Maggie's Gospel: The Sermon on the Mound (Thursday 18 November)

Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in May 1979. In 1981 Ronald Reagan assumed office as President of the United States and Francois Mitterand was elected President of France. The next year, 1982, saw the election of Helmut Kohl as Chancellor of the Federal Republic of (West) Germany. Thatcher retained office for 11 years, Reagan for eight (the maximum permitted), Mitterand for 14, and Kohl for 16. Whatever anyone thinks of their politics - and they all, inevitably, faced crises and controversy - they were giants of late twentieth century history. It is worthwhile to observe also that Leonid Brezhnev, long-serving leader of the Soviet Union, died in November 1982, to be succeeded eventually, from 1985, by Mikhail Gorbachev, whose reforms went further than even he imagined.

Margaret Thatcher had been Prime Minister for nine years when, on 21 May 1988, she addressed the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. The General Assembly Hall is situated on the artificial hill in Edinburgh known as the Mound.

In her address, which came to be known as 'the Sermon on the Mound', Thatcher offered a theological justification for her ideas on capitalism and the market economy. What was expected to be merely a formal engagement became the focus of a storm of controversy about politics, faith and morality.

Thatcher emphasised individualism, choice and wealth production while making an idiosyncratic and ambivalent reference to democracy. She stressed the individual's responsibility to take care of themselves. She said, 'Christianity is about spiritual redemption, not social reform.' She linked the idea of free will with consumer choice. She praised the role of private enterprise in wealth production, quoting St Paul's letter to the Thessalonians: 'If a man will not work he shall not eat.' On democracy she observed, 'Nowhere in the Bible is the word democracy mentioned.'

Thatcher was preaching to a church and a nation that had mostly rejected her ideology, but the reverberations of the speech travelled far beyond Scotland. For those of us who lived, vividly, through the Thatcher years it is easy now to overlook the fact that she was ousted from the premiership by her own party's MPs 31 years ago. 

For our November lecture we welcome Dr Clifford Williamson of Bath Spa University who will seek to reevaluate 'the Sermon on the Mound' and its contribution to our understanding of Margaret Thatcher and the political ideology associated with her.

Mike Short

Medieval Queens: Ruling Women in a Man's World (Thursday 21 October)

The names of many medieval queens are readily recognised by people who read and study the history of the Middle Ages: Eleanor of Aquitaine (1122-1204), Isabella I of Castile (1451-1504), Empress Matilda (1102-1167) and Margaret of Anjou (1430-1482) are examples.

Few were queens regnant, ruling as monarchs in their own right. Isabella I of Castile was. She married Ferdinand II of Aragon, uniting the two realms and laying the foundations of Spain and, famously in 1492, sending Columbus to the New World. Margaret I of Denmark (1353-1412) was queen regnant. Empress Matilda, married to the future Holy Roman Emperor Henry V, would have been queen regnant of England if the wishes of her father, Henry I, had been fulfilled.

Medieval queens were usually the wives or mothers of kings. Given the tendency of royal families to intermarry they were often the sisters or daughters of kings too. They were women who lived in and probably ran the royal households. They were very close to the centres of power, knew what was going on and were commonly kings' most trusted advisers. When a king travelled to distant realms, perhaps to defend or gain territory, he might well appoint his wife regent to assume the responsibilities of day-to-day government in his place. Matilda of Scotland (1080-1118) was the wife and regent of Henry I of England. Philippa of Hainault (1313-1369) fulfilled the same roles for Edward III. The formidable Margaret of Anjou was Henry VI's wife and regent.

Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitaine in her own right, merits a lecture - and more - to herself. She was married first to King Louis VII of France, then to Henry II of England. Among her ten children were a count and countesses of Champagne, Blois and Poitiers, a duchess of Saxony, a duke of Brittany, queens of Castile and Sicily, and King Richard I and King John of England.

These were women who ruled, at least some of the time, in the 'man's world' of medieval Europe. Who some of them were and how they were able to exercise power and influence is the focus of Dr Ellie Woodacre's lecture on 21 October. Ellie is Reader in Renaissance History at the University of Winchester.

Mike Short  

Building a Righteous Nation: Religion in the political construction and disintegration of the United States 1787-1861 (Thursday 23 September)

Religious conviction and affiliation have been and remain fundamental components of being American since the first ships carried hundreds of Europeans across the Atlantic Ocean in the seventeenth century in search of new lives. Many who settled and founded colonies along the eastern seaboard of North America sought the freedom to worship in ways they believed to be correct. The Rhode Island colony was founded on the principle of religious freedom, while some Puritans, who had left Europe to escape persecution for their beliefs, expelled dissenters from their own communities. Quakers founded Pennsylvania, Catholics Maryland. Lutherans and members of small Christian sects came from the German states. Jewish refugees fleeing Dutch Brazil settled on Long Island (New Amsterdam/York).

As the War of American Independence (1775-1783) brought together the thirteen colonies of British America and a new nation was born, religious freedom was a primary concern of the Founding Fathers. Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and George Washington were all active in their local churches but keen to avoid religious dogma and strife. The Constitution of the United States, written in 1787 and ratified in 1788, had a strong secular character, and its First Amendment (1791), part of the Bill of Rights, sought to ensure freedom of religion.

Our first speaker of the new season, Professor Richard Carwardine, has taken 1787 as the starting point for his lecture Building a Righteous Nation: Religion in the political construction and disintegration of the United States 1787-1861. The 'disintegration' of his title relates to the American Civil War (1861-1865). Its central cause was slavery. The schism was between the Northern states (the Union) and the South (the Confederate States of America). Methodists, Northern Baptists and Congregationalists usually supported the war effort, though Catholics, Episcopalians, Lutherans and conservative Presbyterians were wary of dividing their members. Richard Carwardine has argued that many Methodists regarded the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 as heralding the arrival of the kingdom of God in America. The Confederate States were overwhelmingly Protestant. Both free people and slaves identified with evangelical Protestantism, but slavery divided the evangelical denominations.

Some members will remember Richard Carwardine speaking on Abraham Lincoln: Myth, Legacy and Reality at Green Park Station in February 2012. Those who do will be pleased to welcome him back to Bath for what is likely to be a stimulating lecture.

Mike Short            

The 2021-22 season

 A new season of lectures and visits beckons the members and supporters of the Historical Association's Bath branch. We must all hope that it is able to proceed without let or hindrance after the Covid-related disruptions towards the end of the 2019-20 season and throughout 2020-21.

The branch committee was grateful for the enthusiastic support given by so many members to the two limited-audience lectures and four presented online using Zoom that did take place between September 2020 and May 2021.And what a joy it was for the 24 of us who were able to visit Old Bowlish House one afternoon in June under conditions that were almost normal.

As I write we do not yet know whether our occupancy of Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution will be affected by ongoing restrictions, but there are reasons to be optimistic. Any limit on numbers is likely to be much higher than was the case last autumn, and there may be no special limit at all. The branch itself may need to decide its own policy about the wearing of face coverings. This website will carry any relevant information, and members will be informed by email.

The new season incorporates seven lectures, one of which will be given using Zoom. A twice-postponed visit to the Merchant's House, Marlborough, is again planned for May. The branch committee hopes to be able to organise a special pre-Christmas event in December. There is likely to be another visit in June and a guided walk on the Lansdown battlefield. Other special events, including one in London, are being considered.

For now, it is a pleasure to be able to list for you the seven lectures for 2021-22 and one of the visits. Let us hope that they will take us forward to an even better 'normal'.

Thursday 23 September 2021

Building a Righteous Nation: Religion in the political construction and disintegration of the United States 1787-1861

Professor Richard Carwardine (Corpus Christi College, University of Oxford)

Thursday 21 October 2021

Medieval Queens: Ruling Women in a Man's World

Dr Ellie Woodacre (University of Winchester)

Thursday 18 November 2021

Maggie's Gospel: the Sermon on the Mound

Dr Clifford Williamson (Bath Spa University)

Thursday 20 January 2022

Illuminating conversion: manuscripts from the early Anglo-Saxon kingdoms

Professor Joanna Story (University of Leicester)

This lecture will be given using Zoom. It will not take place at Bath Royal.

Thursday 24 February 2022

Louis XVI and the French Revolution

Professor William Doyle (University of Bristol)

Thursday 24 March 2022

'That Epidemical Madness': Women and elections in eighteenth-century England

Professor Elaine Chalus (University of Liverpool)

Thursday 28 April 2022

Royal Attitudes to the Atlantic Slave Trade and Abolition in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries

Professor Suzanne Schwarz (University of Worcester)

Thursday 19 May 2022

Members' Visit to the Merchant's House, Marlborough

All lectures will begin at 7.30 pm at Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution, 16-18 Queen Square. I will introduce each lecture in this diary.

Finally, a note about BRLSI. Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution - known variously as 'Brizzly' or 'Brilsi' - has decided to rebrand as 'Bath Royal'. The Historical Association wishes it well and looks forward to continuing to enjoy its facilities.

Mike Short 

Europe's Great Witch Hunt (Thursday 22 October)

Belief in supernatural powers and in the existence of individuals who are able to communicate with and manipulate them pervades all human history. Such powers and such individuals may be regarded as benign and beneficent, but some may be thought malign and harmful. From the Middle Ages until the eighteenth century many people who professed skills in the use of spells and potions or who challenged religious and intellectual orthodoxy or who were in some way 'odd' were liable to be accused of practising witchcraft and being witches.

In Europe from about 1200 to 1500 various individuals and groups who challenged aspects of Roman Catholic doctrine were likely to be accused of collaboration with the devil or devils. The development of printing from the 1430s aided the spread of 'heresy'. The Dominicans were prominent among those who hunted and prosecuted 'witches'.

During the religious turmoil of the sixteenth century both Catholics and Protestants persecuted witches. The peak period for prosecutions for witchcraft was from about 1580 to about 1630. Mass witch trials accompanied by hundreds of executions took place in Catholic southern Germany, in Trier (1581-1593), Fulda (1603-1606), Wurzberg (1626-1631) and Bamberg (also 1626-1631). There were witch trials in the Basque Country (1609-1611). Witches were pursued with intensity in Protestant Scotland. In the 1590s King James VI set up royal commissions to hunt down witches and in 1597 published Daemonologie, describing the menace witches posed to society.

By the mid seventeenth century the phenomenon of witch trials was in decline, though major trials of alleged witches still took place in Austria (Salzburg, 1675-1690), Sweden (Torsaker, 1675) and Salem, Massachusetts (1692-1693).

The last witch trials in Britain were staged in the early eighteenth century. In 1735 the Witchcraft Act ensured that witchcraft was no longer a legal offence.

Tens of thousands of 'witches' were executed, most of them women, but by 1800 witch trials had ceased.

To guide us through Europe's Great Witch Hunt we are delighted to welcome back to Bath Professor Ronald Hutton of the University of Bristol. Ronald's two most recent lectures to the HA Bath branch concerned Charles II and Elizabeth I. As well as being a leading historian of sixteenth and seventeenth century British history, Ronald is an expert on British folklore, pre-Christian religion and contemporary paganism. He has published at least fourteen books and has broadcast frequently on television and radio. He is one of the eleven trustees of English Heritage and chairs its Blue Plaques Panel.

Mike Short   

      

Spoils of War: The treasures, trophies and trivia of the British Empire (Thursday 24 September)

One way to introduce our first speaker of the new season is to refer you to his website, www,christopherjoll.com. Christopher Joll lives in Bath. Educated at the University of Oxford and RMA Sandhurst, his varied careers have included a commission in the Life Guards, executive and director roles in a range of high-profile businesses, devising, writing and directing national events for charities, and writing. Christopher's busy programme of lectures, both in person and online, reflects his role as the regimental historian of the Household Cavalry and his wide-ranging interest in the history of the British Army.

Spoils of War is the lecture title and the title of Christopher's book published this year. Its 33 chapters begin with the Hundred Years' War (1337-1453) and end with the Falklands War (1982). The book describes the treasures and trophies - and the trivia too - collected by assorted men and women engaged in military action during the rise and fall of the British Empire. There are stories of courage and cowardice, ingenuity and farce, and sometimes elements of mystery. Christopher will dip into them and illustrate their variety when he gives the branch's first lecture since February.

As I write this preview we expect to have to limit the number of members attending Christopher Joll's lecture to 30. On Monday 7 September I will contact members by email to invite them to reserve places at the lecture on 24 September,

Mike Short       

The 2020-21 season

The national lockdown that followed the arrival of Covid-19 in England brought an early end to the Bath branch's 2019-20 season of lectures, delayed the Annual General Meeting, and caused the postponement until 2021 of members' visits planned for May, June and July.

The branch committee has organised a full programme of lectures and visits, including a special pre-Christmas event, to run from September 2020 to July 2021. As I write, we cannot know how much of this will actually take place. Everything will depend on the national and local situation and the rules that apply at the time for gatherings in public places.

The programme should begin on 24 September. Christopher Joll, regimental historian of the Household Cavalry, will speak on Spoils of War: The trophies, treasure and trivia of the British Empire. It is likely that the audience for Christopher's lecture will have to be limited to 45 people. If so, a booking system will operate during the preceding 14 days.

Christopher Joll will be followed in October by Professor Ronald Hutton of the University of Bristol, a long-term friend of the HA Bath branch and a celebrated interpreter of the past on television and radio as well as in the lecture room. On this occasion Ronald, whose most recent lectures for the Bath branch have focused on Elizabeth I and Charles II, will speak about the European witch trials of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

All being well, on US Thanksgiving Day in November, Dr Ellie Woodacre of the University of Winchester, who is American, will talk to us about medieval queens, some who ruled in their own right and some who exercised power behind the throne.

Number 1 Royal Crescent has been booked for our members' Christmas visit and buffet, though currently we do not know whether it will be possible to hold the event there. I will circulate more information when the situation becomes clearer. The Bath branch committee has made a contingency plan to hold an alternative event, possibly early in the New Year.

I will send regular updates to members. For now, this is the programme planned for the 2020-21 season ...

24 September 2020

Spoils of War: The trophies, treasure and trivia of the British Empire

Christopher Joll (Regimental historian, Household Cavalry)

22 October 2020

Europe's Great Witch Hunt

Professor Ronald Hutton (University of Bristol)

26 November 2020

Medieval Queens: Ruling Women in a Man's World

Dr Ellie Woodacre (University of Winchester)

10 December 2020

Members' Christmas Visit and Buffet at Number 1 Royal Crescent

21 January 2021

'That Epidemical Madness': Women and elections in eighteenth-century England

Professor Elaine Chalus (University of Liverpool)

18 February 2021

The Execution of Earl Waltheof, 1076: Rebellion and its consequences in eleventh-century England

Professor Ryan Lavelle (University of Winchester)

25 March 2021

The Triumph of Music: how it became the master-art of the modern world

Professor Tim Blanning (Sidney Sussex College, University of Cambridge)

22 April 2021

The Crisis of the Meritocracy: How popular demand made Britain into a mass education society

Professor Peter Mandler (Gonville and Caius College, University of Cambridge)

President of the Historical Association

All lectures will take place on Thursday evenings at 7.30 at Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution, 16-18 Queen Square. I will introduce each lecture in this diary.

Mike Short 

The search for women in the Viking Age (Thursday 26 March)

Vikings! Bewhiskered helmeted warriors brandishing swords. Fearsome energetic invaders arriving in magnificent longships. Men of the other side, our opponents. ... Few of us will not have been introduced as children to the Vikings. For many of us they entered our history as glamorous exciting figures: dangerous, effective, brave. And now we know more, how easy is it to throw off the mythology of those early encounters as archaeological and historical research reveal a more nuanced account of the lives and deeds of those men and women of the early Middle Ages?

From the late eighth century to the late eleventh people from Scandinavia travelled, raided and traded across much of Europe. Trade and military conquest established Vikings in increasing numbers in the British Isles, France, the Baltic, Kievan Rus (parts of present-day Russia, Ukraine and Belarus) and Sicily. They traded throughout much of the Mediterranean including North Africa and the Levant. Their seafaring took them to Iceland, Greenland and Vinland. They knew how to build sleek slender longships capable of travelling great distances at high speed. They possessed pre-eminent navigational and seafaring skills.

Viking men were clearly expected to be men of action. But what of Viking women? Historical research has shown that women could have property rights and the status of head of family. They were allowed authority in matters of religion. There were women poets and runecarvers. Women could be merchants and dispensers of medicine. In Scandinavian folklore and mythology there were shield-maidens - female warriors - but the historical evidence has been heavily debated.

In the tenth century a large ceremonial burial took place at Birka, near Stockholm. It was excavated in the 1970s and found to contain a human skeleton, a large number of weapons and the bones of two horses. Study of the human bones and recent DNA analysis (2017) confirmed that this was the grave of a woman. But what could be the conclusion? Was she necessarily a warrior? Some other Viking women were also buried with weapons. What does this tell us?

The great Viking era and the Viking empire ended almost a thousand years ago. Scholars who seek to understand and interpret the history of the Vikings face a unique set of challenges, Viking artefacts reflect a restless mobile people who spread widely and were accustomed to adapting to local circumstances. In their leisure time they appear to have been great tellers of stories. The stories add to the fictions that may distort later understanding of reality.

In our next lecture Dr Chris Callow of the University of Birmingham will endeavour to illuminate the lives of women in Viking society, sharing with us some of the challenges posed by the evidence and its interpretation.

Mike Short      

   

Who is the tramp? Vagrancy in Victorian and Edwardian Britain (Thursday 27 February)

Throughout history vagrants or vagabonds or tramps or drifters - homeless people without regular employment or income - have been considered troublesome outsiders by people living in settled, ordered communities. They might be thought worthy of scorn or mistrust, or they could be the recipients of charity.

The first major vagrancy law in England and Wales was the Ordinance of Labourers (1349). At a time when the population had been depleted by the Black Death it made unemployment an offence. A person who was judged able to work but declined to do so would be branded or whipped. Four Vagabonds Acts in the sixteenth century included as legal punishments flogging, disfigurement, enslavement, transportation and execution.

In 1821 a parliamentary review recommended the consolidation and simplification of earlier vagrancy laws, the removal of the abuses and fraud that had developed in their operation, and, for certain types of vagrants, longer prison sentences with hard labour. The outcome was An Act for the Punishment of Idle and Disorderly Persons and Rogues and Vagabonds (1824).

On 27 February we will welcome as our speaker Nick Crowson, Professor of Contemporary British History at the University of Birmingham. Nick has a particular interest in homelessness from the 1880s to the present. In his lecture for the Historical Association Bath branch he will use records of court cases, censuses and personal documents to demonstrate how genealogical research can be used to recreate the hidden life stories of the vagrant and the tramp in late Victorian and Edwardian Britain.

Nick Crowson's findings challenge the frequently-made assumption that tramps adopted their way of life because they were personally inadequate. Through exploring their life stories it becomes apparent that there were varied pathways into, through and out of homelessness.

Mike Short

'This war without an enemy': Civil conflict in Somerset and Wiltshire in 1643 (Thursday 23 January)

The lecture originally planned for Thursday 23 January, on international diplomacy between the two world wars, has had to be cancelled. In its place the Bath branch of the Historical Association is pleased to welcome Julian Humphrys of the Battlefields Trust to speak on 'This war without an enemy': Civil conflict in Somerset and Wiltshire in 1643.

Sir William Waller (1597-1668) and Lord Ralph Hopton (1596-1652) were close personal friends. During the English Civil War Waller became a leading general on the side of the Parliamentarians while Hopton led soldiers loyal to King Charles I. Their friendship endured. Even as they prepared to face each other as rival commanders at what became the Battle of Lansdown (5 July 1643) and the subsequent Battle of Roundway Hill (13 July 1643) they wrote letters to each other as friends. In a letter to Hopton Waller wrote ...

That great God who is the searcher of my heart knows with what a sad sense I go upon this service, and with what a perfect hatred I detest this war without an enemy ... We are both upon the stage and must act such parts as are assigned to us in this tragedy, let us do it in a way of honour and without personal animosities.

The English Civil War was fought in three phases, which some scholars regard as three individual wars: 1642-1646 and 1648-1649 when the forces of Parliament faced those of King Charles I, and 1649-1651 when the combatants were Parliament or 'the Commonwealth' and supporters of 'King Charles II'.

Charles I's refusal to call a Parliament between 1629 and 1640, his imposition of taxes without Parliament's consent, his ill-judged support for favourites, his Catholic wife, his encouragement of moves towards 'High Anglicanism' in the church, and his belief in the Divine Right of Kings were bound to cause unease and opposition among Members of Parliament and their supporters.

Charles's attempt to introduce a High Anglican version of the Book of Common Prayer in Scotland, his other kingdom, led to armed conflict. Needing money for an army Charles finally summoned Parliament. Parliament would grant no taxes until the grievances of its members were addressed. Charles attempted to arrest five leading members of the House of Commons.

In January 1642, with tensions high and rising, Charles left London with his family. On 22 August 1642 Charles raised the royal standard at Nottingham and started to gather support. Parliament began to recruit an army of volunteers and appointed Robert Devereux, the Earl of Essex, as its commander.

The first major skirmish took place near Worcester on 23 September. Exactly a month later the first pitched battle of the Civil War was fought, inconclusively, at Edgehill in Warwickshire.

Royalists and Parliamentarians each took control of extensive areas of English and Wales. By May 1643 Lord Hopton's Royalist army had captured most of the South West of England. Sir William Waller's Parliamentary forces held Bath and the route to London.

As the Royalists closed on Bath Waller withdrew to a strong position on Lansdown Hill. On 5 July Hopton attacked and the Battle of Lansdown ensued. The Royalists were repulsed and retreated to Devizes. The Parliamentarians followed them and by 8 July occupied the high ground to the north of Devizes, Roundway Down. Waller's soldiers surrounded the town and demanded its surrender, but on 13 July a Royalist relief force appeared near Roundway Down. With Royalist soldiers now in front of and behind his own troops Waller was unable to take advantage of his higher position. The Royalists attacked. The Parliamentarians were defeated. Roundway Down came to be regarded as the greatest cavalry victory of the English Civil War.

To lead us through these tumultuous events we are fortunate to have as our guest speaker the historian, writer, lecturer, broadcaster and tour guide Julian Humphrys. Julian is the Development Officer of the Battlefields Trust and chairs the trust's Wessex region.

We hope to follow this lecture with a guided walk around the Lansdown battlefield during the summer of 2020.

Mike Short 

Henry VIII, Tracy Borman and the Roman Baths

As 2019 approaches its end, the Bath branch of the Historical Association completes a memorable year with a flourish.

The branch's final lecture of the year focuses on one of the biggest subjects - in every sense! - in British history. Its title is Henry VIII and the Men Who Made Him. This is also the title of one of the most recent books written by best-selling historical author Dr Tracy Borman, who will be our speaker at Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution, Queen Square, on Thursday 21 November at 7.30 pm. Tracy has made many appearances on television and radio, notably in Private Lives for the Yesterday Channel and the documentary series Inside the Tower of London for Channel 5. Tracy's books include Elizabeth's Women: The Hidden Story of the Virgin Queen, Thomas Cromwell: The Untold Story of Henry VIII's Most Faithful Servant and The Private Lives of the Tudors: Uncovering the Secrets of Britain's Greatest Dynasty. Tracy has also written about Henrietta Howard, the mistress of King George II, Matilda, wife of William the Conqueror, and witches. Last year she published her first novel, The King's Witch, the first of a trilogy. Tracy is the joint Chief Curator of Historic Royal Palaces and Chief Executive of the Heritage Education Trust. She is a trustee of the National Archives Foundation.

The historical author Alison Weir has described Henry VIII and the Men Who Made Him as 'a brilliantly woven story of the men who surrounded, influenced and sometimes plagued Henry VIII'. Tracy Borman will tell us that story on 21 November. At the end of her lecture Tracy will sign copies of the book. Books for sale will be provided at the lecture by Mr B's Emporium of Reading Delights of John Street, Bath.

Twelve days after the lecture, on the evening of Tuesday 3 December, the HA Bath branch's Christmas visit will take place at the Roman Baths and Pump Room. It will begin in the Pump Room with complimentary drinks and a talk given by Stephen Bird, Head of Heritage Services for Bath and North East Somerset, about recent and planned developments in the Roman Baths complex. Members will then divide into groups for a guided tour of the baths and museum before coming together again for a convivial buffet on the enclosed terrace that overlooks the Great Bath, which will be illuminated with flaming torches. It promises to be a very special evening to conclude the branch's programme for 2019.

The visit to the Roman Baths and Pump Room is a ticket-only event. Tickets (£20 each) must be purchased from me (mikeshort20@btinternet.com or 01225 812945) no later than Tuesday 19 November.

Mike Short       

Recreating Elizabethan and Jacobean Theatres: Shakespeare's Globe and the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse (Thursday 24 October)

The actor and director Sam Wanamaker (1919-1993) was a man with a particular vision. It was to rebuild Shakespeare's Globe theatre on or near its original site on the south bank of the River Thames.

The Globe had been built in 1599, destroyed by fire in 1613, rebuilt the following year and finally demolished in 1644. Many of Shakespeare's plays were performed there.

In 1970 Sam Wanamaker set up the Shakespeare Globe Trust, and the process of gathering support, addressing the technical complexities of the task and gaining the necessary official permissions began.

The site of the new Globe could not be the original one because of the buildings currently there. Indeed, the original site is now much further from the Thames than it was. The site found, chosen and approved is about 230 metres from where the original stood but close to the river.

The team tasked with building the theatre had to decide what to build. There was evidence to work with of both the 1599 and 1614 theatres. The twentieth-century theatre would have to be an approximation based on this evidence. Once the structure was agreed, there would be questions about the building materials and techniques to be used. And, of course, modern requirements concerning safety would have to be taken into account. Shakespeare's Globe today is able to accommodate less than half the number of spectators that would have thronged the building in Shakespeare's time.

The wish for authenticity was bound to conflict sometimes with practical considerations. Recreating Shakespeare's Globe would be as challenging in its way as attempting to play Bach on period instruments.

The new theatre opened triumphantly in 1997.

One of the team who recreated Shakespeare's Globe was Paul Simons, a restoration architect and our speaker at Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution on 24 October. Paul has had a distinguished career in heritage and tourism. Among many other roles he is Secretary General of UNESCO's Great Spas of Europe project and in Bath chairs the Cleveland Pools Trust.

Sam Wanamaker did not live long enough to see the opening of the recreated Globe. When the decision was taken to add nearby an indoor Jacobean theatre illuminated by candles, it was decided also to name it the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse. It opened in 2014. Paul Simons was a member of the team that designed it and brought to completion.

Mike Short   

Researching William Beckford's Fonthill (Thursday 26 September)

One of the most extraordinary characters in the history of Bath is William Beckford (1760-1844). He was 10 years old when his father, who had been twice Lord Mayor of London, died and left him a fortune. This consisted of £1 million in cash, an estate, including a Palladian mansion, at Fonthill Gifford in Wiltshire, several sugar plantations in Jamaica, and a colossal annual income.

William Beckford could do whatever he liked. He was interested in art, music and literature. He wrote Vathek, a Gothic novel, in 1786 as well as criticism and vivid accounts of his travels in Europe. He was a knowledgable and also profligate collector of works of art and a generous patron of decorative art. He was MP for Wells (1784-1790) and Hindon in Wiltshire (1790-1795 and 1806-1820). And he built Fonthill Abbey and Lansdown (Beckford's) Tower. He was reputed to be the richest commoner in England.

In 1783 William Beckford married a daughter of the Earl of Aboyne. Soon afterwards a scandal alleging a homosexual relationship with a teenage boy - who later became the Earl of Devon - made the young couple choose exile on the continent. In 1786 Margaret Beckford died giving birth to their second daughter, Susan.

Beckford sought refuge and sanctuary at his estate at Fonthill Gifford. He engaged the architect James Wyatt to build a large Gothic revival country house to accommodate the complete library of Edward Gibbon (1737-1794), which he had acquired at auction, and his own art collection. The house was Fonthill Abbey, begun in 1796 and completed by about 1810. The building's most striking feature was its 90-metre-high central tower, which collapsed several times. James Wyatt was unreliable and absent for long periods. Beckford himself then took on the role of supervisor of works.

By 1820 Beckford was finally short of money. He sold Fonthill Abbey for £330,000 and moved to Bath, where he bought 20 Lansdown Crescent - and later 18 and 19 also - and 1 Lansdown Place West. By 1827 Lansdown Tower - to us 'Beckford's Tower' - had been completed.

Back at Fonthill, on 21 December 1825, most of the Abbey collapsed as the tower crashed down on it again.

At his death in 1844 William Beckford left about £80,000.

Much is known about William Beckford and his great 'folly' Fonthill Abbey. Possibly nobody knows more than the Bath Preservation Trust's Dr Amy Frost, whom many of us will have known first as the curator of Beckford's Tower.

How is it possible to extend research into something that is already well-researched? When you know a lot, what makes it possible to know more? These are questions that Amy Frost has faced in her work on William Beckford and Fonthill. The many of us who know Amy know that she will enlighten, surprise and fascinate us as she addresses the subject Researching William Beckford's Fonthill at our first lecture of the new season on Thursday 26 September at our new venue, Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution, 16-18 Queen Square, beginning at 7.30 pm.

Mike Short    

The 2019-20 lecture programme and a very special event for Christmas

Since the completion of last season's programme of lectures on 25 April three groups of HA Bath members have visited The Hall at Bradford-on-Avon on 23 May and 6 June and Hamswell House, just north of Bath, on 12 June.

Some members also attended the Historical Association Conference in Chester on 17 and 18 May.

The next scheduled event for members is the first of our lectures for the 2019-20 season. Details of the seven lectures were circulated at the branch's annual general meeting on 25 April. They will all take place at our new home, Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution in Queen Square.

The first speaker of our new season will be local favourite Dr Amy Frost of Bath Preservation Trust whose subject will be Researching William Beckford's Fonthill. Amy will be followed by Paul Simons, also well-known in Bath, a restoration architect whose first-hand experience will enable him to explain the issues involved in recreating historic buildings. In November we will welcome Tracy Borman, renowned author and joint Chief Curator (with Lucy Worsley) of Historic Royal Palaces. In the new year a varied programme will be presented by speakers from Birkbeck University of London and the universities of Birmingham and Worcester.

This year's special event before Christmas will be very special indeed. It will begin with a talk, accompanied by a glass of wine, given by Stephen Bird, Head of Heritage Services for B&NES, in the Pump Room. This will be followed by a guided tour of the Roman Baths and Museum. We will finish with a buffet on the enclosed terrace overlooking the Great Bath, which will be illuminated with flaming torches. The date for this is Tuesday 3 December, the starting time 7 o'clock. Details and application forms will be sent to members during August.

This is the programme ...

26 September 2019
Researching William Beckford's Fonthill
Dr Amy Frost (Bath Preservation Trust)

24 October 2019
Recreating Elizabethan and Jacobean Theatres: Shakespeare's Globe and the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse
Paul Simons (Restoration architect)

21 November 2019
Henry VIII and the Men Who Made Him
Dr Tracy Borman (Heritage Education Trust, Historic Royal Palaces)

3 December 2019
Members' Christmas Visit and Buffet at the Roman Baths and Pump Room, Bath

23 January 2020
International diplomacy between the wars: dead ends or new beginnings?
Dr Jessica Reinisch (Birkbeck University of London)

27 February 2020
Who is the tramp? Vagrancy in Victorian and Edwardian Britain
Professor Nicholas Crowson (University of Birmingham)

26 March 2020
The search for women in the Viking Age
Dr Chris Callow (University of Birmingham)

23 April 2020
Royal attitudes to the Atlantic slave trade, 1785-1808
Professor Suzanne Schwarz (University of Worcester)

All lectures will take place on Thursday evenings at 7.30 at Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution, 16-18 Queen Square. I will introduce each lecture in this diary.

Mike Short       

Singing the News: Ballads in mid-Tudor England (Thursday 25 April)

For the first lecture at our new venue - Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution at 16-18 Queen Square - I am particularly pleased that the branch will welcome Dr Jenni Hyde. Jenni is an academic, working mainly at Lancaster University, secretary of the Bolton branch of the Historical Association, and deputy chair of the HA's Branches and Members Committee, of which I am the chairman. She is also a musician, and the confluence of history and music has been a focus of her research.

Today we are bombarded by news, on television and radio, in newspapers, online. In the sixteenth century news travelled slowly, most artisans and labourers and many others could not read, and censorship and spying in an era of cataclysmic change were rife. Yet people were curious, they wanted to know what was going on, they had opinions and no doubt prejudices, and they wanted to express them.

One way in which ideas could be expressed and information passed on was through singing and listening to popular songs. The vernacular words and memorable tunes of sixteenth-century ballads made them accessible to everyone. For us they are an important resource for understanding the views and attitudes of the common people as Henry VIII broke with Rome and divorced or beheaded his wives, as Protestants, Catholics, Anglicans and Puritans vied for ascendancy or asserted freedom of conscience, as England faced the might of Spain. Rhyme and melody became keys for passing on news, stories and ideas.

In her lecture Jenni Hyde will use live musical examples to demonstrate how the singing of ballads enabled the people of mid-Tudor England to make their own contributions to debates about the issues of the day whatever the restrictions the powerful sought to impose on freedom of speech.

Jenni Hyde's lecture will be followed by a brief Annual General Meeting at which those attending will be presented with the branch's annual report and accounts and details of the programme for the 2019-20 season.

Mike Short 

New ways of 'reading' and contextualising the Lindisfarne Gospels (Thursday 28 March)

The British Library is one of our greatest cultural repositories. It houses more than 150 million books, manuscripts, newspapers, magazines, prints, drawings, maps and other items, adding 3 million more every year. Its recent major exhibitions have included Magna Carta: Law, Liberty, Legacy (2015) and Russian Revolution: Hope, Tragedy, Myths (2017). From October 2018 until last month it presented Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms: Art, Word, War. It was a superb exhibition of varied artefacts, many beautifully crafted in clay or metal or jewels or hide with ink and paint and demonstrating yet again how inappropriate the term 'Dark Ages' is when applied to the early medieval period.

One of the many wonderful artefacts displayed in the British Library exhibition was the Lindisfarne Gospels, produced around 715-720 in the monastery at Lindisfarne and arguably the most spectacular manuscript to survive from Anglo-Saxon England.

We know that the scribe and artist of the Gospels and the texts that accompany them (eg the letters of St Jerome) was Eadfrith, 'bishop of the Church of Lindisfarne' from 698 to 722. He did this 'for God and St Cuthbert'. The work was bound and given its cover by Ethilwald, 'bishop of the Lindisfarne-islanders'. Billfrith 'the anchorite' added rich decoration to both the cover and the text, creating a case or binding of jewels and precious metals. These latter have gone, probably taken during the Viking raids on Holy Island.

We know about the creators of the Lindisfarne Gospels from an inscription written by Aldred, a monk of the late tenth century who was based at Chester-le-Street, near Durham. Aldred also added, in Old English, some annotations and a word-by-word 'translation' of the Latin text - the earliest such rendering of the Gospels in English.

The Lindisfarne Gospels fulfil an exceptional role in our cultural heritage: as a treasure for historians, theologians and anyone who appreciates beautiful things produced with consummate skill and craftsmanship. But how are we to understand the circumstances in which they were created 1,300 years ago, the motivations of Eadfrith and his colleagues and Aldred, the audience for which they were intended, the reasons why they have survived for us to study, wonder at and treasure? Our guide for this month's lecture on the Lindisfarne Gospels in Michelle Brown, Professor Emerita of Medieval Manuscript Studies at the School of Advanced Study, University of London. Professor Brown summarises her research interests and expertise as 'The role of the book as a cultural medium. The palaeography, codicology, art history and socio-historical context of medieval manuscripts. Late antique and early medieval history, archaeology and the material culture of Europe and the Levant. Art and spirituality, historic and contemporary'. It is our good fortune that she is coming to share with us some of her insights into an early medieval cultural landmark that continues to intrigue, fascinate and delight.

Mike Short

Modernising Calcutta: Technology, the Spectacular and the Unexpected (Thursday 28 February)

Calcutta - the official name of Kolkata until 2001 - is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. It is the principal commercial, cultural and educational centre of East India and India's oldest operating port. During the eighteenth century the British East India Company traded there, developed a fortified trading post and eventually assumed full sovereignty of the region.

Under East India Company rule and, from 1858, the British Raj Calcutta served as the capital of British-held territories in India.

Professor Anindita Ghosh's background, career and current activities are summarised on the home page of this website. Her recent work, funded by a major grant from the British Academy, examined the city of Calcutta during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

In the late nineteenth century Calcutta was a melting pot of migrant workers, artisans, servants, boatmen, labourers, petty traders and shopkeepers and an army of clerks, apart from the educated Bengali classes who served in the various colonial and mercantile establishments in the city. As the administrative and commercial capital of British India, Calcutta was the quintessential harbinger of modernity in the subcontinent. And yet we know rather little of the responses of its inhabitants to these tumultuous developments.

Professor Ghosh's lecture will explore urban experiences in the colonial metropolis as articulated in its street songs, newspapers, memoirs and images. It will examine how print and performance in Calcutta in the late nineteenth century animated the urban domain with widely shared discourses on the city, on material changes and shifting conceptions of space and technology, giving insight into the experience of a recently urbanised world.

Mike Short 

The Reformation: how Bath Abbey survived it (Thursday 24 January)

Bath Abbey as we know it is the third church to stand on its current site. Begun by Bishop Oliver King in 1499, it was not complete when King Henry VIII ordered the dissolution of the monasteries in 1539.

The monks were forced to leave, and the building was offered to the city authorities at a very low price. So far had the abbey's prestige declined that the offer was refused. The church's valuables, including stained glass windows and lead from the roof, were removed. In 1542 the empty shell and the monastery were sold to Humphrey Colles. Colles then sold them to Matthew Colthurst.

In 1572 Colthurst's son Edmund gave what remained of the church to the mayor and citizens of Bath for use as a parish church. Restoration work began, supported by Queen Elizabeth I. Thomas Bellot, one of the wealthy citizens who contributed to the work, had been steward to Lord Burghley (William Cecil). Bellot used his bequest from Burghley as well as his own money to give generous support to the restoration. The appointment of James Montagu as Bishop of Bath and Wells in 1608 added further impetus. By 1616 Bath Abbey was repaired and in use.

Jeremy Key-Pugh describes himself on social media as 'retired teacher, grandfather to Sam and Leo, keen historian and churchwarden'. His association with Bath Abbey is longstanding. In his lecture The Reformation: how Bath Abbey survived it Jeremy will take us through the turbulent events of the sixteenth century and explain how Oliver King's great church came through the tumult to begin the path that would lead to today's splendour.

Mike Short   

Joan of Arc and the end of the Hundred Years' War (Thursday 22 November)

The Hundred Years' War began in 1337 when the English Plantagenet king Edward III asserted his right to the throne of France. It continued as an intermittent series of conflicts between the Plantagenets and the Valois for 116 years, ending with the French victory at Castillon in 1453.

During these years of conflict the armies of five English kings (Edward III, Richard II, Henry IV, Henry V and Henry VI) faced those of five kings of France (Philip VI, John II, Charles V, Charles VI and Charles VII). Celebrated English victories took place at Crecy (1346), Poitiers (1356) and Agincourt (1415). Henry V sought to unite the two kingdoms in the Treaty of Troyes (1420). By the end of the war the English had lost all their territories in France, except Calais, and were forced to accept that their cause was lost.

In the autumn of 1428 the English under John of Lancaster, uncle of the child king Henry VI, laid siege to the strategically important city of Orleans. The French were in poor spirits and faced defeat in the war. The following spring a seventeen-year-old peasant girl gained access to the crown prince Charles of Valois (later Charles VII) and convinced him to allow her to lead a French army to Orleans. She was Jeanne d'Arc, Joan of Arc. The siege was lifted. It was the turning point of the war.

After Orleans the Hundred Years' War continued for a further 24 years, but the tide had turned and the advantage lay with the French.

Many people would consider the personalities and events of the Hundred Years' War among the most fascinating and exciting in the history of the Late Middle Ages. The Bath branch of the Historical Association is fortunate indeed to welcome as our guide and interpreter on Joan of Arc and the end of the Hundred Years' War Anne Curry, Professor of Medieval History at the University of Southampton and Dean of the Faculty of Humanities, President of the Historical Association from 2008 to 2011, and a leading expert on the Hundred Years' War.

Mike Short  

English-speaking Radicals and the French Revolution (Thursday 25 October)

The French Revolution is one of history's cataclysmic events. Its actions and consequences were observed, celebrated and feared widely beyond the realm of France. This month's Historical Association Bath Branch lecture, to be given by Peter Jones, Emeritus Professor of French History at the University of Birmingham, focuses on the responses of English-speaking radicals to the Revolution and its aftermath.

Reporting news of the French Revolution in July 1789 the London Chronicle proclaimed 'In every province of this great kingdom the flame of liberty has burst forth' but it warned that 'before they have accomplished their end, France will be deluged with blood'.

For some Britons the Revolution was seen, at least at first, as a belated attempt by the French to establish a constitutional monarchy as England itself had done a century before.

The English Chronicle or Universal Evening Post asserted that 'the hand of JUSTICE has been brought upon France'.

Recollecting the events of 1789 in The Prelude (1805) William Wordsworth wrote 'Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive'.

Both Thomas Paine in The Rights of Man (1791-2) and Mary Wollstonecraft in A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792) took inspiration from the upheaval in France to advocate republicanism and equal rights.

In the United States, in April 1789, George Washington was inaugurated as the first president. It seemed to many Americans that the events in France three months later validated the American Revolution itself.

What do the events of 230 years ago and the intellectual responses to them teach us about the ways in which we think about the radical movements and turning points of our own times? Please come to Professor Peter Jones's lecture on Thursday 25 October to stimulate your own thoughts.

Mike Short