Interesting bits blog

Alexander’s Last Ride

Thu, 8 Jul 2010 13:49:57 +0100

The following story is from my book “The Interesting Bits - The History You Might Have Missed”. You can buy my book
here or from Amazon here.

Alexander III’s rule over Scotland was marred by personal tragedy. By 1283 the king had lost his first wife and outlived all of his children. According to the Chronicle of Lanercost, he was not too bothered by the loneliness however as:

"he used never to forbear on account of season nor storm, nor for perils of flood or rocky cliffs, but would visit none too creditably nuns or matrons, virgins or widows as the fancy seized him, sometimes in disguise."

All of which was great fun but he did need an heir and so on 14th October 1285 he married the French heiress Yolande de Dreux. All looked to be going well and, aged only 44, there still appeared to be time to produce a successor. The following year that all changed. According to the Chronicle of Lanercost once again, around March 19th, 1286 Alexander finished a large dinner in Edinburgh and, despite the gathering gloom and the pleas of his nobles, decided to visit his new bride Yolande who was a short distance away in Kinghorn. Having crossed the Queensferry:

“he arrived at the burgh of Inverkeithing, in profound darkness, accompanied only by three esquires. The manager of his saltpans, a married man of that town, recognising him by his voice, called out: 'My lord, what are you doing here in such a storm and such darkness? Often have I tried to persuade you that your nocturnal rambles will bring you no good. Stay with us, and we will provide you with decent fare and all that you want till morning light.' 'No need for that,' said the other with a laugh, 'but provide me with a couple of bondmen, to go afoot as guides to the way.”

This was a mistake. The party continued but just two miles down the road, now in complete darkness, they lost their way and Alexander, in his eagerness to reach the nuptial bed, rode straight off a cliff. The bodies of horse and rider were recovered the next morning. Without a surviving heir Scotland would now be without a king for six years.

Did you enjoy that story? There are around 150 others like it in my book “The Interesting Bits - The History You Might Have Missed” available signed and dedicated direct from me, from Amazon or any good bookshop. I think it would make a rather good present, though I say so myself.

Lord Uxbridge's Missing Leg

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 17:34:43 +0000

The following story is from my book ‘Charge! The Interesting Bits of Military History.’. You can buy my book here or from Amazon here.

Henry Paget, second Earl of Uxbridge has gone down in history as one of the most stiff-upper-lipped of all stiff-upper-lipped Englishmen. Being promoted by Wellington on the eve of the battle of Waterloo to command the whole of the Allied cavalry and horse artillery, he proved a man intent on leading from the front. This was undoubtedly inspiring but it was also dangerous.

The following day, 18th June, 1815, Uxbridge led a spectacular cavalry charge against the French I corps d'armée, followed by a series of light cavalry charges during which eight horses were shot from under him. Undeterred he continued to wade into the battle until one of the last French artillery shots of the day struck him on the right leg. The canon in question was loaded with grapeshot and the leg in question was completely shattered. A lesser man might be expected to let out a small squeal at this point but not the Earl of Uxbridge. According to anecdote, Wellington was nearby at the time and Uxbridge, looking down at the bloody remains of his leg commented “By God, Sir, I’ve lost my leg!” , to which Wellington replied “By God, Sir, so you have!”

This is, of course, mere anecdote but what happened next suggests that such a response would be quite within Uxbridge’s repertoire. The injured Earl withdrew to the village of Waterloo where a medical orderly examined him in the house of Monseur Hyacinthe Joseph-Marie Paris, who, despite one of the largest battles in history blazing on his doorstep, had decided that this was no reason for him to leave his home. Uxbridge was now told the leg would have to be amputated, without of course the aid of antiseptics or anesthetics. This would be enough to make many a grown man weak but, according to his aide-de-camp, who was there, he simply replied “ I have had a pretty long run. I have been a beau these forty-seven years, and it would not be fair to cut the young men out any longer.”

And so the leg was removed as Uxbridge sat in his chair, his only further comment on the operation being a blood-curdling “The knives seem rather blunt”. After the procedure the Earl did begin to have second thoughts, however, and when his friend Sir Vivian Hussey came in to see him he was reported as saying: “Ah, Vivian, I want you to do me a favour. Some of my friends here seem to think I might have kept that leg on. Just go and cast your eye upon it, and tell me what you think.”

Quite what poor Sir Vivian was meant to say in response is uncertain but with the sort of pluck that the day was already becoming famous for he later wrote: “I went, accordingly and, taking up the lacerated limb, carefully examined it, and so far as I could tell, it was completely spoiled for work. A rusty grape-shot had gone through and shattered the bones all to pieces. I therefore returned to the Marquis and told him he could set his mind quite at rest, as his leg, in my opinion, was better off than on.”. On hearing this Uxbridge was greatly relieved.

This extraordinary display of stiff-upper-lippedness not suprisingly made Uxbridge famous. The saw which removed the offending limb was lovingly preserved and is now in the British Army Museum, and Uxbridge himself was offered an annual pension of £1200 as compensation. Naturally he refused.

Did you enjoy that story? There are well over 100 others like it in my book ‘Charge! The Interesting Bits of Military History.’ available signed and dedicated direct from me, from Amazon or any good bookshop. I think it would make a rather good present, though I say so myself.

Ota Benga

Sun, 1 Nov 2009 10:08:28 +0000

The following story is from my book ‘The Interesting Bits - The History You Might Have Missed.’. A documentary on Ota Benga ‘The Human Zoo: Science’s Dirt Secret’ is screening on Channel 4 on Sunday 1st November 2009 at 7pm. You can buy my book here or from Amazon here.

The story of Ota Benga is one of the darkest episodes in the history of black America. Born in the Congo in 1883 during the savage personal rule of King Leopold II of Belgium, he was ‘discovered’ by the American missionary Samuel Verner who found him hiding amongst the Batwa people after Belgian agents had murdered his family. Verner had been sent to the country to look for pygmy specimens to display at the World’s Fair in St. Louis as part of the craze for ‘ethnological expositions’ in which ‘primitive’ peoples were displayed in mock-ups of their own villages and in Ota Benga he found just what he was looking for. Brought back to the US Benga was displayed in the ‘University of Man’ exhibit at the 1904 fair along with Eskimos, Filipinos, Japanese tribal peoples, Zulus and, star of the show, the native American Geronimo who was labelled ‘The Human Tiger’.

After the fair Verner returned all his human exhibits to Africa but Ota Benga found difficulty in settling back in particularly as many of the Batwa he had previously lived with had been massacred in his absence. After a few months he asked Verner if he could go back to the USA with him and Verner agreed. Back in the USA Verner seemed unsure what to do with Ota Benga until it was suggested that he could become a living mascot for the American Museum of Natural History which provided him with a white suit and engaged him to make small talk with visitors. For a brief moment he became a high-society celebrity until a incident when he threw a chair at Florence Guggenheim brought the headline in the New York Times “Benga tries to Kill!” and his immediate dismissal.

It was now that Verner took Benga to the Bronx Zoo where initially he was allowed to roam the exhibits and help to feed the animals. It was not long however before it became clear that the zoo didn’t see Benga as an employee but as an exhibit. He was first asked to hang his hammock in the monkey house and then, on September 8th 1906, a sign went up there describing their newest acquisition, an African Pygmy called ‘Ota Benga’. Some 40,000 people are estimated to have come to see the man now variously described as an elf, cannibal, dwarf and savage before a group of African-American ministers mounted a successful press campaign to end the spectacle. Ota Benga was now moved to the Howard Coloured Orphan Asylum where he was taught English and Scripture. Once it was considered he had learned all he could, his ritually filed teeth were capped and he was sent to Lynchburg, Virginia under the new name ‘Otto Bingo’ where he worked in a tobacco factory. Although this was better treatment than he had received in New York Benga found it hard to settle into his new life and became depressed when he realised he could never save enough money to return to Africa. On 20th March 1916 he took a friends pistol and shot himself through the heart. He is buried in an unmarked grave.

Did you enjoy that story? There are 148 others like it in my book ‘The Interesting Bits - the History You Might Have Misssed’ available signed and dedicated direct from me, from Amazon or any good bookshop. I think it would make a rather good Christmas present, though I say so myself.