Charlie Fenton > Recent Status Updates

'Randall's face, like Frank's, seldom showed what he was thinking, presenting instead a bland and impenetrable facade. At the moment, though, the Captain's customary poise had deserted him and he stood in the doorway with his jaw agape, looking not unlike the man who accompanied him. A very large man in a stained and ragged uniform'

'As for the numbers, I thought I knew what those meant, too. She had told them to him separately, for the sake of secrecy which must have gone bone deep in her by that time, but they were all part of one number, really. One, nine, six, seven. Nineteen-sixty-seven. The year of her disappearance into the past.'

'Owen had little to do with his sons' upbringing, which was being supervised by the king. While the brothers grew up Henry kept them close to him at court and, according to Blacman, personally protected them from any sexual temptation by keeping 'careful watch through hidden windows of his chamber'. Very few accounts survive of these early years of Edmund and Jasper's lives or of their father's life at this time.'

That's several times now that this book has said the Regency Council met in 1537, when it was actually 1437. A good editor should have picked this up, Owen was dead in 1537 and his great-grandson was on the throne. One mistake I could accept, but this same mistake is at least three times over three pages.

'Owen was handed a summons to the royal palace of Westminster to appear before the Regency Council, with Gloucester's assurance, delivered by Sculle, that he should 'freely come and freely goo' (as recorded in the council's proceedings of 15 July 1437). However, Owen refused to accept the validity of this verbal promise of safe conduct from Gloucester's servant.'

'Owen and Catherine still stayed away from Henry's court, and probably had two more children. Their youngest son, Owen, was born at Westminster Abbey in 1432. Catherine was visiting the king at Westminster when her waters broke prematurely, forcing her to seek the help of the monks at the abbey. It may be this event that brought her marriage and children to the young king's knowledge.'

'We simply do not know for certain when Owen Tudor married Catherine of Valois, but the marriage seems always to have been accepted as legal. The Act passed early in 1428 had made it a serious offence to marry a dowager-queen without the consent of the king, and the lack of any reaction at this time is evidence that nothing was then known of the marriage, at least publicly.'

'Back in England, while Henry V was falling ill, Catherine gave birth at Windsor to Prince Henry on 6 December 1421. The birth was assisted by a precious relic renowned for aiding barren women and women in labour. This was 'Our Lord's foreskin', brought on Henry V's orders under armed guard from Coulombs Abbey, later returned to Sainte Chapelle in Paris and then to the Abbey of St Magloire.'

'With a small household including Bedford and Warwick, they arrived at Dover on 1 February 1421 and spent a few days in Canterbury. (Around this time, before her English coronation, the queen must have become pregnant - Prince Henry was to be born on 6 December 1421.) The new queen received a rapturous welcome in London.'

'Strickland informs us that 'before two years had elapsed, the family of Katherine were forced by dire distress to sue for the renewal of the marriage treaty... Isabeau saw a match between Catherine and Henry as the only way for her family to stay in power. She sent her ambassadors to Henry with a portrait of the attractive 'Catherine the Fair''

"then I began to think it was as well; living as we must, it would be verra difficult if you were to get with child. And now" - he shivered slightly - "now I think I am glad of it; I wouldna want ye to suffer that way... I saw Ian's face; it was like his own flesh was being torn, each time Jenny screamed. I can bear pain, myself," he said softly, "but I couldna bear yours. That would take more strength than I have."

'Catherine of Valois was the daughter of Charles VI of France and Isabeau (Isabelle) of Bavaria, daughter of Duke Stephen III of Bavaria-Ingolstadt. Catherine was born at the royal palace of the Hôtel Saint-Pol in Paris on 27 October 1401, one of eight surviving children born of the marriage. An older sister, Isabella of Valois, had previously been married to Richard II.'

'Scudamore was a 'king's knight' to Henry VI, and Hungerford for a time served Henry VI and his mother Catherine of Valois, as did Bedford. All served in the French campaign of 1415 and in France after that date. For Owen, a 'foreigner' with no rights, to be so readily accepted in the household of Catherine of Valois, he must have been well trusted by Hungerford and Bedford.'

'Owain ap Maredudd (hereafter referred to as Owen) was born around 1400, and the absence of his name from official records before and during the Glyndŵr War of 1400-1415 seems to give some proof of this date. Records from that time in Wales are sparse, many having been destroyed. Lloyd-Williams tells us that his kinsman Owain Glyndŵr stood godfather, which could well be the case'

''Historians' wishing to blacken the name of the house of Tudor have called Maredudd an alehouse-keeper, probably not realising that alehouses were generally run by the women who brewed their ale. Rapin repeats the tale that Maredudd was a brewer living at Bangor. In fact Maredudd, father of Owen Tudor and great-grandfather of Henry VII, was rhaglaw of the Anglesey commote of Malltraeth from 1387'

'The sense of retaining their religion, identity and language through a millennium of invasion had given the British in Wales a belief in survival, and with success came renaissance. The ancient Tudor family was at the heart of this nation, lords under the last Welsh princes, descended from nobility. The Tudor clan had been fighting for their lands since Roman times, intermarrying with other leading families'

"And if your life is a suitable exchange for my honour, tell me why my honour is not a suitable exchange for your life?" The brows drew together in a scowl, the twin of the one adorning her brother's face. "Or are you telling me that I may not love you as much as you love me? Because if ye are, Jamie Fraser, I'll tell ye right now, it's not true!"

'symbols for the eternal shadow in the mind of their contemporaries regarding the power of death. Just as in 1443, and the birth of Edmund, Earl of Rutland, through to the execution of Guildford Dudley in 1554, life was a continual paradox of struggle and opportunity, of celebration and failure, of fighting to improve the lot of the dynasty and of personal struggle against enemies and illness.'

'as much about preventing the threat of a foreign king, as it was about religion and his father's ambition. Clearly, he had been privy to the intentions of Edward's device but his wife had not. Jane does not seem to have realised this until she tried the crown, and her reluctance was to prove a stumbling block. She informed Guildford that if he was to become king, it would be by an Act of Parliament'

'Soon after this, Edward was confined to his bed, suffering terrible agonies which announced that his end was near. In these final weeks, his symptoms escalated considerably, so that on 10 June, his doctors gave him only three days to live. He was unable to eat, racked by fever, flat on his back as his legs swelled. When his ulcers burst or he coughed up sputum, it gave off a terrible stench.'

'in the context of the recent acts of reform, Edward's identity as a religious reformer, as a leading Protestant monarch, was gaining ground. European leaders of the reformed faith had every reason to look to England as a friend in the wake of the Catholic Counter-Reformation that had been launched by Pope Paul III.'

'Crucially, the prince's new servants were to 'advoyde alle infection and daungier of pestilence and contagious diseases' by preventing any members of the household who were in direct contact with Edward from travelling to London or other towns during the summer months or other peak times of contagion... He was not to be served with anything to eat or drink, except that which was fed to everyone'

"I am a witch! To you, I must be. I've never had smallpox, but I can walk through a room full of dying men and never catch it. I can nurse the sick and breathe their air and touch their bodies, and the sickness can't touch me. I can't catch cholera, either, or lockjaw, or the morbid sore throat. And you must think it's an enchantment, because you've never heard of vaccine, and there's no other way you can explain it"

"Upon entering the water," the short judge chimed in, "a guilty witch will float, as the purity of the water rejects her tainted person. An innocent woman will sink."
"So I've the choice of being condemned as a witch or being found innocent but drowned, have I?" I snapped. "No thank you!"

"Starting in evidence whereof the accused did cause the death of Arthur Duncan, by means of witchcraft," MacRae read in a firm, steady voice. "And whereas they did procure the death of the unborn child of Janet Robinson, did cause the boat of Thomas MacKenzie to sink, did bring upon the village of Cranesmuir a wasting sickness of the bowels..."

"What is this?" I demanded. "We can't just abandon a sick child, out in the open like that. And what do you mean, it's a changeling?"
"A changeling," she said impatiently. "Surely you know what a changeling is? When the fairies steal a human child away they leave one of their own in its place. You know it's a changeling because it cris and fusses all the time and doesn't thrive or grow."

'It was the day before St Edward's day, and the boy was given the saint's name, perhaps because of his mother's old-style Catholic devotion, perhaps also in reference to the king's grandfather. All the king's previous sons, including those short-lived by Catherine of Aragon, had been given the name Henry, so this marked a departure. The king might have hoped it would break an unfortunate cycle.'

'No details survive about Fitzroy's symptoms or condition, but by mid-July it was apparent to those around him that his illness would swiftly prove fatal. Later, councillors of Richmond's half-brother Edward VI recalled the duke's death when the young king lay on his death bed, and at least once commented that Edward's illness was 'the same as that which killed the late... Richmond'.'

'After everything that Henry had done in the last seven years to secure himself a legitimate male heir, Fitzroy was still his only son. And yet, he still seemed to be the king's best hope for the succession. To cement his future even further, on 26 November, Henry Fitzroy and Mary Howard were married at Hampton Court.'