SPYMASTER GENERAL

Ok def was not expecting this level of relatability

*submits this to the library of congress as a culturally, historically or aesthetically significant film*

Renaissance

Cat cleaning his friend the Prairie Dog1 

(via RM Videos) 

"The family is a haven in a heartless world."

Sister Queens: Eleanor of Provence [2/4]

Eleanor, who was born (c. 1223) and bred in Southern France, was Count Raymond of Provence and his wife Beatrice of Savoy’s second child of four daughters. Though all of her sisters were given fine education, Eleanor was particularly well educated and developed a strong love of reading at an early age.

Like her mother, grandmother, and sisters, Eleanor was renowned for her beauty. She was a dark-haired brunette with fine eyes. Piers Langtoft, an English historian during that time, refers to her as “The erle’s daughter, the fairest may of life”.

After Margaret, the eldest and closest sister of Eleanor, married King Louis IX of France, her uncle and her sister arranged a marriage between Eleanor and Henry III of England. Their marriage ceremony took place on January 14th of 1236. Prior to the wedding not only had Eleanor never met the groom she had also never set a foot on English soil before their vows. According to an onlooker, she was dressed in a shimmering golden gown that was tightly fitted to the waist, and then flared out in wide pleats to her feet. The sleeves were long and lined with ermine.

The same day as the wedding Eleanor was crowned queen consort of England in a ceremony at Westminster Abbey. Eleanor was a loyal and faithful consort to Henry, and he vice versa, but she brought in her retinue a large number of uncles and cousins, “the Savoyards,” and her influence with the King and her unpopularity with the English barons created friction during Henry’s reign.

English citizens of the time stubbornly hated her, blaming the King’s disastrous reign on Eleanor. Strong-willed, ambitious and practical, her reputation didn’t stop her from playing a major role in ruling the kingdom during the volatile thirteenth century. With her, she brought many romantic and historical books, covering stories from ancient times to modern romances.

She was also intimately involved in Henry’s battles. These included excursions to France to fight for the Continental lands the French and English had been squabbling about for decades, and at home, when Henry was captured by his own barons and forced to agree to their terms for reforms. Eleanor, in response, went to France and raised a formidable army to free her husband, but her invasion fleet was wrecked before it could reach England. Her son, Edward (later Edward I), as combative as his mother, fought off the rebels and rescued his father.

After thirty-six years of marriage, and roughly five children later, King Henry died in 1272. His eldest son, Edward, became King, thus Eleanor the Queen Dowager, until she retired to a convent and died in 1291. (…)(…)

Esterhazy Palace, Fertöd, Hungary

18 th century paintings- hairstyles with flowers

Lion King (1994) explaining the importance of stylized 2D animation: Lion King (2019) and Cats (2019):

Kimba The White Lion (1965) explaining the importance of an original idea:

Lion King (1994) Lion King (2019) Cats (2019)

Shakespeare (1564) explaining the importance of an original idea:

Kimba the White Lion (1965), The Lion King (1994), The Lion King (2019), Cats (2019):

Saxo Grammaticus (c. 1160 – c. 1220) explaining the importance of understanding that all creative work is inherently derivative once you study the oral tradition of storytelling and history and that’s okay because generations have always reformatted tropes and themes to make them relatable to their current audiences 

Shakespeare (1564), Kimba the White Lion (1965), The Lion King (1994), The Lion King (2019), Cats (2019):

Walking the Scottish Highlands | Glencoe | The Hidden Valley - Coire Gabhail

Part 1 | Part 2 | Youtube

The Hidden Valley (“Coire Gabhail” in Gaelic, meaning “hollow of the spoils”) is somewhere that can only be reached by ascending a fairly steep and rocky path (or descending from the mountains surrounding it). It was used by members of Clan MacDonald to hide the cattle that they had stolen, for which they demanded ransom from the owners. Cattle raiding was a custom that stretched into prehistory, but was simply considered a nuisance by the 17th Century. Clan MacDonald often had feuds with Clan Campbell, which resulted in the Glencoe Massacre in 1692. The surviving members of Clan MacDonald took refuge in the Hidden Valley.

“I have loved ye from the moment I saw ye, I will love ye ’til time itself is done, and so long as you are by my side, I am well pleased wi’ the world.”

—The Fiery Cross

Elizabeth I was in every way, shape, and form the inferior of Mary Queen of Scots. Not only was she illegitimate, Elizabeth I was a weak ruler who gave into the whims of her lowly lords in order to quell her own fears. She had the power to change England but instead she chose to play it safe and accomplish nothing.

Congressman Benjamin Tallmadge

‘Turn’ characters with the actual historical people they are.

On August 7th 1548 the five year old Mary Stewart, Queen of Scots set sail from Dumbarton Castle, to France.

The ink must have been barely dry on the Treaty of Haddington when arrangements were made to send Mary to France. The agreement was  that Queen Mary would be married to the French heir, the Dauphin, and be sent to France for her upbringing. This suited both countries, it gave the French a foothold in Scotland and it meant the young Queen would be safe, her early years were spent in an atmosphere of unease as her mother, Marie de Guise, sought to protect her from the predatory Scottish nobles who fought for the regency and for control.

The nobility was divided between those who supported the traditional French and Catholic alliance that Marie represented, and those who looked to a newly Protestant England to support the burgeoning Scottish Reformation.Despite this tension, Marie de Guise sought to give her daughter a happy childhood, and appointed four girls to be her companions and, later, ladies-in-waiting. And so it was she sailed down the Clyde Estuary to France with the French fleet with, Lords Erskine and Livingston, her nurse Jean Sinclair, her governess Lady Fleming, the four Maries, Ladies Fleming, Seton, Livingston and Beaton, three of her half-brothers and other children of the Scottish nobility. Six days later the fleet arrived at Roscoff in France.

The girls endured a rough crossing – all except the queen were afflicted with seasickness. Livingston and Fleming at least had the consolation of travelling with their families, since Lord Livingston and Lady Fleming as guardian and governess accompanied the queen. On arrival, Mary was immediately taken into the household of King Henri’s children. By all accounts she got on well with everyone, King Henri is quoted as saying “from the very first day they met, my son and she got on as well together as if they had known each other for a long time”

Without any doubt the next thirteen years were the happiest of her life, described in contemporary accounts as vivacious, beautiful, and clever,Mary learned to play lute and was competent in prose, poetry, horsemanship, falconry and needlework, she was taught French, Italian, Latin, Spanish, and Greek, in addition to speaking her native Scots.

In 1558 her wedding was a lavish event at the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris.  The bride reportedly wore white - apparently starting that centuries-long tradition - and was exceptionally beautiful.  A French poet, Pierre Brantome, described her appearance “… a hundred times more beautiful than a goddess of heaven … her person alone was worth a kingdom”  

Mary became Queen of France when Henry II died the following year, but Francis died prematurely in December 1560, Mary was grief-stricken, her mother in law, Catherine de’ Medici, became regent for the late king’s ten-year-old brother Charles IX, who inherited the French throne, she was no longer welcome in France, within a year she bid a tearful farewell to the country she grew up in to return to the turmoil of post reformation Scotland.

The picture shows Mary with Francois from Catherine de’ Medici’s Book of Hours

Victoria’s party palace: This summer’s exhibition at Buckingham Palace reveals how the young queen filled it with fun

By Ian Lloyd For Weekend21:30 26 Jul 2019, updated 21:30 26 Jul 2019

She will forever be known as the ‘Widow of Windsor’, but for the first two decades of Victoria’s reign she was undoubtedly the Queen of Buckingham Palace.

Aged just 18 on her accession, she threw off the shackles of her repressive childhood and brought vitality and exuberance to her new role and her new home.

To mark the bicentenary of her birth in 1819, the theme of this year’s summer opening of the State Rooms at Buckingham Palace is Victoria’s relationship with the building, showing paintings, letters and costumes. 

Previously called Buckingham House, it had been the residence of Victoria’s grandmother Queen Charlotte, consort of George III, who gave birth to 14 of her 15 children there. 

When he became king in 1820, George IV asked architect John Nash to transform the house into a palace but it was unfinished when he died in 1830, and remained so under his successor William IV.

When Victoria acceded to the throne in 1837, she couldn’t wait to leave her childhood home at Kensington Palace.

However, the layout at Buckingham Palace was poor and the decoration incomplete. Large areas lacked wallpaper, and fittings were missing. 

Victoria’s dining room was so far from the kitchen her meals never arrived hot. 

The lavatories didn’t work, the chimneys couldn’t cope with the smoke and the ventilation shafts were above the drains, giving off an unpleasant odour.

But keen to put her mark on the building, Victoria commissioned a throne, platform and canopy. 

At barely 5ft tall she must have been swamped by the elaborate chair, but she cut an undeniably regal figure surrounded by its carved acanthus and oak leaf design, with a gilt-wood crown and her ‘VR’ cypher.

As her coronation approached in 1838 she planned a series of state balls. 

For the first one she asked the Viennese king of waltz Johann Strauss Senior and his orchestra to play in the ballroom. 

Victoria, who was 12 days away from her 19th birthday, wore a white satin gown with the badge and ribbon of the Order of the Garter and a headdress of roses. 

Strauss played his special waltz, Hommage à la Reine d’Angleterre – Tribute To The Queen Of England. Victoria was delighted. 

‘I never heard anything so beautiful in my life,’ she noted in her journal. 

‘It was a lovely ball, so gay, so nice – and I felt so happy.’ 

She even climbed out on to the roof of the palace to see the dawn break over St Paul’s Cathedral.

In February 1840 Victoria married her first cousin Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. 

She gave birth to four children in the first four years of marriage but she still danced the polka, waltz and quadrilles, and her court was one of the most glittering in Europe. 

But by the late 1840s it was clear that the palace rooms were not ideal for the ever-expanding family as well as the regular balls.

The writer John Ruskin was present at one function which was so horribly overcrowded that ladies were jostling for space in their elaborate gowns, and there was ‘the most awkward crush… with the ruins of ladies’ dresses, torn lace and fallen flowers’.

Architect Edward Blore was asked to expand the palace.

Marble Arch, the ceremonial entrance, was moved to its present site at the end of Oxford Street, and an East Front was added complete with a central balcony.

The new ballroom was inaugurated in May 1856, followed by a ball to mark the end of the Crimean War, and Victoria recorded, ‘Albert, even, who generally dislikes state balls, enjoyed it.’

A highlight of the exhibition is an immersive experience that re-creates that 1856 ball. 

A Victorian illusion technique, Pepper’s Ghost – which uses reflections to make objects appear and disappear – as well as projections around the room, will help visitors imagine the ballroom as Victoria would have known it.

In December 1861 the receptions came to a grinding halt with the death of Prince Albert. 

The queen withdrew to her more private estates of Windsor, Osborne House and Balmoral. 

She became a full-time grieving widow, and a poignant reminder of this time is in the exhibition – a copy of Sir Walter Scott’s classic Peveril Of The Peak, in which Victoria has inserted a black-edged piece of writing paper to mark the last page she read to Albert during his illness.

By 1861 Buckingham Palace was the focal point for ceremonies of state, and Victoria’s absence, coupled with her reluctance towards public duties, would escalate into a crisis. 

Liberal MP Sir Charles Dilke expounded the case for a republic and demanded an enquiry into her finances. 

In 1864 a note was found pinned to the railings of the palace by a wag proclaiming, ‘These commanding premises to be let or sold in consequence of the late occupant’s declining business.’

By the end of the decade the queen was making occasional forays to the palace, even agreeing to host a summer garden party.

In her final years she undertook more duties, and a rare photo from 1893 shows her on the balcony with her family for the departure of the newly married Duke and Duchess of York (later George V and Queen Mary) on their honeymoon.

The building became the focal point of two of the most lavish displays of her reign, her Golden Jubilee in 1887 and the Diamond Jubilee in 1897, where troops from every corner of her empire joined her in a vast imperial parade through London to St Paul’s Cathedral

Four years later, the queen died. 

In the next decade The Mall was widened and Sir Aston Webb redesigned the East Front of the palace, adding the Portland stone façade and the balcony we see today, as well as the Victoria Memorial, a reminder of the queen forever linked with Buckingham Palace.  

“Queen Victoria’s Palace” at Buckingham Palace runs until 29 September – visit rct.uk. Ian’s book An Audience With Queen Victoria: The Royal Opinion On 30 Famous Victorians (The History Press, £16.99) is out now.

-dailymail.co.uk