Mark Williams @mrfw17thc Twitter profile

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Mark Williams

3 years

Thrilled to see my new article, 'Experiencing Time in the Early English East India Company' now up for #firstview with @HistoricalJnl ! #twitterstorians #movinghistory

Experiencing Time in the Early English East India Company | The Historical Journal | Cambridge Core

Experiencing Time in the Early English East India Company - Volume 65 Issue 5

www.cambridge.org

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Last Seen Profiles

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

2 years

Found the new home office aesthetic.

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

1 year

Social History, Cultural History, History of Ideas.

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

6 years

Mark Rylance: 'Shakespeare couldn't possibly have written those plays because a 'common person' from 'nowhere' couldn't have done such things!' Also Mark Rylance: *plays Thomas Cromwell, a 'common person' from 'nowhere' basically ruling England for almost a decade*

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

9 months

Fine, yes. History for all, absolutely. But this constant elevation of amateurs and celebrities with platforms often now comes alongside a gutting of (& disregard for) the depts whose academics actually do the essential research on which these celeb histories are based.

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

6 years

We're about two days from inviting an exiled Stuart to come back and fix this mess.

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

1 year

Constantly amazes me how many institutions seem to run on the idea that 'world-leading, earth-shattering, shifting paradigms, all-singing all-dancing research culture' is in any way achievable by investing in no way whatsoever in the staff meant to be at the centre of it.

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

4 years

For whomever else needs reminding about this (as I often do now): This academic year is about survival. Not excellence. Not leading the tables. Not high-quality, blended, artisanal, locally-harvested teaching. Survival.

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

2 years

Samples of taffeta among the surviving letters of EIC merchant Nicholas Buckeridge as part of 'Directions for ye buyinge of India taftas' (ca. 1650s)

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

3 months

Just took my 93 year old mum to vote. She's registered blind. In a very loud voice she said 'Let's vote the bastard Tories out!'. The waiting crowd cheered. #GeneralElection24

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

3 months

He asks for Stegosaurus Toast. He gets Stegosaurus Toast.

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

6 years

Roses are red Violets are blue The remainder of this poem is undergoing institutional review. #AcademicValentine

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

5 months

"Oh, Wee only permitt younge Henry 30 minutes of folio time everie daye for it corrupts ye minde."

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

6 years

I, for one, welcome our new bird overlords.

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

3 years

Two-week old news now (digital picket and all), but can finally announce that I've been promoted to Reader in Early Modern History! (The reading refers to emails, I reckon ...)

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

2 years

Just a warning for #twitterstorians that this is not the story you hope it is.

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

3 months

Under the new revolutionary calendar, the final Waitrose fell on 14 Brioche.

Tom Reagan’s Hat

@RufusTSuperfly

3 months

WAITROSE HAS FALLEN (2024)

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

6 years

If it helps, England, this probably won't be your worst European defeat in the coming year...

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

5 years

*opens document* "List of Historians Whose Names Can Be Sung to 'Baby Shark'* ... *looks up 'REF Impact Case Studies*

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

3 years

@OliverDowden @Telegraph Historians (for decades): We really need to face up to the realities of Britain's history across the globe and not airbrush our role in slavery, violence, racism etc., ... Oliver Dowden: No, not that history.

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

4 months

The challenges of keeping a library at the East India Company factory in Surat in 1673: 'But some of the given bookes these last Raines have bin damnified by ye wormes' (India Office Records, British Library, E/3/34)

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

5 years

Me in 2010/in 2019

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

1 year

Excellent research culture is not - and cannot be - what you manage to squeeze into the transition period between lectures, administrative tasks, and somehow the pastoral rock for your students.

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

3 years

Where are these fabled universities led by the interests of lecturers, and how does one apply for a job there?

Times Higher Education

@timeshighered

3 years

Choppy digital waters await many storied institutions: traditional universities are too often led by the interests of lecturers rather than the employment needs of students or industry’s recruitment needs, says @Arden_Uni ’s Dilshad Sheikh #THECampus

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

2 years

@Telegraph Literally something Archaeologists have been warned of and thought extensively about for decades. Go read some university research ethics committee minutes if you want some extremely dull reinforcement of this.

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

1 year

Honestly want to know what this 'one Oxford academic' thinks History is otherwise ...

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

5 years

[Early Modern Letter] Dearest X, Stuffy stuff stuff stuff stuffy stuff stuff stuff stuff. I beseech you, stuffy stuff stuff stuff stuffy stuff. I remain, ... Postscript, All the fascinating details and scurrilous material which historians of the future will love me for.

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

3 years

' ... educating people in the “untold history lesson” of what happened over three centuries.' I mean it's true. It's pretty hard to find any historians writing on *checks notes* witch ... craft.

Early modern witch-hunts ‘left Britain with collective wound’

Exhibition on witch trials looks at how inherited trauma from ‘the burning times’ still affects society

www.theguardian.com

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

6 years

My sales pitch for REF2020 impact is a BBC Sitcom about a bunch of historians hanging around the old local making eviscerating comments about other people's work and methods. Like 'Cheers' but with more historiography. I'm calling it 'Friendnotes'.

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

4 years

I mean this in all seriousness: when was the last time the UK had a Universities Minister who might be said to have actually talked to, listened to, or even seemed somewhat sympathetic to UK universities rather than being a constant barrier to or opponent of them?

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

6 years

If there isn't a PhD thesis out there on emotion, empathy and the Hundred Years' War ending with 'Now I know how Joan of Arc felt', this whole History of Emotions trend is pointless.

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

2 years

Ca. 85% of historians writing prior to the 1960s:

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

3 years

Is "revenge publishing" a thing when it comes to grant rejections? Like, "look, I did this without you bastards" kind of productivity?

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

3 years

Proofs ....

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

11 months

I was holding my three year old son on a walk moments ago and out of nowhere he said, “The working class did not rise like the sun at an appointed time.” I started to quietly tear up. He couldn’t see my face, but said, “It was present at its own making.”

Chase Geiser

@realchasegeiser

11 months

I was holding my two year old daughter on a walk moments ago and for the first time out of nowhere she said, “God is good. God is real.” I started to quietly tear up. She couldn’t see my face and I didn’t make a sound, but she said, “Don’t cry. It’s okay.”

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

7 years

Of course the narrative here SHOULD be 'arts and humanities continue to lead despite broad campaign to defund and undermine them', but instead focus will be on science 'underperforming' ...

Guardian Universities

@GdnUniversities

7 years

UK universities stronger in arts and humanities than science, rankings suggest

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

5 years

Occasionally find myself thinking that Undergraduate Me would probably have annoyed Lecturer Me ...

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

9 months

History's great appeal shouldn't be taken for granted and it's a blessing that so many people can and do engage with it. But depts across the UK are collapsing and these celebs/amateurs seen as where history 'comes from'. Their research rests on academic labour.

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

6 years

Was anything cuter produced in the whole of the Renaissance than this little owl by Albrecht Dürer? Doubt it.

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

9 months

Historical research and writing, at its best, represents a community endeavour: the archivists, researchers, writers, communicators. If we present it and accept is as the hobby of lone celebrities and interested amateurs, we erase that community.

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

1 year

"Enough of your 'subsections of populations at certain points of time' studies!", the Oxford Academic shouts. "Let me simply teach Tudor England, 1485-1603!"

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

2 months

Things that will not save your academic job: - You 'saw this coming'. - You're actually Really Clever, unlike the rest. - You have Real Solutions, unlike the rest. - You alone can see through to What's Really Happening. So yeah, enough.

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

10 months

20th c History 19th c History 18th c History 17th c History

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

2 years

Alternatively: if you're best positioned to write good historical research for your five nerdy friends, do so. One of them may be best positioned to read it and write about it for a different audience. Because historians are a community of scholars.

Kim A. Wagner

@KimAtiWagner

2 years

Dear academics: no-one cares about your niche topic. If you can't frame it it in terms of wider debates of broader relevance, you're just writing for yourself and your five nerdy friends... (PS: this applies to myself as well)

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

7 years

You wake up in 1618. Of which heresy are you most likely accused? You wake up in 1518. In which cataclysmic set of events are you most likely taking part, wittingly or otherwise? You wake up in 1418. You're happy just to have woken up at all.

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

5 years

Today I've been looking at the letters of an individual whom I know died 8 April 1738; I've seen his handwriting deteriorate as the date approaches. I know this because, as a historian, I have the task and privilege of reading to the end; the small things are often most moving.

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

2 years

This. We saved them; they broke us.

David Madden

@davidjmadden

2 years

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

2 years

Oh, mate, you should read more about the 17th century clergy.

Tom Hunt

@tomhunt1988

2 years

The leaders of the Church of England should be wary about clumsily intervening into complex political issues at the best of times. To do so on Easter Sunday feels very wrong. Archbishop of York views particularly wrong headed. Claims he’s in tune with majority of the public 🙄

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

4 years

In which we all suddenly realise we're still in the long 18th century.

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

3 months

@DanJamesNelson That's not why you 'asked' though, was it? It was just a sad attempt to score cheap political points. Tend to your own first.

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

7 years

*slams head against office door 95 times*

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

4 months

Disgraceful that they're proud of this. Wilfully and gleefully damaging one of the few sectors of which this shambles of a country can still be proud.

Rishi Sunak

@RishiSunak

4 months

We’ve taken action to reduce migration. Student dependant applications are now down by 80%.

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

6 years

I think ... I think maybe the 'repayment for historical damages done' line is not a hole the UK wants to go down post-Brexit, having variously invaded, dominated, pillaged, or enslaved a large portion of the globe in the course of 400+ years.

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

2 years

How is UKHE, you ask? Well, it's spending hours on the picket in the rain and cold for fair pay, a decent pension, and security for precarious colleagues, then finishing the morning with a massively disappointing grant rejection with a crushingly low success rate. That.

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

2 years

Just going to screencap and keep this before I report that it's actually incorrect. But the dream was beautiful for a time.

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

3 years

This is definitely what academia needs right now. The Disney+ Mandalorian Professorship in Child Management Studies waits in the wings.

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

6 years

Among the gifts sent to Don Francisco de Lima, Portuguese governor of Mozambique, in 1653 by the East India Company merchants were '1 Chesheer Cheese', '2 Boxes Marmalath [Marmalade]', jars of olives, and 1 bag 'Pista[chio] Nutts' weighing 23 lbs. Snacks make the world go round

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

4 years

Astounding that @MattHancock feels 24-hr vaccinations aren't necessary because "Most want to be vaccinated during the day". No, we want to be vaccinated as soon as possible. We are not reverse vampires or whatever you think drives this. #bbcbreakfast

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

2 years

@jimmyjimjimmy9 @GaryLineker If you don't like that, wait til you see what climate catastrophe does to the daily commute.

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

3 years

Is it possible that a baby's first word might be 'hwæt!'? Because I'm pretty sure I've just heard it.

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

2 years

@SkyNewsBreak If only there were some sort of group in power who had the capacity to resolve them rather than pointing fingers at a party literally founded to support such action.

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

7 years

@SLevelt If the UK press had spent even a moment exposing that fungus to the light his cause would have withered and died years ago. So sad.

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

4 years

You know what REALLY ended the Middle Ages? Historiography! Cures everything.

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

3 years

Really wanted '... and solve mysteries' at the end of this paragraph.

Fr Jay DeFolco

@defolco

3 years

Pope Francis, Dressed as a simple Priest, has been sneaking out during the night to visit and Comfort the homeless of Rome, helping the teams of the aid of the holy see at the distribution of food, clothes and support funds. Pray that we may all follow his example.

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

6 years

@SocialHistoryOx

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

3 years

As a non-Brit, it constantly amazes me how unappreciated it is by people here. Taken for granted by far too many, and I suspect won't be valued properly until gone.

Lee Johnson

@LeeJBBC

3 years

Perhaps worth remembering what we all get from the BBC licence fee, which costs around 43p a day.

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

2 years

Oh! There's more!

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

5 years

@Baddiel ... being bigots towards virtually everyone else, however, is just fine apparently.

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

3 months

@twlldun The Rest is Sniping from the Sidelines

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

4 years

So #twitterstorians , let's say you wake up tomorrow and are able to read and research fluently in a language you don't currently use. Which language would you choose, and why?

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

2 years

Oh no oh shit

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

4 years

The Right: "Stop erasing history!" Universities: "Fund us properly so we can teach history" The Right: "LOL no"

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

2 years

Some good news: 'Experiencing Time in the Early English East India Company' has now gone Open Access @HistoricalJnl ! For any #twitterstorians interested in #earlymodern mobility, temporalities, and of course the #EIC

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

4 years

Love the sub-genre of institutional emails to emerge from the pandemic which basically says 'We know this is a challenging time and everyone is struggling ...' then moving on to '... but we really don't care and need this by Tuesday'.

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

9 months

(fwiw Mitchell has an undergraduate degree in History, so he has training and I celebrate that ... but there's a larger conversation needed here about what we acknowledge, by whom, and how that shapes the history we value)

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

5 years

@RoryStewartUK See, there are still Tory voters in London.

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

2 years

Imagine building a history podcast around the work of academic historians and then spending the rest of your time making derisory jabs at universities and throwing them to the frothing culture warriors. What a strange way to set up your stall.

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

1 year

'Mapped' is an interesting encapsulation of 'massacre, exiled, deportation, and plantation'.

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

8 months

'Britain Did A Modern' is just another reason why it's important to do even a modicum of historical research before you make sweeping assertions about historical trends.

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

6 years

I'm now convinced that the Huntington Library is actually a cruel social experiment to see whether scholars can be dropped in paradise and still remain committed to their research.

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

4 years

Honoured to have been named proxime accessit for this prize! Congratulations to Scott Dempsey for winning the prize, and thanks to a host of people ( @keir_waddington , @earlymodernjohn , @EvaJohannaH , @S_Goldsmith_ ) who read, commented on, and improved the article.

Royal Historical Society

@RoyalHistSoc

4 years

Dr Mark Williams has been named proxime accessit for the 2020 David Berry Prize for an essay "The Inner Lives of Early Modern Travel". Congrats, @mrfw17thc ! @CUHistArchRel @cardiffuni @HistoricalJnl #RHSAwards2020

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

3 months

In which it is posited that Shakespeare could not have written it because he couldn't have *checks notes* ... Visited a pub or read the Bible.

Guardian Opinion

@guardianopinion

3 months

The Merry Wives of Windsor offers strong evidence that Shakespeare was not its author | Letter

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

2 years

For those interested: this is Clos Lucé, where Leonardo da Vinci spent the final years of his life.

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

4 years

@Independent Blocked and reported.

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

2 years

@nationalrailenq @NoContextBrits He gave you his money, but in the middle of negotiations you broke down.

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

8 years

Casual reminder that Archbishop Laud had a pet tortoise which survived into the 18th century, only to be killed by a gardener.

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

2 years

@grantshapps Didn't see 'Added Motorway Deaths' coming as a Brexit bonus, honestly.

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

4 months

@DannyBuckUEA I'd be asking serious questions about where Ireland had drifted off to ...

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

9 months

Not commented on often enough is that a central anxiety for people already on visas in the UK is not just meeting absurdly high thresholds for reapplication, but the constant (well-founded) fear that the terms will arbitrarily change and/or you'll be victim of incompetence.

Natasha Clark

@NatashaC

9 months

New: James Cleverly suggests people in the UK reapplying for visas *won't* have to meet higher salary thresholds He tells @NickFerrariLBC he understands people are concerned and hopes to clarify details Will those people be ok? "Yes. This is forward looking proposals rather

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

1 year

This is absolutely horrendous @ucu .

Matthew Kelly

@Scorhill

1 year

This is the motion @ucu Congress passed yesterday. Yes, it calls on Russian withdrawal but it also demands the UK government stop arming Ukraine (to what consequence?) and notes that Zelensky’s aim is to make Ukraine ‘an armed, illiberal outpost of US imperialism’.

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

3 years

Sharing again for the Monday morning crowd! #twitterstorians For anyone interested in the East India Company, #earlymodern temporalities, and mobility.

The Historical Journal

@HistoricalJnl

3 years

Out now on #FirstView Mark R. F. Williams ( @mrfw17thc ) ( @CUHistArchRel ) on 'Experiencing Time in the Early English East India Company' #India #England #Time #Global 🕑 👉Read online here:

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

4 years

So students are not to meet anyone from other households indoors or outdoors, not go to gyms or most shops ... but can go to in-person teaching where they'll meet other people there and along the way? Bizarre.

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

5 months

@mccormick_ted If not actually a terrorist, at least expressing sediments.

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

6 years

Around 90% of British history is playing a central role in creating something and then spending centuries not understanding that thing.

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

10 months

Thank the heavens that Christopher Hill, AJP Taylor, EP Thompson, Hannah Arendt, TB Macaulay, Leopold van Ranke, Edward Gibbon and so many other historians didn't fall victim to this 'moral theology' and wrote Truly Empirical History.

Tom Holland

@holland_tom

10 months

The repurposing of history as an arm of moral theology has indeed been one of the more striking features of contemporary academia.

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

7 years

Terrific turnout for #UCUstrike at Cardiff University. #hellocolin University staff ARE the university.

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

6 years

A stage of national idiocy whereby all national processes are measured in units of World War. "Just popping down to the shops for some eggs, dear - back in 1/1000th of a World War!" "Well, we're about 1/759th of a World War through the match and Huddersfield Town lead by 2 ..."

Daniel Hannan

@DanielJHannan

6 years

By the end of next month, we will have had around two thirds of the entire time it took to fight the First World War to prepare for Brexit. If we're really not ready, what does that say about the state of the government machine?

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

4 years

Like most Canadians, I didn't do A-Levels but got top marks in tree-felling, hockey stick management, and maple syrup processing. Let that be inspiration to all you young aspiring historians out there.

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Mark Williams

@mrfw17thc

11 months

Hideously misleading headline now has white Welsh people losing their minds. He's literally just said he likes rural Wales and would recommend it to others.

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