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Earlier in the year, I undertook an course on teaching foreign languages to dyslexic students with FutureLearn and the University of Lancaster.  Although I don’t teach foreign languages, of course, I do teach dyslexic students and indeed one of my children is severely  dyslexic. It gave me some really useful insights into supporting all students…

In my final blog post on William Elderton’s A proper new balad of my ladie marques, Whose death is bewailed To the tune of new lusty gallant, I’d like to look at possible reasons why the ballad wasn’t published until well after the marchioness’s death: Although the ballad appeared in the Stationers’ Registers of 1569,…

William Elderton’s A proper new balad of my ladie marques, Whose death is bewailed To the tune of new lusty gallant features an apparition: Elderton says ‘Me thinkes I see her walke in blacke, / In euery corner where I goe’.  But Elderton is conflicted. Visions of the deceased marchioness appear in his mind’s eye,…

Although ostensibly an epitaph, William Elderton’s A proper new balad of my ladie marques, Whose death is bewailed To the tune of new lusty gallant is in reality a curious mix which speaks to various audiences on several levels.  The first was a general listenership who might be edified by ideals of piety and entertained…

William Elderton’s A proper new balad of my ladie marques, Whose death is bewailed To the tune of new lusty gallant was not the only eulogy published in 1569. Thomas Newton penned a steadfastly Protestant panegyric to Lady Katherine Knollys. Katherine, who may have been the illegitimate daughter of Henry VIII, was also a confidante…

If the blog has been a little bit quiet lately, it’s not just because of the teaching.  It’s also because I’ve been trying to set aside a couple of days each week to work on the book.  This task was interrupted at the end of January by the news that the application that I made…

Daniel Laxer Historians tend to overlook the role of musical instruments in the Seven Years’ War. Few devote much attention to explaining how armies operated or battles played-out. Fred Anderson’s … Source: Drums, Bugles, and Bagpipes in the Seven Years’ War