22nd December

James Edward Stuart, son of the deposed James II, landed at Peterhead in Scotland today in 1715. Rightfully king of England, his aim was to overthrow the usurper, George I, who was the son of the usurper Electress Sophie, who was a cousin of the usurper Anne, who was the sister and sister-in-law respectively of Mary and William who had taken the throne from James's dad in the first place. (Do keep up, Seven Bee Four; it really couldn't be simpler).

So, despite a promising start, why did James not succeed in getting his throne back? He was only Pretending.

In other news...
Mary Ann Evans died today in 1880. She is better known as George Eliot and used the male nom de plume to get her novels published in a male-dominated, sexist world. That got me thinking of other writers whose real names should be exposed e.g. Ellis Peters (Edith Pargeter); Currer Bell (Charlotte Bronte) and Andy McNab (Priscilla-May Blenkinsop).

1st December

If you're a fan, like me, of Sellar and Yeatman's masterly 1066 And All That, you'll know that Henry I of England died of a surfeit of lampreys. A what? I hear you cry, dear reader. Well, a lamprey is an eel and a surfeit is too many. All this happened today in 1135 which is long before they had sell-by dates etc. I can't help thinking that as the bloke was 66 (which was ancient in the 12th century) it was probably time he shuffled off this mortal coil anyway.

What did he leave behind? A squabble between potential rulers Matilda and Stephen and a series of excellent novels by Ellis Peters.

In other news ...

The Cross Channel diggers met in the middle today in 1990, nearly completing a multi-million pound project linking Britain to France. There was a great deal more earth movement when everybody from Harold Godwinson (d 1066) on turned in their graves.