history magazine feb edition
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Winstanley College
History Magazine February 2015 Edition
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Contents:
Please note that any views or opinions expressed in this magazine are the views of
the author, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Winstanley College, or its
History Society.
Editorial ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..3
Super Mario and the Communist Conspiracy…………………………………………………………………………….4-6
Verney visits Winstanley………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….7-9
Aiden the Oxford Chronicler……………………………………………………………………………………………………….10-13
Thinking about the Holocaust…………………………………………………………………………………………………….14-15
King Sejong the Great…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..16-18
How to Ensure you’re Drowning in Gold: the Roman Guide………………………………………………...19-23
Then and Now……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….24-26
The Woodvilles………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………27-29
The Cold War…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………30-32
Mahatma Gandhi: The Power of Peace……………………………………………………………………………………..33-36
An Interview with Richard Blake……………………………………………………………………………………………….37-43
What’s happening in the History Society………………………………………………………………………………………44
Meet the History Society……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………45
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Editorial: “Study the past, if you would define the future.” Confucius
Hello and welcome to the February
edition of the Winstanley History Soci-
ety Magazine!
We barely into the second month of
the year and yet 2015 is already guar-
anteeing its place in future history
books.
Ideological conflict continues to divide
the world, with the tragic shootings at
the Charlie Hebdo headquarters In
Paris and ISIS kidnappings in Iraq.
In Europe itself, the question of
whether the election of Syriza in
Greece is a triumph of people power
or a harbinger of economic uncertain-
ty remains unanswered, with the fate
of the Euro hanging in the balance.
In the UK campaigning for the General
Election has begun, with the Tories
pedalling their “Road to Recovery”
and Labour the struggling NHS. How-
ever, the most interesting factor in
this election may perhaps be the role
of third parties such as UKIP, the
Greens and the SNP in splitting the
vote and challenging the dominance
of the two major parties.
In college, as A2 coursework begins
we have a review of Civil Rights lectur-
er Kevern Verney’s visit, as well as an
excellent account of an Oxbridge in-
terview by successful applicant Aidan
Lea for any AS’ considering applying
next year.
We also have brilliant articles on
greed in the Roman Republic, the Ko-
rean monarchy, and the communist
conspiracy behind the Super Mario
game to name a few!
A massive congratulations also to our
competition winners Megan Walsh,
Bailey Blackburn, and Dana McGibbon
for their fascinating articles, and
thank you to Fred Longworth and
Standish High Schools for taking part!
Enjoy!
Madeleine McDonagh and
Sally Dickens.
Editors.
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Super Mario and the
Communist conspiracy...
He’s one of the most recognisable mascots
out there, known the world over as that Ital-
ian guy with a slightly bizarre taste for mush-
rooms. Some have even hailed him as the
greatest thing ever to happen to gaming. So,
what if I was to tell you that Super Mario
could potentially be a piece of pro-
Communist propaganda? Let’s stop Stalin
and examine the evidence, shall we?
First, let’s give ourselves a bit of context. The
First World War was an extremely difficult
time for the Russian people, as wartime in-
flation caused food prices to skyrocket.
Workers, however, saw no such increase in
their wages, meaning that no-one could
afford to feed themselves. Poor working
conditions, low wages, and hours of work
which granted them nothing; it’s not difficult
to see why the people were angry. And they
directed their anger towards Tsar Nicholas II,
the monarch who was actually away with
Russian troops whilst all this was happening.
All this came to a head on the 7th March (or
22nd February, as Russia was still using the
Julian calendar at this point), when the Feb-
ruary Revolution overthrew the Tsar and vir-
tually quashed all imperial authority within
the country. What followed was a period of
further unrest under the Provisional Govern-
ment, which only ended in the October Rev-
olution of 25th October (or 7th November in
the Gregorian calendar), when Lenin’s Bol-
shevik Party took power. So now that’s out
of the way, we can now explore this initially
bizarre claim of Mario as a Communist sym-
pathiser.
A good place to start is with the character’s
design. Have you ever wondered why Mario
is dressed in red? The common argument is
that it contrasted with the blue background
of the original NES game. This would make
sense if red and blue were opposite each
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other on the colour wheel, but it isn’t; or-
ange is. In fact, orange has just as many (if
not more) shades of red in the NES colour
palette. When you compare how much or-
ange was used in the game to how much red
was used, you see a huge contrast. Then
there’s Mario’s Fire Flower suit, making him
don a red and white uniform when active.
Communism was also strongly associated
with the colour red, with the red and white
being the two colours of the Bolshevik flag.
With regards to Mario’s actual appearance,
isn’t it a little odd that his hat seems to sport
a similar design to that worn by Stalin? Per-
haps; it is a bit odd that both seem to have a
circle with a signature design on them. What
about his moustache though? Is it also a co-
incidence that both Stalin and Mario have
similar facial hair? Maybe, but there are
more elements which seem to point to this
theory being true…
Let’s move on to some of the recurring char-
acters and traits in the games. The main one
to look at is Wario, initially created as the
anti-Mario. The two things he’s known for
are; being fat and being greedy. Now if that
isn’t a walking American stereotype, what
is? Wario is consistently portrayed as the fat
bourgeoisie antithesis to the proletariat
Mario. Whilst we’re on the topic, what was
Mario originally? A plumber, who started off
as a carpenter; working class, manual labour
positions which define members of the
Communist Party, meaning Mario would fit
the mould more than well. Moreover, what
is the goal in each game? To overthrow a
king (Bowser being the King Koopa); and the
goal of the Russian Revolution was to also
overthrow a king (Tsar Nicholas II). And at
the end of each level, Mario tears down a
flag to raise his own. In the original games,
this was a red star on a white background;
the red star being a common symbol for
Communism, more specifically for the Red
Army. Then, there are the mushrooms he
eats, which appear to be based on the Ama-
nita Muscaria. Not only does it look like the
mushrooms from the games, but it also acts
like them too, being used at many points
throughout history for its ability to cause
hallucinations. Now, where is this particular
mushroom located? Siberia, the eastern half
of Russia. Still not convinced? Alright, then
there’s another point to consider before you
dismiss this argument as lies.
This argument lies in the form of the game’s
development. If the series was developed
anywhere west of the Iron Curtain, there
would have been no chance of any left wing
leanings. But, as we all know, Nintendo is
located in Japan. Now, whilst Japan may not
be a Communist state, there was a Com-
munist party maintaining a strong presence
in its elections from the 1950s onwards. This
party was actually at its strongest during the
1970s and 1980s, when the Mario games
would have initially been developed. Statis-
tics show that, of the 50million votes cast at
elections during that time span, around 10%
(or 5million) went to the Japanese Com-
munist Party. With this in mind, is it really
hard to believe that one or two of the indi-
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could have subtly worked in some of their
political beliefs? That’s all it takes, some-
times.Now, I should probably go on record
to state that there are some huge, gaping
holes in this theory. I would be blind not to
notice them. Firstly, whilst you do over-
throw King Koopa (or Bowser, if you prefer)
in the games, you also install another aris-
tocracy in his place, supervised by Princess
Peach. So Mario isn’t that much of a peo-
ple’s plumber after all. And it would be diffi-
cult to link the mushrooms to Marxist
teachings, even if they just so happen to be
located in Russia. Regardless, it does make
you wonder each time you look at the
games; is Mario Communist? Maybe he is,
maybe he isn’t; I’ll leave that one up for de-
bate. What is certain is that I’ve probably
ruined someone’s childhood upon them
reading this, and for that, and the atrocious
pun at the beginning, I apologize.
(Seriously, I can’t even justify why I came up
with that)
By Thomas Baxendale.
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Verney Visits Winstanley
Civil Rights expert Kevern Verney recently
inspired our ‘mixed’ and ‘modern’ histori-
ans into action on their A2 coursework
with an intriguing presentation on the role
of Martin Luther King, with direct compari-
son to the actions of the Federal Govern-
ment.
Verney, a professor from Edge Hill Universi-
ty, studied History at Fitzwilliam College,
Cambridge, before going on to do a Masters
degree at the University of Keele in ‘U.S. His-
tory and Institutions’. He has taken an active
role in the academic world of Civil Rights,
authoring various studies and books on the
Civil Rights Movement, with focuses on both
what is coined the ‘Short’ Civil Rights Move-
ment (1955-1968) as well as the ‘Long’ Civil
Rights Movement (1877-1954).
His visit was to provide all those studying
the Civil Rights for their A2 level coursework
with the views of a renowned specialist in
the field, whilst exposing those considering
taking History on to degree level to a univer-
sity-style lecture from someone from the
very top of academic historians. He focused
particularly on the role of the presidents at
the time at which King was in his prime, JFK
and Lyndon Johnson, and raised the argu-
ment that whilst King was fundamental to
the progress of the movement, the circum-
stances within which he found himself con-
tributed hugely to the concessions made in
favour of greater racial equality in the USA.
The film ‘Selma’ was released in America
last year and is due to be released in the UK
shortly, and so Verney used this as a starting
point for the presentation, as the film faced
backlash in America for being overly critical
of Johnson’s stance on Civil Rights. . ‘Selma’,
according to Verney, seems to suggest that
Johnson held back on putting Civil Rights
legislation through Congress as far as possi-
ble, whereas Verney believes that Johnson
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was in favour of progressing Civil Rights and
racial equality, though he did not credit him
to the extent that Hillary Clinton appeared
to when speaking publicly on Civil Rights in
2008. Clinton, like ‘Selma’, came in for criti-
cism as a result.
The ‘Presidential Action’ of Kennedy and
Johnson were broken down for comparison
into four main sections by Verney in his
presentation, using Kennedy’s 1960 Presi-
dential election pledge on how to combat
Civil Rights as a basis: 1) Presidential Leader-
ship in Congress; 2) Executive Action, and;
3) Moral Leadership of the Nation. Verney
importantly highlighted how despite John-
son ostensibly achieving more in passing the
Civil Rights Act of 1964, the 1965 Voting
Rights Act, and the 1968 Civil Rights Act,
Kennedy paved the way for such legislation,
and the circumstances in which Johnson im-
plemented them were unequivocally crucial
to their implementation as law.
The general view that Verney conveyed was
not so much to focus on a particular individ-
ual, movement, or group, in searching for
the linchpin for the progression in the
1960s, but actually to take a step back from
it and observe the whole picture: consider
the circumstances in which the progress was
made. Yes, individuals such as King were de-
cisive and important; but equally as im-
portant was the fact that King emerged in
the height of the Cold War, meaning Civil
Rights ‘became an issue of foreign policy’, as
Verney himself put it – perhaps something
that would force more action than the issue
of Civil Rights on its own. He pointed out
that for the US to repress civilians, be it de
jure or de facto, and yet fight for democracy
in Eastern Europe was rather hypocritical:
“Just as the US tried to flag up embarrassing
incidents in Russia…the Russian response
was ‘who are you to call us?’”
Verney also incorporated a number of histo-
rians views on the Civil Rights Movement,
enabling the A2 students to get a general
overview of the opinions held by the schol-
ars whose articles they have been trawling
over in class and at home. He also intro-
duced the thoughts of other historians pre-
viously un-encountered by the students,
such as Niven, who claims in ‘Politics of In-
justice’ (2003) that Kennedy, as president,
missed an opportunity to further progress
Civil Rights. He contrasted that with the
view of Hart, who argues that he had no op-
tion but to be cautious due to a narrow vic-
tory in the 1960 Presidential election, and
the fact that the Democratic Party were di-
vided on the issue of Civil Rights. This intro-
duction of new historians and summary of
those previously studied certainly helped
myself in understanding the positions of
different historians, as I had feared – having
read so many articles on the debate on the
importance of King to the Movement – that
I would confuse historians’ views, or poten-
tially misinterpret what each historian says!
The focus however was not just on Kennedy,
King and Johnson. At the end of his presen-
tation, Verney took the opportunity to raise
socio-economic changes prior to 1955 that
perhaps changed the demographic of the
USA and thus altered the path of the search
for Civil Rights. He pointed to the Great Mi-
gration, for example, which ultimately
changed the voting patterns, with African-
Americans legally able to vote in the North,
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unlike the South. As a As a result, in tar-
geting votes, political parties were forced to
become sensitive to the issue of Civil Rights
in order to obtain the votes of the newly ar-
riving African-Americans in the North. An-
other example he highlighted was FDR’s
‘New Deal’ of the 1930s which changes the
outlook of the Supreme Court, bringing
about American legal realism. The struggles
of the African-Americans in society there-
fore became higher in profile and began to
affect the agenda of the US political and le-
gal system.
This is just the tip of the iceberg of what
Verney presented to the students in his lec-
ture, with many figures and statistics pro-
vided throughout – which will without
doubt aid the writing of coursework. Verney
also kindly provided Elaine with his Power-
Point, which was then redistributed to the
students with his consent, and so students
were able to just listen to him speak, as op-
posed to being scribes and scrawling away
at paper trying to not miss a thing on the
board.
I had the fortunate opportunity of spending
some time with Verney upon his visit to col-
lege and spoke to him about Civil Rights and
studying History. Perhaps the most memo-
rable thing he told me was that those going
on to study History at university was to
broaden your historical horizons, claiming
that many of his fellow students when he
was at Cambridge stuck to whatever they
studied at A-level, or studied simply British
and European history of the 20th Century.
Whilst there’s nothing wrong with studying
those eras and topics, he said that with the
breadth of topics covered by many History
university courses, you should make the
most of it while you can!
By Harry Griffiths.
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Aiden the Oxford chronicler
As a historian, I’ll try to give a balanced ac-
count of my Oxford experience. For the
same reason, I’ll also acknowledge that re-
ceiving an offer (don’t ask me why that hap-
pened) might have positively influenced my
reflections on the process. In defence of my
positivity however, I can say that I had con-
cluded before leaving Oxford to get the train
home that I was very glad to have had the
experience of the interview process regard-
less of the outcome, so my reflections I
think are credible. I should also disclaim that
my experience could represent a typical
one. Each applicant seems to have a unique
experience, in historical terms they range in
enjoyment from a Roman orgy to the Black
Death. Consequently I can’t offer my experi-
ence as a representative one, only an ac-
count of my personal perspective which
might be reassuring to Winstanley’s future
Oxford applicants or of interest to anyone
who wonders what goes on behind those
ancient and closed doors.
It was only as I stepped through the thresh-
old of Brasenose’s huge wooden doors that I
could begin to accept the reality of the sur-
real situation. Having found my way through
the city in the dark and rain, I arrived at the
porter’s office soaking wet. I collected my
key and was shown to my room by one of
the friendly students who had stayed the
extra few days to help applicants though the
interview process. I was there only long
enough to drop my bags before I was led
through several of the cosy courtyards to
the junior common room (JCR). It was
packed so I negotiated my way around the
pool table and groups of chatting applicants
and students to view the notice board for
history applicants. There was one of these
on the wall for each of the subjects.
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They listed the interviewers and times for every-
one’s interviews, I had one the next morning and
one the day after that. After noting these I decided
I’d go back to my room, as having only arrived
about 9pm (my train from Wigan had been delayed
an hour) and having already done the whole day in
college, I was quite tired. I did some last minute
reading and instructed my alarm to wake me up
early the next morning.
The next morning, I showered (I had an en suite)
then only had to stroll down the winding wooden
staircase leading from my bedroom to the entranc-
es to the canteen and dining hall. It seems the luck
that had landed me an interview struck again, as I
found that my accommodation was one of the
more luxurious rooms. Mine had a separate bed-
room, living area and bathroom, right above the
hall and with great views of the court yard and
some of the city’s recognisable buildings. It was
nice to get a look in the big rooms but even if I get
the grades to go, I’ll be avoiding the costliest
rooms. Had I been put somewhere else for the in-
terview, I wouldn’t have minded since others who
shared showers between rooms managed fine, and
those staying in accommodation off-site were only
a few minutes away and surrounded by other stu-
dents. The college provided 3 meals a day, including
the option of cooked dinner and breakfast and dur-
ing the day we had a packed lunch- all of which was
paid for by the college. Both mornings I ate a full
English breakfast- one for each day of the year
would be reason enough to apply to Oxford.
The feeling of entering the hall was redolent of the
first time watching Harry Potter walk into Hog-
warts. Interestingly, the film studio in which that
scene was shot was only built as Christchurch- one
of Oxford’s more famous colleges- wouldn’t allow
the filming in their hall, they did film the staircase
leading up to it (though this doesn’t actually move
in real life.) Most colleges across the university
seem to have common features- courtyards with
rarely trodden lawns, an old chapel and a magnifi-
cent hall; Brasenose was no exception. The room
was huge, with a tall ceiling, adorned with portraits
of the college’s benefactors and deans. Its floor was
a dark wood, like its panelled walls and long tables
which stretched the length of it away from the door
towards the top table which was perpendicular to
the rest. As there was no planned seating and the
near tables were already filled with chattering peo-
ple by the time I got up, the top table was where I
nervously placed my tray and sat down opposite
the college’s eponymous door knocker, hanging
pride of place on the wall above the top table. Luck-
ily for me it was other applicants sitting there, ra-
ther than the senior academic intellectuals who I
imagined usually sat here during term time. School
rowing club jackets, talk of gap years in Tanzania
and hearing lists of mutual acquaintances from
‘school’ in London did little to contradict the pre-
conceived ideas I had arrived with but this first im-
pression was challenged over the course of my stay
as I found that all kinds of people had applied, and
all were friendly and interesting, united by the com-
mon experience and anxiety of interview which al-
ways offered a place to start a conversation.
After breakfast I had a couple of hours until inter-
view which I spent reading over my personal state-
ment and written work so that I had answers for
potential questions around things I’d mentioned
and I was very glad to have taken printed copies of
each as well as the books I’d mentioned in each.
About half an hour from my interview I went down
to the JCR to wait. I was relieved to see the other
applicants dressed casually as I was. I’d taken a suit
jacket as well as the shirts and jeans I intended to
wear to avoid being the odd one out either way.
There was only one or two in suits and just one in a
flamboyant purple waistcoat with a chain dangling
from his pocket that looked suspiciously like a pock-
et watch but these were the exceptions rather than
the rule. I was glad it was so relaxed; I was wearing
shoes, jeans and a shirt as if I was going out for din-
ner and felt comfortable.
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Soon after, a student showed me up some stairs
and waited with me outside until another applicant
emerged and I was invited inside a minute or so lat-
er. The room was fairly normal- small, carpeted and
bright with a book case or two. It transpired that
this interview was based around my personal state-
ment. I was interviewed by a pair of historians in
each of my interviews. I sat down in an armchair
facing two others, occupied by my interviewers-two
men in this one- who welcomed me and made me
feel very at ease, thanking me for my personal
statement which one said was very interesting.
They used it as a springboard to launch questions
although that didn’t mean they were any easier to
answer. For example, one observed that I was an
‘outdoorsman’ but this didn’t stop my being initially
surprised by a question containing the phrase
‘geographical determinism.’ After this they moved
on to a few questions which I later verified had
been put to all the interviewees including a request
to describe the process of the transition from mon-
archy to republic. In all it lasted about 20 minutes
which went really quick. It ended with the oppor-
tunity for me to ask a question. Given that we’d dis-
cussed the causes for the expansion of Rome, I
asked them how they would explain it. They agreed
it was a very ‘Webarian’ question but then proceed-
ed not to answer it. I felt this interview went all
right but I spent the time afterwards considering all
the things I could have said better and looking up
what ‘Webarian’ means! I think everyone probably
does this after the time has gone, like after an ex-
am, and other candidates agreed.
Talking with other history applicants later, I found
that half had been interviewed around their per-
sonal statement and general history and the rest
about their written work. Having already done one
of these, I knew what to expect the next day in my
second interview, so I read over my submitted es-
say in preparation. Sure enough, when I was invited
into a similar room the next day and seated on a
sofa opposite two armchairs, I was asked questions
regarding the feudal system and various other de-
tails of my essay on Henry II and the great rebellion.
This part of the interview took up the majority of
the time and was conducted by a lady who took
over from her colleague, a man whose role had
been to initially ask me to describe my history class
and the methods of our teaching. He said he knew
Winstanley and this reassured me. I learned at least
one of my interviewers came from another Oxford
college which shows they work with one another,
and you aren’t necessarily guaranteed to be inter-
viewed only by staff from the college you applied to
although the fact that one of the professors at my
college was away at a conference may also have
played a part.
Given that each interview took only 20 minutes
each over the course of two days meant there was
a lot of free time which was divided between the
JCR and going about Oxford. The JCR was like a
large living room with many sofas and a big TV at
one end and a pool table at the other. It was always
buzzing. There were board games going on at every
table and a film on the television especially in the
evening. It was impossible to be unsociable because
if you stood alone for too long a student would talk
to you or invite you to join a game. It was good and
the students lived up to their claim to be the
‘happiest college.’ They also occasionally an-
nounced impromptu trips to various locations: ice
cream parlours, deer parks, ice rinks which were a
good opportunity to get a look around the city and
talk to people. I was also glad to meet up with the
other Winstanley students being interviewed
around the university for sightseeing and drinks. It
was comforting to talk to the people who I’d pre-
pared with for months. Although at first I thought a
system of conducting 20 minute interviews over a 4
day stay seemed inefficient, especially compared to
Cambridge’s all in one day interviews, but it made
the experience much more pleasant and meant I
was much more relaxed by the time I was being in-
terviewed for the 2nd and 3rd time.
13
It also allowed me to get a real feel for the universi-
ty and a taste of what it would be like to study here.
If I put aside ambitions for a place, I was simply
grateful for a free stay in Oxford and the chance to
discuss historical ideas.
By Aiden Lea.
14
A Discussion of the Holocaust
When we think of “the Holocaust” what do
we think of? A Shoah of the Jewish people
of Eastern Europe, and the systematic killing
of millions of Jews in the name of ideology.
The grisly idea of working the “excess” pop-
ulation of the newly occupied Lebensraum
to death and when that failed, the use of
Zyklon B gas was used to kill at least 1 mil-
lion Jews in Auschwitz alone. This mechani-
cal killing was largely ignored until the
1990’s as Lawrence Rees points out, be-
cause Soviet censorship addressed, rightly
or wrongly, the Holocaust dead simply as
“victims of fascism” heaped alongside the
toll of the 13-20 million Soviet citizens killed
in the brutal Nazi occupation of 1941-44
and the significance of Auschwitz in the Na-
zi “machine” was largely ignored at the time
due to Majdanek being similar in its tech-
niques of murder.
Yet, time was also needed to truly appreci-
ate the scale of what happened under Nazi
occupation; for a generation who hadn’t ex-
perienced the fear of Fascism for people to
realise that the memory of such an event
must and should be kept alive at all costs,
with education preventing another ideologi-
cal murder spree. Often it takes time for
events to change from being current events
to a horrific past one, think how once we
saw the Iraq war as a current event in the
news but now it has begun to be analysed
and in a retrospective sense we now have a
greater understanding of what happened.
However, when we look closer we see that
the events of the 1930’s and 1940’s were
not unique in their brutality: before Hitler
even started writing Mein Kampf numerous
persecutions of Jews from the Roman and
Medieval eras to the Tsars of Russia had
shown that anti-Semitism was not
15
exclusively German or Nazi in fact. . So too
had “genocides” occurred; the British in-
vented the concentration camp to “deal
with” the Dutch Boer settlers in South Africa
and in Armenia during the First World War
millions were killed without any real outside
recognition.
Rather more terrifying is the prospect that
the world has learned nothing in its behav-
iour since the Holocaust, the Mau Mau up-
rising was put down with brutal force per-
haps even not dissimilar to the reaction to
the Warsaw uprising. Cambodia and the
Khmer Rouge too have claimed countless
lives, many of whom were highly educated,
leaving the country still reeling to this day.
Darfur, Sudan, an already poor area of the
Sahel region of Africa has been ravaged by
the Janjaweed and government fighters
since the 1970’s (perhaps even comparable
to the joint efforts of the SA and SS in the
Second World War). Even more recently, the
killing of Christians, Jews and non-Sharia
Muslims by so called ISIL mirrors ideological
killing on religious and cultural grounds.
Common in all of these examples is a re-
sponse globally of disgust and sometimes
action but we have not seen another world
war. Why not?
Firstly the Second World War started much
as the first one did. Not a crusade for the
lives of the countless Jews, homosexuals, So-
cialists, Communists, Gypsies, Slavs and disa-
bled people killed or reduced to virtual slav-
ery. Trade the name Belgium for Poland in
the phrase: “the war started because of Ger-
man expansionism and the invasion of Bel-
gium” and you get the primary reason for
Allied involvement. To not brush all the Al-
lies as evil it must be pointed out that most
outside occupied territory knew little of the
horrors inside, and many, like Ralph Mil-
liband were not believed in the UK when
they told of what the Nazis were doing to
the persecuted.
Secondly, there is somewhat of a dilemma,
we cannot infringe on free speech even if it
promotes the killing of a social group as a
scapegoat as that undermined the mere
principles of a liberal democracy. Yet it
seems also a contradiction not to stop hate
speech especially concerning the promotion
of genocide yet that is the overall im-
portance of Holocaust memorial, to educate
society so that they will intervene when
they see it done around them.
Overall, despite the world not moving away
from the idea of ideological killing of inno-
cent civilians in practice, our idea of it being
wrong has developed. The addition of the
Human Rights Act and Universal Declaration
of Human Rights into legislation and the
Zeitgeist has made a more aware public who
care and can find out using modern technol-
ogy when events happen like in the Middle
East currently, and can learn about them al-
most instantly with the help of the internet,
something we didn’t have 70 years ago. Yet
still we are faced with the looming prospect
of the holocaust being forgotten and along-
side it the rightful fear we have of it occur-
ring again.
By Cameron Fleming.
16
King Sejong the Great/세종대왕
King Sejong was born as Yi Do to King Tae-jong and Queen Wongyeong of the Joseon Dynasty on May 7th 1397 and he was the third of four sons. His succession to the throne was surprising to say the least, ac-cording to Confucian principles the eldest son, Prince Yangnyeong, should have inherit-ed the throne however at court his behav-iour proved rude and aberrant, many be-lieve that he behaved this way because he believed that Sejong should be King in his place, as during his childhood, Sejong im-pressed many with his wisdom and curiosity. Also the second son, Prince Hyoryeong, re-moved himself from succession by becoming a Buddhist monk. When Sejong was only 12 years old, he was named ‘Crown Prince Chungnyeong’ and ten years later King Tae-jong would abdicate the throne in favour of Chungnyeong, who later took the throne name Sejong. As mentioned before Sejong’s ascension to the throne was unusually bloodless and peaceful, why? It all began with the Strife of the Princes… (Dreamy flashback music as we stare off into the distance). In 1392, Sejong’s grandfather, King Taejo, overthrew the
Goryeo Kingdom and created Joseon, in this coup d’état he was assisted by his fifth son Yi Bang-Won (later King Taejong), who later ex-pected to be named Crown Prince, however a court scholar who feared and hated Yi Bang-Won persuaded King Taejo to name the eight son, Yi Bang-Seok as heir to the throne instead. Whilst King Taejo was mourning the death of his wife in 1398, this scholar planned to assassinate all the sons bar the eighth, in order to secure the Crown Prince’s place, as well as his own. After hear-ing rumours of this plot, Yi Bang-Won raised his army and attacked the capital, killing two of his brothers as well as said evil scholar. King Taejo, horrified that his sons were turn-ing against each other in what became known as the First Strife of Princes, named his second son, Yi Bang-Gwa as Crown Prince and in 1398 abdicated the throne and Yi Bang-Gwa became known as King Jeongjong, the second Joseon ruler.
17
However, peace didn’t last for long as come 1400 the Second Strife of Princes broke out when Yi Bang-Won and his brother Yi Bang-Gan began to fight. Yi Bang-Won triumphed and as a result exiled his brother and family and executed all of his supporters. Conse-quently, the feeble King Jeongjong relin-quished his claim to the throne after merely two years in favour of his brother Yi Bang-Won, who became known as King Taejong, the third Joseon ruler and Sejong’s father. King Taejong wasn’t the nicest of rulers, he executed a number of his own supporters if he felt they became too powerful, including all of his wife’s brothers and King Sejong’s father-in-law and brothers-in-law. It seems his experience in battle against brothers and willingness to execute family members, like-ly persuaded his first two sons to step aside and allow the favourite son to become King. King Sejong is considered one of the most effective and powerful leaders of Korea. For the first four years of his reign he guided Jo-seon military planning as he had always been an effective military strategist and leader. He was incredibly intelligent, he loved sciences and technology and even in-troduced a number of organizational and technological improvements to the king-dom’s military forces. For example, alt-hough gunpowder had been used for centu-ries, Sejong encouraged the expansion into different form of warfare, like cannons and mortars as well as rocket-like “fire arrows”, that basically worked in a similar way to modern RPG’s (…Cool...) Just one year into his reign, in May 1419, King Sejong dispatched the Gihae Eastern Expedition to the seas off Korea's east coast. This military force set out to confront the Japanese pirates or wako who operated
out of Tsushima Island, harrying shipping, stealing trade goods, and kidnapping Kore-an and Chinese subjects.
By September of that year, the Korean troops had defeated the pirates, killing nearly 150 of them, and rescuing almost 150 Chinese kidnap victims and 8 Koreans. This expedition would be important later in Sejong's reign, as in 1443, the daimyo of Tsushima pledged obedience to the King of Joseon Korea in the Treaty of Gyehae, in ex-change for which he received preferential trading rights with the Korean mainland. King Sejong's queen was Soheon of the Shim clan, with whom he would have a total of eight sons and two daughters. He also had three Royal Noble Consorts, Consort Hye, Consort Yeong, and Consort Shin, who bore him three sons, one son and six sons. With eighteen princes running around and representing different clans on their moth-ers' sides basically ensured that succession could be a bloodbath. However, King Sejong was a Confucian scholar and named his sick-ly eldest son Munjong as Crown Prince. King Sejong delighted in science and tech-nology, and supported a number of inven-tions or refinements of previous technolo-gies. These developments he supported would prove invaluable to the Korean public as it made books more widely available for the educated Koreans, many being history books of the Goryeo kingdom, deeds for fol-lowers of Confucius to follow and tech-niques for farmers on how to produce more. He also took an interest in music, de-vising an elegant notation system for repre-senting Korean and Chinese music, and en-couraging instrument-makers to improve the designs of various musical instruments.
18
In 1420, King Sejong created the Hall of Worthies, an academy of the top twenty Confucian scholars, their duties included studying the ancient laws, rites of China and previous Korean dynasties, compiled histori-cal texts and also lectured the King and Crown Prince on Confucian classics. King Sejong invented many things in his time as ruler, all for the benefit of his people, however the one invention that he is most remembered for today is Hangul, the Korean alphabet. In 1443, King Sejong and eight other advisers created an alphabetic system to accurately represent Korean language and sounds and sentence structure. As a result, they came up with 14 consonants and 10 vowels, which arranged in certain combina-tions mimicked the sounds of spoken Kore-an. After announcing the creation of the al-phabet in 1446, King Sejong encouraged all of his subject to learn and use it, naturally there was backlash in the beginning as there were many among scholars who believed it to be vulgar, however, it spread like wildfire among the vast population. There are early texts that claim a clever person can learn Hangul in a few hours, and a stupid person in ten days. Unfortunately, King Sejong’s health began to deteriorate and after suffering from diabetes and other health problems he became blind at the age of 50 and passed away on May 18th, 1450 at the age of 53. As predicted his eldest son Munjong did not survive him long after just two years on the throne he died leaving his 12 year old son Danjong to rule, he was advised by two scholar regents. This first Joseon experiment in Confucian-style primogeniture did not last long, how-ever. As in 1453 King Sejong’s second son, Danjong’s uncle, Sejo, had the two regents
assassinated and then took over. After two years, Sejo forced Danjong to abdicate the throne in favour of himself. Six court officials however, planned to restore Danjong to power in 1456 but Sejo discovered the scheme, assassinated the officials and had his 16 year-old nephew burned to death so that he could no longer challenge Sejo’s claim to the throne. Thanks Uncle…
Despite the successional mess that resulted from King Sejong's death, he is remembered as the wisest and most capable ruler in Ko-rean history. Today, the king is remembered as Sejong the Great, one of only two Korean kings honoured with that title. Sejong's face appears on the largest denomination of South Korea's currency, the 10,000 won bill. His accomplishments in science, political theory, military arts and literature mark Sejong as one of the most innovative kings in Asia or the world.
By Sophie Scott.
19
How to ensure you’re drowning
in gold: the Roman guide
Step 1: Be bequeathed a Kingdom.
Step 2: Get Gold-Sickness (i.e. greedy).
Step 3: Tax the hell out of the kingdoms un-
der your command.
Step 4: Have the kingdoms rebel once
you’ve tried it on once too many times.
And finally, the big one, step five, the one
you’ve all been waiting for, the one you
want me to shut up for so you can actually
read the step and not this big long sentence
I’m making you read for fun so I can intro-
duce it and use up some of my words (two
birds with one coin, *winks*)
Step 5: Have molten gold forced down your
throat until you’ve drowned.
Thank you for reading.
.
.
.
What?
What do you mean I’ve left you hanging?
What do you mean you want to know more?
What do you mean you want me to stop
saying what do you mean?
OK, OK, just for you, I’ll continue and tell
you about the sort of, maybe, start of the
end for the Roman Republic. I’ll tell you
about as much as I can cram into 1,000-
1,500 words. Sorry if it’s jumpy, but I try my
best.
Just keep it to your chest. I don’t want peo-
ple knowing I’ve gone soft.
Let me take you back, back millennia, to ap-
prox. 133BC.
We are in the Roman Republic – a state
where there is no one indisputable leader
and they’re ruled by a senate. The rich enjoy
the benefits of freedom and the poor just
carry on their lives acknowledging the
By Emma Porter.
20
change, but prevented from dabbling in the
perfidious, perplexing, power-grabbing, par-
adoxes of Senate politics. There are provinc-
es under Roman rule, too scared to fight
back and just bowing down to their scare
tactics.
But our story starts when one of these bow-
ing “royal poodles” as Holland calls them,
starts being too obsequious and decides to
donate a kingdom to the Roman Republic in
his will. That’s right. A kingdom. God, some
people have too much money.
In 133 BC, Attalus III, the king of Pergamum,
a Greek city which controlled the majority of
West Turkey, decided to make a big show
and give his entire kingdom to the Romans.
Thought it would be the perfect gift, didn’t
he?
WRONG!
He has no respect for GOOD ROMAN VAL-
UES, THE IDJIT!
Pergamum was reportedly rich - super rich -
streets paved with gold rich! All that gold
just sitting there, on offer for the opportun-
istic Roman. But to the traditionalist Ro-
mans, i.e. the majority of the senate whose
decision it was to deal with the bequest,
gold came hand in hand with moral corrup-
tion.
They couldn’t just send a thank you card,
could they?
So the senate squabbled over their new-
found fortune. The senate, if you are uni-
formed, was the best of the best of the Ro-
man Republic. Your family counted for noth-
ing in Roman politics - though it gave you
the opportunity to get involved- the only
way to climb the political ladder was …to
achieve. Like constant A-levels, over and
over, forever and ever and you never actual-
ly achieve the ultimate goal (the Romans
liked glory and achievement - they just did-
n’t like people achieving too much).
There were some do-gooders in the senate,
the radicals who thought the unexpected
boon should be spent helping the disadvan-
taged people in society and for his own so-
cial reforms, for example - Tiberius Gracchus
was his name, and social reform was his
game. (And I know I'm being lame, you only
have yourself to blame.) But he didn’t get
his way.
They murdered him instead. Carrying on.
The majority of the senate weren’t as radi-
cal as poor Tiberius, as they clung to their
old traditionalist views, believing it would
sort itself out. They did nothing with the
kingdom to start. Imposing direct rule on
Pergamum seemed very...embarrassing to
the Romans. It assumed they couldn’t be
cleverer at tricking gold out of foreign king-
doms. But, eventually, the concern was
thrust in their faces again when Pergamum
descended into anarchy. Once that hap-
pened, they sent in commissioners after sev-
eral years of campaigning (fighting) to con-
trol them, and maintain the traditional rules
and regulations of the previous kings of Per-
gamum.
21
Remember that. It’s important.
Because that’s what allows those money-
grabbing Roman-style capitalists in.
Through the decree of the senate after the
anarchy, Pergamum was to be ruled by old-
style Pergamum King Governance. And that
meant tax. Tax. Tax.Tax.Tax. Taxxy-Taxxy-Tax.
Tax.
It was a surprisingly new concept to the Ro-
mans, using it as the main way to extort
money. They regarded tax as a thing that
you did only as a last resort, when the ad-
ministration systems in the country they
overtook had tax and it was a basis of ruling.
The Romans usually just barged in stripped
the place of any wealth in sight and then
swanned out again, cool as you please, safe
in the knowledge you can’t call the police
because they are the police. And the kings.
And the masters. Oh, yeah, you couldn’t
touch them. Back to Taxxy-Tax.
The officials that Rome sent to Pergamum
so ensure it was ruled right soon discovered
they could have all the wealth they wanted,
and started to become “wallowed in perco-
lation” as Holland put it. Taxation became in
vogue – it was efficient, and lucrative. There
was room for that ever important achieve-
ment.
This left the rest of the citizens of Rome, the
wealthy and the poor, wallowing in indigni-
ty. They wanted a bit of the glittering honey
from the pot. Gaius Gracchus, like his poor
brother Tiberius, wanted the money to form
his social reforms. So, in his term as tribune,
he pushed forward a law to make Perga-
mum subject to tax.
It went through.
It was a bit like a Roman Gold-rush - tax-
farming contracts were soon created with
only the wealthy being able to afford them,
and only then when they pooled their re-
sources. Shares were offered, directors
elected, the Romans essentially making a
business out of tax collecting. These busi-
nessmen were collectively known as publi-
cani. And between them? They made it so
the provinces under Roman command were
no longer slaughtered and ravaged, which
was nice of them.
But they were bled to death instead.
There was the official tribute the provincials
had to pay, the extra the tax the thugs could
coerce out of them, the loans of people, all
with "ruinous rates”. All this leading to one
thing - enslavement for the poor provincial
Roman who couldn’t give up all his money
to the gold-blooded Romans. The Roman’s
made it their business to be as efficient as
possible – Roman roads were improved in
the province, just so the taxman could arrive
that much earlier.
Pandora’s Box was truly open.
The West, while not taxed, where irrevoca-
bly altered as well, as they weren’t exempt
from the dash for gold. They were just dug
up and mined to hell. Spain was a particular
victim, with mines being dug and handed
over to the publicani to run. Around 40,000
slaves laboured in miles and miles of
22
an underground tunnel network. By the end
of the 2nd Century BC, all but the Iberian
Peninsula of Spain was under Roman indus-
trial control.
Back in Rome, corruption was rife. Although
the Senate snootily seemed to hold onto
their disgust of the money-grabbing publi-
cani, even going as far as to write in the law
the fact that the publicani could not hold a
senate position, and a person involved in the
senate could not have contact with those in
trade. It didn’t work, as you could guess,
with corruption and bribes left, right and
centre.
Typical story, eh?
But this corruption eventually led to them
drowning in gold. Or well, one man in partic-
ular. And this is where we actually get to the
event the whole article is about. Yeah, I
made you read through 1,323 words just for
this. Aren’t I awesome?
It starts with a court case. In 92 BC, a prov-
ince administrator, Rutilius Rufus (cool
name) was brought to trial for extortion. You
heard me right. Extortion. Like everyone else
wasn’t doing it. It was a trumped up charge -
the jury was full of publicani sympathisers
prejudiced against the administrator who
was refusing to milk every cent out of his
poor cash-cows. Rutilius Rufus (can’t get
over the name) was a good Roman. He hat-
ed the DESECRATION OF GOOD ROMAN
VALUES. Didn’t help him though. He was
convicted, and sent into exile. He got to
choose the place, which was nice of them.
He chose the province of Asia - Pergamum
to be exact.
The place he was supposed to have looted.
When he arrived, he was met by cheers and
flowers.
Hmm.
Something’s not right with this picture.
The Pergameme’s thought so too, and began
to think ‘Hmm, how can I stop the mean old
Romans coming in and stealing all my mon-
ey, and food, and livelihood and freedom,
including my wife and the cows? He can
have the children, they keep screeching.’ Or
something to that general effect. Not quite
sure, anyway, they were too scared of
fighting back. They remembered the de-
struction of Corinth and Carthage in 146BC,
and thought, nah thanks.
What Asia needed was a leader. And the Ro-
mans, funnily enough, gave them one.
In the summer of 89 (cue song) BC, Manius
Aquillius, the commissioner of Asia
(Pergamum) was seeking out a new kingdom
to plunder and pillage and bleed to death.
He chose Pontus, near the Black Sea. He, in
his arrogant Roman way, thought, ’I’d rather
not kill my troops, so I’ll let a king do all the
fighting for me. He’ll do it.’
But the King of Pontus was a different kettle
of fish – he was a reluctant Roman poodle.
Yes he was! Yes he was! (*coos*).
Hem, hem.
Let’s never mention that again.
23
King Mithradates was the name of this reluc-
tant Roman poodle. He was a ruthless, and
by a few accounts, quite a rabid poodle, hav-
ing killed his mother, his brother and his sis-
ter to secure his throne when he was boy
returning from exile at the head of an army.
He was also obsessed with poisons, having
taken every single antidote to every different
poison there ever was on the planet till he
was immune to them all. Pleasant fellow.
He shooed the Romans away with a flea in
their ears.
Then he did what he had been waiting for all
his reign. What he had been preparing to do.
He waged war on the Roman Republic. He
found a grateful ally in Asia when he took
over and booted the Romans out. He wasn’t
their typical hero, but anything was better
than the publicani sharks.
The summer of 88 BC, and the Romans were
gone and Mithradates ordered all Italians
and Romans left in Asia to be slaughtered.
There were 80,000 victims.
It was a stark message, with their bodies
hung on the wall like dirty washing.
It was a victory for Mithradates, and was the
start of the downfall of the Roman Republic,
what with Mithradates giving Sulla aspira-
tions, Sulla doing what he did, and then Cae-
sar coming along and thinking oooh, good
example! And oh, I can’t get into it now. You
probably want to know if Mithradates wins
his wars now, don’t you?
Well that’s not what why article’s about, so
go pick up a book on the Mithridantic Wars –
It’s very interesting.
I was just detailing the events that led to
someone’s gruesome death. Don’t give me
that look, I’m allowed to be morbid. It’s fun.
But I haven’t actually told you who died yet
have I?
Back to 88 BC, then
After the slaughter, the final insult was add-
ed to the Roman’s bleeding injury. Mithrida-
tes, high on the rides of war, and calculating
very carefully, his moves and there effect,
took the opportunity presented by a bought
of ill-timed sickness. The general, you know,
who provoked him? Manius Aquillius? The
Roman commissioner? He was sick when
this all happened, and as such was an easy
and symbolic capture for Mithradates. Ma-
nius was dragged back to Pergamum, shack-
led and chained to a seven-foot barbarian.
No Joke.
Possible Exaggeration.
Further degradation was inflicted by tying
Manius to an ass (the mule kind, honestly),
and parading him through street after street
filled with the vicious Pergamemes, till he
was thrown in front of Mithridates.
Manius’ head was thrust back.
His jaw opened.
And the gold of Pergamum was forced, drip
by drip, down his throat.
He drowned in gold.
“Symbolic justice” says Holland.
“Waste of War Funds” says King Mithradates
accountant.
24
Then and Now...
History is not just a timeline of dates and
series of events but a discipline that invites
us to understand humanity, past and pre-
sent. It gives us the exciting opportunity to
take a piece of evidence and after critical
analysis, appreciate and comprehend the
veracity and relevance of the material.
Most of our historical enthusiasm begins in
childhood when we may have imagined
how past structures, cultures and belief
systems compared to our own minute ex-
perience of the present. Later, when we
travel to inspirational historical sites, such
as our own capital-London, we are con-
fronted by the complexity and diversity of
past events and controversies which clash
with the modern mind. These controver-
sies are what this article will explore and
with this the similarities of then and now
historically. Was Mark Twain right in say-
ing: “that no occurrence is sole and soli-
tary, but is merely a repetition of a thing
which has happened before and perhaps
often."?
In the 21st century, for instance, the un-
lawful killing of a single soul is illegal and
punishable yet I came to learn about the
genocide that occurred during the Roman
destruction of Carthage in 146 BCE in
which mass murder went unpunished. An-
other thing I have noticed, which isn’t nec-
essarily a difference but definitely a posi-
tive progression from what it once was-is
gender inequality. In the nineteenth centu-
ry, women lived in an age characterized by
their sex. At the beginning of the century,
women enjoyed few of the legal, social, or
political rights that are now taken for
granted in western countries: voting, suing,
testifying, controlling personal property
after marriage, legal custody of children
after divorce and access to higher educa-
tion.
25
Women were expected to remain subservi-
ent to their fathers and husbands and their
occupational choices were also extremely
limited outside of the stereotypical house-
wife role.
However there have been many similarities
in the course of history that I noted, for ex-
ample how the private executions of Tower
of London prisoners and public executions
of the monarchy on Tower Hill relate to the
death penalty nowadays, exercised in 32
states (from Delaware to Wyoming) in the
USA. Again-in the summer of 82 AD, three
Roman warships were hijacked which links
to the current terrorist attacks and threats
the world faces. Most recently the January
2015 terror attacks in Paris whereby 16 peo-
ple and a police officer were killed in attacks
on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and
a kosher grocery store. One may begin to
wonder if from Rome’s earliest foundations
on the Palatine Hill to the triumph of the
new religion of Christianity and the subse-
quent collapse of an empire almost 1200
years later, has much truly changed? Have
we humans mastered the earth yet in order
to deal with natural and moral evil? Histori-
an Will Durant expressed: “So the story of
man runs in a dreary circle,” is Durant cor-
rect in stating that our actions are cyclical
and simply a historic recurrence?
Or as Adolf von Harnack said: 'We study his-
tory in order to intervene in the course of
history”. This quote by such a prominent
church historian implies that the survival of
evidence, which may be a matter of good
luck, is enabling us today to try and prevent
the immoral parts of our past repeating
themselves. Perhaps history isn’t just repeti-
tion in different forms but in fact a tool that
we can use to learn from and evolve as hu-
mans.
H.H.Wilson from the University of Nebraska
stated that there is a “…relation of history to
the study and practice of law”. Some would
suggest that it doesn’t really matter if histo-
ry is just a chain of recurrent events or not
because even if it’s nothing bar a subject,
the study of this subject provides transfera-
ble skills for other professions.
One thing I personally realise is that there
are clear differences from then and now in
virtually everything. Such as how the histori-
cal meanings of words have evolved over
time into new meanings. Nowadays I under-
stand what words mean through various
contexts, such as who is saying the word,
where, when, why and how they are saying
it rather than just a single definition from a
dictionary. For example, the word “gay” pre-
viously meant happiness-a lively mood how-
ever now it is associated with homosexuali-
ty. I was captivated on learning that even
the very words I speak have an in-depth his-
tory- that I tend to overlook since my idio-
lect is spoken every day without thought.
Surely examples like the above prove that
changes have occurred in the course of his-
tory?
Yet humans do tend to behave in the same
ways no matter what century they inhabit-
ed. Predominantly in the 1900s, people liked
to think that by attending memorials of
26
certain soldiers and regiments of the First
World War, for example, that they were pre-
serving the memory of the people involved
in the fighting, those people who were for-
ever to be scarred by their involvement, and
the places ravaged by the war. In times of
similar horrific circumstances nowadays, hu-
mans have acted identically. Proof of this is
how the Tribute in Light memorial was con-
structed in 2004 following the 9/11 terrorist
attacks. Does this suggest that historical
events don’t repeat themselves but just that
human emotion always will?
To conclude I believe that there are more
similarities than differences then and now
with reference to our history. World War
One left a poisonous legacy for the 20th
century and the issues that were left unre-
solved in 1918, lead to another world war in
1939. The trigger of the war wasn’t ad-
dressed causing a second, likewise the Cabi-
net decided in March 2003 that Britain
would join in the war against Iraq and still
troops from the United Kingdom are
fighting-with little positive change being
made. On reading “Empress Dowager Cixi:
The Concubine Who Launched Modern Chi-
na” by Jung Chang, I gained a deeper under-
standing into the monumental obstacles not
only a female leader faced but an ancient
country. I realised that feminism isn’t a
modern idea backed by Emma Watson and
the “10/10/10” campaign but has been at
the heart of society, I believe, since the reli-
gious image of Adam and Eve. The question,
for us all, is whether we are just searching
and inventing the similarities of “Then and
Now” or if history truly is echoing itself but
just in different contexts?
By Caitlin Touhey.
27
Many people may have heard of Elizabeth Woodville, the beautiful, impoverished wid-ower who seduced and charmed Edward IV. His union with her at the time was consid-ered highly controversial by the English court and people. The most eligible bache-lor in Europe, had thrown away all pro-spects of a good match for a 'common' pau-per, whose family were considered to be upstarts. The reputation the new Queens family gained whilst they took over the Eng-lish court, has left them as one of England's most notorious and hated families. Howev-er, I find their actions and strength admira-ble, most notably that of Jacquetta Wood-ville who was Elizabeth's illustrious mother. Jacquetta of Luxembourg was born in the year 1416. At her time of birth women were of little importance. However the daughter of the heir of Luxembourg ,became a lead-ing English woman, through the turbulent reigns of two kings, the mother of a Queen and the founder of a great dynasty. As well as having ancestors from both Eng-
lish and European royalty, it was said that Jacquetta could trace her line back to the mythical water goddess, Melusina. In alche-my, she is a character who represents the water and moon; thus making her a power-ful woman in her own right. In 1969, when Jacquetta herself was accused of practising witchcraft to bring out her daughters and Edward's marriage, her apparent descent from Melusina was used against her. During the fifteenth century, a woman reached marriageable age at fourteen years. A woman of Jacquetta's status and wealth wouldn't have been allowed to choose her own husband and it was un-heard of amongst the rich to marry for love. Love was a subject saved for poems and leg-ends, not a reason to marry. The purpose of marriage was to conform alliances, earn dowries and ultimately to create a male heir to inherit the vast amounts of wealth. Unusually, Jacquetta was married at the lat-er age of seventeen; after having a marriage arranged on her behalf, by her uncle:
The Woodvilles
28
Chancellor Louis of Luxembourg. John Duke
of Bedford, had been brothers with the
great Henry V of England (who had famously
defeated the French at the battle of Agin-
court, before his untimely death in 1422)
and was acting as regent for his young, vul-
nerable nephew- Henry IV.
Jacquetta's match with John was a great one, through marriage with him she became the first lady in France, second only to the Kings mother (Catherine of Valois) in Eng-land. For a seventeen year old girl, being married to a man twenty-six years her sen-ior must have been quite an overwhelming and frightening prospect. However, lots of young noblewomen were married to men much older than themselves and they were prepared for this from birth. Unfortunately, this was not to last for long; just two short years later, in 1435, John Duke of Bedford passed away. Their mar-riage left no issue, but we can infer it was a somewhat happy one, as Jacquetta was named as John's sole heir, in his more than charitable will. Upon his death she received: all but one of John's lands (for life) and his much adored library, which was famous for containing many volumes. Even though Jacquetta's husband was dead, she was still a royal duchess of England and Henry VI expected her presence at the Eng-lish court. In the February of 1436 Jacquetta was granted her dower (a pension for wid-owers) with the condition she could not re-marry without the kings' consent. She of course knew that once her year of mourning was over, another powerful marriage would be arranged for her by the king and his council.
However, being young, beautiful and in love, the headstrong Jacquetta had other plans in mind. Before her husband died, he had appointed the knight, Sir Richard Woodville to fortify the garrison at Calais. He was a thirty year old soldier, who had fought loyally in the English army to defeat the French for some time. As Jacquetta's older husbands fragile health failed, she grew even closer to the handsome Sir Richard. It seemed that at every the turn, the lovers were thrown clos-er together, because upon John's death, Richard was ordered to accompany Jacquetta on her journey to England. Sometime, in the later months of 1436 the two lovers were married: one a lowly knight and the other a wealthy widow. Although, both were happy and in love at last. However, Jacquetta knew her marriage went against the terms of her dower. Not only that, but she was a high born lady, an heir of Luxembourg and a duchess of Eng-land. To many, it seemed she had aban-doned her duties to her country and shamed herself by marrying a mere knight. In the early months of 1437, the couple confessed to the royal council they had mar-ried without consent. As a punishment Jacquetta was severely fined. She was made to pay a thousand pounds, which was an enormous sum of money in the fifteenth century. Later on she was forgiven by the king and by October 1437 the couple had received an official pardon for their crime. The pardon came just in time before the birth of Elizabeth, the couples first child who would one day become Queen of England. Jacquetta and Richard moved into their country house of Grafton Manor, which
29
they had bought from the rich William de la Pole in 1440. Elizabeth was the first of four-teen children, although only thirteen of them made it to adulthood. At the time many of your children wouldn't survive to be adults. So the death of their son Lewis in 1443 wouldn't have been too unexpected, still a great tragedy nonetheless. As the years went by Jacquetta and Richard gained quite a reputation as staunch Lan-castrian supporters. Richard was deputy commander of Calais for quite a while. Meanwhile Jacquetta became chief lady in waiting and great friend to her kinswoman Margaret of Anjou, who was the English queen. In May 1448 Richard was even pro-moted to the title of Baron Rivers, making Jacquetta Lady Rivers. The couple stayed loyal to Lancaster until the house was de-feated by the Yorkists in 1461 and Edward IV came to the throne. The reason I adore Jacquetta, is because in a world ruled by men she displayed female strength by defying the conventions of soci-ety. Unlike the other medieval woman around her, Jacquetta was ambitious, cou-rageous and reckless. She fell in love with a man beneath her in term of social standing and instead of being timid, she was bold and opposed the English King. The marriage could have been her ruin. Unlike other women Jacquetta was prepared to fight for her love and the wealth that was rightfully hers. To some this action may seem auda-cious yet I believe it is a clear example of female power. Jacquetta is in a way a very early feminist; making her in my eyes a little magical, just like her watery ancestor Melusina. By Megan Walsh.
30
The Cold War
The Cold War was a state of political and
military tension after the end of World War
II. The Cold War was a rivalry between the
USA and the USSR, with one side following
capitalism (USA) and one side following
communism (USSR). When World War II
ended, the Soviets began creating a ‘sphere
of influence’ in Europe, comprised of the
countries where the Red Army pushed back
the Nazis. This is the primary reason why
many believe that the Cold War began in
1945; however some believe that it began
during World War II, as Joseph Stalin’s mis-
trust of the USA and Britain increased as
they refused to invade Europe, which would
greatly help the war effort by opening up
the Western Front.
The Cold War began in Europe, more specifi-
cally, in Germany, which was divided into
two parts (East and West) with Berlin also
divided into East and West. This split even-
tually lead to the construction of the Berlin
Wall in 1961. The way the USA responded to
the Soviets was with a policy known as
‘containment’. Containment, devised by
George F Kennan, was created as a middle
ground between the two extremes of armed
conflict and appeasement. The idea was to
stand up to the Soviets wherever they want-
ed to expand. The USA did this by spending
a lot of money on rebuilding Europe ($13
billion) with grants and credits that the Eu-
ropeans would spend on American goods
and construction. It was hoped that this
would stop the spread of communism.
Another important part of the Cold War was
the nuclear arms race. In the arms race,
both the US and the USSR began building
nuclear weapons (the Soviets stole Ameri-
can secrets). Eventually, both nations had
amassed nuclear arsenals that were so
large, that both sides agreed on a strategy
31
known as M.A.D, which stands for ‘mutually
assured destruction,’ which was essentially
a much more dangerous version of the alli-
ance system in World War I, with both sides
acting as each other’s deterrent.
However, even though mutually assured de-
struction prevented direct conflict between
the USA and USSR, the Cold War led to
many violent conflicts across the globe. For
example, the Korean War, which led to the
split of Korea into South Korea and the
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea
(North Korea), and the Vietnam War, which
ended up being one of the USA’s longest
wars. These wars contributed to the
‘domino theory’ which was a theory that
said that if a nation came under communist
influence; the nations that surround it
would fall too. This meant that the U.S
feared for Japan, which, after the destruc-
tion that the bombings of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki caused, they had rebuilt into a
capitalist ally. The Soviets had an influence
in the Vietnam War as they assisted the
North Vietnamese army. The USA countered
this by supporting the anti-communist Mu-
jahidin in Afghanistan, due to the Soviets
invading them in 1979. This eventually led
to the Soviets abandoning Afghanistan after
10 years of fighting.
There were also many smaller conflicts,
such all of the US covert operations per-
formed to stop countries falling to com-
munism. For example, when the CIA helped
General Augusto Pinochet of Chile over-
throw Marxist president Salvador Allende in
1973, or the coup in Iran to overthrow
Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddegh
after his attempts to nationalise Iran’s oil
industry. On the Soviet side, they forcefully
crushed uprisings in Hungary and Czecho-
slovakia.
Another example of a smaller conflict dur-
ing the Cold War was the Suez Crisis, where
Egypt aimed to nationalise the Suez Canal.
It is one of the most important and contro-
versial events in British history since the
Second World War. Not only did Suez result
in deep political and public division in Brit-
ain, it also caused international uproar.
So, by now, the majority of the planet was
divided into three ‘worlds’. The first world
believed in capitalism and included coun-
tries such as the USA, Great Britain and
West Germany. The second world embraced
communism and included countries such as
the USSR, China and the DPRK (North Ko-
rea). Finally, the third world was comprised
of all the other countries that weren’t strict-
ly capitalist or communist. Both the first
world and the second world wanted every-
one in the third world to pick a side, and
this was often a tricky decision to make, as
the US did things such as prop up dictator-
ships, while the Soviets mostly won the
space race, as they sent the first manned
satellite, (Sputnik I) the first living thing,
(Laika the dog) and the first human, (Yuri
Gagarin) into space.
By this part of the Cold War, communism
was becoming less and less appealing com-
pared to capitalism, as it could not keep up
with economic advancements in the West.
32
Another key factor that led to the downfall
of communism and, eventually the end of
the Cold War were the plans of Mikhail Gor-
bachev.
included countries such as the USSR, China
and the DPRK (North Korea). Finally, the
third world was comprised of all the other
countries that weren’t strictly capitalist or
communist. Both the first world and the sec-
ond world wanted everyone in the third
world to pick a side, and this was often a
tricky decision to make, as the US did things
such as prop up dictatorships, while the So-
viets mostly won the space race, as they
sent the first manned satellite, (Sputnik I)
the first living thing, (Laika the dog) and the
first human, (Yuri Gagarin) into space.
By this part of the Cold War, communism
was becoming less and less appealing com-
pared to capitalism, as it could not keep up
with economic advancements in the West.
Another key factor that led to the downfall
of communism and, eventually the end of
the Cold War were the plans of Mikhail Gor-
bachev.
Mikhail Gorbachev was the General Secre-
tary of the Soviet Union from March 11th
1985 to August 24th 1991. By the 1980s the
Soviet economy was in drastic need of re-
form. In 1985, after three elderly leaders
died in quick succession, Gorbachev, a pro-
tégé of former Soviet leader Yuri Andropov,
was appointed General Secretary and head
of the Soviet Union. At 54 he was one of the
youngest leaders and was seen as the new
broom that could clean up the decrepit Sovi-
et system. The way he did this was with
Glasnost and Perestroika. Glasnost, meaning
openness, was widely celebrated and led to
increased openness and transparency in
government institutions and activities in the
Soviet Union. Glasnost also led to less cen-
sorship and more freedom of information in
the USSR. This led to the people realising
how much poorer they were in comparison
to the Western world. Perestroika, meaning
restructuring, aimed to revive the Soviet
economy by making it more market based,
similar to successful capitalist practices in
Germany, Japan, and the USA. However, Pe-
restroika wasn’t as well accepted as Glas-
nost, due to how economies take time to
thrive. This lead to long-lines, strikes and civ-
il unrest.
After this reformation of the Soviet Union,
different Soviet states began to collapse. The
Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and East and West
Germany re-united in 1990. There were
elections in Hungary and Czechoslovakia and
in 1993, Czechoslovakia split into Slovakia
and the Czech Republic.
In conclusion, the Cold War included many
high and low points for the two superpow-
ers and the world as a whole. It also lead to
many countries becoming communist, and
while most abandoned communism, some
still exist, such as China, Cuba, Laos, North
Korea and Vietnam.
By Bailey Blackburn.
33
Mahatma Gandhi: The Power of
Peace
30th January 1948 saw the death of a hero.
Mahatma Gandhi, the humble Hindu man
who showed the world the power of peace,
and offered an escape from violence, was
assassinated on his way to a prayer meeting.
To this day, the legacy of Gandhi and his
brave, non-violent approach to changing the
world lives on.
Born in Gujarat in India, Gandhi (his name
then Mohandas) grew up as an average
child. Although by no means rich, Gandhi’s
family had sufficient money, and despite be-
ing sent to primitive schools to begin with,
in 1887 he was sent to the University of
Bombay before being moved to London to
train as a barrister. Following several years
in a hugely different climate and culture,
Gandhi returned to India in 1891. During his
time in London, he had religiously kept to a
promise he had made to his mother before
leaving. He did not eat meat, smoke or drink
alcohol (these were things forbidden by the
branch of Hinduism -Vaishnavism- that his
family followed). Upon returning to India, he
was devastated to hear that his mother had
passed away whilst he was abroad. He also
discovered that his law qualification was not
as valuable as he had expected- the profes-
sion was now becoming overcrowded and it
was difficult to find a job.
Eventually, he was offered a placement with
an Indian law-firm in Natal, South Africa. It
was on his way to Natal that he had his first
real experience of the segregation and rac-
ism in South Africa. He was thrown out of a
first-class railway carriage, assaulted by a
white coach driver when he refused to
move for a European passenger, and was
later sent away from hotels reserved for Eu-
ropeans only. All Indians living in Natal were
treated in this way and Gandhi was disgust-
ed to witness their suffering. Although he
strongly disagreed with the treatment of the
Natal Indians, it was not until just before his
34
scheduled return to India that he realised
something had to change. He happened to
read a newspaper article saying that Natal
Indians would soon be denied the right to
vote. He was so infuriated that he decided to
stay in South Africa and fight for the rights of
the Indians himself. He founded the Natal
Indian Congress, and began to work passion-
ately to protect his people. He rallied sup-
port and increased awareness all over the
world, but it took a long time and in 1899,
the Boer War interrupted progress. Gandhi
himself joined the South African forces and
encouraged others to do so. Despite his op-
position to the South African’s opinion of the
Indians, he believed that because the Indi-
ans claimed to be citizens of Natal it was
their duty to defend it.
The Boer War was followed by several years
of difficult work for the Natal Indian Con-
gress. However, by July 1914 Gandhi had
achieved most of what he wanted. He had
developed a peaceful strategy which he
called: “Satyagraha” or devotion to truth.
This involved non-violently protesting
against evil and injustice. It proved success-
ful, and by the time Gandhi left South Africa,
the rights of Natal Indians had improved.
Gandhi had learned lots from his experienc-
es in South Africa. He had been disgusted by
his first experiences of racism and segrega-
tion. He had also discovered that non-
violence could be a very successful tactic.
Therefore, upon returning to India in 1915,
he decided to continue to fight for justice
and freedom for his people. His attentions
were attracted by the plight to make India an
independent country, and, using his new
strategy of peaceful non-cooperation, he
soon became a very influential leader of the
“rebellion” against British rule.
To begin with, Gandhi engaged in low-level
action. He encouraged Indian peasants not
to pay their taxes and spoke with the vice-
roy. He said that he was ashamed to have to
speak English in India. And yet at this point
Gandhi still believed that the British Empire
was not all bad, it just needed some im-
provements.
It was not until the Amritsar massacre that
Gandhi lost all of his respect for the British
Empire. During the war, the Indians had
been told that they were to have some of
their rights temporarily removed. For exam-
ple, they were no longer allowed to hold
protest meetings. However, at the end of the
war, the rights were not returned to them.
Gandhi believed this was unfair, and encour-
aged the Indians to hold peaceful protest
meetings. However, in Amritsar, some pro-
tests turned violent and a British policeman
was pulled off his bike. At the time, the Indi-
ans were “reprimanded” by being forced to
crawl on their tummies, but a more brutal
and unforeseen punishment came later on.
Following the violent protests, public
meetings in Amritsar were banned. In an act
of defiance, thousands of unarmed Indians
met at Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar on the
13th April 1919. Their intention was to hold a
peaceful meeting to protest against the cru-
elty and injustice of the British rule. Unfortu-
nately, General Reginald Dyer decided to use
the group of Indians (which consisted of
men, women and children) as an example to
show what would happen to any rebellious
35
Indians. Without warning, Dyer and his sol-
diers entered Jallianwala Bagh, heavily
armed with rifles and a tank, and opened
fire. They killed 379 innocent Indians and
injured around 1200 more. No Indian made
any attempt to retaliate or attack Dyer and
his men. They remained true to Gandhi and
his peaceful policy of Satyagraha.
All Indians, Muslim and Hindu alike were
now united against the British Empire. They
were a formidable force, led by Gandhi, the
wise yet humble man who maintained that
no matter what the British did, if they kept
to their non-violent ethics then eventually
they would be rewarded with independ-
ence. Gandhi was now planning his newest
movement- the Salt March. Despite being
something widely available on the shores of
India, salt was a taxed commodity, and it
was illegal to make it. In a further act of de-
fiance, on the 12th March 1930, Gandhi led
100,000 Indians to Dandi beach, where he
made salt. He claimed that it was the right
of his people to harvest the resources avail-
able to them in their homeland and
aroused strong feelings of patriotism and
pride in the Indians. They were now more
motivated than ever to continue to fight
alongside Gandhi, and despite the fact that
most of the Indians with Gandhi were
thrown into prison, their eagerness to be a
part of the movement that they hoped
would make India an independent country
did not die.
In 1939, the world faced another war. As
part of the British Empire, the Indians were
expected to fight alongside Britain. Howev-
er, it was not guaranteed that they would
remain loyal- especially with the current
tension between the Indians and their
British rulers. Gandhi advised his people to
join the armed forces and defend the Em-
pire, but said that in return they must be
given independence come the end of the
war. Although the British never officially
agreed to such a bargain, considering the
number of Indians that gave their lives to
defend the rulers who treated them so bad-
ly, it is no surprise that they declared the
British “satanic” when they discovered that
they would not be given their reward.
It was now clear that the Indians had the
moral high ground. A combination of their
almost untainted record of non-violence
and peaceful non-cooperation, the loyalty
and bravery that they had showed during
the war and the skill and persuasiveness of
their leader, Gandhi led to their eventual
independence in 1947. It had been a long,
difficult and for some fatal road to justice,
and the victory should have been a monu-
mental success. However, Gandhi was sad
to see that despite his efforts to keep unity
between Muslims and Hindus, independ-
ence would bring with it the partition of In-
dia into two separate countries, India and
Pakistan, one for the Muslims and one for
the Hindus. Although he is still regarded as
the “Father of India”, and was undoubtedly
an incredibly strong and wise leader, in
many ways, Gandhi believed that he had
failed.
In the months following independence,
Gandhi preached about the importance of
acceptance and tolerance towards people
of all religions. He also still believed strongly
36
in the in exhaustible strength of peace and
remained the humble little Indian man in his
homespun loincloth, the man the world had
learned to respect and love.
As a Hindu man who had always showed le-
niency towards Muslims, Gandhi was sub-
jected to the disapproval of extremists. On
30th January 1948, he was assassinated by
Nathuram Godse, a radical Hindu. Gandhi
was shot by one of the very people whose
freedom he had worked for years to save. A
life of humility, passion, benevolence, deter-
mination, courage and understanding was
ended because one man was too close-
minded to see what Gandhi had seen, to see
that war, violence and cruelty would not
lead to a better world.
Throughout his lifetime, Gandhi had devot-
ed himself to improving the lives of others.
His work will never be forgotten, even today
we see some of the effects of the changes
that he instigated, and we can only hope
that one day, the world will see another
man like Mahatma Gandhi, another man
who will truly understand the capacity and
potential of truth and love.
“When I despair, I remember that all
through history the way of truth and love
have always won. There have been tyrants
and murderers, and for a time, they can
seem invincible, but in the end, they always
fall. Think of it-always.” Mahatma Gandhi.
By Dana McGibbon.
37
An Interview with Richard Blake
In an interview exclusive to the Winstanley
College History Magazine, Dr Sean Gabb,
who goes by the pen-name “Richard Blake”
tells us, among other things, what makes
history a good subject.
He is the author of 20 books, six of them his-
torical novels for Hodder & Stoughton.
These have been translated into Spanish,
Italian, Greek, Slovak, Hungarian, Chinese
and Indonesian. Under his own name, he
has written four novels. His other books are
mainly about libertarian politics.
In addition to writing, he has lectured and
taught at various universities including Mid-
dlesex University, the University of Bucking-
ham, Greenwich University, Charles Univer-
sity (Prague), and Comenius University
(Slovakia), and in the 1990s he was the Eco-
nomic and Political Advisor to the Slovak
Prime Minister, Ján Čarnogurský. Since 2006,
he has been the director of the civil liberties
think-tank, the Libertarian Alliance.
How did you end up writing historical nov-
els? Was it always the plan?
Very little in my life has been planned.
There are some people who map out
their futures while at school and stick to
the map. Good luck to them, if they find
they have chosen the right map. In my
case, I started with certain ambitions,
and left it largely to chance which I
would achieve. I suppose I am lucky to
have got as far as I have.
This being said, becoming a novelist was
always one of my ambitions. As a school-
boy, I wrote dozens of short stories.
38
I also wrote a verse play based on the trial of
Jeremy Thorpe. After university, I wrote a
novel that no one would even consider pub-
lishing. Later in my twenties, I wrote another
novel that got the same response. After this,
I largely gave up on fiction, and I turned to
non-fiction. This did get published, though
hardly ever in the mainstream media.
Then, in 2005, two things happened. The
first was that my wife took me on a long
weekend to Rome. Despite a lifetime obses-
sion with the ancient world and its litera-
ture, I had never been there. We wandered
about all the ancient sites. But, even for me
– especially in the February cold – there was
a limit to how many piles of broken masonry
I felt inclined to look at. After a visit to the
church of St Mary Maggiore – built in the
fourth century and still in use – we decided
to spend the rest of our time looking at the
early Christian and mediaeval buildings.
They gave a much stronger feel for the past
than any of the ancient sites, the Pantheon
excepted.
The second was my mother’s loan to me of
about a dozen of her favourite Roman de-
tective novels. This is a developed sub-genre
– set a standard detective mystery in the An-
cient World. I read a couple of these and
threw the rest aside in disgust. They were
badly-written as novels, and were filled with
more historical blunders than I felt willing to
tolerate.
“Can you do any better?” my mother
asked.
“Just you watch me,” I answered.
So, in April 2005, I decided to write a Ro-
man detective novel of my own. Because
of my trip to Rome – and because of my
considerable interest in and knowledge
of the end of Antiquity – I would set it
around the end of the sixth century. This
was a time when direct Roman rule had
ended in most of the Western provinces,
and Rome itself was falling into ruin, but
when the Eastern half of the Empire con-
tinued in full swing, under an Emperor
ruling from Constantinople.
Another reason I chose this period was
because I thought too many other people
had set their historical fiction in the two
centuries about the Birth of Christ. I
might as well try for originality.
A further decision was to make the hero
a young Englishman. I didn’t know how
good I could make the novel, and I felt it
would add something to its immediacy to
have a fellow countryman as the hero. So
I called up a list of Anglo-Saxon names. I
wanted something that was distinctly
English but not obviously modern. I came
across the name Aelric. I wanted him
young and clever and beautiful, and dith-
ered a bit over his age before settling on
eighteen. And that was it.
Something I didn’t bother thinking about
was a plot. I had a vague idea about a
murder in Rome, which young Aelric
would investigate in the usual way.
Three pages into the novel, though, this
resolve collapsed. Instead, I found myself
writing with as much conscious direction
39
as some surrealist poet in the 1920s.
I wrote on railway journeys to London. I
wrote in the gaps between the lectures I
was giving at my university. I wrote on an
aeroplane journey to and from America,
and in the American hotel when I wasn’t
about my paid business. I wrote and wrote,
watching a surprisingly tight plot organise
itself on the computer screen. I finished The
Column of Phocas in six weeks, and missed
it horribly the first day I thought there was
nothing more to do with it.
What happened next I will describe only
briefly. No agent or publisher would touch
the book. In the end, I formatted it in
MSWord, and gave it a cover, and engaged a
printer to make a thousand copies. These
sold out within a few months. I then wrote
directly to a dozen publishers, suggesting
they should have another look at me. The
result was two offers. I’ve now written six
books in my Byzantine Series, all by “Richard
Blake.” These are:
Conspiracies of Rome (2008)
The Terror of Constantinople (2009)
The Blood of Alexandria (2010)
The Sword of Damascus (2011)
The Ghosts of Athens (2012)
The Curse of Babylon (2013)
Where are your historical novels set pri-
marily?
To some extent, I’ve answered that ques-
tion. Look at the titles, and that will tell you
where the others are set. What I wanted in
the six was to show the main cities as they
probably looked and felt at the end of An-
tiquity. The Damascus novel is set near the
end of the seventh century, after the Arab
conquests, when my hero is in his late nine-
ties. It’s a thriller about Greek Fire – the
mysterious chemical weapon that the Byz-
antine Empire used to turn back the tide of
Islamic conquest, and to face down Islam
for the next four hundred years. I think it’s
my best novel – and I’ve now written
twelve. It’s certainly my favourite.
Rather than continue answering your ques-
tion, though, let me go back to the matter
of plotting. Some writers like to make up a
long prior synopsis – showing what happens
and when, and describing all the characters.
What I do is to start with a vague idea of
where I want to end, and leave the rest of
inspiration. As I write, the ideas pop into my
mind. Frequently, I have to go back and re-
vise or add chapters. The final product
hangs together, and always looks as if it was
designed from the outset. But the process is
chaotic.
Why Byzantium?
I discovered the Ancient World when I was
eight. I was so smitten by it that I tried to
teach myself Greek. That had to wait till my
twenties, but I did teach myself Latin, and I
disappeared into a compulsive reading of
everything I could find on the Greeks and
Romans and their neighbours. Then, when I
was twelve, I read Gibbon. He begins in the
second century, but only becomes an unap-
proachable classic when he gets to the
fourth century. I went with him through all
the crises of Late Antiquity and the early
Middle Ages. That laid the basis for what I
40
did at university. The York History Depart-
ment had no particular interest in the Classi-
cal Ages of Greece and Rome. But several of
the people there were distinguished mediae-
valists, and they let me focus on the fifth and
sixth centuries. They eventually pulled me
far enough forward to become a competent
Byzantine scholar.
Add this to my desire to be original, and you
have one answer to your question. I know
the period. I’ve read all the sources, and
hundreds of journal articles.
Another reason, however, is that Byzantine
history is much more inspiring than most
Western scholars were willing to realise until
the last half of the twentieth century. The
standard view, before then, was of a fossil-
ised semi-theocracy that only survived a
thousand years because its enemies were
even more useless than it was. The truth is
radically different.
Classical Greece and Rome are undoubtedly
glamorous. The Greeks gave us the founda-
tions of our science and philosophy. They
were a special people. The Romans gave us
our distinct notions of law and administra-
tion. They are the parents of our own civili-
sation. Apart from that, they were dreadful
people. The Greeks were a collection of eth-
nocentric tribes, who nearly exterminated
each other before they were conquered by
outsiders. The Roman Empire was an in-
creasingly total slave state, with a class of
parasitic landlords and an equally parasitic
bureaucracy piled on top. Right at the top
was an Emperor who, where not a non-
entity, was more likely to be mad or a tyrant
than a Marcus Aurelius.
Even a less awful government than this sys-
tem provided couldn’t have stopped the
great misfortunes of the fifth century.
Starting around the second century, global
temperatures began to cool. This led to a
wave of epidemic diseases and a movement
of peoples that brought the Empire to the
edge of collapse. But heavy taxation and bu-
reaucratic meddling made these primary
misfortunes even worse.
Then, after the collapse or the Western Em-
pire, the Eastern half turned Greek Christian.
It carried on in something like the old style
until the end of the sixth century, when it
got into a war with the Persian Empire that it
nearly lost, and then had to deal with the
first explosion of Islam into the world. The
Persian Empire, ultimately defeated in its
war with the Empire, collapsed in a single
campaign. But, though the Empire lost Egypt
and Syria and North Africa, it stayed alive
and kicking in every province that was Greek
and Orthodox.
What happened was that the Byzantine Gov-
ernment dropped virtually the whole of its
Roman heritage. A vast programme of land
redistribution turned the agricultural classes
into armed freeholders. Taxes and regula-
tions were systematically cut or abolished.
The urban proletariats were told to feed
themselves or to starve. The result, behind a
façade of divine right monarchy, was an
armed democracy that faced down every
threat to its existence until nearly the end of
the eleventh century, and that managed
41
more or less to keep going into the middle
of the fifteenth century.
Properly read, Byzantine history is an inspir-
ing history – at least as inspiring as the his-
tory of the Classical Greek resistance to Da-
rius and Xerxes. It’s a wonderful setting for
historical fiction.
Who are the main influences on your
writing style?
Too many names to list. But here is a partial
list: Mary Renault, Mika Waltari, Gore Vidal,
Paul Capon, George MacDonald Fraser, Pat-
rick O’Brian, et al, et al.
What makes a good historical novel?
I’ll begin with what makes a good novel. The
answer here is a strong plot and credible
characters. I’ve never had any time for the
Modern Movement in literature or in any-
thing else. Any novel that doesn’t give its
readers a good story is a bad novel. A dreary
novel is also a bad novel. In my view, Cathe-
rine Cookson is a better novelist than Virgin-
ia Woolf. Jeffrey Archer is better than James
Joyce. Iris Murdoch was a fraud. So too just
about anything you’ll find on an A Level Eng-
lish list of set books.
I turn to historical fiction. You still need a
strong plot and credible characters. You also
need to get your facts right. When did the
Greeks and Romans have dinner? Did they
wear underclothes? How did they wipe their
bottoms? Get these facts, and any of the
others, wrong, and you deserve a good
beating from your readers and the critics.
You also need to get the balance right be-
tween fact and fantasy. Unless you’re into
writing semi-fictional pageants in the style
of Jean Plaidy, you’ll have a mix of real and
fictional characters. The mix has to work. In
my Churchill Memorandum (2011), written
under another name, I bring in much of the
mid-twentieth century British political es-
tablishment. But this is an alternative histo-
ry satire, set in a world where the Second
World War hadn’t happened. I can do as I
please with my characters. In my alternative
1959, I could turn everyone who actually ex-
isted into a grossly defamatory caricature.
In my Byzantine novels, there are only half a
dozen characters who really existed. The
main ones are the Emperors Phocas and
Heraclius, the General Priscus, and the King
of Persia. Except they were rather unpleas-
ant, we know very little about any of them.
There was no Herodotus or Suetonius or
Tacitus to tell us how they behaved or what
they said. This means I can treat them as I
please. Phocas is a kind of Stalin. Heraclius
may be a clever politician or a dithering fool.
Chosroes is a raving maniac. If Priscus were
brought back to life, he might be flattered
by what I’ve done with him. But the main
answer to this question is that your problem
doesn’t arrive. The real characters might as
well be fictional for all I need to pay atten-
tion to my sources.
Then there is the matter of language. This is
a problem in all historical fiction. Let me
begin by showing how it shouldn’t be done.
Take this:
42
The King rose up upon his couch. “Thou
shalt, before this night is out,” he quoth,
“mount upon thy trusty charger and bring
me the head of the false Bobindrell.”
Whether people may once have spoken like
this in England is beside the point. What
matters is that it sounds ridiculous now, and
it distances a reader from the characters in a
novel. Whether your novel is set in England
c1550, or some other time and place, here is
how I suggest it should be done:
Still smiling, the King leaned closer. “I want
the f--- dead,” he breathed. “I don’t care how
you do it. Just make sure none of the blame
ever drifts my way.” He drank from his cup
again and went back to watching the jug-
glers.
Of course, you avoid words and images that
only make sense in our own civilisation. But,
when I write one of my Byzantine novels, I
try to write in a way that sounds natural to a
modern English reader. I can do this because
the pretence is that the narrator is writing in
natural Greek which has been translated into
natural English. At the same time, an educat-
ed person writing Greek in the seventh cen-
tury would have paid some regard to the
conventions of the ancient language. There-
fore, the English translation has a slight tinge
of the eighteenth century. You get something
like this:
“My Lord Bishop,” I sighed, “you really
should consider how much you are p-ssing
off our Imperial Lord and Master.”
As for things like sexual morality and the
taste for recreational substances you’ll find
in my novels, these are fully evidenced in the
sources. Life is usually awful when it isn’t
boring. The answer has always been to find
the right mix of chemicals to make things
seem better than they are.
What would you say to anyone studying his-
tory at A-level today?
Good luck. History has always contained a
fair bit of propaganda for the fashionable or-
der of things. My advice – and this also ap-
plies to A Level Economics – is to put your
head down and to the work. We live in a
country where you are nothing without a
stack of paper to prove you are worth taking
seriously. Be aware of the falsehoods you are
required to learn, and parrot them to order
whenever required.
If you were 16 today, would you go on to
read history at university?
Probably not. When I was there, York was
run by the social democratic left. Those peo-
ple more than tolerated me. They sometimes
rolled their eyes at me. They nagged me
when I ignored their reading lists. But they
would never have dreamed of marking me
down for anything I wrote. I was a rabid lib-
ertarian and High Tory. They found that
amusing, and nothing more than that. They
also let me study whatever I fancied. I don’t
think I’d have so easy a run today.
If I were going to university in 2015, I’d apply
to do Classics. There is a mass of left-wing
idiocy there as well. But the discipline need-
ed for understanding the Classical Lan-
guages, and the ingrained habits of several
43
thousand years of classical scholarship, make
it harder to do to Classics what has been
done to English Literature or even History.
What makes history a good subject, or
what is good about history?
Any history is good that puts you in touch
with the sources. That includes even the old-
er kinds of Marxist history. At all times, we
live in a bath of propaganda for whatever is
fashionable. Sometimes what is fashionable
may be true. But one advantage of studying
the past by going to the sources is that you
are made to realise that your own assump-
tions and prejudices have not been univer-
sally accepted. I believe that a close study of
English History between about 1660 and
1914 will put you in touch with the truth on
most issues. Even if you study the Witchcraft
Mania of the sixteenth century, though, or
the Wars of Religion, or the Crusades, you
will be forced to think about what you be-
lieve.
But this is pompous, if probably true. History
is a vast treasure house of good stories. His-
torians like Herodotus and Tacitus and Gib-
bon are among the best prose writers. Any-
one who refuses to study History is giving up
on a lifetime of first rate entertainment.
By Keir Martland.
44
What’s b
een
happening...
Heresy convention at Nottingham
University
Remembering the Holocaust:
Poetry readings and discus-
sions.
Verney Civil Rights Lecture
Debate: 'We've Never Had it So Good: Britain is a
much better place than it was in 1914'
Dungeons and Dragons
& Total War groups
45
Winstanley College History Society
2014-2015…
PRESIDENTS Cameron Fleming & Zara An-
drews
VICE PRESIDENT Keir Martland
SOCIAL MEDIA Harry Griffiths & Mollie Williams
HISTORICAL DRAMA Vanessa Holt & Ruth Cambell
TOTAL WAR TOURNAMENTS Dominic Doran
HISTORY MAGAZINE CO-EDITORS Madeleine McDonagh & Sally
Dickens
MAGAZINE EDITORIAL TEAM Emma Porter, Keir Martland, Na-
thaniel Lamb & Elizabeth Cunliffe