English Slave

While Captain John Smith was held as an English slave inside the Ottoman Empire, Queen Elizabeth passed away at Richmond Palace overlooking the Thames. A month later, her sealed, lead coffin was transported from Whitehall Palace via carriage to Westminster Abbey.

Queen Elizabeth of England Funeral Procession held on 28 April 1603.

The chronicler relates:

"Westminster was surcharged with multitudes of all sorts of people in their streets, houses, windows, leads and gutters, that came out to see the obsequy, and when they beheld her statue lying upon the coffin, there was such a general sighing, groaning and weeping as the like hath not been seen or known in the memory of man."

Proclaim LIBERTY throughout all the Land unto all the Inhabitants thereof Lev. XXV X

Aptly called THE LIBERTY BELL, this bell in Philadelphia has a Bible verse from Leviticus 25:10 inscribed about its top:

"Proclaim LIBERTY throughout all the Land unto all the Inhabitants thereof Lev. XXV X"

The Society of Friends (Quakers), seeking the Lord's will, became the first group in Pennsylvania to actively call for the abolition of slavery.

Beginning in the 1830s, abolitionist pamphleteers in New York and Boston began using THE LIBERTY BELL as a symbol of freedom in print, in articles, and in poems.

Seeking adventure abroad, young John Smith travelled to Orleans in France during the mid-to-late 1590s.

Learn more about John's early travels in The English Slave, the first book of the Empires and Kingdoms historical fiction series.

Kingdom of France album from Empires and Kingdoms

King Clovis I, who became a Christian at the urging of his wife Clotilde, united the Franks at the beginning of the sixth century AD.

After the Charlemagne died, the Holy Roman Empire was divided among his sons. Charles the Bald ruled West Francia that eventually became the Kingdom of France.

Before he was assassinated in AD 1610, King Henry IV, also known as Henry le Grand, united France. Empires and Kingdoms addresses the important Siege of Amiens in AD 1597, when Queen Elizabeth aided the French monarch after Amiens, the gateway to Paris, fell by deceit.