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#biographical sketches of the queens of england
queencatherineparr · 2 years
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CATHERINE PARR, Queen of England and Ireland, wife of Henry VIII.
From Biographical Sketches of the Queens of Great Britain, from the Norman Conquest to the Reign of Victoria, or Royal Book of Beauty, edited by Mary Howitt, Henry G Bohn. c.1851.
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machiavellianjane · 1 year
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let's discuss jane's fashion? koa and ab's styles are (rightly) discussed a lot but hers is not really
it's actually rather strange to me how little emphasis is placed on Jane's use of fashion & clothing, because it's a pretty reliable, consistent detail about her as queen that repeatedly turns up. It's interesting that CoA and Anne Boleyn's relationship with textiles and clothing is recognised as a part of their historical record, whilst it seems to be diminished and dismissed with regards to Jane.
firstly, Jane's own work as an embroiderer - and Marillac's report in 1539, following her death, that Henry enjoyed embroidery: “the King, in some former years has been solitary and pensive, now gives himself up to amusement. [...] He evidently delights now in painting and embroidery, (having sent men to France, Flanders, Italy, and elsewhere for masters of this art)”. One wonders if this was a shared hobby, or something she got him into? Or, instead, was it something he picked up following her death? I just have to wonder why this inherently feminine skill seems to be completely ignored with regards to identifying Jane's abilities! /s
but more specifically, Jane's clothing seems to be a distinctive point in the records of her life and reign. Henry VIII’s seventeenth century biographer, Edward Herbert, claimed that Sir John Russell, who had observed Jane believed that “the richer Queen Jane was in clothes, the fairer she appeared, but that the other [Anne], the richer she was apparelled, the worse she looked”, which is not a contemporary description, but does suggest that Jane wearing especially ‘rich’, sumptuous clothing was at least a believable, or familiar, claim - that Jane, perhaps, had a reputation for expensive clothing, at least enough to warrant a comparison with Anne, who herself had a reputation for being fashionable. This is supported by surviving wardrobe inventories: Jane Seymour’s wardrobe accounts indicate that she spent large amounts on clothing, and she actually had a wider variety, and larger amount, of garments than Catherine of Aragon - no small feat, considering Jane was only queen for 17 months.
Beyond that, one of the few insights we get into Jane's household management and reign is in the regulation of what her ladies were permitted to wear. Famously, she preferred her ladies wear English fashions, and specifically preferred Anne Bassett wear “a bonnet and frontlet of velvet”. The implications of which really are very interesting; that Jane wanted to promote a more conservative court culture (and, definitely, English hoods seem to be considered as more appropriate for queenly office, as Anne Boleyn likewise seems to have favoured gable hoods for depictions (her medal, the supposed Holbein sketch)). There was a post circulating calling Jane's English hoods a Tudor equivalent of a MAGA hat, which... is a Lot, but certainly it does beget questions of a sense of identity. Not nationalistic, necessarily, because I think that would be anachronistic, but certainly it was a deliberate fashion choice. Evidently, however, Jane was not wholly opposed to French fashions; Jane's own inventory contains “one French whode of blac Vellat”, and she gifted billiments for one to her stepdaughter Elizabeth. I believe I also read somewhere that Jane's gown in her portrait includes a neck and waistline lower than convention. So it is logical to infer that Jane was not against more stylish, and flattering, silhouettes and styles - and that fashion was, for her, a very specific tool for constructing an image of conservative queenship, to challenge the “pride, envy, indignation and mocking, scorning and derision” Jane recognised the court to be full of.
And that use of fashion as a political tool once again brings us to that strange portrait of Jane in Continental fashions - and the question as to what the intention for it was? Because the idea of Jane borrowing foreign styles, introducing them to England, in an attempt to curry favour and legitimacy overseas is a fascinating one, but it's pure speculation at this point. I really hope more information comes out about that at some point, because until that moment we are unfortunately at a bit of a stalemate. At the very least, we do have evidence that Jane was invested in promoting new fashions. “The idea of using dolls [refered to as ‘babies’] dressed in new styles to promote new styles originated in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries”, and at least three existed in Jane's wardrobe: “oone great babie lyeng in a boxe of wodde having a Gowne of white cloth of Silver / and a kyrtle of grene vellat / the Gowne tyed with smale Aglettes of golde with a smale peir of beades of golde and a smale Cheyne and color abowte the necke of golde” , and “two litle babies in a boxe of wodde / oone of them having a Gowne of crymsen Satten / and thother a Gowne of white vellat”. Maria Hayward has further identified similarities between the clothing worn by these fashion dolls, and items in Jane's personal wardrobe: “while precise details of the clothes worn by the dolls are not given, there were parallels between the dress of the first doll and Jane Seymour’s gowns, in particular the aglets on the sleeves”. Certainly, sleeves, trims, and aglets make up the bulk of Jane's wardrobe, with forty-nine pairs of sleeves decorate with pairs of golden aglets per sleeve - an appropriate garment for an enthusiastic and skilled embroiderer, as “sleeves provided an excellent means of display”, and provided Jane an opportunity to show off her embroidery skills and her wealth and status. She certainly did so with her choice of fabric and colours.
so, it really seems to me that Jane was as much a power dresser as her predecessors - if not more so, and that the limitations of her having a significantly reduced ceremonial role (thus less opportunity to be seen), the lack of perceived legitimacy as Henry's consort abroad, as well as the brevity of her reign, likely impeded her chance to really leave her mark on fashions of the day. Nevertheless, her interest in, love for, and use of fashion is worth remembering, for, as Maria Hayward summarises, “the use of dress by Henry’s wives was also a means of establishing their own identity at court, and for his English brides, not born and reared to be queen, to establish their position as queen. Jane Seymour, for example, sought to enforce a certain English style of dress on the women of her household. [...] The evidence of [Jane Seymour's] wardrobe indicates that she used it to define her role as queen”. 
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whileiamdying · 11 months
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Rita Lee, Brazilian rocker with feminist message, dies at 75
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Rita Lee, Brazil’s “queen of rock” who gained an international following with her colorful and candid style and songs that helped introduce Brazilian society to feminism, died May 8 at her home in São Paulo. She was 75.
The death was announced in a statement posted to her official Instagram account.
With a career spanning six decades, the singer left a lasting mark with her irreverence, creativity and hits such as “Mania de Você” (1979) and “Ovelha Negra” (1975). She also publicly addressed her struggles with drug abuse.
Although Ms. Lee regarded her voice as “weak and a little out of tune,” she enjoyed a long run of top-selling albums, including “Rita Lee” (1979) and “Rita Lee and Roberto de Carvalho” (1982). Dozens of her songs were featured in widely watched telenovelas in Latin America. The behemoth television network Globo used her rendition of the song “Poison Weed” in three of its programs.
“I was not born to get married and wash underwear. I wanted the same freedom as the boys who used to play in the street with their toy cars,” she told the Brazilian edition of Rolling Stone in 2008. “When I got into music, I realized that the ‘machos’ reigned absolute, even more in rock music. ‘Wow,’ I said, ‘this is where I’m going to let my fangs out and, literally, give them a hard time.’”
She was a singer and songwriter praised for her versatility, playing at least five instruments: drums, guitar, piano, harmonica and autoharp. She was also one of the first Brazilian musicians to use electric guitar.
Eventually her popularity extended beyond Brazil. She performed in Portugal, England, Spain, France and Germany. In 1988, the British newspaper Daily Mirror revealed that Prince Charles admired her 1981 song “Lança Perfume” (“Spray Perfume”) and considered her his favorite singer. She won a Latin Grammy in the Best Portuguese Language Album category in 2001 for her album “3001.”
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Rita Lee Jones was born on Dec. 31, 1947, in São Paulo, the daughter of immigrants from Italy and the United States. Her father’s family, which relocated to Brazil soon after the Civil War, retained many American customs, including speaking English at home, according to a biographical sketch in Contemporary Musicians.
Ms. Lee rose to fame with the group Os Mutantes (The Mutants), starting in 1966. Colors and creativity, as well as irony and irreverence, were Ms. Lee’s trademarks from the start. By the mid-1970s, after selling 200,000 copies of the 1975 album “Forbidden Fruit,” Ms. Lee began to be called the “queen of rock” on the music scene.
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In an interview with the music website I Have More Records Than Friends! in 2017, Lulu Santos, judge of the Brazilian version of “The Voice,” recalled seeing Ms. Lee play autoharp at a concert.
“She brought that thing onstage, in those clothes … it was completely mythological,” the musician said. “There really is a lineage of ‘girls’ tied to rock in Brazil, of which she is a legitimate representative. But I see her as an element that distances herself from the cliches of rock. She, from her feminine point of view, sees the clumsiness of the worn-out cliche of the male rocker, the one who plays with his legs open. She saw right through him.”
She was one of the first public figures in Brazil to popularize feminist themes, such as infusing the lyrics of her 1979 song “Mania de Voce” (“Mania for You”) with female sexuality and pleasure. Similar songs followed, such as “Amor e Sexo” (“Love and Sex”), which contrasted the two in detail, and “Lança Perfume,” an ode to unbridled hedonism.
Later in life, she became a vegan and animal rights activist. For decades, she kept her hair bright red and often wore matching glasses, a popular look that she discarded in recent years as she allowed her gray to grow out. She resolved in 2015 to reinvent herself as a white butterfly.
In her autobiography, published the following year, she described the sexual abuse she suffered as a child at the hands of a man who had come to fix her mother’s sewing machine.
She also referred to herself as a “rebel” and “hippie communist,” and wrote of sneaking out the windows of her house as a teenager to play, being arrested during the dictatorship for possession of marijuana, and her multiple stints in rehab clinics for drugs and alcohol.
“I recognize that my best songs were written in an altered state, and my worst too. I only regret my delay in realizing that the ‘medicine’ had long since expired,” she wrote. “My generation suffered the claustrophobia of a brutal dictatorship, and using drugs was a way to breathe airs of freedom.”
In an interview with the television program “Fantastico” in 2020, she explained that physical frailty had prompted her to leave the stage eight years earlier.
“Getting old, for me, was a surprise, because I’ve never been old in my life,” she told the show. “I was left wanting to live my old age away from the stage, without sharing it with the public.”
Survivors include three children and her husband, musician Roberto do Carvalho, with whom she shared a 44-year musical partnership. In 2021, they released a new song, “Change,” and a remix of some of the singer’s biggest hits.
Years before, she imagined her death: “I will be in heaven,” she wrote, “with my soul present playing my autoharp and singing to God, ‘Thank you, Lord, finally sedated.’ Epitaph: She was never a good example, but she was good people.”
Washington Post staff contributed to this report.
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drinkthemlock · 3 years
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Catherine of Aragon by Mary Howitt, in her book Biographical Sketches of the Queens of England, From the Norman Conquest to the Reign of Victoria; or the Royal Book of Beauty.
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shredsandpatches · 4 years
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In Two Planks and a Passion, Anne of Bohemia is directly paralleled with the Virgin Mary multiple times. Katherine asks if she plays the "Virgin" to Richard's "Christ" as an intercessory figure. Anne is later moved by the Crucifixion play, especially Mary's lines, which she can relate to, as a mother who has suffered the loss of children, though in different circumstances. She can, however, also relate to Mary via her role as queen and a mother figure to her country. In this essay I will
I CAN ALREADY TELL THIS ESSAY WILL GET A+
Seriously though this is entirely spot-on and, I’m sure, deliberate -- it’s very clear that Minghella did his homework and the idea of queenship as reflective of the Virgin Mary is very much true to the period (@feuillesmortes has a good post about that here), particularly in England where Marian devotion was a huge thing and there was a tradition of England as Mary’s dowry (Dos Mariae), which is reflected both in the Wilton Diptych and in a now-lost altarpiece which depicted both Richard and Anne taking custody of it from Mary (we know about it because a few sketches of it survive, along with a sixteenth- or seventeenth-century description). And we can also see references to Anne as a maternal figure (though not literally a mother) in the epitaphs written for Anne after her death -- both the official one on her tomb and, perhaps more so, at least one of the ones probably displayed there in the early fifteenth century, which explicitly refers to her as a mother to her people. (It also, interestingly, imagines her body as incorruptible, which isn’t quite Marian given the belief in the Assumption but certainly is saintly.)
...probably it’s worth mentioning Katherine Lewis’s theory that after Anne’s death Richard framed his and Anne’s marriage as chaste as a way of, I guess, protecting her legacy and trying to shake off the appearance that he had failed in his masculinity by not siring an heir. It’s much more recent than the play is and I don’t actually buy it -- plus I give Minghella props for depicting Richard and Anne’s marriage explicitly as consummated back in 1984 before there was proof of it -- but queenship is one of the only ways that a normal woman can be simultaneously a maiden and mother even if one or both of those statuses is symbolic. (And of course there are still scholars who are super into the argument that Richard and Anne actually had a chaste marriage, but they are factually wrong -- we have Anne’s own word for it -- and like 95% of their argument is based on literary texts, which can tell you a lot of things but not so much biographical details of individuals. But you’ve all heard that rant before.)
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Today, 171 years ago, Princess Louise was born.
“The better known bio by Lucinda Hawksley is entertaining, yet hugely based on gossip, falling short because it presents unsubstantiated hunches and rumors as truth. In biographies, all conclusions must be backed up with credible sources and solid evidence. Unfortunately after 100 years, the rumors stick to a historical figure as if they were true facts, which is certainly the case here. In my review, I feel compelled to confront a few of the rumors and misconceptions. 
Princess Louise Caroline Alberta was intelligent, inquisitive and artistically gifted. Like her siblings, she received a strict academic education, becoming fluent in several languages, music, art and theater, as well as, acquiring practical skills like cooking, baking, sewing and gardening. However, her childhood was marred by the early death of her father, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coberg-Gotha and her mother's prolonged period of mourning. It was a traumatic period that engulfed the entire family and country for more years then it should have.
Princess Louise was the first royal offspring to enroll in a public school, the National Art Training School, at the same time as she was required to fill the role as her mother's private secretary (1866-1871). Louise was successful at both endeavors due to dedication and many hours of hard work. The Princess was a talented sketcher, painter and sculptress and accepted commissions for her art in an era when women were only supposed to have hobbies inside the home. Her sculpture of Queen Victoria at the age of her coronation sits outside of Kensington Palace today.
Queen Victoria, who sometimes considered her daughter argumentative, had to admit the statue was a great likeness and Louise was an excellent private secretary, writing to daughter Vicky: ‘She is (and who would have some years ago have thought it?) a clever dear girl with a fine character, unselfish and affectionate.’ Unlike the Queen, Princess Louise (like her elder sister, Vicky, i.e. Crown Princess Victoria of Prussia) supported women's rights. She secretly met with ‘radical' Elizabeth Garrett, the first woman medical doctor in Britain.
Over a lifetime, Princess Louise supported liberal and forward-thinking social causes, spearheading the education of women, lending her name to get programs and institutions up and running. Likewise the Princess initiated public works and opened wings of hospitals. Not content with merely showing up at the end, she contributed her ideas and was involved in all the phases of planning and implementation right up to the openings.
Many at court, as well as, the public thought Princess Louise was the Queen's most attractive daughter. She was the tallest and slender and as an early proponent of exercise, remained shapely and youthful throughout her life. She bicycled and walked habitually.
Princess Louise was also unconventional in choosing a spouse -- an aristocrat, John Campbell, the Marquis of Lorne, heir to the Duke of Argyll and a Liberal Member of Parliament over a foreign prince. Since he was active in politics and wasn't royal, it was controversial. In 1871, she became the 1st daughter of a Sovereign to marry a commoner since the 16th century. Queen Victoria favored the match as a way of keeping her daughter in Great Britain, and too, of introducing new blood into the family. Also, the Queen always let her children marry for love.
Which brings us to Louise and Lorne's relationship. There's little truth to what is often written, namely: the couple was unhappy and childless because Lorne was homosexual. The marriage began happy and lasted for over 40 years. During these years, Lorne was devoted, supportive and protective of his wife, and they were very much together up until the early 1880s. He never stopped thinking she was beautiful; nor weaned in thinking of and mentioning her in conversations and letters to his family, etc.
And although Louise could be temperamental, she too was loving, thoughtful, respectful and devoted. Apparently the couple tried to have children as Louise went to Germany over the years for cures in the effort. Although she lived to be 91 years old, the Princess suffered from ill health throughout her life (including severe headaches, neuralgia, vomiting and insomnia, especially after a serious sledging accident (on February 14, 1880) in Canada that also gave her a concussion and tore her ear lope in two). 
Jehanne Wake's book makes a good case that probably the real reason the couple remained childless was due to illness or infertility (possibly complications from meningitis which Louise contracted at the age of 16). Moreover in Victorian England, no one thought to consider Lorne's fertility. Both spouses hoped to have children and no doubt the disappointment put a strain on their marriage. Louise became depressed. Furthermore, the evidence that the Princess' husband was gay is very weak based mainly on the couple's close association with Lorne's homosexual uncle and friend, Lord Ronnie Gover (his mother's brother), who although innocent, was drawn into a scandal by a gay con artist. [...]
According to the book, Princess Louise cared for Lorne deeply, but needed to take breaks from him in mid-marriage. Queen Victoria was exceedingly understanding of her daughter's frail emotions, ‘while feeling much for Lorne.’ Lorne, too, was patient and understanding of his wife. As the author notes, ‘At the height of Princess Louise's unhappiness,’ husband and wife ‘kept in close contact and wrote daily.’ Divorce was never considered as neither party desired it.
They stayed together and became close again in later years. When Lorne's father died in 1900 making him the 9th Duke of Argyll, Louise accompanied him to Scotland. Together the couple also lived in Kent House on the Isle of Wight and at Kensington Palace in London. Unfortunately, as Lorne aged, he developed dementia and lost the easygoingness of youth, but Louise was very devoted to nursing him until his death from bronchitis that developed into double pneumonia in 1914. Again, Princess Louise was devastated. She felt dreadfully lonely without the Duke still feeling as she did when becoming engaged, there was no one quite like him! And despite the rumors, her biographer thinks it unlikely that Princess Louise ever had sexual relations with anyone other than her husband. No solid evidence suggests otherwise. The author argues Princess Louise could be chatty, friendly and flirty, and like Queen Victoria, she loved beauty in everything, especially in the form of a good looking man. But the the book states, it would have been too risky and highly unlikely that she ever crossed the line as she never forgot Her Royal Highness status, nor her sense of duty. At any rate, says the author, ‘It was the maternal, domesticated hausfrau which predominated in her character.’ In other words, yes, she flirted, but expressed it as glee and by mothering a man. And, I agree with the biographer! In later years Princess Louise continued some public appearances, often visiting hospitals unscheduled. She lived in Scotland and Kensington Palace next to her sister, Princess Beatrice's apartment. Although the sisters had their differences, they were a close family. Louise spent summer vacations with Prince Arthur at his house on the French Riviera and sketched up until age 90. She died on December 3, 1939 and because of the war was cremated with her ashes buried at Frogmore near Windsor. Had she died in Scotland, she would have been buried next to her husband. In Canada, the province of Alberta, Mount Alberta and Lake Louise are all named after Prince Louise.”
- https://thesavvvyshopper.blogspot.com/2018/09/princess-louise-duchess-of-argyll.html
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historybizarre · 5 years
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When Maria Mitchell discovered a comet in 1847 at the age of twenty-nine, people began to spend as much time watching her as she spent watching the sky. Tourists visited the Nantucket Atheneum, where Mitchell was a librarian, just to see the astronomer at work. There was something so intoxicating about the scene that the gazer herself became a star. 
....
The fascination with Mitchell was part of a larger interest in the stories of so-called great women. Anthologies of biographical sketches—including Our Famous Women: An Authorized Record of the Lives and Deeds of Distinguished American Women of Our Times (1884) and Daughters of Genius: A Series of Authors, Artists, Reformers, and Heroines, Queens, Princesses, and Women of Society, Women Eccentric and Peculiar (1885), both of which include entries on Maria Mitchell—held up accomplished women like Clara Barton, Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Elizabeth Stuart Phelps for readers to emulate.
At the same moment, Americans were intrigued by the idea of the spinster, particularly in New England. In her book Spinster: Making a Life of One’s Own, Kate Bolick names two factors in the rise of spinsters in postbellum New England beyond the deaths of millions of men in the Civil War: “the bruised postwar economy, which made it difficult for men to professionalize and marry early,” and “a regional commitment to intellectual and literary pursuits, which extended to women” and “created a social atmosphere in which single women were allowed, a little bit, to flourish.” When prominent mid-nineteenth-century women like Catharine Maria Sedgwick, Lucy Larcom, Frances Willard, and others who identified as reformers or professional writers remained single, popular opinion toward spinsterhood changed. Or at least it did toward a very particular kind of unmarried woman: the single, upper-middle-class white woman who devoted her life to a worthy cause, who traded matrimony for the pursuit of charity or intellectual study.
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Francis Bacon Biography
Lawyer (1561–1626)
Francis Bacon was an English Renaissance statesman and philosopher, best known for his promotion of the scientific method.
Who Was Francis Bacon?
Francis Bacon was born on January 22, 1561 in London, England. Bacon served as attorney general and Lord Chancellor of England, resigning amid charges of corruption. His more valuable work was philosophical. Bacon took up Aristotelian ideas, arguing for an empirical, inductive approach, known as the scientific method, which is the foundation of modern scientific inquiry.
Early Life
Statesman and philosopher Francis Bacon was born in London on January 22, 1561. His father, Sir Nicolas Bacon, was Lord Keeper of the Seal. His mother, Lady Anne Cooke Bacon, was his father's second wife and daughter to Sir Anthony Cooke, a humanist who was Edward VI's tutor. Francis Bacon’s mother was also the sister-in-law of Lord Burghley.
The younger of Sir Nicholas and Lady Anne's two sons, Francis Bacon began attending Trinity College, Cambridge, in April 1573, when he was 12 years old. He completed his course of study at Trinity in December 1575. The following year, Bacon enrolled in a law program at Honourable Society of Gray's Inn, the school his brother Anthony attended. Finding the curriculum at Gray's Inn stale and old fashioned, Bacon later called his tutors "men of sharp wits, shut up in their cells if a few authors, chiefly Aristotle, their dictator." Bacon favored the new Renaissance humanism over Aristotelianism and scholasticism, the more traditional schools of thought in England at the time.
A year after he enrolled at Gray's Inn, Bacon left school to work under Sir Amyas Paulet, British ambassador to France, during his mission in Paris. Two and a half years later, he was forced to abandon the mission prematurely and return to England when his father died unexpectedly. His meager inheritance left him broke. Bacon turned to his uncle, Lord Burghley, for help in finding a well-paid post as a government official, but Bacon’s uncle shot him down. Still just a teen, Francis Bacon was scrambling to find a means of earning a decent living.
Counsel and Statesman
Fortunately for Bacon, in 1581, he landed a job as a member for Cornwall in the House of Commons. Bacon was also able to return to Gray's Inn and complete his education. By 1582, he was appointed the position of outer barrister. Bacon's political career took a big leap forward in 1584, when he composed A Letter of Advice to Queen Elizabeth, his very first political memorandum.
Bacon held his place in Parliament for nearly four decades, from 1584 to 1617, during which time he was extremely active in politics, law and the royal court. In 1603, three years before he married heiress Alice Barnham, Bacon was knighted upon James I's ascension to the British throne. He continued to work his way swiftly up the legal and political ranks, achieving solicitor general in 1607 and attorney general six years later. In 1616, his career peaked when he was invited to join the Privy Council. Just a year later, he reached the same position of his father, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal. In 1618, Bacon surpassed his father's achievements when he was promoted to the lofty title of Lord Chancellor, one of the highest political offices in England. In 1621, Bacon became Viscount St. Albans.
In 1621, the same year that Bacon became Viscount St. Albans, he was accused of accepting bribes and impeached by Parliament for corruption. Some sources claim that Bacon was set up by his enemies in Parliament and the court faction, and was used as a scapegoat to protect the Duke of Buckingham from public hostility. Bacon was tried and found guilty after he confessed. He was fined a hefty 40,000 pounds and sentenced to the Tower of London, but, fortunately, his sentence was reduced and his fine was lifted. After four days of imprisonment, Bacon was released, at the cost of his reputation and his long- standing place in Parliament; the scandal put a serious strain on 60-year-old Bacon's health.
Philosopher of Science
Bacon remained in St. Alban's after the collapse of his political career. Retired, he was now able to focus on one of his other passions, the philosophy of science. From the time he had reached adulthood, Bacon was determined to alter the face of natural philosophy. He strove to create a new outline for the sciences, with a focus on empirical scientific methods—methods that depended on tangible proof—while developing the basis of applied science. Unlike the doctrines of Aristotle and Plato, Bacon's approach placed an emphasis on experimentation and interaction, culminating in "the commerce of the mind with things." Bacon's new scientific method involved gathering data, prudently analyzing it and performing experiments to observe nature's truths in an organized way. He believed that when approached this way, science could become a tool for the betterment of humankind.
Biographer Loren Eisley described Bacon's compelling desire to invent a new scientific method, stating that Bacon, "more fully than any man of his time, entertained the idea of the universe as a problem to be solved, examined, meditated upon, rather than as an eternally fixed stage upon which man walked." Bacon himself claimed that his empirical scientific method would spark a light in nature that would "eventually disclose and bring into sight all that is most hidden and secret in the universe."
During his young adulthood, Bacon attempted to share his ideas with his uncle, Lord Burghley, and later with Queen Elizabeth in his Letter of Advice. The two did not prove to be a receptive audience to Bacon's evolving philosophy of science. It was not until 1620, when Bacon published Book One of Novum Organum Scientiarum (novum organum is Latin for "new method"), that Bacon established himself as a reputable philosopher of science.
According to Bacon in Novum Organum, the scientific method should begin with the "Tables of Investigation." It should then proceed to the "Table of Presence," which is a list of circumstances under which the event being studied occurred. "The Table of Absence in Proximity" is then used to identify negative occurrences. Next, the "Table of Comparison" allows the observer to compare and contrast the severity or degree of the event. After completing these steps, the scientific observer is required to perform a short survey that will help identify the possible cause of the occurrence. Unlike a typical hypothesis, however, Bacon did not emphasize the importance of testing one's theory. Instead, he believed that observation and analysis were sufficient in producing a greater comprehension, or "ladder of axioms," that creative minds could use to reach still further understanding.
Writing Career
During his career as counsel and statesman, Bacon often wrote for the court. In 1584, he wrote his first political memorandum, A Letter of Advice to Queen Elizabeth. In 1592, to celebrate the anniversary of the queen's coronation, he wrote an entertaining speech in praise of knowledge. The year 1597 marked Bacon's first publication, a collection of essays about politics. The collection was later expanded and republished in 1612 and 1625.
In 1605, Bacon published The Advancement of Learning in an unsuccessful attempt to rally supporters for the sciences. In 1609, he departed from political and scientific genres when he released On the Wisdom of the Ancients, his analysis of ancient mythology.
Bacon then resumed writing about science, and in 1620, published Novum Organum, presented as Part Two of The Great Saturation. In 1622, he wrote a historical work for Prince Charles, entitled The History of Henry VII. Bacon also published Historia Ventorum and Historia Vitae et Mortis that same year. In 1623, he published De Augmentis Scientarium, a continuation of his view on scientific reform. In 1624, his works The New Atlantis and Apothegms were published. Sylva Sylvarium, which was published in 1627, was among the last of his written works.
Although Bacon's body of work covered a fairly broad range of topics, all of his writing shared one thing in common: It expressed Bacon's desire to change antiquated systems.
Death and Legacy
In March 1626, Bacon was performing a series of experiments with ice. While testing the effects of cold on the preservation and decay of meat, he stuffed a hen with snow near Highgate, England, and caught a chill. Ailing, Bacon stayed at Lord Arundel's home in London. The guest room where Bacon resided was cold and musty. He soon developed bronchitis. On April 9, 1626, a week after he had arrived at Lord Arundel's estate, Francis Bacon died.
In the years after Bacon's death, his theories began to have a major influence on the evolving field of 17th-century European science. British scientists belonging to Robert Boyle's circle, also known as the "Invisible College," followed through on Bacon's concept of a cooperative research institution, applying it toward their establishment of the Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge in 1662. The Royal Society utilized Bacon's applied science approach and followed the steps of his reformed scientific method. Scientific institutions followed this model in kind. Political philosopher Thomas Hobbes played the role of Bacon's last amanuensis. The "father of classic liberalism," John Locke, as well as 18th-century encyclopedists and inductive logicians David Hume and John Mill, also showed Bacon's influence in their work.
Today, Bacon is still widely regarded as a major figure in scientific methodology and natural philosophy during the English Renaissance. Having advocated an organized system of obtaining knowledge with a humanitarian goal in mind, he is largely credited with ushering in the new early modern era of human understanding.
FRANCIS BACON
Books written:
24 Essays By Francis Bacon
A Brief Sketch Of Lord Bacon's Life
A Conference Of Pleasure
A Harmony Of the Essays, Etc Arranged By Edward Arber
Advancement Of Learning and Novum Organum
An Account Of the Life and Times Of Francis Bacon
An Explanatory Version Of Lord Bacon's Novum Organum
Atalanta or Gain
Bacon
Bacon's Advancement Of Learning and The New Atlantis
Bacon's Essaies
Bacon's Essays
Bacon's Essays and Colours Of Good and Evil
Bacon's Essays and Wisdom Of the Ancients
Bacon's Essays With Introduction, Notes, and Index By Edwin a Abbott - Volume I
Bacon's Essays, Volume 2
Bacon's Essays, Volume II
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runawayforthesummer · 7 years
Text
Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton
A biographical sketch by Georgina Schuyler, written to her niece, Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton.
(Letter accompanying photography of a portrait of her namesake, Mrs. Alexander Hamilton)
37 Madison Ave
New York
June 21st 1908
My Dear Elizabeth
This is the day of your ___ and this letter is written to you—to give given to you when you are older, with the portrait of the lady for whence you are named, Elizabeth Schuyler, afterwards Mrs. Alexander Hamilton.  She was your father’s great-grandmother, and my great grandmother.  But though she lived so long ago, some of us still remember her, and all of us love her because she was so lovely, good and king; and we hope you too will love and be like her.
She was born on the 9th of August, 1757, and was the daughter of General Philip Schuyler, of Albany, and she, and her father, and mother, and brothers and sisters lived in a large house just outside the City of Albany, overlooking the Hudson River. It was called “the Pastures,” and is still standing, though the city streets are all about it now.
When this portrait was painted, in 1787, Mrs. Hamilton had been married eight years, and had three little children.  Two years later, in 1789, her husband was appointed by Washington Secretary of the Treasury.  The President and Cabinet then lived in New York City and at the Hamilton house there were dances and parties and many people coming and going—Wednesday evening was their reception evening.  Marie Antoinette, was then the Queen of France.  She wore the same kind of high head dress you see in the portrait—it was the Fashion of the day.  Mrs. Hamilton’s  older sister Angelica, Mrs. Church, had married an Englishman and lived in Paris and in London for many years.  Mr. & Mrs. Church knew many French people noblemen and ___.  Most sought refuge in England during the French Revolution; and a number of the gentlemen came to America introduced by Mrs. Church to her sister and brother-in-law.  Mrs. Hamilton was kind and hospitable to them and they needed kindness in exile from their country, sad and lonely, separated from their family.
For it was Mrs. Hamilton’s kindness and the nature of her disposition that attracted people.  She was not so very pretty—not as pretty as her older sister—but she was good tempered, and everyone liked her.  There was a young gentleman from Maryland, Mr. Tilghman, an aid de camp of General Washington, who stayed at her father’s house when she was a girl.  He writes that she had “the most good natured, dark, lovely eyes I ever saw,” and everyone one told him how sweet tempered she was.  She was also active and fearless.  They all went on a picnic near Albany; and he describes how Miss Betsey Schuyler climbed up the banks of the waterfall, and jumped from rock to rock, declining all assistance, and making merry at the fears of the other girls.
Mr. Carroll of Maryland was detained at the country place of her father, General Schuyler, at Saratoga, for a week, owing to the illness of old Mr. Benjamin Franklin. [He] writes what a pleasant week he had passed.  He was very much older than Miss Betsey, but he found her and her sister very good company, so bright and cheerful, and ready and glad to take not of older people. Miss Betsey was straight forward and simple in her manner.  One of the French gentleman speaks of her in later years—of her simplicity and adds that “she is a charming woman.”
So, when this portrait was painted, she had passed through a happy girlhood, and was most happily married. She was a devoted wife.  She appreciated her husband’s genius and she did all she possibly could to help him.  He had to work very hard to support his family (he was a lawyer by profession) and whenever possible, he was pre-occupied with public affairs.  But he, too, was kind and wished to help people when they were in trouble and so this is the story of the portrait:
The artist, Mr. Earle, had made debts he could not pay, and was put in the New York City Debtor Prison (such was the law of those days).  Mr. Hamilton was sorry for him and worked to get [him] out, and consulted his wife as to the best way of doing so.  She decided that she would dress and visit the Debtors Prison and ask for her portrait there, in a room that was set apart for Mr. Earle to paint her in.  She persuaded the ladies to do the same thing.  They also came to the prison and sat for their portraits; and son Mr. Earle had made enough money to pay his debts, get out of prison, and be a free man once more: Thanks to her we have the portrait, and the memory of her kind heart. This story was told to me by her son James, my Grandfather Hamilton, who loved to tell it of his mother.
In her later life she had great sorrows, and showed much strength of character.  Her husband’s death left her with many children to support and educate, and but little fortune with which to do so.  However, they all grew up and made their way, and then she thought of other children, poor children left without money or father to care for them, and she helped to found the first orphan asylum in New York City. She also took into her home a little orphan girl and brought her up and started her in life.  She lived to a great age.  I remember perfectly her sweet old face and her white hair under her cap as she used to sit in the ball at Nevis where now this very portrait hangs.
I am my dear little Elizabeth
Your affectionate
Georgina Schuyler
To Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton
source: Columbia University, Hamilton Family Papers
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A Sketch of Napoleon
               Born on a pile of tapestry— because that’s what it was. From the moment that the titan Cronos bestowed his dying breath into the infant boy’s lungs, it was evident that— it was not yet certain what was evident, but something about his unmistakable sense of ennui captivated the people around him. When he grew older and began to attend the military school of Brienne, whenever anyone tried to correct him, he simply said, “I know it, sir.” And that was the end of every conversation, because it was evident that he, indeed, knew.
               He was twenty years old when the revolution broke out, and all of a sudden, Achilles, Hector, and Ajax were no longer just configurations of letters in his Iliad and colorful stitches in a lifeless piece of cloth; they were alive on the continent, and their names were Robespierre, Danton, and Marat. The twenty-year old Corsican nationalist went home to find his hero— the godlike Pascal Paoli— but found that despite his apparent willingness and mental capacity, his hero held him out at arm’s length. The young Napoleone di Buonaparte, instead of turning the other cheek for his cause, realized for the first time that he held the unfortunate position of being an alien no matter where he went, and returned to the unstable climate of France where there was no place for anyone anymore.
---
               In the space of five short years, the Corsican didn’t recognize himself anymore, and perhaps, this way, it was for the better. It was, for all intents and purposes, a narrative of five parts.
               I— In 1795, he gave the royalists in Paris a whiff of grapeshot and became a hero. He became bewitched by Josephine de Beauharnais, a beautiful widow six years his elder. He was too in love with being in love with her to see that she resented him.
               II— In 1796, he married her. There was no ceremony—with a batch of paperwork, Napoleon and Josephine became Citoyen and Citoyenne Bonaparte.
               III— in 1796, he took Italy, and learned, at last, that his dear wife was far dearer to him than he was to her. It took a night of her relentlessly pounding on his door for him to forgive her for all she had done to wrong him, but when all had been said and done, he no longer loved her.
               IV— in 1798, forty centuries looked down upon him in Egypt.
               V— finally, in 1799, the coup of 18 Brumaire promotes him to First Consul of the First Republic. The man who once kissed the feet of Paoli, who once worshipped Voltaire, now has France wrapped around his little finger.
---
               It took another five years before the First Consul of France (and new President of the Republic of Italy) decides, once again, that what he has— and all he has accomplished— is no longer enough. If consul wasn’t enough for Julius Caesar, his lifelong idol, then it isn’t enough for him. And it wouldn’t be enough to be a king, either. So, on December second, 1804, Napoleon Bonaparte takes the crown of Charlemagne from the hands of the pope, and, as time seems to stop moving in the frigid air of the Notre Dame of Paris, places it on his own head. He proceeds to call himself emperor, and the world follows suit.
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               What is there to want anymore? At the mere age of thirty-five, Napoleon Bonaparte has the world at his disposal. In his heart he knows that he possesses the competence that only people whose names usually ended in “The Great” carried, but he knows that a brief look at the history of his rise to power would make it evident that the strength in his career really all manifested itself in being at the right place at the right time. He begins to play games to see how far he can go without flying too close to the sun— already, as it is, he stands quite close. He first divides France into 83 administrative districts. He overhauls and reforms the education system. He combines the laws of the land into a single civil code, which is perhaps the proudest of his many achievements to date.
               And then there are the Icarus moments. In an attempt to maintain his popularity, he shuts down every newspaper in Paris except for those that worship him. He appoints his brothers and sisters as kings and queens of lands where they do not belong. And in 1812, seven years after the victory at Austerlitz, he decides to retaliate against England and Russia, the two countries which refuse to fall under his command; in an act of revenge, he decides to invade Russia.
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               By the time that the great imperial army fights its way to Moscow, the city lays in cold embers at the emperor’s feet. As wind whistles and newly-burnt ruins lay sound, for the first time the Corsican tastes defeat. Leaving scores of thousands of his ever-faithful men to the murderous hands of general snow, he retreats, not having completely fallen into the sea, but struggling to hover with whatever he has left.
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               Two years later, he abdicates, as is demanded by the coalition of all of Europe against France— that is, if by France, they meant Napoleon Bonaparte. Tasting melancholy for the first time in a long while, he begrudgingly kissed his guards goodbye at Fontainebleau. On the way out of the country that he, the self-made man, shaped with his own two hands, he greets the passers-by at every village he stopped through. And he sees that in his attempts to stylize himself as a god, as a hero, as Caesar, as Alexander the Great, all he had done was shift his own image so out of proportion that none of these people recognize him as their emperor anymore. But being the person he is, he refuses to accept that this is the death of the Emperor.
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               One year. One year is all it takes for the menace of all of Europe to grow bored with the island of Elba. He decides that there is, after all, a difference between him and Caesar; between him and the heroes of his history books and tapestries. Napoleon Bonaparte was a name that would be savored for eternity, and not because he, like the other, lost in the end, but because he, unlike the others, managed to win one last time.
When he arrives in France again, surrounded by allies and enemies, he bares his chest to the world and shouts that anyone who dared shoot their emperor has the right to do so. No one shoots. It seems a good omen.
---
He remains stubborn until the bitter end of his career, and perhaps that is why, after losing to the seventh alliance, he proceeds to call the Battle of Waterloo the Battle of Mont-Saint-Jean. He has in his mind from the beginning that something will go wrong, but because of the unfortunate fact that he is a human being, he doesn’t know what. The words of advice that he had given to himself not so long ago (for he is his own adviser) repeat themselves in his head as he watches his final, faithful army fall to that of that tyrant Wellesley and his damned coalition. He tells himself over and over that he must be different than the others, that he cannot, under any circumstances, flame out and die young. But the dashing young general who had dominated Italy and Egypt has been gone since 1799.
---
Napoleon Bonaparte, without title, without fortune, abdicates life on the British Island of Saint Helena in 1821, on the British Isle of Saint Helena. In his final six years the once-conqueror spends his days drawing out the game to a finish. He dictates his memoirs in the hopes that someone will one day read them and try to understand him. He spends hours playing chess, reminiscing about the days when the silly board game had been his reality.
He just cannot being himself to live in the present where the empire is lost, the revolution is dead, Josephine is dead, and all he had done and taken for granted in the span of fifty-one years is gone— all gone! As if none of it happened to begin with! Captured only in art and writing which people now know does not represent the reality of the situation! Between the hours of distraction— chess— hours-long baths— entertaining guests in a mockery of what had once been— dying, eventually— he, as the biographers and scholars who will go on to follow his jumbled legacy, asks himself:
What would have happened if he had won that fateful day? Would he have gone on to become the hero he envisioned? Or would he have lost some other way? Will he be at least remembered as one of the great conquerors, if nothing else? Is this the way that Caesar felt as he lay dying? Filled with regret and desperation but with a tiny amount of hope at imagining what could have been?
               “Who retreats…” he rasped with whatever was left of Cronos’s dying breath, perhaps unaware that these were his parting words. “Head of the army…”
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