The Rest Is History - 12 Days: Massacre of the Innocents and the Tay Bridge disaster

Episode Date: December 28, 2021

In a suitably festive edition, Tom recounts the biblical story of King Herod's massacre of babies in Jerusalem, and Dominic remembers a rail disaster from 1879 and the hilariously bad poetry it inspired. *The Rest Is History Live Tour 2023*: Tom and Dominic are back on tour this autumn! See them live in London, New Zealand, and Australia! Buy your tickets here: restishistorypod.com Twitter:  @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thank you for listening to The Rest Is History. For weekly bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to series, and membership of our much-loved chat community, go to therestishistory.com and join the club. That is therestishistory.com. Welcome to The Rest Is History. We're on day four of our great marathon, the 12 days of Christmas, or indeed in our case, the 13 days of Christmas. Tom Holland's brilliant idea to force me to do nothing. To ruin the week before Christmas. Yeah, by recording endless podcasts about exciting moments

that happened on this day over the festive season many years ago. So, Tom, do you have a jolly, light-hearted... I do. It's the jolliest and the most light-hearted. It's the Massacre of the Innocents. Right. So tell us about this. Well, it probably didn't happen. OK, that's a good start.

And if it did happen, it probably didn't happen on this day um but today is uh childermass um when the church commemorates the massacre of the innocent babies of bethlehem yeah who were slaughtered by king herod and the story is uh it's only told in the gospel of saint matthew that the three wise men come from the east they come to herod they say we've seen a star um king of the jews has been born we want to go and pay our respects herod is kind of stressed out about this but disguises it um says well you need to go to bethlehem then uh but and when you've discovered who this king of the jews is could you come back and tell me? Because I'd like to. I'd like to go and pay my respects as well.

The three wise men go to Bethlehem. They discover Jesus. They give him the gold, frankincense and myrrh. And then they're visited by an angel who says, don't go and tell Herod. Yeah. So they go back home. Angel also appears to Joseph and says, scram, get out of here. And so Joseph and Mary and the baby Jesus head off to Egypt.

Herod is so furious that he orders his men to slaughter all the newborn male babies in Jerusalem. And the carnage ensues. Now, that's mad because he knows that the baby is from Bethlehem. Why would he? Well, there's a lot of questions. Yeah. To begin with, one obvious source of confusion, the day that is traditionally associated with the arrival of the three wise men in Bethlehem is Epiphany,

which is the 6th of January. So. So Herod's done the slaughtering before he's even. Yeah. So there's, there's, there's some confusion there. Yeah.

Um, but also nobody else, you know, if this happened, nobody else mentions it. So none of the other three gospel writers, uh, none.

So Josephus, who writes an awful lot about Herod, um, Jewish historian of the first century a.d he doesn't mention it either so um the likelihood that this is historical is fairly minimal and so you may wonder well you know what where does the story originate what's going on well okay so i think two things are going on here the first is i mean you may remember in the episode we did on muhammad we talked about um how historically implausible quite a lot of the events that are traditionally associated with the life of muhammad are uh and quite a lot of of um those you know the historical

implausibilities but they're not theological implausibilities so there's a there's a kind of sacred history that gets written that doesn't necessarily obey the dictates of history as someone doing their A-level, say, might understand it. And an awful lot about the life of Mohammed is modeled on the life of Moses. And I think the same thing is happening here because Jesus is going to Egypt in this case but moses leads the children of israel out of egypt and the climactic plague uh you know pharaoh uh resists allowing the children of israel to leave he gets hit by 10 plagues the climactic plague is the death of the firstborn oh so that's very similar isn't it basically so there's there's the the they of echo. I mean, it's literally kind of mirror image of of what happens in Exodus with this. It's kind of establishing the link between Jesus and Moses.

It's this idea that what happened in what Christians call the Old Testament is now being kind of echoed in the New Testament. What is what is the role that Herod is playing in this? Well, the thing that Herod is notorious for is that he kills his own children. So he has a large number of wives. He's very, very suspicious. So that idea that Herod would not be happy to learn that there was a rival potential king of the Jews is absolutely true to his character. He, you know, he's very happy to kill his own children if he feels that they're a dynastic threat. So much so that the Emperor Augustus, it is said, made the very amusing quip that he would rather be, he'd rather be Herod's pig than his child. Right.

You know, which is a good joke. Okay. Uh, it's, it's, I think it's recorded. It's by recorded by Macrobius. He's writing much later kind of fourth,

fifth century, but, um, it's a good joke. Uh, and so I think that that is, that's kind of what's happening there. So hold on.

What the gospel of Matthew, um, we could go down a massive rabbit hole here, but is it written? Is it genuinely written by somebody called Matthew? First of all, probably not. No.

Okay. So who's writing it? I think we should do an episode on this. Okay. Jesus and the gospels. I mean, it's, it's an incredible,

you can imagine. I mean, but why would they have it in for Herod particularly? Because Herod is the, is the dominant figure in. Well, let's, let's not call it Jewish. Let's call it judean historical memory

and matthew is writing his gospel against the backdrop of the judean revolt which we're going to do uh yeah an episode about in the new year and that obviously sees the destruction of the temple which had been built by herod it sees the storming of masada which had been built by Herod. It sees the storming of Masada, which had been built by Herod. It sees the Judean revolt breakout in the great port city of Caesarea, which had been built by Herod. Basically, Herod builds everything. He's a massive man for the Grand Projet. And the issues that kind of explode in the Judean revolt, a lot of them can be traced back to the figure of Herod. And Herod has been described as one of the few historical figures who's equally loathed by Jews and Christians. But he's not, Herod is not originally Jewish himself, is he?

He's Nabataean Arab, is that right? Well, he claims to be Jewish. He converts, doesn't he, to Judaism? He's not from a Jewish family. But the Judean Jewish identity is a much more fluid, he converts doesn't he to judaism he's not from a jewish family but but the judean jewish identity is a much more fluid much more complicated thing than it subsequently becomes right so he's a kind of ambivalent figure and obviously he's held up by the gospel writer as a contrast to christ who will never be a king in the conventional sense, who will go to the cross.

And that is the contrast. And the echoes of the death and suffering that surround his birth is also there in the frankincense and the myrrh that the wise men bring. Do you know what I'm going to say about Herod? I think Herod's got a very bad press, because actually, if you look at Herod's times, Herod moves horses very skillfully,'t he so he's originally he's originally in with Mark Antony

and then Cleopatra and then he switches to Octavian well Octavian summons him and says well you know what do you say why have you been backing Mark Antony and he says well I was a good friend to Mark Antony and now I was a good friend to to you. And Octavian says, yeah, fair enough. It's very succession. Very succession. He's the Tom Wamsgams of Middle Eastern politics. He's a bit of a parvenu, but he outsmarts the people.

Outlives Cleopatra, outlives Antony. And I think that he has to be brutal to be successful. But he has this very unfortunate end, doesn't he, Herod? Isn't he eaten by worms or something like that? That's his son, Herod Agrippa, but yes, he dies horribly as well. There's some, what's it, I was just reading up on it. He dies, a thing called Herod's Curse or Herod's...

Scratching his skin off. Yeah, Herod's Evil. He dies of an illness. I mean, having an illness named after you it's quite an achievement yeah so uh not good um but this this becomes uh for for the church it becomes one of the great festivals um the the innocents are accounted the first christian martyrs so even ahead of saint stephen whose martyrdom is on boxinging Day 26th of December. And it inspires the famous Coventry carol in the 14th century. La, la, la, la, thou little tiny child.

No, I can't do it. That was brilliant, Tom. That was just a taste. Maybe if you join the Restless History Club, it's not too late to join the Restless History Club, but you'll be able to hear Tom singing the whole thing. Herod the King, in his raging charge, yet he hath this day,

his men of might in his own sight, all young children to slay. Honestly, you'll know it if you hear it. And you know, very movingly, that was sung on Childermass, so this day in 1940, in the smoking ruins of Coventry Cathedral. That is moving.

It is moving, isn't it? Yeah. I know you're a big fan of Coventry Cathedral, aren't you? Yes, I'm wonderful. The city of Coventry Cathedral. That is moving. It is moving, isn't it? Yeah. I know you're a big fan of Coventry Cathedral, aren't you? Yes, I'm wonderful. The city of Coventry, generally. Wonderful. Yeah. I visited the rebuilt cathedral the first time this year.

It's the greatest modern British building. Wow. Amazing place. Amazing place. But also, Dominic, this sets up a future episode we're going to have. We're going to talk about Camus, Albert Camus. Yeah. And he wrote La Chute, The Fall.

Yeah. In which Christ allows himself to be crucified out of the guilt that he feels at not having been one of the innocents. That's not very Christmassy, Tom. It's incredibly Christmassy Tom it's incredibly Christmassy that's more Easter-y I think Christ's crucifixion

isn't it he's doing it because of something that happened at Christmas I know but I mean we don't want to be talking about guilt and I mean

that's what guilt, victimhood that's the stuff of academic history we don't do that kind of thing Tom it's the stuff of Christmas

okay well listen I have a brilliant I have a brilliant, I have a brilliant anniversary for the second half. So if you're feeling a bit low thinking about the Massacre of the Innocents, cheer up, because coming after the break is the Tay Bridge disaster and the greatest poem in history.

I'm Marina Hyde. And I'm Richard Osman. And together we host The Rest Is Entertainment. It's your weekly fix of entertainment news, reviews, splash of showbiz gossip. And on our Q&A, we pull back the curtain on entertainment and we tell you how it all works. We have just launched our Members Club. If you want ad-free listening, bonus episodes and early access to live tickets, head to therestisentertainment.com. That's therestisentertainment.com.

Hello, welcome back to this special 12 Days of Christmas episode. We are talking the events of the 28th of December. We've already done Childermass, the Massacre of the Innocents. And now we've got more death than destruction. But we've also got poetry. Dominic, we love a poem on this podcast. We've read a lot of poetry on it. But I think... You'll never get a better poem than this one.

Now, I'm going to build up to the poem. I'm going to build up to the poem because I don't want to go in on the poem. I'll go in on the death. So there is a bridge in Scotland called the Tay Rail Bridge and this is built in June 1878 and it goes across the Firth of Tay to Dundee. So it's a great age of engineering, of kind of engineering and architectural marvels in Victorian Britain and this is one of them. It runs for about two miles this bridge this rail bridge it's kind of symbol of modernity and a progress and so on uh the architect is a man

called thomas bouch or bouch i think bouch and um now the the building work this is not unfamiliar with you're talking about grand projet in the first half herod's grand projet this is a victorian grand projet that has gone massively over budget, as Grands Projets tend to. So it's kind of HS2. It is HS2. So costs have been cut during the building. And the architect, Mr. Bouch, has made absolutely no allowance whatsoever for high winds.

Oh, no. Which is very foolish with a Scottish rail bridge. So let's fast forward by 18 months or so from when it was built. And we are on the evening of the 28th of December, 1879. So you can picture the scene, kind of dark night, the winds howling, the rain lashing down, very Scottish kind of winter weather. The Edinburgh Express is travelling from Burnt Island. And just after 7 o'clock, it heads towards the Tay Rail Bridge, goes onto the bridge.

At 7.13 p.m., it's given the signal to go ahead, to kind of continue its journey. And it has five carriages and it has a luggage van and it's halfway across the bridge tom it's halfway there and suddenly there was this great flash of light that illuminates the sky and then total darkness what was the flash uh i don't know i think the flash i probably was lightning yeah probably it was the middle of the storm lightning

but also maybe something going wrong I don't know sparks or who knows the train doesn't blow up but basically the bridge

collapses with the train on it so within moments the bridge the girders the train all the people

down into the tay into the Firth of Tay and everybody dies murderers, the train, all the people, down into the Tay, into the Firth of Tay, and everybody dies. Now, no one's quite sure exactly how many people are on the train. Probably about 75 people, including the staff. There are no survivors at all. Now, the terrible thing for Mr. Bouch, he's no longer Mr. Bouch, he's Sir Thomas. He's been knighted for the bridge, would you believe?

Sir Sister Bridge Building. Sir Sister Scottish Bridge Building. And less than a year later, he dies of shock and distress of mind. That's in credit. Yeah. So it's a very sad story, all these people killed on this bridge. Now, that's not really why people remember this, because this story, this very sad moment moment comes to the attention of a man called

william mcgonigal the inspiration for harry potter's professor mcgonigal in the name famous as the worst poet in recorded history so william mcgonigal is a kind of interesting man he his family's probably irish and they've been moving around in Victorian Britain to find work. And William was a handloom weaver, so he's got no education. But he loved Shakespeare, didn't he? He did love Shakespeare. Do you have an amusing story to tell us about him playing Macbeth? I do.

How do you know? You've obviously been doing the same research as me in the Bodleian Library. I actually looked this up for our I'm at Beth episode, and I forgot to mention it. So when he was working at his loom, William McGonagall would, it says entertain, but I think probably annoy his fellow workers by reciting bits of Shakespeare, because he's a great autodidact.

That's what you want, isn't it, with a fellow worker? Of course. To point Shakespeare's soliloquies. Yeah, exactly. So at one point, the other workers pay a local theatre owner to allow him to appear in the title role in a production of Macbeth. This may be their way of trying to get rid of him, I don't know.

That could be you. McGonagall gets it into his head that the guy who's playing Macduff is jealous of him. And to get his revenge, he refuses to die in the final act. So this guyff is jealous of him. And to get his revenge, he refuses to die in the final act. So this guy's trying to kill him. And he just won't die.

Oh, yes. So that's the sign of a great literary craftsman, I think, and a great showman. And in 1877, when McGonagall is probably about 50,

he has this almost religious conversion. The news comes on him, doesn't it? It does. Do you want me to read you what he says? Yeah. He says, I seem to feel, as it were, a strange kind of feeling stealing over me,

and I remained so for about five minutes. A flame, as Lord Byron has said, kindled up my entire frame, along with a strong desire to write poetry. And I felt so happy, so happy, that I was inclined to dance. Then I began to pace backwards and forwards in the room, trying to shake off all thought of write poetry. And I felt so happy, so happy that I was inclined to dance. Then I began to pace backwards and forwards in the room, trying to shake off all thought of writing poetry.

But the more I tried, the more strong the sensation became. It was so strong, I imagined a pen was in my right hand and a voice crying, write, write. I mean, Tom, did you have this when you first came to you to write history? Well, sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night wondering whether the words will ever come. Well, that problem did not afflict William McGonagall. No, it did not. He could never have advertised a better help. So a year later, he walks from Dundee. It's such a funny story.

He walks from Dundee to Balmoral. So that's about 60 miles. He walks over through the mountains. To offer his services to the Queen, right? Through a violent thunderstorm. To offer his services. And when he arrives at Balmoral, he announces himself to the guards. He says, I am the Queen's poet.

And the guards say to him, you're not the Queen's poet. Tennyson is the Queen's poet. So McGonagall is outraged. And he's... The reason is because he had written to the Queen to tell her that he wanted to become her poet. And he'd taken up poetry.

And some flunky in the royal household had sent back a form letter saying, The Queen is very grateful for your communication. And will follow your career with interest. He was like, great, I'm on my way. So he's not deterred by this. And so two years after this incident at Balmoral, he decides he's going to write about the Tay Bridge disaster. And this is the poem that I think people agree is his masterpiece, the single worst poem, because he's a terrible, terrible poet.

So it's very long. So I'm just going to read the beginning and the end. So it's called The Tay Bridge Disaster, 1880. Here's how it begins. Beautiful railway bridge of the silvery tay. Alas, I am very sorry to say that 90 lives have been taken away on the last Sabbath day of 1879, which will be remembered for a very long time. Oh, ill-fated bridge of the silvery tay. I now must conclude my lay by telling the world fearlessly without the least dismay that your central girders would not have given way at least many sensible

men do say had they been supported on each side by buttresses at least many sensible men confesses for the stronger we our houses do build the less chance we have of being killed that's great but the moment you hear buttresses i think you're a dog to know what he's going to rhyme with that confesses do you think that's a good rhyme buttresses confesses i don't think that's a great rhyme no yeah well i think i think that to me tom the the problem there is which will be remembered for a very long time. Yeah. I think that's quite a pathetic end to that first verse.

Are you seriously engaging in practical criticism? Yeah, of William McGowan Gorse poetry. Well, he was very good at prose as well. Was he? My dear readers of this autobiography, which I am the author of. But Dominic, do you know, did you read about how he tried to make money working in a circus? I didn't actually. Would you like to tell me about that? I mean, he wasn't invited to the literary festivals. He wasn't?

No, he wasn't. So he was reduced to working in a circus at which he would read his poetry. And the audience was invited to pelt him with eggs, flour and other comestibles. They were invited. So they were told to bring them beforehand. Yeah. It's like being on a podcast. Yeah.

I hope that doesn't happen to us when we do like the rest is history. I know. Terrible. People pelt us with eggs. That'd be very depressing. But it can be the kind of tragic figure. Definitely a tragic figure. You know,

a very sort of, cause he's not that classic thing of somebody who's completely unaware of his reputation. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think cause that, the tape that the,

the, the thing with the, the reason the Tay Bridge poem is remembered is cause the incongruity of the tragedy of the subject and the ridiculousness of the handling yeah um the absolute insensitivity yeah the absolute insensitivity anyway that concludes um that i've got nothing left to say about william mcgonagall or the tape tape rail bridge well i think you've done it justice good i didn't do it a scottish accent um you kind of there was a hint there was a tiny. There was a ghostly hint. A ghostly hint of a Scottish accent.

Giving the world a glimpse of what your Macbeth might have been. That's right. Not to say my Paddington. Right. So, I'm definitely not

going to do an accent to the next episode because it will be cancelled. What are we doing for the next episode? Remind me. Well, we're doing another of my theatrical performances because you're doing Thomas Beckett

haven't you chosen to do Thomas Beckett and I'm doing the Massacre at Wounded Knee so I don't think I should do any voices alright we'll see you tomorrow, bye bye Thanks for listening to The Rest Is History. For bonus episodes, early access, ad-free listening, and access to our chat community, please sign up at restishistorypod.com.

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