British history - for kids.......
Foul Facts Gallery: Terrible Tudors, Vile Victorians
By Simon Cooper and Terry Deary
TERRIBLE TUDORS
Terrible Tudors - Nicked ©
<Mary Queen of Scots had a grisly time of it. She paid the executioner a purse of gold to do a good job. She may have wanted her money back! After taking off her black dress to reveal a red petticoat he blindfolded her and knelt her down with her head on the block. The axe swung down - and missed!
Well, it didn't exactly miss. He nicked the side of her neck and Mary cried out. The second chop went through the back of the neck but not all the way through. He returned to use the axe as a saw and finish the job.
But that still wasn't the end of the gruesome story. The executioner had the task of picking up the severed head and showing it to the assembled throng. Sadly, no one had told the executioner that Mary wore a wig. When he grabbed her by the hair, the head fell out of the wig and bounced across the hall. Now that's what I call Horrible History!
-------------------------------------
Terrible Tudors - Cooked ©
Talking of painful executions, Mary was lucky compared with the Bishop of Rochester's cook. In the reign of Henry VIII, the Bishop of Rochester upset his cook one day. So the cook got his revenge by putting a special herb in the bishop's feast that night.
The herb was supposed to give the guests diarrhoea. Unfortunately, two of the guests got diarrhoea till they died. The cook was sent to be hanged for murder. But King Henry VIII said, 'No! hanging is too kind for that villain! I want him boiled alive in his own pot!' And that's what they did. For five years, the punishment for poisoners was to be boiled alive. What a Horribly Hot Happening!
--------------------
Terrible Tudors - Healed ©
Tudor doctors had some herbs that worked but may of their cures were just sad and silly superstitions. Here are a few of the wacky (but true) Tudor cures:
. Got a headache? Then rub your forehead with a rope that was used to hang a criminal. Suffer from rheumatism? Then wear the skin of a donkey. In pain with gout? Boil a red-haired dog in oil, add worms and the marrow from pig bones. Rub the mixture in. A painful liver? Drink a pint of ale every morning for a week - with nine head-lice drowned in it.
Are you bald? Use a shampoo made from the juice of crushed beetles. When the head is clean then rub in grease made from the fat of a dead fox. Are you a martyr to asthma? Swallow young frogs or live spiders, then cover them in butter to help them slide down easier. Other crazy cures included powdered human skull, bone-marrow mixed with sweat, a stone that has killed a she-bear and fresh cream mixed with the blood of a black cat's tail.
Tasty treats! You'd soon be out of your sick bed if you were offered those poisonous panaceas.
--------------------
Terrible Tudors - Neglected ©
Queen Elizabeth I may have gloated about defeating the Spanish Armada but the real winners were Dr Death and his friend Mr Disease. Once the fighting was over, those gallant sailors did not return to 'a land fit for heroes'. Fighters never do. English Admiral, Lord Howard, said after the battle ...
'The sailors cry out for money and they know not when they will be paid. Sickness and death begin to grow among us. It is a most pitiful sight to see how the men, with no place to go, die in the streets. It would grieve any man's heart to see those that have served so bravely, die so miserably.' Nice way to treat your heroes.
--------------------------
VILE VICTORIANS
Vile Victorians - Poisoned ©
The greatest Victorian serial killer wasn't Jack the Ripper, as you may think. It was a woman! In 1873, in County Durham, Mrs Mary Ann Cotton was accused of poisoning her step-son, the eight year old Charles Edward. A doctor looked at the contents of the stomach and said, 'The boy died of gastric fever'. Mary Ann Cotton was free to go.
But the next day, a local newspaper pointed out that a lot of Mary Ann's children and husbands had died of 'gastric fever'. Too many to be a coincidence? The body of Charles Edward was dug up and tested for arsenic poison. It was full of it. So were some of her previous victims. Mary Ann Cotton was hanged and it was believed she had murdered three husbands and 15 of her children! Mary Ann is forgotten while Jack the Ripper, who killed half the number of victims, is remembered. Strange.
------------------------
Vile Victorians - Dredged ©
Mary Ann Cotton was buried in Durham jail after her execution and her coffin was found many years later when the jail was being rebuilt. But not every Victorian Brit ended up in a snug coffin. Many ended up in the river and were washed out to sea, or found in the river before they got that far. Men called dredgermen had the terrific task of collecting the dripping dead and handing them over to a policeman.
The dredgermen were paid for each corpse they collected. But they made a bit of extra money by emptying the pockets of the poor dead person and pinching their cash! 'Well,' one dredgerman said, 'If we didn't steal the money the policeman would!' Can you believe that? A crooked corpse-robbing cop?
--------------------------
Vile Victorians - Dug Up ©
In Victorian times, the rich people discovered the pleasures of good drains. They had drains taken from their houses to the nearest river - and they didn't care what was dug up to make way for these sewer pipes. They even dug up dead bodies in graveyards and moved them to make way for the pipes. Before the introduction of proper sewers, British cities, especially London, stank with raw sewage that was often dumped in the streets. It was even thrown out of buckets from upstairs windows onto the heads of unfortunate passers-by.
"They're moving father's grave to build a sewer, They're shifting it regardless of expense. They're moving his remains, To put in nine inch drains, To irrigate some posh bloke's residence."
----------------------------
Vile Victorians - Loathed ©
Old Victoria's people celebrated her gold and diamond jubilees in style. But she wasn't always that popular. Her suffering Irish subjects resented the fact she sent just £5000 to help in the Irish Famine. Their contempt was expressed in a cheerful little poem written to celebrate her visit to Ireland:
"The queen she came to call on us, She wanted to see all of us, I'm glad she didn't fall on us, She's eighteen stone!"
And it wasn't only the Irish who weren't too keen on her. She survived eight assassination attempts in England and Scotland. And the most dangerous man was her minister Robert Peel, the man who created her police force (the first police force in the world). In 1842 Victoria was driving down the Mall in an open carriage. A man stepped from the crowd and fired a pistol at her, then escaped.
John Francis hadn't the money to charge the pistol properly so Victoria survived. How did Sir Robert Peel plan to catch the gunman? He told the queen to drive in the same place at the same time the next day to see if the assassin tried again! She agreed! The plan worked and the man was caught. John Francis was transported to the penal colony of Australia but the queen was not amused; she had wanted him hanged. Vile Victoria.
www.bbc.co.uk/history
Foul Facts Gallery: Terrible Tudors, Vile Victorians
By Simon Cooper and Terry Deary
TERRIBLE TUDORS
<Mary Queen of Scots had a grisly time of it. She paid the executioner a purse of gold to do a good job. She may have wanted her money back! After taking off her black dress to reveal a red petticoat he blindfolded her and knelt her down with her head on the block. The axe swung down - and missed!
Well, it didn't exactly miss. He nicked the side of her neck and Mary cried out. The second chop went through the back of the neck but not all the way through. He returned to use the axe as a saw and finish the job.
But that still wasn't the end of the gruesome story. The executioner had the task of picking up the severed head and showing it to the assembled throng. Sadly, no one had told the executioner that Mary wore a wig. When he grabbed her by the hair, the head fell out of the wig and bounced across the hall. Now that's what I call Horrible History!
-------------------------------------
Talking of painful executions, Mary was lucky compared with the Bishop of Rochester's cook. In the reign of Henry VIII, the Bishop of Rochester upset his cook one day. So the cook got his revenge by putting a special herb in the bishop's feast that night.
The herb was supposed to give the guests diarrhoea. Unfortunately, two of the guests got diarrhoea till they died. The cook was sent to be hanged for murder. But King Henry VIII said, 'No! hanging is too kind for that villain! I want him boiled alive in his own pot!' And that's what they did. For five years, the punishment for poisoners was to be boiled alive. What a Horribly Hot Happening!
--------------------
Tudor doctors had some herbs that worked but may of their cures were just sad and silly superstitions. Here are a few of the wacky (but true) Tudor cures:
. Got a headache? Then rub your forehead with a rope that was used to hang a criminal. Suffer from rheumatism? Then wear the skin of a donkey. In pain with gout? Boil a red-haired dog in oil, add worms and the marrow from pig bones. Rub the mixture in. A painful liver? Drink a pint of ale every morning for a week - with nine head-lice drowned in it.
Are you bald? Use a shampoo made from the juice of crushed beetles. When the head is clean then rub in grease made from the fat of a dead fox. Are you a martyr to asthma? Swallow young frogs or live spiders, then cover them in butter to help them slide down easier. Other crazy cures included powdered human skull, bone-marrow mixed with sweat, a stone that has killed a she-bear and fresh cream mixed with the blood of a black cat's tail.
Tasty treats! You'd soon be out of your sick bed if you were offered those poisonous panaceas.
--------------------
Queen Elizabeth I may have gloated about defeating the Spanish Armada but the real winners were Dr Death and his friend Mr Disease. Once the fighting was over, those gallant sailors did not return to 'a land fit for heroes'. Fighters never do. English Admiral, Lord Howard, said after the battle ...
'The sailors cry out for money and they know not when they will be paid. Sickness and death begin to grow among us. It is a most pitiful sight to see how the men, with no place to go, die in the streets. It would grieve any man's heart to see those that have served so bravely, die so miserably.' Nice way to treat your heroes.
--------------------------
VILE VICTORIANS
The greatest Victorian serial killer wasn't Jack the Ripper, as you may think. It was a woman! In 1873, in County Durham, Mrs Mary Ann Cotton was accused of poisoning her step-son, the eight year old Charles Edward. A doctor looked at the contents of the stomach and said, 'The boy died of gastric fever'. Mary Ann Cotton was free to go.
But the next day, a local newspaper pointed out that a lot of Mary Ann's children and husbands had died of 'gastric fever'. Too many to be a coincidence? The body of Charles Edward was dug up and tested for arsenic poison. It was full of it. So were some of her previous victims. Mary Ann Cotton was hanged and it was believed she had murdered three husbands and 15 of her children! Mary Ann is forgotten while Jack the Ripper, who killed half the number of victims, is remembered. Strange.
------------------------
Mary Ann Cotton was buried in Durham jail after her execution and her coffin was found many years later when the jail was being rebuilt. But not every Victorian Brit ended up in a snug coffin. Many ended up in the river and were washed out to sea, or found in the river before they got that far. Men called dredgermen had the terrific task of collecting the dripping dead and handing them over to a policeman.
The dredgermen were paid for each corpse they collected. But they made a bit of extra money by emptying the pockets of the poor dead person and pinching their cash! 'Well,' one dredgerman said, 'If we didn't steal the money the policeman would!' Can you believe that? A crooked corpse-robbing cop?
--------------------------
Vile Victorians - Dug Up ©
In Victorian times, the rich people discovered the pleasures of good drains. They had drains taken from their houses to the nearest river - and they didn't care what was dug up to make way for these sewer pipes. They even dug up dead bodies in graveyards and moved them to make way for the pipes. Before the introduction of proper sewers, British cities, especially London, stank with raw sewage that was often dumped in the streets. It was even thrown out of buckets from upstairs windows onto the heads of unfortunate passers-by.
"They're moving father's grave to build a sewer, They're shifting it regardless of expense. They're moving his remains, To put in nine inch drains, To irrigate some posh bloke's residence."
----------------------------
Old Victoria's people celebrated her gold and diamond jubilees in style. But she wasn't always that popular. Her suffering Irish subjects resented the fact she sent just £5000 to help in the Irish Famine. Their contempt was expressed in a cheerful little poem written to celebrate her visit to Ireland:
"The queen she came to call on us, She wanted to see all of us, I'm glad she didn't fall on us, She's eighteen stone!"
And it wasn't only the Irish who weren't too keen on her. She survived eight assassination attempts in England and Scotland. And the most dangerous man was her minister Robert Peel, the man who created her police force (the first police force in the world). In 1842 Victoria was driving down the Mall in an open carriage. A man stepped from the crowd and fired a pistol at her, then escaped.
John Francis hadn't the money to charge the pistol properly so Victoria survived. How did Sir Robert Peel plan to catch the gunman? He told the queen to drive in the same place at the same time the next day to see if the assassin tried again! She agreed! The plan worked and the man was caught. John Francis was transported to the penal colony of Australia but the queen was not amused; she had wanted him hanged. Vile Victoria.
www.bbc.co.uk/history
Last edited: