The New Murrey and Blue blog

Not long into the final episode of Lucy Worsley’s wonderful series about British History’s Greatest Fibs, the one about India, the British Empire’s Jewel in the Crown, she makes the astonishing statement that Britain’s first arrival in the then Calcutta was not in the Victorian era, but in 1619 by ‘buccaneers’ of the East India Company . Well yes, I hear you say. It’s true, so what’s the point?

The point in this case is that 1619 was declared to be in the reign of Elizabeth I. Really? Well that redoubtable monarch died in 1603.

Come now, Lucy! And you a historian!!!!!