Portrait Friday

Lady Jane Dudley, nee Grey (1590s? A recent acquisition of the National Portrait Gallery in London)

What I've Been Watching

If you're as tired as I am of the usual run-of-the-mill "romantic comedy," then run out and see this movie! Srsly, it is awesome. (see, I'm even reduced to Twitter-speak)

See Roger Ebert's review here
And the NY Times review here

What I'm Reading Today

A great book on the fascinating life of Lucie de la Tour Du Pin (who lived through the court of Louis XVI, the Revolution, escaping to a farm in New York, Napoleon, and various other battles, insurrections, and family dramas)! I can't put it down.

Riskies Tuesday

At Risky Regencies today, talking about romance (of course!)

Lost Cities

A lost Venetian city! One more reason to dream of visiting Italy soon. I love archaeology!

Heroine of the Weekend

Next week, August 4 marks the birthday of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, so she is our heroine of the weekend!

Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon (August 4, 1900--March 30, 2002) was the youngest daughter and 9th of 10 children of Claude George Bowes-Lyon, Lord Glamis (later 14th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne) and Cecilia Nina Cavendish-Bentinck (who was descended from Prime Minister William Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland, and also of Governor-General of India Richard Wellesly, 1st Marquess of Wellesley, elder brother of the Duke of Wellington). She was christened at the church near her family's country home, St. Paul's Walden Bury, in Hertfordshire on September 23, 1900. Much of her idyllic childhood, filled with ponies, dogs, field sports, and playing with her siblings, was spent at St. Paul's and at Glamis Castle, the Earl's ancestral home in Scotland (famous from Macbeth). She was educated at home by a governess until the age of 8, when she started school in London, but after a few years she went back to home-schooling, and passed the Oxford Local Examination at age 13 with distinction.

On her 14th birthday, England declared war on Germany. Her brother Fergus was killed in action in France in 1915, and her brother Michael was captured after being wounded in 1917 and spent the rest of the war in a German camp. Glamis was turned into a convalescent home for wounded soldiers, where Elizabeth helped with the nursing and was very popular with the patients, receiving many proposals of marriage.

Prince Albert, Duke of York (Bertie) was the 2nd son of King George V and Queen Mary, and as soon as he met Elizabeth the shy young man was hopelessly smitten. She liked him, as well, yet she turned him down the first time he proposed. She said she was "afraid never, never again to be free to think, speak and act as I feel I really ought to." But Bertie declared he would never marry another, and his third proposal met with success. They married on April 26, 1923 at Westminster Abbey, and Elizabeth started a tradition among royal brides of leaving their bouquets at the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior. They honeymooned at Polesden Lacey, a country house in Surrey, and then went on to Scotland. Seemingly mismatched in some ways, the gregarious Elizabeth and shy, stammering Bertie proved to have an enduring, loving marriage and were devoted to each other.

In 1926, their first child Princess Elizabeth was born, followed 4 years later by Princess Margaret. The young family was highly popular, and lived a contented, fairly normal life (despite royal duties, like a tour of Australia in 1927). Until 1936.

On January 20, 1936, George V died and Bertie's brother, Edward, Prince of Wales, became King Edward VIII. George V declared, "I pray God that my eldest son will never marry and that nothing will come between Bertie and Lillibet and the throne." His prayer came swiftly true. Edward abdicated to marry the American divorcee Wallis Simpson, and Bertie most reluctantly became King George VI. He and Elizabeth were crowned at Westminster Abbey on May 12, 1937 (the date already set for Edward's coronation--the souvenirs had to be hastily reconfigured!). Elizabeth's new crown contained the Koh-i-Noor diamond, said to be bad luck for a man to wear but fine for a woman (the crown can now be seen at the Tower). The royal couple was still extremely popular, and Elizabeth wowed the world with her charm and wardrobe on tours of France and Canada.

Their hardest hour came with the outbreak of World War II, when they became potent symbols of British resistance. Elizabeth refused to leave London or send her daughters to Canada during the Blitz, despite the advice of the Cabinet to do so. "The children won't go without me," she declared. "I won't leave the King. And the King will never leave." She often made visits to parts of London targeted in the Blitz, such as the East End near the docks, always wearing her finest clothes, high heels, and hats. When Buckingham Palace was hit, she said "I'm glad we've been bombed. It makes me feel I can look the East End in the face." They spent their working days at Buckingham Palace, traveling back to Windsor Castle at night to stay with the princesses.

After the war, they had only a few years of domestic happiness before George VI died of lung cancer on February 6, 1952, making their 25-year-old daughter Queen Elizabeth II. The new Queen Mother retired in grief to Scotland, intending at first to stay there. After a visit from Winston Churchill, urging her to come back to public life, she returned to London. In July 1953 she took her first overseas visit since her husband's funeral, laying the foundation stone at the University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. Until Princess Diana, she was by far the most popular member of the royal family.

Along with official duties, she oversaw the restoration of the Castle of Mey on the Caithness coast of Scotland, which she used as her own private getaway. She developed a passionate interest in horse racing, owning the winners of over 500 races. She had a great love of art, collecting pieces by (among many others) Monet, Augustus John, and Faberge.

Her 100th birthday in 2000 was celebrated by a joyous parade, a new 20 pound note with her image, and a lunch at the Guildhall in London. In 2001, she suffered a fall and fractured her pevis, despite which she insisted on standing for the National Anthem at a memorial service for her husband on February 6, 2002. Just 3 days later, her younger daughter Princess Margaret died, and Elizabeth's famous spirit at last started to flag. She fell and cut her arm on February 13, but again insisted on going to the funeral at St. George's Chapel, Windsor, making a journey from Norfolk to Windsor despite the concerns of her family.

On March 30, the Queen Mother died at Royal Lodge, Windsor, with her daughter Elizabeth by her side. She was 101 years old, and at that time the longest-lived member of the royal family (her sister-in-law, Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester, died in 2004 at 102). Her favorite flowers were camellias, which she grew in all her gardens, and her own camellias were laid atop her flag-draped coffin as it lay in state at Westminster Hall. More than 200,000 people filed past as she lay guarded by members of the Household Cavalry. At one point, her 4 grandsons mounted the guard in what is known as the Vigil of the Princes, only bestowed once before, at the funeral of her father-in-law George V. On the day of her funeral, more than a million people filled the area outside the Abbey and along the 23-mile route of her procession to her resting place at Windsor beside her husband and daughter. After her funeral, the wreath atop her coffin was laid at the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior, just as her bridal bouquet was.

Sir Hugh Casson described her as "a wave breaking on a rock, because although she is sweet and pretty and charming, she also has a basic streak of toughness and tenacity...when a wave breaks on a rock, it showers and sparkles witha brilliant play of foam and droplets in the sun, yet beneath is really hard, tough rock, fused in her case from strong principles, physical courage, and a sense of duty." (This memorial statue was erected on the Mall in London in 2009)

A few good sources on her life are:
Sarah Bradford, The Reluctant King: The Life and Reign of George VI (1989)
Elizabeth Longford, The Queen Mother (1981)
Hugo Vickers, Elizabeth: The Queen Mother (2006)
Major Colin Burgess, Behind Palace Doors: My Service as the Queen Mother's Equerry (2006)

Portrait Friday

Georgia O'Keefe and Alfred Steiglitz, 1944, by Arnold Newman

Riskies Tuesday

Over at the Riskies today, talking about conference clothes...

Heroine of the Weekend

Next week, July 28 marks the anniversary of the day Henry VIII married his 5th wife, Catherine Howard (ca. 1521--February 13, 1442), so we continue the saga of the Tudor women this week with that poor, naive young woman.

Catherine was the fourth of 10 children born to Lord Edmund Howard (a younger son of the Duke of Norfolk) and his wife Joyce. She had an aristocratic lineage (Norfolk was the leading Catholic peer of the realm), but her father's low birth order and large family meant he was always short of funds and had to beg from his better-off relations. His niece, Anne Boleyn, got him a government job working for the King in Calais in 1531, but that lasted only as long as Anne's tragic reign. When he took the job, Catherine was sent to live in the household of her step-grandmother, Agnes Tilney, Dowager Duchess of Norfolk.

At Lambeth, the Dowager Duchess ran a very large household including many female wards, usually the offspring of poor relatives. The Duchess was usually at Court, and took little interest in the upbringing of these wards, so life at Lambeth was wild and lax. Catherine was not very well-educated, especially compared with some of Henry's intellectual wives such as Anne Boleyn and Catherine Parr (though she could read and write), and she ran wild. She started a sexual relationship with her music teacher, Henry Manox, when she was between the ages of 12 and 16. At her later trial, she stated, "At the flattering and fair persuasions of Manox, being but a young girl, I suffered him at sundry times to handle and touch the secret parts of my body which neither became me with honesty to permit nor him to require."

This youthful affair came to an end in 1538, when Catherine fell for a secretary of the household, Francis Dereham. They often addressed each other as "husband" and "wife," and other people in the household took notice of them. It ended the next year, when the Duchess finally figured out what was going on, but they may have parted with vows to marry (which would have constituted a pre-contract and invalidated her marriage to the King).

Catherine's uncle the Duke found her a place at Court as lady-in-waiting to Henry's new queen Anne of Cleves. The young, vivacious beauty quickly caught the king's eye, as he had never cared for Anne at all. Though her family wondered if she had the maturity and intelligence to handle the position of King's mistress, it was most advantageous to them and thus they encouraged it. Within months of her arrival at Court, the King was showering Catherine with expensive gifts and calling her his "rose without a thorn."

The Cleves marriage was annulled on July 9, 1540 and Catherine and Henry married a few weeks later on July 28. Henry, now near 50 and constantly expanding in girth (definitely no longer the golden prince of the early days of his reign!) was infatuated with his teenaged bride, and gave her expensive jewelry, gowns, and gifts of land. Her motto, "No other will but his," seemed to signify a devotion to her new husband that was deceptive. Despite her newfound wealth and power, she was a young, lusty woman who found her marital relations--unappealing. (The King weighed around 300 pounds at this time, and had a bad-smelling, festering ulcer on his leg that had to be drained every day). Early in 1541 she met the handsome young courtier Thomas Culpeper, and started meeting him in secret with the help of her lady-in-waiting Jane Boleyn, Lady Rochford (widow of Anne Boleyn's beheaded brother, so she should have known better!).

In 1541, Henry and Catherine embarked on a popular progress of the north of England. But people who had witnessed her wild behavior at Lambeth began contacting her for favors, and in order to buy their silence she appointed many of them to her household, including her first lover Henry Manox as musician and Francis Dereham as her secretary. John Lascelles, a Protestant reformer who resented the Norfolks' continued Catholicism, and his sister Mary Hall, who served the Dowager Duchess and witnessed Catherine's liaisons, contacted Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, with what they they knew of the Queen's scandalous past. Cranmer, well aware that any pre-contract with Dereham would invalidate the royal marriage, gave Henry a letter with accusations against his wife at an All Souls Day Mass on November 2, 1541. Henry at first refused to believe the claims, and ordered Cranmer to investigate further. Within days more proof was found, including the confessions of Dereham and Culpeper after they were taken to the Tower, and a love letter to Culpeper in Catherine's handwriting (the only letter from her still surviving. She signs off as "Yours as long as life endures"). Catherine was charged with treason, but she never confessed (even to her confessor just before her death) to infidelity, only that her behavior was unbecoming a lady of her rank.

Cranmer and a delegation went to question her at Hampton Court on November 7, and even the stern Archbishop found her tearful, paniced state pitiable, saying, "I found her in such lamentation and heavyness as I never saw no creature, so that it would have pitied any man's heart to have looked upon her." A pre-contract would have terminated the marriage and allowed Henry to banish her from Court. She would have been disgraced and impoverished, but not dead as her cousin Anne Boleyn was. But she denied any pre-contract, stating that Dereham had forced himself on her.

She was stripped of the the title of Queen on November 23 and sent to live at Syon House through the winter of 1541. Culpeper and Dereham were executed on December 10, and bill of attainder passed against Catherin on January 21, 1542. She was taken to the Tower on February 10, and executed on the 13th. The night before her death, she is said to have ordered the block brought to her room so she could practice making a good death. If so, it worked--though she was pale and had to be helped up the steps to the scaffold, she died with dignity and composure. She made a speech declaring her punishment "worthy and just" and asked for mercy for her family and prayers for her soul. She was buried in the nearby Chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula, near her cousin Anne Boleyn.

A few good sources for Catherine's short, sad life are:
Antonia Fraser, The Six Wives of Henry VIII
Karen Lindsey, Divorced, Beheaded, Survived: Feminist Reinterpretation of the Wives of Henry VIII
Lacey Baldwin Smith, A Tudor Tragedy: The Life and Times of Catherine Howard
Joanna Denny, Katherine Howard: A Tudor Conspiracy

Portrait Friday

Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, and Her Daughter Lady Georgiana Cavendish, Reynolds, 1784-86

RWA '09 Pics Saturday Night

The Saturday RITA Awards after-party!

RWA '09 Pics Harlequin Party

Saturday at the big Harlequin bash! (With Elizabeth Mahon, Michelle W. and her hubby dancing it up, with Alex Logan my Grand Central/Laurel McKee editor, and with Andrea Pickens, my Welbourne Manor buddies Diane Gaston and Deb Marlowe, Liz, and Michelle). It's the best party of the year!

RWA '09 Pics Beau Monde Soiree

Photos from last Wednesday's Beau Monde soiree! The costumes were gorgeous, and the dancing looked fun (though my shoes were too pointy-toed for dancing this year...)

With my lovely Harlequin editor Joanne Carr:
With Keira Soleore and Michelle Willingham:

With Megan!
A million thanks to my mother, Couturier Extraordinaire, for my gown!

Gone to Conference!

I'm off in Washington DC for the RWA conference--back next week, with pics and news!

Heroine(s) of the Weekend

In honor of Tuesday's Bastille Day holiday, women who played a role (no matter how reluctantly!) in the French Revolution...



Marie Antoinette
Madame du Barry
Rose Bertin
Manon Roland
Therese de Tallien
Germaine de Staal
Theroigne de Mericourt
Princesse de Lamballe
Marie Therese, Madame Royale

Portrait Friday

Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, with Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret by Charles Edmund Brock, ca. 1936

Shoes!

I LOVE these shoes! They're perfect for Fall. Too bad they cost $380 and don't even have my size...

(But if they have your size, you can get them at Piper Lime)

What I'm Reading Today

I love the history of botany (even though I can't seem to keep flowers alive in my own yard!)

Dancing With Mr. Darcy

A fun YouTibe video of dances with Mr. Darcy from the various P&P movies! Happy Tuesday!

Hottie Monday, Historical Edition

Thanks to Megan and all her North and South talk, I'm feeling historical this Monday! Enjoy the pics of N&S (plus one non-historical shirtless Armitage pic from MI5--I couldn't resist!), plus Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights.

Heroine of the Weekend

To celebrate the Fourth of July weekend, this week's Heroine is...Dolley Madison! She has been one of my favorite historical women ever since the 2nd grade, when I found an old biography of her in our school library. This was from a series that featured historical women when they were children, and I would love to find a copy again! She captured my imagination so much that I did a report on her (dressed up in costume!) for a class project that year.

Dolley Payne Todd Madison (May 20, 1768--July 12, 1849) was the 4th First Lady of the Unites States. Her "official" dates were 1809-1817, though she also sometimes served as White House hostess to her husband's predecessor Thomas Jefferson. She was renowned as a fabulous hostess, a "people person" extraordinaire, and a fashionista, but she was also highly intelligent, warm-hearted, and courageous.

It's thought she was born in New Garden, North Carolina, a Quaker community (historians believe her parents, John Payne and Mary Coles Payne, were there visiting her maternal grandparents; they actually lived in Hanover County, Virginia, where her father was a not-very-successful planter). She had 4 brothers and 3 younger sisters. In July 1783, her Quaker father freed his slaves and moved his family to Philadelphia, where Dolley spent her teenaged years (and developed a taste for city living!). Her father was not a good urban businessman, either, and several ventures failed. When he passed away, Dolley's mother opened a boarding house with the help of her daughters.

On January 7, 1790, Dolley married her first husband John Todd, a young Quaker lawyer who helped her father out of bankruptcy and then assisted her mother in starting her boarding house. They had 2 sons, John Payne and William Temple, but in 1793 her husband and younger son died in a yellow fever epidemic. Dolley returned to Philadelphia in 1794 to stay with her mother (and fight her brother-in-law for her late husband's estate), and was soon introduced to James Madison by their mutual friend Aaron Burr. Madison was an up-and-coming politican from an old Virginia plantation family, 17 years older than Dolley (and shorter than her, too!), but they immediately hit it off. They were married at Harewood plantation (owned by her sister's husband, George Steptoe Washington, a nephew of the first president) on September 15, 1794. They had no children, but raised her surviving son (who proved a great disappointment to his mother in later life!)

Dolley was an exemplary First Lady, and a very popular one, whose parties were the hottest ticket in the new capital city. She decorated the White House to be as elegant as anything in Europe, served ice cream for the first time (perhaps the origin of Dolley Madison pastries??), and started many fashions, including those for turbans and cashmere shawls. Perhaps she is best known for saving the portrait of George Wasington (and many other White House treasures) from the encroaching British during the War of 1812.

A couple good sources are Catherine Allgor's A Perfect Union: Dolley Madison and the Creation of the American Nation and Richard N. Cotes's Strength and Honor: The LIfe of Dolley Madison. And check out the Dolley Madison Project site and the site for the Madisons' home at Montpelier (which recently underwent an extensive renovation)! (and if you happen to know the title of that old childhood bio, let me know! I would love to find it again). I also really enjoyed Barbara Hambly's novel Patriot Hearts.

Happy Fourth of July! Who are some of your favorite American heroines?

Portrait Friday

In honor of tomorrow's holiday, today's Portrait Friday is Washington's Family by Edward Savage, ca. 1780

Holiday Party Goodies

So this weekend is the Fourth of July! It feels like summer is Officially On. And to help us get the party started, here are a couple very easy recipes I love for summer cookouts (I'm not much of a cook at all, so if I say it's easy, believe me it's EASY!)

Watermelon Martini:
1 part vodka (or citrus vodka, for an extra tang) to 1 1/2 parts pureed watermelon juice. Shake with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass




And for the grill, Veggie Kabobs (I think I got this from the America's Test Kitchen show on PBS, but can't remember for sure! It's got a nice Greek flavor to it)

Marinade
1/2 cup olive oil
3 tbsp fresh lemon juice
2 tsp salt
1 tsp fresh ground black pepper
1 1/2 tsp dried oregano
2 cloves garlic, mashed

Veggies
4 medium-sized red onions, quartered
2 medium-sized green zucchini, cut into 1 inch pieces
2 medium-sized yellow summer squash, 1 inch pieces
12 button mushrooms, stemmed
1 red bell pepper, seeded and cut into 1 inch pieces
1 package extra-firm tofu, cut into 1 inch cubes
1/4 lb crumbled feta cheese

1) Mix marinade, stirring to blend ingredients
2) Place prepped veggies and tofu in 2-gallon ziplock baggie, pour in marinade and turn over to coat everything; marinate in fridge 1-4 hours
3) When ready to cook, remove veggies from marinade and thread onto skewers, leaving a little space between. Grill about 15-20 minutes, until the veggies are golden and tender
4) Serve warm with crumbled feta (and the watermelon martini!)

Add some music (maybe the Marie Antoinette soundtrack? Or the Beatles, or Bob Marley?), some sparklers, and you have a summer party!

Theater Stuff

Yesterday I was looking around on the NY Times site, reading book and movie reviews and perusing the Style section, when I came across this review for Shakespeare in the Park's fabulous production of Twelfth Night with Anne Hathaway (and Regency costumes), and this article about Nina Ananiashvili's farewell performance of Swan Lake at ABT. It's things like this that really make me wish I lived near NYC.

But maybe since TN got such great reviews, they will move it to a Broadway theater in the winter and I can see it there (or catch Jude Law's Hamlet, moving to NY from London in October...)