Warwick castle was good. They have a full size trebuchet which they keep on a small island and fire twice a day for the tourists. It was impressiveThe stone is released at 150 mph and it has a range of 300 metres. (Odd choice of units, but who cares.)
They gave the cost as well, which seems a bit appropriate when Parliament is going to discuss Trident soon.
- A labourer’s wage was about a penny a day (1d/day = £1-5-0 / year over 300 working days)
- An archer could earn 6d/day = £7-10-0 /year. (And at this point he took time out to explain the archer’s salute myth)
- A knight was worth about £300/year.
- A Lord was worth £2000 to £3000 /year.
- Lastly the King’s income was around £30,000 /year.
And a trebuchet cost £1000 to build. That’s 3% of the King’s expenditure. It’s also slow and expensive to transport and if not protected by a large army is likely to be attacked and/or captured by the enemy.
The other item I found interesting was that the castle was built by the original Warrior Princess, Æðelflæd (Ethelfled) lady of Mercia. She was a daughter of King Alfred and responsible for liberating most of central and northern England from the Danes. She was quite a stroppy lady, apparently she was attacked by a group of Danes on the way to her own wedding. She fought them off, pursued and killed / captured most of them, then got on with the wedding. Xena eat your heart out!
Meanwhile, on lesser matters, tomorrow I get the results of last Monday’s scan. The omens are all good, I’m eating well and there are no strange lumps anywhere, but it’s the scan which really counts.
The appointment is 9:15 am. As soon as I get back home I will post the results.
This morning I was talking to a friend whose wife had surgery 3 years ago. She still has checkups every three months. That must be really hard, but it’s sumat I’ll have to face as well.