#i'm from the 1900s

[archeolatry]

Watching the friendsprog when I found this dinosaur toy...

[wombywoo]

Do you have a dni?

gonna be real--I don't know what this means 😭

[red-moon-at-night]

Thinking about the people going in and out of Helen's life, and who she could reasonably have a bond/connection with that 1) is not romantic in nature, and 2) has been by her side both before the trojan war in Sparta and during it in Troy, and there IS someone.

It's Aethra. Aethra, daughter of King Pittheus, mother of Theseus.

Aethra who first met Helen when she was a child (at oldest, not of marriageable age, and at youngest, 7) after Theseus drops her off on his mother's doorstep to look after until she's old enough (ick). Aethra who ends up being taken back to Sparta as a hostage once Helen's brothers raze the city (either Aphidna or Athens). Aethra who becomes Helen's slave at some point after this (whether immediately or once she's an adult). Aethra who goes with Helen and Paris on the ship to Troy. Aethra who is still by her side after 10 years of war, still alive, who is found by her grandsons Demophon and Acamas. Aethra who is released from the possession of Helen after she gives her consent and accepts the arrangement. Aethra who leaves Troy with her grandsons and finally gets to go home.

Giving it a very rough estimate, they end up being stuck in each other's lives for somewhere between 25 - 40 years... which is quite a long time. Accounting for the fact that Aethra is still very much a) the mother of Helen's kidnapper, and b) Helen's slave, she's still most likely the closest thing Helen has had to a long-term maternal figure in her life.

And she lets her go. After everything, after such a destructive and devastating war and the aftermath of it, Aethra may very well be the only person to whom Helen can grant some happiness in the ashes of Troy.

(I'm not even going to begin to pretend that I have the pre-requisite knowledge to unpack Aethra's position as royalty-to-hostage-to-slave or how she would've been treated. Also the considerations of historical knowledge of slavery in ancient Greece vs. Aethra being a mythological character from thousands of years ago. If anyone does please be my guest and inform me!)

[skyriderwednesday]

Congratulations Arthur, May 13th 1901 really was a Monday!

[thatoneluckybee]

I've already forgotten her name but I love her

(p.s. cause there's a lot of fans of this on tumblr please no spoilers)

[oxbowreality]

Marie Antoinette (1902) by Paquin // Maggie Gauthier in Les Modes

PAGE 11. — MADAME MAGGIE GAUTHIER, from the Théâtre du Gymnase (TOILETTE DE PAQUIN). - Yellow taffeta dress, embroidered with Pompadour flowers. Pleated skirt. Bodice with a low-cut opening on the side, with lace and a sky-blue taffeta bow. Elbow-length sleeves, with small embroidered taffeta cuffs and a sky-blue taffeta bow.

[interpolationz]

i think this current hyperfixation is actually one of the strangest ones i've had, like usually they're simple, like a franchise or something- but right now it's like.....the development of america??

like i've been reading these books that collect historic photos of developing american towns, i particularly like the beginning of the transition to paved roads and the coexistence of horses and cars on main streets. but still like all of it, the clothes, jobs, food, just everything. it's all so tangible in a way that modern stuff just doesn't feel right now

[funnuraba]

I'm actually starting to believe that Baxter may have become Wodehouse's way of venting a little bit about one of his wife's young men who was getting particularly irritating and officious, because as I've mentioned before, that guy existed in real life, his name was Bobby Denby, and Baxter never appeared again after Denby finally faded away for good in the 1930s and 40s.

The timeline is important here: Baxter predates Denby, with his first appearance being in 1915's Something Fresh. But his role is quite different there: he's essentially a well-meaning man trying to do his job, and at the end he's vindicated and restored to Lord Emsworth's good graces. In 1921, Denby shows up and joins the Wodehouse household, where he remains off and on for over a decade. In 1923, after a few attempts at creating a humorous earl's family with an overbearing sister, Wodehouse finally returns to Blandings and introduces the sister character who sticks, in the form of Lady Constance Keeble. Who in this first book does have an actual husband attached--Joe Keeble, like Wodehouse, has a beloved stepdaughter, and immediately after marrying, he turned his bank account over to his wife exactly as Wodehouse claims to have done (although his biographers feel this may have been an obfuscating piece of fiction). In later stories, the cast was pared down, and she and Lord Emsworth play out a number of takes on Wodehouse being pressured by his wife to socialize, wear formal clothes, do anything besides talk about his hyperfixation, and so forth. In essence, she becomes the wife figure to Lord Emsworth, with perhaps a bonus for Wodehouse in that this excludes any possible presumption by the readers that the characters are having sex.

Concurrently with Lady Constance's introduction, Baxter is, for the first time, an overbearing figure and enemy to Lord Emsworth's way of life. Most crucially, we see from their first scene that Lady Constance dotes on him and is an essential part of maintaining his power over Lord Emsworth. They feed off each other, with Baxter performing the hour-to-hour micromanagement and repairing to Lady Constance as enforcer whenever Lord Emsworth tries to assert himself. In Something Fresh he was acting to protect (what he assumed was) Lord Emsworth's property, with some justifiable personal investment in the Blandings museum, which Lord Emsworth happily left in his care. In Leave it to Psmith, he's setting Lord Emsworth's schedule and making him do things he hates. He "suggests" to Lady Constance that Lord Emsworth should go to meet one of her guests in London while the weather is nice at Blandings. Then when Lord Emsworth protests, Baxter counters that he couldn't possibly take responsibility for canceling the trip. Lord Emsworth would have to take it up with Lady Constance! In Summer Lightning and The Crime Wave At Blandings, we see the same repeating pattern of Lady Constance (sharing some traits with Ethel Wodehouse) trying to reintroduce him as a fixture in the household, where he threatens to plague the life out of Lord Emsworth, with whom Wodehouse himself identified the most out of any of his characters. In his final appearance, 1939's Uncle Fred in the Springtime, he's only there visiting with his new employer, and by all accounts, Denby had basically faded out of the Wodehouse household by then.

Now, obviously this isn't a one to one match; Wodehouse was happily married, whereas Lord Emsworth and Lady Constance are siblings who basically hate each other, and while Wodehouse admitted to hating all the same responsibilities Lord Emsworth hates, he clearly had a sense of humor about Lord Emsworth's total lack of interest in playing the host, reading his mail, or doing any of his duties as an earl. He understands that Lady Constance is tasked with a lot in keeping the household up to snuff, and that Baxter is perfectly capable of thriving under a more conventional employer. All I'm suggesting is that Wodehouse may have been drawing on certain minor frustrations when he was crafting these storylines, and that if so, we can make sense out of Lady Constance's attitude toward Baxter. From Summer Lightning on, she is indistinguishable from a woman in love, but there's no acknowledgment in the text that her behavior is odd in any way. She is not textually in love, but neither is it ever said that she thinks of him as a son, or a close platonic friend. If she were a man in her forties being described as "a devoted admirer" of a young female employee, and moreover, making repeated desperate attempts to get her back into his home on a permanent basis, there would be little question of what's going on. If it were genuinely platonic, we would have to be reassured of that in the text, and probably other characters would still make assumptions about their relationship. But Lady Constance's nearest and dearest have no reaction to Lady Constance announcing, "I shall never feel easy in my mind until Mr. Baxter is back in his old place," or, "Mr. Baxter was the most wonderfully capable man I ever met." When she turns scarlet upon hearing him insulted, nobody sees this as strange, even though he's a mere former employee whom she knew for eighteen months, during which time she was married. There's nothing questionable about her speaking to him alone in her boudoir, as happens on several occasions.

Now, in A Damsel in Distress (1919), we see an earlier form of the eventual Blandings ensemble, slightly refined from their actual first appearances in Something Fresh. Lord Marshmoreton is bossed around by his sister Lady Caroline, whereas Lord Emsworth would not acquire Lady Constance until Leave it to Psmith in 1923. Lord Marshmoreton is also afflicted by an efficient, bespectacled secretary, in his case one Alice Faraday. Alice considers Lady Caroline an ally in corralling Lord Marshmoreton, but they have no close relationship, and she later doubts whether Lady Caroline has spoken to her directly even a dozen times. Once Alice is safely married off to his step-nephew (long story), Lord Marshmoreton immediately moves to install a more agreeable secretary: Billie Dore, a sensible young actress who shares his passion for roses and gardening. And in this case, there's certainly an ulterior motive in his wish to have a certain young person under his roof: they too end up married by the end of the book. In The Small Bachelor, Mrs. Waddington (yet another of Wodehouse's formidable stepmother characters!) has one Lord Hunstanton as a sort of pseudo-Baxter: he's a young man she keeps around the household because she admires his title and upper class English manners. He, meanwhile, is one of Wodehouse's dude characters--the Waddington family means free meals, so he's happy to hang about, impressing their guests and serving as a general ornament. He and Mrs. Waddington are not having an affair, but the text addresses what people are liable to assume. At the climax of the story, Mrs. Waddington and Lord Hunstanton are discovered locked in an apartment together, after a standard Wodehousean scheme-gone-wrong. Despite their innocence, the rest of the cast comes to certain conclusions, and because it's a 1920s comedy, they can't argue their way out of it. There's no acceptable reason for an unmarried man and woman to be alone in a room together. This is the tool Wodehouse uses to end Mrs. Waddington's tyranny over her stepdaughter and the main hero. She can no longer stand in the way of their marriage. Her outraged husband finally seizes authority of the household, and dismisses Lord Hunstanton from said household--though in passing, it doesn't seem like Mr. Waddington ever suspected any infidelity before this. Mrs. Waddington's attitude towards Lord Hunstanton was never remarkably affectionate.

So as far as I can tell, Baxter and Lady Constance are unique among all the cross-sex relationships in Wodehouse. There are others with similar constructions, but only in this case is the relationship one of such intensity, only in this case does it recur through several stories, and only in this case is there such an unspoken assumption that absolutely no one has reason to suspect anything. In part this is because younger men are not expected to pursue older women. Women are considered to have a sell-by date; fictional men are not generally considered targets to be pursued by a viewpoint character, and if they are, then that viewpoint is presumed to be a young woman. And in the case of Baxter and Lady Constance specifically, they exist in order to be the disapproving forces who prevent cross-class relationships from happening. They're too strict and censorious for the audience to think they could be having a physical affair behind the scenes. Even if Baxter didn't show interest in "Myra Schoonmaker", proving that he has his sights set on a suitable marriage, it would just be impossible for these characters to imagine such a thing.

But it is possible that they could have a romantic interest in one another. Baxter is self-involved to the extreme; he does not fall in love at first sight in the way Wodehouse's wholesome young men do; but he is capable of thoughts that are "softer", as we are told objectively by the narrator, and looks that are, at least in intention, "admiring, almost loving". This on the basis of several hours' acquaintance with the false Miss Schoonmaker. So it's not out of the question that he could feel something for the woman who provokes the vast majority of his positive feelings in canon. It's very rare that Baxter--at least when we see him--is feeling anything but suspicious or irritated, but in those few moments where he approves of something or is said to be gladdened or feeling relief, it's related to Lady Constance.

(Incidentally, the other individuals who prompt positive feelings are Eve Halliday (briefly considers her pretty), the undercover detective in Leave it to Psmith (considers her reliable), J. Horace Jevons ("this golden-hearted Chicagoan"), Sue Brown ('nuff said), and, surprisingly, Uncle Fred, Pongo and Polly, whom he evaluates as pleasant and pretty, respectively, before their true menace is revealed.)

So why is this possibility never, ever questioned by anyone? These are two deeply snobbish people separated by class and (lack of) wealth. Lady Constance marries two commoners, but they're both multi-millionaires, which Baxter is not. Rupert Baxter the character would certainly want heirs to his name that Lady Constance can no longer provide, and no doubt his instincts as a secretary would revolt at jeopardizing his career by marrying a former employer's sister. There's also the fact that they've already spent eighteen months under the same roof, and she was married to someone else the entire time. Even today, that fact would excite comment if they later became involved.

But why is it so completely impossible that there might be even a one-sided interest between them? Why is it not even seen as worthy of debunking within the story? The closest we get is Baxter's interest in Sue Brown, whom he marks down as the future Mrs Baxter shortly after his friendship with Lady Constance is really developed on screen. But still, we are not told, "There was nothing between him and Lady Constance, and there never would be, because they saw each other as [fill in the platonic blank]."

To my mind, the best explanation is that they were modeled off a relationship where no form of sex or exclusive relationship was ever on the table to begin with. Ethel Wodehouse's young men were there for flirting and company at social events, no more. Denby was the only one who stayed around for very long. So what does Lady Constance want from Baxter, aside from doing his job? Why is it so important, during that stretch between Leave it to Psmith and The Crime Wave at Blandings, that he and no one else should be Lord Emsworth's secretary? She wants him around to dote on and gush over, with the assurance that they have a special kind of relationship he shares with no one else; more intense than a patron and her protege, but not an outright romance. It's a crush that can be indulged because there is no possibility of anything more, because those were the terms Wodehouse accepted in his own marriage.

Noel Bushnell, in his 2015 essay "The Rodney Spelvin Theory", suggested that Wodehouse's short story Jane Gets off the Fairway was a way of admonishing Ethel for overstepping with Denby, and it does seem likely that it could have been a way of venting. But from what I've read, it seems clear that Wodehouse was fully aware of Ethel's flirtations, and in fact facilitated and encouraged them. McCrum recounts a sit-down he had with one of them in the early stages of his involvement with the household:

Rodney Spelvin is definitely closer than Baxter to the man Bobby Denby seems to have been; less puritanical middle manager and more ladies' man. (I think it should be noted, though, that Rodney is later rehabilitated through the holy power of golf, and even brought into the family by marrying William's sister Anastasia.)

There must have been a line somewhere in the Wodehouse marriage, because Ethel was furious about Wodehouse's own affair with a chorus girl named Fleur Marsden, which she discovered after finding a receipt for a Tiffany bracelet in the trash. Again, it's not clear what constituted "an affair", but it must have been crossing some boundary if he hid it from her. Wodehouse was introduced to Fleur by Guy Bolton, who laughingly referred to the affair as "Plum's one wild oat", so it may have been sexual, or Bolton may simply have assumed that everyone worked like him.

Considering that both the Jane-Rodney and Baxter-Lady Constance relationships are devoid of sex, I think it's less that Wodehouse "looked the other way", as some have put it, and more that the Wodehouses had an open marriage, only without the sex. If my theory is correct that Baxter reflects Bobby Denby to a certain degree, that would explain both circumstances, the Wodehouse marriage and the Baxter-Lady Constance relationship. Because sex and a full-fledged romantic relationship are so thoroughly off the table for these two fictional characters, it must also have been a firmly understood boundary within the Wodehouse marriage, to the degree that Wodehouse thought it was self-evident that no such relationship could ever exist between Baxter and Lady Constance.

As to Baxter vanishing from the Blandings stories after being a fairly major player from the beginning, I've discussed that elsewhere. Critics have explained this by saying that he was a more realistic character who didn't fit into the farces that Wodehouse wanted to write, but he serves very well in some of the best farces, so I think it's more a combination of factors:

1. A character with his cannot believably be stuck on Blandings forever, and we see that by his last appearance in Uncle Fred in the Springtime, he's moved on, and also moved up in the world by finding employment with a Duke. He won't go lower, either, and there's nowhere higher to take him without giving the character real power.

2. He and Galahad are like oil and water, and Gally really becomes the main viewpoint character after Springtime. They just can't be written in direct opposition, because if Baxter takes a domineering attitude, which he always does, Gally will kick immediately where Ashe, Psmith, Uncle Fred, have all been content to toy with Baxter in ways that extend the plot. Note that in their one shared book, Summer Lightning, Gally and Baxter never speak to one another directly, and they're carefully oriented so they never have reason to concentrate on each other for too long.

3. In one of Wodehouse's diary entries from prison camp (printed in Donaldson's biography), he says that the main Kommandant "thinks everyone a crook--like Baxter". This is the only reference to any of his characters that I've seen in that diary, and it identifies Baxter with a very major player in Wodehouse's personal misery. He finished Uncle Fred just before he and Ethel were captured at Le Touquet, and Baxter never appears again.

However, it's also true that:

4. Bobby Denby was also out of their lives and household at this point, though he popped back up briefly in the 40s. In his final appearance, Baxter is no longer trying to get back into Blandings, and he's only there as someone else's employee. Something about his writing is only half-developed: he suddenly skips out on work to go to a fancy dress ball, with no explanation given for this departure from character until Wodehouse modified the plot for the abridged version. Lady Constance has no reaction to this strange behavior, and finally Baxter is forcibly removed from the plot with knockout drops, taken on very dubious advice from a known impostor. He's absent from the rest of the book, never seen again, and not even mentioned until decades later in Service With a Smile, where we learn briefly that he's working for a millionaire in Pittsburgh. All in all, his deployment is half-hearted, and runs counter to several well-established character traits. Coupled with the fact that there are about five different heavies by the end of the book--it feels like Wodehouse didn't have much inspiration left for Baxter.

Lady Constance has also abandoned her secretary quest in Springtime. In Service With a Smile, she's engaged Lavender Briggs, whom we're told is actually better at her job than Baxter--and thus worse. The sum total of Lady Constance's reaction to her? "Thank you, Miss Briggs." That's it. One sentence. None of the raptures that Baxter used to inspire. There's a new autocrat who makes his way into Lord Emsworth's household through her, in the form of the Duke of Dunstable, but in his case we are told the romance between them is dead and never coming back. And in one book she and the narrator actually forget it ever happened 🤪. She's also willing to be deeply annoyed by the Duke; as soon as he arrives, his presence becomes a negative for both her and Lord Emsworth. Clearly there was something special about Baxter, and by 1939 in our world, that something had vanished. Was that something also present in Wodehouse's own life, a uniquely annoying member of the home who operated with the authority of the female head of household, and could not be directly opposed by the hapless and non-confrontational male? I've begun to think the answer is yes.

[thecatinthepurplepants]

sometimes writing a fic means your search history looks like this

and this is just for scene setting/mild exposition at the very beginning of the fic to figure out how long someone could take nap and have a weird dream on a train ride from northern Massachusetts to grand central station in New York City.

This will never come up in the story again.

[requiesticat]

Music game

tagged by @hopelesscrawl

I listen to music often, so I don't mind sharing. Here are five songs I've been replaying a lot

Tagging: @trazel-apeally @anpandough @arcticflakes @rabbithub

Anyone else who wants to do this can!

[bretwalda-lamnguin]

Ptolemaic Gondor?

Tolkien named Ancient Egypt as one of the inspirations for Gondor-particularly aesthetically and in their capacity for grand architecture. The crown of Gondor also resembles the crown of Upper Egypt, tall and conical, with similar symbolism between the combining of the crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt and the combination of the Gondorian crown with the Arnorian diadem-the Elendilmir. I think there is also a deeper link between Gondor and Ancient Egypt, particularly Egypt under the Ptolemaic dynasty, the last to rule Egypt before the Romans annexed it.

Under the cut for a brief history of Ptolemaic Egypt and what that has to do with Gondor!

The Ptolemies were descended from one of Alexander the Great’s generals, called, unsurprisingly, Ptolemy. Alexander and his army were from Macedon, a northern Greek kingdom. In the chaos after Alexander’s death his generals carved up his empire, with Ptolemy rushing to Egypt and having himself proclaimed Pharaoh. The Ptolemaic dynasty ruled from Alexandria, a city founded by Alexander in the Nile delta, on the shores of the Mediterranean. Ptolemy was a Macedonian, and many other Macedonians, both soldiers of Alexander and others, followed them to Egypt. Alexandria became a great centre of Greek Hellenic culture dominated by Macedonians, who became basically a ruling class of this new Ptolemaic state. The highest offices of government were reserved for Macedonians, Macedonian Greek was the court language, the military was made up (at first at least) of Macedonians and mercenaries, with no recruitment from the Egyptian population. The traditional Egyptian religion and the role of the Pharaoh within it remained (with some Greek introductions), but in most other things Macedonians and their customs dominated. No Ptolemaic Pharaoh even knew how to speak Egyptian until Cleopatra VII (yes, that’s THE Cleopatra), the last ruler of the dynasty! Even she seems to have done little to better integrate Egyptians and Macedonians, with the Macedonians remaining firmly in charge until the Romans annexed Egypt.

Now the Ptolemies were not the only successors of Alexander, and one of their main rivals were the Seleucid empire, founded by fellow Macedonian general Seleucus. The Ptolemies often fought for control of the Levant in the Syrian wars. During the reign of Ptolemy IV the Ptolemies and Seleucids were embroiled in the fourth Syrian war. Faced with manpower shortages within the Macedonian ruling class, Ptolemy IV’s army included Egyptians trained to fight in the Macedonian style as part of the phalanx. At Raphia, Ptolemy IV won a decisive victory, with the Egyptian troops playing a key role in the battle. While this did improve the lot of Egyptians within Ptolemaic Egypt, Macedonians continued to dominate both the state and the military, and the failure to further integrate Egyptians into the army contributed to the weakening of the Ptolemaic state, which enjoyed arguably its finest hour at Raphia. A succession of poor rulers and civil war would see the state decline, eventually being annexed into the Roman empire after the death of Cleopatra VII.

Now, how does that fit with Gondor?

Gondor was founded by Númenorian exiles, with a Númenorian ruling class. Its main languages are Westron (descended from Númenorian Andunaic) and Sindarin, a common language among certain Númenorian communities. Comparisons may be made between Alexandria and cities like Pelargir and Osgiliath as centres of Númenorian dominance and culture (Pelargir especially, there is a reason Castamir liked it so much). And, like Ptolemaic Egypt, it seems like Númenorians dominated the military, with other peoples excluded. To quote Faramir:

“But the stewards were wiser and more fortunate. Wiser, for they recruited the strength of our people from the sturdy folk of the sea-coast, and from the hardy mountaineers of Ered Nimrais.”

This would seem to imply that prior to this, these peoples were excluded, and Númenorians dominated the military. But the Gondorians learned their lesson, at least to a greater degree than the Ptolemies did, and were able to slow their decline by better integrating non-Númenorians into the state. Númenorians still hold the highest positions of power (Denethor and Imrahil are the two most powerful men in the country in the late third age, both are Númenorians), but military discrimination is at least heavily reduced.

The appendices and unfinished tales do say that Northmen were recruited into the Gondorian military after the Kin-Strife, and mentions them in Eärnur’s army sent to fight Angmar. These may have been analogous to the mercenary forces used by the Ptolemies, rather than representing a widening of recruitment (though many Northmen did settle in Gondor after the Kin-Strife).

Obviously the comparisons are not 1:1, but I think early Gondor may well have resembled Ptolemaic Egypt in the structure and stratification of society. I suspect that this began heavily breaking down after the Kin-Strife. For a start, a lot of Númenorians are dead, or have been forced to renounce their ancestry by Eldacar. The Gondorians will need to look elsewhere for a supply of manpower. Númenorian supremacy may well start being seen as treasonous due to Castamir’s actions, and an active threat to the continued existence of the Gondorian state. By Denethor II’s time the Gondorian army seems far more diverse, and even many of the aristocrats may well be non-Númenorian (though again, Denethor and Imrahil occupy the most powerful positions).

[fideidefenswhore]

Really liked your ask comparing alison weir's book excerpts to that of historians, do you have any other examples like that?

this one?

and sure, again, the important thing to remember is that pop history is digestible and straightforward; but that this doesn't make it 'better'. the genre is dependent on a misapplication of the adage, 'when you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras' to any single primary source. a better rule of thumb to go by would be that 1) where there is a general consensus by a variety of sources, and a single aberrant, it's reasonable to assume the former was true (rather than a conspiracy that only the aberrant has 'outsmarted')-- or, at the very least, widely believed to be true --, and 2) where there is a total contradiction between sources, it's reasonable to assume that the truth lies somewhere in between.

pop history also deals in truisms that do not allow for the complexity of history, nor the people of history: that praise was either always genuine, exaggerated, or disingenuous, that invective always reflected fact and complete understanding, and was never motivated by self-interest, that self-fashioning always reflected truth. as such, it does not give space for individuation and it assumes homogeneity.

this is the comfort and the insidiousness of pop history: the neophyte reader often feels that the scales have dropped from their eyes, that they have been privy to the unwrapping of the mysteries of the universe for the low, low price of £2.99...when, in reality, what they have read is merely a summation of primary and secondary source quotes with no true interrogative research and nothing approaching historical methodology, with some narrative fashioning and paraphrase techniques threaded throughout.

since you asked, i'll continue to use weir as the exemplar of these contrasts (which i'll get to, i promise, scroll down for that part if you want to reach it first, it'll be cued in red): i'm not a 'fan', but i won't diminish her efforts by denying that these books are her life's work in the sense of how much time and effort she must have put into every single one, in reading, in research, and in writing (six wives of henry viii, her first, alone had 656 pages, so did her likely second most popular, henry viii and his court, her book children of henry viii was 385 pages, her biographical books on the boleyns alone, lady in the tower and the mistress of kings, a collective 900, so altogether of her most popular that's...2593 pages, and bestselling, no mean feat...but it continues, 366 from her katherine swynford biography, 494 pages from "she-wolf of france", 640 pages of her mqos biography, 544 pages of her elizabeth i biography, 336 of her book about the princes in the tower, 441 for her biography of eleanor of aquitaine, and her book about the wotr, at 512 pages, clocks us in at 5560 pages from 1991-2010).

but there's a reason weir's published fifteen nonfiction books since 1991, and there's a reason twice as many degreed historians (the 'power couple' of john guy and julia fox), despite their collaborative efforts, together have published a comparable volume only within a much longer amount of time (if we limit to the above timeline of 1991-2010, we have his mqos biography of 574 pages, his biography of margaret roper at 448 pages, the tudors: a very short introduction at 128 pages, and julia fox's dual biography of catherine of aragon and joanna of castile at 464 pages, her biography of jane boleyn at 416 pages, clocking in at 2030 pages total...again, for perspective, this is the output of two historians in the same twenty years as a single pop historian, drafts of their upcoming books notwithstanding, they probably existed in some format, somewhere, unready for publication); and the reason is that the process of historical methodology and rigorous research takes much, much more time (not to mention, expertise...) than the process of pop history.

As a non-fiction author, I write 'popular' history. The term has sometimes been used in a derogatory sense by a few people who should know better, because all historians use the same sources. History is not the sole preserve of academics, although I have the utmost respect for historians who undertake new research and contribute something new to our knowledge. History belongs to us all, and it can be accessed by us all. And if writing it in a way that is accessible and entertaining, as well as conscientiously researched, can be described as popular, then, yes, I am a popular historian, and am proud and happy to be one.

let's say i'm not going to quibble with the generalizing, obfuscating statement of "all historians use the same sources" (is alison weir accessing archives directly? is she fluent in the languages of these sources in their original form, or is she relying on the translations of others? is she making any attempt at all to research and integrate various sources of the same events??); and for argument's sake, let's say i accept it at face value. for argument's sake, that brings me back to my earlier point: what weir's readers are accessing is a narratively entertaining summary of primary and secondary source quotes with no true interrogative research or historical methodology behind the narrative. as such, it is often teleogical and presentist. they are accessing something they anyone could recreate with their own "voice", so long as they have the same list of quotes, verbatim and paraphrased, that they could putty their own narrative cohesion in between: so long as they had the free time, the financial support, the skill, the will, the interest, the drive, the discipline and the stamina.

"history belongs to us all", yes! "history can be accessed by us all", i really wish that were true, but it isn't, not entirely. that's not me 'gatekeeping', that's me acknowledging that there are sources and books not everyone has access to, quite unfortunately. not everyone can visit museums or historical sites or archives or universities in person (whether due to cost, or disability, or both), not every book or article can be accessed without university (library) access or at quite great financial cost, even in the case of academic papers that have been made available on open access websites, some might be in a language the reader is not fluent in, and the translation either does not exist, or is not open access... not every library will have every paper, book, or access to online archives that the researcher is searching for, not every library has an ILL (interlibrary loan) program.

at least two of her most popular books were published before the advent of wikipedia, but there is, again, a reason that many chapters from many of her books read like expanded versions of wikipedia articles. they read as encyclopedic 'everyman's' entries because that is what they are, subjectivity masquerading as objectivity. anyone can have a point of view, but a pov alone does not make a work "conscientious". her usage of 'conscientous' as a self-descriptor is rather revealing in and of itself, because my impression is that she is referring to her own writing as being driven by her personal conscience, rather than any prevalent ethical standards that define the 'conscientious historian' within the professional study of history:

Q: Is it not the case that testimonies can be manipulated and distorted to serve certain interests? If so, what critical tools must we avail ourselves of to unmask such manipulation? A: In order to answer this we must refer to the epistemological structure of historical knowledge. The fundamental objective of a good historian is to enlarge the sphere of archives, that is, the conscientous historian must open up the archives by retrieving traces which the dominant ideological forces attempted to suppress.

(brief interruption here to offer my own commentary specific to the subject: a huge drawback of tudor pop history, not unique to weir, but imo, is that it acknowledges protestantism as an-- eventual, and sometimes, arguably, prescientally early-- dominant ideological force, and does not regard catholicism as a dominant ideological force in the same way...even during mid-henrician, edwardian, and elizabethan eras, catholicism was the dominant ideological force of 'christendom', at the very least, even if not in england...& at risk of losing forest for the trees, i'd also argue protestantism /= henrician anglican supremacy/caesaropapism, but i digress...)

[con't] [...] In admitting what was originally excluded from the archive, the historian initiates a critique of power. [...] The historian opposes the manipulation of narratives by telling the story differently and by providing a space for the confrontation between opposing testimonies. We must remember, however, that the historian['s] [...] [condition] dictates that we can never be in a state of pure indifference. The historian's testimony is not completely neutral, it is selective activity [...] it is, however, far less selective than the testimony of the dominant [...] Here we should invoke [the need for] 'reflective equilibrium' [...] between predominantly held beliefs and the findings of critical minds represented by professional people such as historians. Such a mechanism helps us distinguish good from bad history.

so, what is highlighted, well...weir fails to acknowledge any of this, nor does has she (and arguably, has never, or at the most generous i could be, rarely) practice any of this, and i'm about to demonstrate an example...

(if you've read this far, you're a real one, bcus i am finally going to delve into a specific, parallel example, like the former ask:

"In October 1535, Cromwell brought the King devastating news: Tunis had fallen to the Emperor, and the Turks had been crushed. Chapuys told his master that Henry and Anne looked 'like dogs falling out of a window", so distressed were they by the news. As if this was not bad, enough [...] Anne was blamed [for the bad harvest and bad weather] by the common people [...] It was not a happy homecoming when Henry and Anne ended their progress at Windsor on 26 October [1535]." The Six Wives of Henry VIII, by Alison Weir

so, let's break this down: although citations would have made an easier flow, weir has, at least, done right by at least integrating and specifying the source for the first claim: "chapuys [wrote to charles v] that [this had happened". let's examine that primary source:

"Remarks on the Emperor's military achievements. The English are much pleased at his victory, in accordance with the incredible affection which they almost all bear to him; except the King, the concubine, Cromwell, and some of their adherents, who, as a man whom he sent to the Court reports, are astounded at the good news, like dogs falling out of a window. Cromwell could hardly speak." Chapuys to [Granvelle]. 13 Sept [1535]. Vienna Archives.

is this the entire story? is this more than one angle? it's not even really an exhaustive summary, weir hones in on the reactions of henry&anne (rather than the reactions of cromwell and 'their adherents') to underline the conclusion of the summary: "it was not a happy homecoming...[for] henry and anne". it's clear that it's a partially redacted image, because as the excerpt from weir's book continues, she continues to adhere to the single source in question. i'll discuss and expand on others once i've done the comparison between her summary and the relevant report for the second highlighted piece:

"The said ambassador expressed his astonishment to me at the English being still allowed to import corn from Flanders. This, he said, would not be tolerated in France under the circumstances. My own opinion is that the affair ought to be looked into, inasmuch as the harvest here has been very poor, and people begin to murmur. The King and his concubine, who formerly had it preached from the pulpit that God favoured particularly the English by sending them fine weather, have it said now that, "whom God loves, He chastises."" + "This would be the best time [to invade England], while the people is provoked by the great cruelties daily committed and the worse than tyrannical extortions practised on Churchmen, the expulsion of monks and nuns from their cloisters, and, most of all, the famine which threatens to prevail in consequence of the bad harvest, all which is imputed to the bad life and tyranny of the King."

well...again, this is all very interesting. as weir states, chapuys reports harvest is poor, the weather is poor, and that 'people begin to murmur' at these happenings... but he doesn't specify, actually (at least in relation to the bad harvest and weather), that it's anne boleyn who's blamed by the people. actually, what he specifies here is that the famine is imputed by them to the "bad life and tyranny of the king", not the queen (or, as he names her, 'concubine'); it's reasonable to assume that 'the concubine' is part of the 'bad life' they're condemning, but she's not specifically stated as the cause of the 'murmuring', it's henry viii's actions that are (and, it makes sense that he's pushing this, because it's an uprising against henry specifically that he's promoting, here).

so, what was happening here when weir wrote this? imo, a classic case of confirmation bias. i don't think weir actually was reading quotes from the archives, i think she was reading their summaries, as given in the divorce of catherine of aragon, by james anthony froude:

"The harvest had failed; and the failure was interpreted as a judgment from Heaven on the King's conduct. So sure Chapuys felt that the Emperor would now move that he sent positive assurances to Catherine that his master would not return to Spain till he had restored her to her rights. Even the Bishop of Tarbes, who was again in London, believed that Henry was lost at last. The whole nation, he said, Peers and commons, and even the King's own servants, were devoted to the Princess and her mother, and would join any prince who would take up their cause. The discontent was universal, partly because the Princess was regarded as the right heir to the crown, partly for fear of war and the ruin of trade. The autumn had been wet: half the corn was still in the fields. Queen Anne was universally execrated, and even the King was losing his love for her. If war was declared, the entire country would rise."

that would be my assessment of this particular excerpt: it's froude that connected the 'murmurings' about the bad weather and poor harvest to anne being 'universally execrated', and it's weir, using froude as a source, that followed suit. there's the flavor of "the king was losing his love for her", asw, even if not explicit ("it was not a happy homecoming for henry and anne"...speaking of, let's see what historians say about that specific period of time in reference, post-progress, late 1535:

"Henry and Anne’s marriage doesn’t seem to have been on the rocks [at this point][…] In the autumn and winter of 1535, they were constantly described as being ‘merry together’, which is probably [when] Anne conceived […]" Suzannah Lipscomb

"Secondly, Chapuys' gossip must bet set against the far greater weight of evidence that shows that Henry and Anne were often happily together and that despite occasional outbursts, their marriage seemed set to last. On many occasions the king and queen were reported as merry, notably in October 1535 [...]"

Power and Politics in Tudor England: Essays by G.W. Bernard

weir doesn't examine the context and various sources about henry being informed of charles v's victory at tunis, nor does she here interrogate the authority and credibility of chapuys as a source. but, luckily, for the purposes of this ask, an accredited historian, does:

"Additional information came from the most varied sources, such as Joan Batcok, a resident in the empress’ court in Spain, who obtained copies of letters from Charles V to the viceroy of Navarre and sent them to her uncle, John Batcok, who forwarded them (and the copy of a letter from the bishop of Palencia) to Cromwell on 5 August, along with details he had gleaned from talking to men already back from the North African war.[...] Chapuys was ignorant of all this. [...] It was not until 14 August that Chapuys learnt of what he called the glorious and most important victory in La Goleta from the imperial ambassador in France, and sent a courier to Henry VIII with the news. There was no public audience where it could be publicised. Henry VIII gave the envoy some money as customary, and sent a deer he had hunted to the ambassador, which was interpreted as a sign of his great pleasure.

Later Chapuys found out that Henry VIII had already known of the emperor’s success and had neither celebrated it or shared the information. In fact, the king distanced himself as far as possible without breaching protocol. He instructed Cromwell to relay his «pleasure» at the emperor’s success and Cromwell did so in writing rather than in person. By contrast, when they heard that the French ambassador had news of the meeting between Mary of Hungary and Leonor, he was summoned to speak with the king and taken hunting [...]

The king again instructed Cromwell to give him some money and to inform Chapuys that he could not have been more delighted with the victory if it had been his own, and that he congratulated the emperor warmly. On 10 September Cromwell transmitted the message in writing. The offense was so patent, Chapuys reported the bare facts and commented bitterly: «God knows how much more he would have given [the envoy] for contrary news». According to the envoy, however, the reaction of the English king and courtiers to the news was extreme. He claimed that Cromwell had been left speechless, and the English courtiers so astonished and dismayed he thought they resembled a pack of dogs falling out of a window. Chapuys contrasted this with the rejoicing of «the English people» outside the court who loved Charles V. The king and his court remained inaccessible to Chapuys, who persevered by sending information. He had to be content with polite letters from Cromwell informing him that Henry VIII was «very interested» in the details, and that some of the accounts were so vivid Cromwell could almost imagine himself there.

It took repeated demands from the ambassador before even Cromwell agreed to meet him - on 13 October [1535]. Even then, it took place late in the day and in private. Chapuys’s disappointment is reflected in his comment that he hoped Henry VIII would be punished for «his impious folly and dishonourable joy at the descent of Barbarossa on Naples and at Tunis [in 1534]». To add insult to injury, false rumours spread that Charles V had written friendly letters to Henry VIII during the campaign and entrusted him with the defence of the Low Countries. Worse still, the victory made no difference to Henry VIII’s policy, nor did it ameliorate his treatment of the Catholics or of Queen Katherine and princess Mary, as the imperialists had hoped. Indeed its impact was negative: it heightened fears that Charles V would now attack Henry VIII, as the English Catholics were urging him to do. Katherine thanked God for «the great victory» and the emperor’s safe return because he could now devote himself to relieving the suffering of English Catholics, not least herself and Mary. It was not only the emperor’s covert enemies but his closest relatives and supporters in England who called into question the value of his victory. Chapuys urged Charles V to devote his efforts to saving Catholicism in England which was his duty and more meritorious than anything he had done in Africa. Some English Catholics publicly stated that helping them and organising a general Council of the Church were «more praiseworthy deed(s) than the conquest of Tunis, and more necessary than the recovery of the lands of Christendom from the Turk». Princess Mary, having praised his triumph in the «holy expedition», complained that he had clearly failed to understand the gravity of the situation in England since he had chosen to fight in Tunis. He must rectify now and do this service to God in England in order to gain «no less fame and glory to himself than in the conquest of Tunis or the whole of Africa»."

«NO GREAT GLORY IN CHASING A PIRATE». THE MANIPULATION OF NEWS DURING THE 1535 TUNIS CAMPAIGN, María José Rodríguez-Salgado

i wanted to offer up that broader, overarching context, but to settle back into the report weir offered uncritically: the broad timeline of events is that chapuys informed henry of charles v's victory in august, to which henry sent him money and a gift. he informs him again, weeks later, to which henry sends him his congratulations, and money, again. chapuys then claims (to granvelle, charles v's advisor) that henry (who already knew about it) was shocked by the (second) message, and cromwell (who already knew about it) was too stunned to speak.

[raine-draws]

I put on suspenders and the androgynous is androgynousing

but people keep calling me a grandpa.

[shieldsurf]

if kamala loses i'm becoming a full-time alcoholic so i don't have to deal with everyone blaming it on everything under the sun other than her running on a shitty & unpopular platform

[alasy]

WHAT DO YOU MEAN NEMECSEK DIES?????????? THAT'S SO UNFAIR

[bluberimufim]

My brain keeps telling me to rewrite "Black and White" as one of those novels that are more like a collection of documents (whatever tf it's called) and I'm like!! Bestie, writing a novel as a series of documents is exactly what made me write the second draft as third person in the first place!!!!

(ok technically it was just Darius's normal POV + Diedrich's diary for some reason, but still!!)