Daredevils and Desperadoes

This book, by seemingly esteemedly myth-renderingly prolific children's author Geraldine McCaughrean; is simple enough. If your presumption from the title is that this is but one more expansion from D&D - think again; this is a collection of well-kept buried much-ken but-morely-mistold in recall - twenty tidbits of the true history of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland - though focusing on England, as you would. Spanning a 300 year or so wash of events and change, McCaughrean revels in her ability to dive into the darkest, strangest corners of our own national mythology to bonk or debunk or misun-bodge or something and just tell the story straight in language that wouldn't offend anyone with pleasant sensibilities nor scare the children. Too much.

   I can hardly claim to do justice to the tales regaled here, but I will list them, and in the true saken apprehension likeness of a knight-errant in diligent digitude, will append each story with a Wikipedia link so you can chase down the funny connections yourselves.

1. My running best bet on the Hokey Cokey's Origin as bourgeois burlesque, in 1348.
2. How being a cat-breeder can make you the Mayor of London.
3. The backstory of the first Tyler Durden style Revolt - and how it was quashed.
4. Henry the 5th's morale-boosting all-nighter - which G.R.R. Martin totally ripped off.
5. An inter-village love story involving bells so Niche I can't find a Wikipage for it.
6. Richard the 3rd's child prince prisoners; and/or their disposals.
7. How an anti-English plot to replace the King achieved a new kind of cake.
8. The clan MacLeod Faery Flag, which is probably actually tartan magic.
9. William Tyndale's much-punished quest to translate the Bible into English.
10. Some contextual notes on Anne Boleyn. And her ghost[s].
11. Jack Horner in 1537 saving illuminated monastic deeds and manuscripts from Henry VIII; if it's a true story, some Monastic Scripts were saved but he is remembered only in nursery rhymes. With a pie, for some reason.
12. More sordid context-notes for our best-known least-loved monarch's spouse[s].
13. How it's likely, or at least speculatively possible, that the wife of Elizabeth the 1st's stablesman killed herself for Queen & Country.
14. Using your velvet cloak as a carpet for a Queen when she would otherwise have to tread in mud is a great way of getting off to a Toady Start.
15. El Draco could of course defeat the Spanish Armada - but finished his game of bowls first. Just cos he's the kind of man who would, and purportedly did.
16. A cousin, losing her head to another. Heavy is the crown, indeed.
17. First settlements and whatnot. Raleigh wanted a city, but kept flitting off.
18. Where in 1588 a long-blown-off Spanish vessel was decimated by locals.
19. One of Shakespeare's greatest tricks - the silent business of upping sticks.
20. A bit more contextual insight into the Fall Guy for big Catholic plots - foiled, 1605.

   Anyway, that's it.
   Yes, I already know I live in a crazy country, but I love it here. Each chapter - as well as telling the fuller stories much more satisfyingly than I have here sketch'd, include short afternote detailing exactly how apocryphal most historiographers tend to agree upon.