A Girl Named Rose:Rose's aunt lives in Ashby St. Ledgers (the manor house is right), a village famous for being the host of much of the Gunpowder Plot...er...plotting:
The plot was revealed to the authorities in an anonymous letter sent to William Parker, 4th Baron Monteagle, on 26 October 1605. During a search of the House of Lords, early in the morning of 5 November 1605, Fawkes was discovered guarding 36 barrels of gunpowder – enough to reduce the House of Lords to rubble – and arrested. Most of the conspirators fled from London as they learned of the plot's discovery, trying to enlist support along the way.
Rose is warned (futile warning) against going to Dam Square on her tourist-y ramblings. (There below is a picture of the war memorial our heroines are always determined to see. Look at the bottom. If I might borrow from Star Wars...'You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.'...at least in the land of Neels.) In my wikipedia research I came across this story which I had never heard and which is adequate reason to avoid the square:
On 7 May 1945, two days after German capitulation, thousands of Dutch people were waiting for the liberators to arrive on the Dam square in Amsterdam. In the Grose Club members of the Kriegsmarine watched as the crowd below their balcony grew and grew, people danced and cheered. Then for some sort of reason the Germans placed a machine gun on the balcony and started shooting into the crowds.
It has always remained uncertain why it happened but the sad result was that at the brink of peace 120 people were badly injured and 22 died.
The shooting finally came to an end after a member of the resistance climbed into the tower of the royal palace and started shooting onto the balcony and into the club. Then a German officer together with a Resistance commander found their way into the Club and convinced the men to surrender.
Lesson Numero Uno: Do not mess with the Dutch Resistance.
An Ideal Wife: 
I remember walking through Dam Square...it was really rather grubby and uninviting. It was like there was some zoning ordinance that forbade businesses from looking attractive or cleaning their stonework. The adjective that comes to mind to describe the architecture is 'heavy' or, to be a little more generous, 'solid'.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure Victoria is holding a dead bird, but the toddler looks like she is being allowed to play with a dead fowl. Eww.
On a different note entirely, did you look at the enlarged shot of Dam Square? That's the mother of all storms. I like a nice thunderstorm myself, but if that's what the Dutch ones look like then all the blubbering by the heroines about storms makes more sense.
ReplyDeletePlus, if my memory of Princess Vicky serves me correctly, my money is on Her Royal Highness and my sympathy lies with the dead bird.
ReplyDeleteI would guess that the narrative of that painting is that Albert is showing off his success at hunting -- can't tell if that's meant to be Sandringham or not; it doesn't look like Windsor Castle, but I'll confess I didn't memorize the architecture -- but that's a romantic fribble if ever there was one.
ReplyDeleteAlbert would have had his gamekeeper on hand, as well as a few other men, so that when the gentry had shot as many fowl and game as they wanted (help me out, Betty JoDee -- they wouldn't have hunted both at the same time, would they? In fact, my sense is that shooting fowl was honorable sport; the game -- hares & the like -- were vermin cleared out by the gamekeeper), staff collected up the spoils of war, so to speak.
Ah, but I can clarify one thing. Victoria is holding a nosegay of flowers, known then as a tussie-mussie (alt: tussy-mussy). They had special filigree holders. You can see lots of pictures here.
Oops, silly me -- it says it's Windsor Castle. (I'm sleep-deprived; can I use that as an excuse for complete idiocy?)
ReplyDeleteMy immediate reaction was, "I want a tussie-mussie." Then I decided that if I mentioned such to Professor van der Hertenzoon that he would interpret it as my wanting to book a room in Brighton. Since I, like Betty Magdalen, am currently sleep deprived, I think I'll keep my mouth shut.
ReplyDeletehahahahahaha...thanks for the morning cocoa snort!
ReplyDeleteSomeone gave me a tussie-mussie years ago (no, Betty JoDee, I wasn't in Brighton at the time) and I think I organized to "regift" it pretty promptly.
ReplyDelete