Favourite Famous Quotes I: Facebook ones...

I take life with a pinch of salt, a wedge of lime, and a shot of tequila.

(Now this is from a magnet I got after my first year of Uni and it really applied to how I take things in life! I really do take a shot and hope for the best in the end... alcoholics anonymous here I come!! I am sure I will be in Rehab with Amy Winehouse anyday soon!! LOL)

All great things are simple, and many can be expressed in simple words: freedom, justice, honour, duty, mercy, hope. (Winston Churchill)
(Great man! And a very true quote. What would happen if every single one of us did this? If we were all merciful, hopeful and fair where would the world be? And if we all promoted honour and duty, would there be any yobbos on the street? I dunno, sometimes I wonder what Winston would have made of this world... and btw, I dont think he is by any means totally innocent. He could have been reminded of this speech at the Nuremburg trials... Why did the English, American, Russian and French never go on trial themselves?)

Although prepared for martyrdom, I preferred that it be postponed. (Winston Churchill)
(This quote made me LMAO (laugh my arse off!!) I would like t be remembered for something good, but you know... not RIGHT now!!)

History will be kind to me for I intend to write it (Winston Churchill)
(Oh so true!! I am gonna be there writing it... go me, wee historian!! Go, Gal!! Go!!)

Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination. (Oscar Wilde)
(This just makes me wonder... I live within my means... and i am seeking inspiration to spend it!! haha!! I like the idea, that if you can't take this money with you then you might as well do something exciting with it!!)

Mortality, like art, means drawing a line someplace (OW)

Oscar Wilde was a very wise man. This quote almost makes dying art in itself. Death is afterall just drawing a line underneath line. Hopefully there will be more afterwards!

Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much (OW)
(Btw this works, I have done it... they never live it down, even after you are friends years afterwards. They never understand why and it gives you a good feeling!)

Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes (Ghandi)
(I have made many mistakes, and I have learnt a lot from them. It also means we can come to see other's errors and realise they are no less or more than us. It is equalising!)


An eye for an eye makes the world blind (gandhi)
(Heard this in a film before I realised this was said by Ghandi... Revenge really doesnt solve anything... see above!!)

"I'm just a fucked up girl looking for my own piece of mind" Clementine Kruczynski (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind)

(I am a fucked up girl and I am looking for my own piece of mind... solved? oh God no... see my blog!!)

How happy is the blameless Vestal's lot! / The world forgetting, by the world forgot / Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind! / Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd.

(see my first ever blog...)

You find a glimmer of happiness in this world, theres always someone who wants to destroy it. (Finding Netherland)
(I love Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet in this movie, but this quote is so right. I work at a place where relationships with children are confiner by what we can and cannot do. We can't even hold thier hands if they are lost. What the world has come to, I do not know, but it is true... you do something pure, honest and good, and there will be one person to think it is wrong!)

I am a nice shark. Not a mindless eating machine. If i am to change this image, i must first change myself. Fish are friends, not food!
- Bruce (Finding Nemo)
GREAT QUOTE!!!

"You seen my girlfriend, tall, thin, legs for days?"
"Yeah. I pitched her overboard." (Center Stage)
*AGAIN HUMOROUS WITHIN THE CONTENT!! DAMN BALLET DANCERS!!)

The next man that laughs is gonna get his head ventilated.
- Bill Hickok (Calamity Jane)

When a man gets tired of London, he is tired of life (Dr. Johnson)

Thought the harder, heart the keener (ESEEX UNIVERSITY MOTTO)

"If his unpleasant wounding has in some way enlightened the rest of you as to the grim finish below the glossy veneer of criminal life and inspired you to change your ways, then his injuries carry with it an inherent nobility and supreme glory. We should all be so fortunate. You say poor Toby; I say poor us." Sphinx
"He spoke." Tumbler
"Hey man, I thought you were from Long Beach." Memphis (Gone in 60 seconds)

"Nobody is as mysterious as they think they are" Claire Colburn (Elizabethtown)

"It takes a great deal of courage to stand up to your enemies, but a great deal more to stand up to your friends" Dumbledore (VERY TRUE! :s)

"Thoughts could leave deeper scarring than almost anything else" madam pomfrey

How much easier it is to be critical than correct. -Disraeli (REMEMBER THIS WHEN CRITICISING OTHERS....)

We make a living my what we get, we make a life by what we give. (Churchill) A MOTTO TO LIVE LIFE BY I THINK. IF WE ALL LIVED BY WHAT WE GAVE, WE WOULD ALL BE IN POVERTY...

Politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed. (Mao Tse Tung) TO BE HONEST THOUGH I CONCEDE BOTH ARE SOMETIMES NECESSARY, I DON'T LIKE EITHER.

"In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you." Mr Darcy (BEST NOVEL EVER- JOINT WITH PERSUASION- ROCK ON JANE AUSTEN!!)

"Can't you tell me off the record?"
"Off the record, I like to be kissed before I am fucked." (Blood Diamond)
GREAT QUOTE. THIS FILM IS ACE!! SEE IT!! SOUTH AFRICA/GREED/MONEY/CORRUPT/HOT LEONARDO DICAPRIO WHAT ELSE CAN YOU ASK FOR... ALSO- SEE THE DEPARTED!! WITH MATT DAMON IN WITH LEO!!

Charles I: The Ignition for the English Civil War?

I was sorting through some of my paperwork from university, clearly very well organised in a huge box *please hence the sarcasm on that one*. I always seem to be immaculately tidy right up till revision time and then everything becomes tangled and messy, mainly because I could never face the prospect of flicking back through all the paperwork again after the exam just in case I realised I made a devastating mistake!

Anyway, I am deviating again... I came across my last essay for a course in the first year where I got a first. It was broadly named "Society, Culture and Politics in Early Modern Europe" or some such... it was an ace course where we covered everything. It included the English Civil War and working at the castle now, people, who want to know how we came to have a Civil War. It is hard to explain in a sort span of time, without seemingly either lecturing or shortening it to the point of historical criminality where I miss out key bits. Anyway, I often remark that Charles I was his own undoing in some ways... and here my conclusion of my essay I found in my pile of notes explains... Perhaps I could be accused of historical criminality as I am missing out quite a chunk of what happened... but go along with it for me, please??

Unfortunately for Charles I, his reign was based on 'personal monarchy', where his personality determined the style, efficiency and effectiveness of his rule. It was apparent that Charles lacked a strong personality. His readiness to defer duties to others was a dangerous weakness and the flaw that should never be present in a monarch was inconsistency and a bad judge of character. When his main advisor and friend, Duke of Buckingham was assassinated, Charles was left to his own devices. However, instead of getting back onto his feet, he turned to his wife, who he came to rely heavily on. She was all too eager to fill the vacant position of political favourite despite her lack of knowledge of the country she resided in and the fear she invoked in the nation (she was a French Catholic in an unstable Protestant country who also had uneasy relations with the French).

Although Charles was under no obligation to call parliament and they were often only called when the monarch needed them, usually for money. However, Charles pushed his authority too far. He did not call parliament for eleven years and had 'illegally' used Ship Money (which was to be used only for when the Navy needed to be equipped due to a national emergency) to supplement his income, which caused many people to think he was determined to subvert the laws and customs of England, especially when he proclaimed that he had forbidden any one to talk of calling another government. The historian Margaret James argues that the Reformation and the evolution of more democratic political thought have a link. Luther had proclaimed that no Christian should be ruled except by his own consent, a potentially destabilising idea for a monarch who believed in the 'Divine Right of Kings'. Religion had provided a political basis for opposing Charles' rule.

Charles also added to this link between religion and politics. Although he did not think politically, he did think that “kingship was a sacramental concept” and that if he traded parts of it away, like he thought the first parliament he called was asking him to do, he was committing the act of sacrilege. His rule and how he ruled was directly linked to God and religion. He was actually politicising religion further and the saying "If you give a man enough rope, he will hang himself..." the same could almost be said for Charles and his dogmatic insistence that he was handpicked by God to rule.

This ties back into the idea of a 'personal monarchy'. Charles refused to budge on how he ruled and he upheld backward and frail institutions in a religiously divided nation with social and economic problems. The majority of the nation hated the outdated feudal system he insisted on keeping and he was lengthening his own rope. The historian, John Morrill, agrees: “the personal weakness of the monarch could in themselves cause the collapse of order” and it did. Indeed Charles was so inapt in his role as monarch that he agitated matters.

Of course, there were inherent problems in English society which long preceeded Charles I. Henry VIII and the Reformation had unbalanced society long established on the Catholic faith. This religious issue had not been helped by Henry's son and two daughters, who first killed Catholics, then Protestants and then Catholics again for heresy. Social and economic problems had been a long time grievance of the peasantry. The history of religious and social issues with additional current social problems were a key issue and provided a strong base for discontent in society, but I genuinely doubt whether it would generate enough fervour to drive the nation to decapitate their monarch. However, the ministers that helped dispose the King- what was their motivation? They did not share the same despair at failing crops as the peasantry did. They would not starve, just see a dent in their profits. It was political. And Charles. They really had a grievance with Parliament not being called for 11 years. They no longer welded political influence and this is what irked them! Charles failed at keeping the masses happy (there was no rise in real wages, a rise in rent and in food costs and the Poor Law wasn't coping) and also at keeping his ministers happy with regular meetings and any attempt at showing a caring, listening ear.

The revisionist historians, such as Morrill, believe that the ‘revolution’ was caused by the monarchy, not the people, (and also by the Scottish and Irish, not the English, which I will delve into later perhaps). I believe that the offensive prayer book of 1637 forced upon the Three Kingdoms in an attempt to try an unite them is an example of how Charles was politically ignorant and exacerbated already highly strung tensions in his country. Three very different countries with very different religious beliefs. Elizabeth I and James I had never tried to unite them.

Religion and politics were so interwoven that religious reforms have a political context, which Charles did not recognise and this blunder cost him dearly. If Charles had been politically more astute, the social, religious and political problems would have been kept suppressed, as previous monarchs had done. However, Charles’ tactless handling of both social and political problems with the addition of exacerbating religious division created the Civil War. And he lost his head for it.