The brave defence by the men and women of the Isle of Wight was the straw that broke the camel’s back for the French. They called off their invasion attempt and sailed back across the Channel to Le Havre with their tails between their legs.
The Breezer - the joyride for a curious mind: A weekly newsletter from Steve Winduss at the Batting the Breeze podcast. Spend a few minutes with me discovering historical snippets and fascinating facts related to the forthcoming week. Add to that updates relating to the podcast, a touch of humour and a dash of "lots more".20th July 2025.
Happy Sunday! The subject of illegal immigration is never far from the headlines in the UK at the moment. Ten days ago, King Charles III granted French President Emmanuel Macron a state visit to the UK. Aside from the pomp of the occasion, the visit was a chance to announce an agreement on restricting the number of boat trips made by desperate immigrants seeking illegal entry into the UK via the English Channel. At its narrowest point, the Channel crossing is a 20-mile trip. Small boats put themselves at the mercy of one of the world’s busiest shipping routes, not to mention unpredictable weather.
A poignant artistic work of desperate migrants in the English Channel.
The boats are typically cheap rubber dinghies, rarely with a sufficient number of life jackets, if any at all. Boats carry three times the maximum recommended number of passengers, sometimes more. So far this year, 21,000 asylum-seekers have risked their lives crossing the English Channel in boats hardly fit for a pleasure park, let alone a major seaway. In July, depending on the weather, up to 500 people attempt the crossing each day. Since only 18 people have lost their lives so far this year, they must consider the odds to be in their favour. The successful voyagers will then wait up to two or more years for a decision on whether they can stay. Although over 50% of asylum applications are likely to be rejected, only 20% of those rejected are likely to be repatriated. Legal protections, appeals, administrative backlogs, lack of cooperation from countries of origin and organised crime all work against restoring order to this human tragedy.
Throughout history, the relationship between Britain and continental Europe has been defined by movements across the English Channel - sometimes invited, sometimes imposed, sometimes desperate. Roman galleys filled the Channel in 55 BCE while Norman ships did the same 1120 years later in 1066, both as conquerors and architects of lasting change. Between those two eras, the Vikings and Anglo-Saxons arrived, leaving a less prominent footprint on the nation.
Julius Caesar’s first invasion of Britain, 55 BCE.
The failures to invade this Sceptred Isle are as notable as the conquests. Ironically, far from diluting cross-channel enmity, the 1066 Norman invasion only fueled the conditions for intermittent conflict between England and France for the following 750 hundred years. The last French invasion on English soil*, occurred 480 years ago tomorrow, 21 July 1545. Admiral Claude d’Annebault had targeted the Isle of Wight, an unassuming island a few miles off the mid-South Coast of England, as a strategic base to launch a devastating attack on the English mainland.
The Isle of Wight, where rush hour means someone's walking their dog slightly faster than usual.
ANON
Two days earlier, 19 July 1545, Henry VIII’s beloved warship, the Mary Rose, was sunk by the French between Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight in the Battle of the Solent. The omens were looking good for the French. However, despite 2,000 French soldiers landing at five separate locations on the island, the Isle of Wight militia, able-bodied men between the ages of 16-60, were well prepared.
The French invasion of the Isle of Wight, 1545.
Clever exploitation of the island’s geography helped the locals to overcome French forces. In fact, women startled the French at Bonchurch by taking up longbows alongside their husbands and sons. Their presence in battle both inspired the locals and unsettled the French. Within 48 hours, the French had retreated. The brave defence by the men and women of the Isle of Wight was the straw that broke the camel’s back for the French. They called off their invasion attempt and sailed back across the Channel to Le Havre with their tails between their legs, or should that be, "la queue entre les jambes". *The Nazis occupied the Channel Islands during World War II. However, the Islands are British Crown Dependencies, not strictly English.
The Spanish didn’t lack the desire to invade England either. The three Spanish Armadas between 1588 and 1597 all ended in failure, more due to bad weather than British naval intervention.
Sir Francis Drake famously continues to play bowls as the Spanish Armada of 1588 comes into view. Unfortunately, there's no historical evidence to support the claim that this event ever occurred; but... it’s a great story. Painting by John Seymour Lucas.
However, the Spaniards did manage to land on British soil 50 years after the French attempt on the Isle of Wight. At the height of the Anglo-Spanish War (1585-1604), Captain Carlos de Améstquita surprised the men of Cornwall with a daring landing at Mount’s Bay, just west of Mousehole, 430 years ago on Wednesday, 23 July 1595. With little resistance, the Spanish successfully sacked Mousehole, Paul, Newlyn and Penzance. Houses and churches were destroyed as well as a few ships moored in the harbours. By the time substantial British forces were en route from Plymouth to repel the Spanish, they had already gone. Their objective of highlighting British vulnerabilities and unsettling and embarrassing the British government was achieved, so they left.
Out of Curiosity
Although not strictly an invasion, Bonnie Prince Charlie landed with troops on Eriskay Island, Scotland, on 23 July 1745, 150 years to the day after the Spanish raid on Cornwall. Charles had been born in Rome after his father, James II, had been exiled from the throne in 1685 by William of Orange. Jacobite* uprisings had been consistent since that time, though on an ever-decreasing scale. Convinced of his rightful claim to the throne some 60 years after the last Stuart was deposed, the Bonnie Prince landed on the remote island of Eriskay - so remote that many Scotsmen had never heard of it. He arrived with only two ships, the frigate Du Teillay and an escort ship. On board were minimal supplies, a small hoard of gold and no army, save for seven loyal friends who had joined him. The quixotic strategy of rounding up sufficient support on the journey south - think Charge of the Light Brigade meets the Keystone Kops - led to a resounding defeat at the Battle of Culloden in April 1746.
The Battle of Culloden, 1746.
Bonnie Prince Charlie ended his days a sad, miserable and lonely figure in Rome in January 1788. The Jacobite resistance died with him. *Jacobites were supporters of the exiled Stuart Dynasty, specifically James II, who continued to believe in the return of the Stuarts to the monarchy in Britain.
Dates with History
Tuesday…
A letter from Timoléon Guy François de Maugiron, a French scientific intellectual of the 18th century, was read to a meeting of the Royal Society of Lyon 275 years ago this Tuesday, 22 July 1750. The letter was the source of an article later included in Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, published in 1754. The article marked the first time a specific reference had been made to the word ‘Crétin’. It referred to the inhabitants of the Valais region (now part of Switzerland), many of whom suffered from congenital conditions such as deafness, mutism or various types of intellectual disability. The word Crétin derived from 'Christian', and was used to convey that these individuals, despite their conditions, were as human as any other Christian. However, over the next 250 years, European societies became less tolerant of intellectual disabilities. Today, the word ‘cretin’ is a highly offensive insult used to suggest slowness, incompetence and stupidity.
Saturday…
Carl Jung, the pioneering Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, was born 150 years ago next Saturday, 26 July 1875. As one of the founders of modern psychology, Jung was instrumental in developing early psychological theory. He was also the first to formally distinguish between personality types such as introverts and extraverts.
Carl Jung, c1935.
Jung notably proposed the existence of a collective unconscious - a shared, inherited layer of the mind filled with universal symbols and motifs (which he called archetypes) that influence human thought and culture. While mainstream psychology today does not support the concept of a collective unconscious due to a lack of empirical evidence, Jung’s ideas continue to influence psychotherapy, literature, art, and discussions of personality.
By the Way
Hiram Grant was born in Ohio in 1822 to father Jesse, a tanner, and devout Methodist mother Hannah. At that time, Ohio was frontier country, one of the regions in the United States bordering the vast wilderness not yet controlled and developed by European-American settlers. Life for the young Hiram was tough. The family existed hand to mouth. From an early age, he was involved in exhausting manual labour; hauling firewood, driving a team of horses transporting logs and caring for farm animals. The level of responsibility by the age of twelve typified the expectations placed upon children brought up on the frontier at the time. The living environment was hazardous. Wild animals were all around, the risk of injury ever-present. General lawlessness in the area was a constant danger. Add to that the limited opportunities for education and Hiram might have easily remained an anonymous frontiersman throughout his life. However, during this time, Hiram developed a high level of horsemanship. This ability earned him a place at West Point, the United States’ leading academy for training military officers, based in Orange County, New York. Grant was an indifferent scholar, but he exuded a strong mental determination, which carried him through to graduation from West Point in 1843. When Hiram enrolled at West Point, a clerical error had incorrectly listed his name. Hiram attempted to correct this, but he was told that only the person with the name as stated on the nomination papers could enrol. So, Hiram Ulysses Grant graduated as Ulysses S. Grant, a name that would stay with him for the rest of his life.
Ulysses S. Grant with his horse, 1864.
Ulysses left the army after an undistinguished and unenjoyable 11-year stint. The next seven years were blighted with failed business ventures and financial hardship. Nonetheless, when inheriting a slave from his wife’s father, he chose to give the slave his freedom and forego the income of a sale. The Civil War changed everything. Grant joined the Union Army and rapidly rose through the ranks to become Commanding General of all Union armies. Newspapers in the North characterised him as the “general who saved the Union”. Grant remained in command of the U.S. Army after the Civil War. Having grown frustrated with President Johnson’s limited progress on Reconstruction, he accepted the nomination of the Republican Party to run for president in 1868. He won by a significant margin and would serve two terms. Though Grant’s term in office was increasingly characterised by scandal and corruption (though he was never directly implicated), he is remembered by most as a champion of Reconstruction, progressing African American rights and quashing the original Ku Klux Klan.
Out of Curiosity
While president, Grant would often drive his horse-drawn carriage at speeds exceeding the limits of Washington, D.C. On one occasion, he was pulled over by a policeman, William H. West. West apologised to the President while presenting his arrest documents. There is some debate whether Grant accepted his subsequent treatment with good humour.
Ulysses S. Grant died 140 years ago this Wednesday, 23 July 1885. Perhaps his most enduring legacy was the memoirs he managed to write while dying painfully from throat cancer between 1884 and 1885. Mark Twain described the work as…
The most remarkable work of its kind since the Commentaries of Julius Caesar.
Grant completed his manuscript five days before his death. Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant was published later that year.
Question of the Week
The Aswan High Dam in Egypt opened 55 years ago tomorrow, 21 July 1970. For thousands of years, the river Nile flooded annually. While the floods carried fertile silt, enabling agriculture in the desert, it was unreliable. In some years, low water levels led to famine; in others, excess water destroyed crops and villages. The dam brought control to the water supply from the Nile. Today, farming flourishes throughout the year, and substantial hydroelectric power is generated.
The breathtaking Aswan High Dam in Egypt.
The Aswan High Dam created one of the world’s largest artificial lakes, named after Egypt’s revered President between 1956 and 1970, who overthrew British rule and transformed Egypt into a republic. What is the lake called?
And Finally...
Dr James Barry is remembered as one of the British Empire’s most esteemed military surgeons of the early 19th century. He rose from the role of hospital assistant in 1813 to the second-highest medical office in the British Army, Inspector General of Military Hospitals, by the time he retired in 1859. Dr Barry’s career trajectory was considered meteoric by the standards of the day. But the surgeon harboured a secret that would make his achievements seem almost transcendent: Dr James Barry was a woman.
Margaret Anne Bulkley achieved her remarkable military medical career while enacting one of history’s most audacious deceptions, one that lasted over five decades. Margaret was born around 1789 in Cork, Ireland. This was the time of the Protestant Ascendancy, where 10% of the population controlled 90% of the wealth. The British had controlled Ireland for centuries, but when the French Revolution broke out in 1789, the whiff of revolution was in the air amongst the Catholics of Ireland. The Bulkleys were not of the Protestant Ascendancy, but they were middle-class Protestants, enjoying legal privileges if not financial. Margaret was still less than ten years old when the 1798 Rebellion erupted in Ireland, prompting the arrival of British troops marching through the streets of Cork. Eventually, the British secured direct rule in Ireland (achieved mainly through bribery), formalised through the 1801 Act of Union.
Scene from the Irish Rebellion, 1798.
This was the world in which Margaret Bulkley was raised. As a child, Margaret’s exceptional intelligence was only matched by her quick-wittedness and confidence. Her family recognised her gift from an early age and encouraged a level of education that was rare in 1790s Ireland. Instead of the usual diet of basic literacy with, perhaps, needlework and music designed to prepare a woman for life as a dutiful wife, Margaret devoured Latin, mathematics and philosophy. When Margaret was ready for University, a mad scheme for her future career was hatched. By this time, her father had passed away, but with the connivance of her mother and Uncle James Barry, the finishing touches of the great deception were applied. Margaret would become James Barry, assuming the name and identity of her Uncle as a young man. She would bind her chest, crop her hair, adopt a lower voice and walk straight into the masculine world of the highly prestigious University of Edinburgh Medical School. Margaret practised a male swagger, leaving behind her natural glide, and adopted a dandy style of dress; bright-coloured clothes, fancy waistcoats, elaborate cravats and boots with heels. It was a perfect guise. In 1812, while Napoleon was retreating from Moscow, Dr James Barry graduated with his medical degree. He joined the British Army, which marked the beginning of a stellar 46-year military career. His early duties included managing British casualties from the Peninsula War under squalid conditions and treating wounded French soldiers from the Battle of Waterloo. In South Africa, Barry rose from Assistant Staff Surgeon to Colonial Medical Inspector, heading the entire colonial medical operation in the Cape Colony. Dr James Barry never slowed down. From 1828, he spent the next 30 years travelling to the corners of the Empire, from Mauritius and the West Indies to Malta, Corfu and Crimea. Ironically, during the Crimean War, Barry clashed with Florence Nightingale, who described him as “the most hardened creature I ever met throughout the army.” Throughout James Barry’s career, he was never once suspected of being a woman. Every day, Margaret painstakingly reconstructed herself as a man; think Viola in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, or perhaps Mrs Doubtfire in reverse. Barry befriended fellow military officers and surgeons. He was acquainted with Queen Victoria, Lord Raglan and even the Comte de Las Cases, Napoleon’s special advisor, whom he treated during captivity.
Dr James Barry with John, a servant, and his dog, Psyche, c1850.
Barry became close to one particular friend, perhaps intimate. He became personal physician to the household of Lord Charles Somerset, Governor of Cape Colony in the 1820s. Rumours spread when Barry moved into a private apartment at Somerset’s residence. Public placards even appeared accusing Somerset and Barry of sodomy. It is highly plausible that Somerset and Barry carried out a romantic affair in private, though no direct evidence exists. I like to think they did. After all, nearly fifty years of deception, constant pressure of playing an alien role and emotional disconnection from her own sex must have been excruciating and lonely. Such a relationship seems fair, even deserved, perhaps. By the time Barry retired from ill health in 1859 while on duty in Canada, he had performed the first recorded caesarian section where mother and child survived, had blazed across the Empire improving standards of public health, reformed military hospital practices and become a respected, feared and admired legend of the British forces. It is astonishing to think that Margaret Bulkley maintained the charade up to her death, 160 years ago this Friday, 25 July 1865. Only when the charwoman was preparing her body for burial did she discover the truth that had been suppressed for so long. Dr James Barry was, indeed, Margaret Anne Bulkley. Margaret Bulkley’s grave marker reads, Dr James Barry. The deception was complete.
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The lake created by the construction of the Aswan High Dam is called Lake Nasser. The dam is two miles long and about 365 feet high. Lake Nasser stretches 340 miles upstream. The construction was not without its controversies. 100,000 people had to be relocated as their ancestral lands would be flooded. The silt that was so valuable to farming is now held back in the dam, so farmers have to rely on artificial fertilisers. Remarkably, the Abu Simbel temples, carved into a cliff face on the West Bank of the Nile and dating back to 1264 BCE in the reign of Pharaoh Ramesses II, were dismantled and relocated.
Abu Simbel temples, 2023.
This was achieved by cutting the temples into a total of 1,000 blocks, each weighing 30 tons, and reassembling them on higher ground.
ATTRIBUTIONS:
A poignant artistic work of desperate migrants in the English Channel: JuritaArt, CC BY-SA 4., via Wikimedia Commons.
The French invasion of the Isle of Wight, 1545: James Grant, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Sir Francis Drake famously continues to play bowls as the Spanish Armada of 1588 comes into view. Unfortunately, there's no historical evidence to support the claim that this event ever occurred; but… it’s a great story. Painting by John Seymour Lucas, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
The Battle of Culloden, 1746: David Morier, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Carl Jung, c1935: ETH Library, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Ulysses S. Grant with his horse, 1864: Unknown photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
The breathtaking Aswan High Dam in Egypt: Hajor, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Dr James Barry with John, a servant, and his dog, Psyche, c1850: See page for author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.