HITLER’S BUNGLED REVOLUTION

Why the Munich beer hall putsch ended in failure

MAGAZINE

BRITAIN’S BESTSELLING HISTORY MAGAZINE

December 2023 / www.historyextra.com

How this improbable mission

succeeded against the odds

Disney at 100
How the House of Mouse
redrew global culture

Rebuilding
Roman lives
Victorian schools Mary Beard on
the forgotten voices
of hard knocks of ancient Rome
Why 19th-century prisons
were educational pioneers

gs came to believe their own hyp e”

“Kin Y
IES OF ENGLISH ROYALT
DAVID MITCHELL ON CENTUR
 A journey through 6,000 years
of British history begins in
Bishop Auckland, County Durham.

Open from 7 October 2023 aucklandproject.org/faith

 WELCOME DECEMBER 2023

Because we know it happened, we accept the 1099 conquest of THREE THINGS I’VE
Jerusalem as a matter of fact, without perhaps thinking about LEARNED THIS MONTH
what an improbable event this was. But it must have felt far less
certain to the crusaders who had to traverse vast, treacherous 1. Latrine of crime
An interesting detail in our Explore piece on
terrains and face unknown and hostile populations. The First
Agatha Christie’s holiday home in Devon is that
Crusade should not have succeeded. And yet it did. the Queen of Crime often took a
For this month’s cover feature, on page 48, Emily Briffett has mahogany toilet seat with her on
spoken to a group of expert historians to explain this unlikely her travels in the Middle East
triumph. Alongside that they also explore the consequences of the with her archaeologist
ON THE COVER: THE SIEGE OF JERUSALEM, 1099, FROM “LI ROMMANS DE GODEFROY DE BUILLON ET DE SALEHADIN”, 1337, BIBLIOTHÈQUE NATIONALE DE FRANCE: GETTY IMAGES.

husband (page 84).

BACKGROUND: GETTY IMAGES. DAVID MITCHELL: SHUTTERSTOCK. HITLER: GETTY IMAGES. THIS PAGE: FRAN MONKS/SHUTTERSTOCK/GETTY IMAGES/ALAMY/CLARE HARGREAVES

crusade. For the people the crusaders encountered, the expedition

often meant death and misery. And even for the victors, the capture
of Jerusalem committed them to centuries more warfare in the 2. The mog of war
Middle East before their grip was finally relinquished. Cats can often be skilled
Elsewhere this month, we’re marking the centenary of two very hunters, but I was
different events. On 8 November 1923, Adolf Hitler made his first surprised to see that they
were once employed on
attempt to seize power in Germany through the beer hall putsch.
VJGDCVVNGGNFKPCENCUJ
As Frank McDonough reveals (page 22), the coup ended in failure, between Persians and
but taught the Nazi leader lessons for his future path to supremacy. Egyptians 2,500 years ago.
Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, 1923 saw the birth of the Walt Find out more on page 82.
Disney company, a giant of global entertainment. On page 58 John
Wills reveals how the corporation’s story has reflected
3. Reading at Reading
and shaped American history over the decades. Rosalind Crone’s article on
I hope you enjoy the issue. 19th-century prison education
contained the fascinating fact that,
thanks to programmes of literacy,
Rob Attar Reading Gaol became known as
Editor ‘Read-Read-Reading Gaol’ (page 41).

THIS ISSUE’S CONTRIBUTORS
Rana Mitter
“To understand China’s
current attitude to
espionage, we have
to look at the revolution-
ary history of the Com-
munist Party.”
Rana reveals the role
surveillance culture has
played in China in the 20th
and 21st centuries on page 11
Frank McDonough
“The Munich beer hall
putsch was one of the
FGPKPIGRKUQFGUKP
Hitler’s early life. Even
VJQWIJKVHGNNʚCVQPKVU
face, it marked the birth
of Hitler as a politician.”
Frank spotlights a pivotal
moment in Hitler’s rise to
power on page 22
Rosalind Crone
“Nineteenth-century
prisons were not just
places of punishment.
Between 1823 and 1899,
they were, in all likeli-
hood, the largest single
provider of adult educa-
tion in England.”
Rosalind explores the growth
of education in the prisons of
Victorian Britain on page 41
David Mitchell
“The Tudors’ claim to
the throne was so sketchy
that their very existence
was basically an admis-
sion that anyone could
be king.”
David discusses his debut
book, which chronicles
England’s royalty from the
Dark Ages to Elizabeth I
on page 66
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3
 DECEMBER 2023

FEATURES EVERY MONTH

22 Hitler’s bungled
revolution
Frank McDonough explores the
Munich beer hall putsch, a bloody
CUEQVJCVVJG0C\KNGCFGTOCPCIGF
VQVWTPVQJKUCFXCPVCIG
30 Rebuilding Roman lives
Mary Beard tells the story of
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VJGTGOCTMCDNGUVQT[QHQPGYQOCP
35 The A to B of
medieval travel
(TQOYJCVVQRCEMVQYJKEJUQWXGPKTU
VQVCMGJQOGAnthony BaleQʘGTU
VKRUHQTRGQRNGWPFGTVCMKPICPKPVGTPC-
VKQPCNLQWTPG[KPVJG/KFFNG#IGU
41 Victorian schools
of hard knocks
Rosalind CroneQPJQYCFWNVUYGTG
VCWIJVNKVGTCE[KP7-RTKUQPUFGECFGU
DGHQTGEJKNFTGPYGTGKPUEJQQNU
66
6 Anniversaries
The Conversation
 # JKUVQT[QH%JKPGUGGURKQPCIG
  9JCVJQTTQTNOUVGNNWUCDQWV
OQTCNRCPKEU
17 Michael Wood QPVJGWPFGTUWPI
#PINQ5CZQPSWGGP¢VJGNʚÂF
18 Hidden Histories
20 Letters
56 Q&A*KUVQT[SWGUVKQPUCPUYGTGF
Books
66 Interview: David Mitchell on
VJGJKUVQT[QH'PINKUJTQ[CNV[
 GYJKUVQT[books reviewed
  0 22
Encounters
76 Diary:6JKPIUVQUGGCPFFQ
VJKUOQPVJ
82 Podcast: A history of cats
84 Explore: )TGGPYC[&GXQP
86 Historic Cities: Florence

48 The First Crusade 88 Prize crossword

'OKN[$TKʘGVVGZCOKPGUVJGUWEEGUU 90 My history hero
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58 Disney at 100
John Wills describes
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QPVQDGEQOGCINQDCN
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DGJGOQVJ

58

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5
 HELEN CARR highlights events that
took place in December in history

23 DECEMBER 1815

Jane Austen’s
Emma is published
The author is convinced that
her new protagonist will be
highly unpopular

mma Woodhouse is a character

E who has remained beloved for two

centuries. The young gentlewoman’s
feckless, fearless but generous and
well-meaning attempts to matchmake,
orchestrating the romantic lives of others,
TON[GUVCDNKUJGFJGTKPVJGECPQPQHITGCV
EVKQPCNRGTUQPCNKVKGU
However, when EmmaYCUTUVRWDNKUJGF
its author, Jane Austen, feared that her
character would be deeply unpopular. Her
nephew, James Edward Austen-Leigh, wrote
in his 1870 memoir that his aunt “was very
fond of Emma, but did not reckon on her
being a general favourite; for, when com-
mencing that work, she said: ‘I am going to
GETTY IMAGES/BRIDGEMAN

take a heroine whom no one but myself will

much like.’”
Published by John Murray in December
1815, the novel was sold in three volumes at
one guinea per set, and contained a dedica-
tion to Austen’s most famous fan – the Prince
Regent, later George IV.
By the time of Emma’s publication,
Austen was busy working on
her next novel, Persuasion,
which she had begun
writing some months earlier.
Tragically, Austen died just
18 months after Emma
was published, in July
1817. Aged just 41, she
was at the zenith of her
career – but the
character she feared
would annoy readers
instead went on to
charm and entertain
generations of fans.

Emma Woodhouse, perhaps

Jane Austen’s most infuriating
yet endearing heroine

6

18 DECEMBER 1790
The second edition of A Vindication of the Rights of Men,
originally produced anonymously, is printed – this time
under the author’s real name, Mary Wollstonecraft. On
Following a dispute among English
commanders, their troops are
slaughtered by French forces at the
1370 battle of Pontvallain, shown
in a 15th-century illustration
THIS MONTH IN HISTORY ANNIVERSARIES
4 DECEMBER 1370
Quarrelling English
suffer defeat south
of Le Mans
A dispute between commanders
splits Edward III’s forces
n summer 1370, English forces launched
I a fresh campaign to conquer France – one
of many such attempts during the opening
decades of the Hundred Years’ War. Robert
Knolles, a seasoned warrior and military leader,
was appointed division leader in the north, tasked
with pushing English forces deep into French
territory, and landed at Calais in August.
As winter approached, English troops had
advanced towards the Vendôme. Now weary
commanders faced a decision over where to
hunker down over the coldest months. Familiar
YKVJVJG(TGPEJNCPFUECRGCPFIJVKPIVCEVKEUs
typically, guerrilla warfare based on stealth and
surprise – Knolles argued that they should
YKVJFTCYVQ$TKVVCP[*KUQʛEGTUEQWPVGTGF
proposing that they should remain where they
were, raiding the countryside for food and loot
but ready for battle.
Furious, Knolles left, taking with him the
majority of the troops. The remaining men separat-
GFKPVQVJTGGFKXKUKQPUVQGPCDNGOQTGGʛEKGPV
hunting and foraging. Almost immediately, though,
Bertrand du Guesclin, constable of France, was
upon them. Having marched through the night, on
|&GEGODGTFW)WGUENKPoUCTO[NCWPEJGFCFCYP
attack on the English troops at Pontvallain, 19 miles
south of Le Mans.
Taken by surprise, the English had no time to
line up for the charge, and were pushed beneath
the walls of the Château de la Faigne. The French
dismounted and, engaging in bloody hand-to-hand
combat, massacred most of the English troops and
captured their commander, Thomas Grandison.
Another English division in the region, led by Walter
(KV\YCNVGTJCFʚGFUQWVJVQVJGRCTVN[HQTVKGF
abbey of Vaas on the river Loir. The French broke
in with ease, slaughtering the English defenders.
The early stages of the Hundred Years’ War
witnessed some of its most famous English
victories – battles such as Crécy and Poitiers.
Yet embarrassing defeats such as Pontvallain are
equally important in the history of medieval
Anglo-French politics. •
7
THIS MONTH IN HISTORY ANNIVERSARIES
An engraving in the Illustrated
London News of the opening of
the Clifton Suspension Bridge
reflects huge public enthusiasm
3 DECEMBER 1976
Gunmen shoot
Bob Marley and
his entourage
The Jamaican reggae star is
targeted at a time of great
political turmoil
8
8 DECEMBER 1864
#PGPVJWUKCUVKEETQYFICVJGTUHQTVJGQʛEKCN
opening of the Clifton Suspension Bridge
over the river Avon in Bristol. It’s the
brainchild of engineer Isambard Kingdom
$TWPGNYJQJCFFKGFXG[GCTUGCTNKGT
ensions were running high in the EQPEGTVsOCMKPIKVCRRGCTNKMGCXGT[RQNKVKECN
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to the general election on 15 December,
UVCPF#PFPQVGXGT[QPGYCUJCRR[CDQWV
this turn of events.
Late in the evening of 3 December,
RKVVKPIVJGUQEKCNFGOQETCVKE2GQRNGoU two days ahead of the concert, Marley
0CVKQPCN2CTV[ 202 CICKPUVVJGFGGRN[ and his band took a break from rehearsals
EQPUGTXCVKXG,COCKEC.CDQWT2CTV[ ,.2  CVJKUJQOGCV*QRG4QCF5WFFGPN[
which was allegedly backed by the CIA. seven gunmen stormed the house in a
+PCPGʘQTVVQSWGNNRQNKVKECNXKQNGPEG hit-and-run attack. Marley’s wife, Rita,
the Ministry of Culture organised a free sitting in her car on the driveway, was
reggae event, the Smile Jamaica Concert, shot in the head. Don Taylor, Bob’s manager,
TOPFOTO/ALAMY
VQDGJGNFCV0CVKQPCN*GTQGU2CTMQP was hit in the torso, as was another associate,
5 December. .GYKU)TKʛVJU$QD/CTNG[JKOUGNH
Reggae legend Bob Marley, who had RTGUWOCDN[VJGOCKPVCTIGVYCUUJQV
RWDNKEN[UWRRQTVGFVJG202YCUFWGVQ in the chest and arm.
RGTHQTOCVVJGUWRRQUGFN[PQPRQNKVKECN AmC\KPIN[FGURKVGVJGXKEKQWUPGUUQHVJG
 14 DECEMBER 835
6JGEQWRMPQYPCUthe Sweet Dew Incident,
NCWPEJGFD[%JKPGUGGORGTQT9GP\QPIVQUGK\G
RQYGTHTQOCPKPʚWGPVKCNHCEVKQPQHGWPWEJUKU
foiled. The eunuchs retain control of China until
the fall of the Tang dynasty in 907.

A 19th-century watercolour depicts Sati, an Indian widow burning on her husband’s funeral pyre

4 DECEMBER 1829

The Hindu custom of Sati is banned

in British-ruled northern India
Bob Marley and the Wailers The custom, requiring a widow to immolate herself on
perform in Hamburg in 1976, her husband’s funeral pyre, is outlawed
just a few months before a
failed attempt on his life in
Kingston, Jamaica
omen’s lives have, by and VJGEWUVQOYCUFGGRN[KOOQTCN

attack, none of the victims were killed. And,

VJQWIJKPLWTGF/CTNG[KPUKUVGFQPRGTHQTOKPI
CV5OKNG,COCKECYJGTGJGRNC[GFC
minute set with the Wailers.
/GCPYJKNGOWNVKRNGYKVPGUUGUURQVVGF
VJGʚGGKPIIWPOGPJWTT[KPIVQYCTFUVJG
Tivoli Gardens, an area of Kingston known
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base of a notorious criminal gang.
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behind theCVVGORVGFOWTFGT+VoUDGGP
alleged that the gunmen were contracted by
the CIA. This theory is based on the idea that
/CTNG[oUUQPIURTQOQVGFRWDNKEFKUUGPVCPF
ALAMY
W large, historically been
considered secondary to the
needs of men. This inequality is starkly
TGʚGEVGFKPVJGCPEKGPV*KPFWRTCEVKEG
of Sati. On the death of her husband, a
UWTXKXKPIYKHGYQWNFDGGZRGEVGFVQ
CUEGPFJKUHWPGTCNR[TGVQKOOQNCVG
herself. Tellingly, the word Sati is
derived from Sanskrit meaning ‘good
woman’ or ‘chaste wife’.
In 1829, Lord William Bentinck,
governor-general of Bengal,
condemned Sati as “unlawful and
YKEMGFqCPFNCWPEJGFGʘQTVUVQ
QWVNCYVJGRTCEVKEG5QOGQTVJQFQZ
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+PFGGF$GPVKPEMoUGʘQTVUHQNNQYGF
[GCTUQHECORCKIPKPID[VJG*KPFW
religious and social reform activist
Ram Mohan Roy.
On 4 December 1829, the Bengal
5CVK4GIWNCVKQPYCURCUUGFsCKOKPICU
Bentinck said, to “wash out a foul stain
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VJKUNCYsYJKEJOCFGKVKNNGICNVQCKFQT
GPHQTEG5CVKsYCUGZVGPFGFVQ$QODC[
(now Mumbai) and Madras (Chennai),
saving the lives of countless widows
across India.
Helen Carr is a historian and writer.

that the CIA wanted to silence him. ETWUCFGTGHGTGPEKPIUETKRVWTGVQLWUVKH[ Her latest book is The Red Prince
/CTNG[FKGFQHECPEGTXG[GCTUNCVGT Sati. Others, though, agreed that (Oneworld, 2021)

9
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+44 (0)20 8742 3355
ATOL 3622 | ABTOT 5468 | AITO 5085

Apply now
Study international
history in the heart
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 COMPILED BY MATT ELTON

THE CONVERSATION

A 1971 propaganda poster extolling the

power of China’s cultural revolution.
The nation’s 20th-century history
directly informs its current attitude
to global relations, argues Rana Mitter

BEHIND THE NEWS

The long history

of Chinese
intelligence-gathering
Following the arrest of a British parliamentary researcher on suspicion
AKG IMAGES

of spying for China, RANA MITTER spoke to Matt Elton about how
surveillance culture has shaped Chinese society
11
 The history of intelligence in the UK
THE CONVERSATION
CPF%JKPCKUFKʘGTGPVKPOCP[YC[U
and we can look at the historical contrast
of what intelligence means in the two
nations. Over the past 100 years or so,
British intelligence services, both at home
and abroad, have built up a wealth of
experience, much of it during the Cold
War. But spying is regulated by society:
there are laws, regulations and strictures
on what British spies can do.
In China, you have to look at the history
of a particular institution: the Communist
Party (CCP). Secrets are part of its means of
consolidating power. When we think of how
the CCP came to power in the early 20th
century, a key moment is the Long March,
which was the famous occasion in the
1930s when communist rebels marched
thousands of miles through the interior
of China to set up a base [and evade oncom-
ing nationalist forces during the Chinese
civil war]. But what’s not as well known is
that, during that time in the countryside,
they perfected techniques of intelli-
gence-gathering and used them to create a
surveillance society. This carried on in the
1940s as a means of not only gathering
intelligence but also retraining people to
understand they should confess and tell all
to the party. The idea was that the party was
bigger than them.
6QFC[oU%JKPCKUCXGT[FKʘGTGPVUQTV
of society: modernised and consumerist,
with a growing middle class. But there’s still
a belief that intelligence is not separate or
even a secret part of how it is organised. It’s
an integral part of government and seen as
a good thing. That’s very different to what
you find in liberal societies such as the
United Kingdom.
12
During the CCP’s time
in the countryside in the
1930s, they perfected
their techniques of
intelligence-gathering
Red Army soldiers on the ‘Long March’
of the 1930s, in which communist
troops retreated from opposition
nationalist forces. It was a key moment
in Chairman Mao’s rise to power
/CP[RGQRNGYJQYQTMKP%JKPGUG
IQXGTPOGPVYQWNFDGCYCTGQHVJG
PCOGUQHRGQRNGUWEJCU-CPI
Sheng. He was basically Chairman Mao’s
top intelligence operative, particularly
during the time they were holed up in the
countryside during the Second World War.
Much of what he’d learned was under
Stalin’s henchmen in Moscow in the 1930s.
He transferred these tactics. But other
figures, who were not as involved with
torture and cruelty as Kang Sheng, were also
very skilled at finding out secrets within
China and elsewhere. People such as Pan
Hannian [former senior head of the CCP’s
Chinese communist leaders, including Kang secret service and a major figure in the
Sheng (second from left), gather in the city of party’s intelligence from the 1930s until the
Yan’An. Rana Mitter highlights his role in 1950s] and Yan Bao Hang [a senior CCP
intelligence gathering intelligence agent who warned the Soviet
Union of a Nazi invasion in 1941] were also
big names in terms of intelligence craft – you
might say statecraft – in China.
+P$TKVCKPHGCTCDQWVUQOGCURGEVU
of China – and Chinese people – has
a long history. We can think about the
late Victorian era, for instance, when the
Limehouse area of east London was associat-
ed with Chinese immigrants who – at least
according to western stereotypes and clichés
– were up to all sorts of dubious things in
opium dens. It was clearly a highly racialised
image, but one that was nevertheless very
powerful at the time. The character of
ALAMY/GETTY IMAGES
Dr Fu Manchu – a Chinese criminal master-
mind invented by British author Sax Ro-
hmer – played into some of that in the
mid-20th century.
And there are other examples, too.
The University of Oxford is a great liberal
 institution in all sorts of ways. And yet
The link between the Chinese poet and author Chiang Yee, LISTEN TO OUR NEW
domestic trust and in his wonderful 1944 book The Silent PODCAST SERIES
Traveller in Oxford, writes about being a
international trust isn’t Chinese resident in Oxford during the
HISTORY BEHIND
often explored, but it’s Second World War. He describes visiting THE HEADLINES
one of the colleges and it having a ‘colour
really important bar’ – in other words, they didn’t let non-
white people come in very easily. Reading
accounts such as that makes me think,
goodness me, times have changed – and it’s
good that they have.

A depiction of characters in an opium den from Charles
Dickens’ 1870 novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Such
depictions of Chinese people were common in the era
6TWUVKUCVVJGJGCTVQHCUQEKCNETKUKU
in today’s China. A frequent remark of
users of the internet and social media in that
country is that few people trust each other.
They trust their family and perhaps people
they know very closely, but the idea of wider
social trust – which perhaps you do find in
relatively more integrated and smaller
societies such as the Scandinavian nations
– is harder to find in China, a country which Rana Mitter, medieval historian Hannah
has experienced revolution, turbulence and Skoda and an array of expert guests will
a great deal of social change. be discussing the history behind the
Just this past September, the United news in our new monthly
Nations gathered for its General Assembly, podcast series. Listen at
and one of the things that was notable there historyextra.com/
is that the level of trust between various headlines-pod
key countries is in some ways much less
than would have been the case even 30 or
40 years ago when there was a feeling of
relative convergence of interests between
the major countries. The link between
domestic trust – whether people trust
each other in terms of wider society –
and international trust isn’t often Rana Mitter is a historian and
sufficiently explored, but I think that broadcaster and ST Lee Chair
it’s really important. of US-Asia Relations at the
Rana Mitter was talking to Matt Elton Harvard Kennedy School •
13
THE CONVERSATION
1 2
CULTURAL HISTORY
Ninety years of horror:
PKPGNOUVJCVTGʚGEV
UQEKGV[oUEJCPIKPICPZKGVKGU
As Halloween approaches, ROGER LUCKHURST explores how a
selection of groundbreaking horror films reflected cultural trends in
successive eras – and what ghouls, vampires, zombies and other
nightmarish beings tell us about society’s real fears
1 Frankenstein (1931, dir: James Whale)
Portraying persecution
This is a wonderful exploration of how socie-
ty declares a being to be a monster, who is
then hounded to his death. But it also reso-
nates with the experiences of German exiles
coming to Hollywood in the early 1930s,
fleeing persecution in their homeland: it has
a sense of a dreadful doom pursuing you to
the ends of the Earth. A lot of films from this
period seem to be influenced by the political
backdrop at the time – the rise of fascism in
Europe, with exiles arriving in the US. These
social forces all came together to produce
this weird hybrid of European folk tales and
Gothic novels, using the latest technology.
2 Cat People FKT,CESWGU6QWTPGWT
Exploring sexual anxiety
Directed by émigré Frenchman Jacques
Tourneur, this film [about a fashion illustra-
tor fixated on the idea she has the ability to
become a panther when aroused] has an
extraordinary visual style, cleverly using
shadows to evoke a sense of melancholia,
of mourning for exile from Europe. It also
features a very explicit Freudian narrative
about sexual anxiety and sexual repression.
The following year, Tourneur made
another amazing film called I Walked with
14
3 4
a Zombie – which sounds incredibly melo-
dramatic and silly, but is actually a poetic
evocation of the last days of the colonial era
in the Caribbean. It was made less than
a decade after the end of the US occupation
of Haiti, home of the zombie trope.
3 Godzilla, King of the Monsters!
FKT6GTT[1/QTUGCPF+UJKT*QPFC
Expressing postwar trauma
This Japanese film was made in the after-
math of the Second World War: in the wake
of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, and more than six years of
American occupation [which ended in 1952].
In one sense it’s a really stupid film, with
a man in a rubber monster suit jumping up
and down on what’s clearly a model of
Tokyo. But it’s also hugely evocative of the
postwar trauma of Japan – of people who’ve
just had the atom bomb dropped on them
and who’ve been occupied by foreign forces.
Of course you’re going to have a giant lizard
rise up and stamp all over you – it’s a perfect
expression of that angst.
4 Psycho FKT#NHTGF*KVEJEQEM
Questioning conformity
This film has an amazing reputation for
its explicit, violent imagery, but it’s also
5
a powerful evocation of a moment in US
history. There’s a sense of constraint, repres-
sion and conformity explored in some of the
most famous horror imagery of the period.
The explanation of Norman Bates’ motive
for his serial murders is so extraordinary,
and so explicit in its investigation of sexual
trauma and perversity, that it marked a
threshold moment in mainstream cinema.
Horror films are always pushing the enve-
lope. Sometimes they overstep the mark, and
sometimes moral panic ensues; sometimes
it’s about breaking taboos and reaching a
new level of representation.
5 Night of the Living Dead
(1968, dir: George Romero)
Highlighting the horror of racism
This famously gory film transformed
zombies from subservient, slave-like stum-
blers into ravening hordes driven to devour
human flesh. It was released during one of
the most extraordinary political moments in
postwar US history: the era of civil rights, of
GETTY IMAGES/ALAMY
student revolution, and of Vietnam War
protests. And it was radical in so many ways,
not only because the main character is played
by a black actor who, in one amazing scene,
takes command of the last surviving humans,
dominating the white male patriarchy. The
Activist Malcolm X in New York, 1963. The backdrop of
the civil rights movement and racism in the US informed
)GQTIG4QOGTQoUNO Night of the Living Dead
 8 9
6 7

film was picked up immediately by black

cinemas, which showed it alongside slave
Rosemary’s Baby
B-movies, but it was also shown in loftier produces horror out
cultural contexts, including being screened
by the Museum of Modern Art. of social fears and the
The closing titles roll over a series of
black-and-white stills. clearly echoing the
restrictions placed on
lynchings of the 1910s and 1920s. Director women in the 1960s
George Romero was deliberately picking up
on that kind of iconography, indicating how
explosively political his film was.

6 Rosemary’s Baby (1968; dir: Roman Polanski)

4GʚGEVKPIHGOKPKUVHGCTU
This film is important for breaching the old
Hollywood Hays Code, which had restricted
representations of sex and violence since the
1930s. As a mainstream studio-produced
film, it therefore marked an important
cultural breakthrough for horror movies. But
it’s also a film about patriarchy, the restric-
tions placed on women in the 1960s, and the
sense of a conspiracy against them, at a time
when so-called Second Wave Feminism was
burgeoning. Mia Farrow plays the titular
Rosemary, a heavily pregnant woman who
has been caught in a patriarchal web. It’s a
film that effectively produces horror out of
social fears and restrictions placed on women.
7 The Exorcist (1973, dir: William Friedkin)
Addressing abortion and divorce
This film provoked a major sensation for its
extreme, grisly representation of the demonic
possession of an adolescent girl. Adapted
from a book by an author from a conserva-
tive background, it depicts the Catholic
church’s confrontation with a demon,
questioning whether faith can win out over
evil. But it should also be understood in
relation to the 1970s crisis around abortion,
and women’s right to control their own
bodies. This was the year of Roe v Wade,
when feminism was becoming mainstream,
when abortion was a major political issue.
A whole raft of films were made around
GETTY IMAGES/ALAMY
Pro-choice campaigners march on Washington DC, 1970.
Concerns about women’s agency over their own lives and
DQFKGUCTGGZRNQTGFKPCPWODGTQHVJGGTCoUJQTTQTNOU
8 The Evil Dead (1981, dir: Sam Raimi)
Pitting conservatives against
progressives
Now viewed as an uproariously funny horror
classic, on its release this film [which sees a
group of college students beset by demonic
forces in a remote cabin] was reviled by
conservative commentators as an utterly
depraved movie. It was one of the first of the
so-called ‘video nasties’ that sparked a moral
panic in the early 1980s. Around that time,
video players became widely affordable, and
a loophole in UK law meant that films
released direct to video weren’t classified by
the British Board of Film Censors, so anyone
could watch them. That sparked a big moral
panic, and the Director of Public Prosecu-
tions banned dozens of films. It was part of
what we would now call a ‘culture war’
between conservative and progressive forces
in society.
Then, in the 1980s, the Video Recordings
are celebrated as classics, while others are seen
as art-house triumphs. So it was purely a
cultural moment of panic rather than a
reflection on the films themselves.
9 Get Out (2017, dir: Jordan Peele)
Reversing racial tropes
This was released in 2017, at the start of
Donald Trump’s presidency. It reflects the
sense in which the politics of race in the
US could be tackled through satire and
the tropes of the horror film. It’s a kind of
Invasion of the Body Snatchers updated for
the present. Black American writer-director
Jordan Peele explored a popular and ridicu-
lous horror cliché – that the black guy always
dies first – but also made a brilliant rewrite
and reversal of The Stepford Wives (1975).
In the original, a nice white suburb
is revealed to host a conspiracy of men
replacing their wives with subservient
robots. In Get Out, a black guy from the
city meets his white girlfriend’s parents –
and discovers a conspiracy where the elite
white one per cent are stealing the bodies of
black men. It’s an amazing satirical explora-
tion of white privilege, Black Lives Matter
and so on.
Roger Luckhurst is Geoffrey Tillotson Chair
of 19th-Century Studies at Birkbeck University
of London. His books include Gothic: An

then that reflected anxieties around preg- Act imposed a strict code of censorship, and Illustrated History (Thames and Hudson, 2021)
nancy and young girls’ agency. In addition, the moment was over.
The Exorcist starts with an acrimonious There’s nothing in that *QYFKFTGUJCRGJQTTQTNOU!
divorce, and the horror that follows seems to banned list we wouldn’t Hear more of Roger’s thoughts about the history of
echo the monstrosity of the trauma of that watch now; some films, horror on our podcast: historyextra.com/podcast
separation for the young daughter. such as The Evil Dead,
15
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 MICHAEL WOOD ON…
A WOMAN WHO HELPED DEFINE THE 10TH CENTURY
¢VJGNʚÂFYCUQPGQH'PINCPFoU
OQUVKORQTVCPVHGOCNGTWNGTU
IT’S A TRUISM, BUT HISTORIOGRAPHY – THE
study of the writing of history – always reflects the
interests of the rulers and their elites, and the assumptions
of the time of writing. It’s amazing sometimes how long it
takes for perceptions to change. When I was at university
there wasn’t a paper, let alone a course, on women’s
history. Only in this last generation or so could you say
that women’s history has really come into the mainstream,
as exemplified by Janina Ramirez’s recent sparkling
medieval survey, Femina.
This month, the first major academic study of
Æthelflæd, ‘Lady of the Mercians’, will be published.
Edited by Rebecca Hardie, Æthelflæd Lady of the Mercians
Michael Wood and Women in Tenth-century England comes 80 years
is professor of after Frank Stenton’s account in his still great Anglo-Sax-
public history at on England; more than 60 years after the pioneering study
the University of FT Wainwright. Since then – with a few honourable
of Manchester. exceptions, such as in the work of Pauline Stafford –
He has presented Æthelflæd has remained cloaked in mystery . The 1100th
numerous BBC anniversary of her death in 2018 saw some good popular
series, and is the accounts, but we’ve had to wait until the third decade of
author of several the 21st century for a book dedicated entirely to one of the
books including most important female rulers in English history.
The Story of China Daughter of Alfred the Great, Æthelflæd reigned for
(Simon & Schuster, 32 years, starting in her late teens and sharing the rule
2020). His X with her husband, Æthelred. After his death, she ruled for
(formerly Twitter) eight years on her own, although she had been the leading
handle is partner from about 902 due to his poor health. A short but
@mayavision valuable set of annals written in Worcester over the last
part of her life gives us precious insights into her rule. She
FRAN MONKS
was known as ‘Lady of the Mercians’ – a hlæfdige or
domina, that is, the female lord. She received the enthusi-
astic allegiance and support of her bishops, ealdormen
and thegns (the landowning aristocracy) in Mercia. So in
terms of decision-making we have to assume that she
participated in all discussions of policy, sending expedi-
tions and embassies, building towns and forts, and even
leading the army (though not, one assumes, in the battle
line). Sometimes the annals give a tiny hint of the emo-
tional bond between Æthelflæd and her warriors. In the
battle at Derby in 917 “four of the thegns who were most
dear to her were killed fighting inside the gates”. As the
female lord she had taken on the role famously portrayed
among men in Old English poetry.
Not only were the aristocracy of Mercia happy to give
her their allegiance in such violent and dangerous times,
but when she died in 918, they chose her daughter as the
second Lady of the Mercians. It’s the only time in English
history that a mother has been succeeded by her daughter.
There is so much about which we would love to know
more. Was she literate, for example? Her father Alfred’s
court in the 890s included continental scholars working
on his translation projects, but the core group were
Mercians who continued after her father’s death. Under
her there were major Mercian cultural achievements:
translations, poetry, saints lives. Mercian prayer books
survive that were perhaps written by, and for, women.
Tantalising hints, then, that she carried on the cultural
ideas of her father.
Her legacy doesn’t end there. Her only child, her
daughter Ælfwynn, was deprived of power when Edward,
king of Wessex, occupied Mercia after her death. But she
fostered her nephew Æthelstan, who after Edward’s death
was proclaimed king of the Mercians and became the first
king of the English. Educated in her court by Mercian
scholars, his standing there helped bring the two king-
doms together and made Alfred’s idea of a “kingdom of
the Anglo-Saxons” a meaningful political reality. Would a
united kingdom of England have come about without her?
The sad thing is that the sources are so scanty and
difficult that we will never gain a full sense of her achieve-
ment. For anyone in the Viking Age to rule for 32 years
was a huge success. For a woman it was absolutely extraor-
dinary. These days we are all seduced by the drama of the
Tudor court and their three great rulers. But I would argue
that in terms of long-lasting legacies the three generations
of Alfred, his children and his grandson were more
significant. And the bridging mind – in politics, strategy,
diplomacy, fortress building and founding cities – was the
Lady of the Mercians.
Her history has been erased for so long. As Dame Janet
Nelson (who has done more than any scholar in our times
to retrieve these lost histories) notes, the erasure of the role
of women is not something of any one time; it’s happened
throughout history. But now this is beginning to change. •
ILLUSTRATION BY ('/-'&',10) 17
 HIDDEN HISTORIES
KAVITA PURIQPCTGOCTMCDNG#HTKECPCTEJCGQNQIKECNPF
THE CONVERSATION
Discoveries such as this make you
feel your minuscule place in history
ON THE KALAMBO RIVER, OVERLOOKING A
235-metre waterfall bordering Zambia and Tanzania, a
groundbreaking discovery has been made. It’s one that
changes the way we think about our ancestors and human
culture. That’s a huge statement, I know, but in this case,
it feels warranted.
The genesis of it all begins with the arrangement of
two wooden logs found on the banks of the river. And
here’s the truly mind-bending thing: it’s evidence of a
structure that appears to pre-date our own species, Homo
sapiens (which evolved around 300,000 years ago), and to
be from the era of our early predecessors. Scientists
believe that the wooden log structure is from nearly half a
million years ago – 476,00 years ago, to be precise. Let that
sink in. It’s the kind of discovery archaeologists dream of.
The findings, published in September in the journal
Nature, suggest these two ancient logs may have formed
part of a walkway or platform. Interestingly, they feature
Kavita Puri
is a journalist
and broadcaster
for BBC Radio 4
whose history
series include
Three Pounds in
My Pocket. She is
also the author of
Partition Voices:
Untold British
Stories (Blooms-
bury, 2019)
Professor Larry Barham with the wooden structure found
on the border of Zambia and Tanzania, which he believes
shows high levels of prehistoric ingenuity
18
marks showing they were cut with stone tools also found
nearby at the site. The logs were placed at right angles to
each other, with one held in place by a notch on its under-
side. They had been fitted together as a structural object.
Archaeologists from the UK, Belgium and Zambia
have been working together on the excavation and
analysis. Professor Larry Barham from the University of
Liverpool, who leads the wonderfully named Deep Roots
of Humanity research project, believes that the discovery
shows a high level of ingenuity, technological skill and
planning. Although we cannot know for sure, he thinks
the logs could have been part of a trackway, perhaps across
marshland, or part of a foundation for a platform that
could have been used for storing firewood or dry food,
or acted as a shelter or dwelling. All of these possibilities
are remarkable because, before this discovery, evidence of
wood used by early humans was mostly associated with
fire-making, crafting digging sticks, or making spears.
The archaeologists have also unearthed a variety
of cutting, chopping and scraping tools, all made of
stone, and a possible hearth for cooking. Wood,
however, rarely survives, because it needs to kept in
very specific conditions. These logs had been pre-
served in the riverbed sediments – essentially, they
had been pickled for hundreds of thousands of years.
One of the oldest previously known timber
discoveries was a 400,000-year-old object believed to
be a tip of a spear. Made of yew wood, it was discov-
ered in prehistoric sands at Clacton-on-Sea in Essex
in 1911. Found by Samuel Hazzledine Warren, an
amateur pre-historian who had been looking for
stone tools in known palaeolithic sediment, it’s
currently on display at the Natural History Muse-
um in London.
The logs from the Kalambo river, meanwhile,
are set to undergo analysis in Britain, and will be
stored in tanks that replicate the waterlogged
conditions that ensured their survival for nearly
half a million years. The plan is to then bring them
back to Zambia, where they were found, to be put
on display.
There is nothing like a discovery such as this to
make you feel your minuscule place in the history
of evolution. You can feel a connection to that
time so long ago, when those that came before us
were interacting with their environment, taking
UNIVERSITY OF LIVERPOOL
trees, shaping and crafting the material, and
making a cultural mark on their landscape. We
have developed so much – and yet that ancient
impulse to work with our surroundings remains
completely unchanged.
 ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE

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 LETTERS
LETTER OF THE MONTH
Hidden assets
Disguising the Taj Mahal with bamboo
scaffolding to protect it from enemy attack
in 1942 (Did You Know?, November) was
just one example of the countless ways that
factories, runways, power plants and other
important structures were camouflaged
during the Second World War.
In the wake of the attack on Pearl
Harbor, for example, it was vital to protect
the militarily strategic Lockheed plant in
California, and no expense was spared to do
so. Set designers and artists were recruited
from Hollywood movie studios such as
Disney and Paramount. The main factory
buildings and parking lots were disguised
as miles of green fields. Airstrips were
painted to resemble fields of alfalfa. Hun-
dreds of artificial trees were planted and
chicken feathers sprayed on to them to
simulate leaves. Movement by employees
was confined to underground walkways,
except when they walked to pretend bunga-
lows made of hessian to make a show of
hanging out and taking down laundry
from clotheslines.
The success of the illusion was confirmed
when a general from the War Department
was flown over the area on a reconnaissance
flight and reported that all he had seen was
one California suburb after another.
Ian MacDonald, Essex
We reward the Letter of the
Month writer with a copy of
a new history book. This issue,
that is Volcanic: Vesuvius in
the Age of Revolutions by
John Brewer. You can read
our review on page 70
20
Beyond the Tudors
I always enjoy the magazine, which, for me,
is a must-read. However, please: enough of
the Tudors and both world wars! All seem to
feature in most issues of the magazine and,
important as these subjects are, they really
have had enough attention for some time.
How about an increased focus on the
stories of Scotland, Wales and Ireland?
Although all may have been featured in the
magazine, it’s usually in the context of their
relationship with England, and all have very
interesting histories of their own. For Wales,
for example, how about features on Owain
Glyndŵr, the social history of mining and
ironwork in 19th-century south Wales, or
the role of nonconformism? And, for Scot-
land, what about the growth of Glasgow’s
industry, the city’s role in the slave trade, or
the impact of the different cultural back-
grounds of the various parts of Scotland?
So how about a three-month moratorium
on the Tudors and world wars and a focus
on the parts of the union you don’t cover
so often? The recent BBC series Union with
David Olusoga would offer a fitting backdrop.
Jenny Jones, Ripon
Unsporting behaviour
I was surprised that, in his article on nations
using sport as propaganda (Conversation,
October), Matt McDowell did not mention
the most egregious example of modern
times: East Germany.
I am sure that anyone of my generation
will remember how the Olympic Games
featured that country as a major medal
winner, although it was obvious that the state
was pouring money into their efforts. The
comparison between the basically amateur
athletes of the UK with the almost robotic
products of that small totalitarian nation
made a mockery of results for many years.
Colin Bullen, Kent
The nightmares of slavery
I much enjoyed Michael’s Wood’s article
on the ongoing legacy of slavery
(October) and wanted to share a parallel
and Commonwealth Office in Accra in
Commissioner showed me the broken
neck of a clay bottle, with a request
Elmina Castle in Ghana, a key
NQECVKQPKPVJG#VNCPVKEUNCXG
VTCFG4GCFGT2GVGT$CTMNCOD
recalls a moving visit to the site
East German skater Katarina
9KVV EGPVTG KP4GCFGT
Colin Bullen comments on
VJG)&4oUGORJCUKUQPURQTV
from an official at Elmina Castle for identifi-
cation. The British Museum confirmed that
it was Dutch, probably circa 17th century.
When I returned it, the official kindly
offered me a tour of this originally Portu-
guese fort, built the decade before Colum-
bus’s first Atlantic voyage. One particular
fact still haunts me. As I was being shown
where male captives were kept, within a
large, but almost airless stone basement, I
was asked about the headroom. At six foot, I
had no need to duck, but was horrified to
learn that the floor had been four foot higher:
when excavating the castle, they had re-
moved that amount of compacted faeces.
Enslaved people might have to wait up to
three months for the next ship. For them, the
‘Middle Passage’ was not the beginning of
the nightmare.
Peter Barklamb, Leicestershire
Marvellous Michael
Since 1979, when he clambered through the
undergrowth and on to our screens in BBC
series In Search of the Dark Ages, I have loved
Michael Wood and his enthusiastic yet
restrained presenting style. My runaway
favourite of his series is 1985’s In Search of the
Trojan War – helped, in no small part, by the
inspired choice of Terry Oldfield and David
Pash’s music. Each episode was packed with
information from unexpected sources.
I always head first for Michael’s column in
each issue, and have just reread his thoughts
on the relevance of William Blake and the
SAVE WHEN YOU
GETTY IMAGES/ALAMY
SUBSCRIBE TODAY
• Page 46
 EDITORIAL
Editor Rob Attar robertattar@historyextra.com
Deputy editor Matt Elton mattelton@historyextra.com
Production editor Spencer Mizen
Section editor Rebecca Franks
Picture editor Samantha Nott samnott@historyextra.com
Art director Susanne Frank
Senior deputy art editor Rachel Dickens
Acting deputy art editor Rosemary Smith
Podcast editor Ellie Cawthorne
Acting podcast editor Rhiannon Davies
Podcast editorial assistant'OKN[$TKʘGVV
Content director Dr David Musgrove
Digital editor Elinor Evans
Premium content editor Rachel Dinning
Deputy digital editor Kev Lochun
Digital editorial assistant Lauren Good
Freelance subeditors: 2CWN$NQQOGNF4WUUGNN&GGMUFreelance art: Sarah Lambert
Fact-checkers: &T4QDGTV$NCEMOQTG,QJP'XCPU,QUGVVG4GGXGU#O[.QWKUG5OKVJ&T
&CPKGN#FCOUQP.WE[5CPVQU(GNKEKV[&C[&CPKGN9CVMKPUPicture consultant: Everett Sharp

Quarry workers in ADVERTISING & MARKETING

Llanberis, north-west
9CNGUE4GCFGT
Jenny Jones makes neat tie-in with Glastonbury Festival. It is
the case for greater good to see him going strong and that he still
coverage of the seems very much the same man who inspired
history of Wales, my teaching. In my book, there’s no equal.
Ireland and Scotland Jo Jones, Darlington
Complex characters
I enjoyed the interview with Mary Beard
(Books, November), which was as informa-
tive and entertaining as ever. I look forward
to reading her latest book, Emperor of Rome.
However, I cannot agree when she says:
“Caesar was assassinated... by some privi-
leged aristocrats whom Shakespeare glori-
fied.” On the contrary, he depicts them as
flawed, largely unpleasant characters: Brutus
is a misguided, self-righteous idealist, while
Cassius is envious and cunning. Shakespeare’s
characters are seldom one-dimensional.
Sue Tester, Rochester
Correction
• As reader Nick Horsham points out, the
#RGTHQTOCPEGQH map of the British empire in 1923 in Empire
5JCMGURGCTGoUJulius on the Brink (November) incorrectly shows
CaesarCV.QPFQPoU Newfoundland and Labrador as not being
)NQDG6JGCVTG4GCFGT within the empire at this point. While they
Sue Tester hails the were not part of Canada at the time, they
RNC[YTKIJVoUVJTGG were still a dominion of the British empire.
dimensional characters Apologies for the error.
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21
 Eyes on the prize
Adolf Hitler in Landsberg
Prison, 1924. It was here,
while serving nine months for
leading the Munich beer hall
putsch, that the Nazi leader
crafted a strategy that would
propel him to power

22
 “To many, Hitler
was no longer
the buffoon who
had botched a
coup, but a true
patriot who could
deliver Germany
from chaos”
A century on from the Munich beer hall putsch,
Frank McDonough explains how Adolf Hitler
VWTPGFCDNQQF[CUEQKPVQCRQNKVKECNVTKWORJ
GETTY IMAGES

•
23
 *KVNGToUDWPINGFTGXQNWVKQP
n 8 November 1923, Adolf Hitler strode into
a beer hall, jumped on to a chair, and fired a
single bullet into the ceiling. “The National
Revolution has begun,” he bellowed to his
startled audience. “The hall is under the
control of 600 heavily armed men. No one
is allowed to leave.” It was the most dramatic
of entrances, and one that would signal the
start of a defining episode in Hitler’s early
life: the Munich beer hall putsch. Hitler’s aim that autumn
night was to seize Munich and use the city as a base from
which to overthrow the Weimar Republic. Yet little did he
know as he stood on top of the table that his ‘national
revolution’ was about to fall flat on its face.
Hitler had chosen the location of his coup – the Bürger-
bräukeller, a large beer hall in the centre of Munich – for a
good reason. For it was here, on that November evening,
that Gustav von Kahr, state commissioner of Bavaria, was
due to deliver a speech to Munich government officials.
Hitler, who had been leader of the National Socialist
German Workers’ Party (better known to history as the
Nazis) since July 1921, decided to hijack this meeting to
announce a ‘March on Berlin’, where he planned to have
himself installed as German leader. He had already won
over the First World War leader General Erich Ludendorff
– and assumed that Kahr and the Bavarian establishment
would support him, too.
24
Captive audience A speaker
addresses a crowd in Marienplatz,
Munich during the beer hall putsch.
Hitler planned to seize the Bavarian
city before leading a march on Berlin
What Hitler did not know was that, on 6 November,
Kahr had met leading paramilitary organisations in Mu-
nich, telling them the Bavarian government would not
support any revolutionary action designed to bring down
the Weimar Republic. General Otto von Lossow, head of
the Bavarian Reichswehr, and Colonel Hans Ritter von
Seisser, the head of the Bavarian State Police, also opposed
Hitler’s proposed coup.
However, in the minutes following Hitler’s entrance
into the beer hall, Kahr was barely in a position to oppose
the Nazis swarming into the building. Standing at the
speaker’s podium, he was led at gunpoint to an adjoining
room, accompanied by Seisser, Lossow and Ernst Pōh-
ner, the former Munich chief of police. Hitler threatened
to kill them and himself, too, if they refused to join his
march on the German capital.
Dictator of Germany
In the meantime, Ludendorff had turned up, telling Kahr,
Seisser and Lossow that he supported Hitler’s plan. How-
ever, Ludendorff was somewhat surprised to hear that, in
Hitler’s proposed national government, he had been given
the lesser role of commander of the army, as Hitler had al-
SHUTTERSTOCK
ready appointed himself ‘dictator of Germany’.
At 10.30pm, Hitler left the beer hall to go and calm
down a clash between an SA paramilitary unit and
government troops at the local barracks of the Army
TOPFOTO
Shock troops Members of the SA arrive at the Munich beer hall during the putsch. Tensions between Nazi militia and the Bavarian police soon erupted into violence
Engineers a few miles away. He left Ludendorff to control
Kahr, Lossow and Seisser. It was a huge error of judgment:
Ludendorff had soon allowed the three to leave.
Once free, Kahr took measures to strangle Hitler’s
would-be revolution at birth. German president, Friedrich
Ebert, gave full executive power over Bavaria to General
von Seeckt, who issued a manifesto warning that the army
would deal sternly with all conspirators. And so, a few
minutes before midnight, Hitler accepted that his attempt
to overthrow Weimar democracy had failed.
Yet he wasn’t about to go quietly into the night. As a
final and futile revolutionary gesture, the
following day the Nazi leader led a demon-
stration, numbering 3,000, through
Munich, with Ludendorff at his side. Their
aim was to march to the War Ministry and
capture it, but as they approached the
5JQVUYGTGǍTGF Feldherrnhalle, in the city centre, they
found their path barred by a heavily
QPDQVJUKFGU+V armed cordon of the Bavarian state police.
Several shots were fired on both sides,
left 14 National leaving 14 National Socialists and four
5QEKCNKUVUCPF police officers dead.
When it was all over, Hitler turned up
four police at the house of his close friend, the wealthy
landowner Ernst ‘Putzi’ Hanfstaengl. It
QǏEGTUFGCF didn’t take the authorities long to catch up
with him. On 11 November, Hitler was arrested and driv-
en to Landsberg Fortress, a modern prison 33 miles to the
west of Munich, to await trial on a charge of treason.
Destructive force
The coup had failed because Hitler had allowed his party
to become a purely paramilitary organisation, involved in
an ill-defined conspiracy. Hitler had whipped up his own
supporters into a frenzy, only to find that he had already
been deserted by his supposed co-conspirators.
On the day of Hitler’s arrest, Gustav Stresemann, the
German chancellor, gave a speech in which he reflected
on recent events in Munich, admitting: “Germany was
now confronted with the demand for a dictatorship.” But
he stressed that anyone thinking a dictatorship would im-
prove matters was making a “great mistake”. Stresemann
said a “destructive force” such as Hitler could never have
provided competent government for Germany, even if he
had succeeded.
But, of course, Hitler hadn’t succeeded. His coup
had ended in abject failure. As his trial got under way at
Munich’s First District People’s Court, on 26 February
1924, his political career now seemingly lay in tatters, his
dreams of seizing power cast to the wind. A long prison
sentence surely awaited.
Yet Hitler wasn’t quite finished yet. That much became
apparent on 27 March 1924 when, after four weeks of •
25
 Hitler’s bungled revolution
Hitler’s war with the Weimar Republic
How Nazism eclipsed Germany’s interwar democracy
Friedrich Ebert became
VJGTUVRTGUKFGPVQHVJG
Weimar Republic in 1919
French troops enter the
German city of Essen to
enforce reparations,
11 January 1923
On his resignation as chancellor,
Kurt von Schleicher recommended
that Hitler replace him
26
The Weimar Republic
9 November 1918
Proclamation of the Weimar
Republic. Social Democrat
(TKGFTKEJ'DGTVKUGNGEVGFKVUTUV
president the following February.
11 January 1923
French and Belgian troops occupy
the Ruhr to enforce payment of
German reparations.
26 April 1925
The First World War military
leader Paul von Hindenburg
is elected Reich president.
29 October 1929
Wall Street crashes, contribut-
ing to the ‘Great Depression’,
which will see more than
|OKNNKQP)GTOCPUWPGORNQ[GF
29 March 1930
Hindenburg appoints
Heinrich Brüning as
chancellor of a ‘Presidential
Cabinet’ that uses Article 48
of the Weimar Constitution
to remain in power.
28 January 1933
Following a wave of
resignations and votes of
PQEQPFGPEGKurt von
Schleicher resigns as
chancellor, paving the
way for Hitler’s ascent
to power.
The Nazis
29 July 1921
Adolf Hitler becomes leader
of the National Socialist
German Workers’ Party,
which will later be better
known as the Nazi Party.
8 November 1923
Hitler leads the Munich beer hall ideology was
putsch. He is jailed for his role in the crystallised in
bungled coup, and it is in prison that Mein Kampf
he begins writing Mein Kampf.
14 September 1930
The Nazis win 18.3 per cent
of the vote and 107 seats in
national elections.
Hitler grasps the
March/April 1932 Blutfahne (Nazi Blood
Hitler makes a strong showing in the Standard) in 1923
German presidential election but is
defeated by Paul von Hindenburg.
GETTY IMAGES/ALAMY
President von
Hindenburg shakes
hands with Hitler,
31 July 1932 1933
The Nazis poll
37.4 per cent in the
national elections to
become the largest
party in the Reichstag.
30 January 1933
Hindenburg appoints
Hitler chancellor of
Germany, believing –
mistakenly, as it turns
out – that the Nazi leader
can be controlled.

%QWTVFGCPEGA photograph of the beer hall putsch trial at Munich’s People’s Court; and (inset) a sketch of Hitler
delivering his speech at the trial, in which he railed at everything from the Weimar Republic to the League of Nations
worldwide press coverage of his trial, he delivered his
closing speech. It lasted for more than an hour and would
be remembered as one of the most important of his life.
Hitler began by saying that the Weimar Republic was
founded on a “crime of high treason” in which the Ger-
man army had been “stabbed in the back” by socialists
and Jews. As the country suffered one catastrophe after
another, the democratic leaders of the republic remained,
he argued, subservient to the Allied powers. Germany was
reduced to a pawn on the international chessboard.
The Treaty of Versailles was, Hitler raged, “immorality
in 440 clauses”. As for the League of Nations, its only func-
tion was to guarantee the “corrupt peace treaty”. Now, this
“so-called government was hauling German heroes into
court and branding them traitors”. Respect for law would
only return when the president of Germany was tried for
high treason.
Looking straight at the judge, Hitler concluded his
speech, with the following statement: “Even if you pro-
nounce us guilty a thousand times, the eternal goddess
of the eternal court of history will smilingly tear up the
verdict of this court and she will acquit us.” Hitler had un-
doubtedly seized his moment in the international spot-
light. In that court in central Munich he had somehow
turned a bungled fiasco into a triumph.
On 1 April, Georg Neithardt, a nationalist member of
the rightwing Bavarian judiciary, delivered the verdicts.
Hitler was found guilty of high treason and sentenced to
TOPFOTO
five years, with a reduction for the four months he had al-
ready served. This made him eligible for release on parole
Was the Weimar Republic doomed from
the start? Frank McDonough discussed interwar
Germany on our podcast: historyextra.com/weimar-qa
after just six months. He also received a fine of
200 gold marks. The other chief defendant in
the trial, General Erich Ludendorff – who ar-
rived to hear the verdicts in full general’s rega-
lia, displaying all his medals – was amazingly
acquitted of all charges.
Farce and mockery
News of the verdicts shocked not only the
German press, but newspapers around the world.
The leading SPD (Social Democratic Party) newspaper,
Vorwärts, condemned the trial as “a farce and a mock-
ery”, suggesting it was such an obvious injustice that the
judge should be put on trial himself. The Times asked if
the crime of high treason was “worth more than a mere
six months in prison?”, and The New York
Times regarded the verdicts as “an
excellent joke for All Fools’ Day”.
Far from snuffing out Hitler’s political
aspirations, the trial had provided
him with the oxygen of global publicity.
It had made him famous. To many, he
Far from
was no longer the buffoon who had UPWǏPIQWV
botched a coup in a beer hall, but a true
patriot who had tried to rescue Germany Hitler’s political
from democratic chaos.
Hitler’s time in prison also led him
aspirations, the
to begin writing Mein Kampf (My Strug- trial had handed
gle), which became the ‘Bible of Nation-
al Socialism’, in which he cast himself in him global fame •
27
 Hitler’s bungled revolution

NAZISM’S SACRED TEXT

How Hitler used his time in prison to produce
a chilling political manifesto, Mein Kampf

Adolf Hitler spent just eight months and 20 days incarcerat-

ed in Landsberg Fortress for his part in the Munich beer hall
putsch. To many onlookers, he had been handed a mystify-
ingly lenient punishment for an audacious act of treason. Yet
VJCVYCUVKOGGPQWIJHQTVJG0C\KNGCFGTVQTGPGJKURQNKV-
ical ideology, formulate his future plans for Germany and
begin committing them to paper. The result was a 782-page
manifesto published over two volumes. Hitler called it Mein
Kampf (My Struggle).
6JGTUVXQNWOGQHMein Kampf presents a heavily redact-
ed autobiographical story from Hitler’s early life up to the
founding of the National Socialist Party (NSDAP) in Febru-
ary 1920. The second volume, written after his release, was
more of a political manifesto, developing many of the ideas
JGOGPVKQPGFKPVJGTUVXQNWOGDWVKPOQTGFGVCKN
The dominant theoretical concepts in both volumes are
race and space. Hitler depicts human history not as a class
struggle, as Marx would have it, but a Darwinian struggle for
existence between the strong and pure “Aryan” races over
the “weak and mixed-race” ones. Free man Hitler leaves Landsberg Prison in December 1924,
The key objective of Hitler’s racial policy is to create a having convinced the authorities that he no longer constitutes a threat
pure Aryan folk community of Germans, which he called
Volksgemeinschaft. This “master race” would then become the role of political and philosophical Messiah (for more
“the highest species of humanity on this Earth”. details, see box, left). Part autobiography, part ideologi-
If the Aryan possessed all the positive qualities Hitler ad- cal manifesto and part blueprint for political action, Mein
mired, the opposite was true of the two key enemies he out- Kampf remains an important book for understanding the
lined in Mein Kampf: Jews and Marxists. A virulent hatred of essence of Nazi ideology, crystallising his virulent hatred
Marxism runs through many pages in the book. Hitler’s chief for Jews and Marxists and setting out his plans for living
desire if he gained power was to “eliminate” or “extermi- space in eastern Europe.
nate” Marxism in German politics.
There is a similar passionate and violent hatred of Jews, A clear ideology
GURGEKCNN[KPVJGEJCRVGTn0CVKQPCPF4CEGoKPVJGTUVXQN- At 12.15pm on 20 December 1924, Hitler walked out of
WOG*KVNGTFGPGF,GYUPQVCUCTGNKIKQWUITQWRDWVCU Landsberg Fortress. The New York Times ran an article to
a united race planning a “world conspiracy”. coincide with his release under the headline: “Hitler
A large amount of space in Tamed by Prison.” The paper reported that the “demi-god
Mein Kampf is devoted to for- of reactionary extremists” looked much wiser as he left
eign policy. Hitler had entered prison, noting that his behaviour during imprisonment
politics to demand the end of the had convinced the authorities he was no longer to be
Treaty of Versailles, primarily by feared. “It is believed he will retire to private life and
settling accounts with France, return to Austria, the country of his birth.”
thereby restoring Germany’s Hitler was, of course, planning nothing of the sort.
1914 borders. This implied a fu- While in prison, he had spent his time assessing his fail-
ture war concentrated in west- ure, learning from it, and, above all, formulating his next
ern Europe. move on the political stage. He concluded that, to succeed,
Yet the revision of the Treaty National Socialism needed a clear ideology and a nation-
of Versailles was to be a mere al organisation – and that the path to power lay through
prelude to gaining living space votes in elections, not brute force.
GETTY IMAGES

in eastern Europe. In Mein
Kampf, Hitler sets out his be-
lief that the Soviet Union had
been militarily weakened by be-
ing under the control of “Jew-
ish-Bolsheviks”. It was, he con-
cluded, “ripe for collapse”, and
would be subjugated through a
war of conquest.
Mein Kampf envisaged the
triumph of a ‘pure’ Aryan
race, as depicted in this
Nazi calender from 1938
Put that way, the Munich beer hall putsch marked
the birth of Hitler as a politician, and the end of his
career as a beer-hall agitator. It was the true start of his
road to power.
Frank McDonough is a leading historian of the Third Reich.
His latest book, The Weimar Years, 1918–1933, was published by
Apollo in August
Series 1 of Rise of the Nazis, exploring Hitler’s
path to power, is available on BBC iPlayer:
bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00084td

28
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 Accompanies
Mary Beard’s six-part The remarkable story of one Roman woman,
series Being Roman pieced together from fragments over many
on BBC Radio 4 and
BBC Sounds
centuries, reveals insights into family life
more than 2,000 years ago. Mary Beard
gives voice to the long-silent Turia
ILLUSTRATION BY HUGH COWLING

30
 uring the civil wars that
tore apart the Roman
Republic in the middle
of the first century BC,
leading to the birth of the
empire, one Roman
woman was facing her own crises – both
public and private.
Usually known to us as ‘Turia’, she was
born into a high-ranking family and by
the late 50s BC had become engaged to be
married. It was obviously a ‘good match’ with
a man of prospects. But before the wedding
could take place, not only had her fiancé
suddenly quit Rome to fight under Pompey the
Great – in other words, on the losing side in
the war against Julius Caesar – but, tragically,
her mother and father had also been murdered
in their remote house in the country.
Turia moved in with her future mother-in-
law, but seems to have been largely left to cope
with her problems alone, or with the help of
just her sister. She managed to take vengeance
on her parents’ murderers and successfully
fought off some of her own relations who
contested her inheritance. At the same time,
she sent supplies to her absent fiancé, selling
off some of her own jewellery to do so.
Things looked up, albeit briefly. Although
Julius Caesar was victorious in the war
against Pompey, he pardoned his enemies
and allowed them to return to Rome, so Turia
and her fiancé were eventually able to get
married. But worse was to come. Just a few
years later, after Caesar’s assassination in
44 BC, the junta who ruled the city put a price
on her husband’s head, and he was forced to
leave the city again. It was only thanks to
Turia’s intervention on his behalf with
Lepidus, one of Rome’s so-called ‘ruling
three’ (alongside Mark Antony and Octavian,
the future emperor Augustus), that he was
allowed back – but not before she had been
horribly insulted and beaten black and blue
by some of the regime’s apparatchiks.
Peace finally came to Rome more than
a decade later, under its first emperor, Augus-
tus – who by then had cannily reinvented
himself as a responsible elder statesman.
The marriage of Turia and her husband
lasted 41 years, with only one major disap-
pointment: they did not have any children.
Eventually, in despair, Turia suggested
that her husband divorce her, so that she
herself could find him another wife who
might be able to produce an heir. Her idea
seems to have been for a curious ménage à
trois in which all their property remained
jointly held, managed by her, and they would
31
 Reviving Roman voices
share the children of the new wife between
the three of them. But the husband would
hear nothing of this scheme. Turia, after all,
had remained faithful to him when he was in
exile – why would he forsake her now?
Pieces of the puzzle
This is a rare story of a real woman’s life in
ancient Rome. We know of it only thanks to
the speech of praise given by the husband at
Turia’s funeral, which he then had inscribed
on two marble panels, almost certainly
displayed on the facade of what must have
been a vast tomb. All we can say about her
comes from there.
We do not know exactly where the monu-
ment originally stood, because it was later
broken up and the material recycled into
other buildings. Fragments of the inscription
have been discovered over the past few
centuries all across the city: a couple of pieces
in a Christian catacomb, one in an abbey
wall, another unearthed during works on the
sewers near modern Trastevere, yet another
languishing unrecognised in a museum
storeroom. Other parts have come down to us
only in manuscript copies made in the 17th
century, recording fragments of the inscrip-
tion that were then known but have since
been lost again.
Reconstructing the text and, thus, the
story of Turia’s life has been like doing a giant
jigsaw puzzle. We have so far – there may be
more pieces to come, if we are lucky – discov-
ered slightly more than half of what was once
written. The original text ran to almost 200
lines, covering the panels that were originally
2.5 metres tall and just under 1 metre wide
– making it the longest Latin inscription
created by a private individual to have
survived anywhere in the Roman world.
Sadly, missing elements include the actual
names of the couple, both husband and wife.
‘Turia’ is a conjecture by an 18th-century
antiquarian. It is almost certainly wrong, but
the name has stuck – and the whole docu-
ment is generally known as the Laudatio
Turiae, or Praise of Turia.
Of course, none of this gives us the
woman’s own view of her life. What we have
is what the husband chose to say about Turia
at her funeral, and how he chose to have her
permanently commemorated on the tomb,
which he no doubt paid for. It was almost
bound to be laudatory: funeral speeches,
then as now, are not the place for criticism
and complaint.
As well as the more striking and unusual
episodes in her life mentioned above, there is
plenty of praise for the stereotypical qualities
that were the clichés of Roman womanhood
– the kind of thing that almost any Roman
husband would have wanted to be said about
32
How brutal were Roman emperors?
Mary Beard considered whether Rome’s rulers deserve their
reputations on our podcast: historyextra.com/mary-beard-pod
Reconstructing his wife. “Why should I list your private
qualities?” he remarks at one point: “Your
the story of Turia’s modesty, your obedience, your kindness,
your good nature, your devotion to weaving,
life has been like your honouring of the gods without a trace of
doing a giant superstition, your inconspicuous dress, your
restrained appearance.”
jigsaw puzzle
Taking the initiative
All this is very much in line with another
famous Roman tombstone made a few
hundred years earlier, which summed up
the qualities of another dead woman more
succinctly: “She was charming in her conver-
sation, elegant in her bearing. She kept house;
she wove wool.” The same sentiments can be
found on many more memorials erected from
one end of the Roman empire to the other.
But even if the Praise of Turia doesn’t give
us Turia’s own perspective, some parts of it
do challenge the standard view of how a
woman in ancient Rome was supposed to
behave. The scheming exploits of such
larger-than-life characters as Augustus’s wife
Livia are one thing, memorably reimagined
in Robert Graves’ 1934 novel I, Claudius and
probably fictional. But here is a rich but
Together forever 6JGUGEQPFEGPVWT[#&VQOD relatively ordinary woman who is actually
of a Roman married couple. The tomb of Turia and her praised for taking the initiative, in the public
husband was sadly destroyed world, to bring the murderers of her parents
to justice. (That crime alone is a chilling
glimpse of the lawlessness of Italy at the
period – though, to be fair, we don’t know
anything of the circumstances of the crime
or of its perpetrators: gangland brigands,
exploited servants or those with a private
grudge?) And she receives even more praise
for taking on her own relatives in the inher-
itance dispute, then pleading in person for
her own husband’s return before one of the
junta – even getting beaten up in the process.
How typical was this? We cannot be sure.
In one famous case, a female orator of the
same period, Hortensia, is said to have
addressed the junta publicly to protest against
a tax imposed on women’s wealth during the
civil wars after Caesar’s assassination. She
was partially successful, and the number of
women liable to the tax was reduced.
In these cases involving Hortensia and
Turia, though, such an act was probably very
much a wartime phenomenon. It is quite
common, even in societies where women are
usually confined to the home, for women to
take the initiative or be forced into the
limelight in periods of crisis, especially when
men are absent on campaign. That power
does not usually last: for example, most of the
women in Britain who found jobs driving
buses or lorries during the Second World
AKG-IMAGES
War lost them again in peacetime. So too,
Turia – after filling the power vacuum while
her husband was fighting overseas or was in
 Partial remains
All that we know of
Turia’s life has been
painstakingly pieced
together from tomb
fragments such as this
exile – almost certainly returned to domes-
ticity when ‘normality’ was restored.
And there are all kinds of puzzles about
the story told in the Praise of Turia that go far
beyond the tantalising anonymity of the
couple concerned.
It is not clear, for example, how she took
‘vengeance’ (or secured ‘justice’ – the exact
word is lost from the stone) for the murder of
her parents. It is hard to imagine, bearing in
mind Roman rules, that she stood up and
publicly pleaded in a courtroom – though
that is close to what Hortensia did. Maybe
it was something much closer to paying a
private hit squad: that was probably how, in
practice, most Roman disputes and vendettas
were settled. Despite the fame of Roman law,
such ‘self-help’, as it might euphemistically be
called, would have been more common.
For me the most puzzling and memorable
part of the Praise is the section on the couple’s
infertility. It is no surprise that the husband
puts that down entirely to his wife. Most
Roman men assumed that, if a couple failed
to have a baby, it was due to some deficiency
in the woman, not the man. But why did he
make such an issue of it in his speech, with
all the details of the proposed divorce and
ménage à trois? Rather than sheer clumsi-
ness, it was very likely a sign of the times.
Augustus was still on the throne when
Turia died. As part of his personal reinven-
CREATIVE COMMONS/AKG/BBC
tion from bellicose warlord to elder states-
man, he placed enormous emphasis on
promoting the family and the Roman birth
rate, and gave specific financial and legal
privileges to those with at least three chil-
dren. Augustus, in other words, made this
‘private’ aspect of domestic life part of ‘public’
business. And that is what we see reflected
here – as well as the husband’s
implication, in refusing the divorce,
that his love for Turia surpassed any
such state pressure.
Being Roman
Turia is just one of the characters we
spotlight in a series of six BBC Radio 4
programmes and podcasts that explore
what it was to be Roman. In them, we
look far beyond the standard image of
upper-class men in togas or battledress
spouting Latin.
To be fair, we do include one of those – Voice of the people Mary Beard’s new series
the emperor Marcus Aurelius (reigned focuses on the lives of everyday citizens rather than the
AD 161–180). But we give more time to achievements of the Roman elite
the little-known surviving letters between
him and his tutor, Marcus Cornelius Fronto,
than to his better-known Meditations – still
bestsellers among well-being handbooks after
almost 2,000 years.
However, we range much more widely
across the population of the Roman empire.
In one programme we meet Galen, a celebrity
doctor of the second century AD. He’s not
really a household name today, yet we can
still read more than 3 million words he wrote
on medicine, philosophy and himself.
Another introduces a young boy by the name
of Quintus Sulpicius Maximus, who died
when he was only 11 years old – though not
before he had won a ‘highly commended’
prize in an international poetry competition.
His parents had his poem inscribed alongside
his portrait on his tombstone.
Then there is Regina (‘Queenie’), a girl Mystery woman 6JKUTUVEGPVWT[#&OQUCKE
who was originally from somewhere near from Pompeii shows the face of a Roman woman
St Albans. Enslaved and later freed, she then whose precise identity, like that of Turia, is unknown •
33
 Reviving Roman voices
Manumission Mary Beard examines the tomb of Regina, a
formerly enslaved British girl who married her erstwhile Syrian master
A portrait of the second-century AD
physician Galen, and a page from an
Arabic translation of one of his works
A replica of the tomb of 11-year-old
poet Quintus Sulpicius Maximus
stands in Rome today
34
married her former master, who was a Syrian
from Palymra. The pair lived and died near
Hadrian’s Wall in a textbook example of
diversity, Roman-style – one of many that
reveal how people from all across the Roman
world mingled and interacted.
But perhaps my favourite of the six is
a long-suffering and slightly bad-tempered
middle manager from Roman Egypt.
He usually refers to himself only by his job
title: strategos (assistant governor). But a
series of his letters, preserved on papyrus,
allows us to trace the problems he encoun-
tered while attempting to organise a visit
to Egypt by the emperor Diocletian in the
late third century AD. Local mayors proved
decidedly uncooperative: “I have told you
two or three times,” he writes to one of them,
“to get the bakery repaired so we can feed
his majesty’s soldiers.”
He also had to cover his back with his own
superiors, reporting that: “I have told them
that they have to get the bakery repaired.”
His letters provide a wonderful glimpse into
a Roman office and a Roman filing cabinet
over a couple of weeks in AD 298 – and into
the burden placed on the locals ahead of
“the auspiciously impending visit of our
ruler”, as the strategos puts it in his formal
bureaucratese. It all makes a visit from
King Charles and Queen Camilla look
quite low maintenance.
Scattered evidence
One of our aims in the series is to show
just how varied the ‘Romans’ were. But
we also look to lift the lid on some of the
surprising stories of rediscovery that
have allowed us to get to know these
ancient characters.
The tombstone of little Quintus
Sulpicius Maximus, for instance, was
discovered only after Garibaldi’s forces
destroyed Rome’s ancient wall after
capturing the city in 1870: it had been
recycled as a building block in the
The strategos’s
letters provide a
wonderful glimpse
into a Roman office
over a couple of
weeks in AD 298
defences just a couple of hundred years after
the boy’s death. Some of Galen’s works,
meanwhile, are known only in Arabic
versions: his medical writings were influen-
tial in the Arab world, and some translations
have been preserved in Arabic long after the
original Greek texts were lost.
The letters between Fronto and Marcus
Aurelius were rediscovered in even stranger
circumstances. The parchment on which a
copy of them had once been transcribed was
later washed down and, for the sake
of economy, reused by some monks in
the seventh century to record the minutes
of an early Christian council. The more
ancient correspondence would have
disappeared forever, had an ingenious
19th-century scholar not realised that an
earlier text lay underneath the Christian
minutes, and used a chemical compound
to reveal the traces.
The fate of the stone on which the Praise
of Turia was inscribed – smashed up and
scattered across Rome, only to be rediscov-
ered in sewerage works and abbey walls, then
pieced together again – is therefore not as
BBC/GETTY IMAGES/AKG
unusual as it might at first seem. It is a perfect
reminder not only of how fragile the evidence
from the Roman past can be, but also of how
chance and serendipity can sometimes still
bring that past back to us, with all those
stories of real Romans and their real lives.
Long may that serendipity continue.
Mary Beard is honorary fellow at Newnham
College, University of Cambridge, and an author
and broadcaster. Her new book, Emperor of Rome,
is out now from Profile Books
Listen to the six-part series Being Roman,
presented by Mary Beard, on BBC Radio 4
and BBC Sounds from
Wednesday 8 November
 he
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•
35
 Medieval travel Was Sir John Mandeville more popular than
Marco Polo? 4GCF)KNGU/KNVQPoUCTVKENGQPVJG'PINKUJ
VTCXGNNGTQPQWTYGDUKVGhistoryextra.com/john-mandeville

People travelled in
surprisingly large
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pilgrimage

as unusual as you might think. People in the

Middle Ages travelled in surprisingly large
numbers – and, as Mandeville’s example
attests, by far the most widespread form of
travel was pilgrimage.
People went on pilgrimages for all kinds
of reasons. Often they were entirely volun-
tary – with the express purpose of seeking
salvation or imploring a particular saint’s
medical aid. For example, images and relics
of the virgin martyr St Apollonia, who had
An illustration from John Mandeville’s her teeth violently ripped out, were popular
c1356 travelogue shows him YKVJUWʘGTGTUQHVQQVJCEJG$WVRKNITKOCIG
journeying to Constantinople. The could sometimes be mandated, too – as a
English knight reported witnessing punishment for a crime, or to cure the souls
some extraordinary sights on his of an entire community.
voyage to Jerusalem – and beyond Pilgrimage wasn’t, of course, the only
reason that people hit the road. Business
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#IGUQHVGPEQPIWTGFCTQWPFHCKTUCPF

Seek salvation overseas markets. From around 1300, we see the

advent of the travel guide for corporate
1 Most medieval journeys had a spiritual purpose – although
travellers, such as Francesco Balducci
Pegolotti’s Pratica Della Mercatura (The
VTCXGNKPRWTUWKVQHPCPEKCNRTQVYCUKPETGCUKPIN[EQOOQP Practice of Commerce, c1339). Written by
a Florentine banker who had worked in
Antwerp, London and Famagusta, the
In the mid-14th century, an English knight apparently encountered a breed of headless Pratica tells us little about the delights or
called John Mandeville boarded a boat and people with faces on their chests. On another, wonders of travel. Rather, Pegolotti focuses
headed east. He was intending to follow he was confronted by natives with one huge on the routes across the Levant and the Silk
the well-trodden path of pilgrimage to the lip that they employed as a sunshade. The Roads, weights and measures, currency
holy city of Jerusalem. But as his c1356 inhabitants of a third island had, he tells us, conversion and mints, transit duties, tolls
travelogue, Book of Marvels and Travels, tiny mouths through which they fed them- and lodgings. Unlike John Mandeville’s
tells us, Mandeville’s journey soon mor- selves with a feather straw. HCPVCUVKECNN[ʚQTKFVTCXGNQIWGVJGTGKUPQ
BRIDGEMAN

phed into a voyage of curiosity to the edges Mandeville’s account of his travels is as wanderlust in Pegolotti’s account… only
of the world. On one island near India, he extraordinary as it is fanciful. Yet it is not quite VJGSWGUVHQTRTQV

36
 Choose your route carefully
2 (and employ a minder)
6JGTGYGTGYGNNYQTPRCVJUVQRQRWNCTFGUVKPCVKQPUDWVPQVCNNQHVJGOYGTGUCHG
So you’d decided to head out on a pilgrim-
age. Where could you have gone? Well,
thousands headed to one of the holy trinity
of medieval pilgrimage – Jerusalem, Rome
and Santiago de Compostela. Others
ʚQEMGFVQUKVGUVJCVITGYKPRQRWNCTKV[KP
the Middle Ages – places such as Aachen,
Canterbury or Cologne. Meanwhile, those
who didn’t have the means to embark on
international journeys could visit one of
the many smaller, local shrines, often as
humble as a wayside cross or a holy well.
Medieval Europe was criss-crossed
with routes that served business travellers
and pious pilgrims. Wealthier travellers
would hire a scarceler or escarcelle, a kind
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TQWVGTKFGCJGCFCPFQʘGTRTQVGEVKQP
from kidnappers and thieves. If you didn’t
have the funds to hire professional help,
Pack appropriately – and
3 don’t antagonise the locals
(CKNKPIVQECTT[VJGGUUGPVKCNUEQWNFGPFKPFKUCUVGT
GETTY IMAGES/BRIDGEMAN
+HVJGTGoUQPGVJKPI[QWECPoVCʘQTFVQHQT-
get when heading overseas in the 21st cen-
tury, it’s your passport. Back in the Middle
Ages passports didn’t exist, but they did
have a forerunner: something called the
you could take advantage of the amenities
that dotted popular routes: markets, fairs,
taverns, brothels, currency exchanges and
shrines. Key routes included the Via Regia,
which connected northern Spain to Musco-
vy; the Via Imperii, linking the Baltic region
to Rome via Germany; and the Via Francige-
na, which connected Canterbury to Rome.
The most enduring route is surely the
Camino de Santiago, which bore pilgrims to
the Galician shrine of St James. Although
the route changed over the years, the most
popular way to Santiago conveyed pilgrims
across the Pyrenees from St Jean-Pied-de-
Port in southern France, a journey of about
30 days. The Codex Calixtinus, a 12th-centu-
ry manual for pilgrims, describes the holy
places along the way that warranted a visit.
But it also included less spiritual matters. It
warned readers to avoid a “salty brook”
Few pilgrims left home
YKVJQWVCVTWUV[UVCʘCPF
bag, as this image from
John Mandeville’s
mid-14th-century
travelogue illustrates
letter of safe-conduct. These were often
issued by a king, prince or bishop, with the
aim of guaranteeing the holder’s identity and
intentions. If you didn’t produce this docu-
ment on demand, you could be denied entry
near Navarre where two men lay in wait
for travellers whose horses drank the
water and died, and warned against
pGPQTOQWUqYCURUJQTUGʚKGUCPFRNCEGU
where there was quicksand. The guide
makes it clear that choosing a route was
not about the destination, but about
safety and comfort on the way.
2KNITKOUʚQEMGFVQ5CPVKCIQoUECVJGFTCNK
P
the Middle Ages – and they still do today
VQVQYPU9QTUGUVKNN[QWEQWNFPF[QWT-
UGNHIGVVKPIKORTKUQPGFPGFQTsCUVJG
Venetian merchant and diplomat Giosa-
fat Barbaro discovered to his cost in 1474
– beaten up. Barbaro was near the city of
Tabriz (in modern-day Iran) when a man
appeared on the road and demanded to
see the merchant’s letter of safe-con-
duct. When Barbaro refused, he received a
punch in the face, causing him severe pain
for some months.
It was partly because of incidents like
VJKUVJCVCUVCʘCPFDCIYGTGCNUQCOQPI
the medieval traveller’s must-have items
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only provided support over arduous terrain,
it could also be employed for self-defence.
The bag (a ‘scrip’ or ‘wallet’) needed to be
secure enough to hold coins and valuables.
There was no travel insurance, of
course, but for added spiritual protection
when embarking on your journey, you could
IGV[QWTUVCʘCPFDCIDNGUUGFD[CRTKGUV
An English liturgical rite called the Sarum
Missal gives this prayer to bless a departing
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your journey and the toils of your pilgrim-
age, that you may be victorious against the
bands of the enemy and safely arrive at the
shrine of the saints to which you wish to go
and, your journey being accomplished, may
return to us in good health.”
•
37
 Medieval travel
Put your feet up and relax
4 The Middle Ages had a thriving hospitality industry, with
plenty of places for travellers to eat, drink and sleep
In the early 1430s, the English mystic
Margery Kempe embarked on a pilgrimage
to Aachen. On the return journey, near
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Not an ideal scenario for someone in her
sixties. “With great fear and depression,”
she approached a house by the edge of the
YQQFUCPFCUMGFVJGQYPGTKHUJGEQWNF
sleep there. He declined, but she spied an
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great insistence, she obtained permission
to rest herself on the bracken that night.”
Despite Kempe’s travails, not every
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bracken. In fact, those seeking a good
night’s sleep could make use of the many
inns, hospices and monastic dormitories
that dotted the routes to pilgrimage sites.
38
In England, you can still see some of
this accommodation today. Examples
include the humble Maison Dieu (c1235)
CV1URTKPIGKP(CXGTUJCO -GPV YJKEJ
served Canterbury pilgrims; the King’s
*GCFCV#[NGUDWT[ E YJKEJTGVCKPU
its 15th-century hall and courtyard; and
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DWKNVD[VJG$GPGFKEVKPGOQPMUQH)NQWEGU-
ter Abbey in the mid-15th century.
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provided food and drink; the latter lodging
CPFUVCDNKPI4QQOUYGTGWUWCNN[QPCP
WRRGTʚQQTCTTCPIGFCTQWPFCEQWTV[CTF
for the horses. You could even pay extra
for a private bedroom.
This illustration from Guillaume
de Deguileville’s 14th-century
Roman des Trois Pèlerinages
shows nuns preparing a
traveller’s bed
As one of the most popular pilgrimage
destinations in Europe, Rome had a
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EQWRNG#NKEGCPF,QJP5JGRJCTFYJQJCF
made a living by selling rosaries to pilgrims
and taking in visitors. By 1376 the complex
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YGNNMPQYPHQECNRQKPVHQT'PINKUJCPF
Welsh pilgrims.
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4QOG/CTIGT[-GORGFGUETKDGFJQYJGT
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BRIDGEMAN
the city and ended up at the hospice,
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Travellers pay a toll to
enter Tyre on the eastern
Mediterranean coast.
Pilgrims were charged for
everything from having a
bath to going to the toilet
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5 merchants
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You may have had the time, the energy and
the spiritual zeal to undertake a journey. But
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/KFFNG#IGUYCUUGTKQWUN[GZRGPUKXG
/QXGOGPVKPOGFKGXCN'WTQRGYCU
subject to a plethora of taxes and tolls, and
many travel guides included price lists and
EWTTGPE[EQPXGTUKQPVCDNGU6JG8KCDWPFWU
project, a digital map of medieval transport,
Listen to your bowels
6 (QQFRQKUQPKPIUGCUKEMPGUUUVQOCEJDWIUCPFYQTUG
stalked the medieval traveller
You’d done the planning, you’d saved for
[GCTUPQY[QWYGTGTGCF[VQUGVQʘQP
the trip of a lifetime. But if
your stomach betrayed you
en route, your journey could
BRIDGEMAN/DREAMSTIME
become less of a lifelong
dream than a living nightmare.
6TCXGNNGTUKPVJG/KFFNG#IGU
lived in constant fear of
succumbing to food
poisoning, sea sickness,
reveals that, from 1225, foreign merchants
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.ØDGEM KPOQFGTP)GTOCP[ 6QNNUYGTGCNUQ
levied on the cargo of ships leaving the port,
and on carts, cattle, pigs and sheep entering
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authorities in Lübeck levied a “pound toll” on
traders and travellers – to cover the cost, it
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Fennel seeds and aniseed were put
forward as useful preventatives against
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When one knight
refused to pay the fee
for the toilet, he was
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died the following day
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authorities extracted a myriad of fees from
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CTTKXCNCV,CʘCKPVJG)GTOCPRKNITKO
-QPTCF)TØPGODGTIYCUEJCTIGFVQUVC[KP
ancient caves full of donkey dung. During
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marchetti 8GPGVKCPEQKPU VQWUGCPQWVUKFG
hole-in-the-ground latrine. When one
knight from the party refused to pay the fee
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FKGFVJGHQNNQYKPIFC[
In 1520, the celebrated artist Albrecht
Dürer kept a meticulous diary of his expens-
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.QY%QWPVTKGU6JGUGKPENWFGFUOCNNEQKPU
HQTVJGDQ[UYJQECTTKGFJKURQUUGUUKQPU
and tended his horses, fees for tolls, depar-
ture taxes, payments to messengers, three
pennies for a bath, and small change to
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UJTKPGU6JGCTVKUVTCTGN[EQOOGPVGFQPVJG
NCPFUECRGQTVJGUKVGUJGUCYTCVJGTJG
HQEWUGFQPVJGEQKPUʚQYKPIQWVQHJKUDCI
to facilitate his journey.
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VTCXGNQIWGUYGTGRCEMGFYKVJOWUKPIUQP
VJGKTCWVJQTUoDQYGNOQXGOGPVU
.QPFQPGT)GQʘTG[%CNFYGNNHQTKP-
UVCPEGYTKVKPIKPECFXKUGFJKUHGNNQY
travellers to buy a covered pail for defecat-
ing in and a jar for urine as soon as they
CTTKXGFKP8GPKEG6JG[UJQWNFJGEQWP-
UGNNGFCNUQQDVCKPVJGKTQYPDCTTGNUQHYKPG
CPFFTKPMKPIYCVGTsCXQKFKPIVJGYCVGT
HTQOEKUVGTPUCNQPIVJGTQWVGYJKEJ
ECWUGFEQPUVKRCVKQPCPFHTGUJYCVGT
YJKEJEQWNFDGJCTOHWNN[NCZCVKXG
%CNFYGNNCNUQCFXKUGFUVQEMKPIWRQP
GPGOCUCPFUWRRQUKVQTKGU#PFKH[QWYGTG
RTQPGVQDQWVUQHʚCVWNGPEG!6JGP[QW
UJQWNFPGXGTNGCXGJQOG%CNFYGNNEQWP-
UGNNGFYKVJQWVCRNGPVKHWNUWRRN[QHHGPPGN
seed and aniseed.
•
39
 Medieval travel
)TCDCUQWXGPKTQT XG
7 Mementos both sacred and profane were an integral
aspect of the medieval travel experience
When William Wey went on pilgrimages to
Jerusalem in 1458 and 1462, he returned
home to England laden with mementos of
the journey. The souvenirs he collected
included stones from sacred sites such as
Mount Calvary, the Holy Sepulchre, Mount
Tabor and Bethlehem, as well as a paper
ETWEKZGPENQUGFKPYQQFGPDQCTFU9G[
set these up in a ‘Jerusalem chapel’ at
Edington in Wiltshire, alongside structures
made of painted planks depicting the key
destinations of the Holy Land.
Not everyone constructed shrines to
their travels as elaborate as Wey’s. But
collecting a souvenir was, all the same, an
,
Look death in the eye
8 Some pilgrims failed to prepare for the journey home;
others were dead before they got that far
+H[QWXKUKVVJGOCIPKEGPVVJEGPVWT[
hospice on the Greek island of Rhodes
today, you can still see the tombs of
English, French and German pilgrims and
knights. These burial places provide proof
that many travellers never made it home
in the Middle Ages. Death was a fact of life
in the medieval pilgrimage, and so it was
GUUGPVKCNVJCVVTCXGNNGTUUGVVJGKTCʘCKTU
in order before departure, and that they
made a will. But assuming you did survive
40
GUUGPVKCNRCTVQHVJGRKNITKOCIGGZRGTKGPEG
People believed that going on a journey
conferred a blessing on the traveller – and that
this blessing followed the pilgrim home along
with the keepsake.
The most common souvenir was the
pilgrim badge: usually a cheap, alloy emblem
showing a saint’s attribute. The city of Co
logne, with its shrines to the Three Magi and
to St Ursula, led the way in the pilgrim badge
industry and was one of the earliest places to
develop them (by the start of the 13th centu
ry). Almost as popular were profane badges
showing genitalia, sometimes dressed up as
pilgrims, or sailing in a boat. Such badges are
You can still see the tombs of
western European pilgrims at the
Hospital of the Knights in Rhodes
the journey, how should you prepare for the
long road home? This was a question that all
too few pilgrims considered.
One of the key tenets of pilgrimage is that
the traveller undergoes a transformation,
internally, from their journey; reaching the
FGUVKPCVKQPKUVJGCRGZQHVJGVTKR+VYCUCV
Jerusalem in 1414, for instance, that Margery
-GORGTGEGKXGFJGTTUVDQWVQHFKXKPGN[
ordained crying and screaming. She demon
strated the transformation wrought by travel
Some pilgrim badges featured saints,
while others sported depictions of
male and female genitalia
often said to have been considered magical
talismans: good luck charms to protect the
wearer on their perilous journey.
1VJGTUQWXGPKTUKPENWFGFDQZGUQHJQN[
UQKNCTGRNKECQH/QUGUoUUVCʘTQUCTKGU
worked in olive wood, and lengths of ribbon
showing the measure of Christ’s footprint.
through her body and through her emo
tions. It was relatively unusual, therefore,
for travellers to write about their return
journey: the wisdom of travel was held to
be in the teleological journey to a destina
VKQPPQVKPVJGGZJCWUVGFYCPFGTKPI
homewards that followed.
#PGZEGRVKQPVQVJKUYCUVJGCHQTGOGP
tioned William Wey, who left the earliest
known account of Vlad the Impaler. Wey
was in Rhodes, making his way home from
Jerusalem to Wiltshire in 1462, when he
JGCTFCDQWV8NCFoUITWGUQOGGZRNQKVU
how the infamous ruler had waged war
YKVJVJG6WTMUKPʚKEVGFOCUUKXGECUWCNVKGU
on them, and eventually “took his brother
and inserted a stake in his anus which he
drove in as far as his throat”.
Travel, in the Middle Ages as now, was
an important conduit of information, and
NGFVQUQOGVKOGUWPGZRGEVGFTGXGNCVKQPU
of new worlds – even if, as in Vlad’s case,
those new worlds revealed humanity at its
very worst.
Anthony Bale is professor of medieval studies
at Birkbeck, University of London. His latest
book, A Travel Guide to the Middle Ages:
The World Through Medieval Eyes, is published
BRITISH MUSEUM/ALAMY
by Penguin in November
To listen to Melvyn Bragg and guests
discuss medieval pilgrimage for an
episode of In Our Time, go to:
bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000s9qp
 Reading, writing
and retribution
BRIDGEMAN

Many Victorian gaols provided schooling for their inmates,

decades before it was mandated in wider society. So what,
asks Rosalind Crone, drove this great educational crusade?

Learning their lesson

A churchman lectures inmates
on a prison hulk at Woolwich in
a 19th-century engraving.
During the day, desks and
blackboards were brought into •
the chapel to turn it into a school
41 41
 Victorian prison schools
n 26 February 1848,
19-year-old Thomas
Sumpter appeared in the
dock at Berkshire Assizes,
accused – and quickly
convicted – of stealing a
sheep. Nothing unusual
in that, given the times: livestock theft was
hardly uncommon in the first half of the 19th
century. What was more curious was the
apparent motive behind Sumpter’s offence.
Having been recently released from Reading
Gaol, he committed the crime with the
express intent of ensuring his prompt return
to the prison where he had been memorising
sections of the Bible. He’d been receiving
lessons in reading, and he didn’t want to stop.
Sumpter was one of three convicts who
had been given early release from Reading
Gaol in autumn 1845, following an unprece-
dented decision by the local authorities.
Having been sentenced to 12 months’ impris-
onment, each had served six to eight months
– and in that time had become poster boys for
the success of a new regime at the prison.
To aid rehabilitation, education was
prioritised over labour: prisoners spent large
amounts of time learning to read and write,
as well as memorising passages from the
Bible. Having each committed to memory the
42
whole of the New Testament up to Ephesians,
at the time of their release the three men were
lauded as star pupils whose characters had
been transformed. That ‘transformation’,
though, proved short-lived. All three soon
re-offended, including Sumpter. Word spread
about both the system and the unfortunate
relapses, and the prison became known as the
Read-Read-Reading Gaol.
This account is somewhat at odds with our
idea of the Victorian prison as a place of ‘hard
labour, hard board and hard fare’. Yet in the
1840s, when there was no universal elementa-
ry education and many working-class
children were denied the opportunity to
attend school, many prisons in England and
Wales had schools in which inmates learned
reading, writing and sometimes more
besides. And despite the scandals sparked by
those three ‘transformed’ inmates, prison
schools were here to stay.
Smelly vessels
The first recognisable prison schools ap-
peared in the unlikeliest of places: on board
prison hulks. These decommissioned naval
ships were used to hold men (and sometimes
boys) who had been convicted of serious
offences but whose transportation to the
penal colonies had been delayed or prevented.
Class act The school for
girls imprisoned at Tothill Fields
in the late 1850s. A dedicated
schoolmistress was employed to
teach that institution’s large
female population; in other
prisons, the matron took lessons
Moored in rivers and harbours, these damp
and often smelly vessels were routinely
described as “schools of vice”. Drinking,
gambling and fighting were rife.
It is extraordinary, then, that on 1 January
1812, Thomas Price, chaplain for the Zealand
hulk at Sheerness, reported that a school had
been established in the ship and, as a result,
that “some of the ignorant are beginning to
read”. Soon after, schools began to appear in
land-based prisons, too. In 1814–15, the
keeper of Warwick County Gaol set up a
monitorial school for juvenile prisoners.
From 1816, convicts at Millbank Penitentiary
would gather in groups of 16 in the corridors
between their cells, where they were taught
reading, writing and arithmetic by the most
educated among their number.
By 1821, there were schools teaching basic
literacy in at least 24 prisons and hulks in
England and Wales, with more in Scotland
and Ireland. Their appearance was a conse-
quence of perceived rising crime rates and the
increasing use of prisons as places of punish-
ment, not just secure custody, where convict-
ed criminals would serve sentences of
incarceration. This was accompanied by a
greater emphasis on reformation, or what we
ALAMY
would now call rehabilitation: the idea that
prisoners should be returned to society as
 Prisons of many kinds The 19th-century penal system had various categories, including
JCTUJN[TGIKOGPVGFTUVUVCIGRTKUQPUUWEJCU2GPVQPXKNNG XKUKVQTUoQTFGTDQQMUJQYPTKIJV UNKIJVN[
OQTGTGNCZGFUGEQPFUVCIGRTKUQPUCPFHQTUGTKQWUQʘGPFGTUVJGFTGCFGFRTKUQPJWNMU CDQXG
law-abiding, productive subjects. Instruction
in reading and writing, reformers hoped,
would civilise and discipline a prisoner,
support his or her evangelisation and, in
some cases, help to secure employment.
A religious core
These developments reflected those of the
wider movement for mass education. In early
19th-century England and Wales, there was
no national system of elementary schooling,
and attempts to legislate for one routinely
failed. Though MPs agreed that any state-
funded education should have a moral (ie
religious) core, they could not agree on who
– effectively, which church – should provide it.
That failure, combined with the strength
of penal reformers’ commitment to rehabili-
tation and the growing number of prison
schools, led to a remarkable event. In summer
GETTY IMAGES/NATIONAL ARCHIVES
1823, MPs passed new legislation: a Gaols
Act, which aimed to improve conditions and
impose some uniformity on regimes in local
prisons for inmates on remand and serving
short sentences. Among other directives, it
decreed that “provision shall be made in all
prisons for the instruction of prisoners of
both sexes in reading and writing”.
The legislation heralded the birth of
state-funded education in England and
By 1821, there were
schools teaching
basic literacy in at
least 24 prisons and
hulks in England
and Wales
Wales, pre-dating the establishment of
universal elementary education for children
by almost 50 years. From 1823, the number of
prison schools continued to increase. By the
late 1840s, every convict prison and hulk, as
well as the majority of local prisons, had some
sort of education scheme for prisoners. In the
late 1860s, the proportion of local prisons
with schools reached 90 per cent.
Most early prison schools were ad hoc
initiatives. Prisoners were supplied with
books, and sometimes pens and paper, then
told to get on with it themselves. The authori-
ties often relied on prisoners, philanthropic
visitors or family members to teach for free or
a small fee. In 1836, the chaplain at Devon
County Gaol explained that he selected
schoolmasters from among those convicted
of smuggling because they “conduct them-
selves better than other classes of prisoners”.
At Ely Gaol, the governor’s 11-year-old
daughter taught the female prisoners.
Efforts were made to fill learning spaces
with suitable fixtures. On the Defence prison
hulk, slanting black desks with inkstand
holes were arranged in the body of the chapel
each morning. Blackboards were common,
and lessons were often supported by text-
books published by school societies. At
London’s Holloway Prison, journalist and
reformer Henry Mayhew watched a class of
female prisoners cluster “around a map of
England… [they] appeared to take great
interest in their geography lesson”.
Soon, however, new systems of prison
discipline ushered in more formal approach-
es. Prisoners’ lives were increasingly man-
aged via timetables dictating hours for sleep,
meals, labour and lessons. After the 1839
Prison Act, the adoption of the so-called
‘silent’ and ‘separate’ systems – which
prohibited contact between prisoners – put
an end to peer learning. Many classrooms
became silent, and in some separate prisons, •
43
 Victorian prison schools

such as Pentonville and Lewes County Gaol,

partitions were placed between pupils. These
were soon covered in graffiti as the increas-
ingly literate prisoners found new ways to
communicate with each other.
When visiting the school at Coldbath
Fields, London, Henry Mayhew found that
“all was silent as in a dumb asylum, the only
sound being the rustling of copy books”. One
pupil, “a lad with ruddy skin… [and] a defect
in his speech”, was instructed to read aloud
from his book. “‘Whatsoever is wight that
shall ye weceive’, [he said].
“‘Do try to pronounce your ‘r’s’ better,’
said the master, kindly; and thereupon there
was a shuffling of feet from the other pupils,
as if the only method of laughing under the
silent system was with the shoes.”
At the same time, volunteers were replaced
with paid teachers under the direct control of
the prison chaplain and governor. In convict
prisons and large local prisons, qualified
schoolmasters and schoolmistresses were
recruited, but in smaller institutions the roles
of teacher and warder were combined to save
money, often retrospectively.
In 1858, Samuel Parker, former school-
master at Newgate Gaol, won an action
against his employers for unreasonable
dismissal after he complained about the new
duties imposed on him. “A schoolmaster
would be degraded in the eyes of his pupils,”
the judge explained, “if, in addition… he
officiated as turnkey and was compelled to
clean out [water] closets.”

Embracing opportunities
Qualified teachers and, from 1835, prison
inspections encouraged the expansion of the
curriculum, with rote learning exposed as a
futile exercise. “I have learned all the Gala-
tians through by heart, and am now upon the
Ephesians,” Prisoner 4429, a seven-time
veteran of Reading Gaol, told the inspector,
“[but] I cannot say I understand it.”
While instruction in writing and arithme-
tic became increasingly common, in some Long division In the ‘separate’ system, prisoners were isolated from each other, even during lessons – as
prisons lessons in history and geography shown here at the Surrey House of Correction (known today as Wandsworth Prison) in the late 1850s
were offered to vary and deepen learning.
“The school is our strength,” declared the
chaplain at Shepton Mallet Gaol. “When During the 1850s and 1860s the penal
prisoners begin to read, they begin to think.” aspects of incarceration intensified, fuelled
Many prisoners embraced the opportuni- by growing disillusionment with efforts to
ty to learn. Attending school excused them rehabilitate prisoners, the replacement of
from labour, while mastering the skill of transportation by imprisonment, and the Prison schools
reading provided relief from boredom, and perception that prisons were too comfortable.
writing offered the chance to communicate Prison schools persisted, but provision was
persisted, but
with others outside (and sometimes inside) reshaped by a new emphasis on punishment provision was
the prison. But progress was dependent on and deterrence, and curricula were stream-
time, and the majority of prisoners spent no lined to focus only on basic competence in reshaped by the
more than three months behind bars. Often reading, writing and arithmetic. “High teach- renewed emphasis
ALAMY

the learning acquired in prisons was lost ing is wholly eschewed,” explained the
amid the hard reality of the outside world. chaplain at Millbank, “not only because there on punishment
44
 How hard was hard labour? Rosalind Crone
discussed the history of British prisons on our podcast.
Listen here: historyextra.com/british-prisons-qa

Inmate George Smith’s prison

examination book, dated 1874. By
then, education focused only on basic
reading, writing and arithmetic

A prisoner reads a book during a break

from the treadmill at Middlesex House
of Correction. By the 1860s, nine out of
ten prisons had schools

would not be time for it, but as inconsistent
with the proprieties of a prison, and not at all
necessary with reference to the well-doing of
the prisoners [on release].”
Stages of learning
From 1853, convicts at Pentonville and
Millbank serving long sentences spent their
first nine months in separate confinement.
Keen to increase the pain of isolation, in
1863–64 prison administrators introduced a
system of cellular instruction. In each ward,
one hour each week was set aside for educa-
tion, during which prisoners would study
alone in their cells. Those who were eligible
would receive 10 to 15 minutes’ instruction
from the schoolmaster or mistress.
At second-stage convict prisons, where
some association was permitted, classes
continued but lessons were limited to just one
WELLCOME IMAGES
moor, “by the time a dozen words of one
syllable have been spelt, and often before a
single line in the copybook has been filled,
the bell rings… and the prisoners return to
their cells about as wise as they left them”.
The nationalisation of local prisons in
1877 provided an opportunity to review
education for short-sentence prisoners.
Although the work of the commissioners
ensured that a school existed in every prison,
provision was reduced to the bare minimum:
15 minutes of individual tuition in cells twice
a week for prisoners aged under 40 with
sentences exceeding four months. “It is an
inherent difficulty,” wrote a senior civil
servant. “A place of short-term imprisonment
cannot be made a place of education.”
The advent of universal (1870) and com-
pulsory (1880) elementary education for
children in England and Wales gave prison
the idea of education as a panacea – a cure-all
for society’s problems and an antidote to
criminality – remains seductive.
Educational and penal policy combined
in the 19th century to embed education deep
within the penal regime and, as a result,
prison schools continued through the 20th
century and into the 21st. However, the diffi-
culties of accommodating education within
an environment in which punishment and
deterrence routinely take priority persist. As
a result, 200 years after they first appeared,
there are still serious limits on what prison
schools can achieve.
Rosalind Crone is professor of history at the
Open University, and author of Illiterate Inmates:
Educating Criminals in Nineteenth Century
England (Oxford University Press, 2022)

evening each week. “The mere attempt to
read cannot interest a man fatigued by labour
and bowed down with shame,” complained
the chaplain at Portsmouth.
According to a former prisoner at Dart-
administrators hope that prison schools
could be abolished within a generation. But
the reasons for illiteracy and innumeracy
within the prison population were, and still
are, varied and complex. At the same time,
Rosalind is historical consultant on the
BBC Sounds series Lady
Killers with Lucy Worsley: bbc.co.uk/
programmes/m0016pq3

45
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 BBC History Magazine is Britain’s bestselling
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writing lively and thought-provoking new takes
on the great events of the past.

uring the civil wars that

D tore apart the Roman

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woman was facing her own crises – both
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 The crusade
against the odds
Chronic starvation, hostile landscapes, powerful foes –
the First Crusade overcame seemingly insurmountable
challenges. 'OKN[$TKʘGVV speaks to expert historians
to reveal how zeal, strategy and sheer luck secured
military success for this ambitious campaign

ALAMY

%TWUCFKPI\GCN
A 14th-century depiction of the
siege of Jerusalem, a climactic
moment in the First Crusade. Pope
Urban II’s 1095 call to arms saw
western Europeans head to the
near east to capture the Holy Land

48
•
49
 Cover story / The First Crusade
fter three long years, the
campaign reached its
climax. In June 1099, a
crusader army arrived
outside Jerusalem and
stared up at its towering
walls. From late 1095,
men, women and children from western
Europe had left their homes and set out east
on a vast military expedition that would take
them to the Holy Land. Now, after enduring
lightning ambushes, desperate sieges and
periods of near starvation, the jewel in the
crown of Christendom was in their sights.
But not yet within their grasp. Between
the crusaders and the conquest of Jerusalem
stood the city’s determined defenders. These
troops of the Fatimid caliphate – a Shia
Muslim empire spanning north Africa and
parts of the near east, with its capital in Cairo
– guarded a population of perhaps 20,000
Muslims, Jews and eastern Orthodox Chris-
tians massed within.
At first, the defenders prevailed, resisting
everything the increasingly frustrated
crusader forces could throw at them. But
then, after weeks of skirmishes and as a last
resort, the nobleman Godfrey of Bouillon
used a siege tower to gain a priceless toehold
on the walls to the north of the city, and was
able to open the nearest gate.
Hundreds of crusaders poured in. In the
searing heat, simmering anger and frustration
was unleashed, and a number of the inhabit-
ants were slaughtered. When the dust settled,
Godfrey was declared ‘Defender of the Holy
Sepulchre’ – ruler in all but name. The holy
city was finally in the hands of the crusaders.
The capture of Jerusalem was a bloody
catastrophe for its inhabitants. Indeed, the
campaign that preceded it – and others that
followed, along with the partisan European
HOLY WAR A timeline of the First Crusade
• •
27 November April 1096
1095 5QOG30,000 people set
Pope Urban II KUUWGUC QʘQPVJGn2GQRNGoU
ECNNVQCTOUCVVJG%QWPEKN %TWUCFGo. In October,
QH%NGTOQPVUGVVKPIVJG VJG[CTGETWUJGFD[
KFGCQHETWUCFKPICDNC\G 5GNLWM6WTMUCVVJGDCVVNG
KPYGUVGTP'WTQRGoU QH%KXGVQVUQWVJGCUV
Christian states. of Constantinople
PQY+UVCPDWN 
Pope Urban II,
honoured with this
statue in north-east
France, called for
the First Crusade
50
Imperial plea Byzantine emperor Alexios I
Komnenos, depicted on a coin, asked Pope Urban II
HQTJGNRIJVKPIVJG5GNLWM6WTMU
views of these events – continue to be
problematic in modern eyes. Yet in purely
military terms, the conquest of Jerusalem was
an astonishing victory for those Christian
attackers – and the culmination of one of the
most unlikely, against-the-odds endeavours
of the entire Middle Ages: the First Crusade.
The spark that lit the tinder for this
campaign was Pope Urban II’s famous
rallying cry at the Council of Clermont on
27 November 1095, when he exhorted people
across western Europe to take up arms
and free the Holy Land from Seljuk Muslim
rule. To those listening, the magnitude of the
military adventure he was proposing must
have been clear.
In the late 11th century, simply embarking
on a pilgrimage was considered dangerous
enough. The idea of leaving home for several
years, trekking thousands of miles across
• •
November 1096– 14 May–19 June 1097
April 1097 +PVJGTUVOCLQTENCUJQHVJG(KTUV%TWUCFG
The main wave of the Christian forces besiege Nicaea (near the site of
crusading armyICVJGTU OQFGTPFC[ȋ\PKMPQTVJYGUV6WTMG[ YJGTGVJG
QWVUKFGVJGYCNNUQH FGHGPFKPI5GNLWM6WTMUUWTTGPFGTVQVJG$[\CPVKPGU
Constantinople before
ETQUUKPIVJG$QURJQTWU
Many of the leaders
swear an oath of fealty
to Byzantine emperor
Alexios I Komnenos.
continents to fight an enemy in utterly alien
terrain, was nothing short of extraordinary.
And the perilous nature of the task ahead
clearly weighed heavily on the minds of
crusaders and their families. “Contemporary
accounts record that women wept copiously,
wondering if they would ever see their
husbands again,” says Danielle Park, teaching
fellow at the University of Leicester.
They had every reason to worry. Facing
perilous mountain passes and vast, arid
plains, the crusaders encountered landscapes
radically different from western Europe.
Without accurate maps, they also had little
idea of where they were going or what they
would find when they arrived. By the time
they reached Asia Minor and then the Levant
– the Muslim lands of the near east, compris-
ing what is today Syria, Lebanon, Israel and
the Palestinian territories, and Jordan – they
were exhausted, and facing an unfamiliar
and hostile population they struggled to
understand. Many of their friends had died.
They had suffered starvation to the point of
cannibalism, and witnessed things that
would make anyone recoil in terror.
The First Crusade should not have been
successful – yet it was. How were the crusad-
ers able to pull off this medieval feat of arms?
Rival powers
Urban’s original motivation for issuing his
fateful call to arms continues to spark debate.
Certainly, that rallying cry was a direct
response to a plea for help from the Byzantine
emperor Alexios I Komnenos (ruled 1081–
1118). Since the 1060s, Christian Byzantine
forces had been engaged in a conflict with the
Sunni Muslim Seljuk empire – a rival power
to the Fatimids that had conquered much of
ALAMY
Anatolia and the near east. The Byzantine
empire had long been the dominant force in
•
1 July 1097
#ETWUCFGTEQPVKPIGPV
KUCODWUJGFCVVJG
battle of Dorylaeum
PQY'UMKGJKT
UQWVJGCUVQH+UVCPDWN 
Relieved by the main
CTO[CETWUCFGT
XKEVQT[GPUWGU
Crusaders throw the
severed heads of Seljuk
Turks over the walls of
Nicaea during the siege
of 1097
 Pope Urban II wove
his narrative like a
medieval spin doctor,
dangling the carrot
of salvation to those
who joined the cause

the eastern Mediterranean, and was now

pushing to win back lost territory. Alexios
needed western knights to beef up his
campaign against the Seljuks and recapture
lands to the east.
Alexios’s appeal to Urban seemed to offer
a solution to two issues troubling that pope
in the 1090s. The first was faltering papal
authority; the second was a surfeit of aggres-
sive knights lacking outlets for their martial
energies. A hugely ambitious military
campaign to the Holy Land promised to
tackle both problems in one fell swoop. So
Urban wove his narrative like a medieval spin
doctor, claiming back for Christendom the
Holy Land – the location of Jesus Christ’s
burial, crucifixion, resurrection and ascen-
sion – and promising salvation to those who
joined the cause.
The result was an explosion of religious
fervour that inspired tens of thousands across
Europe – mostly from France, but also from
GETTY IMAGES

Iberia to England, and from the Italian

peninsula to the German states – to rally to
the crusading cause. (Some, of course, joined Call to arms 2QRG7TDCP++CFFTGUUGUVJG%QWPEKNQH%NGTOQPVYJKEJJGECNNGFKP0QXGODGTKP
for other reasons: a sense of honour, or simply CNCVGVJEGPVWT[KNNWOKPCVKQP*KUURGGEJQPVJGPCNFC[QHVJCVU[PQFNCWPEJGFVJG(KTUV%TWUCFG

• •
20 October 1097–
3 June 1098
The crusaders besiege
Antioch (now Antakya,
UQWVJGCUV6WTMG[ #HVGT
UVTKMKPICFGCNYKVJCNQECN
OCP(KTQW\VJG[UPGCM
into the city and seize it.
• • •
10 March 1098 7–28 June 1098 7 June–15 July 1099 12 August 1099
Baldwin of Boulogne #5GNLWMTGNKGHHQTEG The crusaders arrive at Jerusalem and besiege it. %TWUCFGTUFGHGCV(CVKOKF
becomes Count of DGUKGIGUVJGETWUCFGTU Once they breach the city walls, they massacre forces at the battle of
Edessa (in what is now KPUKFG#PVKQEJ6JG OCP[QHKVU/WUNKOCPF,GYKUJKPJCDKVCPVU Ascalon (now Ashekelon,
UQWVJGCUV6WTMG[ CHVGT ETWUCFGTUDTGCMVJGUKGIG DGHQTGOCMKPI)QFHTG[QH$QWKNNQPTWNGT PQTVJQH)C\C UGEWTKPI
CP#TOGPKCPWRTKUKPI at the battle of Antioch. KPCNNDWVPCOG their hold on the Levant.
QXGTVJTQYUKVURTGXKQWU
NQTF6JQTQU 6JGETWUCFGTUoXKEVQT[CV
Ascalon in 1099 marked the
successful end of this
ambitious campaign

Baldwin of Boulogne, Count of

Edessa since 1098, receives
homage from the Armenians

51
 Cover story / The First Crusade
because they had no choice other than to
follow their lords.) That fervour remained
largely undimmed when, from late 1096
through to early 1097, the crusader armies
gathered at the Byzantine capital, Constan-
tinople, before crossing the Bosphorus and
marching through Asia Minor. And it carried
those forces all the way to Jerusalem.
Exploiting a power vacuum
Religious zeal alone can’t explain the success
of the First Crusade. Another factor was the
state of play in the near east at the time, where
their Muslim foes were riven by infighting
and destabilised by power vacuums.
One poet described 1094 as the “year of
Cutting edge
#UYQTFHTQOEGPVTCN
Europe, dating to the time
of the First Crusade.
/CP[ETWUCFGTUYGTG
well versed in the ways
of war before journeying
to the Holy Land
52
the death of caliphs and commanders”, with
chaos roaring across the Muslim near east.
The tumult had begun two years earlier, in
1092, when Nizam al-Mulk, vizier of the
Seljuk empire, was assassinated. That same
year, the Seljuk sultan Malik-Shah I also died
in suspicious circumstances. Then, in 1094,
Al-Muqtadi, the Sunni caliph of Baghdad,
died, along with al-Mustansir, the Fatimid
caliph and his vizier. In short, internal strife
was weakening Muslim powers in the region,
notably the Seljuk and Fatimid empires.
“In the space of a few years, the leadership
across the Muslim near east had been re-
moved,” says Jonathan Phillips, professor of
crusading history at Royal Holloway, Univer-
sity of London. “All those decades of experi-
ence were wiped out.”
As a result, authority fragmented across
the region. Rivalries that had built up over
decades spilled over into conflict. So when
When the crusaders
arrived, their Muslim
foes were riven
by infighting and
destabilised by
power vacuums
Years of tumult An assassin murders Nizam al-Mulk, vizier of the Seljuk empire, as he travels to Baghdad in
6JGFGCVJUQHUGXGTCN/WUNKONGCFGTUNGHVVJGPGCTGCUVTKXGPD[KPIJVKPICPFXWNPGTCDNGVQETWUCFGTCVVCEMU
the crusaders arrived, they were not con-
fronted by a unified opposition. “It wouldn’t
be an exaggeration to say that, had the First
Crusade turned up in 1090, it would not have
got past its first obstacle,” argues Phillips.
“Such was the strength and organisational
ability of the Seljuks, the crusaders’ main foe.”
Many Muslim towns and cities were
distracted by their internal woes, and were
unprepared to deal with the sudden arrival of
a huge crusader army on their doorstep.
“Every town decided what to do for itself, and
this often depended on who was ruling
there,” says Suleiman A Mourad, Myra M
Sampson professor of religion at Smith
College, Massachusetts. “Some fled in fear,
while others thought they could make
a deal with the crusaders.”
Friends among foes
Another aspect helping the crusaders’ push
east was the fact that much of the population
of the near east was Christian. Many of the
towns en route to the Holy Land had been
ruled by Muslims for just a few years. For
example, Nicaea – an ancient Greek city in
north-western Asia Minor, which fell to the
crusaders in June 1097 – had been ceded by
the Byzantines to the Seljuks as recently as
1081. As a result, locals were often much
more supportive of the crusaders than we
might initially imagine. For some of them,
the First Crusade was not a war of religion
but, rather, a means of ejecting a hostile
occupying force.
This resentment against Muslim rule had
AKG/TOPFOTO
GETTY IMAGES

War of religion A selection of scenes from the First Crusade, as depicted in Les Passages d’Outremer, a 15th-century chronicle of the crusades

53
 Cover story / The First Crusade
Towering victory
Crusaders storm Jerusalem
using a huge siege tower,
pictured in a 14th-century
illumination. The Christians’
triumph was the culmination of
the First Crusade – but not the
GPFQHEQPʚKEVKPVJGTGIKQP
Western Europe
was a fragmented,
fractious place where
elites held sway
through military
protection rackets
54
major repercussions during the siege of
Antioch (October 1097–June 1098). That
Seljuk Turk-held city lay on the crusaders’
route to Jerusalem through Syria. It proved a
fiendishly tough nut to crack, and by early
1098 huge numbers of crusaders were dying
of starvation outside its walls. Fortunately for
them, they had an inside man.
An Armenian guard in Antioch, Firouz,
struck a deal with the crusader leader
Bohemond of Taranto to allow the latter’s
army to pour into the city and capture
it. Once Antioch was taken, it was not
only the crusaders who massacred the
Turkish garrison but also the local
Christian population.
Yet to ascribe the First Crusade’s success
to Muslim infighting alone – or to the help
of sympathetic locals – is to do the crusaders
a disservice, argues Steve Tibble, honorary
research associate at Royal Holloway,
University of London. This was – at
times, anyway – an impressively executed
military campaign.
“The crusaders were brave and well
motivated, and had some very aggressive,
entrepreneurial generals,” Tibble explains.
These commanders “were more like trade un-
ion convenors than dictators”, making strate-
gic decisions based on group discussions. And
there was a logic to their choices of targets:
they attacked Nicaea to rid the Byzantines
of a nearby Seljuk hub, Antioch to establish
a defendable base en route to Jerusalem.
Inherent violence
The First Crusade also benefited from the fact
that many of those involved were well versed
in the ways of war before they’d even contem-
plated a military campaign in the east. In the
11th century, western Europe was a frag-
mented, fractious place; elites held sway
through what were, in effect, military protec-
tion rackets. Violence was already inherent in
the system. And after years of dangerous
travel and combat had winnowed out weaker
and less-accomplished fighters, those crusad-
ers who eventually reached Jerusalem were
GETTY IMAGES
the best-equipped and militarily most skilled.
The fact that the enemies were unfamiliar
to each other also aided the crusaders. On this
campaign they mostly faced Seljuk forces that,

even while weakened by infighting, boasted
what was probably the best light cavalry in
the world. But while the new opponents were
still getting the measure of each other, they
tended to avoid open combat, which would
have left the crusaders’ slower, heavy cavalry
and other troops at risk.
Perhaps the European armies’ greatest
advantage during the First Crusade, though,
was their unity. There were times, of course,
when that unity came under enormous
pressure. Language differences, bickering
commanders with competing agendas,
disease and starvation in an alien and often
unforgiving landscape – all stretched the
bonds linking the crusaders to breaking
point. Yet those bonds never quite snapped.
“Whatever it was that drove the crusaders
– religious zeal, honour, money, land – all
those things coalesced in an ability to stay
together,” says Phillips. And they stayed
together until the crusaders reached their
ultimate goal in the burning heat of the
decisive summer of 1099: Jerusalem.
Emily Briffett is HistoryExtra podcast editorial
assistant and host of our new series exploring the
First Crusade
FIND OUT MORE IN OUR
IN-DEPTH NEW
PODCAST SERIES
Emily spoke to historians Natasha
Hodgson, Suleiman A Mourad, Danielle
Park, Jonathan Phillips, Steve Tibble and
Jonathan Harris for the special
HistoryExtra.com podcast series,
available now. The series
explores in depth the
crusade’s causes, key
episodes and legacy.
historyextra.com/
TUVETWUCFGUGTKGU
AKG
A HOLLOW VICTORY?
The First Crusade was a major military feat, but its legacy
over the following two centuries proved problematic
The capture of Jerusalem in summer
1099 was rapidly feted across western
Europe as a major triumph – evidence of
Christendom’s apparent superiority over
its Muslim foes. Yet the crusaders’
unlikely victory would have dramatic and
long-lasting consequences – not all of
VJGODGPGVKPIVJGXKEVQTU
Big questions still remain about the
original aims of the First Crusade. To
what extent was Jerusalem central to
Pope Urban II’s thinking when he issued
his call to arms, for example? Was the
holy city always his ultimate target – or
did the Byzantines or papacy tag it on as
an additional incentive to entice western
Christendom to action? “Most of the
narrative material was composed in the
wake of the crusade, so it would have
been relatively easy for clerics to project
that goal backwards,” says Danielle Park.
Whatever Urban’s original intentions,
after the capture of Jerusalem the First
Crusade became a blueprint for further
military expeditions to the Holy Land.
“It was the crusade’s perceived success
that allowed the church to say: ‘God
clearly wanted this to happen, therefore
crusading is something we should con-
tinue to do’,” explains Natasha Hodgson,
associate professor of medieval history at
Nottingham Trent University.
The success of the First Crusade led
western European powers to believe it
could be repeated – not recognising that
VJKUTUVVTKWORJYCUKPUQOGTGURGEVU
down to chance. In the event, over the
following two centuries, much blood was
spilled and vast amounts of money spent
both on further campaigns and on
attempting to defend the network of
crusader states that emerged across the
Middle East – ultimately to no avail.
The crusades also, of course, had
a grave impact on relations between
Christians and Muslims. Religious anger
about the presence of Christian states in
the near east gradually weaponised
Muslim resentment. By the mid-12th
century, this had erupted into a full-blown
campaign of retaliation spearheaded by
Muslim generals who had learned from
their past defeats.
“Maintaining a western presence in
the Levant was never sustainable,”
TGʚGEVU5VGXG6KDDNG#PFNGUUVJCPVYQ
centuries later, defeat to Muslim Mamluk
forces at the 1291 siege of Acre, now in
coastal Israel, heralded the end of the
Christian states in the Holy Land.
Nimrod Castle, in the Israeli-
occupied Golan Heights, was rebuilt
by the Muslim Ayyubid dynasty in
the 13th century to guard against
crusader attack
55

What was the first history documentary
broadcast on British TV?
It depends on what you mean by
‘history documentary’. In the early years
after its launch in 1936, the BBC Televi-
sion Service broadcast a number of
history-based programmes. These
included Rough Island Story, a six-part
series looking at the history of Britain
and its empire, transmitted between
May and July 1939. However, this was a
studio-based series and probably would
not fit our modern understanding of
a history documentary.
In the postwar period, the BBC’s
public service framework – newly
applied to television as well as radio –
provided a natural home for the
documentary format. The BBC’s first
true history programmes were broadcast
in 1946. Germany Under Control,
written and produced by the BBC’s
former war correspondent, Robert Barr,
aired in September, followed in Novem-
ber by The Heart of an Empire.
Germany Under Control was arguably
VJGTUVVTWGVGNGXKUKQPJKUVQT[
FQEWOGPVCT[RTQFWEGFD[VJG$$%
DTQCFECUVKP5GRVGODGT
56
A selection of
historical conundrums
answered by experts
In January 1949, the BBC Television
Service experimented with its first
historical reconstruction, The Trial of
Madeleine Smith. Based on the infamous
1857 case of a woman accused of poison-
ing her lover, the programme enthralled
viewers, just as a radio dramatisation
had done in 1935.
The BBC’s first major success in
historical documentary came in 1964,
by which time more than 90 per cent
of British households had a television.
The Great War, a 26-part epic narrated
by Michael Redgrave, combined archival
footage with first-hand testimony for the
first time, laying the foundations for a
thriving genre in the years to come.
Jamie Medhurst, professor of media and
communication at Aberystwyth University,
and author of The Early Years of Television
and the BBC (Edinburgh University
Press, 2022)
,QJP*CTXG[-GNNQIIEQKPXGPVQT YKVJJKU
DTQVJGT9KNNKCO-GKVJ QHEQTPʚCMGUJCFUQOG
WPWUWCNKFGCUCDQWVJGCNVJTGIKOGU
Were Kellogg’s corn-
flakes invented to
promote abstinence?
Sort of. They were among foods
developed and sold by brothers John
Harvey and William Keith Kellogg to
promote good digestion in patients at
their health sanatorium. John’s beliefs
and treatments were quite unusual.
He believed in sexual abstinence
(he never consummated his marriage),
and was especially occupied with
masturbation – which, he said, caused
“general debility, unnatural pale eyes
and forehead acne”. Many of the
‘cures’ he advocated were extreme,
including inflicting pain on genitals.
Foods the Kelloggs developed were
intentionally bland, following prevail-
ing advice on avoiding strong flavours
so that (sexual) appetites weren’t
excited. The brothers quarrelled when
William wanted to commercialise
cornflakes more fully, adding sugar to
BBC PICTURE ARCHIVES/ALAMY
make them more palatable, and they
split their interest. William got the
cereal business, invested in advertis-
ing and founded a global company.
John retained the sanatorium and
became a leading eugenicist.
Annie Gray, food historian and honorary
fellow at the University of York

Did US president Dwight Eisenhower
meet with aliens in 1954?
“Not to our knowledge,” Jim
Leyerzapf, archivist at the Eisenhower
library, told The Washington Post in
2004 in response to the same question.
But he would say that, wouldn’t he?
Legends of crashed UFOs often
incorporate rumours about the involve-
ment of presidents and high-ranking
members of the military who, naturally,
should know the truth.
The popular cliché “Take me to your
leader!” originated in a 1953 cartoon by
Alex Graham for The New Yorker mag-
azine. In it, the crew of a flying saucer
approaches a horse with the request:
“Kindly take us to your president!”
That cartoon may also be the source of
the rumour that President Dwight D
‘Ike’ Eisenhower secretly visited Ed-
wards Air Force base in California on
20 February 1954 to meet two extrater-
restrial ambassadors.
According to the official version,
Eisenhower was on a golf vacation in
FC BARCELONA/ALAMY
Palm Springs at the time, and briefly left
his hotel for dental treatment, but his
absence led to false press reports that he
had died. Since then, rumours that Ike
met with ETs have been published in
various tabloid newspapers and spread
ILLUSTRATION BY @GLENMCILLUSTRATION
by UFOlogists in books and online.
There are many contradictory versions,
including one claiming that the presi-
dent viewed the bodies of dead aliens
from the saucer that reputedly crashed
at Roswell, or that he communicated
with ET ambassadors by telepathy.
The only comment about UFOs that
Eisenhower ever made publicly was at a
press conference on 15 December 1954:
“With regard to these recent reports,
nothing has come to me at all, either
verbally or in written form. And... the
last time that I heard this talked to me,
a man whom I trust from the air forces
said that it was, as far as he knew,
completely inaccurate to believe that
they [UFOs] came from any outside
planet or otherwise.”
David Clarke, associate professor at the
Department of Media Arts and Culture
at Sheffield Hallam University
The longest-serving manager of
FC Barcelona was not a Catalan
genius or Dutch legend but Jack
Greenwell from County Durham
DID YOU KNOW…?
Criminal crush
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VKIJVN[RCEMGFETQYFUYCVEJKPICP
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ICVG2TKUQPKP5QOG
JCFICVJGTGFVQYCVEJOWTFGTGTU
1YGP*CIIGTV[CPF,QJP*QNNQ
YC[IQVQVJGICNNQYUCPFYJGP
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URGEVCVQTUEQNNCRUGFRCPKEGTWRVGF
5GXGTCNYJQFKGFYGTGENWUVGTGF
CTQWPFCRKGOCPUGNNKPIJKU
YCTGUp6JQUGYJQQPEG
HGNNqKVYCUTGRQTVGF
pYGTGPGXGTOQTG
UWʘGTGFVQTKUGq
The gallows at Newgate
Prison witnessed
hundreds of deaths – not
all of them executions
Dental wealth
+PTWOQWTUDGICPVQEKTEWNCVG
KP5KNGUKCVJCVCUGXGP[GCTQNF
HCTODQ[%JTKUVQRJ/ØNNGTJCF
OKTCEWNQWUN[ITQYPCIQNFGPVQQVJ
,CMQD*QTUVCRTQHGUUQTQH
OGFKEKPGYCUEQPXKPEGFsCPF
YTQVGCRCIGVTGCVKUGKPYJKEJ
JGRTQXKFGFCUVTQNQIKECNGZRNCPC
VKQPUHQTVJGRJGPQOGPQP#UEGRVKE
VJGPUJQYGFVJCVVJGIQNFYCUQPN[
CVJKPNC[GTQHOGVCNQPVJGDQ[oU
VQQVJsVJGTUVFQEWOGPVGFECUGQH
CIQNFETQYPKPFGPVCNJKUVQT[
Club record
Though famous names such as
,QJCPP%TW[ʘCPF2GR)WCTFKQNC
CTGOQTGYKFGN[MPQYPIWTGJGCFU
QH(%$CTEGNQPCKVUNQPIGUVUGTXKPI
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%TQQM%QWPV[&WTJCO,CEM
)TGGPYGNNYJQYCUKPEJCTIGQHVJG
%CVCNCPHQQVDCNNENWDHQT[GCTU
57
 Imaginary friends
(from left) Walt Disney’s
IGPTGFGPKPI/KEMG[/QWUG
OCIKECNPCPP[/CT[2QRRKPU
5NGGRKPI$GCWV[%CUVNG
KP&KUPG[NCPF2CTKU
Elsa from Frozen$CUJHWN
from Snow White and
the Seven Dwarfs

As the Walt Disney Company celebrates its

centenary, John Wills traces the story of
GETTY IMAGES/ALAMY

the ‘House of Mouse’ from early animations to

global blockbusters – and political controversies

58
 s the 2023 Super Bowl
television commercial
for the Walt Disney
Company’s centennial
anniversary played on
12 February, emotions
soared. The advert
showed children dressed up as princesses,
waving lightsabers and hugging Mickey
Mouse mascots. With its vast array of
cartoon characters, classic movies and
superhero franchises, the Walt Disney
Company has proven to have extraordinarily
broad appeal. On its centenary, it’s hard to
imagine a world without Disney – yet the
history of the media giant is far more
complicated than you might imagine.
“It was all started by a mouse,” Walt Disney
explained in the 1950s, attributing the
colossal success of Walt Disney Studios
to one simple cartoon character: Mickey
Mouse, first drawn in the late 1920s. Before
creating that game-changing mouse, the
young Disney, son of a businessman and
farmer, had worked as a Red Cross driver in
France, before trying his hand at animation
for a range of Midwest companies. Eager for
success, Disney helped set up the Laugh-O- Mighty mouse9CNV&KUPG[EQORNGVGU
Gram studio in Kansas City and got paid CUMGVEJQH/KEMG[VJGEJCTCEVGTYJQ Seven Dwarfs opened to rapturous applause
$500 for a dentistry cartoon, Tommy Tucker’s DGECOGJKUOQUVKEQPKEETGCVKQPKPCP at the Carthay Circle Theater in Los Angeles,
Tooth (1922). He also began work on the WPFCVGFRJQVQ while a movie-themed exhibit, Dwarfland,
Alice Comedies, an innovative series that entertained crowds nearby. That film saw
combined cartoon with live action. When the Walt Disney recast the Brothers Grimm’s
studio financially collapsed, a bankrupt yet dark folk story into a remarkably fami-
determined Disney, still only 21 years old, ly-friendly and colourful experience – a tactic
headed to California to begin his business he later repeated with other European stories.
ventures anew. Snow White offered a welcome escape
In 1923, together with his brother, Roy, from the Great Depression and escalating
Walt established a small animation business global tensions – a “tonic for disillusion”, as
on Kingswell Avenue in Los Angeles: the one critic called it. Perhaps partly for that
Disney Brothers’ Studio. Not long afterwards, reason, it became one of the most successful
he produced the Oswald the Lucky Rabbit movies of the era. Watched in 41 countries
series of short films for Universal. In 1928, around the world, Snow White strengthened
having lost the rights to Oswald, Disney and Disney’s global recognition. In Britain, one
fellow animator Ub Iwerks made three police constable in Salford, after gaining
black-and-white cartoons based around their Disney’s permission, used the seven dwarfs in
new character, Mickey Mouse. Steamboat his local road-safety campaign. Interviewed
Willie (1928), the first cartoon film made with by a journalist about the film’s phenomenal
sound, starred Mickey as a rambunctious, success, Disney told him: “All we are trying to
raspberry-blowing rodent working on a do is give the public good entertainment.”
steamship – vastly different from later, much However, the good entertainment came at a
softer incarnations. Thanks to some shrewd Steamboat Willie cost. A perfectionist and workaholic, Disney
marketing, mouse frenzy took hold. By the controlled his projects and staff tightly, and
1970s, even Japanese emperor Hirohito starred Mickey as took it personally when animators chose to
sported a Mickey Mouse watch. strike in 1941 over working conditions (as
In the early 1930s, thanks to money
a rambunctious, retribution, he later named strike leads in
coming in largely due to the success of raspberry-blowing hearings designed to punish and blacklist
Mickey Mouse, Disney turned to grander communists).
rodent who
GETTY IMAGES

ideas of movie-making at his new studio on Disney had begun to influence cultural
Hyperion Avenue. The company soon started worked on ideas of domestic life and gender roles,
developing full-length animated features, introducing the first ‘Disney princess’ in
and in December 1937, Snow White and the a steamship Snow White. During the Second World War, •
59
 Disney at 100

Chasing the dream

the corporation also began assisting with the Visitors rush towards the Sleeping
production of wartime propaganda. Beauty Castle on the opening day
Alongside a desire to entertain the masses, of Disneyland in July 1955
Walt Disney nurtured ambitions of securing
his status and artistic reputation. Work on
Fantasia (1940) and Bambi (1942) reflected
his perfectionism and personal quest for
recognition. For Bambi, Disney insisted on
having live animals parading around the
studios to encourage more natural-looking
animation, while the production of Fantasia
involved a full symphony orchestra. As
a result, costs spiralled and bankruptcy
loomed. Only more commercial, simpler
offerings – most notably Dumbo (1941) –
kept the company afloat.

Era of opportunities
In the aftermath of the Second World War,
many Americans embraced a new era of
consumer power, leisure opportunities and
technological conveniences. They took to the
freeways in their chrome-finned Cadillacs,
and watched television for the first time in
freshly constructed suburban homes fronted
by white picket fences.
Disney took advantage of this new decade
of recreation and entertainment by expand- dominance. The Mickey Mouse brand now On Disneyland’s opening day in July 1955,
ing into live-action movies and nature seemed as American as the Star-Spangled trouble was brewing. Thousands of visitors
documentaries (called True-Life Adventures). Banner, and ‘When You Wish upon a Star’ crowded into the park, some entering illegally
The studio also produced weekly television synonymous with the American Dream. over fences. Drinking fountains ran dry,
programmes for the ABC network, with This interface of cartoon fantasy with freshly set asphalt melted, cars were stuck at
Walt warmly introducing the shows – and American dreaming also found physical a standstill on the Anaheim freeway, and the
becoming a father figure to the nation in the form. In an orange grove in Anaheim, Mark Twain steamboat nearly sank.
process. Meanwhile, The Mickey Mouse Club, California, Walt Disney created what he
with its legion of young Mouseketeers, enthusiastically promoted as a radical new Perfect escape

appealed to children, and soaring numbers
of kids grew up ‘Disney.’
The 1950s marked a significant coming
together of Disney culture and American
values – at least, those of the white middle
class – and, arguably, the highpoint of Disney
kind of theme park. Disneyland was clean,
fun and family-friendly – the antithesis of
worn, dirty Coney Island in New York City.
In reality, though, the designs borrowed
heavily from previous world’s fairs and
amusement parks.
ALAMY/GETTY IMAGES
Despite the difficulties of opening day,
though, Disneyland quickly proved a huge
success. Around 90 million Americans
watched the live special on ABC television,
with then-actor Ronald Reagan hosting.
And the new park offered a perfect escape –

10 DISNEY MILESTONES
Alice’s
Wonderland 1923
One of Walt Disney’s
GCTN[UKNGPVNOUKUC
delightful mix of live
action and cartoon.
Starring child actor
Virginia Davis, it features
a range of Disney staples
including a Disneyland-
style train and a
cartoon mouse.
Steamboat Willie Snow White and
1928 the Seven Dwarfs
&KUPG[oUTUVCPKOCVGF 1937
NOYKVJU[PEJTQPKUGF 6JGEQORCP[oUTUV
sound – a technical CPKOCVGFHGCVWTGNO
breakthrough of the time was initially dubbed
– also introduced the ‘Disney’s folly’ because of
world to Mickey Mouse. its spiralling costs and
Just 8 minutes in length, three-year production
VJGNOKURCEMGF time. Yet it proved hugely
with visual successful, and
humour. KPVTQFWEGFVJGTUV
‘Disney princess’.
Der Fuehrer’s
Face 1943
Watch Donald Duck
get caught in ‘Nutzi
Land’, a fascist
world of strangely NGOOKPIUQʘENKʘUCU
manicured evidence of that species’
swastika mass suicides. Yet nature
shrubbery and has never been more
bayonets, in this entertaining than
Chaplin-esque Second Donald Duck joined the scorpions square-dancing
World War government propaganda war in Der to the ‘Stingeree’ in
propaganda piece. Fuehrer’s Face (1943) The Living Desert.

60
 How Disney shaped history
John Wills explores the ways the corporation has framed
perceptions of the past: historyextra.com/disney-history

Animated films such as The Fox and the

Ears and years
The Mickey Mouse Club TV show ran
for nearly 40 years, starring a
UWEEGUUKQPQH/QWUGMGVGGTUsVJGUG
youngsters featured in 1957
a cartoonist’s bunker – from the pressures of
2GTJCRUTGʚGEVKPI the wider world, particularly the looming
Soviet nuclear threat. It also depicted the
VJGGEQPQOKE sort of world that Walt Disney wanted – in
FKʛEWNVKGUQHVJG particular, Tomorrowland, with its white city
utopianism. While looking forward in time,
1970s, Disney no Disneyland also heavily invoked nostalgia
for an imagined American past, with
NQPIGTUGGOGF Frontierland and Main Street celebrating
UQKPʚWGPVKCN ‘traditional values’.
Walt’s death from cancer in December
QTTGNGXCPV 1966 led to an extended period of uncertainty
ALAMY
Hound (1981) merely mimicked earlier
Disney movies, while the blockbuster sci-fi
The Black Hole (1979) was a pale imitation of
its obvious inspiration, George Lucas’s 1977
space opera Star Wars. Perhaps reflecting the
social and economic difficulties of the 1970s,
Disney no longer seemed so influential or
relevant to the US or the wider world. By the
early 1980s, Disney appeared open to takeo-
ver bids and acquisition.
The appointment of Michael Eisner as
CEO in 1984 helped turn Disney into a
profitable company once more. Eisner
oversaw what is now termed ‘The Disney
Renaissance’, with a decade-long run of new
animated features such as The Little Mermaid
(1989) and The Lion King (1994) recapturing
the classic Disney magic, bolstered by
successful marketing and merchandise
campaigns. The first Disney Store opened in
Glendale, California in 1987. The first overseas
store followed in London in 1990, its shelves
laden with copious soft toys and limited-edi-
tion re-releases of classic Disney films.
As in the 1950s, the corporation also
began to expand its business profile, opening
Disneyland Paris in 1992, entering the luxury
cruise-line sector in 1996, and building the
residential community of Celebration in
Florida around the same time.
In the 1990s, though, tensions surfaced
over the direction of the Disney corporation,
and its deviation from Walt’s family-oriented
and largely conservative entertainment
brand. Disney purchased Miramax, an
adult-focused studio that would produce
Quentin Tarantino’s stylish but super-violent
Pulp Fiction (1994), and acquired the ABC

for the corporation. Walt Disney World Television Network, noted for its hit
opened in Florida in 1971, but the company’s show Ellen, starring out gay woman Ellen
overall energy and dynamism had dissipated. DeGeneres. These moves provoked a •

Mary Poppins The Little Toy Story 1995 Frozen 2013 Black Panther
1964 Mermaid 1989 Created by Pixar and With their ice-set story of 2018
This charming musical, Marking the dawn of the distributed by Disney, the sisters Elsa and Anna, Black Panther was the This superhero movie
featuring blended ‘Disney Renaissance’, TUVYJQNN[EQORWVGT directors Chris Buck and TUV/CTXGNNOYKVJ with both a big heart and
live-action and animation this animated feature – CPKOCVGFHGCVWTGNO Jennifer Lee updated a both a black lead a powerful message is a
sequences, cast Julie based on a Hans is technologically classic fairy tale for the and director spectacular celebration
Andrews as the Christian Anderson fairy sophisticated, yet awash 21st century – and of African history, culture
extraordinary titular tale – is classic Disney, with nostalgia for lost Disney had its biggest and artistry, and
nanny. Disney’s version of with its traditional childhood and hit in decades. highlights the
Edwardian London is hand-painted beloved toys, and strengths of the
romantic, colourful, animation, proved a perfect Disney–Marvel
dreamlike and class- catchy tunes vehicle for mass relationship.
conscious. Some classic and story of merchandising.
Sherman Brothers tunes mermaid
make up for Dick Van princess Ariel. Toy Story, starring
Dyke’s mockney accent. cowboy Woody, launched
CEQORWVGTCPKOCVGFGTC

61
 Disney at 100
THE DARKER SIDE OF DISNEY
Questions linger about the beliefs, culture and impacts
of the company and its founder, says John Wills
Though the popular image of the Walt
Disney Company is Mickey Mouse-
eared innocence, the reality behind the
brand is more complex. Founder Walt
&KUPG[TGOCKPUCEQPVTQXGTUKCNIWTG
with shadows cast over his near-mythic
reputation by charges of sexism in the
workplace and racism – particularly
relating to the live-action Song of the
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cotton-growing south with warm
nostalgia, glossing over racial injustice.
An ardent anti-communist, Disney ap-
peared at the US House Un-American
Activities Committee in 1947 to smear
former employees, despite little hard
evidence. Latterly, the Walt Disney
Company has worked hard to defend
its founder’s reputation, with Saving
Mr Banks (2013) seen as a strategic
attempt to save Walt’s public image.
6JQWIJUGGOKPIN[QʘGTKPIWVQRKCP
playgrounds, Disney theme parks have
faced accusations of negative environ-
mental impacts, poor food quality,
consumer exploitation and harsh condi-
tions for workers. For decades, park
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controls over body image: the ‘Disney
Look’ prohibited visible tattoos or
piercings, and dictated what facial hair
Grumpy or Dopey?
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at Banksy’s 2015
Dismaland – a dystopian
reimagining of the
Disney theme park
62
was acceptable for men – though in
recent years rules have been relaxed
considerably.
Critics have argued that visitors
frequent the parks as passive and
controlled consumers, never allowed to
lie on a bench or wander freely, while
$100-plus ticket prices target the richest
echelons of society. Such aspects were
brilliantly satirised in 2015 by artist
Banksy at Dismaland, a temporary art
installation in the Somerset seaside
resort of Weston-super-Mare. Here,
guests visited a dystopian park falling
apart at the seams, populated by un-
HTKGPFN[UVCʘVJTQYKPIKPUWNVUCUYGNNCU
pointing arcade guns at them.
On a broader level, the Walt Disney
Company continues to be criticised for
its century-long appropriation of global
stories, cultures and traditions for mass
RTQV+PVJGGCTN[URNCPUHQT
an American history-themed park in
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a distrust of the corporation’s ability to
interpret the nation’s past – the sugges-
tion being that ‘Distory’ would be pitted
against history. As Disney’s global
entertainment empire continues to grow
in the 21st century, questions of trust,
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Cartoon hero #/KEMG[/QWUGNOKP
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backlash from US Christian evangelical
groups, who boycotted all things Disney,
claiming: “You can’t walk the family side of
the street and the gay side of the street in the
Magic Kingdom at the same time.” The
revival of Disney fortunes seemed dependent
on a more diverse portfolio but also a more
liberal message at odds with the traditional
values espoused by its founder.
Corporate expansion accelerated in the
21st century. The company produced several
successful teen shows, including High School
Musical and Hannah Montana. Following the
purchase of pioneering computer animation
studio Pixar in 2006, Disney Studios deployed
more ambitious animation techniques,
leaving behind its classic hand-drawn style.
In 2013, Disney released Frozen, a progres-
sive film about two sisters in a snowy world
that netted the corporation more than
US$1bn in revenue, and proved that a movie
could easily succeed without male leads or
male heroes. The lead song, ‘Let it Go’, served
as an anthem for the rejected or oppressed.
Stellar ambitions
Strengthening its position as the world’s
leading media and entertainment company,
in 2009 Disney acquired Marvel Comics, and
in 2012 bought Lucasfilm (home of the Star
Wars films). For Marvel and Star Wars fans, a
Disney acquisition initially sparked concerns
over the ‘Disneyfication’ of their prized
GETTY IMAGES
franchises. Such fears proved largely un-
founded, and the takeovers were followed by
a spate of highly acclaimed and technically
accomplished movies. These included
ALAMY
Journey to the stars
A scene from the 2019 movie
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. nostalgia-heavy crowd-pleasers such as The
Disney’s 2012 purchase of Force Awakens (2015), launching a new phase
.WECUNOJCURTQXGPUWEEGUUHWN of Star Wars stories with neither Jar Jar Binks
but has “threatened to nor even a space-suited Mickey Mouse in
QXGTYJGNOVJG&KUPG[DTCPFq sight. Marvel Studios have also created films
argues John Wills strong on message, including Black Panther
(2018), with its overtures of black cultural
nationalism, and Guardians of the Galaxy
Vol 3 (2023), with its animal rights storyline.
If anything, the steady stream of Marvel
and Star Wars productions threatened to
overwhelm the Disney brand, rather than
vice versa. As part of other overhauls, several
theme parks were redesigned to feature
Marvel and Star Wars areas, in the process
potentially relegating to history some Disney
elements. The success of the streaming
service Disney+, too, owed much to new
Marvel and Star Wars television series, most
notably The Mandalorian (2019–). With no
new Mickey Mouse features for decades,
Spider-Man, Groot and Grogu (‘Baby Yoda’)
inspired popular new soft toys for kids.
As Disney celebrates its 100th anniversary,
it is also fully entering the culture wars. In
1992, scholar Stephen Fjellman declared Walt
Disney World “the most ideologically impor-
tant piece of land in the United States”. In the
2020s, the company serves as a symbolic and
Disney’s positive contested landscape. On the one side, liberal
message of Disney employees and fans defend progres-
sive Disney values; on the other, Republican
diversity put it pro-life, anti-LGBTQ politicians such as state
governor Ron DeSantis have been keen to
on a collision wrest power from the entertainment institu-
course with wider tion in the state. Deliberately or not, Disney’s
message of diversity, communicated across a
societal forces range of movies such as the animated sci-
ence-fiction adventure Strange World (2022),
as well as live-action remakes of older cartoon
classics, put it on a collision course with wider
societal forces.
The business of hope
At 100, the Walt Disney Company is decided-
ly different in message, global reach, business
revenue and character line-up from the
classic Disney corporation of the 1950s – and
light-years away from young Walt, drawing
sketches in Hyperion Studio in the 1920s.
However, and crucially, Disney is still in the
same business: it offers hope for a better
world, it facilitates escape for all who want it,
and it provides, on the whole, dependable
family entertainment.
As a bellwether of American culture – and
global trends – Disney continues to assert
a largely positive influence. That idea recalls
the experience of one New York Times jour-
nalist who, after watching the 1937 premiere
of Snow White, observed that: “Wars are be-
ing fought as the picture unreels; crimes are
being committed; hatreds are being whetted;
riots are being brewed. But the world fades
away when Mr Disney begins weaving his
spell, and enchantment takes hold.”
John Wills is a professor of American culture at
the University of Kent, and author of Disney
Culture (Rutgers University Press, 2017)
&KUPG[*QYC5VWFKQ4GFG PGF
Animation is a new episode of the BBC
World Service series The Cultural
Frontline, available on BBC Sounds
63
 THE FIRST CRUSADE
THE WAR THAT TRANSFORMED
THE MEDIEVAL WORLD
A MAJOR NEW HISTORYEXTRA PODCAST SERIES

In 1095, Pope Urban II mobilised western Europe to capture the Holy Land
HQT%JTKUVGPFQO+PQWTPGYXGRCTVRQFECUVUGTKGUYGVGNNVJG
DREAMSTIME

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OGFKGXCNGTC BBC History Magazine subscribers can listen to
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 WOMEN

“Society held trenchant

views about appropriate
feminine behaviour”
5CTCJ%TQQMNCWFUCUVWF[QH
YQOGPoUNKXGUUKPEG• page 74

CULTURAL

The author
dissects the weird
and wonderful
ways by which
humans have
expressed their
loves and lusts
,QCPPC$QWTMGCRRTCKUGUCPGZRNQTCVKQP
QHJWOCPFGUKTGVJTQWIJQDLGEVU• page 75
SARAH YOUNG/BRITISH LIBRARY/ GUARDIAN–EYEVINE

MILITARY ROYALTY
INTERVIEW
“Ian Knight’s book does a “We encounter the man David Mitchell
valuable service in giving who prepared George I’s QʘGTUCYT[
voice to the soldiers of drinking chocolate – look at the
JKUVQT[QH
the Victorian army” served from a silver pot” 'PINKUJOQPCTEJ[
)CT[5JGǏGNFQPCPCEEQWPVQHOKNKVCT[NKHG 0KEQNC6CNNKUFGNKIJVUKPCDQQMVJCVIQGU • page 66
HTQOVJGXKGYRQKPVQHQTFKPCT[VTQQRU• page 72 DGJKPFVJGUEGPGUCV*CORVQP%QWTV• page 73 •
65
 INTERVIEW / DAVID MITCHELL
“Kingship was often portrayed
BOOKS INTERVIEW
as ancient and natural but, in reality,
it started with thieving thuggery”
DAVID MITCHELL talks to Matt Elton about his debut history book, chronicling centuries
of England’s monarchy – and offering a wry look at how it has forged the nation’s identity
Matt Elton: Given that your TV work has often tackled
historical themes, the fact you’ve written a history book might
not come as a huge surprise. But what made you actually sit
down and write it?
David Mitchell: I started it during the Covid lockdown – which was
obviously pretty frightening and depressing – when I got to thinking
about the Vikings. I don’t know why: there was a lot of thinking done
during that time. But at some point in my thinking, it occurred to
me that when the Vikings started attacking England, it was a little bit
similar to what it was like for us when Covid happened. It was some-
thing desperately bad and frightening and life-changing that just
came out of the blue – literally, in the case of the Vikings, if it was a
clear day. And so I started typing about that, and about how some-
times in history something just happens – it’s not part of a trend. You
can see why it happened afterwards, but you can’t really spot it in
advance: there you are, suddenly, with the history happening to you.
So I started typing about the Vikings. The book’s tone basically
came from Simon Winder’s Germania: A Personal History of Germans
Ancient and Modern [2010]. He’s extremely learned but also very
funny, and I thought I’d try writing something similar – a combina-
tion of historical insights, personal anecdotes, jokes and irreverence.
When I’d written 30,000 words and hadn’t even got to the Norman
Conquest, I thought: right, this is a new form of creativity for me –
let’s finish it off and turn it into a book.
You write that the most interesting parts of history “more often
than not have something to do with a person wearing a sparkly
metal hat”. Is that why you chose to focus
on kings and queens?
As a predictable person, my eyes were drawn,
like a magpie’s, to the sparkly hat. And
talking about the people in charge – who are
often very interesting – is the old-fashioned,
traditional way of telling history. Obviously
that’s not all that was happening but if, for
instance, you’re writing about the medieval
era, it at least means you’re covering the core
of the political story. My book ends in 1603,
so following the sparkly hat takes us through
Unruly: A History most of the important political, if not social,
of England’s Kings history of England.
and Queens
by David Mitchell You explore the Dark Ages in some depth.
(Michael Joseph, Are you particularly drawn to that era?
448 pages, £25) I’ve always found it interesting, particularly
66
the fact that Roman civilisation was what we would call in superficial,
capitalistic terms ‘quite advanced’, with a lot of technological
innovations. And then that empire collapsed, which had a particular-
ly significant impact on England. The fact that it left such a void – again,
in modern terms, there was such a collapse in infrastructure – is
fascinating. It’s useful to think about a time when everything
suddenly got terrifyingly worse, because it’s important to remember
that it can happen.
One of the forms of rhetoric I find most irritating is people saying:
“Oh, come on, it’s 2023 – you can’t behave like that,” as if the fact that
we’re at a later point in history means people must be behaving better.
That’s not how things go. Sometimes we go through a period in which
people’s behaviour improves, and sometimes one in which it gets
worse. Sometimes life gets easier, and sometimes it gets harder.
Broadly speaking, there have been technological advances – but, still,
that’s only broadly speaking. So many of the things the Romans could
do were then forgotten for centuries. There was central heating in the
fourth century, and then it didn’t really come back until the 19th,
which is a long, chilly gap. You’d better hope that when your boiler
next breaks it’s not 1,500 years before someone can mend it.
When we reach 1066, you write that it’s interesting that
“England’s most pukka lineage is a descent from thieving thugs”.
Could you talk a bit about this interpretation of that moment?
Well, I mean, that’s what happened! What I say in the book is that the
whole notion of kingship derives from, essentially, the same technique
used by organised criminals. When the Anglo-Saxons arrived and
started settling the land, they coalesced into larger and larger groups.
This process of coalescing was driven by violence and protection. The
word ‘lord’ in English derives from the Old English for ‘bread-giver’,
and the important people in Anglo-Saxon England provided food,
shelter and, essentially, a kind of cocoon in which violence from
outside was repelled by violence from your own lord. Those groups
eventually became kingdoms. Then, when the Anglo-Saxons Chris-
tianised, they adopted the notion of coronation and co-opted the idea
of a god-given right to rule. That made kingship feel as if it were ancient
and natural – but it all just came from the local hardman assuming
control over a larger and larger area until it became a kingdom.
When William the Conqueror invaded, he was simply part of this.
He claimed that he was Edward the Confessor’s declared – and,
therefore, rightful – heir. Harold claimed the same thing. There seems
to be slightly more evidence in William’s favour, but we can’t really
know. Famously, history is written by the victors – or by some nerdy
monks who the victors have told to write it because they’re usually too
busy feasting. Well, William had won, which meant he was the
PAL HANSEN-GUARDIAN-EYEVINE

PROFILE

David Mitchell is a comedian,

actor and writer whose TV
work includes Peep Show,
Upstart Crow and Would I Lie
to You? He writes a regular
column for The Observer, and
his previous books include
Dishonesty is the Second-
Best Policy and Other Rules to
Live By (Guardian Faber, 2019)

67
 rightful king – and that’s broadly theft, in the same way that if you go
into someone’s house, take the telly and say: “Because I’ve got the telly,
I’m the rightful owner,” you’re a thief. So yes, this all started with
BOOKS INTERVIEW
thieving thuggery.
The notion of storytelling as the basis of power reached a peak
in the reign of John, who you write almost brought down the
whole monarchy because he believed so much in kingship.
Kingship started with the techniques of the mafia, but kings soon
came to believe their own hype. Some of the most disastrous mon-
archs were those who most completely believed in their right to rule,
because they essentially felt they could do no wrong. The good kings
were the ones who you can imagine, in the back of their minds, must
have thought: “I’m quite lucky. I’m on to a good thing here, being in
charge of everything. I’d better try to stabilise the situation and make
people feel that they’re getting something from this arrangement.”
Henry I, for instance, nicked the throne but then ushered in an era
of tremendous stability. That was born out of being vicious to those
who opposed him but decent to those who were decent to him. And
he was even-handed once things were on an even keel. I can’t believe
that he wasn’t thinking: “Anyone could be king, so I’d better tread
carefully.” Whereas John absolutely exuded a sense of entitlement,
which meant that people had to find a way round the institution of
kingship – and that’s where Magna Carta came from.
So, in a way, it was one of our most ineffective kings who ushered
in constitutional change. Perhaps we should be grateful to John and
his son Henry III who, because of their incompetence, triggered both
Magna Carta and parliament. While there was a good king on the
throne, people didn’t tend to feel the need to rein him in with consti-
tutional innovation.
Before we explore your take on some of the later monarchs, we
should acknowledge the fact that the majority were men. What
do you think that says about the period you’re writing about?
I think we know what it says! It says that this was an incredibly sexist
era in which the notion of women making decisions and being in
charge of things on any level, right down to the domestic, was entirely
rejected by a patriarchal society. So that’s why all the rulers were men,
because everyone thought: “Oh, we couldn’t have a woman in charge.”
Border troubles
Edward I, shown in a 14th-
EGPVWT[KNNWOKPCVKQPHCKNGF
VQITCURVJGPWCPEGUQH#PINQ
5EQVVKUJTGNCVKQPUCEEQTFKPI
to David Mitchell
68
The Tudors obviously wanted to
depict Richard III as a villain, but that
doesn’t mean he wasn’t one, and doesn’t
mean they had nothing to go on
I say ‘everyone’, because probably some of the women also thought that
it had to be a man in charge, just because it had always been that way.
So it was both straightforward sexism and sexism projected onto
other people. There’s no doubt, for instance, that Matilda was a far
more capable operator than Stephen. Starting from a position of huge
disadvantage, she nearly took over the kingdom, and certainly
secured it for her son. But people will just have thought: “You see – if
a woman tries to be in charge, this is what happens.” And so hundreds
of years later, when Henry VIII didn’t have a son, he panicked because
he thought there’d be chaos if he couldn’t leave a male heir. And, of
course, what eventually happened is that he had one feeble male heir,
who didn’t survive very long, and two princesses who became queens.
The second of those – Elizabeth I – was one of the most effective rulers
in the whole period covered by my book.
;QWYTKVGVJCV4KEJCTFVJG.KQPJGCTVKUCIWTGYKVJYJQOYGoXG
always had a strange and spiky relationship but who, in terms of
symbolism, has remained very important. Why is that?
It’s the symbolism that’s the problem. Richard the Lionheart was,
essentially, French. He was from a big, posh French family, the
Plantagenets, and his priorities were to control areas of France, give
the king of France a rough ride, and go on crusade. One of his many,
many assets was that he happened to be king of England – and, as far
as he was concerned, that asset was just there to be milked for cash to
pay for a crusade. That’s who he was, and he never pretended to be
anything else. He was hardly in England, so uninterested by it was he.
Unfortunately for his reputation, though, his badge – the three
lions – has been adopted as a symbol in England, as has his byname,
Lionheart. The fact we think both seem sort of English-ish, because of
the lion’s association with England, is bonkers when you think about
it, because there are no lions in England apart from in the zoo.
Interestingly, some people think that the three lions on his badge
represented not solely England, but that one represented England, one
Normandy and one Aquitaine. So it may be that two-thirds of those
lions on the England football shirt represent areas of France.
Of Edward I, meanwhile, you write: “If he’d been a batsman in
cricket, he would have played spin badly.” Could you talk through
that analogy? I have to confess it’s not one I’ve heard before...
I’m glad you haven’t! I’d be shocked if you said: “Oh yeah, the old
‘Edward I can’t play spin line’, that’s a bit of a cliché.” Obviously,
Edward was pretty effective. He took over Wales, which you wouldn’t
necessarily be in favour of if you were Welsh, but it was definitely his
aim so, you know, mission accomplished. He also wanted to take over
Scotland and, when its royal line died out, tried his best – but he totally
failed, massively souring Anglo-Scottish relations, probably to this day.
So it struck me that, for all his effectiveness, the thing he struggled
with was nuance: the idea, for instance, that Scottish and English
kings rubbed along together, and that there was an acceptance of
ALAMY
England’s greater economic force that meant the Scottish kings
would be respectful but still in charge in Scotland. Edward couldn’t

handle that: it was just too subtle for him. For me, that’s a bit like the
difference between fast bowling and spin bowling. With spin bowling,
you have to accept it’s all a bit weird, that you’ve got to be a bit flexible,
and that you’ll have to change tack at the last minute. But with fast
bowling, if you’ve got a quick eye, you can look at it and hit it. I mean,
I can do neither of those things, but I’ve observed them done.
I think that, for Edward, things were easy when he was marching
into Wales. He knew what was going on. But the idea of nuanced
diplomatic relations, essentially necessitated by the feudal system of
power, was a bit much for him. Relations between England and
Scotland had been pretty good, but Edward absolutely destroyed
them. He created a Scotland with very independent feelings, which
saw England as an enemy rather than a neighbour, and which imme-
diately forged a long-term alliance with France. In terms of the aims
of the English monarchy, it couldn’t have been a bigger disaster.
One king who continues to spark strong feelings is Richard III.
How did you approach your take on his reign?
I think the whole idea that Richard has been slandered by the Tudors
– and then, as a result, by historians – has been a bit overplayed. The
Tudors obviously wanted to depict him as a villain, but that doesn’t
mean he wasn’t one, and it doesn’t mean they had nothing to go on.
The fact that they wanted him to seem nasty doesn’t suddenly mean he
was nice. No kings were, at that time: they were all ruthless. It seems to
me that it’s very unlikely the Princes in the Tower were killed by order
of anyone other than Richard – because where were they if he hadn’t
done away with them at the beginning of his reign? He definitely
usurped the throne, so it doesn’t seem likely that he would have
allowed them to continue to potter about the palace as more rightful
claimants. Henry VII was a cold, ruthless figure, and probably would
have killed the princes himself, but the evidence suggests that the
equally nasty man who preceded him had already done it.
Does this story have lessons for how we view today’s monarchy?
The short answer is: no. The monarchy now is a very different institu-
tion. I think it’s quite a sensible system to structure a country around
a figurehead rather than give both the power and the adulation to the
same figure: in other words, to separate a figurehead, to whom respect
to the nation might be directed, from the day-to-day running of a
BRIDGEMAN
democratically elected government. I don’t think we’d be getting
better service out of our prime ministers if they were also crowned.
It’s weird that it came out of an institution of real power, but it seems
Early modern family
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to be a relatively effective fudge – and I certainly
wouldn’t back our current crop of politicians to forge
a better constitution.
The Americans tie themselves into terrible knots,
for instance, when they elect an obviously reprehen-
sible human being who has nevertheless assumed
the highest office in the land and has therefore
become a personification of the United States.
I don’t think we get in the same knots about the
failings of Liz Truss, for instance. We know she
was briefly prime minister, but the fact that she was
unsuccessful doesn’t reflect on the whole notion of
the United Kingdom in the same way.
The last monarch you cover is Elizabeth I.
Why did you decide to end at that point?
A book on the kings and queens of England made sense to me, but
I didn’t want it to be totally superficial – and, to have taken the story
beyond 1603, it would either need to be much longer or much more
superficial. Also, you can’t tell the story via kings alone after 1603 as
effectively as you can up to that point.
+PVGTGUVKPIN[VJGPCNRGTUQP[QWHQEWUQPKUPoVCMKPIQTSWGGP
– it’s Shakespeare. Why did you end the book on that note?
Well, I’m obsessed with him. I’ve played Shakespeare in a sitcom
[BBC comedy series Upstart Crow], and even before that I thought
that he was the greatest writer ever. That’s not a particularly
interesting insight – most people think he was the greatest writer
ever – but I do think that his sudden existence puts these kings and
queens into context.
Here’s one of the most special people who ever lived, and he just
randomly emerged from provincial England in the late 16th century.
It reminds me how wonderful humanity is, frankly: that we can
produce people who have such insight, and who give things to the
world that make it a better place. Everyone who’s enjoyed his plays
and poetry ever since has had their lives enriched by his existence.
You can’t really say that about any of the kings and queens. None
of them have contributed in a positive, meaningful way to the lives
of strangers in the way that Shakespeare has – or, frankly, in the way
that Elton John has. There are artists, singers and writers that, to me,
are far more important than rulers – and certainly more important
than rulers who got their power just by an accident of birth.
So, for me, the emergence of Shakespeare in the 16th century is
a reminder that you can build a society in which the things that really
matter come to the fore. The society we’re in is an example of that,
as imperfect as it is. Yet across these hundreds of years, all everyone
has focused on is the doings of people whose power is entirely illegiti-
mate. For me, Shakespeare is an uplifting way to end this story
because he’s a sign of the Renaissance, which ushered in something
else, something meaningful: greater literacy, and an extraordinary
artistic flourishing.
Was Henry V the underdog at Agincourt?
Listen to the extended interview with David Mitchell on our
podcast now: historyextra.com/podcast
69
BOOKS REVIEWS

Vivid volcano 5RGEVCVQTUCFOKTGVJGGT[GOKUUKQPUHTQO8GUWXKWUCVCNCTOKPIN[ENQUGTCPIGFWTKPICVJEGPVWT[GTWRVKQPFGRKEVGFKPCEQPVGORQTCT[CSWCVKPV

CULTURAL

Cone rangers
EMILY BRAND is exhilarated by an immersive historical tour across the slopes of Vesuvius
in the 18th and 19th centuries, joined by a colourful cast of travellers, scientists and Romantics

Volcanic: Vesuvius
in the Age of
Revolutions
by John Brewer
Yale, 544 pages, £30
In December 1818,
Percy and Mary Shelley
lumbered up the slopes
of Vesuvius on the
backs of mules. (Mary’s stepsister, Claire,
opted for a chair carried on the shoulders of
second only to the beauty of the glaciers. The
“horrible chaos” of liquid fire was followed by
a painful torchlit descent to rest at the old
hermitage on the slopes, amid the squabbling
and song of their guides.
John Brewer’s new work reveals that the
Shelleys’ experience was typical – and, by
then, the route well-trodden. Since the early
excavations of Herculaneum and Pompeii in
the mid-18th century, the volcano that
destroyed them had flowed into scientific,
artistic and political discourse across the
western world, becoming an irresistible focus
the hermitage of San Salvatore, containing
some 2,300 entries spanning an 18-month
period across 1826–28. These range from lists
of names and hometowns to eloquent medita-
tions on the trip, wine-fuelled poetry, and
interactions between signatories running the
gamut from national hostilities to flirtation.
A painstakingly researched deep dive into
that visitors’ book expands into a survey of
human activity around Vesuvius and its place
in popular culture, from the mid-18th to the
mid-19th centuries. This was an era that saw
dramatic changes in science, politics and the
GETTY IMAGES

four men – and regretted it.) The poet’s
feelings at the summit as darkness fell were
intense: he described it as “the most impressive
expression of the energies of nature I ever saw”,
70
of what he calls “sublime tourism”. In this artistic imagination, and elicited various
marvellous new book, we see how and why. attempts at thematic periodisation, spawning
Volcanic takes as its starting point an the so-called Ages of Enlightenment, Revolu-
intriguing archival find: a visitors’ book from tions and Romanticism. Not limiting himself

Vulcanologists jostle
for space with local guides,
breathless teenage girls and
French schoolboys who
urinate into the crater
to one conceptualisation of the century,
Brewer considers in turn the physical and
symbolic presence of the volcano in the realms
of Neapolitan life, society and tourism,
geology, art and revolutionary politics. And he
convincingly demonstrates how Vesuvius
contributed something to them all.
We are introduced to characters familiar,
neglected and forgotten: esteemed vulcanolo-
gists jostle for space with unappreciated local
guides, breathless teenage girls determinedly
bleeding through their shoes, and a group of
unnamed French schoolboys who celebrate
reaching the crater by ‘boldly’ urinating into
it. The result is a thrumming world of activity,
tracing networks of knowledge and global
conversation in places high and low.
Hot takes
The contents page, indicating a seemingly dry
subject matter, belies the lively detail and
written style within the book. Brewer has a
real skill for drawing out entertaining and
illuminating personal stories. A life of the
dashing French nobleman and geologist
Déodat de Dolomieu, whose career from
soldier to scientific savant was inextricably
bound up with the turmoil of revolutionary
France, is a standout. Another is that of
self-proclaimed ‘chief guide’ and astute
businessman Salvatore Madonna, who offered
amusing stories of famous clientele, a reassur-
ing sense of order among chaos, and souvenirs
of lava with his own name stamped onto it.
Volcanic also offers a genuinely refreshing
picture of 18th and 19th-century travel. First,
it repopulates the Bay of Naples beyond the
traditional swaggering Grand Tourist. Here
we meet restless military officers, reluctant
servants, a mathematician looking to soothe
his grief, and mothers with young children.
(Brewer suggests that women accounted for
around one in five visitors to the summit, and
they are amply represented here.)
Second, it emphasises the sociable and
collaborative spirit of experiencing Vesuvius,
even as Romanticism espoused the glories of
solitude. In reality, the search for the sublime
FURTHER READING
was not always as exclusive or as friendless as
Romantic principles would have us believe.
Emily Brand
One of Brewer’s central ideas is that recommends three
Vesuvius should be understood as both a local
and a global phenomenon, impacting the more books on
worldviews of many who never set foot in Italy.
This makes for a particularly fascinating
science and the
discussion of its appropriation as a powerful Romantic era
political metaphor by both radicals and
conservatives. The former justified revolution-
ary fervour as a similarly violent but natural
regenerative force; the latter cast an eye back
to the AD 79 eruption and volcanic activity as The Age of Wonder:
a punitive return to “a proper natural and How the Romantic
political order”. Generation
Fittingly, the book reaches its crescendo Discovered the
with a compelling final section exploring the Beauty and Terror
intellectual and cultural impact of the early of Science
excavations at Herculaneum and Pompeii. D[4KEJCTF*QNOGU
Brewer’s account of the historical re-evalua- (HarperCollins, 2008)
tion of and artistic responses to these buried
cities offers a moving glimpse of an ancient This is a sparkling, beautifully
world. It also exposes both the admirable and evocative account of the bonds
awful of the 18th century: intrepid quests for DGVYGGPUEKGPVKEFKUEQXGT[CPFVJG
knowledge and the sublime, contrasting with Romantic imagination in Britain,
grave-robbing and people grimly fetishising from illuminating the dreaded
the surviving impression of a woman’s breast. darkness of the mines to star-
A new image of Vesuvius as a destroyer of gazing with the Herschels.
worlds proved compatible with Romantic
sensibility, and so captured the popular
imagination that early immersive experiences
of traversing the Bay of Naples sprang up
across Europe. One German duke even Pompeii
constructed an artificial volcano in his garden. Awakened:
Volcanic vividly invokes the many and A Story of
multifaceted powers of Vesuvius in the age of Rediscovery
Romanticism and revolutionary thought. The D[,WFKVJ*CTTKU
book’s structure makes it likely to appeal (IB Tauris, 2009;
especially to readers who relish an immersion new ed. 2020)
in a time and place, rather than a neat and
pacy historical narrative. Meanwhile, its This vibrant and accessible delve
impressive scope ensures that even those into the excavation of Pompeii in the
familiar with the era will find something new mid-18th century explores its ‘second
to illuminate their vision of it. Previously, life’ in the burst of archaeological and
when picturing the renowned vulcanologist intellectual activity that followed.
and antiquary Sir William Hamilton, my
imagination has unfairly conjured an obses-
sive old man, perhaps now more famous for
relinquishing his wife to Horatio Nelson.
Here, instead, we find him with a band of /CIPKǍEGPV
colleagues in the crater of Vesuvius, naked Rebels: The First
bodies reddened with the heat, boiling eggs Romantics and
for breakfast in streams of lava. the Invention
Brewer’s sweeping account is an enjoya- of the Self
ble read rich in rigorous original research, D[#PFTGC9WNH
thoughtful analysis and engaging storytelling. (John Murray, 2022)
Like those travellers scaling the slopes under
the watchful eyes of Salvatore Madonna, we This compelling group biography
couldn’t hope for a better guide. of the ‘Jena set’ of radical thinkers
captures all of the personal dramas
Emily Brand is a historian specialising in the long and electrifying intellectual creativity
18th century, and author of The Fall of the House of VJCVUWʘWUGFVJCV)GTOCPWPKXGTUKV[
Byron (John Murray, 2020) town in the 1790s. •
71
 MILITARY

Privates’ lives
BOOKS REVIEWS

GARY SHEFFIELD commends a novel look at Victorian army campaigns and daily military
life viewed from the perspectives of ordinary soldiers

Warriors in Scarlet:
The Life and Times
of the Last Redcoats
by Ian Knight
/CEOKNNCPRCIGU

“Then came the order

‘Dragoons to the
front. Front, form
line. Draw swords!’
The trumpet sounded
the ‘Charge’ and away we went… We were
enveloped in a cloud of dust and I heard a
couple of shells go whistling over our heads,
besides numerous bullets. Anything beyond
that, I did not have any thought of.”
This description of a skirmish in southern
Africa in 1845, recalled by Private William
Adams of the 7th Dragoon Guards, is typical
of the excellent use of personal testimony
made by Ian Knight in his new book, which
tells the story of early Victorian British Army
campaigns from the soldiers’ perspective.
Knight is a specialist in the Anglo-Zulu
conflicts of the 19th century, but here he
paints on a wider canvas. Beginning with the Red wall $TKVKUJUQNFKGTUEJCTIGFWTKPIVJG+PFKCP4GDGNNKQPQH6JKUEQPʚKEVHGCVWTGUKP+CP-PKIJVoU
army’s policing duties at home in 1838, the look at life in the British Army in the early Victorian era
year after Victoria ascended to the throne, it
ends with what contemporaries knew as the
great sepoy mutiny in India, in 1857–59. Some This is a popular account rather than a
of the campaigns are well known, such as
The book ends as red deeply researched work, a fact reflected in
those in Crimea (1854–56) and the notorious coats began to give way Knight’s sources; it seems to be based solely
First Afghan war of 1839–42. Others, such as on published material, including memoirs,
the New Zealand war of 1845–46 or the to khaki and the British letters and diaries. Strangely, newspaper
campaign in which Private Adams served,
are much less familiar to a general audience.
Army adjusted to new articles are cited via secondary sources rather
than from the originals. In places there is a
Knight does a valuable service in rescuing conditions of warfare heavy reliance on modern historians such as
them from obscurity, and giving a voice to James Belich and William Dalrymple. Other
the soldiers of the Victorian army. scholarly works that might have been expect-
The book ends as red coats were beginning ed to appear in the bibliography are absent.
to give way to khaki uniforms and the British That said, books should be judged primari-
Army adjusted to new conditions of warfare. ly by what is in them, rather than what is not.
And it finishes, appropriately enough, with a Warriors in Scarlet is a very readable popular
poem by Rudyard Kipling – the man who did history, which pushes the technique of
more than anyone else to establish the image fashioned feel. Writing about the history of employing the writings of ordinary soldiers
of the Victorian soldier. the British empire is being transformed for and junior officers to construct a narrative
It is an exciting story, and Knight tells it the better by engagement with issues such as – used very effectively to explore the world
well. He is concerned not just with campaign- race, masculinity and gender, but there is little wars – back to the mid-19th century. As such,
ing and battles; indeed, one of the most of that here, beyond a brief early nod to the it deserves a wide readership.
interesting sections deals with the life of the role of race. Otherwise, Warriors in Scarlet
ALAMY

ordinary soldier. Yet, despite this layer of could really have been written at any time Gary Sheffield is emeritus professor at the
social history, the book has a rather old- over the past half-century. University of Wolverhampton

72

ROYAL
Court reporter
NICOLA TALLIS delights in delving behind the scenes at
Hampton Court Palace across five centuries of history
The Palace:
From the Tudors
to the Windsors,
500 Years of History
at Hampton Court
by Gareth Russell
William Collins,
|RCIGU
Gareth Russell promis-
es 500 years of history at one of Britain’s
best-known landmarks – and he doesn’t
disappoint. The Palace invites readers to peek
behind the scenes, exploring Hampton Court
through the stories of some of its occupants.
But if you think it’s all about kings and
queens, think again.
Russell guides us through the palace room
by room, era by era, painting a rich and vivid
picture of life at Hampton Court over the
centuries. Though many will be familiar with
the likes of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn,
some refreshingly new faces are introduced.
There’s valiant soldier Giles Daubeney, who
constructed the kitchens where servants
turned meat on spits, and who hosted both
Henry VII and Elizabeth of York. We meet
the devoted Sybil Penne, who nursed Eliza-
beth I through smallpox at Hampton Court
ALAMY
– and who died there after contracting
it herself. Then there’s Charles II’s
unpopular mistress Barbara Villiers, whose
presence among Catherine of Braganza’s
ladies-in-waiting distressed the queen so
greatly that it led first to a nosebleed and
then a royal row behind closed doors at
Hampton Court. And as we enter the palace’s
chocolate kitchens, we encounter Thomas
Tosier, who prepared George I’s drinking
chocolate – served from a silver pot – while
his wife ran their drinks establishment in
Greenwich. This blend of history’s well-
known personalities with those whose
stories have been bursting to be told makes
Russell’s work exhilaratingly fresh and
fabulously exciting.
With its solid combination of wit and
scholarship, The Palace is lively, pacy and
engagingly written. Russell not only casts
Hampton Court and those who knew it in
a vibrant new light, but with flair and verve
leaves readers with the unequivocal sense that
they have taken part in the uncovering of
fascinating secrets behind the walls of this
great palace.
Nicola Tallis is a historian and author. Her next
book, Young Elizabeth (Michael O’Mara Books),
will be published in February
Sweet retreat A nook in
*CORVQP%QWTVoUEJQEQNCVG
kitchens, where royal drinking
chocolate was prepared
THE CLASSIC BOOK
Rory Cormac
on a study of
Britain’s recent
leaders and
constitution
The Prime Minister:
6JG1ǏEGCPFKVU
Holders Since 1945
by Peter Hennessy
5V/CTVKPoU2TGUU
Books about British bureaucratic
history and its political leadership
seem unfashionable in academic
circles today. The Prime Minister, by
professor-turned-lord Peter Hennessy,
reminds us of the value of both. It
recounts how premiers from Clement
Attlee to Tony Blair grappled with the
arbitration of political power against
the backdrop of war (hot and cold),
decolonisation and decline.
Drawing on archival research and
interviews – or gossip with footnotes,
as he puts it – Hennessy shows how
only Attlee and Thatcher were “weath-
er-makers”. Heath and Blair were
second-tier nation-shifters, the former
moving the country into “an utterly
FKʘGTGPVIGQRQNKVKECNRQUKVKQPq6JG
two Harolds, Macmillan and Wilson,
NGHVQʛEGYKVJWPHWNNNGFRQVGPVKCN
Hennessy’s genius is his ability to
bring an important but potentially dry
topic – the constitution – to life, while
remaining professorially rigorous. He
transforms arcane committee records
KPVQTKEJPCTTCVKXGUCPFPFURGTUQP-
ality in every premier. He is surpris-
ingly riveting on Alec Douglas-Home,
and even Anthony Eden, described as
“catastrophic”, earns sympathy. The
characters may now be historical but
the book is not dated (though John
Major’s reputation has aged better
than predicted).
The themes are timeless; the
stories span contemporary global
history. More please!
Rory Cormac is a professor of international
relations at the University of Nottingham, and
author of How to Stage a Coup (Atlantic, 2022) •
73
 WOMEN

Female gaze
BOOKS REVIEWS

SARAH CROOK is impressed by a richly textured exploration of the changing roles,

experiences and exploits of British women over the centuries since the Norman conquest

Normal Women:
900 Years of
Making History
by Philippa Gregory
William Collins,
688 pages, £25

The popular phrase

“well-behaved women
seldom make history”
now has a lore of its
own. The quote itself should be attributed
not – as internet memes might suggest – to
Marilyn Monroe or Gloria Steinem, but to
historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, who used it
in a 1976 academic article that explored pious
women who had escaped historical attention.
Philippa Gregory’s latest book, then, joins a
pantheon of works that have reinstated wom-
en – fierce, complicated, riotous, obedient,
rebellious, heroic, normal women – in our
understanding of how our world was made.
The book begins in 1066, setting out how Life after death .KMGCPWODGTQHYQOGPQHJGTIGPGTCVKQP5WʘQNMUKPINGOQVJGT1NKXKC%TCPOGTOCFGVJG
the Norman invasion transformed the lives OQUVQHQRRQTVWPKVKGUVJCVQRGPGFWRCHVGTVJG$NCEM&GCVJJCFMKNNGFOCP[OGPKPJGTHCOKN[CPFEQOOWPKV[
of England’s women. Changes to religion,
law and the transfer of land largely altered
women’s situations for the worse. Women per- the stories of unusual women such as Mary
severed, though – what choice did they have?
Following the Norman Edwards, once the richest woman in England.
– and found ways to circumvent, challenge invasion, changes to In 1733, she declared herself to be single on her
and survive oppressive environments. It son’s baptism certificate and, upon the dis-
is not surprising that the women we meet religion, law and the transfer covery that her husband had stolen from her,
here are slightly less ‘normal’. Among them not only demanded the money back but also
is Nichola de la Haye, appointed sheriff of
of land altered women’s denied the marriage. Not all women were so
Lincoln in 1216; Isabella, Countess of Arun- situations for the worse lucky, and Gregory attends to their stories, too.
del, who chastised the king in 1252; and Over time, the idea that marriage was the
Avice de Gardebois, who practised law in sole acceptable ambition for women hard-
the 13th century. These were extraordinary ened, and there were few ways to escape
characters – but what a delight it is wifedom – no matter how unpleasant the
to normalise women’s exceptionality. marriage. In the 1840s, for example, a judge
Over the following centuries, women were refused to release a wife kidnapped by her
no less innovative and no less subject to shift- some of the female entrepreneurs who thrived husband on the basis of her conjugal duty.
ing tides that shaped normality. Even disease in the period that followed. War, economics and feminism brought
presented opportunities. The staggering death But dark threads endure over the centu- about radical change in the 20th century,
ILLUSTRATION BY SARAH YOUNG

toll of the Black Death, which arrived in Brit-
ain in 1348, opened up new paths: in Suffolk,
lowly single mother Olivia Cranmer survived
while men perished around her, becoming the
only surviving heir to their plot and tenancy.
She proved a savvy farmer and business own-
er, and lived a long life. Olivia was not alone:
women made up the numbers in the depleted
workforce, and Gregory details the stories of
ries. Sexual violence marred women’s lives
across this book’s long chronology. So, too,
did the censuring or shaming of women who
stepped outside social norms. To be a woman
was to navigate a society that held trenchant
views about appropriate feminine behaviour.
These ideas shaped women’s lives, not least
their intimate domains. Nonetheless, marital
subservience was not universal. Gregory tells
and women can now claim greater equality
than ever before. But, as Gregory observes,
inequalities persist. This ambitious book is
a rich contribution to women’s public history
– and a powerful reminder that normal
women have long made history.
Sarah Crook is a senior lecturer in history
at Swansea University

74
 BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2023
CULTURAL

Passion project
JOANNA BOURKE is intrigued by a novel exploration
of love and lust using an array of curious artefacts

Love: Who wouldn’t marvel at vulvas that hunt

A Curious
History in
50 Objects
D['FYCTF
$TQQMG*KVEJKPI
Simon and Schuster,
256 pages, £30
Lovers often claim
that sexual desire is a sickness. One
10th-century physician described it as a
“disease touching the brain”, which could be
cured through purgatives, bloodletting,
warm baths with water lilies, and a diet of
lettuce and lamb.
In his new book, Edward Brooke-Hitching
sets out to explore this mysterious emotion.
Throughout this lusciously produced volume,
he dissects a range of weird and wonderful
objects that illustrate the diverse ways by
which humans have expressed their loves
and lusts.
BRITISH LIBRARY/ILLUSTRATION BY E SUMMERS
on horseback (“pussy goes a hunting”), or at
ambulant penises? Readers are led to wonder
when it was that kissing first appeared in
sculpture, and why some male Egyptian
mummies have false penises. For ‘horrible
history’ fans, there are torture instruments,
including a fearsome ‘breast ripper’ from
15th-century Germany devised to punish
women who committed adultery, as well as
uncomfortable chastity belts to prevent
women from straying in the first place.
More pleasantly, readers can feast their eyes
on love tokens ranging from jade and gold
combs to painted eyes.
This is a quirky book. Brooke-Hitching
has previously published a history of bizarre
Our annual review
sports (such as fox tossing and octopus of the year’s best
wrestling), and an atlas of places that appear
on maps but don’t actually exist. But love is history books is
different. Love is often obsessive, excessive back – and we want
and perverse. How can this be conveyed in a
series of short, historical vignettes? your nominations
The weirdness of so many of these objects
diverts attention away
from what is funda-
mental about love, Next issue we’ll reveal our Books of
much like the ambu- the Year list, showcasing the history
lant vulvas and titles that our panel of experts have
penises divert most enjoyed in 2023. But we also want
attention from the to hear from you: what are your favourite
wearer and warn off recent historical reads? Whether they’re
the ‘evil eye’ – which, epic volumes exploring centuries of
in this case, is the global change, intimate biographies
madness of love. QHWPUWPIIWTGUQTGXQECVKXG
atmospheric novels, every history book
Joanna Bourke is the newly released this year is eligible.
author of Disgrace:
Global Reflections on
Sexual Violence HOW TO HAVE YOUR SAY

(Reaktion, 2022) ● Nominate up to three of your

favourite books published in 2023

● Submit via email to:

matt.elton@immediate.co.uk

● …or have your say on social media.

Net gain
9QOGPECVEJYKPIGFJGCTVUKP
C(TGPEJCNNGIQTKECNOKPKCVWTG
HTQOE#PGYDQQMNQQMU
CVUWEJNQXGNKPMGFQDLGEVU
We’re on Facebook, X and
Instagram as HistoryExtra
● Be quick – the closing date for your
suggestions is 2 November 2023
(we may publish some responses)

75
 DIARY By Jonathan Wright, Rebecca Franks and Samantha Nott
PODCAST A history of cats
EXPLORE Greenway, Devon
TRAVEL (NQTGPEGKPXGRNCEGU

Land disputes between China and Burma in the 19th century

are highlighted on this c1889 map drawn on traditional
handmade shan paper. It shows 47 square miles along the
Nam Mao (Shweli) river with China’s land in yellow and
Burma’s in red. The map is on display in a major new exhibition

SYNDICS OF CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

REPRODUCED BY KIND PERMISSION OF THE

76
EXHIBITION
Complex history
This year is the 75th anniversary of the
independence of Myanmar (also known as
Burma) and to mark the occasion the British
/WUGWOKURWVVKPIQPVJGTUVOCLQT7-
exhibition about the country’s long history.
Spanning 1,500 years, ‘Burma to Myanmar’
explores the country’s rich abundance of
natural resources, its trade and political
networks and the impact of British
colonisation. It also explores what’s
happened in Myanmar since 1948,
encompassing democracy, dictatorship and
human rights abuses.
The exhibition’s highlights include a gold
NGVVGTUGVYKVJ|TWDKGUKPCPGNG-
RJCPVVWUMECUGYJKEJYCUUGPVHTQO-KPI
#NCWPIRC[CQHVJG-QPDCWPIF[PCUV[KP
central Myanmar to George II in the 1750s.
Burma to Myanmar
British Museum, London / 2 Nov 2023–11 Feb 2024 /
britishmuseum.org/exhibitions/burma-myanmar
•
77
 PODCAST

Reassessing the past

ENCOUNTERS DIARY

George Mpanga, better known as

George the Poet, is a spoken-word
artist. Drawing on his experiences
growing up in London as the son of
Ugandan parents, his work addresses
social and political issues with an
unusual curiosity and clarity.
And now he’s also looking at histori-
cal questions, too, because the fourth
series of his podcast, After Empire,
launched to coincide with Black History
Month, deals with the post-colonial era
in Africa. The focus here is primarily on
the African independence movements
of the 1960s, and includes the stories of
IWTGUUWEJCU2CVTKEG.WOWODCVJG
TUVRTKOGOKPKUVGTQHVJG&GOQETCVKE
Republic of the Congo and Kwame
0MTWOCJ)JCPCoUTUVRTGUKFGPV

Have You Heard George’s Podcast?

BBC Sounds / From October Spoken-word artist George the
Poet returns with his award-
winning podcast to share stories,
struggles and successes from
post-colonial-era Africa

EXHIBITION

Under the sea

The deepest point on earth is the
Mariana Trench, almost seven miles
FQYPHTQOVJGUWTHCEGQHVJG2CEKE
Ocean. It was discovered in 1875 by the
HMS Challenger expedition, which used
a weighted rope to take depth sound-
ings. The discovery revolutionised scien-
tists’ understanding of the sea, as did
much of the work undertaken on the
ship’s four-year-long circumnavigation
of the world. Around 4,700 new species
were found during the voyage.
Now, on the 150th anniversary of the
Challenger’s departure, the National
Museum of the Royal Navy and the
National Oceanography Centre have
collaborated on a new exhibition about
its remarkable journey. Expect
everything from original sea-life sam-
MATT WRITTLE -EYEVINE

ples found by the Challenger’s crew to

The new Worlds the chance to use AI to generate your
Beneath the Waves own sea creature.
exhibition in Portsmouth
showcases the legacy of Worlds Beneath the Waves
deep ocean discovery National Museum of the Royal Navy, Portsmouth
Historic Dockyard / Until March 2025 / mrn.org.uk

78
 HISTORY ON THE BOX
“Empire is a current political hot topic
that people in Britain really want to
talk about”
A new TV series on Britain’s imperial past features
comedian AL MURRAY (left), his alter ego the
Pub Landlord and local comics around the world

This c1610 painting of William Shakespeare, kept in
the Cobbe Collection, is thought to be the only portrait
of the English playwright to have been taken from life
TV
Cultural colossus
It’s 400 years since the First Folio, which
gathered up the works of William
Shakespeare, made its way into the
world. Without its publication, many of
the Bard’s plays might have been lost to
future generations. The BBC is marking
this anniversary across TV and radio.
Among the highlights, the three-part
William Shakespeare: Rise of a Genius
features A-list actors, including Helen
Mirren, Brian Cox and Adrian Lester, and
writers and academics such as James
5JCRKTQCPF,GCPGVVG9KPVGTUQPQʘGTKPI
their insights.
Other highlights range from First Folio
GETTY IMAGES/SKY HISTORY
Your new series is about Britain’s
colonial history. You visit countries and
then travel around in the company of
local comedians. Why this approach?
Empire is a current political hot topic that
people in Britain really, really want to talk
about. You’ll have a newspaper column in
The Times saying maybe empire wasn’t that
bad. And then a newspaper column in
The Guardian saying it’s far worse than you
imagined. But in a weird way, our experi-
ence of the British empire is that it didn’t
happen here. Missing from this debate are
people from India, Jamaica, Australia –
Indigenous Australians in particular – and
South Africa, the people still dealing with
the legacy of empire. The series is also a
good use of comedians because we’re
always being told we’re meant to talk about
difficult things.
*QYFKʘGTGPVYGTGVJGGZRGTKGPEGU
of people in these countries?
Completely different. Jamaica is a story
of a slave colony and a plantation economy.
In South Africa, though, it’s a story of
British settlers trying to displace the
existing Boer settler colony, who have an
extremely poor relationship with the
Africans. That’s a political tale of the
British trying to play everyone off against
uncle, said: “Why would I ever watch this
film? What’s it got to do with me?” He
didn’t know about it.
Were there points where you felt
uncomfortable with what you learnt?
We went to the scene of the Appin massa-
cre in New South Wales, where indigenous
people were driven over a cliff in a kind of
grouse-drive style. That was really horrible.
One thing that struck me was that it
happened a year after Waterloo, which sits
in our imagination as this moment where
Britain saves Europe from tyranny, and yet
Appin is itself an act of tyranny.
Finally, what’s the Pub Landlord’s role?
You chase ideas down by having him say
things that appear to be reasonable until
you go, “Hang on, I’m not sure about that…”
It’s also a way of reminding one or two peo-
ple that I play a character, I’m not him. An
awful lot of people think he’s real.
Al Murray: Why Does Everyone Hate the
British Empire? begins on 23 October on
Sky History

(BBC Radio 4, Saturday 11 November), each other to gain supremacy.

which is a comedy-drama imagining
the Folio’s creation, to a day of Bard-
themed music on BBC Radio 3 (Wednes-
day 8 November).
Shakespeare: Rise of a Genius
BBC Two / Wednesday 8 November
In India, it’s more like a kind of
corporate raid when the British displace
the Mughals. In Australia, you have a
settler colony established as somewhere to
send prisoners, and where you pretend
the Indigenous people aren’t there and
the land is empty.

How interested were the local comedi-

Weekly TV & radio
Visit historyextra.com for updates on
upcoming TV and radio programmes
ans in colonial history?
When you go to South Africa, nobody is
thinking about the British, nobody. When
we went to Rorke’s Drift to talk about Zulu,
comedian Loyiso Gola, who’s got a Zulu
As part of his exploration of the legacy of empire,
Al Murray (left) is joined by Indian stand-up
comedian and screenwriter Anuvab Pal (right) •
79
 HISTORY COOKBOOK
RECIPE

Parsnip Pudding
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2GPPU[NXCPKC+HVQFC[VJG
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DGHQTGRQVCVQGUCPFECTTQVU
DGECOGUVCRNGU#PFKPVJG
RCUVVJGRCTUPKRYCUWUGFVQ
UYGGVGPFKUJGUYJGPUWICT
QTJQPG[YGTGPoVCXCKNCDNG+P
VJGUCOGYC[VJCVECTTQVU
OCMGCFGNKEKQWUECMG
RCTUPKRUYGTGWUGFVQETGCVG
EQOHQTVKPIRWFFKPIU
&KʛEWNV[ 2/10
6KOGVCMGP 20 minutes
preparation, 2 hrs cooking
INGREDIENTS
450g parsnips
120g breadcrumbs
4 egg yolks
150g dried currants
1tsp nutmeg
50g sugar
Heavy cream (enough, c120ml)
Butter for cloth
Cheesecloth
Pudding mold or bowl
METHOD
1. Boil the parsnips until very
tender. Drain and add to a bowl,
then mash to a nice even
consistency. Add the bread-
crumbs, egg yolks, currants,
nutmeg and sugar. Then add
just enough heavy cream to
OCMGCDCVVGTVJCVFTQRUQʘVJG
spoon but isn’t runny.
2. Fill a pot with just enough
This 18th-century pudding transforms parsnips into a sweet delight
water to come almost up to the
top of the mold or mixing bowl;
bring the water to a boil while
you prepare the pudding.
3. Spread out a piece of
cheesecloth or linen and spread
it generously with butter. Lay
this cloth in the mold/mixing
bowl and transfer the pudding
into it. Lightly fold over the
ends and place a small plate on
top, pressing down to compact
the pudding.
4. Set the pudding into the pot
of boiling water, put the lid on
and boil for about two hours,
checking every now and then
to see if the water needs to be
topped up.
5. When the pudding is done,
remove from the pot and let it
cool for at least 15 minutes
before unwrapping. Turn over
onto a platter to serve either
warm or cold.
Recipe adapted from:
innatthecrossroads.com

TV

TV
Forgotten conflict
One of the myths of the colonial
era is that when Britons settled
in Australia they claimed an
empty land. In truth, almost
An Indigenous
Australian hunter
carries a dead kangaroo
on a hunting trip in the
Kimberley region of
western Australia c1967
may have exceeded 100,000,
with the majority of casualties
among the First Nations.
Chilling words
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CIGPVUKP#TIGPVKPC#FQNH'KEJOCPPHCEGFVTKCN
KP,GTWUCNGO&GURKVG'KEJOCPPDGKPIQPGQHVJG
CTEJKVGEVUQHVJG*QNQECWUVJKUDNCPFFGHGPEG
YCUVJCVJGYCUCDWTGCWETCVCOCPUKORN[
ECTT[KPIQWVQTFGTU
+PVGTXKGYUEQPFWEVGFKPCVKOGYJGP
'KEJOCPPVJQWIJVJKOUGNHUCHGKP5QWVJ#OGTK-
ECIKXGVJGNKGVQUWEJENCKOU6CNMKPIYKVJ
9KNNGO5CUUGPC&WVEJLQWTPCNKUVCPFHGNNQY
HCUEKUV'KEJOCPPYCUDQVJDQCUVHWNCPFRTQWF
QHJKUTQNGKPVJG(KPCN5QNWVKQPUGPFKPIOKNNKQPU
QH,GYUVQVJGKTFGCVJU(QT[GCTUVCRGUQHVJGUG
KPVGTXKGYUFKUCRRGCTGFDWVVJG[JCXGUWDUG-
SWGPVN[TGUWTHCEGFCPFNKGCVVJGEGPVTGQHCPGY
UGTKGUVJCVoUCEJKNNKPIUVWF[QHGXKN
The Devil’s Confession – The
SAMANTHA NOTT/GETTY IMAGES

from the moment the First Fleet
landed in 1788, people of the
First Nations employed guerrilla
tactics to resist occupation.
Fighters and their families
paid a heavy price for this
FGCPEG&GCVJUKPVJG
Australian frontier wars, which
continued into the 20th century,
In a three-part documentary Lost Eichmann Tapes
series, Rachel Perkins travels BBC Two & BBC iPlayer /
across the continent to trace a Sunday 22 and 29 October
story that, at its heart, is rooted
in the idea of people trying to
protect a way of life. The Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann
pictured in his prison cell in Israel
The Australian Wars in 1961
BBC Four / Tuesday 7 November

80

TV
The roots of invention
In the words of mathematician Dr Hannah Fry,
“We are living through a golden age of
technology and yet we’ve forgotten to
remember how clever the objects we
surround ourselves with are.” And, it might be
added, how unlikely are some of the deeper
stories behind products we use every day.
It’s these kinds of tales that Fry gathers
together in the returning The Secret Genius of
Modern Life. Among other nuggets, expect to
Presenter Misha Glenny on
location in Istanbul with a
portrait of Mustafa Kemal
Atatürk, founder of the
Turkish Republic
RADIO
Foundation
stories
BBC/MILES WARDE/ROYAL COLLECTION TRUST
It’s a century since the foundation of the
Turkish Republic. However, as the latest
QʘGTKPIKP$$%4CFKQoUGXGTGZEGNNGPV
The Invention Of… strand explores, to
understand the history of Turkey, a country
straddling Europe and Asia, you need to go
back further – at least VQCPFVJG
Ottoman era, when Mehmed the Conqueror
besieged Constantinople, a prelude to
renaming the city Istanbul and converting
its cathedral into a mosque.
Hannah Fry pays a visit to the
Mini factory in Oxford in her
quest to uncover the remarkable
stories behind everyday items
learn how the pursuit of a serial killer helped
to shape modern-day passport control, how
a crucial component in vacuum cleaners was
developed for an atomic bomb lab, and why
there’s a connection between South Korean
sausages and the inner workings of 21st-cen-
tury smartphones.
The Secret Genius of Modern Life
BBC Two / November
+PVJGTUVGRKUQFGRTGUGPVGT/KUJC
Glenny visits Istanbul to understand how
the Ottoman empire came to encompass
Iran, Egypt and, terrifying to the Christian
world, parts of Europe too. Subsequent
GRKUQFGUPF)NGPP[KP$GNITCFGCPF
8KGPPCTGʚGEVKPIQPJQYVJG1VVQOCPU
KPʚWGPEGF'WTQRGCPJKUVQT[
The Invention of Turkey
BBC Radio 4 / Friday 27 October
EXHIBITION
Meet the Tudors
ENCOUNTERS DIARY
A large collection of drawings and paintings
by Hans Holbein the Younger, the great
German artist whose art captured life at the
Tudor court, is to be shown to the public for
VJGTUVVKOGKPOQTGVJCP[GCTUCURCTV
of a major exhibition of over 100 works from
Henry VIII’s court. And it’s not only the
completed portraits of the likes of Henry VIII
and Anne Boleyn that will be on display. The
exhibition, which is drawn from the Royal
Collection, features more than 40 drawings
and preparatory sketches made in personal
sittings with Holbein’s subjects, which are
rarely put on show for conservation
reasons. Plus there’s a chance to see
artworks from Henry VII and Henry VIII’s
own collections.
Holbein at the Tudor Court
The Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace, London /
10 November 2023–14 April 2024 / www.rct.uk
Hans Holbein
the Younger’s
portrait in oils
of William
Reskimer (above) and his chalk, pen and
ink preparatory study (inset) will be on
show at the Queen’s Gallery. Reskimer held
several minor positions at the Tudor court
81
 Every issue we highlight a recent edition of our podcast.

PODCASTS ;QWECPPFKVCNQPIYKVJOQTGVJCPRTGXKQWUGRKUQFGU
at our website: historyextra.com/podcast
ENCOUNTERS PODCASTS

THREE HISTORY EXTRA

PODCASTS ON
ANIMAL HISTORY

Pooches
past
If you consider
yourself more of a
dog person, then
you’ll want to check
out our interview
with Professor
Julie-Marie Strange.
As part of our
Everything You Wanted to Know series,
Strange answered the top listener
An 1870s print showing a female questions on canine history – from the
lion-tamer in a cage with big cats earliest dog breeds to a bizarre case of
Victorian dognapping that transformed
the life of renowned poet Elizabeth
Barrett Browning.
Pets and predators historyextra.com/dog-history

Final
frontier
We’ve had a love-hate relationship with cats for centuries. A menagerie of
Our acting podcast editor RHIANNON DAVIES discusses animals have been
a recent episode that explores feline history sent to space,
including Laika –
the doomed
Russian dog who
hat do gun-toting Victorian Not every culture has looked so favourably

W
hunters, Egyptian embalmers and
puritanical medieval peasants have
in common? They were all obsessed with cats
– from the pest-catching house cats that curl
up in our homes to the man-eating tigers who
stalk the jungles of south Asia.
For centuries, societies around the world
have been enraptured by – or deeply fearful
of – our feline companions, as Dr Andy Flack,
an animal historian at the University of Bristol,
told me on a recent episode of the podcast.
“As well as being physical things, cats are also
products of culture,” he said. “So the way we
think about them has transformed over time.”
It’s well-known, for instance, that the
ancient Egyptians idolised cats, often pre-
senting them as deities and mummifying
their remains. But this adoration carried a
deadly cost. According to Flack, the Persians
weaponised the Egyptians’ love of cats –
turning it into an ace up their sleeve at the
battle of Pelusium in 525 BC.
“The Persians placed cats at the front of
their line of attack, because they knew the
Egyptians recognised a divinity within
on felines, however. During the Middle Ages,
many Europeans treated cats with suspicion,
branding them the familiars of witches.
“They’re nocturnal, and they’re active at night
in ways we can’t see,” says Flack. “They also
appear to be disloyal, only wanting us when
they need us, setting them apart as some-
thing that can’t be trusted.”
Fast-forward to the Victorian era, and cats
– and nature more widely – were seen as
objects to mould and control. The big cats of
Asia and Africa were viewed as the ultimate
prize. “The lion was the symbol of the British
empire, and was also a symbol of the might
of nature, imagined by the imperialists as
almost – but not quite – equal to the white
man,” says Flack. “In the same way, tigers
were emblematic of South East Asia, and
tended to be seen as more feminine. However,
both were real and present dangers to coloni-
alists, and white hunters relished the chal-
lenge of killing them and taking their skins
to prove their own power, and the power of
white civilisation.”
DGECOGVJGTUV
creature to enter orbit in 1957 – and
Félicette, the French cat who under-
went rigorous astronaut training
before being shot into the skies in the
sixties. In a 2021 interview, writer
Stephen Walker shared the often
tragic history of the animals who were
UGPVUM[YCTFUVQHWNNJWOCPKV[oU
space aspirations.
historyextra.com/animals-in-space
The greatest
show
For Victorian
pleasure-seekers,
Surrey Zoological
)CTFGPUQʘGTGFC
dazzling array of
attractions – with
one highlight being
Jacopo, the parachuting monkey who
dived out of a hot air balloon. Earlier
this year, research fellow Joanne
Cormac appeared on the podcast to
discuss the institution that set out to
GETTY IMAGES

these creatures and wouldn’t want to Listen now rival London Zoo, and reveals what
harm them.” This calculated manoeuvre You can hear this episode at Surrey Zoo can tell us about Victorian
paid off, and the battle was a decisive historyextra.com/cat-history society more broadly.
Persian victory. historyextra.com/victorian-zoos-pod

82
Unlock the past anytime, anywhere
with the new HistoryExtra app

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OCUVGTENCUUXKFGQUTKIJVCVVJGGPFQH[QWTPIGTVKRU
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 EXPLORE… GREENWAY, NEAR BRIXHAM, DEVON
Writer’s retreat
CLARE HARGREAVES visits the Georgian mansion on Devon’s
river Dart that for several decades was used as a holiday home by
Agatha Christie, the world’s bestselling fiction writer of all time
ENCOUNTERS EXPLORE
hat home comforts do you pack
W when you go travelling? A down
pillow, perhaps? Wet wipes? For the
‘Queen of Crime’, Agatha Christie, the
must-take little luxury was a mahogany
lavatory seat, which accompanied her and her
second husband, Max Mallowan, on many of
their travels through the Middle East, where
Mallowan worked as an archaeologist.
Today the lavatory sits sedately on the first
floor of Greenway, the elegant Georgian
residence overlooking Devon’s river Dart
which the novelist used as a holiday home
until her death in 1976. In the bedroom across
the landing stands Mallowan’s own travel
indulgence – a modest campaign bed.
Brought up in an upper middle-class
family in Torquay, Christie had always
admired Greenway. When, eight years after
her marriage to Mallowan, the estate came up
for sale, the pair viewed it out of curiosity,
then snapped it up. An architect was em-
ployed to pull down its unsightly Victorian
additions and restore it to its Georgian glory.
Christie, known in her private life as Mrs
Mallowan, enjoyed Greenway not just for its
well-proportioned rooms with their sublime
views, but also for its extensive gardens, many
of whose plants were as well-travelled as
Christie herself. Peach houses and walled
gardens supplied the dinner table, while
tennis courts and croquet lawns provided
entertainment for Greenway’s many guests.
One such guest, Peter Saunders – the
producer of Christie’s play The Mousetrap
Numerous Greenway
landmarks inspired
Christie’s detective novels,
including its two-storey
boathouse
84
– recalled in his autobiography: “The gong
goes for breakfast but guests go down when-
ever they want. After breakfast, Agatha said,
‘We do exactly what we like in this house.
Most of us play cricket in the morning.’ It
seemed a very odd pastime but it was for the
benefit of her eight-year-old grandson.”
Murder in the boathouse
Numerous Greenway landmarks inspired
Christie’s detective novels, including its
two-storey boathouse, a rare example of a
boathouse with a plunge pool down below.
The pool would have been used for its medici-
nal benefits, while upstairs the saloon, with
its woodburner and balcony overhanging the
river, was where Christie threw parties. It’s Greenway was built for the family of a
also where a dead body was discovered in her successful sea merchant in the late 18th
novel Dead Man’s Folly. century, though there has been a house
Inside the house, which is now owned by on the site for more than 400 years
the National Trust, rooms have been left
virtually untouched since Christie’s death.
There’s the dining room in which she hosted
dinner parties and family gatherings, includ-
ing her 80th birthday luncheon on 15 Septem-
ber 1970 whose menu included avocado vinai-
grette, homard [lobster] a la crème, and ice
cream and blackberries. Krug champagne
flowed, although Christie, a teetotaller,
preferred quaffing heavy cream.
Christie did not write her detective novels
at Greenway, but reading was very much part
of her life, as you see from the well-stocked
library. In the Second World War this became
the mess room for the US Coastguard after
the War Department requisitioned the house
as a base for rehearsing the D-Day landings at
nearby Slapton. An alcove was transformed
into a bar and the Coastguard flotilla’s
journey from Florida was charted on a frieze
painted by a landing craft captain. Its final
image depicts Greenway with an infantry
landing craft in the river below, a touching
testimony to the estate’s colourful history.
Clare Hargreaves is a Devon-based freelance
writer. www.clarehargreaves.co.uk @larderloutUK
For more information, visit nationaltrust.org.
Agatha Christie often took her mahogany loo seat with
JGTYJGPUJGYGPVQPJGTVTCXGNUDWVKVHQWPFKVUPCN
uk/visit/devon/greenway resting place in her much-loved holiday home
 Agatha Christie gazes out over the
CLARE HARGREAVES/ALAMY

river Dart from the holiday home that

she owned for more than 30 years

Greenway’s boathouse features in one of Christie’s novels as the scene of a murder. Unusually, it also boasts
CRNWPIGRQQNVJCVKUTGNNGFYKVJUGCYCVGTVYKEGCFC[YJGPVJGVKFGEQOGUKP

85
 HISTORIC CITIES
Florence
in five places
The home of the Medici dynasty was
the epicentre of the Italian Renaissance.
CATHERINE FLETCHER highlights five
spots to explore in the Tuscan capital
1 Palazzo Medici Riccardi
Show of power
The original Renaissance palace of the Medici family, a
groundbreaking structure commissioned by Cosimo de’
Medici in 1444, stands just north of the city centre.
Visitors can roam the serene courtyards and gardens
outside, but the real jewel lies inside: the Cappella dei
Magi, or Magi Chapel. This tiny space is famous for the
frescoes painted by Benozzo Gozzoli that adorn its
walls. These depict the Three Kings from the biblical
nativity story (one of them is said to represent Lorenzo
FGo/GFKEK CPFCNUQHGCVWTGKFGPVKCDNGOGODGTUQHVJG
Florentine court, as well as hunting scenes incorporat-
ing leopards, falcons and other animals.
#TGNKIKQWUURCEGVJCVCNUQINQTKGUVJG/GFKEKCU
rulers, the Cappella encapsulates the intersection of
politics, power and religion in Renaissance Florence. In
the days of the Medici, entering the chapel would have
been an enormous privilege – it was accessible only to
the family and their invited guests – so here you get a
sense of being very close to power.
$WKNVsVJG2CNC\\Q/GFKEK4KEECTFKINQTK GUVJG/GFKEKHCOKN[CUTWNGTU
86
2
2 Fiesole
First city
A short bus ride up the hill north-east of the city centre
is the ancient town of Fiesole. Probably founded as
early as the ninth century BC, it was an important
city-state of the Etruscan federation, and was later
conquered by the Romans in 283 BC. Today you can
visit important ancient sites including an Etruscan
temple and a Roman amphitheatre and baths, as well as
the Duomo (Cathedral of Saint Romulus), which dates
from the 11th century, and the attached Museo Bandini,
YJKEJJQWUGUOCIPKEGPV4GPCKUUCPEGCTV#PFKH[QW
take a short walk south from Fiesole’s main square, you
can enjoy spectacular views across to Florence.
3 Museum of Santa Maria Novella
1 Visual feast
One of the few 16th-century female artists about
whom we know much was Plautilla Nelli (1524–88).
Her Last Supper, in the museum at the Church of Santa
/CTKC0QXGNNCKUCTCTGGCTN[GZCORNGQHCNCTIGUECNG
painting by a woman. Most female artists that were
active in the 16th century tended to paint portraits or
other domestic pieces, but Nelli – who was a nun –
painted this work for her own convent. It was quite
common in this period for young Florentine women
to join convents, especially those from respectable
HCOKNKGUVJCVEQWNFPQVCʘQTFVQTCKUGCFQYT[0GNNK
turned to art, producing a number of superb paintings.
Her Last Supper, one of the most spectacular, has been
restored and opened up for public viewing quite
recently. It provides an intriguing insight into the later
Renaissance Baroque period.
 Fiesole, to the north-east of
Florence, is home to both
Etruscan and Roman remains
4 Vasari Corridor
Secret passage
In 1565, a few years after the wife
of Cosimo I de’ Medici bought the
Palazzo Pitti south of the Arno, her
JWUDCPFFGEKFGFVQNKPMKVYKVJVJG7ʛ\K
VJGHQTOGTIQXGTPOGPVQʛEGDWKNFKPIVJCV
3
housed his art collection) and the Palazzo Vecchio
(the old city palace) with a private corridor. That way, they
could stroll from palace to palace without ever being
confronted by the hoi polloi of Florence. Stretching over
half a mile and crossing the river via the Ponte Vecchio,
this secret passage is now lined with paintings from the
17th to 20th centuries, including portraits of the Medici.
Accessible only on guided tours that must be booked in
advance, and not always open, it provides a fascinating
glimpse into the slightly secretive side of the city – the
parts that you can’t just wander into as a tourist.
3 restored and opened
ENCOUNTERS TRAVEL
5
The walls of cells in the Convent of San Marco are lined with
devotional artworks – some of them quite atypical of the period
ALAMY/GETTY IMAGES
5 Church of San Marco
If walls could speak
The church of the Convent of San Marco is closely
associated with the Medici family, who used it as a
retreat. The cell used by Cosimo de’ Medici and Lorenzo
VJG/CIPKEGPVKUHCOQWUHQTVJGGZVTCQTFKPCT[HTGUEQGU
painted by Fra Angelico in the 1440s, as part of the
restoration of the convent that Cosimo commissioned
in 1437. Fra Angelico’s painting of the Annunciation is
known for the multicoloured wings of the angels and
the Roman-style arches with little Corinthian capitals.
That’s just one of the treasures in the cells, each of
YJKEJKUFGEQTCVGFYKVJCFKʘGTGPVHTGUEQ5QOGCTG
surprisingly ‘modern’ in style and almost slightly
CDUVTCEVsCPGZCORNGQH4GPCKUUCPEGCTVVJCVoUTCVJGT
FKʘGTGPVHTQOVJGOQTGHCOQWUYQTMU
4 Catherine Fletcher is professor of history at Manchester
Metropolitan University and author of The Beauty and the
The Medicis’ Terror: An Alternative History of the Italian Renaissance
private walkway, (Vintage, 2020). She was speaking to Paul Bloomfield, the
the Vasari Corridor, host of our podcast series History’s Greatest Cities
is accessible by
appointment only
EXPLORE MORE HISTORICAL
CITIES ON HISTORYEXTRA
In the second series of History’s Greatest Cities,
JQUV2CWN$NQQOGNFKULQKPGFD[JKUVQTKCPUVQ
Plautilla Nelli’s Last roam, virtually, the streets of eight European cities,
Supper, a nearly discovering their fascinating histories
7-metre-wide – and getting insider tips for travelling
painting, has been to the historic heart of each destina-
tion. Listen to the series now:
to public view historyextra.com/greatest-cities
87
 PRIZE CROSSWORD
Across
1 eg that of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro
by Palestinian militants in October 1985 (6)
4 The celebrated statue at the harbour at
Rhodes, built in the third century BC (8)
10 A key US location of the Manhattan
Project (1942–46) to develop the world’s
TUVCVQOKEDQOD 
11 A south-east Asian city, at one time capital
of French Indochina (5)
12 Biblical prophet-priest at the time of
Babylonia’s capture of Jerusalem,
around 587 BC (7)
13 6JGCFXGPVWTGUUKPXQNXGFKPVJGn#ʘCKTQH
the Diamond Necklace’ at Louis XVI’s court in
1785, Comtesse de ___ ____ (2,5)
14 #ETQP[OWUGFHTQOVJGUHQTVJGQʛEKCN
British armed forces canteen provider (5)
16 City in Punjab state, scene of 1919
massacre of unarmed Indian protesters (8)
19 Well-known English dictionary, named
after the 19th-century Scottish founders
QHVJGRWDNKUJKPITODTQVJGTU9KNNKCO
and Robert (8)
22 It was developed as a substitute for silk
in the late 19th century (5)
23 Legislation for the relief of the destitute,
developed and added to from the 16th century
VQRQUV5GEQPF9QTNF9CT 
25 Mughal emperor Aurangzeb’s
regnal title (7)
27 Heap of stones placed eg over
a mountain-top grave (5)
28 Government restriction of food items etc,
eg in Britain during the Second World War (9)
29 Orkney location of the Standing Stones
and the Ring of Brodgar, which are part of
a World Heritage Site (8)
30 A thick, sweet, hot British drink dating
from medieval times (6)
Down
1 Renowned German portrait artist, creator
of the iconic image of Henry VIII (7)
What is the Orkney
location of the
Standing Stones?
(29 across)
88
2 First name of the bank robber, who, with
his brother Frank, led one of the most
notorious outlaw gangs of the ‘Wild West’ (5)
3 The theology named after a 16th-century
French Protestant reformer, brought to
5EQVNCPFD[,QJP-PQZ 
5 The Ten Hours Act (1847) was partly the
result of the campaigning work of industrial
reformer Richard ____ (7)
6 The ancient script used in Celtic
inscriptions on stone monuments (5)
7 The right of asylum in olden times
eg within a church or abbey (9)
8 Cornish town, which became a centre for
modern development in British art led by
Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson (2,4)
9/20 A 19th-century pioneering Egyptologist,
author of A Thousand Miles up the Nile (6,7)
15 The Greek equivalent of the Roman
goddess Venus (9)
17 The supply ship used on Scott’s fateful
#PVCTEVKEGZRGFKVKQPQHs 
18 ‘Comedy of ____’ (or situation), an old
dramatic genre in which intricate
conspiracies and stratagems dominate (8)
20 See 9 down
21 It became the dominant Greek city-state
after the Peloponnesian War (6)
23 The ‘painted people’ living around AD
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24 (QWPFGTCPFTUVNGCFGTQHVJG
Soviet Union (5)
26 An association of merchants or
craftsmen, found in great numbers in Europe
between the 11th and 16th centuries (5)
Compiled by Eddie James
Book
worth
£25
for 4 winners
The Worlds of
Sherlock Holmes
By Andrew Lycett
This new book is a deep dive
into the worlds of Arthur Conan
Doyle and his most famous
character, the detective
Sherlock Holmes. Whether it’s
the Victorian craze for séances,
or developments in science and
psychology, Andrew Lycett
brings the historical worlds –
DQVJTGCNCPFEVKQPCN– to life.
HOW TO ENTER
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RJQPGPWODGT6JGYKPPGTUYKNNDGVJGTUVEQTTGEVGPVTKGUFTCYPCVTCPFQOCHVGTVJGENQUKPIVKOG
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Solution to our October 2023 crossword
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|;GNVUKP|.KUNG|2GVGT++|*KVVKVG|/CNVC|%QPVTCU
|%QTUCKT|4KNG[|.GZKPIVQP|5QTEGT[|6GTT[
Down|4CGFYCNF|(TKCT|'VJGNDGTV|.CHC[GVVG|/QUWN|)NGP
5JKGN|5XGKP|.KX[|5EJKPFNGT|2TKGUVNG[|4GODTCPFV
|8CITCPE[|%[TWU|4Q[EG|%KZK|#UVQT
Four winners of How to be a Renaissance Woman:
G Wood, Lincolnshire; R Parry, London; C Penfold, Ulverston;
A Gilbert, Newcastle upon Tyne
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DGCUUJQYPQPVJG%TQUUYQTFRCIG6JGTGKUPQECUJCNVGTPCVKXGCPFVJGRTK\GYKNNPQVDGVTCPUHGTCDNG+OOGFKCVG
/GFKC%QORCP[.QPFQPFGEKUKQPKUPCNCPFPQEQTTGURQPFGPEGTGNCVKPIVQVJGEQORGVKVKQPYKNNDGGPVGTGFKPVQ6JG
GETTY IMAGES
YKPPGTUYKNNDGPQVKGFD[RQUVYKVJKP|FC[UQHVJGENQUGQHVJGEQORGVKVKQP6JGPCOGCPFEQWPV[QHTGUKFGPEGQH
VJGYKPPGTUYKNNDGRWDNKUJGFKPVJGOCIC\KPGYKVJKPVYQOQPVJUQHVJGENQUKPIFCVG+HVJGYKPPGTKUWPCDNGVQDG
contacted within one month of the closing date, Immediate Media Company London Limited reserves the right to
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 Here’s a selection of the exciting
content that’s available on our
website historyextra.com
NEXT MONTHChristmas issue on sale 23 November 2023

Eleanor of Aquitaine: the rebel queen?

In 1173 Eleanor joined three of her sons in revolt against her
own husband, King Henry II. So what motivated the medieval
queen to take such a drastic step? Dr Gabrielle Storey sifts
through the evidence for answers.
historyextra.com/rebel-eleanor

What were houses like

Napoleon: hero or monster?
in ancient Rome? As a major new biopic hits the screens, two historians
The ancient city of Rome was debate the legacy of France’s best-known ruler
home to roughly 450,000 people.
But where did they all live? From
cramped insulae to the most
decadent domus, Lauren Good Books of the year
explores the spaces that the
As 2023 draws to a close, a panel
Romans called home.
historyextra.com/
of authors and historians select
roman-houses their standout reads from the
past 12 months
Calling all
history quizzers…
How closely do you pay attention A unifying queen
to the history that’s trending or in
the news? Put your knowledge to Joanna Arman shows how
the test with our weekly history Matilda of Scotland helped
quiz, with brand-new questions secure the reign of Henry I
arriving every Friday.
historyextra.com/weekly-quiz
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We’ve recently launched several
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available on our website. violent origins of a key episode
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89
 MY HISTORY HERO
Commonwealth secretary-general Baroness Scotland chooses
7NTKE%TQUU
1917–2013
7NTKE%TQUURKEVWTGFKP
CHVGTTGEGKXKPIVJG
&KUVKPIWKUJGF5GTXKEG1TFGT
p#NNJKUNKHGJGUQWIJVVQ
ETGCVGCOQTGLWUVUQEKGV[q
UC[U$CTQPGUU5EQVNCPF
At a time when many thought a
black person could not be a leader,
he proved them wrong, rising to
become squadron leader
90
IN PROFILE
Ulric Cross was a Trinidadian
jurist, diplomat and navigator
who served in RAF Bomber
Command during the Second
World War, reaching the rank of
squadron leader. He later studied
law in London, had a distin-
guished career as an internation-
al jurist and judge, and served as
high commissioner for Trinidad
and Tobago to the UK, 1990–93.
9JGPFKF[QW TUVJGCTCDQWV Baroness Scotland was the
7NTKE%TQUU!He was from the same TUVDNCEMYQOCPVQDGCRRQKPVGF
generation as my father (I was born C3WGGPoU%QWPUGNCPFVQJQNFVJG
in Dominica), so I’ve known about QʛEGQH#VVQTPG[)GPGTCNHQT
him for as long as I can remember. 'PINCPF9CNGUCPF0QTVJGTP
He was one of a number of extraordi- +TGNCPF5JGKUPQYUGETGVCT[
nary Caribbean statesmen of that IGPGTCNQHVJG%QOOQPYGCNVJ
time, and I was lucky enough to get
to know him through family and other contacts.
9JCVMKPFQHOCPYCUJG!I’ve always thought of him as an
exemplar of the Caribbean man: he was tall, dashing, charming,
brave and, what’s more, had a brilliant mind. He regarded every
challenge as an opportunity rather than an obstacle. He was a great
Pan-Caribbeanist and Pan-Africanist, believing in collaboration
between all people of African descent, as well as a proud supporter of
the Commonwealth. He was also a great tennis player – you took on
Ulric at your peril, and he was still beating young men in his nineties!
9JCVOCFGJKOCJGTQ!He displayed great fortitude, fearless-
ness and spirit when he volunteered to serve in the RAF at the height
of the Second World War. At a time when many people unfairly
thought a black person could not be a leader, he proved them wrong.
He rose through the ranks to become squadron leader, helping
change perceptions. He later became an innovative, reforming jurist,
rewriting constitutions, and did excellent work as both a judge and
attorney general. All his life, he sought to create a more just society.
9JCVYCU%TQUUoU PGUVJQWT!The daring, determination and
professionalism he showed as a member of the RAF’s elite Pathfinder
Force. He helped perfect techniques for precision bombing over Nazi
Germany, flying low over enemy territory, dropping devastating
bombs, then climbing sharply to avoid the blast – putting his life at
risk each time. He flew 80 missions as navigator of a Mosquito
fighter-bomber, so was delighted when the Commonwealth Gates
were opened in 2002: a long overdue memorial to all those soldiers,
sailors and airmen from Africa, the Caribbean and the Indian
subcontinent who fought – and died – for Britain in two world wars.
In truth, though, every hour of his life was his finest hour.
%CP[QWUGGCP[RCTCNNGNUDGVYGGPJKUNKHGCPF[QWTQYP!
IWM HU58315/COMMONWEALTH SECRETARIAT
We both came from big families – he was one of nine children, and
I’m one of 12 – and we both became judges and parliamentarians.
Lastly, he was a Commonwealth high commissioner, and I’m the
secretary-general.
9JCVYQWNF[QWUC[VQJKOKH[QWEQWNFOGGVJKO!If I saw
him now, I would thank him for his public service over the years, and
for being such an inspirational figure.
Baroness Scotland was talking to York Membery
+P4CFKQoUGreat LivesIWGUVUEJQQUGKPURKTCVKQPCN
IWTGUbbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qxsb
 PETER SOMMER

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The Royal Mint struck every single UK coin of Queen Elizabeth II’s historic reign,
starting with the 1953 coronation crown. In 2022, The Royal Mint released coins
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