Today in 117AD Hadrian, the adopted son of Trajan, became the new Roman Emperor. Trajan had ruled for nearly twenty years and had enlarged the Empire greatly. Hadrian in his twenty one year rule would be just as good for Rome. He left behind four great building works, which remain today.
The first was to rebuild Agrippa’s Pantheon, adding the 141ft diameter Dome. It has massive bronze doors and now a church, has buried two of Italy’s kings and the artist Raphael amongst others.
On the river Tiber is the Castel San Angelo, another stone dome building, this one built as his own tomb. It has been used as a fortress by more than one Pope when Rome has been threatened. It housed Pope Clement VII when the forces of the (Spanish)Holy Roman Empire sacked the city in 1527. It is well worth a visit if you ever go to Rome. A coffee from the battlements’ cafe’ is a good end to a walk around the military museum it is now.
The third monument is the beautiful Villa at Tivoli.
Lastly is the wall he had constructed in the North of England to keep out those pesky Picts(Scots). It was 15ft high and stretched 73 miles from coast tocoast and there was a fort every five miles.
Hadrian had been unwell for some time and despite seeking death and requesting it of his adopted son Pius, who refused to aid him, he died aged 62 in his villa at Baie on the Bay of Naples.
Calais recaptured today in 1558\.
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Calais fell to Francois de Lorraine,2nd Duke de Guise, today and France was at last rid of all English presence. It had been an English possession since thd great King Edward III captured it in 1347. Since its capture it had brought much wealth to England and obviously much embarrassment to France.
It fell to a lightning attack by the French Duke, who had only been besieging it for 6 days. Francois de Lorraine was 39 and had been fighting France’s enemies all his adult life. His nickname was Le Balafre, or Scarface, from a wound received when 26. About 300 guns were captured as well as much booty.
The unpopular English Queen Mary was said to have proclaimed if she were cut open both her estranged husband, Phillip of Spain, and Calais would be found inscribed on her heart. -
Nice piece of history!
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Thanks Malachi. Nice to hear from you again.
I wonder if France had held off retaking it until the next year and the monarch had been Elizabeth(Mary died of cancer in Nov 1558), would she have been thought of in a different light, rather than one of England’s greatest?
Losing Calais was considered a great disaster and Mary is remembered as much for its loss as for the 300 Protestants she had burnt. -
Thanks for reminding us of an interesting piece of history.
It seems a little dubious to think of Calais as a “natural” part of France at the time. The French would of course promote such a point of view, but the allegiance of the northern regions to the Frech crown had been rather weak even before the area was conquered by the English. And those “English” themselves had historically only been English troops fielded by the Plantagenet kings who laid claim to a large part of what is now France. It was all the result of that complicated dynastic struggle for the throne of France that the Hundred Years’ War really was. Whether a “France” existed as a political entity during that period, and what lands that enity would comprise, was not very obvious. Demographically, Calais was more a part of Flanders at the time of the French conquest. It’s people spoke a Dutch dialect.
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Thank you Herr KaLeun.
I was unaware of the Flanders dialect point you introduced.
I knew France was disjointed and few Dukes cared for a King and united country.
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