A mistaken call to arms
QUESTION What major battles or atrocities resulted from a basic miscommunication? The most famous miscommunication in British history must be henry II’s outburst about his former friend and confidant, Thomas Becket.
In 1162, Becket was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury and the king hoped Becket would continue to serve him. But, on his appointment, Becket underwent a religious transformation and became a vigorous defender of his Roman Catholic faith.
A series of disputes led to henry’s infamous exclamation: ‘Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?’ (though some historians believe it was the more verbose (‘What miserable drones and traitors have I nourished and brought up in my household, who let their lord be treated with such shameful contempt by a lowborn cleric?’)
It was spoken rashly, but four knights in attendance took him at his word. Led by Reginald Fitz Urse, they travelled to Canterbury and attacked the Archbishop in broad daylight, as he prepared for mass. he died on December 29, 1170. The murder made a martyr of Becket and blighted the last years of henry’s reign.
A. R. Morris, Brighton. A mIsCommUnICATIon at Wounded Knee led to one of the worst massacres in American history.
major samuel m. Whitside and his troops intercepted a band of Lakota sioux trying to reach the Pine Ridge Reservation. escorting them to Wounded Knee Creek, they demanded that the tribe hand over their weapons.
A young native named Black Coyote, of the minneconjou tribe, raised his Winchester above his head, shouting that he paid much money for the rifle and that it belonged to him.
When a trooper tried to take his rifle from him a scuffle ensued, during which a shot was fired into the air. Panicked, the soldiers took the shot as a sign to open fire on the tribe. some Lakota managed to seize weapons and return fire, but they were cut to pieces by field artillery on the surrounding hills.
As the Lakota fled, cavalrymen gave chase — some bodies were found miles away from the initial battle site. more than 250 Lakota and 25 U.s. soldiers are believed to have died.
some years afterwards, Lakota Dewey Beard recalled that Black Coyote was deaf and that ‘if they had left him alone he was going to put his gun down’.
Lawrie Dean, Colwall, Herefordshire. on JAnUARy 12, 1950, the American secretary of state, Dean Acheson, delivered a keynote speech to the national Press Club in Washington DC. he stated that the U.s. was an ‘ally for those in Asia who sought their own national independence’, and that those who sought aid from the UssR would eventually be dominated by the soviet regime.
During the same speech, however, Acheson made a fateful announcement. The U.s. had a vital ‘defensive perimeter’, he said, a line that the soviets could never cross without threatening America’s core national security interests.
In the Pacific, Acheson said, that line ran from the Aleutian Islands off Alaska to Japan, through the Ryukyu Islands between Japan and Taiwan, and south to the Philippines. But he had left Korea out of the American ‘defensive perimeter’.
stalin interpreted this speech as Acheson sending a signal to moscow that the U.s. would not fight to preserve syngman Rhee’s government in south Korea. And, as a result of this speech, stalin approved Kim Il-sung’s soviet-backed invasion of south Korea. The U.s. did, in fact, intend to defend south Korea. The ensuing war lasted three years and left millions dead.
Keith Yates, Derby. QUESTION Were the Bawdy House Riots of 1668 caused by a rise in the costs of prostitution? The 17th century witnessed a rise in a strange phenomenon: the sacking of brothels or bawdy-houses coinciding with festivals or public holidays.
The political theorist, James harrington (1611-1677), reported that ‘on shrove Tuesday, it was customary for the apprentices to rise and pull down brothels’.
other literary sources tell how ‘bawds and prostitutes shivered as shrovetide drew near’. It surprised Charles II (a frequenter of such establishments) that the apprentices should plunder brothels. ‘Why do they go to them, then?’ he asked.
These rituals occurred with persistent regularity — there were 24 shrove Tuesday riots between 1606 and 1641. such activities usually received moderate handling by the authorities, and only in exceptional circumstances did the courts punish the rioters with fines or prison.
on occasion, the sackers were praised as ‘reformers of vice’, and harrington claimed they were the apprentices’ ‘ ancient administration of justice at shrovetide’. An early ballad praised their actions: ‘Now sing we laude with one accord/T o these most digni laude/Who thus intend to bring to end/All that is vile and bawdie.’
The apprentice attacks on bawdy houses in easter week 1668 were particularly violent and an unusually severe punishment was enacted. The riots broke out on easter monday when a group attacked bawdy houses in Poplar.
The next day, crowds of up to 500 pulled down similar establishments in moorfields, east smithfield, st Leonard’s, shoreditch and st Andrew’s, holborn — the main bawdy house districts of London. They were armed with ‘iron bars, polaxes, long staves and other weapons’, presumably the tools necessary for house demolition.
eventually, 15 of the ringleaders were tried for high treason, on a rather dubious interpretation of the law, and four were hanged, drawn and quartered.
A specific cause of the riot was the King’s proclamation against conventicles (private lay worship) while turning a blind eye to brothel-keeping.
Popular dissatisfaction with the ruling class was a big factor, and the morality of the King himself was in question. he had engaged in a series of extra- marital affairs with highprofile courtesans, and debauchery in his court was widely condemned.
David Willis, St Andrews, Fife. QUESTION Which insect has the widest wingspan? FURTheR to the earlier answer, the white witch moth has the widest wingspan in the insect world, but the death’s head hawk-moth has a maximum wingspan, correctly measured as wing-tip to thorax centre times two, of up to 140 mm (about 5.5 in). The convolvulus hawk- moth similarly has a wingspan of up to about 130mm (about 5.1 in).
These are only fairly regular migrants to the UK from the mediterranean area, and cannot survive the British winter. The native species with the widest wingspan is the privet hawk-moth, measuring 125 mm (about five inches).
Roger Hayward, Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society, Wokingham, Berks.
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