SLAVERY, PAST & PRESENT

LIFE ABOARD A SLAVE SHIP

GUERNSEY HAS A GREAT STORY TO TELL

“This island, what they had to endure here...

It's unimaginable. And no one knows.

These people had to actually live with the enemy...”

Invaded in June 1940, the Channel Islands were the only British territory to be occupied by the Germans during the Second World War. Guernsey provided inspiration for the international best - seller "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society", which shines a spotlight on one of the darkest  periods in the island's history.

NOTES - FROM THE TUDORS TO THE STUARTS

When Queen Elizabeth I died with no heir in 1603, James VI of Scotland became King of England. It was the beginning of the Stuart Dynasty.

James I Stuart 1603-1625

• James was the son of Mary Stuart who had been condemned to death by Elizabeth I in 1587
• As James the VI of Scotland he united the two kingdoms of England and Scotland under one crown with the name of James I
• He was a protestant, unlike his mother
• Like the Tudors, he worked with a small council of ministers
• He only summoned Parliament to ask for money
• He surrounded himself with Scottish favourites and his court was disreputable, corrupt
• That caused a pessimistic view of human nature we can recognize in the works of two famous playwrights of the time, Ben Jonson and William Shakespeare (especially in his last works: Henry VIII , Othello, Macbeth, The Tempest)

AN UNUSUAL DETECTIVE STORY - THE DAUGHTER OF TIME & THE PRINCES IN THE TOWER

JOSEPHINE TEY, THE DAUGHTER OF TIME (1951)

Alan Grant, Scotland Yard Inspector (a character who also appears in five other novels by the same author) is confined to bed in hospital with a broken leg. Bored and of restless mind, he becomes intrigued by a reproduction of a portrait of King Richard III brought to him by a friend. He prides himself on being able to read a person's character from his appearance, and King Richard seems to him a gentle and kind and wise man. Why is everyone so sure that he was a cruel murderer? With the help of friends and acquaintances, Alan Grant investigates the case of the Princes in the Tower. Grant spends weeks pondering historical information and documents with the help of an American researcher for the British Museum. Using his detective's logic, he comes to the conclusion that the claim of Richard being a murderer is a fabrication of Tudor propaganda, as is the popular image of the King as a monstrous hunchback.

Further, the book explores how history is constructed, and how certain versions of events come to be widely accepted as the truth, despite a lack of evidence. "The Daughter of Time" of the title is from a quote by Sir Francis Bacon: "Truth is the daughter of time, not of authority." Grant comes to understand the ways that great myths are constructed, and how in this case, the victorious Tudors saw to it that their version of history prevailed.

MODULE 3. DRUMS OF WAR

MODULE 3.  DRUMS OF WAR 

THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH IN - MORE OR LESS - TEN MINUTES

Read also A Brief History of The English Language

A Quick Quiz on The History of The English Language

EARLY BRITAIN - THE SAXONS & THE DANES

Alexander Dreymon as Uthred in The Last Kingdom

The Last Kingdom is a British historical fiction television series based on Bernard Cornwell's The Saxon Stories series of novels. The series is set in the 9th and 10th centuries, during the Viking invasions of England. It tells the story of Uhtred, a Saxon warrior who is captured and raised by the Danes. Uhtred is torn between his two loyalties as he fights to reclaim his birthright and defend England from the invaders.

The Last Kingdom is a well-made and exciting series with strong characters, stunning visuals, and epic battle scenes. It is also a historically accurate series that provides a fascinating glimpse into the world of Anglo-Saxon England.

REBELLIOUS YOUTH: THE ROMANTICS & LIBERTY

In this BBC documentary Peter Ackroyd,writer, historian and presenter,   reveals how the radical ideas of liberty that inspired the French Revolution opened up a world of possibility for great British writers such as William Blake, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth, inspiring some of the greatest works of literature in the English language. Their ideas are the foundations of our modern notions of freedom and their words are performed by David Tennant, Dudley Sutton and David Threlfall. 

The Romantics are important because they helped to define, and indeed to create, the modern world. They helped to fashion the way in which we all now think and imagine.