152. Swinging pendulum, new characters
A History of England23 Juli 2023

152. Swinging pendulum, new characters

The pendulum had been swinging fairly steadily over the twenty years up to the early 1890s, with any party that won an election generally losing the next. That happened again in 1892, although the win was nothing like as decisive as Gladstone had hoped, leaving him instead dependent on Irish MPs to have the votes to challenge for office again.

It also produced a crop of interesting new characters for the politics of the future. The first Labour MP independent of the Liberal Party, Keir Hardie. Edward Carson, the Unionist lawyer from Dublin who’d already won a reputation as a tough prosecutor in Ireland. Herbert Henry Asquith, first elected six years earlier, now on the brink of an important career. David Lloyd George whose future would be closely bound up with Asquith and had been elected two years earlier.

As well as these figures, this episode also talks about Charles Bradlaugh, who had died the year before the election, but whose campaign to allow the non-religious to sit in parliament would have repercussions long after his life and involved many of the people we’ve come to know, though not necessarily love, such as Asquith, Labouchère and Randolph Churchill.

Indeed, after his death – at his funeral indeed – it even involved a figure of huge importance later, one of the towering giants of the twentieth century, Mohandas K. Ghandi.

Yes, that’s right. The Mahatma.



Illustration: Keir Hardie, Labour’s first MP, as he was in 1892, by Arthur Clegg Weston. National Portrait Gallery x13173

Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License.


Avsnitt(259)

2. The Wives of Henry VIII

2. The Wives of Henry VIII

We got to know Henry VIII a bit in chapter 1. We also talked a little about his wives, and it seems only right that we think about them a bit more now, especially since having a lot of wives is what Henry's best known for. So chapter 2 takes a look at their stories, at why Henry married them (well, the other reasons, apart from his attraction to young women), and to what extent he hit his objective. And, to surprise and amuse us all, we end with an unusual example of foresight and enlightened thinking from a monarch generally better known for self-serving authoritarianism. The picture is a detail of a British stamp showing the face of Catherine Howard, the wife who was rather too free with her charms for the taste of of her husband. ©Andy Lidstone/123RF.COM Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License.

24 Nov 202013min

A History of England (Trailer)

A History of England (Trailer)

21 Nov 202036s

1. Bloody Henry

1. Bloody Henry

Welcome to A History of England. As well as the podcast, there's a series of accompanying booklets, available as a paperback or a Kindle download. The first, covering episodes 1-35, is available on Amazon now. Just look for David Beeson A History of England. We can't get started without taking a moment to acknowledge the Spanish journalist and novelist, Arturo Perez Reverte. It was his Una Historia d'España, A History of Spain that inspired me to make this series. I like the idea of really short chapters, which I've imitated. I like the use of a normal sort of language,  and not fine, carefully modulated diction. But above all, what I liked was the idea of A history and not The history of the nation. I make no pretence at writing some academic tome. I make no pretence of academic detachment. I do make a pretence, or rather the attempt, to get the facts as right as possible. However, it's a particular view. Above all, it's less about discovering what England did at any particular point over the last few centuries, as about understanding how, by doing it, England got Britain to where it is today.  Let's get started. With, sensibly enough, Chapter One. It's dedicated to Henry VIII or, as I think of him, Bloody Henry. Picture: ©Satori/123RF.COM Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License.

19 Nov 202012min

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