The Complete Sherlock Holmes, Volume II - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle [461]
6 (p. 246) the time of the first crusade ... Red King: The First Crusade lasted from 1095 to 1099. The identity of Hugo de Capus is not known. A fortalice is a small fort. The Red King refers to William Rufus, or William II (c.1056-1100), son of William the Conqueror.
7 (p. 272) “Shocking, Watson, shocking!”: Holmes’s clearly ironic retort reminds one of Claude Rains in Casablanca, who is “shocked, shocked” to find gambling going on in the gin joint where he seconds later receives his nightly take. It may even have been the inspiration for that scene.
8 (p. 280) the concealment of Charles ... a visit there by the second George: During the English Civil War (1642-1651) between the Parliamentarians and the Royalists, King Charles I went into hiding in a futile attempt to escape being beheaded, which finally happened in 1649. The second George was King George II, who ruled from 1727 to 1760. Birlstone Manor has had a rich and eventful history.
9 (p. 333) the repulsion and fear which the huge Danton may have felt for the puny but dangerous Robespierre: Georges-Jacques Danton (1759-1794) was a leading voice in the French Revolution. His personal magnetism, a combination of his imposing physical presence and his grandiloquence as an orator, helped him become president of the Committee of Public Safety and the effective head of government in 1793, but his opposition to the Reign of Terror, largely run by Max imilien François Robespierre (1758-1794), cost him his head in 1794. Robespierre—slight of build and frail in health, but possessed of a steel will—lost his own head a few months after Danton.
10 (p. 340) Pinkerton’s: The Pinkerton National Detective Agency, founded in 1850 by Allan Pinkerton (1819-1884), had many notable triumphs. One was foiling an assassination attempt against Abraham Lincoln in 1861. Another was the breakup of the Molly Maguires, the model for the Scowrers.
11 (p. 376) the die was cast: This is the English for a centuries-old Latin mistranslation (Jacta alea est) of the Greek phrase Julius Caesar uttered upon crossing the Rubicon with his army. Because by Roman law the Legions had to remain on the other side of that boundary, this crossing began a civil war. The Latin phrase indicates that a fateful step has been taken from which there is no turning back. Caesar actually quoted a half-line from the Greek playwright Menander. That line translates as, “The dice fly high,” meaning “It’s up to chance now—anything can happen.”
12 (p. 382) General Gordon: It’s difficult to follow Holmes’s reasoning without knowing how the British public felt about General Charles (“Chinese”) Gordon (1833-1885), so called because he helped put down the Taiping rebellion in 1863 and 1864. Years later, when a charismatic Sudanese leader claiming to be the Mahdi (the Muslim Messiah) raised a rebellion against British and Egyptian rule, Gordon was sent to suppress the uprising. He was besieged at Khartoum, called for reinforcements that never came, and was slaughtered when the city fell. Public outrage over lack of support for him forced the fall of the government. As an old soldier, Watson would naturally feel indignation at Gordon’s betrayal.
13 (p. 382) Henry Ward Beecher: Beecher (1813-1887) was a Congregationalist minister and orator who became influential in the United States before the Civil War. His trip to England in 1863 to persuade the English of the moral right of the Union cause was initially met with hostility, but he won over many audiences with his eloquence. Watson, as a fair-minded man, a believer in progress, would have been sympathetic to Beecher’s antislavery message.
14 (p. 389) purchased his own Stradivarius ... for fifty- five shillings: Antonio Stradivari (c.1644-1737), a pupil of violin maker Nicolò Amati, made violins, violas, and cellos in Cremona,