Word: courtiers
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Worse yet, the man-eater in Catherine was not enough for Actress West; she insisted on encompassing the Empress as well, and far from spoofing the imperial manner, tried to outdo it. When a courtier reminded her that "They also serve who only stand and wait," she replied "Quoting Milton's 'prome', I presume!" She had sponged up enough history to soak her play with wars, uprisings and palace intrigues. But the excitement was conveyed in dialogue that had the specific gravity of lead, and the results, when not merely sedative, were often crushing...
Meanwhile a grey-haired courtier with "wrinkled visage, deep-set eyes . . . walked nervously in the gardens" a stone's throw from Will's brothel. The courtier's name was Sir Edward Dyer, known to literati mainly as the author of a rather smug poem called My Mind to Me a Kingdom Is. No one guessed his secret, but for years, says Author Brooks, Dyer had been getting Shakespeare to buy bad plays for him and had rewritten them into the classics we read today. As a gentleman, Dyer had naturally not wanted his name connected with...
Whoever his successor is, Dr. Lang will almost certainly be the last archbishop of his kind (just as he is the first unmarried Primate since the Reformation). The 20th Century does not breed his type of courtier-bishop. Since he first caught Queen Victoria's eye in 1896 with his tactful eloquence and for being "so human," he has been the friend and confidant of the royal family-except for Edward VIII, who called him a "sanctimonious humbug." He also is strong-willed and not afraid to speak his mind, even went to the unpopular extreme of defending...