Christmas Every Day

Funeral of Sir John Paston

One of the greatest sources for the writing of English social history for the fifteenth century is that collection of the correspondence of a Norfolk gentry family, known as the “Paston Letters.” (A look at the sample of Paston handwriting above will tell you why I chose to base my early-modern English research on printed sources.) In 1466 Sir John Paston, the head of that wealthy family, died; Chamber’s Book of Days records interesting notes about the funeral.

The body of Sir John was conveyed, for interment, to the Priory of Bromholm, in the parish of Barton, a little village on the north-cast coast, and within sight of the sea. A curious roll of accounts of the expenses of the funeral is preserved, from which we gather that for the feast, during three continuous days, one man was occupied in flaying beasts: and provision was made of thirteen barrels of beer, twenty-seven barrels of ale, one barrel of beer of the greatest assize, and a runlet of red wine of fifteen gallons. 

All these, however, copious as they seem, proved inadequate to the demand: for the account goes on to state that five coombs of malt at one time, and ten at another, were brewed up expressly for the occasion. Meat, ton, was in proportion to the liquor: the country round about must have been swept of geese, chickens, capons, and such small gear, all which, with thirteen hundred eggs, thirty gallons of milk, and eight of cream, forty-one pigs, forty calves, and ten ‘nete,’ slain and devoured, give a fearful picture of the scene of festivity within the priory walls. Amongst such provisions, the article of bread bears nearly the same proportion as in Falstaff’s bill of fare. On the other hand, the torches, the many pounds weight of wax to burn over the grave, and the separate candle of enormous stature and girth, form prodigious items. No less than £20 was changed from gold into smaller coin that it might be showered amongst the attendant throng; and twenty-six marks in copper had been used for the same object in London, before the procession began to move. A barber was occupied five days in smartening up the monks for the ceremony: and ‘the reke of the torches at the dirge’ was so great that the glazier had to remove two panes to permit the fumes to escape.

1838 The Weenen Massacre

The British seizure of Dutch territory in South Africa as a result of the Napoleonic Wars did not sit well with many of the long-established rural settlers. They made three major complaints about British rule: (1) they were not sufficiently protected against native raids on their farms, (2) many British laws, such as the imposition of English as the official language, were resented, and (3) the British abolition of slavery cost them their farm labour with insufficient recompense. In addition, drought conditions caused them to look favourably on lusher land elsewhere. Starting in 1833 many farmers (Boers) began what came to be known as the Great Trek, moving north out of the Cape Colony beyond British jurisdiction.

Sometimes these Voortrekkers were able to come to accommodations with local tribes; sometimes their migration was resisted violently. In 1838 a trek led by Piet Retief negotiated a land settlement with Zulu king Dingane in Natal but when a subsequent delegation met with the king he ordered them to be seized as witches and executed on the spot. Dingane then ordered his warriors to wipe out other Trekker encampments — one such camp near the present town of Weenen was attacked on this date and 500 settlers and native servants were killed.

In December 1838 a small force of Trekkers defeated the Zulu at the Battle of Blood River and made their settlements secure for a time.

1692 The Glencoe Massacre

“Cruel is the snow that sweeps Glencoe and covers the graves o’ Donald” — T.S. Eliot

In the western Scottish Highlands is Glen Coe, a narrow valley of considerable beauty. There, on the morning of February 13, 1692, settlements inhabited by members of the MacDonald clan were set upon and murdered by troops associated with the Campbell clan, a massacre that is still remembered today.

In the fighting that took place after the 1688 ouster of King James II by his daughter Mary and her Dutch husband William of Orange, the highlanders were largely Jacobites — supporters of James. Following their defeat, the new King William offered a pardon to all clans who acknowledged his legitimacy with an oath taken by January 1, 1692. Some clan leaders delayed until the last moment and bad weather prevented one of them, Alastair Maclain, Chief of Glencoe, from doing so until after the deadline expired.

This technical lapse allowed some Scotsmen, hostile to the MacDonalds and highlanders in general, to plot the eradication of the clan. John Dalrymple, Secretary of State Over Scotland, was a lowlander with a desire to break the power of the clan system in northern Scotland. He conspired with leaders of clan Campbell who had a long-standing feud with the MacDonalds to carry out an exemplary extermination of their mutual enemies. He arranged to have troops commanded by a Campbell officer billeted in the homes of Glencoe and to kill their hosts at a pre-arranged time. This is the order given to Captain Robert Campbell who was staying at the house of the MacDonald chieftain:

You are hereby ordered to fall upon the rebells, the McDonalds of Glenco, and put all to the sword under seventy. you are to have a speciall care that the old Fox and his sones doe upon no account escape your hands, you are to secure all the avenues that no man escape. This you are to putt in execution att fyve of the clock precisely; and by that time, or very shortly after it, I’ll strive to be att you with a stronger party: if I doe not come to you att fyve, you are not to tarry for me, but to fall on. This is by the Kings speciall command, for the good & safety of the Country, that these miscreants be cutt off root and branch. See that this be putt in execution without feud or favour, else you may expect to be dealt with as one not true to King nor Government, nor a man fitt to carry Commissione in the Kings service. Expecting you will not faill in the full-filling hereof, as you love your selfe, I subscribe these with my hand  att Balicholis  Feb: 12, 1692.
For their Majesties service (signed) R. Duncanson

On the snowy morning of February 13, the troops in three valley settlements attacked the householders, killing 38 men and burning the homes. An additional 40 women and children would die from exposure having lost their shelter.

The killings created a scandal. The Scottish Parliament ordered an inquiry which declared the deed to be one of murder, an illegitimate order that should have been disobeyed. It demanded that the MacDonalds be recompensed and the guilty officials punished but little was done to enforce this.

The “Red Wedding” episode of Game of Thrones is said to have been based on this massacre.

1554

The execution of Lady Jane Grey

Under the rule of Edward VI (r 1547-53) England became a Protestant country with the Church of England the only legal religion. By 1553 it was clear that Edward did not have long to live and that the heir, according to the will of their father Henry VIII, would be the Catholic loyalist, Edward’s half-sister Mary. The Duke of Northumberland, John Dudley, was the power behind the throne and sought to divert the succession away from Mary by marrying his son Guilford to Lady Jane Grey, a reliably Protestant royal cousin. Edward agreed to this in his will and directed the English political class to submit to Jane on his death.

When Edward died on July 6, 1553, Northumberland kept the death a secret while he tried to gain support for the 16-year-old Jane and arrest Mary. Though Jane was proclaimed Queen, her supporters in the main deserted her for the claims of Mary who was deemed to be the legitimate heir and not the puppet of the unpopular Dudley. After a reign of only 9 days, Jane stepped down and was arrested and imprisoned in the Tower of London. She was found guilty of treason but was not executed.

Early in 1554 a Protestant rebellion led by  her father, the Duke of Suffolk, failed and in the aftermath he, Jane, and her husband were beheaded. England would be ruled by a Catholic who over the next four years would burn almost 300 Protestants at the stake and win the nickname Bloody Mary.

1990

Down goes Tyson

The most ferocious of all heavyweight boxing champions was Mike Tyson, who was also the youngest man to win the world title. He was fast and a tremendously hard hitter. It also helped that he was insane, a wife abuser, convicted rapist, an ear biter and capable of threatening to eat an opponent’s children. The sight of him charging across the ring in the first round was enough to cause faint hearts and trembling knees in those he faced.

In February 1990 he was at the peak of his form, with a 37-0 record, almost all by knockouts early in the fight. He had defeated creditable foes such as Larry Holmes, Trevor Berbick, James “Bonecrusher” Smith, and Michael Spinks.  His opponent in Tokyo was the little-regarded Buster Douglas, 29-4-1, who deemed to be a mere warm-up for a match later in the year with Evander Holyfield. Only one Las Vegas casino would even take a bet on the fight and the single one to do so offered odds of 42-1.

But from the beginning it was clear that Douglas had no fear of Tyson and refused to be bullied. His jab, with a 12-inch reach advantage, kept the shorter Tyson at bay and by the fifth round had created a dangerous lump above the champion’s left eye. Tyson seemed to believe he could end the fight with a single blow and was willing to trade punches, a tactic that seemed to work in the 8th round when he felled Douglas with an uppercut. Taking advantage of what seemed to be a long count, Douglas was able to regain his feet. Tyson’s aggression was reawoken, but to no avail. In the ninth and tenth rounds Douglas battered him into submission, finally knocking Tyson off his feet for the first time in his career. The dazed champion could not beat the count and Buster Douglas was declared the winner of what was called the most amazing upset in boxing history.

Alas for Douglas. He declined a rematch with Tyson and elected to fight up-and-coming Evander Holyfield. During his nine-month reign he had let himself get fat and lazy and was knocked out in the third round. His career was over but his fight with Tyson is part of boxing history.

1945

Daring escape from Peenemünde

In July 1944 Soviet pilot Mikhail Devyatayev was shot down over Poland and made a prisoner of war by the Germans. He was held in a series of concentration camps (Nazis treated Soviet prisoners much more harshly than those captured on the Western Front) and was eventually sent as a slave labourer to the missile site at Peenemünde, on an island in the Baltic. There Germany developed the V-1 and V-2 missiles that were used against Britain late in the war and where conditions for the slaves were brutal.

Devyatayev was determined to escape and convinced other Russian prisoners to join his plan. On February 8, 1945 ten captives overpowered their guards and made for the airfield where the camp commandant had landed his Heinkel bomber. Devyatayev piloted the craft back to Soviet territory despite Luftwaffe attempts to shoot him down and fire from Soviet air defences.

The daring prisoners were not, however, treated as heroes. The paranoid Soviet authorities were scornful of their story. Devyatayev was thrown in jail (a common fate for returned prisoners, especially officers) and the others were posted to penal battalions where they were assigned the most dangerous duties and from which only a battle wound could release them. Five of them died before the war ended. As a “criminal” Devyatayev had a miserable post-war existence until 1957 when he was finally cleared on the testimony of rocket scientists who affirmed that his information about the German programs was correct. He was then rehabilitated and given military decorations.

1968

Death of The Rebel

There was a day when every self-respecting tv series had a catchy theme song, particularly westerns. To this day I sing the lyrics of the Disney oater “Texas John Slaughter” — “Texas John Slaughter made ’em do what they oughter/ And if they didn’t they died.”  And how about Bonanza? “We chased lady luck, ’til we finally struck Bonanza!/ With a gun and a rope and a hat full of hope, planted a family tree. /We got hold of a pot full of gold, Bonanza!”One of the catchiest of these ditties was the theme for “The Rebel” 

Johnny Yuma, was a rebel, 
He roamed, through the west. 
And Johnny Yuma, was a rebel, 
He wandered alone. 

He got fightin’ mad, 
This rebel lad, 
He packed his star as he wandered far 
Where the only law was a hook and a draw, the rebel. 

On this day in 1968 died Nick Adams, the eponymous rebel who, as you may have heard, roamed through the west. Adams was a relentlessly self-promoting actor known for such classics as Invasion of Astro-Monster and Frankenstein Conquers the World before landing the lead role in The Rebel which ran from 1959-1961. His death was the result of a drug overdose.

1985 End of the Third Punic War

The Punic Wars were waged between Carthage (a Phoenician-founded city, thus the name “Punic) and the Roman Republic in the third and second centuries B.C. Both were aggressive, bloody, expanding empires and it appeared that only one of them would survive to dominate the Mediterranean world.

The First Punic War (246-241 BC) was fought over control of the rich island of Sicily. The Romans were victorious and Carthage then turned its eyes toward dominating the Iberian peninsula. The Second Punic War (218-201 BC) began with the invasion of Italy by a Carthaginian army from Spain led by Hannibal. Though he was never defeated on Italian soil, Hannibal never succeeded in either taking Rome or causing Rome’s alliances to fall apart. When Roman forces landed near Carthage, Hannibal was called home to defend the city. He suffered his only defeat at the Battle of Zama and the Carthaginian empire was reduced to a small area of North Africa.

The revival of Carthage over the next fifty years led some Roman politicians to call for the final extinction of their rival. “Cartago delenda est!” — Carthage must be destroyed — became the watchword. In 146 BC, Carthage was overrun by Roman troops after a lengthy siege, the city was burnt to the ground and its inhabitants were sold into slavery.

In 1985 the mayor of Rome and the honorary mayor of Carthage met to put an end to bad feelings, signing a symbolic friendship and collaboration pact in a ceremony at the ruins of ancient Carthage outside Tunis.

1981 Australia’s shame: the underarm bowling affair

Australians have a reputation as ruthless athletic competitors. Cricket is a sport which prides itself on gentlemanly behaviour. Sometimes these two impulses collide, as in the case of the infamous end to a one-day international match between Australia and New Zealand.

One ball remained to be bowled with Australia leading, but should the New Zealand batter, Brian McKechnie, hit it in the air out of the field of play, he would score six runs and New Zealand would win. In order to make that strike impossible, Australian captain Greg Chappell instructed the bowler, his brother Trevor, to roll the ball underhand along the ground. This was entirely legal but very much not “in the spirit of the game”.

As Trevor Chappell bowled, his other brother Ian, in the commentary box reporting on the game, cried out “No, Greg, no, you can’t do that!” Richie Benaud, a famed Australian cricketer and former captain, was commentating on television and instantly voiced his dismay. He called it  “disgraceful” and said it was “one of the worst things I have ever seen done on a cricket field.” The New Zealand Prime Minister was no less heated.  He said Chappell’s decision “an act of true cowardice” and he considered it appropriate that the Australian team were wearing yellow. Even the Australian Prime Minister said it was against the traditions of the sport.

Greg Chappell soon regretted his actions and blamed it on fatigue. Thirty-nine years later the incident is still remembered and considered a black day in Australian sporting history. And that’s why I love cricket.

1929 Leon Trotsky is expelled from the Soviet Union

Lev Davidovich Bronstein (1879-1940), better known to the world by the name he borrowed from one of his prison guards, “Leon Trotsky”, was a highly-influential thinker and activist during the Russian Revolution.

Trotsky became a Marxist and involved in radical politics in his late teens. He spent years in political prisons and was exiled to Siberia where he became convinced that revolution was necessary in the Russian Empire. He escaped from Siberia in 1902 and moved to London where he joined himself to the Russian Communist Party whose leadership had gone either underground or into exile. Trotsky sided with the Menshevik minority against V.I. Lenin’s Bolsheviks who wanted a small conspiratorial party to guide the workers into rebellion.

Trotsky returned home to play a large role in the unsuccessful 1905 Revolution and helped form the first “soviets” but he was arrested and sentenced again to Siberian imprisonment. Again, he escaped and again fled to England and then to Austria where he edited the Pravda newspaper.

When World War I broke out, Trotsky was forced into a series of moves, from France, to Spain, to the U.S., to a prison camp in Canada, and finally back to Russia in 1917 where he found that the Romanov dynasty had been overthrown and a provisional democratic government was in power. He joined with Lenin and the Bolsheviks in bringing down that democracy; in the Civil War which followed he achieved fame and party  prominence by forming the Red Army and achieving a victory that resulted in the formation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. He was an architect of the Red Terror and its wartime atrocities.

Trotsky’s rapid rise made him enemies in high places. After the death of Lenin, he was constantly outmaneuvered in party politics by Joseph Stalin who was more concerned with building “Socialism in One Country” than Trotsky’s insistence that the Communist revolution had to be spread internationally. In 1929 Trotsky was expelled to Turkey. He would live out the rest of his life in exile, fulminating against Stalinism and forming a Trotskyist opposition movement. Stalin would systematically murder his family and supporters inside the USSR and send hit squads out to assassinate him. One finally succeeded: in 1940 Trotsky was murdered in his Mexican refuge.