Gloriana 07

Gloriana 05

Egad, more sword-fighting!

For anyone interested, here’s commentary regarding the evolution from mediaeval broadsword to the rapier. Also, some remarks about fencing with two swords—’dual-wielding’.

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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…

glor.02

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To enlarge, hold down the control button when you click on the art.

Gloriana 01

The prologue’s finished, thank goodness. What awful people—I thought they’d never leave! So, to cleanse your palate of all that satanic stuff, here’s a teenaged girl in a stable-yard, wielding a brace of rapiers. (Thanks, Licia, for the fancy title treatment!)

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glor.01_color1

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.

Catherine of Aragon

Anne Boleyn

Jane Seymour

Henry VIII

Prologue vi

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Prologue iii

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Prologue ii

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Prologue i

Here it is, the first page of Gloriana. I’ll post Page 2 when I finish it—after a few pages I’ll hopefully settle in to a regular schedule. By the way, there is a little ‘subscribe’ thingy further down the page. If you click on it you’ll receive an e-mail every time a new post goes up. Thanks for stopping by. And now…

The players

Even though our story begins in jolly old England, out of consideration for you, dear reader, we’re attaching a prologue. That is, a few pages of introduction to the dark, mysterious forces which will shape the plot.

You can’t get more dark or mysterious than Herr Doktor—always the smartest guy in the room, he’s become bored with life and is looking for something to satisfy his lust for power.

To help him with that search are two sorcerers, Valdes and Cornelius—experts in conjuring, necromancy, wizardry, astrology, fortune-telling, spell-casting, alchemy and Common Core math.