Sexy Tudors!

Hark! A Vagrant by Kate Beaton.

Haha! Now some context for those who are probably a bit confused: Showtime used to have a show called The Tudors. Nominally, it was supposed to be about the reign of Henry VIII, but in actuality, it was nothing more than a faux-historical drama filled with so much nudity and sex, it left you wondering if you weren't watching late night Cinemax by mistake. It was also horribly inaccurate. On the show, Henry was played by a guy named Jonathan Rhys Meyers who many women and quite a few dudes would describe as "sexy". In other words, he was not a 300+ pound redheaded dude. They did keep the festering ulcer on his leg, however. Actually, the funniest part about The Tudors is that all of Henry's ministers were played by young hot dudes in their 20s and 30s, even if they historically weren't young hot dudes. None of them really aged either, even though the show covered Henry's entire reign, although near the end, they did act old.

Oh, and Henry's wives were all played by babes. Basically, Showtime tried to convince us that the Tudor era was full of sexy people.

Bones of Richard III found!

Is it just me, or does he look like Christopher Walken?
Credit: Wikipedia.

Because science is amazing! Last year a group of archaeologists were excavating the site of a car park, which had previously been the grounds of a medieval church, when they found a skeleton. Now this wasn't just any skeleton and it certainly wasn't Jimmy Hoffa's, the archaeologists believed this was the remains of King Richard III, who ruled England from 1483 until 1485, when he was killed in the Battle of Bosworth Field, becoming the last English king to die in battle. The War of the Roses ended there and he was succeeded by Henry VII.

Well good news for the scholars and any interested history geeks, testing has shown that the skeleton is indeed those of Richard! Quite impressively too is that his skull has no less than eight wounds, including one that took off the back of his head, so he clearly did not die easily. Actually, this account of his death does him quite a bit of credit:

Perhaps in realisation of the implications of this, Richard then appears to have led an impromptu cavalry charge deep into the enemy ranks in an attempt to end the battle quickly by striking at Henry Tudor himself. Accounts note that Richard fought bravely and ably during this manoeuvre, unhorsing Sir John Cheney, a well-known jousting champion, killing Henry's standard bearer Sir William Brandon and coming within a sword's length of Henry himself before being finally surrounded by Sir William Stanley's men and killed. The Burgundian chronicler Jean Molinet says that a Welshman struck the death-blow with a halberd while Richard's horse was stuck in the marshy ground. It was said that the blows were so violent that the king's helmet was driven into his skull. The contemporary Welsh poet Guto'r Glyn implies that the leading Welsh Lancastrian Rhys ap Thomas, or one of his men, killed the king, writing that he "killed the boar, shaved his head". The recent discovery of King Richard's body shows that the skeleton had 10 wounds, eight of them to the head, clearly inflicted in battle and suggesting the king had lost his helmet. The skull showed that a blade had hacked away part of the rear of the skull. Richard III was the last English king to be killed in battle.

Given that Richard suffered from scoliosis, charging into the thick of battle like that is impressive as hell. Of course, he wasn't entirely a good man. He's believe to have been involved in the murder of his two nephews, the so-called Princes in the Tower. His reputation as being evil was due to William Shakespeare's Richard III and effective Tudor-era propaganda. As for his remains, there are plans to build him a tomb. I wonder if any members of the current royal family will attend his reburial? They should, with him being a king and all.

I guess you could say that my reading lately has been pretty Sharpe

Wow that was bad. It wasn't punny at all.

Okay, I'll stop now.

As you might be able to guess from the title, I've started reading Bernard Cornwell's excellent Richard Sharpe series of novels, beginning with Sharpe's Tiger.

bookfever.com.

I'm on the 43rd page, but damn it is good. Here's the gist:

In a battery of events that will make a hero out of an illiterate private, a young Richard Sharpe poses as the enemy to bring down a ruthless Indian dictator backed by fearsome French troops.

The year is 1799, and Richard Sharpe is just beginning his military career. An inexperienced young private in His Majesty's service, Sharpe becomes part of an expedition to India to push the ruthless Tippoo of Mysore from his throne and drive out his French allies. To penetrate the Tippoo's city and make contact with a Scottish spy being held prisoner there, Sharpe has to pose as a deserter. Success will make him a sergeant, but failure will turn him over to the Tippoo's brutal executioners — or, worse — his man-eating tigers. Picking his way through an exotic and alien world. Sharpe realizes that one slip will mean disaster. And when the furious British assault on the city finally begins, Sharpe must take up arms against his true comrades to preserve his false identity, risking death at their hands in order to avoid detection and thus to foil the Tippoo's well-set trap.

That one time everbody thought ships ramming other ships was a great idea

And I'm not talking about the ancient world, either. No, in the mid-19th century navies of the world went gaga with the idea of attaching rams to their new iron-hulled, steam-powered warships. Largely this was because of the CSS Virginia and the Battle of Hampton Roads, where the ironclad successfully sank the USS Cumberland after ramming her. This idea was further reinforced after the Battle of Lissa, which had so much ramming, you'd think it was a gay porn shoot.

CSS Virginia ramming the USS Cumberland.
Credit: Wikipedia.

The single biggest reason for the reintroduction of ramming, however, was technology. Armor had outpaced gunnery and as a result, ship mounted cannons of the day couldn't penetrate the hulls of ironclads. So combine the three and everybody went "Well clearly ramming the hell out of the other guy is the way to go!" and so you have countries building battleships and cruisers with those things. Ironically, these rams were effective...at sinking friendly ships whenever one accidentally collided with another.

There was even a variation: the torpedo ram. These ships combined rams with torpedoes - first as a combined weapon and later as two separate entities - because once people get attached to an idea, they're going to ride it all the way home, no matter how ill-thought out it is.

Fortunately, naval gunnery eventually caught up and the idea of ships ramming other ships quietly faded away. Mostly. Torpedo rams were immortalized by H.G. Wells in War of the Worlds when the HMS Thunderchild, a torpedo ram battled and destroyed two Martian walkers.

Gotta love mid-to-late 19th century naval warfare and its awkward, puberty like growth.

Still alive

Sorry for the last of posting, but I've been busy. Met an odd man with a blue 1960s police box and a woman he called his companion and traveled with them for a bit. It was fun until we decided to take in a merry little battle in Ireland and I got some poor bastard's brains splattered all over me thanks to an ill-timed (or well-placed, depending on your disposition) cannonball.

In all seriousness, I was just in one of my slumps and didn't feel like posting anything historical lately. I'll be fixing that soon enough. I found a very interesting book during a visit to a Goodwill: A Monarchy Transformed: Britain 1603-1714 by Mark Kishlansky. It's part of Penguin's History of Britain series and covers the Stuart period, including the English Civil War and the Commonwealth. The prologue really got my attention and lured me in by describing all of the different achievements that occurred during that era, from science to politics to fashion and economics. Short too at 386 pages; 342, if you don't count the index and "further reading" sections.

The Unborn King

Sounds exactly like the title to a fantasy novel, doesn't it? BUT, it isn't. No, no, I decided to do some Googling after seeing this post* on Tumblr. Someone mentioned that Mexico once had a president who only served for forty-five days and for whatever reason, I got the idea in my head to find out who the youngest monarch ever was. Yeah, I don't know how I made that jump either. In any case, my Google-Fu was on point tonight and I found this post on Mental Floss listing just what I was looking for, and that's how I found out about an unborn king named Shapur II and holy hell, this guy's story is a doozy.

Basically, his dad, Shapur I died before he was born and Persian nobles, for whatever reason, blinded one brother, killed another, and imprisoned the last one, clearing the path for Shapur to take the throne as the ninth king of the Sassanid Empire. Apparently him still being in the womb wasn't an issue to these nobles and they crowned him before he was even born. He would go on to rule for seventy years and did well enough at the job to be given "The Great" appended to his name. I tell ya, history is both awesome and weird as hell, man.



*Fair warning, my Tumblr is NSFW, so use caution if you decide to go exploring.

Elmer E. Ellsworth and John J. Williams, the first and last to die in the American Civil War

Wikipedia.

Ellsworth was one of Lincoln’s broheims back in Illinois and at the start of the Civil War (May 24, 1861), offered to capture an oversized Confederate flag from atop a hotel in nearby Alexandria, Virginia. Abe agreed and Ellsworth lead his men, the 11th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment into the town. It was going well until the hotel owner shot him in the chest with a shotgun (the owner was then promptly shot by one of Ellsworth’s men).

Wikipedia.

Williams was killed at a battle at a place called Palmito Ranch near Brownsville, Texas on May 13, 1865. Technically, this battle happened right after the Civil War ended, but its close enough that Williams is generally considered the last soldier to die in the War.

I actually have no idea why I think this is interesting, but knowing who the first and last people to die in a war just is. Another point of interest is the fact that they eleven days apart. How freaky would it have been if Ellsworth and Williams had died on the same day, but four years apart?

Awesome video: USS Monitor vs. CSS Virginia

So apparently back in like 1991, a TV movie came out that focused on the first battle between ironclad warships called Ironclads. The battle scene itself is quite good.



This is my favorite era of naval warfare, the transition from wind-powered, wooden hulled warships to steam-powered, metal hulled warships. I should do some posts about that.

Damn, Lincoln looks like a good movie

Tommy Lee Jones looks weird with that hair, but any movie with him in it tends to be good. Daniel Day-Lewis might be the greatest living actor today and certainly one of the greatest ever. The movie won't focus on Lincoln's entire life or presidency, but the last months of his life. Who knows, if the movie is a big enough success, maybe Spielberg will make prequels covering the rest of Lincoln's life.

British Empire, circa 1921

A fairly interesting map showing the empire's territorial holdings in the years between the world wars.

Wikipedia.

What I think is interesting (and amusing) is the size disparity between the UK itself and some of its colonies and dominions. The disparity becomes even bigger when you consider that Africa is the second largest continent and its size was often decreased (while the UK's was increased).

Actually, Belgium has the UK beat when it comes to size difference. The Belgian Congo was so much bigger than the Kingdom that controlled it, it looked like somebody gave Rhode Island control of a territory the size of China.

The Soviet Union, though, holy freaking crap.