Table of contents for No. 52 in All About History

Cardinal Wolsey Thomas Wolsey was the son of an Ipswich butcher. He prospered under Henry VIII, becoming archbishop of York and lord chancellor, while the pope appointed him a cardinal and papal legate. Henry VIII relied upon him, but he fell from favour when he failed to secure the king’s divorce. Thomas Cromwell Thomas Cromwell, the son of a Putney blacksmith and a self-confessed ‘ruffian’ in his youth, rose to become Henry VIII’s chief minister. He was one of the architects of the Reformation, but was blamed for Henry’s disastrous marriage to Anne of Cleves. He was executed in 1540. Catherine Parr Catherine Parr was a twice-widowed courtier’s daughter when she caught Henry VIII’s eye in 1543. As his sixth wife, she served as regent of England and was the…

Give birth to a son The queen’s role was to provide an heir. Claude was almost continually pregnant, with her ladies assisting during her numerous confinements. Don’t mind the mistress French kings traditionally appointed official mistresses, such as Anne de Pisseleu d’Heilly, who shared Francis I’s bed and also wielded real political power. Dress to impress French women were graceful and stylish. Anne Boleyn favoured fashionable French hoods, which displayed a daring amount of hair. Keep foreign kings amused Claude’s ladies entertained the English king at the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520, with feasting and dancing. Go into quarantine Widowed French queens, such as Mary Tudor, entered seclusion to ensure that they would not bear their husbands a posthumous child.…

“It is no contest, as the tsar’s troops are routed in a matter of weeks by the superior firepower of the Raj” Britain launched two invasions of Afghanistan in the 19th century in order to abort a perceived Russian incursion into the buffer state that separated British India from the Russian Empire. This was Great Gamesmanship at its most extreme: the two wars cost Britain nearly 30,000 casualties, failed to alter the status quo, and were undertaken on false intelligence, equivalent to the dodgy dossier of the day. But what if Russia had taken the fatal step of dispatching an army into Afghanistan? Empires must expand to survive. Stagnation behind closed borders poses a continual danger to security. The tsar’s subjugation of Tashkent, Samarkand and Khiva has taken Cossack cavalry…

Yorkshireman James Bamforth completely embodied the surge in commercial value of the magic lantern in the late 19th century. Originally a photographer, he was certainly a man to spot an opportunity, and used his ready-made studio in the Yorkshire village of Holmfirth to create and produce photographic lantern slides on an ever-increasing scale. Using live models, who were quite often his family members, friends and local villagers, Bamforth began to specialise in narrative tales that told a story, quite often with a religious or temperance theme, that were to become the soap operas of their day, creating demand for more and more episodes. This would develop into slide sequences to accompany well-known hymns or poems that had a particular theme or message. In 1885 Bamforth produced Christmas In Paradise, which…

In 1801, long before copyright became the norm, it was quite easy for Colonel William Congreve, known for his development of rocketry, to borrow generously from the designs and operations of the Mysore rocket. With this he developed and tested some of the biggest sky rockets available in London. News of the terrors sown by Mysore’s famous ‘rocket men’ on the British troops during the First and Second Anglo-Mysore Wars had reached Britain even before Innes Munro, a British soldier, wrote his A narrative of the military operations, on the Coromandel coast… in 1789. “Hyder Aly also employs some thousands of men for throwing rockets. This is a missive (sic) weapon and made in the same form as those used by schoolboys, with this difference, that the stalk is a…

Author William Earl and Liz Coward Publisher Sabrestorm Publishing Price £19.99 Released Out now With the youngest of the last generation of World War II veterans approaching a full century, tales from the battlefields in France, Italy and Africa are a dying breed. Even rarer are the stories of the non-combatants: former nursing orderly William Earl is 102 now, was 26 when he was called into service for the Royal Army Medical Corps, responsible for rescuing and patching up Allied soldiers on the front line. They were medical, not military men and as such, weren’t armed. They wore Red Cross brassards on their arms and the Axis forces amassing against the infantry they took care of were supposed to honour the Geneva convention and avoid targeting the RAMC. They usually…

Author David Loades Publisher Amberley Publishing Price £9.99 Released Out now During the reign of Henry VIII, the Seymour family seems to come out of nowhere to rise to the pinnacle of power in England. Loades investigates the background and characteristics of this family to discover how one of their number became queen without the scheming and positioning that had put the Boleyn faction in power. First arriving with William the Conqueror, the Seymours seem to be a rare example of a family who climbed the ranks on their own merit, with siblings Jane and Edward finding themselves close to the king without machinations. The book does not linger too long on Jane’s time as queen, and brings other members of the family to the fore. In particular, the reader…

THE ORIGINAL OLYMPICS How ancient athletes went head to head for the glory of the gods IMPRISONING POCAHONTAS Kidnapped, converted and exploited, this was no love story LUTHERAN DAVID VS ROMAN GOLIATH Inside the Reformation, the civil war that tore Christianity in two PLUS: Wedding dresses, Outlaw icon Ned Kelly, Battle of the Golden Spurs, Mussolini’s March on Rome, rock ‘n roll revolution, Tibet before Communism…

TUDOR STATE DRESS FOR SPECIAL OCCASIONS The official red and gold uniform was introduced in 1552 and consists of a knee-length tunic, breeches, stockings, white neck ruff and a brimmed hat called a Tudor bonnet. Since 1858, this Tudor State Dress is only worn when the sovereign visits the Tower or on state occasions. UNDRESS UNIFORM A STATE OF UNDRESS For their day-to-day duties, the Warders wear a blue and red frock coat featuring the initials of the current monarch, and a matching cloth round hat with a cockade (rosette) on the front. This ‘undress uniform’ was granted to them by Queen Victoria in 1858. KEYS SECURE THE TOWER At exactly 9.53pm each day, the Chief Yeoman Warder, dressed in a red Tudor Watchcoat, conducts the Ceremony of the Keys.…

AL CAPONE CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, 1899-1947 The notorious mob boss and gangster, also known as ‘Scarface’, was imprisoned in Alcatraz in 1934 as #AZ85. He served four years on The Rock, the last of which was spent in the prison hospital. GEORGE ‘MACHINE GUN KELLY’ BARNES MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE, 1895-1954 Bootlegging, armed bank robberies and kidnapping with his favourite weapon, a Tommy gun, Kelly and his wife lived a life of crime. He was finally incarcerated in 1934. JAMES‘WHITEY’ BULGERJR. BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS, 1929-PRESENT The former boss of the Winter Hill Gang in Boston was imprisoned for 19 murders as Alcatraz inmate #AZ1428 in 1959, based on grand jury testimony from former associates. ROBERT STROUD SEATTLE, WASHINGTON, 1890-1963 Locked up in solitary confinement, Stroud became known as the ‘Birdman of Alcatraz’ because he…

Anne Boleyn Anne Boleyn was one of the first Englishwomen to be queen 1501 Probable birth Although her birth date was nowhere recorded, Anne is probably born in this year. She spends most of her childhood at Hever Castle, which was the primary seat of the Boleyns. 1513 Serves Margaret of Austria Anne travels to serve Margaret of Austria, regent of the Netherlands in Brussels. She reluctantly leaves the following year to transfer to the household of Queen Mary Tudor in France. 1522 Returns to England Anne returns to England when it is proposed that she marries her Irish cousin, James Butler, to settle an inheritance dispute concerning the earldom of Ormond. The marriages comes to nothing. 1527 Agrees to marry Henry VIII Henry VIII offers to marry Anne, after…

1941 Rosemary Kennedy, the eldest daughter of Joe and Rose Kennedy, is lobotomized because her father fears her disability and mood swings may damage the family’s prospects. 1944 Naval pilot Joseph Kennedy Jr, Joe and Rose Kennedy’s eldest son, is killed in an accident during the secret testing of remote control aircraft that are packed with explosives. 1948 Kathleen ‘Kick’ Kennedy, daughter of Joe and Rose Kennedy, and widow of the Marquess of Hartington, dies with her married boyfriend, the 8th Earl Fitzwilliam, in a plane crash in France. 1963 John and Jackie Kennedy’s son, Patrick Bouvier Kennedy, dies two days after being born prematurely. 1963 President John F Kennedy is assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas, Texas. Then and now, a majority of Americans believe that Kennedy was…

An agreement is made Emir Abdur Rahman and the Raj amicably agree a demarcation line between both countries. This precludes the need for the Durand Line to safeguard defensive access to India. 12 November 1893 A mission is rejected Abdur Rahman’s son, the new emir, rebuffs a secret German mission sent to Kabul to persuade the Afghan ruler to invade British India in WWI. 1 March 1916 An attack is launched King Amanullah, under pressure from extremist religious leaders at his court, launches an attack on British India, which becomes the Third Anglo-Afghan War. 1 May 1919 Negotiations are made The Afghan Army is defeated, but in peace negotiations at Rawalpindi, Amanullah obtains the return of Afghan sovereignty in foreign policy from the British. 19 August 1919 A regime is…

“Alexandre went to the guillotine and for the first time in her life, Joséphine knew how it felt to be in the spotlight as an enemy of the people” It is the curse of some women in history to be defined solely by the men in their lives and one such woman is, undoubtedly, Joséphine de Beauharnais, better known to history as Mrs Napoleon Bonaparte. Napoleon and Joséphine’s romance is iconic, legendary in fact, and the two remain inextricably linked, even though their at times immensely passionate union ended in divorce. Yet Joséphine’s early days were tumultuous and this former prisoner of the French revolution knew a thing or two about survival, long before she ever laid eyes on the Little Corporal. Born Marie Josèphe Rose Tascher de La Pagerie…

 Author Tom Feiling Publisher Explore Books Price £14.99 Released Out now “Though almost forgotten about today, Feiling reveals the island has been a touchstone for major historical events” Pretty much everyone has heard of Mayflower, the iconic ship that sailed the Pilgrim Fathers to the New World and straight into American mythology. However, have you heard of its sister ship, Seaflower? Both transported plucky bands of English puritans, but where the famous vessel travelled to Massachusetts, Seaflower instead journeyed south. Its passengers were convinced that the empire England needed would be built in luscious Central America, so founded their own rival colony on Providence, a tiny island off the coast of Nicaragua, in 1630. While the venture clearly didn’t work out quite as the colonists had hoped, British journalist Tom…

Author Stephen Alford Publisher Allen Lane Price £20 Released Out now London’s Triumph tells the story of 16th century London from a new perspective. Instead of focusing upon the politics, Alford digs deeper to give the reader a satisfying portrait of the city at work behind the glitter and riches of kings and queens. The names mentioned in this book may not be familiar, but they are just as vital to the development of London as a global community. We are shown a London charged with energy and entrepreneurship. In a city as diverse as it is proud, immigrants work with gentlemen’s younger sons and those who have become disillusioned with life in the countryside. When this blend of cultures, experiences, and beliefs comes together, it creates a London unafraid…

Author Helen Hollick Publisher Amberley Publishing Price £20 Released Out now The word ‘pirate’ summons up childhood tales of swashbuckling nomads out at sea, looting valuable treasures and storming through dangerous seas on a belly of rum. Hollick values these precious childhood connotations and fills in the now adult mind with truths and facts, talking the reader through what they should know about the Golden Age of piracy. It’s not just that the author has created highly entertaining content, but she has also created a cache of biographies, drawing upon a few valuable names from the history books as examples of real-life pirates such as Grace O’Malley, a Tudor pirate who gave Queen Elizabeth I sleepless nights, and Frenchman Daniel Montbars, aka ‘The Exterminator’. Despite our belief that all pirates…

2ND CENTURY BCE THROWN IN A CAVE Ancient cultures like Mesopotamia and Egypt used underground caves and caverns as dungeons to hold prisoners while they await execution, or before being sold on into slavery. 60 BCE WHEN IN ROME Roman ingenuity turns a large indoor water reservoir into a prison. The Cancere Marmertinum houses many famous prisoners, including the Chieftain of Gaul, St Peter and St Paul. 1166 BY ROYAL DECREE King Henry II of England commissions the first prisons to be used for punishment rather than just as a holding place for trial or execution. This includes Newgate in London. 1100-1952 SENT TO THE TOWER Primarily a fortress and royal palace but used as a prison for OVER 800 YEARS During the two World Wars 12 men were executed…

There are plenty of failed escape attempts from the prison on The Rock, with the most bloody being the Battle of Alcatraz. On 2 May 1946, bank robber Bernard Coy initiated a carefully planned escape attempt with four accomplices. After watching the guards closely, he scaled a wall and slipped through bars to enter the Gun Gallery, arming him and other inmates. The prisoners locked Alcatraz guards in cells, but failed to find the key to the recreation yard that was the crux of their escape plan. As the alarm was raised, the warden sent in teams to recover control of the cellblock. What followed was 48 hours of bloody battle, with shots ringing out between guards and prisoners. The marines were called in to use explosives to regain control.…

Anne and Mary Boleyn remained in France when their former mistress, Mary Tudor, who was the widow of Louis XII, returned to England in 1515. They transferred into the service of Claude, Louis’ 15-year-old daughter and the wife of the new king, Francis I. Francis was very different to his ‘aged’ predecessor. At 21, he was young, handsome and athletic, making no pretence of being faithful to his queen. He first made advances to his wife’s stepmother, Mary Tudor, later recalling that she was “more dirty than queenly.” He stopped short of consummating this relationship after being warned that, should the dowager queen become pregnant, the child might be attributed to Louis. Francis would therefore remain “plain Comte d’Angouleme, and never King of France.” Instead, Francis turned his attentions to…

THE MEDICAL HISTORY THAT JFK HID FROM THE AMERICAN PUBLIC . JFK ran for office as a youthful and vigorous man of action, he misrepresented himself to the American public. In 2002, historian Robert Dallek obtained Kennedy’s medical files for the years 1955-63. Kennedy suffered from prostate problems, adrenal deficiency, abscesses, digestive problems, and chronic back pain. He wore a spinal corset, required the sedative Tuinal in order to sleep, and was treated with a pharmacopeia of prescription drugs, including cortisone-type steroids for his adrenal problems, cocaine derivatives as painkillers, phenobarbital and testosterone for his stomach ailments and weight loss, and penicillin for sexually transmitted infections of the urinary tract At one point during his presidency, Kennedy was receiving prescriptions from three doctors, and two of them did not know…

Every age has a tendency to look back at older generations and judge the customs, beliefs and traditions of the time. However, it is fair to say that there are few periods in history that we regard as strangely as we do the Middle Ages. They sometimes lack the mystic appeal of Ancient Egypt, the beauty of the Renaissance or the Elizabethan age’s excitement and adventure. The Middle Ages have been stamped an unlucky time to be born and popular consensus is that people were poor, food was dull, everything was dirty, and for the vast majority of it the population was dropping like flies. What we don’t hear about is that people created some of the most peculiar, bizarre, hilarious and astounding trends in human history. It’s time to…

No one in the 18th century made the hearts of the English ‘lions’ quake with fear as much as Tipu Sultan, known as the Tiger of Mysore. So safe and just was his reign, his court poets tell us: “the deer of the forest make their pillow of the lion and tiger, and their mattress of the leopard and panther.” These words aren’t just platitudes heaped on the Mysore ruler; they speak of a reign that forever changed the fortunes of the Indian subcontinent. There is no doubt that both Tipu Sultan and his father, Haider Ali, “brought the [British] East Indian Company nearer to ruin than any other Indian foes had brought it.” For nearly 40 years, they halted the triumphant march of the British through southern India, refusing…

Certificate TBC Director Claire Ferguson Cast Mietek Pemper, Ed Mosberg, Regina Lewis, Victor Lewis Released 16 June Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah (1985) stands like a monolith above all other Holocaust documentaries. The French director’s epic, which clocks in at nearly 10 hours, is arguably the greatest film ever made about the ultimate 20th century atrocity. It also had a central thesis wrought from a sense of existentialist and historical investigation, finding much in common with Stephen Dedalus’s famous line in James Joyce’s Ulysses (1922): “History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.” Presenting the recollections of 12 survivors, Destination Unknown (2016) is a swift 78 minutes and mixes talking head interviews with grim footage sourced from global archives. As fascinating and often heart-wrenching as it is, Claire Ferguson’s…

Churchill & The Dardanelles Author: Christopher Bell Price: £25 Publisher: OUP The Dardanelles Campaign of 1915, and the role of the man most closely associated with it remains enveloped in controversy to this day. The names Winston Churchill and the Dardanelles Straits are intrinsically linked and as author Christopher M Bell tells us in his meticulously researched account, “the campaign still casts a long shadow over Churchill’s reputation.” Bell makes it clear that Churchill was neither the hero nor the victim, and that these campaigns do not lend themselves to sweeping generalisations. It is worth noting that in his history of World War II, Churchill himself acknowledged that, “War is usually a catalogue of blunders.”…

Creators Catel and Bocquet Publisher SelfMadeHero Price £14.99 Released Out now Josephine Baker certainly packed a lot of drama – and history – into her life. Growing up on the wrong side of white and destined for domestic servitude and an early marriage, she absolutely refused to let her star quality be silenced in an age where opportunities for black women were few. Travelling to France, where she was served by a white waiter for the first time, courted by white suitors and applauded by a white audience, she found her calling, becoming the iconic chartreuse of both the stage and silver screen. Rather than abandon the world she had escaped from to become ‘politely black’, Baker instead became fiercely political – she spied for the Free French in World…

240 BCE Halley’s Comet spotted The first recorded sighting of Halley’s Comet appears in the Chinese chronicle Records Of The Grand Historian. It describes a long-tailed star that moved across the heavens from east to north. 1521 Diet of Worms ends The assembly (Diet) of the Holy Roman Empire at the city of Worms (in Germany) concludes with protestant reformer Martin Luther being declared a heretic and an outlaw. Martin Luther flees to Wartburg castle. 1659 Richard Cromwell resigns Oliver Cromwell’s son Richard, resigns as Lord Protector of England after eight months, since he doesn’t have the support of the army. The country briefly reverts to a Commonwealth, before restoring the monarchy in 1660. 1895 Oscar Wilde convicted After rashly (and unsuccessfully) suing the Marquess of Queensbury for libel, for…