Musicians From England

"Ryan McGinley: "We had to basically rig a truss for this swing; it was a major production to make sure it was safe. I tried it out. M.I.A. might have gotten there and said, 'I'm not doing this; this is too crazy.' But she got on and just started swinging like it was something normal. "I remember her saying, 'If I'm going to go out, this is an awesome way to go.'""

"Anthony Napolitan: "I think I have a thing for female singers; I like the way they sound. MIA is a very unique one at that. [Paper Planes] is an all-time favorite for me. I just like it!""

"We deny our Lord whenever, like Demas, we through love of this present world forsake the course of duty which Christ has plainly pointed out to us."

"Thus heavenly hope is all serene, But earthly hope, how bright soe’er, Still fluctuates o’er this changing scene, As false and fleeting as ’tis fair."

"By far the greater number of them were Hindoos, and perhaps one half brahmins any one of them, if he had been his own master, would have rejoiced in an opportunity of shedding his life's blood in a quarrel with the Mussulmans, and of the mob who attacked them, the brahmins, yoguees, gossains, and other religious mendicants, formed the front rank, their bodies and faces covered with chalk and ashes, their long hair untied as devoted to death, showing their strings, and yelling out to them all the bitterest curses of their religion, if they persisted in urging an unnatural war against their brethren and their gods. The sepoys, however, were immoveable. Regarding the military oath as the most sacred of all obligations, they fired at a brahmin as readily as any one else, and kept guard at the gate of a mosque as faithfully and fearlessly as if it had been the gate of one of their own temples. Their courage and steadiness preserved Benares from ruin."

"One half of the population was literally armed against the other, and the fury which actuated both was more like that of demoniacs than rational enemies. It began by the Mussulmans breaking down a famous pillar, named Siva's walking staff, held in high veneration by the Hindoos. These last in revenge broke and burnt down a mosque, and the retort of the first aggressors was to kill a cow, and pour her blood into the sacred well. In consequence every Hindoo able to bear arms, and many who had no other fitness for the employment than rage supplied, procured weapons,and attacked their enemies with frantic fury wherever they met them. Being the most numerous party, they put the Mussulmans in danger of actual extermination, and would certainly have at least burned every mosque in the place before twenty-four hours were over, if the sepoys had not been called in."

"With drooping bells of clearest blue Thou didst attract my childish view, Almost resembling The azure butterflies that flew Where on the heath thy blossoms grew So lightly trembling."

"Before, beside us, and above The firefly lights his lamp of love."

"Then on! then on! where duty leads, My course be onward still."

"When Spring unlocks the flowers to paint the laughing soil."

"I see them on their winding way, About their ranks the moonbeams play."

"Thou art gone to the grave; but we will not deplore thee, Though sorrows and darkness encompass the tomb."

"Beneath our feet and o'er our head Is equal warning given: Beneath us lie the countless dead, Above us is the heaven! Death rides on every passing breeze, And lurks in every flower; Each season has its own disease, Its peril every hour."

"Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty! Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee: Holy, Holy, Holy! Merciful and Mighty! God in Three Persons, Blessed Trinity."

"The heathen in his blindness Bows down to wood and stone."

"What though the spicy breezes Blow soft o'er Ceylon's isle; Though every prospect pleases, And only man is vile."

"From Greenland's icy mountains, From India's coral strand, Where Afric's sunny fountains Roll down their golden sand. From many an ancient river, From many a palmy plain, They call us to deliver Their land from error's chain."

"The Son of God goes forth to war, A kingly crown to gain; His blood red banner streams afar: Who follows in His train? Who best can drink his cup of woe, Triumphant over pain, Who patient bears his cross below, He follows in His train."

"By cool Siloam's shady rill How sweet the lily grows!"

"Brightest and best of the sons of the morning, Dawn on our darkness, and lend us thine aid. Star of the east the horizon adorning, Guide where our infant Redeemer is laid."

"No hammers fell, no ponderous axes rung, Like some tall palm the mystic fabric sprung. Majestic silence."

"Failed the bright promise of your early day?"

"Remember that every guilty compliance with the humors of the world, every sinful indulgence of our own passions, is laying up cares and fears for the hour of darkness; and that the remembrance of ill-spent time will strew our sick-bed with thorns, and rack our sinking spirits with despair."

"Eternity has no gray hairs! The flowers fade, the heart withers, man grows old and dies, the world lies down in the sepulchre of ages, but time writes no wrinkles on the brow of Eternity."

"Evangelicals often had reason to view Henry VIII as another persecuting Pharaoh, but when the king turned against the pope and began wielding his sword against "persecutors" like Thomas More in the early 1530s, some clearly began to envision him as an agent of divine vengeance against their enemies."

"Having learnt of the date [of his coronation], from all directions a vast multitude of persons at once hurried to London to see their monarch in the full bloom of his youth and high birth. For everybody loved him; and their affections were not half-hearted, because the king on his father's side descended from Henry VI and on his mother's from Edward IV. For just as Edward was the most warmly thought of by the English people among all the English kings, so this successor of his, Henry, was very like him in general appearance, in greatness of mind and generosity and for that reason was the more acclaimed and approved of by all. Henry was also recommended by his handsome bearing, his comely and manly features (in which one could discern as much authority as good will), his outstanding physical strength, remarkable memory, aptness at all the arts of both war and peace, skill at arms and on horseback, scholarship of no mean order, thorough knowledge of music, and his humanity, benevolence and self-control."

"It is indeed a fact of the first importance that Henry VIII, the most wilful but not the least wise of our Kings, did more for Parliament than any other person in our history. His father, Henry VII, and his own first great Minister Wolsey had seldom summoned Parliament; until the breach with Rome the two Houses seemed, like other European Parliaments, to be declining, perhaps towards ultimate extinction. But Henry VIII, in the middle of his reign, decided to use Parliament as his instrument and accomplice in the destruction of the Papal power, the spoliation of the monasteries, and the subordination of the medieval liberties of the Church to the laity and above all to the Crown. He had no standing Army, and without the general acquiescence of his subjects and the support of their more influential classes Henry could not have carried through this immense revolution. He found in Parliament, particularly in the Commons, the expression of that popular support he required. To be despot himself he raised up in Parliament a force that was destined to prevent his successors from being despots."

"The Royal Navy was Henry's creation, and it saved both himself and his daughter after him when they adopted an island policy and defied the Catholic powers of Europe. Wolsey had no notion of the importance of sea power to England. He was a great medieval churchman, a civil servant of the old school, and a diplomatist of the Renaissance type. But of the future development of England at home and on the sea Wolsey had no vision at all. His master, with that curious instinct of oneness with the English people which was the secret of Tudor greatness, saw deeper. He could use Wolsey's consummate administrative powers during the years of his own apprenticeship in statecraft, and then pass over him along a path of his own which no Cardinal could be expected to tread."

"His policy was both wise and strong. While not encouraging transoceanic adventure in the face of predominant Spanish power, he made possible the future liberation of his country's energies by the only means—the foundation of a Royal Navy... It was Henry VIII who built an effective fleet of royal fighting ships, with royal dockyards at Woolwich and Deptford; he also founded the corporation of Trinity House. Henry's maritime policy had a double importance. Not only did he create ships specially manned and commissioned to fight, and to fight in the public service alone, but his architects designed many of these royal ships on an improved model. They were sailing vessels better adapted to the ocean than the rowed galleys of the Mediterranean powers, and better adapted to manoeuvring in battle than the more clumsy ‘round’ ships of the mediaeval type in which the English merchants sailed the sea, and in which the Spaniards crossed the Atlantic. The new type of English warship was three times the length of its beam or more, while the normal ‘round’ ship was only twice the length of its beam. Hitherto sea-battles had consisted of ramming, archery and boarding, very much like the battles of the old Greek and Roman navies. But a new age was at hand. From the port-holes of Henry VIII's fleet protruded the iron mouths of great cannon in a row, ready to give the shattering ‘broadside,’ the operation of war to which, more than to any other, British maritime and colonial power owe their existence. It was Henry VIII himself who had insisted that his naval architects should mount heavy cannon in the body of the ship; they had devised the expedient of piercing apertures in the very hold itself through which the great shot could be discharged."

"Henry VIII not only countenanced the practice of military pastimes by permitting them to be exercised without restraint but also endeavoured to make them fashionable by his own example. Hall assures us, that, even after his accession to the throne, he continued daily to amuse himself in archery, casting of the bar, wrestling, or dancing, and frequently in tilting, tourneying, fighting at the barriers with swords, and battle-axes, and such like martial recreations, in most of which there were few that could excel him. His leisure time he spent in playing at the recorders, flute, and virginals, in a setting of songs, singing and making of ballads. He was also exceedingly fond of hunting, hawking, and other sports of the field; and indeed his example so far prevailed, that hunting, hawking, riding the great horse, charging dexterously with the lance at the tilt, leaping, and running, were necessary accomplishments for a man of fashion."

"He became more and more odious as he grew older, but he never lost his interest in theology, and it was the interest of a man with brains. The continuity of the Church was preserved with its creeds, orders, sacraments and discipline, because a wicked king knew something about the faith and was proud of his knowledge. The Reformation was to come and pass, but the Church was to remain—not a sect devoted to any man's opinions, but a body wide enough to include those who sympathised with Colet or with More or with Erasmus, a body suffering violence, but not destroyed; and this was so because Henry VIII was in all things a traditionalist, and because he had no wish to impair the prestige of the Church, believing himself to be its head and its defender."

"Henry's reign in many ways left a deeper mark on the mind, heart and face of England than did any event in English history between the coming of the Normans and the coming of the factory."

"He had survived pretenders, excommunication, rebellion and threats of invasion, died in his bed and passed his throne peacefully to his heir. He had won a title, Defender of the Faith, which English monarchs still boast... He had made war on England's ancient enemies and himself led two assaults on France. For nearly four decades he had cut an imposing figure in Europe...bestriding its high diplomacy as few of his predecessors, if any, had done. He had defied pope and emperor, brought into being in England and Ireland a national Church subject to his authority, wiped about a thousand religious houses off the face of his native land...and bestowed on English kingship a profound new dignity. He...had brought the Scriptures in the vernacular to his people, hesitantly and perhaps partly unwittingly, but none the less decisively, allowed his country to be directed towards the continental Reformation...and given to his people a new sense of unity – the unity of ‘entire Englishmen’ rather than that of 'Englishmen papisticate' or of those who were 'scarce our subjects'. The England which he had led back into European affairs...had disowned allegiance to any external authority, indisputably emerged from his reign with a new political 'wholeness'... Thanks above all to Thomas Cromwell, his reign had given England much 'good governance'."

"At the appointed hour on June 7, 1520, the Feast of Corpus Christi, the two monarchs with their retinues in full battle array appeared on the opposite sides of the valley. There was a moment of tense silence—each side feared an ambush by the other. Then the two kings spurred their horses forward to the appointed place marked by a spear in the ground and embraced. The ice was broken. They dismounted and went into the pavilion arm in arm to talk. Then began nearly two weeks of jousting, feasting and dancing that culminated in a High Mass in the open air. Choirs from England and France accompanied the mass and there was a sermon on the virtues of peace. n both choreography and cost, the Field of the Cloth of Gold resembles contemporary summits. In a further similarity, style was more important than substance: by 1521 the two countries were at war again. In many ways they were natural rivals, whereas Henry was bound—by marriage and interest—to France’s enemy Charles V, king of Spain. Both before and after the Cloth of Gold Henry met Charles for discussions of much greater diplomatic magnitude. And although Wolsey hoped the meeting of the British and French elites might build bridges, this soon proved an illusion. As the Cloth of Gold demonstrated, egos were everything in these summits, with each side alert to any hint of advantage gained summits by the other. Commines was implacably opposed to such meetings for this very reason. It was, he said, impossible “to hinder the train and equipage of the one from being finer and more magnificent than the other, which produces mockery, and nothing touches any person more sensibly than to be laughed at.”"

"Summitry was now reaching its premodern heyday, for reasons relevant to our larger story.Although by about 1500 several strong national states had emerged in Europe, they remained greatly dependent on their monarchs. This kind of personalized power is at the heart of summitry. One of the most famous encounters took place on the so-called Field of the Cloth of Gold in June 1520, toward the summit bringing together Henry VIII of England and François I of France. The young English monarch, whose titles still included “King of France,” had resumed the old struggle in 1512. But his advisor Cardinal Thomas Wolsey secured a truce and then arranged a summit to consummate an enduring peace. It took place on the edge of Calais, the last English enclave in France, in a shallow dip known as the Val d’Or. Both sides of the valley were carefully reshaped to ensure that neither party enjoyed a height advantage. A special pavilion was constructed for the meeting and festivities, surrounded by thousands of tents and a three-hundred-foot-square timber castle for the rest of those attending. Henry’s entourage alone numbered more than five thousand, while the French crown needed ten years to pay off its share of the cost."

"A lying, greedy and idiotic king, a beetle and a pile of dung, the spawn of a snake, a chicken, a lying toad mixed all together by Satan's spawn."

"Commonwealth schoolchildren are often taught one of the key events in British history with the help of a mnemonic: "King Henry the Eighth, to six wives he was wedded: One died, one survived, two divorced, two beheaded." Beheaded! In 1536 Henry had his wife Anne Boleyn decapitated on trumped-up charges of adultery and treason because she gave him a son that did not survive, and he had become attracted to one of her ladies-in-waiting. Two wives later he suspected Catherine Howard of adultery and sent her to the ax as well. (Tourists visiting the Tower of London can see the chopping block for themselves.) Henry was clearly the jealous type: he also had an old boyfriend of Catherine’s drawn and quartered, which is to say hanged by the neck, taken down while still alive, disemboweled, castrated, decapitated, and cut into four. The throne passed to Henry’s son Edward, then to Henry’s daughter Mary, and then to another daughter, Elizabeth. “Bloody Mary” did not get her nickname by putting tomato juice in her vodka but by having three hundred religious dissenters burned at the stake. And both sisters kept up the family tradition for how to resolve domestic squabbles: Mary imprisoned Elizabeth and presided over the execution of their cousin, Lady Jane Grey, and Elizabeth executed another cousin, Mary Queen of Scots. Elizabeth also had 123 priests drawn and quartered, and had other enemies tortured with bone-crushing manacles, another attraction on display in the Tower. Today the British royal family is excoriated for shortcomings ranging from rudeness to infidelity. You’d think people would give them credit for not having had a single relative decapitated, nor a single rival drawn and quartered."

"And even where the dogs licked the blood of Naboth, even there shall the dogs lick thy blood also, O king! And I am that Micheas whom thou wilt hate, because I must tell thee truly that thy marriage is unlawful; and I know I shall eat the bread of affliction, and drink the water of sorrow, yet because our Lord hath put it into my mouth I must speak it. There are many other preachers, yea, too many, who preach and persuade thee otherwise, feeding thy folly and frail affections upon the hope of their own worldly promotion; and by that means they destroy thy soul, thy honor and posterity, to obtain fat benefices, to become rich abbots and get episcopal jurisdiction and other ecclesiastical dignities. There, I say, are the four hundred prophets who, in the spirit of lying, seek to deceive thee; but take good heed lest you, being seduced, find Achab's punishment, which was to have his blood 'licked up by the dogs,' saying it was the greatest miscarriage of princes to be daily abused by flatterers."

"Henry VIII was a golden and gifted boy who grew up to become a forceful, energetic and ambitious ruler — he was a majestic and ruthless monarch who created an ‘imperial’ monarchy by asserting English independence, defying Rome, breaking up the monasteries, promoting his realm’s military and naval power and his own autocracy, all ultimately enabling the triumph of Protestantism. Yet he became a bloated, thin-skinned tyrant who ordered the killing — on faked evidence — of many, including two of his wives, because of his own wounded pride. Both hero and monster, he was, in his paranoid cruelty, the English Stalin."

"Pig, dolt and liar."

"It's no surprise that so much fiction constellates around the subject of Henry and his wives. Often, if you want to write about women in history, you have to distort history to do it, or substitute fantasy for facts; you have to pretend that individual women were more important than they were or that we know more about them than we do. But with the reign of King Bluebeard, you don't have to pretend. Women, their bodies, their reproductive capacities, their animal nature, are central to the story. The history of the reign is so graphically gynaecological that in the past it enabled lady novelists to write about sex when they were only supposed to write about love; and readers could take an avid interest in what went on in royal bedrooms by dignifying it as history, therefore instructive, edifying."

"A pig, an ass, a dunghill, the spawn of an adder, a basilisk, a lying buffoon, a mad fool with a frothy mouth."

"Like all princes of the Plantagenet blood, he was a person of a most intense and imperious will. His impulses, in general nobly directed, had never known contradiction; and late in life, when his character was formed, he was forced into collision with difficulties with which the experience of discipline had not fitted him to contend. Education had done much for him, but his nature required more correction than his position had permitted, whilst unbroken prosperity and early independence of control had been his most serious misfortune. He had capacity, if his training had been equal to it, to be one of the greatest of men. With all his faults about him, he was still perhaps the greatest of his contemporaries; and the man best able of all living Englishmen to govern England, had been set to do it by the conditions of his birth."

"And thus much touching the end of king Henry, who, if he had continued a few months longer (all those obits and masses, which appear in his will made before he went to Boulogne, notwithstanding), most certain it is, and to be signified to all posterity, that his full purpose was to have repurged the estate of the church, and to have gone through with the same, so that he would not have left one mass in all England."

"Henry's outwardly formidable and impressive personality helped from the first, despite his youth. This was a King that men could look up to—indeed, had to look up to because none could match his physical size. The feelings he inspired always mingled some fear with the awe, and it would be hard to say that any of his subjects—even his close companions at court, even his wives—came to love him; but for a man so manifestly King to every eye, so quick at judging men and situations, and so capable of exercising both easy charm and unchallenged authority, awe and devotion and apprehension did more than affection could have done. Henry established this palpable hold over his people's imagination and obedience as soon as he ascended the throne, and he retained it largely unimpaired to the day of his death."

"For this book is for me and all kings to read."

"[W]hoever leads an auspicious life here and governs the commonwealth rightly, as my most noble father did, who promoted all piety and banished all ignorance, has a most certain way to heaven."

"Quisquis enim hic felicem agit vitam, atque rempublicam recte gubernat, sicut nobilissimus meus pater fecit, qui promouit omnem pietatem atque expulit omnem ignorantiam, habet certissimum iter in coelum."

"Henry the Eighth has been favoured by some Protestant writers because the Reformation was achieved in his time. But the mighty merit of it lies with other men and not with him; and it can be rendered none the worse by this monster's crimes, and none the better by any defence of them. The plain truth is, that he was a most intolerable ruffian, a disgrace to human nature, and a blot of blood and grease upon the History of England."

"Henry VIII laid waste to much of England’s cultural and religious tradition. He looted the monasteries, consolidated the power of the state, introduced foreign customs, and viciously persecuted the country’s Catholic majority. Britain’s leaders today are arguably following in Henry VIII’s footsteps. They introduce and favor foreign cultural practices, extend the power of the state over the traditional rights and liberties of the people, and persecute the native British population for dissenting from the forced transformation of their country."