Author: johnmanders

I'm an illustrator, author and cartoonist. I'm writing a history for kids: The Western Civ User's Guide to Time & Space.

Gloriana 04

Five centuries before Marvel decided to replace Tony Stark with a teenaged girl as Iron Man, here is Lady Elizabeth Tudor swashbuckling with the big boys.

Back in 16th-century England, there existed a martial-arts guild known as the “The Corporation of Masters of the Noble Science of Defence”, or the “Company of Masters”. Who is to say whether they admitted girls into their school?

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Gloriana 03

Huzzah, more sword-fighting—and trash-talking!

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Embroidery was a pastime of aristocratic ladies in sixteenth-century England. They weren’t supposed to be sword-fighting, probably.

Hic, haec, hoc: ‘This, this, this’ in Latin; the nominative case; masculine, feminine & neuter. Lady Elizabeth Tudor was a clever language student. She amused herself by translating classical works from Latin to English. Beside Latin, Elizabeth was fluent in six languages, including Greek, French, and Italian.

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Gloriana 02

Swordplay! En garde! Thrust! Parry, thrust! Shift-ball-change, shift-ball-change, back-step!

Three boys against one girl hardly seems fair. Let’s see if she’s able to hold her own…

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