h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: The Stewarts V. Charles Stewart At The Court Of Spain - A87842000
Author: bobstafford - U3151547

Transfered from AWW please comment

This is a lively and interesting account of a strange episode. But it needs some clarification and espansion.

1. I suggest you state that James 1 was King of England at this time at the start. Am I right in thinking that he made peace with Spain after the war of Elizabeth's reign, but the peace was uneasy? It might be worth stating this.

2. When you say 'Charles may have been alright and as befits a prince of the realm', this could do with expansion. I'd read that Charles was a dignified and rather fastidious man.

3. I suggest you put the reason for the secretive approach to the mission to Spain - ie fear of the disapproval of the Protestant Parliament - in the text, rather than in a footnote.

4. In the section 'A Visit to France', you need to state who Henrietta Maria was.

Thank you for your comments all attended to please comment

Your changes have made the account more complete but I'd still like to see a statement, right at the beginning, like 'In 1614, James 1 was king of England and his son Charles was heir.' (I take it that Charles' elder brother Henry had died by this time? There is an interesting story about Raleigh sending quinine for the treatment of the sick Henry.)

in the sentence beginning 'The Spanish', delete 'who'.
The sentence beginning 'James wishing to preserve the fragile peace' needs to be broken after executed.
I would move the paragraph which begins 'There is an interesting story to be found in the papers of Madame de Motteville' into the section 'A Visit to France', where it more logically belongs.

Thanks for your useful comments

All seen to the last point was altered to make it clear that rhe conversation between Charles and Madame de Motville took place at the Spanish court.

Is that satisfactory

There are a few errors of grammar and spelling but it may be that the subeditors can help with those.

I'd be glad, however, to get someone else's comments on this.

Hi Bob,

Clearly this is an interesting event, but could you put it into a historical context? It needs an opening paragraph - yours just gets straight into the narrative.

What was significant about this period? What inspired you to write about it?

Icy

I will sort out the opening

The period is signicant it change England
Great Britain dates from this point, birth of empire, the oppression of the Catholics, Cival war, foundation of a professional army and navy the list goes on.

It started with the Mary Queen of Scots entry the begining of the dynasty. They were such openly awful society who got away with murder (well most of them with the power did awyway)

The end of the Sewarts was discussed in the Seige of Derry entry.I just filled the gaps
If Mary is number 1
2 James 1st
3 James and his children
4 George Villiers
5 the court of Spain
6 The court of France
7 The siege of Derry

I guess I should cover the civil war but that would take around 6 entries. I just thought it needed covering properly the sucess of which I am not qualified to judge

You did ask

Opening paragraph added please comment

That helps, Bob - thanks.

When you get a moment, read it through slowly - you have a lot of grammatical errors throughout. Too many to list here.

It's good to have a re-read - not looked at this one for a while.

I still think you need to tweak the opening paragraph slightly.
Assume that the reader knows nothing, not a sausage, about British history. I'd like to see Charles mentioned in the first sentence (as the entry is about him) along with an explanation as to who he actually was (prince, son of James I and heir to the throne)
The same with Buckingham when he is introduced (but not too much detail as there’s an entry dedicated to him which can be linked to) and that Henrietta Maria was the youngest daughter of Henri IV of France, so she isn’t confused with Maria Anna of Spain.

'Making the English an ally of Spain by marriage would effectively put an end to British competition. – I think I’d change 'would effectively' to 'could potentially'. England’s been allied with Portugal since about the 1340s, but that didn’t stopped England/Britain and Portugal taking up rival positions in the great game of Empire building…

<BB<

Thank you for the comments do the alterations fulfill your suggested additions

I've had another read through, and it still needs a bit of a read through. I'm afraid I'd still tweak the opening.
I think I'd have the opening paragraph as a summary of the entry of the whole entry, most of which takes place in 1621 rather than 1614. So I think I'd say something like 'Between 1621 and 1624, Charles, Prince of Wales, Earl of Chester and heir to the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland, was the subject of intense marriage negotiations between England and Spain.'
You could then have a section in which you state what the three ages (Innocence, Discretion and Adulthood) are, leading into the next bit which is where you state that as Charles approached his Age of Discretion it was considered the right time for the Spanish to begin negotiations.

Hope this makes sense.

<BB<

Reading through, there are still a couple of questions.
This entry doesn't give any examples of anything that George did that was undignified, although someone else's behaviour is unseemly. Who exactly was Sir Edmund Varney, and why did his priest-punching behaviour result in the prince being politely asked to leave?

Have you considered adding a link to: A87856988 George Villiers - Duke of Buckingham

<BB<

Hmm – according to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, he is Sir Edmund Verney not Varney, and the punch-up arose when he 'protected a dying Englishman from a Catholic priest'. I'm intrigued what exactly the priest was doing to the poor bloke on his deathbed that required Verney to provide protection – I image it is more likely to be trying to provide a Catholic last rites rather than stabbing him repeatedly….?

http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/28228
'In 1623 he followed Prince Charles and Buckingham to Madrid where they were negotiating a Spanish match. There Verney proved himself an ardent Protestant by protecting a dying Englishman from a Catholic priest.'

<BB<

All done BB

Looking at the opening sentence:
'Early in the year of 1621, Charles, Prince of Wales, Earl of Chester and heir to the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland, was close to his 14th birthday'

– don't you mean 21st birthday?

<BB<

The year was a typo 1621 = 1614 ammended