The future Edward I born today in 1239


  • Thanks for the latest historical capsule.  I’ve just looked up the Stone of Scone on Wikipedia and I noted an odd historical fact about Edward I: he was the 21st great grandfather of an English university student named John Josselyn who, as a supporter of Scottish nationalism, served as an accomplice to the four Scottish students who kidnapped the Stone from Westminster Abbey in 1950 (breaking it in two in the process) and smuggled it back to Scotland.  It didn’t stay there long at the time, though it’s since been repatriated to Scotland through more official channels.


  • I forgot it was kidnapped. Thank you for the reminder.
    Edward I was my favourite monarch. Recently it has become Richard III.

  • Liaison TripleA '11 '10

    I was fascinated by the stone too…

    Especially the theory that it may have been the Jacob Stone.

    However… what’s the big deal here?  It’s jut a piece of rock! Why is it so important?


  • @Gargantua:

    However… what’s the big deal here?  It’s jut a piece of rock! Why is it so important?

    Symbolism.  Case in point: In the movie The Blue Max, George Peppard’s character spends the film relentlessly pursuing his goal of being awarded the Pour Le Merite decoration to prove that he’s a man who deserves respect.  He even engages in some morally dubious actions to achieve his aim.  He finally succeeds.  As I recall, a female character asks him about the decoration at some point and – suprisingly for a guy who’s been so obsessed with getting it – he dismissively describes it as “just a few pfennings’ worth of silver and enamel.”


  • Wasn’t it Raquel Welsh?
    I would have cut my leg off for a night with her.
    How hot? James Mason was not even bothered. Bloody hell!


  • @wittmann:

    Wasn’t it Raquel Welsh? I would have cut my leg off for a night with her.  How hot? James Mason was not even bothered. Bloody hell!

    It was Ursula Andress – the actress who wore the iconic bikini in Dr. No rather than the one who wore the iconic bikini in One Million Years BC.


  • Thanks. You are right.
    She watched George Peppard crash in The blue Max.
    She was upset, but being German hid it well.


  • I saw my first Dr1 when I was at primary school. It was a replica, but with the German crosses on it, I fell in love.
    I do like the scene with George Peppard and the better German Ace as they fly over France trying to outdo each other. Forget the actor’s name.
    In fact does the film not start with planes flying beautifully, almost peacefully, over the Infantry, seemingly in another world far removed from the slaughter and privation going on below?


  • @wittmann:

    In fact does the film not start with planes flying beautifully, almost peacefully, over the Infantry, seemingly in another world far removed from the slaughter and privation going on below?

    I can’t recall, but I once read a book about the Red Baron which contained a dramatized scene in which some German soldiers are slogging their way towards the front when they’re overflown by Richthofen’s Flying Circus. One of the young infantrymen starts talking about how those pilots have it good: clean bedsheets at night, sausages, Frauleins.  Another soldier, however, injects a note of caution about the dangers of flying, saying that “sometimes the engine stops” in mid-air.  And a gruff sergeant (is there ever any other kind?) adds that “Or the English come up behind you in their little machines and put a bullet into your gas tank.”  The seargeant then shakes his head and grumbles, “Give me the infantry any day.  If I get shot, at least I won’t have far to fall.”


  • You have got to love those Sergeants for putting everything into perspective.


  • Keeping to the subject of Edwards of England, Edward II’s favourite, Piers Gaveston, was executed today, the 19th June in 1312.
    He had been brought to court by Edward I, but it was his homosexual son who took a fancy to him and once king, began lavishing him with gifts and titles.
    All this angered the older Earls of the Kingdom, who ensured he was exiled, not once but twice. ( It was actually the third time, as His father had exiled him before his death too.)
    On his return, prompted by the king who missed him, he was seized and imprisoned at Scarborough castle, Yorkshire. The king had tried to hide him(!).He was brought to Warwick and despite calls for clemency, beheaded on orders of Guy de Beauchamp, the Earl  of Warwick.
    A far worse death awaited  King Edward 15 years later.


  • @wittmann:

    A far worse death awaited  King Edward 15 years later.

    Was that the murder which involved a hollow wooden tube, a red-hot poker, and various anatomical details that I won’t go into (no pun intended)? My understanding is that it succeeded in fooling the coroner (or whatever the medieval equivalent was), who proclaimed the death to be something along the lines of “an act of God”.


  • I do not know what you mean.
    He died in his sleep! These things they sometimes happen.

    There was no mark on his body, so his murderers got away with it, as you said.
    His father(Edward III) got his revenge on his mother’s lover. Hanged him.


  • @wittmann:

    There was no mark on his body

    Not on the outside…which of course was all that mattered in those pre-CSI days.  One has to admire the cleverness of the assassins, cringe-worthy as their methodology was.

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