History Mysteries

The classic account of Charles II’s escape in 1651 is the account he gave to Samuel Pepys in 1680. Yet as Pepys himself realized, the story as the King gave it was full of mistakes some of which Pepys corrected in footnotes. However, researchers have other accounts to draw upon, some of which are based on first hand research though many are little more than rumour and hearsay. Of the more reliable commentaries the book published by Thomas Blount in 1660, BOSCOBEL, seemed to be accurate and was initially backed by the King. This was much nearer to the events so the King’s poor memory of what happened when he spoke to Pepys did not appear crucial.

In the medieval parish church of St Bartholomews in Tong, Shropshire, hangs a massive bell which is one of the 150 heaviest bells in the country. Other bells hang in the church and do the job of calling the faithful to prayer, so why this was commissioned in 1518 is a mystery. At a weight recently calculated at 46 hundredweight one stone – or well over two tons – this is totally unsuitable for a church of this size. The Church has a plethora of mediaeval tombs built between 1410 when the church was commissioned and 1518 when Sir Henry Vernon was buried here, in a new chapel called the Golden Chapel built to take an extra tomb – his own.

The second mystery is why skilled and presumably clever experts do not understand election results. This is shown by the co-incidence of the Batley by-election results of 1919 and 2021. A century or more apart, the same mistakes are made and in the meantime in 1971 a top Cambridge historian, Maurice Cowling, jumped on the same bandwagon and lost the plot.