This course resumes on the 10th August. (2nd & 4th Fridays 1.30-3.30pm). New participants welcome!

We are in for more bloody history as we complete our review of the War of the Roses and investigate the rise of the Tudors.  

I have plenty of dvds so we can relax as we enjoy our visual feast, no need to enroll, just turn up!
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Terry Case (0427 621700)

​Armchair History will resume on August 10th.  We will meet at our regular time, 2nd & 4th Fridays starting at 1.30pm. We use a dvd for part of each session to tell history from different viewpoints then discuss what we have seen. I hope to conclude with the reign of Henry VII (The Winter King).

If you would like to join the group, just show up at our first session. I will be away for a while, but you can contact me after July 10th.
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Terry Case

​Terry Case will be returning with Armchair History in Semester II, 2018.

Other history related courses being offered in Semester I may be of interest to Armchair History regulars.  Meg Dillon is offering 'Some Moments in Australian History' on the 2nd and 4th Fridays between 1.30 and 3.30 during Semester I.  John Barry will continue to track the history and anniversary events of the Great War in 'Over There' on the third Friday afternoon between 1.30 and 3.30 pm.

The course was judged a success by the class and we will continue in Semester 2 next year looking at the intriguing reign of Queen Victoria and why people in Britain and its Empire proudly called themselves “Victorians”.
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Once again I have a large collection of DVDs to illustrate the era and you can sit back and enjoy your history:

• Photography became very popular during Victoria’s reign and people who thronged to the Great Exhibition were entranced by this new development. I will draw on some collections of photographs from the period.
• The great writer associated with the period was Dickens who held society accountable for the miseries inflicted on the poor.
• City and home life gradually improved and the new Middle Class reaped the benefits.
• This was the Age of Steam as trains and steam ships cut travel time and carried people cheaply and (eventually) safely to distant destinations.
• It was also a period when the British Empire was at its peak and we will look at colonies such as Australia, after all what could be more Victorian than a colony named for the Queen and a State capital named for her favourite Prime Minister?

Terry Case

​We continue to look at the 14th Century and the brutal reigns of the Plantagenet monarchs. I am going to extend the class with a session in the 2nd week of December. Next year Meg’s Australian History class will operate in Semester 1 and Armchair History will resume probably in August. Details will be in the Newsletter.  You will be able to enrol in January or can contact me next year.
 
Terry Case

I promised my group I would provide details from the two books that have provided much of my background reading for the period of the 12th & 13th Centuries which we are now studying. Alison’s biography of Eleanor of Aquitaine at times reads like a mediaeval romance, but a glance to the footnotes ensures we are reading a well-researched account.

Eleanor was first married to the King of France and after that marriage was annulled she quickly married Henry II of England and provided him with the immense lands she had inherited in Aquitaine. For women of this period marriage meant surrendering all possessions to your husband and having no say in decision making. Eleanor was an exception and became a powerful Queen, acting as Regent for her son Richard the Lionheart as both he and John became Kings of England.

The book cover shows a window in Poitiers Cathedral donated by Henry & Eleanor to celebrate their marriage.

We have reviewed the importance of crusades, saints, martyrs and pilgrimages in the lives of Europeans in the period 1066-1300, next we look at Church attitudes to sex. We will also examine the reign of King John’s son Henry III, who plunged England into civil war.

​Please note that Semester 2 Armchair History will now start at 1.30pm 

Terry Case ​

July will see us commence our final Semester for this class as I will take a break for a while, an Australian History class will run in this time spot commencing next year.

Can I also remind you John Barry will be commencing a history class about the Great War called ‘Over there’ starting this semester on the third Friday 1.30-3.30pm? If you wish to join John’s class you can email me case.terence@gmail.com

Please note that Semester 2 Armchair History will now start at 1.30pm
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Terry Case

Henry II first of the Plantagenet Kings with his wife Eleanor made a formidable combination. After subduing the English barons, he imposed a uniform law code throughout Britain known as the Common Law. It was to bring him into dispute with the Church as he sought to limit the powers of church courts.  Good King Henry or Bad King Henry? It seems all he is remembered for is the assassination of Archbishop Thomas a Beckett.

We are beginning to read a more contemporary account as Chaucer’s pilgrims set out in his Canterbury Tales. I am about to introduce a new element showing history as comedy.

​Terry