Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s The Hunters in the Snow, painted in 1565, has become an iconic picture of freezing winters long ago. The hunters are trudging through thick snow on top of a hill with a pack of their dogs looking down on a valley where people are skating on frozen lakes. The sky is bleak, skeletal trees stand out against the white snow, a mill-wheel is frozen, and the flames on an open fire are blown by the wind.
Bruegel was possibly inspired by the hard winter of 1564-65, “harsh beyond measure”, recorded the Flemish theologian Joannes Molanus. And in London the Thames froze and Elizabeth I ventured out on the ice to admire archery and dancing during a frost fair.
That winter
