Charlie Fenton > Recent Status Updates

‘Catherine's education was a Latin and humanist one, as befitting a royal princess. In contrast, Anne's education had been French and courtly, as befitted a gentlewoman from a rising family. For far from being a woman plucked from obscurity and raised high by Henry VIII, Anne had been born into an affluent, cultured, and influential family whose accomplishments had been forged over several generations.’

‘peace was an increasingly fraught one, too, because now Scotland had been dragged into the conflict, due to its alliance with France through the marriage of Francis, Dauphin of France, and Mary, Queen of Scots. To add to the existing grievances, upon the death of Mary I of England this royal couple had taken up the title, coat, and arms of England as their own, a move that had certainly offended Elizabeth’

‘there was no doubt that the she-wolf of the French court was Diane de Poitiers. Her influence over so many courtiers, as well as the little queen of Scotland, the governor and governess of the royal children, and – most of all – Catherine’s husband, now knew no limits. Throughout the first part of Henry’s reign, Catherine had remained a docile and conciliatory wife, but her frustrations were mounting’

‘Lyra saw no reason to doubt him. She'd been in no state to notice anything at that point; she had been blind with tears and love and sadness. But he was part of her, and he had noticed, and she felt proud of him, because not
many people had damons as clear-sighted as Pantalaimon. She stroked his head and settled down deeper in the furs as they fell asleep.’

So far the first story, The Restored, is 5/5 stars. Love that it was set in the Tower of London in Restoration England and the dead were being brought back as zombies (never thought I’d say that).

‘Nevertheless, Diane continued to offer more advice on the matter to Catherine, and finally suggested that she should stimulate the prince before sending him to his wife’s chamber. This trick apparently worked, with Catherine confirming that Henry seemed to show more passion after this course of action. The royal couple was also examined by a doctor named Jean Fernel, who offered his advice on reproduction.‘

Getting vibes of the Moors Murderers here. Very chilling.

You can hear the emotion in his voice at this point. Unlike some, I do genuinely believe that Meghan felt suicidal and, honestly, I don’t blame her. I saw how the headlines seemed to pick on every single action. I may not agree with a lot of things they have said, but she was treated awfully, especially after the wedding.

‘the phone-hacking case first broke wide open because of poor Milly Dowler, a teenager who’d been abducted and murdered. Rehabber Kooks’s minions broke into Milly’s phone after she’d been declared missing – they’d violated her parents at the moment of their worst pain and given them false hope that their little girl might be alive, because her messages were listened to.‘

I really do not want to hear this much about Harry’s penis, there is such a thing as oversharing! At least readers in other countries will learn the slang word ‘todger’ 😂

One of the aliens that both intrigued and scared me in the original Torchwood series, glad they are back!

IANTO: Good God! (turns off alarm) My head!
JACK: Oh, ‘I don't get hangovers!’
IANTO: Somebody must have spiked the wine.
JACK: Which one? The first bottle or vour third? New rule: If you can't pronounce Sauvignon, you've had enough to drink.

IANTO: We better not be still here next month or l'll go on a killing spree with a lawnmower. I'll be on forensic files, they'll say: "I seem like such a nice quiet man, kept himself to himself."

My own theory about Harry and the press: I think he does generally hate the press. People question why he would do all this, but I think for him getting his side across after all these years is important. They say why is he inviting more publicity with this, but I wonder if he thinks that there will always be publicity around him, so why not on his own terms?

‘Also, no matter what they did to us, it was done away from the press, so for me every day was a kind of holiday. The training centre was like Club H. No matter what the colour sergeants dished out, there was always, always the compensatory bonus of no paps. Nothing could really hurt me in a place where the press couldn’t find me.’

‘Leavening his joy at Kate's pregnancy was the prospect of more long months with no bed sport. Was this to be the pattern of his life from now on? A few short weeks of pleasure followed by an eternity of enforced celibacy, year in, year out? He had waited long enough to experience the delights of love; he did not want to waste his youthful vigour any more.’

‘His heart broke when he saw Kate lying there, weeping and full of guilt because she had failed him, and fretting for fear of what her father might say. They wept together, and he assured her that he thought nothing the worse of her, and that they could try again as soon as she was well. She cried more piteously at that and begged him not to make their private tragedy a public one. So nothing was said about it.‘

If anyone’s squeamish, I’ve just had to hear about how Prince Harry had his head shoved inside a deer carcass as part of a ritual hunt when he was younger.

‘It struck me at some point that the whole basis of education was memory. A list of names, a column of numbers, a mathematical formula, a beautiful poem – to learn it you had to upload it to the part of the brain that stored stuff, but that was the same part of my brain I was resisting. My memory had been spotty since Mummy disappeared, by design, and I didn’t want to fix it, because memory equalled grief.’

I swear this book has the shortest chapters I’ve ever seen.

‘That was my sudden insight. With nothing to do but roam the castle and talk to myself, a suspicion took hold, which then became a firm belief. This was all a trick. And for once the trick wasn’t being played by the people around me, or the press, but by Mummy. Her life’s been miserable, she’s been hounded, harassed, lied about, lied to. So she’s staged an accident as a diversion and run away.’

Proof copy

Here we go, narrated by the man himself.

‘But there was nothing forced about the children’s reaction to Her Majesty. As she proceeds around the school, they gaze at her in amazement. ‘Are you the real Queen, miss?’ asks one boy. ‘I hope so,’ says Her Majesty.’

‘’Ah,’ she said, and she and Pan relaxed.
It was something they had to be on their
guard about all the time. If Dr Lanselius knew they could separate, there was no need for Pantalaimon to pretend he couldn't leave Lyra's side; and with the consul's permission he leaped out through the open window to explore the garden.’

‘It is doubtful whether between 1520 and 1670 a majority of prebendaries, who appear never to have set foot in the Minster, felt any particular corporate loyalty either towards the institution which provided their stipends or towards each other. A prebend need be no more than a sinecure, and a great many prebendaries treated it as such and spent their lives on Church or State business outside the diocese’

‘the eve of the Reformation appears in the visitation made in 1534 by Archbishop Edward Lee. The archbishop most wished to see the non-residence of the canons remedied. In fact, although he did not allude to this in his injunctions, the only canons in residence in the last decade had been Dean Higden and the treasurer, Lancelot Collins; the two of them had shared the very considerable income of the common fund.‘

‘He would have meant to say, ‘beautiful duchess’, not ‘first duchess’, because ‘first duchess’ makes no sense, none at all: it sounds as if he believes there will be others, in the years to come. And that in itself is so wild, so strange a notion, as to be impossible.’

‘Alfonso’s feelings for her resemble in no way her father’s for her mother. Lucrezia had thought her wedding might mean love and affection, an unbreakable bond, a parity, a partnership; she had hoped it would bring her joy and respect. But she suddenly fears, in the fury and contempt of Alfonso’s grip on her arm, that her marriage will be something very different.’

‘She thinks of her mother, that pale body swelling and shrinking inside its garments, swelling and shrinking, over and over again, her spine weakened from the many pregnancies, the iron corset made for her by the physician, who said it was required to support Eleanora’s back. La Fecundissima. She thinks, too, of the women who do not survive the act of birth – the many cousins, aunts and wives of courtiers’