Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Today in Queen Bess's Life

Anne Boleyn and her brother, George, were tried in the King's Hall in the Tower of London in 1536.  The charges included adultery, incest, and treason.  In response, Anne gave the following speech:
"I do not say that I have always borne toward the king the humility which I owed him, considering the kindness and the great honour he showed me and the great respect he always paid me; I admit too, that I have often taken it into my head to be jealous of him ... But may God be my witness if I have done him any other wrong."
It was an effort in futility...

Account of the Trial of Anne Boleyn

Sunday, May 12, 2013

Famous Spinster Birthday -- Florence Nightingale



"I think one's feelings waste themselves in words; they ought to all be distilled into actions which bring results."  Florence Nightingale

Born:  May 12, 1820
Died:  August 13, 1910

Thursday, May 2, 2013

Today in Queen Bess's Life

The Arrest of Anne Boleyn, David Wilkie Winfield
In 1536, it is the beginning of the end for Elizabeth's mother.  Anne is arrested and taken to the Tower.  She will only have days to live.

Sunday, April 28, 2013

Today in Queen Bess's Life

Elizabeth was laid to rest at Westminster Abbey, 1603.

John Stow, English Historian and Antiquarian, was in attendance and wrote of the funeral:
"Westminster was surcharged with multitudes of all sorts of people in their streets, houses, windows, leads and gutters, that came to see the obsequy, and when they beheld her statue lying upon the coffin, there was such a general sighing, groaning and weeping as the like hath not been seen or known in the memory of man."
One of the two inscriptions on her tomb says:
"To the eternal memory of Elizabeth queen of England, France and Ireland, daughter of King Henry VIII, grand-daughter of King Henry VII, great-grand-daughter to King Edward IV. Mother of her country, a nursing-mother to religion and all liberal sciences, skilled in many languages, adorned with excellent endowments both of body and mind, and excellent for princely virtues beyond her sex. James, king of Great Britain, France and Ireland, hath devoutly and justly erected this monument to her whose virtues and kingdoms he inherits."