Previously: Please consider my application to become a feudal vassal.
1. I am convinced that I have spent most of my life waiting to subsume my will to someone more beautiful and powerful than myself. I am crammed with ambition on the behalf of others.
2. I would happily sidle over to up-and-comers at court during a masque, deliver a short, cutting remark about their social-climbing, then whirl smilingly away into the crowd.
3. Second only to my unflagging loyalty is my ability to tell when the tide is turning and jump ship at just the right moment – not too soon, when I could be accused of desertion by a still-powerful consort, and not too late, when I could be lumped together with the condemned. I will gladly transfer my loyalty to whichever arriviste currently pleases the King, until she doesn’t.
4. I spent a lot of time at sleepovers helping prettier girls than me do their hair or give each other makeovers and telling them how even more pretty they looked at the end of the process, so I’m prepared for that aspect of things.
5. I look amazing in square necklines, but not so amazing that it would threaten any of the more powerful ladies at court.
6. Communicating entire sentences in a carefully raised eyebrow and whispering double entendres while kneeling in church is something I feel I was born to do.
7. As best as I can tell, being a lady-in-waiting consists primarily of idly doing embroidery and occasionally saying bitchy things about the Queen; I can learn embroidery.
8. I really like whatever kind of weird music they always play in Tudor-era period dramas, with like the eerie woodwinds and that “doodly doo” sound, it’s kind of like a bagpipe but not exactly.
9. I’ve never had chicken pox, so I imagine that would sort of transitive-property-immunize me to smallpox.
10. I will say and do literally anything to keep my head on my shoulders. I’d keep my head down, you know? Play the long game. Not looking to rise to royal mistress or queen myself; that way ends at the Tower. I’m just here to smile and hold your French gable hood and hopefully not die in childbirth or have to work for a living.
11. I love strategy games; I would cheerfully choke back my feminism and participate in the world’s longest con and forget how to read in order to focus on more useful pursuits, like making bloodthirsty and insecure men feel powerful and important. It would be my greatest role.
12. I will never, never, never, ever try to sleep with the King.
Tags: history, please consider my application, work
I would definitely be happy to report on the state of the Queen’s bedsheets to anyone who asks (and is willing to pay).
6. Communicating entire sentences in a carefully raised eyebrow and whispering double entendres while kneeling in church is something I feel I was born to do.
I knew this skill was highly marketable, and currently undervalued.
Lapdog maintenance. I AM IN.
I just finished binge watching Wolf Hall last night. This is perfect. (The show itself was fairly close to perfect too, if only because they made Anne the raging bitch I’ve always been convinced she was. I tried explaining her to my sister and think I used the term ‘Regina George times ten.’)
In the game of Tudor court positions though I think I’d rather be Anne of Cleeves. Oh. Or can I just skip forward a century and a half and hang out with the Stuarts instead? Clearly they were far sexier people.
Anna Regina George!
But seriously, that show was soo good. I’ve always felt sympathetic towards Anne. I love that Wolf Hall didn’t really make it seem like she deserved to die–just that, politics being what they were, she had to go.
I tend to dislike the Tudors as a whole so my reaction towards pretty much every single character was
I still really, really don’t like Anne.
That pun is so magnificent, it deserved a whole comment.
I haven’t watched Wolf Hall yet because I’m slowly making my way through The Tudors. That show was excellent in taking Anne, who had been a raging bitch before the wedding, definitely, and making her sympathetic enough that I was really upset when she died and felt really sorry for her being basically manipulated by her father and other powerful men. Didn’t hurt that Natalie Dormer is super beautiful, of course.
In other news I LOVE YOUR USERNAME.
I tried to watch the Sexy Tudors when it first came out. Couldn’t do it. The dislike was just too intense. Now, if someone made a Sexy Stuarts show about Charles II I’d be there for that in a heartbeat.
Get on that, BBC. (Your previous Rufus Sewell offering was good, but not enough.)
I don’t know why there aren’t more Period Dramas about Charles II – he was SUCH a character!
As the Rex Factor guys say, “he was the king who brought back partying!”
Seriously. I mean, if nothing else he has one of the best Horrible History songs. And there is (somewhat) less head chopping and no wife divorcing just cause there are no kids and yet still so much sex. Just awesome ladies having sex with royalty, being smart and titled and outspoken and there is no beheadings or death in childbirth and the king doesn’t get fat and gouty the end.
Also a plague and a fire and restoration comedies and stuff. And many small dogs.
I’d watch it.
It’s only got a little of these things, but if you haven’t already seen it, I recommend Stage Beauty for Rupert Everett Charlesing it up. (Never quite decided how I felt about the movie as a whole–I should probably watch it again now that I have a better sense of my own gender politics–but it does have Charles II and his dogs and his wigs and Nell Gwynn.)
I keep meaning to see that one as I continue to make my way through all the screen Charleses I can get my hands on. (George Sanders’s Charles will always hold a special place as the best voiced one, though the prospect of Rupert Everett’s dulcet tones makes it a bit shaky.)
Oooh, please share your list of titles?
Michael York makes a brief appearance as Charles in The Lady & The Highwayman. This does not make watching The Lady & The Highwayman worth it. Just putting that out there, in case you decide you want to check that one out. Please don’t, unless you are very drunk and have an equally drunk friend to watch it with.
I accept your challenge.
Seriously, watch with a historian and a lot of alcohol.
I was never a huge Charles II fan until I listened to Rex Factor and then Ali’s love for Charles II just totally rubbed off on me!
He was the best. I mean, the whole story of his escaping through the countryside in disguise has to be one of my favorite history things ever. (Pay no attention to the ridiculously tall man in the corner who doesn’t know how peasant things work. He is in no way the king, honestly.) And then all of his ladies that he was going around with, simply because he really just seemed to like women as individuals with thoughts and opinions, not just as wombs on legs. Though he did really like sex too. And he never divorced Catherine.
My pretty, witty king monarch of choice.
This guy sounds mega cool. Can ya’ll recommend me a good biography?
I will totally go looking. (All of the ones I have immediately on hand are a little out of date.) Expect recommendations on the morrow.
Antonia Fraser has a good bio of him and All the King’s Women by Derek Wilson (which I have not read) looks interesting as it seems to be his life as told through the many, many women in it. (Seriously. There were so many. He just really seemed to enjoy the company and thoughts of women even when he wasn’t sleeping with them, and I appreciate that in a historical monarch.)
This is also a pretty good intro. https://vimeo.com/90507050
Oh thank you so much! I will be ready to start a new book very soon and just reserved these two from the library. You are an angel of Charles II biographies.
I like the Wolf Hall Anne better as a depiction of Anne – she has much more agency than what I remember of Tudors Anne (although it’s been a while for me). Anne in Wolf Hall isn’t nice, but she’s in control of what she’s doing and what she wants until she isn’t – she’s not doing it for anyone but her. And I like that.
Exactly. She was a raging bitch and I may dislike her, but goddamn if she didn’t get her way. (Which is the point of everything. And probably why I don’t like her. We’re too similar. There can only be one.)
Also, your icon is THE BEST. I am continually shocked when other people know about Verka.
Yes, totally! And you get why she might have the King captivated, but also why it would go south for her – she’s certainly compelling and interesting, but convinced she can’t screw up.
There are not nearly enough television series or period dramas about the Stuarts.
I wish to know who I am to address my strongly-worded letter to that will fix this gross oversight.
Anne of Cleves definitely pulled the best coup: keeping her head, getting an awesome alimony settlement, and getting the hell away from Henry’s smelly, festering leg wound. Well-played, lady.
Apparently she played a mean game of cards too.
Anne of Cleves was the smartest of the lot. She changed religion a couple of times when expedient, got some fancy houses and estates, was recognised by Henry as his “sister” and spent a bunch of time getting drunk with him and going to his awesome parties without being expected to bone him. Best of all, one of the conditions of her settlement was she WAS NOT ALLOWED TO MARRY AGAIN. Like that would be a punishment in Tudor times? That’s the kindest thing Henry ever did for her. Plus she’s the only one of Henry’s wives to be buried in Westminster Abbey. I would have been Anne all the way. “You want a divorce? NO PROBLEM!”
13. I have most of my teeth and a negligible attitude towards hygiene in general. Despite this I can still look good in a velvet kirtle. (But not too good.)
Can you substitute knitting for embroidery? I can make a scarf for any interested parties, which would probably help with keeping them all from catching deathly colds and/or hiding unsightly goiters.
I feel like what I’ve heard about Tudor-era knitting means silk stockings at 25 stitches to the inch or something, so I don’t know if I’m ready to commit to that.
D:
D: D: D: D:
D:
and that’s why everyone was effectively blind by 19
Oh my gosh, never mind. Embroidered unicorns it is, then!
“making bloodthirsty and insecure men feel powerful and important”
was my job description when I worked at a Washington lobbying firm: it’s TOO EASY
I mean, they mostly do your work for you.
“I’ve never had chicken pox, so I imagine that would sort of transitive-property-immunize me to smallpox.”
No, the opposite, if anything! ‘Ware the pox, Time Traveling Mallory.
see, it’s that kind of medical knowledge that’s going to get you burned as a witch
13. An expression of watchful stultification, as of one concentrating on letting a boiled sweet slowly dissolve in her mouth, is pretty much my default facial setting and I look super good in burgundy, so Holbein could pretty much crank out my portrait and be home in time for tea (or sack, or spiced small beer, or whatever).
13. I have perfected the art of being beautiful enough to blend in with the other ladies-in-waiting, while simultaneously maintaining anonymity and plainness enough that no one notices me in rooms. I have also secretly learned four languages. This combination makes me an ideal candidate for spying on other members of the family, other factions in the court, and especially foreign ambassadors.
13 I have a large number of birthmarks on my skin which, if the Queen is accused of witchcraft, may be claimed as the devil’s marks that prove I was in fact a witch who ensorcelled her.
I mean, well done you for your rightful and pious dedication to the queen, but that’s not gonna end well for you.
ugh sorry I did NOT realise this was two days old. Been catching up on my Toast posts at work on Saturday…
So Mallory and Nicole are planning on traveling back in time together. Nicole will marry Henry VIII and bare him lots of sons and Mallory will be there by her side to keep the palace intrigues at bay. I am sure there are enough of us Toasties that know how to embroider that we can go along and all keep Queen Nicole safe.
I can not see without my glasses. Thus, a queen could carry on with her favored lute player 5 feet from me, and I wouldn’t be able to see well enough to tell the king.
Also, cleaning dresses by rubbing them with bread sounds legit to me.
Yeah, my horrible vision is the one (ha!) major drawback to any sort of back-in-time-travel situation for me.
I don’t know how I would have survived before glasses became a Big Thing. My vision before LASIK was so bad I could maybe see a a foot in front of my face? Maybe more like 6 inches. I would have been useless.
Yeah, I think the real answer to ‘how would I have fared in Ye Olde Tymes?’ is ‘wouldn’t have made it out of childhood’ :-/
I always figured that serfs don’t need to see very far into the distance so I’d have been fine. Long as I can see the butter churn/ploughshare/dung heaps right in front of me, it’s all good.
I realized this morning that I shouldn’t have taken off my regular glasses before locating my reading glasses because they were hard to find on my desk. I’m only 26.
Oh dude I would sleep with the King every time. In the game of thrones, I would slut around and then die.
Unless maybe I could be a high priestess of something– those ladies seem to get away with their lives more often and still get laid.
off topic, but i’ve never had the chicken pox either. i worry about this sometimes, is this silly or a reasonable worry
i have never had it either. but i think once you’ve reached a certain age, if you haven’t already had it, you get vaccinated, to avoid the more dangerous adult version of the illness.
yeah, i think i need to be vaccinated posthaste
I had it at 20 and would not wish it on Dick Cheney. (300+ pox, in my nose, ears, throat…) You can get vaccinated these days and I bid thee hie to the vaccinatrix.
Ahhhh you’ve almost convinced me to go become a medical professional so I can refer to myself as a vaccinatrix!!
Come on, surely someone here can tell us what that instrument is.
I suspect it is one of the family of hummery-buzzery instruments. I don’t know the precise name of any of them, but their main characteristic is looking entirely like something other than a musical instrument. Various examples include something that looks like a Victorian hatbox, or possibly a jewel case; one that looks like a non-electric pinball machine; one that looks like a pre-germ theory breathing treatment; etc.
Many can make sounds that remind one of a bagpipe, but also sounds that can remind one of an insect chorus. Note: I am not knocking the hummery-buzzery family, I love their music, and aspire to someday own one of the non-electric pinball machines.
Tthe hurdy-gurdy.
Educated guess (from my music major days): oboe. Or, in those days, haut-bois.
Or a shawm.
It’s the crumhorn.
Of course it is. What else could it be, even if it isn’t?
The Cremuel-horn?
WHY IS THAT THE ONLY ACCENT SHE HAS OH GOD
If I recall the book correctly, Anne used the French pronunciation of his name mockingly: you’re the son of a blacksmith, but I’m giving your name a fancy French sound, just to underline how un-fancy you are.
ETA: Although I liked it in the book, I too found it tiresome after a while in the series. It read better than it sounded.
Oooooooooooooooooooh that makes so much more sense.
It is my dream to be an extra in one of these shows. In real tudor life I think I could aspire to be a sullen laundry maid and nothing more. I know my place.
But what’s your position on wolves in Tudor hats?
There’s a chicken pox vaccine now. Did you get the vaccine, Mallory? I would also recommend that all time-travelers get vaccinated against consumption and the grippe!
I recently got a polio booster so I’m feeling much better about the posibility of time travel, now.
These comments are making me realize how terribly I would do as any kind of upper class type. Vision went bad at age 7. Terrible singing voice / no good on instruments. Can’t dance. Don’t want to be around adult humans all day. Sub-par needlework (and can’t see well to thread the needles in the first place.)
You would be a recluse and accused witch. That’s what became of intelligent introverts like us.
Can I have a rambling cottage? I’d love a rambling cottage with other reclusive witches sorta nearby so we can coven effectively, but then we all retreat behind our garden walls to be alone until the next gibbous moon.
I always thought I was born to be a housekeeper. An officious one.
pox in your throat…like not on the neck, but in the throat? holy hell no. i will work on this vaccination quickly
My little sister and I caught it when we were 2.5 and 7 respectively and (here’s where you’re going to want to clench your knees together) she got pox IN HER VAGINAL AREA. ALL UP IN THERE. Which my parents discovered after taking her back to the doctor because she hadn’t urinated in more than a day. Turns out she’d been holding in her pee because it hurt her so badly to go. Poor baby sister!
Get thee to a vaccination clinic!
The Sweat seems like a not a terrible way to go, at least I hear it’s quick, unlike waiting around in the Tower until your beheading becomes politically unavoidable.
The thing that sods like bagpipes is most likely bagpipes. Not the big Scottish ones, but some small chamber version like musette or uillean pipes. Unless it’s a small consort of shams, ancestor of oboe, pretending to be bagpipes.
The strange bagpipe-like insturment might be a Hurdy Gurdy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurdy-gurdy
Sadly, I’ve had chicken pox (twice!! i defy modern medicine) and would almost definitely contract smallpox.
BUT I promise to die a beautiful (but not too beautiful) and graceful death so as to further my Lady’s emotional development.
I’ve had it three times. My doctor didn’t believe it, but it was the same doctor who diagnosed it all three times. Apparently if your first (or second) case isn’t strong enough, you don’t build up the immunity against it. So yes, I too would definitely get smallpox.
I have just finished reading Wolf Hall, and it left me with no desire to be a Tudor-era lady-in-waiting whatsoever. So stressful!
The doodly doo thing is called a hurdy-gurdy. Actually. It makes the medieval noise.