
Suggesting that not only did she recognize that she had transgressed against Those charges she admitted to a different “crime”: not remaining in her proper “place.” In juxtaposing these two, Anne seems to be

Merited.” She stood accused of adultery and Humility which his goodness to me, and the honours to which he raised me, Have laid to my charge,” she went on to acknowledge, not only her “jealousįancies” but her failure to show the King “that At her trial, insisting that she was “clear of all the offences which you Rules” than the wives that preceded and followed her. Have had a more “political” understanding of what we would today call the “gender Intriguing-although fragmentary and subtle-support for the notion that Anne may Other hand, if we loosen up a bit on the quest for a rigorously defensibleĪnswer, and allow our minds to play with the question, there is Purge of all evidence of Anne’s existence, as he made plans for his marriage to Have been lost to us, along with everything else destroyed by Henry’s ruthless Their natural equality with men, she either didn’t make them public or they
Cloud atlas gentleness os strength free#
Marguerite de Navarre, Francis I’s sister, whose Heptameron vividly protests the sexual “double standard” thatĪllowed male aggression free rein while condemning women who stepped out ofĪt Francis’s court, and seems to have shared or absorbed Marguerite’sĮvangelical stance on reform of the church, which Anne very publicly advocated.īut Margeurite’s “feminism”? If Anne held views on the virtues of women or Meaning in Anne’s time), the natural equality of women and men (a concept that hadīeen much debated since Christine de Pizan introduced the Querelle des Femmes-or “Woman Question”-in the 15 thĬentury), or the value of education for women (also a hot topic for thoseĮvidence that Anne held a position on any of these issues-unlike, for example, Position on any issues involving women’s “rights” (a concept that had no Well, no-not if by “feminist” you mean someone with an articulated
Cloud atlas gentleness os strength movie#
In the 2008 movie version of the story, which saw Emma Thompson take up the role (left), Lady Marchmain was cast squarely as the root of all her children's problems, with Lord Marchmain actually referring to her "crucifying" their second son, Sebastian, with her controlling ways. For some, Teresa's quiet elegance and charm masks her suffocating control over her children, that pushes at least two of them to the edge of a nervous breakdown. In the novel, she is unfailingly polite and dignified, leading her son Sebastian's unhappiness with her to baffle the novel's narrator, Charles, although he too eventually comes to regard her sumptuous charm with suspicion. Trapped in a failing marriage to her estranged husband, who cavorts in Venice with his mistress while Lady Marchmain divides her time between their London townhouse and palatial seventeenth-century home at Brideshead Castle, the marchioness's devotion to her religion has led to her described as either the heroine or antagonist of the story. Highly recommended.Ĭentral to Brideshead's themes are its treatments of both the English aristocracy and the Catholic faith, with Bloom's Lady Marchmain operating as their greatest proponent.

Fast moving, sympathetic and engagingly written, The Assassination of the Archduke was a truly gripping biography of the first victim of the First World War. Greg King and Susan Woolmans deserve great praise for rescuing his personality and his tragic love story with Sophie Chotek from obscurity. It's one standard for Ferdy and another for the rest of the Hapsburgs, which is a shame because otherwise this was a fascinating and wonderful biography of a man who is probably the most important assassination victim in history. Thus, the title figure emerges as a devoted family man, while his elderly uncle is described as a border-line autistic syphilitic and Franz Ferdinand's brother, Otto, was apparently a sadomasochistic pervert if Viennese gossip was to be believed. Any suspect story about Archduke Franz Ferdinand is perhaps rightly declared as something to be treated with caution and scepticism in this book, while similarly improbable and damning anecdotes about any of his blood relatives are repeated as fact.

The Assassination of the Archduke: Sarajevo 1914 and the Murder the Changed the World by Greg King and Susan Woolmans.
