Charlie Fenton > Recent Status Updates

‘a discussion of the influence of Catherine’s and Margaret’s immediate predecessor in England, Elizabeth of York (r. 1486-1503) on early sixteenth-century British queenship. Elizabeth of York was Margaret’s mother and Catherine’s mother-in-law, and her reign provided an important precedent for Catherine and Margaret to follow when they established their own courts and households in England and Scotland.’

‘“Like a doctor, aren’t you... You come here and drain a boil. A huge throbbing carbuncle, the size of someone’s whole life. Then you wash your hands and pretend you’ve never smelt anything but roses. And you walk away with heavier pockets, until the next time. So like a doctor. All for the benefit of mankind. Except that you’re really doing it because men like my father like the taste of the pus...”’

‘“Never mind. Go and find a better way to earn your living, or there’ll be nothing left of you.”
“Earn a living?” She gasped a laugh and flapped her ragged cloak at him like a dark bird. “You think this is a living? A life? I don’t care any more, I want it all gone, I’d rather be one of them drooling lunatics you see outside Fogatini’s when he’s gone too deep, I want there to be nothing left of me-“‘

I read this series when I was in primary school and loved the first book but struggled a bit with the second and third, so decided to try the audiobooks now I’m older as they were on sale and I know the TV series is being made (hope it is better than the movie).

The murder of 8 year old Fanny Adams is not an easy one to listen to, especially with how Baker (the murderer) spread her body parts. Can’t believe he was initially overlooked as he was a solicitor - some things never change, do they?

‘While Hilliard’s artistic range increased following his return from France, his financial position remained precarious and ill-managed, marked by litigation, disputes and a pattern of unattractive conduct. His investment, probably around 1573-4, in a Scottish gold-mining scheme had failed and Hilliard, as discussed in Chapter 4, had lost all he had put into it.’

‘Armed with a newfound sense of his own identity and importance as an artist, Hilliard in the 1580s and 90s went on to paint virtually everyone of note at the Elizabethan court, to become the most influential purveyor of Elizabeth I’s image and to write The Art of Limning, one of the first English vernacular treatises on painting‘

‘“It’s the binding that matters. The craft of it, the dignity. Say a woman comes to me for a book. I make a book for her. For her, you understand? Not to be gawped at by strangers.” She slurped soup from her spoon. “There are binders who only think to turn a profit, who care about nothing but their bank balance, who, yes, sell books - but you will never be one of them.”’

‘On 25 September 1576, Hilliard - then about twenty-nine years old and recently married - set sail for France in the train of Sir Amias Paulet, the queen’s newly appointed ambassador to the Valois court... More than two years passed before Hilliard’s return to England, probably in November 1578. Hilliard’s bride, Alice, spent some bur not all of this time with her husband, conceiving their first child in France’

‘This much is clear, however: by late 1570 or early 1571, Hilliard - who may have crossed paths with Leicester while apprenticed to Brandon - now counted the earl as a patron in his own right. In this, Hilliard’s miniatures were, by the summer of 1571, attracting the attention not only of Queen Elizabeth but also of Catherine de’ Medici, probably the greatest Continental patron and collector of the day.’

I feel so sorry for Flora Hastings, having to go through that awful examination to prove she was not pregnant to Queen Victoria. It turned out she had a tumour and that was what caused the swelling, but by then scandal and rumour had already spread. And some of the medical thinking back then astounds me - they honestly believed you could be a virgin and be pregnant?

If someone approaches this book thinking it will be like the movie, then they will be in for a shock. Stephen is portrayed much more sympathetically in the movie, whereas the real one is very difficult to like and I often find myself wondering why Jane stayed with him so long, but I guess she felt she had to. How he couldn’t see how difficult it was for his family is beyond me.

‘This would be the ultimate meaning of the experiment, surely, that by moving about in time death was destroyed. This wad what Magnus so far had not understood. To him, the drug released the complex brew within the brain that served up the savoured past. To me, it proved that the past was living still, that we were all participants, all witnesses.’

‘Thus, the young Hilliard - whatever his formal education may have been during his years in Geneva - was surrounded, in Knox’s English congregation and Calvin’s Geneva, by many of the leading Protestant thinkers and writers of the day. Moreover, as John Bodley’s surrogate son, he had a front-row seat for arguably the greatest Protestant publishing venture of the sixteenth century’

‘I clumped back to the beach, hot and curiously tired. It was odd, but it seemed more of an effort to face the family now, without having swallowed the drug and moved in the other world, than it would had I actually taken a trip in time. I felt thwarted, drained of energy, and filled with a strange sense of apprehension. Imagination was not enough; I craved the living experience which had been denied me’

‘Had Nicholas Hilliard been born a decade or so earlier - or, indeed, a decade or so later - he might have spent his entire childhood and youth living in Exeter. But the religious upheavals of the mid-sixteenth century disrupted that course for Hilliard, as for many others of his generation. The Reformation saw unprecedented flows of refugees across the English Channel, in both directions.’

‘Part of the enduring appeal no doubt lies in the fact that Hilliard’s sitters included many of the leading members of the Elizabethan and Jacobean courts, not least Elizabeth and James themselves. Others who sat to him include Mary Queen of Scots; the explorers Sir Francis Drake and Sir Walter Ralegh; Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, and Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex’

‘I wondered what had happened after that meeting at Polpey’s farm when Isolda risked so much to warn her lover; whether Bodrugan, brooding on what might-have-been, returned to his estates and thought about his love, and whether she, when her husband Oliver was absent, met him perhaps in secret. I had been standing beside them both less than twenty-four hours ago. Six centuries ago...’

‘The presence of a queen consort and three royal children was also a stimulus to portrait production. James continued Elizabeth’s patronage of Nicholas Hilliard, but in 1605 the more artistically adventurous queen consort Anne appointed Isaac Oliver her ‘Painter for the art of limning’ for the same salary as Hilliard, £40 a year.’

I feel so sorry for her. I get Stephen did not want outside help and so resisted nurses and carers, as quite a few who are disabled do, but there has to be a time where you realise that the strain it is putting on your family isn’t fair. His wife and young son were acting as his sole carers pretty much 24/7.

‘I sat very still, my heart thumping in my chest. There has been no confusion before. The two worlds had been distinct. Was it because the nausea and the vertigo had been so great that the past and the present had run together in my mind? Or had I miscounted the drops, making the draught more potent? No way of telling.’

‘It is the fate of every man, I suppose, at some time or other to glimpse a face in a crowd and not forget it, or perhaps, by a stroke of luck, to catch up with the owner at a later date, in a restaurant, at a party. To meet often breaks the spell and leads to disenchantment. This was not possible now. I looked across the centuries at what Shakespeare called ‘a lass unparalleled’, who, alas, would never look at me.’

‘Various attempts were made during her reign to control her portraiture and, in 1584, a patent was drafted - although not registered - giving Hilliard a monopoly over her portraits in miniature. His work for the Queen was not limited to miniatures, however, and its variety suggests that of all Elizabethan artists, he was the one with the most access to Elizabeth herself.’

‘One particularly popular symbol was the impresa, a device of Italian origin, which combined an image and a motto to express meaning or philosophy personal to its owner. Imprese gained popularity in England from the 1580s. They could incorporate a pun on the owner’s name or heraldry, or a reference to some recent event.’

‘After Hilliard’s return from France in 1578, he quickly picked up new court patrons, and the 1580s and 1590s were his most productive years. Miniatures by Hilliard became a necessary adjunct to court life, and many survive from these decades, reflecting the elaborate fashions and ostentatious display characteristic of Elizabethan courtiers.’

‘Oliver’s artistic practice was less varied than Hilliard’s. He was a miniaturist and draughtsman alone. Yet his output within these disciplines was more diverse and experimental than that of Hilliard. His work relates both to the distinctive vernacular tradition of Hilliard and to the wider world of contemporary Continental art, including complex multi-figured compositions of imagined scenes.’

‘I had prayed for so long "to know," and now the answer killed a part of me. I didn't learn until later that Ted would be charged with murdering Kimberly Leach, a twelve- year-old girl, the same age as Tina. I thought of Ted's assurances that I never needed to worry about me or Tina. I didn't understand Ted Bundy and I never will.’

‘Hilliard’s extensive practice included work as a goldsmith, jeweller, engraver, woodcut designer, medallist and painter in oils, but only a small number of works in these disciplines can today be attributed to him with confidence. His unique reputation, both during his lifetime and since, has rested on his exceptional skill as a miniaturist (or limner, as was commonly used at the time).’

‘he told me that his free life might be too short to skip the chance of being with me. I picked him up and we spent the rest of the day together. He told me that he had slipped into Seattle to take a lie-detector test that could be used in his defense. I thought that was wonderful. When he passed with flying colors, perhaps I would be able to let go of my doubts. When the results came back, they were inconclusive.’

‘Miniature painting was not, as popularly thought, simply the art of painting on a very small scale but, specifically, the art of painting in watercolour and its opaque form, bodycolour, on vellum. Essentially, it was the technique used for illuminating manuscripts but detached from the page and framed as an autonomous work of art.’