During the course of the next year or so groups of Royal officers visited each county and held public enquiries to determine the land ownership of that county, with the help of a local ‘jury’ or committee. Remarkably the project was completed in 1086 and covered more than 13000 landowners across the country, an astonishing achiecvement given the technology and information available, and the absence of efficient transport in many parts of the country.

The goal was to impose taxes according to the landowners listed wealth – and there was no right of appeal against what was entered into the Domesday book. Not surprisingly this made the judgements based on information in the book often unpopular. The book is often referred to with the alternative spelling of Doomsday – not unreasonable, since the words share the same roots and the book name means ‘book of doom’ or book of final reckoning’.

Another important goal for William the Conqueror was to set down clearly which lands were now in Royal ownership, and clear up any ‘uncertainties’ – again, all claims were indisutable once entered in the book.

Using a quite sophisticated approach for the time, the men sent by the King to complete the work used existing references and documents and many long-standing disputes over land-ownership were resolved as a result (whether resolved rightly or wrongly is rather harder to say…) Certainly this was of great benefit to future generations, as England emerged from the Dark Ages and the many conflicts over land that had taken place over the preceding centuries had left many entitlements to land unclear.

The benefits of the Domesday Book proved greater than anticipated, as a sketch of England at a point in time. This provides historians with a great deal of information about land ownership at that time, and also helps to provide a more clear picture of life in Medieval times and a feeling for how important towns were, communication links between them etc. The Domesday Book has a fascinating amount of information that is almost superfluous to the task in hand, entered for information and completeness only, and it is often these throwaway comments that are as useful as the main book itself.

The maps of the Domesday Book, in truth, were not always as accurate as they might be. The detail provided for certain counties – Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex – is much greater than for other counties: these three counties featured in the so called ‘Little Domesday Book’ with the others in the ‘Great Domesday Book’. London and some other important cities were not covered, and neither were certain northern counties such as Northumberland. Likewise estimates of wealth were not always very accurate, and we can only speculate about the level of corruption and bribery that might have been involved in the preparation of such a work.

Nonetheless the Domesday Book provides one of the earliest and most extraordinary works to be tackled on such a scale and is a fascinating document even today, almost 1000 years later.

The story takes place on the north Devon coast, starting on the 12th January 1899.

At that time Jack Crocombe was in charge of the Lynmouth lifeboat. He received a telegram that a large ship was having difficulties just off Porlock, and was in danger of crashing on the coast.

The three masted ship called the Forrest Hall was being pulled by tug along the Bristol Channel but the cable between the two boats had broken, threatening both the ship and the 18 people on board. The anchors weren’t holding very well and the ship steering equipment was damaged and unusable.

Because of the poor weather conditions the nearby Watchet lifeboat could not be launched, and conditions in Lynmouth were no better so their own lifeboat also could not be launched. Jack decided that the best option was to launch their lifeboat from nearby Porlock – the rather large obstacle being that the boat would first need to be transferred by road from Lynmouth to Porlock

The journey involved poor conditions, a climb up one very steep hill (Countisbury Hill) and then a descent down another (Porlock Hill), with a boat and associated equipment weighing about ten tonnes, and a journey distance of about 20 kilometres. Horses and men were the only available resources at that time for undertaking such a difficult journey, which was to take place during the night.

Twenty horses and 100 men, women and children hauled the boat up the hill while another small team went ahead, widening the road as necessary so the boat could pass.

The women and children could not continue, and some of the men believed to continue was impossible. The remaining 20 men undertook to continue across Exmoor. Incidents en-route included a wheel coming off the carriage, roads needing widening, and obstacles too narrow to pass needed the boat to be taken off its carriage and dragged across the moors.

Going down Porlock Hill was no easier, given the weather conditions and the weight and size of the boat. Among the many challenges, it was necessary to demolish a garden wal in order to continue.

The storm had damaged the sea wall and made the usual approach to the harbour impassable but the team persisted and took a different road although it involved felling a tree to continue. By morning, less than 12 hours after Jack had received his telegram, the boat and crew were in Porlock.

The boat was immediately launched by its exhausted crew and in terrible conditions, and reached the ship an hour later. The lifeboat crew managed to get a new cable passed between the ship and the tug, and to raise the ship’s anchors, and the ship was successfully dragged from its perilous position and eventually to Barry (across the channel in South Wales), still accompanied by the lifeboat.

By evening, 24 hours after the original telegram had been received, the ship was safely docked and it’s crew had been saved – thanks to the incredible efforts and achievement of the lifeboat crew in the terrible conditions. At last the lifeboat crew could recover from their exertions – they spent the night in Barry, too exhausted to return the same evening.

The lifeboat still had to return to Lynmouth of course, which it reached just before midday on the 14th January. The only casualties in the story were a few of the unfortunate horses, which had been exhausted to death by the effort.

On a basic level he revolutionised the world of cotton weaving in the 18th century, bringing prosperity to a large part of northern England – especially himself. He achieved this by the use of the ’spinning frame’ – an invention which produced stronger cotton more efficiently than the existing ’spinning jenny’, and later through a water-powered variant called the ‘water frame’.

The exact inventor of the spinning jenny and spinning frame are slightly unclear, with various contendors (Thomas Highs, John Jay, Richard Arkwright, James Hargreaves). But 200 years later, knowing the name of the real inventor is perhaps less important than what followed.

The Industrial Revolution was a time of profound change in England, with new work techniques and practices having a widespread impact on the whole country. The raw materials were available, labour was to hand, power could be generated and the first industrial machinery had been invented. It needed one person with the inspiration to pull the ingredients together, and that was what Arkwright achieved.

It was he who had the greatest impact because of the work methods and innovation that he introduced. Mass use of machines, a focus on division of labour to improve efficiency, and a meticulous detail of planning meant that for the first time manufacturing moved away from being a small cottage industry, and to focus on mass-production based on efficient use of resources. The first factory had been invented!

Furthermore, in Cromford in Derbyshire Richard Arkwright took the process a step further – because of the lack of local workers and accommodation he built a large amount of housing near the factory. This isn’t to suggest that Arkwright was acting charitably, rather he was acting for the benefit of his own wallet, and was often ruthless in business.

His factories operated long, hard work days and made widespread use of child labour and he pursued his business interests very vigorously. The child labour aspect is important, because Arkwright deliberately chose a location where the adults were engaged in the lead mines, work that was unsuitable for children. The right of the workers in the village were small, they had little respite from work, and were usually obliged to spend their meagre earnings in shops also provided by the factory.

The transition from small industry to factory was not always an easy one, and as the industry boomed during the 1770’s Arkwright faced many challenges, related both to patents, which he spent a great deal of time defending (and ultimately losing); and to the use of machines themselves, in the riots against the use of machines that took place towards the end of the decade.

Many people tried to emulate the techniques, with or without the appropriate licences, with varying degrees of success, and by the mid 1780’s the patents had been lost by Richard Arkwright and were widely and freely used elsewhere.

Doubtless the innovations he implemented would have taken place sooner or later with or without Arkwright, but it was he who implemented them first and so it is to he that  the world owes a great debt, because the Industrial Revolution and its techniques were forever to transform the world as we know it.

Our knowledge of her life and actions is incomplete, but it is accepted that she was a person of royal birth who had two daughters. It is also said that she was fierce looking, with a strident voice and a great mass of red hair.

Following an earlier attempt at rebellion against the Romans by Prasutagus, about 10 years earlier, the Iceni lived a moderately peaceful life. This lasted until King Prusatagas died. It seems he had left a share of the territory to the Romans as his legacy, as a kind of ‘peace offering’.

The Romans who occupied England at that time took this as an invitation to occupy the region, and to plunder the wealth of the Iceni territory, and that of the neighbouring tribes.

Boadicea was not well pleased by this, and protested to the Romans. She was punished for protesting by being flogged in front of her family, and her two teenage daughters were raped.

As a result she called on the Iceni tribe to go into battle with the Romans. The neighbouring Trinobantes tribe joined forces with the Iceni for the battle ahead.

Ferocious battles followed, including great amounts of damage to the cities of Colchester, Saint Albans and London, which were each destroyed – London particularly in a terrible fire that killed many tens of thousands of people. Meanwhile the strength of Boadicea’s army increased, numbering up to 200,000 soldiers.

Despite the heroic images of the Briton tribes, they were also  a very brutal group, themselves very capable of acts of horrible cruelty, matching anything the Romans were capable of.

There is also the possibility that Boadicea and King Prusatagas were in league with the Romans, but that ’errant’ Roman generals moved in when the King died, because a Queen was not able to inherit such a territory. Thus the war was perhaps launched perhaps as a personal vengeance because of that, and the bad treatment suffered by the Queen and her daughters, rather than as a great ‘moral war’ against the oppressing Romans.

Whatever the reason, there were dramatic early victories bacause the Romans had few defensive forces in the region. It took some time for an army to be raised, and for them to catch up with the stampeding forces of Queen Boadicea.  However, after some months of destruction, Boadicea and her army were defeated.

This was surely inevitable, given the enormous miltary power and capabilities of the Romans at that time, although some historians seem to suggest that the Romans could have been forced to withdraw from England if events had turned out differently.

For the final great battle, the tribal Britons greatly outnumbered the Romans, and were so confident of winning that they had brought their families to watch from the edges of the battlefield. Many of the Briton soldiers were women, spurred on to great things by the speeches of Queen Boadicea.

The victory was not to be. In the final conflict there were 400 Roman casualties and 80,000 casualties among those from the Briton tribes. The Romans simply had tactical knowledge and weaponry that far exceeded anything possessed by the tribes, which enabled a terrible wholesale slaughter. For example, the battle was in a narrow valley, and the tribes had blocked their own retreat with supplies and equipment, thus trapping themselves at the mercy of the Romans.

Not killed in battle, Queen Boadicea committed suicide to avoid being captured, and the lands which had belonged to the Iceni were then put under a tyrannical Roman rule. The memory of ‘Boudica’ lives on, rightly or wrongly presenting her as the first British hero standing defiantly against oppression.

King Arthur – the story

Sometime around the beginning of the 6th century Prince Pendragon, a mighty soldier, was slain in a battle between the Saxons and the Britons. His brother, Uther Pendragon, took control, aided by the wise Merlin.

With the help of Merlin’s magic, Uther managed to seduce Igrain, by magically pretending to be her husband Gerlois (he had sent her husband into exile first). This trickery produced a child, Arthur, who was born at Tintagel.

For reasons of safety, Arthur was given to Merlin and sent to a knight called Ector for his upbringing. He discovered his magical powers only when he tried to pull a sword from a stone – and succeeded. The sword had been placed in the stone by Merlin, was only to be removed by the future king, and all previous attempts to remove it had failed.

With the help of Merlin, King Arthur ruled Britain. He also had the help of a magical sword called excalibur, a gift from the ‘lady in the lake’.

Arthur and excalibur were to be launched on a lifetime of adventures together, mostly heroic battles with his ‘Knights of the Round Table’ that were fought against the Saxons, from their castle in Camelot. Arthur was married to the beautiful Queen Guinevere, and had an evil half sister Morgan le Fay.

These battles over, more great incursions took place across Europe, until a large part of Europe also fell under Arthur’s control.

Many ‘related’ stories concern the knights, their adventures, and the quest for the Holy Grail.

All was going well until Mordred, another strong but evil knight, decided he shoule rule the kingdom. He formed his own great army and entered into battle with Arthur at the Battle of Camlann. Until now Arthur had always been protected from harm by excalibur’s scabbard, but this time it had been stolen by Morgan le
Fay.

Many were killed during the battle, which culminated in a fight between Arthur and Mordred themselves. Arthur killed Mordred, but died soon after from his own wounds.

King Arthur – the truth

The story of King Arthur as medieval hero started perhaps with Geoffrey of Monmouth in the 12th century, or perhaps with earlier stories passed from generation to generation.

The story gained momentum with Chretien de Troyes and his stories of the Arthurian legend, which entwined Arthur with other great mythical stories – above all that of Sir Lancelot, knight of the Round table – and started the idea of Arthur as the medieval hero. The story of the Holy Grail appears to have been
added to the tales shortly afterwards, by a certain Robert de Boron.

The complete story as we now know it is pretty much the same as the final 15th century version written by Sir Thomas Malory.

In truth nobody knows if any of the story is based on fact, and if so how much. Some people are convinced that there is sufficient evidence for the story to be believed, others claim that really there is no evidence at all.

There is a long gap between the 6th century and the 11th century during which there is only the sparsest ‘evidence’ of Arthur, and even after that there are tales and adventures but little or no real convincing evidence – the documents that exist tend to be later rewritings of earlier, now untraceable, records and documents and incorporating later material with no evidence

In truth it seems likely that the stories of Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table are medieval fabrications, but perhaps they were built originally around stories that were passed down over the centuries of a real great knight (or even a king) who actually existed, who really was a hero, and really did win great battles. Or perhaps around a mythical figure, invented around the camp fires of the 9th century…

Anyone who has tried to trace their own family history will know how quickly facts become suggestions and evidence becomes vague, and how quickly mis-spellings and conjecture move in on fact – so we can imagine the difficulties faced by someone in the 12th century trying to trace facts about the 5th century…

Unfortunately the real story of King Arthur is likely to always remain an mystery to which we will never know the answer.