Embarkation of the Pilgrims.

The departure of the pilgrim fathers.

Edward VII of the United Kingdom as Prince of Wales and family December 12th 1891

The New Mayfair Edwardians.

The New Mayfair Edwardians (Peter Coats; William Ackroyd; Mark Gilbey) by Norman Parkinson 1950.




Quaint rather like policemen's helmets very English images that make you smile.

The first day of Spring.

Happy Mother's Day.

A Winter Evening, Artist Unknown.

Spring Is Near.

Alice in Wonderland by Arthur Rackham.

Elizabeth of York.

Elizabeth of York the mother of Henry VIII, Great great great grandaughter of Edward III the daughter of Edward IV, the niece of Richard III and the wife of Henry VII.

The Globe Theatre.

Founded during the reign of Elizabeth I of England in 1594 The Globe Theatre was a theatre in London associated with William Shakespeare. It was built in 1599 by Shakespeare's playing company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, and was destroyed by fire on 29 June 1613. A second Globe Theatre was built on the same site by June 1614 and closed in 1642. A modern reconstruction of the Globe, named "Shakespeare's Globe", opened in 1997 approximately 750 feet (230 m) from the site of the original theatre.

Procession Portrait of Elizabeth I.

Procession Portrait of Elizabeth I of England c. 1600 Attributed to Robert Peake the Elder.

Procession Portrait of Elizabeth I of England c. 1601. Queen Elizabeth I preceded by the Knights of the Garter. From left: Edmund Sheffield, later Earl of Mulgrave; Thomas Howard, Lord howard of Effingham and Lord Admiral; George Clifford, Earl of Cumberland; George Carey, Lord Hunsten; unknown knight, possibly Robert Radcliffe, Earl of Sussex; and Gilbert Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, carrying the Sword of State. In the foreground is Edward Somerset, 4th Earl of Worcester, Master of the Horse. Of the four men carrying the canopy only the one in white on the far right has been identified: Worcester's eldest son, Lord Herbert. Source: Strong, Roy. Gloriana. Thames and Hudson, 1987.

Elizabeth I.

Coronation Portrait of Elizabeth I by Unknown artist, oil on panel, late 16th early 17th century around 1559. National Portrait Gallery London.

13th Century Mediaeval Cottage.

Mediaeval Cottage 13th Century at Weald & Downland Museum, Singleton, West Sussex. Originally from Hangleton, East Sussex.

Servus.

The un-free peasants of Western Europe, the serfs, were the descendents of the dependent peasantry of Carolingian times. Their name was a bequest from the slaves of antiquity
( serf for servus ); never the less they possessed certain rights in law. In addition to the property they held from their lords they might also have a free property of their own, an allod. Their lord owed them protection and patronage, they owed him obedience and aid in the form of personal services and payments. An annual payment small sums known as ‘head-money’ set a symbolical seal on the bonds of their personal attachment. Tallage an extraordinary tax, might be demanded from serfs, and also from those who were nominally free whenever a lord was in difficulties. Special payments had to be made by a serf marrying outside his lord’s dependents and by a serfs direct heirs when he died: this ‘death duty’ entailed the surrender of the best head of cattle, or in some districts a share of the chattels.  In the twelfth century there were no longer any completely free peasants. The peasants described as ‘free’ were never the less bound to a lord in a protective relationship of some kind, just like the rest, but the greater the lord ( for example if he were the king or a great vassal, with a hundred or more estates ), and the more remote the court, the freer was the peasant. Bound to the service of one or more lords, the rural population of Europe lived in varying degrees of dependence, un-freedom or serfdom and the distinctions of grade were in practice as great as that between highly born vassals of the crown and ‘knights and noble squires’ who had virtually nothing to call their own, or between highly educated wealthy prelates and village priests bound to the soil. Our vocabulary does not possess the words necessary to distinguish clearly between the different groups, classes, and ranks of ‘free’ ‘half-free’ ‘un-free’ and ‘dependent’ peasants. The actual situation was more confusing still, for in many places a ‘free’ peasant might be more oppressed and much poorer than an ‘un-free’ peasant living only a few miles away. Some classes of peasant, and some individuals were working themselves higher up the social scale. By the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the peasantry had become a factor kings and nobles had to reckon with, even to the point of calling on their help. Those peasants who had won there freedom by invitation were known as hospites, they received a charter which promised them protection against unjust oppression, excessive dues, and arbitrary actions on the part of the landlord. Numerous new settlements originated in this way. To attract more settlers , the recruiting offices read the charters aloud at markets in other districts, like the north American railroad companies in the nineteenth century when they needed pioneers to colonize the empty lands of the west. The English nobility were among the first to turn agriculture into an industry. Peasants were bought out or expropriated to make room for sheep.              

A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.

~ Alexander Pope.

The Stately homes of England,
How beautiful they stand!
Amidst their tall ancestral trees,
O'er all the pleasant land!
The deer across the greenwood bound,
Through shade and sunny gleam;
And the swan glides past them with the sound
Of some rejoicing stream.

The Cottage homes of England!
by thousands, on her plains,
They are smiling o'er her silvery brooks,
And round the hamlet fanes.
Through glowing orchards forth they peep.
Each from its mote of leaves,
And fearless there they lowly sleep,
As the birds beneath their eaves.

Homes of England ~ Felicia Dorothea Hemans.

Happy the man, whose wish and care.
A few paternal acres bound,
Content to breath his native air.
In his own ground.
Whose herds with milk,
Whose fields with bread,
Whose flocks supply him with attire,
Whose trees in summer yield him shade,
In Winter fire.

Ode To Solitude ~ Alexander Pope.

Norman saw on English oak;
On English neck a Norman yoke;
Norman spoon in English dish,
And England ruled as Normans wish...

Verse in Ivanhoe, Sir Walter Scott's romance of Richard I's time,
which is recited by Wamba a Saxon jester.

The London Olympic Games 2012.

The London Olympic Games starts today with the opening ceremony at 9 o'clock this evening.

Image of the Royal family 35 years ago displayed on the Sea Containers building.

The Shard.

The Shard is the thousand foot high pyramid of glass near London Bridge it is the tallest building in Europe it was designed by Renzo Piano and started with a sketch at dinner. In the photograph above the Shard is on the left with the top disappearing into a cloud as rain made a very good attempt to stop play at the Diamond Jubilee. I don't know who will occupy the penthouse here or indeed what the use of the upper stories will be but I am sure whoever finds themselves at the top of London society will get a very good view of the clouds from there a heady prospect.