The ancient church at Llantrisant, Anglesey is tucked behind a farm. Among the plastered walls and panelled pews, is a marble Baroque monument. It dates to 1670 and commemorates Hugo Williams. It was erected by his son, William Williams, ‘a man of some dash and bravado’.
Born at Llantrisant in 1634, William Williams became named Speaker of the House of Commons – a role for which he felt himself to be eminently fitted. He became Treasurer of Gray’s Inn, for alongside his parliamentary career he continued a high-profile practice at the bar.
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But his career was marked by sudden changes of allegiance - and hence gave rise to his nickname as 'the arch trimmer' – a person who fluctuates between political parties.
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His support of the unpopular James II alienated many of his friends, especially after his nomination as the king’s Solicitor-General in 1687, the grant of a knighthood, and in 1688 a baronetcy.
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As Solicitor-General Williams led for the Crown in James’s attack on the 7 Anglican bishops he imprisoned for refusing to co-operate in his religious policy… but, the bishops were triumphantly acquitted, Williams’s career was in tatters …and the king’s days were numbered.
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But miraculously, Williams lived to fight another day. In 1689 he was elected MP for Beaumaris, Anglesey. By now, he was a prominent supporter of William III and Mary II – reversing he previously allegiance to James II, who had fled to France.
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Nonetheless within a few years he fell out with his new sovereigns.
He died at his Gray’s Inn chambers in July 1700, and is buried at Llansilin in Denbighshire, where his mural monument can still be seen.
Red and yellow and pink and green ... most children can tell you that rainbows contain seven colours, and many of us use 'ROYGBIV' to remember them. But people haven't always seen rainbows this way.
Rubens' 'The Rainbow Landscape' of 1636 was painted just three decades before major new scientific theories about colour and light emerged. The rainbow lights up surrounding clouds with highlights of lemony yellow and blue.
In 1664, Robert Boyle conducted experiments with prisms, and in the 'artificial rain-bow' he produced, he observed five colours: Red, Yellow, Green, Blew and Purple. ...
The church at Skeffling was built from glacial clutter and recycled masonry in the 1400s. It sits in Holderness. A landscape of mudflats and salt-marshes washed into existence by the North Sea.
Here ‘leaves unnoticed thicken, hidden weeds flower, neglected waters quicken’.
Those are the words of poet, Philip Larkin. Larkin explored this area after he moved to Hull in 1955 to take up the position of librarian at the Brynmor Jones Library at the University of Hull. He lived there and held that job for thirty years, until his death in 1985.
Of Hull, he wrote "I never thought about Hull until I was here. Having got here, it suits me in many ways. It is a little on the edge of things, I think even its natives would say that. I rather like being on the edge of things.”
If there were more than 20 sheep in the flock, he could note the first 20 when he reached Figgit by putting a pebble in his pocket, and then starting the sequence from Yan again.
(info from 'Alex's Adventures in Numberland' by Alex Bellos)
In about 1300, five massive oak legs were pushed into the soil at Boveney to raise a belltower out of the clay tile roof of the 12th-century church. Inside, in the 1800s fielded panelling was installed, hiding those hardworking legs.
Perfect as that panelling looked, it obscured the most important timbers. Noticing that the bellcote was somewhat slumped, our architect removed some panels, and we found the legs were rotten. Boveney church was *almost* without a leg to stand on.
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Many things contributed to the decay-the high water-table of the river-bank church, deathwatch beetle, fruiting bodies… The panelling concealed this until it was almost too late. The words, ‘catastrophic collapse’, were used. Panic set in. The £60,000 repair bill quadrupled.
Between 1666 and 1680, the English parliament sought to protect the wool trade, by requiring the dead to be buried in nothing but a shroud of English sheep's wool. Plague victims and the destitute were the only exceptions.
The 'Burying in Woollen Acts' required an Affidavit within 8 days of burial, proving before a JP that the law had been complied with. Those who didn't comply were fined £5, half of which went to the poor. This blog has some terrific examples of affidavits:buff.ly/3YkB33B
Many wealthy families preferred to simply pay the fine and bury their loved ones in clothing or shrouds of finer materials, such as linen.
St Patrick was ripped from his home as a teenager. After six years as a slave in the west of Ireland, he trekked the breadth of the island to get home to Britain. He would become the patron saint of Ireland, yet at the end of his life, he felt he had failed.
Patrick lived in the 5th century. Upon leaving Ireland in his early 20s, he devoted his life to Christ. He returned to Ireland after hearing Vox Hiberionacum – the voice of the Irish – in a dream.
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He became the patron saint of Ireland in the 7th century when the embellishment of St Patrick’s story began. Some of the biographers got quite creative, attributing all manner of miracles to the man – from snakes to sprouting staffs.