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 On this day in history Round One

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PostSubject: Re: On this day in history Round One   On this day in history Round One - Page 12 EmptyWed 03 Apr 2013, 09:25

The eastern terminus of the Pony Express was at St Joseph, Missouri. By coincidence, on April 3rd 1882, also in St Jo, the outlaw Jesse James was shot in the back and killed by Bob Ford;

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PostSubject: Re: On this day in history Round One   On this day in history Round One - Page 12 EmptyFri 05 Apr 2013, 09:21

5 April 1242, the Battle of Lake Peipus;

Soviet propaganda poster from 1942, links with events 700 years earlier;

On this day in history Round One - Page 12 Ussr0454

and from Alexander Nevsky;

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PostSubject: Re: On this day in history Round One   On this day in history Round One - Page 12 EmptyFri 05 Apr 2013, 15:04

Easter Sunday,5 April 1942, Japanese carrier planes attack the British naval base at Colombo, Ceylon. That afternoon, the cruisers Cornwall and Dorsetshire are sunk;

On this day in history Round One - Page 12 Dorsetshire%26Cornwall

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_Sunday_Raid
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PostSubject: Re: On this day in history Round One   On this day in history Round One - Page 12 EmptyTue 09 Apr 2013, 06:55

9th April 1483.

Edward IV dies. This causes an awful lot of history.
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PostSubject: Re: On this day in history Round One   On this day in history Round One - Page 12 EmptyTue 09 Apr 2013, 08:43

April 9th 1937 - the first Japanese-built aircraft to fly from Japan to Europe lands at Croydon Aerodrome near London. It's name? The somewhat prophetic "Kamikaze"!

On this day in history Round One - Page 12 Mitsub10
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PostSubject: Re: On this day in history Round One   On this day in history Round One - Page 12 EmptyTue 09 Apr 2013, 09:34

9th April 1865, Robert E Lee surrenders the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, effectively ending the American Civil War;

Union soldiers at Appomattox Court House

On this day in history Round One - Page 12 628px-Appomattox_Court_House_Union_soldiers
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PostSubject: Re: On this day in history Round One   On this day in history Round One - Page 12 EmptyTue 09 Apr 2013, 13:18

Two ship sinkings for 9th April; KMS Blucher in Oslofjord in 1940;

On this day in history Round One - Page 12 12_blucher

and in the follow up to the 1942 Easter Sunday raid on Colombo, HMS Hermes and HMAS Vampire are sunk by Japanese carrier aircraft off Trincomalee;

On this day in history Round One - Page 12 Hermes_sinking_airphoto
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PostSubject: Re: On this day in history Round One   On this day in history Round One - Page 12 EmptyTue 09 Apr 2013, 14:05

April 9th 1940 was a black day for Norway. It is said that it was only when the Norwegian gunners who torpedoed her heard the sailors on the Blücher singing the German national anthem that they realised who had attacked them, so much of a surprise had it been.

The sinking detained the rest of the invasion fleet the crucial few hours it took to evacuate the royal family - a prime German target. Oslo citizens, fearing a bombardment as Guernica had undergone at the hands of German dive bombers, fled to the surrounding countryside and thousands slept several nights outdoors in the freezing cold with their children rather than risk returning.

When Fornebau Airport fell to paratroopers, Oslo - and Norway's - fate was sealed. Five long years of effective slavery were to follow.

A bad day indeed.
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PostSubject: Re: On this day in history Round One   On this day in history Round One - Page 12 EmptyFri 12 Apr 2013, 10:20

April 12th 1992 and "Euro Disney" opens in Paris. The institution becomes a Mecca for young people seeking summer employment, as well as others from further afield where the job pickings are few - including at that time Ireland.

The Irish who arrived were snapped up by the park management (what with their reputation for friendliness etc etc). Within three months however the bulk of them had been sacked - horrified at the slave labour conditions they encountered upon arriving on their first day they had instinctively attempted to unionise, something that Mickey Mouse employers tend to frown upon apparently.

On this day in history Round One - Page 12 Eurodisney+skint
(indebted to Kath Stewart's delightfully quirky Art Blog site for the pic) - worth a visit too at Kathy's Art Blog

Legend has it that the Disney management were incensed to find out that employees a while later had taken to calling their place of work "Mouseschwitz" and sent a threatening memo to everyone to desist at once. Within hours the name had been changed - to "Duckau".
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PostSubject: Re: On this day in history Round One   On this day in history Round One - Page 12 EmptyFri 12 Apr 2013, 13:27

12th April 1861, South Carolina state forces open fire on the Federal garrison in Fort Sumter, Charleston Harbour. Although shots had been fired previously, notably at the Star of the West attempting to run the blockade of Sumter, this bombardment is generally taken to be the start of the American Civil War.

On this day in history Round One - Page 12 Sumter

And, exactly one year later, Union agents attempt to disrupt the Confederate railway system in what became known as The Great Locomotive Chase

http://www.andrewsraid.com/index2.html

this event would inspire the Buster Keaton film "The General" and a Disney film "The Great Locomotive Chase"
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PostSubject: Re: On this day in history Round One   On this day in history Round One - Page 12 EmptyFri 12 Apr 2013, 13:39

April 12th 1954.

Bill Haley and The Saddlemen had two years earlier changed their name to The Comets, and their musical style from Country and Western to what they hoped would be the more lucrative new genre (then without a name) which the increasingly affluent and influential adolescent age group were taking to in droves. They commissioned songwriters Max Freedman and Jimmy Fryers to write a song for them which would hopefully get some airplay on the growing number of white radio stations then playing the black music that the kids apparently liked. "Rock Around The Clock" proved to be a hit at concerts - and from its initial arrangement had transformed itself over the intervening two years into a high-tempo number geared to the jitterbug dance style favoured by young concert-goers. By 1954 radio stations were practically demanding output from recording studios to satisfy the huge demand for this new product and groups like Bill's - with ready made repertoires - were quick to respond. "(We're Gonna) Rock Around The Clock" was transferred to vinyl on this day that year.

It may not by any clinical assessment be classed as the first (or for that matter even a good) rock'n'roll record, but there is no doubt that it was the one which first alerted millions of white American and British teenagers to the existence of what many believed (and their parents earnestly hoped) was just another new "craze". Almost 60 years later the clock's still rocking ...

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PostSubject: Re: On this day in history Round One   On this day in history Round One - Page 12 EmptySun 14 Apr 2013, 06:13

Apparently Bill Haley was really quite conservative both generally and musically, and it is something of an oddity that he became known as the father of rock 'n' roll. It's not even as if he and the Comets had many famous sons - Rock Around the Clock seems to define them almost totally.

I read today that the Comets are still touring to capacity crowds. If they have ever made it to this part of the world, I haven't noticed. I'm not sure if a rock 'n' roll band has quite the aura it needs when its members are in their 70s. Still the Rolling Stones don't seem to suffer.
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PostSubject: Re: On this day in history Round One   On this day in history Round One - Page 12 EmptySun 14 Apr 2013, 11:38

It wouldn't be April 14th without at least one reference to this ...

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PostSubject: Re: On this day in history Round One   On this day in history Round One - Page 12 EmptySun 14 Apr 2013, 12:51

On the 14th April 1933 Mrs MacKay, a hotel owner in Drumnadrochit, and her husband were driving to Inverness when she saw 'a strange beast' in the waters of Loch Ness. Hearing her tale, the water bailiff, a part time journalist, reported it in the Inverness courier and thus an industry was born.
On this day in history Round One - Page 12 G_400xN.59502
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PostSubject: Re: On this day in history Round One   On this day in history Round One - Page 12 EmptyMon 15 Apr 2013, 10:55

April 15th 1642 - The Battle of Kilrush, fought near Athy in County Kildare, Ireland, is not one that many people now remember, even in a country where events from centuries before are often related and indeed recalled as if they happened yesterday. However it summarised in a nutshell the danger one faces when approaching Irish history with simplistic or blinkered appreciation of the facts.

Ostensibly the principal fact is clear - it was a battle fought between an English army and an Irish one, and the Irish one lost. But even this is wrong. For a start the English army was comprised completely of Irish troops, being led by an Irishman, James Butler, Duke of Ormonde. They were royalist - loyal to the English king Charles I and determined to uphold the constitutional and parliamentary status of Ireland within the monarchy. Across the battlefield from them were the combined troops of the Confederate Army, led also by an Irishman, Richard Butler, first cousin of his opponent. Under him was assembled a soldiery united only in that they wished to establish a Catholic kingdom and parliament, and for that reason held amongst them Gael, "Old English" and even many Englishmen.

In number the Confederates held a huge advantage and had used that superiority to interpose themselves between the royalists and their destination - Ormonde was attempting to reach the sanctuary of Dublin from where he hoped to bide his time awaiting reinforcements from England for whom he had petitioned the king on several occasions. Richard Butler saw his opportunity to snuff out the royalist army in one fell swoop and took the high ground around the small hamlet of Kilrush, commanding the road to the capital.

The conduct of the encounter is not well recorded except in that the Confederates failed to maximise the advantage the high ground they had secured should have afforded them. Royalist artillery appears to have been superior on the day, and a concentrated attack on the Confederate left flank followed by a determined "do-or-die" charge resulted in the larger army retreating to another nearby vantage point, now called Battlemount. Had they charged at this point it is hard to see how they could have failed to win, but for some reason they fought instead a defensive action, and the advantage of the high ground suddenly became a terrible liability. Exposed to cannon and musket fire but unwilling to retreat the battle continued as a slaughter until at last the remnants of the Confederate force broke in retreat. This allowed the superior cavalry of the royalists to prove their benefit and a rout of the retreating army ensued.

An unexpected victory for Ormonde earned him personal rewards from the crown, and had events unfolded as all involved then anticipated the battle might well have gone down in Irish history as the crucial one which ensured Ireland remain indelibly bound to its English masters.

But such is not how things have ever worked out in Irish history. Within a few short years England itself would descend into a bitter Civil War which suddenly meant that these two cousins and the thousands of men under their command found themselves united against a common foe - the Parliamentarians and their New Model Army. What would have been unthinkable in the aftermath of Kilrush became reality and the Duke of Ormonde found himself at the command of those so recently his sworn enemy. An enemy to both camps, the Ulster Scots, enlisted amongst his ranks - a fact which probably not surprisingly is not commemorated these days on the gables of the Shankill Road. For that matter, pictures of the last general to lead a truly "United Irish" army - the Duke of Ormonde - is missing from the gables in the sectarian districts of every hue.

Conventional history places the Battle of the Boyne as the crucial pivot on which Irish history was to eventually turn (itself a dubious claim since it did not actually conclude that war), and nowadays one passes through Kilrush in a car in a matter of seconds with no visible clue remaining to the fact that it once was the scene of a battle that came near to shaping a very different Irish history and was seen to have threatened the stability of the entire British Isles, even by the English king. Instead it became simply part of the opening play in the "Confederate War" which itself metamorphosised into a briefly important part of the English Civil War, so much so that it lost its original name and is now generally referred to as the "Eleven Year War" - the war in which for the first and last time ever the entire country fought as one.
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PostSubject: Re: On this day in history Round One   On this day in history Round One - Page 12 EmptyMon 15 Apr 2013, 13:14

April 15th, 1802 - William and little sister Dorothy Wordsworth, while out gallavanting in the Peak District, come across a field full of Narcissus Pseudonarcissus (ironically not Narcissus Poeticus, which is a different species entirely), prompting Bill into paroxysms of joy, the memory of which relieved many a tedious hour later in life spent lying on his couch (TV was yet to be invented).

On this day in history Round One - Page 12 12_bot10

To every schoolchild's subsequent horror for many years to come he recorded this event in his own inimitable style, thereby earning him some quite universal, if a little harsh, opprobrium from that quarter in which I, for one, was delighted to partake:

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.


For reasons none too obvious the third stanza was omitted from our third grade English text books. Perhaps the compiler's homophobia rivalled our own Wordsworthphobia (not to mention our daffodilphobia), at least by the time we had been bludgeoned into learning the whole thing off by heart.

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PostSubject: Re: On this day in history Round One   On this day in history Round One - Page 12 EmptyMon 15 Apr 2013, 13:48

Not just Bill having paroxysms, little Dotty went ever so poetical as well.

"I never saw daffodils so beautiful they grew among the mossy stones about and about them, some rested their heads upon these stones as on a pillow for weariness and the rest tossed and reeled and danced and seemed as if they verily laughed with the wind that blew upon them over the lake, they looked so gay ever glancing ever changing."
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PostSubject: Re: On this day in history Round One   On this day in history Round One - Page 12 EmptyMon 15 Apr 2013, 14:24

Thank Beelzebub we didn't have to learn that one off by heart! It doesn't even scan Smile
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PostSubject: Re: On this day in history Round One   On this day in history Round One - Page 12 EmptyMon 15 Apr 2013, 14:31

15 April 1989, 96 Liverpool football fans are killed in a crush at the Leppings Lane end at Hillsborough Stadium during the FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest;

On this day in history Round One - Page 12 _62840288_field
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PostSubject: Re: On this day in history Round One   On this day in history Round One - Page 12 EmptyTue 16 Apr 2013, 14:18

There are a number of birthdays of entertainers on the 16th April, including Charlie Chaplin, Peter Ustinov, Dusty Springfield, Ruth Madoc, Jimmy Osmond [50 today], Gerry Rafferty and;

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PostSubject: Re: On this day in history Round One   On this day in history Round One - Page 12 EmptyTue 16 Apr 2013, 22:09

Although there were lots of important European events on April 16, I am going to mention two NZ ones.

1892: the first rugby union was founded in NZ, and thus was started one of our most important organisations, at least as far as sport is concerned.

1973: Arthur Allan Thomas is convicted of double murder for a second time. This is perhaps NZ's most famous crime and whodunnit. (Helped by the knowledge that the couple's baby was fed by someone before the crime was discovered a few days later.) Thomas was later pardoned and awarded nearly $1 million for the 9 years he spent in jail.

This has become news again (it's nver long out of the news really) since the policeman heading the investigation recently died and the deputy chief of police or some such high-ranking policeman called him a policeman of the highest integrity. This despite a court of enquiry finding evidence was planted by police and the head of the investigation either knew or was party to it. Mr Thomas is offended, the police stand by their arrest and the rest of the population have no doubt he wa framed. Our innocent belief in the uprightness of the police was struck a heavy blow in the late 1960s with this case.
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PostSubject: Re: On this day in history Round One   On this day in history Round One - Page 12 EmptyWed 17 Apr 2013, 09:29

It is difficult now to convey the shared sensations of fear, suspense, relief and euphoria experienced on April 17th 1970 by a worldwide television-watching population as the tiny command capsule from the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission re-entered the earth's atmosphere and successfuly splashed down in the Pacific Ocean. Those who recall the "three minute radio silence" as the craft with its potentially damaged heat-shield entered the ionosphere and the plaintiff request repeated every few seconds from mission control to elicit a response from the crew will well understand how such a short time can feel like an eternity.

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PostSubject: Re: On this day in history Round One   On this day in history Round One - Page 12 EmptyWed 17 Apr 2013, 10:48

17 April 1960, while on a UK tour with Gene Vincent, Eddie Cochran dies as a result of injuries sustained the night before in a car accident near Chippenham.



one of the first policemen on the scene was police cadet David Harman, who claimed that he learned to play the guitar on Cochran's confiscated Gretsch.
Harman subsequently became Dave Dee of Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich.
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PostSubject: Re: On this day in history Round One   On this day in history Round One - Page 12 EmptyFri 19 Apr 2013, 08:57

19 April 1775, British troops on their way to Concord, Massachusetts to seize illegal arms, are confronted by state militiamen on Lexington Green. Somebody fires a shot which becomes known as "the shot heard round the world",; the first shot of the American Revolution.

On this day in history Round One - Page 12 Pix_44
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PostSubject: Re: On this day in history Round One   On this day in history Round One - Page 12 EmptyTue 23 Apr 2013, 09:16

23rd April 1918, the Zeebrugge Raid takes place;

On this day in history Round One - Page 12 Zeebrugge-Raid

old cruisers sunk as blockships
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PostSubject: Re: On this day in history Round One   On this day in history Round One - Page 12 EmptyFri 26 Apr 2013, 13:22

26th April 1336 - the Italian Renaissance humanist and all round good egg Petrarch (he of "know thyself" fame) decides to climb Mont Ventoux, the "Beast of Provence", believing himself the first person to do so in over 50 years (we now know that every Provencal and his dog had been up and down it even before breakfast on the day). However that's not what marked the feat out anyway.

He took with him - along with his kid brother - a copy of St Augustine's Confessions (as one would) and upon reaching the summit sat down for a breather and a bit of an old read.

On this day in history Round One - Page 12 Know-Thyself-Petrarch
Petrarch disguised as a bush for mountaineering reasons

The book however fell out of his grip and landed on the ground, the page open upon the following passage: "And men go about to wonder at the heights of the mountains, and the mighty waves of the sea, and the wide sweep of rivers, and the circuit of the ocean, and the revolution of the stars, but themselves they consider not."

Upon reading this Petrach later reflected; "I closed the book, angry with myself that I should still be admiring earthly things who might long ago have learned from even the pagan philosophers that nothing is wonderful but the soul, which, when great itself, finds nothing great outside itself. Then, in truth, I was satisfied that I had seen enough of the mountain; I turned my inward eye upon myself, and from that time not a syllable fell from my lips until we reached the bottom again. [...] [W]e look about us for what is to be found only within. [...] How many times, think you, did I turn back that day, to glance at the summit of the mountain which seemed scarcely a cubit high compared with the range of human contemplation."

It is this moment of revelation that traditionally has been labelled the "Birth of the Renaissance". And as they say in the best Confessions, it was all downhill from there ...

On this day in history Round One - Page 12 Mont_ventoux_08
The Renaissance begins here
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PostSubject: Re: On this day in history Round One   On this day in history Round One - Page 12 EmptySat 27 Apr 2013, 13:37

April 27th 1667 - a blind and bitter pariah, despised and pilloried throughout England, meets with one of his few remaining friends, the publisher Samuel Simmons, and agrees a deal which at once illustrates the shrewd and exploitative business sense of Simmons while at the same time exposing his heartlessness towards so-called allies. In the deal, Simmons pays five pounds for the copywright ownership of a literary masterpiece in ten volumes (later twelve) upon which his hapless "friend" has been working for most of his fifty-nine year long life and which now at last is ready for publication. Graciously or grudgingly, we don't know which, Simmons agrees that a further five pounds will be paid to the author if the book sells well enough for a third edition to be printed.

The glaucoma-afflicted author, once a moderately wealthy man in his own right but now reduced to abject poverty, has little choice but to agree to these terms, harsh even by the standards of the day, and leaves Simmons' premises a fiver to the good and, understandably, even more bitter towards his fellow man than when he entered. Simmons, we can imagine, watched him depart in gleeful anticipation of having secured a moderate profit for such a trifling outlay, knowing full well the commercial potential of the work he now owned. But if so, then he was signally failing to understand exactly what kind of profit and to whom this transaction would yield benefit. He had acquired a book which he knew would turn a ready penny; the realm of literature and posterity itself had acquired "Paradise Lost".

On this day in history Round One - Page 12 John-Milton-9409395-1-402

John Milton's pariah status in Restoration England was down to his unyielding conviction that absolute power residing in the person of a monarch who enjoyed it simply through an accident of noble birth was morally reprehensible and an affront to God. His beliefs, considered radical even at the height of the interregnum, were what we would now immediately recognise as republican, though in those days before such ideas would give birth to monolithic super-states like the USA or post revolutionary France, kick-starting the notion of global democratisation in doing so, they were considered subversive and perverse - and especially so in Milton's own society which was now in the throes of rediscovered monarchical devotion upon the restoration of a Stuart to the crown.

However what Simmons, and indeed the bulk of an English readership, also knew was that the author - for all his aberrant politics - was that extremely rare thing, a true genius in their midst and within their own lifetime, whose output contained not only masterful use of their language but that sublime fusion of poetry and philosophy which rendered each line a thing, quite literally, to behold and contemplate. His works were anticipated by intelligent audiences with a relish that bordered on hysteria in his day - even at one time resulting in a mob descending on the Tower of London, in which he had just been imprisoned for his beliefs by a vengeful Stuart administration, demanding not his release but his reprieve from execution so that the output could continue. They ultimately got their wish, and now in no uncertain terms they would receive a dividend from their efforts that even they could not have anticipated.

These days we have a less adulatory approach to "Paradise Lost". Its moralistically grand theme, the fall from divine grace of a species doomed to accommodate sin in all its forms, is no longer in accord with how we generally judge ourselves. Nor is its language as accessible as it once was - long gone are the days when each couplet and each stanza could elicit fervoured debate over its content and style. However we still acknowledge its place in literature and Milton's place in that exclusive pantheon of great writers. And whether we know it or not we pay tribute to the man whenever we employ any of the many neoligisms he, like Shakespeare, introduced into our language. A world without Milton would have been a world without such vital terms as "self-delusion", "criticise", "debauchery", "homogenous", "loquacious" and "pandemonium". Imagine how reduced would now be our ability to express what we think of politicians for a start! "Freak" and "moon-struck" are two more invaluable terms he bequeathed to us.

And just in case his legacy and history might lead us to believe that he was a humourless behemoth who strove only to encapsulate the grand themes of our existence in his poetry, spare a moment to contemplate this pithy observation of female sexual desire which was recently discovered during a sorting of the extensive Harding Collection of poetry and prose in Oxford University by Dr Jennifer Batt. There are some who believe that Milton's name was attributed to it by a political rival to besmirch his reputation (as if the man needed such a kick in later life when he was already as down as he was). I prefer to believe that it is the result of a man who quite literally lived for poetic expression and who therefore could not resist applying such genius as he had to all human activity, whether worthy of inclusion in one of his epics or not.

"An Extempore Upon a Faggot" by John Milton

Have you not in a Chimney seen
A Faggot which is moist and green
How coyly it receives the Heat
And at both ends do's weep and sweat?
So fares it with a tender Maid
When first upon her Back she's laid
But like dry Wood th' experienced Dame
Cracks and rejoices in the Flame


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PostSubject: Re: On this day in history Round One   On this day in history Round One - Page 12 EmptySat 27 Apr 2013, 14:40

What a nasty bit of smut. That's never our Milton - sounds more like John Wilmot to me.

Milton was always very lofty about sex - rites mysterious of connubial love and all.

Unless he was drunk when he wrote it.
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PostSubject: Re: On this day in history Round One   On this day in history Round One - Page 12 EmptySat 27 Apr 2013, 14:53

There is nothing either "nasty" or "smutty" in the poem that I can see. I think it's in fact rather sweet, and I would imagine based on accurate observation of human nature too - both for the source of the action described and the potential for its content to make it saleable. Milton, unlike many of his poetical fraternity before or after, was incredibly reliant on selling his work to make a living - amazingly an increasinly meagre living as the quality of his output increased.

Rather than villify the man I would hold my retrospectively judgemental moral magnifying glass up to the conduct and values of the society that comprised his readership if I were you, a collection of humanity which Milton was quite adept at shrewdly analysing too and for good reason - no wonder he was bitter in his final years.
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PostSubject: Re: On this day in history Round One   On this day in history Round One - Page 12 EmptySat 27 Apr 2013, 15:20

nordmann wrote:


Rather than villify the man I would hold my retrospectively judgemental moral magnifying glass up to the conduct and values of the society that comprised his readership if I were you, a collection of humanity which Milton was quite adept at shrewdly analysing too and for good reason - no wonder he was bitter in his final years.

Oh, for goodness' sake, nordmann, I'm not "vilifying" anyone, I am just trying to point out that John Milton did not write like John Wilmot (sneering and smutty) or John Donne (gloriously sensual) for that matter. "Paradise Lost" is full of death and sex (Satan's the one who needs sex), but lust, for Milton, always meant death and destruction (see also "Samson Agonistes"). He seems, surely, to have had a rather naïve, idealized view of sexual love (or is that view now hopelessly out-of-date?). Writing about sexually excited, weeping virgins, moist at both ends, isn't particularly "sweet" - or idealistic - or glorious.

But then, it has been famously said that he was of the Devil's party without knowing it, so who knows?

EDIT: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/sep/22/john-milton-filthy-poem-oxford
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PostSubject: Re: On this day in history Round One   On this day in history Round One - Page 12 EmptySat 27 Apr 2013, 17:23

Who said he was writing about a virgin? Tender maids can come in all shapes and sizes, if you excuse the expression.

But you obviously know Milton from his poetry and not his prose or letters, some of which were very personable and down-to-earth in the expression of his views and feelings about life's less "epic" characteristics. Naive and idealised is not the best description of his style in that quarter, I think.

There has been a suggestion that the poem Dr Batt found might have been penned by John Suckling, he who seemed to think that all female love was counterfeit and essentially deceitful, and for men little more than a device women used to entrap them into foolish and debased notions of "love" (Fye upon hearts that burn with mutual fire, I hate two minds that breath but one desire etc etc). However that theory just doesn't make sense to me, either in the poem's style (which reflects neither man's more famous examples) or in any known desire on Suckling's part to discredit Milton so underhandedly. Besides, the poem seems to date from an earlier time when neither man had much of an established reputation - in poetry or politics - either way. Batt, who like you can't imagine a sensuous or earthy Milton, tends to the "jealous rivalry" motive, though personally I'll plead ignorance and take the attribution at face value - the republican Milton going even higher up in my estimation in the process.

After the torture I was put through in school on his behalf (and Milton himself too in the process, had he heard his masterpiece delivered by a thickly accented - and thick - "christian brother") I reckon he is overdue a little bit of rehabilitation and redemption, at least on my part. Batt's find will do for starters.

EDIT: Just seen your own edit above and the linked Guardian article. Like you the author of the article seems to find Milton's little ditty "smutty", and even calls it "misogynistic" because it uses its analogy to illustrate the contrasting methods in which inexperienced and experienced women behave when sexually aroused. From my own experience I see nothing wrong with the observation whatsoever - and I assume it's the rather more loaded modern usage of the word "faggot" which has caused such a wildly knee-jerk and constipated response to such an innocently expressed comment about human behaviour, lacking maybe in naivete and idealism but all the more refreshing for that. In fact I would rate it now as one of my more favourite of Milton's verses, if only in that it still has the power to tick off the residents (actual or figurative) of Tunbridge Wells. Well done Johnny (Rotten) Milton, my son!
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PostSubject: Re: On this day in history Round One   On this day in history Round One - Page 12 EmptySat 27 Apr 2013, 18:52

nordmann wrote:
Who said he was writing about a virgin?

"When first upon her back she's laid" surely suggests it's a virgin he's sniggering about?

nordmann wrote:
But you obviously know Milton from his poetry and not his prose or letters, some of which were very personable and down-to-earth in the expression of his views and feelings about life's less "epic" characteristics.

Fair comment, but I still think sex was a problem for Milton. As I've said he was no John Donne.


nordmann wrote:
EDIT: Just seen your own edit above and the linked Guardian article. Like you the author of the article seems to find Milton's little ditty "smutty", and even calls it "misogynistic" because it uses its analogy to illustrate the contrasting methods in which inexperienced and experienced women behave when sexually aroused. From my own experience I see nothing wrong with the observation whatsoever - and I assume it's the rather more loaded modern usage of the word "faggot" which has caused such a wildly knee-jerk and constipated response to such an innocently expressed comment about human behaviour, lacking maybe in naivete and idealism but all the more refreshing for that. In fact I would rate it now as one of my more favourite of Milton's verses, if only in that it still has the power to tick off the residents (actual or figurative) of Tunbridge Wells. Well done Johnny (Rotten) Milton, my son!

It is smutty - adolescent even. Johnny Rotten indeed. He's advertising butter now.

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PostSubject: Re: On this day in history Round One   On this day in history Round One - Page 12 EmptySat 27 Apr 2013, 19:57

I'm with you on this one Temp, I do think it smacks of a toilet wall or a 60s rugby club bar. It's not the faggot but the 'When first upon her Back she's laid' and the hint of a nudge nudge, you know what I mean squire.
Maybe it's a woman thing but it's not nice and, as you've probably noticed, I'm not averse to some good, clean smut.
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PostSubject: Re: On this day in history Round One   On this day in history Round One - Page 12 EmptySat 27 Apr 2013, 20:35

Thank you , ferval.

Nowt wrong with a bit of smut, even from Milton, but I can't believe he'd ever write such awful poetry; it's just (dirty) doggerel. (Someone's already done the "There was an old Puritan from Nantucket" joke over on the Huffington Post, working in malt (in a bucket), justifying God's ways to man and - er - another rhyme.)

PS Faggot is an interesting word - I always think of Mr. Brain's Frozen Faggots which must be the most revolting food known to man. One of Mr Brain's little savoury ducks would soon sort out anyone's irregular peristaltic waves. I bet they sell a very superior faggot in the Tunbridge Wells branch of Waitrose.
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PostSubject: Re: On this day in history Round One   On this day in history Round One - Page 12 EmptySat 27 Apr 2013, 22:28

Quote :
Mr. Brain's Frozen Faggots which must be the most revolting food known to man.

Just two days ago I saw a tin of Lite Spam on the shelf and wondered aloud if that must be the worst food of all. But I have never actually tasted either of these.

As regards the poem, I don't feel too strongly either way, but I do find the phrase "at both ends do's weep and sweat" unpleasant to young women, and the word coyly (despite? Marvell's lovely To His Coy Mistress) seems to me to always suggest the writer is denigrating the person thus described and setting themselves up as superior. But I suppose it is a poem a man would relate to more than a woman, since it is being seen from the male's point of view.

Integrity tends to be more comfortable and warming to read about than to experience in real life, and certainly easier to read about than always manage yourself. Milton seems an uncompromising sort of person.
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PostSubject: Re: On this day in history Round One   On this day in history Round One - Page 12 EmptySun 28 Apr 2013, 00:50

27th April, 1806: the first Maori to visit England lands: Moehanga (or Te Mahanga) was accompanied by surgeon John Savage off to a court martial. He left an account of Moehanga's impressions - he was very taken with horses which he'd never seen, and people with wooden legs amused him highly. He was frightened by the cannon salute and disapproved of London's lack of fish and potatoes, and excess of people. He claimed to have met King George III and Queen Charlotte (couldn't this be verified?) and to have fathered a child by a woman called Nancy.

27th April, 1521. Magellan was killed in the Philippines, carrying on /starting a grand tradition of explorers being killed by foreign natives - James Cook, Marion du Fresne, for example. I never understand why Magellan is always credited with being the first to circumnavigate the world when someone else whose name I don't even know of the top of my head must have actually guided the fleet back and it should be he who is given the honour really.
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PostSubject: Re: On this day in history Round One   On this day in history Round One - Page 12 EmptySun 28 Apr 2013, 21:30

Caro, my dear,

you asked already on 10 January Wink and I replied on 11 January... and I, who thought that you read all my messages on this forumOn this day in history Round One - Page 12 650269930....
https://reshistorica.forumotion.com/t438-columbus-did-he-have-secret-info-or-was-it-really-just-dumb-luck

To Nordmann: not yet prepared "in full" for further comments on the "history" thread...so many "irons in the fire" on different fora...and I always take the easiest ones first Embarassed ...

Kind regards and with esteem to your both,

Paul.
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PostSubject: Re: On this day in history Round One   On this day in history Round One - Page 12 EmptySun 28 Apr 2013, 22:01

Reading and remembering are two quite different things, Paul! I knew I would have said this before somewhere, and even though I have read your post again, I still couldn't tell you the name of the person you mentioned with certainty. Elcano. I don't expect that to sit in my head for long though. But I would prefer to think of him as the first person to circumnavigate the world rather than Magellan. You have to get down/back to consider things a success. Dying halfway doesn't count.

Thanks, Caro.
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PostSubject: Re: On this day in history Round One   On this day in history Round One - Page 12 EmptyMon 29 Apr 2013, 08:44

April 29th 1945 - on the same day that a dictator close to total dementia marries his long-time mistress in a besieged bunker in Berlin, American troops enter the village and compound of Dachau in Bavaria, unprepared for what they will witness when they reach the labour camp, Nazi Germany's prototype concentration camp where the machinery of genocide was first tested and applied before deployment in the death camps throughout the Reich.

Many newsreels and photographs from those harrowing few days taken by journalists and film-makers attached to the US Army are out there, however this collection of colour footage probably reinforces the reality of the horror encountered with a little more immediacy than most.



Liberation of Dachau in Color by DailyMotion
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PostSubject: Re: On this day in history Round One   On this day in history Round One - Page 12 EmptyMon 29 Apr 2013, 11:10

April 29th 1541 -

Not a million miles from Dachau is the city of Regensburg, at its heart still a strikingly beautiful medieval complex dominated by the great cathedral. In 1541 the city, referred to within the church as Ratisbon, was where Francesco Contarini found himself on a Friday in late April, 1541, in his role as Venetian ambassador to the Court of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V. His journal from the day reports:

"The Emperor has been hunting for three days, having also done the like some days previously, and he was accompanied by the Dukes of Bavaria, and the Duke of Brunswick. They are to arrive at the Carthusian Monastery outside this city tomorrow evening, and will remain there Sunday and Monday to keep the birthday of the Empress, and on Monday evening will come to see what has been done by the controvertists appointed by him, who have already held three meetings, and according to report commenced with the article “De justificatione,” concerning which the Catholics hope that the Protestants will agree with them. "

A brief summary of the minutiae of court life, one can see, and yet the last sentence reveals much that may surprise the modern reader with regard to the conduct of the great religious reformation that had begun to divide Europe at the time with such horrendous results for millions. "De justificatione" is a thesis written in fact by Francesco's uncle, the powerful cardinal Gaspar Contarini, which itemises the reasons why the reforms that Luther is at that time demanding should best be done from within the church's own system and not reactively to demands from outside that structure. Charles has appointed "controvertists" - people from within both the Catholic hierarchy and the Lutheran faction in Bavaria, to sit down and reasonably discuss this and other issues.

What is surprising is not that the the term "Protestant" (and indeed "Lutheran") was already in common currency in 1541, but that it still did not represent in the minds of committed Catholics in Bavaria anything other than a small faction of dissent within the general body politic of the mother church, even twenty years after Luther's own famous declaration of dissent in Worms. Charles V still believed that reason and diplomacy would settle the issue, and his view was obviously shared by the very top leadership in Rome too.

How quickly this was to change. Within a year Gaspar Contarini was dead, and within five more years he would be posthumously declared a heretic by the new pope for even having dared to "discuss" the issues addressed by his thesis with the "Protestants" - now a term deemed by his old boss's successor as equal in infamy with heretic itself. Charles V gave up diplomacy, first delegating all matters of reform to his hard-line Catholic brother Ferdinand, and then wading in completely behind the pope's initiative to destroy Protestantism completely - the "Counter-Reformation" initiated in 1545.

On this day in history Round One - Page 12 660px-Braun_Regensburg_UBHD
Ratisbon in the 16th century

Back on that April day in 1541 however, as Charles hunted and planned no further forward than his wife's birthday that weekend, and a no-doubt proud Francesco wrote of his uncle's valiant attempt to persuade Lutherans to acknowledge and accept his plan to heal the rift, how unimaginable must that future catastrophe have seemed, or that it could come so sudden and so soon and with so much loss of life across the whole of Europe, toppling dynasties in its wake and ultimately reshaping the political and religious landscape of the known world.

We do not know what happened to Francesco after his dead cardinal uncle underwent being disgraced by the pope. We do know that the issue temporarily strained relations between the Vatican and Venice (to the extent that there was a real fear that the Venetians would overthrow the pope at one point). And we do know that Francesco's own nephew - another Francesco - would grow up to be the Doge of Venice himself, albeit an unwilling one who stepped in after a ballot crisis in 1623, a year before his death.

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PostSubject: Re: On this day in history Round One   On this day in history Round One - Page 12 EmptyMon 29 Apr 2013, 13:42

Tuesday, April 29th 1754

The town of Market Harborough is these days regarded as a typically sleepy (literally) English dormitory town, its centre's chief architectural attractions, St Dionysius's parish church and The Old Grammar School, serving to underline the generally placid nature of this quiet backwater in rural Leicestershire.

On this day in history Round One - Page 12 Harborough_Parishchurch

However in the 17th and 18th centuries the town was anything but a forgotten backwater. First as the royalist base from which Prince Rupert of the Rhine embarked en route to the Battle of Naseby, the decisive encounter that spelt doom for the royalist cause, and then as a major hub in the turnpike system which allowed rapid transfer of coach traffic throughout the kingdom.

It was in the latter capacity that Harborough was to make the news on this day in 1754. The secretary to the Post Master General placed this notice in London's Gazette after one of his mail coaches had been robbed in the vicinity. The "post-boy" survived the ordeal and could provide his employers with descriptions of the two assailants. Note the curious use of "jolly", a word we would never hear now in a police description of any armed robber, no matter how much he laughed during enactment of the crime;

"The boy saith, one of the Robbers was a middle-fixed thin Man, and the other a fat jolly tall Man : The middle-fixed Man had on a light colour'd coat, and wore his own Hair, which was black, and Part of it platted and pulled over his Face, and his Hat slouched before, and was seemingly a genteel Man. The fat jolly tall Man had on a grey Wigg and Snuff colour'd coat, and his Hat slouched before. After the Robbery they immediately mounted their Horses, which were tied to the Hedge, and rode with full speed towards Harborough."

The secretary offered a reward of £200 to anyone who could provide information leading to their conviction, a sum incidentally which would be extra to any reward which they would also receive anyway thanks to the recently passed Act of Parliament designed to stamp out highway robberies such as this. This works out at around £30,000 in today's money - not a value to be sneezed at in any era, snuff-assisted or not!

Part of me cannot help but hope that the genteel and jolly highwaymen got away with it though - such criminals are so thin on the ground these days!
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PostSubject: Re: On this day in history Round One   On this day in history Round One - Page 12 EmptyMon 29 Apr 2013, 22:46

Caro wrote:
Reading and remembering are two quite different things, Paul! I knew I would have said this before somewhere, and even though I have read your post again, I still couldn't tell you the name of the person you mentioned with certainty. Elcano. I don't expect that to sit in my head for long though. But I would prefer to think of him as the first person to circumnavigate the world rather than Magellan. You have to get down/back to consider things a success. Dying halfway doesn't count.

Thanks, Caro.
Caro,
in my former reply I started with "Caro, my dear," ...And as a Dutch speaking contributor and not accustomed to the spoken English language I am not sure anymore how that "my dear" has to be received in your brain. It can be that you see it as a rather insulting or denigrating notion while in my concept it was more intended as a friendly addition.

As I am still breeding on the "history" thread I read that the language in which the history writing is done is also important. Do they mean that by translations the essence of history writing can be changed? I understand and that is another item: that when one discusses about an entity as for instance "democracy" one has first, before starting discussing with the others one has to make sure about what the members of the discussion understand by the concept of that word, otherwise the discussion will go in all kind of directions? But I will ask the erudite Nordmann on the "history" thread for further explanations.

Kind regards and with esteem,

Paul.
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PostSubject: Re: On this day in history Round One   On this day in history Round One - Page 12 EmptyTue 30 Apr 2013, 04:48

"My dear" is quite a difficult phrase, isn't it? I remember hesitating for ages once before saying "My dear" to AA (Duncan - and where is the lovely Duncan these days? - I haven't seen or heard anything from him for ages). I didn't want to sound patronising, which is sometimes can. But no, I certainly didn't anything abut some mild affection from your use of it.

Not having heard you talk, I can't comment on your accustom or lack thereof towards the spoken English language but your written English language doesn't suffer from any lack. (Though perhaps 'brooding' rather than 'breeding' was what you mean in the second paragraph.)

I suppose different languages have different nuances for some words or ideas that perhaps are less easy to show in another language and that might affect how they are understood. But most languages have ways of getting round such difficulties. My book though about the people roses were named after has a few phrases in French which they translate and even with those very short pieces the translation is not absolutely literal and something may just be lost a little in the translation. One that stood out was Pierre de Ronsard's verse:

Prends cette rose aimable comme toi, Qui sert de rose aux roses les plus belles. Which was translated as Take this rose, as lovely as you are, which make the most beautiful roses blush which is no doubt accurate but misses the double use of 'rose' in the second line and the impression that gives. (In passing a lot of French people, especially men, have given their names to roses.)

Cheers, Caro.
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PostSubject: Re: On this day in history Round One   On this day in history Round One - Page 12 EmptyTue 30 Apr 2013, 08:51

April 30th 1483. An inn in Northampton.

Earl Rivers (Anthony Woodville) comes down to breakfast and gets a nasty shock. The whole place is surrounded by armed guards; the doors are all locked; and Richard of Gloucester is looking even grimmer than usual. Harry Buckingham just looks smug. The Earl is understandably confused, because there had been no hint of a problem the night before - the three men had all passed a "merry" evening together.


Rivers is put under arrest and is then sent to Sheriff Hutton in Yorkshire. He is later moved to Pontefract Castle where he is executed (June 25th).


The two dukes go on to Stony Stratford to meet up with the new king, young Edward V. The rest, as they say, is history.


PS For anyone interested in Milton poem, found this earlier today:


http://digitalmiscellaniesindex.blogspot.co.uk/2010/06/milton-and-rochester-on-why-women-are.html


John Wilmot, Robert Smith (a composer) as well as John Suckling are named as possible writers of the verse. Seems likely also that some lines were lifted from a French poem by Paul Scarron (translated by John Phillips). Nobody seems to think it's a work by John Milton.


Last edited by Temperance on Tue 30 Apr 2013, 13:23; edited 1 time in total
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PostSubject: Re: On this day in history Round One   On this day in history Round One - Page 12 EmptyTue 30 Apr 2013, 11:34

April 30th 1900 -

Casey Jones, while trying to make up for lost time, ploughs the steam locomotive he is driving into a freight train up ahead and dies in the resultant carnage. For some reason this irresponsibly reckless endangerment of his passengers' lives is commemorated in the USA to this day, usually by bringing to mind this equally irritable theme music from that other train-wreck, the 1950s TV series:


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PostSubject: Re: On this day in history Round One   On this day in history Round One - Page 12 EmptyWed 01 May 2013, 10:12

Edward IV marries Elizabeth Grey on May 1st, 1464.

Some tension around the "or forever hold their peace" bit of the ceremony, but all goes off well.
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PostSubject: Re: On this day in history Round One   On this day in history Round One - Page 12 EmptyWed 01 May 2013, 10:34

May 1st 1707: Act of Union between England and Scotland. May not last much longer, perhaps.

May 1st 1940: The NZ Government bought the rights to God Defend New Zealand. It became the National Hymn, and God Save the King remained the National Anthem. Now they have equal status though in practice GSTQ is hardly ever sung now, except when the Queen or GG is in attendance. There are always calls to change our anthem, seen as slow and with words no one understands (what is the triple star?), but I doubt that it will change in the near future. I like words that ask for peace not war, and talk of the bonds of love.
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PostSubject: Re: On this day in history Round One   On this day in history Round One - Page 12 EmptyWed 01 May 2013, 18:20

Monday, 1st May 1536, 6:00pm

A terrified Mark Smeaton was admitted to the Tower of London. George Constantine, a servant of Henry Norris (see below), reported that he later heard that Smeaton had been "grievously racked". Smeaton's ordeal had actually begun the day before when he was taken to Thomas Cromwell's house in Stepney where he was "in examination on May Even". God knows how he had been threatened in Stepney, but it seems that the actual *physical* terror took place during the evening of that terrible May Day - from 6.00pm until 10.00pm. Starkey thinks it likely that the wretched young musician was put to the torture as soon as he arrived at the Tower. The time taken - four hours - shows he must have put up an impressive resistance - "it was 10 of the clock or he were well lodged (in his cell)". Pain - and Cromwell's brutal questioning - had finally broken Smeaton. He confessed to adultery with Queen Anne.

While Cromwell had been dealing with Smeaton in the capital itself, downriver at Greenwich the May Day tournament still went ahead as planned. Queen Anne's brother, Rochford, who would be arrested the next day, took part, as did Henry Norris. Nothing seemed amiss. If we are to believe the French verse account, the king was actually very affable to all taking part, and the Queen too put up a good show, presiding over the jousts from the royal viewing box, smiling and laughing as usual. She was utterly baffled, as were others - "many men mused, but moste chiefely the queen," said the chronicler, Hall - when her husband abruptly stood up and left. What she did not know was that she would never see him again.

Henry VIII returned to Whitehall at once, but travelled not by river but on horseback with only six attendants, one of them Henry Norris, whom, throughout the journey, the king had "in examination and promised him his pardon in case he would utter the truth" about his relationship with the Queen. Norris was both amazed and horrified, and protested his innocence. He was detained overnight at York Place and was sent to the Tower the following morning.
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PostSubject: Re: On this day in history Round One   On this day in history Round One - Page 12 EmptyThu 02 May 2013, 07:30

Tuesday, 2nd May 1536.

Anne Boleyn spent the night of May 1st at Greenwich.

During the morning of May 2nd, her uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, with two other members of the Council, Sir William Paulet and Sir William Fitzwilliam, came unexpectedly to the royal apartments and there confronted the Queen. She was accused of having engaged in carnal relations with three men, only two of whom, Norris and Smeaton, were identified.

It was a terrible interview: Hall reported that Anne complained bitterly that only Paulet had shown any kind of respect due to her as queen. She "thought to be a Quene, and creulely handled was never sene" and speculated that the King was doing it "to prove" her.

At two o'clock that afternoon she was taken by barge to the Tower. The journey - which is a surprisingly long one even by today's river bus - took three hours.

When Anne arrived at this, her last destination, she was greeted by Sir William Kingston, the Lieutenant of the Tower. When she asked Kingston (who reported all her comments in the first of his six extant letters to Cromwell) if she was to be locked up in a dungeon, he assured her she would be placed in the usual royal lodgings (where, ironically, she had spent the night before her coronation). At this her composure broke. She fell to her knees and, in tears, declared, "It is too good for me. Jesu, have mercy on me!"

She then, Kingston reported, "fell into a great laughing, and she hath done many times since."

Norris was imprisoned on the same day. According to Constantine, a confession of sorts had been wrung out of him by Treasurer Ftizwilliam. Norris later retracted this "confession" saying that "he was deceived to do the same".

Anne's brother, George Boleyn, Lord Rochford, who had left Greenwich and gone to York Place, apparently in a desperate attempt to see his royal brother-in-law, was arrested there before he had had a chance to speak to the King. Rochford too was brought to the Tower on May 2nd. He arrived some hours after his sister.

Others were to follow during the next few days.
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PostSubject: Re: On this day in history Round One   On this day in history Round One - Page 12 EmptyThu 02 May 2013, 10:46

2nd May 1808, the Peninsular War begins with rising of the Spanish population against the French. Francisco Goya's painting of Madristas fighting Napoleonic Mamelukes;

On this day in history Round One - Page 12 Goy9
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PostSubject: Re: On this day in history Round One   On this day in history Round One - Page 12 EmptyFri 03 May 2013, 08:17

The aftermath. Goya's painting the 3rd of May, shows Spanish partisans being executed by French soldiers;

On this day in history Round One - Page 12 Francisco-goya-der-3-mai-1808-171822

It seems that there were originally four paintings by Goya on this event but only two are now in existence.
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