title: The Shining (novel)

text: The novel is being adapted into a stage play directed by Ivo van Hove and written by Simon Stephens. Ben Stiller is reportedly in talks to play Jack Torrance in a stage adaptation.


title: The Shining (novel)

text: A spin-off series titled "Overlook" is in development by J. J. Abrams and his production company Bad Robot. It was to air on HBO Max and explore the tales of the Overlook Hotel. However, by August 2021, the show did not move forward at HBO Max, and was shopped to other outlets before Netflix picked up the following year.


title: Afrikaners

text: Afrikaners () are a South African ethnic group descended from predominantly Dutch settlers first arriving at the Cape of Good Hope in the 17th and 18th centuries. They traditionally dominated South Africa's politics and commercial agricultural sector prior to 1994. Afrikaans, South Africa's third most widely spoken home language, evolved as the mother tongue of Afrikaners and most Cape Coloureds. It originated from the Dutch vernacular of South Holland, incorporating words brought from the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) and Madagascar by slaves. Afrikaners make up approximately 5.2% of the total South African population, based upon the number of White South Africans who speak Afrikaans as a first language in the South African National Census of 2011.


title: Afrikaners

text: The arrival of Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama at Calicut, India, in 1498 opened a gateway of free access to Asia from Western Europe around the Cape of Good Hope; however, it also necessitated the founding and safeguarding of trade stations in the East. The Portuguese landed in Mossel Bay in 1500, explored Table Bay two years later, and by 1510 had started raiding inland. Shortly afterwards the Dutch Republic sent merchant vessels to India, and in 1602 founded the ('Dutch East India Company'; VOC). As the volume of traffic rounding the Cape increased, VOC recognised its natural harbour as an ideal watering point for the long voyage around Africa to the Orient and established a victualling station there in 1652. VOC officials did not favour the permanent settlement of Europeans in their trading empire, although during the 140 years of Dutch rule many VOC servants retired or were discharged and remained as private citizens. Furthermore, the exigencies of supplying local garrisons and passing fleets compelled the administration to confer free status upon employees and oblige them to become independent farmers.


title: Afrikaners

text: Encouraged by the success of this experiment, the Company extended free passage from 1685 to 1707 for Hollanders wishing to settle at the Cape. In 1688, it sponsored the immigration of 200 French Huguenot refugees forced into exile by the Edict of Fontainebleau. The terms under which the Huguenots agreed to immigrate were the same offered to other VOC subjects, including free passage and requisite farm equipment on credit. Prior attempts at cultivating vineyards or exploiting olive groves for fruit had been unsuccessful, and it was hoped that Huguenot colonists accustomed to Mediterranean agriculture could succeed where the Dutch had failed. They were augmented by VOC soldiers returning from Asia, predominantly Germans channeled into Amsterdam by the company's extensive recruitment network and thence overseas. Despite their diverse nationalities, the colonists used a common language and adopted similar attitudes towards politics. The attributes they shared came to serve as a basis for the evolution of Afrikaner identity and consciousness.


title: Afrikaners

text: Afrikaner nationalism has taken the form of political parties and secret societies such as the in the twentieth century. In 1914, the National Party was founded to promote Afrikaner economic interests and sever South Africa's ties to the United Kingdom. Rising to prominence by winning the 1948 general election, it was also noted for enforcing a harsh policy of racial segregation (apartheid) while simultaneously declaring South Africa a republic in 1961 and withdrawing from the British Commonwealth. The National Party was voted out in 1994 following decades of domestic unrest and international sanctions that resulted in bilateral negotiations to end apartheid and South Africa's first multiracial election held under a universal franchise.


title: Afrikaners

text: The term "Afrikaner" (formerly sometimes in the forms or , from the Dutch ) presently denotes the politically, culturally and socially dominant and majority group among white South Africans, or the Afrikaans-speaking population of Dutch origin. Their original progenitors, especially in paternal lines, also included smaller numbers of Flemish, French Huguenot, German, Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish immigrants. Historically, the terms "" and "" have both been used to describe white Afrikaans-speakers as a group; neither is particularly objectionable, but "Afrikaner" has been considered a more appropriate term.


title: Afrikaners

text: By the late nineteenth century, the term was in common usage in both the Boer republics and in the Cape Colony. At one time, "burghers" denoted Cape Dutch: those settlers who were influential in the administration, able to participate in urban affairs, and did so regularly. "Boers" often referred to the settled ethnic European farmers or to nomadic cattle-herders. During the Batavian Republic of 1795–1806, ('citizen') was popularised among Dutch communities both at home and abroad as a popular revolutionary form of address. In South Africa, it remained in use as late as the Second Boer War of 1899–1902.


title: Afrikaners

text: The first recorded instance of a colonist identifying as an Afrikaner occurred in March 1707, during a disturbance in Stellenbosch. When the magistrate, Johannes Starrenburg, ordered an unruly crowd to desist, a young white man named Hendrik Biebouw retorted, "" ("I will not leave, I am an African – even if the magistrate were to beat me to death, or put me in jail, I shall not be, nor will I stay, silent!"). Biebouw was flogged for his insolence and later banished to Batavia (present-day Jakarta in Indonesia). The word "Afrikaner" is thought to have first been used to classify Cape Coloureds, or other groups of mixed-race ancestry. Biebouw had numerous "half-caste" (mixed race) siblings and may have identified with Coloureds socially. The growing use of the term appeared to express the rise of a new identity for white South Africans, suggesting for the first time a group identification with the Cape Colony rather than with an ancestral homeland in Europe.


title: Afrikaners

text: VOC initially had no intention of establishing a permanent European settlement at the Cape of Good Hope; until 1657 it devoted as little attention as possible to the development or administration of the Dutch Cape Colony. From the VOC's perspective, there was little financial incentive to regard the region as anything more than the site of a strategic victualing centre. Furthermore, the Cape was unpopular among VOC employees, who regarded it as a barren and insignificant outpost with little opportunity for advancement.


title: Afrikaners

text: A small number of longtime VOC employees who had been instrumental in the colony's founding and its first five years of existence, however, expressed interest in applying for grants of land, with the objective of retiring at the Cape as farmers. In time they came to form a class of , also known as (free citizens), former VOC employees who stayed in Dutch territories overseas after serving their contracts. The were to be of Dutch birth (although exceptions were made for some Germans), married, "of good character", and had to undertake to spend at least twenty years in Southern Africa. In March 1657, when the first started receiving their farms, the white population of the Cape was only about 134. Although the soil and climate in Cape Town were suitable for farming, willing immigrants remained in short supply and included a number of orphans, refugees, and foreigners accordingly. From 1688 onward the Cape attracted some French Huguenots, most of them refugees from the protracted conflict between Protestants and Catholics in France.


title: Afrikaners

text: South Africa's white population in 1691 has been described as the Afrikaner "parent stock", as no significant effort was made to secure more colonist families after the dawn of the 18th century, and a majority of Afrikaners are descended from progenitors who arrived prior to 1700 in general and the late 1600s in particular. Although some two-thirds of this figure were Dutch-speaking Hollanders, there were at least 150 Huguenots and a nearly equal number of Low German speakers. Also represented in smaller numbers were Swedes, Danes, and Belgians.


title: Afrikaners

text: In 1754, Cape governor Ryk Tulbagh conducted a census of his non-indigenous subjects. White - now outnumbered by slaves brought from West Africa, Mozambique, Madagascar and the Dutch East Indies - only totaled about 6,000.


title: Afrikaners

text: Following the defeat and collapse of the Dutch Republic during Joseph Souham's Flanders Campaign, William V, Prince of Orange escaped to the United Kingdom and appealed to the British to occupy his colonial possessions until he was restored. Holland's administration was never effectively reestablished; upon a new outbreak of hostilities with France expeditionary forces led by Sir David Baird, 1st Baronet finally permanently imposed British rule when they defeated Cape governor Jan Willem Janssens in 1806.


title: Afrikaners

text: At the onset of Cape Town's annexation to the British Empire, the original Afrikaners numbered 26,720 – or 36% of the colony's population.


title: Afrikaners

text: The South African census of 1936 gave the following breakdown of language speakers of European origin.


title: Afrikaners

text: The South African census of 1960 was the final census undertaken in the Union of South Africa. Ethno-linguistic status of some 15,994,181 South African citizens was projected by various sources through sampling language, religion and race. At least 1.6 million South Africans represented white Afrikaans speakers, or 10% of the total population. They also constituted 9.3% of the population in neighbouring South West Africa.


title: Afrikaners

text: According to the South African census of 1985, there were 2,581,080 white Afrikaans speakers then residing in the country, or about 9.4% of the total population.


title: Afrikaners

text: The South African National Census of 1996 was the first census conducted in post-apartheid South Africa. It was calculated on census day and reported a population of 2,558,956 white Afrikaans speakers. The census noted that Afrikaners represented the eighth largest ethnic group in the country, or 6.3% of the total population. Even after the end of Apartheid the ethnic group only fell by 25,000 people.


title: Afrikaners

text: The South African National Census of 2001 was the second census conducted in post-apartheid South Africa. It was calculated on 9 October and reported a population of 2,576,184 white Afrikaans speakers. The census noted that Afrikaners represented the eighth largest ethnic group in the country, or 5.7% of the total population.


title: Afrikaners

text: Afrikaners make up approximately 58% of South Africa's white population, based on language used in the home. English speakers – an ethnically diverse group – account for closer to 37%. As in Canada or the United States, most modern European immigrants elect to learn English and are likelier to identify with those descended from British colonials of the nineteenth century. Aside from coastal pockets in the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal they remain heavily outnumbered by those of Afrikaans origin.


title: Afrikaners

text: The South African National Census of 2011 counted 2,710,461 white South Africans who speak Afrikaans as a first language, or approximately 5.23% of the total South African population. The census also showed an increase of 5.21% in Afrikaner population compared to the previous, 2001 census.


title: Afrikaners

text: The earliest Afrikaner communities in South Africa were formed at the Cape of Good Hope, mainly through the introduction of Dutch colonists, French Huguenot refugees and erstwhile servants of the VOC. During the early colonial period, Afrikaners were generally known as "Christians", "colonists", "emigrants", or ("inhabitants"). Their concept of being rooted in Africa—as opposed to the company's expatriate officialdom—did not find widespread expression until the late eighteenth century.


title: Afrikaners

text: It is to the ambitions of Prince Henry the Navigator that historians attribute the discovery of the Cape as a settling ground for Europeans. In 1424, Henry and Fernando de Castro besieged the Canary Islands, under the impression that they might be of use to further Portuguese expeditions around Africa's coast. Although this attempt was unsuccessful, Portugal's continued interest in the continent made possible the later voyages of Bartholomew Diaz in 1487 and Vasco de Gama ten years later. Diaz made known to the world a "Cape of Storms", rechristened "Good Hope" by John II. As it was desirable to take formal possession of this territory, the Portuguese erected a stone cross in Algoa Bay. Da Gama and his successors, however, did not take kindly to the notion, especially following a skirmish with the Khoikhoi in 1497, when one of his admirals was wounded.


title: Afrikaners

text: After the British East India Company was founded in 1599, London merchants began to take advantage of the route to India by the Cape. James Lancaster, who had visited Robben Island some years earlier, anchored in Table Bay in 1601. By 1614, the British had planted a penal colony on the site, and in 1621 two Englishmen claimed Table Bay on behalf of King James I, but this action was not ratified. They eventually settled on Saint Helena as an alternative port of refuge.


title: Afrikaners

text: Due to the value of the spice trade between Europe and their outposts in the East Indies, Dutch ships began to call sporadically at the Cape in search of provisions after 1598. In 1601, a Captain Paul van Corniden came ashore at St. Sebastion's Bay near Overberg. He discovered a small inlet which he named ('Meat Bay'), after the cattle trade, and another ('Fish Bay') after the abundance of fish. Not long afterwards, Admiral Joris van Spilbergen reported catching penguins and sheep on Robben Island.


title: Afrikaners

text: In 1648, Dutch sailors Leendert Jansz and Nicholas Proot had been shipwrecked in Table Bay and marooned for five months until picked up by a returning ship. During this period they established friendly relations with the locals, who sold them sheep, cattle, and vegetables. Both men presented a report advocating the Table valley as a fort and garden for the VOC fleets.


title: Afrikaners

text: Under recommendation from Jan van Riebeeck, the Heeren XVII authorised the establishment of a fort at the Cape, and this the more hurriedly to preempt any further imperial maneuvers by Britain, France or Portugal. Van Riebeeck, his family and seventy to eighty VOC personnel arrived there on 6 April 1652 after a journey of three and a half months. Their immediate task was the establishment of some gardens, "taking for this purpose all the best and richest ground"; following this they were instructed to conduct a survey to determine the best pastureland for the grazing of cattle. By 15 May, they had nearly completed construction on the Castle of Good Hope, which was to be an easily defensible victualing station serving Dutch ships plying the Indian Ocean. Dutch sailors appreciated the mild climate at the Cape, which allowed them to recuperate from their protracted periods of service in the tropical humidity of Southeast Asia. VOC fleets bearing cargo from the "Orient" anchored in the Cape for a month, usually from March or April, when they were resupplied with water and provisions prior to completing their return voyage to the Netherlands.


title: Afrikaners

text: In extent the new refreshment post was to be kept as confined as possible to reduce administrative expense. Residents would associate amiably with the natives for the sake of livestock trade, but otherwise keep to themselves and their task of becoming self-sufficient. As the VOC's primary goal was merchant enterprise, particularly its shipping network traversing the Atlantic and Indian Oceans between the Netherlands and various ports in Asia, most of its territories consisted of coastal forts, factories, and isolated trading posts dependent entirely on indigenous host states. The exercise of Dutch sovereignty, as well the large scale settlement of Dutch colonists, was therefore extremely limited at these sites. During the VOC's history only two primary exceptions to the rule emerged: the Dutch East Indies and the Cape of Good Hope, through the formation of the .


title: Afrikaners

text: The VOC operated under a strict corporate hierarchy which allowed it to formally assign classifications to those whom it determined fell within its legal purview. Most Europeans within the VOC's registration and identification system were denoted either as employees or . The legal classifications imposed upon every individual in the Company possessions determined their position in society and conferred restraints upon their actions. VOC ordinances made a clear distinction between the "bonded" period of service, and the period of "freedom" that began once an employment contract ended. In order to ensure former employees could be distinguished from workers still in the service of the company, it was decided to provide them a "letter of freedom", a licence known as a . European employees were repatriated to the Netherlands upon the termination of their contract, unless they successfully applied for a , in which they were charged a small fee and registered as a in a VOC record known collectively as the ('free(dom) books'). Fairly strict conditions were levied on those who aspired to become at the Cape of Good Hope. They had to be married Dutch citizens who were regarded as being "of good character" by the VOC and committed to at least twenty years' residence in South Africa. Reflecting the multi-national nature of the workforce of the early modern trading companies, some foreigners, particularly Germans, were open to consideration as well. If their application for status was successful, the Company granted them plots of farmland of thirteen and a half morgen (equal to ), which were tax exempt for twelve years. They were also loaned tools and seeds. The extent of their farming activities, however, remained heavily regulated: for example, the were ordered to focus on the cultivation of grain. Each year their harvest was to be sold exclusively to the VOC at fixed prices. They were forbidden from growing tobacco, producing vegetables for any purpose other than personal consumption, or purchasing cattle from the native Khoikhoi at rates which differed from those set by the VOC. With time, these restrictions and other attempts by the VOC to control the settlers resulted in successive generations of and their descendants becoming increasingly localised in their loyalties and national identity, and hostile towards the colonial government.


title: Afrikaners

text: Around March 1657, Rijcklof van Goens, a senior VOC officer appointed as commissioner to the fledgling Dutch Cape Colony, ordered Jan van Riebeeck to help more employees succeed as so the company could save on their wages. Although an overwhelming majority of the were farmers, some also stated their intention to seek employment as farm managers, fishermen, wagon-makers, tailors, or hunters. A ship's carpenter was granted a tract of forest, from which he was permitted to sell timber, and one miller from Holland opened his own water-operated corn mill, the first of its kind in Southern Africa. The colony initially did not do well, and many of the discouraged returned to VOC service or sought passage back to the Netherlands to pursue other opportunities. Vegetable gardens were frequently destroyed by storms, and cattle lost in raids by the Khoikhoi, who were known to the Dutch as . There was also an unskilled labour shortage, which the VOC later resolved by bringing slaves from Angola, Madagascar, and the East Indies.


title: Afrikaners

text: In 1662, van Riebeeck was succeeded by Zacharias Wagenaer as governor of the Cape. Wagenaer was somewhat aloof towards the , whom he dismissed as "sodden, lazy, clumsy louts...since they do not pay proper attention to the [slaves] lent to them, or to their work in the fields, nor to their animals, for that reason seem wedded to the low level and cannot rid themselves of their debts". When Wagenaer arrived, he observed that many of the unmarried were beginning to cohabit with their slaves, with the result that 75% of children born to Cape slaves at the time had a Dutch father. Wagenaer's response was to sponsor the immigration of Dutch women to the colony as potential wives for the settlers. Upon the outbreak of the Second Anglo-Dutch War, Wagenaer was perturbed by the British capture of New Amsterdam and attacks on other Dutch outposts in the Americas and on the west African coast. He increased the Cape garrison by about 300 troops and replaced the original earthen fortifications of the Castle of Good Hope with new ones of stone.


title: Afrikaners

text: In 1672, there were 300 VOC officials, employees, soldiers and sailors at the Cape, compared to only about 64 , 39 of whom were married, with 65 children. By 1687, the number had increased to about 254 , of whom 77 were married, with 231 children. Simon van der Stel, who was appointed governor of the Cape in 1679, reversed the VOC's earlier policy of keeping the colony limited to the confines of the Cape peninsula itself and encouraged Dutch settlement further abroad, resulting in the founding of Stellenbosch. Van der Stel persuaded 30 to settle in Stellenbosch and a few years afterwards the town received its own municipal administration and school. The VOC was persuaded to seek more prospective European immigrants for the Cape after local officials noted that the cost of maintaining gardens to provision passing ships could be eliminated by outsourcing to a greater number of . Furthermore, the size of the Cape garrison could be reduced if there were many colonists capable of being called up for militia service as needed.


title: Afrikaners

text: Following the passage of the Edict of Fontainebleau, the Netherlands served as a major destination for French Huguenot refugees fleeing persecution at home. In April 1688, the VOC agreed to sponsor the resettlement of over 100 Huguenots at the Cape. Smaller numbers of Huguenots gradually arrived over the next decade, and by 1702 the community numbered close to 200. Between 1689 and 1707 they were augmented by additional numbers of Dutch settlers sponsored by the VOC with grants of land and free passage to Africa. Additionally, there were calls from the VOC administration to sponsor the immigration of more German settlers to the Cape, as long as they were Protestant. VOC pamphlets began circulating in German cities exhorting the urban poor to seek their fortune in southern Africa. Despite the increasing diversity of the colonial population, there was a degree of cultural assimilation due to intermarriage, and the almost universal adoption of the Dutch language. The use of other European languages was discouraged by a VOC edict declaring that Dutch should be the exclusive language of administrative record and education. In 1752, French astronomer Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille visited the Cape and observed that the nearly all the third-generation descendants of the original Huguenot and German settlers spoke Dutch as a first language.


title: Afrikaners

text: Long before the British annexed the Cape Colony, there were already large Dutch-speaking European settlements in the Cape Peninsula and beyond; by the time British rule became permanent in 1806, these had a population of over 26,000. There were, however, two distinct subgroups in the population settled under the VOC. The first were itinerant farmers who began to progressively settle further and further inland, seeking better pastures for their livestock and freedom from the VOC's regulations. This community of settlers collectively identified themselves as Boers to describe their agricultural way of life. Their farms were enormous by European standards, as the land was free and relatively underpopulated; they merely had to register them with the VOC, a process that was little more than a formality and became more irrelevant the further the Boers moved inland. A few Boers adopted a semi-nomadic lifestyle permanently and became known as . The Boers were deeply suspicious of the centralised government and increasing complexities of administration at the Cape; they constantly migrated further from the reaches of the colonial officialdom whenever it attempted to regulate their activities. By the mid-eighteenth century the Boers had penetrated almost a thousand kilometres into South Africa's interior beyond the Cape of Good Hope, at which point they encountered the Xhosa people, who were migrating southwards from the opposite direction. Competition between the two communities over resources on the frontier sparked the Xhosa Wars. Harsh Boer attitudes towards black Africans were permanently shaped by their contact with the Xhosa, which bred insecurity and fear on the frontier.


title: Afrikaners

text: The second subgroup of the population became known as the Cape Dutch and remained concentrated in the southwestern Cape and especially the areas closer to Cape Town. They were likelier to be urban dwellers, more educated, and typically maintained greater cultural ties to the Netherlands than the Boers. The Cape Dutch formed the backbone of the colony's market economy and included the small entrepreneurial class. These colonists had vested economic interests in the Cape peninsula and were not inclined to venture inland because of the great difficulties in maintaining contact with a viable market. This was in sharp contrast with the Boers on the frontier, who lived on the margins of the market economy. For this reason the Cape Dutch could not easily participate in migrations to escape the colonial system, and the Boer strategy of social and economic withdrawal was not viable for them. Their response to grievances with the Cape government was to demand political reform and greater representation, a practice that became commonplace under Dutch and subsequently British rule. In 1779, for example, hundreds of Cape smuggled a petition to Amsterdam demanding an end to VOC corruption and contradictory laws. Unlike the Boers, the contact most Cape Dutch had with black Africans were predominantly peaceful, and their racial attitudes were more paternal than outright hostile.


title: Afrikaners

text: Meanwhile, the VOC underwent a period of commercial decline beginning in the late eighteenth century which ultimately resulted in its bankruptcy. The company had suffered immense losses to its trade profits as a result of the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War and was heavily in debt with European creditors. In 1794, the Dutch government intervened and assumed formal administration of the Cape Colony. However, events at the Cape were overtaken by turmoil in the Netherlands, which was occupied by Napoleon during the Flanders Campaign. This opened the Cape to French naval fleets. To protect her own prosperous maritime shipping routes, Great Britain occupied the fledgling colony by force until 1803. From 1806 to 1814 the Cape was again governed as a British military dependency, whose sole importance to the Royal Navy was its strategic relation to Indian maritime traffic. The British formally assumed permanent administrative control around 1815, as a result of the Treaty of Paris.


title: Afrikaners

text: Relations between some of the colonists and the new British administration quickly soured. The British brought more liberal attitudes towards slavery and treatment of the indigenous peoples to the Cape, which were utterly alien to the colonists. Furthermore, they insisted that the Cape Colony finance its own affairs by taxes levied on the white population, an unpopular measure which bred resentment. By 1812, new attorneys-general and judges had been imported from England and many of the preexisting VOC-era institutions abolished, namely the Dutch magistrate system and the only vestige of representative government at the Cape, the senate. The new judiciary then established circuit courts, which brought colonial authority directly to the frontier. These circuit courts were permitted to try colonists for allegations of abuse of slaves or indentured servants. Most of those tried for these offences were frontier Boers; the charges were usually brought by British missionaries and the courts themselves staffed by unsympathetic and liberal Cape Dutch. The Boers, who perceived most of the charges levelled against them to be flimsy or exaggerated, often refused to answer their court summons.


title: Afrikaners

text: In 1815, a Cape police unit was dispatched to arrest a Boer for failure to appear in court on charges of cruelty towards indentured Khoisan servants; the colonist fired on the troopers when they entered his property and was killed. The controversy which surrounded the incident led to the abortive Slachter's Nek Rebellion, in which a number of Boers took up arms against the British. British officials retaliated by hanging five Boers for insurrection. In 1828, the Cape governor declared that all native inhabitants but slaves were to have the rights of citizens, in respect of security and property ownership, on parity with whites. This had the effect of further alienating the Boers. Boer resentment of successive British administrators continued to grow throughout the late 1820s and early 1830s, especially with the official imposition of the English language. This replaced Dutch with English as the language used in the Cape's judicial system, putting the Boers at a disadvantage, as most spoke little or no English at all.


title: Afrikaners

text: Bridling at what they considered an unwarranted intrusion into their way of life, some in the Boer community began to consider selling their farms and venturing deep into South Africa's unmapped interior to preempt further disputes and live completely independent from British rule. From their perspective, the Slachter's Nek Rebellion had demonstrated the futility of an armed uprising against the new order the British had entrenched at the Cape; one result was that the Boers who might have otherwise been inclined to take up arms began preparing for a mass emigration from the colony instead.


title: Afrikaners

text: In the 1830s and 1840s, an organised migration of an estimated 14,000 Boers, known as , across the Cape Colony's frontier began. The departed the colony in a series of parties, taking with them all their livestock and portable property, as well as slaves, and their dependents. They had the skills to maintain their own wagons and firearms, but remained dependent on equally mobile traders for vital commodities such as gunpowder and sugar. Nevertheless, one of their goals was to sever their ties with the Cape's commercial network by gaining access to foreign traders and ports in east Africa, well beyond the British sphere of influence.


title: Afrikaners

text: Many of the Boers who participated in the Great Trek had varying motives. While most were driven by some form of disenchantment with British policies, their secondary objectives ranged from seeking more desirable grazing land for their cattle to a desire to retain slaves after the abolition of slavery at the Cape. The Great Trek also split the Afrikaner community along social and geographical lines, driving a wedge between the and those who remained in the Cape Colony. Only about a fifth of the colony's Dutch-speaking white population at the time participated in the Great Trek. The Dutch Reformed Church, to which most of the Boers belonged, condemned the migration. Despite their hostility towards the British, there were also Boers who chose to remain in the Cape of their own accord. For its part, the distinct Cape Dutch community remained loyal to the British Crown and focused its efforts on building political organisations seeking representative government; its lobbying efforts were partly responsible for the establishment of the Cape Qualified Franchise in 1853.


title: Afrikaners

text: Important as the Trek was to the formation of Boer ethnic identity, so were the running conflicts with various indigenous groups along the way. One conflict central to the construction of Boer identity occurred with the Zulu in the area of present-day KwaZulu-Natal.


title: Afrikaners

text: The Boers who entered Natal discovered that the land they wanted came under the authority of the Zulu King , who ruled that part of what subsequently became KwaZulu-Natal. The British had a small port colony (the future Durban) there but were unable to seize the whole of area from the war-ready Zulus, and only kept to the Port of Natal. The Boers found the land safe from the British and sent an un-armed Boer land treaty delegation under Piet Retief on 6 February 1838, to negotiate with the Zulu King. The negotiations went well and a contract between Retief and Dingane was signed.


title: Afrikaners

text: After the signing, however, Dingane's forces surprised and killed the members of the delegation; a large-scale massacre of the Boers followed: see Weenen massacre. Zulu ('regiments') attacked Boer encampments in the Drakensberg foothills at what was later called Blaauwkrans and Weenen, killing women and children along with men. (By contrast, in earlier conflicts the had experienced along the eastern Cape frontier, the Xhosa had refrained from harming women and children.)


title: Afrikaners

text: A commando of 470 men arrived to help the settlers. On 16 December 1838, the under the command of Andries Pretorius confronted about 10,000 Zulus at the prepared positions. The Boers had three injuries without any fatalities. Due to the blood of 3,000 slain Zulus that stained the Ncome River, the conflict afterwards became known as the Battle of Blood River.


title: Afrikaners

text: In present-day South Africa, 16 December remains a celebrated public holiday, initially called "Dingane's Day". After 1952, the holiday was officially recognised and named the Day of the Covenant, changed to Day of the Vow in 1980 (Mackenzie 1999:69) and, after the abolition of apartheid, to Day of Reconciliation in 1994. The Boers saw their victory at the Battle of Blood River as evidence that they had found divine favour for their exodus from British rule.


title: Afrikaners

text: After defeating the Zulu and the recovery of the treaty between Dingane and Retief, the Voortrekkers proclaimed the Natalia Republic. In 1843, Britain annexed Natal and many Boers trekked inwards again.


title: Afrikaners

text: Due to the return of British rule, Boers fled to the frontiers to the north-west of the Drakensberg mountains, and onto the highveld of the and . These areas were mostly unoccupied due to conflicts in the course of the genocidal wars of the Zulus on the local Basuthu population who used it as summer grazing for their cattle. Some Boers ventured beyond the present-day borders of South Africa, north as far as present-day Zambia and Angola. Others reached the Portuguese colony of Delagoa Bay, later called and subsequently Maputo – the capital of Mozambique.


title: Afrikaners

text: A significant number of Afrikaners also went as to Angola, where a large group settled on the Huíla Plateau, in Humpata, and smaller communities on the Central Highlands. They constituted a closed community which rejected integration as well as innovation, became impoverished in the course of several decades, and returned to South West Africa and South Africa in waves.


title: Afrikaners

text: The Boers created sovereign states in what is now South Africa: (the South African Republic) and the Orange Free State were the most prominent and lasted the longest.


title: Afrikaners

text: The discovery of goldfields awakened British interest in the Boer republics, and the two Boer Wars resulted: The First Boer War (1880–1881) and the Second Boer War (1899–1902). The Boers won the first war and retained their independence. The second ended with British victory and annexation of the Boer areas into the British colonies. The British employed scorched earth tactics and held many Boers in concentration camps as a means to separate commandos from their source of shelter, food and supply. The strategy had its intended effect, but an estimated 27,000 Boers (mainly women and children under sixteen) died in these camps from hunger and disease.


title: Afrikaners

text: In the 1890s, some Boers trekked into Mashonaland, where they were concentrated at the town of Enkeldoorn, now Chivhu. After the second Boer War, more Boers left South Africa. Starting in 1902 to 1908 a large group of around 650 Afrikaners emigrated to the Patagonia region of Argentina, under the leadership and the Italian Camillo Ricchiardi (most notably to the towns of Comodoro Rivadavia and Sarmiento), choosing to settle there due to its similarity to the Karoo region of South Africa.


title: Afrikaners

text: Another group emigrated to British-ruled Kenya, from where most returned to South Africa during the 1930s as a result of warfare there amongst indigenous people. A third group, under the leadership of General Ben Viljoen, emigrated to Chihuahua in northern Mexico and to the states of Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas in the south-western US. Others migrated to other parts of Africa, including German East Africa (present day Tanzania, mostly near Arusha).


title: Afrikaners

text: Brazil is the country in Latin America with the largest community of White Afrikaners and White Boers, they mostly live in Southeastern Brazil, the most populous area of the country. In 2020, were 2,895 people.


title: Afrikaners

text: A relatively large group of Boers settled in Kenya. The first wave of migrants consisted of individual families, followed by larger multiple-family treks. Some had arrived by 1904, as documented by the caption of a newspaper photograph noting a tent town for "some of the early settlers from South Africa" on what became the campus of the University of Nairobi. Probably the first to arrive was W.J. van Breda (1903), followed by John de Waal and Frans Arnoldi at Nakuru (1906). Jannie De Beer's family resided at Athi River, while Ignatius Gouws resided at Solai.


title: Afrikaners

text: The second wave of migrants is exemplified by Jan Janse van Rensburg's trek. Janse van Rensburg left the Transvaal on an exploratory trip to British East Africa in 1906 from (then Portuguese), Mozambique. Van Rensburg was inspired by an earlier Boer migrant, Abraham Joubert, who had moved to Nairobi from Arusha in 1906, along with others. When Joubert visited the Transvaal that year, van Rensburg met with him. Sources disagree about whether van Rensburg received guarantees for land from the Governor of the East Africa Protectorate, Sir James Hayes Sadler.


title: Afrikaners

text: On his return to the Transvaal, van Rensburg recruited about 280 Afrikaners (comprising either 47 or 60 families) to accompany him to British East Africa. On 9 July 1908 his party sailed in the chartered ship "SS " from to Mombasa, from where they boarded a train for Nairobi. The party travelled by five trains to Nakuru.


title: Afrikaners

text: In 1911, the last of the large trek groups departed for Kenya, when some 60 families from the Orange Free State boarded the "SS " in Durban under leadership of C.J. Cloete. But migration dwindled, partly due to the British secretary of state's (then Lord Crewe) cash requirements for immigrants. When the British granted self-government to the former Boer republics of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State in 1906 and 1907, respectively, the pressure for emigration decreased. A trickle of individual families continued to migrate into the 1950s.


title: Afrikaners

text: A combination of factors spurred on Boer migration. Some, like van Rensburg and Cloete, had collaborated with the British, or had surrendered during the Boer War. These joiners and ("hands-uppers") subsequently experienced hostility from other Afrikaners. Many migrants were extremely poor and had subsisted on others' property. Collaborators tended to move to British East Africa, while those who had fought to the end (called , "bitter-enders") initially preferred German South West Africa.


title: Afrikaners

text: One of the best known Boer settlements in the British East Africa Protectorate became established at Eldoret, in the south west of what became known as Kenya in 1920. By 1934, some 700 Boers lived here, near the Ugandan border.


title: Afrikaners

text: With the onset of the First World War in 1914, the Allies asked the Union of South Africa to attack the German territory of South West Africa, resulting in the South West Africa Campaign (1914–1915). Armed forces under the leadership of General Louis Botha defeated the German forces, who were unable to put up much resistance to the overwhelming South African forces.


title: Afrikaners

text: Many Boers, who had little love or respect for Britain, objected to the use of the "children from the concentration camps to attack the anti-British Germans, resulting in the Maritz Rebellion of 1914, which was quickly quelled by the government forces.


title: Afrikaners

text: Some Boers subsequently moved to South West Africa, which was administered by South Africa until its independence in 1990, after which the country adopted the name Namibia.


title: Afrikaners

text: Scholars have traditionally considered Afrikaners to be a homogeneous population of Dutch ancestry, subject to a significant founder effect. This simplistic viewpoint has been challenged by recent studies suggesting multiple uncertainties regarding the genetic composition of white South Africans at large and Afrikaners in particular.


title: Afrikaners

text: Afrikaners are descended, to varying degrees, from Dutch, German and French Huguenot immigrants, along with minor percentages of other Europeans and indigenous African peoples. The first mixed race marriage which took place in Cape Town in 1664 was that of Krotoa, a Khoi woman, and Peder Havgaard, a Danish surgeon. Krotoa and Peder's descendants are the Pelzer, Kruger, Steenkamp and other Afrikaner families. Although the Cape Colony was administered and initially settled by VOC, a number of foreigners also boarded ships in the Netherlands to settle there. Their numbers can be reconstructed from censuses of the Cape rather than passenger lists, taking into account VOC employees who later returned to Europe. Some Europeans also arrived from elsewhere in Holland's sphere, especially German soldiers being discharged from colonial service. As a result, by 1691 over a quarter of the white population of South Africa was not ethnically Dutch. The number of permanent settlers of both sexes and all ages, according to figures available at the onset of British rule, numbered 26,720, of whom 50% were Dutch, 27% German, 17% French and 5.5% other. This demographic breakdown of the community just prior to the end of the Dutch administration has been used in many subsequent studies to represent the ethnic makeup of modern Afrikaners, a practise criticised by some academics such as Dr. Johannes Heese.


title: Afrikaners

text: Based on Heese's genealogical research of the period from 1657 to 1867, his study ' ("The Origins of the Afrikaners") estimated an average ethnic admixture for Afrikaners of 35.5% Dutch, 34.4% German, 13.9% French, 7.2% non-European, 2.6% English, 2.8% other European and 3.6% unknown. Heese reached this conclusion by recording all the wedding dates and number of children of each immigrant. He then divided the period between 1657 and 1867 into six thirty-year blocs, and working under the assumption that earlier colonists contributed more to the gene pool, multiplied each child's bloodline by 32, 16, 8, 4, 2 and 1 according to respective period. Heese argued that previous studies wrongly classified some German progenitors as Dutch, although for the purposes of his own study he also reclassified a number of Scandinavian (especially Danish) progenitors as German. Drawing heavily on Christoffel Coetzee de Villiers' ', British historian George McCall Theal estimated an admixture of 67% Dutch, with a nearly equal contribution of roughly 17% from the Huguenots and Germans. Theal argued that most studies suggesting a higher percentage of German ancestry among Afrikaners wrongly counted as "German" all those who came from German-speaking Swiss cantons and ignored the VOC's policy of recruiting settlers among the Dutch diaspora living in the border regions of several German states.


title: Afrikaners

text: The degree of intermixing among Afrikaners may be attributed to the unbalanced sex ratio which existed under Dutch governance. Only a handful of VOC employees who sailed from the Netherlands were allowed to bring their families with them, and the Dutch never employed European women in a full-time capacity. Between 1657 and 1806 no more than 454 women arrived at the Cape, as compared to the 1,590 male colonists. One of the most fundamental demographic consequences was that white South African women, much like their counterparts in colonial North America, began to marry much younger and consequently bear more children than Western Europeans. Another was the high occurrence of inter-family marriages from the matrilineal aspect. These were reinforced by the familial interdependence of the Cape's credit and mortgage obligations. Afrikaner families thus became larger in size, more interconnected, and clannish than those of any other colonial establishment in the world. Some of the more common Afrikaner surnames include Botha, Pretorius and van der Merwe. As in other cases where large population groups have been propagated by a relatively small pool of progenitors, Afrikaners have also experienced an increase in the frequency of some otherwise rare deleterious ailments, including variegate porphyria and familial hypercholesterolaemia.


title: Afrikaners

text: According to a genetic study in February 2019, almost all Afrikaners have admixture from non-Europeans. The total amount of non-European ancestry - on average - is 4.8%, of which 2.1% are of African ancestry and 2.7% Asian/Native American ancestry. Among the 77 Afrikaners investigated, 6.5% had more than 10% non-European admixture, 27.3% had between 5 and 10%, 59.7% had between 1 and 5%, and 6.5% below 1%. It appears that some 3.4% of the non-European admixture can be traced to enslaved peoples who were brought to the Cape from other regions during colonial times. Only 1.38% of the admixture is attributed to the local Khoe-San people.


title: Afrikaners

text: Approximately 100 black families who identify as Afrikaners live in the settlement of Onverwacht, established in 1886 near the mining town of Cullinan. Members of the community descend from the freed slaves who had been with the Voortrekkers who settled in the area.


title: Afrikaners

text: In South Africa, an Afrikaner minority party, the National Party, came to power in 1948 and enacted a series of segregationist laws favouring White people known as "apartheid", meaning "separateness". These laws allowed for the systematic persecution of opposition leaders and attempted to enforce general white supremacy by classifying all South African inhabitants into racial groups. Non-White political participation was outlawed, Black citizenship revoked, and the entire public sphere, including education, residential areas, medical care, and common areas such as public transport, beaches, and amenities, were segregated.


title: Afrikaners

text: Apartheid was officially abolished in 1991 after decades of widespread unrest by opponents who were seeking equal rights, led by supporters of the United Democratic Front, Pan-African Congress, South African Communist Party, and African National Congress, and a long international embargo against South Africa. The effective end to apartheid, however, is widely regarded as the 1994 general election, the first fully-democratic multi-racial election.


title: Afrikaners

text: It took place following a long series of negotiations involving the National Party government under President Frederik Willem de Klerk, the ANC under Nelson Mandela, and other parties. The African National Congress won and Mandela was elected as president.


title: Afrikaners

text: Efforts are being made by some Afrikaners to secure minority rights. Protection of minority rights is fundamental to the new 1996 post-apartheid Constitution of South Africa. These efforts include the movement. In contrast, a handful of Afrikaners have joined the ruling African National Congress party, which is overwhelmingly supported by South Africa's Black majority.


title: Afrikaners

text: Employment Equity legislation favours employment of Black (African, Indian, Chinese and Coloured population groups, White women, disabled people) South Africans over White men. Black Economic Empowerment legislation further favours Blacks as the government considers ownership, employment, training and social responsibility initiatives which empower Black South Africans as important criteria when awarding tenders. However, private enterprise adheres to this legislation voluntarily. Some reports indicate a growing number of Whites living in poverty compared to the apartheid era, and attribute this change to such laws. In 2006 some 350,000 Afrikaners were classified as poor, with some research claiming that up to 150,000 were struggling to survive. This decline among them, combined with a wave of violent crime, has led to many Afrikaners and English-speaking South Africans leaving the country.


title: Afrikaners

text: In the early 2000s, Genocide Watch theorised that farm attacks constituted early warning signs of genocide against Afrikaners. It criticised the South African government for its inaction on the issue, noting that, since 1991, "ethno-European farmers" (which included non-Afrikaner farmers of European race in their report) were being murdered at a rate four times higher than that of the general South African population. As of the 1996 census, 68,606 out of the 749,637 people in the agriculture and hunting sector were white. Since 1994, close to 3,000 farmers have been murdered in thousands of farm attacks.


title: Afrikaners

text: Since 1994, significant numbers of White people have emigrated from South Africa. Large Afrikaner and English-speaking South African communities have developed in the UK and other developed countries. Between 1995 and 2005, more than one million South Africans emigrated overseas, citing the high rate of violent crime. Farmers have also emigrated to other parts of Africa to develop efficient commercial farming there.


title: Afrikaners

text: Botswana has a minority group of Afrikaners historically concentrated in the Ghanzi area. In 1898 the British South Africa Company offered land to settlers who moved to the region. Many of them depended upon trading for sustenance. Significant connections between the San people and Afrikaners occurred. Several members of this community rose to high positions in the Botswana government.


title: Afrikaners

text: There were 133,324 speakers of Afrikaans in Namibia, forming 9.5% of the total national population, according to the 1991 census. The majority identify with the Coloured and Baster communities of colour. Afrikaners are mostly found in Windhoek and in the Southern provinces; they have a population of around 100,000 in Namibia.


title: Afrikaners

text: A significant number of Afrikaners have migrated to Commonwealth nations such as Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. Other popular destinations include the Netherlands, United Arab Emirates, and Hong Kong. Some have also settled in Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, and Qatar.


title: Afrikaners

text: Numerous young Afrikaners have taken advantage of working holiday visas made available by the United Kingdom, as well as the Netherlands and Belgium, to gain work experience. The scheme under which UK working holiday visas were issued ended on 27 November 2008; this was replaced by the Tier 5 (Youth Mobility) visa. South Africa has been excluded from the working holiday visa programme in the UK, Belgium, Netherlands, and the rest of the EU.


title: Afrikaners

text: As of 2011, Georgia is encouraging Afrikaner immigration to assist in reviving the country's agriculture industry, which has fallen on hard times. In 2018, there were reports that Russia might welcome 15,000 Afrikaners to southern Russia.


title: Afrikaners

text: At the time of settlement, Dutch traders and others came out of a majority- Protestant area, where the Reformation had resulted in high rates of literacy in the Netherlands. Boers in South Africa were part of the Calvinist tradition in the northern Europe Protestant countries. The original South African Boer republics were founded on the principles of the Dutch Reformed Church. Missionaries established new congregations on the frontier and churches were the center of communities.


title: Afrikaners

text: In 1985, 92% of Afrikaners identified as members of the Reformed churches that developed from this background. Pentecostal churches have also attracted new members.


title: Afrikaners

text: The Afrikaans language changed over time from the Dutch spoken by the first white settlers at the Cape. From the late 17th century, the form of Dutch spoken at the Cape developed differences, mostly in morphology but also in pronunciation and accent and, to a lesser extent, in syntax and vocabulary, from that of the Netherlands, although the languages are still similar enough to be mutually intelligible. Settlers who arrived speaking German and French soon shifted to using Dutch and later Afrikaans. The process of language change was influenced by the languages spoken by slaves, Khoikhoi, and people of mixed descent, as well as by Cape Malay, Zulu, British and Portuguese. While the Dutch of the Netherlands remained the official language, the new dialect, often known as Cape Dutch, African Dutch, kitchen Dutch, or (meaning "language" in Afrikaans) developed into a separate language by the 19th century, with much work done by the and writers such as Cornelis Jacobus Langenhoven. In a 1925 act of Parliament, Afrikaans was given equal status with Dutch as one of the two official languages (English being the second) of the Union of South Africa. There was much objection to the attempt to legislate the creation of Afrikaans as a new language. Marthinus Steyn, a prominent jurist and politician, and others were vocal in their opposition. Today, Afrikaans is recognised as one of the eleven official languages of South Africa, and is the third most common first language in South Africa. In June 2013, the Department of Basic Education included Afrikaans as an African language to be compulsory for all pupils.


title: Afrikaners

text: Afrikaans is offered at many universities outside of South Africa including in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Poland, Russia and the United States.


title: Afrikaners

text: Afrikaners have a long literary tradition, and have produced a number of notable novelists and poets, including Eugene Marais, Uys Krige, Elisabeth Eybers, Breyten Breytenbach, André Brink, C. J. Langenhoven and Etienne Leroux.


title: Afrikaners

text: Nobel Prize winner J.M. Coetzee is of Afrikaner descent, although he spoke English at home as a child in Cape Town. He has translated some works from Afrikaans and Dutch into English, but writes only in English.


title: Afrikaners

text: Music is a popular art form among Afrikaners. While the traditional ("Boer music") and ('folk dancing', lit. 'people games') enjoyed popularity in the past, most Afrikaners today favour a variety of international genres and light popular Afrikaans music. American country and western music has enjoyed great popularity and has a strong following among many South Africans. Some also enjoy a social dance event called a . The South African rock band Seether has a hidden track on their album "Karma and Effect" titled ("Come With Me"), sung in Afrikaans. There is also an underground rock music movement and bands like the controversial ('Fuck-off-police-car') have a large following. The television Channel MK (channel) also supports local Afrikaans music and mainly screens videos from the Afrikaans Rock genre. Afrikaner classical musicians include the pianists Wessel van Wyk, Ben Schoeman, and Petronel Malan, and the music departments of the various universities (Pretoria, Stellenbosch, Potchefstroom, Free State) that started as Afrikaans universities still are renowned. In the 20th century, Mimi Coertse was an internationally renowned opera singer. She is also known as African Lieder interpreter by Stephanus Le Roux Marais. The world-renowned UNISA music exams include a section of South African contemporary music, which acknowledges Afrikaner composers. The contemporary musical ('Us for you'), dealing with the Second Boer War, featured a book by Deon Opperman and a score by Sean Else and Johan Vorster of the band Eden. Afrikaner film musicals flourished in the 1950s and 1960s, and have returned in the 21st century with two popular films, Liefling and Pretville, featuring singers such as Bobby van Jaarsveld, Steve Hofmeyr, and Kevin Leo.


title: Afrikaners

text: Afrikaner cuisine has contributed three unique terms to the South African lexicon, namely ('farmer/Boer food'), ('small pot food') and ('grilled meat'; frequently just , 'grilled'), although the latter (meaning "grilled meat") has actually expanded to a common South African habit.


title: Afrikaners

text: A typical recipe for consists of meat (usually roasted in a pan or oven), vegetables such as green beans, roots or peas, and starch such as potatoes or rice, with sauce made in the pot in which the meat is cooked. The dish can also use pumpkins or sweet potatoes, and some of the ingredients may be further processed into ('pumpkin biscuits', pumpkin baked in a kind of puff) or ("Farm beans") consisting of green beans cooked and crushed with potatoes and onions. Afrikaners eat most types of meat such as mutton, beef, chicken, pork and various game species, but the meat of draft animals such as horses and donkeys is rarely eaten and is not part of traditional cuisine.


title: Afrikaners

text: East Indian influence emerges in dishes such as and curry, and the use of turmeric and other spices in cooking. Afrikaner households often eat combinations such as -and-sausage, meat curry and rice, and even fish and chips (although the latter are bought rather than self-prepared). Other traditional Afrikaner dishes include , , , , and a variety of traditionally homemade but increasingly storebought pastries.


title: Afrikaners

text: Rugby, cricket and golf are the most popular sports among Afrikaners. Rugby in particular is considered one of the central pillars of the Afrikaner community. The national rugby team, the Springboks, did not compete in the first two rugby world cups in 1987 and 1991 because of anti-apartheid sporting boycotts of South Africa, but later on the Springboks won the 1995, 2007, and 2019 Rugby World Cups.


title: Afrikaners

text: The world's first ounce-denominated gold coin, the , was struck at the South African Mint on 3 July 1967. The name Krugerrand was derived from "Kruger" (after president Paul Kruger) and the "rand" monetary unit of South Africa.


title: Afrikaners

text: In April 2007, the South African Mint coined a collectors R1 gold coin commemorating the Afrikaner people as part of its cultural series, depicting the Great Trek across the Drakensberg mountains.


title: Afrikaners

text: The ("Afrikaans Language and Culture Association"), referred to by its initials, "ATKV", promotes Afrikaans language and culture.


title: Afrikaners

text: The vast majority of Afrikaners supported the Democratic Alliance (DA), the official opposition party, in the 2014 general election. The DA is a liberal party and a full member of Liberal International.


title: Afrikaners

text: Smaller numbers are involved in nationalist or separatist political organisations. The Freedom Front Plus (FF+) is an Afrikaner ethnic political party which lobbies for minority rights to be extended to Afrikaners. The FF+ is also leading the Volkstaat initiative and is closely associated with the small town of Orania. Then-Freedom Front Plus leader Dr Pieter Mulder served as Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries in the Cabinet of President Jacob Zuma from 2009 to 2014.


title: Afrikaners

text: Very few Afrikaans-speaking white South Africans vote for the ruling ANC. Some prominent Afrikaner ANC politicians include Derek Hanekom, Marthinus van Schalkwyk, Andries Nel, Gert Oosthuizen and Carl Niehaus.


title: Afrikaners

text: In an online poll of the Beeld newspaper during November 2012, in which nearly 11,000 Afrikaners participated, 42% described themselves as conservative and 36% as liberal.


title: Afrikaners

text: In the 2019 general elections, the FF+'s support surged in former strongholds of the DA. Senior FF+ member Philip van Staden said that his party had grown significantly in the election due to the DA leader Mmusi Maimane's positions on race and ethnic identity resulting in the estrangement of many Afrikaans-speaking white voters. The party has since gone on to win previous DA wards with concentrated Afrikaner populations.


title: Isabella of France

text: Isabella of France ( – 22 August 1358), sometimes described as the She-Wolf of France (), was Queen of England as the wife of King Edward II, and regent of England from 1327 until 1330. She was the youngest surviving child and only surviving daughter of Philip IV of France and Joan I of Navarre. Isabella was notable in her lifetime for her diplomatic skills, intelligence, and beauty. She overthrew her husband, becoming a "femme fatale" figure in plays and literature over the years, usually portrayed as a beautiful but cruel and manipulative figure.


title: Isabella of France

text: Isabella arrived in England at the age of 12 during a period of growing conflict between the king and the powerful baronial factions. Her new husband was notorious for the patronage he lavished on his favourite, Piers Gaveston, but the queen supported Edward during these early years, forming a working relationship with Piers and using her relationship with the French monarchy to bolster her own authority and power. After the death of Gaveston at the hands of the barons in 1312, however, Edward later turned to a new favourite, Hugh Despenser the Younger, and attempted to take revenge on the barons, resulting in the Despenser War and a period of internal repression across England. Isabella could not tolerate Hugh Despenser, and by 1325, her marriage to Edward was at a breaking point.


title: Isabella of France

text: Travelling to France on a diplomatic mission, Isabella may have begun an affair with Roger Mortimer, and the two may possibly have agreed at this point to depose Edward and oust the Despenser family. The Queen returned to England with a small mercenary army in 1326, moving rapidly across England. The King's forces deserted him. Isabella deposed Edward, becoming regent on behalf of her young son, Edward III. Some believe that Isabella then arranged the murder of Edward II. Isabella and Mortimer's regime began to crumble, partly because of her lavish spending, but also because the Queen successfully, but unpopularly, resolved long-running problems such as the war with Scotland.


title: Isabella of France

text: In 1330, aged 18, Edward III forcibly asserted his authority. Mortimer was executed, Isabella's regency was ended and she was imprisoned. Released after two years, she afterward lived in considerable style; though she did not reside at court, she often visited to see her grandchildren.


title: Isabella of France

text: Isabella was born in Paris on an uncertain date—on the basis of the chroniclers and the eventual date of her marriage, she was probably born between April 1295 and January 1296. She is described as born in 1292 in the Annals of Wigmore, and Piers Langtoft agrees, claiming that she was 7 years old in 1299. The French chronicler Guillaume de Nangis and English chronicler Thomas Walsingham describe her as 12 years old at the time of her marriage in January 1308, placing her birth between January 1295 and of 1296. A papal dispensation by Clement V in November 1305 permitted her immediate marriage by proxy, despite the fact that she was probably only 10 years old. Since her brother Charles was born on 18 June 1294, and she had to reach the canonical age of 12 before her marriage in January 1308, the evidence suggests that she was born between April 1295 and January 1296. Her parents were King Philip IV of France and Queen Joan I of Navarre; her brothers Louis, Philip and Charles became kings of France.


title: Isabella of France

text: Isabella was born into a royal family that ruled the most powerful state in Western Europe. Her father, King Philip, known as ""le Bel"" (the Fair) because of his good looks, was a strangely unemotional man; one contemporary described him as "neither a man nor a beast, but a statue"; modern historians have noted that he "cultivated a reputation for Christian kingship and showed few weaknesses of the flesh". Philip built up centralised royal power in France, engaging in a sequence of conflicts to expand or consolidate French authority across the region, but remained chronically short of money throughout his reign. Indeed, he appeared almost obsessed about building up wealth and lands, something that his daughter was also accused of in later life. Isabella's mother died when Isabella was still quite young; some contemporaries suspected Philip IV of her murder, albeit probably incorrectly.


title: Isabella of France

text: Isabella was brought up in and around the Louvre Palace and the Palais de la Cité in Paris. Isabella was cared for by Théophania de Saint-Pierre, her nurse, given a good education and taught to read, developing a love of books. As was customary for the period, all of Philip's children were married young for political benefit. Isabella was promised in marriage by her father to Edward, the son of King Edward I of England, with the intention to resolve the conflicts between France and England over the latter's continental possession of Gascony and claims to Anjou, Normandy and Aquitaine. Pope Boniface VIII had urged the marriage as early as 1298 but it was delayed by wrangling over the terms of the marriage contract. The renewal of the Anglo-French truce in 1299 led to the marriage of Edward I to Philip's sister Margaret, further anticipating the marriage of Isabella to Edward II. In 1303, Edward I may have considered a Castilian bride for Edward II instead of Isabella and even increased her dowry before the wedding. Edward I attempted to break the engagement several times for political advantage, and only after he died in 1307 did the wedding proceed.


title: Isabella of France

text: Isabella and Edward II were finally married at Boulogne-sur-Mer on 25 January 1308. Isabella's wardrobe gives some indications of her wealth and style—she had dresses of baudekyn, velvet, taffeta and cloth, along with numerous furs; she had over 72 headdresses and coifs; she brought with her two gold crowns, gold and silver dinnerware and 419 yards of linen. At the time of her marriage, Isabella was probably about twelve and was described by Geoffrey of Paris as ""the beauty of beauties... in the kingdom if not in all Europe."" This description was probably not simply flattery by a chronicler, since both Isabella's father and brothers were considered very handsome men by contemporaries, and her husband was to nickname her "Isabella the Fair". Isabella was said to resemble her father, and not her mother, queen regnant of Navarre, a plump, plain woman. This indicates that Isabella was slender and pale-skinned, although the fashion at the time was for blonde, slightly full-faced women, and Isabella may well have followed this stereotype instead. Throughout her career, Isabella was noted as charming and diplomatic, with a particular skill at convincing people to follow her courses of action. Unusual for the medieval period, contemporaries also commented on her high intelligence.


title: Isabella of France

text: As queen, the young Isabella faced numerous challenges. Edward was handsome, but highly unconventional, possibly forming close romantic attachments first to Piers Gaveston and then to Hugh Despenser the Younger. Edward found himself at odds with the barons, too, in particular his first cousin Thomas, 2nd Earl of Lancaster, whilst continuing the war against the Scots that he had inherited from Edward I. Using her own supporters at court and the patronage of her French family, Isabella attempted to find a political path through these challenges. She successfully formed an alliance with Gaveston, but after his death at the hands of the barons, her position grew increasingly precarious. Edward began to take revenge on his enemies, using an ever more brutal alliance with the Despenser family, in particular his new favourite, Hugh Despenser the Younger. By 1326, Isabella found herself at increasing odds with both Edward and Hugh, ultimately resulting in Isabella's own bid for power and an invasion of England.


title: Isabella of France

text: Edward was an unusual character by medieval standards. Edward looked the part of a Plantagenet king to perfection. He was tall, athletic, and wildly popular at the beginning of his reign. He rejected most of the traditional pursuits of a king for the period—jousting, hunting and warfare—and instead enjoyed music, poetry and many rural crafts. Furthermore, there is the question of Edward's sexuality in a period when homosexuality of any sort was considered a serious crime, but there is no direct evidence of his sexual orientation. However, contemporary chroniclers made much of his close affinity with a succession of male favourites. Some condemned Edward for loving them "beyond measure" and "uniquely", others explicitly referring to an "illicit and sinful union". Nonetheless, Isabella bore four children by Edward, leading to an opinion amongst some historians that Edward's affairs with his male favourites were platonic.


title: Isabella of France

text: When Isabella first arrived in England following her marriage, her husband was already in the midst of a relationship with Piers Gaveston, an "arrogant, ostentatious" soldier, with a "reckless and headstrong" personality that clearly appealed to Edward. Isabella, then aged twelve, was effectively sidelined by the pair. Edward chose to sit with Gaveston rather than Isabella at their wedding celebration, causing grave offence to her uncles Louis, Count of Évreux, and Charles, Count of Valois, and then refused to grant her either her own lands or her own household. Edward also gave Gaveston Isabella's own jewelry, which he wore publicly. Isabella complained to her father that Gaveston took her place next to Edward II, she received insufficient funds and Edward visited Gaveston's bed more than hers. It took the intervention of Isabella's father, Philip IV, before Edward began to provide for her more appropriately.


title: Isabella of France

text: Isabella's relationship with Gaveston was a complex one. For a time, her dislike of him was widely known, and she was said to be in contact with her father, the pope and cardinals in order to have him exiled. Baronial opposition to Gaveston, championed by Thomas of Lancaster, was increasing, and Philip IV began to covertly fund this grouping, using Isabella and her household as intermediaries. Edward was forced to exile Gaveston to Ireland for a period and began to show Isabella much greater respect, assigning her lands and patronage; in turn, Philip ceased his support for the barons. Gaveston eventually returned from Ireland, and by 1309–11, the three seemed to be co-existing together relatively comfortably. Indeed, Gaveston's key enemy, Edward and Isabella's uncle Thomas of Lancaster, considered her to be an ally of Gaveston. Isabella had begun to build up her own supporters at court, principally the Beaumont family, itself opposed to the Lancastrians. Originating, like her, in France, the senior member of the Beaumont family, Isabella de Beaumont, had been a close confidant of Edward's mother Eleanor of Castile, supported by her brother Henry de Beaumont.


title: Isabella of France

text: In 1311, Edward conducted a failed campaign against the Scots, during which Isabella and he only just escaped capture. In the aftermath, the barons rose up, signing the Ordinances of 1311, which promised action against Gaveston and expelled Isabella and Henry de Beaumont from court. 1312 saw a descent into civil war against the king; Isabella stood with Edward, sending angry letters to her uncles Louis and Charles asking for support. Edward left Isabella, rather against her will, at Tynemouth Priory in Northumberland whilst he unsuccessfully attempted to fight the barons. The campaign was a disaster, and although Edward escaped, Gaveston found himself stranded at Scarborough Castle, where his baronial enemies surrounded and captured him. Guy de Beauchamp and Thomas of Lancaster ensured Gaveston's execution as he was being taken south to rejoin Edward.


title: Isabella of France

text: Tensions mounted steadily over the decade. In 1312, Isabella gave birth to the future Edward III, but by the end of the year Edward's court was beginning to change. Edward was still relying upon his French in-laws—Isabella's uncle Louis, for example, had been sent from Paris to assist him—but Hugh Despenser the Elder now formed part of the inner circle, marking the beginning of the Despensers' increased prominence at Edward's court. The Despensers were opposed to both the Lancastrians and their other allies in the Welsh Marches, making an easy alliance with Edward, who sought revenge for the death of Gaveston.


title: Isabella of France

text: In 1313, Isabella travelled to Paris with Edward to garner further French support, which resulted in the Tour de Nesle affair. The journey was a pleasant one, with many festivities, although Isabella was injured when her tent burned down. During the visit her brothers Louis and Charles put on a satirical puppet show for their guests, and after this Isabella had given new embroidered purses both to her brothers and to their wives. Isabella and Edward then returned to England with new assurances of French support against the English barons. Later in the year, however, Isabella and Edward held a large dinner in London to celebrate their return and Isabella apparently noticed that the purses she had given to her sisters-in-law were now being carried by two Norman knights, Gautier and Philippe d'Aunay. Isabella concluded that the pair must have been carrying on an illicit affair, and appears to have informed her father of this during her next visit to France in 1314. The consequence of this was the Tour de Nesle Affair in Paris, which led to legal action against all three of Isabella's sisters-in-law; Blanche and Margaret of Burgundy were imprisoned for life for adultery. Joan of Burgundy was imprisoned for a year, although she was later acquitted. Isabella's reputation in France suffered somewhat as a result of her perceived role in the affair.


title: Isabella of France

text: In the north, however, the situation was becoming worse. Edward attempted to quash the Scots in a fresh campaign in 1314, resulting in the disastrous defeat at the Battle of Bannockburn. Edward was blamed by the barons for the catastrophic failure of the campaign. Thomas of Lancaster reacted to the defeats in Scotland by taking increased power in England and turning against Isabella, cutting off funds and harassing her household. To make matters worse, the "Great Famine" descended on England during 1315–17, causing widespread loss of life and financial problems.


title: Isabella of France

text: Despite Isabella giving birth to her second son, John, in 1316, Edward's position was precarious. Indeed, John Deydras, a royal pretender, appeared in Oxford, claiming to have been switched with Edward at birth, and to be the real king of England himself. Given Edward's unpopularity, the rumours spread considerably before Deydras' eventual execution, and appear to have greatly upset Isabella. Isabella responded by deepening her alliance with Lancaster's enemy Henry de Beaumont and by taking up an increased role in government herself, including attending council meetings and acquiring increased lands. Henry's sister, Isabella de Vesci, continued to remain a close adviser to the Queen. The Scottish general Sir James Douglas, war leader for Robert I of Scotland, made a bid to capture Isabella personally in 1319, almost capturing her at York—Isabella only just escaped. Suspicions fell on Lancaster, and one of Edward's knights, Edmund Darel, was arrested on charges of having betrayed her location, but the charges were essentially unproven. In 1320, Isabella accompanied Edward to France, to try and convince her brother, Philip V, to provide fresh support to crush the English barons.


title: Isabella of France

text: Meanwhile, Hugh de Despenser the Younger became an increasing favourite of Isabella's husband, and was believed by some to have begun a sexual relationship with him around this time. Hugh was the same age as Edward. His father, Hugh the Elder, had supported Edward and Gaveston a few years previously. The Despensers were bitter enemies of Lancaster, and, with Edward's support, began to increase their power base in the Welsh Marches, in the process making enemies of Roger Mortimer de Chirk and his nephew, Roger Mortimer of Wigmore, their rival Marcher Lords. Whilst Isabella had been able to work with Gaveston, Edward's previous favourite, it became increasingly clear that Hugh the Younger and Isabella could not work out a similar compromise. Unfortunately for Isabella, she was still estranged from Lancaster's rival faction, giving her little room to manoeuvre. In 1321, Lancaster's alliance moved against the Despensers, sending troops into London and demanding their exile. Aymer de Valence, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, a moderate baron with strong French links, asked Isabella to intervene in an attempt to prevent war; Isabella publicly went down on her knees to appeal to Edward to exile the Despensers, providing him with a face-saving excuse to do so, but Edward intended to arrange their return at the first opportunity. Isabella's attempts, though heavily praised by the English, had very little impact and she had no lasting effect as a mediator for foreign or domestic affairs.


title: Isabella of France

text: Despite the momentary respite delivered by Isabella, by the autumn of 1321, the tensions between the two factions of Edward, Isabella and the Despenser, opposing the baronial opposition led by Thomas of Lancaster, were extremely high, with forces still mobilised across the country. At this point, Isabella undertook a pilgrimage to Canterbury, during which she left the traditional route to stop at Leeds Castle in Kent, a fortification held by Bartholomew de Badlesmere, steward of the King's household who had by 1321 joined the ranks of Edward's opponents. Some historians believe that the pilgrimage was a deliberate act by Isabella on Edward's behalf to create a "casus belli". Lord Badlesmere was away at the time, having left his wife Margaret de Clare, Baroness Badlesmere in charge of the castle. When the latter adamantly refused the Queen admittance, fighting broke out outside the castle between Isabella's guards and the garrison, marking the beginning of the Despenser War. Whilst Edward mobilised his own faction and placed Leeds Castle under siege, Isabella was given the Great Seal and assumed control of the royal Chancery from the Tower of London. After surrendering to Edward's forces on 31 October 1321, Margaret, Baroness Badlesmere and her children were sent to the Tower, and 13 of the Leeds garrison were hanged. By January 1322, Edward's army, reinforced by the Despensers returning from exile, had forced the surrender of the Mortimers, and by March Lancaster himself had been captured after the Battle of Boroughbridge; Lancaster was promptly executed, leaving Edward and the Despensers victorious.


title: Isabella of France

text: Hugh Despenser the Younger was now firmly ensconced as Edward's new favourite and together over the next four years Edward and the Despensers imposed a harsh rule over England, a "sweeping revenge" characterised by land confiscation, large-scale imprisonment, executions and the punishment of extended family members, including women and the elderly. This was condemned by contemporary chroniclers, and is felt to have caused concern to Isabella as well; some of those widows being persecuted included her friends. Isabella's relationship with Despenser the Younger continued to deteriorate; the Despensers refused to pay her monies owed to her, or return her castles at Marlborough and Devizes. Indeed, various authors have suggested that there is evidence that Hugh Despenser the Younger attempted to assault Isabella herself in some fashion. Certainly, immediately after the Battle of Boroughbridge, Edward began to be markedly less generous in his gifts towards Isabella, and none of the spoils of the war were awarded to her. Worse still, later in the year Isabella was caught up in the failure of another of Edward's campaigns in Scotland, in a way that permanently poisoned her relationship with both Edward and the Despensers.


title: Isabella of France

text: Isabella and Edward had travelled north together at the start of the autumn campaign; before the disastrous Battle of Old Byland in Yorkshire, Edward had ridden south, apparently to raise more men, sending Isabella east to Tynemouth Priory. With the Scottish army marching south, Isabella expressed considerable concern about her personal safety and requested assistance from Edward. Her husband initially proposed sending Despenser forces to secure her, but Isabella rejected this outright, instead requesting friendly troops. Rapidly retreating south with the Despensers, Edward failed to grasp the situation, with the result that Isabella found herself and her household cut off from the south by the Scottish army, with the coastline patrolled by Flemish naval forces allied to the Scots. The situation was precarious and Isabella was forced to use a group of squires from her personal retinue to hold off the advancing army whilst other of her knights commandeered a ship; the fighting continued as Isabella and her household retreated onto the vessel, resulting in the death of two of her ladies-in-waiting. Once aboard, Isabella evaded the Flemish navy, landing further south and making her way to York. Isabella was furious, both with Edward for, from her perspective, abandoning her to the Scots, and with Despensers for convincing Edward to retreat rather than sending help. For his part, Edward blamed Lewis de Beaumont, the Bishop of Durham and an ally of Isabella, for the fiasco.


title: Isabella of France

text: Isabella effectively separated from Edward from here onwards, leaving him to live with Hugh Despenser. At the end of 1322, Isabella left the court on a ten-month-long pilgrimage around England by herself. On her return in 1323 she visited Edward briefly, but was removed from the process of granting royal patronage. At the end of 1324, as tensions grew with Isabella's homeland of France, Edward and the Despensers confiscated all of Isabella's lands, took over the running of her household and arrested and imprisoned all of her French staff. Isabella's youngest children were removed from her and placed into the custody of the Despensers. At this point, Isabella appears to have realised that any hope of working with Edward was effectively over and begun to consider radical solutions.


title: Isabella of France

text: By 1325, Isabella was facing increasing pressure from Hugh Despenser the Younger, Edward's new royal favourite. With her lands in England seized, her children taken away from her and her household staff arrested, Isabella began to pursue other options. When her brother, King Charles IV of France, seized Edward's French possessions in 1325, she returned to France, initially as a delegate of the King charged with negotiating a peace treaty between the two nations. However, her presence in France became a focal point for the many nobles opposed to Edward's reign. Isabella gathered an army to oppose Edward, in alliance with Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of March, whom she may have taken as a lover. Isabella and Mortimer returned to England with a mercenary army, seizing the country in a lightning campaign. The Despensers were executed and Edward was forced to abdicate—his eventual fate and possible murder remains a matter of considerable historical debate. Isabella ruled as regent until 1330, when her son, Edward deposed Mortimer in turn and ruled directly in his own right.


title: Isabella of France

text: Isabella's husband Edward, as the Duke of Aquitaine, owed homage to the King of France for his lands in Gascony. Isabella's three brothers each had only short reigns, and Edward had successfully avoided paying homage to Louis X, and had paid homage to Philip V only under great pressure. Once Charles IV took up the throne, Edward had attempted to avoid doing so again, increasing tensions between the two. One of the elements in the disputes was the border province of Agenais, part of Gascony and in turn part of Aquitaine. Tensions had risen in November 1323 after the construction of a bastide, a type of fortified town, in Saint-Sardos, part of the Agenais, by a French vassal. Gascon forces destroyed the bastide, and in turn Charles attacked the English-held Montpezat: the assault was unsuccessful, but in the subsequent War of Saint-Sardos Isabella's uncle, Charles of Valois, successfully wrested Aquitaine from English control; by 1324, Charles had declared Edward's lands forfeit and had occupied the whole of Aquitaine apart from the coastal areas.


title: Isabella of France

text: Edward was still unwilling to travel to France to give homage; the situation in England was febrile; there had been an assassination plot against Edward and Hugh Despenser in 1324—the famous magician John of Nottingham had been hired to kill the pair using necromancy—and criminal gangs were occupying much of the country. Edward was deeply concerned that should he leave England, even for a short while, the barons would take the chance to rise up and take their revenge on the Despensers. Charles sent a message through Pope John XXII to Edward, suggesting that he was willing to reverse the forfeiture of the lands if Edward ceded the Agenais and paid homage for the rest of the lands: the Pope proposed Isabella as an ambassador. Isabella, however, saw this as a perfect opportunity to resolve her situation with Edward and the Despensers.


title: Isabella of France

text: Having promised to return to England by the summer, Isabella reached Paris in March 1325, and rapidly agreed a truce in Gascony, under which Prince Edward, then thirteen years old, would come to France to give homage on his father's behalf. Prince Edward arrived in France, and gave homage in September. At this point, however, rather than returning, Isabella remained firmly in France with her son. Edward began to send urgent messages to the Pope and to Charles IV, expressing his concern about his wife's absence, but to no avail. Edward instructed Isabella to come home in September, but she expressed concern the young Despenser would try to kill her upon her arrival, or the Earl of Richmond. She also feared her own husband might attempt to have her killed. For his part, Charles replied that the, "queen has come of her own will and may freely return if she wishes. But if she prefers to remain here, she is my sister and I refuse to expel her." Charles went on to refuse to return the lands in Aquitaine to Edward, resulting in a provisional agreement under which Edward resumed administration of the remaining English territories in early 1326 whilst France continued to occupy the rest.


title: Isabella of France

text: Meanwhile, the messages brought back by Edward's agent Walter de Stapledon, Bishop of Exeter and others grew steadily worse: Isabella had publicly snubbed Stapledon; Edward's political enemies were gathering at the French court, and threatening his emissaries; Isabella was dressed as a widow, claiming that Hugh Despenser had destroyed her marriage with Edward; Isabella was assembling a court-in-exile, including Edmund of Kent and John of Brittany, Earl of Richmond. Isabella surrounded herself with mostly exiles, among them her rumored lover Roger Mortimer.


title: Isabella of France

text: Roger Mortimer was a powerful Marcher lord, married to the wealthy heiress Joan de Geneville, and the father of twelve children. Mortimer had been imprisoned in the Tower of London in 1322 following his capture by Edward during the Despenser wars. Mortimer's uncle, Roger Mortimer de Chirk finally died in prison, but Mortimer managed to escape the Tower in August 1323, making a hole in the stone wall of his cell and then escaping onto the roof, before using rope ladders provided by an accomplice to get down to the River Thames, across the river and then on eventually to safety in France. Victorian writers suggested that, given later events, Isabella might have helped Mortimer escape and some historians continue to argue that their relationship had already begun at this point, although most believe that there is no hard evidence for their having had a substantial relationship before meeting in Paris.


title: Isabella of France

text: Isabella was reintroduced to Mortimer in Paris by her cousin, Joan, Countess of Hainault, who appears to have approached Isabella suggesting a marital alliance between their two families, marrying Prince Edward to Joan's daughter, Philippa. Mortimer and Isabella may have begun a physical relationship from December 1325 onwards. If so both Isabella and Mortimer were taking a huge risk in doing so—female infidelity was a very serious offence in medieval Europe, as shown during the Tour de Nesle Affair—both Isabella's former French sisters-in-law had died by 1326 as a result of their imprisonment for exactly this offence, and their alleged lovers had been brutally executed. Isabella's motivation has been the subject of discussion by historians; some believe that there was a strong sexual attraction between the two, that they shared an interest in the Arthurian legends and that they both enjoyed fine art and high living. One historian has described their relationship as one of the "great romances of the Middle Ages" in spite of the fact that they are reputed to have murdered her husband. They also shared a common enemy—the regime of Edward II and the Despensers.


title: Isabella of France

text: Taking Prince Edward with them, Isabella and Mortimer left the French court in summer 1326 and travelled north to William I, Count of Hainaut. As Joan had suggested the previous year, Isabella betrothed Prince Edward to Philippa of Hainault, the daughter of the Count, in exchange for a substantial dowry. She then used this money plus an earlier loan from Charles to raise a mercenary army, scouring Brabant for men, which were added to a small force of Hainaut troops. William also provided eight men-of-war ships and various smaller vessels as part of the marriage arrangements. Although Edward was now fearing an invasion, secrecy remained key, and Isabella convinced William to detain envoys from Edward. Isabella also appears to have made a secret agreement with the Scots for the duration of the forthcoming campaign. On 22 September, Isabella, Mortimer and their modest force set sail for England.


title: Isabella of France

text: Having evaded Edward's fleet, which had been sent to intercept them, Isabella and Mortimer landed at Orwell on the east coast of England on 24 September with a small force; estimates of Isabella's army vary from between 300 and around 2,000 soldiers, with 1,500 being a popular middle figure. After a short period of confusion during which they attempted to work out where they had actually landed, Isabella moved quickly inland, dressed in her widow's clothes. The local levies mobilised to stop them immediately changed sides, and by the following day Isabella was in Bury St Edmunds and shortly afterwards had swept inland to Cambridge. Thomas, Earl of Norfolk, joined Isabella's forces and Henry of Lancaster – the brother of the late Thomas, and Isabella's uncle – also announced he was joining Isabella's faction, marching south to join her.


title: Isabella of France

text: By the 27th, word of the invasion had reached the King and the Despensers in London. Edward issued orders to local sheriffs to mobilise opposition to Isabella and Mortimer, but London itself was becoming unsafe because of local unrest and Edward made plans to leave. Isabella struck west again, reaching Oxford on 2 October where she was "greeted as a saviour" – Adam Orleton, the Bishop of Hereford, emerged from hiding to give a lecture to the university on the evils of the Despensers. Edward fled London on the same day, heading west towards Wales. Isabella and Mortimer now had an effective alliance with the Lancastrian opposition to Edward, bringing all of his opponents into a single coalition.


title: Isabella of France

text: Isabella now marched south towards London, pausing at Dunstable, outside the city on 7 October. London was now in the hands of the mobs, although broadly allied to Isabella. Bishop Stapledon failed to realise the extent to which royal power had collapsed in the capital, and tried to intervene militarily to protect his property against rioters; a hated figure locally, he was promptly attacked and killed—his head was later sent to Isabella by her local supporters. Edward, meanwhile, was still fleeing west, reaching Gloucester by the 9th. Isabella responded by marching swiftly west herself in an attempt to cut him off, reaching Gloucester a week after Edward, who slipped across the border into Wales the same day.


title: Isabella of France

text: Hugh Despenser the Elder continued to hold Bristol against Isabella and Mortimer, who placed it under siege between 18–26 October; when it fell, Isabella was able to recover her daughters Eleanor and Joan, who had been kept in the Despensers' custody. By now desperate and increasingly deserted by their court, Edward and Hugh Despenser the Younger attempted to sail to Lundy, a small island in the Bristol Channel, but the weather was against them and after several days they were forced to land back in Wales. With Bristol secure, Isabella moved her base of operations up to the border town of Hereford, from where she ordered Henry of Lancaster to locate and arrest her husband. After a fortnight of evading Isabella's forces in South Wales, Edward and Hugh were finally caught and arrested near Llantrisant on 16 November.


title: Isabella of France

text: The retribution began immediately. Hugh Despenser the Elder had been captured at Bristol, and despite some attempts by Isabella to protect him, was promptly executed by his Lancastrian enemies – his body was hacked to pieces and fed to the local dogs. The remainder of the former regime were brought to Isabella. Edmund Fitzalan, a key supporter of Edward II and who had received many of Mortimer's confiscated lands in 1322, was executed on 17 November. Hugh Despenser the Younger was sentenced to be brutally executed on 24 November, and a huge crowd gathered in anticipation at seeing him die. They dragged him from his horse, stripped him, and scrawled Biblical verses against corruption and arrogance on his skin. He was then dragged into the city, presented to Queen Isabella, Roger Mortimer and the Lancastrians. Despenser was then condemned to hang as a thief, be castrated, and then to be drawn and quartered as a traitor, his quarters to be dispersed throughout England. Simon of Reading, one of the Despensers' supporters, was hanged next to him, on charges of insulting Isabella. Once the core of the Despenser regime had been executed, Isabella and Mortimer began to show restraint. Lesser nobles were pardoned and the clerks at the heart of the government, mostly appointed by the Despensers and Stapledon, were confirmed in office. All that was left now was the question of Edward II, still officially Isabella's legal husband and lawful king.


title: Isabella of France

text: As an interim measure, Edward II was held in the custody of Henry of Lancaster, who surrendered Edward's Great Seal to Isabella. The situation remained tense, however; Isabella was clearly concerned about Edward's supporters staging a counter-coup, and in November she seized the Tower of London, appointed one of her supporters as mayor and convened a council of nobles and churchmen in Wallingford to discuss the fate of Edward. The council concluded that Edward would be legally deposed and placed under house arrest for the rest of his life. This was then confirmed at the next parliament, dominated by Isabella and Mortimer's followers. The session was held in January 1327, with Isabella's case being led by her supporter Adam Orleton, Bishop of Hereford. Isabella's son, Prince Edward, was confirmed as Edward III of England, with his mother appointed regent. Isabella's position was still precarious, as the legal basis for deposing Edward was doubtful and many lawyers of the day maintained that Edward II was still the rightful king, regardless of the declaration of the Parliament. The situation could be reversed at any moment and Edward II was known to be a vengeful ruler.