Wednesday, 8 February 2012

8th February

'A dead woman bites not' said Lord Grey with astonishing perspicacity. He was talking about Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, a pleasant enough woman who was never known to have bitten anybody, even when alive. She was beheaded on this day in 1587 at the castle of Fotheringay (now a ruin) on the reluctant orders of her cousin, Elizabeth Tudor, Queen of England. The two never met, despite that scene in the film where Vanessa Redgrave and Glenda Jackson have a go at each other with riding crops) and Elizabeth instantly regretted having it done.
What did it achieve? Nothing. The Stuarts got the throne of England after all, giving rise to Ramsay MacDonald, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and the West Lothian Question.
Who knew?

In other news ...
The Boy Scouts of America was founded today in 1910, along the lines of the British movement of two years earlier set up by Colonel Robert Baden Powell, the hero of Mafeking. Isn't it a pity that his book Scouting for Boys is so widely misunderstood today and the mafeking is strictly contrary to EU regulations.
On the other hand, the Colonel's penchant for wearing rather fetching day dresses is widely accepted now on both sides of the Atlantic, drag though it is.