07.20.09
Posted in Biography, History at 1:32 am by Rosepixie
Elizabeth was an amazing queen. She was totally dedicated to her country and its people for her entire reign. She accomplished so much! Even with the troubles with Mary and the Spanish, England enjoyed an amazing length of peace and prosperity while she reigned. I’m just in awe of her ability to keep control over her power and to guide her kingdom. She chose good advisers (most of the time) and was brilliant herself, and she did all of it in an place and time when a woman could be sold for 2000 pounds (and never fully paid for).
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07.17.09
Posted in Biography, History at 12:51 am by Rosepixie
It’s amazing to me how much people were able to underestimate Elizabeth. Some clearly did not (like Cecil), but so many did. And I have to wonder if Henry VIII would have ever had to face the kind of disrespect that Elizabeth occasionally did. It’s crazy that a woman who was so smart and was having such a successful reign could still be forced to deal with men who thought that they could control her and treat her as they pleased. She really was remarkable.
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07.14.09
Posted in Biography, History at 1:51 am by Rosepixie
The politics of Queen Elizabeth’s court were so complicated. Still, she seems to have had quite a command of what was going on around her. She could understand the international as well as the domestic implications of just about everything. The intricacies were so complex, but she navigated them. She chose advisers particularly well. I’m just amazed by how complicated it all was, and yet it all came down to just her.
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07.11.09
Posted in Biography, History at 12:27 am by Rosepixie
Considering that in marriage the husband held all the power and Elizabeth was surrounded by men who treated their wives like dirt, it’s no wonder that she never got over her hang-ups about marriage! If I’d been in her shoes I wouldn’t have wanted to marry either, especially when you look at the terms of many of the proposed matches! “I get to be ruler as King of England, crowned immediately after our wedding.” “I get to dictate religious policy and you have to abide by my religion and covert for me.” “I will come and go as I please and don’t care if I ever get you pregnant, especially since I’m not planning to spend much time in England.” Oh yeah, those are some really tempting offers there.
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07.09.09
Posted in Biography, History at 12:41 am by Rosepixie
Fantastic quote from Queen Elizabeth: “Though I be a woman, yet I have as good a courage, answerable to my place, as ever my father had… I will never be by violence constrained to do anything. I thank God I am endued with such qualities, that if I were turned out of the realm in my petticoat, I were able to live in any place in Christendom.”
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07.05.09
Posted in Biography, History at 12:27 am by Rosepixie
Elizabeth walked a tightrope all her life, but she never fell off. She knew, better than any of the men around her, how to keep power. She knew that marriage, at least for a woman then, meant giving up power. And more than that, letting men have any kind of sway meant giving up power. So her appointments were careful and deliberate, she kept a virgin, and even her household finances were personally under her control. She definitely knew how to keep power in her own hands!
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07.03.09
Posted in Biography, History at 12:03 am by Rosepixie
A lot of the history relayed here is absolutely fascinating. It seems to have been a great misfortune to have been born an English girl in line for the throne! The single fact that I found most intriguing is that Elizabeth suffered from severe chronic migraines that began when she was a teenager. She was a brilliant, driven young woman facing immense pressures (probably not least of all from herself). That she suffered from something like what I have and became such a great woman, one of the most revered leaders in world history, is amazing. And headaches were far less understood then, so she didn’t even have most of the tools that I have that help me manage. How awful it must have been! It’s scary now in an era with brain scans and modern medicine, how terrifying it must have been for her! And after all the troubles she already had, to throw that on top of it! I wish I had more information. How frequent were her migraines? What side effects did she experience? What remedies did they try and how well did they work? I wonder what kinds of records were kept and how I could do more research on this?
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01.25.09
Posted in Biography, Childrens, Teen at 3:36 am by Rosepixie
Oprah has accomplished a great deal in her life and the timeline does a pretty good job of showing that. The glossary was a little random, but it had some good inclusions. I was glad to see all the source notes and the list of suggested further reading. This book needed the solid backmatter that it has!
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Posted in Biography, Childrens, Teen at 12:22 am by Rosepixie
This is an extremely biased biography. It almost reads more like promotional material for Oprah than it reads like an actual informative biography. Still, it is interesting. Oprah has done so many things and accomplished so much, she really is a remarkable woman. So while I might wish for a less biased biographer, the book is certainly interesting and worth reading!
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01.24.09
Posted in Biography, Childrens, Teen at 2:48 am by Rosepixie
Oprah’s childhood wasn’t especially remarkable, other than her public speaking talent, but that in and of itself makes it worth reading about. It’s great to read about such a successful woman and to see that she came from no more remarkable beginnings than many, many other people. Still, it’s not doing much to make me like or respect her any more.
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