Category: HISTORY (page 3 of 8)

The Great History Hoax

There is no such thing as history.

Facts happen. The First World War happened.

But who started it, and why - this is the story we tell ourselves later. It’s an opinion, it doesn’t exist outside the mind of the person writing that history.

As we talked about last week … the things people do and why they do them … none of us really know. We just think we do.

When I was a kid, John Wayne was a hero and shooting Native American Indians off a horse was considered patriotic.

Within a generation we were cheering for Kicking Bird in Dances with Wolves when he kills the cavalrymen who have kidnapped John Dunbar.

Traditionally, when we tell ourselves history we like there to be good guys, bad guys and an act of infamy. We like a story. It’s why CNN has such a hard time reporting Syria at the moment. Who’s the good guy there? It’s like Alien v Predator.

But this is also why historical novelists love history.

There’s blood and sex and so much fiction to play with.

My latest novel is about Queen Isabella, wife of Edward II. Not heard of her?

Just Google ‘She-Wolf.’

She was the last person to invade England, (well okay, William of Orange as well) surmounting the best efforts of the Spanish in 1588 and Hitler in 1941.

She did it back in 1326, with just five hundred hired mercenaries.

But if her name’s not familiar to you, don’t worry, I went to school in England and they never mentioned her to me either.

I think it was because she was, you know, a woman.

In some histories she is often referred to as the She-Wolf.

If she was a man taking on England with just five hundred men and a bad attitude she would have been Isabella the Conqueror.

Isabella the Lionheart.

But because she was a woman it was Isabella the She-Wolf. She invaded us!

That bitch.

She did it while still, technically, the Queen of England. Up to this point she had endured endless provocations from her husband and his favorite minister but she was supposed to shut up and stay out of the way.

It is what most women of her time would have done. A female was no more than a chattel; a wife, even a queenly one, was a breeding machine. Even most English queens knew their place.

Not Isabella. She was shrewd, she was popular, she was tough. She was chillingly ruthless. Much like her father King Phillip - the Handsome.*

(*My italics - it seems history can obscure a great deal if you’re a man - and you’re straight.)

Those historians who take Isabella’s side paint Edward as a cruel and despotic monarch.

photo: Siebrand

They view her as a tragic figure, a bewitched princess trapped in a loveless marriage to a negligent husband, a passionate and intelligent women driven to extreme measures by her situation.

Was Edward really cruel and despotic? He was clearly incompetent. But not all kings are born to rule; and incompetence and villainy are not the same thing.

He has been described as one of the most unsuccessful monarchs ever to rule England - not without some justification. Despite his strapping good looks he just wasn’t leadership material.

Some historians seem to have attributed his failings to his sexual preferences.

He is sometimes portrayed as foppish, even though his favorite hobbies were digging ditches and mending roofs. The greater likelihood is that Edward was cut, and that he was a good fighter.

His main problem seems to be that he wasn’t a good tactician - Bannockburn! - either on the battlefield or at court.

If he had been more astute he would have kept his relationship with Piers Gaveston discreet. Instead he goaded his barons with his excesses. Did he want their acceptance?

We can only guess at his motives.

Why did he later take Hugh Despenser as his prime minister when he knew the guy would steal anything that wasn’t nailed down and that he had a unique talent for antagonizing people?

It’s an intriguing story. Who is the hero of it? In the end it depends who is writing the story.

Only the facts are set in stone.

But the history? History moves, history changes. Think you know your history?

We’re still not even sure where we came from.

Watch the news; watch history change.

ISABELLA, Braveheart of France.

And also available as POD from COOLGUS publishing

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COLIN FALCONER

THE 12 YEAR OLD GIRL WHO STARTED A 100 YEARS WAR

October 14, 2013 / [email protected] / 6 Comments

You cannot blame a hundred years war on a 12 year old girl.

But you could perhaps blame William the Conqueror. When he took the English throne in 1066 he retained possession of the Duchy of Normandy in France.

Under feudal law, this meant that he and all future English kings owed homage to the king of France for their lands on the other side of the Channel.

Really? The situation was always going to be a stone in the shoe of both monarchs.

Two hundred and fifty years later, Isabella’s marriage to Edward II of England was an effort to resolve the problem.

Instead it made it much worse.

Born in 1295, Isabella was the only surviving daughter of the wonderfully named Philippe the Handsome of France. At 3 years old she was already proposed as the bride for the King of England’s eldest son, Edward, to smooth negotiations for the Anglo-French truce of 1299.

Phillipe was not just a pretty face; he was thinking ahead. His own dynasty was secure - after all he had three healthy sons.

And if his daughter married England’s son, then his grandson would be King of England one day.

It must have seemed like a good idea at the time.

Edward was ten years older than his bride when they married. He was the youngest of fifteen children and his mother had died when he was 6. He had endured a miserable childhood and his father, the formidable Longshanks, took little interest in him.

But with exquisite irony, Edward was the only son to survive.

He lived in his father’s shadow then and always would, for despite his strapping good looks he just wasn’t king material. In fact he has been described by some historians as one of the most unsuccessful kings ever to rule England.

He was certainly outfoxed by Isabella.

In 1325 she left England to conduct delicate negotiations with France over Gascony. She returned with a mercenary army and threw him off the throne.

By then her father was dead and two of her brothers soon after him.

Some blamed the curse laid at her father’s door by Templar Grand Master Jaques Molay when Phillip burned him alive outside Notre Dame cathedral.

When her other brother Charles died as well in 1328 there was no clear successor to the throne of France. All three had died without a male heir.

Well done, Jacques.

Isabella transferred her claim to the French throne to her eldest son, Edward, and actively encouraged him to pursue it, as the closest living male relative of the late King Charles and the only surviving male descendant of the senior line of her father’s Capetian dynasty.

By the English interpretation of feudal law, it made Edward III the legitimate heir to the throne of France.

Yes, well - the French didn’t quite see things this way. Under French Salic law, males descended through the female line were disqualified from the succession.

Besides, the French didn’t want an English king. So they crowned the dead king’s cousin, Charles of Valois, as their new monarch.

Though Isabella’s reign as regent of England was short - her son removed her and executed her lover when he was just eighteen - she continued to have great influence at court and kept up a healthy correspondence with all of Europe’s leading figures.

She persuaded Edward to pursue his claims with full vigour. In 1337 Edward refused to pay homage to the French king for his lands in Aquitaine - so the French confiscated them.

In modern parlance - hostilities escalated from there.

The dispute led to the Hundred Years War, (although the name is actually a later invention of historians; it was actually three separate wars divided by periods of truce.)

From it grew the legends of Joan of Arc, Agincourt and the Black Prince.

The war had consequences Isabella could not have foreseen for her beloved France. The country was devastated - it lost half its population. It also brought about the fall of the French tongue in England, which had served as the language of the nobility and trade from the time of the Norman conquest.

Yet it had all started with a marriage that was supposed to bring a lasting peace.

It was inevitable really, from that day in 1066 when Harold caught the arrow in his eye.

Or was it the Templar curse laid by Jacques de Molay?

The tangled webs we weave; it is ironic that the woman who so prided herself on being a daughter of France should bear the son that started the war that brought her country to its knees.

ISABELLA, Braveheart of France.

And also available as POD from COOLGUS publishing

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COLIN FALCONER

AN AUTHOR GOES ON TRIAL

October 3, 2013 / [email protected] / 16 Comments

Call the accused.

You are Colin Falconer, the author of Isabella, Braveheart of France.

That’s right. It says so on the cover.

Yes, let’s start with the cover. You call Isabella ‘braveheart’. History has rather called her a she-wolf. In his testimony, her husband the king substantiates that.

Well, she was brave. She might have been a she-wolf as well, people are never black or white.

Because I call her Braveheart does not mean I am taking her side. I did choose to tell the story from her point of view.

How can you take her part in this? She committed regicide! She murdered her husband!

Giving her point of view doesn’t mean I’m taking her part. Besides, her degree of her complicity has never been proved. There were even rumors that he didn’t die at all. But even if she was complicit, she wasn’t murderous when she first came to England.

She has a compelling story to tell. I tried to tell it.

You believe all her lies? You think she was justified in what she did?

No, I think she believed she was justified. She was far more complex than people thought.

I think she was underestimated by her contemporaries because she was a woman. What people saw was not necessarily what they got. In fact it certainly wasn’t - look what happened later.

When she invaded England she was living in exile in France, her brother Charles, the King of France, had washed his hands of her and she had just five hundred men and her wits to turn the tide against her.

No matter what you think of her, it was a remarkable thing to do.

But you’re a novelist, not a historian. How can you presume to know what she was thinking and feeling. How can you know what anyone was thinking and feeling?

I don’t presume to know.

I’m speculating on the facts, trying to understand why she and Edward and everyone around them acted as they did. It may or may not be true.

Historians deal in facts and only facts. Historical novelists try to learn the facts and then imagine what might have happened in the background.

But you have surely presumed too much. How can you know what Edward really felt about Hugh Despenser the Younger, for instance?

Well no one knows, do they?

We know Edward was defeated at Bannockburn in 1314. That’s a fact. You can’t tamper with that.

But other things are not certain. We don’t know, for instance, if he had a physical relationship with Hugh Despenser. If not, what other reason might he have had for raising him so high above everyone else? It’s an intriguing question and one I chose to speculate on.

But by taking Isabella’s viewpoint you have made her the heroine of your story.

this guy doesn’t like me

Well, we see the story through her eyes.

But it’s a much more complex story than that.

For instance, Edward was a very bad king but then good kings can also be very bad people. It’s your judgment not mine.

If there’s anyone who’s unsympathetic it’s probably Hugh Despenser. But then in this storyline we don’t have the chance to get to know him, we just know what he does.

But after Mortimer and Isabella took power they only lasted four years. Her own son kicked her off the throne and executed her lover. How can she be other than how history painted her?

But all that came later. My purpose was to look at a moment in history before that, what led to it. There are no cartoon villains here. Despenser was ruthless but he didn’t drive the plot, he was an effect of it.

Did Edward allow himself to be manipulated again by his lover - or could there have been another, more interesting, reason?

The villain anyway is the world Edward and Isabella were born into - they are both victims of it and it is never going to let them go unless they find a way out - and when you’re king and queen of England getting out poses a big problem.

You changed the ending! Everyone knows Edward was killed with a red hot poker up his …

Edward_II’s_cell at Berkely Castle
photograph: David Stowell

You’d like that, wouldn’t you? No, he wasn’t. But you can understand how the story came about. Look, everyone has their own opinion about history, and for most people it’s set in stone. Fair enough.

But Bernard Cornwell said in a recent interview: “If you are wanting to write historical fiction I always say, you are not an historian. If you want to tell the world about the Henrician reformation, then write a history book - but if you want an exciting story, then become a storyteller. Telling the story is the key.”

I’ve tried to tell her story as well as keep to the facts. It’s what novelists do.

You be the judge. Isabella is one sale now.

ISABELLA, Braveheart of France.

available now from Amazon US and Amazon UK

as well as NOOK, KOBO and APPLE

And also available as POD from Cool Gus publishing.

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COLIN FALCONER

YOU BE THE JUDGE

September 30, 2013 / [email protected] / 5 Comments

Call the accused.

You are Edward Plantagenet, King Edward the Second of England, son of the one they called Longshanks,?

This is a farce. I am the king, I am answerable to no one.

You are charged by History with gross incompetence in the performing of your duties and with being an effeminate homosexual. What do you say to that?

I would say give me your sword, and you would see how effeminate I am.

I’ll fillet you clean and stick your head on a post for the birds.

Let us first discuss your wife, the queen. She alleges she shared her marriage bed with another man.

Does she say there was three of us in it at once? She would say anything if it suited her purpose, that woman. Like this drivel here.

She alleges that you neglected her, that you were in love with another, a former squire called Piers Gaveston.

She was 12 years old when I married her!

Did she think I would ravish her that first night? What sort of animal do you think I am?

Besides it was a marriage made for political reasons, her father’s and mine. She knew that.

But when she reached a child-bearing age. Did you not ignore her?

We had four children. What does that tell you?

That you slept with her four times.

photo: Penny Mayes

And you still think me effeminate?

I would say four bull’s eyes from four arrows is damn good archery in any time and place.

Can you boast the same?

But you did love Gaveston more?

Of course I did. What’s wrong with that?

If Piers had been a woman would anyone have sneered behind my back, would that have coloured their opinion?

If he were my mistress they would have laughed and clapped me on the back and made up bawdy rhymes praising my manhood.

Sleep with one man and they say you are a bad king. Sleep with a hundred women you are Henry the Eighth.

You never loved her, then?

No, I never loved her, not in that way, but what men do love their wives? That is not the purpose of marriage, it wasn’t in my day anyway.

But I was fond of her. I took care of her in every way. She had nothing to complain of.

But she did, didn’t she, by God!

She tried to warn you about this Piers Gaveston. You provoked your barons by sleeping with him and giving him favours and raising him above his station.

I ruled by the divine right of kings! I am answerable to God for what I do, no one else!

I did not need my barons’ permission to make him Duke of Cornwall or do anything else I wished. God made me their king!

They were impudent and they paid for it, every one of them. Bastards.

But your rein was a disaster for England.

photo: Siebrand

Is that what I am accused of here, of not being as great a warrior as Longshanks, that old curmudgeon? ‘

Well he never liked me and I hope he is spinning in his grave like a top.

Anyway, I never wanted to be King of England. I had no choice in the matter.

You led your troops to disaster at Bannockburn.

If the barons -Lancaster and Warwick and the rest - if they had sent troops to support me I might have prevailed.

Instead they sat at home and sulked and let me do their fighting for them and when luck deserted me they blamed for it.

I wonder, did luck desert me - or was it them that did the deserting?

Your failure against the Scots is one thing. Allowing your private relationships to lead England to civil war is another. You provoked the barons once with Gaveston. Then you did it again with Hugh Despenser!

I had my reasons for Despenser. They are in the book.

You can believe them or disbelieve them as you please.

But surely you can’t think I was in love with him? He was hardly a man of Piers mettle, was he?

Piers meant that much to you? … Will you answer please?

If it was a woman, you would have understood it. History would have made it into one of the great love stories.

Instead I have been pilloried like this!

I have had enough. You have all badgered me all my life, in death you will surely let me be. Talk about me in my absence all you want. I shall answer no more of your questions.

Damn you all!

ISABELLA, Braveheart of France,

available now from Amazon US and Amazon UK

as well as NOOK, KOBO and APPLE

And also available as POD from Cool Gus publishing.

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COLIN FALCONER

ISABELLA BRAVEHEART OF FRANCE

September 25, 2013 / [email protected] / 8 Comments

Call the accused.

You are Isabella Capet, daughter of Phillip Capet, King of France, and queen consort of Edward II of England.

I am.

You are charged by History with deposing the lawful king of England and then having him murdered. What do you say to that?

I did depose him but I did it for the good of all England. Not a man stood against me when I arrived on the shores at Harwich, what does that tell you?

As to Edward’s murder, I would say: bring me the proof. Others did that, I had no part in it.

But you knew they were going to kill him?

Edward_II’s_cell at Berkely Castle
photograph: David Stowell

We offered him retirement, the same concession I was offered when my time came. I lived to a ripe age, I thought he should too.

You knew that couldn’t happen! He was a focal point for rebellion.

If he was a man others would rally behind how was it that I walked in to England with barely five hundred men and marched to London without meeting resistance?

Besides who should they rebel against? I was regent for my son, who was rightful heir to the throne. You’re wasting my time here.

You had an affair with another man while you were still married to the King of England. This man was ruthless and ambitious and he used you to gain power for himself. You allowed it to happen!

You mean Mortimer?

There were others?

Don’t be impudent.

Answer the question.

If he used me, or I used him, it did neither of us any good in the end, did it?

Why did you do it? You had a comfortable life. He provided for you. It was your duty to obey. He was king by divine right.

I was born to be a queen also, not to be shut up like a nun and play no part in affairs.

Was it your pride that was hurt then? … Madam?

How would you have felt then, in my situation? How much humiliation was I supposed to stand?

What would your father have said? He taught you to obey, did he not?

He taught me to obey him.

And what about your son? How did he feel when he discovered what you did to his father?

What about what his father did to his mother?

Which was what?

A woman was not born to be so neglected by her husband. I had a right to his company and …must I say it? To physical comforts. Am I not supposed to say this, because I am of a different time, because I was a queen?

He embittered me. He also underestimated me, didn’t he?

It was revenge, then?

Imagine what we might have been, if he had not been so weak. If he had been … a real man.

Isabella, did you ever love your husband?

How dare you ask me that. They buried me in my wedding gown at my express wish. The casket I carried with me to my grave had in it Edward’s heart. Does not tell you something?

It tells me you made your point. My case rests.

Thank you, sir. Now let me.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGBgmrsZLMA&w=420&h=315]

ISABELLA, Braveheart of France, available now from Amazon US and Amazon UK

Also available as POD from Cool Gus publishing.

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COLIN FALCONER

THE ONLY WOMAN TO EVER CONQUER ENGLAND

September 23, 2013 / [email protected] / 8 Comments

After more than forty books published the traditional way, today CoolGus are releasing my first book online.

It’s called ISABELLA, Braveheart of France. Here’s the trailer

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGBgmrsZLMA&w=420&h=315]

And here’s the beautiful cover, designed by Jen Talty at CoolGus:

It’s available today from Amazon US and Amazon UK

as well as NOOK, KOBO and APPLE

Also available as POD from Cool Gus publishing.

9½ UGLY RUMOURS ABOUT RASPUTIN THE MAD MONK

September 15, 2013 / [email protected] / 8 Comments

If you Google ‘world’s most evil men’, chances are that - after Osama bin Laden and Donald Trump - the name Rasputin will come up.

Rasputin was a Russian mystic who became a close adviser to the Romanovs.

It was said he subverted the government, used his position as a religious leader to seduce women and caused the Russian Revolution.

But the worst thing he ever did was … no we’ll save that for the end.

How much was rumor and how much was fact?

RUMOUR# 1: HE WAS A DEBAUCHED CHARLATAN ONLY INTERESTED IN GROOMING HIS FOLLOWERS FOR SEX

Rasputin with some of the women he saved

Rasputin was the Jimmy Swaggart of his day, a religious nut notorious for attracting scandal.

He was accused of drunkenness, sexual promiscuity and political corruption. He told his followers that sex and alcohol should not be resisted as once you had overindulged in both you had cause to repent - and repentance led to salvation.

It does have a kind of twisted logic to it.

The Czar himself suppressed investigations into reports of Rasputin’s outings to bathhouses and his violent sex with society women. It will probably never be known how much was true, what was slander and what was myth.

RUMOUR #2: HE CURED THE CZAR’S SON OF HEMOPHILIA

The czarevitch suffered terribly from hemophilia, a disease not uncommon among European royalty because of centuries of inbreeding. Rasputin was credited with relieving some of the agonizing symptoms

Hoping for a miraculous cure the royal family turned to the mystic, who had a reputation as a healer. He said he could cure him through prayer, though it is now thought he provided relief with the use of hypnosis.

He also took away his aspirin, at the time the ‘new wonder drug’ the doctors had prescribed for the boy’s pain. It’s an anticoagulant and would have been making his condition much worse.

RUMOUR #3: HE HAD A THIRTEEN INCH PENIS

Which was believed to have parted ways with its owner during his assassination. A maid found it at the crime scene and saved it. You never know when you’ll need a thirteen inch penis, right?

this is what a sea cucumber looks like

During the twenties a group of Russian women living in Paris acquired it and worshiped it as a holy relic, keeping it inside a wooden casket until Rasputin’s daughter, Marie, demanded it back.

After she died in California in 1977 it was found with some of her manuscripts at a lot sale.

It was then sold to an auction house who discovered it was actually a sea cucumber.

RUMOUR #4 HIS DAUGHTER LATER BECAME A VENTROLIQUIST AND TIGER TRAINER IN BUENOS AIRES

True.

RUMOUR #5 HE STARTED THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

No he didn’t, but his influence thoroughly discredited the Romanovs. The Czarina thought the man with the burning eyes and piquant body odor was a prophet sent to the royal family by God himself and so she made him her personal adviser and allowed him to fill governmental offices with his own handpicked candidates.

RUMOR #6 HE WAS SHOT, STABBED, STRANGLED, BEATEN, POISONED AND CASTRATED BUT DIED OF DROWNING WHEN THEY THREW HIM IN THE RIVER

By 1916 Rasputin had become such a pernicious influence with the royal family that several noblemen- Prince Felix Yusupov, Grand Duke Dmitiri Pavlovich and politician Vladimir Purishkevich - decided it was time for him to go.

They lured him to Yusupovs’ Moika Palace and served him poisoned cakes and wine, laced with enough cyanide to kill five men.

When that didn’t work they shot him; but that only annoyed him and he tried to strangle Yusupov. So they shot him three more times. He was still alive so they clubbed him into submission, wrapped him in a carpet and threw him in the icy river where he finally drowned.

In fact, photographs of his corpse show a bullet hole in the forehead that would have killed him instantly. However the official report of his autopsy disappeared during the Stalin era, as did several research assistants who had seen it.

RUMOUR #7 HE WAS A HARD MAN TO KILL

True.

While visiting his wife and children in Pokrovskoye in 1914 a rival mystic’s disciple had stabbed him in the stomach, eviscerating him.

She then yelled: “I have killed the Antichrist.’

Nearly, but not quite.

The Tsar sent his own physician to operate on him and after several weeks in hospital he recovered from what in most men would have certainly been a mortal wound.

RUMOUR #8 WHEN THEY DUG HIM UP HE CAME BACK TO LIFE

After the revolution his remains were exhumed and burned by Members of the Downtrodden Masses. As the flames took hold his corpse sat up in the fire, zombie-like, sending the proletariat screaming for their mothers. In fact this story is very likely true, as the heat from the fire would have shrunk the tendons and forced the body to bend at the waist.

RUMOUR #9 HE WAS A MEMBER OF AN ORGIASTIC SECT

Before he left Siberia to become rich and famous, he joined a group of Christian flagellants, the Khlsty.

They were a little like the dervishes, they sang and prayed and became ecstatic through spinning.

It was also claimed that they indulged in orgiastic sex as part of their religious rites.

As well as self flagellation critics also accused them of bestiality and necrophilia, but I think they were flogging a dead horse.

RUMOUR 9½ THE WORST THING HE EVER DID WAS INSPIRE A SONG BY BONEY M

True. For this he is condemned by history. Damn you, Rasputin! Here’s the proof:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yTVWXYctoY&w=420&h=315]

And here is what happened to the Romanovs at the end:

If you are fascinated with the Romanov story, here is my novel of Anastasia:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCRols2A1NY&w=560&h=315]

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COLIN FALCONER

GENGHIS KHAN BUT YOU CAN’T

September 12, 2013 / [email protected] / 10 Comments

There is a one in two hundred chance you are related to Genghis Khan.

It doesn’t matter that your surname is not Khan. His DNA may be in you somewhere.

This is one of the delightful snippets I found when researching Silk Road.

I could never use it in the book. Genghis’s sex life had to go in my trash bin.

But what a guy.

Here was the man who made Alexander the Great look like Alexander the Underachiever.

His empire was twice the size of Rome’s and included large parts of modern day China, Mongolia, Russia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Moldova, South Korea, North Korea and Kuwait. All the Stans and then some.

Genghis Khan’s empire at the time of his death. Kill as many as you like, there’s still lots left.

His real name was Temujin; Genghis Khan is an honorific meaning ‘Universal Ruler’ and he took that on when he united the fractious Mongolian tribes at his coronation in 1206.

Other titles included Lord of the Four Colors and Five Tongues, Lord of Life and Emperor of all Men.

He was also known as Mighty Manslayer and Scourge of God.

And that was on a good day.

And I quote: “The greatest pleasure in life is to vanquish your enemies and chase them before you, to rob them of their wealth and see those dear to them bathed in tears, to ride their horses and clasp to your bosom their wives and daughters.”

A sensitive new age guy, then.

For twenty years he led his pony-mounted armies on a whirlwind of rape and slaughter unmatched before or since.

By some estimates he killed 35 million people.

Over two decades, that’s one person killed every twenty seconds.

He hardly had time for lunch.

Northern China is thought to have lost about three- quarters of its population.

Some historians estimate he massacred so many Persians that Iran’s population did not reach its pre-Mongol levels again until the mid-20th century.

His army was the most efficient war machine ever assembled at that time, a juggernaut that swept all before it.

Merv in Persia was regarded as the greatest seat of learning in all Asia. Genghis razed it to the ground, overseeing one of the greatest genocides in history.

It took the survivors two weeks just to count the bodies.

‘ Oh God sergeant - not raping detail again!’

In Russia he conquered an army four times the size of his own. Their leader, Prince Romanovitch of Kiev, along with his generals, were tied up and laid flat; he then built a wooden platform on top of them for himself and his officers to sit on while they divided the spoils.

The Prince and his officers were crushed to death underneath them.

He once even diverted a river to erase a rival emperor’s birthplace from the map.

No act of spite or sadism was too much trouble.

But Genghis wasn’t all bad; he was just drawn that way.

He is also credited with bringing the Silk Road under one political administration which allowed trade as well as cultural exchange between the East and West. He was tolerant of all religions. He instituted a system of meritocracy in his government at a time when the West was still largely feudal.

He was a lover as well as a fighter.

the last of the red hot lovers

In 2007 researchers from the Russian Academy of Sciences analyzed tissue samples from people living in those areas approximating Genghis’ ancient empire.

They found an identical Y-chromosomal lineage is present in about 8% of the men. (That’s half of one per cent of the world’s population!)

Apparently this spread is inconsistent with the theory of genetic drift, and the most likely scenario is that all these people are male line descendants of the Manslayer.

In Mongolia alone as many as 200,000 of the country’s 2 million people could be mini Manslayers.

It is calculated that Genghis Khan now has around 16 million male descendants across Asia and the Middle East. In fact it could be argued that he almost made genocide a self sustainable industry.

For every two people he killed, he created one.

His seduction technique was, however, suspect.

photograph: chwalker01

At the victory feasts he and his commanders would sit in their tent and tear at lumps of raw and bloody horsemeat with their teeth while captive beauties were paraded in front of them.

Genghis had a rating system: he kept the nines and tens and anything with a lower rating went to his officers.

He had a personal harem of two to three thousand women – plus girlfriends I suppose – and his sons had comparably sized harems, but 16 million male descendants is still impressive, especially with the pressure of having to kill someone every twenty seconds.

‘Hurry up, we haven’t killed anyone for almost 3 minutes!’

Genghis died in 1227, while campaigning in north-western China. It is reported that he fell from his horse, exhausted.

However a legend persists that he was actually killed by a captured Chinese princess, a perfect ten, who herself rated Genghis a perfect 0 and castrated him with a concealed knife before running off into the dark.

No disrespect; but you’d like to think so.

SILK ROAD available in the US for the first time. Click on the picture for more details

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COLIN FALCONER

IS THERE AN EXPLANATION FOR THE STIGMATA?

August 27, 2013 / [email protected] / 11 Comments

What are the stigmata - and how can they be explained?

There is no recorded instance of the stigmata - wounds imitating Christ’s from the crucifixion - before the thirteenth century, when artistic depictions of the crucifixion in religious art first appeared.

Stigmatics display all or some of the five so-called ‘holy wounds’ from the crucifixion piercings to bleeding from the forehead similar to that caused by the crown of thorns.

These wounds are not painless. The suffering a Stigmatic endures is extraordinary.

Most of these wounds do not clot, neither do they suppurate, and the blood is said to have a perfumed odor, known as the ‘Odor of Sanctity.’

Stigmatics usually receive these marks during an ‘ecstasy’ when they are overwhelmed with religious fervor. Continue reading

ETERNAL LIFE, MAN-EATING ANTS, STRINGY NOODLES - HOLD THE TOMATOES

August 22, 2013 / [email protected] / 9 Comments

Somehow western culture has equated the word Mongol with ‘barbarian’.

There is no doubt the Golden Horde that invaded Europe during the thirteenth century was savage, but that overlooks the comparable excesses of western armies at the time; think the Albigensian Crusade and the sacking of Constantinople.

In fact in the Orient they referred to Christians as ‘barbarians’.

It’s a word that all cultures apply to anyone who thinks differently to them.

When my Dominican monk, William, and his Templar bodyguard, Josseran Sarrazini, set out from the Kingdom of Jerusalem on their great journey eastwards they, too, thought they were going to a land of savages.

“Some say that in the land of Cathay there are creatures with heads like dogs who bark and speak at the same time. Others say there are ants as big as cattle. They burrow in the earth for gold and tear anyone who comes across them to pieces with their pincers.’ Continue reading

stories of romance and epic adventure

Category: HISTORY (page 3 of 8)

There is no such thing as history.

But this is also why historical novelists love history.

That bitch.

Those historians who take Isabella’s side paint Edward as a cruel and despotic monarch.

Some historians seem to have attributed his failings to his sexual preferences.

Watch the news; watch history change.

ISABELLA, Braveheart of France.

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You cannot blame a hundred years war on a 12 year old girl.

Instead it made it much worse.

It must have seemed like a good idea at the time.

He was certainly outfoxed by Isabella.

By the English interpretation of feudal law, it made Edward III the legitimate heir to the throne of France.

In modern parlance - hostilities escalated from there.

Yet it had all started with a marriage that was supposed to bring a lasting peace.

ISABELLA, Braveheart of France.

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Call the accused.

You are Colin Falconer, the author of Isabella, Braveheart of France.

Yes, let’s start with the cover. You call Isabella ‘braveheart’. History has rather called her a she-wolf. In his testimony, her husband the king substantiates that.

How can you take her part in this? She committed regicide! She murdered her husband!

You believe all her lies? You think she was justified in what she did?

But you’re a novelist, not a historian. How can you presume to know what she was thinking and feeling. How can you know what anyone was thinking and feeling?

But you have surely presumed too much. How can you know what Edward really felt about Hugh Despenser the Younger, for instance?

But by taking Isabella’s viewpoint you have made her the heroine of your story.

But after Mortimer and Isabella took power they only lasted four years. Her own son kicked her off the throne and executed her lover. How can she be other than how history painted her?

You changed the ending! Everyone knows Edward was killed with a red hot poker up his …

You be the judge. Isabella is one sale now.

ISABELLA, Braveheart of France.

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Call the accused.

You are Edward Plantagenet, King Edward the Second of England, son of the one they called Longshanks,?

You are charged by History with gross incompetence in the performing of your duties and with being an effeminate homosexual. What do you say to that?

Let us first discuss your wife, the queen. She alleges she shared her marriage bed with another man.

She alleges that you neglected her, that you were in love with another, a former squire called Piers Gaveston.

But when she reached a child-bearing age. Did you not ignore her?

That you slept with her four times.

But you did love Gaveston more?

You never loved her, then?

She tried to warn you about this Piers Gaveston. You provoked your barons by sleeping with him and giving him favours and raising him above his station.

But your rein was a disaster for England.

You led your troops to disaster at Bannockburn.

Your failure against the Scots is one thing. Allowing your private relationships to lead England to civil war is another. You provoked the barons once with Gaveston. Then you did it again with Hugh Despenser!

Piers meant that much to you? … Will you answer please?

Damn you all!

ISABELLA, Braveheart of France,

available now from Amazon US and Amazon UK

as well as NOOK, KOBO and APPLE

And also available as POD from Cool Gus publishing.

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Call the accused.

But you knew they were going to kill him?

Why did you do it? You had a comfortable life. He provided for you. It was your duty to obey. He was king by divine right.

What would your father have said? He taught you to obey, did he not?

It was revenge, then?

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After more than forty books published the traditional way, today CoolGus are releasing my first book online.

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If you Google ‘world’s most evil men’, chances are that - after Osama bin Laden and Donald Trump - the name Rasputin will come up.

RUMOUR# 1: HE WAS A DEBAUCHED CHARLATAN ONLY INTERESTED IN GROOMING HIS FOLLOWERS FOR SEX

RUMOUR #2: HE CURED THE CZAR’S SON OF HEMOPHILIA

RUMOUR #3: HE HAD A THIRTEEN INCH PENIS

RUMOUR #4 HIS DAUGHTER LATER BECAME A VENTROLIQUIST AND TIGER TRAINER IN BUENOS AIRES

RUMOUR #5 HE STARTED THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

RUMOR #6 HE WAS SHOT, STABBED, STRANGLED, BEATEN, POISONED AND CASTRATED BUT DIED OF DROWNING WHEN THEY THREW HIM IN THE RIVER

RUMOUR #7 HE WAS A HARD MAN TO KILL

RUMOUR #8 WHEN THEY DUG HIM UP HE CAME BACK TO LIFE

RUMOUR #9 HE WAS A MEMBER OF AN ORGIASTIC SECT