passed through the descendants of Shakespeare’s only known literary patron, Henry Wriothesley, the 3rd Earl of Southampton. It spawned a succession of near-contemporary copies, the majority of which independently identify the sitter as Shakespeare. The Cobbe portrait has compositional similarities to the Droeshout engraving and may have been its source, possibly through one of the early copies. X-ray analysis has shown that the earliest of these copies is the one now in the possession of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington DC has another early copy but does not accept that the sitter is Shakespeare. Shakespeare scholar Katherine Duncan-Jones is among those who have

“It is possible that the Martin Droeshout engraving and the bust in Holy Trinity Church were approved by Shakespeare’s widow, family and friends”

suggested that the portrait represents Sir Thomas Overbury, based on a perceived visual resemblance. Yet none of the many versions and copies of the Cobbe portrait has ever carried an Overbury identification. What’s more, research at Cambridge University has established that the Cobbe portrait and the undoubted Overbury portrait are unrelated and unlikely to depict the same sitter. Of all the portraits that might represent Shakespeare, the Cobbe portrait is the most intimate and its provenance and claim to be painted from life make a compelling case. LEFT TO RIGHT: Shakespeare’s memorial bust in Stratford-upon-Avon’s Holy Trinity Church; the Chandos portrait may have been painted from life, perhaps by the actor John Taylor; Martin Droeshout’s engraving of Shakespeare, which Ben Jonson described as a good likeness

The life of William Shakespeare

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How did a humble writer grow so rich?

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A c1600 portrait of Shakespeare’s benefactor Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton

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“Henry Wriothesley gave Shakespeare £1,000 ‘to enable him to go through with a purchase which he heard he had a mind to”’

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Did he agonise over his plays or dash them off?

Defining the way in which Shakespeare went about his work is no easy task because canons of literary work develop over time, as do an author’s mode of writing. What complicates matters is the fact that much of Shakespeare’s writings were published after his death. The Sonnets, a few occasional poems and about half of his plays first appeared during his lifetime. The rest (with the exception of Pericles and The Two Noble Kinsmen) appeared for the first time in a collected edition of his work in 1623. In 1986, The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works attempted to cast some light on the issue by putting forward two of the most radical theories to emerge in the past 30 years. The first was that Shakespeare regularly revised what he wrote because of practical theatrical considerations. The BBC History Magazine

BRIDGEMAN/PAT HUGHES, THE SHAKESPEARE BIRTHPLACE TRUST

Shakespeare’s will includes numerous bequests that show that he died a wealthy man. But he cannot have owed his riches simply to his plays. A theatre company would pay a freelance writer a few pounds for a new play, but that wasn’t enough to support and sustain a wife and family. A writer could boost his income by acting as well – and Shakespeare, Ben Jonson (early in his career) and a handful of others appear to have done just that. Yet, all the same, none of the other playwrights of the period were able to invest in the way Shakespeare did. Shakespeare was wealthy because he was, from 1594, a shareholder in the theatre company, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, in which he was also the leading dramatist. Their patron was the lord chamberlain and they performed at court as well as at the Inns of Court, for which they were paid handsomely. Shakespeare was rich enough to buy a house in 1597, which it has been estimated probably cost him around £120. In 1599, he invested in a tripartite lease on the new Globe Theatre. This meant he would receive a share of the box-office takings which, partly because of the popularity of his plays, were high. He carried on investing heavily in Stratford-uponAvon. He bought a massive 107 acres of land for £320 in 1602. Only three years later, he spent £440 on a 50 per cent share in the annual tithes payable to the church. This brought him back around £60 a year. In 1613 he bought a gatehouse at Blackfriars for £140. A story from William Davenant first published in Nicholas Rowe’s biographical account of 1709 suggests that Henry Wriothesley, the Earl of Southampton, gave Shakespeare £1,000 “to enable him to go through with a purchase which he heard he had a mind to”. We’ll probably never know whether he did or not, but it would explain how Shakespeare could afford the shares in the Lord Chamberlain’s Men and how he was able to buy his grand residence, New Place. And all this at a time when a local schoolmaster’s salary was £20 a year.

An artist’s impression of Shakespeare’s family home, which was the largest house in the centre of Stratford-upon-Avon

The site that was occupied by Shakespeare’s New Place until 1759

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Where did Shakespeare call home?

When he was first married, Shakespeare would have had little choice but to live in the family home on Henley Street, Stratford-upon-Avon. He saved money by lodging in London at various places including (in order of residence): the parishes of St Giles Cripplegate; St Helen’s Bishopgate (where he was fined for defaulting on his taxes in 1597 and 1598); St Saviour’s near the Clink, Southwark; and with the Mountjoy family on the corner of Monkswell and Silver Streets, again in the Cripplegate ward. Shakespeare’s family home from 1597 was New Place, the largest house in the centre of

Stratford-upon-Avon. The theatres were closed during Lent and Advent, which would have given him plenty of time to spend at home with his family and to get some writing done in relative peace and quiet. Between 2010 and 2013, the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust commissioned an archaeological dig of the site (New Place was demolished in 1759), which confirmed it to be a grand manor house, designed for someone of considerable means and social status. Shakespeare was a commuter who lodged in London and whose grandest living space was in Stratford-upon-Avon.

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“A dig confirmed New Place to have been a grand manor house designed for someone of no little means and social status” second suggested that he collaborated on several plays, most significantly at the beginning and end of his career. Collaboration was absolutely a standard practice among playwrights of Shakespeare’s time. In 2013 Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen published William Shakespeare and Others: Collaborative Plays, a collection of little-known works in which Shakespeare may or may not have had a hand. There are also some apparently lost plays including Love’s Labour’s Won and Cardenio. Collaboration alone should be enough to put paid to any theory that suggests the plays were the handiwork of a lone aristocrat or an alternative single author operating undercover. The way in which the plays are written shows that Shakespeare had a profound knowledge of theatrical practice and knew the actors for whom he was writing. A catalogue He didn’t dash off his plays, as the film page from a 1623 Shakespeare in Love might like us to believe. listing of all the Instead, he adapted the sources and stories plays of William on which he based his work, reading extenShakespeare sively before putting quill to paper. BBC History Magazine

Dr Paul Edmondson is head of research and knowledge, the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. shakespeare.org.uk DISCOVER MORE BOOKS 왘 William Shakespeare:

A Compact Documentary Life by S Schoenbaum (Oxford University Press, 1987) 왘 Shakespeare’s Wife by Germaine Greer (Bloomsbury, 2007) 왘 The Life of William Shakespeare: A Critical Biography by Lois Potter (Blackwell, 2012)

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is Britain’s bestselling history magazine. We feature leading historians writing lively and thought-provoking new takes on the great events of the past.

Henry VI of England

ENRY VI

fe, Henry lurched from one disaster to the next. Yet in death, countrymen venerated him as a saint. Desmond Seward, uthor of a new history of the Plantagenet kings, explains this miraculous turn of events

One of 500 pilgrim badges of Henry VI that have been excavated in London alone. This one shows the king holding an orb and sceptre

Agincourt, not only did he lose Lancastrian France but his inability to provide good government resulted in the Wars of the Roses and eventually in his own murder. His father, Henry V, had conquered north-western France, marrying the daughter of the French king Charles VI, who recognised him as his heir. When both the English and French monarchs died in 1422, Henry became king of England and France as Henry VI. He wasn’t even a year old. Thanks to his exploits in France, Henry V was always going to be a tough act to follow – and, from an early age, it was obvious that his son wasn’t up to the job. One of his earliest, and most damaging, errors was to

hand over Maine, the gateway to Lancastrian Normandy, to the French. As Henry had impoverished the crown by giving away royal manors, there was no money to maintain proper garrisons. When the French attacked Normandy in 1449, English resistance collapsed. In July 1450 John Paston heard how “Shirburgh [Cherbourg] is gone and we have not now a foot of land in Normandy”. Settlers streamed back over the Channel, to parade through Cheapside with their bedding, and to beg in the City’s streets. All England felt humiliated. The Duke of Suffolk, Henry’s first minister, was lynched, his head hacked off over the gunnel of a boat as he attempted to sail to Calais. Jack Cade’s rebels stormed into London, hoping to kill the king’s other ministers, because of whom, said Cade, “his lands are lost, his merchandise is lost, his commons destroyed, the sea is lost, BBC History Magazine

BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY/MUSEUM OF LONDON

verybody knows that Geoffrey Chaucer’s pilgrims – as related in his worldfamous tales – were on their way to St Thomas Becket’s shrine at Canterbury. Fewer realise that a hundred years lat pilgrims went to Windsor than ury, to the shrine of Henry VI, whom with working miracles. When, ng the early 1480s, Thomas mersmith was hanged on a false ling cattle, he prayed to the king, wh kept him alive for a whole hour hand between the rope and his il he was cut down. There were ike this about late medieval st popular saint (an informal – never officially canonised). ailed spectacularly as a ruler, gdoms. Son of the victor of

Henry VI depicted in a c1535 oil on panel painting. His reign was a sorry tale of madness and failure, yet by the time of this portrait, he was being credited with bringing plague victims and seemingly dead children back to life

BBC History Magazine

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Pain and Retribution A Short History of British Prisons, 1066 to the Present David Wilson

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Another Darkness, Another Dawn A History of Gypsies, Roma and Travellers Becky Taylor

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A new history that charts the movement of these marginalised groups through time and place: from their roots in the Indian subcontinent, across the Byzantine and Ottoman empires to western Europe and the Americas, to their place in the contemporary world. hb | 272 pp | 2 maps | £25

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New history titles, reviewed by experts in their field

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Helen Rappaport at her home in Dorset. “Effectively, the Romanov sisters spent their whole lives as carers for their mother and brother: that’s why they saw so little of the world outside,” she says

Photograph by Oliver Edwards

OLIVER EDWARDS

INTERVIEW / HELEN RAPPAPORT

Helen Rappaport talks to Matt Elton about her new study of the lives of the Romanov sisters, drawing upon their letters and diaries they kept until their assassination by Bolshevik forces in 1918 BBC History Magazine

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Books

Could you tell us about the background to the story of these sisters? The parents of the four Romanov sisters were the last tsar of Russia, Nicholas II, and his German-born wife, Alexandra of Hesse. It was, in the royal dynastic scheme of things, a fortunate marriage, in that they married for love. But there were enormous pressures on Alexandra from the moment that she married to produce a son and heir. Yet she gave birth to one girl after another: within six years she had four girls. She was so desperate for a boy that it pushed her towards a series of quacks: she was highly neurotic, and clutched at illogical, irrational practices. It was getting desperate, but even worse was the extremely vicious talk about Alexandra having brought a curse on the family – that the Romanovs were doomed. Despite all the talk, though, the couple loved their daughters – and, when he finally arrived, their son, Alexei. They doted on them, and never expressed any kind of disappointment. They weren’t consigned to the nursery: the girls grew up with an incredibly strong loving sense of family, and of loyalty to the family, of duty and care. And they kept that to the very bitter end. What impression do we get of the girls? This is the tragedy: the world outside knew nothing of these four girls beyond the pretty official portraits, which presented a bland, docile, dutiful image. People had no sense at all of four very different personalities. What is so interesting about the girls is that you get a clear sense of that very early on. It wasn’t as if they were dull and interchangeable at all. The onus was always on Olga, as the eldest, to set an example. I think of all the sisters, she suffered the most emotionally, and was the most volatile. The next sister, Tatiana, was the great beauty of the family, with the most extraordinarily lovely, svelte figure. But she was also reserved like her mother – so much so that people thought she was haughty. For me, she remains something of a beautiful enigma, although she shone through the most in the end: this dedicated, highly gifted young woman who worked as a nurse in the First World War. Had she not been a princess, she could have gone on to be a pioneering nurse. How about the two younger sisters? Whether by accident or design, Alexandra somewhat anonymised her daughters by

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referring to them as ‘the big pair’ and ‘the little pair’. However, the ‘little pair’ – Maria and Anastasia – were, again, contrasting personalities. I think Maria suffered a little from being the middle child. The older two tended to stick together and, while Anastasia was closer in age, she was extremely wild, undisciplined and manipulative, and Maria – being very soft and docile – suffered at her hands. So Anastasia was not quite the pretty little Romanov sister one might imagine! The awful thing that persisted with Alexandra right to the end is that, even when she was writing letters to Nicholas in the years of the First World War, she infantilised her children. She was still talking about her ‘girlies’ when Olga’s over 20: they weren’t girlies any more, but young women. It’s as if she wouldn’t accept that sooner or later they had to be introduced to the outside world. How far did their mother and brother’s illnesses shape the sisters’ childhood? One of the many tragic angles of this story that really came through is that the girls spent their entire lives in the shadow of sickness. By the time Alexandra had produced a fifth child in 10 years, plus a phantom pregnancy and at least one miscarriage, she was an emotional and physical wreck. She had never been a well woman, suffering from a whole catalogue of things: migraines, sleeplessness, facial neuralgia. It has been suggested that some of it was psychosomatic, and perhaps it was, but what struck home to me was how genuinely, chronically sick she was. And then their incredibly precious brother Alexei was born, who was discovered to have haemophilia, a life-threatening condition which meant that one serious fall or knock could provoke uncontrollable haemorrhage. So then the girls had the burden of looking out for their mother and also cocooning their brother, especially when their mother was indisposed. Effectively those girls spent their whole lives as carers: that’s why they saw so little of the world outside.

“The Romanov sisters grew up with an incredibly loving sense of family”

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Outside of the family, which figures – if any – contributed most to the girls’ development into young women? Nobody. Really, by about 1912 the people in their lives were their mother and father, their auntie Olga and Rasputin – and the people who they most gravitated towards, who were the officers in the entourage. You see these girls growing up surrounded by adults, and a few ladies-in-waiting who they loved and trusted, but they had no association with young people of their own class because Alexandra despised the Russian aristocracy. So when they had a problem they could only turn to adults or each other, not their friends. What misapprehensions about the girls would you like the book to alter? I don’t want people to think that they were four bland little girls in pretty frocks who had no brains, no personalities, and were totally without interest. They were four very vibrant and fascinating personalities, and I think their sense of devotion to their family, and particularly to their very sick mother and brother is exemplary. The extraordinary thing is that whether or not you’re religious, you get a powerful sense of their Christian belief, of this faith that held the family and the girls together. I want people to see that they were four lovely young girls on the brink of adulthood: there was life and they longed to grab it, but it was snatched from them. If you could ask a question of any of the sisters, what would it be? What I most want to know – and there’s so much speculation about this – is how aware they were of how desperate their situation was at the end, when they were put under house arrest and then killed by revolutionaries in 1918. I’ve found evidence, which I use in the book, that they were all pretty aware of how bleak things were, that the game was up. But I would like to know if they clung to hope right to the very last minute, because you get a sense of them being reconciled to God and their faith and whatever life brought. I’d like to know how aware they were of the awful shadow approaching. Four Sisters: The Lost Lives of the Romanov Grand Duchesses by Helen Rappaport (Macmillan, 496 pages, £20)

BBC History Magazine

OLIVER EDWARDS

HELEN RAPPAPORT

Born in Bromley, Rappaport studied Russian at Leeds University. Following a career as an actor, she became a full-time historical writer in the 1990s. Her books include Ekaterinburg: The Last Days of the Romanovs (2008) and Magnificent Obsession: Victoria, Albert and the Death That Changed the Monarchy (2011)

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“Although Lawrence was a deeply flawed figure, he was also on the side of the angels” poseur who greatly exaggerated his heroic wartime exploits for his own self-aggrandisement – he was on the side of the angels in that he genuinely wanted a postwar settlement favourable to his beloved Arabs, whom he had induced and bribed with British gold to revolt against their Ottoman Turkish masters. The actual postwar settlement proved to be a disappointment to him, since it was effectively a carve-up of the Middle East to benefit not the Arabs living there, but the imperial powers of Britain and France and the western oil companies. Disillusionment with the British establishment that he had served and guilt about the betrayal of the Arabs, Augustus John’s coupled with his own peculiar portrait of TE Lawrence in 1919. “Despite the masochistic psychology, was what lay wealth of literature on behind Lawrence’s weird postwar the subject, there is behaviour. In the words of one of his much in Anderson’s biographers, he “backed into the account that was new to limelight”, rejecting his fame and me,” says Nigel Jones enlisting as an anonymous soldier and humble aircraftsman in the Tank Corps and the RAF. Ironically, this served only to further enhance his myth. Scott Anderson, a renowned NIGEL JONES praises an insightful biography of TE Lawrence, American war correspondent, MAGAZINE his role in the First World War and the people around him CHOICE brings all his journalistic skills to this big book, vast in both length clad in flowing white Bedouin robes, and theme. He tells Lawrence’s story, Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, appeared as a refreshing antidote to but also keeps a wider focus on the Imperial Folly and the Making drab disillusionment, fighting a ‘clean’ Middle East and its subsequent troubles. of the Modern Middle East desert war far from the western front. Although still dazzled by the desert by Scott Anderson Unsurprisingly, myths have sun of the Lawrence legend, and quietly Atlantic Books, 592 pages, £25 accumulated around Lawrence ever ignoring some of the more dubious TE Lawrence ‘of since, some hero-worshipping, some aspects of his biography, Anderson Arabia’ was one of debunking. These were crowned by brings in other colourful characters who the few mythologised David Lean’s epic biopic of the early he argues also helped shape the history British heroes 1960s, in which Peter O’Toole as of the Middle East while the attention of the distinctly Lawrence set the legend in the cinematic of politicians was focused on the war on unglamorous First equivalent of stone. the western front. (Even Lawrence World War. In years But Lean’s masterpiece was referred to his desert guerrilla campaign characterised by the entertainment, not history. The general as “a sideshow of a sideshow”). mud and blood of the consensus among historians since is that, Among Anderson’s unfamiliar trenches – with its perceived futile waste although Lawrence was a deeply flawed supporting cast is German diplomat of a generation – this romantic figure, figure – a neurotic pervert, liar and Curt Prüfer, who in some ways can be

ART ARCHIVE

Shaping the Middle East

BBC History Magazine

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Books COMING SOON… “Next issue, I’ll be talking to Ian Morris about his controversial new book War: What Is it Good For?, which argues that mass conflict may have been a positive force. Plus, our experts will be reviewing books on topics including the British working class and the history of Israel.” Matt Elton, books editor

“The concentration on the individual stories makes his book read like a novel” or Wilhelm Wassmuss who, like Prüfer, tried to foment trouble for the British empire by inciting its Islamic subjects to revolt) who played as much or a greater part in forging the Middle East’s destiny during this period than the quartet that Anderson chooses to focus on. Indeed, it is this concentration on the individual stories of Anderson’s cast and their interaction that makes his book read like a novel, rather than a work of history. It is praise rather than criticism to note that Anderson writes like a novelist or journalist rather than an academic historian, however, and minor irritating tics aside – I lost count of the times that he uses the phrase ‘to the contrary’ – his style manages the rare feat of being both readable and informative. Despite the wealth of existing literature on the topic, notably books by John Mack and David Fromkin, there is much here that was new to me. Anderson’s book should be high on the reading list of any western politician still tempted to insert clumsy fingers in the oil-gummed web of Middle Eastern politics and looking for advice. In a word: don’t. Nigel Jones is the author of Peace and War: Britain in 1914 (Head of Zeus, 2014)

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To the continent

ROBERT J MAYHEW enjoys a skilful but overstated look at

the effects of European travel on 17th-century British culture The Jacobean Grand Tour: Early Stuart Travellers in Europe by Edward Chaney and Timothy Wilks IB Tauris, 304 pages, £25

On the cover of The Jacobean Grand Tour we see the image of a dashing 17th-century gentleman at the peak of his powers, one Sir John Finet, with a view of Venice’s Grand Canal glimpsed through a window at his right shoulder. The aim of Chaney and Wilks’s elegantly written book is to explain why Finet and his ilk started to travel to Europe at the beginning of the 17th century and why this mattered to Britain’s evolving cultural, artistic and political identity. In truth Finet, for all the grandeur of his portrait, was merely the guide on the tour that took him to Venice, and would only be knighted later in life. His aristocratic charge was the young William Cecil, Viscount Cranborne, and the backbone of this book is an analysis of the diaries left by Cecil of his tours through France and Italy in 1610–11 and of the exchanges of letters with his father back in England. As such, at one level the title of this book suggests a far broader coverage than the contents deliver, based as they are on just one tour. And yet Chaney and Wilks skilfully interweave their analysis of Cecil’s tour with those of other noblemen. Such intersections with a wider cast of aristocrats, guides, hangers-on, diploWilliam Cecil as depicted in a c1626 portrait. His tour of Europe “was one thread in a richer tapestry of Jacobean travel”

mats and Catholics in exile show that Cecil’s trip was just one well-documented thread in a richer tapestry of Jacobean travel. The aristocrats in question would go on to dominate the court culture of succeeding decades, and many of their guides used their tour roles as a springboard to preferment at court: Finet, for example, became master of ceremonies. Chaney and Wilks rightly acknowledge that the phenomenon of the Jacobean ‘grand tour’ was a far more socially selective one than its 18th-century successor, which saw thousands of gentlemen touring Europe. And yet their argument is both that Jacobean travel was highly influential – as those who undertook it came back to build houses, art collections and indeed a court culture that reflected their continental experiences – and further that we cannot make sense of its continuation without seeing the extent to which the idea of continental travel became embedded in aristocratic expectations in this era. To a certain extent both points are overplayed. The influence of continental travel on art and culture in Britain is constantly gestured towards, but it would be the job of another book to explain it at any length. And likewise, the lines of connection between the Jacobean grand tour and its 18th-century incarnation are not as clear and straightforward as Chaney and Wilks imply, nor is the claim that it is the first decades of the 17th century that mark a turning point in British relations with the continent adequately evidenced. Overall, however, this is a well-written window into an area of considerable significance to the cultural and political identity of 17thcentury England. Robert J Mayhew w, University of Bristol

BBC History Magazine

BRIDGEMAN

regarded as a Teutonic Lawrence, thanks to his attempts to bribe the Arabs of the Hejaz peninsular (today’s Saudi Arabia) to rise in revolt – albeit on the German, rather than British, side. Another vital figure is William Yale, Standard Oil’s man in Palestine, who Anderson identifies as the key player in grabbing much of the region’s untold oil wealth for the US. Finally, there is Aaron Aaronson, who, despite being a Zionist, spied for the Ottomans (an empire which, in contrast to many of today’s Arab states, had been tolerant of its Jewish citizens). There were, however, other figures (influential British administrator and policy officer Gertrude Bell, for instance,

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A detail from the nave of the Sant’Apollinare Nuovo church in Ravenna, Italy. “Maritime states tend to be progressive, outward-looking and, above all, dynamic,” Paine’s account suggests

Currents of change

ANDREW LAMBERT admires an expansive study exploring

the relationship between human cultures and the ocean The Sea and Civilization by Lincoln Paine

BRIDGEMAN

Atlantic Books, 784 pages, £30

The construction of the civilised world was very largely a matter of sea and river communications, and the cities that grew up to serve them. This striking continuous narrative history of human interaction with the oceans demonstrates that maritime trade still lies at the heart of 21st-century globalisation. Civilisations have always been linked by oceans, and ships spread the ideas, religions, technologies, clothes, foodstuffs and pathogens that shaped culture and history.

BBC History Magazine

Furthermore, civilisations shaped by the sea are different to those dominated by the land. Maritime states tend to be progressive, democratic, socially fluid, outward-looking and, above all, dynamic. By contrast their land-locked contemporaries, which relied on military power – from Assyria and Sparta onwards – viewed sea states with a mixture of alarm and envy. They feared ideas and change more than military force. While many set up barriers against trade as a vector of dangerous ideas, it took the Romans to grasp what was needed. Republican Rome annihilated

“This book is a tremendous achievement, well informed and constantly engaging”

the sea-state of Carthage because it challenged their ideology. They then went on to destroy Corinth, the other great maritime city of the age. Lincoln Paine’s text is weighted towards the ancient, medieval and early modern worlds, emphasising the unfamiliar. Chapters on Asian trade before the arrival of European ships challenge the Eurocentric assumptions of older texts. He demonstrates that the maritime frontier of the classical world was not the Atlantic, largely bereft of trade, but the Indian Ocean that opened onto the rich markets of India, China, Arabia and East Africa. The archaeological evidence for Asia’s extensive maritime trade in the ancient and medieval era is overwhelming – a fact that was well known in 15th-century Europe, emphasising the fact that even Columbus didn’t expect to find two more continents between Europe and Asia. Paine’s assessment of China’s age-old lack of enthusiasm for seafaring emphasises the internal and domestic challenges of holding together a vast empire facing internal unrest and trouble on its borders. In addition, the Confucian state displayed all the traits of a classic continental land state. Like the other east Asian regimes, Japan and Korea, China spent centuries in self-imposed isolation. They only rejoined the world in the 19th century, under pressure from western sea powers anxious to extend trade. All three nations were reshaped by the ideals that followed. Rather than ending the book with huge container ships and global sea power, Paine suggests the future may be different as shale gas changes world economics and causes global shipping to decline. The Sea and Civilization is a tremendous achievement, well informed and consistently engaging. Lincoln Paine has produced a book that should be read by anyone interested in the wider history of humanity and the ocean. The maps and illustrations are first class; the text is strikingly well edited. Paine also has the good sense to end with little more than a suggestion: that readers ponder the issue of the sea and civilisation as a current concern as well as a historical debate. Andrew Lambert is Laughton professor of naval history at King’s College London

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Books LISTEN TO TOM LAWSON

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Aboriginal people gather around a campfire in an illustration of Van Diemen’s Land by Joseph Lycett, c1817. Tom Lawson “argues forcefully for British colonialism’s ‘genocidal logic’” in the area, says Simon Sleight

A genocidal consensus?

SIMON SLEIGHT on a provocative look at the role of the British

empire in the mass deaths of Aboriginal Tasmanians

IB Tauris, 256 pages, £25

In this provocative account, Tom Lawson argues forcefully for British colonialism’s ‘genocidal logic’ in Van Diemen’s Land, later Tasmania, in the 19th century. Building on lawyer Raphael Lemkin’s original conception of ‘genocide’ (which included the Tasmanian case), he also lays charges of ‘cultural genocide’ and ‘ethnic cleansing’ at the doors of the British government and scientific and cultural institutions stretching from Edinburgh to Saffron Walden. Recent histories of Aboriginal Tasmanians under colonial rule have shifted focus from ‘What happened?’ to ‘Who knew?’. Lawson rejects claims – made

from the 19th century – that British authorities acted to restrain settlers as the numbers of Aborigines plummeted, or were unaware of the scale of deaths. The colonial office and Van Diemen’s Land Company are shown not to have approved an explicit policy of extermination, but nevertheless to have sponsored such a rapacious land grab in the 1820s that butchery, indeed genocide, was inevitable in the face of Aboriginal resistance. Hundreds were killed, with precise figures shrouded by systematic under-reporting. What followed, Lawson argues, casts the British in a still darker light. In the 1830s most remaining Aborigines were ‘brought in’ (in the terminology of the time) and ‘deported’ (in Lawson’s phrase) to Flinders Island, where disease became rampant. For Lawson, this means of removing a check to the settlers’ raising of livestock looks much like a “stateendorsed campaign of ethnic cleansing”. A “discourse of inevitable decline” took hold, initiating a “nostalgic countdown”,

Life in the camps

FIONA REID has mixed feelings about a lively, if unsubtle,

look at the stories of British PoWs in the First World War The War Behind the Wire: The Life, Death and Glory of British Prisoners of War, 1914-1918 by John Lewis-Stempel Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 368 pages, £20

The British prisoners of war of Nazi Germany are remembered, honoured and even glorified, so why have the PoWs of the First World War been so neglected by both the academic community and the general public? This is the clear question behind

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John Lewis-Stempel’s book, and he sets out to reclaim the stories of those British servicemen who were incarcerated by Germany between 1914 and 1918. Lewis-Stempel documents the cruelties and privations of camp life – of men who were ‘put in the bag’ – in great detail. There is a graphic section on disease in the camps, especially the typhus epidemic of 1914–15, and much moving first-hand testimony about daily life: the poor provisions, the Red Cross parcels, the escape plans and the joy of a letter from home. Lewis-Stempel also gives us a glimpse into the way in which men tried to deal with boredom and there are

it was falsely assumed, to the death of the final Tasmanian Aborigines, whose corpses were dismembered in the name of science in the late 1860s and 70s. The book’s closing chapters trace the symbolic significance of figures including William Lanne and Truganini – widely believed in Britain to be the last Aboriginal Tasmanians (although this ignored offspring with white settlers) – and efforts by contemporary Tasmanian Aborigines to reclaim their cultural remains. This is

accounts of the diversions of camp life: sport, lectures, reading, walks, gambling, alcohol and pets. In all cases the men’s words are genuinely engaging: this is a story that deserves to be told. The author is good at telling this story but less convincing at analysis. To blame disillusionists, pacifists and Marxists for the marginalisation of PoWs is an explanation that confuses and conflates a number of very different concepts. In addition, the book is unashamedly partisan and the Boy’s Own style of language that is employed throughout will not be to everyone’s taste. Tommy Atkins was invariably full of ‘pluck’; he was also ‘fiercely democratic’, proudly monoglot, unfailingly good-humoured and always breaking into song. All British officers, meanwhile, were staunch gentlemen. In contrast, the Hun was ‘a beast’, in

BBC History Magazine

BRIDGEMAN

The Last Man: A British Genocide in Tasmania by Tom Lawson

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a story of survival, as well as tragedy. Insightful and succinct throughout, the study is not without its shortcomings. The ability of Aborigines and convicts to affect the situation is underplayed as the author concentrates on larger narratives. The assertion, meanwhile, that “Whatever the reality... throughout the empire it was the fantasies that mattered most” is nonsensical; the reverse is surely true. Lived experience (and the facts of death) should always trump discourse. If the championing of imperial ‘progress’ necessitated genocide, Lawson needs to account for the deeds, dirty or otherwise, elsewhere within the British world and offer a comparative perspective. By the end of Lawson’s book, however, I was convinced by his argument that a Tasmania envisioned by travel writers, editors, artists and politicians as existing without Aborigines did indeed amount to a “genocidal consensus”. Some readers will disagree. But all must engage with, not ignore, the arguments of a book with as much to say about the inherent logic of British imperialism as about the fate of the men, women and children for so long cast as the last of their line. Simon Sleight, King’s College London

BLOOMSBURY

thrall to Prussian discipline, Prussian punishment and Prussian brutality. In keeping with Tommy’s good humour, the book features some genuinely funny episodes. An officer perfects a Monty Python-esque ‘funny walk’, while the cross-dressing antics of the members of one concert party could feature in a Blackadderr episode. At other times, Lewis strays too far towards the demotic: we find Tommy “buggering about wearing a pickelhaube hat” on one page, for instance, while on another men have to “piss and crap in corners”. This is not, then, a subtle book. It is, however, an entertaining read, and one characterised by the authenticity of the prisoners’ own testimony. Dr Fiona Reid d is the author of Broken Men: Shell Shock, Treatment and Recovery in Britain 1914–1930 (Continuum, 2011, paperback)

BBC History Magazine

Desert flower

JOYCE TYLDESLEY is compelled by an account of the Nile

across the centuries that combines history with travel guide The Nile: Downriver Through Egypt’s Past and Present by Toby Wilkinson Bloomsbury, 352 pages, £20

Seen from above, the Egyptian Nile resembles a flower. The stem is the broad, calm river that flows northwards, while the blossom is the delta: the fertile, flat region to the north of Cairo where the river branches before emptying into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile Valley – southern, or Upper Egypt – is a narrow land bound by cliffs and sterile deserts. Although hundreds of miles long, the strip of rich soil bordering the river was, until the building of the Aswan High Dam, only a few miles wide. There could be little expansion to east or west, and so settlements were arranged along the Nile like beads on a necklace. And, because ancient Egypt never had a state-maintained road network, the pharaohs instead spent much of their time travelling up and down the Nile by boat, ensuring that their remote subjects did not forget them. It was this river, supplemented by canals, that allowed pharaohs to transport massive blocks of stone and so build their monuments. It is therefore appropriate that Toby Wilkinson tells the story of Upper Egypt as a journey along the Nile, “the unifying thread that runs throughout Egyptian history, culture and politics”. It is a long and complex tale that begins with the prehistoric images of fish-traps carved into the cliffs overlooking the Nile and ends, well over 5,000 years later, with the author pondering Egypt’s future. As we

might expect, given this vast timespan, Wilkinson has provided us with an album of selected moments: anything more would have required several volumes. Wilkinson, an Egyptologist, is at his best when writing about the past: his present seems somehow less real. We begin at Aswan, the traditional southern border of ancient Egypt and, so the ancients believed, the source of the annual floods that brought prosperity to the land. Within a few pages, having considered such diverse issues as the High Dam, the ancient Jewish community and the unfinished granite obelisk that lies cracked and abandoned in its quarry, we journey on. At Luxor (ancient Thebes) we meet the warrior king Ramesses II and the Roman emperor Diocletian. Across the river, we are introduced to the unscrupulous dynastic workman Paneb who built royal tombs, seduced village women, and bribed his way to success. Slowly, gently, the book sails north, visiting well-known and less well-known sites and featuring personalities linked by the Nile, until Wilkinson reaches the end of his cruise in Cairo and the present day. For anyone considering embarking on a similar journey, this book is a welcome addition to the more traditional histories and tour guides. Joyce Tyldesley is an archaeologist and senior lecturer in the faculty of life sciences at the University of Manchester A representation of Hapy, god of the Nile flood. Toby Wilkinson “tells Upper Egypt’s story as a journey along the Nile”

“Dynastic workman Paneb built tombs, seduced village women and bribed his way to success” 69

Books / Fiction

The end of an emperor

ALAN FORREST assesses a study of Napoleon’s military

and political rule in the years leading to his defeat in 1815 Citizen Emperor: Napoleon in Power, 1799-1815 by Philip Dwyer Bloomsbury, 816 pages, £30

Citizen Emperorr is the concluding part of Philip Dwyer’s two-volume biography of Napoleon, analysing his years as first consul and emperor from the coup d’état that ended the ‘Directory’ era of the French Revolution in 1799 until his second abdication in 1815. The first volume covered Bonaparte’s vertiginous rise through the revolutionary armies, a story of luck and political connivance as much as of individual talent. This second book is the more difficult to construct, cramming into some 550 pages his years of political power, in which Napoleon both built a stable system of government at home and pursued military and dynastic ambitions abroad. He was a man of dynamic and often impetuous charac-

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ter, who worked long hours, issuing imperious orders to those who served him and finding it difficult to delegate even minor responsibilities. Napoleon’s life alternated between the luxuries of his court in Paris and the seemingly unending travels which his military ambition imposed. In 1815, when the empire was finally overthrown, he was still only 46, but he had exhausted his strength. He no longer had the energy of a young man and, in a system where others were ill-equipped to act independently, the draining of his faculties contributed significantly to the final defeat of the empire. Napoleon emerges here as more of a villain than a hero. He was often rude, hectoring, unwilling to take advice, a bully both to his advisers and his adversaries. He could be guilty of acts of almost unspeakable cruelty. At times, Dwyer does not hide his dislike of the

“Still only 46, Napoleon had abused his body and exhausted his strength”

emperor, although he surely goes too far when he concludes that “after more than 20 years of one of the bloodiest series of wars in European history, Napoleon, France and Europe had little to show for it”. If Napoleon had serious blemishes, he still managed to hold a generation in thrall and, in his prime, was one of the finest generals in history. He was, of course, no democrat. Dwyer believes that his regime is best described as a sort of ‘democratic absolutism’ that broke with the French revolutionary tradition by “combining the military and the government in his person”. And, although military values acquired new prominence in the affairs of state, he is reluctant to accept the charge of militarism. The army was rewarded and its generals richly honoured, but they were not given political authority. In governing the empire, Napoleon relied on collaborators from across Europe, men drawn from the elites of Holland, Italy and the Rhineland. Any biography necessarily concentrates on the story of one man, but we should be clear that the empire was not a one-man band. The book is strong on symbolism and propaganda, and Napoleon’s use of artists to add lustre to his empire. It also gives due weight to the opposition, to the successive plots and conspiracies that sought to disrupt his regime, and stresses the ruthlessness with which they were put down. Yet in later years these became little more than sideshows, as Napoleon increasingly neglected domestic politics in favour of war and further conquest. Military historians will not be disappointed: there are excellent summaries of the campaigns that led to defeat in Russia, at Leipzig and Waterloo. Indeed, after about 1810 his victories had all but dried up, as he vainly tried to impose an embargo of British trade on a reluctant continent. The military genius had faded, and the tsar proved an unforgiving enemy. The reader can almost feel the last traces of realism draining away. Alan Forrest is emeritus professor of modern history at the University of York

BBC History Magazine

AKG-IMAGES

A c1830 engraving showing Napoleon at the battle of Waterloo. The ruler “emerges as more of a villain than a hero” in Dwyer’s take, says Forrest

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The Forgotten Victims Paul Begg, with John Bennett How many murdered women were victims of Jack the Ripper? This intriguing exploration of unsolved slayings in Britain and even across the seas illuminates the Ripper case, contemporary life in London, police procedures, medical practices and much more. 22 b/w illus. Hardback £20.00

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The Gardens of the British Working Class Margaret Willes Margaret Willes’ vibrant people’s history examines the myriad ways that the popular cultivation of plants, vegetables and flowers has played an integral role in everyday British life for more than four centuries. 24 colour + 80 b/w illus. Hardback £25.00

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Wilfred Owen was killed at age 25 on one of the last days of the First World War. He left behind a body of poetry that sensitively captured the pity, rage, valour and futility of the conflict. This major new biography provides a fresh account of his life and formative influences. 37 b/w illus. Hardback £25.00

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Voyaging in Strange Seas The Great Revolution in Science David Knight This landmark history takes us along on the great voyage of discovery that ushered in the modern age. Ideas, experiments, characters, conflicts and achievements – all come to life in this account of the rise of science and how it changed the world. 55 b/w illus. Hardback £25.00

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Books / Paperbacks LISTEN TO EUGENE BYRNE

historyextra.com /podcast

Giants: The Dwarfs of Auschwitz by Yehuda Koren and Eilat Negev

© THE OVITZ FAMILY

Robson Press, 304 pages, £9.99

In 1944, the Ovitzes, a family of RomanianJewish dwarves and cabaret performers, were sent to Auschwitz. The largest family of dwarves ever recorded, they would also be the largest family to survive the camp intact. Paradoxically, they owed their survival to the ‘Angel of Death’, the infamous doctor Josef Mengele, who had a passion for human curiosities, and spared the family for use in his studies of heredity and genetics. Given accommodation away from other prisoners, the Ovitzes were kept in superior conditions, with better food and their own bedclothes. In return, they were forced to serve as test subjects for Mengele’s physical, chemical and gynaecological experiments, and to ‘star’ in the demonstrations of his ‘work’ staged for his fellow SS officers. Throughout, the Ovitzes stuck together, following the

Members of the Ovitz family pictured at the Haifa immigrant camp. Koren and Negev’s account follows their story through the war

BBC History Magazine

PAPERBACKS advice of their matriarch, who had told them to “guard each other, and live for one another”. Astonishingly, all of them survived to see the liberation of the camp by the Red Army in January 1945. They would later move to Israel, where they would continue performing. Their remarkable story, extensively researched, is so beautifully and sympathetically written that it fully deserves to appeal far beyond its core audience. Readers focusing more on the history, meanwhile, might be perturbed by a curious lack of notes or index, but will nonetheless find much of interest, not least an insider’s account of Mengele’s pseudoscientific laboratory of horrors. The Ovitzes were certainly fortunate that they piqued the interest of Dr Mengele, but one suspects from reading this book that they were the sort of remarkable people who much preferred to make their own luck. “Just as diamonds can be small,” one of them recalled, “so were we.” Theirs is an inspirational tale, which has been splendidly told. Roger Moorhouse is the author of Berlin at War: Life and Death in Hitler’s Capital 1939-455 (Bodley Head, 2010)

Pocket Giants: Brunel by Eugene Byrne The History Press, 128 pages, £6.99

Noise: A Human History of Sound and Listening by David Hendy Profile Books, 400 pages, £8.99

Brunel is a far more divisive figure than other wellknown railway pioneers such as George and Robert Stephenson or Richard Trevithick. That explains why Brunel’s place as a national icon is rather new. As this slim guide points out, it was not until LTC Rolt’s 1957 biography of the engineer that his achievements became widely celebrated. Until then, his numerous failures – such as his experiment with an ‘atmospheric railway’, or the expensive broad gauge of the Great Western Railway – overshadowed his successes, and he remained an obscure figure. Brunel’s character did not help. He could be intemperate, arrogant and overbearing, but his imagination and skills as an engineer were unparalleled. As Byrne shows, the vast range of projects that Brunel worked on – from innovatory steamships to the construction of numerous famous bridges such as the Clifton Suspension Bridge, and even a hospital – was still unique at a time when it was not unusual for inventors to work in several fields. It is difficult to decide which of these achievements was the greatest, but most people would have been satisfied at producing just one of them. Consequently, as Byrne ably reminds us, Brunel deserves his place in the sun, even if he was not universally liked or appreciated. Christian Wolmarr is the author of To the Edge of the World: The Story of the World’s Greatest Railway (Atlantic, 2013)

Our world is far noisier than anything experienced by our ancestors. That, at least, is a commonly held view as people adjust to the ubiquitous use of mobiles and iPods and the never-ending growl of traffic periodically punctuated by screeching sirens and alarms. Where people in pre-industrial times, it is said, would listen to the ambient soundscape and absorb its messages, we tend to receive sound passively, learning more from what we see than from what we hear. Not so, suggests David Hendy in a wide-ranging book that originated as a series for Radio 4. He argues that prevailing sounds have always been rich, varied – and closely related to the assertion of power and control. From cave paintings placed where the acoustic was at its most resonant, African drumming, Roman rhetoric, church bells summoning the faithful, and guns in battle, to the silence required of audiences at classical concerts and the co-ordinated chanting of a football crowd or protest rally, sound has always been used to signify authority. This is a difficult message to convey via the silent medium of print. But, as Hendy reminds us, even book production – with its tree-felling, printing presses and delivery systems – has involved untold noises. Daniel Snowman’s latest book is Pocket Giants: Giuseppe Verdi (The History Press, 2014)

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Books / Fiction THREE MORE MEDIEVAL THRILLERS The Name of the Rose Umberto Eco (1993)

A 14th-century portrait of Richard II. Bruce Holsinger’s novel features a book that predicts the king’s murder

FICTION To kill a king

Mistress of the Art of Death Ariana Franklin (2007)

attempted regicide set in the mean streets of medieval London

HarperCollins, 496 pages, £14.99

A medieval poet turns detective in this complex, clever story of murder and intrigue in 14th-century London. John Gower, a man familiar with both Westminster’s corridors of power and the stews and taverns of Southwark, is commissioned by his friend and fellow writer Geoffrey Chaucer to find a book. The book, supposedly written centuries before, is a collection of prophecies, accurately foretelling the deaths of English kings. Its last pages treasonously predict the killing of Richard II, the boy-king currently on the throne. As Gower pursues his investigations into the book and its whereabouts, he begins to realise that its contents carry clues to a plot against Richard’s life. The devious Chaucer knows more than he is telling and Gower’s own son, returned from an Italian exile spent in the service of the ruthless mercenary leader Sir John Hawkwood, is neck-deep in an elaborate

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conspiracy. Meanwhile the book that holds the key to the truth has fallen into the hands of Agnes Fonteyn, a prostitute, who witnessed the brutal murder of its previous owner. Together with her sister and mother, the owner of a bawdy house with the name of the Pricking Bishop, Agnes tries to profit from her discovery. This is a rich novel, with a cast of characters so lengthy that a list of them covers several pages. With the exception of John Gower, who narrates part of the story, Holsinger’s versions of real figures can seem a little flat, but his own inventions – the low-life denizens of medieval London’s mean streets – possess real vitality. They bring colour to a deviously twisting plot, as Gower struggles to unravel the book’s secrets and prevent the assassination of the king. Bruce Holsinger is a leading American scholar of the Middle Ages and his debut novel combines detailed knowledge of the period with an undoubted gift for gripping storytelling. Nick Rennison is the author of Carver’s Questt (Corvus, 2013) For the chance to win a copy of A Burnable Book, turn to page 100

Adelia Aguilar, a 12th-century woman trained in the study of dead bodies, is summoned from Italy to Cambridge to investigate the kidnappings and brutal murders of local children. Under the pen name of Ariana Franklin, the late novelist and journalist Diana Norman wrote a series of books featuring Adelia and this, the first of them, is both a vigorous evocation of medieval life in all its richness and squalor and an attention-grabbing thriller.

The Owl Killers Karen Maitland (2009) Set in a remote village on the Norfolk coast in the early 14th century, Karen Maitland’s vivid and intriguing novel focuses on a band of women who have arrived from Bruges to establish a beguinage, a religious refuge for women and children in a violent world. Amid superstition, fear and the threat offered by members of the mysterious pagan cult who give the book its name, the women must struggle to survive.

BBC History Magazine

MEDIEVAL ARCHIVES

NICK RENNISON is gripped by a twisting tale of prophecy and

A Burnable Book by Bruce Holsinger

In the most famous of all medieval mystery novels, Brother William of Baskerville arrives at a remote Italian abbey where several monks meet with bizarre deaths. A murderer is at work in the monastery and William must use his powers of logic and deduction to identify him. Through a compelling tale of crime and violence, Eco explores differing ideas about the nature of truth and the best ways for fallible human beings to approach it.


 

   
  
       
       

       

  

      

 
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Jonathan Wright previews the pick of upcoming programmes

TV&RADIO

“the quest for perfection and the divine, and the turn to religion in the latter part of the century”. The series covers both classical and popular music. It also charts the establishment of a nascent music business complete with such recognisably modern figures as impresarios and groupies, who in the early part of the century, threw themselves at castrati. As part of the series, the production team commissioned a castratore, the device used to ensure boys didn’t reach puberty and retained their high voices. “Snapping that together in front of the camera was a moment when even I was wanting to cross my legs because, even by 18th-century standards, that must have been one of the most horrific operations,” says Klein, “No anaesthetic…” Ouch. Better perhaps to remember the heyday of the pleasure garden in Vauxhall, Suzy Klein with a country famous for its spectacular illuminations. gent at Bath Assembly Here, people from all classes gathered to Rooms. Klein’s new series sheds light “on all sorts of hear all kinds of music and escape the city. different people who lived “It was a place of fantasy,” says Klein. in 18th-century Britain” “It was very perfumed. There were these beautiful walkways of orange and lemon trees at a time when London must have stunk to high heaven.” Although even here, in typical Georgian style, there were unlit areas to counterbalance MAGAZINE CHOICE the glitz, places where prostitutes plied their trade. Klein’s series is part of the BBC’s Eighteenth-Century Britain: Majesty, Music Suzy Klein tells us about her new social history series and Mischief season. Among other highlights exploring the Georgians’ love affair with music in the season, look out for Lucy Worsley’s The First Georgians: The German The Music That Made Britain: Handel or whatever it was, given what Kings Who Made Britain (BBC Four); Patriotism, Pleasure and literacy rates were like, and what most people Tearing Up History: The Art of RevoluPerfection in the 18th Century had access to in terms of paintings and other tion (BBC Four), dealing with iconoclasm TV BBC Two, high art forms, music was actually the thing and the French Revolution; and Messiah at scheduled for April that people encountered every day.” the Foundling Hospital (BBC Two), Accordingly, Klein’s new series uses which tells the story of what’s said to be the ritain in the 18th century was a place music “as a kind of tool of social history… world’s first-ever charity benefit gig. Lucy Worsley argues that the Georgians of luxury and squalor, e egance and a way of talking about and shedding light were every bit as interesting as the Tudors violence. How are we to understand an era on all sorts of different people who lived of such extremes? One way, says broadcaster in her feature in our May issue in 18th-century Britain”. Suzy Klein, is to look at the history of music That doesn’t mean Klein ignores such key through the century. figures as Mozart or Haydn, but she sees “Music more than any other art form their work in the context of three major “Music more than any touched the lives of everybody in 18th-centhemes: music as a tool for promoting other art form touched tury Britain,” she tells BBC History Magapatriotic identities, notably as Hanoverian zine. “Whether you heard church bells or royals sought to cement their power; the lives of everybody you sang hymns, or you were singing a street pleasure and the way towns such as Bath ballad or you went to the opera, or heard in 18th-century Britain” became centres for entertainment; and

Music for the masses

BBC

B

BBC History Magazine

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DON’T MISS The Great North Passion (BBC One, Good Friday) Among the highlights of the BBC’s Easter programming is a retelling of Christ’s final hours staged against the backdrop of a huge cross made from shipping containers

In thrall to our ancestors Producer Archie Baron troduces Ian Hislop’s new series charting our obsession with history

TV BBC Two, scheduled for April

he past is not just another country, but a place we often invent when we visit. Or at least this seems to be one lesson of Ian Hislop’s new series, which considers how our ideas about the past play into the present. “[The notion of the olden days] is a concept that’s rich in imagination, and has obviously made a huge contribution to setting a path for us and framing our existence as a society,” says Archie Baron, the show’s executive producer. The first programme focuses on “heroes and foundation myths”, and in particular the figures of a likely imaginary monarch and one of the greatest kings in British history, respectively Arthur and Alfred, and the way they’ve been viewed by different generations. The second show deals with “tradition and the invention of tradition,” notably the Victorian obsession with medievalism. The final programme tackles our sentimental attachment to the countryside, “a place no one ever lived, yet one that deeply influenced British society from the point at which it became an urban rather than a rural country”. Throughout, Hislop is keenly aware of paradoxes around our attitudes towards Ian Hislop – pictured at Winchester Great Hall, home to a famous medieval round table – analyses how successive generations have viewed the heroes of British history

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the past – and the way our attitudes change with time. Today, for example, people go out of their way to see the Headstone railway viaduct in the Derbyshire Peak District, yet art critic John Ruskin led a campaign to prevent its construction, reasoning it would spoil the bucolic beauty of Monsal Dale. “Ian speculates that one day we’ll be pining for wind farms and fracking sites, even though many people now think they’re a blot on the landscape,” says Baron. The series also explores how an attachment to the past can seem at first glance to be nostalgic, yet actually be forward-looking. In this context, consider a figure such as William Morris (1834– 96), a leading light in the Arts and Crafts Movement, a man fascinated by the medieval era. Baron: “He was a progressive, a socialist, a visionary, someone who wrote The News from Nowheree [1890], the most fogeyish science fiction novel of all time, and who was drawing, from an imagined yesterday, a truly radical vision of a future society.”

“Ian speculates that one day we’ll be pining for wind farms and fracking sites”

A diver explores Britain’s sunken maritime history

Deepwater archaeology Deep Wreck Mysteries TV Yesterday,

scheduled for Wednesday 9 April

The deepwater wrecks off Britain’s coast have much to say about these islands’ maritime history, yet they’re tough to explore. But not impossible, as this five-part series proves. The first programme deals with the troop carrier SS Leopoldville, hit by a torpedo while making its way from Britain to France in 1944 – why weren’t more men rescued from the ship? Divers go 56 metres below the waves to learn more.

Blood and guts The Crimson Field TV BBC One,

scheduled for April

Those who served in field hospitals during the First World War worked on a frontier, a place between the horrors of the battlefield and the comforts of the home front. Such is the premise of writer Sarah Phelps’s six-part series, which focuses on the medics who treated the wounded on the western front. Oona Chaplin (The Hour), r Hermione Norris (Spooks), Suranne Jones (Scott & Bailey) y and Kevin Doyle (Downton Abbey) y head a starry cast.

Oona Chaplin plays nurse Kitty Trevelyan in The Crimson Field

tory Magazine

UKTV/BBC

Ian Hislop’s Olden Days: The Power of the Past In Britain

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Witnesses to a tragedy Clydebuilt: The Ships That Made the Commonwealth TV BBC Two Scotland, scheduled for April

BBC/BRIDGEMAN

Channel 5 reveals how Francis Walsingham ensnared Mary, Queen of Scots

It’s spring at last and a new season on BBC Four marks the days getting longer by celebrating the British garden. Highlights include British Gardens in Time (April), which explores four iconic gardens, and Everyday Eden: A Potted History of the Suburban Garden (April), where the subject is more modest plots. Also potentially on the horizon for April is The Marches: How a Border Made Us (BBC Two), Rory Stewart’s series about the area where Scotland and England meet. The Spy Who Brought Down Queen Mary (Channel 5, April) explores how spy Sir Francis Walsingham engineered the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots. On Radio 4, Burying Lenin (Monday 21 April) finds Daniel Sandford considering how Russia might mark the centenary of the 1917 revolution. How Do Eight Year Olds Learn History? (April) considers how we teach children about the past. Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics (Monday 31 March) sees the comedian and writer celebrating such figures as Sophocles and Virgil. The BBC Radio Scotland series Women With a Past (Tuesday 8 April) profiles remarkable but under-celebrated figures such as Effie Gray (1828–97), John Ruskin’s wife. For those with satellite, highlights include Navy Seals (PBS America, Friday 4 April), which tells the stories of missions undertaken by the American special forces. Boys of H Company y (PBS America, Wednesday 23 April) is a docudrama that follows the US invasion of Iwo Jima in 1945.

BBC History Magazine

he crew of the cable repair ship CS Mackay-Bennettt were hard men. Working in the chilly waters of the North Atlantic, they could be at sea for weeks on end. “It’s a tough job, I mean, if you’re not an alpha male, don’t apply,” says actor David Hayman, host of a new series about ships built on the Clyde. Yet surely even these men couldn’t have been prepared for the sight that greeted them in 1912 when the ship went to pick up those lost in the Titanic disaster. The crew retrieved more than 300 bodies, with third-class passengers buried at sea because the Mackay-Bennettt couldn’t cope with the numbers. However, the crew took charge of one body, that of a fair-haired baby boy, later

DVD REVIEW

Trailblazing champion Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson (PBS America/Go Entertain, £17.99)

When Jack Johnson defeated Canadian Tommy Burns on Boxing Day in 1908 to take the world heavyweight boxing crown, it was a momentous moment: an AfricanAmerican had taken a title hitherto the sole preserve of white pugilists. It was an extraordinary achievement for a son of former slaves whom James Earl Jones (who played a Johnson-like character in the movie The Great White Hope) describes as “a self-made man”. Johnson was surely this and more. He was athletic, intelligent, graceful and blessed with self-belief. Director Ken Burns’s Emmy-winning documentary tells Johnson’s story in fine style, tracing the boxer’s childhood in Texas, his rise to fame,

identified as Sidney Goodwin. In Nova Scotia, Hayman visited his grave. Scraping away snow, he found a Dinky toy and other keepsakes. “I spoke to the men who worked the grave site and they say it happens all the time,” he reports. “People just come all the year around to make tributes at that little boy’s grave.” Clydebuiltt also explores the stories of the clipper Cutty Sark, HMS Hoodd and the Robert E Lee, which ran the Union blockade in the American Civil War. The series will be available on BBC iPlayer.

Actor David Hayman explores the grim aftermath of the sinking of the Titanic

his polyamorous personal life and his persecution by racists working for the authorities. With the help of grainy black-andwhite archive footage and atmospheric photographs, notably images of Johnson exuding charisma of Ali-like proportions, Burns’s film makes us realise why he continues to matter. In particular, Johnson insisted on being free. It says far more about white America than Johnson that it had such a problem with this notion. Jack Johnson on his way to victory over Tommy Burns in Sydney, 1908

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OUT&ABOUT HISTORY EXPLORER

Africans in Tudor and Stuart Britain

Listen to Miranda Kaufmann ON THE PODCAST

A

fter knighting Francis Drake in 1581, Queen Elizabeth commanded that the Golden Hind, the ship in which he had circumnavigated the globe – the first Englishman to do so – be lodged in a dock in Deptford as “a monument to all posterity of that famous and worthy exploite”. Drake’s ship was broken up a century later, but the replica docked in the pretty Devon harbour of Brixham transported me, with a creak of timber and a whiff of salt and tar, back to the world of those Elizabethan sea dogs. Drake’s story, of course, has been told many times. What is far less well known is the story of the Africans who sailed aboard the Golden Hind. Drake’s voyage was not merely a feat of navigation. He and his crew returned home rich with treasure plundered from the Spanish – so much, in fact, that investors in the voyage doubled their money. Drake’s privateering escapades inevitably led to encounters with Africans – as over 300,000 were transported across the Atlantic in bondage, largely by the Portuguese and Spanish, between 1502 and 1619. Drake himself had been involved in his cousin John Hawkins’s attempts to get in on this lucrative business in the 1560s. But Drake would also have encountered Africans in England, where a growing black presence was a notable side-effect of the war with Spain. During the 16th century, privateers brought hundreds of Africans to ports such as Bristol and Plymouth following

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smash-and-grab raids on Spanish ships. In the three years following the 1588 battle against the Spanish Armada, more than 200 privateering voyages were launched. In 1590, 135 Africans were brought to Bristol aboard just one privateering ship. The voyage of the Golden Hind tells this tale in microcosm. Not only did at least three Africans join the ship during its epic journey, but one – Diego – was already on board when Drake set sail from Plymouth on 15 November 1577. Diego was a Cimarron, one of the Africans who had escaped their Spanish captors to found their own settlements in Panama. The Cimarrons played an important role in Drake’s story: in the 1570s, they formed an alliance with the English privateer as he launched a series of raids on the Spanish in central America. It was during this campaign that Drake and Diego’s paths first crossed, as Diego acted as the principal point of contact between the English and the Cimarrons, who in April 1573 jointly captured over 150,000 pesos of Spanish silver and gold. There’s little doubt that Drake held Diego in high regard. The Englishman named Fort Diego, built on an island in the Gulf of San Blas off Panama, after his ally. And there’s every chance that the ornate Drake Jewel (pictured on page 82), a gift from Queen Elizabeth dominated by the image of a black African united with the face of an Englishwoman, symbolises the alliance between England and the Cimarrons. After this adventure, Diego returned to England with Drake. He may have lived at Drake’s house in Plymouth, or even

JENI NOTT

As part of our series in which experts nominate British locations to illustrate historical topics, Miranda Kaufmann visits the Golden Hind in Brixham to tell the story of an African who died serving Francis Drake

BBC History Magazine

“Descend into the bowels of the ship and you really get a feel for the African Diego’s life aboard the Golden Hind” MIRANDA KAUFMANN

Historian and writer Miranda Kaufmann prepares to board the replica Golden Hind in Brixham harbour. Francis Drake’s crew included several Africans during his voyages Photography by Jeni Nott

BBC History Magazine

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Out & about / History Explorer

accompanied his master on campaign in Ireland. What we know for sure is that, in 1577, he joined Drake on his famous voyage around the world. Entering ‘Drake’s cabin’ aboard the replica Golden Hind, you can imagine Diego hovering on the threshold in his role as Drake’s personal manservant. He would have prepared his master’s clothing, served his meals, run errands for him and used his fluent English and Spanish to interpret the words of captive Spaniards. But descend a flight of steps into the bowels of the ship and you really get a feel for Diego’s life aboard the Golden Hind – or, rather, his death. Walk past the crew’s cramped sleeping quarters and you’ll come to the barber surgeon’s cabin, equipped with a gruesome array of medical instruments. Poor Diego would probably have become all too familiar with these during his final days. Diego was with Drake in November 1578 when ‘Indians’ ambushed his landing party on the island of Mocha, off the coast of Chile. Diego was hit by an arrow. The wound wasn’t immediately fatal, but it became infected almost a year later, and he died of gangrene poisoning near the Moluccas,

“THE SURGEON’S CABIN IS EQUIPPED WITH A GRUESOME ARRAY OF MEDICAL INSTRUMENTS WITH WHICH DIEGO WOULD HAVE BECOME ALL TOO FAMILIAR” 82

now the Maluku Islands, Indonesia. Medical aid would have been minimal. By the time Drake had rounded the tip of South America, the Golden Hind’s chief surgeon was dead and another had been left behind on sister ship the Elizabeth. There was, “none left us but a boy, whose good will was more than any skill he had,” recorded Francis Fletcher, the chaplain on the voyage. That Diego survived his initial injury was ascribed to the grace of God and “the very good advice of our Generall” [Drake]. Perhaps Drake remembered how, 10 years earlier, his cousin John Hawkins had used a clove of garlic to treat an arrow wound in Cape Verde. The captain would certainly have done his utmost to keep this useful crew member alive. The same care was not evident in Drake’s treatment of Maria, an African woman taken from a Spanish ship captured off the Nicaraguan coast on 4 April 1579. Drake’s former steward and sworn enemy, William Legge, described Maria as a “proper negro wench” and reported that she “was afterward gotten with child between the captaine and his men pirates”. Drake had no children with either of his wives, and may have been impotent, so it is unlikely he was responsible for getting Maria pregnant. We will probably never know whether the father was one of Drake’s crew, a Spaniard, Diego or one of two other African men who had joined the ship. What we do know is that on 12 December 1579 Maria was marooned, heavily pregnant, on Crab Island, Indonesia. When John Drake, Francis’s cousin, was examined by the Spanish Inquisition in 1584, he suggested that Maria had been left on the island, along with two African men, “to

The Drake Jewel, now in the V&A Museum

The barber surgeon’s cabin shows crude, bloody methods of medical treatment

found a settlement”, adding that they had been provided with rice, seeds and means of making a fire. However, he also admitted that there was no water on the island. The story of the Africans aboard the Golden Hind sheds light on encounters that led to the arrival of black men and women in the British Isles in the 16th and 17th centuries. Setting foot on the replica, we, too, enter the world of the privateers. When we disembark, we are in a sense following in the footsteps of more than 360 Africans known to have been living in Britain between 1500 and 1640. As they arrived, they inhaled air that an English court ruled in 1569 was “too pure an air for slaves to breathe in”. They were free. Dr Miranda Kaufmann is a historian with a special interest in Africans in 16th and 17th-century Britain mirandakaufmann.com ON THE PODCAST

Listen to Miranda Kaufmann discuss the arrival of Africans in 16th-century Britain  historyextra.com/podcasts

BBC History Magazine

REX/JENI NOTT

This replica of the Golden Hind has been docked in Brixham harbour since 1964

AFRICANS IN TUDOR AND STUART BRITAIN: FIVE MORE TO EXPLORE VISIT

The Golden Hind

2 Stirling Castle

4 St Dunstan and All Saints, Stepney, London

 stirlingcastle.gov.uk

 stdunstanstepney.com

Peter the More, a courtier of James IV of Scotland (1473–1513), was one of at least five Africans present at the Scottish royal court in the early years of the 16th century, and in 1504 was provided with a horse and lodging at Stirling. It’s known that Africans also lived at Stirling with Mary of Guise, second wife of James V, around 1549. You can take a guided tour of the castle to find out more about characters such as Guise – and some of the magnificent royal buildings that they inhabited.

This east London church was the site of the first three known marriages between Africans in Britain. In July 1608 “Peter & Mary both nigers” are recorded in the marriage register. The following February, the church was the venue for the wedding of “John Mens of Ratclif a niger & Luce Pluatt a niger”, and in September 1610, “Salomon Cowrder of Popler a niger sailler & Katheren Castilliano a niger also” were married here. Salomon is one of a handful of Africans known to have worked as sailors during Stuart times.

The Golden Hind, Brixham The Quay, Brixham, Devon TQ5 8AW  goldenhind.co.uk

1 Castle Cornet, Guernsey  museums.gov.gg

PETER HERRING/GUERNSEY MUSEUMS/JENI NOTT

James Chappell, African servant to Christopher Hatton (1632–1706), saved the lives of the viscount and his small daughters when lightning set fire to the powder magazine at this large island fort in 1672. After the explosion, which killed Hatton’s wife and mother, the household moved to Kirby Hall, Northamptonshire. The fact that Chappell’s second wife was Mercy Peach, daughter of the licensee of the Hatton Arms in Gretton, lends some credence to the local legend that Chappell himself eventually became landlord there. More certain is that Hatton’s will of 1695 specified a bequest of £20 a year for the rest of Chappell’s life. You can explore the fort’s 800-year history at the Story of Castle Cornet Museum.

2

St Dunstan and All Saints, Stepney dates back to at least the 10th century

4 5 1 3 Knole, near Sevenoaks  nationaltrust.org.uk/knole/

Castle Cornet has guarded the harbour of St Peter Port for eight centuries

BBC History Magazine

Between 1613 and 1624, “John Morockoe, a Blackamoor” worked in the kitchen and scullery of Richard Sackville, 3rd Earl of Dorset, while “Grace Robinson, a Blackamoor” was one of the laundry maids. One of England’s largest country houses, Knole dates from the 15th century and was more recently birthplace of the writer Vita Sackville-West (1892–1962).

5 Mary Rose Museum, Portsmouth 3

 maryrose.org

Black diver Jacques Francis was part of the salvage team hired by Henry VIII to recover goods from the wreck of the Mary Rose between 1545 and 1549. Born on Arguin Island off the coast of Mauritania in c1528, he had come to Southampton with an Italian merchant. His Venetian master, Piero Paulo Corsi, was accused by the merchant Domenico Erizzo of stealing salvaged goods from the wreck of the Sancta Maria and Sanctus Edwardus. In 1548 Francis gave evidence in the resulting court case before the High Court of the Admiralty, which accepted his description of himself as a servant, not a slave. You can see the ship to which Francis dived – and many of the artefacts that went to the bottom with it – in the recently renovated Mary Rose Museum.

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Out & about

TEN THINGS TO DO IN APRIL The North West at war EXHIBITION / FREE ENTRY

achieve this, we’ve included archive film footage that really gives a sense of the atmosphere of the region – from MAGAZINE a football match at Old Trafford to the IWM North, Manchester CHOICE Manchester ship canal. 5 April 2014–31 May 2015 콯 0161 836 4000 쎲 iwm.org.uk “When war struck, thousands of men from the North West were recruited into useums across Britain are in the the armed forces, and many women process of planning a host of found themselves working in the region’s events and exhibitions to mark the industrial centres, actively supporting 100th anniversary of the start of the the war effort.” First World War – and none more so As well as letters and documents than the Imperial War Museums. written by those serving on the front This month, IWM North launches its line, civilians’ feelings about the war centenary programme with an exhibialso feature in the exhibition, in the tion that explores the lives and experiform of letters written by two sisters ences of people from the North West of in Liverpool. England during the conflict. More than Says Brosnan: “Although the wartime 200 personal objects, films, sound experiences of the North West were not recordings, photographs, artworks and hugely different from elsewhere in ONLINE letters – many on public display for the the country, the exhibition gives a SLIDESHOW first time – will be on show, including fascinating insight into how people historyextra.com /northwest first-hand accounts from soldiers who reacted to war and how it affected fought in campaigns such as Gallipoli, everyday life. The North West was a the Somme and Ypres. major focus for recruitment – Chapel IWM historian Matt Brosnan says: Street in Altrincham (named the “The exhibition begins by giving visitors “bravest little street in England” by an impression of what the North West George V) saw 161 men from just looked like on the eve of war. To help 60 houses serve in the armed forces during the war.” Also on show is an Albert Medal (the “One street saw 161 men predecessor of the George Cross), and a trench periscope created and manufacfrom just 60 houses serve tured in Manchester by Duerr’s, a in the armed forces” company that usually made jam.

From Street to Trench: A World War That Shaped a Region

M

EXHIBITION / FREE ENTRY

Recording Britain

Millennium Gallery, Sheffield 3 April–2 November 콯 0114 278 2600 쎲 museums-sheffield.org.uk

View highlights from the V&A’s collection of more than 1,500 paintings commissioned in 1939 to record places and buildings of national interest as the threat of bombing loomed.

EXHIBITION / FREE ENTRY

Constable: Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows

EXHIBITION / FREE ENTRY

Last Post: Remembering the First World War

National Museum Cardiff 7 March–7 September 콯 029 2039 7951 쎲 museumwales.ac.uk

Coalbrookdale Gallery, Ironbridge Gorge, Shropshire 11 April–27 March 2015 콯 01952 433424 쎲 ironbridge.org.uk

See Constable’s 6ft-long landscape Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows at this, the first of five venues to display the work.

An exhibition that explores the vital contribution made by Post Office workers during the First World War, both at home and on the front line.

EXHIBITION

Amongst Heroes: The Artist in Working Cornwall Royal Cornwall Museum, Truro 5 April–4 September 콯 01872 272205 쎲 royalcornwallmuseum.org.uk

Explore artistic representations of Cornish people at work between 1880 and 1920, through a selection of paintings and objects.

John Constable takes centre stage in Cardiff this month

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BBC History Magazine

Charlotte Hodgman previews some of the latest events and exhibitions EXHIBITION

Lancashire Fusiliers in a flooded communication trench at Ploegsteert Wood on the western front, January 1917. Thousands of men from the north-west of England fought, and died, in the First World War

EXHIBITION

EVENT / FREE ENTRY

School Ship on the Tyne

The Colchester Earthquake

Segedunum Roman Fort, Baths and Museum, Wallsend 3 April–13 July 콯 0191 236 9347 쎲 twmuseums.org.uk

Natural History Museum, Colchester 17 April 2014 쎲 cimuseums.org.uk

Find out more about the training ship HMS Boscawen, which was damaged by fire in March 1914 and subsequently broken up.

Actors tell the story of the earthquake that hit Colchester 130 years ago this month, inflicting damage, homelessness and death on the town’s inhabitants.

IWM/ROYAL COLLECTION TRUST, HER MAJESTY QUEEN ELIZABETH II, 2013/ NATIONAL MARITIME MUSEUM/BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY

The First Georgians: Art and Monarchy 1714–60

David Garrick and his Wife, Eva-Maria Veigel by William Hogarth, c1757–64

Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace, London 11 April–12 October 콯 020 7766 7300 쎲 royalcollection.org.uk

Marking the 300th anniversary of the Hanoverian succession, the Queen’s Gallery will be bringing together more than 300 works from the Royal Collection to explore the reigns of George I and his son, George II. Paintings by Peter Paul Rubens and cabinets by James Moore will be among the ONLINE SLIDESHOW star attractions. Read Lucy Worsley’s feature on the Georgians in our May issue

historyextra.com /firstgeorgians

EXHIBITION

Scottish Gold Hunterian Art Gallery, University of Glasgow 14 March–15 June 콯 0141 330 4221 쎲 gla.ac.uk/hunterian

A glittering array of gold objects from the ONLINE Hunterian collection and other UK institutions SLIDESHOW historyextra.com is on display under one roof at an exhibition /scottishgold exploring the history of gold in Scotland – from the Bronze Age to the present day. Among the items on show are several of the largest-known Scottish gold nuggets and a gold ampulla used at the Scottish coronation of Charles I in 1633. EXHIBITION / FREE ENTRY

Guiding Lights: 500 Years of Trinity House and Safety at Sea National Maritime Museum, London 16 April–4 January 2016 콯 020 8312 6565 쎲 rmg.co.uk/national-maritime-museum

Some 70 objects will go on show at the National Maritime Museum to mark the 500th anniversary of the Corporation of Trinity House, and the lifesaving service it continues to provide. The corporation was granted a royal charter by Henry VIII to improve the safety of navigation on the river Thames, a role that later expanded to encompass parts of the British coastline. A model of Eddystone lighthouse, made by lighthouse keeper George Knott, c1865

BBC History Magazine

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Out & about

YE OLDE TRAVEL GUIDE

Savannah 1859

In the latest instalment of our historical holidays series, in which experts imagine they’re writing a travel guide in the past, Dan Cossins invites visitors to Savannah, where abolitionist stirrings are threatening the city’s serene veneer ILLUSTRATION BY JONTY CLARK

H

WHEN TO GO Savannah enjoys a semitropical climate. Winters are mild, perfect for the busy social season, while summers are oppressively humid, particularly July and August when wealthy citizens escape to the mountains or New England. The best time to visit is spring, when it’s warm and the air is filled with the scents of magnolia and jasmine. COSTS AND MONEY It’s US dollars here, but the currency can be confusing. Local and state banks print their own paper money, and even small businesses produce their own small denomination notes and coins. A good rule of thumb is to accept only currency issued by local banks or businesses, as locals will likely accept them. Counterfeiting is commonplace, so keep your wits about you.

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DANGERS AND ANNOYANCES Summer brings mosquitoes from the surrounding swamplands and tiny biting bugs called ‘no-see-ums’. As for safety, you’ll be fine in central areas. However, be sure to tread carefully in the rough, ramshackle wards on the eastern and western fringes, where sailors and labourers – whites, free blacks and ‘hired-out’ slaves alike – drink, brawl and whore. Even here, though, the streets are gas-lit and patrolled by night watchmen. These days, so-called ‘vigilance committees’ weed out anti-slavery troublemakers. Indeed, it is best to keep any abolitionist sentiments you may hold to yourself: locals recently

tarred and feathered a visitor from Massachusetts for making his feelings known on this divisive issue. SIGHTS AND ACTIVITIES Visitors can’t fail to be charmed by Savannah’s 24 garden squares, shaded by magnificent, sprawling oak trees draped in Spanish moss, which hangs from branches like so many fraying white-grey scarves. These leafy plazas, connected by an orderly grid of sandy streets and lined with grand mansions, are surely the most picturesque and tranquil in the US. Lately, however, they have played host to a rising chorus of anger over the conspiracies of northern abolitionists. Such deep-seated fears are exacerbated by John Brown’s recent ill-fated attempt to incite an armed slave revolt in Virginia. To understand the city’s commercial boom, head down to bustling Bay Street and the docks, where the Savannah river is cluttered with ships, and

“LOCALS RECENTLY TARRED AND FEATHERED A VISITOR WHO AIRED HIS ABOLITIONIST SENTIMENTS”

wharves teem with stevedores (dockworkers) loading and unloading cargo. Carts piled high with lumber, rice and bundles of snow-white cotton clatter along, as clerks and draysmen shout to be heard over the steam-powered cotton presses and sawmills that roar day and night. Ethical travellers should bear in mind, however, that the whole spectacle – not to mention the great wealth it generates – relies on the brutal enslavement of thousands of Africans, who are regularly flogged bloody in the field. If you have the stomach, go see for yourself at one of the vast plantations that are a short carriage ride from the city. For a more pleasant diversion, hire a boat and paddle out to Jekyll Island, where sandy beaches provide an idyllic swimming spot for those in the know.

BBC History Magazine

WWW.JONTYCLARK.COM

OME TO LEAFY PLAZAS, stately mansions and a craze for chilled champagne, Savannah is a delightful place to visit. But abolitionists take note: this is a city built on the dark trade of slave labour

SAVANNAH TODAY

Savannah’s Forsyth Park is a popular tourist destination

ALAMY

SLEEPING AND ACCOMMODATION Get your head down at more than half a dozen well-reputed hotels, not least Pulaski House and City Hotel – the latter boasting a lively bar and a grand staircase complete with ornate mahogany banisters. Expect to pay around $10 a week for board and lodging. For the less well-heeled, the city boasts scores of basic boarding houses. EATING AND DRINKING Saloons serve stiff drinks and solid meals. In the more salubrious hotels, you might sample green turtle stew cooked with spices, Madeira and claret. These days, the city boasts two icehouses, and chilled champagne is all the rage. If you’re self-catering, pick up groceries at City Market, where white butchers rub shoulders with slave women, who chew sugarcane as they tend

BBC History Magazine

“HEAD DOWN TO BUSTLING BAY STREET WHERE THE SAVANNAH RIVER IS CLUTTERED WITH SHIPS” seafood and vegetable stalls for their masters. ENTERTAINMENT The recently renovated Savannah Theatre on Chippewa Square accommodates 1,200 for plays, musicals and occasional lectures. You might just as well find merriment on the streets, however, where fiddlers, clairvoyants and jugglers wander. And on parade days, of which there are many, the city swarms with spectators gathered to watch various splendidly uniformed militia groups march to the beat of their own bands. The annual Coloured Fire Companies Parade is intriguing: free black men sing loud and proud as they march with their

engines, before competing to see whose hose can throw the longest jet of water. After such an uplifting display, the grim procession of shackled slaves shuffling from holding pens to auction house is a sobering sight indeed. GETTING AROUND Savannah’s network of shady avenues is a haven for walkers. Watch where you step, though, for the streets are strewn with excrement from the dogs, cows, pigs and horses that share them. If and when you tire, horsedrawn carriages are available for hire. Dan Cossins is a freelance journalist who lives in Philadelphia

With its beautiful colonial architecture and canopy of oak trees, Savannah is one of the crown jewels of the Old South. In recent decades, however, this sleepy beauty has revived herself into a vibrant city full of art-school kids from across the US and beyond. The historic district is home to elegant 19thcentury buildings, not to mention Forsyth Park, which occupies 30 acres and dates to the 1840s. The Savannah History Museum, housed in the restored Central of Georgia Railway train shed, provides an overview of the city’s story. But nothing beats exploring it first-hand, admiring the antebellum houses built for wealthy cotton merchants – such as the Owens-Thomas House. On the waterfront, River Street is cobbled with ballast from the ships that once docked there and is overlooked by five-storey cotton warehouses. It’s now a touristy stretch lined with cafes, souvenir shops, seafood joints, and bars, but still worth a look. Just beyond the city is the Wormsloe Historic Site, where the ruins of an 18th-century colonial estate are open to the public.

IF YOU LIKE THIS… If antebellum architecture and a glimpse of the Old South is what you are looking for, visit Charleston, South Carolina, or the rowdier New Orleans, Louisiana.

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Hidden

HERITAGE

With spring here at last, and 2014 being such a big year for historical anniversaries, there really is no better time to explore some of Britain’s fantastic heritage sites for yourself. There are events happening throughout the year, so head out and support Britain’s heritage and enjoy a great day out.

BURGHLEY HOUSE

MICHELHAM PRIORY

LINCOLNSHIRE

SUSSEX

England’s Greatest Elizabethan House; Home to William Cecil, Lord High Treasurer and Chief Minister to Queen Elizabeth I, Burghley is a true treasure house and this year is open for visitors from Saturday 15th March. Building work started in 1555 and stretched over 32 years before completion in 1587

and still remains a Tudor house at its heart. With over 450 years of family history and fabulous places to eat and shop Burghley is one not to be missed this season: Burghley House, Stamford, Lincolnshire, PE9 3JY 01780 752451 Twitter: @BurghleyHouse www.burghley.co.uk

Enter through the 14th-century gatehouse across the moat and explore the beautiful gardens or tour the historic house. Furniture and artefacts trace the property’s religious origins and its development over 800 years. Explore the watermill, forge and Elizabethan Great Barn. Free parking, cafe,

playground and shop plus special events. 01323 844224 [email protected] www.sussexpast.co.uk

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STUDLEY CASTLE

LEEDS CASTLE

WARWICKSHIRE

KENT

Deep in the Warwickshire countryside within 28 acres sits De Vere Venues Studley Castle. Dating back to 1833 the Castle has everything to offer to make an enjoyable visit, whether for business or leisure. Maybe you want to stop by for a coffee and explore the building? Or make a weekend

of it and experience the service and dining we have to offer? Whatever the reason, do not hesitate to call for more information. 0871 222 4727 [email protected] www.deverevenues.co.uk/en/ venues/studley-castle/ contact-us

Over the past 900 years, Leeds Castle has been home to six of England’s medieval Queens and a preferred residence of King Henry VIII. The last private owner, Lady Baillie had a discerning eye for beauty and restored the Castle to the glorious presentation visitors can now see every day.

01622 765400 [email protected] www.leeds-castle.com

HEVER CASTLE AND GARDENS

SULGRAVE MANOR

KENT

NORTHAMPTONSHIRE

Experience 700 years of history at the double-moated castle once the childhood home of Anne Boleyn. Splendid panelled rooms contain fine furniture, tapestries, antiques and an important collection of Tudor portraits. Explore award winning gardens with magnificent topiary, fountains,

cascades, grottoes, mazes, lake, shops and restaurants. Special events throughout the season include: Edwardian Life, Hever’s Home Front and Jousting Tournaments. 01732 865224 [email protected] www.hevercastle.co.uk

Sulgrave Manor is a Tudor and Georgian manor house that was built and lived in by the direct ancestors of George Washington, the first President of the USA. It is a wonderful example of Tudor design brought to life through the remarkable story of an extraordinary family.To explore

the full story please check the website or telephone for opening times. Bring this advertisement with you to enjoy 2-for-1 entrance (Cheapest entrance free, does not apply to groups, schools or ticketed events.) 01295 760205 www.sulgravemanor.org.uk

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WEST STOW ANGLO-SAXON VILLAGE BURY ST EDMUNDS

Easter Heritage events in West Suffolk: Dark Age group Ormsgard will be at West Stow Anglo Saxon Village for the Easter weekend. Focusing on the story of the sword, there will be combat demonstrations and an opportunity to see how Early Anglo Saxons lived. Visit us at West Stow Anglo-

Saxon Village, Bury St Edmunds, IP28 6HG 01284 728718 Booking: 01284 758000 www.westsuffolkdiary.co.uk

MOYSE HALL MUSEUM BURY ST EDMUNDS

Easter Heritage events in West Suffolk: Explore Moyse’s Hall’s collections through our “Victorian Pot-Luck” game. Pick from 20 real citizens of Bury’s past; from murderers to workhouse inmates to shopkeepers. Learn about their lives and then play Top Trumps to see who picked best!

Visit us at Moyse’s Hall Museum, Cornhill, Bury St Edmunds, IP33 1DX. 01284 706183 Booking: 01284 758000 www.westsuffolkdiary.co.uk

HYLANDS HOUSE

WOBURN ABBEY

ESSEX

BEDFORDSHIRE

Hylands House is a beautiful Grade II* listed neo-classical building. It is set in 574 acres of landscaped parkland, with formal gardens, Serpentine Lake, Stables Visitor Centre, with café and gift shop. The Park and Stables Visitor Centre are open everyday. The House is open on Sundays and

Mondays during the summer and can be hired for events at other times. 01245 605500 [email protected] www.chelmsford.gov.uk/ hylands

‘Valiant Hearts: World War I – Woburn and its Stories’ opens 11th April and offers an insight into the lives of people from Woburn during the war. The 11th Duke of Bedford established the Bedfordshire Training Depot, and the Duchess ran one of the most medically advanced hospitals at Woburn Abbey.

Meet Tommy from The Front and a Woburn nurse at events on the 18th-21st April and 3rd-5th May. 01525 290333 [email protected] www.woburnabbey.co.uk

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OUNDLE MILL

TUDDENHAM MILL

NORTHAMPTONSHIRE

SUFFOLK

Oundle Mill is a stunningly converted traditional watermill set dramatically over the River Nene on the outskirts of the historic market town of Oundle. A chic yet sympathetic refurbishment perfectly combines contemporary glamour with mellow stone and old oak beams to offer a unique

and exceptional environment. 01832 272621 [email protected] www.oundlemill.co.uk

Combining years of history with a chic yet sympathetic refurbishment, Tuddenham Mill brings together an exceptional environment, a genuine passion for great food and wine, the ultimate in bedroom comforts and discrete yet attentive service. From its exposed beams and

water wheel to the contemporary elegance of the bedroom furnishings, Tuddenham Mill offers a unique mix of influences to excite the senses. 01638 713552 [email protected] www.tuddenhammill.co.uk

THE SHIP AT DUNWICH

THE WESTLETON CROWN

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Once a haunt of smugglers, The Ship at Dunwich is a great place to eat, drink, relax and get away from it all. Now a quiet, idyllic village, surrounded by nature reserves, heathland and beach, only the romantic ruins of Dunwich monastery remain to hint at the fate of this once thriving medieval port,

claimed by the waves during a terrible storm. It’s said you can still hear the peal of the church bells beneath the waves. 01728 648219 [email protected] www.shipatdunwich.co.uk

The Westleton Crown is a traditional Coaching Inn with origins extending back as far as the 12th-century. Located a few miles from the Suffolk Heritage Coast. It retains the character and rustic charm of its heritage whilst offering guests the sophistication and comforts of contemporary living.

01728 648777 [email protected] www.westletoncrown.co.uk

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desecration of the abbey. of which is now the Trout Fishery. In the 1760s Robert Adam created Today Syon has 30 acres of some of his finest work inside Syon gardens which incorporate the House leading Sir John Betjeman Great Conservatory, Flora’s Lawn to describe it as the“Grand and over 200 species of rare trees. Architectural Walk”. Syon House open: 19th March The gardens, created in the 16th2014 to Sunday 2nd November century, were landscaped by 2014. Wednesday, Thursday, Capability Brown in the mid-18th Sunday and Bank Holidays, century to include two lakes, one 11am–5pm. Last admission 4pm.

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MISCELLANY

Q&A

Q What was the Superga Disaster? A Just as English football continues to

remember the Munich air crash of 1958, so Italian supporters of the game, and particularly fans in Turin, are still haunted by the so-called Superga Disaster of 1949 (see image below). On 4 May that year, a plane carrying nearly every member of the FC Torino team was returning to Turin from a match in Lisbon. Descending to the airport in a thunderstorm, it crashed into the side of the Superga hill on the outskirts of the city, killing everyone on board. A team of enormous talent, which had won three Serie A titles in succession and was again topping the league table, was wiped out. Nick Rennison

Q Catherine of Aragon’s marriage to Henry VIII was annulled, so why do numerous historians still continue to refer to it as a divorce?

published in the US – entitled Long Lance – in which the author claimed to be a full-blooded Native American, the son of a chief of the Blackfoot tribe. Chief Buffalo Child Long Lance, as the author said he was called, became famous as an expert on the Plains Indians and starred in a silent Hollywood film depicting their traditional way of life. But another Native American adviser on the film was suspicious of Long Lance and with good reason. Enquiries proved that Long Lance’s father wasn’t a Blackfoot ackfoot chief at all but a janitor in Nor th Carolina, and that he was of mixed whitte, African-American and Che erokee ancestry. Exp posed as a sham, Long Lance retired from the lime elight, committing suic cide a few years later. Nick k Rennison Th he man who called him mself ‘Long Lance’ was in fact a fraud

BBC Histtory Magazine

Ross Clifton, via email

’Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived’. So runs the mnemonic by which every schoolchild learns the sequence of Henry VIII’s wives. But it is technically incorrect, for the word ‘divorced’ should be replaced by ‘annulled’. Not so catchy, perhaps, but certainly more historically accurate. The ending of Henry’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon (and Anne of Cleves) was referred to by most contemporaries as an annulment or – more euph euphemistically – ‘The King’s Great Matter’. Some, though, (including the Thomas archbishop of Canterbury, T Cranmer), did occasionallyy term it a divorce. Historians have for many years used the latter term far morre prevalently – myself included. This is att least partly due to the fact that it is a mo ore easily understandable word in mo odern parlance. After all, both ‘an nnulment’ and

A

ILLUST TRATION BY GLEN MCBETH

GETTY IMAGES/EYEVINE-THE NEW YORK TIMES

Q Who was Chief Buffalo Child Long Lance? A In 1928 an autobiography was

‘divorce’ boil down to the same thing: the ending of a marriage. But there are nevertheless important differences. An annulment can usually only happen if a marriage is proved legally invalid – for example, if it is unconsummated, bigamous or took place between a closely related couple. A divorce, on the other hand, can be secured for any number of reasons, from infertility to irreconcilable differences. Whereas the latter is undoubtedly far more common today, the same was not true in Henry VIII’s day. In my forthcoming biography of Thomas Cromwell, the man who orchestrated Henry’s annulment, I will be sure to get it right. Tracy Borman’s biography of Thomas Cromwell will be published by Hodder & Stoughton later this year

97

Miscellany

QUIZ

BY JULIAN HUMPHRYS

To coincide with our feature on the hapless Plantagenet king Henry VI (see page 24), a quiz on royal saints and martyrs

ONLINE QUIZ EVERY FRIDAY

historyextra.com /quiz

1. Which royal ‘martyr’ was the purported author of a spiritual autobiography called Eikon Basilike? 2

2. Whose martyrdom is depicted here? 3. Which royal relic is supposedly buried with the body of St Cuthbert in Durham Cathedral? 4. Which royal saint went on two crusades?

5. Which ‘good king’ was murdered on the orders of his brother, Boleslav the Cruel, in September 935?

b. Who wrote the score for the film? 7. Which English princess and saint was the mother of three kings of Scotland? 8

8a. Which English king and saint was murdered here? b. Where were his remains kept for 50 years following their discovery at Shaftesbury in 1931? c. Where are they now? QUIZ ANSWERS 1. King Charles I 2. King Edmund of East Anglia. He was supposedly tied to a tree by the Danes and shot with arrows after refusing to renounce his faith 3. The head of St Oswald, the Christian king of Northumbria, who was slain in battle by King Penda of Mercia in 642 4. Saint Louis, or Louis IX of France. He took part in the Seventh Crusade in 1249-50, when he was captured, and the Eighth Crusade of 1270, when he died 5. Saint Wenceslaus of Bohemia 6.a. Alexander Nevsky b. Sergei Prokofiev 7. Saint Margaret of Scotland 8.a. Edward King and Martyr b. In a Woking bank vault c. In a Russian Orthodox church in Brookwood cemetery, Surrey

98

Anno Domini or The Flight into Europe (1883) by Edwin Longsden Long. The term ‘anno domini’ came into common usage in the later Middle Ages

Q When was the system of BC/AD established and who introduced it? Andy Ward, via email

The first time that a chronology was based on the time of Christ was when the scholar and monk Dionysius Exiguus (Dennis the Small) devised a new system for the church to calculate the date of Easter in AD 525. Under Dionysius’s system it was 525 years “since the incarnation of Christ,” a terminology he preferred to the previously used ‘Diocletian era’, since this referenced a Roman emperor who had persecuted Christians. Dionysius had no need for a BC, nor a Year Zero. The new concept caught on, but extremely slowly. The use of ‘anno domini’ was, in fact, popularised by the Venerable Bede in his Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum (Ecclesiastical History of the English People), finished in the early 730s, although this usually employs the expression “ab incarnatione Domini” – “since the incarnation of the Lord”. However, you do not find the term

A

‘anno domini’ in common usage until you get into the later Middle Ages, when it starts appearing in legal documents. The era ‘Before Christ’ was not something that particularly concerned medieval scholars. The German historian and monk Werner Rolevinck (1425–1502) has some claim to being the inventor of BC. His history of the world from the creation until his own time, Fasciculus Temporum, employs a Latin term meaning “in the year before the birth of Christ”, several times. The term ‘ante Christum’, ‘before Christ’, does not come into fashion until the 17th century, and was probably popularised by the French Jesuit scholar Denis Pétau. The term ‘Common Era’, often considered modern and politically correct, was in use by the early 1700s. Eugene Byrne’s most recent book is Pocket Giants: Brunell (The History Press, 2014). Read our review of the book on page 73

BBC History Magazine

BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY/ALAMY/GETTY

6a. Which Russian prince and saint was the subject of an epic film by Sergei Eisenstein?

IF YOUR QUESTION IS PRINTED, WE’LL SEND YOU U A RECENTLY PUBLISHED HISTORY BOOK

Q Who would have been king after

Richard III if Henry Tudor had not triumphed at Bosworth? upps3812, via Twitter

At the time of the battle of Bosworth, Richard must have been in a pretty lonely place. His only legitimate son and heir, Edward of Middleham, had died in April 1484, just months after being formerly crowned as Prince of Wales. Then in March 1485 Richard’s wife, Anne Neville, died, probably succumbing to tuberculosis. But Richard was only 32 at the time of the battle, so there was still time for him to find another queen and father an heir. Many suspected that Richard harboured a desire to marry his niece, Elizabeth of York, his brother Edward IV’s eldest daughter – something the king strenuously denied, and which he would uld h have struggled to obtaiin a papal dispensation for. Instead, it seems that he had d begun to look abroad for a foreign match, to the ‘Holly Princess’ Joanna, the sister of King John II of Portugaal, who had spent much of her life as a nun. Marriage negotiations opened just six daays after Anne’s death. At 33, Joanna could have still co onceived a child. If Richard had remained childless, then it seems he had designated John de la Pole, Earl of Linco oln, as his heir. Lincoln was the son of Richard’s sister, Elizabeth, herselff the sixth child of Richard, Duke of

GETTY IMAGES/SAM NOTT

A

York, and had been appointed president of the Council of the North and Lieutenant of Ireland during Richard’s reign. Edward, Earl of Warwick, the son of Richard’s elder brother, George, Duke of Clarence, would have had a stronger claim to the throne. But Richard argued that George had been disinherited through his earlier treasonous behaviour, which involved plots to depose his elder brother, Edward IV. In the event, Lincoln never managed to come to terms with Henry Tudor’s victory. Two years later, he was killed fighting against Henry’s forces at the battle of Stoke. Chris Skidmore MP is author of Bosworth: The Rise of the Tudorss (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2013)

Edwa ard Plantagenet, the Earl of Warwick, would have had a strong g claim to the throne

BBC History Magazine

GOT A QUESTION? Write to BBC History Magazine, Tower House, Fairfax Street, Bristol BS1 3BN, email: [email protected] or submit via our website: historyextra.com

SAM’S RECIPE CORNER Every issue, picture editor Sam Nott brings you a recipe from the past. This month, it’s kulich, a rich, buttery Russian sweet bread usually eaten at Easter, but tasty at any time of year

Kulich Often baked in a coffee tin so its shape resembles that of the hats of Russian Orthodox priests, kulich remains a tasty treat after the restrictions of Lent. Traditionally it is decorated with the letters XB ĺŔŌŕŖŒŕ ĦŒŕŎŔʼnŕʼn (Khristos Voskrese Christ is risen) INGREDIENTS Bread: 20g dried active baking yeast; 350ml warm milk; 200g caster sugar; 80g sultanas; 50ml rum; 750g plain flour, sifted; 5 eggs; 1tsp vanilla extract; pinch of salt; 250g butter, softened; 80g almonds; 80g chopped mixed peel Icing (optional): 1 egg white; 250g icing sugar; 1tsp lemon juice METHOD Bread: Dissolve yeast in 100ml warm milk, add ½tsp sugar. Soak sultanas in rum. Sift 120g of flour into a bowl, add remaining 250ml milk and mix well. Add yeast mixture, cover, and let it stand in a warm place for 30 mins. Separate egg yolks and beat with sugar until fluffy and pale in colour. Stir in the rum, add vanilla and mix. In a separate bowl, add a pinch of salt to egg whites. Whisk until peaks form and set aside. Add egg yolk mixture to yeast mixture and mix. Fold in the egg whites. Add the remaining flour in small

batches, mixing well each time. Knead until dough separates from sides of the bowl. Transfer dough to a flat surface and knead for 10 mins. When pliable add butter, 50g at a time. Knead for 2 mins and form into a ball. Transfer to a lightly oiled bowl, cover with cling film and wrap in a tea towel. Leave to rise in a warm place for 90 mins. When dough doubles in size, remove and knead for 2 mins. Knead in sultanas, almonds and mixed peel. Line a tin with baking paper, fill 1/3 full with dough and cover with a tea towel. Leave to prove until dough rises to the top. Preheat oven to 180°C. Bake for 45–60 mins. Icing (optional): Mix raw egg white with icing sugar and lemon juice. Spread over the top of the bread and let it drizzle down the sides. Difficulty: 4/10 Time: 220 mins Recipe provided by allrecipes.co.uk

Miscellany

PRIZE CROSSWORD D

Name the revered British astronomer and populariser of science (see 24 across)

CROSSWORD PR RIZE

You may photocopy this crossword

Across

Down

1 The city of York developed from this Roman garrison (8) 2 West Bank city, which is symbolic of Israeli-Palestinian conflict (6) 3 Tribe of people of Sarawak, Borneo – in British colonial times, fierce headhunters known as Sea Dayaks (4) 4 Soviet leader whose 18-year tenure produced an era of economic and social stagnation (8)

100

Book worth

£14.99

for 7 winners

AB Burnable bl Book B k By Bruce Holsinger Chaucer’s London is the setting for this thriller focusing on the existence of a seditious book that foretells the deaths of English kings. When John Gower sets out to track down the book, his search leads him into a world of betrayal, murder and politics. Published in hardback by HarperCollins, £14.99. Read a review of the book on page 74

6/15 across/20 down A confrontation between the US and USSR that lasted about two weeks in the early 1960s and brought the Cold War to the brink of nuclear conflict (5,7,6) 7 Relating to China’s most influential teacher, philosopher and political theorist (9) 9 The Kushite kingdoms were located in this ancient region of north-east Africa (5) 10 Member of an ancient central Italian tribe whose women, legend has it, were abducted by Romulus’s men (6) 14 Francis Drake’s flagship on the South American expedition, partly sponsored by Elizabeth I, 1577–80 (6,4) 16 Native American tribe forcibly removed from northern Florida by the US government around 1842 (8) 17 Elizabeth (‘Bessie’) __, the beauty who became mistress of Henry VIII and mother of his son, Henry Fitzroy (6) 18 Raiders who operated along the Anglo-Scottish border from the 13th to 16th centuries (7) 19 Anglo-Saxon theologian/historian who wrote The Ecclesiastical History of the English Peoplee (2,4) 20 See 6 down 21 Ignatius of __, the 16th-century

soldier who underwent a spiritual conversion and later founded the Society of Jesus (6) 23 The ‘homeland’ of the Mormons fleeing persecution in the 1840s, which became a US state in 1896 (4) Compiled by Eddie James

HOW TO ENTER Open to residents of the UK, (inc. Channel Islands). Post entries to BBC History Magazine, April 2014 Crossword, PO Box 501, Leicester LE94 0AA or email them to [email protected] by 5pm on 23 April 2014. Entrants must supply name, address and phone number. The winners will be the first correct entries drawn at random after the closing time. Winners’ names will appear in the June 2014 issue. By entering, participants agree to be bound by the terms and conditions shown in full in the box below. Immediate Media Company Limited, publishers of BBC History Magazine, would love to keep you informed by post or telephone of special offers and promotions from the Immediate Media Company Group. Please write ‘Do Not Contact Magazines’ or ‘Do Not Contact IMC’ if you prefer not to receive such information by post, email or phone. Write ‘No Email BBCW’ if you do not wish to receive similar offers via email from BBC Worldwide. Please write your email address and mobile phone number on your entry so that BBC History Magazinee can keep you informed of newsletters, special offers and promotions via email or free text messages. You may unsubscribe from receiving these messages at any time. For more about the BBC Privacy Policy see the box below.

SOLUTION TO OUR FEBRUARY CROSSWORD Across: 1 Berbers 5 Edward I 10 Grey 11 Sellafield 12 Aspern 13 Roentgen 14 Alchemy 16 Tito 18 Flag 19 Alamein 21 Augustus 23 Aachen 25 Alan Turing 26 Rome 27 Suarez 28 Cremona Down: 2 Etruscan 3 Boyne 4 Rosenberg 6 Drake 7 Aristotle 8 Dolmen 9 Clergy 15 Calpurnia 16 Trafalgar 17 Inkerman 19 Austin 20 Dulles 22 Thule 24 Coram SIX WINNERS OF WATCHING WAR FILMS WITH MY DAD D Allen, East Sussex; G Smart, Essex; R Fowler, Leicester; D Biggins, Cambridge; P Lynch, West Yorkshire; S Pegum, Hertfordshire CROSSWORD COMPETITION TERMS & CONDITIONS 쎲 The crossword competition is open to all residents of the UK (inc. Channel Islands), aged 18 or over, except Immediate Media Company Bristol Limited employees or contractors, and anyone connected with the competition or their direct family members. By entering participants agree to be bound by these terms and conditions and that their name and county may be released if they win. Only one entry permitted per person. 쎲 The closing date and time is as shown under How to Enter, above. Entries received after that will not be considered. Entries cannot be returned. Entrants must supply full name, address and daytime phone number. Immediate Media Company (publishers of BBC History Magazine) e will only ever use personal details for the purposes of administering this competition, and will not publish them or provide them to anyone without permission. Read more about the Immediate Privacy Policy at www.immediatemedia.co.uk/privacy-policy/ 쎲 The winning entrants will be the first correct entries drawn at random after the closing time. The prize and number of winners will be as shown on the Crossword page. There is no cash alternative and the prize will not be transferable. Immediate Media Company Bristol Limited’s decision is final and no correspondence relating to the competition will be entered into. The winners will be notified by post within 20 days of the close of the competition. The name and county of residence of the winners will be published in the magazine within two months of the closing date. If the winner is unable to be contacted within one month of the closing date, Immediate Media Company Bristol Limited reserves the right to offer the prize to a runner-up. 쎲 Immediate Media Company Bristol Limited reserves the right to amend these terms and conditions or to cancel, alter or amend the promotion at any stage, if deemed necessary in its opinion, or if circumstances arise outside of its control. The promotion is subject to the laws of England.

GETTY IMAGES

5 In 1810 during the Peninsular War, French forces failed to dislodge the British and Portuguese in this battle (one of several spellings) (6) 8 One nickname of the flamboyant German First World War fighter pilot, credited with scores of combat victories (3,5) 11 The Israeli leader (two terms) who was assassinated in 1995 (5) 12 Emperor under whose 49-year reign the Mogul empire reached its greatest extent (9) 13 Roman officer in charge of legionnaires; also the name of a British military tank (9) 14 Italian port at the height of its political power in the 13th century, with the defeats of Pisa and Venice (5) 15 See 6 down 17 See 19 across 19/17 across ‘The Liberator’ was the nickname bestowed on this early 19th-century South American influential revolutionary (5,7) 20 He had a 27-year reign as China’s first prime minister [Wade-Giles spelling] (4,2-3) 22 Founder and first prime minister of the state of Israel (3-6) 24 Sir Fred, the 20th-century British astronomer noted for his support of the ‘steady state’ universe theory (5) 25 One of two provinces (the other being Pannonia) into which Illyricium was divided by the Romans (8) 26 Germanic peoples who came to Britain in the post-Roman period, from whom the name ‘England’ is derived (6)

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Undiscovered Museums 2014 Fancy seeing something a little bit different this year? Explore the fascinating collections and displays available throughout the UK in this selection of smaller museums that you may have yet to discover...

400 years of English homes

BLACK COUNTRY LIVING MUSEUM Visit our 26 acre open-air museum and spend a day discovering how the innovation and hard work of people in the Black Country created a turning point in Britain’s national story. Through our unique designated collection and costumed staff we bring the Museum alive with stories of a very special time and place in history.

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Overlooking the coastal town of Maryport, Cumbria and the Solway Firth, the museum houses an internationally significant collection of objects recovered from the adjacent Roman fort and civilian settlement. Visitors can discover what life was like for the soldiers and their families on the Solway Coast Frontier of Hadrian’s Wall.

Tel: 01900 816168 [email protected] www.senhousemuseum.co.uk

19th Century engines in steam every weekend ,_WSVYL V\Y PUK\Z[YPHS OLYP[HNL [OYV\NO [OL JV\U[Y`»Z ÄULZ[ pumping engines at the London Museum of Water & Steam. Our amazing collection will take you through all the major developments in Britain’s proud steam engine history. Rotative engines and narrow gauge railway run every weekend. Cornish beam engines on selected weekends.

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Open 7 days a week

11am-4pm Free parking Stokers Café Tours available

ANAESTHESIA HERITAGE CENTRE A treasure trove of anaesthesiarelated medical equipment for the invariably curious. Dating from 1774 to the present, our collection is ever expanding. From inhalers using natural sponges to contemporary plastic face pieces there is something to spark everyone’s interest. Admission is free (pre-booking advisable).

At Kew Bridge

www.waterandsteam.org.uk

For more information, call 0208

568 4757 or look for us online.

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Guernsey’s first free public library opened in 1889 in this converted Georgian Town House and is now the island’s centre for the study of local and family history. The staff are experts in genealogical research and welcome enquiries from anybody interested in researching their Guernsey connections. Tel: (01481) 721998 Fax: (01481) 713804 Email: [email protected] Website: www.priaulxlibrary.co.uk

ANCESTORS Discover Your Ancestors Let our professional genealogists trace your family history nationally and internationally Money back guarantee For the best, most economical services write to Ancestorsgenealogy.co.uk 11 Crosbie Road, Harborne, Birmingham B17 9BG (BHM)

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CONFLICT, COMMERCE & COMMUNITY Docklands History Group Annual Conference Saturday 10th May 2014 £35 (£30 DHG Members) The Museum of London Docklands London E14 4AL © National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London

www.docklandshistorygroup.org.uk

Keynote speaker: Professor Jerry White Author “Zeppelin Nights: London In The First World War”

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Visit the Mani in mainland Greece Kardamyli, in the Mani, Southern Peloponnese, is the village where the great author Paddy Leigh Fermor lived and wrote. For centuries, the Mani was wild and Kardamyli a poor rustic town.Today, Kardamyli has lost none of its real-Greece charm but boasts tavernas, cafés and organic shops. Read Leigh Fermor’s Mani and follow in his footsteps - enjoy walking along way-marked donkey tracks in the hills above the stunning coastline, past stone-built Maniot look-out towers and through historic Kardamyli.

www.anniska-liakoto.com

Email: [email protected] www.iansbespokefurniture.co.uk

The sea-front hotels offer: 7ELL EQUIPPED APARTMENTS s 0RIVATE SWIMMING POOL /NE MINUTE FROM THE CHARACTERFUL MAIN STREET

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NEXT MONTH MAGAZINE

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Vol 15 No 4 – April 2014 BBC History Magazinee is published by Immediate Media Company Bristol Limited under licence from BBC Worldwide who help fund new BBC programmes. BBC History Magazine was established to publish authoritative history, written by leading experts, in an accessible and attractive format. We seek to maintain the high journalistic standards traditionally associated with the BBC. ADVERTISING & MARKETING Advertising directorr Caroline Herbert Senior advertising manager Laura Gibbs Deputy advertisement manager Sam Jones 0117 314 8847 Group direct marketing manager Laurence Robertson 00353 5787 57444 Subscriptions director Jacky Perales-Morris Marketing executive Gemma Burns US representative Kate Buckley [email protected] PRESS AND PUBLIC RELATIONS Press officer Carolyn Wray 0117 314 8812 [email protected] SYNDICATION Head of licensing & syndication Joanna Marshall Magazine syndication executive Simon Goodman PRODUCTION Production director Sarah Powell Production co-ordinatorr Emily Mounter Ad co-ordinatorr James Croft Ad designerr Rachel Shircore Reprographics Tony Hunt and Chris Sutch

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ADVISORY PANEL Dr Padma Anagol Cardiff University – Prof Joanna Bourke Birkbeck College, London – Prof Richard Carwardine Oxford University – Dominic Crossley-Holland Executive Producer, Factual, BBC* – Martin Davidson Commissioning Editor, History, BBC* – Prof Clive Emsley Open University – Prof Richard Evans Cambridge University – Prof Sarah Foott Oxford University – Prof Rab Houston St Andrews University – Prof John Hudson St Andrews University – Prof Lisa Jardine Queen Mary, London – Dr Peter Jones formerly Newcastle University – Prof Denis Jud London Metropolitan University – Prof Sir Ian Kershaw formerly Sheffield University – Robert Ketteridge Head of Documentaries, Factual, BBC* – Christopher Lee formerly Cambridge University – Prof John Morrill Cambridge University – Greg Neale Founding editor, BBC History Magazinee – Prof Kenneth O Morgan Oxford University – Prof Cormac ó Gráda University College, Dublin – Prof Martin Pugh formerly Newcastle University – Julian Richards archaeologist and broadcaster – Prof Simon Schama Columbia University – Prof Mark Stoyle University of Southampton – Prof Miles Taylor Institute of Historical Research* – Dr Simon Thurley chief executive, English Heritage – Prof Helen Weinstein Director of IPUP, Institute for the Public Understanding of the Past* – Michael Wood historian and broadcaster * member of BBC Editorial Advisory Board © Immediate Media Company Bristol Limited, 2014 – ISSN: 1469 8552 Not for resale. All rights reserved. Unauthorised reproduction in whole or part is prohibited without written permission. Every effort has been made to secure permission for copyright material. In the event of any material being used inadvertently, or where it proved impossible to trace the copyright owner, acknowledgement will be made in a future issue. MSS, photographs and artwork are accepted on the basis that BBC History Magazinee and its agents do not accept liability for loss or damage to same. Views expressed are not necessarily those of the publisher. Immediate Media Companny is working to ensure that all of its paperr is sourced from well-managed forests. This magazine can be recycled, for use in new wspapers and packaging. Please removee any gifts, samples or wrapping and dispose of it at your local collection point.

Elizabeth I’s war on Catholicism

Jessie Childs investigates the fate of the Catholics who lived and worshipped under the watchful eye of the Virgin Queen Shipwrecked cannibals Carl Thompson tells the story of a group of sailors who were charged with murder after eating their cabin boy

Assassinating Mussolini Roderick Bailey examines the numerous attempts to eliminate the Italian leader in the Second World War

In defence of the Georgians Lucy Worsley argues that the Hanoverians were every bit as interesting as the Tudors with characters to match

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My history hero “He was a man of great determination. He was damned if his humble origins – he was the son of a coal miner and left school at just 13 – would get in the way of his advancement”

Paralympian Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson chooses

Aneurin ‘Nye’ Bevan 1897–1960

A

neurin ‘Nye’ Bevan was the Labour MP for Ebbw Vale in south Wales from 1929–60. As minister of health in Attlee’s postwar government from 1945–51, he spearheaded the creation of the National Health Service in 1948. He went on to serve as shadow foreign secretary from 1956–59 and deputy leader of the Labour party from 1959–60. He died of stomach cancer, aged 62.

When did you first hear about Nye Bevan?

I grew up in Wales and he’s a Welsh hero in a way, so I just got to hear about him. As a teenager, I remember seeing a statue of him in Cardiff city centre, and also hearing my grandparents talking about him. He was always just kind of there in the background, and the more I learnt about him, the more interested I became in the man.

Aneurin Bevan pictured in 1934. “He was determined to make life easier for ordinary working people,” says Tanni Grey-Thompson

What kind of person was he?

I think he was stubborn, argumentative and probably a bit of a pain in the neck sometimes – but at the same time he was a man of passion and principle, who was of course a lifelong socialist. He was also a man of great determination. He was damned if his humble origins – he was the son of a coal miner and left school at just 13 – would prevent his advancement, and he went on to study economics, and make a name for himself in politics. At the same time, he was determined to conquer his childhood stammer – and he succeeded, going on to become a great orator. Is there anything you don’t particularly admire about Bevan?

I imagine that he could have been difficult to work with, and wouldn’t have been a great compromiser. I doubt he would have been very forgiving either.

What made Bevan a hero?

He was a man with big dreams – and he fought to turn his dreams into reality. He saw at first hand how difficult life was for the mass of ordinary working people in south Wales and elsewhere, not just for the men down the mines, but their wives and families – particularly if they were in poor health. And he was determined to make life a little easier for them by creating the National Health Service: to provide better, affordable care for them when they were sick.

Can you see any parallels between Bevan’s life and your own?

Like him, I’m a great believer in education: because education gives you choices. Like him, I’m also proud of my Welsh roots – though, having said that, England and Britain have also been a big part of our lives. Finally, like Nye, I’ve never been afraid to speak my mind, despite the fact that not everyone might agree with me!

For me, it’s all about the NHS. But for the NHS, I wouldn’t be alive today, and would certainly never have been able to compete in the Paralympics – because my parents could never have afforded to pay for the operations that I needed when I was growing up. It was Nye Bevan more than anyone else who drove through the parliamentary bills that resulted in the creation of the National Health Service, which for all its faults, is still the envy of much of the world.

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I’d like to ask him what he would do about the NHS today, and how he would reform it? The world has changed beyond recognition since he created the NHS, and how it was created can’t be how it is now. Tanni-Grey Thompson was talking to York Membery Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson won 11 gold medals for Britain at the Paralympics as a wheelchair racer. She now sits as a crossbencher in the House of Lords

BBC History Magazine

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If you could meet Bevan, what would you ask him? What was his finest hour?

Lost Christianities: Christian Scriptures and the Battles over Authentication E IT

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How Has Christianity Changed over 2,000 Years? In the first centuries after Christ, there was no “official” New Testament. Instead, early Christians read and fervently followed a wide variety of scriptures—many more than we have today. Relying on these writings, Christians held beliefs that today would be considered bizarre. Some believed that there were 2, 12, or as many as 30 gods. Some thought that a malicious deity, rather than the true God, created the world. Some maintained that Christ’s death and resurrection had nothing to do with salvation, while others insisted that Christ never really died at all. What did these “other” scriptures say? How could such outlandish ideas ever be considered Christian? If such beliefs were once common, why do they no longer exist? These are just a few of the many provocative questions that arise from Lost Christianities: Christian Scriptures and the Battles over Authentication, an insightful 24-lecture course taught by Professor Bart D. Ehrman of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the author or editor of more than 25 books, including The New York Times bestseller Misquoting Jesus.

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Hamlet Titus Andronicus Much Ado About Nothing All’s Well That Ends Well Antony & Cleopatra A Midsummer Night’s Dream The Last Days of Troy By Simon Armitage

Julius Caesar Holy Warriors By David Eldridge

King Lear The Comedy of Errors Punishment Without Revenge By Lope De Vega

opens 23 April

Doctor Scroggy’s War By Howard Brenton

Pitcairn By Richard Bean