Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Queen Mary's Shamrock Brooch

 


Queen Mary loved jewelry and had exquisite taste. From The Court Jeweller:
To tell the story of the shamrock brooch, we need to travel back in time to the earliest stages of Queen Mary’s jewelry collection. When Princess May of Teck, as she was then, married the Duke of York in the summer of 1893, she received a treasure trove of jewelry gifts. Among these were multiple trefoil and shamrock brooches. On the Monday after the royal wedding, the Daily Telegraph described many of the jewels in detail, including “an emerald and diamond trefoil brooch,” the gift presented to the bride by the Royal St. George Yacht Club.

Royal jewelry writers, including Beth at the History of Famous Jewels and Collections, have argued that the yacht club’s trefoil brooch is the one shown in detail above. The jewel features a three-leafed shamrock outlined in diamonds, with a large diamond brilliant set in the center of the jewel. Inside the open leaves are a trio of emeralds on knife-edge settings. Shamrocks and trefoils were popular jewelry motifs in the Victorian era, and of course they have special meaning in Ireland. The Royal St. George Yacht Club was (and still is) located in Dublin. (Read more.)
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How Revolution Happens—and How to Stop It

 From Tucker Carlson at Modern Age:

It happened because only one side of the revolution recognized that it was a revolution. The other side had no idea.

One side saw these changes for what they were: Let’s completely change American society, from the bottom to the top. Let’s eliminate any sense of shared culture or history. Let’s atomize the country to the point where there’s no viable opposition to what we’re doing. And once we’ve done that, let’s addle everyone with prescription drugs. Let’s encourage them to be unhealthy, unmarried, and childless, and then we can do whatever we want.

And no one’s aware on the other side—which is not just the right, but the vast bulk of everyone else, which would include a lot of Democrats and just normal people who aren’t at all interested in the revolution. They had no idea what was happening.

It’s important to understand the moment that you’re in. It cuts against the very core of human nature to understand that, because denial is the most powerful of all human instincts.

Twenty-two years ago I was in a plane that crashed in the Middle East, flying from Peshawar, Pakistan, after 9/11. I was going over to cover the Taliban, and we went down in a sand dune in Dubai.

There was an explosion in the cargo hold. The plane starts dropping, and the wing appears to detach, the right wing. The plane is struggling for altitude and going sideways. It’s three in the morning over the Arabian Sea.

Every person on that plane thought we were going to die, very much including me. We finally come in sideways into the sand dune plains. I’m in the first seat—it’s a big double-aisle Airbus—and I just had one thought, which is, “I’m getting off the plane.” It’s totally dark, but you can see burning from the wing, so it’s time to depart. I hop up, and this male flight attendant stands right in front of me and goes, “Sit down! Everything is fine! Everything is fine!”

That’s a verbatim quote. Everything is fine. It was so demonstrably unfine that I can’t even begin to describe how unfine it was. Out of pure panic, I ignored the guy and opened the door, the slide went up, and I jumped into darkness with four other Westerners in the front. Everyone in the back, though, was like, “Oh, everything’s fine.” (The pilots, by the way, went right out the front windows.)

I’ve brooded on this for over 20 years—why did the flight attendant claim everything was fine? I think he just couldn’t metabolize the change. It was so awful he just could not admit what was happening right there in front of everybody. This really bothered me all these years, despite the fact it wound up fine for me.

Then I read the biography of Pyotr Wrangel, who was the leader of the revolutionary White forces during the Russian Revolution—the Civil War, rather, that came after the Revolution. He was a Baltic German living in Russia and a general who worked for the tsar. The First World War ends, and Russia ceases its hostilities with Germany, he comes back to St. Petersburg, and the country’s in complete chaos.

The Bolsheviks have decided that discontent within the army is what we need to inflame; we need to get the army. Get the guns and the people who wield the guns: We need them. The first thing to do is destroy all discipline in the tsar’s army.

Pyotr Wrangel’s just been on the front for four years. He comes back to St. Petersburg, a totally civilized city, a two-hour drive from Helsinki—it’s Europe. He’s wandering through, and soldiers are going crazy in the streets; they’re raping women, stealing at gunpoint. Soldiers in uniform, in a monarchy which had not had any behavior like this, and he, Pyotr Wrangel, just can’t believe it. These are his soldiers; he’s a general. He goes into a movie theater, and everyone in the movie theater is completely absorbed in the movie, as if there’s no revolution happening outside. Wrangel thinks these people are insane.

He takes the train to Moscow: I have to tell the tsar this country’s falling apart. He’s very close to the Romanovs, and he goes into the imperial court—he knows all the relatives and hangers-on. He notices about 80 percent of the women in the Romanov family are wearing red ribbons in solidarity with the Bolsheviks (who wound up, of course, murdering them).

Wait, what? Pyotr Wrangel says: How is it that this country is being devoured by a violent revolution and the people who can afford movie tickets, our middle class, are refusing even to acknowledge that it’s happening, and the ruling class, against whom it is aimed, are sympathizing with it?

I’m reading this, and I couldn’t go to sleep. I was like, wait—I live in that country; that’s happening now. This is a revolution. If someone tells you you’re not allowed to speak, if someone tells you your children are not your children, these are not ideological differences. This is not, “Oh, I prefer this capital gains rate.” These are totalitarian measures that treat you as nonhuman. Human beings, free citizens, get to say what they think. Slaves must be quiet. That’s the distinction. It precedes the First Amendment. As our founding documents make clear, these are natural rights that distinguish the citizen from the slave.

We should begin to see this for what it is, which is a very big deal on which it all depends—not just our republic, but your family. (Read more.)



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Respectfully, Mr. De Niro, Get a Grip

 From Sasha Stone:

I trust you had a wonderful evening at the Oscars. Watching you bask in the comforting embrace of the special people was a reminder of who you really are—a movie star. By the looks of it, the Oscars are back. They have a host now and they gave their top prize to a movie people actually saw. It won a whopping 7 Oscars. There were dance numbers and jokes, beautiful people in their finery—a grand celebration to revive the lifeless body of Hollywood.


I was shocked that they kept politics mostly out of it—well, until near the end when Jimmy Kimmel just had to bring in Trump—not just to mock him but to show the country which side all of you are on and to let them know, in no uncertain terms, that they are not invited to this party. But might I say, Mr. De Niro, none of you seem able to figure out if Trump is such a criminal/fascist/dictator/rapist/racist, why he’s kicking Biden’s ass in the polls six ways from Sunday? Funny, isn’t it, Mr. De Niro? Didn’t Bill Maher ask you this same question on Real Time? You didn’t have an answer except to say that Trump is a “monster,” a “mean, nasty, and hateful person.”


And that if “We want to live in a world that we want to live and enjoy living in, or live in a nightmare. Vote for Trump, and you'll get the nightmare.” (Read more.)

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Monday, March 18, 2024

Charles I's Private Life


It is always amazing how certain books come our way at the proper times. In my case, I discovered Mark Turnbull and his extensive writings on the Wars of the Three Kingdoms just as I was  working on Volume 2 of the Henrietta of France Trilogy entitled Generalissima. In Generalissima the Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland finds herself in the midst of a most savage civil war. Not being a military-minded historian, the various accounts of the various battles were running together in my mind. So when I found Mark's biography of Charles I it was like a gift from Heaven for the highly readable prose and clarity in explaining the progression of the War. Plus it offers penetrating insight into the often inscrutable personality of Charles I. Mark is the author of his own trilogy about the Wars of the Three Kingdoms called The Rebellion Series as well as the award-winning novel Allegiance of Blood, also about the English Civil Wars. I find the English Civil Wars and the divided loyalties and the switching of sides much more difficult to follow than even the Wars of the Roses. Therefore I am in awe of an author like Mark who is at ease in explaining the ins and outs of the conflict which devastated the British Isles, leaving almost 200,000 dead

From the Amazon page of Charles I's Private Life by Mark Turnbull:

The execution of King Charles I is one of the well-known facts of British history, and an often-quoted snippet from our past. He lost the civil war and his head. But there is more to Charles than the civil war and his death. To fully appreciate the momentous events that marked the twenty-four years of his reign, and what followed, it’s important to understand the man who was at their epicenter.

Both during his lifetime, and in the centuries since, opinion of Charles is often polarized; he is either Royal Martyr or Man of Blood. Amidst these extremes, what is frequently overshadowed is the man himself. Propaganda still clouds his personality, as do the events of his last seven years of life.

The first half of his life has not been explored in detail. As a sickly second son of the first King of Great Britain, these years shed light on the development of Charles’s character. Key elements of his final days also remain lost to us, such as certain identification of his executioners. Investigating new evidence, an entirely new candidate is proposed. Persistent myths surrounding his health and supposed unwillingness to compromise are also addressed.

There are many biographies, but this most intimate work draws upon fresh viewpoints and contemporary letters, some never before used. Penetrating the veil of monarchy and getting to the heart of the man through his relationships, the reader is brought closer than ever to the real Charles Stewart.

A brave, principled and dutiful man, he was politically flawed and lacked the ruthlessness needed to steer his three kingdoms beyond the crossroads at which they arrived. Above all, he is a character who shares much in common with us all.

"This is the story of the spare who became the heir: what shaped him - and what became of him. Mark Turnbull helps us understand Charles the king as Charles the man" - Leanda de Lisle

Charles I's Private Life takes a fresh look at the primary sources concerning the childhood and youth of Charles Stuart. Some biographies give the impression of Charles being ignored by his parents James I and Anna of Denmark  as he grew up in the shadow of his older brother Henry Prince of Wales. Mark, however, offers examples of Charles being a beloved child of his parents, who saw him as their "jewel." He was a precocious little boy who faced severe health problems which he overcame with the help of his caregivers as well as with his own determination to be fit and strong. His Christian faith was always a strong part of his life as he learned from his father about how the hierarchy of the earthly kingdom should represent the hierarchy of the heavenly kingdom. Like his father he saw the Calvinist creed and its various offshoots, with its lack of bishops and of  ritual, as disrupting the ordered hierarchy of both ecclesiastical and secular government. His insistence on ritual and beauty in liturgical worship was a hill he was prepared to die on.

For those who have viewed the series Mary and George it would be worthwhile to read Mark's take on the rise of the Villiers family at the English court. Whatever James I and the Duke of  Buckingham were or were not doing in their private moments, the Duke attained enormous wealth and power, which continued into the reign of Charles I. As the best friend of Charles I, who called his sovereign the family nickname of "Baby Charles", Buckingham obstructed the relationship between Charles and his bride Henrietta Maria, as is described in my novel My Queen, My Love. Buckingham also brought the kingdoms to the brink of disaster with his encouraging Charles to fight with the Spanish and the French, wars in which the English were humiliated.

I enjoyed reading about the relationship between Charles I and his Queen. Some biographies blame Henrietta Maria for everything that went wrong but Mark's book, being balanced, shows where the mistakes were made and by whom. Henrietta Maria really should not be blamed since she risked her all for her husband's sake and lost husband, home, children, country. While Charles was labelled a "Man of Blood" for making war on his own people, there is plenteous evidence that Charles was left with no other choice, after exhausting every attempt at diplomacy. Even at the Battle of Edge Hill, the first major conflict of the war, Charles did not order a single shot fired until he and his children were fired upon and almost killed.

I encourage everyone interested in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms to read Charles I's Private Life. My own respect for Charles as been deepened by reading it while at the same time I now have a greater sense of his personality and human foibles. I also have a greater sense of the era and of the magnitude of the Civil Wars, the impact of which would shape the centuries to come.

 Please visit Mark Turnbull's website, HERE.


A review of the television series Mary and George from Mark Turnbull at Historia:

But wild fabrication is employed in painting both Mary and George as illegitimate, which is then used as a motive for Mary murdering two men. She also begins a relationship with a female prostitute, Sandie Brooks, despite no evidence of any lesbian liaisons. A particularly ludicrous claim is that the purpose of James’s visit to Scotland in 1617 was to dig up the embalmed heart of his first love, Esme Stewart. George is, surprisingly, a rather passive character; two-dimensional, plain, and naive. One of his later lines is ‘I am the king, I am England’ but his character on screen seems barely a shadow of the real man – who was shrewd and devious, and obtained practically every significant political office.

The real George knew how to manipulate James and was overconfident, overbearing, and all-powerful. The clothes of Nicholas Galitzine (George) were barely adorned, whereas portraits of the real duke record his penchant for ropes of pearls. Instead, Mary is by far the dominant character, though much of what makes this so is based on fiction. That said, Julianne Moore acts the part very well.

 Crucially for me, with the key exception of King James (Tony Curran), it was hard to feel connected to most of the characters. This was partly down to an extremely dark and overtly violent undertone throughout, which made for few endearing scenes. The first four episodes focus on the years 1614–1617. Following Queen Anna’s death in 1619, the series accelerates through the next 11 years, so can’t do enough justice to the Madrid venture or James’s decline.

In 1624, we see George single-handedly turn Parliament to war with Spain. In reality, the duke suffered a bout of illness at the time, and it was Prince Charles (later Charles I) who managed Parliament so adeptly. The twist of irony here is that in the series, Prince Charles is portrayed as a snivelling and immature, emotional wreck. Historical accuracy goes into freefall when George ends the reign of Rex Pacificus (as James liked to be called) in a startling manner — murder. If this blatant falsification is not bad enough, the show powers to a similarly abrupt ending.

Fast forwarding to 1628, George bumps into his assassin at Portsmouth. As if attempting to squeeze in one last sex scene, George ridiculously attempts to seduce John Felton, only to be penetrated by Felton’s cheap dagger – though almost as if it was an afterthought. As a result, this pivotal scene is robbed of gravitas and dramatic effect. (Read more.)

 

Purchase Charles I's Private Life, HERE.

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Tik Tok Picture Becomes Clear

 From L. Todd Wood at The Easton Gazette:

We have been wondering why the Biden regime and Congress suddenly became 'all in' to get Tik Tok assets in the United States sold from the Chinese Communist Party, which in theory is a very good thing. Now we know the answer to our question -- Tik Tok is being sold to a consortium of globalists, who will do the CCP's work for them in an attempt to prevent Trump from getting back to The White House.

Former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is building an investor group to acquire ByteDance’s TikTok, as a bipartisan piece of legislation winding its way through Congress threatens its continued existence in the U.S.The House of Representatives on Wednesday passed a bipartisan bill that if signed into law would force ByteDance to either divest its flagship global app or face an effective ban on TikTok within the U.S, reported CNBC.

“I think the legislation should pass and I think it should be sold,” Mnuchin, who leads Liberty Strategic Capital, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Thursday. “It’s a great business and I’m going to put together a group to buy TikTok.” Mnuchin was called out by Trump as a globalist, unconcerned with the American working class and populist movement, who worked to subvert Trump's agenda. When we say 'globalist', part of what we mean is the America 'three letter agencies'. Now we know, the matrix wants Tik Tok to use for itself. It's like getting a 'nuclear bomb' to use in an information war. (Read more.)


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Catholicism and Slavery

 From Samuel Gregg at  The Acton Institute:

On the level of formal teaching, the Church’s record, Kengor illustrates, is one of consistent opposition to slavery. Very quickly, slavery was understood to be sinful by the Church. The position emerged more or less directly from the Gospels and the writings of Saint Paul. It was also considered universal in its application.

This last point matters because a few scholars have argued that the Church was opposed only to the enslavement of Christians, whether by Christians or non-Christians, the implication being it was acceptable to enslave non-Christians. Certainly, some statements by popes and councils refer explicitly to Christians, but the omission of references to non-Christians is not intentional. For one thing, most church documents on slavery refer to the wrongness of enslaving anyone. It is also the case that statements about enslaving Christians by popes like Eugene IV were accompanied by other documents composed by the same popes “that addressed the welfare of all people.”

In making his argument, Kengor analyzes a formidable amount of material to demonstrate the consistency of official Catholic magisterial teaching on the inherently evil nature of slavery. Especially concise statements were issued by the Holy Office (today’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith) in the 17th century. These spelled out in question-and-answer format not only the wrongness of slavery itself but also the obligation of captors, buyers, and owners of slaves to free and compensate them. There is no mention of the guilt and responsibility of anyone involved in the slave business being diminished by cultural, psychological, or sociological factors that might affect their personal culpability for their actions.

Catholic teaching on slavery, Kengor also illustrates, was “far ahead of the world.” Though it is politically incorrect to say so, Kengor underscores that slavery simply was not questioned in any meaningful way in pagan Europe or pre-Christian cultures in North America, Latin America, Africa, and Asia. At a time in which there are tendencies to idealize such cultures—or even deny that brutal things like mass slavery and human sacrifice occurred in Mesoamerican cultures—these truths bear repeating. (Read more.)
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Sunday, March 17, 2024

Croagh Patrick


We often forget, when partying on Saint Patrick's day, everything that he endured to bring the faith to Ireland. The Irish had such a reputation for fierceness and piracy that most missionaries were afraid to go there. Saint Patrick had suffered as a slave in Ireland (he would make a great patron of the enslaved) after being kidnapped from his home. That he would have the courage to return to the place of his degradation is amazingly heroic in itself. Once in Ireland as a missionary, Saint Patrick had many ordeals. The druids hated him and tried to kill him at least once; he was often hunted like an animal. In order to recollect himself and gain strength and grace for his apostolic endeavors, he would retreat to a mountain called "Croagh Patrick."

According to New Advent:
A mountain looking out on the Atlantic ocean from the southern shore of Clew Bay, in the County Mayo, and called "the Sinai of Ireland." In pagan times it was known as Cruachan Aigli. It rises in a perfect cone to a height of 2510 feet. The account given below is taken from sources that post-date the saint's death by three hundred years. There are, however, good reasons to believe that the traditions they embody are genuine, St. Patrick was careworn and fatigued when he came to this remote part of the country. He longed to retire for a while to refresh his soul in solitude, and for that purpose on the Saturday before Ash Wednesday in the year 441, he betook himself to the mountain top. Here he spent the days of Lent, chastising his body with fasts, pouring out his heart to God, and entreating Him with prolonged importunity and with tears that the Faith may not fail in the land of Erin. The "Book of Armagh" mentions that God summoned all the saints of Erin, past, present and future, to appear before their father in the Faith to comfort him with a vision of the teeming harvest his labours would produce, and to join him in blessing their kinsmen and their country.
It is good to know that even the great saints had times when they had to fight discouragement. They rejuvenated themselves by being alone with God. Croagh Patrick is still a place of pilgrimage.


In Kirkus Top 20 for 2014! And #1 in Kindle Historical Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Fiction
"In every Eden, there dwells a serpent . . . ."
"An Irish immigrant builds a new life in Canada, the decades marked by marriage, children and the odd otherworldly encounter. Vidal (Madame Royale, 2010, etc.) successfully transforms family stories into a historical novel that chronicles the life of her great-great-great-grandfather, Daniel O'Connor, who established a homestead in Ontario in the 19th century. O'Connor, a blacksmith living in County Cork, Ireland, is frustrated in his desire to train as a doctor because of English laws restricting Catholics' religious freedom and economic chances. When the political activities of his wild younger brother Owen cast suspicion on O'Connor, he flees Ireland, carrying just two mementos of his homeland--a white rosebush uprooted by his mother and a "paradise tree," a wooden crucifix so called because it represents a ladder of suffering to climb to heaven. Nine years later he has carved Long Point farm out of the wilderness, creating a home despite the new continent's own anti-Catholic prejudice. He marries Brigit, a girl 18 years younger than he is, then almost loses her to Owen, who arrives at the farm after his own midnight departure from Eire. But when a vision of his mother appears to him, hands on hips, he finds the will to throw his brother out of the house and confront his bride. She sobs and swears she will die of shame, insisting, " 'Oh, yes, I will die. I will,' she choked. 'But fret not....I'll be getting over it.' " And she does, bearing 11 children. The novel follows them as they grow to adulthood, marry and have children of their own, with each section of the book told through the eyes of a different character. Though the story unwinds slowly, it never drags. An imaginative, meticulously told history that will especially appeal to those with Irish roots" ~from Kirkus Reviews

Order your free Kindle copy of The Paradise Tree, HERE.
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Are Climate Lockdowns Next?

 From The Stream:

Was it only four years ago? In one way, it feels like decades ago. In another, it’s as if it had never ended. But it was mid-March in 2020 that we saw the first nation locked down, imprisoned, subject to martial law, as part of the COVID panic. It started in Italy.

That nightmarish, useless imprisonment of the people by their elites lasted for more than a year in many countries (and U.S. blue states). The Orwellian farce burned trillions of dollars, drove millions into desperate poverty, and starved tens of thousands of the world’s poorest to death. The intentional seeding of nursing homes with COVID patients by Democrat governors killed thousands more right here at home, who died without benefit of clergy or Christian burial, instead being bagged and incinerated like euthanized shelter pets. Or aborted babies, like the ones whose tissue got used to develop the COVID vaccine.

That horror movie has a sequel. It’s premiering soon thanks to a government near you. Officials from globalist powerbrokers such as the United Nations and the World Economic Forum (WEF) are contemplating COVID-style lockdowns again. They’re just waiting for the pretext. Or planning for it.

The WEF’s Great Reset Program aims to grab huge swathes of power over citizens’ access to a functioning economy, nutritious diet, and reliable energy sources — all in the guise of addressing climate change. (Read more.)
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