Charlie Fenton > Recent Status Updates

“We’re not discussing something so trivial as mercenary, woman! It’s self-preservation. If you don’t look to yourself whilst the power is to hand, no one else will. And if you’re thinking, ‘Does this make me too hard, too avaricious?’ then consider this. Who will give you a moment’s thought the day that Edward goes to his grave?”

‘As the King’s mistress and Philippa’s favourite I was invulnerable. I had won this little battle: no damsel would ever dare show me discourtesy again. The might despise me, they might wish me disgraced and banished from Court, but they could not touch me.’

‘Obviously no firm proof exists for the hypothesis that young Eleanor Talbot was killed, and that her murder was planned by Elizabeth Widville. However, we do know for certain that in 1467-68 Elizabeth Widville was involved in operations against some people.‘

That is a pretty big leap though!

‘Did I enchant and entrap him, as the malicious tongues were to accuse many years later? Was I complicit in this seduction?
Complicit, yes. But when did any woman entrap a Plantagenet? Edward had his own mind and pursued his own path.
Was I malicious?
Not that either. I was too loyal to the Queen. Guilt was not unknown to me, whatever slanders held otherwise.’

Wow, I think one of the vampires in this is meant to be Lady Jane Grey. Another thing I missed when I first read this as a teenager, but them calling her ‘Lady Grey’ earlier and saying she only reigned for nine days... it is funny, as I started rereading these to get away from history for a bit.

‘I knew beyond doubt why she had chosen me to wait on her. I had had no part in the choosing. It had nothing to do with the antics of her perverse monkey, or my own foolish attempt to catch her attention, or my labours to be a good maidservant. She had chosen me because I was ugly, while in stark contrast this educated, sophisticated, highly polished Court beauty would shine as a warning beacon’

‘Obviously tor Edward, if a potential heir appeared to be on the way, his secret union with the mother would urgently have needed to be recognised and made official. And since their union had been secretly consummated in May 1464 Elizabeth might very easily have known that she was pregnant four months later, in September of that year.’

‘Philippa of Hainault... The years had not treated this woman with gentleness. All trace of youth, any beauty she might have had as that young bride who had come to England from the Low Countries to wed our vigorous King Edward, more than thirty years ago now, all were lost to her. And where was the expression of regal power? She was not elegant. She was not tall. She did not overawe. She wore no jewels.’

‘But what was I? It seemed I was neither flesh nor fowl. Here I stood in a house that was not mine, a wife but a virgin, with the knowledge that my marriage vows would make absolutely no difference to my role in the household. I would wager the whole of my sudden windfall on it. Signora Damiata would never retreat before my authority. I would never sit at the foot of the table.’

Audiobook version, which I can’t find on here

‘Here, in this one small wielding of royal power, in this oblique statement of future intent, was my first real intimation of the King who would emerge from the shadow of the furious, frustrated young man who had come to Hainault three years before to wed my lovely elder sister, and who had got me instead.’

‘The minister preached a sermon announcing that it was the birth of Jesus Christ and that the day should be filled with quiet reflection, that wassailing and Christmas ales and special puddings and roast dinners were nothing but worldly show and greed. The birth of out Lord should be considered reverently and thoughtfully.’

‘After seventeen years of spraying the vessel with water and chemicals to preserve her, the sprays were finally turned off in 2013, allowed the Mary Rose to begin the long process of drying out. By 2015 about 100 tons of water had evaporated from her timbers, enabling the waterproof barriers around the ship to be removed. In 2016 visitors at long last saw the Mary Rose properly’

‘Corsi salvaged the Mary Rose intermittently from 1546 until 1549 and managed to recover some guns, for which he was paid £20 in 1547 and £50 in 1549. But then it was discovered that he had fiddled his reports, for in September 1549, he was arrested for taking ‘certain of his stuff out of the sea’ in Portsmouth and was imprisoned in the Tower of London by the Duke of Somerset.’

“And she earns well enough with her lace for now,” Alinor said. “But what about the week when she’s too old to work any more? You saw her hands - what happens when she can’t bend her fingers? What happens the week that she falls sick? What does she eat then? Where does she get her firewood then? From her neighbours, as she said, and they’ll turn against her just for asking.”

‘At least eight teenage boys were working in the hold and on the orlop deck when the shop sank... Most of them had noticeably strained spines, arms and legs, and the heights of three of them, 1.63 metres (5ft 4in) [FCS 2 (H4/O4)], 1.68 metres (5ft 6in) [FCS 21 (H7)], and 1.80 metres (5ft 9in) [FCS 36 (O8)], show that their ages were nearer eighteen than thirteen.’

‘He had given up the woman he loved for the king that he must save, and he had failed to save him and learned to doubt her. He would never see his king again; he would never see her. He would leave her in poverty and the king in imprisonment. He was only twenty-two and he had failed in everything his duty and his heart had prompted him to do.’

‘The conclusion is that Mary Rose’s bow and stern ends were completely rebuilt, and that her keel was lengthened to enable her to be enlarged from 500-600 tons in 1512-5, to 700-800 tons in 1545-6. For this to happen, she must have been hauled ashore or fitted out in a dry dock where the shipwrights had access to her bottom.’

“One child we had: a daughter as beautiful as a faerie-born child. What did I know? Only that they had foisted a changeling on me from the moment that I saw her. Then came Rob - look at him! He could read as soon as he could walk, though I can’t spell my name. He knew the herbs as soon as he toddled into the garden. Used to name them by smell. Who smells leaves but a faerie child?”

‘Now the Scots were defeated, the king and parliament would have to agree: he had lost his last gamble: he would always be king, but no longer could he impose his will on the people. Finally, he would have to come to an accord. Peace - after two civil wars - would come to the country and the court.’

‘Henry was so anxious to equip his ships and land-based fortifications with guns of quality that he employed Humphrey Walker, his ‘King’s gunfounder’ to cast so many bronze guns that the price of tin in Europe increased considerably in 1510. Lorenzo Pasqualigo reported to the Venetian Senate that Henry had bought enough to cast one hundred guns.’

‘The story of the battle had not been told in full because the Mary Rose was at the centre of the research. But now that it has been possible to affirm that the French fleet arrived off the Isle of Wight on the afternoon of Sunday 18 July, we are better able to reconstruct the battle. Previously, dates of the arrival have varied from the 17 to 19 July, but this has been based on records written years after’

‘He put the bowl and spoon and mug on the floor and he knelt down and spoke a long whispered grace in Latin. Alinor, not knowing what to do, bowed her head and whispered ‘Amen’ as he finished, though she had been told by the minister - they had all been told - that God did not speak in Latin, that God spoke in English and should be addressed in English’

I resisted reading the Cursed Child for so long, but now I am reading it I don’t find it as bad as people say. Obviously it is still only a play and I’m not sure about the whole time turner thing, but am I the only one that doesn’t hate it? I feel like it has really divided the Potter fandom, with some suggesting you can’t like this and be a fan, which I think is wrong. Probably in the minority here though!

Snape: “I’m dead, presumably... You were a little too surprised to see me. How?”
Scorpius: “Bravely.”
Snape: “Who?”
Scorpius: “Voldemort.”
Snape: “How very irritating... Still, there’s glory in being taken down by the Dark Lord himself, I suppose.”

Getting through this series quickly, such a nostalgia trip and I love them just as much as I did when I was a teenager.

‘So, the discovery of Richard’s remains showed unequivocally that the later writers including More and Shakespeare got it very wrong. However, when he was slung naked over the horse after he was killed, his ribs would have risen up on one side, creating a bulge or ‘rib hump’ for all to see, probably giving rise to the fable that became part of our collective consciousness until now.’