James I of Scotland

James I (late July 1394 – 21 February 1437) was King of Scotland from 1406 to 1437. The youngest of three sons, he was born in Dunfermline Abbey to King Robert III and his wife Annabella Drummond. His older brother David, Duke of Rothesay, died under suspicious circumstances while being detained by their uncle, Robert, Duke of Albany. while his other brother, Robert, died young. Fears for James's safety grew through the winter of 1405/6 and plans were made to send him to France. In February 1406, James was forced to take refuge in the castle of the Bass Rock in the Firth of Forth after his escort was attacked by supporters of Archibald, 4th Earl of Douglas.  He remained there until mid-March when he boarded a vessel bound for France.  On 22 March English pirates captured the ship and delivered the prince to Henry IV of England. The ailing Robert III died on 4 April and the 11-year-old James, now the uncrowned King of Scotland, would not regain his freedom for another eighteen years.

James was educated well at the English Court where he developed respect for English methods of governance and for Henry V.  The Scottish king, apparently willingly, joined Henry in his military campaign in France during 1420 – 1421.  His cousin, Murdoch Stewart, Albany's son, an English prisoner since 1402 was traded for Henry Percy, 2nd Earl of Northumberland in 1416. James had married Joan Beaufort, daughter of the Earl of Somerset in February 1424 just before his release in April.  The King's re-entry into Scottish affairs was not altogether popular since he had fought on behalf of Henry V in France and at times against Scottish forces. Noble families were now faced with paying increased taxes to cover the ransom repayments but would also have to provide family hostages as security. James, who excelled in sporting activities and appreciated literature and music, also held a strong desire to impose law and order on his subjects although he applied it selectively at times.

To secure his position, James launched pre-emptive attacks on some of his nobles beginning in 1425 with his close kinsmen, the Albany Stewarts, resulting in the execution of Duke Murdoch and his sons. In 1428 James detained Alexander, Lord of the Isles, while attending a parliament in Inverness. Archibald, 5th Earl of Douglas, was arrested in 1431, followed by George, Earl of March, in 1434. The plight of the ransom hostages held in England was ignored and the repayment money was diverted into the construction of Linlithgow Palace and other grandiose schemes. In August 1436, James failed in his siege of the English-held Roxburgh Castle and then faced an ineffective attempt by Sir Robert Graham to arrest him at a general council. James was assassinated at Perth on the night of 20/21 February 1437 in a failed coup by his uncle Walter Stewart, Earl of Atholl. Queen Joan, although wounded, managed to evade the attackers and reached her son, now King James II, in Edinburgh Castle.

Prince and Steward of Scotland
James was probably born in late July 1394 at Dunfermline Abbey, 27 years after the marriage of his parents, Robert III and Annabella Drummond. It was also at Dunfermline under his mother's care that James would have spent most of his early childhood. The prince was seven years old when his mother died in 1401 and a year later his elder brother David, Duke of Rothesay, was probably murdered by their uncle Robert Stewart, Duke of Albany, after being held at Albany's Falkland Castle. Prince James, now heir to the throne, was the only impediment to the transfer of the royal line to the Albany Stewarts. In 1402 Albany and his close Black Douglas ally Archibald, 4th Earl of Douglas were absolved of any involvement in Rothesay's death clearing the way for Albany's re-appointment as the king's lieutenant.

Albany rewarded Douglas for his support by allowing him to resume hostilities in England. The Albany and Douglas affinity received a serious reversal in September 1402 when their large army was defeated by the English at Homildon and numerous prominent nobles and their followers were captured.  These included Douglas himself, Albany's son Murdoch, and the earls of Moray, Angus and Orkney. That same year, as well as the death of Rothesay, Alexander Leslie, Earl of Ross and Malcolm Drummond, lord of Mar had also died.  The void created by these events was inevitably filled by lesser men who had not previously been conspicuously politically active. In the years between 1402 and 1406, the northern earldoms of Ross, Moray and Mar were without adult leadership and with Murdoch Stewart, the Justiciar for the territory north of the Forth, a prisoner in England, Albany found himself reluctantly having to form an alliance with his brother Alexander Stewart, Earl of Buchan and Buchan's son, also called Alexander to hold back the ambitions of the Lord of the Isles. Douglas's absence from his power base in the Lothians and the Scottish Marches encouraged King Robert's close allies Henry Sinclair, Earl of Orkney and Sir David Fleming of Biggar to take full advantage in becoming the principal political force in that region.

In December 1404 the king granted the royal Stewart lands in the west, in Ayrshire and around the Firth of Clyde, to James in regality protecting them from outside interference and providing the prince with a territorial centre should the need arise. Yet, in 1405 James was under the protection and tutelage of Bishop Henry Wardlaw of St Andrews on the country's east coast. Douglas animosity was intensifying because of the activities of Orkney and Fleming who continued to expand their involvement in border politics and foreign relations with England. Although a decision to send the young prince to France and out of Albany's reach was taken in the winter of 1405–06, James's departure from Scotland was unplanned. In February 1406 Bishop Wardlaw released James to Orkney and Fleming who, with their large force of Lothian adherents, proceeded into hostile Douglas east Lothian. James's custodians may have been giving a demonstration of royal approval to further their interests in Douglas country. This provoked a fierce response from James Douglas of Balvenie and his supporters who, at a place called Long Hermiston Muir, engaged with and killed Fleming while Orkney and James escaped to the comparative safety of the Bass Rock islet in the Firth of Forth. They endured more than a month there before boarding the France-bound Maryenknyght, a ship from Danzig. On 22 March 1406 the ship was seized, in an act of piracy, by an English vessel part-owned by the MP and royal official Hugh Fenn that resulted in James becoming the hostage of King Henry IV of England. Robert III was at Rothesay Castle when he learned of his son's capture, and he died soon after on 4 April 1406 and was buried in the Stewart foundation abbey of Paisley.

King in captivity
James, now the uncrowned King of Scots, began what proved to be his 18-year period as a hostage while at the same time Albany transitioned from his position of lieutenant to that of governor. Albany took James's lands under his own control depriving the king of income and any of the regalia of his position and was referred to in records as 'the son of the late king'. The king had a small household of Scots that included Henry Sinclair, Earl of Orkney, Alexander Seaton, the nephew of Sir David Fleming, and Orkney's brother John Sinclair following the earl's return to Scotland.  In time, James's household—now paid for by the English—changed from high ranking individuals to less notable men. Henry IV treated the young James well, providing him with a good education.  James was ideally placed to observe Henry's methods of kingship and political control having probably been admitted into the royal household on reaching adulthood. James used personal visits from his nobles coupled with letters to individuals to maintain his visibility in his kingdom. Henry died in 1413 and his son, Henry V, immediately ended James's comparative freedom initially holding him in the Tower of London along with the other Scottish prisoners. One of these prisoners was James's cousin, Murdoch Stewart, Albany's son, who had been captured in 1402 at the Battle of Homildon Hill.  Initially held apart but from 1413 until Murdoch's release in 1415 they were together in the Tower and at Windsor Castle.

By 1420, James's standing at Henry V's court improved greatly; he ceased to be regarded as a hostage and more of a guest. James's value to Henry became apparent in 1420 when he accompanied the English king to France where his presence was used against the Scots fighting on the Dauphinist side. Following the English success at the siege of Melun, a town southeast of Paris, the contingent of Scots were hanged for treason against their king. James attended Catherine of Valois's coronation on 23 February 1421 and was honoured by sitting immediately on the queen's left at the coronation banquet. In March, Henry began a circuit of the important towns in England as a show of strength and it was during this tour that James was knighted on Saint George's day. By July, the two kings were back campaigning in France where James, evidently approving of Henry's methods of kingship, seemed content to endorse the English king's desire for the French crown. Henry appointed the Duke of Bedford and James as the joint commanders of the siege of Dreux on 18 July 1421 and on 20 August they received the surrender of the garrison. Henry died of dysentery on 31 August 1422 and in September James was part of the escort taking the English king's body back to London.

The regency council of the infant King Henry VI was inclined to have James released as soon as possible. In the early months of 1423 their attempts to resolve the issue met with little response from the Scots, clearly influenced by the Albany Stewarts and adherents. Archibald, Earl of Douglas was an astute and adaptable power in Southern Scotland whose influence even eclipsed that of the Albany Stewarts.  Despite his complicity in James's brother's death in Albany's castle in 1402 Douglas was still able to engage with the king.  From 1421, Douglas had been in regular contact with James and they formed an alliance that was to prove pivotal in 1423. Although Douglas was the pre-eminent Scottish magnate his position in the borders and Lothians was jeopardised—not only did he have to forcibly retake Edinburgh Castle from his own designated warden but was very likely under threat from the Earls of Angus and March. In return for James's endorsement of Douglas's position in the kingdom, the earl was able to deliver his affinity in the cause of the king's home-coming. Also, the relationship between Murdoch—now Duke of Albany following his father's death in 1420—and his own appointee Bishop William Lauder seemed to be under strain perhaps evidence of an influential grouping at odds with Murdoch's stance. Pressure from these advocates for the king almost certainly compelled Murdoch to agree to a general council in August 1423 when it was agreed that a mission should be sent to England to negotiate James's release. James's relationship with the House of Lancaster changed in February 1424 when he married Joan Beaufort, a cousin of Henry VI and the niece of Thomas Beaufort, 1st Duke of Exeter, and Henry, Bishop of Winchester. A ransom treaty of £40,000 sterling (less a dowry remittance of 10,000 marks) was agreed at Durham on 28 March 1424 to which James attached his own seal. The king and queen escorted by English and Scottish nobles reached Melrose Abbey on 5 April and were met by Albany who relinquished his governor's seal of office.

Personal rule

First acts

Throughout the 15th century, Scottish kings suffered from a lack of crown revenue and James's reign was no exception. The Albany regency had also been constrained with Duke Robert owed his fees of governorship. For the nobility, royal patronage ceased entirely following James's capture; irregular forms of political favours emerged with Albany allowing nobles such as the earl of Douglas and his brother James to remove funds from the customs. It was against this backdrop that James's coronation took place at Scone on 21 May 1424. The coronation parliament of the Three Estates witnessed the king perform a knighthood ceremony for eighteen prominent nobles including Alexander Stewart, Murdoch's son; an event probably intended to foster loyalty to the crown within the political community. Called primarily to discuss issues surrounding the finance of the ransom payments, the parliament heard James underline his position and authority as monarch. He ensured the passing of legislation designed to substantially improve crown income by revoking the patronage of royal predecessors and guardians. The earls of Douglas and Mar were immediately affected by this when their ability to remove large sums from the customs was blocked. Despite this, James was still dependent on the nobility—especially Douglas—for its support and initially adopted a less confrontational stance. The early exception to this was Walter Stewart, Albany's son. Walter was the heir to the earldom of Lennox and had been in open revolt against his father during 1423 for not giving way to his younger brother Alexander for this title.  He also disagreed with his father's acquiescence to the return of James to Scotland. James had Walter arrested on 13 May 1424 and imprisoned on the Bass Rock—at this time, this was probably in Murdoch's interests as well as James's. It is probable that the king felt unable to move against the rest of the Albany Stewarts while Murdoch's brother, John Stewart, Earl of Buchan, and Archibald, 4th Earl of Douglas, were fighting the English on the Dauphinist cause in France. Buchan, a leader with an international reputation, commanded the large Scottish army but both he and Douglas fell at the Battle of Verneuil in August 1424 and the Scottish army routed. The loss of his brother and the large fighting force left Murdoch politically exposed.

A ruthless and acquisitive king
Douglas's death at Verneuill was to weaken the position of his son Archibald, the 5th earl. On 12 October 1424, the king and Archibald met at Melrose Abbey ostensibly to agree the appointment of John Fogo, a monk of Melrose, to the abbacy. The meeting may also have been intended as an official acceptance of Douglas but it signalled a change in the Black Douglas predominance vis-a-vis the crown and other nobles. Important Douglas allies died in France and some of their heirs realigned with rival nobles through blood ties while at the same time Douglas experienced a loosening of allegiances in the Lothians and, with the loss of his command over Edinburgh Castle, this all served to improve James's position. Even though, James continued to retain Black Douglas support allowing him to begin a campaign of political alienation of Albany and his family. The king's rancor directed at Duke Murdoch had its roots in the past—Duke Robert was responsible for his brother David's death and neither Robert nor Murdoch exerted themselves in negotiating James's release and must have left the king with the suspicion that they held aspirations for the throne itself. Buchan's lands did not fall to the Albany Stewarts but were forfeited by the crown, Albany's father-in-law, Duncan, Earl of Lennox was imprisoned and in December the duke's main ally Alexander Stewart, 1st Earl of Mar, settled his differences with the king. An acrimonious sitting of parliament in March 1425 precipitated the arrest of Murdoch, Isabella, his wife, and his son Alexander—of Albany's other sons Walter was already in prison and James, his youngest, also known as James the Fat, escaped into the Lennox.

James the Fat led the men of Lennox and Argyll in open rebellion against the crown and this may have been what the king needed to bring a charge of treason against the Albany Stewarts. Murdoch, his sons Walter and Alexander and Duncan, Earl of Lennox were in Stirling Castle for their trial on 18 May at a specially convened parliament. An assize of seven earls and fourteen lesser nobles were appointed to hear the evidence that linked the prisoners to the rebellion in the Lennox.  The four men were condemned, Walter on 24 May and the others on 25 May and immediately beheaded in 'front of the castle'. James demonstrated a ruthless and avaricious side to his nature in the destruction of his close family, the Albany Stewarts, that yielded the three forfeited earldoms of Fife, Menteith and Lennox. An enquiry set up by James in 1424 into the dispersal of crown estates since the reign of Robert I exposed legal defects in a number of transactions where the earldoms of Mar, March and Strathearn together with the Black Douglas lordships of Selkirk and Wigtown were found to be problematic.  Strathearn and March were forfeited in 1427 and 1435 respectively. Mar was forfeited in 1435 on the earl's death without heir which also meant that the lordships of Garioch and Badenoch reverted to the crown. James sought to boost his income further through taxation and succeeded in getting parliament to pass legislation in 1424 for a tax to go towards paying off the ransom—£26,000 was raised but James sent only £12,000 to England. By 1429, James stopped the ransom payments completely and used the remainder of the taxation on buying cannons and luxury goods from Flanders. Following a fire in the castle of Linlithgow in 1425, funds were also diverted to the building of Linlithgow Palace which continued until James's death in 1437 and absorbed an estimated one tenth of royal income.

Relations with the church

James asserted his authority not only over the nobility but also upon the Church and lamented that King David I's benevolence towards the Church proved costly to his successors and that he was 'a sair sanct to the croun'. James also considered that the monastic institutions in particular needed improvement and that they should return to being strictly ordered communities. Part of James's solution was to create an assembly of overseeing abbots and followed this up by establishing a Carthusian priory at Perth to provide other religious houses with an example of internal conduct. He also sought to influence Church attitudes to his policies by having his own clerics appointed to the bishoprics of Dunblane, Dunkeld, Glasgow and Moray. In March 1425, James's parliament directed that all bishops must instruct their clerics to offer up prayers for the king and his family; a year later, parliament toughened up this edict insisting that the prayers be given at every mass under sanction of a fine and severe rebuke. This same parliament legislated that every person in Scotland should 'be governed under the king's laws and statutes of this realm only'. From this, laws were enacted in 1426 to restrict the actions of prelates whether it was to regulate their need to travel to the Roman Curia or their ability to purchase additional ecclesiastical positions while there. In James's parliament of July 1427, it is evident that statute being enacted had the purpose of reducing the powers of the church jurisdiction.

On 25 July 1431, the general council of the Church convened in Basel but its initial full meeting did not take place until 14 December by which time Pope Eugenius and the council were in complete disagreement. It was the council and not the pope who requested that James send representatives of the Scottish church and it is known that two delegates—Abbot Thomas Livingston of Dundrenanan and John de Winchester, canon of Moray and a servant of the king—were in attendance in November and December 1432. In 1433 James, this time in response to a summons by the pope, appointed two bishops, two abbots and four dignitaries to attend the council. Twenty–eight Scottish ecclesiasts attended at intervals from 1434 to 1437 but the majority of the higher ranking churchmen sent proxy attendees but Bishops John Cameron of Glasgow and John de Crannach of Brechin attended in person as did Abbot Patrick Wotherspoon of Holyrood. Even in the midst of the Basel general council, Pope Eugenius instructed his legate, Bishop Antonio Altan of Urbino, to meet with James to raise the issue of the king's controversial anti-barratry laws of 1426. The Bishop of Urbino arrived in Scotland in December 1436 and apparently a reconciliation between James and the papal legate had taken place by the middle of February 1437 but the events of 21 February when James was assassinated prevented the legate from completing his commission.

Highland problem
In July 1428, the king convened a general council at Perth aimed at obtaining finance for an expedition to the Highlands against the semi-autonomous Lord of the Isles. The council initially resisted granting James the funds – even with royal support from the powerful Earls of Mar and Atholl – but eventually gave in to the king's wishes. Although it seemed that an all-out attack on the Gaels of the north was not the king's intention, James had resolved to use a degree of force to strengthen royal authority. He told the assembly:

The leaders of the Gaelic kindreds in the north and west were summoned by James ostensibly to a sitting of parliament in Inverness. Of those assembled the king arrested around 50 of them including Alexander, the third Lord of the Isles, and his mother, Mariota, Countess of Ross, around 24 August. A few were executed but the remainder, with the exception of Alexander and his mother, quickly released. During Alexander's captivity James attempted to split Clann Dòmhnall—Alexander's uncle John Mór was approached by an agent of the king to take the clan leadership but his refusal to have any dealings with the king while his nephew was held prisoner led to John Mór's attempted arrest and death.  The king's need for allies in the west and north led him to soften his approach towards the Lord of the Isles and, hoping that Alexander would now become a loyal servant of the crown, he was given his freedom. Alexander, probably under pressure from his close kinsmen Donald Balloch, John Mór's son, and Alasdair Carrach of Lochaber, led a rebellion attacking the castle and burgh of Inverness in spring 1429. The crisis deepened when a fleet from the Lordship was dispatched to bring James the Fat back from Ulster 'to convey him home that he might be king'. With James's intention to form an alliance with the Ulster O'Donnells of Tyreconnell against the MacDonalds, the English became distrustful of the Scottish king's motives and they themselves tried to bring James the Fat to England. Before he could become an active player, James the Fat died suddenly releasing James to prepare for decisive action against the Lordship.

The armies met on 21 June in Lochaber and Alexander, suffering the defection of Clan Chattan (the MacKintoshes) and Clan Cameron, was heavily defeated. Alexander escaped probably to Islay but James continued his assault on the Lordship by taking the strongholds of Dingwall and Urquhart castles in July. The king pushed home his advantage when an army reinforced with artillery was dispatched to the isles. Alexander probably realised that his position was hopeless and tried to negotiate terms of surrender but James demanded and received his total submission. From August 1429 the king delegated royal authority to Alexander Stewart, Earl of Mar for the keeping of the peace in the north and west. The Islesmen rose again in September 1431 and inflicted two important defeats on the king's men – Mar's army was beaten at Inverlochy and Angus Moray's in a fierce battle near Tongue in Caithness. This was a serious setback for James and his credibility was adversely affected. In 1431, before the September uprising, the king had arrested two of his nephews, John Kennedy of Carrick and Archibald, Earl of Douglas possibly as a result of a conflict between John and his uncle, Thomas Kennedy in which Douglas may have become involved. Douglas's arrest had raised tensions in the country and James acted to reduce the unrest by freeing the earl on 29 September – it was quite likely that the king made the earl's release conditional on support at the forthcoming parliament at Perth at which James intended to push for further funding for the campaign against the Lordship. Parliament was in no mood to allow James unconditional backing – he was allowed a tax to fund his Highland campaign but parliament retained full control over the levy. The rules parliament attached to the taxation indicated a robust stand against further conflict in the north and probably led to the turnaround that took place on 22 October when the king 'forgave the offence of each earl, namely Douglas and Ross [i.e. Alexander]'. For Douglas this was a formal acknowledgement of his having already been freed three weeks earlier but for Alexander this was a total reversal of crown policy towards the Lordship. Four summer campaigns against the Lordship were now officially at an end with James's wishes having effectively been blocked by parliament.

Foreign policy
James's release in 1424 did not herald a new Scottish relationship with its southern neighbour. He didn't become the submissive king that the English council had hoped for but instead emerged as a confident and independently-minded European monarch. The only substantive matters of contention between the two kingdoms were the payments due under the terms of James's release and the renewal of the truce that would expire in 1430. In 1428 after setbacks on the battlefield Charles VII of France sent his ambassador Regnault of Chartres, Archbishop of Rheims to Scotland to persuade James to renew the Auld Alliance—the terms were to include the marriage of the princess Margaret to Louis, the dauphin of France, and a gift of the province of Saintonge to James. The ratification of the treaty by Charles took place in October 1428 and James, now with the intended marriage of his daughter into the French royal family and the possession of French lands, had his political importance in Europe boosted.

The effectiveness of the alliance with France had virtually ceased after Verneuil and its renewal in 1428 did not alter that—James adopted a much more non-aligned position with England, France and Burgundy while at the same time opening up diplomatic contacts with Aragon, Austria, Castile, Denmark, Milan, Naples and the Vatican. Generally, Scotto–English relations were relatively amiable and an extension of the truce until 1436 helped the English cause in France and the promises made in 1428 of a Scottish army to help Charles VII and the marriage of James's eldest daughter to the French king's son Louis were unrealised. James had to balance his European responses carefully, because England's key ally, the Duke of Burgundy was also in possession of the Low Countries, a major trading partner of Scotland's at the time, and therefore James's support for France was muted. The truce with England expired in May 1436 but James's perception of the Anglo-French conflict changed following a realignment of the combatants. The breakdown of the talks between England and France in 1435 precipitated an alliance between Burgundy and France and a request from France for Scottish involvement in the war and for the fulfilment of the promised marriage of Princess Margaret to the Dauphin. In the spring of 1436 Princess Margaret sailed to France and in August Scotland entered the war with James leading a large army to lay siege to the English enclave of Roxburgh Castle. The campaign was to prove pivotal, the Book of Pluscarden describes ' a detestable split and most unworthy difference arising from jealosy ' within the Scottish camp and the historian Michael Brown explains that a contemporary source has James appointing his young and inexperienced cousin Robert Stewart of Atholl as the constable of the host ahead of the experienced march wardens, the earls of Douglas and Angus. Brown explains that both earls possessed considerable local interests and that the effects of such a large army living off the land may have created considerable resentment and hostility in the area. When the militant prelates of York and Durham together with the Earl of Northumberland took their forces into the marches to relieve the fortress, the Scots swiftly retreated – a chronicle written a year later said that the Scots 'had fled wretchedly and ignominiously' – but what is certain is that the effects and the manner of the defeat and the loss of their expensive artillery was a major reversal for James both in terms of foreign policy and internal authority.

Assassination

Background
Walter Stewart was the youngest of Robert II's sons and the only one not to have been provided with an earldom during his father's lifetime. Walter's brother, David, Earl of Strathearn and Caithness had died before 5 March 1389 when his daughter Euphemia was first recorded as Countess of Strathearn.  Walter, now ward to his niece, administered Strathearn for the next decade and a half during which time he aided his brother Robert, Earl of Fife and Guardian of Scotland by enforcing law and order upon another brother Alexander, lord of Badenoch—he again supported Robert (now Duke of Albany) against their nephew, David, Duke of Rothesay in 1402.  Albany most likely engineered the marriage of Euphemia to one of his affinity, Patrick Graham and by doing so ended Walter's involvement in Strathearn.  Duke Robert, possibly to make up for the loss of the benefits of Strathearn, made Walter Earl of Atholl and Lord of Methven.  In 1413, Graham was killed in a quarrel with his own principal servant in the earldom, John Drummond.The Drummond kindred were close to Atholl and the Earl's renewed involvement in Strathearn as ward to Graham's son despite strong opposition from Albany hint at Atholl's possible involvement in the murder.  The bad blood now existing between Albany and Atholl led James on his return to Scotland in 1424 to ally himself with Earl Walter, his uncle. Atholl participated at the assize that sat over the 24/25 May 1425 that tried and found the prominent members of the Albany Stewarts guilty of rebellion—their executions followed swiftly.

James granted Atholl the positions of Sheriff of Perth and Justicier and also the earldom of Strathearn but this, significantly, in life-rent only—acts that confirmed Earl Walter's policing remit given by Albany and his already effective grip on Strathearn. Atholl's elder son, David had been one of the hostages sent to England as a condition of James's release and had died there in 1434—his younger son, Alan died in the king's service at the Battle of Inverlochy in 1431. David's son Robert was now Atholl's heir and both were now in line to the throne after the young Prince James. James continued to show favour to Atholl and appointed his grandson Robert as his personal chamberlain but by 1437, after a series of setbacks at the hands of James, the earl and Robert probably viewed the king's actions as a prelude to further acquisitions at Atholl's expense.  Atholl's hold on the rich earldom of Strathearn was weak and both he and Robert would have realised that after the earl's death Strathearn would have reverted to the crown.  This meant that Robert's holdings would have been the relatively impoverished earldoms of Caithness and Atholl and amounted to no more than what was in the Earl Walter's possession in the years between 1406 and 1416.

The retreat from Roxburgh exposed the king to questions regarding his control over his subjects, his military competence and his diplomatic abilities yet he remained determined to continue with the war against England. Just two months after the Roxburgh fiasco, James called a general council in October 1436 to finance further hostilities through more taxation. The estates firmly resisted this and their opposition was articulated by their speaker Sir Robert Graham, a former Albany attendant but now a servant of Atholl. The council then witnessed an unsuccessful attempt by Graham to arrest the king resulting in the knight's imprisonment followed by banishment but James did not see Graham's actions as part of any extended threat.  In January 1437, Atholl received yet another rebuff in his own heartlands when James overturned the chapter of Dunkeld Cathedral whose nominee was replaced by the king's nephew and firm supporter, James Kennedy.

Conspiracy and regicide

The reaction against the king at the general council had shown Atholl that not only was James on the back-foot but his political standing had received a huge setback, and may have convinced the earl that James's killing was now a viable course of action. Atholl had seen how assertive action by two of his brothers at different times had allowed them to take control of the kingdom and that as James's nearest adult relative, the earl must have considered that decisive intervention on his part at this time could prove to be equally successful.

The destruction of the Albany Stewarts in 1425 appears to have played a large part in the conspiracy against the king.  Their judicial killing and forfeiture of their lands influenced the servants who administered and depended on these estates for their living. The vacuum left by this was filled by Atholl in whose employment many of these disaffected Albany men appear. These included Sir Robert Graham, who only three months earlier had attempted to arrest the king at the Perth council, and the brothers Christopher and Robert Chambers. Even although Robert Chambers was a member of the Royal household, the old Albany ties were stronger.

A general council was held in Atholl's heartland in Perth on 4 February 1437 and crucially for the conspirators, the king and queen had remained in the town at their lodgings in the Blackfriars monastery. In the evening of 20 February 1437 the king and queen were in their rooms and separated from most of their servants. Atholl's grandson and heir Robert Stewart, the king's chamberlain, allowed his co-conspirators—thought to number about thirty—led by Robert Graham and the Chambers brothers access to the building.  James was alerted to the men's presence, giving the king time to hide in a sewer tunnel but with its exit recently blocked off to prevent tennis balls getting lost, James was trapped and murdered.

Aftermath
The assassins had achieved their priority in killing the king but the queen, although wounded, had escaped.  Importantly, the six-year-old prince, now King James II, had been safeguarded from Atholl's control by the removal of the earl's associate, John Spens, from his role as James's custodian. Spens vanished from the records following the regicide but the re-allocation of his positions and lands immediately following the murder indicate his part in the plot.  Yet, in the chaos following the murder, it appeared that the queen's attempt to position herself as regent was not guaranteed.  No surviving documentation exists that suggest that there was any general feeling of horror or condemnation aimed at the murderers. It was possible that had the botched attempt at killing the queen succeeded and had Atholl taken control of the young king then his attempted coup might have succeeded. The queen's small group of loyal supporters that included the Earl of Angus and William Crichton ensured her continued hold of James.  This in itself greatly reinforced her situation but Atholl still had followers. By the first week of March neither side seemed to have ascendancy and the Bishop of Urbino, the pope's envoy, called for the council to pursue a peaceful outcome.
Despite this by the middle of March it is probable that both Angus and Crichton had mobilised to move against Atholl.  It is equally likely that Atholl had gathered his forces to resist incursions into his heartlands—on 7 March the queen and the council entreated the burgess' of Perth to resist the forces of the 'feloune traitors'.

The position of Atholl and his circle of close supporters only collapsed after Earl Walter's heir Robert Stewart had been captured and who, in Shirley's account, confessed to his part in the crime. Walter was taken prisoner by Angus and held at the Edinburgh Tolbooth where he was tried and beheaded on 26 March 1437, the day after the coronation of the young James II. Sir Robert Graham, the leader of the band of assassins was captured by former Atholl allies and was tried at a session of the council sitting at Stirling castle and subsequently executed sometime shortly after 9 April.

Queen Joan's pursuit of the regency ended probably at the council of June 1437 when Archibald, 5th Earl of Douglas, was appointed to act as lieutenant-general of the kingdom.

King James's embalmed heart may have been taken on pilgrimage to the Holy Land following his interment at Perth Charterhouse, as the Exchequer Rolls of Scotland for 1443 note the payment of £90 to cover the costs of a knight of the Order of St John who had returned it to the Charterhouse from the Island of Rhodes.

Historiography

James was a paradoxical figure.  Although a prisoner of England he still received a good education and developed into a cultured individual becoming a poet, an accomplished musician and skilled in sports. Walter Bower, abbot of Inchcolm, lists James's qualities as a musician—'not just as an enthusiastic amateur' but a master, 'another Orpheus.' His mastery included the organ, drum, flute and lyre. James's sporting abilities such as wrestling, hammer throwing, archery and jousting are also listed by Bower. He described James as possessing an 'eagerness' in 'literary composition and writing', the best known of which is his love poem, The Kingis Quair. Bower characterised the king as 'a tower, a lion, a light, a jewel, a pillar and a leader' and was 'our law giver king' who ended the 'thieving, dishonest conduct and plundering'.

Abbot Bower also described the king as capable of stabbing a near relative through the hand for creating a disturbance at court. The abbot was generally supportive of James but he and others besides regretted the demise of the Albany Stewarts and that he was confounded by James's greed for territory and wealth. Although Bower didn't dwell at length on the negative aspects of James's character he alluded to the dismay of even those close to the king at his harsh regime. John Shirley's account of the events leading up to James's murder in the work The Dethe of the Kynge of Scotis provided an accurate narrative of politics in Scotland and which must have depended upon knowledgeable witnesses. The Dethe describes James as 'tyrannous' and whose actions were motivated by revenge and 'covetise . . . than for anny laweful cawse'. Shirley agrees with Bower as far as the Albany Stewarts were concerned when he wrote that the Albanys 'whos dethe the people of the land sore grutched and mowrned'. Writing nearly a century later both the chroniclers John Mair and Hector Boece relied extensively on Bower for their own narratives. They described James as the embodiment of good monarchy with Mair's eulogy that James '...indeed excelled by far in virtue his father, grandfather and his great-grandfather nor will I give precedence over the first James to any of the Stewarts' while Boece in similar vein calls James the 'maist vertuous Prince that evir was afoir his days'. Late in the 16th century the early historians George Buchanan and Bishop John Lesley from opposite ends of the religious spectrum both looked favourably on James's reign but were uneasily mindful of an enduring aggressive history regarding the king.

The first 20th century history of James I was written by E.W.M. Balfour-Melville in 1936 and continued the theme of James as the strong upholder of law and order and when describing Albany's trial and execution he writes 'the King had proved that high rank was no defence for lawlessness; the crown was enriched by the revenues of Fife, Menteith and Lennox'. Balfour-Melville views James as a lawmaker and a 'reformer' whose legislation was aimed at not only increasing the position of the king but of parliament. Michael Lynch describes how James's positive reputation began immediately after his death when the Bishop of Urbino kissed James's wounds and declared him to be a martyr. He suggests that the praise of the pro-James Scottish chroniclers and also of some modern historians to 'find strong king's to applaud' should not diminish the extent of parliament's ability to restrain the king nor minimise the confrontation that took place between James and a more self-assured parliament. Stephen Boardman takes the view that by the time of his death James had succeeded in breaking down the constraints on the exercise of royal authority which were rooted in the 'settlement of the kingdom' by Robert II. Christine McGladdery describes how opposing views were the result of 'competing propaganda after the murder'. To those who were glad to see the king dead, James was a tyrant who without reason aggressively assailed the nobility imposing forfeiture on their estates and who 'failed to deliver justice to his people'. She also provides the opposite viewpoint that the king was seen as giving 'strong leadership against magnate excesses' and that the murder 'was a disaster for the Scottish people, leaving them to endure the instability of years of consequent faction fighting'. McGladdery continues that James was the example for the Stewart kings to follow by putting 'Scotland firmly within a European context'.

Michael Brown describes James as an 'able, aggressive and opportunistic politician' whose chief aim was to establish a monarchy that had stature and was free from the confrontations that had beset his father's reign. He characterises James as 'capable of highly effective short-term interventions' yet had failed to achieve a position of unqualified authority. Brown writes that James had come to power after 'fifty years when kings looked like magnates and magnates acted like kings' and succeeded in completely changing the outlook and objectives of the monarchy.  His policy of reducing the power and influence of the magnates, continued by his son James II, led to a more subordinate nobility.  Alexander Grant repudiates James's reputation as the 'law giver' and explains that nearly all of the king's legislation were reconstructs of laws laid down by previous monarchs and concludes that 'the idea of James's return in 1424 marks a turning-point in the development of Scots law is an exaggeration'. At James's death only the Douglases of the predominant magnatial houses was left and, according to Grant, this reduction was the most far-reaching change to the nobility and was 'by far the most important consequence of James I's reign'.

Marriage and issue

In London, on 12 February 1424, James married Joan Beaufort, daughter of John Beaufort, 1st Earl of Somerset and Margaret Holland. They had eight children:

Margaret Stewart (1424 – 16 August 1445), married the Dauphin Louis, future Louis XI of France, at Tours, 24 June 1436.
Isabella Stewart (1426 – 1499), married Francis I, Duke of Brittany on 30 October 1442.
Joan Stewart (c. 1428 – aft. 16 October 1486); she was mute. Married before 15 May 1459 to James Douglas, 1st Earl of Morton
Alexander Stewart, Duke of Rothesay (born and died 16 October 1430), elder twin of James II.
James II of Scotland (16 October 1430 – 3 August 1460). married Mary of Guelders
Eleanor Stewart (1433 – 20 November 1480), married Sigismund, Archduke of Austria about 12/24 February 1449.
Mary Stewart, Countess of Buchan (1434/35–20 March 1465), married Wolfert VI of Borselen in 1444.
Annabella Stewart (1436–1509), married firstly 14 December 1447 Louis of Savoy, Count of Geneva, secondly in 1458 George Gordon, 2nd Earl of Huntly before 10 March 1460.

Ancestry

Fictional portrayals

James I has been depicted in plays, historical novels and short stories. They include:
 The Caged Lion (1870) by Charlotte Mary Yonge. The novel depicts the captivity of James I in the Kingdom of England, with the main events taking place in 1421–1422. A friendly relationship with Henry V of England is prominently featured. Catherine of Valois and Richard Whittington are the most prominent among the secondary characters.
 A King's Tragedy (1905) by May Wynne. The novel depicts events of the years 1436–1437. The action leads to the assassination of James I. Catherine Douglas is among the characters featured.
 Lion Let Loose (1967) by Nigel Tranter. Covers the life of James I from c. 1405 to his death in 1437.
 A Royal Poet (1819) by Washington Irving. The author muses over the greatness of James I while on an excursion to Windsor Castle, mentioning two of his poems: "The Kingis Quair" and "Christ's Kirk of the Green".
 James I: The Key Will Keep The Lock (2014) by Rona Munro. A co-production between the National Theatre of Scotland, Edinburgh International Festival and the National Theatre of Great Britain. The James Plays – James I, James II and James III – are a trio of history plays by Rona Munro. Each play stands alone as a vision of a country tussling with its past and future. This play focuses on the personal development of James I after his release by Henry V of England, his marriage to Joan and the struggles with the noble families to establish his authority in Scotland.

Explanatory notes


Collingwood, Ontario

Collingwood is a town in Simcoe County, Ontario, Canada. It is situated on Nottawasaga Bay at the southern point of Georgian Bay.

History
The land in the area was first inhabited by the Iroquoian-speaking Petun nation, which built a string of villages in the vicinity of the nearby Niagara Escarpment. They were driven from the region by the Iroquois in 1650 who withdrew from the region around 1700. European settlers and freed Black slaves arrived in the area in the 1840s, bringing with them their religion and culture.

Collingwood was incorporated as a town in 1858, nine years before Confederation, and was named after Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood, Lord Nelson's second in command at the Battle of Trafalgar, who assumed command of the British fleet after Nelson's death.

The area had several other names associated with it, including Hurontario (because it lies at the end of Hurontario Street, which runs from Lake Huron — of which Georgian Bay is a part — south to Lake Ontario), Nottawa, and Hens-and-Chickens Harbour, because of one large and four small islands in the bay.

In 1855, the Ontario, Simcoe & Huron (later called the Northern) Railway came into Collingwood, and the harbour became the shipment point for goods destined for the upper Great Lakes ports of Chicago and Port Arthur-Fort William (now Thunder Bay). Shipping produced a need for ship repairs, so it was not long before an organized shipbuilding business was created. On May 24, 1883, the Collingwood Shipyards, formally known as Collingwood Dry Dock Shipbuilding and Foundry Company Limited, opened with a special ceremony. On September 12, 1901, the Huronic, the first steel-hulled ship in Canada, was launched in Collingwood. The shipyards produced Lakers and during World War II contributed to the production of corvettes for the Royal Canadian Navy. Shipbuilding was one of the principal industries in the town, employing as much as 10% of the total labour force. However, overseas competition and overcapacity in shipbuilding in Canada led to the demise of shipbuilding in Collingwood in September 1986.

The creation of government incentive programs and a fully serviced industrial park made it possible for Collingwood to attract eleven new manufacturing firms to the town by 1971. Eight additional manufacturing companies had located in the town by 1983, making Collingwood the largest industrial employer in the region.

Economy

Today, Collingwood's industrial base, which includes Pilkington Glass of Canada, Goodall Rubber Company - Canada ULC, and VOAC Inc, and which are among the community's largest employers, has begun to erode.

Several industries in the area have closed, including Collingwood Ethanol L.P., Nacan Products (2004), Backyard Products (2004), Kaufman of Collingwood (2006), Goodyear Tires (2007), Alcoa Wheel products (2008) and the internationally famous Blue Mountain Pottery (2004). Collingwood is also home to the distillery where Canadian Mist Whisky is produced.

In June 2007, Collingwood Ethanol (now Amaizeingly Green) began production in the former Nacan facility. The company expected to produce 50 million litres of ethanol annually to satisfy regulatory requirements on ethanol content in gasoline mandated by the provincial and federal governments. Collingwood Ethanol also produces byproducts of the ethanol manufacturing process, including an organic corn gluten fertilizer.
Petitions have been submitted to the town by residents of a new housing development located across the road in an effort to force Collingwood Ethanol to reduce the amount of odour and noise that they are causing during the times when they are in full production. Before Collingwood Ethanol started production, however, Nacan (a starch plant that once occupied the now ethanol plant) also created a strong odour and noise. This made many locals wonder why a housing development would be built across the road from an industrial part of town. In December 2012, Amaizeingly Green filed for receivership of the plant. Due to the higher cost of corn, the plant has since been closed. Demolition of the plant started Dec 2018.

Located on the southern shores of Georgian Bay and close to Blue Mountain, a promontory of the Niagara Escarpment, the town is a major recreation area for the southern part of the province. Blue Mountain itself is noted for skiing, and also for its Scenic Caves. The town is also a short distance from the popular Wasaga Beach Provincial Park, an attractive destination that received the title of Biosphere Reserve in 2004.

Local media include the Collingwood Today News and Collingwood-Wasaga Connection community newspapers, and radio station CKCB-FM. The Barrie-based regional television station CKVR-TV maintains a bureau in Collingwood, and the Owen Sound-based Bayshore Broadcasting radio group also has an office in Collingwood. Collingwood is also known for its annual week-end Elvis Presley festival, which attracts Elvis impersonators from the world over in late July of each year.

Climate

The climate of Collingwood is humid continental. The town is located in the snow belt region and receives modest amounts of both snow and rain through the year.

In the spring months there is a gradual warming due to the proximity of Georgian Bay. Frequent shower pass over the region this time of year and later on in the season can turn into severe storms. Temperatures this time of year range from −5 °C to 22 °C.

In the summer months, there are warm to hot humid conditions with frequent lake breezes to cool things off. Thunderstorms are regular occurrences in the summer and can sometimes be severe enough to cause tornadoes. Temperatures this time of year can range from 11*C to 26*C. The humidity will often make it feel much hotter than the actual temperature and can even make it feel like the mid 40 °C.

Fall is a pleasant time of year with some of the warmest temperatures in Canada. The season will usually start off warm and pleasant with a few scattered showers. The first frosts will generally hold off until the later half of October which gives the trees plenty of time to turn beautiful shades of yellow and red. Temperatures will range from 20 °C to −3 °C. Later in the season there can sometimes be a severe fall storm called the witch of November. These storms can deepen in pressures over the lakes and cause severe winds, rain, and snow. Lake effect snow starts off in November bringing poor visibility and storm winds from the northwest.

Winter is a popular and beautiful time of year with the ski hills in The Blue Mountains to the southwest being a very popular destination. Lake effect snow is very common and sometimes paralyzing to the town. Winter is a very cloudy and cool wet time of year with frequent wind and frosts. Sometimes winter thaws will occur and the city may go multiple days above the freezing mark melting much of the snow. This will usually happen when a strong storm is approaching from the west.

Government
The current mayor is Brian Saunderson. The federal Member of Parliament is Conservative Terry Dowdall, and the Member of Provincial Parliament is Progressive Conservative Jim Wilson. Collingwood is within the Simcoe—Grey riding for both federal and provincial elections.

Neighbourhoods

Collingwood Heritage Conservation District
The Collingwood Heritage Conservation District was formally recognized in the Canadian Register of Historic Places on 2002-12-02.
Collingwood was the first municipality in Canada to have a Heritage Conservation District added to the register.,

The area, which surrounds the town's downtown core
contains several landmarks, including the Shipyards redevelopment on former site of Collingwood Shipbuilding, Collingwood Terminals grain elevator,
and the town hall.

Creative Simcoe Street
The portion of Simcoe Street that lies within the Collingwood Heritage Conservation District
is informally known as Creative Simcoe Street. The neighbourhood is home to several artist's studios, art galleries and restaurants. It also includes the Collingwood Museum and Collingwood Public Library
as well as the Simcoe Street Theatre, which is managed by the Town of Collingwood Department of Parks, Recreation, and Culture.

The two-block stretch of Simcoe Street intersects the main street, Hurontario Street, to the West, connecting the neighbourhood to the Collingwood downtown. It ends at St. Paul Street to the East, at the Eastern border of the Heritage Conservation District.

The Creative Simcoe Street name is used by local media,
businesses
and tourism groups
however, the neighbourhood is not formally recognized by the Town.

Transportation

Collingwood is served by Highway 26, which runs along the shore of Nottawasaga Bay, and county road 124 (which was part of Highway 24 before the provincial government downgraded that portion of the highway in 1998). The town is also served by a rail trail along the former Barrie Collingwood Railway section of what had been the Ontario, Simcoe and Huron Union Railway, connecting Collingwood to the towns of Owen Sound and Barrie, with a spur heading north through the town's central business district, to the large grain elevators at the downtown wharf, where trains would load and unload onto ships.

Colltrans is the Town of Collingwood's local public transit system. Simcoe County LINX, the region's intercommunity transit service, serves stops at downtown Collingwood, the Collingwood Hospital, and Collingwood Collegiate Institute, connecting the town to cities like Barrie, where it is possible to connect to inter-regional services such as GO Transit and Ontario Northland.

In addition to Collingwood's position as a lake port, it is also served by Collingwood Airport (CNY3), a medium-sized airport about 4 miles (7.4 km) south of the town.

Notable people

Athletes

NHL
 Claire Alexander, defenceman
 Bernie Brophy, forward
 Roy Burmister, forward
 Eddie Bush, defenceman and coach
 Kevin Colley, forward
 Jimmy Herbert, player
 Ed Kea, player
 Lindsay Middlebrook, goaltender
 Reg Noble, forward
 Randy Osburn, forward
 Jack Portland, defenceman
 Paul Shakes, defenceman
 Darryl Sly, defenceman

Olympians
 Megan Lane, equestrian
 Herbert McDonald, cyclist
 Sue Palmer-Komar, cyclist
 Robert H. Storey, bobsleigh
 Brian Saunderson, rower and Collingwood mayor

Other
 Amanda Sin, Pan Am Games bronze medallist in mountain biking
 Zach Stone, snowboarder
 Burke Dales, CFL punter
 Stacey Dales, WNBA player and NFL Network reporter
 Morey Doner, soccer player

Miscellaneous
 Andrea Canning, Dateline NBC host
 Michael Wayne McGray, serial killer

Demographics
At the 2011 census, Collingwood was the fastest growing census agglomeration in Canada east of Manitoba.

Recreation
Collingwood is a destination for winter and summer recreational activities such as swimming, hiking, biking, snowshoeing, cross-country skiing, snowboarding, and downhill skiing. Both private and public organizations are available to the public. There is a network of trails that allow this, including the Georgian Trail which connects to the Bruce Trail.

The first hockey rink in Collingwood was located on the west side of Pine Street in 1883, with public skates every Tuesday night. Interest in hockey peaked in the 1890s with the first recognized hockey game played in 1894 against a team from Barrie. Collingwood joined Barrie and Bradford in a Simcoe County league in 1894 and was granted a team in the newly formed Ontario Hockey Association in 1895.

The Park Street Arena, now known as the Collingwood Curling Club, was built in 1909. The arena now known as Eddie Bush Memorial was built in 1948. Collingwood has hosted training sessions with Team Canada, the Toronto Maple Leafs and Montreal Canadiens.

Sister cities
Source:
 Boone, North Carolina, United States
 Zihuatanejo, Mexico
 Katano, Japan


Pseudascalenia abbasella

Pseudascalenia abbasella is a moth in the family Cosmopterigidae. It is found in Iran.


Marakwet District

Marakwet District is a defunct administrative district in the former Rift Valley Province of Kenya. Its capital town was Kapsowar. The district had a population of 140.629. Local people are predominantly of the Marakwet tribe.

The district was created in 1927 as Elgeyo/Marakwet District. It was split into Marakwet and Keiyo Districts in 1994. In 2010, the two districts were joined again to form Elgeyo-Marakwet County.

Many famous Kenyan runners come from Marakwet, most notably Moses Kiptanui, Evans Rutto, Reuben Kosgei, Ezekiel Kemboi and Richard Chelimo.

The district has only one local authority, Marakwet county council. Its population is thus same as the district (140,629). The council and district has no population classified as urban (1999 census ).

The Marakwet district headquarters was located at the hilly town of Kapsowar. Other rural centres/towns are Chebiemit, Kapcherop, Cheptongei, Arroor, Chesongoch, Chesoi, Kipsaiya, Sisiya, Kapyego, Tot, Sangach, Kapchebau, Kakimiti, Meuno, Kamogo, Tirap, and Embobut Mosop.

Administrative divisions

Constituencies
The district had two constituencies:
Marakwet East Constituency
Marakwet West Constituency


Passchendaele (film)

Passchendaele is a 2008 Canadian war film, written, co-produced, directed by, and starring Paul Gross. The film, which was shot in Calgary, Alberta, Fort Macleod, Alberta, and in Belgium, focuses on the experiences of a Canadian soldier, Michael Dunne, at the Battle of Passchendaele, also known as the Third Battle of Ypres. The film had its premiere at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival on September 4, 2008, when it also had the honour of opening the festival, and it was released widely in Canada on October 17, 2008.

Plot
In the spring of 1917 after Vimy Ridge, Sergeant Michael Dunne of the 10th Battalion, CEF survives heavy combat but suffers from neurasthenia. He is sent home for recovery as a war hero for taking out a German machine gun position. While in hospital in Calgary, Alberta, he meets nurse Sarah Mann (Caroline Dhavernas), where he had originally enlisted.

David Mann (Joe Dinicol) is Sarah's younger brother, ineligible for military service due to asthma but determined to enlist. The Mann's are ostracized when it becomes known their father died at Vimy Ridge when with the Imperial German Army.

The father of David's girlfriend pulls strings to allow him to enlist. Dunne feels responsible for David's wellbeing and reenlists as a private under his mother's maiden name McCrae.

David and Michael end up in the battlefields of Belgium fighting for their lives. Sarah also enlists and follows the 10th as a nurse in triage at an Advanced Dressing Station near the front. The three arrive in Flanders in time for the Battle of Passchendaele. Dunne and Sarah soon meet up again when Dunne brings a wounded man to the aid station. Dunne's cover as McCrae is soon blown, he manages to escape punishment and is promoted to platoon leader by Lieutenant Colonel Ormond, who knew him from earlier combat, when his past actions "should have got a V.C." and because of the need for experienced soldiers as high casualties were expected.

When the Canadians launch their attack, the 8th Battalion (Winnipeg Rifles), known as the Little Black Devils, faces a German counterattack and become pinned down. Dunne's company is sent to support them. After the support company arrives, the 8th Battalion retreats from the battlefield, wrongly believing that they are finally relieved, leaving the job of holding the ground to Dunne's small force. As the reality of the war begins to set in, David Mann begins to realize the war was not what he believed it would be. Dunne's forces spend the night in their trenches, and as a result of the shelling, David begins to have an asthmatic/panic attack and Dunne calms him down, relieving the problem.

The next morning the Germans counter-attack, and make it as far as the line, and both forces attack each other in close quarters combat. As the Germans retreat, David breaks down and chases them back to surrender. He jumps into their trenches and is met by a gun to the face where he begs in German. He is about to be shot when an artillery shell lands and the explosion throws him onto what is effectively a cross, created by walkway timbers from the trench. He is visually crucified by the explosion. This relates to Dunne's earlier story of the legendary report of the crucified soldier. When Dunne sees this he takes his helmet off, throws his gun down and runs to David, in a reckless attempt to keep his promise to keep him alive, getting shot in the process. He crawls to the cross on his knees, looking up at it. The Germans stop firing and allow him to retrieve David, whom he carries back to his own lines. The fighting swiftly resumes with a shell landing. David lives, but Dunne is carried to the hospital where he dies after his last words with Sarah. This happens just as the news comes in that the Canadians have captured Passchendaele Ridge.

The ending scene shows David Mann, who now has only one leg and uses a wheelchair; Sarah Mann; David's girlfriend Cassie; Highway and Dunne's best friend Royster (Gil Bellows) paying tribute at Dunne's grave on his home farm. The marker has been altered to remove the "5" of 1915 and changed to 1917. The camera then pans out and the background alters to a field of hundreds of Canadian war graves with a riderless horse on the horizon.

Cast

 Paul Gross as Michael Dunne
 Caroline Dhavernas as Sarah Mann
 Joe Dinicol as David Mann
 Meredith Bailey as Cassie Walker
 Jim Mezon as Dobson-Hughes
 Michael Greyeyes as Highway
 Adam Harrington as Colonel Ormond
 Gil Bellows as Royster
 David Ley as Doctor Walker
 Joe Desmond as Lt. Hanson
 Brian Jensen as Major Bingham
 James Kot as Skinner
 Jesse Frechette as Peters
 Hugh Probyn as Carmichael
 Brian Dooley as McKinnon

Production
Production on the film reportedly began on August 20, 2007, with principal photography in Calgary, Alberta. The film was shot over a period of forty-five days and involved over 200 actors, some of them Canadian Forces soldiers with combat experience in Afghanistan. Battle scenes were filmed on the Tsuu T'ina Indian reserve just outside Calgary, and principal photography finished in October 2007. The film was edited by David Wharnsby, and its score composed by Jan A.P. Kaczmarek.

Inspiration
This film was inspired by Gross's relationship with his maternal grandfather, Michael Joseph Dunne, who served in the 56th, 5th, 14th and 23rd Reserve Battalions, CEF, in the First World War. Like many veterans, he was reticent about sharing his experiences with his family. In a rare conversation on a fishing trip, Dunne told the story of bayonetting a young German soldier, who had eyes like water, through the head and killing him during a battle. A long time later, as Dunne lay in a hospital bed in the last days of his life, his family was mystified by Dunne's behaviour of asking for forgiveness, over and over. Only Gross knew that he was speaking to the young German he had killed.
"He went completely out of his mind at the end. He started telling me about a hideous event that happened during a skirmish in a little ruined town in World War I. He'd killed someone in a miserable, horrible way and that had obviously haunted him throughout the rest of his life. As my grandfather died, in his mind he was back in that town, trying to find a German boy whom he'd bayonetted in the forehead. He'd lived with that memory all his life – and he was of a time when people kept things to themselves. When he finally told the story, it really affected me and I've not been able to get it out of my head."

During the early portion of the film, the scene is recreated in a broken church, when Sergeant Michael Dunne bayonets a young German soldier through the forehead.

Funding
In November 2005, the Government of Alberta announced a $5.5-million grant to Gross and the film project as part of Alberta's centennial; the overall budget has been announced at between $16 million and $20 million, making it the highest-budgeted Canadian-produced film ever. The film was publicly announced at a news conference at the Museum of the Regiments on November 13, 2005.

"The province's centennial is a time to recognize our past and tell our stories, including those about Alberta's military heritage. We must work to keep our veterans' sacrifices in the forefront of our minds. The story of Passchendaele pays tribute to a key event in our country's history, and will educate Albertans and all Canadians for years to come." – Premier Ralph Klein

Historical background
 The 10th Battalion was originally formed from Albertans, Saskatchewanians and Manitobans, though as the war progressed it became identified solely as an Alberta battalion. The "Fighting Tenth" served with the 1st Canadian Division and participated in all major Canadian battles of the war, and set the record for highest number of individual bravery awards for a single battle. At Hill 70, sixty men were awarded the Military Medal for the fighting there, in addition to a Victoria Cross, three Distinguished Service Orders, seven Military Crosses, and nine Distinguished Conduct Medals.

"Named for a village located on a low rise in the Ypres Salient, the very word Passchendaele has become synonymous with suffering and waste. Strong German defences in this area, developed over the course of more than two years, gave the British extremely hard going.

"The Tenth Battalion were called out of reserve to assist an attack on Hill 52, part of the same low rise Passchendaele itself was situated on. The Battalion was not scheduled to attack, but the CO wisely prepared his soldiers as if they would be making the main assault – a decision that paid dividends when the unit was called out of reserve. On 10 November 1917, the Tenth Battalion took the feature with light casualties."

Accuracy
The battle scene at the end of the movie depicts a relief of the 8th Battalion, CEF (known by their nickname "The Little Black Devils") by the 10th Battalion, an action that actually happened, as described by the history of the 10th Battalion:

Lieutenant Colonel Ormond, the Commanding Officer of the 10th (also a character in the film) gave a handwritten account of the relief in which he said:

Reception
Passchendaele received poor-to-mixed reviews from critics. As of November 15, 2009, the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 36% of critics gave the film a positive review, with an average score of 5 out of 10, based on 14 reviews. The film was received better amongst audiences, with IMDb reporting an audience rating of 6.5/10, based on 7,603 reviews.

Box office
The film was a commercial failure as it went on to gross only $4,452,423, well under its $20 million budget.

Awards
On March 2, 2009, Paul Gross was honoured for his film Passchendaele, winning that year's National Arts Centre Award for achievement over the past performance year.

At the 29th Genie Awards, the film won the Achievement in Art Direction/Production Design, Achievement in Costume Design, Achievement in Overall Sound, Achievement in Sound Editing, and Best Picture.  It also received the Golden Reel Award for Canada's top-grossing film of 2008.


Xining railway station

Xining railway station () is the main railway station serving the city of Xining in Qinghai, China. It is the first station on the Qinghai–Tibet Railway which connects the city with Lhasa in Tibet.

History
The station opened in 1959.
It underwent a major expansion in time for the opening of the Lanzhou–Xinjiang High-Speed Railway in December 2014.

Gallery


John Babbacombe Lee

John "Babbacombe" Lee (c. 1864 – 19 March 1945) was an Englishman famous for surviving three attempts to hang him for murder. Born in Abbotskerswell, Devon, Lee served in the Royal Navy, and was a known thief.

In 1885, he was convicted of the murder of his employer, Emma Keyse, at her home at Babbacombe Bay near Torquay on 15 November 1884 with a knife. The evidence was weak and circumstantial, amounting to little more than Lee having been the only male in the house at the time of the murder, his previous criminal record, and being found with an unexplained cut on his arm. Despite this and his claim of innocence, he was sentenced to hang. At times, he was thought to be "the man you shouldn't hang" due to suspected divine intervention.

Attempted execution and aftermath
On 23 February 1885, three attempts were made to carry out Lee's execution at Exeter Prison. All ended in failure, as the trapdoor of the scaffold failed to open despite being carefully tested by the executioner, James Berry, beforehand. The medical officer refused to take any further part in the proceedings, and they were stopped.

Berry provides a detailed account of the failed execution in his memoirs, My Experiences as an Executioner, noting that the trapdoor was adjusted with a saw and axe between the attempted executions, although in Berry's memoirs and letter to the Under-Sheriff he only mentions two attempted executions.

As a result, home secretary Sir William Harcourt commuted the sentence to life imprisonment. The Home Office ordered an investigation into the failure of the apparatus, and it was discovered that when the gallows was moved from the old infirmary into the coach house, the draw bar was slightly misaligned. As a result the hinges of the trapdoor bound and did not drop cleanly through. Lee continued to petition successive Home Secretaries and was finally released in 1907.

The only other man in history known to have survived three hanging attempts was Joseph Samuel, in September 1803.

An alternative theory, raised by Ernest Bowen-Rowlands in his book In the Light of the Law, suggests that the trap was blocked by a wooden wedge that was inserted by a prisoner working on the scaffold, and removed when the apparatus was tested. Note that Bowen-Rowlands only cites an anonymous "well-known person", citing an equally anonymous prisoner confession, and this would contrast with Berry's reputation (noted by prison governors and surgeons) as a meticulous professional.

Later years and identifications
After his release, Lee seems to have exploited his notoriety, supporting himself through lecturing on his life, even becoming the subject of a silent film. Accounts of his whereabouts after 1916 are somewhat confused, and one researcher even speculated that in later years, there was more than one man claiming to be Lee. It was suspected that he died in the Tavistock workhouse sometime during the Second World War.

However, more recent research concludes that he died in the United States under the name of "James Lee" in 1945. According to the book The Man They Could Not Hang, Lee's gravestone was located at Forest Home Cemetery, Milwaukee in 2009.

Popular culture
 The Life Story of John Lee, or The Man They Could Not Hang, a 1912 film
 "Babbacombe" Lee, a 1971 album by Fairport Convention


Göktepe

Göktepe (former Fariske) is a belde (town) in Karaman Province, Turkey.

Geography

Göktepe is a belde (town) in Sarıveliler district which is a part of Karaman Province. At  it is a mountain town in the Toros Mountains with an altitude of . Göktepe is quite detached from the main highways. The distance to Karaman is . The population was 2071 as of 2009.

History
There are ruins, caves, and tombs which show that the vicinity of the town was inhabited during the time of the Roman Empire. During the Ottoman Empire, the town was mentioned in the 17th century Seyahatname (travel book) of Evliya Çelebi. In 1956, Göktepe was declared a township.

Economy
Göktepe is a typical agricultural town. Main crops are apples, grapes, cherries and walnuts.

Future

According to Sustainable development report prepared by the Ministry of Environment and Forestry (Turkey) the projected population of Göktepe in 2025 is 10000. The present master plan  of the town is found to be insufficient for the future expansion. A new plan is proposed for the future.


Mark Field

Mark Christopher Field (born 6 October 1964) is a British politician who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Cities of London and Westminster from 2001 to 2019. A member of the Conservative Party, he served as a Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office from 2017 until 2019. A prominent supporter of the United Kingdom remaining in the European Union during the 2016 referendum and of Jeremy Hunt's leadership bid in the 2019 contest, he left office when Boris Johnson's premiership began.

Early life and education
Field was born on 6 October 1964 at the British Military Hospital in Hanover, Germany. His father (Peter, died 1991) was a major in the British Army and his mother (Ulrike, née Peipe, died 2010) was of German origin. Field was educated at the state-funded grammar school, Reading School and St Edmund Hall, Oxford, where he graduated with a B.A. degree in Jurisprudence in 1987. He was secretary and national political officer of the Oxford University Conservative Association from 1985 to 1986, JCR president of St Edmund Hall in 1986, and he was also news editor of student newspaper Cherwell while it was under the editorships of Christina Lamb and Anne McElvoy. During his student days, Field set up a publishing firm after spotting a gap in the market for careers handbooks in the legal profession. He completed his education at The College of Law at Chester, qualifying as a solicitor in 1990.

Private career
Whilst an undergraduate at Oxford University Field became a personal assistant to the Conservative MP for Oxford West and Abingdon, John (now Lord) Patten, before training as a solicitor and practising as a corporate lawyer with Freshfields between 1990 and 1992. He then became a director of his own lawyer employment agency, Kellyfield Consulting from 1994 until 2001; the company employed a dozen staff and turned over almost £2 million pa. After being elected to Parliament he sold his share of that business to a consortium headed by his ex-business partner.

Field served as vice-chairman of the Islington North Conservative Association between 1989 and 1991 and unsuccessfully stood as one of the Conservative Party candidates in the Quadrant ward in the Islington Council election in 1990. He was elected as a Conservative councillor for Abingdon ward on Kensington and Chelsea London Borough Council in 1994, standing down in 2002 after entering the House of Commons.

He unsuccessfully contested the Conservative held seat of Enfield North at the 1997 general election following the retirement of the sitting MP Tim Eggar. 1997 was the year of Labour's parliamentary landslide and he was defeated at that election by Labour's Joan Ryan by 6,822 votes.

Parliamentary career
In December 1999 Field was selected to contest the safe Conservative seat of the Cities of London and Westminster following the retirement of former Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Brooke at the 2001 general election. Field won the seat with a majority of 4,499 and has been returned to Parliament with an increased majority three times since (2005 – 8,095; 2010 – 11,076; 2015 – 9,671). He was re-elected with a reduced majority at the 2017 general election. Field made his maiden speech in the House of Commons on 27 June 2001, when he declared his great political hero to be former Prime Minister Bonar Law.

He was described by The Guardian as one of the most "hardline right wingers" up for election in 2001 after comments he made in 1991 about charities fighting the AIDS epidemic were reported. Field criticised AIDS campaigns as a waste of taxpayers' money and wanted mandatory tests for AIDS: "Many charitable trusts set up to help counter Aids in the mid-1980s became little more than a gay rights front", he wrote in Crossbow in 1991.

As a parliamentarian Field, however, proved a strong supporter of equal rights. Within months of his election, in October 2001, he was one of four Tory MPs supporting a 10-minute rule bill on civil partnerships, a course he continued to support until it was on the statue books. He was also one of the minority of Conservative MPs to vote in favour of gay marriage when this became law in May 2013. He was appointed an Opposition Whip by Iain Duncan Smith in 2003, becoming the Shadow Minister for London later that year. Between May and December 2005, he was Shadow Financial Secretary to HM Treasury. For 11 months, from late 2005 to late 2006, he was the Conservative Party's spokesman on Culture, Media and Sport under the new leadership of David Cameron in 2005. During his tenure he guided Opposition policy on the National Lottery Act 2006 and promoted policy safeguarding lottery funds for its four original causes of the Arts, heritage, charities and sport. He also led opposition to Britain's public library service.

In September 2010, Field was appointed by the Prime Minister to the Intelligence and Security Committee, chaired by former Foreign Secretary, Sir Malcolm Rifkind. He became the youngest MP on this committee, which reports directly to 10 Downing Street and oversees the UK's intelligence and security services.

He takes a special interest in economic affairs, financial services, foreign trade and international development and is chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Venture Capital & Private Equity as well as vice-chairman of the Groups on Football and Bangladesh. He previously served as chairman of the APPGs for Azerbaijan and Business Services. He has served on the Standing Committees of several pieces of legislation, including the Business Rates Supplements Act and the Finance Acts in 2008 and 2009.

As a backbencher, Field introduced several high-profile debates on issues of local and national importance such as homelessness, Northern Ireland, Government debt, Heathrow airport, policing in London, social housing, home education and population estimates. He has run local campaigns on business rates, St Bartholomew's Hospital, assisting the creative industries, the control of rickshaws in the West End, social housing rent rises, the independence of the City of London Police (including its fraud detection expertise) and, in July 2011, successfully argued in Parliament for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport's continuing control of the Royal Parks.

Field expressed criticism of the previous system governing MPs' second home allowances: The Daily Telegraphs investigation of MPs' expenses found Field to be among the lower-end claimants.

He has been a supporter of looser rules on MPs' outside earnings and was quoted in 2001 as saying: "If you're earning several hundred thousand a year in the City, are you going to give it up for £47,000 a year in the Commons?" In 2012, it was reported that the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa) had plans to reform MPs' pay, which could lead to them facing salary cuts for taking on second jobs. Field, who had earned £90,000 in the previous year through advisory work, called the proposals "totally unacceptable", especially for MPs with London costs.

In October 2011, Field voiced opposition to Occupy London protestors camped in his constituency. He expressed concern that their "tent city" was turning into a "semi-permanent encampment" which was disrupting St Paul's, a "key iconic tourist site" and place of worship. He suggested that police should clear the camp at night and later said: "While no one expects anti-capitalism to be a 24-hour activity, I would have hoped the protesters would show a little more respect for the sanctity of St Paul's." On 28 February 2012, after 137 days of occupation, Field's initial recommendation became reality following a Court order when the site was cleared by the City of London Police in just 137 minutes.

In March 2014, he launched Conservatives for Managed Migration in order to spark a "calm and rational debate about migration both within and beyond the Conservative Party" before the 2015 General Election. Field asserted that the Coalition Government's pledge to get "annual net migration down to the tens of thousands" was undeliverable, risked potential harm to the economy and could ultimately be electorally damaging to the Conservative Party.

In July 2015, Field was appointed vice chairman (International) of the Conservative Party under the leadership of David Cameron and was reappointed to the role by Theresa May. The role involves chairing the Party's International and Outreach Office which builds relationships with international sister parties on the centre-right, works with the Westminster Foundation for Democracy to enhance democratic institutions and political party structures in the developing world, acts as a link between the Party and its MEP group through work with the Alliance of Conservatives and Reformists in Europe (ACRE), and engages in political outreach work with diaspora communities in the UK.

In 2016, he met Halbe Zijlstra, Leader of the Dutch People's Party for Freedom and Democracy in the House of Representatives, who had made a series of controversial comments about immigrants and political correctness. It was argued that Field's role as vice chairman of the Conservative Party also includes liaising with sister centre-right parties in Europe.

On 13 June 2017, he was appointed a Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. At the FCO his formal responsibilities included: Asia, Australasia/Pacific, Communications (public diplomacy and scholarship), British Council, Economic Diplomacy (including international energy strategy; climate change; OECD relationship; fintech/cyber and the illegal wildlife trade), FCO Services Overseas and the Prosperity Fund (as FCO representative on the Ministerial board). His work on climate change has included representing the UK government at December 2018's COP24 UN Climate Change Conference in Katowice, Poland as well as the San Francisco Climate Summit and PIF in Nauru earlier that year. He promoted UK expertise across Asia in green finance, renewables, carbon capture utilisation and storage, and electric vehicle technology.

On 20 June 2019, Greenpeace accused Field of assault, after a female activist who interrupted Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond's Mansion House Speech was pushed out of the event. Field said he reacted "instinctively" and referred himself to the Cabinet Office for an investigation. He apologised to the Greenpeace activist for "grabbing her" and said he was worried she might have been armed. As a result of the incident, he was suspended as a minister on 21 June, while investigations took place. The City of London Police reviewed the events and declared that it would be taking no further action. When Boris Johnson became prime minister in July 2019, Field was dropped from his ministerial role at the Foreign Office as part of a cabinet reshuffle. The Whitehall investigation was closed, as he felt that it was a "matter for the previous PM concerning his conduct during his time as a minister under her appointment". In October, Field announced that he would stand down from Parliament at the next general election. A Cabinet Office investigation into the matter, published in December, concluded that he had breached the ministerial code but that he would not receive any sanction as Field was no longer in Parliament.

Distinctions
In March 2015, Field was sworn of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom, thereafter being accorded the honorific prefix of "The Right Honourable". He serves as Patron of the Bishopsgate Institute and of the St Andrew's Club in London; he has also been admitted as a Freeman of the City of London and a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Merchant Taylors.

Writer and commentator
Field has been a regular panellist on BBC Radio 4's Westminster Hour and has appeared on various other BBC television programmes, including Daily Politics, Sunday Politics and Newsnight, ITV's Late Debate (a panellist from 2009) and Sky News as a newspaper reviewer. He has made contributions to the political blog, ConservativeHome, particularly on economic matters. He has written for The Daily Telegraph and City AM, and wrote an article for The Independent about the Christian minority in Syria.

His first book, Between the Crashes, brings together his articles on UK politics and global economics following the aftermath of the financial crisis and was released by Biteback Publishing in April 2013. His second book, The Best of Times looks at the challenges and triumphs in British politics, economics and foreign affairs in the period 2013 to 2015 and was released by Biteback Publishing in May 2016.

Personal life
Field is married to Victoria (Vicki) Field. They live in Westminster and Mallorca with their son, Frederick, and their daughter, Arabella.


St. Dunstan's College (South Africa)

St. Dunstan's College is an Anglican private school in the Diocese of the Highveld in Benoni, Gauteng.


El Príncipe (TV series)

El Príncipe is a Spanish television series of drama and suspense created by Aitor Gabilondo and César Benítez for Telecinco. The series, produced by Mediaset Spain in collaboration with Plano a Plano, is aimed at a young audience. Its plot is centered on the love between a Christian policeman from the Spanish mainland and the young Muslim sister of a drug trafficker. Most of the stories are set in the troubled El Príncipe Alfonso neighbourhood of Ceuta, near the border with Morocco.

The series debuted on February 4, 2014 in Spain with a multichannel broadcast that gave high viewing rates. On its launch it obtained 21.9% viewing rate (27.7% in multichannel) and was leader in all its broadcasts during the first season.

History
The project's history goes back to October 27, 2011, when the company Mediaset Spain Communication announced they had in mind a new project based on the detective genre. The statement further explained that the setting would be the fight against drug trafficking; its plot revolves around the presence of a policeman stationed in Ceuta who tries to fight drug trafficking between Spain and Africa, and who is pursuing a Moroccan leader whose younger sister falls in love with him. It was also reported that the main character of the series would be the actor José Coronado, who had starred in the film No Rest for the Wicked in the role of Santos Trinidad as a police inspector - this film was produced by the same company and was a big success at the box office.

Plot

In the troubled neighborhood of El Príncipe, Fran, a veteran police officer, has no doubts about using unorthodox methods to enforce order. This seems to be in danger with the arrival of Morey, a CNI agent, who uses the police station as cover to investigate a suspected police collaboration with a jihadist network. Morey's situation is complicated with the arrival of Fátima, an idealistic Muslim teacher who is looking for her vanished teenage brother, Abdu, while opposing the criminal activities of her other brother, Faruq, one of the biggest drug dealers in the neighborhood. However, Faruq is not the villain of the story. Then everything gets complicated when they become aware of a terrorist gang called Akrab, which blows up young people to terrorize the city. Meanwhile, Morey offers Fátima a chance to go to the peninsula with him, but, as they are about to depart, her brother Abdu returns to Ceuta on a tour bus with a bomb on board. When the police get to know this, they try to talk to him. The bomb does not go off, but Abdu is shot in the head by Morey. This leads into a second season with an impossible love affair between Morey and Fátima.

Cast and characters
José Coronado as Francisco "Fran" Peyón: a decisive man, with leadership and people skills, a police officer who has been in post in Ceuta for twelve years and is in charge of the police station in el Principe. When chief inspector Morey arrives as his superior officer, the veteran cop hinders the younger man's plans and covers up what has been going on in the neighborhood in all that time.
Álex González as Javier Morey: discreet, serious and with guts, a young chief inspector working under a fake identity, sent by the CNI to el Principe to investigate the recruitment techniques and sources of funding for Islamic radical groups that capture teenagers in Ceuta. Meeting Fatima makes him rethink his priorities.
Hiba Abouk as Fátima Ben Barek: entangled in the doings of her relatives, a young Spanish woman with a Muslim background who works as a teacher in the local civic center. She is obsessed with finding Abdu, her younger brother, who disappeared months ago. However, with the arrival of Morey, she finds the support she needed. Her objective is to stop the conflicts in the peninsula and fight to put local people on the right track, but this causes numerous confrontations with her brother Faruq.
Rubén Cortada as Faruq Ben Barek: the older brother of Fátima, a troubled man who seeks danger. He is considered to be one of the biggest drug dealers in El Príncipe and causes serious clashes with Fran due to a conflict of interest that will finally unite them. Faruq is foremost a family man who values tradition and everything he does is for them. When agent Morey arrives in the neighborhood and Faruq sees the developing relationship between Morey and his sister Fátima, the young man becomes angry because Fátima is about to marry Khaled and his family would never accept it if the marriage did not go ahead.
Stany Coppet as Khaled Ashour: a Moroccan businessman in the construction trade, engaged to his cousin Fátima. His brother-in-law Faruq is convinced that Khaled's companies might be useful to hide his illicit dealings. But with the arrival of inspector Morey, he will be forced to confront many difficulties.
Elia Galera as Raquel: Fran's wife and the mother of two children. A stylish and cultivated woman, who at times gets into difficulties that her husband has to get her out of, because she has still not got over the murder years ago of her son Alberto. She has become weak and has gradually become distanced from her family.
Samy Khalil as Abdessalam "Abdu" Ben Barek: he is the third child of the Ben Barek family, and the absent protagonist of the first season, when his family is trying to get him back from the jihadists. He appears in the final episode of the first season on a coach arriving in Ceuta, intending to blow up the coach and himself. A moment before he sets off the bomb, Morey shoots him fatally.

Sources:

Production
The series is produced by Plano a Plano, under the direction of Aitor Gabilondo and Cesar Benitez as creators, executive producers and writers, who had worked for the channel previously on series including Periodistas and El comisario.

At first there was no fixed end point, but in June 2014 the company and producers agreed that the second season would consist of 16 episodes each divided into eight sections. It is notable that the episodes were shot entirely on location in Ceuta, Granada, Madrid and Malta and later edited. As for the system of writing, the team first thought of the ending for each episode and then worked towards the beginning. For the process of post-production,  Stargate Studios Malta was responsible for the visual effects of the series, which meant that through the clever use of vfx techniques a story set in Ceuta could be filmed many miles away in Madrid. The involvement of Stargate Studios Malta was announced by Aitor Gabilondo, executive producer of the series, at a press presentation in May 2013, explaining that Telecinco's new venture in 2014 would mostly be shot in Madrid, and that the Ceuta barrio of El Príncipe Alfonso would be recreated using visual effects.

Filming began in Ceuta on 13 May 2013. Most scenes were not shot in El Principe but in other neighborhoods of the city or in Madrid. The second and final season also made use of digital technology; in addition, some location filming for this stage took place in the cities of Valletta and Granada. Filming for this second season began on 9 June 2014.

Controversy
Several voices denounced the distortion of the image of Ceuta and the stigmatization of the city that it is thought the series would entail, specifically to the neighborhood of El Príncipe, by what they saw as distorted images of the city's reality.  The president of the neighborhood denied that the police would turn a blind eye as depicted in the series. It is also disputed that El Príncipe is the most dangerous neighborhood in Spain as indicated in the series, relative to other districts such as  in Seville.

Yasmina Aidi, a PhD candidate at Princeton University's Department of Spanish and Portuguese Languages, argued that the series could distort perceptions of Muslims within the Spanish public.

Episodes and audience figures
The first episode was seen by over 4.4 million viewers and gained a 21.9% audience share, making it the most-watched premiere of any Telecinco television series since the start of Aida in January 2005. Its broadcast every Tuesday night established the series as the most viewed show in prime time and it was named as the program with the largest audience on that day. During the screening of the first episode the audience for that day reached a maximum, with 4,671,000 viewers and a 22.2% share. Moreover, it is noteworthy that the first episode of fiction was aired on a simulcast on six of the channels (Telecinco, Factoría de Ficción, Divinity, Energy, LaSiete and Nueve) operated by Mediaset España, which raised the overall average to 27.7% share and to 5.6 million viewers,  while the "golden minute" attracted around 6.1 million viewers. The first airing of the series generated 76,402 mentions on social media by 51,158 users, and it became the leader in social-media impact with several hashtags. The first season ranked as the most watched series of the last two years and the largest audience on Telecinco since 2007-08, as well as achieving the largest impact of 2014 with over 800,000 comments on social networks.

Season 1 (2014)

Season 2 (2015)


Beraba erosa

Beraba erosa is a species of beetle in the family Cerambycidae. It was described by Martins in 1981.


Harry Swift

Henry "Harry" Swift was an English professional association footballer who played as a centre half.


Celebrating the Arts

Celebrating the Arts is a public artwork by Indian artist Narendra M. Patel located at the Roosevelt Creative Arts Middle School, which is in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States. The sculpture is an abstract form created from over two tons of steel sheets welded together. It is 20' high x 14' wide x 6' deep and was constructed in 1989.

Description
The unsigned abstract sculpture consists of steel triangular forms welded together and rising from three different points. The piece is bolted to three concrete bases and painted red and black. The form is large enough for children to move around it and through it. There is a plaque nearby that reads: Celebrating the Arts/ Created by Narendra Patel/ as a tribute to/ Linda Nice/ Beloved Music teacher/ Roosevelt Middle School of the Arts/ Dedicated on October 12, 1989. Celebrating the Arts was originally lit at night, but the fixtures were unfortunately vandalized and had to be removed.

Information
Celebrating the Arts is a site-specific work prompted by a teacher at what was then known as the Roosevelt Middle School of the Arts. "When Linda Nice, one of the Roosevelt School of the Arts' original and most popular music teachers, died in October 1988, she left a small sum of money ($5000) to commission a sculpture for the school. The bequest sparked the Milwaukee public schools to make a commitment to the concept of sculpture as part of a school environment." The Milwaukee Public Schools proceeded to add the funds needed for the foundation, the lighting and the landscaping. Narendra M. Patel, one of Linda Nice's close friends, was commissioned to create the sculpture. Professor Patel worked on the piece at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee's sculpture studio, where he taught. Other departments at the university contributed to the project with engineering advice.

The abstract geometric stabile form was dedicated on October 12, 1989. Many of Linda Nice's former students attended the celebration, which included student dancers performing around the sited sculpture. The sculpture is currently administered by the Milwaukee Public Schools, Facilities and Maintenance Services.

Artist
Narendra M. Patel was born in 1929. He attended the University of Baroda in India, where he received an art degree. In the early 1960s, Patel and his wife moved to Michigan. He received his Master of Arts in sculpture from Wayne State University and a Master of Fine Arts from the Cranbrook Academy of Art in 1967. Patel moved to Milwaukee where he taught, and became professor emeritus, at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. "He is known for his sculpture and the innovative technique of chemically changing colors on metal." He has works around the city including a sculpture on the Milwaukee Riverwalk, a sculpture at the Sixth District police station, and two low-relief bronze plaques at the Milwaukee County War Memorial Center. Professor Patel is also known for landscape paintings on metal, which are collected throughout the United States and India.