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AF-S 50mm f/1.4G
AF-S 58mm f1.4G
Z 50mm f1.8S
+ and as a bonus Voigtländer Nokton 58mm f1.4 (not in the photo)
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Nikkor AF-S 50mm f1.4G: This lens has a bit of a bad reputation for being slow to focus and delivering a soft look to images when shooting wide open. I have made lots of images with this lens and I can agree with those comments. Soft at f1.4 but can create excellent images when stopped down a bit. I still think this is a fine lens but 50mm f1.8 G is probably a better compact 50mm to buy at about half the price. 50mm f1.4G shows clearly heavier vignetting shooting wide open compared to 58mm. LR can fix it automatically, so I am not too concerned about this factor of the lens. After a few testing sessions, I couldn't see any major sharpness differences compared to 58mm, even when stopping down to the f2.8-f4 range. Bokeh looks good to me but it is not as good as what 58mm can produce. 50mm f1.4G is the smallest and lightest lens from this group, weighing only 280g. This is a still good lens when you want to travel light and want a fast 50mm prime.
Nikkor AF-S 58mm f1.4 G: When shooting at the closest focusing distance with an aperture of f1.4, the lens displays notable softness, akin to that of the 50mm f1.4 G, and high-contrast scenes can lead to a significant amount of irreparable chromatic aberration (CA). If you are not super critical of these imperfections, I would say results shooting wide open are usable in good light or when you can be a bit away from the subject and get the focus right. I have tried some AF fine-tuning and testing different focus modes on Z6ii, but I would say this is not a great lens by modern standards when shooting wide-open in low-light situations (like in a studio). Just hard to nail the focus right when taking photos between the f1.4-f2 range. Stopped down f2.8 lens is great, the focus is there where it should be, but why get an expensive f1.4 prime if it does not deliver constant results when used wide open? The AF speed of the lens is similar to 50mm f1.4G, which is slower than with most AF-S primes or zooms but interestingly in low light situations lens was better to focus than 24-70mm which kept on hunting to find focus on low contrast objects. Out-of-focus area rendering is great as could be expected. Stopping down to f2.8 improves the sharpness & contrast. Corners are never catching the sharpness of the new Z mount 50mm. Uneven sharpness could come from the field curvature. Sample variations could be also taken into account. Maybe I had a bad copy? Just don't stare at the corners at 100% zoom or even the center of the frame at f1.4 as they are very soft. Weight is 385 g, which does not feel heavy at all (but with FTZ is more than 50mm S). Other Nikon f1.4 primes have a bit better build feel of their heavier weight & construction. Z-lenses are so much better that I ended up trading this away. Kind of nice lens to have, but just too valuable if not your main tool.
Voigtländer Nokton 58mm f1.4. Manual focus lens with solid good metal build. The weight of the lens is 320 g. The lens is sharp delivering good bokeh but maybe a bit less contrasty wide open compared to other options. This is a great option if you are ok with an MF lens.
Nikkor Z 50mm f1.8 S: this lens is wide open better than AF-S 50mm & 58mm at f4 or so. Not even funny how good these new Z S series optics can be. Faster and very silent AF, clearly better for video work compared to AF-S F mount lenses. Bokeh from Z 50mm looks good by my standards. The weight of this lens is 415g and it feels heavier and also more durable than the F versions. If you add 135g for the FTZ adapter when using F-mount lenses on a Z camera, the size and weight are about the same as with this lens. Z 50mm lens might be later in heavy use for my studio photography work. Update: indeed! Overall great optics and focusing with this one, the lens just keeps on delivering images. If you need one 50mm lens for Z, this would be my choice. Or the Z 50mm f1.2S if you can justify the bigger price & weight.
TL;DR
Z 50mm f1.8 S is surprisingly sharp (also from corners) wide open compared to older F-mount Nikon lenses with fast and silent focus. On the other hand, 58mm was not designed to be excelling in sharpness. It has good coma correction and extremely smooth bokeh (partially caused by the longer focal length and how the lens is designed). If you want great optical performance and a workhorse, go for Z. If you want a lens with "character" and a bit better transition from sharp to OOF area, 58mm (Nikon & Voigtländer) could be the way to go.
Some image examples are in the comments. Text updated 8/2024
The legendary reputation of the Leica brand is based on a long tradition of excellent quality, German craftsmanship and German industrial design, combined with innovative technologies.
In 1986, the Leitz company changed its name to Leica (LEItz CAmera), due to the fame of the Leica tradename. At this time, Leica relocated its factory from Wetzlar (Germany) to the nearby town of Solms (Germany). In 1996, Leica Camera separated from the Leica Group and became a publicly owned company.
Andreas Kaufmann (ACM Projektentwicklung GmbH) initially took over 27.2 percent of the shares in Leica Camera AG from Solms He became chairman of the company's supervisory board. In 2006 he finally became the majority owner with 96.5 percent of the shares. Kaufmann invested in Leica and carried out a restructuring. He has been chairman of the supervisory board of Leica. Under his patronage, the company was able to make a profit again, bring innovations to the market and, in 2014, move into a new headquarters in Wetzlar with Leica World.
Leitz Colorplan Projection Lens (on bellows)
Badges from the Pradovit slideprojector
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All of my photographs are under copyright ©. None of these photographs may be reproduced and/or used in any way without my permission.
© VanveenJF Photography
www.magd.ox.ac.uk/discover-magdalen/
To celebrate its 550th anniversary Magdalen College, Oxford has commissioned the Turner Prize-winning artist Mark Wallinger to create his first-ever dedicated permanent artwork.
Two years in development, the sculpture Y was unveiled on St Mary Magdalen Day 2008. William Waynflete, Bishop of Winchester founded Magdalen College in 1458. It is one of the best-known colleges in the University of Oxford and is known internationally for its high academic standing.
The College has many fine buildings. The Cloisters, Chapel, Founder’s Tower and Hall were built in the Gothic style in the later part of the 15th century. The Great Tower, a pictorial symbol of Oxford, is famous for the May Day event when the College choir sings an ancient hymn at dawn. The Georgian New Buildings, which blend into the College Gardens and grounds, were completed in 1733. The buildings sit amid a hundred acres of lawns, woodlands and riverside walks, which are publicly accessible, and there is a deer herd that has been in existence for over 300 years.
Addison’s Walk, named after the great essayist of the 18th century and father of English journalism, is about a mile in length and goes by the River Cherwell around a great water meadow. Beyond the end of Addison’s Walk is a tranquil field known as Bat Willow Meadow, which is where the new commission is sited. Maps of the grounds of Magdalen College are available from the Porters’ Lodge or they can be downloaded from the Magdalen website.
Over the past twenty years Mark Wallinger has established an international reputation with major solo exhibitions in London, Birmingham, Liverpool, Val-de-Marne, Frankfurt, Aarau, Basel, Milan, New York and Chicago.
His work encompasses a wide range of media, including painting, photography, sculpture, video and installation, and it takes art history, mythology, religion, politics, national identity and popular culture as its subject matter. Wallinger studied at Chelsea School of Art in 2001, and in Goldsmiths' College. He exhibited in Young British Artists II at the Saatchi Collection in 1993 and at the Royal Academy of Art's Sensation exhibition in 1997.
His Time and relative dimensions in space derived from a residency and was shown at Oxford University Museum of Natural History in 2001 and in the same year he represented Britain in the 49th Venice Biennale. The artist is best known for Ecce Homo, a life-size sculpture of Jesus Christ which inaugurated the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square in 1999, and State Britain, his 2007 re-creation at Tate Britain of Brian Haw's protest display outside parliament. He was a Turner Prize nominee in 1995 and won the award in 2007, and he is one of five internationally acclaimed artists who have been commissioned to produce proposals for the Ebbsfleet Landmark Project, which will be one of the biggest artworks in the United Kingdom.
Philip Jackson CVO DL MA FRBS
Philip Jackson is a renowned sculptor with an outstanding international reputation.
His ability to convey the human condition through skilful use of body language is legendary, producing figures both imposing and operatic in their narrative and presence, which are recognizable worldwide. Powerful and beautifully sculpted, Jackson's meticulously precise posturing of each piece creates an overwhelming sense of drama. Whether with the prestigious, figuratively detailed public monuments and statues for which he is often commissioned, or his hauntingly elegant and theatrically enigmatic gallery sculptures, Philip Jackson's work is truly awe inspiring - it never fails to move people.
Born in Inverness, Jackson now lives and works in West Sussex. He was appointed Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (CVO) in the Queen's Birthday Honours list 2009.
Highlights of Current Works:
Sculpture of Joan Littlewood, 'The Mother of Modern Theatre', for Theatre Royal Stratford East.
To be unveiled 2015
Sculpture of Sir Simon Milton (1961-2011), Deputy Major of London, leader of Westminster City Council
New works for ArtCatto, Portugal - one man Summer Exhibition
Significant Public Statues and Monuments:
Statue of Mahatma Gandhi for Parliament Square, unveiled March 2015
The Korean War Monument statue, unveiled in London 2014
A figure of Prince Philip, unveiled in Windsor Great Park, 2013
Sculpture of Sir Alex Ferguson, for Manchester United FC. Unveiled October 2012
The Bomber Command Memorial Sculpture, Green Park, London
A group of 7 figures, depicting the crew of a Heavy Bomber. Unveiled June 2012
National Memorial Sculpture to HM Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother The Mall, London.
Sculpture of Lord Glenconner, Mustique
Peter Osgood statue for Chelsea Football Club
The World Cup Sculpture, The Champions, for West Ham FC, London 2003
Large sculptural head of Sir Alf Ramsay, for Football Association, Wembley
Arch Angel Gabriel sculpture, for South Harting Church
Sculpture of St John the Evangelist, for Portsmouth RC Cathedral
Sir Matt Busby for Manchester United, Unveiled in 1996
Manchester United 'Trinity' sculpture (George Best, Denis Law, Bobby Charlton), Manchester United FC grounds
Relief sculpture for the Foreign & Commonwealth Office Bobby Moore sculpture for the Opening of the New Wembley Stadium, London
Large gallery sculpture 'Don Ottavio' installed in the Courthauld Institute of Art, London
Sculpture of Terence Cuneo, The Royal Engineers Barracks, Chatham
Sculpture of the Founders of St Margaret’s Convent, Handsworth
HM The Queen's Golden Jubilee Equestrian Sculpture, Windsor Great Park
Sculpture of King George VI, Britannia Royal Naval College, Dartmouth
The 'In Pensioner' sculpture for The Royal Hospital, Chelsea, London
'St Richard' sculpture, entrance of Chichester Cathedral
The Gurkha Memorial, London
The Wallenberg Monument, London
The Wallenberg Monument, unveiled in Buenos Aires, Argentina
Constantine the Great, York Minster
Christ in Judgment, Chichester Cathedral
Minerva, Chichester Festival Theatre, 1997
'Sissi', Empress Elisabeth of Austria, unveiled in Geneva
'Jersey Liberation Sculpture', Jersey
'The Young Mozart' sculpture, Mayfair
'The Yomper' The Falklands War Memorial Sculpture, Portsmouth
'The Peace' sculpture, Manchester
www.philipjacksonsculptures.co.uk/
Pashley Manor Gardens, on the border of Sussex and Kent, to see Romantic English landscaping and artistic planting framed by fine old trees, fountains and ponds, with the unusual Tudor/Georgian manor house, which is a private family home, creating a memorable backdrop to the beautiful and dynamic gardens.
Even if she was under care, Mason Gardner's failure to guarantee the safety of his sister sent him on a downward spiral further. Plus his family wasn’t enough to be trusted, when most of them only cared about money and luxurious lifestyles. But Yvette mattered to him no matter what, she was his anchor, and so was him to hers. The sibling bond remained strong, to say the least.
He had multiple issues with the agency his mentor worked for—-and recently started hitting him hard. With the occurring attacks, Gardner couldn’t stop thinking how the public would question him. The combined weight of everything must have sped up his incurable condition, as so he thought, from the big stress.
It all started when a Paladin agent went out on a hunt, daringly, to take down the ES but got captured in the process. Nearly two weeks he endured torture and suffered most before finally breaking his spirit on the third. Then he spilled his guts and was eventually killed. Right in a slaughterhouse in Guatemala.
North eventually knew the secrets and used it to his own advantage. Blowing up bases....hitting the list....lots of actions causes dealt a big blow to the agency itself. The board was embarrassed and cut off all ties with many of their allies in case of whistleblowing and being doublecrossed. It would be a PR nightmare, risking their reputation going down a sinkhole.
Gardner feared it more every day the feeling came by.
***
As the agents silently conversed with one another, the more they went deeper into the compound. Wreckage contained tons of damaged electronics and the floor was muddy with water. Files were spread everywhere. It looked to them as if an abandoned asylum had come to life.
Jesse: “So that’s how it started. From that very moment a tip was passed....we should be lucky they never found us.”
Harry: “Nobody knows if there’s trackers around even with our tech. It’s surveillance we’re talking about.”
Gary: “Apparently so.....it killed a couple of my friends already. They did it.”
Jesse: “You tried to save them didn’t you?”
Gary: “Maybe.....maybe the chi could”
Harry: “But it doesn’t work every time.”
Gary: “It may not all the time, but at least it's under my control. Having these powers paved me a new life to improve after I started meditating.”
Jesse: “What if there’s corpses down here? Can you feel the aura throughout?”
Gary: “Maybe....more or less. I need to tap in and see.”
Even if flashlights could be used, it wouldn’t fare well in the deep darkness. Then Jesse decided to illuminate the environment up with a spark of electricity, enough to get them through securing the area long enough for Gary to meditate.
15 minutes passed as the walked further, and scans didn’t prove much evidence around. It was far beyond destroyed. Nothing but littered by a couple more dead, rotting bodies. Files proved useless.....until Harry discovered something.
Harry: “I think this is interesting. This corpse.....looks really familiar. Gary, do a retinal scan for real.”
Gary: “Hmm....I sense no heartbeat. Yet it’s somehow twitching. Unless they’ve got rodents lurking around somewhere.”
Jesse: “Hold on.....you’re telling me this is a reanimated corpse? At least it’s not the lower half.”
Harry: “Nah. Look closely. The uniform has a badge of the ES. I’ll send this to the team.”
Gary: “No. wait. Something’s wrong again. Get behind me. I’ll activate my field.”
The three rose their weapons in a defensive position as the ground began to rumble. Right in front it led them to a door. A small one, about the size of the entrapped submarine doors.
Harry: “It’s getting darker. Charge up your powers, gentlemen. I’m going to render my invisibility.”
Jesse: “Copy.”
Gary: “Do your thing. I can try opening it.....hmm.”
Harry: “Shh....”
Jesse: “Lowering frequency. Voices down. Team, you seeing this? I hope you do.”
Gary: “There we go....slowly....my dagger should be able to lock-pick it.”
And it opened. The sight of bleak darkness opened up to the three agents. They went in one by one, slowly and carefully. Unlike the surrounding outside, the room wasn’t filled with the stench and odours, yet it looked as filthy with grease and rusting machinery. It was a room filled with clean files and a few advanced computer. Harry was the first to dig in, scrapping through the documents while Jesse lightened up the room further as Gary kept his dagger and aura in tow.
It took them much time they needed as the images were continuously sent. Then suddenly a flash of a shadow passed by, which Gary witnessed, as his instinct told him to throw a dagger at the wall. The other two looked up in surprise as the unknown shadow started to fire.
Jesse: “Take cover! I’ll see if I can fry this bastard.”
Harry: “I got a clean shot. Not sure if the tables do any good cover but ok.”
Gary: “Use the chairs!”
Harry: *keeps firing*: Hold on....I recognise that mask somehow...I can see it. Isn’t that Knifenight?”
Knifenight: *appears* Yes. You guessed correctly. Knifenight is here. Knifenight is here and would be pleased to end you Ghostforge.”
Harry: “The hell is going on?! How’d you get in here?”
Knifenight: “Knifenight survived the onslaught. Knifenight almost drowned but he found a way.”
Jesse: “Ok, lower your weapons for now....you’re telling me you were in this compound? For how long?”
Knifenight: “Knifenight stayed for 3 weeks. Knifenight can survive on his own. Knifenight needs no food nor water.”
Gary: “Ok....I’ve heard about you as well....you might wanna elaborate on that further.”
The confused trio stared at their enemy as they waited for answers. He eventually started explaining, as he had gone on a mission to deal with some black market dealers in the currently abandoned base. And then it started flooding. People started drowning, including the Spectres, but Knifenight was the lucky one, managing to get out in time, hiding himself in an abandoned room. Despite limited contact to call his boss/hirer, it went to no avail, so he believed, may have intentionally been on purpose to send him to die, condemned without help. Yet he managed to survive on his own....
Jesse: “Ok, I don’t care about your third person act or shit, but I still don’t trust you. You could have laid a trap on us like back then in Tokyo or whatever.”
Harry: “The main question is, why. Did he leave you to die as a sacrificial pawn to get rid of you? Weren’t you always loyal?”
Gary: “The threads in this is too suspicious. You gotta spill because I can see that tongue lying.”
Knifenight: “Ok....ok....Knifenight knows. Knifenight let the cat out of the bag. Because....it was a deal. It went wrong. Knifenight saw them Spectres gun down the dealers. North probably asked them to. I for my life have not witnessed him like this....as brutal and ruthless as he was. And....here, this info might serve critical. Knifenight can only do so many.”
Harry: “Can we trust you with this?”
Knifenight: “Yes. Knifenight is sure. Knifenight isn’t lying. Read more and you’ll see....Knifenight is no longer a part of North’s cabal. So, bye for now.”
***
Jesse: “And then he runs away. Just like that. Seriously, disappearing again without a trace. Not because we let him go, but just quitting in the most ninja way as possible. However, given our shared history....I really doubt it.”
Harry: “But at what cost....is critical to matter?”
Gary: “Nobody knows, but it somehow proved I can sense the good in them. Their aura. No, I’m not joking. I really can. You should try it someday.”
Jesse: “Y’know what? I’m on the verge of my post breakup with the dude....I could tell you more over green tea. This meditation thing sounds like fun.”
Gary: “Mhmm I could tell you about my ex. He was a great guy as well....”
And with that, Harry decided to call his team. They were slowly getting ahead. Maybe a chance to fight back....just maybe.
Participants enjoy some relaxing yoga with instructor Anna at the Dowd YMCA's Taylor Swift: Reputation Party.
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R8der was a young soulcaster who was noted for his outstanding qualities, both as a warrior and person. An incredible tactician one the battlefield who'd always keep his calm under any situation. Not to mention, his battle prowess was enourmous and as such R8der quickly developed a reputation of his own.
Born as a girl R8der had a troubled childhood where he'd always felt he was anything but the girl they all held him for and after searching information on the internet he confronted his parents. They were displeased and promptly kicked him out of their house.
Taking up his current name, R8der lived on the streets as a criminal. In an encounter with gangsters, he lost his right arm and it was here that he discovered his powers as a soulcaster.
Rather than beign scared R8der embraced his newfound powers and was soon discovered and taken in by Proctor Scorpio himself where he would train from that moment on for one mission only: Kill the most dangerous being in the world, slay the Jabberwock...
So, this moc was crafted with a different mindset entirely in mind. It's mostly non-custom, with it having uncustom legs, a metru body for a torso base and much more uncustom parts. That didn't make this build any less complicated however and it took a lot.
Thanks to SparkyTron for giving me the idea to use a metru torso in the first place.
I hope you enjoy looking at this moc as much as I put in effort making it. Feel free to leve C&C below. Cheers!
==Blackgate Prison==
After The Sandstorm
"Name?" the guard called out.
The inmate, a bearded, tattooed man in his mid to late 60s, looked up. "Gaige," he replied in a low whisper.
"And... Your first name?" the guard asked tiredly.
"Just Gaige," the inmate repeated firmly.
The guard shrugged. 'Fair enough.' He'd dealt with enough wack jobs in his time here, he wasn't planning on starting a fight with some pretentious pensioner. He checked his register, and finding Gaige's name, nodded. "Alright, Madonna, you're in C-Block. Gary here'll show you to your cell," he said disinterestedly, as a second guard walked Gaige off.
That night, sitting in his cell alone, the doctor ripped the left sleeve off of his jumpsuit, and wrapped the fabric around his forehead like a mask.
~-~
It wasn't long before his reputation gained him some unwelcome attention; the day he was released into general population, Gaige was sat in the cafeteria by himself, chewing on a mouthful of dry tuna. Midway through his pitiful meal, a pair of inmates approached him. The leader, a man in his mid forties with short brown hair and an eyepatch, nudged Gaige on the shoulder. Harlan Combs. The other, an Elvis lookalike, with tall, greasy black hair, stood behind him, sneering. Johnny LaMonica. Both were former flunkies for Danto Twag.
"Hey, little fish," Combs teased. "That's my seat."
Gaige sighed, resting his plastic fork on the table. "Listen, American Dad-"
"It's Firebug," Combs corrected him sternly.
Raising his mask above his eyes to get a better look at the pair, Gaige examined first Combs and then LaMonica, letting out a low sardonic chuckle. "No, it isn't. Now, back off, Fury, less you want to lose that other eye," Gaige warned, his tone shifting.
"Funny you mention that," Combs nodded sarcastically. "It was your bitch of a daughter who stabbed it out; never got the chance to thank her... But then- Then fate's delivered you into my lap..." he growled, as he gripped Gaige's shoulder even tighter. "Speaking of the little, ah, minx, there's a nasty rumour flying around here about Ra's and her. My boy Johnny was saying that the old ghoul fucked her cor-"
Without warning, Gaige shrugged off his hand, grabbed his fork and rammed it into Combs' remaining eye. He let out a pained shriek, stumbling backwards into LaMonica's arms, blood gushing down his face. LaMonica, looked back at Gaige, his face pale.
"Warned you," Gaige said, bloodied fork in hand. "Whitewashed little pricks," he muttered, as he dipped the utensil back into his pot of tuna.
"Hey," LaMonica shuddered, putting his hands in the air. "I got no beef with you, ese."
"Oho, I'll have what he's having," another inmate, a young man with dirty blonde hair, joked, as he watched LaMonica drag Combs away. "Kidding. Kidding," he added.
"It's you isn't it, The Demon Slayer?" he asked Gaige, an awed smile across his face.
He didn't respond.
"Hah, boy, yeah. 'Thought I recognised that jawline," the man continued unperturbed, as he slid in beside Gaige.
"Go away," he replied, as he gripped the still bloody fork.
The inmate shook his head disarmingly. "Woah, buddy, no need to be hostile- I mean you no harm. Honestly? I just wanted to congratulate you. I mean, Ra's Al Ghul? Wow! And with a poisoned harpoon? Gnarly stuff man, real gnarly. Heck, just the other day, Ramsay here told me that they found him with a smashed up rib cage and a sword in his chest. Fuckin' metal, man, honestly. Fair play, mate, you deserve a fucking medal." he clapped. Ramsay, the dark skinned man on the inmate's right, curled his lip.
Gaige glowered at the inmate's entourage, then rose to his feet.
"Hey, did I do something wrong or something?" The inmate asked him, a note of hurt in his voice.
"Everything," Gaige snarled definitively. "No one likes a kiss-ass."
~-~
A few days later, as Gaige entered his cell, he sniffed the air suspiciously. A familiar scent of rot and decay wafted up his nostrils, and he looked up to the source- a black clad figure sat in the rafters: A Talon.
Descending from the ceiling, it hurled a throwing star at Gaige, grazing his forehead. Distracted by his wound, the Talon grabbed his right arm from behind, pinning it around his back, the bones cracking slightly.
Incensed, Gaige used his free arm to grab the Talon by its collar, and with ferocious strength, he slung it over his shoulders into the farthest brick wall. Disoriented, the Talon dropped to its knees, unable to defend itself from Gaige's next attack. He dragged it over to the toilet, and smashed its head with the seat repeatedly. It was weaker than the ones at the manor had been, and healed slower. No doubt, Gaige deduced, a result of the recent Dionesium shortage Walker had engineered at Nanda Parbat. Which was lucky for him, as if it were at full strength, it would have decapitated him as soon as he'd entered the cell. Gaige pulled the seat back up, then pinned the Talon up against the wall.
"Demon Slayer, The Court of Owls has sentenced you to-," it started to gag.
"Yeah, I know. I fuckin' know," Gaige hissed, cutting it off, as he unsheathed its sai and ran it through its throat. The Talon gurgled as greyish blood trickled down its armour, then its arms fell down to its side, its body twitching slightly as what little life was left in it faded. "If you're still in there, be sure to tell your masters to try harder," Gaige whispered in its ear triumphant.
Nonetheless, aware that it could spring back into life at any moment, Gaige took his bedsheets, bound the Talon's limbs together and hung its body from the ceiling. 'Even if it were to resurrect itself, there'd be little it could do whilst hanging by its neck,' he reasoned. Gaige let out a heavy breath, as he slid against the wall of his cell, exhausted.
~-~
The following day, upon returning to his cell after lunch, he paused. Waiting in his newly renovated cell, was a fully stocked fish tank. Gaige raised a confused eyebrow, then tilted his head back to the entrance. Standing in the doorway, was that same blond inmate from before.
"Heard you had a visitor last night," he called out. "Pity. Still, you seemed to handle yourself pretty well. Tiger Shark." The inmate raised his arm out to Gaige, offering him a handshake. "We didn't really get to know each other earlier. My name's David," he smiled.
"I know who are, Franco," Gaige responded. "Roman Sionis' errand boy."
The boyish facade lifted, as a vicious scowl broke across Franco's face. "Not if it's Sionis who told you, you don't," he spat. "Sionis, is a moody man child who'll execute anyone that tells him no, and torture anyone that says maybe. So, fuck Roman, and anything he told you."
And then, as though nothing had happened, Franco grinned back at Gaige. "So, what do I call you? Like, what's your real name?"
"The Physician's fine," Gaige stated insistently.
"Cool... Very cool. Mysterious! So, you like it?" Franco asked, gesturing to the fishtank.
"These are saltwater fish," Gaige murmured irritably. "They're not going to last the night in this tank. "Don't try and bribe me," he advised. "I don't like suck-ups."
"Look, I know Sionis screwed you over too, buddy." Franco called after him. "He killed your assistant way back when- I know- I was the guy who cleaned that mess up. He made you work against your family- your family. Shit's not right, man.
I was the one running his drug racket whilst he was thrown in Arkham City, but what thanks did I get? Thrown off a roof by the Bat and condemned to Blackgate. Did he come to bail me out, did he, shit! And that? That's why we need each other. The mob never used to be like this, we used to communicate, work together. It was never supposed to be one sadistic dickhead calling the shots. We need to level that playing field. What do you say?"
"Meh. Incognito was a traitor," Gaige said disinterestedly, and he sauntered off.
~-~
Weeks passed, and the situation remained the same. Every few days, Franco would ask for Gaige's help, and every time, the doctor would turn him down.
Until one day, while lifting weights in the yard, Gaige looked up from the bench press as two bald men entered the rec center, recognising both immediately. "I'm just saying, it's his own damn fault; wasn't he just in rehab?" the first complained, dressed in a white onesie covered in bright dots.
"I don't care about his recreational activities, Abner, he's an integral part of my partners' plan," the second, dressed in a white cape and red robes responded tiredly.
"What's he gonna do, hop menacingly?" the Polka Dot Man asked, chuckling at the surreal image he'd conjured up in his head, as he stopped by a nearby table. "You got any of those pudding cups?" he asked the closest inmate. Then, without waiting for an answer, he snatched the plastic cup and scooped the contents into his mouth.
"It's acting up again, isn't it? Hypoglycaemia, wasn't it?" the Calendar Man inquired.
"Yeah," Krill nodded feverishly. "Gotta keep that blood sugar steady, doc says... Though, plays havoc on my spots, of course... And skurvey's a growing concern," he said, rubbing his cheeks.
"Hmph. Remind me to send you a fruit basket," Day smiled snarkily.
"If it's all the same to you, I'd prefer cash," Krill grinned back.
"Then perhaps, you shouldn't have delayed," Day said aerily, checking his watch.
"Hey, not my fault, now is it? I've got other clients y'know," Krill was complaining. "Take that Carson guy for instance, real pain in the neck, has me camped out in a dingy apartment on Ward Avenue. And I'll tell you what's really rich- he's dying to meet you. So, yeah, sue me, I wanna know who're these big bads you're bending over to."
"Carson?" Gaige muttered under his breath, as he observed the duo, scowling at the namedrop. Ted Carson, was meant to be trapped in a demonic hellscape last he'd heard. And the world had been better for it.
"Brave heart, Abner," Day advised his counterpart. "You'll meet my partners when I deem it appropriate. And if that moron is still out there, keeping Drury occupied, we can continue unimpeded."
"Yeah, alright," Krill sniffed. "I just don't know how much more of Jumbo's homemade chilli I can take. I swear, he uses Mountain Dew or some shit, I kid you not." Trailing off mid rant, Krill glared over at Gaige. "What're you staring at, Pop-Eye?" he sneered.
"Nothing," Gaige muttered.
"Good," Krill nodded. "Good," he repeated as he followed after Day.
~-~
That afternoon, Gaige stormed over to Franco's table, a look of newfound determination upon his freshly shaven face. "I want in," he said sternly.
"Great!" Franco said, as he leapt up from the bench.
"But we do it my way."
"Sure," he shrugged, as he sat back down, trying his hardest to hide a very relieved smile. "What do you propose?"
~-~
A month later, Franco and Gaige stood outside the Iceberg Lounge, the cold autumn breeze whipping in their faces. It hadn't been hard to arrange their release from Blackgate, not once Sionis had recieved a series of DNA tests confirming what he had already assumed- Franco, was his bastard half brother.
Even so, it had taken immense pressure from his aides for Sionis to finally agree to a meeting with the pair- here, in the heart of the Penguin's criminal empire. Cobblepot's role, was arbiter, and his position as Mayor provided an air of legitimacy to proceedings.
Gaige, had reluctantly removed his mask- his past with Sionis would have otherwise stood in their way. He had instead applied heavy prosthetics to his face- few people had actually seen his full face of course, but it wasn't a risk they were willing to take.
As they approached the entrance, Franco stuck his hand out to Gaige. "This," he announced, winking back at his partner, "Is the Physician."
The closest henchman nodded to them both, then ushered them aside. "Mr Sionis does not like to be kept waiting," he said.
"Christ. They brought Ferris back?" Gaige muttered unenthusiastically, staring at the infamous, iron-masked figure sat at the table. "He is getting desperate."
"We did that man," Franco whispered assuredly. "We did that."
==Arkham Asylum. Present Day==
Batman examined a fallen piece of fabric on the ground- a striped yellow and black piece of tattered cloth not unlike the kind seen in a sports jacket.
"This way, sir."
Bruce nodded, picking it up, and placing the rolled up curiosity into a pouch on his belt. He rose to his feet, and followed the guard across a narrow walkway, stopping once the duo reached a tall metal door. The guard nodded to his two colleagues, stood at either side of it, and saw them off, as they gratefully retreated back to their posts.
The remaining guard turned his key in the lock, and the door opened with a low moan. Batman cautiously entered the room alone- the lone guard simply lingered in the doorway, anxiously. Sat in the corner of his cell, his hair unkept, his fingers bloodied, was-
"Crane."
The figure remained silent; the only noise he made was the tapping of his bony fingers against the armrest of his wheelchair. Undeterred, Batman continued, choosing his words carefully in an attempt to get a rise from him, a confession, he hoped. "You should know I spoke to Fries last week. He told me all about your missing shipment of Fearless. The one he stole from you."
Crane didn't reply.
Bruce put his hand to his chin, the cogs turning in his head, as he read Crane's body language. Every twitch, every breath told a story.
'Now,' Bruce thought, 'You and I both know your formula is useless without Dionesium. So, unless you have unearthed more Talons, that single shipment is all the Joker has. Not enough for the city wide plague you and Dent had envisioned, so it'd have to be somewhere concentrated... He'd have to have specific targets in mind; The Misfits, that's obvious, yes, but I imagine that, like me, he can't find them either... So, he doesn't know where they are now, but he does know where they're going to be, doesn't he? Or at least, where he can draw them to... But, it's not that simple though, is it? It never is. Not with you, not with Day, not with Joker. So, what's his second target? If I can only find the link between them and the Misfits, I can shut this all down.'
Crane, stared back at him defiantly, his silence unflinching.
"I wouldn't bother with him," the guard advised, glancing back at the inmate tensely. "He doesn't move, he barely eats. Hell, I'm not even sure if he sleeps, sir. He just... sits there."
Batman tilted his head back. "Any visitors?"
The guard shook his head. "None. If there were, I'd be the first to know, sir. I can give you his patient records if you want; they're signed by Doctor Arkham himself."
"No, that's not necessary," Batman replied. He looked around the cell, as though he felt he were being watched, like an invisible force was in the room with them, breathing on the back of his neck. 'No,' he repeated to himself, as he shook off the feeling and walked off down the hallway.
Crane waited until Bruce's footsteps had grown fainter and fainter and then he spoke, "He's gone," he said, seemingly to thin air. And then the guards froze in place, like a computer program had just been paused, before they vanished altogether; the sterile white walls gave way to reveal purple and green paint on every surface, and blood drenched across the floor; the cell door faded away, as did Crane's prison jumpsuit, revealing his signature Scarecrow mask and hat in its' place. And beside him, Zoom materialised. The rhythmic tapping of Billings' plastic leg against the concrete floor grew louder as finally, he entered the room dressed in his bright orange Spellbinder attire. "You think he bought it?" he said anxiously, taking a hearty gulp from a suspicious looking flask.
"Youbetter hoooooope soooooooo, Mr Billings," Zoom's voice crackled, as he snatched the flask out of his hands, a look that could almost be attributed to disgust upon his blurred face. "Oryouwill pay. Deaaaaaaaarly. Fooooooor theeeeee lessooooon tosucceed, wemustoperatein complete secrecy. Wemust ensure thaaaaaaat the Baaaaaaaatmaaaaaan cannotinterfere.
"Billings, is not the one with a case of Stockholm Syndrome towards the Batman. Joker is," Crane murmured.
Zoom's head swivelled in Crane's direction. "And yoooouuuuuuuu Scarecrow? Whatassurancedo we haaaaaaave thatyouwont betraaaaay usssssss?"
"Because," Crane said firmly, "Above all else, Mr Zolomon, I am a scientist. And I intend to see this little experiment of yours through to the end."
~-~
Batman entered the Batmobile, and put his finger against his temple. "Oracle, what are the current whereabouts of Delbert Billings?"
"Spellbinder? Alright, give me a moment" Barbara's voice replied, as she began typing into her keypad. "Ok, so, it says here that, about a month ago, he was en-route to Blackgate in the wake of another relapse. And from the sounds of things, he was barely in there 24 hours before he vanished."
"Hn," Batman grimaced, glancing back at the Asylum. "That's what I was worried about."
Igor has a reputation for sniffing things...
A novel about politics and the media...a reflection on a cartoonist's past and memories that haunt him....recommended...
“Reputation is what men and women think of us; character is what God and angels know of us.”
-Thomas Paine
This is the main hall of the hotel. Oh I just love the paintaings. You feel like there are countless angels watching over you..
Participants enjoy some relaxing yoga with instructor Anna at the Dowd YMCA's Taylor Swift: Reputation Party.
Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (Francis Albert Augustus Charles Emmanuel; 26 August 1819 – 14 December 1861) was the consort of Queen Victoria from their marriage on 10 February 1840 until his death in 1861.
Albert was born in the Saxon duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld to a family connected to many of Europe's ruling monarchs. At the age of twenty, he married his first cousin Victoria; they had nine children. Initially he felt constrained by his role as consort, which did not afford him power or responsibilities. He gradually developed a reputation for supporting public causes, such as educational reform and the abolition of slavery worldwide, and was entrusted with running the Queen's household, office, and estates. He was heavily involved with the organisation of the Great Exhibition of 1851, which was a resounding success. Victoria came to depend more and more on Albert's support and guidance. He aided the development of Britain's constitutional monarchy by persuading his wife to be less partisan in her dealings with Parliament—although he actively disagreed with the interventionist foreign policy pursued during Lord Palmerston's tenure as Foreign Secretary. Albert died at the relatively young age of 42. Victoria was so devastated at the loss of her husband that she entered into a deep state of mourning and wore black for the rest of her life. On her death in 1901, their eldest son succeeded as Edward VII, the first British monarch of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, named after the ducal house to which Albert belonged.
As well as making for a colourful background I thought the facetted facade of this'pop-up' make-up store for Huda Beauty in Covent Garden made for interesting abstract images in their own right.
For this shot I've pushed it further towards the abstract by upping the saturation and contrast and well as using a Topaz Adjust Simplify filter to remove some of the texure and imperfections in the surface of the reflective metal sheets.
More info here : www.coventgarden.london/whats-on/huda-beauty
I hadn't heard of Huda Beauty but it seems they're quite well known....... Wikipedia states "Huda Beauty is a cosmetics line launched in 2013 by Iraqi-American businesswoman and makeup artist, Huda Kattan. The founder, Kattan, was chosen as one of "The 25 Most Influential People on the Internet" by Time in 2017, listed as one of The Richest Self-Made Women and one of the Top Three Beauty Influencers by Forbes. In the span of 5 years, the brand has built a positive reputation on some of its products, such as fake eyelashes series, a collection of foundation, eyeshadow and some face palettes."
Click here for more colourful shots : www.flickr.com/photos/darrellg/albums/72157603588716047
My Website : Twitter : Facebook : Instagram : Photocrowd
© D.Godliman
The Tower of London, officially His Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress of the Tower of London, is a historic castle on the north bank of the River Thames in central London, England. It lies within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, which is separated from the eastern edge of the square mile of the City of London by the open space known as Tower Hill. It was founded toward the end of 1066 as part of the Norman Conquest. The White Tower, which gives the entire castle its name, was built by William the Conqueror in 1078 and was a resented symbol of oppression, inflicted upon London by the new Norman ruling class. The castle was also used as a prison from 1100 (Ranulf Flambard) until 1952 (Kray twins), although that was not its primary purpose. A grand palace early in its history, it served as a royal residence. As a whole, the Tower is a complex of several buildings set within two concentric rings of defensive walls and a moat. There were several phases of expansion, mainly under kings Richard I, Henry III, and Edward I in the 12th and 13th centuries. The general layout established by the late 13th century remains despite later activity on the site.
The Tower of London has played a prominent role in English history. It was besieged several times, and controlling it has been important to controlling the country. The Tower has served variously as an armoury, a treasury, a menagerie, the home of the Royal Mint, a public record office, and the home of the Crown Jewels of England. From the early 14th century until the reign of Charles II in the 17th century, a procession would be led from the Tower to Westminster Abbey on the coronation of a monarch. In the absence of the monarch, the Constable of the Tower is in charge of the castle. This was a powerful and trusted position in the medieval period. In the late 15th century, the Princes in the Tower were housed at the castle when they mysteriously disappeared, presumed murdered. Under the Tudors, the Tower became used less as a royal residence, and despite attempts to refortify and repair the castle, its defences lagged behind developments to deal with artillery.
The zenith of the castle's use as a prison was the 16th and 17th centuries, when many figures who had fallen into disgrace, such as Elizabeth I before she became queen, Sir Walter Raleigh, and Elizabeth Throckmorton, were held within its walls. This use has led to the phrase "sent to the Tower". Despite its enduring reputation as a place of torture and death, popularised by 16th-century religious propagandists and 19th-century writers, only seven people were executed within the Tower before the world wars of the 20th century. Executions were more commonly held on the notorious Tower Hill to the north of the castle, with 112 occurring there over a 400-year period. In the latter half of the 19th century, institutions such as the Royal Mint moved out of the castle to other locations, leaving many buildings empty. Anthony Salvin and John Taylor took the opportunity to restore the Tower to what was felt to be its medieval appearance, clearing out many of the vacant post-medieval structures.
In the First and Second World Wars, the Tower was again used as a prison and witnessed the executions of 12 men for espionage. After the Second World War, damage caused during the Blitz was repaired, and the castle reopened to the public. Today, the Tower of London is one of the country's most popular tourist attractions. Under the ceremonial charge of the Constable of the Tower, operated by the Resident Governor of the Tower of London and Keeper of the Jewel House, and guarded by the Yeomen Warders, the property is cared for by the charity Historic Royal Palaces and is protected as a World Heritage Site.
Architecture
The Tower was oriented with its strongest and most impressive defences overlooking Saxon London, which archaeologist Alan Vince suggests was deliberate. It would have visually dominated the surrounding area and stood out to traffic on the River Thames. The castle is made up of three "wards", or enclosures. The innermost ward contains the White Tower and is the earliest phase of the castle. Encircling it to the north, east, and west is the inner ward, built during the reign of Richard I (1189–1199). Finally, there is the outer ward which encompasses the castle and was built under Edward I. Although there were several phases of expansion after William the Conqueror founded the Tower of London, the general layout has remained the same since Edward I completed his rebuild in 1285.
The castle encloses an area of almost 12 acres (4.9 hectares) with a further 6 acres (2.4 ha) around the Tower of London constituting the Tower Liberties – land under the direct influence of the castle and cleared for military reasons. The precursor of the Liberties was laid out in the 13th century when Henry III ordered that a strip of land adjacent to the castle be kept clear. Despite popular fiction, the Tower of London never had a permanent torture chamber, although the basement of the White Tower housed a rack in later periods. Tower Wharf was built on the bank of the Thames under Edward I and was expanded to its current size during the reign of Richard II (1377–1399).
White Tower
The White Tower is a keep (also known as a donjon), which was often the strongest structure in a medieval castle, and contained lodgings suitable for the lord – in this case, the king or his representative. According to military historian Allen Brown, "The great tower [White Tower] was also, by virtue of its strength, majesty and lordly accommodation, the donjon par excellence". As one of the largest keeps in the Christian world, the White Tower has been described as "the most complete eleventh-century palace in Europe".
The White Tower, not including its projecting corner towers, measures 36 by 32 metres (118 by 105 ft) at the base, and is 27 m (90 ft) high at the southern battlements. The structure was originally three storeys high, comprising a basement floor, an entrance level, and an upper floor. The entrance, as is usual in Norman keeps, was above ground, in this case on the south face, and accessed via a wooden staircase which could be removed in the event of an attack. It was probably during Henry II's reign (1154–1189) that a forebuilding was added to the south side of the tower to provide extra defences to the entrance, but it has not survived. Each floor was divided into three chambers, the largest in the west, a smaller room in the north-east, and the chapel taking up the entrance and upper floors of the south-east. At the western corners of the building are square towers, while to the north-east a round tower houses a spiral staircase. At the south-east corner there is a larger semi-circular projection which accommodates the apse of the chapel. As the building was intended to be a comfortable residence as well as a stronghold, latrines were built into the walls, and four fireplaces provided warmth.
The main building material is Kentish ragstone, although some local mudstone was also used. Caen stone was imported from northern France to provide details in the Tower's facing, although little of the original material survives as it was replaced with Portland stone in the 17th and 18th centuries. Reigate stone was also used as ashlar and for carved details. Its location, in the lower courses of the building and at higher levels corresponding to a building break, suggest it was readily available and may have been used when access to Caen stone was restricted. As most of the Tower's windows were enlarged in the 18th century, only two original – albeit restored – examples remain, in the south wall at the gallery level.
The tower was terraced into the side of a mound, so the northern side of the basement is partially below ground level. As was typical of most keeps, the bottom floor was an undercroft used for storage. One of the rooms contained a well. Although the layout has remained the same since the tower's construction, the interior of the basement dates mostly from the 18th century when the floor was lowered and the pre-existing timber vaults were replaced with brick counterparts. The basement is lit through small slits.
The entrance floor was probably intended for the use of the Constable of the Tower, Lieutenant of the Tower of London and other important officials. The south entrance was blocked during the 17th century, and not reopened until 1973. Those heading to the upper floor had to pass through a smaller chamber to the east, also connected to the entrance floor. The crypt of St John's Chapel occupied the south-east corner and was accessible only from the eastern chamber. There is a recess in the north wall of the crypt; according to Geoffrey Parnell, Keeper of the Tower History at the Royal Armouries, "the windowless form and restricted access, suggest that it was designed as a strong-room for safekeeping of royal treasures and important documents".
The upper floor contained a grand hall in the west and residential chamber in the east – both originally open to the roof and surrounded by a gallery built into the wall – and St John's Chapel in the south-east. The top floor was added in the 15th century, along with the present roof. St John's Chapel was not part of the White Tower's original design, as the apsidal projection was built after the basement walls. Due to changes in function and design since the tower's construction, except for the chapel little is left of the original interior.[20] The chapel's current bare and unadorned appearance is reminiscent of how it would have been in the Norman period. In the 13th century, during Henry III's reign, the chapel was decorated with such ornamentation as a gold-painted cross, and stained glass windows that depicted the Virgin Mary and the Holy Trinity.
Innermost ward
The innermost ward encloses an area immediately south of the White Tower, stretching to what was once the edge of the River Thames. As was the case at other castles, such as the 11th-century Hen Domen, the innermost ward was probably filled with timber buildings from the Tower's foundation. Exactly when the royal lodgings began to encroach from the White Tower into the innermost ward is uncertain, although it had happened by the 1170s. The lodgings were renovated and elaborated during the 1220s and 1230s, becoming comparable with other palatial residences such as Windsor Castle. Construction of Wakefield and Lanthorn Towers – located at the corners of the innermost ward's wall along the river – began around 1220. They probably served as private residences for the queen and king respectively.
The earliest evidence for how the royal chambers were decorated comes from Henry III's reign: the queen's chamber was whitewashed, and painted with flowers and imitation stonework. A great hall existed in the south of the ward, between the two towers. It was similar to, although slightly smaller than, that also built by Henry III at Winchester Castle. Near Wakefield Tower was a postern gate which allowed private access to the king's apartments. The innermost ward was originally surrounded by a protective ditch, which had been filled in by the 1220s. Around this time, a kitchen was built in the ward. Between 1666 and 1676, the innermost ward was transformed and the palace buildings removed. The area around the White Tower was cleared so that anyone approaching would have to cross open ground. The Jewel House was demolished, and the Crown Jewels moved to Martin Tower.
Inner ward
The inner ward was created during Richard the Lionheart's reign, when a moat was dug to the west of the innermost ward, effectively doubling the castle's size. Henry III created the ward's east and north walls, and the ward's dimensions remain to this day. Most of Henry's work survives, and only two of the nine towers he constructed have been completely rebuilt. Between the Wakefield and Lanthorn Towers, the innermost ward's wall also serves as a curtain wall for the inner ward. The main entrance to the inner ward would have been through a gatehouse, most likely in the west wall on the site of what is now Beauchamp Tower. The inner ward's western curtain wall was rebuilt by Edward I. The 13th-century Beauchamp Tower marks the first large-scale use of brick as a building material in Britain, since the 5th-century departure of the Romans. The Beauchamp Tower is one of 13 towers that stud the curtain wall. Clockwise from the south-west corner they are: Bell, Beauchamp, Devereux, Flint, Bowyer, Brick, Martin, Constable, Broad Arrow, Salt, Lanthorn, Wakefield, and the Bloody Tower. While these towers provided positions from which flanking fire could be deployed against a potential enemy, they also contained accommodation. As its name suggests, Bell Tower housed a belfry, its purpose to raise the alarm in the event of an attack. The royal bow-maker, responsible for making longbows, crossbows, catapults, and other siege and hand weapons, had a workshop in the Bowyer Tower. A turret at the top of Lanthorn Tower was used as a beacon by traffic approaching the Tower at night.
As a result of Henry's expansion, St Peter ad Vincula, a Norman chapel which had previously stood outside the Tower, was incorporated into the castle. Henry decorated the chapel by adding glazed windows, and stalls for himself and his queen. It was rebuilt by Edward I at a cost of over £300[36] and again by Henry VIII in 1519; the current building dates from this period, although the chapel was refurbished in the 19th century. Immediately west of Wakefield Tower, the Bloody Tower was built at the same time as the inner ward's curtain wall, and as a water-gate provided access to the castle from the River Thames. It was a simple structure, protected by a portcullis and gate. The Bloody Tower acquired its name in the 16th century, as it was believed to be the site of the murder of the Princes in the Tower. Between 1339 and 1341, a gatehouse was built into the curtain wall between Bell and Salt Towers. During the Tudor period, a range of buildings for the storage of munitions was built along the inside of the north inner ward. The castle buildings were remodelled during the Stuart period, mostly under the auspices of the Office of Ordnance. In 1663, just over £4,000 was spent building a new storehouse (now known as the New Armouries) in the inner ward. Construction of the Grand Storehouse north of the White Tower began in 1688, on the same site as the dilapidated Tudor range of storehouses; it was destroyed by fire in 1841. The Waterloo Block, a former barracks in the castellated Gothic Revival style with Domestic Tudor details, was built on the site and remains to this day, housing the Crown Jewels on the ground floor.
Outer ward
A third ward was created during Edward I's extension to the Tower, as the narrow enclosure completely surrounded the castle. At the same time a bastion known as Legge's Mount was built at the castle's northwest corner. Brass Mount, the bastion in the northeast corner, was a later addition. The three rectangular towers along the east wall 15 metres (49 ft) apart were dismantled in 1843. Although the bastions have often been ascribed to the Tudor period, there is no evidence to support this; archaeological investigations suggest that Legge's Mount dates from the reign of Edward I. Blocked battlements (also known as crenellations) in the south side of Legge's Mount are the only surviving medieval battlements at the Tower of London (the rest are Victorian replacements). A new 50-metre (160 ft) moat was dug beyond the castle's new limits; it was originally 4.5 metres (15 ft) deeper in the middle than it is today. With the addition of a new curtain wall, the old main entrance to the Tower of London was obscured and made redundant; a new entrance was created in the southwest corner of the external wall circuit. The complex consisted of an inner and an outer gatehouse and a barbican, which became known as the Lion Tower as it was associated with the animals as part of the Royal Menagerie since at least the 1330s. The Lion Tower itself no longer survives.
Edward extended the south side of the Tower of London onto land that had previously been submerged by the River Thames. In this wall, he built St Thomas's Tower between 1275 and 1279; later known as Traitors' Gate, it replaced the Bloody Tower as the castle's water-gate. The building is unique in England, and the closest parallel is the now demolished water-gate at the Louvre in Paris. The dock was covered with arrowslits in case of an attack on the castle from the River; there was also a portcullis at the entrance to control who entered. There were luxurious lodgings on the first floor. Edward also moved the Royal Mint into the Tower; its exact location early on is unknown, although it was probably in either the outer ward or the Lion Tower. By 1560, the Mint was located in a building in the outer ward near Salt Tower. Between 1348 and 1355, a second water-gate, Cradle Tower, was added east of St Thomas's Tower for the king's private use.
Foundation and early history
Victorious at the Battle of Hastings on 14 October 1066, the invading Duke of Normandy, William the Conqueror, spent the rest of the year securing his holdings by fortifying key positions. He founded several castles along the way, but took a circuitous route toward London; only when he reached Canterbury did he turn towards England's largest city. As the fortified bridge into London was held by Saxon troops, he decided instead to ravage Southwark before continuing his journey around southern England. A series of Norman victories along the route cut the city's supply lines and in December 1066, isolated and intimidated, its leaders yielded London without a fight. Between 1066 and 1087, William established 36 castles, although references in the Domesday Book indicate that many more were founded by his subordinates. The Normans undertook what has been described as "the most extensive and concentrated programme of castle-building in the whole history of feudal Europe". They were multi-purpose buildings, serving as fortifications (used as a base of operations in enemy territory), centres of administration, and residences.
William sent an advance party to prepare the city for his entrance, to celebrate his victory and found a castle; in the words of William's biographer, William of Poitiers, "certain fortifications were completed in the city against the restlessness of the huge and brutal populace. For he [William] realised that it was of the first importance to overawe the Londoners". At the time, London was the largest town in England; the foundation of Westminster Abbey and the old Palace of Westminster under Edward the Confessor had marked it as a centre of governance, and with a prosperous port it was important for the Normans to establish control over the settlement. The other two castles in London – Baynard's Castle and Montfichet's Castle – were established at the same time. The fortification that would later become known as the Tower of London was built onto the south-east corner of the Roman town walls, using them as prefabricated defences, with the River Thames providing additional protection from the south. This earliest phase of the castle would have been enclosed by a ditch and defended by a timber palisade, and probably had accommodation suitable for William.
Most of the early Norman castles were built from timber, but by the end of the 11th century a few, including the Tower of London, had been renovated or replaced with stone. Work on the White Tower – which gives the whole castle its name – is usually considered to have begun in 1078, however the exact date is uncertain. William made Gundulf, Bishop of Rochester, responsible for its construction, although it may not have been completed until after William's death in 1087. The White Tower is the earliest stone keep in England, and was the strongest point of the early castle. It also contained grand accommodation for the king. At the latest, it was probably finished by 1100 when Bishop Ranulf Flambard was imprisoned there. Flambard was loathed by the English for exacting harsh taxes. Although he is the first recorded prisoner held in the Tower, he was also the first person to escape from it, using a smuggled rope secreted in a butt of wine. He was held in luxury and permitted servants, but on 2 February 1101 he hosted a banquet for his captors. After plying them with drink, when no one was looking he lowered himself from a secluded chamber, and out of the Tower. The escape came as such a surprise that one contemporary chronicler accused the bishop of witchcraft.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that in 1097 King William II ordered a wall to be built around the Tower of London; it was probably built from stone and likely replaced the timber palisade that arced around the north and west sides of the castle, between the Roman wall (to the east) and the Thames (to the south). The Norman Conquest of London manifested itself not only with a new ruling class, but in the way the city was structured. Land was confiscated and redistributed amongst the Normans, who also brought over hundreds of Jews, for financial reasons. The Jews arrived under the direct protection of the Crown, as a result of which Jewish communities were often found close to castles. The Jews used the Tower as a retreat, when threatened by anti-Jewish violence.
The death in 1135 of Henry I left England with a disputed succession; although the king had persuaded his most powerful barons to swear support for the Empress Matilda, just a few days after Henry's death Stephen of Blois arrived from France to lay claim to the throne. The importance of the city and its Tower is marked by the speed at which he secured London. The castle, which had not been used as a royal residence for some time, was usually left in the charge of a Constable, a post held at this time by Geoffrey de Mandeville. As the Tower was considered an impregnable fortress in a strategically important position, possession was highly valued. Mandeville exploited this, selling his allegiance to Matilda after Stephen was captured in 1141 at the Battle of Lincoln. Once her support waned, the following year he resold his loyalty to Stephen. Through his role as Constable of the Tower, Mandeville became "the richest and most powerful man in England". When he tried the same ploy again, this time holding secret talks with Matilda, Stephen had him arrested, forced him to cede control of his castles, and replaced him with one of his most loyal supporters. Until then the position had been hereditary, originally held by Geoffrey de Mandeville, but the position's authority was such that from then on it remained in the hands of an appointee of the monarch. The position was usually given to someone of great importance, who might not always be at the castle due to other duties. Although the Constable was still responsible for maintaining the castle and its garrison, from an early stage he had a subordinate to help with this duty: the Lieutenant of the Tower.[70] Constables also had civic duties relating to the city. Usually they were given control of the city and were responsible for levying taxes, enforcing the law and maintaining order. The creation in 1191 of the position of Lord Mayor of London removed many of the Constable's civic powers, and at times led to friction between the two.
Expansion
The castle probably retained its form as established by 1100 until the reign of Richard I (1189–1199). The castle was extended under William Longchamp, King Richard's Lord Chancellor and the man in charge of England while he was on crusade. The Pipe Rolls record £2,881 1s 10d spent at the Tower of London between 3 December 1189 and 11 November 1190, from an estimated £7,000 spent by Richard on castle building in England. According to the contemporary chronicler Roger of Howden, Longchamp dug a moat around the castle and tried in vain to fill it from the Thames. Longchamp was also Constable of the Tower, and undertook its expansion while preparing for war with King Richard's younger brother, Prince John, who in Richard's absence arrived in England to try to seize power. As Longchamp's main fortress, he made the Tower as strong as possible. The new fortifications were first tested in October 1191, when the Tower was besieged for the first time in its history. Longchamp capitulated to John after just three days, deciding he had more to gain from surrender than prolonging the siege.
John succeeded Richard as king in 1199, but his rule proved unpopular with many of his barons, who in response moved against him. In 1214, while the king was at Windsor Castle, Robert Fitzwalter led an army into London and laid siege to the Tower. Although under-garrisoned, the Tower resisted and the siege was lifted once John signed the Magna Carta. The king reneged on his promises of reform, leading to the outbreak of the First Barons' War. Even after the Magna Carta was signed, Fitzwalter maintained his control of London. During the war, the Tower's garrison joined forces with the barons. John was deposed in 1216 and the barons offered the English throne to Prince Louis, the eldest son of the French king. However, after John's death in October 1216, many began to support the claim of his eldest son, Henry III. War continued between the factions supporting Louis and Henry, with Fitzwalter supporting Louis. Fitzwalter was still in control of London and the Tower, both of which held out until it was clear that Henry III's supporters would prevail.
In the 13th century, Kings Henry III (1216–1272) and Edward I (1272–1307) extended the castle, essentially creating it as it stands today. Henry was disconnected from his barons, and a mutual lack of understanding led to unrest and resentment towards his rule. As a result, he was eager to ensure the Tower of London was a formidable fortification; at the same time Henry was an aesthete and wished to make the castle a comfortable place to live. From 1216 to 1227 nearly £10,000 was spent on the Tower of London; in this period, only the work at Windsor Castle cost more (£15,000). Most of the work was focused on the palatial buildings of the innermost ward. The tradition of whitewashing the White Tower (from which it derives its name) began in 1240.
Beginning around 1238, the castle was expanded to the east, north, and north-west. The work lasted through the reign of Henry III and into that of Edward I, interrupted occasionally by civil unrest. New creations included a new defensive perimeter, studded with towers, while on the west, north, and east sides, where the wall was not defended by the river, a defensive ditch was dug. The eastern extension took the castle beyond the bounds of the old Roman settlement, marked by the city wall which had been incorporated into the castle's defences. The Tower had long been a symbol of oppression, despised by Londoners, and Henry's building programme was unpopular. So when the gatehouse collapsed in 1240, the locals celebrated the setback. The expansion caused disruption locally and £166 was paid to St Katherine's Hospital and the prior of Holy Trinity in compensation.
Henry III often held court at the Tower of London, and held parliament there on at least two occasions (1236 and 1261) when he felt that the barons were becoming dangerously unruly. In 1258, the discontented barons, led by Simon de Montfort, forced the King to agree to reforms including the holding of regular parliaments. Relinquishing the Tower of London was among the conditions. Henry III resented losing power and sought permission from the pope to break his oath. With the backing of mercenaries, Henry installed himself in the Tower in 1261. While negotiations continued with the barons, the King ensconced himself in the castle, although no army moved to take it. A truce was agreed with the condition that the King hand over control of the Tower once again. Henry won a significant victory at the Battle of Evesham in 1265, allowing him to regain control of the country and the Tower of London. Cardinal Ottobuon came to England to excommunicate those who were still rebellious; the act was deeply unpopular and the situation was exacerbated when the cardinal was granted custody of the Tower. Gilbert de Clare, 6th Earl of Hertford, marched on London in April 1267 and laid siege to the castle, declaring that custody of the Tower was "not a post to be trusted in the hands of a foreigner, much less of an ecclesiastic". Despite a large army and siege engines, Gilbert de Clare was unable to take the castle. The Earl retreated, allowing the King control of the capital, and the Tower experienced peace for the rest of Henry's reign.
Although he was rarely in London, Edward I undertook an expensive remodelling of the Tower, costing £21,000 between 1275 and 1285, over double that spent on the castle during the whole of Henry III's reign. Edward I was a seasoned castle builder, and used his experience of siege warfare during the crusades to bring innovations to castle building. His programme of castle building in Wales heralded the introduction of the widespread use of arrowslits in castle walls across Europe, drawing on Eastern influences. At the Tower of London, Edward filled in the moat dug by Henry III and built a new curtain wall along its line, creating a new enclosure. A new moat was created in front of the new curtain wall. The western part of Henry III's curtain wall was rebuilt, with Beauchamp Tower replacing the castle's old gatehouse. A new entrance was created, with elaborate defences including two gatehouses and a barbican. In an effort to make the castle self-sufficient, Edward I also added two watermills. Six hundred Jews were imprisoned in the Tower of London in 1278, charged with coin clipping. Persecution of the country's Jewish population under Edward began in 1276 and culminated in 1290 when he issued the Edict of Expulsion, forcing the Jews out of the country. In 1279, the country's numerous mints were unified under a single system whereby control was centralised to the mint within the Tower of London, while mints outside of London were reduced, with only a few local and episcopal mints continuing to operate.
Later Medieval Period
During Edward II's reign (1307–1327) there was relatively little activity at the Tower of London. However, it was during this period that the Privy Wardrobe was founded. The institution was based at the Tower and responsible for organising the state's arms. In 1321, Margaret de Clare, Baroness Badlesmere became the first woman imprisoned in the Tower of London after she refused Queen Isabella admittance to Leeds Castle and ordered her archers to target Isabella, killing six of the royal escort. Generally reserved for high-ranking inmates, the Tower was the most important royal prison in the country. However it was not necessarily very secure, and throughout its history people bribed the guards to help them escape. In 1323, Roger Mortimer, Baron Mortimer, was aided in his escape from the Tower by the Sub-Lieutenant of the Tower who let Mortimer's men inside. They hacked a hole in his cell wall and Mortimer escaped to a waiting boat. He fled to France where he encountered Edward's Queen. They began an affair and plotted to overthrow the King.
One of Mortimer's first acts on entering England in 1326 was to capture the Tower and release the prisoners held there. For four years he ruled while Edward III was too young to do so himself; in 1330, Edward and his supporters captured Mortimer and threw him into the Tower. Under Edward III's rule (1312–1377) England experienced renewed success in warfare after his father's reign had put the realm on the backfoot against the Scots and French. Amongst Edward's successes were the battles of Crécy and Poitiers where King John II of France was taken prisoner, and the capture of the King David II of Scotland at Neville's Cross. During this period, the Tower of London held many noble prisoners of war. Edward II had allowed the Tower of London to fall into a state of disrepair, and by the reign of Edward III the castle was an uncomfortable place. The nobility held captive within its walls were unable to engage in activities such as hunting which were permissible at other royal castles used as prisons, for instance Windsor. Edward III ordered that the castle should be renovated.
When Richard II was crowned in 1377, he led a procession from the Tower to Westminster Abbey. This tradition began in at least the early 14th century and lasted until 1660. During the Peasants' Revolt of 1381 the Tower of London was besieged with the King inside. When Richard rode out to meet with Wat Tyler, the rebel leader, a crowd broke into the castle without meeting resistance and looted the Jewel House. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Simon Sudbury, took refuge in St John's Chapel, hoping the mob would respect the sanctuary. However, he was taken away and beheaded on Tower Hill. Six years later there was again civil unrest, and Richard spent Christmas in the security of the Tower rather than Windsor as was more usual. When Henry Bolingbroke returned from exile in 1399, Richard was imprisoned in the White Tower. He abdicated and was replaced on the throne by Bolingbroke, who became King Henry IV. In the 15th century, there was little building work at the Tower of London, yet the castle still remained important as a place of refuge. When supporters of the late Richard II attempted a coup, Henry IV found safety in the Tower of London. During this period, the castle also held many distinguished prisoners. The heir to the Scottish throne, later King James I of Scotland, was kidnapped while journeying to France in 1406 and held in the Tower. The reign of Henry V (1413–1422) renewed England's fortune in the Hundred Years' War against France. As a result of Henry's victories, such as the Battle of Agincourt, many high-status prisoners were held in the Tower of London until they were ransomed.
Much of the latter half of the 15th century was occupied by the Wars of the Roses between the claimants to the throne, the houses of Lancaster and York. The castle was once again besieged in 1460, this time by a Yorkist force. The Tower was damaged by artillery fire but only surrendered when Henry VI was captured at the Battle of Northampton. With the help of Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick (nicknamed "the Kingmaker") Henry recaptured the throne for a short time in 1470. However, Edward IV soon regained control and Henry VI was imprisoned in the Tower of London, where he was probably murdered. In 1471, during the Siege of London, the Tower's Yorkist garrison exchanged fire with Lancastrians holding Southwark, and sallied from the fortress to take part in a pincer movement to attack Lancastrians who were assaulting Aldgate on London's defensive wall. During the wars, the Tower was fortified to withstand gunfire, and provided with loopholes for cannons and handguns: an enclosure called the Bulwark was created for this purpose to the south of Tower Hill, although it no longer survives.
Shortly after the death of Edward IV in 1483, the notorious murder of the Princes in the Tower is traditionally believed to have taken place. The incident is one of the most infamous events associated with the Tower of London. Edward V's uncle Richard, Duke of Gloucester was declared Lord Protector while the prince was too young to rule. Traditional accounts have held that the 12-year-old Edward was confined to the Tower of London along with his younger brother Richard. The Duke of Gloucester was proclaimed King Richard III in June. The princes were last seen in public in June 1483;[105] it has traditionally been thought that the most likely reason for their disappearance is that they were murdered late in the summer of 1483. Bones thought to belong to them were discovered in 1674 when the 12th-century forebuilding at the entrance to the White Tower was demolished; however, the reputed level at which the bones were found (10 ft or 3 m) would put the bones at a depth similar to that of the Roman graveyard found, in 2011, 12 ft (4 m) underneath the Minories a few hundred yards to the north. Opposition to Richard escalated until he was defeated at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 by the Lancastrian Henry Tudor, who ascended to the throne as Henry VII. As king, Henry VII built a tower for a library next to the King's Tower.
Changing use
The beginning of the Tudor period marked the start of the decline of the Tower of London's use as a royal residence. As 16th-century chronicler Raphael Holinshed said the Tower became used more as "an armouries and house of munition, and thereunto a place for the safekeeping of offenders than a palace roiall for a king or queen to sojourne in". Henry VII visited the Tower on fourteen occasions between 1485 and 1500, usually staying for less than a week at a time. The Yeoman Warders have been the Royal Bodyguard since at least 1509. In 1517 the Tower fired its cannon at City crowds engaged in the xenophobic Evil May Day riots, in which the properties of foreign residents were looted. It is not thought that any rioters were hurt by the gunfire, which was probably meant merely to intimidate the mob.
During the reign of Henry VIII, the Tower was assessed as needing considerable work on its defences. In 1532, Thomas Cromwell spent £3,593 on repairs and imported nearly 3,000 tons of Caen stone for the work. Even so, this was not sufficient to bring the castle up to the standard of contemporary military fortifications which were designed to withstand powerful artillery. Although the defences were repaired, the palace buildings were left in a state of neglect after Henry's death. Their condition was so poor that they were virtually uninhabitable. From 1547 onwards, the Tower of London was only used as a royal residence when its political and historic symbolism was considered useful, for instance each of Edward VI, Mary I, and Elizabeth I briefly stayed at the Tower before their coronations.
In the 16th century, the Tower acquired an enduring reputation as a grim, forbidding prison. This had not always been the case. As a royal castle, it was used by the monarch to imprison people for various reasons, however these were usually high-status individuals for short periods rather than common citizenry as there were plenty of prisons elsewhere for such people. Contrary to the popular image of the Tower, prisoners were able to make their life easier by purchasing amenities such as better food or tapestries through the Lieutenant of the Tower. As holding prisoners was originally an incidental role of the Tower – as would have been the case for any castle – there was no purpose-built accommodation for prisoners until 1687 when a brick shed, a "Prison for Soldiers", was built to the north-west of the White Tower. The Tower's reputation for torture and imprisonment derives largely from 16th-century religious propagandists and 19th-century romanticists. Although much of the Tower's reputation is exaggerated, the 16th and 17th centuries marked the castle's zenith as a prison, with many religious and political undesirables locked away. The Privy Council had to sanction the use of torture, so it was not often used; between 1540 and 1640, the peak of imprisonment at the Tower, there were 48 recorded cases of the use of torture. The three most common forms used were the infamous rack, the Scavenger's daughter, and manacles. The rack was introduced to England in 1447 by the Duke of Exeter, the Constable of the Tower; consequentially it was also known as the Duke of Exeter's daughter. One of those tortured at the Tower was Guy Fawkes, who was brought there on 6 November 1605; after torture he signed a full confession to the Gunpowder Plot.
Among those held and executed at the Tower was Anne Boleyn. Although the Yeoman Warders were once the Royal Bodyguard, by the 16th and 17th centuries their main duty had become to look after the prisoners. The Tower was often a safer place than other prisons in London such as the Fleet, where disease was rife. High-status prisoners could live in conditions comparable to those they might expect outside; one such example was that while Walter Raleigh was held in the Tower his rooms were altered to accommodate his family, including his son who was born there in 1605. Executions were usually carried out on Tower Hill rather than in the Tower of London itself, and 112 people were executed on the hill over 400 years.[119] Before the 20th century, there had been seven executions within the castle on Tower Green; as was the case with Lady Jane Grey, this was reserved for prisoners for whom public execution was considered dangerous. After Lady Jane Grey's execution on 12 February 1554, Queen Mary I imprisoned her sister Elizabeth, later Queen Elizabeth I, in the Tower under suspicion of causing rebellion as Sir Thomas Wyatt had led a revolt against Mary in Elizabeth's name.
The Office of Ordnance and Armoury Office were founded in the 15th century, taking over the Privy Wardrobe's duties of looking after the monarch's arsenal and valuables. As there was no standing army before 1661, the importance of the royal armoury at the Tower of London was that it provided a professional basis for procuring supplies and equipment in times of war. The two bodies were resident at the Tower from at least 1454, and by the 16th century they had moved to a position in the inner ward. The Board of Ordnance (successor to these Offices) had its headquarters in the White Tower and used surrounding buildings for storage. In 1855 the Board was abolished; its successor (the Military Store Department of the War Office) was also based there until 1869, after which its headquarters staff were relocated to the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich (where the recently closed Woolwich Dockyard was converted into a vast ordnance store).
Political tensions between Charles I and Parliament in the second quarter of the 17th century led to an attempt by forces loyal to the King to secure the Tower and its valuable contents, including money and munitions. London's Trained Bands, a militia force, were moved into the castle in 1640. Plans for defence were drawn up and gun platforms were built, readying the Tower for war. The preparations were never put to the test. In 1642, Charles I attempted to arrest five members of parliament. When this failed he fled the city, and Parliament retaliated by removing Sir John Byron, the Lieutenant of the Tower. The Trained Bands had switched sides, and now supported Parliament; together with the London citizenry, they blockaded the Tower. With permission from the King, Byron relinquished control of the Tower. Parliament replaced Byron with a man of their own choosing, Sir John Conyers. By the time the English Civil War broke out in November 1642, the Tower of London was already in Parliament's control.
The last monarch to uphold the tradition of taking a procession from the Tower to Westminster to be crowned was Charles II in 1661. At the time, the castle's accommodation was in such poor condition that he did not stay there the night before his coronation. Under the Stuart kings the Tower's buildings were remodelled, mostly under the auspices of the Office of Ordnance. Just over £4,000 was spent in 1663 on building a new storehouse, now known as the New Armouries in the inner ward. In the 17th century there were plans to enhance the Tower's defences in the style of the trace italienne, however they were never acted on. Although the facilities for the garrison were improved with the addition of the first purpose-built quarters for soldiers (the "Irish Barracks") in 1670, the general accommodations were still in poor condition.
When the Hanoverian dynasty ascended the throne, their situation was uncertain and with a possible Scottish rebellion in mind, the Tower of London was repaired. Most of the work in this period (1750 to 1770) was done by the King's Master Mason, John Deval. Gun platforms added under the Stuarts had decayed. The number of guns at the Tower was reduced from 118 to 45, and one contemporary commentator noted that the castle "would not hold out four and twenty hours against an army prepared for a siege". For the most part, the 18th-century work on the defences was spasmodic and piecemeal, although a new gateway in the southern curtain wall permitting access from the wharf to the outer ward was added in 1774. The moat surrounding the castle had become silted over the centuries since it was created despite attempts at clearing it. It was still an integral part of the castle's defences, so in 1830 the Constable of the Tower, the Duke of Wellington, ordered a large-scale clearance of several feet of silt. However this did not prevent an outbreak of disease in the garrison in 1841 caused by poor water supply, resulting in several deaths. To prevent the festering ditch posing further health problems, it was ordered that the moat should be drained and filled with earth. The work began in 1843 and was mostly complete two years later. The construction of the Waterloo Barracks in the inner ward began in 1845, when the Duke of Wellington laid the foundation stone. The building could accommodate 1,000 men; at the same time, separate quarters for the officers were built to the north-east of the White Tower. The building is now the headquarters of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. The popularity of the Chartist movement between 1828 and 1858 led to a desire to refortify the Tower of London in the event of civil unrest. It was the last major programme of fortification at the castle. Most of the surviving installations for the use of artillery and firearms date from this period.
During the First World War, eleven men were tried in private and shot by firing squad at the Tower for espionage. During the Second World War, the Tower was once again used to hold prisoners of war. One such person was Rudolf Hess, Adolf Hitler's deputy, albeit just for four days in 1941. He was the last state prisoner to be held at the castle. The last person to be executed at the Tower was German spy Josef Jakobs who was shot on 15 August 1941. The executions for espionage during the wars took place in a prefabricated miniature rifle range which stood in the outer ward and was demolished in 1969. The Second World War also saw the last use of the Tower as a fortification. In the event of a German invasion, the Tower, together with the Royal Mint and nearby warehouses, was to have formed one of three "keeps" or complexes of defended buildings which formed the last-ditch defences of the capital.
Restoration and tourism
The Tower of London has become established as one of the most popular tourist attractions in the country. It has been a tourist attraction since at least the Elizabethan period, when it was one of the sights of London that foreign visitors wrote about. Its most popular attractions were the Royal Menagerie and displays of armour. The Crown Jewels also garner much interest, and have been on public display since 1669. The Tower steadily gained popularity with tourists through the 19th century, despite the opposition of the Duke of Wellington to visitors. Numbers became so high that by 1851 a purpose-built ticket office was erected. By the end of the century, over 500,000 were visiting the castle every year.
Over the 18th and 19th centuries, the palatial buildings were slowly adapted for other uses and demolished. Only the Wakefield and St Thomas's Towers survived. The 18th century marked an increasing interest in England's medieval past. One of the effects was the emergence of Gothic Revival architecture. In the Tower's architecture, this was manifest when the New Horse Armoury was built in 1825 against the south face of the White Tower. It featured elements of Gothic Revival architecture such as battlements. Other buildings were remodelled to match the style and the Waterloo Barracks were described as "castellated Gothic of the 15th century". Between 1845 and 1885 institutions such as the Mint which had inhabited the castle for centuries moved to other sites; many of the post-medieval structures left vacant were demolished. In 1855, the War Office took over responsibility for manufacture and storage of weapons from the Ordnance Office, which was gradually phased out of the castle. At the same time, there was greater interest in the history of the Tower of London.
Public interest was partly fuelled by contemporary writers, of whom the work of William Harrison Ainsworth was particularly influential. In The Tower of London: A Historical Romance he created a vivid image of underground torture chambers and devices for extracting confessions that stuck in the public imagination. Ainsworth also played another role in the Tower's history, as he suggested that Beauchamp Tower should be opened to the public so they could see the inscriptions of 16th- and 17th-century prisoners. Working on the suggestion, Anthony Salvin refurbished the tower and led a further programme for a comprehensive restoration at the behest of Prince Albert. Salvin was succeeded in the work by John Taylor. When a feature did not meet his expectations of medieval architecture Taylor would ruthlessly remove it; as a result, several important buildings within the castle were pulled down and in some cases post-medieval internal decoration removed.
Although only one bomb fell on the Tower of London in the First World War (it landed harmlessly in the moat), the Second World War left a greater mark. On 23 September 1940, during the Blitz, high-explosive bombs damaged the castle, destroying several buildings and narrowly missing the White Tower. After the war, the damage was repaired and the Tower of London was reopened to the public.
A 1974 bombing in the White Tower Mortar Room left one person dead and 41 injured. No one claimed responsibility for the blast, but the police investigated suspicions that the IRA was behind it.
In the 21st century, tourism is the Tower's primary role, with the remaining routine military activities, under the Royal Logistic Corps, having wound down in the latter half of the 20th century and moved out of the castle. However, the Tower is still home to the regimental headquarters of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, and the museum dedicated to it and its predecessor, the Royal Fusiliers. Also, a detachment of the unit providing the King's Guard at Buckingham Palace still mounts a guard at the Tower, and with the Yeomen Warders, takes part in the Ceremony of the Keys each day. On several occasions through the year gun salutes are fired from the Tower by the Honourable Artillery Company, these consist of 62 rounds for royal occasions, and 41 on other occasions.
Since 1990, the Tower of London has been cared for by an independent charity, Historic Royal Palaces, which receives no funding from the Government or the Crown. In 1988, the Tower of London was added to the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites, in recognition of its global importance and to help conserve and protect the site. However, recent developments, such as the construction of skyscrapers nearby, have pushed the Tower towards being added to the United Nations' Heritage in Danger List. The remains of the medieval palace have been open to the public since 2006 where visitors can explore the restored chambers. Although the position of Constable of the Tower remains the highest position held at the Tower, the responsibility of day-to-day administration is delegated to the Resident Governor. The Constable is appointed for a five-year term; this is primarily a ceremonial post today but the Constable is also a trustee of Historic Royal Palaces and of the Royal Armouries. General Sir Gordon Messenger was appointed Constable in 2022.
At least six ravens are kept at the Tower at all times, in accordance with the belief that if they are absent, the kingdom will fall. They are under the care of the Ravenmaster, one of the Yeoman Warders. As well as having ceremonial duties, the Yeoman Warders provide guided tours around the Tower.
Garrison
The Yeomen Warders provided the permanent garrison of the Tower, but the Constable of the Tower could call upon the men of the Tower Hamlets to supplement them when necessary. The Tower Hamlets, aka Tower Division of Middlesex's Ossulstone Hundred was an area, significantly larger than the modern London Borough of the same name, which owed military service to the Constable in his ex officio role as Lord Lieutenant of the Tower Hamlets.
The earliest surviving reference to the inhabitants of the Tower Hamlets having a duty to provide a guard for the Tower of London is from 1554, during the reign of Mary I, but the relationship is thought to go back much further. Some believe the connection goes back to the time of the Conqueror. The duty is likely to have had its origin in the rights and obligations of the Manor of Stepney which covered most or all of the Hamlets area.
Crown Jewels
The tradition of housing the Crown Jewels in the Tower of London probably dates from the reign of Henry III (1216–1272). The Jewel House was built specifically to house the royal regalia, including jewels, plate, and symbols of royalty such as the crown, sceptre, and sword. When money needed to be raised, the treasure could be pawned by the monarch. The treasure allowed the monarch independence from the aristocracy and consequently was closely guarded. A new position for "keeper of the jewels, armouries and other things" was created, which was well rewarded; in the reign of Edward III (1327–1377) the holder was paid 12d a day. The position grew to include other duties including purchasing royal jewels, gold, and silver, and appointing royal goldsmiths and jewellers.
In 1649, during the English Commonwealth following Charles I's execution, the contents of the Jewel House were disposed of along with other royal properties, as decreed by Cromwell. Metal items were sent to the Mint to be melted down and re-used, and the crowns were "totallie broken and defaced".
When the monarchy was restored in 1660, the only surviving items of the coronation regalia were a 12th-century spoon and three ceremonial swords. (Some pieces that had been sold were later returned to the Crown.) Detailed records of old regalia survived, and replacements were made for the coronation of Charles II in 1661 based on drawings from the time of Charles I. For the coronation of Charles II, gems were rented because the treasury could not afford to replace them.
In 1669, the Jewel House was demolished and the Crown Jewels moved into Martin Tower (until 1841). They were displayed here for viewing by the paying public. This was exploited two years later when Colonel Thomas Blood attempted to steal them. Blood and his accomplices bound and gagged the Jewel House keeper. Although they laid their hands on the Imperial State Crown, Sceptre and Orb, they were foiled when the keeper's son turned up unexpectedly and raised the alarm.
Since 1994, the Crown Jewels have been on display in the Jewel House in the Waterloo Block. Some of the pieces were once regularly used by Queen Elizabeth II. The display includes 23,578 gemstones, the 800-year-old Coronation Spoon, St Edward's Crown (traditionally placed on a monarch's head at the moment of crowning) and the Imperial State Crown.
Royal Menagerie
There is evidence that King John (1166–1216) first started keeping wild animals at the Tower. Records of 1210–1212 show payments to lion keepers.
The Royal Menagerie is frequently referenced during the reign of Henry III. Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II presented Henry with three leopards, c. 1235, which were kept in the Tower. In 1252, the sheriffs were ordered to pay fourpence a day towards the upkeep of the King's polar bear, a gift from Haakon IV of Norway in the same year; the bear attracted a great deal of attention from Londoners when it went fishing in the Thames while tied to the land by a chain. In 1254 or 1255, Henry III received an African elephant from Louis IX of France depicted by Matthew Paris in his Chronica Majora. A wooden structure was built to house the elephant, 12.2 m (40 ft) long by 6.1 m (20 ft) wide. The animal died in 1258, possibly because it was given red wine, but also perhaps because of the cold climate of England.
In 1288, Edward I added a lion and a lynx and appointed the first official Keeper of the animals.[179] Edward III added other types of animals, two lions, a leopard and two wildcats. Under subsequent kings, the number of animals grew to include additional cats of various types, jackals, hyenas, and an old brown bear, Max, gifted to Henry VIII by Emperor Maximilian.[180] In 1436, during the time of Henry VI, all the lions died and the employment of Keeper William Kerby was terminated.
Historical records indicate that a semi-circular structure or barbican was built by Edward I in 1277; this area was later named the Lion Tower, to the immediate west of the Middle Tower. Records from 1335 indicate the purchase of a lock and key for the lions and leopards, also suggesting they were located near the western entrance of the Tower. By the 1500s that area was called the Menagerie. Between 1604 and 1606 the Menagerie was extensively refurbished and an exercise yard was created in the moat area beside the Lion Tower. An overhead platform was added for viewing of the lions by the royals, during lion baiting, for example in the time of James I. Reports from 1657 include mention of six lions, increasing to 11 by 1708, in addition to other types of cats, eagles, owls and a jackal.
Natural History Museum
By the 18th century, the menagerie was open to the public; admission cost three half-pence or a cat or dog to be fed to the lions. By the end of the century, that had increased to 9 pence. A particularly famous inhabitant was Old Martin, a large grizzly bear given to George III by the Hudson's Bay Company in 1811. An 1800 inventory also listed a tiger, leopards, a hyena, a large baboon, various types of monkeys, wolves, and "other animals". By 1822, however, the collection included only a grizzly bear, an elephant, and some birds. Additional animals were then introduced. In 1828, there were over 280 representing at least 60 species as the new keeper Alfred Copps was actively acquiring animals.
After the death of George IV in 1830, a decision was made to close down the Menagerie on the orders of the Duke of Wellington. In 1831, most of the stock was moved to the London Zoo which had opened in 1828. This decision was made after an incident, although sources vary as to the specifics: either a lion was accused of biting a soldier, or Ensign Seymour had been bitten by a monkey. The last of the animals left in 1835, relocated to Regent's Park. The Menagerie buildings were removed in 1852 but the Keeper of the Royal Menagerie was entitled to use the Lion Tower as a house for life. Consequently, even though the animals had long since left the building, the tower was not demolished until the death of Copps, the last keeper, in 1853.
In 1999, physical evidence of lion cages was found, one being 2x3 metres (6.5x10 feet) in size, very small for a lion that can grow to be 2.5 meters (approximately 8 feet) long. In 2008, the skulls of two male Barbary lions (now extinct in the wild) from northwest Africa were found in the moat area of the Tower. Radiocarbon tests dated them from 1280 to 1385 and 1420–1480. In 2011, an exhibition was hosted at the Tower with fine wire sculptures by Kendra Haste.
In folklore
The Tower of London has been represented in popular culture in many ways. As a result of 16th and 19th century writers, the Tower has a reputation as a grim fortress, a place of torture and execution.
One of the earliest traditions associated with the Tower was that it was built by Julius Caesar; the story was popular amongst writers and antiquaries. The earliest recorded attribution of the Tower to the Roman ruler dates to the mid-14th century in a poem by Sir Thomas Gray. The origin of the myth is uncertain, although it may be related to the fact that the Tower was built in the corner of London's Roman walls. Another possibility is that someone misread a passage from Gervase of Tilbury in which he says Caesar built a tower at Odnea in France. Gervase wrote Odnea as Dodres, which is close to the French for London, Londres. Today, the story survives in William Shakespeare's Richard II and Richard III, and as late as the 18th century some still regarded the Tower as built by Caesar.
Anne Boleyn was beheaded in 1536 for treason against Henry VIII; her ghost supposedly haunts the Church of St Peter ad Vincula in the Tower, where she is buried, and has been said to walk around the White Tower carrying her head under her arm. This haunting is commemorated in the 1934 comic song "With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm". Other reported ghosts include Henry VI, Lady Jane Grey, Margaret Pole, and the Princes in the Tower. In January 1816, a sentry on guard outside the Jewel House claimed to have witnessed an apparition of a bear advancing towards him, and reportedly died of fright a few days later. In October 1817, a tubular, glowing apparition was claimed to have been seen in the Jewel House by the Keeper of the Crown Jewels, Edmund Lenthal Swifte. He said that the apparition hovered over the shoulder of his wife, leading her to exclaim: "Oh, Christ! It has seized me!" Other nameless and formless terrors have been reported, more recently, by night staff at the Tower.
The footpath between Fulling Mill Farm (in the distance) and Broughton Castle...and me doing a 'I am your friend...aren't you a pretty lady' one sided cow conversation all the way.
Luckily they were as docile as their reputation, but it was still a little nerve racking as they all started to walk towards me as I approached. This is a view looking back to about half the herd after I'd passed them when I felt it was safe to point a camera at them!
The last encounter was with a particularly large cow on its own behind the hedge at the edge of the field, bellowing at the top of its lungs. It wanted to join the rest of the herd and we both needed to use the same gap in the hedge in opposite directions...I waited until it lumbered through giving me irritated looks.
A little bit older
A black leather jacket
A bad reputation
Insatiable habits
He was onto me, one look and I couldn't breathe
Yeah, I said, "If you kiss me
I might let it happen"
I swear on my life that I've been a good girl
Tonight, I don't wanna be her
They say he likes a good time
(My, oh my)
He comes alive at midnight
(Every night)
My mama doesn't trust him
(My, oh my)
He's only here for one thing (let's go)
But (so am I)
- My Oh My, Camila Cabello
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(from - Wrigley's 1918 British Columbia Directory) - CRAIGS CROSSING - a Post Office and station on the E. & N. Railway, 20 miles north of Nanaimo and 92 miles north of Victoria, in Alberni Provincial Electoral District. Nearest telegraph office, C. P. R. at Parksville Jet., distant 4 miles and nearest steamer landing-point at Beaver Creek, Union Steamship Co.'s boats, distant 2 miles. The population in 1918 was 55. Local resources: One sawmill, one shingle mill, logging and shingle-bolt camps in operation.
CRAIG'S CROSSING - James and Robert Craig arrived at Craig Bay in 1885 and in 1887 recorded their land claim. Besides sheep farming James was a busy teamster. He petitioned the provincial government to establish a wharf at Arbutus Point (now Madrona Point). It was completed in 1893 and known as Beaver Creek wharf. Coastal steamers came with supplies from Nanalmo and Victoria for the small settlement at Englishman's River. At one time there was also a hotel there but it burned down. The advent of the E. & N. Railway in 1910 curtailed the steamship travel up the coast. James Craig was very Involved In the extension of the railway from Nanalmo. His property became a construction camp, complete with blacksmith shop, equipment sheds and the office-home of the project engineer. Eventually a crossing and railway siding were built and became known as CRAIG'S CROSSING. Jim Kingsley recalls working there as a very young man. James Craig was also a local postmaster and road foreman. He earned the nickname "Couger" because of his prowess as a cougar bounty hunter. He and his two sons Duncan and Fred had such reputations as cougar hunters that they received calls for assistance from all over tt1e Island. His first car, bought in the 1920's was affectionately known as the cougar wagon. James' son Fred still lives on part of the old Craig property. - Compiled by Marjorie Leffler - LINK to the complete article - www.parksville.ca/cms/wpattachments/wpID584atID9714.pdf
CRAIG'S CROSSING Post Office opened - 1 March 1914, after the E&N Railway was built, and was in use until - 15 July1935. It was located on James Craig’s property at Craig’s Crossing. Pioneer James Craig, worked as the postmaster at this post office . The building was later used as the office at Craig’s On The Sea Auto Camp. The building was moved to Parksville Museum in 1985. LINKS to photos of the CRAIG'S CROSSING Post Office - parksvillemuseum.com/2019/02/07/craigs-post-office/ and parksvillemuseum.com/category/heritage-buildings/craigs-p...
LINK to a list of the Postmasters who served at the CRAIG'S CROSSING Post Office - www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/postal-heritage-philately/...;
James "Cougar" Craig (Postmaster at CRAIG'S CROSSING)
(b. 26 May 1864 in Prince Edward Island - d. 19 April 1946 at age 82 in Nanaimo, British Columbia) - LINK to his death certificate - search-collections.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/Image/Genealogy/5d...
His wife - Gertrude Ellen (nee Busby) Craig
(b. 1874 - d. 2 July 1928 at age 54 at Craig's Crossing, British Columbia)
Clipped from - Nanaimo Daily News newspaper - Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada - 20 April 1946 - JAMES CRAIG, 82 TAKEN BY DEATH - One of the most interesting and colorful figures of this section of Vancouver Island died early this morning at Nanaimo Hospital. He was James Craig, 82, pioneer of Craig's Crossing and renowned as leading panther hunter of this entire section. He came to the Island in 1882, from Prince Edward Island, of which he was a native son. Considerably more than 150 Island cougar fell to the gun of this renowned hunter who was the originator of the use of the breed of Louisiana racoon hounds, for hunting the big "cats' here. With his brother Robert he worked westward with C.P.R. construction in the early days. At that time the western terminus was at Lytton. From that point he walked to Vancouver, then taking a canoe for the trip to Comox. This was in 1885, and the canoe with all supplies was lost upon the Comox Spit. Landing safely, however, the' Craig brothers tramped back down the Island and ultimately took up a homestead at what Is now Craig's Crossing. Mr. Craig was predeceased by his wife, the former Gertrude Busby, and his brother Robert died 18 years ago. With his two sons, Duncan and Fred, Mr. Craig became famous as a cougar hunter and Island guide. Besides his two sons he is survived by two daughters, Mrs. James Lochore of Craig's Crossing; Mrs. Harry Pack of Ocean Falls and one grandson, Bill Pack, of Ocean Falls. LINK to his obituary - www.newspapers.com/clip/101887722/obituary-for-james-crai...
(from 1918 - Wrigley's British Columbia directory) - WELLINGTON - a post office, coal-mining town and farming settlement, 5 miles north of Nanaimo, on the E. & N. Railway and Island Highway. The population in 1918 was 400, mainly engaged in the coal mines.
The Post Office at Wellington, B.C. was established - 1 July 1878 and closed - August 1971.
- sent from - / WELLINGTON / MY 11 / 14 / B.C / - split ring cancel - this split ring hammer (A1-2) was not listed in the Proof Book - it was most likely proofed c. 1900 - (RF C).
- arrived at - / CRAIGS CROSSING / MY 11 / 14 / B.C. / - split ring arrival backstamp - this split ring hammer (A1-1) was proofed - 6 February 1914 - (RF D).
Message on postcard reads: May 10, 1914 - I am still in Wellington and don't know when I am going out again. Hibberan (?) seams to be short of work this year - the same as last year. I am all fine now. I guess you are the same. Davie was down Friday and Willie and Harry pm Sunday. Well I would like to get started for this summer - all well your brother W.
Addressed to - Miss B. McDonald / Craig's Crossing / B.C.
The book "The Pursuit of Reputation " author Sujit Patil being interviewed by Shrabonti Bagchi in Bangalore Literature Festival 23.
Mars may have a reputation for being a desolate world, but it is certainly not dead: its albeit thin atmosphere is still capable of whipping up a storm and, as this image reveals, send hundreds – maybe even thousands – of ‘dust devils’ scurrying across the surface.
These swirling columns of wind scour away the top layer of surface material and transport it elsewhere. Their course is plotted by the streaks they leave behind – the newly exposed surface material, which is coloured in blue/grey in this recent image from the CaSSIS camera onboard the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter.
Dust devils on Mars form in the same way as those on Earth: when the ground gets hotter than the air above it, rising plumes of hot air move through cooler denser air, creating an updraft, with the cooler air sinking and setting up a vertical circulation. If a horizontal gust of wind blows through, the dust devil is triggered. Once whirling fast enough, the spinning funnels can pick up dust and push it around the surface.
As seen in this image, not much can stand in the way of a dust devil: they sweep up the sides of mounds, and down across the floors of impact craters alike.
The image was taken on 4 January 2019, and shows a region northeast of Copernicus Crater, in the Cimmeria region of Mars. It captures an area measuring 7.2 x 31 km. North is towards the top left corner in this view. The image has been geometrically rectified and resampled to 4 m/pixel.
If you are at the EGU General Assembly this week, look out for this beautiful image printed at our ESA booth.
Credit: ESA/Roscosmos/CaSSIS, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
Before its reputation as Chicago's most crime-infested neighborhood, Englewood was once the main transportation hub on the South Side. Like Harlem in New York City, Englewood was the second stop for nine railroads departing the Windy City: the Pennsylvania, New York Central, Nickel Plate, Rock Island, Monon, Wabash, Erie, Chicago and Eastern Illinois, and Chicago and Western Indiana railroads.
The latter five stopped here at the "less famous" Little Englewood stop near 64th and Parnell, about half a mile west of Englewood Union Station. Until 1949, the South Side 'El, in the background, even had a connecting stop on Parnell on the east side of the flyover. I do not know the exact year that Little Englewood closed, but I would imagine that it shut down around the same time that Dearborn Station closed.
Miraculously, the platform canopies at this ancient station have survived and are, quite literally, falling apart. Decades of exposure to the elements have taken its toll on the station's former elegance, and the surrounding area has fallen victim to inner city decay.
American postcard by Fotofolio, NY, NY, no. P 348. Photo: Phil Stern. Peter Finch in The Flight of the Phoenix (Robert Aldrich, 1965).
Peter Finch (1916-1977) was a British film and theatre actor who became a film star appreciated by critics and audiences alike from the 1950s onwards. He received a posthumous Oscar in 1977 for his portrayal of the mad newscaster Howard Beale in Sidney Lumet's satire Network (1976).
Peter Finch was born Frederick Peter Ingle-Finch in 1916 in London, Great Britain. Finch was the illegitimate child of Alicia Gladys Fisher and a British military officer. His mother was married at the time to chemist and mountaineer George Ingle Finch, who officially assumed paternity. After his parents' early divorce, Peter Finch grew up mostly with relatives in France, India and Australia, his parents' home countries. After leaving school, he took numerous low-paid odd jobs in Sydney. He eventually decided to become an actor. He later commented, "If I was broke anyway, I might as well become an actor." He first found employment in sketches within vaudeville shows. By the mid-1930s, Finch began to play more serious roles in the theatre and to work in radio. In 1938 he made his feature film screen debut in Dad and Dave Come to Town by Ken Hall. Other roles in Australian cinema followed, though without initially attracting international attention. He did, however, become one of the most popular actors in radio dramas in Australia, thanks to his pleasant voice. From 1941 to 1945 he served with the Australian Imperial Force in World War II, partly in troop entertainment, and was latterly in the rank of sergeant. During one of his stage appearances shortly after the end of the war, Finch was brought to London by Laurence Olivier to the Old Vic Theatre, where Olivier was artistic director at the time. He later had an affair with Olivier's wife, the actress Vivien Leigh. In London, Finch was soon able to make a name for himself in stage roles, for example in 1949 with a performance in Daphne Laureola alongside Edith Evans, which received a standing ovation.
However, as Peter Finch had severe stage fright, from the 1950s onward he concentrated primarily on his film career, which had been sluggish until then. His first British production was Eureka Stockade in 1949, although here he was still in a supporting role. A year later he made a minor appearance in the Hollywood drama The Miniver Story by H.C. Potter, the sequel to the war drama Mrs. Miniver. In 1952, his portrayal of the Sheriff of Nottingham opposite Richard Todd in Ken Annakin's The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men received some attention. This was followed by a series of leading roles that propelled him to stardom in British cinema in the mid-1950s. Finch's roles included Elizabeth Taylor's husband in Elephant Walk (William Dieterle, 1954), Flambeau in Father Brown (Robert Hamer, 1954), German Captain Hans Langsdorff in The Battle of the River Plate (Powell & Pressburger, 1957) and an atheist medical doctor alongside Audrey Hepburn's nun in The Nun's Story (Fred Zinnemann, 1959). Especially the latter film, a huge financial and critical success, boosted Finch's international reputation. His portrayal of an Australian soldier in the film A Town Like Alice by Jack Lee earned him his first British Film Academy Award (BAFTA) in 1956, and he later received the award three more times.
In the course of the 1960s, Peter Finch succeeded in positioning himself increasingly as a sought-after character actor in international cinema. At the 1961 Berlinale, he was awarded the Silver Bear for Best Actor for his portrayal of a politician in crisis, both personally and professionally, in No Love for Johnnie by Ralph Thomas. He also received much praise for his portrayal of Oscar Wilde in the film biography The Man with the Green Carnation/ The Trials of Oscar Wilde (1960) by Ken Hughes. Internationally, he played British officer Harris in Robert Aldrich's survival drama The Flight of the Phoenix (1965) and Italian general Umberto Nobile in Krasnaya palatka/ The Red Tent (Mikhail Kalatozov, 1969). He also appeared in military roles in other films. In 1960, Finch tried his hand behind the camera for once when he made the semi-documentary style short film The Day about the life of a boy on the island of Ibiza. The Day was well received at film festivals, but it was to remain his only directorial effort.
In Britain at this time, Peter Finch was one of a group of already established actors who had no inhibitions about working with the innovative directors of the British New Wave. He often played intelligent and reserved characters here, for example, a writer in a love affair with a younger woman in Desmond Davis' Girl with Green Eyes (1964) and the lonely farmer William Boldwood opposite Julie Christie in John Schlesinger's romantic drama Far from the Madding Crowd (based on Thomas Hardy's novel On the Green Edge of the World). In 1971 Finch worked with Schlesinger again for the film drama Sunday, Bloody Sunday, for which he received his first Oscar nomination, in the category of Best Actor in a Leading Role. Shortly after filming began, he spontaneously replaced Ian Bannen, who had actually been engaged and was uncomfortable with the risky role - as a gay Jewish doctor who shares his younger lover (Murray Head) with a woman (Glenda Jackson), Finch became probably the first film star to be seen in a gay film kiss. His subsequent film projects were less successful, however, as were his two films with Liv Ullmann: the spectacularly flopped musical Lost Horizon (Charles Jarrott, 1973) and the historical film The Abdication (Anthony Harvey, 1974). In the 1973 historical war film Bequest to the Nation by James Cellan Jones, he portrayed British General Horatio Nelson.
Shortly before his death, Peter Finch hit the screens with a television film Raid on Entebbe (Irvin Kershner, 1976), in which he played Yitzchak Rabin, and was on a promotional tour for his latest feature film, the media satire Network (Sidney Lumet, 1976). On 14 January 1977, Finch died of a heart attack suffered in the lobby of the Beverly Hills Hotel in Los Angles at the age of 60. A few months later, he won the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for his portrayal of Howard Beale, a television host gone mad, in Network; the award was accepted by his widow Eletha Finch. Finch and Heath Ledger are the only actors to date to receive the Oscar posthumously. The scenes in which Finch's character preaches his wisdom to the television audience are among the most famous of the classic Network; the film quote "I'm mad as hell and I can't take it anymore" spoken by him became equally famous.
Peter Finch was married three times and had four children: from 1943 until his divorce in 1959 to ballet dancer Tamara Tchinarova Finch (1919-2017), one child; from 1959 to 1965 to actress Yolande Turner (1935-2003), two children; and from 1973 until his death to Eletha Barrett Finch, one child. Businessman and film producer Charles Finch (b. 1962) is his son. Biographies and obituaries described Finch the man as a womaniser and relatively heavy drinker, but also as kind and educated. Peter Finch is buried at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery.
Sources: Wikipedia (German, Dutch and English), and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Participants enjoy some relaxing yoga with instructor Anna at the Dowd YMCA's Taylor Swift: Reputation Party.
Sunspots was available at the 2007 Robert Tonner Convention in Orlando, Florida, and can now be found on the secondary market.
She is a "Tiny Betsy-body" doll and related to the Little Martians.
Marmon was a US maker of luxury cars. They developed the first production V16 engine, only to be beaten to production by Cadillac who were much better financed.
Key to building the marques reputation was the Model 34.
The following text comes from am Autoweek article published in 2003:
1917 MARMON MODEL 34 TOURING CAR: WAY AHEAD OF ITS TIME
As World War I began, Indianapolis car and flour milling machinery manufacturer Nordyke & Marmon decided to expand its automobile business by making an extraordinary new model. While the company’s genius engineer, Howard Marmon, is best known for the 1931 16-cylinder model, the six-cylinder Model 34 introduced in 1916 is probably Marmon’s more innovative vehicle. The 34 projected an image of progressive luxury, combining trend-setting design with excellent performance.
The exterior styling of the Model 34—drawn by Cleveland coachbuilder Leon Rubay—championed the beginning of streamlined automobile body shapes. The car’s distinctive look was set off with bicycle-style fenders connected by a running board strengthened with a Dutch bend edge, which folded part of a sheet of the metal. The running board surface continued into each fender, a great design detail. When the 34 was shown at the 1916 New York Auto Show, public reaction was strong. The Marmon factory expanded to meet demand.
At a time when most cars were trimmed with brass or nickel, the 34’s radiator shell, windshield frame and headlight housing were painted—to resemble a sporty car. A hood without louvers, and wire wheels contributed to the visual theme of speed. There were seven standard models of the 34: The five-passenger touring car was the least expensive at $3,100. Customers wanting more choices were shown a book of 50 body styles drawn by a dozen different coachbuilders.
The 34 used a relatively compact overhead-valve, 340-cid inline six-cylinder engine placed on a 136-inch-wheelbase chassis. Cylinders and the upper half of the crankcase were a single casting of Lynite aluminum. It was the first production automobile in which the major part of the engine was aluminum. The powerplant had a nominal rating of 33.75 horsepower—hence the 34 designation—but brake horsepower was 74, the same as Packard’s V12. So much aluminum was used in the 3500-pound car that the Model 34 weighed in 1000 pounds less than other cars of the same size, giving it an excellent power-to-weight ratio.
The featured model, a rare seven-passenger touring car, has been used sparingly during its long life. The original owner drove it only several hundred miles a year, and meticulously followed the factory service manual procedures by putting the car up on blocks for the winter. Donald DePue, who lives in Eastern Pennsylvania, bought this Model 34 in 1990. He had the car completely restored. It has only 19,000 miles on the odometer.
DePue’s car can go well above 50 mph, but does so with some noise. Each year the Model 34 takes part in the Marmon Club meet—the Mighty Marmon Muster—to be held in York Beach, Maine, this September.
In this touring car, driver and passengers sit in front and rear seats stylishly divided by a cowl (which conceals a cellarette—a period euphemism for a small bar—and two jump seats). The front seat is bench-style, with a bulge in the middle of the leather seatback that indicates there is only room for two. There are four pedals on the floor of the driver’s side: The brake and the clutch protrude. Close to the driver’s seat is a small circular brass pedal. This is the accelerator. To its side is a square metal footrest.
The Marmon business was seriously damaged by the double punch of canceled war contracts and the severe recession in 1921-22. That forced the 34 to continue into the late 1920s, beyond its time, which diluted Marmon’s luxury image. As the Depression began, new investors revived Marmon with a spectacular 16-cylinder car, and the company diversified into large specialty trucks.
That did not save the automobile business. However, the trucks thrived, allowing the Marmon name to continue on motor vehicles into the 1990s.
Oberhausen
Oberhausen is the 38th largest city in Germany and the sixth largest in the Ruhr region with a population of 211,000.
Oberhausen was formed as a new municipality in 1862. A number of surrounding municipalities had to give up a piece of land for this. The municipality was named after the Oberhausen station on the Cöln-Mindener Eisenbahn, built in 1847, which in turn was named after Schloss Oberhausen, a castle on the Emscher, which was not on Oberhausen territory until 1909. Oberhausen, like most major cities in the Ruhr area, subsequently experienced rapid development thanks to coal mining and heavy industry. In 1874 it received city rights. After Alstaden an der Ruhr was incorporated into Oberhausen in 1910, the city also came to be located on the Ruhr. In 1929, the towns of Sterkrade and Osterfeld were also merged with Oberhausen to form the city of Oberhausen (Rheinland).
The Ruhrchemie AG synthetic oil plant was a bombing target of the oil campaign of World War II, and the US forces reached the plant by 4 April 1945. In 1973, Thyssen AG employed 14,000 people in Oberhausen in the steel industry, but ten years later the number had fallen to 6,000.
________________________________________________
After visiting the Ruhr area three years ago, I did a revisit, since there was still so much to see. In less than six days I visited six cities, two museums, and I did some extensive car spotting by bicycle. I have hundreds of car spots to share and took photos of the historic or interesting buildings.
The Ruhr area ('Ruhrgebiet') is named after the river that borders it to the south and is the largest urban area in Germany with over five million people. It is mostly known as a densely-populated industrial area. By 1850 there were almost 300 coal mines in operation in the Ruhr area. The coal was exported or processed in coking ovens into coke, used in blast furnaces, producing iron and steel. Because of the industrial significance, it had been a target from the start of the war, yet "the organized defences and the large amount of industrial pollutants produced a semi-permanent smog or industrial haze that hampered accurate bombing". During World War II, the industry and cities in the Ruhr area were heavily bombed. The combination of the lack of historic city centres, which were burned to ashes, (air) pollution, and urban decay has given the area and the cities a bad reputation.
Source: Wikipedia
Saint Magnus, Earl Magnus Erlendsson of Orkney, sometimes known as Magnus the Martyr, was Earl of Orkney from 1106[1] to about 1115. His story is told in two sagas, Magnus' saga (the shorter and longer one) and one legend, Legenda de sancto Magno.
Magnus's grandparents, Earl Thorfinn and his wife Ingibiorg Finnsdottir, had two sons, Erlend and Paul, who were twins. Through Ingibiorg's father Finn Arnesson and his wife, the family was related to the Norwegian Kings Olav II and Harald II.
Born in 1075, Magnus was the son of Erlend Thorfinnsson, Earl of Orkney, and he first served Magnus III of Norway as skutilsvein (approx. Chamberlain), who took possession of the islands in 1098, deposing Erlend and his brother, Paul. Paul's son, Haakon Paulsson, then became regent on behalf of the Norwegian prince, Sigurd, who made Haakon earl in 1105.
According to the Orkneyinga Saga, Magnus had a reputation for piety and gentleness, and was rejected by the Norwegians, refusing to fight in a Viking raid in Anglesey, Wales, because of his religious convictions, instead staying on board his ships during the Battle of Anglesey Sound, singing psalms. He was obliged to take refuge in Scotland, but returned to Orkney in 1105 and disputed the succession with his cousin Haakon.
Having failed to reach an agreement, he sought help from King Eystein I of Norway, who granted him the earldom of Orkney and he ruled jointly and amicably with Haakon until 1114.
Their followers fell out, and the two sides met at the Thing (assembly) on the Orkney mainland, ready to do battle. Peace was negotiated and the Earls arranged to meet each other on the island of Egilsay, each bringing only two ships. Magnus arrived with his two ships, but then Haakon treacherously turned up with eight ships.
Magnus took refuge in the island's church overnight, but the following day he was captured and offered to go into exile or prison, but an assembly of chieftains insisted that one earl must die. Haakon's standard bearer, Ofeigr, refused to execute Magnus, and an angry Haakon made his cook Lifolf kill Magnus by striking him on the head with an axe. It was said that Magnus first prayed for the souls of his executioners.
According to the sagas, the martyrdom took place after Easter, on April 16 . The year is often given as 1115, but this is impossible: 16 April fell before Easter that year.
Magnus was first buried on the spot where he died. According to his legend, the rocky area around his grave miraculously became a green field. Later Thora, Magnus' mother asked Haakon allow her to bury him in a Church. Haakon gave his permission and Magnus was then buried at Christchurch at Birsay.
There were numerous reports of miraculous happenings and healings. William the Old, Bishop of Orkney, warned that it was "heresy to go about with such tales" and was then struck blind at his church but subsequently had his sight restored after praying at the grave of Magnus, not long after visiting Norway (and perhaps meeting Earl Rognvald Kolsson).
Magnus's nephew, Rognvald Kali Kolsson, laid claim to the Earldom of Orkney, and was advised by his father Kol to promise the islanders to "build a stone minster at Kirkwall" in memory of his uncle the Holy Earl, and this became St Magnus Cathedral, Kirkwall. When the cathedral begun in 1137 was ready for consecration the relics of St Magnus were transferred, and in 1917 a hidden cavity was found in a column, containing a box with bones including a damaged skull. These are held without (much) doubt to be the relics of St Magnus.
In the Faroes, the St Magnus Cathedral, Kirkjubøur was built around 1300 A.D., at the time of Bishop Erlendur. It is quite sure that the church was used for services (though it never was finished, or has been destroyed later), for estimated relics of Saint Magnus were found here in 1905. Kirkjubøur is one of the most important Faroese historical sites and expected to become a World Heritage Site. In total there are 21 churches in Europe dedicated to St Magnus.
There are two Icelandic sagas of St Magnus's life, Magnus' saga the shorter and longer as well as the account in the Orkneyinga Saga. In addition to this there are several devotional works in Gaelic and Latin about St Magnus, including a legend, Legenda de sancto Magno. Saint Magnus is the subject of the novel Magnus by Orcadian author George Mackay Brown, which was published in 1973, and St Magnus, Earl of Orkney by John Mooney. In 1977 Peter Maxwell Davies wrote a one-act opera, The Martyrdom of St Magnus, based on Mackay Brown's novel.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnus_Erlendsson,_Earl_of_Orkney
The first church lost to the Great Fire was St. Margaret New Fish Street; it was not rebuilt, the parish being united with St. Magnus and the site given to The Monument, which stands there yet, 202 feet tall and 202 feet to the east of the spot where the fire began.
The church is first mentioned in the last decade of the 12th century and must have been well known to the many pilgrims and others who crossed over the nearby London Bridge. A fish market was set up in the street in the same century while a City Ordinance of the 14th century required lampreys from France to he sold 'from under the walls of the church'. A further Ordinance of 1379 mentions the conduit, 'hard by the church', as one of the two places where fresh fish could be sold. In the Guildhall Library can be seen the Book of St. Margaret, New Fish Street in which are listed an extraordinary collection of saintly relics. Among the relics claimed were portions of the crib of Christ at Bethlehem, Moses's rod with which he divided the Red Sea, and the 'usual' pieces of clothing for early saints of the church.
During the Middle Ages the parish had two rectors of note. In 1461 John Alcock was appointed rector. He stayed until 1471 when he was made Bishop of Rochester, to be followed by Worcester, and in 1486 he succeeded John Morton at Ely when he became the Archbishop of Canterbury. Alcock was twice Chancellor of England, Master of the Rolls, President of Wales and the founder of Jesus College Cambridge. The other was Geoffrey Wren 1512-1527 when during his stay at St. Margaret's he became a Canon of Windsor. He lies buried under the sixth arch of the North aisle of the Royal Chapel of St. George at Windsor.
John Stow in his 'survay' describes the church as being 'a proper church, but monuments hath it none'. From that we assume that he meant it was a building of some size in good repair. In a survey, 'Valor Ecclesiasticus' during the reign of Henry VIII the rectory was valued at £31 11s. 8d. In 1636 the annual income was shown as £150 which is, presumably, the stipend of Thomas Brooks, a Puritan preacher here during the commonwealth. He was ejected at the time of the Restoration of the Monarch in 1660 when Robert Porey, the legal tenant of the rectory became a prebendary and canon residentary of St. Paul's. At which time George Smalwood became rector of St. Margaret's. The church was the first to perish in the Great Fire of 1666 and was not rebuilt. The monument stands on the site today and a City plaque commemorates the church on a nearby office building.
www.stmagnusmartyr.org.uk/history/st-margaret-new-fish-st
St Magnus the Martyr, London Bridge is a Church of England church and parish within the City of London. The church, which is located in Lower Thames Street near The Monument to the Great Fire of London,[1] is part of the Diocese of London and under the pastoral care of the Bishop of London and the Bishop of Fulham.[2] It is a Grade I listed building.[3] The rector uses the title "Cardinal Rector". [4]
St Magnus lies on the original alignment of London Bridge between the City and Southwark. The ancient parish was united with that of St Margaret, New Fish Street, in 1670 and with that of St Michael, Crooked Lane, in 1831.[5] The three united parishes retained separate vestries and churchwardens.[6] Parish clerks continue to be appointed for each of the three parishes.[7]
St Magnus is the guild church of the Worshipful Company of Fishmongers and the Worshipful Company of Plumbers, and the ward church of the Ward of Bridge and Bridge Without. It is also twinned with the Church of the Resurrection in New York City.[8]
Its prominent location and beauty has prompted many mentions in literature.[9] In Oliver Twist Charles Dickens notes how, as Nancy heads for her secret meeting with Mr. Brownlow and Rose Maylie on London Bridge, "the tower of old Saint Saviour's Church, and the spire of Saint Magnus, so long the giant-warders of the ancient bridge, were visible in the gloom". The church's spiritual and architectural importance is celebrated in the poem The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot, who adds in a footnote that "the interior of St. Magnus Martyr is to my mind one of the finest among Wren's interiors".[10] One biographer of Eliot notes that at first he enjoyed St Magnus aesthetically for its "splendour"; later he appreciated its "utility" when he came there as a sinner.
The church is dedicated to St Magnus the Martyr, earl of Orkney, who died on 16 April in or around 1116 (the precise year is unknown).[12] He was executed on the island of Egilsay having been captured during a power struggle with his cousin, a political rival.[13] Magnus had a reputation for piety and gentleness and was canonised in 1135. St. Ronald, the son of Magnus's sister Gunhild Erlendsdotter, became Earl of Orkney in 1136 and in 1137 initiated the construction of St. Magnus Cathedral in Kirkwall.[14] The story of St. Magnus has been retold in the 20th century in the chamber opera The Martyrdom of St Magnus (1976)[15] by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, based on George Mackay Brown's novel Magnus (1973).
he identity of the St Magnus referred to in the church's dedication was only confirmed by the Bishop of London in 1926.[16] Following this decision a patronal festival service was held on 16 April 1926.[17] In the 13th century the patronage was attributed to one of the several saints by the name of Magnus who share a feast day on 19 August, probably St Magnus of Anagni (bishop and martyr, who was slain in the persecution of the Emperor Decius in the middle of the 3rd century).[18] However, by the early 18th century it was suggested that the church was either "dedicated to the memory of St Magnus or Magnes, who suffer'd under the Emperor Aurelian in 276 [see St Mammes of Caesarea, feast day 17 August], or else to a person of that name, who was the famous Apostle or Bishop of the Orcades."[19] For the next century historians followed the suggestion that the church was dedicated to the Roman saint of Cæsarea.[20] The famous Danish archaeologist Professor Jens Jacob Asmussen Worsaae (1821–85) promoted the attribution to St Magnus of Orkney during his visit to the British Isles in 1846-7, when he was formulating the concept of the 'Viking Age',[21] and a history of London written in 1901 concluded that "the Danes, on their second invasion ... added at least two churches with Danish names, Olaf and Magnus".[22] A guide to the City Churches published in 1917 reverted to the view that St Magnus was dedicated to a martyr of the third century,[23] but the discovery of St Magnus of Orkney's relics in 1919 renewed interest in a Scandinavian patron and this connection was encouraged by the Rector who arrived in 1921
A metropolitan bishop of London attended the Council of Arles in 314, which indicates that there must have been a Christian community in Londinium by this date, and it has been suggested that a large aisled building excavated in 1993 near Tower Hill can be compared with the 4th-century Cathedral of St Tecla in Milan.[25] However, there is no archaeological evidence to suggest that any of the mediaeval churches in the City of London had a Roman foundation.[26] A grant from William I in 1067 to Westminster Abbey, which refers to the stone church of St Magnus near the bridge ("lapidee eccle sci magni prope pontem"), is generally accepted to be 12th century forgery,[27] and it is possible that a charter of confirmation in 1108-16 might also be a later fabrication.[28] Nonetheless, these manuscripts may preserve valid evidence of a date of foundation in the 11th century.
Archaeological evidence suggests that the area of the bridgehead was not occupied from the early 5th century until the early 10th century. Environmental evidence indicates that the area was waste ground during this period, colonised by elder and nettles. Following Alfred's decision to reoccupy the walled area of London in 886, new harbours were established at Queenhithe and Billingsgate. A bridge was in place by the early 11th century, a factor which would have encouraged the occupation of the bridgehead by craftsmen and traders.[30] A lane connecting Botolph's Wharf and Billingsgate to the rebuilt bridge may have developed by the mid-11th century. The waterfront at this time was a hive of activity, with the construction of embankments sloping down from the riverside wall to the river. Thames Street appeared in the second half of the 11th century immediately behind (north of) the old Roman riverside wall and in 1931 a piling from this was discovered during the excavation of the foundations of a nearby building. It now stands at the base of the church tower.[31] St Magnus was built to the south of Thames Street to serve the growing population of the bridgehead area[32] and was certainly in existence by 1128-33.[33]
The small ancient parish[34] extended about 110 yards along the waterfront either side of the old bridge, from 'Stepheneslane' (later Churchehawlane or Church Yard Alley) and 'Oystergate' (later called Water Lane or Gully Hole) on the West side to 'Retheresgate' (a southern extension of Pudding Lane) on the East side, and was centred on the crossroads formed by Fish Street Hill (originally Bridge Street, then New Fish Street) and Thames Street.[35] The mediaeval parish also included Drinkwater's Wharf (named after the owner, Thomas Drinkwater), which was located immediately West of the bridge, and Fish Wharf, which was to the South of the church. The latter was of considerable importance as the fishmongers had their shops on the wharf. The tenement was devised by Andrew Hunte to the Rector and Churchwardens in 1446.[36] The ancient parish was situated in the South East part of Bridge Ward, which had evolved in the 11th century between the embankments to either side of the bridge.[37]
In 1182 the Abbot of Westminster and the Prior of Bermondsey agreed that the advowson of St Magnus should be divided equally between them. Later in the 1180s, on their presentation, the Archdeacon of London inducted his nephew as parson.
Between the late Saxon period and 1209 there was a series of wooden bridges across the Thames, but in that year a stone bridge was completed.[39] The work was overseen by Peter de Colechurch, a priest and head of the Fraternity of the Brethren of London Bridge. The Church had from early times encouraged the building of bridges and this activity was so important it was perceived to be an act of piety - a commitment to God which should be supported by the giving of alms. London’s citizens made gifts of land and money "to God and the Bridge".[40] The Bridge House Estates became part of the City's jurisdiction in 1282.
Until 1831 the bridge was aligned with Fish Street Hill, so the main entrance into the City from the south passed the West door of St Magnus on the north bank of the river.[41] The bridge included a chapel dedicated to St Thomas Becket[42] for the use of pilgrims journeying to Canterbury Cathedral to visit his tomb.[43] The chapel and about two thirds of the bridge were in the parish of St Magnus. After some years of rivalry a dispute arose between the church and the chapel over the offerings given to the chapel by the pilgrims. The matter was resolved by the brethren of the chapel making an annual contribution to St Magnus.[44] At the Reformation the chapel was turned into a house and later a warehouse, the latter being demolished in 1757-58.
The church grew in importance. On 21 November 1234 a grant of land was made to the parson of St Magnus for the enlargement of the church.[45] The London eyre of 1244 recorded that in 1238 "A thief named William of Ewelme of the county of Buckingham fled to the church of St. Magnus the Martyr, London, and there acknowledged the theft and abjured the realm. He had no chattels."[46] Another entry recorded that "The City answers saying that the church of ... St. Magnus the Martyr ... which [is] situated on the king's highway ... ought to belong to the king and be in his gift".[47] The church presumably jutted into the road running to the bridge, as it did in later times.[48] In 1276 it was recorded that "the church of St. Magnus the Martyr is worth £15 yearly and Master Geoffrey de la Wade now holds it by the grant of the prior of Bermundeseie and the abbot of Westminster to whom King Henry conferred the advowson by his charter.
In 1274 "came King Edward and his wife [Eleanor] from the Holy Land and were crowned at Westminster on the Sunday next after the Feast of the Assumption of Our Lady [15 August], being the Feast of Saint Magnus [19 August]; and the Conduit in Chepe ran all the day with red wine and white wine to drink, for all such as wished."[50] Stow records that "in the year 1293, for victory obtained by Edward I against the Scots, every citizen, according to their several trade, made their several show, but especially the fishmongers" whose solemn procession including a knight "representing St Magnus, because it was upon St Magnus' day".
An important religious guild, the Confraternity de Salve Regina, was in existence by 1343, having been founded by the "better sort of the Parish of St Magnus" to sing the anthem 'Salve Regina' every evening.[51] The Guild certificates of 1389 record that the Confraternity of Salve Regina and the guild of St Thomas the Martyr in the chapel on the bridge, whose members belonged to St Magnus parish, had determined to become one, to have the anthem of St Thomas after the Salve Regina and to devote their united resources to restoring and enlarging the church of St Magnus.[52] An Act of Parliament of 1437[53] provided that all incorporated fraternities and companies should register their charters and have their ordinances approved by the civic authorities.[54] Fear of enquiry into their privileges may have led established fraternities to seek a firm foundation for their rights. The letters patent of the fraternity of St Mary and St Thomas the Martyr of Salve Regina in St Magnus dated 26 May 1448 mention that the fraternity had petitioned for a charter on the grounds that the society was not duly founded.
In the mid-14th century the Pope was the Patron of the living and appointed five rectors to the benefice.[56]
Henry Yevele, the master mason whose work included the rebuilding of Westminster Hall and the naves of Westminster Abbey and Canterbury Cathedral, was a parishioner and rebuilt the chapel on London Bridge between 1384 and 1397. He served as a warden of London Bridge and was buried at St Magnus on his death in 1400. His monument was extant in John Stow's time, but was probably destroyed by the fire of 1666.[57]
Yevele, as the King’s Mason, was overseen by Geoffrey Chaucer in his capacity as the Clerk of the King's Works. In The General Prologue of Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales the five guildsmen "were clothed alle in o lyveree Of a solempne and a greet fraternitee"[58] and may be thought of as belonging to the guild in the parish of St Magnus, or one like it.[59] Chaucer's family home was near to the bridge in Thames Street.
n 1417 a dispute arose concerning who should take the place of honour amongst the rectors in the City churches at the Whit Monday procession, a place that had been claimed from time to time by the rectors of St Peter Cornhill, St Magnus the Martyr and St Nicholas Cole Abbey. The Mayor and Aldermen decided that the Rector of St Peter Cornhill should take precedence.[61]
St Magnus Corner at the north end of London Bridge was an important meeting place in mediaeval London, where notices were exhibited, proclamations read out and wrongdoers punished.[62] As it was conveniently close to the River Thames, the church was chosen by the Bishop between the 15th and 17th centuries as a convenient venue for general meetings of the clergy in his diocese.[63] Dr John Young, Bishop of Callipolis (rector of St Magnus 1514-15) pronounced judgement on 16 December 1514 (with the Bishop of London and in the presence of Thomas More, then under-sheriff of London) in the heresy case concerning Richard Hunne.[64]
In pictures from the mid-16th century the old church looks very similar to the present-day St Giles without Cripplegate in the Barbican.[65] According to the martyrologist John Foxe, a woman was imprisoned in the 'cage' on London Bridge in April 1555 and told to "cool herself there" for refusing to pray at St Magnus for the recently deceased Pope Julius III.[66]
Simon Lowe, a Member of Parliament and Master of the Merchant Taylors' Company during the reign of Queen Mary and one of the jurors who acquitted Sir Nicholas Throckmorton in 1554, was a parishioner.[67] He was a mourner at the funeral of Maurice Griffith, Bishop of Rochester from 1554 to 1558 and Rector of St Magnus from 1537 to 1558, who was interred in the church on 30 November 1558 with much solemnity. In accordance with the Catholic church's desire to restore ecclesiastical pageantry in England, the funeral was a splendid affair, ending in a magnificent dinner.
Lowe was included in a return of recusants in the Diocese of Rochester in 1577,[69] but was buried at St Magnus on 6 February 1578.[70] Stow refers to his monument in the church. His eldest son, Timothy (died 1617), was knighted in 1603. His second son, Alderman Sir Thomas Lowe (1550–1623), was Master of the Haberdashers' Company on several occasions, Sheriff of London in 1595/96, Lord Mayor in 1604/05 and a Member of Parliament for London.[71] His youngest son, Blessed John Lowe (1553–1586), having originally been a Protestant minister, converted to Roman Catholicism, studied for the priesthood at Douay and Rome and returned to London as a missionary priest.[72] His absence had already been noted; a list of 1581 of "such persons of the Diocese of London as have any children ... beyond the seas" records "John Low son to Margaret Low of the Bridge, absent without licence four years". Having gained 500 converts to Catholicism between 1583 and 1586, he was arrested whilst walking with his mother near London Bridge, committed to The Clink and executed at Tyburn on 8 October 1586.[73] He was beatified in 1987 as one of the eighty-five martyrs of England and Wales.
Sir William Garrard, Master of the Haberdashers' Company, Alderman, Sheriff of London in 1553/53, Lord Mayor in 1555/56 and a Member of Parliament was born in the parish and buried at St Magnus in 1571.[74] Sir William Romney, merchant, philanthropist, Master of the Haberdashers' Company, Alderman for Bridge Within and Sheriff of London in 1603/04[75] was married at St Magnus in 1582. Ben Jonson is believed to have been married at St Magnus in 1594.[76]
The patronage of St Magnus, having previously been in the Abbots and Convents of Westminster and Bermondsey (who presented alternatively), fell to the Crown on the suppression of the monasteries. In 1553, Queen Mary, by letters patent, granted it to the Bishop of London and his successors.[77]
The church had a series of distinguished rectors in the second half of the 16th and first half of the 17th century, including Myles Coverdale (Rector 1564-66), John Young (Rector 1566-92), Theophilus Aylmer (Rector 1592-1625), (Archdeacon of London and son of John Aylmer), and Cornelius Burges (Rector 1626-41). Coverdale was buried in the chancel of St Bartholomew-by-the-Exchange, but when that church was pulled down in 1840 his remains were removed to St Magnus.[78]
On 5 November 1562 the churchwardens were ordered to break, or cause to be broken, in two parts all the altar stones in the church.[79] Coverdale, an anti-vestiarian, was Rector at the peak of the vestments controversy. In March 1566 Archbishop Parker caused great consternation among many clergy by his edicts prescribing what was to be worn and by his summoning the London clergy to Lambeth to require their compliance. Coverdale excused himself from attending.[80] Stow records that a non-conforming Scot who normally preached at St Magnus twice a day precipitated a fight on Palm Sunday 1566 at Little All Hallows in Thames Street with his preaching against vestments.[81] Coverdale's resignation from St Magnus in summer 1566 may have been associated with these events. Separatist congregations started to emerge after 1566 and the first such, who called themselves 'Puritans' or 'Unspottyd Lambs of the Lord', was discovered close to St Magnus at Plumbers' Hall in Thames Street on 19 June 1567.
St Magnus narrowly escaped destruction in 1633. A later edition of Stow's Survey records that "On the 13th day of February, between eleven and twelve at night, there happened in the house of one Briggs, a Needle-maker near St Magnus Church, at the North end of the Bridge, by the carelessness of a Maid-Servant setting a tub of hot sea-coal ashes under a pair of stairs, a sad and lamentable fire, which consumed all the buildings before eight of the clock the next morning, from the North end of the Bridge to the first vacancy on both sides, containing forty-two houses; water then being very scarce, the Thames being almost frozen over."[83] Susannah Chambers "by her last will & testament bearing date 28th December 1640 gave the sum of Twenty-two shillings and Sixpence Yearly for a Sermon to be preached on the 12th day of February in every Year within the Church of Saint Magnus in commemoration of God's merciful preservation of the said Church of Saint Magnus from Ruin, by the late and terrible Fire on London Bridge. Likewise Annually to the Poor the sum of 17/6."[84] The tradition of a "Fire Sermon" was revived on 12 February 2004, when the first preacher was the Rt Revd and Rt Hon Richard Chartres, Bishop of London.
Parliamentarian rule and the more Protestant ethos of the 1640s led to the removal or destruction of "superstitious" and "idolatrous" images and fittings. Glass painters such as Baptista Sutton, who had previously installed "Laudian innovations", found new employment by repairing and replacing these to meet increasingly strict Protestant standards. In January 1642 Sutton replaced 93 feet of glass at St Magnus and in June 1644 he was called back to take down the "painted imagery glass" and replace it.[86] In June 1641 "rail riots" broke out at a number of churches. This was a time of high tension following the trial and execution of the Earl of Strafford and rumours of army and popish plots were rife. The Protestation Oath, with its pledge to defend the true religion "against all Popery and popish innovation", triggered demands from parishioners for the removal of the rails as popish innovations which the Protestation had bound them to reform. The minister arranged a meeting between those for and against the pulling down of the rails, but was unsuccessful in reaching a compromise and it was feared that they would be demolished by force.[87] However, in 1663 the parish resumed Laudian practice and re-erected rails around its communion table.[88]
Joseph Caryl was incumbent from 1645 until his ejection in 1662. In 1663 he was reportedly living near London Bridge and preaching to an Independent congregation that met at various places in the City.[89]
During the Great Plague of 1665, the City authorities ordered fires to be kept burning night and day, in the hope that the air would be cleansed. Daniel Defoe's semi-fictictional, but highly realistic, work A Journal of the Plague Year records that one of these was "just by St Magnus Church"
Despite its escape in 1633, the church was one of the first buildings to be destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666.[91] St Magnus stood less than 300 yards from the bakehouse of Thomas Farriner in Pudding Lane where the fire started. Farriner, a former churchwarden of St Magnus, was buried in the middle aisle of the church on 11 December 1670, perhaps within a temporary structure erected for holding services.[92]
The parish engaged the master mason George Dowdeswell to start the work of rebuilding in 1668. The work was carried forward between 1671 and 1687 under the direction of Sir Christopher Wren, the body of the church being substantially complete by 1676.[93] At a cost of £9,579 19s 10d St Magnus was one of Wren's most expensive churches.[94] The church of St Margaret New Fish Street was not rebuilt after the fire and its parish was united to that of St Magnus.
The chancels of many of Wren’s city churches had chequered marble floors and the chancel of St Magnus is an example,[95] the parish agreeing after some debate to place the communion table on a marble ascent with steps[96] and to commission altar rails of Sussex wrought iron. The nave and aisles are paved with freestone flags. A steeple, closely modelled on one built between 1614 and 1624 by François d'Aguilon and Pieter Huyssens for the church of St Carolus Borromeus in Antwerp, was added between 1703 and 1706.[97] London's skyline was transformed by Wren's tall steeples and that of St Magnus is considered to be one his finest.[98]
The large clock projecting from the tower was a well-known landmark in the city as it hung over the roadway of Old London Bridge.[99] It was presented to the church in 1709 by Sir Charles Duncombe[100] (Alderman for the Ward of Bridge Within and, in 1708/09, Lord Mayor of London). Tradition says "that it was erected in consequence of a vow made by the donor, who, in the earlier part of his life, had once to wait a considerable time in a cart upon London Bridge, without being able to learn the hour, when he made a promise, that if he ever became successful in the world, he would give to that Church a public clock ... that all passengers might see the time of day."[101] The maker was Langley Bradley, a clockmaker in Fenchurch Street, who had worked for Wren on many other projects, including the clock for the new St Paul's Cathedral. The sword rest in the church, designed to hold the Lord Mayor's sword and mace when he attended divine service "in state", dates from 1708.
Duncombe and his benefactions to St Magnus feature prominently in Daniel Defoe's The True-Born Englishman, a biting satire on critics of William III that went through several editions from 1700 (the year in which Duncombe was elected Sheriff).
Shortly before his death in 1711, Duncombe commissioned an organ for the church, the first to have a swell-box, by Abraham Jordan (father and son).[103] The Spectator announced that "Whereas Mr Abraham Jordan, senior and junior, have, with their own hands, joinery excepted, made and erected a very large organ in St Magnus' Church, at the foot of London Bridge, consisting of four sets of keys, one of which is adapted to the art of emitting sounds by swelling notes, which never was in any organ before; this instrument will be publicly opened on Sunday next [14 February 1712], the performance by Mr John Robinson. The above-said Abraham Jordan gives notice to all masters and performers, that he will attend every day next week at the said Church, to accommodate all those gentlemen who shall have a curiosity to hear it".[104]
The organ case, which remains in its original state, is looked upon as one of the finest existing examples of the Grinling Gibbons's school of wood carving.[105] The first organist of St Magnus was John Robinson (1682–1762), who served in that role for fifty years and in addition as organist of Westminster Abbey from 1727. Other organists have included the blind organist George Warne (1792–1868, organist 1820-26 until his appointment to the Temple Church), James Coward (1824–80, organist 1868-80 who was also organist to the Crystal Palace and renowned for his powers of improvisation) and George Frederick Smith FRCO (1856–1918, organist 1880-1918 and Professor of Music at the Guildhall School of Music).[106] The organ has been restored several times - in 1760, 1782, 1804, 1855, 1861, 1879, 1891, 1924, 1949 after wartime damage and 1997 - since it was first built.[107] Sir Peter Maxwell Davies was one of several patrons of the organ appeal in the mid-1990s[108] and John Scott gave an inaugural recital on 20 May 1998 following the completion of that restoration.[109] The instrument has an Historic Organ Certificate and full details are recorded in the National Pipe Organ Register.[110]
The hymn tune "St Magnus", usually sung at Ascensiontide to the text "The head that once was crowned with thorns", was written by Jeremiah Clarke in 1701 and named for the church.
Canaletto drew St Magnus and old London Bridge as they appeared in the late 1740s.[112] Between 1756 and 1762, under the London Bridge Improvement Act of 1756 (c. 40), the Corporation of London demolished the buildings on London Bridge to widen the roadway, ease traffic congestion and improve safety for pedestrians.[113] The churchwardens’ accounts of St Magnus list many payments to those injured on the Bridge and record that in 1752 a man was crushed to death between two carts.[114] After the House of Commons had resolved upon the alteration of London Bridge, the Rev Robert Gibson, Rector of St Magnus, applied to the House for relief; stating that 48l. 6s. 2d. per annum, part of his salary of 170l. per annum, was assessed upon houses on London Bridge; which he should utterly lose by their removal unless a clause in the bill about to be passed should provide a remedy.[115] Accordingly, Sections 18 and 19 of 1756 Act provided that the relevant amounts of tithe and poor rate should be a charge on the Bridge House Estates.[116]
A serious fire broke out on 18 April 1760 in an oil shop at the south east corner of the church, which consumed most of the church roof and did considerable damage to the fabric. The fire burnt warehouses to the south of the church and a number of houses on the northern end of London Bridge.
As part of the bridge improvements, overseen by the architect Sir Robert Taylor, a new pedestrian walkway was built along the eastern side of the bridge. With the other buildings gone St Magnus blocked the new walkway.[117] As a consequence it was necessary in 1762 to 1763 to remove the vestry rooms at the West end of the church and open up the side arches of the tower so that people could pass underneath the tower.[118] The tower’s lower storey thus became an external porch. Internally a lobby was created at the West end under the organ gallery and a screen with fine octagonal glazing inserted. A new Vestry was built to the South of the church.[119] The Act also provided that the land taken from the church for the widening was "to be considered ... as part of the cemetery of the said church ... but if the pavement thereof be broken up on account of the burying of any persons, the same shall be ... made good ... by the churchwardens"
Soldiers were stationed in the Vestry House of St Magnus during the Gordon Riots in June 1780.[121]
By 1782 the noise level from the activities of Billingsgate Fish Market had become unbearable and the large windows on the north side of the church were blocked up leaving only circular windows high up in the wall.[122] At some point between the 1760s and 1814 the present clerestory was constructed with its oval windows and fluted and coffered plasterwork.[123] J. M. W. Turner painted the church in the mid-1790s.[124]
The rector of St Magnus between 1792 and 1808, following the death of Robert Gibson on 28 July 1791,[125] was Thomas Rennell FRS. Rennell was President of Sion College in 1806/07. There is a monument to Thomas Leigh (Rector 1808-48 and President of Sion College 1829/30,[126] at St Peter's Church, Goldhanger in Essex.[127] Richard Hazard (1761–1837) was connected with the church as sexton, parish clerk and ward beadle for nearly 50 years[128] and served as Master of the Parish Clerks' Company in 1831/32.[129]
In 1825 the church was "repaired and beautified at a very considerable expense. During the reparation the east window, which had been closed, was restored, and the interior of the fabric conformed to the state in which it was left by its great architect, Sir Christopher Wren. The magnificent organ ... was taken down and rebuilt by Mr Parsons, and re-opened, with the church, on the 12th February, 1826".[130] Unfortunately, as a contemporary writer records, "On the night of the 31st of July, 1827, [the church's] safety was threatened by the great fire which consumed the adjacent warehouses, and it is perhaps owing to the strenuous and praiseworthy exertions of the firemen, that the structure exists at present. ... divine service was suspended and not resumed until the 20th January 1828. In the interval the church received such tasteful and elegant decorations, that it may now compete with any church in the metropolis.
In 1823 royal assent was given to ‘An Act for the Rebuilding of London Bridge’ and in 1825 John Garratt, Lord Mayor and Alderman of the Ward of Bridge Within, laid the first stone of the new London Bridge.[132] In 1831 Sir John Rennie’s new bridge was opened further upstream and the old bridge demolished. St Magnus ceased to be the gateway to London as it had been for over 600 years. Peter de Colechurch[133] had been buried in the crypt of the chapel on the bridge and his bones were unceremoniously dumped in the River Thames.[134] In 1921 two stones from Old London Bridge were discovered across the road from the church. They now stand in the churchyard.
Wren's church of St Michael Crooked Lane was demolished, the final service on Sunday 20 March 1831 having to be abandoned due to the effects of the building work. The Rector of St Michael preached a sermon the following Sunday at St Magnus lamenting the demolition of his church with its monuments and "the disturbance of the worship of his parishioners on the preceeding Sabbath".[135] The parish of St Michael Crooked Lane was united to that of St Magnus, which itself lost a burial ground in Church Yard Alley to the approach road for the new bridge.[136] However, in substitution it had restored to it the land taken for the widening of the old bridge in 1762 and was also given part of the approach lands to the east of the old bridge.[137] In 1838 the Committee for the London Bridge Approaches reported to Common Council that new burial grounds had been provided for the parishes of St Michael, Crooked Lane and St Magnus, London Bridge.
Depictions of St Magnus after the building of the new bridge, seen behind Fresh Wharf and the new London Bridge Wharf, include paintings by W. Fenoulhet in 1841 and by Charles Ginner in 1913.[139] This prospect was affected in 1924 by the building of Adelaide House to a design by John James Burnet,[140] The Times commenting that "the new ‘architectural Matterhorn’ ... conceals all but the tip of the church spire".[141] There was, however, an excellent view of the church for a few years between the demolition of Adelaide Buildings and the erection of its replacement.[142] Adelaide House is now listed.[143] Regis House, on the site of the abandoned King William Street terminus of the City & South London Railway (subsequently the Northern Line),[144] and the Steam Packet Inn, on the corner of Lower Thames Street and Fish Street Hill,[145] were developed in 1931.
By the early 1960s traffic congestion had become a problem[147] and Lower Thames Street was widened over the next decade[148] to form part of a significant new east-west transport artery (the A3211).[149] The setting of the church was further affected by the construction of a new London Bridge between 1967 and 1973.[150] The New Fresh Wharf warehouse to the east of the church, built in 1939, was demolished in 1973-4 following the collapse of commercial traffic in the Pool of London[151] and, after an archaeological excavation,[152] St Magnus House was constructed on the site in 1978 to a design by R. Seifert & Partners.[153] This development now allows a clear view of the church from the east side.[154] The site to the south east of The Monument (between Fish Street Hill and Pudding Lane), formerly predominantly occupied by fish merchants,[155] was redeveloped as Centurion House and Gartmore (now Providian) House at the time of the closure of old Billingsgate Market in January 1982.[156] A comprehensive redevelopment of Centurion House began in October 2011 with completion planned in 2013.[157] Regis House, to the south west of The Monument, was redeveloped by Land Securities PLC in 1998.[158]
The vista from The Monument south to the River Thames, over the roof of St Magnus, is protected under the City of London Unitary Development Plan,[159] although the South bank of the river is now dominated by The Shard. Since 2004 the City of London Corporation has been exploring ways of enhancing the Riverside Walk to the south of St Magnus.[160] Work on a new staircase to connect London Bridge to the Riverside Walk is due to commence in March 2013.[161] The story of St Magnus's relationship with London Bridge and an interview with the rector featured in the television programme The Bridges That Built London with Dan Cruickshank, first broadcast on BBC Four on 14 June 2012.[162] The City Corporation's 'Fenchurch and Monument Area Enhancement Strategy' of August 2012 recommended ways of reconnecting St Magnus and the riverside to the area north of Lower Thames Street.
A lectureship at St Michael Crooked Lane, which was transferred to St Magnus in 1831, was endowed by the wills of Thomas and Susannah Townsend in 1789 and 1812 respectively.[164] The Revd Henry Robert Huckin, Headmaster of Repton School from 1874 to 1882, was appointed Townsend Lecturer at St Magnus in 1871.[165]
St Magnus narrowly escaped damage from a major fire in Lower Thames Street in October 1849.
During the second half of the 19th century the rectors were Alexander McCaul, DD (1799–1863, Rector 1850-63), who coined the term 'Judaeo Christian' in a letter dated 17 October 1821,[167] and his son Alexander Israel McCaul (1835–1899, curate 1859-63, rector 1863-99). The Revd Alexander McCaul Sr[168] was a Christian missionary to the Polish Jews, who (having declined an offer to become the first Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem)[169] was appointed professor of Hebrew and rabbinical literature at King's College, London in 1841. His daughter, Elizabeth Finn (1825–1921), a noted linguist, founded the Distressed Gentlefolk Aid Association (now known as Elizabeth Finn Care).[170]
In 1890 it was reported that the Bishop of London was to hold an inquiry as to the desirability of uniting the benefices of St George Botolph Lane and St Magnus. The expectation was a fusion of the two livings, the demolition of St George’s and the pensioning of "William Gladstone’s favourite Canon", Malcolm MacColl. Although services ceased there, St George’s was not demolished until 1904. The parish was then merged with St Mary at Hill rather than St Magnus.[171]
The patronage of the living was acquired in the late 19th century by Sir Henry Peek Bt. DL MP, Senior Partner of Peek Brothers & Co of 20 Eastcheap, the country's largest firm of wholesale tea brokers and dealers, and Chairman of the Commercial Union Assurance Co. Peek was a generous philanthropist who was instrumental in saving both Wimbledon Common and Burnham Beeches from development. His grandson, Sir Wilfred Peek Bt. DSO JP, presented a cousin, Richard Peek, as rector in 1904. Peek, an ardent Freemason, held the office of Grand Chaplain of England. The Times recorded that his memorial service in July 1920 "was of a semi-Masonic character, Mr Peek having been a prominent Freemason".[172] In June 1895 Peek had saved the life of a young French girl who jumped overboard from a ferry midway between Dinard and St Malo in Brittany and was awarded the bronze medal of the Royal Humane Society and the Gold Medal 1st Class of the Sociâetâe Nationale de Sauvetage de France.[173]
In November 1898 a memorial service was held at St Magnus for Sir Stuart Knill Bt. (1824–1898), head of the firm of John Knill and Co, wharfingers, and formerly Lord Mayor and Master of the Plumbers' Company.[174] This was the first such service for a Roman Catholic taken in an Anglican church.[175] Sir Stuart's son, Sir John Knill Bt. (1856-1934), also served as Alderman for the Ward of Bridge Within, Lord Mayor and Master of the Plumbers' Company.
Until 1922 the annual Fish Harvest Festival was celebrated at St Magnus.[176] The service moved in 1923 to St Dunstan in the East[177] and then to St Mary at Hill, but St Magnus retained close links with the local fish merchants until the closure of old Billingsgate Market. St Magnus, in the 1950s, was "buried in the stink of Billingsgate fish-market, against which incense was a welcome antidote".
A report in 1920 proposed the demolition of nineteen City churches, including St Magnus.[179] A general outcry from members of the public and parishioners alike prevented the execution of this plan.[180] The members of the City Livery Club passed a resolution that they regarded "with horror and indignation the proposed demolition of 19 City churches" and pledged the Club to do everything in its power to prevent such a catastrophe.[181] T. S. Eliot wrote that the threatened churches gave "to the business quarter of London a beauty which its hideous banks and commercial houses have not quite defaced. ... the least precious redeems some vulgar street ... The loss of these towers, to meet the eye down a grimy lane, and of these empty naves, to receive the solitary visitor at noon from the dust and tumult of Lombard Street, will be irreparable and unforgotten."[182] The London County Council published a report concluding that St Magnus was "one of the most beautiful of all Wren's works" and "certainly one of the churches which should not be demolished without specially good reasons and after very full consideration."[183] Due to the uncertainty about the church's future, the patron decided to defer action to fill the vacancy in the benefice and a curate-in-charge temporarily took responsibility for the parish.[184] However, on 23 April 1921 it was announced that the Revd Henry Joy Fynes-Clinton would be the new Rector. The Times concluded that the appointment, with the Bishop’s approval, meant that the proposed demolition would not be carried out.[185] Fr Fynes-Clinton was inducted on 31 May 1921.[186]
The rectory, built by Robert Smirke in 1833-5, was at 39 King William Street.[187] A decision was taken in 1909 to sell the property, the intention being to purchase a new rectory in the suburbs, but the sale fell through and at the time of the 1910 Land Tax Valuations the building was being let out to a number of tenants. The rectory was sold by the diocese on 30 May 1921 for £8,000 to Ridgways Limited, which owned the adjoining premises.[188] The Vestry House adjoining the south west of the church, replacing the one built in the 1760s, may also have been by Smirke. Part of the burial ground of St Michael Crooked Lane, located between Fish Street Hill and King William Street, survived as an open space until 1987 when it was compulsorily purchased to facilitate the extension of the Docklands Light Railway into the City.[189] The bodies were reburied at Brookwood Cemetery.
The interior of the church was restored by Martin Travers in 1924, in a neo-baroque style,[191] reflecting the Anglo-Catholic character of the congregation[192] following the appointment of Henry Joy Fynes-Clinton as Rector.[193] Fr Fynes, as he was often known, served as Rector of St Magnus from 31 May 1921 until his death on 4 December 1959 and substantially beautified the interior of the church.[194]
Fynes-Clinton held very strong Anglo-Catholic views, and proceeded to make St Magnus as much like a baroque Roman Catholic church as possible. However, "he was such a loveable character with an old-world courtesy which was irresistible, that it was difficult for anyone to be unpleasant to him, however much they might disapprove of his views".[195] He generally said the Roman Mass in Latin; and in personality was "grave, grand, well-connected and holy, with a laconic sense of humour".[196] To a Protestant who had come to see Coverdale's monument he is reported to have said "We have just had a service in the language out of which he translated the Bible".[197] The use of Latin in services was not, however, without grammatical danger. A response from his parishioners of "Ora pro nobis" after "Omnes sancti Angeli et Archangeli" in the Litany of the Saints would elicit a pause and the correction "No, Orate pro nobis."
In 1922 Fynes-Clinton refounded the Fraternity of Our Lady de Salve Regina.[198] The Fraternity's badge[199] is shown in the stained glass window at the east end of the north wall of the church above the reredos of the Lady Chapel altar. He also erected a statue of Our Lady of Walsingham and arranged pilgrimages to the Norfolk shrine, where he was one of the founding Guardians.[200] In 1928 the journal of the Catholic League reported that St Magnus had presented a votive candle to the Shrine at Walsingham "in token of our common Devotion and the mutual sympathy and prayers that are we hope a growing bond between the peaceful country shrine and the church in the heart of the hurrying City, from the Altar of which the Pilgrimages regularly start".[201]
Fynes-Clinton was General Secretary of the Anglican and Eastern Orthodox Churches Union and its successor, the Anglican and Eastern Churches Association, from 1906 to 1920 and served as Secretary to the Archbishop of Canterbury's Eastern Churches Committee from 1920 to around 1924. A Solemn Requiem was celebrated at St Magnus in September 1921 for the late King Peter of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.
At the midday service on 1 March 1922, J.A. Kensit, leader of the Protestant Truth Society, got up and protested against the form of worship.[202] The proposed changes to the church in 1924 led to a hearing in the Consistory Court of the Chancellor of the Diocese of London and an appeal to the Court of Arches.[203] Judgement was given by the latter Court in October 1924. The advowson was purchased in 1931, without the knowledge of the Rector and Parochial Church Council, by the evangelical Sir Charles King-Harman.[204] A number of such cases, including the purchase of the advowsons of Clapham and Hampstead Parish Churches by Sir Charles, led to the passage of the Benefices (Purchase of Rights of Patronage) Measure 1933.[205] This allowed the parishioners of St Magnus to purchase the advowson from Sir Charles King-Harman for £1,300 in 1934 and transfer it to the Patronage Board.
St Magnus was one of the churches that held special services before the opening of the second Anglo-Catholic Congress in 1923.[207] Fynes-Clinton[208] was the first incumbent to hold lunchtime services for City workers.[209] Pathé News filmed the Palm Sunday procession at St Magnus in 1935.[210] In The Towers of Trebizond, the novel by Rose Macauley published in 1956, Fr Chantry-Pigg's church is described as being several feet higher than St Mary’s Bourne Street and some inches above even St Magnus the Martyr.[211]
In July 1937 Fr Fynes-Clinton, with two members of his congregation, travelled to Kirkwall to be present at the 800th anniversary celebrations of St Magnus Cathedral, Kirkwall. During their stay they visited Egilsay and were shown the spot where St Magnus had been slain. Later Fr Fynes-Clinton was present at a service held at the roofless church of St Magnus on Egilsay, where he suggested to his host Mr Fryer, the minister of the Cathedral, that the congregations of Kirkwall and London should unite to erect a permanent stone memorial on the traditional site where Earl Magnus had been murdered. In 1938 a cairn was built of local stone on Egilsay. It stands 12 feet high and is 6 feet broad at its base. The memorial was dedicated on 7 September 1938 and a bronze inscription on the monument reads "erected by the Rector and Congregation of St Magnus the Martyr by London Bridge and the Minister and Congregation of St Magnus Cathedral, Kirkwall to commemorate the traditional spot where Earl Magnus was slain, AD circa 1116 and to commemorate the Octocentenary of St Magnus Cathedral 1937"
A bomb which fell on London Bridge in 1940 during the Blitz of World War II blew out all the windows and damaged the plasterwork and the roof of the north aisle.[213] However, the church was designated a Grade I listed building on 4 January 1950[214] and repaired in 1951, being re-opened for worship in June of that year by the Bishop of London, William Wand.[215] The architect was Laurence King.[216] Restoration and redecoration work has subsequently been carried out several times, including after a fire in the early hours of 4 November 1995.[217] Cleaning of the exterior stonework was completed in 2010.
Some minor changes were made to the parish boundary in 1954, including the transfer to St Magnus of an area between Fish Street Hill and Pudding Lane. The site of St Leonard Eastcheap, a church that was not rebuilt after the Great Fire, is therefore now in the parish of St Magnus despite being united to St Edmund the King.
Fr Fynes-Clinton marked the 50th anniversary of his priesthood in May 1952 with High Mass at St Magnus and lunch at Fishmongers' Hall.[218] On 20 September 1956 a solemn Mass was sung in St Magnus to commence the celebration of the 25th anniversary of the restoration of the Holy House at Walsingham in 1931. In the evening of that day a reception was held in the large chamber of Caxton Hall, when between three and four hundred guests assembled.[219]
Fr Fynes-Clinton was succeeded as rector in 1960 by Fr Colin Gill,[220] who remained as incumbent until his death in 1983.[221] Fr Gill was also closely connected with Walsingham and served as a Guardian between 1953 and 1983, including nine years as Master of the College of Guardians.[222] He celebrated the Mass at the first National Pilgrimage in 1959[223] and presided over the Jubilee celebrations to mark the 50th anniversary of the Shrine in 1981, having been present at the Holy House's opening.[224] A number of the congregation of St Stephen's Lewisham moved to St Magnus around 1960, following temporary changes in the form of worship there.
In 1994 the Templeman Commission proposed a radical restructuring of the churches in the City Deanery. St Magnus was identified as one of the 12 churches that would remain as either a parish or an 'active' church.[226] However, the proposals were dropped following a public outcry and the consecration of a new Bishop of London.
The parish priest since 2003 has been Fr Philip Warner, who was previously priest-in-charge of St Mary's Church, Belgrade (Diocese in Europe) and Apokrisiarios for the Archbishop of Canterbury to the Serbian Orthodox Church. Since January 2004 there has been an annual Blessing of the Thames, with the congregations of St Magnus and Southwark Cathedral meeting in the middle of London Bridge.[227] On Sunday 3 July 2011, in anticipation of the feast of the translation of St Thomas Becket (7 July), a procession from St Magnus brought a relic of the saint to the middle of the bridge.[228]
David Pearson specially composed two new pieces, a communion anthem A Mhànais mo rùin (O Magnus of my love) and a hymn to St Magnus Nobilis, humilis, for performance at the church on the feast of St Magnus the Martyr, 16 April 2012.[229] St Magnus's organist, John Eady, has won composition competitions for new choral works at St Paul's Cathedral (a setting of Veni Sancte Spiritus first performed on 27 May 2012) and at Lincoln Cathedral (a setting of the Matin responsory for Advent first performed on 30 November 2013).[230]
In addition to liturgical music of a high standard, St Magnus is the venue for a wide range of musical events. The Clemens non Papa Consort, founded in 2005, performs in collaboration with the production team Concert Bites as the church's resident ensemble.[231] The church is used by The Esterhazy Singers for rehearsals and some concerts.[232] The band Mishaped Pearls performed at the church on 17 December 2011.[233] St Magnus featured in the television programme Jools Holland: London Calling, first broadcast on BBC2 on 9 June 2012.[234] The Platinum Consort made a promotional film at St Magnus for the release of their debut album In the Dark on 2 July 2012.[235]
The Friends of the City Churches had their office in the Vestry House of St Magnus until 2013.
Martin Travers modified the high altar reredos, adding paintings of Moses and Aaron and the Ten Commandments between the existing Corinthian columns and reconstructing the upper storey. Above the reredos Travers added a painted and gilded rood.[237] In the centre of the reredos there is a carved gilded pelican (an early Christian symbol of self-sacrifice) and a roundel with Baroque-style angels. The glazed east window, which can be seen in an early photograph of the church, appears to have been filled in at this time. A new altar with console tables was installed and the communion rails moved outwards to extend the size of the sanctuary. Two old door frames were used to construct side chapels and placed at an angle across the north-east and south-east corners of the church. One, the Lady Chapel, was dedicated to the Rector's parents in 1925 and the other was dedicated to Christ the King. Originally, a baroque aumbry was used for Reservation of the Blessed Sacrament, but later a tabernacle was installed on the Lady Chapel altar and the aumbry was used to house a relic of the True Cross.
The interior was made to look more European by the removal of the old box pews and the installation of new pews with cut-down ends. Two new columns were inserted in the nave to make the lines regular. The Wren-period pulpit by the joiner William Grey[238] was opened up and provided with a soundboard and crucifix. Travers also designed the statue of St Magnus of Orkney, which stands in the south aisle, and the statue of Our Lady of Walsingham.[239]
On the north wall there is a Russian Orthodox icon, painted in 1908. The modern stations of the cross in honey-coloured Japanese oak are the work of Robert Randall and Ashley Sands.[240] One of the windows in the north wall dates from 1671 and came from Plumbers' Hall in Chequer Yard, Bush Lane, which was demolished in 1863 to make way for Cannon Street Railway Station.[241] A fireplace from the Hall was re-erected in the Vestry House. The other windows on the north side are by Alfred Wilkinson and date from 1952 to 1960. These show the arms of the Plumbers’, Fishmongers’ and Coopers’ Companies together with those of William Wand when Bishop of London and Geoffrey Fisher when Archbishop of Canterbury and (as noted above) the badge of the Fraternity of Our Lady de Salve Regina.
The stained glass windows in the south wall, which are by Lawrence Lee and date from 1949 to 1955, represent lost churches associated with the parish: St Magnus and his ruined church of Egilsay, St Margaret of Antioch with her lost church in New Fish Street (where the Monument to the Great Fire now stands), St Michael with his lost church of Crooked Lane (demolished to make way for the present King William Street) and St Thomas Becket with his chapel on Old London Bridge.[242]
The church possesses a fine model of Old London Bridge. One of the tiny figures on the bridge appears out of place in the mediaeval setting, wearing a policeman's uniform. This is a representation of the model-maker, David T. Aggett, who is a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Plumbers and was formerly in the police service.[243]
The Mischiefs by Fire Act 1708 and the Fires Prevention (Metropolis) Act 1774 placed a requirement on every parish to keep equipment to fight fires. The church owns two historic fire engines that belonged to the parish of St Michael, Crooked Lane.[244] One of these is in storage at the Museum of London. The whereabouts of the other, which was misappropriated and sold at auction in 2003, is currently unknown.
In 1896 many bodies were disinterred from the crypt and reburied at the St Magnus's plot at Brookwood Cemetery, which remains the church's burial ground.
Prior to the Great Fire of 1666 the old tower had a ring of five bells, a small saints bell and a clock bell.[246] 47 cwt of bell metal was recovered[247] which suggests that the tenor was 13 or 14 cwt. The metal was used to cast three new bells, by William Eldridge of Chertsey in 1672,[248] with a further saints bell cast that year by Hodson.[249] In the absence of a tower, the tenor and saints bell were hung in a free standing timber structure, whilst the others remained unhung.[250]
A new tower was completed in 1704 and it is likely that these bells were transferred to it. However, the tenor became cracked in 1713 and it was decided to replace the bells with a new ring of eight.[251] The new bells, with a tenor of 21 cwt, were cast by Richard Phelps of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry. Between 1714 and 1718 (the exact date of which is unknown), the ring was increased to ten with the addition of two trebles given by two former ringing Societies, the Eastern Youths and the British Scholars.[252] The first peal was rung on 15 February 1724 of Grandsire Caters by the Society of College Youths. The second bell had to be recast in 1748 by Robert Catlin, and the tenor was recast in 1831 by Thomas Mears of Whitechapel,[253] just in time to ring for the opening of the new London Bridge. In 1843, the treble was said to be "worn out" and so was scrapped, together with the saints bell, while a new treble was cast by Thomas Mears.[254] A new clock bell was erected in the spire in 1846, provided by B R & J Moore, who had earlier purchased it from Thomas Mears.[255] This bell can still be seen in the tower from the street.
The 10 bells were removed for safe keeping in 1940 and stored in the churchyard. They were taken to Whitechapel Bell Foundry in 1951 whereupon it was discovered that four of them were cracked. After a long period of indecision, fuelled by lack of funds and interest, the bells were finally sold for scrap in 1976. The metal was used to cast many of the Bells of Congress that were then hung in the Old Post Office Tower in Washington, D.C.
A fund was set up on 19 September 2005, led by Dickon Love, a member of the Ancient Society of College Youths, with a view to installing a new ring of 12 bells in the tower in a new frame. This was the first of three new rings of bells he has installed in the City of London (the others being at St Dunstan-in-the-West and St James Garlickhythe). The money was raised and the bells were cast during 2008/9 by the Whitechapel Bell Foundry. The tenor weighed 26cwt 3qtr 9 lbs (1360 kg) and the new bells were designed to be in the same key as the former ring of ten. They were consecrated by the Bishop of London on 3 March 2009 in the presence of the Lord Mayor[256] and the ringing dedicated on 26 October 2009 by the Archdeacon of London.[257] The bells are named (in order smallest to largest) Michael, Margaret, Thomas of Canterbury, Mary, Cedd, Edward the Confessor, Dunstan, John the Baptist, Erkenwald, Paul, Mellitus and Magnus.[258] The bells project is recorded by an inscription in the vestibule of the church.
The first peal on the twelve was rung on 29 November 2009 of Cambridge Surprise Maximus.[260] Notable other recent peals include a peal of Stedman Cinques on 16 April 2011 to mark the 400th anniversary of the granting of a Royal Charter to the Plumbers' Company,[261] a peal of Cambridge Surprise Royal on 28 June 2011 when the Fishmongers' Company gave a dinner for Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh at their hall on the occasion of his 90th birthday[262] and a peal of Avon Delight Maximus on 24 July 2011 in solidarity with the people of Norway following the tragic massacre on Utoeya Island and in Oslo.[263] On the latter occasion the flag of the Orkney Islands was flown at half mast. In 2012 peals were rung during the Thames Diamond Jubilee Pag
A missing filter... Picture or maybe in the air of the time that brews a little anguish, it grinds ideas by dint of filtering the words... the cunning life with a twist. Angel or mill?
The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in conspiracy theories and misinformation about the scale of the pandemic and the origin, prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of the disease.[1][2][3] False information, including intentional disinformation, has been spread through social media,[2][4] text messages,[5] and mass media,[6] including the tabloid media,[7] conservative media,[8][9] state media of countries such as China,[10][11] Russia,[12][13] Iran,[14] and Turkmenistan.[2][15] It has also been spread by state-backed covert operations to generate panic and sow distrust in other countries.[16][17]
Misinformation has been propagated by celebrities, politicians[18][19] (including heads of state in countries such as the United States,[20][21] Iran,[22] and Brazil[23]), and other prominent public figures.[24] Commercial scams have claimed to offer at-home tests, supposed preventives, and "miracle" cures.[25][26] Politicians and leaders of some countries have promoted purported cures, while some religious groups said that the faith of their followers and God will protect them from the virus.[27][28][29] Others have claimed the virus is a lab-developed bio-weapon that was accidentally leaked,[30][31] or deliberately designed to target a country,[32] or one with a patented vaccine, a population control scheme, the result of a spy operation,[3][4] or linked to 5G networks.[33]
The World Health Organization has declared an "infodemic" of incorrect information about the virus, which poses risks to global health.[2]
Types and origin and effect
On January 30, the BBC reported about the increasing spread of conspiracy theories and false health advice in relation to COVID-19. Notable examples at the time included false health advice shared on social media and private chats, as well as conspiracy theories such as the origin in bat soup and the outbreak being planned with the participation of the Pirbright Institute.[1][34] On January 31, The Guardian listed seven instances of misinformation, adding the conspiracy theories about bioweapons and the link to 5G technology, and including varied false health advice.[35]
In an attempt to speed up research sharing, many researches have turned to preprint servers such as arXiv, bioRxiv, medRxiv or SSRN. Papers can be uploaded to these servers without peer review or any other editorial process that ensures research quality. Some of these papers have contributed to the spread of conspiracy theories. The most notable case was a preprint paper uploaded to bioRxiv which claimed that the virus contained HIV "insertions". Following the controversy, the paper was withdrawn.[36][37][38]
According to a study published by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, most misinformation related to COVID-19 involves "various forms of reconfiguration, where existing and often true information is spun, twisted, recontextualised, or reworked". While less misinformation "was completely fabricated". The study found no deep fakes in the studied sample. The study also found that "top-down misinformation from politicians, celebrities, and other prominent public figures", while accounting for a minority of the samples, captured a majority of the social media engagement. According to their classification, the largest category of misinformation (39%) includes "misleading or false claims about the actions or policies of public authorities, including government and international bodies like the WHO or the UN".[39]
A natural experiment correlated coronavirus misinformation with increased infection and death; of two similar television news shows on the same network, one took coronavirus seriously about a month earlier than the other. People and groups exposed to the slow-response news show had higher infection and death rates.[40]
The misinformations have been used by politicians, interest groups, and state actors in many countries to scapegoat other countries for the mishandling of the domestic responses, as well as furthering political, financial agenda.[41][42][43]
Combative efforts
Further information: Impact of the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic on journalism
File:ITU - AI for Good Webinar Series - COVID-19 Misinformation and Disinformation during COVID-19.webm
International Telecommunication Union
On February 2, the World Health Organization (WHO) described a "massive infodemic", citing an over-abundance of reported information, accurate and false, about the virus that "makes it hard for people to find trustworthy sources and reliable guidance when they need it". The WHO stated that the high demand for timely and trustworthy information has incentivised the creation of a direct WHO 24/7 myth-busting hotline where its communication and social media teams have been monitoring and responding to misinformation through its website and social media pages.[44][45][46] The WHO specifically debunked several claims as false, including the claim that a person can tell if they have the virus or not simply by holding their breath; the claim that drinking large amounts of water will protect against the virus; and the claim that gargling salt water prevents infection.[47]
In early February, Facebook, Twitter and Google said they were working with WHO to address "misinformation".[48] In a blogpost, Facebook stated they would remove content flagged by global health organizations and local authorities that violate its content policy on misinformation leading to "physical harm".[49] Facebook is also giving free advertising to WHO.[50] Nonetheless, a week after Trump's speculation that sunlight could kill the virus, the New York Times found "780 Facebook groups, 290 Facebook pages, nine Instagram accounts and thousands of tweets pushing UV light therapies," content which those companies declined to remove from their platforms.[51]
At the end of February, Amazon removed more than a million products claimed to cure or protect against coronavirus, and removed tens of thousands of listings for health products whose prices were "significantly higher than recent prices offered on or off Amazon", although numerous items were "still being sold at unusually high prices" as of February 28.[52]
Millions of instances of COVID-19 misinformation have occurred across a number of online platforms.[53] Other fake news researchers noted certain rumors started in China; many of them later spread to Korea and the United States, prompting several universities in Korea to start the multilingual Facts Before Rumors campaign to separate common claims seen online.[54][55][56][57]
The media has praised Wikipedia's coverage of COVID-19 and its combating the inclusion of misinformation through efforts led by the Wiki Project Med Foundation and the English-language Wikipedia's WikiProject Medicine, among other groups.[58][59][60]
Many local newspapers have been severely affected by losses in advertising revenues from coronavirus; journalists have been laid off, and some have closed altogether.[61]
Many newspapers with paywalls lowered them for some or all their coronavirus coverage.[62][63] Many scientific publishers made scientific papers related to the outbreak open access.[64]
The Turkish Interior Ministry has been arresting social media users whose posts were "targeting officials and spreading panic and fear by suggesting the virus had spread widely in Turkey and that officials had taken insufficient measures".[65] Iran's military said 3600 people have been arrested for "spreading rumors" about coronavirus in the country.[66] In Cambodia, some individuals who expressed concerns about the spread of COVID-19 have been arrested on fake news charges.[67][68] Algerian lawmakers passed a law criminalising "fake news" deemed harmful to "public order and state security".[69] In the Philippines,[70] China,[71] India,[72][73] Egypt,[74] Bangladesh,[75] Morocco,[76] Pakistan,[77] Saudi Arabia,[78] Oman,[79] Iran,[80] Vietnam, Laos,[81] Indonesia,[73] Mongolia,[73] Sri Lanka,[73] Kenya, South Africa,[82] Somalia,[83] Thailand,[84] Kazakhstan,[85] Azerbaijan,[86] Malaysia[87] and Hong Kong, people have been arrested for allegedly spreading false information about the coronavirus pandemic.[88][73] The United Arab Emirates have introduced criminal penalties for the spread of misinformation and rumours related to the outbreak.[89]
Conspiracy theories
Conspiracy theories have appeared both in social media and in mainstream news outlets, and are heavily influenced by geopolitics.[90]
Accidental leakage
Virologist and immunologist Vincent R. Racaniello said that "accident theories – and the lab-made theories before them – reflect a lack of understanding of the genetic make-up of Sars-CoV-2."[91]
A number of allegations have emerged supposing a link between the virus and Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV); among these is that the virus was an accidental leakage from WIV.[92] In 2017, U.S. molecular biologist Richard H. Ebright expressed caution when the WIV was expanded to become mainland China's first biosafety level 4 (BSL-4) laboratory, noting previous escapes of the SARS virus at other Chinese laboratories.[93] While Ebright refuted several conspiracy theories regarding the WIV (e.g., bioweapons research, or that the virus was engineered), he told BBC China this did not represent the possibility that the virus can be "completely ruled out" from entering the population due to a laboratory accident.[92] Various researchers contacted by NPR concluded there was "virtually no chance" (in NPR's words) that the pandemic virus had accidentally escaped from a laboratory.[94] Disinformation researcher Nina Jankowicz from Wilson Center indicates the lab leakage claim entered mainstream media in United States during April, propagated by pro-Trump news outlet.[43]
On February 14, 2020, Chinese scientists explored the possibility of accidental leakage and published speculations on scientific social networking website ResearchGate. The paper was neither peer-reviewed nor presented any evidence for its claims.[95] On March 5, the author of paper told Wall Street Journal in an interview why he decided to withdrew the paper by the end of February, stating: "the speculation about the possible origins in the post was based on published papers and media, and was not supported by direct proofs."[96][97] Several newspapers have referenced the paper.[95] Scientific American reported that Shi Zhengli, the lead researcher at WIV, started investigation on mishandling of experimental materials in the lab records, especially during disposal. She also tried to cross-check the novel coronavirus genome with the genetic information of other bat coronaviruses her team had collected. The result showed none of the sequences matched those of the viruses her team had sampled from bat caves.[98]
In February, it was alleged that the first person infected may have been a researcher at the institute named Huang Yanling.[99] Rumours circulated on Chinese social media that the researcher had become infected and died, prompting a denial from WIV, saying she was a graduate student enrolled in the Institute until 2015 and is not the patient zero.[100][99] In April, the conspiracy theory started to circulate around on Youtube and got picked up by conservative media, National Review.[101][6]
The South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported that one of the WIV's lead researchers, Shi Zhengli, was the particular focus of personal attacks in Chinese social media alleging that her work on bat-based viruses was the source of the virus; this led Shi to post: "I swear with my life, [the virus] has nothing to do with the lab". When asked by the SCMP to comment on the attacks, Shi responded: "My time must be spent on more important matters".[102] Caixin reported Shi made further public statements against "perceived tinfoil-hat theories about the new virus's source", quoting her as saying: "The novel 2019 coronavirus is nature punishing the human race for keeping uncivilized living habits. I, Shi Zhengli, swear on my life that it has nothing to do with our laboratory".[103] Immunologist Vincent Racaniello stated that virus leaking theory "reflect a lack of understanding of the genetic make-up of Sars-CoV-2 and its relationship to the bat virus". He says the bat virus researched in the institution "would not have been able to infect humans—the human Sars-CoV-2 has additional changes that allows it to infect humans."[91]
On April 14, the U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, in response to questions about the virus being manufactured in a lab, said "... it's inconclusive, although the weight of evidence seems to indicate natural. But we don't know for certain."[104] On that same day, Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin detailed a leaked cable of a 2018 trip made to the WIV by scientists from the U.S. Embassy. The article was referenced and cited by conservative media to push the lab leakage theory.[43] Rogin's article went on to say that "What the U.S. officials learned during their visits concerned them so much that they dispatched two diplomatic cables categorized as Sensitive But Unclassified back to Washington. The cables warned about safety and management weaknesses at the WIV lab and proposed more attention and help. The first cable, which I obtained, also warns that the lab's work on bat coronaviruses and their potential human transmission represented a risk of a new SARS-like pandemic."[105] Rogin's article pointed out there was no evidence that the coronavirus was engineered, "But that is not the same as saying it didn't come from the lab, which spent years testing bat coronaviruses in animals."[105] The article went on to quote Xiao Qiang, a research scientist at the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley, "I don't think it's a conspiracy theory. I think it's a legitimate question that needs to be investigated and answered. To understand exactly how this originated is critical knowledge for preventing this from happening in the future."[105] Washington Post's article and subsequent broadcasts drew criticism from virologist Angela Rasmussen of Columbia University, which she states "It's irresponsible for political reporters like Rogin [to] uncritically regurgitate a secret 'cable' without asking a single virologist or ecologist or making any attempt to understand the scientific context."[43] Rasmussen later compared biosafety procedure concerns to "having the health inspector come to your restaurant. It could just be, ‘Oh, you need to keep your chemical showers better stocked.’ It doesn’t suggest, however, that there are tremendous problems.”[106]
Days later, multiple media outlets confirmed that U.S. intelligence officials were investigating the possibility that the virus started in the WIV.[107][108][109][110] On April 23, Vox presented disputed arguments on lab leakage claims from several scientists.[111] Scientists suggested that virus samples cultured in the lab have significant amount of difference compare to SARS-CoV-2. The virus institution sampled RaTG13 in Yunnan, the closest known relative of the novel coronavirus with 96% shared genome. Edward Holmes, SARS-CoV-2 researcher at the University of Sydney, explained 4% of difference "is equivalent to an average of 50 years (and at least 20 years) of evolutionary change."[111][112] Virologist Peter Daszak, president of the EcoHealth Alliance, which studies emerging infectious diseases, noted the estimation that 1–7 million people in Southeast Asia who live or work in proximity to bats are infected each year with bat coronaviruses. In the interview with Vox, he comments, "There are probably half a dozen people that do work in those labs. So let's compare 1 million to 7 million people a year to half a dozen people; it's just not logical."[94][111]
On April 30, The New York Times reported the Trump administration demanded intelligence agencies to find evidence linking WIV with the origin of SARS-Cov-2. Secretary of State and former Central Intelligence Agency (C.I.A) director Mike Pompeo was reportedly leading the push on finding information regarding the virus origin. Analysts were concerned that pressure from senior officials could distort assessments from the intelligence community. Anthony Ruggiero, the head of the National Security Council which responsible for tracking weapons of mass destruction, expressed frustration during a video conference that C.I.A. was unable to form conclusive answer on the origin of the virus. According to current and former government officials, as of April 30, C.I.A has yet to gather any information beyond circumstantial evidence to bolster the lab theory.[113][114] US intelligence officers suggested that Chinese officials tried to conceal the severity of the outbreak in early days, but no evidence had shown China attempted to cover up a lab accident.[115] One day later, Trump claimed he has evidence of the lab theory, but offers no further details on it.[116][117] Jamie Metzl, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, claimed the SARS-CoV-2 virus "likely" came from a Wuhan virology testing laboratory, based on "circumstantial evidence". He was quoted as saying, "I have no definitive way of proving this thesis."[118]
On April 30, 2020, the U.S. intelligence and scientific communities issued a public statement dismissing the idea that the virus was not natural, while the investigation of the lab accident theory was ongoing.[119][120] The White House suggested an alternative explanation, along with a seemingly contradictory message, that the virus was man-made. In an interview with ABC News, Secretary of State Pompeo said he has no reason to disbelieve the intelligence community that the virus was natural. However, this contradicted the comment he made earlier in the same interview, in which he said "the best experts so far seem to think it was man-made. I have no reason to disbelieve that at this point."[121][122][123] On May 4, Australian tabloid The Daily Telegraph claimed a reportedly leaked dossier from Five Eyes, which alleged the probable outbreak was from the Wuhan lab.[124] Fox News and national security commentators in the US quickly followed up The Telegraph story,[125][126] rising the tension within international intelligence community.[127] Australian government, which is part of the Five Eyes nations, determined the leaked dossier was not a Five Eyes document, but a compilation of open-source materials that contained no information generated by intelligence gathering.[128] German intelligence community denied the claim of the leaked dossier, instead supported the probability of a natural cause.[129][130] Australian government sees the promotion of the lab theory from the United States counterproductive to Australia’s push for a more broad international-supported independent inquiry into the virus origins.[127] Senior officials in Australian government speculated the dossier was leaked by US embassy in Canberra to promote a narrative in Australia media that diverged from the mainstream belief of Australia.[127][128][125]
Beijing rejected the White House's claim, calling the claim "part of an election year strategy by President Donald Trump’s Republican Party".[131] Hua Chunying, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, urged Mike Pompeo to present evidence for his claim. "Mr. Pompeo cannot present any evidence because he does not have any," Hua told a journalist during a regular briefing, "This matter should be handled by scientists and professionals instead of politicians out of their domestic political needs."[131][132] The Chinese ambassador, in an opinion published in the Washington Post, called on the White House to end the "blame game" over the coronavirus.[133][134] As of May 5, assessments and internal sources from the Five Eyes nations indicated that the coronavirus outbreak was the result of a laboratory accident was "highly unlikely", since the human infection was "highly likely" a result of natural human and animal interaction. However, to reach such a conclusion with total certainty would still require greater cooperation and transparency from the Chinese side.[135]
Anti-Israeli and antisemitic
Further information: Antisemitic canard
Iran's Press TV asserted that "Zionist elements developed a deadlier strain of coronavirus against Iran".[14] Similarly, various Arab media outlets accused Israel and the United States of creating and spreading COVID-19, avian flu, and SARS.[136] Users on social media offered a variety of theories, including the supposition that Jews had manufactured COVID-19 to precipitate a global stock market collapse and thereby profit via insider trading,[137] while a guest on Turkish television posited a more ambitious scenario in which Jews and Zionists had created COVID-19, avian flu, and Crimean–Congo hemorrhagic fever to "design the world, seize countries, [and] neuter the world's population".[138]
Israeli attempts to develop a COVID-19 vaccine prompted mixed reactions. Grand Ayatollah Naser Makarem Shirazi denied initial reports that he had ruled that a Zionist-made vaccine would be halal,[139] and one Press TV journalist tweeted that "I'd rather take my chances with the virus than consume an Israeli vaccine".[140] A columnist for the Turkish Yeni Akit asserted that such a vaccine could be a ruse to carry out mass sterilization.[141]
An alert by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation regarding the possible threat of far-right extremists intentionally spreading the coronavirus mentioned blame being assigned to Jews and Jewish leaders for causing the pandemic and several statewide shutdowns.[142]
Anti-Muslim
Further information: 2020 Tablighi Jamaat coronavirus hotspot in Delhi
In India, Muslims have been blamed for spreading infection following the emergence of cases linked to a Tablighi Jamaat religious gathering.[143] There are reports of vilification of Muslims on social media and attacks on individuals in India.[144] Claims have been made Muslims are selling food contaminated with coronavirus and that a mosque in Patna was sheltering people from Italy and Iran.[145] These claims were shown to be false.[146] In the UK, there are reports of far-right groups blaming Muslims for the coronavirus outbreak and falsely claiming that mosques remained open after the national ban on large gatherings.[147]
Bioengineered virus
It has been repeatedly claimed that the virus was deliberately created by humans.
Nature Medicine published an article arguing against the conspiracy theory that the virus was created artificially. The high-affinity binding of its peplomers to human angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) was shown to be "most likely the result of natural selection on a human or human-like ACE2 that permits another optimal binding solution to arise".[148] In case of genetic manipulation, one of the several reverse-genetic systems for betacoronaviruses would probably have been used, while the genetic data irrefutably showed that the virus is not derived from a previously used virus template.[148] The overall molecular structure of the virus was found to be distinct from the known coronaviruses and most closely resembles that of viruses of bats and pangolins that were little studied and never known to harm humans.[149]
In February 2020, the Financial Times quoted virus expert and global co-lead coronavirus investigator Trevor Bedford: "There is no evidence whatsoever of genetic engineering that we can find", and "The evidence we have is that the mutations [in the virus] are completely consistent with natural evolution".[150] Bedford further explained, "The most likely scenario, based on genetic analysis, was that the virus was transmitted by a bat to another mammal between 20–70 years ago. This intermediary animal—not yet identified—passed it on to its first human host in the city of Wuhan in late November or early December 2019".[150]
On February 19, 2020, The Lancet published a letter of a group of scientists condemning "conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin".[151]
Chinese biological weapon
India
Amidst a rise in Sinophobia, there have been conspiracy theories reported on India's social networks that the virus is "a bioweapon that went rogue" and also fake videos alleging that Chinese authorities are killing citizens to prevent its spread.[152]
Ukraine
According to the Kyiv Post, two common conspiracy theories online in Ukraine are that American author Dean Koontz predicted the pandemic in his 1981 novel The Eyes of Darkness, and that the coronavirus is a bioweapon leaked from a secret lab in Wuhan.[153]
United Kingdom
Tobias Ellwood said, "It would be irresponsible to suggest the source of this outbreak was an error in a Chinese military biological weapons programme ... But without greater Chinese transparency we cannot entirely completely sure."[154]
In February, Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood, chair of the Defence Select Committee of the UK House of Commons, publicly questioned the role of the Chinese Army's Wuhan Institute for Biological Products and called for the "greater transparency over the origins of the coronavirus".[154][non-primary source needed] The Daily Mail reported in early April 2020 that a member of COBRA (an ad-hoc government committee tasked with advising on crises[citation needed]) has stated while government intelligence does not dispute that the virus has a zoonotic origin, it also does not discount the idea of a leak from a Wuhan laboratory, saying "Perhaps it is no coincidence that there is that laboratory in Wuhan"; the Asia Times reported the story as if it were factual,[155] perhaps unaware of the reputation of the Daily Mail.
United States
Further information: Cyberwarfare in the United States and Propaganda in the United States
In January 2020, BBC News published an article about coronavirus misinformation, citing two January 24 articles from The Washington Times that said the virus was part of a Chinese biological weapons program, based at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).[1] The Washington Post later published an article debunking the conspiracy theory, citing U.S. experts who explained why the WIV was unsuitable for bioweapon research, that most countries had abandoned bioweapons as fruitless, and that there was no evidence the virus was genetically engineered.[156]
On January 29, financial news website and blog ZeroHedge suggested without evidence that a scientist at the WIV created the COVID-19 strain responsible for the coronavirus outbreak. Zerohedge listed the full contact details of the scientist supposedly responsible, a practice known as doxing, by including the scientist's name, photo, and phone number, suggesting to readers that they "pay [the Chinese scientist] a visit" if they wanted to know "what really caused the coronavirus pandemic".[157] Twitter later permanently suspended the blog's account for violating its platform-manipulation policy.[158]
Logo of the fictional Umbrella Corporation, which some internet rumours linked to the pandemic. The corporation was invented for the Resident Evil game series.
In January 2020, Buzzfeed News reported on an internet meme of a link between the logo of the WIV and "Umbrella Corporation", the agency that created the virus responsible for a zombie apocalypse in the Resident Evil franchise. Posts online noted that "Racoon [sic]" (the main city in Resident Evil) was an anagram of "Corona".[159] Snopes noted that the logo was not from the WIV, but a company named Shanghai Ruilan Bao Hu San Biotech Ltd (located some 500 miles (800 km) away in Shanghai), and that the correct name of the city in Resident Evil was "Raccoon City".[159]
In February 2020, U.S. Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) suggested the virus may have originated in a Chinese bioweapon laboratory.[160] Francis Boyle, a law professor, also expressed support for the bioweapon theory suggesting it was the result of unintended leaks.[161] Cotton elaborated on Twitter that his opinion was only one of "at least four hypotheses". Multiple medical experts have indicated there is no evidence for these claims.[162] Conservative political commentator Rush Limbaugh said on The Rush Limbaugh Show—the most popular radio show in the U.S.—that the virus was probably "a ChiCom laboratory experiment" and the Chinese government was using the virus and the media hysteria surrounding it to bring down Donald Trump.[163][164]
On February 6, the White House asked scientists and medical researchers to rapidly investigate the origins of the virus both to address the current spread and "to inform future outbreak preparation and better understand animal/human and environmental transmission aspects of coronaviruses".[165] American magazine Foreign Policy said Xi Jinping's "political agenda may turn out to be a root cause of the epidemic" and that his Belt and Road Initiative has "made it possible for a local disease to become a global menace".[90]
The Inverse reported that "Christopher Bouzy, the founder of Bot Sentinel, conducted a Twitter analysis for Inverse and found [online] bots and trollbots are making an array of false claims. These bots are claiming China intentionally created the virus, that it's a biological weapon, that Democrats are overstating the threat to hurt Donald Trump and more. While we can't confirm the origin of these bots, they are decidedly pro-Trump."[166]
Conservative commentator Josh Bernstein claimed that the Democratic Party and the "medical deep state" were collaborating with the Chinese government to create and release the coronavirus to bring down Donald Trump. Bernstein went on to suggest those responsible should be locked in a room with infected coronavirus patients as punishment.[167][168]
Jerry Falwell Jr., the president of Liberty University, promoted a conspiracy theory on Fox News that North Korea and China conspired together to create the coronavirus.[169] He also said people were overreacting to the coronavirus outbreak and that Democrats were trying to use the situation to harm President Trump.[170]
Hospital ship attack
The hospital ship USNS Mercy (T-AH-19) deployed to the Port of Los Angeles to provide backup medical services for the region. On March 31, 2020, a Pacific Harbor Line freight train was deliberately derailed by its onboard engineer in an attempt to crash into the ship, but the attack was unsuccessful and no one was injured.[171][172] According to U.S. federal prosecutors, the train's engineer "[...] was suspicious of the Mercy, believing it had an alternate purpose related to COVID-19 or a government takeover".[173]
Population control scheme
See also: List of conspiracy theories § RFID chips
According to the BBC, Jordan Sather, a conspiracy theory YouTuber supporting the far-right QAnon conspiracy theory and the anti-vax movement, has falsely claimed the outbreak was a population control scheme created by Pirbright Institute in England and by former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates. This belief is held mostly by right-wing libertarians, NWO conspiracy theorists, and Christian Fundamentalists.[1][174]
Spy operation
Some people have alleged that the coronavirus was stolen from a Canadian virus research lab by Chinese scientists. Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada said that conspiracy theory had "no factual basis".[175] The stories seem to have been derived[176] from a July 2019 news article[177] stating that some Chinese researchers had their security access to a Canadian Level 4 virology facility revoked in a federal police investigation; Canadian officials described this as an administrative matter and "there is absolutely no risk to the Canadian public."[177]
This article was published by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC);[176] responding to the conspiracy theories, the CBC later stated that "CBC reporting never claimed the two scientists were spies, or that they brought any version of the coronavirus to the lab in Wuhan". While pathogen samples were transferred from the lab in Winnipeg, Canada to Beijing, China, on March 31, 2019, neither of the samples was a coronavirus, the Public Health Agency of Canada says the shipment conformed to all federal policies, and there has not been any statement that the researchers under investigation were responsible for sending the shipment. The current location of the researchers under investigation by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police is not being released.[175][178][179]
In the midst of the coronavirus epidemic, a senior research associate and expert in biological warfare with the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, referring to a NATO press conference, identified suspicions of espionage as the reason behind the expulsions from the lab, but made no suggestion that coronavirus was taken from the Canadian lab or that it is the result of bioweapons defense research in China.[180]
U.S. biological weapon
Arab world
According to Washington DC-based nonprofit Middle East Media Research Institute, numerous writers in the Arabic press have promoted the conspiracy theory that COVID-19, as well as SARS and the swine flu virus, were deliberately created and spread to sell vaccines against these diseases, and it is "part of an economic and psychological war waged by the U.S. against China with the aim of weakening it and presenting it as a backward country and a source of diseases".[181] Iraqi political analyst Sabah Al-Akili on Al-Etejah TV, Saudi daily Al-Watan writer Sa'ud Al-Shehry, Syrian daily Al-Thawra columnist Hussein Saqer, and Egyptian journalist Ahmad Rif'at on Egyptian news website Vetogate, were some examples given by MEMRI as propagators of the U.S. biowarfare conspiracy theory in the Arabic world.[181]
China
Further information: Cyberwarfare by China, Propaganda in China, and Chinese information operations and information warfare
The Xinhua News Agency is among the news outlets that have published false information about COVID-19's origins.
According to London-based The Economist, plenty of conspiracy theories exist on China's internet about COVID-19 being the CIA's creation to keep China down.[182] NBC News however has noted that there have also been debunking efforts of U.S.-related conspiracy theories posted online, with a WeChat search of "Coronavirus is from the U.S." reported to mostly yield articles explaining why such claims are unreasonable.[183] According to an investigation by ProPublica, such conspiracy theories and disinformation have been propagated under the direction of China News Service, the country's second largest government-owned media outlet controlled by the United Front Work Department.[184] Global Times and Xinhua News Agency have similarly been implicated in propagating disinformation related to COVID-19's origins.[185][186]
Multiple conspiracy articles in Chinese from the SARS era resurfaced during the outbreak with altered details, claiming SARS is biological warfare. Some said BGI Group from China sold genetic information of the Chinese people to the U.S., which then specifically targeted the genome of Chinese individuals.[187]
On January 26, Chinese military enthusiast website Xilu published an article, claimed how the U.S. artificially combined the virus to "precisely target Chinese people".[188][189] The article was removed in early February. The article was further distorted on social media in Taiwan, which claimed "Top Chinese military website admitted novel coronavirus was Chinese-made bio-weapons".[190] Taiwan Fact-check center debunked the original article and its divergence, suggesting the original Xilu article distorted the conclusion from a legitimate research on Chinese scientific magazine Science China Life Sciences, which never mentioned the virus was engineered.[190] The fact-check center explained Xilu is a military enthusiastic tabloid established by a private company, thus it doesn't represent the voice of Chinese military.[190]
Some articles on popular sites in China have also cast suspicion on U.S. military athletes participating in the Wuhan 2019 Military World Games, which lasted until the end of October 2019, and have suggested they deployed the virus. They claim the inattentive attitude and disproportionately below-average results of American athletes in the games indicate they might have been there for other purposes and they might actually be bio-warfare operatives. Such posts stated that their place of residence during their stay in Wuhan was also close to the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, where the first known cluster of cases occurred.[191]
In March 2020, this conspiracy theory was endorsed by Zhao Lijian, a spokesperson from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China.[192][193][194][195] On March 13, the U.S. government summoned Chinese Ambassador Cui Tiankai to Washington over the coronavirus conspiracy theory.[196] Over the next month, conspiracy theorists narrowed their focus to one U.S. Army Reservist, a woman who participated in the games in Wuhan as a cyclist, claiming she is "patient zero". According to a CNN report, these theories have been spread by George Webb, who has nearly 100,000 followers on YouTube, and have been amplified by a report by CPC-owned newspaper Global Times.[197][198]
Iran
Further information: Propaganda in Iran
Reza Malekzadeh, deputy health minister, rejected bioterrorism theories.
According to Radio Farda, Iranian cleric Seyyed Mohammad Saeedi accused U.S. President Donald Trump of targeting Qom with coronavirus "to damage its culture and honor". Saeedi claimed that Trump is fulfilling his promise to hit Iranian cultural sites, if Iranians took revenge for the airstrike that killed of Quds Force Commander Qasem Soleimani.[199]
Iranian TV personality Ali Akbar Raefipour claimed the coronavirus was part of a "hybrid warfare" programme waged by the United States on Iran and China.[200] Brigadier General Gholam Reza Jalali, head of Iranian Civil Defense Organization, claimed the coronavirus is likely a biological attack on China and Iran with economic goals.[201][202]
Hossein Salami, the head of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), claimed the coronavirus outbreak in Iran may be due to a U.S. "biological attack".[203] Several Iranian politicians, including Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, Rasoul Falahati, Alireza Panahian, Abolfazl Hasanbeigi and Gholamali Jafarzadeh Imanabadi, also made similar remarks.[204] Iranian Supreme Leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, made similar suggestions.[205]
Former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sent a letter to the United Nations on March 9, claiming that "it is clear to the world that the mutated coronavirus was produced in lab" and that COVID-19 is "a new weapon for establishing and/or maintaining political and economic upper hand in the global arena".[206]
The late[207] Ayatollah Hashem Bathaie Golpayegani claimed that "America is the source of coronavirus, because America went head to head with China and realised it cannot keep up with it economically or militarily."[208]
Reza Malekzadeh, Iran's deputy health minister and former Minister of Health, rejected claims that the virus was a biological weapon, pointing out that the U.S. would be suffering heavily from it. He said Iran was hard-hit because its close ties to China and reluctance to cut air ties introduced the virus, and because early cases had been mistaken for influenza.[205]
Philippines
In the Philippine Senate, Tito Sotto has promoted his belief that COVID-19 is a bioweapon.
A Filipino Senator, Tito Sotto, played a bioweapon conspiracy video in a February 2020 Senate hearing, suggesting the coronavirus is biowarfare waged against China.[209][210]
Russia
Further information: Cyberwarfare by Russia and Propaganda in the Russian Federation
On February 22, U.S. officials alleged that Russia is behind an ongoing disinformation campaign, using thousands of social media accounts on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to deliberately promote unfounded conspiracy theories, claiming the virus is a biological weapon manufactured by the CIA and the U.S. is waging economic war on China using the virus.[211][12][212] The acting assistant secretary of state for Europe and Eurasia, Philip Reeker, said "Russia's intent is to sow discord and undermine U.S. institutions and alliances from within" and "by spreading disinformation about coronavirus, Russian malign actors are once again choosing to threaten public safety by distracting from the global health response."[211] Russia denies the allegation, saying "this is a deliberately false story".[213]
According to U.S.-based The National Interest magazine, although official Russian channels had been muted on pushing the U.S. biowarfare conspiracy theory, other Russian media elements do not share the Kremlin's restraint.[214] Zvezda, a news outlet funded by the Russian Defense Ministry, published an article titled "Coronavirus: American biological warfare against Russia and China", claiming that the virus is intended to damage the Chinese economy, weakening its hand in the next round of trade negotiations.[214] Ultra-nationalist politician and leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, claimed on a Moscow radio station that the virus was an experiment by the Pentagon and pharmaceutical companies. Politician Igor Nikulin made rounds on Russian television and news media, arguing that Wuhan was chosen for the attack because the presence of a BSL-4 virus lab provided a cover story for the Pentagon and CIA about a Chinese bio-experiment leak.[214] An EU-document claims 80 attempts by Russian media to spread disinformation related to the epidemic.[215]
According to the East StratCom Task Force, the Sputnik news agency was active publishing stories speculating that the virus could've been invented in Latvia, that it was used by Communist Party of China to curb protests in Hong Kong, that it was introduced intentionally to reduce the number of elder people in Italy, that it was targeted against the Yellow Vests movement, and making many other speculations. Sputnik branches in countries including Armenia, Belarus, Spain, and in the Middle East came up with versions of these stories.[216]
Venezuela
Constituent Assembly member Elvis Méndez declared that the coronavirus was a "bacteriological sickness created in '89, in '90 and historically" and that it was a sickness "inoculated by the gringos". Méndez theorized that the virus was a weapon against Latin America and China and that its purpose was "to demoralize the person, to weaken to install their system".[217]
COVID-19 recovery
It has been wrongly claimed that anyone infected with COVID-19 will have the virus in their bodies for life. While there is no curative treatment, infected individuals can recover from the disease, eliminating the virus from their bodies; getting supportive medical care early can help.[279]
COVID-19 xenophobic blaming by ethnicity and religion
Main article: List of incidents of xenophobia and racism related to the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic
File:IOM - Fighting Stigma and Discrimination against Migrants during COVID-19.webm
UN video warns that misinformation against groups may lower testing rates and increase transmission.
COVID-19-related xenophobic attacks have been made against people the attacker blamed for COVID-19 on the basis of their ethnicity. People who are considered to look Chinese have been subjected to COVID-19-related verbal and physical attacks in many other countries, often by people accusing them of transmitting the virus.[281][282][283] Within China, there has been discrimination (such as evictions and non-service in shops) against people from anywhere closer to Wuhan (where the pandemic started) and against anyone perceived as being non-Chinese (especially those considered African), as the Chinese government has blamed continuing cases on re-introductions of the virus from abroad (90% of reintroduced cases were by Chinese passport-holders). Neighbouring countries have also discriminated against people seen as Westerners.[284][285][286] People have also simply blamed other local groups along the lines of pre-existing social tensions and divisions, sometimes citing reporting of COVID-19 cases within that group. For instance, Muslims have been widely blamed, shunned, and discriminated against in India (including some violent attacks), amid unfounded claims that Muslims are deliberately spreading COVID-19, and a Muslim event at which the disease did spread has received far more public attention than many similar events run by other groups and the government.[287] White supremacist groups have blamed COVID-19 on non-whites and advocated deliberately infecting minorities they dislike, such as Jews.[288]
False causes
5G
5G towers have been burned by people wrongly blaming them for COVID-19.
Openreach engineers appealed on anti-5G Facebook groups, saying they aren't involved in mobile networks, and workplace abuse is making it difficult for them to maintain phonelines and broadband.
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Conspiracy theories[hide]
Anti-fluoridation/Water fluoridation movement Anti-vaccination Vaccines causing autism Big Pharma conspiracy theory COVID-19 pandemic GMO conspiracy theories HIV/AIDS denialism Discredited HIV/AIDS origins theories OPV AIDS hypothesis
Classifications[show]
Traditional medicine[show]
Diagnoses[show]
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In February 2020 BBC News reported that conspiracy theorists on social media groups alleged a link between coronavirus and 5G mobile networks, claiming that Wuhan and Diamond Princess outbreaks were directly caused by electromagnetic fields and by the introduction of 5G and wireless technologies. Some conspiracy theorists also alleged that the coronavirus outbreak was a cover-up for a 5G-related illness.[33] In March 2020, Thomas Cowan, a holistic medical practitioner who trained as a physician and operates on probation with Medical Board of California, alleged that coronavirus is caused by 5G, based on the claims that African countries were not affected significantly by the pandemic and Africa was not a 5G region.[289][290] Cowan also falsely alleged that the viruses were wastes from cells that are poisoned by electromagnetic fields and historical viral pandemics coincided with the major developments in radio technology.[290] The video of his claims went viral and was recirculated by celebrities including Woody Harrelson, John Cusack, and singer Keri Hilson.[291] The claims may also have been recirculated by an alleged "coordinated disinformation campaign", similar to campaigns used by the Internet Research Agency in Saint Petersburg, Russia.[292] The claims were criticized on social media and debunked by Reuters,[293] USA Today,[294] Full Fact[295] and American Public Health Association executive director Georges C. Benjamin.[289][296]
Professor Steve Powis, national medical director of NHS England, described theories linking 5G mobile phone networks to COVID-19 as the "worst kind of fake news".[297] Viruses cannot be transmitted by radio waves. COVID-19 has spread and continues to spread in many countries that do not have 5G networks.[279]
After telecommunications masts in several parts of the United Kingdom were the subject of arson attacks, British Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove said the theory that COVID-19 virus may be spread by 5G wireless communication is "just nonsense, dangerous nonsense as well".[298] Vodafone announced that two Vodafone masts and two it shares with O2 had been targeted.[299][300]
By Monday April 6, 2020 at least 20 mobile phone masts in the UK had been vandalised since the previous Thursday.[301] Because of slow rollout of 5G in the UK, many of the damaged masts had only 3G and 4G equipment.[301] Mobile phone and home broadband operators estimated there were at least 30 incidents of confronting engineers maintaining equipment in the week up to April 6.[301] There have been eleven incidents of attempted arson at mobile phone masts in the Netherlands, including one case where "Fuck 5G" was written, as well as in Ireland and Cyprus.[302][303] Facebook has deleted multiple messages encouraging attacks on 5G equipment.[301]
Engineers working for Openreach posted pleas on anti-5G Facebook groups asking to be spared abuse as they are not involved with maintaining mobile networks.[304] Mobile UK said the incidents were affecting attempts to maintain networks that support home working and provide critical connections to vulnerable customers, emergency services and hospitals.[304] A widely circulated video shows people working for broadband company Community Fibre being abused by a woman who accuses them of installing 5G as part of a plan to kill the population.[304]
YouTube announced that it would reduce the amount of content claiming links between 5G and coronavirus.[299] Videos that are conspiratorial about 5G that do not mention coronavirus would not be removed, though they might be considered "borderline content", removed from search recommendations and losing advertising revenue.[299] The discredited claims had been circulated by British conspiracy theorist David Icke in videos (subsequently removed) on YouTube and Vimeo, and an interview by London Live TV network, prompting calls for action by Ofcom.[305][306]
On April 13, 2020, Gardaí were investigating fires at 5G masts in County Donegal, Ireland.[307] Gardaí and fire services had attended the fires the previous night in an attempt to put them out.[307] Although Gardaí were awaiting results of tests they were treating the fires as deliberate.[307]
There were 20 suspected arson attacks on phone masts in the UK over the Easter 2020 weekend.[297] These included an incident in Dagenham where three men were arrested on suspicion of arson, a fire in Huddersfield that affected a mast used by emergency services and a fire in a mast that provides mobile connectivity to the NHS Nightingale Hospital Birmingham.[297]
Ofcom issued guidance to ITV following comments by Eamonn Holmes after comments made by Holmes about 5G and coronavirus on This Morning.[308] Ofcom said the comments were "ambiguous" and "ill-judged" and they "risked undermining viewers' trust in advice from public authorities and scientific evidence".[308] Ofcom also local channel London Live in breach of standards for an interview it had with David Icke who it said had " expressed views which had the potential to cause significant harm to viewers in London during the pandemic".[308]
Some telecoms engineers have reported threats of violence, including threats to stab and murder them, by individuals who believe them to be working on 5G networks.[309] West Midlands Police said the crimes in question are being taken very seriously.[309]
On April 24, 2020 The Guardian revealed that an evangelical pastor from Luton had provided the male voice on a recording blaming 5G for deaths caused by coronavirus.[310] Jonathon James claimed to have formerly headed the largest business-unit at Vodafone, but insiders at the company said that he was hired for a sales position in 2014 when 5G was not a priority for the company and that 5G would not have been part of his job.[310] He left the company after less than a year.[310]
Mosquitoes
It has been claimed that mosquitoes transmit coronavirus. There is no evidence that this is true; coronavirus spreads through small droplets of saliva and mucus.[279]
Petrol pumps
A warning claiming to be from the Australia Department of Health said coronavirus spreads through petrol pumps and that everyone should wear gloves when filling up petrol in their cars.[311]
Shoe-wearing
There were claims that wearing shoes at one's home was the reason behind the spread of the coronavirus in Italy.[312]
Resistance/susceptibility based on ethnicity
There have been claims that specific ethnicities are more or less vulnerable to COVID-19. COVID-19 is a new zoonotic disease, so no population has yet had the time to develop population immunity.[medical citation needed]
Beginning on February 11, reports, quickly spread via Facebook, implied that a Cameroonian student in China had been completely cured of the virus due to his African genetics. While a student was successfully treated, other media sources have noted that no evidence implies Africans are more resistant to the virus and labeled such claims as false information.[313] Kenyan Secretary of Health Mutahi Kagwe explicitly refuted rumors that "those with black skin cannot get coronavirus", while announcing Kenya's first case on March 13.[314] This myth was cited as a contributing factor in the disproportionately high rates of infection and death observed among African Americans.[315][316]
There have been claims of "Indian immunity": that the people of India have more immunity to the COVID-19 virus due to living conditions in India. This idea was deemed "absolute drivel" by Anand Krishnan, professor at the Centre for Community Medicine of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS). He said there was no population immunity to the COVID-19 virus yet, as it is new, and it is not even clear whether people who have recovered from COVID-19 will have lasting immunity, as this happens with some viruses but not with others.[317]
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei claimed the virus was genetically targeted at Iranians by the U.S., and this is why it is seriously affecting Iran. He did not offer any evidence.[318][22]
Religious protection
A number of religious groups have claimed protection due to their faith, some refusing to stop large religious gatherings. In Israel, some Ultra-Orthodox Jews initially refused to close synagogues and religious seminaries and disregarded government restrictions because "The Torah protects and saves",[319] which resulted in an 8 times faster rate of infection among some groups.[320] The Tablighi Jamaat movement organised mass gatherings in Malaysia, India, and Pakistan whose participants believed that God will protect them resulted the biggest rise in COVID-19 cases in a number of countries.[321][29][322] In Iran, the head of Fatima Masumeh Shrine encouraged pilgrims to visit the shrine despite calls to close the shrine, saying that they "consider this holy shrine to be a place of healing."[323] In South Korea the River of Grace Community Church in Gyeonggi Province spread the virus after spraying salt water into their members' mouths in the belief that it would kill the virus,[324] while the Shincheonji Church of Jesus in Daegu where a church leader claimed that no Shincheonji worshipers had caught the virus in February while hundreds died in Wuhan later caused in the biggest spread of the virus in the country.[325][326]
In Somalia, myths have spread claiming Muslims are immune to the virus.[327]
Unproven protective and aggravating factors
Vegetarian immunity
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This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (April 2020)
Claims that vegetarians are immune to coronavirus spread online in India, causing "#NoMeat_NoCoronaVirus" to trend on Twitter.[328][better source needed] Eating meat does not have an effect on COVID-19 spread, except for people near where animals are slaughtered, said Anand Krishnan.[329] Fisheries, Dairying and Animal Husbandry Minister Giriraj Singh said the rumour had significantly affected industry, with the price of a chicken falling to a third of pre-pandemic levels. He also described efforts to improve the hygiene of the meat supply chain.[330]
Efficacy of hand sanitiser, "antibacterial" soaps
Washing in soap and water for at least 20 seconds is the best way to clean hands. Second-best is a hand sanitizer that is at least 60% alcohol.[331]
Claims that hand sanitiser is merely "antibacterial not antiviral", and therefore ineffective against COVID-19, have spread widely on Twitter and other social networks. While the effectiveness of sanitiser depends on the specific ingredients, most hand sanitiser sold commercially inactivates SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19.[332][333] Hand sanitizer is recommended against COVID-19,[279] though unlike soap, it is not effective against all types of germs.[334] Washing in soap and water for at least 20 seconds is recommended by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) as the best way to clean hands in most situations. However, if soap and water are not available, a hand sanitizer that is at least 60% alcohol can be used instead, unless hands are visibly dirty or greasy.[331][335] The CDC and the Food and Drug Administration both recommend plain soap; there is no evidence that "antibacterial soaps" are any better, and limited evidence that they might be worse long-term.[336][337]
Alcohol (ethanol and poisonous methanol)
Contrary to some reports, drinking alcohol does not protect against COVID-19, and can increase health risks[279] (short term and long term). Drinking alcohol is ethanol; other alcohols, such as methanol, which causes methanol poisoning, are acutely poisonous, and may be present in badly-prepared alcoholic beverages.[338]
Iran has reported incidents of methanol poisoning, caused by the false belief that drinking alcohol would cure or protect against coronavirus;[339] alcohol is banned in Iran, and bootleg alcohol may contain methanol.[340] According to Iranian media in March 2020, nearly 300 people have died and more than a thousand have become ill due to methanol poisoning, while Associated Press gave figures of around 480 deaths with 2,850 others affected.[341] The number of deaths due to methanol poisoning in Iran reached over 700 by April.[342] Iranian social media had circulated a story from British tabloids that a British man and others had been cured of coronavirus with whiskey and honey,[339][343] which combined with the use of alcohol-based hand sanitizers as disinfectants, led to the false belief that drinking high-proof alcohol can kill the virus.[339][340][341]
Similar incidents have occurred in Turkey, with 30 Turkmenistan citizens dying from methanol poisoning related to coronavirus cure claims.[344][345]
In Kenya, the Governor of Nairobi Mike Sonko has come under scrutiny for including small bottles of the cognac Hennessy in care packages, falsely claiming that alcohol serves as "throat sanitizer" and that, from research, it is believed that "alcohol plays a major role in killing the coronavirus."[346][347]
Cocaine
Cocaine does not protect against COVID-19. Several viral tweets purporting that snorting cocaine would sterilize one's nostrils of the coronavirus spread around Europe and Africa. In response, the French Ministry of Health released a public service announcement debunking this claim, saying "No, cocaine does NOT protect against COVID-19. It is an addictive drug that causes serious side effects and is harmful to people's health." The World Health Organisation also debunked the claim.[348]
Ibuprofen
A tweet from French health minister Olivier Véran, a bulletin from the French health ministry, and a small speculative study in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine raised concerns about ibuprofen worsening COVID-19, which spread extensively on social media. The European Medicines Agency[349] and the World Health Organization recommended COVID-19 patients keep taking ibuprofen as directed, citing lack of convincing evidence of any danger.[350]
Helicopter spraying
In some Asian countries, it has been claimed that one should stay at home on particular days when helicopters spray disinfectant over homes for killing off COVID-19; no such spraying is taking place.[351][352]
Cruise ships safety from infection
Main article: COVID-19 pandemic on cruise ships
Claims by cruise-ship operators notwithstanding, there are many cases of coronaviruses in hot climates; some countries in the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, and the Persian Gulf are severely affected.
In March 2020, the Miami New Times reported that managers at Norwegian Cruise Line had prepared a set of responses intended to convince wary customers to book cruises, including "blatantly false" claims that the coronavirus "can only survive in cold temperatures, so the Caribbean is a fantastic choice for your next cruise", that "[s]cientists and medical professionals have confirmed that the warm weather of the spring will be the end of the [c]oronavirus", and that the virus "cannot live in the amazingly warm and tropical temperatures that your cruise will be sailing to".[353]
Flu is seasonal (becoming less frequent in the summer) in some countries, but not in others. While it is possible that the COVID-19 coronavirus will also show some seasonality, it is not yet known.[354][355][356][medical citation needed] The COVID-19 coronavirus spread along international air travel routes, including to tropical locations.[357] Outbreaks on cruise ships, where an older population lives in close quarters, frequently touching surfaces which others have touched, were common.[358][359]
It seems that COVID-19 can be transmitted in all climates.[279] It has seriously affected many warm-climate countries. For instance, Dubai, with an year-round average daily high of 28.0 Celsius (82.3°F) and the airport said to have the world's most international traffic, has had thousands of cases.
Vaccine pre-existence
It was reported that multiple social media posts have promoted a conspiracy theory claiming the virus was known and that a vaccine was already available. PolitiFact and FactCheck.org noted that no vaccine currently exists for COVID-19. The patents cited by various social media posts reference existing patents for genetic sequences and vaccines for other strains of coronavirus such as the SARS coronavirus.[360][4] The WHO reported as of February 5, 2020, that amid news reports of "breakthrough" drugs being discovered to treat people infected with the virus, there were no known effective treatments;[361] this included antibiotics and herbal remedies not being useful.[362] Scientists are working to develop a vaccine, but as of March 18, 2020, no vaccine candidates have completed Phase II clinical trials.[citation needed]
Miscellaneous
Name of the disease
Social media posts and internet memes claimed that COVID-19 means "Chinese Originated Viral Infectious Disease 19", or similar, as supposedly the "19th virus to come out of China".[477] In fact, the WHO named the disease as follows: CO stands for corona, VI for virus, D for disease and 19 for when the outbreak was first identified (31 December 2019).[478]
Bat soup
Some media outlets, including Daily Mail and RT, as well as individuals, disseminated a video showing a Chinese woman eating a bat, falsely suggesting it was filmed in Wuhan and connecting it to the outbreak.[479][480] However, the widely circulated video contains unrelated footage of a Chinese travel vlogger, Wang Mengyun, eating bat soup in the island country of Palau in 2016.[479][480][481][482] Wang posted an apology on Weibo,[481][482] in which she said she had been abused and threatened,[481] and that she had only wanted to showcase Palauan cuisine.[481][482] The spread of misinformation about bat consumption has been characterized by xenophobic and racist sentiment toward Asians.[90][483][484] In contrast, scientists suggest the virus originated in bats and migrated into an intermediary host animal before infecting people.[90][485]
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misinformation_related_to_the_COVID...
(further pictures and information are available by clicking on the link at the end of page!)
Payerbach was shaped in the days of the monarchy in which it flourished. Many architecturally valuable buildings remind us of that time. Most of all through the summer resort Payerbach for miles around got its reputation. Now it is undertaking great efforts to connect again with this heritage. Payerbach is with the station Payerbach-Reichenau starting point for many tourist excursions, including the Höllentalbahn to Hirschwang. It brings tourists to the valley station of the cable car to the Rax and the entrance to Hell Valley (Höllental), where the newly created romantic walking path along the Vienna Mountain Spring Pipeline leads up to Kaiserbrunn.
Historic post office Küb
Furthermore, the market town is situated at the World Heritage Semmering Railway. It can be traveled by train across viaducts and through tunnels. But you can also hike its daring routing through mountains, over bridges and rock galleries on the Railway Trail in a discovering manner. Among the special structures of the Semmering Railway in Payerbach is the Schwarza viaduct and railway station Payerbach-Reichenau.
On a rock pulpit above the village stands the Roman Catholic parish church with the so-called "black tower". It goes back to a Romanesque foundation, which was in 1447 rebuilt after destruction. The vaulting of the nave followed about 1525 (stellar vault with octagonal pillars with a partially preserved painting of the keystones, in the choir ribbed vault). It was a subsidiary church of Gloggnitz, incorporated to the Bavarian monastery of Formbach and is first mentioned in 1379 as a parish. Remains of frescoes are dated back to the 14th Century. With much architectural touch a modern choir (West Gallery) was in the wake of last general renovation in 1970 inserted, also the interior comes largely from this era, but it also includes late Gothic statues and other works from the 18th and 19th Century.
Roman Catholic Parish Payerbach
A special attraction is the historic post office of Küb, which, as long-distance operator founded, already by Empress Zita and their followers willingly was visited. Today the post office is only open seasonally and is mainly run as a museum. At the Grillenberg is a tourist mine, which was yet opened in 1791 for the mining of ore and 1892 shut down. On 5 October 1992 it was officially opened by the Governor Siegfried Ludwig. Known from the period of summer resort is also the Payerbacher Pavilion and the same adjoining jetty. Both motifs that are not missing on any old postcard of the community.
After the deployment of the second K & K mountain artillery regiment in Payerbach, in 1916 the Barbara chapel was built in honor of the patron saint of the Payerbacher regiment in South Tyrol. In 1923, the Chapel of St. Barbara was brought to Küb where it still can be seen today.
Also in Küb stands the French Cross, commemorating the fallen of a battle between the French and farmers in 1805 before the castle Mühlhof, in which the French lost six men.
On the Kreuzberg in 1928 the villa Khun was built by architect Adolf Loos. In the until today largely unaltered building, the Hotel-Restaurant Alpenhof is now established.
de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payerbach#Kultur_und_Sehensw.C3.BCr...
everyone is hoping to get some roast meat back home for the festive dinner
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check out more Hong Kong Streets & Candid shots here:
Taking the Streets in Hong Kong
Explore the Chinese Cultures:
if you like the colorful markets:
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You're living in the past it's a new generation
A girl can do what she wants to do and that's
What I'm gonna do
An' I don't give a damn 'bout my bad reputation
Belle @bear_in_taipei can play so many roles. That's part of why I always like shooting with her.
The Maasai comprise 5 clans. They have reputation of fierce warriors. But they are traditionally seminomadic, and live off their cattle almost exclusively. The Maasai believe that all cattle belong to them and they are known to be cattle raiders. Cattle raiding used to be a common inter tribal activity. The livestock is a sign of wealth and is traditionally used to pay dowry for the wedding. Women are worth 10 cows. They consistently come from another village. Parents are the ones who negociate for the marriage. In the Maasai community, women construct the huts, collect firewood, bring water, milk the herds of cattle and cook for the family. Young boys look after the beasts while the warriors protect the clan. Older men take care of the daily operations in the community. The Maasai live in families in a Manyatta (a form of enclosed homestead), surrounded by a fence made of thorny bushes to protect them and their livestock from intruders and predators. Each Manyatta has about 10 to 20 huts known as "Inkajijik". These huts are made of tree branches, mud, grass and cow dung. If a man has more than one woman, he must build another house to welcome his second wife (to avoid rivalry). So a man who has 3 wifes must own 3 houses and therefore be rich. In the Maasai culture, the colorful ornaments are dedicated to their beauty, which is one of the most important aspects. Visual arts consist mainly of body decoration and beaded ornaments. These decorations are displayed in their dances, which are a popular art form. Women wear beaded necklaces and bangles, and men a red checked shuka (Maasai blanket). The warriors carry a spear and a ball-ended club, and paint their body with ochre. Maasai's diet includes meat, cow blood 2 times a week, and a lot of milk. The cows are bled by opening a vein in the neck with a blunt arrow or knife. The blood is then drunk on it’s own or with milk. The Maasai speak a Nilotic language, called Maa.
They believe in one God, Ngai (meaning "One Creator God"), the creator and giver of all things. They also believe in witchcraft. In each tribal group, there is a prophet who is seen as helping to cope with the endemic sorcery, by the means of protective medicines and advices for the rituals. In addition to the prophets, they also have diviners who are supposed to have the power to diagnose illnesses and causes of misfortune, and can prescribe a range of herbal medicines and ritual cures. Despite the fact that some members have moved to cities, many have kept their customs. The most distinctive feature of Maasai society is the age system for men, divided in sets and spaced apart by about fifteen years. Excision, as well as circoncision, is an initiatory ceremony that mark the passage to adulthood. Although excisions are prohibited in Kenya, it is widespread throughout the country, especially in rural areas. Only 4 ethnic groups (Luo, Luhya, Teso and Turkana) out of 42 don't practise it. According to the ethnies and regions, excisions vary considerably and range from 4.1% in the western region to 98.8% in the North-Est. They are common within the Somali (97%), Kisii (96%) and Maasai (93%) while they are less frequent among the Kikuyu (34%) and Kamba (27%). The kenyan law is rarely enforced and it sometimes lead this practice to clandestinity instead of slowing it down. For the 3 months of recovery period after excision, Maasai girls wear jewellery and chalk make-up, to show they must not be seen by men. Circumcision happens at the age of 18 in the Maasai tribes. Maasai woman are not allowed to attend the ceremony. Boys who show their pain with tears during the operation, are considered as cowards and bear this shame all his life. On the contrary, the ones who don't cry during circumcision are authorized to hunt colorful birds with their bow and arrows. Then they make a headdress indicating their new warrior's status. After the operation, boys go in their mother's hut to drink cow's fresh blood to recover their forces. The promotion of warriors to elderhood involve two distinct ceremonies. The 4 days eunoto ceremony raise the warriors to the senior warrior status. For this occasion, warriors gather in the same village. They are led by a ritual leader (olotuno). Each one of them has a part of his head shaved by his mother, which often makes them cry. It symbolizes the end of their freedom and of the bond with their mother. At the end of the ritual, the warrior can select any girl to marry. The olghesher ceremony promote them to senior elderhood thanks to which they have the power to bless and curse, and become protective leaders of the next new age-set.
During one of the ceremonies, maasai girls accompany their lover to the ceremonial dance. Pearl neacklaces and headbands follow the rhythm. This is the sole moment when girls can choose freely 3 lovers among the warriors.Traditionally, as long as the father was alive, no son has final control over his cattle nor over his choice in marriage. At marriage, the bride is allocated a herd of cattle, from which all her sons will build up herds of their own. In any case, women are raised to accept her submission to her future husband.
© Eric Lafforgue
Chassis n° 4607
Les Grandes Marques du Monde au Grand Palais 2020
Bonhams
Parijs - Paris
Frankrijk - France
February 2020
Estimated : € 1.050.000 - 1.400.000
Sold for € 870.000
All the sophistication of Ettore Bugatti's famously thoughtful design ethic is embodied within this wonderfully well-presented ex-works racing Bugatti Type 39, as manufactured at the charismatic Molsheim factory in 1925...
Mr Bugatti built his reputation upon creating rapid and reliable motor cars endowed with competitively powerful engines in light, compact, and nimble chassis. Above all he clearly grasped the over-riding importance of a high power-to-weight ratio in contrast to some other quality car constructors to whom overall weight seemed irrelevant compared to achieving the highest possible power not necessarily out there on the open road, nor race circuit, but in the engine test-house...
While combining in so many of his sporting models high power, minimal mass and a good-handling, driveable chassis, Ettore Bugatti also manufactured most of them in sufficient numbers to attract, and to satisfy, broad demand from a moneyed and dashingly competition-minded market.
In 1924 Mr Bugatti had launched his 2-litre Type 35 design, and by 1925 the Type 39 followed to comply with maximum 1500cc Voiturette racing regulations – effectively the Formula 2 of the time. Use of a short-stroke crankshaft in the straight-8 cylinder engine provided bore and stroke measurements of 60mm x 66mm, displacing 1493cc. Possibly Mr Bugatti was anticipating the overall Grand Prix capacity limit rule change for 1926-27 which would cut maximum permitted engine capacity from 2-litres to 1½.
The Type 39s made their debut in the Grand Prix de Tourisme at Montlhéry south of Paris, France, in June 1925. The four new works team cars promptly finished 1-2-3-4 in their class, and in 3rd place was '4607' now offered here, driven by Giulio Foresti.
Of course the pinnacle of road racing competition during the 1920s was the Grand Prix arena, and when the1925 Italian Grand Prix at Monza Autodrome was run concurrently with the 1500cc Gran Premio delle Vetturette the Bugatti company contested it with a full team of five Type 39s.
The race was run over 80 laps of the Milanese Autodrome's 10km combined road and high-speed track. Bugatti's team captain was Bartolomeo 'Meo' Costantini, teamed to drive with Jules Goux, Pierre de Vizcaya, Count Carlo Masetti and Count Aymo Maggi, who was replacing Ferdinand de Vizcaya, the Spanish banker – and backer of the Bugatti company - who arrived late from Barcelona. And when Count Masetti had to stand down due to a leg injury, it was Giulio Foresti who took his place to drive '4607' in the long race...
As the Gran Premio developed, the Bugattis not only dominated the Voiturette category but also climbed the leader board amongst the full 2-litre Grand Prix cars. Finally – after 5hrs 44mins 40.91secs to be precise (the Italian lap-scorers immensely proud of their then-new hundredth-second timing equipment) the Gran Premio delle Vetturette was decided with Costantini's Bugatti Type 39 winning from the sister cars of Ferdinand de Vizcaya and Giulio Foresti, respectively 2nd and 3rd. Pierre de Vizcaya's Type 39 placed fourth while Jules Goux's engine had failed after 64 of the 80 laps. Overall, the Bugatti Type 39s had proved so fast and reliable that Costantini finished the Grand Prix 3rd overall, Ferdinand de Vizcaya 6th and Foresti in '4607' now offered here, 7th.
A record survives of this car and its sister '4604' both being sold soon after to the British importer, Colonel Sorel in London, and it is thought that Giulio Foresti – an accomplished 'wheeler-dealer' in his own right – then found an eager buyer for the pair – one A.V.Turner - in Australia, although alternative reference suggests that '4607' was imported there by prominent Vauxhall driver Boyd Edkins.
On June 19, 1926, the car certainly appeared upon Sydney's high-banked Maroubra Speedway driven by a friend and colleague of Edkins, Dick Clarke. While the Type 39s – or 'Monzas' as they became known in Australia – became particularly noted for their wonderfully high-pitched exhaust note, they were not well-suited to Maroubra, since they were over-geared for the tight Speedway. Clarke was still able to win a heat there on September 4, 1926, and '4607' lapped the speedbowl at 86mph. At Penrith Clarke won a heat and a semi-final before taking 2nd and 3rd places in two further events. Then back at Maroubra for the January, 1927 meeting Clarke won two heats and took 2nd in a final.
The car later passed to 20-year-old Sid Cox, son of a wealthy building magnate. The young man also had a Bugatti Type 40 which he used as a tender when he took '4607' to Philip Island, Melbourne, Victoria, to race in the 1928 Australian Grand Prix. With friend Ken McKinney alongside him Sid Cox practised for the great race only for bronze filings to be found in the oil filter, a sign that the power unit's bronze roller-bearing cages were failing. On race day, sure enough, '4607's engine broke a connecting rod.
A new crankcase and sump were bought for the car, but the old sump was used in the rebuild, mated to the new crankcase. Cox then sold '4607' to poster-artist Reg St John who became noted for maintaining the Bugatti in utterly pristine, highly polished and well-cherished condition. He reportedly used it to parade up and down Swanston Street, Melbourne, admiring his reflection in the shop windows. And why not?
However, Australian racer Carl Junker then acquired the car and – with Reg Nutt as his riding mechanic – he entered it in the 1931 Australian GP again at Philip Island. They were running second behind Hope Bartlett's Bugatti Type 37A on the penultimate lap when its engine failed, Junker and Nutt joyously inheriting outright Grand Prix victory for '4607'. Ernie Nutt had tuned the car and he would recall that Junker used 7,000rpm through the gears, '4607' achieving 55mph in 1st, 72mph in 2nd and 103mph in 3rd.
Racing again in the 1932 Australian GP, Junker improved his lap times but fell victim to spark-plug trouble which meant he could finish only 5th. Completing the long race ahead of him that day was Merton Wreford in his Brescia Bugatti, and he later bought '4607' from Junker, reputedly after it had suffered another engine failure.
Mert Wreford fixed the problem and then entered the Type 39 in the 1933 Australian GP in which he found himself confronted by Carl Junker in the sister 1925 Bugatti 'Monza' – chassis '4604'. These two Type 39s proved to be the class of that Grand Prix field and after Junker's engine blew-up, Wreford moved into the lead, only for '4607's engine to fail on the third-last lap. Evidently the two broken 'Monzas' were left parked together at trackside – but Mert Wreford had recorded the race's fastest lap.
A new owner was then found for '4607' in specialist Jack Day of the Ajax Pump Works who fitted '4607' with his own 'Day' supercharger, driven from the crankshaft nose. He made his debut with the supercharged car in the August, 1933, Frankston hill-climb. But when the forced-induction experiment disappointed, Jack Day removed the Bugatti engine and fitted instead a Ford V8. This Type 39 thus became the first Australian special to be powered by a 'black iron' American Ford V8. The resultant Day Special proved very successful through 1936, setting new hill-climb records at Mitcham and Rob Roy. Reg Nutt raced the car in monoposto form at Phillip Island, 1937, and in the South Australian GP in 1938.
After World War 2, Bondi Beach surf life-saver, water-skier and amateur wrestler 'Gelignite' Jack Murray bought '4607' in its Day Special form from Jack Day, the price £1,100.
'Gelignite Jack' would earn his nickname from blowing up rural dunnies with sticks of gelignite during the RedeX Round Australia Trials. Every man needs a hobby....
The car "was given the full Murray red paint and chrome treatment" and in it he set fastest time and finished 5th on handicap in the 1946 New South Wales GP at Bathurst. Returning there n 1947 he was tipped to win, but failed to finish. The car was clocked at 106mph. At the 1948 Bathurst 100 the Day Special was recorded at 117mph and placed 3rd on handicap in the over 1500cc class. Overheating often afflicted the car in its Ford V8-engined form, but 'Gelignite Jack' continued to campaign the ageing special into 1954 when he was an amazing 4th fastest and 7th on handicap at the Bathurst Easter Meeting.
Subsequently the car survived in storage at Murray's Bondi garage, until he sold it – accompanied by a mass of related Bugatti components – to marque enthusiast Ted Lobb. While the original Type 39 chassis survived within the Day Special, Ted Lobb also had its original engine 'No 7' – which was fitted in his sister car '4604' – so now he also owned the blown-up engine 'No 6' – originally in '4604' – from Jack Day. Around 1974, Ted Lobb sold the Day Special and engine 'No 6' plus numerous other related Bugatti parts to Bob King, who later decided to rebuild '4607' to its 1925 Italian Grand Prix 'Monza' form.
He would later write: "The monumental rebuild was completed in the early 1980s, using a Type 39 crankshaft which came from Lance Dixon's Type 51A '4847'. The crankshaft – numbered '27' – was in perfect ex-factory condition, all parts carrying matching factory numbers. A gearbox casing was obtained in England from Ian Preston. The differential is Type 38, suitably altered, from the Nuttbug (BC4)". He concluded "'4607' was sold to Art Valdez of California in 1986...".
This restored Bugatti Type 39 was then shipped to Bangkok, Thailand, in time for new owner Art Valdez to drive it in the December 5, 1987, Prince 'Bira' commemorative Bangkok Grand Prix meeting. Anton Perera reported in 'The Nation' newspaper: "There in the parade was the oldest car of them all, a Bugatti Type 39 – all of 62 years with a 1493cc engine. And didn't the smooth engine purr with noise, indicating that it could be a danger on the 2.5km Pattaya Circuit next week...Yes, the 1931 Australian Grand Prix winner looked in perfectly good trim and ready to turn on the speed..."
John Fitzpatrick of the Australian Bugatti Register later reported how at Pattaya, where the Vintage race "ended an absolutely magical fortnight...Art Valdez was euphoric after his first race in a GP Bugatti...as Neil Corner wrote recently '...To have your GP Bugatti motoring well is to live with the gods...'".
The car was preserved within Mr Valdez's Californian ownership until in April 1993 he telephoned former owner Bob King to declare his intention to sell it. However, it was not until 2017 that the car subsequently passed from Art Valdez into the ownership of the present vendor.
Today '4607' presents very well indeed, having recently benefited from a mechanical inspection, strip-down and rebuilt by Tony Ditheridge's renowned Hawker Racing concern in Milden, Suffolk, England. This work included thorough cleaning and re-commissioning - even to the extent of fitting new valve springs. This ex-works Bugatti warhorse was then unleashed successor on the open road. Now, subject to the usual inspections and personal set-up adjustments, '4607' is poised for an active 2020 motoring season.
The car is accompanied by a comprehensive historical overview and inspection report compiled by the highly respected British Bugatti specialists David Sewell and Mark Morris.
In summary they confirm that "Type 39 chassis '4607' presents itself today as a recognised and well recorded example of the 8-cylinder GP Bugatti". They continue: "One key factor that must be recorded is that the major components are of Molsheim manufacture". The chassis frame is No 61 – while they report that the Molsheim lower (engine) crankcase is '7' ex-'4604' – the Molsheim upper (engine) crankcase is '114' – the Molsheim cambox 'No 7' – the Molsheim gearbox 'No 113' – the Molsheim gearbox lid No '856' – while the Molsheim rear axle centre casing has been modified from that of a touring car, ratio 12x54, 'No 284'.
So here BONHAMS is delighted to commend to the market this Bugatti Type 39 – the eminently useable (and potentially so enjoyable – and so raceable) winner of the 1931 Australian Grand Prix – and previously works driver Giulio Foresti's works team car, with third place in the 1925 Grand Prix de Tourism –third place in the 1925 Italian Gran Premio delle Vetturette at Monza – and 7th in the overall Italian Grand Prix, all so prominent within its history.
Just one decisive bid, and this fine example of Le Pur Sang – which such a jam-packed history on both road and track - could be yours...
Is it pure coincidence that a South Notts Scania has a Batman film advertisement?? No, and here's why:
Gotham is a quiet and friendly village these days, but a few hundred years ago its residents had a reputation for "madness". One story goes that King John, also the villain in the legend of Robin Hood, was due to travel through Gotham on his way to nearby Nottingham. Any road the king travelled on would become a public highway, so the villagers are said to have feigned madness to deter the king - as it was thought to be infectious. Their absurd acts included building a fence around a bush to prevent a cuckoo escaping (how The Cuckoo Bush pub got it's name in the village), and attempting to drown an eel in a pond. The trick worked, leading to the saying: "There are more fools pass through Gotham than remain in it." Villagers were also dubbed the Wise Men of Gotham. Word of the supposedly foolish acts spread, and they were collected in various books including The Merie Tales of the Mad Men of Gotam, published in 1565.
The American author Washington Irving became aware of the tales and was the first person to link Gotham in England with New York in the US. He repeatedly referred to Manhattan as Gotham when writing, in 1807, in the Salmagundi papers, a satirical periodical mocking New Yorkers. Gotham then became a popular nickname for New York City and is still used today, in shop names and notably at the Gotham Center for New York City History. Edwin G Burrows and Mike Wallace also explained how the name was adopted by New Yorkers in their book Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898.
Batman made his debut in issue 27 of Detective Comics, in 1939. His setting was referred to as an unnamed "teeming metropolis" in issue 29, but by issue 31 it was explicitly identified as "New York". Writer Bill Finger said he changed the name to Gotham after looking through a phone book and seeing the name Gotham Jewelers. While Gotham village is pronounced goat-em, stemming from "goat town", the pronunciation goth-am was adopted for Batman.
The link with Nottinghamshire has only been acknowledged by Batman writers in recent years.
In a story called Cityscape, written by Dennis O'Neill in The Batman Chronicles #6 in 1996, a villain plotting murder explains how the Gotham of the Batman universe was created. He enlists the help of an innocent man to build an asylum in the forest outside the town of Bludhaven, and proposes naming it Gotham "after a village in England where, according to common belief, all are bereft of their wits".- BBC News website
So now you know!! Also, as an aside, the clock outside Gotham depot also features the Batman logo with Gotham City written on it....
641 shows off it's latest guise appropriately on a 1 to Gotham (Village NOT City) via Trent Bridge and Clifton.
Epiphanius of Salamis (Greek: Ἐπιφάνιος; c. 310–320 – 403) was the bishop of Salamis, Cyprus at the end of the 4th century. He is considered a saint and a Church Father by both the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches. He gained a reputation as a strong defender of orthodoxy. He is best known for composing the Panarion, a very large compendium of the heresies up to his own time, full of quotations that are often the only surviving fragments of suppressed texts. According to Ernst Kitzinger, he "seems to have been the first cleric to have taken up the matter of Christian religious images as a major issue", and there has been much controversy over how many of the quotations attributed to him by the Byzantine Iconoclasts were actually by him. Regardless of this he was clearly strongly against some contemporary uses of images in the church.[2]
Contents
1Life
2Origenist controversy and death
3The curtain incident
4Writings
4.1Panarion
4.2Other works
5Works
6Notes
7References
8External links
Life
Epiphanius was either born into a Romaniote Christian family or became a Christian in his youth. Either way, he was a Romaniote Jew who was born in the Old Yishuv in the small settlement of Besanduk, near Eleutheropolis (modern-day Beit Guvrin, Israel),[3] and lived as a monk in Egypt, where he was educated and came into contact with Valentinian groups. He returned to Palestine around 333, when he was still a young man, and he founded a monastery at Ad nearby,[4] which is often mentioned in the polemics of Jerome with Rufinus and John, Bishop of Jerusalem. He was ordained a priest, and lived and studied as superior of the monastery in Ad that he founded for thirty years and gained much skill and knowledge in that position. In that position he gained the ability to speak in several tongues, including Hebrew, Syriac, Egyptian, Greek, and Latin, and was called by Jerome on that account Pentaglossos ("Five tongued").[5]
His reputation for learning prompted his nomination and consecration as Bishop of Salamis, Cyprus,[6] in 365 or 367, a post which he held until his death. He was also the Metropolitan of the Church of Cyprus. He served as bishop for nearly forty years, as well as travelled widely to combat unorthodox beliefs. He was present at a synod in Antioch (376) where the Trinitarian questions were debated against the heresy of Apollinarianism. He upheld the position of Bishop Paulinus, who had the support of Rome, over that of Meletius of Antioch, who was supported by the Eastern Churches. In 382 he was present at the Council of Rome, again upholding the cause of Paulinus.
Origenist controversy and death
Main article: Origenist Crises
During a visit to Palestine in 394 or 395, while preaching in Jerusalem, he attacked Origen's followers and urged the Bishop of Jerusalem, John II, to condemn his writings. He urged John to be careful of the "offence" of images in the churches. He noted that when travelling in Palestine he went into a church to pray and saw a curtain with an image of Christ or a saint which he tore down. He told Bishop John that such images were "opposed . . . to our religion" (see below).[7] This event sowed the seeds of conflict which erupted in the dispute between Rufinus and John against Jerome and Epiphanius. Epiphanius fuelled this conflict by ordaining a priest for Jerome's monastery at Bethlehem, thus trespassing on John's jurisdiction. This dispute continued during the 390s, in particular in the literary works by Rufinus and Jerome attacking one another.
In 399, the dispute took on another dimension, when the Bishop of Alexandria, Theophilus, who had initially supported John, changed his views and started persecuting Origenist monks in Egypt. As a result of this persecution, four of these monks, the so-called Tall Brothers, fled to Palestine, and then travelled to Constantinople, seeking support and spreading the controversy. John Chrysostom, Bishop of Constantinople, gave the monks shelter. Bishop Theophilus of Alexandria saw his chance to use this event to bring down his enemy Chrysostom: in 402 he summoned a council in Constantinople, and invited those supportive of his anti-Origenist views. Epiphanius, by this time nearly 80, was one of those summoned, and began the journey to Constantinople. However, when he realised he was being used as a tool by Theophilus against Chrysostom, who had given refuge to the monks persecuted by Theophilus and who were appealing to the emperor, Epiphanius started back to Salamis, only to die on the way home in 403.[8]
The curtain incident
Letter LI in Jerome's letters gives Jerome's Latin translation, made at Epiphanius' request, of his letter, originally in Greek from c. 394, "From Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis, in Cyprus, to John, Bishop of Jerusalem" (see previous section for wider context). The final section covers the often quoted incident of the curtain, which unlike other passages attributed to Epiphanius and quoted by the Iconoclasts, is accepted as authentic by modern scholars:[9]
9. Moreover, I have heard that certain persons have this grievance against me: When I accompanied you to the holy place called Bethel, there to join you in celebrating the Collect, after the use of the Church, I came to a villa called Anablatha and, as I was passing, saw a lamp burning there. Asking what place it was, and learning it to be a church, I went in to pray, and found there a curtain hanging on the doors of the said church, dyed and embroidered. It bore an image either of Christ or of one of the saints; I do not rightly remember whose the image was. Seeing this, and being loth that an image of a man should be hung up in Christ’s church contrary to the teaching of the Scriptures, I tore it asunder and advised the custodians of the place to use it as a winding sheet for some poor person. They, however, murmured, and said that if I made up my mind to tear it, it was only fair that I should give them another curtain in its place. As soon as I heard this, I promised that I would give one, and said that I would send it at once. Since then there has been some little delay, due to the fact that I have been seeking a curtain of the best quality to give to them instead of the former one, and thought it right to send to Cyprus for one. I have now sent the best that I could find, and I beg that you will order the presbyter of the place to take the curtain which I have sent from the hands of the Reader, and that you will afterwards give directions that curtains of the other sort—opposed as they are to our religion—shall not be hung up in any church of Christ. A man of your uprightness should be careful to remove an occasion of offence unworthy alike of the Church of Christ and of those Christians who are committed to your charge. Beware of Palladius of Galatia—a man once dear to me, but who now sorely needs God's pity—for he preaches and teaches the heresy of Origen; and see to it that he does not seduce any of those who are intrusted to your keeping into the perverse ways of his erroneous doctrine. I pray that you may fare well in the Lord.[10]
Writings
Panarion
His best-known book is the Panarion which means "medicine-chest" (also known as Adversus Haereses, "Against Heresies"), presented as a book of antidotes for those bitten by the serpent of heresy. Written between 374 and 377, it forms a handbook for dealing with the arguments of heretics.
It lists, and refutes, 80 heresies, some of which are not described in any other surviving documents from the time. Epiphanius begins with the 'four mothers' of pre-Christian heresy – 'barbarism', 'Scythism', 'Hellenism' and 'Judaism' – and then addresses the sixteen pre-Christian heresies that have flowed from them: four philosophical schools (Stoics, Platonists, Pythagoreans and Epicureans), and twelve Jewish sects. There then follows an interlude, telling of the Incarnation of the Word. After this, Epiphanius embarks on his account of the sixty Christian heresies, from assorted gnostics to the various trinitarian heresies of the fourth century, closing with the Collyridians and Messalians.[11]
While Epiphanius often let his zeal come before facts – he admits on one occasion that he writes against the Origenists based only on hearsay (Panarion, Epiphanius 71) – the Panarion is a valuable source of information on the Christian Church of the fourth century. It is also an important source regarding the early Jewish gospels such as the Gospel according to the Hebrews circulating among the Ebionites and the Nazarenes, as well as the followers of Cerinthus and Merinthus.[12]
One unique feature of the Panarion is in the way that Epiphanius compares the various heretics to different poisonous beasts, going so far as to describe in detail the animal's characteristics, how it produces its poison, and how to protect oneself from the animal's bite or poison. For example, he describes his enemy Origen as "a toad noisy from too much moisture which keeps croaking louder and louder." He compares the Gnostics to a particularly dreaded snake "with no fangs." The Ebionites, a Christian sect that followed Jewish law, were described by Epiphanius as "a monstrosity with many shapes, who practically formed the snake-like shape of the mythical many-headed Hydra in himself." In all, Epiphanius describes fifty animals, usually one per sect.[13]
Another feature of the Panarion is the access its earlier sections provide to lost works, notably Justin Martyr's work on heresies, the Greek of Irenaeus' Against Heresies, and Hippolytus' Syntagma.[14] The Panarion was first translated into English in 1987 and 1990.
Other works
His earliest known work is the Ancoratus (the well anchored man), which includes arguments against Arianism and the teachings of Origen. Aside from the polemics by which he is known, Epiphanius wrote a work of biblical antiquarianism, called, for one of its sections, On Weights and Measures (περὶ μέτρων καὶ στάθμων). It was composed in Constantinople for a Persian priest, in 392,[15] and survives in Syriac, Armenian, and Georgian translations (this last is found in Shatberd ms 1141 along with Physiologus and De Gemmis).[16] The first section discusses the canon of the Old Testament and its versions, the second of measures and weights, and the third, the geography of Palestine. The texts appear not to have been given a polish but consist of rough notes and sketches, as Allen A. Shaw, a modern commentator, concluded; nevertheless Epiphanius' work on metrology was important in the history of measurement.
Another work, On the Twelve Gems (De Gemmis), survives in a number of fragments, the most complete of which is the Georgian.[17] The letter written by Epiphanius to John, Bishop of Jerusalem, in 394 and preserved in Jerome's translation, is discussed above.[18] The collection of homilies traditionally ascribed to a "Saint Epiphanius, bishop" are dated in the late fifth or sixth century and are not connected with Epiphanius of Salamis by modern scholars.[19]
Such was Epiphanius's reputation for learning that the Physiologus, the principal source of medieval bestiaries, came to be widely falsely attributed to him.[20]
Salamis (Ancient Greek: Σαλαμίς, Greek: Σαλαμίνα) is an ancient Greek city-state on the east coast of Cyprus, at the mouth of the river Pedieos, 6 km north of modern Famagusta. According to tradition, the founder of Salamis was Teucer, son of Telamon, who could not return home after the Trojan war because he had failed to avenge his brother Ajax.
Contents
1History
1.1Early history
1.2In the Greek period
1.3Resistance to Persian rule
1.4Alexander the Great and the Roman Empire
1.5In the Roman and Byzantine periods
1.6Christianity
2Excavations
3Notes
4References
5External links
History
Early history
The earliest archaeological finds go back to the eleventh century BC (Late Bronze Age III). The copper ores of Cyprus made the island an essential node in the earliest trade networks, and Cyprus was a source of the orientalizing cultural traits of mainland Greece at the end of the Greek Dark Ages, hypothesized by Walter Burkert in 1992. Children's burials in Canaanite jars indicate a Phoenician presence. A harbour and a cemetery from this period have been excavated. The town is mentioned in Assyrian inscriptions as one of the kingdoms of Iadnana (Cyprus).[1] In 877 BC, an Assyrian army reached the Mediterranean shores for the first time. In 708 BC, the city-kings of Cyprus paid homage to Sargon II of Assyria (Burkert). The first coins were minted in the 6th century BC, following Persian prototypes.
The theatre in Salamis
Cyprus was under the control of the Assyrians at this time but the city-states of the island enjoyed a relative independence as long as they paid their tribute to the Assyrian king. This allowed the kings of the various cities to accumulate wealth and power. Certain burial customs observed in the "royal tombs" of Salamis relate directly to Homeric rites, such as the sacrifice of horses in honor of the dead and the offering of jars of olive oil. Some scholars have interpreted this phenomenon as the result of influence of the Homeric Epics in Cyprus. Most of the grave goods come from the Levant or Egypt.
According to the foundation myth, the founder of Salamis is said to be Teucer, son of Telamon, who could not return home after the Trojan war because he had failed to avenge his brother Ajax. There is however some evidence that the area had been occupied long before the alleged arrival of Mycenaeans (at Enkomi) and the town of Salamis was developed as a replacement when Engkomi was isolated from the sea. There is otherwise little direct evidence to support the foundation myth.
In the Greek period
In the 11th century BC, the town was confined to a rather small area around the harbour but soon expanded westwards to occupy the area, which today is covered by forest. The cemetery of Salamis covers a large area from the western limits of the forest to the Monastery of St. Barnabas to the west, to the outskirts of the village of Ayios Serghios to the north, and to the outskirts of Enkomi village to the south. It contains tombs dating from the 9th century BC down to the Early Christian period. The earlier tombs are within the forest area, near the boundary of the early town.
Though Salamis maintained direct links with the Near East during the 8th and 7th centuries BC, there were bonds with the Aegean as well. One royal tomb contained a large amount of Greek Geometric pottery and this has been explained as the dowry of a Greek princess who married into the royal family of Salamis. Greek pottery was also found in tombs of ordinary citizens. At this time the Greeks were embarking on an eastward expansion by founding colonies in Asia Minor and Syria; Salamis must have served as an intermediate station; it has even been suggested that Cypriots helped the Greeks in their venture.
Resistance to Persian rule
In 450 BC, Salamis was the site of a simultaneous land and sea battle between Athens and the Persians. (This is not to be confused with the earlier Battle of Salamis in 480 BC between the Greeks and the Persians at Salamis in Attica.)
The history of Salamis during the early Archaic and Classical periods is reflected in the narrations of the Greek historian Herodotus and the much later speeches of the Greek orator Isocrates. Salamis was afterwards besieged and conquered by Artaxerxes III. Under King Evagoras (411-374 BC) Greek culture and art flourished in the city and it would be interesting one day when the spade of the archaeologist uncovers public buildings of this period. A monument, which illustrates the end of the Classical period in Salamis, is the tumulus, which covered the cenotaph of Nicocreon, one of the last kings of Salamis, who perished in 311 BC. On its monumental platform were found several clay heads, some of which are portraits, perhaps of members of the royal family who were honoured after their death on the pyre.
Marguerite Yon (archaeologist) claims that "Literary texts and inscriptions suggest that by the Classical period, Kition [in present-day Larnaca] was one of the principal local powers, along with its neighbor Salamis."[2]
Alexander the Great and the Roman Empire
Map showing the ten ancient city Kingdoms of Cyprus
After Alexander the Great conquered the Persian Empire, Ptolemy I of Egypt ruled the island of Cyprus. He forced Nicocreon, who had been the Ptolemaic governor of the island, to commit suicide in 311 BC, because he did not trust him any more. In his place came king Menelaus, who was the brother of the first Ptolemy. Nicocreon is supposed to be buried in one of the big tumuli near Enkomi. Salamis remained the seat of the governor.
In 306 BC, Salamis was the site of a naval battle between the fleets of Demetrius I of Macedon and Ptolemy I of Egypt. Demetrius won the battle and captured the island.
In Roman times, Salamis was part of the Roman province of Cilicia. The seat of the governor was relocated to Paphos. The town suffered heavily during the Jewish rising of AD 116–117. Although Salamis ceased to be the capital of Cyprus from the Hellenistic period onwards when it was replaced by Paphos, its wealth and importance did not diminish. The city was particularly favoured by the Roman emperors Trajan and Hadrian, who restored and established its public buildings.
In the Roman and Byzantine periods
Columns of the gymnasium
The "cultural centre" of Salamis during the Roman period was situated at the northernmost part of the city, where a gymnasium, theatre, amphitheatre, stadium and public baths have been revealed. There are baths, public latrines (for 44 users), various little bits of mosaic, a harbour wall, a Hellenistic and Roman agora and a temple of Zeus that had the right to grant asylum. Byzantine remains include the basilica of Bishop Epiphanos (AD 367–403). It served as the metropolitan church of Salamis. St. Epiphanios is buried at the southern apse. The church contains a baptistry heated by hypocausts. The church was destroyed in the 7th century and replaced by a smaller building to the south.
There are very extensive ruins. The theatre, and the gymnasium have been extensively restored. Numerous statues are displayed in the central court of the gymnasium most of which are headless. While a statue of Augustus originally belonged here, some columns and statues originally adorned the theatre and were only brought here after an earthquake in the 4th century. The theatre is of Augustean date. It could house up to 15.000 spectators but was destroyed in the 4th century.
The town was supplied with water by an aquaeduct from Kyhrea, destroyed in the 7th century. The water was collected in a large cistern near the Agora. The necropolis of Salamis covers ca. 7 km² to the west of the town. It contains a museum showing some of the finds. Burials date from the geometric to the Hellenistic period. The best known burials are the so-called Royal-Tombs, containing chariots and extremely rich grave gifts, including imports from Egypt and Syria. A tomb excavated in 1965 by the French Mission of the University of Lyon brought to light an extraordinary wealth of tomb-gifts, which also attest trade relations with the Near East.
Christianity
In what is known as the "First Missionary Journey", Paul the apostle and the Cypriot-born Barnabas made Salamis their first destination, landing there after heading out from Antioch of Syria. There they proclaimed Christ in the Jewish synagogues before proceeding through the rest of the island (Acts 13:1-5). Tradition says that Barnabas preached in Alexandria and Rome, and was stoned to death at Salamis in about 61 CE. He is considered the founder of the Church of Cyprus. His bones are believed to be located in the nearby monastery named after him.
Several earthquakes led to the destruction of Salamis at the beginning of the 4th century. The town was rebuilt under the name of Constantia by Constantius II (337–361) and became an Episcopal seat, the most famous occupant of which was Saint Epiphanius. Emperor Constantius II helped the Salaminians not only for the reconstruction of their city but also he helped them by relieving them from paying taxes for a short period and thus the new city, rebuilt on a smaller scale, was named Constantia. The silting of the harbour led to a gradual decline of the town. Salamis was finally abandoned during the Arab invasions of the 7th century after destructions by Muawiyah I ( reigned 661-680 ). The inhabitants moved to Arsinoë (Famagusta).
Excavations
Archaeological excavations at the site began in the late nineteenth century under the auspices of the Cyprus Exploration Fund.[3] Many of these finds are now in the British Museum in London.[4]
Excavations at Salamis started again in 1952 and were in progress until 1974. Before the Turkish invasion there was much archaeological activity there; one French Mission was excavating at Enkomi, another at Salamis and the Department of Antiquities was busy almost throughout the year with repairs and restorations of monuments and was engaged in excavations at Salamis. After the Turkish invasion the international embargo has prevented the continuation of the excavations. The site and the museums are maintained by the antiquities service. Important archaeological collections are kept in the St. Barnabas monastery. In the District Archaeological Museum there are marble statues from the gymnasium and the theatre of Salamis, Mycenaean pottery and jewellery from Enkomi and other objects representative of the rich archaeological heritage of the whole district. Several of the statues and sculptures from antiquity are disfigured, headless or mutilated, likely by Christian zealots in late antiquity [5] during the persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire.
The public buildings uncovered at the city site of Salamis date to the post-Classical period. The Temple of Zeus Salaminios, whose cult was established, according to tradition, by Teucer himself, must have existed since the foundation of the city; the extant remains date to the late Hellenistic period. Early excavators discovered in the esplanade of the Temple of Zeus an enormous marble capital carved on each side with a caryatid figure standing between the foreparts of winged bulls. Now in the British Museum's collection,[6] the function of the capital remains unclear, although it does indicate influence from Achaemenid art and is consequently dated to between 300 and 250 BC.
Spanish postcard by Memory Card, no. 434. Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes in Romeo + Juliet (Baz Luhrmann, 1996).
American actor Leonardo DiCaprio (1974) has often played unconventional parts, particularly in biopics and period films. His role in the blockbuster Titanic (1998) cemented DiCaprio's reputation as a teen heartthrob. He became one of the biggest movie stars thanks to his films with the directors Martin Scorsese, Christopher Nolan, and Quentin Tarantino. He won an Oscar and a Golden Globe Award for The Revenant (2015) as well as two other Golden Globes for The Aviator (2004) and The Wolf of Wall Street (2013).
Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio was born in Los Angeles, in 1974. He is the only child of Irmelin (née Indenbirken), a legal secretary, and George DiCaprio, an underground comix writer, publisher, and distributor of comic books. His parents separated when he was a year old. When his older stepbrother earned $50,000 for a television commercial, DiCaprio, fascinated with this, decided to become an actor. At age 14, he began his career by appearing in television commercials such as for Matchbox cars by Mattel, which he considered his first role. In 1989, he played the role of Glen in two episodes of the television show The New Lassie. Leo played recurring roles in various television series, such as the sitcom Parenthood (1990-1991) based on the successful comedy film of the same name. He made his film debut as the stepson of an evil landlord in the low-budget horror direct-to-video film Critters 3 (Kristine Peterson, 1991). He was handpicked by Robert De Niro out of 400 young actors to play the lead role in the biographical coming-of-age drama This Boy's Life (Michael Caton-Jones, 1993) with De Niro as his stepfather, and Ellen Barkin as his mother. In 1993, DiCaprio co-starred as the intellectually disabled brother of Johnny Depp's character in What's Eating Gilbert Grape (Lasse Hallström, 1993), a comic-tragic odyssey of a dysfunctional Iowa family. The film became a critical success, earning DiCaprio a National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actor and nominations for an Oscar and a Golden Globe. His next films were the Western film The Quick and the Dead (Sam Raimi, 1995) with Sharon Stone, the biopic The Basketball Diaries (Scott Kalvert, 1995) in which he played a teenage Jim Carroll as a drug-addicted high school basketball player and writer, and the erotic drama Total Eclipse (Agnieszka Holland, 1995), a fictionalised account of the homosexual relationship between Arthur Rimbaud (DiCaprio) and Paul Verlaine (David Thewlis). In 1996, DiCaprio appeared opposite Claire Danes in Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet, an abridged modernisation of William Shakespeare's romantic tragedy of the same name. The project grossed $147 million worldwide and earned DiCaprio a Silver Bear for Best Actor at the 1997 Berlin International Film Festival. DiCaprio then achieved international fame as a star in the epic romance Titanic (James Cameron, 1997), opposite Kate Winslet. Against expectations, Titanic went on to become the highest-grossing film to that point, eventually grossing more than $2.1 billion in box-office receipts worldwide. DiCaprio tuned into a superstar, resulting in intense adoration among teenage girls and young women in general that became known as "Leo-Mania"
Leonardo DiCaprio played a self-mocking role in a small appearance in Woody Allen's caustic satire of the fame industry, Celebrity (1998). That year, he also starred in the dual roles of the villainous King Louis XIV and his secret, sympathetic twin brother Philippe in The Man in the Iron Mask (Randall Wallace, 1998). The film received mixed to negative response, but became a box office success, grossing $180 million internationally. DiCaprio was awarded a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Screen Couple for both incarnations the following year. Leonardo starred in two successful features in 2002. The first was the biographical crime drama Catch Me If You Can (Steven Spielberg, 2002), based on the life of Frank Abagnale Jr., who before his 19th birthday committed check fraud to make millions in the 1960s. The film received favourable reviews and was an international success, becoming DiCaprio's highest-grossing release since Titanic with a total of $351 million worldwide. The second was the historical drama Gangs of New York (Martin Scorsese, 2002) with Cameron Diaz and Daniel Day-Lewis. It marked his first of many collaborations with director Martin Scorsese. Gangs of New York earned a total of $193 million worldwide and received mostly positive reviews. DiCaprio played Howard Hughes in The Aviator (Martin Scorsese, 2004), which DiCaprio also co-produced. In 2005, he was named the commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres for his contributions to the arts. DiCaprio was a mercenary in the political thriller Blood Diamond (Edward Zwick, 2006). He received acclaim for his role opposite Jack Nicholson in the crime drama The Departed (Martin Scorsese, 2006). Budgeted at $90 million, the film grossed $291 million and emerged as DiCaprio and Scorsese's highest-grossing collaboration to date. He reunited with Kate Winslet in the romantic drama Revolutionary Road (Sam Mendes, 2008). DiCaprio is the founder of Appian Way Productions—a production company that has produced some of his films and the documentary series Greensburg (2008–2010)—and the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, a non-profit organization devoted to promoting environmental awareness.
Leonardo DiCaprio continued to collaborate with Martin Scorsese in the psychological thriller film Shutter Island (Martin Scorsese, 2010), based on the novel of the same name by Dennis Lehane. The film was a commercial success, grossing $294 million worldwide. DiCaprio starred in the science fiction thriller Inception (Christopher Nolan, 2010), in which he enters the dreams of others to obtain information that is otherwise inaccessible. DiCaprio earned $50 million from the film, becoming his highest payday yet. He was an executive producer for George Clooney's political drama The Ides of March, an adaptation of Beau Willimon's play Farragut North (George Clooney, 2011) with Ryan Gosling. In 2012, DiCaprio starred as a plantation owner, Calvin Candie, in Quentin Tarantino's Spaghetti Western, Django Unchained (2012). DiCaprio's next role was as the millionaire Jay Gatsby in Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby (2013), an adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1925 novel of the same name. That year he also starred in the biopic The Wolf of Wall Street (Martin Scorsese, 2013), based on the life of stockbroker Jordan Belfort, who was arrested in the late 1990s for securities fraud and money laundering. The film earned him a Golden Globe and Oscar nominations for Best Actor and Best Picture. DiCaprio was an executive producer on Virunga (Orlando von Einsiedel, 2014), a British documentary film about four people fighting to protect the world's last mountain gorillas from war and poaching. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. In 2015, DiCaprio produced and played fur trapper Hugh Glass in Alejandro G. Iñárritu's survival drama The Revenant. Built on a budget of $135 million, the well-received film earned $533 million worldwide. The film earned him numerous awards, including an Academy Award, a Golden Globe, a BAFTA, a SAG and a Critic's Choice Award for Best Actor. For the next three years, DiCaprio narrated documentaries and served as a producer for films. DiCaprio returned to acting following a break of four years in Quentin Tarantino's comedy-drama Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019), opposite Brad Pitt. He received nominations for an Oscar, a Golden Globe and a BAFTA Award for Best Actor. The film earned a total of $374 million against its $90-million budget. DiCaprio's personal life is the subject of widespread media attention. He rarely gives interviews and is reluctant to discuss his private life. Among his former girlfriends are Brazilian model Gisele Bündchen, Israeli model Bar Refaeli, and German model Toni Garrn.
Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Under the rule of Duchess Satine Kryze, the planet Mandalore finally saw peace. While arguably a positive change, many Mandalorians who were unable (or unwilling) to give up their warlike ways found themselves exiled. The children of those exiled quickly tired of the constant fighting and decided to follow their own paths.
Twins, Kalla and Rev Soldet, along with their younger brother, Uvo, were among those who fled to find their own way. After spending their youth embroiled in seemingly endless combat, the three packed their things and traveled to Lothal.
If there is one skill the three runaways are happy to have acquired from their time as soldiers, it’s the ability to improvise. Short on funds, but long on know-how, the group quickly cobbled together a small transport, primarily using wreckage from an old A-Wing and a Firespray class interceptor. With it, the siblings make a living trading goods across the plains of Lothal. Tools, parts, weapons, – all quality salvage is fair game. Occasionally even harder-to-find items can be made available, for the right price.
While having no desire to fight, and no weapons on the craft itself, the Soldets wanted to make it clear they were not to be trifled with, hence the death’s head that gives the ship its name. The Death’s Head has considerable cargo space, as well as living quarters for extended travels. Since there are occasionally long expanses of open country between populated areas, the turbines at either side of the ship are passive, and used to collect the wind sweeping across the great plains to generate electricity.
With their Death’s Head, the Soldet siblings have created a considerable name for themselves. Their reputation for speed, fairness, and reliability assures that those with a need for specific goods know exactly who to turn to.
This build is part of the Star Wars Ugly feature in issue 22 of Blocks
"In this bizarre land swarmed a host of colorful artists, writers, painters, musicians, sculptors, architects, a few with their own places but most in furnished lodgings, surrounded by the workers of Montmartre, the starchy ladies of the rue Bréda, the retired folk of Batignolles, sprouting up all over the place, like weeds. Montmartre was home to every kind of artist." Penned in 1882 by the writer Félicien Champsaur, these words describe the diverse audience of the Chat Noir, a cabaret that epitomized the raucous and irreverent popular entertainment for which the Parisian neighborhood of Montmartre was known. Artists, intellectuals, and writers flocked to this bohemian district, frequenting its vibrant performance halls and celebrating them in their paintings, literature, and poems. But while Montmartre's popularity as a brash amusement district reached dizzying heights in the 1890s, the area itself had rather humble beginnings.
Known for its revolutionary politics and underground culture, its liberal reputation lured students, writers, musicians, and artists to the area in the early 1880s.
Perched atop a hill to the north of Paris's city center, Montmartre was initially a rural village dotted with vineyards and windmills. The area's picturesque appearance and its views of the metropolis below had long been popular with artists, such as the landscape painter Georges Michel (1763–1843), who captured the area's rustic beauty around 1820 in The Mill of Montmartre (25.110.8). Forty years later, Montmartre would lose its agrarian nature when it was officially annexed into Paris's rapidly expanding city limits. Despite its eventual urbanization, the neighborhood retained its distinct characteristics, such as the old buildings, steep and narrow streets, and rustic windmills, some of which are still in existence today.
Montmartre's remote location and inexpensive lodgings contributed to its transformation into a primarily working-class neighborhood in the second half of the nineteenth century. Known for its revolutionary politics and underground culture, its liberal reputation lured students, writers, musicians, and artists to the area in the early 1880s. The more affluent lower slopes, which Vincent van Gogh referred to as the "grands boulevards," housed the apartments and studios of established painters such as Edgar Degas (1834–1917), Auguste Renoir (1841–1919), and Gustave Moreau (1826–1898). This locale was also home to art supply vendors and several important art dealers and galleries, such as Georges Petit, Paul Durand-Ruel, and Goupil & Cie.
Rents dropped steadily as one mounted the precarious streets to the top of the hill, called the "butte," and the population became increasingly working class. It was in this area—Van Gogh's "petits boulevards"—that young avant-garde artists such as Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864–1901), Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890), Émile Bernard (1868–1941), and Louis Anquetin (1861–1932) lived and worked. A long-established center of local amusement, the "butte" featured working-class dance halls such as the Moulin de la Galette, whose iconic double windmills became the first architectural symbol of Montmartre's bohemian culture. The Moulin de la Galette became a popular subject at the fin-de-siècle and was painted by, among others, Renoir and the visiting Catalan painters Pablo Picasso (1881–1973), Santiago Rusinõl (1861–1931), and Ramón Casas (1866–1932).
Replacing the Latin Quarter as the locus of the city's intellectual and artistic community, Montmartre boasted a thriving bohemian culture that was driven by its critique of decadent society. Its raucous café-concerts and cabarets featured satires and crude, often subversive, performances that mocked the Third Republic's bourgeois morality and increasingly corrupt politics. Cabarets and café-concerts were favorite spots for avant-garde artists such as Degas, who sought to capture their celebrated performers, hazy atmospheres, and artificial stage lighting in his paintings, pastels, and prints (61.101.7; 19.29.3).
By the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the appeal of the cabarets and café-concerts extended well beyond the borders of Montmartre. Its performance halls provided a rare opportunity for the mixing of social classes, particularly between bourgeois men and working-class women, whose interactions were often based on prostitution. The blurring of class boundaries contributed to Montmartre's reputation as a place for escape, pleasure, entertainment, and sexual freedom. Nowhere was this more evident than in its numerous dance halls, whose popularity reached a zenith with the opening of the Moulin Rouge in 1889.
Strategically located on the class divide at the bottom of the "butte," the Moulin Rouge offered a wide range of entertainments to attract a more upscale clientele, from clowns (49.55.50), acrobats, and tightrope walkers to singers and donkey rides in its outdoor garden. The dance floor featured local stars performing the latest crazes, such as the particularly erotic version of the popular cancan called le chahut. In the 1880s and 1890s, artists would immortalize this famous dance in works such as Georges Seurat's Le Chahut (1889–90; Kröller-Müller Museum), in which his innovative pointillist technique expresses the modernity of his subject.
Toulouse-Lautrec was particularly drawn to the diversity of the dance hall's audience, relying on recognizable Monmartrois types—the cancan dancer, the young working-class woman, the bourgeois man—to convey both the sexual freedom and the spectacle associated with the quarter. Combining commercial advertising techniques with avant-garde compositions characterized by cut-off angles, simplified silhouettes, and flat areas of pure color, he created bold and vivid lithographs of Montmartre's most celebrated performers (32.88.17; 32.88.15).
His first commercial poster, Moulin Rouge: La Goulue (1891; 32.88.12), contrasts the seductive performance of La Goulue (The Glutton), one of the dance hall's most famous stars, with an anonymous, predominantly male audience identifiable as middle class by the ubiquitous top hat. Such sexually suggestive images—a direct result of the loosening of censorship laws in 1881—created a sensation with the Parisian public as they both assaulted bourgeois morals and transformed Montmartre's working-class performers into overnight celebrities.
Toulouse-Lautrec's interest in Montmartre culture was not limited to advertisements, however, and he became the first artist to dedicate large-scale canvases to the seedier aspects of its nightlife. Employing methods of caricature with a rapid execution, he exposed the artificiality, anxiety, and social tension that characterized fin-de-siècle Parisian society in paintings such as At the Moulin Rouge (1892/95; Art Institute of Chicago) and The Englishman at the Moulin Rouge (1892; 67.187.108).
The 1880s and 1890s also witnessed the rise in popularity of the circus, which was considered to be a form of artistic expression. Like the dance hall, the circus offered its audience both visual and physical spectacles, and its performers became favored subjects among modern artists, for example Seurat's Circus Sideshow (1887–88; 61.101.17) and the Harlequin by Pablo Picasso (1901; 60.87). The connection between the entertainments offered in both the dance hall and the circus tent is underscored by Toulouse-Lautrec's Equestrienne (At the Circus Fernando) (1887–88; Art Institute of Chicago), a sexually charged image that was purchased to decorate the Moulin Rouge.
By the time of the World's Fair held in Paris in 1900, Montmartre had developed into a veritable entertainment industry, boasting over forty venues comprised of cabarets, café-concerts, dance halls, music halls, theaters, and circuses. The area's underground bohemian culture had become a part of mainstream bourgeois entertainment through the rapid commercialization and marketing of its venues and performers. As a result, Toulouse-Lautrec and his avant-garde contemporaries lost interest in Montmartre's nightlife and sought their modern subjects elsewhere. What had begun as a critique of decadent society had become a symbol of decadence itself.
Nicole Myers
Department of European Paintings, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Postcard
A postally unused postcard that was published in 1986 by Whiteway Publications Ltd. of Unit 1, Bard Road, London W10. The photography was by Rex Features, and the card, which has a divided back, was printed in England.
Prince Andrew, Duke of York
Prince Andrew, Duke of York, KG, GCVO, CD was born Andrew Albert Christian Edward on the 19th. February 1960.
He is a member of the British royal family, and the younger brother of King Charles III and the third child of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.
Andrew is eighth in the line of succession to the British throne, and the first person in the line who is not a descendant of the reigning monarch.
Andrew served in the Royal Navy as a helicopter pilot and instructor, and as the captain of a warship. During the Falklands War, he flew on multiple missions including anti-surface warfare, casualty evacuation, and Exocet missile decoy.
In 1986, he married Sarah Ferguson and was made Duke of York. They have two daughters: Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie. Their marriage, separation in 1992, and divorce in 1996 attracted extensive media coverage.
Andrew served as the UK's Special Representative for International Trade and Investment for 10 years until July 2011.
In 2014, the American-Australian campaigner Virginia Giuffre alleged that, as a 17-year-old, she was sex-trafficked to Andrew by the American financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Andrew denied any wrongdoing. Following criticism for his association with Epstein, Andrew resigned from public roles in May 2020, and his honorary military affiliations and royal charitable patronages were removed by Queen Elizabeth II in January 2022.
He was the defendant in a civil lawsuit over sexual assault filed by Giuffre in the State of New York. The lawsuit was settled out of court in February 2022.
Prince Andrew - The Early Years
Andrew was born in the Belgian Suite of Buckingham Palace on the 19th. February 1960 at 3:30 p.m. He was baptised in the palace's Music Room on the 8th. April 1960.
Andrew was the first child born to a reigning British monarch since Princess Beatrice in 1857. As with his siblings, Charles, Anne, and Edward, Andrew was looked after by a governess, who was responsible for his early education at Buckingham Palace.
Andrew was sent to Heatherdown School near Ascot in Berkshire. In September 1973, he entered Gordonstoun, in northern Scotland, which his father and elder brother had also attended.
He was nicknamed "the Sniggerer" by his schoolmates at Gordonstoun, because of "his penchant for off-colour jokes, at which he laughed inordinately".
While there, he spent six months—from January to June 1977—participating in an exchange programme to Lakefield College School in Canada. He left Gordonstoun in July two years later with A-levels in English, History, and Economics.
Prince Andrew's Military Service
Royal Navy Service
The Royal Household announced in November 1978 that Andrew would join the Royal Navy the following year.
In December, he underwent various sporting tests and examinations at the Aircrew Selection Centre at RAF Biggin Hill, along with further tests and interviews at HMS Daedalus, and interviews at the Admiralty Interview Board, HMS Sultan.
During March and April 1979, he was enrolled at the Royal Naval College Flight, undergoing pilot training, until he was accepted as a trainee helicopter pilot and signed on for 12 years from the 11th. May 1979.
On the 1st. September 1979, Andrew was appointed as a midshipman, and entered Britannia Royal Naval College, Dartmouth.
During 1979 Andrew also completed the Royal Marines All Arms Commando Course for which he received his Green Beret. He was commissioned as a sub-lieutenant on the 1st. September 1981, and appointed to the Trained Strength on the 22nd. October.
After passing out from Dartmouth, Andrew went on to elementary flying training with the Royal Air Force at RAF Leeming, and later, basic flying training with the navy at HMS Seahawk, where he learned to fly the Gazelle helicopter.
After being awarded his wings, Andrew moved on to more advanced training on the Sea King helicopter, and conducted operational flying training until 1982. He joined carrier-based squadron, 820 Naval Air Squadron, serving aboard the aircraft carrier, HMS Invincible.
The Falklands War
On the 2nd. April 1982, Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands, a British overseas territory, leading to the Falklands War.
Invincible was one of the two operational aircraft carriers available at the time, and, as such, was to play a major role in the Royal Navy task force assembled to sail south to retake the islands.
Andrew's place on board and the possibility of the Queen's son being killed in action made the British government apprehensive, and the cabinet desired that Prince Andrew be moved to a desk job for the duration of the conflict.
The Queen, though, insisted that her son be allowed to remain with his ship. Prince Andrew remained on board Invincible to serve as a Sea King helicopter co-pilot, flying on missions that included anti-submarine warfare and anti-surface warfare.
Andrew's other roles included acting as an Exocet missile decoy, casualty evacuation, transport, and search and air rescue. He witnessed the Argentinian attack on the SS Atlantic Conveyor.
At the end of the war, Invincible returned to Portsmouth, where Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip joined other families of the crew in welcoming the vessel home.
The Argentine military government reportedly planned, but did not attempt, to assassinate Andrew on Mustique in July 1982.
Though he had brief assignments to HMS Illustrious, RNAS Culdrose, and the Joint Services School of Intelligence, Prince Andrew remained with Invincible until 1983. Commander Nigel Ward's memoir, Sea Harrier Over the Falklands, described Prince Andrew as:
"An excellent pilot and a
very promising officer."
Prince Andrew's Career as a Naval Officer
In late 1983, Andrew transferred to RNAS Portland, and was trained to fly the Lynx helicopter. On the 1st. February 1984 he was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant, whereupon Queen Elizabeth II appointed him as her personal aide-de-camp.
Prince Andrew served aboard HMS Brazen as a flight pilot until 1986, including deployment to the Mediterranean Sea as part of Standing NRF Maritime Group 2.
On the 23rd. October 1986, the Duke of York (as he was by then) transferred to the General List, enrolled in a four-month helicopter warfare instructor's course at RNAS Yeovilton, and, upon graduation, served from February 1987 to April 1988 as a helicopter warfare officer in 702 Naval Air Squadron, RNAS Portland.
He also served on HMS Edinburgh as an officer of the watch and Assistant Navigating Officer until 1989, including a six-month deployment to the Far East as part of Exercise Outback 88.
The Duke of York served as flight commander and pilot of the Lynx HAS3 on HMS Campbeltown from 1989 to 1991. He also acted as Force Aviation Officer to Standing NRF Maritime Group 1 while Campbeltown was flagship of the NATO force in the North Atlantic from 1990 to 1991.
Andrew passed the squadron command examination on the 16th. July 1991, attended the Staff College, Camberley the following year, and completed the Army Staff course. He was promoted to Lieutenant-Commander on the 1st. February 1992, and passed the ship command examination on the 12th. March 1992.
From 1993 to 1994, Prince Andrew commanded the Hunt-class minehunter HMS Cottesmore.
From 1995 to 1996, Andrew was posted as Senior Pilot of 815 Naval Air Squadron, at the time the largest flying unit in the Fleet Air Arm. His main responsibility was to supervise flying standards and to guarantee an effective operational capability.
He was promoted to Commander on the 27th. April 1999, finishing his active naval career at the Ministry of Defence in 2001, as an officer of the Diplomatic Directorate of the Naval Staff.
In July 2001, Andrew was retired from the Active List of the Navy. Three years later, he was made an Honorary Captain. On the 19th. February 2010, his 50th. birthday, he was promoted to Rear Admiral.
Five years later, he was promoted to Vice Admiral.
Andrew ceased using his honorary military titles in January 2022. The action came after more than 150 Royal Navy, RAF and Army veterans signed a letter, requesting that Queen Elizabeth II remove his honorary military appointments in the light of his involvement in a sexual assault civil case.
However it was reported that he would still retain his service rank of Vice Admiral.
Prince Andrew's Personal Life
Personal Interests
Andrew is a keen golfer, and has had a low single-figure handicap. He was captain of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews between 2003 and 2004—during the club's 250th. anniversary season.
He was also patron of a number of royal golf clubs, and had been elected as an honorary member of many others. In 2004, he was criticised by Labour Co-op MP Ian Davidson, who in a letter to the NAO questioned Andrew's decision to fly to St. Andrews on RAF aircraft for two golfing trips.
Andrew resigned his honorary membership of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews when the Queen removed royal patronages at several golf clubs. His honorary membership of the Royal Dornoch Golf Club was revoked in the following month.
Andrew is a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Shipwrights, the senior maritime City livery company.
Prince Andrew's Relationship with Koo Stark
Andrew met the American photographer and actress Koo Stark in February 1981, before his active service in the Falklands War. In October 1982, they took a holiday together on the island of Mustique.
Tina Brown said that Stark was Andrew's only serious love interest. In 1983, they split up under pressure from press, paparazzi, and palace.
In 1997, Andrew became godfather to Stark's daughter. When Andrew was facing accusations in 2015 over his connection to Jeffrey Epstein, Koo came to his defence.
Prince Andrew's Marriage to Sarah Ferguson
Andrew had known Sarah Ferguson since childhood; they had met occasionally at polo matches, and became re-acquainted with each other at Royal Ascot in 1985.
Andrew married Sarah at Westminster Abbey on the 23rd. July 1986. On the same day, Queen Elizabeth II created him Duke of York, Earl of Inverness, and Baron Killyleagh.
The couple appeared to have a happy marriage and had two daughters together, Beatrice and Eugenie, presenting a united outward appearance during the late 1980's. His wife's personal qualities were seen as refreshing in the context of the formal protocol surrounding the royal family.
However, Andrew's frequent travel due to his military career, as well as relentless, often critical, media attention focused on the Duchess of York, led to fractures in the marriage.
On the 19th. March 1992, the couple announced plans to separate, and did so in an amicable way. Some months later, pictures appeared in the tabloid media of the Duchess in intimate association with John Bryan, her financial advisor at the time, which effectively ended any hopes of a reconciliation between Andrew and Sarah.
The marriage ended in divorce on the 30th. May 1996. The Duke of York spoke fondly of his former wife:
"We have managed to work together
to bring our children up in a way that
few others have been able to, and I
am extremely grateful to be able to
do that."
The couple agreed to share custody of their two daughters, and the family continued to live at Sunninghill Park (built near Windsor Great Park for the couple in 1990) until Andrew moved to the Royal Lodge in 2004.
In 2007, Sarah moved into Dolphin House in Englefield Green, less than a mile from the Royal Lodge. In 2008, a fire at Dolphin House resulted in Sarah moving into Royal Lodge, again sharing a house with Andrew.
Andrew's lease of Royal Lodge is for 75 years, with the Crown Estate as landlord, at a cost of a single £1 million premium and a commitment to spend £7.5 million on refurbishment.
In May 2010, Sarah was filmed by a News of the World reporter saying Andrew had agreed that if she were to receive £500,000, he would meet the donor and pass on useful top-level business contacts.
She was filmed receiving, in cash, $40,000 as a down payment. The paper said that Andrew did not know of the situation. In July 2011, Sarah stated that her multi-million pound debts had been cleared due to the intervention of her former husband, whom she compared to a "knight on a white charger".
Prince Andrews' Activities and Charitable Work
The Duke was patron of the Middle East Association (MEA), the UK's premier organisation for promoting trade and good relations with the Middle East, North Africa, Turkey and Iran.
Since his role as Special Representative for International Trade and Investment ended, Andrew continued to support UK enterprise without a special role.
Robert Jobson said he did this work well and wrote:
"He is particularly passionate when dealing
with young start-up entrepreneurs and
bringing them together with successful
businesses at networking and showcasing
events.
Andrew is direct and to the point, and his
methods seem to work".
The Duke was also patron of Fight for Sight, a charity dedicated to research into the prevention and treatment of blindness and eye disease, and was a member of the Scout Association.
He toured Canada frequently to undertake duties related to his Canadian military role. Rick Peters, the former Commanding Officer of the Royal Highland Fusiliers of Canada stated that Prince Andrew was "very well informed on Canadian military methods".
While touring India as a part of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee in 2012, Andrew became interested in the work of Women's Interlink Foundation (WIF), a charity which helps women acquire skills to earn income.
He and his family later initiated Key to Freedom, a project which tries to "find a route to market for products made by WIF".
On the 3rd. September 2012, Andrew was among a team of 40 people who abseiled down The Shard (tallest building in Europe) to raise money for educational charities.
In 2013, it was announced that Andrew was becoming the patron of London Metropolitan University and the University of Huddersfield. In July 2015, he was installed as Chancellor of the University of Huddersfield.
In recognition of Andrew's promotion of entrepreneurship he was elected to an Honorary Fellowship at Hughes Hall in the University of Cambridge on the 1st. May 2018.
He became the patron of the charity Attend in 2003, and was a member of the International Advisory Board of the Royal United Services Institute.
In 2014, Andrew founded the Pitch@Palace initiative to support entrepreneurs with the amplification and acceleration of their business ideas. Entrepreneurs selected for Pitch@Palace Bootcamp are officially invited by Andrew to attend St. James Palace in order to pitch their ideas and to be connected with potential investors, mentors and business contacts.
The Duke also founded The Prince Andrew Charitable Trust which aimed to support young people in different areas such as education and training.
He also founded a number of awards including Inspiring Digital Enterprise Award (iDEA), a programme to develop the digital and enterprise skills, the Duke of York Award for Technical Education, given to talented young people in technical education, and the Duke of York Young Entrepreneur Award, which recognised talents of young people in entrepreneurship.
The Duke of York lent his support to organisations that focus on science and technology by becoming the patron of Catalyst Inc and TeenTech.
In 2014, Andrew visited Geneva, Switzerland, to promote British science at CERN's 60th. anniversary celebrations. In May 2018, he visited China and opened the Pitch@Palace China Bootcamp 2.0 at Peking University.
In March 2019, Andrew took over the patronage of the Outward Bound Trust from his father, the Duke of Edinburgh, serving up until his own resignation in November 2019. The charity tries to instil leadership qualities among young people.
In May 2019, it was announced that Andrew had succeeded Lord Carrington as patron of the Royal Fine Art Commission Trust.
On 13 January 2022, it was announced that his royal patronages had been handed back to the Queen to be distributed among other members of the royal family.
Prince Andrew's Health
On the 2nd. June 2022, Andrew tested positive for COVID-19, and it was announced that he would not be present at the Platinum Jubilee National Service of Thanksgiving at St. Paul's Cathedral on the 3rd. June.
Allegations of Sexual Abuse
Andrew was friends with Jeffrey Epstein, an American financier who was convicted of sex trafficking in 2008. BBC News reported in March 2011 that the friendship was producing "a steady stream of criticism", and that there were calls for him to step down from his role as trade envoy.
Andrew was also criticised in the media after his former wife, Sarah, disclosed that he helped arrange for Epstein to pay off £15,000 of her debts.
Andrew had been photographed in December 2010 strolling with Epstein in Central Park during a visit to New York City. In July 2011, Andrew's role as trade envoy was terminated, and he reportedly cut all ties with Epstein.
On the 30th. December 2014, a Florida court filing on behalf of lawyers Edwards and Cassell alleged that Andrew was one of several prominent figures, including lawyer Alan Dershowitz and "a former prime minister", to have participated in sexual activities with a minor later identified as Virginia Giuffre (then known by her maiden name Virginia Roberts), who was allegedly trafficked by Epstein.
An affidavit from Giuffre was included in an earlier lawsuit from 2008 accusing the US Justice Department of violating the Crime Victims' Rights Act during Epstein's first criminal case by not allowing several of his victims to challenge his plea deal; Andrew was otherwise not a party to the lawsuit.
In January 2015, there was renewed media and public pressure for Buckingham Palace to explain Andrew's connection with Epstein. Buckingham Palace stated that:
"Any suggestion of impropriety with
underage minors is categorically
untrue."
The denial was later repeated.
Requests from Giuffre's lawyers for a statement from Andrew about the allegations, under oath, were returned unanswered.
Dershowitz denied the allegations in Giuffre's statement and sought disbarment of the lawyers filing the suit. Edwards and Cassell sued Dershowitz for defamation in January 2015; he countersued.
The two parties settled in 2016 for an undisclosed financial sum. Epstein sued Edwards for civil racketeering, but later dropped his suit; Edwards countersued for malicious prosecution with the result that Epstein issued a public apology to the lawyer in December 2018.
Giuffre asserted that she had sex with Andrew on three occasions, including a trip to London in 2001 when she was 17, and later in New York and on Little Saint James in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
She alleged Epstein paid her $15,000 after she had sex with Andrew in London. Flight logs show Andrew and Giuffre were in the places where she alleged their meetings took place.
Andrew was also photographed with his arm around Giuffre's waist with an Epstein associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, in the background. Andrew's supporters have repeatedly said the photo is fake and edited.
Giuffre stated that she was pressured to have sex with Andrew and "wouldn't have dared object" as Epstein, through contacts, could have her "killed or abducted".
On the 7th. April 2015, Judge Kenneth Marra ruled that:
"The sex allegations made against
Andrew in court papers filed in Florida
must be struck from the public record".
Marra made no ruling as to whether claims by Giuffre are true or false, specifically stating that she may later give evidence when the case comes to court. Giuffre stated that she would not "be bullied back into silence".
Tuan "John" Alessi, who was Epstein's butler, stated in a deposition he filed for Giuffre's 2016 defamation case against Maxwell that Andrew's hitherto unremarked visits to the Epstein house in Palm Beach were more frequent than previously thought. He maintained that Andrew "spent weeks with us" and received "daily massages".
In August 2019, court documents for a defamation case between Giuffre and Maxwell revealed that a second girl, Johanna Sjoberg, gave evidence alleging that Andrew had placed his hand on her breast while in Epstein's mansion posing for a photo with his Spitting Image puppet.
Later that month, Andrew released a statement that said:
"At no stage during the limited time I
spent with Epstein did I see, witness
or suspect any behaviour of the sort
that subsequently led to his arrest
and conviction."
Andrew did however express regret for meeting him in 2010 after Epstein had already pleaded guilty to sex crimes for the first time.
At the end of August 2019, The New Republic published a September 2013 email exchange between John Brockman and Evgeny Morozov, in which Brockman mentioned seeing a British man nicknamed "Andy" receive a foot massage from two Russian women at Epstein's New York residence in 2010. He had realised that:
"The recipient of Irina's foot massage
was His Royal Highness, Prince Andrew,
the Duke of York".
In July 2020, Caroline Kaufman, an alleged victim of Epstein, said in a federal lawsuit that she had seen Andrew at Epstein's New York mansion in December 2010.
In November 2021 Lawrence Visoski, Epstein's pilot, testified in court during Ghislaine Maxwell's trial that Prince Andrew flew in Epstein's private plane along with other prominent individuals, including Bill Clinton, Donald Trump and John Glenn.
Visoski stated he did not notice any sexual activity or wrongdoing on the plane.
Similarly, Andrew's name was recorded on the 12th. May 2001 by Epstein's pilot David Rodgers in his logbook, and he testified that Andrew flew three times with Epstein and Giuffre in 2001.
The following month a picture of Epstein and Maxwell, sitting at a cabin on the Queen's Balmoral estate, around 1999, at the invitation of Andrew, was shown to the jury to establish their status as partners.
On the 5th. January 2022, Virginia Giuffre's former boyfriend, Anthony Figueroa, said on Good Morning Britain that Giuffre told him Epstein would take her to meet Prince Andrew. He said:
"She called me when she was on the trip
and she was talking about she knew what
they wanted her to do and she was really
nervous and scared because she didn't
know how to react to it".
He alleged the meeting had taken place in London. In a court filing, Andrew's lawyers had previously referred to a statement by Figueroa's sister, Crystal Figueroa, who alleged that in her bid to find victims for Epstein, Giuffre had asked her:
"Do you know any girls
who are kind of slutty?"
The same month, Carolyn Andriano, who as a 14-year-old was introduced by Giuffre to Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein and was a prosecution witness in Maxwell's trial, said in an interview with the Daily Mail that then 17-year-old Giuffre told her in 2001 that she had slept with Prince Andrew. She stated:
"Giuffre said, 'I got to sleep with him'.
She didn't seem upset about it. She
thought it was pretty cool."
In an ITV documentary, former royal protection officer Paul Page, who was convicted and given a six year sentence following a £3 million property investment scam in 2009, recounted Maxwell's frequent visits to Buckingham Palace, and suggested the two might have had an intimate relationship, while Lady Victoria Hervey added that Andrew was present at social occasions held by Maxwell.
The Duke of York's name and contact numbers for Buckingham Palace, Sunninghill Park, Wood Farm and Balmoral also appeared in Maxwell and Epstein's 'Little Black Book', a list of contacts of the duo's powerful and famous friends.
In February 2022, The Daily Telegraph published a photograph of Andrew along with Maxwell giving a tour of Buckingham Palace to Andrew's guests Bill Clinton and Kevin Spacey, with a member of the tour party describing Maxwell as:
"The one who led us into
Buckingham Palace".
Tina Brown, a journalist who edited Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and The Daily Beast, maintains Epstein described Andrew behind his back as an idiot, but found him useful. Brown stated:
"Epstein confided to a friend that he used
to fly Andrew to obscure foreign markets,
where governments were obliged to
receive him, and Epstein went along as
HRH's investment adviser.
With Andrew as frontman, Epstein could
negotiate deals with these (often) shady
players".
In October 2022, Ghislaine Maxwell was interviewed by a documentary filmmaker while serving her sentence in prison, and when asked about her relationship with Andrew, Maxwell stated that:
"I feel bad for him, but I accept our
friendship could not survive my
conviction.
He is paying such a price for the
association.
I consider him a dear friend. I care
about him."
She also stated that she now believed the photograph showing her together with Andrew and Virginia Giuffre was not "a true image," and added that in an email to her lawyer in 2015 she was trying to confirm that she recognised her own house, but the whole image cannot be authentic as "the original has never been produced".
The Newsnight Interview
In November 2019, the BBC's Newsnight arranged an interview between Andrew and presenter Emily Maitlis in which he recounted his friendship with Epstein for the first time.
In the interview, Prince Andrew says he met Epstein in 1999 through Maxwell; this contradicts comments made by Andrew's private secretary in 2011, who said the two met in "the early 1990's".
The Duke also said he did not regret his friendship with Epstein, saying:
"The people that I met and the opportunities
that I was given to learn, either by him or
because of him, were actually very useful".
In the interview, Andrew denied having sex with Giuffre on the 10th. March 2001, as she had accused, because he had been at home with his daughters after attending a party at PizzaExpress in Woking with his elder daughter Beatrice.
Prince Andrew also added that Giuffre's claims about dancing with him at a club in London while he was sweaty were false due to him temporarily losing the ability to sweat after an "adrenaline overdose" during the Falklands War.
However, according to physicians consulted by The Times, an adrenaline overdose typically causes excessive sweating in humans.
Andrew also said that he does not drink, despite Giuffre's account of him providing alcohol for them both. Accounts from other people have supported his statement that he does not drink.
Andrew said that he had stayed in Epstein's mansion for three days in 2010, after Epstein's conviction for sex offences against a minor, describing the location as "a convenient place to stay".
The Duke said that he met Epstein for the sole purpose of breaking off any future relationship with him. He also said that he would be willing to testify under oath regarding his associations with Epstein.
In the 2019 BBC interview, Andrew told Newsnight that his association with Epstein was derived from his long-standing friendship with Ghislaine Maxwell, who was later convicted of colluding in Epstein's sexual abuse.
In July 2022 it was announced that a film would be made of the preparations for the interview and the interview itself. Shooting was planned to start in November 2022. According to Deadline, Scoop is being written by Peter Moffat.
The Civil Lawsuit
In August 2021, Virginia Giuffre sued Prince Andrew in the federal District Court for the Southern District of New York, accusing him of "sexual assault and intentional infliction of emotional distress."
The lawsuit was filed under New York's Child Victims Act, legislation extending the statute of limitations where the plaintiff had been under 18 at the time, 17 in Giuffre's case.
On the 29th. October 2021, Andrew's lawyers filed a response, stating that:
"Our client unequivocally denies
Giuffre's false allegations".
On the 12th. January 2022, Judge Kaplan rejected Andrew's attempts to dismiss the case, allowing the sexual abuse lawsuit to proceed.
In February 2022, the case was settled out of court, with Andrew making a donation to Giuffre's charity for victims of abuse.
The Guardian reported that:
"The Queen's decision to strip Andrew
of his royal patronages, honorary military
titles and any official use of his HRH title,
still stands firm."
Criminal proceedings in the United States over Virginia Giuffre's claims are still possible but are now unlikely, as Virginia Giuffre died by her own hand on the 24th. April 2025 at a farm in the Neergabby area outside of Perth, Australia, where she had lived for the previous several years.
Repercussions
The 2019 Newsnight interview was believed by Maitlis and Newsnight to have been approved by the Queen, although "palace insiders" speaking to The Sunday Telegraph disputed this. One of Prince Andrew's official advisors resigned just prior to the interview being aired.
Although Andrew was pleased with the outcome of the interview – reportedly giving Maitlis and the Newsnight team a tour of Buckingham Palace – it received negative reactions from both the media and the public, both in and outside of the UK.
The interview was described as a "car crash", "nuclear explosion level bad", and the worst public relations crisis for the royal family since the death of Diana, Princess of Wales.
Experts and those with ties to Buckingham Palace said that the interview, its fallout and the abrupt suspension of Andrew's royal duties were unprecedented.
On the 18th. November 2019, accountancy firm KPMG announced it would not be renewing its sponsorship of Prince Andrew's entrepreneurial scheme Pitch@Palace, and on the 19th. November Standard Chartered also withdrew its support.
Also on the 19th. November 2019, the Students' Union of the University of Huddersfield passed a motion to lobby Andrew to resign as its chancellor, as London Metropolitan University was considering Andrew's role as its patron.
On the 20th. November 2019, a statement from Buckingham Palace announced that Andrew was suspending his public duties "for the foreseeable future".
The decision, made with the consent of the Queen, was accompanied by the insistence that Andrew sympathised with Epstein's victims. Other working royals took his commitments over in the short term.
On the 21st. November, Andrew relinquished his role as chancellor of the University of Huddersfield. Three days later, the palace confirmed that Andrew was to step down from all 230 of his patronages, although he expressed a wish to have some sort of public role at some future time.
On the 16th. January 2020, it was reported that the Home Office was recommending "a major downgrade of security" for Andrew, which would put an end to his "round-the-clock armed police protection".
It was later reported that he had been allowed to keep his £300,000-a-year security and the recommendation would be reviewed again in the future.
On the 28th. January 2020, US Attorney Geoffrey Berman stated that Prince Andrew had provided "zero co-operation" with federal prosecutors and the FBI regarding the ongoing investigations, despite his initial promise in the Newsnight interview when he said he was willing to help the authorities.
Buckingham Palace did not comment on the issue, though sources close to Andrew said that he "hasn't been approached" by US authorities and investigators, and his legal team announced that he had offered to be a witness "on at least three occasions" but had been refused by the Department of Justice.
The US authorities denied being approached by Andrew for an interview, and labeled his statements as:
"A way to falsely portray himself to
the public as eager and willing to
cooperate".
Spencer Kuvin, who represented nine of Epstein's victims, said Andrew could be arrested if he ever returns to the United States, saying:
"It is highly unlikely an extradition
would ever occur, so the Prince
would have to be here in the US
and be arrested while he's here."
In March 2020, Andrew hired crisis-management expert Mark Gallagher, who had helped high-profile clients falsely accused in Operation Midland.
In April 2020, it was reported that the Duke of York Young Champions Trophy would not be played anymore, after all activities carried out by the Prince Andrew Charitable Trust were stopped.
In May 2020, it was reported that the Prince Andrew Charitable Trust was under investigation by the Charity Commission regarding some regulatory issues about £350,000 of payments to his former private secretary Amanda Thirsk.
According to The Times, senior personnel in the navy and army considered Andrew to be an embarrassment for the military, and believed he should be stripped of his military roles.
In May 2020 it was announced that Andrew would permanently resign from all public roles over his Epstein ties.
In June 2020, it became known that Andrew is a person of interest in a criminal investigation in the United States, and that the United States had filed a mutual legal assistance request to British authorities in order to question Andrew.
Newsweek reported that a majority of British citizens believe Andrew should be stripped of his titles and extradited to the United States. Following the arrest of Ghislaine Maxwell in July 2020, Andrew cancelled a planned trip to Spain, reportedly due to fears that he might be arrested and extradited to the United States.
In August 2020, anti-child trafficking protesters chanting "Paedophile! Paedophile!" referencing Andrew gathered outside Buckingham Palace, and videos of the protest went viral.
In August 2021, royal biographer Penny Junor maintained Prince Andrew's reputation with the public was damaged beyond repair.
It was reported in August 2021 that American authorities were pessimistic about being able to interview Andrew.
In January 2022, Andrew's social media accounts were deleted, his page on the royal family's website was rewritten in the past tense, and his military affiliations and patronages were removed to put an emphasis on his departure from public life.
He also stopped using the style His Royal Highness (HRH) though it was not formally removed. In the same month, York Racecourse announced that it would rename the Duke of York Stakes.
Prince Andrew High School in Nova Scotia, which had announced two years earlier that it was considering a name change because the name "no longer reflects the values of the community", stated that it would have a new name at the next academic year.
In February 2022, Belfast City Council and the Northern Ireland Assembly decided not to fly a union flag for Andrew's birthday. In the same month, the Mid and East Antrim Borough Council announced that they would hold a debate in June 2022 regarding a motion to rename Prince Andrew Way in Carrickfergus.
On the 27th. April 2022 York City Council unanimously voted to remove Andrew's Freedom of the City. Rachael Maskell, York Central MP, said Andrew was the "first to ever have their freedom removed".
There have also been calls to remove the Duke of York title.
In March 2022, Andrew made his first official appearance in months, helping the Queen to walk into Westminster Abbey for a memorial service for his father, the Duke of Edinburgh. There was a mixed reaction by commentators to his presence, with some saying that:
"It would send the wrong message to
victims of sexual abuse about how
powerful men are able to absolve
themselves from their conduct."
Others argued that his appearance was required "as a son, in memory of his father".
In June 2022, The Telegraph reported that Andrew had asked the Queen to be reinstated as Colonel of the Grenadier Guards, to use his HRH (His Royal Highness) title and to be allowed to appear at official events due to his position as a 'prince of the blood'.
In the same month, he took part in private aspects of the Garter Day ceremony, including lunch and investiture of new members, but was excluded from the public procession following an intervention by his brother Charles and his nephew William that banned him from appearing anywhere the public could see him.
Andrew's name featured on one of the lists, showing that this was a last-minute decision.
In June 2022 Rachael Maskell MP introduced a 'Removal of Titles' bill in the House of Commons. If passed, this bill would enable Andrew to be stripped of his Duke of York title and other titles. Maskell maintains that 80% of York citizens want Andrew to lose all connection with their city.
The proposed bill would also enable other people considered unworthy to lose their titles. The bill is due to get its second reading on the 9th. December 2022.
In August 2022, it was reported that the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures had assessed the security threat against Andrew and concluded that he should keep his taxpayer-funded police bodyguards, at an annual cost estimated to be between £500,000 and £3 million.
In early 2021 there were at least two trespassing incidents reported at his Windsor property, and in December he was verbally abused by a woman as he was driving his car.
Following the death of the Queen on the 8th. September 2022, Andrew appeared in civilian clothing at various ceremonial events. As he walked behind his mother's coffin in a funeral procession in Edinburgh on the 12th. September, a 22-year-old man shouted "Andrew, you're a sick old man".
The heckler was arrested and charged with committing a breach of the peace.
Andrew wore military uniform for a 15-minute vigil by the Queen's coffin at Westminster Hall on the 16th. September. Lawyer Spencer Kuvin, who represented nine of Epstein's victims, was critical of Andrew's public role in the lead-up to the funeral, and stated that:
"He is attempting now to see if he
can rehabilitate his image in the public."
New York lawyer Mariann Wang, who represented up to 12 Epstein's victims described Andrew's public profile as "quite outrageous. She went on to say:
"It is harmful for any survivor of trauma
to see an abuser or their enablers
continue to reap the benefits of privilege,
status and power."
Controversies and Other Incidents
Prince Andrew as Special Representative for International Trade and Investment
From 2001 until July 2011, Andrew worked with UK Trade & Investment, part of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, as the United Kingdom's Special Representative for International Trade and Investment.
The post, previously held by Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, involved representing and promoting the UK at various trade fairs and conferences around the world.
Andrew's suitability for the role was challenged in the House of Commons by Shadow Justice Minister Chris Bryant in February 2011, at the time of the 2011 Libyan civil war, on the grounds that he was:
"Not only a very close friend of
Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, but also a
close friend of the convicted
Libyan gun smuggler Tarek
Kaituni".
Further problems arose as he hosted a lunch for Sakher El Materi, a member of the corrupt Tunisian regime, at the Palace around the time of the Tunisian Revolution.
Andrew also formed a friendship with Ilham Aliyev, the president of Azerbaijan who has been criticised for corruption and for abuses of human rights by Amnesty International, and visited him both during and after his tenure as the UK trade envoy.
As of November 2014, Andrew had met Aliyev on 12 separate occasions.
Andrew did not receive a salary from the UK Trade & Investment for his role as Special Representative, but he went on expenses-paid delegations, and was alleged to have occasionally used trips paid for by the government for his personal leisure, which earned him the nickname "Airmiles Andy" by the press.
On the 8th. March 2011, The Daily Telegraph reported:
"In 2010, the Prince spent £620,000
as a trade envoy, including £154,000
on hotels, food and hospitality and
£465,000 on travel."
The controversies, together with his ties to Jeffrey Epstein, made him step down from the role in 2011.
In November 2020, and following reviews of emails, internal documents, and unreported regulatory filings, as well as interviews with 10 former bank insiders, Bloomberg Businessweek reported on Andrew using his royal cachet and role as Special Representative for International Trade and Investment for helping David Rowland and his private bank, Banque Havilland, with securing deals with clients around the world.
The Rowland family are among the investment advisers to Andrew, and he was present for the official opening ceremony of their bank in July 2009.
Alleged Comments on Corruption and Kazakhstan
As the United Kingdom's Special Trade Representative, Andrew travelled the world to promote British businesses.
It was revealed in the United States diplomatic cables leak that Andrew had been reported on by Tatiana Gfoeller, the United States Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan, discussing bribery in Kyrgyzstan and the investigation into the Al-Yamamah arms deal.
She explained:
"The Duke was referencing an investigation,
subsequently closed, into alleged kickbacks
a senior Saudi royal had received in exchange
for the multi-year, lucrative BAE Systems
contract to provide equipment and training to
Saudi security forces."
The dispatch continued:
"His mother's subjects seated around the
table roared their approval. He then went
on to 'these (expletive) journalists, especially
from the National Guardian [sic], who poke
their noses everywhere' and (presumably)
make it harder for British businessmen to
do business. The crowd practically clapped!"
In May 2008, he attended a goose-hunt in Kazakhstan with President Nursultan Nazarbayev.
In 2010, it was revealed that the President's billionaire son-in-law Timur Kulibayev paid Andrew's representatives £15 million – £3 million over the asking price – via offshore companies, for Andrew's Surrey mansion, Sunninghill Park.
Kulibayev frequently appears in US dispatches as one of the men who have accumulated millions in gas-rich Kazakhstan. It was later revealed that Andrew's office tried to get a crown estate property close to Kensington Palace for Kulibayev at that time.
In May 2012, it was reported that Swiss and Italian police investigating "a network of personal and business relationships" allegedly used for "international corruption" were looking at the activities of Enviro Pacific Investments which charges "multi-million pound fees" to energy companies wishing to deal with Kazakhstan.
The trust is believed to have paid £6 million towards the purchase of Sunninghill which now appears derelict. In response, a Palace spokesman said:
"This was a private sale between
two trusts. There was never any
impropriety on the part of The Duke
of York".
Libby Purves wrote in The Times in January 2015:
"Prince Andrew dazzles easily when
confronted with immense wealth and
apparent power.
He has fallen for 'friendships' with bad,
corrupt and clever men, not only in the
US but in Libya, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan,
Tunisia, wherever."
In May 2016, a fresh controversy broke out when the Daily Mail alleged that Andrew had brokered a deal to assist a Greek and Swiss consortium in securing a £385 million contract to build water and sewerage networks in two of Kazakhstan's largest cities, while working as British trade envoy, and had stood to gain a £4 million payment in commission.
The newspaper published an email from Andrew to Kazakh oligarch Kenges Rakishev, (who had allegedly brokered the sale of the Prince's Berkshire mansion Sunninghill Park), and said that Rakishev had arranged meetings for the consortium.
After initially saying the email was a forgery, Buckingham Palace sought to block its publication as a privacy breach. The Palace denied the allegation that Andrew had acted as a "fixer," calling the article "untrue, defamatory and a breach of the editor's code of conduct".
A former Foreign Office minister, MP Chris Bryant stated:
"When I was at the Foreign Office, it was
very difficult to see in whose interests he
[Andrew] was acting. He doesn't exactly
add lustre to the Royal diadem".
Arms Sales
In March 2011, Kaye Stearman of the Campaign Against the Arms Trade told Channel 4 News that CAAT sees Prince Andrew as part of a bigger problem:
"He is the front man for UKTI. Our concerns
are not just Prince Andrew, it's the whole
UKTI set up.
They see arms as just another commodity,
but it has completely disproportionate
resources. At the London office of UKTI the
arms sector has more staff than all the
others put together.
We are concerned that Prince Andrew is
used to sell arms, and where you sell arms
it is likely to be to despotic regimes.
He is the cheerleader in chief for the arms
industry, shaking hands and paving the way
for the salesmen."
In January 2014, Prince Andrew took part in a delegation to Bahrain, a close ally of the United Kingdom. Spokesman for CAAT, Andrew Smith said:
"We are calling on Prince Andrew and the
UK government to stop selling arms to Bahrain.
By endorsing the Bahraini dictatorship, Prince
Andrew is giving his implicit support to their
oppressive practices.
When our government sells arms, it is giving
moral and practical support to an illegitimate
and authoritarian regime and directly supporting
their systematic crackdown on opposition groups.
We shouldn't allow our international image to be
used as a PR tool for the violent and oppressive
dictatorship in Bahrain."
Andrew Smith has also said:
"The prince has consistently used his position
to promote arms sales and boost some of the
most unpleasant governments in the world, his
arms sales haven't just given military support to
corrupt and repressive regimes. They've lent
those regimes political and international
legitimacy."
Reactions to Prince Andrew's Election to the Royal Society
Andrew's election to the Royal Society prompted "Britain's leading scientists" to "revolt" due to Andrew's lack of scientific background, with some noting he had only a secondary school level of education.
In an op-ed in The Sunday Times, pharmacologist, Humboldt Prize recipient, and Fellow of the Royal Society, David Colquhoun opined, in references to Andrew's qualifications, that:
"If I wanted a tip for the winner of
the 14.30 at Newmarket, I'd ask a
royal. For most other questions,
I wouldn't."
Allegations of Racist Language
Rohan Silva, a former Downing Street aide, claimed that, when they met in 2012, Andrew had commented:
"Well, if you'll pardon the expression,
that really is the nigger in the woodpile."
Former home secretary Jacqui Smith also claims that Andrew made a racist comment about Arabs during a state dinner for the Saudi royal family in 2007.
Buckingham Palace denied that Andrew had used racist language on either occasion.
Allegations of Ramming Gates in Windsor Great Park
In March 2016, Republic CEO Graham Smith filed a formal report to the police, requesting an investigation into allegations that Andrew had damaged sensor-operated gates in Windsor Great Park by forcing them open in his Range Rover to avoid going an extra mile on his way home.
The Thames Valley Police dismissed the reports due to lack of details.
Treatment of Reporters, Servants and Others
During his four-day Southern California tour in 1984, Andrew squirted paint onto American and British journalists and photographers who were reporting on the tour, after which he told Los Angeles county supervisor Kenneth Hahn, "I enjoyed that".
The incident damaged the clothes and equipment of reporters and the Los Angeles Herald Examiner submitted a $1,200 bill to the British consulate asking for financial compensation.
The Guardian wrote in 2022:
"His brusque manner with servants
is well-documented. A senior footman
once told a reporter who worked
undercover at Buckingham Palace that
on waking the prince, 'the response can
easily be "f*** off" as good morning'."
Former royal protection officer Paul Page said, in an ITV documentary, that:
"Andrew maintained a collection of
50 or 60 stuffed toys, and if they
weren't put back in the right order
by the maids, he would shout and
scream and become verbally abusive."
Page later stated in the documentary 'Prince Andrew: Banished' that different women would visit Andrew every day, and when one was denied entry into his residence by the security, Andrew allegedly called one of the officers a "fat, lardy-ass c**t" over the phone.
The Duke's former maid, Charlotte Briggs, also recalled setting up the teddy bears on his bed, and told The Sun that when she was bitten by his Norfolk Terrier in 1996, he only laughed and "wasn't bothered".
She said that she was reduced to tears by Andrew for not properly closing the heavy curtains in his office, and added that his behaviour was in contrast to that of his brothers Charles and Edward who "weren't anything like him" and his father Philip whom she described as "so nice and gentlemanly".
Massage therapist Emma Gruenbaum said Andrew regularly overstepped the mark, making creepy sexual comments when she came to give him a massage. Gruenbaum maintained Andrew talked continually about sex during the first massage, and wanted to know when she last had sex. Gruenbaum said Andrew arranged regular massages for roughly two months, and she believed requests for massages stopped when he realised he would not get more.
Finance and Debt Problems
It is unclear how Andrew finances his luxury lifestyle; in 2021 The Guardian wrote:
"With little in the way of visible support,
questions over how Andrew has been
able to fund his lifestyle have rarely been
answered. In the past he has appeared
to live the jetset life of a multimillionaire,
with holidays aboard luxury yachts,
regular golfing sojourns and ski trips to
exclusive resorts."
The Duke of York received a £249,000 annuity from the Queen.
In the twelve-month period up to April 2004, he spent £325,000 on flights, and his trade missions as special representative for UKTI cost £75,000 in 2003.
The Sunday Times reported in July 2008 that for "the Duke of York's public role,... he last year received £436,000 to cover his expenses".
He has a Royal Navy pension of £20,000.
The Duke is also a keen skier, and in 2014 bought a skiing chalet in Verbier, Switzerland, for £13 million jointly with his ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson.
In May 2020, it was reported that they were in a legal dispute over the mortgage. To purchase the chalet, they secured a loan of £13.25 million, and were expected to pay £5 million in cash instalments which, after applying interests, amounted to £6.8 million.
Despite claims that the Queen would help pay the debt, a spokesperson for Andrew confirmed that:
"The Queen will not be
stepping in to settle the
debt".
The Times reported in September 2021 that Andrew and Sarah had reached a legal agreement with the property's previous owner and would sell the house.
The owner agreed to receive £3.4 million, half of the amount that she was owed, as she had been under the impression that Andrew and Sarah were dealing with financial troubles. The money from selling the property is reportedly to be used to pay Andrew's legal expenses over the civil lawsuit as well.
In June 2022 it was reported in Le Temps, a Swiss newspaper, that the sale of the chalet has been frozen because of a £1.6 million debt that Andrew owes to unnamed people.
Law professor Nicolas Jeandin told Le Temps:
"A sale is in principle impossible,
except with the agreement of the
creditor."
In 2021 Bloomberg News reported that a firm connected to David Rowland had been paying off Andrew's debts. In November 2017, Andrew borrowed £250,000 from Banque Havilland, adding to an existing £1.25 million loan that had been "extended or increased 10 times" since 2015.
Documents showed that while the "credibility of the applicant" had been questioned, he was given the loan in an attempt to "further business potential with the Royal Family".
11 days later and in December 2017, £1.5 million was transferred from an account at Albany Reserves, which was controlled by the Rowland family, to Andrew's account at Banque Havilland, paying off the loan that was due in March 2018.
Liberal Democrat politician and staunch republican Norman Baker stated:
"This demonstrates yet again that
significant questions need to be
asked about Prince Andrew's
business dealings and his
association with some dubious
characters."
Several months after Andrew's controversial 2019 Newsnight interview, his private office established the Urramoor Trust, which owned both Lincelles Unlimited (established 2020) and Urramoor Ltd. (established 2013), and according to The Times was set up to support his family.
Lincelles was voluntarily wound up in 2022. Andrew was described as a "settlor but not a beneficiary", and did not own either of the companies, though Companies House listed him and his private banker of 20 years Harry Keogh as people with "significant control".
In March 2022 it was reported that on the 15th. November 2019 the wife of the jailed former Turkish politician İlhan İşbilen transferred £750,000 to Andrew in the belief that it would help her secure a passport.
The Duke repaid the money 16 months later after being contacted by Mrs İşbilen's lawyers. The Telegraph reported that the money sent to Andrew's account had been described to the bankers "as a wedding gift" for his eldest daughter, Beatrice, though the court documents did not include any suggestions that the princess was aware of the transactions.
Mrs İşbilen alleges that a further £350,000 payment was made to Andrew through businessman Selman Turk, who Mrs İşbilen is suing for fraud. Turk had been awarded the People's Choice Award for his business Heyman AI at a Pitch@Palace event held at St. James's Palace days before the £750,000 payment was made by Mrs İşbilen.
Even though he won the award through a public vote online and an audience vote on the night of the ceremony, there were concerns raised with a senior member of the royal household that Turk was "gaming the system" and should not have won as "he may have used bots – autonomous internet programs – to boost his vote".
Libyan-born convicted gun smuggler, Tarek Kaituni introduced Andrew to Selman Turk in May or June 2019 and held later meetings on at least two occasions. Kaituni, for whom Andrew allegedly lobbied a British company, had reportedly gifted Princess Beatrice with an £18,000 gold and diamond necklace for her 21st. birthday in 2009, and was invited to Princess Eugenie's wedding in 2018.
Titles, Styles, Honours and Arms
19th. February 1960 – 23rd. July 1986: His Royal Highness The Prince Andrew
23rd. July 1986 – present: His Royal Highness The Duke of York
As of September 2022, Andrew is eighth in the line of succession to the British throne. On rare occasions, he is known by his secondary titles of Earl of Inverness and Baron Killyleagh, in Scotland and Northern Ireland respectively.
In 2019, Inverness residents started a campaign to strip him of that title, stating that "it is inappropriate that Prince Andrew is associated with our beautiful city", in light of his friendship with the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Similar pleas have been made by people affiliated with the village of Killyleagh and the city of York regarding his titles of Baron Killyleagh and Duke of York, with Labour Co-op MP for York Central, Rachael Maskell, stating that she would look for ways to make Andrew give up his ducal title if he did not voluntarily relinquish it.
In January 2022, it was reported that, while Andrew retains the style of His Royal Highness, he would no longer use it in a public capacity.
In April 2022, several York councillors called for Andrew to lose the title Duke of York. Also in 2022, there was a renewed petition to strip him of the Earl of Inverness title.
-- Relinquishing of Titles
On the 17th. October 2025, following discussions with King Charles, Andrew agreed to cease using his titles of the Duke of York, Earl of Inverness and Baron Killyleagh, and his honours, including his knighthoods as a Royal Knight Companion of the Order of the Garter and a Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order.
Andrew publicly stated:
"We have concluded the continued accusations
about me distract from the work of His Majesty
and the Royal Family."
Andrew was to remain a prince following the interactions with his older brother, but will cease to be the Duke of York, a title received from his mother, the late Queen Elizabeth.
Prince Andrew has been under increasing pressure over his links with late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, and has faced a series of scandals - in the statement he reiterates:
"I vigorously deny the accusations
against me."
Andrew's former wife will be known as Sarah Ferguson and no longer Duchess of York, but their daughters will continue to have the title of Princess.
Sean Coughlan of the BBC commented in relation to the latest development:
"Andrew might be seen as having to jump before he
was pushed, as the Palace had seemed increasingly
exasperated at the scandals that kept swirling around
him."
On the 30th. October 2025, Buckingham Palace announced that Charles III had started the "formal process" to remove his brother's style, titles, and honours. Andrew's name was removed from the Roll of the Peerage the same day.
Although this did not revoke Andrew's peerages, it meant that he was no longer entitled to any place in the orders of precedence derived from them, and would cease to be addressed or referred to by any title derived from his peerages in official documents. Letters patent were issued on the 3rd. November officially removing Andrew of the style "Royal Highness" and title "Prince".
Andrew will henceforth be known as Andrew Albert Christian Edward Mountbatten Windsor.
Participants enjoy some relaxing yoga with instructor Anna at the Dowd YMCA's Taylor Swift: Reputation Party.
Due to the new landlord's reputation all tenants left. Since nobody's paying rent I guess WBSE will need to make a collection!
Although quiet and peaceful today Norham Castle, on the Northumberland borders of England and Scotland, has the reputation for being one of the most fought-over buildings in the UK with a suggested 13 sieges during its long history. It had long been on my ‘to do’ list.
At various times it was under the control of the palatine Bishops of Durham or the current king with its importance being its command of a major crossing point over the River Tweed and thus the approaches into England and the bishops’ northern lands.
It was first built in 1121 by Bishop Ranulf Flambard but it was captured by the Scots as soon as 1136, returned and then captured again in 1138. In 1209 King John and the Scots King William the Lion met here but that Scots king’s son, Alexander II, besieged it for 40 days unsuccessfully in 1215. English King Edward I, the ‘hammer of the Scots’ met Scots King John Balliol here in 1292. During the 14th century the Scots invaded several times but did not always attack Norham - they swerved around it.
The Scots unsuccessfully besieged it in 1318 for nearly a year and, despite getting into the outer ward, were driven out three days later. In the 15th century Norham was involved in the so-called Wars of the Roses and changed hands. The Scots largely stayed out of these wars but an unsuccessful Scots attack in 1497 saw much damage including the use of the famous Mons Meg 20-inch calibre bombard which is now housed in Edinburgh Castle.
For the 1513 Flodden campaign Norham came under a concentrated assault and was very badly damaged and finally captured. This led to an extensive Tudor rebuilding of the outer walls on all sides incorporating artillery embrasures and extensive revetment with earth on both the outside and inside. This earth was more resilient than stone to artillery. Norham continued to feature in cross-border warfare and skirmishes.There was a dusk gunfight in October of 1597 at the neighbouring ford. By 1574 it was already showing signs of decay with ships masts being used to prop up some ceilings.
As it stands today the first thing the visitor sees is the great medieval keep standing on a mount within two wards or baileys. The walls are ruinous and have been the subject of much stone robbing in antiquity but it is still possible to see how imposing it would have been in its prime. The gun embrasures on the north-western side fire directly across the Tweed to the Scottish shore. The castle is protected by a deep natural ravine to the east and north-east which drops into the Tweed with deep dry ditches on the other sides.
The original main gatehouse faced the river crossing to the west and was improved by a barbican and portcullis in medieval times. But this gate may have been a weak point. It was later partially blocked - converting to foot traffic or a sally port - with a more secure entrance facing south and flanked by copious artillery. Indeed the outer ward walls were almost completely rebuilt for artillery in the early 16th century with very little medieval material remaining visible.
The red stone keep is partly collapsed but appears to have gone through at least three stages of expansion and improvement including - at one stage - having one end demolished and rebuilt with a new circular stairwell. It is possible to see the divide between the old and new material when viewing from the south. While now free to enter my only gripe was that the lack of a site office meant no opportunity to buy a guide book but I eventually found one at another English Heritage site. There are good ‘interpretation’ boards on site but these will never replace a good guide book.
Participants enjoy some relaxing yoga with instructor Anna at the Dowd YMCA's Taylor Swift: Reputation Party.
Chassis n° AV35499
Les Grandes Marques du Monde au Grand Palais 2020
Bonhams
Parijs - Paris
Frankrijk - France
February 2020
Estimated : € 800.000 - 1.100.000
Sold for € 879.750
Talbot's reputation for producing highly effective competition cars owed a lot to the efforts of the Tolworth based motor dealership and racing preparation specialists, Fox & Nicholl, which looked after the works team from the beginning of 1930 to the end of 1932. The Fox & Nicholl Talbot 90s had dominated the 3-Litre class in prestigious international events such as the Le Mans 24-Hour race, despite displacing only 2.3 litres. For 1931, designer Georges Roesch produced a new car with a full 3-litre engine, which was lighter than its 2.3-litre predecessor and featured much larger valves in a staggered layout, giving improved breathing. This engine was fitted to a lighter and lower chassis, the new model being the AV105.
Famously registered 'GO 51' to 'GO 54' consecutively, the four Fox & Nicholl Talbot 105s enjoyed an outstanding run of successes during the 1931 and 1932 seasons. Highlights of the latter included 1st, 2nd and 3rd in class at the Brooklands 'Double Twelve' in 1931; 3rd overall at Le Mans and 1st un-supercharged car in 1931 and 1932; 1st, 2nd and 3rd in class in the Brooklands 500 in 1931 and 1st and 2nd in 1932; and 1st and 2nd in class at the TT in 1931 and 1932. There was also a glorious failure in the Mille Miglia in 1932 when a lone entry crashed after 900 miles when in 4th place overall.
In addition to its racetrack successes, the AV105 proved to be a formidable rally car. Roesch had always tested his cars in the Alps so it was no surprise when journalist Humfrey Symons borrowed an example to compete in the 1931 Coupe des Alpes (Alpine Rally). He lost no marks and won a Coupe des Glaciers, the highest possible award for a single entry.
The following year a more serious bid was mounted and a team of three tourer-bodied AV105s were prepared for the 1932 event by Fox and Nicholl. These cars were extremely successful, finishing without any penalties, and winning the Coupe des Alpes outright. Another AV105 team, this time with paired down cycle winged four-seater bodies, the famous 'BGH' cars, repeated the feat in 1934. The latter were the ultimate development of the competition Talbot and as such arguably represent the ultimate pre-war British racing sports car. By far the most developed of the three 'BGH' works cars was 'BGH 23' (sold by Bonhams in 2014) and the only other competition car that Talbot built to the same specification was 'AYL 2' offered here.
'AYL 2' was constructed at around the same time as the 'BGH' Alpine cars in 1934. It was ordered new by Dr E J H Roth, who was a leading Harley Street consultant and keen Talbot racer, having previously competed successfully with a 90 at Brooklands. Roth now wanted an even quicker Talbot to challenge for outright wins at the famed Surrey track, and saw the potential in a 'BGH'-style car. As such, the body was to the same general outline as the works Alpine team cars of 1934 but more pared down for track racing, being slightly narrower, with no hood fitted, the area this would normally reside in being panelled over. No windscreen was fitted and initially no passenger's side door, while the specification also included Zeiss headlamps, a Brooklands exhaust system, and André Telecontrol shock absorbers. As such, the car is widely regarded as a semi-works example.
Painted green with matching wheels, 'AYL 2' appeared for the first time at a Brooklands race meeting on 13th October 1934 and was raced by Roth in two races that day. Following this initial visit, Roth continued to race the car successfully at Brooklands, scoring a win in April 1935.
For the 1936 season, with Dr Roth in search of still greater performance and success at the track, 'AYL 2' was up-rated to single-seater specification with a new body manufactured by the famed ERA company of racing voiturette fame. For the BRDC 500-mile race of 1936, the car was prepared with works support to include the installation of the new 3.3-litre 110-type engine. It was driven in this, the most important Brooklands race of the year, by two of the best Brooklands drivers available, Chris Staniland (the 2nd quickest man ever to lap the circuit) and W M 'Mike' Couper. The latter was Talbot's crack 'works' Brooklands driver, famously piloting 'BGH 23' to many successes at the Surrey track. In single-seater form, 'AYL 2' never fulfilled its apparent potential; it is thought this was due to difficult handling caused by poor installation of the rear shock absorbers.
This period of the car's life, when it was fitted with the larger 110 engine, is nevertheless important, since 'AYL 2' is one of only two competition Talbots (the other being 'BGH 23') fitted with this engine in period. As a result, it is eligible today to run this larger and more powerful engine.
When 'AYL 2' was converted to a single-seater, its original sports car body was fitted in 1936 to an almost new Talbot AV105, registration number 'JJ 93'. The body would remain on this car for many years, unmodified apart from the useful addition of a passenger-side door and a windscreen.
In the 1950s, 'AYL 2', by now with its single seater body modified to two-seater configuration (and reregistered as 'JKJ 869' to take advantage of cheaper tax), passed through the trade (see advertisements on file) before being purchased by Arthur Archer, the highly respected Talbot restorer. By this time the original cylinder block was badly damaged; Archer scrapped the block but kept the rest of the car as a potential source of spares. Fortunately Archer never needed the spares and sold the car as a dismantled project to fellow Talbot specialist Ian Polson in 1975. He in turn sold the still dismantled project to John Ward, who rebuilt it using a replica body to the original pattern, as delivered to Dr Roth in 1934. Subsequently, 'AYL 2' was purchased by well-known long-term Talbot collector Nicholas Ward of Northern Ireland, Ward was able to purchase the remaining original parts that Archer had retained, and reunited the car with its original registration number.
Throughout this time the original 1934 team car-style body from 'AYL 2' had remained in good order, fitted to 'JJ 93' as mentioned above. Finally, in 2010, renowned Talbot collector and entrant John Ruston was able to purchase 'AYL 2' from Nicholas Ward and 'JJ 93' from its then owner Paul Wignall. 'AYL 2' was then reunited with its original body, as well as important original components such as road equipment and seats.
While owned by John Ruston and prepared and driven by Gareth Burnett, 'AYL 2' was again hugely successful both on road and track, exactly as its manufacturers had intended, winning two of the most highly regarded pre-war rally and race events: Plateau 1 overall at the Le Mans Classic in 2012 and the prestigious Flying Scotsman rally outright in 2013.
Following brief ownership by well-known German collector Michael Hinderer (who raced the car at the Goodwood Revival in 2015), 'AYL 2' was purchased by the current owner in 2017. A highly successful pre-war rally entrant, he wanted a car that would be equally at home on the rally stages as on the racetrack, and which was eligible for all of the world's great historic motoring events. 'AYL 2' has fitted the bill uniquely well. To ensure the car performed as well as possible, at time of purchase the engine was rebuilt around a new 110 cylinder block by Gareth Burnett. While in the vendor's ownership, the Flying Scotsman rally, Mille Miglia and Le Mans Classic were all completed successfully.
Being a man that likes his cars to drive and present as well as possible, the owner dispatched 'AYL 2' to Talbot specialist I S Polson at the end of the 2018 season with the brief to get the car running and driving on road and track to its very best capabilities. To this end the car was gone through from stem to stern. Works carried out included a complete rewire, top-end engine overhaul, remaking of the floor and associated brackets, re-fitting an original type radiator, re-plumbing the cooling system, rebuilding the seats, re-mounting the body, and overhauling the shock absorbers together with countless other smaller jobs (see invoices on file for circa £80,000). As such, the car only requires final set-up for a new owner to enjoy.
'AYL 2' is only offered for sale because a change in his plans means the owner will not be able to use the car as much as he feels an historic competition car of this quality deserves. A proven winner, this strong and successful post-Vintage thoroughbred is eligible to compete in all the world's best pre-war races and rallies, where its competition record speaks for itself. In the right hands, it is surely a car to be reckoned with, or in less skilled but equally enthusiastic hands, is a ticket for the very best the motoring world has to offer, just as it was for Dr Roth when new. Offered with current FIA HTP papers.