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b7556a9
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For men love what they cannot have, and hate what they cannot control.
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Robin Maxwell |
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0e80374
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Am I pretty? I must be, I thought, for all girls in love are pretty.
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Robin Maxwell |
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0fd0332
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Some promises are lies we never meant to tell.
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promise
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Robin Maxwell |
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36370dd
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For a moment in time, a man knew me for who I was and, without reservation, loved me for who I was. How can I now live knowing no one will ever see me again in such a perfect light? Hear me as I wish to be heard? Love me as [he] loved me?
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Robin Maxwell |
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82faa52
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If you find a way to write with open heart to Diary, a friend with Truth, no detail spared, your tome like Petrarch's works will contain the scattered fragments of your soul.
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Robin Maxwell |
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3c03800
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Oh love how can we not be together?' Romeo cried. "Without the sight of you every day, the smell, the taste of you, I would wither away. My blood would turn to powder in my veins. And you? Have you not found in me a mirror for your soul? When you look at me, when we speak, touch, do you not see who you really are? I dare you to deny that in my presence you love yourself better. I know this is true, for I love myself better in yours."
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true-love
soul-mates
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Robin Maxwell |
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a8ce2fe
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Time would be my friend, I told myself. Yet time, I knew even then, was my enemy.
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to-little-time
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Robin Maxwell |
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42e66d2
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You cannot know" he said simply. "Very little is certain in this life, my lady."
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uncertainty
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Robin Maxwell |
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7f6866f
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She shocked me. Truly rocked the ground beneath my feet. Made the air shimmer with her power and grace. The woman had slipped free the prison of rules that governed us all and met me halfway to paradise.
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true-love
romeo-and-juliet
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Robin Maxwell |
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7723526
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Danger sweetens the brew. Makes it more delicious.
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dangerous-people
danger
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Robin Maxwell |
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008ada7
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Everyone knows that for a woman to conceive in the act of coition she, as well as the man. must be satisfied. Is that not true? Of corse it is true.
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martial-satisfaction
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Robin Maxwell |
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d91989d
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ROBERT DEVEREAUX, EARL OF ESSEX, was taken to the place of execution at Tower Green on February 25, 1601. Standing before the crowd in a scarlet waistcoat, Essex made his last speech--a rather long one--with eloquence and dignity, claiming his sins "more numerous than the hairs on his head." He was still speaking when the executioner struck his first blow. It took two more to sever Devereaux's head. Despite his undisputed treason, Essex was..
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Robin Maxwell |
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2209393
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Am I worthy of Juliet, I wondered, worthy as my father was of my mother?
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parental-love
romeo-and-juliet
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Robin Maxwell |
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d3e4d65
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We Irish were alone, of all countries, in this way of choosing our leaders. Everywhere else in the world 'tis a firstborn son who's heir to the title--in England, your primogeniture--and no questions asked. But tanaistry was how the Irish chiefs were made, and it had always served us well. Aside
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Robin Maxwell |
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9bd37ac
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I whispered to my mother that if I were forced to marry the snot-nosed little thug, I'd do as Brigid of Kildare had done when pressed to marry--thrust her finger into her eye, pullin' it from the socket till it dangled from her cheek. Marriage, I thought. Me, a married woman. Impossible! And wife of a chieftain at that, for the truth was, my intended was tanaist of the O'Flaherty clan. This meant that--as tradition dictated--when the curren..
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Robin Maxwell |
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cadb73d
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The summers were a sight better, for we moved--the lot of us--outdoors to my father's booleys. These were makeshift structures, long and narrow, and thatched with rushes, built new each year and set in the midst of our upland pastures amongst our herds. Aye, we lived with our animals, somethin' the English could never fathom. But it was a marvelous thing, livin' so close to the land with the very beasts that were so great a source of our we..
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Robin Maxwell |
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ee53e37
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Most congenial, the booleying life, though never as exciting as the sea. Sure
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Robin Maxwell |
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ce8cc87
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There were more serious days, when the Brehon judges would come round on their circuit of Connaught to hear the civil suits, and cases of crimes committed in my father's territories. 'Twas our ancient Gaelic law that they practiced--the very one that the English and the Christian Church so abhorred and wished to destroy. They could never understand the leniency with which we punished our thieves and murderers. The English like to flog a man..
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Robin Maxwell |
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bfb2d26
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What's more"--O'Neill's eyes brimmed with tears--"they've a cause, Grace." She placed her hand over his. "I know that, Hugh. 'Tis an 'Irish cause,' and we've never known that here before. There's not another man in Ireland--in all the world--who could have rallied them, you know that's true. A single country fighting a single enemy. I never thought I'd live to see the day. Not even Red Hugh could have done it."
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Robin Maxwell |
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09fb7e1
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O'Neill could feel rising off them devotion and love for him, and he knew they would lay down their lives for their high chieftain and for the new cause, only now taking shape in their heads. The cause. Unthinkable just a year before--freedom from occupation. Freedom from oppression. Indeed, their heinous oppressors were approaching--English soldiers who had slaughtered their brothers, their wives, their mothers. Their children. Soldiers wh..
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Robin Maxwell |
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8f87b2d
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Now the harpist and bard had taken their places under the roof of the three-sided booley house, and guests were wandering from the table to hear them play and sing.
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Robin Maxwell |
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5157335
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And the Church's views on marriage were nothin' short of ridiculous. It had to be celebrated in public, and the marriage was permanent, for mercy's sake. We preferred to do things more clandestinelike, for marriage, after all, is a personal affair. And after a year, if the man was not up to his wife's standards, she could boot him out the door. Say, "I divorce you!" and he was gone, just like that. Canon law did agree with native law in one..
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Robin Maxwell |
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dc3e6c9
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When they'd crested the final hill, the huge gathering of clans spread out below, she'd turned to him. "This is what we call a 'booley'--summer grazing for our cattle." "But there's a house," he said, perplexed. "Well, of course there is--a booley house. Where else would the people sleep--amongst the herd?" Essex smiled, chastised. "You'll just have to leave off your silly conception of the 'wild Irish.' Believe it or not, we are civilized,..
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Robin Maxwell |
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6b02b5c
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O'Neill and his army marched south from Ulster to meet the enemy while his ally Red Hugh O'Donnell marched in from the west. But once the Irish armies were in place, O'Neill and O'Donnell began arguing as to which of them should begin the attack. This delay proved fatal as the agreed upon hour of rendezvous with the Spaniards passed, and the window of opportunity for an Irish victory slammed shut. The Battle of Kinsale lasted three months, ..
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Robin Maxwell |
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83cade3
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I remember a fierce debate that my father and Gilleduff had one afternoon sittin' over the roast at the long booley table. They were talkin' of King Henry the Eighth's "Surrender and Regrant" program, a topic of unrivaled possibility for disagreement--a rare bounty for two men who'd give their right arms for a good argument. "Most of the other chieftains in Connaught have succumbed already," said Gilleduff, and Henry calls himself 'King of ..
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Robin Maxwell |
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a45f741
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Tyrone, after wandering with his family through France, the Netherlands, and Germany, finally took up residence in Italy, subsidized by the Pope. Every night, deep in his cups, he would brag that come Hell or high water he would die in Ireland. In 1616 the great rebel O'Neill passed away, a frustrated exile, in Venice. T
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Robin Maxwell |
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785d250
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So why submit? I know this as sure as I'm sittin' here across the roast from you. They're tryin' to bury our law and eradicate our language. And once they take your name, they'll take your freedom too." "No one's goin' anywhere with my freedom. And don't worry yourself, Owen. If I do accept myself a fine English title, I promise I won't insist that you call me by it." "That's very kind of you, you feckin' idiot." Gilleduff laughed and punch..
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Robin Maxwell |
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643b854
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TIBBOT NE LONG BURKE, hard-pressed to choose sides in the Irish rebellion, finally made his decision at the battle of Kinsale. On his own volition he mustered a force of three hundred men and marched south. Under Lord Mountjoy, Tibbot led his men so single-mindedly and courageously that he was lauded by the Crown. Having proven his loyalty beyond any doubt, he returned home to a life of leisure with Maeve and his six children. Miles--for ma..
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Robin Maxwell |
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4228d00
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ELIZABETH I, the queen who many believed waited in vain for Essex to beg a reprieve from his death sentence, suffered agonies after his passing. Despite the victory at Kinsale and achieving her goal of defeating the Irish rebels, she never regained her seemingly inexhaustible zest for life. As the end neared, the queen, despite her obvious weakness, refused to be put to bed and instead stood upright in one place for fourteen hours, sucking ..
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Robin Maxwell |
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9305914
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The last days of GRACE O'MALLEY'S life are a mystery. There are records of her ships--if not personally captained by her--still patrolling the western Irish coast in mid 1601. She seems to have lived at Rockfleet Castle near the end, and probably died at the age of seventy-three, in 1603--the same year as Elizabeth's death. Some of her stark, brooding castles and ruined abbeys on the shores and islands of Clew Bay today stand testament to h..
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Robin Maxwell |
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a99ce7f
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During the writing of this book, I found myself questioning why the sixteenth-century history of the Irish-English conflict--"the Mother of All the Irish Rebellions"--has been utterly ignored or forgotten. This episode was by far the largest of Elizabeth's wars and the last significant effort of her reign. It was also the most costly in English lives lost, both common and noble. By some estimates, the rebellion resulted in half the populati..
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Robin Maxwell |
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c9195a9
|
It is important to understand this period of Irish rebellion, not least because of the light it throws on events in Ireland ever since. England persists in occupying and claiming dominion over Irish soil, and the Catholics of Ulster continue to resist. It may seem that the policies of Henry VIII and his daughter Elizabeth are quaint echoes of the past, but the spirit of courage and defiance that animated rebels such as Hugh O'Neill and Grac..
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Robin Maxwell |
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e5194c2
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Bagenal stood gaping as shot whizzed by his head. It was his brother-in-law, the traitor Tyrone. And the man had spotted him as well. Fury rose in Henry Bagenal and he strode out into the field to meet the bloody Irish devil. He and Tyrone would fight hand to hand, to the death, he swore to himself. He would have his revenge for Mabel, beautiful child, lost to this wretched land. THE BALL FROM the musket of the proud Ulster marksman found..
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Robin Maxwell |
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09376ca
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Grace rose from her chair and Elizabeth too came to her feet. "I thought your arse would be sore by now," said Grace. "It is a bit." "You have to be careful when you ask the Irish to tell you a story."
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Robin Maxwell |
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df00fa2
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news arrived several days later of the appalling defeat of Elizabeth's army by the Irish rebels at Blackwater Fort--a defeat now infamously known as the Battle of the Yellow Ford. The Earl of Tyrone--indeed he had taken the title of The O'Neill--was being hailed as the King of Ireland, and he had quickly and with frightening ease begun bringing all of that blighted country under his control. His armies--unbelievable that they could be calle..
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Robin Maxwell |
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833e34d
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Era riuscita a tenere con se un pezzo dell'anima di sua madre, che avrebbe per sempre fatto parte di lei, una spina dorsale per mantenerla forte negli anni a venire, un secondo cuore che avrebbe battuto nel suo petto.
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Robin Maxwell |
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1f7b14f
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Posso nao ter suficientes qualidades para ser vossa rainha, senhor, mas tenho demasiadas para ser apenas vossa amante.
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Robin Maxwell |
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0bc6695
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Why are there no queens in the deck?" I asked rather suddenly. "It seems odd." Suzanne Brantome, on my left, and Mimi La Salle, on my right, smiled knowingly, and I felt foolish. But Marguerite did not smile. "You have by now read The Book of the City of Ladies, have you not, Anna?" "I have." "Then you should tell us why the deck has no queens." "Because...," I began, but I hesitated, for my mind was racing far ahead of my voice. I wished s..
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Robin Maxwell |
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0554a31
|
I'd endured his nonsense as long as I was able before telling him that Mrs. Fournier's life was her own business and that if he wished to make himself useful to me he would point out the sights and explain the things I was seeing.
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Robin Maxwell |