HistoryExtra
type: channel
link: https://www.historyextra.com
description: Home of Britain’s bestselling history magazine and award-winning podcast
date: 2024-07-05T12:20:47.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: Major Herbert Rowse Armstrong: innocent solicitor or guilty murderer?
items: From silver to platinum: a history of Queen Elizabeth II's jubilees
items: The Pentrich Rising: England's forgotten armed revolution
items: Love before duty: the story of Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson
items: The Corn Laws crisis
items: The Corn Law crisis: the bitter political war that threatened thousands with starvation
items: Georgian terrorists: the Cato Street Conspiracy
items: The Peterloo Massacre: what did it achieve?

Major Herbert Rowse Armstrong: innocent solicitor or guilty murderer?
type: item
date: 2022-09-26T05:00:50.000Z
creator: Stephen Bates
subject: General Modern
subject: Membership
subject: Period
description: In May 1922, a respected solicitor was sent to the gallows after being convicted of poisoning his wife. But was he truly guilty? Stephen Bates asks whether Major Herbert Rowse Armstrong was the victim of a terrible injustice
encoded: In 1922, a country solicitor from the little town of Hay-on-Wye, nestled on the border between England and Wales, was in prison awaiting execution for murdering his wife. Major Herbert Rowse Armstrong – he always insisted on the rank – had been convicted at a sensational 10-day trial of killing his wife Katharine 15 months earlier. It was said he had dosed her with arsenic that he had bought legally in the local chemist’s shop, allegedly to kill the dandelions on the couple’s lawn. The case of Major Armstrong was so extraordinary that it seized not only the imagination of newspaper readers in Britain, but across North America and the rest of the English-speaking world. The twists and turns in the tale also inspired a new breed of crime novelists. It was, the Charlotte Observer in far-away North Carolina announced, citing the notorious medieval Italian dynasty: “The greatest poison drama of the century... All England is thrilled by the trial of a modern Borgia.” The story had everything, as it apparently involved far more than a private domestic tragedy, taking in petty professional rivalries and gossip; rumours that gave rise to astonishing speculation about a man who had been a pillar of the community. There were even tales of a poisoned box of chocolates and a deadly scone handed over at a tea party, allegedly with the words: “’Scuse fingers.” Read more | Arsenic: a brief history of Agatha Christie’s favourite murder weapon Who was Herbert Rowse Armstrong? Herbert Armstrong was a short, slight, dapper man, only eight stone in weight. He had strikingly blue eyes behind his gold-rimmed pince-nez spectacles and fashionably waxed the ends of his moustache. He was the picture of respectability, prominent at both the parish church and Freemasons’ lodge, and served as clerk to the justices at three local magistrates’ courts. He had been born into a middle-class family in Plymouth in 1869 and, after his father died, had been educated at Cambridge with financial support fr…

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From silver to platinum: a history of Queen Elizabeth II's jubilees
type: item
date: 2022-05-31T06:15:19.000Z
creator: Stephen Bates
subject: 20th Century
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: British queens
description: Royal anniversary celebrations have long been a litmus test of the public mood. As Queen Elizabeth II reaches her platinum jubilee, Stephen Bates looks at the major milestones in the reign of Elizabeth II, and Britons’ reactions to these events...
encoded: Royal jubilee celebrations have a longer history than might be imagined, despite the fact that most British monarchs have not lived long enough to reach a major milestone. The first was celebrated in October 1809 on what was actually the 49th anniversary of George III’s accession, at the height of the Napoleonic Wars – which were not going well. A Mrs Biggs wrote to the Lord Chamberlain, the Earl of Dartmouth, suggesting a festival intended to “excite a spirit of loyal enthusiasm”. The event was a success, and its timing was fortunate – a year later the king, grief-stricken over the death of his youngest daughter, suffered a relapse of his mental illness. In June 1887, Queen Victoria had to be persuaded to mark her golden jubilee; she had not celebrated her silver jubilee in 1862, which fell just after Prince Albert’s death. After 50 years, the golden jubilee would be “just hustle and bustle”, she said, and the government was reluctant to spend money on it. Ten years later, the celebrations were more lavish; it became an imperial celebration, with troops from all over the empire on parade. The procession to St Paul’s was one of the first events to be filmed. Read more | Queen Elizabeth II: 50+ surprising facts about her life and reign Huge crowds cheered the queen, who by then was too frail to leave her carriage to attend the cathedral service, so it was held on the steps where she could see it. “No one ever, I believe, has met with such an ovation,” she wrote wonderingly in her journal that night, adding: “The cheering was quite deafening.” George V’s silver jubilee in May 1935, eight months before he died, was suggested by the government partly as a patriotic display of British unity, a warning to Europe’s dictators, and partly with an eye to the forth coming general election. To his surprise, the gruff old king was greeted by cheering crowds on his way to the thanksgiving service at St Paul’s. “I am beginning to think they must really like me for myself,” he murm…

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The Pentrich Rising: England's forgotten armed revolution
type: item
date: 2022-01-28T09:22:41.000Z
creator: Stephen Bates
subject: Georgian
subject: Industrial revolution
subject: Membership
subject: Period
description: In 1817, a working-class uprising was brutally quashed amid accusations that government spies had deliberately incited the rebels. Stephen Bates relates the tragedy of the Pentrich Rising...
encoded: On 9 June 1817, a mob of men marched nervously through darkness and driving rain down the country lanes of Derbyshire. They were on their way – or so they thought – to capture Nottingham, 14 miles away, as part of a national revolt to overthrow the government. They did not know it at the time but the Pentrich revolutionaries, as they came to be called, were taking part in the last armed insurrection in English history – and, according to the late historian EP Thompson, the first entirely working-class political uprising. Armed with pikes and a few muskets, and led by an unemployed stocking weaver called Jeremiah Brandreth – known to them for his Luddite activities as ‘the Nottingham Captain’ – they expected to be joined by thousands of others marching down “like a cloud” from Yorkshire and Lancashire. Read more | Your guide to the Luddite movement They were assured that a further 50,000 men in London could be quickly summoned to seize the government and capture the Bank of England. In reality, they were on their own. Most of the men were unclear as to what the political aim was, beyond cancelling the national debt and shooting ministers. Perhaps a provisional government would be set up, one that would hand out provisions to the starving populace – but, more immediately, the men had been promised money, food, rum and boat rides on the river Trent. As they marched wearily on, Brandreth led the singing: “The time is come, you plainly see/The government opposed must be.” The men on the march were weavers, farm labourers and iron workers. Most were related to each other, and many – including Brandreth – were Primitive Methodists. They blamed the autocratic government and aristocratic ministers for their distress. Many were out of work and without food, the result of the contraction of the economy after the Napoleonic Wars. But they were also victims of a natural phenomenon of which they had no idea. An ash cloud from the 1815 volcanic eruption of Mount Tambora, on the In…

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Love before duty: the story of Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson
type: item
date: 2020-06-03T09:50:40.000Z
creator: Stephen Bates
subject: 20th Century
subject: Period
subject: The Crown
subject: TV interest
description: When Edward VIII gave up the throne to marry Wallis Simpson, it was the biggest constitutional crisis for the crown in the 20th century. His obsession with the divorced American actress set him on a collision course with the government, his brother and the wider British public. Here, former royal correspondent and journalist Stephen Bates examines the circumstances surrounding the king's abdication
encoded: "After I am dead, the boy will ruin himself within 12 months.” So gruff old King George reputedly remarked to prime minister Stanley Baldwin about his son and successor, the future Edward VIII. He was scarcely a boy – Edward was 41 when he came to the throne in January 1936 – but his father was otherwise not far out: Edward’s reign lasted just 324 days before he abdicated to marry the woman he loved. It was the biggest constitutional crisis for the crown in the 20th century – no other monarch has voluntarily vacated the throne – and one that has shaped royal attitudes ever since. In the eyes of the family, David – the name by which they knew him – had shirked his duty, and cut and run. Evidence suggests that the majority of his countrymen and women thought so, too. When he succeeded his father, Edward VIII was a popular figure who had been in the public eye for many years. He was regarded as unstuffy, charming and unpretentious – at least, that was the image that the newspapers of the day chose to portray. No man, said The Times at his accession, ever came to the throne in more propitious circumstances: “In countless ways he has securely established his hold on the affections of his people.” The 8 most famous royal weddings in British history But senior politicians and many who served him as officials already had concerns. “I doubt he’ll stay the course,” Baldwin told the Labour leader, Clement Attlee. They thought him lazy and erratic, with a negligent attitude towards his duties – opinions that were only reinforced when he became king. State papers went unread and, it was suspected, were shown to Edward’s friends. He turned up late to events or cried off at the last minute, and he was rude and offhand. Then there was the king’s womanising. Over the previous two decades he had taken a series of mistresses, notably Freda Dudley Ward and Thelma Furness, both married women with complaisant husbands. But now a new partner had seen off the others: Bessiewallis (a combin…

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The Corn Laws crisis
type: item
date: 2020-05-01T12:02:35.000Z
creator: Stephen Bates
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Victorian
subject: Life in Victorian Britain
description: Stephen Bates describes the battle over bread prices that divided parliament in the mid-19th century
encoded: Author and journalist Stephen Bates describes the Corn Laws crisis, the battle over bread prices that divided parliament in mid-19th-century Britain.

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The Corn Law crisis: the bitter political war that threatened thousands with starvation
type: item
date: 2020-04-30T16:00:56.000Z
creator: Stephen Bates
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Victorian
description: In the 1840s, Britain was pitched into a huge political battle over the price of bread. The Corn Law crisis triggered a bitter civil war in the Tory party – and, writes Stephen Bates, threatened thousands with starvation
encoded: For 30 years in the first half of the 19th century, Britain was obsessed with the price of bread. Waves of unrest swept the country as bad harvests, food shortages and dire living conditions stalked the poorest in society. Calls for parliamentary reform grew ever more insistent as citizens demanded that politi- cians be more responsive to their hardships. The first modern pressure groups – among them the Chartists – hounded the govern- ment regularly. At the heart of this political and social turbulence was a growing row over the cost of food – an imbroglio we now know as the Corn Law crisis. On one side of the argument stood those who argued for strict tariffs on the import of foreign cereals into Britain; on the other were those who contended that such restrictions were bad for the economy and bad for those at the bottom of the nation’s social ladder. When the two sides clashed in the 1840s, what followed was a parliamentary battle every bit as divisive as the struggle over Brexit, and a Tory civil war so bitter that it kept the party out of majority power for nearly 30 years. In 1845, the Tory home secretary James Graham wrote: “We have lost the slight hold which we ever possessed over the hearts and feelings of our followers.” He was thinking of the Tory backbenchers, but his words could have been echoed 175 years later in our own time. A slump in prices There had been import restrictions on cereals for centuries, intended to stabilise prices and prevent commodity speculation. But it wasn’t until the end of the Napoleonic Wars that the government introduced restrictions intended to exclude foreign cereals altogether – by passing the 1815 Corn Law. With prices slumping following war with France, farmers and landowners were anxious to protect their harvests, even if it made the most staple food dearer for workers and their families. While there was a case for making British agriculture self-sufficient, and improving yields through more efficient farming, the lando…

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Georgian terrorists: the Cato Street Conspiracy
type: item
date: 2020-02-21T13:53:47.000Z
creator: Stephen Bates
subject: Georgian
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Murder
description: Stephen Bates examines a failed attempt to murder the British cabinet in February 1820 and explores the background and aftermath of this violent plot
encoded: On the 200th anniversary of the Cato Street Conspiracy, Stephen Bates examines a failed attempt to murder the entire British cabinet in February 1820. He also explores the background and aftermath of this violent plot.

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The Peterloo Massacre: what did it achieve?
type: item
date: 2019-08-07T15:00:01.000Z
creator: Stephen Bates
subject: Georgian
subject: Membership
subject: Period
description: It started as a peaceful appeal for political reform, but ended with 18 dead and hundreds injured. Stephen Bates describes how the events of 16 August 1819 became a landmark moment in the struggle for democracy
encoded: What was the Peterloo Massacre? The Peterloo Massacre, which took place on 16 August 1819, was the worst violence ever to occur at a political meeting in Britain. Cavalry brutally dispersed a crowd of 60,000 protestors in Manchester taking part in a peaceful appeal for political reform. The many thousands of weavers and tradesmen and their families had gathered to consider “the propriety of adopting the most legal and effectual means of obtaining a reform”. The one thing they were not expecting as they made their way on foot to Manchester on that fateful Monday morning was a massacre. They came in from the suburbs and surrounding towns and villages respectably dressed, holding their children by the hand, marching in disciplined columns behind banners and flags, with bands playing patriotic tunes, to have an entertaining day out and to hear speeches calling for parliamentary reform. A “more shocking” massacre? How we might have overestimated the Peterloo crowds 16 August 1819: Militia massacres protesters at ‘Peterloo’ It was a fine summer day and the meeting was entirely legal. It had been called to consider – not to demand – “the propriety of adopting the most legal and effectual means of obtaining a reform”. And the demonstrators had been warned not to be provoked by what was sure to be a heavy presence of constables and local militia. They should, they were told, bring “no other weapon but that of a self-approving conscience”. “There were crowds of people in all directions, full of good humour, laughing and shouting and making fun,” recalled John Benjamin Smith, a 25-year-old businessman who witnessed the meeting. “It seemed to be a gala day with the country people who were mostly dressed in their best and brought with them their wives.” But what happened to them that day was the worst violence ever to occur at a political meeting in Britain, an event that shocked the nation and was pivotal in the long struggle for the vote. At least 18 people were killed and mor…

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