Interview with Mindy Dougherty, author of A Resilient Warrior and Mindy's Fight

 Mindy Dougherty

Please tell us a little about yourself.

My name is Mindy Dougherty, and I am the author of Mindy’s Fight, and A Resilient Warrior. Which is an autobiography about my life and overcoming abuse to become resilient. I have created a program called Feed My City, which helps people learn how to garden to decrease anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder by learning how to plant the seeds and grow plants for both myself and to give to others such as food banks and child advocacy groups around the world. This program also teaches children nonattachment to material things by growing plants for themselves and giving to others so they also learn to give without expectation of return.

When did you start writing?

I have been writing since I was in kindergarten, but not seriously until 2014 when I had some unfortunate events happen to me while at the San Antonio, Texas VA Hospital that altered and changed my life as I knew it. This is what I write about in both Mindy’s Fight and A Resilient Warrior.

What projects have been published?

I have published Mindy’s Fight e-reader and A Resilient Warrior both an e-reader and my first paperback available on amazon.com and www.feedmycity.net for those who want autographed copies of A Resilient Warrior. I was also published in a medical journal for the C-Peptide studies I did with The Barbara Davis Center for research of Diabetes and Endocrine disorders.

I can be found at www.feedmycity.net which has a small video and my social media outlets available with podcasts of some of my poetry read out loud.

How did you select the title of your novel?

Throughout my life, I have encountered sexual abuse, incest, and being tortured by the individuals that were supposed to be treating me at the San Antonio, Texas VA Medical Hospital and Center. Since then I have had to relearn how to walk, speak, and swallow making my life completely different as I knew it before the events that occurred in 2014. I am recovering and with therapy getting better with time. I feel through perseverance and resiliency I have been able to inspire those who have wanted or needed some kind of hope to prevent more suicides from happening. I also was speaking to high school students before Covid hit and hope to resume this when changes are made and we are allowed to do public speaking events again.

 What was your inspiration?

My inspiration for writing my book came from my grandma who asked me to write a book twenty-one years ago. I am very glad I waited to write these as I have been in three comas, have had three transplants, and four organs taken out to include my appendix, gallbladder, duodenum, and pancreas making me a diabetic in 2004 once my pancreas was taken out. I have been doing research and was published in several magazines for diabetes prevention and awareness as well as studies to help others find a cure for it. I have also been published in Women’s Magazine and most recently Integrity Magazine in the UK, to help inspire and give hope to those who are in need. 

 What are you currently working on?

Currently, I am getting ready for the seasons to change to get back to gardening and helping expand Feed My City, as I hope to be able to spread awareness to local schools and possibly get into the jail system to decrease recidivism and teach inmates that by gardening they can help their communities flourish once they get out and hopefully become a better citizen within their community.

I have had A Resilient Warrior bought internationally and hope to keep spreading my knowledge and inspiration to as many as will listen.

What are you reading at the moment?

I am reading scripts for future films that I have been asked to consider producing and doing social media events for.

What do you like to do in your free time when you're not reading or writing?

I like to produce and act in movies as well as TV series. I am also the social media marketer for a few projects and will be walking in the canyon and gardening as well as meditating to keep me grounded.

Do you have any advice for other authors?

Writing will not make you rich so you may do this for the love of writing but make sure you keep a day job as well because it sincerely doesn’t pay much and a lot of time goes into it for not much return. For me, I have found an inner justice and peace that I would not have been able to find if I hadn’t written A Resilient Warrior. I also believe I am continuing to inspire people to make their dreams come true and really hope to decrease suicidal ideation amongst those who struggle on a daily basis.

And finally, can you tell us some fun facts about yourself, such as crossed skydiving off my bucket list.

I am a United States Army Veteran and served from 1995 to 1999 as a field combat medic. I became a trauma nurse after relearning how to read in my 20’s as I struggle with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and executive functioning disorder. I have had two stem cell transplants called mesenchymal and exosomal stem cell transplants which have taken the burning down to at least 50% and the swelling in my foot is never as bad as it was, so I remain humbled, grateful, ad thankful to have legs that work.

I am in a film called Bridge of the Doomed which comes out in October 2021 and will be working in the future to continue to build Feed My City in areas that want to help their communities.

 Connect with Mindy

Webpage   Linked-in   Facebook   Twitter   Instagram

 

Link for National Stem Cell Institute video after personal success with Mesenchymal Stem Cells

National Stem Cell Institute Video

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US Army Veteran Mindy Dougherty has a warrior spirit that will capture your attention. The resiliency and strength she embodies while overcoming childhood abuse, PTSD, and more medical adversities than one can imagine will inspire you. Navigating a lifetime of trauma could leave a person bitter and hateful, but Mindy takes a completely different approach. She uses comedy, gratitude, and gardening to influence healing for herself and others. Mindy’s garden, known as Feed My City, promotes healing, growth, and health for those who may be fighting their own battle for survival. Mindy Dougherty is the epitome of a resilient warrior, a fact that is showcased throughout this narrative of her life.

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Mindy's Fight is the story about one Army female combat medic's PTSD journey from childhood sexual violence to medical neglect at the hands of the VA to finding herself.

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Book Spotlight: A Resilient Warrior by Mindy Dougherty

 

US Army Veteran Mindy Dougherty has a warrior spirit that will capture your attention. The resiliency and strength she embodies while overcoming childhood abuse, PTSD, and more medical adversities than one can imagine will inspire you. Navigating a lifetime of trauma could leave a person bitter and hateful, but Mindy takes a completely different approach. She uses comedy, gratitude, and gardening to influence healing for herself and others. Mindy’s garden, known as Feed My City, promotes healing, growth, and health for those who may be fighting their own battle for survival. Mindy Dougherty is the epitome of a resilient warrior, a fact that is showcased throughout this narrative of her life.

Buy Links

Global Link

 Amazon US

¸.•*´¨)✯ ¸.•*¨) ✮ ( ¸.•´✶

  About the Author

Mindy Dougherty

The magic of creativity exists in all types of people from all walks of life. Some know from a young age they want to be artists in the film industry, others realize it later on after significant life experiences. This is the case of Mindy Dougherty. Four days after graduating from Antioch High School, and shortly after she won Miss San Francisco Bay Teen USA, Mindy decided to join the United States Army and was stationed first in Germany. She served as a combat field medic. While serving in Germany, she was deployed to Tazar, Hungary, then Tuzla West, Bosnia. Mindy contracted a parasite while there and became sick with both appendicitis and pancreatitis at the same time and had to be evacuated back to Germany. She had her appendix taken out then her gallbladder later when she returned to her new duty station in the MEDDAC Unit at Fort Carson, CO, where she was appointed, elected, then re-elected by her peers to represent over 5,000 soldiers. She was sent to Washington DC, serving as their voice as she strove to make a difference for current and future soldiers.

 After receiving her honorable discharge and garnering a BSN from the University of Colorado at Anschutz in Denver, she was a trauma nurse and then an interventional radiology nurse who specialized in pain control, and post anesthesia care. She has since studied the ancient art of Watsu (water-based Shiatsu massage) which led to her nickname of “Water Gypsy,” shortened for wtrgpsy.” Having her work published in medical journals for the research she has done with diabetes to help veterans obtain better care in the VA Medical systems demonstrated a writing talent that would bear fruit when she wrote her memoir, Mindy's Fight, then A Resilient Warrior, which details her health issues as well as struggles with domestic violence, sexual abuse, incest, and medical abuse at the VA Hospital in San Antonio, Texas. Her writing skills have also helped Dougherty with her burgeoning acting career (watch for her in Bridge of the Doomed: which is due out in October 2021) and also with her latest venture—a program called Feed My City (www.feedmycity.net) that has helped many other Veterans and others deal with trauma through the restorative and sustaining practice of gardening.

 Connect with Mindy

Webpage   Linked-in   Facebook   Twitter   Instagram

 

Inspiration behind Kindred Spirits: Ephemera By Jennifer C. Wilson

An Author's Inspiration 

Kindred Spirits: Ephemera 

Jennifer C. Wilson

Since writing the first of the Kindred Spirits novels, the world just won’t leave me alone – not that I want it to!

Any new place I visit, or even when I revisit old favourites, I find myself thinking: Which ghosts might be found here, and what would they be up to? At the same time, a lot of places didn’t necessarily have an obvious story that could carry a novel’s worth of conflict, adventure, etc. That’s where the Kindred Spirits Shorts concept came in; getting to explore places and people, but knowing that I could stay within the word count which felt comfortable for the story I was telling.

The overall result was, for me at least, a sense of fun and freedom, allowing me to play with ideas, and I really hope that fun comes across in the reading of each story too.

In terms of direct inspiration, three of the pieces were written specifically following a call-out for different projects – Leicester, Hampton Court Palace, and Jailbreak. As for the others, Eurostar was written as a competition entry, but in the end, just didn’t fit the bill, and Pere Lachaise was written in the Eurostar departure lounge four years ago, as I was thinking about having visited the cemetery the year before. I’d seen a play about Abelard and Heloise and found them fascinating.

Hampton Court Palace

For York revisited, I was writing a compromise. I’d had the (I thought) brilliant idea of a detective being killed in the line of duty, then helping partner solve crimes from beyond the grave. It was only after I’d sketched out the whole plot that I realised I was entirely copying the concept of Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased). A bit of a rewrite was needed on that one…

Windsor Castle

The final story in the collection takes us to Windsor, a location which several people have asked about over the last couple of years, and having written Kindred Spirits: York, I now had a lead-in. I loved visiting the castle when I was in Windsor for work years ago, and with so much history, I wasn’t short of ideas for which ghosts could be about.

For each of the stories, once I’ve chosen my location or lead characters, that’s when the research starts. I know it’s a slightly bizarre concept, the ghosts of historical characters pottering around contemporary sites, but even though I’ve got the supernatural element on my side, I think it’s really important to have the facts as accurate as I can. Luckily, I love the research, and it can become inspirational in itself when a connection I hadn’t picked up on suddenly leaps out of a book at me.

I really hope readers enjoy the collection, and the keen-eyed amongst you might pick up on where the story might be going next. I’ve already started that research…

  

The afterlife is alive with possibility…

In this collection of stories, we follow kings and queens as they make important (and history-defying) visits, watch a football game featuring the foulest of fouls, and meet a host of new spirits-in-residence across the British Isles and beyond.

Be transported to ancient ruins, a world-famous cemetery, and a new cathedral, and catch up with old friends – and enemies.

Because when the dead outnumber the living and start to travel, the adventures really do begin.

Kindred Spirits: Ephemera is a charming collection of stories about your favourite ghosts!

Included short- stories are

Kindred Spirits: St Paul’s Cathedral

Kindred Spirits: Jailbreak

Kindred Spirits: Carlisle Castle

Kindred Spirits: The Sisterhood of Hampton Court Palace

Kindred Spirits: Leicester – Return of the King

Kindred Spirits: The Jewel of the Wall

Kindred Spirits: Eurostar

Kindred Spirits: Père Lachaise

Kindred Spirits: York, Revisited

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Purchase Links

Amazon US

Amazon UK

Amazon CA

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About the Author

Jennifer C. Wilson

Jennifer C. Wilson stalks dead people (usually monarchs, mostly Mary Queen of Scots and Richard III). Inspired by childhood visits to as many castles and historical sites her parents could find, and losing herself in their stories (not to mention quote often the castles themselves!), at least now her daydreams make it onto the page.

After returning to the north-east of England for work, she joined a creative writing class and has been filling notebooks ever since. Jennifer won North Tyneside Libraries’ Story Tyne short story competition in 2014, and in 2015, her debut novel, Kindred Spirits: Tower of London was published by Crooked Cat Books. The full series was re-released by Darkstroke in January 2020.

Jennifer is a founder and host of the award-winning North Tyneside Writers’ Circle, and has been running writing workshops in North Tyneside since 2015. She also publishes historical fiction novels with Ocelot Press. She lives in Whitley Bay and is very proud of her two-inch view of the North Sea.

You can connect with Jennifer online: Blog • Facebook • Twitter • Instagram • Amazon

The Writing Desk: Special Guest Interview with Mary Ann Bernal, Author of Crusader's Path

The Writing Desk: Special Guest Interview with Mary Ann Bernal, Aut...: Available for pre-order from  Amazon UK and Amazon US I'm pleased to welcome author Mary Ann Bernal to The Writing Desk: ...

Available for pre-order from 

Amazon UK and Amazon US

I'm pleased to welcome author Mary Ann Bernal to The Writing Desk:

Tell us about your latest book

Crusader’s Path is set during the First Crusade (1096-1099). Etienne d’Argences and his overlord, Duke Robert of Normandy, embark on a quest for redemption, joining Pope Urban’s Soldiers for Christ, and freeing the Holy Land from Muslim rule. Urban proclaimed that anyone dying during the arduous journey or on the battlefield were absolved of their sins.

Avielle of Cologne, a healer, ministering to the city’s ostracized lepers, needs to reconcile herself with God after committing a grave sin known only to herself and the Lord. Not daring to reveal her shameful secret in the confessional, absolution is unattainable until she hears Peter of Amiens preaching in the market square. Now, salvation is within reach. Avielle joins Peter’s Army and travels with the holy monk through the Rhine Valley, en route to the Byzantine Empire.

Etienne and Avielle meet in Constantinople, and together, they withstand the hardships of the grueling campaign, enduring privation for the Lord’s sake, to save their souls. But promises made to God are cast aside when they succumb to the temptation of the flesh, forsaking their vows of living a religious life for worldly pursuits.

With each successful siege as the Princes’ Army approaches Jerusalem, Etienne and Avielle struggle to realize spiritual purity over earthly desire.

What is your preferred writing routine?

My routines have varied over the years because of daily commitments. I have burned the midnight oil, arisen at the crack of dawn, and started writing the moment I came home from work. Now, whatever the hour, my goal is to write a few hours while not paying attention to a daily word count. It is less stressful if you set a reasonable goal. I always achieve my minimum word count of two hundred fifty words, but of course, I do not stop until what I want to say has been written.

What advice do you have for new writers?

My advice is to learn as much as you can about the craft. Enroll in creative writing courses and workshops and write a little every day. Two hundred fifty words a day is a novel in a year. Also, forget the naysayers and never give up.

What have you found to be the best way to raise awareness of your books?

Social media is perfect for author visibility. In addition to my webpage, I showcase my work on my blog and Pinterest. I also have a Twitter account where I share not only my work and the work of other authors but also topics that interest me.

Tell us something unexpected you discovered during your research

Crusader’s Path follows Duke Robert of Normandy’s participation in the Crusade. He joined the campaign late and spent the winter in Italy before heading out for Constantinople. He also left the siege of Antioch during the winter months, returning in the spring only after being threatened by excommunication.

What was the hardest scene you remember writing?

Death scenes are always tricky because I do love my characters; we share a bond; after all, I created them! The Crusades was a violent time, and people die. I won’t go into greater detail other than to say, “No Spoilers.”

What are you planning to write next?

I am planning on a novel set in Ancient Rome. As my readers know, I have a fascination with the Roman Empire. I’m always referencing the old Roman ruins in my novels. But which Emperor to follow? The jury’s still out.

Mary Ann Bernal

# # #

About the Author

Mary Ann Bernal attended Mercy College, Dobbs Ferry, NY, where she received a degree in Business Administration. Her literary aspirations were ultimately realized when the first book of The Briton and the Dane novels was published in 2009. In addition to writing historical fiction, Mary Ann has also authored a collection of contemporary short stories in the Scribbler Tales series and a science fiction/fantasy novel entitled Planetary Wars Rise of an Empire. Mary Ann is a passionate supporter of the United States military, having been involved with letter-writing campaigns and other support programs since Operation Desert Storm. She has appeared on The Morning Blend television show hosted by KMTV, the CBS television affiliate in Omaha, and was interviewed by the Omaha World-Herald for her volunteer work. She has been a featured author on various reader blogs and promotional sites. Mary Ann currently resides in Elkhorn, Nebraska. Find out more at her website http://www.maryannbernal.com/ and find her on Twitter @BritonandDane

9 unsolved historical mysteries

History Extra

1) The Mary Celeste
 What became of the crew and passengers of this British-American brigantine remains one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of the sea. The name has since become synonymous worldwide with derelict ‘ghost ships’.

 The Mary Celeste was found drifting 400 miles east of the Azores by the crew of another cargo-carrying vessel, the Dei Gratia, on 5 December 1872. The leader of the boarding party told a British board of inquiry at Gibraltar he found the ship was “a thoroughly wet mess”, with possessions left behind and the lifeboat missing.

 No trace of Captain Benjamin Spooner Briggs, his wife and their young daughter or the seven experienced crew members has ever been found. Many ingenious theories have been put forward by writers such as Arthur Conan Doyle to explain what happened to them. My favourite comes from a 1965 episode of the BBC series Dr Who, where the frightened crew jump overboard when the Daleks materialise on the ship while chasing the occupants of the TARDIS.

 2) Jack the Ripper
 The true identity of this Victorian serial killer continues to elude us 126 years after the gruesome killing spree in London’s East End in 1888. In the latest development, an ‘armchair detective’ claims DNA evidence from the shawl of one of the five known victims has identified Polish émigré Aaron Kosminski – one of a list of key suspects – as the man also known as ‘Leather Apron’, or ‘the Whitechapel Murderer’.

 A small cottage industry, Ripperology has grown up around the murders with investigators such as Patricia Cornwell and Russell Edwards sifting through surviving evidence in search of a ‘prime suspect.’ Among the wild theories that have become legends is one that depicts Jack as a deranged surgeon who killed the women as part of a conspiracy to protect a member of the royal family.

Professor William Rubinstein describes this story as “palpable nonsense from beginning to end”. He believes it is the very elusiveness of the solution that continues to make the Ripper mystery so attractive to writers and historians.

 3) Kenneth Arnold’s ‘flying saucers’
 The birth of the modern UFO phenomenon can be traced to a sighting by private pilot Ken Arnold of nine peculiar-shaped flying objects over the Cascade Mountains of Washington on the afternoon of 24 June 1947. Arnold told newsmen the bat-wing shaped objects moved like a saucer would “if you skipped it across the water”. He calculated their speed as faster than the most advanced jet aircraft of that time.

 A sub-editor came up with the phrase ‘flying saucers’, and the media coverage that followed triggered off an epidemic for seeing things in the sky that continues to this day. Two weeks after Arnold’s sighting, the US Army Air Force announced that wreckage from a ‘flying disc’ had been recovered from a ranch near Roswell, New Mexico.

 A modern myth was born, but ever since controversy has raged about what it was that Arnold actually saw. In my opinion, the most likely explanation is a flock of American white pelicans flying in echelon formation. But no one will ever know for sure.

 4) The Devil’s Footprints
 Early on the morning of 9 February 1855, people in towns across southern Devon awoke to find a single line of hoof-like marks in the deep snow as if they had been branded with a hot iron. The Times said the marks were found over a distance of 40 miles on both sides of the Exe, as if “some strange and mysterious animal endowed with the power of ubiquity” had created them during the night.

 Explanations ranged from an escaped kangaroo, badgers and mice, to a balloon trailing a horseshoe-shaped grappling rope. Superstitious people preferred to believe they were the work of the devil himself. In its summary of the popular theories at the time, a writer in The Illustrated London News said “no satisfactory solution” had been found, and “no known animal could have traversed this extent of country in one night… neither does any known animal walk in a line of single footsteps, not even a man”.

 5) The Shroud of Turin
 This piece of linen cloth kept in the Cathedral of St John the Baptist in Turin, northern Italy, is one of the most closely investigated objects in human history, yet it retains its secrets. The sacred relic is believed by many Christians to be the shroud in which Jesus of Nazareth was buried.

 There is no doubt that it bears a negative imprint of the face and outline of the body of a man who has suffered injuries consistent with crucifixion, but scientists have been unable to reach a consensus about how it was created. Radiocarbon testing by three laboratories in 1988 dated the cloth to the Middle Ages, and this was proclaimed by some as proof it was a medieval fake. But this interpretation remains the subject of intense debate, leading a former editor of Nature, Philip Ball, to declare that the relic remains shrouded in mystery.

 6) Richard III and the princes in the Tower
 In 2012 the skeleton of the last Plantagenet king of England, Richard III, was unearthed from beneath a council car park on the site of Greyfriars in Leicester city centre. The dig that unearthed his remains was instigated by Philippa Langley of the Richard III Society as a direct result of a “strange feeling” she had when visiting the site.

This apparent example of psychic archaeology is not the only mystery that surrounds Richard’s life and death. His precise role in the fate of his two nephews – popularly known as ‘The princes in the Tower’ – remains a subject of enduring mystery. The 12-year-old Edward and his nine-year-old brother, Richard of Shrewsbury, the sons of King Edward IV, were lodged in the Tower of London by their uncle, Richard, at the time of their disappearance in 1483.

No one knows exactly what happened to them, but a box containing two small human skeletons was found near the White Tower in the 17th century and, at the time, was widely believed to be the remains of the princes.

 7) The Solway Spaceman
On the afternoon of 23 May 1964, an employee of the Cumbrian fire service, Jim Templeton, took photographs of his wife and daughter during a day out at a local beauty spot on the Solway Firth. When he collected the photographs from a chemist, the assistant told him it was a shame one was “spoiled by the man in the background wearing a space suit”.

Sure enough, one image of his youngest daughter Elizabeth clearly shows an enigmatic ‘figure’ floating behind her head. The ‘spaceman’ is dressed in a white suit that resembles those worn by NASA astronauts at the time.

The photograph was examined by Kodak and scrutinised by detectives from the Cumbrian police, who were unable to explain it. Jim Templeton died in 2011 without learning the true identity of the ‘Solway spaceman’. The image remains one of the most perplexing in the history of anomalous photography.

8) Mothman
One dark night in November 1966, four American teenagers claimed they saw a huge bird-like monster with glowing red eyes while cruising along a back road near Point Pleasant in rural West Virginia. They claimed it rose into the air, unfolded its bat-like wings, and pursued them as they sped away in terror. The next morning the sheriff’s office held a press conference, and the media dubbed the creature ‘Mothman’ after the Batman series that was showing on TV.

 Encounters with the demonic ‘bird’ inspired the 2002 movie The Mothman Prophecies, directed by Mark Pellington. The film was based upon journalist John Keel’s book that chronicled an outbreak of uncanny experiences in the Ohio Valley. He believed the creature was linked in some mysterious way with the collapse of the Silver Bridge in Point Pleasant in December 1967 that killed 46 people, including some mothman witnesses.

9) Monsters of the Deep
Do the depths of our oceans hide undiscovered species of animal such as the great ‘sea serpent’ that was sighted by the captain and crew of HMS Daedalus near the island of St Helena in 1848?

Among the files at the National Archives and the Natural History Museum I found first-hand reports of similar creatures in records from the late 19th to the early 20th century, including one by Arthur Conan Doyle, author of The Lost World. Could it be that, as the museum’s former keeper of zoology, William Calman, told a puzzled witness in 1929: “…we are not so rash as to suppose that we yet know all of the inhabitants of the sea and it is within the bounds of possibility that you saw some animal that has never been captured or described”.

If so, where have they all gone?

Dr David Clarke is the author of Britain’s X-traordinary Files (Bloomsbury 2014).

Game of Thrones season six: the real-life medieval history

History Extra

Maisie Williams as Arya Stark in the sixth season of Game of Thrones, which airs on Sunday (Monday morning in Britain). © 2016 Home Box Office, Inc.

George RR Martin, author of the books upon which the Game of Thrones television show is based, notes that the battle for the Iron Throne is loosely based on the 15th-century Wars of the Roses; the chime of Stark and York and Lannister and Lancaster suggests as much. But Martin draws much more eclectically on medieval cultures, as the following examples demonstrate.

 

Queen Cersei

Cersei has been compared to a good number of medieval queens, such as Margaret of Anjou (d1482), wife of Henry VI. To my mind, though, Cersei, the “green-eyed lioness” of the Lannisters, is much more like Edward II’s queen Isabella, the ‘She-Wolf of France’. Daughter of King Philip IV (the Fair) of France, Isabella was sister of his three successors. She was married, probably aged 12, to Edward II of England in 1308. Edward gave her four children, but, notoriously, he neglected her for his good-looking male favourites.
His barons forced Edward to give up one of these favourites, Piers Gaveston, 1st Earl of Cornwall, who was executed in 1312, but by 1320 Edward was deeply involved with Hugh Despenser the Younger. As a consequence of Isabella’s hostility to the Despenser faction, her lands in England were taken from her, as were her children, and her household was broken up.

_{Cersei Lannister played by Lena Headey and Jaime Lannister played by Nikolaj Coster-Waldau. ©2015 Home Box Office, Inc.}
Isabella and Edward had effectively separated. When, in 1325, her eldest son, the future Edward III, went to France to do homage for the province of Gascony, which the English crown held from the French king, the queen seized her chance. In Paris Isabella took the exiled English lord Roger Mortimer as her lover, and they plotted against her husband.
Young Edward was promised in marriage to Philippa, daughter of William, Count of Hainault, in the Low Countries. In return William provided men and an advance on Philippa’s dowry. Borrowing heavily from Italian banking houses, Isabella, her son and Mortimer invaded England in 1326 and Edward II was overthrown. How far Isabella was complicit in her husband’s horrible death in 1327 isn’t clear, but she and Mortimer ruled England for the next four years.
In 1330 her son, Edward III, took charge of the kingdom, imprisoning his mother and executing her lover. Perhaps King Tommen will similarly assert himself against his mother in this sixth season?

_{Isabella of France, aka the 'She-Wolf of France', queen consort of Edward II of England. From the book ‘Our Queen Mothers’ by Elizabeth Villiers, c1800. (Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images)}

 

The Iron Bank of Braavos and the Sparrows

The parallels between Isabella and Cersei are striking: adultery, complicity in their husbands’ deaths and attempts to rule through their sons. Isabella and Mortimer were able to raise funds for their expedition from the Italian bankers because Edward II had defaulted on his debts to them; Isabella and Edward III promised to resume repayments.
Just so, the Iron Bank of Braavos was ready to support Stannis against Tommen, once Cersei had defaulted on the huge sums owed to the Bank. The Crown’s financial crisis also drove Cersei to strike a deal with the Sparrows, the fanatical grassroots movement that has taken over the Faith, and to allow them to arm themselves in return for forgetting the money the Crown had borrowed.
The Sparrows resemble the Franciscan movement, founded by St Francis in around 1209. The Franciscans sought to return to a simpler, less money-obsessed form of Christianity. Franciscan brothers (friars) were sworn to poverty and wandered from place to place preaching the Gospel to ordinary folk in language they could understand. The Sparrows of the Faith, however, combine their contempt for riches with a strict sexual morality and with the power, like that of the Inquisition, to compel sinners into religious courts and to punish them for their offences – as Cersei and Margaery have discovered.

_{c1220, a portrait of Saint Francis of Assisi kneeling at an rock altar to pray with a skull in his hand. (Photo by Archive Photos/Getty Images)}

The Ironborn

We haven’t seen much of the Ironborn, the Westerosi sea-borne warriors, since season four. Fierce piratical fighters, depending on their swift, stable and beautifully designed longships for speed and manoeuvrability, the Ironborn live by raiding their neighbours and by selling their captives into slavery in Volantis. So too the Vikings (9th-11th centuries) depended on their longships to raid along the coasts of Europe, journeying down the rivers of Russia to the Black Sea, around the Mediterranean, and of course across the North Sea to the British Isles.
We tend to think of the Vikings as mostly interested in easily portable plunder, but in fact they were active in the European slave trade. One Icelandic saga relates how a beautiful slave-woman was acquired by an Icelander at the market on an island off southern Sweden. Melkorka turned out to be the daughter of an Irish king and her son became one of the richest men in Iceland.
Vikings exploited the market for blond-haired, well-educated slaves in the Greek empire. They raided in the Baltic territories and sold their Slav captives in Constantinople: the origin of our word ‘slave’. Vikings were also farmers and traders as well as raiders; the Word of House Greyjoy, ‘We Do Not Sow’, would not have resonated with those Vikings who lived long enough to settle with a wife and family wherever they could find land, in Scandinavia, northern Britain, Ireland or Iceland.

_{Viking ships arriving in Britain, c1130. Found in the collection of Pierpont Morgan Library. Artist: Abbo of Fleury. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)}

The Dothraki

After a long absence from Game of Thrones the Dothraki are set to return. Loosely based on the central Asian Mongol peoples, these copper-skinned nomadic warriors are also involved in slaving and raiding around the grasslands of the Dothraki Sea.
The Mongols ruled over the largest land empire the world has ever seen, from the Pacific Ocean to Hungary. Western churchmen often visited them during the 13th century, bringing letters from western kings and from the pope. The friars wrote detailed accounts of their journeys, relating how difficult the weather was and how strange the food and drink. Fermented mare’s milk, or kumiss, was a poor substitute for wine, though they liked the spicy horsemeat sausages.

_{Genghis Khan, Mongol ruler, originally named Temujin, 1683 Woodcut. (Photo by Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)}
The Mongols held all other peoples in contempt, reports one writer. Hearing about the kingdom of France, they asked “whether there were many sheep and cattle and horses there, and whether they had not better go there at once and take it all”. Will the Dothraki who have captured Daenerys be quite so ambitious? Khal Drogo swore to take his men in the “wooden horses” (ships) to attack Westeros and capture the Iron Throne for his beloved wife, but traditionally the Dothraki have never sailed across the Narrow Sea.
Overall, then, Game of Thrones’ extraordinary hold on people’s imaginations has much to do with the way it harnesses mythology and legend: archetypes such as the dragons and the Three-Eyed Raven; the tales of lost children and reanimated corpses. Yet it’s the realness of the re-imagined medieval pasts it brings so vividly to life that makes viewers believe in Essos, the Seven Kingdoms and the battle for the Iron Throne.

Carolyne Larrington teaches medieval English literature at St John’s College, Oxford. She is the author of Winter is Coming: The Medieval World of Game of Thrones (IB Tauris, November 2015).

9 of history's best quotes

History Extra

Queen Victoria, who reportedly said "We are not amused". (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Neil Armstrong: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”

 

On 20 July 1969, as Neil Armstrong became the first man to set foot on the moon, he marked the momentous event with this iconic statement. 

 

After jumping more than three feet down from his spacecraft Apollo 11 onto the moon’s surface and issuing his immortal words, Armstrong explored the moon’s surface for two-and-a-half hours along with fellow American astronaut Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldrin. The pair made their mark by planting an American flag and a plaque that read, "Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the moon. July 1969 A.D. We came in peace for all mankind".

 

Interestingly, though, the words uttered by Armstrong in that historic moment are in fact a misquote. After a safe journey home Armstrong told the press that what he had actually said – or intended to – was, “That’s one small step for a man”. The indefinite article was lost over the crackling audio connection – a small omission that led to a significant change in the quote’s meaning. Armstrong acknowledged this, saying that “The ‘a’ was intended. I thought I said it”. Yet since the misquote had already been repeated the world over, Armstrong was forced to concede “I can’t hear it when I listen on the radio reception here on earth, so I’ll be happy if you just put it in parentheses”.

 

^{American astronaut Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon as commander of the Apollo 11 lunar mission. (MPI/Getty Images)}

 

Marie Antoinette: “Let them eat cake!”

 

According to popular legend, this flippant remark was Marie Antoinette’s response to being told that the French people were starving and they could not afford bread. The quote, widely attributed to her, has become a symbol of the callous decadence of France’s monarchy on the eve of the French Revolution (1789–99).

 

Antoinette was famed for her extravagant lifestyle, and her exclamation of “Qu'ils mangent de la brioche" (which actually translates more literally to ‘let them eat brioche’ or a enriched, egg-based bread) was seen as damning mockery of the plight of her people. 

 

It is now generally accepted, though, that Antoinette most likely never uttered these famous words. Instead they are thought to have been attributed to her by revolutionary propaganda keen to portray her as ignorant, distant and uncaring. Writing for History Revealed magazine, Emily Brand has suggested that the expression in fact pre-dates Antoinette. It is first referenced as the words “of a great princess” in Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s 1766 treatise Confessions, written when Antoinette was only 11 years old. Brand argues the saying was only linked to Antoinette 50 years after her execution in 1793. 

 

But while this quote may not in reality have been uttered by Antoinette, the phrase had sticking power because of the popular perception, whether justified or not, of the French queen as outrageously extravagant and insensitive to the struggles of her people.

 

^{Marie Antoinette in a 1775 portrait by Jean-Baptiste Gautier Dagoty. (Universal History Archive/Getty Images)}
 

Winston Churchill: “We shall fight on the beaches… we shall never surrender”

 

Over the course of his political career, Winston Churchill delivered many iconic speeches in the face of war and hardship. From “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few” (1940) to “An iron curtain has descended across the continent” (1946), Churchill has been recognised as one of history’s most inspiring speakers.

 

Churchill’s “We shall fight on the beaches” quote was part of a grave yet rousing speech given by the prime minister in the aftermath the 1940 Dunkirk evacuation. Churchill’s words were arguably fundamental in transforming the event in the popular imagination from a humiliating defeat into a miraculous triumph of bravery and determination. Indeed, Churchill’s words – which are often misquoted as “we shall fight them on the beaches” – have been immortalised as an example of Britain’s plucky ‘Blitz spirit’ in the face of adversity.

 

A frequently misremembered fact about the “We shall fight on the beaches” speech is that Churchill did not originally read it out over the nation’s airwaves. He delivered the speech unrecorded to the House of Commons and sections of it were later read out by a BBC radio announcer. The famous recording we recognise today was not actually made until nine years later in 1949, when it was thought that Churchill's words should be set down for posterity. 

 

^{Churchill delivering his “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat” speech over BBC radio in 1940. (Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images)}

 

Queen Victoria: “We are not amused”

 

The story goes that this famous line was Queen Victoria’s retort to a risqué anecdote told by a tactless guest at a Windsor dinner party. In this version of events the “we” is intended, not as the royal “we”, but as a reference to all the ladies present who were unimpressed by such vulgar behaviour. Disappointingly, though, it is not clear whether this story stems from historical fact or just appealing urban legend. 

 

“We are not amused” has perhaps had such sticking power because it is emblematic of the public image of Victoria in her later years – a po-faced, dumpy woman dressed in black. The quote fits neatly with this straitlaced portrayal of her and also provides a handy epithet for popular ideas about Victorian society being stuffy and uptight.

 

The association of Victoria with the humourless quote arguably portrays the monarch in an unfair light. Writing for the Washington Post, historian Kate Williams has suggested that “dour” photos of Victoria, (the first photographed monarch) – taken before people learned how to pose – “unfairly colour our view of her”. Williams claims that Victoria was “full of passion for life, forgiving of moral peccadilloes” and “always loved laughter and jokes”. She was, in fact, often amused.

 

^{A photograph of Queen Victoria c1887. (Alexander Bassano/Spencer Arnold/Getty Images)}

 

Julius Caesar: “I came, I saw, I conquered”

 

Translated from the Latin “Veni, Vidi, Vici”, this line is attributed to Roman emperor Julius Caesar, who supposedly used it to boast of his military success.

 

According to ancient accounts, Caesar sent the three-word message to Rome in 47 BC to report on his victory over Pharnaces II of Pontus in the battle of Zela. Despite being significantly outnumbered at Zela, Caesar managed to crush the Pontic forces. His five-day campaign proved a swift, decisive victory that saw Pharnaces subdued by Caesar’s military might. 

 

According to Roman historian Suetonius’s The Twelve Caesars (AD 121) the “Veni, Vidi, Vici” slogan was also inscribed on placards during the ‘Pontic triumph’ – a public procession in celebration of Caesar’s return to Rome following his military victory.

 

In his Life of Caesar, Greek biographer Plutarch (c46–120 AD) writes that “In Latin the words have the same inflectional ending, and so a brevity which is most impressive”.  

 

^{Bust of Julius Caesar. (National Museum in Naples/Bettman/Getty)}

 

FDR: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”

 

These famous words were spoken during Franklin D Roosevelt’s first inaugural address, delivered at the United States Capitol, Washington DC on 4 March 1933. Following an election victory over republican Herbert Hoover in 1932, Roosevelt became the 32nd president of the United States. Known as ‘FDR’, he went on to become the first president to serve a total of four terms. 

 

Elected during the depths of America’s Great Depression, Roosevelt made his 20-minute address a solemn and resolved affair. It tackled head-on the nation’s economic crisis and unemployment, blaming the “callous and selfish wrongdoing” of bankers and businessmen. This quote, which goes on to describe “fear itself” as the “nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyses needed effort to convert retreat into advance” appeared near the very beginning of Roosevelt’s address. Contemporaries understood it as a pointed attack on the damaged and pessimistic American mindset of the time, which had been dealt a heavy blow by the economic crash.

 

Broadcast to tens of millions of Americans over national radio networks, FDR’s speech was generally accepted as a dynamic and inspiring promise to get America back on track. 

 

^{President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivers his first inaugural address at the Capitol in 1933. (George Rinhart/Corbis via Getty Images)}

 

Oscar Wilde: “There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about”

 

This remark, from Oscar Wilde’s 1890 novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, is just one example of reams of quotable material from the celebrated writer, conversationalist and wit. 

 

Wilde’s comic plays made a satire of the contradictions and petty manners of polite Victorian society. Works including The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) and An Ideal Husband (1895) are full of the wry observances and witty aphorisms for which Wilde is best known. Dozens of his phrases, including “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars”; “Always forgive your enemies – nothing annoys them so much” and “I have nothing to declare but my genius” have proven enduringly popular.

 

In 2007 Wilde was voted Britain’s greatest wit in a poll of more than 3,000 comedy fans, beating to the top spot Spike Milligan, Winston Churchill and Noel Coward. The Irish-born Wilde was wisecracking until the very end, reportedly quipping on his Parisian deathbed in November 1900, “Either those curtains go, or I do”.

 

^{Colourised photograph of Oscar Wilde from around 1870. (Roger Viollet Collection/Getty Images)}

 

Queen Elizabeth I:  “I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too”

 

This assertion of royal power from Elizabeth I was part of a rousing speech delivered by the queen in one of England’s darkest moments, as the nation faced the threat of imminent attack from the Spanish Armada. Elizabeth’s rallying cry was intended to motivate the English troops assembled at Tilbury in August 1588 as they awaited the arrival of an unprecedented Spanish invasion force. Through her words the queen clearly portrayed herself as a warrior ready to fight for her nation.

 

Accounts portray Elizabeth addressing her troops atop a white steed, wearing a helmet and cutlass. Despite the threat to her safety, the queen allegedly refused to return to London, instead resolving to stay at the English army camp at Tilbury. She reportedly declared that she would “not think of deserting her army at a time of danger”. 

 

Writing for History Extra in 2015, Robert Hutchinson revealed that although the speech elsewhere pledges that “shortly we shall have a famous victory over these enemies of my God, of my kingdom, and of my people’’, in reality it was probably not delivered in a moment of imminent danger. Hutchinson suggests that Elizabeth’s stirring words only reached her men after the Armada was already in retreat. The words were recorded by royal courtier Lionel Sharp and later repeated to the army.

 

^{Elizabeth I of England is depicted riding a horse as she reviews her troops at Tilbury, c1560. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)}

 

Eleanor Roosevelt: “Women are like teabags – you don’t know how strong they are until you put them in hot water” 

 

While her husband, Franklin D Roosevelt, was serving as US president between 1933 and 1945, Eleanor Roosevelt redefined the role of first lady through her active engagement in politics. An outspoken social campaigner and early ambassador of the United Nations, Eleanor was also engaged in human rights work, playing a significant role in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948.

 

Many inspirational quotes have been attributed to Eleanor, including “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent”; “Do one thing every day that scares you” and “It is not fair to ask of others what you are not willing to do yourself”.


 

Her “Women are like teabags” quote seems to draw on several older variations of the idea, including “A man is like an egg, the longer he is kept in hot water the harder he is when taken out”, which appeared in an 1858 Boston newspaper, and “Men are like potatoes; they do not know how soon they may be in hot water”, from an 1870 Dublin newspaper.

 

While there is little concrete evidence that Eleanor spoke the original quote, it is now widely attributed to her. The adage is reportedly a favourite of presidential candidate Hilary Clinton, who herself recently ascribed it to Eleanor.

 

^{Eleanor Roosevelt listening through headphones during a UN conference in New York. (Keystone/Getty Images)}

7 things that happened in March through history

History Extra
Submitted by: Dominic Sandbrook

Thomas Cranmer thrusts his hand into the flames that would soon burn him alive in this woodcut from John Foxe’s 1563 Book of Martyrs. © Bridgeman

11 March AD 222: Rome’s emperor of excess meets a bloody end

Even in the lurid parade of Roman emperors, Elagabalus stands out. Born into the imperial Severan dynasty in c203 AD, he found himself catapulted to supreme power in his early teens and soon began to court controversy.
To the horror of the Roman elite, their teenage emperor – whose real name was Marcus Aurelius Antoninus – had signed up to the cult of the Syrian sun god Elagabalus, after whom he now named himself. Once emperor, he renamed his god Deus Sol Invictus – God the Undefeated Sun – and installed him at the head of the Roman pantheon. Then he declared himself high priest, had himself publicly circumcised and made the city’s bigwigs watch while he danced around the Sun’s new altar.

_{A contemporary sculpture of Elagabalus, an emperor known for his excesses. © AKG}
In the meantime, Elagabalus’s sexual conduct was raising eyebrows across the city. In total he married and divorced five women, but his chief relationships seem to have been with his chariot-driver, a male slave called Hierocles, and an athlete from Asia Minor called Zoticus. According to gossip, the emperor “set aside a room in the palace and there committed his indecencies, always standing nude at the door of the room, as the harlots do… while in a soft and melting voice he solicited the passers-by”. If any doctor could give him female genitalia, he said, he would give him a fortune.
Eventually, the Praetorian Guard, sick of their emperor’s excesses, switched their allegiance to his cousin Severus Alexander and turned on Elagabalus.
As the historian Cassius Dio recorded, there was no mercy for either Elagabalus or his mother: “Their heads were cut off and their bodies, after being stripped naked, were first dragged all over the city, and then the mother’s body was cast aside somewhere or other while his was thrown into the river.”

31 March 1889: France’s iconic tower opens

The Eiffel Tower had a troubled birth. Conceived by engineers Maurice Koechlin and Emile Nouguier as the centrepiece of the 1889 Paris Universal Exposition, it was built by the celebrated bridge-maker Gustave Eiffel, who claimed it would celebrate “not only the art of the modern engineer, but also the century of Industry and Science in which we are living, and for which the way was prepared by the great scientific movement of the 18th century and by the Revolution of 1789”.
Most of the French intellectual establishment hated the idea. It would be “useless and monstrous”, a “hateful column of bolted sheet metal”, claimed a petition signed by some 300 writers and artists. But Eiffel was having none of it, even comparing his new structure to the pyramids of Egypt. “My tower will be the tallest edifice ever erected by man,” he wrote. “Will it not also be grandiose in its way? And why would something admirable in Egypt become hideous and ridiculous in Paris?”

_{A poster advertising reduced train tickets to the Exposition Universelle of 1889. The Eiffel Tower was the crowning glory  of the exhibition, but the first visitors needed to be fit: on its opening, none of the lifts were working. © Bridgeman}
In fact, when the tower was finally opened to the government and press on 31 March 1889, it was not quite finished. Crucially, the lifts were not yet working, so the visiting party had to trudge up the stairs on foot. Most gave up and remained on the lower levels; only a handful made it to the top, where Eiffel hoisted a gigantic French flag, greeted by fireworks and a 21-gun salute.
The tower was an instant hit: illuminated every night by gas lamps, it dominated not just the Exposition, but Paris itself. When the public were finally allowed in, the lifts were still not working. Yet in the first week alone, almost 30,000 people climbed to the top – a sign of how completely it had caught the world’s imagination.

5 March 1946: Churchill warns of an ‘iron curtain’ falling across Europe

In the spring of 1946, Winston Churchill arrived in Fulton, Missouri. The little Midwestern town seemed an unlikely destination for the man who, until the previous summer, had been leading the world’s largest empire. But Churchill, rejected by the British electorate, was in the doldrums. When President Harry Truman invited him to give a lecture at a little college in his home state, Churchill saw it as a chance to revive his American reputation.
Churchill and Truman travelled to Fulton by train and on the way the president read a draft of the former prime minister’s talk. It was, he declared, excellent. But when Churchill stood up on 5 March, in the packed gymnasium at Westminster College, few could have expected that his words would resound in history.

_{Winston Churchill delivers his speech alongside President Harry Truman in Fulton, Missouri. His words herald  a new era of Cold War across Europe and an end to good relations with the Soviet Union. © Getty}
A shadow, he explained, had fallen “upon the scenes so lately lighted by the Allied victory” – thanks entirely to Stalin’s Soviet Union. “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic,” he declared, “an iron curtain has descended across the continent.” That made Anglo-American co-operation all the more important. Theirs, Churchill added, was a “special relationship”.
Churchill was not the first man to use the words ‘iron curtain’, but he was unquestionably the most famous. After that day in Fulton, there was no doubt that the alliance between Stalin’s Soviet Union and the two great western powers was over – and that the Cold War had begun.

21 March 1556: Thomas Cranmer burns at the stake

By the early 1550s, Thomas Cranmer had a good claim to be one of the most influential men in English history.
As archbishop of Canterbury, he had laid the foundations for the new Church of England, attacking monasticism and the doctrine of the Mass, compiling the Book of Common Prayer and establishing the king, not the pope, as head of the church. But when the Catholic Mary succeeded her brother, young Edward VI in 1553, Cranmer was in trouble. Arrested that autumn, he publicly recanted in an attempt to save his skin. But it was no good. Even though he had abjured all his Protestant views, Mary wanted him to burn.
On 21 March 1556, the day scheduled for his execution, Cranmer was ordered to make a final recantation at the University Church in Oxford. He wrote out his text and submitted it to the authorities. But then, once in the pulpit, he did something quite extraordinary. Unexpectedly abandoning his text, Cranmer withdrew all that he had “written for fear of death, and to save my life”.
“And forasmuch as my hand offended in writing contrary to my heart,” he added, “therefore my hand shall first be punished: for if I may come to the fire, it shall be first burned. And as for the pope, I refuse him, as Christ’s enemy and Antichrist, with all his false doctrine.”
By now the place was in uproar. Guards dragged Cranmer from the pulpit to the spot at St Giles where other martyrs had been burned. And there, “apparently insensible of pain”, this exceptionally courageous man met his end, plunging his right hand into the flames first, as he had promised. His last words were a cry almost of exaltation: “I see the heavens open, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.”

Expert comment - Dr Linda Porter:
For the beleaguered Protestants of Mary I’s England, the burning at the stake of Thomas Cranmer must have seemed a moment of both despair and triumph. They had lost their spiritual leader and yet the drama surrounding his death denied Catholicism a victory.
Uncertainty, even ambiguity, had long been present in Cranmer’s own life. He pronounced the end of Henry VIII’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon, yet could not save Anne Boleyn. He was present at the king’s deathbed, exhorting him to put his trust in Christ, although Henry had continued to hear Mass throughout his reign.
As mentor to both Katherine Parr and Edward VI, Cranmer encouraged religious reform, but was willing to deny it all rather than be burned alive. His sisters, one Catholic, the other Protestant, fought for his soul in 1556. It was then that he discovered that the agonies of indecision, of abjuring the work of a lifetime, were worse than the ordeal in the flames. Cranmer chose to follow his beliefs in the most dramatic way, by unexpectedly upholding them with superb timing and oratory on the day of his death.
Thomas Cromwell may be the Tudor man of the moment, but it is to Cranmer that we owe the liturgy of the Church of England. His 1552 prayer book remains one of the glories of the English language.  In its beauty, we can still know this complex and deeply learned man.
Dr Linda Porter is the author of three books on the Tudor period. She is currently writing a book about the children of Charles I and the Civil War.

Three other notable March anniversaries

19 March 1649
Having executed Charles I, the House of Commons passes an act abolishing the House of Lords, which it calls “useless and dangerous to the people of England”.

23 March 1801
In St Petersburg, Tsar Paul I is attacked by disgruntled Russian officers, who strike him down with a sword before strangling and stamping him to death.

29 March 1461
At Towton in Yorkshire, Edward IV leads the Yorkists to victory over the Lancastrian army – led by the Duke of Somerset – in the bloodiest battle ever fought on English soil.

Dominic Sandbrook recently presented Tomorrow’s Worlds: The Unearthly History of Science Fiction on BBC Two.

Sam’s historical recipe corner: Homity pie

Hearty and warming homity pies were popular among land girls during the Second World War. (Credit: Sam Nott)

In every issue of BBC History Magazine, picture editor Sam Nott brings you a recipe from the past. In this article, Sam recreates homity pie - a hearty, vegetarian dish popular during the Second World War.
We don’t know where the name for homity pie originates from but the dish was popular with land girls during the Second World War. As well as unrationed items, the recipe also includes rationed foods like cheese, eggs and butter – the original recipe would have used these frugally. Nowadays we don’t have to be so sparing with the cheese and butter, which only make it even tastier.

Ingredients

• 4–5 medium potatoes
• 2–3 medium leeks
• 1 eating-apple, cored and chopped into small cubes
• 2 cloves garlic (chopped finely)
• 1 egg
• 3oz butter or margarine, plus more for frying
• 6oz cheese
• fresh or dried thyme
• salt and pepper (to taste)
• shortcrust pastry made with 6oz flour and 3oz butter or margarine

Method

1) Make the shortcrust pastry using plain flour and 3oz butter/margarine. Rub the latter into the flour to make breadcrumbs and bind together with some water to make a pliable dough.
2) Roll the dough into a greased pie dish and blind bake in the oven at 200°C/gas mark 6, for about 10 mins.
3) Chop potatoes into small cubes (skins on) and simmer in boiling water until tender.
4) Fry chopped leeks and garlic in butter/margarine until tender. Add apple and thyme.
5) Drain potatoes and add to leeks. Stir in one whisked egg, more butter/margarine and 2oz of grated cheese. Season with salt and pepper.
6) Fill the pie dish with the mixture and add 4oz of grated cheese on top.
7) Cook in an oven at 220°C/gas mark 7 until the top is browned.
8) Leave to cool before eating.

Difficulty: 3/10
BBC History Magazine verdict: “Wholesome and delicious”.

Recipe courtesy of The 1940's Experiment.
This article was first published in the March 2015 issue of BBC History Magazine

History Extra

Family Ties: 8 Truly Dysfunctional Royal Families

 

 

 

Cleopatra confronts Julius Caesar in this 1866 painting. She had been driven from the palace in Alexandria by her brother, Ptolemy XIII, whom she was also supposed to marry.Credit: Public Domain

Live Science

Grandma's stewing about something her sister said 20 years ago, Uncle Rupert's out teaching the kids about bottle rockets, and no one on dad's side of the family is currently speaking. If your family reunions look something like this, rest easy: You're still doing better than a great number of kings and queens throughout history.
With power and money comes dysfunction, as any number of royal families has proved. From palace assassinations to serial marriages, castle walls have seen it all.
1. Cleopatra, coming at you
Cleopatra is famous for her suicidal ending. What's less known is her bloody beginning — and the familial drama that brought her to power.
After her father's death, Cleopatra's younger brother Ptolemy XIII inherited the throne. She was meant to marry him, inbreeding being one way ancient royal families kept a grip on power. But her ambitions threatened him, and he had her exiled, according to Stacy Schiff's "Cleopatra" (Little, Brown and Company, 2010). So Cleopatra allied with Julius Caesar, retaking the throne with her other younger brother, Ptolemy XIV. That younger brother later died; Cleopatra may have poisoned him. She also had her younger sister Arsinoe IV, another rival, killed in 41 B.C.
Deadly sibling rivalry was common in the Ptolemy dynasty, according to Schiff. The complex family trees occasioned by inbreeding caused succession crisis after succession crisis, typically with deadly results.
"It was rare to find a member of the family who did not liquidate a relative or two," Schiff wrote.
2. Macedonian mayhem
Another surefire way to rile up a royal family is to have lots and lots of wives, all of which would like to see their own children installed on the throne. Alexander the Great's father, Philip II of Macedon, probably had seven wives, including Alexander's mother, Olympias.
Olympias may have had something to do with Philip II's assassination by a bodyguard in 336 B.C., according to some ancient historians, but the truth is fuzzy. According to a later account by the historian Cleitarchus, the bodyguard was a former lover of Philip II, who had taunted the king's new, younger, lover into suicide. Philip II's uncle-in-law allegedly sexually assaulted the bodyguard in retaliation, leading the bodyguard to kill Philip II in his own quest for revenge.
Whatever really happened, the Macedonian family dysfunction did not end with Philip II's generation. Alexander quickly started putting rival family members to death to secure his ascension to the throne, and Olympias had Philip II's last wife and her children killed. After Alexander died in 323 B.C., leaving a pregnant wife but no sure heir, his mentally disabled half-brother Philip III Arrhidaios (also spelled Arrhidaeus) was installed on the throne. Philip III's wife Eurydice attempted to turn this figurehead king into a real ruler; this put her in competition with Olympias in the ensuing wars of succession. Ultimately, Philip III was executed on Olympias' orders, and Eurydice forced to commit suicide. Their bodies were buried and then dug up about 17 months later for a royal cremation and funeral.
Olympias would not escape the succession wars unscathed. Captured not long after she had Philip III and Eurydice killed, she was stoned to death by relatives of people she had ordered executed.
3. Murder of a pharaoh
Harems are all fun and games until somebody gets their throat slit, as Ramesses III learned the hard way. This pharaoh ruled Egypt from 1186 B.C. to about 1156 B.C. — until somebody slashed his neck so deeply that modern archaeologists say he would have died instantly.
Ancient papyrus texts reveal that one of Ramesses III's minor wives, a woman named Tiye, was behind the plot; she was trying to get her son Pentaweret installed on the throne. Dozens of co-conspirators were sentenced to death, according to contemporary records, including Pentaweret. Archaeologists reported in 2012 they may have found the prince's mummy. The corpse in question has an agonized expression and overinflated lungs, consistent with death by suffocation or strangulation. He may have been forced to commit suicide, or he may have been buried alive. [In Photos: The Mummy of Ramesses III]
4. War of brothers
A conflict called the War of the Two Brothers can signal just one thing — a serious family meltdown. In 1527, the Inca king Huayna Capac died, leaving his kingdom to two of his sons, Atahualpa and Huáscar. (The two men had different mothers, as Inca rulers took multiple wives and concubines.)
Joint rule did not work out so well for the two new kings. By 1529, war broke out. Things got personal: According to Kim MacQuarrie's book "The Last Days of the Incas" (Simon & Schuster, 2008), Atahualpa at one point made a drinking cup out of the skull of one of Huáscar's generals.
The Inca civil war would hurry along the downfall of this civilization. In 1532, Francisco Pizarro's Spanish conquistadors appeared just as Atahualpa was declaring victory over his brother. The conquistadors captured Atahualpa and held him for ransom, though Atahualpa was able to get out an important order to his people: Execute my brother. [10 Epic Battles That Changed History]
Atahualpa wouldn't outlive Huáscar by much. The Spanish executed him in 1533.
5. The passive-aggressive emperor
Ever get the sense Mom and Dad like your brother or sister more? The kids of the Wanli Emperor had no doubt. Wanli, the 13th emperor of China's Ming dynasty, had two official consorts and a great many concubines. His favorite concubine, Lady Zheng, had two sons, one of whom Wanli desperately wanted to follow him on the throne.
But the emperor's ministers wouldn't stand for this son — Wanli's third — as heir. Ultimately, they prevailed, and Wanli was forced to declare his first son by his consort Lady Wang the crown prince. [Gold Treasures Discovered in Ming Dynasty Tomb (Photos)]
And then the emperor did something very strange. He stopped working. Wanli had once been a strong ruler, handling internal rebellions and Japanese invasions with panache. The last 20 years or so of his reign, however, were like an extended lame-duck period. In a passive-aggressive protest, Wanli spent decades ignoring meetings, memorandums and all other royal duties, according to a 2011 article in the New York Times. Unsurprisingly, this undermined the country. Many historians attribute the crumbling of the Ming dynasty in 1644 largely to the self-sabotage of Wanli's rule.
6. Captive brother
William the Conqueror, the first Norman king of England, had four sons. One died before him; William split his kingdom for his eldest remaining sons. Robert was given Normandy upon his father's death, and William got the throne of England.
That left the youngest son, Henry. He may not have been granted a kingdom, but Henry knew how to grab an opportunity. In 1100, William the younger died in a hunting accident while Robert was away on a crusade. Within three days, Henry had himself crowned king of England (as Henry I), beating his absent brother to the punch, according to the official histories of the British monarchy.
Robert attempted to take England for himself, but Henry I beat him back — and then, a few years later, took Normandy, too. Robert was captured, and Henry I kept him imprisoned for the rest of his life.
7. A murder mystery
Richard III, the last Plantagenet king of England, was recently exhumed from underneath a parking lot in Leicester. The occasion was heralded by Richard's fans as an opportunity to better understand a king remembered mostly as a Shakespearian villain. But questions remain about Richard's rise to power.
When King Edward IV died in 1483, he left behind two young sons. The eldest, Edward V, was only 12, so Richard III was declared his protector. After a 68-day reign, Edward and his younger brother Richard of Shrewsbury were sent to the Tower of London and then were never heard from again. Meanwhile, Richard III took the throne.
No one knows what happened to the boys, now known as "the Princes in the Tower." A widespread theory holds that Richard III had them murdered. But no one has ever found definitive proof of the princes' deaths (though two small skeletons were excavated from the tower in 1674), and Richard himself died in battle only two years later, taking his secrets to his hastily dug grave.
8. The many wives of Henry VIII
Divorced, beheaded, died. Divorced, beheaded, survived.
Those were the fates of Henry VIII's six wives. Family matters came to dominate the reign of this Tudor king, who could not seem to secure himself a male heir. Originally, Henry married Catherine of Aragon, his brother's widow. When the king's eye roved to the witty Anne Boleyn in the 1520s, his argument for divorce focused largely on whether Catherine had ever had sex with his brother.
The divorce case rocked the Catholic Church, triggering the English Reformation. Henry got his divorce, but Anne proved no more able to produce sons than Catherine (some modern physicians suspect that Henry may have had a genetic disorder that caused his wives' many miscarriages). She was executed on trumped-up charges of treason, adultery and incest, accused of sleeping with her own brother.
Henry would go on to marry four more times and would have one more of his wives, Catherine Howard, killed for adultery. Ultimately, Henry's efforts to install a son on the throne were for naught; his one male heir died as a teenager, only about six years into his reign. Henry's great-niece Lady Jane Grey then took the crown for a mere nine days before being overthrown by his daughter by Catherine of Aragon, Mary I. After Mary I died five years into her reign, Anne Boleyn's daughter Elizabeth I ruled. Her reign was marked by tumult, but Henry's fear that a woman could not hold the throne of England turned out to be quite unfounded: According to the official history of the British Monarchy, the "Virgin Queen" was extremely popular, and the date of her accession to the throne became a national holiday.