Charlie Fenton > Recent Status Updates

‘The last masque to be performed in the
Banqueting House was The Triumph of Peace,
by James Shirley to commemorate the birth
of James, Duke of York in 1633, offered by
the Inns of Court at a cost of £21,000 (over
£1,800,000 in today's money). The sumptuous
procession so delighted Charles I and
Henrietta Maria, standing at the Banqueting
House window’

‘By the time Anne Boleyn died, Whitehall Palace was sufficiently complete and sufficiently grand to be declared the official seat of the monarchy. In the years before his death in 1547, Henry VIll began building again, constructing a huge new set of royal lodgings on the waterfront, formal gardens, and another bridge over King Street.‘

‘I grasp the embroidered coverlet and bury my face in it. Her fragrance fills my head; I feel her touch, hear her voice, her merry laughter.
Henry, I seem to hear her say, you are greater and stronger than you know.
But she is wrong. I am not great or strong at all. I am just a boy who has lost his mother and my future without her looms huge and black and terrifying.’

‘I was you once, back when Wolsey fell from favour. Henry wanted to change his mind and recall Wolsey, but it was impossible. The realm needs stability; then, Wolsey needed to go to keep the peace, this time, it is I who must perish. I must accept it and forgive the King, or I shall not make a good death or see the light to heaven. You will grieve, as I grieved’

‘Even where patrons were bishops or monasteries, wealthy lay people in a parish must also have exerted some power over clergy and church activities. Men and women of this kind contributed to the maintenance and remodelling of church buildings in formats that they liked. Noble families gave artefacts and planted tombs marked with their effigies and coats of arms, establishing emblems of lay power’

‘Thomas Cromwell, Thomas Cranmer, Thomas Audley, men all named after St Thomas Becket, and a dozen more in the crowd along with them. Becket was once King Henry the Second’s Lord Chancellor, like Audley now. Becket became Archbishop of Canterbury, like Cranmer now. Becket was the King’s favourite, like Cromwell now. All celebrated burning this man’s bones, a man murdered by the King’s men’

‘Nicòletta did not see the grand scheme of Cromwell’s design. To her, it made more sense to find a sweet English girl who caught Henry’s eye, and have her give him a second son. Instead, Cromwell saw the chance to wrap up the Reformation, his new Bible, a universal alliance with the Holy Roman Empire and the Protestant allies, all in one woman. Ambition had never risen so high.’

‘It was time for the Queenmaker to turn a woman into a queen. Only this time, it would be a foreign princess or duchess instead of a woman of Henry’s affection. Number four would need to be his best queen yet.’

‘Oh, the melancholy which leeched from the man’s broken soul. What had been a plan to slander Anne Boleyn’s reputation had ended up with this man’s two children beheaded. History would not remember Nicòletta’s role in their deaths, but hell would greet her one day.’

‘Nicòla’s hands showed the blood of an anointed queen. This was the England that Cromwell created as Queenmaker, as Chief Minister. Any person could die at any time, even the King’s most beloved wife.’

‘Cromwell read through his papers as if he were there in body, but not in his soul. His soul yearned to be away from his mess, for they would behead the beguiling and educated Anne for this, something Cromwell never wanted. But Henry needed such so he could have a new start with Jane Seymour.’

‘A study of Devon has identified about 1,300 chapels of all kinds – three times as many as the parish churches. Cornwall, a smaller county, had at least 350, but possibly twice as many. Research on the eastern side of England has identified 151 in Kent but proposes a total of over 300, while 245 have been listed in Lincolnshire, which is also likely to fall far short of the total.‘

It has been a long time since a book has really grabbed me like Nicholas Orme’s Going to Church in Medieval England. The only issue is, I feel like I need to take notes on most pages! But I’m finding it very readable and he explains everything so well.

‘Cromwell swallowed hard; again, truth sat in the air; either Fisher died, and the Catholic faith got chased away, or Cromwell would be on the block and the Reformation would sink back into Europe. No honesty, no justice, no fairness entered London today. How to worship God was the only subject under discussion and Cromwell had to keep his own head.’

‘As the Church extended its power over lay people in the twelfth century it required them all to belong to a definite parish. Lords and ladies who built or owned churches wished all the tenants on their estate to attend the same church. When tithe-paying grew to be normal in and after the tenth century, each parish clergyman had to be vigilant about exactly which lands paid him tithes.‘

Katherine, her greying hair pulled tightly under a gable hood, sat with a book in her hands, furs covering her thinning body. Her pale face looked over in surprise at Nicòla. To be in the presence of Katherine drew the air from Nicòla’s lungs. She possessed a regal essence, a living being that held both noble and godly powers on Earth. Nicòla bowed low, relieved to be in the warmth and light of the former queen

‘The situation was even more dire than Ruth had comprehended. Migraine headaches? Lobotomy. Unruly child? Lobotomy. Unhappy wife? Lobotomy. Robert had to be stopped.’

‘Margaret felt nearly catatonic as she followed her mother’s instructions. She splashed icy water on her face, but it did nothing to chase away the heavy blanket of fatigue. She hadn’t felt this way with John or Maisy, and she didn’t understand what was different now. But, for the first time, it dawned on her that there might be something really wrong.’

Post-natal depression

This is a really uncomfortable read. I knew it would be, but they are so confident lobotomy will help this young girl. It is awful.

“Well, Moniz has performed his own procedure—a leucotomy, he called it—on twenty patients with varying degrees of psychosis and agitated depression, and not only did every one of them survive, their conditions all improved—less violent, more placid, happy even. This is it, Ruth. The answer is surgical. We have to do brain coring.”

‘Although anti-Spanish statements might figure heavily in the Protestant propaganda of the period, which (as has been alluded to) were highly effective and to a large extent overshadowed the official response, it cannot be assumed from this that these sentiments were deeply felt or widely shared by the silent majority of the English.’

“By a supreme irony, the royal favourite who was a murder victim was more reviled than the one convicted of murder.”

‘Rising from her curtsey to him, Wallis met, above the nicotine-stained beard, an expression of cold menace. She saw him lean forward so his head was close to his son. She heard his voice, low and vicious. “I told you
not to invite your mistress!” The king rose, suddenly, his swords and medals jangling. The queen looked up in surprise, then rose hurriedly too.
The noise died away. All was silent.’

‘Diana nodded. “Henry was completely ruthless. People think he was blinded by passion, but it was really all about control. Once he wanted her, that was that. She was trapped. She had to surrender, she had no choice. She must have known it would all go wrong in the end, but what could she do?”’

This novel is pretty much comparing Wallis Simpson to Anne Boleyn. That’s a new one on me.

Bacon had assured the King that there would be little public indignation if their death sentences were waived. He was confident that, because ‘the blood of Overbury is already revenged by divers executions’, there could be no grounds for protest, an argument that blithely overlooked the manifest injustice of failing to punish the Somersets for a crime for which others had previously paid the ultimate penalty

‘Wallis summoned George V's costive spirit again. “MY FATHER WAS FRIGHTENED OF HIS FATHER AND HIS FATHER WAS FRIGHTENED OF HIS MOTHER. SO I'M GOING TO MAKE DAMN SURE MY CHILDREN ARE FRIGHTENED OF ME!”
“Goodness. That probably explains quite a lot.”
“I’d say it explains everything. Once David got over his fear, he wanted to be as unlike his father as possible.”’

‘No one knew better than she that to be invited in London you had to know people and to know people you had to be introduced and to be introduced you had to know people. She did not in the least blame a handful of youngsters wanting to cut through and have some fun.’

‘dishes were prepared with ingredients or in sauces that made them predominantly milky, spicy, sharp or sweet, and the same handful of herbs reoccur in the vast majority of sweet and sour recipes. Barely anything escaped the popular cinnamon or ginger, blanched almonds or almond milk, lashings of salt and sugar or, if the household could afford it, a good dose of saffron, which would also colour the dish.‘

‘The diet of a captive queen still managed to reflect her rank. In 1585, the penultimate full year of her life, Mary, Queen of Scots’ kitchen expenses included six dozen manchets, eight dozen cheat breads, 353 tons of beer, 28 tons of Gascoigne wine, 158 beef carcasses, 1,441 sheep, 712 pigs, barrels of salt salmon, over £9 of pikes, £48 of barbel, 17,862lb of butter, 73,250 eggs’

‘For those living in or near a monastic establishment, the hours of the day were marked out by the bells chiming for the canonical hours, the times fixed for prayer in the Catholic Church. Matins was the morning watch, often beginning at two or three and ending at dawn, although the bell would only be rung at the start of that period, not throughout.‘