01/08/2023
New book! The Trophy at the End of the World
The history of the beautiful and intimidating border province known as Cumbria was often made by outsiders. They sought revenge, status, fame and power. But this ancient home of warlike and cultured Celtic tribes always displayed a knack for confounding the expectations of off-comers.
If you look at ravishing photographs of the Lake District’s awe-inspiring mountain crags, shining waters and picturesque villages you might think the north-western corner of England has always been peaceful, even a bit of a museum exhibit. That is an illusion.
Until relatively recently Cumbria has been the war-torn, strife-ridden pivot around which British history has turned. The tranquility it enjoys now has been earned with blood, toil and sweat.
Why I wrote the book
I am fascinated by how Cumbria’s mist-shrouded uplands have for centuries been portrayed as a terrifying, isolated and barbaric wilderness. Even in 1724 Daniel Defoe described the area as “the wildest, most barren and frightful of any that I have passed over in England”.
It is usually presented as intimidatingly remote. In fact, it lies at the strategic military centre of Britain, which is why it has seen so much war. Cumbria has been an addictive lure for Roman emperors, kings, generals, warriors, invaders and politicians on the make. It was the place you had to take if you were to control the north.
My new book “The Trophy at the End of the World” focuses on the havoc wreaked by incomers using Cumbria as a stage for their ambitions - and the impact this has had on the story of Britain.
Here’s a sample of what’s in the book:
I, Claudius in Cumbria
The documented history of Cumbria goes back to the Emperor Claudius. He ordered the first recorded invasion of these islands by 50,000 crack troops and 800 ships in 43 AD, swallowing Cumbria in 69 AD. He did not see Britannia Inferior, as the north came to be called, as a profitable or strategic necessity. In reality, the limping, half-deaf Emperor simply cast around for somewhere to conquer as a trophy to persuade the Roman elite he was not the drivelling idiot he seemed.
How the heroes who stopped the Windscale atom bomb fire got the blame for starting it.
Arguably, Cumbria’s most desperate crisis was caused by Prime Minister Harold Macmillan. He contrived to make Cumbria the scene of the world’s first nuclear disaster. He ran the Windscale plant too hard in an attempt to produce. plutonium. He hoped this would persuade the United States to make Britain a partner in atom bomb production and share vital secrets. But Macmillan’s excessive demands ignited a catastrophic reactor fire which spread deadly radiation across Northern Europe. Then he covered his blunder up and handed the blame to Windscale’s innocent workers.
How the battle to save Thirlmere led to Extinction Rebellion
The worldwide ecological protest movement was born in the Lake District. In 1879, nature-loving “Sentimentalists” expressed horror at plans by the cotton barons of smoke-choked Manchester to dam Leathes valley, raise the water level by sixty-four feet and create a reservoir called Thirlmere. Their aim was to pump clean water to the rapidly expanding, cholera-prone industrial city through a ninety-six-mile pipeline. Initially, Westminster politicians sneered at the campaigners’ “frivolous,” “selfish” and “elitist” objections. But soon the ghastly, gigantic excavation triggered outrage at the despoliation of the countryside. The outcry led to the creation of the National Trust, municipal parks in scores of Brtiain’s towns and the green movement currently spearheaded by Extinction Rebellion.
How Rome’s first black Emperor and his wife ruled the world from Carlisle
New evidence of the central role Cumbria played in the Roman invasion of Britain has been spectacularly uncovered in Carlisle. It suggests the glory-hunting Roman Emperor Septimius Severus led the biggest land assault ever to take place in British history the town in 208 AD.
He made Carlisle his summer headquarters for a four-year war against the Caledonians. As part of an enormous building project, he constructed a lavish bath complex in the city - only discovered in 2017 - to cosset his intelligent and beautiful wife Julia Domna while he was away fighting. The underlying motive of the war was to distract his feuding sons Caracalla and Gita from their mutual hatred - but one killed the other anyway.
John Paul Jones and the burning of Whitehaven
Cumbria was drawn into the war of American Independence through a daring act of psychological warfare. The ambition-crazed traitor, pirate and murderer John Paul Jones burned part of a ship in Whitehaven. Though the attack was small, the fact that it happened at all spread stark terror around Britain’s coastline where citizens had believed in the myth of the island’s invincibility. Jones, a former Whithaven sailor and slaveship master fled Britain and defected to the U.S in an attempt to evade justice after he murdered a crew member. Signed up as a commander in the US Revolutionary marine, his achievements in the independence struggle earned him the title “Father of the American Navy”.
How Edward II’s love life let Robert the Bruce ravage Cumbria
The love-besotted Edward II earned a reputation as England’s worst-ever king. His infatuation with male favourites allowed the military genius Robert the Bruce to devastate Cumbria. The Scotsman’s an eleven-year campaign of pillage, destruction and starvation earned him immense prestige and drove the English king to forced abdication and death.
The spendthrift lord who frittered away his vast Cumbrian estate to impress Elizabeth I
Profligate fashion victim Earl George Clifford sold off his Cumbrian estates to fund a frivolous campaign to impress Elizabeth I - and was forced to turn pirate to rebuild his fortunes. The vain aristocrat almost ruined his dynasty by blowing his riches on silk doublets, elaborate jousting matches, a £250,000 suit of armour (today’s prices), card-games and huge entertainments for the Virgin Queen all in pursuit of a trophy - being named Elizabeth’s Champion. He made a fortune from piracy, but gambled that away, too.
Percy Kelly: the selfish genius
Cumbrian painter and printmaker Percy Kelly thought hoarding, not selling, his art was the best way to win posthumous fame but he drove away two wives and died abandoned. The Workington-born prodigy stunned the experts with the quality of his brilliantly organised, ruthlessly stylised, melancholy landscapes. But his autism, transvestism and mollycoddling by his mother deepened his profound self-obsession and alienation from society, leading to a tragically lonely end.
These are just a few of the nineteen narratives in The Trophy at the End of the World.
The Trophy at the End of the World is the latest book in the Hidden Cumbrian Histories series.
You can pick up a copy from the New Bookshop, Main Street, Cockermouth, Bookends in Keswick or Carlisle and Sam Read in Grasmere.
This book is officially published on September 5, 2023. But you can get it NOW by clicking here:
https://www.fletcherchristianbooks.com/product/the-trophy-at-the-end-of-the-world
