Home Articles posted by Lara (Page 106)

Upcoming Tudor lectures

If you’re lucky enough to be in and around London for these –

The National Portrait Gallery London will host a talk about the Sittow portrait of Henry VII (yes, the 7th… who doesn’t get nearly as much attention as his son and grandchildren!), which will be celebrating its 500th anniversary. The lecture will be by Dr. Tarnya Cooper, who is the curator of the 16th century paintings at the gallery. Check it out Thursday 27 October at 1:10pm!

David Starkey will be giving a public lecture on the 9th of November 2005 at 7pm on “The Private Life of Henry VIII”. The venue is the Skeel Lecture Theatre the Queen Mary University of London.

[Comments are closed on older posts. If you wish to make a comment, please contact Lara via the link in the sidebar.]

A Different Kind of Fox TV

Fox TV

As part of a film project, a fox was let loose in the National Portrait Gallery in London and then followed with the closed circuit TV. The video is available on the Channel 4 website. The fox and/or the artist had good taste… they started in the Tudor galleries! If you have never had a chance to get to the NPG, this is your chance to see where a lot of the famous Tudor portraits hang.

[Comments are closed on older posts. If you wish to make a comment, please contact Lara via the link in the sidebar.]

Miniature Collection on Display at Scottish NPG

The above link goes to an article at The Scotsman. One of the treasures that will be on display in this collection is a tiny pair of miniatures in lockets painted by Nicholas Hilliard of Elizabeth I and Robert Dudley.

(original links have expired and have been removed)

Here is a link to the National Galleries of Scotland. If you are unable to make it to the exhibit (like me!), there is a catalog of the miniatures available from the SNPG shop for £9.95.

The Virgin Queen on Channel 4 next week

For those of you in the UK, the Elizabeth I program starring Helen Mirren will start on Channel 4 on Thursday, September 29. The link goes to the Channel 4 page about the mini-series. Just from the few pictures I’ve seen, I think Helen Mirren makes a good older Elizabeth. I’m probably biased though, since I’ve always admired her as an actress!

Hurricane update: The current track is still keeping us clear of the worst in central Texas, although we’re looking at the possibility of a lot of rain if the storm gets pushed back into our area early next week by an approaching cold front. I know my house is okay because we’re on a hill, but there are a lot of areas around Austin that can be flooded if we get a lot of rain over a short period of time. And once again, for those of you might have had to evacuate, I hope you’re somewhere safe and sound now.

(original links have expired and have been removed)

[Comments are closed on older posts. If you wish to make a comment, please contact Lara via the link in the sidebar.]

Hurricane Rita and Texas

As some of you know by now, I live in Texas and yes, we have a big hurricane aiming towards us. I’ve already gotten a couple of emails, and I just wanted to let everyone know that I appreciate them thinking about me. I live in a small town about 25 miles east of Austin, so I’m not very close to the coast and I will not be evacuating. With the current track (always subject to change), it looks like we’ll get some rain and moderate winds where I am. If the track returns to the forecast path of yesterday, then we may still have a category 1 hurricane to deal with by the time Rita is in Central Texas. Should that happen, we’re going to pack up the animals and go into Austin, since our house is in a relatively high and exposed area where winds could be a problem.

I have no idea if I’ll be answering email quickly or not in the next few days, so I would appreciate your patience if you are waiting for a response on something. If there is strong rain on Saturday, the satellite internet at the house will probably be knocked out and I won’t be able to send anything or do any updates. If things turn worse for those of us inland, we’ll probably be obsessively watching the Weather Channel, but I might want to deal with Tudor things to take my mind off the other stuff!

And, of course, any readers who are in an area of potential danger, please take care of yourself!

[Comments are closed on older posts. If you wish to make a comment, please contact Lara via the link in the sidebar.]

Just a reminder

Please, please, if you wish to send me a suggestion, etc. send email directly to my address mentioned on the Send Mail page and not through the forms. Those forms are just for Pen Pal Messages, Query Submissions and New Link Submissions. And PLEASE check that you have typed your email address correctly. I was just trying to get back to someone who sent a suggestion and it bounced back. Thanks!

[Comments are closed on older posts. If you wish to make a comment, please contact Lara via the link in the sidebar.]

Help If You Can

Part of the reason I’ve been slow in posting updates this week was that I’ve been trying to keep up with the unfolding tragedy going on in my neighboring states in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. I know a lot of my readers are overseas, and I don’t know how much coverage this is getting in the rest of the world. It’s bad… there is no other way of putting it. If you can help with a donation, please do so.

[Comments are closed on older posts. If you wish to make a comment, please contact Lara via the link in the sidebar.]

Upcoming Elizabeth I programs

After finally sorting out which was which, I’ve got informaiton on the two upcoming television programs on Elizabeth.

One is starring Helen Mirren as Elizabeth I and Jeremy Irons as the Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. Interestingly, Irons is also playing Leicester in the upcoming film with Cate Blanchett. Typecasting as Robert Dudley?

Here is a link with more information about the Helen Mirren program, including a small photo: http://www.companypictures.co.uk/elizabeth.asp (original links have expired and have been removed). Funny enough, Helen Mirren is getting a little bit of typcasting too… she’ll be playing the second Queen Elizabeth (the current monarch, of course) in another upcoming program. Some of you have probably also seen her as Queen Charlotte in The Madness of King George.

The second will be later this year on BBC One and will be starring Anne Marie Duff as Elizabeth. Here is a BBC blurb about it:

Anne-Marie Duff stars as The Virgin Queen in a new drama for BBC ONE about the life of one of Britain’s greatest monarchs, Elizabeth I.

Paula Milne’s powerfully authored drama about the long and eventful life of England’s iconic Queen is currently filming against a backdrop of some of Britain’s most beautiful houses and landscapes.

The Virgin Queen explores the full sweep of Elizabeth’s life: from her days of fear as a potential victim of her sister’s terror; through her great love affair with Robert Dudley; into her years of triumph over the Armada; and finally her old age and her last, enigmatic relationship with her young protégé, the Earl of Essex.

The cast also includes: Joanne Whalley as Queen Mary; Dexter Fletcher as the Earl of Sussex; Tara Fitzgerald as Kat Ashley; Sienna Guillory as Lettice Knowles; Tom Hardy as Robert Dudley; Ian Hart as William Cecil; Robert Pugh as Lord Chancellor Gardiner; Kevin McKidd as the Duke of Norfolk; Hans Matheson as the Earl of Essex; Emilia Fox as Amy Dudley; Ben Daniels as Francis Walsingham; Ewen Bremner as Sir James Melville; and Bryan Dick as Thomas Wyatt.

Also, I’ve added the older “Gunpowder, Treason and Plot” to the Tudor movies list, since it started out before the death of Elizabeth I. I still haven’t seen this program, so I didn’t release that it did include stuff from Tudor times.

New scan of Margaret Tudor portrait up

I know I haven’t done a whole lot with new images or scans lately on the site, but I’m just so happy to finally have a color version of that portrait up (the Daniel Mytens one), that I had to post something about it. Kind of sad, I know, but that’s what happens when you’re a Tudor nut. 🙂

[Comments are closed on older posts. If you wish to make a comment, please contact Lara via the link in the sidebar.]

Henry VIII Hunting Whistle Unearthed

Discovered during the meeting of a metal detecting club on the Isle of Wight. Neat!

Thanks to Linda for passing this along!

(original links have expired and have been removed)

[Comments are closed on older posts. If you wish to make a comment, please contact Lara via the link in the sidebar.]

Blue Plaque for the Rose Theatre

The Rose Theatre

If you’ve ever gone to look at historical sites in London, you are probably familiar with the Blue Plaques. The remains of the Rose Theatre from Elizabethan times is on this year’s short-list. If you want to vote for it, click on the link above!

[Comments are closed on older posts. If you wish to make a comment, please contact Lara via the link in the sidebar.]

Back from vacation!

We had a great time in Maine, relaxing, shopping and various other activities. One place we went was to Big Chicken Barn Books and Antiques , where I found some Tudor related books at some great prices. I’ve been looking for a color version of the full-length portrait of Margaret Tudor (the one at Holyrood) for years, and who knew I’d finally find it in a $3 book in a chicken barn in Maine.

I’ve updated the pen pal messages and query submissions that came in while I was out, and hopefully I’ve now responded to all the emails that I needed to. If I’ve missed one, my apologies!

[Comments are closed on older posts. If you wish to make a comment, please contact Lara via the link in the sidebar.]

On vacation Aug 2-16

I’m trying to cover all the bases with my vacation notice, so I thought I would add one here too. I’ll be on a small island off the coast of Maine (northeastern-most part of the US, for those in other countries who aren’t familiar with our states) for two whole weeks! (Can you tell I’m really in need of a vacation??) I’ll probably only check email once or twice during that time, and I probably won’t be answering any email at all. I’ll update things as soon as I can when I get back, but it will probably take a few days to catch up on everything.

I’m taking a few Tudor-ish books along, so I might work on the site some, especially days when the weather isn’t cooperating with boating, hiking, etc. 🙂

[Comments are closed on older posts. If you wish to make a comment, please contact Lara via the link in the sidebar.]

Recent updates and a tidbit

Some of you may be wondering what I’ve been up to of late. I have been working on some stuff for the site, including expanding some of the guides to the nobility and church members of the Tudor period, as well as adding information to some of the royal genealogy information. I’ve also been playing around with making some of my own genealogical trees (thank goodness for “Layers” in Photoshop!), but I haven’t posted the first one yet. I’ll try to get that up shortly, so folks can look at it and point out some obvious dumb mistake I’ve made. 🙂

And now for something almost off-topic, but not quite… As some of you might know, I’m a big Harry Potter fan, so when a reader sent a link to me of the cub reporters’ interview with J. K. Rowling and mentioned that she drops Henry VIII’s name, I just had to find a way to work it into the blog somehow. So, here it is! .

I’ve got a couple more things, which I’ll update later this evening if I get a chance.

[Comments are closed on older posts. If you wish to make a comment, please contact Lara via the link in the sidebar.]

King Henry the Ape?

Well, at least according to Bucky Katt’s (of the comic strip “Get Fuzzy”) animal-centric history of the world.

(original links have expired and have been removed)

[Comments are closed on older posts. If you wish to make a comment, please contact Lara via the link in the sidebar.]

Got a spare £80,000 or so?

Sotheby’s London will be auctioning off a portrait of Henry VIII. For just a paltry $150,000/£80,000 (more or less, depending on the bidding) it can be yours!

(original links have expired and have been removed)

Elizabethan Garden at Kenilworth to be rebuilt

Royal romantic garden recreated

As the link above tells (do a search on news.google.com for “kenilworth” and “garden” to find more stories), excavations from last year have prompted researchers rethink the design of the current garden.

You can see my photo from the walls of the castle here: http://tudorhistory.org/places/kenilworth/gallery.html , taken in 1998. The garden will be reconstructed according to the new archaeological evidence, along with renovations of other parts of the property, including the 16th century gatehouse which has not been open to the public for quite some time.

Thanks to the several people who brought this to my attention!

[Comments are closed on older posts. If you wish to make a comment, please contact Lara via the link in the sidebar.]

Shakespeare Portrait found to be a fake

Shakespeare portrait ‘is a fake’

The Flower Portrait of William Shakespeare (owned by the Royal Shakespeare Company) has been found to have been painted in the early 19th century and not the “1609” date inscribed on it. Through paint analysis, microphotography, ultraviolet imaging and x-rays, the portrait has been determined to have come from between 1814 and 1840.

[Comments are closed on older posts. If you wish to make a comment, please contact Lara via the link in the sidebar.]