Albert Norman: a watchmaker who tricked the Japanese

Albert Norman was one of thousands of British soldiers in World War Two who became prisoners of war during the campaign against Japan in southeast Asia. Life for POWs was extremely harsh, and around a quarter of the men who were captured did not survive the war. 

However, Albert Norman had a particular skill that he used to his advantage, not only to ensure his survival but also to fight back aganist his captors, even if only in a very minor way. 

Before the War, Albert had been a watchmaker in his home city of Ely, in Cambridgeshire. Watches did not always work well in the tropical conditions of the Malay Peninsula, and the prison camp guards were glad to have found somebody who could mend their watches when they broke down. They were happy to send extra rations in Albert's direction when their watches were repaired. 

However, Albert, who had the nickname of Tick-Tock, not only knew how to make watches work properly, he also know how to do the opposite. He therefore fixed some of the watches so that they ran slightly slowly. It must have caused him and his fellow soldiers considerable amusement to see junior camp guards being shouted at by their superior officers for turning up late for duty. 

It was a good job that none of the Japanese ever worked out that Albert Norman was the cause of their timekeeping problems. Had they done so, things might have turned out very differently for the watchmaker from Ely.

 © John Welford

King Louis XI: The Universal Spider

The “Universal Spider” was the nickname given to King Louis XI of France, based on his ability to spin plots and entrap his enemies.

He was born on 3^rd July 1423 in the town of Bourges and became the French king on 22^nd July 1461, succeeding his father King Charles VII. He reigned for 22 years.

He was never going to be a popular monarch, being fat and ugly, and he was a devious and suspicious man, despite being shrewd and intelligent. He managed to make enemies of just about everyone in sight, which might have sounded like a recipe for an ultra-short reign, but he was able to worm his way out of trouble on every occasion.

King Edward IV of England invaded France in 1475, but instead of facing the English on the battlefield, Louis invited Edward and his army captains to a meeting that consisted of three days of sumptuous banquets and entertainment. He then proposed a peace treaty that offered Edward a pension in exchange for recognizing Louis’s claim to the whole of France.

Louis later said that he had chased the English out of France more easily than his father had been able to do, but instead of force of arms his weapons had been venison pies and good wine.

Louis thus made the French monarchy more powerful than it had been for around 150 years, and told his barons “I am France”. He once expressed this by saying “When I want to know what France thinks, I ask myself”.
< br /> © John Welford

King Harold at Chester

A small building on top of a sandstone outcrop in Chester has an interesting – if unlikely – legend attached to it. This is known as the “Anchorite’s Cell” or “The Hermitage”, and it has that name because it was once occupied by reclusive monks who lived there cut off from the outside world so that they could devote their lives entirely to prayer.

The building seen today probably dates from the mid-14^th century, although there is no definite information about this. It is, however, certain that if there was an anchorite cell here any earlier than this, it could not have been the current building.

There is a legend that the cell was occupied in the 11^th century by a very well-known person. This was the former King Harold II, whom history relates lost his life at the Battle of Hastings, being replaced on the throne of England by William the Conqueror who then reigned, from 1066 to 1087, as King William I. Tradition has it that Harold died after being struck in the eye by an arrow that then pierced his brain

So how could Harold have been a hermit living in Chester after apparently being killed at Hastings? You may well ask!

The legend was originally put about by Gerald of Wales (Giraldus Cambrensis) who lived from 1146 to 1223 (or thereabouts). It also appears in a document entitled “Vita Haroldi” from roughly the same time. There are real doubts over the trustworthiness of both sources, which flatly contradict accounts from much closer to the date of the Battle of Hastings.

The legend relates that Harold, despite being seriously wounded – including the loss of an eye! – was taken in by the monks of Waltham Abbey, healed of his injuries and allowed to wander far and wide until he ended up at Chester.

It is quite possible that that an elderly monk turned up much later at the same abbey and claimed to be the long-lost Anglo-Saxon king. The abbey authorities, being no friends of the Norman succession, might have welcomed the chance to spread some “fake news” and gleefully committed the hermit’s story to paper. The same might well be true of Gerald of Wales.

After Hastings, the Normans swept north in a brutal campaign to eliminate all opposition. This included building castles to show the locals that resistance was futile. One such castle was built in 1070 less than a mile from where – apparently – the former King Harold was living as a hermit. If this were so, could he really have escaped detection?

It does sound like a very tall story!

© John Welford

John Hardyng: King Henry's V's spy

The name John Hardyng might perhaps be better known if one of his employers, King Henry V, had not died at the age of 35 and thus rendered much of Hardyng’s hard work useless.

John Hardyng was born in 1378 and educated in the Northumberland household of Sir Henry Percy, who was nicknamed “Hotspur”. This gave him plenty of experience of warfare, given the closeness of the Scottish border and the frequent raids that took place across it.

In 1399 the Percys supported the successful campaign of Henry Bolingbroke against the reigning King Richard II, and John Hardyng played a full part in the rebellion. However, relationships between the new king (Henry IV) and the Percys later broke down, leading to the Battle of Shrewsbury of 1403. Hotspur was killed but John Hardyng survived and was pardoned by King Henry.

Henry IV died in 1413 and was succeeded by his son, who reigned as King Henry V. John Hardyng served the new king faithfully in the latter’s campaign against France.

Henry planned to turn his attention to Scotland once he had finished with France, and in 1418 John Hardyng was given a special mission, namely to travel round Scotland and gather information that would be useful in a future invasion. He was also tasked with finding proof that Scotland’s claim to independence was without foundation.

Hardyng’s mission lasted for three and a half years. During that time he surveyed the routes into Scotland, the places on the coast that could be used by an invasion fleet, the strengths and weaknesses of various castles, and the agricultural resources that could be exploited by an invading army. He also acquired documents that supported England’s claims over Scotland.

In 1421 John Hardyng was forced to flee from Scotland, having made too many enemies, but the information he was able to present to King Henry would have been invaluable had an invasion ever taken place.

However, Henry’s early death put paid to any such ambition, and the new king, Henry VI, was never in any position to make use of John Hardyng’s work.

Hardyng was now in the unfortunate position of having done exactly what had been asked of him but without any reward for his efforts. He became a pensioner at an Augustinian Priory and continued to press King Henry VI to honour the promise made by his father. This eventually led, in 1440, to Hardyng being granted an annuity worth ten pounds a year.

Hardyng spent the next twenty years writing a history of Britain that made good use of his earlier career as a spy, as well as continuing to claim that England had every right to conquer Scotland.

He died in 1465 aged 87, which was a remarkably advanced age at that time. He would probably have made a much larger impact on British history had England actually subdued Scotland as a result of his work.

© John Welford

Sir Walter Raleigh and the over-zealous servant

Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618) is widely credited for having introduced tobacco to England, having played a leading role in establishing colonies in North America that were particularly suitable for growing the crop, despite the fact that he never set foot on North American soil himself.

Whether Raleigh was directly responsible for bringing tobacco to England is open to doubt, but it is certainly true that he popularized pipe-smoking and was a keen smoker himself.

On one occasion this habit appears to have led to Raleigh having an unpleasant shock. It is not entirely clear where the incident took place, but one strong candidate is Raleigh’s Dorset Home of Sherborne Castle.

One of Sir Walter’s man-servants – so it is said – saw smoke arising from behind a bush. Knowing that Sir Walter was there, he deduced that something terrible had happened and that his master must be on fire. He therefore poured of jug of ale over the bush to quench the flames. This certainly did the trick as far as extinguishing the fire was concerned, but was the servant “fired” for soaking Sir Walter in ale?

Your guess is as good as mine!

© John Welford

Franklin Pierce: 14th President of the United States

Franklin Pierce, who served as the 14^th President of the United States from 1853 to 1857, is generally regarded as one of the worst Presidents in United States history, his activities playing a part in the build-up to the Civil War. 

Pierce, born in 1804, was a lawyer from New Hampshire who had served in Army during the Mexican-American War, reaching the rank of Brigadier General. He had also been a Representative and Senator, resigning from the Senate in 1842. 

He was encouraged to stand as the Democratic nominee for the Presidency as a compromise between Northern and Southern interests. This was because he was a pro-slavery northerner who supported the 1850 Missouri Compromise that maintained the balance between slave and free states. Party unity was preserved by his nomination but he kept very quiet during the Presidential campaign, which meant that very few voters really knew that he stood for.

Pierce’s Presidency got off to bad start when his only surviving son was killed in a railway accident after Pierce had been elected but had not yet taken office. He consequently suffered from periods of depression during his Presidential term and tended to be a do-nothing President who did little to change the course of events.

The actions he did take were not all that wise or sensible. One was to allow the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act according to which new territories were able to decide the slave question for themselves, which was seen by abolitionists as forcing slavery onto new states.

In Kansas, pro- and anti-slavery factions flooded in from other states and resorted to violence in their efforts to influence the vote. The violence took the form of towns being raided and buildings set on fire, which led to the territory gaining the nickname of “Bleeding Kansas”.

There was also violence on the floor of the Senate, where one senator hit another with a cane and nearly killed him.

Franklin Pierce was seen as weak in his response to these events, and his pro-slavery attitude seemed to be confirmed when he proposed the incorporation of Cuba into the United States as a slave state.

Pierce lost the support of his party and was unable to contest the 1856 election. 

In later life, Franklin Pierce continued to comment on political matters and was horrified by the prospect of Civil War. He became an alcoholic and died of cirrhosis of the liver in 1869 at the age of 64.

© John Welford

Duke Ernst and his unwanted daughter-in-law

Duke Ernst of Bavaria-Munich was very worried about his son and heir, Albert. He wanted to make sure that Albert would make a good marriage, which meant, back in 1435, that his wife had to belong to another ducal or royal family with whom Bavaria-Munich sought an alliance. That was just the way that things were done.

However, Duke Ernst was hearing alarming tales about Albert’s close friendship with Agnes Bernauer, who most certainly did not belong to foreign royalty or aristocracy. She was the daughter of a baker, and she worked at a bathhouse in Munich. Her job was to carry jugs of hot water to the male clients of the establishment who spent time soaking in large wooden tubs. Did she provide any “extra services”? Maybe!

Duke Ernst was told that Albert was one of the bathhouse clients, and that he had struck up a friendship with Agnes. The reports became even more alarming when they suggested that the friendship had become particularly close. Could he actually have married the girl in a secret ceremony?

As it happened, Albert had indeed married Agnes, but Duke Ernst did not know this. Even so, he reckoned that something had to be done whether this was true or not. He therefore contrived a plot to get rid of Agnes.

This took the form of a tournament at which Albert would be able to show off his manly skills as a fighter and horseman, which were considerable. With his mind and body fully engaged on jousting and wrestling, he was in no position to look after Agnes, who mysteriously “disappeared” during the festivities.

Agnes was put on trial for witchcraft, found guilty, and drowned in the River Danube.

Duke Ernst did at least feel a pang of remorse for his action and paid for a fine church to be built over Agnes’s tomb. Albert fled Bavaria and thought about raising an army to challenge his father, but eventually made peace with his family.

In the end, Albert did make the sort of marriage that met with his father’s approval, marrying a rich and respectable princess from a powerful north German state.

© John Welford