Mary I, Birthdays, and New Faces

Today in 1516, Henry VIII’s wife Catherine of Aragon gave birth to a girl who would become Mary I, Queen of England. This was while Henry and Catherine’s marriage was still young and relatively fruitful; Mary was their first child — and would be their last — to survive infancy and grow into adulthood.

Whenever I mention Mary to a group of non-history addicted persons, they always light up a bit, pleased they know something, and say, “That’s Bloody Mary, isn’t it?” They proceed to ask me about the curse and the mirror and the alcoholic drink while I try not to pull a Henry VIII and hit the executioner’s emergency number on my speed dial.

I always felt sympathetic towards Mary, especially the Mary I encounter most often, in my reading of the 1520s-1530s, during which time she was declared a bastard, separated from her mother, ignored by her father, and servant for her infant half-sister.

Most of the portraits I’ve seen of Mary are after this time, during her time as Queen or shortly before, and few captured the image I had of the daughter of the beautiful Catherine of Aragon and the (once) handsome Henry VIII. It never made sense, and I feel that in our vain, shallow society, modern perceptions of Mary remain negative in part because of the sour middle-aged woman they see in the well-known portraits that are plastered across book covers and websites.

Admittedly, I know little enough about Mary to properly defend her in conversation, but she’s suffered from misconceptions and generalizations just as dozens and dozens of other controversial women in history.

In my copy of Francis Hackett’s Henry The Eighth – which, from what I can tell, is a 1929 first edition — an apparently rare portrait of Mary stares coyly out at the reader on page 130. I had never seen Mary portrayed in such a youthful, flattering light. Bedecked in beautiful jewels and in the same French fashion as her loathed stepmother, Anne Boleyn, Mary smiles intelligently and piously, an open book on her lap beneath her folded hands.

The caption beneath the portrait reads “Princess Mary, About 1537, From the Painting in the University Galleries, Oxford, London.” This makes her about 21 at the time, a beautiful young women a year after her mother’s death, Anne Boleyn’s execution, and the bastardization of her half-sister, the toddler Elizabeth. In 1537 Mary was enjoying her relationship with her father’s new wife, Jane Seymour, who shared Mary’s religious beliefs and began the reconciliation process between the king and his eldest daughter, a process completed years later by Henry’s sixth wife Katherine Parr.

Still young, still beautiful, after the trauma of her teen years and before the drama of her adult life, this image provides us with an image of Mary that I, at least, haven’t seen until last year when I first opened Francis Hackett’s book.

The twenty-one-year-old Lady Mary as noted in Francis Hackett’s ‘Henry the Eighth.’ Have you seen this portrait before?

Knowing that I had ever seen this before, which I thought was strange as Hackett implied this portrait was contemporary, or near-contemporary, I did some digging. The University Galleries Museum was renamed the Ashmolean Museum (you can read more about the museum and its origins here) and on their website they provide a description for this mysterious portrait of Mary Tudor. After an intensive cleaning in 1976, it was discovered that this portrait that it was, in fact, not a contemporary portrait, but a 19th-century piece perhaps painted over a 17th-century portrait.

At first I was disappointed by my discovery, but looking at the colour image on the website, the image I had been struggling with settled. This is the Mary I imagined, the tragic auburn-haired princess on the cusp of adulthood before her heart was broken and her reputation stained in the centuries to come. While it may or may not be an accurate representation, it’s nice to see that something of the intellectual young woman remains for the public eye, as opposed to the traditional portrayal of an infamous, quickly aging queen.

Ironically, she’s painted in a great deal of red… I suppose we can make of that what we will, but I’m going to enjoy it for what is it: a gorgeous piece of art depicting a beautiful young woman before she was labelled and misunderstood by the world.

The Princess Mary Tudor at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. What do you think? Does she look like either of her parents?

Have any of you seen this portrait of Mary before? Does anyone have any more information about where it came from and who painted it? What do you see in Mary when you look at this image?

-For more information about Mary on the Anne Boleyn Files.
-Francis Hackett’s Henry the Eighth on Amazon.
-Princess Mary Tudor at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford

October 11, 1542: Tragic Death of a Talented Poet

On October 11, 1542, Sir Thomas Wyatt, courtier, ambassador, and poet, died at Sherborne in Dorset at the age of thirty-nine. Most famous for introducing the sonnet and described as the “Father of English Poetry,” his work has been enjoyed the world over. And, the romanticists that poetry-lovers are, this poet so conveniently led a tragic life. Friend and pursuer of the ill-fated Anne Boleyn, trapped in a loveless marriage, survivor of the six brutal deaths in May 1536, and premature death, Thomas Wyatt is one of the most beloved Tudor personalities, and one of my favourites. His life is unlikely and poetically stereotypical, enchanting and romantic.

The unfinished story of Sir Thomas Wyatt is tragic, for everyone deserves to be loved by the one they love. But because I am made of the same stuff, of ink and paper, of pens and parchment, of unrequited love and unfinished stories, I will love and think of Thomas. I think of him writing in the quivering light of candle stubs, just as I do. I think of him fingering Anne Boleyn’s jewel as a nervous habit, just as I knot my fingers in a necklace. I think of his eyes following the willowy figure of Anne, and the way his hands would twitch with the desire to write about her elegance, just as my hands began twitching with desire to write about him. I will love Thomas, the poet, my brother of word, long after the candles have burnt down and the ink has dried.
In fact, I believe I shall love Thomas always.

You can read more about Thomas and my thoughts on him in my runner-up contest article over at the Anne Boleyn Files.

THE LOVER DESCRIBETH HIS BEING
STRICKEN WITH SIGHT
OF HIS LOVE.

The lively sparks that issue from those eyes,
   Against the which there vaileth no
        defence,
Have pierced my heart, and done it none offence,
With quaking pleasure more than once or twice.
Was never man could any thing devise,
Sunbeams to turn with so great vehemence
To daze man’s sight, as by their bright presence
Dazed am I ; much like unto the guise
Of one stricken with dint of lightning,
Blind with the stroke, and cying here and there :
So call I for help, I not when nor where,
The pain of my fall patiently bearing :
    For straight after the blaze, as is no wonder,
    Of deadly noise hear I the fearful thunder.

~Sir Thomas Wyatt the Elder

Matthew Shardlake: a Lawyer You’ll Love

I stumbled across C.J. Sansom’s Tudor mystery novels quite by accident. Books 2, 3, and 4 were sitting innocently on the shelf of the cottage I was staying at in Prince Edward Island last week — and suddenly I was whiling away my spare time reading (reading is what vacation is for, isn’t it?). Over the week I chomped my way through Dark Fire and most of Sovereign, both of which are 500+ pages.

I was delighted with the concept of the novels (I hadn’t heard of them before,

Book 4, Revelation

though the reason escapes me). Most of the historical fiction I’ve read — which frankly isn’t much to brag about. I generally try to avoid it unless it has a good rep — directly concerned one or more of Henry VIII’s wives. It was all glitz and glam, gorgeous dresses and unrequited love, and the occasional beheading of a queen.

Not the Shardlake novels, no sir. They take the romanticist’s idea of Tudor London, turn it on its head, and grind it into a pile of horse manure. They’re gritty, grimy, but in a delightful way. They take the reader down to the poorest of London’s beggars, the filth lining the streets, the monster Henry became in his older years…It’s disgusting, but extremely real and utterly believable. 

The real star is not the realism, however. It’s poor Matthew Shardlake, the hunchback lawyer of Lincoln Inn. While I haven’t read the first of the series, Dissolution, (on my to-read list) what I have read about Shardlake endears me to him. He’s not a young, pompous lover of adventure; he’s middle-aged, has suffered a life time of mockery, and only has a desperate wish to live a quiet life in court.

But C.J. Sansom has him chasing crazed serial killers, being tortured, facing rejection from the few women he dared to hope for, killing villains, and doing all he can to make his protagonist lose his faith, his physical well-being, and (seemingly) his mind. This might make Shardlake seem like a hard rock of a man, but he’s a gentle soul, unsure of himself, high in his morals, and rightly wary of the deadly politics of Henry VIII’s dangerous court.

And what’s a detective without his side kick? Enter Jack Barak. We first meet him in Book 2, Dark Fire, when his master Cromwell forces him to assist Shardlake in finding a rare weapon of mass destruction. The two clash at first, for Barak is rough and ill-mannered, but in such a way that he immediately became my favourite character. By the time they close the case, Cromwell has fallen from favour — headless – and Barak agrees to stay on as Shardlake’s clerk. Their rather strange friendship is perhaps the greatest theme over the novels.

For some reason or another, I pictured Barak as Madmartigan (Val Kilmer)

Jack Barak, is that you? (via amazon.com)

  from the 1988 movie Willow. Devilishly handsome and rough all over, but with a good heart, Jack Barak easily made up for slow pieces of the Dark Fire and Sovereign, and I felt fondly frustrated at his prideful refusal to patch up his problems with his spirited wife Tamasin in Revelation. Their love story in Sovereign was a subplot, but a golden one.

I’m of the opinion that these books aren’t for everyone. They deal quite heavily with the religious changes of the day (the power ping-ponging back and forth between conservatives and radicals) and have characters that might require background knowledge on to completely comprehend or appreciate. Little scenes are also thrown in, seemingly for my own pleasure, such as an episode in Sovereign where the Lady Rochford is demanding the keys for another exit for Queen Catherine Howard in case there would ever be a fire. This scene does play a larger role later, but if you don’t know your history this might seem like an annoying distraction from the person Shardlake is actually trying to find.

Aside from the limiting of target audience, there were a dreadful number of editing errors, mainly in Sovereign, that caught my attention. Missing periods, commas, quotation marks… This isn’t unusual, but there was a sentence where a British ‘pound’ sign was plopped in the middle of a word. Also, the author changed Archbishop Cranmer’s eye colour between books. Oops! Despite these errors, my interest in the plot was not hindered, though I’m sure others might find it infuriating and impossible to read.

If you’re a Tudor junkie, like me, then the other thing you’ll notice is the names. You know as well as I how common names were. Look at how many Thomases there were (Wyatt, Cranmer, Cromwell, Wolsey, Seymour…you get my point). In the Shardlake novels there is scarce a repeat name, aside from the ones the author couldn’t change (Cromwell, Cranmer, Seymour). Only one Joan, one Ellen, one Margaret, one Dorothy, one Abigail. I see what the author was trying to do, but for me it was a little obvious — especially as I doubt Tamasin is a Tudor name — and sucked a smidgen of the realism away.

Out of the three books I’ve read over the last two weeks, I don’t think I could choose a favourite. Dark Fire was gruesome with a sick-minded killer, which held intrigue for me, but was thick and slow in parts. Sovereign was lacking a sadistic flare, but Shardlake can only take so much, right? I enjoyed a slightly more domestic flavour as Barak meets the flighty and wilful Tamasin and Shardlake begins his friendship with the elderly Master Wrenne. Revelation was definitely eery, but it was only until page 486 that I began to panic because I had no idea who the killer was and what he might do next. All three books each had similar plots — a murderer on the loose, a client of Shardlake’s that had to do with a mental illness, and an order from a high-standing Tudor figure.

So you see how Shardlake has wormed his way into my heart. I think part of it is the fact that he’s not a good-looking twentysomething with a love interest. He’s a minority with an interest in law and an awful habit of becoming mixed with dangerous court politics (despite his pleas at the end of each novel to live a quiet life).

I need to get my hands on Book 1 and 5 (Dissolution and Heartstone) now…

Happy reading!

Tudor-Inspired Art!

It’s been awhile since my last Tudor-related post, and I was contemplating  what my next should be about. I only had to take a peek around the house to decide.

My Tudor art.

I’m not an artist, but I enjoy sketching and painting, especially Tudor-era people (i.e., Anne Boleyn and Katheryn Howard) and Tudor-era scenes (mainly executions and the occasional birth of a princess/prince). I’ve branched away from my traditional mediums lately, however, and the results are rather interesting…

We can start with the least amazing. If Hans Holbein the Younger had a personal Facebook account, I imagined this is what it might look like. I exaggerated quite a bit, but I tried to include actual information about him — don’t sue me if I made an error. I believe I mainly used Wikipedia as I was aiming more for the art versus the history of it. I just took a Facebook template from the Internet, plugged in some pictures, typed in some status updates, and voila! A 16th century artist rocking the social media!

Click to embiggen and check out Hans’s latest status updates!

The next one was fun to make. After cutting out a template from a piece of cardboard (an old pizza box, I think), I used the same sort of gluey-gauze strips they use to make casts (don’t ask where I got them, but they really work!). Shaping the strips into leaves, branches, and bark was tricky as well as messy, but the end result was pleasing. I just used acrylic paint to detail it. The inspiration behind it was Shakespeare’s A Mid-Summer Night’s Dream, as well as the magical Forest of Arden in As You Like It. Arden is the name of my protagonist in my fantasy-esque manuscript. While I don’t think I’ll be wearing it anywhere, it might make a good Halloween prop!

This piece was perhaps the most taxing to make. I wanted to represent how Anne Boleyn has become just as a large and influential and controversial figure now as she was during her time as queen and queen-to-be. Hence, my poor attempts at skyscrapers and the Eye of London versus my laughable Tower. Simple acrylic, etc. See for yourself. Notice the teeny little airplane?

Okay, this last one is perhaps the most interesting piece I’ve ever made. Normally I don’t do sculptures, but I don’t regret making this! The process was semi-difficult, but simple. Pick your shape. Wrap a layer of packing tape, sticky-side out, snugly around your shape. Do more layers, sticky-side in, until you have at least three layers, and more depending on how strong you want it. Cut it off your shape and tape up the slit. And, ta-daa! Add paint or other things if you like, like I did.

This is Katheryn Howard. I used a dummy head for her head shape, and a box for the chopping block. The axe is made of cardboard, tin foil, and newspaper. The ”blood” is paint, so don’t worry. Her coif is created with some rather thick paper towel I found in a cupboard, and her hair is a painted braid of yarn. Notice her blood-soaked hair? And her tear?

I love her. So much.

She’s on display in my room. (There are worse places to put her, though. Like the bathroom…)

I had too much fun with the blood.

Katheryn might wear this as a disguise for her next secret meeting with Thomas Culpepper! Do you think Henry will be fooled?

The Ice Breaker

With so many new followers stemming from Claire’s guest post, I thought it might be fitting to re-introduce myself!

My name is Libby, and I’m a Tudorphile and pleasure writer (write for my own enjoyment) living in Nova Scotia, Canada. Despite my extreme desire to tour England and other European countries, I love my little rural community and it’s hard to fathom someday leaving it.

I’ve been writing short stories and poetry for nearly as long as I can remember and am currently working on my first ‘serious’ novel. No, it’s not about the Tudors, but the Tudor era is a large influence on the culture in the world I’ve created — especially the art and music components! Lately I’ve been listening to ‘Greensleeves’ to help me visualize. Here and there I’ll be sharing bits of my writing and my writing process.

I first became interested in Anne Boleyn and her sixteenth-century fellows when I saw a commercial for the show ‘The Tudors’ in 2010. I had to know more about the women the commercial portrayed — how many wives did this guy have, anyway? I wondered. Turning to Google, I was introduced to the six women who were married to Henry VIII. Anne Boleyn immediately commanded my attention, and I practically ran to the library and borrowed every book they had on the Tudors. At first I thought my interest in Anne was a phase, like my short jaunt with the Salem Witch Trials or Irish hunter horses, but it’s been two years and my intrigue is not waning in the slightest. My other two special Tudor friends include Sir Thomas Wyatt the Elder and Anne of Cleves. My friends and family often are infuriated with me because I generally talk of nothing else, but they are probably at least twice more educated about the sixteenth century than anyone you might ask on the street!

Not only am I a Tudorphile, but I love clothes. I’m not sure why, exactly, because it’s a fairly recent interest. Fashion is an art, a way of expressing yourself without words. It can make strangers catch a glimpse inside your head as you walk by. It can make people point and laugh, or complain and grumble. The grumblier the better, I say. Once I sported a polka-dotted flowy tank top with a plaid shirt with a half-dozen necklaces. One of them was a Christmas ornament in the shape of a bird attached to a string. And earrings! I LOVE earrings: feathers and bangles and beads, oh my! I do have short hair, which I adore, and strongly recommend it for any woman or girl who is fed up with the uncooperative knot that is long hair.

One of my recent interests is the story of Tristan and Iseult/Isolde. It’s among my top five love stories (others are Peter Pan and

Tristan and Isolde/Iseult as depicted by Herbert James Draper.

Wendy Darling, Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, and Shakespeare and his pen) and is just one of those tragic, yet adorable, things.  

Other interests of mine included the friendship between C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien and the cricket team the Allahakbarries. I enjoy classical, pop, folk, country, and Gaelic music, and respect any one with a remotely musical ability (because I have none!). When I’m not writing, I’m reading: history books and fantasy are the two genres I dwell the most in, but I’m always trying new things. I’m a Harry Potter and Hunger Games fan. Someday I would like to get a tattoo, though I’m not sure I’m brave enough!

I’m still a new blogger, so bear with me while I get grounded securely into Blogland. Thanks to those who are following me, and I hope you continue to do so!

So, that’s a little about me. Feel free to introduce yourself and break the ice, I want to get to know you!

You’re A What? A Leapling?

Leapling. It sounds like a creature from a fantasy novel — I’m thinking a cross between Gollem and the Marshwiggle from CS Lewis’ Narnia. However, this is the fabulous-sounding name given to those born on February 29th. So, happy birthday to all leaplings of this world, and others!

The concept of the leap year is interesting, and I wondered how it worked in Tudor times, because I knew their New Year began on March 25th. The Tudors used the Julian calendar (Julius Caesar being the man who calculated the leap year), which dictated every year divisible by 4 would be a leap year.

And so, here are some Henrican-Tudor dates that occured in a leap year (I’m sure I missed quite a few, but I just picked these from the top of my head!):

• 1504: death of Mary I’s grandmother, Isabella of Castile
• 1512: England declared war on France
• 1516: birth of Mary I, death of Mary’s grandfather Ferdinand of Aragon
• 1528: the sweating sickness sweeps England and Anne Boleyn falls ill
• 1536: death of Catherine of Aragon, execution of Anne Boleyn
• 1540: Henry VIII married Anne of Cleves and Katheryn Howard; Thomas Cromwell was executed
• 1544: Mary and Elizabeth were restored to the succession

Caesar miscalculated by only 11 minutes, but by the sixteenth century the calendar was inaccurate by 10 days. A new calendar was opted by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 which put things back on track, but because of the Protestant reign of Elizabeth I, England did not adopt the Gregorian calendar until 1752. Our calendar is Gregorian.

I just love learning new things.

Happy birthday to you, if you are a leapling!

~~~

Sorry this post is a bit late. A neighbour’s horse was loose, which means 1) everyone has to check it isn’t their horse and 2) once they realize it isn’t their horse, everyone in a five kilometer radius feels compelled to help (or rather, flock together uselessly while the first responders take care of it). Weather doesn’t matter. -20 C. Brr!

• The Elizabethan Calendar
• Leap Year

Happy Birthday to the Anne Boleyn Files

A ‘most happy’ 3rd birthday to The Anne Boleyn Files!

I stumbled upon The AB Files nearly two years ago after my first contact with Tudor history (a commercial for the Showtime series The Tudors). I was overwhelmed with all the information and the fact that it all came from one person, but I began to learn the ropes of sixteenth-century obsession, mainly thanks to Claire’s wonderful articles.

Being inducted into the history-loving world is a little scary, especially at first. If you’re like me and eager to learn everything at once, you’d run to the library and borrow every 400-plus page book with the word ‘Tudor’ in it. I was completely bamboozled. The writers of these books usually don’t take into account the slightly-mushy mind of the newbie. Who was this Chapuys guy? Does he have a first name? Henry VIII was married to three women named ‘Katherine’? How do I know which one they’re talking about?

I might have dropped Tudor history if it wasn’t for Claire and The AB Files. Her concise, easy-to-read, clever, super-referenced articles were my saving point. I learned that Eustace Chapuys was the ambassador for Emperor Charles V, who was nephew to Henry VIII’s first wife Catherine of Aragon. I learned the different spellings and stories to distinguish Catherine of Aragon, Katheryn Howard, and Katherine Parr (Wives No.1, 5, and 6 respectively), and much much more.

So if you’re into Tudor history and aren’t ready to handle the big books (which are wonderful once you’ve learned the essentials), check out The AB Files and indulge in some sixteenth-century bliss.

Claire also runs the Elizabeth Files and the History Files, and her book The Anne Boleyn Collection was released on Amazon today! Congratulations, Claire, and thank you for saving my love of the Tudors and our lovely Anne. I’ll be ordering The Collection very soon!

PS: This theme is called ‘Thirteen.’ I like it so far; it’s a bit more ‘grumbly’ but still readable. Any thoughts on it?

Let them grumble!

Christmas of 1530: Anne Boleyn was being treated like the Queen of England by her suitor Henry VIII, though he was still married to Catherine of Aragon. The court grumbled and complained about Anne’s postition, and rightly so. But Anne, proud and defiant, briefly changed her motto to Ainsi sera, groigne qui groigne — ‘Let them grumble, that is how it is going to be!’ (Ives, pg. 141)

This spirit has always been in me (not the spirit to date Henry VIII, however!), the spirit to defy convention and do or write or wear something that most people scorn or laugh at, or are simply afraid of. They can grumble all they want, but this is how it is.

This blog will be a combination of things that I do/wear/write/see/read about that make other people grumble, along with some lessons in Tudor history, writing, movie and book reviews, modern royalty, horses, garden gnomes and whatever else might strike my fancy or make someone grumble.

Please bear with me while I try to figure out how my own blog works, but I promise I’ll have some grumble-worthy posts up soon! (Going to see The Woman in Black  on the weekend, so I bet I’ll have lots to say there!)

I was going to attach a photo for you, but unfortunately I haven’t figured out how yet…

Remember: let them grumble!