22 June 209 (or 251, or 304)
The precise date is… disputed, let’s say, but it is, without a shadow of a doubt, the 1,815th anniversary of St Alban’s head being forcibly detached from the rest of him, causing his executioner’s eyes to pop out. Unless it’s the 1,773rd anniversary. Or the 1,720th, obviously.
There are many splendid depictions of the moment the sword-wielding Roman (or sword-wielder working for the Romans, who were annoyed at Alban being unwilling to renounce his Christian faith) either drops the sword to catch his eyes, or saves them with his free hand.
…but I particularly like the wild, staring eyes of everyone whose peepers are still in their heads in this one:
We know it definitely happened, because the Venerable Bede says so. Alban was tortured to renounce his god, refused, and was walked to the top of a hill to be done in. Thirsty when he got to the top, he prayed for water, and a spring appeared.
This illustration also shows the first Roman who was supposed to execute Alban also being executed because he refused to do the executing:
The judge who ordered the beheading, incidentally, amazed by all the eye popping, “ordered the persecution to cease immediately”.
22 June 1979
In a slight change of subject, it’s also the 45th anniversary of the acquittal of Jeremy Thorpe on charges of attempting to procure the doing in of “sponger, whiner and parasite” Norman Scott.
Despite his nominal success, it wasn’t great for his career, but it did enhance Peter Cook’s. Five days later, it was the first night of the Secret Policeman’s Ball, which got largely positive reviews, save for one paper raising the question of where the biting satire was.
Stung by this, Peter Cook — the trial understandably fresh in his mind — wrote a new sketch for the show in three hours. (I’ve used a link rather than embedding, because it will only play on YouTube, so you’d have to click through to see it anyway.)
(One of everybody’s favourite lines from it is the description of “Norma St John Scott” as a “player of the pink oboe” — which, as another clip (which also won’t embed here) shows, was a line he threw in at the last minute.)
