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[endlessrarities]

I watched Episode 2 of the Tudors last night....  Will I make it through to the end of the series?  I really don't know.   One question begs an answer.  Why, oh why, have they cast a SCOT as the Earl of Surrey?  It's most offputting.  It's even more off-putting, considering that it was the Earl of Surrey's daddy who commanded the 2nd division army that minced the Scots at Flodden.  Oh, if only Jimmy IV had made it a few more yards and felled the man before a lucky Englishman brought him down with an arrow in the gob....

I feel chronologically dislocated when I watch The Tudors.  Because Henry doesn't age (apart from some rather dashing grey streaks in his hair/beard, etc.) I can't figure out the timeline.  Last night, there was a mention of Lord Hertford's military victory in Scotland, and there were references to the Scots King.  That gave me some kind of an anchor.  I deduced that the battle in question was the Battle of Solway Moss in 1542, but...   The Earl of Hertford was active later, in 1547 - during  the 'Rough Wooing'.  The latter was not a response to earlier Scots aggression, as dear Henry stated, but a punitive campaign designed to try and co-erce the Scots into falling into line with their English bully-boy neighbours.  The aim being to force the Scots into marrying the infant Mary to the young King Edward...    But by this time, James V was dead, his end hastened perhaps by the drubbing Henry's army gave his troops at Solway Moss.  Did the Scots bring this on themselves?  No.  This was Henry, being obnoxious, antisocial and revolting, and trying to push his smaller impoverished neighbours into doing things HIS way.  It wasn't the conflating of two historical events that really riled me.  It was the fact that the blame was being levelled onto the hapless 'uncivilised' Scots, who in reality were barely holding things together after the horrific debacle that was Flodden FIeld...

Gawd, I HATE Henry VIII.  To see him yowling with a superating ulcerated leg last night was actually quite gratifying. 

And now a quick garden report.  For lizziebelle , I'm posting this photograph, which was taken this morning:-

 

Spring is coming, though you mightn't believe it just now...

This year, I thought I'd post some progress photographs of the garden as I work my way through it.  Here's the front garden flower bed as it was this morning: wild, woolly, and full of weeds and dead stuff:-

 

Hopefully, it will look a whole lot better in a few months' time;

And now I've got to go.  It's Big Garden Birdwatch time...