Charlie Fenton > Recent Status Updates

‘In Jo Appleby’s opinion the grave was hastily dug as it was too short for the body, and as a result the head was discovered at a higher level during the exhumation. His hands and arms were still together but positioned over his right pelvic area, suggesting his hands had been tied. With his hands bound, the chances were that his body had not been washed or properly prepared for burial.’

“Only by good fortune did the wet weather bring the Queen back earlier than expected, otherwise Jane might have consummated her desire to snare the King. This time, having disturbed the King at his play, the Queen reined in her temper. She reined it in so well that he reconsidered his liking for one who acts with him like a timid, dull-witted white mouse.”

Enjoying this book and glad it is dispelling the misconception that all of the women were prostitutes, although another pattern is emerging - all/most of them were alcoholics or at least drank a lot. Did the Ripper deliberately target them because of that?

‘the skeleton had acute spinal abnormalities, confirming severe scoliosis - a form of spinal curvature. This would have made the right shoulder visibly higher than the left, consistent with contemporary accounts of Richard’s appearance. Finally, the skeleton did not show signs of kyphosis - a different form of curvature. The man did not have the feature sometimes inappropriately known as a hunchback’

‘As a child, Richard had witnessed terrible violence against his own mother; as a young adult, his character and personality had been forged during a shocking period of civil conflict. In the midst of it, Clarence had betrayed Edward IV’e trust but Richard, to his great credit, had remained steadfastly loyal.’

‘He looked at the Queen. How must it feel, having mourned her brothers for years, to be given hope that one of them was alive? And then to realise that, even it were true, it could bring no happiness, because if Richard of York lived, he must be the true King.’

Strange how Francis Dereham, Henry Mannox and Thomas Culpepper have been merged into one person called Francis Manham. Worsley has included so many details that I wouldn’t imagine having in a book for younger people, yet she seems to not want Katherine to have had multiple lovers. Seems odd, especially as her affair with Culpepper is so well-known.

‘Another valuable addition to the treasures in the Queen’s Room was a brooch containing some of Katherine Parr’s hair. This was presented to the Castle by Miss Maggs to whom it had been bequeathed by Miss Durham of Postlip. Her brother had been one of the band who had broken open the Queen’s coffin in 1792 - the hair in the brooch having been cut from the Royal remains at the time.’

I never realised all this happened or at least not to this extent, Josef Mengele (whose name I sort of recognised) has been experimenting on people - one man has just been castrated.

Sometimes I forget this book is directed towards younger people as there are so many insinuations and hints at things that I wouldn’t imagine in a book for young adults/teens (and things I know I didn’t come across when I was younger). Henry VIII just pushed the main character up against the door and grabbed her behind, others were talking about there being no blood on Anne of Cleves’ sheets etc.

‘We went to the queen’s own chamber, and there it was shocking to find that Queen Anne seemed rather like a convent girl. Although she was older than us, I guessed that she knew even less about the world than we did. She could hardly speak English, as we had been warned, but no one had told us that she would also dress so oddly, like a nun.’

The narrator really is excellent, she really makes Agnes sound so devastated and hysterical as she approaches her execution (not a spoiler as it is a true story and says in the blurb that she was the last woman in Iceland to be executed).

‘’A princely entertainment on a magnificent scale’ was the press description of the Historical Part in January 1859, when Emma and John, in the guise of Henry VIII and Katherine Parr, entertained their guests who had all made great efforts to attend in the appropriate costume of the day. Correct dances of the period were arranged by the Hon F Lygon, ‘who sustained the character of Philip II of Spain.’’

‘My shoulders slumped. I realised that Katherine herself was flirtatious and treacherous and wondrously fair as well. Surely even the former queen, Anne Boleyn, would have been outclassed by my cousin? Katherine would certainly have her pick of the court’s unmarried men. How could I compete?’

Really enjoying this so far, but getting through it too quickly!

‘Sudeley Castle lies in a fold of the Cotswold hills, next to the town of Winchcombe and some eight miles north east of Cheltenham. Once a Royal residence and the home of Queen Katherine Parr, following its ‘slighting’ by order of Cromwell’s Parliament in 1647, it had been little more than a romantic ruin for nearly 200 years, when John and William Dent, wealthy glovemakers from Worcester first caught sight of it’

‘’Mr Robert Chester and I fell in love with one another and I accepted him’, Emma recalled. ‘To make a long, long story short, Father, aunts, uncles all objected. I could not go against them and for their dear sakes I gave up what I firmly believe was my greatest happiness’.’

‘Regular news comes from Hampton Court: the baby is well and thriving, he has been christened Edward, Princess Mary carried him during the ceremony. If he lives, he is the new Tudor heir and she will never be queen; but I know - and who knows better than I, who shared Queen Katherine’s five heartbreaks? - that a healthy baby does not mean a future king.’

‘To their amazement, not much more than a foot from the surface, he uncovered a leaden coffin, with the inscription ‘Here lyeth Quene Kateryn, Wite to Kyng Henry VIII’. He raised the top of the coffin, expecting to discover only the bones of the dead queen, but to his great surprise he found the whole body wrapped in six or seven seer cloths of linen ‘entire and uncorrupted’’

‘He cannot be brutal; it is always love, true love, for Henry. Surely, he cannot sentence his wife, and the mother of his child, to death. I know that he turned against his own good queen, that he sent her away and neglected her. But it is a different thing, a different thing altogether, to ride away from a disappointing woman and ignore her, than to change overnight and command a lover’s death.’

‘I think of her as I first met her, a young woman tremulous with anxiety about being Princess of Wales and illuminated with love, her first love, and I think of her going to heaven like that, with her five little angels following her, one of the finest queens that England has ever had.’

‘There had, of course, never been the slightest doubt that Hugh would be sentenced to death, and a gallows had already been built for him, a staggering 50 feet high. He was roped to four horses which dragged him through the streets to the gallows, and there he suffered his drawn-out and atrocious death of strangulation, castration, disembowelment and beheading’

‘Isabella loathed Hugh so much she could not bring herself to utter his name. Not only did she dress and portray herself as a widow in mourning for her husband who had been taken from her by a third party, she informed the French court that she was frightened of Hugh, and threatened - in a letter or speech which does not survive - to destroy him with the help of Charles IV’

‘The royal favourite’s greed was insatiable. By the time of his downfall in late 1326, Hugh held estates worth over £7,150 a year, and this was even wealthier than his enormously rich brother-in-law the earl of Gloucester had been. Even this huge figure is incomplete as the income from his Welsh lands is impossible to calculate, and they were far more extensive than his English estates.’

‘Hugh in fact acted in a very different way from the previous great royal favourite, Piers Gaveston, who enjoyed the riches which came from being the beloved of the king, but who had no interest in government or in ruling through Edward. Some of the English magnates had killed Gaveston to remove him from the king’s side... they had merely opened the door to someone far more dangerous.’

‘“The Duke of Norfolk practically threw Reginald into my arms. Dragged him out of the privy chamber and thrust him at me. I could hear the king roaring behind him like an animal. I really think the king would have killed him.”
Reginald looks up at me, the bruise darkening on his cheek, his eyes horrified. “I think he is gone mad,” he says. “He was like a man insane. I think our king has gone mad.”’

“All kings should live under the law; but this king is learning his power. He is learning that he can make the law. And you cannot tell a grown man to show childlike obedience. Once he is a man, can he be a child again? Who will order a king when he is no longer a prince? Who will command a lion when he has learned he is no longer a cub?”

‘On 26 May, four days after the knighting, came an even greater honour for Hugh: marriage to the king’s eldest granddaughter Eleanor Clare, daughter of the late Gilbert ‘the Red’ Clare, earl of Gloucester and Hertford, and Edward I’s second daughter Joan of Acre.’

‘They call the poor little bastard Henry, as if we had not already buried two babies with that name. They give him the surname Fitzroy, as the king acknowledges his by-blow. Bessie is granted an allowance to raise her boy, and he is generally known, widely known, as the king’s own son.’