Cousin Jane
Sep. 18th, 2006 02:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphiloTell you what- I can recite the names of the Kings and Queens of England from Richard III to Elizabeth II without pause for thought
Richard III
Henry VII
Henry VIII
Edward VI
Mary
Elizabeth I
James I
Want me to go on? No, I thought not.
And I owe it all to my cousin Jane.
It was c. 1960; she was turning out her toy cupboard because she was getting to be all grown up- and I was being given things.
"Here Anthony, do you want this?" (What long legs she had!)
And one of the things I got given was an album of cigarette cards of The Kings and Queens of England from William the Conqueror through to George V and Queen Mary.
I never mastered the medieval period. Sorry about that . Too many Henrys.
My cousin Jane went on to be a dolly bird. So much kohl!
She had tawny hair like a lion's mane.
She married a museum director and was friends with Sir John Betjeman and owned photographs by Julia Margaret Cameron.
I know about the Camerons because I was at her house once.
Just the once.
But I got invited to her daughter's wedding. It was like that first wedding in Four Weddings and a Funeral. The groom was some sort of a Lord, I think, and in the diplomatic service.
And after that I sent her a Christmas card, but she never sent one back. .
I would have liked to have been her friend.
But it's too late now. She's been dead for nearly twenty years. The funeral was in Worcester Cathedral.
Where King John is buried.
And I'm more grown up now than she ever got to be.
Richard III
Henry VII
Henry VIII
Edward VI
Mary
Elizabeth I
James I
Want me to go on? No, I thought not.
And I owe it all to my cousin Jane.
It was c. 1960; she was turning out her toy cupboard because she was getting to be all grown up- and I was being given things.
"Here Anthony, do you want this?" (What long legs she had!)
And one of the things I got given was an album of cigarette cards of The Kings and Queens of England from William the Conqueror through to George V and Queen Mary.
I never mastered the medieval period. Sorry about that . Too many Henrys.
My cousin Jane went on to be a dolly bird. So much kohl!
She had tawny hair like a lion's mane.
She married a museum director and was friends with Sir John Betjeman and owned photographs by Julia Margaret Cameron.
I know about the Camerons because I was at her house once.
Just the once.
But I got invited to her daughter's wedding. It was like that first wedding in Four Weddings and a Funeral. The groom was some sort of a Lord, I think, and in the diplomatic service.
And after that I sent her a Christmas card, but she never sent one back. .
I would have liked to have been her friend.
But it's too late now. She's been dead for nearly twenty years. The funeral was in Worcester Cathedral.
Where King John is buried.
And I'm more grown up now than she ever got to be.
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[deleted and re-posted with spelling errors corrected]
Date: 2006-09-18 08:15 pm (UTC)"Alison Weir cannot be a cigarette-card collector. Once upon a time I was. A few sets survive from a misspent boyhood: we flicked them against the broken walls of bombed-out houses in a blitzed London suburb, playing endless games in the hot summer of 1944, while German rockets rained down on Sidcup, the citizens of Warsaw fought in their sewers, and British and American soldiers died in Normandy. The set I have before me is one I treasured then and treasure now. Who knows what role it had to play in the formation of an historian? It is called 'Kings and Queens of England' and was issued by John Player and Sons in 1935. There are fifty cards. It is card number 18 which concerns us. On the obverse is the National Portrait Gallery portrait of Richard III: he looks as guilty as sin and should never have consented to have his picture painted. If it was done as a New Year's gift for Elizabeth of York in 1485 it cannot have made her happy. I digress. On the reverse of the card are the words which would have saved Alison Weir, if only she had been a cigarette-card collector, from making her regrettable faux-pas about 'those who believe Richard III guilty of the murder of the Princes but are afraid to commit themselves to any confident conclusions.' I learned them by heart, even as exploding German rockets destroyed my parish church, gutted my local cinema, and blew out the windows of my school. They are why I have never minced words where Tricky Dickon is concerned. Here they are:
"'When Edward IV died, only two little princes stood between Richard Crouchback and the crown. Though small, ill-featured, and deformed he was an excellent soldier and a capable administrator. England would have been well content with his Regensy, but insane ambition drove him forward. He executed his opponents, had his nephews murdered, and proposed to marry their sister, his own niece. Richard paid the penalty of his crimes in continual agony of mind. He died at Bosworth Field, fighting with desperate courage, his redeeming quality.'
"Not everything on this influential cigarette card of 1935 is correct: Richard died at Dadlington, not Bosworth Field; England would not have been at all content with his Regency. Nor am I convinced that so dedicated a murderer had qualities which might be considered to redeem him. Richard Nixon had courage, was a good soldier, and knew how to administrate, yet no one would argue that such attributes made any difference in a career devoted to burglary. Surely, king and president are both burning in hell. One other thing: Note how percipient, as well as deeply read in the original sources, was the writer of the cigarette-card caption, for was it not a Regency which Richard proposed at the fateful council meeting of Monday 9 June 1483?"
----
Me again. A reviewer once wrote of Richmond that his "gifts as a historian are openness, courage, generosity, passion and dedication." In addition to teaching medieval history, he taught Holocaust history and has a special horror of revisionism. In adhering to the traditional accounts of Richard III, he is in some way keeping faith with the victims of Dachau and Auschwitz. Although I disgree with him, I have tremendous respect for him.
Also, he has translucent ears, like a rabbit. I have a photo around here somewhere to provd ie.
Re: [deleted and re-posted with spelling errors corrected]
Date: 2006-09-19 03:10 am (UTC)Re: [deleted and re-posted with spelling errors corrected]
Date: 2006-09-19 03:47 am (UTC)And I can't find the photo with his backlit ears, either. I'm afraid you'll have to take my word for it.
Re: [deleted and re-posted with spelling errors corrected]
Date: 2006-09-19 05:11 am (UTC)Re: [deleted and re-posted with spelling errors corrected]
Date: 2006-09-19 09:52 am (UTC)He and I treasure the same collection of cigarette cards. It's not a valuable item, but it's one of the first things I'd try to rescue from a house fire.
I don't really have a position on Richard III. He was a warlord- and we know what warlords are. As such people go, I think he had admirable qualities. I'm agnostic on the little princes. I believe that if he did do it, it would have been with a regretful, Brandoesque shrug and the sentiment that it wasn't personal, just business.