North and South Part II

Margaret does her best to like Milton Northern... but she finds it difficult. She meets some of the mill owners at a dinner and finds the women are very boastful. She tries to like John Thorton her father's pupil but she does not like his arrogance and hard hearted demeanour. He does not like his workers to oppose him and claims that he made his way up from poverty so they should be able to do the same. She is cool with him but he finds her attractive. She meets some of the mill workers, and finds it hard to understand them. She is shocked by their organising themselves to strike and not work, and she finds she is snubbed by Higgins, one of the more intelligent workers, when she offers to visit his 2 daughters. She does not seem to have a role as the vicar's daughter, visiting and helping the poor. The Northern folk are too independent for that.

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell

This is one of Gaskell's earlier social problem novels. It is set in Manchester though the name is not used. Margaret Hale, the pretty cultivated daughter of a vicar, finds that her father has begun to have doubts about his religious beliefs, and feels he cannot go on as a Church of England priest. (Mrs Gaskell's father, a Unitarian minister resigned from his position because of religious doubts). He has to give up his living and find another job. Mrs Hale is a nervous sensitive woman who is upset by this development. Margaret is also distressed at her father giving up his work and even more so to learn that the family are going to have to move from their pretty parish in Southern England, to move up North and live in an industrial city. When she sees Milton Northern she is depressed at how ugly it is, and worries that it will be difficult to live there. Mr Hale finds that some manufacturers who have worked their way up from poverty to wealth, are keen to get some of the education they missed out on as boys. THe finds a pupil, John Thornton, who has a mill and who wants to study the classics.

Beds and Blue Jeans by Nadine Sutton

This is a long novella, available on Amazon. It is set in the early 2000s' a few years ago, and its about the music business in Nashville. Sam is a bar singer, who makes a basic living, singing in the bars. He has a girlfriend, Pattie who has moved in with him when she became pregnant, but their relationship is not working out too well. Over time, Pattie grows up a bit, and Sam who has been unfaithful to her and irritated by her, comes to understand her better.

Rough Music by Nadine Sutton

This story is set in America in the late 1970s and is about a country rock band. The two lead singers are friends who want to make good music, and not just to make money. But they are touring all the time and it takes its toll on their marriages. The story is available on Amazon.

The Concubine V

This part of the story is almost certainly not accurate. Anne would never have taken the risk of being unfaithful to Henry. In real life, her pregnancy went on till the end of January 1536 and then she lost the baby, after hearing that Henry had had a fall out jousting. In the book, she also loses the child, and Henry now decides he has to get rid of her. He does not want another drawn out divorce. So his ministers seek for an excuse to end the marriage. Anne has been flirtatious with other men, playing the game of Courtly love. And Mark Smeaton, her musician, is infatuated with her and he is questioned and tortured till he agrees that he had an affair with her. Anne is taken to the Tower and has ladies in waiting who spy on her. Emma manages to get permission to go to the Tower and stay with Anne. She finally realises that while she had a sincere interest in the new religion, she stayed as Anne's maid because she loved her. Anne and the men accused with her are tried and found guilty, and all are executed. No arrangements are made for her to be buried. Emma persuades Anne's cousins to help her to take the body to Norfolk where Anne was born and they make a plan to bring her to Norfolk to be buried under the name of Arnett. Emma begins to feel a revival of her religious beliefs as she makes the preparations.

The Concubine IV

Anne's baby is born in September 1533, after her marriage and coronation. ANd it is a girl. Emma is shaken. Her faith in God had convinced her that it was her duty to help the reform of the church and because of that she had encouraged Anne's relationship with Henry. She believed that it would lead to a Protestant male heir being born, and she is shocked to find that Anne has only produced another girl. She has connived at wrong doing, but she convinces herself that now that Anne is queen, she will have a male heir and she will have done the right thing in helping the marriage to go ahead. Anne becomes tense and often hysterical. She and Henry dont get on so well now and she realises that he has lost the intense love he had for her. He realises however that he has to grit his teeth and put up with Anne, as nobody wants another divorce. Emma tries to encourage Anne to be calmer and more pleasant, and she and Anne's ladies conceal from her the fact that the King is now flirting with Jane Seymour, another lady who is a Catholic. However Anne accidentally walks in on Henry kissing Jane and is furious. After a quarrel, they make up and he makes love to Anne again. She gets pregnant, but within a short time she has a miscarriage. Emma puts an idea in her head, that Henry might not be very good at breeding children.. and Anne decides to conceal the miscarriage, and to try to find another man to father a child on her. She arranges masked balls and has a few encounters with anonymous members of the court, but she still has the problem of how to conceal the fact that she is not as far along in pregnancy as she should be.

The Concubine III

Emma supports Anne when she goes back to court, and then realises that Anne is actually planning to become the kings wife, not his mistress. SHe is pleased because it may well mean that the Church in England will become Protestant and the foreign Catholic queen will be put aside. She continues to encourage Anne to support the Protestant cause. Anne becomes depressed that the divorce from Katherine is taking so long and that Henry seems unwilling to take the step of breaking with the Catholic church. She almost leaves him. Emma persuades her to stay. Eventually Henry gives Anne a title, Marquise of Pembroke, and takes her to France to meet the French King. They become lovers and Henry is disappointed. After all the years of waiting and expecting ecstasy, he finds that Anne is just another woman who shares his bed. He is frightened by his disillusioned feeling. Then a short while afterwards Anne tells him she is pregnant. His disappointment vanishes. She is going to provide him with a son as he has hoped. He decides to go through a marriage ceremony with her, and they are married. He knows that this will end in a separation from the Roman church but he is willing to accept this and his more Protestant advisers are pleased that the monasteries can be closed and the land will come to the Crown.