Mother Theresa (not that one)

Maria Theresa, Archduchess of Austria, Holy Roman Empress and Queen of Hungary and Bohemia died today in 1780. She was, to say the least, an interesting character. She ascended the throne in 1740, aged only 23, and ruled for another 40 years - the only female Empress in 650 years of the Hapsburg Dynasty. During her time on the throne, she brought about many reforms in the countries she ruled, from the structure of the army to providing adequate working conditions for the serfs. As well as this, she gave birth to no fewer than 16 children - her fifteenth child was Marie Antoinette. Some historians call her the savior of the Hapsburg Dynasty, and one of the earliest feminists. Others are more concerned with her religious intolerance and her absolute monarchy, claiming that this almost tyrannical regime means it is impossible to accept her as a true feminist, fighting for equality for all. A somewhat controversial figure, then.

The House of Hapsburg, of which Maria Theresa was a member, is almost impossible to sum up in one sentence. Very briefly speaking, they were the rulers of Austria (and the Austrian Empire, which covered much of the lands which today surround the country) from 1278-1780. After 1780, when Maria Theresa died, the dynasty became known as the House of Hapsburg-Lorraine, which ruled the country until it's dissolution in 1918. Between 1440 and 1806, they were also the rulers of the Holy Roman Empire, and in that time, Maria Theresa was the only female Empress - and indeed, queen (who ruled in her own right) of Hungary and Bohemia.

This came about because of a rule, known in Europe as the Salic Law, which prohibited a woman from inheriting her father's lands. When it became clear that Maria's father, Charles VI was not going to produce a son, leaving Maria as his sole heir, he had to pass a hurried law known as the Pragmatic Sanction which guaranteed her the right to the throne - but at a price, for both Maria and the Austrian Empire.

For Maria, the main problem was that, though he named her as his successor, Charles assumed that Maria's husband, Frances Stephen of Lorraine, would take control and therefore didn't bother to teach his daughter how government and state affairs worked. Maria was determined that this was not to be the case, and that she would rule her country herself. However, due to various ill-conceived wars, the Austrian army was weak, and very poor. When Fredrick II of Prussia invaded in 1740, just weeks after she had assumed the throne, he was very easily able to take Silesia (what was historically Poland) for Prussia, thus starting the (rather boringly named) War of Austrian Succession, which lasted until 1748.

Things were not looking good for Maria - she could not afford to take back the land she had lost, and to make matters worse, France and Bavaria had joined in with the conflict and invaded her country from the west. Determined not to lose any more land, she initiated various army reforms, such as doubling the number of troops and creating a centralized tax office which collected money to fund the army. Though she lost Silesia, when the war ended the rest of her empire was still in tact, and the leaders of the other European countries finally recognized her as queen in her own right.

There were a few years of peace, until Maria Theresa decided in 1756 that Austria was capable of taking Silesia back, if they formed an alliance with France and Russia. Fredrick however, decided that Prussia would not stand for this, formed an alliance with Great Britain and invaded Saxony, one of Austria's allies, starting the Seven Years' War, which ended bang on time in 1763. (So maybe I skipped over the events of this war, but again, it's something that's almost impossible to sum up in a few sentences. One of the first global wars, it involved the American colonies as well as most of Europe, and resulted in over 1 million deaths). The Austrian Empire survived the war mostly unscathed as a territory (though they lost many men in the bloodshed), although when she signed the treaty that ended that war, Maria signed away the rights to the area of Silesia, which now officially belonged to the Prussians (one wonders what the Silesians thought about all of this).

Two years after this, tragedy struck when Maria's husband, Frances, died unexpectedly. Unlike most diplomatic marriages of the eighteenth century and before, Maria and Frances had actually been very deeply in love (their sixteen children - a large number even by the standards of the day - could be seen as proof of this...) and therefore, from the day of his death until she herself died, on 29 November 1780, Maria Theresa chose to dress in the clothes of mourning, as well as becoming much more withdrawn.

She changed her foreign policy, so that it was much more focused on maintaining peace in her lands, rather than trying to win back Silesia and became very concerned with serf reform, passing rules which made working conditions easier and fairer for peasants throughout her lands. She passed also brought about several religious reforms, though these were mixed in terms of their liberalism. Although she granted equal status to Greek Catholics and Jesuits - an unusual practice for most Roman Catholic rulers - she was radical in her persecution and suppression of Jews and Protestants, believing them to be enemies of the state.

As well as this, she secured the marriage of her daughter Marie Antoinette to the heir to the throne of France, as well as several less high profile diplomatic marriages for her other children. The rest of her reign passed peaceably, though she did engage in frequent arguments with her son and heir Joseph, as his plans for the empire were radically different from hers. For that reason, she decided not to abdicate, as many of the government officials thought she should, and Joseph had to wait until her death before assuming the throne. 

Though Maria Theresa was not a feminist in the true sense of the word (passing a rule which prevented courtiers from coming to watch her give birth, which they had commonly been able to do - almost like a spectator sport - was more for her own benefit to save herself embarrassment and indignity, rather than it being part of her great feminist principles), she was interested in reform for her country and actively pursued reforms for the poorest people in the empire, which was very unusual for the time. Her religious persecution, though harsh and unfair, was extremely typical of other rulers at the time, and was mostly a result of her very Catholic upbringing. Though she was not perfect, it would be fair to say that, in general, her support for the poorest in the country was radical, and her economic and military reforms helped to save the empire which, when she ascended the throne, had been on the brink of disaster. 

She also did all of this without any formal education in state affairs or how to most effectively rule an extremely large empire, which either goes to show that she was a very intelligent and shrewd woman, or that being Emperor (or Empress) was not nearly as hard as some historians would have you believe...    

Spirit of '68

On Tuesday, I am going to a protest. Not in one of the major cities of the UK - though the so-called Second City is practically on my doorstep - but in a tiny, middle class, true blue town very close to where I live. This town has it's own Hitler Conservative Youth club. The MP representing it has never, ever come from a party other than the Tory party. It contains an Independent School which is (supposedly) one of the most prestigious in the world which was founded in 1553. In short, I fear it is more rightwing than David Cameron's own constituency.

And yet. And yet. 

Despite all of this, I and (according to Facebook) 272 other students are going to take to the streets at 11am and protest against this government. This number has already gone up by two in the time it has taken me to write this, and I am sure it will go up further still by Tuesday. Oh, and this is the second protest in the high street - the first happened at the same time last Tuesday. 

My town is not unusual at all. It could be a town in Yorkshire, Worcestershire, Essex, Cornwall, Cheshire, Buckinghamshire. It's your basic Anywhere's-ville. And in all of these places, there will be students on the streets, protesting - and for a very good reason. They - I - do not want their right to education to be removed from them. Historically, education has been the biggest contributing factor to social mobility. Women and those from ethnic minorities fought, and in a very few extreme cases, died for the right to be educated. And this government, in raising the tuition fees to up to £9,000 per year, want to take this away from us. (After, of course, they went through higher education themselves for free, or, if they are young enough to have to pay fees, they did not pay nearly as dearly as we will have to, and most of them are millionaires anyway.)

I am aware that the funding for education has to come from somewhere. Tuition fees are a necessary evil. I want a job as a historian, researching and teaching in a university when I am older. The money from fees will probably pay my wages, so I would be a hypocrite if I pretended that I was completely against them. But a threefold increase in fees in a mere two years is entirely unethical. The psychological impact of a debt of £27,000 in fees alone the moment you graduate, would be, for some, too much - and understandably so. Those from the poorest backgrounds could be put off studying at university - or even Sixth Form, as the government have now decided to scrap EMA for those who need it the most - and this is fundamentally wrong.
 

The coalition claim not to have the money to fund universities, which may or may not be true, but there are other ways to pay for higher education other than increasing the fees by such an extortionate amount - taxing the banks and removing bankers' bonuses, or going after the millions of pounds of tax evasion (avoidance?) by the people and companies who fund the Conservative party, for example (Lord Ashcroft anyone?). Removing the right to education removes the chances of those from non-Upper Class backgrounds ever having any degree of power or moving up in the world - surely this can't be what the Tories want?!

I will make my placard and I will go out on Tuesday and I will protest - peacefully. I won't only be protesting against the rise in tuition fees, but also against the cuts to the welfare state - particularly those which will affect women, which are basically all of them. Did you know that, under the new Child Benefit reforms, a family with a single parent earning £44,000 or more will lose their benefit, but families with two earners each on a salary of £43,000 (giving a combined household income of £86,000) will keep the benefit? The proportion of single fathers raising children is much, much smaller than single mothers. There are a myriad of other injustices that I could list, but I fear I would literally run out of space. This is not right.

Your normal scheduled History programming will resume tomorrow (probably). But I could not let this opportunity pass - I had to write about it, as it is honestly one of the most vile things I have ever heard of. Anyone in the UK who has the opportunity to protest on Tuesday, wherever you are, should do so because we must show that we will not stand for this. Go out onto the streets and tell this weak and feeble government that you are not scared of them, and you will fight what they are trying to do because, fundamentally, it is wrong.   

Powerful Ten

It is cold today; cold enough to reconfigure the anatomy of a brass monkey, as I believe the saying goes. I love it. Winter is my favourite season (with my other favourites being Spring, Summer and Autumn...). Everything’s sparkly and snowy and sometimes festive, and there’s a plethora of knitwear about. Who doesn’t love a mitten? (Or two…as I discovered at the bus stop in town today, one glove doesn’t do much.) Winter is the best season, and the weather is brilliant.

Or sometimes, it isn’t. You know how sometimes, a load of things happen at once for no reason - a series of coincidences that surprise you? 25 November is a very coincidental day, as today in History there have been no fewer than ten natural or weather related disasters. It is not, therefore, a very cheerful day...

The events started in 1343, when an earthquake in the Tyrrhenian Sea (the bit of water off Italy’s west coast, between the country and Sardinia) caused a tsunami, which devastated the cities of Naples and Amalfi. Another earthquake, in 1667 hit Shemakha, an Azerbaijani city, killing around 80,000 people.

A few years later, in 1703, Britain was hit by what was possibly the worst weather related event in the country’s history. A massive storm struck, the peak period of which lasted until 27 November, with winds of up to 120mph almost constantly. It was very imaginatively named the Great Storm of 1703 (complete with Very Important Capitalisation) and must have been pretty horrible, really. Though the worst was over by 27 November, the winds did not fully die down until 2 December. Between 8,000 and 15,000 people are estimated to have been killed by it, including around 2,000 seamen (the worst affected areas were the South and West of the country, where most of the main navy bases were). 13 naval ships were completely destroyed and the New Forest lost 4,000 oak trees. Queen Anne herself had to shelter in a cellar to avoid the lead that was falling off the roof of Westminster Abbey. I know the British like to moan about the weather, but I think that this time we might just have been justified.

Fifty odd years later, in 1759, another earthquake rocked the Mediterranean which killed between 30,000 and 40,000 people in Beirut, and another massive earthquake struck in 1833, this under the sea near Sumatra. It is estimated to have measured between 8.7 and 9.2 on the Richter scale, and caused a huge tsunami all along the Indonesian coast.

Six years later, in 1839, around 300,000 Indians were killed when a cyclone caused a massive storm surge that destroyed 20,000 ships and the port of Coringa, which has never fully been rebuilt since the event.

Almost 100 years of ‘safe’ 25 Novembers passed, until, in 1926, there was the deadliest November tornado outbreak in American history. 51 people were killed in Arkansas alone, where an F4 tornado hit Heber Springs. Around the rest of the Midwest, another 25 people were killed and around 400 injured as a result of 27 further twisters. It was Thanksgiving Day then, too. Another Thanksgiving Day tragedy occurred in 1982 when an entire city block was destroyed by fire in Minneapolis, though fortunately this time there were no deaths. This was not the case in 1987 when a category 5 storm, Typhoon Nina, hit the Philippines, killing 1,036 people, nor in 1996 when an ice storm hit the central US and killed 26 people.

So this year, for Thanksgiving (even though I am not an American) I would like to give thanks for the fact that there have been (so far) today no horrendous events, and wish you a safe, happy and free from any giant storms 25 November.

Queen Mags

On 18 November, 1541, Margaret Tudor died. Um, possibly. Some of the sources I've read suggest she died on 18 November and some suggest 18 October, but as I'd like to write about her today and not a battle or the second congress of the Senegalese Socialist Party, we'll say that she died on 18 November. 

Maybe we can ignore the specifics and just congratulate her on living to the ripe old age of 51 which is pretty impressive in a time when the average life expectancy was only 35. (This would mean that I, at 18, would have passed the halfway mark in my life, which is a terrifying thing, as so far I have only achieved a bunch of GCSEs and the ability to do circular breathing for 10 seconds at a time. I should have children by now, if I was a sixteenth century girl. What a horrible thought.) 
 

Anyway, I don't want to end her life before I begin it, so to speak, because Margaret actually had quite an interesting one. She was born on 29 November, 1489 to Henry VII and his wife Elizabeth, their second child and first daughter, and grew up in the royal childrens' household (which also included Prince Arthur, who was supposed to take the throne until he died at the age of 18 and the future king Henry VIII) at Eltham. She and her siblings would have had their every whim catered to, though this did not prevent two of her younger siblings dying as infants, or her older brother dying of what some believe to be consumption, others diabetes. 

Despite this tragedy, Margaret's upbringing would have been mostly enjoyable. In order to make her a suitable royal consort, she was taught French, Latin, the clavichord, the lute and archery (so she could shoot prospective husbands who behaved inappropriately? I don't know...) Clearly, she was seen as a quick learner, though, as her husband had been picked out for her by the time she was six years old. She was to marry James VI of Scotland - 16 years her senior - in an attempt to end reunite the Scottish and English royal houses and end the 170 years of warfare between the two countries. In order for the two to marry however, a papal dispensation was required as Margaret and James were fourth cousins, and therefore too closely related to be marrying each other without special permission. However, after several years of negotiations, treaties and proxy weddings, the couple were married in Edinburgh on 8 August 1503, when Margaret was 13 and James 30. Though it was hardly the most romantic of matches, by all accounts the two came to, if not love each other, at least hold each other in great affection.

The first years of her marriage were not happy ones for Margaret. The year before she traveled to Scotland, both her mother and oldest brother died. Between 1506 and 1509, she fell pregnant 3 times, but all of the babies died in infancy. A letter to her father survives: 

 

The different writing at the bottom is Margaret's own - she wrote of her homesickness and unhappiness in Scotland, and her feelings can only have be exacerbated in 1509 when she learned of her father's death. A few years later, however, in 1512, things took a turn for the better when she gave birth to a healthy baby, whom she christened James, after his father. (James was the father of Mary, Queen of Scots and grandfather of another James, who became James I of England in 1603.) 

Things weren't so good for long. Tensions had been mounting between James and Henry, newly crowned King of England and they reached a peak in 1513, when the English Army marched northwards to meet the Scottish. The met at Flodden Field on 9th September and fought, with heavy losses - including Margaret's husband, leaving her pregnant and regent until their baby son was old enough to rule by himself.

This marked the start of an even more troubled period of Margaret's life. Though James IV's will stated that she may only remain regent as long as she also remained unmarried, she ignored this and remarried the powerful and fabulously named Archibald Douglass, Earl of Angus. He had many equally powerful enemies amongst the Scottish lords, however, and they decided to remove Margaret from the regency, deny her access to her children (the baby she was carrying at the time of the King's death survived, and was christened Alexander) and not pay her the income she was entitled to. 

She and her husband fled to England in September 1515, where they remained in her brother James' (yeah yeah, I know, they just weren't very imaginative back then, okay?) castle over the winter as Margaret fell very ill. Come the summer, she traveled further down south to London to see her brother Henry, the King, whilst Angus went back to Scotland.

There, he took a mistress, leaving Margaret with no money, no power, almost no contact with her son, and a terrible marriage. In March 1527, after nearly 10 years, the Pope granted her an annulment and her son James, aged 16, sent his regents away and began ruling the country in his own right. The last few years of Margaret's life were relatively peaceful and happy, though they did have their ups and downs. Despite having a fairly good relationship with her son, they disagreed on who he should marry, with James ignoring his mother's pleas for an English match, preferring to marry a French Princess, who bore him a daughter and heir, Mary, Queen of Scots. James could be forgiven, however, for taking his mother's romantic advice with a pinch of salt - she married a third time to one Henry Stewart, who took a mistress and her money, exactly like her second husband had done.

Eventually, she died (probably of a stroke) at a castle in Edinburgh, on 18 November 1541. Or maybe 18 October... But she was definitely buried in St John's Abbey in Perth, so if you're ever there and want to rant about your ex-husband, I'm sure her ghost would be very sympathetic. 

Not on your Nellie

I haven't written much on my favourite topic - the horrendousness of our terribly patriarchal society - recently, and I think it's definitely time I started being more aggressively feminist, and what better way to do so than by talking about Nellie Bly, who, on 14 November 1889, began a round the world trip which she intended to complete in 80 days (like the book goes...) but actually manage in 72. She did many other pretty amazing things, too, and is my new Person I Want To Be When I Grow Up Which Technically I Have Now Because I'm 18 But I Still Don't Feel Very Accomplished Or Adult. 

Anyway. Yes. Nellie Bly...

Nellie was born Elizabeth Jane Cochran on 5 May, 1864, to a wealthy family in Pennsylvania. Her father, an entrepreneur, died when she was six, leaving her mother with fifteen children to raise. Poor old Mary Cochran didn't have it easy - she remarried, but had to sue for divorce when Nellie was 14. She herself testified in court against her stepfather, whom she insisted was drunken and violent, which may have been the basis for her strong feminist principles. 

She wasn't an exceptional school pupil - she even dropped out of boarding school after just one term - but was hired by the Pittsburgh Dispatch when she was 21, after writing a furious letter to the editor in response to a piece about women only being good for housework and taking care of children. Changing her name to Nellie Bly, she soon took up a position at the paper, writing exposés on the appaling conditions in local factories, which employed very young children and had terrible mortality rates.

The problem with this was, most advertising space in the paper was brought by the owners of said factories, who weren't best pleased with seeing their businesses slandered (even if what Bly was writing was true). She was therefore relegated to writing about "women's events" covering such fascinating topics as housework, gardening and child rearing. Clearly dissatisfied with this turn of events, Bly moved to Mexico and became the paper's foreign correspondent.

Again, this worked well for six months until the Mexican government (at the time, a dictatorship) got wind of what she was writing about (for example, an article protesting against the imprisonment of a Mexican journalist who had been criticizing the government) and ran her out of the country, where she continued to write about them in a derogatory fashion, but this time without fear of arrest. After a while though, she was shunted to the theatre and arts section, which she found somewhat unsatisfying, so moved to New York City to see what work she could gain there.

Four months later, with not a penny to her name, she walked into the offices of Joseph Pulitzer, and talked her way into a job at the New York World. Her first assignment was to be an undercover report into the conditions of the Women's Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell's Island. There had been reports of brutality and horrendous conditions there, so Bly agreed to fake insanity and spend ten days there to see what really went on.

There were many things which could you get classed as insane in the nineteenth century (and even the first half of the twentieth century) if you were a female. Having an eating disorder, protesting as a suffragist, cheating on your husband, having a baby out of wedlock or even having showing too much interest and enjoyment in sex made you crazy, in the view of society but Nellie chose instead to spend a night practicing crazy faces in the mirror (well, who doesn't?!) and walk into a local workhouse, pretending to have amnesia. Doctors quickly declared her insane, and she was taken away to the Asylum.

The conditions she reported were atrocious. The water the patients were given to drink was dirty; the food consisted of gruel broth and spoiled beef; the women were expected to sit for many hours a day on uncomfortable wooden benches with nothing to do; the wards were unclean; 'dangerous' patients were tied together with rope; women were woken by having freezing cold water thrown over their heads and the nurses were physically abusive to their patients. 

Of course, this all proved to be very embarrassing for the Asylum when Bly was released at The World's behest - a grand jury was opened to examine the claims she put forward in her report which resulted in an annual extra $850,000 for care of the insane.

At this point, Bly had achieved nation fame and could have retired from public view, but she continued ever onwards in her quest to break boundaries for women. After spending a couple of years pioneering investigative journalism by writing about the terrible housing and labour conditions in New York (at a time when there were still very, very few female journalists, most  of whom were writing the gardening or crocheting columns), she suggested turning the fictional Around the World in 80 Days into fact, an idea that was very well received by her editor. At 9:40am on 14 November 1889, she began her journey, which The World covered and introduced a competition which called for members of the public to guess when she would arrive back in the United States (the winners were awarded an all expenses paid holiday to Europe). Bly completed her journey in a record breaking 72 days, 6 hours, 11 minutes and 14 seconds - a very respectable time in which to cover 24,899 miles without flight.

She then retired from journalism, marrying businessman Robert Seaman (40 years her senior) in 1895. When he died in 1904, she took over the running of his companies and not only patented a design for the 55 gallon oil drum (which is still in use in America today and earned her a fortune) but also introduced a series of reforms for the workers which included supplying them with essentials such as health care and luxuries such as access to gyms and libraries.

As if she hadn't already done enough with her life, Bly traveled to the Eastern Front of the First World War (she had been on holiday in Europe when the war broke out) and reported the war for the New York Evening Journal. She survived the war unscathed, but died four years after it ended, of pneumonia, aged 57. Frankly, I think it's likely that she packed more into one day than I have done in my whole life, and I'm pretty exhausted having just written all that. I also think that school History curricula should be modified to include more feminists like Nellie Bly, who made a real difference to many people's lives, rather than 'powerful' female members of the aristocracy, such as Queen Victoria or Marie Antoinette, who were little more than puppets, doing what men commanded them to, but sadly I think that's unlikely to happen...

Somewhat Unexpected

So, on 13 November 1002, Ethelred the Unready (King of England) ordered the killing of all the Danes in the land. This has become known as the St. Brice's Day Massacre, and really isn't a very cheerful thing at all, therefore makes an excellent topic for a gloomy Saturday night, no?

One of the main problems with History is that people don't really remember the good times (unless something really, really good happened). For example, the reign of Henry VII was a fairly happy and prosperous one - the nation had plenty of money, there was not a lot of disease or famine (well, no more than people at the time were used to) and he didn't partake in any major battles or wars (not including the Battle of Bosworth Field, where he stole the crown from Richard III...). Anyway, things were all really rather cheerful, if not ecstatically wonderful, until Henry VIII took the throne. 

Initially, he was well loved - he was reportedly very tall and handsome, and inherited a peaceable country in very good economic shape, so people had no cause to complain, really - and then things went downhill a bit. The Reformation caused massive disturbances throughout the land (though admittedly, not as much as they would later cause in the reigns of his three children) and throughout the Court - especially concerning his many marriages. He was not a spendthrift, like his father had been and threw money away on lavish feats, Court entertainments and castles, and the country soon became very poor - something even the sacking of the monasteries (a move which proved very unpopular in some circles) couldn't reverse. There were a few wars and rebellions, and by the time he died, in 1547, the country was in a much worse shape than when he had ascended the throne, in 1509.

And it is his reign, rather than his father's, that we remember the most about.

Now, you could argue that that is because his reign was longer (38 years, in comparison to his father's 12) so there was simply more time for more events to happen in - or that he simply did more things - marrying six times instead of once and breaking from the Roman Church, for example, and you would have a point. But ultimately, very little "of interest" happened in Henry VII's reign because it was all so...normal. There were no cataclysmic, drastic events, just boringly everyday ones - and they don't make History.

This is a very long-winded way of saying "No one would really remember Ethelred the Unready if it wasn't for the St. Brice's Day Massacre because most other events in his reign were a bit normal and boring and fairly average for the time, but then this happened and it was kind of a big deal so people like to write about it and it's become important". (Which in itself is rather long-winded...)

Anyway, Ethelred the Unready (who's name, surprisingly, is accepted by the American English spell checker I can't work out how to change to English) was born in 968 and ascended the throne at the age of 10. Clearly, because of his age, he had members of the Witan (I suppose you could call this a forerunner to Parliament, but it wasn't really - it was more a bunch of super rich nobels, all male of course, vying to see who could have the most influence over the King) to advise him...only they weren't very good at doing that. 

The Vikings (aka the Danes) had been conducting a campaign of destruction for many many years, and each King had to come up with a way of dealing with them. One of Ethelred's grandfathers, Alfred the Great (yes, the one who becomes King Arthur in the legends) managed to unite the English kingdoms and expel them by fighting with them until they surrendered, but for young Ethelred, this wasn't really an option. Instead, he was advised to pay off the Vikings.

For a few years this worked - though the taxes on his subjects were crippling, they managed to raise enough to pay the Danegeld ('Dane Gold...which was actually paid in silver)...until the Vikings demanded even greater payments, and invaded the country when they were not supplied with them. Obviously, this didn't go down to well with the English, which sent Ethelred (and his advisers) into a panic, so he did the only thing he could think of. On 13 November, 1002, he ordered the massacre of all Danes living in England.

The commands weren't exactly widely obeyed, and whilst it would have obviously been horrible for those Danes who had been living in the country for decades and become, in their minds, English to watch their family members be murdered, or be killed themselves, the event wasn't quite the massacre it is often made out to be. There are no figures available for the numbers killed, though we can see evidence of pockets of destruction still - earlier this year, in fact, the remains of between 34 and 38 men were found at St. John's College in Oxford, who are believed to have been killed in the massacre. However, the killings were mostly concentrated around the Southern parts of the country, particularly main towns Oxford and London, but fewer people were killed in the North, which is interesting because that is where most of the Vikings' attacks were centered.

Going back to my original point, this is clearly a Big Bad Event, and it is still well remembered today - in fact, it's the thing that Ethelred is most famous for. Not even his losing the crown to Swein Forkbeard (no, really...) and having to escape to France for a few years in exile come as high up on his list of 'achievements'.

And that is a shame, because Ethelred, for all his poor decisions (which may not have been his own fault - the meaning of 'unready' has changed since it was first bestowed upon him, and, back in his day, meant 'ill advised' rather than 'unprepared'. It was meant to be a pun, as Ethelred translates to 'good advise'...but I'm not sure I get Anglo-Saxon humour...) did actually do some pretty good things. Even with the large amounts of tax which were imposed on the country as a result of the Danegeld, his reign brought with it relatively good economic prosperity, and his judicial reforms, brought about by Archbishop Wulfstan, were the origin of the American grand jury, some say.

But "there was quite a bit of money floating about and we were starting to have a bit of a court system" doesn't sell books or films as well as "murder! Fighting! Great doom and gloom!" does. Which is probably why Eastenders is so popular...

Remember, Remember...

Hello. Today, I am a NERVOUS WRECK. And it is all the fault of one Guido Fawkes. I am not even kidding.

Y'see, though it embarrasses me to admit it, sudden loud noises terrify me. A firework just went off somewhere in the vicinity of my house and I inhaled so sharply MY BREATH ACTUALLY MADE A NOISE. And I can still hear my heartbeat reverberating through my body. I am a wreck. And a wuss. I have a dog who is a complete nutcase. He gets scared of being left on his own so much that he turns into a shaking slobbering mess (he's a rescue dog, which is where his issues stem from - not from me being cruel or anything...) and he whimpers and runs away from cats. And yet, even this furry ball of patheticness is blandly carrying on like THINGS AREN'T EXPLODING BASICALLY ABOVE OUR HEADS.

I do not like Bonfire Night. 

I guess it does have the advantage of being one of the most well known historical events in the country - and correctly known, too! Most people know that a band of disenfranchised Catholics planned to blow up Protestant King James I and his Parliament (and then stick his daughter, the Princess Elizabeth on the throne, on the grounds that she was very close to her mother, Queen Anne, who was a Catholic, and therefore likely to have been sympathetic to their views. Even though they'd, y'know, just killed her dad...); Guy Fawkes was not the main plotter, he was just the foot soldier (literally, from the Spanish Army) hired to do the dirty work of blowing up the Houses of Parliament but they were all eventually caught out when one of the plotters sent an anonymous note to Lord Monteagle who warned the King's security and lead to the plot being foiled. They would have been monitoring the activity of the buildings surrounding the Houses of Parliament...and there really isn't a subtle way to ship in 36 barrels of gunpowder. The plot almost definitely wouldn't have gone through, regardless of the anonymous tip-off.

Most modern Historians believe that it is highly likely that James's private secretaries knew about the plot, but didn't wish to "point the finger" too early, in case they didn't manage to catch all the plotters. In the end, they killed everyone they knew was involved, either in conflict in the standoffs which happened around the country where the plotters were hiding out, or when they were hanged, drawn and quartered for treason. Lovely.

The tradition of celebrating Bonfire Night did actually start in 1605, the year of the attempted murder, as the plot itself was foiled on the night of the 4th/5th November. The following day, there was great rejoicing in the streets of London, and bonfires were lit in celebration. Soon, this annual celebration became more violent, with people burning effigies of the Pope on the bonfire, a practise which has mostly died out, with the exception of the town of Lewes in Sussex, which burns and effigy of Guy Fawkes and the Pope every year, and celebrates the martyring of 17 local Protestants who were killed during Mary I's reign. 

But with the exception of this town, Bonfire Night is an excuse for most people these days to go out into the cold and eat toffee apples (yay!) and watch fireworks. And write their names with sparklers, which is something even I like to do.

Remember, remember the Fifth of November,
The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,
I know of no reason
Why the Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.
Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, 'twas his intent
To blow up the King and Parli'ment.
Three-score barrels of powder below
To prove old England's overthrow;
By God's providence he was catch'd
With a dark lantern and burning match.
Hulloa boys, Hulloa boys, let the bells ring.
Hulloa boys, hulloa boys, God save the King!

PS: Happy Diwali! 

Anyone for a Sandwich?

Have you ever eaten a sandwich? You probably have. I'm a fan of sandwiches myself...though I can't help wondering - who on earth was it who decided that the best thing to accompany some meat would be a slice or two of bread? I guess it works though (as do fish, cheese, salad etc) so s/he was clearly onto a winner.

The discovery of the glory of the sandwich is attributed to (it may not surprise you to learn) the Earl of Sandwich (number four), John Montagu, who was born on this day in 1718. In honour of this, Americans have named today National Sandwich Day, which I initially thought was a great idea, but then I realized that most people eat sandwiches several times a week, if not every day and it would be much more exciting to have a National Ice Cream Day because seriously, if there's ever a food you need more of in your life, it's ice cream.

But back to Mr. Sandwich. He did not, sadly, invent the sandwich, but was often ordered a slice meat enclosed by bread to be brought to him when he was working, bringing it to the attention of others, who soon began to order "the same as Sandwich!" and so a new meal was born. 

The Earl is also the same person after whom Hawaii is named (Hawaii was originally called the Sandwich Islands, when they were discovered in 1778 by Captain Cook); the South Sandwich Islands which are a British territory off the South American coast and Montagu Island in Alaska. 


Now, you would imagine that, as he has so many famous places and foodstuffs named after him, John Montagu, Fourth Earl of Sandwich was a pretty impressive guy, and indeed, here is a picture showing him being very impressive and majestic and...things:

 

Anyway, despite that impressive and majestic overcoat and waistcoat combination he has going on, Mr. Montagu doesn't appear to have been very impressive at all. Well, he might have been. But he probably wasn't. But then again, he could have been. It's another of those occasions where no one really knows what's going on, because the sources we have aren't exactly reliable and unbiased and we therefore draw horribly invalid conclusions from them.

Basically, after attending Eton then one of the Cambridge Colleges, an educational background exactly the fricking same completely different from today's leaders of our country, Montagu was invited to join the government in several fairly high up positions. He did two terms as First Lord of the Admiralty (and as this was at around the same time that Britain's navy was at it's peak, this was a pretty important position), then was Northern Secretary, then went back and did a third spell as First Lord of the Admiralty. He also did, in between this, several very brief spells as Postmaster General and Secretary of State. 

If you look at most reports of his times in these various offices, though, you'll find that most historians have come to the conclusion that he was a bit incompetent and rubbish and generally not very good at his job. For example, his third spell in the Admiralty office was during the American War of Independence, and his generally faffing and incompetence when dealing with naval matters is generally said to have contributed greatly to the British losing that war.

Except (there's always an except...), most of the evidence for his rubbishness comes from...his main political enemies at the time. Who may just have had an agenda for painting him as a fool and kicking him out of office. Maybe. That's not do say he didn't do some foolish things, but really, basing all your evidence as to his personality on what people who didn't like him had to say? Yeah, probably not going to lead you to the most balanced conclusions.

In the interests of fairness, I should probably point out that I'm slightly biased in favour of the guy, because he was so into music - he often put on performances of 'Ancient Music' (by his definition, any music that was more than two decades old) and was a massive fan of Handel. His second wife was a famous opera singer at the time, and managed to squeeze out nine of his children before being stabbed to death by a jealous suitor in the foyer of the Royal Opera House. (This seems to happen a lot in opera - Carmen anyone? Maybe people were more passionate back then... I can't really imagine stabbing someone because I loved them, it'd likely be far too messy, more than anything.)

And yet, I can't really feel too sorry for him, because no one really knows him as 'the rubbish Lord of the Admiralty' they know him as 'the guy who invented sandwiches'. Even though, technically, he was neither. History's odd, sometimes...

Roundup

So, it's November. Yay? I don't know. I guess if your birthday's in November, then this fact will make you happy, if not, then not. I'm not really a fan of November, myself. I like October - it's nice and autumnal and there are lots of crispy leafy things and pumpkins about. And everyone likes December - properly Christmassy and wintry and whatnot. November's always left me a bit cold (literally and figuratively) because it's always so dark and there are no nice fairy lights about to make things brighter and more cheerful, just fireworks, and I don't like those - even though they commemorate what has to be one of the best known historical events in Britain - because I'm scared of loud noises. I'm a bit rubbish, really.

Speaking of historical events - October was Black History Month, and you may have noticed that I didn't write anything about it. This was not a conscious decision as such - I am trying to write about famous (and not so famous) events which happened 'on this day', and it is rare for non Western events to be well known in this country, so they rarely appear on the BBC History website, which is where I get most of my information from. Also, whilst I fully support the idea of BHM, I personally am going to try to celebrate famous historical events featuring people of colour regardless of when they happen, rather than just in one specific month - though I understand why it is important to have that particular month designated as a celebratory month in order to raise awareness of the issue. And also, I am an overprivileged young white girl who knows nothing, really, and I think that, until I know a little bit more, I wouldn't feel comfortable doing certain events justice. 

I'm not going to write anything else for today, as I need to write an essay, and I don't want to write about yet another war, or a natural disaster which killed lots of people. I'll hopefully return some time tomorrow with something a bit more cheerful to get through these wintry days. Bring your soup and knitwear!