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All About History Books
The Chronicle of Geoffrey le Baker of Swinbroke. Baker was a secular clerk from Swinbroke, now Swinbrook, an Oxfordshire village two miles east of Burford. His Chronicle describes the events of the period 1303-1356: Gaveston, Bannockburn, Boroughbridge, the murder of King Edward II, the Scottish Wars, Sluys, Crécy, the Black Death, Winchelsea and Poitiers. To quote Herbert Bruce 'it possesses a vigorous and characteristic style, and its value for particular events between 1303 and 1356 has been recognised by its editor and by subsequent writers'. The book provides remarkable detail about the events it describes. Baker's text has been augmented with hundreds of notes, including extracts from other contemporary chronicles, such as the Annales Londonienses, Annales Paulini, Murimuth, Lanercost, Avesbury, Guisborough and Froissart to enrich the reader's understanding. The translation takes as its source the 'Chronicon Galfridi le Baker de Swynebroke' published in 1889, edited by Edward Maunde Thompson. Available at Amazon in eBook and Paperback.
Life of Edmond Malone is in Victorian Books.
Sir Joshua Reynolds was born at Plympton in Devonshire, in 1723. One of the first portraits be ever painted is in the possession of a Mr. Hamilton, nephew to Lord Abercom. As he himself told me, when about the age of nineteen or twenty, he became very careless about his profession, and lived for near three years at Plymouth in a great deal of dissipation with but indifferent company, at least such company as from whom no improvement could be gained. He now much laments the loss of these three years. However, he saw his error in time, and sat down seriously to his art about the year 1743 or 1744. Soon afterwards he painted the portrait above-mentioned, Captain Hamilton being a naval oflScer who married the present Lord Eliot's mother.
[18th December 1755]. Captain Hamilton (age 41) was a very uncommon character; very obstinate, very whimsical, very pious, a rigid disciplinarian, yet very kind to his men. He lost his life as he was proceeding from his ship to land at Plymouth. The wind and sea were extremely high, and his officers remonstrated against the imprudence of venturing in a boat where the danger seemed imminent. But he was impatient to see his wife, and would not be persuaded. In a few minutes after he left the ship, the boat was upset and turned keel upward. The captain being a good swimmer, trusted to his skill, and would not accept of a place on the keel in order to make room for others, and then clung to the edge of the boat. Unluckily he had kept on his greatcoat. At length, seeming exhausted, those on the keel exhorted him to take a place beside them, and he attempted to throw off the coat, but finding his strength fail, told the men he must yield to his fate and soon afterwards sank while singing a psalm. — (From Lord Eliot.)
