The last palace!

Oh, the vagaries of British weather. On Friday, Caroline and I took a bus out to Blenheim Palace. And the day was beautiful:



The grounds, clearly, were beautiful as well. As was the palace:



GORGEOUS. Simply gorgeous. We had all afternoon, and we really wanted to see the palace itself. So we went on a tour of the State Rooms. Alas, they don't allow photos, but here's an online image to give you some idea of what we saw:



Yeah. BEAUTIFUL. The State Rooms were the rooms originally assigned to guests at Blenheim. I think, if I remember correctly, that this one would have been given to whatever royal wanted to come visit. Blenheim is very much indebted to the Stuart line - Queen Anne gave John Churchill, one of England's greatest ever military commanders, the land and money to build Blenheim after he kicked French arse in the mid-1700s. The Churchills (and after them the Spencers - now the Spencer-Churchills) are the hereditary Dukes of Marlborough, so Blenheim is their family seat. Portraits of Queen Anne - very flattering, skipping over the fact that by her death she weighed 20 stone - are ALL OVER BLENHEIM.

*Helen and Daddy - the portrait over the fireplace is of Consuelo Vanderbilt, who you might remember from when we toured the Vanderbilt summer house at Newport. She's the one who got locked in her room by her mother until she agreed to marry the 9th Duke of Marlborough, who then used a huge portion of her huge dowry to make improvements to Blenheim. There are portraits of her everywhere, too. It's fantastic.*

But. We get outside after the marvelous tour. AND IT'S RAINING. And it's not one of those quick sudden fierce rains either. Oh, no. It's a dithering rain. It can't make up its mind whether to be slight and gentle, or whether to hail down in a deluge. And it takes all day to decide. (The one thing it knows is that it wants to be cold.)

So Caroline and I are in a quandary. Do we brave the incredible and famous grounds in the rain? Or do we do another of the tours and wait for it to calm down?

At this point, remember, we don't know that the rain's got the same indecisive mentality as the Leaning Tower of Pisa. We are full of hope. (I am also wearing a sundress, which I changed into because the day was SO NICE when we started.) So we went on the tour of the family's private apartments, which was pretty awesome. The family's always lived in the East Wing, going back to John Churchill. The rooms have changed purpose somewhat, although they're still decorated as they were back then - for instance, John Churchill's bedroom is now the current Duchess's sitting room. Also, the Duke's younger son has his rooms in what used to be the servants' quarters. They're spacious and well-furnished, but it just amuses me. (Speaking of the servants' quarters - we also saw the system of bells for each room! Crazy. About forty bells lined up along the top of a wall, each with a plaque underneath saying which room it connected to. You'd station a footman down there, and when a bell rang, he'd head off to whatever room needed him.) We went on one of the last private apartments tours of the summer - the Duke was coming back to Blenheim that day, and they still needed to finish getting the rooms ready for him.

Needless to say, it was still raining when we got out. So we did one more tour - the "behind-the-scenes" tour with a few scandalous stories (my favorite is the one about John Churchill getting caught in flagrante with Charles II's mistress, Barbara Villiers, by Charles himself). When that tour was done, we said hell with it and went out to the grounds in the rain. We did have fun:



We made it to the Rose Garden, which was gorgeous even in the rain. And we walked around a bit. The grounds are huge, and I'm glad we saw the bits that we did. Then we realized we were starving, and went for dinner at a pub.

Also: Blenheim is literally in the same spot as Woodstock Palace, site of Elizabeth I's "close confinement" and Henry II's dalliances with Rosamund Clifford! The palace itself was destroyed during the English Civil War (one more reason for me not to be a Cromwellian!), but it was still awesome.

A surprising development

You guys. This is a little frightening.

...I might be turning into something of a Cromwellian.

Before you start throwing rotten tomatoes at me, PLEASE let me qualify that statement. I still hate the man's guts for the Irish massacres, the Welsh harpists, and the English playhouses. Nothing's going to make up for those atrocities. And he's a bundle of contradictions - I don't think even he could quite make sense of himself, let alone historians and students 350+ years later.

Buuut...

He's also kind of cool. His string of victories with the New Model Army is pretty much unbroken, so clearly he's got a clever head on his shoulders. He actually advocates religious tolerance - granted, for Protestants only, but given that ten years before, the country was gnawing off its own front leg over two Protestant sects being treated as two separate religions, recognizing that the Protestant churches are all rooted in the same church is pretty damn revolutionary. And the ludicrous belief that everything is "providential," aka it's all God's call, rings less hollow in him than in his contemporaries, because he believed. It's hard to mock him when he agonizes for weeks over killing Charles, because he truly doesn't know what's right.

Add that to my essay topic this week - I'm arguing that he's the only person who could have kept the Commonwealth/Protectorate going, and therefore without him no stable non-monarchical regime could have been established - and I'm having to come to grips with a developing fondness for the man. This is WEIRD.

My day in the Tower

Sunday, as promised, I went back into London. Caroline and I had concocted this wildly elaborate and busy scheme of things to do. As it happened, we accomplished precisely two. BUT WHAT A TWO TO GET DONE.

She hadn't been into London yet, so of course we stopped at the British Museum for two hours. Like I'm complaining! I only realized then that I'd completely missed the Rome wing and a ton of gorgeous Grecian pottery. We saw the Rosetta Stone, the Elgin marbles from the Parthenon, and went up to said Rome wing, where we made the acquaintances of a couple of the Caesars, namely Augustus, Claudius, and my favorite creeper Livia:


If Livia means little or nothing to you, I will lend you the BBC series "I, Claudius." AS LONG AS I GET IT BACK.

We also got to the exhibit of clocks and watches. Holy crap. Some of those clocks are simply exquisite. The detail that went into them is just staggering. Even the watches - ESPECIALLY the watches, in fact. The detail goes into both the watch itself and the watch case. It was pretty depressing to see, at the back of the room as part of the exhibit, a couple modern clocks. SO UGLY. I wanted to stick them under a lightbulb in a dark room and start interrogating them as to their presence amid all this incredibly crafted beauty. "Plastic? Plastic? Plastic has no place here, you 80s fool! Unless you have gold filigree, raus schnell!"

ANYWAY. You will be pleased to know that I didn't do that. I still retain some sense and sanity.

Instead, we hopped the Underground to... THE TOWER OF LONDON!!! Which is AMAZING. Absolutely incredible. The best part is, yes, it's wildly tourist. BUT IT DOESN'T MATTER. The Tower itself, the building, is so much more important and fascinating than any tchotchkes they can throw at you.

Don't believe me? Take a look:



Quick brief on the Tower: It starts with the central square Norman building, called the White Tower because Henry III (great builder, shitty king - Simon de Montfort FOREVER!) had it whitewashed when he built the towers around it in the late 1200s. For a while, kings kept adding to it, building enclosures, sticking towers on the enclosures. It's incredible - the complex is huge, but incredibly easy to get around. (Kind of like the Underground, but even more wonderful.)

Caroline and I opted not to go on one of the Yeoman Warder tours, and instead to poke around on our own. Which turned out to be an excellent choice. That way we actually got to SEE things, instead of being trapped in a horde of sweaty tourists. Things like, say, Tower Green:


That's the chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula in the background. Everyone is buried there. Everyone. They had a plaque up on the inside wall; it took my breath away, reading it. More, Fisher, Cromwell, Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard, Jane Grey, Essex, Northumberland. It was incredible. The part that really left me speechless was when one of the Yeoman Warders pointed out the altar (this is an ancient picture, but they don't allow photos in the chapel, so this is the best I could do):



Under the altar, at the far end, are buried the three queens. Anne, at the left end, then Catherine and Jane. I couldn't speak. I was glad that a whole group had gathered around, so I didn't have to say anything and could just stare.

We also saw Traitor's Gate:


Yes, the water is green. That's not just the picture. It's legitimately green. I so wanted to go sit on the steps and refuse to budge, but they were fenced off.

We got to the Bloody Tower as well, and saw Walter Raleigh's room and the Princes' cell. That was pretty cute - they presented the story of the Princes as a detective investigation, and at the end you got to cast your vote for whether Richard III had them killed, Henry VII had them killed, or they just disappeared (which is a total BS cop-out and which, of course, had the second-most votes. WIMPS! They died, okay? Deal!). I voted for Henry (Josephine Tey, I'm a convert!). He had 9953 votes, including mine. Richard had over ten thousand eight hundred. GROAN. Shakespeare, your smear job is excellent.

And we saw the Crown Jewels. And OH MY GOD. So incredibly beautiful. The gems in those crowns - beyond belief. I also never appreciated how many crowns there are. There's St. Edward's Crown, worn only at the moment of coronation.


That's the Imperial State Crown, set with St. Edward's sapphire, the Black Prince's ruby, and the Second Star of Africa (#2 largest diamond of perfect clarity in the world - #1 is in the Scepter of the Cross). The Queen wears that when she needs the most impressive non-coronation-only crown in the country - for instance, to open Parliament, or for huge ceremonial occasions. (AFTER the coronation, that's the crown the sovereign wears outside Westminster to greet the adoring public.) However, the regalia never leaves the country - so when George V visited India, they had to make him a completely new crown for that trip. It's never been used since.

That's Queen Victoria's tiny little diamond crown, made for her to wear with her widow's veil after Albert died. (Side note: thanks to Cromwell, all the regalia is post-Restoration. So we have no crowns except for Victoria's from any queen regnant that still have their jewels. Both Mary II and Mary of Modena were crowned along with William and James, respectively, but it was a rush job and the jewels were hired. It just irks me that their crowns are now set with fake gems. And yet the one-use-only Imperial Crown of India still has all ITS jewels...)

There is the Queen Mother's crown, though. Set with the Koh-i-Noor diamond. (It's the big one in the middle.)

They would not allow any photos at all in the Jewel House. It was incredible. Someone would sneak out a camera, and the Yeoman Warders were on him or her like a ton of bricks. "SIR! PUT AWAY THAT CAMERA! NO PHOTOGRAPHY ALLOWED!" I didn't even try.

The display was rather brilliant. They have the crowns and scepters mounted in cases, with a moving walkway on either side. You get on the walkway, and as you go by, the lights in the cases and your own motion make every single diamond shoot light out in every direction. It's breathtaking. Caroline and I went on the walkways three times, looping around and around.

I wished I'd checked beforehand which towers Elizabeth and Gruffydd ap Llewellyn were held in - it struck me when we were there that I really wanted to visit those. But it was still amazing. And this way, if I get to go back, I'll know what I want to look for!

The best artistic day of my effing life

Got up early. Got breakfast. Caught the bus into London. Went to:

- the Waterhouse exhibit at the Royal Academy
- the National Portrait Gallery

I'm not going to post pictures of everything I saw, because it would make this the longest (if also most gorgeous) blog post ever. Instead, I'm going to give you some links. SOME links, mind you - even I can't link to everything I saw today.

(Can I just say, first off, that the Royal Academy is gorgeous? HUGE courtyard - think Bodleian size - paintings on the ceilings, a marvelous entry staircase. The Waterhouse exhibit was in the newer galleries, so I had to climb this fun modern see-through staircase up and around what was clearly once the outside of the RA. Quite fun.)

Then I got into the exhibit. They set it up very sneakily - in chronological order, so that when you first get into the rooms, you don't recognize much. Certainly there are none of his classic dark-haired ethereal beauties. Only when you get into the second gallery do you start recognizing moderately famous works - St. Eulalia, for example. Then I turned to my right and saw The Magic Circle, and my breath skipped for a second. I thought, okay. Now we're getting somewhere.

And I was right. One foot into the third gallery, and instantly I knew what was there. Only one painting could have gathered such a crowd around it, just staring. Only one painting could be that massive, that exquisite, that magnetic. I stood still and just looked. I thought a few stanzas, to go along with it. I couldn't help it.

That whole room was full of beauties. On that same wall, on either side, were A Naiad and La Belle Dame Sans Merci. They framed the doorway into the next gallery with twin Circes. The Lady was in good company - on the opposite wall were Ulysses and St. Cecilia. And at the back, so that I almost missed it (but thank GOD I turned around), was the largest canvas Waterhouse ever painted. Which is saying something. Bless him, the boy painted big canvases. That was one of the things that surprised me about the Tate's Pre-Raphaelites - how many of those famous, gorgeous paintings are so small. Not Waterhouse. The smallest one I saw was this one, about two feet by one and a half, and it was very much in the minority. The Lady is huge; Circe Invidiosa is tall; Ulysses and the Sirens spreads out like a tapestry.

Into the next gallery, I stopped dead at Hylas and the Nymphs, another enormous canvas. This was the first Waterhouse that I knew was his the first time I saw it. It's most certainly in my top three favorite Waterhouses, period. To see it in person was incredible. I'd never noticed, in years of loving it, that the nymphs' bodies are in fact underwater in large part - that their torsos are partly submerged in the green water, but it's clear enough that you can see them. I thought that was marvelous. And in seeing his mermaid up close, she looks a little less evil and eerie than I've always thought her. The RA site has a fantastic feature where you can zoom into the painting: click here for that. Well worth doing.

What else was in that gallery? What WASN'T in that gallery? Lamia (his face is in shadow, but his eyes, looking at her, are incredible. I also never realized that what wraps around her waist and legs and hair is in fact her snakeskin!), Mariana, Nymphs Finding the Head of Orpheus. The Danaides, for my fellow Big Love sisters (the one on the far right, looking out, looks very much like Olympia to me). Psyche Opening the Box, Echo and Narcissus, Ariadne, Jason and Medea - a painting, by the way, that has always frightened me a little. They pointed out that Waterhouse was rather obsessed with Circe, and that showing Medea NOT murdering her children (in fact, showing her as essential to Jason's quest) demonstrates her wisdom and skill. But she's still so frightening - the thick black brows, the look on her face (I can never decide if she's cold and resolute or if this is the moment when she realizes she's betraying her father and brother). And this, which I always forget I adore. It took my breath away to be so close to it.

The last gallery. His third Circe painting, which I didn't know is actually unfinished. The Decameron (where is the seventh lady??). Penelope and Her Suitors, interestingly pointing out that Penelope, as a wise and clever woman, is for Waterhouse a kindred spirit to Circe (and to the Lady of Shalott, the other famous weaver he painted). And, on the back wall, the last one you see: this one.

I looped back through once I'd seen it all. Just to see it all again. It's simply exquisite. It's more perfect than I could possibly have wanted it to be. I still can't believe I've seen these paintings that I've loved for half my life. And that they were even more beautiful than I'd ever thought they were.

I had a thought, comparing Waterhouse to Rossetti, say, or Millais, or Burne-Jones. I love their paintings, don't for a second think I don't adore and worship them and fall on my knees at the sight. But I think I love Rossetti's women because they have a quality about them that is ethereal - that is very much not of this world. They're stunningly beautiful; they keep their secrets closed up tight; they're not quite human. Jane Morris is human; Proserpine isn't, quite. Lizzie Siddal is human; Beata Beatrix is much more than human. Fanny Cornforth is incredibly human; The Beloved simply comes from a different world, one with no flaw.

But Waterhouse's women are flawed. The looks on their faces, the things they're doing - something is off, with nearly all of them. And he lets that be so; he seeks it out, draws our attention to that flaw, that humanness. I can imagine myself as Windflowers; I can dream about being as beautiful and mischievous as the Naiad. There's an opening. There's no opening in Millais' Ophelia, or in Lady Lilith. Those women are complete unto themselves; they're not letting anyone else in any more than they choose. (Not to mention that practically all of Waterhouse's women have dark hair...)

Anyway. There's my bit of art philosophy for the day.

From there I took the Underground to the National Portrait Gallery. And I have to throw in a plug for the London Underground: it is THE most convenient, easy, helpful subway system I have ever encountered in my LIFE. You can get ANYWHERE on a one-time fee, you can loop back and ahead and never run into problems, there are maps and interchanging stations all over the place. It's an amazing system. Every single city in the world with a subway system should take note and reform.

Anyway. To paraphrase Rosalind from As You Like It, why talk we of the Underground, when there is such a thing as the National Portrait Gallery?! More links! Just so you understand the incredible enormity of everything I saw today! (Actually, this reads more like a who's who of British history.)

The family portrait of Thomas More. Richard III. Henry VII. The funny portrait of Henry VIII. Anne Boleyn (my favorite version of this portrait, too!). Cranmer. Cecil. Shakespeare's Earl of Southampton. Drake. Raleigh (and Walter Jr., courtesy of Bess Throckmorton). Walsingham. Essex.

On the far end of the gallery, this. It's huge - hung as low to the ground as the frame could be, she still towers. She's magnificent.

And on the other end of the gallery, so that you turn a corner and it catches your eye: this.

When I turned and saw her, no one else was looking at that portrait. I couldn't believe it. Three other people in that gallery, and they were off looking at Walsingham and Southampton. I stood in front of her; I looked up at her (even this one, smaller than the Ditchley, is above eye level). I could hardly look away. She's mesmerizing. It was as visceral as The Beloved. She has Anne's eyes - too dark and lovely to be Henry's squinty little piggy peekers (although she has his mouth). And she's smiling - that little quirk up at the corners, the look in her eyes. She's marvelous.

There was another lovely thing I noticed. They also have a portrait of Leicester. And they hung it just to the right of the Darnley portrait of Elizabeth. And the lovely thing is...well, just look at their hands.



Each at the edge of their portrait, each reaching toward the other. Never managing to connect - but still reaching. I just thought it was beautiful.

Oh, yeah. I saw this guy too.


The Chandos portrait is my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE and I got to SEE IT!!!!!!!!!! OH MY GOD!!!!

It's just always seemed to get at him best, for me at least. I don't buy the ones with fancy clothes; with the exception of those deep eyes, I hate the engraving from the First Folio; the frequency with which people keep turning up "new authentic portraits" makes me wary. But the Chandos...there's something right about it. He's got an edge to him. This guy could hop out of the portrait and start quipping and teasing. I've yet to see any other portrait capture that.

Quick highlights from the rest, because bloody hell, Harry, this is a long blog post!

Barbara Villiers, Charles II's mistress, with their son, posing as the Virgin and Child. Gotta love it! Nell Gwyn, William Laud (biiig problem for Charles I), Nelson and Emma Hamilton right next to each other. Queen Victoria's coronation portrait, and a bust of Tennyson.

Tomorrow I'm going back into London! More British Museum, hopefully the Tower, and probably some shopping. By the time I come back, I'll know London better than Philly!