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Page 1: History magazine feb edition

1

Winstanley College

History Magazine February 2015 Edition

Page 2: History magazine feb 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.

Page 4: History magazine feb edition

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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.

Page 7: History magazine feb edition

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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

Page 8: History magazine feb edition

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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,

Page 9: History magazine feb edition

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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.

Page 10: History magazine feb edition

10

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.

Page 11: History magazine feb edition

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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.

Page 12: History magazine feb edition

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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.

Page 13: History magazine feb edition

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.

Page 14: History magazine feb edition

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

Page 15: History magazine feb edition

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.

Page 16: History magazine feb edition

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.

Page 17: History magazine feb edition

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.

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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.

Page 19: History magazine feb edition

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.

Page 20: History magazine feb edition

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.

Page 21: History magazine feb edition

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

Page 22: History magazine feb edition

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.

Page 23: History magazine feb edition

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.

Page 24: History magazine feb edition

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.

Page 25: History magazine feb edition

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

Page 26: History magazine feb edition

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.

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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

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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

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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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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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

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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

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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

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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.

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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.

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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

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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

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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

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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:

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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

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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.

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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

Page 45: History magazine feb edition

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