Charlie Fenton > Recent Status Updates

‘Somehow the revelation about his parentage and the final rejection from the lost Stephanie, coming so close together in 1969, did not bury Ted Bundy. Instead, he became possessed of a kind of icy resolve. By God, if it took whatever he had, he was going to change. By sheer force of will, he would become the kind of man that the world, and particularly Stephanie, saw as a success.‘

‘Essex had used these people, had created a wave of public hysteria in order to force an issue. I felt instinctively that there was something else behind the entire case against Dr. Lopez, something self-serving for Essex. That he had been able to get this far with it proved to me that he now had a weapon to use against me as potent as poison - he had proved that he could harness popular opinion for his own ends‘

‘On 22 November she made her move. As she and Alençon were strolling down one of the galleries at Whitehall, the French ambassador asked her to make a final decision about her marriage. The Queen replied clearly, ‘You may write this to the King: that the Duke of Alençon shall be my husband’. With that she kissed Alençon on the mouth, and presented him with a ring’

‘the populace who anyway thought it obnoxious that the Queen could contemplate matrimony with a Catholic and a Frenchman, for a combination of xenophobia and religious bigotry ensured that many Englishmen were strongly opposed to the match. The ill-feeling had been stimulated by attacks from the pulpit, as for months now Puritan preachers had been heaping invective on the proposed union’

‘Puritans felt passionately that if their dress was reminiscent of that of the Catholic priesthood, it would confuse the simple and encourage superstition. The Queen, on the other hand, insisted on the retention of vestments precisely because she felt that simple believers would have difficulty identifying with a Church which had discarded too many of the practices associated with traditional religious observance.’

‘It would have to be James VI of Scotland. We all knew that. But I would not formally name him. He was the only possible claimant who met England’s needs. All the other candidates were either foreign, or Catholic, or more distant relatives. Since it was so obvious it would be James, why could they not stop harassing me about it?’

This is so good, getting through it really fast now but I also don’t want it to end.

‘she delayed making an official response to the sentence of excommunication... She did not want to be rushed into tightening up the laws against the Catholics, and besides she was worried that a new Parliament, like its predecessor, would importune her to name a successor.’

‘Walsingham had served me twenty years, through the time of Alençon’s wooing, through the tortuous journey the Queen of Scots made from luxurious imprisonment until she stood on the scaffold, caught by Walsingham’s trap, through the supreme test of the Spanish Armada. William Cecil, Lord Burghley, had served me longer, but Walsingham had been my ultimate protection and the guardian of the realm.’

‘There was no secret, special message. It was an ordinary letter, teasing, affectionate, hopeful of the future, concerned with tokens. He had no suspicion that death was near. In the midst of life we are in death, says the burial service. But its opposite is true: In the midst of death we are very much in life.’

‘Over marriage, at least, the Queen was theoretically prepared to accommodate her subjects, but this was the only comfort on offer, for when she addressed herself to the subject of the succession, she was categoric that this was no business of theirs. She explained that it was not a matter on which they were qualified to adjudicate’

It has been a long time since I have enjoyed an audiobook this much so early on, I am only two hours in and yet I feel I cannot stop.

‘Of the fifteen or sixteen members present, ‘there were nearly as many different opinions about the succession to the crown’, and it proved impossible to achieve any sort of consensus... the Council’s failure to reach agreement proved beyond doubt that the Queen’s death would result in political disintegration and utter chaos’

‘For years the Grey girls mouldered in the country, where Katherine’s refusal to eat and constant fits of weeping contributed to the steady decline in her health. In 1568 she died of tuberculosis, her crime still unforgiven. Mary Grey was marginally more fortunate, for after she was widowed in 1571 she was permitted to return to Court.’

‘As early as April 1559, Amy was reported to be suffering from a ‘malady in one of her breasts’, and from this it has been inferred that she was a victim of breast cancer. If this was the case, her bones could have been weakened by cancerous deposits carried through her bloodstream from the cells of the original tumour’

‘The trouble was, that if the Scots did rise up against their present rulers, Elizabeth’s approval was unlikely to be forthcoming. For the Queen, rebellion against a prince’s divinely constituted authority represented the pinnacle of human wickedness, the ultimate sinful deed, which put its perpetrators beyond redemption.’

“Some men have privileges that you and I will never enjoy. We did not choose to be born to a farmer or to an alchemist. The monied nobility and merchants have the advantage of wealth and influence to protect themselves and their families. But I have only my wits to take care of mine.”

‘Elizabeth’s reluctance to marry and beget a direct heir would not have aroused such universal concern if she had been prepared to name an alternative successor, but this she staunchly refused to do... Her own experiences in Mary’s reign had left her with the unshakeable conviction that, involuntary or otherwise, the sovereign’s heir presumptive automatically became the fulcrum for treasonous intrigue’

‘Cecil and his mistress might not invariably have been in agreement, but it was the fact that their thinking coincided on a great many questions, that enabled them to work in harmony for so long. The Queen relied on him as implicitly as she did precisely because their approach to problems was so similar, and for his part Cecil developed an unstinting respect for her intellect.’

‘Her confidence that it was Providence that had brought her to the throne gave her an assurance when dealing with people remarkable in one of her years. When Count Feria had visited her in the country, shortly before Mary’s death, he had recorded that she struck him as a very clever woman (as well as a very vain one), and he had noticed that even then, Elizabeth ‘had a certain air of authority about her’.’

‘She was thrilled by his power and magnificence, and in an age where fathers were expected to be authoritarian, even tyrannical, she found it gratifying rather than otherwise to have as a father the highest authority in the land. All her life she revered Henry’s memory - ‘She prides herself on her father and glories in him’, the Venetian ambassador noted in 1557’

‘He could not apologise for being angry, for being scared, and he knew that she didn’t expect him to. He raised her hands to his lips and kissed her fingers, stained from plants. “I would slay a thousand French in a day if I knew that it would bring me speedily home. But I am not my own man in this world. I am the king’s pawn. I can never know otherwise.”’

‘another investigation was ordered but this time it focused on whether Anne had given birth to a son of the king’s. It is strange that Henry would have asked for the situation to be investigated if he had not slept with her but would Anne really have welcomed him to her bed given all that had happened between them, and would Henry have really have slept with his ex-queen when he was happy with Katherine at the time?’

“Of course it is important to include the barbs of a goose feather in the brew.”
“Pray you?”
“To help with padding your womb so the fetus doesn’t rock.”
“Mother, your logic confounds me.”
“This is sensible advice and I have found it effective. The softness lines your womb much like a bird lines its nest with plucked feathers. It is the fitful sleep of the child inside of you that unsettles your stomach so.”

‘Henry would be ‘a perfect friend, content to repute you as our dearest sister’ as long as she agreed to the terms. Her allowance would be £4000 a year in revenues from estates and lands across the country including Hever Castle, Anne Boleyn’s childhood home, with £500 income plus she could keep Richmond Palace and Bletchingley Manor in Surrey as her homes.’

‘Henry had seen Anne’s portrait so seeing his bride in reality should have been no shock. Holbein was known for his lifelike paintings. Even if he had embellished her attributes the painting must have shown a relatively good resemblance... what really irked Henry is that she had embarrassed him in front of his nobles.’

‘He viewed Bianca in terms of her usefulness to him. True, she had saved him from an untimely death, but he expected nothing less from her. She owed him her loyalty as a daughter.’

‘The king’s law required that every man between sixteen and sixty years must possess a warbow and practice his archery skills (though if a man were to achieve that ripe age he would need a cart to haul him to a field of battle). One never knew when their foe (namely, the French) might invade and try to seize their fair isle. No matter that Henry was the more likely instigator of any clash’

‘He confirmed her sheltered upbringing and closeness to her mother. She spent most of her time at her needlework, couldn’t read or write French or Latin, nor sing or play an instrument. She only spoke German but her wit was good and Wotton had no doubt she would learn English when she put her mind to it. She was also not a drinker. It was a mixed report.’

Still has the same problem as with all of the author’s other books and that is useless references. She has clearly researched the subject and her references reflect that, but they are pointless being there due to lack of volume or page numbers and I always wonder why the publishers bother including them like that.