Ok folks. I’m heading over.

Evergreen

Thanks for all the follows over there. Great engagement so far. Who knows. Might even work.

Today in 1940 was Neville Chamberlain's funeral in @wabbey. Windows blown out by bombing. People sat in coats shivering. Halifax and Churchill were pallbearers. Time and place had been kept secret. Duff cooper wrote "a judiciously placed bomb would have had spectacular results."

NEW: The closure of youth clubs in the 2010s led to increased offending and worse GSCE results. Teenagers entitled to free school meals were most affected. Read @carmenvillaecon’s briefing: https://t.co/0tdukJu8Sj Read the working paper: https://t.co/7AVbYRUkQy

Netting and chilling.

Our new show #16Sunsets is - appropriately - now at *Number 16* in the Apple podcast charts! Have a listen here: https://t.co/RVgD6Sc5QN

Gladiators: The myth and reality. New podcast episodes right here: https://t.co/OeywtiLKdS

Unforgivably I misremembered that Wolsey was Canterbury when he was obviously York, hence his sad journey north when he fell from favour. I apologise to everyone.

The STIG. Archbishop Stigand crowned Harold but was kept on by William the Conqueror to try and placate his new English subjects. Once the immediate danger to his throne had passed he binned the Stig.

The Vikings captured Archbishop Alphege in 1011. They got wasted at a feast and pelted him to death with animal bones.

Thomas Cramner presided over a church split between conservatives and reformers. When Edward VI very inconveniently died, Catholic Mary I burned him. Literally.

Byrhthelm. Appointed by a dying king, he lasted a few weeks before the new king sacked him for being too weak on discipline.

Thomas Beckett. Made a nuisance of himself. Henry II asked a slightly hasty rhetorical question, his knights took him literally and hacked Beckett down in his own cathedral.

Laudy! Charles I’s spectacularly unpopular Archbishop of Canterbury William Laud was ‘peevish’ enough to have his critics branded and mutilated. Too much Popeishness about him- Parliament had him executed outside the Tower.

Wolsey. Energetic. Gifted. Ambitious. Greedy. Drawn to big eye-catching infrastructure projects. Partially acknowledged children. Promised an oven ready deal. Promised both cake and eating it. Failed. Got booted out.

Simon Sudbury was both Archbishop of Canterbury & Lord Chancellor. So doubly unpopular. That put a target on his back during the Peasants Revolt. Lots of guys from Essex pissed off about urban elites & high taxes dragged him out of the Tower & beheaded him. Here’s his skull.

Getting rid of turbulent priests. A thread on sudden exits by Archbishops of Canterbury

If Edward iii hadn’t been spooked by a flipping hailstorm there’d be a lot more of this.

Come on. It shows Belgium and Lithuania as sovereign nations. And Lvov is in Ukraine. They can’t have had that many drinks.