1685 Monmouth Rebellion

                 Argyll & Monmouth's Military Campaigns Against The Government of King James   Have to state straight away that I am not a Monmouth supporter, but think that this book is magnificent. Even a 'York toady' like myself has to be impressed. The sheer weight of information is incredible. Mr Carter has researched the subject for many years and we can all reap the benefit. He presents many contemporary illustrations, maps, colour plates showing banners, diagrams displaying battle positions which he has created himself. Charts showing the losses on both armies, the number of defeated rebels executed, transported, and pardoned during the Bloody Assizes, town by town.  There  is a most welcome chart commuting 17th century dating to modern dating. So the book will be used for as a crucial source of reference  for a long time to come. 'Fighting for Liberty' is  also a most readable but demanding text. Perhaps ...

                            From R.D.Blackmore's classic novel of Exmoor                                      Picture of R D Blackmore in public domain courtesy of Wikipedia UK  This blog post is a companion piece to my general thoughts on  Lorna Doone  for  the 'A Burnt Ship' blog    Would that I had never been there! Often in the lonely hours, even now it haunts me;would far more, that the piteous thing had never been done in England. John Ridd, Volume III Chapter XII of 'Lorna Doone' R.D Blackmore's 'Lorna Doone' (1869)  is the most well known novel to feature the Battle of Sedgemoor, well the immediate aftermath at least. In the whole of the novel's 700 pages, there is little about the Rebellion. Monmouth is referred to almost in passing Judge Jeffreys appears for a few pages as Lo...

                                                Interview with A Poet Reading History    Here, on the beach, west of the Cobb, They landed, Monmouth and 82 men. Eager to free England, Not sure how, A bit like Clinton in Kosovo. Hoping for a rising; Riding out of the West; Hoping old Jamie Milosevice Would do the decent, hand over  His land to the Proddy dog, Hoping.                              In a previous post  I quoted from Malcolm Povey's  poetry collection 'Sedgemoor', from 2006, published by  Smokestack Books  . Malcolm also has another collection of poetry 'Missing' , about the illness and loss of his wife Jackie from breast  cancer ( 2016- also available from 'Smokestack') , and his most recent poems feature in the  magazine  Acumen Mal...