Christmas Every Day

 

96

The assassination of a tyrant

The Romans, after dispensing with their Republic, tried a series of imperial dynasties. The problem was that, while the founder was often a man of restraint and competence, his children or grandchildren were likely as not to be monsters. The very able Augustus gave way to the paranoid Tiberius, the ghoulish Caligula, the dotard Claudius, and the fiendish Nero. After a year of four rival claimants Nero was replaced by the moderate Vespasian. Unfortunately Vespasian’s decent son Titus died early and was replaced in 81 AD by the younger Domitian, whose tale Chambers takes up here:

The obituary for this day includes the name of one of those monsters, who disgrace so frequently the annals of the ancient Roman empire. On 18^th September, 96 A. D., the Emperor Domitian was assassinated by a band of conspirators, after having rendered himself for many years the terror and detestation of his subjects. The son of Vespasian, and the brother and successor of Titus, he exhibited in the commencement of his reign a great show of righteous severity, and came forward as a reformer of public morals. Several persons who had transgressed the laws of conjugal fidelity, as well as some vestal virgins who had violated their vows, were punished with death. It was not long, however, before his real character showed itself; and he became a disgrace to humanity by his acts of cruelty and avarice. Cowardice and falsehood entered largely into his disposition, which, if we are to credit all the accounts that have descended to us, seems to have scarcely had a redeeming point. Multitudes of persons were put to death, either because the emperor desired their wealth, or from his having become apprehensive of their popularity or influence. Secret informers were encouraged, but philosophers and literary men were slaughtered or banished, though Martial and Silius Italicus could so far degrade poetry, as make it the vehicle for flattery of the imperial monster.

A favourite amusement of his, it is said, was killing flies, in which he would spend whole hours, and nothing seemed to give him greater pleasure than to witness the effects of terror on his fellow-creatures. On one occasion, he invited formally the members of the senate to a grand feast, and caused them on their arrival to be ushered into a large hall, hung with black and lighted with funeral torches, such as only served to exhibit to the awe-struck guests an array of coffins, on which each read his own name. Whilst they contemplated this ghastly spectacle, a troop of horrid forms, habited like furies, burst into the apartment, each with a lighted torch in one hand, and a poniard in the other. After having terrified for some time the members of Rome’s legislative body, these demon-masqueraders opened the door of the hall, through which the senators were only too happy to make a speedy exit. Who can doubt that the character of Domitian had as much of the madman as the wretch in its composition?

At length human patience was exhausted, and a conspiracy was formed for his destruction, in which his wife and some of his nearest friends were concerned. For a long time, the emperor had entertained a presentiment of his approaching end, and even of the hour and manner of his death. Becoming every day more and more fearful, he caused the galleries in which he walked to be lined with polished stones, so that he might see, as in a mirror, all that passed behind him. He never conversed with prisoners but alone and in secret, and it was his practice whilst he talked with them, to hold their chains in his hands. To inculcate on his servants a dread of compassing the death of their master, even with his own consent, he caused Epaphroditus to be put to death, because he had assisted Nero to commit suicide.

The evening before his death, some truffles were brought, which he directed to be laid aside till the next day, adding, ‘If I am there;’ and then turning to his courtiers said, that the next day the moon would be made bloody in the sign of Aquarius, and an event would take place of which all the world should speak. In the middle of the night, he awoke in an agony of fear, and started from his bed. The following morning, he had a consultation with a soothsayer from Germany, regarding a flash of lightning; the seer predicted a revolution in the empire, and was forthwith ordered off to execution. In scratching a pimple on his forehead, Domitian drew a little blood, and exclaimed: ‘Too happy should I be were this to compensate for all the blood that I cause to be shed!’ He asked what o’clock it was, and as he had a dread of the fifth hour, his attendants informed him that the sixth had arrived. On hearing this he appeared reassured, as if all danger were past, and he was preparing to go to the bath, when he was stopped by Parthenius, the principal chamberlain, who informed him that a person demanded to speak with him on momentous business of state. He caused every one to retire, and entered his private closet. Here he found the person in question waiting for him, and whilst he listened with terror to the pretended revelation of some secret plot against himself, he was stabbed by this individual, and fell wounded to the ground. A band of conspirators, including the distinguished veteran Clodianus, Maximus a freedman, and Saturius the decurion of the palace, rushed in and despatched him with seven blows of a dagger. He was in the forty-fifth year of his age, and fifteenth of his reign. On receiving intelligence of his death, the senate elected Nerva as his successor.

1963 The Birmingham Church Bombing

In the early 1960s demands for voting rights and civil rights for African Americans were met by violence, particularly in the southern states. There, support for separation of the races was a deeply entrenched social belief and the Ku Klux Klan attracted many men (and women) who would fight for segregation. Increased media attention, the popularity of leaders such as Martin Luther King, Jr., and political considerations by the Kennedy regime in Washington turned up the pressure. Vigilante attacks on civil rights workers and those attempting to march or vote escalated to murder.

On the morning of Sunday, September 15, 1963 a bomb was placed outside Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church. The church had been active in organizing protests against segregation and this made it a target in the eyes of some. At 10:22, fifteen sticks of dynamite under the porch exploded killing four children and wounding 22 others. The dead were four little girls: Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson and Carol Denise McNair.

This atrocity did much to energize the civil rights movement and discredit southern segregationists but justice for the victims was not easily forthcoming. The federal government dispatched FBI agents to help in the investigation and the state of Alabama issued a paltry $5,000 reward for information. Martin Luther King condemned Governor George Wallace, a vociferous segregationist, telling him “the blood of four little children … is on your hands. Your irresponsible and misguided actions have created in Birmingham and Alabama the atmosphere that has induced continued violence and now murder.”

The FBI eventually identified 4 members of a Klan splinter group as the perpetrators — Thomas Blanton, Jr., Herman Frank Cash, Robert Chambliss, and Bobby Frank Cherry — but no federal action was taken against them while J. Edgar Hoover headed the FBI. In the 1970s a new Alabama Attorney General secured a murder conviction against Chambliss who had purchased the dynamite. In 2000 the federal government reopened the case and convicted the two surviving bombers, Cherry and Blanton, of murder, 37 years after the deed. All four of the accused maintained their innocence throughout.

490 B.C. Athens defeats the Persians at Marathon

Darius, the Persian emperor, was bent on expanding his realm into the Greek world. The help given by the newly-democratized city of Athens to Greek cities in Asia Minor in their resistance to Persia persuaded Darius to invade their territory with a huge fleet and army. He landed his army at Marathon, some 25 miles from Athens, because it was an area supposedly loyal to Hippias, a former Athenian tyrant who accompanied the Persians and who hoped to be restored as a puppet ruler under Darius.

Sparta declined to send help immediately to its fellow Greeks, using the excuse of a religious festival, but the small city of Plataea sent 1,000 men to aid the Athenian force of 9,000 hoplites — heavy infantry. Under Miltiades the Athenians blocked the Persians from moving inland and forced a battle, despite being outnumbered by at least 2 to 1. The Persians seem to have been taken by surprise by a sudden Greek charge, panicked, and were slaughtered in great numbers on the beach.

The Athenian victory was important because it convinced Greece that Persia was not unbeatable and because, had they lost the battle, their experiment with democracy would have ended.  

Ten years later, the son of Darius, Xerxes, returned to Greece with an even larger force and confronted the Hellenes in battles at Thermopylae, Salamis, and Plataea. 

The lifting of the siege of Malta

When we think of September 11 we are apt to most quickly remember the horrors visited on New York and the Pentagon in 2001, but there are many other noteworthy events which have taken place on that date. On this day in history William Wallace and his Scots defeated the English at Stirling Bridge, Oliver Cromwell’s troops stormed the Irish town of Drogheda and massacred the inhabitants, and the American consulate in Benghazi was overrun by Islamic militants.

Of more significance than any of those was the conclusion of the Great Siege of Malta in 1565. The Turkish emperor Suleiman the Magnificent had launched an expedition against the  pesky Knights of St John at Malta who dared to contest Islamic naval supremacy in the Mediterranean. 48,000 troops were landed on Malta from 150 ships — Barbary pirates, Turkish cavalry, regular Janissaries and sundry religious fanatics and volunteer adventurers, opposing 500 Knights of St John, 2500 Italian and Spanish infantry and a few thousand Maltese volunteers. The siege lasted for four months and was waged with intense cruelty and bravery on both sides. The Knights’ town and fort were pounded into rubble but they repelled every attack. In September 1565 the Turks finally sailed away leaving behind at least 25,000 dead. 

This victory and a naval battle at Lepanto in 1571 kept Italy safe from a Turkish invasion that would have spread Islam deeper into Europe.

384 The birth of a nincompoop

It was the ill-fortune of the Roman Empire at the beginning of the fifth century to be governed by a pair of useless twits, the sons of the capable Theodosius I, Honorius in the West and Arcadius in the East.

Honorius succeed to the imperial throne at the age of ten. As long as he was under the tutelage of Stilicho, the half-Vandal general who had married into the royal family, things went fairly smoothly: revolts were put down and barbarian invasions were thwarted. In 408, however, Honorius had Stilicho and his family murdered. This not only deprived him of an able general but prompted barbarian troops in the service of Rome to defect to the Visigoths, who in 410 sacked Rome while Honorius hid out in Ravenna. 

Thomas Hodgkin, the 19th-century historian and author of the massive Italy and her Invaders sums up the life of this hapless emperor:

Let us now turn from poetry to fact, and see what mark the real Honorius made upon the men and things that surrounded him. None. It is impossible to imagine a character more utterly destitute of moral colour, of self-determining energy, than that of the younger son of Theodosius. In Arcadius we do at length discover traces of uxoriousness, a blemish in some rulers, but which becomes almost a merit in him when contrasted with the absolute vacancy, the inability to love, to hate, to think, to execute, almost to be, which marks the impersonal personality of Honorius. After earnestly scrutinising his life to discover some traces of human emotion under the stolid mask of his countenance, we may perhaps pronounce with some confidence on the three following points.

1. He perceived, through life, the extreme importance of keeping the sacred person of the Emperor of the West out of the reach of danger.

2. He was, at any rate in youth, a sportsman.

3. In his later years he showed considerable interest in the rearing of poultry.

 

 

1397 The murder of the Duke of Gloucester

The arrest and murder of Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, is one of the most tragical episodes of English history. However guilty he might be, the proceedings against him were executed with such treachery and cruelty, as to render them revolting to humanity. He was the seventh and youngest son of Edward III, and consequently the uncle of Richard II. Being himself a resolute and warlike man, he was dissatisfied with what he considered the unprincipled and pusillanimous conduct of his nephew, and, either from a spirit of patriotism or ambition, or, more probably, a combination of both, he promoted two or three measures against the king, more by mere words than by acts. On confessing this to the king, and expressing his sorrow for it, he was promised forgiveness, and restored to the royal favour. Trusting to this reconciliation, he was residing peaceably in his castle at Pleshy, near London, where be received a visit from the king, not only without suspicion, but with the fullest confidence of his friendly intentions. The incident is thus touchingly related by Froissart, a contemporary chronicler:

The king went after dinner, with part of his retinue, to Fleshy, about five o’clock. The Duke of Gloucester had already supped; for he was very sober, and sat but a short time at table, either at dinner or supper. He came to meet the king, and honoured him as we ought to honour our lord, so did the duchess and her children, who were there. The king entered the hall, and thence into the chamber. A table was spread for the king, and he supped a little. He said to the duke: “Fair uncle! have your horses saddled: but not all; only five or six; you must accompany me to London; we shall find there my uncles Lancaster and York, and I mean to be governed by your advice on a request they intend making to me. Bid your maitre-d’hotel follow you with your people to London.”

The duke, who thought no ill from it, assented to it pleasantly enough. As soon as the king had supped, and all were ready, the king took leave of the duchess and her children, and mounted his horse. So did the duke, who left Fleshy with only three esquires and four varlets. They avoided the high-road to London, but rode with speed, conversing on various topics, till they came to Stratford. The king then pushed on before him, and the earl marshal came suddenly behind him, with a great body of horsemen, and springing on the duke, said: “I arrest you in the king’s name!” The duke, astonished, saw that he was betrayed, and cried with a loud voice after the king. I do not know if the king heard him or not, but he did not return, but rode away.’

The duke was then hurried off to Calais, where he was placed in the hands of some of the king’s minions, under the Duke of Norfolk. Two of these ruffians, Serle, a valet of the king’s, and Franceys, a valet of the Duke of Albemarle, then told the Duke of Gloucester, that ‘it was the king’s will that he should die. He answered, that if it was his will, it must be so. They asked him to have a chaplain, he agreed, and confessed. They then made him lie down on a bed; the two valets threw a feather-bed upon him; three other persons held down the sides of it, while Serle and Franceys pressed on the mouth of the duke till he expired, three others of the assistants all the while on their knees weeping and praying for his soul, and Halle keeping guard at the door.  When he was dead, the Duke of Norfolk came to them, and saw the dead body.

The body of the Duke of Gloucester was conveyed with great pomp to England, and first buried in the abbey of Pleshy, his own foundation, in a tomb which he himself had provided for the purpose. Subsequently, his remains were removed to Westminster, and deposited in the king’s chapel, under a marble slab inlaid with brass. Immediately after his murder, his widow, who was the daughter of Humphry de Bohun, Earl of Hereford, became a nun in the abbey of Barking; at her death she was buried beside her husband in Westminster Abbey.

A good day for terror.

1793

The French Revolution institute the Reign  of Terror.

“Let’s make terror the order of the day!” said the French politician Bertrand Barère in the National Assembly. The revolutionaries of 1793 were afraid both of the unpredictable violence of the Parisian mob and the gathering forces of counter-revolution, so they launched an attack not only on the aristocrats and clergy but also political moderates such as the Girondists. Over 16,000 death sentences were passed in less than a year. Former leaders of the Revolution such as Georges Danton, Louis Hébert, and Camille Desmoulins, found themselves being sent to the guillotine by their old comrades. Maximilien Robespierre explained the ideological underpinnings of this bloody project: “If the basis of popular government in peacetime is virtue, the basis of popular government during a revolution is both virtue and terror; virtue, without which terror is baneful; terror, without which virtue is powerless. Terror is nothing more than speedy, severe and inflexible justice; it is thus an emanation of virtue; it is less a principle in itself, than a consequence of the general principle of democracy, applied to the most pressing needs of the patrie.”

But the Revolution always eats its own children. In July 1794 Robespierre and his followers were executed and the steam went out of the Terror.

1918

The Bolsheviks unleash the Red Terror.

The assassination of Moisei Uritsky, the secret police chief in St Petersburg, and the attempt on the life of Vladimir Lenin led the Bolshevik secret police, the Cheka, on the orders of Lenin, to issue the decree “On Red Terror”. Frightful violence against class enemies was necessary to save the Revolution. It was not necessary to have actually done anything to merit death. Martin Latsis, the head of the Chekists in Ukraine, proclaimed: “Do not look in the file of incriminating evidence to see whether or not the accused rose up against the Soviets with arms or words. Ask him instead to which class he belongs, what is his background, his education, his profession. These are the questions that will determine the fate of the accused. That is the meaning and essence of the Red Terror.” Communist leader Grigory Zinoviev declared: “To overcome our enemies we must have our own socialist militarism. We must carry along with us 90 million out of the 100 million of Soviet Russia’s population. As for the rest, we have nothing to say to them. They must be annihilated.”  And annihilated they were, by gunfire, drowning, burning, crucifixion, live burial, and starvation. It aroused similar atrocities by the White counter-revolutionary forces and inspired other Communist revolutions to practise their own Terrors.  As is usual, the perpetrators themselves were later victims of their own methods: Latsis, Zinoviev and Leon Trotsky (see illustration above) and many more of the Bolshevik revolutionaries of 1918 perished at the hands of their former colleagues.

1715 The death of Louis XIV

I did my master’s thesis in History on a book of political philosophy commissioned for the son of Louis XIV. I find that I am much less generous to the memory of the man than the English author of this 19th-century assessment.

Louis XIV had reigned over France for seventy-two years. He had been allowed to assume power beyond his predecessors; he had been idolised to a degree unknown to any other European sovereign. His wars, though latterly unfortunate, had greatly contributed to raise him in the eyes of his subjects. He had enlarged his dominions, and planted a grandson on the throne of Spain. As specially Le Grand Monarque amongst all contemporary sovereigns, he was viewed even by neighbouring nations as a being somewhat superior to common humanity. It becomes curious to see how such a demi-god could die.

Up to the 23^rd of August 1715, Louis was able to attend council and transact business; for two days more, he could listen to music and converse with his courtiers. About seven in the evening of the 25th, the musicians came as usual to entertain him; but he felt himself too unwell to receive them, and his medical advisers were called instead. It was seen that his hour was approaching, and the last offices of religion were that night administered to him.

Next day, after mass, he called to his bedside the cardinals De Rohan and De Billi, in presence of Madame de Maintenon (his wife), the Father Tellier, the chancellor, and other officers, and said to them ‘I die in the faith and submission of the church. I am not instructed in the matters which trouble her, but have followed your counsels, and uniformly done what you desired. If I have done amiss, you will be answerable before God, who is now my witness.’ The two cardinals made no other answer than by eulogiums on his conduct: he was destined to be flattered to the last moment of his life.

Immediately after, the king said: ‘I again take God to witness that I have never borne hatred to the Cardinal de Noailles; I have always been distressed by what I have done against him; but it was what they told me I ought to do.’ Thereupon, Blouin, Fagon, and Mareschal asked in elevated tones: ‘Will they not allow the king to see his archbishop, to mark the reconciliation? The king, who understood them, declared that, far from having any objection, he desired it, and ordered the chancellor to make the archbishop come to him— ‘If these gentlemen,’ he said, looking to the two cardinals, ‘do not find it inconvenient.’ It was a critical moment for them.

To leave the conqueror of heresy to die in the arms of a heretic was a great scandal in their eyes. They withdrew into the recess of a window to deliberate with the confessor, the chancellor, and Madame de Maintenon. Tellier and Billi judged the interview too dangerous, and induced Madame de Maintenon to think so likewise; Rohan and the chancellor, having the future in view, neither opposed nor approved; all, once more approaching the bed, renewed their praises of the delicacy of the royal conscience, and told him that such a step could not but subject the good cause to the triumph of its enemies—nevertheless, they were willing to see the archbishop come, if he would give the king his promise to accept the constitution. The timid prince submitted to their advice, and the chancellor wrote in consequence to the archbishop. Noailles felt keenly this last stroke of his enemies, answered with respect, but did not accept the conditions, and could not see the king. From that time he was nothing but an ingrate and a rebel, and they spoke of him no more, in order that the king might die in peace.

The same morning, the king had the infant Dauphin (his great-grandchild, subsequently Louis XV) brought to him by the Duchess de Ventadour, and addressed him in these words: ‘My child, you will soon be the sovereign of a great kingdom: what I most strongly recommend to you, is that you never forget your obligations to God; remember you owe Him all that you are. Endeavour to preserve peace with your neighbours. I have loved war too much. Do not imitate me in that, nor in my too great expenditure. Take counsel in all things; seek to know the best, that you may follow it. Relieve your people as much as you can, and do for them that which I have had the misfortune not to be able to do for them myself. Do not forget the great obligations you are under to Madame de Ventadour. For me, madam,’ turning to her, ‘I am sorry not to be in a condition more emphatically to mark my gratitude to you.’ He ended by saying to the Dauphin: ‘My dear child, I give you my blessing with all my heart;’ and he then embraced him twice with the greatest marks of tenderness.

The Duchess de Ventadour, seeing the king so moved, took away the Dauphin. The king then received, in succession, the princes and princesses of the blood, and spoke to them all, but separately to the Duc d’Orleans and the legitimate children, whom he had made come first. He rewarded all his domestics for the services they had rendered him, and recommended them to show the same attachment to the Dauphin.

After dinner, the king addressed those about him. ‘ Gentlemen, I ask your pardon for the bad example I have given you. I would wish to show my sense of the manner in which you have always served me, my sense of your invariable attachment and fidelity. I am extremely vexed not to have been able to do for you all I wished to do. I ask you for my great-grandson the same attachment and fidelity you have shewn to me. I hope you will all stand unitedly round him, and that, if any one breaks away, you will aid in bringing him back. I feel that I am giving way too much, and making you give way too—pray, pardon me. Adieu, gentlemen; I reckon upon your occasionally remembering me.’

On Tuesday the 27th, when the king had no one beside him but Madame de Maintenon and the chancellor, he caused to be brought to him two caskets, from which he directed numerous papers to be taken out and burned, and gave orders to the chancellor regarding the remainder. Subsequently to this, he ordered his confessor to be called, and after speaking to him in a low voice, made the Count of Ponchartrain approach, and instructed him to carry out his commands relative to conveying his heart to the Jesuits’ convent, and depositing it there opposite that of his father, Louis XIII.

With the same composure, Louis caused the plan of the castle of Vincennes to be taken from a casket, and sent to the grand marshal of the household, to enable him to make preparations for the residence of the court, and conducting thither the young king—such were the words used. He employed also occasionally the expression, In the time that I was king; and then, addressing himself to Madame de Maintenon, said: ‘I have always heard that it is a difficult thing to die; I am now on the verge of this predicament, and I do not find the process of dissolution so painful a one.’ Madame de Maintenon replied, that such a moment was terrible when we still cherished an attachment to the world and had restitutions to make. ‘As an individual,’ rejoined the king, ‘I owe restitution to no one; and as regards what I owe the kingdom, I trust in the mercy of God. I have duly confessed myself; my confessor declares that I have a great reliance in God; I have it with all my heart.’

How indubitable a security was Father Tellier for the conscience of a king! The following day (Wednesday) Louis, as he was conversing with his confessor, beheld in the glass two of his servants who were weeping at the foot of his bed. ‘Why do you weep,’ said he, ‘did you think I was immortal? My age should have prepared you for my death.’ Then looking to Madame de Maintenon, ‘What consoles me in quitting you, is the hope that we shall soon be reunited in eternity!’ She made no reply to this farewell, which did not appear at all agreeable to her. ‘Bolduc, the first apothecary, assured me,’ says Duclos, ‘that Madame de Maintenon said, as she left the room: “See the appointment which he makes with me! this man has never loved any one but himself.” Such an expression, the authenticity of which I would not guarantee, as the principal domestics bore her no good-will, is more suitable to the widow of Scarron [her first husband] than to a queen.’ However this may be, Madame de Maintenon departed immediately for Saint-Cyr, with the intention of remaining there.

A Marseille empiric, named Lebrun, made his appearance with an elixir, which he announced as a remedy for the gangrene which was advancing so rapidly in the king’s leg. The physicians, having abandoned all hope, allowed the king to take a few drops of this liquid, which seemed to revive him, but he speedily relapsed; a second dose was presented, his attendants telling him at the same time that it was to recall him to life. ‘To life or to death,’ said the king, taking the glass, ‘whatever pleases God.’ He then asked his confessor for a general absolution.

Since the king had taken to his bed, the court had gathered in a marked manner around the Duke of Orleans [the future regent]; but the king having apparently rallied on Thursday, this favourable symptom was so exaggerated, that the duke found himself alone.

The king having noticed the absence of Madame de Maintenon, exhibited some chagrin, and asked for her several times. She returned speedily, and said that she had gone to unite her prayers with those of her daughters, the virgins of Saint-Cyr. Throughout the following day, the 30th, she remained beside the king till the evening, and then seeing his faculties becoming confused, she went to her own room, divided her furniture among her servants, and returned to Saint-Cyr, from which she no more emerged.

From this time, Louis had but slight intervals of consciousness, and thus was spent Saturday the 31^st. About eleven o’clock at night, the curé, the Cardinal de Rohan, and the ecclesiastics of the palace came to repeat the prayers appointed for those in the agonies of death. The ceremony recalled the dying monarch to himself; he uttered the responses to the prayers with a loud voice, and still recognising the Cardinal de Rohan, said to him: ‘These are the last benefits of the church.’ Several times he repeated: ‘My God, come to my aid; haste to succour me’, and thereupon fell into an agony, which terminated in death on Sunday the 1^st September, at eight o’clock in the morning.

‘Although,’ remarks Voltaire, ‘the life and death of Louis XIV were glorious, he was not so deeply regretted as he deserved. The love of novelty, the approach of a minority in which each one anticipated to make his fortune, the constitution dispute which soured men’s minds, all made the intelligence of his death be received with a feeling which went further than indifference. We have seen the same people, which, in 1686, had besought from Heaven with tears the recovery of its sick king, follow his funeral procession with very different demonstrations . . . . Notwithstanding his being blamed for littleness, for severities in his zeal against Jansenism, an overweening degree of arrogance in success towards foreigners, a weakness in female relationships, too much rigour in personal matters, wars lightly entered upon, the Palatinate given over to the flames, and the persecution of the adherents of the reformed doctrines, still his great qualities and actions, when placed in the balance, outweigh his defects. Time, which ripens the opinions of men, has set its seal on his reputation; and in despite of all that has been written against him, his name will never be pronounced without respect, and without conjuring up the idea of an epoch memorable through all ages. If we regard this prince in his private life, we see him, it is true, too full of his exalted position, but withal affable, refusing to his mother any share in the government, but fulfilling towards her all the duties of a son, and observing towards his wife all the externals of good-breeding; a good father, a good master, always decorous in public, hard-working in council, exact in business, just in thought, eloquent in speech, and amiable with dignity.’

Shooting and killing and such on this date

1813 Fort Mims Massacre

In 1813 a war broke out in present-day Alabama between white settlers and an anti-white faction of the Creek tribe, known as the Red Sticks. Vowing revenge for a white militia attack on a Creek pack train at the Battle of Burnt Corn, a 1,000-man force of Red Sticks attacked Fort Mims, which sheltered hundreds of whites, their black slaves, and mixed-race farmers.  After storming the gates, a bloody massacre ensued in which about 500 settlers were killed. (The slaves were spared but taken captive). The battle prompted initial panic and an armed response. The climactic Battle of Horseshoe Bend in 1814 resulted in an American victory over the Creeks and gained fame for the victorious general, Andrew Jackson.

1914 Battle of Tannenberg 

The German master plan for World War I envisioned first using most of its forces in fighting an offensive war against France on the Western Front, and maintaining a smaller army in the East for a defensive war against the Russian Empire. Once France had been conquered, the German army would then turn on the Russians who, it was believed, would be slower to mobilize. The Russians launched an attack on East Prussia in August 1914 and, at first, succeeded in driving the Germans back. The High Command in Berlin then sacked its military leadership in the East and replaced it with two new generals, Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff. With a more aggressive attitude, the two succeeded in smashing the Russians and forcing them out of East Prussia. The fame that this accrued the two led to their achieving a sort of military dictatorship over German from 1916-18. After the war both generals became involved in ultra-nationalist politics; Hindenburg was elected president of the Weimar Republic from 1925-34.

1918 Attempted Assassination of Vladimir Lenin

The Russian Revolution was a battle of coalitions. The Bolshevik wing of the Communist Party, led by Lenin, initially counted on the support of the left wing of the Socialist Revolutionaries but the two factions fell out early in 1918. One Left SR, Fanny Kaplan, who had been jailed under the Tsarist regime for a terrorist plot, approached Lenin as he emerged from a speech and shot at him three times with a pistol. Two bullets struck him in the neck and lung and he was rushed away for treatment. Kaplan told her captors: “My name is Fanya Kaplan. Today I shot Lenin. I did it on my own. I will not say from whom I obtained my revolver. I will give no details. I had resolved to kill Lenin long ago. I consider him a traitor to the Revolution.” She was soon executed by the Cheka, the Bolshevik secret police. This attempt, though a failure, had grave consequences: it prompted the Red Terror and probably hastened the death of Lenin who never quite recovered, leaving the Soviet project in the hands of Joseph Stalin.

1916 Birth of an under-rated author

Reputation is a fickle goddess; she attaches herself to the most undeserving of characters while those who truly merit fame often go unrecognized. This is certainly true for authors of fiction. Prolific drones like Margaret Atwood or Gore Vidal are lauded, while superior writers are condemned to ignominy because they are classified as “genre” writers. I will today, in a small way, make up for that by bringing to your attention the writing of Jack Vance.

The career of John Holbrook “Jack” Vance spanned a seventy-year period in which he won plaudits for his works of fantasy, science fiction and crime under his own name and pseudonyms including “Ellery Queen”. 

Vance was a master of plotting, dry wit, and, best of all, strange possible cultures. He might be termed the greatest sociologist of speculative fiction. To read a Vance novel is to be plunged into worlds where all communication might be sung, or where automation has been banned, or where the choice of the mask you wear determines your social status.

For fantasy fans I recommend the Lyonesse trilogy, for lovers of picaresque derring-do there are the Demon Princes novels and the Planet of Adventure series. You can find humour in the detections of Magnus Rudolph or Space Opera. The Pleasant Grove and Fox Valley Murders and the Cadwal Chronicles will tax your powers of deduction. My personal favourites are “The Moon Moth”, Emphyrio, and The Face. Give Vance a try; he will not disappoint.