Tom Holland

Thank you very much.

and action.

And a classic example of this from British history, the rise of the House of Wessex, the family of Alfred the Great and his heirs, who between them established the United Kingdom of England.

Based on Lloyd's internal customer data from March 2026.

At the first grey of dawn, with a heavy heart, I got into the motor car and drove out to the prison.

I sent in my name to Miss Carvel.

If I remember rightly, the soldier told me she had just been kneeling at her table.

In the cell, a flickering gas flame was burning.

Two large bouquets of visit flowers, which had been standing there for ten weeks, awakened the impression of a vault.

The condemned lady had packed all her little property, his greatest care, in a handbag.

I accompanied her through the long corridors of the great prison.

The Belgian prison officials stood there and greeted her silently with the highest respect.

She returned their greetings silently.

And we boarded the motor car which awaited us in the yard, and I sat beside Edith Carvel in order to accompany her to her own burial.

So that was the German pastor Paul Lasseur, who was chaplain at the great prison of Saint-Gilles in Brussels.

And in that passage, he is recalling the last hours of a British nurse called Edith Carvel.

who was about to be executed by a German firing squad for war treason on the 12th of October, 1915.

And if you're wondering how a British nurse can be executed by the Germans for treason, well, we will be coming to that.

And Dominic, you think that her life and death is one of the most moving stories of the entire First World War.

And you were just saying how you wish that you would have the chance to talk about it with her.