Enchanting Cold Blood
Page 76
The first one is Zahir-ud-din Mahomed, commonly called Babar, Emperor of India, the first of the dynasty of the Great Moghuls. He was a poet, painter, soldier, athlete, gentleman, musician, beggar and King. He lived the most adventurous life a man ever lived, in the end of the fifteenth, the beginning of the sixteenth centuries; and he kept a record of it. Babar brought with him into India his own religion, the Islam. He was very powerful and profoundly soulful. The Crystal Bowl of Life is the promise of the Fullness of Life, of love, joy, and happiness, and of sorrow and death …
The second great man of this book is St. Francis Xavier, who was a pioneering Roman Catholic missionary and co-founder of the Society of Jesus, commonly called Jesuits. He was known as the 'Apostle of the Indies' as he was ordered by the King of Portugal, Joam III, to restore Christianity among the Portuguese settlers there. He achieved much more than that …
Two civilisations introduce themselves almost at the same time into India. It is exciting to discover in what fashion and to what purpose …
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A02 (Italy) – THE CITY OF MOURNERS AND THE COURT OF LUCIFER
“Romola” by George Eliot
“The Court of Lucifer” by Nathan Gallizier
Two major Italian cities are introduced here on the verge of the 16th century.
The public and social life of Florence was dominated by the powerful personality of a Dominican Friar, named Girolamo Savonarola. Savonarola criticized relentlessly the worldliness and vicious habits of the clergy. He insisted on the duty of Christian men and women not to hide in easy life when wrong was triumphing in public. He urged and taught them not to spend their wealth in outward pomp and riches when their fellow-citizens were suffering from want and sickness. On the other side, Savonarola was a bitter enemy to freethinkers, philosophers and Renaissance. And Savonarola's mightiest enemy was Pope Alexander VI …
Rodrigo Borgia, or Pope Alexander VI, ruled at the same time in Rome. Alexander VI had four children by a long time mistress, one of many. He had a passion for his children and endowed them with honours and wealth at the church's and his neighbours' expense. The citizens of Rome lived in unspeakable horrors in the midst of intrigues, murder, tortures in subterranean dungeons. No one's life was safe. Alexander VI indulged in chase, stage plays, and orgies. He had many enemies amongst the nobles of Italy for wilfully excommunicating them and confiscating their land. But Alexander's subtlest enemy was his son, Cesare Borgia …
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A03 (England) – THE MASTERS OF LONDON
“The Armourers Prentices” by Charlotte Mary Yonge
“Windsor Castle” by William Harrison Ainsworth, Esq.
In early 16th century, life in the City of London was very different for the citizens and the royal household.
The first novel is picturing citizen life in London in the early Tudor days. It is the story of the orphan-brothers Stephen and Ambrose, who must find their way in life at a very young age. Differently talented, they apprentice themselves each to an armourer and to a printer. The life of the citizens outside of the royal court is well regulated, but dependant of the court and the nobles and their pleasure. The brothers have to experience the Ill May Day as hundreds of young apprentices in London were involved in a terrible outrage against foreigners, living in London. The Aldermen of the City are helpless against the nobles in their effort to rescue their own sons from the scaffold, but for the intervention of Henry VIII …
In the second novel, the life of the household of Henry VIII is presented in the period between 1529 and 1536 in Windsor Castle. A ghost-mystery is interwoven into the historical plot, covering the legend of Herne the Hunter. It is the time during Henry's first divorce from Catherine of Aragon, his marriage to Anne Boleyn and her execution. Many of the historical figures of the time appear in a good portrayal of every-day-life in a gigantic and formidable castle.
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A04 (Germany) – THE BATTLE OF SOULS
“The Friar of Wittenberg” by William Stearns Davis
“Lichtenstein, or The Banished” by Wilhelm Hauff. (Transl. James Morier)
In Germany rises the majestic spirituality of Dr. Martin Luther. Life in the North of Europe is not as refined and leisurely as in the South. The somewhat rough, but very religious Germans are disappointed and angry with the Pope and the inappropriate and indulgent life-stile of the Papal Court. Nobles and peasants in Germany rise to protect Dr. Luther from the Holy Inquisition, the Pope and the Emperor. Where Savonarola failed, Dr. Luther is victorious. And the young Count of Regenstein, as narrator and friend of Luther, is able to escape from the easy, but purposeless life in Italy and find the way to a meaningful, real life in the North, and to his Heaven-gifted wife …
At the same time, Albert of Sturmfeder - a young knight with an old name, but without fortune or family – must find an honourable way to establish himself in life to be able to marry the lady of his heart. The only way open to him is that of the sword. In Swabia, the Swabian League is fighting the Duke Ulrich of Wurttemberg for his estates. If Albert chooses the losing side, he must perish in the battle or share the banishment of his prince. If a duke loses his dukedom, he loses everything, he must leave his home and family behind – where could he hide? And how should he come back, without an army, money, or even a horse?
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A05 (Peru and Canada) – THE FATAL TRIUMPH
“The Crimson Conquest” by Charles Bradford Hudson
“Marguerite de Roberval” by Thomas Guthrie Marquis
At the behest of the Emperor Charles V, daring Pizarro is invading Peru. Spanish conquistadors and a small body of settlers march into the beautiful world of the Incas, destroying the villages, killing masses of peaceful-minded people by firearms, stripping temples, houses, and humans of their decorations and embellishments of gold and silver. The code of honour among European nobles does not extend to the Indian nobles. The Spanish conquerors bring with them the Holy Inquisition into the foreign country. Cristoval de Peralta, a Spanish nobleman and soldier, tries his best to protect the royal family of the Incas from utter destruction.
At the behest of the King of France, Roberval is invading Canada. The cold climate of North America is not tempting to French settlers, so ambitious Roberval is compelled to enter Canada with a small army of convicts and murderers. In order to establish strict discipline among this uncontrollable mob, Roberval must employ extreme measures. Maddened by the long and exhausting voyage, he, in a momentary furious rage, takes the decision to set out his niece Marguerite, who is accompanying him to Canada, on the desolate Isle of the Demons. An awful ordeal begins for Marguerite and her companions – her friend Marie, the old servant Bastienne, and her betrothed Claude, a seemingly endless struggle for survival, a very small hope for escape or deliverance …
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