gstafleu

For reasons particular to this forum, it is often debated how "real" various "well established" historical facts are. Let me add one.

In his The age of the warrior (or via: amazon.co.uk), Robert Fisk takes Shekhar Kapur to task for omitting from his film Elizabeth: The Golden Age the famous line spoken by Elizabeth to rally her troops: "I may have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king." Kapur presumably left this line out because of reasons of political correctness.

But now the interesting bit. Fisk provides a footnote, referring to information sent to him by "an Independent reader" Tracy Martins (The Independent is the paper for which Fisk writes) that the "heart and stomach of a king" speech first appeared (quoting Martins) "only in a letter in 1623, 35 years after the Tilbury gathering... There is no evidence that Elizabeth gave this speech..."

So, the idea that well accepted historical facts are, in fact, possibly not all that historical is not confined to the debate of Jesus' historicity.

Gerard Stafleu

bacht

And by 1623 the Stuart kings were making themselves unpopular, so maybe legend-building about Elizabeth and the Tudors was considered necessary by Protestants?

TheRealityOfMan

There are a lot of legends with debatable historicity from that time. The successful resistance of Spain's armada was drummed up to be a sign of divine protection of England, the monarchy and the church against the dark, catholic forces of the evil empire of Spain. There were many prints and medals published depicting the battle with the quotation "He blew with His winds and they were scattered". Many fundy protestants to this day believe it was a divine defense of protestants against catholics.

Interesting that this 'divine wind' happened during a similar era in Japan against the Mongol navy who tried to sail the Japan Sea but faced difficulties in approaching Japan because of the tricksy winds which sunk some of their ships. Japanese created the legend that the divine wind (kami-kaze) came down to protect Japan from invaders.

Have you ever read the traditional King James Bible dedicatory? It refers to Queen Elizabeth (the previous Queen of Eng before James) in very rosey language...

"For whereas it was the expectation of many, who wished not well unto our Sion, that upon the setting of that bright Occidental Star, Queen Elizabeth of most happy memory..."

Roger Pearse

Nor, indeed, the use of cheap revisionism to remove from the history books ideas that have suddenly become inconvenient.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Toto

Revisionism is not cheap!

It has taken a lot of effort to persuade the Library of Congress that George Washington did not spontaneously add "So Help Me God" to his oath of office. See this thread.

Jeffrey Gibson

Leaving aside the fact that Kapur is not an historian and has never claimed that either of his films about Elizabeth are documentaries or are historically accurate, do you actually think -- and more importantly, are you actually claiming -- that the fact that these words were not part of what known as the Tllbury speech, let alone that Elizabeth never gave "the Tilbury speach" at Tilbury, is news to historians of Elizabeth's life or that any historian of the Elizabethan age and/or biographer of Elizabeth worth his/her salt has ever said she did?

Jeffrey

Jeffrey Gibson

How can a library, let alone the Congressional one, be persuaded of anything.

Jeffrey

dog-on

By a lot of whining, I suppose... :Cheeky:

Toto

The Library of Congress is an official agency of the US government that, like other such bodies, acts through its officers and employees.

Jeffrey Gibson

Yes, I know what the LOC is. And I also note that contrary to your claim that "It has taken a lot of effort to persuade [the officers and employees of] the Library of Congress that George Washington did not spontaneously add "So Help Me God" to his oath of office", "the [officers and the emplyees of ]LOC" was [were] neither subject to any persuasion in this matter, nor was it [or its officers and employees] in any need of it.

In fact, as is noted in the very article you point us to (presumably) to document your claim, it was "[an employee of] the LOC" [who] which carried out the persuading you mention. And the person whom the article states was in need of the persuading that you refer to was not an officer or employee of the LOC but of the U.S. Senate Historical Office -- one Beth Hahn -- who produced a video called So Help Me God that was posted on the website of The Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies.

Jeffrey