History, real and fantasy

Here is James Hibberd’s recap of Sunday night’s episode of Game of Thrones. http://ew.com/recap/game-of-thrones-s...

Now on to “real” history, which is almost as bloody and messy as Master Martin’s fantasy.
Some interesting happenings on this date. On July 25, 1261, Emperor Michael Palaologis succeeded in recapturing Constantinople for the Byzantine Empire. It had been lost to the Latins when the greedy lords of the Fourth Crusade assaulted and sacked the wealthy city of Constantinople rather than having to go all the way to Jerusalem. And on July 25, 1554, Mary Tudor wed the Spanish king, Philip, surely one of the most depressing of royal marriages. Mary is undeniably a sad figure with her traumatic childhood and abusive treatment by her own father and her false pregnancies. But I’d find it easier to be sympathetic to her if she hadn’t burned so many of her own subjects at the stake. And moving from Mary the zealot to a man who was anything but, my favorite French king, Henri of Navarre. On this date in 1593, Henri converted from Protestantism to Catholicism in order to gain the French throne, saying “Paris is worth a Mass.” Henri was one of the most popular French kings and seems to have genuinely cared about his subjects. Even though it happened centuries ago, I still think it tragic that he was assassinated. I’ve always wanted to write about Henri and his spirit has been good company over the years. But I’ve had to tell him I’d probably need nine lives like a cat in order to fit him in. Being a good-natured soul, he has forgiven me, but being a king, he is sure he can eventually win me over, so he is still hanging around the house. He gets along with the Angevins better than I’d have expected. (Do I sound like someone urgently in need of a vacation?)