Jane Seymour Henry's Third Queen

 Jane Seymour was the third wife of Henry VIII and the only one to give him a surviving son.  But she is a rather shadowy figure.  Most of Henry’s wives are strong personalities in their own right.

Jane was born in Wiltshire to Sir John Seymour and his wife Margery and was one of a large family.  Her family were distantly related to Henry….Her eldest brother Edward and another brother, Thomas were both courtiers who were involved in politics during the reign of Edward VI.

Her birth date is unclear but its probably around 1507 or 1508.  Like Anne Boleyn she was a lady in waiting to Katherine of Aragon.  Unlike Anne, she does not seem to have had much education nor did she travel abroad. Little is known of her early life.  She was said to have had a romance with a young country gentleman called William Dormer but he married another woman.  

Jane seems to have been a conservative minded Catholic and to ahve been loyal to Katherine, when she was queen and afterwards.  She remained at court, and was a maid to Anne Boleyn… but it is probable that she never gave the new queen full loyalty.

In the last months of Anne’s reign, stories emerged of Henry’s having a flirtation with Jane, and Anne attacking both of them for kissing. Anne was increasingly hysterical and frightened after her miscarriage in January 1536 as she feared that having lost another child, Henry might now try to put her aside as he had done with his first wife.

Jane seems to have been coy with Henry, telling him that she would not be his mistress and saying that if he wanted to give her a present, he should do so when she had received a good offer of marriage. 

End Part I

Lord Byron part III

 Byron visited Malta and Greece, which was of interest to him since like most English upper class boys he had been schooled in the classics, learning Latin and Greek and studying their ancient cultures.   He  developed a  friendship with a young lad who may have become his lover…

He spent 2 years travelling and then returned to England in 1811, and his experiences brought him material for long dramatic poems….On his return he published Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, whose hero is like Byron, a young man sated and bored with his homeland, who seeks diversion in travelling and love affairs in foreign lands. Byron sympathised with the Greek people, and supported the cause of Greek independence… and he found the Ottoman Empire’s culture interesting as well, particularly since there was greater sympathy for homoerotic relationships.  He seems to have been sexually attracted to women but to have disliked them and preferred  male company. 

On the publication of the first Parts of Childe Harold, Byron as he put it, awoke to find himself famous.  The poem was a seminal one, exemplifying tee new Romanticism, the interest in the exoticism of foreign lands.  It had a great influence on future writers and painters. Byron had the entree to Regency society, due to his birth and his poem made him adored and lionised in the highest social circle.

He seemed rather bored with social events and concentrated on writing more poems, including the Bride of Abydos which had a Turkish theme.  He became involved in a very public love affair with the rather unstable socialite Lady Caroline Lamb.. who fell madly in love with him, and followed him about to parties, making scenes.  He grew bored with her and continued to have affairs with other women, and to live extravagantly, running up debts.

Byron’s mother had died in 1811 and he began to think of trying to find a wife, who might have some money and help with his financial problems.  He began to court an heiress, Annabella Milbanke, who was unusually intelligent and interested in mathematics.  Byron was attracted to her but his chief motive in thinking of marriage was probably to sort out money problems. He did not have a high opinion of women’s intelligence.

During his courtship of Annabella, he renewed contact with his half sister, Augusta Leigh who was the daughter of his fathers first marriage.  He and Augusta had not known each other well until this time  so they met almost as strangers.  It seemed that a mutual attraction flared up which may have led to an incestuous affair. The half brother and sister were certainly very close and fascinated with each other.  It didn’t bode well for Byron’s marriage. 

Within a short time of the marriage, it was obvious that it had been a mistake.  Byron was depressed and gloomy, he drank heavily and was so erratic that Annabella feared he was mad and began to fear for her life.   He insinuated to her that he had been having an affair with Augusta... and talked so wildly that she was afraid of him...

Scottish names

 Scottish names are mainly derived from Scots Gaelic a Celtic language which is similar to Irish.  

There are some distinctive names which have passed into general UK culture and become popular overall.

Alison is a variant of Alice which was used in the Middle Ages.  It is the name of a character in the Canterbury Tales and was very popular in Scotland.

Another girls names is Kirsty which is a Scottish abbreviation of Christine and which has now become an independent name.  The name means “Christian”.

Maisie is now quite a popular name with no Scottish overtones but it was originally an abbreviation in Scotland for Margaret (which means pearl).

Jean comes from the medieval French name Jehane (for Jane) but has been much used in Scotland.  However Janet is the Scottish version of Jane….

Jessie was often used as a nickname for Janet but can also be an abbreviation of Jessica...

Fiona is a very popular name which was invented by the Scottish writer William Sharp in the 19^th century..  He wrote as Fiona Macleod, and the name was meant to be a feminine version of Finn or Fionn which means “fair”.

There are also several male names, including Innes which means island…

Another is Keith which means forest and has become very popular all over the UK.  Kelvin is the name of a Scottish river and was taken as a title by William Thompson, who was a pioneering scientist and engineer.  Thomson was born in Ireland but worked in Scotland and when he became the first scientist to be ennobled, he took the title Kelvin after a river he knew.  It has become popular and lost its Scottish associations.

Kenneth which means handsome was a royal Scottish name and is well known all over the English speaking world..  Its also famous as the name of Kenneth Grahame, author of the Wind in the Willows.

Kyle which means a narrow channel, has become more popular in the US.

Hamish is the Scottish version of James which means “Supplanter”.  Douglas is a very popular Scottish name, In the Middle ages it was also a name used for girls, one particular female Douglas was Douglas Sheffield, a lady of Queen Elizabeth’s court, who was the mistress of Robert Dudley.  The name means “dark water” and was originally a surname, the name of one of the great Scottish noble families.

I hope to write a bit more about Scottish and Gaelic names….

 

George Lord Byron part II

 During his teens, he fell in love with a young woman who was a little older than him, Mary Chaworth. However he overheard her remarking “Do you think that I could care for that lame boy?” which hurt him desperately.  During his years at Harrow though he also had many emotional attachments to other boys… which may have had a sexual component. He went later to Cambridge and also formed close friendships with young men of his own class. Although he was sexually attracted to some women, he did not seem to like women very much and found more pleasure in the companionship of his men friends..   His bad relationship with his mother may have accounted for this ambivalent attitude towards women. 

He developed liberal political views and sought out friends who shared them.  He also continued to enjoy sports such as boxing and horse riding which he pursued eagerly.

At college he was happy but annoyed his mother by gambling and spending too much money.   In 1809, he followed tradition by going on a Grand Tour, which was the custom for rich young men and which was supposed to educate them in the ways of foreign countries.  The ongoing Napoleonic wars restricted where he could travel.. He started out from Portugal and planned to go to the Eastern Ottoman Empire.

 

George Gordon Byron

 Lord Byron is famous as a poet, aristocrat and radical activist in the Regency era.  He was a talented man, but had a wild streak which led him into self indulgent behaviour and scandal and he ended up living in exile…

His father, Jack Byron was a naval officer who also led a somewhat scandalous life.  Jack Byron was married twice, once to a divorced aristocrat Amelia Lady Camarthen.  Amelia had an affair with Jack and was divorced by her husband because she became pregnant by her lover.  A few weeks after the divorce, Jack married her and their first child was born shortly afterwards.  However Amelia died a few years later leaving him with only one living child, a daughter Augusta.

In 1785, he married again to a Scottish heiress Catherine Gordon probably for her money.  She had inherited an estate but within a short time, the estate had to be sold to pay Jacks debts.  Their son George was born in London in January 1788, and the couple were now comparatively poor….Their marriage was far from happy and Jack died a few years later.  Catherine was unhappy, had a difficult temperament and was struggling with poverty… and trying to pay off her husband’s debts.

Jack was heir presumptive to a barony and so the young George had some prospects of inheriting a title and some property. However when the old Lord Byron (known as the wicked Lord Byron) died in 1798, Catherine took her son to the ancestral property, Newstead Abbey, only to find it was run down and uncomfortable.

She leased it to various tenants, in order to find money to give her son the usual upper class education.  She was a foolishly indulgent mother but Byron did not care much for her.  He was embittered by the fact that he had been born with a damaged foot and was lame.  Byron was spoiled and lacked discipline. - which probably led to his problems in later life.

  He went to Harrow in 1801 but in spite of being intelligent, he was a poor student.  Due to his lameness, he had difficulties with games but he threw himself into sports in an attempt to compensate for his disability.. He liked cricket, and was later to take up boxing.  He frequently over exercised.. finding it difficulty to do anything in moderation.

 

Anne Bronte V

 Anne's Tenant went to a second edition, though it was not as popular as Jane Eyre..  Charlotte continued to believe that her sister had been wrong to undertake such a gloomy work.. but Anne believed she was right.  In 1848, the sisters realised that there were rumours going around that all the Bell books had been written by the same person and to stop gossip in the publishing world, Charlotte felt that they had to go to London and let themselves be seen and known by their publisher.  Emily refused to go but Anne and Charlotte made a trip in the summer and spent a few days in London.  They tried to maintain their anonymity but rumours leaked out that the Bell books were the works of the daughters of Patrick Bronte, curate of Haworth.. and none of them liked the loss of privacy.  

A few months after their visit, Branwell fell ill and died suddenly probably from TB exacerbated by his drinking.  Then Emily caught a cold at his funeral and developed TB which killed her within a short time.  She refused medicines and doctor.  Anne's health began to weaken - she fought against the illness... and took the medicines offered but she was obviously mortally ill..  She and Charlotte and Ellen Nussey, Charlotte's friend, took a trip to Scarborough a town which Anne loved.. and she died there at the age of 29.  She left very few writings, her poetry, and her 2 novels.. both of which were rather heavily moralistic.. but given time, her gifts might have developed.  She is buried at Scarborough.....

Anne Bronte Part IV

 Anne's novel was short and in my own opinion not that interesting, compared  with Charlotte's or Emily's work.  Emily's novel got some good critical attention but did not sell well and was also criticised for its violence and amoral characters.  

Anne was working on her second novel, Tenant of Wildfell hall.. which was largely written as a warning against drink and debauchery.  It was very popular but many were shocked by the subject matter.  It is the story of a young girl who marries a rake believing that she can improve him.. and she finds that he becomes a drunkard, has mistresses and begins to teach their son to drink as well.  Helen, the wife leaves her husband.. and Anne Bronte makes it clear that she thinks she was right to walk out on him.  Eventually she does return to look after him when he is dying and then she makes a second marriage to a young respectable gentleman farmer, Gilbert Markham....  Anne's depiction of the husband's drunken ways, and Helen's leaving him roused a lot of criticism.  Charlotte felt that her sister was wrong to choose such depressing and sordid subject matter but believed that Anne had done it with the best of intentions, in order to show that rakes don't usually reform and to portray the evils of drink.. based loosely on the problems suffered by Branwell Bronte....

Charley Pride RIP

 Charley was born in Mississippi to a family of share croppers and was one of the few African Americans to become a famous country singer and a member of the Grand Old Opry.  He has just died at the age of 86 of  Corona complications.  He went on performing till late in life... 

Some of his biggest  hits were Kiss an Angel Good Morning and "Is there anyone going to San Antone.."

Anne Bronte Part III

 Anne returned home to look for another job, and met Willie Weightman her father’s new curate. Willie was a lively but sweet-tempered young man.  Mostly, the girls didn’t like their father’s curates, finding them narrow minded, and pompous, but all of them liked Weightman.  He was pleasantly flirtatious and sent the sisters their first Valentines….  It seems that Anne was attracted to him and may have fallen a little  in love with him. Its not clear if he was interested in her but he was a poor curate and not in a a position to marry.  He seems to have been the only young man that Anne was interested in. Sadly he died young.

Anne found another position as governess with the Robinson family, in Yorkshire.  She seems to have been happier in this job than in her previous one.. although the children were not easy to manage.  She persevered and began to get on well with them, and became fond of the young daughters of the house and respected by their parents.  However, Branwell then secured a position as tutor to Edmund the son of the family and during his time there, he fell in love with Mrs Robinson, who was 17 years his senior.  Its not clear if Mrs Robinson returned his love or if they engaged in an actual affair but when Mr Robinson found out that something was going on, he dismissed Branwell.  Always prone to violent emotion and somewhat unstable, Branwell went to pieces after his dismissal, drinking and moaning about his love to everyone.

Anne left her job having inherited a little money from Miss Branwell.. She was unhappy about her brothers relationship with Mrs Robinson, and she now had some money to keep her while she remained at home.  She and her sisters published a book of poetry but it failed.  However it spurred them on to try to publish novels.

They all worked on serious pieces of fiction..  Emily was writing Wuthering Heights, Charlotte was working first on the Professor and then on Jane Eyre.. and Anne contributed a slighter novel called Agnes Grey. It was a short work, which would be published in a 3 volume set with Wuthering Heights and was based on Anne’s first experiences as a governess.

 

Anne Bronte Part II

 All four children wrote their stories together at first, based on the toy soldiers that Mr Bronte had brought for them..  Then when Anne was around 11, she and Emily broke away from the world created by the 4 of them and they developed their own fictional world, Gondal.  Emily and Anne were very close, though Anne was much gentler and less hot tempered and emotional than her sister.

Charlotte and Branwell continued with the world of Angria, where Branwell wrote militaristic stories and Charlotte began to write romances and love stories.   Anne and Emily created  a world where women were more powerful..  and when Emily wrote her one novel it was one where the women characters were passionate and dominant. Anne moved into the social realm.  

Emily spent a short time at Miss Woolers’, with Charlotte, and then when her health broke down, Anne replaced her at school.  She did well at school academically but she did not make any friends. Although she was much less powerful a character than Emily she had a quiet strength and determination that made her keep on with difficult and distasteful tasks.  She took her first job as governess at the age of 19…

Emily and she seem so very different that it is strange that they became allies, but I believe that Emily used Anne as a model for the more worthwhile traits of the Linton family, in Wuthering Heights.  She could see that her little sister had a good heart, a gentle nature, and a  strong moral sense and that these were valuable traits, even if she lacked the passionate nature that other characters had.  

Anne’s first job as a governess did not go well. The children were spoiled and foolish and their parents let them do as they pleased.  Anne could not teach them and found them impossible to deal with but she stuck the job out until dismissed, because she knew that she would have to work for a living.  She showed more determination, in her quiet way, than Emily could muster....

 

Anne Bronte part I

 Anne Bronte is the youngest of the Bronte sisters and she’s not one of my favourite writers.  Some have claimed that she was more talented than her sisters but I can’t agree.

She was probably a little closer to Jane Austen in her style of writing… in that she did not give us scenes of passion and drama but concentrated on the quieter aspects of social life.

She was born in 1820 near Bradford, where her father was curate.  Her mother had given birth to six children in about 6 years and when Anne was a baby, she died of what was probably uterine cancer. So Anne had no memory of her mother.  The family had by then moved to Haworth where they were to live most of their lives.  Her father was deeply grieved by the death of his wife and with his large family (He later called it a "small but sweet family") he felt the need of a new wife to look after them.  However his attempts to remarry ended in failure as he was in many ways a man who was socially clumsy.. and he offended the lady that he proposed to.   He seems to have then given up on trying to find a new wife and relied on his sister in law Elizabeth Branwell, to keep house and look after the children.  

Aunt Branwell as she was known, was a strict woman with a sense of duty and the children respected her rather than loved her.  Anne who was the quietest and most “normal” of the family, seems to have been her favourite.

Anne was too young to go to school at Cowan Bridge like the other children, so she stayed home and was educated there by her father, Miss Branwell and later a local art teacher.  So she missed the tragic experience that Charlotte and Emily had had, of being at a school where the children were half starved and badly treated....