The first woman to ask for divorce and lead an army, Eleanor of Aquitaine (1122) lived until she was 82 (pretty good considering most died in their 40s). She got a formal education, which was really rare for women in that era. There are rumours that she poisoned her second husband Henry II’s mistress, the Fair Rosamund.
(via 451929)
Source: fuckyeahhistorycrushes
Why you should be in passionate horny love with Elizabeth ‘Nellie Bly’ Cochrane
- Born in 1864/65, Elizabeth, one of 15 children, was always ‘the rebellious one’. Fierce as fuck from an early age, she testified against her abusive stepfather in her mother’s divorce trial.
- In 1880 she enrolled in a teacher-training college but had to leave after her first semester due to lack of funding - then moved to Pittsburgh to help run a goddamn boarding school.
- This is where we get to the good shit. Age 18, she wrote a letter-to-the-editor of the Pittsburgh Dispatch bitchslapping the everloving fuck out of a sexist ballsack of an article entitled ‘What Girls Are Good For’.
- The editor was so goddamn wooed by her razor-sharp tongue that he RAN AN AD asking her to identify herself. Elizabeth owned up, and was hired instantaneously, her badassery radiating from her pores and intoxicating all within a twenty mile radius.
- Working under the pen-name Nellie Bly, Elizabeth kicked the butts of morons everywhere, writing articles aimed at social justice, particularly labour laws to protect working ‘girls’ and reform of Pennsylvania’s divorce law, which greatly favoured men.
- Not content with changing the world from behind her desk, Elizabeth became a founding mother of investigative journalism. She was expelled from Mexico for exposing political corruption, and henceforth wrapped in cotton wool by her editors. Infuriated by their mollycoddling, Lizzie left them a note essentially telling them to fuck themselves and hot footed it to NYC. She was still only 23.
- Within six months she was hired by Joseph fucking Pulitzer himself, and continued her batshit crazy investigations uninhibited. Her very first assingment had her feigning mental illness to expose repulsive conditions in Blackwell’s Island Insane Asylum. Her cutting report was so fucking horrifying, compelling and persuasive that it triggered public and political action, leading to reform of the institution.
- In the next couple of years she had herself thrown in jail and hired by a sweatshop, all for shits and giggles. Oh, and to uncover incomprehensible injustice, cruelty, poverty, and the concealed, heinous treatment of the vulnerable and voiceless.
- But was pioneering journalism, social revolution and batshit badassery enough for our Liz? Like fuck it was. On a whim Nellie did what any self-respecting 25 year old woman in the 1800s would do - she emulated Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days, and did it in 72.
- Millions followed her journey, and its appeal to a semi-literate populace resulted in greatly increased newspaper readership. So while travelling the entire globe (IN THE 1800s, AS A WOMAN) by ship, train, burro and balloon, she helped the world to read.
- Having essentially conquered the entire goddamn universe before hitting 30, Nellie retired, and wed 72 year old industrialist Robert Seaman. Their marriage was a happy one, and after his death she took over Iron Clad Manufacturing Co.
- But Lizzie was a writer, what would she know about the metal industry? Well, she INVENTED the steel barrel that became the model for the widely used 55-gallon drum and turned her inherited businesses into multimillion-dollar companies, so apparently a fuck ton.
- Furthermore, she set a precedent for working conditions, ensuring her workers had good pay, gymnasiums, staffed libraries, and health care, all completely unheard of at the time, while still writing to further the plight of the Suffragette movement.
- Nellie may have died age 58 of pneumonia, but HBICs live on forever.
Source: jawdust
When I was younger, I thought she was a myth, some sort of boogie man. Imagine my surprise …
Students outside the high school in Mount Ida (Montgomery County, AR), reciting the Pledge of Allegiance with the traditional salute method, which has the right arm extended toward the flag during the recitation; circa 1930s. This salute was discontinued in 1942.”
I had no idea this was a thing.
“One had never seen anything lovelier in the world. Beside the beauty of her face and her well-turned body, she was superbly dressed and fantastically valuable jewellery adorned her attire. Her lovely face shone with faultless white skin and her hair was dressed with big white pearls, precious stones and extremely rare diamonds shaped like stars—one could say that her natural beauty and the shimmering of her jewels competed with a brilliant night sky full of stars, so to speak.” - Pierre de Bourdeille
I like to know all of a person in a biography, even their worst parts, so I chose books that really tried hard not to fit Elizabeth into the “perfect queen from the start” mold. That she could rise above herself and people’s low expections, becoming great in the eyes of a society dominated by men is one of her selling points.
Again, all books with asterisks are my ebooks.
Non-Fiction
The Life of Elizabeth I by Alison Weir.* Weir is one of the more famous Tudor historians and she has written quite a few books on the subject, each one filled to the brim with wonderful and enlightening detail. She tends to fall into the same trap as Antonia Fraser, where you find notes of her bias leaking through her facts. Be aware that it’s very obvious she rather loathes Anne Boelyn! It’s hard to find anything historical that’s objective - the people who are passionate about their subjects cannot remove themselves from it.
The Death of Elizabeth I: Remembering and Reconstructing the Virgin Queen by Catherine Loomis.* This is a series of reactions and eyewitness accounts in response to the death of Elizabeth in 1603, it ranges from outright grief to nasty letters. This is how people saw her, for better or worse.
Fiction
Queen of This Realm by Jean Plaidy. A fictional memoir starting from Elizabeth’s earliest memory to her old age, including a lifelong account of her relationship with the Earl of Leiciester (her “Eyes”) and the “truth” about her stepfather’s advances when she was young. This was one of the very first fictional accounts of I ever read about any of the Tudors, so it has a special place in my heart. I don’t think it has the emotional capacity of Legacy (another rec further down), but the storytelling is straightforward and compelling.
The Lady Elizabeth by Alison Weir.* Yep, it’s Ms. Weir again, this time writing a fictional account of Elizabeth before she became queen. The name of this novel is significant as for a goodly portion of her childhood, she was actually not referred to as “Princess” due to her father’s declaration of her illegitimacy after her mother was beheaded.
Despite Weir’s firm belief in her non-fiction works that Elizabeth remained a virgin for her life, she writes a sex scene into this novel. This is probably the most disappointing part of it for me, but it was otherwise written beautifully. Sometimes it’s hard to know what is written by the author and what is considered “necessary” by the editors/publishers.
Legacy by Susan Kay.* This really jumps right into Elizabeth’s mind, starting right as she was imprisoned by her sister Mary I. It portrays her as a brilliant young lady who has a complex mind and an even more complex task before her: navigating the politics of the court during her sister’s reign and then, finally, navigating the more difficult world of international intrigue. Kay allegedly spent fifteen years researching and writing this novel and it really shows. I have no complaints as far as accuracy or prose goes. She does a fantastic job bringing this age to life and never softening the hard edges of anyone’s personality (least of all Elizabeth’s).
I just started Elizabeth I by Margaret George*, which is following along the same “fictional memoir” path as her other books (Mary, Queen of Scotland and the Isles and The Autobiography of Henry VIII with Notes by his Fool, Will Somers, for example). I can’t give an entire review as I’m not finished with it, but there are two notable things so far: it starts out in 1588, right before the (first) Spanish Armada attacks when Elizabeth has already been queen for thirty years. It also alternates chapters between Elizabeth and Lettice Knollys, a cousin of hers who “stole” Robert Dudley from her when they married secretly.
I have never read anything from Lettice’s POV, so it’s an interesting ride. Her side shows how vindictive Elizabeth can be when she felt that she had been betrayed and this is based mostly on fact - Lettice was permanently banished from court and was left in great debt by Dudley’s death, something Elizabeth seemingly took great pleasure in exploiting.
There is one author/series that is missing from this list: Philippa Gregory. She’s very popular (especially since The Other Boleyn Girl was brought to the big screen) but I don’t particularly like the way she writes. That may very well be due to my own fawning admiration for Elizabeth, but there are plenty of historical details that she outright changes to fit her story, rather than making her story fit the history. The one plot device I like of hers it to tell the story through a historical character who may or may not have existed at all.
Gregory writes quite a bit of conjecture as to the extent of Elizabeth’s relationship with Dudley and puts forth the idea that Elizabeth ordered the excecution of Mary of Guise (patently untrue, she died of natural causes). Because Elizabeth was so reluctant to execute her cousin Mary (Queen of Scots) despite her repeated efforts to oust her from the throne, I find myself hardpressed to believe that she would order her mother killed so casually, even in a fictional account. Despite this, if you’re still interested (The Virgin’s Lover, The Queen’s Fool and The Other Queen deal directly with Elizabeth), I have the ebooks.
Not quite Elizabeth, but still features her:
Her Majesty’s Spymaster: Elizabeth I, Sir Francis Walsingham and the Birth of Modern Espionage by Stephen Budiansky. The idea that Elizabeth even had a spymaster was so incredibly interesting to me and none of the accounts of her life that I read really delved into the material - partially, I believe, due to the fact that she wasn’t specifically aware of how far spread his arms reached. Walsingham was a very close-lipped man, as was necessary for such a job. This book satisfied my curioisity, at least a little.
This is for Kristen, since I like to rec books and she asked about Marie Antoinette. This list is just too long for twitter! The titles with asterisks are the ones I have ebooks of, if anyone else is interested too!
Recently, I read Madame Tussaud by Michelle Moran*, which is a view of the French Revolution through (you guessed it!) Anna Maria Tussaud (nee Grosholtz) with some interesting interactions with the royal family. It doesn’t focus on them, but it does a fine job chronicling the progression of the revolution into the Reign of Terror and a little on her life afterward. Quite a bit of is based on her memoirs, whose facts haven’t been 100 percent authenticated, so take her personal accounts with a grain of salt as far as that information goes.
As far as Marie Antoinette is concerned, it goes a fair way to humanize her when she is “on screen” - Moran shows that no matter what she does, she will be vilified just for being part of the absolute monarchy that has ruled the Third Estate for so long.
For books solely about her:
Marie Antoinette: The Journey by Antonia Fraser* is probably at the top of the list. Fraser is a historian and her writing might be considered a little less readable for those of you who are very used to fiction, but it is full to bursting with detail of the period and the title lady. Be aware that the author’s view of Marie is very obvious in her writing - Fraser is very much a fan and takes great pains to dispel the “let them eat cake” myth, as well as attempting to clear her shallow reputation. She spends quite a bit of time on her relationship (whatever it may have been) with Count Fersen. To my knowledge, any rendezvous Marie may have had with him have been unsubstantiated claims, so again - a grain of salt.
Marie Anoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman by Stefan Zweig is a great representation of her character, in a very detailed sense. This book is a large tome (nearly 500 pages) of her life around the time she was betrothed to the young Dauphin right up to her premature death at thirty-seven. Throguh Zweig’s account, Marie becomes a real person with all of the quirks that come with it: mistakes, eccentricies and a personality that is not entirely unlikeable (despite what her detractors would have you think). Marie married young and was never truly able to be alone long after. I think the author does a wonderful job showing her realistic coping methods as they applied to these circumstances.
For something different:
Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution by Caroline Weber. As you delve deeper into the French Revolution, you will find that how Marie dressed was taken to be a commentary any time she appeared in public. In their eyes, she spent too much money, she was wasteful, she fully did not understand their plight. This book is not just about fashion, but the way a young princess tried to find her way in a foreign court, misstepping and misunderstanding too often for a people who were in a volatile state.
You may have noticed that this list is composed of books that have a sympathetic edge to Marie’s plight, but I don’t discount the fact that she did make mistakes (plenty of them!) and she led an indulgent life until the Revolution. Despite this, she was not a dictator, nor unscrupulously manipulative. I hope you’ll keep all that in mind when you’re reading. :)
The French army high command regarded vivandieres as essential to the functioning of the army. They provided services that the army could not, and they helped prevent desertion by bringing alcohol, tobacco, home-cooked meals, and female company into the camp. All of these were things a soldier might otherwise leave camp to find.
Each vivandiere was required to be married to a soldier in the regiment in which she served. This helped prevent prostitution and the spread of venereal disease. The couple’s children would be born in the field and grow up on campaign. They usually became soldiers or vi-vandieres themselves on reaching adulthood. Starting in 1800 sons of vivandieres were allowed to become enfants de troupe (children of the regiment). These boys received a uniform, half pay, and half rations from age two to sixteen, when they enlisted as private soldiers. This system remained in place until 1885 and provided an important source of pretrained manpower.
The word fork is derived from the Latin furca, meaning “pitchfork.” The first dining forks were used by the nobility in the Middle East and the Byzantine Empire. When in 1004 Maria Argyropoulina, niece of the Byzantine Emperor was married in Venice to Giovanni, son of the Doge of Venice, she brought with her a little case of golden forks, which she used at her wedding feast. The Venetians were shocked at this strange utensil and when Maria died two years later of the plague, Saint Peter Damian proclaimed that this was God’s punishment for use immoral use of the fork:
“Nor did she deign to touch her food with her fingers, but would command her eunuchs to cut it up into small pieces, which she would impale on a certain golden instrument with two prongs and thus carry to her mouth… . this woman’s vanity was hateful to Almighty God; and so, unmistakably, did He take his revenge.”
Source: designsponge.com
fyeahhistorymajorheraldicbeast:
“I learned my history from watching Hetalia.”
Cry bitter tears.
Guys. You can’t learn history from a satirical cartoon which is based more on how the Japanese view European history than actual history. It doesn’t work that way.
It’s still hard to learn history from the way Europeans view European history too. What people really need to learn is critical thinking and the ability to discern bias in factual documentation.
Source: fyeahhistorymajorheraldicbeast
ledirtyhippie: QUEEN NZINGHA
Queen Nzingha, also known as Ann Nzingha, was overlord of portions of both Angola and Zaire. She has been called the “greatest military strategist that ever confronted the armed forces of Portugal.” Nzingha’s military campaigns kept the Portuguese in Africa at bay for more than four decades….
Queen Victoria was known to get stoned (she usually drank her pot) and have lots of sex with her supposedly well hung husband. Alternately, Queen Victoria’s English culture and society was known to be extremely sexually repressive to women. This is interesting to me.
This side of Queen Victoria is much more enjoyable to read about.
Source: harkavagrant.com
