The Battle of Terheide by Jan Abrahamsz Beerstraaten

The Battle of Terheide by Jan Abrahamsz Beerstraaten, 1660

From Google:

The Battle of Terheide (also known as the Battle of Scheveningen) was the final, decisive naval engagement of the First Anglo-Dutch War. Fought on August 10, 1653, between the English Commonwealth and the Dutch Republic, the clash successfully broke the crippling English blockade of the Dutch coast, though it cost the Dutch their legendary commander, Lieutenant-Admiral Maarten Tromp.

At that time, the population of England was about five million people and the population of the Netherlands was about two million.

From Wikipedia:

Both sides claimed a victory: the English because of their tactical superiority, the Dutch because the strategic goal of their attack, the lifting of the blockade, had been achieved.

Belligerents
English Commonwealth	Dutch Republic
Commanders and leaders
George Monck  Benjamin Blake	Maarten Tromp †
Strength
130 ships[1] 4,000 guns 17,000 men[2]	125 ships[1] 3,450 guns 13,000 men[2]
Casualties and losses
950–1,200 killed and wounded 2 ships lost [1][3]	2,000 killed and wounded 1,000 captured 12-30 ships lost[2][1]

Ter Heijde

Peter The Great

One of numerous bas-reliefs in the Elektrozavodskaya metro station in Moscow, Russia

A bit of history framed as a review of a TV series:

Was Peter the Great Russia’s Antichrist – or its saviour? by Dmitry Samoilov

He mentions Elektrozavodskaya, which meant nothing so I looked it up and found there is a very fancy metro station with that name, hence the above image.

He comments on a phrase used in the show: Fille danke is a bastard phrase - fille is French for girl and danke is German for thank you. Vielen dank is German for 'many thanks'. Why are we using German here? Maybe he's trying to make it intelligible to English speakers. 'Many thanks' in Russian is большое спасибо, which is gibberish to me.

Peter the Great has been mentioned here more than once.

 

Is the Pope Catholic?

The Return of the Prodigal Son - Rembrandt

Just so you know where I am coming from, I'll tell you that I am nominally a Christian, but I'm not Catholic. I do follow a couple of Catholic bloggers, mostly because they write good posts. Anyway, I came across this post by Prof. Dr. Kai-Alexander Schlevogt on RT today and it is pretty amazing. I'm very short on sleep today, so most of what passes for news holds no interest, but the way this guy writes just sucked me in. I read about half of it before my eyes failed me. He uses some fancy words, but Google is at your beck and call, so just ask for an explanation.

Thanksgiving

Entertaining story about the origin of Thanksgiving. Socialists might not enjoy it.

The Great Thanksgiving Hoax by Richard J. Maybury

The early American colonies were just disasters - half the people died. I dunno, maybe that was par for the course. But reading this story makes me wonder just who were these people who signed up for this adventure to a brave, new world. I suspect malcontents from the lunatic fringe, malcontents with money, ships are expensive. It sounds like a movie trope - band of misfits thrown into a dangerous situation with people getting killed off right, left and center.

Kalthoff 30-Shot Flintlock

Kalthoff 30-Shot Flintlock: The First Repeating Firearm Used in War (1659)
Forgotten Weapons

I had no idea something like this ever existed, and good Lord, is it complicated.

Simpletons and Scoundrels

The whole Trump assassination attempt, has been, pardon the expression, beaten to death. But then I came across this piece by JMSmith. He brings history to bear on the subject, and I think his take is insightful. Voila:

Simpletons and Scoundrels

“A flighty and half-witted man is the very instrument generally preferred by cunning politicians when very hazardous work is to be done.” 

Thomas Babington Macaulay, The History of England  (1848)*

Macaulay makes this trenchant remark while discussing a deluded wretch named Granville, the doomed patsy in a failed plot to assassinate the English King William of Orange in 1692.  Macaulay tells us that Granville, a Frenchman, was “undoubtedly brave, and full of zeal for his country and his religion,” but that his main qualification as an assassin was that he was “flighty and half-witted.”  By “flighty” Macaulay means both impetuous (overhasty) and given to romantic illusions (i.e. “flights of fancy”).  I trust what he means by half-witted is plain enough.

A flighty and half-witted man is the preferred tool of cunning politicians when their scheme is very hazardous because “no shrewd calculator” will do the deed “for any bribe.”  What cunning politicians require is therefore a romantic simpleton who dreams of glory and cannot calculate the odds.

As Macaulay explains,

“It was plain to every man of common sense that, whether the design succeeded or failed, the reward of the assassins would probably be to be disowned by the Courts of Versailles and Saint Germains [the exiled court of  James II], and to be torn with redhot pincers, smeared with melted lead, and dismembered by four horses.  To vulgar natures the prospect of such martyrdom was not alluring.”

When Granville was betrayed by his accomplices, his punishment was simply to be hung, drawn and quartered, but the prediction that the French and Jacobite principals of the plot would disown their assassin was fulfilled in full.  The official position of Versailles and Saint Germains was that assassination was abhorrent and Granville had acted alone, perhaps under the influence of madness or some personal vendetta.

After his trial, and without hope of reprieve, Granville named one Barbesieux, an agent in the French War Office, as the architect and director of the plot.  Although Louis XIV officially abominated political assassination, he quietly protected Barbesieux.  Macaulay asks:

“If he really abhorred assassination as honest men abhor it, would not Barbesieux have been driven with ignominy from the royal presence, and flung into the Bastille?”

Macaulay’s question is, of course, rhetorical.

A failed assassination.  A flighty and half-witted patsy who met a grisly end.  Official shock and detestation.  The designer concealed and protected.

Some people are going to say this smells like Killary's handiwork and I'm not going to say they are wrong.

If the name Granville sounds familiar, it's because there have been a number of Granvilles in English history, but none that I found from this time period. JMSmith concurs, the only reference we have is in Macaulay's book.

Vauban Returns

Fort Bourtange, Netherlands

Gee, that looks familiar. It's another fort designed by Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban. The earthworks are more extensive than shown in the above picture. Wikipedia has a page.

Fort Bourtange, Netherlands

I suspect Fort Sedan was also one of Vauban's designs, but there isn't much left of the original earthworks.

Fort Sedan, France

I didn't find much when I went looking for a plans or drawings for the original Sedan Castle, but I did find this short video someone took of a model in the castle itself.

Chateau Fort de Sedan 02
Cormack Roadtrip

I originally got started on Fort Sedan because of a movie about some women dealing with the impact of WW1 on their little village. There was a big battle at the Fort, which wasn't too far from their village.

Luna Nera - Netflix Series

Luna Nera season 1 trailer
Season & series

Luna Nera is Italian for Black Moon. This is a odd kind of show. We're back in the bad old days in Italy, back when people were superstitious and believed in all kinds of nonsense like witches and curses and black magic. Some bad things happen and the local lord gathers his thugs and they set out to destroy all witches. Meanwhile his son, Pietro, has returned home from university to see his ailing mother. Pietro being all scientifically educated doesn't believe in witches or curses or black magic and thinks the local people are stupid, ignorant fools. Except. There are witches and black magic and curses, and naturally Pietro falls for a young woman who has more magical powers in her pinky than the rest of her coven. So this odd little story has three sides. Who's right? Pietro and his science? The witches with their magic? Or the ignorant locals?

Production values are pretty good, but the portrayal of the witches is a little weak. It's like the producers couldn't quite agree on a theme for the witches, so we've got a mishmash of styles that don't quite fit.

What, me racist?

The Archangel Michael trampling Satan - Guido Reni, 1636

There is another tempest in a teapot brewing over St. Michael and the Black Rifle Coffee Company because of some rumor.

The only people this affects are those who have pushed their way onto the stage and are being supported by a wave of public adoration. Make one little slip and the trolls will be all over you. Live by the adoration of your fans, die by being ignored.

Henrietta Maria

National Institute for Coordinated Experiments
Fictional institute from That Hideous Strength

JMSmith is on a tear. I'm reading along and I come across the “Henrietta Marie Window”. I have no idea what he is talking about, so a-Googling I go.

I find a question on History Stack Exchange that gives us the story:

C. S. Lewis's novel That Hideous Strength contains the following passage:

“Look out! Look out!” said a dozen voices at once as a splintering of glass became audible and a shower of stones fell onto the Common Room floor. A moment later several of the Fellows had made a rush for the windows and put up the shutters: and then they were all standing staring at one another, and silent but for the noise of their heavy breathing. Glossop had a cut on the forehead, and on the floor lay the fragments of that famous east window on which Henrietta Maria had once cut her name with a diamond.

Is there is any historical basis for this? The short answer:

The reference to "that famous east window on which Henrietta Maria had once cut her name with a diamond" seems most likely to be a conflation of two or more of various events and artefacts connected to Henrietta Maria and / or her husband, Charles I. These events / artefacts involve Henrietta Maria breaking a window, Charles I purportedly inscribing messages to her on glass with a diamond, a window with an anti-Henrietta Maria inscription made with a diamond, and a marble tablet with her name inscribed on it above a window.

So who is this Henrietta? Well, if you screw up and ask for Henrietta Marie instead of Henrietta Maria you get a 17th Century slave ship.

English merchant slave ship Henrietta Marie - Peter Copeland

Wikipedia lets you know that there is also a queen with a similar name. That article finishes with this line:

During his 1631 Northwest Passage expedition in the ship Henrietta Maria, Captain Thomas James named the northwest headland of James Bay where it opens into Hudson Bay for her.

So is the Henritta Maria the same ship as the Henrietta Marie, or are they completely different ships? We're not getting any concrete answers here. The ship and the Queen are both from the 17th Century, so feel free to suppose that ship was named after the queen either as an honor or as an insult.

Henrietta Maria of France 1609 - 1699

Henrietta Maria was Queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland from her marriage to King Charles I. Her Roman Catholicism made her unpopular in England, and also prohibited her from being crowned. King Charles fought Oliver Cromwell's New Model Army in the English Civil War. Charles eventually lost and was beheaded in 1649.

The North American Province of Maryland, a major haven for Roman Catholic settlers, was named in honour of Queen Henrietta Maria. The name was carried over into the current U.S. state of Maryland.

And that business about etching messages in the glass with a diamond? Well, there seems to be some truth to that.

The central panel reads, 'I am yours and only yours till death separates'.
Inscribed Glass quarries with diamond-engraved inscriptions possibly 1646
Reputed to have been inscribed by Charles I (1600-1649)
while imprisoned at Carisbrooke Castle, Isle of Wight, in 1646

So maybe all those scratched up bathroom mirrors are just the genetic royal prerogative asserting itself.

Madeleine de Vercheres

Statue of Madeleine de Vercheres

More from Caroline Furlong's post about books:

Another novel I recommend is Ethel C. Brill’s Madeleine Takes Command*. It tells the story of Madeleine de Vercheres, the fourteen-year-old French-Canadian girl who saved her family’s fort from being overrun by the Iroquois Nation when the latter attacked. With the help of her twelve- and ten-year-old brothers and an old manservant, Madeleine held the Iroquois off for a week. Some of the soldiers who were supposed to be guarding the fort were killed or captured along with the male habitants who farmed the land, while the rest had taken the lack of Iroquois activity to mean it was safe enough to go hunting.

Having seen her mother direct the defense of the fort in a prior raid and lost her eldest brother in battle against the Iroquois, Madeleine was not so sanguine. Along with her brothers she kept the women and children safe until relief arrived from Montreal. It is a fascinating story, and I have to say that Madeleine has been one of my personal heroines ever since I read the book. It is not a novel with which I will part willingly.

She's talking about a novel, but it seems awfully specific, so I check and there really was a Madeleine de Vercheres and she really did save the fort.

The Fortress - Korean Movie

The Fortress Trailer #1 (2017) | Movieclips Indie
Rotten Tomatoes Indie
Here we are in the 17th century, 100 years after the whaling ship San Juan de Pasajes, this time on the other side of the world. The Qin and Ming Empires have divided China between them. Korea (Joseon) was formerly allied with Ming, but Qin have pushed their way in so Joseon and Ming no longer have a shared border. They are divided by Qin, and Qin is offended that Joseon is allied with Ming, so we have an invasion.

The movie alternates between battles and high level discussions amongst the leaders. The Koreans are on edge because the invading Qin army is ten times the size of their own. The minister of defense is an aging blowhard without much in the way of brains. He's going to get them all killed if someone doesn't put a stop to him pretty quickly.

The way the crowd of courtiers starts howling for blood when they hear something they don't like reminds of nothing so much as the antics that have been going on in Washington D. C. since, well, since forever.

Nam-Han Fortress Battle Scene (The Fortress) Korea vs China

The Koreans have muskets. Since the minister of defense is such a stupid bull, someone else probably instigated their acquisition, most likely the King. How accurate are these props? Wikipedia says muskets have been in common use since the 16th century, so for a hundred years before this battle, which should give them enough time to migrate from Europe to Korea.

Wikipedia has a page about the fortress, a very real place.

2 hour movie on Netflix, in Korean with English subtitles.

Kalmar Nyckel

Kalmar Nyckel
90 piece jigsaw puzzle

Kalmar Nyckel was a Swedish ship built by the Dutch to carry Swedish settlers to North America. It was built around 1625. It made four successful round trips from Sweden to North America. The replica of the ship (above) was launched at Wilmington, Delaware, in 1997. - excerpted from Wikipedia

Fruit Trees

Developed in the 1600s, the Roxbury Russet is the first known edible apple cultivar developed in North America. ELLEN ISHAM SCHUTT/U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE POMOLOGICAL WATERCOLOR COLLECTION, RARE AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS, NATIONAL AGRICULTURAL LIBRARY, BELTSVILLE, MD 20705

Detroit Steve reports:

I love blueberry, Juneberrys grow where blueberries can not, something I am not sure I ever have had.

Cornell is establishing a small farm core educational program.

Along that line, east coast cities love to plant fruit trees on their streets. Spending some of my summers in Boston, pears trees were everywhere.

Fun Fact...

New York has fruit trees with multiple grafts on them, producing multiple fruits from the same tree.

Now jumping to Detroit, the inner city is basically barren of trees, residents actually cut them down so as not to have to maintain or the cleanup expense of trimming overgrown trees. 

Puzzling to me at first when I heard this. Save the day with Fruit trees? A food source and a beautification program.

Fruit trees are wonderful - if anyone can be bothered to pick the fruit before it falls on the ground.

We had some kind of plum tree in our front yard in Beaverton. Never bothered with the fruit except when it fell to the ground and you had to avoid stepping on it and tracking it into the house. 

My dad liked fruit. I think that was part of his motivation for buying the orchard.

When we lived in Phoenix there were orange trees everywhere. There was an organization called the gleaners who attempted to harvest these oranges. They couldn't keep up.

My son took out the plum tree in his backyard.

Fruit is nice, but it's more like entertainment than food. When I am hungry I would rather have something more substantial.

Château de Villette

Château de Villette

In the murder mystery La Mante that we watched recently, the title character (the Mantis) is moved from her regular prison to an old, grand country estate, the Château de Villette. It's one of the giant stone edifices that were the hallmark of the upper class before the 20th Century. It's a big place, the grounds are immaculate, but it is empty. Some heavy gauge wire gates have been installed to contain the prisoner and there is a bare smattering of furniture for her and her guard, and that's it.

The place was designed in 1680, the same time as Versailles, King Louis XIV's fabulous palace. King Louis' time was the pinnacle of French civilization, for the upper class anyway. The following century was a long slide toward disaster. See the story about the financial catastrophe that was France in the 18th Century (previously linked in an earlier post).

Aside from being used for making movies, the place has accommodations for visitors. A bit spendy I expect.

Fancy Old Gun

A beautifully decorated grenade launcher with a wheel lock, Germany, 1610-1620

I don't recall where I found this, but it impressed me enough that I saved the images.

Tulips

Gainbrige Tulips Commercial 2019 from David Eeles on Vimeo.
I don't know nuttin' 'bout Gainbrige, but I enjoy their story about Tulip mania.

Gunpowder

Gunpowder (2017) | Official Trailer ft. Kit Harington | HBO
Gunpowder is a three part mini-series about the Gunpowder Plot to kill Kind James of England in 1603. The plot is the origin of Guy Fawkes Day,

Remember, remember,
The Fifth of November,
Gunpowder treason and plot;
For I see no reason
Why Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.

Nursery rhyme made famous (in my head) by V for Vendetta, which is where Anonymous got their masks.

The show stars Kit Harington (commonly know as Jon Snow in Game of Thrones) as Robert Catesby, the Catholic instigator of the scheme. Kit, as he does in Game of Thrones, plays a hothead unswayed by appeals to reason.

Anne Vaux is played by Liv Taylor, daughter of Steve Tyler of Aerosmith.

The hunchback Cecil is played by Mark Gatiss.

One of the best scenes is when the conspirator dump several pounds of gunpowder on a cloth in front of the fire to dry it out. Geez guys, but I suppose desperate times call for desperate measures. Once it's dry any stray spark will set it off, and naturally, because they are engaged in a gun battle with the sheriff's men, a spark does land in the powder and boom, off it goes.

The Gunpowder Plot Conspirators, 1605

The show graphically depicts some of the tortures used to extract confessions from prisoners, and equally graphically depicts the methods of execution. Revolting all around. Thank god for civilization, or maybe I should say thanks that such methods aren't used anymore, at least not in places that the West currently considers civilized. Folks living in Europe in the 1600's considered themselves civilized.

The whole thing hinges on what people believe. You could argue that Catesby was driven to his plotting by the harsh fines being levied against Catholics, but that only works if you adhere to your faith in the face of persecution. Perhaps they remained Catholics because their belief is all they could be sure of, being as the world is such an unpredictable place. Kind of reminds me of the political war being waged in the USA these days. This one is being fought over beliefs just like the war between the Catholics and the Protestants in 17th Century England. Facts and reason are of no use in such a battle.

Good Eats

Alton Brown on Good Eats

I've caught this guy a couple of times while channel flipping. I don't care for food shows generally, but this guy is whacko, he brings in extraneous info, and he's pretty entertaining.

I was watching an episode about pickles this evening and this blurb comes up on the screen about how back in the 1300's the Europeans wiped out half of southeast Asia in their quest for nutmeg. That seem's a little extreme and a heck of long time ago, is there any truth here? Well, the Dutch did pretty much wipe out the population on one small island in the 1600's. So I maybe I got it wrong.

Banda Islands
Google Maps

These islands were the sole source of nutmeg until the Brits got ahold of them when Napoleon overran Holland. Then they took and transplanted complete trees all over their empire, which is why you can buy nutmeg at the corner store now. So if it hadn't been for Napoleon, you would have to mortgage your house (probably to a Dutchman) in order to buy a 2 ounce tin.

Update June 2019 corrected spelling of Napoleon.

Fat

Francis Bacon 1617

Gary Taubes, a science writer, has written an essay dissing a report from the American Heart Association. He opens with this quote:

The human understanding, once it has adopted opinions, either because they were already accepted and believed, or because it likes them, draws everything else to support and agree with them. And though it may meet a greater number and weight of contrary instances, it will, with great and harmful prejudice, ignore or condemn or exclude them by introducing some distinction, in order that the authority of those earlier assumptions may remain intact and unharmed. – Francis Bacon, Novum Organum, 1620

He goes on at some length laying out just what is wrong with the AHA's report, but Frank's quote pretty much sums it up.

The AHA wants you to believe animal fats are bad for you and vegetable fats (oils) are good for you. Gary thinks their evidence has been cherry picked. I think the AHA is operating on a political mandate to get people to eat more vegetables and less beef, because that will cut their grocery bill and it will make it look like inflation is not as bad as it really is. But wait, they have already removed beef from the consumer price index calculations, so maybe that's not it. Maybe they just hate ranchers and pig farmers. I don't why that would be, but I will wager that big money is a factor.

Via Detroit Steve.