History of the British national debt both government borrowing and the national debt have risen dramatically, reaching around 70% of GDP by the end of 2012. The origins of the British national debt can be found during the reign of William III, who engaged a syndicate of City traders and merchants to offer for sale an issue of government debt. This syndicate soon evolved into the Bank of England, eventually financing the wars of the Duke of Marlborough and later Imperial conquests. The establishment of the bank was devised by Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, in 1694, to the plan which had been proposed by
During the Reign of the Queen of Persia During the Reign of the Queen of Persia During the Reign of the Queen of Persia is the first novel by American author Joan Chase. On its publication in 1983 it won the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award. The story is told from the perspective of the four granddaughters of the "Queen of Persia", an Ohio farmwife, during the 1950s. The narration takes place in the first person plural, an effect that Margaret Atwood believed evoked the collective female unconscious. The plot casts backwards and forwards through time, being divided into three main sections: the first has the narrating sisters in their