Charlie Fenton > Recent Status Updates

‘Elizabeth has been writing to him, as she promised she would. He likes to lie on his bunk and read her letters. Her image creates a pool of quiet that momentarily isolated him from the vibrating engines, the clanking of metal, the groaning of the propeller shafts and the sound of two-hundred-odd men barking orders’

‘the inscription identified the age of our young sitter; ‘Aetatis Suae 4’ in her fourth year. English sixteenth century portraits of children are rare, and when they were portrayed the child’s maturity was often exaggerated. A manifestation of this overstated association with adulthood is apparent in the young sitter’s intricately decorative, fitted gown which cinches in her narrow, idealised waist.’

‘One way to regulate the Queen’s image was through the circulation of approved head designs (or ‘patterns’) which could then be drawn or traced by the artist as is likely to have been done here. Once the head had been drawn, the artist would then either imagine the costume or work from further patterns, embellishing it with a level of detail corresponding to the depth of their patron’s pocket.’

‘in 1584 a draft patent was drawn up, probably by Gower, bestowing him the exclusive right to produce likenesses of Elizabeth in oils. Although his wish was never granted, it did little to dampen his spirits, and it is now thought that Gower was the artist responsible for one of Elizabeth’s most iconic portraits from the latter half of her reign - the ‘Ermine’ portrait, painted in 1585.’

‘As his wealth and influence grew, Leicester indulged his passion for the arts, becoming one of the most prolific and important cultural patrons of the Elizabethan age... At the time of his death in 1588 he owned some 200 paintings and works of art, plus many more miniatures, drawings and other objects which are not recorded in the surviving inventories.’

He climbed up and found Legolas beside Aragorn and Éomer. The elf was whetting his long knife. There was for a while a lull in the assault, since the attempt to break in through the culvert had been foiled.
‘Twenty-one!’ said Gimli.
‘Good!’ said Legolas. ‘But my count is now two dozen. It has been knife-work up here.’

‘Two!’ said Gimli, patting his axe. He had returned to his place on the wall.
‘Two?’ said Legolas. ‘I have done better, though now I must grope for spent arrows; all mine are gone. Yet I make my tale twenty at the least. But that is only a few leaves in a forest.’

I love Legolas and Gimli ❤️

“For imagining war he has let loose war, believing that he has no time to waste; for he that strikes the first blow, if he strikes it hard enough, may need to strike no more. So the forces that he has long been preparing he is now setting in motion, sooner than he intended. Wise fool.”

‘“In one thing you have not changed, dear friend,” said Aragorn: “you still speak in riddles.”
“What? In riddles?” said Gandalf. “No! For I was talking aloud to myself. A habit of the old: they choose the wisest person present to speak to; the long explanations needed by the young are wearying.”’

“Worse than that: he has been doing something to them; something dangerous. For these Isengarders are more like wicked Men. It is a mark of evil things that came in the Great Darkness that they cannot abide the Sun; but Saruman’s Orcs can endure it, even if they hate it. I wonder what he has done? Are they Men he has ruined, or has he blended the races of Orcs and Men? That would be a black evil!”

‘It is clear that in the early years of her rule, the lack of up-to date portraits of Elizabeth caused problems, not least because it encouraged the circulation of poor-quality versions produced in the absence of an official likeness. As a result, in 1563 a draft proclamation was drawn up by William Cecil, Lord Burghley to try and prevent the sharing of unofficial images of the queen’

‘“Gollum,” answered Frodo. “Or at least, so I guess.”
“Ah!” said Aragorn. “So you know about our little footpad, do you? He padded after us all through Moria and right down to Nimrodel. Since we took to boats, he has been lying on a log and paddling with hands and feet. I have tried to catch him once or twice at night; but he is slier than a fox, and as slippery as a fish.”’

‘Henry VII employed Flemish stained-glass workers, and another Fleming to design some of his coinage, while the bronze screen around his funeral monument by the Italian Pietro Torrigiano was the work of a Dutchman. Keener still in his efforts to enhance his court by cultural imports was Henry VIII who, among other things, captured the services of the renowned Venetian organist, Dionisio Memmo’

‘All of them, it seemed, had fared alike: each had felt that he was offered a choice between a shadow full of fear that lay ahead, and something that he greatly desired: clear before his mind it lay, and to get it he had only to turn aside from the road and leave the Quest and the war against Sauron to others.’

‘in Europe at large, hospitable towns were few and far between, and only on the chief trade routes were inns to be found - at intervals averaging 10 to 15 miles - as travellers wound their way at speeds that hardly varied until the coming of the railways. From Paris to Calais took just over four days, to Brussels just over five, to Metz six, to Bordeaux seven, to Toulouse eight to ten’

‘From out of the shadow a red sword leaped flaming. Glamdring glittered white in answer. There was a ringing clash and a stab of white fire. The Balrog fell back, and its sword flew up in molten fragments. The wizard swayed on the bridge, stepped back a pace, and then again stood still.
“You cannot pass!” he said.’

‘He smiled, and suddenly she knew that his words were true. Everything would be all right. Maybe not today and maybe not tomorrow, but soon. Tragedy couldn’t coexist in a world with one of Colin’s smiles.’

‘she was staring at him with her heart in her eyes, her entire face alive with happiness and contentment, as if she finally felt free now that she had spoken the words. And he realized that her expression held not one trace of expectation. She hadn’t told him she loved him simply to hear his reply. She wasn’t even waiting for his answer.
She had told him she loved him simply because she wanted to.’

“A new Power is rising. Against it the old allies and policies will not avail us at all. There is no hope left in Elves or dying Númenor. This then is one choice before you, before us. We may join with that Power. It would be wise, Gandalf. There is hope that way. Its victory is at hand; and there will be rich reward for those that aided it. As the Power grows, its proved friends will also grow”

‘But ill feeling, in the capital especially, continued to surface against a variety of real or imagined offences associated with outsiders. Low-standard price-cutting, the forging of trademarks, and the seduction of honest citizens’ wives were, for example, perennial complaints, as even the more law-abiding found themselves accused in a no-win situation of keeping themselves aloof from the native community’

‘All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken:
The crownless again shall be king.’

‘Slowly he drew it out. Bilbo put out his hand. But Frodo quickly drew back the Ring. To his distress and amazement he found that he was no longer looking at Bilbo; a shadow seemed to have fallen between them, and through it he found himself eyeing a little wrinkled creature with a hungry face and bony groping hands. He felt a desire to strike him.’

‘Yet at the last Beren was slain by the Wolf that came from the gates of Angband, and he died in the arms of Tinúviel. But she chose mortality, and to die from the world, so that she might follow him; and it is sung that they met again beyond the Sundering Seas, and after a brief time walking alive once more in the green woods, together they passed, long ago, beyond the confines of this world.’

There is a character in this called Fatty Lumpkin, which is hilarious as that is what I sometimes call Pumpkin (my cat) 😆

‘His second thought was that he’d just entered his worst nightmare.
Because Penelope’s mother was not alone in the drawing room. Every last Featherington, current and former, was there, along with assorted spouses and even a cat.
It was the most frightening assemblage of people Colin had ever witnessed.’

‘Frodo suddenly felt very foolish, and found himself (as was his habit when making a speech) fingering the things in his pocket. He felt the Ring on its chain, and quite unaccountably the desire came over him to slip it on and vanish out of the silly situation. It seemed to him, somehow, as if the suggestion came to him from outside, from someone or something in the room.’

‘In buying a souvenir the pilgrims captured and transmitted some of the special power of a holy site back into their own communities. Souvenirs were not simply ‘tourist tat’ and they were seen by some as relics in their own right. They often feature in miracle stories and have the power to heal and protect.’

‘while St Thomas’s primary relics remained in Canterbury, his image proliferated widely. He appears on more portable, personal objects too, such as rings and pendants. On one occasion, Becket was even served up at the dinner table. In 1443, at the feast for the installation of John Stafford, Archbishop of Canterbury (d. 1452), two sculptures made from sugar were presented’

“For now I am really afraid. What am I to do? What a pity that Bilbo did not stab that vile creature, when he had a chance!”
“Pity? It was Pity that stayed his hand. Pity, and Mercy: not to strike without need. And he has been well rewarded, Frodo. Be sure that he took so little hurt from the evil, and escaped in the end, because he began his ownership of the Ring so. With Pity.”

“Clearly the ring had an unwholesome power that set to work on its keeper at once. That was the first real warning I had that all was not well. I told Bilbo often that such rings were better left unused; but he resented it, and soon got angry. There was little else that I could do. I could not take it from him without doing greater harm; and I had no right to do so anyway.”