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Cecilia Crofts
Cecilia Crofts (died 1638), courtier and maid of honour to Henrietta Maria, subject of poems. Cecilia Crofts was the sixth daughter of Sir John Crofts (1563-1628) of Little Saxham, Suffolk, and Mary Shirley daughter of Sir Thomas Shirley of Witneston or Wiston. Her eldest brother was Henry Crofts. King James I was entertained by Sir John Crofts at Little Saxham with a masque and in February 1620 the "fair sisters" put on or planned another masque for Shrove Tuesday "of their own invention". There was a masque for the king at Little Saxham in December 1621. A masque text survives, known as "The Vision of the Nine Goddesses" performed by the eight Croft sisters including Cecilia Crofts, Dorothy, Lady Bennet, and Anne Crofts, Lady Wentworth. Each of the goddesses was introduced by a verse sung an actor playing Apollo, but the text does not say which sister played which goddess. Around this time Simonds d'Ewes recorded a rumour that the king had married "Sissilia Crafts", a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henrietta Maria Of France
Henrietta Maria (french: link=no, Henriette Marie; 25 November 1609 – 10 September 1669) was Queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland from her marriage to King Charles I on 13 June 1625 until Charles was executed on 30 January 1649. She was mother of his sons Charles II and James II and VII. Contemporaneously, by a decree of her husband, she was known in England as Queen Mary, but she did not like this name and signed her letters "Henriette R" or "Henriette Marie R" (the "R" standing for ''regina'', Latin for "queen".) Henrietta Maria's Roman Catholicism made her unpopular in England, and also prohibited her from being crowned in a Church of England service; therefore, she never had a coronation. She immersed herself in national affairs as civil war loomed, and in 1644, following the birth of her youngest daughter, Henrietta, during the height of the First English Civil War, was compelled to seek refuge in France. The execution of Charles I in 1649 left her impoverished. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Aytoun
Sir Robert Aytoun or Ayton (1570–1638) was a Scottish poet. Biography Aytoun was the son of Andrew Ayton of Kinaldie Castle, in Fife, Scotland, and Mary Lundie. Aytoun and his elder brother John entered St Leonard's College in St Andrews in 1584. After graduating MA from St Andrews in 1588, he studied civil law at Paris. He appears to have been well known to his literary contemporaries in Scotland and England. He became a groom in the privy chamber of King James in succession to Laurence Marbury, was knighted and became a gentleman of the bedchamber in 1612. He became secretary to Anne of Denmark in succession to another Scottish poet, William Fowler. He was sent as ambassador to Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor in 1609. He was later secretary to Henrietta Maria. He wrote poems in Latin, Greek, and English, and was one of the first Scots to write in standard English. His major work was ''Diophantus and Charidora''. ''Inconstancy Upbraided'' is perhaps the best of his sh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Savage, 2nd Earl Rivers
John Savage, 2nd Earl Rivers (25 February 1603 – 10 October 1654) was a wealthy English nobleman, politician and Royalist from Cheshire. Family A member of the Savage family, John was the first son of Thomas Savage, 1st Viscount Savage, and Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Darcy, 1st Earl Rivers. He was born on 25 February 1603 and christened on 11 March 1603 in the parish of Saint Botolph without Bishopsgate, London. He succeeded to the Savage viscountcy in 1635 on the death of his father, and succeeded to the Rivers earldom on the death of his grandfather in 1640, by a remainder to his father and his heirs. By 1626, he had married Catherine, daughter of William Parker, 13th Baron Morley by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Thomas Tresham, and they had eight children, including: * Thomas, who succeeded as 3rd Earl Rivers * Jane, who married firstly George Brydges, 6th Baron Chandos, secondly Sir William Sidley, 4th Baronet, and thirdly George Pitt * Elizabeth, who married ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
St Martin-in-the-Fields
St Martin-in-the-Fields is a Church of England parish church at the north-east corner of Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, London. It is dedicated to Saint Martin of Tours. There has been a church on the site since at least the medieval period. It was at that time located in the farmlands and fields beyond the London wall, when it was awarded to Westminster Abbey for oversight. It became a principal parish church west of the old City in the early modern period as Westminster's population grew. When its medieval and Jacobean structure was found to be near failure, the present building was constructed in an influential neoclassical design by James Gibbs in 1722–1726. The church is one of the visual anchors adding to the open-urban space around Trafalgar Square. History Roman era Excavations at the site in 2006 uncovered a grave from about A.D. 410. The site is outside the city limits of Roman London (as was the usual Roman practice for burials) but is particularly ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Court Dwarf
Some of the first dwarfs to have their histories recorded were employed as court dwarfs. They were owned and traded amongst people of the court, and delivered as gifts to fellow kings and queens. Visual effect Court dwarfs were made to stand right next to the king or queen in a royal court during public appearances and ceremonies. Because they were so small, the king appeared much larger and visually enhanced his powerful position. Other than court jesters who were professional entertainers and clowns, court dwarfs were also used as "natural fools" to create amusement due to their unusual bodies. Their appearance also created allusions of mythology and magic like kobolds and wights. Antiquity Ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome From the earliest historic times dwarfs attracted attention, and there was much competition on the part of kings and the wealthy to obtain dwarfs as attendants. Ancient Egypt saw dwarfs as being people with significant sacred associations, so owning a dwarf ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jeffrey Hudson
Jeffrey Hudson (1619 – ''circa'' 1682) was a court dwarf of the English queen Henrietta Maria of France. He was famous as the "Queen's dwarf" and "Lord Minimus", and was considered one of the "wonders of the age" because of his extreme but well-proportioned smallness. He fought with the Royalists in the English Civil War and fled with the Queen to France but was expelled from her court when he killed a man in a duel. He was captured by Barbary pirates and spent 25 years as a slave in North Africa before being ransomed back to England. Early life and rise to prominence Hudson was baptised in Oakham in Rutland on 14 June 1619. His parents, three brothers, and a half-sister were all of typical size. Hudson's father John was keeper of the baiting bulls for George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham. Hudson's marvellous smallness and normal proportions became apparent in early childhood. Various theories existed for his size, including that his mother choked on a gherkin while pregnan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Crofts, 1st Baron Crofts
William Crofts, 1st Baron Crofts (c.1611–1677) was an English baron and Gentleman of the Bedchamber to Charles II. Life He was the son of Sir Henry Crofts, MP, of Little Saxham, Suffolk. He moved to court c.1630 as a servant of Queen Henrietta Maria, the consort of Charles I. The lady in waiting to Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia known as "Margaret Crofts" has sometimes been identified as his sister. However, the will of Margaret Croft from Herefordshire seems to identify her as this royal servant. William Crofts carried letters to the court of Elizabeth of Bohemia. In 1644 his brother was shot in the head by the queen's court dwarf Jeffrey Hudson. Henrietta Maria wrote to Cardinal Mazarin to intercede for Hudson's life. During the Civil War he remained loyal to the king and queen, and was rewarded by the grant of several manors in Essex and Suffolk. He followed Charles II into exile in France and in 1651-52 was sent on diplomatic missions to Eastern Europe, p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cicilia And Clorinda
''Cicilia and Clorinda, or Love in Arms'' is a 17th-century closet drama, a two-part, ten-Act tragicomedy by Thomas Killigrew. The work was composed in Italy c. 1650–51, and first published in 1664. Genre and source Like the majority of Killigrew's plays — stage plays or closet dramas — ''Cicilia and Clorinda'' is cast in the mode of tragicomedy, with its highly colored elements of romance, and limited realism. The play may be more interpreted and judged in the romance tradition than in the dramatic; the work is "a means of providing the matter of romance in an alternative form." Killigrew employed the closet-drama form to work with material that would have met strong resistance on the public stage of his time. ''Cicilia and Clorinda'' is in part an exploration of the idea of the Amazon or " warrior woman" (he coined the term "Heroickess"). When Killigrew wrote the work, women were not yet allowed to appear onstage in England. In writing the work, Killigrew w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Closet Drama
A closet drama is a play that is not intended to be performed onstage, but read by a solitary reader or sometimes out loud in a large group. The contrast between closet drama and classic "stage" dramas dates back to the late eighteenth century. Although non-performative in nature, the literary historian Henry A. Beers considers closet drama "a quite legitimate product of literary art." Definition A closet drama (or closet play) is a play created primarily for reading, rather than production. Closet dramas are traditionally defined in narrower terms as belonging to a genre of dramatic writing unconcerned with stage technique. Stageability is only one aspect of closet drama: historically, playwrights might choose the genre of 'closet' dramatic writing to avoid censorship of their works, for example in the case of political tragedies. Closet drama has also been used as a mode of dramatic writing for those without access to the commercial playhouse, and in this context has become cl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Whitehall Palace
The Palace of Whitehall (also spelt White Hall) at Westminster was the main residence of the English monarchs from 1530 until 1698, when most of its structures, except notably Inigo Jones's Banqueting House of 1622, were destroyed by fire. Henry VIII moved the royal residence to White Hall after the old royal apartments at the nearby Palace of Westminster were themselves destroyed by fire. Although the Whitehall palace has not survived, the area where it was located is still called Whitehall and has remained a centre of government. White Hall was at one time the largest palace in Europe, with more than 1,500 rooms, overtaking the Vatican, before itself being overtaken by the expanding Palace of Versailles, which was to reach 2,400 rooms. The palace gives its name, Whitehall, to the street located on the site on which many of the current administrative buildings of the present-day British government are situated, and hence metonymically to the central government itself. At its ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Carew
Thomas Carew (pronounced as "Carey") (1595 – 22 March 1640) was an English poet, among the 'Cavalier' group of Caroline poets. Biography He was the son of Sir Matthew Carew, master in chancery, and his wife Alice, daughter of Sir John Rivers, Lord Mayor of the City of London and widow of Ingpen. The poet was probably the third of the eleven children of his parents, and was born in West Wickham in Kent, in the early part of 1595; he was thirteen years old in June 1608, when he matriculated at Merton College, Oxford. He took his degree of B.A. early in 1611 and proceeded to study at the Middle Temple. Two years later his father complained to Dudley Carleton, 1st Viscount Dorchester, Sir Dudley Carleton that he was not doing well. He was therefore sent to Italy as a member of Sir Dudley's household and, when the ambassador returned from Venice, he seems to have kept Thomas Carew with him, for he was working as secretary to Carleton, at the Hague, early in 1616. However, he ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mary Woodhouse
Mary Woodhouse (d. 1656), musician and correspondent of Constantijn Huygens, was the daughter of Henry Woodhouse (MP) of Hickling and Waxham, and Anne Bacon, daughter of Sir Nicholas Bacon. (Some sources say she was a daughter of the Woodhouse family of Kimberley, Norfolk.) She may have been the "Woodhouse" appointed Maid of Honour to Anne of Denmark in December 1603. Lady Killigrew She married Sir Robert Killigrew of Lothbury and Hanworth, a courtier and politician, in 1604. Her sister Anne married her third husband Sir Julius Caesar, Master of the Rolls, in April 1615. Lucy Russell, Countess of Bedford sent Lady Killigrew an invitation, seeing an opportunity to be a peace-maker for Sir Thomas Overbury, writing, "I doubt not but so well to play the umpire, as shall end Sir Thomas Overberie's quarrels, which I very much desire for both your sakes, and to witness the charity of your affectionate friend Bedford." In May 1613 Robert Killigrew was caught talking to Overbury, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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