History Today 08-2016

Puritan Prankster
The funny side of Cromwell
The Power of the Witch

Challenging ugly stereotypes
August 2016
Vol 66 Issue 8
Rio
The Old World battle

for a New World city
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Ohio State University
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London School of Economics
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18,161 Jan-Dec 2015
2 HISTORY TODAY AUGUST 2016
THE WORD HISTORIC is

bandied around a lot, but June
23rd, 2016, the day that the UK
voted to leave the European
Union (EU), was deserving of
such an epithet, as the country
divided politically along
geographical lines ominously
similar to those of 1638. I spent
the following day, just hours after
the result had been announced, at
a conference in London devoted
to public history. The mood was
sombre. It is no secret that a
majority of academic historians
in the UK were in favour of
remaining in the EU. In May
2015, History Today attempted
to kick start a debate on Britains
place in Europe, publishing
an article by David Abulafia,
Professor of Mediterranean
History at Cambridge and a key
member of the Eurosceptic
1638 0r 2016? A map of the EU referendum
results, with areas that voted Leave in blue.
group, Historians for Britain.
The response was
extraordinary. Almost 300 historians signed an open letter taking issue with
Abulafia, arguing that Britains past can only be understood in the context of
its continuous interaction with Europe, implying that the UKs future would
be richer, in more ways than one, if it remained a member of the EU. Some
historians, such as Peter Frankopan and Lucy Inglis, accused both sides of
parochialism, but the debate was by and large closed.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but might it have been better if the debate
among historians had been more sustained? As someone who voted Remain, I felt
that a more nuanced conversation among historians of multiple perspectives and
specialisations would have been a good thing and might have led to a higher level
of public debate. And there were historians, albeit mainly well-established men,
willing to make an articulate case for Leave: as well as Abulafia, these included
Noel Malcolm, Robert Tombs, Jeremy Black and Andrew Roberts.
In the days immediately before the referendum, a number of distinguished
historians assembled in Downing Street in support of the Remain campaign at
the invitation of George Osborne, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and then went
on to publish an open letter in the Guardian. Some historians have since spoken
of their regret at becoming so close to a government they were hardly enamoured
with, while others have told me that, despite supporting the Remain campaign,
they withheld their signature. Historians should speak truth to power, not for it.
Ironically, perhaps tragically, the debate about the UKs place in Europe has
become more nuanced, more illuminating since the referendum, as the UK
enters uncharted and perilous waters. Historians will have a major role to play in
that future see Peter Mandlers excellent dissection of the state of our nations
published in Dissent magazine soon after the referendum result. But in a less
deferential, more divided age, historians must learn once again to show, not tell.
Paul Lay
HistoryMatters
Northern Ireland Victorian Dining Levison Counterfactualism
Well over 200,000

Irishmen, from both
political traditions
and all walks of life,
fought in the First
World War
Breaking the Peace
After the UK voted to leave Europe, Northern Irelands fragile relationship

with both its past and its neighbour is once again to the fore.
Edward Madigan
THE IMPERFECT but generally stable
peace process in Northern Ireland has
trundled on since the signing of the
Good Friday Agreement in 1998 and
Islamic fundamentalism and right-wing
extremism are now usually regarded
as more serious threats to British
security than Irish republicanism. It has
thus been quite easy over the past few
years to forget just how devastating the
conflict we still euphemistically refer to
as the Troubles actually was. In strictly
military terms, the war in Northern
Ireland could accurately be regarded as
a low-intensity conflict, yet between
1969 and the Provisional IRA ceasefire
of 1994, over 3,500 people lost their lives
as a direct result of violence in Northern
Ireland or emanating from the region.
United by conflict:
members of the
Irish Defence
Force (left) and
the British Army
at Glasnevin
Cemetery, Dublin,
July 2014.
The story of the Northern Irish conflict is one of cruelly unexpected death,
widespread bereavement and lives
blighted by fear, anger and bitterness.
But it is also a story of a remarkably
resilient people, whose desire for peace
led them ultimately to reconsider their
attachment to the past and embrace
compromise and reconciliation. With
the stability of the peace process now
undermined by the result of the UK
referendum on membership of the
European Union, it is worth briefly
reflecting on the role played by history
in the dynamics of the conflict.
Rigid, exclusive and often highly
territorial understandings of the past
directly fuelled the violence that erupted
so catastrophically in 1969 and the
polarisation and cultural entrenchment
that would mark the next few decades.
On the one hand, nationalists regarded

themselves as heirs to an ancient Gaelic
culture, whose ancestors had been
systemically dispossessed, marginalised,
exploited and murdered by colonists
from the neighbouring island. For their
part, many Ulster unionists were proud
of a history of colonial settlement dating
back to the early 17th century, in which
industrious, god-fearing Scottish Presbyterians and English Anglicans carved
out a niche of British civilisation in an
otherwise wild and inhospitable corner
of Ireland. Importantly, the memory of
suffering and victimhood experienced
over the centuries by the communities
that clung to these narratives helped
sustain them.
The historical episode that has had
by far the greatest influence on the
perpetuation of divided identities in
Northern Ireland is the First World War.
Well over 200,000 Irishmen, from both
political traditions and all walks of life,
fought in the war and at least 35,000 of
them died as a result of military service.
While Unionist and Nationalist soldiers
rarely fought together, they shared
similar experiences of violence, loss and
deprivation on the Western Front and
elsewhere. Yet the Easter Rising of April
1916 and the social and cultural forces it
unleashed would fundamentally transform the country to which many Irish
veterans returned in 1919. Ultimately, the
Rising, the subsequent War of Independence and the partition of the island
would ensure that the ways in which
AUGUST 2016 HISTORY TODAY 3
HISTORYMATTERS
the two communities engaged with the
memory of the First World War were
very different indeed.
For Ulster Unionist men and women,
the memory of the Great War in
general and the Battle of the Somme
in particular took on an almost sacred
significance over the course of the 20th
century. The blood sacrifice of the 36th
(Ulster) Division was regarded as having
purchased the right of the six counties
to remain within the United Kingdom,
while the rest of the island seceded.
Commemoration of the war is thus not
simply an element of Unionist culture,
it is absolutely central to the way many
Unionists understand themselves and
their place in the world.
Among the nationalist population,
memory of the war has always been
more complex and generally more
muted. We should remember that major
Armistice Day ceremonies were held in
Dublin, Cork and Limerick and poppies
were quite commonly worn in the Free
State between the wars. There can be
no doubt, however, that in independent
Ireland there has always been greater
emphasis on the rebels of Easter 1916
and the men who served in the IRA
during the War of Independence than
on the those who fought at Gallipoli
and on the Western Front. By the 1980s,
there was little room in the popular or
official imagination for anyone who did
anything other than fight against the
British in 1916 or the years afterwards.
The situation today could hardly be
more different. The historical amnesia
regarding the Irish experience of the
First World War among the nationalist
population has been almost completely
reversed and people from disparate
communities come together to commemorate it in a way that would have
been unthinkable just ten years ago. An
ironic but very positive situation has thus
emerged, in which a shared memory
of the most violent conflict in British
and Irish history has been used to help
people move beyond the violence and
discord of the more recent past.
This was very much the approach
when the Island of Ireland Peace Park
was opened by the Irish President Mary
McAleese and Queen Elizabeth in WestFlanders in 1998 and during the British
state visit to Ireland in 2011, when the
Queen showed a remarkable willingness
to engage with the troubled history of
Anglo-Irish relations. Most recently, the
dedication in July 2014 of a Cross of Sacrifice in honour of the Irish and British
dead of the Great War at Glasnevin

Cemetery in Dublin marked a milestone
in the history of Anglo-Irish relations.
The event saw Irishmen serving in both
the Irish Defence Forces and the British
Army come together to pay tribute to
the dead of the Great War in a cemetery
that has long been associated with
those who struggled to end British rule
in Ireland.
A shared memory
of the most violent
conflict in British and
Irish history has been
used to help people
move beyond the
violence and discord of
the more recent past
This process of using more inclusive historical narratives to move away
from a conflict that was shaped by
understandings of the past will not be
jeopardised by the UKs break with the
European Union. Peace in Northern
Ireland depends, above all, on the
desire for peace, which certainly
remains. The climate of uncertainty
that now pervades these islands should
nonetheless remind us that lives are
potentially at stake and that the stability
of the peace process should never be
taken for granted.
Edward Madigan is a Lecturer in Public History

and First World War Studies at Royal Holloway,
University of London.
Alternative Histories by Rob Murray
A Varied Diet
A Victorian restaurant
critic explored the cuisine
of London, including its sole
vegetarian restaurant.
Joss Bassett
LIEUTENANT-COLONEL Nathaniel
Newnham-Davis is little known today
but, after serving in South Africa, China
and India, he became a top restaurant
critic in London during the late 1800s
and early 1900s. Writing for the Pall
Mall Gazette, he was highly influential:
praised by the New York Times during
his life and admired after by the likes
of Elizabeth David. So respected and
well-connected was Newnham-Davis,
he was often a guest at private dinners
of the most prestigious chefs of the day.
Newnham-Davis published three
restaurant guide books that went into
many editions. The Gourmets Guide to
London, published in 1914, followed his
similar guide to Europe and replaced
his first book, Dinner and Diners, of 1899.
The guide is a rich source of material,
providing a window into the restaurant scene of Victorian and Edwardian
London. It is all the better as a historical
source, as he was fair and impartial. If
his experience was bad, he would simply
omit the restaurant from his reviews,
as it was not fair to condemn any
restaurant on one trial, but neither
would he risk returning and being badly
treated on a second occasion.
Newnham-Davis reveals a world
that, over 100 years later, is at once
both different and recognisable to us.
His reviews and essays cover some 25
classes of restaurants and the great and
the good of the culinary world, many of
whom, like the renowned chef Auguste
Escoffier, he knew personally. We learn
of pubs, chop houses, oyster houses, a
chain which is a forerunner to Pret a
Manger, the restaurants of Soho and the
West End and those offering Chinese,
Indian, German, French, Austrian and
Jewish cuisine. There are reports of
grand dining rooms of hotels, tea
gardens, artists rooms, the pioneers of
clean kitchens and French fries and even
a lunchtime interview with the female
HISTORYMATTERS
Healthy option:
Eustace Miles in
his restaurant at
Charing Cross.
chef who ran the Cavendish Hotels

kitchen, staffed by women, and who
invented Edward VIIs favourite pie.
One of the more curious, and certainly humorous, of Newnham-Davis
entries is the chapter on the Eustace
Miles Restaurant, founded by a British
tennis world champion and his wife. It
was a rarity we seldom think of as existing then: a vegetarian restaurant.
In 1878 there was only one vegetarian restaurant in the UK but, as the
vegetarian movement, which was as
much about a way of life and social
change as about not eating meat, began
to find new ground in London among
white-collar workers during the 1880s
(historically its home was the working
classes of Manchester), the number of
vegetarian restaurants grew to 52. Of
these, 34 were in London; still not many
among the swathe of food offerings
the capital boasted. Many looked on
the junior bank clerks, dressmakers
and shop assistants dining in them as
oddities.
Newnham-Davis only dined at
Eustace Miles after recommending it
to an old Indian Army general, a man
distrusting of anything new, who asked
his advice on where to dine with his
We learn of pubs,
chop houses, oyster
houses, a chain which
is a forerunner to
Pret a Manger, the
restaurants of Soho
and the West End and
those offering Chinese,
Indian, German,
French, Austrian and
Jewish cuisine
nephew and his new wife, a vegetarian. Newnham-Davis recounts that the
general uttered the word vegetarian
with the same tone of astonished
disgust as he would have employed had
she been a militant suffragette.
Today we would certainly recognise
the health benefits of the dishes on
offer. Just as we might find symbols or
other indicators on our menu, informing
us if the dish is gluten free or has GM
ingredients, the menu at Eustace Miles
had letter annotations such as N.N.
meaning Very Nourishing and F.U.

meaning free from uric acid. The latter,
as Newnham-Davis wryly comments,
would be of great use to those suffering
from gout.
We might also recognise the seating
style. As is a growing trend in many
new London restaurants, diners sat at
any table, even if already occupied. Less
recognisable would be the exercise
classes the proprietor advertised in his
restaurant and held in the rooms above.
Newnham-Davis had mixed feelings
about the food itself. Some dishes he
thought impressive while others, such
as the stuffed marrow, were watery and
flavourless. None could lure him from
the errors of flesh-eating and creamy
salmon and plump quails. Nonetheless,
he acknowledged that it provided a
good quality cheap meal for its clientele
(a half crown set menu was available)
and offered health benefits; after all, the
owner was a champion sportsman. He
did say, however, that he would love to
see the old generals face when he read
the menu and hear his undoubtedly
noteworthy remarks upon it.
Joss Bassett writes on food, drink and culture and

is managing editor of ingoodtaste.com
HISTORYMATTERS
Last testament:
Wilhelm Levison
and the book he
was preparing at
the time of his
death in 1947.
Crossing the Continent
The medievalist Wilhelm Levison was a living embodiment of

the deep links between Britain, Germany and a wider Europe.
James Palmer
IN THE WAKE OF THE EU referendum,
my mind keeps returning to Wilhelm
Levisons magisterial England and the Continent in the Eighth Century, published just
after the end of the Second World War.
Its preface reads: May these pages, in
their small way, contribute to join again
broken links, when the works of peace
have resumed their place lost in the
turmoil of war. The challenges we face
now are not as great as those faced then.
But, as it feels that those links are again
strained, we naturally turn to reflect on
how common cause can be maintained
and new ways forward set out.
A respected medieval scholar, Levison
taught at the University of Bonn and
worked for the Monumenta Germaniae
Historica. As he was Jewish, he was
unable to teach after the introduction of
the Nuremberg Laws in 1935. His former
colleagues helped him to escape to
England in the Spring of 1939, where he
was able to take up a position at Durham
University. In 1942, Maurice Powicke
invited him to Oxford to give the Ford
Lectures the following year. They would
become England and the Continent.
What is striking now about Levisons
lectures is how, despite their explicit
political setting, they are first and fore6 HISTORY TODAY AUGUST 2016
most works of sober scholarship rather

than a polemic. He did not portray the
early medieval past as a utopian vision of
pan-European co-operation to contrast
with the conflicts of his own time. Indeed,
he argued against transposing the
opinions and controversies of later times
into the past. Quoting Spinoza, he urged
people to understand human action, not
to ridicule it, lament it, or curse it. The
sentiment remains valuable.
A sense of a common European
culture was central to Levisons vision.
This culture was rooted in Christianity
and Latin learning and it meant that
there was always a core body of belief
and books people had, whatever their
differences. Europe in the seventh and
eighth centuries was coming to terms
with the slow political fragmentation
of the Roman Empire and the new
divisions and cultural revolutions it had
triggered. In the 1930s, Henri Pirenne
had argued that it was the shattering of
the Mediterranean world following the
Arab conquests in the 630s and 640s that
had paved the way for new political and
economic centres to emerge in the north.
For Levison this provided some of the
backdrop to a series of enterprises which
included Pope Gregory the Great sending
Roman missionaries to the pagan

English of Kent, arriving in 597. A century
or so later, English missionaries, including St Willibrord Apostle of the Frisians
(d. 739) and St Boniface Apostle of the
Germans (d. 754), contributed to the
exporting of new versions of Christian
culture to what is now the Netherlands
and Germany. These ventures in turn
inspired the Christian empire of Charlemagne (d. 814), a diverse political and
cultural world held together by shared
belief and learning.
England and the Continent was personal in many ways, especially in the
emphasis Levison gave to intellectual
exchange between the English and
German regions. English and German
culture owed significant debts to the
Irish, too, whose books and treatises
spread quickly across the West, thanks
to the desire of Irish monks from the
seventh century onwards to set up
monasteries overseas or to teach
abroad. The North Sea was also alive
with trade and travel. And, if the Mediterranean world seemed less coherent
in 800 than it had in 400, this did not
prevent the movement of people and
ideas between the Latin, Byzantine and
Arab centres. Historical scholarship in
Levisons time was dominated by ideas
of nations and peoples; he, however,
recognised the importance of people
crossing boundaries, ultimately helping
to shape a connected Europe.
Addressing his English audience in
1943, Levison concluded with an appeal
to remember Europes common heritage and the role migrants had played in
shaping it. He quoted the Swiss scholar
Jacob Burckhardt, who said a truly rich
nation becomes rich by accepting much
from others and developing it. His final
words he took from a Latin poet: Now
joined is what before were separate
worlds. Levison died aged 70 in 1947
when only the first seeds of peace had
been planted. He inspired 70 years of
writing on the early Middle Ages, in
which scholars across Europe sought to
understand the world he sketched. One
can hope that, from these foundations,
new histories will be able to again join
links broken in recent times.
James Palmer is Reader in Mediaeval History at

the University of St Andrews.
RIO DE JANEIRO
Rio de Janeiro and Botafogo Bay.

Inset: view of Rio de Janeiro, 1600,
coloured engraving by Willem Blaeu.
Origins of
WHEN THE JESUIT PRIEST FERNO CARDIM
arrived in Rio de Janeiro in 1584, he found a scene
that appears to have been devised by the supreme
painter and architect of the world, Our Lord God.
The city was barely a generation old, a cluster
of wattle-and-daub shacks huddled around a
fortified hill on the western shore of the Guanabara
Bay, home to around 750 individuals. Although
it was a long time before Rio would attain preeminence in Brazil, its foundation was nevertheless a global event. It encompassed battles between
civilisations, wars of religion, contests for resources
and transoceanic migration. It marked the earliest
extension into the western hemisphere of the
imperial rivalries that would shape the history of
the globe. It also helped to ensure the development
of Brazil as a contiguous country.
By David Gelber
RIO DE JANEIRO
The settlement of Europeans around Guanabara Bay began in

1555, some 55 years after the Portuguese had first set foot in Brazil.
The narrow shores of the bay, between the Atlantic and the looming
granite mass of the Serra do Mar mountain range, had been occupied for
centuries by Neolithic Tupi peoples. Scattered throughout Brazil, they
pursued a semi-nomadic existence in tribes of different sizes, cultivating the land for as long as it could sustain them, hunting and fishing
and thinking nothing of baring their entire bodies. They seem to be
such innocent people Any stamp we wish may be easily printed on
them, Pero Vaz de Caminha, a voyager in the first Portuguese fleet to
visit Brazil, wrote to King Manuel I in 1500. It was not long before the
Portuguese discovered that they were also inveterate warriors, locked
in insoluble feuds with each other and capable of turning their ire on
interlopers, too. Most shocking of all was the revelation that they practised cannibalism on their enemies.
Although Caminha commended the great plenty of Brazil, the Portuguese were slow to take an interest in the country. Under the Treaty
of Tordesillas, the audacious division of the globe between Spain and
Portugal by Pope Alexander VI in 1494, the coast of Brazil belonged to
the latter. Early visits, however, yielded no evidence of precious metals
or the kinds of spices that, carried out of Asia in Portuguese carracks,
had turned Lisbon into one of the wealthiest cities in the world. The
principal attraction was the brazilwood trees that grew along the Atlantic coast, a relation of the sappan wood trees of Asia, which produced a
coveted red dye. The Portuguese crown soon claimed a monopoly over
Map of Brazil from Cosmographie

Universelle by Guillaume le Testu, 1555.
the import of brazilwood. Since these trees grew abundantly along the
coast, those licensed to export them could send ships to gather logs
without needing to settle there. Otherwise, exports from Brazil were
limited to parrots, monkeys and the odd native: popular ornaments at
court and in noble households.
THE FAILURE OF THE PORTUGUESE to establish a presence in Brazil
enabled ships from other nations, principally France, to plunder its coast.
By the 1510s, and possibly earlier still, mariners from Brittany and Normandy were visiting Brazil to collect wood, offering the natives trinkets,
metal tools and weapons in exchange for their labour. In the 1520s these
activities increased: in the first half of 1529 alone, some 200 tons of brazilwood arrived in the port of Honfleur. Over time, French merchants
also began to export the pepper-like berry of the Schinus terebinthifolia
plant. Although such voyages were private ventures, the French crown,
in principle, had few qualms about them, since France did not recognise
the Treaty of Tordesillas.
As French visits grew more flagrant, the Portuguese took counter
measures, appealing to Francis I to prevent encroachments and sending
Carving depicting the trade of wood

from Brazil, c.1550.
patrols along Brazils coast. The most notable of these was led by Martim
Afonso de Sousa, from 1530 to 1532. During the course of this mission,
he spent three months in Guanabara Bay. This was not the first documented European visit to the bay. In 1519, Ferdinand Magellan had
paused there during his circumnavigation of the world to resupply and
repair his ships, taking advantage of the natural shelter the bay provided
behind the pyramid bulk of the Po de Acar (Sugarloaf Mountain).
There are suggestions of earlier visits, too: tradition holds that Amerigo
Vespucci stopped there on January 1st, 1502 during his third voyage of
exploration, christening the bay (which he mistook for the mouth of a
river) Rio de Janeiro, though evidence for this is sparse. French vessels
had almost certainly visited, too.
FONSOS BROTHER, Pero Lopes, recorded in his diary how the

Portuguese put ashore there in April 1531. Over the following three months they created a stronghold and constructed
two brigantines. Four of the party were sent to explore the
interior. They returned after two months, having travelled 450 miles
inland, bringing with them a great king, lord of all those lands, who
signalled that gold and silver were to be found near the River Paraguay.
The fleet departed at the beginning of August. Afonso sent notice to
Joo III of his sojourn, informing him of the great abundance of wood
in Guanabara Bay.
Afonsos expedition heralded a new phase of European activity
in Brazil: a shift from maritime to continental engagement. Joo III
adopted a programme in 1532 to colonise Brazil through grants of territories (known as captaincies) to prospectors. In return for wide-ranging
economic and political powers, they would be required to populate and
develop the lands in their bailiwicks at their own expense. In a letter to
Manuels successor, Joo III, the diplomat and scholar Diogo de Gouveia,
one of the originators of the strategy, suggested that multiple Portuguese plantations would deter French raiders, facilitate the defence of
the land and defuse claims that, since Brazil was effectively unoccupied,
the principle of uti possidetis (as you possess, that the possessor at the
end of a conflict keeps the territory or property) did not apply. Some
seven or eight towns, he insisted, would suffice to prevent the land

from being parted with.
During the 1530s Brazil was carved up into 15 horizontal strips of
land, a crude partition that took no account of physical reality. Each
strip was roughly 150 miles in breadth, stretching from the coast to an
indeterminate point inland. These territories were apportioned to 12
grantees: mostly courtiers, soldiers and adventurers. Afonso received
the captaincies of Rio de Janeiro and So
Vicente in the south of Brazil.
Only two of the 15 captaincies flourished in the short term: Pernambuco in the
north-east, thanks to its relative proximity
to Europe and the energetic leadership of
its governor, Duarte Coelho, who introduced sugar plantations, and So Vicente.
The remainder were blighted by absent
leadership, meagre resources and attacks
by natives, who, in response to attempts to
drive them from the land and enslave them,
laid waste to sugar mills and slaughtered
settlers with arrows and wooden clubs.
In 1548, one resident warned Joo III: If
Your Majesty does not succour these captaincies soon not only will we lose our lives
and goods but Your Majesty will lose the
land. At the same time, French competition was depressing brazilwood prices on
the European market and affecting royal
income. By the middle of the 16th century, the crowns profits from its
Asian empire had passed their peak. Of necessity, the Americas were
gradually assuming a more important place in the calculations of the
royal counting house.
In December 1548 the king sent Tom de Sousa, a veteran of Portuguese campaigns against the Moors, to the abandoned north-east
captaincy of Bahia as governor-general of Brazil, with instructions to
establish a fortified city, suppress native uprisings and drive out foreign
pirates. The intention was not to supplant the territorial captains but
to provide a more robust military presence in Brazil. Tom de Sousas
arrival coincided with the introduction into the country of the Jesuits,
whom, it was hoped, would proselytise their beliefs to heathen tribes.
While Afonsos captaincy of So Vicente developed under his lieutenant Bras Cubas, his dominion of Rio was neglected. In spite of the
enthusiasm he had shown for Guanabara Bay when he had anchored
there, Afonso who was sent by Joo III to India in 1534 and never returned to Brazil made no attempt to populate it. The mountains that
girdled the bay constricted access to the hinterland and the tight coastal
plain was blanketed with salt marshes, which inhibited large-scale agriculture. There was little land for pasture and the harvesting of the one
commodity that proliferated was a jealously guarded royal prerogative.
The growing Portuguese presence in the north-east in the 1530s
and 1540s deflected French ships towards Rio. In 1537, after allying
with Joo III against Emperor Charles V, the French king Francis I had
temporarily prohibited Norman and Breton navigation to Brazil. The
interdict was lifted in 1540 and by the end of the decade some seven
or eight French ships a year were appearing in Rio and its environs
to collect wood. In 1550, Pero de Gois, captain-general of the coast,
described Rio as now the main stopover for pirates.
Guanabara Bay and much of the surrounding region were occupied
by the Tupinamb people, with whom French traders established good
relations. Mutual self-interest bridged the chasm between cultures:
the French needed manpower to fell and carry brazilwood trees; the
Tupinamb wanted European weaponry to defeat tribal enemies. In
1554 various Frenchmen assisted the Tupinamb in ousting their
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admiral of Brittany, which brought him into contact with merchants and sailors involved in the Brazil trade. Over the next
three years, he developed a plan to create a French enclave in
Guanabara Bay. Gaspard de Coligny, admiral of France, offered
active support. Although Henry II did not endorse the expedition publicly, he provided two ships and 10,000 livres and
licensed the release of prisoners to join it. In subsequent years,
French ambassadors in Lisbon were careful to inform the king
of Portuguese fleets travelling to Brazil, suggesting that he
maintain an interest in the venture.
The project has sometimes been cast as an attempt to
implant a province in the New World, where Huguenots
could escape persecution and set to work rescuing pagan souls.
There is no evidence that this was its purpose: even though
several Protestants travelled in Villegagnons fleet, the party
did not contain a single Protestant minister. Rather, Villegagnon and his backers in the ports of northern France expected
to profit from the enterprise by securing the main source of
brazilwood and opening up South America to exploration. For
Villegagnon, there was the added attraction of fixing his place
in French history as the countrys first conquistador. On the
kings part, a French colony in Brazil would provide a base
from which to harass Spanish ships and serve as a standing
retort to Iberian claims of sovereignty over the New World.
Above: Joo III of Portugal by Cristovao

Lopes, 16th century.
Opposite: naval battle between the
Portuguese and French in the seas off
the Potiguaran Territories by
Theodore de Bry, 1592.
rivals, the Temimins, from the Ilha de Paranapu (now Ilha do Govenador), the largest island in Guanabara Bay. A number of French factors
(known as truchements) lived permanently among the Tupinamb, preparing cargoes and acting as interpreters. When Pero de Gois visited
Guanabara Bay in 1550, he found two Frenchmen living in one of the
20 or more Tupinamb villages on its margins; in 1554 Hans Staden, a
German gunner in Portuguese service who had been captured by the Tupinamb, encountered a Frenchmen who had been adopted by a native
chief. The French showed little interest in converting the Tupinamb to
Christianity. Indeed, truchements embraced indigenous mores, fathering
children with native women and even, it was alleged, practising cannibalism (Montaignes celebrated essay Of Cannibals was based on the
testimony of a Frenchmen who had lived in Guanabara Bay).
Merchants in northern France made no secret of their undertakings
in the Americas. To welcome the visit of Henry II in 1550, the city of
Rouen staged a Brazil-themed pageant. A meadow was transformed into
a jungle, with parakeets, monkeys and brazilwood trees. A mock battle
was then fought, involving some 50 natives brought to France, who
participated without in any way covering the part that nature intended.
Decades of navigation to Brazil prepared the ground for one of the
most outlandish imperial projects of the 16th century: the founding in
1555 of a French colony in the middle of the Guanabara Bay. The enterprise, which became known as France Antarctique, was the inspiration
of Nicolas de Villegagnon, a soldier and adventurer who had fought the
Ottomans in Hungary and North Africa and commanded the fleet that
conveyed Mary, Queen of Scots from Dumbarton to France in 1548 in
the face of the English navy. In around 1552 he was appointed vice14 HISTORY TODAY AUGUST 2016
ILLEGAGNON SET OUT FROM Le Havre in July

1555 with two ships and up to 600 men (few, if any,
women travelled). After a tempestuous crossing,
he reached the coast of Brazil in early November.
The party stopped briefly at Cabo Frio, a popular resort for
French loggers, before continuing to Guanabara Bay, which
it entered unopposed. Nicholas Barr, a pilot of one of the
ships, observed that the bay is naturally beautiful and easy to
defend, by reason of the narrowness of the entrance, which is
shut on both sides by two high mountains. He noted that the
natives lit bonfires to greet the fleet. Andr Thevet, a Franciscan friar who would publish the first eyewitness account of
Brazil, described how, having knowledge of our coming, the
natives had strewed and decked the shore with leaves, and
boughs of trees, and sweet smelling herbs.
Despite the welcome he received, Villegagnon entertained
doubts about the reliability of these allies. After spending two
months surveying the bay, he resolved to establish his settlement on the Ilha de Serigipe, one of several islands in the
middle of it. Around 220 metres in length, it had the convenience of being easily defended: it was surrounded by rocks that
prevented large ships from landing and boasted a commanding
view of the approach to the bay. Its situation also restricted
opportunities for desertion. On the other hand, the absence of fresh
water and land for planting crops made frequent trips to the mainland
and trade with its inhabitants unavoidable.
With the help of native labour (including prisoners enslaved by the
Tupinamb), Villegagnon erected ramparts and fortifications around
the island. The structure was named Fort Coligny, in honour of the
French admiral, who was later sent the tongue of a captured whale in
appreciation of his patronage. Further bulwarks were built on the small
hills at either end of the island to house artillery pieces. Villegagnon
constructed his own residence in the centre of the island. Although
timber and stone were used for some of the defences, most houses were
built using native wattle-and-daub techniques. A cistern was sunk into
the ground, but the Rio Carioca, near Praia do Flamengo on the western
shore, remained the main source of water.
The garrison-like character of the new colony was not conducive to
Having knowledge of our coming, the natives

had strewed and decked the shore with leaves,
and boughs of trees, and sweet smelling herbs
its long-term survival. Villegagnons failure to grant land to migrants
prevented them from developing an attachment to their new country.
Nor were the settlers prepared for the hardships that confronted them.
The French had brought wheat seed and vine stock from Europe but
most attempts to cultivate them failed. They were forced to fall back
on indigenous staples, such as manioc, and whatever provisions they
could obtain by barter with the natives and from visiting French vessels.
The heat was devitalising and the swarms of mosquitoes that clouded
the island laid many low.
These difficulties were compounded by

Villegagnons own conduct. Migrants complained of the incredible toil to which they
were subjected in building Fort Coligny,
which was still under construction when
more immigrants arrived in early 1557,
while Villegagnon promenaded in fine silks
and jewels. More serious still was the arbitrary nature of his regime.
As beleaguered as many of the Portuguese captaincies were, they at
least had the semblance of governing structures. France Antarctique,
on the other hand, was a private venture under the absolute rule of its
commander, who authorised corporal punishment for minor misdemeanours, imposed laws at will and forbade colonists from leaving the
fort without his permission.
Particularly grievous was his prohibition in early 1556, upon pain
of death, of relationships between Frenchmen and native women.
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News of the
establishment of
a French colony
in Rio was greeted
with outrage in
Lisbon. Joo III
sent protests to
Henry II
Left: Martim de
Sousa, from Lendas
da India by Gaspar
Correia, c.1858-63.
Below: reconstruction of a
Brazilian village
from the Royal
Entry Festival of
Henry II, French,
16th century.
Opposite: Jos
de Anchieta,
lithograph, 16th
century.
This struck at a long-standing custom practised by truchements and

precipitated a conspiracy to assassinate Villegagnon. It was led according to Barr by a truchement who had lived in Rio for seven years in
the most filthy and Epicurean manner of life without God, without
faith, without law. The plot was discovered by Villegagnons bodyguards
before it could be put into action. At least one conspirator was hanged
and several others were condemned to slavery. A number of other individuals, including several craftsmen, fled to the mainland, establishing
a community close to a Tupinamb hamlet at Flamengo (in his book
Thevet called it Henriville).
HE ARRIVAL IN MARCH 1557 of reinforcements did not

improve matters. The previous year, Villegagnon had sent his
nephew Bois-le-Comte back to France to obtain assistance.
Coligny entrusted the task of mustering new migrs to
Philippe de Corguilleray, a Protestant noblemen, who drafted several
Calvinist theologians into the contingent. They included Jean de Lry,
who published his own portrait of France
Antarctique in 1578. Sectarian fissures
emerged at the Pentecost celebrations of
1557. A debate over the Eucharist erupted
and Villegagnon threw his weight behind
the Catholic orthodoxy. In October a group
of Protestants, prevented by Villegagnon
from pursuing their faith and finding their
rations restricted, abandoned Fort Coligny
for Flamengo, where they lived alongside
the Tupinamb, who, according to Lry,
were beyond comparison, more humane to
us than he. A number of them returned to
Europe in early 1558 on a French merchant
vessel, but three Calvinists who went back
to Fort Coligny were drowned as heretics by
Villegagnon. By 1559 the admiral, whom
Lry denounced as the Cain of America,
was back in France, having entrusted his
authority to Bois-le-Comte. He never returned to Brazil.
News of the establishment of a French
colony in Rio was greeted with outrage in
Lisbon. Joo III sent protests to Henry II.
Nevertheless, the Portuguese were slow to
take advantage of the disarray in the French
camp. Tom de Sousas successor as governor general, Duarte da Costa,
was ineffectual and divisive. In 1556 the royal justice Mem de S was
appointed to replace him. Although he would prove a much more capable
figure, it was two years before he arrived in Brazil. Native revolts continued to plague many captaincies.
These problems took on a new dimension as the Jesuits intensified their activities. Their opposition to the enslavement of natives
had infuriated settlers in the developed captaincies of the north-east,
forcing them to divert their activities southwards. During the late
1550s, Jesuits in the neighbouring captaincy of Esprito Santo converted the Temimins, who had been driven out of Guanabara Bay, to
Christianity. In So Vicente, they managed to catechise the Tupiniquim,
with whose help they established in 1554 the town of So Paulo on the
Piratininga plateau, driving out the Tupinamb. Such triumphs begat
difficulties. The shift in the balance of power in the south-east provoked
an insurrection among the Tupinamb, which the French fanned.
Growing Jesuit influence in Esprito Santo and So Vicente, and the
attendant unrest, focused Portuguese attentions on Rio. The idea of establishing a second royal city in the south-east of the county had already
been mooted by Tom de Sousa, who in 1553 urged Joo III to build a
fine and noble settlement there under a crown officer. But during the
second half of the 1550s, Rio came to represent the third point of a
Portuguese triangle in the south-east. The Jesuit Quiricio Caxa believed
that the conquest of Rio would open the door for the king of Portugal
to increase his spiritual and temporal power. His colleague Manuel de
Nobrega wrote repeatedly of the need for a Portuguese city in Guanabara
Bay to protect Esprito Santo and So Vicente.
The other major influence in training Portuguese sights on Rio was
the S dynasty. Mem de S finally arrived in Brazil at the start of 1558,
armed with instructions to expel the French from the Guanabara Bay.
He rapidly appreciated the importance of Rio for the security of the
whole of Brazil, both because of the threat posed by the French and
because of its proximity to the Spanish colonies around the River Plate.
Various kinsmen followed Mem to Brazil, drawn by the prospect of glory
and land, which the ungoverned spaces of Rio seemed to offer. They included his son Ferno and his young cousin Estcio (sometimes referred
to as his nephew). Another relation, Salvador Correia de S, would serve
as the first Portuguese governor of Rio following its conquest; his descendants would
dominate it for the best part of a century.
As well as sharing an interest in capturing Rio, the Jesuits and the Ss depended
on each other more broadly. As governorgeneral, Mem looked to Nobrega and
another experienced Jesuit, Jos de Anchieta, for counsel. The Jesuits also assisted by
co-opting catechised natives to fight for the
Portuguese. The Jesuits, in turn, sought the
governor-generals help in extending their
activities into new areas. The influence that
these two groups managed to exercise over
policy speaks to the frailty of wider political
institutions in Brazil at this time.
T TOOK FULLY NINE YEARS for Mem to

bring Guanabara Bay under his control.
In June 1558, he confessed in a letter to
Joo IIIs widow, Queen Catarina, who
was acting as regent on behalf of her infant
grandson King Sebastio, of his ignorance
of the strength of Villegagnons colony, explaining that he had attempted to capture
a French boat to find out the truth about
how many men they have and what their intentions are. Information
eventually came from a French defector, Jean Cointa. Even so, eruptions
of violence in other parts of the country deprived Mem of the men he
needed to launch a sustained campaign in Rio. Time and again, he was
forced to plead for reinforcements from Portugal.
In September 1559 two Portuguese carracks set off from Lisbon
under the command of Bartolomeu de Vasconcelos da Cunha. His orders
were to rendezvous with Mem in Bahia and then proceed to Rio, where
he was to destroy what they found there and expel the French. He
arrived in Bahia in November. Since Vasconcelos brought few fighting
men, Mem was forced to conscript local residents into the army. The
squadron left Bahia in mid-January 1560, having been joined by eight
further vessels. It arrived at the bar of Guanabara Bay on March 15th.
Mem de S sent a demand to Fort Coligny to surrender. The defenders
sent a contemptuous dismissal. In response, Mem ordered an all-out
assault, despite Vasconceloss conviction that it was impregnable. The
fortress was bombarded for more than 12 hours, forcing its residents
and the many pagan tribesmen in their ranks, each one as well armed
as the French, to break out. While some fought the invaders at close
quarters, the majority escaped to the mainland, taking with them
RIO DE JANEIRO
This page: a
Brazilian from
America, Habitus
praecipuorum
popularum, 16th
century.
Opposite: The
Execution of an
Enemy by the
Topinambous
Indians by
Theodore de Bry,
1562.
whatever weapons they could seize. Within two days, the island had
fallen. Some 75 Frenchmen were taken prisoner, along with a further
40 from a captured ship.
Although the Portuguese managed to expel the French from Fort
Coligny, the status quo ante soon reasserted itself in Guanabara Bay.
Nobregas claim that Rio had been purged of all Lutherans had little
truth to it: French escapees were welcomed into Tupinamb settlements at Uruumirim (now Morro de Gloria) and Ilha de Paranapu.
The Portuguese, meanwhile, withdrew. Instead of occupying the French
bastion, Mem de S razed it. When Queen Catarina censured him for
this, he protested that he had too few soldiers to garrison it and needed
to preserve men to quell revolts in So Vicente. By June 1560 he was

urging her to send further assistance, claiming that unless Guanabara
Bay was permanently occupied, Villegagnon would enlist the Turkish
sultans aid to recover it and give him all the wood he needed for his navy.
Within the bay itself, the French and Tupinamb maintained a guerrilla campaign against their Portuguese neighbours, while French traders
continued to live there unmolested. In 1561 a group of French and Tupinamb attacked Espirito Santo. The following year some seven French
ships put in at Rio. In 1564 So Paulo itself came under sustained attack.
To add weight to his appeals, Mem sent Estcio, who had fought in
the campaign of 1560, back to court to solicit aid. He finally left Lisbon in
late 1563 at the head of a new fleet. He stopped en route in Bahia and in
Esprito Santo, where the Temimin chief, Arariboia, who had converted
to Christianity, supplied him with fighting men. He reached Guanabara
Bay in April 1564 and managed to capture a French ship anchored in the
bay. After coming under attack, he retreated to So Vicente. With the
help of Nobrega, he gathered veterans of the wars against the Tupinamb
for another attempt on Guanabara Bay. He was joined on his mission by
Anchieta, a number of Temimin and some Tupiniquim.
Estcio de Ss return to Rio in 1565 marked the start of a new
Mem and Estcio were admitted into the Order of Christ.

In May 1566 three galleys under Cristvo de Barros left Lisbon.
They reached Bahia in August, where Mem supplied six further ships.
In November, the relief force, now commanded by Mem, departed for
Guanabara Bay. On January 18th, 1567 it anchored off the Po de Acar
and Mem and Estcio united their forces. Two days later the feast day of
St Sebastian they attacked the stronghold of Uruumirim, where the
French and Tupinamb had built a fortress on lofty crags with ample
cannon at their disposal. After a day of fierce fighting, the Portuguese
prevailed: according to Mem numerous Tupinamb and
French were killed and ten of the latter were captured.
The Portuguese victory came at a cost, however. Like the
Christian martyr he revered, Estcio was struck by an
arrow and died the following month.
Portuguese strategy. Rather than striking the enemy directly, he sought

to establish a beachhead on the fringes of the bay from which to launch
operations against the French and Tupinamb. Estcio and his two or
three hundred followers arrived in Rio in torrential rain on March 1st,
landing on a beach pinched between the Po de Acar and the Morro
Cara de Co on the peninsula of So Joo. The mountainous terrain and
seclusion from the rest of the mainland save for a single approach
offered some security. On the other hand, land for planting was scarce.
STCIO IMMEDIATELY ERECTED fences to deter attackers.

Within months he had built earthwork and wooden fortifications, watchtowers and wattle-and-daub houses, never resting
day or night always being the first to begin work, according to
Anchieta. Although the new settlement was little more than a military
encampment at first, Estcio garlanded it with the trappings of a city,
both to lift the morale of his followers and to certify its legitimacy.
He christened the new settlement Cidade de So Sebastio de Rio de
Janeiro, in honour of St Sebastian and his namesake the king. A coat
of arms was awarded, a municipal council was set up, grants of land
were made and civic officers were appointed. Estcio also ordered the
construction of a chapel dedicated to St Sebastian. The settlers had
some success in cultivating foodstuffs but also relied on products they
brought with them and periodic foraging raids on Tupinamb villages.
The new city sustained itself for two years, surviving regular attacks
by land and canoe. As before, only the intervention of the metropolis
broke the deadlock. After witnessing the birth of the settlement, Anchieta had departed for Bahia to inform Mem of developments. The
governor-general again requested forces from Portugal. In late 1565 the
slow process of forming a fleet began once again. To spur their efforts,
SECOND BATTLE WAS FOUGHT a few days

later on the Ilha de Paranapu, where the Portuguese faced 1,000 Tupinamb and French.
Here too by dint of immense efforts and even
greater risk, according to Mem they triumphed. A final
confrontation took place at the stockade that Estcio had
built on the peninsula of So Joo, to which some French
and Tupinamb had fled. The defenders capitulated immediately on condition that their lives were spared. Guanabara Bay was finally in Portuguese hands.
Estcios body was buried in the settlement he had
founded. Afterwards, Mem ordered the relocation of the
city to the Morro de So Januario, a hill on the western
side of the bay. There, the instruments of government that
Estcio had established were given physical form: behind
ditches and ramparts, Mem erected a castle with plentiful
cannon, a city hall, a court, a jail, a cathedral and a Jesuit
church. The model for this large and noble settlement,
as one Portuguese described it, seems to have been the
city of Bahia, which was similarly built on high ground overlooking
the bay. Mem also made grants of land to his followers, including one
to the Temimin chief Arariboia. In spite of the praise heaped on it, the
new city was crude even by Brazilian standards. There was little formal
planning of the kind found in Spanish colonial cities and few buildings
were even made of stone.
Mem departed from Rio in May 1568, leaving his cousin Salvador
Correia as royal governor. His assertion that the land was in peace and
quiet was largely borne out: although the French and Tupinamb maintained a presence in Cabo Frio until 1574, they never again seriously
threatened Rio. Within a few years, Salvador Correia who created an
estate on the Ilha de Paranapu had begun the cultivation of sugar. For
a brief period in the 1570s, the city served as the capital of the whole
of the south of Brazil. It was two centuries before it again acquired a
comparable status. Its importance, however, was no longer in doubt.
David Gelber is managing editor of The Court Historian, the journal of the Society for
Court Studies.
FURTHER READING
Leslie Bethell (ed), Colonial Brazil (Cambridge, 1987).
C.R. Boxer, The Portuguese Seaborne Empire, 1415-1825 (Pelican, 1969).
Alida C. Metcalf, Go-betweens and the Colonization of Brazil 1500-1600
(University of Texas, 2005).
Jean de Lry, History of a Voyage to the Land of Brazil, Otherwise Called
America (University of California, 1990).
TheMap
Turin Papyrus Map,

c.1150 bc
DISCOVERED NEAR modern Luxor (ancient Thebes)
between 1814 and 1821 by agents of Bernadino Drovetti,
the French Consul General in Egypt, this is considered
one of the oldest known topographical, geographical
and geological maps. It survives in fragments but, when
recombined, it is about 280cm wide (just one fragment is
pictured here). It was produced around 1150 bc by a wellknown Scribe of the Tomb, Amennakhte, in preparation
for a quarrying expedition by Ramesses IV and predates
the next oldest known geological map by some 2,900
years. It is held in the Turin Museum in northern Italy.
It shows a 15km-stretch of the Wadi Hammamat,
the Valley of Many Baths, oriented with south and the
source of the Nile at the top. Shown on this portion of
the map are a quarry for bekhen stone, a prized blue-green
material used to carve statues of gods and pharaohs, and
a gold mine. Nestled at the foot of some hills (stylised
cones with pink, wavy flanks) to the north are four small
houses for gold-workers, which are close to a temple
to the god Amun. The map also shows the locations of
various rock types, including gold-bearing quartz, which
is represented by three pinkish stripes on the hill at the
top, above the gold mine. Inscriptions elsewhere describe
the purpose and destination of the quarried stone.
Kate Wiles
REVOLUTION
| CULTURALXXXXXXXXXXX
Looking back on the

Great Leap Forward
Frank Diktter explains how the
gradual opening of Chinese archives
has revealed the appalling truth about
Chairman Maos genocidal rule.
IN THE Peoples Republic of China, archives do not belong
to the people, they belong to the Communist Party. They
are often housed in a special building on the local party
committee premises, which are generally set among lush
and lovingly manicured grounds guarded by military personnel. Access would have been unthinkable until a decade
or so ago, but over the past few years a quiet revolution has
been taking place, as increasing quantities of documents
Blood on the
tracks: a portrait
of Mao adorns a
freight train in
Yuhsien County,
Shansi Province,
May 5th, 1958.
older than 30 years have become available for consultation

to professional historians armed with a letter of recommendation. The extent and quality of the material varies
from place to place, but there is enough to transform our
understanding of the Maoist era.
Take, for instance, the Great Leap Forward from 1958 to
1962, when Mao thought that he could catapult his country
past its competitors by herding villagers across the country
into giant peoples communes. In pursuit of a utopian paradise, everything was collectivised. People had their work,
homes, land, belongings and livelihoods taken from them.
In collective canteens, food, distributed by the spoonful
according to merit, became a weapon used to force people
to follow the partys every dictate. As incentives to work
were removed, coercion and violence were used instead
| CULTURAL REVOLUTION
to compel famished farmers to perform labour on poorly
planned irrigation projects while fields were neglected.
A catastrophe of gargantuan proportions ensued. Extrapolating from published population statistics, historians have
speculated that tens of millions of people died of starvation.
But the true dimensions of what happened are only now
coming to light thanks to the meticulous reports the party
itself compiled during the famine. My study, Maos Great
Famine: The History of Chinas Most Devastating Catastrophe (2010), relies on hundreds of hitherto unseen party
archives, including: secret reports from the Public Security
Bureau; detailed minutes of top party meetings; unexpunged versions of leadership speeches; surveys of working
conditions in the countryside; investigations into cases of
mass murder; confessions of leaders responsible for the
deaths of millions of people; inquiries compiled by special
teams sent in to discover the extent of the catastrophe in
the last stages of the Great Leap Forward; general reports
on peasant resistance during the collectivisation campaign;
secret police opinion surveys; letters of complaint written
by ordinary people; and much more.
What comes out of this massive and detailed
dossier is a tale of horror in which Mao emerges
as one of the greatest mass murderers in history,
responsible for the deaths of at least 45 million
people between 1958 and 1962. It is not merely
the extent of the catastrophe that dwarfs earlier
estimates, but also the manner in which many
people died: between two and three million
victims were tortured to death or summarily
killed, often for the slightest infraction. When
a boy stole a handful of grain in a Hunan village,
local boss Xiong Dechang forced his father to
bury him alive. The father died of grief a few days
later. The case of Wang Ziyou was reported to the
central leadership: one of his ears was chopped
off, his legs were tied with iron wire, a ten kilogram stone
was dropped on his back and then he was branded with a
sizzling tool punishment for digging up a potato.
liberation in 1949, showing how power seized with

violence could only be maintained with violence. Up to
a million people described as enemies of the people fell
victim to a killing frenzy, in which ordinary citizens were
encouraged to take part. In remote villages bystanders were
sometimes allowed to cut the flesh from the dead and take
it back home. The party itself decreed quotas for the killings, but these were often exceeded when mass murder was
driven by personal vendettas and lineage feuds.
Fresh evidence is also being unearthed on the land
reform that transformed the countryside in the early
1950s. In many villages there were no landlords set against
poor peasants but, rather, closely knit communities that
jealously protected their land from the prying eyes of
outsiders the state in particular. By implicating everybody
in accusation meetings during which village leaders were
humiliated, tortured and executed while their land and
other assets were redistributed to party activists recruited
from local thugs and paupers the communists turned the
power structure upside down. Liu Shaoqi, the partys second-in-command, had a hard time reining in the violence,
as a missive from the Hebei archives shows: When
it comes to the ways in which people are killed,
some are buried alive, some are executed, some are
cut to pieces, and among those who are strangled
or mangled to death, some of the bodies are hung
from trees or doors.
What comes out

of this massive
dossier is a tale
of horror. Mao
emerges as one of
historys greatest
mass murderers
A murderous frenzy
The discriminate killing of slackers, weaklings or otherwise unproductive elements increased the overall food
supply for those who contributed to the regime through
their labour. As report after report shows, food was also
used as a weapon. Throughout the country those who were
too ill to work were routinely cut off from the food supply.
The sick, vulnerable and elderly were banned from the
canteen, as cadres found inspiration in Lenins dictum: He
who does not work shall not eat.
As the minutes of leadership meetings show, Mao was
aware of the extent of the famine. At a secret gathering that
took place in Shanghai on March 25th, 1959, Mao specifically ordered the party to procure up to one third of all
grain. He announced that: When there is not enough to eat
people starve to death. It is better to let half of the people
die so that the other half can eat their fill.
Other key events of the Maoist era are also being revisited thanks to party archives, more often than not by Chinese
historians themselves. Yang Kuisong, a historian based in
Shanghai, has cast new light on the terror that followed
The long road to transparency

There is hardly a topic that is not being explored
thanks to fresh archival evidence, although the
Cultural Revolution, for the greatest part, remains
off limits. Even as vast masses of original party
documents are gradually being declassified, much
of the crucial evidence remains safely locked away,
including most of the Central Party Archives in
Beijing. A tantalising glimpse of the wealth of material that
might one day become available is offered in Gao Wenqians
extraordinary biography of Zhou Enlai, first premier of
the Peoples Republic. Gao, a party historian who worked
with a team in the Central Archives in Beijing on an official
biography of Zhou for many years, smuggled his notes out
of the archives before absconding to the United States in
the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square massacre. The
premier portrayed in the ground-breaking biography Gao
subsequently published is not the suave, well-mannered
diplomat we are used to, but instead a devious figure,
always willing to turn against his own friends in order to
further his career. Gao describes him as Maos faithful dog.
And Zhou was not only unique in his willingness to endure
humiliation at the hands of his master as a way of surviving
politically the many purges initiated by Mao: he acquiesced,
as Gao puts it, in carrying Maos execution knife.
Why are these sensitive archives being declassified? A
short answer is the general feeling of goodwill and transparency that emerged before the Beijing Olympics of 2008.
This has since tightened noticeably. Let us hope it returns.
Frank Diktter is the author of The Cultural Revolution: A Peoples History,

1962-1976 (Bloomsbury, 2016). His major survey of the Cultural Revolution will
appear in the September issue of History Today.
ADAM SMITH
The
Prophet
of
Profit
Jonathan Conlin considers the life
and thought of Adam Smith, father of
modern economics, and the competing
claims for his legacy.
NE MORNING in January 1778, 54-year-old

Adam Smith left his home in Edinburghs
Canongate and walked up the Royal Mile to
the Customs House in Exchange Square. It
was his first week at work as a commissioner of customs.
Inside he was confronted with a large board listing all the
contraband goods it was now his duty to track down and
destroy. For centuries men of business, struggling in the
face of foreign competition, had lobbied their rulers to
introduce such restrictions on foreign imports. They argued
that, without such import bans, tariffs and bounties (state
subsidies), the economies of other nations would prosper
at the expense of their own. The commissioners of customs
not only collected these tariffs, they prosecuted those who
attempted to import goods in defiance of such bans.
There is something strange about the idea of Smith, the
renowned father of free market economics, joining the
customs service. Smith opposed protectionism, as well as
guilds and other institutions which, he believed, restricted
the movement of workers from one trade to another. If
these barriers were removed, Smith insisted, the invisible
hand of the market would lead each to specialise in the
trade they were best suited for, improving quality,
Statue of Adam
Smith on the Royal
Mile, Edinburgh.
ADAM SMITH
a cravat, a pair of ruffles, or a pocket hanker-chief which
was not prohibited to be worn or used in Great Britain. I
wished to set an example, he continued, and burnt them
all, cheekily advising Eden against examining either your
own or Mrs Edens apparel or household furniture, least you
be brought into a scrape of the same kind.
Though intended as a humorous dig, Smith could not
help but draw a lesson: trade prohibitions always fail to
produce the intended effects, to prevent the consumption
of foreign articles where those goods were cheaper or
better than those produced at home. Prohibited goods still
entered the country, albeit as contraband carried by smugglers, on which the customs collected no dues. Not only
that, but Smiths French ruffles ended up costing him more,
to compensate the smugglers for the extra costs incurred by
their need to keep out of sight.
Portrait of Adam
Smith by John Kay.
Engraving, 1790.
encouraging innovation, lowering prices and raising living

standards for all. The power to direct how humans invested
their time, effort and money was a despotic infringement
of natural liberty and no ruler could be trusted to use that
power wisely.
Smith did not have to look far for examples of the futility of restrictions on trade. Standing in the Customs House
that morning, he glanced down from the board to inspect
his own attire. As he later wrote to the MP and Lord of
Trade William Eden, Smith found that I had scarce a stock,
Below: Glasgow
University, from
Theatrum Scotiae
by John Slezer,
1697.
Right: Scholars at a
Lecture, engraving
by William
Hogarth, 1736.
ROSECUTING SMUGGLERS must have been an

unpleasant duty for the new commissioner. Smith
considered smugglers to be honest men criminalised
by imprudent legislation. One regulation intended
to boost English wool production had made its export a
crime punishable by death. Like the law of Draco, Smith
thundered, these laws may be said to be all written in
blood. Protectionism assumed international trade to be a
game of beggar-thy-neighbour. It encouraged European
nations to stake exclusive claims to large sections of the
globe for exploitation by incompetent, monopolistic
trading companies, such as the East India Company.
An imperial system founded on protectionist tariffs
fostered untold violence, slavery and destruction. Smith, a
fervent anti-imperialist, saw conflicts like the Seven Years
War (1756-63) between Britain and France as opportunities
for greedy men of business. In 1776, just as the American

War of Independence began, Smith would even urge
British ministers to abandon their North American colonies
without a fight. Tellingly, the conflict had been triggered by
the introduction of new tariffs on American trade, which
were intended to help the struggling East India Company.
Such restrictive policies had made life difficult for Smiths
colleagues in Boston.
HOSE WHO HAVE READ Smiths An Inquiry

into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
(1776) must acknowledge the
difficulty of presenting him
as a friend of big business: did he not
preach against that mean rapacity, the
monopolising spirit of merchants and
manufacturers, who neither are, nor
ought to be the rulers of mankind?
Certainly, by the time Smiths profile
appeared on the Bank of Englands
20 note in 2007, it was clear that his
mantle was no longer the uncontested
property of free marketeers. Focus
shifted to Smiths first book, The
Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759). This
study of psychology and morality had been sidelined until

then, on the basis that it had been superseded or simply
contradicted by his more celebrated Wealth of Nations.
As a consequence, identifying Smiths political heirs
became something of a challenge. As Labour prime minister, Gordon Brown spoke of his pride in representing
Smiths home town of Kirkcaldy as its Member of Parliament. In 2010 the Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao told a CNN
reporter that he carried a copy of The Theory of Moral Sentiments wherever he went. From Thatcherite totem, Smith
had, it appeared, supplanted Maos Little Red Book as the
bedside reading of Chinas Communist elite.
As the Bank of England prepares to take
Smith off its 20 note, are we any closer to
pinning this Scottish thinker down?
By the time Smiths profile

appeared on a new 20
note in 2007, it was clear
that his mantle was no
longer the uncontested
property of Thatcherite
free marketeers
PHILOSOPHERS ARE MADE, not born, at

least according to Smith. A philosopher and
a common street porter might display the
most dissimilar characters, he noted, but
the differences in personality, income and
talent resulted not so much from nature,
as from habit, custom, and education. One
boy did not become a philosopher because
of his extraordinary brain, nor did the other
become a porter because he had been born
with a muscular physique suitable for carrying things around. The philosopher might
insist that he became a philosopher because
he was born more intelligent than the
porter, but that was mere vanity. Whenever
asked to write about his own life Smith was
nothing if not humble, showing scant interest in that worst of all subjects, ones self .
In Smiths day, as now, the main determinant of a childs future fortune was its
parents income, not its own intelligence or
genius. This is not something we find easy
to admit. We like to think that the philosopher and the porter truly fit their respective
positions in society. An appetite for this
pleasing idea of fitness thus suits the aforementioned vanity. In Smiths case, it does
seem as if habit, custom and education played a greater role than nature. Luck
played a part as well. Whether it was the
shift from feudal pastoralism to intensive
farming or that from cottage industry to
factory production, Kirkcaldy had much to
teach an observant young man.
Kirkcaldy now has a population of
46,000, largely supported by linoleum production. The city gained administrative independence in 1644 when Charles I made it a
royal burgh, freeing it from the control of
the local feudal landlord, the abbey of Dunfermline. Elsewhere in Scotland, however,
the medieval system of feudal land tenure
persisted, notably among the Highland
clans. They were governed by ties of personal loyalty to the clan chief, not contract.
Farmers and shepherds followed their chief
into battle. The clans rose in support of
ADAM SMITH
the Jacobite challenger to the British throne, Bonnie Prince
Charlie, in 1745. The following year, they were mown down
by the professional troops of George II at the Battle of
Culloden. Kirkcaldy, free of feudal ties, prospered.
Alongside sheep-herding, forestry and agriculture,
proto-industrialisation developed, as farmers took in flax
to work into linen in their spare time. Nail works and
shipyards sprang up and both local and international trade
blossomed. Smiths father was well placed to observe all
this activity. Indeed, it was his duty to do so, as customs
officer for Kirkcaldy. The elder Smith was secretary to the
3rd Earl of Loudoun, whose support had doubtless helped
him secure a post in the customs. Patronage tied father
and son in service to a particular segment of the Scottish
landowning aristocracy, whose earls and dukes supported
the 1707 Union between the Scottish and English
monarchies. Although Englands fashionable elite soon
came to romanticise the vanishing world of the clans,
Smith recognised that the Union was
a measure from which Scotland had
derived infinite Good.
Education, too, was important in
shaping Smiths development. Kirkcaldys town council had built a two-room
school in 1723. The system of parish
schools found across Scotland, as well as
its fine ancient universities, reflected a
widespread respect for education, sufficient to lead almost all Scottish parents
to make the necessary financial and other
sacrifices including the loss of their
childs labour, a valuable commodity in
itself to send their children to school
for a few years. Smith learned reading,
writing and arithmetic at school, as well
as Latin and some Greek and was set on
a path to brilliant and highly original
insights into the human condition.
N 18TH-CENTURY EDITION of
the Encheiridion survives with
Smiths name on it. Compiled
by a pupil of the first-century
Greek Stoic philosopher Epictetus, the
Encheiridion or Handbook teaches us to
rid ourselves of any fantasy that we have
power over our bodies, our possessions or
other external things, when we only actually have power to control our inner state.
We achieve true freedom and tranquillity
through self-knowledge, by silencing the
desires that threaten to enslave us and by
achieving mastery of our emotions. The
Stoics and other great philosophers of
antiquity were lifelong companions for
Smith.
In 1737, aged 14, Smith entered the
University of Glasgow. He was heavily
influenced by his professor of moral
philosophy, an Ulster Presbyterian named
Francis Hutcheson, who formed part
of the so-called New Light movement
within Presbyterianism. It sought to
Below: Portrait
of Jean Jacques
Rousseau.
Mezzotint by
David Martin after
Allan Ramsays
portrait, 1766:
soften the harsh, Calvinist view of human nature, which

had been the hallmark of Scottish presbyterianism. Hutchesons lectures encouraged Smith to view human nature
as a worthy focus of study, as something with its own
structure, rather than something condemned to sinful disorder. Human nature was a network of springs, parts and
appetites and Hutcheson saw reason and a moral sense
as examples of these, along with interest (the care of our
own well-being, including financial well-being) and the
passions, or emotions. Hutcheson identified a wonderful
Alongside habits and customs,

such as patronage, education
was equally important in
shaping Smiths development
set of divine commandments revealed to certain prophets

by God, as the Ten Commandments had been revealed to
Moses. Whether this nature revealed the mind of a divine
creator was not an urgent question for Smith, who had
been unnerved by the outspoken disdain for revealed
religion of his compatriot, the historian and philosopher
David Hume.
natural contagiousness, which led us to share our emotions

with our fellow humans.
After completing his studies in Oxford, Smith returned
to Kirkcaldy and delivered a series of well-received lectures
on rhetoric in nearby Edinburgh. Such intellectual diversions, together with the reforms introduced at Glasgow
University by Hutcheson (who lectured in English, rather
than in the usual Latin), catered to a new appetite for philosophising among the elite and middling rank. Speculation,
which had once seemed dangerously heretical (or simply
dull), now provided men even women with food for
polite conversation at tea tables and in coffee houses. Appointed to a professorship at Glasgow in 1751, Smith picked
up where Hutcheson left off and managed to persuade
a number of aristocrats to send their boys to university,
which was no longer the preserve of those destined for the
law or the Church.
Smiths Theory of Moral Sentiments appeared in 1759.
In it, Smith sought to classify the full gamut of human
emotions and to identify the mechanism by which humans
determine whether an action or individual is good or bad.
Smith finds this mechanism in the behaviour of his fellow
man, in instincts established by nature, rather than in a
Above: the
appearance of
utility can make
any machine
hard to resist.
Trade card of
Dudley Adams,
maker of
scientific
instruments,
c.1750.
MITHS ETHICS are founded on sympathy, which

is often understood as an emotion in itself just
as sorrow is expressed in response to the suffering
of others. For Smith, however, sympathy is not an
emotion but rather the means by which we become aware
of emotions. According to Smith, we do not feel sympathy
for someone else; we have, or experience, all kinds of
emotion by means of sympathy.
Smith insists that this sympathy lies within the reach
of all. The greatest ruffian, he writes, the most hardened
violator of the laws of society, is not altogether without it.
This is because sharing passions, or emotions, sympathetically brings pleasure, even when the emotion being shared
seems unpleasant, as with grief. This longing to share our
emotions is challenged, however, by the obvious fact that
we can never feel quite the same pitch of emotion as each
other. As a result, Smith explains, each of us learns from a
young age to adjust the pitch of our emotions to a level that
we know others will sympathise or go along with.
This level varies from emotion to emotion, in a fashion
that is conducive to the good order of society. Those derived
from the body, for example, like lust and hunger, are not
easily shared by others. We, therefore, do not express them
much, knowing that it is unlikely that anyone else will
go along with us. But, even when there is nobody present
to go along with our emotions, Smith points to a man
within the breast, an invisible observer who serves as the
impartial spectator to our actions, a tribunal or court whose
judgments we can never escape.
In Smiths account of human society this negotiation of
emotions is a constant among humans. Such haggling could
be described as a kind of marketplace of emotions, but
Smith prefers a musical metaphor: though actor and spectator could never achieve the same pitch of emotion, there
may be concord, and this is all that is wanted or required.
Our inability to sympathise fully with another could be
taken as evidence of humanitys irredeemably sinful
nature, though in Smiths hands, this apparent failure contributes to the harmony of society.
Smith thus constructs an ethics without recourse to an
authority, like a personified God, or an abstract concept,
such as fitness or utility, and demonstrates it using homespun, everyday examples. As Smiths friend and contemporary, the politician Edmund Burke, noted in his review of
The Theory of Moral Sentiments:
The illustrations are numerous and happy, and shew the
author to be a man of uncommon observation. His language is
easy and spirited, and puts things before you in the fullest light;
it is rather painting than writing.
That is not to say that the picture Smith presented was
entirely positive. He notes, for example, that our tendency
to revere the wealthy can skew our moral compass.
Smith travelled to France in 1764, accompanying the
son of the Duke of Buccleuch on the traditional Grand
ADAM SMITH
Tour. Hume, who was working as secretary to the British
ambassador in Paris, introduced Smith to the salons of the
French Enlightenment. The Theory of Moral Sentiments had
been translated into French, compensating somewhat for
Smiths poor command of the language. We have nothing
to compare with him, wrote Voltaire, and I am embarrassed for my dear compatriots.
Although we cannot be sure that Smith met Jean
Jacques Rousseau, he certainly engaged with the great
French philosophers Discourse on Inequality (1755).
Whereas Smith had argued that humans were naturally
We have nothing to compare

with him, wrote the famous
French philosopher Voltaire,
and I am embarrassed for my
dear compatriots
dependent on one another and that each of us constructs
a self through interaction with others, Rousseau saw
this interdependence as the root of such evils as private
property. By luring us into the pursuit of consumerism, the
commercial society condemns us to sacrifice our happiness
in the pursuit of pleasures that are forever beyond our
reach. Smith always struggled to achieve a balance between
restless acquisitiveness and the Stoic pursuit of tranquillity.
HYSICIAN TO Louis XV, Franois Quesnays attempt

to capture an entire national economy in the form
of his Tableau Economique exhilarated Smith.
Although such models are now the stock in trade
of economists, Quesnays was the first of its kind. Had
Quesnay lived, Smith would have dedicated The Wealth of
Nations to him. But his admiration was tempered by Smiths
criticism of the tendency of Quesnay and his followers, the
Physiocrats, also known as les conomistes, to fall in love
with their tidy models and to seek to impose their policies
on the people by a well-meaning, if nonetheless despotic,
abuse of royal authority. As Smith noted in the 1790 edition
of his Theory of Moral Sentiments, such a Man of System
... seems to imagine that he can arrange the different
members of a great society with as much ease as the hand
arranges the different pieces upon a chess-board, when the
reality was that, in the great chess-board of human society,
every single piece has a principle of motion of its own.
His excursion to France, as well as a series of short stays
in London, allowed Smith to test and develop the ideas he
would advance in The Wealth of Nations. In contrast to The
Theory of Moral Sentiments, this book was clearly structured
as a scientific treatise, with an opening Introduction and
Plan, as well as extensive footnotes and an appendix containing figures on the herring fishing industry. It sketched
out a model of socioeconomic development, but it was not
a tale of natural rights, social contracts and the balance
of trade, but of natural instincts, above all that uniquely
human disposition to truck, barter and exchange.
He believed that the specialisation of labour drove this
Progress of Opulence: a group of craftsmen can increase
their workshops daily output, if each focuses on a single
Title page of The

Theory of Moral
Sentiments, 2nd
edition, 1761.
stage in the process of manufacturing a pin. Though the

pin factory was depicted on the current 20 note, Smith
did not see this particular observation as a novel one. Even
more striking is the offhand way Smith introduces his metaphor of the invisible hand. This describes how the free
interaction of a crowd of individuals, each bent on their
own interest, can end up allocating the economys resources
capital, machinery, the workers themselves for the
overall benefit of the society. A higher intelligence which
seems to be making decisions in a disinterested manner
emerges from a crowd of dumb agents who have no intention to serve the common good. Later ages saw this hand
as Smiths greatest achievement and employed it to argue
against any state intervention in the economy. Yet the term
appears just once in The Wealth of Nations 947 pages.
The phrase may even have been intended as a kind of
FOR SMITH it is not human intellect which acts, but

nature which leads, through a rather untidy if ultimately
benevolent jumble of instincts and appetites. Seen in this
way, Smiths thought does not sit all that comfortably
within the Enlightenment project, which the German philosopher Immanuel Kant defined in 1784 as one in which
humans free themselves from prejudices and come to think
and act for themselves. Nor does it fit that model of rational
economic man (homo economicus) with which 20th-century economists populated their models. Rather than
condemning the sage of Kirkcaldy to oblivion, however, his
thought has never seemed more relevant.
Smiths interest in the irrational manner in which we
express resentment (punishing others for unfair behaviour,
for example, even when doing so carries a cost to ourselves)
appeals to game theorists and behavioural economists
today. Meanwhile neuroscientists investigate our brains
mirror neurons, which invite comparisons with Smiths
impartial spectator. Since Smiths concept of the invisible
hand helped inspire Charles Darwins discovery of natural
selection, it is unsurprising that Smiths account of the
evolution of human society and ethics appeals to Darwins
21st-century heirs.
But what of the globalised, free-trading consumer
society in which we find ourselves today? How well did
Smith understand what he was letting us in for? Smith recognised that consumerism arouses insatiable demands and
that the specialisation of labour can lead to monotonous,
robotic toil. Though the progress of opulence brings real
gains in security, it can unleash new anxieties, rather than
that Stoic tranquillity which made true happiness possible.
Smiths response to these unintended consequences was
not to advocate flight into some idyllic, presocial state
that probably never existed outside Rousseaus overheated
imagination.
By cultivating our impartial spectator, however, and by
ensuring that the monopolising spirit of those men of
business disturbs nobody but themselves, Smith says that
these anxieties can be controlled. Like all great thinkers,
therefore, Smiths legacy is not a policy shopping list to be
claimed by Margaret Thatcher, Gordon Brown, Wen Jiabao
or any other politician, but a set of tools for thinking about
human psychology and society as well as economics. In
a complex, networked world, Smiths recognition of the
important role played by the unexpected, the unintended
and the simply messy is surely an asset.
Jonathan Conlin teaches modern British history at the University of
Southampton. His biography of Adam Smith is published by Reaktion as part of
their Critical Lives series.
FURTHER READING
Top: unnecessary
items are made
necessary in a
consumer society.
A ncssaire, or
tweezer case.
French, c.1765.
Above: title page
of The Wealth of
Nations, 1776.
joke at the expense of the chess-playing Man of System.

It was as if, in admiring an intricate watch mechanism,
we presumed that the watch-hands had the desire or
intention to show the hour, when we know that they
are put into motion by a spring, which intends the effect
it produces as little as they do. Whether contemplating
the workings of our own emotions, an economy or even a
constitution, Smith constantly reminds his readers to be
sceptical of tidy explanatory mechanisms.
Jerry Evensky, Adam Smiths Moral Philosophy (Cambridge

University Press, 2005).
Knud Haakonssen, The Cambridge Companion to Adam
Smith (Cambridge University Press, 2006).
Ryan Patrick Hanley, Adam Smith and the Character of
Virtue (Cambridge University Press, 2009).
Nicholas Phillipson, Adam Smith. An Enlightened Life
(Penguin, 2010).
MakingHistory
Archives are one thing, the public another and connecting the two is one of a historian's
hardest challenges, as Suzannah Lipscomb knows from experience.
In Praise of the Go-Between

IN RECENT WEEKS I have gone from
reading 16th-century manuscripts in a
French provincial archive to speaking
at two literary festivals. The close
juxtaposition of these two ends of the
historians spectrum has made me
reflect on the nature of history as a
discipline.
The sort of raw data historians
dredge up from archives requires many
filters and processes to become the
finished product: a book, a television documentary, a literary festival
talk. Extracting that raw data and
conveying it in meaningful terms to
an audience require very different
skill-sets. Yet both are essential.
Finding treasures in the archives is the
essence of historical research, while,
as G.M. Trevelyan put it: If historians
neglect to educate the public, if they
fail to interest it intelligently in the
past, then all their historical learning
is useless except insofar as it educates
themselves. This is why at my college
we are starting an MA in Historical
Research and Public History. Both of
these subjects come under the historians purview.
Nevertheless, they are different
and it is easy for historians to get lost
in one or the other. Public historians
can be irritated by academic historians
who get caught up in the minutiae
and cannot see the wood for the trees,
who cannot communicate and write in
impenetrable prose, or who squander
their material by failing to convey the
importance of their subjects.
In turn, academic historians can
be frustrated by media-savvy popular
historians who come and prey on the
material they have acquired through
long hours trawling through archives,
painstakingly deciphering ancient
handwriting, or slogging through
useless document after useless document in order to harvest some hardwon fruit, which the popular historian
then serves up as a trifle for public

consumption.
It feels as if there is a rift in the
discipline between those who feel that
they are doing the serious archival
work, while others are pinching their
glory; and those who write historical
bestsellers and feel that those who fail
to write readable books about history
are derelict in their duty. Sometimes
trying to bridge the gulf between the
two ends of the spectrum feels like
The raw data historians

dredge up from archives
requires many filters to
become the finished product
doing the splits.
I am working on a book about
Huguenot women in early modern
France. In certain towns where they
established control, the Huguenots set
up a sort of moral court the consistory and its records have proved a rich
source for social and gender history. In
my recent archival trip, I was chasing
up leads on my women, or the men
associated with them, in other docuA Huguenot
brought to life:
Jeanne III d'Albret,
Queen of Navarre.
Attributed to
Francois Clouet,
1570.
ments, such as town council records,

baptismal registers and criminal court
minutes. These were all thrillingly
substantial tomes of yellowing parchment, bound in vellum and inscribed
in beautiful (if sometimes near-illegible) secretary hand. Yet, while everyone can understand the thrill of touching old manuscripts, explaining the
value of my recent archival foraging is
harder. I was looking through the registers, for example, to try to find out
the names of some of the women who
have hitherto only been identified as
the wife of so-and-so, or if certain
couples had a child, or whether various
marriages were enacted: that is, details
that were really important in the lives
of those individuals who lived them
and whose world I am trying to bring
to life, but which are, now, admittedly,
esoteric.
This is not, I hope, just a piece of
virtue-signalling. I want to identify
the problem: how to take that kind of
raw data and transform it into history
that can move and educate the public?
And the verdict: how blooming hard
it is to be a historian. It is difficult
to move from those lovely pieces of
16th-century parchment not only to
making a story, but to making an argument that says something of import
and says it in a way that the world can
comprehend.
Those who think of history as
much more of a soft, easily accessible
discipline than, say, physics or chemistry should be warned that it is not as
easy as it looks. There is a rift between
the two ends of the spectrum, but it
seems to me that the very business of
being a historian lies in that space. We
are go-betweens.
Suzannah Lipscomb is Head of the history faculty
at the New College of the Humanities, London
and author of The King is Dead: The Last Will and
Testament of Henry VIII (Head of Zeus, 2015) .
WARTIME BROADCASTING
What role was the BBC

to play if the cold war
became hot? For the first
time, the corporation has
given detailed access to
its plans for a Wartime
Broadcasting Service
following a nuclear
attack. Paul Reynolds
reveals its secrets.
The BBC
Book of War
RMAGEDDON MIGHT HAVE BEEN looming but, in its

plans for nuclear war, the BBC was properly prudent with
public money. Staff designated to go down into the bunkers
from which a Wartime Broadcasting Service (WTBS) would
operate were not to be given any special payment but could withdraw
up to 250 cash in advance of salary. A special form was provided for
this purpose, which the staff had to sign. They were then to leave their
families behind.
The BBCs Director-General, curiously, was not one of those staff.
In the final version of the plan the BBC team would have been led by
the Controller of Radio 4, perhaps because WTBS would have been a
radio-only service. But the names of some of those who were listed
in earlier versions have survived in the files. In 1972, four of the most
Above left:
BBC Wartime
Broadcasting
Instruction Book,
1988-89.
Above right:
Broadcasting
House, London.
1950s.
senior staff due to go into the BBC headquarters bunker under the BBC
Engineering Training Department at Wood Norton in Worcestershire
included Grace Wyndham Goldie, who pioneered television coverage
of general elections. Among the first Alternatives were the sports
broadcaster and BBC executive Peter Dimmock and Paul Fox, then
Controller of BBC1. A memo in 1964 named three BBC staff to go to
the Prime Ministers bunker at Corsham in Wiltshire (codenamed Turnstile and later known as Maggies bunker). One of them was Alasdair
Milne, subsequently Director-General, who clashed with the Thatcher
administration and was forced to resign in 1987.
Such bureaucratic procedures were the results of years of planning,
which are contained in a series of BBC War Books, the last of which was
produced in 1988 in a thick red binder. The cold war came to an end
Clockwise from
above: Grace
Wyndham Goldie,
c.1955; Huw
Wheldon in his
office at BBC TV
Centre, February
26th, 1965; Wood
Norton, May 25th,
1956.
down to the BBCs Written Archives Centre near the Monitoring Service
at Caversham, north of Reading. The safes were opened for a Radio 4
programme on WTBS in 2008. The BBC War Books in them were briefly
described in the programme but only now have they been opened up.
HE FIRST BBC War Book of the cold war was produced in 1950,
but it was the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 that increased the
tempo and further editions then came out in 1972, 1976,
1984 and, finally, in 1988. Certainly, despite what Margaret
Salmon said in 1990, the BBC took the whole operation very seriously:
the terms of its charter made it responsible for WTBS. The BBC terminology for nuclear war is typically delicate. It is described as a nuclear
exchange and even WTBS is referred to in BBC-speak as Deferred Facilities. Hodders job description as Special Assistant to the head of
personnel and, later, Manager, Special Duties hid his double-hatted
role. Wearing one, he was in charge of planning for WTBS and, wearing
the other, he was the liaison with the Security Service, MI5, which had
vetted large numbers of BBC staff for years. His MI5 role was revealed
by the Observer in 1985 but, by Hodders day, vetting had been reduced
to a handful of key staff, including those who would operate WTBS. The
1988 BBC War Book was compiled by Hodders predecessor, Ronnie
Stonham, a retired brigadier, who also oversaw the reduction in MI5s
BBC role. Hodder had drafted another edition when the whole project
came to an end.
The War Book is a testament to BBC planning. It was distributed
in secret to 129 BBC recipients, all of whom were listed under myriad
BBC acronyms. Copy 29 was a spare and this is the one that survives in
the archive. It follows the government presumption that there would
be a Time of Tension (the TOT) for several weeks before any nuclear
exchange and that during this period there would be time for BBC plans
to be put into operation. The TOT was known more formally as the Precautionary Stage and declaration of it by the Cabinet would have kicked
off the implementation of all government plans. The view among many
sceptical BBC news staff, however, was that no such orderly time-frame
would be available. It would probably have been done on the hoof ,
remarked a former senior BBC editor, Roy Walters.
The BBC War Book follows the presumption that there would be a Time of
Tension for several weeks before any nuclear exchange
shortly afterwards and the WTBS was stood down in 1992. Steve Mitchell, then a senior BBC news editor, attended the final meeting of the
committee which oversaw the planning. I went along probably because
nobody else in the news department wanted to go, he recalled. The
committee was being wound up and I got the impression that some of its
members were rather sad about this. They had devoted a lot of their time
to it. A BBC drinks trolley was wheeled in and we toasted the demise
of WTBS. Mitchells quizzical attitude was reflected elsewhere. In the
BBC papers there is a brief entry which states that the files are empty
between 1964 and 1972 because Huw Wheldon, Managing Director of
Television, refused to take any part in matters dealing with war time
broadcasting. In 1990, a member of the BBCs board of management
commented to Michael Hodder, the BBC official in charge of the plan:
We all think that what you are doing is a joke. By then, of course, the
cold war was coming to an end.
Margaret Salmon, the BBCs Head of Administration, told Hodder
that, when WTBS ended, he should destroy the War Books and their
associated files, which were held in two safes in his office. But Hodder
quietly disregarded Salmons proposal. I like history. I cant destroy it.
I knew this would be of interest at a later date, he said. So one night
he loaded up a lorry at Broadcasting House and had the two safes taken
The government had its own War Book, detailing the actions to be
taken by government departments, which can be seen in the National
Archives in Kew. The BBCs role was a vital part of government plans
and a chapter in the latters book summarises how the WTBS would
function. The bunkers from which the government hoped to carry on
at least the vestiges of authority eight in England and one each in
Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland had each been equipped with
a broadcasting studio. One of the bunkers, at Kelvedon Hatch in Essex,
is preserved as a museum and the BBC studio there is intact, complete
with a mannequin of Mrs Thatcher broadcasting. Kelvedon Hatch has
a diagram showing how the complex was protected by air filters and a
Faraday Cage, a wire mesh designed to stop the electromagnetic pulse
produced by a nuclear explosion, which would otherwise destroy all
electrical equipment. The BBC teams in the bunkers would work alongside government officials under ministers restyled as Regional Commissioners. The pre-digital studio requirements were listed down to the
exact number of male and female connection plugs and quarter-inch
tape needed.
The War Book also refers to the stockpiling of diverse recorded
programmes and music for the WTBS. These included a collection of
cassette tapes of old radio programmes, including the Goon Show, Just
Rooms in the
Kelvedon Hatch
Secret Nuclear
Bunker Museum,
Essex. Clockwise from left:
computer room,
typewriter room,
radio room and
a bedroom with
an illustrative
mannequin.
The other thing I remember clearly is coming

away in deep gloom and a feeling of certainty that
nuclear war was going to happen very soon
a Minute and Round the Horne, kept in a grey locker at Wood Norton. It
was realised, however, that the tapes would be no good in the case of a
nuclear attack because radios would probably be dependent on batteries, which would need conserving for whatever news and information
broadcasts might be made. Such broadcasts would not necessarily have
been continuous. People might be told, for example, to tune in at a
particular time. The system had some flexibility, as each bunker could
broadcast to its regional area through manned local transmitters, which
were given some fallout protection and diesel generators.
During the TOT, television would continue for as long as possible,
with the BBC and ITV joining services if necessary, using a procedure
still secret. Radios 1 and 2 might combine, as might Radios 3 and 4, and
finally there would simply be one radio service (known as Radio 10, from
the numbers of the regular stations added together). Local radio, along
with all independent radio stations, would have joined either during the
TOT or at the start of WTBS. The BBC World Service was separate and
somewhat neglected. It was allocated a studio in the prime ministers
bunker but the Foreign Office, which funded the service, never provided
any equipment or staffing. The Foreign Office was not even represented
at Wood Norton. BBC Monitoring would continue at certain other
government centres, still kept secret, in order to try to find out what
Soviet and other broadcasters were saying.
Choosing staff to go into the underground studios was a sensitive
matter, reflected in the changing language used to describe the process.
In early versions of the War Book and in associated BBC memos, words
like assigned and designated were used. Minutes of a planning committee meeting in 1964 refer to staff being informed of their nomination to serve in the regional seats of government and says that they
should have a short indoctrination course. The 1976 War Book states
that some senior staff had been informed that they would be required
to serve in a war emergency (without being told what they were to do).
Later, in less authoritarian times, the phrasing softened. Staff were now
invited to play their part and there was a more open acceptance that,
as Huw Wheldon did, they might refuse. It was all left rather vague
in a typically British way. There were planning sessions and seminars
for those who accepted. They were also subject to what the War Book
called certain inquiries; that is, they were vetted: 50 to 70 journalists

were on the list. They had to keep their potential role secret, even from
immediate families.
Hodder had a place at Wood Norton to help supervise the operation,
though he did not tell his wife. One of the journalists was Bob Doran, an
ideal candidate from the BBCs point of view: as yet unmarried, he was
an experienced editor in the radio newsroom. He attended one of the
seminars in the 1980s. I was one of the Dr Strangelove quota, he says,
recalling the moment in Stanley Kubricks film when Dr Strangelove all
too eagerly described how well-matched couples would be sent below
ground in a nuclear war and emerge having produced a new super race.
BBC plans did not allow for this. My clearest memory is of a discussion
about whether people with spouses could bring them along, Doran says.
The other thing I remember clearly is coming away in deep gloom and
a feeling of certainty that nuclear war was going to happen very soon.
GOVERNMENT-RUN Joint Control Group, in which the BBC

was represented, would, when it felt that TOT might become
a time of war, issue codewords for action by all government
departments. The codewords for BBC action are blacked out
in the War Book for some unknown reason. One did slip through: the
codeword for authorising a national warning was Falsetto, also used to
confirm an all-clear. After the decision by the Joint Control Group, those
BBC staff required to fill emergency posts would be asked if they were
willing to fulfil emergency duties. This rather civilised offer meant that
they could change their minds at the last minute. It is possible, however,
that by then the government would have given itself powers to direct
labour, so the choice might not have been available.
In the regional bunkers, there would be five BBC staff members
and at the BBC HQ at Wood Norton there would be around 90. These
included engineers, announcers, 12 news editors and sub-editors and
two nominations from Religious Broadcasting, whose role might be
guessed at but is not laid out. On receipt by the BBC of another government codeword, the willing staff would be assembled in points across
the country and be given the first of two letters by dispersal officers.
Letter Number One would tell them that they had been chosen for
Crowds in front of
the Berlin Wall and
Brandenburg Gate,
November 11th, 1989.
emergency duties. The letter said: Only your wife and any dependent
members of your household should be told in confidence of these plans.
This is underlined. Families would not be allowed into the bunkers.
HERE IS A VAGUE PROMISE in the War Book that the invitation procedure, when staff were originally selected, would
include information that the BBC would look after immediate
families remaining in their homes or assist with finance to
move to a selected area of the UK. Families might, for example, have
been offered places in the existing accommodation block, above ground,
at Wood Norton. What else the BBC might have offered is not stated.
It was at this stage that the chosen staff could fill in Form A to get
their 250. They were told that they would get official transport to their
posts should it be necessary to ask you to move. It was all very polite.
If they took their own car, they would require official permission and
they would not be able to park it at their destination. As for kit, informal
clothing only will be necessary. The letter advised them that facilities
for entertainment would be limited, so they should bring reading material and small recreational items. One bag was allowed. They should
also carry their BBC ID. Apart from shavers, no electrical equipment was
permitted. The letter, staff were told, should be destroyed after reading.
If war loomed even closer, Letter Number Two would be delivered,
again after a codeword had been issued. This letter stated: You have
been selected for emergency duty and you will be going to .... The bunkers name would be filled in at the time. Delicately, the letter also said:
The length of your stay cannot be foreseen, but it might be several
weeks. Staff were advised to take clothes, soap and towels for 30 days.
The BBC had costed all this, including the salary advances. The cash
needed, according to the 1988 edition, was to be 97,250. The food in
the bunkers (free of charge) would be in packs, with three meals in each,
and with five daily menus. This would provide, it was said, 2,200-2,400
calories per day, with a vitamin supplement. Disposable cutlery would
be used to save on water. Staff were advised to take their own food as
well. Sleeping would be communal, though suitably segregated, and
there would a quiet room, which could be used for religious services.
Sectional drawing displayed on the wall at Kelvedon Hatch Museum,

showing its protective air filters and Faraday Cage.
There were some nuclear, biological and chemical suits for people venturing out after the nuclear exchange, but not enough for all. Planning
for a post-nuclear attack world was minimal.
ROADCAST WARNINGS of a nuclear attack would have come

from the BBC headquarters bunker at Wood Norton. It was the
entry point for air attack notifications relayed to it from the
nerve centre of the British system at High Wycombe and from
the US Ballistic Missile Early Warning System in Colorado. Peter Donaldson, a Radio 4 newsreader with a known and trusted voice, recorded
the most recent warning announcement. Afterwards, Hodder said, they
rewarded themselves with a bottle of whisky. The recording was played
to acclaim at Donaldsons funeral last year. It began:
This is the Wartime Broadcasting Service. This country has been attacked
with nuclear weapons. Communications have been severely disrupted,
and the number of casualties and the extent of the damage are not yet
known. We shall bring you further information as soon as possible. Meanwhile, stay tuned to this wavelength, stay calm and stay in your own
homes.
The planning proceeded steadily over the years, with one or two ups
and downs. In 1986, the Home Office minister David Mellor got ratty
with the BBC for its alleged slowness in converting Wood Norton, which
was being paid for by the government. For its part, the BBC felt that the
funds were being drip-fed, which delayed the work, and construction
stretched over a period of about ten years, again a sign that perhaps not
everyone felt that this was a priority. Wood Norton was only completed
in 1988, three years after Mikhail Gorbachev took over as general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party and eased cold war tensions. It
replaced a strengthened studio and a dormitory for 12, known as the
Stronghold, under Broadcasting House in London, so deep that people
in it could hear London Underground trains. It was a relic of the war and
Government. The formal assurance refers to a 1962 agreement between

the BBC and the government.
Such ambiguities can lead to controversy and a story in the Observer
suggested that the BBC had handed over its independence to the government. This story led to a question in Parliament in 1986 from the Labour
MP Tony Banks, a former broadcasting union leader. Banks asked about
any arrangements between the BBC and the government in times of
national crisis. The Home Office minister Giles Shaw replied that in
the 1962 agreement the BBC, while reasserting its independence, had
agreed to the arrangement which Shaw then restated in the language of
the War Book. He added that the government was updating its policy,
implying that the 1962 arrangement was out of date.
The BBC of 1986 was rather upset to discover that it had been party
to the 1962 agreement. Hodgson wrote a memo saying that she could
find no trace of any such formal understanding. The Deputy DirectorGeneral Alan Protheroe was livid. I have never heard of such an undertaking. I would expect the BBC Board to say it would act responsibly.
Consultation most certainly does not mean compliance, he wrote. Fortunately, the Home Office did not seek a confrontation. An official wrote
to the BBC that the 1962 approach was no longer relevant to modern
circumstances. One chapter of the 1988 edition of the BBC War Book,
dealing with relations between the BBC and the government, has been
removed on advice from the Cabinet Office. The reason is not known,
but it is likely that the previous reference to 1962 had been shelved and
that a more flexible arrangement had been agreed.
Did the WTBS ever come close to being activated? Only in theory.
During one NATO exercise known as Wintex, in 1989, there was a scenario in which the Russians were supporting the Serbs in a crisis over
Kosovo and this developed into a Russian attack on the north of Norway
with a NATO response and descent into general war. Roy Walters was
one of the BBC staff on the exercise, who was located in a complex under
Whitehall. At one stage, we had to tell people whether to leave or stay in
This is the Wartime Broadcasting Service. This country has been

attacked with nuclear weapons. Communications have been
severely disrupted ... Meanwhile, stay tuned to this wavelength,
stay calm and stay in your own homes
was not strong enough for a nuclear age. It was also in the wrong place,
as London would have been a main target. Remains of the complex were
found by demolition crews when they pulled down parts of Broadcasting House in 2006 for rebuilding.
It is clear that, once a nuclear attack had taken place and the WTBS
was (presumably) functioning, the government would have the final
and probably the only say on what was broadcast. Hodder said that it
was the Central Office of Information that would control information
on the WTBS. The title Wartime Broadcasting Service is therefore significant. It is not the BBC Wartime Broadcasting Service. The War Book
does not go into what kind of information might be broadcast. There
was no provision, for example, for an overground force of reporters and
editors. That would depend on events at the time.
There was a serious difficulty over the question of censorship during
the TOT. During this period, the BBC and ITV would continue to function. The problem arose because in post-1950 versions of the War Book
there is a paragraph headed Position of the BBC during the Precautionary Stage. In the 1975 edition, for example, it is stated that the
government do not intend to impose any censorship during the TOT.
The reason for this is stated in the subsequent paragraph. It says that
the Corporation had given a formal assurance that it would act with a
full sense of responsibility and in close consultation with Her Majestys
London, he recalled. My main conclusion was how expendable England

was to be. Hodder said that the exercise did result in the theoretical
activation of WTBS but nobody told the BBC at the time. He found out
about it only when he spoke to the Home Office later.
The only time the use of WTBS crossed his mind was, again in 1989,
when news came of the fall of the Berlin Wall. I was concerned at once
that the Soviets might react badly and that we should prepare. However
my contact in government did not think so and so we dropped it.
Paul Reynolds is a former BBC diplomatic and foreign correspondent.
FURTHER READING
Paul Ozorak, Underground Structures of the Cold War: The World
Below (subbrit.org.uk).
Jean Seaton, Pinkoes and Traitors: The BBC and the Nation 1974-1987
(Profile, 2015).
Asa Briggs, The BBC: the First 50 Years (OUP, 1985).
Alban Webb London Calling: Britain, The BBC World Service and the Cold
War (Bloomsbury, 2014).
WITCHES
Poor,
old
and
ugly?
While 16th- and 17th-century
English pamphleteers
portrayed those accused of
witchcraft as impoverished
and elderly, court records
suggest that it was just as
likely to be powerful women
who stood trial, argues
Annabel Gregory.
S HENRY GOODCOLE, chaplain at Newgate

prison, left the latest hanging at Tyburn in 1621,
he heard ballads about the executed witch already
being sung in the streets of London: ballads
which, he said, were full of inventions. He knew the facts
about poor old Elizabeth Sawyer (crooked and deformed)
and he wrote a pamphlet setting these out. His facts,
however, were mostly acquired not from the evidence
presented at the trial, but from interrogations which he
had conducted himself in the prison chapel after she had
been convicted of murder by witchcraft. His interrogations
started with the question: By what means came you to
have acquaintance with the Devil? and continued in the
same vein. She confessed to him that she had sold her soul
to the devil. But he admitted that it was only with great
labour that he got a confession out of her at all.
Goodcole was convinced of Sawyers guilt, yet neither
Elizabeth Sawyer,
executed in the
year 1621 for
Witchcraft,
frontispiece of
a pamphlet by
Henry Goodcole,
1621.
the judge nor jury had been so sure. It was only after
the examining magistrate suggested that the woman be
searched for witchs marks signs that familiar spirits had
sucked on her body as a reward for committing evil deeds
that the jury found her guilty, convinced by what the
searchers had found.
Goodcole had a line in sensationalist pamphlets about
notorious crimes. His bestseller was Heavens speedie hue and
cry sent after lust and murther , which went through three
impressions. His pamphlet about Sawyer became the source
for a play by Dekker, Ford and Rowley, published the same
year, The Witch of Edmonton.
Pamphlets and ballads were the main sources of news
in this era before newspapers. Even people unable to read
could listen to the ballads being sung in the market place
with new words to old tunes. The pamphlets were at least
as sensationalist as the most extreme tabloids today, with
the same moralising tone. Those about witchcraft played
on the stereotype of the English witch: a poor, old, ugly
and cantankerous woman with no husband to keep her in
order. Refused alms by a neighbour, she might send her
animal familiar to kill or maim him or his cattle, or at least
stop the butter churning. The familiar perhaps a cat or a
toad would have a name like Piggin or Pyewackett and be
rewarded by suckling teats in hidden parts of her body.
Literary authors as well as pamphleteers reiterated
the assumption that it was poor, ugly widows who were
accused of witchcraft. Yet, in reality, married women were
at least as likely to be targeted as widows, which raises
WITCHES
Pamphlets provide our image of the early modern

witch, as almost all witness testimony for criminal
courts was thrown away when trials finished
the question: were suspects of witchcraft

really the marginal, helpless creatures
that authors made out? The animal
familiar, the most ignominious aspect of
the witch stereotype, appears in virtually
every pamphlet account (apart from
those that focus on spirit possession) but
only rarely in more reliable sources, such as court
transcriptions.
The pamphlets cover only a small sample, as little as ten
per cent, of around 1,000 witch trials between the mid16th century and the beginning of the 18th, when murder
by witchcraft was a capital crime, punishable by hanging.
Yet it is the pamphlets that provide our image of the early
modern English witch, as almost all witness testimony for
the criminal (Assize) courts was thrown away when trials
finished and other sources provide minimal information.
Such tracts are the basis for Tracy Bormans Witches: A Tale
of Sorcery, Scandal and Seduction (2013), as well as a BBC
documentary commemorating the 400th anniversary in
2012 of the trial of witches from Pendle in Lancashire.
Some of these witchcraft pamphlets do, nevertheless,
give a greater semblance of reliability than those dealing
with other crimes, such as murder, because they include
some transcripts of trial documents. The authors were concerned not only with maximising sales but also defending
the legal procedure. This was partly because witchcraft was
notoriously difficult to prove and partly because such trials
were still seen as somewhat novel. Before the middle of the
16th century, as on most occasions since, people had less
extreme means of dealing with bewitchment than capital
punishment.
Detail showing
the prison and
courthouse from
The Ypres Tower at
Rye, by Anthony
van Dyck, 1630s.
HE MOST FAMOUS English witchcraft trial, that

of the Pendle witches, also appears to be the most
well documented. In the book-length account by
the court clerk Thomas Potts, he makes great show
of only including matter of record, but manipulates the
material to support his argument.
This was a mass trial by English standards, with a high
proportion of executions. Of the 17 people prosecuted, ten
were hanged (another died in prison). One of the judges
asked Potts to write an account, perhaps to justify the
execution rate, which normally only amounted to a quarter
of prosecutions. There was also concern over claims of a
miscarriage of justice, mentioned by Potts, in another case
linked to the Pendle trial.
The fame of the Pendle case is due in large part to Potts
melodramatic portrayal of the two stereotypically elderly
and poor suspects: Chattox, a very old, withered, spent and
decrepit creature, and Old Demdyke, this sink of villany.
Their crimes, as he says, were well suited to the wild landscape in which they lived. What the latters daughter, Elizabeth (O Barbarous and inhumane Monster), lacked in age
she made up for in ugliness with one eye above the other,
one looking down, the other up. These women begged from
their neighbours and threatened them, if refused. They
also provided charms to cure the bewitched. Their familiar
spirits, Fancie, Tibb and Ball, variously took the shapes of

dog, boy, man, cat, hare and bear. Other suspects from the
trial who did not conform to the stereotype are mostly kept
in the background, as in other pamphlets.
Despite Potts claims to veracity, he leaves out much of
the evidence of independent witnesses and focuses instead
on examinations of the suspects and Elizabeths youngest
daughter. Even these documents he edits, continually
repeating bits of them ad nauseam (to quote Marion
Gibson, the prime analyst of these texts). By this means
he contrives to shine a spotlight on familiars on the one
hand and, on the other, on an alleged conspiracy to blow up
Lancaster Castle.
Potts links this allegation several times with the GunTop: title page
from A Most
Certain, Strange
and True Discovery
of a Witch, 1643.
Bottom: The
Witch of
Edmonton, a
Tragi-Comedy,
play based on
the Elizabeth
Sawyer case.
powder Plot of 1605. Protestant fears of terrorism were

easily sparked in a county notorious for its many Catholics
(including the main suspects in this case) and this allegation was extremely flimsy. It was made by the young son of
Elizabeth and was not corroborated by anyone else. Potts
claims that Elizabeth confessed to orchestrating the plot
but in fact she denied any knowledge of it.
The formal charges against the accused include neither
this conspiracy nor the familiars, just the bewitching to
death of particular people. Spirit familiars are mentioned by
only one independent witness. All the others gave the usual
story of an altercation with the accused, followed by somebody in their household suffering for it. The same is true
of an account of a trial in St Osyth, Essex, which includes
a fascinating full transcription of the evidence of witnesses. It is in the examinations of the accused that familiars
appear. Potts focused so much on familiar spirits because
they offered the strongest possible evidence of guilt.
Checking for teats on the suspects body usually resulted in
something incriminating being found. In the St Osyth case,
the examining magistrate shamelessly bullied the suspects
into admitting to having familiar spirits. Similar admissions
were extracted by Matthew Hopkins, the Witchfinder
General, who used sleep-deprivation techniques in his
private enterprise witch-hunt during the Civil Wars.
OT ALL THE LEGAL EVIDENCE for the Assize

courts was destroyed: some for the northern
counties survives after the mid-17th century.
These testimonies are tantalisingly brief; too brief
to have formed the basis for pamphlet stories. Yet many of
them are long enough to convey the terror sometimes experienced by the witches victims, induced not by familiar
spirits, which are not mentioned in any of these cases, but
by the witch herself, appearing to her victims in spirit form,
through closed windows or doors:
Morpeth 1673. She did see the said Margaret Milburne, widow,
standing on an oat skep [container] at her bed feet, thinking
she was pulling her heart with something like a thread. Upon
which this informer called on her masters daughter that lay
by her, who called of other people out of the room below. Who
coming up found this informer in a swoon, who continued not
able to speak for 3 or 4 hours.
Sometimes the witch has changed into the shape of an
animal such as a cat, hare or bee:
Newcastle 1663. The said cat did violently leap about her neck
and shoulders, and was so ponderous that she was not able to
support it [she] was so infirm and disenabled that the power
of both body and tongue were taken from her this informer
verily believes that the said cat which appeared to her was
Dorothy Stranger [the accused], and none else.
In the witchcraft pamphlets, by contrast, there are only
one or two instances of such hauntings by witches. Potts
says shape-changing by humans is impossible (echoing
James Is work on witchcraft, Daemonologie, as he often
does). He refers to a suspect turning into a dog in a case, not
at Pendle, that was discovered to be fraudulent. Potts pokes
fun at the fraudsters attempt to create a believable case,
pointing out that the latter fails to provide the suspects
with familiar spirits. This, he says, would have helped the
jury form their judgment.
WITCHES
The suspects in these late 17th-century cases are generally not stereotypical figures. Wives outnumber widows
by three to one and suspects are often described as taking
part in the everyday activities of the community: dealing in
barrels, selling cherries, caring for a grandchild, for example.
They are sometimes said to gain power over their victims,
as in the following overheard interchange between mother
and daughter:
Signature of Anne Taylor and

mark of Susan Swaffer.
If thou canst but get young Thomas Haigh to buy thee

threepennyworth of indigo, and look him in the face when
he gives it thee, and touch his locks, we shall have power
enough to take life.
Potts refers to getting power once in the Pendle case,
but there is a significant difference: when the suspect
touches a victim, it is the suspects familiar who gains
the power, not the suspect.
The testimonies of the late 17th-century Assize
cases suggest that suspects were more empowered than
those in the pamphlet accounts. They have power in
themselves to change shape, haunt and kill with witchcraft.
Suspects in the pamphlets are at least as evil but the power
is not really in them, it is in the familiar spirits whom they
feed and who sometimes, but not always, do the suspects
bidding. The latter scenario fits with an idea that authors constantly reiterate, that women are more easily seduced by the
devil than men because they are the weaker sex. It was not
her power that was being demonstrated but that of the devil.
But this fits not at all with the accounts of witches in the late
17th-century cases: why would they need animal familiars if
they could change into the shapes of animals themselves?
E NEED NOT RELY entirely on such brief

testimony for more direct evidence of witch
beliefs. There is one detailed case from
southern England that has much in common
with the late 17th-century Assize cases but little in common
with the pamphlet accounts. The accused woman in this
case, Anne Taylor, appeared to one of her victims in spirit
form and had no animal familiars. Her accusers saw Taylor
as a threat because she had more substantive concerns than
simply seeking revenge for being refused a penny or some
pins, as in many of the pamphlet accounts. While she did not
fit the stereotype, being young and married to a gentleman,
she was a healer who inherited skills from her mother,
which was true of many suspects in other cases, and an outspoken one at that. The case does not lack spirits but they are
similar to the fairies described in cases in Scotland: they were
morally ambivalent, sometimes helpful, sometimes vindictive. Note that in the Taylor case, as in all others around this
date, all the witnesses are for the prosecution so we do not
hear the voices of the suspects allies.
Taylors case was tried in 1607-9 in Rye in Sussex, a
backwater of the English legal system. It was one of the
Cinque Ports, where the kings justices had no authority to
try crimes (hence the survival of its records). Rye had been
one of the major ports on the south coast in the mid-16th
century but was by this time in decline. The judges were
the towns mayor and aldermen. Taylor was accused of bewitching the previous mayor by his widow, who was
now wife of the current mayor.
In 1607 rumours spread around Rye of spirits playing
Thomas Hamon,
Mayor of Rye,
1605-17, from
a brass in Rye
Church.
puck-like practical jokes; gripping limbs until they went

numb; and blowing up a cannon together with the towns
gunner. Alarmed by this spirit invasion, the magistrates
interrogated the main source of the rumours, Susan
Swaffer, the wife of a poor sawyer (a person who saws
wood). She said four spirits two men and two women
had appeared to her, offering to help her find treasure in
the garden of her landlady, Anne Taylor. Her search proved
fruitless, even with Taylors assistance. The magistrates
let her talk, asking few questions. When they interrogated
Anne, they asked her to comment on the points made by
Susan, which on the whole she refused to do.
Susan must have been relieved to have Anne Taylor
help her deal with the spirits, for Anne and her mother, old
Widow Bennett, were reputed to be cunning folk (from
con, to know). Such people often used spirits to help cure
illnesses, find lost or stolen goods or make predictions.
Unlike the stereotype of white witches, neither of these
Protestant women used charms or amulets; they prescribed ointments and medicines and used a simple form
of astrology, involving good and evil days, to predict the
outcome of illnesses.
However, the Bennett women were rather too much
given to predicting peoples deaths for the peace of mind
of some of their neighbours. Their immediate neighbour,
Details from Plot

of the Town of
Rye, 1591.
Master Clement Whitfield, gentleman, said that when his

wife was ill back in 1603, Anne and her mother did enquire
in what manner my wife did fare; they said they knew her
disease, and that it would cost her her life. This must have
been alarming behaviour in people on whom you relied for
cures. So alarming, indeed, that Mistress Whitfield started
hallucinating:
my wife when she lay sick [did say] that Goody Bennett and
her daughter Annis had bewitched her, and I could not persuade her to the contrary for many times she did awake me
suddenly in my sleep, and said to me, Look, husband, where
Anne Bennett stands at my beds head, and she hath set me my
time how long I shall live.
His wife died in 1604.
Particularly alarming for the associates of the mayor,
Thomas Hamon, was Annes prediction when he suddenly
fell ill in July 1607, that he was taken in such sort, and in
such a bad day and ill hour, as he would never escape the
same and that he would die as a result of a spirit gripping
his body very tightly. Within days, Hamon was dead.
Were Anne or her mother, who had been so interested in
Hamons death, responsible for it?
Swaffer was indicted for entertaining spirits that December and subsequently convicted. The death sentence
WITCHES
was reprieved because she was pregnant. Annes indictment for aiding and abetting Susan did not proceed to trial
because she had fled to Kent, beyond the jurisdiction of
the Rye court.
HE SWAFFERS WERE recent incomers to Rye but

Taylor came from a well-established local family of
butchers, the Bennetts. Protestants if somewhat
unconventional since before the Reformation,
they and their fellow artisans very simple and of small
substance were something of a thorn in the side of the
more traditionalist merchant elite. By the middle of the
century, however, in a time of prosperity, Annes grandfather was successful enough to join the aldermanic bench.
There was no love lost between Anne and the mayors
family. Hamons widow reported that she often cursed
them both and she allegedly said, among other derogatory
comments, that:
It were no matter if the divell did fetch away his body to be
an example for others, for she doubted that the divell had his
soul already, for that he was an evil liver.
Annes antipathy to Hamon may have seemed particularly
challenging to the merchant elite, because it reflected
the views of others in the town. Hamon was not popular.
As most of the population and the corporation itself got
poorer, the rich, curiously, seemed not to have been badly
affected. Indeed Hamon and other rich inhabitants were
buying up the towns assets.
An extraordinary incident had triggered outbursts
against Hamon ten years earlier, in 1597, a year of dearth
throughout the country, following several bad harvests.

His stepson, an impoverished tailor named Simon Duron,
had been twice convicted by the magistrates of theft and
on the second conviction was hanged; a sentence that
was unheard of in this small town. A couple of days after
Durons first trial, a fisherman declared that he wished
that Master Mayor [Hamon] were hanged and a master
fisherman standing nearby endorsed his opinion, saying
diverse were of that mind, if they durst say so much.
Taylor said later that Hamon had taken against Durons
Huguenot refugee mother: He had misused his other wife
[Catherine Duron] greatly, which [I know] very well
Taylor was not just outspoken but experienced extraordinary good fortune which, in suspicious minds, could
have pointed to supernatural powers. She had been heavily
indebted following the death of her father and brother
during the plague epidemic of 1596, yet the women of
the family not only survived this, but she contracted an
advantageous marriage in 1603 to a Kentish gentleman,
George Taylor.
Anne Taylor was saved from hanging thanks to the intervention of the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, Henry
Left: The Cat

Sathan from the
first surviving
witchcraft
pamphlet, 1566.
Right: The
Somerset House
Conference, 1604,
with Henry
Howard seated on
the right, second
from bottom.
Unknown artist.
Howard, Earl of Northampton, a member of James Is Privy

Council. As a representative of the government, he sought
to challenge the ancient privileges of the Cinque Ports
and stop the magistrates from trying any capital crimes.
Northampton failed in this endeavour but at Taylors trial
the magistrates, clearly fearing further intervention if she
were convicted, chose one of her friends to be foreman of
the jury. She was acquitted of bewitching Hamon to death.
Susan Swaffer was pardoned in 1611.
After the trial, George Taylor was made a freeman of
the town and was then employed, along with the vicar, to
represent the town in some negotiations over the silting up
of the harbour.
NNE TAYLOR was totally unlike what we think

of as a typical witch; a poor, old woman living
on the margins of society. She seems to have
been targeted because of her influence in the
town. Evidence from other local sources mined by Malcolm
Gaskill suggests that many other suspects were not like
the stereotype either. Some had allies, as in the Rye case
(among the artisans and more radical Protestants), and in
other towns witchcraft accusations sometimes reflected
factional conflicts.
Pamphleteers helped propagate the stereotype of the
witch. Salacious tales of familiars helped sell the publications, offering the opportunity to recount details that were
elicited when a suspect was interrogated. As well as their
names, there were the shapes in which the familiars appeared, their colour, gender, how and where they were fed
and who gave them to the suspect. Value was added if the
suspect also admitted that she had sold her soul to the devil.
I do not mean to imply that the concept of the animal
familiar was alien to witnesses and suspects: it is mentioned in enough different sources to indicate that it was a
genuine part of English popular lore. But a desire for profit,
or the need to legitimate a contentious legal process, influenced the slant given to a pamphleteers story.
The surviving trial evidence gives us a very different
image of women accused of witchcraft from that given
in the pamphlets. The witnesses were no doubt familiar
with the idea that it was womens weakness that made
them susceptible to seduction by the devil, but the
evidence suggests that, in practice, when confronted by a
suspect, they usually saw not a feeble old hag in thrall to
her familiars but a woman who, in her own self, exerted
power in the community.
Annabel Gregory is the author of Rye Spirits: Faith, Faction and Fairies in a
Seventeenth Century English Town (The Hedge Press, 2013).
FURTHER READING
Philip C. Almond, The Lancashire Witches: A Chronicle of
Sorcery and Death on Pendle Hill (I.B. Tauris, 2012).
Malcolm Gaskill, Crime and Mentalities in Early Modern
England (Cambridge University Press, 2000).
Clement
Whitfields letter
of accusation
against Anne
Taylor, 1604.
Marion Gibson (ed), Early Modern Witches: Witchcraft Cases

in Contemporary Writing (Routledge, 2000).
J.A. Sharpe, Instruments of Darkness: Witchcraft in England
(Hamish Hamilton, 1996).
CROMWELL
LTHOUGH OLIVER CROMWELL is one of the best known

figures in British history, his character is full of contradictions
and ambiguities and, at times, he seems to have revelled in
keeping his contemporaries and future generations guessing. To take but one example: although it seems odd for the quintessential puritan to be indulging in such activities, many stories survive
of Cromwells involvement in jests and practical jokes. The New Model
Army colonel, Edmund Ludlow, remembered a meeting between army
officers and republicans in the summer of 1648, when Cromwell suddenly took up a cushion and flung it at my head, and then ran down the
stairs. According to Colonel Isaac Ewer, at the all-important moment
when Charles Is death warrant was signed in January 1649: I did see a
pen in Mr Cromwells hand, and he marked Mr [Henry] Marten in the
face with it, and Mr Marten did the like to him. Another story, relating
to the hours before the Battle of Dunbar in September 1650, describes
Cromwell stopping his horse to laugh at some soldiers playing with a
cream tub a game that ended with the tub up-ended on the head of
one of the soldiers. Similar stories crop up elsewhere. The wedding of
Cromwells daughter, Elizabeth Claypole, in 1646 witnessed Nolls
military rude way of spoiling the custard, and like a Jack Pudding throwing it upon one another, which was ended in the more manly game of
buffeting with cushions, and flinging them up and down the room.
Similarly, at a feast for MPs in February 1657, his highnesss frolics
were said to include smearing sweetmeats into ladies dresses and the
throwing of napkins. Despite his forbidding exterior, Cromwell seems
to have delighted in custard pies and pillow fights.
THERE IS, HOWEVER, a catch. These stories are not contemporary with
Cromwell and this makes them suspect. The last two mentioned here,
concerning Elizabeth Claypoles wedding and the feast for Parliament,
come from a less than promising source, The Court & Kitchin of Elizabeth,
Commonly Called Joan Cromwel, a satirical account of the homeliness of
the protectoral court, published in 1664. Ewers ink-flicking episode was
not in print until after the Restoration; Ludlows story appears in his
Memoirs, written in exile after 1660 and published, with considerable
revision, after his death in 1698; and the cream tub incident occurs
in the memoirs of John Hodgson, also penned after 1660. As a result,
most historians have tended to ignore these, and other, examples
The Laughing
Roundhead
Behind the serious face of the Lord Protector
lay a man with a taste for terrible puns and
unseemly practical jokes. Patrick Little
explores the inside jokes and pillow fights
of Oliver Cromwell and his inner circle.
Allegory on Oliver Cromwell, Victor in the

English Civil War, engraving by Crispijn
van de Passe, 17th century.
CROMWELL
Elizabeth Cromwell,
Mrs Claypole, by
John Michael Wright,
1658.
not easily deciphered. Occasionally, however, we can catch

glimpses of this private world. Cromwell constantly teased
Colonel Richard Norton about his phenomenal workload in
Hampshire, writing in March 1648 that he should be a little
honest, and attend your charge as an MP at Westminster. By
April 1650 he had christened him idle Dick Norton. There
are hints of a similar running joke between Cromwell and
his cousin, the shrewd lawyer Oliver St John. This time the
joke appears to be that one or both of them was hopelessly
forgetful. As early as 1638 Cromwell wrote to Mrs St John that
her husband is not a man of his word! He promised to write;
in 1643 he said St Johns demands had led to forgetfulness
of his own affairs; and in 1648 he commented, pointedly, I
hope I do often remember you.
of Cromwells puerile sense of humour or dismiss them as uncorroborated and fanciful. Apart from anything else, such buffoonery does
not fit with the accepted image of Cromwell as the godly general and
serious-minded politician.
HEN UNCOVERING Cromwells sense of humour, we

are perhaps on surer ground reading his own words.
The humour used in his private letters is normally fairly
staid, but on occasion it, too, can raise an eyebrow. He
was capable of treating religion the thing closest to his heart with
a lack of reverence that seems odd to modern eyes. In a letter to his
daughter, Bridget Ireton, of October 25th, 1646, Cromwell mentions
the efforts of another daughter, Elizabeth Claypole, in seeking after
God and adds thus to be a seeker is to be the best sect next to a finder;
and such as one shall every faithful humble seeker be at the end. Happy
seeker, happy finder! This is an awful pun, which turns on the word
Seeker being the name of a contemporary religious group. It suggests
that Cromwellian humour was pretty bovine. The same might be said
of his constant use of nicknames. All the Cromwell children had their
own nicknames: Dick, Harry, Betty, Biddy, Fanny and so on and this led
to further puns. To cite an example, in the early 1650s Cromwell sent
messages to Bridget through her second husband, Charles Fleetwood,
punning on her nickname: Bid her beware and Bid her be cheerful.
This banter was extended to other friends and relatives as well. Cromwells letter to Colonel Robert Hammond of November 1648 reveals
the prevalence of nicknames in their political circle. Sir Henry Vane
junior is referred to as my brother Heron and Cromwell signs himself
Herons brother; other nicknames include my wise friend (possibly
William Pierrepont), Sir Roger (John Lambert?) and brother Fountain
(Cromwell himself?). These are in-jokes, whose precise meaning is
ROMWELLS LETTERS, which reveal his intimacy

with a circle of radicals and revolutionaries in the
later 1640s, are matched by other evidence of his
relationship with his closest advisers in the later
1650s. In 1657 Cromwell had private meetings with important members of the protectoral regime, including Lord
Broghill, John Thurloe, Sir Charles Wolseley, William Pierrepont and Bulstrode Whitelocke, and these often became more
informal affairs and laying aside his greatness, he would be
exceeding familiar with them, and by way of diversion would
make verses with them, and every one must try his fancy.
These parties had a close parallel in the activities approved by
Whitelocke for his entourage when ambassador to Sweden
in 1653-4; for diversion in these long winter nights, his
gentlemen held disputations in Latin, and declamations on
certain serious and comic themes. Cromwells delight in wit
and sophistication may also provide a link with those literary
figures he patronised as protector, especially John Milton,
Andrew Marvell, John Dryden, George Wither and Edmund Waller.
A pleasure in language also comes through in Cromwells speeches.
At Putney in October 1647 he responded sarcastically to radical Leveller
demands by reminding them that if they tried to jump out of all engagements they might have to make a very great jump, like that of a
man from a scaffold. In his speech to Parliament on January 22nd, 1655,
Cromwell is again facetious about religion: in this case, Catholicism and
the Anglican Church, whose followers he describes in cod-Latin as those
men that live upon their mumpsimus and sumpsimus, their names and
their service books. In a similar vein, on April 21st, 1657, Cromwell told a
committee of parliamentarians of his support for the triers and ejectors
who sought to root out remaining royalist clergymen and attacked the
old way of certifying ministers: If any man could understand Latin and
Greek, it was as if he spake Welsh, he was sure to be admitted. Having
made what, to a committee made up mostly of Englishmen, was a fairly
decent joke, Cromwell then went for a further laugh by elaborating
on the Welsh language, which I think in those days went for Hebrew
with a great many. We are not far from Shakespeares Welsh captain,
Fluellin, here. The national stereotype is given a further edge by the
Apart from anything else, such

buffoonery does not fit with
the accepted image of Cromwell
as the godly general and seriousminded politician
Clockwise from
right: Edmund
Ludlow, engraving
from his Memoirs,
1698-9; statue of
a little boy from
a fountain at
Bolsover Castle,
Derbyshire;
Take Away that
Bauble, Cromwell
Dissolving the
Long Parliament,
Comic History of
England, etching
by John Leech,
1850.
CROMWELL
Beads for the pro-Catholic Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lord Cottington. Their jokes ranged from puns to gender-reversal to surprising
crudities. In November 1636, for example, the archbishop commented
on the courtly ambition of the groom of the stool, the Earl of Holland,
that a man that eats moderately may go to stool as well after sixteen
dishes as after forty.
This rather surprising crudity among the higher echelons of the
Caroline court remind us that the sense of humour of early 17th-century elites was, by later standards, very broad and rather basic. It has
been argued that the distinction between high and low culture was
something that developed only later in the 17th century. Jest books,
recounting practical jokes and clever one-liners, were best-sellers in
the late 16th and early 17th centuries and monarchs up to and including
Charles I retained professional fools. The 1650s saw a fashion for drolleries, performances of rustic buffoonery for an educated merchant and
gentry audience, many of which made it into print. Such forms began to
decline under Charles II and soon became deeply unfashionable, as new
standards of social decorum affected everything from table manners to
toilet habits and rules of etiquette emphasised the distance between
the gentle and the vulgar. The first awakenings of this prudishness
might be the cause of those later works purporting to give details of
Cromwells practical joking, which expected the reader not to laugh
but to disapprove.
Y
Above: Oliver St John, by Pieter Nason, 1652.
Below, right: scene from The Pantomime of Oliver Cromwell: Or, Harlequin
Charley Over the Water, and the Maid of Pattys Mill, 19th century.
well-known loyalty of the Welsh to the Anglican Church during the civil
wars and, indeed, by the presence of two prominent Welshmen, John
Glynne and Philip Jones.
The connection with Fluellin reminds us that Cromwell was very
much part of a wider contemporary culture. Born on April 25th, 1599,
his 17th birthday came just two days after Shakespeares death; and he
was nearly 25 when James I died. This was a period noted for boisterous comedies on the stage, for nonsense, parody and other conceits
on the printed page; where students at Cambridge (where Cromwell
certainly studied) and the Inns of Court (where he probably did not)
put on productions that provoked the ire of their seniors and shocked
Continental observers. There were strong links between literary and
semi-literary comedy and the verbal humour used in private correspondence. It is a curious thought that Cromwells fondness of puns,
nicknames and in-jokes was one of the few things he shared with the
Stuart monarchs and their courts. In 1623 Charles I as Prince of Wales,
with his companion George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, kept James I
informed of their adventures on the Continent with a series of letters
addressed to Dear Dad and Gossip; and signed themselves as your boys
or your baby, in the case of the prince, and your humble slave and dog,
in the case of Buckingham. For Charles and James alike, Buckingham
was always Steenie.
The correspondence of Archbishop Laud and Viscount Wentworth
during the 1630s shows a similar lack of inhibition. Nicknames reappear, including the waspish use of Lady Mora, the spirit of delay, for
the lord treasurer Lord Weston, and variously your Spaniard and the
ET TWO FURTHER PIECES of evidence of Cromwells sense

of humour suggest that the Restoration stories may not be
fabricated after all. First, in a letter of December 1657, Samuel
Pepys recounted a scene at Whitehall after the arrest of a
number of Jesuit priests, whose copes and other popish vestments
the protector made some of his gentlemen put on, to the causing of
abundance of mirth. Pepys, as cousin and secretary to the admiral and
councillor Edward Montagu, was very much part of the court circle
and there is no reason to doubt his story. Furthermore, it was not an
isolated incident. In 1643 the Catholic chapel at Somerset House (official
It is a curious thought that

Cromwells fondness of puns,
nicknames and in-jokes was one of
the few things he shared with the
Stuart monarchs and their courts
The Coronation of Oliver Cromwell, satirical etching and engraving, 1653-54.
residence of Queen Henrietta Maria) was desecrated by a gang who

dressed up in the vestments of the Capuchin Friars and mocked their
religion. Among the ringleaders were a number of MPs, including Henry
Marten. In another story, this time from the summer of 1649, George
Wither, a poet who had just been made a trustee for the sale of the
late kings goods, dressed up in the coronation robes, exposing them
to contempt and laughter. Interestingly, Withers aider and abettor in
this was also Henry Marten. And we have already come across Marten
as the man said to have engaged in the ink fight with Cromwell during
the signing of the kings death warrant.
The second reliable source for our understanding of Cromwells sense
of humour is also contemporary: the manuscript notebook of Richard
Symonds, a royalist resident in London during the 1650s, who died immediately after the Restoration. According to Symonds, the wedding
of Cromwells younger daughter, Frances, to Robert Rich, in November
1657 was followed by much mirth and frolics, during which the protector threw about sack posset [a sticky drink] among all the ladies to soil
their rich clothes and also wet sweetmeats, and daubed all the stools
where they were to sit with wet sweetmeats, and pulled off Rich his
peruque [wig], and would have thrown it into the fire, but did not, yet
he sat upon it. This bears striking similarities to the story of high-jinks
at Elizabeth Claypoles wedding over a decade before, not to mention

the smearing of the ladies dresses in February 1657.
Satirical fancy dress parties, ink-flicking, food throwing: it seems
such behaviour cannot be dismissed so easily after all. But then Oliver
Cromwell was an enigmatic and ambiguous character, a man who even
contemporaries found hard to pin down. Did he also have the last laugh?
Patrick Little is a Senior Research Fellow at the History of Parliament Trust and a
Vice-President of the Cromwell Association.
FURTHER READING
Laura Lunger Knoppers, Constructing Cromwell: Ceremony, Portrait
and Print (Cambridge, 2000).
Roy Sherwood, Oliver Cromwell: King in All but Name 1653-1658
(Sutton, 1997).
Barry Coward, The Cromwellian Protectorate (Manchester, 2003).
Patrick Little, (ed), Oliver Cromwell: New Perspectives (Palgrave
Macmillan 2008).
Portrait
of the
Author
as a
Historian
The leading light of the French
Annales school revolutionised
the writing of history by
imbuing it with wider, holistic,
narratives and literary flair,
says Alexander Lee.
Braudel in the lhabit vert of the

Acadmie franaise, 1985.
No.2
Fernand
Braudel
Born: August 24th, 1902,
Lumville-en-Ornois, France.
Died: November 27th, 1985, Cluses, France.
FERNAND BRAUDELS The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age
of Philip II (1949) deserves its reputation
as a landmark of historical scholarship.
Pouring scorn on event-based approachapproach
es to history, it attacked the priority
which French scholars had previously
given to politics, diplomacy and war as
having an excessively narrow under
understanding of time. While there was no
doubting that events ((vnements) had a
significance of sorts, Braudel argued that
they were merely surface disturbances, crests of foam that the tides of
history carry on their strong backs. Men
were, he believed, not so much independent actors, capable of steering their
own course, as flotsam and jetsam, borne
along by the current of their collective
destinies. It was only by studying the
slow and almost imperceptible history of
humanity in relation to its geographical
and climactic surroundings that even
the greatest civilisation, let alone the
greatest events, could be appreciated.
And it was by focusing on the MediterMediter
ranean as a distinct space, with its own
distinct time, that Braudel succeeded in
re-conceptualising the whole history of
16th-century Spain.
Not without reason did Hugh TrevorRoper describe the The Mediterranean as
the culminating product of the Annales
school. As an exposition of the importance of the longue dure it has no equal.
Its passionate appeal for historians to
reach out beyond traditional disciplinary
boundaries to engage with the social
sciences could be taken as representative
of all that the French historical revolurevolu
tion sought to achieve.
But appearances can be deceptive.
Despite The Mediterraneans reputation,
Braudels approach was quite different
from that adopted by the founders of
the Annales school. Whereas Lucien
Febvre was a voluntarist, captivated by
mentalits,
mentalits for example, Braudel was a
determinist, unenamoured by systems
of thought or belief. The reason for this
apparent divergence is that Braudel
came to write The Mediterranean not so
much in the guise of a historian pursuing
an argument with unrelenting logical
fervour, as in that of a novelist. Indeed, it
is telling that, while one American critic
condemned Braudel for having mistak
mistaken a poetic response to the past for an
historical problem, Braudel had no com
compunction about describing himself as an
crivain rather than as an historien in the
preface to the first edition of his work.
There was little in Braudels early life

to prepare him for what was to become
the Annales school and even less to point
him towards the Mediterranean. Born
not amid the salty spray of the sea or the
dusty air of the library, but in the fields of
Lorraine, he was always proud of coming
from peasant stock. He was, to be sure,
not insensitive to the natural world but,
seeing that the countryside of eastern
France was full of military recollections,
his imagination was fired by battles and
wars more than anything else and his
heart swelled with French national pride.
Fields of childhood
Enrolling to study history at the
Sorbonne in 1920, he took these early
prejudices with him. Though he was
introduced to economic history by Henri
Hauser (1886-1946) and learned much
about historical methodology, he seems
to have been almost untouched by the
wider shifts in historical thinking at the
time. Despite his interest in the positivism of the early Marxist, Alphonse Aulard
(1849-1928), for example, he remained
tied to the fields of his childhood and
stuck doggedly to dry, familiar forms of
political history. His thesis, published
in pamphlet form in 1922, was a rather
predictable study of the first three years
of the French Revolution in Bar-le-Duc.
When the awakening came it was not
of the intellect but of the imagination.
Taking up a teaching position in Algeria
in 1923, he experienced his new environment in a manner comparable to that of
many other French literary figures who
took up life in the colonies at the same
time. Able at last to see France from a distance, Braudel, like Andr Malraux, cast
off his patriotism and opened his heart
to wider possibilities. But like Antoine de
Saint-Exupry, he also fell in love with
the landscape, enchanted not only by the
smell of the souks, the narrow streets
and the scorching heat, but also by the
romance of the desert and by the vast,
rolling rhythms of the sea.
His outlook changed. Exploring ports
and cities, where the Ottoman and Christian world had once met, he found that
he could imagine the Mediterranean of
the 16th century all too easily and was
thrilled to discover in records of ships,
bills of landing [and] business deals a
bustling marketplace of many nations,
united, divided, shaped and sustained
by the waves. Inspired, in 1927 he began
writing a doctoral thesis on Philip II and
Spanish policy in the Mediterranean.
But, as his choice of subject suggested,

his literary imagination was still far
ahead of his scholarly inclinations. While
assiduous in his use of archives, his
approach was still lamentably traditional
and his concerns remained firmly with
diplomatic history.
It was a chance encounter with Henri
Pirenne (1862-1935) in Algiers in 1930
that allowed Braudel to take the next
step. Pirennes work had been founded
on the belief that socio-economic,
cultural and religious movements were
the result of profound underlying causes
invisible to particularist approaches to
history and he had earned a measure of
renown for postulating that the origins
of the European Middle Ages were to be
found in differences in the pace of trade
Its originality
stemmed not so
much from his
scholarship as from
his willingness to
think and write like
a novelist
and state formation between the Muslim
and Christian sides of the Mediterranean.
But it was not Pirennes historical insights that captivated Braudel, so much
as his literary sensibilities. Pirenne spoke
of history as an adventure, rather than as
a subject for research, and of the sea as a
character, with its own personality and
voice, rather than as a setting for human
drama. It was after this, Braudels wife
later recalled, that he began to dream of
the Mediterranean in itself, of its ancient
and fabulous history, so much more
colourful and exciting in the imagination
than the sad personality of Philip II.
Mediterranean time
But it was only after spending two years
teaching at the University of So Paolo
in Brazil that the imaginative insights
of the novelist manqu were honed
into a daring new approach to historical
scholarship. Quite by chance, Braudel
found himself aboard the same ship as
Febvre and, before they reached port, a
father-son relationship had developed
between them. Although he was never to
embrace all of the older mans views, he
was persuaded of the need to integrate

history with the other human sciences
and to acknowledge the Mediterraneans
own unique time.
It was with this that The Mediterranean came into being. He now had
in mind not the dry, lifeless study of
Spanish politics he had planned when he
had embarked on his doctoral studies,
but a fantastic phantasmagoria of
colours, of countries, of men, of great
events, and little anecdotes, bound
together by threads of shared experience
and given life by vast movements of the
natural world.
When he came to write the work
in mind, it was still in the manner of a
novelist rather than of a historian proper.
Called up for military service during the
Munich Crisis, he was in the field when
France fell to Nazi Germany and was
taken captive. Imprisoned first in Mainz,
then at Oflag XC in Lbeck, he discovered in his dreams of the Mediterranean
a means of shutting out the soul-destroying news that filtered through the wire
fence and of rationalising the dizzying
whirl of war and politics to which he had
fallen victim. Scribbling his thoughts in
countless school notebooks that were
smuggled out to Febvre, he wrote furiously, as a novelist might write, without
access to archives or libraries, but carried
along by the great sweep of his story and
sustained by the driving force of his own
cathartic eloquence.
When Braudel was liberated in May
1945, he hurried to Paris. Staying at
Febvres, he worked feverishly on his
thesis, buoyed by pent-up excitement,
and within two years he was able to
defend the work before an all-star cast
of French historians. All but one
acclaimed it as a triumph. Bowled over
by his daring sweep and its mastery of
detail, they recognised it immediately as
a masterpiece, as do most professional
historians today. But its originality and
its brilliance stemmed not so much from
his scholarship as from his willingness
to think and write like a novelist. And,
though the Mediterranean remains a
classic study of the longue dure and
environmental history, its true importance lies not in its elucidation of the
Annales schools approach but in its
demonstration of the power of the
literary imagination.
Alexander Lee is a fellow in the Centre for the Study of
the Renaissance at the University of Warwick. His book
The Ugly Renaissance is published by Arrow.
Key works
The Mediterranean and the
Mediterranean World in the
Age of Philip II (1949),
Civilisation and Capitalism,
15th-18th Century (195577),
The Identity of France (1986)
When, in 2011, History Today
conducted a survey to find the
most important historian of the
past 60 years, Braudel ranked fifth,
a status granted in recognition of
The Mediterranean. His Olympian
masterpiece was recognised as a
major work on its publication in
1949. However, as Peter Burke
asserted in a review of Civilisation
and Capitalism in 1983, Braudel is
unusual among his generation of
historians, because he completed
not one, but two major projects and
was mid-way through a third when
he died, surrounded by honours,
on November 28th, 1985. The death
of le roi Braudel was first item
on the French news bulletin the
following day.
Tom Holland on early medieval societies Eleanor Robson searches for Gertrude Bell
Alexy Karenowska sends a postcard from Palmyra
REVIEWS
19TH CENTURY
Full Steam
Ahead
to the
Modern
World
Ben Wilson offers an
engaging, up-tempo
account of the technical
innovations that
heralded the birth of
modernity and assesses
Britains role in this
revolutionary period.
THIS IS an engaging history of
the capitalist world in the 1850s,
which stitches together vivid
stories of entrepreneurs and adventurers from the United States
to New Zealand. Heyday: Britain
and the Birth of the Modern World
sometimes feels like an exciting
Phileas Fogg travelogue, with
Ben Wilsons finger spinning
round a mahogany globe in his
study and us with it. But that is
the strength of Heyday because,
as Wilson points out, this is not a
history of the British Empire but

a history of Britain in the world.
The Great Exhibition of 1851
bellowed the technical innovations of the worlds first industrial nation at a moment when
liberalism, free trade and internationalism were at their zenith
as ideas. In practice, the gunboat
spoke louder than words, but
even Lord Palmerston sincerely
believed that Britains free trade
Empire was different, writing we
have achieved triumphs, we have
made aggressions but we have

made them of a very different
kind. The capital and skill of
Englishmen are spread over the
whole surface of the globe.
It was a German immigrant,
Julius Reuter, who made capital
spread faster. Having once used
carrier pigeons to exchange stock
prices, Reuter seized on telegraphy and founded his news agency
in London in 1851 in the year a
Channel cable was laid. This was
a moment akin to the birth of
the Internet, which linked the

money markets of Europe in real
time and provided news of wars
as well as commodities. Such was
the excitement in the City of
London in 1851 that 200 young
traders took part in an unruly
game of football on the floor
of the normally staid Stock Exchange. Meanwhile, in India, the
civil servant, John Kaye, believed
telecommunications had made
Indians realise the great truth
that Time Is Money and hoped it
would undermine the authority
of their spiritual guides.
Native peoples did not always
see it that way. The brutal
modernisation of India under
Governor-General James Ramsey
was a cause of the Indian uprising
of 1857 that sent spasms of
anxiety and hope around the
world. Ramseys vast networks
of railways and telegraph wires
enabled the British to rule more
effectively and that, not native
primitivism, made them a target.
As Indian rebels blew up tracks
and used telegraph cable to make
bullets, John Kaye noted an
especial rage against the railway
and the telegraph.
Modernisation also coincided
with more land-grabbing from
indigenous rulers and a greater
sense of racial superiority over
those less in command of technology. In 1857 the naturalist
Brian Hodgson observed that
knowledge and respect for
Indians and their customs had

given way to casual racism since
he had arrived 40 years previously. Now, he lamented, one hears
ordinarily and from the mouths
of decent folks nothing but contemptuous phrases (nigger &c)
applied to the people.
Britain owed its power not
only to the plundering of its
Caribbean, Asian and African
colonies but also to the rapacious
development of the United
States after 1776, which happily
sold its former master whatever
Britain needed to rule others.
One motive for modernising
India had been to make its cotton
industry more productive so
that Britain was less dependent
on cotton from the southern
slave states of America; yet, as
Wilson observes, slavery was
reaching its grim apogee in the
1850s. Over a billion pounds
of raw cotton was still leaving
the South for the 2,500 textile
Modernisation
coincided with more
land grabbing from
indigenous rulers
and a greater sense
of racial superiority
over those less
in command of
technology
factories of Lancashire by the
end of the decade, a generation
after the abolition of slavery in
British territories. This hypocritical connection was noted by the
Alabaman racial theorist, Josiah
Nott, who wrote of an indissoluble cord, binding the black [slave]
to human progress.
The indissoluble cord between
the Old World and the New
became a physical reality in 1858
with the laying of an Atlantic
cable by steam-powered ships.
The first transatlantic message
was transmitted on August 16th.
It read: Europe and America are
united by telegraphic communication. Glory to God in the
highest, on earth peace, goodwill
to all men.
There was little peace to be

had at the end of a rifle. The
British used millions of American
guns to conquer and rule, tipping
the balance away from once
mighty armies of Chinese, Maori
and Zulu warriors. After Samuel
Colt exhibited his revolutionary
six-shooter at the Great Exhibition, American arms experts
were brought in to oversee mass
production of revolvers and rifles
at the governments arms factory
at Enfield. The Times compared
Colt to the inventor of vaccination, Edward Jenner, claiming
that modern guns were a new
method of vaccination on rude
tribes.
With guns went beards,
which became fashionable in the
1850s as a symbol of middle-class
muscularity, from Dickens to
the explorer Richard Burton; the
beard was decidedly un-aristocratic, writes Wilson, redolent
of the hard life of the frontier.
Hence, the military ban on them
was lifted in 1858 during the
Crimean War, when aristocratic
amateurism was being criticised
for military failures. Wilson
handles such cultural trends so
well that it is a pity there are not
more of them in his book. There
should also be more consideration of religion as a motivator
of entrepreneurs in an age when
faith and technology still went
hand in hand for millions.
Heyday is part of a fashionable
genre that re-assesses the impact
of British power, the best known
of which is Niall Fergusons
Empire: How Britain Made the
Modern World. The strength of
this magnificent book is Wilsons
awareness of modernitys close
connection with barbarism. To
acknowledge that progress came
at a high price for most people
is not to belittle British achievements; it merely puts them into
a proper historical perspective.
As William Gladstone once
remarked: The English piously
believe themselves to be a peaceful people; nobody else is of the
same opinion.
Richard Weight
Heyday: Britain and the Birth of the
Modern World by Ben Wilson
Weidenfeld & Nicolson 462pp 25
All Behind You,

Winston
Churchills Great Coalition

1940-45
Roger Hermiston
Aurum Press 406pp 20
CHURCHILLS wartime coalition

was the seedbed of postwar
Britain. At home, the lesson it
taught or appeared to was
that state intervention worked.
Governments could run great
industries, eliminate mass unemployment and guarantee social
security for all. By the end of the
war there was common ground
between the parties on all this,
despite their competing philosophies. Hence, in large measure,
Britain was governed alone these
lines until the 1970s, when the
The most broadly

based government
inBritish history
anda ministry of
all the talents
postwar settlement began to fall
apart. History, writes Hermiston in the concluding sentence
of All Behind You, Winston, must
surely credit that administration
not only for winning the war,
but also with beginning the vital
work of framing the future social
and political structure of Britain.
What was the secret of
success? Hermistons title supplies the key. The government
that Churchill formed in May
1940 was the most broadly based
in British history and a ministry
of all the talents. It was founded,
uniquely, upon an alliance

between the Conservative and
Labour parties. The Liberals
had just a handful of posts but
wielded power indirectly through
two great public servants, John
Maynard Keynes and William
Beveridge. Some of the leading
figures, such as Lord Woolton
and John Anderson, were
independents detached from
party. Churchill introduced his
own kitchen cabinet consisting
of Brendan Bracken and Lord
Beaverbrook, both Tory mavericks, and his scientific adviser,
Professor Lindemann.
Hermistons story will be
familiar in outline, but he takes
a firm grip on it, writes well and
refreshes the narrative with a
substantial helping of original
research. The result is an accessible political history, enlivened by
shrewd, vivid portraits of an extensive cast of characters, though
the Chancellor of the Exchequer,
Kingsley Wood, eludes him and
remains the greyest of eminences. On the other hand, he rescues
from oblivion the two women
who served in the Coalition, the
socialist Ellen Wilkinson and the
Tory Florence Horsbrugh. Both
proved capable organisers in the
Blitz, though neither rose above
junior office in that overwhelmingly masculine world. Hermiston is excellent on the Labour
contingent of Clement Attlee,
Ernest Bevin, Herbert Morrison
and Hugh Dalton, while showing
how wrong it would be to claim
that they dominated the home
front. The most powerful figure
in domestic affairs was Anderson,
Lord President and supreme
co-ordinator of the war economy;
most popular was the Minister of
Food, Woolton, a superb communicator, trusted by the public to
deliver fair shares for all.
Notwithstanding the various
intrigues, rivalries and feuds,
Hermiston confirms the truth of
the words Churchill addressed in
May 1945 to a farewell gathering
of ministers who had served in
the coalition. History, he told
them, would recognise their
achievement: the light will shine
on every helmet.
Paul Addison
REVIEWS
Heroic Failure
and the British
by Stephanie Barczewski
Yale University Press 267pp 20
STEPHANIE BARCZEWSKI ponders
the paradox that, in history, it
seems that the worse a failure is,
the more the British like it.
Major-General Wolfe and
Vice-Admiral Nelson died in
victory and this was applauded, but it was sacrifice for no
point at all that was adored. An
ill-equipped and fatal trudge

through pack ice, or a venture
into mosquito-infested jungle
on a blind quest was the route
to a statue erected by public
subscription. In the explorations
for the Northwest Passage or
the source of the Nile, what was
respected was not accomplishment, but rather the amount of
suffering that an explorer was
deemed to have endured, we are
told. Character mattered more
than achievement to the British.
Barczewski offers an entertaining re-telling of such
martial failures as the Charge
of the Light Brigade, but also
of its more lethal predecessor
at Chillianwallah in Punjab in
1849. Largely forgotten tales are
welcome, such as the almost
comic confection of victory from
disaster out of the debacle of
the Battle of New Orleans (1815),
which was presented as an
achievement by the elevation of
two dead heroes. Their memorials are in St Pauls Cathedral.
It is a clue to the meaning of
these events that no celebrated

examples of heroic failure occurred in a war that the British
lost and those involving exploration took place in contexts such
as the Arctic, the Antarctic and
interior of Africa that were not
vital to the nations strategic
interests. The Empire always
triumphed in the end.
Barczewski believes Britain
invented heroic failure to make
the evils of empire-building palatable: By presenting alternative visions of empire via heroic
failure, they maintained the
pretence that the British Empire
was about things other than
power, force and domination.
This argument is not well
made. Heroic Failure is short
on contemporary examples
of people expressing horror
over the excesses of Empire.
That is unsurprising: at a time
of brutality and hardship for
most Britons, the suffering of
natives who had resisted the
Onward March of Civilisation
did not count for much. It is also
notable that natives inflicted

major defeats on British forces
in Sudan, Afghanistan and
South Africa, before the British
triumphed with superior technology. These were efficient
warriors, not harmless villagers
who raced at Maxim guns
with pointed sticks. Wars were
brutal and there was no national hand-wringing over victories
achieved abroad.
This is an entertaining
and well-written book, but
nowhere does Barczewski
discuss the literary concept of
tragic waste and the religious
concept of triumph in death.
These were most notably contributed to the national psyche
by Shakespeare and Jesus
respectively, neither of whom
are mentioned. The emotional
tones of the loss of promise
and the belief that death can
be conquered play through
Victorian narratives of heroic
failure, but here they are not
emphasised.
Jad Adams
REVIEWS
MEDIEVAL HISTORY
Englands
Most Elusive
Monarch?
Chris Given-Wilson tackles
the first Lancastrian
Plantagenet king, who was
an enigma even to his
contemporaries and yet,
against the odds, established
his dynasty and restored
political stability to England.
HENRY IV (r.1399-1413) was

an enigma to his contemporaries and remains so to us today.
Greatly admired in his youth and
greeted with acclamation on his
accession, his reign disappointed.
From neither of the two plays
which Shakespeare wrote about
him does a clear picture of the
kings character emerge. How
are we to interpret this elusive
monarch?
In this magnificent new
study, Chris Given-Wilson gives
us an account of Henry IVs life
rooted in the fullest possible
trawl through the sources.
Writing fluently and with verve,
he takes us from Henrys gilded
youth in the 1390s as heir to the
Duchy of Lancaster, through his
seizure of the throne from his
cousin, Richard II, to his difficult
early years as a usurper king,
his eventual triumph over the
Percy family and, finally, to his
decline and premature death in
1413. The view that Given-Wilson takes of the king is broadly
favourable. While admitting that
Henry made mistakes in his early
years on the throne, notably in
conceding too much power to
the Percy family and in executing Archbishop Scrope of York,
he argues that his rule became

increasingly effective from 1405,
once he had militarised the
royal household, elevated the
royal family as an instrument
of rule and built up a successful
relationship with the nobility.
His misfortune was to fall ill at
precisely the moment when he
appeared to have won a measure
of security and acceptance. Yet
the fact that his withdrawal
From neither of
of the two plays
Shakespeare wrote
about Henry IV does
a clear picture of
the kings character
emerge. How are we
to interprete this
elusive monarch?
from government after 1409 did
not result in the chaos to which
a similar royal collapse led in
France may, as Given-Wilson
argues, be a tribute to his rule:
Henry inspired loyalty and in the
wider Lancastrian clan there was
a willingness to put the preser-
vation of royal authority above

personal interest and ambition.
Given-Wilson develops these and
other themes in a book that is as
richly layered as it is wide-ranging. Every aspect of Henrys
kingship is considered, from war,
finance and shipbuilding through
to the affairs of Wales, Ireland
and Aquitaine: nothing is left
out. In contrast to most other
writers on the king, Given-Wilson devotes as much attention
to Henrys later and less eventful
years as to his earlier, more action-packed ones. He also offers
a comprehensive discussion of
the kings apprenticeship under
Richard II, shedding much new
light on his relations with the
monarch whom in 1399 he was
to supplant.
The inevitable price that
Given-Wilson pays for the depth
and detail of his coverage is a loss
of focus on the king himself. His
book comes across less as a royal
biography than a study of the politics of the age. This is a weakness
that it has in common with many
of the more recent volumes in
the Yale English Monarchs
series, of which it forms a part.
It is almost as if todays authors,
daunted by the sheer quantity
of research which they have to

take into account, find themselves incapable of producing
a sharply focused study. In the
case of a medieval king, the fact
that he ruled as well as reigned
makes it all the more difficult for
the author to be selective: the
whole of decision making has
to be covered and there can be
no artificial separation between
kingship and government. Yet
the king could not be the originator of every action taken in
his name. So the difficult matter
of agency arises, of establishing
which decisions the king made
himself and which were made
on his behalf by ministers. Even
when the source of authorisation is given in an order, it is not
always easy to tell.
Given-Wilson will surely be
aware of these issues and to raise
them is not so much to criticise
his book as to point up some of
the difficulties which the author
of a medieval royal biography
has to face. Chris Given-Wilson
has produced a full and con-
Every aspect of
Henrys kingship
is considered, from
war, finance and
shipbuilding through
to the affairs of
Wales, Ireland
and Aquitaine,
nothing is left out ...
Chris Given-Wilson
has produced a
full and convincing
picture of his king
vincing picture of his king. In a
masterly conclusion, he shows
how Henry grappled with almost
overwhelming odds to establish
his dynasty and restore political
stability to England. That his son
Henry V should have succeeded him without challenge is a
tribute to his success.
Nigel Saul
Henry IV by Chris Given-Wilson
Yale University Press 590pp 30
REVIEWS
EARLY MEDIEVAL
The West
After the
Romans Left
A collection of brilliant essays
from scholars across a variety
of disciplines shines a bright
light across a great expanse
of time.
WHEN THE structures of state

collapse, how are the rhythms
of life to be governed? Syria
provides one answer, where the
current bloodbath continues
to betray the eddies of shifting alliances and a variety of
sectarian and ethnic groupings
compete murderously to endow
themselves with a sustainable
legitimacy. Journalists often use
Medieval to describe the horrors
unfolding in the country to
the frustration of medievalists,
who naturally resent its use as a
synonym for savage. Nevertheless, the spectacle of civilians
fleeing militias, of churches
being desecrated and of warlords
claiming for themselves the
approval of the heavens may well
serve to concentrate the mind
of the historian who, reading of
such things in an early medieval
chronicle, is tempted to analyse
them merely as tropes.
The agony of Syria, although
not mentioned in any of the
essays in this valuable and
stimulating collection, cannot
help but provide a grim context
for their subject matter. Does it
make sense to think of seemingly
interminable cycles of conflict,
whether in early medieval
Europe or in the contemporary

Middle East, as mere anarchy,
or in reality is violence self-regulating and self-limiting? Max
Gluckman, an anthropologist
writing 60 years ago on African
tribal warfare, argued that it
was the latter: an insight that
When the structures

of state collapse ...
[are] interminable
cycles of conflict ...
mere anarchy, or in
reality is violence
self-regulating and
self-limiting?
Michael Wallace-Hadrill then
applied to the feud-ravaged age
of the Merovingians. Making
Early Medieval Societies takes
its cue from this interaction
and Stephen White provides a
vigorously polemical insistence
that Gluckmans model still has
relevance to the medievalist.
Conrad Leyser is more guardedly sceptical; indeed, the issue
serves the collection as a whole
rather as a McGuffin. Most of the
essays step aside from debating

what historians might learn
from anthropology and instead
focus on topics that owe little to
Gluckman. The focus is less on
how conflict came to buttress
social stability than on how an
institution ostensibly without
armed force the Church succeeded in negotiating violence in
the post-Roman world and embedded itself within it so deeply.
The aim was not to end conflict
but to constrain the terms on
which it could be carried out. In a
fallen world, this was the best for
which even the most self-denying Christian could hope.
Essays range from the execution for sorcery of Priscillian to
the evolution of attitudes in the
early medieval period to divorce
and from Bedes Northumbria to
post-Byzantine Italy, exploring
the same essential theme: the
capacity of Christian ideology to
temper and regulate extremes
of violence. That early medieval
bishops tended to serve their
own interests and that of the
institution to which they belonged goes without saying; but
their achievement, in the face of
such convulsive circumstances,
and with the background rumble
of Syria in my ears, is one that I

cannot help but find impressive.
In acknowledging the price
that was paid for the large
community that the clerks of
the 12th century established,
which we call Europe, we need
not follow Oscar Wildes cynic by
denying its value. So writes
R.I. Moore, who has done so
much to explicate what was distinctive indeed, revolutionary
about Latin Christendom. His
essay, a survey of how ideological
mutations from the 10th to the
12th century influenced and were
influenced by social transformations, serves the collection as
one of two superb chronological
bookends. The other, Kate Coopers study of how Christianity,
in the wake of Constantines conversion, changed Roman society,
and was itself transformed, is
similarly panoramic and concise.
Conrad Leysers brilliant
analysis of how the image of
Gregory the Great was constructed and exploited in the centuries
after his death, amply bridges the
gap. His portrait of Gregory as
a Roman aristocrat living in the
shadow of what he believed to be
the imminent end of the world,
is powerfully sketched and provides bravura pieces of writing:
Storms came out of the blue in
summer; a sinners corpse burst
from its resting place, summoned
as it were early to Judgement.
Moments like this, and the skill
with which Leyser traces the subsequent fashioning of Gregory
into a figure who could serve as
Latin Christendoms founding
father, suggest the degree to
which the true patron saint of
Making Early Medieval Societies
is not Max Gluckman but Peter
Brown. The result is something
unusual in a collection of scholarly essays: a spotlight that falls,
not just on isolated moments,
still less on turf wars between
rival academic disciplines, but
sweepingly and revealingly over a
great expanse of time.
Tom Holland
Making Early Medieval Societies:
Conflict and Belonging in the Latin
West, 300-1200 eds. Kate Cooper
and Conrad Leyser
Cambridge UP 296pp 64.99
REVIEWS
Postcard from...
Palmyra
Have the heinous crimes
committed at Palmyra
ushered in a greater
awareness worldwide
of the value of heritage
and history?
All men dream: but not equally, Those who
dream by night in the dusty recesses of their
minds wake in the day to find that it was
vanity: but the dreamers of the day are
dangerous men, for they may act their
dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.
T.E. Lawrence
THE WORLD is watching Palmyra. A
witness to more than 2,000 years of
history, this ancient settlement in the
Tadmorean desert is both a cradle of myth
and a place of acute reality.
Before its occupation by ISIS in May
2015, though familiar to scholars of history
and enthusiasts of travel, the Roman pillars
of Palmyra were not generally well known.
Just a year later, the site has become a
powerful symbol of what could become the
most significant uplift in public awareness
of the human value of cultural heritage for
two generations.
A caravan city, Palmyra was built on

the site of the Efqa spring, a natural water
source roughly halfway between the River
Euphrates and the eastern shores of the
Mediterranean, in what is now Syria.
Its advantageous position on the main
trade causeway between East and West
meant that Palmyra prospered in the
second and third centuries ad. The city
profited as an in-between place where
Romans could purchase the exotic spices
and fabrics of Parthia and Parthians could
acquire the manufactured contrivances of
Rome without either empire feeling they
had conceded anything to the other.
At the time of its foundation, Palmyra
was primarily a city of Amorite customs and
religion. These became infused with Hellenic and Arabic influences as a result of its
growing multi-ethnic population. Indeed,
perhaps more than any other archaeological site of its kind, the fabric of Palmyra
reads as a history of the shared beginnings
and early fusion of eastern and western
cultures, styles, religions and languages.
The citys largest temple, the Temple of
Baal, was inaugurated in celebration of
a Babylonian festival, at a time when we
know that the resident population was
mainly Arabian and that Syrian deities were
also worshipped. In the late Roman period,
after a brief phase of self-rule under Queen
Zenobia, Palmyras official religion became
Christianity and the temple of Baal was
decorated with frescoes. Jump forward just
a little further, to 624, and Palmyra is an
Islamic city: the temple of Baal, a mosque.
Against the background of this extraordinary multicultural narrative, the story

of Palmyras recent occupation by ISIS is
simultaneously one of human tragedy and
triumph. The site was seized and desecrated as part of the groups campaign of
cultural censorship, but far from achieving
this end, their actions have catalysed the
emergence of a powerful and highly visible
public movement in exactly the opposite
direction.
The crimes committed in Palmyra in the
Summer of 2015 have not only inspired the
compassion of the international community, but have ushered in an era of unprecedented cultural awareness; one in which
the status of a persons or peoples ability
to remain connected with their history and
heritage is becoming widely recognised as
a basic human right. The world has been
reminded that culture is something that
is not just found in the pages of books or
the display cases of museums, but resides,
fundamentally, in the hearts and minds of
people. And not just some people, but every
single human being.
The role of technology in the development of this heightened awareness has
been, and continues to be, a key one. Digital
techniques have not only shone a spotlight
on the story of Palmyra, but have been
The role of technology has

been a key one ... Digital
techniques have been
powerfully harnessed
as a response to attempts
at cultural cleansing
across the world
powerfully harnessed as a response to
attempts at cultural cleansing across the
world. This response comes both in the
form of visualisation tools, which make
heritage material and environments at
least to some extent accessible to anyone
with an Internet connection, and the
development of techniques to aid the
reconstruction or restoration of damaged or
destroyed objects.
Technology is able to empower individuals and communities with the ability to
keep their history alive, even when separated by force from the physical objects and
environments that embody it; with its help,
they act on their dreams with open eyes.
Alexy Karenowska
REVIEWS
THE MIDDLE EAST
A Complex
Essence of
Being
Lisa Cooper endeavours to
capture the essence of the
complicated and indomitable
Gertrude Bell and assesses
the lasting value of her
scholarship as an expert of
Middle Eastern antiquity.
THE FEMALE Lawrence of

Arabia, the woman who made
Iraq, the uncrowned queen of
the desert: there have been
many attempts to encapsulate
the complex essence of Gertrude
Lowthian Bell since her death
in 1926 in Baghdad. Born to a
wealthy industrial family, Bell
transformed herself from an
under-employed globetrotter
into a renowned expert on
Middle Eastern antiquity.
During the Great War, she
was plucked from Red Cross
work in France to help develop
the conquered Ottoman territory
of Mesopotamia into the Britishmandated monarchy of Iraq. Her
role in king-making done, she
then managed the countrys archaeology and heritage. Bell died
of an overdose of sleeping pills at
57, shortly after the opening of
her Iraq Museum.
Bell was an inveterate
self-documenter, a life-long
diarist, correspondent and
photographer and the author of
several books, articles and official
reports. Her digitised private
archive is now at Newcastle
University. Biographies abound,
including Georgina Howells
Gertrude Bell: Queen of the Desert
(2006), which is strong on Bells

background and youth, though
less comprehending of her later
years; and Liora Lukitzs more
dispassionate A Quest in the
Middle East: Gertrude Bell and the
Making of Modern Iraq (2008).
At Newcastle, Mark Jackson
and Andrew Parkin have edited
an excellent introduction to her
Bell comes out of

this study as a
serious fieldworker
... focused primarily
on reconstructing
the ground plans of
ruined buildings
life, The Extraordinary Gertrude
Bell (2015). There is also a powerful documentary, Letters from
Baghdad, featuring previously
unseen film and photography,
and Werner Herzogs bodice-ripper movie, Queen of the Desert.
Lisa Coopers monograph is
the first to take Bells academic side seriously. It does not
pretend to be a biography, or
even a comprehensive survey
of her fieldwork in Anatolia,
Syria and Mesopotamia over the

period 190514. Rather, Cooper
reconstructs two trips Bell took
on horseback in 1909 and 1911,
down the Euphrates from Aleppo
to Baghdad and back up the Tigris
to Diyarbakir in Turkey, accompanied by her trusted Armenian
guide Fattuh and a small group of
porters and guards.
In the course of these journeys, Bell documented, planned
and photographed the remains
of many hundreds of ancient
and medieval structures, from
Hittite, Babylonian and Assyrian archaeological sites to the
minarets, mosques and palaces of
early Islam. A few weeks into the
first expedition her party came
across Ukhaidir, an extremely
well-preserved castle in the Iraqi
desert, seemingly never before
studied. Bell systematically
recorded it and then spent two
years collecting comparative
evidence, in Rome and back in
Mesopotamia, in order to date
it and understand its historical
significance. She wrote up her
findings in the intriguingly titled
Amurath to Amurath (1911), while
the second trip produced the
academically ambitious Palace
and Mosque of Ukhaidir: A Study
in Early Mohammedan Architecture (1914). Meanwhile, Bell was

beaten to publication by German
colleagues whom she had considered friends and magnanimously
swallowed what must have been
a bitter disappointment.
Cooper also assesses the
lasting value of Bells work, in
relation to later scholarship and
to the current state of the sites
and buildings she visited. Many
have continued to deteriorate
through natural exposure and
decay. Others have fallen victim
to modern development and
still others, more recently, to
deliberate destruction by ISIS.
Thus, even if many details of her
interpretations have been superseded, Bells systematic and crisp
photographic documentation
has increased in value over the
years. Sadly the paper quality and
(otherwise comfortable) physical
size of the book do not do justice
to the multitude of Bells photographs, especially those more
panoramic in scale.
Bell comes out of this study
as a serious fieldworker, more
architectural historian than archaeologist, focused primarily on
reconstructing the ground plans
of ruined buildings in order to tell
a long-term story of architectural
development in the Middle East,
from earliest antiquity into the
late first millennium ad. She
was, Cooper shows, largely taken
seriously by professional male
colleagues, despite her womanhood and auto-didacticism.
At least in the period to 1911,
Bells all-consuming intellectual
interests were definitively not, as
is commonly assumed, merely a
front for intelligence gathering.
Coopers book opens a new
chapter in the study of Bell but
by no means closes it. Bells
ambiguous imperial legacy is
still felt in Baghdad today, where
the Iraq Museum in a post-Bell
1960s building stands full of
glorious finds that Bell and her
successors curated, but largely
empty of visitors.
Eleanor Robson
In Search of Kings and Conquerors:
Gertrude Bell and the Archaeology of
the Middle East by Lisa Cooper
I.B. Tauris 314pp 20
REVIEWS
Sounds and
Sweet Airs
The Forgotten Women

of Classical Music
by Anna Beer
Oneworld 368pp 14.99
THIS IS A BOOK many music
lovers will want to read: a
collection of eight essays each
containing an outline of the life
and work of a female composer,
whose music, says Anna Beer,
should be better known. From
Francesca Caccini, born in late-
Renaissance Florence, and her

younger contemporary, the
Venetian Barbara Strozzi, Beer
moves on to the court of Louis
XIV (lisabeth Jacquet de la
Guerre), 18th-century Vienna
(Marianna von Martines),
19th-century Germany (Fanny
Hensel and Clara Schumann),
early-20th-century France (Lili
Boulanger) and the Anglo-Irish
composer Elizabeth Maconchy,
who died in 1994. All were
talented, courageous women,
whose work was undertaken
at times and places in which, to
varying degrees, musical composition was held to be an activity
better suited to men: people like
Caccinis father Giulio, or Fanny
Hensels brother, Felix Mendelssohn, and Clara Schumanns
husband, Robert. Women might
be admired and accepted as
performers Caccini and Strozzi
were first-rate singers and Clara
Schumann one of the leading
pianists of her day but perhaps
less so in the composition of
great symphonies and operas.
In Sounds and Sweet Airs, Beer

is on a mission to celebrate her
unjustifiably forgotten women.
This is her recurrent theme and
her eight composers provide the
variations.
It is hard not to applaud
Beers motivation in embarking
upon such a task. The book is
aimed at a general readership
and Beer includes suggestions
for further reading and of works
to listen to, a glossary of musical
terms and a list of books and articles she has consulted. At times
her argument might have come
across all the more persuasively
had she harnessed and applied
her historical research with
greater rigour. For example, she
might have drawn the eight case
studies together more coherently had she painted in greater
detail the broad historical
narrative linking them: not just
the changes in sexual mores and
attitudes towards women over
the centuries, but the erosion
of ecclesiastical authority and
the emergence of public opera
and the commercial concert, the

growing international importance of music publishing and,
in due course, of copyright law
or the changing social profile
(and expectations) of audiences
at musical events. Also, was
a new opera by Jacquet de la
Guerre really the talk of Paris in
1694? Here, as throughout, Beer
tends to report what a correspondent, a music historian
or a contemporary had to say
while only rarely identifying her
sources. At times, she verges
towards political rhetoric, repeating a challenging phrase (Is
it any surprise that ) or peppering her prose with exhortations to the reader (Never forget
that ), while her penchant
for the historic present can jar
(Felix, when told, screams, falls
to the floor, faints and ruptures
a cranial vessel). But dont be
put off; Sounds and Sweet Airs
remains an engaging read and
the book contains a powerful
and timely message.
Daniel Snowman
REVIEWS
ALBANIA
Albanias
Executioner
Unmasked
Albanias best-known
political journalist makes a
bold attempt to examine
the life, crimes and legacy
of Albanias postwar dictator,
Enver Hoxha.
FEW LEADERS have published

as much and eliminated more
people than Enver Hoxha, Albanias dictator from 1944 to 1985.
Hoxha published on a Churchillian scale: 7,000 pages in 13
volumes of memoirs. Simultaneously, during his rule, of Albanias population of two million,
5,037 men and 450 women
were executed; 16,788 men and
7,367 women were convicted and
sentenced to imprisonment; over
70,000 people were interned in
the countrys 39 prisons and 70
camps. Further, Hoxhas legacy
was a country which, by a long
margin, was Europes poorest.
Given these statistics, it is
odd that no-one has written a
modern as opposed to a hagiographic biography of Hoxha. Now,
Blendi Fevziu, Albanias bestknown political journalist, has
made a bold attempt to examine
this monster. Besides mining
the many memoirs written by
Hoxhas colleagues and associates, Fevziu makes use of
interviews with survivors of the
camps as well as the reorganised
state archives. From Fevzius
21st-century viewpoint, the
horrors of Hoxhas dictatorship
at times sound like the medieval
inquisition, not the quotidian

nightmare of a few decades ago
for those who survived.
Hoxha was the son of an
imam and spent five years studying in France. He failed his examinations and returned to Albania
under Italian wartime occupation. He drifted into ownership
of a tobacco shop in Tirana, just
as the Yugoslav communist party,
with Soviet support, introduced
communism to Albania. Hoxha
was anonymous in the birth of
Albanias own party, but in the
As party Secretary,
Hoxha removed
almost all key
founding party
members, as well
as ... dissenters and
opposition leaders
face of factions being formed
by older partisan communists,
the Yugoslav mid-wife Miladin
Popovi advanced the debonair
Hoxha as a compromise at the
partys conference of 1943.
Within a year, with the
German forces abandoning
Albania, Hoxhas rivals challenged him. Hoxha, in his

self-criticism at the party conference, accepted some charges and
delayed further discussion until
he had assumed the prime ministership in Tirana a few days later.
This manoeuvre left him time
to begin purging the party. Forgotten by the Allies at the Yalta
conference, Albanias destiny was
left to the Communist Party. An
unstated assumption was that
Albania might become part of the
Yugoslav confederation, which
Hoxha flirted with but then
rejected in 1948.
As party Secretary, Hoxha
removed almost all key founding party members as well as
childhood companions, dissenters and opposition leaders. This
culminated in the elimination
of General Mehmet Shehu,
his wartime comrade-in-arms
and his prime minister from
1952, who committed suicide
in 1981 after permitting his son
to become engaged to a woman
from a dissidents family. The
cruel treatment of Shehus
family, Hoxhas neighbours
for most of his dictatorship, is
breathtaking. Fezviu describes
a leader who was focused upon
vengeance, severing relations

with his wartime supporters,
the British, and forming serial
partnerships with Yugoslavia,
the Soviet Union and China.
Hoxha had a quixotic attitude
to celebrity. One episode in
this macabre story involves the
novelist, Ismael Kadare, who
somehow managed to avoid
elimination and to live between
Paris and Tirana. The two met in
1971 and Hoxha was seduced by
the idea of being a character in
one of Kadares novels. Kadare
dutifully featured Hoxha in his
The Winter of Great Solitude, but
the novel was panned in Albania.
Improbably, Hoxha defended
Kadare and encouraged him to
re-work it. This he did, of course,
and the novel was re-titled The
Great Winter.
By the time of his death in
1985, Albania allegedly a paradise on earth was isolated and
ruled by terror. We learn little in
this biography about how Hoxha
imitated his role model, Josef
Stalin, in implementing five-year
plans to create the countrys industrial and agricultural sectors.
More significantly, Fevziu emphasises the importance of Yugoslavian agency on the creation
of Hoxha as leader. He tacitly
pursues the nationalist model
championed by Hoxha himself in
his books. Albania, following this
thesis, had suffered countless
invasions and resisted outsiders
throughout its history, but in
the end shaped its own destiny.
Would any of Hoxhas rivals in
wartime Albania with or without
outside support have been more
successful in developing this impoverished country? Would any
of his rivals been less repressive
as leaders? These questions are
left unasked. Hoxhas ultimate
achievement was his political
gift to survive, holding together
the disparate parts of a country
forged only in 1912, a pitiless
story which has left deep scars
very evident in Albania today.
Richard Hodges
Enver Hoxha: The Iron Fist of Albania
by Blendi Fevziu (trans. Majlinda
Nisku, edited & introduced by
Robert Elsie)
I.B.Tauris 312pp 25
REVIEWS
COLD WAR HISTORY
While the World

Held its Breath
Jonathan Colman has produced a fine, accessible
addition to the many studies of the moment
when the United States and the Soviet Union
came closest to nuclear war.
A REFLECTION of its status as
the most dangerous superpower
confrontation of the nuclear
era, the Cuban missile crisis of
October 1962 stands out as one
of the most studied episodes
of cold war history. Nevertheless, Jonathan Colmans study
is a welcome addition to the
literature. It offers an excellent
introduction to anyone unfamiliar with the crisis, helped by
useful appendices, biographies of
key people, chronology and a selection of key documents. It will
also benefit those familiar with
the crisis through up-to-date
engagement with still emergent
scholarship on the origins and
course of the crisis and a most insightful analysis of its aftermath.
Following recent orthodoxy,
Colman demonstrates how
the Kennedy administrations
covert initiatives to undermine
the Castro regime following the
disastrous US-backed Bay of Pigs
invasion of April 1961 influenced
Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchevs decision to place nuclear
missiles in Cuba as a defensive

measure to protect a socialist ally.
He also confirms that Kennedy
and Khrushchev were utterly
determined to prevent the crisis
escalating into nuclear war,
which both knew would have
unimaginable consequences for
all mankind. Lacking the same
sense of horror, Castro several
times urged the Soviets to launch
a pre-emptive nuclear strike
on the US, a stand that ensured
Khrushchevs decision not to
consult him as the crisis played
out. So if both principals were
committed to maintaining peace,
why did the crisis pose such a
threat of horrific escalation?
The answer, as both leaders well
knew, lay in the danger of how a
local commander might react in
the event of mistaken belief of
being under submarine or aircraft
attack.
Colman skilfully shows how
Moscow and Washington eventually inched towards a settlement;
all without full consultation of
key allies in the Warsaw Pact and
NATO. Each side would claim

strategic victory; the Americans
had got the Soviets to withdraw
their nuclear weapons, the
Soviets had secured Kennedys
pledge not to invade Cuba and to
remove the aging Jupiter missiles
in Turkey and Italy some six
months later as a trade-off for
their removal of missiles from
Cuba (something the White
House repeatedly denied being
a quid pro quo). In political
terms, however, Kennedy gained
more than Khrushchev: if not
removed, the presence of Soviet
missiles in Cuba would have undermined US credibility among
allies and adversaries and harmed
the presidents re-election prospects; in contrast, top Communist Party functionaries sense of
the Soviet Union having made
a climb-down was instrumental
in Khrushchevs dismissal from
office in October 1964.
In many ways the most
interesting part of the analysis is
Colmans assessment of the very
far-ranging consequences of the
Cuban missile crisis. Although
its peaceful resolution paved the
way for a limited dtente, the
Soviets engaged in a crash programme of nuclear development
to deal with the US in future
from a position of strength. What
Mao Zedong condemned as a
Kremlin capitulation discredited
the idea of peaceful coexistence
in parts of the communist world,
helped to widen the emergent
Sino-Soviet split and encouraged
North Vietnam to escalate its
efforts in the South. US policymakers, meanwhile, concluded
from the crisis that communists
did not escalate in response to
their actions, a misconception
that influenced their strategy in
Americanising the Vietnam war
in 1965.
All told, therefore, Colman
has produced a fine study that
deserves to be read by anyone
interested in the Cuban missile
crisis and its global, rather than
solely superpower, dimensions.
Iwan Morgan
CONTRIBUTORS
Paul Addison is the author of
several books on Churchill and
on postwar Britain, including
Churchill: The Unexpected Hero
(Oxford, 2005).
Jad Adams most recent book,
Women and the Vote: A World
History, has just been released
as a paperback by Oxford
University Press.
Richard Hodges is President
of the American University of
Rome and author of several
books on the archaeology of
Albania.
Tom Hollands latest book,
Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the
House of Caesar (Little, Brown,
2015), has just come out in
paperback.
Alexy Karenowska is a
Research Fellow in the
Department of Physics at the
University of Oxford and Head
of Technology at the Institute
for Digital Archaeology, Oxford.
Iwan Morgan is Professor
of United States Studies at
the Institute of the Americas,
University College London.
Eleanor Robson is Professor of
Ancient Middle Eastern History
at University College London
and the Chair of Council, British
Institute for the Study of Iraq.
Nigel Saul is Professor of
History at Royal Holloway,
Richard Weight is a historian
of modern Britain and the
author of Mod: From Bebop to
Britpop, Britains Biggest Youth
Movement (Random House,
2015).
Daniel Snowman is a Senior
Research Fellow at the
Institute of Historical Research,
The Cuban Missile Crisis: Origins,

Course, and Aftermath
by Jonathan Colman
Edinburgh University Press 304pp 24.99
PASTIMES
GR A ND TOUR
H I S T OR IC A L ODDI T I E S F ROM A ROU N D T H E WOR L D
The Great Pyramid

of Cholula
The worlds largest pyramid is not in Egypt, but is hidden

beneath a hill in a small town in the central Mexican
state of Puebla. Known variously as the Great Pyramid
of Cholula, Pirmide Tepanapa, or, in the indigenous
Nahuatl language, Tlachihualtepetl, or artificial
mountain, the structure measures 400 square metres
and has a total volume of 4.45 million cubic metres,
almost twice that of the Great Pyramid of Giza. It was
first constructed around 200 bc and expanded or rebuilt
several times over the following centuries by different
cultures, including the Olmecs, Toltecs and

Aztecs. According to Aztec mythology, it was built
by Xelhua, a giant whose daring edifice so upset
the gods that they hurled fire on it.
At its height over 100,000 people lived around
the pyramid, although by the time the Spanish
arrived in 1520 it had become covered by dirt
and was hidden from view, with newer temples
constructed on its outskirts. Hernn Corts and
his men slaughtered many of the Cholulans,
probably to scare the inhabitants of the nearby
Aztec capital Tenochtitlan into submission,
but, to judge by the church they built on top
(still standing today), the Spanish were clearly
unaware of the hills true nature. The pyramid was
re-discovered in the late 19th century and since
then archaeologists have begun to excavate the
network of tunnels that run through its base.
Dean Nicholas
WHERE:
WHEN:
Puebla, Mexico
200 bc
Prize Crossword
The winner of this

months prize
crossword will receive
a selection of recent
history books
Entries to: Crossword, History Today, 2nd Floor, 9 Staple Inn, London
WC1V 7QH by August 31st or www.historytoday.com/crossword
The Quiz
mission on May 10th, 1941?

14 According to legend, of which
material is the Throne Chair of
Denmark made?
1 How many Catholics were killed

in the Defenestration of Prague?
2 Getafix is a fictional example of
which Celtic religious caste?
15 La Cucaracha Cariosa (The

Affectionate Cockroach) was the
first vehicle to cross what in 1960?
3 The sobriquet of King Harald

Bltand Gormsson gives its name
to which technological innovation?
4 Which two capital cities in the
Americas were founded by
indigenous peoples?
Territory of Freedomland in 1956?
Jesus crucifixion?
8 Which people, according to

Marco Polo, subsist entirely upon
flesh and milk?
11 David the Builder was the

architect of which countrys
Golden Age?
6 Published in 1572, The Lusiads is a

Homeric epic describing what?
9 According to Otto von Bismarck,

which two things would decide the
questions of the day?
12 With which profession did

Samuel Uncle Sam Wilson make
his name?
7 What did the Filipino adventurer

Toms Cloma, Sr claim as The Free
10 In the Anglo-Saxon poem The

Dream of the Rood, who narrates
13 To where did Deputy Fhrer

Rudolph Hess fly on a solo peace
5 Akira Kurosawas 1985 film Ran

relocates which Shakespeare play
to Sengoku-era Japan?
ANSWERS
DOWN
1 Lord George ___ (1751-93),
instigator of anti-Catholic riots in

1780 (6)
2 Ratko ___ (b.1942), commander
of the Bosnian Serb army during the
Bosnian wars of 1992-95 (6)
3 Apu-punchau, Inca Sun God (4)
4 Susan ___ (1933-2004), New Yorkborn writer and thinker (6)
5 Manuel ___ (1770-1820), military
leader in the Argentine war for
independence (8)
6 Norwegian football club, founded
1917 (10)
7 Arvo Prt (b.1935) or Lennart Meri
(1929-2006), for example (8)
8 Fra ___ (d.1455), Renaissance
painter born Guido di Petro (8)
14 Dame Margaret ___ (1892-1972),
English actor (10)
16 Game originating in 19th-century
China, played with tiles (3-5)
17 Knight of the Round Table (8)
18 Palace of ___, ancient seat of the
presidency of the Andalusian
Autonomous Government (3,5)
22 A member of a patrilinear clan
historically dominant in central and
northern India (6)
23 In Greek myth, the mother of
Minos (6)
24 Sir Ernest ___ (1880-1966),
author of Plain Words: a Guide to the
Use of English (1948) (6)
27 Margaret ___ (1901-78),
American anthropologist (4)
1. None
2. Druids
3. Bluetooth
4. Mexico City (Mexico) and Quito
(Ecuador)
5. King Lear
6. The Portuguese voyages of discovery
7. The Spratly Islands
8. The Mongols
9. Iron and blood
10. The cross on which Jesus was crucified
11. Georgia
12. Meat packing
13. Scotland he was arrested on arrival
14. Unicorn horns
15. The Darin Gap
ACROSS
9 1928 novel by Virginia Woolf (7)
10 Birger ___ (1875-1958), commander of Oscarsborg Fortress (7)
11 Follower of a radical 20th-century
visual art movement (7)
12 Patrick ___ (1829-92),
Irish-American bandleader, who
wrote the lyrics for When Johnny
Comes Marching Home (7)
13 Country ruled by the Somoza
dymasty from 1937 to 1979 (9)
15 1950s term for genre associated
with Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac
Asimov (5)
16 Major city of ancient Greece, on
the western coast of Anatolia (7)
19 The Castle of ___, 1764 gothic
novel by Horace Walpole (7)
20 Karl ___ (1896-1945),
Wehrmacht officer in command of
the 290th Infantry Division (5)
21 Birth city of Albrecht Drer
(1471-1528) (9)
25 Georgia ___ (1887-1986), US
painter (7)
26 Eponym given to racialsegregation laws in US South (3,4)
28 Old ___, nickname of naval
officer Edward Vernon (1684-1757)
(7)
29 City of Rajasthan, made capital of
Mewar in 1568 (7)
Set by Richard Smyth
HUNDRED YEARS WAR
FromtheArchive
Men took up arms for many reasons during the Hundred Years War. In the wake of new research
into soldiers lives, Nicholas Gribit reveals how the promise of fortune was as big a draw as any.
The Spoils of Battle

IN THE MARCH 1992 issue of History
Today, Andrew Aytons article, War
and the English Gentry Under Edward
III, analysed the various reasons why
men served in English armies during
the Hundred Years War (1337-1453).
The acquisition of war gains was a
strong incentive but, as Ayton points
out, it was not always a soldiers priority. The multitude of causes which
compelled men to take up the sword
in France and elsewhere included
comradeship, kinship, lordship
and, for those in need of
clemency, a grant of a royal
pardon. For some, the sense
of adventure offered by
overseas campaigns was an
adequate incentive in itself.
For the English gentry,
martial prowess and the
enhancement of a military
reputation were chief concerns. For
younger sons, who stood little chance
of attaining a family inheritance, the
pursuit of a martial lifestyle in the
hope of making their own luck on the
battlefield would have seemed an attractive prospect. The aristocracy and
gentry were considered the traditional
warrior class and, as such, were expected to fulfil their martial role in time
of war. For some soldiers, therefore,
honour and the sense of noble duty
were as important as material gain.
Recent research of an English
expedition in Aquitaine (1345-46), led
by Henry of Grosmont, Earl of Derby,
based on the biographical study of
soldiers who were part of the earls
retinue, reaffirms Aytons case. Sir
Andrew Luttrell, for example, who belonged to the most famous of knightly
clans, demonstrates the diversity of
a soldiers military experience and
motives for fighting. He served in
Aquitaine with Grosmont and in a
string of other places during a long and
colourful career. By fighting in battles,
sieges and naval campaigns he fulfilled

his martial duty with distinction and
built up an inestimable reputation. It
is likely that it was for these ends that
he first went to war. Alternatively,
men who fought on crusade, such as
Sir John Grey of Codnor, were probably motivated by religious atonement.
For others, the financial security
provided by serving a noble household was reason enough to don their
armour. Indeed, the sizeable proportion of men in Grosmonts retinue,
Auberoche was the

first time men realised
wars huge potential for
financial reward
who had either served, or whose
kinsman had served the earls forbears,
shows that precedence and tradition
greatly influenced soldiers decisions.
The prospect of personal enrichment and social advancement,
however, remained a potent force in
the minds of soldiers. This sentiment
could not have resonated more greatly
than after Grosmonts remarkable victories against superior French forces
in 1345, first at the town of Bergerac
and then at the Battle of Auberoche.
The battles yielded unprecedented
profits. The 52,000 marks reportedly
amassed by the earl at Bergerac were
used to build his sumptuous Savoy
Palace in London, while the ransoms
of prisoners captured at Auberoche
fetched 50,000. It was the first time
men realised wars huge potential for
financial reward and their first experience of the glory of triumph against
the French in an overseas campaign.
Soldiers would also have benefited
from the earls largesse because, as
the chronicler Thomas Walsingham
explains (albeit with a degree of exaggeration), when a town was sacked,

[Grosmont] took little or nothing for
himself. For a knight who earned
around 40 a year and an esquire on
half that amount, such profits would
have been highly attractive.
It is true, as Ayton notes, that lucrative battles such as Auberoche were a
rarity during the Hundred Years War,
but the importance of Grosmonts
emphatic victories and the subsequent
material gain should not be underestimated. News and tales of the success
and spoils of the campaign spread
throughout the military community
in England, reaching thousands of
people and undoubtedly having a
profound impact on their attitudes
to war. Of the reasons men fought,
aspirations of glory and fortune must
have been strongest in the mid-1340s
after the success in Aquitaine. Indeed,
this impetus for recruitment and the
renewal of mens ebullience for war is,
perhaps, the most significant aspect of
the campaigns legacy.
Nicholas Gribit is the author of Henry of
Lancasters Expedition to Aquitaine, 1345-1356
(Boydell, 2016).
VOLUME 42 ISSUE 3 MAR 1992

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