Because of the Lockwoods Part II

Mr. Lockwood grudgingly agrees to help Mrs. Hunter with practical and legal advice... but when he finds on looking into the family’s papers that Mr. Hunter had managed to buy a paddock, he is tempted to commit a fraudulent act...He gives way to the temptation.  
He had Lent Hunter the £300 to buy a paddock for his children... but it was promptly repaid.  He realizes that Mrs. Hunter is not aware of this – that the money was repaid... and he offers to take the paddock as part repayment for the legal work he is kindly doing.  Mrs. Hunter, in shock and grief and embarrassed that her husband had been in debt, agrees to this...

Lockwood salves his conscience by telling himself that he will be a good friend to Mrs Hunter and do a lot of work for her and her 3 children... but in practice he does little.  They have to sell their house and move to a poorer part of the town and live on a small income.   Mrs Hunter is shy and sensitive and never manages to fit in with her new neighbours, and she has lost touch with all her middle class friends except for Mrs Lockwood.  The children have school friends but they also are friendly with the Lockwoods.  However all 3 of them (Molly, Martin and Thea) are hurt by the patronising way that the Lockwood children treat them.  Claire the youngest of the 3 girls is pleasant but the twin daughters, Bea and Muriel very much resemble their domineering father and like to lord it over the Hunters.

Thea, the youngest Hunter child, is the cleverest. She does well at school, and is envious of the Lockwoods who are not that clever but have more books, go to a boarding school and have much more opportunities than she has. She is eager to have a good education and find a job….

Her older sister Molly becomes a nursery governess in her teens because the family need to add to their income – and Molly is not very clever and has no other job opportunities. Martin leaves school and goes into a bank, because he knows he has no hope of training at anything that will be a career…But Thea is more ambitious and more resentful of the Lockwoods…

Because of the Lockwoods By Dorothy Whipple, Part I

This is one of my favourite novels by the 20^th century writer Dorothy Whipple.  She has been compared to Jane Austen because of her dry wit and sharp observance of society….

Her books are usually set among the middle and upper classes of Northern England, who are gentleman farmers, businessmen or professional people… and she is in a quiet way a feminist.  One of her other  novels was “High Wages” which is about a young woman who starts work as a shop girl in a dress shop, and ends up by owning her own small business.

“Because of the Lockwoods” is one of her mature works and is also a feminist novel.  The story starts in the 1920s, when a middle class widow, Mrs Hunter, finds herself left very badly off when her husband suddenly dies.  Richard Hunter had not been able to work as an architect during World War One, and was not fit to serve as a soldier.  He exhausted most of his capital, providing for his wife and 3 young children. They live in one of the cotton mill towns that used to be so prominent In the North of England, but by the 1920s, the trade was dying and people who had become rich through the mills were often selling up and moving out…

Mrs Hunter is a ladylike shy woman who has never fitted in very well in the mill town.   Her only real friend is Mrs Lockwood, wife of a local well to do solicitor… 

Mrs Lockwood also has 3 children all  daughters (Beatrice Muriel and Clare) while there are three young Hunters, 2 daughters, Molly, and Thea, and a son Martin...

Mrs Lockwood is a domineering rather unfeeling woman, who has a kindly impulse and offers help tot Mrs Hunter... and gets her husband to give the widow legal and financial advice.  He is a ruthless man…

End Part I

Fanny Cornforth

Fanny was an important woman in the life of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and one of his models.  Women were very much a part of the lives of the Pre Raphaelite brotherhood, some of them as mistresses, others as muses.  Georgiana Burne Jones and Elizabeth Siddall, both of them married to painters, had some artistic talent but found that domestic life and motherhood made it difficult for them to compete with the men...although they did each spend time trying to study art or to produce artistic works...
Most of the early members of the Brotherhood were rather shy and awkward with women so the ones that they met and formed relationships with became very important to them.

Gabriel Rossetti was something of a womaniser and met Fanny, in 1856.  She was born to a working class family in Sussex, and her birth name was Sarah Cox.
She was a servant, and she became Rossetti’s mistress.  He was then engaged to Elizabeth Siddall, but Lizzie was often living away from home because of her health.  It was feared that she had TB and might be dying.

Fanny modelled for him.  See was a beautiful curvaceous young woman with golden hair and regular features.

She began to be called Fanny... and worked for Rossetti and kept him company while Elizabeth was not there.  In 1860 however  Lizzie had recovered her health to an extent and persuaded her long term fiancé to marry her.   Fanny left him, and married a mechanic called Hughes.  His stepfather’s surname was Cornforth and she adopted that name.  However her marriage did not last long and she and her husband separated.  She had probably felt that she needed to marry for security, once Rossetti had left her for his fiancée.  She had no wealthy family or private fortune to support her…

Gabriel’s marriage was also a short one as Elizabeth became very depressed after the death of her first baby and died of a laudanum overdose. 
Fanny moved in with him, after he had lost his wife…. becoming his mistress and keeping house for him.   She was not educated and many of his friends disliked her and thought her coarse and foolish... and they tried to persuade him to break off the affair.   

But Gabriel cared for her, although his life was becoming increasingly difficult he remained loyal to her... He had an ongoing relationship, possibly an emotional affair, with Janey Morris during that time but he kept Fanny and looked after her and she cared for him.  During their on and off affair, she sat for approximately 60 paintings and he immortalised her beauty…in paintings like “Found”, Boccia Baciata”, and “the Fair Rosamund”…

Some of the working class girls (Like Jane Burden) who married middle class painters educated themselves and “learned to fit in” with society.  Fanny remained “outside” the charmed circle and did not try to make herself into “a lady…”  But Gabriel clearly liked her as she was….

As he grew older, he became heavily dependent on chloral and alcohol and his health declined.  He aged rapidly, became depressed and could not paint. His family intervened to have him looked after, during the 1870s, and dismissed Fanny. Gabriel was only in his late 40s but his drug addiction had made him seem much older.

He wanted to provide for Fanny when she had to leave and gave her a gift of some of his paintings.

Fanny’s first husband died and she married another man, a publican, called John Schott, after her dismissal from working for Rossetti... she and her new husband ran a pub... And she continued to keep in contact with her former lover…helping to look after him at times.  However his drinking and addiction to chloral were destroying his sanity…

After his death Fanny sold some of his paintings... and her second husband died…She was looked after by a stepson, but sadly degenerated into dementia...She died in 1909.

Snippet from A COURT LADY

“Von Lichtenberg, I wish that you will consider this offer. I want to see you married off. It is your duty, as a soldier, to found a family, before you go to fight. And there are several young ladies who might be acceptable. There is Mlle. De Belmaris. If you were to take her, I'd be very generous with your next command”

I have posted this work, my novel A COURT LADY on the pages section.  It is set in Napoleonic France at the Imperial Court.  The heroine Corisande is a girl who works as a reader to the Empress Josephine.  The hero is Sebastian Von Lichtenberg, a soldier from a small German state which is allied with Napoleon....  The couple are thrown together and expected to marry.....

Alexa Wilding model

Alexa Wilding is one of the young women who worked as an artist’s model for the Pre Raphaelite painters, mainly for Rossetti.   She was born to a working class family but very little is known of her... She was a very beautiful girl with the red gold hair that many of the painters liked... perhaps because it was part of an unconventional offbeat beauty which they appreciated.

She was born as Alice Wilding in Surrey around 1847 but little is known of her family.  She lived in London with relatives in the 1860s and was working as a dressmaker when she met Rossetti.  This was a   job that was hard work and badly paid, usually but it was a job with some perks.  It was sedentary work and sometimes gave girls a chance to mix with upper and middle class people.  Moralists however often disapproved.  They feared that these girls could be corrupted by these encounters with men who were better off than they were.  Mrs Gaskell’s heroine of her novel Ruth was working in a dressmaker’s when she met the man who seduced her...

Rossetti saw Alexa walking down the Strand and was struck but her beauty.  Some of the artist’s models’ had romantic or sexual relationships with the painters they worked for – however it appears that Alexa, as she called herself, did not.

Rossetti asked her to sit for him and she agreed but did not turn up, possibly because she was dubious about his motives for giving her a job.  She clearly did not want to become a mistress or prostitute.   A few weeks later, Rossetti saw her again and hurried to speak to her, persuading her to come and sit for him and paying her a small weekly fee so that she would not be working for anyone else…  He had another model Fanny Cornforth who was a more earthy voluptuous type of girl and who did become his mistress…

But Alexa’s more “ladylike” and ethereal beauty appealed to him and to some of his patrons..And he used her to re paint some pictures that he had started to work on with Fanny as model.. After this second meeting, she did start to work for him steadily....

She seems to have been a placid rather quiet girl who did not interact much with her artist. But he found her hard working and went on working with her.  As time passed Rossetti’s health declined and he was unable to work.  His wife Elizabeth Siddall had died and he went back to his affair with Fanny Cornforth, keeping her in his house as his housekeeper and mistress.  But when he became sicker, his relatives asked  Fanny to leave.  

Alexa sat for many paintings including the Bower Meadow, Lady Lilith and Venus Verticordia.  When he died, in 1882, Alexa made an effort to visit his grave to place a wreath…. perhaps saddened by his long decline in health, caused by depression and drug abuse.

In 1881 Alexa was known to be living in a house in Kensington, as a landlady.  She also had two children, but nothing is known of whom their father was or if she was married… Rossetti seems to have helped her out financially to achieve a certain independence..

A few years after his death, she became ill and died of a tumour on the spleen at the age of 37 or so  in 1884.  She does not appear to have worked for other artists and her life  was quite a short one.  However she did acquire a home and a certain degree of respectable independence… and the fame of being a beauty and model for a well-known and successful artist.

Jane Morris nee Burden Part I

Jane Morris is famous for being the wife and muse of the artist and socialist thinker William Morris...   She modelled for him and other Pre Raphaelite artists and she herself was a notable embroiderer. 

Jane was born in 1839 in Oxford and her parents were very poor.  Her father was a stableman and her Mother had worked as a domestic servant.  She and her sister had little education but she was an intelligent girl probably with aspirations to get more education and to "marry up." In 1857, she attended a theatre performance with her sister Bessie, and she attracted the attention of Morris and his friends...  

She was very beautiful but in an offbeat way, with a long face and beautiful heavy dark hair...

Morris asked her to model for him. Jane usually called Janey, was 18 and was likely to become a servant or shop assistant... but Morris fell in love with her.  The Artists were painting murals of Arthurian themes and Dante Gabriel Rossetti used Janey as a model for his Guinevere…  Morris asked her to pose for him for a painting called La Belle Iseult... and during that time he proposed to her.   Janey was not in love with Morris but she accepted his offer.  She liked and respected him and she was eager to educate and better herself.  She was quick to learn and Morris, who came from a well to do family, had her tutored so that she could fit in with middle class artistic society.  Janey was happy to do this, since she longed for an education.   She learned French and Italian and music, and became a talented pianist and was able to fit in quite well with her new husband's friends..

They married in 1859 and then moved out of Oxford. Morris was setting up a design firm which would produce beautiful things, for homes and artistic decorations.  Morris like the other Pre Raphaelites was in violent reaction to what they saw as the commercialised ugliness produced by British industrialised society.  Although he was interested in socialism, however Morris had to compromise in order to make a living and his firm was patronised mostly by the middle and upper classes who wanted prettier houses and furnishings. 

The young couple moved to Kent at first and then to London.  They had 2 daughters, Jane Alice (Jenny) and Mary (May) who both shared their parents' interest in the Arts and Crafts movement.  However Janey’s marriage while superficially happy was far from perfect.  After a few years, the Morrises bought a house, called Kelmscott Manor, in Oxfordshire and they moved there.  But William Morris went away to Iceland in 1871, leaving his wife behind and during that time, she fell in love with Gabriel Rossetti. 

Rossetti was more of a lady’s man then the shy serious Morris had ever been... And Janey found him more congenial as a friend and lover.  It is not certain when their relationship became a love affair but it lasted as a close and loving relationship for many years..

John William Waterhouse 1849-1917

Unlike many of the other Pre Raphaelites, Waterhouse came from an artistic background.  He was born in Rome and both his parents were painters..  Many of his works were set in Ancient Rome, and he was knowledgeable about Roman Mythology.   In 1854, the family returned to England, setting up home in Kensington, where many artists lived. They were based near the new Victoria and Albert Museum and Waterhouse was encouraged in his artistic leanings.   He studied sculpture at the Royal Academy but then moved on to art and began to paint in the classical style…He was a successful artist form early on and began to exhibit regularly at the Academy.

In  1883, he married Esther Kenworthy, She was a professional artist as well, specialising in flower paintings.  Waterhouse’s marriage seems to have been uneventful and happy but his paintings were mainly of beautiful and sweet faced women. Many of the earlier works were of classical themes such as Circe, or paintings of the courts of Roman emperors, also one of Cleopatra and “Ulysses and the Sirens.”

Later, he moved on to Pre Raphaelite themes, painting subjects that other Pre Raphaelite artists had covered. He painted a particularly beautiful Ophelia, with her flowers and a blue gown.  Like most PRB artists he turned to Shakespeare and English poets for themes, such as “The Lady of Shallott” (Elaine of the Arthurian Legends).   He painted “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” which was based on the Keats Poem…

 There is a study of Miranda in the Tempest viewing the storm that drives the ship onto their island. Another “British legend” painting is a one of Tristan and Isolde on a ship.  Many of the paintings are of beautiful women outdoors, gathering flowers… such as “Windflowers”, or “Gather Ye Rosebuds”.  There were a few semi nudes, including one of a mermaid..)

He returned to Ophelia as a subject in later life but became ill with cancer in 1915 and died in 1917.

William Holman Hunt Part I

William Holman Hunt was born in 1827 and was one of the major Pre Raphaelite artists.  He was a Londoner, and his parents were not well off.  He had to go to work at the age of 12, as a clerk.  He was a very serious man, with a preoccupation with sin and religion which showed in his paintings.   He was criticised at times for clumsiness in his work but he was a talented painter.  One of his most famous works shows the interest in morality and religion that was a large part of his life –.  Called the Awakening Conscience, it is about a young “kept woman”, who remembers her childhood morality while in the arms of her seducer.

Hunt tried very hard to make his paintings accurate scientifically and in other ways, like most of the pre Raphaelites and he worked very hard and was rarely satisfied with his efforts.

In the 1850s he travelled to the Holy Land because he wanted to paint religious works about the life of Christ and form the Bible. He was willing to make the long journey because he was so was anxious to ensure that his work was correct. He painted the works known as The Scapegoat, The Finding of the Saviour in the Temple, and The Shadow of Death, along with many landscapes of the region.

In 1865 Hunt married.  He had had a long running on and off relationship with one of his models - a working class girl called Annie Miller. She was from a poor background and had had no education, but Hunt (like many Victorian men with a young bride or one from a different class) tried to educate and fit her to become his wife.  However Annie was a flirtatious young woman, who enjoyed the company of other men (including the notorious rake Lord Ranelagh) and she broke off their engagement.  She did not want to be pushed into a mould that did not suit her and she married someone else. 

Hunt then married Fanny Waugh, who was from an artistic and intellectual middle class family... (They were related to the novelist Evelyn Waugh)…Their marriage was sadly short lived.  She gave birth to a son while they were travelling abroad and then died of fever in Florence  a few years after their marriage.

In 1875 after a period of grieving -Hunt scandalised society by marrying Fanny’s younger sister Edith.  Such a marriage was illegal under British Law, and the couple had to go to Switzerland to have the ceremony.  For many years, the British parliament had tried to legalise “Marriage with a deceased wife’s sister” but the Bishops in the House of Lords had regularly thrown out the bill and such marriages were considered wrong by many religious people at the time. 

Edith’s marriage was not accepted very well by many of her own family... and she herself suffered a certain stress because she was living in a union which was considered wrong by so many people.

Evelyn De Morgan 1855-1919

Evelyn de Morgan was one of the women painters who painted in Pre Raphaelite style….  She was younger than the original members of the Brotherhood- she was born in London in 1855. Her parents were middle class, and her birth name was Evelyn Pickering.  She received a good education for a woman..similar to that of her brother.  She  studied the classics and she was independent minded, supporting women’s suffrage and in later life, she was a pacifist.

In 1883 she met William De Morgan, who was a ceramics artist.  They married in 1887…  For many years they spent part of their time in Florence, and part of it in London.  Evelyn was a talented painter and she also contributed financially to her husband’s ceramics business and helped him with designs for the pottery…

As a young girl, she was reluctant to take part in social rituals which she considered time wasting and hated the socialising that was expected of middle and upper class women.  She was passionate about her arts and managed to get herself sent to the Slade School of Art in the early 1870s.  She was one of the first women students. She studied under the artist George Watts and developed friendships with the Pre Raphaelite artists like Holman Hunt.   As she matured she developed her own style, and her themes tended to be feminine and delicate…She represented beautiful women of mythology and history, in classical brightly coloured robes…

Many of her works were of women figures from classical history and literature.  Another famous one was of Queen Eleanor confronting her husband’s mistress, the Fair Rosamond..

Carl Perkins Rockabilly artist Part I

Carl is most famous probably for being the man who wrote the Elvis hit Blue Suede Shoes…  He was one of the song writers who got their start In Sun Records with Sam Philips…

He was born in Tennessee, in 1932, so he was close in age to his singing buddy Johnny Cash...  His parents were poor sharecroppers and like Cash he grew up in the cotton fields, working hard and listening to and singing gospel music…
For these poor families one of their few amusement was listening to the Grand Old Opry, on the Radio...Carl loved the music, and persuaded his father to spare a little money to buy him a guitar…He was taught to play it by an old African American man, called John Westbrook…But in 1947 the family moved closer to Memphis and with his brother Jay, Carl began to play in a tavern, for tips.  He worked at day jobs in factories and sang at nights...

In 1953, he got married.  His wife Valda, also worked, but she believed in his talent and  encouraged him to start to play full time…

He met up with a drummer -WS “Fluke” Holland who was later to work with him and Johnny Cash…In 1954, he went to Memphis to audition for Sun Records..  He then started to work with Johnny Cash and Fluke Holland as “Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Two” and they played rockabilly, which was a mixture of country and the up and coming rock music.     

Then in 1955, he wrote “Blue Suede Shoes”...  Different stories are told about the inspiration for the song... Johnny Cash said it was inspired by a young man whom he knew in the Air Force in Germany, who was fussy about his appearance and who used this phrase when he was dressed up to go out on  Saturday night… Johnny claimed that he told the story to Carl…

The song took off and it was the first record by a Sun artist to sell a million copies.  Elvis did a version which was very successful.....

In 1956, Carl was involved in a  car crash, which seriously injured him and his brother Jay.  Carl recovered but Jay’s injuries were severe indeed and he died in 1958..  Carl moved from Sun Records, which was quite a small company to Columbia Records....and in 1959 he wrote Ballad of Boot Hill for Johnny Cash…

Carl worked with Johnny Cash in the 1960s, touring with him and performing as his opening act…

Arthur Hughes, Artist

Arthur Hughes was not a member of the Pre Raphaelite brotherhood, but he was in sympathy with their aims and painted in that style.  Hughes was born in London in 1832 and studied at the Royal Academy…One of his early paintings was “Ophelia”, a subject also painted by Millais…He became friends with John Millais.  His Ophelia is a beautiful work, of Ophelia with her flowers... but  it does not have the intense and careful details that Millais put into his work where she is shown drowned…

Two of Hughes’ most famous paintings are April Love and the Long Engagement.  They are painted in pre Raphaelite style but are simpler than some of the more elaborate works by other painters.  He worked with Rossetti,  painting Murals in Oxford and he painted on Arthurian themes...such as “Sir Galahad” and “the Brave Geraint”…

His best known paintings are about the delicacy of young love... and the pathos of life. 

The Long Engagement refers to the social customs of Victorian life.  It depicts a young curate and his love, Amy, in woodland... They are longing to marry but most Victorian parents would not allow their daughters to marry until the husband had a well-paid job... so they are doomed to wait and may never marry… They have to restrain their feelings and they are getting older…  The painting is sad and wistful…

Hughes himself married Tryphena Foord, who was his model for April Love - they had quite a long engagement of 5 years… They were happily married and had several children.  In later years, Hughes took to book illustrating and painting landscapes and moved away to an extent form the detailed pre Raphaelite work... He went to live in the suburbs with his wife and children which took him away from his artistic friends.   He died in Kew, in 1915…having left one very famous painting.. 

Georgiana Burne Jones III

Morris had been very hurt by Janey’s relationship with Rossetti, and seems to have found comfort in a loving romantic friendship with Georgie.  Edward Burne Jones was an increasingly successful painter.. (he had adopted the "Burne" in order to distinguish himself from the thousands of Joneses...)
In later life, he had a close friendship with May Gaskell, a married society hostess who was many years his junior.  Georgiana was interested in politics and increasingly liberal or left wing in her beliefs.  Edward agreed with her ideas in some respects but he was not politically inclined and was less puritanical than his wife...So he didn't want to participate in her political interests.

  Morris on the other hand was an ardent socialist and Georgie grew closer to him because of this.  She had been involved in various progressive causes, including education of the working class.  In the 1890s, she won a seat in the parish council at Rottingdean and worked hard to improve the lives of people in the area, such as the provision of a nurse for the village…

.  She had abandoned her artistic career but was happy to have this opportunity as a woman in the 1890s… Times were changing and women while they did not have the vote for parliament, could enter local politics.

Edward had been offered  a baronetcy, and he accepted it because although he was not greatly concerned with such things, his son was fond of society and it would please him….

In 1896, William Morris died.  Both Edward and Georgie were deeply saddened as Morris was an old and dear friend….Two years later, Burne Jones was taken ill and died of a heart attack…Georgie wrote a biography of him, which was published some years later…

As she grew older, her politics became more radical.. and she was not in favour of the Boer War.. She continued with her work and died in 1920.  She left 2 children, Philip who became an artist and Margaret who married  a writer and had 2 children, one of whom was the novelist Angela Thirkell....

Rough Music by Nadine Sutton

This story is set in the late 1970s in America..  Its about a country and rock band who are trying to make it big.. who travel all over the US and abroad.. having fun and partying along the way. 
I enjoyed writing this as it is not a romantic love story and does not have a happy ending. It’s more of a work story and its about music which I adore. I've always loved the old style country singers in the days when touring was a constant part of their lives.  It was hard work and took its toll on the marriages of many singers.    I love country pop, people like Glen Campbell... and I also love the Williamses… especially Hank Junior.  I enjoy rockabilly and Southern Rock.. and Lynrd Skynrd.  So my story is all about that sort of life…   

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Rough-Music-Nadine-Sutton-ebook/dp/B01AEQS0G0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1452977780&sr=8-1&keywords=nadine+sutton

Georgiana Burne Jones Part II

Little Philip got ill with scarlet fever as a baby, and Georgiana, who was pregnant with her second child, also contracted the illness.   Her next baby was born prematurely and died.. After this, Georgie could not bear to live in Russell Street.  The family moved to Kensington… to a new house.

She had tried to keep up her studies of art and to help her husband and Morris with their work of producing arts and crafts… but motherhood took over more and more of he life. She felt some resentment of her son, for taking up her time and making it difficult for her to pursue an artistic career… but she felt guilty for being selfish…  She and Edward had another child, a daughter, Margaret..

Later in the 1860s the family moved again, to Fulham, and Edward tried to continue with his career.. But in spite of some success, he did not exhibit much in the 1870s.   His work was criticised in the Press at times for its sensuality, and he and Georgiana had begun to draw apart.  She was a devoted mother and wife.. But her life was restricted by her gender.  Edward fell in love in the late 1860s with Maria Zambaco…a Greek girl who was an artist and model,  and they considered running away together.  She was married but had left her husband.  Edward did try to leave his wife for her, but the intensity of the affair led to a farcical conclusion.  Maria tried to persuade him to commit suicide with her and tried to drown herself…  It caused a scandal and the police had had to be called in… 

The affair ended - yet there were still strong feelings between the lovers and they remained friends…. Georgiana forgave her husband and continued to love him.. But her marriage was not as close after the whole impassioned and crazy affair.  Georgie was a serious minded rather puritanical woman...whereas her husband was less dedicated to serious issues.   She and Edward loved each other but were not all that compatible.

After the affair, she developed a close romantic friendship with William Morris, whose wife was in love with Dante Gabriel Rossetti and  who was pursuing an affair with him…

Georgiana Burne Jones Part I

Georgiana Burne Jones (nee Macdonald) was born in 1840 to a Scottish family who were intellectual and broad minded.  Her father was a Wesleyan minister... and one of her brother was an artist.  There were several sisters who married into the elite of the intellectual and artistic community of Victorian England. 

Alice, the eldest, married John Lockwood Kipling a professor, and became the mother of Rudyard Kipling.   Louisa married a businessman, Alfred Baldwin and was the mother of a Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin….Agnes married the painter Edward Poynter….

Georgiana married Edward (Ned) Burne Jones, one of the most famous Post Raphaelite painters.   She met him through her brother Harry..

Georgiana was an intelligent talented woman who was born a bit too early to make direct use of her talents.  She met with Ruskin as a girl and was influenced by his ideas about art and society… she and Edward married when she was only 19 and he was 27.  They had little money but were both more interested in the intellectual and Bohemian life... not caring about houses or fortunes.  Georgiana hoped to become an artist in her own right, although at the time, women who had an artistic bent, would usually content themselves with supporting their husbands in practical ways…They lived at first in rooms in Russell Street, and were close friends with William Morris and his young wife Janey.. who lived nearby…

Georgiana (Georgie) was eager to pursue her interest in painting and engraving... but she soon became pregnant.  Her first baby was a son, Philip.. 

John Millais Part III

Millais broadened his style a good deal after his marriage.  He did state that he could not spend long periods of time on each detail of each painting...  the implication being that he had a family to provide for.  Effie was fond of social life and Millais also enjoyed it, though there were some who did not accept them socially because of her first marriage. Some of the Pre Raphaelites criticised him for abandoning his original style and Morris accused him of “selling out”…  He still painted historical subjects but not in the Pre Raphaelite way…  He also painted society women and portraits were a large part of his output.  He notoriously sold one of his paintings “Bubbles” as an advertisement for soap which was considered by many of his artistic friends to be vulgar commercialisation of his art....

  He painted landscapes but they were often bleak and set in the Autumn or winter…

He was honoured by the queen’s making him a baronet... in the 1880s… He and Effie lived in Kensington... which was not really the aristocratic part of London, at that time... However it was a pleasant area and became a home to many artists who were comfortably off. However the queen would not receive Effie...because she felt that as queen she could not receive a woman who had had a controversial ending to her first marriage.  

 It was not until Millais was dying of throat cancer that he asked her to receive his wife and she did so…

His Marriage to Effie was a happy one and produced a large family...  and they enjoyed their life together… Ruskin however had a stressful life... He fell in love with a young girl Rose La Touche...and asked her to marry him when she was 18. She was drawn to him but her family were reluctant to let her marry a man whose first marriage had been annulled because of his “incurable impotence”.  Effie and her family were upset at this development, in the later 1860s...and feared that if Ruskin remarried and had a normal marital relationship, it might mean that her new marriage to Millais would be invalid. But the marriage did not take place and Ruskin developed mental problems. 

John Millais died in August 1896 and Effie died a year later.  He left a large body of work…..

More Irish names.. a short snippet

The name “Niamh” (Sometimes spelled Niav) means brightness or beauty.    In Irish legend, there is the story of Ossian and Niamh. She comes from the land of the Ever Young... where there is no pain or aging. Ossian, Fiona’s son, falls in love with her and they go away together.  When they come back.. It seems as if no time has passed – but when Ossian gets off his horse...and touches the soil… he becomes an old old man and dies.   The name Niamh because quite popular in Ireland in the 20^th century but Ossian or Oisin was less so.  (Oscar is the name of Ossian's son.. which was used by the Swedish Royal family.. and Oscar Wilde)....

Emer has also been a popular name in modern Ireland.  It is the name of the beloved of the legendary hero Cuchullian.. But his name has not been used!

Aine (pronounced AWNYA) is a name which is a traditional one... the name of the queen of the fairies in mythology -. But in the 20^th century it came to be used as an Irish version of Anne or Anna, though it’s not at all related to those names.

Eithne is a saint’s name, the name of one of St Patrick’s first converts and has been very popular.  It means “kernel”, and has been spelled as Ethna…

Another male saint’s name is Fiachra…- St Fiachra was the patron saint of cab drivers in France and his name was given to the cabs which were known as fiacres…However this name has never been much used. 

 More names will follow!

Names that mean the same

Just a short snippet on names that mean the same… which interests me.  Sometimes parents wish to give their children some kind of a theme in naming… some parents have given all their daughters flower names for example…

In Hebrew, the name Deborah means “bee”… and in Greek Melissa means “honey bee”.

Another example is Susan or Susannah which means lily..(A Hebrew name).   It could be paired with Lily or Lilian…

There is the Irish name Ciara, which means black or dark… and the Greek name Melania which means black. This name is now usually seen as Melanie…

Margaret is a Greek derived name form the word meaning pearl.. So it could be paired with Pearl…

Celyn is  a Welsh name, coined in the 20^th century, meaning “Holly”.. So it could be paired with Holly….

Another pairing – Freda, from a German word meaning Peace and Irene.. from the Greek Eirene.. which also means peace…

Rough Music by Nadine Sutton A Non Romance

This isn't a romance.  It is a story set in the USA, in the late 1970s.    It is a story about work and life, as well as love.   It doesn't have a happy ending. 

I’ve based it on what I’ve read about country and rock singers in the days when touring was a constant part of their lives.  It was hard work and took its toll on the marriages of many singers.   But I love the music of the 1960s and 70’s.  I love country pop, people like Glen Campbell... and I also love the Williamses… especially Hank Junior.  I enjoy Lynrd Skynrd.  So my story is all about that sort of life…   

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Rough-Music-Nadine-Sutton-ebook/dp/B01AEQS0G0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1452977780&sr=8-1&keywords=nadine+sutton

Trollope and Women

Antony Trollope was born in 1815, during the years of the Regency, but he developed as a novelist in the Victorian era.  He died in 1882.  Still his Regency youth did have an effect on him, making him a more tolerant worldly wise man than some Victorian men...
He was the son of Thomas Adolphus Trollope and Mrs Fanny Trollope who was a very successful travel writer and novelist.  His father had serious problems of depression and mental health and wasn’t able to make a living for his family, and his mother had to work instead.  Thomas had a bad temper and though highly educated and trained a as barrister, he was too irritable to make a living at the Bar.  He tried farming but was unsuccessful. Their marriage was far from happy and the children suffered.   Antony felt neglected because his mother was away pursuing her work much of the time, but she had little choice, since she had to support her family.  He was sent to Harrow as a day boy, because the family farm was in the area, and so he could go there for free. However, he was miserable there, he felt that he was worse off in some ways than poor children  as a middle class child who was did not have enough money to live in a genteel style.  He believed that he was sneered at by other boys, for looking dirty and uncared for...
After Harrow, he had to find a job, and he had not done very well at school.    He was lucky enough to get into the Civil Service. Because of this,   he was opposed to competitive exams for public service jobs. He believed that he would never have managed to get into the civil service, had it not been for influence - but once there he had done well and had a successful career.  He believed that competitive exams did not necessarily pick the best candidates...

He was at first unhappy in his job;  he was a struggling clerk based in London and living in lodging houses, with no money and little society.
He got into debt, was bad at his job and when a chance came up to go to work in Ireland, his supervisor was glad to get rid of him.  When he went there however, it was the happiest time of his life.  He loved the country.  In spite of its terrible poverty, there was a gaiety and charm about the place and its social groups that he had never experienced before. He loved to hunt and enjoyed the country sports there. He was popular in a way that he had never been in England.   He became more successful at work.
He met his wife, Rose Heseltine, who gave him love and understanding that compensated for the earlier miseries of his family life. He also began to rise in his career and he also began to write novels.

He continued to work in the Post Office for many years, while becoming a successful novelist. Some have felt that he forced himself to write, at times and could have done better if he hadn't been so pragmatic.. However he did need money and worked very hard to achieve success both in the Postal service and at his novels.
 His marriage seems to have been quietly happy though in later years, he had a platonic romance with an American woman, Kate Field, many years his junior, who was a writer and lecturer.

Many of his novels were about the Political process in the UK. His six famous Novels about the Pallisers are set around the life of a great Whig family who are part of the governing classes.  He was interested in politics, and many of his novels cover the issues and problems of standing for parliament, the political issues of the day, such as the Ballot, Women’s rights, and so on.  He specialised in writing about the social side of political life, where the upper classes met at their country houses.

Trollope was what he called an “advanced conservative liberal”… in that in many ways he clung to old fashioned traditions, but he realised that reform was necessary... and that he wanted to improve the lot of ordinary people.
With regard to the issue of women’s rights, he was similarly ambivalent.  He had old fashioned views, and loved a woman to be feminine; he believed that women should marry and have children, not go in for careers or women’s rights.  His mother’s  having to work hard, and “unsexing herself “, by so doing, may have had some influence on him, in relation to this issue.   But he also understood on some level why women did “go in for women’s rights.”  He was aware of how badly a woman might be treated by her husband... In his novel “He Knew he was Right”, he shows us a man, Louis Trevelyan, who begins to suspect his wife of infidelity and who ends up insane...  In the Palliser novels, one of his best written characters is Robert Kennedy  who marries Lady Laura Standish.  Laura, an earl’s daughter, loves being a political hostess, and hopes, as Kennedy’s wife, to have a salon where political issues are debated.  As a single woman she fell deeply in love with Phineas Finn, a young Irishman who has to make his way in the world and has no money.  Laura marries Kennedy because she has given up her dowry, to help her brother pay his debts and so she cannot afford to marry the impoverished Finn.
 Kennedy becomes jealous and suspicious, succumbs to religious mania and refuses to let his wife have much freedom; he is particularly reluctant to allow her to act as a political hostess.  She eventually leaves him and he dies, insane. Trollope knew the cruelty and humiliations that a man can inflict on his innocent wife and especially he knew of about mental health problems which can turn a man into a tyrannical husband.   So underneath his conservative views, there was sympathy with women’s problems and the things that happen in their lives.  His women characters are often the most memorable.  
Without breaking the rule of Victorian propriety, he is well able to write about sexual issues... and passions.  In his first Palliser novel, “Can you Forgive her”, the ostensible heroine is Alice Grey a rather tiresome young woman who changes her mind about her fiancé, a story which is of limited interest!   Alice is prim and proper, and Trollope gets very embroiled in the issue of whether she was right to break her engagement... But the real heroine is already married. She is the Lady Glencora Palliser…  Glencora has been pushed into a marriage of convenience, with a safe and dull young man whose passion is for politics, and currency reform. She has loved a wild and selfish young man, Burgo Fitzgerald, who loves her in his way, and would have married her gladly for her large fortune.  But her family have forced her to give up Burgo and marry Plantagenet Palliser.  
Glencora is unhappy with him, and they have no child, at first, so she begins to toy with the idea of becoming Fitzgerald’s mistress and running away with him believing that this will free him to find a wife who could have children and let her be free to find love.  Burgo has genuine feelings for her, and he is sexually attractive to her, which Plantagenet is not.  Trollope delicately hints that the marriage is not successful in the bedroom because of the lack of attraction and the fact that Plantagenet is so devoted to his work that he can spare little time or affection for his young wife.  We can see that, although Glencora learns to love Plantagenet, and they become closer, she will never have the passion for him that she had for her first love.  As the novels progress, she becomes rather more conventional, and enjoys the social “game” of scheming for titles and honours and the like.  She uses her large fortune to make Plantagenet’s prime ministership a social success, because she cares more about social "games" now than she did as a younger woman.  She adores her children, and focuses on them... She is also a kindly mentor to her younger friends in society, doing her best to help with matrimonial and social problems.  Still, while she has grown to love her husband...it is clear that a lot of this activity is to make up for the things that are missing in her own marriage.  In later years, she tries to arrange for her daughter Mary to marry the man she loves, Frank Tregear, rather than be pushed into a socially suitable marriage, as she had been. 

Trollope is aware of women’s need for sexual and romantic affection, and shows it very clearly in the picture of the Palliser marriage.  And he also notes that women need work.  Officially he disapproves of women working or having careers, but on another level he sympathises with Glencora’s and Laura’s desires to have a political career... He knows that both of them would be better politicians than their husbands.  Glencora is much more thick skinned and a better talker than her husband.  Trollope can see that they both need the role of political hostess, to occupy them, and that without that role they will become very unhappy.  And while he does dislike the notion of women “taking to the lecture platform” he can see that they do need something to do. 

Upper class women did have an acceptable role as supporters of their husbands, in whatever work the husband engaged in.  Glencora is happy when as the Prime Minister’s wife, she can organise parties and run her salon... And she also has the role of helping to run the Pallisers’ estates, which does not interest Plantagenet.

However she goes too far, and makes a stupid mistake in supporting Ferdinand Lopez, an “outsider” who wants to get on in politics, but who has no money.  
Lopez is dishonest and sleazy and Glencora’s foolish involvement with him angers Plantagenet.   Trollope dislikes tyrannical husbands like Kennedy or Louis Trevelyan but he veers between sympathising with rebellious wives like Glencora and at times criticise them for their “unfeminine” behaviour.

End of Part I

Rhys Bowen - some spoilers

I have just read one of Bowen’s Georgiana series, which takes us up to the marriage of Georgie and her Irish boyfriend Darcy O’Mara.

It was a charming read, and I enjoyed it... and am looking forward to the next one which is set in the Happy Valley scandals of Kenya in the 1930s.

In “Four Funerals and maybe a Wedding”, Georgie is preparing for her wedding... and Darcy is away on one of his secret missions.

The Funerals refer not only to deaths among the villains, but also deaths within Georgiana’s circle.   Her friend Belinda is back, having given birth to a baby abroad.  She has taken up her designing work again and is insisting that she has given up on men…

One of the deaths has an effect on Georgie’s mother Claire… a former actress who has spent most of her life as a “Bolter”, moving from one man to another.  She had been planning to marry Max, a German industrialist... Now, his father has died... and he has postponed the wedding.  Possibly Bowen wanted to detach Claire from her unfortunate link with Nazi Germany.

The other death is of Hettie Huggins, an older widow, who was engaged to Albert, Georgie’s working class grandfather... Georgie loves her grandfather and did not think that Hettie was right for him... So when she dies of a heart attack, there is an element of relief…

We also find that Binky, Georgie’s half-brother, the Duke of Rannoch, is finally beginning to stand up to his awful domineering wife, Hilda (known as Fig)... She is something like Fanny Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility....

Georgie has been busy with her wedding preparations when she gets a letter from her former stepfather, Sir Hubert.  He is a rich man who travels abroad often...and who wants to make her his heir.  
He has a large house, and offers her the use of it so she and Darcy will have a home.

 When she moves in to look at the place, the staff are very odd and hostile. Georgie learns to assert herself, and solves the mystery...and gets some experience of running a household.  She has the aid of her grandfather, a former policeman, and her clumsy but good natured maid, Queenie…

Queenie has now improved somewhat since their trip to Ireland and though she is still not much good as a lady’s maid, she has learned to cook and is considering a career as a cook…  there are even hints of a possible romance for her…

The novel ends with Sir Hubert’s return which seems to indicate a possible reconciliation with Georgie’s mother who was married to him years ago. And of course with Georgie’s wedding.

She and Darcy marry in a Catholic church... and have the little Princesses as bridesmaids.  All goes well... and she does not fall over or tear her dress!  And she and Darcy have a lovely honeymoon…

Beds and Blue Jeans on Amazon

Beds and Blue Jeans is a romance novella set in present day America.  It is a realistic story about a young couple who live together, have a baby.. and find things are not working...  They find a way to make the best of their relationship, for the sake of their child..and grow to love each other....

http://www.amazon.com/Beds-Blue-Jeans-everyday-mayhem-ebook/dp/B01370SMFO/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1443265304&sr=8-2&keywords=nadine+sutton

More Irish names

Irish names have had 2 main sources, partly Catholic names because the bulk of the population were devoutly Catholic... so it was natural that they would use saints’ names.  (The Anglo Irish gentry and middle class who originated from England and who were usually Protestant followed traditional English naming).

Catholic names which were popular included many saints’ names and names such as Carmel (from the name of the Carmelite Nuns)… And, well into the 20^th century Mary was a very well used name. It was often given as  a second name, even at times for boys, and there were numerous variations of it which were used for girls… These included Maria, Marian, Marie. Maire (or Maura) and the diminutive Maureen….

Saints names included Bernadette (After St Bernadette of Lourdes), Theresa after St Therese of Liseiux, Angela, Catherine (or Catriona)… Madeleine (after Mary Magdalen).

Male catholic names included Brendan, Kevin, Gabriel, and Raphael…

The other main influence on names particularly into the 20^th century was Irish literature and mythology.  These names have become more and more popular as Ireland has become more secularised…

In the late 19^th century, there was a revival of interest in Gaelic literature and folklore, called by some the Celtic Dawn.  Poets and writers produced plays, poems and novels which were new versions of the old Celtic Mythology.   One such name was Etain (pronounced AYTAWN).. which was based on the story of Princess Etain of the fair Hair..  Russell Boughton, an English composer, wrote an opera (the Immortal Hour) based on a play by the author William Sharp…

Yeats was an admirer of the Celtic myths and many of his poems referred to the stories... which brought about an interest in the names.  He wrote about Queen Maeve an ancient warrior Queen... and wrote a poem on the Children of Lir... which popularised the name Fionnuala, (meaning white Shoulders).  The children of Lir were turned into swans by their jealous stepmother and were only released from the spell when Ireland became Christian….  Fionnuala was anglicised as Fenella.. and there was also a variant Finola..

The Celtic revivalists also wrote plays based on the “Story of Dermot and Grainne” which is similar to the “Love triangle” story of Arthur, Guenevere and Lancelot, or Mark, Isolde and Tristram, in British mythology…  Grainne is the young “late in life” wife of Fionn McCumhall, a king.. He marries her but is too old to attract her, and she falls in love with the young and handsome Dermot.. They run away together and it ends tragically…

The name Fionn or Finn has never been that popular but Dermot has been well used (it means free from  envy.....  and Grainne (sometimes spelled Grania) has also been very popular…  Grainne is based on the Irish word for love.. Gra – pronounced GRAW….

more follows!

Millais Part II

Millais’s first large Pre Raphaelite work caused a lot of controversy... It was a study from the life of Christ... Christ as a boy in the Carpenters shop.  Because it was realistic, it was considered ugly and almost blasphemous and not the sort of safe picture that the Royal Academy would usually display.  Charles Dickens (ironically in view of his own kind of writing which was also considered ugly and “low” by many) was one of those who criticised his work quite sharply.  The Pre Raphaelite movement did not get off to a good start with this controversy.  Some of the younger painters found it hard to get their work exhibited because of the negative reaction of critics and some of the public.  Millais was luckier than most because he had family money behind him, which helped to buffer him for a few years.

Public taste did change, and the beauty and technical skill of Millais and the other painters’ work began to accustom art lovers to the new ideas. 

John Ruskin the art critic defended Millais in the controversy over the Christ painting and spoke well of the Pre Raphaelites' work and their ideals. He supported their wish to paint only from nature and to do it realistically….He agreed with their desire to paint in order to create beauty and art, rather than to make money…and with their desire to return to medieval simplicity rather than the ornate works and mannered paintings  of later artists.

Ruskin was friendly with Millais at first but then his friendship was destroyed by a tragic event which was to change both men’s lives.   Ruskin spent time with Millais and introduced him to his young wife Effie.   She sat for Millais as a model for one of his paintings; the Order of Release...which was based on the events of the Jacobite rebellion… The young people  grew close to each other during their time together and Millais also planned another painting with Ruskin and Effie during a holiday in Scotland.  
Effie had been married to Ruskin for a few years but the marriage was disastrously unhappy.  He was a highly intelligent man and a polymath, but he was dominated over by his parents in spite of his interests in art and radical theories of politics… In addition, he seems to have had psycho sexual problems, which made him confused about women and the marriage remained unconsummated.  

Ruskin was ambivalent about his marriage.  At times he was unkind to his wife and she was desperately unhappy at his refusal or inability to consummate the marriage and have children.  He claimed that she was too young at first and that he did not want children... But as time passed Effie grew more confused and miserable and it made her ill…

Ruskin however seems to have been reluctant to end the marriage.  Effie had gone to her parents…Realising that there was a way out, she left her husband and filed a suit for nullification of the marriage.   She secured her freedom but many were scandalised by the annulment... She married Millais a year later and they had 8 children... She and Millais were socially active.. But she was not received by some people, though many supported her and sympathised.  
When Millais became a successful painter, he was received by Queen Victoria but the queen refused to meet his wife... Until many years later when he was dying...

Millais’ marriage seems to have had an effect on his work.  With a large family to support, he had to work faster, and produce more pictures.  He  began to abandon the strict Pre Raphaelite ideals and to paint in different styles….

John Millais Painter Part I

John Everett Millais is a very interesting painter, who pioneered the Pre Raphaelite style...  He was later criticised for “selling out” and wanting just to make money with his paintings but he was one of the best painters of that style of work.  He was born in Southampton in 1829, but his family were from Jersey in the Channel Islands and he was reared mostly there.  He loved his native island.  His Mother, who was very interested in art and music, noted his talent at an early age and encouraged it.  She was a very forceful determined woman.  The family was not very rich but comfortable.. His father lived on a private income and described himself as a gentleman.  (So Millais was not as poor as some of the other Pre Raphaelites when starting off).   Mrs Millais moved them to London so that he could have training in painting... and he became a pupil of the Royal Academy at the very early age of 11.  He was always grateful to her for her support…

The family lived in the “artistic” part of London, Bloomsbury, in Gower Street. At the Royal Academy he met other young painters who were rebelling against the staid training and conventionality of the place.  In 1848 Millais,  Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and Holman Hunt began to formulate ideas for a new style of art and formed the Pre Raphaelite Brotherhood.  They wanted to back to the simplicities of painting before Raphael….

They took themes from contemporary and other literature rather than the Greek and Roman Classics... and from British and European history and also from modern life. They rejected the idealistic traditions of the Academy, the use of a lot of "brown" in the colouring and the big heavy looking pictures.  They  tried to make their paintings as realistic as possible.   Millais had a great appreciation of natural beauty, and he also tried to ensure that his work was scientifically accurate.  The Pre Raphaelites often painted on subjects from Shakespeare...such as Ophelia’s drowning.  There were also paintings from Tennyson... and later on Millais worked as an illustrator of Victorian novels, including drawing the characters of Antony Trollope.

Royal Names (Stuarts)

The Stuart dynasty died out with the death of Queen Anne.. and the German Hanoverian line took over. Queen Anne’s younger half Brother, known to Jacobites as James III was barred because of his Catholicism. 

The next Protestant heir was Sophia of Hanover, daughter of Elizabeth Stuart, James I’s daughter… Sophia was married to a German prince.. She died shortly before Anne -so the throne went to her son, George I.  The arrival of the Hanoverian kings brought in Germanic names.  The Stuarts had usually married Catholic princesses from France or Italy.. And this brought in more exotic names.

The Stuarts were Scottish and their first King of England was named James, like many of his ancestors.  He had several children but his 2 sons who grew to adulthood were Henry and Charles.  Henry died young so the throne went to Charles.. But the 3 names, Henry James and Charles were common in the Stuart family….

Henry was of course the name of 8 previous kings.. and means “home ruler”.  James is a version of the biblical name Jacob.. which was Latinised as Jacobus or Jacomus..   

Charles is from a German name meaning “man”.. But it came into the Stuart family in the French version “Charles”.  Mary queen of Scots had been married to Francis II of France and when she had a son (James I), she named him Charles James after his godfather Charles IX of France.. her former brother in law.

 Charles I son of James I married a French princess Henriette Maria of France.. and their youngest daughter was named Henrietta Anne.. (known as Minette)… Henrietta Maria was named after her father Henri IV of France.  her name was considered foreign and was not that popular…

Other Stuart female names were the ever popular Mary and Elizabeth. The second last Stuart queen was Mary… (who was followed by her sister Anne) and James I and Charles I each had daughters called Elizabeth.

 After the exile of the Stuart dynasty, and the departure of James II to France, they still had supporters in England and Scotland who wished for a return of the dynasty and who supported uprisings to get rid of the Hanovers.  These were known as Jacobites.  Some of them called their daughters after the Pro Stuart movement by giving them the names Jacoba or Jacobina

Boxcar Willie

Boxcar Willie was born as Lecil Martin in Texas in 1931.  Like many young men born to country poverty, he joined the military... He went into the Air Force in 1949 where he served as a flight engineer and became a master Sargent.   He served during the Korean War... and during his time in the Air Force he began to write songs.   He won a few talent contests and continued with his military career. After the Korean War, he found himself serving in Germany... and in 1962 he met his future wife Lloene, with whom he had 4 children.

In the early 1970s, he was in the Texas Air National Guard as a Flight Engineer. He had written a song called Boxcar Willie and when he started his musical career he adopted this name... Many earlier country songs were about trains and the poverty stricken hoboes who “rode the rails” to get around, spending time in Boxcars.   

 In 1976, he became a full time singer and song writer... and started to appear on TV and at the Grand Old Opry.   He became a member of the Opry and was increasingly successful and popular…  His persona was old fashioned but he was a talented musician.  He was especially good at covering Hank Williams’ songs…

In 1985, he bought a theatre in Branson Missouri where he performed and he also bought some businesses there. He died in 1999 in Branson… comparatively young from leukaemia

Jeannie C Riley

Jeannie was born in Texas in 1945...as Jeanne Stephenson.  She married young…and had a daughter at 19...  She and her husband, Mickey Riley moved to Nashville after their child’s birth and Jeannie got a job as a secretary while she tried to get a start in music.  She didn’t have any success, though she made demo tapes, until she hit on the song Harper Valley PTA by Tom T Hall.  
Hall was good at story songs... this one is about a young widowed woman, Mrs Johnson, who is criticised by the local PTA for “scandalous” behaviour like wearing short skirts and “running around with men.”

She defies the PTA by going to their next meeting and telling all about their own scandalous behaviour, which Is much worse than anything she has done.    One man has “asked for her a date” 7 times.  Another one can’t be there “because he’s stayed too long in Kelly’s Bar again…”  Another woman keeps using a lot of ice when her husband’s away…and one of the men has had a secretary who “had to leave this town.” 
Jeannie was a very pretty young woman and broke with country tradition by earing short skirts and go go boots when singing but she wasn’t all that comfortable with her “sexy “image. It was unusual for a woman country singer to dress in a modern fashion at the time... but it was part of the changing condition of the 1960s.
in later years Jeannie turned to Gospel music and adopted a more conservative style..but Harper Valley PTA was her biggest hit…

Royal names Part I

Another interesting theme in the names field is the names given to royal families.  These are usually limited to an extent, because they are meant to link the royals to their historical past…

In Victorian times especially,  royal children were often given literally dozens of names... to honour relatives, godparents, and ancestors.   In the 18^th century, in Britain royal children often just had one or 2 names.  However this changed in the 19^th century.  In the 18^th century too, the coming of the Hanoverian kings brought in some Germanic names... such as Adolphus, Frederick, and Augustus.  George III had 9 sons... and the eighth son was given the Latinate Name Octavian.   These names “took” to a certain extent among the aristocracy, but only Frederick is well liked now…

There was a row at Queen Victoria’s christening because George IV was not happy at the idea of her having names that would indicate she was a future queen - such as the name Elizabeth.  that was regarded as a “queen’s name”.  George also did not want her to be called Georgiana after him…

  In the end, Victoria was only given 2 names.. Alexandrina, after her godfather the Czar Alexander and Victoria after her mother.   She was sometimes called Drina as a child but later was called by her second name.. and she gave this name to most of her immediate female descendants.  She wanted all the daughters, granddaughters etc. to have the name Victoria and all the male descendants to be called Albert somewhere in their crop of names.  Victoria is of course a Latinate name which means victor or conqueror.   Albert was a Germanic name meaning   “noble and famous” which became quite popular during her long reign and often abbreviated to Al, or Bert… or Bertie.

  Victoria never seems to have become as popular among ordinary people….and was better used in the 20^th century.  However it has now vanished from the British royal family but the current heir to the Swedish crown is Princess Victoria.

Victoria’s first son was named Albert Edward and known as Bertie. When he became King, he ignored his mother’s wish that he use his father’s name or a double name Albert Edward (this was common among European royals but not in Britain).   He chose to be known as Edward VII.  Edward has been a popular royal name in England… being the name of early Saxon Kings and of 8 kings since the Norman conquest.   It means Guardian of wealth, or riches… In modern times it is still common enough..and was the regnal name of the late Duke of Windsor though in private he was known by his last name David.

Victoria had a large family..and  she set a fashion for using old English names, for many of them.  Alfred, her second son was a nod to Alfred the Great.  it probably means “wise advice.”  her next son, Arthur was again a nod to a famous king.. (in legend) and was in honor of his godfather the Duke of Wellington.  It is said to mean “Bear”….Leopold, Victoria’s youngest son did have a foreign name.. after her uncle Leopold, King of Belgium..   It was never all that popular in England, but is still used in many European royal families.

Victoria had 5 daughters, her eldest was called Victoria.. and the second was given the “old English” name of Alice…which was extremely popular in Medieval times and means noble woman.  It was well used in Victorian England.. The third daughter was called Helena.. and was given the Germanic diminutive  of Lenchen.   It again became very popular in Victorian England and means sun or shining…

Louise the next daughter was given a very common continental royal name.. which was the name of Prince Albert’s mother who had been divorced by his father. Louise is the feminine version of Louis which means famous warrior.  Princess Louise was an unconventional  young woman who achieved some fame as an artist.

Beatrice was the youngest daughter and again her name became quite popular in Victorian England..  It means happy or blessed, and is the name of Dante’s great love…and also of a Shakespearian heroine.

This is  a short post on Royal names, mostly concentrating on Victorian England.  however I hope to write some more….

Elizabeth I Part II

After her father’s death, Elizabeth went through very stressful years.  She was then in the care of her last stepmother, Katherine Parr... who soon after Henry’s death married Thomas Seymour, with whom she had been in love for some time.  
 Seymour was an ambitious unstable man. He was Edward’s uncle... and he was jealous of his brother’s position as guardian to the young King.   He was fond of his wife but he had an inappropriate  attraction towards her 14 year old charge.  He began to flirt with the young Elizabeth, and she seems to have been embarrassed but also excited by her step father’s behaviour.   Katherine Parr turned a blind eye for a time, hoping that her husband would stop his foolish behaviour.  if she tried not to notice it.  Katherine was pregnant for the first time and under strain. 
Her husband was on bad terms with his brother Edward and there were disputes with Edward Seymour and his wife…about her status.

When Katherine caught Thomas in an embrace with Elizabeth, she finally acted...  She remained fond of her – but sent her away to another house, to keep her out of Thomas’ way.  Elizabeth seems to have remained close to her, and they wrote to each other when she had moved.  A few months later, Katherine died in childbirth, having given birth to a daughter, Mary who probably died in infancy.

Now Thomas was free again and he seems to have begun to plot to take over control of King Edward, who liked him better than his other uncle, the Lord Protector.    He also seemed eager to renew his attentions to Elizabeth, in hopes of marrying her.  Elizabeth avoided getting entangled with him… though her governess, Kat Ashley teased her about her old suitor being free to marry…

In 1549 Seymour was arrested and details emerged about his foolish flirtation with Elizabeth. Elizabeth’s governess and another servant, Thomas Parry were arrested and she knew she was in danger of being considered guilty of involvement in Thomas Seymour’s plots.   However young as she was, she coolly and stubbornly refused to admit anything.  When Seymour was executed, in March 1549, she is reputed to have said “This day died a man with much wit and very little judgement.”

Elizabeth I Part I

Elizabeth is considered one of the most famous and successful British Monarchs.. Her reign was a long one.. 45 years.. and was a period of expansion for England. She was highly intelligent and had profited from a very good education.

She was born in Greenwich in 1533.. Her birth was considered illegitimate by some, because not everyone recognised the divorce between Henry VIII and his first wife Catherine of Aragon. Anne Boleyn had become pregnant by Henry before they went through a marriage ceremony, which was kept secret.  Anne was proclaimed queen and crowned in 1533, in the summer....when she was already some months pregnant.

Elizabeth’s birth was a disappointment to her parents, because they had hoped for a son and Henry had convinced himself that his first marriage had not been lawful and that one of the signs of its being wrong was that God had not given him a living son…

However, Henry and Anne were still in love and hoped that the next child would be a boy.  Elizabeth had a splendid christening and Thomas Cranmer was one of her godfathers.

Elizabeth was cared for in her own household away from court… and was announced to be heir presumptive until a son was born.  Her older half sister Mary was declared illegitimate and stripped of her rank…

But when her parents’ marriage failed, and ended with the execution of Anne and her disgrace, Elizabeth’s status abruptly declined.  She was somewhat neglected.. No one provided her with new clothes and she was declared illegitimate.  Henry had married Jane Seymour within a few days of Anne’s death and soon a son was born…who was of course heir to the throne.. 

 In 1537, Elizabeth was placed in the care of a new governess, Katherine Champernowne, who later married a Mr Ashley.  Katherine was devoted to Elizabeth and a second mother to her. Kat gave Elizabeth her first lessons and the child showed a gift for languages.  She then became a pupil of William Grindal…

She learned Latin and Greek and also was able to speak French and Italian.

Later she became the pupil of Roger Ascham.. who was a famous educationalist.

Elizabeth was never particularly close to her sister Mary, partly because of religious differences, but she loved her brother Edward, who shared her intellectual interests and cleverness.