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English History has always been subject to Waves of Pretenders. These have usually come in small waves of about two - an Old Pretender and a Young Pretender, their object being to sow dissension in the realm, and if possible to confuse the Royal issue by pretending to be heirs to the throne.
Two Pretenders who now arose were Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbeck, and they succeeded in confusing the issue absolutely by being so similar that some historians suggest they were really the same person (i.e. the Earl of Warbeck).
Lambert Simnel (the Young Pretender) was really (probably) himself, but cleverly pretended to be the Earl of Warbeck. Henry VII therefore ordered him to be led through the streets of London to prove that he really was.
Perkin Warbeck (the Older and more confusing Pretender) insisted that he was himself, thus causing complete dissension till Henry VII had him led through the streets of London to prove that he was really Lambert Simnel.
The punishment of these memorable Pretenders was justly similar, since Perkin Warmnel was compelled to become a blot on the King's skitchen, while Perbeck was made an escullion. Wimneck, however, subsequently began pretending again. This time he pretended that he had been smothered in early youth and buried under a stair-rod while pretending to be one of the Little Princes in the Tower. In order to prove that he had not been murdered before, Henry was reluctantly compelled to have him really executed.
Punishment of Lamnel (or Wermkin)
Even after his execution many people believed that he was only pretending to have been beheaded, while others declared that it was not Warmneck at all but Lamkin, and that Permnel had been dead all the time really, like Queen Anne.
Henry VII was very good at answering the Irish Question, and made a Law called Poyning's Law by which the Irish could have a Parliament of their own, but the English were to pass all the Acts in it. This was obviously a very Good Thing.
The reign of Henry VII marks the end of the Middle Ages. These were succeeded by an age of daring discoveries, such as when Caprornicus observed the Moon while searching the skies with a telescope, thus causing the rotation of the Earth, crops, etc. Emboldened by this, Caprornicus began openly discussing the topic of capricorns, for which he was unanimously put to death. The greatest of these discoverers, however, was St Christophus Columba, the utterly memorable Ameri.can, who, with the assistance of the intrepid adventurers John and Sebastian Robot, discovered how to make an egg stand on its wrong end. (Modern History is generally dated from this event.)
1. Contract, Expand, and Explode
(a) The Charters and Garters of the Realm,
(b) The Old Suspender.
2. How did any one of the following differ from any one of the other ?
Henry IV Part I.
Henry IV Part II.
3. 'The end of the closing of the 2nd stage of the Treaty of Bretigny marks the opening of a new phase in the 1st stage of the termination of the Hundred Years' War.'
(Confute.)
4. ' Know ye not Agincourt ?' (Confess.)
5. 'Uneasy lies the head that wears a Throne.'
(a) Suggest remedies, or
(b) Imitate the action of a Tiger.
6. Intone interminably (but inaudibly)
i. The Pilgrims'Grace.
ii. 'Cuccu'.
7. Do not draw a skotch-map of the Battle of Bannock-burn, but write not more than three lines on the advantages and disadvantages of the inductive historical method with special relation to ecclesiastical litigation in the earlier Lancastrian epochs.
8. How would you confuse
The Wars of the Roses?
Lamnel Simkin and Percy Warmneck ?
The Royal issue?
9. Why do you picture John of Gaunt as a rather emaciated grandee?
10. Describe in excessive detail
(a) The advantages of the Black Death.
(b) The fate of the Duke of Clarence.
(c) A Surfeit.
N.B. — Candidates should write on at least one side of the paper.
Henry VIII was a strong King with a very strong sense of humour and VIII wives, memorable amongst whom were Katherine the Arrogant, Anne of Cloves, Lady Jane Austin, and Anne Hathaway. His berrd was, however, red.
In his youth Henry was fond of playing tennis and after his accession is believed never to have lost a set. He also invented a game called 'Bluff King Hal' which he invited his ministers to play with him. The players were blindfolded and knelt down with their heads on a block of wood; they then guessed whom the King would marry next.
Cardinal Wolsey, the memorable homespun statesman and inventor of the Wolsack, played this game with Henry and won. But his successor, Cromwell (not to be confused with Cromwell), after winning on points, was disqualified by the King (who always acted as umpire), and lost.
In the opinion of Shakespeare (the memorable play-writer and Top Poet) his unexpected defeat was due to his failure to fling away ambition.
Henry wanted the Pope to give him a divorce from his first wife, Katherine. He wanted this because
(a) she was Arrogant.
(b) he had married her a very long time ago.
(c) when she had a baby it turned out to be Broody Mary, and Henry wanted a boy.
(d) he thought it would be a Good Thing.
The Pope, however, refused, and seceded with all his followers from the Church of England. This was called the Restoration.
Curiously enough Henry had all the time had an idea about a new wife for himself called Anne, who, he thought, looked as if she would be sure to have a son. So when the Divorce was all over (or nearly) he married her; but he was wrong about Anne, because she had a girl too, in a way (see Elizabeth).
After this Henry was afraid his reign would not be long enough for any more divorces, so he gave them up and executed his wives instead.* He also got less interested in his wives and gave himself up to Diplomacy, spending a great deal of his time playing tennis, etc., with the young King of France in a field called the Field of the Crock of Gold.
*note - All except Anne of Cloves, whom he had on approval from Belgium and sent back on discovering that she was really not a queen at all but a 'fat mare with glanders'.
Cardinal Wolsey, although (as is well known) he had not thought to shed a tear about all this, did ultimately shed a memorable one. Having thus fallen from grace (indeed he had already been discovered entertaining some Papal Bulls) Wolsey determined to make a Pilgrimage to Leicester Abbey, saying to himself: 'If I had served my God as I have served my King, I would have been a Good Thing.' Having thus acknowledged that he was a Bad Man, and being in due course arrived at the Abbey, Wolsey very pluckily expired after making a memorable speech to the Prior, beginning, 'Father Abbot, I come to lay my bones among you, Not to praise them...'
One of the strongest things that Henry VIII did was about the Monasteries. It was pointed out to him that no one in the monasteries was married, as the Monks all thought it was still the Middle Ages. So Henry, who, of course, considered marrying a Good Thing, told Cromwell to pass a very strong Act saying that the Middle Ages were all over and the monasteries were all to be dissolved. This was called the Disillusion of the Monasteries.
Edward VI and Broody Mary were the two small Tudors who came in between the two big ones, Henry VIII and Elizabeth. Edward VI was only a boy and consequently was not allowed to have his reign properly, but while he was sitting on the throne everyone in the land was forced to become Protestant, so that Broody Mary would be able to put them to death after wards for not being Roman Catholics. A good many people protested against this treatment and thus it was proved that they were Protestants, but most of the people decanted and were all right. Broody Mary's reign was, however, a Bad Thing, since England is bound to be C. of E., so all the executions were wasted.
It was about this time that a memorable Dumb Crammer and one of Henry VIII's wives called Fatimer, who had survived him, got burnt alive at Oxford, while trying to light a candle in the Martyr's memorial there: it was a new candle which they had invented and which they said could never be put out.
Her heart
Shortly after this the cruel Queen died and a postmortem examination revealed the word 'callous' engraved on her heart.
Although this memorable Queen was a man, she was constantly addressed by her courtiers by various affectionate female nicknames, such as Auroraborealis Ruritania, Black Beauty (or Bete Noire), and Brown Bess. She also very graciously walked on Sir Walter Raleigh's overcoat whenever he dropped it in the mud and was, in fact, in every respect a good and romantic Queen.
One of the most romantic aspects of the Elizabethan age was the wave of beards which suddenly swept across History and settled upon all the great men of the period. The most memorable of these beards was the cause of the outstanding event of the reign, which occurred in the following way.
Wave of Beards
The Spaniards complained that Captain F. Drake, the memorable bowlsman, had singed the King of Spain's beard (or Spanish Mane, as it was called) one day when it was in Cadiz Harbour. Drake replied that he was in his hammock at the time and a thousand miles away. The King of Spain, however, insisted that the beard had been spoilt and sent the Great Spanish Armadillo to ravish the shores of England.
The crisis was boldly faced in England, especially by Big Bess herself, who instantly put on an enormous quantity of clothing and rode to and fro on a white horse at Tilbury – a courageous act which was warmly applauded by the English sailors.
In this striking and romantic manner the English were once more victorious.
Spanish Mane
A great nuisance in this reign was the memorable Scottish queen, known as Mary Queen of Hearts on account of the large number of husbands which she obtained, e.g. Cardinale Ritzio, Boswell, and the King of France: most of these she easily blew up at Holywood.
Unfortunately for Mary, Scotland was now suddenly overrun by a wave of Synods led by Sir John Nox, the memorable Scottish Saturday Knight. Unable to believe, on account of the number of her husbands, that Mary was a single person, the Knight accused her of being a 'monstrous regiment of women', and after making this brave remark had her imprisoned in Loch Lomond. Mary, however, escaped and fled to England, where Elizabeth immediately put her in quarantine on the top of an enormous Height called Wutheringay.
As Mary had already been Queen of France and Queen of Scotland many people thought that it would be unfair if she was not made Queen of England as well. Various plots, such as the Paddington Plot, the Thread-needle Conspiracy and the Adelfi Plot, were therefore hatched to bring this about. Elizabeth, however, learning that in addition to all this Mary was good-looking and could play on the virginals, recognized that Mary was too romantic not to be executed, and accordingly had that done.
Further evidence of Queen Elizabeth's chivalrous nature is given by her sympathy towards the French Protestants or Hugonauts (so called on account of their romantic leader Victor Hugo). These Arguenots were very much incensed at this time about St Bartholomew, a young Saint, who had been unjustly massacred for refusing to tie a white handkerchief round his arm. After the massacre the French King, Henry of Navarre, turned Roman Catholic and made his memorable confession - 'Paris is rather a Mess'; whereupon Queen Elizabeth very gallantly sent her favourite, Leicester, to find out whether this was true, thus rendering valuable assistance to the Hugonot cause.
Memorable amongst the men with beards in Elizabeth's reign was the above-mentioned favourite, Essex (Robert Dudleigh, Earl of Leicester), whom she brought to execution by mistake in the following romantic manner. Essex was sent to Ireland to quell a rebellion which the Irish were very treacherously carrying on in a bog in Munster. Becoming fatigued with the rebellion, however, he dashed out of the bog straight into the Queen's bedroom. For this Essex was sent to the Tower, where he was shortly afterwards joined by other favourites of the Queen (such as Burleigh, Sidneigh, Watneigh, Hurlingham, etc.). Essex had a secret arrangement with Queen Elizabeth that he was to give her a ring whenever he was going to be executed, and she would reprieve him. But although, according to the arrangement, he tried to get into communication with the Queen, he was given the wrong number and was thus executed after all, along with the other favourites.
' God may forgive you,' was Brown Bess's memorable comment to the operator, 'but I never will.'
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