What Was It Really Like to Be Catholic Under Elizabeth I?

What Was It Really Like to Be Catholic Under Elizabeth I?

Was Elizabeth I persecuting Catholics simply because of their religion, or did years of rebellion, invasion threats and plots against her life convince her that Catholicism had become a political danger as well as a religious one?

Today I want to look at what life was actually like for Catholics under Elizabeth I, because their experience was not the same throughout her reign. Elizabeth did punish Catholics, and by the later decades some of those punishments became extremely severe, but her attitude hardened gradually as religion became increasingly tangled with questions of loyalty, rebellion and foreign threats.

When Elizabeth became queen on the 17th of November 1558, England had already changed religion several times within a generation. Henry VIII had broken with Rome, Edward VI had pushed England further towards Protestantism, and Mary I had restored Catholic worship. Ordinary families had lived through each change, watching the religion practised in their parish churches alter depending upon who sat on the throne.

Elizabeth’s Religious Settlement of 1559 established a Protestant Church of England and required people to attend its services. Catholics who refused became known as recusants. During the earlier years of Elizabeth’s reign, however, the government was often more concerned with outward obedience than with investigating exactly what somebody believed inside their own home. Enforcement also varied considerably from place to place.

For an ordinary Catholic family, this could mean living two lives. They might attend their parish church to avoid trouble while still praying privately as Catholics, keeping religious objects hidden and maintaining older traditions within the family. Others refused to conform and faced fines, imprisonment and increasing pressure from the authorities.

One fascinating example among the nobility was Anthony Browne, 1st Viscount Montagu. He remained Catholic and had served Elizabeth’s Catholic half-sister Mary I, yet Elizabeth continued to trust him because he repeatedly demonstrated his loyalty to the Crown. He opposed parts of her religious settlement, but Elizabeth still employed him on diplomatic missions and even visited his home at Cowdray in 1591.

His story is important because it shows that being Catholic did not automatically make someone Elizabeth’s enemy.

But events during the 1560s and 1570s changed the atmosphere dramatically. In 1569, Catholic nobles led the Rising of the North, hoping to overturn Elizabeth’s religious settlement. Then, in 1570, Pope Pius V excommunicated Elizabeth and declared that her subjects were no longer bound to obey her.

From Elizabeth’s point of view, the problem was becoming much bigger than private religious belief. Could somebody remain completely loyal to the Queen while recognising the authority of a Pope who had declared that she should not be obeyed?

The situation became even more dangerous because Mary, Queen of Scots was living in England. Mary was Catholic and had a powerful dynastic claim to the English throne and gradually became the focus of several schemes to replace Elizabeth.

Elizabeth even faced trouble from people close to her own court. Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, one of the most powerful noblemen in England and Elizabeth’s cousin, became involved in plans surrounding Mary. He was eventually implicated in the Ridolfi Plot, which proposed removing Elizabeth and placing Mary on the throne with foreign assistance. Norfolk was convicted of treason and executed on the 2nd of June 1572.

By the 1580s, Elizabeth’s government had become far more suspicious. Catholic missionary priests were secretly entering England after training abroad and travelling between Catholic households. To Catholics, these men were bringing them Mass and the sacraments. To Elizabeth’s government, men arriving secretly from institutions abroad while Catholic powers threatened England could look dangerously like agents of her enemies.

One of the best-known was Edmund Campion, who travelled secretly through England ministering to Catholic families. He was arrested in 1581, tortured, convicted of treason and executed.

Ordinary people could be caught in these laws too.

Margaret Clitherow of York was not a wealthy noblewoman or political conspirator. She was married to a butcher and had converted to Catholicism. She repeatedly refused to attend Church of England services and eventually allowed Catholic priests to hide and celebrate Mass in properties connected with her.

In 1586, she was arrested for harbouring priests. Margaret refused to enter a plea and was sentenced to the horrific punishment of being pressed to death. She was executed in York on the 25th of March 1586.

Her story perhaps shows most clearly how the religious struggle reached far beyond queens, popes and noblemen and into ordinary homes.

Another striking case was Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel, who had spent time at Elizabeth’s court but he was reconciled to the Catholic Church. He attempted to leave England in 1585, was arrested and imprisoned in the Tower of London. He remained there for around ten years and died in captivity in 1595.

So why did Elizabeth become increasingly harsh?

Her own experiences may also have influenced her. Her mother, Anne Boleyn, had been executed when Elizabeth was a small child. Elizabeth’s own legitimacy had been questioned, and during Mary I’s reign she had herself been imprisoned in the Tower while suspected of involvement in rebellion.

As queen she then faced the Northern Rising, papal excommunication, repeated plots involving Mary, Queen of Scots, threats from Catholic powers abroad and eventually war with Spain.

None of this lessens the suffering of people who simply wanted to practise their faith. But it does help explain why Elizabeth increasingly struggled to separate Catholic religion from political danger.

What I find most interesting is that there was never one single Catholic experience under Elizabeth. Some remained quietly Catholic and avoided serious punishment. Others paid enormous recusancy fines. By 1581 recusancy fines could reach £20 a month. Some nobles retained Elizabeth’s trust, while others found themselves imprisoned or executed.

It leaves me with a difficult question.

Was Elizabeth’s treatment of Catholics primarily religious persecution, or had the political dangers surrounding her reign made it almost impossible for her government to separate Catholic faith from the threat of rebellion?

The Secret Factories Hidden Beneath Britain While the War Raged Above

The Secret Factories Hidden Beneath Britain While the War Raged Above

Today I want to discover more about the extraordinary underground world created across wartime Britain. As bombing threatened factories, military sites and supply depots, the government increasingly looked below ground for protection. Old quarries were converted, new tunnels were excavated and important parts of Britain’s war effort were hidden beneath layers of rock.

Betty Turner and another worker carrying out factory work underground, probably Spring Quarry, Corsham, Wiltshire, 1942. Credit: Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain

One of the most remarkable examples could be found around Corsham in Wiltshire, where generations of Bath stone quarrying had already created a vast underground landscape. By 1940, more than 60 miles of tunnels stretched beneath roughly 3,000 acres of countryside, generally around 80 to 100 feet below the surface.

Workers receiving instructions at a workbench inside an underground factory, probably Spring Quarry, Corsham, Wiltshire, 1942. Credit: Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain.

One of the most important sites was Tunnel Quarry, which the War Office acquired before the war and converted into a huge underground ammunition depot. This was far more sophisticated than simply stacking explosives inside an old quarry. There were underground railway platforms, conveyors, lifts, ventilation systems, communications equipment and power facilities. By June 1944, more than 10,000 tons of ammunition were being moved through Tunnel Quarry every week.

Workers clearing stone from the old quarry during its conversion into an underground factory, probably Spring Quarry, Corsham, Wiltshire, 1942. Credit: Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain.

But how do you hide something on that scale?

Thousands of workers had been involved in preparing the underground sites, while military personnel, railway traffic and supplies became increasingly visible. Local people could hardly fail to realise that something unusual was happening.

One explanation allowed to circulate was that the Ministry of Food was creating an emergency food store underground. It sounded believable enough, but later recollections suggest many locals knew, or at least strongly suspected, that it was not the truth. The aircraft factory and what some simply called “the dump” appear to have been fairly well known locally, even if the full scale of the operation was not.

Corsham contained a lot more than ammunition. After the Bristol Aeroplane Company’s works at Filton were badly bombed in September 1940, the government became increasingly worried about the vulnerability of aircraft production. Spring Quarry was chosen for a huge underground aircraft-engine factory.

Transforming an old quarry into a modern factory was hugely difficult. Rubble had to be removed, floors levelled, roofs strengthened and electricity and ventilation installed. Lifts and even escalators were provided to move workers between the underground complex and the surface.

Spring Quarry never became quite the vast production centre originally imagined. Construction took longer and cost more than expected, and by the time much of it was ready, the immediate bombing threat had reduced. Aircraft-related work did take place underground, but on a smaller scale than first planned.

Other Corsham quarries had completely different roles. Clubhouse Quarry was used by De La Rue to store replacement currency for occupied European countries, while other underground spaces were used for military storage and headquarters.

And Wiltshire was not alone.

At Drakelow in Worcestershire, tunnels were excavated into sandstone from 1941 to create an underground factory connected with aircraft-engine production. By 1943, Rover was carrying out work there as part of the wartime shadow-factory programme, while unused parts of the complex were used by the RAF for storage.

These underground sites were not easier places to work. They brought problems with ventilation, damp, lighting and transport. But that was not the point. They existed because factories, ammunition and essential services hidden beneath layers of rock were far harder to destroy from the air.

I keep wondering what it must have been like for people living nearby. They saw buses carrying workers towards guarded entrances, increased railway traffic and military personnel, but they may never have understood the true scale of the hidden world beneath them.

Above ground, wartime Britain carried on while, below it, another Britain was working in secret.

If you had lived nearby, do you think you would have believed the official story, or would you have worked out what was really happening underground?

The Ridolfi Plot: How Close Did Elizabeth I Come to Losing Her Throne?

The Ridolfi Plot: How Close Did Elizabeth I Come to Losing Her Throne?

In our last Tudor post, we looked at Elizabeth I’s increasingly dangerous relationship with the Pope and how, in 1570, Pope Pius V excommunicated the English queen and declared that her subjects were no longer bound to obey her.

Mary, Queen of Scots

Credit: Mary, Queen of Scots in captivity, after Nicholas Hilliard, inscribed 1578. Via Wikipedia/Wikimedia Commons – Public Domain.

But what happened when those religious tensions moved beyond words?

Within a year, Elizabeth’s government uncovered a conspiracy involving Mary, Queen of Scots, one of England’s most powerful noblemen, Spain and a Florentine banker with connections across Europe.

Today I want to look at the Ridolfi Plot of 1571, because it raises a rather unsettling question. How close did Elizabeth actually come to being removed from the throne?

By this point, Mary, Queen of Scots had been in England for several years. She had been forced to abdicate the Scottish throne in 1567 and fled to England the following year, hoping Elizabeth might help restore her. Instead, she found herself kept under increasingly close supervision.

Elizabeth I

Credit: Queen Elizabeth I, the ‘Darnley Portrait’, unknown continental artist, c.1575. Via Wikipedia/Wikimedia Commons – Public Domain

Mary was not simply an inconvenient royal cousin. As a Catholic with a strong claim to the English throne, she became a natural focus for those who wanted Elizabeth replaced.

That did not mean England’s Catholics were all plotting against Elizabeth. Many remained loyal to their queen. But Mary’s presence created something potentially dangerous: an alternative monarch around whom Elizabeth’s enemies could gather.

Then came Roberto Ridolfi.

Ridolfi was a Florentine banker who had worked in London and moved comfortably through diplomatic and financial circles. He was also a committed Catholic, with the contacts and freedom to travel between some of the most powerful people in Europe.

The plan that developed around him was extraordinarily ambitious.

Elizabeth would be removed from power. Mary would be freed and placed on the English throne, and she would marry Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk, one of the highest-ranking noblemen in England.

But the conspirators needed more than supporters inside England.

They needed soldiers.

Ridolfi travelled through Europe seeking support from the Pope and from Philip II of Spain. The hope was that Spanish troops based in the Netherlands could cross into England while supporters of Mary rose against Elizabeth from within.

And this is where our previous post about Elizabeth and the Pope becomes so important.

Only the year before, Pope Pius V had declared Elizabeth excommunicated. Now a conspiracy was developing that looked towards Catholic powers abroad and planned to place the Catholic Mary on Elizabeth’s throne.

For Elizabeth and her government, religion, foreign policy and the Queen’s own survival were becoming almost impossible to separate.

But the plot had one enormous weakness.

Too many people knew about it.

In 1571, Charles Baillie, a messenger connected with Mary’s supporters, was arrested at Dover carrying suspicious letters. Elizabeth’s government began piecing together the conspiracy. Messages were intercepted, servants were questioned and evidence slowly led investigators towards Norfolk.

Norfolk tried to distance himself from what had happened, but the evidence against him mounted.

He was arrested, imprisoned in the Tower of London and tried for high treason. He was found guilty and executed on Tower Hill on the 2nd of June 1572.

Ridolfi himself escaped. He was abroad when the conspiracy collapsed and never returned to England.

But there was one person whose position became considerably more dangerous.

Mary, Queen of Scots.

Elizabeth did not have Mary executed after the Ridolfi Plot. Mary would remain alive for another fifteen years. Elizabeth repeatedly hesitated over taking the life of another anointed queen, and proving exactly how far Mary had personally agreed to every part of the conspiracy was not straightforward.

But the Ridolfi Plot changed the atmosphere around her.

Mary was no longer simply the former Queen of Scots living under English supervision. She had become the figure around whom plots to replace Elizabeth could form.

And there would be more.

The Throckmorton Plot followed in 1583, and then the Babington Plot in 1586 would finally give Elizabeth’s government the evidence it needed to move directly against Mary.

Looking back, the Ridolfi Plot feels almost like a warning of everything that was still to come. Elizabeth had survived religious division and challenges to her legitimacy. Now she faced the possibility that her enemies were prepared to seek foreign military support to remove her.

Perhaps the most interesting question is not why Elizabeth became more suspicious afterwards.

It is how she could possibly have avoided becoming suspicious.

Do you think Elizabeth should have acted against Mary, Queen of Scots after the Ridolfi Plot, or was she right to keep her alive?

The Lumberjills: The Women Who Went Into Britain’s Forests to Help Win the War

The Lumberjills: The Women Who Went Into Britain’s Forests to Help Win the War

When we think about the women who helped keep Britain going during the Second World War, we often picture Land Girls working on farms, nurses caring for the wounded or women filling the factories left behind by men who had gone to war. But thousands of young women were sent somewhere very different. They went into Britain’s forests, where they learned to fell trees, handle enormous saws, operate heavy machinery and carry out work that many people had previously believed women simply could not do.

Today I want to discover more about the women of the Women’s Timber Corps, remembered today as the Lumberjills, because theirs is one of those wartime stories that deserves far more attention. Their work was physically demanding, sometimes dangerous and absolutely necessary, but when the war was over many of them returned home with little recognition for what they had done.

When war broke out in September 1939, Britain faced a serious timber problem. Huge quantities of wood were needed for railway sleepers, pit props for the coal mines, construction, crates, aircraft production and many other parts of the war effort. At the same time, many of the men who would normally have worked in forestry were leaving to join the armed forces. Britain needed more home-grown timber and it needed people who could produce it.

The Women’s Timber Corps was officially established in 1942 as part of the Women’s Land Army. Young women from across the country joined, many of them only in their late teens or early twenties. For some, it was the first time they had ever lived away from home. Some had experience of country life, while others came from towns and cities knowing very little about forestry and suddenly found themselves learning skills they would probably never have imagined needing before the war.

Their jobs varied enormously. Some became fellers, working with axes and long crosscut saws to bring trees down. Others measured timber, worked in sawmills, planted trees, loaded timber, drove tractors and other vehicles or helped move the enormous quantities of wood being taken from Britain’s forests. It was skilled work as well as physical work, and the women had to learn quickly.

The conditions could be extremely tough. Forestry did not stop because it was raining, freezing cold or muddy, and the women could spend long days outside doing exhausting physical labour. Accommodation was not always comfortable either, particularly for women who were moved from one forestry job to another and had to find somewhere to live close to wherever they had been posted.

There was another difficulty too. These women were entering a world which had traditionally been dominated by men, and not everybody believed they belonged there. Some faced prejudice and scepticism from the people around them. But as the war continued, the Lumberjills proved that they were perfectly capable of doing work that had once been dismissed as a man’s job. They developed strength, skill and confidence, and many formed close friendships with the women working beside them.

I think it must have been an extraordinary experience for some of these young women. Imagine being seventeen, eighteen or nineteen, leaving your family behind and suddenly finding yourself in a forest miles from home, learning to use equipment you may never even have seen before. Wartime necessity gave many women opportunities and responsibilities that would have been almost unimaginable only a few years earlier.

Their work continued even after the fighting had ended. The Women’s Timber Corps was finally disbanded in 1946, and many of its members simply returned to ordinary civilian life. The timber they had produced had helped Britain through the war, but the women themselves largely disappeared from the national story.

Decades passed before the contribution of the Women’s Timber Corps began to receive the wider acknowledgement it deserved.

 Memorials now stand in their honour, including one in Scotland dedicated to the women who worked in woodlands throughout the country during the Second World War, but many former Lumberjills had already spent most of their lives with relatively little public recognition.

That is perhaps what I find most striking about their story. These were young women who stepped into a difficult and physically demanding world because their country needed them. They proved that many of the assumptions about what women were capable of were simply wrong. 

So when we remember the women who helped Britain through the Second World War, perhaps we should remember those working among the trees as well as those on the farms and factory floors. The Lumberjills may not always appear in the most familiar wartime stories, but without their strength, skill and determination, Britain’s forests could never have supplied the timber the country so desperately needed.

Had you heard of the Lumberjills before, or did anyone in your family work in forestry during the Second World War?

Was William the Conqueror Made by a Childhood of Fear?

Was William the Conqueror Made by a Childhood of Fear?

Was William of Normandy a ruthless invader who stole England’s crown, or was he a man shaped from childhood to believe that if you wanted to keep what was yours, you had to fight for it?

Over the past few posts, we have been looking at the men caught up in the struggle for the English crown in 1066. We have followed Harold Godwinson, the man who actually became King of England, and Tostig, Harold’s own brother, who returned with an invading army.

Now it is time to look at the man most of us immediately associate with 1066: William, Duke of Normandy.

Today I want to look at William before he became “the Conqueror”. He was a child surrounded by violence, rebellion and men who were quite prepared to kill one another for power.

William was born at Falaise in Normandy, probably in 1027 or 1028. His father was Robert I, Duke of Normandy, while his mother, Herleva, was not Robert’s wife, meaning William was illegitimate.

That mattered a lot in the 11th century, and his enemies would later use it against him. He may have been the acknowledged son of a duke, but that did not mean every Norman noble believed he had the right to rule them.

Then, while William was still only a child, everything changed.

In 1035, his father left Normandy on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem after arranging for William to be recognised as his heir. Robert never returned. He died on the journey home, leaving William, at around only seven or eight years old, as Duke of Normandy.

It is difficult to imagine how vulnerable that made him. William held an important title, but he was still a child and had to rely on the adults around him to protect both his position and his life.

Normandy descended into years of instability as rival nobles fought for influence, and several of the men responsible for protecting William were killed. One guardian, Gilbert of Brionne, was assassinated, while another protector, Turold, was also murdered. Later accounts even describe William being moved secretly at night for his own safety.

Some details may have been influenced by later writers, but the wider picture is clear. William grew up in a world where loyalty could disappear very quickly and where powerful men could be killed because somebody else wanted what they had.

I think this gives us a rather different way of looking at the man he eventually became.

We often describe medieval rulers as ruthless without thinking very much about how they became that way. William learned extraordinarily young that a title did not guarantee safety. Family connections did not guarantee loyalty. Promises could be broken, and inheritance meant little if somebody stronger was willing to take it from you.

Power had to be defended.

By his teenage years, William was beginning to take greater control of Normandy, although opposition to him continued. In 1047, a major rebellion broke out against his rule.

With the support of King Henry I of France, William defeated the rebels at the Battle of Val-ès-Dunes. The vulnerable child duke was gradually becoming a ruler his enemies could no longer easily remove.

Over the following years, William strengthened his authority, defeated rivals and increased his power. He married Matilda of Flanders, connecting himself to one of the most important families in northern Europe.

By the 1060s, the boy who had once depended on others to keep him alive had become one of the most formidable rulers in France.

And then England entered the story.

William later claimed that Edward the Confessor had promised him the English throne. He also claimed that Harold Godwinson had sworn an oath supporting William’s succession after Harold travelled to the Continent.

Exactly what was promised, and what Harold believed he was agreeing to, has been argued over ever since.

What we do know is that Edward died on the 5th of January 1066, and William did not become King of England.

Harold did.

Harold Godwinson was crowned on the 6th of January. To his supporters, there were strong reasons for accepting him. Harold was one of the most powerful men in England, Edward may have nominated him before his death, and the leading men of the kingdom accepted him as king.

But imagine the news reaching William in Normandy.

If William genuinely believed that Edward had promised him England, and that Harold himself had sworn to support his claim, then Harold’s coronation was not just a political disappointment. William may have seen it as a betrayal and, perhaps more importantly, as another moment in his life when somebody appeared to be taking something he believed belonged to him.

This is where his childhood becomes particularly interesting to me.

A man who had spent his earliest years watching rivals challenge his inheritance was now being told that another man had taken the crown he believed had been promised to him.

William responded in the way his life had taught him to respond. He prepared to fight.

But preparing an invasion of England was very different from crushing a rebellion in Normandy. William would need ships, men, money, allies and, perhaps most importantly, a convincing reason why thousands of men should risk their lives for his claim to another kingdom.

In my next Medieval post, I’ll continue William’s story and look at how he turned a disputed claim to the English throne into one of the most famous invasions in history.

But after looking at his childhood, I’m interested to know what you think. Do you think William’s ruthless determination in 1066 was partly shaped by growing up surrounded by violence and threats to his own inheritance- or does that risk making excuses for a man who chose to invade England?

Image info:

Later engraved portrait of William the Conqueror, crowned and holding a sword. Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain.

The Day a Bomber Fell on a Lancashire School: The Freckleton Air Disaster

The Day a Bomber Fell on a Lancashire School: The Freckleton Air Disaster

Imagine sending your child off to school on an ordinary Wednesday morning. There is a war going on, but this is Lancashire, far away from the battlefields of Europe. The children settle down into their classrooms, the teachers start the day's lessons and, nearby, servicemen stop for something to eat. It seems a day like any other during the war.

First Lieutenant John Bloemendal, pilot of the Consolidated B-24 Liberator “Classy Chassis II”, which crashed at Freckleton, Lancashire, on the 23rd of August 1944. Via Wikipedia/Wikimedia Commons – Public Domain.

Then the weather suddenly changed.

Within only minutes, a quiet Lancashire village would become the scene of one of the most heartbreaking accidents of the Second World War.

Today I want to discover more about the Freckleton Air Disaster of the 23rd of August 1944, because although this happened during the war, it was not caused by enemy action. It was a terrible combination of an aircraft, a violent storm and a village that happened to lie in its flight path.

At around 10.30 that morning, two American B-24 Liberator bombers took off from the USAAF base at Warton Aerodrome, near Freckleton. They were newly refurbished aircraft being taken on test flights before returning to operational service. One of them was B-24 Liberator 42-50291, known as Classy Chassis II, it was piloted by First Lieutenant John Bloemendal. With him were Technical Sergeant James Parr and Sergeant Gordon Kinney.

The flight was initially normal, but an extremely violent storm was approaching the area. Conditions deteriorated remarkably quickly. Heavy rain swept across the countryside, strong winds developed and visibility became extremely poor. The aircraft were recalled to Warton.

Bloemendal tried to return to the aerodrome, but as he approached the runway he reported that he was abandoning his landing and going around again.

Those would be among the last moments of the aircraft's flight.

At approximately 10.47am, the Liberator came down over Freckleton. Flying extremely low, it hit a tree and then buildings before tearing through several houses and the Sad Sack Snack Bar, a small café that was popular with servicemen from the nearby airfield.

Then part of the aircraft struck the infants' section of Freckleton Holy Trinity School.

The Liberator was carrying a large quantity of aviation fuel. When the fuel tanks ruptured, fire swept through the wreckage and part of the school. What had been an ordinary classroom only seconds earlier became almost impossible to escape from.

Perhaps one of the details I find most haunting is that a classroom clock stopped at 10.47am.

The children in that part of the school were very young. Thirty-eight children were killed, many of them only four, five or six years old. Two teachers also lost their lives.

There were further casualties elsewhere in the village. People were killed in the café and surrounding buildings, including civilians, British servicemen and American servicemen. All three men aboard the Liberator also sadly died.

Altogether, 61 people lost their lives.

It is difficult to imagine what the people of Freckleton must have experienced that morning. This was a relatively small community, which meant that the tragedy touched families throughout the village. Parents who had watched their children leave for school only hours earlier suddenly found themselves facing something almost impossible to comprehend.

And yet, amid the devastation, people rushed to help. Local residents joined British and American servicemen in attempting to rescue those trapped in the wreckage and deal with the fires. For the American personnel stationed nearby, the disaster must have been particularly painful. They had come to Britain to take part in the war, only for one of their own aircraft to cause such terrible loss in the community beside their base.

The exact circumstances that caused the aircraft to lose control have never been established with complete certainty, but the extraordinary weather conditions that morning played a major part in the disaster.

Afterwards, Freckleton faced the task of mourning its dead and remembering its children.

A memorial now stands in the churchyard of Holy Trinity Church. Its inscription remembers the 38 infant scholars, two teachers and civilians who died, while a plaque near the former school site records the full loss of 61 lives.

There is something particularly difficult about stories involving children during wartime. We often think of the dangers faced by soldiers, sailors and airmen, or of families living through bombing raids. But sometimes tragedy arrived somewhere completely unexpected.

Those children had simply gone to school.

I think that is why the Freckleton Air Disaster still feels so powerful more than eighty years later. Behind the number 61 were children, teachers, servicemen, neighbours and families whose ordinary Wednesday morning changed forever.

Had you heard of the Freckleton Air Disaster before? Perhaps you have a family connection to Freckleton, Warton or the American servicemen stationed in Lancashire during the war. If you do, I would love to hear your story in the comments.

The Night the Tay Bridge Gave Way: Britain’s Shocking Railway Disaster

The Night the Tay Bridge Gave Way: Britain’s Shocking Railway Disaster

Imagine that you are travelling by train on a dark winter evening. There is a violent storm battering the Scottish coast, but ahead of you stands a bridge that has been celebrated as an extraordinary achievement of Victorian engineering. The train begins its journey across the Firth of Tay towards Dundee. Then, somewhere out in the darkness, the lights disappear.

The train never reaches the other side.

This was the Tay Bridge Disaster of the 28th of December 1879, a tragedy that killed everyone aboard the train and raised deeply uncomfortable questions about one of the great engineering achievements of Victorian Britain.

Today I want to look at what happened that night, because the story of the Tay Bridge is about much more than a terrible railway accident. It is also a story of Victorian confidence, engineering ambition and the devastating consequences when something that appeared impressive was not as strong as people believed.

The first Tay railway bridge stretched for more than two miles across the Firth of Tay between Wormit in Fife and Dundee. Designed by engineer Sir Thomas Bouch for the North British Railway, it was an extraordinary structure for its time. Crossing the Tay by railway had previously included a ferry journey. The new bridge promised to transform travel between Edinburgh and Dundee.

To many Victorians, the structures represented progress. Railways were spreading across Britain, enormous bridges were spanning rivers and estuaries, and engineering seemed capable of overcoming almost any obstacle.

But there had already been warning signs.

But there had already been signs of trouble. Parts of the bridge’s bracing had loosened, and adjustments and repairs had been made after it opened. Trains nevertheless continued to cross it. None of this stopped trains continuing to use it.

Then came the evening of Sunday the 28th of December 1879.

The weather was terrible. A powerful gale was blowing across the Tay as the evening passenger train from Edinburgh approached the bridge on its way towards Dundee. At St Fort station, passenger tickets were collected as usual. From those tickets and the railway staff known to be aboard, investigators later estimated that around 74 or 75 people were on the train.

At 7.08pm, it left St Fort.

When it reached the southern end of the bridge a few minutes later, the train slowed so that the driver could collect the staff which authorised him to enter the single-track bridge. Once he had it, the train continued out across the Tay.

At 7.13pm, the signalman recorded that it had entered the bridge.

One railway worker, John Watt, was watching from the signal cabin. He later told the official inquiry that he could see sparks coming from the train as it travelled further across the bridge. Then there was a sudden bright flash.

The lights vanished.

In the darkness and storm, it was not immediately obvious exactly what had happened. But when the train failed to arrive at the northern end, the terrible truth gradually became clear.

A huge section of the bridge had collapsed.

The train had fallen with it into the River Tay.

There were no survivors.

Around 75 passengers and railway employees are generally believed to have died, although the precise number could never be established with absolute certainty. The official investigation itself estimated that there had been 74 or 75 people aboard.

The following morning revealed the scale of the disaster. The tall central spans of the bridge were gone, leaving a great empty gap across the river. Twisted ironwork and the wreckage of the train lay in the water below.

For the families waiting in Dundee, there was no miracle.

The disaster caused shock throughout Britain. How could a bridge that had been presented as a triumph of modern engineering simply collapse beneath a passenger train?

An official Court of Inquiry was established, and the investigation examined everything from the strength of the iron columns and cross-bracing to the way parts of the bridge had been manufactured and maintained. Evidence was taken from railway employees, engineers and those who had worked on the structure.

The conclusions were devastating.

The bridge had not been strong enough to withstand the forces placed upon it during the storm. The inquiry criticised its design, construction and maintenance, and Sir Thomas Bouch was held chiefly responsible.

For Bouch, the consequences were catastrophic. Only a short time earlier he had been one of Britain's most celebrated engineers. After the disaster, his reputation was destroyed. Plans he had been developing for another great railway bridge across the Forth were abandoned, and he died less than a year after the Tay Bridge collapse.

But the disaster also had consequences far beyond one man.

Engineers began paying much greater attention to the effect of wind pressure on large structures. The failure of the Tay Bridge influenced the standards applied to later bridges and became one of the most important engineering disasters of the Victorian age.

A replacement Tay railway bridge was eventually built alongside the remains of the original structure and opened in 1887. It was designed very differently, with far greater emphasis placed upon strength and stability.

Even today, some of the old masonry piers from the first bridge can still be seen standing beside the railway bridge that replaced it.

There is something particularly haunting about the Tay Bridge disaster. Those aboard the train were simply making an ordinary railway journey on a Sunday evening. They had no reason to imagine that the bridge beneath them was about to fail.

The signalman watched the train enter the darkness.

There were sparks.

A flash of light.

And then the train was gone.

Had you heard of the Tay Bridge Disaster before, or have you ever seen the remains of the original bridge beside the Tay?

The Night a Place of Safety Became a Trap: The Balham Underground Disaster, 1940

The Night a Place of Safety Became a Trap: The Balham Underground Disaster, 1940

Imagine heading down into an Underground station during an air raid, believing that the streets above were far more dangerous. Around you are hundreds of other people doing exactly the same thing. Families settled themselves on the platforms, waiting for another night of bombing to pass. Then, just after eight o’clock, there is an enormous explosion. In moments, the very place that was supposed to keep you safe starts to fill with water, mud and debris.

A double-decker bus lies in a bomb crater at Balham, South London, following an air raid in October 1940. Unknown photographer, UK Government / Ministry of Information Second World War Press Agency Print Collection. Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain.

This was Balham Underground station on the evening of the 14th of October 1940.

 I want to look at the Balham Underground disaster, one of the most terrible incidents to take place in London’s Tube network during the Second World War. It is also a reminder that, although Underground stations provided vital protection for thousands of Londoners during the Blitz, they could never be completely safe from a direct hit.

By October 1940, London had been dealing with weeks of almost nightly bombing. For many people, going to the underground had become part of their routine. Balham, on the Northern line in south London, was one of the deep-level stations being used as an air raid shelter, and hundreds of people were inside when the raid began that night.

At about 8.02pm, a large German bomb hit the road above the northern end of the station. The explosion ripped open the road and damaged the Underground tunnels. Water mains and sewers were ruptured, and the northbound platform tunnel partially collapsed.

What happened next must have been absolutely terrifying.

Water, earth, mud and debris began pouring down into the station. The mixture spread through the cross-passages towards the other platform, while frightened shelterers tried to escape through the darkness and confusion. People who had gone underground because it seemed safer than remaining on the streets suddenly found themselves desperately trying to get back to the surface.

Above ground, the explosion had left an enormous crater in Balham High Road. In the blackout, a double-decker bus was unable to avoid it and went into the crater. The extraordinary photographs taken afterwards, showing the bus almost disappearing into the shattered road, became some of the most recognisable images associated with the disaster.

More than 400 people managed to escape from the station and more than 70 were injured. Many of those who died were overwhelmed by the flooding and debris before they could reach safety.

The exact number of people who lost their lives has been recorded differently over the years. At least 64 people were killed, although some accounts give a slightly higher figure depending on whether railway staff and those who later died from their injuries are included. Perhaps that uncertainty itself tells us something about the chaos of that night.

The recovery operation was difficult and grim. Water had to be pumped from the tunnels and enormous amounts of mud and rubble removed before the damaged sections could be repaired. The destruction was so extensive that Balham station remained closed for months, eventually reopening in January 1941.

Today, when we look at photographs of Londoners sleeping on Underground platforms during the Blitz, it is easy to think of the Tube as an almost perfect refuge beneath the bombing above.

Balham reminds us that it was not.

Those families sheltering there had made what must have seemed the sensible choice. They had gone under the streets to protect themselves, surrounded by neighbours and strangers all waiting for the all-clear. None of them could have known that, on the 14th of October 1940, danger would reach them even there.

It is one of those wartime stories where the ordinary details make it particularly difficult to imagine. People settling down for the night. Children beside their parents. Bags and blankets on the platforms. A routine they had probably already experienced many times.

And then, in a matter of moments, everything changed.

Had you heard of the Balham Underground disaster before, or do you have family memories of sheltering in London’s Underground stations during the Blitz?

Elizabeth I and the Pope: How England’s Break with Rome Became a Battle for Loyalty

Elizabeth I and the Pope: How England’s Break with Rome Became a Battle for Loyalty

We all know that Henry VIII’s relationship with the Pope and Rome was, to put it mildly, complicated. His determination to end his marriage to Catherine of Aragon eventually helped bring about England’s break with Rome, and in 1534 Henry was declared Supreme Head of the Church of England. But what happened after Henry died? Mary I restored England to the Roman Catholic Church, so when Elizabeth I came to the throne in 1558, the relationship between the English Crown and the Pope was once again about to become enormously important.

Portrait of Pope Pius V by Scipione Pulzone, late 16th century. Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain.

Today I want to look at Elizabeth’s relationship with Rome and the Pope, because it developed very differently from her father’s. There was no single dramatic dispute over a marriage. Instead, Elizabeth’s reign saw a much longer struggle over religion, authority and, eventually, something even more dangerous: whether an English Catholic could remain loyal both to the Pope and to their Queen.

Elizabeth I in Coronation Robes, unknown artist, c.1600–1610, after a lost original of c.1559. Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain.

When Elizabeth became Queen on the 17th of November 1558, the Pope was Paul IV. England had officially returned to Roman Catholicism during the reign of Elizabeth’s half-sister Mary I, and Rome was therefore watching closely to see what the new Queen would do. Elizabeth was the daughter of Anne Boleyn, whose marriage to Henry VIII had never been accepted as valid by Rome in the way Henry wanted, and this meant her legitimacy had long been controversial from a Catholic point of view.

There is an old story that Paul IV immediately rejected Elizabeth as illegitimate and refused to recognise her as Queen, but the appears to have been more complicated. French representatives certainly encouraged the Pope to act against Elizabeth, partly because this would have strengthened the position of the Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots, but Paul did not immediately move to excommunicate Elizabeth.

For a while, there was still uncertainty about exactly what Elizabeth intended to do religiously. That did not last long. In 1559, Elizabeth’s Parliament passed a new Act of Supremacy, reversing Mary I’s reunion with Rome and restoring the monarch’s authority over the English Church. Elizabeth did not use exactly the same title as her father. Henry VIII had been called Supreme Head of the Church of England, whereas Elizabeth became Supreme Governor of the Church of England.

Alongside the Act of Supremacy came the Act of Uniformity, which restored the Book of Common Prayer and established the religious framework that became known as the Elizabethan Religious Settlement. The message was clear: the Pope no longer held religious authority within Elizabeth’s kingdom, and England had once again separated itself from Rome.

Interestingly, Pope Paul IV was not the man who eventually excommunicated Elizabeth. He died in August 1559, only months after the new religious settlement had been introduced. He was succeeded by Pope Pius IV, and there were still moments when Rome appears to have hoped that Elizabeth might somehow be persuaded back towards Catholicism. Elizabeth was even invited to send representatives to the Council of Trent, but she did not accept.

Then came Pope Pius V, who became Pope in 1566, and this was where Elizabeth’s relationship with Rome entered a much more dangerous phase. By the late 1560s, the political situation in England had become increasingly tense. Mary, Queen of Scots had arrived in England in 1568 and provided Catholic opponents of Elizabeth with a possible alternative monarch. Then, in 1569, the Northern Rebellion saw Catholic nobles attempt to challenge Elizabeth’s government and restore Catholic worship.

On the 25th of February 1570, Pope Pius V issued the papal bull Regnans in Excelsis. It formally excommunicated Elizabeth from the Roman Catholic Church, condemned her religious settlement and declared that her subjects were released from their obligation of loyalty to her.

From Elizabeth’s point of view, this was far more dangerous than a simple religious condemnation. The Pope was not just saying that he disapproved of the Queen’s religious policies. He was effectively saying that Catholics did not have to obey her. That was something else entirely.

That placed ordinary English Catholics in an incredibly difficult position. Many had no intention of rebelling against Elizabeth at all. They regarded themselves as loyal English men and women who happened to remain Catholic, but after 1570 it became much harder for the government to separate private faith from political loyalty. Increasingly, Elizabeth’s advisers worried that loyalty to Rome might also mean disloyalty to the Crown.

Those fears were strengthened by a series of plots involving Mary, Queen of Scots. The Ridolfi Plot followed in 1571, while later conspiracies such as the Throckmorton and Babington plots reinforced the belief that foreign Catholic powers might support attempts to overthrow or even assassinate Elizabeth. As a result, laws against Catholic priests, recusants and those accused of helping them became increasingly severe as Elizabeth’s reign continued.

This is what I find so fascinating about Elizabeth’s relationship with Rome. Henry VIII’s break with the Pope began largely with one king’s struggle to secure the annulment of his marriage, but under Elizabeth the conflict had become something much bigger. It was now about who possessed authority in England, whether the Pope could challenge the legitimacy of an English monarch and whether religious belief could be separated from political loyalty.

The papal bull of 1570 may have been intended to weaken Elizabeth, but in many ways it created an enormous problem for English Catholics themselves. People who might previously have quietly practised their faith while remaining loyal to their Queen were increasingly viewed with suspicion because religion and rebellion were now being linked together.

Elizabeth would remain on the throne for another thirty-three years after her excommunication. Rome never succeeded in removing her, and the Church of England survived. But the conflict between Elizabeth and the papacy helped transform religious disagreement into a question of national security, with consequences for thousands of ordinary people caught between faith and loyalty.

I think it is easy to remember Henry VIII as the Tudor monarch who fought with the Pope, but Elizabeth’s relationship with Rome was arguably just as fascinating and perhaps even more dangerous.

If you had been a Catholic living in Elizabethan England after 1570, where do you think your loyalty would have fallen- with your faith, your Queen, or would you have tried somehow to remain loyal to both?

The Day the Ground Exploded: The Forgotten Disaster at RAF Fauld

The Day the Ground Exploded: The Forgotten Disaster at RAF Fauld

Imagine going about an ordinary Monday morning in the Staffordshire countryside when, without warning, the ground beneath you erupts. Thousands of tonnes of bombs explode underground, buildings are destroyed, a farm disappears and an enormous crater is torn into the landscape. This was not an enemy air raid. It was one of Britain’s most devastating wartime accidents.

Image: Aerial view of the crater and surrounding devastation caused by the RAF Fauld explosion photographed by the Royal Air Force on 4 December 1944/ Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain.

Today I want to discover more about the RAF Fauld explosion, which happened near Hanbury in Staffordshire on the 27th of November 1944. By this point Britain had been at war for more than five years, but beneath this peaceful stretch of countryside was something few people passing through the area would ever have imagined.

Image: Storemen stacking 250-lb MC bombs in one of the underground tunnels at No. 21 Maintenance Unit, RAF Fauld, near Hanbury, Staffordshire. Photograph by B. J. Daventry, Royal Air Force official photographer / Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain.

RAF Fauld was home to a huge underground munitions store. Old gypsum mine workings had been adapted into chambers where thousands of tonnes of bombs and other explosives could be stored. RAF personnel worked there alongside civilian workers and Italian prisoners of war, handling the enormous quantities of ammunition needed to keep Britain’s wartime air operations supplied.

At around 11am that morning, disaster struck. An explosion began inside the underground complex and it rapidly developed into a catastrophic chain reaction. Around 4,000 tonnes of bombs were stored approximately 90 feet beneath the ground, and the force of the resulting explosion was enormous. Earth, rock and debris were thrown across the surrounding countryside as the landscape above the store was ripped apart.

Upper Castle Hayes Farm, which stood close to the site, was destroyed, while other buildings in the area were badly damaged. A nearby reservoir was also breached, sending water and mud into the surrounding workings and adding to the destruction. For the people of Hanbury and the surrounding villages, the scene must have been almost impossible to comprehend. Only moments earlier they had been surrounded by ordinary Staffordshire countryside; now part of it looked more like a battlefield.

The human cost was terrible. Seventy people lost their lives in the disaster, including RAF personnel, civilian workers, Italian prisoners of war and local people. Eighteen of those who died have no known grave, and the crater itself became their final resting place.

The exact cause of the explosion was never firmly established, although later evidence suggested that an accident during the handling of munitions underground may have triggered the disaster. Whatever the precise sequence of events, a routine day at an ammunition depot had turned into one of the most terrible accidents experienced in Britain during the Second World War.

Perhaps the most haunting part of this story is that the evidence of what happened that morning has never completely disappeared. The enormous Fauld crater remains in the Staffordshire countryside today. Trees and vegetation have gradually reclaimed the landscape, but beneath that peaceful appearance lies the reminder of what happened there more than eighty years ago.

When we think about the Second World War, we often think about the people fighting on the front line, the aircraft flying overhead and the great battles that decided the course of the conflict. But behind all of that were thousands of people working in factories, depots, maintenance units and ammunition stores, often carrying out dangerous jobs every single day.

The people who lost their lives at Fauld were part of that wartime story too, and I think they deserve to be remembered.

Had you heard about the RAF Fauld explosion before, or is this a part of Britain’s wartime history that was completely new to you?

Tostig Godwinson: The King’s Brother Who Returned With an Invasion Army

Tostig Godwinson: The King’s Brother Who Returned With an Invasion Army

Imagine being driven from one of the most powerful positions in England. You believe your own brother has betrayed you. Less than a year later, that brother is King of England - and you return with a foreign army.

That was the extraordinary position of Tostig Godwinson in 1066.

In our recent Norman Conquest posts, we have looked at the men who believed England’s crown should be theirs.

Today I want to look more closely at Harold’s own brother. Because before Harold faced William at Hastings, he had another enemy to deal with. And that enemy was part of his own family.

Tostig was born into the enormously powerful Godwin family, the son of Godwin, Earl of Wessex, and the younger brother of Harold Godwinson. Like Harold, he rose rapidly through the political world of Edward the Confessor’s England.

In 1055, Tostig was appointed Earl of Northumbria, giving him authority over a vast and important part of northern England.

But Northumbria was not an easy region to govern. It had its own powerful families, traditions and political rivalries, and Tostig appears never to have won the support of much of the Northumbrian ruling elite.

Contemporary and later accounts portray his government as severe, while his opponents accused him of heavy taxation and harsh treatment. Whatever the exact truth- and our evidence for the eleventh century is often incomplete- resentment towards him became extremely serious.

Then, in October 1065, it exploded. Northumbrian rebels rose against Tostig. His officials and supporters were attacked, his property was seized and the rebels chose Morcar, brother of Edwin, Earl of Mercia, as their new earl.

Tostig looked to King Edward the Confessor for help. But another man was sent to negotiate with the rebels. His brother Harold.

And Harold made a decision that would change their relationship forever.

Rather than attempting to restore Tostig by force, Harold accepted that his brother had lost control of Northumbria and negotiated a settlement which recognised Morcar as earl. Tostig was forced into exile.

From Harold’s point of view, there may have been little alternative. Attempting to impose Tostig on the north could have created a much larger civil war at a dangerous moment for the kingdom.

Tostig saw things very differently. He appears to have believed that Harold had betrayed him and may even have suspected that his brother had encouraged the rebellion against him.

The two brothers who had once belonged to the most powerful family in England were now bitterly divided.

Tostig went to Flanders, where he had important family connections through his wife, Judith.

Then everything changed again. Edward the Confessor died on the 5th of January 1066. The following day, Harold Godwinson became King of England.

For the exiled Tostig, his brother was no longer simply the man he blamed for losing his earldom. He was now the king.

In the spring of 1066, Tostig returned. He sailed to the Isle of Wight and then raided parts of England’s coast before moving northwards.

But the attempt went badly. Forces led by Earls Edwin and Morcar drove him away, and Tostig eventually sought refuge in Scotland.

He still had not finished.

At some point, Tostig joined forces with one of the most formidable warriors in Europe: Harald Hardrada, King of Norway.

Hardrada already had ambitions in England. Now he had something else- an English exile with knowledge of the kingdom and every reason to see Harold removed from the throne.

In September 1066, their forces entered northern England.

On the 20th of September, Hardrada and Tostig met the armies of Edwin and Morcar at the Battle of Fulford, just outside York. They won. York submitted. For a brief moment, the invasion appeared to be succeeding.

But Harold Godwinson was already coming.

The English king marched rapidly north with his army, covering an extraordinary distance to confront the invaders.

On the 25th of September 1066, the brothers finally faced one another at the Battle of Stamford Bridge.

By the end of the day, Harald Hardrada was dead. So was Tostig Godwinson.

Harold had defeated the invasion from the north. But his victory came at an enormous cost.

His army had marched hundreds of miles and fought a major battle. And just three days later, William of Normandy landed on the south coast of England.

Harold would now have to turn around and march south again.

Tostig is an interesting figure because it is tempting simply to describe him as the brother who betrayed Harold. The reality was probably more complicated.

Tostig believed that he had been wronged. Harold may have believed that sacrificing his brother’s position was necessary to prevent England descending into civil war.

Whatever their motives, their family dispute became part of something much larger. And in September 1066, two brothers ended up facing one another on opposite sides of a battlefield.

One of them died there. The other would be dead less than three weeks later.

Do you see Tostig as a traitor to his brother and country, or a man trying to reclaim what he believed had been unjustly taken from him?

The Children Sent to Safety Who Found Themselves in Danger at Sea

The Children Sent to Safety Who Found Themselves in Danger at Sea

Two days ago, we looked at the heartbreaking story of the SS City of Benares, and yesterday we looked more closely at the Children’s Overseas Reception Board, the government scheme which sent British children abroad in the hope of keeping them safe from the war. Today I want to go back a few weeks before the City of Benares disaster, because another ship carrying children had already shown just how dangerous these journeys could be.

Her name was the SS Volendam.

In August 1940, the Volendam left Britain carrying hundreds of passengers, including around 320 children travelling under the CORB scheme. They were heading towards Canada, where families were waiting to give them homes away from the bombing and the threat of invasion in Britain.

I keep thinking about what those children must have felt as they left. For some it may have seemed like a great adventure, but behind them were Mums and Dads who had made an incredibly difficult decision. They were sending their children across the sea because they believed that, however painful the separation, it might give them the best chance of staying safe.

During the night of the 30th and 31st of August 1940, that sense of safety disappeared. At the time, the Volendam was sailing in Convoy OB-205 when she was torpedoed by the German U-boat U-60.

The torpedo hit the front of the ship and water began pouring into her holds. With the Volendam badly damaged, the order was given to abandon ship, and hundreds of people now had to make their way into lifeboats in the darkness.

Thankfully, the children had practised what to do before leaving port. Contemporary accounts describe them remaining remarkably calm as they were taken from their cabins and brought to their boat stations, with some reportedly singing “Roll Out the Barrel” while they waited to be rescued.

It is difficult to imagine the scene. Children who had been sent abroad to escape the dangers of war were now sitting in lifeboats at sea after the ship beneath them had been torpedoed.

But this story had an outcome that could so easily have been very different. Other ships came to their aid and all of the children were rescued, along with the other passengers. One member of the Volendam’s crew, the purser, sadly lost his life during the evacuation.

The Volendam herself did not sink. She was eventually taken in tow, and when she was later examined an extraordinary discovery was made: another torpedo had become lodged in her bow without exploding.

When I read that, I cannot help thinking how narrowly disaster had been avoided. Had that second torpedo exploded, the story of the Volendam might have been remembered very differently.

The children were brought back to Britain, but for some families the ordeal did not end there. Parents still had to decide whether to try again and send their children abroad on another ship.

Remarkably, two of the children who had survived the Volendam were later sent abroad again and were among the CORB children aboard the SS City of Benares.

And this is where the story connects so painfully with the one we looked at two days ago.

Less than three weeks later, on the 17th of September 1940, the SS City of Benares was torpedoed while carrying another group of children towards Canada. This time there was no fortunate ending. Seventy-seven children lost their lives, and the government-sponsored scheme was suspended.

Looking at these stories together makes the decision facing parents in 1940 seem even more impossible. Keep your children at home while Britain faced bombing and the possibility of invasion, or send them away across a dangerous sea in the hope that somewhere far away from home might be safer.

Yesterday I asked what you would have done if you had been one of those parents. After reading what happened aboard the Volendam, I think that question becomes even harder.

If your child had survived the Volendam and returned home, would you have been able to let them leave Britain for a second time?

I would love to hear what you think, and if your family has a connection to the children who were sent abroad during the war, please do share their story.

The First Anglo-Afghan War - Part Six: Britain Had Returned to Kabul, So Why Did It Leave?

The First Anglo-Afghan War - Part Six: Britain Had Returned to Kabul, So Why Did It Leave?

In Part Five, we followed Major-General George Pollock and the British-led forces as they fought their way back towards Kabul in 1842. Only months earlier, the retreat from the Afghan capital had ended in disaster. Now British troops had returned. But they were not going to stay.

Today I want to finish the story of the First Anglo-Afghan War, because what happened next raises a rather uncomfortable question. After three years of fighting, what had Britain actually achieved?

Pollock reached Kabul in September 1842, and he was soon joined by Major-General William Nott, whose force had travelled north from Kandahar. One of their most important objectives was to recover the British prisoners who had been held following the uprising and disastrous retreat earlier that year. Around 95 hostages were recovered, including soldiers, women and children. For families who had spent months not knowing what would happen to them, their return was one of the few happier moments in an otherwise grim campaign.

But the British return to Kabul was also intended to send a message. The humiliation of January 1842 had badly damaged Britain's military reputation, and those in command wanted to demonstrate that the destruction of the retreating column had not gone unanswered.

Before leaving Kabul, British troops destroyed parts of the city, including its famous covered bazaar. The destruction was intended as an act of retribution, but it did not remain neatly contained. Looting followed and fire spread through parts of Kabul. It was a harsh ending to a war which had already brought enormous suffering to soldiers and civilians alike.

And then something rather remarkable happened. The British left. On the 12th of October 1842, Pollock's army began its journey back towards India. There would be no renewed attempt to permanently occupy Kabul. No attempt to rebuild the political arrangement Britain had tried to impose only a few years earlier. The cost had simply become too great.

And perhaps the clearest indication of how badly the original plan had failed can be found in what happened next. At the beginning of the war, Britain had invaded Afghanistan partly to remove Dost Mohammad Khan from power. The British had replaced him with Shah Shuja, believing that a ruler friendly towards British interests would make Afghanistan more secure.

But Shah Shuja had been murdered in 1842. Dost Mohammad, meanwhile, had been held in British custody. After the British withdrawal, he was released. He returned to Afghanistan, and by 1843 was once again ruling from Kabul.

The man Britain had gone to such lengths to remove was back on the throne. Dost Mohammad would rule for another two decades, until his death in 1863.

It is difficult to look at the First Anglo-Afghan War without thinking about the enormous price that had been paid. Thousands of soldiers and camp followers had died. Families had been separated. Kabul had experienced rebellion, fighting and destruction. And the British East India Company had spent huge sums of money on a campaign which had failed to produce the political settlement it had originally wanted.

Britain could claim that its army had returned to Kabul, recovered the prisoners and restored some of the military reputation lost during the retreat. But the larger ambition had failed. Afghanistan had not become the secure, compliant state British planners had imagined. Instead, the war had demonstrated just how difficult it could be for an outside power to control the politics of the country.

By the end of 1842, British forces were withdrawing back towards India. And Dost Mohammad was preparing to return. After invasion, occupation, rebellion, one of the most disastrous retreats in British military history and finally a march back to Kabul... Britain had ended the war remarkably close to where it had begun.

That is perhaps what makes the First Anglo-Afghan War such a fascinating part of Victorian history. It began with fears about Russian influence and Britain's determination to shape events beyond the borders of India. It ended with thousands dead and the ruler Britain had removed returning to power.

So, after following the story from the invasion of 1839 to the withdrawal in 1842, what do you think? Was there ever any realistic chance that Britain's plan for Afghanistan could have worked? Or was this a war that should never have been fought in the first place?

I would love to hear your thoughts.

 

Would You Have Sent Your Child Overseas to Escape the War?

Would You Have Sent Your Child Overseas to Escape the War?

Yesterday we looked at the heartbreaking story of the SS City of Benares, and the children who were taken across the Atlantic to what their families hoped would be safety in Canada.

Today I want to look at the wider story behind that voyage, because those children were part of something much bigger. In the summer of 1940, Britain was facing the very real threat of bombing and invasion. For thousands of parents, one terrifying question began to emerge.

Would their children be safer if they were sent away from Britain altogether?

The government created the Children’s Overseas Reception Board, which was usually known as CORB, to organise the evacuation of British children overseas. Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa all offered homes. The idea attracted enormous interest from worried families. Thousands of parents applied for places, hoping that sending their children overseas might protect them from the bombing and the threat of invasion at home. On paper, it must have sounded very reassuring. 

But I cannot imagine that the decision was ever simple.

Parents had to say goodbye without really knowing how long they would be apart from their children. Children left carrying luggage, labels and a few belongings from home, before travelling across the sea to live with people that they had never met. Some of the children would not see their families again for years.

Between July and September 1940, 2,664 children were sent overseas through the scheme.

Most went to Canada, others to Australia, South Africa and New Zealand. For many families, it was exactly what they had hoped for. A chance to get their children away from the bombing. But there was another danger. The journey itself.

On the 30th of August 1940, the SS Volendam, carrying hundreds of children across the Atlantic, was torpedoed. Thankfully, the children were rescued, but it was a frightening reminder that sending children abroad carried dangers of its own. Tomorrow we will find out more about this.

Yesterday’s story of the City of Benares also showed just how dangerous the Atlantic had become. When the ship was torpedoed on the 17th of September 1940, 77 children were among those who lost their lives. After that tragedy, the government suspended the overseas evacuation scheme.

When I read about CORB, I keep coming back to the parents. Imagine being told that you could send your child somewhere safer. Then imagine having to watch them leave, knowing that you had no idea when you would see them again. There really was no easy choice.

Keep them close while Britain was being bombed...or send them thousands of miles away during dangerous times.

What would you have done?

Would you have sent your child overseas if you had been offered a place?

And if someone in your family was evacuated overseas during the war, I would especially love to hear their story.

Harold Godwinson: The English King Who Won One Battle - Then Had to Fight for His Crown Again

Harold Godwinson: The English King Who Won One Battle - Then Had to Fight for His Crown Again

Imagine becoming King of England in January.

By September, one rival has invaded from the north.

You defeat him in one of the bloodiest battles of the year.

Then, before you have even had time to recover, news arrives that another invasion fleet has landed hundreds of miles away.

That was the position Harold Godwinson found himself in during 1066.

In our recent Medieval posts, we have been looking at the men who believed England’s crown should be theirs, including Harald Hardrada of Norway and William, Duke of Normandy.

Today I want to look more closely at the man who actually became king.

Harold Godwinson.

Harold was born into one of the most powerful families in England. His father, Godwin, Earl of Wessex, had risen to enormous influence during the reign of Edward the Confessor, and by the 1050s Harold himself had become one of the most important nobles in the kingdom.

He was not simply a court figure.

Harold had military experience, had fought in Wales and had shown himself capable of leading armies. By the final years of Edward the Confessor’s reign, he was arguably the most powerful man in England beneath the king himself.

Then, on the 5th of January 1066, Edward died.

According to English sources, Edward entrusted the kingdom to Harold shortly before his death. The following day, the 6th of January, Harold was crowned King of England.

But almost immediately, his crown was challenged.

William of Normandy claimed that Edward had previously promised the throne to him and that Harold himself had sworn an oath supporting William’s claim.

Whether that oath meant what William later said it meant is still debated.

Harold also faced danger from within his own family.

His estranged brother Tostig Godwinson, who was the former Earl of Northumbria, joined forces with Harald Hardrada, the King of Norway.

In September 1066, Hardrada and Tostig invaded northern England.

Harold reacted with amazing speed.

He marched his army north and, on the 25th of September 1066, met them at the Battle of Stamford Bridge.

The English won a crushing victory.

Harald Hardrada was killed.

Tostig was killed.

For a moment, Harold had survived one of the greatest threats to his throne.

Then came the news he must have dreaded.

William of Normandy had landed on the south coast.

Harold now had to turn his exhausted army around and march south again.

Less than three weeks after Stamford Bridge, on the 14th of October 1066, Harold faced William near Hastings.

The English army took up a strong defensive position on Senlac Hill. For much of the day, Harold’s shield wall held against repeated Norman attacks.

But eventually the English line began to break.

By the end of the battle, Harold was dead.

Exactly how he died is uncertain. The famous Bayeux Tapestry appears to show a figure struck near the eye by an arrow, but another figure nearby is being cut down by a mounted warrior. Historians still debate which, if either, represents Harold.

What is certain is that his death transformed English history.

William went on to become William the Conqueror, while Harold Godwinson became the last crowned Anglo-Saxon king of England.

I think Harold’s story becomes even more remarkable when we remember how much happened in such a short time.

He became king in January.

Defeated one invasion in September.

Marched almost the length of England.

And fought for his crown again in October.

Whatever we think about the competing claims to the throne, Harold Godwinson’s final year was extraordinary.

Do you think Harold might have defeated William if he had not first been forced to march north and fight Harald Hardrada?

 

SS City of Benares: The Evacuee Children Sent to Safety Who Never Reached Canada

SS City of Benares: The Evacuee Children Sent to Safety Who Never Reached Canada

Imagine saying goodbye to your child because you believed sending them thousands of miles away was the safest thing you could do.

You watch them leave Britain, knowing you may not see them for years.

But at least, you tell yourself, they will be far away from the bombs.

Then the message arrives.

Their ship has been sunk.

In our recent posts, we have been looking at the experiences of children during the Second World War - evacuation, separation from parents and the different ways children learned to live with fear and loss.

Today I want to look at one of the most heart-breaking chapters of that story.

The SS City of Benares.

By the summer of 1940, Britain faced the possibility of invasion and increasing air attacks. Thousands of parents were considering whether their children might be safer not in the British countryside, but on the other side of the world.

The government-backed Children's Overseas Reception Board, usually known as CORB, arranged for children to be evacuated to countries including Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Between July and September 1940, more than 2,600 children were sent overseas under the scheme.

For many parents, Canada must have seemed almost impossibly distant from the war.

On the 13th of September 1940, the SS City of Benares left Liverpool as part of a convoy bound across the Atlantic.

Among those aboard were 90 children travelling under the CORB scheme, aged between five and fifteen, accompanied by adult escorts.

There must have been excitement mixed with fear. Some children were facing a long sea voyage without their parents, heading towards families and homes they had never seen.

Four days later, everything changed.

Late on the night of the 17th of September, in rough Atlantic weather, the City of Benares was attacked by the German submarine U-48.

A torpedo struck the ship.

The City of Benares went down quickly, sinking in little more than half an hour. In darkness, cold and heavy seas, passengers and crew struggled to launch lifeboats. Some boats were damaged or overturned, while people were thrown into the freezing Atlantic.

For the children, the situation was terrifying.

Of the 90 CORB evacuee children, just 13 survived.

Seventy-seven died.

The loss was particularly cruel because these children had been on board the ship for one reason - their families believed they were being taken somewhere safer. The National Archives records that the disaster effectively brought the government-sponsored overseas evacuation programme to an end.

But among the tragedy was an extraordinary story of survival.

One lifeboat, Lifeboat No. 12, was not found during the initial rescue operation.

Inside were survivors including six evacuee boys and their escort, music teacher Mary Cornish.

They remained adrift in the Atlantic for eight days.

Cornish tried to keep the boys' spirits up, food and water were carefully rationed and those in the boat had to endure cold, exhaustion and uncertainty.

Eventually, a Sunderland flying boat spotted them.

Help was called and the survivors were rescued by HMS Anthony.

It is difficult to imagine what those parents at home experienced while waiting for news.

Evacuation is sometimes remembered through photographs of children standing on railway platforms with labels attached to their coats. But the story of the City of Benares reminds us that wartime parents were being asked to make almost impossible decisions.

Keep your child close and risk the bombs.

Send them away and hope that distance would protect them.

For the families of those 77 children, a decision made out of love and desperation to keep them safe ended in unimaginable loss.

And after the sinking of the City of Benares, Britain largely abandoned the idea that sending children across the sea could offer the safety everyone had hoped for.

Had you been a parent in 1940, would you have considered sending your child overseas to escape the war?