The Six Lives of Henry VIII

I've recently read two plays that deal with the life of King Henry VIII. The first was the Shakespeare play Henry VIII (said to date from 1613) and the second was a play by a guy named Samuel Rowley called When You See Me You Know Me, first published in 1605.

My main motive for reading them was to look for signs that the conventional account of the Henry VIII story was in error. Incidentally, I should mention that my last post concerning the Thomas More painting was part of the same vein of thought. A debate had been raging on the applied-epistemology website about this painting and the various conspiracies surrounding it. I only really published because I wanted to link to the image and needed somewhere in internet-land to upload it to. Hence the brevity and complete lack of context (anyone interested in the story of that painting will find the relevant links in the Who birthed the Renaissance section of the above mentioned site).

Anyway, back to the plays. The Shakespeare play was pretty standard Shakespeare really. Nothing special, but as ever enjoyable enough to read. It told the story of Henry's marriage to Anne Boleyn and the subsequent birth of Queen Elizabeth. In fact, I felt the focus of the play was more on Elizabeth than Henry. The play told the story as we know it today - divorces Katherine, marries Anne, Wolsey dies, Cromwell comes along, etc. The play ends with the birth of Elizabeth so none of the subsequent marriages are mentioned or dealt with. In fact, from a historical revisionist point of view the most interesting thing about the play is the fact that it's alternative title at the time was All is True. A title that may suggest there was some contention over what was the truth at the time of writing.

Luckily, however, the second play provided much more canon fodder. This play dealt with the birth of Edward, the death of Jane Seymour and the King's marriage to Catherine Parr. This play was all over the place chronologically speaking. Most bizarrely, Cardinal Wolsey was still alive at the end of it! The conventional account of history states that he died in 1530, three years before Anne Boleyn became Queen. Yet in this play he's managing England's affairs during the subsequent reigns of Queen Jane and Queen Catherine. He himself even states that he was responsible for her execution at one point in the play! Thomas Cromwell isn't mentioned once throughout the entire thing either and is nowhere to be seen.

Another odd thing is the fact that Catherine Howard and her beheading don't even get a mention. It just jumps from Jane Seymour to Catherine Parr. Catherine Howard is completely missed out and Anne of Cleves gets just a single line spoken about her. All very strange.

Six-Fingered Woman in Painting?

This insert is from the painting Thomas More and his Family by Rowland Lockey.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:More_famB_1280x-g0.jpg

Does the painting deliberately portray a woman with an extra finger?

Why Not March Fools' Day?

A belated happy new year to y'all.

At this time of year I always end up musing about the months of the year and why the new year starts where it starts. To be honest I don't get New Year's Eve, it doesn't have the same natural vibe that Christmas has and it always feels like a forced celebration to me. Consequently I always end up arguing with friends and family that it would be much better to have it sometime in spring - the natural beginnings of things.

Looking at the calendar March 1st seems like a natural break point. Apparently March was the first month of the Roman calender and this is said to be why our calender looks so fudged when we contemplate the names of the months. They supposedly had ten months originally and then added January and February later on. Logically, January and February should be the 11th and 12th months, but for some reason they come at the start of our year.

September - septem means seven in Latin yet it's our ninth month
October - octo, eight, yet our tenth month
November - novem, nine, yet our eleventh month
December - decem, ten, yet our twelfth month

Also, to me, the fact that February contains the extra day in a leap year also makes it a more logical twelfth month - it makes sense to add the extra day to the end of the year, rather than at some random intersection between two months.

Anyway, this led me to wonder why not March Fools' Day instead of April Fools' Day. Looking at the conventional explanations for all this calendar mayhem on Wikipedia etc it kind of looks like April Fools' is pretty much a consequence of the new year beginning in March (sometime). Although what with all the various local traditions and the changes from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar it gets pretty confusing. I feel a bit like I've wandered down a rabbit hole.

(The traditional quarter days seem like an interesting thing to look at next. Also the name Gule of August caught my eye - another name for Lammas. Gule - yule?)

Oh and before I forget, going back to the Roman months I've always found it odd that the months of July and August were renamed for Caesar and Augustus. I feel the worship of these two blurs into Christianity somewhat.  Anyway, I was wondering if maybe August shares its root with the Latin word aurum meaning gold. It would be quite fitting for a summer month and also the name Augustus was a title used by many emperors (likewise Augusta for empresses) - maybe it simply meant golden one. An augur in ancient Rome was a religious official or priest.

Also an aureus was a gold coin - so maybe a link to the person depicted on the coin. I think the Latin word chrysos means gold too - Christ? Do Augustus and Christ mean the same thing?

The Hunger Games - Christian Symbolism?

I've just finished reading the first book of The Hunger Games Trilogy. I really enjoyed it actually. I was inspired to read it after seeing the video for Coldplay's Atlas single (which is on the soundtrack to Catching Fire - the second Hunger Games movie). The video looked a little bit esoteric and it aroused my curiosity. I wasn't really aware of The Hunger Games at that point. In fact, the first time I'd even heard the name was just a few months ago when a younger, cooler girl I work with asked me if I'd read them, and then looked in horror when I said I didn't even know what they were.

Having seen the Coldplay video, I then had a little Google search and came across various conspiracies suggesting that the book and movie franchise are part of some New World Order template to prepare the ground for a real life 'hunger games' of the not too distant future. That kinda made me wanna go and read the books more.

Anyway, reading the first one I was more struck by the Christian symbolism than by any Illuminati nods and winks. I don't know if this symbolism is intentional, but I found it quite striking. Bread is a symbol of 'hope' throughout the book. There are 12 districts in Panem (the nation where it's set), there were 13 but one was destroyed - the crucified Jesus and his twelve disciples? The Capitol (the central controlling metropolis) is Rome (complete with Roman names - Octavia, Flavius, etc). The Games where the contestants fight to the death no doubt the games where Christians were thrown to their death. The name Panem even comes from the Latin phrase panem and circenses (bread and circuses). The two main characters (Katniss and Peeta) even spend some time half-dead in a cave! In fact, come to think of it, Katniss and Peeta - Catholic and St. Peter?? I think I'm pushing it too far now.

I think I'll definitely have to read the next two.

Recently Read: Power Trip by Damian McBride

I've just finished 'Power Trip' by Gordon Brown's former special adviser Damian McBride. It was a fascinating read. Concise, well-written and very engaging. I would highly recommend it for anyone interested in the Blair/Brown period of British politics.

The book more or less confirmed my general view of the Blair/Brown rivalry. Gordon Brown and his entourage come across as good and conscientious, albeit flawed, individuals. Whereas Blair and the Blairites come across as self-interested, self-serving careerists. Ed Balls comes across in a particularly good light, and Ed Miliband comes across quite well too - although I was left with a much more mixed opinion of him. I'm convinced that the bounce in popularity that Labour have recently received in the press is more due to this book than to the Labour Party conference itself, which to my mind was as dull and cringeworthy as ever. I think that political journalists across the board have read this book, seen the two Eds in a much more capable and competent light and that this has coloured their write-up of the Labour conference accordingly.

The book also clearly illustrates that the Blair/Brown divide in the Labour Party was more due to policy differences than personal differences. At times we've been led to believe that it was Brown's personal ambition that drove him to thwart Blair's plans, but clearly he was more driven by a genuine fear that Blair was taking the country down the wrong path (which in my opinion he was).

For anyone of a conspiratorial mindset it was interesting to note how close Brown was to Robin Cook before the latter's untimely death. This following passage about Brown finding out about Cook's death stood out;

"Gordon was so upset he could barely speak. He and Robin had only recently resolved their long-standing feud and become firm friends again, talking almost every day. It was central for Gordon's plans for his premiership that Robin would become his Deputy Leader or Chancellor, or be restored as Foreign Secretary, symbolising a break from the Blair years more than any other appointment could, following Robin's resignation over the Iraq War."

It's hard to underestimate how much of a U-turn that would have represented in regards British foreign policy. Now I'm not gonna sit here and state that therefore he was killed by some security service, but I'd be lying if I said the suspicion had never crossed my mind. Especially given all the intrigue surrounding the death of weapons expert David Kelly.

Anyhow, whatever did or didn't go on during those turbulent years, I find it hard not to feel that Brown was essentially a force for good and that Blair was ...well, er, not a force for good.

Books, especially books written by people in politics, should always be viewed with a degree of scepticism, however I feel that this one may be one of the more honest political ones we'll read in recent times. Recommended.

Recently Read: Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 1

I've just finished this. A total breeze to read, the character of Sir John Falstaff is genius. Anyhow, some of the odd bits I noticed.

The word mammet popped up. I wasn't sure what this meant but guessed from the context that it meant doll. I looked it up and it did indeed mean doll - or idol, which is kind of the same word I guess. The online dictionary definitions gave some more interesting information on the word;

Amid the conflict between the Protestants and Catholics, mammet was used by the Protestants in a derogatory manner to denote "an image of Christ or of a saint, etc.

A puppet, a favourite, an idol. A corruption of Mahomet. Mahometanism being the most prominent form of false religion with which Christendom was acquainted before the Reformation, it became a generic word to designate any false faith; even idolatry is called mammetry.

1. obsolete a false god; idol. 2. dialect ( English ) a figure dressed up, such as a guy or scarecrow. [C13: from Old French mahomet  idol, literally: the prophet Mohammed,  from the belief that his image was worshipped]

What if Mohammed was a corruption of mammet? Just saying.

Something else which popped up was the name Turk Gregory. It's context suggested someone very warlike. A Google search didn't turn up much other than a few suggestions that it was a reference to Pope Gregory VII. Although why he would be designated 'Turk' is anyone's guess. It made me think of Fomenko's contention that Turkey was synonymous with Russia at one point in history. Maybe the answer lies in that direction.

Falstaff also utters this line;

"You rogue, they were bound, every man of them, or I am a Jew else, an Ebrew Jew."

The Hebrew with the 'H' missing seemed worth making note of. It made me think of Eboracum - the ancient name for the city of York. I've just had a little Google search and this popped up (Wikipedia);

The name "Eboracum" is thought to have derived from the Common Brythonic Eborakon which probably means "place of the yew trees". The word for "yew" was probably something like *eburos in Celtic (cf. Old Irish ibar "yew-tree"

I think I'm heading back to the woodland British Israelism of my last post with this stuff. Treezus Christ.

St Oswald - Phantom Time and Catholic Crimes

I was watching a documentary about the Anglo-Saxons and it got me thinking about St Oswald again. There are two St Oswalds;

One a 7th century King of Northumbria, the other a 10th century Archbishop.

It seems odd to me that there would be two saints of the same name in the same country separated by three hundred years. Especially as the first one was particularly important. You'd have thought when the second one came along they would have differentiated him by giving him a different name or something. It makes me wonder if this could be some sort of Fomenko style duplicate. Maybe the 300 year gap is a symptom of the Phantom Time Hypothesis.

Many aspects of these saints lives seem quite frankly made up as well. The second Oswald supposedly died washing the feet of the poor. And Bede tells a story of how the first piously broke up a silver dish and gave it to the poor.

The name Oswald also seems quite curious too. It means "Divine ruler". "Os" meaning God and "Wald" meaning wield in Anglo-Saxon. A pretty apt name for a venerated saint don't-cha think. "Wald" also means forest in German. I can't help but wonder if that meaning would work better - Forest of God, or maybe even Tree of God. This would tie in with stuff like the Dream of the Rood where there seems to be some sort of Pagan-Christian strand where the cross is more a real tree than an actual wooden cross.

The Waldensians also spring to mind. They were supposedly named after their founder Peter Waldo, but this seems tenuous to me. I'd wager that they originally worshipped outside in forests - or that they even maybe worshipped trees to some extent. Maybe both they and the Oswald myths and legends are echoes of a Northern Christianity that was suppressed and co-opted by the Catholic church.

On the topic of Oswald myths this caught my eye on the first Oswald's Wikipedia page;

Reginald of Durham recounts another miracle, saying that his right arm was taken by a bird (perhaps a raven) to an ash tree, which gave the tree ageless vigor; when the bird dropped the arm onto the ground, a spring emerged from the ground. Both the tree and the spring were, according to Reginald, subsequently associated with healing miracles. Aspects of the legend have been considered to have pagan overtones or influences—this may represent a fusion of his status as a traditional Germanic warrior-king with Christianity. The name of the site, Oswestry, or "Oswald's Tree", is generally thought to be derived from Oswald's death there and the legends surrounding it.

Not very Christian at all.

I should also mention the Oswald legend associated with Roseberry Topping which I spoke of in an earlier post. It tells the story of Oswald's son Oswy (who in the conventional historical record is actually Oswald's brother - hmm?). In it he drowns in childhood in a spring at the summit of the Topping - fulfilling a prophetic dream his mother had. A fuller version of the legend can be found here -

http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/article-1356396884058/

Interestingly there's a church dedicated to St Oswald in the nearby village of Newton-under-Roseberry.