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. 

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Beds and Blue Jeans is set in present day America.  It is about a love affair between a young couple who drift into living together and having a baby, and how they make things work.. and how they move into a deeper relationship

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Jane Austen Part III

Austen began to get her work published but she did so under the name “A Lady”... because as a gentlewoman it was not considered proper for her to use her name or to be involved in a commercial undertaking. 
However while she was pleased to retain anonymity, she was also gratified that her works made her a little money.   Her brother Henry, who had become a banker, had had his bank fail and was in debt and the rest of the family were not that well off.  So she was happy to be able to earn something to give her a small income of her own.
She wrote that she liked praise for her work but she also liked the earning power.   She had 4 of her novels published in her lifetime and they were admired and reasonably popular.  They were Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Emma and Mansfield Park.  
Mansfield Park was not so well liked as the others, being darker in tone and somewhat “Victorian” and moralistic and did not sell as well as Emma.   The Prince Regent admired her writing and kept copies of her works in all his homes.   Austen was pressured to dedicate Emma to him... which she did not want to do, because she disapproved of “Prinny” and his selfish extravagant and immoral behaviour.

However she agreed to dedicate the book, but then continued with her writing.  Her brother had purchased back the copyright of “Susan” which was the original name for “Northanger Abbey”.  The book had been bought some years earlier by a publisher but had never been published.   Austen had been looking at it, and planned to revise it and have it published but she was short of ready money -due to the family's financial problems.  Many of the Austens had lost money with the collapse of Henry's Bank... And she was beginning to have health problems.
She began to feel unwell in 1816, possibly with Addison’s Disease.  She tried to ignore her growing ill health; she had always made fun of hypochondriacs.. such as Mary Musgrove or Mrs Bennet...
 She was working on what would later be “Persuasion”, but which she called “The Elliots”.   It was her last novel and was much more sentimental and emotional than her earlier works.  Her heroine Anne Elliott, having accepted “prudent” advice about marriage had broken her engagement to Frederick Wentworth.  Then years later, Anne meets him again and they fall in love again.  Austen was increasingly weak and ill, but she continued to write her novel and even revised the ending, because she was not happy with it. She was depressed and ill, when her uncle who was a rich man, died and left all of his fortune to his wife...bypassing Austen and other relations who had hoped for some kind of legacy, she suffered a relapse.

She finished Persuasion in 1816  and began to write another novel.. Sanditon.  In it, she wrote about a spa town for invalids, mocking hypochondria, in spite of her own increasing weakness.  She moved to Winchester to have better medical care... but her illness got worse and she died at the age of 41, in 1817.

Jane Austen Part II

In 1800 when Jane was around 25, her father decided to retire from his ministry and move to Bath... leaving his parish to his son who was also ordained.  Many of Jane’s brothers were in the navy but her brother James was a clergyman.... Jane was taken aback by the sudden decision that she would have to move to Bath and she never liked the city.   However she still had a reasonably busy social life and continued to write. 
In 1802 when she was 27, she received a marriage proposal from Harris Bigg Wither.  She was friendly with the family and seems to have accepted the proposal on the grounds that she would have the status of marriage and a comfortable life... But overnight, she changed her mind and broke off the engagement.  Harris was several years her junior and something of an awkward clumsy  difficult young man… and Jane clearly felt that she could not marry without love or at least affection.  In 1805, her father died suddenly, and Jane and her sister and mother were left not very well off.  Her brothers contributed some money for their upkeep but they were starting in their careers and the money was limited. Jane had passed up the chance of marriage so she may have realised that she was likely to be a not very well off spinster.  She loved her sister, but had a prickly relationship with her mother.

She Cassandra and Mrs Austen lived in Lodgings in Bath and sometimes shared quarters with relatives including her brother Frank… A few years later, however Edward Austen, one of her brothers, who had been adopted by a wealthy relative, offered them a cottage on his property in Hampshire. Jane and her mother and sister settled into Chawton Cottage and led a quiet life.  They didn’t socialise much, except with family and busied themselves with housekeeping and charity work. Jane was now able to devote herself more to her writing and to concentrate on getting her mature works published.

Jane Austen early life

Jane Austen was born in Hampshire in 1775, and died tragically early, in her 40s.  She was the daughter of a clergyman, the Rev George Austen.  His family had been wealthy merchants but had lost money and he was reared by relatives.  Her mother’s family the Leighs were moderately well to do gentry.  George Austen met Cassandra Leigh in Oxford in 1793 and they married soon after.  George acquired a respectable church living, which gave him a steady income...
They moved into a farm on the estate where it was based, in Steventon. Their income was small though and they had a large family, mostly boys - who would need to be educated and started off in professions.  Jane was the younger of the 2 girls, the elder being her much loved sister Cassandra. George Austen added to his income by farming his land and teaching young boys. Jane was educated partly at home, and also in a girls school in Reading.   Her father was an intelligent and well-read man and did not place many restrictions on his daughter’s access to books.

Jane enjoyed reading and soon was trying her hand at writing.  Her juvenilia were often quite racy works... involving jokes about drunkenness, elopement and scandal.  She also enjoyed private theatricals. In her teens, she wrote a novel mocking the “novels about sensibility” which were popular at the time... but which she thought of as risible. It was called “Love and Friendship”.  She also wrote Elinor and Marianne, an early version of “Sense and Sensibility.”  Another early work was “First Impressions” which she later revised and published as Pride and Prejudice.

At the age of 20, Jane became involved in a flirtation with a young Irishman, Tom Lefroy who was a relative of her good friend Mrs Lefroy.  She seems to have been attracted to him and they enjoyed each other’s company, but neither had any money so marriage was not a possibility.  His family intervened and sent him away and Jane never saw him again.  She liked male company, but was of a happy disposition, enjoying her social life, the company of her beloved family and her writing. 

In her early 20s, with her father’s help, she began to try to get her novels published but had no success

Napoleon and Josephine

Napoleon’s next command was in Egypt.  He had to leave Josephine behind but took with him her son Eugene who was now a young soldier... Eugene loved and admired his stepfather and Hortense, Josephine’s daughter, while initially disliking him, grew fond of him and treated him as a father...and he became very fond of her...
 
The Bonaparte family as a whole still disliked their Creole sister in law... and hoped that eventually she would slip up and Napoleon would divorce her.  Josephine had bought a chateau called Malmaison, just outside Paris... which she loved and spent a fortune on.  She adored flowers and gardens and wanted to make the garden a special place for growing roses.

Napoleon was still a devoted loving husband.  He tolerated Josephine’s socialising and spending and his only real grievance was that she had not had a child...  And she was 6 years his senior….so he was worried that there might not be any children.

She was continuing her affair with Hippolyte Charles who had left the army and made a fortune in somewhat dubious business dealings. She became increasingly indiscreet – seeing Charles at Malmaison  where they were almost living as husband and wife.  Finally rumours of the affair reached the British press and spread to Egypt.  Napoleon who was winning great victories in his campaign finally was told of his wife’s infidelity.   He was incredulous and then furious.  He told his aide that there would be a divorce...  He still had political ambitions as well as military ones and wanted to go home to France to end his marriage and pursue his political career.  However, it was not easy to break the British blockade and get back to France.  So initially he found himself a mistress, a French officer’s wife called Pauline Foures.   Pauline was a pretty blonde who had accompanied her husband to Egypt... some said she was disguised as a soldier.  Napoleon sent her husband on a mission and embarked on very public affair with her.   He hoped that she would become pregnant, but it didn’t happen and he said, annoyed that the “little fool didn’t know how to have a baby. "  However he was more interested in returning to France, and overthrowing the increasingly unpopular Directorate.  His affair with Pauline Foures was only a brief diversion

Empress Josephine Part III

Napoleon and Josephine had a civil marriage in 1796, and after a short and impassioned honeymoon, the groom left to command the French army in Italy. He never called her “Rose”... he liked the name Josephine and from then on, she began to use that name... based on her middle name Josephe.

Napoleon was ardently in love... but Josephine’s feelings for him were lukewarm.  
She told friends “Il et drole, Bonaparte” (He’s funny, Bonaparte) and was more interested in her social life and her children than her new husband.  She had married him for financial security...  He would later claim to have married her for her money but in point of fact she did not have much and he was rather, passionately in love. She remained in Paris while he went to war, but he wrote her passionate love letters which have become famous... and tried to persuade her, once it was safe, to come to Italy to be with him. 
Josephine did not want to leave her beloved Paris and her comfortable life. She was soon having an affair with Hippolyte Charles, a handsome and sophisticated Hussar officer whose charming manners were more to her taste than Napoleon’s bursts of ardour and his rough social manner.  He was never comfortable with women and was often very rude to them. His family did not like Josephine either, seeing her as a loose woman who was too glamorous and Parisian for them.  His sisters felt gauche and clumsy beside her elegance and charm.

Josephine put him off when he tired to persuade her to go to join him in Italy, claiming that she was pregnant and could not travel...
However eventually she yielded to his entreaties and made the journey... the pregnancy was either a mistake or a deliberate lie... because she and Napoleon never had any children.

Napoleon was delighted to see his wife and she was treated almost as a queen in Italy.  He had won great victories and was increasingly popular in France.  He knew that as well as his military skills, he was highly intelligent and that he would probably be accepted as a ruler since people in France were increasingly fed up with the corrupted Directorate.

On his return to Paris, he made use of his wife’s social skills to attract supporters to his cause. Josephine continued her affair with Charles, but Napoleon was so in love that he seemed blind to it.

Empress Josephine Part II First Marriage

Within a few years, the marriage of the young couple ended in a legal separation.  
Josephine went to live in a pleasant convent... where she received some training and education in the social graces.  Alexandre continued his own life with mistresses... He had custody of their son Eugene but Josephine who was a most devoted mother, had Hortense.   
He was sympathetic like many young upper class men, to the French revolution, favouring liberal ideas and the cause of moderate reform. 
Josephine was never political but she sympathised with her husband’s ideas.  Alexandre was part of the Revolutionary army.  However as time went on, aristocrats came under suspicion from the more radical revolutionaries. He was suspected of not having defended Mainz in 1793 and was arrested and executed.  Josephine, in spite of her liberal sympathies, was also arrested and spent time in prison.   She narrowly escaped execution during the Reign of Terror but when Robespierre died, she was freed with many other aristocratic prisoners. In 1794, she resumed her old social life, with her children and tried to have her husband’s properties restored to her.  However she had few resources other than her looks and charm and social skills…. and she had 2 children to support.

She took a few lovers and acted as hostess and Mistress to Paul Barras, an important figure in the Directorate which ruled France.. and a man of large fortune.  Barras kept her and she used her social experience to host his parties.  However Josephine was always extravagant and frivolous...and Barras was tiring of her.  She embarked on an affair with a young general, Napoleon Bonaparte, who was 6 years her junior and who was showing signs of being a military genius.  
Barras gave the young man the command of the armies of Italy, hoping that he would win victories which would shore up the shaky Directorate.  Napoleon was passionately in love with Josephine and wanted to marry her, in spite of her shady past, her children, and her age.  He knew that his mother would not approve of his marrying a widow some year his senior but he was so in love that he hastened into marriage.    

Josephine, Empress of the French part I

Josephine Bonaparte, Empress of the French was born a Creole aristocrat on the French ruled Island of Martinique in 1763. She is famous for her marriage to Napoleon but she was an interesting character in her own right. Her father Joseph Tascher de La Pagerie, owned a sugar plantation, which was worked by salves and they were well to do, but after a hurricane destroyed part of the estate, they had financial problems. One of her aunts, Edmee, had gone to France and become the Mistress of a wealthy French aristocrat the marquis de Beauharnais.  He married Edmee after his wife’s death and this was an important connection.  Edmee arranged a marriage between her niece Catherine, and the Marquis’ son, Alexandre.  But Catherine died before the marriage could be fulfilled.  So it was arranged that Alexandre should settle for Marie Josephe Rose, her younger sister.   
Josephine was then usually called Yeyette by her family.  She was eager to marry and went to France to meet her new husband. She was only 16 but such marriages were not uncommon.  Alexandre seemed willing to like his young bride... but soon became disappointed with her.  She was not well educated or very sophisticated, coming from a relatively impoverished colonial background.  Alexandre was used to elegant and sophisticated ladies…. He tried to educate his wife but she was not what he wanted in a bride.

In France she was usually known by her last name Rose...  She tried to comply with what Alexandre wished and the marriage produced 2 children, Eugene and Hortense… But it was increasingly unhappy.  Alexandre was unfaithful but became insanely jealous when he suspected his wife of infidelity.