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?

glor.04

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Sorry!—here are some Tudors

Apologies! I’m having some trouble working the buttons. I posted here yesterday evening with the intention of making the images easier to enlarge. It didn’t work and I deleted the post. Sorry if you were led here on a bootless enterprize.

To make amends, I post here today a few of the real-life personalities who’ve been dragooned into my story—even though some make mere cameo appearances. At least two of these (Jane & Henry) are by the great artist Hans Holbein, who was Henry’s court painter.