Remember the ladies and include the men.
I wrote my first Catherine of Braganza post about a decade ago. In it, I expressed how a certain painting of her cracked me up. An accident? It’s almost as if she’s pointing at the crown. Time went on, and most of her portraits included the crown and sovereign orb.” That painting was still in … Read more
MIL Henrietta Maria, Catherine’s mother-in-law, was a very valuable mentor to Catherine. The Dowager Queen gave tips on how to handle situations with her son and how to throw get togethers. MOM Luisa Guzman was sly and knew how to motivate her husband to fight for the Portuguese crown. She was more than just a … Read more
If Catherine had lived today, she would enjoyed watching reality TV—especially the talent competitions. I’m being highly speculative of course, but I could see her dreaming of the Dancing With the Stars’ Mirror Ball Trophy. I also collaged a recently discovered painting with some people speculating its subject was a young Catherine. I’m not sure … Read more
The pages that explore personal sacrifice were a tad bit emotional for me. The top left picture shows Portugal’s grand send off of their infanta to England to become England’s Queen. (I think the artist is Dirk Stoop?) It’s a celebratory moment, but a young woman is still leaving the home she loves. She was … Read more
A lot of Catherine’s youth hasn’t been revealed/pieced together that well. It makes me frustrated anyway, but maybe if complied properly, she could have had her own book in The Royal Diaries series. The next best thing for me was making her a stereotypical teenage, scrapbook type collage. The biggest thing to stand out is … Read more
The Portuguese Princess has landed! The King’s new consort! England has a new queen-and bride!!! Citizens were excited to know what she looked like. And many then-like now-were curious and love a royal wedding! If you were close enough to witness the cute bride, you were gifted a bow from the bride’s wedding dress. What … Read more
I speculate all the time what these biographical subjects would like or how they feel. I can’t stand to read a lot of that fluff though, but I thought I’d get out all my fluff in a book… A glue book! Or scrapbook…collage book? Whatever type of book I put together is, it’s part of … Read more
Catherine and Charles’ marriage didn’t end in divorce, but it wasn’t exactly a success. The man had many mistresses before and during their marriage, but the couple stayed on somewhat good terms. Would Charles’ character had been different if he hadn’t had access to so many women? If he lived today, would he had signed … Read more
Thanks to Sarah-Beth Watkins’ Catherine of Braganza: Charles II’s Restoration Queen, we finally get a solid biography of the Portuguese princess turned queen of England. As the title suggests, this biography mainly concentrates on Catherine’s years as queen consort to Charles II. However, Watkins does nicely provide a rare glimpse of Catherine’s life before her … Read more
Before Michal returned to David, she probably had some sort of knowledge that David took on more wives. Perhaps Abner filled her in on more details on their way to Hebron. Accepting or not, nothing could have fully prepared her to be in the presense of his other families. David’s wives are obviously one of … Read more