Shakespeare: The Genius is the Thing...

 From Laura Crockett at The History Desk:

There is a school of thought that suggests Shakespeare didn’t write his own material. As the son of a glove maker, which made him of the merchant class, the overall question goes, how could such a young man know so much about politics, history and Italians?

Good question. I’ll give you my answer.

Firstly, he wasn’t your average middle class guy when it comes to our context. He would be a very smart kid in any era. He attended the grammar school set up for the merchant’s children in Stratford. School was for boys, and boys were taught basic stuff, like math (these are merchant children, math is important), grammar, (it was called grammar school for a reason), and stuff no longer taught in our schools until university; Latin and classical Greek. He would also learn history, especially his own country’s past. Which would include the time the Romans set foot in England, and stayed for 400 years. Ergo, young Will would know Latin, which means he could read the literature of old, plus have a handle on Italian. With that classical educational background, when he was ready to write, he had plenty of resources for a good beginning.

Secondly, actors like words. Words are their tools. Like a carpenter loves his saw, it is what he does with it that matters. Actors are the same. Some words are meant to be savored, because they provide nuance, insight, into the character the actor assumes.

Writers build the tools that actors use. That makes writers gaga over words. With words, they will create a world for the actor to inhabit. Using that tool, and with guidance from a director, or, if you will, the carpenter, the actors will draw the audience into the world they are presenting. Being that Shakespeare wore both hats, writer and actor, he had a special insight into what he was doing up on that stage.

Like all writers, Shakespeare would keep up a steady amount of reading. However, reading helps the actor as well. An actor cannot convey every situation unless he as done a bit of reading. (Only male actors were allowed to act in Shakespeare’s day.) Actors portraying the female roles probably mimicked more than acted. True, like all theaters everywhere, there were a fair amount of gay men in the troop of actors. Historically, theatre people have always been liberal in their attitudes about life. But not their politics.

To say that Shakespeare did not write his works is like saying Einstein didn’t write his theories.

(Read more.)

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Remembering Tipu Sultan

Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette receive the ambassadors of Tipu Sultan in 1788

The France of Louis XVI was rapidly becoming the rival of England in the Far East which is another reason why the British government worked with the revolutionaries to overthrow the French monarchy. From the Lahore Daily Times:

4th of May marked the death anniversary of Tipu Sultan, the ruler of the south Indian kingdom of Mysore, who died gallantly defending his capital Seringapatam against the combined forces of the East India Company and the Nizam in 1799. In Pakistan, Tipu is remembered as a noble soldier and a martyr who raised his sword to preserve India’s freedom from foreign occupation. Pakistani texts ranging from historical fiction such as ‘Aur Talwar Toot Gai’ by Naseem Hijazi to television and filmic productions including Tipu Sultan a drama serial produced by PTV and Tipu Sultan a film based on Tipu’s life, portray Tipu as a semi-divine warrior having an incredible strength to fight and crush his enemies. With his god-like power, Tipu is shown to embark upon a glorious military career and achieve stunning successes not only against indigenous rivals but also foreign invaders. Tipu’s agile armies carry fire and sword into the battlefields and pound dread in the hearts of the enemies. He certainly would have stalemated the British were it not for the treachery of his own ministers and officers.

The picture of Tipu as a mighty Muslim warrior who fiercely resisted British power has had immense staying power in Pakistan. But there is much more in Tipu’s personality which needs a greater attention. The aim of this writing is to highlight those aspects of Tipu’s character that have been veiled by deific trappings in order to give a more telling portrait of him.

In our version of history, what is rarely highlighted is the fact that Tipu was a man of daring vision and enterprise. Fascinated by technological advancement of the west, Tipu set himself to the task of modernising and industrialising his kingdom. He was mindful of the importance of having one’s finger on the pulse and therefore, the need to adopt western techniques to place Mysore on the forefront of industrial progress and prosperity. He, on the one hand, welcomed medical experts from abroad and invited skilled artisans to energise industry in Mysore, and on the other hand, hired French technicians to improve his arsenal and forts. When Tipu sent an envoy to France he specifically instructed them to bring craftsmen who could make “muskets of novel designs, canon-pieces, and iron guns”.

Irfan Habib reveals that the exquisite craftsmanship of muskets produced by Mysorean foundries was endorsed by Cossigny, the governor of Pondicherry, who thought them equal to any manufactured in Europe. The judgment pronounced in Paris on two pistols presented by Tipu’s ambassadors to Louis XVI in 1788 also supports the viewpoint of Cossigny. Tipu also showed keen interest in trade and commerce with countries abroad and believed that the future of India could be changed by skillfully using the sea. Tipu employed the thriving ports of Kanara and Malabar to introduce fabulous Mysorean products including the spices, the ivory and the sandalwood, to the world across. Paying tribute to Tipu Praxy Fernandes writes, “No other sovereign in Indian history had given such an impetus to industrial production.” Through a systematic state effort Tipu strengthened trade relations with the Middle East and set up factories across the Persian Gulf. Tipu’s glittering and thriving Mysore also offered a testimonial to his belief in cultural pluralism which stands in sharp contrast to the narrow and chauvinistic nationalism displayed by the west and India today. His was a kingdom where Hindus, Muslims, and Christians lived in perfect harmony. In fact it was so constructed that it invited foreign investors and workers. Apart from encouraging Europeans Tipu also welcomed and supported Asian merchants from China, Arabia, and Armenia. Mysore, in fact, manifested how ethnically diverse societies can create a legacy of tolerance and civilization. (Read more.)

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Urban Warfare

 From Sam Harris:

Sam Harris speaks with John Spencer about the reality of urban warfare and Israel's conduct in the war in Gaza. They discuss the nature of the Hamas attacks on October 7th, what was most surprising about the Hamas videos, the difficulty in distinguishing Hamas from the rest of the population, combatants as a reflection of a society's values, how many people have been killed in Gaza, the proportion of combatants and noncombatants, the double standards to which the IDF is held, the worst criticism that can be made of Israel and the IDF, intentions vs results, what is unique about the war in Gaza, Hamas's use of human shields, what it would mean to defeat Hamas, what the IDF has accomplished so far, the destruction of the Gaza tunnel system, the details of underground warfare, the rescue of hostages, how noncombatants become combatants, how difficult it is to interpret videos of combat, what victory would look like, the likely aftermath of the war, war with Hezbollah, Iran's attack on Israel, what to do about Iran, and other topics. (Read more.)

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JRR Tolkien’s Demands for a ‘Lord of the Rings’ Adaptation

 From Far Out:

Although Tolkien died in 1973, his estate have remained keenly involved in any productions that utilise any elements of his work, so there’s a chance they’ll be as thorough as the author was when he responded to Morton Grady Zimmerman’s screenplay for a planned Lord of the Rings adaptation with extensive notes.

Setting the tone for what was to come, Tolkien apologised in advance for the nit-picking to follow. “I have at last finished my commentary on the Story-line. Its length and detail will, I hope, give evidence of my interest in the matter,” he wrote before setting the stage for his dissatisfaction.

“They may be irritated or aggrieved by the tone of many of my criticisms. If so, I am sorry (though not surprised),” the author continued. “But I would ask them to make an effort of imagination sufficient to understand the irritation (and on occasion the resentment) of an author, who finds, increasingly as he proceeds, his work treated as it would seem carelessly in general, in places recklessly, and with no evident signs of any appreciation of what it is all about.”

The abridged version is that Zimmerman didn’t do a very good job in Tolkien’s eyes, making so many changes to the source material that it was borderline unrecognisable to the person who wrote it. The timeline was condensed far too much for his liking, Tom Bombadil’s “language was sillified,” Aragorn singing a song belted out by Sam in the book was “wholly inappropriate,” and he wasn’t thrilled with the entire narrative devolving into bombastic wizard fights at the expense of the depth he favoured in his writing. (Read more.)

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Was King Arthur a Real Person?

 

Last Battle of King Arthur

From Hidden Cumbrian Histories:

Something stunning has happened in British History. The quest to establish whether King Arthur was a real person has suddenly leapt back to life. Fifty years ago, the academic profession came to a consensus view that the legendary Dark Ages hero had never lived. Scholars began excluding him from serious history books, leaving the study of Arthurian legend to what they termed cranks, amateurs and pseudo-intellectuals. But a new generation of academics more skilled in the interpretation of ancient texts has succeeded in decoding previously unreadable clues.

They suggest Arthur was an actual historical person who lived in the sixth century after all - and that he was a northerner. The analysis says he fought 12 battles against other North Britons, many in Rheged, the predecessor of Cumbria, to provide cattle for his starving people. This followed a volcanic winter caused by the eruption of Krakatoa in 536 AD. It suggests he met his end at the battle of “Camlann”, a location now identified as Castlesteads fort on the Cumbrian section of Hadrian’s Wall.

The new analysis is based on a Latin work entitled the Historia Brittonum compiled from earlier now-lost documents by a monk called Nennius in 829 AD. The text survives in the form of copies written by clerics on vellum in the 11th Century. This work is crucial because it contains the earliest-known definite reference to Arthur.

The Historia contains a list of a dozen battles supposed to have been fought by Arthur. Academics say it must be taken seriously because it is the only detailed record that survives of any events that took place in the Dark Ages from a British point of view. If true, the new analysis of the locations of these battles overturns the traditional story that Arthur was a royal southerner with a magical sword who fought the Anglo-Saxons. In reality, the new analysis says, he was a gritty military leader who earned a great reputation while campaigning much of his time in Rheged and the north-east of Britain.

This reading of the document is controversial because Nennius was not a historian in any conventional sense. He rummaged through old chronicles and fragments of folklore “heaping together all I could find” in order to create a heroic narrative. His ninth-century audience was facing the threat of heathen Saxon invaders so Nennius cast the semi-mythical Arthur as the hero of a fight to expel the Anglo-Saxons. By the time Nennius was compiling his work, Arthur had become a folk hero and this encouraged the monk to credit him with miraculous deeds such as slaying hundreds of enemy warriors single-handedly. (Read more.)

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Ashley Biden Confirms It Was Her Diary - Here's What it Said About Joe Biden

 Megyn Kelly with Ruthless Hosts.

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The Hunt: The City of Atlantis—Mystery or Plain Myth?

 From ArtNet:

The legendary city was first mentioned around 360 B.C.E. by the Greek philosopher Plato. He wrote the story of the nation’s rise and calamitous fall, when the gods punished its citizens for their hubris, sinking it to the bottom of the sea. Since then, Atlantis has been the subject of countless books, T.V. series, films, songs, and even musicals. There are an equally innumerable amount of theories about the lost city’s final resting place. Though virtually no scientist today believes that Atlantis was a real place, this was not always the case.

In 1670, for example, after 23 years of work, Swedish polymath and national icon Olaus Rudeck published a 3,000-page, four-volume series claiming that Sweden was Atlantis’ original location. He further insisted that Swedish was the root of all languages.

Later, in 1882, Ignatious L. Donnelly, a former populist U.S. congressman, released Atlantis: The Antediluvian World a pseudo-archaeological book that treated Atlantis as factual and historical. He posited the existence of an advanced Atlantean civilization whose diaspora shaped the cultures of ancient Europe, Africa, and the Americas, claiming that ancient Egypt was Atlantis’s first colony. Donnelly’s ideas gained traction, particularly among theosophists in the early 20th century, and continue to shape contemporary New Age beliefs. (Read more.)

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The Carthusian Martyrs

The Carthusian Martyrs

The Carthusian Martyrs

I am honored to have a guest post by author Christina Croft in celebration of her new book, Martyrs of the English Reformation: 1535-1681.

Of the eight-hundred religious houses in England, none had a finer reputation for sanctity and learning than the London Charterhouse, where, in 1535, thirty Carthusian monks and eighty lay-brothers lived under the leadership of forty-nine-year-old Prior John Houghton. Short in stature and of slight physique, Prior Houghton’s ascetic appearance mirrored his innate humility.

‘He was,’ wrote a contemporary Carthusian, ‘…striving always to hide himself…and was ever desirous of being forgotten or deemed unworthy of special esteem.’ 

According to their Rule, the Carthusians did not involve themselves in political matters and, as guests were not permitted to enter the cloister, ‘one rarely heard an idle word, or a word about worldly affairs.’ Thus, when the King’s commissioners arrived to order the monks to take the Oath of Succession, declaring the King’s first marriage void, and ensuring that the throne would pass to the issue of his second wife, Anne Boleyn, Prior Houghton replied that it was not his business whom the King chose to marry. Nonetheless, when pressed, he and the monastery’s procurator, Humphrey Middlemore, refused to take the Oath, for which they were imprisoned for a month in the Tower of London until  the Bishop of York persuaded them that the succession was a merely a temporal matter so they could satisfy the King without troubling their consciences. 

Soon after their release, however, the King’s private secretary, Thomas Cromwell, devised a new version of the Oath, which included a repudiation of the Pope and his authority. This left Prior Houghton in a terrible predicament, knowing that he could not swear to something that contravened his faith, but that failure to do so could lead to the dissolution of his monastery. 

In the spring of 1535, as he was pondering the problem, Prior Robert Lawrence of Beauvale in Nottinghamshire arrived at the Charterhouse, troubled by the same dilemma. The two men agreed to spend three days together in prayer and penance before reaching a decision, and, on the second day, they were interrupted by the arrival of a third prior, Augustine Webster of Axholme, who agreed to participate in their triduum.  When the three days were over, they decided to approach Cromwell to seek an exemption from taking the Oath on condition that they never spoke a word against the King. 

Cromwell, however, coldly replied, “I admit no exception. Whether the law of God permits it or no, you shall take the oath without any reserve whatsoever, and you shall observe it too.” 

As they refused to comply, they were held in the Tower of London pending a trial for treason in Westminster Hall on 27^th April. Impressed by their obvious sanctity, the jury asked, ‘How can such holy men be guilty of treason?’ and said that they needed more time to consider their verdict. Irked by the delay, Cromwell repeatedly sent messengers to threaten the jury but they repeatedly refused to be swayed until Cromwell himself burst into the room, warning that they would be condemned as traitors unless they found the prisoners guilty. This time, with great reluctance, they yielded. 

On the morning of 4^th May 1535, as Sir Thomas More watched the priests being tied to pallets to be drawn to Tyburn, he remarked that they were ‘going as cheerfully going to their death as bridegrooms to their marriage.’ 

Prior Houghton was the first to face the executioner, reciting the thirtieth psalm – I will extol thee, O Lord; for thou hast lifted me up, and hast not made my foes to rejoice over me – as he ascended the cart beneath the gallows. When his prayers were completed, the cart was pulled from beneath him, leaving him hanging and writhing in a slow strangulation. While still alive, he was cut down and stripped naked, enabling the executioner to slice open his body and remove his entrails, which were thrown into a cauldron over a fire. 

“Oh, most holy Jesus, have mercy on me!” he gasped as the executioner moved the knife towards his heart and made the fatal cut. 

One after another, his fellow priors endured the same fate and, when the disembowelled corpses lay in a bloody heap on the ground, each was cut into four pieces and thrown into the cauldron. Once the flesh had boiled, the limbs were removed to put on display at different sites across the city, including the door of the London Charterhouse to which John Houghton’s arm was fastened. 

This was but the beginning of the trials of the London Carthusians as, six weeks later, three more of the monks – Humphrey Middlemore, William Exmew and Sebastian Newdigate, followed Prior Houghton to Tyburn; and those who remained in the Charterhouse were constantly harassed and threatened until some were terrified into fleeing or taking the Oath. Eventually, the remaining ten were taken to Newgate and chained to pillars by their necks and ankles. Hearing of the sordid conditions in which they were being held, Sir Thomas More’s adopted daughter, Margaret Clements, disguised herself as a milkmaid and bribed the gaoler to allow her to place food in their mouths and to clean up the filth beneath them. When she was refused permission to visit again, she climbed onto the roof and pulled up the tiles to lower food down to them. Her activities were soon discovered and, as she was no longer able to feed them, nine of the ten prisoners starved to death. The tenth, a lay-brother, William Horne, was drawn to Tyburn on 4th August 1540 to be hanged and quartered. 

In 1537, the London Charterhouse was dissolved and was eventually bought by Thomas Howard, the Duke of Norfolk, whose son, Philip, intended to restore it as a monastery, but he died in horrific conditions in prison as another Catholic martyr, before he could bring his plan to fruition.

Available from Amazon

 

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5 Myths about Israel and the War in Gaza

 

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