Yes, yes it is.
This sketch might actually be my favourite thing at the moment.
“Skills.”
(Source: caggiemay)
…Might have to get one of these.
(Source: kingdom-clothing)
As dawn broke bright and clear on the first day of September 1666, no one dreamed they were waking to the last sunrise the old city would ever see. No one dreamed that over the next six days God would blot out the heavens, or that hell would break loose as fear and flame turned the streets of London into Armageddon. ~ from the book
One of the best, most gripping books I’ve read (or anything I’ve read) on the Great Fire of 1666. I started reading it only yesterday and I’m just 50 pages to the end. I love Restoration history anyway, and I adore Charles II. This book makes you feel like you are right there with the whole city during the fire. Tinniswood litters his narrative with eye-witness accounts - including the celebrated Samuel Pepys. Pepys! I love him too. It’s like Tinniswood is actually chasing the fire, from street to street. It actually makes you nervous.
Thought this might be of interest :)
King Charles II and Louise de Kéroualle
By Henri Gascar
This is the only ‘double portrait’ of Charles and one of his mistresses to survive (Louise is shown in the background with her attendants). It reflects as bold a statement as would have been acceptable of Louise’s enduring relationship with the King, commissioned, as presumably it was, by Louise herself.
Favorite ladies from history ⇨ Nell Gwyn
Claim to fame: Mistress to Charles II, A++ orange peddler, comedic actress extraordinaire, and my second favorite person on this list.
Why she’s on the list: Oh, my sweet Nelly, I love so much about the things you choose to be. In all honesty, Nell Gwyn holds a very special place in my heart (outranked only by Anne B.), so it’s difficult for me to put my affection for her into words. I suppose it all boils down to the fact that I never think of her as a woman who has been dead for over 300 years. She was just so incredibly vibrant and colorful and alive, and that’s why she’s my Queen.
Appearance: Reddish-brown hair, hazel eyes, and (rumor has it) great legs
Personality traits: Generous, spunky, quick-witted, and TOTALLY HILARIOUS.
Required reading: I really didn’t care for Nell Gwyn: Mistress to a King, so I’m going to throw a curveball out there and recommend some historical fiction that manages to capture some of Nell’s legendary appeal: Exit the Actress by Priya Parmar.
Notable quotable: On being mistaken for the Catholic Duchess of Portsmouth: “Good people, you are mistaken; I am the Protestant whore.”
King Charles II, London 29th May 1660
The years after the Civil War and the Restoration of Charles II marked the end of the medieval and the beginning of the modern age.
Historian Dr Lucy Worsley looks through writer Samuel Pepys’ scrapbook from the period which contains portraits of Charles II’s mistresses - including the royalist Barbara Villiers, Duchess of Cleveland, and the French spy Louise de Keroualle.
Dr Worsley explains that the scrapbook is an early example of a ‘gossip’ magazine and that popular print culture is not a modern day phenomenon but actually began in the 1660s.
Find out more in Harlots, Housewives & Heroines: A 17th Century History for Girls on Tuesday 22 May at 21:00 BST on BBC Four.
Three stories indicate the Prince’s lightness of humour. First when he was eleven, he refused to take some medicine which he was given. His mother, at Newcastle’s request, wrote to reprimand him. His reply was to advise Newcastle that he himself would improve his health by not relying on too much physic. Secondly, when he and Newcastle played at butts together and his governor had the better of him, he remarked “What, my lord, have you invited me to play the rook [sharper] with me?” Lastly, when Charles was in Oxford during the civil war, the Earl of Berkshire was once incited to “hit him on the head with his staff” because he observed the Prince to be laughing during service time in church and exchanging pleasantries with the ladies seated near him.
The Oxford Book of Royal Anecdotes - Elizabeth Longford
Oak Apple Day
Oak Apple Day or Royal Oak Day was a holiday celebrated in England on 29 May to commemorate the restoration of the English monarchy, in May 1660. In some parts of the country, the day was also known as Shick Shack Day, Oak and Nettle Day or Arbor Tree Day.
In 1660, Parliament declared 29 May a public holiday:
“Resolved, That a Bill be prepared for keeping of a perpetual Anniversary, for a Day of Thanksgiving to God, for the great Blessing and Mercy he hath been graciously pleased to vouchsafe to the People of these Kingdoms, after their manifold and grievous Sufferings, in the Restoration of his Majesty, with Safety, to his People and Kingdoms: And that the Nine-and-twentieth Day of May, in every Year, being the Birth Day of his Sacred Majesty, and the Day of his Majesty’s Return to his Parliament, be yearly set apart for that Purpose…” , -Journal of the House of Commons: volume 8: 1660-1667
The public holiday, Oak Apple Day, was formally abolished in 1859, but the date retains some significance in local or institutional customs. It is, for example, kept as Founder’s Day in the Royal Hospital Chelsea (founded by Charles II in 1681). During the course of the day the statue of Charles II in Figure Court is partly shrouded in oak leaves, and all participants in the Parade and spectators wear sprigs of oak leaves to commemorate the King’s escape from forces after the Battle of Worcester in 1651. The statue was re-gilded in 2002 to commemorate the Golden Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II.
Traditional celebrations to commemorate the Oak Apple Day often entailed the wearing of oak apples (a type of plant gall, possibly known in some parts of the country as a shick-shack) or sprigs of oak leaves, in reference to the occasion after the Battle of Worcester in September 1651, when the future Charles II of England escaped the Roundhead army by hiding in an oak tree near Boscobel House. Anyone who failed to wear a sprig of oak risked being pelted with bird’s eggs or thrashed with nettles.
These ceremonies, which have now largely died out, are perhaps continuations of pre-Christian nature worship. The Garland King who rides through the streets of Castleton, Derbyshire, at the head of a procession, completely disguised in a garland of flowers, which is later affixed to a pinnacle on the parish church tower, can have little connection with the Restoration, even though he dresses in Stuart costume. He is perhaps a kind of Jack in the Green and the custom may have transferred from May Day when such celebrations were permitted again after having been banned by the Puritans.
Events still take place at Upton-upon-Severn, Northampton, Aston on Clun in Shropshire, Marsh Gibbon in Buckinghamshire, Great Wishford in Wiltshire when villagers gather wood in Grovely Wood, and Membury in Devon. The day is generally marked by re-enactment activities at Moseley Old Hall, one of the houses where Charles II hid in 1651.
At some Oxford and Cambridge halls a toast is still drunk to celebrate Oak Apple Day.
Jane (née Lane), Lady Fisher
by Unknown artist
oil on canvas, circa 1660Jane Lane (c. 1626 – 9 September 1689) played a heroic role in the Escape of Charles II in 1651.
It is thought to be quite likely that Charles and Jane had a brief romantic relationship during their time together in the 1650’s.
After the restoration Jane commissioned a portrait of herself. In it she was depicted as holding the royal crown with a veil over it. The symbolism is obvious: it represents her hiding the king from his enemies. But, in the picture’s top left-hand corner she had painted a scroll with a Latin legend upon it - and its meaning is far from obvious to the casual observer. The words are sic sic iuvat ire sub umbra and they are an almost precise quotation from Virgil’s Aeneid. In translation they read ”thus, thus, it pleases me to go into the shadows”.
Is this the humble affirmation of a loyal servant who having played her part in the kings preservation, was thereafter content to retire into obscurity? Her correspondence with Charles during the 1650’s suggests otherwise. Then it was Jane who took initiatives to keep the relationship alive. Knowing Charles well enough to realise that, once out of sight could well mean out of mind, she obviously feared that, once he had made provision for her in his sisters household, he might forget her. She was determined not to let that happen.
The words Jane chose to quote from the Aeneid come at the dramatic climax of the story of Dido and Aeneas. The Trojan hero arrives in Carthage where Queen Dido falls passionately in love with him. She begs him to stay and share her throne but he secretly makes plans to sail away. She discovers his perfidy and failing to dissuade him, stabs herself and has her body placed on a funeral pyre. Her final words express her own resignation but also her curse upon her inconstant lover. As she plunges in the knife she exclaims, ‘thus thus, it pleases me to go into the shadows. Let the cruel Trojan’s eyes drink in these flames from over the ocean and let him take with him the ill omen of my death”.
It is inconceivable that Jane did not know the context of the words she quoted and that, knowing it, it did not have meaning for her.
It certainly wouldn’t surprise me if something went on between the two of them while they were together. They were in a situation where they could get caught at any time, and they were on their own- and this is Charles after all, so the obvious conclusion is that there was some kind of relationship.
Gillian Bagwell’s novel The September Queen basically has the plot ‘what if they did have a relationship?’ and I’d recommend it for people who enjoy historical fiction. The author freely admits that it’s meant to be about FEELS first and history second- which, for me at least, meant I was free to enjoy it as a bit of Charlie-centric romantic fluff.
I have to admit, I’d love to know the truth. I’d be happy with the answer either way, but I really want to know!
(Source: amazon.co.uk)
FUCK YEAH CHARLES IICharles II was King of England, Scotland and Ireland from 1660 to 1685. Also known as the Merry Monarch, he is infamous for his numerous mistresses and rowdy court- but there's a lot more to Charlie than debauchery and scandal. This blog is here to showcase every aspect of his life, with a generous dollop of humour thrown in.
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