The Seven Champions of Christendom

📖 The Scoop

The seven champions are the Patron Saints of England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, France, Italy and Spain. These rove about Europe and beyond, slaying Enchanters, Dragons, and other nuisances, accompanied by their Squires, who, although they put on weight and become obese, help as best they can, and carry their masters' trophies for them.The Seven Champions of Christendom is a moniker referring to St. George, St. Andrew, St. Patrick, St. Denis, St. James Boanerges, St. Anthony the Lesser, and St. David. They are the patron saints of, respectively, England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Spain, Portugal, and Wales.The champions have been depicted in Christian art and folklore as heroic warriors, most notably in a 1596 book by Richard Johnson titled Famous Historie of the Seaven Champions of Christendom. Richard Johnson was entirely responsible for grouping the seven together, for their moniker, and for most of their adventures in his book.Legend often portrays God sending James to the Battle of Clavijo to fight against the Moors, while George is usually thought of as being a knightly dragon-slayer. The legend of Patrick casting all of the serpents out of Ireland is also quite famous. While the stories of the individual Seven Champions were popular in Europe during the Dark Ages, it was Johnson who was the first to group them together. Four of the Seven Champions-Andrew, George, James, and Denis-died as martyrs. Richard Johnson was the inventor of the ideas that the other three were martyrs, and that any of the Champions besides George and James were knights-errant.William Henry Giles Kingston (28 February 1814 - 5 August 1880), often credited as W. H. G. Kingston, was an English writer of boys' adventure novels.William Henry Giles Kingston was born in Harley Street, London on 28 February 1814. He was the eldest son of Lucy Henry Kingston (d.1852) and his wife Frances Sophia Rooke (b.1789), daughter of Sir Giles Rooke, Judge of the Court of Common Pleas. Kingston's paternal grandfather John Kingston (1736-1820) was a Member of Parliament who staunchly supported the Abolition of the Slave Trade, despite having a plantation in Demerara. His father Lucy entered into the wine business in Oporto, [1] and Kingston lived there for many years, making frequent voyages to England and developing a lifelong affection for the sea.KIngston was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge and afterwards entered his father's wine business, but soon indulged in his natural bent for writing. His newspaper articles on Portugal were translated into Portuguese, and assisted the conclusion of the commercial treaty with Portugal in 1842, when he received from Donna Maria da Gloria an order of Portuguese knighthood and a pension.His first book was The Circassian Chief, a story published in 1844. While still living in Oporto, he wrote The Prime Minister, a historical novel, and Lusitanian Sketches, descriptions of travels in Portugal. Settling in England, he interested himself in the emigration movement, edited The Colonist and The Colonial Magazine and East India Review in 1844, was honorary secretary of a colonisation society, wrote Some Suggestions for a System of General Emigration in 1848, lectured on colonisation in 1849, published a manual for colonists entitled How to Emigrate in 1850, and visited the western highlands on behalf of the emigration commissioners. He was afterwards a zealous volunteer and worked actively for the improvement of the condition of seamen. But from 1850, his chief occupation was writing books for boys, or editing boys' annuals and weekly periodicals. He started the Union Jack, a paper for boys, only a few months before his death. His stories number more than a hundred

Genre: Literary Collections / Ancient & Classical (fancy, right?)