Sarara, you're a genius.

Thanks very much

quote:

Originally posted by The Dabbler:
Sarara, you're a genius.

Thanks very much

Why thank you. Not quite a genius as someone else correctly identified it, but I'll happily take your compliment.

quote:

Originally posted by Bretwalda:
Next week, Elizabeth I who was of course recently voted Britain's greatest monarch in a TV debate amongts academics and celebrities. I'm no lover of the Tudors but I concede her as a Premier Division monarch whereas Henry I'd place in a lower tier - his notoriety springs from the break with Rome and his 6 marriages and is not a reflection of his achievements as monarch, unlike Elizabeth (but the Plantagenets are still way better!!)

I am looking forward to this... we'll have to see what he makes of it.

I fell asleep and missed the last half/third of tonights programme. Did I miss much?

The upcoming drama has already come in for some criticism from historians, mainly over an encounter between Elizabeth and James VI/I - which never took place. They've also included the famous Tilbury speech which I seem to recall wasn't written until some tears after the event. Flora Robeson did it better anyway.

I found it quite watchable. Using the religious stance, and period problems, as the theme. Though it seemed to tie in quite well with what I'd read - though the actresses chosen to illustrate ! Mary wasn't too bad (I'd heard she was quite short) but the younger Elizabeth was painful.

Though it explained Cecil's (didn't know it was pronounced "cee-sil" !) great antipathy to Mary Queen of Scots. I've read a bit about her and Cecil really had it in for her - but when you consider his background of experiencing another Catholic Mary on the throne (Elizabeth not favouring the Greys) then it makes more sense.

quote:

Originally posted by Fil2:


The upcoming drama has already come in for some criticism from historians, mainly over an encounter between Elizabeth and James VI/I - which never took place. They've also included the famous Tilbury speech which I seem to recall wasn't written until some tears after the event. Flora Robeson did it better anyway.

Do you mean the drama on Elizabeth to be shown on Thursday night?

If it was a historical programme then yes I could understand the criticisms, but isn't it a dramatisation? Therefore, dramatic licence will always play a part.

The Edward-Jane Leadership And The Protestant/Evangelical Revolution 1547-54

Compared to William the Conqueror and William the Red, Henry VIII is an historical dwarf. The Conqueror annihilated a ruling class that had long outlived its usefulness to History, expropriated its wealth and changed the course of European History . The Conqueror and the Red died fully committed to their Norman Revolutionist principles and implementing those principles, unyieldingly, to the end. Henry V111 having led a political, as opposed to a social revolution, based on the destruction of subsistence farming and the ascendancy of Protestantism/Evangelicalism, died a hypocrite taking Roman Catholic sacraments and for all the dissolution of the monasteries, land seizures and church wealth confiscations, Roman Catholic fundamentals were not overthrown by the revolution from above Henry Tudor led. For us, the fact that he was appointed Defender Of The Faith by Pope Leo X is instructive. Pope Leo is on record of having declared “ It has served us well this myth of Christ”. In fact Protestantism did not become the majority religion in England until the 1580’s, when believers started to be recognised as ‘Protestants’ rather than just Evangelicals. Indeed, Protestantism would not have survived in this sector of Europe without Edward V1’s decisively more profound revolutionary, leadership surge from above between 1549 and 1552 which opened up 20 years of progressive, civil war over religion and politics and layed the indispensable foundation stone without which The Cromwellian Revolution of the 17th Century would not have been realised. Edward started as he intended to continue by ordering a special place to be reserved for the German Protestant formation The Schmalkaldic League at Henry Tudor’s funeral. This crucial fact is omitted from Starkey’s assessment. Starkey correctly made much of the brutality of ‘Bloody Mary’ but why was there no mention of the brutality inflicted on the Catholic people of the south-west in 1549 during the so-called ‘Prayer Book Rebellion’ where,for examples, prisoners were slaughtered and clergymen hung from their church towers by Edward’s commanders? Our Forum supports the repression of that rebellion but rejects such double standards which were also evident when Starkey mentioned the threat from Mary’s allies in Catholic Europe to intervene militarily if she was forced by Edward’s rule to submit to Protestantism. In fact, it is also the case that during the Counter-Revolutionary, 1549 rebellion, Edward authorised the use of Lutheran Lanzknecht from the Germanic regions of Europe and Italian Arquebusiers to suppress the Catholic rebels, who it must be said, fought heroically in a bad cause. Starkey made no mention of this. This is sanitised history and an affront to scientific study of the subject. Starkey has, correctly, used the European factor to illustrate developments in England but in an utterly insufficient capacity. Indeed, the European factor rules. Edward and Jane Grey, who we consider far more radical than Henry Tudor, were born a mere 12 years after the Battle of Frankenhausen which ended the German Peasant Wars 1523-25 with total victory for the Roman Catholic Swabian League and the capture and execution of Tomas Munzer a radical, Protestant leader; and 6 years after the Battle of Kappel am Albis where the Roman Catholic Forest Cantons defeated Swiss Protestant forces led by Huldreich Zwingli who, like Munzer, was captured and executed by the victors. Martin Luther was bitterly opposed to Munzer and Zwingli due to their radical visions of Protestantism. The link between Edward and Jane and these principled, ideological forces is Heinrich Bullinger, a disciple of Zwingli. For Starkey to deprive his viewers of any information on these vital people is like asking them to understand Hamlet without the Prince. And for him to refer to a “Nationalistic Protestantism” is no less a degradation of the truth. Protestantism like Catholicism was quintessentially European. We would also point out that Starkey’s failure to mention the role of the 16 person, Council of State that was at the centre of Edward’s Revolution-from-above, was led by an outstanding, inspired Lord Protector, the Duke of Northumberland. Northumberland’s plan with Henri 11 of France to trade Ireland and Calais for French, military reinforcements against Catholic, political Counter-Revolution following Queen Jane’s assumption of power to rule was based on his knowledge of Henri’s Treaty of Chambord in 1552 with German Protestant Princes in which the French King promised them troops and subsidies if they supported France’s seizure of bishoprics in Metz, Toul and Verdun. Catholic Henri was a bitter persecutor of Protestants in France, but when it came to international strategy, political necessity preceded religion in his calculations. With Jane’s full knowledge, the French Ambassador was the intermediary between Northumberland and Henri.Unfortunately, when the Council of State betrayed Queen Jane, committing treason in the process, an Northumberland’s plan was killed off instantly. Northumberland utterly demoralised by the squalid, cynical betrayal of his co-leaders, died a Catholic. But it cannot be entirely ruled out that his late conversion, which rightly infuriated Jane Grey, was also to point to how vitally important France was to the future of England. We would take issue with Starkey’s view of Edward’s “Device for the Succession” which overthrew Henry Tudor’s will. It is our view that Edward’s action was motivated by his disgust at his father’s ultimate betrayal of the Protestant/Evangelical Revolution he had started but finished by abandoning in a most despicable and hypocritical manner. Following his victory over the Scottish at the Battle of Pinkie in 1547 , where his Lord Protector Somerset and the Earl of Warwick, later Duke of Northumberland, led his army, and carried out a direct provocation to Catholicism in Scotland. There followed the repeal of Henry Tudor’s Six Articles on Edward’s insistence. Edward had seen the stunning success of the first Book Of Common Prayer between 1549-52 and it was precisely because of this that he wanted to maintain its revolutionary continuity by passing the succession to someone with whom he was familiar, to a profound degree, and whom he knew was ideologically as solid as a rock with the power of commitment to create a realm of Christ on Earth :Jane Grey.( In fact, he also ruled out her mother who had prior claim to her daughter to succeed him.) Not since the Conqueror left Angleland/England to God in his deathbed speech in Saint Gervais Priory, Normandy in September, 1087 had there been such a bold and uncompromising declaration of belief by a dying monarch. Yet Starkey manages to besmirch this commitment by claiming Edward was a ‘misogynist’ There is not a scrap of evidence to back this assertion. Indeed, when Edward decided on Jane, he was fully aware that she would be the first woman to rule England in her own right. He chose her because she was the best, irrespective of gender. Furthermore, they were so close that following the death of Queen Catherine Parr in September , 1548,Lord Seymour of Sudeley, whose ward she became, planned her marriage to her cousin and his nephew, Edward V1. On the contrary, if misogyny is a factor it is in the context of Edward’s struggle to shrug off the mantle of a man who was unquestionably a terminal misogynist: his father; in order to have a clear vision of where his Protestant/Evangelical Revolution was to be directed. And with perfect logic, Starkey fails miserably to mention that Jane was the first woman to rule thus. Many, too many we would maintain, historians tend to select Mary as the first woman to rule in her own right in England, but he did not even mention that. Indeed, the scandalous omissions continue when he discusses the bloody aftermath of Jane’s execution, or rather judicial murder, under Mary with John Foxe’s book of Protestant Martyrs without mentioning that Jane is in that book. Our Forum recognises fully the wrenching limitations of presenting’ TV History’ but when crucial, pivotal facts are omitted in dissonance to the coherence, we really question whether Starkey has lost control of his subject when it concerns Jane Grey ,as well as Edward, when he declares that she ruled for ‘less than a fortnight’ . She has been known for centuries as The Nine Days Queen. He mentions Thomas Wyatt leading a rebellion against Mary shortly after Jane was deposed. Her father joined that rebellion as others did( eg Carew, Courtenay) in other parts of England and was executed 11 days after Jane Grey. He died a Protestant on the scaffold denouncing Catholic ‘trumpery’. Jane Grey’s own execution, where she also died a Protestant, which Mary ordered to prevent her becoming a focus for resistance to her Catholic Counter-Revolution, took place as a huge wave of executions was about to be unleashed, for example, in London two days after her judicial murder with hangings,beheadings,burnings and dismemberments of Protestants in many districts. Jane was doubtless aware that a bloodbath was about to be ordered which may well be why she chose Psalm 51 as her text, and context, on the scaffold the last words of which are, ‘Then shalt thou be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering and whole burnt offering: then shall they offer bullocks upon thine alter’. Zwingli, Bullinger and Munzer, in their varying but constant ways, would have understood the message only too well. Jane Grey was of Norman descent, although some say there is a Picardy connection too . Doomsday Book records a certain Ansketil De Graye holding Redrefeld (Rotherfield Greys) in Oxfordshire where the first recorded settlement of the Family is stated. He was vassal to no less a person than William de Warenne who was Number Three after the Conqueror and the Red in the leadership of The Norman Revolution, 1058-1100 which was also a Revolution from above but on a massively greater scale, that is to say social not just political, than Edward and Jane. Indeed, Jane Grey’s progressive, French leanings can be seen in her proficient fluency in French along with Latin, Ancient Greek , Italian and tellingly, Hebrew a skill she had in common with Zwingli. It’s worth recalling that Hebrew is the language that preceded Aramaic, the language of Christ. It was also evident in her insistence on wearing a French Hood, on a regular basis, during her rule from the Conqueror’s Tower. In summary, Starkey’s account of Edward and Jane, despite some useful insights and data, is generally deficient to the detriment of the historical stature of these outstanding and inspirational individuals and the political-social forces they assembled to prosecute their just cause with the subsequent, revolutionist ramifications for the next century. We would, moreover, state that Edward and Jane have been more or less airbrushed from ‘conservative’, ‘traditional’ History by all the grandiose, overblown, stultifying propaganda about Henry V111 who, in the end, betrayed his revolutionist beliefs to hypocrisy .The other culprits are the promotion of Mary and, to an even more sickening degree, that vile, obnoxious, sneering founder of ‘Little Englanderism’, Elizabeth 1, whose putrid legacy is all too apparent in modern times and befouls the air still.

CT, Vice Chairperson, Bill H , Lydia Giles, Dinsdale, Hugo, Franc B, First Secretary (all in personal capacity)

One thing although I have not read the essay/book above this post I have one thing to say to william the red forum never I am beggin u never work for a TV mag, you need to do smaller synopsis of a program.

quote:

Originally posted by NathanD:
One thing although I have not read the essay/book above this post I have one thing to say to william the red forum never I am beggin u never work for a TV mag, you need to do smaller synopsis of a program.

They also don't seem to have heard of the concept of paragraphs, which make large volumes of text so much more readable.

Oh my goodness William the Red forum, why do you stay in England? Or maybe you don't. Answer in one small paragraph please.

putting a bit of gaffatape over the cut 'n paste icon usualy does the trick

nice to see I could start a little round robin and maybe some lighter messages will come our way