Come One, Come All--If Your Name Is Greg.

The fun starts here.  If you're name is Greg.

In 1673 the Society of Gregories--a club made up of men named Gregory--met in St Michael's Church in Cornhill, London for a celebratory meaning.  A sermon was given by one, Francis Gregory.  After listening to this learned discussion on 'the spiritual watch' (in printed form running to twenty seven pages) the club members celebrated the baptism of a baby--baby Gregory.

The Society of Gregories' other activities are obscured by the inattention of history.  The number of Gregs filling St Michaels that day is unknown, and we can only guess why they came together on that day to celebrate the virtues of Gregness.  Yet this gaggle of Gregs was not alone in celebrating gatherings of their namesakes.  There is evidence of other patronymic societies in London in the late 17th Century--one for Adams, another for Lloyds, and one for Smiths.  Yet these societies made on first-name-basis did not last long.  This fad soon lifted, becoming little more than a historian's curiosity.  Perhaps some Gregory online with time on his hands want to resurrect this ancient and once-proud rite?

This information comes from Peter Clark's British Clubs and Societies 1580-1800.

Short Of Giants

In the 17th Century there was a shortage of giants in Europe, and only one man was to blame.  The giant-greedy Fredrick the First of Prussia.

Fredrick was into war.  And he had assembled a regiment of extraordinarily large soldiers called the ‘Grand Grenadiers of Potsdam.”  The king’s agents fanned out across Europe, on the look out for tall men who would be offered huge amounts of money to join the regiment.  If they refused the king’s generosity, they would simply be kidnapped.  Diplomats trying to get on his good side learned to send Freddy larger-than-normal men to add to his regiment.  Every year the Russian Tsar Peter the Great—who stood at six foot seven inches tall himself—would send the Prussians fifty giants.  Once, when Peter took back an especially large specimen and replaced him with a shorter one, Fredrick refused to speak to any Russian diplomat for months.  “The wound,” he explained, “is still too raw.”  Fredrick even tried to ensure a race of giants by forcing all the tall men in Prussia to marry and breed with tall women.  In this way, he collected over 2,400 giants.

A Grand Grenadier in all his mitred glory.

King Fredrick didn’t let his giant army just gather dust in a cupboard.  He trained with the regiment every day, and showed them off to foreign dignitaries.  Whenever he was feeling gloomy, laying in bed ill or morose, he would have the regiment march through his rooms—led by the regiment’s mascot, an actual live bear.  But protective of his huge charges, Fredrick would never let them fight in anything close to a real battle.