The Historian Circle

"remember me when you do pray...": a love letter to Anne Boleyn (May 19th 1536) by Darcy R. Keim, MA “remember me when you do pray, that hope doth lead from day to day – anne Boleyn” At 8 am on the 19th of May 1536, Anne Boleyn - Queen Consort of England - prepared for her walk to the scaffold. After having been informed by Sir William Kingston that the hour of her death was near, she left her coronation apartments (housed inside the Tower of London) and took her final steps toward the erected scaffold within the Tower walls. A cruel sense of irony on Henry’s part, but perhaps a match for Anne’s notoriously dark humour. At 9 am, the cannons at the Tower were fired; signalling to all of the brutal end (and first ever execution) of a Queen of England. On trumped up charges, Anne was taken from this world by a single swift stroke of a Calais sword. The question of her fall continues to spark debate and controversy among historians. There are three leading arguments regarding...

Review: The London Revolution, 1640-43: Class Struggles in Seventeenth Century by Michael Sturza. by Jemahl Evans Jemahl Evans holds a Masters in Medieval History and has been a teacher and lecturer for nearly twenty years. He is the author of the acclaimed Blandford Candy series of novels set during the English Civil War and Restoration and published by Sharpe Books. You can follow him on Twitter : @temulkar His website: https://jemahlevans.wixsite.com/jemahlevans Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheLastRoundhead It is over thirty years since I sat in a cold lecture hall as a schoolboy, and listened to Christopher Hill deliver a lecture on the English Revolution as a guest speaker. Despite Hill’s stellar reputation, Marxism was unsurprisingly frowned upon as an ideology at my small public school (public schools are very old private schools in the UK for any international readers), an attitude I was acutely aware of as a scholarship boy from a coal mining family during the Min...

"A Shining Example of Proto-Feminist Historical Fiction: A Review of 'Le Temps Viendra: A Novel of Anne Boleyn (Vol I)' by Dr. Sarah Morris" -- by Darcy R. Keim, MA by Darcy R. Keim, MA Image from TheTudorTravelGuide.com The year is 2016, and whilst researching for, as well as writing my undergraduate dissertation on the proto-feminist representations of Anne Boleyn ( x ), I found myself thoroughly devouring the first book in a coupling known as Le Temps Viendra: A Novel of Anne Boleyn (2012/2013). These two novels (a creative and unique portrayal of Anne's life from her high-stakes romance with Henry VIII in 1527 to her untimely and violent death in 1536) was authored by the pioneering Dr. Sarah Morris -- a Tudor historian who seeks to unravel the period in both a scholarly and accessible fashion.  Le Temps Viendra: Vol I  follows the story of twenty-first century, blonde-haired Anne; whose obsession with her historical counterpart, Anne Boleyn, leads her to book...

  A Critical Commentary on Benevenuto Cellini’s Saliera  by Angel-Celeste Drinkwater Angel Celeste is c urrently in my second year of an undergraduate degree in English Literature & History at the University of Winchester. My main academic focus revolves around Medieval England & France, as well as Early Modern France (specifically the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution, and the lives of Maximilien de Robespierre and Louis Antoine de Saint-Just), however, other areas that I’m interested in include Renaissance Italy, Victorian Crime & Punishment, and general Queer History. Benevenuto Cellini's Saliera, located in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna Crafted from gold, and partially enamelled, the Cellini Saliera , or Salt Cellar, is a sculpture, and piece of tableware for housing and dispensing salt, created by the Florentine goldsmith, Benevenuto Cellini in 1543.  This piece, now housed in the Kunsthistorisches Museum of Vienna is, supposedly, the...

Enemy of queenship historians? A historiographical assessment of the factors that enabled Stephen of Blois to succeed the throne in 1135 and upon succession, maintain his kingship. Darcy R. Keim, MA The instability of Anglo-Norman succession in the early twelfth-century resulted in nineteen years of political insecurity and civil war. The Anarchy was the product of a succession crisis that had been brought about by war and conquests during the eleventh-century. 1 It was undoubtedly a period of conflict and uncertainty due to ongoing dynastic rivalry. A determining factor was Henry I’s failure to eliminate the threat of a troubled succession. 2 As a consequence at the loss of Henry’s only legitimate son, William Adelin (also referred to as ‘William the Atheling’), alliances had evidently shifted from the direct line of succession. 3 An observation from Dr. Paul Dalton highlights the extent of which this caused issue; remarking that “the resulting civil war, during which Matilda ...