tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32091700360601441112024-03-12T16:47:52.755-07:00The Scandal of ChristendomA blog dedicated to the human side of history.Jennyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16383823412447138854noreply@blogger.comBlogger44125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3209170036060144111.post-83281017307356075062012-09-02T16:43:00.002-07:002012-09-02T16:48:43.730-07:00Serious Writing and Not So Serious Writing For FunI do a lot of serious writing. I have written nonfiction here: <a href="http://www.thehistoryfiles.com/author/jenny-zeek/">http://www.thehistoryfiles.com/author/jenny-zeek/</a><br />
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and I have been the runner up in a writing contest here: <a href="http://www.theanneboleynfiles.com/events/anne-boleyn-day-competition-2012/its-the-eyes-that-haunt-you-by-jenny-zeek/">http://www.theanneboleynfiles.com/events/anne-boleyn-day-competition-2012/its-the-eyes-that-haunt-you-by-jenny-zeek/</a><br />
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and I even get a little quote in Susan Bordo's "The Creation of Anne Boleyn" not that I really wrote anything, I just answered a question. So that's my more historical sort of serious side. I also write this blog, occasionally, admittedly I don't update nearly as often as I should. What can I say, I'm busy being a mom and a teacher and a wife and a million other things. Then there is the dorky side of me. Besides Anne Boleyn and historical fiction novels I have a small obsession with The Hunger Games. I love all three books in the trilogy. Katniss and Anne Boleyn are my heroes. I like shooting a bow and arrow. I think learning how to throw knives well would be really awesome. I own throwing knives and throw them at the fence in my backyard. I get regular updates from fan sites on my facebook page. I have the same sort of obsession with Lord of the Rings, hey, I like well written original stories with characters that are well rounded and realistic in that they think and react like real people to stressful situations. Lately I have been doing some not so serious writing. It's kind of pointless, but it's an amazing way to write background stories for characters that I love but did not create. It's a way to create new characters and put them in a world that I find totally interesting but did not make up. I have been writing (gasp and cringe) fan fiction. It's really fun. Normally I would turn my nose up and sneer at someone who did such a thing, like the woman who wrote those horrible 50 Shades books. I'm not sure what that story had to do with Twilight but I understand it started as a piece of Twilight fan fiction. I've never read Twilight and I admit in a very ashamed way that I looked at 50 Shades to see what all the hype was about but got bored after about 20 pages. I can't deal with weak, submissive, groveling female protagonists. Especially in badly written porn novels being sold as romance, a sadistic and abusive romance at that. Please give me an outspoken dignified queen or a deadly unwilling killer any day. But I digress...<br />
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I have learned that there are some different types of fan fiction, most of which I do not like. There are the types that pair different characters and make them have some sort of romantic involvement. Dumb. There are the retellings of the original book from a different point of view. Dumb, we already heard the story once. There are those that take the characters and throw them into some sort of modern day high school or a situation that involves a boy band. Very dumb, so stupid that we cannot even comment. Then there are some really good stories, authors who take the characters who were not fleshed out in whatever novel that they came from and give them a personality and a story to tell. Authors like Gethsemane342 (everyone uses a pen name) <a href="http://www.fanfiction.net/u/1183552/gethsemane342">http://www.fanfiction.net/u/1183552/gethsemane342</a><br />
who writes beautifully haunting stories that leave you in tears and begging for more. So, in an effort to fulfill my never ending need to write I've been having fun writing in The Hunger Games fandom. I don't know whether I am ashamed or proud. I have a little following, which I am proud of. I get awesome reviews, which I am proud of. But it's fan fiction, which sort of makes me feel like a total dork. But whatever, it's really fun. So here are my stories, <a href="http://www.fanfiction.net/~clover80" target="_new">http://www.fanfiction.net/~clover80</a><br />
two of them are in a state of perpetual progress. What do you think, is it a terrible thing to write fan fiction?<br />
Jennyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16383823412447138854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3209170036060144111.post-88878122560391529832012-05-28T14:39:00.002-07:002012-05-28T14:39:29.774-07:00Awesome Anne Boleyn VideoOne really awesome Anne Boleyn/Tudors video created by me. Some places are a little jerky but hey, I'm not a pro or anything!<br />
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<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQdWpNkVX0w&feature=youtu.be">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQdWpNkVX0w&feature=youtu.be</a>Jennyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16383823412447138854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3209170036060144111.post-6237622606170888692012-05-20T15:16:00.001-07:002012-05-20T15:16:26.964-07:00Anne Boleyn Day Contest!Just a quick update to say that I was a runner up for The Anne Boleyn Files May 19th writing contest! You can read it here:<br />
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Attention historical fiction lovers! D.L. Bogdan, author of <em>Secrets in the Tudor Court</em> and it's prequel, <em>Rivals in the Tudor Court </em>has brought readers yet another book that brings the characters within it to life with a vibrancy and depth I rarely see. Bogdan's latest book <em>The Sumerton Women</em> tells the story of Cecily and Mirabella Pierce; two women whose lives intertwine to create a relationship of love and loathing that perhaps only true sisters could understand.<br />
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Young Cecily Burkhart is first introduced to the Pierce family when she is orphaned during the sweating sickness of 1528. The Pierce family is kind, welcoming Cecily with open arms as a daughter, sister, and future wife to the heir to the Pierce fortune, Brey. Cecily quickly warms to her new family and learns the joys and torments of having siblings, finding in the Pierce children Brey and the eldest Mirabella the brother and sister she never had. Brey is an open and loving child who quickly becomes Cecily's constant companion whereas Mirabella is difficult and intense; filled with a burning desire to become a nun. The family chaplain, Alec Cahill is the family's spiritual advisor as well as the children's beloved tutor. Father Alec must guide the Pierces through the tumultuous reign of Henry VIII and help them weather the religious changes forced upon the country by his break with Rome and later the ascendancy of his protestant son Edward VI.<br />
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The family travels to London in 1533 to witness the coronation of Anne Boleyn who intrigues Cecily with her determination and her ability to wrest the King from the arms of his first wife Catherine of Aragon. Tragedy strikes however in the midst of the celebrations when the heir to the Sumerton title, Brey, dies suddenly from a bout of what is most likely appendicitis. Death continues to stalk to the family when Lady Sumerton ends her life by throwing herself into the Thames following the death of her only son and a night of startling and dark family revelations. I don't want to give away the entire plot of the book but I will say that the truths that are revealed irrevocably change the family and the relationships of those within it forever. <br />
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Darkness descends upon Sumerton Place after so much death and Mirabella flees to the neighboring convent, taking shelter in the quiet cloister and living the devout and religious life she had always dreamed of. In Henry VIII's England, however, religious houses are rapidly becoming a thing of the past. Mirabella is not long into her life as a novice nun when the King's soldiers come to disband the abbey and strip it of it's treasures. Mirabella attempts to make a stand against the King's men only to bring more tragedy upon herself. Denied her vocation Mirabella spends the next years of her life in turmoil, wreaking havoc on those she loves through her twisted sense of right and wrong and her ardent religious fervor.<br />
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Cecily, meanwhile is busy bringing light back into the Pierce family. Upon the death of her betrothed and her foster mother Lady Grace Cecily instead marries Lord Sumerton. Somehow she is able to put aside the fact that he has been her adopted father for many years and become the new Lady Sumerton. Though this would not have been uncommon at the time it is a rather shocking turn of events! She and Lord Sumerton have several happy years together and a new family is born from the broken hearts and minds of the old. Father Alec returns as a tutor to the children of Cecily and Hal and all live happily until... I'm going to leave you guessing! I will say however that it was a turn of events that I was not expecting! You'll just have to read <em>The Sumerton Women</em> to find out how life turns out for Cecily, Hal, Mirabella, and Father Alec! You can buy it here:<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Sumerton-Women-D-L-Bogdan/dp/0758271379/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1331515900&sr=8-1">http://www.amazon.com/The-Sumerton-Women-D-L-Bogdan/dp/0758271379/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1331515900&sr=8-1</a>Jennyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16383823412447138854noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3209170036060144111.post-71766558519109130352012-02-12T15:45:00.000-08:002012-02-12T15:45:05.863-08:00Coming Soon...The Sumerton Women by D.L. Bogdan!Exciting news! One of my favorite authors D.L. Bogdan is going to send me a review copy of her new book <em>The Sumerton Women</em>!<em> </em>I can't wait to get the book, D.L. is a master at getting to the heart of a character! You can view her website and read about the book here: <a href="http://www.dlbogdan.com/#!the-sumerton-women">http://www.dlbogdan.com/#!the-sumerton-women</a><br />
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Bogdan is also the author of <em>Secrets of the Tudor Court</em> and <em>Rivals in the Tudor Court</em>, which chronicle the life of Thomas Howard, the Duke of Norfolk and his daughter Mary. Both books manage to portray Norfolk as a tortured soul that at times the reader is sympathetic to, not an easy feat when writing about a man who betrayed two of his nieces to Henry VIII and stood by while they were executed. Kind of a hard person to like you know? I can't wait to read Bogdan's latest novel and I am sure I will have great things to say about it!Jennyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16383823412447138854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3209170036060144111.post-83433727575983004342012-02-12T15:27:00.000-08:002012-02-12T15:27:23.962-08:00Romantic Drivel and the Reign of a Crazy WomanI finally managed to pull myself away from the world of <em>The Hunger Games </em>long enough to read some other books. I admit, I'm struggling. Historical fiction is my favorite genre, but after Katniss I had a hard time finding another lead character who could measure up. I tried and tried and tried, sampling book after book and finally I found the voice of a character that did not annoy me, because really, after mentally living in Panem for three books it's hard listen to someone moan and groan about petty jealousies. Before I get into the really good book that I found I just have to comment on a book who's narrator made me ill with their simpering weakness. <br />
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<em>The Favored Queen</em> by Carolly Erikson is narrated by Jane Seymour, the third queen of Henry VIII. I can't stand Jane as a historical figure, her compliance in the downfall of Anne Boleyn disgusts me. If she had been actively trying to bring her down, as Anne was with Catherine of Aragon I could have at least respected her spunk, but Jane's quiet acceptance and supposed meekness makes me want to vomit. She's all I never wanted to be. I usually love Erikson's books and I was really excited when her latest novel hit the shelves. Imagine my disappointment when it was so annoying that I couldn't even finish it! It wasn't the writing, it was the character herself. I was hoping to garner some sympathy for Jane, to be able to find something to like about her. I didn't. If anything I dislike her more after reading this book. I know it's a novel and we as 21st century people have no idea who she really was as a person, but this book made her appear to be even more of a whimpy puppet whose strings were pulled by the men in her life than I already thought she was. I finally had to stop reading the book, I just couldn't take it anymore. I truly hope that Erikson's next novel is as enjoyable as her previous ones, because I like her books and I want more of them to read, but not if they are like <em>The Favored Queen</em>. Give me a woman with some guts to read about please!<br />
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So, moving on- the book that I am currently reading and loving is <em>Reign of Madness</em> by Lynn Cullen. It is told from the point of view of Juana of Castile, sometimes known as Juana la loca (Juana the mad). Her legend tells of a woman driven mad by love and jealousy who dragged her husband's corpse ascross half of Europe and would allow no women near the body, lest they feel lustful towards it. One of the major themes of the book is not to believe legends and propaganda that claim to be truth, that they are told by those who benefit from making others see the truth through a distorted lens. Juana learns this the hard way when her husband Philippe begins to spread rumors that she is mad so that he can take power not only in his own lands but in Spain as well. Juana also realizes that the stories spread about her mother, and her own beliefs about her are fictional as well. Isabella of Castile may have been a formidable woman, almost a godess in the eyes of others, but she was as human as the rest of us with all of the weaknesses that come with it. Unfortunately for Juana she learns this too late; only realizing that her mother had feelings and was not perfect after her death. So, was Juana the mad woman of legend or was she merely a woman maligned and held captive by her scheming husband? I have to say, I would love to know...:-) I can't wait to read another of Cullen's books, The Creation of Eve, which also takes place in the Spanish court. I'll be reviewing that too!Jennyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16383823412447138854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3209170036060144111.post-88379708408487949132011-10-06T19:36:00.000-07:002011-10-06T19:36:26.348-07:00Nobody Sees Our Hearts Break...Or Our Mental TraumaI must admit, I took a break from history last week and travelled into the future while reading <em>The Hunger Games</em> series. I think I am still reeling a little from shock and the raw emotion the books brought out in me. I was so horrified, so intrigued, so angry, and so absolutely devastated. For anyone who has not read this series, (and you need to read it now!) it is about a distopian future where two teenagers from each of the twelve districts that the United States has been divided into after a civil war are required to participate in The Hunger Games. Basically they are thrown into an arena, which could be anywhere, a desert, the plains, mountains, and they must fight to the death. It is a celebrated annual event in the Capitol. Some of the tributes have trained their entire lives to fight, others have not since they are chosen randomly in a ceremony known as the reaping. The entire thing is televised and it is required viewing for the whole population. The main character, Katniss, defies the Capitol and becomes a symbol for the people's revolt against the horrors which have been inflicted on them. It is an amazing look inside the head of someone suffering from the nightmare of PTSD and how they must keep coping in order to keep living, even when more violence is forced upon them. At the end of <em>Mockingjay</em>, which is the last book in the series Katniss's terror is still palpable after almost 15 years. Her fear for her children, both because of the world they live in and because of her psychological wounds is so intense and so real that it leaves you stunned. <br />
This video is what really got me hooked and why I started reading the series. The beginning of it scares me to death, and the end, mmm...I think you just have to see it. I wish the girl in this video had been chosen to play Katniss instead of the too hot blond babe actress with big lips that Hollywood chose. This is Katniss and will always be for me.<br />
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Now, since I must throw something Tudor into every blog entry I am posting another video that I liked this week. It does a good job of showing just how many people Henry had executed during his reign, and by that I just mean people he knew personally, it doesn't include all of those he didn't know that he had put to death. I think the parts with Wolsey and Cromwell hurt the most. I liked the way James Frain portrayed Cromwell. He was sort of a frightened little man who liked to appear as if he was in total control of everything and seemed to have no feelings at all until the end of his life. I feel like Cromwell was much more ruthless in real life but I liked the acting in The Tudors. You get a good sense of how badly Henry treated everybody in his life, and how it ate at him. Trauma of a different kind, the self inflicted kind, but the scars are still there.<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/btQOb4lRa1A" width="560"></iframe>Jennyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16383823412447138854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3209170036060144111.post-12022934200969215072011-09-18T18:58:00.000-07:002011-09-20T17:23:28.985-07:00Henry was a Borderline, How Did I Miss That?I read a really interesting article today on author Susan Bordo's blog questioning how Henry could bring himself to execute Anne Boleyn. You can read it here: <a href="http://thecreationofanneboleyn.wordpress.com/2011/06/27/how-could-he-do-it-new-excerpt-from-susans-book/">http://thecreationofanneboleyn.wordpress.com/2011/06/27/how-could-he-do-it-new-excerpt-from-susans-book/</a> (it is actually an excerpt from her upcoming book on Anne Boleyn.)<br />
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I thought that the best part was the exploration of Henry as someone with Borderline Personality Disorder. As I was reading her description of his behaviors I was thinking "He is a Borderline," and I have to say I was thrilled that she addressed this issue. I have discussed some of Henry's behavior on this blog before but I really want to look at him and his behavior using the checklist for Borderline Personality Disorder from the DSM IV. The DSM V is condensing several personality disorders into "types" one being Borderline type. This is because people who have this disorder usually exhibit symptoms of more than one type of disorder. You can read about that here: <a href="http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2010/11/30/personality-disorders-shakeup-in-dsm-5/">http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2010/11/30/personality-disorders-shakeup-in-dsm-5/</a><br />
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Previously I have looked at Henry from the standpoint of other authors such as Suzannah Libscomb (also mentioned by Susan) who theorize that Henry went off his rocker after the horrible events of 1536. (These being the deaths of Katherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, and his illegitimate son Henry Fitzroy as well as Anne's unborn child.) I don't discredit this theory, I was not there and I have to admit that it did not occur to me that Henry was a borderline personality until I was reading the description of Henry's behaviors on Susan's blog. It sort of slapped me in the face and my inner voice was saying "Duh, how did you miss that one?". Borderline Personality Disorder usually manifests in young adults and some who study it effectively think that people "grow out of it." I do not agree. People who truly develop the traits of a borderline do not grow out of them. It can be controlled, managed, repressed, but it does not go away. If not correctly medicated the borderline traits re-emerge. Cognitive behavior therapy is usually recommended but is not always helpful. *<span style="color: lime;"> I wanted to add that BPD is not usually found to be responsive to medication. Nell Gavin, author of "Threads" pointed this out to me. In the comments below she talks about her own experience with BPD. But for some, with symptoms of BPD in conjunction with depression medication is an option and it does help.</span> For a long time it was the kiss of death as far as psychological diagnosis. Patients labeled as borderlines faced a lifetime of a disorder that no one effectively knows how to treat. Then "Girl Interrupted" was made and it became trendy to have BPD. Now, according to the DSM V it does not exist and is only one disorder among many that patients may exhibit symptoms of simultaneously. I wish someone would loan me the magic wand that made it disappear.<br />
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So, the checklist and Henry, I am only covering the first three criterion in this entry because there are nine, and that makes for a blog entry that is too long to read. So here goes-the symptoms of BPD are:<br />
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<strong><span style="color: lime;">1.Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment. Note: Do not include suicidal or self-mutilating behavior covered in (5).</span></strong> <br />
I do not believe that this behavior is usually a conscious thought process. I don't think that people affected with BPD generally go around thinking "I must not be abandoned!". It is more subtle than that. Let's examine Henry's treatment of Cardinal Wolsey. Wolsey was his friend and chancellor for many years. He more or less ran the kingdom while Henry played. When Wolsey could not do what Henry wanted, that is he could not procure papal approval for his divorce Henry turned on him. In his mind Wolsey was betraying him, emotionally abandoning him and Henry could not take it. A person with BPD cannot deal with pain. They are often described as having no emotional skin. Anything that hurts hurts so badly that it must be eradicated. Often this pain turns to anger and the person who caused pain suddenly becomes a total anathema to the borderline. (See #2 below.) This pattern repeated throughout Henry's life with people such as Thomas More, Thomas Cromwell, and most obviously Anne Boleyn. <br />
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Henry's whole courtship of Anne was one desperate ploy after another to keep her from "abandoning" him. When he could not have her as his mistress he tried to divorce his wife rather than lose her. When that failed he declared himself head of the church of England and married her anyway. Anything to get what he wanted and to keep her from losing interest and marrying someone else. Not that anyone else would have been willing to marry her, everyone knew that she belonged to Henry and that to touch her would mean they would forfeit their life. "Noli me tangere (touch me not) for Ceaser's I am." These words were written by Thomas Wyatt, acknowledging that Henry had won Anne's heart and that he knew she was off limits to him.<br />
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One person who seems to have survived and avoided Henry's rage was Katherine Parr. This is undoubtedly because she discovered her arrest warrant by accident and came to Henry to beg his forgiveness before it was signed. This much is well known. But if you look at this incident through the lens of Henry having BPD you see that Katherine Parr avoided death by seeking Henry's emotional companionship. She wanted his forgiveness, his approval (so she could keep her head) and was therefore not abandoning him. His tactic seems to have been one of striking first. If he decided to abandon someone then it was his choice, they did not abandon him. This would have made sense to him, but probably not to anyone else.<br />
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<strong><span style="color: lime;">2.A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation. This is called "splitting."</span></strong> <br />
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Anyone looking at Henry's life as a whole can see the pattern repeating itself over and over. Katherine of Aragon was the perfect queen, a storybook princess and he was her white knight. Fast forward 17 years and she was an old, unwanted wife and a stubborn, unreasonable woman. She was perfect and then suddenly she was the most horrible creature in England. His second marriage held true to this pattern as well. Henry destroyed his reputation with the Pope and threw his country into religious turmoil all to marry Anne Boleyn. She was his ideal woman, perfect. In one of his early letters to her in which he is bemoaning her absence from court he says that because of "the great love I bear you" he cannot stand to be "kept at a distance from the person and presence of the woman in the world I value most." After three years of marriage, when he heard rumors of her alleged indiscretions (emotional abandonment to him) he turned on her, having her executed. It was a shocking betrayal since she was most likely not guilty. Sure there were issues between the two of them before this but Henry's love turned to hatred in an instant. Poor Catherine Howard went from being Henry's "Rose without a thorn" to being banned from his presence and was also sent to the scaffold. Although she most likely was guilty of adultery, Henry idealized her from the start putting the girl on a pedestal that she fairly dived off of. Idealization and devaluation-are there any more clear cut examples than these?<br />
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<strong><span style="color: lime;">3.Identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self.</span></strong> <br />
Although they are likely to hide it from others borderlines do not think highly of themselves. Their self image changes frequently and is unstable. Though most of us go through changes in our self image throughout our lives we do not have life size paintings of ourselves put on the walls of our houses. Holbein's portrait of Henry VIII, the most famous of the many portraits of him shows Henry as the ideal man. He is handsome, burly, strong, and confident. His stance (hands on hips) is defiant and a challenge to all who look on the painting. His gaze dares those who meet it to question his manhood. Today many pictures of superheros are drawn showing the subject standing in the same way; hands on their hips, challenging the world. This painting was commissioned and completed after the scandal with Anne Boleyn in 1536. If Henry in fact believed that he had been cuckolded by his wife then he would have inwardly been questioning his manhood. The painting was created as a sort of propaganda piece, letting the world know that his manhood was not in question despite what his wife had done to him, if only in his own mind.<br />
Henry's marriage to Catherine Howard is another situation in which we see that Henry's self image was not a steady one. Henry was around 50 when he married Catherine, who was somewhere around 17. She was an ornament to him, a signal to his courtiers that he was not the aging old man that they saw, but that in fact he was still manly and virile. This was pure fantasy of course because Henry was aging, fat, and had a stinking sore on his leg. None of these things are manly and would not have pleased Henry. He most likely married Catherine in an effort to shore up his confidence and reassure himself that he was not as old or disgusting as he thought.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/-555sOgckeI?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>Looking back I'm sure we could identify many people who rose to power who had mental health issues, many worse than BPD. Henry was a tyrant, but was not the worst of them. So it again brings about the question does power make one crazy or does the desire for power come from being crazy? The video above gives you a pretty good idea of how ruthless Henry was once he turned on you. I find it interesting that in the background someone is yelling "You don't care for me, you won't be there for me!" Maybe it's his conscience trying to justify his actions.Jennyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16383823412447138854noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3209170036060144111.post-77620117275855663422011-09-04T15:32:00.000-07:002011-09-04T23:03:14.165-07:00Whiskey Lullaby and My Favorite Couple-I'll Love Her Til I Die <iframe align="left" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=thescan-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=0745953328&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="align: left; height: 245px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 5px; width: 131px;"></iframe> <br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">I came upon this video yesterday (scroll to bottom to watch video first) while I was looking for something for a forth coming blog entry but I couldn't pass this up. It was too beautiful not to mention. The video goes through the lives of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn and tells the story of the end of their marriage and the subsequent consequences for Henry. My favorite scene is where they mention that Henry spent his whole life trying to forget and you get a flash of all of his wives. Just perfect, absolute magnificence, that's all I can say. These videos are not the easiest things to make either, I have made one. My hat is off to those who do this so well.</div><br />
But, it brings up the theory that Henry did not in fact know that Anne was not guilty, that he was totally destroyed by the idea that she had been unfaithful to him. That perhaps he did spend his whole life trying to forget and find happiness again. But I do not think he ever again met his equal, at least until Catherine Parr came along. But the difference was that Catherine Parr did not want to be there and Anne did. At least I like to believe that she did. It would be a horrible thing to endure the life that Anne endured for a man that you did not love.<br />
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I don't claim to be a historian, in fact I want to be a fiction writer because I love the romance of the period, but my theory is that Henry was made to believe Anne had been unfaithful to her. I think that Anne's downfall was plotted by Cromwell because Anne was getting in the way of his "reformation" of the abbeys and monasteries and all the money he was getting from these religious houses. I think that Cromwell set it up and once the words are out, once the seed is planted in the mind, suspicion is always there. It is true of all couples, if someone tells you that your husband or wife has been unfaithful, and that person is a trusted friend, would you not believe them or at least wonder and look into it? <br />
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In her book "1536; The Year That Changed Henry VIII" Suzannah Lipscombe argues that this one horrible year changed Henry forever and it is a theory that I very much agree with. In this one year Henry lost his first wife Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn lost a child, Anne herself was executed and Henry's son, Henry Fitzroy died of consumption. All of this between January and July of that one fateful year. So much death, not to mention the commoners were getting riled up about the destruction of religious houses and about to launch the Pilgrimage of Grace, which would force Henry to execute hundreds of his people. That's a lot to deal with for one person, King or not!<br />
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I think (and this is just my personal opinion and theory) perhaps Cromwell saw that Henry was emotionally vulnerable after the death of Catherine of Aragon and the loss of Anne Boleyn's premature son. He used this as an opportunity to plant the seeds of doubt in Henry's mind concerning Anne's love and faithfulness to him. When Smeaton was tortured into a confession and Henry Norris confessed under duress and most likely threat of torture it was as if the evidence had been thrown right in front of him. It was right there, undeniable, no matter what Anne claimed. I'm sure Cromwell did not mention exactly how he got these confessions. Anne of course denied the accusations, but there was no way Henry would believe her, especially after the Norris confession (which was later recanted) because Norris was a close friend of Henry's. He was after all the groom of the stool, which means he got to wipe the King's behind, but it was an "honor" reserved for king's intimates alone. It's not a job I would want, and maybe it was Henry's way of embarrassing Norris, it is rather demeaning to be honest. But, times were different back then. Also, Anne had had strange conversations and confrontations with both Norris and Smeaton in the days before she was arrested and I am sure that this was further evidence against her in Henry's mind.<br />
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So, Henry believes Anne has lied to him and has been unfaithful. His Anne, the woman he broke with the church for, the woman he exiled his daughter for, the woman he alienated himself from his people for, this woman had cuckolded him? Oh hell no! In that instant, when he realized how humiliated he was going to be his love for Anne turned into a white-hot hatred. That is the only way I can understand passionate love turning to violent hatred so quickly. They had been arguing and things were not great between them, but Henry still loved her. He even forced Chapuys to acknowledge her only the week before her arrest. Why would he do that if he was not planning on keeping her around? <br />
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We all know the rest of the story, Anne is arrested and executed. But what about the aftermath? I don't care how hard Henry tried to hide it there had to be emotional fallout. He had killed his one great love, his intellectual equal, his soul mate. Her supposed betrayal of him had to wreak some sort of havoc in his head. That sort of thing does not leave a person, it festers. I am sure that for the rest of his life he looked upon his wives with an unyielding suspicion. Katherine Howard gave him good reason to and I am sure it got even worse after that. His paranoia and tyranny in his later years is well known. He would have had Catherine Parr arrested if she had not intercepted a message about the plot and gotten to Henry first. If Anne had infiltrated Cromwell's coup would it have made a difference? Probably, after all, his accusations against her were false and easily proven so and Anne was a woman who seemed to hold sway over people, especially her husband. <br />
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At this point in their marriage though, she was afraid she was losing her grip on him. She had caught him cheating with Jane Seymour and had become so hysterical that she miscarried the child she was carrying only hours later. If she found out that Cromwell was trying to get rid of her after this I can only imagine the scene that would have ensued between Anne and Henry. It would have been explosive and who knows, Henry might have been angry enough to let Cromwell go about his business. But I doubt it. Henry loved Anne, even at the end. His hiring of a French swordsman for her execution instead of using an English headsman was, to me, his last gesture of love and mercy. He even delayed the execution when the swordsman was stuck in Calais overnight. He could have just had the tower executioner go forward and been done with it. But he didn't. Perhaps he didn't hate her as much as he claimed.<br />
Henry had all evidence of Anne obliterated after her death, as if he did not want to remember anything about her because if he did, he would have to face what he had done. Even if he did believe her guilty of infidelity he did not just exile her, he killed her. I think all of the other heartbreaks, on top of this one just caused him to flip his wig. But no matter how badly he wanted to forget her, I don't think he ever did. Elisabeth looked just like her, he had to have seen it. We see him seeing it in "The Tudors" and I am sure that scene was repeated many times in his life. I hope thoughts of Anne followed him and tormented him for the rest of his life. I would bet big money that they did, too bad we can't prove it!<br />
<div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/ntF3l1r2DcU?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>Jennyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16383823412447138854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3209170036060144111.post-59690928528424246372011-08-26T18:16:00.000-07:002011-08-27T04:57:07.000-07:00An Inside View of a Tortured Heart - A Book Review of "Rivals in the Tudor Court by D.L. Bogdan<div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiyWAsNrtkioXWut-yuhiCeQx7PekPl6bxehX3f5HvRRhL-hlV7p1jBGUsUbi7ut3AzvVaJciKfiyJg8Iq968DVe9kQQ08nFdFB76d824M9uYrxG8oPzF7KhC7vj2Mr0ZLyj8_dOPGoQk/s1600/rivals.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" qaa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiyWAsNrtkioXWut-yuhiCeQx7PekPl6bxehX3f5HvRRhL-hlV7p1jBGUsUbi7ut3AzvVaJciKfiyJg8Iq968DVe9kQQ08nFdFB76d824M9uYrxG8oPzF7KhC7vj2Mr0ZLyj8_dOPGoQk/s1600/rivals.jpg" /></a></div>D.L. Bogdan made a wise choice when she decided to chronicle the lives of Thomas and Mary Howard, the Duke of Norfolk and his daughter as up until now there has been almost no fictional material available about those who played such an important role in the Tudor court. Norfolk was the uncle who helped raise Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard to the precipice that was queenship, and it was this same uncle who stood by to condemn them when they came crashing down. Poor little Mary Howard served both of her cousins and was married to Henry Fitzroy, Henry VIII's illegitimate son. Until now most novels have stayed away from these characters. Bogdan paints a beautifully illuminated portrait of their lives.<br />
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"Rivals in the Tudor Court" is a prequel to Bogdan's firsts novel "Secrets in the Tudor Court." Bogdan's premier Tudor novel is a first person account of the life of Mary Howard, the daughter of the Duke of Norfolk and a chronicle of the twisted relationship Mary had with her father. She so wanted his love so badly, but never seemed to be able to gain it, yet he wanted her under his control and by his side and she never understood why. In the second book we find out what is behind Norfolk's strange and cruel love for his child as well as others in his life. I cannot say enough about how well Bogdan brought out an understandable and even likable personality in such a difficult and unlikeable character as the Duke of Norfolk. The book was magnificent in it's scope of the many years of Thomas Howard's life. His life was filled with so many losses, so many changes, so many families. But he is so knotted up inside because of the death of his first family that he destroys everything and everyone else around him for the rest of his life. This book was beautifully written and took me on a sweeping emotional ride.<br />
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The young Duke of Norfolk was first wed to Anne Plantagenet, a princess of the blood, a younger daughter of the former King Edward IV and sister to the current queen Elizabeth Plantagenet. Her brothers were the young princes who disappeared into the Tower of London and were never seen again. From the first moment that Anne and Norfolk set eyes on each other they are in love. He falls hard for her, and she, in her guarded but peaceful way loves him. She deals with her grief for her lost brothers by believing that they have been taken to faery (British spelling) country. She is not overt about it and her beliefs are not an issue within her marriage and are viewed by her husband as her form of escapism. He halfway believes that she herself is not of this world, that there is something fey about her. Together they have four children and over the years all four die of various diseases. When his Princess dies too Thomas is almost mad with grief. He hardens himself against everyone, but especially children and vows never to let them into his heart again.<br />
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He marries again quickly to the Duke of Buckingham's daughter Elizabeth. She is young and dark and the total opposite of his "Princess" but Thomas chooses her all the same. They have several children together and four reach adulthood before dying. The Earl of Surrey, Norfolk's oldest son is executed for treason and his oldest daughter dies from the sweat or some other plague of the times. This leaves him with his son Thomas and his daughter Mary. It is Mary who is the focus of Bogdan's first book and finally we find out what is really between them from Norfolk's point of view. The first book is fraught with Mary's confusion about her feelings for her father, her need for his approval and her simultaneous hatred of him. We discover in this latest novel that Norfolk's feelings for his daughter are just as contradictory as her feelings for him. When she is born Norfolk sees a flash or vision of his Princess. He is in the middle of some sort of nervous breakdown because he is afraid he will lose his new wife and child because the labor is going badly. He drags her from the house and attacks her with a knife and is only stopped by the vision of his former wife. When the baby finally arrives he is at once horrified and thrilled to see that she looks just like his first wife, Anne Plantagenet. This fact strikes fear into his heart because he has no idea how to deal with his feelings about the child. Every time he looks at her he sees his Princess, but she is his daughter. It is as if God has taken revenge on him in some sick way by giving him back his most beloved wife, the one thing he wants most in the world, in the form of his child who is forbidden to him.<br />
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He hardens himself against his daughter and keeps her at a safe distance for much of her life. When he is called to court upon the ascension of his niece Anne Boleyn he takes Mary with him to wait on her cousin. His hard heart enables him to stand firm during Anne's execution three years later and his hardness serves him well in the 1540s when he brings another niece, Catherine Howard to court. He pretends to love and adore the girl, lavishing her with gifts and predictably turns his back on her when she is accused of adultery and executed.<br />
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During the intervening years Norfolk has kept his wife Elizabeth a virtual prisoner in their home and brought his mistress Bess Holland to court. He warns her not to get pregnant as he wants no more children as they die and only serve to cause heartbreak. Bess disobeys him and gives birth to a daughter that she names Jane. Norfolk refuses to see her and sends her to live with a foster family. He finally breaks down and decides to see the little girl and is disturbed at how much the baby's eyes look like those of his niece Anne Boleyn. Poor Bess nurtures her anger and sadness and turns it into a hatred strong enough to allow her to testify against Norfolk some time later when he is arrested and accused of treason for his role in the Catherine Howard affair. While in prison he is visited by the ghosts of those he has lost, his father, his Princess, his lost brothers in-law who disappeared so many years ago, and his executed nieces. Bogdan makes the astute observation that Anne Boleyn's eyes are filled with accusation and amusement at his imprisonment while Catherine Howard's are filled only with astonishment at being betrayed. Norfolk observes that Anne knew what game she was playing and the risks involved. Catherine Howard however was young and naive and was shocked at the severity of her punishment for taking a young lover. Catherine grew up a somewhat sheltered young lady (as far as cout politics were concerned) and Anne grew up serving at the French court, where intrigue was a part of daily life. The child Catherine should have learned from her cousin's example. But maybe she did. Anne died an innocent woman. If one was to be accused of taking lovers one might as well be guilty so perhaps she then took her pleasure where she would knowing in the end that guilt was of little import. <br />
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Norfolk is eventually released after the death of Henry VIII and finally goes home to die. He is attended by his estranged wife and his daughter Mary, who is deathly ill herself. He dies calling for his Princess. Peace at last. This novel was a beautiful interpretation of the life of Thomas Howard, one of the most reviled and perhaps misunderstood characters in Tudor history. He was a man who condemned two nieces to death to save his own hide, plotted against his enemies and rejoiced in their downfall. But before all of that, perhaps Bogdan is right, perhaps he was someone else.Jennyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16383823412447138854noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3209170036060144111.post-51835294291496575582011-08-11T17:38:00.000-07:002011-08-11T17:38:04.608-07:00Book Review-Three Maids For a Crown<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjl4y8gavDgFBJx-vKYdsvLKOQe4y6d82KXRO1CCJJ_xVQxTYPmZOh2D5SoF4D6nUSPNgpjXn2tuC4Ea6BRdGP8mixIvF0B3HWwubMujl25ycQx5YdCNmSribpM_59vdgEZWIxOV0PRueU/s1600/book+cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320px" naa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjl4y8gavDgFBJx-vKYdsvLKOQe4y6d82KXRO1CCJJ_xVQxTYPmZOh2D5SoF4D6nUSPNgpjXn2tuC4Ea6BRdGP8mixIvF0B3HWwubMujl25ycQx5YdCNmSribpM_59vdgEZWIxOV0PRueU/s320/book+cover.jpg" width="320px" /></a></div><br />
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I just finished the most wonderful book, "Three Maids For a Crown" by Ella March Chase. The book chronicles the lives of the Grey Sisters, Jane, Katherine and Mary. As we all know Jane Grey was beheaded after her family tried to deny Queen Mary Tudor of her right to the throne and crown Jane in her place. The book covers this, but since there are many books on this topic I found the portrayals of the other two sisters, Katherine (Kat) and Mary much more interesting. The characters were so well developed that I grieved at every heart-wrenching turn in their lives right along with them. Their tragedies of their lives are not as famous as their sister's bloody end but I think Jane may have been the lucky one. Her end was quick and her pain short lived. Kat and Mary had a lifetime of heartache to endure. <br />
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Being born royalty is not all it's cracked up to be, especially if you are a threat to the current ruler. The general rule of thumb in Tudor times was to eradicate all possible rivals to the throne like the Duke of Buckingham, the de la Pole family, the Plantagenet pretenders, Mary Queen of Scots, all of them were executed simply because they had a claim to the English throne and the Tudors were not about to lose their hold on it. Jane Grey, being the next Tudor heir after Mary and Elisabeth was executed after the failed coup planned by her parents and the Duke of Northumberland. Her sisters however, were spared. <br />
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Jane and Katherine had been married in a double wedding to Gilbert Dudley, a son of the Duke of Northumberland and Henry Herbert, the son of another nobleman. Kat is thrilled to be married and is totally in love with her husband, as much as any twelve year-old girl can be. Her sister is not so happy about being married to Guilford Dudley so the girl's wedding day is bittersweet, one sister delighted to become a wife, the other beaten into submission. Katherine's happiness does not last long however, when the plot to grab the crown fails Katherine's marriage is annulled. She is devastated. She is forced to serve as lady in waiting to Queen Mary, the cousin who had her older sister executed and daily sees her former husband. All of his devotion and professions of love for Kat stopped the minute her sister lost the crown. She grieves for him as any adolescent will do for a lost love. Her shame and sadness color the next several years of her life.<br />
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Mary Grey, the youngest of the three was born a hunchback, her spine curved and her shoulders uneven. This on top of the fact that she was born a girl made her utterly useless in the eyes of her parents. But this child, who spent her days staying out of sight so that no one would remark on her ugliness, she grew adept at eavesdropping. During her life she overhears plots of poison, treason, regicide, and the personal agonies of many at court. She hides in the shadows, seeing and hearing everything, but saying nothing. When the poor girl finally finds love during the reign of her cousin Elisabeth it is short lived. She and her husband Thomas Keyes are imprisoned because they did not get the queen's permission to marry. Her sister Kat and her second husband are similarly imprisoned and separated with their two sons. Her second husband, who was the nephew to the former queen Jane Seymour, makes Kat's claim to the English throne even stronger. She also already had two sons, something Elisabeth would never have. With these two boys as heir England would not have fallen under Stuart rule. Elisabeth could stand for no one to be happy in love if she was not to be, especially those who could claim her crown. In spite of all of the wonderful things that Elisabeth I did, she did some very ugly and cruel things as well. It was a trait she held in common with both of her parents. All three had the capability to do great good, or great harm, as we all do. But in a world where your every whim is a command the power for great good or great harm is all too real. Elisabeth locked her cousins away leaving them no chance for a happy life. I wish that her mother Anne Boleyn, who I believe learned from her mistakes at the end, could have been there to give her daughter some sound advice about the way you should treat your family and those others around you. If she had lived, maybe the Grey sisters could have lived too.Jennyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16383823412447138854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3209170036060144111.post-58136405244607146002011-07-19T17:28:00.000-07:002011-07-19T17:28:42.373-07:00Mistress of the Art of DeathI just finished reading a great book, the first in a series called "Mistress of the Art of Death" by Ariana Franklin. The book centers around Adelia Aguilar, a female doctor from Salerno (the medical hub of the world at the time) who is called to England by Henry II to investigate a series of child murders. As female doctors were unusual during this time and risked being labeled as witches Adelia must pretend to be an assistant to Mansur, an Arab who is really her servant and bodyguard. As Arabs are also unusual in medieval England attention is invariably drawn to the two of them, so their "secret" mission soon becomes a very public one.<br />
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The murders have taken place in Cambridge and are horribly sadistic and frightening. The first child to disappear was named Peter and when his body was found it was immediately claimed by the local convent of St. Radegund's. The Prioress declared the child a saint and claimed that touching his bones could bring about healing and miracles. The convent soon becomes a pilgrimage site and begins to grow wealthy from the pennies paid by those seeking to be healed. <br />
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Meanwhile the town's Jews have been blamed for the murder as the first child's body was thrown onto the lawn of a rich moneylender after it was dead and was seen being secreted into the cellar by the family so that it could be gotten rid of under the cover of darkness. It was common for Jews to be blamed for almost anything at the time, plague, bad harvest, why not child murder? They were the eternal scapegoats of Christendom. After it became known that the body of "Little Saint Peter" was in the house of a prominent Jew riots begin and the family is killed. The rest of the Jewish population of the city is locked up in the town Castle for protection. By the time Adelia and Mansur arrive they have been locked in for over a year. The bodies of the other three children show up the morning after Adelia and company arrive in Cambridge.<br />
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Also traveling with the female doctor and Mansur is a man called Simon of Naples, he too is a Jew and a brilliant doctor. The three set up house in the abandoned home of a Jewish pawn broker and are immediately swamped with patients. They go about their investigation quietly, Simon talking with the Jews in the castle about who may have owed money to the dead money lender and would therefore have benefited from his death. (The written tallies conveniently burned up in a fire on the night of the first murder.) Adelia, who is a medieval medical examiner, examines the bones of all four dead children and determines that they died savagely, the marks of a sharp instrument having left deep grooves on their pelvic bones. She also discovers that all four children were buried or kept in chalk, which is common throughout the region. <br />
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After much investigation with the help of Ulf, the grandson of the housekeeper assigned to Adelia by the local Prior, Simon and Adelia determine that the monster's lair is somewhere in the region of Wandlebury Ring, a local chalk hill where sheep graze but people avoid. Superstition surrounds the place and it is believed that old, evil spirits inhabit it. Wandlebury is close to the town, but far enough away that screams would not be heard. It is isolated, made of chalk, rife with tall grass and deep pits. A perfect killing ground.<br />
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One of Adelia's suspects is Sir Rowley Picot, a crusader and tax collector for the king. After several coincidental encounters Rowley tells Adelia that he has been following the killer all the way from the Holy Land, and that a trail of dead children has been left in his wake. The killer was a crusader, a warrior for God who really worked for the devil. Rowley and Adelia join forces, but they are both shaken by the murder of Simon of Naples and realize that the killer is now after them as well.<br />
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But who is the killer? Who is luring the children to their deaths? An Arab candy called a jujube is found tangled in the hair of one of the dead children. The children are being led away by the promise of sweets, and by someone they trust. Cambridge is not a large city at this time so most people know each other and they find it hard to believe such a person as a child killer could live in their midst. The last three killings also took place almost a year after the first. Seven years before that a herd of sheep was slaughtered in the same manner as the children, increasing the town's fear of Wandlebury ring. The clues begin to add up and Adelia, Simon, and Mansur begin to construct the profile of a killer.<br />
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He is male<br />
He is full of rage<br />
He went on crusade<br />
He is seemingly harmless and charming to children<br />
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I won't spoil the end of the book, but I will say that the killer was not working alone and that he meets a fitting end. His accomplice is walled up in a room, a fate that is at once horrifying and satisfying after what was done to the children of Cambridge. I could hardly put the book down, it was a wonderful read. I highly recommend it and the other four books in the series. Sadly, the writer has passed away so there will be no more books forthcoming which is truly a shame.Jennyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16383823412447138854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3209170036060144111.post-39217436316473193192011-02-16T14:58:00.000-08:002011-02-16T14:58:01.417-08:00Small Moments Make up a LifeYesterday I found this and I thought it was beautiful.<br />
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Absolutely, totally beautiful. A beautiful tribute to "The Tudors" but more than that an amazing compilation of "small hours" from Henry's life. I wonder if that's really the sort of thing that went through his head towards the end of his life when he was ill and knew he was going to die. Did he dream of the wives and friends he had lost? When he closed his eyes did he see Katherine in all of her quiet dignity? Did he see the beautiful young princess he had married or the old woman she became? I'd like to think that he remembered the best of her, when she was young and sweet, and he was in love with her. Did he see Anne, standing regally on the scaffold? Did he see Catherine Howard smiling and dancing? Was he haunted by the quiet martyrdom of Thomas More, the pleading of Cromwell or the tears of Wolsey? God I hope so.<br />
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I think what gets me so much about this video is that when you watch it you see how odd Henry's life really was. He had so many different "lives" and "families." Who does that? Generally, when you look at the course of a person's life, even a king's life, they have one person who was their mate for life, maybe two or three, but not six. If you take the time to think about it, how strange must it have been for him to go from being married for twenty years and being sure of your wife and who your child is to a new wife and a new daughter, and then another wife and another child? I was talking to someone a few years ago and at some point they said to me that something they had done "was with another wife and another family." I remember thinking at the time how odd it was, you have one life that you are used to and one set of children, and then, 20 years later, you have another? Something about seeing Henry's whole life strung together like that made me so very sad. You can really see how he made some people truly happy, and how he was so viciously cruel to those same people in the end. It has always broken my heart how he turned on his closest friends and most loyal servants, More, Wolsey, and Cromwell. I don't know that I would have liked these men in life, but their sadness when he turned on them is painful.<br />
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I hope, after Henry became the evil man that he was when he died that every time he slept he dreamt of someone he had wronged. I hope his last memories caused him to feel regret. I love that the last thing he dreams of in this video is three of his wives begging him for mercy, for that must be a truly horrible thing to remember, especially little Catherine Howard screaming his name while running towards the chapel in a desperate bid to gain his forgiveness. Since her ghost is said to repeat this scene almost daily it obviously left an emotional impression somewhere in time, either in the minds of those who recorded the scene or on the veil between this world and the next. Somehow though, I think those he rid himself of got the last laugh, as they watched his spirit moving in a decidedly downward direction!Jennyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16383823412447138854noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3209170036060144111.post-90115841152600572812011-02-13T15:19:00.000-08:002011-02-13T15:19:52.931-08:00In Memoriam...Katherine Howard<span><iframe align="left" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=thescan-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=1848685211&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="align: left; height: 245px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 5px; width: 131px;"></iframe></span>Today in 1542 Henry VIII executed a second wife, his infallible "Rose Without a Thorn" Catherine Howard. My heart goes out to this child who walked out to her death on Tower Green on a cold February morning. She had been abandoned by her husband, what little family she had, and her lover Thomas Culpepper had been executed. She was truly alone, and left the world with a reputation as a harlot. <br />
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Lady Jane Grey was executed in the same spot several years later, on February 12 1554, completing a trio of queens executed on the lawn of the royal palace turned prison. Jane left this world under Henry's fanatical daughter Mary, and died with the reputation of a sainted martyr. She too, however, was alone. Her husband had been executed and her parents had gone back to the country, leaving her to die. Her father, fool that he was, more or less brought down the axe on her head by trying to raise a second rebellion in her name after she was imprisoned and Mary had been declared queen.<br />
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Two girls, near to each other in age, who died a day and 12 years apart in the same spot, and yet they were so different, but found themselves in similar situations. Catherine had a reputation as an empty-headed wanton and Jane was a pious scholar. Both were trapped in marriages that they probably did not want, at least in the sense of loving their husband. I think (and this is just my opinion) that Catherine loved Henry in some sense, but not with the passion and exhilaration that a young girl feels when they first fall in love. That first blush of infatuation and the crazed things that teenagers will do for it most likely was not for Henry, but for Culpepper, Catherine's alleged lover. Jane was forced into marriage by her ambitious parents and married Guilford Dudley, the son of Edward VI's chief counselor.<br />
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But this article is not about Jane, it's not that I do not feel sorry for her or do not admire her faith and strength to the very end, but Jane was all that she should be as a young woman of her time. She was learned, obedient, and a faithful protestant. She had lived for a time with Katherine Parr, Henry VIII's last wife and had been educated for several years with her royal cousins, Edward and Elisabeth. She was an exemplary young woman and her death was a tragedy.<br />
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Catherine Howard, however, was not all that she should be. She was raised by her grandmother, the dowager Duchess of Norfolk, and was quite experienced in the love of men for her young age. Some say she was sexually abused, which perhaps she was, but girls married and became mothers at such a young age in Tudor England that perhaps she considered herself of an age to experiment sexually. At any rate, she was young and pretty and most likely wanted attention from men as her own father had left her to be raised by the Duchess upon the death of her mother. Today we talk about the importance of a father figure in a young girl's life, and we know that without that guiding influence many young girls seek attention in all manner of unhealthy ways.<br />
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I'm not sure that Catherine was empty-headed either. Though we will never know one way or the other, I think she was a typical teen, and she still possessed the idea of "it won't happen to me." Teenagers today think that pregnancy won't happen to them, that car accidents will not happen to them, that alcohol poisoning will not happen to them. They think this because they are so young, and death is such a foreign idea to them. The mind of an adolescent is till growing and changing, so rational thought is not always something they have the ability to produce. Catherine simply thought she would not be caught when she had an affair with Culpepper. She was probably in love, and felt that she would do anything to be with him. Who among us cannot remember sitting by the telephone, praying that it will ring and that special boy or girl will be on the line? The euphoria that came with that phone call beat out all other feelings did it not? I'm sure it was the same for the doomed young queen, contact with Thomas thrilled her, and she threw caution to the wind. Poor child, she thought her crazy, tyrannical husband would forgive her anything, that he adored her that much. She was wrong. She should have taken the example of her cousin Anne to heart. A wife that caused trouble for this king, especially in any way that unmanned him had only one fate. Death. The video below shows Anne Boleyn's spirit watching over Catherine, and I like that idea. If Anne was with her, then she was not alone.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/hxIBlleGR9c" title="YouTube video player" width="425"></iframe>Jennyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16383823412447138854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3209170036060144111.post-55385698006731800762011-02-08T14:20:00.000-08:002011-02-08T14:20:57.341-08:00Tudor Vampires?<span><iframe align="left" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=thescan-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=143919033X&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="align: left; height: 245px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 5px; width: 131px;"></iframe></span><span></span> I know with the release of the Twilight series came plethora of vampire books, but I am not sure what I think of Anne Boleyn as a vampire and Elisabeth as a slayer. I think that maybe just takes it a little bit over the top for me. But, who am I to criticize published authors right? I read their books and they made money off of it so hey, I guess they are one step ahead of me. The book advertised at the top of the blog entry "The Secret History of Elizabeth Tudor, Vampire Slayer" is, in my opinion actually pretty good for what it is. It is well written, with subtle hints at Anne Boleyn (Elisabeth's mother for those of you who don't know) and a very well developed main character. Weston's Elisabeth has believable feelings and desires, and she does a good job of portraying the farce of queenship. Always having to smile, always having to appear entertained by every idiot ambassador who comes through the door when really she wants to die from boredom. The plot of the book is well thought out and based in the mythology of King Arthur.<br />
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Arthur's son, Mordred made a pact with a group of vampires that came to England during his father's reign. He agreed to let them rule England with him as their king if they would help him fight off the Saxon horde. Mordred is in love with Morgaine, the daughter of a knight who died in Arthur's service, but she becomes a vampire slayer, and therefore, cannot be with Mordred. Morgaine dies fighting him and hundreds of years later she visits Anne Boleyn in the chapel at Saint Peter ad Vincula to tell her that the child she is carrying is not a prince, but a girl who will inherit of all of Morgaine's slaying powers. Anne eventually ends up being buried in Saint Peter's and her daughter is taken there on the night off her coronation where she is visited by Anne and gains her slayer powers. She then goes on to be both attracted and repelled by Mordred. She knows she must defeat him, that is her destiny, and so on. I won't reveal the ending, but the book is worth reading. I liked that Elisabeth got to have a small moment with Anne, the mother she most likely could not remember. Since she wore a ring all of her days as queen that secretly carried her mother's portrait in it I'm sure she longed to know her. She could never say it in public, for that would be acknowledging that she was the daughter of a convicted traitor, but Anne was her mother, and no matter what she would have loved her. I have always wondered what Elisabeth was told about Anne. Henry tried so hard to eradicate anything that would remind him of her, but he could not dispose of the daughter who grew to look more and more like her with each passing year. In fact, as the most famous portrait of Anne has now been determined to have been painted within living memory of the dead queen, and commissioned by someone who knew her, Elisabeth may have looked more like her mother than anyone ever knew. Check this out:<br />
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Honestly, though I don't want to imply that I wanted Henry to think ill of his daughter, I hope it galled him until the day he died. She was every bit her mother's child in temperament and intelligence and she had her black eyes, though she had Henry's red hair. A living reminder of the woman he had loved so fiercely, and so cruelly destroyed. <span><iframe align="left" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=thescan-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=1451559496&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="align: left; height: 245px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 5px; width: 131px;"></iframe></span><br />
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But I digress, the topic of this blog entry is Tudor vampire books. The second of this strange new literary genre that I read was "Boleyn, Tudor Vampire" by Cinsearea S. This book has Anne Boleyn hanged instead of beheaded so that she can reawaken in her grave as a vampire. She then digs up her brother George, who is more like a zombie than anything else and he becomes her undead servant. Next she raises Mark Smeaton, who decides that does not like bumbling about the country as a zombie who is falling to pieces, so she reburies him and he returns as a ghost. Anne and her crew spend the next year or so terrorizing Henry, Charles Brandon, and anyone else they run across. Thomas Wyatt is their willing accomplice and he himself becomes part vampire. I have to admit, I loved the idea of Anne, Mark, and George doing things to purposely annoy and torment Henry after what he did to them, it satisfied my need for revenge in terms of wanting fairness for everyone, and really, revenge is just plain fun at times, isn't it? The book is pretty gory and I would not recommend reading it while eating. Don't expect a great story, but if you want a sort of ok zombie-vampire read, it will suffice. It's not great literature, but then, what do we expect of Boleyn vampires and zombies?Jennyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16383823412447138854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3209170036060144111.post-15111131217474038412010-12-07T16:53:00.000-08:002010-12-07T18:13:17.177-08:00The Pied Piper, Fact or FictionI found a book in the library the other day (a young adult book) called "What happened in Hamelin." Since I love historical fiction I decided to give it a whirl. It is of course, based on the story of the Pied Piper. I remember feeling a shiver, or a thrill at something creepy and not quite right about that story when I was little, and to be honest, I have never really thought much about it. Since I wanted to read this book, I decided to research the history behind the story. This how it played out.<br />
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There is a replica of a stained glass window from the 1300s in a church in Hamelin, (the original was destroyed) that shows a large group of children following a man in multi-colored clothing playing a flute. The inscription below, which is from the 1300s reads:<br />
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In the year of 1284, on John's and Paul's day <br />
was the 26th of June.<br />
By a piper, dressed in all kind of colors, <br />
130 children born in Hamelin were seduced <br />
and lost at the calvarie near the koppen. <br />
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<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3237/2698584467_e26de06be1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3237/2698584467_e26de06be1.jpg" width="150" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">So, the meaning of Calvarie or <em>Calvary</em> is really unknown. It is speculated that it was a place of execution. But, as Calvary (the hill where Christ was crucified) was also called Golgotha, or the place of the skull, and koppen means head, it could have been a skull or head shaped hill. What really happened to the children of Hamelin remains a mystery. There are many stories and theories, for instance some scholars propose that the phrase "children of Hamelin" is figurative and does not mean children in the literal sense, but means people who were born in Hamelin. These same scholars think that possibly a person trying to recruit peasants to colonize the eastern block, and present day Romania came through the town and talked many of the people into leaving. As people at the time generally did not leave their home village, this was a strange and traumatic event for those left behind.</div><br />
Another theory is that a disease, not unlike the black plague swept through the village, killing many of the children and elderly, who would have been the weakest. In the middle ages, (so I read) death was often portrayed wearing multi-colored clothing, so this theory would make sense as far as the figure in the picture in the stained glass window. Although to be honest, I was hard pressed to find such an image of death when I searched.<br />
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<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">A third theory poses the idea that this story is about the children's crusade, which actually happened in 1212. This odd and frightening event started with a boy named Stephen of Cloyes claimed that Christ had personally given him a letter for the king and that he was to lead a crusade of children to the Holy Land to recover the Holy Sepulchure. The boy must have been very charismatic because thousands of children followed him. This happened in France and also in Germany, but was led there by a boy named Nicholas. These children eventually made it to port cities and were sold into slavery if they did not die on the way. Over 30,000 children went on these "crusades" and never returned home. It is a frightening example of the instability and zeal of adolescents and the strength of mob mentality. You can read more about the Children's Crusade here: <a href="http://www.middle-ages.org.uk/the-childrens-crusade.htm">http://www.middle-ages.org.uk/the-childrens-crusade.htm</a></div><br />
It is always possible that these children were led away by some strange deviant who killed them, but such a large number is unlikely. Of course, one must remember Michael Jackson and Neverland Ranch, a children's paradise created by a very strange and charismatic man...so it is entirely possible. Never the less, <em>The Pied Piper </em>remains a fairy tale mystery. In 1284 something very bad happened in the town of Hamelin, but unless some new primary source is found, we will most likely never know exactly what that thing was.<br />
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Sources:<br />
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<a href="http://www.wisegeek.com/is-the-pied-piper-of-hamelin-based-on-an-actual-event.htm">http://www.wisegeek.com/is-the-pied-piper-of-hamelin-based-on-an-actual-event.htm</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2060/was-the-pied-piper-of-hamelin-a-child-molester">http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2060/was-the-pied-piper-of-hamelin-a-child-molester</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.forteantimes.com/features/articles/3805/the_lost_children_of_hamelin.html">http://www.forteantimes.com/features/articles/3805/the_lost_children_of_hamelin.html</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/410409/the_legend_of_the_pied_piper_all_fiction.html?cat=37">http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/410409/the_legend_of_the_pied_piper_all_fiction.html?cat=37</a>Jennyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16383823412447138854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3209170036060144111.post-55221712113315750012010-11-03T18:25:00.000-07:002010-11-03T18:25:06.738-07:00Shakespeare's Henry VIII, A Review<span><iframe align="left" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=thescan-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=B00348UNAM&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="align: left; height: 245px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 5px; width: 131px;"></iframe></span>I had the opportunity to view Shakespeare's play Henry VIII this past weekend at the Folger theatre in downtown D.C. While I enjoyed the play itself, it was historically an atrocity. I suppose it was written to appease Elisabeth I by making her parents look good, but she was dead by the time it was performed so I am not sure what the point of that was really. The program says that during one of the first performances cannons were fired to signal Henry's entrance and that the cannons caught the roof of the Globe theatre on fire. Perhaps the Globe could not stand for such a historical travesty to be performed within it's walls.<br />
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The play covers a period of 16 years during which Henry executes the duke of Buckingham, divorces Catharine of Aragon, marries Anne Boleyn, and ends with the baptism of the princess Elisabeth. Henry is portrayed as an innocent victim of his conscience and has no choice but to divorce his first wife so that he can beget an heir. Anne Boleyn is seen as a mincing innocent who is soooo surprised that Henry has bestowed honors on her and wants to marry her. Catharine of Aragon is the real showstopper however, she is portrayed as I think she really was. A kind, intelligent, sensible woman with a backbone of steel. A capable queen steadfast in her beliefs. <br />
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When Elisabeth is born everyone is thrilled, just thrilled and what celebrations are had to honor the tiny princess. No mention is made except in passing at the disappointment that she is a girl. Hmmmm, something is lacking there I think.<br />
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Henry was no innocent victim, though he wanted everyone to think he was, and in real life he played his part well, especially at the trial at Blackfriars where the validity of his first marriage was being judged. He was an intelligent, conniving, lustful man who was in love with another woman. I truly believe he loved Catharine, just no longer in the way of a wife. I think it hurt him to be cruel to her, but all too often Henry's pain seems to have turned to anger and she was sent from court to drafty Kimbolton castle and forbidden to see her daughter. Never mind that he himself caused the whole situation.<br />
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Anne Boleyn was no innocent bystander either. She had had her heart broken when she was forbidden to marry Henry Percy. Like many young girls who are desperately in love and are forbidden to see the objects of their affection Anne's parents had to resort to changing her bedroom in Hever castle to one that she could not escape from so that she would not run off and find him. This story repeats even today. Who has not been grounded and devastated and angry and tried to sneak out?<br />
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I think Anne lived life with her whole heart and because of this she was greatly broken when she was not allowed to marry Percy. Out of this came her love for Henry? Maybe not at first, maybe not for years, but I think she grew to love him passionately. Passionately enough to be humiliated when he had affairs, passionately enough to put her whole heart on display for him everyday, be it happiness, anger, or sadness. She let him have it. Henry complained that Catharine had never spoken to him thus. Oh well, you wanted her brilliant light, but brilliant light cannot be contained. It is said that the candle that burns the shortest time burns the brightest, and her candle burned so very brightly. At least her candle was not snuffed out at the end of that awful play. I am sure some kind of propaganda spin would have been put on it. Blegh. Viva la Reine!Jennyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16383823412447138854noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3209170036060144111.post-12184429374869923572010-09-23T17:53:00.000-07:002010-09-23T17:53:27.949-07:00What Did He Really Believe?I just finished reading Suzannah Libscomb's book "1536: The Year That Changed Henry VIII."<span><iframe align="left" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=thescan-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=0745953328&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="align: left; height: 245px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 5px; width: 131px;"></iframe> This was a great non-fiction read and I finished it in one day. The book discusses how the year 1536 changed Henry VIII forever. It was in this year that he lost his first wife, Catharine of Aragon in January. A few days later Anne Boleyn miscarried another baby boy. Anne was accused of adultery in May of 1536 and executed in the same month, along with five men, all reputed to be good friend's of Henry's with the exeption of the musician Mark Smeaton. In July of that year Henry's illegitimate son, Henry Fitzroy died. Lipscomb argues that the horrible events of this year changed Henry's view of himself and the world forever. He suffered so much loss during this one horrible year that I imagine he did have a hard time recovering. He was reportedly close with his son Fitzroy and exhibited erratic behavior at the boy's death, ordering the Duke of Norfolk to bury him in secret and then reprimanding him for following these orders several days later. Are these the strange actions of a grieving father and a husband who's wife died, a wife he went to the ends of the earth to marry? Or, are they the early acts of a man who was going insane?</span><br />
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<span>Lipscomb argues that Henry believed Anne Boleyn to be guilty of adultery, that this was the only way, as a sane human being, that he could have turned on her so viciously. The king and Anne were reportedly "making merry together" in late April of 1536. What happened in those few days that ended with the death of the love of Henry's life? I certainly have never met a man who would fight for and wait 10 years on a woman he did not love. Lipscomb reports that the rumors of the queen's infidelity came from the Countess of Worchester, one of Anne's ladies in waiting. She was chastised for her own loose behavior by her brother and apparently accused Anne of questionable behavior as well. These accusations were brought to the attention of Cromwell who brought them to Henry. An investigation ensued and Anne and several others were arrested. We all know how the story ends, but is it possible that Henry believed his wife betrayed him? Did this betrayal put him on the road to madness? I have discussed Henry's madness in earlier posts, but Lipscomb is right, until 1536, he was not nearly as crazy as he was after that year, at least he did not appear to be. I think betrayal and divorce is like a death, the death of a relationship and the death in one's heart of the one they loved. In this case it ended in the very real death of six people, which in reality probably compounded Henry's grief. If he in fact believed that Anne was guilty then he was most likely already mourning her and the person he thought she was. His grief most likely turned to fierce anger and ended up with him ordering her execution after her sham of a trial. Libscomb writes that Henry took a morbid interest in the practical arrangements of Anne's execution such as the building of the scaffold and the hiring of an extrememly expensive executioner from Calais. I would almost call this his final act of love as this French executioner cost more than most men made in a year and was reputed to be very skillful, killing his victims in one stroke of the sword. This would have been a wonderful alternative to the axe, a form of execution that was often botched and saw the executed literally hacked to death.</span><br />
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<span>Lipscomb's book provided a unique and often untapped perspective on the change in Henry VIII after 1536. I also enjoy her theory that Henry believed Anne to be guilty, othwerwise how could so great a love turn so quickly to so much hatred and malice? I would fear to think that Anne was not savy enough to see all of this coming if in fact Henry was vindictive and nutty to begin with. I don't think she would have gone for that after loving a man so gentle as Henry Percy. She does not strike me as the type of girl who is so blinded by love that she sees no faults in a man. I think she saw plenty of them, and told him about them all. From all written accounts it does not appear that she held her tongue often. Maybe she would have, the truth is, we really don't know. All that does appear obvious is that something went horribly wrong and Henry turned on his wife like a mad dog turns on it's master. From 1536 on he appears to sink deeper into madness and tyranny. </span><br />
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<span>The video below shows Anne and Henry considering the downfall of their marriage. Pure sadness.</span><br />
<span><object height="340" width="560"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/2h2zTtj7H0Y?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/2h2zTtj7H0Y?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object></span>Jennyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16383823412447138854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3209170036060144111.post-24081212057773030142010-09-21T18:35:00.000-07:002010-09-21T18:35:32.758-07:00Anne Boleyn in Fiction: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly<span><iframe align="left" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=thescan-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=B000FC2MDG&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="align: left; height: 245px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 5px; width: 131px;"></iframe></span>This summer I decided to go back and re-read <em>The Other Boleyn Girl</em>, the book that drew me into historical fiction as a genre, well, really the only genre that I want to read. I think that this book in particular drew many people into reading about the past, whether in novels or non-fiction books, this book, and the horrible movie made from it is what I feel started a passion for Tudor fiction in readers everywhere. The book was excellent, a page turner until the end, just as I remembered. What I also found to be true in this book is the fact that I despised Gregory's portrayal of Anne Boleyn. The Anne in this book had almost no humanity, no softness, no weakness which could be related to. She was all nerves and steel with a fake til you make it attitude and she did not mind stepping on anyone to make it. This Anne was conniving, self-centered, mean spirited and driven with some sort of inner tornado. This Anne was a horrible, spiteful person who loved no one, except her brother George. He a little too much it is suggested as he and Anne reference going to "the gates of hell itself" to get an heir for England. This Anne is a hard, dark person to me.<br />
So, I started thinking about Anne in other books that I have read over the years. I liked Anne Boleyn in "Secrets of the Tudor Court" which is told from the perspective of Mary Howard, Anne's cousin. This Anne is sharp, nervous, quick to sting, but also quick with kindness. Mostly she just seems a nervous wreck, a dignified one, but a nervous wreck. Who could blame her? Her husband was cheating on her, she was losing babies, rumors were flying, and her own family was spying on her to make sure she behaved in a way that would benefit them. She knew she would be betrayed and she was. This Anne I liked. This Anne was human.<br />
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I liked Anne in <em>Dear Heart, How Like You This </em>told from the point of view of Thomas Wyatt. She was lively and full of life, but was broken when she lost Henry Percy. She became vengeful and angry and won Henry as a means of revenge. This Anne just makes me sad. An Anne that I loved was the Anne in Brandy Purdy's "The Boleyn Wife." This Anne mocked Jane Rochford from the grave, something which I thought was appropriate to do to the woman who helped bring about her death and the death of George. I loved her black humor in this book and how she taunted Jane by removing her head and putting it back on in one of Jane's hallucinations.<br />
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My favorite Anne of all time is Natalie Dormer on "The Tudors" but a close second is the Anne in Nell Gavin's "Threads." This Anne is introspective, sad, alternately sympathetic and angry, and had a fully developed, well rounded character. At times I thought she was more of a girl than a woman, but I loved her insight and how much she grew and changed during her many lives. The insight she gained was invaluable and she learned how she became Anne Boleyn, and how this affected all of her lives afterwards. This Anne, she was amazing and how I like to think Anne Boleyn would have been. The story is complicated, allowing Anne to view many of her lives after her life as Anne Boleyn has ended and she comes to understand the complicated relationship she has with Henry. She learns to appreciate the simple, worship-like love that Henry Percy has had for her through several lifetimes. She finally understands that she and Henry are soul mates, and destined to be together over and over and over, forever, until they make it to heaven. It is a beautiful story with an amazing Anne Boleyn as the main character. This is an Anne that I can love. I can't wait to read more, no matter how many times you meet a character in a story, they are always different, never the same person. It's one of the best pieces of magic that books have to offer!Jennyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16383823412447138854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3209170036060144111.post-5933314558740914462010-08-24T06:37:00.000-07:002010-08-24T06:37:41.691-07:00A Book Review and Some Great New History!<span><iframe align="left" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=thescan-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=0758241992&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="align: left; height: 245px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 5px; width: 131px;"></iframe>I just finished reading "Secrets of the Tudor Court" by D.L. Bogdan and it was a truly unique book. The book is told from the perspective of Mary Howard, daughter of the Duke of Norfolk. The book focuses on Mary's relationship with her father, the Duke, and it's difficulties. Poor Mary is a child and a woman who craves parental affection, something she is never given. Her life is filled with difficulties and disillusionment, starting with the discovery that her father and her governess are having an affair and that her father is horribly abusive to her mother. </span><br />
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<span>She is placed in the court of Anne Boleyn and becomes a spy for her father hoping to win his affection. She is devastated by the loss of Anne and horrified at the King's shocking betrayal of his wife. She is married to the King's illegitimate son, Henry Fitzroy but never allowed to live with him as his wife. She is later informed by her father that this is because he knew that Henry VIII was planning to poison the boy and he did not want her endangered. This further complicates Mary's relationship with her father because he kept her away from a man she loved to protect her. She both hates him and loves him, it's never easy with him.</span><br />
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<span>She goes on to become a maid in Katherine Howard's court and is again crushed by her death. She leaves court, raises her brother's children and later dies. I won't say this was a happy story, but it was a very good story.</span><br />
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<span>Two fascinating pieces of history have come to light in the past week, one being the discovery that the most famous portrait of Anne Boleyn was commissioned by someone who knew her and was painted within living memory of her, so perhaps it is a good likeness. The other is that the location of the battle of Bosworth field has been discovered, this is the battle which brought the Tudor dynasty to the throne and in which Richard III, the last Plantagenet King was killed. A boar badge, Richard's symbol was one the things dug up on the field by archaeologists. Can you imagine getting touch such a piece of history? Richard distributed the badges to his nights, can you even dream about how amazing it would be to touch something that Richard III may have touched?! It gives me chills! You can read more about these discoveries over on the Anne Boleyn files, run by the amazing Claire Ridgeway! ( <a href="http://www.theanneboleynfiles.com/">http://www.theanneboleynfiles.com/</a> )</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHRnqzVUeBSRgVObtbuz1jbpPIr1Q8NFGoiBf1__-AFBI8V_d9welHFQy_rpTlq5RAG1W_w0_gjHJFp5XgzUlMSEfpJE5XfYU6kb16Xoixy_Q6V2p-0wWh7Ptkdns9OaoAAdW1vZudwJs/s1600/Slide2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHRnqzVUeBSRgVObtbuz1jbpPIr1Q8NFGoiBf1__-AFBI8V_d9welHFQy_rpTlq5RAG1W_w0_gjHJFp5XgzUlMSEfpJE5XfYU6kb16Xoixy_Q6V2p-0wWh7Ptkdns9OaoAAdW1vZudwJs/s320/Slide2.JPG" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu3ZjljcQ7vg3wSKC5Q1gXHLsDKPJmiAFRnoOJ_uthmCrwyG4gVGDIZZOzw8BgEYXeuUd7uLMaxtfzxvxZOJw-aYeJ2J1B05XhLCfqmwtcQqjmx8VsrVxL_cwb36HqmoaTThk-1u0qLac/s1600/boar.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu3ZjljcQ7vg3wSKC5Q1gXHLsDKPJmiAFRnoOJ_uthmCrwyG4gVGDIZZOzw8BgEYXeuUd7uLMaxtfzxvxZOJw-aYeJ2J1B05XhLCfqmwtcQqjmx8VsrVxL_cwb36HqmoaTThk-1u0qLac/s320/boar.jpg" /></a></div>Jennyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16383823412447138854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3209170036060144111.post-15177726689011490142010-07-17T12:13:00.000-07:002010-07-17T12:13:49.968-07:00Centuries of Lies? Part 2<span><iframe align="left" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=thescan-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=0393007855&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="align: left; height: 245px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 5px; width: 131px;"></iframe></span>So, when we left off Richard III had named himself King of England. His son and heir was named Prince of Wales and everyone seemed to be happy, more or less. However, plots to dethrone Richard and put the young Edward V on the throne began to develop. Elizabeth Woodville, conniving queen that she was, plotted with Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry Tudor to bring Henry back into England from France with an army he would raise on the continent and together with the Duke of Buckingham and his forces and those raised by other lords Henry would take the throne of England and marry Elizabeth of York, the eldest daughter of Elizabeth Woodville and Edward IV. This would not make Elizabeth Woodville's son king, but it would make her daughter queen. This plot was discovered, however, and the discovery, in addition to rain which flooded much of the north of England prevented Henry Tudor's forces from moving south towards London. Buckingham was arrested and inevitably executed. Everyone else seems to have been granted clemency, including Margaret Beaufort, who was married to Lord Stanley, a powerful lord who owned so much land in England that his eventual abandonment of Richard on the battlefield at Bosworth would lead to his downfall. Such powerful landowners commanded legions of troops and their allegiance could make or break a king. <br />
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Time passed and later that year Richard's only son died followed by his wife, Anne Neville. Anne and Richard were cousins who grew up together and he most likely mourned the loss of a wife he truly loved. More time passes and a second rebellion against Richard is raised by Woodville and Beaufort. Henry Tudor came into Wales with his uncle Jasper Tudor, who himself was a great lord in Wales. The Tudors marched down through England collecting troops as they went. They met Richard's army at Bosworth where the king himself was leading his army. At the last minute Lord Stanley ordered his troops to switch sides and start fighting <em>against</em> Richard and his men and Richard, who had been unhorsed, was killed. It is said he went down fighting and yelling for a horse. Henry Tudor rode into London in triumph after being crowned king Henry VII on the battlefield. Five months later he married Elizabeth of York and united the red and white roses of England, or the houses of York and Lancaster, Tudor and Plantagenent. <br />
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Henry quickly moved to have the act of Titulus Regius destroyed, not repealed, but destroyed. If the act were left in existence it would draw into question the legitimacy of his wife, and if it was repealed it would declare Edward V to be the rightful king of England. It was a double edged sword for Henry. So he did the only thing he could do and obliterated the memory of such a law. He passed a bill of attainder against Richard III accusing him of tyranny and cruelty but supposedly not of killing the two princes. I have not been able to verify this fact, but if it is true and the princes were in fact missing and had been killed by Richard why would Henry not charge him with the crime? It would be his biggest smoking gun and would make people loathe Richard and gladly accept their new king, whose claim to the throne was tenuous. Anyhow, Henry's queen Elizabeth gave birth to Prince Arthur after they had been married for about a year and the succession was safe.<br />
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In 1489 Henry suddenly had Elizabeth Woodville put away in a nunnery, perhaps she started asking too many questions about her sons. Prior to this he had granted her a hefty annual income and all of the rights and privileges of a dowager queen. Around this time, in 1502, a man named Sir James Tyrell was arrested for treason and executed. After his death a "confession" was published saying that he had been sent by Richard III to the tower with two other men to kill the young princes. He relieved the constable of the tower, one sir Robert Brackenbury of the keys to the fortress for one night and the two hired thugs killed the young princes. He supposedly buried them under a set of stairs. The skeletons of two children were found in the 1700s and they were believed to be those of the princes. It has never been proven however, but they are interred in state in Westminster Abbey. They were not the only two skeletons found in the tower though, there is a tale from the time of Elizabeth I of the skeletons of two children being found laid out on a table in a walled up room. What became of them is not known however.<br />
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So, was Richard guilty of the murder of his nephews or not? Did only one of them die? In the time of Henry VII a young man named Perkin Warbeck appeared on the international scene claiming to be the younger prince, Richard, Duke of York. He was believed by many people in high places, but his claim remains unsubstantiated one way or the other. All accounts of Richard as a murderer were written under the Tudor regime, the regime that usurped Richard's throne. So who was the real killer? Richard? Henry Tudor? Neither one? I don't know that we will ever know but it makes for a really great mystery!Jennyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16383823412447138854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3209170036060144111.post-79910586165237743482010-07-14T19:05:00.000-07:002010-07-14T19:07:29.019-07:00Centuries of Lies? Part 1<iframe align="left" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=thescan-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=0684803860&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="align: left; height: 245px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 5px; width: 131px;"></iframe>The subject of today's post is the guilt, or lack thereof, of Richard III. Perhaps you are familiar with the story of Richard III from Shakespeare's play or from your world history books. Perhaps you have seen one of the various movies about him. He is generally portrayed as a murderous, hunch-backed fiend who killed his nephews in order to become king. However, in reading a book this week I have discovered that this may be all propaganda brought about to discredit the Yorkist claim to the throne by Henry VII. But back to the beginning and where it all started.<br />
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Richard III was the youngest brother of King Edward IV of England. He was known for his loyalty to his brother the king and his great valor in battle. George and Edward had another brother, George, Duke of Clarence, who was executed by Edward's order due to the fact that he raised multiple rebellions against his brother the king, making his own bid for the throne. George and his heirs were disinherited before his death and were not re-instated for some time. Edward IV died unexpectedly in 1483 leaving behind a wife, two sons, and five daughters. The older son and heir to the throne, Edward V was in Wales at the time. The queen, Elizabeth Woodville, fearing an uprising, took her younger son and daughters into Westminster Abbey and took sanctuary there. She ordered her brother, Earl Rivers, who was the boy's guardian, and her son by her first marriage, the Marquise of Dorset, to bring the new boy king back to London. The party was supposed to meet up with Richard III and his men somewhere in the north of England and proceed to London. Richard had been named the Lord Protector of the young prince until he reached manhood. This gave him full rights to the body of the prince, in today's terms he had legal custody of the child.<br />
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Rivers and his men did not meet up with Richard's party, who was coming down into England after fighting the Scots, instead forging ahead and leaving a messenger for Richard. Richard promptly caught up to the Prince's party and arrested Rivers and Dorset for not handing over the young king. He proceeded with him into London where he housed him at a bishop's palace while he himself stayed at his mother's family home at Baynard's castle. He began to plan a coronation for the young king and asked that his younger brother Richard, Duke of York be brought out of sanctuary to keep the young king company. The two boys were moved to the Tower of London, still a royal residence at the time, for safekeeping. It was traditional for monarchs to sleep there before their coronation.<br />
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The coronation, however, never took place. During a council meeting in June of that year Stillington, a priest in the Plantagenent household told Richard that he could not in good conscience allow Edward V to inherit the throne because he was in fact illegitimate due to the fact that the late King, Edward IV, had been secretly married to a lady named Eleanor Butler, who at this time was in a nunnery or possibly dead, (that is unknown) and therefore his marriage to the queen was bigamous. The next in line to the throne was Richard's other nephew, the Earl of Warwick, his brother George's son. Since the child had been disinherited Richard overlooked him and named himself heir to the throne. Instead of his nephew being crowned he himself was crowned. He quickly sent for a large force of soldiers to hold the city of London because he feared the boy's mother, the dowager queen, would encourage her many relatives at court to stage an uprising in favor of her son, which, in all likelihood she would have. She was hated by many in power for bringing her relatives to court when she became queen and having titles bestowed upon them.<br />
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Anyhow, Richard is crowned, his wife and son are brought to court, and Elizabeth Woodville and her daughters come out of sanctuary. The family, by all contemporary accounts seems to be getting along well, at times living in the palace and the princesses attended many palace functions. No mention is made however, of the boys who are still locked in the tower one supposes. Surely if they were missing scandal would have broken out, especially with a mother like Elizabeth Woodville on the loose. There are no contemporary accusations, however, that the boys have disappeared or that Richard has done anything to them. If I was a mother I would not keep quiet about my children having disappeared. I would not come out of sanctuary with my daughters, I would sail quietly away to France in the middle of the night and raise an army on the continent. None of this happened. Everything went along normally. The only rumors at the time seem to have appeared on the continent, where many of Richard's enemies fled upon his accession to the throne. Most notably John Morton, the man who provided the information to Thomas More, who wrote a history of Richard III. It is important to note that More himself, though a great man and a great mind, was a child in 1483, so he is not a contemporary historian and he was writing under a Tudor regime, a regime that usurped the Plantagenent one.<br />
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More tomorrow, more evidence, more treachery, more lies?<br />
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Sources: Richard III Society<br />
http://www.richardiii.net/Jennyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16383823412447138854noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3209170036060144111.post-81785638796708967632010-06-20T19:28:00.000-07:002010-07-01T17:45:35.950-07:00And So It Ends...<iframe align="left" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=thescan-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=0745953328&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="align: left; height: 245px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 5px; width: 131px;"></iframe>The last episode of the Tudors ends with Henry's approaching death and his view of himself as <br />
king. He stands before Holbein's great portrait in the chapel and sees his life flash before him. His death is not seen, but foretold by his dream of a pale horse with death as a rider coming for him. For those of you not familiar with the symbolism death rides a pale horse when he rides with the four horsemen of the apocalypse. The pale horse is just yet another of Hirst's beautiful use of imagery and symbolism in this epic series. He used it before when Anne Boleyn was executed. There was a flash of swans and feathers as she died. Swans are said to burst into song before dying, thus the term "Swan Song" to describe the end of something. Crows or ravens also flew from the top of the tower after she died. Crows are said to carry the souls of the dead to the other side. Hirst is truly an amazing writer and director.<br />
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The other fabulous thing about tonight's episode were the visits Henry received from three of his four dead wives. Katherine of Aragon came first. She chided him for being cruel to their daughter Mary and for not allowing her to marry and become a mother. She also told him that she was his true wife in the eyes of God when she was alive and still was. Needless to say, he was not happy about this, but I liked that she got that barb in one final time.<br />
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Anne Boleyn came next. She appeared to him in the night as he was preparing for sleep. He appears to be preparing some sort of tincture no doubt for his health, but one must wonder if he thinks he is losing his mind. He asks her why she has come and she says to see her daughter. She tells Henry she is so proud of her, how clever she is, how strong, how beautiful. She asks Henry if he is proud and he admits that yes, indeed he is but that he cannot always love her because she reminds him too much of Anne and what she did to him. Anne is shocked and replies that she did nothing to him, that she was innocent and the accusations against her were false. Then she looks at him and says "I thought you knew." It is not clear if he knew or not, but he does now. She also tells him that poor Catherine Howard lies in the ground next to her and that what happened to her was not her fault either. Anne looks at Henry almost with pity, but she still has that amazing strength that will not allow her to give in to the emotion. He turns and speaks her name and asks her not to go, but she is gone. He had not spoken her name in years. He is left to live with the fact that he killed an innocent woman, a woman he dearly loved, and that he never got the chance to apologize, which he does not deserve. Let him die with the guilt.<br />
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Jane Seymour is the last to appear and she tells him that all of his coddling of Edward has killed him. He will die young and he never lived much of a life shut away from the world. Henry is devastated by the news and turns away from his most beloved wife. He then orders his council to bury him next to her. Guess he really didn't have any choice since he either divorced or executed all of his other wives that were no longer alive and he knew his current wife would outlive him.<br />
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Hirst also did an amazing job of directing the cast. Princess Mary stands strong with her hands clasped as her mother always did. She has that backbone of steel they both inherited from Isabella of Castile. Elisabeth though is truly amazing. She has her mother's dignity and that way of thrusting her chin forward and holding her head high when she hears news that is not to her liking that Natalie Dormer as Anne perfected. The gestures of these two actresses are so similar that they really appear to be mother and daughter. A truly amazing series has come to an end. It goes out while a pale horse approaches from behind.Jennyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16383823412447138854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3209170036060144111.post-57730102112802293822010-06-08T17:07:00.000-07:002010-07-15T12:17:33.522-07:00A Life Lived Misunderstood is Still a Life Lived<iframe align="left" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=thescan-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=1402214316&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="align: left; height: 245px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 5px; width: 131px;"></iframe>I was reading a book this evening about Anne of Cleves. Anne of Cleves is Henry VIII's fourth wife and they were married about six months. Henry called the poor woman "The Great Flanders Mare" and famously said "I Like Her Not!" upon meeting her for the first time. No one knows why this meeting went so badly, perhaps she was sick from a long sea voyage. Perhaps she was dressed oddly in Flemish clothing. Perhaps he did not like her because she had dark hair and her name was Anne, reminding him a little too much of Anne Boleyn, his great love and the most hated woman in his life, as far as appearances go anyway. Perhaps he did not like her because she did not realize the great fat man in front of her was the king and her husband dressed as a commoner so that he could surprise her. Who knows. Her portrait, painted by Holbein, is not ugly by any means. She looks quiet and attractive, and perhaps that was her downfall. Henry liked his women to sparkle, to be conversationalists and knowledgeable, not quiet and sensible. Although, his beloved Jane Seymour is said to have been "mousy." Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard certainly sparkled, Katherine of Aragon fairly glittered, so this woman from Cleves who studied all things practical but not much as far as the arts were concerned must have been quite a change for him. However, by all accounts she was a kind and loving person. She continued to mother his children even after Henry divorced her, she agreed to the divorce amiably (although she did manage to keep her head this way) and she maintained a good relationship with Henry, Mary, Elisabeth and Edward until her death. <br />
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So, as context, or the need to use the past to understand the present is my greatest strength according to "Strength Finders", intellect coming in second, I realized something while I was reading this afternoon. Today I saw someone that I have not seen in quite a while. This person causes me to roll my eyes often as they talk non-stop about work and we have butted heads several times. However, when I was reading I realized that I have misjudged this person. Anne of Cleves was a woman denied a chance at marriage and motherhood, something women of her time wanted very much. I realized, while speaking with this person today that I actually really enjoyed our conversation, which is somewhat a new phenomenon for me. Thinking back to my past encounters with this person I remembered that once, only once, I saw her smile fade and I saw her tears. Tears of frustration at another wedding that was not hers, another child born to friends that would not be hers. This, I realized is why she talks about work all the time, to hide what is lacking. Stand on your strengths we are told, and so she does, she is good at what she does. She loves her job and this is what is important to her so this is what she talks about and this is ok. She, like Anne, has thus far been denied marriage and children, something women want both then and now, but she smiles and continues to love life.<br />
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Thinking more I thought about how I know that I am often misunderstood. I work in a very pro-cheerful environment, but one that I love dearly. Not being an over the top cheerful person, I think many people think that I am bitter and old before my time. Cynical too perhaps. This is not true, I just have nothing to match the enthusiasm which comes from four cups of coffee and several diet cokes a day. If I drank all of that caffeine my heart would explode. I sometimes wonder what is behind the smiles of the super happy, I know there are other emotions. Am I happy? Yes. Am I super duper chirpy happy? Umm, perhaps on a Europe bound flight or at the Pink concert earlier this year, otherwise, I am just living in reality, and reality for me is a calm, sedated place where bad things do exist, I can't pretend they don't. But every day life includes so many small joys, and I experience and love them, I am just quiet about it. I am who I am, and that is ok. Those who are always cheerful are who they are, and that is also fine. I think we exist in mutual acceptance and humor. I have a dry sense of humor, sometimes it is rather black, I talk ALOT and if someone is lucky enough to get into my heart, I will love them forever. But I also battle depression, it's a battle that never ends, and I do the best I can. I am reminded of that old commercial about "This is your brain, this is your brain on drugs, any questions?" I feel like, this is me on drugs that help me not live in blackness, So some days I live in light and some days I live in grey, any questions? But it does not mean that overall I am unhappy.<br />
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I compare myself to Anne Boleyn frequently, as I think she was much like me. She was smart, not beautiful but not unattractive, had a temper, and was very misunderstood and much maligned. A great smear campaign was conducted after her death and she became seen as a social climber, a shrew, and a mean spirited person. I don't think she was. She set up many charities to help the poor, I think she very much wanted to be liked and wanted to be a good queen. She had a personality that was very strong, and she either drew people in all the way, or pushed them away beyond reach. People either loved her enough to die for her or they hated her enough to ensure her death, there was no gray area. I have this type of personality, I am either loved or loathed, nothing much in between. Some say I am lazy, or become displeased because I do not do as they wish. Perhaps though, they should examine their own actions, who wants to feed those who bite your hand? I think Anne felt much the same way. She did not make much effort to charm those who did not like her. In fact, for several weeks she took as her motto "Ainsi sera, groigne qui groigne" which translates to "Grumble all you like, this is how it's going to be." She had it embroidered on her servant's livery, just to make sure everyone got the message. You have to love her somewhat dark wit, I must admit I laughed a good bit when I read this. I think the difference is, however, I have learned to back down, internalized some of my frustration, and chosen to ignore the slights of those who wish me ill. I know I have those about me who love me, and for this I love them, so to me, it is very simple. I often find myself thinking "Grace of a queen, you will sit here with the grace of a queen," though at that time I am thinking more of Katherine of Aragon than Anne. I often wonder how much I should endure though, before I run the risk of being put away, pushed away, not seen as valuable. Silence is not always healthy, but I try to pick my battles carefully. I wonder, however, how strong and careful I would be if I were left to stand on my own as Anne was. I would probably react somewhat the same way and lash out in fear and sadness, that appears to be anger. I know my friends and their love and acceptance give me strength to deal with difficulties. Anne did not have so many friends, she was closest with her brother, and people twisted this in order to do away with her. How wrong to twist the love of a brother and sister and true friends. Poor woman, misunderstood until the end.<br />
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I also have to admit, I did not want to take the Strengthfinders quiz and there was much grumbling and eye-rolling about it. I had to do it for work. However, I loved the outcome and how accurate it was. I love that it brought this strength to light, or articulated it so well for me. I guess it's something I always knew about myself but never put into words, figuring others would find it weird. But it's not weird, apparently it's somewhat common as it is listed in the results of this test that people pay to take. I like that it brought that to light. I also liked that it recognized empathy as one of my strengths. Maybe I don't show it everywhere, but the phone rings here day and night with my friends and their problems, because I love them, without judgement. Who knows when I could be in whatever their situation is? Like I said, once you are in my heart, I will love you forever, with a fierce loyalty. But that's my view on myself, my strengths, and how I need the past to understand it. Below is Holbein's portrait of Anne of Cleves. It hangs in a small alcove in the Louvre. I love her quiet serenity. She looks kind and pretty. Nothing like a Flanders mare.<br />
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</div>Jennyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16383823412447138854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3209170036060144111.post-61547286903566945272010-06-03T16:32:00.000-07:002010-06-03T16:32:56.496-07:00Been Away for a While<iframe align="left" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=thescan-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=0140422277&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="align: left; height: 245px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 5px; width: 131px;"></iframe>It's been a while since I've posted, almost two weeks! I have spent a lot of time trying to write a post about Jane <span class="goog-spellcheck-word" style="background: yellow;">Rochford</span> but I just can't figure out exactly what I want to say. I have been bored with the Tudors lately, Henry is married to Katherine Parr, and his complacency is boring. I know it's about to get more exciting with a protestant burning and I am beyond absolutely beyond thrilled that Anne Boleyn is back and talking to Elisabeth in the last episode, how amazing!<br />
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I am looking at going on a trip next year called "The Anne Boleyn Experience" and I am so excited! I will update again when I get something good written. Check out the video below, Thomas Wyatt's poem "These Bloody Days" runs throughout it. It is beautiful and sad and heart wrenching because he did love those who died so, especially Anne and he watched them all die. Survivor's guilt probably killed Henry Percy, he died not long after Anne. Perhaps <span class="goog-spellcheck-word" style="background: yellow;">Thomas's</span> poetic soul allowed him to vent his grief and kept him from an early grave. Regardless, the sadness is palpable in his words. Hearing them read aloud by his character from "The Tudors" makes it even more powerful. What a beautiful soul he had.<br />
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<object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/y9hzbUM3ICw&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/y9hzbUM3ICw&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>Jennyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16383823412447138854noreply@blogger.com0