1812 AT THE NATIONAL ARMY MUSEUM
I was at the National Army Museum recently for a lecture on the life of the rather splendidly named Shadrack (or Shadrach) Byfield. He was a private soldier in the War of 1812 and he wrote a memoir of his life in the army. Unusually for the period, he wrote it...
Why not follow me on Substack?
Readership of my blog (and, I suspect, all blogs) is fading away, while Substack seems flourishing. This week on Substack, I'm reposting an old post about Napoleon's escape from Elba, a note on Georgian furniture, a poll on what readers want to see and a pretty...
WHERE MILONGA FITS IN THE MILONGA
This is a shorter version of a piece about tango that I've just put on Substack. Substack just seems more fun and, from a simple mechanics point of view, much easier to post on. I recommend you go there. But, if you don't want to, here's the edited version (without...
Napoleon on Elba
When Napoleon accepted his defeat in April 1814, he accepted also the idea that he would go into exile. Exile was to me made a less onerous punishment because the French government promised to pay him six million francs a year as his pension. It was suggested that he...
Words, Words, Words
One of the fun things about writing historical fiction is the details of language that turn up. Guessing the dates that words or phrases were in use is tricky. I recommend that historical writers get a copy of the Complete Oxford English Dictionary (OED), which gives...
Blickling Hall
I’ve been away from this blog for a while because there are so many more interesting things to do in summer than sit writing at my computer. I even got out of town for a few days to visit Norfolk – which, it turns out, is not nearly as flat as people say it is. The...
Sobbing into the void
Last Friday, for the first time in about 15 years, I just didn't bother to write a blog post. Friday came and went and I didn't post an apology for not writing anything or worry about whether or not anybody would notice that it wasn't there. I just didn't do it. I've...
The Chatterati of Georgian Twickenham
I’ve blogged in the past about Henrietta Howard and her home at Marble Hill in Twickenham, where she lived after leaving the court of King George II in 1734. Unkind courtiers at St James’s Palace suggested that she was abandoning the glittering centre of London...
Black Redcoats: a fascinating new book by Matthew Taylor
In Black Redcoats, Matthew Taylor has highlighted a forgotten element of the War of 1812: the effect it had on enslaved people in the USA and the role that some of them played in aiding the British war effort.
India, 1857
This is the time of year when my thoughts turn to Cawnpore and the events of 1857 and I'm reposting something I wrote three years ago. Although the British had been establishing themselves in India for some time before 1757, the battle of Plassey is often seen as a...