Inventing History : forgery: a great British tradition (British History)

[Boris Tabaksplatt]

No evidence available, as you would expect. It is always problematic trying to 'out' spooks. However, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

[Mick Harper]

Yes it is.

[Wile E. Coyote]

The Conspiracy theorist asks the question "what is the probability of most of the All-Black team going down with food poisoning on the day of Rugby Union's most important tournament, against a host nation who were trying to unify their newly formed rainbow nation playing their national sport?"

There is no conclusive evidence.

A armchair theorist struggles to remember any comparable example in any sport, maybe we once lost a couple on the odd day of a test with Delhi Belly??

A statistician provides a answer.

A Bayesian statistician provides a separate answer.

A AE ist provides a third. ie he or she asks Mick what he thinks.

What is the most simple and obvious explanation?

[Mick Harper]

I refer you to the Bob Woolmer thread in the Politics section for a discussion of a similar sporting mare's nest situation.

[Wile E. Coyote]

With the caveat that solving, as opposed to learning by analogy is not the way to go...(?)

[Mick Harper]

London was the capital up to 400 AD, London was the capital after 1000 AD, but not in between. Obviously we know why but this week's competition is to come up with capitals that were, then weren't, then were again. Ishmael will be excited by Rome up to 325 AD, not Rome 325 - 1870, then Rome again but your job is to come up with other examples.

[Mick Harper]

[Wile E. Coyote]

[Wile E. Coyote]

I might be a bit off topic, but it does appear that Mick has stumbled on the solution to all our national ills.

Clearly we need to move the capital.

The Houses of Parliament are collapsing, the city is over-populated, we are rounding up the homeless and sending them to Coventry (the city), Wolverhampton, Birmingham....

In a few years English will no longer be the first language of choice of most Londoners, who heaven forbid have already lost confidence in this once great nation, and now want to allow Europe to make all our laws. A bloated London has alienated the periphery....

If the Londoners have lost the will to rule......it is time to move. Not to another city...that would be pathetic (shows lack of ambition), we need to start from scratch on virgin, sacred land.......

[Mick Harper]

Here's a minor example.
1. Edward the Confessor, 1042-66, appears to be treating London as the capital (building Westminster Abbey and whatnot)
2. William the Conqueror, 1066-87, is treating London as the capital (building the Tower of London and whatnot).
3. William Rufus, 1087-1100, gets killed
4. Henry I, 1100 - 1135, is speeding hotfoot to Winchester to get control of the capital.

Now this is a well-known murky episode in English history and we can leave Boris to report on grassy knolls in the New Forest but it is Edward the Confessor who is the real murk. As a cut-out between Anglo-Saxon, Danish and Norman interests he will probably turn out to be a made-up figure but his real importance stems from later presumed forged accounts which make him the person (the saintly person) who 'persuaded' both the Scots and the Welsh that they were vassals of the English viz

[Wile E. Coyote]

Aha the very spot. Virgin sacred land.

http://www.dronestagr.am/maiden-castle/

[Wile E. Coyote]

[Mick Harper]

Ah, the death of kings. Since you're our Bayesian expert, Wiley, what is the probability, given the tiny sample of English monarchs, of the following pairings
two of the same name dying from falling off a horse -- William I & William III
two in the same century dying by arrow -- Harold & William II
two successively dying in their beds but having mothers dying from decapitation -- Elizabeth I and James I

[Wile E. Coyote]

Hmm.

I guess (this is standard Wiley fare....) my starting point would be...

The first four seem standard hunting/warfare ways to go.....

You can forget the modern historical bollox, I wonder if at the time unexplained deaths (no modern medical knowledge) were often assigned to categories which might seem strange to us, but would provide "rational explanations" at the time. I don't recall too many that went with..."he had been indulging in too much fatty boar and mead .....he then got an ill bout of the humors, clutched his breast, and the herbalist couldn't get to the bottom of it."

No, it was an arrow.

http://www.orkneyjar.com/folklore/fairicks/f4.htm

This arrow got rewritten as history.

[Wile E. Coyote]

Still I stumbled across this....looking at a few old deaths....