Page 46 - BBC History - September 2017

Celestial events

This 13th-century
miniature from a
manuscript of
the Cambrai
Apocalypse shows
John the Evangelist
(thought to be the
author of the
Gospel of John)
looking on as
a number of
calamities befall
Earth: an earth-
quake rocks the
land, the sun turns
black, the moon
red, and kings take
refuge in caves.
Through the
centuries, people
have associated
celestial events
with Armageddon
– a fact reflected
in the political
turmoil that struck
England in 1652

England cowers before the apocalypse

As the sun disappeared over England in 1652, during the volatile

6 political climate after the Civil War, people feared the end of the world
In 1652 England was still coming to terms for Britain to be virtually the only land crossed the crucifixion, when another eclipse was
with Oliver Cromwell’s victory over the by an eclipse. In London, almost the whole said to have occurred.
royalists in the Civil War. On 8 April, by our solar disc was obscured. Fifth Monarchists – a group of violent
reckoning, Monday 29 March by theirs The eclipse had been “much threatened by Puritans who would seek to overthrow the
(England still being on the Julian calendar, astrologers”, according to the diarist John government – believed the Second Coming
then behind the corrected Gregorian date Evelyn. Apocalyptic tracts were circulated of the Messiah was imminent. Despite
by about 10 days), a total solar eclipse ominously, warning of the impending “Black efforts to reassure congregations, the state
passed through the north-east Atlantic. Monday”, which would be “the precursor of of national agitation was so great that the
It crossed Ireland, Wales, north-western great calamities and mischiefs”. These same country ground to a standstill that day.
England and Scotland, just scraping the tracts likened the probable fallout to the “Hardly any would work,” noted Evelyn, GETTY IMAGES
north-west coast of Scandinavia. It’s rare “horrid calamities” that befell the Jews after and many hid in their houses all day.

Guy de la Bédoyère is a historian and writer.
7 of Rome’s Imperial Bodyguard (Yale, 2017) and
Arabs strike from the shadows
His books include Praetorian: The Rise and Fall
Lawrence of Arabia used a lunar eclipse to
The Real Lives of Roman Britain (Yale, 2016)
devastating e!ect in the war with the Ottomans
DISCOVER MORE
Lunar eclipses, when the Earth casts its Kethira. The Arabs were fearful, believing
shadow across the full moon, have a whole the full moon would compromise their LISTEN AGAIN
different level of potency to their solar chances of a night attack. Lawrence, armed E You can listen to Melvyn Bragg
equivalents. More frequent and more widely with his diary, reassured them “for a while and guests discuss comets in
visible, the sight of a blood-red moon in the there should be no moon”. the Radio 4 series In Our Time at
dead of night can have a powerful effect. He was right. Lawrence knew that a lunar bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01pw38n
In July 1917, during the Arab Revolt eclipse was due, and when it appeared on MAGAZINE
against the Ottoman empire, Lawrence of cue (on the night of 4/5 July 1917), it terrified E Read the September
Arabia was making his way across the and distracted the Turks, who were now issue of BBC Sky at Night
desert towards the Turkish stronghold of “firing rifles and clanging copper pots to Magazine (on sale
Aqaba with his Arab army. He had to fight rescue the threatened satellite”. Kethira duly 20 August), which features
his way past two outpost defences first. On fell, and Lawrence’s celebrated attack on advice on how to get
4 July they came to the first outpost, called Aqaba followed on 6 July. great eclipse photos.
skyatnightmagazine.com

46 BBC History Magazine