“Run from what’s comfortable. Forget safety. Live where you fear to live. Destroy your reputation. Be notorious. I have tried prudent planning long enough. From now on I’ll be mad.”
This is an incredibly fascinating book to me. I bought it way back in 2001 as a research aid into the lives of Buckingham (fave of James I Stuart & Charles I Stuart) and Olivares (fave of Felipe IV of Spain) and Richelieu (eventually fave of Louis XIII) Observers in England, Spain, France and many […]
Read More
The Flying Chair Jean-Jacques Renouard, Count of Villayer (1605-1691), is reported to have invented this mechanism. He perfected this system in Paris and, thanks to his ties with the House of Condé, installed it at Chantilly and at Versailles, in the prince’s own mansion. Saint-Simon comments on the invention of these flying chairs, “which by […]
Read More
I have this book. I KNOW I have this book. And I read it as part of my research for Weave a Garland. Can I find it ? No. I bought and read it for one reason only. Wat Montagu, Marie de Rohan’s best friend, George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham’s spy and one of my […]
Read More
I know a little bit about this place through research into Weave a Garland of My Vows. Marie de Rohan was a great friend of César and his brother Alexandre, the bastard sons of Henri Quatre. All three of them hated Richelieu. Marie wrote : I think I am destined to be the object of […]
Read More
Yeh. That IS a big fat lie. I didn’t count them. ALL! Anyhoo – madness upon madness. According to Livy (59 BC – AD 17) the Palatine hill got its name from the Arcadian settlers from Pallantium, named from its founder Pallas, son of Lycaon. More likely, it is derived from the noun palātum “palate”; Ennius uses it once for the “heaven”, and it […]
Read More
Oops. Even the Saturday Market plant man thinks I’m totally crazy now. Why? I’ve been cutting hazel whips to weave arches for the garden and they need climbing plants to grow all over them. So… Saturday Man had loads of Clematis plants and I spotted one, laughed out loud and bought it (!) Pointless to […]
Read More
FFS. A Borderer Lowlander? SMH.
Read More
If the Turgot 1739 map didn’t impress, how about Agas Map1572, London. In the image above from the Elizabethan 1572 map you will see Somerset Place on the river, next to the Savoy. I used Turgot to walk my characters around Paris and this map to do the same in London. By 1625, when Marie […]
Read More
Yesterday I suggested that someone study the 1739 Turgot map of Paris. It’s very telling. I have used this map many times to walk my characters around the city. The image above is the part most used. If you expand the view, you will see the Rue Saint Thomas du Louvre between the Louvre and […]
Read More
I have a huge fondness for Ben Jonson. I’ve come across him many times during my research. He was a Wit, a Scholar and a Brainiac ;o) Poor POET-APE, that would be thought our chief,Whose works are e’en the frippery of wit,From brokage is become so bold a thief,As we, the robbed, leave rage, and […]
Read More
GB 19th October 2018 : Did Mary Sidney Write Shakespeare’s Plays? Even I had no idea about What an Absolutely Tangled Web I’d Woven! I’m absolutely loving this man and his knowledge because (although he has no idea) he HAS brought so many of my lines of research together. As stated in the old post […]
Read More
This is a line from Shakespeare’s Henry IV. We did Henry IV Part 1 AND Part 2 as part of my English Literature Exams. I didn’t quite appreciate this at the time but now I do. Henry IV, father of Henry V – antagonist of the Dauphin of France. Who was rescued by Jehanne d’Arc. […]
Read More
Hidden History Research 