BBC History Magazine 2016-12

DID THE BRITISH MURDER RASPUTIN? M MAGAZINE E The B BRITAIN’S ’S BESTSELLING S S G HISTORY S O MAGAZINE G E

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Edward I’s battle for Britain

SAS World War Two’s desert heroes

What drove England’s warrior king to attack his neighbours?

Black and British A forgotten history The remarkable rise of the medieval city

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DECEMBER 2016

WELCOME He may have reigned more than 700 years ago, but Edward I’s story is particularly relevant for us in 2016. His conquest of Wales and battles for Scotland were important milestones in the process that eventually led to the formation of the United Kingdom – a union whose future is increasingly now being called into question. For this month’s cover story, historian Andy King revisits Edward’s wars and offers a fresh interpretation of his motives for battling the Welsh and the Scots. You will find that article on page 22. Another story receiving a fresh treatment this month is that of the wartime SAS. For 70 years many of the files relating to that army unit’s activities have been out of bounds to historians, but now Ben Macintyre has been granted full access to explore their secrets. The results of his research appear in a new book and upcoming BBC TV series, and I was lucky enough to interview him about the project a little while ago. Turn to page 28 to read what he has unearthed. I am writing this a few days after our History Weekend in Winchester, where it was a pleasure to meet so many of you and to hear fascinating talks from some of Britain’s finest historians. Some tickets are still available for our York weekend on 18–20 November – turn to page 5 5 for details of that event. I look forward to seeing ple enty of you there.

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ON THE COVER: EDWARD I – BRIDGEMAN/RASPUTIN – BRIDGEMAN/EMMA HAMILTON – TATE, LONDON THIS PAGE: STEVE SAYERS – THESECRETSTUDIO.NET/ JENI NOTT/MANU PALOMEQUE

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THIS ISSUE’S CONTRIBUTORS

CONTACT US Felicity Aston It’s not often you get to walk in the footsteps of your subjects. Following the route of the Klondike goldrush gave me a much better understanding of what drove the original stampeders.

 Felicity tackles the trail to the Yukon goldfields on page 38

Andy King From a modern perspective, Edward I can appear an aggressive warmonger. My article explores how his actions could be justified (at least in English eyes) within the context of medieval perceptions of kingship and sovereignty.

 Andy probes Edward’s motives on page 22

David Olusoga Black history isn’t a challenge or an assault on a mainstream view – it’s an enriching of British history. We need to see it as a joint history, and confront its darker aspects for the health of everyone.

 David talks about his book tracing the history of black people in Britain on page 65

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DECEMBER 2016

CONTENTS Features

Every month 6 ANNIVER RSARIES

11 HISTOR RY NOW O 11 The latest history h news 14 Backgroun nder: the Philippines 16 Past notes: banknotes

18 LETTERS S 21 MICHAEL L WOOD’S VIEW 56 OUR FIRS ST WORLD WAR

65 BOOKS S The latest relleases, plus David Olusoga discusses black history

50 0 H How Emma Hamilton it ttook Europe by storm m

77 TV & RA ADIO O The pick of ne ew history programmes Discover more about the shadowy story of Rasputin’s murder, on page 58

22 Edward I’s battle for Britain The medieval monarch believed that it was his kingly duty to wage war on his nearest neighbours, writes Andy King

28 The SAS: desert heroes Ben Macintyre reveals how a group of bearded ruffians terrorised Axis forces in north Africa during the Second World War

31 Medieval cities Join Paul Oldfield on a tour of the 13th-century’s thriving metropolises

38 The deadly gold rush

80 OUT & A ABOUT O T 80 History Explorer: the Arts and Crafts Movement 85 Five thinggs to do in December 86 My favourrite place: Barcelona

93 MISCEL LLANY Y 93 Q&A and quiz 94 Samantha a’s recipe corner 95 Prize crosssword

98 MY HISTO ORY HERO Heather Sma all enthuses about Toussaint Lou uverture

36 SUBSC RIBE E Save when yo ou subscribe today

Felicity Aston describes the perilous search for yellow metal in the Klondike

43 Britain’s cartoon warrior

50 Emma Hamilton Quintin Colville traces the sensational rise to fame of Nelson’s mistress

58 Who murdered Rasputin? Were the British behind the killing of the Russian mystic? Douglas Smith investigates

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USPS Identification Statement BBC B HISTORY (ISSN 1469-8552) (USPS 024-177) December 2016 is published 13 times a year under licence from BBC Worldwide by Immediate Mediaa Company Bristol Ltd, 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 MAGAZINE, PO Box 37495, Boone, IA 50037-0495.

BRIDGEMAN / GETTY / NPG

Chris Williams on how JM Staniforth took the fight to the enemy in the Great War

28 When the When SAS S AS chang changed nged ged d th he face of warr

BBC History Magazine

31 The wonders of Europe’s medieval cities

43 The artist who battled the Germans with cartoons

38 The epic quest to find gold in the Klondike

22 “FROM AN ENGLISH VIEWPOINT, EDWARD WAS TAKING WHAT WAS RIGHTFULLY HIS” BBC History Magazine

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Dominic Sandbrook highlights events that took place in December in history

ANNIVERSARIES 25 December 1989

20 December 1192

Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu are shot

Richard the Lionheart is captured

The Romanian people take swift revenge on the hated couple

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Far from confronting his crimes, Ceausescu told the court: “I do not recognise you. Everything you allege is a lie.” After a five-minute recess, the judges returned to announce their verdict. It was, of course, death. Elena Ceausescu wept; her husband, however, kept his cool. “Romania will live and learn of your treachery,” he told the judges. “It is better to fight with glory than to live as a slave.” Guards bound the couple’s hands with rope and they were led into a courtyard. Then the paratroopers raised their rifles. When they had finished, other soldiers joined in, pouring bullets into the corpses. Later, the two bodies were buried under false names.

Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu in 1984. Accusations against the couple included armed action against their people and trying to flee with $1bn of public money

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The king falls foul of his enemy the duke of Austria ven by the standards of a commuter’s journey home, Richard the Lionheart’s voyage back to England from the Third Crusade was a disaster. Although he set off from the Holy Land in early October 1192, bad weather in the western Mediterranean forced him to change ships in Corfu. He then sailed north through the Adriatic, only to be driven ashore by storms somewhere near Venice. That meant a long overland journey through the lands of his bitter rival Leopold, Duke of Austria (whom Richard had treated with contempt during the crusade), accompanied only by a faithful knight, William de l’Etang, and a German-speaking boy. Word of his coming had reached the Austrians, and so the king had sent his other men west to draw them off. By now he was exhausted. According to the chroniclers, he got as far as the village of Erdburg, now a suburb of Vienna, and collapsed with fever. While Richard rested in a local tavern, the German boy was sent to the market to buy provisions. But the boy’s cocky behaviour aroused suspicion; indeed, legend has it that he was spotted because he had borrowed the king’s fine gloves. Leopold’s men struck on 20 December. Some versions of the story claim that Richard tried to evade capture by pretending to be a chef, even turning meat over a spit in the kitchen. But it was no good. Arrested and charged with grievously insulting the Austrian duke, Richard was taken to the castle of Dürnstein, perched high above the Danube, west of Vienna. There he remained before being moved to another castle in Germany. He was not released until February 1194, after his countrymen had paid an enormous ransom.

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BBC History Magazine

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t lunchtime on Christmas Day 1989, an elderly couple were shown into a dilapidated lecture hall at the Targoviste army barracks, north of Bucharest. Only days earlier, they had been the most feared people in Romania. Now, with the country in revolt, they looked around in crumpled confusion. Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu – Romania’s longstanding communist leader and his wife – had only hours to live. The lecture hall had become a makeshift courtroom, where the couple’s military captors planned to hold them to account. But the trial was a charade. It lasted less than an hour and though a junior officer filmed the whole thing, the camera never showed anybody but the two defendants.

AKG-IMAGES

Dominic Sandbrook is a historian and presenter. His series about Britain in the 1980s was shown recently on BBC Two

An illumination shows the arrest of Richard the Lionheart. Richard’s captor, Leopold, Duke of Austria, had the English king locked up in Dürnstein Castle, before an enormous ransom finally secured Richard’s release

BBC History Magazine

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Anniversaries 28 December 1612 In Florence, the Italian astronomer and philosopher Galileo Galilei becomes the first man to observe the planet Neptune, which he takes to be a star.

13 December 1577 Sir Francis Drake sets out from Plymouth on a voyage to sail around the Earth.

4 December 1954 At 3090 NW 36th Street, Miami, two young friends open the first ever branch of Burger King, now an international chain.

15 December 1939

Premiere of Gone with the Wind Atlanta, Georgia goes gaga for the film and its stars – although some are more welcome than others or Atlanta, Friday 15 December 1939 was a day like no other. All week the city had been buzzing with excitement. Georgia’s governor, Eurith D Rivers, had proclaimed a public holiday and hundreds of thousands of visitors had piled into Atlanta’s hotels and guest houses. Everywhere you looked, the Confederate flag fluttered from balconies and flagposts. It was, the future president Jimmy Carter later remarked, “the biggest

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event to happen in the South in my lifetime”. He was talking, of course, about the premiere of Gone with the Wind. MGM’s star-studded adaptation of Margaret Mitchell’s bestselling US Civil War novel had begun shooting in January and for months excitement had been building. In secret, the film had already been screened to test audiences in California, who gave it an ecstatic reception. But in choosing Atlanta for the official premiere, the producers knew

what they were doing. For, as the self-proclaimed capital of the American South, the city was virtually obliged to give the film a rousing send-off. The weather that evening was freezing, but nonetheless an estimated 300,000 people lined the streets to watch the stars arrive at Loew’s Grand Theater. Among the guests of honour was a group of Confederate veterans, whose appearance drew great roars of approval from the crowds. But although most of the Hollywood names turned up, one was missing. This was Hattie McDaniel, who later won an Academy Award for her performance as Mammy. Since McDaniel was black, state law prevented her from sitting alongside her white counterparts. Amid all the Civil War nostalgia, here was a reminder of the enduring injustice at the heart of the old South.

BBC History Magazine

BRIDGEMAN / GETTY

Futurre Oscar winner Hattie McDa aniel (rightt) was one e of the e black actorrs notic ceably absent from the southern prem miere

5 December 1745

Bonnie Prince Charlie turns back at Derby The pretender to the throne suffers a major blow

hen dawn broke over Derby on 5 December 1745, it found a city in shock. The day before, Charles Edward Stuart had marched into town. At a local inn, Charles’s treasurer was already collecting taxes. Hundreds of miles to the south, London was reportedly in tumult. To the Young Pretender’s Jacobite supporters, the restoration of the Stuart dynasty was now just a matter of time. Among Charles’s generals, however, doubts had begun to set in. They were a long way from their native Scotland, and many English towns remained fearful and hostile. When Charles held a council of war that morning, his senior commander, Lord George Murray, told him that “they had marched into the heart of England ready to join with any party that would declare for him, that none had, and the Counties through which the

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Having found little appetite for revolution, Bonnie Prince Charlie’s injured and dejected Jacobites head back to Scotland where they will later face the British Army at Culloden

Army had pass’d had Seemed much more Enemies than friends to his Cause, that there was no French Landed in England, and that if there was any party in England for him, it was very odd that they had never so much as either sent him money or intelligence or the least advice what to do”. Charles insisted that they must continue south. But even at that first meeting, he was losing ground. When they met again that evening, one Dudley

Bradstreet – actually a government agent – falsely reported that a Hanoverian army was blocking the road to London. That was the decisive moment. “That fellow will do me more harm than all the Elector’s army,” Charles murmured – rightly, as it turned out. He made one last effort to win over his generals. “You ruin, abandon and betray me if you do not march on,” he begged. But it was no good. The next morning, they began the long march back to Scotland.

COMMENT / Daniel Szechi

BRIDGEMAN

“Charles had no idea what either the English Jacobites or the French were doing” The Jacobite Council at Derby is generally held to be one of the great turning points in British history. This moment has, however, been greatly complicated by the last 40 years of research. Charles had to override the majority opinion among his senior officers to get them to march south in the first place, and they warned him at Manchester that, unless substantial numbers of English Jacobites joined them or a French invasion force landed by the time they reached Derby, they would turn back. At Derby, Charles had no idea what either the English Jacobites or the French were doing, and so he was ultimately overborne

BBC History Magazine

at the Council by the scepticism of his commanders. Yet in fact we now know the French were straining every sinew to throw together an invasion force aimed at Essex, and the English Jacobites were in contact with the French invasion commander and pledged themselves to rise as soon as he landed. They also sent a message to Charles offering to join him on the road south to London, but the messenger only reached Derby two days after the Jacobite army retreated north. Thus the new research in many ways only increases the tantalising quality of the decision at Derby. What if the English

messenger had arrived two days earlier? What if the French had landed? Could Charles have won the inevitable civil war that would have followed? It’s a topic that will continue to generate research and debate as long as there is a Britain and there are historians.

Daniel Szechi is professor in early modern history at the University of Manchester

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The latest news, plus Backgrounder 14 Past notes 16

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Have a story? Please email Charlotte Hodgman at [email protected]

Football pioneers? The 1868 Harrow football squad. Sport historians are locked in a debate over whether elite teams such as this, or local clubs and communities, were responsible for the birth of modern football

Football historians urged to stop taking sides

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After a decade of fierrce disagreements, a histtorian has called for an end to the dispute over football football’s origins. Ellie Cawthorne reports

BBC History Magazine

as football established on the privileged playing fields of Eton, Harrow and Oxbridge? Or by local lads having a kick about on the village green? This is the question dividing historians, who have been locked in a bitter academic dispute over football’s origins. Now, following more than a decade of wrangling, historian Dr Gary James from

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Manchester Metropolitan University has called for an end to the great divide. Discussion has descended into petty squabbling, he claims, and “the approach taken by some academics could lead to sport history looking unprofessional”. A new paper written by James, published in The International Journal of the History of Sport, t appeals to football historians to

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History now / News

SOCIAL HISTORY

Football was banned by royal decree, viewed as a violent pursuit that encouraged brawling has emerged, which hotly contests this theory. It argues that ‘mob football’ was never truly eradicated. Instead, regional versions of the game evolved in local communities who developed clubs with little or no influence from the upper-class alumni of public schools and universities. James contends that historians of football need to stop stubbornly quarrelling over these binary positions to understand the real picture. His new research argues that, in Manchester at least, a wide mix of influences, including public schools and local clubs, led to the development of the sport. “The misguided belief that one group of people, whoever they may be, were the only ones to propagate the game across the nation is not one that should be encouraged. The search for one overarching explanation of football’s origins is,” he concludes, “ill advised.”

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How your hairstyle could get you to heaven New research suggests that beards and hairdos were a way of showing religious conformity in Reformation Europe. By Ellie Cawthorne very hair on a person’s head was a product of heavenly creation, declared a German Lutheran pastor in c1600 – and, as such, a ‘proper’ hairstyle praised God. In Reformation Europe, when religious tensions were a tinderbox waiting to be lit, the style of a man’s hair or length of his beard were easy ways of judging his religious loyalties. Those are the findings of new research by Cambridge historian Dr Stefan Hanss. “The Reformation turned hair into a highly contested issue,” he argues. “A community’s religious purity was defined by its inhabitants’ bodily, as well as social, behaviour, so hairstyles were a way of demonstrating religious conformity.” To guard their flock against salacious rumours of ungodliness, preachers encouraged their parishioners to sport hairstyles appropriate to their age, gender and status, and discouraged women from wearing braids or curly tresses in public. Deviance threatened God’s honour, meaning unorthodox hairdos were a serious matter. In 1582, French noblewoman Charlotte Duplessis-Mornay sparked a scandal by wearing curls to receive the eucharist. This outrageous act triggered an official investigation, which eventually resulted in her entire family’s excommunication. Since appropriate grooming demonstrated godliness, ruining someone’s hairstyle was a popular way of publicly discrediting or humiliating them. Violent attacks on other people’s hair, such as pulling off wigs or ripping out beards, were widespread, says Hanss. “When a person was in danger of losing their hair, their religious, cultural, personal and social status

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was also at stake,” he argues. This association with hair and social position can also be seen in the way that authorities sentenced some criminals to forced shavings. Consequently, hair styling became an important part of everyday life, and people spent time and money to get the right look. Domestic recipes for dyeing and perfuming hair were commonplace, and barber guilds flourished. This was part of a wider trend in Reformation Europe, argues Hanss. As well as religious tendencies, hair was also used to express specific social, political and even scholarly affiliations. Growing a beard could signify a man’s virility and willingness to marry, while in Denmark a courtier could adopt a matted hairstyle to show loyalty to King Christian IV, who was afflicted by a hair disease. The meanings of hair styling were varied and multiple, says Hanss, and “made identities and cultural hierarchies a material reality”.

Holy hair A 1529 portrait of Martin Luther’s wife, Katharina von Bora, who followed the advice not to sport curly tresses

BBC History Magazine

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“work together to produce an all-encompassing history of our sport, rather than demonstrating to the outside world our differences and squabbles”. The debate that has inflamed so much ire revolves around the birth of British association football. In 1349, King Edward III banned ‘mob football’ by royal decree, viewing it as a violent pursuit that encouraged brawling and distracted young men from more worthy activities. For more than a century, the orthodox view was that this royal ban killed off the sport in the medieval period, only for it to re-emerge in a more ‘civilised’ form in public schools and universities during the 1800s. These elite institutions established rules and leagues, creating a generation of passionate players who propagated their version of the game across the nation. Yet, in recent years, a rival viewpoint

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History now / Backgrounder

The historians’ view…

Why has the Philippines started talking tough?

Interviews by Chris Bowlby, a BBC journalist specialising in history

The idea of the strongman appeals in the Philippines as a powerful force to unite this fragmented archipelago nation PAULINE EADIE

s the Duterte style something seen before in Philippines history? The most obvious parallels can be drawn between previous presidents Ferdinand Marcos and Joseph Estrada. Marcos (ruler from the mid-1960s to mid-1980s) invoked martial law in 1972, under the pretence of countering violence and lawlessness. Estrada adopted a policy of ‘all out war’ against the Islamic separatist organisation Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). Duterte has used the same rationale to justify his ‘war on drugs’. Marcos cited communists and Muslim insurgents as a threat to society and national security. Estrada claimed that the only way to curb secessionist movements in the south of the country was through force. Duterte has adopted a similar stance with those involved in the drug trade.

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Duterte has said that human rights must not undermine the national interest. Many thousands of Marcos’s critics were imprisoned, tortured and murdered. Today we see the same thing happening to those caught up in the crossfire of the war on drugs. Martial law was played out during the height of the Cold War. This meant that the US was not inclined to challenge Marcos’s tactics as an anti-communist ally. Estrada’s tenure in office was from May 1998 to January 2001. This period represented a relative hiatus in the US/Philippine strategic relationship as the Cold War was over and both nations were yet to find themselves on the same side in the post-9/11 campaign against Islamic terrorism. Martial law was initially accepted by the majority of the population as a way to restore social order. We see the same thing now with Duterte’s war against drugs. His domestic approval ratings are very high. Filipinos tend to vote on the basis of personalities, not ideologies. This has given rise to the term ‘bobotante’. In Tagalog, the local language, bobo means fool and botantee means voter – in other words, ‘voting like a fool’. The idea of the strongman appeals in the Philippines as a powerful force to unite this fragmented archipelago nation. Despite their initial popularity, Marcos and Estrada were, in the end, ousted by peaceful revolutions, supported by the church, the military, the left and across classes. At the

Supporters of Rodrigo Duterte surround a poster of the new president in Manila on 30 June 2016. “Duterte’s generation experienced the profound impact of western colonial rule,” says Shelton Woods

moment, Duterte is being relatively careful to maintain an appeal across these sectors. He secured office because he was seen as a straight-talking man of action. He had a track record of bringing peace and order (but at what cost to human rights?) as mayor of Davao City in Mindanao. He promised the poor “change is coming”, and they chose to believe him, over the less credible claims of his opponents. The Philippine and international media are fixated on Duterte’s war on drugs. However he has also appointed key leftist figures to his administration and has freed up some development funding – for instance for water provision in new permanent shelters in the city of Tacloban. Deeper development issues have been neglected for so long in the Philippines that it would be a challenge for even the finest politicians to solve. Duterte is faced with a crumbling infrastructure, too many people and not enough jobs. But there will come a time when he has to do something about these problems or the tide of public opinion will turn against him.

Pauline Eadie is deputy director of the Institute of Asia Pacific Studies (IAPS) at the University of Nottingham

BBC History Magazine

ALAMY

Elected president in May, Rodrigo Duterte has sparked an international media sensation by sanctioning a war on drug dealers and insulting the pope. Two historians offer ff their takes on why millions of Filipinos are in thrall to a populist strongman

The Stars & Stripes fly over a Manila street in 1899. It would be another 47 years before the Philippines would gain its independence

A portrait of Spanish abbess Jerónima de la Fuente, who established a cloister in the Philippines in the 1620s

Duterte’s harsh rhetoric is a symptom of a vibrant culture and growing economy that seeks to do away with foreign and domestic cronyism SHELTON WOODS

hen Duterte makes crude comments about the pope (calling him the “son of a whore”) and Barack Obama (telling him he can “go to hell”), he is often targeting individuals who represent past colonial masters. And that colonial history certainly runs deep. For four centuries, the Philippines has been stained by imperial exploitation. Even the country’s name belongs to a western prince (the future Philip II of Spain). Duterte entered the world (28 March 1945) before the Philippines gained independence. His generation experienced the profound impact of western colonial rule. That colonial rule began in 1571 – when the Spanish subsumed the Philippines into the Spanish East Indies – and would last until 1946. During the period of Spanish domination, Spanish friars enjoyed inordinate

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influence throughout the archipelago, and their work established the Philippines as the lone pre-modern Christian state in the far east. But the religion imprinted on the Filipinos was a largely medieval Catholicism where many friars used superstition and fear to solidify their social and ecclesiastical status. As a tiny minority group, the Spanish needed to rule through an ideology of racial superiority. The Spanish labelled the Philippine native population as Indios, and considered them categorically inferior to the Peninsulares (Spanish born in Spain), Creoles (Spanish born in the Americas), and Filipinos (Spanish born in the Philippines). In 1898, Spain sold the archipelago and its 9 million inhabitants to the US for $20m. Social Darwinism along with a push from Rudyard Kipling’s White Man’s Burden poem (interpreted by some as a justification for imperialism as a noble enterprise) inspired Americans to enlighten and further Christianise a state on the verge of independence. Compared with other western colonial powers, the US delivered on its promise of benevolence. Thousands of American teachers laboured in the Philippines, and English became one of its two national languages. American officials established unprecedented peace among the Igorot tribes of northern Luzon. Military bases provided security. Finally, a multifaceted domestic security force maintained law and order.

But these many colonial benefits came with a steep cultural cost. Just as friars had to be racially pure under Spanish rule, the Manila Army-Navy Club was exclusively for Americans. The US reinforced the message – hammered home for 350 years by the Spanish – that Filipinos were spiritually backwards. American culture – from early Hollywood movies to comic-book superheroes – was deemed superior to anything Filipinos might produce. Given this history, one may ask: is President Duterte’s rough talk a surge of Philippine nationalism? No, it is not. Rather, the harsh rhetoric is a symptom of a vibrant culture and growing economy that seeks to do away with foreign and domestic cronyism. Filipinos have long recovered from a colonial hangover; the problem is that the bartenders still want to serve them drinks.

Shelton Woods is professor of east/southeast Asian history at Boise State University in Idaho DISCOVER MORE BOOKS  In Our Image: America’s Empire in the

Philippines by Stanley Karnow (Ballantine Books, 1990)  A History of the Philippines by Luis H Francia (The Overlook Press, 2013)

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History now / Backgrounder PAST NOTES BANKNOTES OLD NEWS

The nerveless Victorian who got a new nose South Wales Daily Post 7 February 1894 lastic surgery – or, at least, surgery to improve your looks – is not a modern phenomenon. In fact, the oldest recorded surgery to alter someone’s appearance happened under the ancient Egyptians. Later, in the 18th century, British doctors travelled to India to observe the latest developments in surgery on the nose, but it was during the Victorian era that the craze for a ‘new nose’ to improve your looks really began. In 1894, the South Wales Daily Post carried a report of a man named Tittensor, from Trenton, New Jersey, who was “the possessor of a new nose, made to order out of flesh”. For 25 years the poor man had suffered with a nose covered in a number of lumps and bumps that made it unsightly. He had sought out a doctor to improve his looks, and had been advised that the only thing that could be done was to have “all the flesh cut off and the bone cleaned”. Then, a new nose was made from flesh taken from his forehead and his neck. The patient, recorded as “a person of considerable nerve”, declared that he had suffered little pain from the operations, and his new nose was hailed as a considerable success.

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As the nation gets to grips with the new polymer £5 note, Julian Humphrys looks at the history of our banknotes When did our banks first issue banknotes? In 1694, after the Bank of England was established to raise money for war against France. In effect they were receipts – the exact amount deposited was recorded, in pounds, shillings and pence, on the note and signed by one of the cashiers. However, because they carried the promise to pay the bearer the sum of the note on demand, they could be redeemed at the Bank for gold or coins by anyone presenting them and this made them suitable as a means of exchange. Were these early notes in wide circulation? No. Within a couple of years the Bank stopped issuing notes for sums of less than £50 and, as the average annual income at the time was less than £20, most people never even saw one. When were printed notes first produced? The first fully printed banknotes didn’t appear until 1853. In the preceding century the Bank had issued a variety of part-printed notes with the final details being added by the cashier at

the time of issue. The first plastic banknote to appear in the British Isles was a £1 note issued on the Isle of Man in 1983. It was withdrawn after five years, mainly because of problems with its ink. And when did the fiver make its debut? In 1793, at the start of the war against Revolutionary France. The design of these ‘white fivers’ remained relatively unchanged until their withdrawal from circulation in the early 1960s. What’s the highest denomination of a UK banknote? You’d be forgiven for thinking it’s £50 in England and £100 in Scotland but in fact it’s £100 million! However, unless the country is suddenly hit by rampant hyper-inflation, there’s little chance that we’ll ever be withdrawing them from our high street cash machines. These ‘titans’, as they’re known, are safely locked away in the vaults of the Bank of England along with a supply of £1 million notes known as ‘giants’. These are kept there to back the value of the notes issued by Scottish and Northern Irish commercial banks.

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BANK OF ENGLAND

ILLUSTRATION BY BEN JONES

News story sourced from britishnewspaper archive.co.uk and rediscovered by Fern Riddell. Fern regularly appears on BBC Radio 3’s Free Thinking

A supply of £1 million notes is locked away in the vaults of the Bank of England

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LETTERS I refer to the letter in the November edition by Mr Alan Davies about London and Paris at war. In his letter, Mr Davies states: “Any young man facing call-up could avoid conscription by becoming a Bevin Boy.” I think it is time to finally put to bed this misconception. Young men did not choose to become Bevin Boys, they were chosen on a ratio of 1 to 10 by one of Bevin’s secretaries pulling a digit from a hat. While it is true that some volunteered, the majority of the 48,000 had no choice. Some of them were kept at their work up to two years after the war ended. The only bits of uniform they were given were a hard hat and steelcapped boots. This was recognised as vital war work in an era when coal mining was more dangerous than today. In 2007, in belated recognition of their work, the then prime minister Tony Blair announced that all surviving members would be awarded a veterans badge. My father, still going reasonably strong at 91, received his in 2008 and vividly remembers his time down the mines, while his three elder brothers fought, one of them dying, in Tunisia.

LETTER OF THE MONTH

David Inns, Surrey

 We reward the letter of the month writer with our ‘History Choice’ book of the month. This issue it is Imperial Triumph by Michael Kulikowski. Read the review on page 69

Friends at war The explanation for Cnut’s easy accession to the throne of England (Cnut: The Great Dane, October) can be found nd in the country’s earlier history. In the latter half of the fifth century the Anglo-Saxons established themselvess as the dominant force in England, yett Anglo-Saxon is but a shorthand term for a coalition of peoples from north Germany, Holland and Denmark. Throughout the sixth century, further settlers came over and the British werre driven back to the margins or had to integrate and adapt. When, towards the end of the ninth h

century, the Danish ‘Great Heathen Army’ turned up and started their march to the Danelaw, I suspect that they were not very different from the earlier waves of the fifth and sixth centuries. They probably spoke recognisably the same language – in fact, it would be surprising if there were not cultural ties between the two countries. Thereafter England is noticeably more Anglo-Danish and this is reflected in Alfred’s laws after he and his descendants conquered the Danelaw and reintegrated England. Thus, when Swein and Cnut turned up at the start of the 11th century, they were ethnically and culturally close to the existing English people, not exactly strangers with strange ways. After all, it was only 50 years or so since the last of the Danelaw territory was retaken by the kings of England. Bob Britnell, Canterbury

Sea Lion was a non-starter Admirals sometimes complain that armies have little appreciation of the problems they face. The acrimony between Napoleon and Denis Decrès, his minister of marine – and later, the senior officers of the German army and navy over their planned invasions of the British Isles – bears this out. Therefore, it’s small wonder to me that Dr Forczyk, a retired US army lieutenant colonel, has come up with the bizarre idea that Operation Sea Lion (the planned invasion of Great Britain in 1940) was well equipped for such an assault (News, November). Sea Lion may have been a masterpiece of extemporisation and – even if one should never say ‘never’ – we surely must recognise the

odds for success were remarkably low. We should also remember that the Royal Navy was highly skilled at night-fighting and could easily fight a slow enemy invasion armada of towed barge conversions. True, the destroyers had no radar but the bigger ships did. Furthermore, the implication that a converted car ferry with artillery pieces equated to a destroyer is risible. The main reason the plan was unworkable was the acknowledged inability of German naval forces to land the army on a wide front, causing General Franz Halder to complain: “I might just as well put the troops that have been landed through the sausage machine.” Surely the best arbiters of i sio prosp invasion pects were the German naval staff, wh ho were relieved to hear of the operation’ss cancellation. Admiral

Despite the enmity between Cnut (right) and Edmund Ironside (left), their two peoples were very similar, says Bob Britnell

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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IRONSIDE AND CNUT – © THE MASTER AND FELLOWS OF CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE

Badge of honour

SOCIAL MEDIA What you’ve been saying on Twitter and Facebook @HistoryExtra: Who do you think is history’s greatest heroine? Naoko Proctor-Fajen My personal hero is Catherine of Aragon. She was born to rule and she was educated to the hilt in a time when most women couldn’t read. The perfect Renaissance woman @LauraJackson03 Edith Cavell. Her care for soldiers during WW1 irrespective of nationality is commendable & honourable LaCinda Russell Elizabeth I. Snubbed somewhat in early life yet she went on to be one of England’s best monarchs. She endured smallpox, scandal, the Spanish Armada and lived to her own devices

German an troops scan tthe skies on the the northern Frenc French coast. The odds of a successful German invasion of Britain in 1940 were remarkably low, w, says Anthony J Cumming Cummin

Kurt Assman wrote that, with or without a Luftwaffe victory, “the invasion would have been smashed”.

Editor replies: Yes, it appears that we

Anthony J Cumming, author of The Battle for Britain n , Paignton

have made a rather elementary mistake in this caption. If any readers are able to identify the correct model of bicycle, please do let us know.

The gun-toting Churchill

Corrections

I was very interested in Kevin Ruane’s article in the November edition, Winston Churchill: Atomic Warrior. r In the piece he refers to the fact that Churchill started his military career in the late Victorian era where soldiers would have had their “hands on a sword”. In actual fact, Churchill suffered an injury as a young boy which made it difficult if not impossible for him to wield a sword and so he used a revolver instead. It’s just a small but significant detail of history which makes it so interesting.

 A few readers have written in querying an image caption on page 44 of October’s issue (Cnut: The Great Dane). The caption says that the picture is of Cnut and his second wife, Emma, but on the image itself Cnut’s wife is described as ‘Ælfgifu Regina’ – the name of the king’s first wife. Rather confusingly, Emma took on the Anglo-Saxon name Ælfgifu following her first marriage to Æthelred II and this image does indeed show her. We should have made this clearer in the caption.

Peter Thompson, West Lancashire

Pedal problems Your photo of an early bicycle on page 16 of the October edition (Past Notes) is captioned: “One of German inventor Karl Drais’ pioneering pedal-less bikes.” Really? Those offset cranks on the hub of the front wheel look awfully like pedals to me! Rev JE Moore, Glossop

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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:

Jayne-Leslie Constant Saint Joan of Arc – champion of the French people, the heartbeat of her nation. She is the epitome of bravery, dedication and fearlessness in battle – all without the worldly motivations that drove many of the other great historical heroines Aine Foley Rosa Luxemburg. Gave her life in the pursuit of equality for all. Strong, highly intelligent, persevered even through serious health issues. She was amazing Marilyn Coté Miller I just love Eleanor Roosevelt. Smart, funny, strong, admirable. Not a typical heroine in that she never flew an airplane or fought in a war, but her outspokenness on women’s rights and racial issues helped move society forward @HistoryExtra: You’ve also been talking about our History Weekend in Winchester… @lindathesinner I’ve had a superb weekend! Listened to some extremely talented and funny historians, so thank you! @LGunn09 Fantastic day yesterday at Winchester’s Great Hall #HistoryWeekend Got to meet @sixteenthCgirl and @TracyBorman, and get my books signed @FernRiddell Utter lovely time at Winchester’s #HistoryWeekend, fab crowd, so many books signed. Thanks @HistoryExtra!! @SophieNeal333 Great day @ HistoryExtra Weekend. There’s a possibility that I’ve learnt more about history today than in the last 20 years

Letters, BBC History Magazine, Immediate Media Company Bristol Ltd, Tower House, Fairfax Street, Bristol BS1 3BN

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Comment

Michael Wood on… the continuity of the state

“England is one of the most successful states in history”

Michael Wood is professor of public history at the University of Manchester. Download his BBC series The Story of England at store.bbc.com/ michael-woodsstory-of-england

And perhaps a medievalist might point out that the continuity of the state and its institutions is one of the great myths of England, much employed by conservatives and much railed against by radicals. But recently old English historians have begun to reformulate the idea that many of the key elements which made up Englishness – and the English state itself – go back before the Norman conquest. Forged during the Viking wars, shaped by chance and necessity, this was the England Alfred dreamed of, which was made reality by his son and daughter Edward and Æthelflaed, and his grandson Æthelstan (for me, the most gifted rulers in our history). From the start, England was ethnically diverse: the Viking settlements perforce helped create a kingdom of many races. Its people spoke West Saxon and Anglian dialects, but also North British, Welsh and Cornish, Danish and Norwegian. Edgar then was ‘king of the English’, but in his law codes he legislated for a “nation of Englishmen, Danes and Britons”. As Wulfstan of Winchester described it, “a nation of many different languages and customs”. Speaking English was a help, but not essential. The key was allegiance to the English king and his law, transmitted through a new form of assembly politics which is the distant origin of our parliament. Allegiance to that kingship and its law therefore becomes a precondition of being English in later times – and in a sense still is. That first England had many ups and downs: the Norman conquest was the worst disaster ever for the English people, who took a century to begin to recover. But the state continued, with its traditions of law and politics; the language resurfaced; and, for all its failings, England is one of the longest lived and most successful states in history. At the start of the Brexit campaign, the Daily Mail asked: “Who will speak for England?” But which England? History, as Eliot said, can be servitude or freedom: it depends on the narrative we choose. “I’m not looking for a New England,” sang Billy Bragg. But lots of us are. And the old England perhaps still has something to tell us.

GETTY IMAGES

It was another great BBC History Magazine History Weekend in October, with packed audiences. I talked in Winchester Great Hall, under the Arthurian Round Table and windows of medieval kings, including Alfred, Æthelstan and Edgar, along with William the Conqueror. A fine place to reflect on the history of England, as I’m sure many of us have since 23 June. England, after all, is the core state of the British Isles, and though the politicians may still avoid talking about it, after Brexit, and with perhaps another Scottish referendum ahead, from now on it will be all about England. We became Britons with the 1707 Act of Union, our identities recast for our new imperial role, a new history created for us. But now that history is on the way out, and older allegiances are reasserting themselves. The Scottish referendum two years ago showed that Great Britain is not an unchanging entity at all; indeed, 1707 might turn out to be a temporary blip in an older continuum. So now, with Brexit, we must all look at ourselves. And for the English, this is proving a strangely conflicting exercise. The almost 50–50 split in the vote could not show it more clearly. England was never questioned by earlier generations. After all, when Nelson ran up his flags at Trafalgar, it was England, not Great Britain, which ‘expected’. Queen Victoria had to lie back and think of England (or so we were told before we discovered from her diaries how much she enjoyed sex!). As TS Eliot wrote during the air raids of summer 1941: “History is now and England.” But now we face a deeply challenging rebranding. And what one hopes to see is a positive statement of what England has been: its great achievements in culture and law, society and politics, literature and language – our great gifts to the world. There’s our openness to newcomers too, as George Orwell said, our traditions of tolerance and moderation and our deep mistrust of extreme views; our ideas of freedom from the Levellers to Peterloo and the Chartists, right down to the suffragettes and the government of 1945.

ILLUSTRATION BY FEMKE DE JONG

BBC History Magazine

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COVER STORY

EDWARD I: THE DUTIFUL CONQUEROR He has a reputation as a battle-hungry aggressor, determined to bend Scotland, Wales and France to his will. But, argues Andy King, it was Edward I’s deeply held belief in kingly duty, not innate bloodlust, that drove his appetite for war

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BRIDGEMAN

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BBC History Magazine

Bending the knee John Balliol, king of the Scots, kneels before Edward I in a 14th-century French illustration. Balliol officially acknowledged Edward’s overlordship of Scotland in 1292 but that didn’t stop the English king throwing him in the Tower in 1296

B BC BBC C Hiisto s ory st rry y Mag Magazi azine ne e

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Cover story

Conquest of Wales It was in Wales that trouble was most obviously brewing. The Barons’ War in Henry III’s reign had provided the perfect opportunity for Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, Prince of Gwynedd, to extend his power into the Welsh Marches, seizing lands from Marcher lords – including Edward himself. These territorial acquisitions had been reluctantly conceded by Henry under the Treaty of Montgomery. But the dispossessed Marcher lords had other ideas and, as Edward succeeded to the English throne, they began to recover their lands by force. Llywelyn thus refused to pay homage to the new king of England, on the grounds that Edward was not fulfilling the terms of the treaty. But Edward’s view was fundamentally different from – and incompatible with – Llywelyn’s. The Welsh 24

Standing guard In the wake of his invasion of Wales, Edward built a network of castles – among them Harlech (above) – in a bid to tighten his grip on the subdued nation

Gwynedd was rebranded the Principality of Wales and the lands of the Welsh princes were granted out to English magnates

prince was withholding the homage due to Edward as king of England; and Edward could not address Llywelyn’s concerns until Llywelyn acknowledged his lordship. In November 1276, after Llywelyn had refused repeated summons to do homage, Edward declared him a rebel. The following July, he led an army into Wales and forced Llywelyn’s capitulation. He was allowed to retain the title of Prince of Wales, but with greatly reduced lands. As far as Edward was concerned, the issue was settled. Nevertheless, by 1282 he was once more facing revolt (as he saw it) in Wales. This time it was instigated by the Welsh princes who had supported Edward against Llywelyn in 1277, chief among them his own brother, Dafydd. Having received scant reward for their pains, they had also discovered that Edward’s direct rule was every bit as oppressive as Llywelyn’s. They were soon joined by Llywelyn himself. It was in the face of this continued opposition that Edward determined to conquer Wales once and for all. A hard fought campaign ended with Llywelyn’s death and Dafydd’s capture and gruesomely exemplary execution as, Edward proclaimed, “the last survivor of the family of traitors… whom the king received as an exile, nourished as an orphan, and endowed with lands, and cherished with clothing under his protection”. Gwynedd was rebranded the Principality of Wales (the title would subsequently be used to endow heirs to the English throne – a practice which continues to this day), and the lands of the Welsh princes were granted out to English magnates. But in other ways the settlement was essentially conservative. Wales remained entirely separate from the realm of England, while the Marcher lords retained their privileges and the Welsh their law (albeit stripped of those elements deemed offensive to Edward and God).

Hammer of the Scots? The issue of the English overlordship of Scotland had lain dormant for most of the 13th century and would remain so for the first half of Edward’s reign. Alexander III, king of the Scots and Edward’s brother-in-law, did homage to Edward for the estates he held in England, but Edward did not press the larger issue of homage for Scotland. And there matters may have rested – had not Alexander fallen from his horse and broken his neck in 1286. His heir was his three-year-old granddaughter, Margaret, the king of Norway’s daughter. The prospect of an infant queen rocked the political stability of Scotland, where Robert Bruce (Robert I’s grandfather) was laying claim to the kingship. With Edward’s close familial ties, and a BBC History Magazine

ALAMY

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n 19 August 1274, Edward, son of King Henry III, was crowned king of England at Westminster Abbey. According to one contemporary account, at the height of the ceremony, when the archbishop of Canterbury placed the crown on his head, Edward at once took it off again, “proclaiming that it should never again sit on his head until he had got back the crown lands which his father had granted away”. This was a dramatic, and very public, expression of Edward’s strongly held view of the rights and duties of a king – a view that England, with the lands and rights belonging to it, had descended to him from God’s providence, and that his primary duty was to protect or restore these lands and rights, in order to pass them on to his heirs. Edward’s declaration came at a time when the rights of a sovereign lord over his subjects were looming ever larger in legal and political thought across western Christendom, as theorists turned back to the law codes of the Roman empire. England itself was bound to its neighbours by (sometimes conflicting) strands of sovereignty: kings of England had long claimed the overlordship of Wales and Scotland, while as dukes of Aquitaine they were subject to the overlordship of the king of France. This increasing emphasis on the rights of the overlord would have crucial consequences for Edward’s reign. Although popular perception may cast him as a tyrant, a warrior king with a relentless taste for conflict, it was this context, and his unshakeable certainty in and devotion to a king’s rights and duties, that set the course for a lifetime of periodic warfare with England’s neighbours.

Close combat

Scotland

Edward had an explosive relationship with England’s nearest neighbours, as our map shows… MAP ILLUSTRATION BY PAUL HEWITT – BATTLEFIELD DESIGN

The Welsh Marches England’s enclave The Marches were a group of lordships covering much of southern and eastern Wales, ruled by English lords. Though these Marcher lords were Edward’s subjects, their lordships were outside the kingdom of England, and so – theoretically – subject neither to royal administration, nor to English common law. Frequently at war with their Welsh neighbours (and sometimes with each other), these lords were important recruiters for Edward’s armies. They also formed a powerful lobby for war against the Welsh.

Scotland was a kingdom of long standing, and in the 13th century, it was still expanding. The west coast and Western Isles had been under the direct rule of the kings of Scots since the 1260s, though the Orkneys and Shetland remained under Norwegian rule. Various kings of Scots had done homage to various kings of England, but for most of the 13th century the question of English overlordship remained open. There were close links between England and Scotland; Alexander III, king of Scots (1241–86), was Edward’s brother-in-law, and many lords held lands in both realms – including the Bruce and Balliol families. A silver coin depicting Alexander III, Edward’s brother-in-law

Wales The land of warring princes Large parts of Wales were still ruled by native Welsh dynasties, owing homage to the kings of England. The most powerful were the princes of Gwynedd, based in Snowdonia and Anglesey. Llywelyn ap Gruffudd (d1282, pictured right), current head of the dynasty, had extended his authority over much of Wales, largely by force. Under the Treaty of Montgomery (1267), Henry III was constrained to grant him the hereditary title of Prince of Wales, with overlordship of the Welsh princes – though Llywelyn himself remained an English vassal. This innovation was not welcome to the other Welsh princes, many of whom would support Edward against him.

ALAMY / GETTY

Ripe for rebellion

France

Gascony

Europe’s superpower

England’s land in France

The Most Christian Kings of France were the most prestigious royal dynasty in western Christendom, which was thoroughly Francophile in its culture. The English royal family was of French descent and Edward’s maternal aunt was Margaret Queen of France (pictured below), wife of the saintly Louis IX. Louis’ successor Philip III (r1270–85) maintained good relations with Edward, but Philip IV (r1285–1314) would take a much harder line over Gascony.

Since 1154, the kings of England had held Gascony in south-western France, as dukes of Aquitaine. (Technically, Gascony was a lordship within the larger duchy of Aquitaine, but in practice the English referred to Gascony and Aquitaine interchangeably). In 1259, under the Treaty of Paris, Henry III conceded that he held the duchy of Aquitaine as a vassal to Louis IX of France. The Gascons generally preferred the rule of a distant English duke to the nearby king of France, but were adept at playing the one against the other.

Cover story

Freedom fighters? Mel Gibson’s 1995 film Braveheart breathed new life into the image of Edward I as a bloodthirsty tyrant

Betrayal and revolt The Gascon expedition was also in pursuit of Edward’s duty to protect his inheritance. He held Gascony within Philip IV’s France and so, as Duke of Aquitaine, owed homage to Philip. Consequently, Gascons could appeal against his decisions to Philip – just as Scots could appeal against John Balliol to Edward. And Philip was a king in Edward’s own mould, determined to enforce his rights to the full. In 1293, he summoned Edward to Paris to answer for the conduct of Gascon and English mariners, who were conducting a private war against their Norman rivals. A deal was arranged: Edward would marry Margaret of France and (in order to save Philip’s face before his subjects) would hand over Aquitaine, on the understanding that it would then quietly be returned to Edward. 26

The view of Edward as a war-mongering imperialist still has currency. But from a contemporary English viewpoint, he was taking what was rightfully his

But once Philip had the duchy in his grasp, he declared it forfeit. Edward had been out-manoeuvred – so comprehensively that one English chronicler concluded that he had lost his wits, “infatuated with an unlawful love for his relative Blanche”. Edward now determined to recover his duchy by war. But the expedition planned for Gascony had to be diverted to Wales, for the Welsh seized the chance to rebel. Worse was to follow, for the Scots now allied themselves with France, forging the Franco-Scottish ‘Auld Alliance’ against England which would become a mainstay of both countries’ foreign policies for the next two and a half centuries. But in the short term, it profited the Scots little. In 1296, Edward marched north and rapidly conquered Scotland. Balliol was formally stripped of his kingship (quite literally – the lining was stripped from his royal tabard, earning him the derisive Scots epithet of ‘Toom Tabard’, or empty coat). His kingdom was abolished, reduced to the status of a mere ‘land’ administered by Englishmen for Edward’s benefit. According to a later chronicle, Edward handed over custody to a governor with the derisive comment: “He does good business, who rids himself of shit.” The following year, faced with renewed demands for service against the French, and with no role in the government of their own country, the Scots rebelled, and William Wallace inflicted a devastating defeat on an BBC History Magazine

TOPFOTO / REX

reputation for settling international disputes, it was natural that the Scots turned to him for help. It was agreed that Queen Margaret should be married to Edward’s son (the future Edward II) – a marriage which, had it taken place, might have ushered in the Union of the Crowns some 300 years early and set the history of Britain on a very different course. But the unfortunate Margaret died during the passage from Norway, leaving a succession crisis in her wake. The two principal claimants were Bruce and John Balliol – and both had an arguable case. Once more, the Scots turned to Edward, asking him to arbitrate between these two rival candidates. But, ever the opportunist, Edward seized the moment to make real England’s claims to overlordship, announcing that he intended “to do right to all those who can make any claim to the inheritance of the kingdom of Scotland”. Rather than arbitration, a neutral settlement of a dispute between two parties, he would give judgment in his court to allcomers, which – crucially – required recognition of his lordship. When the Scots argued that only “he who shall be king” had the authority to accept overlordship, Edward obtained the acceptance of each claimant individually (on the grounds that, logically, one of them must be “he who shall be king”). The stage was set for the series of hearings that would become known as the ‘Great Cause’. In November 1292, Edward gave judgment in favour of John Balliol. A month later, King John did homage to Edward for the kingdom of Scotland, thereby formally recognising English overlordship. Edward was determined to demonstrate the reality of that overlordship. To this end, he had already arranged to receive a test case appeal from the Scottish courts. And in 1294, he demanded Scottish service on his planned expedition to Gascony.

Royal respects Edward I, as Duke of Aquitaine, pays homage to Philip IV of France. Despite this display of amity, Edward would soon find himself at war with a Franco-Scottish alliance

AKG-IMAGES

Divine right Edward returns from Gascony, as depicted in a 15th-century manuscript. The king believed that he had a God-given duty to protect the lands that were rightfully his – and that included this lordship in south-western France

English army at Stirling Bridge. Edward would spend the next eight years slowly (and expensively) wearing down Scottish resistance. In this, he was aided by French difficulties with their own vassals in the County of Flanders. An agreement to end the Anglo-French war was patched together in 1299, and in 1303 Philip restored Aquitaine and abandoned the Scottish alliance. This gave Edward a free hand, and in 1304 the Scots were forced to come to terms. Having learned from bitter experience, Edward now allowed the Scottish leaders a prominent role in his Scottish administration. But the reality of Edward’s sovereignty remained clear. Those parts of Scottish law that were “displeasing to God” were to be expunged – and again, the final word on what displeased God was Edward’s. Given only a minor role in Edward’s administration was Robert Bruce, Earl of Carrick, grandson of the Great Cause claimant. Though Bruce had come over to the English in 1302, Edward had to concentrate on winning over his Scottish opponents; consequently, Bruce was left with nothing to show for his support for the English. Thwarted in his ambition, he had himself inaugurated as King of Scots in 1306. Having strived for years to reduce Scotland to obedience, and having made what he regarded as a generous settlement, Edward was incensed. An army was rapidly disBBC History Magazine

patched northwards and the pope was persuaded to excommunicate Bruce. From Edward’s viewpoint, as with Dafydd ap Gruffydd, Bruce and his followers had proved themselves incorrigible rebels; he therefore inflicted punishments on those who had the misfortune to fall into his hands. These included the Earl of Atholl, the first earl to be executed since 1076. According to one chronicler, Edward displayed a streak of gallows humour: “The queen and many of his magnates pleaded that Atholl’s blood should not be spilt, because he was a close kinsman of the king; and so the king ordered him to be hanged higher than the others.”

A second King Arthur? Edward died in July 1307, striving against illness to lead yet another army into Scotland. One later Scottish chronicler wrote a less than favourable obituary: “He troubled the whole world by his wickedness, and roused it by his cruelty; … he invaded Wales; he treacherously subdued unto him the Scots and their kingdom; John of Balliol, the king thereof, and his son, he cast into prison; … he slew the people, and committed other misdeeds without end.” This view of Edward, as a war-mongering imperialist, still has currency; it is the picture painted by the Hollywood epic fantasy Braveheart (1995), in which Mel Gibson plays William Wallace leading the resistance to the

tyrannical English. Not unnaturally, English commentators took a more sympathetic view. Recording Edward’s conquest of Scotland in 1296, the Yorkshire chronicler Peter Langtoft wrote: “Now the islanders are all joined together, And Albany reunited to the kingships, Of which King Edward is proclaimed lord. Cornwall and Wales are in his domain, And great Ireland at his will. There is no king, nor any prince, in all these countries Save King Edward, who has united them thus. Arthur never held these fiefs so fully!” In an age that regarded King Arthur as a historical figure, the kings of England proclaimed themselves the rightful heirs to his dominion over Britain, while their lordship over Ireland was sanctioned by the pope. In the Middle Ages, the protection or recovery of lands and rights was one of the main grounds for a just war. From the English point of view, Edward was only taking what was rightfully his. In this, his ambitions were the same as most medieval kings. He was just more successful in putting them into effect. Andy King lectures in history at the University of Southampton and is the author of Edward I: A New King Arthur? (Allen Lane, 2016) DISCOVER MORE BOOK  Edward I by Michael Prestwich

(Yale University Press, 1997)

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The SAS

“They changed the

Raiding party Members of the SAS’s ‘L’ detachment in their jeeps in north Africa, January 1943. “These men were described as the sweepings of the public schools and the prisons,” says Ben Macintyre

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BBC History Magazine

way war is run” Ben Macintyre has written the first authorised history of the SAS in the Second World War. He tells Rob Attar how a group of bearded ruffians mastered covert warfare in the north African desert Accompanies a forthcoming BBC Two series on the SAS

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We have an image today of the SAS as a ruthless, efficient unit. Does your research into its wartime inception tally with this idea? It may be hard to believe now, but in the early days the SAS was amateur. Things went very right for the unit at times, but also spectacularly wrong at others. And these were not over-muscled exemplars of butch masculinity in all cases. The man who founded the SAS, David Stirling, was about as far as you could get from that image: he was 6ft 6ins and not very robust at all. Yet he was a brilliant leader of men who had a fantastically good idea that changed the way war is run. I hope my research will also cast a new light on the qualities that went into this kind of military action. There was a kind of mental toughness to the people who founded the SAS that is pretty unique. They are an interesting combination of qualities and not all of them expected. Indeed, as one character says, they were the sweepings of the public schools and the prisons. They were people who would not fit into normal military shape, but they were extraordinarily courageous. The SAS’s origins are quite unusual. Could it only really have been created in that particular circumstance at that particular time? That’s right and luck played a huge part. The idea for the SAS came to Stirling while he was lying in a hospital bed in Cairo having carried out a hopeless parachute jump. He had snagged his parachute on the back of a plane and it didn’t so much float to Earth as plummet, injuring his back very badly. He came up with this idea of parachuting behind the lines in the north African campaign with the intention of sneaking up onto airfields, blowing up aeroplanes and then running BBC History Magazine

away back into the desert. This was the kind of warfare that a lot of people in the top brass of the military thought was not only unconventional but not really cricket. He faced a lot of opposition from within. The SAS’s earliest operation ended in disaster. Was the unit lucky to survive this? In Operation Squatter, the first parachute jump, 55 men jumped into the desert and only 21 came back. It was an absolute calamity that should never have been allowed to happen. The weather was so bad that this IN CONTEXT

The SAS The SAS (Special Air Service) was founded in north Africa in July 1941 with the aim of attacking airfields and other targets deep behind enemy lines. At a time when the north African campaign was going badly for the Allies, the British were prepared to attempt a new form of warfare, which, despite a number of reverses, proved highly successful. The unit rapidly grew from a few dozen men to several thousand. In Europe, the SAS was active in both the Italy campaign and the attacks on France, the Netherlands and Germany. At the end of the war the SAS was disbanded, but was later reformed in 1947 and continues to operate today. SAS founder David Stirling “had a fantastically good idea that changed the way war is run”

was almost a suicide jump. And, yes, it is remarkable that the unit wasn’t disbanded. It came down really to chance and the fact that Stirling rather carefully hid the full scale of what had gone on. In contrast, many of the later desert raids were hugely successful. How was the SAS able to achieve such amazing results? It was partly tactical, it was partly extraordinarily good training. Jock Lewes, one of the forgotten heroes of the SAS, was their first sort of training officer. He put the SAS through their paces and achieved a level of physical resilience that would otherwise have been impossible. On the tactical level, the SAS teamed up with the Long Range Desert Group, a reconnaissance unit who became, in Stirling’s words, a sort of “Libyan taxi service”. The LRDG would ferry units of attackers close to the airfields and they would then slip on to these airfields under cover of darkness, and were indeed extraordinary effective. They destroyed hundreds of planes. How important was it that Churchill got on board with the SAS quite early on? It’s pretty clear that the SAS would not have survived if Churchill had not learned of it from his son Randolph, who was actually in the unit briefly, and then adopted it almost as a sort of mascot. Randolph Churchill was a very unlikely soldier, being overweight and a heavy drinker, but he had been taken by Stirling on a hopelessly failed raid into Benghazi and been so excited that he wrote to his father describing in detail what had happened. Stirling had calculated that this might happen and that Churchill would absolutely love this sort of derring-do. Later, on his way to see Stalin, Winston 29

The SAS

How did the SAS cope with the desert conditions? The Libyan desert is one of the most hostile places on Earth and they had to work out techniques of survival. It was really tough. They would spend months at a time holed up in caves and in tents in the desert under camouflage. It took a psychological as well as a physical toll – a kind of desert madness began to kick in after a while. But the SAS developed a very particular esprit de corps and their own songs, rituals and language for talking about desert life. It was all done with a strange British sense of humour. One thing some in the SAS never recovered from was having to leave wounded people behind in the desert to die of thirst. It’s something we don’t really associate with the Second World War but it was the brutal reality of what had to happen. They simply could not carry those people across hundreds of miles of desert. There are amazing stories of survival where individuals trudged 150 miles over weeks across the desert, but there are other tales of tragedy. Some just disappeared into the desert and all we know is that they never came out. How different were the SAS’s campaigns in Europe from those in the desert? The SAS transformed over time just as the war itself evolved. The north African campaign began as a very exciting adventure: Rommel described it as a sort of gentleman’s war. The rules of war applied, prisoners were taken and civilians were not involved. In Europe it became a much darker sort of war. By the time the SAS was in occupied France they were dealing with civilians, collaborators, partisans and people they could and couldn’t trust. Hitler issued his famous commando order, which said that any ‘parachutist’ – actually any military person found behind the lines – was to be treated as a spy and executed without trial. This was really a death sentence for the SAS. It didn’t appear to prevent anyone from taking part in operations but it meant that scores, if not hundreds, of SAS people were executed over the course of the campaign. Meanwhile, there were incidents where the SAS, perhaps 30

unsurprisingly, were not entirely tied-down by the rules of war. There were occasional examples where individuals were shot out of hand and when revenge was taken. One of the darkest moments of the story was when SAS members discovered Bergen-Belsen. What impact did that have on those involved? A group of SAS were motoring north through Germany in 1945 when they came upon Bergen-Belsen, purely by accident. It was actually the smell of the camp that first alerted them that there was something in the forest. When they drove through the open gates of the camp they came upon a scene of unbelievable horror. Now, given what the SAS had been through in the war, with so many of their men murdered because of Hitler’s commando order, you might have expected them to stride in and begin executing the SS guards. And there was clearly a moment where some of the troopers were ready to open fire, but the leader of the group, a man called John Tonkin, stopped them. He incarcerated the camp commandant and the SS, but they weren’t murdered, and I think of that as a moment of rare civilisation in an uncivilised war. It was perhaps a defining moment in the contrast between the two elite forces of the war: the SS and SAS. What kind of impact did the SAS have on the war as a whole? It’s impossible to put a figure on this kind of thing but what I think has been underestimated is the extent to which the SAS, at a pivotal moment in the war, provided hope. Their mystique, their legend and even their appearance – bearded, swashbuckling ruffians in their own made-up uniforms – all had a huge impact on allied morale. They had a psychological impact on the other side, too. In the desert, stories of their exploits spread through German and Italian ranks, keeping the soldiers behind the lines

in a sense of permanent fear because they never knew when the next attack was going to come. Hundreds and thousands of soldiers were kept back from the front line to defend against attacks. How much of the wartime SAS can be seen in special forces nowadays? It’s no exaggeration to say that the SAS invented a new sort of warfare. Up until this time, military thinking pretty much ran along traditional lines: two large armies colliding on a battlefield and that’s the end of the story. Stirling rewrote the rules. All special forces around the world owe their being to that inheritance, and some such as Delta Force in the US are specifically modelled on it. In many ways this is in fact the face of modern warfare. In Syria, Iraq and Libya (back where it all began) all these sorts of methods are currently being used. The US defense secretary recently described how their special forces meant their enemies “don’t know at night who’s going to be coming in through the window”. That is a precise echo of the philosophy David Stirling used to such dramatic effect 75 years ago. Ben Macintyre is an author, journalist and broadcaster who has written several books on the Second World War, including Operation Mincemeat, Double Cross and Agent Zigzag DISCOVER MORE TELEVISION  Ben Macintyre’s history of the

SAS is due to air on BBC Two in early 2017 BOOK  SAS: Rogue Heroes – The Authorized

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stopped off in Cairo and invited Stirling to dinner. They got on incredibly well and after dinner Churchill’s secretary sent a note to Stirling asking him to expand on what he’d spoken to the prime minister about. Stirling wrote a memo that more or less asked for all special forces to be put under his command and that’s what duly happened.

Falling heroes SAS volunteers undergo parachute training at Kabrit, Egypt. The unit’s raids diverted large numbers of enemy troops away from the front line

Medieval cities

PACK YOUR BAGS FOR A

City Break in Medieval Europe

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From Rome to Rheims and Bologna to Bamberg, join us on a tour of the 12th and 13th centuries’ bustling metropolises. Savour their sights and sounds via the accounts of those who lived in them. Your guide for our trip is Paul Oldfield

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Medieval cities BUILDINGS

Towering achievements

CAPTIONS FOR IMAGES ON PAGE 31: TOP T P FROM LEFT: A 14TH-CENTURY DEPICTION OF THE FOUNDATION OF ROME; NAPLES IN 1482; MILAN’S BASILICA DI SANT’AMBROGIO CENTRE: ARTWORK FROM A 14TH-CENTURY LITURGICAL BOOK. BOTTOM FROM LEF FT: A c1346 TOMB-SLAB DEPICTING BOLOGNA STUDENTS AT WORK; A MEDIEVAL FISH MARKET; CHARLES OF DURAZZO CONQUERS NAPLES, 1381–82

The 12th century is witnessing a major building boom – and, as you’ll see, the the results are spectacular

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The best way to start your tour of Europe’s medieval cities is surely to look to the heavens. Newly built cathedrals and church spires seem to be pushing cities ever upwards, nearer to God – and so are city towers. Some are constructed to defend the city, others are privately owned, adverts of a family’s power. In Metz, as an abbot tells us, you’ll have to crane your neck backwards to see the tops of towers that are lost in the clouds. If you feel fit enough, you could tick off all 361 towers that an author boasts are dotted around Rome’s city walls. A Milanese called Bonvesin reckons Milan has 120 bell-towers with more than 200 bells – so here you can also experience an amazing melody of sound throughout the day. Bonvesin also recommends Milan’s best viewing point: “Whosoever wishes to see and savour the form of the city and the quality and quantity of its estates and buildings, should ascend thankfully the tower of the court of the commune; from there, turning the eyes all round one can marvel at the wonderful sight.” For the most spectacular experience, perhaps you should go to Seville and view the huge Tower of Mary. It is said to have four spheres on top, and when the sun strikes them they radiate bright rays throughout the day. To get in and out of many cities you will have to pass through gates, often adorned with sculptures bearing religious messages. Some gates might even offer prophecies. At Naples locals tell us that a magic spell has been placed on one city gate. If you enter through it on the righthand side, you will receive good fortune, as shown by the marble head laughing in delight. If you enter the left-hand side, near another marble head – this one weeping – it will be bad luck I’m afraid. So take care! Some cities boast monumental royal palaces, and these are certainly worth a visit. A Parisian student recommends the exceptional royal palace complex next to the Seine on the Île-de-la-Cité. Or if you want to catch a glimpse of the secretive kings of Sicily, head to Palermo. Here in ki th he 12th century you will see e the new royal palace rising above the city. But su unglasses es might be necess sary to fully ap ppr prec e iate its spa p rkling interrnal walls decorated d with gol o d and pre ecious stones.

The highest buildings seem to be pushing cities ever upwards, nearer to God, and they are often adverts of a family’s wealth A painting of Naples’ Castel dell’Ovo in c1472. When entering this city, approach its gates with caution – you might find yourself the victim of a curse

Medieval must-se ee:

Seville’’s glitt tering T Tower of Mary

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COMMERCE

Wine, wool, wax and weapons There is little you can’t buy in the biggest city markets – remember to pack your purse!

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Europe is in the midst of a commercial revolution, so don’t be surprised to encounter bustling, well-stocked markets whenever you visit a medieval city. Citizens are proud of the range of products that they sell, especially exotic ones. At London’s markets, a writer named William FitzStephen says that you will find Egyptian palm oil, Chinese silks, French wines and Scandinavian furs. At Genoa, a 13th-century poet claims that you can purchase anything you desire. But do note that he complains that the shops are shut on Sundays and feast days! You can get excellent wine in Rouen, while at Caen a poet tells us that you have the choice of an array of herbs, cinnamon, incense, pepper, apple, honey, wax, cumin and also dyed woollen cloths, threads reads of linen, soft silk, bristly sw wines, woolly sheep animal skin sheep, ns horses and ns, all types of food and a drink. Some cities sp spec eciialiise in partic cul ula ar goo oods ds. If we be believ evve so ome of our au uth tho o s, ors or s, the he awards d forr best st wool ool and d weap apon onss go g to Fl Flor orren ence ce, and d be best st olilive ve oilil to o Sevi Se ill lle.. Many y of ou our wri writ iter erss pr prai aise i the he

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things that make this productivity possible: rivers (which are the motorways of the Middle Ages), bridges, and the surrounding countryside. The latter is well worth a visit, according to many medieval citizens who suggest the hinterland is like an earthly paradise. No wonder, given that this is where much of the raw materials for the city’s wealth are sourced. Bonvesin, whom we encountered earlier, claims that the mills in Milan’s surrounding countryside produce enough bread for the entire city and its 100,000 dogs, and that Milan boasts such an abundant grape harvest that it throws more wine away (for flies to become intoxicated on) than some cities have for their entire population. However, if all this consumerism i b becomes ttoo much, you could relax in the e countryside around Lisbon, where we we’rre told the coastall air and an d pu pure wat ater er springss will protec ct yo you u fr from om cou ough g s gh and d tu tube berc rcullos osis is.

Medieval d must-s t see:

Caen, fo for its s extrao ordinary array y of exo otic goods

A coup coup uple le enj enjoy oy a meal meal in th the e coun coun ountry try ysid ide in thi t his It Itali alian an illustrat illust t ration ion, c15t c15t 15th h cent entury tury ry. Mila Mila ilan’s n s hi hinte nterla rland, nd, d it it’’s cla claime imed ime d, d, provid pro ro ovid vides es eno e ugh gh br bread ead fo forr its ts pop popula ulatio tion n and and 100,000 00 0 dog dogs g

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Medieval cities

Medieval cities are widely hailed as centres of civilisation. Their citizens are praised for elegance and sophistication A teacher delivers a lecture in law at Bologna’s university – home to Europe’s best legal experts – in the 15th century

EDUCATION

Founts of all knowledge Join the intelligentsia flocking to Europe’s flourishing universities

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But for the supreme university experience, you must head to Paris, which leads the way in theological studies. Letters from Parisian students speak glowingly of the academic debates you can attend and of the throng of scholars. This kn nowledge l d transforms Paris (Parisius) into o a Paradise (Paradisus), so you’ll find yourrself in a ‘garden of delights’ (‘paradisus deliciarum’) and a ‘city of letters’ (‘civitas litterarum’). Because of this educationall climate, medieval cities are widely hailed as cen ntres of civilisation. Their citizens arre praised for elegance and sophistication. A 13th-c centu ury encyclopaedia entry on Venic ce says it would take “too long to recoun nt all the e

goodness and virtues and wisdom and knowledge and foresight and harmony and peace and love and humility and righteousness of the people of Venice”. And our friend Bonvesin has helpfully w itten a book written b k on o table t bl man nners called The Fifty Courtesies of the T Table. It advises people against speaking witth full mouths, sneezing sn g or coughing on the e table and, worsst of all, lick cking their fingers.

Medieval di must-s t see:

Paris, fo for its s celebrrated academ emic debates

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If your tastes are a little more refined than the average tourist, you’ll be delighted to learn that medieval Europe is undergoing an intellectual revival. Schools are springing up across the biggest cities (rather than in rural monasteries), and these are now being joined by universities. So, if you’d like to mix it with students and academics, you could learn from the best legal experts at the university in Bologna, or train for a career in the civil service in Naples. Or why not devour Aristotelian philosophy at university in Toulouse? These cities boast that there is an abundance of goods to make for comfortable student living too.

HERITAGE RELIGION

Divine designs Findin ng God will be easierr than you ever im magined The Christtian faith has certainly made its presen nce felt in Europe’s medieval metropolisses – and not just in their holiest shrines an nd vaulting cathedrals. Take a walk around an ny number of city centres and you’ll find that th heir layouts are heavily influenced by their de esigners’ piety. Take Ch hester, for example. According to the monk Lucian, its two main roads meet in the middle e of the city to form a cross. At the ends of bo oth roads you will find a city gate, each prote ected by a patron saint: St John, St Peter, S St Werburgh and St Michael. At Bam mberg, on the advice of a German imperial official, o you can trace the position of the fourr churches located around the main cathedral and see how they create a cruciform shape at the heart of the city. Perhapss, though, you would simply prefer to marvel at the magnificent new cathedrals and shrine es that are being built in many of Europe’s c cities. In Milan, one 13th-century writer tellss us, there are 200 saints’ shrines and aroun nd 480 altars. William FitzStephen recommends London, not only to see the wonderful cathedral of St Paul but also to soak up the piety of itss inhabitants. FitzStephen claims you will se ee excellent holy p plays, and citizens joyously c celebrating saints’ d days and charitablyy offering alms to th he poor. If you do o ’t want to bump into any on heretics, y yo our best bet is Ve enice, a city free from such fr h troublem e akers – o or so a Venetian chroniclerr boa o sts. s

Medieval must-ssee: M

Past glories Marvel at the money-spinning potential of the cities’ ancient remains Finally, you might want to extend your foray into medieval cities by learning more about these conurbations’ distant pasts. Europe’s leading cities are becoming increasingly keen to understand (and manufacture) their own origins. This is part of a renewed craze for the ancient world. Rome has to be your starting point. Medieval writers marvel at th he beauty of the city’s ancient remains, so ometimes lamenting their decay. They encourage you to look anew at the magnificence of structures such as the Colossseum and the Baths of Diocletian, or to o read the inscription at the spot where e Julius Caesarr is commemorated. Rome’s 12th-cen 1 nturyy rulers have even put a prese ervation orde er on Trajan’s Column so that itt will rem main intact for “as long as the worrld lasts””. You could also visit all those cities – such as Rouen and Seville – which cla aim to have been founded by Jullius Caesar, and walk in the footsteps of one of the most famous Roman genera als. If you’re looking for something g even more ancient, try Trier, r, which maintains that it was founded by Trebeta, the son of Ninus, the king of the Assyrians. Rouen has a quirky slogan about its ancient past which is based on its Latin name: Rodomus (Romanorum domus), the dwelling place of the Romans. Other cities have developed these catchy ‘brand names’: Rheims is supposedly named after Remus, the brother of Romulus, who founded Rome. León in Spain allegedly took its name Leo (lion) in honour of its former ruler Leovigild, king of the Visigoths. You could even visit the supposed burial

place of King Lud at Ludgate in London. He was an ancient mythical ruler who is said to have given his name to the city (Lundinium). No doubt you’d like to take away a souvenir of your trip. Perhaps you could keep a coin minted in one of the cities, or furtively detach a seal from a document. Since about 1150, these havve contained images of the city, local sain nts, or ancient my y thical founders. So, don’ n’tt worry, you don’tt need to read Latin n to t underst stand these ciities’ rich histories – yo y u ca an simply ad dmire the visual evidenc nce all around yo ou.

Medieval must-ssee: The an ncientt wonde ers of Rom ome

London n’s magnificent St Pau S aul’s Ca Cathedral

Workers make coins in a medieval illustration. You may wish to take one of these home as a souvenir of your visit

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DISCOVER MORE BOOK  Urban Life in the Middle Ages, 1000–

In some European cities – such as Chester, shown ab bove in a map – the two main roads mee et in the centre to form a cross BBC History y Magazine

Paul Oldfield is senior lecturer in medieval history at the University of Manchester. This article is based on his current project on medieval cities, which was aided by funding from a British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship

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The death of Rasputin

Within days of the mystic’s death in 1916, rumours were swirling that Britain – terrified by the prospect of Russia unilaterally quitting the First World War – was behind the brutal killing. Douglas Smith investigates a century-old murder mystery Holy man or charlatan? Grigory Rasputin photographed at the height of his powers. By the outbreak of the First World War, the mystic’s influence over Russia’s imperial family had earned him some powerful enemies

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DID A BRITISH AGENT MURDER RASPUTIN?

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n the early hours of 17 December 1916, an automobile drove onto the snowcovered Large Petrovsky Bridge and came to a stop. Three men got out. From the vehicle they hauled the lifeless body of a middle-aged man, leaned him up against the railing, and then dumped him over the edge into the icy waters of the Malaya Nevka river on the outskirts of Petrograd (now St Petersburg). Two days later, the frozen body of Grigory Yefimovich Rasputin was hauled from the river. The life of Rasputin was one of the most remarkable of the 20th century. A peasant born in a remote Siberian village in c1869, Rasputin spent many years wandering the vast Russian empire as a holy pilgrim in search of spiritual enlightenment, eventually making his way to the Romanov imperial palace in 1905. He impressed Emperor Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra as a true man of God and they soon came to rely on him as a confidant and friend, and the protector of their son Alexei, the sickly heir to the throne. Yet from the beginning, Rasputin was accused of being a charlatan, a sexual deviant and a usurper who bent the royal couple to his evil will. He preached his own brand of Orthodoxy, took liberties with the women who came to him for succour, and insisted on telling the tsar how to rule. Following the outbreak of the First World War, he became the scapegoat for all of the country’s ills, and many Russians were convinced that Rasputin was in fact an agent of the Germans. Two murder plots were hatched against him, but both times he survived. And then, that fateful December night, Prince Felix Yusupov managed to lure Rasputin to his palace on the Moika river and, together with four conspirators, murdered the Siberian in cold blood. From the beginning the killing was shrouded in rumour. Yusupov, clearly distorting what had transpired that night,

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claimed Rasputin had been almost impossible to kill, that his victim displayed the superhuman power of the Devil, and it was miraculous that he, Yusupov, had accomplished what no one had managed before. Petrograders exchanged the most outlandish tales about the murder, one of which would suck in a powerful ally of Russia’s, and trigger a debate that still rages today. Rasputin, the whispers went, had been killed by an agent of the British Secret Intelligence Service. The story quickly spread. German agents in Stockholm cabled to Berlin that they had it on good authority that “a young Englishman” had been in the Yusupov home that night. Another secret communication, sent to the king of Bulgaria, placed this same Englishman in the car that drove off with the body.

Perfidious Albion It makes sense that the Germans would place an Englishman at the murder scene, for they, and a good many Russians, were convinced that Rasputin had been killed because of his rumoured desire to make a separate peace with Germany. The English, desperate to keep Russia in the war, had the perfect motive. As early as August of that year, a

Th cover off a police The li d dossier i on R Rasputin’s i ’ death. It’s been claimed that he was shot with a British revolver

former official of the Russian miniistry of foreign affairs, who had observed what w he considered the perfidious machinaations of the British, told Empress Alexandrra that the English were preparing to kill Rasp putin. Communiques from Sir George Buchanan,, the British ambassador to Russia, show s that he had heard of a plot not long befo ore the murder. Buchanan commented in a secret cable on 18 December that: “I was ttold aboutt a week ago by a friend who is in clo ose touch with some of the younger grand du ukes that a number of young officers had sworrn to kill him before the end of the year.” Wh ho, exactlyy, these officers were he does not say. This is, however, the only evidence that Bu uchanan had prior knowledge of the murderr, and there rree is nothing in the archives to suggesst that he had anything to do with any plot. Regardless, some in Russia undo oubtedly wanted to blame the English for Raasputin’s death. On 20 December, an article appeared in the newspaper Russian Word, tittled ‘The Story of the English Detectives’, claaiming that att Rasputin had hired agents from Sccotland Yard to work alongside the Okhran na, the tsarist secret police, for his protectiion shortlyy before his death. What he did not kknow, the article claimed, was that these imported i aagents had been bought off byy Yusupov aand so stood by outside the palace whilee he was being murdered. h The same day the article ap ppeared, SSamuel Hoare, head of the British iintelligence mission in Russiia, sent a ccable to Mansfield Cummin ng, head of MI1(c), the precursor to MI66, asking M whether the story were true,, and if so, what were the names of the agents. Butt no list of any Scotland Yard d agents operating in Russia was fortthcoming – for the simple reason thatt there had never been any. Hoare later came to the realisation r that, in the days after the m murder, Russian ‘rightists’ had been ttrying to R frame the British for the crime, and d him in particular. The rumour of his guiltt, he wrote,, 59

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The Klondike gold rush

STAMPEDE In the 1890s, tens of thousands of people flocked to the Yukon in search of gold but were instead assailed by scurvy, bears and punishing cold. Felicity Aston relates how the Klondike gold rush turned into a grim battle for survival Accompanies the BBC Two series Operation Gold Rush Base camp ‘Stampeders’ at Sheep Creek in the Klondike. Journalists marvelled at the squalor of the mining settlements hastily erected by those dreaming of finding gold

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Dawson Charlie, were on a fishing trip along the Klondike river, a remote tributary of the Yukon, when they found a thick layer of gold in the bedrock of Rabbit Creek. Prospectors would assess the potential of a creek by scooping up dirt in a shallow pan before using running water to sift through. Gold, being 20 times heavier than water, would be left in the bottom of the pan. A good pan would yield around 10 cents’ worth of gold, but Carmack reported reaping more than four dollars’ worth of gold flakes and fine nuggets from his very first pan in Rabbit Creek (which he promptly renamed Bonanza). When the Portlandd steamed into Seattle with its Yukon treasure almost a year later, the Klondike immediately became a household name around the world. One of history’s greatest stampedes had begun.

Quitting the force During the 18 months that followed, 100,000 people set out for the Klondike. It wasn’t just the poor and unemployed that rushed to the goldfields – a quarter of Seattle’s police force are said to have resigned, the mayor stepped down in order to buy a steamboat to ferry prospectors, while a former governor abandoned his campaign to become a US senator in favour of venturing north. The majority of the stampeders were Americans but, of the significant minority

that travelled from Europe, most were British. Some of them, like brothers Arthur and Edward Lee, were fortune seekers but among the others whose stories I’ve encountered there was also Flora Shaw, a correspondent for The Timess sent to report on the stampede for a sceptical London audience, and the young aristocrat Frederick Wombwell, who was simply looking for adventure. Whatever the motivation, every stampeder discovered that the challenge was not finding gold but getting to the goldfields in the first place. Of the 100,000 that departed for the Yukon, only 40,000 ever arrived. Unwilling to delay their journey until spring, when the melting ice of the Yukon would allow passage upriver by steamboat from Alaska, most stampeders chose one of two overland routes that crossed the glaciated mountains lining the northern Pacific coast. The arduous 30-mile Chilkoot Trail climbed to a pass 1,080 metres high and

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n the morning of Saturday 17 July 1897, the modest seaport of Seattle awoke to a sensation. The morning papers screamed the headline: “Gold! Gold! Gold! Gold! Sixty-Eight Rich Men on the Steamer Portland! Stacks of Yellow Metal!” The curious thronged through the streets towards Schwabacher Wharf where the steamship Portlandd had just arrived back from the Yukon. They cheered as grizzled men wearing new suits and long beards struggled to lift ashore leather satchels stuffed with gold dust and nuggets. Rumour spread through the crowd that the steamship carried “a ton of gold” but they were wrong: the Portlandd carried nearer two tons. It had been nearly 50 years since the first great gold rush of northern California in 1849. Since then, persistent rumours of gold in the north had prompted a steady trickle of prospectors to set off in search of it. But the north was still a hostile wilderness of dense forest, short summers and brutal winters. There was no infrastructure and the Yukon river was the only thoroughfare. On 10 August 1896, veteran prospector George Carmack, his wife, Kate (a member of the Tagish First Nations people), her brother Skookum Jim, and his nephew, nicknamed

The challenge wasn’t finding gold but getting to the goldfields. 100,000 departed, but only 40,000 ever arrived

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The Klondike gold rush

LEFT: Prospectors ascend the Chilkoot Trail’s infamous ‘golden staircase’. As the saying went: “Whichever way you go, you’ll wish you would’ve gone the other” ABOVE: A man measures out gold dust to pay for his provisions in a dry goods store, 1899. Gold dust was considered legal tender in Dawson City RIGHT: Women chop timber in Dawson City. As gold fever swept the Klondike, this frontier town’s population swelled from a few hundred to more than 20,000

Our map shows the cruel 600-mile journey from the Alaskan coast to the Klondike

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Temperatures fell below -30C as winter advanced and the trail to the Klondike’s goldfields was buried in ever deeper snow “It is not pleasant to leave the steamer and to begin living in a tent pitched in nearly a foot of snow.” To add to the difficulty, the Canadian authorities, fearing mass starvation, introduced a law requiring all travellers to carry a ton of goods considered necessary to survive a winter in the wilderness. Those who couldn’t afford to pay for packers (people employed to carry loads along the trail) had to shuttle these goods back and forth themselves. Common loads weighed 40kg or more. Avalanches became a constant hazard, the most deadly occurring on Palm Sunday in April 1898. “In all there were over 50 dead bodies taken out, 100 being the number stated by some,” wrote a traumatised Edward Lee. “The snow slide had come down from some high steep mountains on the right-hand side of the trail and overwhelmed everything.” Once across the mountains, the ordeal wasn’t over. The stampeders now had to traverse a series of long lakes until they reached the headwaters of the Yukon. From there it was still a 500-mile journey downstream to the goldfields. Vast camps grew on the shores of lakes Bennett and Lindeman as a backlog of prospectors settled in to wait for the spring melt. The surrounding forests were

razed for timber to build rudimentary huts in the camps and to provide firewood, as well as to build boats for the onward journey. Some eager prospectors couldn’t bear to wait and judged the ice thick enough to take their weight. “Men took chances that in ordinary circumstances they would not risk,” explained Cornish émigré William Olive. “But the magic word ‘gold’ lured them on to brave both danger and destruction.”

Cases of cold feet When the ice finally thawed, 8,000 craft set off across the lakes in May alone. Ahead were long sections of complicated rapids that were as deadly as the menacing isolation of the surrounding forest. Drownings, starvation, disease, scurvy, bear attacks and madness each claimed their victims, all accompanied by unbearable clouds of mosquitoes. “Many discouraged ones are selling their outfits and leaving the country,” wrote a restless Frederick Wombwell at the end of May 1898. “They hear dreadful tales of the horrors awaiting them down the Yukon, so they get ‘cold feet’, sell their outfits for practically nothing, and out they go.” If the beleaguered stampeders dreamed of salvation when they eventually reached BBC History Magazine

TOPFOTO / GETTY

included a section so steep that it became known as the ‘golden staircase’. White Pass was lower, at 870 metres but the trail longer and more rugged. “There ain’t no choice between the Chilkoot and the White Pass,” went one popular saying of the time. “One’s hell. The other’s damnation. Whichever way you go, you’ll wish you would’ve gone the other.” Very few stampeders knew anything about the wilderness they were entering. Temperatures fell below -30C as winter advanced and the trail was buried in ever deeper snow. Would-be miners pitched flimsy camps wherever they could along the trails but as numbers swelled, so did competition for space. “There was a noticeable change in the faces of those who were less inured to hardships,” wrote American William Haskell of new arrivals on the Chilkoot Trail in 1898.

Ghosts of the gold rush The Klondike still bears the scars of the ‘yellow metal’ craze, says Felicity Aston

GETTY / ALAMY

High and dry: A boat abandoned by gold hunters in the Klondike

Dawson City, they were to be disappointed. “The town of Dawson, itself on a swamp, is hideous,” ranted Flora Shaw on her arrival. “All the refuse of a thousand tents flung out of doors… you feel that you are breathing poison all the time that you walk.” The boomtown that had emerged at the muddy confluence of the Klondike and Yukon rivers came into its own during the summer of 1898. What had been a prospectors’ camp of a few hundred the previous year had now mushroomed into a population of 20,000 and was still growing. Every day hundreds more arrived. They found a wildly exuberant, vice-fuelled but squalid frontier town, where the currency was gold dust and the prices higher than in any European capital. Life in the mining camps that littered the surrounding creeks was as meagre as it had been on the trail. British journalist Julius Price couldn’t believe what he saw: “One wondered at the strange fascination of gold that it could reconcile a man, and, for that matter, his wife also, to come and eke out a miserable existence in such an awful place as this, on the mere chance of perhaps someday satisfying their avaricious desires, and also so far make them forget their natural instincts as to bring children with them to share their awful hardships.” Dawson was the end of the road for many. Of the tens of thousands that arrived, just 4,000 ever went looking for gold. No more than a few hundred got rich. Edward Lee’s diary stops before he reaches Dawson but years later his family discovered BBC History Magazine

$12,708.49 in gold dust deposited by his brother Arthur. Flora Shaw would spend less than six months in the Yukon but her reports led to major improvements in the tax laws on gold mining. Frederick Wombwell found gold but was generally an unsuccessful miner. The last entry in his diary reads: “We did not make much money, but by the same token we had a wonderful time without losing any.” In August 1899, barely two years after the Portland had arrived in Seattle with the treasure that sparked the stampede, news reached Dawson that a large gold strike had been found at the mouth of the Yukon river, in Nome, Alaska. Within a week nearly 10,000 had abandoned Dawson. The Klondike gold rush was over. Very few miners ever struck it rich but cities like Seattle, who served the stampeders, made their fortunes. The legacy of the Klondike gold rush is not in bullion but in opening up the far north, in the nascent Canada establishing a sense of national identity, and in the enduring (if falsely romantic) ideal of frontier life in the northern wilderness. Felicity Aston MBE is an expedition leader and former Antarctic scientist. In 2012 she became the first woman to ski alone across Antarctica DISCOVER MORE TELEVISION  Operation Gold Rush, a three-part

BBC Two series about the Klondike gold rush – co-presented by Felicity Aston – is due to air this month

While filming a series on the Klondike gold rush for BBC Two (see below for details), I followed in the footsteps of the thousands of stampeders who undertook the odyssey from the Alaskan coast to the goldfields of the Yukon. Standing on the summit of the Chilkoot Trail – the cruellest part of that desperate journey – it is impossible not to sense ghosts. Surrounded by thick fog and buffeted by strong winds in the heart of the Klondike Gold Rush International Historic Park, a second glance at the dark shapes on the snow reveal that these are not rocks, but remnants of the stampede. Rusty tin cans, wooden cases, even shovels and leather shoes, lie abandoned. More than a century later, the hillsides around the lakes Bennett and Lindeman still bear the scars of the mass deforestation caused by the stampeders’ need for lumber. We found material elsewhere for our home-made wooden boat that we rowed 400 miles down the Yukon river to Dawson City. The town works hard to recall its riotous past but today there are only 1,000 inhabitants and the hordes that arrive every morning are tourists rather than fortune-seekers. Venturing into the creeks surrounding Dawson, it is astonishing to see the volume of earth that has been turned over in the continuing search for gold. The nuggets are long gone but anyone can still dip a pan into the Klondike and find a few flakes. Many regard the story of the gold rush as a tale of greed but I believe this is instead a story of hope. People will go to great lengths to protect their family and provide them with a future. That is a motivation I think we can all understand.

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bbh1216

BBH1216

In this JM Staniforth cartoon from 1914, the Russian advance into Galicia sends the Central Powers into headlong flight

Slashing the Hun with

CARTOONS

Millions of Britons watched the First World War unfold through the eyes of JM Staniforth. Chris Williams introduces a cartoonist who “helped fire the patriotism of the people”

CARTOON WW1.ORG

W

hile thousands of British troops were waging war against the Germans with bullets and shells, one man was taking the fight to the enemy with his pen. Joseph Morewood Staniforth – better known to readers of the News of the World and the Cardiff daily the Western Mail by his initials ‘JMS’ – was one of the most popular political cartoonists of early 20th-century Britain. Over the course of a 30-year career, he drew around 15,000 cartoons “dealing”, so the Western Mail put it, “with every conceivable subject”. Yet it is those that document the First World War for which Staniforth (1863– 1921) is best remembered. He produced around 1,300 cartoons during the conflict, providing us with a comprehensive record of one artist’s often instinctive response BBC History Magazine

to the great issue of the time. In the pages that follow I’ve picked out four of Staniforth’s wartime cartoons, each of which reveal a man who aimed to communicate not just the course of events but also the deeper rationale for the fight against Germany. Working from his own studio, ‘JMS’ enjoyed considerable independence. He chose his subject and was responsible for the message his art carried. He was unlikely to dissent violently from his employers’ political preferences, but neither did he follow them slavishly. With the News of the World boasting a circulation of 3 million by the end

A self-portrait of JM Staniforth, one of the early 20th-century’s most popular cartoonists

of the war and the Western Mail selling 100,000 copies a day in 1916, Staniforth’s cartoons would have made a considerable impression on the British psyche. His popularity is perhaps best captured by a statement delivered by Prime Minister Lloyd George when the cartoonist died in 1921. Staniforth, he said, was “one of the most distinguished cartoonists of his generation” who had rendered “great national service”. The Western Mail suggested that his cartoons “did much to lighten the dark days and to fire the patriotism of the people”. Staniforth’s own estimation of his war record in Who’s Who in Wales (1921) was more direct. He wrote that he had “slashed the Hun with cartoons”! And you can now see many of these artworks yourself at cartoonww1.org.

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First World War cartoonist

Tyranny or freedom? The choice is yours In this cartoon, published in the Western Mail when the First World War had yet to reach its first Christmas, JM Staniforth sets out a stark justification for the struggle with Germany, pairing his image with a lengthy quotation from a speech by Lloyd George. “You are fighting for the destiny of the human race for generations to come,” declared the then chancellor of the exchequer at a London Welsh Battalion banquet. “There are two roads you are looking down. One leads to despotism, tyranny, aggression, the downfall of liberty… Look at the other road. That is the road onward to human civilisation, to human

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liberty, to human greatness. That is what you are fighting for, and upon the issue of this war will depend the destiny of the human race for generations to come.” It is often difficult for us today to comprehend what the Western Mail’s readership thought the First World War was being fought for, in part because so much of our thinking has been influenced by the disillusionment expressed by war poets and novelists. Although this cartoon might now seem naive, its message was echoed by the Victory Medal issued after the conflict. Inscribed on the reverse were the words: “The Great War for Civilisation 1914–1919.”

This cartoon might now seem naive, thanks in part to the disillusionment expressed by war poets and novelists

BBC History Magazine

CARTOON WW1.ORG

The Two Roads, 3 December 1914

Tommy shows his bulldog spirit It’s Dogged as Does It, 29 October 1916 The battle of the Somme remains an intensely controversial episode in the First World War. A century on, a fierce debate continues to rage about the high casualties suffered by many volunteer battalions, and the quality of British generalship. The star of this cartoon, published in the News of the World, is the indomitable bulldog – sporting a ‘Tommy Atkins’ collar to signify the common soldier. Staniforth’s canine hero is seen breaking through German defences and advancing on the French town of Bapaume, so suggesting that British steadfastness will ultimately win out.

Women behold the promised land

CARTOON WW1.ORG

Crusaders Sighting Jerusalem, 1 February 1917 Before the war Staniforth had been opposed to ‘votes for women’. But like many others, his mind was changed by the significant contribution of women to the war effort, in and out of uniform. In Crusaders Sighting Jerusalem, he shows women’s suffrage campaigners glimpsing their distant goal in an allusion to a famous painting by Edwin Austin Abbey. The cartoon, which appeared in the Western Mail, was prompted by the findings of a conference on electoral reform chaired by the speaker of the House of Commons. This recommended the granting of limited suffrage for women – something that was achieved in the Representation of the People Act 1918.

BBC History Magazine

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First World War cartoonist

The Yanks are here! Coming and Going, 21 July 1918

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The psychological impact of the Americans’ arrival on the western front was considerable

Chris Williams is professor of history and head of school at Cardiff University. He is a co-editor, with Andrew Edwards, of The Art of the Possible: Politics and Governance in Modern British History, 1885–1997 (Manchester, 2015)

DISCOVER MORE ON THE WEB  ‘Cartooning the First World War’,

a Heritage Lottery Fund-supported project, has digitised many of JM Staniforth’s cartoons. You can view them at cartoonww1.org BBC History Magazine

CARTOON WW1.ORG

The outcome of the war on the western front was in the balance during the first half of 1918, as German troops from the eastern front were transferred west to take part in a bold offensive. But by the summer the tide had turned, and American reinforcements began to shore up the Allies. The American Expeditionary Force’s military contribution to victory was marginal. Psychologically, however, its impact was considerable – as Coming and Going, which appeared in the News of the World, shows. The caption to this cartoon reads: “More than 600,000 American troops (according to a government statement) were carried to Europe during the past three months. These are but the vanguard of a practically illimitable army.”

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Beyond beauty Emma Hamilton, c1785. Overcoming serial mistreatment by men, she achieved celebrity across Europe. But her relationship with Nelson would sow the seeds of her downfall

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BBC History Magazine

A reappraisal

Emma Hamilton

Besmirched as a social climber and sexual manipulator who bagged the nation’s beloved naval hero, Horatio Nelson, history has been unkind to Emma, Lady Hamilton. But shouldn’t we admire a woman who, from impoverished obscurity, propelled herself to the top of society? By Quintin Colville

T

emptress, seductress, fallen woman, mistress of Britain’s greatest naval hero. During her life and since her death, descriptions of Emma Hamilton have tended to be variations on an old and predictable theme. It is, of course, a common fate for women in the public eye to be reduced to the sum of their actual or imagined sexual history. However, the gap between salacious stereotype and reality is unusually pronounced for Emma, whose life story is surely one of the most remarkable and varied of the 18th century. Propelled by performative talent, artistic creativity, beauty and a fierce desire to improve herself, she rose from obscurity to European fame while still in her twenties. Yet, and in spite of some powerful revisionist biographies, we are obliged to peer through a blizzard of moralising criticism to discern her achievements. Accounting for this profound disconnect is far from straightforward. Few historical figures are so richly supplied as Emma with

BBC History Magazine

distorting mirrors created by artists, gossips, biographers, historians and, on occasion, Emma herself. Her gender, humble background, ambitions, connections and public reputation ensured that many axes would be ground and wielded. Rather than examining them in turn, we can instead explore Emma’s astonishing and ultimately tragic journey from her birth in the village of Ness, Cheshire in 1765, to her death in self-imposed exile in Calais half a century later.

In search of a protector The daughter of a blacksmith, Henry Lyon, Emma’s earliest years can only be uncovered through fragmentary evidence. Even after arriving in London at around the age of 12, she is slow to emerge from the shadows in which most labouring lives from this period remain shrouded. As with so many, she found work as a domestic servant. Ambitious from the start, though, she was soon drawn to Covent Garden, where high culture and fashionable celebrity met grimier realities.

This area was, of course, the centre of London’s sex trade. In the absence of definitive details, lurid and not always reliable accounts have circulated ever since about her activities there, in the process shoring up a distorted impression of her identity and motivations. What we know for certain is that she became the lover of a young nobleman, Sir Harry Fetherstonhaugh, but was rejected by him when, aged 16, she became pregnant with his child. Her only chance lay in finding another ‘protector’, and she wrote a desperate, pleading letter to one of Fetherstonhaugh’s friends, Charles Greville. Knowing that her fate lay in his power, he set out the terms on which she would become his mistress: “If you mean to have my protection I must first know from you that you are clear of every connexion, & that you will never take them again without my consent. I shall then be free to dry up the tears of my lovely Emily… but remember I never will… continue my connexion one moment 51

Emma Hamilton

CLOCKWISE FROM ABOVE: A handwritten note from Emma to Nelson: “I hope my dear Horatia will be good, virtuous and improve her time”; James Gillray’s Dido in Despair, r satirising Emma and Nelson’s scandalous relationship; a nautical needle book made by their daughter, Horatia

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allusions. It is surely this catalysing quality that made her so enduringly absorbing to him. Certainly she had soon graduated from model to muse. Greville, however, longed for a wealthy wife, and the conspicuously attractive and increasingly famous Emma became a considerable hindrance. A solution to his difficulties came in the form of his uncle: Sir William Hamilton, the British envoy in Naples. Unknown to Emma, Greville convinced Hamilton to take her on as his own mistress – passed from nephew to uncle like the paintings and sculptures that both men collected so avidly. Emma was sent to Naples in 1786, fully expecting Greville (who she genuinely loved) to join her. When the truth became clear, she was crushed. Emma sent Greville a torrent of letters full of anger and humiliation, but no reply was forthcoming: “If you knew what pain I feil in reading those lines when you advise me to Whore nothing can express my rage, I am all madness, Greville… to advise

Emma was a natural performer. With her innate theatricality and striking good looks, she became Romney’s obsession

me to go to bed with him, Sr Wm [Sir William]. Oh, that’s worst of all… I would murder you & myself boath.” Emma nonetheless threw herself into Neapolitan life with her typical thirst for education and improvement. Packed with all the accessories of a cultivated mind and connoisseur, Sir William Hamilton’s palazzo was the ideal context. Within a year she was fluent in Italian and French, and had both engaged with Hamilton’s passion for art and classical antiquities and demonstrated considerable talent as a singer.

Fame in Naples But Emma was no mere pupil. With great rapidity, and Hamilton’s willing assistance, she exploited her sophisticated surroundings to perfect an innovative type of performance art known as the Attitudes. These were fluid tableaux vivants in which Emma brought the paintings and sculptures that enraptured Grand Tourists in Naples dramatically to life before their eyes. Her poses and elegant use of costume and shawls became the must-see spectacle of the day, winning the admiration of an elite audience all too ready to criticise a girl of Emma’s humble origins. The Attitudes were a tour de force and a creative summit. To some extent, they paralleled Emma’s work as Romney’s model. But she was now both the artist and the artwork, and a degree of power and authorial control came with that territory. Emma’s life in Naples was a procession of achievements. Following unpromising beginnings, a relationship blossomed with Sir BBC History Magazine

NATIONAL MARITIME MUSEUM

after my confidence is again betray’d.” Greville provided for the child, but made clear that it could not remain under the same roof as its mother. Thus presented by Greville with the challenge of mastering a placid and respectable identity, Emma responded with a thoroughgoing performance of virtue, in her words turning “the wild unthinking Emma” into “a grave thoughtful phylosopher”. Impressed, and keen to profit culturally from his beautiful lover, Greville introduced her to the great portraitist, George Romney. What could have been a brief engagement for a busy artist turned instead into a longstanding creative collaboration. With her innate theatricality and striking good looks, Emma became Romney’s obsession. Over hundreds of sittings he completed more than 70 canvases. Emma’s importance for Romney operated on many levels. His typical clients were members of the British elite: powerful and influential figures, who were attracted by his status as a fashionable artist but nonetheless expected to be represented in conventional terms. As an obscure provincial girl, Emma as a sitter could be the subject for unfettered inspiration and experimentation. Anonymity, however, was only the start. Emma was a natural and uninhibited performer with a gift for capturing dramatic expressions and personas. Through this powerful combination of qualities, Emma allowed Romney to reach towards his own artistic ambitions and fascinations, while simultaneously stocking her own repertoire of classical, mythological and historical

JEAN JOHNSON KISIAK COLLECTION

Four examples of the 70 or so portraits made by George Romney CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: ‘Absence’, apparently reflecting Romney’s melancholy at his muse’s move to Naples; as the Greek goddess Circe, c1782; shown aged 20, 1785; one of several portraits casting Emma as a Bacchante (companion of Bacchus)

BBC History Magazine

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Emma Hamilton

One of a pair of gold betrothal rings exchanged by Nelson and Emma, and worn by Nelson at the time of his death

Lover to Nelson It was from Emma’s position as a privileged insider that she encountered the naval hero Horatio Nelson. Following his victory at the battle of the Nile in 1798 she helped to organise lavish celebrations in his honour in Naples. In December of that year, with French troops approaching, she assisted Nelson in evacuating the royal family from the city, and returned to Naples with him and Sir William the following year to advance the queen’s desire to suppress anti-monarchist elements. It was in these highly charged circumstances that their romantic involvement began – a love affair marked by mutual admiration. From her arrival in Naples in 1786, Emma had successfully cultivated a reputation for constancy and virtue. Although the British grandees who visited Sir William’s palazzo never accepted her on equal terms, she had gained, in his words, their “thorough approbation”. Emma’s love for Nelson came at the price of this fragile and hard-won respectability. Sir William maintained a philosophical friendship with them both, but damaging scandal grew as they travelled back to Britain together through Trieste, Vienna and Hamburg. Emma was still at the height of her fame, but she would never again experience the triumphs and security of her Neapolitan life. In England, her position among the beau monde was always more precarious, and Maria Carolina’s warm hospitality found no parallel in the resolutely hostile court of George III and Queen Charlotte. Although she endeavoured to conceal the fact, Emma was also now pregnant, giving birth to her daughter with Nelson in January 1801. Once again, Emma’s experience of motherhood was fraught with difficulty. Horatia, as she was named, was presented to the world as Nelson’s ward, and it is possible that Emma died without telling Horatia that she was her mother. In order to maintain social propriety, Emma was reluctant to bring Horatia to Merton Place, the country house she chose for Nelson and which they shared 54

Emma had cultivated a reputation for virtue. Her love for Nelson came at the price of this hardwon respectability during his brief periods ashore. Indeed, the redesigned grounds, elegant interiors and hectic sociability of Merton – largely the result of Emma’s tenacious energy – could never conceal the deep fractures caused by their adultery.

Descent into debt Still greater challenges were to come. Emma and Nelson’s plans for a future together ended when he was killed at the battle of Trafalgar on 21 October 1805. Emma had lost her great love. With Sir William also dead, she no longer had a male protector, leaving her socially and financially vulnerable. With an annuity from Sir William and the legacy of Merton from Nelson, Emma’s life did not collapse immediately, and her name continues to appear in the society pages in connection with powerful figures such as William Beckford and the Duke of Queensbury. A life of quiet and retired comfort was within her grasp, but Emma’s ambitions were altogether different and drove her into rash spending in order to maintain a social profile she could no longer realise. She was committed to King’s Bench Prison in 1813 for debt. Following her release in summer 1814, she and Horatia travelled to Calais, where her health finally gave way. She died there in cheap rooms in January 1815. How, then, has this technicolour firework of a life so often been reduced to the label of ‘mistress’? The answer lies, in part, with Nelson’s posthumous reputation. In 1931, the

R Royal Navy’s professional journal, The Naval Review, w published the following chilly notice about a new biography of Nelson by George Edinger and EJC Neep. “There is no doubt in tthis book much that is true,” noted the rreviewer, “especially regarding the sordid sstory of Emma Hamilton, but it would be far, ffar better if it had never been written. One is inclined to suspect, or at least to hope, that the writers are of foreign nationality.” As the great emblem of Victorian and Edwardian heroic masculinity, Nelson had to be absolved of human frailty, and the myth of Emma as the temptress and sexual sorceress who prized him from duty was thus mobilised. The reality of a relationship in which she celebrated his heroism and fired his ambition while he, in turn, admired her strength and achievements was obscured. However, there is a broader history at work. Women who lived in the public eye during the 18th century were usually censured. The world of the theatre is relevant here. Although Emma never worked as an actress, her modelling for Romney, her singing and her Attitudes certainly identified her as a performer who moved beyond private ‘accomplishment’. Crucially, the association of the public performer with sexual availability and prostitution was entrenched and, in Emma’s case, intensified by her early years in Covent Garden. Unsympathetic observers would have concluded that Emma’s ‘ruin’ in girlhood and her love of ‘immodest’ display as an adult reflected a continuity of moral failure. It is a considerable historical irony that a woman with such a strong claim to so many different and complex identities is routinely associated with one that is simplistic, disempowering and inappropriate. Emma was a model, a muse, a trailblazing artist, a populariser of female fashions, a singer offered contracts by prestigious opera houses, a politician and a patriot. Surely the time has long passed for viewing her as either a passive beauty or an active nuisance. Quintin Colville is curator of naval history at the National Maritime Museum in London and the author (with Kate Williams) of Emma Hamilton: Seduction and Celebrityy (Thames and Hudson, 2016)

DISCOVER MORE EXHIBITION  Emma Hamilton: Seduction

and Celebrity at the National Maritime Museum, London, 3 November 2016 to 17 April 2017. See rmg.co.uk/see-do for more details BBC History Magazine

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William, and in 1791 she made the extraordinary social leap of marrying him, taking the title Lady Hamilton. As an envoy’s wife, she now had access to the Neapolitan court, where she became the confidante of Queen Maria Carolina. The girl from Ness had come a long way indeed, and was soon steeped in the machinations against Revolutionary France that so preoccupied the queen, whose sister – Marie Antoinette – was executed by the regime in 1793.

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WWI eyewitness accounts

OUR FIRST WORLD WAR

In and out of uniform In part 31 of his personal testimony series, Peter Hart takes us back to December 1916, when those not on the front line experienced incarceration, infestation and opportunities for honing new skills. Peter is tracing the experiences of 20 people who lived through the First World War – via interviews, letters and diary entries – as its centenary progresses ILLUSTRATIONS BY JAMES ALBON

Harold Bing Born in Croydon in 1897, Harold was brought up a pacifist. When war broke out in 1914 he was 16 years old. On turning 18 he pleaded exemption from conscription which was, after several hearings, denied. He was then arrested for refusing to serve. Harold, an absolutist conscientious objector who would undertake no work related to the war, had been imprisoned in Wormwood Scrubs since September 1916. He was discharged just after Christmas.

I was handed over to a military escort from the Royal Sussex Regiment, who took me to their headquarters at Tunbridge Wells. There I was put in the guardroom overnight and the next morning appeared before the officer in command of the unit. I explained my position and said I was not prepared to undertake service, at which he was very surprised. I think it was the first such case he’d come across, and he was very annoyed. My mother and sister came down to visit me, and as a result he called me again. He said he’d learned something about my academic background and thought I was not just a fool but

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an intelligent young man. He proceeded to discuss with me in quite a reasonable way, and tried to persuade me that there was really nothing for me to do but to accept the position and serve in the army. He learned that I had a non-combatant certificate, which presented him with a way out of his dilemma. He said: “Well, of course you’ve no business here because this is a combatant unit! Take this chap back to Kingston Barracks and say we don’t want him. If they won’t have him, take him to Croydon town hall, where his non-combatant certificate was issued. If they won’t have him, lose him – but for God’s sake don’t bring him back here!”

Bing was finally sent to the 9th Eastern Non-Combatant Company, stationed just outside Winchester.

They were engaged in various duties – road making and sanitary work, that sort of thing. They were in the charge of two or three old NCOs from prewar days who were very rough and violent indeed. They treated the members of the corps very roughly, and those who got attached to the corps and weren’t prepared to serve in it also got rough treatment. I’ve seen one of them, at a seven o’clock parade on a frosty January morning when the ground was as hard as iron, knock a private down on the ground and then kick him ruthlessly. I was court-martialled for refusing to obey orders, and again convicted. A pattern of arrest, sentence, release and re-arrest had been established. There could be no escape for Harold without abandoning his principles.

“I saw an NCO, on a frosty morning when the ground was hard as iron, knock a private down and kick him ruthlessly”

Edmund Williams Edmund was born in 1894 in Formby to a fairly well-off family. After studying chemistry, in September 1914 he volunteered to join the 19th King’s Liverpool Regiment with his brother. The battalion moved to the western front in November 1915. After a year of service on the western front, Edmund was sent home on his first leave in December 1916.

According to what people said when they came back, leave was either very quiet at home or was a rackety one in the fleshpots. This varied from person to person. My home was a quiet one at Formby. I missed one of my 10 days’ leave because the gale had stopped the cross-Channel boats, and I spent Christmas Day ‘confined to barracks’ in Calais. The next day, Boxing Day, wasn’t too rough to cross. We were met by civilians who escorted those on leave across London so that they didn’t fall prey to all the harpies and goodness knows what else! As soon as I got home I jettisoned all my underclothes, which were taken out and burned to get rid of lice. I had first become lousy in January 1916 on arriving in France; I found a little itching on my arm and suddenly realised I’d been invaded by my first colony of the louse. I was never allowed into the drawing room until there was no danger of lice – then I was welcomed into the bosom of the family! Nobody knew what the war was really like because the gap is too big. In the trenches your past is a dream, your future problematical and your present damned uncomfortable and dangerous.

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Gabrielle ‘Bobby’ West (circled), pictured with other Women Police during the First World War

December 1916

James McCudden Born in 1895, James joined the Royal Flying Corps as an air mechanic in 1913. By December 1915 he had become a regular observer/gunner for several pilots. He qualified as a sergeant pilot in April 1916. There was no flying on Christmas Day, so Sergeant James McCudden and the rest of 29 Squadron were able to enjoy a day off from the constant patrols. James spent his free time in an occupation that had little of the Christmas spirit.

Gabrielle ‘Bobby’ West

PICTURE CONSULTANT: EVERETT SHARP / GETTY IMAGES

‘Bobby’ was born in 1890, the daughter of a vicar. In March 1916 she was appointed night manager of the canteens at Woolwich Arsenal, but in autumn 1916 she left the canteen and resolved to train as an officer with the Women Police.

We heard that Women Police (WP) were badly needed, so went to their offices to see what that was like. All the WPs we saw were very smart in a dapper uniform of navy blue. We were interviewed by an inspector, who was very nice, and discovered that they are anxious to get WPs recognised as an official branch, to deal with women and children. So far they haven’t had recognition for their work, only a sort of toleration, but certain county and borough councils have employed WPs on their own responsibility, paying them out of local rates and taxes. They work independently of the male police. But the Ministry of Munitions has recognised them

and employed them, largely inside factories to control the women workers – this is what they want recruits for. Pay is £2 a week, which isn’t bad, but recruits have to buy their own uniforms. They have taken up our references and if we are accepted I think we shall go – it sounds nice. On 3 December, Bobby was called in for police training and joined a new squad of recruits.

Most are ladies, a much better class – in fact, quite a different class – to a policeman. Training lasts a fortnight and consists of lectures, attending police courts and children’s courts and taking notes, drill,

patrolling in the evenings, and a little general work. The patrolling at night is with a WP sergeant, especially around Victoria station and other rather lively neighbourhoods. On 20 December, Bobby was sent to police a munitions factory near Chester. The WPs worked shifts.

The factory is about five miles from Chester and you go by train. On the morning shift you have to rise at 4am – horrid! The work consists of the following duties: searching incoming workers for matches, cigarettes, spirits, etc, in pockets, baskets and so on; searching outgoing workers for stolen property; keeping guard at the gate and allowing no one to enter without a pass; conducting stray visitors round and dealing with new workers, lost passes, lost clock cards, etc; patrolling to see that no one is larking or slacking. We take turns at these various jobs, none of which were taught us during training!

I put in a lot of spare time with a little .20 Winchester rifle, and did much execution among the local sparrows. I imagined that each sparrow I shot down would mean one Hun in the future. James McCudden was showing signs of the ruthlessness characteristic of the great ace. At the end of December he was told that he would be commissioned: this former mechanic was to be an officer. The world was changing. Peter Hart is the oral historian at the Imperial War Museum

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The death of Rasputin

DID A BRITISH AGENT MURDER RASPUTIN? 58

GETTY IMAGES

Holy man or charlatan? Grigory Rasputin photographed at the height of his powers. By the outbreak of the First World War, the mystic’s influence over Russia’s imperial family had earned him some powerful enemies

Within days of the mystic’s death in 1916, rumours were swirling that Britain – terrified by the prospect of Russia unilaterally quitting the First World War – was behind the brutal killing. Douglas Smith investigates a century-old murder mystery

GETTY IMAGES

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n the early hours of 17 December 1916, an automobile drove onto the snowcovered Large Petrovsky Bridge and came to a stop. Three men got out. From the vehicle they hauled the lifeless body of a middle-aged man, leaned him up against the railing, and then dumped him over the edge into the icy waters of the Malaya Nevka river on the outskirts of Petrograd (now St Petersburg). Two days later, the frozen body of Grigory Yefimovich Rasputin was hauled from the river. The life of Rasputin was one of the most remarkable of the 20th century. A peasant born in a remote Siberian village in c1869, Rasputin spent many years wandering the vast Russian empire as a holy pilgrim in search of spiritual enlightenment, eventually making his way to the Romanov imperial palace in 1905. He impressed Emperor Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra as a true man of God and they soon came to rely on him as a confidant and friend, and the protector of their son Alexei, the sickly heir to the throne. Yet from the beginning, Rasputin was accused of being a charlatan, a sexual deviant and a usurper who bent the royal couple to his evil will. He preached his own brand of Orthodoxy, took liberties with the women who came to him for succour, and insisted on telling the tsar how to rule. Following the outbreak of the First World War, he became the scapegoat for all of the country’s ills, and many Russians were convinced that Rasputin was in fact an agent of the Germans. Two murder plots were hatched against him, but both times he survived. And then, that fateful December night, Prince Felix Yusupov managed to lure Rasputin to his palace on the Moika river and, together with four conspirators, murdered the Siberian in cold blood. From the beginning the killing was shrouded in rumour. Yusupov, clearly distorting what had transpired that night,

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claimed Rasputin had been almost impossible to kill, that his victim displayed the superhuman power of the Devil, and it was miraculous that he, Yusupov, had accomplished what no one had managed before. Petrograders exchanged the most outlandish tales about the murder, one of which would suck in a powerful ally of Russia’s, and trigger a debate that still rages today. Rasputin, the whispers went, had been killed by an agent of the British Secret Intelligence Service. The story quickly spread. German agents in Stockholm cabled to Berlin that they had it on good authority that “a young Englishman” had been in the Yusupov home that night. Another secret communication, sent to the king of Bulgaria, placed this same Englishman in the car that drove off with the body.

Perfidious Albion It makes sense that the Germans would place an Englishman at the murder scene, for they, and a good many Russians, were convinced that Rasputin had been killed because of his rumoured desire to make a separate peace with Germany. The English, desperate to keep Russia in the war, had the perfect motive. As early as August of that year, a

Th cover off a police The li d dossier i on R Rasputin’s ti ’ death. It’s been claimed that he was shot with a British revolver

former official of the Russian ministry of foreign affairs, who had observed what he considered the perfidious machinations of the British, told Empress Alexandra that the English were preparing to kill Rasputin. Communiques from Sir George Buchanan, the British ambassador to Russia, show that he had heard of a plot not long before the murder. Buchanan commented in a secret cable on 18 December that: “I was told about a week ago by a friend who is in close touch with some of the younger grand dukes that a number of young officers had sworn to kill him before the end of the year.” Who, exactly, these officers were he does not say. This is, however, the only evidence that Buchanan had prior knowledge of the murder, and there is nothing in the archives to suggest that he had anything to do with any plot. Regardless, some in Russia undoubtedly wanted to blame the English for Rasputin’s death. On 20 December, an article appeared in the newspaper R Word, titled ‘The Story of the English Detectives’, claiming that Rasputin had hired agents from Scotland Yard to work alongside the Okhrana, the tsarist secret police, for his protection shortly before his death. What he did not know, the article claimed, was that these imported aagents had been bought off by Yusupov aand so stood by outside the palace while he was being murdered. h The same day the article appeared, SSamuel Hoare, head of the British iintelligence mission in Russia, sent a ccable to Mansfield Cumming, head of MI1(c), the precursor to MI6, asking M whether the story were true, and if so, what were the names of the agents. But no list of any Scotland Yard agents operating in Russia was forthcoming – for the simple reason that there had never been any. Hoare later came to the realisation that, in the days after the murder, Russian ‘rightists’ had been trying to R frame the British for the crime, and him in particular. The rumour of his guilt, he wrote, 59

The death of Rasputin

The life of Grigory Rasputin spread so far and so quickly that Ambassador Buchanan had to request an audience with Tsar Nicholas at Tsarskoe Selo on 1 January 1917 to address it. He described the meeting that day in a secret telegram: “At to-day’s New Year’s reception the emperor spoke to me in his most gracious and friendly manner. As reports have spread, evidently by German agents, that not only had English detectives been conducting an enquiry into Rasputin’s murder, but that English officers had been associated in it, I told His Majesty that as I should be deeply grieved were either he or the empress to believe such an infamous story, I wished to give him the most formal assurance that there was not a word of truth in it.” Nicholas was quite specific with the ambassador that day, mentioning by name the British agent he had been hearing talk about. It was not Hoare, but one Oswald Rayner. Buchanan wrote that the story probably gained traction because Rayner, “who was temporarily employed here”, had been at Oxford with Yusupov and they had seen a great deal of each other in Petrograd. “Rayner,” he continued, “positively assures me that the prince had never said a word to him about the plot, and I need hardly tell His Majesty that assassination was a crime held in abomination by British people. The emperor, who evidently heard something about Rayner, said that he was very glad that I had told him, and expressed his warmest thanks.”

9 January 1869 Grigory is born to the Siberian peasants Yefim and Anna Rasputin in the village of Pokrovskoe on the Tura river

2 February 1887 Grigory marries Praskovya Dubrovina. They will go on to have three children: Dmitry, Matryona (Maria), and Varvara

1897–1905 Rasputin wanders to holy sites across Russia as a strannik, or pilgrim

1 November 1905 Rasputin is presented to Tsar Nicholas II and his wife, Empress Alexandra, for the first time

1907 Rasputin is investigated by the church for his supposed connections to the underground sect known as the khlysty (whips)

March 1910 The Moscow Gazette launches the first of many press campaigns against Rasputin

Spring 1911 Rasputin travels to the Holy Land

Plotting murder?

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Life saver? Tsar Nicholas II’s son Alexei, pictured in 1910, was reportedly healed by Rasputin

October 1912

A draper’s son born into modest circumstances in 1888, Oswald Rayner entered Oxford University in 1907, and two years later met and became close friends with another young student there, Prince Felix Yusupov. The two men never forgot each other, and when, in November 1915, Rayner arrived in Petrograd to serve in the British Intelligence Service, he looked up his old university friend. The men became close over the the next year, meeting often in the autumn of 1916. It appears that by then Rayner was no longer serving in the British Intelligence Service in Petrograd. Buchanan’s words to the emperor

Tsarevich Alexei almost dies from internal bleeding at Spała, but is saved, so Nicholas and Alexandra believe, by Rasputin’s divine intervention.

Cult hero Rasputin with some of his disciples. His reputation as a mystic and faith healer earned him fame and many followers

29 June 1914 Rasputin is stabbed by a woman named Khioniya Guseva outside his home in Pokrovskoe and nearly dies

January–February 1916 Minister of the Interior Alexei Khvostov plots Rasputin’s murder. The plot fails

GETTY IMAGES/MARY EVANS/TOPFOTO

The rumour of a British agent’s role as killer spread so fast that the British ambassador had to request an audience with Tsar Nicholas

Guilty men? Sir George Buchanan, British ambassador to Russia (above left), and Samuel Hoare, head of the British intelligence mission in Russia

17 December 1916 Rasputin is murdered in the Petrograd mansion of Prince Felix Yusupov

10–11 March 1917 Rasputin’s body is cremated, most likely at the Petrograd Polytechnic Institute, under mysterious circumstances

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The imperial family Tsar Nicholas II and his wife Alexandra pictured in 1907 with their son, Alexei (centre), and their daughters (from left to right) Olga, Anastasia, Tatjana and Maria

Advanced notice The Russian aristocrat Prince Felix Yusupov (right) wrote in his memoirs that he had forewarned the British of the murder plot

BBC History Magazine

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Rasputin

Bullet wound The lack of any evidence for British agents at the murder scene has not quashed the claims that the British killed Rasputin. The latest attempt to make the case has centred on the gun that delivered the third, fatal shot to Rasputin’s forehead. Neither Dr Dmitry Kosorotov, who conducted the autopsy, nor the chief prosecutor of Petrograd at the time, nor Dr Vladimir Zharov, a Russian forensic expert who in 1993 re-examined the surviving evidence, could determine the calibre or make of gun that had been used in the murder. Yet two recent studies of the evidence by intelligence historian Andrew Cook and former Metropolitan Police Commander Richard Cullen claim to have come to a startling conclusion. Based on the markings around the bullet wound on Rasputin’s head, as shown in the autopsy photographs, Cook and Cullen concluded that Rasputin must have 62

Marked man Rasputin poses for a bust. Did the mistaken notion that he wanted Russia to negotiate a separate peace with the Central Powers make him a British target?

The British did know about the conspiracy, but does that mean that they came up with the idea, planned it, or helped carry it out? been shot by a .455 calibre Webley revolver. Manufactured by Webley and Scott in Enfield, this was the standard-issue sidearm for all British troops during the First World War (the Russians used the Nagant revolver) – and so, deduced Cook and Cullen, it must have been an Englishman who killed Rasputin. While researching my new biography of Rasputin, however, I came across a document overlooked by previous historians. Among the voluminous police files on Rasputin held in the State Archive of the Russian Federation in Moscow, I stumbled upon a receipt dated 27 January 1916, issued to one LieutenantColonel Polyakov for a Webley-Scott revolver, serial number 26313. This was a remarkable and important discovery, for it proves that not only the English were carrying Webley-Scotts. Even if it was the barrel of a .455 Webley that Rasputin was staring down in the final seconds of his life, there’s no proof that a Briton had his finger on the trigger. It’s also instructive to recall another political murder from Russia’s past once

blamed on the British. In March 1801, Emperor Paul I was strangled in his bedroom by a clique of aristocrats and officers of the imperial guards. Paul had recently broken Russia’s alliance with Britain in favour of Napoleon’s France and had turned on his former ally. Great Britain fought back: just days before Paul’s murder, a British fleet sailed into the Baltic Sea heading for St Petersburg. Only after learning of the regicide, and the new emperor Alexander’s pledge of renewed friendship, did the ships turn around. Napoleon, and many Russians at the time, were certain London was responsible for Paul’s murder. There was talk in St Petersburg that Charles Whitworth, Britain’s ambassador to Russia, had had a hand in the affair. But all of this was mere gossip, and any British involvement in the murder was a mirage. I believe that Rasputin too was killed by fellow countrymen – men who hoped that his assassination would save the monarchy. They erred terribly in their thinking, for the murder only hastened the fall of the Romanovs. As the Symbolist poet Alexander Blok famously said, the bullet that killed Rasputin “struck the very heart of the reigning dynasty”. Douglas Smith is an award-winning historian and translator. He is the author of Rasputin (Macmillan, 2016) DISCOVER MORE LISTEN AGAIN  Listen to comedian Richard Herring

discuss Grigory Rasputin on Radio 4’s Great Lives at bbc. co.uk/programmes/b01phgjs BBC History Magazine

GRANGER

on New Year’s Day imply this, and a list of the active agents of a mission dated 11 December 1916 does not include his name. In his memoirs Yusupov writes that he had told Rayner of the conspiracy and that the Briton came to see Yusupov on the night of the 17th to learn how things had gone. Vladimir Purishkevich, another member of the murder party, had informed Samuel Hoare about the plot in early December. So British agents did know about the conspiracy, but does this mean they come up with the idea, planned it, or helped carry it out? For this there is no incontrovertible proof. But there is one intriguing letter, written by Captain Stephen Alley, then with the British military control department in Petrograd, on 25 December 1916. Addressed to Captain John Scale, an officer with the British Intelligence Service, it reads: “Dear Scale [...] Although matters here have not proceeded entirely to plan, our objective has clearly been achieved. Reaction to the demise of ‘Dark Forces’ has been well received, although a few awkward questions have already been asked about wider involvement. Rayner is attending to loose ends and will no doubt brief you on your return.” If the letter is authentic it would offer the best proof of British involvement in Rasputin’s murder. Involvement, yes, but of what sort and to what extent is not clear. Since Hoare and Rayner, and presumably the rest of the mission, knew of the plot, and most likely would have endorsed it, it does seem likely they would have offered advice on how to kill Rasputin, but this does not mean they set it in motion or were there at Yusupov’s home the night he was killed.

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David Olusoga, photographed in Bristol. “Black history can’t just be a specialist subject, a little clearing in the historical forest that only black people want to go to and that is only about black people,” he says

Photography by Jeni Nott

INTERVIEW / DAVID OLUSOGA

JENI NOTT

“Black history a aff ffects all of us – it is British history” David Olusoga talks to Matt Elton about his new book charting the story of black people in Britain, from the Roman era up to the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century BBC History Magazine

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Books / Interview PROFILE DAVID OLUSOGA Olusoga’s previous books include The Kaiser’s Holocaust: Germany’s Forgotten Genocide and the Colonial Roots of Nazism (Faber and Faber, 2010) and The World’s War (Head of Zeus, 2014). Brought up in the north-east of England, he is also an award-winning broadcaster and film-maker, and will soon be presenting a major BBC Two television series, entitled Black and British: A Forgotten History

IN CONTEXT

As David Olusoga shows in his new book, black people have had a long and diverse relationship with Britain, stretching back to at least the third century AD. After the Roman period, one of the earliest recorded black figures is John Blanke, a musician who served at the courts of Henry VII and Catherine of Aragon. Later history is dominated by slavery, which grew from the 15th century to become a huge industry transporting people and goods between Africa, the Americas and Britain. The transatlantic slave trade was abolished in the 19th century, but remains a deeply sensitive subject.

You write that this book is a kind of experiment. In what way? Black history came to Britain in part from an American model, which was largely about uncovering deliberately hidden and forgotten stories. Some very brilliant historians have done that groundwork so, for me, the next stage of black history is to integrate it into what we call ‘mainstream’ British history. Black history can’t just be a specialist subject, a little clearing in the historical forest that only black people want to go to and that is only about black people. It’s the history of a relationship: some of it tragic, some of it more heart-warming; some of it extremely difficult and some of it – believe it or not – more optimistic. It’s a history that affects all of us: it iss British history. You also write that there’s a lot of black history that Britain has managed to forget. How has that happened? The first generations of historians writing black British history were faced with mainstream history books that talked about the 18th century without mentioning slavery, which is like talking about the 19th century without mentioning steam or coal. It’s ludicrous. We had military histories that didn’t mention our impact on other parts of the world, or the multiracial nature of the British navy at various times in its history. A lot of the work those historians were doing was trying to put the black people back into the picture, and some of that still remains to be done. A lot of black British history is hidden in plain view in central London: the bronze reliefs on Nelson’s Column, for instance, depict a black sailor

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with a musket towering over the body of the dying Nelson. That sailor was included not because the Victorians were politically correct, or worried about tokenism or quotas, but because there were hundreds of black sailors at Trafalgar. They were part of the history. It’s not a separate history, it’s right in the centre of our capital city in a national memorial to one of the most important battles in our history. The risk is that it becomes lost or just becomes seen as black history. In many ways we’ve taken the black history out of mainstream history, hence that important and necessary work of the early first generation in exhuming this lost history – because sometimes it was edited out, sometimes accidentally, sometimes deliberately. Are there other examples of this editing that particularly stand out? As someone who grew up in the north-east of England, a great example of this is the industrial revolution. We were told that this history was our history: it belonged to me because my mother is white, British and working class, and I had a tenure in it. But when I visited those mills, no one ever mentioned that the cotton came from the deep south of the United States, produced by 1.8 million black enslaved people. They are part of British history. They never set foot on British soil, but they spent their lives and exhausted their bodies, were beaten and whipped, to produce the raw material for its industrial revolution. It’s estimated that, at the start of the American Civil War, 20 per cent of the British population was somehow economically dependent on cotton. Black British history has to be global and intercontinental because we were an empire. Our history is by its nature imperial and global, so our black British history has to be imperial and global as well.

“In the Middle Ages, human blackness was immensely exciting, exotic and erotic”

What do we know about the earliest chapters of that history? One of the accusations often levelled against people who write black British history is that it’s really a postwar history, and that, for politically correct reasons, we are trying to imagine these deep roots within British history. People have been saying that since the 1950s: it’s a constant refrain. The reality is that, just as imperialism brought Britain into contact with Africa, Britain itself was once a colonial province of another empire: the Roman empire. The same force that took us to Africa in the 1550s brought Afro-Romans to Britain. We were colonised long before we became colonisers, and among the army that colonised Britain were north Africans and people from below the Sahara who seeped through the Roman empire’s porous borders. We know that black people got to Britain about a millennia before the first Tudor explorers got to the coast of Africa. That shouldn’t be surprising; it also shouldn’t be controversial. It’s inevitable: we were a province of the Roman empire, and that empire was intercontinental. How, then, should we see those Tudor expeditions to Africa? A common mistake by historians is that they’ve been so aware that the history of the Atlantic slave trade has been under-written that they’ve often rushed to talk about it and missed out the first stage. In this first stage of contact, the commodity that England and Scotland were after in Africa was not enslaved Africans but gold. People in the Middle Ages understood Africa as a land of gold: for centuries the Arab traders had been bringing it across the Sahara on caravans. The English and Scottish were desperate to elbow aside the Portuguese, who were much better mariners at that point, and get access to the legendary, immensely profitable gold trade of Africa. This was in the hearts and imaginations of traders across Europe. We’ve come to see Africa as this troubled, benighted continent, but it was a place of unbelievable potential and promise. They didn’t see it as we see it, and that’s a problem with all black British history: we have to remember that we must not go into it imagining that our ancestors saw Africa and Africans as we do now.

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Hidden in plain view: a bronze relief on Nelson’s Column depicting the admiral’s death at the battle of Trafalgar in 1805 includes one of the many black sailors in the Georgian navy (standing, left)

SHUTTERSTOCK

What do we know of how black people were seen at this point? The medieval mindset was fascinated by black and white and their contrasts and extremes. Black was associated with all sorts of diabolical, devilish things, and white with purity and virginity. Human blackness was an immensely exciting, exotic and erotic challenge to that colour aesthetic. When slavery was not the dominant relationship between Africans and Europeans, Africans were seen as challenging to European ideas. There was a nervousness, a discomfort, but also an extremely exciting attraction to Africans, partly because of the association with the wealth of their continent. Now, we know where this was headed and how ideas of inferiority based on skin colour developed. But they don’t develop instantly, and in the period before the Atlantic slave trade there was a much more complicated and, I think, interesting relationship. Are there any episodes or stories that particularly surprised you? I think we’ve forgotten how proud people in Britain were about the abolition of the slave trade. We’ve often overstated abolition, and wanted to talk about it more than slavery. But there was a period in the 1830s and 1840s when opposition to slavery was seen as part of what it was to be British. Millions of people signed petitions against slavery. All of these things can be exaggerated. The effort to suppress the slave trade was never, everr nearlyy enough to what would have been

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needed if Britain had been seriously interested in ending it. But the British did come to see themselves, and look down on other nations – particularly the US – through the experience of abolition. What is the best way for black people to study their history, and history in general? The nature of the black community is changing. There’s an awful lot of intermarriage and we also know that, in the first decade of this century, more black people in Britain came directly from Africa rather than the New World for the first time since probably the 18th century. That’s a huge shift. What this means is that black British history needs to be more global, but also that it affects more and more people. There are millions of white people for whom black and mixed-race people are now part of their families. When black people first arrived in Britain in large numbers after the Second World War, a wave of racism meant that they were forced into a siege mentality. What mattered was recovering lost history and showing that our roots in this country were deep and long. That’s still really important, but there’s another moment now where we need to see that this is a shared history. This idea that black history is only about, for, and of interest to black people is breaking down. We are too integrated; our stories are now too conjoined for that idea. This is not about challenging mainstream history, it’s saying that black people’s stories

“The same force that took us to Africa in the 1550s also brought AfroRomans to Britain” are partt of that history. When we talk about the rebellions of the enslaved that were critical to the ending of the slave trade, that’s not to say that the abolitionists didn’t matter. There are lots of people in this story who are white heroes of black history. There’s often been a reflex action in Britain to pretend that the slave trade didn’t happen, because it’s difficult and upsetting. We’ve forgotten that there are heroes as well as villains within this history, and a few moments where we can feel positive about ourselves. That’s not to say that this country hasn’t got a long way to go to accept what slavery was, and how central it and imperialism were to Britain’s economic development. But I think we’re a big enough and strong enough country to come to terms with our history. We are missing out if we don’t. ................................................ Black and British: A Forgotten History by David Olusoga (Macmillan, 624 pages, £25)

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Stories from the Great War

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Within the pages of the prestige booklet are the emotive stories of these local people, their experiences, their changing roles and the war that disrupted their lives.

New history titles, rated by experts in their field

REVIEWS

A relief sculpture on the facade of St Mark’s Basilica in Venice, Italy shows the group of Roman emperors who together ruled the Roman empire after 293 following Diocletian’s reforms

MAGAZINE

CHOICE

Rise of the meritocrats PETER JONES admires an articulate account of how noble

families began to lose their grip on power in the Roman empire Imperial Triumph: The Roman World from Hadrian to Constantine By Michael Kulikowski

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Profile, 386 pages, £25

This, the second volume of Profile’s planned ‘History of the Ancient World’ series, picks up where Mary Beard’s SPQR left off. That was with Caracalla’s enfranchisement of all free men in the Roman empire (AD 212), but since Beard’s volume treated the imperial period thematically

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rather than sequentially, Michael Kulikowski – professor of history and classics at Penn State University in the US – has rightly chosen to lay the groundwork for his fuller and more detailed historical account with Emperor Hadrian’s accession in AD 117. Kulikowski’s reason is that he sees in this period the acceleration of a number of earlier developments that would turn the late Roman empire of Constantine (AD 312–37) into a structure very different from that of Augustus, the first Roman emperor (who died AD 14). The main driver of change, which in fact began with Augustus, was the gradual displacement from power of

many of the hierarchical noble Roman families that could boast a consul in their history. This trend had already started when Vespasian – a Roman but from an Italian municipality, not from Rome – became emperor in AD 69. Further, he came to power by military force, not succession, establishing another important and potentially destabilising precedent. Of course, noble families continued to succeed. But more and more men from the provinces – Gauls, Spaniards, Greeks, Syrians and Africans – found a place within the imperial power-structure. Septimius Severus, of a wealthy provincial family from Lepcis in Libya (not Leptis, as inscriptions there show), became emperor in AD 193. But this was not the only revolution. Kulikowski also highlights the rise of meritocrats who, through sheer ability, whatever their birth, could win favour. The grouping of which Kulikowski is especially eloquent is the equestrians. Originally these were defined as those with wealth enough to own a horse (a private jet might be a modern equivalent). But through military or administrative experience, or both, they could now rise to high office. For example, in AD 286 Maximian – the son of a Serbian shopkeeper – became co-emperor with his military colleague Diocletian. Kulikowski rightly emphasises just how varied was the huge and growing range of individuals from different peoples and backgrounds who served the emperor, and the complex networks that sprang up between them across the imperial generations – if, that is, they were lucky enough to stay in favour (always a big ‘if’). Many are to us mere names on a page. But these soldiers, magistrates, administrators, financiers, orators and so on made up a powerful

He highlights the rise of meritocrats, who through sheer ability, whatever their birth, could win favour

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Books / Reviews COM MING SOON… ““As 2016 draws to a close, next issue sees the return of our annual 2 B ks of the Year list. Leading historians and experts including Book drew Roberts, Roger Moorhouse and Joanna Bourke will be And king their favourite titles of the past 12 months, plus we’ll look pick back at the year’s best TV and film.” Matt Elton, reviews editor

Change was needed, and Diocletian, whose father may have been a freed slave, was the man to generate it of ‘one world’ that Caracalla’s universal citizenship edict had generated enabled Diocletian to think big. The result was a complete restructuring of the provinces and a massive rise in centralised administrative control. There were now effectively four emperors, provinces were divided into much smaller areas with tighter local oversight, military and civilian commands were separated (you could be one or the other but not both), and the result was a total, but flexible, system. It was this world that the Christianising emperor Constantine inherited, and with which Kulikowski closes this part of his story. In the next volume, this author will take it on into the Byzantine period. If the sequel is as insightful, coherent and articulate as this book, it will be a great success. Peter Jones is former senior lecturer in classics at the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne. His latest book is Quid Pro Quo: What the Romans Really Gave the English Language (Atlantic Books, 2016)

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Story of a tumultuous reign JANINA RAMIREZ is impressed by a book that suggests

King Æthelred was not so much Unready as Unfortunate Æthelred the Unready by Levi Roach Yale University Press, 392 pages, £30

In his exhaustive study of the king’s tumultuous reign, Levi Roach argues that the significant monarch Æthelred II (reigned 978–1016), the end of whose reign signalled the ultimate conquest of England by the Danes, is ripe for reassessment. The premise is not that “Æthelred was a ‘good’ king”, but rather that “he is too complex and interesting to be dismissed as a ‘bad’ or ‘weak’ king”, and in this respect I have to agree. Roach draws together a convincing, thorough and diverse range of evidence from coinage, charters, Old English literature and Latin homilies. Treatment of the iconography of coins and the intricacies of the homilies of the writers Ælfric and Wulfstan reveal that Roach is adept at moving across the disciplinary divides, and the picture he constructs is, as a result, more thorough and fleshedout than traditional historical surveys. By setting Æthelred’s reign against the backdrop of Edgar’s (his iron-fisted father), the problems the child-king inherited evolve across the book. The importance of the Benedictine Reform of the 970s and the regency of Æthelred’s formidab ble mother, Ælfthryth, are all established as the unstable foundation ns upon which a rockyy reign was based. Roach doesn’t shy away from

listing the nobles, bishops and monks who played important roles within Æthelred’s reign. This creates a real and tangible court around the king, and the web of relationships that span across the four decades of his reign. Roach recreates the complexity of Anglo-Saxon royal responsibility with an immediacy and relevance that many medieval historians cannot; his is not a rose-tinted, luteaccompanied vision of the past, but a raw and real one, complete with political back-stabbing, morally questionable acts, and a search for ‘the greater good’. The treatment of the Viking ‘others’ who ultimately triumph over Æthelred is slightly sparse. The world of the Danes, Swedes and Norwegians that come to redefine Anglo-Saxon England is held tentatively out of view, with a few passing references. But the scope of this book is already sweeping, and to bring the Scandinavian world into focus may have been a demand too far. Indeed, while Æthelred’s reign is superimposed onto those of similar European monarchs, this book’s focus is clearly on England. Despite minor reservations, this is a monumental tome that rewards the intrepid historical reader. By the time you finish reading this, you will know almost as much as there is to know about a king who is now remembered through a comedic nickname, but whose reign is more like a traged tragedy. No longer ‘the Unready’, instead the Unfortu unate, Unflinching and U Underappreciated Æth helred.

Jaanina Ramirez is a broadcaster, ccultural historian an nd author

A penny depicting Æthelred II, who, Levi Roach’s new book argues, is “too complex and interesting to be dismissed as a ‘bad’ or ‘weak’ king”

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oligarchy without which the imperial autocracy could not function. There was much more to the empire than just the emperor and his immediate family. Kulikowski’s title Imperial Triumph may seem something of a misnomer as his story moves into the third and early fourth centuries AD, a period characterised by external invasions from Germans and Parthians and civil wars (there were six emperors in one year). But parts of the western empire were peaceful enough, as was Africa, and there was no general economic breakdown. Nevertheless, change was needed, and Diocletian, whose father may have been a freed slave, was the man to generate it. The crucial point here is that the expansion of government and the sense

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Bolivian men drafted into the country’s war with Paraguay (1932–35), one of the “less well-known upheavals given prominence” in Philip Ziegler’s book

The interwar world JOANNA BOURKE enjoys a book about the interwar period as much

ass the author enjoyed writing it Between the Wars: 1919–1939 by Philip Ziegler Maclehose Press, 254 pages, £20

Philip Ziegler begins his book with disarming honesty. It is a global history of the interwar period, but he admits that his choice of topics is “arbitrary”, reflecting his own interests. A New Zealander by birth, I was struck by his admission that he has nothing to say about Australasia. This was disappointing, but, Ziegler candidly notes, “it just happened there was no convenient peg on which to hang a chapter”. This refreshing, intimate, even chatty tone characterises his entire book.

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Ziegler’s wit and modesty make his arguments both accessible and illuminating. He is primarily interested in politics and military conflict, although, as a distinguished biographer, he has a talent for providing readers with succinct vignettes of influential individuals. He begins with the post-First World War settlement – the Council of Ten, rapidly whittled down to the Council of Four. In reality, it was dominated by the Big Three (the United States, Britain and France). These powers were responsible for the future of Europe. In the end, the

Ziegler provides a judicious mixture of narrative and analysis

Treaty of Versailles was to pave the way for fascism. Ziegler returns to that catastrophic development at the end of his book, reflecting that in only 20 years the world changed forever. Ziegler is relentlessly focused on explaining Europe’s “recession from power” and the origins of the Second World War. His chapter explaining how Hitler took power in 1933 is one of the clearest, albeit extremely condensed, accounts of the striking metamorphosis of Hitler from a failing artist to the relentless dictator. However, he is also passionate about literary coteries (a brilliant chapter on James Joyce, for example), the introduction of technicolour films (The Broadway Melodyy of 1929), disasters (the fire that destroyed Smyrna in 1922), labour unrest, and the Wall Street crash. He has a sharp eye for dramatic and fortuitous discoveries. Most notably, he tells the story of Alexander Fleming, a curiously unimaginative scientist who, in 1928, stumbled on penicillin, a substance that could attack some of the germs that were responsible for diseases such as gonorrhoea, syphilis and pneumonia. Geographically, Ziegler ranges widely. Europe and the US dominate, but he tells the story of Gandhi’s ‘Salt March’ in 1930; the epic conflicts between Japan and China; the Italian invasion of Abyssinia; Stalinism; and terrorism in the Middle East. Less well-known upheavals are given prominence, including the three-year Chaco War between Bolivia and Paraguay (1932–35), in which weak governments and transnational oil companies played tragic roles. Between the Wars 1919–19399 is essentially a book for readers keen to get an overview of this important period in world history. Philip Ziegler provides a judicious mixture of narrative and analysis and, at the end of each chapter, there are helpful suggestions for further reading. The author confesses that writing this book was “enjoyable” and says that he hopes that “it will be equally enjoyable to read”. It certainly is. Joanna Bourke is a professor of history at Birkbeck, University of London

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Books / Reviews TD Lysenko (right) in the 1930s. Later appointed president of the Lenin Academy of Agricultural Sciences, he had a crippling effect on Soviet agriculture and made Soviet science an international laughing stock, says Simon Ings

Stalin’s tragic experiment EVAN MAWDSLEY considers a book that examines the tension

between science and the state in the Stalin era

Faber & Faber, 528 pages, £20

In Soviet Russia during the LeninStalin era, science and the state were at times in lethal conflict. This tension had several basic causes. A fundamentalist ‘scientific’ Marxism sometimes disputed the realities of natural science. Many of the first generation of leading scientists in the ‘proletarian’ state were from the upper classes and their loyalties were suspect; there was rivalry in the laboratories, too, with a rising successor generation. Finally, the natural sciences inevitably overlapped national boundaries, and links abroad were looked on with suspicion in an era of “capitalist encirclement”. As renowned physicist Petr Kapitsa put it in a letter to Niels Bohr in the 1930s: “The position of science and research people is somewhat peculiar

here. It reminds me of a child with a pet animal which is tormented and tortured by him with the best of intentions. But indeed the child grows up and learns how to look properly after his pets… I hope it will not be long to happen here.” Unfortunately the torment and torture lasted longer than Kapitsa hoped, as indicated in the subtitle A History of Triumph and Tragedy, 1905–1953. A number of scientists and administrators of science died in the Purges of the late 1930s. The most infamous torments with specifically scientific origins involved biology and genetics. The renowned botanist Nikolai Vavilov, former president of the Lenin Academy of Agricultural Sciences, was arrested in 1940 and died in 1943 as a result of his prison treatment. Meanwhile, a later

Stalin is at the centre… “The foibles and prejudices of one man had great weight”

An illuminating account finds the author’s enthusiasm is infectious in a book on historic manuscripts SEAN MCGLYNN

Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts by Christopher de Hamel Allen Lane, 640 pages, £30

Illuminated manuscripts are one of the glories of the Middle Ages. As Christopher de Hamel writes of the late 12th-century Copenhagen Psalter: “Every page … shimmers with

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burnished gold and splendid ornament. The script is calligraphically magnificent.” De Hamel, through his work at Sotheby’s and as university archivist at Cambridge, has had the privilege of handling more illuminated manuscripts than perhaps any other person. Here he examines in loving depth 12 outstanding European examples such as the ninthcentury Book of Kells. He moves far beyond providing their immediate historical context (offering important and telling insights) to

president of the Academy, the charlatan TD Lysenko, had a crippling effect on Soviet agriculture and made Soviet science an international laughing stock. This ambitious book goes beyond its main title, back into the early years of the century and forward to Khrushchev. Nevertheless, Stalin is naturally at the centre, and the author suggests the likelihood that “the foibles and prejudices of one man” had great weight, especially in the postwar years. There is a nuanced understanding of other individuals around Stalin, including Gorky and Zhdanov. Although a number of fields are covered, the main theme of the book is n ‘scientists’ in general, but rather biologists and geneticists, and this is hardly a subject untouched by previous

investigate, often detective-like, their provenances and sometimes adventurous after-lives. The 14th-century Hours of Jeanne de Navarre was stolen by Göring in the Second World War and stumbled upon by a French soldier in the chaos of 1945, to then nestle forgotten in a monastery in Brittany for two decades. The manuscripts’ concerns are largely religious (although the illustrations frequently, delightfully and helpfully depict rural and urban life and work, fashions, landscapes, exquisite flora, fantastical beasts and even zodiac signs). A notable martial exception is the Visconti Semideus (c1438) which advises naval captains to place venomous snakes into bottles “and toss them over the railings of the enemy’s ship”, thereby

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Stalin and the Scientists by Simon Ings

WANT MORE ? For interviews with authors of the latest books, check out our weekly podcast at historyextra.com/ bbchistorymagazine/podcasts

1666, the year of the beast TRACY BORMAN enjoys a gripping account of a series of

tumultuous events that reached their crescendo in one year 1666: Plague, War and Hellfire by Rebecca Rideal John Murray, 304 pages, £20

writers. An encyclopaedic treatment of science would have been impractical and unreadable, but the range of other Stalin era developments are perhaps worthy of greater detailed attention, such as the astronautics of Tsiolkovsky and Korolev. This is a thoroughly researched book based mainly on the abundant Englishlanguage literature. The discussion is well informed and lively, with clear explanations for the general reader of the scientific (and ideological) issues involved. There are several illustrations and a full index; the reader would, however, have benefited from the inclusion of maps, biographical notes and a glossary of institutions.

ALAMY

Evan Mawdsley is a professorial research fellow at the University of Glasgow

causing understandable panic. The author’s enthusiasm and expertise is calm and unhurried. The loving and careful attention to manuscript details and even the seemingly pedantic descriptions of them add to the charm of this wholly engaging book as it delves rewardingly into artistic, literary, religious and cultural history. Some readers may find distracting the author’s occasional personalisation of the text through anecdotes and unnecessary descriptions (one curator “has short dark straight hair, parted on the left… and wore a pale green jumper”). But this is a minor infelicity. De Hamel’s book is one to treasure. Sean McGlynn is an author and historian

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In an age that looked for portents to explain the tragedies of life, the signs did not look promising for the year 1666. The diarist Samuel Pepys feared that it “will be a year of great action; but what the consequences of it will be, God know ” The link the biblical Number of the Beast (666) struck fear into people’s hearts. In 1597 James VI had gloomily predicted that 1666 would see the beginning of an apocalypse. Those who lived through that year were justified in thinking that was right. Rebecca Rideal’s gripping and beautifully written account knits together a series of tumultuous events. She skilfully traces the relationship between them, and deftly interweaves the lives of ordinary people with those of kings, scientists and men of letters. The sights, smells and tastes of Restoration London during the most turbulent year of its history are brilliantly evoked, too. The narrative begins in March 1665, when an explosion destroyed the London warship, the “jewel of the Restoration navy”. As the threat of another war with the Dutch was looming, this was a

disaster. People were quick to make the link with Halley’s Comet the previous winter, believed to usher in momentous events. The comet was apparently quick to take effect. In winter 1664, the plague was reported in Yarmouth. By summer 1665, the epidemic was raging across London. Rideal vividly presents the scale of the crisis, but also brings to light some of the poignant individual tragedies. This same humanity runs through her account of the Great Fire. Rideal, a natural story-teller, brings it to life in an extraordinarily vivid way. It is the stories of ordinary human loss that resonate, as well as choice quotes from Pepys. Towards the end of 1666, a contemporary tract lamented: “War, fire and plague against us all conspire.” But the narrative concludes on a hopeful note, with London, and England, rising Phoenix-like from the flam The fire forced Charles II, whose ‘sinful’ life was blamed for the catastrophe, to become a monarch of greater resolve and majesty. He commissioned a new city which, thanks to the brilliant plans that Wren had drawn up, began to rise from the ashes. Many of the most iconic buildings of modern-day London were born in the wake of 1666, notably Wren’s masterpiece, St Paul’s. Tracy Borman is the author of The Private Lives of the Tudors (Hodder & Stoughton, 2016)

The 1664 comet, seen in a contemporary German engraving, was seen as a portent of momentous events

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Shifting Sands L awrence of A r abia A nd the gre at A r ab re volt t Discover the incredible story of the British soldier who helped lead the Arab tribes to victory over the Turkish Ottoman Empire 100 Years ago. But who was Lawrence of Arabia? And how much of his tale is true? Explore the Impact of this deadly struggle on today’s Middle East.

OPEN NOW - SPRING 2017 www.nationalcivilwarcentre.com

James A. Cannavino Library, Archives & Special Collections, Marist College, USA.

Books / Paperbacks

PAPERBACKS The Vikings by Else Roesdahl

AKG-IMAGES

Penguin Classics, 384 pages, £10.99

This is a welcome updating of a classic of Viking history. Its concise yet comprehensive survey of the essential ti l facets f t of Norse culture, from burial customs to crafts and skaldic poetry to the growth of royal power, provides a valuable resource for those seeking to understand the Vikings as more than just violent raiders. The book is particularly strong in its presentation of archaeological material, providing complex data in an accessible form for the general reader. Much of the new material since the last edition in 1998 lies in this field and is incremental rather than revolutionary in adding to our knowledge of Viking history. Roesdahl includes new information on early Viking towns such as Kaupang in Norway and Aarhus in Denmark, the identification of a new Viking fortress at Borgring in Sjaelland in 2014 and, more spectacularly, the discovery of the Spillings hoard in Gotland, the largest trove of Viking treasure ever to be unearthed. Roesdahl’s focus is firmly on Scandinavia, and particularly on its Viking-age culture. Treatment of the Viking raids and their profound effect on much of northern Europe only comes in the second half of the book, while the coverage of the astonishing Viking expansion across the Atlantic Ocean to Iceland, Greenland and North America is relegated to a single chapter near the end. As a

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result, issues of more general interest such as the question of why (and when) the Viking colonies on Greenland disappeared are set aside. This update will ensure that it retains its place as a “musthave” on the Viking history enthusiast’s bookshelf. Philip Parker is author of The Northmen’s Furyy (Vintage, 2014)

The Crime and the Silence by Anna Bikont Windmill, 560 pages, £9.99

On 10 July 1941, 300–600 Jewish inhabitants of the Polish town of Jedwabne were slaughtered, many of them burned alive. But those who carried out this atrocity were not the Nazi occupiers (although they witnessed and approved the action) but Polish citizens of the town – neighbours of their victims. Postwar attempts to investigate the massacre and try its perpetrators were halfhearted at best. Silence and denial wrapped Jedwabne until courageous historians Jan Gross (who wrote the first book exposing the story) and now Anna Bikont bravely penetrated the curtain of oblivion cloaking the crime, and denounced it. Bikont’s book works on three levels. She reconstructs what happened on that bloody day; she recounts the painful path of accusations and denunciations she trod as she tried to get at the truth through lies, evasions and hostility; and finally she meditates profoundly on what motivates people to inflict such appalling suffering on their fellow human beings, and why so many of her fellow Poles

preferred to forget what their countrymen had done. Jedwabne represents an awkward story for Poland, as it detracts from the country’s ‘official’ narrative of victim and heroic resister to Nazism. It reveals instead that antiSemitism was, and remains, endemic in many Polish people, a prejudice that allowed some to commit, albeit on a smaller scale, the same genocide that the Nazis were inflicting upon them. The tenacity that Bikont displayed in searching out and establishing this inconvenient truth cannot have made her popular in Poland, and is all the more admirable for it. Nigel Jones is a historian, journalist and biographer

The Private Lives of the Saints by Janina Ramirez WH Allen, 352 pages, £9.99

At the core of this book is a lively discussion of the Christians of the early church in Britain, their motivations i i and their passions. There is less on their private lives than the title suggests – the book is much more about the public lives of saints and of course their deaths. Not all of the figures who feature in the book were made saints

in the early Middle Ages, which makes a definition of sainthood difficult, as the author admits. But this is a reading of the period which deserves telling in this accessible form. Some of the interpretations of the later Anglo-Saxon period are more debatable than the tone suggests: the reading of Edward the Confessor as a saintly fool seems to follow the propaganda of the Normans more than many political studies of his reign do, for example – but in such a broad sweep of history, some disagreements are to be expected. Ramirez is at her best writing about the church of the seventh and eighth centuries, particularly in Northumbria. Here the stories of major figures – Cuthbert, Hilda, Wilfrid, Bede, Alcuin – are told with verve and there is serious engagement with the sources as well as the material culture of the times, with rich verbal evocations that link our present with a deep historical past. Ryan Lavelle is reader in history at the University of Winchester

Cuthbert (seen in a 12th-century manuscript) is one of the saints examined by Janina Ramirez

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Books / Fiction THREE MORE TALES OF MISMATCHED CRIME DUOS Circle of Shadows Imogen Robertson (2012)

FICTION Murder at the Reform Club NICK RENNISON enjoys an old-fashioned whodunnit that’s

rich in characters and suspense The Devil’s Feast By MJ Carter Fig Tree, 368 pages, £14.99

In Victorian England, William Avery is a former East India Company soldier living in Devon with a new wife and young son. Jeremiah Blake is another old India hand – a prickly i kl eccentric with a talent for criminal investigation who haunts the seedier quarters of London. Poles apart in character, they have nonetheless become fast friends. In two previous novels they have worked together to solve murders in both India and London. As The Devil’s Feast opens, Avery is in town to visit an old acquaintance working at the Reform Club, and Blake is incarcerated for debt in Southwark’s Marshalsea Prison. Invited to a private dinner at the Reform by its flamboyant chef Alexis Soyer, Avery is witness to the appalling death of a fellow guest. Can a poisoner be on the loose in Soyer’s state-of-the-

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art kitchens? When another diner dies a couple of days later, it seems likely. With an important banquet in the offing, to be attended by Lord Palmerston and Ibrahim Pasha, son of the ruler of Egypt, the men who run the Reform beg Avery to investigate. He agrees but is getting nowhere until Blake absconds from Marshalsea and joins him, disguised as his manservant. Together they strive to track down the culprit and save the reputations of the club and its chef. The book works brilliantly as an old-fashioned whodunnit in which the identity of the murderer is cleverly disguised until the climactic pages. It is rich in characters, particularly the larger-than-life but historical figure of Alexis Soyer, who deserves to be better remembered than he is. It is also almost entirely convincing in its evocation of Victorian clubland, a world ruled by subtle (and not so subtle) distinctions of class and political allegiance. Existing fans of Avery and Blake and new readers alike will find much to enjoy. Nick Rennison is the author of Carver’s Truth (Corvus, 2016)

Devoured DE Meredith (2012) L London in the 1850s provides the backp drop to this darkly d entertaining tale of e pioneering forensic p sscientist Professor Adolphus Hatton and A his morgue assistant h Albert R Alb Roumande. They are called by the police to investigate the mysterious death of glamorous Lady Bessingham, bludgeoned to death with an ammonite fossil. Further murders follow as Hatton and Roumande follow a trail that leads from metropolitan drawing rooms to the jungles of Borneo.

The Zig Zag Girl Elly Griffiths (2014) IIn 1950s Brighton, tthe discovery of a g girl’s body, cut into tthree, reminds Detecttive Inspector Edgar S Stephens of a trick invented by his old ffriend, magician Max Mephisto. When Max realises that he knew the dead woman, he decides to desert show business for a while and join forces with Stephens to track down the killer. The first of the author’s Stephens and Mephisto novels introduces readers to an offbeat detective partnership.

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London’s grand Reform Club, seen in an engraving from 1852, is the setting for a pleasing whodunnit that features the flamboyant historical chef Alexis Soyer

I the fourth of In IImogen Robertson’s well-written, origiw nal novels set in the n llate 18th century, proto-feminist Harriet p Westerman and her W ffriend, oddball man of science Gabriel Crowther, pitch up in the duchy of Maulberg, a tiny but independent German state. Out to save a friend from the executioner’s axe, they face a mystery involving Masonic conspiracies, court intrigue, freethinking radical philosophers and a mad alchemist still in pursuit of the elixir of life.

Jonathan Wright previews the pick of upcoming programmes

TV&RADIO Selling the past Trading History TV Yesterday scheduled for Wednesday 16 November

Mementoes with links to famous people and events can command huge prices at auction. In September, for example, a pair of “fine linen drawers with draw-string waist” that once belonged to Queen Victoria sold for £16,250 – against an estimate of £2,000–£3,000. Trading Historyy looks at the stories that swirl around such artefacts, seen from the perspectives of sellers, buyers and auctioneers. Along the way, it’s promised, we’ll encounter heroes and villains including Winston Churchill, Adolf Hitler, Napoleon Bonaparte, suffragettes, sundry royals and some of the 20th-century’s greatest writers.

Voices of the First World War features vivid accounts of life in the trenches

Killing fields

Black Britons in focus A diverse season of programmes explores the history of black people in Britain, stretching back 18 centuries Black and British season TV BBC Two and BBC Four scheduled for November

The contribution of black Britons to our national story is the focus of a new BBC season. Headlining is David Olusoga’s four-part Black and British: A Forgotten Historyy (BBC Two), which meets, among others, African soldiers serving Rome on Hadrian’s Wall in the third century AD. For more on this series, during which BBC Black History Plaques will be unveiled at key locations, see our interview with the presenter on page 65. In living-history show Back in Time for Brixton (BBC Two), the Irwin family leave the 21st century to discover how immigration from the Caribbean transformed life in Britain. Presented by Giles Coren and historian Emma Dabiri, contributors include singer Kenny Lynch, EastEnderss star Rudolph Walker and cricketer Clive Lloyd. Whites Vs Blackss (BBC Four) tells the story of a football match that, thankk fully, couldn’t be imagined today. On 16 May 1979, as part of midfielder Len Cantello’s testimonial at West Bromwich Albion, an all-white side squared up to

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a team of black players. West Brom had, for the era, an unusually large number of black players, including first-team regulars Cyrille Regis, Laurie Cunningham (who both played for England) and Brendon Batson, who were dubbed the ‘Three Degrees’ by their manager, Ron Atkinson. West Brom fanatic Adrian Chiles asks what we should make of a game that took place at a time when racism within football was overt, and considers how much has really changed at a deeper level – even in an era when 30 per cent of professional players are black. Black Midwivess (BBC Four) is a one-off documentary about the thousands of Caribbean women who migrated to Britain to help build the National Health Service in the late 1940s and 1950s – part of the ‘Windrush generation’. Many were mere teenagers, bravely leaving behind family in the Caribbean to build new lives in the UK. Contributors include 77-year-old Lynette Richards-Lorde, a former midwife who became the first black director of nursing in the UK. Roots Reggae Rebellion (BBC Four), presented by poet Akala, traces reggae’s history in Jamaica and the UK.

Voices of the First World War

BBC/GETTY IMAGES

Radio BBC Radio 4 Monday 14 November

Appropriately in the month of Armistice Day, the occasional series gathering together first-hand accounts of 1914–18 returns. Presented by Dan Snow, Voicess draws on interviews made in the 1980s and early 1990s, and held in the Imperial War Museum, in addition to recordings made for the 1964 BBC series The Great War. r The latest weekday shows will look back at events in the summer of 1916, when the battle of the Somme raged. Snow begins with the impact of the battle on the pals battalion raised in Sheffield. There’s an omnibus edition on Friday 18 November.

BBC History Magazine

The Irwin family gets a taste of life in south London over the past six decades, from the arrival of the SS Empire Windrush in 1948 to today, in livinghistory show Back in Time for Brixton

Discover how immigration from the Caribbean transformed life in Britain today 77

TV & Radio ALSO LOOK OUT FOR…

Aaron Staton stars as American captain Ronald Dreyfuss in new drama My Mother and Other Strangers, set in 1940s Northern Ireland

My Mother and Other Strangers TV BBC One scheduled for November

Growing up in rural Northern Ireland in the 1950s, writer Barry Devlin moved through a world that was “socially conservative, Catholic and very isolated on the shores of a large lake”. It even had its own dialect, filled with words from the fir Elizabethan er B in one key respect, modernity ruled – because Devlin also grew up next to an RAF airfield. “My father [owned] a pub, and the officers would come and drink in the pub,” Devlin tells BBC History Magazine.

Mythic story The Legend of King Arthur DVD (Simply Media, £19.99) He later captured the nation’s imagination with a wet-shirted Colin Firth in his 1995 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, but in the late 1970s Andrew Davies had yet to establish himself as a scriptwriter. So his take on the King Arthur story, first broadcast by the BBC in 1979, was an important moment in Davies’ career. Told over eight 30minute episodes, this lacks the production polish of Davies’ subsequent work, but it’s far more than just an interesting curio. In showing us a self-aware Morgan le Fay (Maureen

For his new drama, Devlin has reached d back to this childhood and then a little farther. My Mother and Other Strangerss is set during the Second World War, when Americans were stationed in the area. “These were operational conversion units, and they were for guys who would have learned to fly in the clear skies of Kansas, New Mexico and Florida,” he says. “They had a three- or four-week period in which to learn to fly in cloud and in darkness.” The series is largely centred on the family of a married Englishwoman, Rose Coyne, who is attracted to a US airman because he represents “the life she might have had”. Think of it, says Devlin – only half-joking – as “The Lady of Shalottt with aeroplanes”. O’Brien) as someone who feels at least in part trapped by circumstances – a need to be the dark to Arthur’s light – the series shows how Davies was already on his way to becoming an accomplished TV dramatist, adept at subtly reinterpreting our stories of the (in this case, mythic) past. Arthurr is one of three BBC dramas released on DVD by Simply Media. Look out, too, for Little Sir Nicholas (1990), an adaptation of Cecilia a Anne Jones’s novel for children. It is a tale of family rivalries set in the Victorian era that credits one of its stars, Julian Fellowes, as a script consultant. Also available is Prince Regentt (1979), a BAFTA-winning take on the life and times of George IV, starring Peter Egan and Susannah York.

Families ‘enjoy’ a meal in The Victorian Slum

Auctions feature on television more than once this month. The twopart documentary Christie’s at 250 (BBC Two, Saturday 19 November) looks at the high-end auction house celebrating its 250th anniversary. The final episode of The Victorian Slum (BBC Two, Monday 7 November) moves the story forward to the Edwardian era. For shopkeepers the Birds, it means a change in emphasis: with the arrival of the Cooperative Movement, they look after members rather than customers. On Yesterday, two entertaining series reach their conclusion. History’s Greatest Hoaxes (Thursday 3 November) tells how Orson Welles – probably inadvertently – panicked the US with his 1938 adaptation of The War of the Worlds; it also explores the story behind bestseller Papillon, and the truth about the Piltdown Man. Meanwhile, Medieval Dead (Tuesday 8 November) investigates remains including a collection of skulls found at the site of the 1499 battle of Dornach in Switzerland. The Great Transatlantic Cable (PBS America, Friday 4 November) looks at how the first telegraph line was laid across 2,000 miles of seabed in the middle of the 19th century. Defying the Nazis: The Sharps’ War (PBS America, Tuesday 15 November), co-directed by acclaimed filmmaker Ken Burns, relates the remarkable story of Waitstill and Martha Sharp, an American minister and his wife who saved scores of dissidents and refugees from the Nazis.

Robert Eddison plays Merlin alongside Patsy Kensit as a young Morgan le Fay

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BBC History Magazine

BBC

Love takes flight

OUT&ABOUT HISTORY EXPLORER

The Arts and Crafts Movement Rosalind Ormiston and Spencer Mizen visit Standen House in West Sussex x to explore a movement that championed the virtues of traditional craftsmanship

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people who worked in these factories. Having flocked to the cities from the countryside, many lived in squalid conditions, earning little. Almost as concerning for Webb and co, workers felt a total disconnect with the objects they were mass-producing. It was this alienation that led to the gorgeous wallpapers, carpets and gables that grace Standen House. But the Arts and Craft Movement wasn’t just a crusade against the rise of the factory. It was also a backlash against bad design. And, says Rosalind Ormiston, an expert in architecture and design history, in the 1850s a small but significant minority of Britain’s artistic community was seeing bad design everywhere. “These people – among them Philip Webb, the art critic John Ruskin and a young designer named William Morris Like-minded thinkers – believed that industrialisation had had a When the architect Philip Webb put his final catastrophic impact on aesthetic values,” touches to Standen House in 1894, Britain says Rosalind. “Because designers now had was at the peak of its industrial the means to mass-produce powers. It had assembled the anything, that’s exactly what greatest empire the world they did – without any referhad ever seen and, from ence to taste or functionGlasgow to Cornwall, ality. So suddenly you hundreds of factories had chairs being made churned out the out of antler’s horns, products that fuelled and threshing the country’s global machines adorned pre-eminence. with Egyptian Yet for Webb and a hieroglyphs. To the coterie of like-minded likes of Ruskin, Webb thinkers, there was a and Morris, these were price to pay for Britain’s ugly g y and unusable.” industrial might, and If there’s a defining Architect Philip Webb made a point that was in the lives of moment in the early of building Standen House from locally the huge numbers of history of the Arts sou ced materials sourced a e as

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NTPL-JOHN MILLER/NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY

f you’re looking for evidence of the terrible damage wrought on workingclass people by the relentless rise of industrialisation in the 19th century then, on the face of it, Standen House isn’t a good starting point. This beautiful country pile, nestled in a leafy corner of rural West Sussex, can seem a million miles from the dark, satanic mills of Victorian Manchester or the sprawling, poverty-ridden slums of east London. But appearances can be deceptive. Today, on a gorgeous autumnal afternoon, Standen is a picture of moneyed tranquility. Some 120 years ago, however, it was one of the jewels in the crown of the Arts and Crafts Movement, a crusade that sought to improve the lot of people for whom life was neither moneyed nor tranquil.

Standen House bathes in West Sussex sunshine. “This was a house built for purpose,” says Rosalind Ormiston. “It’s a comfortable house – not a palace – one that’s designed to be lived in”

BBC History Magazine

BBC History Magazine

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William Morris’s ‘trellis’ wallpaper adorns the Morning Room corridor at Standen

and Crafts Movement, then it may be the Great Exhibition of 1851. Organised by Prince Albert and the renowned inventor Henry Cole, this massive exposition of cutting-edge designs in Hyde Park was one of the most anticipated events of the 1850s. But in the eyes of some, it was a great cathedral of vulgarity and pretentiousness. For William Morris especially, it proved a call to arms.

Joy in labour “William Morris enjoyed a wonderful upbringing in the countryside,” says Rosalind. “He developed a youthful obsession with the Middle Ages – he read Walter Scott’s Waverley novels, and his parents bought him a suit of armour – and that was to have a huge impact on the Arts and Crafts Movement.” The adult Morris harked back to the guilds of the Middle Ages, when craftsmen designed and manufactured products for their own communities, using local materials. In this production method, Morris saw a quality of craftsmanship, a joy in labour, and a connection with materials utterly removed from the sterile, deadlinedominated factory lines of his own day. Yet Morris wasn’t content to merely rail

Morris yearned for a return to the craftsmanship of the Middle Ages

against the pernicious effects of industrialisation. Instead, he did something about it. That something became a reality in 1858 when he decided he needed a commune for all his artistic friends to gather. To that end he asked his good friend Philip Webb to design a house for him in Bexleyheath, London. The result, the Red House, was to become the first Arts and Crafts Movement home, and would kickstart an artistic revolution that would take Britain – and much of the industrialised world – by storm. “What made the Arts and Crafts Movement so powerful was that it encompassed all aspects of design,” says Rosalind. “So when Morris decided to hold a design party at the Red House – but realised he didn’t have any furniture for his guests to sit on – he made them himself. Soon his company – Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co – were producing everything from chairs to silverware and tapestries to carpets.” And soon some of Britain’s wealthiest families were beating a path to the company’s door. One of the most famous was George Howard, 9th Earl of Carlisle, who in the 1860s commissioned Philip Webb to design 1 Palace Green in Kensington (to the chagrin of the local council planners, who disliked its red-brick design).

A few years later Webb received another lucrative commission – this one from a successful solicitor named James Beale – to design him and his family a summer retreat in the countryside south of London. The result was Standen House. “Standen is one of the finest examples of an Arts and Crafts Movement property in Britain,” says Rosalind, as we enter its impressive drawing room. “It’s steeped in the movement’s principles. It’s built from materials sourced from the local area – echoing designs in nearby East Grinstead. It’s intimate and functional – this is a house that’s designed to be lived in. And, true to the Arts and Crafts Movement’s egalitarian ethos, the servants’ quarters are above ground and were fitted with electricity – quite an innovation at the time.” Step inside Standen House and it soon becomes obvious that Webb had an almost fanatical attention to detail. The house’s so called dog-leg corridor – resplendent in a signature William Morris trellis wallpaper – was designed to prevent unsavoury smells wafting from the kitchen to the dining room. Outside that same dining room a slate-top fitting offered servants somewhere to rest food-filled trays while they waited for the diners to finish the previous course

Whitefriars Glassworks in London. The Arts and Crafts Movement’s protagonists railed against the march of industrialisation

FOR WILLIAM MORRIS, THE GREAT EXHIBITION OF 1851 WAS A GREAT CATHEDRAL OF VULGARITY AND PRETENTIOUSNESS 82

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NTPL-NADIA MACKENZIE/GETTY

Out & about / History Explorer

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Standen House inside. The slate fitting even has a radiator underneath it to help keep the food warm. “Webb designed everything from the house’s huge medieval-style fireplaces to the coat hooks,” says Rosalind. “And he knew which member of the family was going to occupy which particular bedroom before he designed it, and he made it a priority to cater for their individual needs. So when one of the Beale daughters requested fitted wardrobes, that’s what she got.”

1 The Red House BEXLEYHEATH, LONDON

Where William Morris resided

West Hoathly Road, West Sussex RH19 4NE  nationaltrust.org.uk

ALAMY

2 Blackwell Where a Manchester brewer lived

These included the Art Workers’ Guild, which still survives today, and the Guild of Handicraft which, shortly after its establishment in 1888, boasted numerous workshops. And, when the lease ran out on the latter’s East End base in 1902, an entire commune of 150 families moved to Chipping Camden in the Cotswolds. By the end of the 19th century, Morris was an international celebrity, and the ideas that he had done so much to champion in Britain were proving enormously popular in Japan, Germany, the United States and beyond. But the Arts and Crafts Movement’s days were numbered. The outbreak of the First World War took many craftsmen to the front. Many didn’t return, and those who did found that the tastes of the rich – on whose business their livelihood depended – had moved on to styles such as Art Deco. Yet, says Rosalind, the movement’s legacy lives on. “That can be seen in the enduring popularity of organic foods, of handcrafted designs – which, more than a century after the Beales commissioned Standen House, still offer a vehicle for the super-rich to define themselves against the rest of us.” Few styles define Englishness better than Morris’s tapestries, wallpapers and curtains, and Webb’s inimitable gables and fireplaces. And, as the 120,000 or so visitors who descend on Standen House ever year will attest, in an age when industrialisation’s victory is seemingly complete, design flair, joy in labour and traditional handcrafted goods still have their place. Rosalind Ormiston (left) is co-author of William Morris: Artist, Craftsman, Pioneer (Flame Tree Publishing, 2010). Words: Spencer Mizen

BBC History Magazine

The Red House was designed by Philip Webb for William Morris and his new wife, Jane Burden, after their marriage in 1859. Morris described it as “medieval in spirit”. It imbues all the qualities that the emerging Arts and Crafts Movement would aspire to. nationaltrust.org.uk/red-house

BOWNESS-ON-WINDERMERE, CUMBRIA

Strength and weakness In many ways, this painstaking attention to detail, this obsession with functionality, is one of the Arts and Crafts Movement’s greatest strengths. But, in other ways, it was its primary weakness. For only the very wealthiest could afford the products of this slow, highly skilled, handmade process. “At the outset, Webb and Morris would certainly have wanted working-class people to own their designs but the sheer manhours required to create these products militated against that,” says Rosalind. “But that’s not to say the movement didn’t gain any traction with the working classes. In the late 19th century, thanks to Morris’s crusading zeal, scores of craftsmen’s guilds sprang up across the country.”

ARTS AND CRAFTS: FIVE MORE PLACES TO EXPLORE

Built on a hill overlooking Lake Windermere, Blackwell was designed by Mackay Hugh Baillie Scott, as a relaxed, tranquil summer home for Edward Holt, a Manchester brewer. The house is a total work of art, a stunning example of Arts and Crafts ideology. blackwell.org.uk

3 Hill House HELENSBURGH, ARGYLL AND BUTE

Where you’ll find a blend of styles Hill House was designed by architectdesigner Charles Rennie Mackintosh as a residential home for Glasgow publisher Walter Blackie and his family. Mackintosh conceived the house and nearly everything in it, blending Arts and Crafts, Scottish baronial and Art Nouveau aesthetics. nts.org.uk/TheHillHouse

4 Coleton Fishacre NEAR DARTMOUTH, DEVON

Where the new ‘Jazz Age’ is evident This country home was designed by Oswald Milne in the Arts and Crafts style, for Sir Rupert and Lady Dorothy D’Oyly Carte. The interior is a mix of Arts and Crafts and Art Deco styles, reflecting the 1920s’ new ‘Jazz Age’. nationaltrust.org.uk/coleton-fishacre

5 St Martin’s Church BRAMPTON, CUMBRIA

Where stained glass stuns visitors Philip Webb’s only church design exemplifies the Arts and Crafts style. Its windows are filled with stunning stained glass designed by Edward Burne-Jones. In Brampton, Webb also designed Green Lane House for the church vicar, and Four Gables for George Howard, 9th Earl of Carlisle. visitcumbria.com

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A beautiful b if l volume l h casts that important new light on Brown’s world-renowned work, his eventful life and the business of landscape design in Georgian England.

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For the very first time, the picture perfect gardens at Blenheim Palace open this Christmas for an after dark festive trail along unique winding paths, beside tranquil water and a through extraordinary Parkland landscaped by ‘Cap ‘Capability’ Brown.

Walk beneath the stars and into the scented Fire Garden, a circular carpet of dancing flames, adorned with lanterns. In the distance glimpse glittering ancient tree canopies glowing in Christmas colour that stretch high into the night-sky.

25 NOVEMBER – 2 JANUARY blenheimpalace.com/christmas cost 13p per minute plus your phone company’s access charge 08716 204 029 Calls #christmasatblenheim

Discover Christmas trees that sing, a swaying lawn of fibre optic colour and sparkling hedgerows. Gaze at water-side reflections as brightly-lit boats bob along filled with snowflakes and presents festooned with seasonal cheer. In the distance, fountain jets dance and the dense woodland across the Great Lake Vista springs to life in time to much-loved Christmas music.

Not open every day Check website for full details Separate charges may apply

As you emerge from the pea-lit twinkling arbour, catch sight of The Boat House, magically transformed as Santa’s secret Oxfordshire home.

Out & about

FIVE THINGS TO DO IN DECEMBER Spotlight on slavery

A portrait of William Ansah Sessarakoo, by John Faber the Younger, after Gabriel Mathias, 1749

EXHIBITION / FREE ENTRY

The Royal African Museum of London Docklands 25 November–4 June 2017  020 7001 9844  museumoflondon.org.uk/museum-londondocklands

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xplore the history of London’s 17th and 18th-century slave trade with a new display that tells the story of William Ansah Sessarakoo (pictured right), the African prince who was sold into slavery in 1744. Later known as ‘the royal African’, Sessarakoo was a member of a leading family in West Africa, growing up in the Royal African Company’s fort at Annamaboe, in present-day Ghana. But Sessarakoo’s privileged life came to an abrupt end when he was sold into slavery in Barbados during a voyage to London, where he had been sent by his father to receive an English education. Four years after his capture, Sessarakoo was discovered in Barbados and eventually freed by the Royal African Company, which wished to remain on good terms with his father. He spent some time in London, where he was received as ‘the royal African’, and eventually returned to Annamaboe. Housed within the museum’s London, Sugar & Slavery gallery, the exhibition explores the complicated workings of the slave trade through Sessarakoo’s life. It also examines the prominent role played by the English-run Royal African Company, which transported nearly 150,000 enslaved Africans during the period of the trade, and the bitter power struggle in London for control of the slave trade.

E

EXHIBITION / FREE ENTRY

EXHIBITION / FREE ENTRY

EXHIBITION

EXHIBITION

Adela Breton: Ancient Mexico in Colour

The View from Here

Feeding the 400

Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh Continues to 30 April 2017  0131 624 6200  nationalgalleries.org

Foundling Museum, London Continues to 8 January 2017  020 7841 3600  foundlingmuseum.org.uk

Shifting Sands: Lawrence of Arabia and the Great Arab Revolt

NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY, LONDON/BRISTOL CULTURE

Bristol Museum & Art Gallery Continues to 14 May 2017  0117 922 3571  bristolmuseums.org.uk

Breton (1849–1923) worked at archaeological sites in Mexico making full-size colour copies of wall paintings – now the best record of what was there. On display for the first time since the 1940s, Breton’s images allow people to decipher what they meant for ancient Mexicans and Maya.

BBC History Magazine

Drawing on the gallery’s own collections, this exhibition explores landscape photography around the world from the 1840s to the present day, ranging from Niagara Falls to the Egyptian pyramids. It also looks at the various processes that have been used by photographers over the centuries. A watercolour of a caryatid – a sculpted female figure used as a pillar

This exhibition takes a look at a little examined aspect of life at the Foundling Hospital – food – and the impact eating regimes had on children at the hospital between 1740 and 1950. The story is explored through art, archival material, photographs and the voices of former pupils. The exhibition demonstrates how the institution’s food choices were far more than just questions of economy, nutrition and health.

The National Civil War Centre, Newark Continues to 31 March 2017  01636 655765  nationalcivilwarcentre.com

Lawrence played a key role in the Arab Revolt (1916–18) against the Ottoman empire. He became an iconic figure, later immortalised in David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia. His life e is reassessed in this exhibition, which is based on 10 years of research by archaeologists working in the Jordanian desert.

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Out & about

MY FAVOURITE PLACE Park Güell is one of the major works of Gaudí in Barcelona and displays his fanciful imagination on a large scale

Barcelona, Spain by Alexander Larman

“B

arcelona – like a jewel in the sun” sang Freddie Mercury on his titular 1988 album. Most visitors would be hard pressed to disagree, although my first impressions of Spain’s greatest city were rather different. Arriving in the pouring rain, a place that I had expected to be vibrant and thrilling seemed, at first, subdued and grey. When darkness fell, I sat in my hotel and gazed over the neonglinting panorama that mixed skyscrapers with churches, and felt that I might have been anywhere from Tokyo to London. The most cosmopolitan of cities is also one of the most chameleonic, offering the visitor a range of experiences and perspectives that can encompass anything from a sedate tour through its eventful history to a thrilling peek into the future of art and entertainment. Not, of course, that a sedatee tour need not be thrilling in its own fashion. The first thing one o discovers about Barcelona is that many of its inhabitants would describe themselves as Catalonian, rather than Spanish, and a proud sense of individuality and liberty has defined the city since its foundation in Roman times. An urban myth states that

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Hannibal’s father Hamilcar Barca named the settlement after his family name, although the evidence for this claim is sketchy at best. Nonetheless, it was not until the 19th century that Barcelona began to resemble the city as we know it today, most notably in the creation of the Barri Gòtic, or Gothic Quarter; the modernist architecture that grew up around this area of Barcelona remains some of Europe’s most striking and individualistic. The leading proponent of the city’s unique architectural style was Antoni Gaudí, who is best known for his astonishing church, the Sagrada Familia. Its construction began in 1882 and is still unfinished; the latest estimate for its final completion is now 2032, with the towers and structure expected to be ready for the centenary of Gaudí’s death in 2026.

The architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner, who normally preferred more conventional buildings, visited it as a work in progress and was amazed by what he called the church’s “ruthless audacity”. The queues are inevitably long, and can be punishing on a hot day, but even an h r’s wait is well worth it for the experience that awaits you upon entrance. No picture can convey the heady rapture that comes of the interplay of colours and shapes, which combine to offer exaltation and a reminder of the fervour with which Catholicism is still practised within Catalonia. There are many other Gaudí buildings throughout the city, including his modernist houses Casa Batlló and Casa Milà, and no visit to Barcelona is complete without a saunter through the public space that he designed, Park Güell. A World Heritage Site since 1984, it offers hugely uneexpected bursts of surrealism and d creativity, including multi-coloured dragons and

T Palau de la Música The is s a jewel of Catalan Art Nouveau. Over the years it N ha as hosted some of the worrld’s leading artists

intricate mosaics. Although sometimes it might seem as if Gaudí was Barcelona’s only great architect, we should also remember the impressive work of his peer Lluìs Domènech I Montaner, who was responsible for the great Palau de la Música Catalana. The city’s leading concert hall, it has played host to a variety of artists, including Stravinsky, Rachmaninov and Duke Ellington. The city’s legacy is not wholly one of beauty and colour. Throughout the Spanish Civil War it was a staunchly Republi-

BBC History Magazine

GETTY IMAGES/ALAMY

For the latest in our historical holidays series, Alexander visits the cosmopolitan capital of Catalonia

ADVICE FOR TRAVELLERS

BEST TIME TO GO Avoid July and August as the heat is often near-unbearable. It’s pleasantly warm in late September and October. In May and June lower temperatures are accompanied by a range of local festivals that bring a carnival atmosphere to the city.

GETTING THERE Most British airports offer direct services to Barcelona.

WHAT TO PACK Comfortable shoes, swimming costume, sun lotion – and a secure wallet, as the tourist districts can heave with pickpockets.

WHAT TO BRING BACK Local jamón (dry-cured ham) and cava are perennially popular. Lovers of kitsch, meanwhile, might want to buy one of the ubiquitous icons sold in the churches and markets.

READERS’ VIEWS

Architect Antoni Gaudí’s Park Güell offers hugely unexpected bursts of surrealism and creativity, including multi-coloured dragons and intricate mosaics can stronghold, albeit one that descended into anarchy as it attracted communist and hard left infiltrators. George Orwell was present in the city in the late 1930s and wrote a book, Homage to Catalonia, about his experiences fighting there. He described how: “No one who was in Barcelona then… will forget the horrible atmo-

Been there… Have you been to Barcelona? Do you have a top tip for readers? Contact us via Twitter or Facebook

sphere produced by fear, suspicion, hatred, censored newspapers, crammed jails, enormous food queues, and prowling gangs”. The Republicans were defeated, and use of the Catalan language in public was officially forbidden. Rather than destroying Barcelona’s spirit, it merely strengthened it. Today, the city is rich in excellent places to eat and drink, including what the The Wall Street Journall called “the best wine bar in the world”, Monvínic. The city’s tapas bars are reputedly the best in Spain, fine

cava can be tasted at cheap prices and there’s also a large and hugely popular beach. Freddie Mercury sang of his “perfect dream” in the city. Chances are that you’ll have yours as well.

Don’t miss Park Güell. Such great views over the city Anna Wood The Gothic quarter is my favourite. Nothing beats a clara (beer and lemon drink) and papas bravas in a cafe nestled in history @omglolwut I recommend a night stroll through Raval street during the carnival Arisha Khairul Anuar

Alexander Larman’s latest book is Byron’s Women (Head of Zeus, 2016) Read more of Alexander’s experiences at historyextra.com/ bbchistorymagazine/Barcelona

Next month: Jacob Norris pays a visit to Bethlehem

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4. WisdenAuction.com The easy to use, custom built, Wisden site, designed by Wisden collectors for Wisden collectors. Since 1864 a “Wisden” or the cricketers’ bible has been produced. It is a very popular gift for any cricket fan and as they go back so far, everyone’s year of birth is available. It makes a very novel and unique gift, especially for lovers of cricket. Many under £50, sets also available.

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6. Ordnance Survey Discover the landscape of the past with reproduction maps direct from Ordnance Survey. These prints of the 1896 series of maps for Scotland, England and Wales have been taken from the originals and are recreated down to the cartographers’ hand-written notes. They are sent rolled, so are ideal for research or display.

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MISCELLANY QUIZ BY JULIAN HUMPHRYS Try your hand at this month’s history quiz 1. Which part of England was the last to convert to Christianity?

ONLINE QUIZZES historyextra.com /bbchistorymagazine/quiz

2. Why was the Surrey village of Cuddington razed to the ground in 1538? 3. Which Hollywood star made his screen debut at the age of three in 1922 and made 27 screen appearances until his death in 1932? 4. “This is the Lord’s doing and it is marvellous in our eyes.” What had Queen Elizabeth I just learned?

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5. What was originally called the ‘War Song of the Army of the Rhine’? 6. Where is this and which great novelist drew inspiration from it?

6

GETTY IMAGES

QUIZ ANSWERS 1. The Isle of Wight. Bede recorded the year as 686. 2. To make space for the construction of Nonsuch Palace. 3. Rin Tin Tin the dog. 4. That her halfsister, Mary, had died and she was now queen. 5. ‘La Marseillaise’, the French national anthem. 6. Smailholm Tower, near Kelso. Sir Walter Scott.

Q&A

Q I am forever seeing wristwatches being described as ‘military issue’. When were watches first issued by the military? Did the servicemen have to pay for them? Did they have a choice? Drew De Soto, by email

Wristwatches were first issued to the British Army in 1917. Prior to this time, officers were expected to pay for them from their own pocket, but because the army recruited the vast majority of its officers from the wealthy classes, the cost was not considered burdensome. An accurate timepiece was vital to allow coordination in battle and the wristwatch, preferably with a luminous face so that it could be read at night, was listed as an essential piece of military equipment to rank nk alongside binoculars and compass. Private soldiers who required timepieces for their roles, such as signallers, were typically given military-issue pocket watcches. At the outbreak of the First World War, numerous priivate watchmakers created desiggns to meet wartime demand. Wearing a fashionable timepiece so oon became the distinguishingg mark of a dashing officer. By 19116, the phrase “a proper wristt watch”, to denote a smartlly dressed individual, had en ntered army slang. As the war dragged on, spiralling casualties forced d the army to expand officerr recruitment to include meen from working-class backgrounds and those promo oted from within the ranks. Th hese new officers could not affo ord expensive watches and so

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from 1917 the War Office began the distribution of military-issue patterns. However, officers who could afford the finer things in life were still permitted to wear privately purchased wristwatches. There was room for fashion, even in the trenches of the western front. Dr Spencer Jones, senior lecturer in armed forces and war studies, University of Wolverhampton

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/ bbchistorymagazine

BBC History Magazine

ILLUSTRATION BY GLEN MCBETH

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Miscellany

SAMANTHA’S RECIPE CORNER Every issue, picture editor Samantha Nott brings you a recipe from the past. This month it’s a hearty bread and currant pudding from the 17th century

Very similar to the modern bread-and-butter pudding, this dense, warming whitepot is the perfect comfort food for a cold winter’s evening. Layers of bread and currants are set with custard, then baked in an oven, or over an open fire. Many variations of white-pot have existed over the years, using rice instead of bread, or adding a puff-pastry base. A 1769 Yorkshire recipe adds in layers of apple. This sweet, lightly spiced version hails from 17th-century Devon, where ‘pot’ meant pudding in the local dialect. In 1658, The Compleat Cookk recommended using a ‘penny loaf’ for the pudding. These days, slightly stale bread works best.

Butter Ovenproof bowl

INGREDIENTS 500ml double cream ½ tsp nutmeg 2 large eggs, 1 egg yolk 40g raw sugar 1 white sliced loaf, crusts removed 100g raisins or currants, soaked in water or rum

VERDICT “Robust and delicious”

Pudding perfection from this warming winter white-pot

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METHOD Pre-heat oven to 140°C (275°F). Grease the bowl. Simmer the cream and nutmeg in a saucepan. Whisk the eggs and yolk with the sugar, gradually adding the warm cream to make a custard. Butter the bread. Layer the bowl with bread, buttered side down, followed by raisins. When the bowl is half-full, pour in half the custard. Continue layering until the bowl is full, and top with the remaining custard. Place the bowl inside an ovenproof pot and cover with a lid. Bake for 30–40 minutes until golden brown. Serve with cream or ice cream.

Difficulty: 5/10 Time: 90 minutes Adapted from a recipe in Pride and Pudding by Regula Ysewijn (Murdoch Books, 2016)

The abbey at Mont SaintMichel in France supported William the Conqueror – so he rewarded them with St Michael’s Mount in Cornwall

Q Is there a historical relationship or link between St Michael’s Mount in Cornwall and Mont Saint-Michel in France? O Adamberry, by email

Although the French site is bigger, the two plainly have a lot in common, being conical-shaped islands close to the mainland and originally being inaccessible at high tide. This made them easily defensible, and both have a lot of military history to them. Both locations became religious sites dedicated to the Archangel Michael. There is an unreliable legend that the saint appeared to fishermen at the Cornish site in the fifth century, while he instructed Bishop Aubert of Avranches to build a church at Saint-Michel in the early eighth century (though the bishop only complied once Saint Michael had made a hole in his head). Mont Saint-Michel was home to a monastic community at the time of the Norman conquest, while Saint Michael’s Mount probably was too. It’s possible that both of these religious communities were originally founded by monks from Ireland. There is a long-standing story that Edward the Confessor (1003–66) gave St Michael’s Mount to the Abbey of Mont Saint-Michel before 1066, but

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most historians question this, and it’s thought that an ancient charter conferring the gift is a forgery. The Abbey of Saint-Michel did, however, support Duke William’s claim to the English throne and so at some point St Michael’s Mount was given to them, probably by Count Robert of Mortain, William’s half-brother. Count Robert, significantly, fought at Hastings under a banner bearing an image of St Michael and was rewarded with huge landholdings in England, including most of Cornwall. Some time later, Bernard du Bec, abbot of Mont SaintMichel, ordered the building of a daughter house on St Michael’s Mount. This was completed in the 1140s and at first was strictly subordinate to Normandy. The two houses prospered as places of pilgrimage, but drifted apart in the conflicts between England and France. The final break came in the 15th century, when Henry V formally took control of St Michael’s Mount. It was later given to Syon Abbey. Eugene Byrne, author and journalist

BBC History Magazine

GETTY IMAGES

Devonshire White-pot

PRIZE CROSSWORD

Sir Arthur Harris, officially – but what was his nickname? (see 11 across)

Across

GETTY IMAGES

1 A Hertfordshire town takes its name from this Christian martyr, who was converted to Christianity by the priest he sheltered (2,5) 5 Former English name of a city on the Moselle, associated with Emperor Augustus, claimed to be Germany’s oldest city (6) 10 Carthaginian leader who inflicted great defeats on the Romans during the Punic Wars (8) 11 The nickname given to Sir Arthur Harris, Second World War commander of flight missions to Germany (6) 12 Lambert, 15th-century impostor, who made a claim to the English crown (6) 13 Sir John, 17th-century architect of Castle Howard and Blenheim Palace (8) 14/16 Legendary Scandinavian prince who, according to a Middle English Romance, married the English princess Goldeboru (7,3,4) 18 Welsh town, scene in November 1839 of an unsuccessful, large-scale Chartist uprising, led by John Frost (7) 20 Scottish village, the starting point of the 1715 Jacobite rising (7) 23 Scene, in Munich, of an abortive putsch by Hitler and his associates in November 1923 (4,4) 25 Nazi concentration camp established in Germany within two months of Hitler becoming chancellor (6) 27 The forces opposed to revolution in the Russian Civil War of 1918–20 (6) 28 The Duke of ____ is, since 1603, one of the (Scottish) titles of the heir to the British throne (8) 29 Founder of the British Union of Fascists in 1932, having been, at various times, a Conservative, Independent and Labour MP (6) 30 Futuristic-looking, dominating symbol of the 1951 Festival of Britain (6)

6 Middle Eastern leader, a signatory of the Oslo Accords, who was assassinated in November 1995 (5) 7 The battle of which, in April 1917, was a great victory (though at a high cost) for Canadian troops against the German defenders (4,5) 8 It became the standard light weapon used by British and Commonwealth armed forces in World War Two (4,3) 9 A prominent white supporter in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, he was subsequently appointed minister for housing in Mandela’s government (5) 15 The longer of the two rivers forming the region known as ‘Mesopotamia’ to the Greeks (9) 17 The fifth-century Greek writer on the Greco-Persian wars, deemed to be the first great narrative historian (9) 19 This town in Worcestershire was the location of the last major battle in Down the Barons’ War (1265) (7) 2 Royal title of eg Alexandra of Russia 21 Native American people of the (1872–1918) (7) 3 A series of strokes ended the career of plains of Wyoming and Colorado, allies of the Cheyenne (7) this Russian revolutionary leader, who 22 One of the two names used died in 1924 (5) (officially since 1993) of an Australian 4 20th-century Conservative prime landmark, part of a World Heritage minister of the UK, who succeeded his Site (5) uncle (1,1,7)

BBC History Magazine

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Book worth

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Crusoe’s Island by Andrew Lambert Subtitled A Rich and Curious History of Pirates, Castaways and Madness, this new work from noted naval historian Andrew Lambert explores the curious role Robinson Crusoe’s Island – one of a group of tiny islands west of San Antonio, Chile – played in shaping Britain’s identity and dominance as a global seafaring power. Published by Faber & Faber, RRP £20

24 A battle here in May/June 1918 proved to be the last major German attempt to win the war (5) 26 The English had a decisive victory over the French in this battle of 26 August 1346 (5) Compiled by Eddie James

HOW TO ENTER Open to residents of the UK, (inc. Channel Islands). Post entries to BBC History Magazine, December 2016 Crossword, PO Box 501, Leicester LE94 0AA A or email them to [email protected] by 5pm on 30 November 2016. Entrants must supply full 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 January 2017 issue. By entering, participants agree to be bound by the terms and conditions shown in full in the box below. Immediate Media Company (publishers of BBC History Magazine)) will use personal details in accordance with the Immediate Privacy Policy at immediatemedia.co.uk/ privacy-policy/privacy/ Immediate Media Company Limited (publishers of BBC History Magazinee) would love to send you newsletters, together with special offers, and other promotions. If you would not like to receive these please write ‘NO INFO’ on your entry. Branded BBC titles are licensed from or published jointly with BBC Worldwide (the commercial arm of the BBC). Please tick here … if you’d like to receive regular newsletters, special offers and promotions from BBC Worldwide by email. Your information will be handled in accordance with the BBC Worldwide privacy policy: bbcworldwide.com/privacy

SOLUTION TO OUR OCTOBER CROSSWORD Across: 1 Potsdam 5 Doublet 9 Etal 10 Safety lamp 12 Bastille 13 Bikini 14 Truman 16 Durham 18 Wiglaf 20 Brazil 22 Aksum 23 Ashikaga 25 Belorussia 26 Biro 27 Marengo 28 Entente Down: 2 Outlawry 3 Split 4 Absalon 6 October 7 Balaklava 8 Edmund 11 Field of Mars 15 Maidstone 17 Ziggurat 19 Limburg 20 Bahrain 21 Mazepa 24 Keble. FIVE WINNERS OF A HISTORY OF THE WORLD IN 500 WALKS P Hamill, Gwent; S Broughton, Essex; R Parry, London; P Byatt, Suffolk; N Short, Kent CROSSWORD COMPETITION TERMS & CONDITIONS  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.  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 not publish your personal details or provide them to anyone without permission. Read more about the Immediate Privacy Policy at immediatemedia.co.uk/privacy-policy/  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.  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.

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NEXT MONTH MAGAZINE EDITORIAL Editorr Rob Attar [email protected] Deputy editorr Charlotte Hodgman Acting deputy editorr Sue Wingrove [email protected] Reviews editorr Matt Elton [email protected] Production editorr Spencer Mizen Picture editorr Samantha Nott [email protected] Art editorr Susanne Frank Deputy art editors Rachel Dickens, Rosemary Smith, Sarah Lambert Picture researcherr Katherine Hallett Digital editorr Emma Mason [email protected] Website assistantt Ellie Cawthorne

BRIDGEMAN/GEGTETTY IMAGES/ALAMY

Vol 17 No 12 – December 2016 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 manager Sam Jones 0117 300 8145 [email protected] Brand sales executive Sam Evanson 0117 314 8754 [email protected] Classified sales executive George Bent 0117 300 8542 [email protected] Group direct marketing manager Laurence Robertson 00353 5787 57444 Subscriptions director Jacky Perales-Morris Senior direct marketing executive Natalie Lawrence US representative Kate Buckley [email protected] PRESS AND PUBLIC RELATIONS Press officerr Dominic Lobley 020 7150 5015 [email protected] SYNDICATION Head of licensing & syndication Tim Hudson International partners’ manager Anna Brown PRODUCTION Production directorr Sarah Powell Production co-ordinatorr Emily Mounter Ad co-ordinatorr Jade O’Halloran Ad designerr Rachel Shircore IMMEDIATE MEDIA COMPANY Publisher David Musgrove Publishing director Andy Healy Managing directorr Andy Marshall CEO Tom Bureau Deputy chairman Peter Phippen Chairman Stephen Alexander BBC WORLDWIDE Director of editorial governance Nicholas Brett Director of consumer products and publishing Andrew Moultrie Head of UK publishing Chris Kerwin Publisher Mandy Thwaites Publishing co-ordinatorr Eva Abramik [email protected] www.bbcworldwide.com/uk--anz/ ukpublishing.aspx

The Light Brigade: who blundered? Saul David asks who should take the blame for the Victorian military disaster

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 – Dr Peter Jones formerly Newcastle University – Prof Denis Judd 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 – Dr Amanda Goodrich The Open University* – Dr Simon Thurley formerly 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

In defence of Black Power

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Peter Ling challenges popular assumptions about a controversial part of the Civil Rights story

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Political history Historian MPs reveal the connections between their two professions

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Pearl Harbor shocks the world Nicholas Best explores how news of the Japanese attack was received across the globe

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My history hero “Born into slavery, Toussaint played such an important part in history and, indirectly, in ending slavery. Everyone has heard of Napoleon Bonaparte – but here was a man who outwitted him”

Toussaint Louverture “led his people from slavery to freedom – and not just freedom for the few, but for the entire colony”, says Heather Small

Singer Heather Small chooses

Toussaint Louverture 1743–1803

When did you first hear about Toussaint Louverture?

A friend of mine brought him to my attention when I was in my thirties. I was immediately intrigued by this person of African descent and such humble origins who, despite being born into slavery, achieved such great things – he played such an important part in history and, indirectly, in ending slavery. Everyone has heard of Napoleon Bonaparte – but here was a man who outwitted him. Yet we know so little about him. What kind of person was he?

Apparently when he was young he was quite weak in the body, though not in the mind. He was educated, had a good brain, was a fine orator and made some rousing speeches. He must also have been a brilliant military strategist to have led a successful revolt by people who had no rights whatsoever. I’m sure he had great personal charisma, too.

overwhelming odds. Moreover, he thwarted a British attempt to capture the colony. Yet, a bit like Nelson Mandela, he wasn’t really a warmonger – he wanted to make peace after the revolt. Why isn’t he better known?

I don’t think society as a whole has ever really wanted to promote events that didn’t make Europeans look good. Most people now accept that the European nations were guilty of exploitation – but the constant revolts against European conquest and colonialism are conveniently forgotten. I think the fact that he was black is another reason that he’s not better known. Should there be a greater emphasis on black history?

Definitely. Yes, we have a black history month – but there’s a lot of black history! There’s African history, Caribbean history, and so on. So I think it’s wrong just to pigeonhole it all as ‘black history’. Black history encapsulates a lot of different histories. Is there anything you don’t particularly admire about Toussaint Louverture?

Well, he may have fathered as many as 16 children, but his wife bore perhaps only two of them – so he put it about a bit! But a lot of men who achieve power like the ladies, and the ladies like them too. Can you see any parallels between his life and your own?

We both had pretty humble origins – I grew up on a council estate – and we both went from A to B, and progressed on our own merit. Why do you consider him a hero? People so often think they know who you are and what you’re I grew up in a Britain in which I was in the minority. It was difficult capable of – but Toussaint is a prime example of someone coming in the 1970s – and I’ll never forget having to confront racism as from humble beginnings and exceeding everyone’s expectations. a child. You grow up not quite knowing where you belong. But If you could meet Louverture, what would you ask him? nowadays I’m proud to be an Afro-Caribbean woman, and proud of my roots. [Small’s parents are from Barbados.] For me, Toussaint I’d be a little in awe of him, but I’d love to ask him what inspired him. Was it seeing someone flogged? Or maybe something else? is a hero because he led his people from slavery to freedom – and I’d love to know. not just freedom for the few, but for the entire colony. Heather Small was talking to York Membery What was Toussaint Louverture’s finest hour?

His role in leading the Haitian Revolution – and the way that he achieved freedom for the people of Saint-Domingue against such

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Heather Small is a singer, formerly of dance act M People. For details of upcoming performances, visit heathersmall-mpeople.com

BBC History Magazine

GETTY / BRIDGEMAN

F

rançois-Dominique Toussaint Louverture, born a slave but later freed, was the leader of the Haitian Revolution – a 13-year struggle starting in 1791 that transformed the French colony of Saint-Domingue into the independent country of Haiti. As ruler, he restored the plantation system using paid labour, and strengthened the island’s defences. In 1801 he appointed himself governor-general for life but was deported the following year when Napoleon’s forces restored French authority. He died in jail in France a year later.

Music as a Mirror of History Taught by Professor Robert Greenberg

ED IT

LECTURE TITLES

T I ME O F

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off

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55%

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SAN FRANCISCO PERFORMANCES

BY 4 D E C

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1.

Music and History, Madrigals and Maps

2.

Handel: Water Music

3.

Mozart: The Abduction from the Harem

4.

Haydn: Mass in the Time of War

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Beethoven: The Farewell Sonata

6.

Beethoven: Wellington’s Victory

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Berlioz/de L’Isle: “La Marseillaise”

8.

Chopin: Étude in C Minor, Op. 10, No. 12

9.

Glinka: A Life for the Tsar

10. Strauss Sr.: Radetzky March 11. Brahms: Piano Quartet in G Minor, Op. 25 12. Gottschalk: The Union 13. Verdi: Nabucco 14. Wagner: The Ring 15. Dvořák: From the New World Symphony 16. Balakirev: Symphony No. 1 17. Janáček: Piano Sonata I.X.1905 18. Rimsky-Korsakov: The Golden Cockerel 19. Holst: Ode to Death 20. Berg: Wozzeck 21. Shostakovich: Symphony No. 13 22. Copland: Symphony No. 3 23. Górecki: Symphony No. 3 24. Crumb: Black Angels

What Can Music Teach You about History? In the worlds of painting and literature, it’s easy to see where history and art intersect. But what about music? What is the intersection—if any—between the masterworks of Western concert music and the historical times that surrounded them? In Music as a Mirror of History, Great Courses favorite Professor Robert Greenberg of San Francisco Performances returns with a fascinating and provocative premise: Despite the abstractness and the universality of music, the masterpieces of our musical tradition are indeed direct products of their times, and in many cases expressed and influenced the issues and concerns of their day. Explore how music, in its singular capacity to evoke and reflect experience, can bring us not only transcendent beauty and joy, but also understanding, compassion, and meaning amid even the most terrible of human events. Join us for an unparalleled look into the power and scope of musical art.

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Music as a Mirror of History Course no. 7340 | 24 lectures (45 minutes/lecture)

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Queen Victoria was royally amused Discover British Royal Heritage in Germany at visit-thuringia.com

Friedenstein Castle in Gotha, Residence of the Dukes of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha