So let me get this straight. If the media reports are to be believed (which I don’t think they should be) then it is interesting that all the scaling back is happening to everyone except Charles and Camilla. No coronets for peers but a crown for the King. No tiaras for the ladies but a crown for the queen. “Scaled back” event means less invitations to mps and peers but by all means show off the gold carriage for the king.

I am not for this scale backed nonsense but where is Charles and Camilla’s compromise in all this?

Dating Disney: Beauty and the Beast

Beauty and the Beast features my favorite love story and my favorite Disney Princess, so it holds a very special spot in my heart. So, it’s worth looking into the film to decide when the Movie is supposed to be set.

During the opening musical number “Belle”, Belle is telling the Baker about the book she’s been reading. She’s clearly describing Jack and the Beanstalk, the earliest version being the tale of “Jack Spriggins and the Enchanted Bean” in 1734. But she also deliberately mentions an ogre, not a giant. Near as I could find, the only version with an ogre was written by Joseph Jacobs in 1890, making Belle nearly contemporary to modernity. Belle’s excitement over the book is likely a sign that this is a new story.

During the same musical number, we see a sign depicting a tobacco pipe, but unlike with the Calabash pipe from the Little Mermaid movie. I could place it to possibly be a Billiard type, but the exact era of creation escapes me. However, tobacco pipes have been around as long as Tobacco has been introduced to European trade, starting in the 16th century.

The history of colored printing goes as far back as the 16th century, and there are illustrations from the early 1700s with an impressive variety of color that help establish a stronger time period. The book also shows the words Le Prince Charmant or Prince Charming. Prince Charming started being used in 1697 in Charles Perrault’s version of Sleeping Beauty, although there, Prince Charming was not a name. Rather, Perrault stated that the Prince was charmed by her words. The first story to use Prince Charming as a name is the Tale of Pretty Goldilocks. It was written at some point in the 17th Century by Madame d’Aulnoy, but in her version the hero was named Avenant. It wasn’t until 1889 when Andrew Lang retold the story that Avenant was dubbed as Charming. One year later in 1890, Oscar Wilde used the term “Prince Charming” sarcastically in his novel “The Picture of Dorian Gray”, meaning that the term had gotten its more modern meaning by this point in time.

Gaston’s musket is a Blunderbuss, which was invented in the early 1600′s and remained popular through the 18th century before falling out of fashion in the middle of the 19th century. However, considering Belle states that this is a backwards town and Gaston is an old-fashioned, Primeval man, it’s possible he’s using a largely outdated weapon.

While there are no street lamps in the city, we can see in the background lanterns on the sides of buildings, which might allude to the movie taking place before the invention of gas lamps. However, gas lamps were invented in 1809, and if the version of Jack and the Beanstalk is from 1890, then by all accounts the town should have gas lamps. What this amounting evidence is leading me to believe is that the film is directly following the plot of the original fairy tale.

In the story, Beauty’s father is a merchant who loses his fortune due to a storm destroying his cargo. They’re forced to live on a farm until the merchant stumbles upon the Beast’s castle and kick starts the plot. In the opening song, Belle says “every morning’s just the same, since the morning that we came, to this poor, provincial town.” This could mean that she grew up in a much more modern, urban, and progressive town. Possibly even Paris. But that after Maurice suffered severe financial trouble, he was forced to move them to the small, backwards town that was practically living an entire century behind the rest of France, which is why she’s so bored and unimpressed by the little town. It helps explain why she’s so eager to want to get out of this town and see the world. She wants to be part of the modern world again.

Interestingly, I can support this theory with background information. According to some of my research, Belle’s village was based on the little town of Riquewihr, France, which still looks like it did in the 16th century to this day. So the idea that Belle’s little village lacks so many modern elements could be a nod to the architecture of this sleepy French village that has remained largely untouched by the march of time. Hence why it looks more like something out of the 1700s despite the many elements from the 1800s being present.

During the song “Be Our Guest”, Lumiere dances with a match stick. Match sticks were invented in 1805. Assuming the film still takes place in the 1890s, this would be concurrent with the other evidence we’ve seen thus far. Later in the same song, the silverware makes an Eiffel tower, which was constructed in 1889. Since Jack and the Beanstalk was written after that, it still fits within the suspected time frame.

During the climax of the battle, Cogsworth is wearing military garments reflective of Napoleonic styles. Napoleon was coronated in 1804 until 1814, had a brief return to power in 1815, and eventually died in 1821. So this is also congruent to the established time period.

In the Youtube Video “Fashion Expert Fact Checks Belle from Beauty and the Beast’s Costumes” by Glamour, April Calahan, a Fashion Historian from the Fashion Institute of Technology directly noted that Belle’s yellow gown lacks the shape of a proper 18th century dress, and more closely resembles the shape of 19th century dresses, fitting into the evidence that’s been mounting in support of a late 19th century setting.

As a part of his primary costume, Lefou wears a waistcoat and tailcoats, which came into vogue in the 1800s, namely from the 1840s through the 1850s.

But if the film is set in the 1800s, how can the Beast still be a prince after the French Revolution? Well something worth noting is that when he finds out that Belle isn’t coming to dinner, the Beast storms through the halls to her room as Cogsworth calls after him as “Your Eminence” and “Your Grace”. The address of “Your Eminence” is reserved for Cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church, and is an ecclesiastical style of address. “Your Grace” is noticeably an English style of address, but it’s being used by Cogsworth who is British, so I can chalk that up to just part of his culture. Although it was used for British monarchs, it fell out of use during the reign of King Henry VIII (1509-1547) and after that, the use of “Your Grace” became used to address archbishops and non-royal Dukes and Duchesses. Now clearly the Beast is not a cardinal or a bishop, especially if he is looking for the love of a woman to make him human, since it’s forbidden for Catholic priests to marry. So clearly that is not what is meant here. But the other answer actually does hold a bit of weight. Beast’s father was in fact, a Duke. So how is the Beast a prince? He’s not. Not entirely. See, there’s more than one kind of Prince in French nobility. There’s a Prince du Sang, or a Prince by Blood. Effectively, the Crown Prince, the sons of ruling monarchs. But the title is also given to lords in charge of a Principality, one of the smallest territorial sizes. The Beast’s principality probably only extends to having power over the little unnamed village. And with it being after the revolution, Beast might not even have the proper use of his title anymore. He’s effectively a rich kid in a fancy house with no real authority or power. He’s just old money from a by-gone era of human history. But if Beast’s address of “Your Grace” is accurate, that would mean that he’s a non-royal Duke, meaning he would not likely have been executed during the Revolution, as his family would have essentially been governors or senators than actual monarchs. They just had jurisdiction over a small piece of the Kingdom of France and reported back to and obeyed the orders of their King. Thus, he would not have been important enough to be killed or chased out of power by the townsfolk.

CONCLUSION

The movie is set between the late autumn and early-to-mid winter of 1890. Although the snow is gone when Belle returns to the village, the trees are still bare, signaling that it may just be unseasonably warm, though it could be the very early spring of 1891 between the receding of the snow and the blossoming of new spring foliage. Between the books, clothing, and references made, my conclusion is that Belle is a very modern girl living in a backwards little town stuck in the past, thus why a village in 1890 looks so completely lacking in modern technology despite the era. The Prince is nothing more than a fancy title as the son of a Duke, and he likely has very little if any actual government authority. Essentially, Belle married into wealth, not power, and will never be a proper queen, and I’m not sure if the wife of a lord ruling a principality is a princess or not, but I suspect the answer is no. Making Belle, like Mulan, a Disney Princess who did not marry royalty, was not born royalty, and thus, cannot be called a Disney Princess. She’s definitely a noblewoman, but she’s not royal by any means.

SETTING: Riquewihr, France

KINGDOM: The French Republic (France)

YEAR: Autumn, 1890 - Spring, 1891

PERIOD: The Third Republic (1870-1940)

LANGUAGE: French

From Bridgerton to Hamilton: A History of Color-Conscious Casting in Period Drama

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Note: This Bridgerton article contains no book or series plot spoilers.

Bridgerton is a unique mix of Shonda Rhimes’ dedication to Black representation on American television and the British period drama tradition. White critics may dismiss this trend as unnecessary “pandering” to Black and POC viewers, but the number of productions designed around reforming all white-casting has increased over the past 10 years—and has only added to the success of the genre. The number one reason driving demand for diverse period dramas is from Black and POC fans of the genre. The impact of seeing an actor that looks like you can’t be measured in ratings or clicks online. Despite facing years of content and fandom overtly or covertly claiming that the universal themes in period dramas are not “for us”; the tide is starting to turn as fans use social media and the power of ratings to ask for more representation. 

A quick overview of recent Regency England-set productions leaves much to be desired. Although the 2018 Amazon Prime/ITV miniseries and the 2005 movie adaptations of Vanity Fair left in West Indian and Jewish heiress Miss Schwarz, she is one of many supporting characters. PBS/ITV’s Sanditon, on the one hand, improved representation by prominently featuring Georgiana Lambe. However, her story was a huge disappointment to Black and POC fans who expected her plotline to end happily or at least have her conflicts resolved. 

There have been three paths traditionally towards increasing diversity in period dramas: 1) blind casting (also called racebending), where Black and POC actors play traditionally white characters adding original Black characters to existing fictional works, and 2) Own Voices, where Black and POC writers share their own stories. These two are not mutually exclusive, but, in the world of British period drama, the former is more frequently used, as the bedrock of the genre is adapting existing novels and plays by white authors.

The theoretical framework for inclusive casting begins in the world of staging period drama at the theater. In Shakespeare’s day, men played women’s roles as women were not allowed to appear on stage. The genre evolved in later centuries to allow women to appear on stage, but the tradition of having actors who didn’t match the original descriptions remained. This is even true of his history plays where real women royalty were characters. Ira Aldridge in the 1840s was the first Black actor in Britain to play traditionally white roles on stage. Later on, in the 19th century, several stage adaptations of Jane Austen’s works had all-women casts. 

Fast forward to 2015, when Lin-Manuel Miranda in Hamilton redefined what it meant to cast inclusively in modern period dramas by using actors descended from slavery and colonialism to play the Founding Fathers. Every aspect of the musical was designed to reframe the existing narrative of early American history. The costume design also reflected the identities of the actor by featuring braids, locs, and textured hairstyles over 18th century white hairstyles. Rap lyrics conveyed to the audience the names, dates, and other descriptions of the Revolutionary War. The old adage that someone must “look the part” to play a biographical role was thrown out the window.

Hamilton proved that many of the old excuses used to sideline diverse period dramas no longer held to be true. Millions of white people listened to the cast album, brought tickets, or streamed the movie on Disney+. UK theater patrons flocked to the West End cast of Hamilton, as well, before the pandemic. Memes, parodies, and more on social media proved that white audiences can conceptualize historical figures as fictional characters while also knowing the real figures looked and acted quite differently. Fans of the show pushed Ron Chernow’s biography back onto the bestseller lists as they wanted to read what really happened. 

The first clear impact the show had on the genre of British period drama comes from a mystery. Daisy Coulam, Grantchester’s head screenwriter, cited reading an interview with Miranda as the inspiration behind the exit plotline for James Norton’s character Sidney Chambers. UK crime dramas  For those unfamiliar with the series, Grantchester is a mystery procedural based on a series of books about a 1950s crime-solving Anglican vicar by James Runcie. Norton’s exit plotline in Season 4 generated an original to the show character named Violet who was the daughter of a visiting African-American preacher. Violet was an original character who forced the audience to consider that the US civil rights movement indeed reached their treasured vision of the lily-white British countryside. Coulam already laid the groundwork for Violet in earlier seasons by abandoning large sections of the original novel timeline and but keeping the case of the week focused on addressing 1950’s social issues. Fans heavily criticized Coulam’s writing for style and pacing, but her imagination clearly indicates that Hamilton’s proven formula for disrupting established historical aesthetics can just as easily be applied to fictional depictions of the UK’s past as blind casting a biography-based series or depicting real figures of Black British history. 

Other period dramas released in recent years share traces of Hamilton’s impact but in a more thematic and less direct different way. Some shows turned real Black British figures into fictional characters. Lina (Stephanie Levi-John) and Oviedo (Aaron Cobham) on The Spanish Princess are composites of Catherine of Aragon’s servants and several famous Black Tudors. Catherine “Kitty” Despard (Kerri McClean) in Poldark Season 5 was a forgotten Black British figure added in to expand the world outlined in the novels. Victoria featured Ira Aldridge (Ashley Zhangazha) mentioned earlier, plus spotlighted the Queen’s adopted daughter Sarah-Forbes Bonetta and Cuffay (C.J. Beckford) as the leader of the proto-socialist Chartists. Lucille Anderson (Leonie Elliott) on Call the Midwife was not mentioned in the original memoirs, but she was added to represent the Caribbean nurses from the Windrush Generation of UK immigrants.  

Racebent casting also increased. Dev Patel’s role as the title character in the movie The Personal History of David Copperfield proved that Dickens adaptations could indeed include POC casts without changing the fundamental plot and message. PBS/BBC’s Les Miserables miniseries also extended the Broadway tradition of casting Black actors in traditionally white coded classic literature characters. Hulu’s The Great featured Sacha Dhawan and several Black actors as Russian nobility, politicians, and courtiers. 

All of these series, however, carefully attempted to stay grounded in recreating the original source material or invested in faithfully replicating the era they were set in. Bridgerton radically expands upon Hamilton’s formula by divorcing inclusive casting from any desire to accurately recreate historical events, eras, or figures. Romance, fantasy, and social/familial drama are universal themes that don’t depend on having a white-dominant vision of society. Quinn’s original novel series sparingly referred to historical events during the Regency Era. Her focus was on creating a world where the most important events were balls and weddings. More Dukes and other holders of inherited titles exist in her vision of the Ton (the most elite members of Regency society) than in reality. Historians would likely dispute her characterization of the elite social season as well. Characters’ internal dialogue is in modern English peppered with regional accents and slang. They rarely lampshade or criticize the way of society beyond their romantic desires and family obligations. Readers see the physical intimacy on the page Austen never mentioned. This literary environment is ripe for inclusive casting on screen. 

The most critical flip in characterization is Simon, Duke of Hastings (Regé-Jean Page). His character is the romantic hero of the first book in the series The Duke and I and is the character that set fan expectations high for future novels. Simon having visibly African features and yet being an object of desire is incredibly subversive in a genre where white beauty standards dominate hetero and homosexual fiction.

Lady Danbury (Adjoa Andoh), Simon’s godmother, is an elder stateswoman and a twist on the battle-ax aunt trope popular in period dramas. She isn’t as caustic and insulting as some other famous widows and spinsters but she commands authority and a mansion filled with people to perform all the hard labor. Lady Danbury is even implied to be slightly higher in status than her white counterparts with children of marrying age Lady Violet Bridgerton (Ruth Gemmell) and Lady Portia Featherington (Polly Walker).

Queen Charlotte (Golda Rosheuve) being played by a biracial woman is actually a subtle Easter Egg to existing history debates. Many have debated if her portraits were airbrushed to disguise African features. A few years ago, a documentary established her African ancestry is via the Portuguese royals. All of her scenes involve petting her Pomeranian, demanding to know the latest gossip, and manipulating the gentry into doing her bidding. 

The miniseries doesn’t end the racial diversity with those at the highest social rank or even at the lower orders of domestic servants. Marina Thompson (Ruby Barker) is a cousin of the Featheringtons and represents the “poor relation” character popular in stories based on the British gentry. A Black modiste (dressmaker) trained in French fashion makes all of the dresses the characters wear. Will Mondrich (Martins Imhangbe) is a boxer, likely a reference to former slave turned bare-knuckle boxer Bill Richmond. Alongside the characters with plot lines viewers follow, there is a conscious effort to hire Black and POC extras to fill in crowd scenes at balls, park scenes, and other public events. The viewer sees people who look like themselves in every class level of society and can feel like they too can become part of their world. 

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Attire is a critical part of upholding the fantasy and cultural diversity Bridgerton and also in communicating to the audience the series isn’t your aunt’s neutral tone Austen adaptation. Marina and Lady Danbury would never be caught dead in a plain white muslin frock. All of the popular Regency hairstyles for women have been modified and reworked for natural textured hair, braids, and locs. Some of the Black male extras even have modern African hairstyles left in tact. The only Black characters who wear the traditional white wigs are older men or servants in full formal uniform. Queen Charlotte’s Black courtiers and servants wear a mixture of extravagant 1770s and 1780s attire and Regency court wear to create a physical separation between them and the rest of the ensemble cast. These style decisions are right out of the playbook of Still Star-Crossed, Shondaland’s first foray into period drama. Although that series took place in 1300’s Italy, the priority was on blending fantasy and Black fashion aesthetics over catering to white costume enthusiasts and reenactors.

In the world of Bridgerton, slavery and colonialism are directly or indirectly referenced exceedingly sparingly. One reference is to Lord Dunmore’s army of emancipated and runaway slaves during the Revolutionary War proclamation. (Hercules Mulligan’s Black troops referenced in “Stay Alive” is the Patriot equivalent of Dunmore’s forces). These sparing hints make it clear to the viewers that class, family, and personal family drama is the root cause of joy and pain in this series.  

Since Bridgerton is completely ignoring the physical descriptions of the characters in many cases, the set design carries the bulk of the attention to historical detail. The series hired Dr. Hannah Greig as a historical advisor to ensure these details were as close to 1813 as possible. Greig has previously acted as a consultant to the Sanditon, Poldark, and The Duchess cast and crew is likely where the Easter Eggs in character references come from. Lavish mansions and castles and the more humble spaces ground the fantastical plot details in historical reality. Several previous period dramas have recreated the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, but these scenes in the miniseries are elevated to the next level thanks to Netflix’s budget.

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The success of Bridgerton applying color-conscious casting to a fantasy/romance series has implications far beyond potential future seasons. Studios especially those in the UK have been hesitant to utilize recent historical romance books for screen adaptations. Modern historical fiction by Black and POC authors (called Own Voices fiction)  which is crucial in the fight for increased representation. Novelists such as Beverly Jenkins, Courtney Milan, and Alyssa Cole have written romances set in the Regency and other eras of American and British History that can easily be transformed into movies and miniseries. Some of these novels recreate existing history while others lean into escapist fantasy. The ultimate goal in period drama representation is for Black and POC creatives to tell their own stories covering all the ranges of emotion, not just historical trauma.

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Critics can keep attacking period dramas for being “too woke” (a term that was stolen from anti-racism activists) for remembering that white people aren’t the only inhabitants of the British Isles and America, but series like Bridgerton are here to stay. Black and POC viewers and readers of period drama and romance fiction always existed, and viewership will only grow if more inclusive period romance projects are greenlit in the future.  

The post From Bridgerton to Hamilton: A History of Color-Conscious Casting in Period Drama appeared first on Den of Geek.

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Interview with Jonathan Bailey in Style Magazine (October 2020) where he talks a little bit about Bridgerton. The interview was conducted in English, transcribed into Italian, and then translated back into English by Google Translate so, you know, there are some things that get lost in translation. 

Love affairs, marriages of interest and intrigues. It is the portrayal of the new Netflix series Bridgerton, a bit of a Jane Austen romance, a bit of sexy in the wake of The Favourite, with the right dose of Downton Abbey-style family drama, but “so modern that it could almost be set in the present day” enthusiastically states Jonathan Bailey, at his great opportunity to really make it internationally, playing the fascinating bachelor Anthony Bridgerton, the quintessential English nobleman of the early nineteenth century, who at the age of 28 finds himself at the head of a clan of seven brothers and sisters. One who “has to play the part of a loving brother and son and instead loves women and forbidden pleasures” ...

The Regency period has been less represented than other moments in British history, but the film industry abounds with period dramas. Do they still make sense today? Our instincts are the same, in 2020 as in 1820, and to observe them in a restrictive and oppressive context such as 19th century England where the will of the individual was stifled, sexuality was suppressed and there was a strong division between the social classes, puts them even more in evidence. Each of us at some point in his life felt forced into a role due to the expectations of others, just like Bridgerton's characters.

Women more than men, but ... Only in appearance: of course all the decisions are up to men, and Anthony for example to decide who should marry Daphne, but they are also forced to repress their feelings, which makes them unable to live a happy life. Patriarchal society has wreaked havoc on both sexes.

Bridgerton also has the virtue of surrounding Queen Charlotte with a court that is not exclusively white: the terrifying Lady Danbury and played by Adjoa Andoh, Regé-Jean Page plays the role of Duke Simon Basset and Martins Imhangbe as his best friend. Is it worth abdicating historical accuracy to be politically correct? We decided to do the opposite of whitewashing that so many historical moments have suffered. Here the question is to be faithful to the events told in the books by Julia Quinn from which the series is based, not to be historically accurate, so we can also imagine that at the time of Queen Charlotte it could have been an inclusive court. custom and the freedom given to the actors to model the characters, to make them current.

The fourth season of The Crown will also arrive on Netflix in the coming months: have you wondered why the public is still so fascinated by the nobility? We all love what we cannot have, which is closed to us. Even without getting to the royal family. Think for example of the world of the Bennet sisters and Mr Darcy of Pride and Prejudice: they were far below the social hierarchy, yet they have been represented countless times in period films. Personally, what intrigues me most about the golden world of the aristocracy is not the parties and privileges, but what lies beneath the surface: I wonder what the human cost of that life is. Bridgerton's characters always pretend to be something other than who they are: the real drama and their distance from the truth in a society of appearance, and this is what intrigues us about them.

Is the society of appearance then different from ours? If at the time classism was based on the distance between people, with the aristocrats who did everything to limit what the people could know about them, today social media allow us to <approach> characters that otherwise we would only idealize and this does so that high society no longer exists.  We never knew so much about the royal family, but I don't think it's good.

Speaking of royalty, you started in the theater with the King John of the Royal Shakespeare Company: is the stage still your first love? A love that has only grown since I first saw a musical Oliver! as a child. I love the experience of being in the theater, first of all as a spectator, it's magic. But as an actor I have to admit that it's much more tiring than cinema.

And instead to dub the protagonists of the video games from Anthem and Final Fantasy XIV, how did he end up? That was one of the funniest things I could do. They have a really huge fanbase and I consider them an incredible art form as well as a thriving industry. He played them a lot when I was a kid and I rediscovered them during the lockdown.

What role do you dream of playing? I think it's better for me not to know, I prefer to be stimulated by reading a script. The important thing is to work with people who have a very defined idea of ​​your character: it makes him stronger, you can already imagine him on the page even before taking on his shoes. But I can say that I'd like to play someone who looks a lot like me, who tells my reality, I'd like to find out how I would feel. It sounds like a paradox, but I think Hamlet could never play Hamlet.

And could Hamlet ever be a woman? Thanks to the role of Jamie in Company, who was originally an Amy, you won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Musical. Amy was transformed into a man, yes, but homosexual, and it is no coincidence: I believe that women and gays, even if in different ways and at different levels, are both oppressed minorities. In Company the goal was to make the reflection on marriage more modern by putting a man in crisis, because, given that gay marriages are now legal in many countries of the world, it almost seems that one has to marry by force. In general, however, I don't think we should cut the female parts on men, both because they are related to purely female experiences, but above all because of complex male roles I would say that there are already enough. Women are finally being given roles with an emotional complexity never seen before: it is interesting to see them act as protagonists in a society that has long been dominated by men, sometimes very weak, others brilliant.

Who is Jonathan Bailey when he's not on set? A boy who loves being in nature. I just finished a week of cycling in the English countryside where I covered about 700km. I think if I wasn't an actor I would retire Cornish hut.

I had read in an old interview with him that as a boy he dreamed of becoming a pilot. I think I was trying to reassure my parents that I would settle down and find a stable job (laughs). But in reality maybe I could have become a teacher, not because I necessarily think I have who knows what to pass on, but I believe in young people, it will be that I recently spent some time with my six year old niece. Instead it is not that I really had the opportunity to choose, fate did it for me.

Does it owe more to fate or to his willpower? I don't come from a family of actors or artists, when at the age of seven I was offered the part of Tiny Tim in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol which was to be performed at the Barbican in London I simply jumped at an opportunity. Many kids who love theater go to drama school, but having grown up in a small town in Oxfordshire, I wouldn't have had much choice but to join the basketball team. So I will always be grateful for that chance, but it has never been an easy path. I believe in hard work, which always rewards.

Do you have any thoughts about Zuko interacting with nobility?

I do in fact. I have a lot of them, and different manifestations of them tend to show up in my AUs. However, underlying all of them are my assumptions and speculations about what exactly the Fire Nation nobility is at the time of the end of the Hundred Year War.

Typically the nobility of a country or region are the people who either control the most resources, or who can bring the means to make war to bear, or more usually, both. In a feudal society, warlords (or kings if you like) vie for territory, and distribute conquered territory to their followers and/or cooperative members of the conquered territory's elites. These people may further divvy up territory to people who will then owe their allegiance to them first, and though them to the warlord. In return, the new landholders provide local administration of the territory, resources from the land in the form of rents, taxes, or tribute, and military service to the landholders directly above them, and through them, to the warlord. If this warlord and his followers last long enough and are able to pass these territories to their children and grandchildren, they become the royalty and nobility.

This was a pretty common pattern of human governance for a large stretch of history in a whole lot of places. And as seen in "Smoke and Shadow", the Fire Nation has an origin story that fits this pattern well. The first Firelord was a man who conquered the rest of the Fire Nation, uniting the islands into one nation, and presumably setting up a nobility comprised of the cooperative former territorial rulers, and his own followers.

But by the end of the Hundred Year War, the Fire Nation is no longer properly feudal. The Fire Nation has a standing military with a system of rank at least nominally independent from the nobility. Iroh is a prince, but he is also a general, and it is as a general, not as a prince, that he leads an army. Zhao rises from captain, to commander, to admiral. It's entirely possible and even probable that ones family status influences one's career trajectory within the Fire Nation military, with higher born people rising faster and more readily through the ranks than their more humbly born comrades, but the Fire Nation military for the most part, Azula excepted, doesn't have princes and lords leading as princes and lords.

This means that the nobility at this point are no longer the means by which military force is controlled and organized. They might still be wealthy, and command cultural respect, but their power is waning. I would hazard a guess that this is the result of the Hundred Year War itself, that as the Fire Nation changed in order to more efficiently conquer and control more and more territory, and as the Firelord's personal control grew tighter over the military apparatus, the nobility grew weaker and less important to the governance of the country and the military.

This puts the social, governmental, and economic systems of the Fire Nation at the time of the end of the Hundred Year War into a state of transition. I have mentioned that the writers drew not only on the modern US and Imperial Japan for its inspiration for how the Fire Nation empire works, but also on the British Empire: [Link], This is a large part of what I mean by this, and why I sometimes draw inspiration myself for the Fire Nation going forward from British imperial history: [Link]. Following the English Civil War, the Glorious Revolution, and the installation of the Hanoverians, the Brits really got going on this making an empire thing. And at the same time, their economy and military were rapidly becoming something that we might recognize as similar to modern ones. The military had ranks and a command structure separate from the feudal hierarchy, and while the nobility might occupy nearly all of the top positions in the military, they didn't command as feudal lords. At the same time, merchants and industrialists were building vast fortunes to rival and often surpass the old landed aristocracy.

This meant that the nobility in the UK has been slowly declining in power ever since. Now, in Great Britain during the empire period, that power, along with the power of the royal family spread to more and more segments of society, but during the Hundred Year War, the power of the nobility seems instead to have accrued to the Firelord. This can even be seen in the royal architecture of the Fire Nation. In Sozin's youth, the Fire Nation throne room was open, well lit, and spacious, with the Firelord's throne on a dais, but otherwise not curtained off. By the end of Azulon's reign, the Firelord is hidden on a throne behind a curtain of fire. It's theatrical, dramatic, and meant to intimidate and separate. It serves to cast the Firelord as distant, remote, and no longer quite human.

Ultimately after the end of the war, Zuko's interaction with the nobility is going to be shaped both by his personal characteristics, his awkwardness, his anxiety, his desire to please and be liked, his existing social ties, to Mai and Ty Lee for example, and just who he is willing and ready to share power with as Firelord.

“Gold is valuable, but jade is priceless” - Chinese proverb.

This is a mini-scene, really, and very little seems to come out of it as far as present chapters go. Still, there is a possible reason why the MC is given this option, and why it follows as an option following a non-diamond scene in the MC’s bedroom.

The set-up for this scene begins at the start of Chapter 13, when Liam’s visit to the MC is interrupted by Bastien’s entry, and subsequent offer to make amends by helping to locate Tariq. Once Bastien leaves, Liam reveals the true purpose of his visit - to give the MC a gift of jewelry:

This is a bold move for Liam to make at this stage in the tour, with just a few days/weeks to go before his upcoming wedding. @ladynevrakis has mentioned on occasion that this gift of jewellery could possibly mean more than just a romantic, sentimental gesture given to the woman he loves. It, in some ways, is also a show of who presently has power and influence in the court. Many Kings have used jewellery to send a subtle message to the court (and at least the biggest players in the court - ie the royal family - are aware of his ongoing relationship with him, if he is your LI) as to whose opinion he genuinely values, sometimes even over that of the queen (Henry VIII was known to do this).

The pearls are a symbol of his loyalty, the purity of his relationship with her, his desire to protect her and his promise of a new beginning for them both. But it is possible that the bracelet symbolizes more than that, especially given that it comes so close to the purchase of Madeleine’s wedding ring. By gifting the MC, he is marking her not only as a member of his court and the woman who has his heart, but also as someone of notable power within the court itself. This - and the possibility that the bracelet itself might become an important plot point later on - may be why accepting the bracelet may not have been made a diamond option the way Hana’s gift of a handmade cheongsam was.

The giving of this gift leads to an option to buy a return gift for Liam, which is a suggestion that Hana makes when the MC mentions the gifts she has received from the both of them. She tells the MC that a jewellery store nearby makes custom-made engravings on jewellery, and that they could buy him cufflinks from there. If the MC so desires, the pair choose jade cufflinks on which The Cordonian Royal Seal will be engraved - an inspired suggestion from the MC (who elaborates on why, by saying, “no one loves Cordonia more than Liam does!”)

Jade

Had this sequence taken place in another country, green jade would have been just a pretty - but random - choice for jewellery. But we’re in China. The birthplace of this gemstone (it’s been mined in China since the Stone Age). The place where jade has been considered the most befitting gift for royalty, to the extent that the royal members of the Han dynasty were buried in suits made entirely out of jade pieces.

In Feng Shui, which originated from China, jade is considered a stone with powerful healing and purifying properties, and said to possess ‘wood energy’: “the energy of growth, expansion, new beginnings, nourishment and health” (sound familiar?). In writing, it is called yù (玉) or the “royal gem”, and has been used in a variety of sayings and proverbs, besides often being used as a phrase to describe a beautiful woman. Jeff Desjardins in his article “The History of Jade: The Emperor’s Stone”, highlights jade’s significant linguistic connection to royalty when he says that “in Chinese writing, it is no accident that the character for “emperor” looks almost identical to the character for “jade."”*

Culturally and symbolically, jade is said to represent 11 de (virtues). Confucius has said, according to this particular translation:

”…the wise have likened jade to virtue. For them, its polish and brilliance represent the whole of purity; its perfect compactness and extreme hardness represent the sureness of intelligence; its angles, which do not cut, although they seem sharp, represent justice; the pure and prolonged sound, which it gives forth when one strikes it, represents music. Its color represents loyalty; its interior flaws, always showing themselves through the transparency, call to mind sincerity; its iridescent brightness represents heaven; its admirable substance, born of mountain and of water, represents the earth. Used alone without ornamentation it represents chastity. The price that the entire world attaches to it represents the truth. To support these comparisons, the Book of Verse says: “When I think of a wise man, his merits appear to be like jade.”

It is but fitting then that Liam is the recipient of this gift, and not just because he is a king. He is sincere in his desire to do right both by his country and his lover, just and exact in his values and principles (as illustrated by his confrontation with Constantine and his continued awoval to help the MC clear her name in whatever way he can). His loyalty to Cordonia and to the MC cannot be questioned. He is also a music lover, given his fond memories of his mother’s guitar. He is also not without his fair share of flaws - his tendency to withdraw and keep to himself in times of distress, rather than reaching out to loved ones, his struggle to temper and balance his stoicism so it will not be detrimental to him. In many ways, Liam himself is like the jade gemstone - flawed yet beautiful and pure.

Cordonian Crest

(Screenshots taken from Abhirio’s YouTube channel)

Through this scene, we also learn about the Cordonian royal seal/crest. Like many members of the monarchy, the Cordonian royal family has the lion as their heraldic symbol. The lion is said to symbolize courage, nobility, royalty (as king of beasts), strength, stateliness and valour. It is said that the monarch must be a true warrior like the lion, “valiant in courage, strong of body, politic in council and a foe to fear”. This is similar to what Liam’s family and citizens expect of him as a King. While he is a largely peace-loving monarch, he does acknowledge the need for war should the occasion arise.

What is also important to note is the attitude of the lion on the seal (at least…from what little we can see of it in the picture provided). In heraldry, 'attitude’ refers to the position of the beast/animal emblazoned on the crest - the stance of the animal, and the direction to which they are turned. The Cordonian royal seal presents a lion statant (which means the lion is standing upright, with its paws on the ground and its tail raised) facing to the viewer’s right (sinister or contourné). It is interesting to note that unlike the lion rampant (which is in a fighting position) or the lion couchant (which portrays restful vigilance), the statant lion maintains “the firm majesty of his pose, calmly looking before him” at his opponents. This reflects Liam’s aim to be calm, measured and fair in his style of ruling. One can almost imagine Liam growing into his role as a just, peace-loving ruler, who aims to strengthen his nation in times of peace as much as in times of war.

Conclusion

While a small, insignificant scene that adds very little to the story as a whole at the moment, this scene does pack quite a bit of symbolism and gives us a chance to explore the two countries most important to two of the love interests in the story: China and Cordonia.

Sources

“Chinese Jade Culture” from the China Bravo website.

“Chinese Jade - Treasured Gemstone” from the China Sage website.

“The History of Jade: The Emperor’s Stone” by Jeff Desjardins of The Visual Capitalist website.

“Using Jade in Feng Shui” from the Crystal Inner Circle website.

Fictitious & Symbolic Creatures in Art with Special Reference to Their Use in British Heraldry by John Vinycomb

The Bright Dark Nights of the Soul by Fatha John Patrik Kamau.

–

* The China Sage website says this about the similarity between the characters for jade and emperor: “the addition of the dian (dot) stroke completes the character and distinguishes it from 王 wǎng the character for monarch, while still illustrating the kingly connection.”

Is Eggsy Prince Gary of Sweden now?

Short answer: Yes, if the king allows it and Eggsy wants to.

Long answer: Pweh, where to start? It’s sort of a weird thing making commoners royalty, historically speaking. Every monarchy, still-existing and otherwise, has their own quirks and stories about this (King Edward VIII of the United Kingdom springs to mind), and even if it’s not as much of an issue today as it once was, the heritage of those issues are still there. So if you stick with me for a condense lesson in recent Swedish royal history, I’m going to lay out three concrete examples for you at the end that might be useful to look into for fic writing purposes at the end.

Before the cut, though, because this is important even for those of you who don’t want to read almost 2000 words on the subject: Eggsy can opt out of being a prince and still marry Princess Tilde.

Before 1976, when King Carl XVI Gustaf (the current King of Sweden) married Silvia Sommerlath, it had only happened once that a reigning monarch married a commoner. This was in 1567, and probably just because the king, Erik XIV, was mentally unstable and didn’t listen to reason and advice.

This wasn’t the first time since the 16th century that someone from the Royal family married a commoner, though. For example, two of our king’s uncles married commoners, but in doing so, they were stripped of their titles and removed from the line of succession due to the fact that their grandfather (King Gustaf V) didn’t find their wives suitable. Our king’s third uncle, Prince Bertil, lived unmarried with a commoner (Lillian Davies, later Princess Lillian of Sweden) until his father had died and his nephew had become king and married himself, just to ensure the line of succession.

So, marrying someone the king doesn’t approve of can lead to you losing your titles and honours, but in having married a commoner himself, our current king couldn’t really forbid any of his children to marry anyone they wanted. This means… for all your fic writing purposes, we have three recent and quite different princess and prince weddings you can model your fic after! Neat, right?

Three things to keep in mind no matter what:

The king still has to approve the marriage (if Princess Tilde is to keep her titles and honours)

The Swedish government has to approve the marriage (if their children are to be part of the line of succession)

It has to be publicly announced to the Swedish people (because they’ll marry on our dime and it would be fucking rude not to! I don’t think there’s a law about this)

Seeing how the wedding took place and all, I think we can assume they got a yes on 1) and 2). If you want Princess Tilde to give up her titles and honours for love, go ahead. This fictional king probably didn’t marry a commoner, because then he wouldn’t have been such a dick to Eggsy, hence it would be a little bit less hypocritical of him than if would have been for the actual Swedish king.

Also, to become a Swedish prince (or princess) you need to be a Swedish citizen.

Other general things to keep in mind: the Swedish royal family is bound by law to be Swedish Lutheran. Their spouse can be whatever, but they can’t convert and their children has to be raised Swedish Lutheran. In Sweden. Or else they lose their right to the Swedish throne.

Moving on to the examples I promised! As I said, we’ve had three princess and prince weddings in the last seven years. All of them involving a commoner and we’re going to focus on the commoners here, since the royal bit is rather boring and not very important to Eggsy’s troubles.

First out, there is the Prince Daniel way of dealing with your sudden rise to nobility. Prince Daniel married the Swedish Crown princess in 2010 after a long courtship and a sixteen months long engagement. Before the marriage he worked as a personal trainer (yes, that’s how they met) and owned his own gym(s), and according to tradition he quit his job and sold his gym(s), to become a fulltime Prince of Sweden and prince consort to the Crown princess. Before his marriage he was drilled in, among other things, table manners and Swedish history, something that was probably just enforced because he married the future monarch, so depending on where you put Princess Tilde in the line of success you can probably do what you want with that. (I thought of Prince Daniel during the breakfast scene.)

Upon marrying the Crown princess Prince Daniel also took his wife’s last name (in the sense royals have last names at all…) and became His Royal Highness, Prince Daniel of Sweden, Duke of Västergötland. He also became a Swedish knight of the Royal Order of the Seraphim. He is the third man in Swedish history to receive new titles and ranks through marriage, and the first Swedish commoner to become part of the Royal family since 1567.

As a Swedish prince, Prince Daniel goes around representing Sweden. He has earned the nickname “the Sport Prince” and is very active in getting children and youth to be more interested in sports. He is home with his children more than his wife since she out ranks him in every way, but he’s not a stay-at-home dad. He isn’t in the line of succession and will never, ever become King of Sweden. It’s still not quite decided what his titles and honours will be when his wife becomes Queen of Sweden since it’s only every happened once before and that was in the 18th century, but mostly likely he’ll still just be His Royal Highness, Prince Daniel of Sweden, Duke of Västergötland.

Prince Daniel is the most visible royal spouse after Queen Silvia, but then he also married the next reigning monarch (and is the father of the one after that) so it’s to be expected.

The Prince Daniel route is in Swedish media considered The Right Way of joining the Royal family. If you want to take this route for Eggsy, he will be loved by a nation, have a great life and family, but he won’t be able to stay a Kingsman because being a full-time prince is actually a full-time job. Not to mention that the type of scandal that Eggsy will cause when he fails to show up where he’s booked will not go over well.

Then, there is the Mr Christopher O’Neil take on it. Mr O’Neil (who is actually just called Chris in Sweden because even with all the crap I’ve written above, we’re really bad with titles and honours and don’t use that shit) is a British-American businessman and citizen who married Princess Madeleine in 2013.  They had a short courtship and a short engagement. Chris, who wanted to keep his British and American citizenships, couldn’t become a Swedish citizen and because of that he also couldn’t become a Swedish prince. (In Sweden, you can just hold dual citizen ship. No clue how it is in the rest of the world.) Not being a Swedish prince or an official part of the Royal family has the perk of letting Chris continue working full time with his business and he’s happy about never having to have had to consider quitting. There is no law that prohibits members of the Royal family from working, but tradition bids them not to.

All of his and Princess Madeleine’s children are official parts of the Royal family and part of the line of succession anyway, because the King says so. (A bit of “to hell with traditions!” Good for you, King!) Mr O’Neil is not a Swedish knight, though I don’t remember if he declined the honour or was never offered it.

The Mr Christopher O’Neil way is in Swedish media considered The Wrong Way. If you want Eggsy to remain a Kingsman, this is the way to go! He’ll have a few more dinners he’d need to swim through sewer to get to, but the representation shit is kept to a minimum, and since the press already knows he can do nothing right and everything wrong, he’ll be pretty free to do whatever.

Lastly, and my favourite in terms of how Eggsy becomes a Swedish prince, is the Princess Sofia way. Princess Sofia married Prince Carl Philip (born Crown prince Carl Philip, btw, but EQUALITY!) in 2015 after years of courtship and a one year engagement. She was formally known to the Swedish people through her participation in the scandal TV show Paradise Hotel in 2005 and as a Slitz magazine model (most prominent is a picture where she wears just a bikini bottom and a snake). After that, she built herself a yoga centre in Manhattan, and started a charity organization to help women and children in need. She stopped working for the organization when her engagement to Prince Carl Philip was announced, but remains an honorary board member to this day. (Again, traditions.)

Even if Princess Sofia is the first Swedish female commoner to become part of the Royal family since the 16th century, marrying women into the Royal family comes pretty standard. She had, a long time before her marriage, been unofficially integrated with the Royal family for years. That is, being part of official situations, but never coming or going with Prince Carl Philip. (Which is not standard, just modern and natural.) Upon her wedding she received the titles and honours Her Royal Highness, Princess Sofia of Sweden, Duchess of Värmland. She is also a member of the Royal Order of the Seraphim, but due to gender bullshit she’s not a knight.

After her marriage she’s working fulltime as a Swedish princess and helps with various charities. Unlike Prince Daniel, she hasn’t really found her niche yet, but she is by far the most personal of the new members of the Royal family.

The Princess Sofia take on this is in Swedish media considered The Wooo! That Went Surprisingly Well Way. As I said, this is my favourite way to go when it comes to Eggsy. In part because he and Princess Sofia feel kind of similar (punks with hearts of gold who work their way up and OOOPS! married a royal) but also because it makes it possible to have the cake and eat it too?

Princess Sofia isn’t trusted by the Swedish media due to her background, but the people low-key loves her because she is a little bit of real world fairy tale. That means that if she messes up (which she hasn’t come even close to, ever) the media will go “Well, of course she would do that” and the Swedish people will shrug and go “Well, at least she didn’t run over a cyclist with her car like her father-in-law, and who hasn’t posed naked with a snake, anyway?” Yet, she’s out there being a Princess of Sweden in very formal settings. She’s representing the shit out of everything! Eight months pregnant she was out doing her job.

Which, in Eggsy terms, would give him the leeway to still be a Kingsman “in his time off” from representing the fuck out of his new country as long as he doesn’t go around saying that he still works as a tailor. If he messes up (which he will, because fic!) the media will go “I thought British people were more classy than that. I mean, look at Prince Ha—Er… never mind.” and the public will say “Ha! I’d like to have a beer with that guy.”

Key here, though, is that Prince Carl Philip is bumped so far down the line of succession now (he’s number 4 after his older sister, his niece and his nephew), that his family is not in the main spotlight. That is to say, if Princess Tilde is Crown princess Tilde, you more or less HAVE to go with the Prince Daniel route.

I hope that helped someone. I’d really encourage you to google said royal spouses if you want some more input on the subject. Or just send me an ask, since I assume a lot of this shit is in Swedish.

The Evolution of Money Part III: The Gold Standard of Money and the Rothschild Banking

Welcome to the third part of the “EVOLUTION OF MONEY” series, contributed by Cryptomedics – one of the best channels when it comes to Crypto Education, Altcoin and Margin Signals. In this sequel of the epic educational series, we move forward to the beginnings of the stock market, the Rothschilds and finally, the gold standard of money.

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The Evolution of Money Series

Part I: The Past, the Present, and the Future 

Part II: The Age of Shylocks and Banking

Part III: The Gold Standard of Money and the Rothschild Banking

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With the evolution of the banking business arose the need to standardize money for the sake of its value. The 17th century Europe was a more connected region that thrived in commerce, and the wealthiest members in the society were judged by how much money they had. Having more gold meant having more money and this meant greater influence to determine the outcome of wars, who becomes king, and which state the world could do business with. This was a period when money was gradually replacing religion as the most formidable tool of power.

To truly understand the gold standard of the monetary system, and how the value of the most precious metal standard revolutionized the global economy, we have to take a step back to the fall of the Roman Empire. At its peak, the Romans were very successful for the simple reason that their coin-based economy was inflation-proof. This was because the value of the money the Roman Empire had was directly tied to the value of Gold and other precious metals. For most of Roman history, their money was made from copper, orichalcum, silver, bronze, and Gold.

After the fall of the Roman empire in 434 C.E, their success in storing wealth and value with money persisted. The resulting fragmented states all over Europe, Asia, and North Africa minted their own coins from precious metals and within no time, Silver and Gold emerged as the most feasible for use as currency. With the rise of money lending in Florence, Italy, in the 13th century and subsequent success of shipping and international trade, money played a central role in shaping political dynasties as religion was relegated to the ceremonial background.

The Bank of England and The Stock market

By the end of the 17th century, England was in financial ruins. Over half a decade of unending wars against the French and other Kingdoms had drained the Kingdom’s resources and they had to turn to private lenders to finance new wars. The money lenders, who mostly made their fortune in money changing, charged a high price and demanded taxes as security. These turned out to be private banks that controlled and manipulated the British Pound in the stock exchange. The Bank of England was founded by these private banks in 1674 to consolidate their power and monopolize the issuance of Gold-backed currency. The Bank of England became the first privately owned central bank in the world.

During the era before the Napoleonic Wars, multiple European Kingdoms were constantly feuding and fighting over territory. Wars cost money. Soldiers had to be fed and paid and weapons and horses cost a fortune to acquire and mobilize. Governments turned to the then richest banks for loans, which was paid back with interest. In 1803, an alliance of European powers including the United Kingdom, the Kingdom of Spain, the Kingdom of Prussia, and the Kingdom of Hanover formed a coalition to fight Napoleon in 1803. For funds, they turned to the then richest bankers, the family of Mayer Rothschild.

Government bonds, then known as War bonds/War consoles, were issued by governments as promises to pay the bearer an equivalent of currency denomination and was traded in the stock market. The Rothschilds financed government wars but at the same time speculated and traded in the stock exchange. The value of government-issued bonds fluctuated based on the confidence investors had in the government, just as currencies do today. During the battle of Waterloo, the financial market held its breath as it awaited the results of the battle between the French and two of the coalition forces – the United Kingdom and Prussian forces. This was the war that would determine whether the value of Government bonds, in particular, the British, would rise with a victory or sink with a loss.

The Rothschilds and the Battle of Waterloo

No individual or group of people played a more central role in shaping the evolution of modern money than the Rothschild family. The entire history of modern money and its unfailing relationship with Gold can be traced back to one decisive battle in Europe that may have shaped the entire human history: The battle of Waterloo of June 18th, 1815. It was during this battle that Nathan Rothschild, a popular banker and bonds trader, leveraged the information about the outcome of the battle of Waterloo to carry out the largest financial coup that saw him take control of the stock market and even the bank of England.

To get a clearer picture of how one family got to get control of an entire stock exchange and a central bank of one of the most powerful kingdoms in the world, it is imperative that we go back a little further and get to know how the Rothschilds came to dominate European Banking. Mayer Rothschild was born in Frankfurter Judengasse (Jewish Ghettos of Frankfurt) in the Holy Roman Empire (present-day Frankfurt) in 1710. Like most people living in the Jewish ghettos of the city, he quickly learned the money changing and money lending business. At the time, only Jews could engage in the money business because the majority of Christians considered it a sin to lend money at interest. Mayer was very successful at what he did, and he did a good job of teaching his five sons how to conduct the money business. The Jewish Encyclopedia proclaims that Mayer Rothschild made most of his fortune by selling coins to Prince William IX of Hesse, and was eventually entrusted with the task of managing his accounts and banking in general.

When the sons were older, Mayer Rothschild sent them to start the same business in different cities across Europe. Nathan went to London, where he started a textile and money lending business, Amschel took over the Frankfurt family bank, Salomon established himself in Vienna, Calmann went to Naples, and Jakob started the family bank in Paris. Like their father, the Rothschild brothers made most of their money by associating and handling banking for nobility. Nathan Rothschild became so close to the Duke of Wellington and was appointed the Court Jew, a special title for Jewish bankers who handled finances for European royalty. The Rothschilds proximity to power gave them a business advantage that they maximized on. From 1809, all the five banks across Europe began dealing in gold bullions and government bonds. When Napoleon was wreaking havoc in Europe, the kingdoms turned to the Rothschilds for loans to fund their wars against him and this is where the family banks made the most money. This is because loaning to governments was very lucrative – the bankers could dictate the terms and since they were secured by taxpayers, the risks were minimal. And who did Napoleon get money for funding his wars? Correct, he received also from the Rothschilds.

By the year 1815, the five Rothschild brothers were supplying gold and silver secretly to both the coalition forces led by the Duke of Wellington and the Napoleon Army (via Jakob’s bank in France). This may have been when they embraced the policy of funding both sides in wars. The Rothschilds, with time, grew to love wars for the simple reason that they were expensive to the warring sides but massively profitable to whoever had the funds to loan them. It did not matter who won or lost the war when they were funding both sides because the victor would always honor the terms of the loan. The policy of funding both sides persisted beyond the 19th century through the 20th century.

The Rothschilds were in the best position to fund every major war in Europe, not only because they already had banking infrastructure spread out across Europe, but also because they had set up an unparalleled spying and message delivery network complete with fast couriers and secret routes. Since this was a time when the price of government bonds fluctuated massively, the Rothschilds were always a step ahead with current events and were very successful in speculating and even determining bond prices. Besides, since the Rothschilds were funding both sides of the war, their couriers were the only merchants who were permitted to pass through the French and English blockades. Nathan, like his father, understood that money was power. He was so confident of his position that he has been quoted saying:

“Give me control of a nation’s money and I care not who makes its laws.”

Government Bonds

During the final battle of the Napoleonic era in Waterloo on June 18th 1815, it is alleged that Nathan Rothschild, already a looked-upon figure and richest man in the stock exchange, started a selling frenzy by spreading false news on the outcome of the battle to crash the price of the Sterling pound and bought them secretly. Rothschilds’ sophisticated and multi-faceted messaging system of spies and homing pigeons proved to be invaluable. Nathan Rothschild had positioned a man named John Roworth on the northern side of the battlefield, closer to the English channel, with instructions to send news of any developments on the battlefield as soon as they happened. When the battle was decided, agent Roworth immediately dispatched a homing pigeon to Nathan informing him of the coalition’s victory. The news may have been delivered on the evening of Monday, June 19th, over 24 hours before the government’s messenger arrived with the news on horseback on 21st. It is claimed that Nathan capitalized on his knowledge of the outcome of the battle by spreading rumors that the coalition forces had been defeated, causing panic selling of the Pound Sterling bonds on the stock exchange. The Rothschild’s agents were then instructed to buy up all the bonds at a fraction of the price they were worth just a few hours earlier.

By the time the news of Napoleon’s defeat arrived in London and the price of Pound Sterling shot back up, Nathan Rothschild and the Rothschild family bank were the largest shareholders of the Bank of England. It is estimated that Nathan Rothschild’s investment on that day increased by a factor of 20 to 1 and the Rothschild’s family fortune doubled from £0.5 million to £1 million in a day, a fortune unfathomable at that time.

The Gold standard of Money

The Gold Standard of money is a form of monetary system where a particular currency, typically in coin and paper money, has its value directly tied to a specific value of Gold. This means that the value of the currency is ‘sound’ or ‘stable’. Countries with a currency set a fixed price for Gold and bought and sold the precious metals at that price. This paved the way for the production of non-inflationary bank notes that were printed on cheaper and more convenient paper to represent a certain amount of gold. With the government converting the value of their gold reserves to paper money and using debt instruments issued to private banks and individuals, the struggle between paper money and gold eventually resulted in the popular gold standard of money.

In 1816, England became the first Kingdom to standardize the value of money based on gold. This meant that banks and individuals who owned the most shares of the government bond had similarly large shares of the treasury gold. This was a major development in the history of money because it meant different denominations of the same currency could be produced by a central authority without actually proving that the gold the money represented was available on demand. The paper currency was essentially a receipt that proved the bearer had a certain amount of gold deposited with the issuer (the government) and was ‘good for the money’. Despite the introduction of paper money in Europe in the 16th century, gold coins and bullions continued to rule the global monetary system until the 18th century when paper money became more popular.

The post The Evolution of Money Part III: The Gold Standard of Money and the Rothschild Banking appeared first on Smart Options.

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Connecting the dots between race, politics, fashion and emotions

I read an editorial piece by one of my favourite writers Lauren Sherman in The Business of Fashion couple of days ago—a succinct round-up of the recently concluded New York Fashion Week titled “New York Fashion Week’s Got the Blues”. She states that “there are few designers showing here who have a sense of what they stand for or why they need the platform of fashion week. It doesn’t have to be that way.” No, it doesn’t, indeed.

If fashion designers are struggling to focus on what they stand for, I say, look no further than last week’s epochal event at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery —the unveiling of the official portraits of former US President, Barack Obama, by Kehinde Wiley and First Lady Michelle Obama, by Amy Sherald—that reignited our collective dialogue on race, class, power, politics, and what this reinvention of classical portraiture tells us about our contemporary world, including the world of fashion (read about the Smithsonian exhibition here).

Baltimore-based artist Amy Sherald’s portrait of the first lady, wearing a sweeping Mondrian-like dress inspired by a gown designed by Michelle Smith’s spring 2017 Milly collection, had a poignant role to play. Smith told Washington Post that that season, she was inspired by a “desire for equality, equality in human rights, racial equality, LGBTQ equality,” she says. One of the recurring elements in the collection were various forms of lacing and ties; the details were meant to suggest a “feeling of being held back. . . that we’re not quite there yet.” Whilst lacing and ties in fashion have played symbolic roles of power and exploitation in varying measures, the couture-like dress made of cotton poplin was the feature that made my mind and heart race. Cotton in American history has been pivotal in the African-American struggle for freedom and equality. This cotton poplin—a no-fuss fabric used by working class folks in America, was as much a symbol for the fight for dignity, as was Khadi, the frugal hand-made, hand-spun cloth from India, eulogised by Gandhi as a symbol of India’s Freedom Movement from British colonisation.

Cloth has been a tool of protest throughout history. And here, I am not talking about just spraying a slogan on a T-shirt. It is also about the production and distribution of raw materials that became tools of exploitation, a symbol of political and social disenfranchisement. Cotton—the farmlands of which became the battlefields of racial conflict in American history, made “cotton picking” the subject of generations of African-American blues and jazz songs—heart-wrenching musical renditions of the injustices done to them especially between 1920s and 1940s. At the height of the Khadi Movement in India, Gandhi beseeched millions of ordinary Indians—weighed down by heavily-taxed clothes from English mills—to burn the factory-made clothes, and instead, take up the spinning wheel to weave their own. Clothes have played such significant roles in the political narrative of entire nations, it is important to revisit them to remind ourselves that beyond the glare of hi-voltage fashion shows, clothes tell stories of displacement, cultural alienation, appropriation and financial exploitation.

At the Smithsonian unveiling, the significance of this particular moment was not lost to Obama—a black woman in a couture-like dress in a museum, run by, and filled with, white people on its walls for aeons. “I’m thinking about young people, particularly…girls of colour who will come to this place and they will look up and they will see an image of someone who looks like them on the wall,” she said.

Like works that adorn walls in museums, on our bodies are canvases of our inner toils and tribulations. “What if clothes were not simply reflective of personality, indicative of our banal preference for grey over green, but more deeply imprinted with the ways that human beings have lived: a material record of our experiences and an expression of our ambition?” asks the prolific lecturer Shahidha Bari in her piece “What do clothes say?”. It’s time we all asked ourselves the same question.

Former president Barack Obama’s 7×5 feet portrait was painted by Kehinde Wiley, whose extraordinary oeuvre is painting ordinary black men from the streets, but in the style that mimics Western classical artists. In a Time magazine editorial, writer Maya Rhodan describes the portrait and the setting against which the beloved president is ensconced:

“Wiley stripped away the trappings of office in order to depict the former President’s life journey. African blue lilies are a nod to Obama’s father’s home country of Kenya. Chrysanthemums are the official flower of the city of Chicago, where Obama met his wife Michelle and started both his family and political career. Pikake, or Arabian jasmine, thrives in Hawaii, where the President spent much of his youth. These botanicals are a challenge to viewers to grapple with the improbability of Obama’s rise. The way the president appears to lean toward the viewer, his collar unbuttoned, exudes a level of openness not seen in some of the other portraits, says Taína Caragol, who curated the Wiley commission for the Portrait Gallery. It’s “indicative of the values of his presidency,” she says, “And the notion of a democracy that works from the bottom up instead of from the top down.”

Kehinde Wiley’s penchant for subtext is extraordinary. And as bold and bright his paintings are, his artistic reflections are nuanced and inquisitorial.

In 2012, Sean Kelly Gallery opened an extraordinary exhibition: “An Economy of Grace” by Wiley who collaborated with Ricardo Tisci, creative director of Givenchy at the time (see the exhibition here). Wiley, who usually focused on black African-American men in contemporary wear, but painted them in Baroque, Rococo or other neoclassical western art styles, focused solely on women this time. African-American women. Tisci and he chose paintings from the Louvre (Paris)—poses based on historical portraits of society women by Jacques-Louis David, Thomas Gainsborough and John Singer Sargent, among others. They served as inspiration for a series of portraits of Africa-American women in couture gowns. Wiley asked Tisci to make custom dresses for the sittings. “Couture is a symbol of wealth and excess, and that’s what art has been” said Wiley in a 2012 interview with WSJ Magazine. “I think one of the things that must happen in the work is for it to become class conscious.” ‘Grace’ portrayed through the gentrified pose, and stance, the opulence of couture dresses—makes one thing as stark as midday sun—the gap of black women in the history of art.

Wiley questions this notion of grace through clothes—is “grace” merely a commodity that can be bought or painted? Like royalty, power, nobility—can couture ‘manufacture’ a persona? And this is why fashion is important. It is the visual trajectory of our deeper-seated needs and desires as human beings.

At the Smithsonian unveiling of the president’s portrait, Wiley, overwhelmed to be the first African-American artist to paint the first African-American, president, said, “This is about who we decide to celebrate, it is our humanity, this is our ability to say I matter, I was here”. This momentous occasion allowed him to go beneath the clothes and touch the skin of the wearer. Fashion designers should try that too.

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Dating Disney: The Sword in the Stone

As per a request, I’ll be examining Disney’s 1963 film The Sword in the Stone, based on T.H. White’s tetralogy The Once And Future King. In particular, the first book titled The Sword in the Stone, written in 1938. In the novel, Merlyn ages backwards through time and teaches Wart by transforming him into various animals to prepare him for this future as king.

The Mytho-History of Arthurian England

(image courtesy of Legends Summarized: King Arthur)

So, to keep the history lesson as short and non-boring as possible, let me try to give you the diet bullet points version of early English history. So, England used to be called Albion, and Rome ruled it for a time, even building Hadrian’s Wall to keep the Picts in Scotland out of their territory. Eventually, the Romans pulled out of Albion, and England was ruled by quasi-Roman Britons. Then, with the Fall of Rome on September 4th, 476 AD the Medieval period officially began (yep, the Middle Ages is a Virgo) and England was later sacked and partially conquered by the Angles and Saxons sailing in from the Jutlands in Germania. The Britons were predominantly Celtic, while the Angles and Saxons were Germanic. The Angles and Saxons eventually overtook England, resulting in Anglo-Saxon (aka Old English) to become the official language of England. Don’t worry though, they got what was coming to them in 1066 when William the Conqueror came from Normandy, France, and kicked the Anglo-Saxons out of power and French-speaking rulers had power over England for the rest of the Medieval period. This is also why French names for things are the fancier or more classy words for something. Simple words came from Anglo-Saxon while “fancy” words used by the ruling class come from French. Which is why it’s more “fancy” to call yourself intelligent instead of smart.

So, how does this all pertain to Arthurian Myth? Well, the roots of Arthurian Legend supposedly come from Welsh folklore. One need only look at some key players’ names, such as Guinevere’s original name Gwenhwyfar. Arthur is also frequently referred to as King of the Britons, which is important to remember that the Britons did not refer to the land, but rather to the Celtic peoples living in England before the Anglo-Saxon incursion. So, as a mythos, Arthur has his roots in Welsh-speaking Celtic origins as a Pseudo-mythic king. This is actually not uncommon in Celtic culture, as Ireland has a long and proud history of High Kings of Ireland that very likely never existed, claiming to be ruled from 1514 BCE - 841 AD by legendary mythic kings of Ireland, with the first actual historical High King of Ireland not appearing until 846 AD with Máel Sechnaill I. Arthur’s wife, Guinevere, is supposedly descended from an important Roman family, and thus her marriage to Arthur could also be interpreted as the bond between the Britons and their status as quasi-Roman citizens.

The idea of Arthur as an actual living breathing person first appears in the Annales Cambriae, which states that in the year 72 (c. 516 AD) Arthur won the battle of Baddon, and in the year 93 (c. 537 AD) Arthur and Mordred fell in the Battle of Camlann and there was death in Britain and Ireland. The Annales Cambriae were written around the middle of the 900s AD, so they’re already about 400 years late to the party for being trustworthy eyewitnesses to any shenanigans involving Artie. Arthur’s mythos began to be fleshed out more by Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae in the early 1100s, which lays a lot of the groundwork for Arthurian myth, introducing Guinevere, Merlin, and Caliburn, that would later be Frenchified into Excalibur. This is, however, not a book of Arthurian Legend so much as a largely fictitious account of all of the kings of England from Brutus, who settled England, up to Cadwaladr who ruled until 682 AD. This source is a large part of why people suspect Arthur might have been a real person, as he was essentially included in a textbook of England’s kings. There were later stories and updates to the tradition, but the last version came from Thomas Malory’s addition to the Arthurian Mythos in Le Morte d’Arthur at the end of the Medieval Period in 1485. Which also means that yes, Arthurian Legend actually spans the entire breadth of the Medieval Period. From the Fall of Rome in 476 to the end of the War of the Roses in 1485. Le Morte d’Arthur is the most famous version of Arthurian legend, and served as the major inspiration for T.H. White’s Once and Future King. The key feature we’re focused on is that like Le Morte d’Arthur, Arthur was taken from Uther and Igerna and raised by Sir Ector in the country-side until such a time that he pulled the Sword in the Stone, and was deemed the one true King of England.

So, if Arthur was based on a real person, he was probably a quasi-Roman Briton living in the 6th century, and fighting against the Scandinavian invaders. However, there’s also a reason for Arthur to not have existed. The Anglo-Normans who ruled England from 1066 onward had a very low opinion of England. It was rainy, dreary, and full of sheep. It’s speculated that Arthur was hoisted up as a real life legend of British history to effectively give England a more interesting and glorious history and make itself look and/or feel more important, and possibly even to promote nationalist pride. Whether he was a real man turned into a legend, or completely made up, he still is important to English history even to this day. However, as the Arthurian myth grew up, Arthur became more and more distant from his Celtic roots, and it’s not hard to say that the Arthur in the Disney Film is probably an Anglo-Norman, rather than a Celtic Briton. The technology and fashions are simply far too advanced for the 6th century.

Merlin

During his squirrel lesson, Merlin teaches Wart about the principles of gravity, referencing Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation, first published in 1687. Upon meeting Wart, he also displays a Da Vinci flying contraption, and a wooden toy train engine. One might assume this is an anachronism, as Merlin also states while lecturing to Wart about his future “in these dark, uncertain medieval times”, and very firmly setting the film between 476 - 1485 AD. However, in the source material, Merlin ages backwards through time. And in other accounts of the Arthurian mythos, Merlin is gifted with a perfect knowledge of the past and future, making him essentially omniscient. The movie takes this a step further, as he not only sees into the future, but can travel through time as well. So, it’s perfectly valid for him to spout off knowledge and lessons that mankind would not discover for centuries afterward. We also see in Merlin’s possession a great number of books. This is important because in the medieval period, books were incredibly valuable, as they had to be written and copied by hand, and were so valuable that libraries chained them to the wall to keep them from being stolen. However, the sheer volume of his collection suggests that the printing press may have been invented, and thus, the film taking place after 1439. However, Merlin’s ability to travel through time makes his ownership of books hard to discern, as he could have easily brought those books back from later time periods.  

Fashion

We see Sir Ector wearing faulds under his cuirass. Faulds are strips of plate armor tied at the hip to protect the hip from harm, looking something akin to skirting. Faulds first appeared in 1370. Sir Kay is wearing a Great Helm, noted for its very bucket-like shape, worn from the late 12 to 14th centuries.

However, during the fish lesson, Merlin takes cover inside of what appears to be an Armet helmet, developed in the 15th century. Which means that either Merlin found a helmet from the future, or Kay is training in a century old helmet. Which is why you can’t just throw medieval stuff willy-nilly onto the screen. the Medieval Period covers 1,009 years.

Toward the end of the film, we see Sir Ector wearing a Bycocket, a unisex hunting hat preferred by the nobility of the 13th and 14th centuries.

Culture

We can see in Arthur’s throne room the Fleur-de-Lis, a symbol of French royalty. The symbol emerged as a symbol of French royalty in the late 13th century. In England, the Fleur-de-lis was used in the royal standard for the Plantagennet family, which ruled England from the Norman Invasion of William the Conqueror in 1066 until Henry Tudor won the War of the Roses in 1485. The Fleur-de-lis was used in the Plantagenet standard beginning in the 13th century.  Merlin also specifies teaching Wart English, Latin, and French. As the Plantagenet family were Anglo-Normans, they all spoke French, and all of the nobility also spoke French. Having Wart learn French would allow him to converse with his royal court, English with his subjects, and Latin with his faith. These three languages would be the most vital tools of an English king in this period to rule justly and to hear the voices of all of his subjects. Too bad the Plantagenets were notorious for not speaking a lick of English. Most of the nobility didn’t. The Peasants and the Aristocracy didn’t even speak the same language, making the gap between the classes wider. However, during the 13th century, the French language finally began to take a backseat to English among the royal court, and the Hundred Years War between England and France (1337-1453) bolstered nationalist pride for the English language among the ruling elite. By the end of the 15th century, English had finally become the mother tongue of the English nobility. So, young Wart living in the 13th or 14th century would certainly have a reason to learn English as an English King.

Conclusion

For the most part, like other Medieval-based movies from older Disney, they didn’t do enough research to really pin-point a clear time period. The movie sort of wants to be in this nebulous timeless part of England’s mytho-history, so I’m really left with guessing a time period based on the general clothing, look, and feel of the setting, which feels like it could be set at the same time or even slightly earlier than Sleeping Beauty. The most things seem to line up with a late 13th, early 14th century setting. So, I’ll conclude that we’re slightly ahead of the Italian Renaissance, as Arthur Plantagenet takes up the English Throne. In fact, this also aligns with the real life history of England. In 1377, Edward III died after his eldest son, causing a succession crisis that sparked the War of the Roses. Likewise, the Sword in the Stone was used in the film to prevent a war for succession after the King of England died without a known heir. The parallels line up nicely enough that since Disney tends to run on its own logic that the succession of King Arthur would likely be their alternate history solution to the War of the Roses. More still, after Edward III died, 12-year-old Boy King Richard II was chosen to succeed Edward III, and his uncles who had been passed over for the crown opposed his rule. Likewise, Wart is 12 in the film, becomes king, and Arthur did canonically have to fight dissenters who opposed his claim to the crown. So, Wart is, according to this movie, a very nice stand-in for Richard II of England. Both Arthur and Richard II were also eventually foisted from his throne by power-hungry relatives. In Arthur’s case, his nephew or illegitimate son Mordred tries to usurp his throne and both kill each other in the process. In Richard’s case, he was deposed by his cousin Henry IV in 1399. They even ruled for about the same amount of time, as Arthur became king canonically in 512 at the age of 15, and died in 537 at the age of 40. Arthur ruled for 25 years, and Richard ruled for 22. So that’s an admittedly uncanny series of parallels. So, Wart is the Disney Alternate History version of Richard II the Boy King of England. (reign 1377-1399) And to think, the same king helped inspire the sadistic boy king Joffrey Baratheon in Game of Thrones.

Setting: England Kingdom: The Kingdom of England (927 - 1707 AD) House: House Pendragon/House Plantagenet (1066-1485) Era: the War of the Roses Period: The Late Middle Ages (1250 - 1500 AD) Year: 1377 AD Historic Counterpart: Richard II of England (1377-1399) Language: Middle English (1150-1500 AD)                        Anglo-Norman French (1066-1500 AD)                        Medieval Latin (927 - 15th century)