Take a society riven by social and political conflict, where religious toleration is an alien concept. Then suggest that a committee drawn from that society – not an individual – produce one of the greatest and most enduring documents in the English language. This, of course, is the unlikely tale...
The ship was ready for battle. Hammocks had been stowed in the netting alongside the upper decks, soft bulwarks to absorb musket balls. Other nets had been spread above the deck and poop to catch falling debris. Further anti-boarding nets had been rigged up. Cabins had been dismantled to give a c...
She gathered around her at Wilton, as her own armory, a company of wits, poets, thinkers, and scientists. She and they made Wilton the center of Renaissance England. Almost the entire family was writing poems. Her other brother, Robert Sidney, who became governor of Flushing on Philip’s death, wr...
Autumn was verging into winter. The passage had begun sweetly enough, but, as a low had come through, the wind had veered and stiffened, and the boat had been sailing close-hauled most of the day, well heeled over, only a reefed main and the stays’l up. Now there was snow. Grey, twisting showers ...
They are living in rough sheds built against their ships. The rigging has rotted. They are surrounded by loot but sleep on the skins of wild animals. Dogs eat the dead. Dogs are everywhere on the battlefield. They chew at the genitals of the corpses, and birds clap their wings over the remains. I...