Branching out....
A bit of history ranting and opinion. Because who can't have an opinion on something engrained on our national identity and long held beliefs?
I spent the bits when I wasn't drinking, eating, sleeping and writing the waffle about India whilst in India, reading David Mitchell’s excellent book, Unruly, about the Kings and Queens of England, stretching back to Aethelberht of Kent, through the Arthurian myth, the real King Alfred and his (alleged) burnt buns, Aethelstan, the supposed first King of England, the Cunts, sorry, Cnuts, (although there were plenty of them too), past William and his conquering, his brilliant and also inept children, grand and great grandchildren and off into the Plantagenets, Wars of the Roses and Tudors.
It's a very funny, very well written book that manages to both be influenced and sidestep the more traditional ways of writing about history and gives a gentle, well intentioned prodding of the historians we all know and love and are maybe irritated by.
I might need to clarify that this is the David Mitchell of Peep Show, Back, Ludwig and Upstart Crow, husband to Victoria Coren-Mitchell of Only Connect fame and the comedy partnership with Robert Webb, not the Booker Prize shortlisted fiction writer of novels such as number9dream and Cloud Atlas.
His slightly nasally voice you would recognise a millennia and a half off and it's like Mark Corrigan is teaching you history without the condescending tone. Just the funny bits and sarcastic put downs of medieval kings. He calls them twats quite a lot. And if you think about it, rather than just looking up at their majesty like one of their serfs, they really were quite often, absolute twats.
I think I probably said when I first started this Substack I'd be slaying some sacred cows. Well, maybe give them a bit of a ribbing and a dressing down. Well I'll do that to some of the Kings and Queens of England instead who have been given way too much of an easy ride. Some of these are not Great or anything approaching that. They're fucking useless.
Let's start with the a real English hero……