The Engine

  RICHARD III by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE at the LYRIC THEATRE, BELFAST on the 16 th of October 2024 The Tragedy of Richard III The Lyric’s new production of Shakespeare’s Richard III announces itself with puerile themes, a bouncy castle, crazy drummers creating diegetic sound, and George, Duke of Clarence, Edward IV’s and Richard’s brother, being led away to incarceration in the Tower of London.   He’s dressed in fishnet stockings, later dons a pair of angelic wings, and wears a pair of old-fashioned white underwear.   He seems unworried about the grizzly fate that awaits him in a butt of wine.   It’s difficult to assess when the play is set and hard to view it as employing anachronism.   Richard wears modern clothes, some of the other characters medieval clothes, in other words a confusing clash and mixture of styles as if the director could not settle on a definite vision of the play or establish a coherent conceit.   Charlotte McCurry as Queen Elizabeth Q...

  TUDOR POLITICS AND CULTURE   The main source of political authority in the Tudor age was the monarch.   The monarch was unelected and decided solely by genes and heredity (although there had been some exceptions).   Ruling families did change, however, as when Richard III was defeated at Bosworth by Henry Tudor in 1485.   Weak kings like Richard II and Henry VI had been deposed in favour of another branch of the same family.   Family trees were vital in establishing one’s lineage and thus one’s personal entitlement, or lack of it.   Thus, the Middle Ages were essentially static as summed up in the feudal system itself which was vertically stratified by ties of family and blood.   However, the king did not rule alone.   After the Battle of Hastings in 1066, William set about creating a land register known as The Doomsday Book.   This was intended to help the monarch know what land there was and which of Duke William’s followers wo...

  THE SPANISH ARMADA, 1588   English involvement in the Dutch War of Independence on the near continent brought the possibility of war with Spain closer.   Holland had been a possession of the Spanish Hapsburgs (the Hapsburg family had split into two separate houses, the Spanish, and the Austrian) but the independently minded Dutch had different ideas.   From 1585 onwards Elizabeth maintained an expeditionary force in Holland as well as garrisons in the towns of Flushing and Brill which were ceded to the English as safe ports of entry for reinforcements, they also signified good faith between the two countries.   Ostend and Bergen were also garrisoned by English troops.   The English supported Henry IV of France by sending expeditions in 1589 and 1596.   But the biggest problem for Elizabeth was Ireland where the traditional Gaelic rulers were rising out and, after 1595, allied to the Spanish. Elizabeth was hardly bellicose and, quite sensibly, h...

  NOW YOU SEE US at the TATE BRITAIN on the 26 th, MAY 2024 A Dark Pool, Laura Knight, 1917   Fine arts in the Tudor period were being re-shaped by the Renaissance, a movement based initially in Italy, meaning ‘rebirth’.   The prestige of Italian art at this time meant that Italian artists and architects were sought after.   The Renaissance began to travel northward and incorporated artists and movements in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands.   The first appearance of women artists in Britain coincided with these upheavals.   These women, Susanna Horenbout (1503 – 1554) and Levina Teerlinc (1510s – 1576) were born on the near continent and were the daughters of Flemish manuscript illuminators.   They were employed by the court, Susanna Horenbout served as a Gentlewoman of the Privy Chamber to Anne of Cleves and Teerlinc served Elizabeth I in a similar capacity.   Horenbout’s brother Lucas Horenbout (1490-1544) was Henry VIII’s court painter...

  TUDORS   The Tudor period began in 1485 with the Battle of Bosworth when Henry Tudor unexpectedly defeated Richard III and assumed the crown of England.   The period had begun with the deposition of Richard II in 1399.   Richard led an army to Ireland, over-extended his finances and was deposed by Bolingbroke who became Henry IV.   Richard was later murdered. Henry’s son defeated the French at Agincourt in 1415, consolidating England’s position on the near continent.   Henry V’s son became Henry VI.   Henry V had been a considerable soldier, but his son was scholarly, sensitive, and civilised.   He was responsible, for instance, for the construction of Eton college and King’s College Chapel, Cambridge.   His rival, Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York, discovered that he had a better claim to the crown than Henry VI, and decided to contest this claim.   This became the War of the Roses.   Two camps emerged, the House of Lanca...