Charlie Fenton > Recent Status Updates

‘He was a king – a strong king – none could deny that. That he could be ruthless when dealing with his enemies was obvious, but the tenderness of his feelings for his family was in such strong contrast that he was lovable, and human in spite of his great power.’

‘Tell me this,’ she went on. ‘Why is it not disgraceful for a man of rank to take a poor woman to be his wife, yet when a woman of rank takes a man of none it is considered so?’

Apparently Joan of Acre actually said something along these lines to her father.

‘Vaux’s surrendered vote went towards the imposition of what was, in essence, a variant of Edward VI’s Church, watered down and frozen in time. The Mass, for example, was abolished - there was to be no Latin canon, no sacrificial altar, no elevation of the host, no clerical exclusivity - but the new communion service was circumlocutory enough to hint at the possibility of Christ’s ‘real presence’’

‘Specifically, the Vauxes were ‘recusants’. They refused to go to church every Sunday (the word stems from the Latin recusare: to refuse). Not for them the awkward compromises, the crossed fingers and blocked ears at official service, the hasty confession and secret Mass at home afterwards. Once the men in Rome decreed that it was not good enough to be a ‘church papist’... the Vauxes stayed at home.’

‘So they buried the Queen and people marvelled at the love the King bore her for he continued to mourn her. He ordered that a statue be made and set upon her tomb. It was cast in bronze and showed the Queen in all her beauty with her lovely hair rippling below the jewelled circlet on her head.’

‘It was true that Mary of Caernarvon, Edward’s Welsh nurse, guarded him like a dragon and put him right outside the Princess’s rule. He was a spoilt little boy anyway and thought the whole world had been created for him. Eleanor was angry that so much fuss should be made of him because he was a boy. And she would never forget either that merely by arriving he had ruined her dreams.’

‘had foreseen that A Christmas Carol would be popular, but even he was not prepared for just how rapidly the book would sell. The first print run of 6,000 copies was published on 19 December 1843, and on Christmas Eve Dickens received a letter from Chapman and Hall to say the book was about to sell out ‘and that as the orders were coming in fast from town and country, it would soon be necessary to reprint’.’

‘The King returned. They stared at him in astonishment for in his arms he carried a baby.
‘You asked me for a Prince of Wales,’ he cried. ‘Here he is. I give him to you. He has been born in your country. His character is beyond reproach. He cannot speak either French or English and if you wish it the first words he shall speak shall be in Welsh.’’

‘At the party, a special present was unwrapped. The Dickens children would remember for years to come their shining excitement at beholding their very own Magic Lantern, to a Victorian child this was the height of technological sophistication - a device that could project images onto a screen or wall and make it look as though it were glowing with light. It was the Victorian equivalent of a cinema screen.’

‘In 1871, a year after his death, the Bank Holidays Act was passed, which gave official recognition to four bank holidays, on which everyone was permitted the day off work... Although this new Act fid not prohibit celebrating Twelfth Night celebrations, it did not include the holiday in the official British Calendar, and this contributed to the decline of Twelfth Night celebrations.’

‘as things stood, there weren’t even two fun days. They only had Saturdays, because Mondays were a little bit too close to Sundays for Sunday’s liking, as if Monday were a collapsed star in the week’s solar system, with an excessive gravitational pull. In other words one seventh of human days worked quite well. The other six weren’t very good, and five of those were roughly the same day stuck on repeat.’

‘The first known British Christmas tree is attributed to Queen Charlotte, the German wife of King George III, who is said to have brought a Christmas tree from a Germany after her marriage in 1761. In 1800, the elderly queen held a party for the children of her court at the Queen’s Lodge, in Windsor. The tree she decorated for the children was a yew tree, onto which was attached lighted candles’

‘Poor Mary the baby would never marry. She was going into a convent. How did they know that? Joanna asked. Mary was a baby as yet. What did she know of convents? The Queen Grandmother had said so. It was to please God who had given their mother so many babies who had not liver and two of them boys at that. Alfonso was weak too, and it was Eleanor’s opinion that he would never be the King’

‘Then we parted with promises to meet again tomorrow and even some talks of a football match. I was just starting back to the trenches when an older German clutched my arm, ‘My God,’ he said ‘why cannot we have peace and go home?’ I told him gently, ‘That you must ask your Emperor.’ He looked at me then, searchingly, ‘Perhaps, my friend. But also we must ask our hearts.’’

Letter from the Trenches,1914
‘they walked up to the groups shook hands & chatted in a most friendly way for quite an hour. Of course none of the men who were out had any arms or should have fired at them. Quite a lot of their men could talk English well & said they were all pretty fed up & hoped the war would soon be over - they exchanged cigarettes & souvenirs & c & then they all went back & so did our chaps.’

‘AD 1392 - King Richard with Queene Anne his wife, foure bishops, as many Earles, the Duke of Yorke, many Lords, and fifteen Ladies held a royall Christmas at Langley neere to St Albans. The same Christmas Day a Dolphin came foorth of the Sea and played himself in ye Thames at London to the bridge, foreshewing happily the tempests that were to follow within a week after’

‘But the truth is that success is a delusion. It’s all a delusion. I mean, yes, there are things we can overcome... And someone told me recently, they told me that my problem isn’t actually stage fright. My problem is life fright. And you know what? They’re fucking right. Because life is frightening, and it is frightening for a reason’

A Land Girl’s Diary, 1939
‘No Christmas feeling on the farm at all. Wretched. I felt quite miserable in spite of the prospect of two days’ holiday. Felt alright when I got home, though. Went up to Helen and May Austin with present (chocs) and then decorated house with holly. Hope the war will be over this time next year. O! how I hope.’

‘after 6 we all assembled & my beloved Albert first took me to my tree & table, covered by such numberless gifts, really too much, too magnificent... The one present from dearest Albert, which is of infinite value to me, is a miniature of my beloved Louise in a clasp to a bracelet in dull, deepish blue enamel, with a black cross, the cypher & stars in diamonds, all dear Albert’s own design & very lovely.’

Heard this is a good but not easy read, due to the mental health aspect. Curious to see how I get on with it, as I have suffered with depression and suicidal thoughts myself in the past

I swear the first and last stories in this collection are the best, really enjoying the last one in particular

‘every promise of a scheme of austere beauty, grave and solemn and yet just touched with a note of happier fulfilment. For the most part you will find the decorations quite conventional - holly and evergreens, the old terrible cotton-wool snow on crimson background. But I am certain that you will experience a thrill of satisfied surprise when your eyes alight upon the simply gravity of the pulpit’s drapery’

‘He could not suppress a sly smile when his mother passed in the procession and an almost sullen silence fell on the crowd. Dear lady, he thought indulgently, she could never see that the people blamed her for everything that had gone wrong because she would bring her poor relations into the country. She could so easily have won their approval. But she simply had not bothered to do so.’

‘The failure of Buckingham’s rebellion brought Richard no security. There was now an acknowledged (and persuasive) rival for the crown in the shape of Henry Tudor, who was safely back in Brittany after his aborted attempt to land in the south-west. In Rennes Cathedral on Christmas morning 1483, he swore on the sacrament that, were he to take the throne, he would marry Edward IV’s daughter Elizabeth.’

‘Above the blanket, the top of the tiny girl’s head could be seen, and the silver fluff of hair. The child squirmed, her little hand opening and shutting like a twinkling star above the blanket embroidered with a border of Tudor Roses. Catalina had embroidered it in the last weeks of her pregnancy, every stitch a prayer of hope, yearning and faith.’

‘There is at least no doubt that contemporaries thought that they were dead, and acted accordingly. It is inconceivable that the predominantly Yorkist rebels against Richard III would have backed Henry Tudor, in most people’s eyes an exiled non-entity with no claim to the throne, as their candidate for king if they had thought that Edward’s sons were still available.’

‘It is impossible now to gauge Richard’s likely reaction to his brother’s execution, but his own absence from Edward’s court between 1480 and 1482 can more straightforwardly be explained by his leading role in the developing war against Scotland. He had been made lieutenant-general of the army in May 1480 and was to lead the first raid across the border later that year.’

‘Katherine of Aragon had more royal blood than Henry and all his wives put together, a far superior royal education, and more royal dignity. Born during a military campaign, she was a woman whose military knowledge was equal to that of any prince of Europe. A woman who loved, lost, and never wavered in her determination that Henry could not dismantle her life on a whim.’

‘She wondered what King Ferdinand would make of the portrait. Would it remind him he had a daughter in need of his aid? A daughter he forgot when it suited him. If only Queen Isabel had not died. She would not have allowed the English to treat her daughter as they did.’

‘The Tudor diet was almost 80 per cent protein, but they also ate salads, cooked and raw vegetables, custards and fruit. Meals were divided into two courses, with the first offering a selection of boiled meats, and the second offering roasted or baked meats. During formal feasts or celebrations, each course was preceded by the entrance of a ‘subtlety’: artworks made from sugar or marzipan’