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Think you know everything about ancient Rome? These 25 facts will prove otherwise
Edward J Watts, author of The Romans: A 2,000-Year History, shares 25 things you need to know about one of the greatest civilisations of the ancient world – from their incredible feats of engineering to their sporting spectacles
1. The Romans lived in an independent state for more than 2,200 years According to tradition, Rome was founded in 753 BC, shortly after the beginning of the Italian Iron Age. Its inhabitants were Latin-speaking pagans who lived along the river Tiber in what is now central Italy. The empire of Trebizond, the last independent Roman kingdom descended from that state, was captured in 1461 by an Ottoman army equipped with gunpowder weapons. The people living in Trebizond also called themselves ‘Roman’, but they were Christians who lived in a city on the Black Sea coast of modern Turkey and spoke a language they called Romeika (which translates as 'Roman', but which we now call Greek). 2. The Roman empire once included all, or part of, nearly 50 countries At the empire’s greatest extent in AD 117, Roman territory stretched from what is now the Atlantic coast of Portugal to the Persian Gulf beaches in Kuwait, from southern Egypt near the current Sudanese border to northern England, and from just south of Casablanca in Morocco to the Caspian Sea shores of Azerbaijan. The land area of the Roman empire was smaller than Australia, but if one included the territorial waters controlled by Rome (as is customary with modern states) the empire would rank as the fifth-largest country on earth if it existed today. 3. As much as one-third of the world’s population lived under Roman control Late during the reign of the emperor Trajan (ruled AD 98–117), it is thought that the Roman empire reached a population of 80 million, out of a total world population of around 230 million. In modern terms, Rome’s share of the world population at that moment would be nearly equivalent to a country with the combined populations of India and China. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/11/2GettyImages-1369193411-fa1bfb0-e1764241964618.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A yellow, blue and red map showing the Roman empire" title="The Roman empire reached its maximum territorial extent in the early second century AD, during the reign of the emperor Trajan. The empire would rank as the fifth-largest country in the world if it existed today (Image by Getty Images)" /> 4. Rome was the first city in the world with a million residents Rome reached a population of 1 million during the first century BC, and aside from temporary population decreases caused by plagues or natural disasters, did not fall below that level until the end of the fourth century AD. This is even more remarkable considering that poor sanitation and crowded conditions meant that the city lost as much as 3 per cent of its population each year to disease – a number far greater than the birthrate. Rome’s massive population was sustained through large-scale migration from other parts of the empire, nearly every year, for five centuries. 5. Hadrian’s Wall was NOT the longest Roman wall – and nor was it the most northern Almost everyone has heard of Hadrian’s Wall, the defensive structure that once stretched 73 miles across what is now northern England. However, an even longer fortification built under Hadrian and his successor, Antoninus Pius, extended nearly 190 miles across southern Germany. It began roughly where the Rhine turns west at Mainz, and extended to meet the Danube near Regensburg. Antoninus Pius also ordered the construction of the empire’s northernmost wall – the eponymous Antonine Wall – which stretched 39 miles across what is now Scotland, from the Firth of Clyde to the Firth of Forth. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/11/3GettyImages-639158628-7d65967-e1764242013260.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A modern illustration depicting Hadrian’s Wall as it may have appeared during the second century AD. The 73-mile-long fortification stretched from what is now Bowness-on-Solway in Cumbria to Wallsend in Tyne and Wear (Image by Getty Images)" title="A modern illustration depicting Hadrian’s Wall as it may have appeared during the second century AD. The 73-mile-long fortification stretched from what is now Bowness-on-Solway in Cumbria to Wallsend in Tyne and Wear (Image by Getty Images)" /> 6. The Romans produced more than 25 million coins each year Following a reform instituted by joint emperors Diocletian and Maximian in AD 294, the Romans established a network of 15 mints across the empire – all the way from Londinium (London) to the Egyptian city of Alexandria. Although production slowed around 100 years later, no state in the world would again match Rome’s numismatic productivity until the 19th century. Read more | How the Romans "reversed circumcision" and 5 other shocking medical realities from the ancient empire 7. Rome’s ‘eighth hill’ is a load of old rubbish… literally The Testaccio region of Rome is now famous for its nightlife, but it takes its name from Monte Testaccio, an artificial hill that is 35 metres tall and created from the remains of ceramic shipping containers offloaded from barges along the Tiber. Most of the pottery has been dated to the period between AD 140 and 250, though the base of the hill may be much older. Despite its unusual provenance, Monte Testaccio is sometimes described as Rome’s ‘eighth hill’, in addition to the seven other hills within the city walls: the Aventine, Caelian, Capitoline, Esquiline, Palatine, Quirinal and Viminal hills. WATCH | Dr David Musgrove finds out what the Romans really got up to on the loo View Green Video on the source website 8. The Pantheon is the oldest intact, continually used building in the world Originally created in the style of a conventional Roman temple in the first century BC, the Pantheon was rebuilt under the direction of the emperor Hadrian in the AD 120s. The ground level was originally much lower than it is today, and when one approached the structure from the front, it appeared to be a normal temple because the structure’s 43-metre-wide dome was obscured by its triangular pediment (gable). Nearly two millennia later, the Pantheon’s dome remains the largest of its kind in the world – its survival no doubt linked to the decision to convert the building into a Christian church in AD 609. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/11/4GettyImages-1211436528-b8e4a0d-e1764242052537.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="An aerial photograph of the Pantheon in Rome. It has a large dome roof with a hole in the top and is surrounded by several other red roofed buildings" title="Despite being nearly 2,000 years old, the Pantheon boasts the largest unreinforced concrete dome in the world (Image by Getty Images)" /> 9. There was once a giant city plan, carved on marble blocks, that showed every street and building in Rome Between AD 203 and 211, the emperor Septimius Severus ordered the creation of a 234-metre-square map of the city of Rome that included accurate renderings of the ground-floor architectural plans for every building in the city. Carved on marble blocks, the map was hung on a wall of the Temple of Peace, which now forms the northern exterior of the Basilica of St Cosmas and Damian. As of 2025, more than a thousand fragments of the Severan Marble Plan have been discovered since the Renaissance, representing around 10 per cent of the original map. Because many of these include the name of the building they represent, it has been extremely useful for archaeologists looking to identify newly discovered architectural remains. Today, the fragments are on display in the new Museo della Forma Urbis on Rome’s Caelian Hill. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/11/5GettyImages-1925908763-d918fdc-e1764242087895.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A photograph of large white stone fragments with inscriptions on them" title="More than a thousand fragments of the Forma Urbis Romae (‘The Shape of the City of Rome’) have been discovered, giving researchers a remarkable window into early third-century AD Rome (Image by Getty Images)" /> 10. Rome is still surrounded by its ancient walls The Aurelian Walls that surround the city of Rome were built in the AD 270s, but they continued to be used by the city’s defenders until the late 19th century. The breaching of the walls by the army of the Kingdom of Italy in September of 1870 represented the final step in Italian unification. 11. You can find an ancient wall in McDonald’s The Servian Walls of the fourth century BC may be less famous than the Aurelian Walls, but they have much more character. Stretching around 12 miles, multiple fragments of the walls still speckle the modern city of Rome. The largest fragment can be found next to Termini Station, but the most memorable remains are now found in the McDonald’s restaurant on the train station’s lower level. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/11/6Termini-McDonalds5-c5a8b6d-e1764242135272.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A photograph of a McDonald's ordering screen and behind it there is a large, old brick wall" title="Burger, fries… and a fourth-century BC wall? Visitors to the Roma Termini station branch of McDonald’s can marvel at a feat of ancient engineering while they get their fast food fix (Image by Edward J Watts)" /> 12. Rome’s walls were formidable… but Constantinople’s were MUCH more difficult to breach Rome has been captured numerous times since the Aurelian Walls were built, but the city of Constantinople (modern Istanbul, Turkey) – which became the Roman empire’s eastern capital in AD 330 – has fallen to invaders on just three occasions. The city remained under Roman control for nearly 900 years until its walls were breached by the soldiers of the Fourth Crusade in 1204, before being recaptured by the Romans in 1261. It then fell to the Ottomans in 1453, but has not been seized since. 13. The Roman empire was home to one of the most fought-over cities in the world Although only 134 miles from Constantinople, Adrianople (modern Edirne, Turkey) has been the site of at least 15 different battles and sieges. The last two occurred in 1913 when Bulgaria captured the city from the Ottoman empire before losing it again later that year. 14. The Colosseum was the largest (but not the only) amphitheatre Rome’s Flavian Amphitheatre, or Colosseum, was once capable of seating 50,000 people, making it almost 30 per cent larger than the empire’s next-largest arena in Capua. But the Colosseum was unique because of its remarkable size, not because amphitheatres were rare. In fact, the remains of more than 230 amphitheatres have been found in former Roman cities, stretching all the way from Britain to Israel. One such example in Cahors, France, was discovered during the construction of a car park that is now aptly named the Parking Amphithéâtre. Another, found in suburban Paris, now serves as the courtyard for a high school. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/11/GettyImages-1451938726-d5b4185-e1764246957408.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A computer generated image of the Colosseum, a large circular building with several arches" title="A computer-generated image depicting the Colosseum during its ancient heyday. The amphitheatre is now a World Heritage Site and a symbol of both modern Italy and ancient Rome (Image by Getty Images)" /> 15. Arenas weren’t just for gladiator fights Thanks in part to the 2000 movie Gladiator and its recent sequel, Roman amphitheatres are now commonly associated with clashes between sandal-wearing warriors. However, gladiator battles weren’t the only events to take place in these ancient arenas. In fact, spectators were as interested in events that displayed exotic wild animals like rhinos, lions and ‘camel-leopards’ (giraffes). The largest games on record – the 100 days of spectacles marking the opening of the Colosseum in AD 81 – saw upwards of 9,000 animals killed. Read more | Sharks in the arena? Gladiator II's real history and historical accuracy explained 16. Commodus was a much better fighter than Hollywood would have us believe In comparison to Maximus (Russell Crowe), Gladiator’s main antagonist, Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix), is depicted as an unremarkable fighter – but this is a distortion of the truth. Following a failed assassination plot orchestrated by his sister Lucilla, the real-life Commodus sent for instructors from around the world to teach him how to shoot arrows, throw javelins, and excel in hand-to-hand combat. As his skills increased, Commodus wanted to show his subjects what he could do. In one memorable display in the Colosseum, the senator Cassius Dio witnessed the emperor “dispatching, with his own hands, five hippos and two elephants in two days. He also killed rhinos and a camel-leopard”. Another time, Commodus arranged for “a hundred lions to appear in one group” and then “killed the entire hundred with exactly one hundred javelins” so that “no one saw a single extra javelin.” While Dio did not approve of these displays, even Commodus’s worst critics could not deny his talent. WATCH | Historian Alison Futrell discusses the real history behind Gladiator II View Green Video on the source website 17. Chariot racing was HUGELY popular The Circus Maximus in Rome, the main site for chariot races, adjoined the imperial palace and had seating for at least 150,000 people. On competition days, 800 horses could race in as many as 24 different contests. The last races held in the Circus Maximus took place in AD 549, but racing continued at Constantinople’s 100,000-seater Hippodrome into the 13th century. 18. Chariot racing was the football of its day Rome originally had four charioteer teams: the Reds, Whites, Greens and Blues. The Reds and Whites were the most historic, but they were surpassed in prominence by the Greens and Blues during the first century AD. The teams had franchises that competed in major cities across the empire and even boasted organised groups of supporters (akin to modern football ultras) prone to riotous behaviour. Star drivers, who could often change teams during their careers, frequently earned enormous amounts of money. The tombstone of Gaius Appuleius Diocles, one of the greatest charioteers of the second century AD, mentions that he won 1,462 races and earned 35,863,120 sesterces in prizes across a 24-year career spent racing for the Reds, Whites and Greens. Although he is believed to have died at the age of 42 and would have kept only a portion of his winnings, his career earnings exceeded the fortunes of most Roman senators. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/11/GettyImages-520726031-6041b74-e1764247102231.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A chariot race in the Circus Maximus depicted by 19th-century painter Jean-Léon Gérôme. Star drivers could earn huge sums of money (Image by Getty Images)" title="A chariot race in the Circus Maximus depicted by 19th-century painter Jean-Léon Gérôme. Star drivers could earn huge sums of money (Image by Getty Images)" /> 19. Rome became the first large empire to enact universal citizenship In AD 212, the emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus – better known by his nickname, Caracalla – issued a law making all free people in the empire Roman citizens. The new citizens had to legally change their names to honour their new benefactor, flooding the Roman bureaucracy with tens of millions of people now bearing the name ‘Aurelius’. The reason for Caracalla’s generosity? He wanted everyone in the empire to celebrate the murder of Geta, Caracalla’s brother and co-emperor who was killed in his mother’s arms. 20. Roman trade across the Indian Ocean was hugely lucrative When we think of ancient trade, the Silk Road – the sprawling network of trade routes stretching some 4,000 miles between China and the Mediterranean – often springs to mind. Yet, it wasn’t the only source of wealth for the Romans. Merchants also travelled across the Indian Ocean to Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka, carrying gold coins and bringing back spices and exotic animals. At times, the demand for Roman coins in India and Sri Lanka so exceeded the supply that Indian mints struck their own coins featuring the portraits of Roman imperial figures and legends written in Latin. 21. The Romans developed a sophisticated financial system From the second century BC, Roman bankers managed investment accounts that their clients could use for depositing money and making transfers. The system was so sophisticated that emperor Trajan used subsidised government loans to fund social welfare programmes in the second century AD. 22. The Romans invented some truly terrifying military technology The Romans developed a napalm-like substance commonly known as ‘Greek fire’ which was placed in hand grenades or sprayed from hoses equipped with special nozzles – usually against enemy naval forces. When the substance ignited, it even burned on water. The technology was first deployed in AD 672 and was used for more than 500 years against the navies of the Bulgars, Rus’ and Arabs. The empire lost the ability to manufacture Greek fire just before AD 1200, although no one really knows why. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/11/9Greekfire-madridskylitzes1-760acd4-e1764242423636.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="An illustration of two boats with men in them. The boat on the left are blowing fire over the one of the right" title="A 12th-century AD depiction of Greek fire being used against the rebel Thomas the Slav in AD 821. The exact composition of this devastating incendiary substance has been lost" /> 23. The longest-serving Roman emperor was actually pretty unremarkable He ruled for 66 years between AD 962–1028, but Constantine VIII’s passions for fine food and horses meant that he took little interest in state affairs until the last three years of his life. He instead trusted his older brother and co-emperor – the much more famous and capable emperor Basil II – to govern the empire for most of their lives. Coincidentally, Basil’s term in office (AD 960–1025), is the second-longest in Roman history. Read more | Step inside the ancient Roman empire's gladiatorial arenas, and witness 24 hours of shocking violence 24. TWO emperors share the record for the shortest reign Father-and-son duo Gordian I and Gordian II ruled for a mere 22 days in AD 238. The Gordians, who were governing a province in north Africa without an army stationed there, foolishly rebelled against Maximinus Thrax – one of four other men who also claimed to be emperor that year. Although the Gordians received senatorial support in Rome, they were quickly dispatched by a general loyal to Maximinus. As for the second-shortest reign, the emperor Nepotian barely outlasted the two Gordians by holding Rome for 28 days in June of AD 350. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/11/10Gordian-II-238-ADEdward-Watts--Author-1d53219-e1764242478419.jpeg" width="850" height="413" alt="Coins issued by the emperor Gordian II, who – along with his father, Gordian I – ruled for just 22 days in AD 238 (Image by Edward J Watts)" title="Coins issued by the emperor Gordian II, who – along with his father, Gordian I – ruled for just 22 days in AD 238 (Image by Edward J Watts)" /> 25. It took a VERY long time for the Romans to adopt Christianity When Constantine I famously converted to Christianity in AD 312, the territory he ruled was only around 10 per cent Christian. In fact, the Roman empire did not become a Christian-majority state until the AD 390s, and some pagan-majority communities lasted long enough that they negotiated the surrender of their cities to Muslim generals in the AD 630s. The Syrian city of Harran (now part of modern Turkey) even maintained temples dedicated to its moon god into the 11th century AD. Edward J Watts is Alkiviadis Vassiliadis Endowed Chair and Distinguished Professor of History at the University of California, San Diego. He is the author of the The Romans: A 2,000-Year History (John Murray Press/Basic Books, 2025)
From tragic Tudor queens to restless Roman soldiers: Britain's 8 most haunted houses
From tragic Tudor queens to restless Roman soldiers, Caitlin Blackwell Baines introduces us to the terrifying cast of phantoms said to dwell within the nation’s spookiest homes
1. Stirling Castle, Scotland From elusive sea monsters to shrieking banshees, Scotland is home to a host of supernatural beings – including, of course, ghosts. One of their best-known spectral celebrities is the ill-fated Mary, Queen of Scots, who is said to haunt a staggering 10 properties, making her, perhaps, the best-travelled ghost in the nation. Among her main haunts is Stirling Castle, her childhood home in central Scotland. Perched atop a volcanic crag, surrounded by cliffs overlooking the River Forth, Stirling Castle was constructed in the early 12th century, originally as a military stronghold, acting as a strategic line of defence during the Wars of Scottish Independence (1296–1357). However, almost from the very beginning, Stirling was also a favourite royal residence. By the time a young Mary Stuart lived there in the 1540s, it was as much a palace as it was a fortress: her father, James V, had transformed it into one of the most opulent homes in Renaissance Britain. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/10/Stirling-Castle-Bannockburn-1-8d83973.jpg" width="1200" height="960" alt="A large brown castle stands on a tree-covered hill, against a dark grey cloudy sky" title="Stirling Castle is one of several historic buildings said to be haunted by the ghost of Mary, Queen of Scots – the ill-fated monarch who was imprisoned – and executed – upon the orders of her cousin, Elizabeth I (Image by SpookyScotland.net)" /> Whatever happy childhood memories Mary may have had of Stirling would be tainted by the events of 21 April 1567. It was here on this day that the embattled queen would see her infant son (the future King James VI & I) for the last time. Soon after, she was forced to abdicate, flee the country, and eventually, in 1587, she was executed for treason under the orders of her cousin, Elizabeth I. Perhaps it is for this reason that the melancholy monarch returns to the castle, perpetually searching for her long-lost child, even in the afterlife. She is said to be kept company by a dutiful servant – a young woman in green, who purportedly died in a fire while attempting to save her mistress. They are also joined by Stirling’s notorious ‘Highland Ghost’ – a mysterious man adorned in full Highland regalia, who is often mistaken for a costumed tour guide. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/10/Raynham-Hall-ghostWHB5WT-f2f1e5a.jpg" width="4218" height="5059" alt="A black and white photograph of a staircase with a white ghostly figure in the middle" title="This photograph of Raynham Hall’s ‘Brown Lady’ – purportedly the ghost of former resident Lady Dorothy Townshend – caused a stir when it was first published in 1936 (Image by Alamy)" /> 2. Raynham Hall, Norfolk At its height in the Georgian period, Raynham Hall was nationally renowned for its innovative architecture, priceless art collection and powerful owner. Though originally constructed in the early 1600s, the stately red-brick manor we see today was largely the work of eminent early 18th-century architect William Kent, acting under the direction of Charles, 2nd Viscount Townshend, a leader in the House of Lords. Like the house he lived in, Townshend was an imposing figure, known for his fiery temper and blustering delivery in parliament. And rumour had it, his aggressiveness was not solely reserved for political opponents. His long-suffering wife, Dorothy, may have also been a target of his ire. The story goes that Lady Dorothy Townshend (née Walpole, sister of prime minister Robert) endured an unhappy marriage. Some say she was unfaithful, while others claim it was her extravagant spending that incurred her husband’s wrath. In any case, she purportedly died under mysterious circumstances and continues to roam Raynham’s halls to this day. Read more | Five shocking tales from Britain’s royal palaces Over the years, there have been numerous reported sightings of Lady Townshend – or ‘The Brown Lady’ as she has come to be known, on account of the colour of her silk brocade dress – but perhaps none so dramatic as the encounter of photographers Hubert Provand and Indre Shira. In the autumn of 1936, while on assignment for Country Life magazine, Provand and Shira prepared to take a photo of Raynham’s main staircase. Just as they were setting up the shot, they suddenly caught sight of an ethereal, veiled form floating down the stairs. Acting fast, they snapped their photo and captured what is widely considered to be one of the most famous examples of ‘spirit photography’ in history. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/10/50-Berkeley-SquareK07JMM-ffef8a3.jpg" width="743" height="1153" alt="A black and white photograph of a dark front door. Either side of it are iron railings, and there is an arch over the two steps leading up to it" title="Dare you open the door? Visitors to 50 Berkeley Square have been reporting strange goings-on since the mid-19th century (Image by Alamy)" /> 3. 50 Berkeley Square, Mayfair, Greater London With its elegant Georgian townhouses, luxury boutiques and Michelin star restaurants, the upscale district of Mayfair in central London may not seem like the natural setting for a ghost story. And yet, it is home to a property once christened the ‘Most Haunted House in London’. The offending structure can be found on Berkeley Square, a residential block first laid out in the mid-1700s by architect William Kent (the man behind Raynham Hall). From the outside, there’s nothing much to distinguish the townhouse at No 50 from its neighbours – but don’t let its staid, neoclassical façade fool you. The first reports of unusual activity at No 50 occurred in the mid-1800s. Nearby residents noticed strange sounds and smells, lights flickering in the windows at all hours of the night, and the noticeable signs of decay and abandon. Sceptics chalked this up to the eccentric habits of its owner, Thomas Myers, a recluse left heartbroken by the rejection of his fiancée. Nevertheless, rumours soon swirled that the house was haunted. View Green Video on the source website Some believed the ghost was a young woman who had jumped from an upper-storey window. Others claimed it was Myers himself, who had locked himself in the attic and driven himself mad. Still others maintained it was a preexisting entity that had possessed both Myers and the suicidal woman. Whatever the case, most Londoners came to fear and avoid No 50 – all save for a brave and foolhardy few. One such daredevil was Lord George Lyttleton, a Conservative statesman, who, in 1872, accepted a bet to stay a night alone at the house. Though incredulous of the stories, Lyttleton packed a pistol and was probably quite pleased he had done so, for when a dark, tendrilled apparition advanced towards him, he was able to defend himself. Firing a few rounds, he was certain he’d hit his mark. Yet, when the smoke settled, it revealed only spent shell casings and an empty attic. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/10/Chillingham-Castle2BYB32Y-e4a1674.jpg" width="5081" height="3381" alt="A black and white photograph of a large castle with crenellated towers" title="This photograph of Chillingham Castle may be in black and white, but the building’s paranormal history is certainly colourful: its most famous ghoul is a boy in blue who appears to visitors inside a pink bedroom (Image by Alamy)" /> 4. Chillingham Castle, Northumberland Touted as Britain’s ‘Most Haunted Castle,’ Chillingham has a long and violent history. Once one of nearly 100 fortifications that dotted the bleak borderlands of England and Scotland, this 13th-century fortress served a pivotal role in the centuries-long rift between the two warring kingdoms. It was here, in 1298, that King Edward I launched his attack on William Wallace during the First War of Scottish Independence. Over the years, hundreds of England’s enemies were killed at Chillingham, many of them by torture in the castle’s dungeon and torture chamber – a cramped windowless pit located in a cellar beneath what is today a public tearoom. Strangely, however, these prisoners are not among the castle’s best-known ghostly residents. Instead, the most familiar phantom faces are those of women and children. There is the mysterious ‘Radiant Boy’ – an unknown child in blue who materialises before guests in the castle’s ‘Pink Bedroom’. And the legendary ‘Grey Lady’ – believed to be the ghost of Lady Mary Berkeley, whose husband, Ford Grey, 1st Earl of Tankerville, reportedly jilted her for her younger sister, leaving her alone and heartbroken in the castle. Modern visitors report the sounds of sobbing, the rustling of a heavy gown dragging along the castle’s corridors, and the faint aroma of rosewater. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/10/Blickling-HallBPB4N5-54b2853.jpg" width="5637" height="3775" alt="A large red brick palace lit up from below by floodlights. Behind it, there are many trees in shadow and the sky is deep blue" title="Anne Boleyn is said to haunt several palaces and stately homes, including Blickling Hall near Norwich. The Tudor queen is thought to have been born at the manor that previously stood on the site (Image by Alamy)" /> 5. Blickling Hall, Norfolk Blickling Hall might be considered the English counterpart to Scotland’s Stirling Castle – though, on the face of it, they would seem to have little in common. Where Stirling is a medieval citadel looming over the gateway to the Scottish Highlands, Blickling is a Jacobean manor nestled in the heart of the Norfolk Broads. Just 20 miles east of Raynham Hall, one would think it would have more in common with its ‘haunted’ East Anglian neighbour. But as the presumed birthplace of Anne Boleyn, Blickling has a far stronger symbolic link to the childhood home of Scotland’s own tragic queen. Read more | Your history guide to Frogmore Cottage: who has lived there before? The existing structure, built for Sir Henry Hobart in 1616, was erected atop the ruins of a Tudor manor house once belonging to Thomas Boleyn, 1st Earl of Wiltshire – whose youngest daughter had the unfortunate honour of becoming Henry VIII’s second wife. On 19 May 1536, after just three years of marriage, Anne Boleyn was beheaded for adultery and treason. Like her Scottish counterpart, Anne is thought to haunt a number of historic properties, including Hever Castle (another childhood home), Windsor Castle (a brief residence), the Tower of London (the site of her death), and, of course, Blickling. Here, she is said to appear every year on the anniversary of her death, in a carriage driven by headless horses. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/10/Heol-FanogGettyImages-1281060558-a4fffad.jpg" width="6000" height="4000" alt="A black farmhouse stands on a hill, with a single light shining in the middle. The farmhouse has a chimney at either end of the roof and behind it, the sky is dark grey" title="A spooky farmhouse. One such building, Heol Fanog (Welsh for ‘Road to the Peaks’), gained notoriety in 2022 when it became the subject of hit podcast The Witch Farm (Image by Getty Images)" /> 6. Heol Fanog, Brecon Beacons, Wales A relatively recent entry into the annals of haunted historic Britain, Heol Fanog farmhouse in South Wales has gained contemporary notoriety thanks to the exposure of the hit BBC Sounds podcast, The Witch Farm (2022). The series focuses on the occupancy of the Rich family, who lived on the farm for a seven-year period from 1989, during which time they claim to have experienced a litany of terrifying events. From cold spots to disembodied footsteps, inexplicable power surges to noxious odours, and even full-blown apparitions and demonic possessions, the experiences of the Rich family have been likened to that of the Lutz family of Amityville Horror fame. While these stories are relatively new – and, indeed, the farmhouse itself is less than a hundred years old – legends about the isolated rural property have circulated for well over a century. The area’s strong association with witchcraft, occultism and Celtic mysticism, combined with the dark legacy of a gruesome local murder in the 19th century, have earned the property its nickname: ‘The Witch Farm’ or ‘Hellfire Farm’. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/10/Hampton-CourtG37YX0-eab2b03.jpg" width="4458" height="2903" alt="Henry VIII’s third wife, Jane Seymour, is supposedly one of Hampton Court’s many resident phantoms. Early 20th-century postcards depicted the queen’s ‘ghost’ using a crude double-exposure effect (Image by Alamy)" title="Henry VIII’s third wife, Jane Seymour, is supposedly one of Hampton Court’s many resident phantoms. Early 20th-century postcards depicted the queen’s ‘ghost’ using a crude double-exposure effect (Image by Alamy)" /> 7. Hampton Court Palace, Greater London Historic Royal Palaces certainly have their hands full. In addition to managing some of the nation’s highest profile heritage landmarks, catering to some 4 million visitors each year, they also have ghosts to contend with. Several properties in their portfolio – including the Tower of London, Kensington Palace and Kew Palace – are allegedly haunted. And while it’s hard to say which one of them is the most haunted, Hampton Court is definitely a strong contender. Construction on the iconic Tudor palace began in 1515 under the direction of Thomas Wolsey, Archbishop of York – Henry VIII’s chief advisor. At the time, Wolsey was one of the kingdom’s richest and most influential figures and he intended to build a home to reflect his position. In this he succeeded; however, within just a few years of his home’s completion, Wolsey had fallen from favour. Shortly before he died in 1530, he was ordered to surrender the palace to the king. Just 15 miles from London, the palace quickly became a favourite royal retreat. Read more | Seven of history's most disturbing ghost ship stories that will haunt your dreams While many monarchs have resided in Hampton Court over the centuries, the palace is indelibly linked with the reign of Henry VIII. As such, it should come as no surprise that the most familiar phantoms are members of the Henrician court. There’s Jane Seymour, Henry’s third wife, who died from complications of childbirth, and allegedly still holds a solemn vigil on the palace’s Silverstick staircase; Catherine Howard, Henry’s fifth wife, whose ghost is said to run screaming down the aptly-named ‘Haunted Gallery’, endlessly replaying a failed attempt to reach her husband to beg him to spare her from execution; and maybe even Old King Hal himself. Some believe it was the ghost of the king who was captured on the viral CCTV footage that made headlines around the world in the winter of 2003. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/10/Treasurers-HouseTopfoto0780551-5b87db0.jpg" width="3442" height="2284" alt="A cellar with dirty brick walls. To the left, there is an empty fireplace with a dark tunnel, and on the right, there are two boxes stacked on one another" title="The infamous cellar at the Treasurer’s House, York. In 1953, a young plumber’s apprentice claimed to have witnessed Roman soldiers marching through a wall (Image by Topfoto)" /> 8. Treasurer's House, York, North Yorkshire Beneath the soaring spires of York Minster, scores of visitors amble along pedestrian thoroughfares lined with gastropubs, gift shops and historic buildings. The din of casual conversation is occasionally interrupted by the booming oratory of tour guides who lead groups of tourists down winding cobble-stoned lanes and narrow alleyways (idiosyncratically referred to as ‘snickleways’ by the locals). These merry little bands are on the hunt for haunted houses, and in York – reputedly the ‘Most Haunted City in Britain’ – they will not be disappointed. Dozens of properties compete for the title of ‘Most Haunted House’ in York, and while there is no clear victor, there is one property that can lay claim to what is, perhaps, the best authenticated ghost story in British history. That is the Treasurer’s House – a Grade I listed National Trust property with foundations dating all the way back to the early 12th century. Its best-known ghost story, however, has nothing to do with its medieval history. In 1953, an 18-year-old apprentice plumber called Harry Martindale was hired to install a boiler in the property’s ancient cellar. Working alone and in silence, Martindale was startled by the distant sound of a trumpet. The sound grew closer, and suddenly, what appeared to be a Roman soldier with a plumed helmet emerged from a wall, followed by a cart horse and a band of other soldiers, all dressed in green and carrying round shields. If this weren’t strange enough, the soldiers appeared to be cut off at the knees. Though Martindale’s claims were initially dismissed as hallucinations, the subsequent discovery of the Via Decumana, a Roman road lying about 15 inches below the cellar floor, gave credence to his story. What’s more, his description of the soldiers’ attire – originally deemed inaccurate based on existing historical knowledge – was later confirmed to be consistent with the regiment stationed at the Roman outpost of Eboracum (i.e. modern-day York). Caitlin Blackwell Baines is an art historian and author who specialises in Georgian art and architecture. She is the author of How to Build a Haunted House: The History of a Cultural Obsession (Profile Books, 2025) This article was first published in the Apple News October 2025 bonus issue
The assassins' reign of terror: how these 12th-century killers spread fear in the Middle East
In the 12th century, a sect of killers spread fear across the Middle East, executing a series of high-profile political murders. Steve Tibble introduces the original Assassins
There were 13 men: unlucky for someone. They were dressed to kill – but so was everyone else. In what was essentially an army camp, crammed with armed men, the assailants blended right in. Moving casually but intently through the bustling camp outside Aleppo in Syria, past stalls and shopkeepers, beggars and soldiers, they headed towards their target. Suddenly their progress was checked by a shout from behind: “What are you doing here?” Cover blown, their response was shocking: an explosion of violence, weapons flashing, blood splashing. The team of Assassins erupted into the tent where their victim sat unawares, surrounded by generals, lackeys and bodyguards. The attackers’ daggers and swords struck once more. The target that day in January 1175 was a Kurdish general, Salah al-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub – better known to us as Saladin. He had displaced the Fatimid dynasty to rule as sultan of Egypt, and was now muscling in on Syria. That vicious attack on his life failed – for now. But who were these men? And why had they launched such a murderous and seemingly suicidal assault? Power through murder Those brutal killers were Assassins. The upper case seems pedantic, but it is important. In the true medieval sense, that term was used for members of the Nizari Ismailis, a Shia Muslim sect who sought to defend themselves and to project power through political murder. The word ‘Assassin’ (or hashishin) was used as a pejorative by those on the receiving end of their remorseless hit squads in the 12th and 13th centuries. And the name stuck, becoming synonymous for premeditated murderers or contract killers – even though most of the broader Nizari Ismaili community were in fact peaceful peasants, scholars and merchants. The origins of this sect lay in the chaos of the Middle East in the late 11th century. Turkic tribes from the Eurasian steppes had stormed into the region and seized power from local Arab rulers, before starting to jockey among themselves for control of these new lands. Then, between 1092 and 1094, most of the major political leaders in the region died, including the vizier and caliph-imam of Fatimid Egypt, and the Seljuq sultan Malik-Shah, who ruled a vast empire stretching from Anatolia through the Middle East to central Asia. The resulting power vacuum was quickly filled with mayhem. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/10/2S98R0TWeb-Ready-a1f81d5.jpg" width="1477" height="984" alt="An illustration showing a man in a white and red robe and red hat, standing in front of a group of four others, holding instruments. They are surrounded by a low white wall and there are two trees in the background" title="Hasan-i Sabbah, 11th-century founder of the Nizari Ismaili sect – and its band of fidais, highly trained killers – depicted in an early 14th-century illustration (Image by Alamy)" /> The Nizari Ismailis were widely despised by their powerful Sunni Muslim neighbours as heretics and traitors, so launched an audacious uprising against the Sunni Seljuq Turks in Persia – and, importantly for our story, sent out missionaries to set up bases in the mountains of Syria. This was occurring in the last decade of the 11th century, around the same time as the crusaders were sweeping into the area, carving out kingdoms of their own from which to defend the Holy Land. Read more | Saladin: a hero of Islam and scourge of the crusaders By the start of the 12th century, the entire region had become disastrously fragmented. For the Nizari Ismailis – and for the recently arrived crusaders – Syria now seemed a land of opportunity. Members of this small breakaway sect were small in number and without obvious economic assets, but they had a terrifyingly effective secret weapon: the savage skills and unquestioning loyalty of a cadre of elite killers – the fidais. Promise of death During the crusades, most major players employed a similar strategy: channel enormous amounts of money and energy into acquiring big armies, the basic building blocks upon which almost all power structures were built. But assembling these voraciously expensive and disruptive armies was a big enough challenge for wealthy nations – how could minor players survive? The short answer is that, in most cases, they did not. Before long, almost all of them were swept away. The Nizari Ismailis chose a revolutionary alternative: rather than rely on the generality of death embodied by large (and expensive) armies, they chose the specificity of death. Individuals are afraid of violent endings, so any power that could spark and exploit that primal fear had no need of costly, clumsy armies. For the Nizari Ismailis – now, for our purposes, synonymous with the Assassins – violent, targeted death became their power, and their promise. Their overall goal was to secure the survival and growth of the sect in a hostile environment, but specific tactical objectives varied. Murders were perpetrated for political reasons, to intimidate, for revenge, for money – for example, to pay for the construction of castles – out of personal animosity or, frequently, a combination of these reasons. In their remote bases in Syria, the Assassins perfected and professionalised their squads of fidais. Only the most committed and able, mentally as well as physically, were chosen to receive the rigorous training needed to fulfil their highly dangerous missions, often with slim chances of survival. Most of their attacks were on high-profile individuals, and took place in very public spaces. Every member of a fidai team had to be courageous and committed to the cause. They were described by their enemies as fanatical and brainwashed, but by admirers as dedicated and skilful. Regardless, the fidais were extraordinarily focused and effective – the ninjas of the 12th century Middle East. Then, as now, there were many lurid descriptions of the Assassins as drugged-up, deluded fanatics eager to die for a twisted cause. But this was all part of the illusion – an essential element in the promise of ‘unstoppable death’ at the heart of the brand. The fear sown by the fidais – along with their own fearlessness and relentlessness, which made them such terrifying and efficient killers – was at the core of the Assassins’ power. As one of their leaders retorted to an attempt at intimidation by an enemy, a general commanding vast armies: “Do you threaten a duck with the river?” If death was a river, in other words, the fidais were all too happy to swim in it. Most of the associated rumours were untrue. It is unlikely, for instance, that fidais were given drugs such as hashish (cannabis resin) to numb their senses and inspire fanaticism before they carried out a hit. Being under the influence of narcotics would have been counterproductive: a skilled Assassin needed to have his wits about him. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/10/2B02RYDWeb-Ready-6d625b4.jpg" width="5000" height="3334" alt="An illustration showing a group of men stabbing another man in the centre of the image" title="A disguised fidai fatally stabs the Seljuk vizier Nizam al-Mulk in 1092 – the Assassins’ first major hit – as shown in a 14th- century manuscript illustration (Image by Alamy)" /> Old Man of the Mountain The Assassins’ political murders started with a huge success in 1092, when a fidai named Bu Tahir Arrani stabbed the Seljuq vizier Nizam al-Mulk as he was being carried in a litter towards Baghdad. Other Sunni leaders were then attacked and killed, including Janah al-Dawla, the Turkic governor of Homs, in 1103. Even Mawdud, the ruler of Mosul and the general entrusted with coordinating the campaign against the crusaders, was killed in Damascus in 1113, despite being surrounded by the best bodyguards that money could buy. Mawdud’s successor, Aqsunqur al-Bursuqi, fared no better, assassinated while at his prayers in the Great Mosque of Mosul in 1126. Members of the fidai squad were, as usual, cut down by the numerous bodyguards stationed around the target, with only one, “a youth from Azaz”, surviving. (This was highly embarrassing for his mother, who was deeply proud of the celebrity status her brave son enjoyed in the sect and was already in mourning for him when he returned alive.) By the mid-12th century, the Assassins had become feared across the region. This reputation was further confirmed under the rule of Rashid ad-Din Sinan, known as Sinan, who became ruler of the de facto Nizari Ismaili state in Syria and Persia in 1162. He strengthened the Assassins’ network of mountain fortresses and perfected their deadly craft. Under him, the fidais became an even more professional and fearsome weapon – more formalised, better trained and increasingly highly motivated. Read more | Step onto the medieval Silk Road and you'll witness its intense wonders – and its hidden horror Sinan was an extraordinary figure: highly intelligent, a great leader and capable of acting with profound strategic insight. He was also a man of a deeply esoteric, mystical and, some would say, even ‘magical’ disposition. As one Sunni commentator later wrote, “the Ismaili sect followed him as they had followed no one else, and he was able to achieve what no other had achieved”. The main Nizari source about his life, an early 14th-century biography, was written by the scholar Abu Firas, who went to some lengths to emphasise the leader’s orthodox Islamic credentials but also listed Sinan’s supposed occult achievements. There were stories of telepathy and clairvoyance. Sinan was never seen eating, and he did not say much, but deliberately adopted strange poses. There were rumours among his own people that he did not cast a reflection in water. He became known as the ‘Old Man of the Mountain’ – a title that, though originally a personal honorific, was later used to signify the Assassins’ leader in Syria, a little like ‘Caesar’ or ‘Sultan’. This helped create a sense of fear that transcended death: regardless of who was in charge at any moment, there was always an ‘Old Man of the Mountain’. The ‘death cult’ image that Sinan so fastidiously cultivated was a huge success. The Assassins’ enemies fomented ‘legendary’ tales in attempts to denigrate and isolate their ruthless foe, but the killers benefited from the additional fear these stories fuelled. As one Nizari poet put it, a single fidai could strike fear into the heart of the most powerful king. And there was one particular ‘king’ that the Assassins had in their crosshairs. Saladin, a usurper desperate to shore up his image as a legitimate ruler, found it useful to pose as the champion of Sunni orthodoxy – and as Shia ‘heretics’, the Nizari Ismailis were handy scapegoats. They, along with the crusaders, were the unifying bogeymen of his self-justification. The Assassins correctly identified that his new Ayyubid empire posed an existential threat to the Nizari Ismaili sect – and decided that he should be eliminated. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/10/2B01T3YWeb-Ready-59a4a5a.jpg" width="4714" height="3143" alt="An illustration showing a small group of men approaching an orange castle on horses. In the castle, there are other men, attempting to defend it. One is at the front of the castle, riding a blue horse" title="A medieval miniature illustration shows Mongol warriors capturing Alamut Castle, the Nizari Ismaili sect’s headquarters in northern Persia (now Iran), in 1256 – auguring the end of the Assassins (Image by Alamy)" /> Hard target As outlined at the start of this story, and reported by the chronicler Ibn al-Athir the following century, the first fidai team struck while Saladin was besieging Aleppo in 1175, when 13 men armed with knives were dispatched to kill him. The attack was timed to coincide with the communal meal, when servants and guests would be distracted. But, as we’ve seen, on that occasion the fidais were thwarted by a piece of bad luck. An emir in Saladin’s camp recognised them as Nizari Ismailis, and asked: “What has brought you here? On what business have you come?” Knives were drawn: the Assassins stabbed the emir “with some deadly blows, and one of their number charged towards Saladin to slay him but was killed before he could reach him”, said Ibn al-Athir. The fidai who got closest had his head hacked off by an emir, and Saladin’s chancellor, Imad al-Din, wrote that “the others were not killed until they had killed a number of people”. The Assassins failed on this occasion – but they did not die quietly. The next year, Saladin was besieging the castle of Azaz, belonging to one of his Sunni rivals, north-west of Aleppo. Here the Assassins launched another, even more deadly attempt on his life, with a smaller but more focused team ordered to strike Saladin’s neck and head. Al-Athir wrote that “while Saladin was in a tent belonging to one of his emirs, [an Assassin] leapt on him, struck him on the head with a dagger and wounded him”. The blade met iron rather than flesh and bone. Spooked by the earlier attempt on his life, Saladin was almost totally covered in layers of concealed armour. “Had it not been for the mailed helmet under his cap,” wrote Ibn al-Athir, “he would have been killed. Saladin grasped the [Assassin’s] hand in his, although he was unable totally to prevent him striking a blow.” Read more | The crusade against the odds: how the First Crusade succeeded despite the obstacles The sultan’s men rushed to his aid, and killed that assailant. Another member of the hit squad killed one of Saladin’s commanders; a third fought on until he was killed by Saladin’s brother. The last surviving fidai escaped from the tent but was torn apart by the crowd outside. A bloodied Saladin was hustled away “in a state of shock, hardly crediting his escape… The sultan rode to his tent, terrified by this event, with his blood flowing down his cheek and the collar of his chain mail wet.” Saladin quickly sent a reassuring message back to Egypt to dispel any sign of weakness and to discourage possible uprisings. “There was only a scratch with some few drops of blood,” he wrote. But he knew that he could no longer ignore the Assassins. In July 1176, Saladin moved his armies into the heart of Nizari Ismaili territory and “ravaged their land, destroying and burning”. His armies besieged their fortress of Masyaf, about 30 miles north-west of Homs. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/10/BAL258593Web-Ready-be0b21a.jpg" width="3367" height="2244" alt="A photograph of a large grey ruin on top of a stone hill, against a dark blue sky" title="The ruins of Masyaf Castle in western Syria, one of the Assassins’ isolated fortresses from which the sect’s fidais were dispatched to kill Sunni adversaries and other targets (Image by Bridgeman Images)" /> No further hostilities developed. Sinan did not want a huge army camped outside his castle, ravaging the hard-won Nizari lands in Syria. Saladin wanted to preserve his life and family, and he had plenty of other enemies to attend to. Both sides quickly sought peace. After this, the Assassins generally remained neutral, presumably having given reassurances to Saladin about his personal safety. He seems to have pulled back from further antagonism, and even included them in treaties that might affect their interests. End of the Assassins Ultimately, the Assassins failed to overthrow the Seljuq Turks or their successors. They carved out a couple of minor principalities for a time, but little more, and did not hold any major cities. They were eventually brushed aside by much larger, more violent and less easily intimidated military opponents. In 1256–57, they were destroyed by the Mongols in Persia, then neutered by Sultan Baybars and the Mamluks in Syria after 1265. The Assassins had persisted for more than a century and a half – far longer than might have been expected. Despite being vastly outnumbered by their Sunni enemies, they had made themselves heard, hated and feared. They pushed the bounds of dedication and commitment to new limits. And it is that extraordinary legacy, with all its faults, that deserves to be remembered. This article was first published in the October 2025 issue of BBC History Magazine
In the wake of the nuclear attacks on Japan, the official Allied line was that radiation sickness was not a danger. Yet, as Steve O’Hagan reveals, the first western journalist to witness the effects on the people of Hiroshima told a very different story
At 6am on 2 September 1945, Australian journalist Wilfred Burchett boarded a crowded train heading south-west from the wreckage of war-ravaged Tokyo. He was disobeying strict orders that no westerners should venture outside the Japanese capital – and, though he did not yet realise it, he was undertaking the most momentous journey of his life. The Second World War had ended. However, Japan had not formally surrendered, and American occupation was still to come. Japan’s cities lay in ruins, and Burchett couldn’t even be sure that the train line to his destination, over 400 miles away, was intact. He was also alone and in great danger – hence the Colt .45 pistol in his suitcase. Resentment towards the Allies ran high. Crammed around Burchett in his carriage were Japanese Army officers bearing samurai swords. Although he spoke almost no Japanese, Burchett could feel the animosity in the soldiers’ venomous stares. Also among the passengers was an American priest, who nervously warned Burchett that one wrong move could cost them their lives. Should they smile or shake hands, it could be taken by the Japanese officers as a sign of gloating over the Japanese surrender to the Allies that was being formalised later that day. Burchett later recalled glancing nervously at the soldiers: their hands seemed to toy with the hilts of their swords. As the train plunged in and out of long, dark tunnels, he was convinced that he could hear the sound of steel being unsheathed from scabbards. Thankfully, the assault he feared never came. But even as the train reached its destination some 20 hours after setting out, his tension did not abate. He was arriving in Hiroshima – the city that, four weeks earlier, had been nigh obliterated by the world’s first ever nuclear bomb attack. In one of the 20th century’s most remarkable feats of investigative reporting, Burchett was about to become the first western journalist to bear witness to the aftermath of a nuclear explosion. A scramble to control the narrative about the reality of the deadly nature of nuclear fallout had begun. Reputational risk Dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima presented the US with a public relations dilemma. What story should the country tell the world about unleashing this terrifyingly powerful experimental weapon on a densely populated city? The ‘leaders of the free world’ did not want to be seen as having become monsters while defeating the evils of fascism. As Henry Stimson, US secretary of war between 1940 and 1945, put it, the authorities didn’t want to “get the reputation of outdoing Hitler in atrocities”. Read more | How Nazi secrets triggered the ultimate moral dilemma – and led to Oppenheimer’s atomic bomb No one is sure exactly how many were killed in the attack. The city of Hiroshima initially estimated that 42,000 people died, from a population of around 350,000. A year later this number was revised up to 100,000. More recent estimates suggest that, by the end of 1945, up to 140,000 may have died from the immediate and long-term effects of the bomb. The vast majority were civilians. So when President Harry S Truman made radio addresses announcing the dropping of the bomb, he sought to establish the official narrative. First, he referred to Hiroshima not as a city full of civilians but as a “military base”. Second, the weapon was portrayed solely in terms of its explosive potential, with “more power than 20,000 tons of TNT”. Crucially, there was no mention of the potential dangers of radiation, which the Americans expected – or, perhaps more accurately, hoped – would not be an issue. Three days later, a New York Times article quoted Manhattan Project scientist Robert Oppenheimer saying: “There is every reason to believe that there was no appreciable radioactivity on the ground at Hiroshima and what little there was decayed very rapidly.” In the weeks that followed the bombing, this was the accepted narrative – until, that is, the previously little-known journalist Wilfred Burchett intervened. Born in 1911, Burchett grew up in the Australian Outback in Victoria, and left school at the age of 15 after his father’s business failed. He spent much of the late 1920s and early 1930s as an itinerant labourer. A self-taught linguist with a burning interest in the outside world, he travelled to London in 1937, where he married a Jewish refugee from Germany and worked for a travel agency arranging for German Jews to emigrate to destinations such as Palestine. Front-line reporting Returning to Australia, Burchett forged a career as a journalist. After Japan entered the Second World War in 1941, he filed stories from the Burmese and Chinese fronts. He then joined the US Marines on their island-hopping campaign across the Pacific in 1944, reporting for the UK’s Daily Express. When Japan accepted defeat following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Burchett was due to be part of the official press corps covering the final act of the Second World War: the signing of ceremonial surrender documents aboard the US battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay on 2 September 1945. However, as some 600 correspondents gathered for the event, Burchett was not among them. Feigning illness to slip away from his US military chaperone, he set out on his illicit and perilous journey to Hiroshima. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/09/British-Newspaper-Archives-AtomicPlagueDailyExpresswebready-ba8b67e.jpg" width="1500" height="1189" alt="A picture of a newspaper article from the Daily Express newspaper, with the headline THE ATOMIC PLAGUE" title="Burchett’s report on the impacts of radiation sickness in Hiroshima appeared in the Daily Express in 1945. It contradicted the official US narrative about the bomb (Image by British Newspaper Archives)" /> Upon arrival, Burchett was astonished by the sheer physical destruction wreaked upon the city: almost 70 per cent of its buildings had been wrecked. “There was nothing but awful devastation and desolation,” he wrote later, likening what he saw to “some death-stricken other planet”. He was guided by a local journalist to a hospital. “If the evidence of the material destruction of the city had been horrifying,” Burchett wrote, “the effects on humans as I saw them inside the hospital wards was a thousand times more so.” Patients – often whole families – were laid out on filthy tatami mats among the rubble of the damaged facility. Burchett saw how, four weeks after the attack, people were being treated not only for the horrendous effects of the blast but also for something else more mysterious, more sinister. Victims suffered a raft of perplexing symptoms: fever, diarrhoea, hair loss, hideous marks on the skin, bleeding from the mouth and other orifices. We now recognise these as markers of the advanced stages of radiation sickness, but the local doctors at the time had no idea what they were seeing. Many believed that the bomb had released poisonous gases from the ground. Burchett immediately understood that what he was witnessing was not just a visual manifestation of the end of the Second World War but the fate of inhabitants of hundreds of cities worldwide should there be another global conflict. “If that does not make a journalist want to shape history in the right direction, what does?” he wrote. In a state of near shock, Burchett sat on a concrete block among the ruins outside the hospital and tapped out his story on his battered typewriter. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/09/GettyImages-92425109webready-9744727.jpg" width="3888" height="2592" alt="A black and white photograph of lots of people laying on the floor. One man is standing up, watching over the sick people laying down" title="Tens of thousands who survived the blast over Hiroshima suffered symptoms that mystified doctors who’d never seen the effects of radiation (Image by Getty Images)" /> Three days later, on Wednesday 5 September, Britain awoke to an apocalyptic front cover on the Daily Express. “The Atomic Plague” was the main splash, then: “Doctors fall as they work.” (In the haste to get the story published, authorship was wrongly attributed to “Peter” Burchett.) Read more | Kavita Puri on VJ Day: "We don't talk about the war in Asia – which was a messy, complicated conflict" Burchett’s searing reportage painted a terrifyingly vivid picture: “Hiroshima… looks as if a monster steamroller had passed over it and squashed it out of existence… It gives you an empty feeling in the stomach to see such man-made devastation.” The focus of his piece was, though, on the “uncanny after-effects” from which “people are still dying, mysteriously and horribly” weeks after the attack. The words he chose to describe this sinister malaise – “Atomic Plague” – suggested that the bomb dropped by the US was on a par with a chemical or biological weapon, both outlawed under the 1925 Geneva Protocol. Initiating global opposition Also striking was the polemical strap-line to Burchett’s article: “I write this as a warning to the world.” With these words, he arguably initiated the global opposition to nuclear weapons that persists to this day. His article travelled rapidly around the globe after the Express released the text free to the international press – but this was not the story that the US military wanted the world to read. US authorities immediately moved to shut down Burchett’s narrative. Press conferences were held at which his claims of “atomic plague” were refuted, and military officials accused Burchett of having “fallen victim to Japanese propaganda”. Hiroshima was declared out of bounds to the media, and any reports of radiation sickness were censored. Burchett’s press accreditation was rescinded and he was encouraged to leave Japan. In the American press, stories sympathetic to the official line quoted Manhattan Project officials minimising the reports of radiation sickness. “No Radioactivity in Hiroshima Ruin,” ran one piece in the New York Times on 13 September. General Groves, head of the Manhattan Project, testified to the Senate in November 1945 that scientists believed radiation sickness “is a very pleasant way to die”. In this way, Burchett’s warning to the world was to a large extent successfully suppressed in the months following its publication. But nobody could stop the truth radiating out from Ground Zero forever. In the years that followed, more information about the effects of radiation exposure emerged. In August 1946, the New Yorker ran its now famous John Hersey-penned Hiroshima issue (published as a book later that year), which opened millions of eyes to the horrors of what had happened. In 1954, the crew of a Japanese fishing trawler were poisoned by radioactivity from a US thermonuclear bomb test, with one man dying. And victims in Hiroshima continued to die young as the years ticked by. Nonetheless, it would take decades for the US to accept the full reality of radiation sickness – even after it afflicted American citizens: it wasn’t until the 1980s that US veterans of atomic tests received any compensation. No such compensation has ever come the way of the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Wilfred Burchett died in 1983, at the age of 72. By then, his scoop from the ruins of Hiroshima was largely forgotten in the west. But not in the city itself. Over the course of his life, Burchett returned several times to Hiroshima, where he was welcomed and feted by the Hibakusha – the survivors of the world’s first nuclear attacks. For them, there could be no forgetting. Steve O’Hagan is a documentary film and radio producer. His Archive on 4: Exposing Hiroshima programme about Wilfred Burchett’s reporting is available now on BBC Sounds This article was first published in the September 2025 issue of BBC History Magazine
Senkichi Awaya: the lost mayor of Hiroshima
The world’s first nuclear attack brought to an end a turbulent half century in Japanese history – one that Senkichi Awaya witnessed first-hand. Iain MacGregor reveals how one man’s fate mirrored the rise and fall of a nation
Senkichi Awaya was sitting in his dining room at the mayor’s residence in Hiroshima as the clocked ticked round to 8.15am on 6 August 1945. His teenage son Shinobu, and granddaughter Ayako, refugees from a devastated Tokyo, had joined him for breakfast. His wife, Sachiyo, had walked across the courtyard to the rear of the residence to retrieve some fruit from the store next to the shrine where the family prayed daily. It was then, as the first of only two atomic weapons ever to be used in wartime detonated, that a blinding flash of brilliant light filled the room. A fireball struck the city and the front of the Awayas’ home, situated around a kilometre from Ground Zero, was swept away in a crescendo of violence and heat. Senkichi, Shinobu and Ayako were among the 70,000 people who died instantly when ‘Little Boy’ – dropped from the B-29 bomber Enola Gay – exploded above Hiroshima. Over the days that followed, the death toll rose towards 120,000 as those who had been severely wounded died without medical care. In a city where 26 of the 29 hospitals had either been flattened or rendered useless, there was simply nowhere for the casualties to go and, because nine out of ten of all the city’s doctors and nurses had died, nobody to treat them anyway. The city of Hiroshima became a dystopian nightmare. Even those emergency workers who survived inevitably struggled to care for themselves, let alone offer support to others. Tens of thousands of survivors made their way out of the city and into the surrounding mountains seeking shelter. But it was days before officials began a concerted rescue operation. In the meantime, survivors started to collapse with mysterious symptoms of vomiting, diarrhoea and internal bleeding. The city’s people were experiencing the horrors of radiation poisoning. Within this wider story, Senkichi Awaya is a man curiously absent, seemingly lost to history. You will not find his name among the myriad of books relating to the Pacific conflict, or the Second World War more generally. Watch movies or documentaries and the mystery continues. Few academics and museum directors, even in Japan, have heard of him. Nevertheless, Senkichi Awaya was the mayor of Hiroshima from February 1943 onwards. Research Awaya’s family biography in the archives of the National Diet Library in Tokyo, and you begin to realise his story is a key to unlocking a deeper understanding of the Japanese civilian experience of the war. This is because, like so many in Japan, he lived through an era of industrialisation and modernisation that was ultimately undermined – or perhaps interrupted might be a better word, considering Japan’s postwar economic success – by nationalist and reactionary forces within the country. The drive to modernity Senkichi Awaya was born in 1893, the second son of a middle-class, upwardly mobile family, who lived in the port town of Sendai, 220 miles to the north-east of Tokyo. This was a time when Japan, a cocooned and feudal society until the middle of the 19th century, had opened itself to trade with the wider world. An urgent drive towards modernity shaped the development of Sendai, as it also did hundreds of towns and cities across the Japanese home islands of Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/09/Alamy-2H5M9RDwebready-29cebda.jpg" width="1500" height="2232" alt="A brightly coloured poster depicting some tall buildings against a bright blue sky, with a red paper lantern hanging above them in the sky. Across the front of this image is a branch of a cherry blossom tree. Some Japanese characters are written across the top" title="A poster promoting Tokyo in the 1930s. The city was the beating heart of a nation that increasingly viewed itself as a player on the global stage (Image by Alamy)" /> A key element of this story was the coming of the railway. The Awayas’ hometown benefited from the railway connection to Tokyo, bringing the town’s inhabitants economic prosperity as well as cultural ties to the capital. The Awaya family joined the country’s new professional classes, which placed a value on elite education and western culture. Eisuke Awaya, Senkichi’s father, rose to become a senior bureaucrat in one of the largest foreign-owned railway companies, which were busy building lines criss-crossing the country. The Awayas can be seen in photographs dressed in formal Sunday attire, the kinds of clothes you might associate with attending an afternoon concert in London’s Hyde Park or strolling along the Seine in Paris. The family were patriotic and, like the rest of Japanese society, devoted to the Meiji dynasty of rulers, associated with Japan’s shift from isolationism into modernity. Thanks, in part, to the influence of his mother, Senkichi was a deeply committed Christian. Read more | Before the atomic bombs, the USA hit Japan with one of the most overlooked (but deadly) campaigns in WW2 Behind this image of familial contentment, however, lay a troubled household. Eisuke Awaya was a workaholic, often away on business for weeks at a time, and when he was at home he could be a stern disciplinarian. He also displayed another western trait of business, a taste for alcohol. Perhaps this explains why Senkichi never enjoyed the close bond with his father that he shared with his mother. It would be she who would endow him with his devotion to public service, a love of family and of country. Despite the dysfunction at home, Senkichi grew tall and wiry. He sported a pencil-thin moustache, dressed in the Edwardian style and excelled at his academic studies. As he went through the education system, Japan’s industrial and economic transformation was in the process of achieving in four decades what western countries such as Germany had taken a century to do. Japan also expanded and modernised its military, with its leaders ominously displaying ambitions to become a global power. Senkichi graduated from the University of Tokyo in 1919 and embarked on a career as a civic administrator serving the Ministry of Home Affairs. His first post was within agriculture and based in Hiroshima Prefecture. He was 25 years old and developing the skills required for a top-level administrator who would play an integral part in the growing empire, both at home and abroad. He had been marked down as a safe pair of hands to handle important roles in key cities throughout the home islands. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/09/Alamy-WP6WTGwebready-4d2fef8.jpg" width="1500" height="968" alt="A black and white photograph of a large hall with many windows, on the tree-lined shore of a river. On the river, there are some small boats. In the background," title="This c1920s–30s photograph shows Hiroshima’s Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall, which is now commonly known as the A-Bomb Dome because it was one of the few structures in the centre of the city to remain standing after the 1945 blast (Image by Alamy)" /> In 1926, Hirohito became emperor of Japan. The early years of his reign would see the country sinking into a military dictatorship, as economic hardship, political instability and nationalistic fervour produced a lurch to the far right. Senkichi, like every other Japanese person, was now deemed a ‘subject’ rather than a ‘citizen’. These were dangerous times, when many Japanese political leaders’ careers either soared or were cut short by intrigue, betrayal or assassination. Senkichi successfully rode this wave, while still adhering to his principles and faith, in itself a remarkable achievement. To judge by his writings, he was a patriot but no zealot, a man who believed in Japan finding its natural leading role in east Asia. In his late twenties, Senkichi was chosen over more experienced candidates to become Hiroshima Prefecture’s superintendent of police and chief of Security Division. He had by now come under the influence of prewar Japan’s biggest pacifist, the Christian philosopher Uchimura Kanzō, an evangelist who had been one of the first scholars to benefit from late 19th-century education policies influenced by the United States. Fundamental to Kanzō’s teaching was to question the role of organised religion and to emphasise instead following one’s own Christian beliefs. Senkichi and his family became devotees, attending Bible study classes led by Kanzō on several occasions when they travelled to Tokyo, or when he was giving lectures around Hokkaidō Prefecture, where Senkichi was also assigned for part of his career. These experiences influenced the young administrator for the rest of his life and career. Read more | Hiroshima: the race to the atomic bomb He ascended the ladder, gaining management experience and overseeing larger budgets. Like his father before him, he travelled the length and breadth of Japan’s main islands as he balanced work with marriage, his faith and bringing up a large family. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/09/TOPFOTO-RV6613-5webready-a7278fa.jpg" width="1500" height="972" alt="A black and white photograph of 6 soldiers crouched behind a tank, approaching conflict. The photo is taken from behind the group, and they are all wearing helmets and holding guns" title="Japanese troops in action in the Philippines, 1941. As the country sunk into a military dictatorship, it embarked on a ruinous bid to establish an east Asian empire (Image by TopFoto)" /> In 1931, Japanese forces invaded Manchuria and, in doing so, set the country on a war footing that didn’t end until August 1945. The leaders of the imperial Japanese armed forces now held sway over all aspects of life in the country, including the police. Senkichi, as head of the Osaka police, was dragged onto the national stage in 1933 when one of his officers arrested a Japanese soldier over a minor traffic dispute. The case became bound up with questions around who had the greater power: the home ministry or the army. Indeed, Senkichi had told his men: “If the army is His Majesty’s army, then the policemen are also His Majesty’s policemen. There is no need to apologise.” Although the dispute was resolved after months of legal wrangling, Senkichi was marked out for demotion. As Japanese forces ran amok in the Pacific, he fell ill with cellulitis and took early retirement in 1942. His final duty However, events deemed that Japan needed Senkichi’s stoicism and flair for command. In early 1943, as the tide of war was turning against Japan in the Pacific, he was offered the position of mayor of Hiroshima. With US naval forces battling across the central Pacific towards Japan, senior figures in government and the military knew an invasion could occur, and Hiroshima was a central military hub for supply and distribution. Senkichi accepted the job and relocated from the family home in Tokyo, leaving his wife and children. Although he didn’t know it, the role represented his final civic duty to Japan. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/09/ALAMY-2J8BCHJwebready-b608d35.jpg" width="1500" height="1167" alt="A black and white photograph of a war plane flying above two war ships on the sea" title="American warships Lexington (top) and Washington in the Pacific, 1943. When Senkichi was appointed mayor of Hiroshima that year, his most pressing priority was to ready the city for a US invasion (Image by Alamy)" /> “Father is thinking only about the government office,” he wrote to his daughter Yasuko. “He is thinking about the big job that will benefit Hiroshima. The important thing is to always keep your mind clear and be ready to face whatever comes your way.” Situated in the south-western part of Honshu Island, Hiroshima was the seventh-largest city in Japan. It was constructed just above sea level, on a broad, fan-shaped delta, with seven tributaries pouring out to Hiroshima Bay. Hiroshima had been a garrison city since the late 1880s. The naval port of Ujina nearby was the assembly area for troops from all over Japan as they shipped out to war zones in China and into the Pacific following the attack on the American fleet at Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941. By the spring of 1945, such expansionism was long past. American naval power had placed a stranglehold on Japanese merchant shipping. The American force of B-29 Superfortress bombers, based 1,500 miles out in the Pacific on purpose-built airbases on the Marianas Island chain, had destroyed Japan’s manufacturing capacity and infrastructure. The firebombing campaign across the country ultimately reduced 66 Japanese cities to ashes, including the cataclysmic raid on Tokyo on 9–10 March that killed more than 100,000 civilians in a single night. Senkichi’s family survived this apocalypse, and he asked his wife and eldest son to relocate to Hiroshima. “The enemy will return,” he wrote to them. “That is the nature of war. You and the children must come here. It is possible that we will all die in the battles to come. If that is to happen, I wish us to die together as one family.” His four other children were moved out into the country for safety. In Hiroshima, the authorities were busy with defensive preparations. The Second General Army, under Field Marshal Hata (1879–1962), a veteran of the war in China and a confidant of the emperor, assumed the pivotal role of resisting any American assault in the south, which was expected later in the year. As head of municipal services throughout the city, Senkichi had to work with Hata and his team. “With a spirit of sacrifice, discharge your duties,” he urged his workers, “and show yourself at your best in the decisive battle as governmental employees of the empire.” In practice, showing “your best” meant enforcing new rationing, pulling down thousands of dwellings to act as fire breaks, and turning a blind eye to the tens of thousands of children being coerced into working in armament shops and factories. The country was being readied for what was termed ‘National Suicide’. This was the hope that inflicting as many casualties as possible on the invaders would mean they were forced to offer more favourable terms rather than push for an unconditional surrender. Read more | Kavita Puri on VJ Day: "We don't talk about the war in Asia – which was a messy, complicated conflict" For the people of the Japan, the immediate future appeared grim indeed. Yet Senkichi, in his letters at least, still found grounds for optimism. “It’s 10 o’clock at night. I should go to bed soon, otherwise it will be bad for my health,” he wrote to Yasuko. “Tomorrow morning will be another beautiful day, with the morning sun reflecting off the surface of the river. That’s what I think about when I go to bed these days.” <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/09/gr0016168Hwebready-aa480d0.jpg" width="1500" height="1146" alt="A photograph showing the devastated ground after the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima." title="The destruction of Hiroshima marked a bleak new chapter in a bombing campaign that had killed perhaps as many as 900,000 civilians in the first half of 1945 (Image by TopFoto)" /> No tools for the fight At Hiroshima City Office, 60 officers were on duty 24/7. Hiroshima was divided into 24 sectors, with all city employees trained on evacuation procedures and then allocated to a specific sector. Like the rest of the country, Hiroshima had not envisaged coming under aerial attack and there were hardly any purpose-built air raid shelters. There was also a lack of tools to fight a major fire. Senkichi’s fire chief confided to him that, despite the efforts to create firebreaks, the city would ultimately be burned out. Fires would spread and conjoin. Then it was only a matter of time. But even this bleak assessment of what lay ahead proved optimistic. When it was dropped over the city on the morning of 6 August 1945, Little Boy essentially destroyed 5 square miles of the heart of Hiroshima. The blast had the force of up to 15,000 tonnes of TNT, raising the temperature at Ground Zero to several thousand degrees, resembling the surface temperature of the sun. Three days later, Nagasaki was struck in a similar manner and with equal destructive consequences by a plutonium bomb that killed 40,000–70,000 people. As President Truman had warned, a rain of ruin was falling from the air. On 15 August, Emperor Hirohito addressed his people for the first time on the radio to announce the country’s surrender. The war was lost. A nation’s defeat The destruction of Hiroshima mirrored the fate of Japan itself over the previous months of the Pacific conflict as all parts of Japan were overwhelmed by bombing raids. Anywhere between 300,000 and 900,000 civilians had perished over the first six months of 1945 – more than the total number of deaths suffered by the country in the previous three years of war combined. Now imperial Japan suffered the ignominy of surrendering even before her enemy had stepped foot on her sovereign soil. Amid this national shame, much as Hiroshima’s ruin was a symbol of the country’s defeat, the fate of one Japanese family can be seen as a metaphor for the country’s rise and fall. The dead mayor’s surviving daughters, Yatsuko and Motoko, travelled to Hiroshima to care for their stricken mother who had initially survived the blast, only to die from radiation exposure. A week later, the daughters boarded another train. In their baggage, they carried four boxes: the ashes of their parents, younger brother and Motoko’s own daughter. They arrived back in the capital on 10 September for the surviving family to bury their ashes. Their Christian community welcomed the family as the city and the country came to terms with their total defeat. Within two months, Motoko was also mourning the loss of her sister. Yasuko died in a Tokyo hospital from radiation sickness on 24 November 1945. Caring for her mother, she had unwittingly spent too many days close to the centre of Hiroshima. Including the atomic cities, more than 40 per cent of Japan’s urban areas had been turned to ashes, making more than 8.5 million civilians homeless. When the Allies moved in to occupy Japan under the stewardship of General Douglas MacArthur, they were confronted with a gargantuan task. More than 1.5 million returning Japanese military personnel had to be rehabilitated, destroyed cities had to be rebuilt, a new democratic system of government had to be instituted. This necessitated the dismantling of the old regime. And as a product of that regime, Senkichi Awaya was pushed to the side, and then entirely forgotten. TIMELINE: JAPAN'S CENTURY OF CHANGE From global rise to nuclear attack 8 July 1853 American commodore Matthew Perry sails four ships into Tokyo Bay. The expedition leads to the re-establishment of diplomatic relations between Japan and the west 1868 The Meiji restoration – named after the Empreror Meiji – marks the return of imperial rule, ends the feudal Tokugawa shogunate, and triggers Japan's rise to a modern global power 1872 Japan’s first railway line, connecting Tokyo and Yokohama, opens. The rapid expansion of the railways accelerates industrialisation, connectivity and economic prosperity across the nation 1904-05 The Russo-Japanese War. Japan’s decisive defeat of tsarist Russia in a conflict chiefly fought over both nations’ designs on east Asia, confirms its status as a formidable military force 25 December 1926 Hirohito becomes the 124th emperor of Japan. The opening years of his long reign see the nation increasingly dominated by a rightwing military dictatorship September 1931 Japan invades Manchuria. This major escalation in its imperialist ambitions leads to its withdrawal from the League of Nations July 1937 A full-scale Japanese invasion of China begins. Japan will occupy most of China’s major cities in a war that will rage until 1945 7 December 1941 The attack on Pearl Harbor. Japan’s surprise assault on the naval base propels it into all-out war with the United States. The raid coincides with Japanese invasions of several other territories in Asia and the Pacific 4-7 June 1942 The Japanese navy suffers defeat to the US Pacific Fleet at Midway. The battle is widely cited as a turning point in the Pacific, paving the way for the advance of Allied forces towards the Japanese home islands 9-10 March 1945 A devastating American air raid on Tokyo – in which B-29 bombers pepper the city with incendiary bombs – kills more than 100,000 civilians and leaves perhaps 1 million people homeless 6 August 1945 An American B-29 bomber drops a nuclear bomb, ‘Little Boy’, over the Japanese port city of Hiroshima. Seventy thousand people die immediately and the overall death toll will rise towards 120,000 15 August 1945 Following a second nuclear attack – on Nagasaki, six days earlier – Emperor Hirohito informs his people of his country’s surrender to Allied forces Iain MacGregor’s latest book is The Hiroshima Men: The Quest to Build the Atomic Bomb, and the Fateful Decision to Use It (Constable, 2025) This article is in the September 2025 issue of BBC History Magazine
Why we should be better about talking about death, with Dr Helen Gittos
For our ancestors, death was part of daily life. We can learn from their open conversations about this taboo topic, says Dr Helen Gittos, and create modern rituals to help us cope
We don’t know how to talk about death. It’s a modern taboo. Search the topic online and you’ll quickly find people who deal in end-of-life matters arguing that we need more transparent, more honest conversations about an event that is, after all, going to come to us all. Charities like Hospice UK definitely want us to be better about talking about it. It wasn’t always this way. In fact, it’s only really in the 20th century that we’ve actively disassociated ourselves from death. The process has been institutionalised and medicalised. The palliative care physician and author Kathryn Mannix wrote about it in a Guardian article a few years ago. In the 19th century, according to the historian Judith Flanders, discussing Victorian death and mourning on a recent episode of the HistoryExtra podcast, “ it was part of daily life. It wasn’t tucked away neatly in hospitals where you go in and visit for an hour, but you don’t see all the day-to-day stuff, you don’t see people die”. She continues: “Many people go happily through their whole lives without ever seeing a dead person, which is simply not possible in the 19th century. Then, hospitals were very limited in the kind of diseases or illnesses they cared for. They were very specifically for certain things only. If you could afford it, you were looked after at home. Hospitals were a place of last resort for people who were too poor, too desperate, so everybody saw death.” <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/09/GettyImages-464472069-ccb7e8d.jpg" width="5204" height="3383" alt="A bracelet with two gold edged picture frames on it. In each, there is a photo of a girl with brown ringlets and wearing a purple dress" title="This Victorian bracelet has a band of woven hair and may have been a piece of mourning jewellery, which was in fashion during that era (Image by Getty Images)" /> Past and present rituals I went to a funeral the other day. It was of a dear friend who had died far too young, of cancer. She knew it was coming and had been able to prepare, and had, I think, had frank and open conversations with her husband and daughters. I don’t think that’s the norm, but that did mean that the crowded crematorium felt more like a genuine celebration of her life. There was also a modern ritual as we wept through a slide show of her greatest hits, set to music. Obviously my thoughts were drawn to this when I was talking to Dr Helen Gittos, a medieval historian at Oxford University. Her Life Lesson from History was that rituals really matter, and that we can learn from the past to make better use of them. It can be hard to identify what medieval people were doing by way of rituals, because that sort of activity isn’t necessarily documented. We’re talking about things that might be more informal and familial. That’s where archaeology comes to the fore. Helen told me about her research into a collection of 12th-century lead crosses that had been discovered in the grounds of the monastery at Bury St Edmunds. They all had scratched inscriptions on them. Read more | “There was a general perception that Queen Victoria’s mourning was neither normal nor acceptable” Helen worked out that the inscriptions related to a ceremony of consecration of a new church, and they were the words the bishop would say as he stepped over the threshold of the building. But these crosses had nothing to do with new church foundation – they were found with the remains of dead monks. Helen concluded that this was evidence of some sort of protective ritual for the monks, to keep the devil away and Christ close. We wouldn’t know that without her close detective work and leap of imagination to tease out the ritual underlying the artefacts. Navigating grief <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/09/GettyImages-132703805-1e3ce2e.jpg" width="2710" height="3840" alt="A painting shows a woman leaning over the edge of a bed, holding the arm of an unseen person. She has her head resting on it and a sad expression on his face" title="A 13th-century fresco by Giotto shows St Clare mourning St Francis, one of the many depictions of lamentation in the Middle Ages (Image by Getty Images)" /> Rituals and death are close bedfellows. End of life is a time when we need a support structure to navigate the grief. Helen’s academic experience sadly collided with her everyday as she coped with the death of her young daughter, Harriet, and the challenge of finding the right way to say goodbye. “At the time at which she died, I was writing that piece about the Bury St Edmunds crosses. I was in the middle of it and it’s hard sometimes to be a historian and not to turn off your historian’s head. So all the way through, I was watching and contrasting the way in which we now deal with death, with what I was looking at in the 11th and 12th centuries,” she explains. “Harriet died in hospital and the staff there wanted to try and help us, to wash her, to give her the kind of care that would have happened at home in the period that I was studying. Real efforts were made to try to include families, but there were also bits of it that were just so far away from what I’d been seeing that these monks were doing.” Helen described the perfunctory experience of being handed a “cool bag and a chit, which was a bit like the kind of thing you might get if you’d taken your shoes in to be mended” for her daughter’s body in a hospital. She felt “the contrast between thinking of those monks who were employing such care, love, attention, effort and craft to help their loved ones. That was one of those sudden moments of shock, a reminder that history isn’t a linear progression of things getting better. Sometimes the contrasts are really, really stark.” Death as part of life <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/09/GettyImages-2198979076-d1954a9.jpg" width="4960" height="3364" alt="A group of people dressed in smart Victorian clothing (waistcoats, white shirts and long coats) stand around fresh burial spot" title="A painting of a peasant burial in the 19th century, an era when the realities of death and dying were not hidden away (Image by Getty Images)" /> The medieval world, like the later Victorian period, was, as Helen points out, a place where death was a close reality, not hidden away. People died at home, surrounded by family, and the community came together to mark the passage from life to death. Helen told me this ritual process started before the death. People got ready for the inevitable: “One of the most striking things is that you have these ritual texts that are about guiding you to a good death.” It seems that people in the Middle Ages strove to make death a community activity, to create “a moment in which people were coming together to commemorate and note what’s passing, and also to manage the change that comes with that”. Fascinatingly, and I’d agree that this is something we really don’t do enough of today, Helen explains how there were rituals designed to follow up after someone’s death. “There were rituals for the deathbed, for the moment of death, for the funeral, and for the months and years that followed,” she says. “We’re all very good at contacting somebody in a moment of crisis. Many of us are less good at contacting them a month later, three months later, a year later. One of the things that was really characteristic about the Middle Ages was this formal way in which there were rituals that followed death that helped people to negotiate the aftermath, not just the moment itself.” <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/09/GettyImages-2188132656-f7fb776.jpg" width="3803" height="5369" alt="An illustrated page that shows a small yellow skull on a green table, surrounded by a pink letter O and several flowers" title="A 15th-century illuminated initial with a skull, a symbol of death, found at the start of the Office of the Dead, a Christian prayer read in spiritual preparation for death (Image by Getty Images)" /> Reclaiming ritual and conversation So what can we do? How can we learn from the past to face death more honestly and compassionately? Read more | What do we know about Viking funerals? Helen believes that we need both structure and flexibility. “Ritual often gives us a sort of framework for how to act at moments in which we feel lost, shocked and uncertain, and when we want a map for how to navigate some period of major change and a way of doing that collectively. But I think what rituals also do, and we have increasingly understood this, is to give a sense of freedom, flex and scope to create anew within that framework. That allows these improvisations to feel right and appropriate.” She describes how, in planning her daughter’s funeral, she drew on both historical knowledge and personal intuition. “I was glad that what we crafted in a very short period of time did end up feeling really right. We dispensed with all of the formality and we simply put together things that involved real music and musicians playing live. A friend found a wonderful pianist and we had a whole series of family members who read things that mattered to them. And then afterwards we took everybody and we walked back to the hospital where she died because there was a playground there, and we all gathered there among these play things and were able to be in an environment that felt right for me and right enough for the people who were close to us.” Moving forward <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/09/GettyImages-2188126796-c3a9a0b.jpg" width="4361" height="6408" alt="An illustration of a group of people dressed in green and brown robes surround a body wrapped in a shroud and rope, which they are burying" title="A burial scene from the Middle Ages, as shown in 15th-century illustrated romance in verse titled Barlaam und Josaphat (Image by Getty Images)" /> So I’m getting a couple of really good lessons here from Dr Helen Gittos, and from our medieval forebears. Firstly, we should be better about talking about death: with our families, our friends, and our communities. Secondly, we should be open to claiming and creating the rituals that help us to mourn and remember, and we should not be afraid to improvise, to make them our own. As Helen put it, “Rituals are things that we can use creatively in order to be able to manage. I think that we can be braver about creating rituals that work for us, even with the institutional context that so often surround major moments in our lives. We don’t have to simply accept the impersonal, formulaic, 30 minutes in and out of the crematorium.” She points out that there are people who are “creating new ways of doing things, burying people in woodland, making services which are a bit less formulaic, a bit more creative”. This can be “enormously beneficial for feeling like these are moments that we have managed, that we can dare to navigate ourselves – that we don’t need to rely on outside professionals to do them for us.” Let’s embrace rituals that help us cope with times of grief, and let’s be creative about them. Let’s talk about death. It’s going to happen to us, and our loved ones. We can make things easier on ourselves, and everyone around us, by just being a bit more honest and open about it. This article is part of HistoryExtra's new Life Lessons from History Substack newsletter. Subscribe to the newsletter for more articles and podcasts exploring the ways in which history can help us live better, happier, healthier or more productive lives.
The most common accidental way to die in Tudor England reveals surprising truths about daily life
Historian Steven Gunn uncovers what thousands of fatal accidents can tell us about everyday existence in 16th-century England – from water fetching to post-work swims
Tudor history is so dominated by tales of towering tyrannical monarchs and European politics that you’d be forgiven for thinking the most common way to die in 16th-century England was to be beheaded at the command of Henry VIII, or to perish at sea as a victim of the Spanish Armada. But for most ordinary people, the whims of kings and the disputes of continental royalty were distant concerns. The real dangers lay much closer to home – and could be far more mundane. According to historian Professor Steven Gunn, drowning in England’s waterways was the single most common cause of accidental death recorded in the period. Based on thousands of coroners’ inquests, Gunn and co-author Dr Tomasz Gromelski have traced how Tudor people died – and, in doing so, revealed fascinating details about the rhythms of daily life for the average citizen. “The most striking accidental cause of death is drowning,” Gunn explains on the HistoryExtra podcast. “About 40 per cent of all accidental deaths recorded in coroners’ inquests in the 16th century are drownings.” These cases were far removed from nobles or monarchs. They involved farmers, labourers, servants and children – people whose lives rarely make it into formal chronicles. And in their deaths, they left behind a detailed record of the routines and risks of everyday life. A deadly way to cool off Some drowning cases are unsurprising: children falling into ponds, or people swept away by flooding. But others reflect a pattern of work, habit and physical exhaustion in Tudor England. “Working men get very hot working in the fields, working on building sites … at the end of the day they strip off and jump in the nearest pond or river to get clean,” Gunn explains. But there was a significant problem with that. “Many of them can’t swim … and so lots and lots of people end up drowning in those circumstances.” Read more | From fatal foliage to the perils of ploughing: the Tudor calendar of death These deaths were most common in June and July, and many occurred in the late afternoon or early evening – a time when labourers finished work, but the heat of the day still lingered. However, with no public bathhouses, and no widespread teaching of swimming, a refreshing dip could easily turn fatal. The risk was compounded by exhaustion, cramps or the shock of cold water. There were no lifeguards to save them, and no safety barriers along riverbanks to warn them of the dangers. The hidden danger of water fetching For women and girls, the most common cause of accidental drowning came not from impromptu dips into cold water, but from a daily domestic task: collecting water. “About one in eight accidental deaths of girls over five and women in the 16th century is from fetching water,” says Gunn. In the Tudor era water had to be fetched several times a day – often from slippery riverbanks, ponds or wells, and in all weathers. Read more | What did the Tudors think was ‘good’ sex? These tips and tricks were key to relationships in the 16th century “People are going backwards and forwards all day collecting buckets of water,” says Gunn. “And when the weather’s bad and it’s slippery or they’re ill, they still have to go.” If someone slipped while carrying a full bucket and fell in, survival was unlikely. Tudor clothing – particularly for women – made the situation worse. “Their underclothing’s made of thick linen, and their overclothing’s made of thick wool,” says Gunn. “They get waterlogged very fast and they find it very hard to get out again once they’ve fallen in.” These deaths reveal how the most essential forms of unpaid domestic labour – often overlooked in written history – could be both physically punishing and dangerously underappreciated. “Fetching water is such an obvious thing to do that nobody really writes about it,” Gunn notes. These stats, and the similarities and differences in how many men and women died, reflect the gendered expectations of daily life in Tudor England. Men and women might have commonly had different types of work and social roles, but they both faced risks. The risks of Tudor hygiene Coroners’ reports also reveal a stark disconnect between advice offered to the elites of Tudor society compared to working-class realities – especially when it came to personal hygiene. Medical treatises written for the upper classes often warned against bathing, arguing that hot water opened the pores and made the body vulnerable to disease. Instead, if you had been playing tennis for example, it was suggested that: “it's much better to change your fine linen or silk shirt”. Read more | How old is bathing? Of course that advice was only practical for the wealthy – typically only those toward the top of Tudor society who had silk shirts to change in the first place. For the poor, the solution was simpler, but riskier. “Poor people don't have the luxury of changing their shirt,” says Gunn. “They just take it off and get in the river instead.” Why accidental Tudor deaths matter Far removed from the drama of politics, royal marriages or religious upheaval, the study of accidental death in the Tudor era might seem like a niche pursuit. But for Gunn, these deaths offer some insight that’s invaluable. Gunn explains that even though it “doesn’t fit in with the big stories of Tudor history”, the study of accidental deaths does “tell you what people were doing all day, which not many other sources do”. Read more | The medieval dancing plague: what caused people to dance themselves to death? Because these accidents happened to regular people, in the middle of everyday tasks, they reveal moments of routine and labour and daily drudgery rarely documented elsewhere – while highlighting the differences and similarities between ordinary Tudor men and women during the time. Legal records or sermons might mention farming or trade disputes. But coroners’ reports capture the exact moment when a routine task became fatal. Each case offers a flash of insight into social roles or seasonal rhythms that dictated what life was like for most people living in Tudor England. Steve Gunn was speaking to Ellie Cawthorne on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full conversation.
From fatal foliage to the perils of ploughing: the Tudor calendar of death
Delving deep into reports of coroners’ inquests from Tudor England, Steven Gunn and Tomasz Gromelski show how accidental deaths reveal the rhythms of work, travel and leisure throughout the year
January Deadly cold and woodland woes Tudor England languished in the chill grip of a ‘little ice age’, and winters were especially harsh. Decembers were bad enough: in one 1542 blizzard, eight travellers – seven of them women and girls – died on the roads of Herefordshire and Shropshire. January was worse still. Snowstorms in January 1541 wreaked havoc across the Midlands. In Nottinghamshire, William Johnson lost his way heading home from Burton Joyce to his house at Shelford, and perished after falling into an unseen tributary of the Trent. In Derbyshire, three members of the Crabtre family died when their house in Kinder was flattened by a “snowe dryft”. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/07/BAL3294700cmyk-53b87bf.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="A man dressed in a green smock and red tights is in the middle of cutting logs with an axe. Around him are other people, including a woman in a blue dress with a baby and another woman bent down on the floor to pick up more logs" title="A man wields an axe in an early 16th-century illustration. Chopping wood in icy conditions was fraught with danger (Image by Bridgeman Images)" /> January 1571 claimed victims in East Anglia. Peter Eade, a runaway servant just nine years old, died in snowy Rushford, Norfolk, wandering and hungry. And Robert Kyng, aged 40, fell into a snow-covered “sawyng pytt” in Holton Hall Wood at Stratford St Mary in Suffolk. Many people had to brave such cruel weather to undertake their work, not least felling leafless trees in a season when dormant wood was less likely to crack when cut. William Smale paid the ultimate price when tackling an oak in Bagborough Wood, Somerset in 1513. He cut through it with his axe, but it caught on an ash tree as it fell. To free the oak, Smale hacked three or four times at the ash. It shattered and sent sharp fragments flying at his head, piercing his brain. He died three days later. February Fatal foliage and football February brought more trouble with trees, especially for those gathering greenery to top up dwindling winter stocks of fodder for livestock. In 1565, the keeper of Castle Camps Park in Cambridgeshire sent John Spycer out into the cold to cut leafy branches to feed animals. As Spycer stood on “a smale or slender bowghe”, he fell to his death. In 1505, Thomas Cleygate of Westhumble, Surrey was cutting “mistell bowys” – mistletoe – from a tree to feed sheep when he plunged 9 feet. At the same time, February offered excitement. It was a popular month for playing football, a game that was then much more violent than the modern sport, more akin to American football but without the padding and helmets. Dangers lurked everywhere: in the opposing team, the pitch, even players’ personal accessories. Playing at Allerston, Yorkshire in 1523, John Langbern and Roger Bridkirk crashed into one another as they ran after the ball. Roger – clearly a big lad – landed on top of John, fatally crushing him. In 1564, at St Peter’s in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, Walter Brassett was “plaing at the foteball” with neighbours in Edward Bugge’s field when he fell onto a maple tree stump, cut his leg and bled to death in half an hour. It seems, too, that players didn’t remove knives from their belts before getting stuck in. At Bedale, Yorkshire in 1550, George Robynson tackled George Stapper, who was fatally wounded in the belly by Robynson’s blade. Read more | Tudors in turmoil: deciphering Hans Holbein’s masterwork The Ambassadors March The price of poverty, the cost of crows As winter ebbed, so did food stocks – and perhaps charitable instincts – meaning that March was a tough month for the poor. One such unfortunate was octogenarian Elizabeth Purseglove, who fell into a ditch in Chilcote, Derbyshire while begging in 1531. Another, William Dungkyne, fell into a pit as he returned home to Cambridge from begging in Barnwell in 1538. No one even knew the name of the vagrant pauper who fell down “the side of the lower clyffe” at Church Hougham, Kent in March 1596. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/07/2A2D892cmyk-WL-6f63f5c.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="A black and white sketch shows a man laying on the ground with a rifle, lying in wait to shoot a bird" title="A 16th-century engraving of duck-hunting in winter. Shooting at birds with relatively rudimentary guns, which might misfire alarmingly, could be a hazardous activity in the Tudor era (Image by Alamy)" /> Work was relatively scarce, too, though there were always tasks to tackle – scaring birds away from growing crops, for example. At Revelstoke, Devon in 1564, Andrew Wylloughby was trying to disperse crows by firing lead pellets from his “handgonne” when it misfired and burned his face; he dropped it, accidentally shooting John Kinkham in the leg. Older technologies weren’t necessarily safer: in April 1556, Thomas Branches was using his “lether slynge” to drive crows off barley in Patching, Sussex when one stone “sudenlye slypte owte of the slynge backewarde” and felled Richard Sowton with a point-blank blow to the head. April Risking it all for birds and blooms A tempting new source of food appeared in April: recently hatched rook chicks, ready for plucking from their nest and baking in a pie – if you could climb safely up and down a tree, that is. In Warwickshire in 1548, George Gybbes fell 40 feet from an elm at Hunscote. In 1564, Thomas Harmon plummeted 60 feet from an ash at Moxhull. In Suffolk, Robert Beamont came down 50 feet from an elm in the “Rookewood” at Brightwell in 1588. At Clyst Honiton in Devon in 1518, Benedict Page managed to cling on in his oak tree when a too-slender branch snapped beneath his feet. But he dropped the pointed pole he was carrying onto Richard Kellegh, who died six days later. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/07/TA8AB8cmyk-ade569b.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="Rook hatchlings might make a tasty Tudor pie filling for springtime – if you could collect them safely from their nests in tall trees (Image by Alamy)" title="Rook hatchlings might make a tasty Tudor pie filling for springtime – if you could collect them safely from their nests in tall trees (Image by Alamy)" /> Picking flowers should have been less perilous – but children were prone to collecting blooms in risky spots. Four-year-old Margaret Bockyn fell into her father’s garden pond at Rollesby in Norfolk while gathering “pryme roses” on the bank in 1579. Similarly, five-year-old Barbara Fell plunged into a pond just outside Walmgate Bar at York during a flower-picking session the following year. Eight-year-old Robert Hudsone avoided water while collecting blooms at Stutton near Tadcaster, North Yorkshire in 1562, but wandered too close to a grey horse, which kicked him fatally in the head. Read more | The most common accidental way to die in Tudor England reveals surprising truths about daily life May When leisure turned lethal In this prime month for recreation, revellers needed to be wary of the maypoles set up for dancing. Alice Wasse was hit in the head by one that fell in the wind at Mansfield Woodhouse in Nottinghamshire in 1578. Elsewhere, John Richardson was killed while a pole was being erected on Abbey Green, Bath in 1594, and Thomas Wylkes died while one was being taken down at Marsh Baldon in Oxfordshire in 1543, having failed to heed the workmen’s cries of “aware, aware, avoide”. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/07/GettyImages-598816499cmyk-f68e73e.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="A very colourful image of many people milling about at a village fair. People are dancing together around a pole and in the background, people barter over a table" title="Villagers dance around a pole in an illustration from c1530. Even such an enjoyable activity wasn’t without risks (Image by Getty Images)" /> Clement weather also encouraged more permanent construction. Robert Catley died while working on a barn at Thornton-in-Craven, North Yorkshire in 1539, as did John Hodges toiling on a “wayn house” at Hope under Dinmore, Herefordshire, and James Breythweth and John Wood building a house at Worksop, Nottinghamshire in 1566. Authorities encouraged men to practise shooting arrows rather than dancing – and May saw more archery accidents than any other month. At Horsley, Gloucestershire in 1504, John Snowe rushed to the target after taking his shot, and was hit by those firing after him. And at Dagenham, Essex in 1591, John Skoggyn was so focused on checking where his arrow had gone that he “dyd not go aside” when John Cartnayle “dyd crye” to warn him that he was about to shoot at the same mark. Skoggyn suffered an arrow in the head. June Drowning by numbers Many people perished in the water in June, when early summer heat drove working men to bathe at the end of the day. They flocked to rivers and ponds in large numbers – irrespective of whether they could swim. In June 1583 alone, 11 men died by drowning in places ranging from Dorset to Northamptonshire, Somerset to Suffolk. In Maidstone, Thomas Carpenter was within sight of other young men in the millstream when he fell into a whirlpool, but they could not save him without endangering themselves. In the Thames, Martin Robinson buckled on two bladders to help him stay afloat at Paris Garden in Southwark, but the buckle broke and he perished. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/07/BAL234051cmyk-8ee7af6.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="A woodcut from a 1587 treatise on the art of swimming. Not all who enjoyed a dip could handle strong currents in rivers and millstreams (Image by Bridgeman Images)" title="A woodcut from a 1587 treatise on the art of swimming. Not all who enjoyed a dip could handle strong currents in rivers and millstreams (Image by Bridgeman Images)" /> Many workers died while washing sheep in preparation for shearing. This practice claimed two dozen victims – two-thirds of them in June and a quarter of them women – as panicking sheep knocked over the labourers or slipped out of their grasp and were chased into deeper water. Such deaths occurred in major rivers including the Avon, Calder, Great Ouse, Severn, Thames and Trent, but also in creeks, brooks and millstreams. Read more | Trade, religion and diversity: how Tudor London became a global city July The hidden horrors of harvests and haystacks Harvesting the hay from meadows and marshes in high summer, workers wielded extremely sharp scythes that they swung with force. Mowers walked in staggered lines to try to avoid slicing one another, but fatal accidents were not uncommon. At Welford in Northamptonshire in 1559, Richard Goodall safely worked his way across Widow Symes’ field for four hours. He was then caught in the leg by Ralph Billinge’s scythe. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/07/GettyImages-1199902989cmyk-3ccbdc7.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="Three men cut crops with scythes. In the background, other harvesters are at work and there are many farming fields" title="Harvesters cut crops with scythes in a 16th-century painting. Systems were put in place to reduce the risks of slicing fellow workers – but didn’t always prevent fatal accidents (Image by Getty Images)" /> Troubles were not at an end when the hay was carted away, because haystacks were unstable, leading to misfortunes for those working on them. William Awdeley of Botolph Claydon, Buckinghamshire, aged over 60, fell off the “heye mowe” in his barn that he had climbed to “trede his heye” in 1555. This work was more typically undertaken by young women; one such was Jane Turney, who fell off a stack at Tidburst in Aldenham, Hertfordshire, and died in 1574. Harvest-time also saw people playing various sports – forerunners of field athletics – many of which involved throwing things. Spectators were warned, but couldn’t always take evasive action. July brought mishaps with quoits in Berkshire in 1538, a pikestaff in Yorkshire in 1526, a plough coulter (blade) in Cumberland in 1564, and a sledgehammer in Dorset in 1591. August Carts, crops and pitchforks August brought the grain harvest – and more dangers in the forms of reaping and carting, especially when workers made haste in the uncertain English weather. Jumping on and off carts to pile crops and rope them down often resulted in falls, cracked heads and broken necks or backs. Snapping ropes took the lives of John Helder at Tuddenham, Suffolk in 1553; John Edmunds at Shoddesden, Hampshire in 1551; and John Stacye at Newbury, Berkshire in 1539. William Gybbys of Woodnesborough in Kent fell in 1551 while standing on slippery sheaves of wheat. John Cowper of Rodmersham, also in Kent, was dislodged by a sudden gust of wind and fell to his death. At Plash in Elworthy, Somerset in 1580, John Selacke faced a different kind of problem when the lower of his two cartwheels “did sodainlye sincke so depe into the grownde” that the whole cart fell over and he was fatally injured. Vehicles often crashed en route to the barn, where more perils lurked. Carts manoeuvring in tight spaces, crops piled in towering stacks and sharp-pronged pitchforks interacted alarmingly. In August 1579, for example, Richard Taylor climbed up to the “pytch hole” in Henry Boughtone’s barn at Pattishall in Northamptonshire, where the sheaves were pitched through from the carts to the stacks inside. The unfortunate labourer slipped and landed on a pitchfork propped by the wall. Wounded between the ribs on his left side, he died just over two days later. September Mellow fruitfulness – and falls Most fruit and nuts ripen in September, when pickers – who ranged in status from labourers to gentlemen and included women, boys and girls – climbed trees, frequently falling to their deaths in the process. An apple tree branch broke as Hugh Pritfoote sat on it at Dewchurch, Herefordshire in 1578. Thomas Chapman came off his ladder as he picked apples at Borden in Kent in 1520. And Jane Acton fell out of a pear tree at Stanford-on-Teme, Worcestershire in 1586. Maturing acorns attracted pig-farmers, who climbed oaks to knock down the nuts to fatten their swine. In September 1559, Thomas Way fell in the New Forest, and in September 1540 Ralph Colley’s quest for “okehornez” at Bakewell ended with his neck broken on a stone below the tree. October Perils of ploughing The agricultural cycle began each October with ploughing. Draught animals – oxen on heavy clay soils, horses for easier ground – could be hard to handle: restive during harnessing, distracted by dogs, kicking out when whipped. And if anything went wrong, being run over by the ploughshare resulted in horrible (and often fatal) injuries. At Ledbury, Herefordshire in 1539, John Bradford’s thigh was cut down to the bone by the plough’s blade. And in East Sutton, Kent in 1578, Thomas Seman was wounded in the right side with a gash three inches (about 7.5cm) long, three inches wide and four inches (10cm) deep. This month also saw one instance of a fate all too common year round. At Bramerton, Norfolk on 16 October 1579, a 19-year-old maidservant took “a payle” from her master’s house and headed for a pit on the common to collect water. The ground there was slippery, and she fell in and drowned. One in eight accidental deaths of women and girls over five years old was the result of such work – traipsing backwards and forwards to wells, ponds, rivers and streams day after day to keep households supplied with water. The thing that made the sad case of this ill-fated young woman notable was her famous namesake: she was Anne Bulleyn. November High drama on rooftops and bell-ropes An ideal time for re-roofing buildings was November, when straw was abundant after harvest. Professional thatchers and handy householders alike clambered up with thatching needles and yelms – straightened bundles of straw. The dangers were many: ladders broke, thatchers slipped off roof beams, and springles – thin, flexible sticks used for pinning down thatch – could be treacherous. In 1564, one sprang back and hit Richard Hotchkis just below the right eye as he thatched Richard Askall’s house at Atcham in Shropshire. And when John Houson fell off his ladder at Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire in 1563, he landed on a springle that pierced his left side, penetrating 5 inches deep. During the reign of Elizabeth I, bells were rung on 17 November to celebrate the anniversary of her accession to the throne in 1558. Curiously, bells comprised the main cause of accidental death at church – and three mishaps on that pivotal day reveal the various ways death could occur. At York Minster in 1599, Robert Grymstone got the bell-rope caught between his legs, and was lifted high before being dropped on his head. At Cobham, Kent in 1592, a bell-rope snagged the bench on which John Robinson stood, hauling it 6 feet into the air; John slid off and down onto the paved church floor. At Beaumont, Essex in 1581, William Taylor found that neither the great bell nor the middle bell had ropes, so he climbed into the steeple to ring them on the headstock. He misjudged the swing of the middle bell, though, and his head, neck and shoulders were crushed between bell and frame. Read more | The poet, the gardener and the witch: forgotten voices of Tudor England December Frosty falls and fatal festivities Cold set in once more in December. Ice often caused accidents at watermills, where workers slipped into the millrace off frosty footbridges or fell while clearing encrusted waterwheels. It might also break under those who ventured out to hunt otters or to take short-cuts across frozen watercourses. It formed floes on rivers, too; in 1532, ice tipped over a ferry on the Wye at Bredwardine, resulting in the loss of all 10 passengers. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/07/HIP2677878cmyk-d060c95.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="A large crowd of people and a carriage with two horsees take part in various activities on the frozen river Thames" title="A coloured 17th-century engraving shows revellers on the frozen Thames. Venturing out onto the ice, whether for fun or for work, could be risky (Image by TopFoto)" /> Christmas was, of course, a time for going to church, for celebrating, for feasting – and for accidents. Hurrying from church to the rectory in Croxton, Cambridgeshire on Christmas Day 1521, Robert Bakar fell into the parson’s pond and drowned. Jane Jenden tumbled off a table while hanging greenery in her home in 1562. And Jane Typtott stabbed herself in the leg while slaughtering her pig on Christmas Eve 1567. Seasonal pastimes posed threats, too. Wrestling in the hall at Kneesall Rectory, Nottinghamshire in 1549, Thomas Bunting fell on Lawrence Mylner’s knife. And in Houghton, Hampshire in 1563, John Hypper crushed his testicles while “playinge Christenmas games” with his neighbours. Tudor life was rich in variety – and so was Tudor death. Steven Gunn is professor of early modern history at Merton College, University of Oxford. Tomasz Gromelski is a researcher at Wolfson College, University of Oxford. Their new book is An Accidental History of Tudor England (John Murray) This article was first published in the July 2025 issue of BBC History Magazine
Caesar's funeral drama: anger and revenge after death
The assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 BC drove tensions sky-high in ancient Rome. As Jessica Clarke reveals, plays staged at his funeral were carefully chosen to inflame anger and incite revenge on his killers
On 20 March 44 BC, a violent death in Rome was about to send assembled masses into uproar – sparking pandemonium that threatened to engulf the city. The incident described by the ancient biographer Suetonius wasn’t a real murder but, rather, the climax of a theatre show. If we reconstruct the performance, using both Suetonius’s writing and fragments of the scripts that survive from the time, we can picture the leading actor standing in the centre of the stage before a packed auditorium. He would have raised his sword over his head and declaimed boldly, his voice ringing out across the stands: “What, did I save these men so that they might murder me?” With these words, he would have plunged the blade into his chest. Falling forward onto the stage, he would then ‘die’ slowly and dramatically in front of his enthralled audience. Cries of sorrow broke out from the audience, Suetonius tells us, and shouts of indignation were raised against the characters who had instigated his suicide. Like so many other theatre shows at the time, which are recorded for us by the ancient writer, orator and politician Marcus Tullius Cicero, this performance – staged in the last years of the collapsing Roman Republic – caused a volcanic reaction among the crowd. The performance was part of the funeral of Gaius Julius Caesar. Five days earlier, the Roman general and dictator had been stabbed to death at a senate meeting by a group of conspirators. The city had gone into mourning, and a huge celebration had been organised to commemorate Caesar’s military and political achievements. It would include the usual eulogy and burning of the funeral pyre – but the centrepiece of the event would comprise two magnificent theatre shows. Incendiary shows First came the Contest for the Arms of Achilles, set during the legendary Trojan War. In it, Greek heroes Ajax and Odysseus argue over who should keep the sword and shield of their deceased comrade. Odysseus wins the debate and is proclaimed the victor. Unable to bear his defeat, Ajax takes his own life. According to Suetonius, this staging of the mythical story was designed to provoke a visceral reaction in the crowd – one of intense “pity and indignation” for the wrongful death of the great hero. He also informs us that the tumult continued into the performance of a second play, Electra, which also retells a Greek mythological story. Set a few years after the events of the Trojan War, it follows the story of the eponymous young heroine, who seeks revenge on her father’s assassins. With the help of her brother, Orestes, she exacts her retribution and returns the throne to its rightful heir. Read more | The shockingly simple question historian Tom Holland would ask Julius Caesar Suetonius recounts that this performance, like the first, was greeted with “shouts of indignation” from the crowd. Rome, already a tinderbox of intrigue and rival factions, threatened to erupt into chaos. Events in the city had progressed at a dizzying pace. At the beginning of the year, Julius Caesar had been at the height of his powers. Yet by the middle of March he was dead – and, just days later, his funeral seemed poised to descend into violent mayhem. How had popular feeling in Rome reached such a climactic fervour? And what could have ignited such violent reactions in the audience at the great leader’s funeral? Assassination plot Born in Rome in 100 BC, Julius Caesar had advanced swiftly through the ranks of the senate. Aged around 42, he had launched the lengthy campaign that led to the conquest of Gaul. On his return in 49 BC, he had come into conflict with his one-time ally, Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus – now known as Pompey the Great – defeating him at the battle of Pharsalus the following year. And in January 44 BC he had been elected dictator perpetuo: dictator for life. This had caused panic among many in the Roman senate. Within the established Republican system, the office of dictator had been traditionally a temporary position held during a period of political or military crisis, with the incumbent expected to relinquish the role once the danger had passed. Now Caesar had, to all intents and purposes, been made the sole and permanent ruler of Rome. A plot was hatched by those opposed to this new state of affairs, led chiefly by Marcus Junius Brutus – the son of Caesar’s long-term mistress – and Gaius Cassius Longinus, Brutus’s brother-in-law. On the appointed day, Caesar would come to a senate meeting – and there he would be set upon with daggers. The now-familiar story goes that Caesar, waking early on the morning of the Ides (15th) of March, was warned by his worried wife, Calpurnia, not to go to the senate that day. As she told her husband, she had seen omens that foretold calamity if he left the safety of their home. But Caesar did not heed his wife’s advice, and attended the meeting as planned. As he took his seat of honour, the plotters gathered around him; suddenly, one tugged at his toga to reveal his chest – a signal to the others to act. Caesar was felled by 23 stab wounds, or so the story goes, uttering not a word until he saw the young Brutus among the assassins – when, as he lay dying, he murmured in Greek: “And you, child?” The conspirators had planned to drag his corpse to the river Tiber and to confiscate Caesar’s property. Instead, fearful of the dictator’s loyal friend Mark Antony – who’d been kept from the senate meeting that day – they fled, abandoning the lifeless body. According to Suetonius, three slaves eventually came and carried Caesar’s body home, with one arm hanging down from the litter. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/07/GettyImages-587490474cmyk-b0fa33d.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="A crowd of people stand around a raised platform. On the platform, a man dressed in white stands, holding up a bloodied piece of cloth" title="Mark Antony displays Caesar’s bloodied toga while delivering an impassioned eulogy at his comrade’s funeral, shown in a 19th-century painting (Image by Getty Images)" /> Read more | Alternate history: what if Julius Caesar had not been assassinated? The assassins were right to fear Mark Antony’s reaction, which was both cunning and effective. Rather than seeking direct violent retribution against those who had plotted against his friend, Antony set about planning a spectacular funeral, orchestrating an event designed to stir up popular goodwill towards Caesar and fan the flames of hatred against the conspirators. And he began with a clever selection of plays. Show of strength Theatre performances had long comprised a traditional element of Roman funerals. The practice seems to have originated in the Etruscan civilisation who may have introduced wrestling and gladiatorial combats in the eighth century BC. In Rome, the earliest evidence of such shows relates to the funeral of Junius Brutus Pera in 264 BC, at which his sons seem to have organised gladiatorial shows on a temporary wooden stage. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/07/GettyImages-122321047-WL-3c001f7.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="A stone carving shows 6 men dancing and playing games, wearing helmets and holding spears" title="Games and dances are depicted on an Etruscan tomb monument from the fifth century BC. This ancient Italic civilisation seems to have started the practice of staging funeral performances (Image by Getty Images)" /> Over time, such events became increasingly lavish; indeed, sumptuary laws were passed to curtail the greatest excesses of the wealthy elite. These upper-class funerals might include not only stage shows but also a procession of actors dressed up in costumes and masks to resemble deceased members of a great Roman family. Parading through the city’s streets, the procession celebrated the passage of the deceased from death to life, and reminded the crowds of that aristocratic family’s eminent lineage. Why did Antony select The Contest for the Arms of Achilles and Electra to be performed at Caesar’s funeral? What was he hoping to convey to his Roman audiences? On the surface, these seem rather odd choices, particularly Electra; that play (possibly a Latin translation of Sophocles’s earlier work, written in Greek in the fifth century BC) was by Atilius, whose work does not seem to have been well regarded in Rome. One late Republican commentator described his writing style as “iron” and “very harsh”, and Cicero decries Atilius’s Electra as being rather a bad play. However, exploring the two plays’ thematic content might reveal Antony’s motivation for his production choices. Written by Pacuvius, the Arms of Achilles begins just after the eponymous hero has been killed by an arrow shot from the Trojan ramparts. In the verbal contest for Achilles’ sword and shield that follows his death, Odysseus outsmarts Ajax, securing victory through cunning and subtle arguments. It might be seen as an apt metaphor for the situation in Rome in March 44 BC: two sides struggle for control of a powerful weapon, with the loyal Ajax ultimately losing to the duplicity of his comrades. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/07/GettyImages-122216797-WL-b9687ed.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="A stone relief shows two people bent over in mourning, while a horse stands to the side" title="Electra and Orestes mourn their murdered father, King Agamemnon, in a fifth-century BC relief. A play of this story, chosen for Caesar’s funeral, highlighted the virtue of vengeance (Image by Getty Images)" /> If this was the message Antony intended to convey, he seems to have been successful. Suetonius recounts that the audience expressed furious outrage as they watched Ajax take his own life on stage. Did they draw a parallel between the death of the legendary Greek hero and the murder of Julius Caesar? Electra’s story of revenge, too, features themes that may have been deliberately intended to evoke the contemporary political situation: a wrongful murder and the righteousness of seeking retribution. Little wonder, then, that emotions were running high by the time Mark Antony took to the speaker’s platform in the Roman Forum later that day. Inflammatory eulogy The exact words spoken by Antony during that famous eulogy are now lost. However, according to Suetonius, the central part of his speech was the recitation of a senatorial decree honouring Julius Caesar. As Antony read, he lingered over the passage of the decree in which every senator swore to protect Caesar – highlighting the contrast between these faithful promises and the events that had unfolded on 15 March. As a final flourish, Antony is said to have displayed Caesar’s bloodied toga to the crowd, pointing out each of the stab wounds. It was clearly a powerful performance, much like those that had just taken place in the theatre – and one that had a powerful effect. Read more | Who are the most underrated Roman emperors? As the funeral bier bearing Caesar’s body was carried into the Forum, the crowd rushed forward and set it alight before it reached the official site of the cremation. Bystanders heaped dry branches on top of the body, smashing up the seats and benches on which they had been sitting and adding them to the flames. Musicians and actors reportedly tore off their robes and threw them into the fire, while women tossed in their jewellery and their children’s amulets. As the mass outpouring of grief reached a climax, the fired-up masses turned from the flaming pyre and rampaged through the streets of Rome. Bent on destruction, they surged towards the houses of Brutus and Cassius – but were prevented from attacking by sentinels posted outside. Turning away, the crowd came across the unsuspecting poet Helvius Cinna – and, mistaking him for his near-namesake Cornelius Cinna, who had supported the conspiracy, killed him. They cut off his head and, mounting it on a spear, paraded it through the streets of Rome. Although Brutus and Cassius survived the night, they soon had to flee the city with their fellow conspirators. It would take Antony more than two years to track them down, finally facing them in October 42 BC at the battle of Philippi. And it was Antony who emerged victorious from this clash – as from the battle for popular approval in Rome. Caesar’s funeral began with theatre shows and ended with a bloody riot. With their themes of duplicity, murder and righteous revenge, the plays seem to have been selected very deliberately to provoke and nurture hysteria in the massed crowds. It is surprising, therefore, that very little about them is mentioned in accounts of the funeral, which tend to focus much more on the eulogy given by Mark Antony. When we think of theatre today, we think perhaps of Shaftesbury Avenue or Broadway – of decorous, darkly lit auditoria filled with well-dressed spectators. But in the ancient world, the theatre could be as riotous and politically impactful as any rhetoric declaimed from the speaker’s platform. Jessica Clarke’s new book, A New History of Ancient Roman Theatre, will be published by Liverpool University Press in December This article was first published in the July 2025 issue of BBC History Magazine
The St Brice’s Day Massacre: what really happened?
David Musgrove talks to Dr Ben Savill about the violence of 13 November 1002, when Danes in England were attacked, known as the St Brice's Day Massacre
The 11th century of English history features more than its fair share of bloodshed in battles, but right at the start of the new millennium, before 1066, one event that has always seemed to especially stand out for the brutality of its violence: the St Brice’s Day Massacre of 13 November 1002. “It continues to exercise a curious allure over successive generations of undergraduate essay-writers and their lecturers, whose own occasionally lurid interest follows a historiographical tradition going back almost a millennium, beginning with the Norman observers who sought to depict the event as one of the great, gory English national sins justifying the conquest of 1066.” That’s a quote from Dr Benjamin Savill, of Trinity College, Dublin, in his article Remembering St Brictius: Conspiracy, Violence and Liturgical Time in the Danish Massacre of 1002, published in the Journal of Ecclesiastical History - and it hints at a much broader story. What was the St Brice's Day Massacre? The massacre is a striking incident, but one for which we have only limited evidence (in common with most of the events of the period). There is a reference to it in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which notes that “in this year the king ordered to be slain all the Danish men who were in England”, and a further more detailed comment in a diploma of King Æthelred the Unready (the reigning monarch at the time) for the monastery of St Frideswide, Oxford, of 1004. That diploma describes how the Danes in that city sought sanctuary in a church, which was set upon and burnt down by “all the people in pursuit”. Archaeological evidence has recently supplemented those sources, with discovery and excavation of mass graves in Oxford and Dorset. Both excavations, but particularly the Oxford one, have been linked to the events of November 1002 as possible mass execution sites. How many were killed in the St Brice's Day Massacre? With that limited dataset, the question of how widespread the violence was, and whether it deserves to be called a massacre at all, has been subject to considerable academic debate. Speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast, Dr Savill gave his take on the matter: “It depends on what you're reading. If you're looking at the later sources coming from the Normans and Anglo-Normans, it was depicted as hyper-bloody, with babies being snatched and thrown out of windows and stuff like that, and it was happening all across the nation. Our only really concrete evidence for it is what we see in Oxford. But the point to make is the fact that this gets its own big entry in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which is pretty laconic most of the time, signifies that this was a serious event. Read more about how Viking raiders and marauders become lords and kings “In the Chronicle,” says Dr Savill, “they phrase it as something that applies to the kingdom at large. The thinking across the last few decades is that perhaps we’re not looking at total genocide, but that small groups of settlers within towns, people who were with the Danish army – mercenaries or former mercenaries – were killed on that day. You get into slightly dodgy territory by down-talking massacres, but what’s important is that this clearly played a significant role in public memory. Whatever size it was, it was perceived as significant and that's the key point.” Why did the St Brice's Day Massacre happen? To grasp why the Danes living in England at the start of the 11th century were singled out for such treatment, you have to understand the context of the reign of King Æthelred II. Famous for his posthumously applied and pejorative moniker of ‘the Unready’, he has been the subject of some revision in recent years and with a corrective challenge to the view that he uniquely laid the foundations for the fall of the Anglo-Saxons. Scholars have recently emphasised how the state was well-managed and centralised in his reign, and that he himself was calculating, rather than incompetent. Æthelred had a long reign, from 978–1016, and one punctuated by serious incursions from Viking raiders. Æthelred’s response to the arrival of Viking forces in great numbers in the 990s was to pay them off, and to employ them as mercenaries. As a consequence in 1002, there was a truce, but also considerable concern about a court conspiracy, with the Danes there implicated in a plot to overthrow the king. Academics have argued that, rather than an unregulated bout of mob violence, the events of 13 November 1002 were a planned response to this conspiracy plot, possibly drawn up by reform-minded churchmen among Æthelred’s counsellors. According to Dr Savill, a second and more interesting strand to the revision of Æthelred (for this, he recommends Prof Levi Roach’s recent biography Æthelred The Unready) has been to “emphasise the degree to which the idea of religion and reform really comes into play from the 990s. Æthelred is what we might call a penitential king, who publicly admits and arguably does penance for his own personal sins. This was linked to the creation of the idea of the English as God's people, a theocratic kingdom that would look good in God's eyes”. That’s important in the context of Dr Savill’s interpretation, which is that not only was the massacre a planned act, but that it was planned specifically to take place on the feast day of St Brice. Brice, or Brictius, was a fifth-century bishop of Tours in what’s now northern France. As a saint he cuts a curious figure because in life, he was unpopular as bishop, faced a conspiracy from his own subjects, did penance, and then returned triumphantly. There were parallels therefore to King Æthelred, and Brice perhaps offered a suitable saintly figure who might intercede and help drive out the Danes. Read more: 5 forgotten Viking battles that shaped Britain's destiny How the St Brice's Day Massacre became one of the king's biggest mistakes If we accept that the 13 November violence was planned as a response to the presumed conspiracy, and that also Æthelred and his advisors were committed to penitence and religious reform, then in Dr Savill’s view, the link to St Brice is a way to control the narrative, an attempt to ensure that the violence was read not as a massacre, but as an act of legitimate state justice. “The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle specifically says that this was done on the day of the mass of St Brictius because there was a conspiracy to overthrow the king in his kingdom. And I think given how absolutely committed Æthelred and his advisers were to religious practice, to reform, to the cult of saints, by the first decade of the 11th century, that it is not a coincidence that they chose this particular day to frame this very problematic political action that they're undertaking.” If that was their aim, Æthelred and his advisors failed. Events got out of hand and out of their control, as exemplified by the burning of the church in Oxford. Thus the 13 November 1002 has come down to us as a massacre, and a scar on public memory, rather than the act of saint-sanctioned legitimacy that Dr Savill suggests was the aim. And that's not all. In the aftermath of the killings, the Danish king Sweyn Forkbeard launched a series of attacks that might have been retaliatory. These incursions destabilised the Anglo-Saxon kingdom and laid the foundation for the subsequent interludes of Danish rule (by Forkbeard, Cnut the Great, Harold I, and Harthacnut) that would occur throughout the 11th century. If those Viking retaliations really were a direct response to the murder of Danes in England at Æthelred's decree, the Anglo-Saxon king's command could be described as one of the worst mistakes in English history. Dr Ben Savill was talking to David Musgrove on the HistoryExtra podcast