Three Men in a Boat - Jerome K. Jerome [101]
3. (p. 63) morceaux: bits or scraps.
4. (p. 67) Bradshaw: President of the court which condemned Charles I to death in 1649.
5. (p. 67) the guide man: the best-known of all railway timetables, Bradshaw’s Railway Guide was first published in 1839 by George Bradshaw: it appeared every month until 1961.
6. (p. 67) scold’s bridle: a ‘scold’ was a nagging wife, the bridle a metal contraption which fitted over the head and prevented her from opening her mouth.
7. (p. 67) Cassivelaunus: hot-tempered leader of the Catuvellauni, a tribe of Ancient Britons based on the north bank of the Thames; he led the opposition to Julius Caesar’s invasion of Britain in 54 BC.
Chapter 9
1. (p. 75) Penton Hook: so named because the Thames nearly doubles back on itself.
2. (p. 75) Runnymede: island on the Thames on which, in June 1215, King John is said to have signed the Magna Carta. Victorian historians liked to represent King John as the wickedest and most despotic of English monarchs, and the Magna Carta was the result of his demands for excessive feudal dues and his attacks on Church privileges. Among its clauses were checks against infringements of feudal custom, extortions by officials and the maladministration of justice, and no freeman could be arrested, imprisoned or punished except by the judgement of his peers or by the law of the land. The Magna Carta was rediscovered and reinterpreted by the parliamentary party during the seventeenth century, and came to be regarded as a seminal document in the establishment of personal and political freedoms in the English-speaking world.
3. (p. 78) Faust: the opera by Charles Gounod (1818–93) was first performed in London in 1863.
Chapter 11
1. (p. 94) Barons’: King John’s opponents were collectively referred to as the ‘Barons’.
2. (p. 95) halbert-men: halberts were combined spears and battleaxes.
3. (p. 95) casque: helmet.
Chapter 12
1. (p. 97) Anne Boleyn: she became the second wife of Henry VIII after a spell as his mistress. The mother of the future Queen Elizabeth, she was beheaded in 1536, charged with incest and adultery.
2. (p. 98) Irish question: Irish independence – or, rather, the degree of self-rule Ireland should be permitted within the framework of the United Kingdom – was a source of incessant debate and agitation. As Prime Minister, Gladstone not only disestablished the Church of Ireland, but sought to introduce Home Rule: his Home Rule Bills of 1886 and 1893 were both defeated.
3. (p. 99) Edward the Confessor: other-worldly English king who came to the throne in 1042, but preferred to leave matters in the hands of Earl Godwin and concentrate on religious matters instead. His son, Harold, was slain at the Battle of Hastings in 1066.
4. (p. 106) London Journal: a source of fashionable tittle-tattle.
5. (p. 106) three-volume novel: see Introduction, p. xiv.
Chapter 13
1. (p. 108) Marlow: elegant little riverside town, best known for its graceful suspension bridge – the work of William Tierney Clark, whose other suspension bridges included Hammersmith Bridge and that linking Buda and Pest. Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein in Marlow; on the other side of the river from the town is The Compleat Angler, one of the best-known riverside pubs.
2. (p. 109) Knights Templars: a religious order, founded in 1119, devoted to the recovery of Palestine from the Saracens, active in the Crusades, and suppressed on grounds of heresy in 1307.
3. (p. 109) Anne of Cleves: the fourth wife of Henry VIII: she was German and very plain, and the marriage was dissolved.
4. (p. 109) Warwick, the king-maker: Machiavellian earl, who fought on both sides during the Wars of the Roses.
5. (p. 109) Poitiers: battle during the Hundred Years War between England and France, at which the Black Prince defeated King John of France (1356).
6. (p. 109) The Revolt of Islam: epic poem by Percy Bys she Shelley (1792–1822).
7. (p. 109) King Sebert: first Christian king of the East Saxons: died c. 616.
8. (p. 109) King Offa: Anglo-Saxon King of Mercia: established Mercian