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From ‘Bad King John’ and the debauched Gaius Caligula to the “useless” Mary, Queen of Scots, historian Seán Lang rounds up nine of the worst kings and queens in history…
History has no shortage of disastrous kings, queens, and other rulers; such a list could easily have been filled with the worst Roman emperors alone. Some have been homicidal, like Nero or Genghis Khan; simply incompetent, like Edward II; completely untrustworthy, like Charles I; or amiable but inadequate, like Louis XVI of France or Tsar Nicholas II. But who are truly the worst of the worst, and why? From maniacal medieval monarchs to Habsburg horrors, Dr Seán Lang makes the case against the 9 worst king, queens, and various other leaders from across history... The worst monarchs from history Gaius Caligula Pope John XII King John King Richard II Ivan IV ‘the Terrible’ Mary, Queen of Scots Emperor Rudolf II Queen Ranavalona I of Madagascar King Leopold II of Belgium Gaius Caligula (AD 12–41) There are plenty of other contenders for worst Roman Emperor – Nero and Commodus for example – but Caligula's mad reign sets a high standard. After a promising start to his reign he seems to have set out specifically to intimidate and humiliate the senate and high command of the army, and he gave grave offence, not least in Jerusalem, by declaring himself a god; even the Romans normally only recognised deification after death. Caligula instituted a reign of terror through arbitrary arrest for treason, much as his predecessor Tiberius had done; it was also widely rumoured that he was engaged in incest with his sisters and that he lived a life of sexual debauchery, and this may well be true. The story of his making his horse a consul, meanwhile, may have been exaggerated, but it was not out of character. Caligula’s unforgivable mistake was to jeopardise Rome's military reputation by declaring a sort of surreal war on the sea, ordering his soldiers to wade in and slash at the waves with their swords and collecting chests full of seashells as the spoils of his ‘victory’ over the water god Neptune, king of the sea and by his failed campaign against the Germans, for which he still awarded himself a triumph. He was assassinated by the Praetorian Guard in AD 41. Caligula’s successor, Claudius, was an improvement but, despite the favourable picture in Robert Graves's famous book I, Claudius, not by much. Pope John XII (954–964) Even by the lax standards of the medieval papacy, John XII stands out as a disaster of the highest order. He was elected pope at the ripe old age of 18 as part of a political deal with the Roman nobility, and he inherited a conflict for control of Italy between the papacy and the Italian king Berengarius. John had the support of the powerful German emperor Otto I, who swore to defend John's title, but John himself was too taken up with a life of drunken sex parties in the Lateran to care too much either way. He recovered from his hangover enough to accept Otto's oath of undying loyalty and then promptly linked up behind Otto's back with his enemy, Berengarius. Understandably annoyed, Otto had John overthrown and accused, among other things, of simony (clerical corruption), murder, perjury and incest, and he replaced him with a new pope, Leo VIII. However, John made a comeback and had Leo's supporters punished ruthlessly: one cardinal had his hand cut off and he had a bishop whipped. Full-scale war broke out between John and Otto, until John unexpectedly died – in bed with another man's wife, or so rumour had it. Read more | The murderous history of Bible translations King John (1199–1216) The reign of King John is a salutary reminder that murder and treachery may possibly be forgiven in a monarch, but not incompetence. John was the youngest and favourite son of Henry II, but he had not been entrusted with any lands and was mockingly nicknamed John Lackland. He tried unsuccessfully to seize power while his brother Richard I was away on crusade and was sent into exile upon Richard's return. On his accession John had his own nephew Arthur murdered, fearing Arthur might pursue his own, much better, claim to the throne, and he embarked on a disastrous war with King Philippe-Auguste of France in which he lost the whole of Normandy. This singular act of incompetence deprived the barons of an important part of their power base, and he alienated them further with arbitrary demands for money and even by forcing himself on their wives. Read more | Was King John murdered? In exasperation they forced him to accept Magna Carta; no sooner had he sealed it, however, than he then went back on his word and plunged the country into a maelstrom of war and French invasion. Some tyrants have been rehabilitated by history – but not John. King Richard II (1377–99) Unlike Richard III, Richard II has good reason to feel grateful towards Shakespeare, who portrayed this startlingly incompetent monarch as a tragic figure; a victim of circumstances and of others' machinations rather than the vain, self-regarding author of his own downfall he actually was. Learning nothing from the disastrous precedent of Edward II, Richard II alienated the nobility by gathering a bunch of cronies around him and then ended up in confrontation with parliament over his demands for money. His reign descended into a game of political manoeuvre between himself and his much more able and impressive uncle, John of Gaunt, before degenerating into a gory grudge match between Richard and the five Lords Appellant, whom he either had killed or forced into exile. Richard might have redeemed himself by prowess in war or administration, but he possessed neither. Henry Bolingbroke's coup of 1399, illegal though it no doubt was, brought to an end Richard's disastrous reign. Richard II has his defenders nowadays, who will doubtless take issue with his inclusion in this list, but there really is very little to say for him as a ruler. Read more | 7 things you (probably) didn’t know about the houses of Lancaster and York Ivan IV ‘the Terrible’ (1547–84) Prince Ivan Vassilyevitch grew up at the hazardous court of Moscow, his life often in danger from the rivalry of the boyars – nobles. It gave him a lifelong hatred of the nobility and a deep streak of ruthless cruelty – aged 13 he had one boyar eaten alive by dogs. Ivan was Prince of Muscovy from 1533, and in 1547 he was crowned Tsar (Emperor) of all Russia – the first ruler to hold the title. He crushed the boyars, stealing their lands to give to his own followers; he also condemned millions of Russians to a permanent state of serfdom. Ivan took a vast area of Russia as his personal domain patrolled by a mounted police force with carte blanche to arrest and execute as they liked. Distrusting the city of Novgorod he had it violently sacked and its inhabitants massacred, and he embarked on a disastrous and ultimately unsuccessful series of wars with Russia's neighbours. Ivan beat up his own pregnant daughter-in-law and killed his son in a fit of rage. Ivan was in many ways an able ruler, but his ruthlessness, paranoia and taste for blood earn him his place in this list. Mary, Queen of Scots (1542–67) We are so familiar with the drama and tragedy of Mary, Queen of Scots' reign that it is easy to overlook the blindingly obvious point that she was absolutely useless as queen of Scotland. Admittedly, ruling 16th-century Scotland was no easy task, and it was made harder still for Mary by the stern Presbyterian leader, John Knox, and her violent, boorish husband, Lord Darnley. Nevertheless, Mary showed none of her cousin Elizabeth I's political skill in defusing religious or factional conflict, and she headed into pointless confrontation with Knox and the Presbyterians. At a time when female rule was generally regarded with suspicion in any case, she played up to the stereotype by appearing to live in a cosy world of favourites – including her unfortunate Italian guitar teacher, David Rizzio. Read more | How did Mary, Queen of Scots fall from grace? Mary’s suspected involvement in the spectacular murder of Darnley on 10 February 1567 was a political mistake of the first order; her marriage three months later to the main suspect, the Earl of Bothwell, was an act of breathtaking stupidity. It is hardly surprising that the Scots overthrew Mary and locked her up. Having escaped, she was mad to throw away her advantage by going to England, where she could only be regarded as a threat, instead of to France, where she would have been welcomed with open arms. Emperor Rudolf II (1576–1612) Some historians are kinder to Rudolf than in the past, but by any standards he was a disastrous ruler. He was elected Holy Roman Emperor in 1576, though he was prone to long bouts of deep depression and melancholia and he spent most of his time dabbling in alchemy and astrology. A staunch Catholic, Rudolf tore up the religious settlement that for the past 20 years had kept Germany's Catholics and Protestants from each others' throats, and embarked on a crusade to eradicate Protestantism from Germany's towns and villages. On the podcast | Everything you need to know about the Holy Roman Empire When the Protestants formed a self-defence league, the Hungarians rose in revolt and the Turks launched an offensive, Rudolf shut himself up in Prague Castle and refused to speak to anyone. Eventually the Habsburgs had to agree to replace Rudolf with his brother, Matthias, who restored the religious peace in Germany and signed treaties with the Turks and Hungarians, only for Rudolf to fly into a rage and start up the Turkish war again. Rudolf reluctantly signed the letter of majesty granting freedom of worship to Protestants in Bohemia but then embarked on a programme of persecution. The Bohemians appealed to Matthias for help, and in 1611 Rudolf was forced to hand power over to his brother. He died a year later, having laid the foundations for the disastrous Thirty Years’ War that would tear Europe apart within six years of his death. Queen Ranavalona I of Madagascar (1828–61) At a time when the Europeans were spreading their colonial holdings around the world, Queen Ranavalona was able to keep Madagascar free of British and French control, but she did so by establishing a rule so ruthless that it has been estimated that the population of her kingdom was halved during her reign. Queen Ranavalona maintained her power by retaining the loyalty of the Malagasy army and imposing regular periods of forced labour on the rest of the population in lieu of taxation. On one notorious occasion she organised a buffalo hunt for herself, her nobles and their families and followers, and she insisted that an entire road be built in front of the party for them all to advance to the hunt in comfort: an estimated 10,000 people died carrying out this particular piece of folly. Queen Ranavalona faced several plots and at least one serious coup attempt; as she grew more paranoid she forced more people to undergo the notorious tangena test: eating three pieces of chicken skin before swallowing a poisonous nut that caused the victim to vomit (if it did not actually poison them, which it often did). If all three pieces were not found in the vomit, the victim was executed. Having encouraged Christianity at the start of her reign, Queen Ranavalona changed policy and instituted ruthless persecution of native Christians. She survived all plots against her and died in her bed. King Leopold II of Belgium (1865–1909) Leopold's place in this list results not from his rule in Belgium, but from the crimes committed in the enormous kingdom he carved out for himself in Congo. He obtained the territory by international agreement and named it the Congo Free State; it was not a Belgian colony, but the king's personal fiefdom. The CFS was presented to the world as a model of liberty and prosperity, devoted to the elimination of slavery. Only gradually did the world learn that it was in fact a slave state in which the Congolese were ruled by terror. As Leopold raked in the riches from Congo's enormous reserves of copper, ivory and rubber, the Congolese were forced to work by wholesale mutilation of their wives and children, usually by chopping off their hands or feet. Mutilation was also widely used as a punishment for workers who ran away or collected less than their quota. Read more | How to be a successful monarch An investigation by the British consular official Roger Casement revealed that the Belgian Force Publique regarded the Congolese as little more than animals to be killed for sport. The king fought a high-profile legal battle to prevent details of his regime in Congo from being made public, and it took an international campaign to force him to hand Congo over to the Belgian government. Leopold's name is forever associated with the Congolese reign of terror, and that alone justifies his inclusion in this list.
The worst Roman emperors: 8 of the bloodiest from ancient Rome's history
Ruthless and violent, ancient Rome's leaders are infamous for their tyrannical reigns of terror. But who were the worst Roman emperors? Here, historian Sean Lang examines eight of the bloodiest…
We all know about the Roman Emperors, don't we? Mad, bad and decidedly dangerous to know. Who can forget Peter Ustinov's Nero in the 1951 epic Quo Vadis?, or John Hurt's tortured and murderous Caligula in the BBC's I, Claudius? In fact, as historians point out (to anyone who will listen), many of the emperors on the list below were competent – even gifted – administrators, and the sources for some of the more lurid stories about them are not always above suspicion of exaggeration or invention. And some of the crimes that most shocked their contemporaries, like a penchant for performing in public, would not necessarily offend us so much today. Some emperors, like Nero or Domitian, have passed into history as models of erratic, paranoid tyrants; others, like Diocletian, were able administrators, providing good government (unless you happened to be a Christian, in which case you were in great peril). Even under the worst emperors Rome continued to function, but involvement in public life could become a decidedly dangerous business. Who are the worst Roman emperors? Tiberius Gaius Nero Domitian Commodus Marcus Aurelius Antoninus I (Caracalla) Marcus Aurelius Antoninus II (Elagabalus) Diocletian Tiberius Ruled AD 14–37 Tiberius was the successor to Augustus, though Augustus did not particularly want Tiberius to succeed him, and it was only the untimely death of the emperor's grandsons Gaius and Lucius, and Augustus's decision to exile their younger brother, Agrippa Postumus, that put Tiberius in line for the imperial throne. Tiberius was a gifted military commander and respected the authority of the senate. However, he had a gloomy and increasingly suspicious outlook that won him few friends and led him into a bitter dispute with Agrippina, the widow of his war hero nephew Germanicus. Fatally, Tiberius relied heavily on the ambitious and ruthless Aelius Sejanus, who instituted a reign of terror until Tiberius, learning that Sejanus planned to seize power himself, had him arrested and executed. Read more | 7 things you (probably) didn’t know about Roman women Tiberius sank into morbid suspicion of everyone around him: he retreated to the island of Capri and revived the ancient accusation of maiestas (treason) and used it to sentence to death anyone he suspected. Roman historians Suetonius and Tacitus give us a picture of Tiberius living on Capri as a depraved sexual predator, which may owe more to colourful imagination than to fact, though he certainly made use of a sheer drop into the sea to dispose of anyone he took issue with. Tiberius was not a monster in the mould of some of his successors, but he certainly set the tone for what was to come. Gaius (Caligula) Ruled AD 37–41 Gaius (‘Caligula' or ‘little bootee’ – a childhood nickname given him by his father's troops) is best known for a series of eccentric actions, such as declaring war on the sea and proclaiming himself a god. His reign actually began quite promisingly, but after a serious bout of illness he developed paranoia that led him into alarmingly erratic behaviour, possibly including incest with his sister, Julia Drusilla, whom he named as his heir. Gaius took particular delight in humiliating the senate, claiming that he could make anyone consul, even his horse (though, contrary to the popular story, he didn't actually go through with this). As the son of Germanicus [a prominent general], Gaius was keen to establish his military credentials, though his campaign in Germany achieved little and his abortive invasion of Britain had to be turned into a battle with the sea god Neptune: he is said to have told his troops to attack the waves with their swords and gather seashells as booty. Read more | Who are the most underrated Roman emperors? Gaius declared himself a god and used his divine status to establish what was, in effect, an absolutist monarchy in Rome. He followed Tiberius's example of using treason trials to eliminate enemies, real or imagined. In the end it was his rather childish taunting of Cassius Chaerea, a member of the Praetorian guard, which brought Gaius down. Chaerea arranged for his assassination at the Palatine Games. He is supposed to have protested that he couldn't be killed because he was an immortal god, but he turned out to be rather less immortal than he thought. Nero Ruled AD 54–68 Nero is the Roman Emperor we all love to hate, and not without reason. He was actually a competent administrator, and he was aided by some very able men, including his tutor – the writer Seneca. However, he was also unquestionably a murderer, starting with his step-brother Britannicus, with whom he had been supposed to share power, and progressing through his wife Octavia, whom he deserted for his lover, Poppeaea, and then had executed on a trumped-up charge of adultery. Probably on Poppaea's prompting he had his own mother murdered, though the initial attempt, using a collapsible boat, went wrong, and she had to be beaten to death instead. He then kicked Poppaea to death in a fit of anger while she was pregnant with his child. Read more | Everything you wanted to know about Roman Britain Contrary to the myth, Nero did not start the great fire of Rome, nor did he ‘fiddle’ (nor even play the lyre), while the city burned – in fact, he organised relief work for its victims and planned the rebuilding. But Nero’s fondness for his own music and poetry, which made him force senators to sit through his own interminable and talentless recitals, meant people could easily believe it of him. Nero was much hated for building his huge, tasteless ‘golden house’ complex [aka the Domus Aurea, a large landscaped portico villa] in the ruins of what had been the public area of central Rome. He undoubtedly persecuted Christians in large numbers, and his childish insistence on winning the laurels at the Olympic Games in Greece – whether or not he actually won, or indeed finished the race – brought the whole Roman empire into disrepute. Nero was toppled by an army revolt that sunk into a destructive three-way civil war. Domitian Ruled AD 81–96 Domitian was the younger son of Vespasian, the general who had emerged from the chaos after Nero's fall and restored a certain element of stability and normality to Roman public life. Domitian inherited none of his father's charm and, like others on this list, he suffered from deep suspicion of those around him, amounting to paranoia, possibly a result of his narrow escape from being killed during the civil war. He was particularly suspicious of the senate and had a number of leading citizens executed for conspiracy against him, including 12 ex-consuls and two of his own cousins. Domitian’s rule became steadily more autocratic, and he demanded to be treated like a god. He turned against philosophers, sending many of them into exile, and he arranged the judicial murder of the chief vestal virgin, having her buried alive in a specially constructed tomb. Domitian was eventually brought down by a conspiracy arranged by his wife, Domitia, and was somewhat inexpertly stabbed by a palace servant. Some historians think Domitian's tyranny has been overstated; others have compared him to Saddam Hussein at his most vengeful. Commodus Ruled AD 180–192 Commodus was the emperor immortalised by Joaquin Phoenix in Ridley Scott's Gladiator (2000). Commodus was indeed a passionate follower of gladiatorial combat, and himself fought in the arena, sometimes dressed as Hercules, for which he awarded himself divine honours, declaring that he was a Roman Hercules. Commodus was the son of the philosopher emperor Marcus Aurelius and, although the film's scene in which Commodus kills his own father is invention, it is true that Commodus was the very opposite of all that his father had stood for. Vain and pleasure-seeking, Commodus virtually bankrupted the Roman treasury and he sought to fill it up again by having wealthy citizens executed for treason so he could confiscate their property. Soon, people began plotting against him for real, including his own sister. The plots were foiled, however, and Commodus set about executing still more people, either because they were conspiring against him or because he thought they might do so in the future. Eventually the Praetorian prefect and the emperor's own court chamberlain hired a professional athlete to strangle Commodus in the bath. Marcus Aurelius Antoninus I (Caracalla) Ruled AD 211–217 Marcus Aurelius Antoninus was the son of the highly able and effective emperor Septimius Severus. ‘Caracalla’ was a nickname, derived from a hooded coat from Gaul that he introduced into Rome. Severus named his younger son, Geta, as co-heir with Caracalla, but the two quickly fell out and civil war seemed imminent until Caracalla averted this scenario by having Geta murdered. Caracalla dealt brutally with opponents: he set about exterminating Geta's supporters, and similarly wiped out those caught up in one of the city of Alexandria's regular local risings against Roman rule. Caracalla is remembered for the magnificent bath complex named after him in Rome, and for extending Roman citizenship to all free men within the empire ¬– though he was probably simply trying to raise the money he needed for his own lavish spending. He certainly turned the surplus he inherited from his father into a heavy deficit. Caracalla was a successful, if ruthless, military commander but he was assassinated by a group of ambitious army officers, including the Praetorian prefect Opellius Macrinus, who promptly proclaimed himself emperor. Marcus Aurelius Antoninus II (Elagabalus) Ruled AD 218–222 Elagabalus was a relative of Septimius Severus's wife, put forward to challenge Macrinus for the throne after the murder of Caracalla. Elagabalus overthrew Macrinus and promptly embarked on an increasingly eccentric reign. His nickname came from his role as priest of the cult of the Syrian god Elah-Gabal, which he tried to introduce into Rome to universal consternation, even having himself circumcised to show his devotion to the cult. Elagabalus deliberately offended Roman moral and religious principles, setting up a conical black stone fetish – a symbol of the sun god Sol Invictus Elagabalus – on the Palatine Hill and marrying the chief vestal, for which, under normal circumstances, she should have been put to death. Read more | Your guide to the Roman empire Romans were particularly offended by Elagabalus’s sexual behaviour – as well as a string of marriages he also openly took male lovers, and he seems to have been what would nowadays be recognised as transgender. Few historians have much good to say about Elagablus, and eventually the Romans' patience gave out: Elagabalus was murdered in a conspiracy organised by his own grandmother. Diocletian Ruled AD 284–305 It may seem unfair to include Diocletian in this group, since he is best known for the risky but sensible decision to divide the government of the Roman empire in two, taking Marcus Aurelius Maximianus as his co-emperor, each with a subordinate known as a Caesar, in a four-way division of power called the tetrarchy. Diocletian was a good administrator, and managed to hold his divided command structure together at a time when the Roman empire was coming under increasing pressure from its enemies outside its boundaries. What gets Diocletian included here, however, is his utterly ruthless persecution of Christians. Read more | A killer disease: the Antonine Plague Christians had long been regarded by most Romans with a mixture of distaste and a rather amused tolerance, but Diocletian set about the total eradication of the religion. Churches were to be destroyed, scriptures publicly burnt, and Christian priests imprisoned and forced to conduct sacrifices to the emperor on pain of death. Christians who refused to give up their faith were tortured and executed. It was an unusually vicious persecution, given that the Romans were usually accepting of other religions, and it reflects Diocletian's fear that, at a time when unity of purpose was essential for the empire's survival, Christianity represented a rejection of Roman religious values that he could not afford to allow. Caesar: Death of a Dictator Member exclusive | On the Ides of March 44 BC, the most famous Roman in history was murdered. Julius Caesar's assassination transformed Rome forever, and the image of his bloody toga has haunted monarchs and tyrants ever since. Listen to all episodes now This article was first published by History Extra in 2015
Any politician will sometimes change course, but a full-blown U-turn can be a risky undertaking, as these five key historical examples demonstrate
Wellington and Catholic Emancipation, 1829 By the 1820s, most of the old restrictions on Irish Catholics (and, indeed, Catholics elsewhere in Britain) had been removed, but they were still debarred by their faith from sitting in parliament. Irish nationalist demands for Catholic emancipation were loud, but for Tory backbenchers the exclusion of Catholics from parliament had become a talisman guaranteeing the apparent superiority both of the Protestant religion and of parliament itself. So it was with incredulity that, in 1829, parliamentarians greeted an emancipation bill presented by the impeccably Tory and protestant Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert “Orange” Peel. Their hand had been forced by an Irish Catholic lawyer, Daniel O’Connell, who – because there was nothing stopping Catholics standing for election – had stood successfully in the 1828 County Clare byelection. Given his enthusiastic mass Catholic support, Peel and Wellington feared serious disturbances in Ireland if he were to be denied his seat, hence the emancipation bill. Although the bill passed, Wellington and Peel’s U-turn disgusted the Tories, making them even more determined to resist upcoming proposals for parliamentary reform. It was a futile stand, which brought down Wellington’s government and effectively kept them out of power for ten years. Robert Peel and the Corn Laws, 1846 Received wisdom was that the Tory party stood for landowners and for protecting against the cheap import of grain. That was until, in 1846, the Tory prime minister Sir Robert Peel repealed the protectionist Corn Laws and allowed foreign corn to flow freely into the country. The Corn Laws were of enormous symbolic importance, because their repeal signalled Britain’s decisive move away from protection towards free trade. Peel had been slowly won over by the arguments of the Manchester-based Anti-Corn Law League, a radical middle-class movement that held little appeal for his conservative landowning backbenchers. The impetus for Peel’s U-turn came with the 1845 outbreak of the Great Famine in Ireland. The humanitarian case for the free flow of food, and for economic prosperity to combat the poverty that had caused the famine, was compelling. In the teeth of bitter opposition from his backbenchers, Peel passed his measure with the support of his Whig opponents; as soon as it was safely passed into law, they promptly brought him down. Internal arguments over the Corn Laws and rancour over Peel’s fall kept the Tories out of real power for a generation. Read more | Five of the greatest Prime Ministerial downfalls of the past 100 years Disraeli and the Franchise, 1867 Thirty years on from the 1832 ‘Great’ Reform Act, by the 1860s the question of who should be allowed to vote once more dominated political debate. The trade union movement showed many in the working classes to be responsible and trustworthy, but how far among them should the franchise extend? In 1866, Liberal Chancellor of the Exchequer William Gladstone, who had already committed himself to a working-class franchise, proposed a Reform Bill that would extend the vote to the more prosperous working men, paying £7 rental a year in the boroughs, and £14 in the counties. Even this relatively modest extension of the vote was too much for the Conservatives, particularly Gladstone’s great rival, Benjamin Disraeli. Disraeli denounced the proposal as dangerously radical and, with the help of disgruntled Liberals, was able to defeat the bill and bring the Liberal government down. Yet Disraeli then brought in his own Reform Bill , accepting all amendments to it except Gladstone’s, with the result that his bill extended the vote to far more working people than Gladstone’s bill had ever envisaged. Gladstone was left speechless by Disraeli’s unprincipled U-turn, which gave Disraeli the undeserved credit for the working-class vote. However, it did him little good: the new working-class voters promptly used their vote to put the Conservatives out and Gladstone back into office. Wilson and prescription charges, 1968 Founding the NHS in 1948 was one of the proudest achievements of Clement Attlee’s Labour government, but its spiralling costs soon plunged it into crisis. Aneurin Bevan, Minister of Health, was adamant that NHS treatment should remain free – but the Chancellor, Hugh Gaitskell, having to fund Britain’s involvement in the Korean War, thought prescription charges essential. As a result, in 1951 he introduced charges for dental treatment and spectacles on the NHS. Bevan, by then in a different post, resigned in fury. Wider prescription charges were subsequently introduced by the Conservatives in 1952, but Labour leader Harold Wilson, who had stood by Bevan on the issue, fought the 1964 election on a promise to abolish them. He did, but the economic crisis of 1967 forced him into both his famous devaluation of the sterling and, in 1968, a U-turn on prescription charges. By then people had got used to paying them and any controversy was overshadowed by the sterling crisis, but, alongside Wilson’s growing confrontation with the trade unions over wages policy, the prescription charge U-turn added to a growing feeling that he was departing from the socialist principles of the Attlee years. Edward Heath’s multiple U-turns, 1972 Conservative leader Edward Heath unexpectedly won the 1970 general election on a manifesto promising to cut public expenditure, limit immigration, resist big wage demands from trade unions, stop propping up “lame duck” companies and abandon the Wilson government’s attempts to bring in a wage control policy. By the end of 1972, Heath had been forced into U-turns on all of them. He nationalised Rolls-Royce rather than let such a prestige company go bankrupt and, with unemployment at over a million, went back on his pledge to cut spending by pouring money into public services. Faced with a nationwide strike by the National Union of Mineworkers, he determined to resist their wage demands, declaring a state of emergency and a three-day week to conserve fuel, but then caved in and conceded a 27 per cent wage rise as well as overtime, holidays and pensions. Read more | What was the Winter of Discontent? To cap it all, having said in his manifesto that he utterly rejected wage control, in 1972 he introduced just such a policy. Even his decision to admit the Ugandan Asians expelled by Idi Amin was denounced by some as a U-turn on his commitment to limit immigration. No wonder the Guardian journalist Tim Bale called Heath “the undisputed King of the U-turn”.
From Oscar Wilde to David Irving: 9 landmark libel & defamation cases through history
Following the verdict in the ‘Wagatha Christie’ libel trial in the UK’s High Court, historian Sean Lang explains how the law of libel and defamation has developed in England and looks at nine landmark cases…
The origins of the law of libel go back to Anglo-Saxon times, though in the Middle Ages it was dealt with by canon law in church courts rather than before the king’s justices. Under the 1275 Statute of Westminster, however, slandering the king or the nobility (‘scandalum magnatum’) became an offence to be pursued under Common Law before the king’s courts. Until the 16th century, little distinction was drawn between spoken or written statements, but the rapid spread of printing made it important to separate the spoken word, which might easily be misheard or misreported, from the written word, which was permanent and unmistakable. Libel became a civil law offence in the 16th century, and the reign of James I (1603–25) saw a steep rise in the number of cases, many brought by the Attorney-General, Sir Edward Coke. Libel actions were of three types: false allegations of crime; of professional incompetence; or of carrying an infectious disease, especially sexual disease – a category that was often targeted at women. Libel actions could also be used by those in authority to silence criticism, especially as English law placed the burden of proof on the defendant rather than the plaintiff – as it still does. It is presumed that the defamatory statement is true, so the burden of proof is placed on the defendant to prove it is not. Apart from parliamentary privilege, which protected MPs from prosecution for defamatory statements they made in the Commons, the only sure defence against a libel accusation was to prove the truth of the statement complained of, which was a notoriously difficult thing to do. And in James I’s time, even that would not necessarily prevent a conviction. The 1843 Libel Act allowed the courts to take the offer of an apology or the absence of malicious intent into account, but the scales were still heavily weighted against defendants. By the 20th century, London was becoming the ‘libel tourism’ capital of the world, favoured by the rich because bringing a case there carried a high probability of winning – plus the likelihood of substantial damages. In recent years, parliament has sought both to tighten up the libel laws and to strengthen the position of defendants. The Defamation Act of 2013 clarified that mere opinion could not be held libellous, while also clamping down on libel tourism and requiring plaintiffs, including businesses, to demonstrate serious reputational harm or financial loss. The 2013 Act also substituted trial-by-judge for trial-by-jury and considerably extended the scope of privilege against liability for libel to include academic papers, website owners, and reports on the proceedings of foreign governments. Nevertheless, the burden of proof remains on the defendant. Many journalists are concerned that English libel law constitutes a serious threat to press freedom, either by direct action or by lawsuits brought by the rich and powerful which have little chance of winning but can still intimidate defendants or drain them of money and resources. Let’s look at how the law has worked in practice, with nine landmark cases… R. v John Wilkes (1763–64) John Wilkes was a radical journalist and MP who had gleefully got under the skin of King George III and his ministers with his written attacks and satires. In 1763, however, he seemed to have gone too far when Issue 45 of his newspaper, the North Briton, attacked the peace terms negotiated at the end of the Seven Years’ War (1756–63), which were announced in the King’s Speech at the State Opening of Parliament. George III issued a writ against Wilkes for seditious libel, using a general warrant to enforce it, which meant everyone involved in producing and distributing the newspaper was arrested. Wilkes successfully claimed parliamentary privilege against arrest for libel and challenged the constitutional propriety of General Warrants; he won his case. However, his enemies at court had been preparing a second line of attack: they used his authorship of an undoubtedly obscene poem, Essay on Woman, to pursue him on the same charge – and this time, Wilkes fled to France. When asked by a French acquaintance just how far the liberty of the press extended in England, he is supposed to have replied that that was what he was trying to find out. In 1768, unable to meet his French creditors and keen to clear his name, Wilkes returned to England and was returned to parliament as MP for Middlesex. He also submitted to the judgement of the High Court, which sentenced him to two years in prison. The Commons expelled him and declared his defeated opponent, Colonel Henry Luttrell, to have been elected. This was only after a long battle of wills with the Middlesex electorate, during which Wilkes was returned three times, despite being in prison! Wilkes then turned his attention to the City of London, where he became an Alderman and even Lord Mayor. He soon grew out of his radicalism and became a pillar of the establishment. His case highlighted some of the most blatant attempts of the crown and of ministers to use the libel laws to stifle parliamentary opposition. Is it true that a huge brawl once broke out among MPs in the House of Commons in the 19th century? James Abbott McNeill Whistler v John Ruskin (1878) When does art criticism cross over into personal abuse? That was the question raised by the libel action brought in 1878 by the British-based American artist James McNeill Whistler against the celebrated art critic and writer John Ruskin, Slade Professor of Fine Art at Oxford. Ruskin was a firm believer that art had a duty to contribute to the moral health of the people. In his magazine, Fors Clavigera, Ruskin reviewed an exhibition at London’s Grosvenor Gallery which displayed work which had not been accepted at the Royal Academy: he singled out his friend Edward Burne-Jones for high praise but strongly condemned Whistler’s Nocturne in Black and Gold, the Falling Rocket, an impressionistic image of a falling firework over the Thames at night. Ruskin objected not only to what he saw as a lack of form in the painting, but to its high asking price, commenting: “I have seen, and heard, much of Cockney impudence before now; but never expected to hear a coxcomb ask two hundred guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face.” Whistler sued. It has been suggested that Whistler’s motivation may have been the publicity the trial was bound to attract as much as his outraged feelings. If so, he certainly achieved his aim: press interest in the case, which only lasted two days, was intense. Ruskin was already in declining health so declared himself too ill to attend, and Burne-Jones spoke for him in court – reluctantly it should be said, since he hadn’t wanted to be drawn into the dispute. Whistler, clearly enjoying himself, was on top form, entertaining the court with his witty repartee: when asked how he could justify asking two hundred guineas for work knocked off in a couple of days, Whistler gave the famous reply that he asked it not for two days’ work but for the knowledge of a lifetime. Yet if Whistler gained the publicity he craved, it did him little good: the court awarded him a farthing (a quarter of a penny) in damages, leaving him financially ruined: he was declared bankrupt the following year. Ruskin too was brought down by the case, resigning his Oxford Chair shortly after the trial and sinking into the mental collapse that blighted his final years. He died on 20 January 1900. Read more | A beginner's guide to art history Oscar Wilde v the Marquess of Queensberry (1895) It is telling that Oscar Wilde had to remind the court hearing his 1895 libel action against the Marquess of Queensberry that he was the prosecutor in the case, because his action quickly passed out of his control, forcing him, not his opponent, Queensberry, to defend himself. The Marquess of Queensberry, a pugnacious character best known for drawing up the rules of boxing, was incensed by the intense relationship that had developed between Wilde and his son, Lord Alfred Douglas. Queensberry suspected, rightly, an active homosexual affair, which was then a criminal offence. Continually frustrated in his attempts to confront Wilde, who was at the height of his literary fame, Queensberry finally set a trap by leaving a card with the hall porter at Wilde’s club apparently addressed, as far as his difficult handwriting can be deciphered, to “Oscar Wilde, posing somdomite (sic)”. The sensible course for Wilde, and one urged by his friends, would have been to shrug it off, but the fact that the porter had seen it technically constituted publication and, enthusiastically egged on by Lord Alfred, who relished the prospect of seeing his detested father in court, Wilde sued for libel. Queensberry engaged Edward Carson, a contemporary of Wilde’s at Trinity College, Dublin, to defend him; Wilde commented that Carson would doubtless pursue him “with the added bitterness of an old friend”. Wilde assured his own barrister, Edward Clarke QC, that there was no truth in the allegation of homosexuality and repeated his denial in court; however, Carson was not only able to infer homosexual themes in Wilde’s works, such as The Portrait of Dorian Grey (1890), but he quoted overtly homoerotic passages from Wilde’s correspondence with Lord Alfred Douglas. Wilde’s final downfall came when Carson asked if he had kissed one of the young men with whom Wilde admitted consorting: “Oh dear no,” replied Wilde, “he was, unfortunately, extremely ugly. I pitied him for it.” Carson latched tenaciously onto Wilde’s reply, which appeared to show that Wilde would indeed have kissed the man had he been better-looking. Queensberry’s defence of justification was upheld. Wilde, already living well beyond his means, could not afford to flee to France, as even Queensberry expected him to do, and he was accordingly arrested for “gross indecency” and sentenced to two years imprisonment with hard labour. He served most of his sentence in Reading Gaol (1895–97), an experience which came close to destroying him. Read more | Oscar Wilde's tragic end Dr Wladislaw Dering v Leon Uris (1964) Leon Uris’s 1958 novel Exodus, about the creation of the state of Israel, gave rise to the first Holocaust-related libel cases in the British courts. An American of Jewish Polish-Russian extraction, Uris had researched his novel and in a footnote he named four doctors at Auschwitz who had carried out experiments on inmates in the camp. These operations included sterilisation and the removal of ovaries, which was often carried out without anaesthetic. One of the doctors, Dr Wladislaw Dering, sued for libel. Dering, who held the OBE for services to medicine, was of Polish origin and had himself been an inmate at Auschwitz. After the war he had settled in Britain and had worked for a time in the protectorate of British Somaliland, but in 1948 the Polish government had sought his extradition on charges of war crimes. The Home Office had deemed there was a prima facie case for him to answer; it was also pointed out in the House of Commons that he had been listed as a war criminal by the United Nations on three separate occasions and that he was also sought by the governments of France and Czechoslovakia. Nevertheless, the Home Secretary, James Chuter Ede, decided the evidence was inclusive and Dering was released. If this legal success gave Dering the confidence to sue Uris 16 years later, he was badly mistaken. His case was that Uris’s claims were heavily overstated and that, while he had conducted operations, he had never done so without anaesthetic. Uris’s legal team called evidence from Auschwitz survivors who had been operated on by Dering, as well as a list of operations written in part in Dering’s handwriting. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2022/07/GettyImages-1365374223-07dac75.jpg" width="4920" height="4887" alt="American writer Leon Uris (1924 - 2003) outside the Royal Courts of Justice in the Strand, London, during the Dering v Uris libel trial, 8th May 1964. Polish-born Wladislaw Dering is suing Uris for libel after Uris described Dering's participation in medical experiments in Auschwitz in his book 'Exodus'. (Photo by Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)" title="Dering v Uris" /> Particularly powerful testimony came from a French doctor Adelaide Auval, who not only confirmed that such medical experiments had taken place but stated that she had refused to conduct them and had received no punishment as a consequence. This demolished Dering’s defence that he had only acted in fear of being shot if he refused. After a trial lasting 19 days and conducted in six languages, the jury decided that, technically, Dering had indeed been libelled; however, they awarded him a mere halfpenny’s damages, making it clear they believed Uris’s claims; the judge also directed that Dering pay Uris’s costs and refused him permission to appeal. Dering’s reputation collapsed and he died within a year; Uris went on to turn the trial into a novel, QBVII, which in 1974 was made into a TV series starring Anthony Hopkins as a fictionalised version of Dering. Read more | Rudolf Höss & the men behind the mass murder at Auschwitz Sonia Sutcliffe v Private Eye (1989) The magazine Private Eye was a product of the satire boom of the 1960s: it was launched in 1961 by a group of public-school friends and was soon taken over by Peter Cook. Its style retained the homemade look and schoolboy humour with which it had started. It combined irreverent wit – especially in its distinctive covers, which inserted speech bubbles onto photographs of prominent figures – with serious investigative journalism, which occasionally landed the magazine in court. For example, it had a long-running feud with the media tycoon Robert Maxwell, who in 1986 won £55,000 in libel damages after the Eye accused him of soliciting honours for cash. Three years later, the magazine’s editor, Ian Hislop, faced a much more serious libel case brought by Sonia Sutcliffe, wife of the serial killer Peter Sutcliffe, who had been convicted in 1981 of the murder of 13 women in the north of England. The Eye had criticised Sonia Sutcliffe at the time for seeking to profit from her husband’s notoriety by negotiating a lucrative press deal. She sued in 1989, getting her case in before a six-year statute of limitations on libel cases came into force. She won £600,000 in damages, which was £100,000 more than the previous record. “If that’s justice,” Hislop commented outside the court, “then I’m a banana”. The case came close to bankrupting the magazine and Hislop had to launch the “bananaballs” fundraiser, which eventually raised £102,000 to finance an appeal. The fact that Sutcliffe had received substantially more than the payouts awarded to the families of her husband’s victims did much to turn public opinion against her. The News of the World, which had made similar claims about Sutcliffe and, like the Eye, had refused to settle out of court, revealed evidence that she had indeed been negotiating with the press and thereby profiting, in effect, from her husband’s crimes. Private Eye's appeal went ahead and the damages were reduced to £60,000; the magazine distributed the excess money from its appeal among the families of Sutcliffe’s victims. The case inevitably attracted a lot of publicity and helped to highlight some of the absurdities of the libel laws that provided a key point in the movement for their reform. This culminated in the 2013 Defamation Act. Read more | 'Green-eyed monster' and 'stiff upper lip’: the evolution of the English language Lord Aldington v Nigel Watts and Count Nikolai Tolstoy (1989) Historians, get your facts right! This was very much the message of the libel action brought in 1989 by Lord Aldington, a former Brigadier and Conservative Party deputy chairman, against the historian Count Nikolai Tolstoy. Tolstoy had made his name with Victims of Yalta (1977), which told the then-little-known story of how anti-Stalin Russian Cossacks (a semi-nomadic people from southern Russia and Ukraine who had fought alongside the Germans in the Second World War and been taken prisoner by the western allies) were forcibly repatriated by the British and Americans under the terms of the Yalta agreement, in the full knowledge that they were likely to be shot. Tolstoy’s 1986 book The Minister and the Massacres recounted a similar episode, this time of anti-Communist Croat and Slovene troops who, similarly, had fought alongside the Germans and who, at the end of the war, were handed over to equally certain death at the hands of the communist partisans led by Josip Broz (“Tito”). Reviews criticised Tolstoy for allowing his own sympathy for the Yugoslavs to cloud his historical judgement and for seeking, on insufficient grounds, to pin responsibility for the killings on two British figures: the future prime minister Harold Macmillan, who was then a British minister to the Mediterranean region, and Brigadier Toby Low, later Lord Aldington. The case came to a head when Nigel Watts, a property developer who was pursuing an unrelated claim against Aldington, invited Tolstoy to help write an attack on Aldington's character and wartime record for a pamphlet which he then distributed as widely as possible. It was this that persuaded an outraged Aldington to sue first Watts and then Tolstoy. The case against Watts was clear-cut and he agreed to an out-of-court settlement. Tolstoy, however, was determined to defend his book in court, even though his publishers had agreed to withdraw it. It proved a costly decision; the court found against Tolstoy and awarded Aldington £1.5 million in damages, which, together with £500,000 in costs, made it the largest libel damages ever awarded in a British court. Tolstoy declared himself bankrupt in 1990, though Aldington noted sourly that he continued his lavish lifestyle in a Jacobean farmhouse and kept his children at private school. In 1995, Tolstoy took the damages to the European Court of Human Rights on the grounds that such a heavy penalty amounted to a denial of his right of free speech. The ECHR agreed, and in 1998 Aldington finally agreed to accept £100,000 in settlement, nine years after his court victory. Ironically, in 2000, the year Aldington died, Tolstoy inherited £1.5 million, the very sum Aldington had originally been awarded, from his stepfather, the novelist Patrick O’Brien. Although it seems clear that Tolstoy’s work was heavily one-sided and that he was chasing a non-existent British conspiracy, and that therefore Aldington was justified in his legal action, the case highlighted the way in which English libel law could act as an infringement of human rights and again underlined the urgent need for reform. David Irving v Penguin Books and Professor Deborah Lipstadt (1996) This celebrated libel action was turned into a successful feature film, Denial (2016), starring Rachel Weisz and Timothy Spall. David Irving had built a reputation as a historical writer specialising in the Second World War and specifically on the role of leading Nazis: his 1977 book Hitler’s War had attracted very favourable reviews. However, Irving’s clear sympathy for the wartime Nazis, coupled with his vocal support for neo-Nazi groups in post-war Germany, led him into increasingly extreme claims, including denying that Adolf Hitler had known about the Holocaust. He even described Hitler as the best friend the Jews ever had, and claimed that there had been no extermination of prisoners at Auschwitz. Irving was notoriously litigious, and many writers and publishers were intimidated into withdrawing their claims against him; however, when in 1996 he sued Penguin Books and the American Professor Deborah Lipstadt for her claim that he was a Holocaust-denier, they decided to fight. The case finally came to trial in January 2000. Lipstadt retained Anthony Julius – a Jewish lawyer and academic who specialised in combating antisemitism – as her solicitor. In effect they turned the tables on Irving by putting the accuracy of his books at the centre of their case, using a team of researchers headed by Richard Evans, then Professor of Modern History at Cambridge, to go through Irving’s footnotes and trace them to their sources. What they found was that Irving systematically mis-rendered, mistranslated or otherwise slanted the archival record so as to favour the Nazi perspective. His voluminous private diary, which was subpoenaed for the case, revealed chilling evidence of his obsessive hatred for Jews and his white supremacist views. The judge found for the defendants, describing Irving as a racist, a holocaust denier and a systematic falsifier of the historical record, and awarded the defendants costs amounting to £150,000 as an interim sum. In 2001 Irving’s appeal failed and the following year he was declared bankrupt. Read more about the Irving v Lipstadt case In February 2006, Irving was sentenced to three years in prison by an Austrian court for various speeches he had made in which he denied the existence of gas chambers at Auschwitz, though in December that year his sentence was reduced to the 13 months he had already served in prison. He was released and deported to the UK. Read more | Confronting Holocaust denial: “History is more of a battleground now than ever” says David Baddiel <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2022/07/GettyImages-51397868-56edbfc.jpg" width="2048" height="1250" alt="US academic Deborah Lipstadt exults the High Court in London after winning a libel case brought against her by British historian David Irving, 11 April 2000" title="US academic Deborah Lipstadt exults the High Court in London after winning a libel case brought against her by British historian David Irving, 11 April 2000. (Photo by Martyn Hayhow/AFP/Getty Images)" /> Listen | Richard J Evans answers key questions about the Third Reich McDonald’s v Helen Steel and David Morris (1997) When, in 1986, Helen Steel and David Morris distributed a cheaply produced leaflet in the Strand attacking the morality and business ethics of the fast-food chain McDonald’s, they unwittingly triggered a veritable ‘David and Goliath’ battle in the courts and the longest-running libel case in British history. McDonald’s was fiercely defensive of its reputation and had used the threat of legal action to cow many critics with much greater resources than Steel, a part-time bar worker, and Morris, an unemployed postman, who were members of a small campaigning group called London Greenpeace. When McDonald’s sued the group for libel in 1990, Steel and Morris decided to fight, even though, without legal aid (which is not available for libel cases), they could not afford counsel and would have to represent themselves. However, they received plenty of pro bono legal advice for what the press, inevitably, labelled the “McLibel” case. When the case finally came to court in 1995, Steel and Morris mounted an impressive legal defence, cross-examining McDonald’s executives about the company’s food and hygiene standards, its impact on the environment, and its terms of employment and corporate practices. As the case dragged on, McDonald’s offered to settle the case if Steel and Morris would stop issuing their leaflets and keep their criticisms of the corporation to private conversations with friends: the pair replied that they would be happy to comply, if McDonald’s in turn would cease their advertising and only recommend their restaurants privately to friends. In 1997, after 313 days in court, the judge gave his verdict, finding largely (but not wholly) for McDonald’s and awarding the corporation £60,000 in damages, plus costs. The judge found that Steel and Morris had been right in their claims that the corporation exploited their workers, inflicted needless cruelty on animals, and issued misleading advertising. Faced with a huge bill which they could not hope to pay, Steel and Morris lodged an appeal which was heard in 1999. The Appeal Court largely upheld their case, reducing the award of damages by £20,000, but did not agree with their argument that multinationals should not be allowed to sue for libel over fair criticism of their operations. The Times commented that the case had “achieved what many lawyers thought impossible: to lower further the reputation of our law of defamation in the minds of all right-thinking people”. In 2005, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the denial of legal aid in a case against such a wealthy corporation had amounted to a denial of Steel and Morris’s rights both to a fair trial and to free expression. The ECHR commented that in a democratic society, campaigning groups like London Greenpeace must be able to operate and to disseminate information on matters of public interest, such as health and the environment, without fear of being crushed by wealthy, self-interested corporations. The case inspired a documentary film by Franny Armstrong and Ken Loach. It was also an important factor in the framing of the 2013 Defamation Act, which brought in the threshold of “serious harm” to a company’s reputation before it can sue for libel. Had it been in force in the 1990s, the McLibel case could never have been brought. British Chiropractic Association v Simon Singh (2008) How far can the defence of ‘fair comment’ go in a libel case? In 2008, the Guardian published a piece by its science writer, Simon Singh, criticising some of the bolder claims made for chiropractic – namely that it could treat various childhood conditions, including ear infections, colic, and asthma – and denouncing the British Chiropractic Association (BCA) for maintaining a respectable face while in fact, he claimed it “happily promotes bogus treatments”. The BCA sued for libel and, in a preliminary hearing, the High Court judge Mr Justice Eady dismissed Singh’s claim that he was offering his opinion as fair comment, saying that he was in fact asserting as an established fact that the BCA was acting dishonestly and that therefore the defence of fair comment was not open to him. Singh took the ruling to the Court of Appeal. In a unanimous judgement, the Court of Appeal decided that Eady had been wrong: Singh had clearly demonstrated that the BCA had made the claims he said they had and had shown that these claims could not be sustained by scientific evidence. He was therefore entitled to his opinion that the BCA’s claims were bogus. The BCA dropped the case, though Singh’s victory had cost him some £200,000 in legal fees. The Singh case had a much wider significance. Like the McLibel case (above) it informed the framing of the 2013 Defamation Act, making it much harder for institutions to use libel to defend themselves from proper scientific investigation of their practices and claims. Speaking in the Court of Appeal, Lord Judge pointed out that the law of libel could conflict with the right of free speech and that it might be better to change the defence of “fair comment” to “honest opinion”, as is the case in some other countries, as a way of protecting free enquiry and expression from legal penalty. The recommendation was included in the 2013 Act.
10 quotations that defined the 20th century
Words have the power to alter the course of history. They can harden the resolve of an entire nation or people, encapsulate the ideals of a movement, and evoke joy – or provoke anger – long after they have been said. To mark the 100th issue of BBC History Revealed, historian Dr Seán Lang explores 10 impactful quotations of the last century...
Words have the power to alter the course of history. They can harden the resolve of an entire nation or people, encapsulate the ideals of a movement, and evoke joy – or provoke anger – long after they have been said. Here, to mark the 100th issue of BBC History Revealed, historian Dr Seán Lang selects what he feels are 10 of the most impactful quotations of the 20th century... Once you've read the feature, we'd love to find out which quotation you feel has had the biggest impact. Click here to cast your vote "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself" Who said it? Franklin D Roosevelt, 1933 About: The United States lay devastated by the Great Depression, an economic collapse without precedent that destroyed the country’s global image as a land of opportunity and reduced millions of Americans to poverty and destitution. The governor of New York, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, had run for and won the presidency on the promise of a massive recovery programme, dubbed the ‘New Deal’, but he knew he could do nothing unless the American people first regained their self-belief. In his inaugural address on 4 March 1933, Roosevelt reassured them that they had nothing to fear, except fear itself – “nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror, which paralyses needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.” The New Deal lasted throughout the 1930s until the Second World War set the country back towards full employment. Through the programme of reforms, regulations and projects, Roosevelt understood the power of words. He explained policies simply and clearly to radio listeners in his ‘fireside chats’, reassuring Americans that they had what it would take to improve their own lives and that the government would help. Roosevelt was elected an unprecedented four times, but it was that first inaugural message that set the tone for his time in office and helped give back the US its self-belief. "We shall never surrender" Who said it? Winston Churchill, 1940 About: By June 1940, it seemed that Adolf Hitler had won his war. He had conquered Poland; launched a devastating assault in Denmark and Norway; and attacked in the west, invading the Netherlands and Belgium, and storming through northern France to cut off the British army and much of the French. It was only a matter of time before France was forced to surrender and German troops entered triumphantly into Paris. To any impartial observer, it seemed obvious that Britain had no choice but to seek a peace settlement with Hitler. But Winston Churchill, Britain’s pugnacious and controversial new prime minister, decided to ignore those pressing him to do just that. Read more: Second World War timeline: what happened, and when In an electrifying speech to the House of Commons on 4 June 1940, later broadcast on the BBC, he declared that Britain would fight on and never surrender – that “we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be”. Churchill knew that Britain’s navy and air force would make a German invasion hazardous, though not impossible, and that the only chance of defeating Nazism was to keep going until the United States could join the war. His words defined the stubborn defiance and ‘Dunkirk spirit’, which saved not just Britain but the world from a Nazi victory. "The atom bomb is a paper tiger" Who said it? Mao Zedong, 1946 About: The dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 redefined the world. Leaders had always been able to plunge their peoples into war, but now they could wipe out whole cities, even countries, with a single order. While the United States was the only one with nuclear capability at first, the Soviet Union was not far behind thanks to communist spies in the west passing nuclear secrets to Moscow. In an interview with American journalist Anna Louise Strong in 1946, the chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, Mao Zedong, described the atom bomb as a “paper tiger”, something that looks more dangerous than it is. Mao meant that all governments depended on the support of the people, and they would never consent to using atomic weapons. The phrase was taken another way: no government would dare use such weapons for fear of provoking a response from the other side. This was the idea behind the doctrine of ‘mutually assured destruction’ during the Cold War, as the power and number of nuclear weapons intensified. Even then, the world came perilously close to disaster on more than one occasion. "Well he would, wouldn't he?" Who said it? Mandy Rice-Davies, 1963 About: This ordinary retort marked an unlikely watershed in British social history. Marilyn (better known as Mandy) Rice-Davies was a model and dancer working in London’s Soho, where she met Christine Keeler and her friend and protector, Stephen Ward. A successful osteopath,Ward was well-known in high society, hosting parties and introducing girls like Keeler and Rice-Davies to his well-connected friends, including the Secretary of State for War John Profumo and the Conservative peer Lord Astor. A public scandal – the Profumo Affair – ensued when the truth of Ward’s parties was revealed, especially with reports that Keeler had slept both with Profumo and a Russian naval attaché, Eugene Ivanov, which made the affair a diplomatic furore. Rice-Davies was a witness at Ward’s trial. It was widely held at the time that people in high society were trustworthy and honourable, incapable of the lewd behaviour associated with ‘lower’ classes. When it was put to Rice-Davies that Lord Astor denied her claim of an affair, the assumption was that his word was worth more than hers. Her cheeky response – “Well, he would, wouldn’t he?” – suggested that the aristocracy were no more honourable than anyone else. "I am the greatest" Who said it? Cassius Clay, 1963 About: Muhammad Ali, who changed his name from Cassius Clay in 1964, was always much more than a boxer: he was a role model for young black people around the world and a major international celebrity, mixing his sporting triumphs with irrepressible charm and wit. Boxing had long been a way for poor Americans to better themselves. Clay, who came from the segregated South, won the light heavyweight gold medal at the age of 18 at the 1960 Rome Olympic Games before turning professional and starting an immense career that saw him become world heavyweight champ three times. As well as a pugilist, though, Clay was a charismatic selfpromoting poet always showing his gifts for trash talking. In 1963, shortly before announcing his conversion to Islam and his new name, he issued a record of rhythmically-spoken poetry entitled I Am the Greatest. Ali continued to describe himself proudly as ‘the Greatest’, but he put his reputation and career on the line, and even risked jail, by refusing to serve in the US Army in 1967 as the war in Vietnam raged. His case went to the Supreme Court and Ali became a symbol of growing American opposition to the war, and a figurehead of the civil rights movement. He was now a champion of the dispossessed as well as ‘the Greatest’ in the boxing ring. "I have a dream" Who said it? Dr Martin Luther King Jr, 1963 About: Martin Luther King Jr’s iconic speech was delivered in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC, an enormous statue of the US president who had ended slavery in the United States. By the 1960s, however, true emancipation was still far off as African-Americans faced entrenched legal discrimination and police violence. King, who had made his name leading protests against racial segregation, was speaking to a huge civil rights rally calling for jobs and fair treatment for America’s black population, but his speech went much further than that. King’s style of oratory owed much to his background as a Baptist preacher and his imagery, of a dream in which black and white people lived in harmony and friendship – and where his children “will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character” – was in line with the visionary sermons that many of his listeners had heard in church. The power of his words went far beyond the 17 minutes that his speech took and the 250,000 people gathered on that day, 28 August 1963. They became not only a defining moment of the civil rights movement, but of US history. "All you need is love" Who said it? The Beatles, 1967 About: The Beatles were at the height of their fame and influence by the 1967 ‘summer of love’. Pop music had developed into a young people’s lifestyle and outlook that their parents, of the wartime generation, found utterly bewildering. The Beatles did not just produce hit records: they put forward a new philosophy, which overturned the older generation’s assumptions about behaviour, dress and morality. When their album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band appeared in May, it quickly took on cult status. A month later, the group unveiled a new song, ‘All You Need is Love’, as part of the first global live television link-up called Our World, which was watched by an audience of approximately 400 million. The song had been purposely written with simple repeated lyrics to appeal to the international viewers, and so summarised the new attractive, easy-to-grasp philosophy in clear terms. As the song itself says, “It’s easy”. Older heads might point out that life needs a lot more than love, but in 1967 few young people were listening. Pop music has been one of the defining cultural influences that mark the postwar world: it has overcome generational, social, political and cultural barriers with its infectious rhythms and simple messages. While ‘All You Need is Love’ may have always been an ideal, it has endured. "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind" Who said it? Neil Armstrong, 1969 About: That, at any rate, is what Neil Armstrong meant to say when he stepped down from the lunar module onto the surface of the Moon on 20 July 1969. Either he slipped on his words or they were obscured by a bleep in the transmission, because the version heard back on Earth did not have that crucial “a”. It did not seem to matter. Armstrong was right: it was a giant leap, though at the time no one quite knew in what direction. Space exploration had excited people around the world since the Soviet Union’s Sputnik satellite in 1957 and putting a human being on the Moon had seemed the ultimate prize. Where was all this endeavour to go after that? Science fiction suggested a world of space voyages, but the reality was to be much closer to home. Space technology moved into the world of satellites, first for telecommunications and later for everything from television to meteorology and traffic management. Inevitably, the military potential of space was quickly recognised. The Moon missions opened space up as a further area of operation for the nations of the Earth, so Armstrong was right, even if he got his words wrong. "There is no such thing as society" Who said it? Margaret Thatcher, 1987 About: The Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s first woman prime minister, ushered in a revolution. Her immediate aim was to resolve the economic problems into which the country had sunk in the 1970s, which she did by promoting a new philosophy based on free enterprise and the rolling-back of state control. In an interview for Women’s Own magazine, Thatcher outlined her belief that, ultimately, it is not for the government to resolve people’s problems; individuals and families must look after themselves and their neighbours. In that sense, she said, “There is no such thing as society”. The phrase provoked a storm of controversy. Supporters applauded her emphasis on individuals, while opponents denounced what they saw as her uncaring attitude towards the Welfare State, which many regarded as the most significant change in 20th-century British society. The phrase encapsulated two completely different political philosophies: a belief in the power of the state as a force for good or as an enervating drain on the people’s energies. "Human rights are women's rights, and women's rights are human rights" Who said it? Hillary Rodham Clinton, 1995 About: The feminist movement had used a shorter version of this phrase since the 1980s, but it entered the mainstream when Hillary Clinton, the First Lady as wife of US President Bill Clinton, spoke at a United Nations World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995. The transformation of the position of women in society was one of the most striking changes to took place in the 20th century. The century had begun with the celebrated campaign for women to have the right to vote, and by the end feminism had developed as a movement and philosophy that sought to transform human society along the lines of equality. Clinton was an apt figure to give voice to the aim. She was a lawyer who, in 1974, had been part of the Watergate investigation team that brought down President Richard Nixon. But her husband’s presidency meant that she had to perform an essentially ceremonial role. She could support Bill in his duties, but could she hold office herself? As long as women’s rights continued to be regarded as a category on their own, it seemed, women would never be accepted as equals – hence her impassioned iteration that women’s rights are not just rights for women: they have always been basic human rights. Which of these 10 quotations do you think has had the biggest impact? Click here to cast your vote. Voting closes at 11.59pm on 31 October. We’ll announce the results in a future issue of BBC History Revealed and online at historyextra.com
The flush of youth: nine talented teenagers from history
Following Emma Raducanu’s tennis triumph in the US Open, historian Sean Lang picks out nine more gifted teenagers from the past who left their mark – not just in sport, but in politics, literature and kingship…
If Emma Raducanu’s phenomenal success in the US Open is making your own teenage achievements look a bit underwhelming, then do not read on. History has plenty of other talented teenagers. The concept of ‘teenager’ was a late 20th-century development: in earlier ages adulthood began at about 14. However, even if some of these examples would not have been thought children, they still showed immense promise at a disconcertingly early age… Alexander the Great (356–323 BC) The celebrated Macedonian warrior king died at 33, having conquered much of the world known to the Greeks, and his early years showed his promise. Even before his teens, Alexander the Great had tamed the ‘unrideable’ horse Bucephalus, which would later carry him into battle. He was tutored by Aristotle, developing a taste for literature as well as knowledge of medicine, philosophy and art. He governed Macedonia during his father’s absence on campaign and showed his own military ability, leading his men successfully into battle against rebels and neighbouring states. By time he acceded to the throne at the age of 20, following his father’s assassination, Alexander had already shown himself a sort of early Renaissance Prince, a scholar and a soldier in equal measure. Read more: What if Alexander the Great had lived longer? Joan of Arc (1412–1431) The ‘Maid of Orleans’ was 19 when she was burnt at the stake, having led a remarkable military campaign that galvanised the French nobility and people and forced the English out of much of their French territories. Her enemies accused her of witchcraft, partly because her wearing of men’s attire in battle was deemed unnatural and partly because, as a young woman, she was thought susceptible to the wiles of the devil. Her youth became an important part of her image in the Second World War, when collaborationists saw her as a victim of the English and the Resistance saw her as a youthful martyr of a ruthless occupier. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) Mozart is still well known for having been a child musical prodigy. His father, Leopold Mozart, took the young Wolfgang, and his sister Maria Anna (‘Nannerl’) around the courts of Europe, where their accomplished playing astonished and delighted courts and rulers. Wolfgang also had a remarkable musical memory and could write out whole pieces, like Allegri’s Miserere, from one or two hearings. However, it was his astonishing ability at composition that established his reputation. He wrote his first symphony at the age of 8 and by the time he was 14 he was well under way as a successful composer of operas. By the time he was 17 he was appointed Court Musician at Salzburg, where he had written a string of violin concertos by the time he was twenty. His adult career was as brilliant as his early years, though his financial acumen never matched his musical prowess and he died in poverty. William Pitt the Younger (1759–1806) Since he became prime minister at the age of 24, it is no surprise to learn that William Pitt the Younger was a talented and precocious young man. The son of the statesman William Pitt the Elder, young William was largely educated at home. However, at the age of 14 he was admitted to Pembroke College, Cambridge, where his studies included classics, history, mathematics and chemistry. He was clearly intended for a political career: his father trained him in public oratory, always imagining that he was addressing the House of Commons. He was elected to parliament for the rotten borough of Appleby in 1781 at the age of 21, and two years later he was appointed prime minister during the political confusion that followed the American War of Independence. Although he went on to lead Britain through the conflict with revolutionary France, Pitt would always be best remembered for the precociousness of his early career. Read more: 10 Downing Street – 23 things you (probably) didn’t know about the official residence of Britain’s prime ministers Mary Shelley (1797–1851) The author of Frankenstein and wife of the poet Shelley was a gifted scholar in her youth. She was brought up by her father, the radical writer William Godwin, her mother having died of childbed fever shortly after her birth. Her father nurtured her early love of learning: as well as showing wide knowledge in history and classics, she was also a gifted linguist, speaking Italian and French fluently, as well as Latin and Greek. At 15, her lecture on The Influence of Governments on the Character of a People, though actually given by her brother William, much impressed those who heard it, and the following year she first met the young Shelley, who had recently been expelled from Oxford for his atheistic views. In 1814 they eloped to France, though they were soon forced by penury to return to England. She was only 20 when Frankenstein was published, though, typically for the time, it was widely assumed that a book of such profundity must have been written by a man. Read more: “Mary never shook off the consequences of eloping with Shelley” Fanny (1805–1847) and Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1809–1847) Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn were both musical prodigies, though 19th-century assumptions of gender roles meant that Fanny had to develop her musical talent largely as a sideline, while Felix was able to use his to build a career. They were both gifted pianists, with a particular enthusiasm for the music of Bach; they were largely responsible for popularising his then largely forgotten work. Felix was a prolific child composer, producing 12 string symphonies by the age of 14 and an orchestral symphony, a piano quartet, a strong octet and an overture to William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream by the time he was 17. Goethe, who was old enough to have heard the young Mozart, thought Felix even more talented. Fanny’s musical career largely supported her young brother’s, though they each happily performed the other’s works and they developed a close working relationship. They both died of strokes within six months of each other. For many years Felix’s reputation eclipsed Fanny’s, though in recent years her reputation as a composer in her own right has been more widely recognised. Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887–1920) One of the most talented mathematicians in history, Ramanujan’s talent became evident very early. He grew up in a very modest household in Madras (Chennai) and was taught mathematics by students his mother took in as lodgers. At school, he devoured mathematical texts, finishing examinations in record time and receiving a string of prizes. His work analysing the nature of numbers demonstrated his extraordinary gifts and gradually attracted attention from the British authorities. He was invited to study at Cambridge but held off because of his religious objections to leaving India. He finally travelled in 1914, when he was accepted at Trinity College. He went on to become a Fellow of the Royal Society and the first Indian elected to a Fellowship at Trinity. His name deserves to be known outside the realm of mathematics. Tracy Austin (born 1962) Before Emma Raducanu there was Tracy Austin, who in 1977, aged 14, took Wimbledon by storm with a spirited performance against the top seed, Chris Evert. When she was shown the celebrated Wimbledon Centre Court she responded, “It doesn’t scare me one bit”. Even though she lost to Evert it was clear she was heading for great things: she won the 1979 US Open at the age of 16, where her opponent in the final was, once again, Chris Evert. She went on to win the US Open again two years later and the mixed doubles at Wimbledon in 1980; however, her career was derailed by injury on the court and in a car crash. Her story is perhaps a warning that sporting success can be fleeting. Judit Polgár (born 1976) The Hungarian chess champion was a Grandmaster at the age of 15, having been ranked number 55 in the world by the International Chess Federation at the age of 12. Her early promise was shown by the way she could win games blindfolded, even against Chess Masters. At a time when women were thought incapable of taking on male chess champions, Judit and her sister Sofia were soon able to prove the sceptics wrong. She was an International Master at the age of 12, the youngest ever to have gained the distinction. Before she retired in 2014, she had defeated a whole string of major names in the game, including Garry Kasparov and Boris Spassky. Judit is the only woman to have been ranked in the top ten of all chess players. She never accepted the need for a separate women’s league and she has triumphantly proved her point. This content was first published by HistoryExtra in 2021
10 facts you (probably) didn't know about the First World War
It's one of the most well-documented conflicts in history, but how much do you know about World War One (also known as the First World War and the Great War)? Here, Seán Lang reveals 10 lesser-known facts about the global conflict fought between 1914 and 1918...
Also known as the Great War, the First World War was a global conflict primarily fought between two groups: the Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria and Italy) and the Triple Entente (Great Britain, France and Russia). It began on 28 July 1914, following the assassination of Franz Ferdinand a month earlier, and ended on 11 November 1918 with the signing of a ceasefire, or 'armistice'. It's one of the most well-documented conflicts in history, but how much do you know about World War One? Discover 10 surprising facts below... The alliance system didn’t cause the war Many people assume that the war resulted directly from the alliance structure that bound all the European great powers together before 1914. Germany was allied to Austria-Hungary and Italy; Russia was allied to France, and both countries had an entente (a diplomatic agreement) with Britain. Who was involved in the First World War? Who was on each side? Why didn’t the Allies march on Berlin in 1918? 10 ways Christmas was celebrated during the First World War The alliances certainly contributed to the prewar build-up of tension between the great powers but, perhaps surprisingly, none of these alliances actually produced a declaration of war. In July 1914 Germany gave Austria-Hungary a sweeping guarantee of support known as the ‘Blank Cheque’, which went far beyond the terms of their formal alliance. The French came in because Germany launched a pre-emptive strike against them; Britain declared war not because of the entente agreements but because the Germans invaded Belgium, and Italy first kept out of the war and then came in against its own allies! There were special battalions for short soldiers The minimum height requirement for the British Army was 5ft 3ins, but many shorter men were caught up in the recruiting enthusiasm of August 1914 and were keen to enlist. Rather reluctantly the War Office established a number of ‘bantam battalions’, attached to more conventional regiments. Many bantams were coal miners, and their short height and technical expertise proved a great asset in the tunnelling work that went on underneath the western front. However, bantams were not particularly effective in battle, and by the end of 1916 the general fitness and condition of men volunteering as bantams was no longer up to the standard required. It wasn’t easy to maintain recruitment: increasingly the bantam battalions had to accept men of ‘normal’ height. And there’s not much point in a bantam battalion that is largely made up of taller men, so after conscription was introduced in 1916 the bantam battalions idea was quietly dropped. 10 things you (probably) didn’t know about First World War uniforms 10 golden rules of fitness for First World War soldiers Munitions girls kept football going The Football League suspended its programme after the 1914–15 season (although the FA continued to allow clubs to organise regional competitions), and amateur tournaments were difficult to run with so many men in the army, so women stepped into the breach. Munitions workers – ‘munitionettes’, as they were known – formed football teams and played against rival factories. Munitionette football attracted a wide following, and many matches were played at the grounds of professional clubs. When peace came, however, the female players had to hang up their boots and go back to the domestic lives they had been leading before the war. But the sport continued to enjoy success until women were banned from playing in Football League grounds in 1921. Female Tommies: women in the First World War In pictures: Navy women in the world wars Portuguese troops fought in the war Like many neutral countries, Portugal was angry at German U-boat attacks on its merchant shipping. The Portuguese were also worried that the German military campaign in Africa might move into their colonies in Mozambique and Angola. In March 1916, Germany declared war on Portugal. As well as patrolling the oceans and strengthening their border controls in Africa, the Portuguese also sent a military force to the western front. The Portuguese won the respect of their more battle-hardened allies, and put up a particularly stubborn fight against the great German offensive of spring, 1918. The Russians first solved the problem of trench warfare Launching a successful attack against a heavily fortified enemy trench was one of the most difficult problems facing military commanders on both sides: barbed wire and machine guns gave a considerable advantage to the defender. Even if an attacker did break through, the attacking force usually ran out of steam just as the defenders brought up reinforcements. The man who solved the conundrum was the Russian general Alexei Brusilov, who in 1916 launched a massive offensive against the Austrians in co-ordination with the British and French attack on the Somme. Brusilov realised that offensives on the western front were too heavily concentrated on trying to ‘punch a hole’ through the enemy line at a particular point, so the enemy knew exactly where to send his reinforcements. Read more | 10 WW1 generals you should know about By attacking over a much larger area, Brusilov was able to hide the direction of his main attack from the Austrians, so they never knew which points to reinforce and which to abandon. Of course, Brusilov’s approach needed the sort of huge numbers of men that were the Russian army’s speciality, and after its initial success the attack petered out because the supply system for food and ammunition couldn’t cope. The war produced Britain’s worst rail disaster On 22 May 1915 a troop train carrying men of the Royal Scots Guards and the Leith Territorial battalion south to embark for the Gallipoli campaign crashed into a stationary local train sitting outside a signal box near Gretna Green. Moments later the Glasgow express crashed into the wreckage of the two trains, and the whole scene was engulfed by fire. Some 226 people were killed, 214 of them soldiers, and 246 were seriously injured. It remains to this day the biggest loss of life in a railway accident in Britain. The crash happened through the carelessness of the two signalmen, who were found guilty of criminal negligence and sent to prison. They had shunted the local train onto the main line instead of a siding and had been too busy chatting about the war to change the signals to warn the approaching troop train. Wartime demand for rolling stock was so high that trains were using old wooden-framed carriages, which caught fire with terrifying speed. The crash was another unwanted by-product of the First World War. 8 ways railway travel changed everything for Britain History explorer: The birth of the railways Japan came to the rescue of the British in the Mediterranean Britain’s only formal alliance before 1914 was with Japan, and it was designed to relieve the Royal Navy of some of the burden of defending Britain’s Asian colonies, and to enable Britain and Japan to help one another safeguard their respective interests in China and Korea. When war broke out, the Japanese attacked German possessions in the Pacific and China, but in 1917 Britain requested Japanese assistance with escort duties in the Mediterranean. The region was vital for supplying Allied armies in Italy and Greece, and for maintaining communications with Africa, but the Allied navies faced threats from German and Austrian submarines. The Japanese, operating from Malta, provided escorts for Allied merchant and troop convoys, and a search-and-rescue service for the crews of torpedoed vessels. Japan’s important role in the war strengthened its claim to be accepted by the Americans and Europeans as a fully fledged great power. Listen | Gary Sheffield explores the final moments of the First World War that devastated the world for four and a half years The Chinese worked on the western front Who actually filled all those sandbags we see in photographs of the trenches? Who loaded the guns, ammunitions and food onto lorries or trains? Who cleared up after a train was derailed or a headquarters building shelled? The answer was the Chinese Labour Corps. They were volunteers from the Chinese countryside who were sent to Europe to fulfil a vital, but almost completely overlooked role in making an Allied victory possible. They were paid a pittance, and were generally regarded by both the British and French as expendable ‘coolies’. They mostly served behind the lines, which limited their casualties from enemy action, although they suffered very badly from the ‘Spanish’ flu epidemic of 1918. Why Britain was right to go to war in 1914 In WW1, what did the Allies want to achieve? The war dragged on two weeks longer than you think Although we mark the Armistice Day, 11 November 1918, as the end of the First World War, it actually lasted two further weeks in Africa. The German commander, Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, had become a national hero in Germany through his ruthless guerrilla campaign against Britain’s imperial forces in East Africa, forcing Africans to act as his porters and devastating the economy of the local villages as he did so. Vorbeck had been forced into Portuguese Mozambique by November 1918, but he still had some 3,000 troops under his command and he was still launching raids into Southern Rhodesia when news reached him of the armistice in Europe. Unlike the German army in Europe, Vorbeck could regard his own force as undefeated, and he decided to end the African war at a time of his own choosing. He formally surrendered to the British in Northern Rhodesia (modern Zambia) on 25 November, two weeks after the Armistice in Europe. First World War soldiers: life after the Armistice 5 things you need to know about Armistice Day Kipling’s words were tragic The words that appear on the gravestones of unidentified soldiers of the First World War, “A soldier of the Great War known unto God”, were written by the celebrated writer and Nobel Prizewinner, Rudyard Kipling. Commissioning leading figures like Kipling was a way of showing that Britain honoured its war dead. The words on the Cenotaph in Whitehall, built by the architect Sir Edwin Lutyens, even calls them “The Glorious Dead”. The words were chosen by Kipling, but there was a cruel irony in this commission. Kipling’s own son John had been taken into the army despite his appallingly weak eyesight, and was killed by a German shell in 1915 at the battle of Loos. His body was never found, so he too became, in his father’s words, “a soldier of the Great War known unto God”. This article was first published in August 2014
Retiring royals: 9 rulers and royals who stepped down through history
Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, will step back from their roles as senior royals, it has been announced. Here, historian Seán Lang considers nine other royals or leaders who have retired through history…
Prince Andrew’s decision in December 2019 to step back from his royal duties, in light of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal – and now the news that Prince Harry and his wife Meghan will "step back" from their roles as senior royals – is far from the only time a royal or a ruler has, whether willingly or not, stepped down from power and out of the public eye. Probably the most famous royal retirement was Shakespeare’s King Lear, though few would think him a particularly encouraging role model. Leading politicians sometimes step down unexpectedly – US president Lyndon B Johnson’s decision in 1968 not to seek re-election took his supporters by surprise, as did Harold Wilson’s unexpected resignation as prime minister, most probably on health grounds, in 1976. More typical are leaders who seem determined to keep hold of power, either hanging on (like Churchill and Thatcher) or else storming back out of retirement, like Gladstone. ‘Royal Family’: the fly-on-the-wall documentary the Palace doesn’t want you to see A brief guide to the British royal family, by The Crown’s historian Robert Lacey Of course, many rulers have been forced from power against their will, and by no means did all of the following examples give up their power voluntarily. However, here are nine rulers and royals who acquiesced in giving up their power. Cincinnatus (5th century BC) The story of the Roman leader Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus has been much mythologised, but scholars agree that he was a real person and that his main claim to fame, his victory over the Italic Aequi people, did actually happen. According to tradition as recounted by the Roman historian Livy, the Aequi, a neighbouring Latin people seeking to expand their territory at Rome’s expense, had cornered a Roman army under Minucius at Mount Algidus, in the Alban hills south east of Rome. If they took the height, they would be in a position to strike at the city itself. According to the constitution of republican Rome, in an emergency – which the Aequian invasion unquestionably was – the Senate could appoint an individual as dictator, with full military and political powers to deal with the situation. There was always the risk, of course, that the dictator might choose to keep hold of the powers after the emergency was over, but the Romans put their trust in a shared sense of civic duty to prevent that happening. In the case of Cincinnatus, called out of retirement on his farm to save the Republic, that trust proved well-founded. In a lightning campaign he routed the Aequi and relieved Minucius and his men; he then returned to Rome, resigned the dictatorship and returned to his farm – and all within 16 days. The 8 bloodiest Roman emperors in history 10 key Roman dates you need to know The story of Cincinnatus was much embellished by later writers as an example of Republican selflessness and virtue – the city of Cincinnati in the United States is named after him. Not all historians approve of Cincinnatus’s unapologetically pro-patrician and anti-plebeian outlook, but he is a rare example of a leader who held supreme power and voluntarily gave it up. Anne of Cleves (1515–1557) It might be stretching definitions a bit to say that Anne of Cleves retired from the Queenship. Both Anne and Katharine of Aragon had their marriages to Henry VIII declared null and void – but Anne certainly acquiesced in the arrangement more than Henry’s other spouse did. The marriage had been arranged by Thomas Cromwell to tie England to the Protestant princes of Germany as a counter-balance to what looked likely to be an anti-English alliance of the King of France and the Holy Roman Emperor. Contrary to the often-repeated story, Henry was probably not so dismayed by her features that he compared her to a Flanders mare – the first mention of that story is from the 17th century. However, there were doubts about Anne’s marital status: she had been betrothed to the son of the Duke of Lorraine, and the ambassadors from the Duchy of Cleves were suspiciously dilatory about providing written evidence that a marriage between the pair had ever taken place. Henry’s concern about Anne’s appearance, indeed, was not her face, which seems in fact to have been quite attractive, but her full figure, which he thought more suggestive of a married woman than of an unmarried virgin. Anne of Cleves: Henry VIII's most successful queen? Henry VIII’s six wives in a different light In addition, the political threat from France and the Empire seemed to be receding, which rather negated the whole point of the marriage. Henry had already fallen for the ill-fated Catherine Howard anyway, and it also seems likely that his marriage to Anne had revealed his embarrassing inability to consummate it. In the end, the uncertainty surrounding Anne’s marital status provided the grounds for an annulment; Henry also seized the opportunity to have Cromwell executed, in effect for having suggested it in the first place. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2019/12/GettyImages-148273380-8472915.jpg" width="709" height="1024" alt="Portrait of Anne of Cleves, by Hans Holbein the Younger. (Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images); Paris, Musée Du Louvre." title="Portrait of Anne of Cleves, by Hans Holbein the Younger. (Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images); Paris, Musée Du Louvre. (Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images)" /> Anne chose to remain in England and was provided for quite generously, though she was also kept under careful watch. She seems to have got on rather better with Henry after the marriage than during it, and there was even speculation that she might re-marry Henry after the fall of Catherine Howard. However, her retirement from the court proved a difficult and frustrating time; she never learned to speak English well and she missed her homeland. After Henry’s marriage to Catherine Parr she had no real role to fulfil: as queen, Catherine was both wife to Henry and a mother-figure to his children. Under Edward VI, Anne lost much of the property with which Henry had endowed her and long negotiations to improve her position or allow for her return to Germany proved fruitless. Hers was a sad and lonely retirement, though she was aware of her good fortune in escaping the fate of Catherine Howard, the woman who had replaced her only to end up executed. Emperor Charles V (1500–1558) In 1557, the emperor Charles V, who held the titles of Holy Roman Emperor, King of Spain, Duke of Burgundy and lord of territories from north Africa to the New World, announced that he was stepping down and retiring to a monastery to spend the rest of his days in prayer and contemplation. His decision took Europe by surprise – though, looking at his life story, it is not difficult to see why he had had enough. His whole life had been one of constant battle on every front: geographical, political and religious. Charles had first inherited the Habsburg title to the duchy of Burgundy, which consisted essentially of the Low Countries, before inheriting the throne of Spain through his mother in 1516. Three years later he was elected Holy Roman Emperor by the princes of Germany. He inherited vast territories: in addition to Spain, Burgundy and the leadership of Germany, he ruled the Habsburg dynastic lands in central Europe and Spain’s recent conquests in Italy, North Africa and the New World. However, these territories brought their own conflicts. Both as king of Spain and as king of Hungary and its dependent territories, Charles found himself in the front line of resistance against the relentless and seemingly unstoppable expansion of the Ottoman Empire. His Spanish title also brought with it a similarly unending war with his great rival, Francis I of France, who was seeking to expand France’s frontiers into Italy. His Spanish title embroiled him in Henry VIII’s quarrel with the Pope, since Queen Katharine of Aragon was his aunt and he resented the insult both to his family and to the Church that Henry’s annulment of the marriage would entail. However, the conflict that took the heaviest toll on Charles was the Protestant challenge to the Church posed by the German monk, Martin Luther. As German Emperor, Charles granted Luther safe conduct to state his case at the 1521 Diet of Worms [an imperial meeting to determine Luther’s fate], but thereafter he sought to eradicate Lutheranism, by force if need be. However, a number of German princes rallied to Luther’s defence: they took the name ‘Protestant’ from their formal protest against Charles’s ban on Luther and his ideas. The war with the Protestant princes dragged on through Charles’s reign: as a devout Catholic, Charles took his duty as a Christian ruler very seriously, and he was deeply disappointed at having to sign a compromise peace with them at Augsburg in 1555. He was even more grieved by the hostility sometimes shown him by the papacy, some of whose rulers regarded him as a rival for their claim to the leadership of the Catholic world. Exhausted and convinced he had failed in his duty to God, Charles divided his realms between his son Philip, who received the Netherlands and Spain, and his brother Ferdinand, who received the Empire and the Habsburg dynastic lands, and retired to the monastery of Yuste in Spain. In retirement, Charles kept in touch with events, but he turned his thoughts towards death and the passing of time: his room was lined with clocks. He died a sad and disappointed man, broken by a role that was too big for him – or, probably, anyone. James II (1633–1701) King James VII of Scotland and II of England would be spitting with fury at being included in this list, because in his own eyes he did not stand down at all: he was forced out by the illegal foreign invasion and palace coup normally known to history as the ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1688. However, a key element in the story of 1688 was the contention that James had not been overthrown at all – but had abdicated the throne. It was, therefore, empty when Parliament chose to fill it with James’s daughter, Princess Mary, and her Dutch husband, William of Orange, whose invasion force had forced James to flee his own kingdom. Although this idea of abdication was clearly a convenient fiction, it did form the constitutional basis for the revolution, and therefore qualifies James for inclusion here. A king without a crown: James VII and II’s years in exile 10 things you (probably) didn’t know about Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Jacobites James was the brother and therefore heir of Charles II, who regained the throne in 1660 after the end of Oliver Cromwell’s Protectorate but who, while perfectly capable of producing children with his many mistresses, proved incapable of producing a legitimate child with his wife. What alarmed the English court, however, was James’s conversion to Catholicism: it was widely feared that a Catholic monarch would not only seek to turn all of England Catholic but would turn the country into a puppet state of the papacy and of King Louis XIV of France. When it was reported that there was a vast Catholic conspiracy to kill the king and bring about a Catholic take-over, leading politicians launched a determined attempt to exclude James from the succession to the throne; the threat was only finally defeated when the plot was finally revealed to be totally without foundation. As king, James actually allowed French Protestant Huguenot fleeing persecution in France to settle in England, but his insistence on allowing toleration for Catholics seriously alarmed the political establishment. When a son was born to his Catholic Queen, Mary of Modena, the prospect of a Catholic line of succession to the throne prompted Parliament to act. It negotiated with William of Orange for a Dutch invasion force to land in Devon and James rapidly found support for him melting away. The most convenient outcome for William and Princess Mary was for James to vacate the throne and escape the country: they did not want him lingering on in prison. James’s first attempt to flee was frustrated when he was recognised and detained; he had to be ‘allowed’ to escape a second time and this time he got away to France. He was granted sanctuary in France by Louis XIV, who placed the Chateau of St-Germain-en-Laye at his disposal. His attempt to regain his throne via an invasion of Ireland was defeated at the battle of the Boyne in 1690 and thereafter he lived his days in a sort of courtly limbo, maintaining the fiction that he was still king and attracting the support of ‘Jacobites’ (from Jacobus, Latin for James) who calculated that either he or his son, ‘James III’, might be able to return to power in London. As long as they remained Catholic, that was never going to happen. Charles X of France (1757–1836) Charles, Count of Artois, was the younger brother of two French kings, Louis XVI and Louis XVIII, and all three brothers learned what it was to be overthrown. Louis XVI had lost his throne (and his head) during the French Revolution, and his two brothers, the Counts of Provence and of Artois, fled, settling eventually in England. The two brothers’ responses to their long exile were significantly different. The Count of Provence sought to learn lessons for France from Britain’s constitutional monarchy, and when he returned to France in 1814 as King Louis XVIII after Napoleon’s fall, he sought to heal the divisions of the revolution period by instituting a royal Charter guaranteeing many of the rights that the French had established for themselves during the revolution. Louis XVIII was forced to flee when Napoleon briefly returned to power in 1815, but on his return, he instituted his more moderate form of monarchy, hoping to avoid making the same sort of mistakes that had led to the revolution of 1789. His brother the Count of Artois, however, drew the exact opposite conclusion from his experiences in exile. He thought the revolution and Napoleon’s regime demonstrated that the legitimate form of monarchy should be reinstated quite unapologetically, showing no mercy to those who had overthrown his brother or who sought to introduce constitutional rule in France. In 1820, Artois’s son, the Duke de Berry, was assassinated; Artois took this as a sign that liberals and Bonapartists posed a serious threat to the monarchy and should be dealt with severely. When he came to throne in 1824 as King Charles X, he determined to give his full support to the reactionary ‘Ultras’, who sought to suppress liberty of speech and free political assembly. In the short-term Charles X had some success. He made use of the elected Assembly that Louis XVIII had granted, to compensate nobles who had lost lands in the revolution and to strengthen the position of the Church, and by 1830, faced with a hostile Assembly, he sought in effect to by-pass it and rule by his own authority. Street protests in July 1830 grew dangerous, especially when they were joined by some of his troops, and Charles X had to withdraw his family to Versailles for their own safety. Faced with a full-scale revolution, and possibly not wanting to cause more bloodshed, he decided to abdicate in favour of his grandson, the Count of Chambord. However, his cousin, the Duke of Orleans, had already declared himself King Louis Philippe , meaning Charles and his family were forced to flee into exile in England. Charles’s enforced retirement was not a happy time; he settled in Edinburgh before eventually moving to Prague. He had a difficult relationship with his widowed daughter-in-law, the Duchess of Berry, and he found it difficult to get a permanent home in Habsburg territory. He died in 1836, victim of a cholera outbreak. Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807–1882) Giuseppe Garibaldi was a professional soldier of great personal charisma, one of the most gifted guerrilla leaders of the 19th century. He learned his military craft fighting alongside nationalist rebels in South America, but the cause closest to his heart was the liberation of Italy. The idea of overthrowing the Austrian-backed regimes in the Italian states and establishing a single Italian state was pioneered by the political theorist Giuseppe Mazzini. Mazzini conceived of Europe as a federation of nation states, and he wanted the Italians to give a lead in the process. After failed uprisings in 1820 and 1830, the major opportunity for nationalists to achieve Mazzini’s vision came in the great year of European revolution, 1848, when Italy was rocked by constitutional revolts, from Sicily and Naples through to Piedmont in the north. The revolts were centred on cities, especially Milan, Venice and Rome, and each was declared a republic, in a revival of the old Italian city states of the middle ages, as a precursor, they hoped, to the creation of a large united Italian kingdom. However, the Austrians, whose control of Italy the rebels were hoping to break, proved too strong for them, and by the summer of 1848 the risings were beginning to crumble. One of the last to hold out was Rome, under the command of Garibaldi, fresh from fighting against the Austrians in Milan. Garibaldi’s defence of the Roman Republic became a celebrated tale of heroism against the odds: his enemy this time was not the Austrians but French forces sent by Louis Napoleon Bonaparte to put Pope Pius IX firmly back in control of the Eternal City. After heavy fighting Garibaldi was forced to withdraw. He headed northwards, hoping to join the resistance in Venice, which was still holding out, but he was forced to leave Italy. In a moment much loved by romancers, his wife Anita, who had accompanied him on campaign, died in his arms. There followed a long period of exile, much of it spent in the United States and England. But in 1859 the state of Piedmont, with support from France, launched an attack on the Austrians that gave it control not only of Lombardy, but also of the smaller states of northern Italy. Garibaldi was angry with the Piedmontese for allowing the French to take over his home town of Nizza (Nice), but in 1860 he asked the Piedmontese government for help to take advantage of a separatist revolt that had broken out in Sicily. The Piedmontese prime minister, Count Cavour, cautiously agreed to provide Garibaldi’s army of a thousand ‘redshirts’ with some antiquated guns and equipment, and, to general astonishment, Garibaldi launched a successful invasion, establishing himself as dictator of Sicily, nominally in the name of the King of Piedmont, before crossing the Straits of Medina and ousting the King of Naples too. Alarmed that Garibaldi, a committed republican, might invade the Papal States and re-establish a republic in Rome, Cavour and the King of Piedmont, Victor Emmanuel II, decided to strike first: they launched an invasion of the Pope’s territories and finally met up with Garibaldi at Teano. There Garibaldi handed his conquests over to the king, recognising that a united Italy would be a kingdom, and retired, Cincinnatus-like, to his farm on the island of Caprera, accepting only a packet of seeds as payment for his services. In fact, Garibaldi did not fade out into retirement: two years later he launched a military attack on the French garrison that still occupied Rome, and he led troops in Piedmont’s successful 1866 war with Austria to get hold of Venice. He took a keen interest in political developments in France, after the fall of his enemy Napoleon III, and he was elected to the Italian Parliament. But his days of power and influence were behind him and he died in 1882 on Caprera, his memory kept alive by popular cheap portrait busts and the biscuit named after him. Kaiser Wilhelm II (1859–1941) Kaiser Wilhelm II’s abdication at the end of the First World War was one of the most reluctant in history: it had been demanded as a condition of peace by the American president, Woodrow Wilson, but the kaiser tried to side-step the demand with the ingenious but unacceptable idea that he should abdicate as kaiser but remain king of the German state of Prussia. In the end the German Chancellor, Prince Max of Baden (himself the kaiser’s cousin) simply announced that the kaiser had abdicated, even though he hadn’t, as a way of forcing the issue, almost daring the kaiser to deny it. He didn’t and headed instead into exile in the Netherlands. Life of the Week: Kaiser Wilhelm II Could Queen Victoria have prevented World War I? Imperial Germany had been based on the authority of the German Emperor and Wilhelm took his role very seriously, frequently driving his ministers to distraction with his maverick and often damaging interventions in German foreign policy. He had caused immense strain in relations with Great Britain with his support for the South African Boers and a disastrous interview with the Daily Telegraph in 1908. He took close interest and immense pride in the expansion of the German navy, which was correctly seen as a challenge to Britain’s naval supremacy, and when war came in 1914 he relished his role as ‘Supreme War Lord’, though his role was essentially ceremonial; his generals largely ignored his attempts to direct strategy. He was an enthusiastic supporter of unrestricted submarine warfare, which his chancellor, Bethmann-Hollweg, correctly predicted would bring the United States into the war. President Wilson’s view was that the war was the product of aristocratic-dominated political and social system operating in European states, and that the only way to prevent future wars would be to recalibrate the continent along democratic lines. In the case of Germany, that would mean dismantling the monarchy and establishing a democratic government which, it was hoped, would never embark on the sort of aggressive war that had marked Imperial Germany’s approach to foreign affairs. For that reason, he made the removal of the kaiser a pre-requisite for the armistice the Germans requested in 1918, after the defeat of their forces in the field. By the autumn of 1918 the patience of the German people with the war was at breaking point in any case: revolution had broken out in Berlin and other cities and the German socialists and communists were making a bid for power. There was no enthusiasm in the army high command for a republic, but no one could ignore the way the Romanov imperial family had been murdered by the Russian Bolsheviks earlier the same year: they concluded that the kaiser would have to go, and for his own safety he would be well advised to get out of Germany. He lived out his years of exile at Doorn in the Netherlands. He never entirely gave up his dream of returning to Germany, though this was ruled out both by the Weimar Republic and the Nazi regime. He kept in touch with political events in Germany and developed a deep admiration for Adolf Hitler. It was also during his exile that he gave full expression to his deep antisemitism. Not surprisingly, he welcomed the German forces which invaded the Netherlands in 1940 and was treated by them in turn with respect. He died in 1941, an unrepentant German expansionist. Edward VIII (1894–1972) The abdication of Edward VIII in 1936 is probably the most celebrated example in modern times of a ruler deciding voluntarily, albeit under pressure, to step down. As Prince of Wales David (as he was then known) had been a very popular figure, something of an international celebrity, and it was widely hoped that he would bring a breath of fresh air to a monarchy that had begun to look rather tired and remote under George V and Queen Mary. Even George V’s radio broadcasts at Christmas could not compete with the impact of the new king’s visit to unemployed miners in South Wales, whose poverty clearly moved him as he assured them that “something will be done for you”. Edward VIII: Nazi sympathiser, playboy prince or peace-loving reformer? Edward VIII: How war scarred the playboy prince What the public did not know, though anyone who moved in court circles was well aware of it, was the new king’s relationship with the American divorcee, Wallis Simpson. As Prince of Wales he had tended to enter into relationships with married women, though this was kept from public attention: there was still widespread disapproval of divorce. The relationship mattered because when George V died in 1936 it soon became clear that the new king intended to marry his lover and make her his queen. Constitutionally there was no objection to an American queen but there was to a divorcee: Edward VIII would be Supreme Governor of the Church of England, which denied divorced people full communion and made it clear it would refuse to accept such a marriage. Since Edward refused to accept other suggestions, such as a morganatic marriage by which she would be married to him but not become queen, and the Dominions made it clear they would not accept him as their king if he insisted on marrying Mrs Simpson, the prime minister Stanley Baldwin had no alternative: the king would have to go. Edward put his private wishes before his public duty and became the first British monarch to sign an Instrument of Abdication. At the time the public, which had not known the full story of his private life, was confused and angry: it was widely felt that the king should be free to marry whomsoever he wished. However, his brother, the Duke of York, who assumed the throne as King George VI, quickly proved a popular figure, especially in the war that followed shortly afterwards. Edward married Wallis and they paid a much-publicised visit to Nazi Germany, where they were warmly received by Hitler. This has led to speculation that Edward was a Nazi sympathiser and might have played the role of puppet king had the Germans occupied Britain. The pair narrowly escaped from France and in 1940 were packed off to the Bahamas, where Edward was appointed governor, essentially to keep him out of the way. The former king was made Duke of Windsor, a royal title that had the (intended) effect of preventing him from standing for election to the House of Commons; his wife Wallis, however, was not given the royal title of Her Royal Highness though she was made Duchess of Windsor. Elizabeth, George VI’s consort, never forgave Wallis Simpson for the abdication and for forcing her husband into the role of king. Edward and Wallis spent most of their retirement in Paris, still bitter about what they saw as their unfair treatment at the hands of the British establishment – though many nowadays think the abdication saved Britain from a highly unsuitable monarch. Pope Benedict XVI (1927–) In 2013, Pope Benedict XVI surprised the world by announcing he was going to step down and make way for a successor. The last pope to abdicate was Gregory XII in 1415, whose resignation was needed to end the long schism that had seen the Catholic Church split between two, and even on occasion three, rival popes. The right of popes to resign was established by Pope Celestine V in 1294; he promptly took advantage of it and tried to retire to his monastery, though his successor, Boniface VIII, had him imprisoned to prevent any chance of his changing his mind and reclaiming his title. Benedict XVI, as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, had been a powerful figure in the Roman Curia under the papacy of John Paul II, and was widely tipped as his successor. He was known as a conservative figure and a strong critic of modern secular values, though he also came under criticism for blaming the clerical abuse scandal that has rocked the Catholic Church in recent years on the sexual liberation of the 1960s. There is still much speculation about Benedict XVI’s surprise decision to retire. He had only been elected pope eight years previously and had seemed an energetic figure, especially after the painfully visible frailty of his predecessor. He gave failing health as his reason, though there has inevitably been speculation that other factors were involved. His successor, Pope Francis, was elected a month after Benedict’s announcement and, although Francis is the only actual pope, Benedict still wears the papal white robes and is still referred to as Your Holiness.
9 general election curiosities through history
From rotten boroughs to 47-day elections, the electoral system has, through history, featured a number of quirks and unusual customs. Here, Dr Seán Lang investigates...
Parliament was a medieval institution, originally summoned by Simon de Montfort in 1265 to add weight to his stand against King Henry III. By 1295 it had developed to consist of two burgesses from each town and two knights from each shire and, with some modifications in the Tudor period, this remained the basic structure of representation until the parliamentary reform campaigns of the 19th century. 8 things you (probably) didn’t know about medieval elections A brief history of election “rigging” in the United States There were no set rules for how towns and shires should choose their representatives, and there was great variation among them. Some held a relatively open election, while others restricted the choice to wealthy property owners. Others, meanwhile, simply left it to the city council to choose. As a result, by the 18th and 19th centuries the electoral system was not only looking hopelessly old fashioned, but it had thrown up a number of striking anomalies… Own a pot? You can vote! One voting qualification in the 19th century actually depended on owning a large cooking pot. Such people were known as potwallopers. In theory, the pot was to be taken as proof that they had a hearth big enough to contain it. This, in turn, was considered to be evidence that they were responsible citizens, owning the freehold of their own homes and making a major contribution to the life of the community. It was thought that this would ensure the right sort of people were voting on behalf of the community as a whole. Voting was regarded as a sort of reward for civic virtue, and recognition of the voter’s value to society. The notion that it constituted a civil right was generally regarded as dangerously radical – the sort of idea that had led to the French Revolutionary Terror, when the vote had indeed been extended to all adult Frenchmen. Rotten boroughs We might today take it for granted that an election will be contested, but that was by no means always the case in the 18th century. Many constituencies were so effectively controlled by local landowners that they were known as ‘rotten’ or ‘pocket’ boroughs. Before 1832, all constituencies returned two MPs, so a landowner controlling a borough (or ‘boroughmonger’) would simply nominate two of his protégés to represent the borough – and, of course, himself – in parliament. If no one else nominated anyone, then there was no need for an election, and the proceedings would be wrapped up at the nomination stage. The lowest number of contests at an 18th-century election in England and Wales was 47 (in the election of 1761) – just 18 per cent of the constituencies. In effect, even those relatively few citizens who had the right to vote were disfranchised. Did Abraham Lincoln’s beard win him the election? Bolting to the ballot box: Snap elections through history Who needs voters? Before the Reform Act of 1832, it could by no means be taken for granted that, even if an election were held, there would necessarily be any voters to vote in it. The pattern of representation still reflected the distribution of towns that existed in Tudor times, and took no account of subsequent changes in population. Some places that had declined since then still retained their right to elect two MPs. In the most notorious cases, places that had actually become deserted retained the right to elect two MPs. The most celebrated was Old Sarum in Wiltshire, which was a deserted mound, or the abandoned village of Gatton in Surrey. Both of them returned two MPs at election times, when a handful of voters hurriedly took up residence. That was harder to achieve at Dunwich in Suffolk, since much of the constituency had fallen into the sea! A lengthy process There were angry scenes at the 2010 election when some people were still queuing outside when the polls closed at 10pm. It would be difficult to imagine that happening in the 18th century, when polling might typically go on for a week or more, to allow voters from outlying areas to travel in to cast their vote. In the pre-telecommunications age, there was no need for elections to take place at the same time, and there was often a staggered start to the voting process across the country. In fact, elections were not all held on the same day until 1918. Voting took time, too: votes were declared one by one in public, and before that there was a lengthy process of checking voters’ registration, to make sure they did indeed have the right to vote. Candidates could and did challenge the credentials of voters they thought likely to vote for their opponents. All this meant that a keenly-fought election could last much longer originally intended. In the 1784 election, the contest for the Westminster constituency – where one of the MPs was the Whig leader, Charles James Fox – lasted from 1 April to 17 May! Treats and tricks Voting in the pre-Reform Act period [pre-1832] was regarded as a public duty undertaken on behalf of the community as a whole, and it was quite normal for candidates to reward their supporters in the form of ‘treating’ – usually by providing plentiful free beer, or issuing other victuals to voters and their supporters on production of a ticket. Less enjoyable were the threats of retaliation that might be made against voters who failed to back the landlord’s favoured candidates; they might find their rent increased by a vindictive boroughmonger, or they might even lose their home. It was hoped that introducing the Secret Ballot in 1870 [which was extended generally in the Ballot Act 1872] might reduce such open corruption, but keeping their own vote secret only encouraged voters to demand treats from both sides, knowing that the chance of reprisals was now much lower. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2017/04/GettyImages-3134907-fa33b36.jpg" width="2809" height="3323" alt="Buying votes cartoon" title="3 April 1880: a group of politicians attempting to buy an elector's vote with a pint of ale. The voter is turning his back on the offer with the words "Wot! Sell my birthright for that. I ain't likely". (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)" /> MPs were particularly young in the 18th century Our modern political leaders are noticeably younger than their predecessors, but the record for electing young MPs belongs to the 18th century. William Pitt the Younger was elected MP for the pocket borough of Appleby at the age of 21, and went on, only two years later, to become the country’s youngest prime minister. His great rival, the Whig leader Charles James Fox, was so young when he entered parliament that he wasn’t actually old enough to vote! He was elected at the age of just 19, even though 21 was the voting age. Got a degree? Have a second vote! Graduates in previous centuries enjoyed a second vote in general elections. Until the 1948 Representation of the People Act, universities had their own representation in parliament, voted for by their graduates, on the basis that the most highly educated opinions were deserving of extra weight. Oxford and Cambridge had two MPs each; the Scottish universities shared three between them, and both Queen’s University, Belfast and the University of Wales had one MP each. I’m terribly sorry, prime minister… Winston Churchill is one of the few non-peer prime ministers not to be able to vote in his own general election. In the face of huge movements of population during the Second World War, it became impossible to keep the electoral roll up-to-date. Therefore, when Churchill called the 1945 election, ration cards were used as the basis for electoral registration. By some administrative oversight, Churchill himself was actually missed off the ration-card electoral roll, and so he could not vote in the famous election that saw him turned out of office. Prime minister in waiting If defeated in a general election, the prime minister has to depart as soon the result is clear – there is no transition period. However, even a victorious prime minister has to wait to be appointed by the monarch, in a ceremony known as Kissing Hands, before moving into No 10. This has to fit in with the monarch's own schedule. When the Conservatives won the 1970 election, the Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson couldn’t resign immediately because the queen wasn’t at Buckingham Palace to receive him. She had gone to the races at Ascot, and the new prime minister had to hang around until she returned! This article was first published by History Extra in 2017
From the people-pleaser Louis XVI to the “courteous and pleasant” Charles I, history is full of monarchs whose niceness prevented them from ruling effectively. Here, historian Sean Lang rounds up eight of the most affable kings in history – most of whom were too nice for their own good
Many a tyrant has known how to shine in company – by all accounts, Adolf Hitler was charming if you met him socially – but what if you are just pleasant and amenable by nature? Does that rule out a career as monarch? With a couple of exceptions, this list of perfectly pleasant rulers is not particularly encouraging… Vespasian (Roman Emperor, 69–79 AD) Vespasian was a successful general who managed to seize power from the political confusion that followed from the overthrow of Nero in 69 AD. Compared to Nero's dangerously erratic rule, Vespasian's reign was much calmer – he led a major rebuilding programme after the Great Fire of Nero's reign and he fast-tracked the hundreds of law cases that had emerged from the chaos after Nero's death. Vespasian’s military campaigning continued – he completed the suppression of a major rebellion against Roman rule in Judaea, where he had first made his name as a successful general – but at home his priority was strict economy after Nero's spending sprees (though he did splash out on the Flavian amphitheatre, or Colosseum, for gladiator combats). The 8 bloodiest Roman emperors in history 9 of the worst monarchs in history Vespasian was a genial cove, happily married but with a long-standing mistress – but he could be ruthless with critics and opponents. His dying words, according to the writer Suetonius, were an amused commentary on the Roman's obsession with emperor-worship: “I think I'm becoming a god”. Vespasian was succeeded by his popular elder son Titus, and a couple of years later by his vicious and unpredictable younger son, Domitian, who took a perverse pleasure in putting senators and actors to death on the flimsiest pretexts, often straight after having appeared to praise them. So, even nice emperors can leave nasty ones behind. Æthelstan (king of England, 925–939) Æthelstan was the grandson of Alfred the Great and was the first man to be recognised as king of all England. It is difficult to be certain about the personality of figures from so long ago, but accounts of Æthelstan suggest that he was of devout Christian faith and showed compassion and charity to all. He could still fight, though: he inherited Anglo-Saxon England's long war with the Vikings and he saw off challenges from the Scots and the Dublin Norse. He made his court a hub of learning; established a more efficient system of justice; and seems to have been genuinely popular with all who met him. Æthelflæd: The woman who crushed the Vikings Æthelstan had none of the weakness of Ethelred II (“the Unredy” or “badly-advised”), which led him to attempt to buy off Viking attacks, nor the brutal streak of William the Conqueror, whose ruthless ‘harrying of the North’ left the whole region devastated for a generation. Perhaps it was indeed Æthelstan's Christian faith that enabled him to combine military and political strength with a pleasant and charitable nature. So – it can be done. Henry VI (king of England, 1422–61; 1470–71) Henry VI seemed to have everything going for him: the son of the victorious warrior king Henry V and his French queen Catherine de Valois, he inherited the throne of England when he was less than a year old and stood next in line to inherit the French throne too. But Henry was no soldier: he took his faith seriously, preferring a life of prayer to fulfilling his duties as king. In personal terms he seems to have been almost sickeningly pleasant to all around him, which only made him appear weak in the dog-eat-dog world of the English court. Henry VI may have had a “sex coach” – plus 4 more curious facts about his life How Henry VI’s love of peace cost him the throne – and his life Overshadowed by the commanding figure of his French wife, Margaret of Anjou, Henry suffered a series of mental breakdowns that rendered him unfit to rule and eventually led to a challenge for the throne from the Duke of York. Henry's final humiliation in the civil war that followed was to be captured and paraded through London as a prisoner, and finally murdered in the Tower of London. And no doubt he was very nice to the men who did it! Charles I (king of England and Scotland, 1625–49) <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2019/03/GettyImages-56462573-014bf76.jpg" width="1024" height="1292" alt="Charles I's great weakness was that he made a strict distinction between his role as king, in which he could not compromise, and his personal role, which was entirely pleasant and courteous, says Sean Lang. (Photo by Imagno/Getty Images)" title="Charles I's great weakness was that he made a strict distinction between his role as king, in which he could not compromise, and his personal role, which was entirely pleasant and courteous, says Sean Lang. (Photo by Imagno/Getty Images)" /> “Cruel necessity”, Cromwell is supposed to have said, as he looked down on the beheaded body of King Charles I. Certainly Charles had brought much of his fate on himself, through his stubborn refusal to negotiate in good faith with his parliamentary enemies. Those who put “Charles Stuart, that man of blood” on trial might be astounded to see him on this list. Has history been unfair to Charles I? Killers of the king: the men who dared to execute Charles I Charles's great weakness was that he made a strict distinction between his role as king, in which he could not compromise, and his personal role, which was entirely pleasant and courteous. In many ways it was his very courtesy that his enemies found so infuriating: they could not understand how he could be so charming to their faces and so hostile behind their backs. Even his friends had reason to rue his ability to be two things at once. The Earl of Strafford had been Charles's staunchest ally, but Charles still gave in to pressure from Strafford's enemies in parliament to sign his death warrant in 1641. “Put not your trust in princes,” Strafford commented bitterly. Even nice ones. George III (king of Great Britain, 1760–1820) Like Charles I, George III has had such a hostile press that it might be a surprise to see him feature on this list. He was denounced as a tyrant in the American Declaration of Independence and as a threat to the constitution by the Whigs in parliament. And he continued the Hanoverian dynasty's congenital family feuding by getting into the most bitter dispute with his eldest son, the Prince of Wales, over the prince’s drinking, gambling debts and especially his clandestine marriage to a Catholic widow, Maria Fitzherbert. Yet in many ways George III was a much more pleasant, more courteous figure than he has been given credit for. John Adams, the first minister to his court from the newly independent United States, recounts how at his first audience the king generously allowed him the run of his house and especially his extensive library. He was a doting father to his 15 – yes, 15 – children with Queen Charlotte (at least when they were little), and, though a stickler for protocol, he could show great consideration. The novelist and lady-in-waiting Fanny Burney, who did not find court life easy, found him unfailingly kind to her, even when he was in the grip of his celebrated ‘madness’ (possibly the blood disorder porphyria, though some medical historians think it was psychological disorder, possibly a form of bipolar condition). In his later life George became a genuinely well-liked figure, his popularity enhanced by the illness that clouded his final years. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2019/03/GettyImages-176564613-75fbef6.jpg" width="1024" height="1577" alt="In his later life George III became a genuinely well-liked figure, his popularity enhanced by the illness that clouded his final years. (Photo by National Galleries Of Scotland/Getty Images)" title="In his later life George III became a genuinely well-liked figure, his popularity enhanced by the illness that clouded his final years. (Photo by National Galleries Of Scotland/Getty Images)" /> Louis XVI (king of France, 1774–92) Louis XVI wanted to be so reasonable to everyone. If his controller-general of finances thought the taxation system needed overhauling to make nobles cough up? Then Louis would stand by him. If the nobles objected and called for the controller-general to be sacked? Then Louis would sack him (this happened at least three times). When Marie Antoinette wanted a small house and a pretend village in the grounds of Versailles, so she and friends could play at being shepherdesses in a sort of rural idyll? Of course she could have them – her little ‘hameau’ can still be visited today. When the revolutionary women of Paris, demanding bread and infuriated by his queen's reputation for frivolous expenditure, had walked all the way to Versailles in October 1789 to tear her to pieces – but of course, Louis would meet with some of them. He must have been infuriating to be married to. The final days of Marie Antoinette Fighting for freedom: the storming of the Bastille and the French Revolution Louis's dilemma was that he sought to show understanding and consideration to all sides in a situation that was spiralling out of control. It was mad to try to work with the revolutionaries while also listening to his wife and his brothers, who were all urging him to maintain his royal prerogative – yet that is what he did. Louis was a devoted father (these doomed monarchs always are) to his four children, as well as four more he and Marie Antoinette adopted; he was a devout Christian and a genuinely humane man. And he died under that humane execution machine, the guillotine. Frederick III (German emperor, 1888) The German emperor Frederick III is one of the great ‘might-have-beens’ of history. Married to Princess Victoria, eldest daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, he had imbibed much of the liberalism of the British constitutional monarchy and he fully intended to inject it into the German political model as soon as he became emperor. Frederick was much more affable, more pleasant and more – well – nice than his testy father, the reactionary old William I, who seems to have spent much of his time shouting at his chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, and dissolving into tears when he didn't get his own way. The marriages of Queen Victoria’s grandchildren Who were Queen Victoria’s children? Everything you need to know about her sons and daughters Frederick's vision for Germany was for it to be a liberal state, on good terms with its neighbours (especially Britain) and committed to maintaining European peace. It led him into fierce arguments with the anglophobe Bismarck, which, in Frederick's eyes, proved he was right. Sadly, by the time his father died in 1888 Frederick was himself gravely ill, from throat cancer. His reign lasted no more than 99 days and there simply was not time to bring about the changes of direction he had hoped for. When he died, first Bismarck and then his son, the Kaiser William II, took Germany firmly down the path of aggressive militarism that was to lead in 1914 to the First World War. Nicholas II (tsar of Russia, 1894–1917) Nicholas II was the living proof that you could either be a pleasant, loving family man and an amenable, reasonable and humane ruler, or you could be the autocrat of all the Russias, heir to Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great: it was one or the other – not both. Nicholas's problem was that he tried to be a reasonable ruler in an irrational state. Previous tsars had been ruthlessly authoritarian; Nicholas tried to sustain the image of “little father” to his people, while also sometimes having to be ruthless. It led to a huge loss of faith in him and his monarchy. The last days of the Romanovs Russia’s revolutions: How 1917 shaped a century Nicholas's devotion to his wife and family was well known, but so was the PR disaster of inviting the mystic Rasputin into the heart of the imperial family. When the First World War began so disastrously Nicholas ignored advice and took personal charge of his armies, thus ensuring that it continued disastrously as well. He was trying (with admirable diligence) to fulfil a heavy task that was far beyond his capabilities. As a result, he was overthrown in the revolution of February 1917 and when, the following year, both he and the family he had cherished fell into the hands of the Bolsheviks, they were put against a wall and shot. This article was first published on HistoryExtra in March 2019