State Dinner at the White House, April 2026

 

From The Independent:

The full menu for the has been revealed as President Donald Trump and Melania Trump welcomed King Charles and Queen Camilla as part of their state visit on Tuesday evening.

The dinner celebrated the relationship and came alongside the King’s speech, which thanked Mr Trump for a “wonderful dinner” and touched on the two countries’ “moments of difficulty”.

The menu contained many classic French dishes, including a Dover sole meuniere and potatoes pave, and elements of the banquet presentation were chosen to reflect “the long and enduring friendship” between the UK and the US. A spring theme was also echoed throughout the dinner, with fresh seasonal flowers on the table that were said by a White House spokesman to have been “inspired by the beauty of English gardens”. First course: garden vegetable veloute, hearts of palm salad, toasted shallots, micro mint.

Second course: spring herb ravioli, ricotta cheese, morel mushrooms, light parmesan emulsion.

Third course: Dover sole meuniere, spring ramps, snow peas, potatoes pave, parsley oil.

Fourth course: White House honey and vanilla bean cremeux, flourless chocolate gateau, almond jaconde, creme fraiche ice cream....(Read more.)

 

 

 

Photos from The White House.

More photos from USA Today.

 From Tatler:

Queen Camilla is no stranger to delivering all-out glamour when the dress code calls for it, and the White House state dinner on Tuesday night was one such occasion.

Arriving on the arm of King Charles III, Queen Camilla gave a masterclass in eye-catching eveningwear, debuting a standout fuchsia pink gown complete with embellishment from favourite couturier Fiona Clare, which she paired with a bespoke handbag from Queen Elizabeth II's go-to accessories designer, Launer London. Although some royal watchers (and those at Tatler Towers) had been hoping to see Queen Camilla follow in the footsteps of Queen Elizabeth II and showcase one of the glittering heirloom tiara for the most formal night of the US state visit, this was not to be. Camilla chose to leave her most impressive jewels at home, even though the dress code allowed for them....Adorning Her Majesty's wrist were two of the bracelets from the Queen Mother's suite of Art Deco Cartier bracelets. Two of the bracelets are set with all diamonds and the other three pair diamonds with a different precious stone: rubies, sapphires and emeralds. For the White House state banquet, Queen Camilla opted for one of the diamond bracelets on her left wrist, and a ruby bracelet on her right. While these gems are undoubtedly impressive, it was the rare demi-parure on display at her neck and ears that grabbed the most attention. Queen Camilla made her debut in the jewels known as the Kent Amethysts, which are among the oldest suite of gems currently in the hands of the Royal Family. Queen Elizabeth II memorably wore the necklace, earrings and brooch from the demi-parure for her state visit to Portugal in 1985. She also notably wore one of the brooches, featuring three pendants attached to a central stone, during a state visit to the US in 1991. However, one of the subtler brooches, a single amethyst surrounded by diamonds, was a favourite of the Queen's for decades. She often wore it with her vibrant purple ensembles. (Read more.) 

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What Americans Can Learn From China’s Dating Hellscape

 From Chronicles:

In a Substack post titled, “You Are Not the One—Chinese Dating Dystopia,” a writer using the pseudonym Terminally_Drifting describes a dating crisis so deep and extensive that even the word “dystopia” seems like an understatement. The essay centers on a young single man, Wang Wei, an unremarkable worker at an iPhone factory who cannot find a girlfriend and spends his nights (and disposable income) watching an e-girl play on her phone, answering questions from fans, and giving shoutouts to men who send her money.

Apparently, Wei is just one among millions of excess men (sex-selective abortions have resulted in men now greatly outnumbering women in China) who will never have a wife and kids.

Even so, love and marriage should at least be possible for a man like Wei, right? Maybe he just needs to introduce himself to a girl he likes, court her, and persuade her to build a life with him? As Terminally_Drifting  explains, however, romance as such does not exist in China today. Finding a spouse has everything to do with material assets and nothing to do with real affection. This means that Wei will never find a wife “because the price of being considered eligible in his home province requires a car (minimum 80,000 RMB), an apartment (minimum 200,000 RMB down payment), and a caili, a bride price, that in rural Henan currently averages around 188,000 RMB,” and his “annual salary is approximately 42,000 RMB.”

Worse still, Wei’s mother tries to help her son by visiting the People’s Park in Shanghai and posting his personal information on an umbrella, where other concerned parents might look for a match. Sadly, this strategy rarely bears fruit and is undertaken mostly to make mothers feel like they are doing something to help.

For its part, the Chinese government appears aware of this issue and has sought to mitigate it through increased censorship, regulation, and propaganda. Evidently, a nationwide public meltdown threatened to overturn the country when a girl on a popular dating show rejected a guy because he was too poor. The government flew into action, condemned the girl, and set new parameters so that poorer men had a better chance on the show. Additionally, it has imposed restrictions on online gifts to e-girls and the time spent watching them. It even tried shaming women into marriage by warning them about the supposed growing number of old spinsters who regret their decision not to marry—all of which is pure fabrication in China. (Read more.)

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How the Fall of Rome Created the Power of the Medieval Papacy

 From The Collector:

In the Early Middle Ages, after the fall of the Roman Empire left the existing government structures in shambles, the papacy established itself as the preeminent authority in the West. Indeed, in a post-Roman world, where there was no large political structure to ensure stability in Europe, the Roman Church emerged as the only force able to provide some unity. Led by a series of popes functioning as both spiritual and temporal rulers, the papacy came to dominate the intellectual life, political landscape, and culture of the so-called Dark Ages.

In 476, the German chief Odoacer deposed Romulus Augustulus, ending the succession of Roman emperors inaugurated by Augustus. He then proclaimed himself king. The event is traditionally considered the end of the Roman Empire. By then, the so-called “barbarian invasions,” or the migration of Germanic peoples into Roman-controlled Europe, had already significantly altered the social and political composition of the empire.

In 406, the Vandals, Suebi, Alani, Burgundians, and Alemanni, fleeing from the advance of the Huns, crossed the River Rhine, pouring into Gaul. Some years later, they arrived in Spain. Meanwhile, the Visigoths established themselves in Narbonensis and Aquitania (the territories in Gaul). Though partially successful in regaining control of portions of Gaul, Roman general Constantius was unable to expel the “barbarians” from the country.

In 410, Alaric, at the head of the Visigoths, sacked Rome, pillaging the heart of the Roman Empire for three days. Only the churches were spared, as Alaric had converted to Christian Arianism. In the first half of the 5th century, other Germanic peoples began to establish themselves in the Roman territories. In 435, the Vandals conquered Carthage in North Africa. In 450, Attila and his Huns invaded Italy. Only Pope Leo the Great managed to persuade them not to sack Rome. (Read more.)

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The Lost Literary Life of Marilyn Monroe

 

Marilyn worked very hard to better herself, as an actress and as a human being. She studied at the Actors Studio with Lee Strasburg and while in New York became friends with journalist Dorothy Kilgallen. She was good with money, too. She lived frugally and invested wisely. She was no spendthrift, as some people might think. From Mark Judge at Chronicles:

Marilyn Monroe read books. A lot of them. That’s the revelation of Marilyn and Her Books: The Literary Life of Marilyn Monroe, a fascinating new volume by Gail Crowther. It isn’t a grasping-at-straws attempt to make Monroe a literary figure based on her love of a few good novels. Crowther has done her research, itemizing the books Monroe owned when she died, finding receipts for books she bought at the Ivy Bookstore in Los Angeles, and going through old letters in which Monroe discussed her favorite books. Monroe was a reader, which may explain why she was drawn to one of her husbands, the playwright Arthur Miller—a man who made his living with words.

When Monroe died in 1962, her collection included more than 400 books. “These books,” Crowther notes, “some dating from her childhood, had followed Marilyn around from one address to another.” Crowther describes the collection: 

The scope of Marilyn’s personal library and the number of genres it contained was impressive. She read literature from all around the world, America, England, France, Germany, but certainly favored Russian novels. She enjoyed poetry, politics, psychology, plays, biographies, science, short stories, cookbooks, horticulture, contemporary novels, children’s books, religion, crime, adventure, art, pets, music, reference, and self-help. She was probably one of the few readers in the world whose personal library contained a biography of herself (Marilyn Monroe “Her Own Story,” 1961, by George Carpozi). 

Monroe loved D. H. Lawrence and owned a poetry collection, the novel Sons and Lovers, a collection of his travel writings, Etruscan Places, and a critical study of Lawrence and his works by Mary Freeman. She also owned copies of The Great Gatsby and Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald. She owned a first edition of Ian Fleming’s From Russia, With Love, a book that included a chapter titled “The Mouth of Marilyn Monroe.” Monroe loved Russian literature, bonding with actress, columnist, and writer Sheilah Graham over Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekov, Turgenev, and Pushkin.

Monroe also had “an edgy liking for banned books.” This included The Last Temptation of Christ by Nikos Kazantzakis. Monroe’s copy of the novel sold for $3,220 in a 1999 auction. She also owned a 1934 first edition of Ulysses, published after the ruling that the James Joyce novel was not obscene and could not be banned. (Read more.)

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Wes Moore's Key Bridge Mess

 From Direct Line News:

Rebuilding the Francis Scott Key Bridge is not just another public works project; it is one of the most consequential responsibilities Wes Moore faces. By any honest measure, it is already veering wildly off course. The numbers don’t add up: either the state’s original cost estimates, once pegged far lower, were wildly unrealistic, or the current bids are spiraling out of control, with contractor proposals reportedly well above the state’s $4.3 to $5.2 billion range.

The state’s decision to walk away from Kiewit Corporation, one of the largest and most experienced infrastructure builders in North America, after failing to agree on price is not a sign of discipline; it is a flashing warning light that Maryland’s management process itself may be breaking down.

Three Failures the Math Cannot Excuse

The first problem is the estimate itself. Releasing a $1.8 billion figure thirteen days after one of the most complex marine infrastructure disasters in modern American history was not good governance. It was financial improvisation dressed up as planning. Officials have since called those projections “rudimentary” and “hasty.” Their words, not mine. The problem is those numbers were used to set public expectations, secure federal commitments, and justify a project management timeline that simply could not hold. When a project more than triples in cost from initial estimate to revised estimate, the initial estimate was not an estimate. It was a placeholder with political utility.

The second problem is the contractor debacle. Maryland selected Kiewit Infrastructure Co. in August 2024, awarding a $73 million initial contract for pre-construction and design services. Kiewit spent months advancing design work to the 70 percent completion threshold. Then, when it came time to price Phase 2, the company’s bids reportedly exceeded $5.2 billion. State officials called that figure unreasonably high. Maybe it was. But this raises an obvious question: what was the procurement process telling Maryland about the market before Kiewit submitted those numbers? Strong contract management does not wait for a bid submission to discover that cost expectations are misaligned. It builds in rigorous interim checkpoints, independent cost verification, and transparent public reporting. Maryland’s project website reportedly went months without an update. That is not transparency. That is a door quietly closing.

The third problem is the rhetoric gap. Governor Moore has repeatedly described this project as the nation’s fastest-moving large infrastructure effort. Federal Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who has been pressing Maryland on costs since September 2025, offered a considerably more measured assessment. When asked directly about Moore’s claim, Duffy did not validate it. His department’s public communications have instead focused relentlessly on fiscal oversight and responsible stewardship of taxpayer dollars. The contrast between state messaging and federal response is not a matter of partisan politics. It is a governance signal. When the entity writing the check does not endorse the project manager’s narrative, the public deserves to know that. (Read more.)

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Shakespeare’s Lost London Home

 From Mental Floss:

History never truly disappears in London. It lingers in forgotten corners and cobblestone crevices until rediscovered, sometimes in unexpectedly poetic ways. For centuries, scholars knew that William Shakespeare had owned property in the city, yet its exact location remained unknown, existing as more of a rumor than an actual record. A recent deep dive into the archives uncovered an overlooked map that transformed four centuries of speculation into fact. Instead of finding a newly built structure or sorting through debris, the discovery revived a piece of the past that had presumably been lost forever. Let's examine Shakespeare's personal life, property, and potential revelations about his later years.

Though his name is synonymous with London's theatrical reputation, Shakespeare's personal life remained rooted in Stratford-upon-Avon. He was born there in 1564 and maintained strong ties to the town throughout his life, even as his career flourished. His wife and children stayed behind while he spent extended periods in London, working as both a playwright and an actor. 

By the late 1500s, Shakespeare had become a familiar presence in the entertainment world, collaborating with fellow performers and writing plays for Lord Chamberlain’s Men. Despite this, he never fully relocated his household to London. Instead, his life traced its arc across two places: one a family home, and the other a stage. (Read more.)

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5 Early-spring Garden Tasks

From Homes and Gardens:

March 20th marks the Spring Equinox, the first day of spring. As sunnier days arrive, our backyards begin to wake up and thaw out. It marks the beginning of long days spent in outdoors, and a reminder there is much to do for us gardeners.

Whether you have already put together a spring gardening checklist or you feel lost with where to get started, there are a few tasks to prioritize for early-spring. Getting your outdoor space prepared for the growing season is key to creating the thriving garden, and there is limited time to get this preparation done.

No matter the spring garden you envisage, horticultural experts say to start by getting these early-spring gardening tasks ticked off. We promise they're all easy to do and will leave you with an immaculate space ready for spring and summer gardening. (Read more.)

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The Politics of Panic

 From Unlicensed Punditry:

I think there is a persistent assumption in American political discourse that voters are simply downstream from ideology—that rank-and-file Democrats believe, in full and conscious detail, the same things their party’s most visible leaders say on cable news or from the Senate floor. That assumption may not hold up, even under casual observation. The average Democratic voter is not a doctrinaire ideologue. They are, like most Americans, busy, distracted, and only intermittently engaged. What they respond to is not a fully formed ideological framework, but a steady emotional narrative—and increasingly, that narrative is built on fear.

This pernicious process sure seems particularly pronounced in the modern Democratic coalition because of how its leadership communicates. Just think about the things the Democrats and their mouthpieces in the national spotlight feel comfortable saying about President Trump and Republicans. They are killing “democracy”, they are pedos, rapists, bigots, and every sort of phobic demon one could conjur. It is war now, war tomorrow and war forever.

This messaging is not about persuading voters toward a set of principles. It is about defining the opposition in the starkest possible terms and stoking resistance, and when you are fighting for survival, nothing is forbidden. The Republican Party is not framed as wrong, misguided, or even flawed, it is framed as dangerous, an existential threat--not just to policy preferences, but to democracy itself, to basic rights, and to personal safety. (Read more.)

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What's Wrong with Modern Dating

 From Elizabeth Stone:

There are many things wrong with modern dating, between the constant need for validation, our inability to wait, our uncontrolled lust, the fact that we treat sex as something casual, and that we use chemistry and feelings as the main guidance for love, you would think these things alone would be enough to explain why so many people feel lost, hurt, detached, and unable to form anything lasting, but honestly, I think there are two deeper things beneath all of it that make the whole situation far worse.

Dating now isn’t just more shallow, dating now has completely changed the way we see people altogether. Somehow, and somewhere along the way we stopped people as someone we want to know, someone to honor, pursue, discern and maybe even possibly fall in love with, instead now we approach others not as a person, but as an experience to be had. I mean even in our language this is obvious, we talk about others like they were some lesson, a story, just a chapter, a fling, an adventure, a waste of time… but the problem is that once another human person becomes just an experience, well it becomes very easy to just consume them and move along.

The second problem is that we have totally inverted the natural order of love, we have given others access to us and our bodies before we even know them, before we are even able to trust them, before commitment before anything that would protect us. We are trying to begin with things that are meant to be the fruit of love, we don’t plant a seed anymore and wait for it to grow, we take the fruit, never plant, and then sit and wonder why nothing ever seems to grow. (Read more.)

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Who Is Queen Mab?

From Barrie's Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, illustrated by Arthur Rackham

From The Imaginative Conservative:

Santayana dedicated some pages to a piece titled “Queen Mab” presumably after the enigmatic faery who is mentioned by Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet.[1] The essay turns into an analysis of British literature, which I take to mean that Santayana saw some form of greater representation in Queen Mab that extended to the wider British psyche. Santayana’s claims regarding British romantic literature, if there is truth in them, add yet another level of genius to Shakespeare, who would have most likely been aware of the duplicity of romance while implementing it in his play. I want first to explain Santayana’s essay—his views regarding British literature—before revisiting the lines where Romeo and Mercutio exchange their thoughts on the meaning of dreams and Queen Mab’s role within them. 

Who is Queen Mab? That is the question this essay will aim to explore. 

Santayana begins his piece by connecting literature to nature. He writes that nature is “far more resourceful than logic,” which is why she has “found a way out the contradiction” that exists between “the human need for expression” and the “British distaste for personal outbursts.” If our inner and outer man oppose each other, then literature is a way to circumvent this contrast. But not all literature is equal. Santayana turns his attention to romantic fiction, which he called a “bypath of expression.” It is a form of literature that is the equivalent of a fleeting phase in our lives, when man plays at “self-revelation” despite being far from it. In Romantic literature man indulges in “day-dreams and romantic transformations” and “imaginary substitutes” for himself as a way to “nurse and develop” his opinions and preferences without stating them directly. Through this form of expression, Santayana writes, man will “dream of what Queen Mab makes other people dream.” 

The sentence needs unpacking. In Santayana’s essay, Queen Mab is England’s literary imagination, but a very specific part of it: the Romantic. And this romantic part of the English literary imagination is a momentary step in our journey towards understanding our hearts. It is, in other words, incomplete. Santayana wrote that a man’s heart, his “ruling motives,” will be revealed “only in long stretches of constant endeavor and faithful habit,” which often comes towards the end of his life. But Queen Mab is still part of the human heart that managed to revolutionize people’s aesthetic sensibilities. British Romanticism elevated man’s self-image. As Santayana wrote, “that which he might have been, and was not, comforts him. Such a form of self-expression, indirect, bashful, and profoundly humorous, being play rather than art, is alone congenial to the British temperament; it is the soul of English literature.” (Read more.)

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Blue Sky, Discord, the Dark Web & MKUltra

 From Tierney's Real News:

The White House Correspondents’ Dinner (WHCD) is a black-tie banquet in Washington, DC. that’s organized by a group of reporters assigned to the White House. The annual event is held at the Washington Hilton, which has hosted the dinner for decades.

The Washington Hilton is also where John Hinckley shot Reagan in 1981. President Trump has boycotted the WHCD during all of Trump’s first term and last year, so this dinner would have been his very first as Commander in Chief and it was a big deal.

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Before we go on and discuss the shooting, I want to remind people WHY President Trump had boycotted the WHCD dinner so far. This background is crucial context, because it shows how DC elites went from seeing Trump as a potential savior in 2011 to a punchline.

Many Republicans are not aware that in 2011, at the WHCD, President Obama and Seth Meyers mercilessly roasted and mocked Donald Trump for considering a GOP Presidential run. It was humiliating and degrading. (Read more.)

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The Madeleine Cemetery

 From Sortir à Paris:

In the 8th arrondissement, there is a discreet garden that is nonetheless steeped in history. It now stands atop the former Madeleine Cemetery and its mass grave where Louis XVI, Marie-Antoinette, and hundreds of Revolution-era executions were originally buried, and today it houses the Expiatory Chapel.

In Paris, there are gardens that feel almost secret, yet they hide a grand history. This is one such verdant enclave with a macabre past. Nestled behind the sober façades of the 8th arrondissement, the Louis XVI Square, adjacent to the Expiatory Chapel, sits on the site of the former cimetière de la Madeleine, which during the Revolution became a burial ground for the victims of the guillotine. Behind its appearance as a small, discreet haven, this historic Parisian garden sits atop an old burial ground linked to Louis XVI, to Marie-Antoinette and to hundreds of victims of the Terror.

Originally, the cimetière de la Madeleine opened in the 18th century to meet the needs of a rapidly expanding neighborhood. But during the Revolution, its proximity to today’s Place de la Concorde—then the Place de la Révolution, where the guillotine stood—made it a particularly convenient burial site for the bodies of the condemned.

Approximately 500 guillotined were laid to rest there. Among them are famous names such as Olympe de Gouges, Charlotte Corday, Madame du Barry, and several Girondin deputies. King Louis XVI, executed on 21 January 1793, is buried there in an individual grave. Marie-Antoinette, executed on 16 October 1793, was also interred there. Both are said to have been covered with lime.

Following the Revolution and the Empire, Louis XVIII, brother of Louis XVI, chose to mark the site with a commemorative monument. In 1815, the remains believed to be those of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette are transferred to the Basilica of Saint-Denis, after which a chapel is erected on the site of their former burial. The project, entrusted to Pierre Fontaine, gets underway in 1816 and is completed in 1826. The monument is designed in a neoclassical style and today hosts exhibitions open to the public.

The Louis XVI Square as we know it today was laid out later, in the 19th century, when Haussmann’s renovations reshaped the district. Its white floral decorationsecho royalty and the memory of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette. But what has become of the mass grave? If the supposed remains of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette were moved to the royal necropolis for the kings and queens of France in Saint-Denis, a common view persists that the bodies buried on this site were relocated to the Paris Catacombs, as was the fate of other former intra-mural Paris cemeteries.

In fact, Louis XVIII reportedly insisted that no land “saturated with victims” be taken away from the site. The remains of the old cemetery were thus kept in ossuaries. In other words, even after the monarchs were moved, the place remained a necropolis of the Revolution.

The confusion seems to stem from a Catacombs plaque mentioning another “old Madeleine Cemetery,” located on Laville-Lévêque Street, whereas the cemetery on which the Expiatory Chapel was built lay on Rue d’Anjou. Archaeological surveys conducted in 2018 even confirmed the presence of bones behind the walls of the lower chapel. (Read more.)

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Chinoiserie in Architecture

 

From The Collector:

Located in the Sanssouci Park, the Chinesisches Haus (“Chinese House”) in Potsdam, Germany, was built between 1755 and 1764. Commissioned by Prussian king Frederick the Great, the project was headed by German master builder Johann Gottfried Büring. The Chinese House is characterized by its trefoil shape, which was inspired by the Maison du Trèfle at the Palace of Lunéville in Lorraine. Its exteriors feature four prominent gilded sandstone columns alongside several playful, life-sized gilded sculptures of Chinese musicians and tea drinkers. These were the works of German sculptors Johann Melchior Kambly, Johann Gottlieb Heymüller, and Johann Peter Benckert.

The Chinoiserie style continues in the building’s interiors with a vast collection of 18th-century porcelain and a large fresco depicting a whimsical gathering. It features numerous Chinese men standing behind a balustrade, some glancing around and others engaged in conversation. In the surroundings, there are peacocks, parrots, monkeys, statues of Buddha, and many other Chinoiserie motifs. Frederick the Great, as a fervent admirer of Chinoiserie, would later follow up with two additional Chinese-style structures. One was the Chinese Kitchen, located just a stone’s throw from the Chinese House, and the other was the Drachenhaus (“Dragon House”), located at the northern part of the Sanssouci Park. (Read more.)

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Watching the World Burn

 From Unlicensed Punditry:

The latest round of revelations about Southern Poverty Law Center isn’t shocking so much as it is clarifying. It’s like finally reading the fine print on a contract you were told not to worry about. You don’t discover anything new; you just confirm what you already suspected.

What it does remind you of, though, are two simple truths that explain far more about modern political behavior than any academic paper ever will. First, much of what passes for “reality” among a certain activist class is not observed, it’s intentionally constructed. Second, if you want more of something, you subsidize it. That rule works just as well in politics as it does in agriculture.

Look around and you start to see the pattern. From students chanting “ICE Out” and “No KKK,” to the endlessly recycled Charlottesville narrative, to the slow-motion denial and eventual admission of Hunter Biden’s laptop, you are not dealing with a series of honest misunderstandings. You are watching a system that produces narratives on demand, distributes them widely, and then defends them long after they’ve been exposed as fiction.

Take immigration enforcement. There is no credible evidence that ICE is out there running some kind of racial sorting algorithm before doing its job. None. But you wouldn’t know that if you spent five minutes on a college campus where the chants are delivered with the confidence of revealed truth. It’s not about evidence, it’s about utility. The narrative serves a purpose, so it stays.

Charlottesville is even more instructive. The “very fine people” hoax was debunked almost immediately for anyone who bothered to read past the headline. That didn’t stop it from becoming a cornerstone of modern political mythology. It was cited, repeated, canonized, and eventually elevated to campaign-launch status. Joe Biden built an entire presidential run on it. Kamala Harris still invokes it like it’s carved into stone tablets somewhere. The fact that it never actually happened as described is treated as a minor inconvenience, like a typo in an otherwise useful document.

Then there’s the laptop. The one that was “Russian disinformation” right up until it wasn’t. The one that required a synchronized media blackout, a parade of former intelligence officials, and a healthy dose of social media censorship to keep the narrative intact long enough to get through an election cycle. Now that it’s acknowledged as real, the same people who dismissed it have simply moved on, no apology, no correction, just a quiet pivot to the next approved outrage. (Read more.)

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The Lost Medieval Pronouns of English Intimacy

 From the BBC:

Which word would you use to refer to yourself? "I", presumably, in the singular. And how about you and a group of people? "We", of course, in the plural.

But how about you and one other person? 

In modern English, there is no word for that. You would probably just use "we" or "the two of us".

But more than 1,000 years ago, you would have said: "wit".

This term, once also used affectionately to describe the closeness between two people, is one of many personal pronouns that have been lost or transformed amid huge social and political change over the centuries.  The English language has become simplified – but at times this has left gaps, creating confusion.

"Wit" means "we two" in Old English, a Germanic language spoken in England until about the 12th Century, which evolved into the English we speak today. Now completely lost, "wit" was part of an extinct group of pronouns used for exactly two people: the dual form, which also includes "uncer" or "unker" ("our" for two people) and "git" ("you two"). That dual form vanished from the English language around the 13th Century. (You can hear how some of these were pronounced in the short clips later in this article.)

"There's a whole history in the [personal] pronouns", including the impact of Viking and Norman invasions on the English language alongside shifting norms and customs that have changed how we talk, says Tom Birkett, a professor of Old English and Old Norse at University College Cork in Ireland. (Read more.)

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Song

YOU bound strong sandals on my feet,

You gave me bread and wine,

And sent me under sun and stars,

For all the world was mine.

Oh, take the sandals off my feet,

You know not what you do;

For all my world is in your arms,

My sun and stars are you.

by Sara Teasdale

(Picture by Andrew Wyeth) Share

The New Feminism

 From Culturcidal:

To begin with, it’s worth noting that despite seeing a level of bitterness, rage, and unhappiness that practically reaches off the screen and grabs you by the collar and shakes you, these women do not live in countries like Afghanistan, Sudan, or Yemen, where women are heavily oppressed. They’re also not in a war zone like, say, Ukraine, Lebanon, or Iran. These are women who live in a Western country where they make roughly three times as much as the average person in the world. In other words, these women are certainly not repressed in any meaningful sense, and although they’re probably not doing as well as they would be in the United States, they do live in the top tier of economically successful nations.

Yet, what were some of the words tossed around to describe these, let’s be honest, fairly privileged women in this piece? “Financially cynical.” “Dehumanised.” “Panic and hopelessness.” “Stacked against me, no matter how hard I try.” “Pessimistic.”

They also seem to have pretty stereotypical views of men and marriage for feminists as well. They don’t want marriage, they don’t really seem to want children, and they seem to dislike men, who they view as a “trap” who will ruin their wonderful careers in… what? Podcasting? Middle management? Human resources? (Read more.)

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Dada and Proto-Communism

 From Hilary White:

The Dada Manifesto gives an idea of the level of intellectual rigor and competence of the founders of the various movements in modern art. It was written in 1916 by the Cabaret Voltaire’s founder, the poet and failed actor, Hugo Ball (1886-1927). The name, Dada, Ball claimed, was chosen at random from a French-German dictionary and meant anything or nothing as the user chose.

“I shall be reading poems that are meant to dispense with conventional language, no less, and to have done with it. Dada Johann Fuchsgang Goethe. Dada Stendhal. Dada Dalai Lama, Buddha, Bible, and Nietzsche. Dada m’dada. Dada mhm dada da.”

“It’s a question of connections, and of loosening them up a bit to start with. I don’t want words that other people have invented. All the words are other people’s inventions. I want my own stuff, my own rhythm, and vowels and consonants too, matching the rhythm and all my own. If this pulsation is seven yards long, I want words for it that are seven yards long…”

Clearly, the content was beside the point.

Ball, who had been raised a devout Catholic, had been a young disciple of Mikhail Bakunin, the Russian revolutionary anarchist, Hegelian and rival of Karl Marx in the International Workingmen’s Association, the movement sometimes called the First International, the umbrella group of radicals, socialists and anarchists that was later to resolve into Soviet Communism.

Like many of the young ideologues of the late 19th and early 20th century, Ball later grew out of his radicalism and reverted to his earlier Catholic Faith living to the end of his short life in obscurity. But the damage was done, and the Dadaist followers he had gathered in Zurich took their “anti-rational” ideology of meaninglessness like a virus into the wide world of culture.

After escaping Zurich and being carried to Berlin and eventually to most of the rest of Western Europe’s cultural centres, Dadaism had served its purpose and fell out of favour. It was replaced with an apparently endless parade of various successive “schools” and “movements,” that students of Fine Arts must now memorize for their exams: Cubism, Modernism, Fauvism, Expressionism, Futurism and all the way to Andy Warhol’s “Pop-Art” soup tins and Tracey Emin’s postmodernist unmade bed. (Read more.)

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Ashington Manor in Somerset

  

 

From Country Life:

There are many things to note about Ashington Manor in Somerset, not least that, in the 16th century, it was the home of Ursula St Barbe, wife of Sir Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth I’s chief fixer, whose machinations precipitated the gruesome end of Mary, Queen of Scots.

Although she primped it up with a fancy new façade and oriel windows, it had mixed fortunes in the following centuries until it was stumbled upon by Isabel and Julian Bannerman. The couple are makers of magical gardens, who have cast their spell for The King, Sting and Trudie Styler, Jasper Conran and Keith Tyson, as well as further afield, including in Lower Manhattan, New York, where a garden they designed commemorates the British and Commonwealth victims of the attack on the World Trade Centre in 2001. However, what is remarkable on a crisp morning beneath the mullioned windows of Ashington’s double-height great hall is that it is almost toastily warm, in a way that could never be achieved by even the most generously proportioned hearth.

Most people who spend time in leaky, historic piles resign themselves to the fact that if they want to enjoy the heady smell of old oak, the texture of worn stone and the gentle creak of mortise and tenon joints tapped together three or four centuries ago, the price they must pay is wearing thick socks and a gilet all day (and night). They cling to the Aga like a limpet and feel pathetically grateful when handed a hot-water bottle or find, to their delight, that someone has remembered to flick the switch on one of the world’s least expensive luxuries — an electric blanket.  (Read more.)

 

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Iran’s Pirates

 From Tierney's Real News:

If you’ve never cracked open a history book, the mess coming out of Iran right now probably looks like total chaos with no pattern to it. You’ve got top officials posting contradictory things on social media. You’ve got wild accusations flying back and forth about spies and traitors inside their own government. And you’ve got this desperate scramble to keep Iran’s oil moving toward Communist China while Iran’s entire economy falls apart at the seams. None of this is random. These are the classic signs of a regime that’s cracking under real pressure—the same exact pattern we saw with the Barbary Pirates more than 200 years ago.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps—the IRGC—and the hardline Shia Twelver Muslim clerics who run things there are behaving like modern-day pirates. They’ve hijacked their own country, holding their own people hostage, just like those North African corsairs once held American sailors captive on the high seas. A corsair was basically a state-backed pirate—not just some random criminal on the high seas, but a sailor who had official permission from his government to attack enemy ships and coastal towns.

President Trump sees it clearly, and he’s responding the same way Thomas Jefferson did back then: with a naval blockade and absolutely no willingness to pay tribute or give in to blackmail. The end is near for this terrorist regime. Let me explain exactly what’s happening, step by step, so you can see how history is repeating itself and Trump is holding the line just like Jefferson did. (Read more.)

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The Easter Rising

 From The Abbey of Misrule:

The April weather in the Irish west was astonishing this year, for a while. Two whole weeks of unseasonal heat brought the land out from the finalities of winter. True, the frost still came at night, but by the afternoon I was digging the garden with my top off. Everything on our land awoke. Our field, in which we planted 800 trees nearly a decade ago and which is now becoming a forest, hums with insects heading for the poplar blossom and the whitethorn. The pond is full of frogspawn and the soil is warming. Crocus and cowslip defeat the couch grass in their quest for the light. Sparrows gather moss and straw, the hazel poles are budding. We have set up a beehive in a grove by the hedgerow, and now we wait in the hope that some worker will seek it out and beckon the swarm to follow.

But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds in the sky, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish in the sea inform you.

As the land has sung itself back into life, it is as if I have awakened too from some numbness that overcame me. It was not simply the numbness of winter. For a while, I have felt closed off from my land; somehow an alien as I walked through it. Maybe I was reading too much theology. I always knew that the Holy Spirit sung itself through bud and blossom, but knowledge is not experience. Back in the day, when I was a pagan and a pantheist, I felt the force of nature as an overwhelming power within me. Then I became a Christian, and something retreated.

What was it?

I wondered this, and I concluded that I had misdirected my worship. I had worshipped the trees rather than their creator. I think that this was a category error; still, I missed the feeling it gave me. I missed the sense that the trees were my sisters and the birds my brothers. Those who have never felt this may call it ‘pagan’, as if that meant anything, but they would be wrong. It is not ‘pagan’ to feel, as Adam did, as Eve did, that this place was created to be our home. That we were intended to be at one with it before we broke away and began instead to worship ourselves.

The heavens declare the glory of God; the sky proclaims the work of his hands. Daily they speak, they never become silent.

Something has happened to me this Easter, though; that old feeling has come back. Now I walk through my growing forest and I feel again that green force that I once felt, and I am overjoyed because I missed it. Is it different now? Yes, and no. I feel the land breathe within me and to me, I see that everything here has its own life, I feel the inscape of it all, but now I feel something beyond it too; something that made it, that sings it every hour, though for this force there is no time. (Read more.)

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Saint Louis and Chivalry

 

Today is the birthday of St. Louis IX. The holy king conducted himself bravely amid his enemies. To quote from Nobility.org:

Unlike [Frederick II of Germany], Louis frequently ignored a practical course of action that would derive a benefit for himself and chose instead one that entailed suffering for the benefit of the Church and Christendom. Of all the problems that beset Christian life, the continual harassment by the Saracens of the Holy Places, the pilgrims and the few hundred knights that protected them troubled Louis the most.

In 1248 he embarked on an extremely well planned crusade against the Sultan of Egypt since Palestine at that time was under his control. Once again the crusaders stormed and captured Damietta on the eastern branch of the Nile. Proceeding up the river on the right bank towards Cairo, they arrived at the fortress of Mansourah. Robert of Artois, the King’s oldest brother, crossed the protecting channel, routed a detachment of guards and rode on to an enemy encampment outside the wall where they killed everyone they found. Instead of returning to guard the bridgehead and allow the main body of Louis’ army to cross and reinforce him, Robert impetuously invaded the fortress. That blundering imprudence cost him and 280 knights, most of them Templars, their lives.

With the threat of torture and death hanging over his head, the embattled saint carried himself with such dignity that the impressed Moslems agreed to release him and many other prisoners upon the surrender of Damietta and the payment of a large ransom.

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The Hardest Truth about Islam and Christianity

People often cite the fact that the Koran mentions the Virgin Mary with reverence, a fact which never stopped a single Muslim from kidnapping and enslaving millions of Christian women and girls in harems for over a thousand years. And the rape of "infidel" women is not seen as a sin from the Islamic point of view. From Patrick Novecosky:

Relations between the papacy and Islam stretch back more than 1,300 years to the era of Pope Donus in the 7th century, when the rapid expansion of Islam transformed the Christian world. What followed was not primarily dialogue, but conflict. Muslim armies swept through formerly Christian lands in North Africa and the Middle East. Europe responded with the Crusades. Constantinople fell. Naval battles like Lepanto became defining moments of civilizational struggle. For much of history, Christianity and Islam encountered each other not in shared spaces of worship, but on opposing sides of war.

That history does not dictate the future, but ignoring it doesn’t lend clarity to the present.

The Catholic Church’s modern approach to Islam largely dates to the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. Its declaration, Nostra Aetate, marked a turning point, stating that the Church “has a high regard for the Muslims,” who worship the one, merciful God. It called for both sides to move beyond past hostilities and work together for justice and peace.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church builds on that framework. It teaches that Muslims, “together with us, adore the one, merciful God” and are included in God’s plan of salvation. That’s pretty remarkable language, especially when viewed against centuries of conflict. They reflect the Vatican’s deliberate effort to emphasize common ground and reduce religious hostility.

But they do not erase fundamental differences.

Islam rejects the Christian understanding of God as Trinity, denies the divinity of Jesus, and does not accept the central claim of salvation through the cross and resurrection. These are not minor disagreements. They go to the heart of what each religion believes about God and humanity’s relationship to Him. Any serious discussion of Christian-Muslim relations must grapple with that reality. (Read more.)

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How Winslow Homer’s Paintings Captured 19th-Century America

 From The Collector:

Despite living in New York in the 1870s, most of Winslow Homer’s art doesn’t focus on progress and industrialization. Instead, he portrays rural New England. Homer’s paintings of this period focus on farm life, games, leisure, and a happy country childhood. The lighter color palette and frequent use of outdoor settings and everyday subjects mirror the influence of the Impressionists, whose works Homer might have encountered during his travels, yet his interpretation is entirely grounded in his American surroundings. Winslow Homer often created watercolor studies that he later used as the basis for larger oil paintings. Although Homer never married or had children of his own, children were a major theme in his art. Homer seems to have enjoyed painting them, and their joyfulness made paintings of children a particularly optimistic and sought-after subject after the war’s deprivations. (Read more.)

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'The Killers': The Only Adaptation That Ernest Hemingway Loved

From Far Out:

A masterful example of the quintessential film noir, The Killers has gone down in history as one of the best works from the immensely popular genre. Based on a story by Ernest Hemingway, this was the film that landed Burt Lancaster and Ava Gardner unprecedented fame and success. However, the greatest achievement of The Killers is that it has firmly retained its cinematic magic even after all these years.

Right from the very beginning, The Killers keeps the audience on its toes and confronts them with quasi-surreal imagery. Presented like the contents of a bizarre dream, two professional assassins casually walk into a small-town diner in order to capture and kill a man known as the Swede (Lancaster). Within minutes, the atmospheric silence ignites into a cloud of chaos. A hostage situation arises out of nowhere and is defused just as quickly. The protagonist is brutally gunned down in the first ten minutes. Everything falls apart.

This initial spiral into beautiful absurdism plays a vital role in the momentum of the film’s subsequent discursive pathways. We follow an insurance investigator (played by Edmond O’Brien) who enters a dangerous world of crime and intrigue while trying his best to pick up the fragmented pieces of the narrative. Unlike many other suspense thrillers whose success hinges on the excitement of the final destination, The Killers is all about the journey and what a journey it is indeed!

Throughout his life, Hemingway was a very vocal critic of the Hollywood factory and often criticised films that were based on his works. However, The Killers is a significant exception to Hemingway’s general disdain for the machinations of the film industry. He famously wrote: “It is a good picture and the only good picture ever made of a story of mine.”

The screenplay, although credited to Anthony Veiller, was also co-written by the likes of John Huston and Richard Brooks. A major reason behind the efficiency of The Killers is the slick screenplay which manages to capture the poetry of Hemingway’s art.

Structured through the flashbacks and recollections of various characters, we are given fleeting visions of the past life of our dead protagonist. Director Robert Siodmak arranges these accounts in the form of poignant puzzle pieces which come together to form a mesmerising gestalt instead of a mere summation. Ranging from ex-lovers to prison inmates, The Killers functions like a fictional documentary that attempts to reconstruct the impenetrable mythology of a film noir mystery.

There are philosophical reflections sprinkled in there as well, most evident in the figure of the Swede’s cellmate in prison who spends his time studying constellations which invoke the memory of Oscar Wilde’s famous quote: “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” (Read more.)

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Race Baiting Frauds

From Tierney's Real News:

The "hate-crime" narrative has officially fractured. On April 21, 2026, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the FBI announced a massive 11-count federal indictment against the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). What was once dismissed as a conspiracy theory is now a matter of federal record: a prominent left-wing “civil rights” nonprofit is accused of "manufacturing racism" to drive a multimillion-dollar fundraising machine.

On April 21, 2026, a federal grand jury in Alabama indicted the SPLC on 11 counts including wire fraud, false statements to banks, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. The DOJ alleges the SPLC secretly funneled over $3 million (2014–2023) to paid informants linked to extremist groups (KKK, Aryan Nations, etc.) without disclosing this to donors, while raising money by claiming to fight the very extremism it was allegedly funding.

Acting AG Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel described it as “manufacturing racism” for fundraising. In short: The SPLC is one of the most prominent (and controversial) civil rights nonprofits in America, known for aggressive anti-hate work since 1971, and they are now facing serious federal fraud allegations! (Read more.)

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Marie-Antoinette at Fontainebleau

 From Sortir à Paris:

 The château de Fontainebleau has just lived a timeless week-end. On 18 and 19 April 2026, the courtyards and gardens of this jewel of Seine-et-Marne hosted a historical re-enactment dedicated to Marie-Antoinette and Louis XVI, 240 years after their last stay at this royal residence. Under a generously sunlit sky, young and old stepped back into the refined, playful atmosphere of the 18th century. And the magic worked.

 From the moment the gates opened, the tone was set. In the ballroom, reached via the oval courtyard and the King’s Staircase, the theatrical scene « Le dernier séjour » plunged us into the heart of autumn 1786, just a few weeks before the Revolution would sweep everything away. Marie-Antoinette, on the eve of her 31st birthday, still scarred by the affaire du collier scandal, sought in her newly redecorated apartments a sumptuous, private refuge far from the rumors of Versailles. A roughly fifteen-minute scene—short but striking—that immediately sets an atmosphere of fragile grace.

 Further on, in the Chapel of the Trinity, the scene “Behind the Scenes of the Royal Stays” laid bare the impressive logistics that underpinned every royal movement. The intendant of the Garde-Meuble, Thierry de Ville d'Avray, and Mr. Papillon de La Ferté, intendant of the Menus Plaisirs, revealed the quiet gears of a colossal machinery, without which none of these splendors would have been possible. (Read more.)

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Saint George and King Charles I

But the knight, turning him about, bade her remain where she was, and went out to meet the dragon.

When it observed him approach, the beast was struck with amazement, and, having paused for but a moment, it ran toward the knight with a great swiftness, and beating its dark wings upon the ground as it ran.

 

When it drew near to him, it puffed out from its nostrils a smoke so dense that the knight was enveloped in it as in a cloud; and darted hot flames from its eyes. Rearing its horrid body, it beat against the knight, dealing him fearful blows; but he, bending, thrust his spear against it, and caught the blows upon his shield. 

~ Legend of St. George and the Dragon

St. George's Day is on April 23. St. George is the patron saint of England as well as the patron of the Royal Order of the Garter, the order of chivalry cherished by King Charles I. The legend of St. George and the dragon was one of the most popular stories in the Middle Ages. St. George is generally believed to have lived in Asia Minor and to have suffered under the Emperor Diocletian. Ascalon, the sword of St. George, was celebrated by knights who took the martyred warrior as the patron of chivalry. While his name became the battle-cry of Merry Old England, St. George  was universally venerated in both the East and the West; in the Roman Church he was one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers.

While we know there was indeed a martyr named George, how true is the account of his battle with the dragon? According to New Advent:

This episode of the dragon is in fact a very late development, which cannot be traced further back than the twelfth or thirteenth century. It is found in the Golden Legend (Historia Lombardic of James de Voragine and to this circumstance it probably owes its wide diffusion. It may have been derived from an allegorization of the tyrant Diocletian or Dadianus, who is sometimes called a dragon (ho bythios drakon) in the older text, but despite the researches of Vetter (Reinbot von Durne, pp.lxxv-cix) the origin of the dragon story remains very obscure. In any case the late occurrence of this development refutes the attempts made to derive it from pagan sources....

The best known form of the legend of St. George and the Dragon is that made popular by the "Legenda Aurea", and translated into English by Caxton. According to this, a terrible dragon had ravaged all the country round a city of Libya, called Selena, making its lair in a marshy swamp. Its breath caused pestilence whenever it approached the town, so the people gave the monster two sheep every day to satisfy its hunger, but, when the sheep failed, a human victim was necessary and lots were drawn to determine the victim.

On one occasion the lot fell to the king's little daughter. The king offered all his wealth to purchase a substitute, but the people had pledged themselves that no substitutes should be allowed, and so the maiden, dressed as a bride, was led to the marsh. There St. George chanced to ride by, and asked the maiden what she did, but she bade him leave her lest he also might perish. The good knight stayed, however, and, when the dragon appeared, St. George, making the sign of the cross, bravely attacked it and transfixed it with his lance. Then asking the maiden for her girdle (an incident in the story which may possibly have something to do with St. George's selection as patron of the Order of the Garter), he bound it round the neck of the monster, and thereupon the princess was able to lead it like a lamb.

They then returned to the city, where St. George bade the people have no fear but only be baptized, after which he cut off the dragon's head and the townsfolk were all converted. The king would have given George half his kingdom, but the saint replied that he must ride on, bidding the king meanwhile take good care of God's churches, honour the clergy, and have pity on the poor. The earliest reference to any such episode in art is probably to be found in an old Roman tombstone at Conisborough in Yorkshire, considered to belong to the first half of the twelfth century. Here the princess is depicted as already in the dragon's clutches, while an abbot stands by and blesses the rescuer.

The key to the legend of St. George is that it epitomizes the spiritual combat in which all Christians are engaged, on one level or another. As Fr. Blake explains:

I love saints like St George, whose true story is lost in myth. In both stories George becomes a Christian "everyman". The first legend reminds us that despite every attempt to overcome him by God's grace George endures and survives all, and even in death is victorious.

The second story draws on apocalyptic imagery, the dragon is the symbol of evil, the power of sin, but here it is to be contrasted with the pure virgin. I am reminded of St Athanasius' struggle for twenty years in the tomb against demons. In all of us there is the pure virgin and the dragon. George, here takes on the attributes of St Michael (Michael means "Who is like God"), in his struggle he overcomes evil which then becomes subject to purity.

King Charles I was greatly devoted to the chivalric mission of the English Order of the Garter, founded by Edward III on Saint George's Day, 1348. Charles I had the Garter Star embroidered on the cloaks of all the knights, as a "testimony to the World." From The Victoria and Albert:

This form of the Order of the Garter (the highest order of English knighthood) as a star was introduced by Charles I (ruled 1625-1649) in 1627. It was to be worn by Knights of the Garter 'upon the left part of their cloaks, coats and riding cassocks, at all times when they shall not wear their robes, and in all places and assemblies...a testimony to the World, of the honour they hold...the Order Instituted and Ordained for persons of the highest honour and greatest worth'. (Read more.)

A pendant of Saint George slaying the dragon was also worn. From Sotheby's:

By the end of the fifteenth century a collar had been added to the regalia, possibly as a result of the influence of foreign Orders where a collar was worn to form a badge. The collar design has changed very little since its introduction being composed of a series of gold heraldic knots and roses encircled by the Garter, with a hanging pendant of St George slaying a dragon, known as the Great George.  As for other British chivalric orders, the collar is worn on ceremonial occasions and designated Collar Days throughout the year.

Over time the collar came to be regarded as an encumbrance during ordinary activities and by the early sixteenth century the first reference can be found to the Lesser George [Lots 24; 28], an image of St George encircled with the Garter worn as a separate badge. Lesser Georges were originally hung from a blue ribbon around the neck so as to be worn upon the breast. But by the late seventeenth century it had become practice to sling the Lesser George under the right arm, a contemporary chronicler explaining that this was for ‘conveniency of riding and action’. (Read more.)

From the Royal Collection Trust:

A length of blue silk attached to a book in the Royal Collection may in fact be the Garter ribbon worn by Charles I as he sat for Sir Anthony van Dyck’s famous triple portrait, scientific analysis has revealed. The portrait and the ribbon will be brought together for the first time for In Fine Style: The Art of Tudor and Stuart Fashion, which opens on 10 May, 2013, at The Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace.  The exhibition explores the changing fashions of the rich and powerful of the Tudor and Stuart era through paintings, drawings and prints, as well as rare surviving examples of clothing and accessories.

Charles I placed great importance on the Order of the Garter, the oldest and highest order of chivalry in England – even wearing a Garter badge to his execution in 1649.  Fourteen years earlier, in Van Dyck’s portrait, the monarch is shown wearing a pale blue Garter ribbon around his neck. 

The inclusion of Van Dyck’s painting in the exhibition prompted Royal Collection Trust curators to take a closer look at four lengths of blue silk ribbon attached to the binding of a copy of the Eikon Basilike (‘The Royal Portrait’), now in the Royal Library, Windsor Castle.  The book was first published just ten days after the monarch’s execution on 30 January 1649 and quickly became one of the biggest-selling books of the 17th century, fuelling the image of Charles I as a martyr. (Read more.)

Charles I never converted to Catholicism, in spite of his wife Queen Henrietta Maria's efforts and prayers. He continued to collect recusancy fines from practicing Catholics throughout his personal rule. However, he frequently showed  leniency to Catholics who had been arrested. Charles insisted that the Church of England be hierarchical and appointed bishops who were in favor of a majestic and dignified liturgy. His mentor and Archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud, upset the Puritans when he said that the Church of Rome was not the "Whore of Babylon." (In spite of that, Henrietta Maria never liked him.) From The Amish Catholic on the life and death of Charles I:

A few years ago, Fr. Hunwicke produced a very good argument as to why, canonically and liturgically, a soul who died in schism could be recognized as a saint (taking the precedent of various Eastern saints like Palamas and Gregory of Narek). He has argued for a favorable reading of Charles’s Catholicizing tendencies before.

I would add my voice to Fr. Hunwicke’s. Charles was, on the whole, a boon to the Catholic Church. Charles’s marriage to a formidable Catholic princess, Henrietta Maria of France, saw the arrival at court of Roman Catholic priests, a first since the days of Mary Tudor. He allowed the ambassadors of foreign courts to hold their own chaplains, notably at St. James’s, Spanish Place. Charles even opened up diplomatic talks with the Pope for the first time in decades, receiving more than one papal legate during his personal reign. High-level talks about reunion between the two churches were carried on in secret. He wrote to the Pope, in a letter of 1623 preserved and collected for publication by Sir Charles Petrie (1935),

Be your holiness persuaded that I am, and ever shall be, of such moderation as to keep aloof, as far as possible, from every undertaking which may testify any hatred towards the Roman Catholic religion. Nay, rather I will seize all opportunities, by a gentle and generous mode of conduct, to remove all sinister suspicions entirely; so that, as we all confess one undivided Trinity and one Christ crucified, we may be banded together unanimously into one faith. (See Petrie, The Letters…of King Charles I, pg. 16).

Of course, Charles was inconstant in these measures of good will. He was harsher on Recusants when it came to fines, but significantly lowered priest-hunting efforts. I believe I will not err in saying that, among the many martyrs of the English Reformation, none came during the King’s personal reign in the 1630’s. I only count four overall, of which we can probably acquit Charles from the burden of guilt. The two Catholics executed in 1628 – St. Edmund Arrowsmith, a Jesuit, and Blessed Richard Herst, a layman – seem to have fallen victim to the prejudices of lower officials rather than to any especially anti-Catholic venom emanating from the Crown. And once trouble with the Scots and Parliament began, Charles attempted to hold the situation together by, among other things, clamping down on priests. But even those martyrs which followed in the wake of these efforts owe their deaths more to the actions of local and middling anti-Papist forces than to the intentions of a harried crown. Only two seem to have died in 1641, the last year the King had any discernible control over what was going on in London. Realistically, it would be more appropriate to blame parliament for those deaths. In his church appointments, Charles always preferred those clerics who showed a marked sympathy to the doctrine of Rome. William Laud is only one among several examples that could be cited. (Read more.)

This triple portrait by Van Dyck was for the purpose of making a sculpture of the King

 

Henrietta Maria holding a butterfly

 

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