Second paragraph of third chapter:It had all looked so different earlier that same summer. The signing of the treaty of Blois was commemorated in a group portrait of the English royal family now known as the Allegory of the Tudor Succession. According to its inscription, the painting was presented by Queen Elizabeth to Francis Walsingham as a 'mark ( Read more... )

A Man for All Seasons won the Oscar for Best Picture of 1966, and picked up another five: Best Director (Fred Zinnemann), Best Actor (Paul Scofield), Best Adapted Screenplay (Robert Bolt), Best Cinematography - Color and Best Costume Design - Color. Robert Shaw was nominated as Best Supporting Actor for Henry VIII, and Wendy Hiller as Best ( Read more... )

Second paragraph of third chapter: Nevertheless, to judge from the abstract in the Calendar, six months later he was still on the job, coaxing along one of Mary's correspondents in London. It emerged from the letter itself that Williams was not doing quite what one had supposed. It had no address, but had evidently not been written to Mary: nobody ( Read more... )

Second paragraph of third chapter: These prohibitions are not aimed at religion itself, but at Roman Catholicism, which is widely considered as unfit for purpose. In fact, society is becoming more religious, not less. Naturally, the population occupies a spectrum of religious positions, but if you talk to those at the more spiritual end, you will ( Read more... )

Second paragraph of third chapter: William Cecil's Irish correspondence began in earnest within months of his appointment in early September 1550 as secretary of state and a privy councillor. By comparison with Elizabeth's reign, Cecil's Irish correspondence in the early 1550s is slight: all that have survived are the less than two down letters ( Read more... )

Second paragraph of third chapter: By the end of the fifteenth century, the towns were almost everywhere governed by an oligarchy, a patriciate of rich merchants and property owners. The composition of these oligarchies varied considerably. In England there were hardly any patrician dynasties: after one or two generations of urban success, ( Read more... )

Second paragraph of third chapter: The first major turning point in a year [1536] that was to be replete with turning points was greeted with sadness by some and with much rejoicing by others, particularly Queen Anne. On 7 January, Katherine of Aragon died at Kimbolton, having endured five years of exile. Separated from the court and forbidden to ( Read more... )

Long, long ago, in 1991, I was researching the medieval textbook Liber de arte astronomice iudicandi by the late twelfth-century English astrologer Roger of Hereford, which survives only in a dozen or so manuscripts. Various indications led me to try and compare his text with the earlier twelfth-century translation by Hermann of Carinthia of the ( Read more... )

Running through my list of books read this year, I realised I'd missed this one which I read in January. It's a collection of essays on culture and politics in early modern Ireland - more looking at the period immediately after my own focus of interest, but relevant none the less in challenging the reader to new thinking about colonial rhetoric and ( Read more... )

A novel about a young man in the household of the Earl of Ormond during the 1570s and 1580s, which takes our hero to the major scenes of Anglo-Irish history of the period. It's not a brilliant book - you know where the plot is going, and even major twists are signalled far in advance - but an interesting attempt to convey what life was like in ( Read more... )