Unapologetic Anglophile here. English history has always fascinated me, from the Roman Conquest under Claudius to Cool Britannia cringingly marketed by Tony Blair (ew), I’ve been drawn (heh) to that blessed plot, that earth, that realm, that England.
Doesn’t hurt that both my maternal and paternal ancestors braved a terrifying Atlantic full of sea monsters and abysses off the flat edge for the New World, leaving from Plymouth in boats that would make the Clampett truck look like the Space Shuttle. What’s bred in the bone, eh?
I have loads of stand-out eras:
1066: Definitely not my favorite year, but the Normans had a civilizing effect on those semi-savage Saxons (who were also my ancestors, so keep your hair on). And! They inspired the very first – and longest – comic strip ever: the Bayeux Tapestry. Also, the gorgeous Gothic architecture we marvel at and can’t imagine bothering with building today.
1086: Domesday Book. First attempt in English to spin doom?
1215: Magna Carta. What’s not to like? Limits on power, baby, and the inspiration for the American Constitution and Bill of Rights. Even though King John did everything he could to pretend he didn’t agree to its charter (sound familiar?), it stood the test of time: the powers that be are still trying to undermine it over 800 years later.
1388: Chaucer writes a dirty best seller!
I could go on (and just might in later pieces, so be warned), but I am, without remorse, attached to the Tudors, and, obviously, I’m not alone. Hilary Mantel’s “Wolf Hall” was a gigantic hit with millennials new to well-worn history (don’t get me started on the laughable attempt at making a True Blood-style soap opera version starring the impossibly beautiful and utterly miscast Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Henry, but history, meh, amirite?). For some very good historical work on the Tudors, Alison Weir is nonpareil. But that requires reading.
Why am I banging on about this? When I created the illustration, below, a movie had just come out starring Margot Robbie and Saoirse Ronan, as, respectively, Elizabeth I and Mary Stuart. And, once again, ERI* is portrayed as The Bad Queen. T’was ever thus. In 1971, Vanessa Redgrave played Mary as a pretty, quivering, naïve victim of machinating men, whilst Glenda Jackson’s Elizabeth was a sexless ghoul in white paint and red wig, sneering her way through dialogue she clearly agreed with (it was the Big Year in Women’s Lib, and sympathy didn’t lie with Liz). To me, the entire women power thing I was being sold as a kid seemed to favor the “Virgin Queen”, but, lo these many decades later, none of what comes out of these Venus vs Mars movements makes any damn sense.
Anyway, for your viewing pleasure, here is the movie poster, followed by my interpretation:
* Elizabeth Rex
Nice change of pace this week. A fellow Anglophile I am reminded of this quote:
“…This happy breed of men, this little world, This precious stone set in the silver sea, Which serves it in the office of a wall Or as a moat defensive to a house, Against the envy of less happier lands,–This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.”-Shakespeare