WHO KILLED JFK?

Inside history’s most potent conspiracy theories

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March 2024 / www.historyextra.com

The feuds that tore the Tudor sisters apart

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Alexandria
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“Death was part

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How the Victorians

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 WELCOME MARCH 2024

Sibling relationships can often be fraught, but when religious THREE THINGS I’VE
divides, succession disputes and capricious fathers are added LEARNED THIS MONTH
to the mix, it’s no wonder when they fall apart. This was the back-
drop to the young lives of Mary and Elizabeth, who would both 1. Mute witnesses
In our interview with Judith Flanders on
come to rule England, but suffer a great deal of heartbreak along the
8KEVQTKCPFGCVJ+YCUKPVGTGUVGFVQPFQWV
way. In Nicola Tallis’s cover feature (page 20), she shows how their about the silent mourners known
personal feuds shaped the course of Tudor England. as mutes who would stand
Elizabeth went on to become one of England’s greatest queens, but outside the homes of the
did she spend her reign harbouring an astonishing secret? That’s the deceased (page 70).
contention of people who believe in the tale of the Bisley Boy, where-
by the young princess died in childhood and was replaced by a small 2. Bird feeders
boy of similar appearance who would masquerade as Elizabeth for David Musgrove’s article on
the rest of her life. This curious story is one of the subjects I explore wheelbarrow racing
in my article on conspiracy theories on page 46. From the legends highlighted some other
of the Knights Templar to the assassination of JFK, what is it that unusual crazes, notably a
1901 Yorkshire competition
makes people so keen to believe in alternative versions of the past?
where a group of men
There are few bigger fans of historical conspiracy theories than attempted to eat a pigeon
film-makers – Oliver Stone’s JFK being perhaps the best-known every single day (page 31).
example. But cinema plays with history in other ways, too, as Robert
Bartlett reveals in his article on page 38. Focusing on a century of
medieval film, he examines how the likes of Braveheart 3. Elections and
corrections
and Monty Python and the Holy Grail have I always learn new things
reimagined the Middle Ages for the masses. from our Q&A pages, and this
month I was intrigued by the story of
Rob Attar Eugene V Debs, who ran for the US presidency
ON THE COVER: QUEEN ELIZABETH I AND QUEEN MARY-ALAMY. THIS PAGE: JENI NOTT/ALAMY/GETTY IMAGES

Editor in 1920, despite being behind bars (page 45).

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David Musgrove Judith Flanders Islam Issa Nicola Tallis Subscriptions & back issues
“Wheelbarrows do not “Being a historian of daily “A unique city whose “Mary I and Elizabeth I are BBC History Magazine,
drive many people crazy, life is fun. But life involves origins stem from the the most famous sisters in PO Box 3320, 3 Queensbridge,
but they grabbed the death, and turning away power of vision, Alexan- Tudor history, but we often Northampton, NN4 7BF. Basic
headlines in 1886. It’s one was not going to make dria has always been an think of them as individu- annual subscription rates:
of the odder stories I’ve the subject disappear. So important part of me. als. It has been fascinating UK: £90.87, EU overseas: € 96,
researched but it’s one that it was time death found Its millennia-long tale to delve into the twists and USA: $49.95, AUS/NZ: AU$144
shines a light on the its place in my research, uncovers a rich and turns of the siblings’ ROW: $109
media’s role in whipping right beside life.” gripping story of a city relationship, for ultimately In the US/Canada:
up a public frenzy.” Judith discusses her new that changed the world.” their fates were inextrica- Immediate Media, PO
David investigates the book on death in Victorian Islam reveals how Alexandria bly linked.” Box 401, Williamsport,
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 68
MARCH 2024

FEATURES EVERY MONTH

58
20 Elizabeth v Mary 6 Anniversaries
Nicola Tallis chronicles the sibling
rivalry that soured the relationship The Conversation
between these two Tudor queens
11 LGBTQ trailblazers
15 Michael Wood on the global
30 The wheelbarrow craze legacy of imperialism
What drove Victorians to race hand- 16 Hidden Histories
carts from one end of Britain to the
other? David Musgrove investigates 18 Letters
44 Q&A History questions answered
36 Five things you
(probably) didn’t know Books
about… the Vikings 68 Interview: Judith Flanders
Ryan Lavelle TGXGCNUXGHCUEKPCVKPI discusses her book on how the
facts about the Scandinavian raiders, Victorians mourned the dead
traders and explorers 72 New history books reviewed 46
38 Knights! Camera! Action! Encounters
Robert Bartlett dissects Hollywood’s 77 Diary: Things to see and do
longstanding obsession with movies this month
inspired by the Middle Ages 83 Podcast: Aztec warfare
84 Explore: Harlech Castle
46 Who shot JFK? 86 Historic Cities: Lisbon
Rob Attar on the enduring power of
88 Prize crossword
conspiracy theories, from the Knights
Templar to the murder of a president 90 My history hero
Natalie Haynes on Phryne,
53 The Bengal famine an ancient Greek courtesan
Kavita Puri tells the story of one of
the darkest episodes in the modern
history of the Indian subcontinent
86
58 The ancient world’s
greatest city
Islam Issa reveals
how Alexandria
became a global
powerhouse

38

4
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5
 DANNY BIRD highlights events that
took place in March in history

13 MARCH 1781

William Herschel
discovers Uranus
The polymath spies the seventh
planet from the sun

n the night of 13 March 1781, William

O Herschel ventured into his garden at

19 New King Street in Bath, Somer-
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telescope. It was a regular ritual for the
composer and self-taught astronomer, but
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There, in the night sky, was a strange object
that he had never seen before, which he
believed to be “either [a] nebulous star or
perhaps a comet”.
Unbeknownst to Herschel, the object had
DGGPUKIJVGFDGHQTGKP'PINCPFoUTUV
astronomer royal, John Flamsteed, had
catalogued the hazy glow as the star ‘34
Tauri’ during his own observations. But
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immediately set about spreading news of his
TOPFOTO/ALAMY/GETTY IMAGES

discovery, and became ever more convinced

of his comet theory when he noticed that the
object appeared to move in relation to the
surrounding stars.
By 1783, however, Herschel had changed
his mind: the object’s lack of a characteristic
tail, and the plotting of its orbit as near
circular, rather than elliptical, suggested it
wasn’t a comet at all. In fact, the polymath
realised that it was actually the solar
system’s seventh planet, and he
named it Georgium Sidus
(‘George’s Star’)
in honour of the
monarch, George III.
Nevertheless,
it would later
become better
known as Uranus,
after the Greek
god who fathered
the Titans.

Uranus, shown here in a

1980s image, was originally
believed to be a star or a comet

6
 THIS MONTH IN HISTORY ANNIVERSARIES
11 MARCH 1708
Queen Anne’s vetoing of the Scottish Queen Anne refuses to give the Scottish Militia Bill her royal assent
Militia Bill is the last time a British CHVGTVJGFKUEQXGT[QHC(TGPEJKPXCUKQPʚGGVDQWPFHQT5EQVNCPF
monarch has withheld royal assent The bill, detailing plans for the raising of a Scottish army, is vetoed
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29 MARCH 1974

The Terracotta
Army is unearthed
An incredible discovery is made
in the Chinese countryside

owards the end of March 1974, a group

T QHHCTOGTUFGUEGPFGFWRQPCGNFKP
the Chinese province of Shaanxi, about
20 miles from the city of Xi’an. Frustrated by
droughts and knowing that the area boasted
subterranean springs, the men began to clear
the soil and build a much-needed well. About
a metre down, however, they made a startling
discovery: nestled in the ground before them
were several broken pottery fragments.
Intrigued, the men kept digging, and before
long a series of sculpted terracotta body parts
and bronze arrowheads began to emerge.
Although the farmers weren’t exactly sure what
they had discovered, they decided to alert the
local authorities.
A few weeks later, the news reached an
archaeologist named Zhao Kangmin, who
cycled to the site in a state of giddy excitement.
Twelve years earlier, he had excavated three
life-sized statues of crossbowmen in the same
vicinity, and knew that the farmers had likely
stumbled across artefacts of a similar nature –
even if he remained uncertain of their exact
provenance. By the time Zhao arrived, more
fragments had been unearthed, and he and his
colleagues were able to assemble the pieces
into a pair of earthenware warriors, both
measuring 1.78 metres in height.
Initially, Zhao was worried the sculptures
might be categorised as symbols of China’s
‘Four Olds’, which were being destroyed by the
ruling Communist Party. But he needn’t have
worried. When the news reached Beijing later
that year, the government instead launched
further excavations, eventually leading to the
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DGCTKPIWPKSWGHCEKCNHGCVWTGUCPFYGCRQPU
As Zhao suspected, it transpired that the
so-called ‘Terracotta Warriors’ had formed part
Just a small portion of the of a vast mausoleum complex built around the
8,000-plus warriors built to guard tomb of the emperor Qin Shi Huang (reigned
the tomb of the emperor Qin Shi 221–210 BC). Designed to protect the ruler in
Huang. The sculptures now form the afterlife, the sculptures are now regarded
part of a Unesco World Heritage Site CUDGKPICOQPIVJGPGUVCPEKGPVHWPGTCT[
monuments in the world. •
7
THIS MONTH IN HISTORY ANNIVERSARIES
Berlin suffrage campaigners mark the first
International Women’s Day in 1911. The 19 MARCH 1911
event had initially been proposed by German 2GQRNGKP#WUVTKC&GPOCTM)GTOCP[CPF5YKV\GTNCPF
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TOPFOTO

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8
 18 MARCH 1241
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The first successful Concorde prototype – Concorde 001 – takes to the skies above Toulouse in 1969

2 MARCH 1969

Concorde makes its debut

The supersonic aeroplane soars into the history books
ILLUSTRATION BY CHERRY ELLIS

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AKG IMAGES

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HQWPFKPICF[PCUV[VJCVYQWNFIQQPVQTWNG ENCKOGFp(KPCNN[VJGDKIDKTFʚKGUCPF Danny Bird is staff writer on
4WUUKCHQTVJGPGZV[GCTU +ECPUC[PQYVJCVKVʚKGURTGVV[YGNNq BBC History Magazine

9
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 COMPILED BY MATT ELTON

THE CONVERSATION

1
2
1 Attendees at a Pride march in Chennai, India in
June 2012 2 #ʚQCVKP0GY;QTM%KV[oU)C[2TKFG
Parade, 1989 3 #RQTVTCKVQHVJEGPVWT[OQPCTEJ
%JTKUVKPC3WGGPQH5YGFGPYJQUGUGZWCNKV[JCU
URCTMGFFGDCVG 4 #RQUVGTRTQOQVKPI#%672 4
CP#KFUECORCKIPKPIQTICPKUCVKQP0GY;QTM

LGBTQ HISTORY

Campaigner. Iconoclast. Absent friend.

LGBTQ people who changed
SHUTTERSTOCK/GETTY IMAGES

the world
February sees the UK celebrate the contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people
throughout history. To mark the occasion, MATT ELTON asked a panel of experts to each nominate
an individual they believe deserves to be more fully recognised
•
11
THE CONVERSATION

A contemporary
portrait of Christina,
Queen of Sweden,
who remains a
source of fascination
Christina, Queen of Sweden in LGBTQ history
Gender iconoclast and
pioneering intellectual
NOMINATED BY GABRIELLE STOREY

Christina, queen regnant of Sweden from

1632 until her abdication in 1654, was one of
the most learned women of the 17th century.
Her sexual identity and orientation have
been the cause of much debate due to her Much of her later life was spent travelling
cross dressing and self-declared disinterest around Europe engaged in scholarly pursuits.
in marriage, as well as her enthusiasm for Centuries on from her death in 1689,
activities such as hunting and swordplay, Christina’s gender and sexuality continue to
traditionally masculine hobbies. enthral historians, biographers, novelists,
From Christina’s birth in December filmmakers and everyone in between. %GEKN$GNGNF%NCTMGRKEVWTGFCVJKU
1626, her gender identity sparked discus- Although we are no closer to an answer for surgery in 1949, was a pioneer within
sion, as she was mistaken for a son due to her her sexuality and identity, she continues DQVJVJGGNFUQHOGFKEKPGCPFEKXKNTKIJVU
swollen genitals and being born with a caul to be a growing source of fascination and
(the amniotic membrane covering a fetus). exploration in LGBTQ history.
Perhaps hoping for a son, Christina’s father
ensured that his daughter had an education
fit for a prince, which may have impacted Dr Gabrielle Storey is a historian
Christina’s decision to engage in traditional- of monarchy and gender
ly masculine hobbies. These two points led
to the theory that Christina was intersex.
However the 20th century exhumation of
her remains has nullified this point.
Indeed, the terminology we use today to &T%GEKN$GNGNF%NCTMG
describe gender and sexuality did not exist
in the 1600s, and it’s therefore complex to
Campaigning doctor
both define her and think of how she would and civil-rights activist
have defined herself. Her refusal to marry
and bear children, alongside the many NOMINATED BY STEPHEN BOURNE
scandalous rumours of her relationships
with both men and women, have led to some In 2023, a blue plaque for Cecil Belfield
proclamations of Christina as being lesbian Clarke was erected at London South Bank
or bisexual. Christina’s potential relation- University, on a library building at the site
ship with a lady-in-waiting, Ebba Sparre, of his former surgery. It’s a fitting testament
has also been held as evidence of her to a man whose motivation and drive helped
interest in women. Without conclusive save, and change, lives both in London and
evidence, her sexuality cannot be defined: in Britain as a whole.
and even if such evidence survived, it would Born in Barbados in 1894, Clarke won
not be accurate to categorise her according a scholarship to study at the University of
to modern-day terminology. Cambridge. He graduated in 1918, qualify- An entire wall of
Of Christina’s rule, we know much more. ing as a surgeon two years later and estab-
She amassed paintings, manuscripts, coins lishing a medical practice at 112 Newington
%NCTMGoUUWTIGT[JCFDGGP
and scientific instruments in Stockholm and Causeway, near Elephant and Castle in blown away, and the gas
regularly corresponded with philosophers, south-east London. He went on to work
and water disconnected.
GETTY IMAGES

authors and scholars. She pushed for peace in the district for the next 45 years, serving
during the European Wars of Religion, and
her conversion to Catholicism in 1652 was
a population mostly comprised of work-
ing-class people living in the area’s poor
Yet he carried on treating
one of the reasons behind her abdication. housing. Clarke’s innovations included patients regardless
12
 Exploring LGBTQ stories
Read more about the lives of LGBTQ people from
history: historyextra.com/topic/lgbtq-history

Alan
A symbol of the human toll
– and stigma – of HIV/Aids
NOMINATED BY GEORGE SEVERS

Of the thousands of people who have died

from Aids-related conditions, many of them
gay men, some names loom large. Rock
Hudson. Freddie Mercury. Terrence Higgins.
On the day of the Lesbian and Gay Pride in
London 1989, another name rose more
literally. Above a sea of faces – some smiling
in revelry, others more sombre – a placard
bore the name ‘Alan’ in bold capital letters.
Beneath it, the sign read “my best & dearest
friend died Pride Day ’88”. On that tragic
anniversary, Alan’s friend asked fellow
marchers to “make safety his memorial”.
Alan’s death, the sombre faces of those in the
crowd, and the placard’s call for a memorial
inventing the formula for administering Until 1967, same-sex relationships between are powerful reminders of the ways in which
the correct dosage of medicine to children, men were outlawed, so Clarke concealed his HIV/Aids was felt in the late 1980s.
a groundbreaking development known as relationship with ‘Pat’ by employing him as The need to make safety Alan’s memorial
the ‘Clarke Rule’. his ‘secretary’. Clarke retired in 1965 and was part of a wider sexual health campaign
When Elephant and Castle was heavily died on 28 November 1970. Pat continued that sought to make condoms and non-pen-
bombed during the Second World War to live in Barnet until he died, at the age etrative sex part of the gay sexual landscape
Blitz, Clarke kept his practice open. of 96, in 1999. (or, as American author-activists Michael
During the terrible firestorm of May 1941, Callen and Richard Berkowitz put it in the
in which enemy aircraft destroyed most title of their 1983 book: How to Have Sex
of the area’s buildings, Clarke’s surgery Stephen Bourne is a writer and in an Epidemic).
miraculously survived. Writing to the BBC social historian specialising in But why should this photograph be Alan’s
radio producer Una Marson to decline the Black heritage and gay culture only memorial? If the photographer Gordon
offer of making a guest appearance in her
series Calling the West Indies, Clarke
informed her that an entire wall had been The placard for ‘Alan’ at the
blown away, the gas and water had been 1989 Pride march in London.
disconnected, and that a tarpaulin roof had The man’s anonymity reveals
been erected – yet he carried on treating his much about how HIV/Aids
patients regardless. was viewed in the era
Clarke’s achievements extended beyond
the realm of medicine, too. In 1931, he
joined forces with London-based Jamaican
Dr Harold Moody and, along with several
others, co-founded the League of Coloured
GETTY IMAGES/BISHOPSGATE

Peoples. The League was central to Britain’s

Black civil rights movement, assisting in the
fight to end discrimination and to liberate
Britain’s colonies.
In his private life, Clarke shared a
home, which he named ‘Belfield House’,
in the London borough of Barnet with
his lifelong partner, Edward ‘Pat’ Walter. •
13
THE CONVERSATION

Rainsford had not captured his arresting

image of the scene that day in 1989, would
we even know to place this name into our
histories of HIV/Aids?
For some people who died from Aids-
related conditions, the powerful forces of
shame, stigma and homophobia had an
enormous impact on the ways in which their
lives – and their deaths – were marked and
remembered. So heightened was the fear
of HIV, both the virus itself and of being
linked to it by association, that many
families never revealed the cause of their
relative’s death. It was all too common for
lesbians and gay men to sit through their
friends’ funerals, ostracised to the back row,
while the deaths were attributed to cancer
or unexpected accidents.
Was Alan’s family like this? Is this chance
photograph the only record we have of his
life as a gay man living with HIV in the
1980s? We may never know. But by holding Shivananda Khan
up his name, Alan’s ‘dearest friend’ offered a (1948–2013), pictured
powerful reminder of the faceless thousands at a conference in 2009, west: persistent invisibility in mainstream
whose lives were undervalued and whose YCUCRKQPGGTKPIIWTGKP gay movements, a lack of community and
deaths went unacknowledged. highlighting the experiences support, and widespread homophobia
of LGBTQ south Asian people within the diaspora. Shakti highlighted
the exclusions that shaped the lives of queer
Dr George Severs is a historian of south Asians, but at the same time also
HIV/Aids, sexual violence and sexual created new opportunities for forging
health in modern Britain, based at communities.
the Geneva Graduate Institute In 1991, against the backdrop of the Aids
epidemic, Khan co-founded the Naz Foun-
dation. While south Asian communities
Shivananda Khan formed the foundation’s primary target in
Britain, this focus expanded over the coming
Champion of LGBTQ decades to include Middle Eastern, north
immigrants of colour African and Latin American communities.
Naz thrived in London’s vibrant multicul-
NOMINATED BY SOMAK BISWAS tural ethos, plugging the need for an organi-
sation catering to communities of colour.
Born in India in 1948, Shivananda Khan Simultaneously, it expanded rapidly
shifted to England when he was 10 years across south Asia, developing programmes
old. Attending university in Manchester for a range of LGBTQ communities, women
in the 1960s, at a time when Britain’s sexual and sex workers in India, Pakistan, Bangla-
liberation movements were in full swing, desh and Nepal. It assembled an extraordi-
Khan was inspired to get involved with nary repertoire of activists, resources and
queer activism. In 1988, he founded Shakti, workers who proved key to LGBTQ health
the first south Asian LGBTQ organisation and activism in Britain and south Asia. In
in Britain, alongside fellow gay activists India, Naz spearheaded the legal campaign
Poulomi Desai, Pratibha Parmar, Savi against Article 377 that led to the decrimi-
Hensman and Sunil Gupta. nalisation of homosexuality in 2018.
Shakti broke new ground by creating Through Naz, Khan emerged as a leading
a dedicated space for queer south Asians Khan foregrounded voice for queer immigrants of colour,
in London. Its journal, Shakti Khabar, was proving instrumental in fostering platforms
circulated widely in Britain, Europe and
UJCTGFKUUWGUCʘGEVKPI unifying the diverse landscapes occupied by
south Asia – and especially in India, Paki- queer south Asians in the queer south Asians around the world.
stan and Nepal. Khan developed crucial
SHUTTERSTOCK

transnational links with similar south Asian west, including persistent Dr Somak Biswas is a historian
organisations in Canada (Khush) and the
US (Trikone). They foregrounded shared
invisibility in mainstream of modern Britain and south
Asia and postdoctoral fellow
issues affecting queer south Asians in the gay movements at the University of Cambridge

14
 MICHAEL WOOD ON…
THE BANGLADESH LIBERATION WAR

From Africa to the Indian subcontinent,

imperialism has left a trail of damage

OVER THE PAST FOUR MONTHS I HAVE WATCHED The viceroy of India, Lord Curzon, initiated this
the Israel-Gaza war with horror. And I have been struck by process with the short-lived partition of Bengal in 1905.
the growing international reaction to it all: the stark (The British divided East and West Bengal on religious
division between the Western world and the rising ‘Global grounds to constrain voices for independence in Bengal,
South’, which increasingly no longer accepts the ‘rules- which was the intellectual powerhouse of 19th-century
based order’ that it sees as being imposed by the West to India.) Then, in 1947, came the great partition, which was
support its hegemony. It feels like a big moment in history. driven, too, by religion. With huge loss of life, and the
Is a new world order emerging? forced transfers of entire populations, British India was
It has left me reflecting on the legacy of the age of divided into three: India, and East and West Pakistan. It
colonialism. Some influential modern historians have beggars belief that this arrangement could ever have been
argued that colonial powers were, on balance, a force for contemplated, let alone put into practice: a single country,
good, improving the lot of humanity. I disagree – and that Pakistan, whose two halves were separated by a thousand
is even before we mention the climate catastrophe, largely miles – one Urdu speaking, the other Bengali, with
Michael Wood caused by the ravages of international capitalism. nothing in common but religion. The cognitive disso-
is professor of In my job, I have travelled the world and seen for nance of this whole disastrous idea was summed up in the
public history at myself the aftermath of empire. From apartheid South founder of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s, infamous
the University Africa and the Congo through to Afghanistan, the speech declaring that “Urdu and only Urdu” would be the
of Manchester. Americas and the Indian subcontinent, colonialism and national language, and that those who thought otherwise
He has presented imperialism have left a trail of damage. And that damage were “enemies of Pakistan”.
numerous BBC is both psychological and material. The development of In the new country, all power rested with West Paki-
series. His latest traditional societies has been disrupted and arrested, stan. East Pakistan was denied money, resources and
book is In the ancient cultural identities have been erased in a few influence. Inevitably, an independence movement grew,
Footsteps of Du Fu generations. And, as current events show, we are still and in an election in December 1970, the East Pakistan
(Simon & Schuster, living with the divisions we bequeathed. Awami League won the right to rule the entire country.
2023). You’ll find Those divisions are laid bare in a powerful documenta- Needless to say, the West Pakistan establishment didn’t
FRAN MONKS

him on X at ry by Krishnendu and Madhurima Bose, Bay of Blood, accept that, and the Pakistan army plunged the East
MichaelWoodMV about the liberation war in Bangladesh in 1971. This story into a nightmare that saw massacres, mass rape and the
is largely forgotten today outside that country, but it is systematic murder of intellectuals, driven by racism
part of one of the most significant events in the history of towards the darker-skinned Bengalis. All this is harrow-
the modern world, one in which the aftermath of empire ingly told in Bay of Blood. The crisis was only resolved by
had a catastrophic impact on millions of lives: the parti- the heroic determination of Indian prime minister Indira
tion of India. Or perhaps we should say the partitions of Gandhi, who intervened on behalf of East Bengal. The
India, because they took place over the course of a centu- Pakistani army was swiftly routed and a new country
ry. In fact, the tensions currently besetting Kashmir was born: Bangladesh.
suggest that they are not over yet. One of the striking factors of this terrible episode was
how much Cold War politics determined the mindsets of
the West. Even when the Americans were shown clear
evidence of genocide they still supported their client West
Pakistan, sending a battle group to the Indian Ocean to
threaten India.
It’s half a century since these tragic events, and
nearly 80 years since the partition of 1947. We are still
living with the consequences, with increasingly
intolerant religious nationalisms emerging across
the subcontinent. Jawaharlal Nehru – who
would become the first prime minister of an
independent India – set out his hopes for a
secular state celebrating India’s “unity
in diversity”. For now, at least, that
noble aspiration seems to be
receding.

ILLUSTRATION BY FEMKE DE JONG •

15
 HIDDEN HISTORIES
KAVITA PURI on the legacy of Canada’s residential schools
THE CONVERSATION

Indigenous children were forcibly

separated from their families

I RECENTLY SAT DOWN TO WATCH THE LATEST that the flags on all federal buildings should be lowered to
incarnation of LM Montgomery’s classic novel Anne of half-mast in honour of “all Indigenous children who never
Green Gables with my younger daughter. Reading the made it home, the survivors and their families”. A month
book and watching the 1980s television adaptation – star- later, a further 751 graves were found at the site of another
ring Megan Follows as the 19th-century Canadian orphan school in Saskatchewan.
Anne Shirley – had been such a rite of passage for me, and To understand the context behind the discoveries, it
I wanted it to be the same for my own children. is first necessary to know about the history of Canada’s
Having been so familiar with the original story, I was so-called Indian Act. Passed in 1876, the legislation put
surprised to find that Netflix and CBC’s 2017 adaptation, strict controls on the nation’s Indigenous communities,
Anne with an E, had taken on a degree of dramatic licence, including the taking of children – often forcibly – to live
including the addition of a subplot about Anne’s friend- in religious schools across Canada. By the time the last
ship with an Indigenous girl named Ka’kwet. The careful- institution closed in 1998, an estimated 150,000 students
ly researched storyline, in which Ka’kwet is mistreated by had passed through their doors. Separated from their
Kavita Puri the nuns at one of Canada’s notorious residential schools, families and communities, the children were made to
is a journalist was well received not only in Canada, but by viewers convert to Christianity and forbidden to speak their
and broadcaster further afield. Overall, the series was praised for tackling ancestral languages or practise their traditional beliefs.
for BBC Radio 4. a difficult topic and bringing the stories of Indigenous Thousands of students are believed to have died as a result
Her new series Canadians to a wider audience. of disease, violence, malnutrition and neglect, with many
about the Bengal However, the story took on a new dimension when, also experiencing severe physical and sexual abuse.
famine, Three less than two years after the final season of Anne with an The Canadian government has since made several
Million, will be E arrived on Netflix in 2020, archaeologists detected what attempts to address the injustices associated with the
available soon. they believed to be the unmarked graves of around 215 residential school system, albeit with mixed results. In
See page 57 for Indigenous students who had attended a real-life residen- 2008, the then prime minister Stephen Harper issued a
more details tial school in Kamloops, British Columbia. Reacting to public apology, while a body named the Truth and
the news in May 2021, Canadian prime minister Justin Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) was set up
Trudeau said it was “a painful reminder of that dark and in the same year to examine the system and hear from
shameful chapter of our country’s history”, and declared thousands of survivors. In 2015, the TRC published its
final report and issued a long list of
recommendations, stating that the
schools had been responsible for a
“cultural genocide”. Despite this, Indige-
nous campaign groups say that very few
of the recommendations have actually
been taken on board.
As of 2024, unmarked graves contin-
ue to be uncovered, and vast inequalities
between Canada’s Indigenous communi-
ties and the wider Canadian population
persist. Acknowledging wrongdoing and
allowing survivors to speak out about
their experiences are both important,
but they are arguably only the first steps
towards achieving healing and justice.
Indeed, some campaigners have called
for an independent investigation into the
deaths of the children – and even
criminal charges.
If anything, the continuing contro-
versy surrounding Canada’s residential
schools serves as an example of how
The May 2021 discovery of children’s graves at historical injustices can remain ‘live’
a former residential school in British Columbia issues in the present day, and the chal-
ALAMY

sparked tributes across Canada – including this lenges of seeking to right wrongs that
display on the steps of Vancouver Art Gallery have left such long-lasting effects.
16
 HELP THOSE
WHO HAVE
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 LETTERS A 19th-century depiction of the
princes in the Tower. Philippa
Langley’s new take on their
fate continues to spark debate

LETTER OF THE MONTH Historical balance Empirical value

I thought it harsh of C Alexander (Letters, As step-grandson of Major John Finlay of
Humanitarian hero February) to refer to Philippa Langley as Force K6, I welcome your report (Encounters,
an “amateur historian”. Langley has studied January) on the exhibition in Glasgow about
Edward Abel Smith’s article on Nicholas the Wars of the Roses and Richard III’s the contribution of the British Indian Army
Winton (Amazing Life, January) mentions reign for many years, and written plenty to the Allied cause in the Second World War.
that the Prague office of the British Com- of researched articles on the period. An impressive memorial to the K6 men
mittee for Refugees from Czechoslovakia However, for the sake of balance and who died in Scotland was unveiled in Kin-
was “led by a remarkable woman called reader interest, the input of well-known gussie in 2022. It also recognises Isobel
Doreen Warriner”. But I wonder how many historians such as Nathen Amin and Michael Harling BEM, who died in 2023 aged 100. She
readers know just how remarkable she was. Jones could have added valuable contribu- is buried in Kingussie cemetery, opposite the
Aged 34 in 1938, she had a flourishing tions on the topic of Langley’s new theory graves of nine Muslim British Indian Army
academic career and had just finished about the princes in the Tower. soldiers that she had tended for 70 years.
her first major book, The Economics of Norma Postin, Rugby The GlaswegAsians exhibition has been
Peasant Farming, based on three years of co-curated by the charity Colourful Heritage
research in eastern Europe. Ashamed of Princes and parliament and Glasgow Museums. Over the past five
the Munich Agreement and impelled by Philippa Langley gives some interesting years, I have been proud to contribute to the
a desperate wish to do something, she evidence in her defence of Richard III (Books important work done by Colourful Heritage.
temporarily abandoned academia and Interview, January) but, unfortunately, falls It’s the driving force behind a successful
flew to Prague. She soon realised that the at the first hurdle. She accepts, in a single campaign to build Scotland’s first national
people most immediately in danger were line, the declaration by parliament that the memorial to honour the British Indian
the Social Democrat leaders who had two princes in the Tower are illegitimate. Army. Construction will start early this year
opposed Hitler’s plans for the Sudetenland. But parliament was not a democratic body: outside the front of Kelvingrove Art Gallery.
Enlisting the help of the Labour Party in Richard controlled the chamber absolutely I believe that better recognition by people
Britain and the Swedish trade union with his patronage and power, and it’s no today that their freedoms are the result of the
movement, she organised the escape of surprise that he got the result he wanted, support of millions of troops from south Asia
250 Social Democrat MPs and trade union when he wanted it, to allow him to be and elsewhere in the empire will contribute
leaders through Poland. crowned king in 1483. to more harmonious race and social relations.
It was the beginning of a programme To justify her claim that Richard was the Hamish Johnston, Inverness
of evacuation that, in the words of one of rightful king, Langley must provide evidence
her colleagues, saved “hundreds, possibly that the marriage of the two princes’ parents Natural connections
thousands, of Jewish and Social Democrat – Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville – Peter Coates’ fascinating piece (The War on
lives”, organised by a woman of “compe- was not valid, or she is not even on first base. Squirrels, February) is just one example of
tence and compassion who was never It remains most likely that the princes in the the unintended consequences that can occur
too solemn or too earnest” (The Times, Tower were killed on Richard’s orders. when non-native animals are introduced to
30 December 1972). She was still in Prague Derek Smith, Forest Gate
when the Germans took over in March
1939, and finally left in April, shortly Capital destination
before the Gestapo came to her hotel As a frequent visitor to Dublin, I enjoyed
to find her. I hope that the recent film the suggestions for what to see in the Irish
One Life does her justice. capital (Historic Cities, January). However,
Dr Paul Brassley, Newton Abbot to my mind, one of the most extraordinary
sites is the former House of Lords building
in College Green, which features a large
tapestry to William of Orange at the battle
We reward the Letter of the of the Boyne. Where else in the world would
Month writer with a copy of you see such a celebratory reminder right
a new history book. This issue, in the heart of a country in which the
that is The English Soul: Faith ‘hero’ has been seen as the ‘enemy’ for at
of a Nation by Peter Ackroyd. least a century?
You can read our review on page 72 Stephen Dilworth, Bromley

SAVE WHEN YOU

SUBSCRIBE TODAY
Romola Garai as Doreen Warriner
KPTGEGPVNO One Life. Reader
Dr Paul Brassley highlights
ALAMY

Warriner’s work evacuating people • Page 34

from the occupied Sudetenland

18
 EDITORIAL
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19
20
ALAMY/GETTY IMAGES
By the end of her reign, Mary I’s relationship with
her half-sister and successor, Elizabeth, was at an
all-time low. But had the Tudor siblings always
been such bitter enemies? Nicola Tallis reveals
how the duo’s bond was both broken and
strengthened by events beyond their control

•
21
 Tudor sisters at war

n 17 November 1558, Anne Boleyn, had caused Mary great unhap- Hertfordshire, where her nursery was to be
Mary I died and was piness, for her father Henry VIII’s intense established, and she was soon joined by an
succeeded by her passion for Anne had been the catalyst for his unwilling Mary. Though Mary agreed that
half-sister, Elizabeth. separation from Catherine of Aragon, Mary’s she might refer to Elizabeth as her sister, she
Upon receiving the mother. By the time of Elizabeth’s birth on utterly refused to have anything to do with
news, Elizabeth declared 7 September 1533, the teenage Mary had been the infant. Her insolence ensured that she
that “the law of nature rendered illegitimate by her father, their remained estranged from her father, and was
moveth me to sorrow for my sister”, for relationship lay in tatters, and her loathing treated harshly by both Anne Boleyn and her
whom she professed to have wept tears of for Anne Boleyn had peaked. relatives who oversaw life at Hatfield.
sorrow. Yet, despite her claim, there were Though Elizabeth’s gender may have come
few people who believed her to be sincere. as a disappointment to her parents, Henry Finding common ground
Throughout the course of Mary’s reign, the still acknowledged her to be his legitimate For the first two and a half years of her life,
relationship between the two sisters – who heir, with pertinent consequences for Mary. Elizabeth took precedence over her sister –
had once been close – had broken down The same day that Elizabeth was born, orders but Mary nevertheless took any opportunity
beyond repair. were given that Mary “the true princess she could to supersede her. Once, when the
Elizabeth and Mary’s bond had faced should not be so called”, for instead, Eliza- pair were travelling, Mary deliberately
significant challenges from the start, through beth alone bore the title of ‘princess’. At three spurred her horse forward before Elizabeth’s
no fault of either party. Elizabeth’s mother, months old Elizabeth was sent to Hatfield, litter, and she also took care to secure a better
position whenever the two were in the royal
barge. When it came to status, she would not
willingly submit to second place.
Status update Elizabeth In 1536, however, everything changed.
depicted as a child. For a On 19 May, Anne Boleyn was executed on
period, starting in the late charges of adultery, incest and treason –
1530s, she enjoyed a warm charges that were almost certainly falsified.
relationship with Mary We will never know the full extent of the
impact her mother’s loss had on Elizabeth,
who was not yet three years old, but it led to
a dramatic shift in her relationship with
Mary. The sisters were now of equal status,
for with the fall of Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth
was – like Mary – declared illegitimate. With
Anne removed and Elizabeth motherless,
Mary began to bond with her much younger
sibling. So much so that, just two months
after Anne’s death, she told their father that
Elizabeth was “such a child toward, as I doubt
not but your Highness shall have cause to
rejoice of in time coming”.

BRIDGEMAN/TOPFOTO

Downfall Anne Boleyn in the Tower of London.

Her demise transformed the sisters’ relationship

22
 SIBLING RIVALRY
How Henry VIII’s longed-for
male heir, Prince Edward,
changed the family dynamic

In October 1537, Elizabeth and Mary

welcomed a new sibling when their
stepmother Jane Seymour gave birth
to the king’s long-awaited male heir,
Prince Edward. Both sisters played
key roles at the christening, with
Elizabeth tasked with carrying the
child’s christening robes and Mary
made the baby’s godmother.
Elizabeth and Mary doted on
Edward, and during their father’s
reign the trio could often be found in
one another’s company. On one
occasion Elizabeth gave her brother
a shirt she had embroidered herself,
and another time sent him her portrait.
With just four years between them,
Elizabeth and Edward were natural
playmates, and they also had religion
Unhappy times 6JG1NF2CNCEGCV*CVGNF*QWUG*GTVHQTFUJKTGYJGTGVJGVGGPCIG/CT[YCUUGPVVQNKXG in common – a subject that would
KP&GEGODGT#PPG$QNG[PoUTGNCVKXGUYJQTCPVJGJQWUGJQNFVTGCVGFVJGnKNNGIKVKOCVGoRTKPEGUUJCTUJN[ later be a bone of contention between
Edward and Mary. This became appar-
ent at Christmas 1550, when the three
Over the course of the following decade, royal siblings spent the festive season
Elizabeth and Mary’s relationship grew
Elizabeth took together for the last time. In a heated
stronger, and the two were frequently seen precedence over her confrontation, Edward (by now
together. Mary took a close interest in her Edward VI) took the opportunity to
sibling, whom she lavished with affection and sister – but Mary berate Mary for her failure to conform
gifts, including money with which to play
card games, and silver thread to embroider a
nevertheless used to his Protestant religious policies,
leaving them both in tears.
box. She also rewarded Elizabeth’s minstrels, every opportunity By New Year Mary had left court,
so we can surmise that the sisters spent time leaving Edward and Elizabeth to enjoy
together enjoying entertainments. Likewise, to supersede her the feasts staged for the occasion.
Mary grew close to members of her sister’s Though Mary would later be received
household, with whom she sometimes also “very kindly” by Edward, religion
exchanged gifts. continued to divide them. Elizabeth,
Throughout their father’s reign the two meanwhile, took pride in being “the
sisters paid the occasional visit to court, and King’s Majesty’s most honourable
after Henry married Katherine Parr in 1543, sister”, and was always treated with
they were there more regularly. When reverence at his court. His death, in
Katherine later assumed the role of regent 1553, came as a crushing blow to her.
in 1544, both Elizabeth and Mary spent the
summer with her, enjoying a short progress
in Surrey and Kent. They appeared every inch
a happy family unit. was thrown into disarray when Katherine
discovered that her fourth husband, Thomas
Switching allegiances Seymour, had been showing Elizabeth far
The royal family experienced further upheav- more attention than was appropriate.
al, however, when Henry VIII died on Katherine died from complications after
28 January 1547. Elizabeth and Mary’s childbirth in 1548, and Elizabeth, now 15, set
nine-year-old half-brother, Edward, succeed- up her own home. Though she and Mary kept
COLLEGE OF ARMS/ALAMY

ed the throne, and this changed the course in touch, the time they spent together during
not only of the sisters’ lives, but also marked Edward’s reign was infrequent. Just one letter
the start of another change in their relation- between them survives from this period,
ship. No longer would they spend as much written by Elizabeth to her “Good sister”. It A sketch showing the infant Prince Edward,
time together, for Mary now established her was a friendly piece of correspondence in later Edward VI, at his christening in 1537. Mary
own household while Elizabeth moved to join which Elizabeth remarked that “you may well and Elizabeth played key roles in the service
that of Katherine Parr – an arrangement that see by my writing so oft, how pleasant it is to •
23
 Tudor sisters at war

Erasing history A 1597 painting depicts

the reigning monarch, Elizabeth I, alongside
Henry VIII and Edward VI. Poignantly, Mary I
is excluded from the scene, overlooked by other
members of her dynasty

24
 Anne Boleyn’s devoted daughter
Tracy Borman examines the Virgin Queen’s undying love
for her mother at historyextra.com/elizabeth-anne-boleyn

me”. But it would not be long before her

relationship with Mary was put to the test
Determined to be
once more. seen by Mary’s side,
In the spring of 1553, 15-year-old Edward
VI’s health began to fail, and on 6 July, he Elizabeth set out to
died. Determined to ensure a Protestant
succession, which he knew would be impossi-
meet her in person
ble if the fervently Catholic Mary succeeded and “offer her fealty
him, the young monarch had, shortly before
his death, drafted a ‘Devise’ that excluded as was fitting”
both Mary and Elizabeth from the succession
on the grounds of their illegitimacy. Instead,
Edward’s ‘Devise’ named their cousin Lady
Jane Grey as heir. However, after a reign that
lasted a mere nine days, Jane was deposed,
and Mary declared queen in her stead.
Elizabeth had been silent as the battle for
power between Jane and Mary played out, but failed to notice Mary’s popularity, for the
upon Mary’s accession, she wasted no time in Londoners were out in full force to celebrate
writing to congratulate her sister. the queen’s accession. It was a triumphant
Determined to be seen by Mary’s side moment for Mary, and one that Elizabeth was
and aware that, for the first time, her sister there to share with her.
wielded authority over her, Elizabeth set out
to meet Mary in person and “offer her fealty Suspicion and intrigue
as was fitting”. She was welcomed “with great As Mary’s reign began, relations between the
warmth”, and the following day Elizabeth two half-sisters were warm, and the queen
joined the queen as Mary made her ceremo- showed her younger sibling “every mark of
nial entry into London. She could not have honour”. But behind the scenes, Elizabeth
had enemies who were working to under-

The queen’s chief supporters, the imperial

Further cracks in the siblings’ relation-

GETTY IMAGES/ALAMY

Mary depicted on a legal

document from 1553 – the year
her reign began. She was initially
popular with the public determined not to allow her sister to •
25
 Tudor sisters at war

Troubled union /CT[CPF2JKNKR

QH5RCKPFGRKEVGFQPCFQEWOGPV
6JGEQWRNGoUKPCDKNKV[VQRTQFWEGCPJGKT
ITGCVN[YGCMGPGF/CT[oUITKRQPRQYGT

succeed her, because of her “heretical opin- against her, and to try to force Elizabeth to
ions, illegitimacy and characteristics in confess her guilt, gave orders for her to be
which she resembled her mother”. By Decem- sent to the Tower of London.
ber, the atmosphere had become so toxic that
Elizabeth withdrew from court, but her Irreparable damage
situation was soon to take an even more Knowing that her mother had lost her life
drastic downward turn. within the Tower’s walls, Elizabeth panicked
In early 1554, a group of Protestants led by and wrote Mary a desperate letter in which
she urged her “to remember your last promise
and my last demand, that I be not condemned
without answer and due proof”. By the time
Elizabeth had finished writing, the tide of the
Thames had changed direction, thereby
preventing access to the Tower for another
cousin Lady Jane Grey executed on account few hours. Yet Mary remained unswayed by
THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES

of her father’s complicity. Elizabeth was her sister’s pleas, and instead ordered her to
The title page of a publication about summoned to London, but when she reached be conveyed to the Tower the next day. It
Wyatt’s rebellion. The men behind the the Palace of Whitehall, Mary refused to see would prove to be the most terrifying ordeal
uprising – launched in opposition to her, telling the imperial ambassador Simon of Elizabeth’s life, and one from which her
Mary’s plans to marry Philip of Spain Renard that “Elizabeth’s character was just relationship with Mary would never recover.
– wanted to put Elizabeth on the throne what she had always believed it to be”. She Elizabeth maintained that “she had never
was adamant that her sister had been plotting been guilty of having acted or said anything
26
 against the queen”, and despite the best
efforts of Mary’s councillors to wring a
confession from her, she never provided one.
Mary nevertheless remained convinced of
her sister’s wrongdoing, but as the weeks
passed it became clear that there were no
lawful grounds on which the queen could act
against her. Mary was at last forced to
concede that Elizabeth could not remain in
the Tower, but she was determined not to
allow her to go free. After two months in the
fortress, on 19 May – the anniversary of Anne
Boleyn’s execution – Elizabeth was removed
and began her journey to Woodstock Palace,
Oxfordshire, where she was to spend almost
another year under house arrest.
Though at Woodstock Elizabeth was
allowed to write occasional letters to Mary,
one of which Renard claimed was “as bold as
anything I have ever seen”, she was largely
ignored by her sister. Mary was instead busy
preparing for her wedding to Philip of Spain,
which took place in July. Thoughts of Eliza-
beth’s fate continued to occupy her mind,
though, and in April 1555 she finally sum-
moned her sister to Hampton Court. Here,
Mary was awaiting the arrival of her first A new era Elizabeth shown in
child – a child that would replace Elizabeth as XG[GCTUCHVGTUWEEGGFKPI/CT[
Mary’s heir, much to her gratification. CUSWGGP6JG2TQVGUVCPVOQPCTEJJCF
When the sisters at last came face to face DGGPPCOGFJGKTVQVJGVJTQPGCOGTG
for the first time in over a year, there was no FC[UDGHQTG/CT[oUFGCVJ
happy reunion. Instead, Mary greeted
Elizabeth coldly, still seething that “you will
not confess your offence, but stand stoutly to liked it or not – Elizabeth was looking she was her father’s daughter”. It was not until
your truth”. It was clear that she had no desire increasingly likely to succeed her as queen. 6 November that, realising she was in the
to reconcile despite Elizabeth’s assurances She nevertheless bore Elizabeth an “evil final stages of her life, Mary formally ac-
that she was “your true subject”. disposition” and declared her disbelief in her knowledged Elizabeth as her heir. Though
Mary would have no child, and it is sister’s parentage, for she was “born of an she had long been considering alternative
feasible that she experienced a phantom infamous woman”. Prompted by fruitless successors, including her cousin Lady
pregnancy. Her sorrow did nothing to mellow rumours that the queen was again pregnant, Margaret Douglas, Mary was aware that
her attitude towards Elizabeth, who to her the siblings met for the last time in February Elizabeth was the only heir that her council
displeasure remained her heir. With one eye 1558, by which time Mary’s grasp on power – and her people – would accept.
to the future, Mary’s husband Philip, howev- was getting weaker by the day. Eleven days later, Mary died, and though
er, recognised the sense of keeping his wife’s There was to be no reconciliation between Elizabeth paid for her sister’s funeral, she
sister on side, and Elizabeth later acknowl- the two, and as Mary’s health grew progres- ignored her wishes that she be buried along-
edged that Philip had “shown her favour and sively worse that autumn, her antipathy side her mother, Catherine of Aragon.
helped to obtain her release”. She was now at towards Elizabeth remained. She “would Indeed, the bitterness that had enveloped the
her liberty. To please her husband, Mary tried never call her sister, nor be persuaded that final years of the sisters’ relationship contin-
to dissemble “her hatred and anger as much ued long after Mary’s demise, with a Spanish
as she can”, endeavouring in public to receive envoy claiming that Elizabeth remained
Elizabeth “with every sort of graciousness “highly indignant” about the treatment she
and honour”. But it was all an act. had received during her reign. Their fates had
been entwined since the beginning, but it was
Succession crisis a sad conclusion for the siblings who had
As Mary’s reign progressed and it became once been so close.
clear that she would not produce a child,
Elizabeth’s confidence grew. Despite further
Mary was aware Nicola Tallis is an author and historian. Her latest
plots against the queen – notably a failed that Elizabeth was book is Young Elizabeth: Princess. Prisoner. Queen
conspiracy led by Henry Dudley, in which (Michael O’Mara, 2024)
several of Elizabeth’s servants were implicat- the only heir that
ed – Mary dared not act against her sister. She her council – and her Elizabeth I is the subject of an episode of BBC
ALAMY

had no child of her own to succeed her, and Radio 4’s Great Lives. Listen
was thus acutely aware that – whether she people – would accept at bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b0076fdw

27
READER EVENT

HISTORY
CELEBRATED
From a selection of manor houses rich in heritage Gibbons, one of the great wood carvers of
the 1700s, while you’ll also discover 99 Indian
to exclusive weekends with renowned historians, elephants carved into hedges around the
you’ll find your perfect getaway with Warner Hotels property – if you look hard enough. Holme
Lacy hosted Charles I in 1645, just four years

T
before his execution, while Prime Minister
here’s nothing like escaping the some of the country’s most celebrated William Pitt the Elder was known to conduct
everyday and immersing yourself in the historians in a series of exclusive weekends. cabinet meetings in the grounds.
history of a fascinating new destination Interested? Here’s a taste of what you can The hotel is set within a conservation
– but what if you didn’t even have to look forward to with Warner Hotels… area with 20 acres of gardens – which is also
leave the hotel to do that? With an assortment Grade I listed – including a 300-year-old apple
of adult-only locations across the country, HOLME LACY HOUSE, orchard and a fishing lake, which makes for
Warner Hotels offers you the chance to let HEREFORDSHIRE some particularly idyllic angling. Indoors, you
your hair down in picturesque surroundings You’ll find several spectacular original can easily while away hours in the charmingly
with plenty of illustrious stories to tell. features at this Grade I listed mansion – one decorated Blue Room with its 30-foot ceilings,
Not only that, but this year also brings you of the largest in Herefordshire. Much of the and the Pavilion promises some memorable
the chance to meet, greet and learn from interior design work was created by Grinling evenings of entertainment.
 READER EVENT

STUDLEY CASTLE,
WARWICKSHIRE
Refashioned in 2017, Studley Castle boasts
Grade II listed status and promises eye-catching
architectural features from the Gothic Revival,
including gargoyles on the exterior and ornate
ceilings and regal wood panelling within.
Through time, the building’s purpose has
often changed, from serving as Lady Warwick’s
Studley Agricultural College for Women to
acting as a Women’s Land Army training camp
during both WWI and WWII.
You can gently wash away all your stresses
and strains in The Stables Spa or take the time
to relax and recline in one of the three historic
lounges. Alternatively, you can hire a bike New for this year, you can experience
and roam the 28 acres of grounds with rolling a historical staycation like never
countryside views at your leisure, catch a before thanks to Warner Hotels.
film at the boutique cinema or sample British For three weekends across three
recipes and traditional ingredients from the Warner hotels, you can enjoy talks and
1900s at Brasserie32 – the choice is all yours. discussions with some of the country’s

BBC (word mark and logo) is a trade mark of the British Broadcasting Corporation and is used under licence. BBC logo © BBC 1996.
leading historians, in a relaxed and
personal setting. World-renowned
Tudor experts and authors Tracy
LITTLECOTE HOUSE, Borman and Suzannah Lipscomb will
HUNGERFORD be appearing at Littlecote House 1-4
March, and at Studley Castle 5-8 April.
Few hotels in the world can boast a beautifully preserved mosaic within the ruins of Then 4-7 October will see Holme Lacy
a Roman villa on their grounds, but that’s just a small part of this Grade I listed Tudor House play host to Viking, Anglo
manor’s story. This location has hosted Civil War armies and seen the planning of the -Saxon and art and culture specialist
D-Day landings in the library, too. And it’s said to be where Henry VIII first courted his Janina Ramirez, as well as presenter,
third wife Jane Seymour, whose grandmother Elizabeth Darrell lived at the property. journalist and co-author of The Sunday
During your stay, you can hear more intriguing tales, including Darrell’s reported Times bestseller The Colour of Time,
dalliances, via an audio tour of the house. There’s also a wide range of enjoyable activities Dan Jones.
available, such as tennis, archery and rifle shooting, while peace and tranquillity are never
far away, thanks to the 113 acres of gardens and parkland, as well as an indoor pool, sauna To book your stay for these
and steam room. exclusive events, visit
warnerhotels.co.uk/history
CRAZE
In 1886, the nation was gripped by a
bizarre trend that saw plucky Britons
racing wheelbarrows across the country.
David Musgrove takes up this
strange-but-true story
ILLUSTRATION BY FEMKE DE JONG
 awdust Jack and James
Gordon are not names that
have gone down in the annals
of sporting history. Yet in
1886, they were at the centre
of an athletic endurance
contest that briefly held the
eyes of the British nation.
It was mid-November, and John Martin,
better known as Sawdust Jack, was whipping
up a storm in Newcastle. He was trying to
make his way through the city, but he was
blocked by an enthusiastic crowd of support-
ers, lustily cheering him on, at every turn. He
was a slim-built man, dressed as a labourer,
but with an oversized and battered high silk
hat, upon which was affixed an advertisement
for a Newcastle hairdresser. The key item of
his equipment was being pushed, rather than
worn: after all, this was the year that the
great wheelbarrow craze began. Endurance test Wheelbarrow racer
Sawdust Jack, if he could only extract James Gordon depicted in an edition of
himself from the crowd, intended to race all The Illustrated London News. The Scotsman
the way from Newcastle to London, but with hit the headlines after trundling from his
the impediment of a heavy wheelbarrow to native Dundee to London – and back again that he was nearly killed and had his barrow
push in front of him. He proposed to cover smashed by the jubilant locals.
at least 30 miles a day, but his main object
was to overtake another wheelbarrow pe- Fasting and pigeon-eating
destrian and beat him to the capital. So, what on earth had got into people to make
His adversary was a Scotsman named wheelbarrow-walking such a celebrity activi-
James Gordon, who had the disadvantage of ty? This is a question that I grapple with in my
having started on his barrow attempt almost new HistoryExtra podcast series, The Tiger
200 miles further north, but the advantage of Tamer Who Went to Sea (see page 52), but it
a lighter barrow and a considerable head start. seems that it was partly down to newspapers
Gordon had left his hometown of Dundee in with an eye for a story. The details of the bar-
early November, clad in a brown tam o’shant- row combatants were reported widely in the
er, coat and trousers of a similar hue, and papers of the day, particularly within the pag-
stout leggings. He passed through Newcastle es of the Newcastle Evening Chronicle, which
on 13 November, where he was similarly met stoked the frenzy and revelled in branding it
by a surging crowd, cheered on by massed the “wheelbarrow craze”.
street urchins and serenaded by a band from Yet it appears that this was a period par-
a travelling menagerie. When Sawdust Jack ticularly prone to fads and crazes – and not
finally extricated himself from his supporters just those related to wheelbarrows. In 1886,
and left Newcastle on 21 November, Gordon the same year as the barrowing began, there
was long gone – more than 100 miles south of was a fasting craze. Inspired by an Italian
him in Doncaster, with but 170 miles left be- named Merlatti who was fasting in Paris,
tween his wheelbarrow and London. various people followed his lead and tried to
The race was on, but unsurprisingly, it starve themselves for days on end. According
never really got going. Sawdust Jack only to the Buchan Observer and East Aberdeen-
made it as far as Selby, after 105 miles and shire Advertiser, these included an English
four days, when he gave up owing to lack of lady who kept a boarding house, a minister
support. However, James Gordon progressed The crowds were of foreign extraction in Kent, a buxom young
onwards to London, where he was welcomed lyric artiste from New York, and an Angli-
like a conquering hero. He was even treat- so boisterous that cised Frenchman who painted silk for a living.
ed to write-ups in several major newspapers, Skipping forwards a few years, there was
including the Illustrated London News, which
James Gordon was also a craze dedicated to eating, not fasting:
described him as “a very poor man, but a nearly killed and the pigeon-eating craze of 1901. Indeed, the
brave one”. Burnley Gazette of 13 March that year record-
After receiving the adulation of the capital, had his barrow ed that the trend was spreading across
BRIDGEMAN

Gordon made his way back north, arriving

home in Dundee on New Year’s Day 1887,
smashed by the Yorkshire, with several men attempting to eat
a pigeon a day for 15 days on the trot. As ever,
whereupon the crowds were so boisterous jubilant locals things escalated, with a Nottinghamshire •
31
 Britain’s wheelbarrow craze

man called Sproston deciding to eat a to Newcastle, wheeling a load weighing 28lbs.
page of the local newspaper before tuck- He was also said to have a sweet singing voice,
ing into his pigeon. and to be hoping to acquire vocal engage-
There was also an appetite for people ments on his way.
undertaking long-distance challenges. By March, things were getting ridiculous
According to a round-up published in (if they weren’t already). James Sanderson,
the 7 March 1908 edition of the Northern a miner, left Shoreditch, heading north for
Weekly Gazette, these endeavours were Morpeth, with a wheelbarrow containing a
similarly eccentric: a few years earlier, a miner’s tub weighing three hundredweight
“Danish journalist [had] started to walk (336lbs). Then there was George Fazzi, a South
round the world with his hands tied”, Shields man, who decided that barrows were
while a “young German travelled from for stiffs, and instead proposed pushing a
Hamburg to New York in a packing case coffin mounted on tricycle wheels down the
6ft long, 4ft high and 3ft wide”. now well-trodden path. As an added twist, the
coffin was the one that Fazzi himself intended
Jumping on the handwagon to be buried in.
So that’s the context of the wheelbarrowing In late March, the one-legged wheelbar-
antics of Sawdust Jack and James Gordon, rowman Robert Cooper set off from Crieff for
but it was the newspapers that fostered the Edinburgh, but sadly “caused little or no ex-
rivalry. As so often happens, it wasn’t long citement, for the people of Crieff seem to have
before they started to take aim at the very got tired of this wheelbarrow craze”. Disabled
people they’d built up. Reports soon began athletes seem to have been particularly at-
to take on a distinctly mocking tone, ex- tracted to the challenge: in June 1887, Michael
pressing incredulity at the ridiculousness Herriot travelled from Cramond Bridge to
of the endeavour, with one correspondent Hard times A page from an 1886 edition London and back in 28 days. He had only one
worrying that were Gordon’s “exploit to set of The Graphic, highlighting the plight of London’s arm, and an iron hook attached to his armless
a precedent, we might have the north road WPGORNQ[GF&KʛEWNVKGUKPPFKPIEQPXGPVKQPCN sleeve was used in place of the absent limb.
blocked by Scotch nursemaids wheeling their work was likely one of the reasons that prompted
perambulators vigorously towards London”. people to take up wheelbarrowing Everyday vagrants?
This rising sense of derision did not damp- As the summer progressed, the wheelbarrow
en enthusiasm for those who saw a chance to mania was dying down, and exponents of the
make their own names through the wonder of art were finding limited patronage. Michael
the wheelbarrow. A race became a craze. The Herriot’s donation box was described as “not
papers of the early months of 1887 are replete burdened regarding its weight”. There was a
with stories of ever more bizarre attempts to last hurrah, however. In October, Ewing of
emulate Gordon’s feat. Dalry Cross, who you’ll recall was one of the
First there was Ewing, the Ayrshire wheel- first to pick up the barrow baton at the start
barrow man, dressed conspicuously in red of the year, was to be found at the top of Ben
clothes, drawing large crowds as he left Dalry Nevis, along with two other men, all somehow
Cross for London in January. Then the first having wrestled wheelbarrows to the summit.
female contender, Mrs M’Gowan of Perth, By my reckoning, there were upwards of
heading south not with a wheelbarrow but 20 people on the roads during that heady spell
with a perambulator containing her eight- of wheelbarrow mania. Many had disabilities,
month-old baby, and looking to raise money and all of them were competing to come up
in light of her husband’s unemployment. with ever-more elaborate ploys to grab atten-
Aberdeen men Robert Jamieson and Wil- tion from the crowd. Some of the participants
liam Strewn were both looking to trundle bar- were well received – several grand concerts
rows from there to John O’Groats in February, were held in honour of Kirkcaldy wheelbar-
though Strewn was later reported to have been rowman James Sprake, for instance; others
deceived by a destitute youth and deprived of found their efforts ill-rewarded.
his barrow, before finding it disbanded. Next, So what was this short-lived craze all
James Sprake, a one-armed man with a spe- about? Money was no doubt a driving force.
cially adapted barrow attached to him via a George Fazzi Britain was in the thick of an economic de-
strap, was readying for a trip from Kirkcaldy pression, and 1886 and 1887 were years of
to John O’Groats and then down to Land’s instead proposed particularly high unemployment. Most of the
End. Not long after, John Graham, described
in contemporary newspaper coverage as a
pushing a coffin wheelbarrowists were clearly very hard-up, so
this might have seemed like the only way they
“cripple”, arrived in Shoreditch from Newcas- mounted on could support themselves – particularly for
tle, having wheeled a barrow the whole way. those whose disabilities already limited the
It wasn’t just one-way traffic from the north. tricycle wheels types of employment they could take on.
On 11 February, The Sporting Life reported down the now As we’ve heard, there was a healthy dose
ALAMY

that George Hemmingway, a Billingsgate of cynicism about the whole enterprise, and
porter, was intending to travel from Peckham well-trodden path perhaps the biggest challenge facing the con-

32
 LOOK OUT FOR OUR
NEW PODCAST SERIES

The story of Bob Carlisle, the sailor and

showman credited with being Britain’s
TUVYJGGNDCTTQYCVJNGVGKUVJGHQEWU
QHVJGWREQOKPI*KUVQT['ZVTCRQFECUV
series The Tiger Tamer Who Went to Sea.
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Wheel deal Britain’s original wheelbarrow advantage. They were active in writing to
man, Bob Carlisle, draws a small crowd in Wick, editors to advise them of their progress, and
Caithness. The showman’s role in the development generally received favourable coverage as a
of the ‘sport’ was soon forgotten, however result. So, although the newspapers might
have been ramping up the stories, Gordon and
Carlisle did their best to make sure they got
tenders was to show themselves as deserving rheumatism and colds, presumably receiving attention. They would have been the influenc-
athletic entrepreneurs rather than everyday some return from Loy’s for the endorsement. ers of their day.
vagrants – a dilemma summed up by the Fife According to Edge Hill University’s
Herald in February 1887: Media manipulation Dr Bob Nicholson, an expert on Victori-
“To our own verdant and unsophisticated Gordon was generally feted in the papers as an newspapers, their strategies worked and
fancy there is no difference between a tramp Britain’s original wheelbarrow man. But that journalists played the game: “The press briefly
plus a wheelbarrow, and a tramp minus a wasn’t strictly accurate. There was another transformed men like Bob Carlisle, Sawdust
wheelbarrow; except, perhaps, that one is man, Bob Carlisle, who really deserved that Jack and James Gordon into national ce-
slightly more of a nuisance than the other. epithet. Like Gordon, he was a Scotsman, and lebrities. As they trundled across the coun-
The first one comes honestly, although he in 1879 he had captured a fair dash of media try, newspapers published regular updates
may have a lie in his mouth – he wants money attention himself when he trundled his wheel- on their progress, and readers were drawn
and he asks it. The other makes a pretence of barrow from Land’s End to John O’Groats into the drama. When a famous pedestrian
doing something which shall place him upon and back – an idea inspired by similar wheel- wheeled his barrow into a new town, he didn’t
a higher level than the common beggar, and, barrow-based challenges in the US. The pa- arrive as a stranger, but as a hero.”
COURTESY OF EAST LOTHIAN COUNCIL ARCHIVES

in way, entitles him to the support of the pub- pers were quick to forget though, and Carlisle A hero James Gordon may briefly have
lic. But the instinct in both is the same – to – who lived an almost fantastical life combin- been, but there is a tragic and tawdry coda to
get the maximum of hard cash with the ing careers as a clown, lion-tamer, sailor and the tale. Gordon was convicted of a crime in
minimum of hard work.” endurance athlete – was unable to jog their Dundee in August 1888. The charge? Theft of
Despite the media saturation and back- memories because, in 1886, he was on board the wheels and axle of a wheelbarrow.
lash to the wheelbarrow-walking concept, a ship in the South China Sea.
James Gordon continued to be celebrated. He Carlisle did try to write himself back into David Musgrove is content director of HistoryExtra
attributed his success to bathing his feet and the story by penning letters to the papers and
joints every other day with whisky, but on his engaging in further bouts of endurance, but You can learn more about the Victorian
return, he was just as happy to bathe in (and the damage was done and Gordon continued wheelbarrow craze by searching the British
profit from) his new-found celebrity. In March to be cited as the original wheelbarrowman. Newspaper Archive: britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk.
1887, for example, he publicly praised Loy’s What both men had in common was the BBC History Magazine TGCFGTUECPIGVRGTEGPVQʘC
Liniment for helping with sprains, bruises, ability to manipulate the media to their subscription to the archive by visiting bit.ly/BNAHIST24

33
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 FIVE THINGS YOU (PROBABLY) DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT…
The Vikings
Ryan Lavelle, who is teaching our new HistoryExtra
#ECFGO[EQWTUGUJCTGUXGUWTRTKUKPIHCEVUCDQWVVJG
TCKFGTURKTCVGUCPFVTCFGTUHTQOOGFKGXCN5ECPFKPCXKC

1 A Viking wedding
involved a bed and
eight people
The people of medieval Iceland are best
known for their sagas – vivid stories written
about their Viking ancestors. Yet they also
possessed a lawcode, and these laws reveal a
curious marriage custom that shines a light on
gender relations in Icelandic society.
For a marriage to be legitimate, a groom
had to be seen by six witnesses entering the
same bed as his new wife, “without conceal-
ment”. The idea that marriage was witnessed
ensured that children from the union were
seen as legitimate – an important matter for 6JKUIQNFETWEKZ
the descent of property and for family honour. discovered on the island
After all, the keeping of mistresses was far of Funen in 2016, suggests
from uncommon and the sexual mistreatment that Harald Bluetooth
of female slaves so widespread it appears that may not have “made all the
it was barely worth recording in sagas. Danes Christian”
All this is worth bearing in mind when
considering the Viking cemetery in Birka,
Sweden – in which a skeleton buried with an
array of weapons turned out to be biologically
female. Many Viking women enjoyed greater 2 Vikings converted to Christianity
freedoms than their
counterparts across earlier than we thought
Europe. But there
were still limits to their In c965 AD, King Harald Bluetooth island of Funen, a metal detectorist
power. Did the person made a bold – and striking – claim. FKUEQXGTGFC5ECPFKPCXKCPIQNFETWEKZ
THE VIKING MUSEUM LADBY/ALAMY

buried at Birka On a runestone erected at Jelling on the pendant from the early 10th century.
express their identity Jutland peninsula, the Danish monarch Two centuries before that, in the
like that of a male declared that he had “made all the early 800s, the Frankish bishop
warrior because Danes Christian”. It was the earliest 5V|#PUMCTNGFCOKUUKQPVQ5ECPFKPCXKC
of such limits? nQʛEKCNoUVCVGOGPVQP%JTKUVKCPKV[ that, tradition has it, met with little
made in Viking Scandinavia. UWEEGUU6JG#WPUNGXETWEKZUJQYU
This Birka grave So does that mean that Christianity VJCVRGTJCRU#PUMCToUGʘQTVUs
contained a biologically didn’t gain much traction in the Viking QTOC[DGVJGKPʚWGPEGQH8KMKPIU
female skeleton with an lands until the late 10th century? returning home from Christian
array of weapons Perhaps not. For, in 2016, on the Danish lands – bore some fruit after all.

36
 LEFT: A reconstruction of ACADEMY
Harald Bluetooth’s fortress. 6JG8KMKPIUKUVJGUGEQPFVQRKEKPQWTPGYUGTKGUQHonline
The Danish king is depicted courses(QTOQTGFGVCKNUIQVQhistoryextra.com/academy
(below, on a gilt plate)
being baptised

5 The Viking Age

began before the
Lindisfarne raids
“Who could have known that such an
inroad from the sea could be made?”
lamented the Northumbrian churchman
3 Harald Bluetooth was Alcuin on hearing the news of the Viking
raid on the island monastery of Lindisfarne.
no friend of the Vikings That terrible attack, in 793, is widely
DGNKGXGFVQJCXGTGFVJGUVCTVKPIIWPQP
Harald Bluetooth is one of the most such one to be discovered) that could the Viking Age. But some historians now
famous Danish kings of the Viking house many hundreds of soldiers. argue that this era in medieval history may
Age. But it seems that he was Designated by Unesco as world have been under way earlier than that.
anything but a Viking himself. The king heritage sites in 2023, Trelleborg The most compelling evidence for this
– who was named ‘Bluetooth by a fortresses were constructed across arrived in the early 2000s with the discover-
12th-century chronicler, perhaps on the territories of Denmark, probably ies of two war boats with skeletons at
account of a bad tooth – never took with the aim of bringing the Danish Salme on the Estonian island of Saaremaa.
part in a Viking expedition and ordered kingdom together – something that 6JGUGPFUFCVGHTQOCTQWPF
no raiding expeditions. Harald Bluetooth claimed on the Archaeologists remain puzzled by the
In fact, Harald projected himself as Jelling runestone. PFUYJKEJKPENWFG5ECPFKPCXKCPYGCR-
a king of a united Denmark through a With such fortresses, as with the ons, dogs and hawks. Many of the
series of massive building projects Anglo-Saxon burhs of Wessex and skeletons have revealed extensive evidence
that were designed to repel Viking Mercia a generation or so earlier, of injuries. Was this a diplomatic mission
raiders. These included a network of any marauding Vikings could be gone wrong (with dogs and hawks
circular ring fortresses (known as prevented from wreaking havoc intended as gifts?), the fate of unsuccessful
6TGNNGDQTIHQTVTGUUGUCHVGTVJGTUV within Harald’s realm. raiders, or the burial of a group of would-be
settlers? Whatever the case, there’s little
doubt that, almost a millennium after it
drew to a close, the Viking Age continues
4 The legend of William Tell may to throw up surprises.

derive from a Viking story

Harald Bluetooth’s massive building The Danish writer tells us that the king
projects were costly, straining was driven out of his kingdom by his
relations between the king and his rebellious son, Swein Forkbeard.
nobles. Saxo Grammaticus, a Harald’s attempt to claim back a
12th–13th-century Danish writer, tells foothold in Denmark was, Saxo writes,
that on hearing one of his nobles boast scuppered when, in a quiet moment in
that he was a deadshot with a bow, CDCVVNGJGJGCFGFQʘKPVQCYQQFVQ
Harald ordered the man, Toki, to prove answer the call of nature. Watching
it in a way that tested his loyalty to the him was Toki, again ready with his
limits. And so Toki displayed that bow. Naturally, he did not miss.
loyalty by shooting an apple from his
ALAMY/GETTY IMAGES/RAILI ALIMAE

son’s head. When Harald asked Toki

why he had brought more arrows from Did the legend of William Tell evolve
his quiver, Toki replied that, had he from the story of a 10th-century
missed the apple, he would not have Danish nobleman?
missed the king. The Salme ship burials date to c750 AD, four
Whether or not we choose to decades before the brutal raid on Lindisfarne
believe Saxo, his tale reveals to us that
saga-like storytelling traditions didn’t
only hail from Iceland. And Saxo Ryan Lavelle is professor of early medieval history
JCFPoVPKUJGFYKVJ*CTCNFSWKVG[GV at the University of Winchester

37
 Death and dragons (l to r): Mel
)KDUQPFGGUVJG'PINKUJKPoUBraveheart;
VJGWPEQPXGPVKQPCNLancelot du Lac  
oUpPCVKQPCNKUVFGHGPUKXGGRKEqAlexander
Nevsky%JCTNVQP*GUVQPCPF5QRJKC.QTGP
KPoUEl Cid; 6JG|0KDGNWPIU  EGPVTGU
CTQWPFVJGUVQT[QHCDQNFDNQPFFTCIQPUNC[GT

38
 From the heroic glamour of Henry V to
the heady nationalism of Braveheart,
the medieval era has proven a rich
UQWTEGQHOCVGTKCNHQTNOFKTGEVQTU
Robert Bartlett charts Hollywood’s
long obsession with the Middle Ages
ALAMY

•
39
 Xxxxxxx xxxxxxxx
Medieval movies

he 1890s turned out to be a significant decade

for William Wallace, Richard the Lionheart
and Joan of Arc. That’s because it witnessed
the birth of an art form, one that would
present their extraordinary stories to a global
audience: the moving picture. The pioneers
of this new medium went quickly from
single-shot novelty pieces to short narratives,
to films an hour or more in length. Mean-
while, thousands of custom-built venues popped up
across America, Europe and beyond. In the dying days
of the 19th century, a new industry was born.
That industry was greedy for stories, and by the dawn
of the 20th century, it was mining many of these tales
from the distant past. There has never been a genre of
‘medieval film’ in the way that there has been of westerns
or ‘sword-and-sandal’ epics like Ben Hur or Gladiator.
But the past 130 years have witnessed a deluge of movies
inspired by the Middle Ages. These have been based on
real persons or events, such as El Cid or Joan of Arc;
inspired by medieval legends (King Arthur and Robin
Hood); or, if we stretch our definition, have been set in
imaginary worlds with medieval features, like The Lord Unsavoury admirers The Nibelungs (1924) was beloved of the
of the Rings. Nazi hierarchy thanks to its Germanic, and possibly antisemitic, tone
What kind of Middle Ages do these films present to
us? The technology of moving pictures may have been
new in the 1890s but cinema was marked by the culture
into which it was born: late Romantic European national-
ism. This is clear both from the music of early cinema
(‘silent films’ were never silent) and from the acting styles Sergei Eisenstein’s Alexander Nevsky (1938) is a classic
of those early films, which borrowed from theatre and example of such defensive nationalist epics, as the stern
opera and often strike modern audiences as melodramat- figure of Prince Alexander mobilises the Russian people
ic. It is also evident from the film-makers’ assumptions against the sinister and brutal Germans who are threat-
about heroism, nationalism and romantic love. ening their land. The prince’s struggle culminates in the
These characteristics are clear to see in The Nibelungs Battle on the Ice, which takes up an amazing 30 minutes
(Die Nibelungen), which was released in 1924. Based on of the film, all to a rousing score by Sergei Prokofiev.
medieval German and Scandinavian stories, Fritz Lang’s Alexander Nevsky also provides a classic illustration of
two-part epic tells the story of the tall, blond, dragon-slay- how cinema history is shaped by politics. The film was
er Siegfried; his love for the beautiful Kriemhild; his made at a moment when the Soviet Union was anxiously
tragic death; and Kriemhild’s revenge. It has a specially aware of the growing threat from Nazi Germany. Its
composed score (the English premiere took place in the message of victorious patriotic resistance against en- Attack mode
Royal Albert Hall, with the music performed by the croaching Germans answered the propaganda needs of Laurence Olivier played
London Symphony Orchestra). The actors, most of them the time and helped earn Eisenstein the Order of Lenin. Henry V at a moment
experienced stage performers, employ the exaggerated But this was a period of huge instability and, in August in history when an
gestures so alien to modern performance. The film’s 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union signed a pact that invasion of France could

ALAMY/GETTY IMAGES
heroic and Germanic tone, and also perhaps the possibly guaranteed peace between their countries and specified be portrayed as heroic
antisemitic characterisation of the villainous dwarf King which parts of Poland their nations should swallow up.
Alberich, made it a favourite with the Nazi hierarchy. In the wake of this geopolitical bombshell, Alexander
Lang, the director, who was partly of Jewish descent, Nevsky was withdrawn from circulation and Eisenstein
wisely moved to Hollywood in 1934. was reassigned to work on a Wagner opera. Less
than two years later, however, in June 1941,
External threats Stalin was taken by surprise when Germany
Many medieval films are marked by a vocal and emphatic launched its gigantic invasion of the Soviet
nationalism. In El Cid (1961) the eponymous hero is Union. Eisenstein’s epic was now re-released,
fighting “for Spain” (a country that did not exist in the and it was not long before an Order of Alexan-
11th century), while the nationalism in Braveheart (1995) der Nevsky was instituted for heroism on the
was so heady that it was even credited with swinging front. Very few moments in film history show
voters towards the Scottish National Party. The national- such a definitive correspondence between political
ism in these films is defensive, responding to an external events and a film’s fortunes.
threat, which is usually easier to romanticise than wars of Another heavyweight medieval topic that has been
conquest. Laurence Olivier’s Henry V is an exception to shaped by modern politics – and never really found a
this rule, perhaps because it was made in 1944 when an happy treatment in film – is the crusades. In the Middle
invasion of France could be seen as heroic. Ages these enormous military operations could be given
40
 Out of the picture The 1922 version of Robin Hood, starring Douglas Fairbanks. Many Narrative fog? Orlando Bloom (right) in Kingdom of Heaven,
depictions of this story have Richard I away on crusade, without actually showing him there CNOKPYJKEJVJGFKUVKPEVKQPDGVYGGPIQQFCPFGXKNKUDNWTTGF

a clear narrative, since most western Christians believed be yet more difficult, and harder to depict with a clear
that “God wills it”, as the cry went up when the First perspective. Perhaps this explains the narrative fog that
Crusade was launched. Knowing that Palestine had been surrounds Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven (2005). Here
Christian before it became Muslim, medieval chroniclers it is not clear who the bad guys are meant to be, what
could depict the crusades as self-defence, as recovery of makes the good guys good, or even what is going on. It’s
Christ’s patrimony, and even (in the words of a crusader clear that Christian extremists are bad and that Saladin is
song) as “a tournament between heaven and hell”. wise and shrewd (as is traditional). This is not to mention
Film-makers of the 20th and early 21st centuries the remarkable scene where the main character (played by
have chosen not to tread this simple path, since militant Orlando Bloom), freshly arrived from France, teaches the
Christianity did not appeal to many film-makers and local inhabitants of Palestine how to dig a well.
might well be seen as a dubious prospect in attracting
viewers. In a remarkable number of medieval films, the Love triangles
crusades function simply as a plot device, removing Many films with medieval settings are based on literature
characters from the scene, presenting their lady-loves rather than history, and these usually have a much bigger
with doubts about whether they are alive or dead, and role for women, since the literature of the period often
creating the possibility of a longed-for return. Almost involves love triangles or love dilemmas. Tales of Arthur,
every Robin Hood film has King Richard returning from Guinevere and Lancelot, or Tristan, Isolde and Mark,
crusade, but few films have him actually on crusade. thus have more in common with the modern bourgeois
Those films that are set in the Holy Land tend to take novel, which is often centred on adultery, than stories of
their lead from Walter Scott, who established the the crusades or national struggles. And, from the point of
historical novel as a major genre in the early 19th century. view of Hollywood, it is an advantage that these stories of
Scott’s portrayal of the crusades in his knightly valour and romantic love are not tied to any
1825 novel The Talisman centred on the modern nation, and do not skirt dangerously near to
relationship between Richard the Lion- issues of western colonialism.
Braveheart has heart and Saladin, two rulers of different
faiths who engaged in warfare against
King Arthur films have traditionally been
straightforward adventures, with lots of fighting, love
been credited each other but who are linked by common interests frustrated but then fulfilled, and plenty of
chivalric values. manliness and womanliness. Only in the second half
with a surge in Over the course of the 20th century, of the 20th century do we see the emergence of ironic,
as the Muslim world was decolonised, as unconventional or critical versions of these tales, such
support for militant Islam grew in strength, and as as Robert Bresson’s Lancelot du Lac (1974) or John
the Scottish Muslims migrated to the west in greater Boorman’s Excalibur (1981).
ALAMY

numbers, film-makers realised that The one film subject absolutely dominated by a woman
National Party portrayals of the crusades were going to is the story of Joan of Arc. Starting in the late 1890s, there •
41
 Medieval movies

CHESS, PLAGUES AND ‘WATERY TARTS’

(KXGNCPFOCTMNOUFGRKEVKPIVJG/KFFNG#IGU

The Seventh Seal (director: Ingmar Bergman, 1957) El Cid (Anthony Mann, 1961)
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+VKUVJGUVCTVKPIRQKPVHQTCLQWTPG[KPYJKEJVJGMPKIJV RNC[GF %JCTNVQP*GUVQP+VKPVGTYGCXGUVJGJKUVQTKECNCEEQWPVQHYJCV
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KPVJGOKPFHQTGXGT| NQ[CNV[VQVJGPCVKQPQH5RCKP|

The Lion in Winter (Anthony Harvey, 1968) Monty Python and the Holy Grail
#V%JTKUVOCU-KPI*GPT[++CPFJKUHCOKN[ICVJGTVQ (Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam, 1975)
SWCTTGNQXGTVJGUWEEGUUKQPVQVJGVJTQPG5KPEGCDQWVJCNHQH 6JGTUVXGPVWTGQHVJGEQOGF[VTQWRGKPVQEKPGOCVJGNO
CNNOGFKGXCNJKIJRQNKVKEUTGXQNXGFCTQWPFF[PCUVKEFKURWVGU FTCYUMPQYNGFIGCDN[QPOCP[OGFKGXCNVTQRGU#TVJWTKCP
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VJGCIGKPIQHVJGRQYGTHWN A Knight’s Tale

The Name of the Rose

(Jean-Jacques Annaud, 1986)
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42
 How true are your favourite historical
dramas? Discover the history behind popular dramas
on our website: historyextra.com/real-history-movies

arthouse classics with medieval subjects: Ingmar Berg-

man’s Seventh Seal (1957) and Andrei Tarkovsky’s Andrei
Rublev (1966). Bergman’s film features a real medieval
setting – Sweden during the Black Death – but is populat-
ed with entirely fictional characters; Tarkovsky’s movie is
based on a real person, the Russian icon painter Andrei
Rublev, surrounded by a mixture of real and imagined
events. Both films feature central characters who are trou-
bled by religious doubt, men who are making their way
through a landscape where they encounter religious
fundamentalism and the brutality of power.

Blatant absurdities
A question that is asked of most historical films is: how
accurate is it? Medieval historians are sometimes irritated
by blatant absurdities, such as the French knights at
Agincourt being hoisted onto their horses by cranes, as
depicted in Olivier’s Henry V, or by the battle of Stirling
Deep feelings Bridge in Braveheart taking place without a bridge.
Renée Falconetti in the However, given that medieval historians form but a tiny
title role of The Passion have been countless films about Joan. This is partly proportion of cinema audiences, another possible re-
of Joan of Arc (1928), because her story is truly remarkable – a peasant girl who sponse to this question of accuracy is: does it matter?
which portrayed vividly inspired the resistance to the English invaders of France I would argue that, in one important respect, it does
the intense spirituality and who led “her Dauphin” to be crowned in Rheims, matter – because divergences from factual accuracy can
and physical brutality of before her capture, trial and, on 30 May 1431, death by fire shine a light on the film-maker’s approach to his or her
the medieval world at the stake. It is also partly because her trial records form subject. A perfect example is the romance in Braveheart
one of the richest bodies of reported dialogue to have between the Scottish national hero William Wallace, who
survived from the Middle Ages, including page after page was executed in 1305, and the French princess Isabella,
of Joan’s own words. Entire films have been made based who was aged nine at the time of his execution. This
exclusively on these documents. impossible affair was not a result of simple ignorance on
Not everyone is dazzled by Joan’s charisma. In the final the part of the film-makers but fits into a larger theme of
volume of his majestic history of the Hundred Years’ War, the film: that the struggle between the English and the
Jonathan Sumption plays down her role in the relief of Scots extended to a conflict over women’s bodies. The
Orléans, the turning point of the war, and writes that trouble starts when the demonic English king, Edward I,
subsequently she “inhabited a fantasy world of her own”. allows English lords in Scotland to sleep with brides on
Yet film-makers have had little time for such concerns, their wedding night. In the first resistance raid, a husband
presenting a character who is inspired and inspiring, who whose wife has endured this kills the lord who was
is credibly a teenage girl but can also lead armies. responsible. And Wallace is himself stirred to action after
One of the most memorable cinematic interpretations English soldiers attempt to rape his wife.
of Joan is Carl Theodor Dreyer’s 1928 film The Passion of This portrayal of the struggle in sexual terms extends
Joan of Arc. In many ways it is an austere film. Silent and to the main political players. Prince Edward, son of
black-and-white (of course), it concentrates entirely on Edward I, cannot satisfy his wife (his notoriously homo-
Joan’s trial and execution, is set in stark interiors, and phobic characterisation drew widespread protest) but
draws its dialogue from the trial records. Above all, it William Wallace can, and impregnates her, thus diverting
focuses to an astonishing degree on the faces of the the bloodline of the English monarchy. This is totally
protagonists – the ecclesiastical judges and Joan, played absurd. But it’s not a meaningless absurdity. It has a point
(in what seems to have been her only film role) by Renée to make in the world of the film.
(or Marie) Falconetti. The heroine’s face often fills the As Braveheart proves, people should not go to medie-
entire screen, conveying in vivid detail her sense of val films to learn the history of the Middle Ages. But,
mission, her doubts and her fears. when they do go, the chances are that what they watch
In a sense, there is nothing ‘medieval’ unfold before them will fire their imaginations and stay
about Dreyer’s film. Its greatness (for those with them for the rest of their lives (I have clear memories
who consider it great) lies in the brilliance of watching the battle of Agincourt from Henry V as a
of the framing, the pacing and the acting. 10-year-old). It is unclear whether the age of the cinema
No one should But, on the other hand, its emphasis on is over. But the age of the moving image is certainly not.
intense visionary spirituality, on the That is how most people will continue to get their picture
go to medieval power of established religion (not at all the of the past.
ǍNOU to learn the same thing) and on the physical brutality
of life, does correspond to important
history of the features of the medieval world. Robert Bartlett is a medievalist who has presented a number
ALAMY

In these respects, The Passion of Joan of BBC series on the Middle Ages. His most recent book, The
Middle Ages of Arc can be compared with two other Middle Ages and the Movies, was published by Reaktion in 2022

43
 A selection of
historical conundrums
answered by experts

When did Roman Italy cease to

be Roman and become Italian?
The first half of this question is well as the first opera, cemented the
relatively simple to answer. Following peninsula’s reputation as a centre of
the sack of Rome by the Visigoth king cultural excellence and, by 1700, a
Alaric in AD 410, Roman Italy began to magnet for wealthy foreign tourists.
disintegrate, a process that continued Despite this, Italy still did not exist Dressmakers often stored garments on high
over the next century under the on- as a country: Venice was the capital of a wall pegs – as seen in this depiction of
slaught of repeated invasions of armies republic; Naples was a kingdom subject an 18th-century French sewing workshop
from the north. The peninsula then to Spain; Florence was the capital of the
fragmented into numerous independent grand duchy of Tuscany; and Rome was
states, each of which trumpeted their the capital of the Papal States. As the How did people
sense of identity by adopting their own Austrian statesman Klemens von
currencies, dialects and patron saints. Metternich remarked in 1814, Italy was store clothes before
The answer to the second half of this
question can be found by looking at the
merely a “geographical expression”.
It was not until 1861 that the princi-
the invention of
15th and 16th centuries, when the rulers palities agreed to unification, initially coat hangers?
of these states revived the artistic under the king of Savoy, though the
traditions of their Roman forebears to monarchy was abolished when Italy was
create what we now call the Renaissance. declared a republic in 1946. The first modern coat hanger is
This era of great artists and writers, as said to be an 1869 design for a ‘clothes
Mary Hollingsworth, author of Princes of hook’, which was filed with the US
the Renaissance (Apollo, 2021) Patent Office. Previously, the way that
garments were stored depended on the
type of item and quantity of clothing
a person owned: an 18th-century royal
would have had dedicated rooms for
their fine silks, whereas a typical
British family might have owned only
a few changes of clothes.
For the latter, a lockable chest,
chest of drawers or closet containing
shelves and hooks provided the best
storage. As resalable assets, it was
important to make sure that garments
were both clean and secure, especially
in shared homes. Storing clothes with
herbs repelled insects, while the crisp
lines created by folding linen signalled
both cleanliness and quality.
Wall pegs also offered temporary
places for hanging and airing. Dress-
makers used high pegs, turning the
clothes inside out and hanging them
from the strongly stitched armscyes
(armholes) to keep them both clean
and crease-free.
.
BRIDGEMAN

Emily Taylor, assistant curator of

European decorative arts at National
ILLUSTRATION BY Museums Scotland
@GLENMCILLUSTRATION

44
 DID YOU KNOW…?
What is the earliest Convict candidate
In 1920, a man named Eugene V
surviving legal code? Debs ran for the US presidency –
despite the fact that he was in prison
in Atlanta. Two years earlier, the
The earliest surviving example UQEKCNKUVCEVKXKUVCPFGTEGETKVKEQH
is the Sumerian code of Ur-Nam- America’s involvement in the First
mu, which dates from around World War had urged men to avoid
2100–2050 BC. The first parts of the the military draft, which led to him
code, discovered on a pair of tablets being found guilty of sedition and
in what is now Iraq, state the laws of sentenced to 10 years in jail.
King Ur-Nammu, who ruled the When the 1920
southern Mesopotamian kingdom election came
of Ur for roughly 18 years. It is an around, Debs
extraordinarily sophisticated text, UVQQFHQTQʛEG
and is based on an “If… then” and ended up
structure (eg “If a man knocks out winning 3.4
the tooth of another man, he shall per cent of the
pay two shekels of silver.”) popular vote.
Apart from the crimes of
murder, robbery, adultery and rape, Debs ran his 1920
which were punishable by death, election campaign
the code stipulated that most from behind bars
offences should be punished by
making the culprits pay the victims
financial compensation. Rather Greek grease
than seeking revenge, it was Athletes in ancient Greece had the
primarily concerned with ‘equity sweat and oil removed from their
and truth’ and restoring a sense bodies after exercising. Gathered by
of community. slaves employing a type of scraper
We know about an even older called a stlengis, the mixture, known
Sumerian legal code – that of the as gloios, was sometimes placed in
24th-century BC ruler Urukagina bottles or jars and sold for medicinal
– via references in other texts, and purposes. Less athletic individuals
this, too, is striking due to its focus would rub it on their own bodies,
on tackling corruption. By compari- believing it to be particularly
son, the earliest Babylonian legal GʘGEVKXGKPVTGCVKPIOWUENGRCKPU
code, the Code of Hammurabi URTCKPUCPFKPʚCOGFLQKPVU+VYCU
(c1750 BC), is based on the principle also thought to be helpful in curing
of ‘an eye for an eye’, and is mostly genital warts and syphilitic lesions.
concerned with vengeance.
Overall, law has formed a continuous
part of human history, and has often The laws of King A foggy memory
been intertwined with religion. The law Ur-Nammu of Ur In 1937, a Christmas Day football
of Moses, for example, dates from the were inscribed on match between Chelsea and
10th to the 6th centuries BC, while the a series of tablets Charlton Athletic had to be aban-
Buddhist Edicts of Ashoka were created in what is now Iraq doned after a thick fog rolled over
around 269–236 BC. VJGRKVEJ6JGRNC[GTUCPFQʛEKCNU
Roman law – the foundation of many made their way towards the
modern legal codes – originated as a set dressing rooms, apart from Charlton
of laws known as the Twelve Tables, goalkeeper Sam Bartram, who
which were later codified by the emper-
or Justinian in AD 529–534. Here in the
BRIDGEMAN/GETTY IMAGES

United Kingdom, the modern legal

system is rooted in common law, which
dates back to the 12th century.

Hannah Skoda, fellow at St John’s College,

University of Oxford, and contributor to Chelsea’s fog-hit
our History Behind the Headlines podcast: %JTKUVOCU&C[ZVWTG
historyextra.com/podcast against Charlton was
replayed 48 hours later

45
 WHO SHOT JFK?
WAS ELIZABETH I
A MAN?
DID ALIENS LAND
AT ROSWELL?
Rob Attar investigates the enduring
power of conspiracy theories
ALAMY

46
 Line of sight
An assassin lines up a shot on
President Kennedy, in Oliver
5VQPGoUNOJFK.
(QTUQOGRGQRNGVJGKFGCVJCV
-GPPGF[YCUVJGXKEVKOQHCP
GNCDQTCVGEQPURKTCE[pIKXGUUQOG
OGCPKPIVQJKUFGCVJqQDUGTXGU
journalist Gerald Posner •
47
 Conspiracy theories

n March 2020, just as Covid-19 was

turning the world upside down, I found
myself in Dallas, Texas, in the room
where Lee Harvey Oswald had shot and
killed President Kennedy almost 60
years earlier. The former Texas School
Book Depository has been turned into
a museum about Kennedy’s life and
death, offering a sober, measured
account of the events of November 1963. On
the quiet streets outside the museum, howev-
er, I encountered a few street stalls, whose
occupants were peddling a very different view
of the assassination. Here all manner of
conspiracies were given full voice, ones that
I’m sure you’ll all be familiar with: the FBI,
or the CIA, or the mafia, or the Soviets, or the
Cubans, or some combination of them had
undoubtedly orchestrated the killing of the
35th president of the United States.
It might seem that the museum is offering
the mainstream view, but according to opin-
ion polls, more Americans believe in some
form of conspiracy surrounding the killing of
JFK than the official version (as stated by the
1964 Warren Commission) that Lee Harvey
Oswald acted alone. For my new HistoryExtra
podcast series Conspiracy, I’ve been exploring
this and a number of other conspiracy theo-
ries about the past, to try to establish why they
are so pervasive in our modern world and particularly keen to discuss with him was and then hesitates for half a second, then does
whether any of them might actually be true. the so-called ‘magic bullet’ that is beloved of a couple of somersaults and then makes a left
One man who wanted to keep an open many conspiracy theorists. For Oswald to turn and a right turn and goes on to Connally
mind on the Kennedy assassination was the have been the sole shooter, then one of the and emerges in very good condition.
investigative journalist Gerald Posner, whose three bullets he is known to have fired must “So the question I had when I went to
1993 book Case Closed remains a definitive have been responsible for two wounds on ballistics people in 1992 was: ‘Can you do an-
work in support of the argument that Lee President Kennedy and one on Texas gover- ything that the FBI couldn’t do?’ And it turns
Harvey Oswald did indeed act alone. When nor John Connally, who was travelling in the out they could do a lot. If they could disprove
I spoke to him, he explained that this was far same car (and survived). If not, then there the single bullet, if they could prove at that
from his original intention. “Sometimes peo- must have been a second shooter, perhaps on point that it was impossible, then, fantastic,
ple will say to me that I must have wanted to the notorious grassy knoll. as a journalist, you’ve got the evidence that
just say it was Oswald alone to be a contrari- “Oliver Stone, in his film JFK, mocked there was a conspiracy. You don’t know how
an or whatever else and that I already had my this ‘magic bullet’ better than anyone,” said it happened. You don’t know who shot him.
mind made up. And I feel like saying, ‘You Posner. “You know, it goes through Kennedy You don’t know anything else, but if the single
know nothing at all about journalism.’ The bullet didn’t happen, there had to be another
greatest story to return with is the story that shooter involved because there are four shots
proves, with credible evidence, that there was and Oswald didn’t have the time for that. So
a conspiracy in the murder of the president. my starting point in essence was that bullet.
You want the biggest possible story if you’re “And the ballistics people said to me: ‘We’ll
the journalist. You don’t want to come back tell you why the Warren Commission couldn’t
and say: ‘Oh by the way, I think the Warren figure it out. They had to guess at it and didn’t
Commission got some things wrong, but in understand how the bullet slowed over a pe-
the end they got the right conclusion.’” riod of time.’ They now know the speed at
ALAMY/GETTY IMAGES/BRIDGEMAN

Notorious knoll
More Americans which it was hitting Kennedy and how it tum-
bled into Connally. And it’s not just a theory
As Posner admitted to me, his initial hunch believe in some because they take cadavers the size and weight
had been that there was some kind of mafia of Kennedy and Connally and fire bullets
involvement, but over the course of two years form of conspiracy at those speeds through them, creating the
of research and hundreds of interviews, he same wounds. And all day long, they produce
found himself increasingly convinced that
surrounding the equivalent results to the so-called magic bul-
there was a single shooter and no conspiracy.
Case Closed lays out Posner’s argument in
killing of JFK than let. So there is ballistic evidence that that bul-
let wasn’t so magical. It did in fact happen.”
significant detail. But one aspect I was VJGQǏEKCNXGTUKQP As Posner was at pains to explain to me,
48
 Scene of the crime
A street map showing key locations
Lone actor? Lee Harvey in Kennedy’s murder, and (inset) a
Oswald two days after JFK’s murder. cartridge case found in the Texas
The ‘magic bullet’, the single shot School Book Depository from where
that apparently hit two people, lies 1UYCNFTGFQPVJGRTGUKFGPV
at the heart of many conspiracy
theories surrounding the killing

the ballistics evidence does not discount the This is a conspiracy theory that has had
possibility of a conspiracy. It only means that serious real-world consequences. “Hitler’s
there didn’t need to be a conspiracy to explain writings were definitely drawn from The Pro-
the wounds on the president. And ultimately, tocols of the Elders of Zion,” says Nadell. “He’s
he accepts that despite the title of his book, this blaming the Jews. He’s talking about interna-
is one debate that’s unlikely to ever be settled. tional Jewish world finance. This is a conspir-
acy theory that helped to fuel the Holocaust.”
Real-world consequences And in more recent times the Protocols have
But while some conspiracy theories might retained their invidious power, as Nadell ex-
never be disproven, others remain stubbornly plained to me.
persistent, despite being repeatedly shown to “They have proliferated around the world
be false. A case in point is the Protocols of the so much,” she says. “They were published in
Elders of Zion. First serialised in a St Peters- Japan in 2004. They certainly made their way
burg newspaper in 1903, it purported to be across the Arab world and in 2002 Egyptian
the minutes of a meeting of Jewish leaders, satellite television developed a 41-part minise-
revealing their plans to rule the world by ries that was based on the Protocols. Then, in
duplicitous means. In fact, the text was March 2021 an officer of the Capitol Police at
partially an adaptation of an 1864 French the United States Capitol in Washington, DC
satirical novel, that originally had nothing to was found with a copy of the Protocols near
do with Jews. The Protocols were debunked his security post. So the text remains. It’s po-
by The Times in the 1920s, and in 1935 a Swiss tent today, widely available and still used.”
judge ruled that they were a fake after the Even conspiracy theories that seem much
distributors in Switzerland had been sued by less serious can have negative consequenc-
the Jewish community in the country. And es today. One example is the bizarre case of
yet the conspiracy theories have persisted. the Bisley boy. According to this theory, in
“Even when they have proven to be an around 1542 the future Queen Elizabeth I
outright forgery, a fiction, the Protocols was staying in the Cotswolds village of Bisley A c1940 cover of a French version of
continue to circulate widely today,” says where she fell ill and died. Rather than reveal The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
TOPFOTO/ALAMY

Professor Pamela S Nadell of the American this tragedy, her panicked attendants searched Despite being debunked repeatedly,
University in Washington, DC. “There is no for a local lookalike who could be substituted this antisemitic text outlining a Jewish
evidence that the Jews do the things that they for the deceased princess. As it transpired the plot for global domination remains
say in the Protocols but somehow that doesn’t closest match was a young boy who then spent stubbornly persistent
gain any traction.” the rest of his life masquerading as Elizabeth, •
49
 Conspiracy theories

Extra-terrestrial?
The remains of an object
providing a handy explanation as to why that crashed to earth near
the queen never married or had children. Roswell, 1947. Polls show
It’s a deeply strange story that quickly fades that a large proportion of
under scrutiny – Henry VIII would sure- Americans believe their
ly have noticed if his daughter had returned government is hiding
from the Cotswolds as a small boy – but has evidence of alien
had many adherents, notably Dracula author activity from them
Bram Stoker who included it in his 1910 book
Famous Impostors. And as Tudor historian
Tracy Borman explained to me, it points to
sexist attitudes that dogged Elizabeth’s age
and more recent times.
“I think it takes to extremes the misogyny
that Elizabeth herself had had to deal with.
This idea that she was ‘just a woman’ and yet
was mistress of a kingdom and of an empire.
The theory provides a perfect explanation as
to how there was a highly competent woman
outfoxing her male contemporaries.
“Bram Stoker was writing at the crosso-
ver between the reigns of Edward VII and
George V, so we’re talking about the early
20th century – and it’s still being spouted and
repeated now. I still get asked about it. People
are talking about it to this day.”
But are all conspiracy theories intrinsical-
ly harmful? Not according to Dr David
Clarke of Sheffield Hallam University, who
I interviewed about the infamous Roswell
incident. Several opinion polls have shown
that a large proportion of Americans believe
their own government is hiding evidence of
extra-terrestrial life from them, and by far the
best-known ‘evidence’ for this is the craft Roswell, New Mexico in 1947, fuelling stories Stoker’s Famous Impostors and the hundreds
(actually a military balloon) that crashed in of a downed UFO and even autopsies being of books by less-illustrious writers dedicated
carried out on alien life-forms. to one theory or another. Of course, in more
“There have been various studies done of recent times, the internet and social media
LISTEN TO OUR NEW conspiracy theories and a recent one said that have added enormous fuel to this fire,
PODCAST SERIES of all of the ones they looked at, Roswell is enabling conspiracy theories to be dissemi-
actually the most harmless,” Clarke told me. nated quickly and easily and like-minded
For him, the theory acts as a kind of mod- people to form networks across the globe.
ern folklore. “It’s a modern myth in the same Medieval historian Steve Tibble believes
way that the Greeks had their myths. This is a that all this goes a long way to explain the
technological myth for the Cold War era. And popularity of the many conspiracy theories
I don’t think it’s a bad myth; it’s a good one,
unlike some of the other, nasty, conspiracy
theories. People are looking for salvation from
somewhere and it’s a comforting thought that
out there in the cold dead universe there is
someone who is interested in us and that we’re
not alone. So out of all the conspiracy theories
and myths, this is probably the most positive
one of all.”

Rob Attar joined a range of experts to Hollywood material

Social media has
investigate six of history’s most perva- One question I kept returning to was ‘Why?’ enabled conspiracy
sive conspiracy theories for series two Despite all the evidence against them and the
of the HistoryExtra podcast Conspiracy. cohorts of historians lining up in opposition, theories to spread
why are these conspiracy theories so hard to
BBC History Magazine subscribers can
listen to the whole series dislodge? Popular culture seems to have a lot
rapidly and like-
ad-free at: historyextra.com/ to answer for. Conspiracy theories are minded people to
TOPFOTO

conspiracies-series beloved of authors and filmmakers, from

Oliver Stone’s JFK and The X-Files, to Bram form global networks
50
 Hide and seek Knights carry the Holy Grail in a 14th-century manuscript. The Grail makes frequent

theorist. “Manchester looked back at the

Second World War and he said if you think
about the Holocaust you’ve got 6 million
Jewish victims as well as millions of political
victims and those who were killed because
they were gay or prisoners of war etc. At the
other side of the equation you have the Nazis
again that their navy was the best in the world and they sort of balance each other out: worst
Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny and that Pearl Harbor was an incredible for- crime, worst criminals.
in The X-Files. Conspiracy theories tress,” he told me. “Meanwhile, the Japanese “But in the Kennedy assassination you
have provided popular culture with had been repeatedly described to the Ameri- have this young charismatic president with so
a rich seam of material for centuries can public as an inferior military power, and much potential for the future. We were literal-
yet suddenly here were these supposedly in- ly living in Technicolor and it was cut down in
ferior people surprising the best navy in the Dallas by a bullet from a sniper – this 24-year-
surrounding the Knights Templar, which world at Pearl Harbor. How could that have old sociopathic loser, Lee Harvey Oswald. It
range from them hiding the Holy Grail happened? Well, it was a conspiracy – that’s doesn’t balance out. You want to instinctively
to discovering America. how. The only explanation that made sense for put something heavier on the Oswald side.
“Templar conspiracies are fun and people what happened was some sort of plot.” Kennedy was killed because the CIA had to
love prurient stories,” he says. “The Templars stop him from disbanding the agency, or the
and their conspiracy theories were the tabloid Climate of suspicion military had to stop him so he didn’t pull out
material of the Middle Ages and they gained Of course, as events such as Watergate show, of Vietnam, or the Cubans because he was go-
a life of their own. More recently we had the conspiracies can happen, and the misbehav- ing to kill Fidel Castro.
growth of the internet and also low budget TV iour of governments and other organisations “It doesn’t make you feel better that he’s
documentaries and podcasts so there’s a lot has undoubtedly added to the climate of dead but it gives some meaning to his death.
more scope to build up content about them. suspicion in which conspiracy theories People want to believe that there has to be a
But this is not just a 21st-century phenome- flourish. As Twomey says, scepticism is not a more elaborate, complex and hidden truth
non. Pretty much the same thing happened bad thing in itself, “it’s just unhealthy when it behind the simpler explanation.”
in the early 19th century with the invention goes to an unreasonable level”.
of the cheap novel. Walter Scott has a lot to This idea of explaining the unexplainable
answer for because of the way he positioned was also cited by Gerald Posner in the story Rob Attar is editor of BBC History Magazine
the Templars as larger than life pantomime of the JFK conspiracy theories. At the end of
villains in his book [1819’s Ivanhoe].” our interview, he highlighted a point made by You can listen to the BBC World Service
BRIDGEMAN

While some conspiracy theories have the historian William Manchester in his book Witness History episode
entertained the masses, others have helped Death of a President, that helped him to un- on the Roswell incident at:
people to make sense of seemingly derstand the mindset of a Kennedy conspiracy bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p056y93v

51
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 INTERVIEW / KAVITA PURI

Calcuttans queue for food

at the height of the Bengal
famine, October 1943. At
least 3 million people are
now believed to have died
as a result of the crisis

People began
collapsing in the
streets and dying on
the pavements
ALAMY

Accompanies the series Three Million on BBC Radio 4

•
53
 Interview / Kavita Puri
Living through Partition
Kavita Puri charted India’s postwar upheavals on our podcast:
historyextra.com/membership/living-through-partition

Matt Elton Your new radio series In the early years of the war, what were Some of the stories in the series about
explores the 1943 Bengal famine, which the consequences of India being pulled the impact this had are incredibly moving.
is a subject that’s both unfamiliar to a lot KPVQVJGEQPʚKEV! Are there any that shed particularly vivid
of people and the source of ongoing After the attack on Pearl Harbor in December light on the wider issues?
controversy. Can you give us a sense of 1941, Japanese forces rapidly moved through I found first-hand stories of people in the
VJGHCOKPGoUUEQRGCPFUKIPKECPEG! south-east Asia. In February 1942, Singapore countryside who were forced to make
Kavita Puri The numbers are just huge. – a major British military stronghold – fell, incredibly difficult decisions. Some women
In 1943, as the Second World War was and Rangoon fell the following month. resorted to desperate measures such as
raging, a famine occurred in Bengal [a region Japanese troops were perilously close to the turning to prostitution or selling their
now split between Bangladesh and the Indi- border of British India. Hundreds of thou- children for rice. One man was, at the time
an state of West Bengal]. Low estimates are sands of Allied soldiers descended on Calcutta of the famine, living in Midnapore, a district
about 1.5 million deaths, with that figure go- (now Kolkata) to fight on the Asian front. in Bengal that had been affected by the denial
ing as high as 6 or 7 million. Although there’s Labourers also arrived in large numbers to policy. The area was then hit by a devastating
long been debate about its full extent, there is work in wartime industries, putting pressure cyclone in October 1942, which destroyed
a consensus among academics that the death on food resources. The colonial government rice crops, flattened homes, and killed many
toll was at least 3 million. To put that in con- was also printing money to pay for these extra people. Prices spiralled in its wake, and he
text, it’s one of the largest losses of civilian resources, and inflation was very high. could no longer afford to buy rice in the
life suffered on the Allied side – and yet this Rice was the staple food in Bengal, but market. Once his family’s reserves ran out,
is a subject that’s largely unknown in Britain. for millions already struggling to survive, he became one of the many thousands to
Even in India and Bangladesh, remembrance the increase in its price had a devastating travel to the major cities hoping for aid.
is complicated. impact. Rice imports from Burma halted But there are also the stories of observers
There is a lot of academic literature on the after the Japanese occupation, putting more – the people who saw all of this happening as
causes, and the most important contributors pressure on the rice supply. Fearing a the situation got increasingly worse during
to the famine are widely debated, as well as Japanese invasion, colonial authorities 1943. I spoke to eyewitnesses who were very
questions of culpability. My purpose was very then carried out what became known as moved by the scenes that were unfolding
different. I wanted to understand why this the ‘denial policy’. Having seen the way around them. One woman talked of being
subject has become largely overlooked, and Japanese troops were aided by taking local unable to sleep because of the sight of all the
its memory fraught, and to try to shift the food and boats in their advance across dead in Calcutta, and the vultures picking at
lens to look at the humanitarian catastrophe south-east Asia, authorities decided to their bodies. She is 97 now, but that memory
in a different way by focusing on individuals confiscate those surplus resources from is still so vivid to her.
who survived and lived through the famine. villages around the Bengal Delta. This And every single Bengali person I spoke to
More than 80 years on, that generation – like affected the already fragile local economy, remembered one specific phrase: phan dao.
the war generation – will soon no longer be making it harder to transport rice around the This was the plea uttered by starving people
with us. This is really the last chance to region. The price of rice rose further, and it asking not for rice, but for the starch water
capture their voices. So I set out to do that, was often hoarded for profit. around it. They didn’t even think it was worth
and to explore archives around the world for asking for the rice itself. That’s a collective
first-hand testimonies. memory that has been passed down
through the generations.
What do we need to under-
stand about Britain and India I’ve listened to your new radio
CPFVJGKTTGNCVKQPUJKRVQOCMG series, and another line stood out
sense of what happened? HQTOGp2GQRNGYJQʚQEMGFVQ
The British had been in India Calcutta died strangers in the city
for hundreds of years by the time they thought would help them...
of the Second World War, and but yet publicly, nobody was
had direct control over it from calling this a famine.” Was it this
1858 onwards. But, by the out- OKITCVKQPKPVQVJGEKVKGUVJCVPCNN[
break of the conflict in 1939, forced people to recognise what
a strong Indian nationalist move- was happening?
ment had emerged – and many The impact of the famine was felt most
of its leaders were unhappy when in the countryside, where it was
Britain declared war on Germany, sufficiently out of sight that it was
and did so on behalf of India. possible for people to not know the full
Calls for independence grew extent of what was going on. It wasn’t
louder and louder, and so the really until the mass exodus of people
BRIDGMAN

relationship between Indian ,CRCPGUGRTQRCICPFKUVUCKTFTQRRGFNGCʚGVUKPVQ from the countryside started in earnest

nationalists and Britain had become India contrasting images of famine with an idyllic from May 1943 onward – and people began
increasingly fractious. HWVWTGQWVUKFGVJG$TKVKUJGORKTG arriving in the cities, collapsing on the streets

54
 The human cost
A family of famine victims
in Calcutta, November
1943. Vast numbers of
people travelled to the
city from rural areas in
desperate search of food

and dying on the pavements – that its effects what was happening in Calcutta, where he
became visible for all to see. Yet even that
2GQRNGCUMGFPQV lived, he decided to do something. While he
didn’t mean that this story could be reported, for rice, but for the could not mention the word ‘famine’ in his
because the word ‘famine’ was censored paper, there was nothing in the rules about
by the emergency rules put in place by starch water around the use of images. So, on 22 August 1943,
the colonial government during the war. Stephens published shocking photographs
The British didn’t want the Japanese to use KV6JG[FKFPoVVJKPMKV of some of the people who were desperately
the existence of famine as propaganda, or suffering on Calcutta’s streets. The result was
as a way of recruiting Indian troops.
YCUYQTVJCUMKPIHQT what we’d call ‘going viral’: the images were
the rice itself seen by people first in Calcutta, then in Delhi,
9JQYGTGVJGMG[IWTGUKPDTKPIKPIVJG and then around the world. The famine’s
horrors of the famine to a wider audience? existence was becoming harder to deny.
Indian writers, artists and photographers
were trying to document what was happen- Can you give us a sense of how strong
ing. The well-known artist and author the level of censorship was and the impact
Chittaprosad Bhattacharya, for instance, of these reports?
drew ink sketches of some of the victims, The colonial press adviser was keeping a close
to which he added their names (if he knew watch on what was being reported. But as the
them) and brief biographies. The results are images in The Statesman were picked up by
shattering, but give us a real sense of who newspapers elsewhere in the world, including
the people were and where they were from. in Britain and the US, it became harder and
Chittaprosad’s Hungry Bengal, a collection harder to suppress what was going on. And
of these sketches, came out in November Stephens grew bolder over the next two
1943. There were 5,000 copies, and nearly months, and began writing editorials that
GETTY IMAGES/SHUTTERSTOCK

all were confiscated by the British. were actively critical of the governments in
Another key figure was Ian Stephens, Calcutta and Delhi. By September, he’d gone
editor of the widely read, and well regarded, as far as to call it a man-made famine.
British-owned Indian newspaper The States-
man. He had been toeing the line and not You also uncovered a set of microcas-
reporting what was going on, but wrestling A man and his granddaughter look across settes featuring some extraordinary
with his conscience as a result. By the sum- CTKEGGNFKP9GUV$GPICN6JGETQRoU recordings. Can you tell us about those?
mer of 1943, as reports started to flood in CXCKNCDKNKV[YCUCʘGEVGFD[CEQODKPCVKQP I was doing some research at the University
from the countryside and it became clear of natural and man-made factors of Cambridge, and the head archivist – who

•
55
 Interview / Kavita Puri

New supplies
Children gather to collect rice from trains
in Calcutta, 1943. Towards the end of that
I’ve worked with in the past – said, well, you year, food started to be brought into the
might want to take a look at these. And there city from outside Bengal, rather than from
on the desk were about a dozen tiny tapes of the surrounding countryside
the kind I haven’t seen for a couple of decades.
They turned out to feature recordings of inter-
views, carried out in the 1980s, with Indian
civil servants who had been working in
districts across Bengal at the time of the
famine. These civil servants were travelling
around the province carrying out the ‘famine
code’: a set of indicators drawn up in the late
19th century that were supposed to determine
whether or not a situation could be deemed
a famine. The tapes paint a fascinating picture
of the colonial chain of command, and
historians who I spoke to about the cache and
its contents were very excited.

What was the response in London when

VJGUGTGRQTVUUVCTVGFNVGTKPIQWV! once they knew of its severity? Could more
Viceroy Linlithgow, the most important shipping have been released to allow for more
colonial figure in India, contacted London in food aid in the middle of the war, when they
December 1942 to express his concerns about were fighting on many fronts? The language
the food crisis. He was talking at that point Churchill used about Indians – documented,
about India as a whole, rather than Bengal for instance, in the diaries of Leo Amery,
specifically, and some food was sent to the secretary of state for India – is uncomfortable,
north-west of the country – but, in return, and some have raised the question of whether
Bengal was asked to export more rice for the his views affected his response. Debate over
wider war effort. all of this, however, has obscured other
By the time that the crisis had reached discussions, and has perhaps led to the human
its height, around August 1943, Linlithgow stories I wanted to focus on being overlooked.
warned of famine conditions in Bengal and Viceroy Linlithgow pictured at his desk.
asked for significant food imports. At that Do we need to consider any other factors His requests relating to food shortages
point, Britain was part of the Allied invasion that shaped the famine response? in India led to more supplies being sent
of Sicily, and there were plans for a campaign Lord Wavell’s arrival as viceroy in October to the north-west of the country – but
in Italy. The war cabinet said it could only 1943 did significantly accelerate relief efforts. Bengal was also asked to export more rice
promise a fraction of what Linlithgow had Immediately after visiting Calcutta and
asked for. But once the new viceroy, Lord surrounding districts, including Midnapore,
Wavell, was appointed by Winston Churchill he ensured that Calcutta would be fed from
in 1943, he visited the famine-stricken supplies taken from outside of the province
province – unlike his predecessor. Wavell rather than from the surrounding country-
began asking the war cabinet for around side in Bengal. He set up relief hospitals
a million tonnes of food imports to urgently and gruel kitchens, and military units were
alleviate the humanitarian situation and, redirected from going to the front to help
by the end of 1944, his request was fulfilled. with relief efforts. He also argued strongly
with London that it should send large
At the start of the series, you note that amounts of food aid in order to stave off
this is a scary subject to be wading into. another famine in Bengal.
Why do you think the famine, and particu-
larly the response of Churchill’s govern- It’s interesting that you argue that some
There isn’t a
ment, have become such fraught topics? narratives and experiences have been plaque, a memorial
I think it’s partly because we in Britain have QXGTNQQMGF9JCVGʘQTVUCTGDGKPIOCFG
a view of our war story, and the famine does to redress the balance? or a museum
not fit neatly into that narrative. Churchill Not many, sadly. I’ve worked previously
anywhere in the
SHUTTERSTOCK

is a national hero who fought courageously on the subject of the 1947 Partition of India
against fascism, but there are difficult [in which British India was divided into world to people who
questions to be asked: did he and his war the two independent dominions of India
cabinet do enough to alleviate the famine and Pakistan] for instance, and that’s now died in the famine

56
 4GNKGHGʘQTV
Lord Wavell (standing,
in dark-coloured hat) at
a famine relief kitchen.
His appointment as viceroy
of India saw a drastic
KORTQXGOGPVKPCKFGʘQTVU

a very different story. There are citizen I think, in some ways, we are already too How would you like your series to change
archives in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh late: just as there are very few people left the way people look at the famine?
in which testimonies are being preserved, with a good enough memory of the Second There is a lot of academic work on the subject,
and that’s happening in a smaller way in World War, there are very few people left from a range of different disciplines – this is,
the diaspora too. alive who are healthy enough to recount this after all, a hugely complex subject. Historians
That just isn’t the case for the Bengal history. I feel really sad that it’s now almost and other researchers are making extraordi-
famine. One of my interviewees said, strik- too late to collect these testimonies in a nary discoveries all the time. Unfortunately,
ingly, that they thought the collective memory significant way. I didn’t have enough room in my series to
of the famine isn’t really held by the people include all of the new work that is being done.
who lived through it, but instead by those You also mention that, for a subject so My hope is that these stories – not just of those
who observed it. That really changes how this freighted in controversy, it’s strangely who made the decisions, but of the lived
story has been told. also one about which very little is known experiences in all of their complexity – are
I did track down one man who is travel- – particularly in Britain. Why do you think brought to the foreground over the next
ling around the Bengal countryside with pen that’s the case? decade. And the work I’ve done for the series
and paper, trying to record the testimony It’s not surprising that’s the case in Britain is just a start: I found so much testimony
of the last remaining survivors. And I wanted because, as we’ve discussed, this is a difficult I couldn’t use.
to interview survivors myself, too, but episode in colonial history and affects the I hope that, by shifting the perspective
couldn’t get a journalist visa to go to India. way in which we tell our war story. But I find slightly, I can show that discussion of the
I hope that changes, because it’s so important it really interesting that the stories of those famine doesn’t have to be fractious. Surely,
for the historical archive that these stories who died are also not well-remembered in 80 years on, we should be able to have healthy,
are preserved alongside the official archive. India and Bangladesh. There isn’t a plaque civil discussions about these kinds
I mentioned at the start that at least 3 million or a museum to them anywhere in the of episodes from our past.
people are believed to have died. Behind that world. The famine is remembered through
statistic are 3 million stories – and that photographs and sketches and films, but Kavita Puri is a journalist and broadcaster for
doesn’t even include the experiences of so there’s no dedicated archive or memorial. BBC Radio 4. She also writes the monthly Hidden
many more people who survived and had One of the reasons for this, I think, is Histories column in BBC History Magazine
to live with the famine’s consequences. that the 1940s was such a tumultuous time
GETTY IMAGES

When I was doing my research into in India (and later East Pakistan) more Three Million is available on BBC Sounds
partition, 70 years had passed since that generally, that somehow the memory of the from Friday 23 February, BBC Radio 4 on
event, and as I mentioned earlier we are victims of this extraordinary, horrific event 25 February and BBC World
now more than 80 years on from the famine. has been eclipsed. Service English on 2 March

57
 Urban planner Alexander the
Great is shown founding Alexandria in an
18th-century painting. Within a matter
of decades, the city had become the
global capital of trade and knowledge

GETTY IMAGES

58
 THE
ANCIENT WORLD’S
GREATEST CITY
When Alexander the Great founded a settlement at the
junction of three continents in 331 BC, he created a
metropolitan powerhouse that would shape global history.
Islam Issa hails the genius of ancient Alexandria

•
59
 The genius of Alexandria

hen the Macedoni- ancient Egyptians had constructed

an king Alexander a canal network.
the Great arrived at In his unceasing quest for world domina-
the barren island of tion, this was just the location for which
Pharos in 331 BC, Alexander had long searched – at the inter-
he was still in his section of Africa, Europe and Asia. And
mid-twenties when he arrived at this strategic hotspot, he
and barely five years into his reign. The dropped to his knees in a state of ecstasy and
ambitious young warrior had been drawn began scattering barley across the sandy
to this spot on Egypt’s Mediterranean shore ground, roughly designing the layout of what
after reading about it in the epic poetry of would soon become the world’s first modern
Homer, most revered of the ancient Greek city – a magnificent capital that would change
writers. A lover of literature, Alexander had the course of history. Named in honour of
even styled his hair in long locks to emulate its founder, Alexandria was established that
Homer’s hero, Achilles. very same year, with a causeway measuring
What he found was a tiny, lifeless island seven stadia (around 1.2km) built to connect High light The jewel in Alexandria’s
facing a series of small fishing villages Pharos to the coast. crown, the Pharos Lighthouse, shown in
scattered across a windswept coast. A few Alexander himself was soon on his way a 16th-century engraving. When it was
miles to the south on the mainland spread a eastward in search of his next adventure; he completed in the third century BC, the
vast freshwater lake, around which the didn’t even wait to watch his new city being lighthouse was one of the tallest
man-made buildings in the world

GETTY IMAGES

60
 Grand design
An 18th-century depiction of Ptolemy I
planning the construction of the Great
built. But its fate was now set, associated with Library, which helped make Alexandria
a founding myth and a living hero, and with the global capital of knowledge
both Alexander’s city plan and a trusted
architect to enact it.
The design Alexander had drawn on the
sand included harbours, palaces, temples,
markets – and a library dedicated to the
muses. Within decades, this once-desolate
place had undergone an incredible transfor-
mation into a city that transported its visitors
into the future. When the Greek geographer
Strabo visited Alexandria three centuries
later, he gasped at its grandeur, comprising
“building upon building”. The promenade,
designed by the renowned Greek architect
Dinocrates, was angled to encourage a
welcome breeze from the ocean that infused
the streets with the scents of cinnamon and
honeysuckle; even five centuries after Alex-
ander’s fateful visit, Roman civil servant
Herodian described “billows of perfume” and When he arrived at endeavour, intended from the very start to
“sweet aromas throughout the city”. be a global capital. Though conceived by its
Horses and chariots traversed eight-lane- the strategic hotspot founder, it was implemented by his childhood
wide roads, while marbled colonnades
provided shade for pedestrians. Grand courts
on which the city was friend and general, Ptolemy I, and his
successors. Alexandria’s founders had a
and statues – including many depicting the built, Alexander unique and innovative vision of what makes
city’s founder – dotted the paths. Around a a city successful – and it was nothing short
main square, locals drove mules and donkeys dropped to his knees of radical. They imagined and enacted two
to bustling markets where stalls were stacked in a state of ecstasy outrageous theories. First, that bringing
high with fruits, vegetables, loaves of bread together diverse people from far and wide in
and barrels of cloudy beer. Artisans showed a strategically located spot would produce
off colourful, decorative mosaics of glass, stone economic prosperity and make the city a
and clay. There were bathhouses, tree-stud- world trade capital. Second, that gathering
ded gardens and a gleaming temple dedicated and generating knowledge – via the Library
to Alexandria’s very own god, Serapis, and Museum – would consolidate the city as
looming over the city at the top of the hill. a global powerhouse. Within a single century,
these two premises had combined to make
Shrines to learning Alexandria the global capital of both trade
In the complex called the Museum (the and knowledge.
‘shrine of muses’), scholars gathered to
think and to debate, to read and to write. Built from scratch
At its heart stood the Biblion (the ‘shrine Alexander knew that taking control of such a
of books’) housing ceiling-high book- prime location could play a part in expanding
shelves brimming with scrolls stacked and strengthening his realm, bolstering his
on top of one another like wooden logs. grand plan to build a unified empire that
But the real focus of energy was the stretched as far east as Persia and India.
dock, at the exact spot where Alexander To do so, he envisioned roads and ports
had arrived on Pharos. The previously connecting Europe with Asia. However,
lifeless island now boasted one of the unlike most cities, Alexandria was born not
tallest man-made structures in the world: from war or geographical division but was
the three-tiered Pharos Lighthouse. This created from scratch. Rather than develop-
extraordinary building was well over 100 me- ing organically, Alexandria was purposely
tres high, made of reflective white limestone visualised, conceived, shaped and expanded.
– a lofty beacon of light that symbolised the People from across the region were
power and grandeur of the city. It also served invited to populate the new city. With trade a
a practical purpose, guiding ships into the key aspect of its identity, welcoming rather
two busy harbours on either side – “beauti- than othering citizens was part of the
fully enclosed both by the embankment and economic plan. This was to be a polis (city
by nature”, as Strabo put it. In the light- state) founded on the notion that it is possible
GETTY IMAGES

house’s top storey, mirrors reflected the sun’s to harmonise different cultures and tradi-
bright rays during the day and, by night, fire A marble head of Alexander the Great. His tions in order to achieve a greater goal.
from its furnace created a magnificent glow. design for Alexandria included harbours, At a time when the Hellenistic world
The city of Alexandria was an idealistic palaces, temples and a library regarded non-Greeks as barbarians, and •
61
 The genius of Alexandria

SEVEN WONDERS OF ALEXANDRIA

The landmarks that helped make the city a masterpiece of the ancient world

1 Knowledge bank #VJEGPVWT[FGRKEVKQPQHVJG

“The place of the cure of the soul.” So, )TGCV.KDTCT[YJKEJJQWUGFVJG
according to ancient sources, read the OQUVGZVGPUKXGEQNNGEVKQP
inscription above the shelves of Alexandria’s QHYTKVKPIKPVJGYQTNF
vast book collection: the Great Library.
The Library was probably architecturally
very grand, with several halls and ceiling-high
YQQFGPECDKPGVUNNGFYKVJUETQNNU
This impressive building was sited inside
Alexandria’s extensive Museum complex.
The Museum’s entrance had a grand porch
reminiscent of Greek temples, while expan-
sive gardens and colonnaded walkways led
to private study rooms, lecture halls and a
banquet room. There was an outdoor seating
space with a semi-circular arrangement of
stone benches, as well as small theatres.

2 Leisure gardens
From its initial design in the fourth century
BC, Alexandria featured vast gardens. The
most famous of these was the Park of
Pan, a pleasure garden that included such
amenities as a marble-seated amphithea-
tre and a public bath. That century also
saw the construction of the Eleusis
(Advent) Park. Now in the centre of the
modern city, it is the oldest surviving
garden in the world.

3 The glowing god

p6JGOQUVOCIPKEGPVDWKNFKPIKPVJGYJQNG
world.” That’s how the Roman historian
Ammianus Marcellinus described Alexan-
dria’s Serapeum. This suitably splendid
temple was constructed on the city’s highest
hill for Alexandria’s divine protector, Serapis,

ALAMY/GETTY IMAGES
in the third century BC.
A staircase in the temple complex led
down to a nilometer, a device to measure
the level of the Nile’s waters; placing it here
enabled Serapis to protect the river from
FT[KPIWRQTQXGTʚQYKPI/QTGVJCP
marble steps led up to the Serapeum. In the
centre stood a vast statue of Serapis, covered
with ivory and gold. Windows were posi-
tioned so the sun’s rays made the god glow.
The Serapeum was used to store thou-
UCPFUQHDQQMUVJCVEQWNFPoVVKPVQVJG
library. It was damaged during a second-cen-
tury AD Jewish revolt before Christians
destroyed it in the late fourth century.

The ruins of the Serapeum, the

OCIPKEGPVVGORNGFGFKECVGFVQ
#NGZCPFTKCoUFKXKPGRTQVGEVQT

62
 4 Sky and thunder
$[VJGGCTN[VJKTFEGPVWT[$%CHVGT[GCTU
of construction, Alexandria’s harbour was
guarded by the Pharos Lighthouse, when Egyptians were highly protective of
UQCTKPIQXGTOGVTGUJKIJ1PGQHVJG their own traditions, this was a brave new
seven ancient Wonders of the World, it was ideology. Drawn by the Alexandrian dream,
DWKNVHTQOYJKVGNKOGUVQPGVJCVTGʚGEVGFVJG thousands of people flocked to the new city
sunlight, and comprised three tiers resting from every direction. Egyptians travelled
QPCOGVTGYKFGE[NKPFTKECNDCUG#VVJG north through the desert, Europeans sailed
top stood a sculpture of Zeus, the god of sky across the Mediterranean, and Jews made
and thunder, holding a thunderbolt. their way west from the Holy Land, to be
6JGVJEGPVWT[GZRNQTGT+DP,WDC[T joined by many more groups including
from Al-Andalus (the Islamic state then Ethiopians, Levantines, Romans and Indians.
ruling the Iberian peninsula) wrote that The first-century Jewish historian Jose-
“description falls short of it and the eyes fail phus, who married a woman from Alexan-
to comprehend it; relating it [in words] is dria, wrote that Jews moved to the new city
inadequate, and the spectacle is vast”. #NGZCPFTKCoUNKIJVJQWUGUQCTGFOQTGVJCP “invited by the goodness of the soil, and by
OGVTGUKPVQVJGUM[ the liberality” of its early leaders. Indeed, it’s
said that, in his very first design, Alexander
allocated a district for Jews in his new city. In
an attempt to grow the populace, Jews were
&GURKVGKVUPCOG2QORG[oU
5 Lost in translation exempted from tax and promised freedom of
2KNNCTYCUQPEGVQRRGFD[C When Roman emperor Diocletian visited worship, with grand synagogues and special
UVCVWGQH'ORGTQT&KQENGVKCP Alexandria at the turn of the fourth century theatres built here. And during the reign of
AD, he created a triumphal monument to Ptolemy II, the Hebrew Bible was translated
himself: an armour-clad statue atop one of into Alexandria’s very own dialect of Koine
the largest monolithic columns in history. Greek. Thanks to Serapis, the newly amalga-
Pompey’s PillarYCUCOGVTGJKIJ mated Greco-Egyptian god championed by
column of rose granite, with a grey granite the Ptolemies, the Greeks and Egyptians were
capital and a sparkling porphyry statue. also able to find common ground.
The sculpture no longer stands atop the Migration and multiculturalism were
RKNNCTDWVKPVJGVJEGPVWT[CHTCIOGPVQH effective ways of increasing the city’s popula-
Diocletian’s thigh was discovered, suggest- tion and, in turn, its military, commercial
KPICUVCVWGOGVTGUJKIJ and economic power. Before long, Alexandria
But it had nothing to do with Pompey became a significant regional trading centre
the Great. When the crusaders arrived in and transport hub that welcomed merchants
Alexandria, they misread the pedestal’s and travellers from east and west. It imported
inscription of Egypt’s governor Publius as goods from as far as Persia and India, and
n2QORG[osCPFVJGPCOGUVWEM exported a range of items to Europe – even
the British Isles – that included art, oils,
spices, wine and grain, becoming Rome’s
key breadbasket.
6 A heavenly poet 7 %NGQRCVTCoUNQXGCʘCKT Alexander’s successors also put his second
The role of Greek writer Homer (below) +PVJG TUVEGPVWT[$%#NGZCPFTKCoUOQUV priority – gathering and generating knowl-
was pivotal in the city’s founding: lines famous queen, Cleopatra VII, began edge – into action. A second-century BC
about this location in his poetry had come constructing a temple in honour of her letter, the earliest reference to the Library of
to Alexander the Great in a dream, driving lover, Julius Caesar. The Caesareum of Alexandria, tells us that the Ptolemies gave
the king to make the journey here to found #NGZCPFTKCYCUEQORNGVGFD[1EVCXKCPs the first chief librarian, Demetrius of
GETTY IMAGES

his city. In the third century BC, Ptolemy IV NCVGTVJGGORGTQT#WIWUVWUsYJQFGHGCVGF Phalerum, an unprecedented budget “in
Philopator built a shrine in Alexandria Cleopatra. The contemporary philosopher order to collect… all the books in the world”
FGFKECVGFVQ*QOGTsVJGHomereion, Philo of Alexandria described the harbour-
TGRTGUGPVKPIVJG TUVFGKV[NKMGXGPGTCVKQP side temple as “huge and conspicuous…
of a western poet. embellished with porticoes, libraries,
Writing sometime around chambers, groves, gateways and wide
the turn of the third century open courts” and decorated with “pictures
AD, Roman author Aelian and statues in silver and gold”.
FGUETKDGFCOCIPK EGPV 1EVCXKCPCNUQVTCPUHGTTGFVYQGPQT- Alexandria imported
statue of Homer seated OQWUVJEGPVWT[$%QDGNKUMUHTQOVJG
in a semi-circular arc in VGORNGQHVJGUWPIQF4GOKNGUCYC[
goods from as far as
the shrine, with an to be re-erected in front of the Caesareum. Persia and India and
KPUETKRVKQPEQP TOKPI +PVJGVJEGPVWT[VJG(TGPEJECNNGFVJGUG
Alexandria as the univer- obelisks Cleopatra’s Needles; today, one exported them to
salising home of the
greatest writer.
stands on London’s Victoria Embankment,
the other in New York City’s Central Park.
destinations as remote
as the British Isles •
63
 The genius of Alexandria 9CU#NGZCPFTKCVJGTUVOQFGTPEKV[!
Islam Issa discussed Alexander the Great’s metropolis
on our podcast. Listen here: historyextra.com/alexandria-pod

5GCRQYGTThe 15th-century Citadel of

Qaitbay, which is on the site of Pharos island,
where Alexander the Great arrived in 331 BC.
The city that he founded here has been a
powerhouse for more than two millennia

– a seemingly impossible task. The Library Coupled with the city’s economic success, the brought with them a wide range of traditions,
nonetheless came to house hundreds of Great Library brought Alexander’s burgeon- values and faiths, and developed the philoso-
thousands of works – by far the biggest ing capital incredible influence. phies of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
collection of writing ever gathered up to that Alexandria’s architects successfully When 15th-century explorer Vasco da
point in history. executed its founder’s radical vision of how Gama arrived at Asia by sailing all the way
The Museum, too, became the world’s to create a city – and, more, how to make it a around Africa, Alexandria’s unique claim to
leading research centre, with scholars coming global power. By utilising a strategic location linking the east and west began to diminish.
from across the region to work here, given to build a metropolis from scratch, by Nonetheless, the city continued to attract
stipends, food and accommodation by the gathering diverse people to live and prosper different groups and by the 19th and 20th
state. They created novel philosophies and together in harmony, and by collating and centuries, Armenians, Greeks, Italians and
pioneered original inventions in a range of generating knowledge, Alexandria redefined Turks called it home. With the rise of Arab
fields, from astronomy to geography and what it means to successfully construct and nationalism in the mid-20th century, many of
from mathematics to poetry. Alexandria’s maintain a city and society. these departed.
medical school made huge advances and, As the centuries went on, Alexandria’s Today, Alexandria is a bustling metropolis
unlike its Greek counterpart, welcomed fame and status made it a key target for the with a population exceeding 6 million and
women through its doors. most powerful empires, from the Romans responsible for 40 per cent of Egypt’s indus-
and Ottomans, to the French and British, trial capacity. Its founder died at 32, eight
Knowledge capital attracting the likes of Julius Caesar, Saladin, years after he first set foot on Pharos. He
To Alexandria’s leaders, knowledge equalled Napoleon and Admiral Nelson. As migration never returned to see Alexandria in all its
power. They put into place various policies to to its shores continued, its various residents glory. More than two millennia later, the city
ensure that this authority was maintained, that Alexander the Great envisaged during a
and that the city’s library would outshine all brief visit to a barren island off the windswept
others. Books were not allowed to leave the coast of north Africa still stands proud.
city and ships docking at the harbour were
searched for written materials, which would
be confiscated immediately. The export of
papyrus was even banned to stop rival cities Alexandria’s Islam Issa is professor of literature and history
and libraries from increasing their stocks.
By gathering hundreds of thousands of
architects executed at Birmingham City University. His latest book,
Alexandria: The City that Changed the World,
books from around the world (there were half its founder’s radical was published by Sceptre in November 2023
a million scrolls, according to the second
vision of how to create
GETTY IMAGES

librarian, Callimachus), and by researching Islam Issa was among the contributors to an
and disseminating new philosophies, theo-
ries and inventions, Alexandria’s rulers
a city – and make it episode of Radio 3’s Free Thinking looking at
the evolution of libraries. Listen here:
became the global custodians of knowledge. a global power bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001sm3p

64
 H E T IGE R TA M ER
T
W H O W E N T TO S E A
A MAJOR NEW HISTORYEXTRA PODCAST SERIES

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showman, clown and lion-tamer, global seafarer and
long-distance wheelbarrow pedestrian. Discover his
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BBC History Magazine subscribers can listen
to the whole series ad-free from 22 February at
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 HISTORICAL FICTION

“She had to be nothing

less than extraordinary
to make a mark in the
science of geology”
Joanne Burn reveals how fossil
JWPVGT/CT[#PPKPIKPǎWGPEGFJGT
latest novel • page 73

20TH CENTURY

Many Germans
are proud of their
country’s desire
to do the right
thing, as well as
its confrontation
of the past
Katja Hoyer on a book that looks at how
Germany has attempted to grapple with
the crimes of the Second World War • page 74
ALAMY/GETTY IMAGES/CLIVE BARDA

RELIGION 20TH CENTURY

INTERVIEW
“It makes a significant “He paints a vivid picture Judith Flanders
contribution to Christian of a tempestuous age: an discusses her new
thought – and, one hopes, emerging modern Britain book on death and
mourning rituals in
to the author’s own soul” battling for stability” Victorian Britain
Sarah Foot praises a work on the John Jacob Woolf enjoys a new • page 68
evolution of English Christianity • page 72 study of the Edwardian era • page 76 •
67
 INTERVIEW / JUDITH FLANDERS

“There was a general perception

BOOKS INTERVIEW

that Queen Victoria’s mourning was

neither normal nor acceptable”
JUDITH FLANDERS talks to Rebecca Franks about her new book, which delves
into the customs surrounding dying, death and mourning in Victorian Britain

Rebecca Franks:*QYFKʘGTGPVYCUVJG8KEVQTKCPXKGYQH weak that she couldn’t make it down the stairs or even sit up in bed.
death to our modern conception of it? Unlike today, when we often think of death in three stages that pass
Judith Flanders: The main difference was that death was part of relatively quickly – you’re well, you’re ill, you’re dead – dying could be
daily life. It wasn’t neatly tucked away in hospitals where you could this long, tragic process.
go in and visit someone for an hour but didn’t see anyone die. Today,
many people now go happily through their whole lives without ever You describe the 19th century as a century of epidemics, with
seeing a dead person, which was simply not possible in the 19th deadly diseases such as cholera sweeping through the general
century. Hospitals were very limited in the kinds of diseases and population. How did these threats shape people’s attitudes
illnesses they cared for, and they were a place of last resort for people towards their lives?
who were too poor or desperate to be cared for at home. Infant death Cholera was the first big epidemic of the 19th century. It arose in
was vastly more common than it is today, though that was also simply south-east Asia and gradually came to Europe via Russia, finally
due to the vagaries of population. There were more young people than arriving in Britain in 1831 and gathering force the following year.
there were old people, and infant death therefore accounted for a Terrifyingly, most people died of dehydration less than 24 hours after
much larger percentage of death than death in old age. experiencing the first symptoms.
One of the most fascinating things about the first cholera epidemic,
How did the level of infant mortality impact society? however, was that some people denied it was happening. They said it
For many years there was a theory among historians that because wasn’t that bad, and that others were overreacting. Intelligent people
children died so frequently and so young, their parents didn’t care said this, too: the philosopher Thomas Carlyle wrote endless letters
about them – it wasn’t worth investing emotion into small lives that saying that cholera didn’t exist, before, in the next paragraph, men-
might soon be lost. However, if you read the scraps of evidence we tioning that he was going to an awful lot of funerals.
have regarding the working classes and their responses to children’s
deaths, this simply isn’t true. For instance, we see parents naming What was the social role of the funeral in the Victorian period?
their newborns after older siblings who had died. This was previously It doesn’t break down very easily into one thing. Around the start of
interpreted as proof of not caring, but it seems to me so obvious that the period the funeral was an orgy of display, reaching a climax in the
for the most impoverished in society – particularly in the early part of middle of the 19th century. This was typified by the funeral of the
the 19th century, when permanent gravestones were not common Duke of Wellington in 1852, which was, without argument, the height
– this was the only way that they could of extraordinary over-elaboration. There were more than 10,000
memorialise their lost children. Because people in the procession, and the funeral car was so large and heavy
people do love their babies. We don’t have that an entire regiment of soldiers was required to march behind it,
to be terribly smart to know that. with ropes tied around their waists; whenever the car travelled
downhill, they effectively served as its brakes. It was totally crazy, and
Your book takes readers through the it revolted a lot of people. From that 1852 moment there was a diminu-
rites and rituals connected to funerals and endo into what was called burial reform, or funeral reform, and things
mourning, but the story begins with the became much less elaborate.
sickbed. What would it have been like to
be sick in Victorian Britain? Was there a moral aspect to these changes?
One of the things we’ve forgotten due to the Both types of funerals had a moral dimension; in fact, elaborate
huge medical advances of the 20th century is displays were initially considered a sign of respect for the person who
Rites of Passage: that people could be in the process of dying had died. But very originally, in the extravagant heraldic funerals of
Death & Mourning for a very long time – for years, potentially. the aristocracy, the primary function was to commemorate not the
in Victorian Britain For example, I read the diary of a teenager character of the deceased, but their position within society. This was
by Judith Flanders who died at around the age of 19, having emphasised by the fact that the person’s heir – not their wife or
(Picador, 352 pages, £25) spent the previous three years suffering from daughter – often served as the chief mourner, demonstrating that the
tuberculosis. Initially, she found that she status quo was being preserved. It wasn’t until the 19th century that
couldn’t go out for walks, before getting so funerals gradually started to become more about the person
68
 PROFILE

Judith Flanders is a historian,

author and journalist who
specialises in writing about
the Victorian period. Her
previous books include The
Victorian City: Everyday Life
in Dickens’ London (Atlantic
ARENAPAL-CLIVE BARDA

Books, 2012) and A Place for

Everything: The Curious
History of Alphabetical Order
(Picador, 2020)

PHOTOGRAPH BY
CLIVE BARDA

69
 themselves. Fascinatingly, Charles Dickens once chose not to go to the 0QVQPN[YGTGVJG[WPCDNGVQCʘQTF
funeral of a close relative because he did not know them well. He said RNWOGUCPFCJQTUGDWVVJG[YGTGPoV
BOOKS INTERVIEW

that he would only pay his respects to somebody he knew and loved.
GXGPCDNGVQCʘQTFCJCPFECTVKPYJKEJ
Were there any elements of the Victorian funeral that
became conventions and consistent over time?
VQRNCEGVJGEQʛP
There were a number of characters – people provided by the under-
taker – who were, in effect, performers. An example were the funeral
mutes, who silently stood at the door of the house from which the
coffin was leaving to go to the funeral. They were swathed in black
crape – a dull, matte fabric, used only for mourning or funeral wear –
and would stand outside, holding crape-covered sticks known as Were there many rules and customs about etiquette
wands. There would also be a person called the featherman, who and how one should mourn?
would carry a tray of black ostrich plumes: a symbol of grief. The hors- Oh goodness, yes. There were long lists of mourning clothes, with
es pulling the hearse would be decorated with black plumes, too. details of what one should wear following the death of a parent,
The more prosperous people within society had a particularly odd brother-in-law, niece or nephew, for example. But if your husband
custom: while the family members and mourners would follow the died, the guidelines were particularly strict: you were supposed to
hearse, the many acquaintances not going to the funeral would send wear full black mourning wear for a year, after which you could adopt
their carriages instead. You would therefore end up with a line of what was known as ‘half mourning’, which included colours like grey
empty carriages following the procession, with the total number and lavender. After that, you could gradually move into brighter
indicating the social status of the deceased. colours if you so chose.
Those were the ideals people were aiming for, but there are many Widows were also supposed to remain at home for 12 months,
other heartbreaking descriptions from the period. The author of one except to attend church. We know this was not possible for the bulk of
source describes seeing a couple and their small child walking down the population: people had to work and leave the house for all sorts of
the street, with the man carrying another child’s coffin on his shoul- reasons. So did it really happen? No. Like most things in life, there’s
der. So not only were they unable to afford plumes and a horse, but what you’re supposed to do and then there’s what we know everybody
they weren’t even able to afford a hand cart in which to place the really does.
coffin. In a prosperous funeral, the coffin would typically be covered
with a black and white velvet cloth, but in this instance, the coffin was 5QJQYFKʘGTGPVYCUVJGKFGCNHTQOVJGTGCNKV[QXGTCNN!
wrapped in the woman’s shawl. This was a token of belonging to a I was very interested in reading letters and diaries about mourning
community where niceties were observed. They did what they could. clothes, as these were the most obvious expression of loss – particular-
ly for women. Men, on the whole, got away with a lot more. They wore
a black armband for a few weeks and that was it, whereas widows were
in black crape for a year.
When you read the letters, however, you discover that many
people didn’t get new clothes each time they suffered a bereavement,
but instead had their old ones dyed because that was all they could
afford. Even people of high social status would refrain from getting
a new cloak if it proved too expensive. Instead, they would say things
like, “I’ll put some black braid on this one, it’ll be fine”, or they would
wear their normal clothes at home and put on their one black dress if
they had to go out. Further down the social scale, people would make
gestures toward what they could not afford, like buying a black ribbon
for their hat. It was an indication that they understood the norms of
society and still wanted to belong.

Could you tell us about the importance of mourning jewellery

and hair jewellery? They both seem fascinating...
And more than a little creepy! Hair jewellery was a big deal: people
would cut off locks of their hair and give them to their beloved, their
siblings, or their children (this wasn’t only a death thing). However,
the trouble with hair is that, after a while, it becomes a little difficult to
identify. As a result, people would often incorporate it into pieces of
jewellery: often a locket, or the back of a bracelet or ring. There were
ABOVE: Victorian even specialist hair jewellers, who would plait, twist or tie the hair in
undertakers would pay some way, so that it made a textured display object.
ALAMY/GETTY IMAGES

silent mourners known as These were very common. So if your father died then you would
‘mutes’ to stand outside have a ring with his hair, or if your mother died you would get a locket
the home of the deceased etc. People had many of these things and a whole industry developed.
RIGHT: The hair of the Some people might also wear a mourning ring, made from black
dead was sometimes also enamel. It would have the initials of the person who died, and perhaps
added to jewellery the date of their death.
70
 The woman in black
Queen Victoria, seen here in 1875, continued to dress
in mourning wear long after her husband’s death. The
monarch exhibited numerous traits associated with
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and I think it’s beyond doubt that Victoria suffered

from what is today called disordered grief; she was
psychologically destroyed by Albert’s death. If you
go through today’s modern psychiatric manual for
the condition, she ticks every single box.
For the first couple of years, her doctors were
seriously worried about her. They didn’t quite say
they thought she was insane, but she was awfully
close to it. And because of her social position, she
was able to impose her own requirements on
everyone around her. I found an anonymously
written book by one of the ladies of her household,
published about 30 years after Albert’s death, in
which she claims that the queen did not allow the
women around her to wear lavender, because she
thought the colour was too close to pink, and pink
was too cheerful.
There’s also an interesting letter by Mrs Oliphant,
a famous novelist of the period. Her husband died
young and all her children would die over the course
of her lifetime. She says that Victoria has a happy,
loving family, and doesn’t have to work, whereas she
has to write novels in order to keep her surviving
children fed. Basically, she’s saying: “What’s Victo-
ria got to be so fussed about? She’s lucky.”
Overall, there was a general perception that
Victoria’s mourning was neither normal nor
acceptable. And certainly, there was a view within
the government and the royal household that she
used her grief as an excuse for doing what she
wanted to do. She’d never liked carrying out state
duties and so she thought, okay, I’m not going to.

And in private, her behaviour was unusual.

#PFJQYFKFITCXGUVQPGUVKPVQVJGRKEVWTG! Your book also reveals how she had everything in their home
One of the most astonishing things to me was realising that until photographed and catalogued so that it would be frozen in time.
about the 17th century, gravestones and coffins were not the norm. Victoria had this very strange fixation with ‘stuff’. Over the years,
People were often buried directly in the ground without coffins or after Albert’s death, anything that he had touched could not be
permanent memorial markers, and subsequently moved when more moved. If he had overseen the décor of a room, it was photographed
space was required in the churchyard. Gravestones were mostly in and catalogued. Everything had to be kept exactly the way it was.
churches for the aristocracy, and it wasn’t until the 19th century that When curtains, carpets and upholstery faded and wore, duplicates
they were desired by the bulk of society. were made. She was the same about her own things: when she died,
Yet often, in the working classes, the family’s savings would be she still had the dishes she had eaten off as a baby.
spent during times of illness, so people did not have the money to pay
for a grave, much less a gravestone. Sometimes, people who could not Victoria died in 1901, at the age of 81. What was the public
afford their own graves were buried in a communal area, at the reaction at that point?
expense of the parish. Later, when the necessary funds had been Victoria had been on the throne as long as anyone could remember.
raised, the family would go back to the council or parish and say At the same time, however, there was a feeling that change was
something to the effect of, “We now have the money to buy a grave, needed. When Victoria died, it had been more than 62 years since her
so could we please have Cousin Genevieve back?”, and the deceased coronation, and the people involved in planning the ceremony had
would be exhumed and reburied. long since died. When it came to the coronation of Edward VII in
1902, everything had to be made up.
We can’t talk about the Victorian era without discussing its
TQ[CNIWTGJGCF3WGGP8KEVQTKC+PYJGPUJGYCUJGT
GETTY IMAGES

husband, Albert, died. How did she mourn him? Life and death in the 19th century
Ostentatiously. Many people today think that Victoria’s mourning Listen to an extended version of our interview with
was the norm and that the rest of society approved, but neither of Judith Flanders at historyextra.com/podcast
those things are true. I spoke to a specialist in grief and mourning,
71
BOOKS REVIEWS

Religious retreat The medieval mystic

Julian of Norwich, shown in an illustration from
1912. Peter Ackroyd “accepts as fact that
%JTKUVKCPKV[JCUDGGPVJGCPEJQTKPICPFFGPKPI
doctrine of England since the seventh century”

RELIGION

A window onto England’s soul

SARAH FOOT has high praise for a book that traces the evolution of English Christianity
over the course of 1400 years, through the lives of its greatest thinkers

The English Soul: into the very fabric of English society. No one thought – or rather, of Christian thinkers.
Faith of a Nation has, however, attempted the task that Peter Twenty-three chapters narrate the story of
by Peter Ackroyd Ackroyd has set himself in this beautifully the Christian faith among the English from
Reaktion Books, 388 pages, £20 written reflection on the nation’s faith. the time of the Venerable Bede to the end of
Tracing the spirit and nature of English the 20th century. Each chapter takes ‘religion’
Christianity over 1400 years, Ackroyd defines to be a different idea or concept, and most are
Historians have long the constant that underpins the national focused on named men or women, consid-
sought to connect the character as ‘the English soul’. Accepting ered either individually or in small groups.
invention of the as fact that Christianity has been the For Bede, religion is defined as history.
English as a people anchoring and defining doctrine of England ‘Religion as Revelation’ explores the thought
and nation with since the seventh century, Ackroyd acknowl- of Julian of Norwich and other late medieval
GETTY IMAGES

Christianity and with the use of the English edges the important role played by other mystics. ‘Religion as Poetry’ introduces the
language. They recognise the crucial role that religions in shaping English society and reader to the religious poet George Herbert;
the vernacular played as a means not only to refining its religious sensibilities. But this ‘Religion as Battle’ describes the creation of
preach the faith but to embed its principles is unashamedly an account of Christian the Salvation Army by Catherine and
72
 FROM FACT TO FICTION

Peter Ackroyd has served a social history of English Christianity. A lasting impression
Wherever possible, Ackroyd introduces each
up a gentle meditation on the new figure by locating them geographically, Joanne Burn discusses The Bone
describing their father’s occupation (and
continuities of thought and mother’s background), stating where they
Hunters, her tale of a female
expression of religious were educated, and consistently reflecting on ‘fossilist’ in 1820s Lyme Regis
the influence of education on the formation
ideas across time of individual minds and the expression of
Christian belief. William Tyndale – “the true Your new novel was inspired
father of English Christianity, in the sense by the real story of Mary
that he inspired those who wished to read, Anning (right). What
speak and hear the faith in their native was it about Anning
English tongue” – was born in a Gloucester- that you found
William Booth. The chapter ‘Religion as shire Cotswold village and educated at compelling?
Scripture’ is subtitled ‘the Authorised Magdalen School and Hall in Oxford. The I’m intrigued by people
Version’, but like other chapters focuses on evangelical Charles Spurgeon came from YJQFQPoVVVJGPQTO
individuals – in this case, those involved in Kelvedon in Essex; his father was a lay Mary Anning, as well as
the creation of the King James Bible of 1611. preacher and his grandfather an independent being one of the greatest
‘Religion as Sect’ considers a large group of minister. “The chapel and the pulpit were his ‘fossilists’, has been
thinkers, disparate 17th-century dissenters inheritance,” we’re told. referred to as ‘peculiar’
and non-conformists including Baptists, John Robinson’s was a “thoroughly clerical CPFnOCPPKUJo5JGYCUHTQO
Levellers and Muggletonians. ‘Religion as family”, his father a canon of Canterbury a family that knew tragedy, and she
Established’ assesses the standing and lives of Cathedral, in whose precincts Robinson was had to be nothing less than extraordinary
clergy generally in English society between born, before Marlborough College, then Jesus to make a mark in the newly emerging
the Restoration of 1660 and the end of the College, Cambridge. Often assumed to have UEKGPEGQHIGQNQI[sYJKEJUJGFKF
19th century. come upon matters of faith as a result of voca-
The pattern ‘religion as…’ varies once, to tion, Robinson was “in truth a trained, as well Were there traits of Anning’s that you
consider atheism as religion. That chapter as a highly skilled and formidable, theologian”. used to develop the lead character of
also stands out for addressing individuals An overarching argument emerges the novel, Ada Winters?
who were not contemporaries: Charles cumulatively across the volume, tracing the Ada is precocious, curious and
Bradlaugh (1833–91), Annie Besant (1847– profound influence of Christianity on the determined, shunned at times by her
1933) and Richard Dawkins (born 1941). development of English social and political local community as well as by the
culture. “A man of God was also expected to UEKGPVKEYQTNFVQYJKEJUJGNQPIU
Visions and music be a man of government,” Ackroyd reminds to belong – all traits inspired by Mary
Although the tenor of most of the book is us, referring to the 16th–17th-century bishop #PPKPI#FCoUGT[EJCTCEVGTVJQWIJ
deeply theological, only the last chapter takes and scholar Lancelot Andrewes. contributes to the kind of dramatic
the title ‘Religion as Theology’. There Ack- Common threads that weave the text events that deviate from the relatively
royd considers the importance of three together include visionary experiences of quiet life I imagine Mary Anning lived!
significant 20th-century figures: John radiant images and vivid characters, as
Robinson, John Hick and Don Cupitt. There witnessed in the writings of Julian of Nor- What research did you do into the
is no summary to the long narrative. Rather, wich, the Puritan preacher John Bunyan, or UEKGPVKEYQTNFQHVJGVJEGPVWT[!
in a brief reflection on the way in which poet and painter William Blake, whose I studied the original Transactions of the
Cupitt’s understanding of the world and the “vision has never been lost. It is integral to the Geological SocietyTGCFKPITUVJCPF
individual’s discovery of faith resembles the English soul.” And, above all, there’s music. YJCVVJGUGOGPJCFVQUC[6JGCDUGPEG
thought of the 14th-century English mystic “Song and sweetness are never far from the of contributions from any women,
Richard Rolle, Ackroyd writes: “We may note texture of Rolle’s prose, which is filled with especially the brilliant Mary Anning,
here the constancy of the English soul, as it polyphony, so that in his solitude he fashions URGCMUXQNWOGU
has been described in this book.” a language of praise and joyfulness.”
While chapter titles such as ‘Religion as The great delight of this book lies in the And how did you set about capturing
Order’ or ‘Religion as Thought’ might lead quality and texture of Ackroyd’s own prose, VJGCVOQURJGTGQHU.[OG4GIKU!
the reader to anticipate an analytical exposi- his capacity to capture the essence of individ- Well, I walked 60 miles of the Jurassic
tion of abstract ideas, each chapter is central- uals in evocative phrases. This gentle medita- EQCUV6JG.[OG4GIKU/WUGWOYCU
ly biographical in form, setting the ideas and tion on the continuities of thought and the a brilliant resource, as were copies of
writings of individuals (in these cases the expression of religious ideas across time rests n.[OG8QKEGUosCUGTKGUQHDQQMNGVU
17th-century archbishop of Canterbury on the particularities of the specific thinkers FQEWOGPVKPIVJGQTCNJKUVQT[QH.[OG
William Laud and 19th-century theologian addressed, on their individual souls. It Memoirs of a Smuggler, written in 1837
John Henry Newman) in the context of their deserves to be read slowly and contemplative- D[VJGUJGTOCPCPFUOWIINGT,QJP
own life stories. The book might thus best be ly. The whole book makes a significant 4CVVGPDWT[RTQXKFGFSWKTM[ITWDD[
characterised as a series of biographical contribution to Christian thought – and, DTKP[FGVCKNUCPFCVOQURJGTG
essays about a sequence of English Christians one hopes, to Ackroyd’s own soul.
(and a scattering of non-believers), opening a The Bone Hunters
ALAMY

window into the soul of each. Sarah Foot is regius professor of ecclesiastical by Joanne Burn
It also offers, perhaps less intentionally, history at the University of Oxford Sphere, 352 pages, £20 •
73
 20TH CENTURY

Ghosts of Germany’s past

BOOKS REVIEWS

KATJA HOYER is impressed by a study of a nation’s attempts to grapple

with the crimes it perpetrated during the Second World War

Out of the Darkness:

The Germans
1942–2022
by Frank Trentmann
Allen Lane, 880 pages, £40

“Free Palestine from

German guilt,” have
rung the chants at
many of Berlin’s
demonstrations since
the outbreak of the Israel-Gaza war. Mean-
while, chancellor Olaf Scholz insists that
“Germany’s history and the responsibility
arising from the Holocaust made it Germa-
ny’s perpetual duty to stand up for the
existence and security of Israel.” The conflict
in the Middle East has cut deep into the soul
of a country that is still trying to come to
terms with itself.
Nearly eight decades have passed since /QOGPVQHTGʚGEVKQPA woman at Berlin’s Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. “Today, many
the end of the Second World War, humanity’s Germans are proud of their country’s continued confrontation of the past,” writes Katja Hoyer
most devastating military conflict. Under
its guise, Nazi Germany murdered 6 million
Jews, 3 million Soviet prisoners of war, Germany’s moral often struggled to receive compensation.
8 million non-Jewish civilians, nearly half Elsa Hodapp, for example, was incarcerated
a million Roma and Sinti, and hundreds of recovery from war and in Ravensbrück concentration camp in 1942
thousands of others it considered undesirable.
Since then Germany’s moral comeback
genocide has neither for attempting to help a Jewish woman flee to
Switzerland. Her claim that she was a victim
has been celebrated, not least by Germans been straightforward, was rejected after the war on the grounds that
themselves. When Angela Merkel allowed she couldn’t prove that she had acted out of
more than 1 million refugees into the country nor is it complete “principled opposition to the Nazi regime”.
in 2015, the head of the Green party told the Trentmann’s engaging style provides a
German parliament: “When it comes to calm voiceover to the big and small stories
helping others, we are the world champions.” of postwar Germany’s grappling with
Today, many Germans are proud of their what’s right and what’s wrong, suggesting
country’s desire to do the right thing as well rather than drawing sharp lines between
as its continued confrontation of the past. 1986, mostly in Britain and the United States. good intentions and moral complacency.
“There is no German identity without Now professor of history at Birkbeck, He navigates complex issues like self-pity,
Auschwitz,” declared President Joachim University of London, he has observed denazification, immigration, reunification
Gauck in 2015. modern Germany’s ongoing identity crisis and military intervention with
But Germany’s moral recovery from war from within and from the outside. refreshing clarity.
and genocide has neither been straightfor- Trentmann conducted seven years of This book couldn’t be more timely. With
ward, nor is it complete. In Out of the Dark- meticulous work on this book, producing a global issues gathering urgency, Trentmann
ness: The Germans 1942–2022, historian fascinating patchwork of vignettes, statistics challenges Germany to take more responsi-
Frank Trentmann charts this “long and and analysis. Collectively, they give a deep bility. But in order to do that, it has to do
difficult” journey. Few are better placed to insight into how Germany and its people more than state what it is against. Germany
navigate the “thicket of moral challenges” grappled with questions of guilt and identity. also needs to work out what it is for.
GETTY IMAGES

that postwar Germany – a country occupied, We hear, for instance, about West Germa-
divided and reunited – has grappled with over ny’s desire to “make good” (Wiedergutma- Katja Hoyer is visiting research fellow at King’s
the past 80 years. Trentmann was born and chung) the damage done to Nazi Germany’s College London and author of Beyond the Wall:
raised in Hamburg but has lived abroad since victims, especially Jews. Yet in reality, victims East Germany, 1949–1990 (Allen Lane, 2023)

74
 SOCIAL

The ‘badass’ icon

A Dirty, Filthy Book:
Sex, Scandal, and One
Woman’s Fight in the
Victorian Trial of the
Century
by Michael Meyer
WH Allen, 400 pages, £25

$QTPTCFKECNThe “bold, courageous”

Annie Besant (top, third right) with members of
the London match girls strike committee in 1888
One of the problems with biography, if an
author is not careful, is that it can quickly
become hagiography. Although Michael directly shaped the society we have today disheartening reading for anyone who
Meyer attempts to steer clear of this, through its impact on radical politics – athe- seeks to idolise her. Women deserve,
A Dirty Filthy Book can’t help but fall under KUOUWʘTCIGVTCFGWPKQPUCPFQHEQWTUG as Meyer says, their ‘badass’ icons,
the sway of its subject, the pioneering birth sex education. but not at the expense of accurate
control activist and social reformer, Annie It is not, however, without error. One of history. Ignoring the complexity of the
Besant (1847–1933). An established icon in Meyer’s more outlandish claims is that Lord past, in the desire to proclaim someone
birth control history, Besant is long overdue Melbourne brought servant girls into Windsor as inspirational, only does us all
wider public recognition. Focusing on her trial Castle so he could indulge his passion for a disservice.
(alongside the radical politician Charles ʚCIGNNCVKQP6JCV/GNDQWTPGGPLQ[GFCIQQF 'XGPYKVJVJGUGʚCYU#PPKG$GUCPV
Bradlaugh) for the publication of Fruits of whipping is no secret, but not, I believe, inside JGTUGNHNGCRUQʘVJGRCIG5JGKUDQNFCPF
Philosophy – a sex education guide for the the hallowed home of the queen. Most EQWTCIGQWUsCNGCFKPIIWTGKPVJGIJV
masses – Meyer interweaves Besant’s disappointing, however, is the lack of any for female knowledge and sex education in
multifaceted life into an engaging prose, acknowledgement of Besant’s involvement the Victorian era.
full of intriguing details. with the paedophilic theosophist Charles
It is, in many ways, a love letter to Leadbeater. Evidence of her attempts to Fern Riddell, author of Sex: Lessons from
Bradlaugh and Besant’s relationship, which protect him sit in the British Library, deeply History (Hodder, 2022)

CULTURAL
worked as a researcher into critical eugenics and justice, and a recurring concern with
The power of the few – the discredited 19th-century theory of ‘racial rational science, which, she contends, has
improvement’ and selective ‘breeding’ of always acted in the interests of western
Uncivilised: Ten Lies RGQRNGU6JKURGTUQPCNCPFCECFGOKEDCEM- colonial power.
that Made the West ITQWPFOCMGUJGTWPKSWGN[SWCNKGFVQECNN &CUKUCVJGTDGUVYJGPYTKVKPIKP
by Subhadra Das out the ‘lies’ that underpin the west. VJGTUVRGTUQPCDQWVTCEKCNCPFIGPFGTGF
Hodder & Stoughton, 304 pages, £20 6JGDQQMoUEJCRVGTUGCEJVCMGCEGPVTCN injustice within western institutions. But
tenet of western culture and scrutinise in not everything sticks. Later chapters on art
YJQUGKPVGTGUVVJG[GCEJQRGTCVG#UDGVUC and death feel undeveloped (issues such as
EWTCVQT&CUDGIKPUCPFGPFUKPVJGOWUGWO the discovery that many of the Benin
starting in UCL with a ‘hair colour gauge’ DTQP\GUCTGVJGOUGNXGUnHCMGUoEQORNKECVGU
FGUKIPGFD[C0C\KTCEGUEKGPVKUVCPFEQP- VJGCTIWOGPVCTQWPFTGRCVTKCVKQP 5JGCNUQ
cluding in Oxford’s Pitt Rivers Museum and ignores the fact that commentators have
5WDJCFTC&CUoUTUVDQQMECVEJGUVYQ its African and Oceanic objects. been documenting the decay of ‘western
particular waves in current publishing. Firstly, In between she skewers slogans such as civilisation’ (whatever that is) for at least a
it explains a large and complex issue through ‘Art for art’s sake’ (which, she argues, disguis- century – even before the German historian
a number of objects, ideas or themes. es the rapacity of the western art market, 1UYCNF5RGPINGTRTQFWEGFJKUKPHCOQWU
5GEQPFN[KVCFFTGUUGUVJGRQNKVKECNN[EQPVGP- GZGORNKGFKPVJGVJGHVQHVJG$GPKPDTQP\GU Decline of the West (1918–23).
tious topic of decolonisation, through a D[C$TKVKUJEQNQPKCNHQTEGKP 5JGGXGP &CUKUENGCTN[CVCNGPVGFYTKVGTYKVJ
coruscating critique of western civilisation. VTCKPUJGTUKIJVUQPVJGXGT[GFKEGQHYGUVGTP much to say. But her canvas here feels too
&CUFGUETKDGUJGTUGNHCUCJKUVQTKCPYTKVGT democracy – implemented, as she sees it, large to convert those who are sceptical
broadcaster and stand-up comedian (her wit “not by the people for the people, but through about decolonising western civilisation.
UWʘWUGUVJKUDQQM #$TKVKUJEKVK\GPDQTP power exercised over the many by the few”.
KP#DW&JCDKVQ+PFKCPRCTGPVUUJGKUC 6JGTGCTGFGHVRGPRQTVTCKVUQHVJGJKUVQT[ Jerry Brotton, professor of Renaissance studies,
ALAMY

former curator of science collections at of the creation of modern clock time, colonial Queen Mary University of London and author of
7PKXGTUKV[%QNNGIG.QPFQP5JGJCUCNUQ education, the invention of psychoanalysis A History of the World in Twelve Maps (Penguin) •
75
 20TH CENTURY

Goodbye to the gilded age

BOOKS REVIEWS

JOHN JACOB WOOLF is won over by an exploration of the Edwardian era, which
looks beyond the golden-era cliché to find a nation beset by a sense of unease

Little Englanders:
Britain in the
Edwardian Era
by Alwyn Turner
2TQNG|RCIGU

The Edwardian era

conjures images of
country houses, tea
on the lawn and long
summer afternoons –
an era where refined ladies and gentlemen
indulged in garden-party gossip and a spot
of croquet. Cultural productions such as My
Fair Lady, Mary Poppins and Downton Abbey
have suggested something of a golden age:
warmth and cosiness sandwiched between
the momentous Victorian era and the great
global slaughter of the First World War.
The Edwardian era – named after the
eldest son of Queen Victoria, the corpulent
and lusty Edward VII – was a short one. In Sharp practice British archer Queenie Newall prepares to loose an arrow. Newall won gold at the 1908
Britain there was less innovation than the London Olympic Games, which features in Alwyn Turner’s kaleidoscopic review of a dramatic decade
previous century and things were arguably
more stable too: the birth rate and death rate
had fallen, so the population was older and affairs. This could take the form of the
households smaller. The era has also received Turner smashes the Chinese hand laundry – whose mothership
less historical treatment than the epochs
between which it sat; as such, Alwyn Turner’s
mythologies of the age, opened in September 1900 and came with the
promise that thousands of Chinese people
Little Englanders: Britain in the Edwardian painting a picture of an would be imported to expand the laundry
Era is a welcome contribution to an oft-over- operations – through to a malicious concern
looked period. GTCWPFGTIQKPIUKIPKECPV with immigration levels that culminated in
More than that, though, Turner smashes social change the Aliens Act of 1905. He shows us how the
the mythologies of the age, painting a picture empire divided everyone from domestic
of an era undergoing significant social politicians to music hall audiences as a
change – one with a dramatic and democratic pronounced anti-war sentiment spread
beating heart that pumped out socially through songs, literature and politics.
mobile politicians such as Herbert Asquith the singer Marie Lloyd, and lesser-known Indeed, what Turner does so well
and David Lloyd George alongside terrorist characters such as George Joseph Smith who is capture the cultural landscape, treating
suffragettes, anarchists, socialists and specialised in manipulating (and sometimes us to the leisure, the stories, the songs
revolutionaries. It was an age of profound marrying) women, before inducing them to and the movies of the era, illuminating
unease: less imperial security, crippling steal or murdering them and running off Gaelic and Russian influences through to
strikes and a tangible sense that one epoch with their money. And Turner cracks open blackface solo performances. Ultimately,
had ended and a new one was beckoning, but some of the great divides of the age, exposing Turner paints a vivid picture of a
without a clear sense of what that would be. divisions between the Liberal and Labour tempestuous age: an emerging modern
In a remarkable yet accessible read, Turner movement, tariff reform and free trade, votes Britain battling for stability and order –
takes us from music halls to the Boer War; for women and the status quo. and ultimately rushing towards the trenches
from the mutoscope (an early motion-picture Although Turner argues that where the on the western front.
GETTY IMAGES

device) to motor cars; from pageants to the Victorians were outward looking, the Ed-
popular press; from Peaky Blinders to the wardians were introspective, he nonetheless John Jacob Woolf is a historian and co-writer of
Summer Olympics. We encounter eminent shows how that inwardness accompanied an the Audible series Stephen Fry’s Edwardian Secrets
Edwardians such as Winston Churchill and interest and concern in seemingly foreign and Stephen Fry’s Victorian Secrets

76
 DIARY By Jonathan Wright, Danny Bird and Eleanor Barnett
PODCAST Aztec warfare
EXPLORE Harlech Castle, Gwynedd
TRAVEL .KUDQPKPXGRNCEGU

John Singleton Copley’s

Watson and the Shark
(1778) is among the works
on display in the Royal
Academy’s new exhibition

EXHIBITION

Portraying colonialism
© 2023 MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, BOSTON

Discussions about slavery and empire – One institution continuing to probe (above), as well as Sonia Boyce’s four-panel
and the most appropriate ways of publicly such connections is the Royal Academy of piece Lay Back, Keep Quiet and Think of What
addressing such subjects – have long been Arts, whose new exhibition, Entangled Pasts, Made Britain so Great, which features the
taking place within the British art world. 1768–Now, includes more than 100 paintings artist’s own image.
However, the Black Lives Matter protests of and sculptures created in the two and a half
2020 brought the topics into sharper focus, centuries since the Academy was founded. Entangled Pasts, 1768–Now:
and prompted a number of UK galleries to Touching on themes of race and belonging, Art, Colonialism and Change
investigate their own links to the slave trade highlights include John Singleton Copley’s Royal Academy of Arts, London / until 28 April /
and the legacy of colonialism more generally. allegorical painting Watson and the Shark royalacademy.org.uk
•
77
 Columbia leaves the launch pad
CJGCFQHKVUPCNʚKIJV6JG
Space Shuttle broke apart on
TV (GDTWCT[TGUWNVKPIKP
the deaths of its seven crew
ENCOUNTERS DIARY

Tragic flight
#NVJQWIJKVʚGYUWEEGUUHWN
missions between 1981 and 2002,
the US Space Shuttle Columbia will
forever be synonymous with the tragic
GXGPVUQH(GDTWCT[YJGPKV
disintegrated while re-entering the
Earth’s atmosphere. At a time when
Nasa is making preparations to return
to the Moon, the loss of the Space
Shuttle’s seven crew members
remains a sobering reminder of the
dangers of space travel.
/KZKPITUVJCPFVGUVKOQP[HTQO
the astronauts’ families with previous-
ly unseen archive footage, BBC Two’s
new series, Columbia: The Final Flight,
examines what happened. The
programme also considers the legacy
of the Space Shuttle era, when it
DTKGʚ[UGGOGFCUKHIQKPIKPVQQTDKV
might somehow become routine.

The Space Shuttle That Fell to Earth

BBC Two and BBC iPlayer / mid-February

6JGOKPGTUoUVTKMGQHssYJKEJ TV
TGUWNVGFKPENCUJGUNKMGVJGUQECNNGF
‘Battle of Orgreave’, seen here – is the Bitter legacy
focus of a new BBC Two documentary
One event above all has come to
be emblematic of the anger and
division that surrounded the
miners’ strike of 1984-85. On
18 June 1984, up to 8,000 miners
picketing a coking works in
Orgreave, South Yorkshire, clashed
YKVJWRVQRQNKEGQʛEGTU
The scenes of violence on TV news
bulletins shocked the nation.
What was it like to be at the
centre of this bitter dispute? Four
decades on, a new feature-length
documentary from the team
behind Our Falklands War:
A Frontline Story tells the story of
the strike from the perspectives of
15 ordinary men and women –
people who lived in some of the
EQOOWPKVKGUOQUVCʘGEVGFD[VJG
British government’s determination
to break the power of the National
Union of Mineworkers.
GETTY IMAGES

Miners’ Strike:
A Frontline Story
BBC Two / spring

78
 HISTORY ON THE AIRWAVES
“The fact we still have this lifeboat
KPUVKVWVKQPUVCPFKPID[VQJGNRQʘGTU
extraordinary continuity”
Actor and comedian GRIFF RHYS JONES (left)
tells us about his new BBC Radio 4 documentary,
which traces the 200-year history of the RNLI

This year marks the bicentenary of The world was full of maritime events,
the Royal National Lifeboat Institution but it’s now a closed environment to most
(RNLI). Why are you such a keen of us. Yet the fact we still have this lifeboat
supporter of the charity? institution standing by to help offers an
Some of my earliest memories extraordinary continuity. It takes us right
are sitting in my father’s boat back into our history.
in Bosham, West Sussex. You
become conscious, I think, Two-hundred years after it was
if you sail at all, that the sea is a capricious founded, is the RNLI in good shape?
thing. I’ve not been out in a lot of major Yes, I think it is. It’s such a cliché to say that
storms, but I’ve been out in force eight, it does a fantastic job, but it’s well run and
A bird-shaped zimingzhong from the 18th century. force nine. It is bizarre how strong and has ambition, and is always learning from
Like many other timepieces of its kind, it features powerful the effect of the sea and wind can what it’s done before. As long as it can do
components made in Europe, as well as China be for anybody, especially in a small boat. that, I assume it can go forward.

How did the RNLI get started? Archive on 4: RNLI at 200, presented by
EXHIBITION It was established before the sort of govern- Griff Rhys Jones, will be broadcast on
ment action we would expect today. It was BBC Radio 4 on Saturday 2 March
Chinese timekeeping started by people who were independently
motivated and supported by donations
In the 18th century, China’s emperors from interested maritime parties.
began importing elaborate mechanical What is fascinating about the RNLI is
timepieces from Europe. These objects, that it is still based on voluntary support.
known as zimingzhong (literally ‘bells that One example that brought this home to me
ring themselves’), were highly prized for is when a lifeboat brought a dinghy sailor,
their decorative motifs, and were even who had got into trouble, ashore and my
placed on proud display inside the imperial father, who was a doctor, helped to save
palace complex in Beijing. this guy’s life.
A new exhibition at London’s Science
Museum delves into the stories behind What can we expect from your new
these remarkable objects, with more than BBC Radio 4 programme?
20 examples from China on show in the Most of the stories we tell are of extreme
7-HQTVJGTUVVKOG(GCVWTKPIVJGYQTM heroism and the fact that people put to sea
THE PALACE MUSEUM/ALAMY

of European and Chinese craftspeople, it’s

a display that tells stories both of elite There’s also a reminder that the RNLI is
artistry and cultural exchange. in continuous action. That’s the thing you
take away: the level of service that such an
Zimingzhong: Clockwork Treasures institution is able to achieve.
From China’s Forbidden City
Science Museum, London / until 2 June / Are we still as connected to the sea
sciencemuseum.org.uk as we once were?
One of the most mysterious things to me
Weekly TV & radio about maritime history is that, if you read
Visit historyextra.com for updates on books from the early 1900s, everybody
upcoming TV and radio programmes knew about boats: authors like Joseph The crew of the Mary Scott – a lifeboat stationed
Conrad and WW Jacobs, for instance. KPVJGUGCUKFGVQYPQH5QWVJYQNF5WʘQNMsKP •
79
 HISTORY COOKBOOK
RECIPE

Eighteenth-
century
mushroom
ketchup
ELEANOR BARNETT shares
her instructions for making a
flavourful sauce with roots
in south-east Asia

he chances are that when you

T
Once the ketchup has been
think of ketchup it’s a thick tomato bottled, the left-over mushrooms
sauce – a store-cupboard staple – (below left) can be dried into
that goes particularly well with Friday CRQYFGTVQʚCXQWTQVJGTOGCNU
night’s fish and chips or slathered on an The earliest British ketchups were
American-style hamburger. typically made using anchovies, walnuts, Makes: c200ml
As you might suspect, this type of oysters or mushrooms spiced with ginger, &KʛEWNV[ 2/10
ketchup is a relatively modern invention. cloves and pepper in a salty, vinegary or 6KOGVCMGP 1 hour (plus overnight
Although tomatoes were first domesticated alcoholic brine. By the Victorian era, the preparation)
in what is now Mexico and transported to mushroom version was especially popular:
Europe following Spanish colonisation in mushrooms grew abundantly in Britain, INGREDIENTS
the 1500s, they took a few hundred years making it an easy, flavourful and long-lasting 500g common mushrooms
to be fully incorporated into local cuisines. sauce to add to meats and gravies. More salty (button or chestnut)
In fact, tomato ketchup wasn’t sold com- than sugary – and a lot thinner than the 1 tbsp sea salt
mercially until the mid-19th century, with modern-day ketchups – it was more akin to ½ tsp whole peppercorns
the famous Heinz brand only launching Worcestershire sauce. ¼ tsp each ground ginger, ground
in Pennsylvania in 1876. To create mushroom ketchup, the mush- nutmeg or mace, cloves
The original ‘ketchup’ actually hails rooms were first salted to extract some of the
from south-east Asia, where it started life moisture (and act as a preservative), before METHOD
as a salty, fermented, fish sauce. Variously being squeezed and heated to draw out the 1. Lay out the mushrooms in a wide bowl,
known as ‘catsup’, ‘catchup’ or ‘kitchup’, remaining liquor. Once that was done, the cover with the salt, mash a little, and leave
the name most likely comes from the liquid was then boiled with spices and overnight.
Chinese word kôe-chiap, which was used to strained into bottles. 2. Put the mushrooms (and any liquid they
refer to the brine of pickled fish as far back This is essentially the method in the have excreted) in a covered pan on the hob
as the sixth century AD. The first Eng- mushroom ketchup recipe I have included for 10 minutes to extract more juice.
lish-language recipes date from the 17th on the right, which is based on a recipe from 3. Let the mushrooms cool and then strain
century, when a 1747 book by the English cookery writer the mixture through a cheesecloth,
British travellers Hannah Glasse. According to Glasse, the collecting the liquid in a bowl.
and sailors encoun- sauce could “keep two years” – although, to 4. Save the mushrooms for a later meal (try
tered the sauce in be on the safe side, I wouldn’t keep it for drying them on a low heat in the oven, then
the far east and longer than a couple of months! crushing or blending them into a powder to
were inspired to Interestingly, there is a recipe for another WUGCUCʚCXQWTKPI 
create their own type of ketchup (or ‘catchup’) in the same 5. Put the liquid back on the hob and add
versions back cookbook that could supposedly be stored the spices, simmering for 10 minutes.
ELEANOR BARNETT/BRIDGEMAN

at home. for up to 20 years, as it was intended for the 6. Strain through a cheesecloth once cold
captains of ships travelling on long voyages and store in a sealed glass bottle.
overseas. Indeed, the existence of ketchup is
A c1900 advert for evidence of the globalisation and colonisation
‘Tomato Catsup’. that marked the early modern period – his- Eleanor Barnett is a food historian at Cardiff
Ketchup began life torical processes that continue to shape our University and @Historyeats on Instagram. Her
CUCUJUCWEGKP modern-day food system and societies new book, Leftovers: A History of Food Waste
south-east Asia around the world. and Preservation (Apollo), is out in March

80
 RADIO

Life on Lesbos

ENCOUNTERS DIARY
For all her reputation as one of the greatest
lyric poets ever to have lived, few biographi-
cal details of Sappho (c630–c570 BC) have
survived. Which leaves all the more space
for writer Hattie Naylor to build a new radio
drama inspired by Sappho’s verse, including
work rediscovered in the 21st century.
Starring Thalissa Teixeira in the title role,
Sappho in Fragments focuses on the poet’s
family life, and in particular the scandalous
relationship between her brother, Charaxus,
and a courtesan, Rhodopis. The involve-
ment of Durham University classics
professor Edith Hall ensures that the drama
Denmark’s Lis Lene Nielsen carries historical authenticity, but this is also
holds the Copa 71 trophy aloft a story that touches on modern themes –
FILM after her team’s victory over dealing with trolling, reputation manage-
/GZKEQKPVJGVQWTPCOGPVPCN ment and how love is endlessly surprising.
Kicking against sexism
Sappho in Fragments
#NVJQWIJVJGTUV9QOGPoU9QTNF%WRYCU Denmark, England, France, Italy and Mexico BBC Radio 4 / Wednesday 28 February
held in 1991, the competition’s roots go back sYCUCPWPQʛEKCNEQORGVKVKQP
much further. In particular, a 1971 tournament Now, more than 50 years later, new feature
held in the heat of Mexico City and Guadalaja- documentary Copa 71 tells the stories of those
TCRTQXGFHCPUYQWNFʚQEMVQUGGYQOGPRNC[ who were there, and how they look back on
Not that Fifa, Uefa and domestic football that extraordinary summer.
associations gave their approval. For although
VJGPCNOCVEJCVVTCEVGFCETQYFQH Copa 71
Copa 71 – featuring teams from Argentina, In cinemas from Friday 8 March

PODCAST

New perspectives
Not everyone is lucky enough to hail from VJCV[QWECPPFHCUEKPCVKPICPFWPHCOKNKCT
London, Manchester or Bristol – cities stories. Plymouth, for instance, throws up
generally regarded as being exciting places the tale of intersex athlete Mark Weston
to live. Instead, like Milton Keynes native (1905–78), ‘The Devonshire Wonder’. Other
Anouska Lewis, many of us hail from places episodes tell stories linked to Ormskirk,
that others regard as a bit dull. Cumbernauld, Chepstow, Slough and, of
But what happens when you look at course, Milton Keynes.
such towns and cities through the prism of
the past? One answer, to judge by the new Hometown Boring
BBC Sounds series Hometown Boring, is BBC Sounds / available from Thursday 15 February
DOGWOOF/GETTY IMAGES/TOPFOTO

A 19th-century statue of Sappho by

A street under construction in Giovanni Dupré, currently on display at
Milton Keynes, 1978. The new La Galleria Nazionale, Rome. The life and
town is one of the ‘boring’ places works of the poet serve as the inspiration
discussed in a new podcast series for a new comic drama on BBC Radio 4 •
81
 EXHIBITION

Tapestry of life
ENCOUNTERS DIARY

What is the best way for a city to

celebrate its history? One approach is
to invite members of the community
to come together and collaborate on
a piece of public art, which is precisely
what has led to the creation of a new
tapestry now on display in Dundee.
Stitched by more than 140 local
volunteers, The Dundee Tapestry tells
the story of the city’s past and the
people who have shaped its identity
sHTQOUWʘTCIGVVGUCPFHCEVQT[
workers to jumper-wearing Northern
Soul dancers. The intricate scenes
also draw attention to lesser-known
moments in the city’s past, too, such
as an 1877 visit from US president
Ulysses S Grant.
1XGTCNNKVoUCVVKPIVGUVCOGPV
to Dundee’s creative spirit, and its
WPKSWGUVCVWUCUVJG7-oUTUV CPF
only) Unesco City of Design.
The 35 panels that make
The Dundee Tapestry up The Dundee Tapestry
V&A Dundee / on display until 28 April / were created by more than
vam.ac.uk/dundee 140 local volunteers

Ben Mendelsohn stars as

Christian Dior in a series that
delves into the fashion designer’s TV
experiences in occupied Paris
Changing fashion
4GʚGEVKPIVJGYC[JKUn0GY.QQMo
EQNNGEVKQPQHTGXQNWVKQPKUGF
HCUJKQP%JTKUVKCP&KQToUPCOGJCU
DGEQOGU[PQP[OQWUYKVJQRVKOKUO
CPFCYQTNFEQOKPIDCEMVQNKHG
;GVVJKUKUCNUQCVCNGYKVJTQQVUKP
5GEQPF9QTNF9CT2CTKUYJGTGKP
VJGYCMGQHOKNKVCT[UGTXKEG&KQT
YQTMGFHQTEQWVWTKGT.WEKGP.GNQPI
#NCXKUJPGY#RRNG68 FTCOC
KVUGNHVKVNGFThe New LookHQNNQYU
VJKUHCUEKPCVKPIDCEMUVQT[%TGCVGF
D[6QFF#-GUUNGT DamageUThe
Sopranos VJGRCTVFTCOCUVCTU
$GP/GPFGNUQJPCU&KQTYKVJ/CKUKG
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IJVGTUKUVGT%CVJGTKPG/GCPYJKNG
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EQPVTQXGTU[
APPLE TV+/V&A

The New Look

Apple TV+ / streaming from Wednesday
14 February

82
 PODCASTS
Every issue we highlight a recent edition of our podcast.
;QWECPPFKVCNQPIYKVJOQTGVJCPRTGXKQWUGRKUQFGU
at our website: historyextra.com/podcast

ENCOUNTERS PODCASTS
THREE HISTORYEXTRA
PODCAST EPISODES ON
THE AMERICAS

Beyond the
DCVVNGGNF
Outside of war, what
made the Aztecs tick?
Caroline Dodds
Pennock previously
appeared on the
HistoryExtra podcast in
2020 to answer listeners’ questions and
popular internet search queries about
the Mesoamerican civilisation. In
conversation with Ellie Cawthorne,
Dodds Pennock covered topics as The Aztecs used warfare as a way of
diverse as architecture, religion and ECRVWTKPIRGQRNGVQDGUCETKEGFsGXGP
the Aztecs’ deadly contact with the in their battles against the Spanish
Spanish. historyextra.com/aztecs-
everything-pod

The end
The Aztecs at war
is nigh?
The Maya have often
RHIANNON DAVIES discovers why war was so important
been wrongly
credited with to the Mesoamerican people – and why they believed a badly
predicting the world cooked meal could prevent a soldier from shooting straight
YQWNFEQOGVQCGT[
end in 2012, sparking
disaster movies and
itnessing the Aztecs wage war Pennock revealed that the Aztecs didn’t

W
frenzied internet discourse at the turn
of the 21st century. But did they really would have been an awe-inspiring, always set out to kill people during their
claim to know the year of the apoca- if extremely terrifying, sight. clashes and, even in their battles against the
lypse? Rob Attar put this question, and Warriors would first rain a hail of projectiles Spanish, would attempt to “wound their legs
many others, to Matthew Restall in down on their enemies, before swarming so they would fall and could be dragged off
this fascinating episode dedicated to onto the battlefield wielding clubs or spears the battlefield”.
the Maya, from 2021. The wide-rang- studded with wickedly sharp obsidian blades. Warfare dominated life at home, too,
ing discussion covered everything Rhythmic drumbeats would pound through with women carrying out rituals believed to
from doom-laden calendars to diet and the air, mingling with the shrieks of the provide warriors with spiritual support on
everyday life. historyextra.com/ wounded and dying. the front lines. It was also important to make
maya-everything-pod For the Aztecs (who called themselves sure that fighters were fed correctly: “If you
the Mexica), warfare was a crucial part of let your husband eat a tamale [a traditional
Crown of everyday life – as historian Caroline Dodds dish made from maize] that had stuck to the
thorns Pennock recently explained on an episode of cooking pot, it was said his arrow wouldn’t
Fast-forwarding the HistoryExtra podcast. Heading to the find its mark when he was at war.”
through the centuries, battlefield served a wide range of purposes, Although women primarily contributed
I also want to highlight from helping the Aztecs assert themselves to the war effort away from the battlefield,
an episode that delves against neighbouring city states, to giving Dodds Pennock shared a memorable story
into the little-known fighters the chance to rise up through the from 1473, when a group of female fighters
story of Ferdinand ranks of their partially meritocratic society. went into action themselves. As well as using
Maximilian – an According to Dodds Pennock, warfare conventional weapons, the women attacked
Austrian archduke whose brief tenure also played a religious role: it was an excellent their foe “with the weapons of femininity,
as emperor of Mexico ended in way of gathering new people to be sacrificed. squirting breast milk onto their opponents,
unmitigated disaster. Speaking with “[The Aztecs] had to offer blood to the gods to showing them their buttocks and throwing
GETTY IMAGES/ALAMY

Elinor Evans, historian Edward keep the world turning,” she told presenter weaving implements at them”.
Shawcross was able to shed light on Emily Briffett. “The world would come to an
the sequence of events that led to end if they didn’t.” Listen now
/CZKOKNKCPoUGZGEWVKQPD[TKPIUSWCF This never-ending need for sacrifices You can hear this episode at
in 1867. historyextra.com/ also had a profound effect on the Aztecs’ historyextra.com/aztec-warfare-pod
ferdinand-maximilian-pod fighting style. Interestingly, Dodds
83
 EXPLORE… HARLECH CASTLE, GWYNEDD
Edward I built Harlech Castle
on a rocky crag in north-west Wales
as a symbol of English power

Towering achievement
NATHEN AMIN explores a 13th-century stronghold that was built to
subdue independent-minded Welsh people, yet has since become a symbol
of courage in the face of overwhelming odds
ENCOUNTERS EXPLORE

lanted squarely on a rocky crag in the land. For seven years, however, a small

P north-west Wales, Harlech Castle

boasts an unrivalled strategic posi-
tion. To the east rise the soaring peaks of
Welsh garrison in Harlech doggedly resisted
Yorkist overtures to surrender, becoming the
last Lancastrian holdout in England or Wales.
Eryri (Snowdonia) National Park; to the The Welsh Lancastrian leader, Jasper Tudor,
west stretches the greyish expanse of Cardi- used Harlech as a gateway to Britain, occa-
gan Bay. Many people are attracted to this sionally landing from his bases overseas to
scenic corner of Wales for the wide range of lead raids into Yorkist territory.
outdoor activities on offer in the surrounding It was only after one particularly violent
area. Once here, though, the intimidating assault in the summer of 1468 that King
presence of the hulking medieval fortress Edward IV resolved to end Harlech’s intransi-
demands discovery. gence. With nearly 10,000 Yorkist soldiers
The origins of Harlech Castle lie in the closing in, on 14 August the exhausted
tumultuous final decade of the 13th century, garrison at Harlech downed their weapons
when the independent Welsh kingdom of and raised the drawbridge. Jasper, however,
Gwynedd was overrun by the English armies had fled abroad in the disguise of a peasant.
of Edward I. This conqueror built Harlech as a He would one day return with his nephew,
formidable if sophisticated symbol of English Henry Tudor, to revive the Lancastrian cause.
royal power – a heavily defensive concentric The capitulation of Harlech marked the end
structure designed to intimidate the local of the longest-ever siege of a British fortress.
populace into submission. This episode is recalled in the famous song
One Welshman who did not cower, ‘Men of Harlech’, which remembers the
however, was Owain Glyndŵr, who captured courage of this brave band of Welsh brothers
Harlech Castle from the English in 1404. in the face of adversity.
For five years, it served as Glyndŵr’s head-
quarters while he sought to make his vision Bold garrisons
of an independent Wales a reality. Harlech Today, Harlech is a much quieter place. Scores
even hosted a Welsh parliament, attended by of visitors approach daily, crossing a recently
patriots from every corner of Wales. The installed floating footbridge to enter through
castle did not hold out indefinitely, though, the castle’s looming gatehouse. The modern
falling to Prince Henry (the future Henry V) adventurer can explore the towers that once
in 1409. Glyndŵr disappeared into the nearby housed bold garrisons, or tour the curtain
mountains, his fate the subject of folk tales. walls for commanding views of the moun-
Harlech also played a crucial role during tains behind and the dunes below.
the Wars of the Roses. Following the battle The site now features a new cafe and
of Towton in 1461, the triumphant House of exhibition, while the narrow old town of
York scattered their Lancastrian enemy across Harlech offers a quaint shopping experience
appropriate for the historic surroundings.
Nearby stands the moving ‘Two Kings’
sculpture, inspired by Welsh mythology and
symbolising the sorrowful burden of grief.
Harlech was built to intimidate; today, it
merely impresses.

One Welshman who Nathen Amin is a historian and author. His most
recent book is Henry VII and the Tudor Pretenders:
did not cower was Owain Simnel, Warbeck And Warwick (Amberley, 2021)
)N[PFTYJQVQQM*CTNGEJ For more information, head to
Standing in the shadow of Harlech’s hulking
medieval fortress, the ‘Two Kings’ sculpture
from the English in 1404 cadw.gov.wales/visit symbolises the “sorrowful burden of grief”

84
DREAMSTIME/SHUTTERSTOCK/GETTY IMAGES/CREATIVE COMMONS

The peaks of Eryri (Snowdonia) 1YCKP)N[PFTFGRKEVGFKPCUVCVWGKP

National Park form a dramatic Corwen, used Harlech as the base for
backdrop to Harlech Castle his revolt against English rule in Wales

85
 HISTORIC CITIES

Lisbon
in five places
From Roman colony to imperial epicentre,
Portugal’s capital has played many roles.
BARRY HATTON highlights five sites that
reveal the city’s past and present glories

1 Castelo de São Jorge

City through the centuries
More palimpsest than palace, the layers of history
visible in this hilltop citadel tell the capital’s tale since
its earliest days. This is where the Romans built their
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of which are found in the north-eastern corner of the
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Henriques transformed the Moorish citadel into his in historic architecture,
TQ[CNTGUKFGPEG1PEG/CPWGN+OQXGFVQCOQTG the Centro Cultural de
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VJKPIU#HVGTVJGGCTVJSWCMGVJCVFGXCUVCVGFVJG
city, its ramparts remained in ruins till they were heavily
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1
2 Centro Cultural de Belém
Artistic taste
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to explore the excellent collection of modern art in its
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There has been a settlement on the site of the Castelo de São Jorge since pre-Roman times EGPVWTKGUCIQ

86
 The ornate stonework The National Palace
of the Jerónimos of Ajuda was the 5
Monastery was created residence of King
from the 16th century Luís I and his wife,
Maria Pia, who was
behind much of the
interior design

ENCOUNTERS TRAVEL
5 Palácio Nacional da Ajuda
Royal treasure chest
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3 Mosteiro dos Jerónimos
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the supreme example of the architectural style dubbed RNWUVGZVKNGUCPFCTVGHCEVUHTQO,CRCPCPFGNUGYJGTG
/CPWGNKPGYKVJTKEJFGVCKNGFQTPCVGUVQPGECTXKPI.QQM
for the beautiful azulejos V[RKECNDNWGFGEQTCVKXGVKNGU KP Barry Hatton is an author and journalist based in Lisbon.
VJGTGHGEVQT[VJGURGEVCEWNCTTQQHXCWNVKPIKPVJGPCXG His latest book is Queen of the Sea: A History of Lisbon
CPFVJGVJEGPVWT[VQODQHGZRNQTGT8CUEQFC (C Hurst & Co, 2018). He was talking to Paul Bloomfield,
)COC;QWoNNCNUQ PFVJGGORV[VQODQH a travel writer and the host of our History’s Greatest Cities
[QWPI-KPI5GDCUVK¿QYJQUGFGCVJKP 4 podcast series
DCVVNGKPPQTVJ#HTKECKPNGFVQPGCTN[
UKZFGECFGUQH5RCPKUJTWNGKP2QTVWICN

4 Aqueduto das
Águas Livres
Water of life
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west of the city, is sober and simple in
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line monuments elsewhere. It’s plain and to ':2.14'/14'*+5614+%#.
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%+6+'510HISTORYEXTRA
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RTQLGEVQH,Q¿Q8KVU#TEQ)TCPFG )TGCV#TEJ KU is 11 miles long JQUV2CWN$NQQO GNFKULQKPGFD[JKUVQTKCPUVQ
ALAMY/DREAMSTIME

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SWCMGsDGECWUGKVUWTXKXGFVJGOCUUKXGVTGOQTQH historyextra.com/greatest-cities

87
 PRIZE CROSSWORD
Across
1 Act committed by the judges and
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28 )GQTIGAAACFOKTCNYJQUGOKFVJ 7 The $CXCTKCPVQYPYJGTGVJGO[UVGTKQWU |&TCMG|#WUVKP|$QQV*KNN|0KEJQNCU|2QWPFU|4QUGU
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29 ___ +VJEGPVWT[MKPIYJQFKFOWEJVQ TGNC[68RKEVWTGUDGVYGGP75CPF'WTQRG  |4WUUGNN|6TGCUQP|5GEGUUKQP|6JQTPJKNN|/CTEJGU
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16 A D[PCOGQH4KEJCTF+MKPIQH'PINCPF  Five winners of A Travel Guide to the Middle Ages:
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18 ,CESWGUAAA5YKUUDQTP(TGPEJdKTGEVQT
of PCPEGUKPVJGNGCFWRVQVJG(TGPEJ CROSSWORD COMPETITION TERMS & CONDITIONS
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88
 Here’s a selection of the exciting
content that’s available on our
website historyextra.com
NEXT MONTH April issue on sale 14 March 2024

War beyond the trenches

Nick Lloyd argues that the eastern front was pivotal
to the course of the First World War

Life of the Week podcast series

&KUEQXGTVJGUVQTKGUQHJKUVQT[oUOQUVKPVTKIWKPICPFUKIPKECPV
IWTGUCUJKUVQTKCPUFGNXGKPVQVJGKTDKQITCRJKGUHQTQWTPGY
RQFECUVUGTKGU)GVVJGNQYFQYPQPGXGT[QPGHTQO'I[RVKCP
RJCTCQJUCPFOGFKGXCNYCTTKQTUVQVJEGPVWT[URKGU
historyextra.com/lifeoftheweek

The real history behind

The Boys in the Boat
#PGYFTCOCHQNNQYUCITQWRQH
KORQXGTKUJGF[QWPI#OGTKECPU
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HTQOVJG)TGCV&GRTGUUKQPVQ A dangerous man
VCMGQP*KVNGToUTGIKOG(KPFQWV
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to know
TGOCTMCDNG1N[ORKEHGCV Charlotte May and Amy Wilcockson
historyextra.com/ EJCTVVJGGXGPVHWNNKHGQHVJG
boys-boat-history Georgian poet Lord Byron
Did George III support
the slave trade?
+VYCUFWTKPIVJGTGKIPQH)GQTIG+++
VJCVCDQNKVKQPKUODGECOGCOCLQT
In her own words
UQEKCNOQXGOGPVNGCFKPIVQVJG Sarah Gristwood explains how
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$WVYJCVYGTGVJGMKPIoUXKGYUQP QʘGTCFKʘGTGPVRGTURGEVKXGQP
UNCXGT[!2TQHGUUQT6TGXQT$WTPCTF past societies
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historyextra.com/
george-iii-slavery

Royal history quiz

GETTY IMAGES/ALAMY/BRIDGEMAN

*QYYGNNFQ[QWMPQY
the history of Britain’s
OQPCTEJU!6GUV[QWTMKPIU
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[QWECPPFQPVJGUKVG Nicky Nielsen tells
historyextra.com/ the dramatic story
monarchs-ordering-quiz QHVJGDCVVNGQH/GIKFFQ
89
 MY HISTORY HERO
Writer and broadcaster Natalie Haynes chooses

2JT[PG
c371–316 BC

9JGPFKF[QWTUVJGCTCDQWV Natalie Haynes is a

2JT[PG!|While I was a student at the comedian, author, broadcaster
University of Cambridge. The more and classicist. Her latest book is
I learned about her over the years, the Divine Might: Goddesses in
more fascinated I became by her story. Greek Myth (Picador, 2023)
She was the ‘It girl’ of her day, and
obviously a force of nature.

9JCVMKPFQHYQOCPYCUUJG!|It’s hard to be entirely sure,

because we have very little evidence for her life, but the polite term
for her profession is ‘courtesan’ – a woman prepared to have sex with
rich men without being married to them. Generations of subsequent
courtesans used ‘Phryne’ as a sort of stage name, in tribute to her.
But it’s important to remember that, as a woman living in a highly
patriarchal society, Phryne had few options open to her: she had to
use her beauty and wits to survive.
Besides being smart, she was an avid art enthusiast and collector.
She was more than capable of holding her own in high society, and
was the mistress of reinvention.

9JCVOCFG2JT[PGCJGTQ! She was clever, she was funny,

she was canny and she was gorgeous – and her beautiful round face
and straight nose, which are said to have served as the inspiration for
Praxiteles’ famous statue of Aphrodite [a Roman copy of the sculp-
ture is pictured left], helped define the idea of beauty for centuries to
come. Lots of witty sayings are attributed to her. For instance, upon
meeting her at a dinner party, one male guest is alleged to have
remarked: “I heard you were gorgeous!” Quick as a flash, she shot
back: “And I heard you were mean!”
Phryne also made enough money to be able to offer to rebuild
Thebes’ city walls – on the condition that the words “Restored by
IN PROFILE Phryne the courtesan” were inscribed on them. She wanted public
Phryne, born Mnesarete in the awareness of her generosity and wealth.
city of Thespiae, was an ancient
Greek courtesan famed for her 9JCVYCUJGTPGUVJQWT! Her defence of herself at her trial
beauty who became one of the for ‘impiety’ – most likely brought because she had modelled for the
wealthiest women in Greece. statue of a goddess. She hired a lawyer to defend her, but he did a
She is perhaps best known for terrible job – and she could have been put to death if she’d been
A Roman copy of Praxiteles’ QʘGTKPIVQTGDWKNF|VJGYCNNUQH found guilty. So she made a final appeal to the jury, which took great
now-lost statue of Aphrodite, Thebes after their destruction courage, and they let her off. Later male writers spiced up the tale,
which was said to have been by Alexander the Great, and for claiming that she stripped naked in the courtroom – and that it was
modelled on Phryne’s likeness DGKPIVJGTWOQWTGFKPURKTCVKQP the sight of her bare breasts that won over the jury – but the odds are
for Praxiteles’ celebrated that that never happened.
sculpture of Aphrodite
%CP[QWUGGCP[RCTCNNGNUDGVYGGP2JT[PGoUNKHGCPF
[QWTQYP! I think we would have got on well because of our
shared sense of humour. But that’s where any parallels end – I’d have
made the least effective ‘It girl’ in ancient Greece!
GETTY IMAGES/ALAMY

As a woman living in a highly

Natalie Haynes was talking to York Membery
patriarchal society, Phryne had few
options open to her: she had to use )WGUVUFKUEWUUKPURKTCVKQPCNIWTGUKPVJG$$%4CFKQ
her beauty and wits to survive series Great Lives: bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qxsb

90
Legion
life in the Roman army
1 February – 23 June
Members/under 16s free

Book
Have you got now

what it takes? Bronze cavalry helmet, England, 1st century AD.

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