Of kings and things

Sometimes on a day as grey and damp as this I challenge myself to go out and try for a half decent blip.  Not today.  Decided it was a cooking the and books day, so I thought I'd show you a rather wonderful piece of printing while I had access to it.

It's from an old book (1622) on the lives of Henry VII and Henry VIII and my eye was caught by this reference to the Mary Rose, Henry VIII's flagship, which sunk in harbour not very far from here, instead of doing what it was ordered to do -  attack the French. 

The para in question actually says:
As for the Mary Rose, a ship which with her loss buried Sir George Carow the Captain and seven hundred men, the French do well to make use of casualties to their own glory:  But it was not the valour of the French or fury of their Cannons that sunk her, but the supine negligence of the Mariners, being wracked in the very haven in the presence of the King.

As very many of you will know, it was found and subsequently raised from the seabed in an extraordinary cutting edge operation, which really started the current leap forward in marine archeology.  Everything that was rescued and conserved is in the new Mary Rose Museum at the Historic Dockyards, Portsmouth (though this winter shut for a new round of conservation).

Apart from that, I'm currently working my way through the penultimate of Ian Mortimer's lives of medieval kings.  His research and writing are wonderful, and I am at last separating out the monarchs I've always lumped together as indistinguishable and living in a time before things mattered.  Dumbo me!

The cooking was good too.

So that's Sunday.  I shall talk to all you lovely people a little later  xx