The Other Two!

It would be much better to stop studying history in the context of English/British monarchs. History does not lend itself to those artificial constraints of time, social position (although I don’t deny its influence) and geography.

.

I studied the Stuarts, particularly the Civil War, for A level, a very important period for change, but sadly dropped now. When the new history curriculum was introduced one module was 'The Tudors and the Stuarts' which we taught briefly, wonderful because Corfe Castle was not far away, but it was dropped because the Headteacher, who considered himself an historian, thought it wasn't 'relevant'.

At present I am reading 'To Catch a King' a book by Earl Spencer about the escape of Charles 11 from the battle of Worcester, fascinating to me because so much of it took place in my old stamping ground of Staffordshire: Boscobel, Whiteladies, Brewood, Mosely Old Hall et al.

I live down the road from Brewood, easybee.

I must admit I got most of my knowledge on Royalty from Jean Plaidy, I always found history at school boring. Last Thursday,
when they were talking about Charles III, my 8yr old GD asked about Charles 1st and 2nd and was fascinated when I told her the first one had his head chopped off

It’s my passion, English History. It’s amazing how similar scenarios play out. I think our Queen, must go down as one of the best. As far as I can see never a foot wrong. There was that ripple when Diana died, but even that she saw as her duty to protect the boys, however I think the decision to have young boys looking at all those flowers on public display and walking behind the coffin completely wrong. Unsure who thought of that.

dolphindaisy

I must admit I got most of my knowledge on Royalty from Jean Plaidy, I always found history at school boring. Last Thursday,
when they were talking about Charles III, my 8yr old GD asked about Charles 1st and 2nd and was fascinated when I told her the first one had his head chopped off

That's great dolphindaisy, your eight year old gd asking about Charles 1 and 11 that's exactly what I had in mind when posing the OP, children wondering who the first two were. Seeing Charles 111 I'm sure I'll get used to it, but initially it triggered an association with the first two monarchs of the same name.

Zonne I would disagree. We certainly now live in a period where everything is international, look at the worldwide response to the death of the Queen, but in earlier times when life was less mobile, less able to communicate, a nation's history was essentially a history of what happened within its boundaries.

Having studied history through the full secondary school syllabus of the 1950s. I cannot remember a school year where at sometime we did not study the place of Britain within its wider context, whether that was Britain and Europe, that was continuous and widemed when we came to the age of Empire, which could not be understood without some knowledge of the history and development of countries we occupied. Nor could we understand changes in British culture if we did not understand how the culture of those countries fed back into it.

When teaching any subject there are three sides to the teaching, the syllabus, the teacher and what the student listens or takes any notice of.

I always had a passion for history and a fascination with the past and drained every drop of knowledge I could from school lessons and was bringing home history books from the library, fact and fiction, from a young age. Others above have admitted that history bored them and they learnt very little at school. The same teacher could hold one student spellbound and bore another stiff.

We do need to remember just how much we bear responibility for our own education, unless we are unfortunate enough to be at very poor under-resourced schools.

I was one who did 1066 to 1901. O Level was World History from 1914. I absolutely loved history. A level began with The Reformation, Henry VIII etc.

It wasn’t until 2012 I restarted study at The OU. I so enjoyed my history degree. It spanned from 1493 until 1989 over 5 years, mainly European; It was such an eye opener. I didn’t quite realise how important the Stuart family were, taking us from Absolute Monarchy to Constitutional Monarchy.

I’ve already spoken about Charles 1 and II to my youngest grandchildren. They already know I’m history potty. Still, I’m the only one in the family, so make no apologies.

M0nica with all due respect, your first paragraph is simply not true. From Neolithic times, there is evidence of trade with regions outwith what is now defined as the UK, as well as over long distances within it, and where there is trade, there is the sharing of knowledge and thus influence on social, cultural and intellectual life.

From our numbers, to our language; from our state religion to our wars; from our built environment to our agricultural techniques, our history is inextricably linked to that of others (as others is to ours).

Totally agree about continuing our education, but it’s important, I think, to reflect on the media people might use for this, and how they present information. It’s easy to package British history by ‘house of…’ periods, but it distorts the complexity and reality of it, as well as diminishing the importance of whole sections of society.

History and historiography are lifelong passions, and it’s always lovely to talk about them.

I’m very interested in history, but remember nothing from my inner city, large classes schooling.
Moved on from that to Georgette Heyer at 13, great fun.
Then to author Leonard Cottrell, a wizard at bringing history to life.

Zonne

It would be much better to stop studying history in the context of English/British monarchs. History does not lend itself to those artificial constraints of time, social position (although I don’t deny its influence) and geography.

.

I think partly it’s because that’s where there is written evidence of what happened, the movements of the royals were documented during times when there’s not a huge amount of other written accounts to use as sources. One of the most interesting things about history is how accounts are rewritten as more evidence comes to light. It would be fascinating to see what they make of the current era in 500 years time.

I suspect teaching the Charles 's is a bit contentious. After all one threw the country into a series of wars and got his head chopped off. The second hovered on the edge of Catholicism and left the throne to his brother who was catholic. Resulting in a slightly different rebellion-the Glorious Revolution. Maybe they fear a third.
Charles 1 was imprisoned in Newcastle whilst the Scots negotiated his price with parliament.

My history at school was 1750-1939 and concentrated mainly on the industrial revolution and was so dull. We were taught by a teacher who obviously had no great love for his subject. My DD, on the other hand, learnt about Russia and China alongside British history and was taught by teachers with an obvious passion for history. She loved it and did A level. She is now thinking of doing an OU history degree.

FannyCornforth

Casdon I’ve just googled JB’s hat, thank you!
I remember lots on The Poor Laws, The Enclosure Acts and crop rotation
Nothing very fascinating!

Oh yes!

We learnt from Ur to Rome right up to GB 1832.
The War of Jenkins' Ear is one that comes to mind.

Anything after 1832 I've learnt since school.

Zonne Yes, there was trad in Neolithic times, but what I said was for most people their knowledge of the world was limited.

If you look more deeply into the literature on the Neolithic period, sites like Blick Mead and, sightly later, the Amesbury Archer, you will see that it was not the majority of the population, but a small wandering elite population, either goldsmiths or others with special skills, or it was the general move of waves of population to newer less well populated land.

Travel and communication in the modern understanding of it, or even that of the Roman period or early medieval, where sovereign states existed and were in communication at the highest level, still left the vast majority of the population, probably 95% or more, virtually unaffected and completely ignorant of foreign countries or their cultures.

I still stand by what I said in my previous post.

I believe I read Charles I1 was a covert catholic he was far wiser than his brother James 11 who recklessly embraced it wholeheartedly and then had to flee with family to the court of King Louis X1V (his cousin) who gave him refuge. I rather imagine if he hadn't he may also have ended up minus his head.

Allegedly "Rock a bye Baby on the tree top" was a verse composed dedicated to the birth of his son James Edward Stuart who it was hoped wouldn't survive such was the fear of a catholic heir

I was surprised this year to find that my GS was studying the American Indian wars and the American civil war as part of his GCSE curriculum. I have to ask myself why that is relevant. They seem to have skipped large parts of British history! I could tell him all about it of course - I’ve watched a lot of John Wayne films?!

Completely irrelevant, but I spent a magical day after the end O levels cycling from Wolverhampton to Whiteladies, Boscobel and Brewood with some friends, picnicked in a private wood,( permission granted), and picked armfuls of bluebells which of course died before we reached home.
Lovely countryside; hope it hasn't changed too much.

I’m fortunate in that I had a superb history teacher who really made history fascinating. We too started at 1066 and then forwards to 1815. Lots of excellent historical novels covered the following periods.

My father was a passionate archaeologist - Neolithic period, so that period was also heavily discussed and moving onwards my daughter did a history degree and I would proof read her essays. My favourite was on the topic of ‘Holy anorexia’ amongst Medieval English Queens.

I went to a convent school...they concentrated on the early Greeks and Mesopotamia!

At one stage of my life I was teaching history to a group of kids who just wanted to leave school asap. The only topics they were interested in were the Black Death ( we did a play, they loved that ) and the Fire of London. . Forget the rest, all they wanted was blood and gore. One of them used to tell me how his Dad pushed him through house windows at night to gather up stolen goods. Wonder which jail he is in now?

Few memories of history at school perhaps Mesopotamia ( hanging gardens?) and the Euphrates.
My interest in history started as an adult with Jean Plaidy and Georgette Heyer filling in the massive gaps in my secondary education.

We had a very good history teacher. I still have my exercise books with the drawings of Egyptian shadufs, essays on the Corn Laws, lots about Boadicea (we were in East Anglia). We also had our class teacher for a while. He covered the Industrial Revolution and the 6 day war in Israel because it was happening at the time. (Um, that was in 1967, not 1834!)

'Did' Tudor and Stuarts for my History GCE. Then studied Civil war in more detail when doing my mature students teaching qualification. (We all had to do one subject for our own purpose - and I had chosen history).

I enjoy reading historical books, both fictions and non-fiction, my main enjoyment is finding out about SOCIAL history - how people like myself lived at different times. Who was on the throne at each time is pretty immaterial.

However, there is a good comparison to be made between the the attitudes and arguments used between the different sections of the christian church during th 16th and 17th centuries and the political ones going on in the last and present centuries,

I certainly remember being taught about the Stuarts and the Civil War. At one point we had to write an essay about Royalists versus the Roundheads. I was the only Republican in a sea of Royalists. My loathed history teacher, Miss R. sneeringly read out parts of my essay to the entire class.
I dropped history for 'O' levels!
Funny thing is, I'm an avid reader of history now though not the Stuarts who I still regard as bad kings and am hoping Charles III does better.