hever castle

hever castle is the childhood home of Anne boylen whom i love to study! so a bunch of us went down there, taking the train with four or more people is great! for when you have that number you get a discount on your train ticket so to hever it was only about 5 pounds each great price. so we get there feeling very Narnia children like especially when we got off at the station and it was practically a slab of cement and a building. later we saw a bus stop that looked even more like it it made me happy. then we had our mile long hike to the castle (the castle was more like a manor house but more on that later) after our very very long walk in Edinburgh and walking around london every day it really wasn't all that long or hard at all. it was rather calming to tell you the truth, after the rush and loudness of London( oh funny story that just happened tonight, we were walking back and this man was crossing the street, and a car came right up to him but he was still walking and right as he was passing the car honked at him and he just swung his bag out and smacked the car hard! he really didn't want to be honked at while he was walking, and this wasn't a young guy either this was an old man, it was rather strange actually) being in the country side with bushes on each side (they were used as fences) and just walking along at our own pace was fun. we even had a few other people who were going to the castle as well following us, for we had planned ahead and had a map of how to get there it was pretty simple its not like there was much else to go other than the way to the castle but still it was kinda fun having a decently large group walking together even though we didn't all talk with each other. when we got to the castle the base floor was apparently the more modern floor so i didn't have anything especially that i wanted to see there as i walked though it admiring the ceilings (they had very ornate ceilings, not that i have any pictures of it they wouldn't let us take pictures inside! so annoying!!) then we got up to the second floor (or first if your british) and came to Anne Boylens room! it was very tiny it was not much bigger than my room here.... well actually about the size of my original cave but she looked like she had a huge bed if the head board is any indication. there were many portraits of her and all the wives of henry VIII because hever castle was part of Anne Boylen's dowry and therefore when she was beheaded it became Henry's land and he gave to to jane seymore but she died then he gave it to Anne of Cleves in their divorce settlement, so it has passed through many hands. i made a discovery when in the room where they have the paintings of all of his wives and him. each wife has a different type of headdress, Catherin of Aragon the square headdress for it is more pious and english even though she is Spanish by the time she got married to henry she was english, Anne Boylen curved which was a french headdress for she had grown up in the french court and also she would not want to look anything like catherine of aragon for she had the hardest job of them all she started the divorcing process, jane seymore wore the square to be a foil to anne boylen who was considered bad at that time because she was seen as wilder so that's back to traditional roots, i don't count anne of cleves partially because she was foreign and partially because she was only married for like 6 months and because she doesn't fit into my pattern, i can't tell exactly what type of headdress she was wearing it was weird... then we get back with Catherine howard who has the circular headdress she is actually a relative of anne boylens through her mother i do not think that she is wearing the headdress as a rebellion or a foil against someone else for anne of cleves was apparently not very pretty and catherine howard supposedly was, in some ways too pretty for she got herself killed, then you have the only unscathed survivor catherine parr, again with the square headdress could be going against what catherine howard was because catherine parr was a more moderate woman who got all of the royal children back with their father. each of his wives was the opposite of what the last one was but if you look at it there were more moderate then radical women only two of them were "wild" and those were the two who got their heads chopped off. the more moderate woman just got divorced well catherine of aragon got slowly killed while being divorced. all this to say hever castle is pretty cool in its history in the winter, it has beautiful gardens i'd say but since its still winter i they were not very pretty right then. we had a lot of fun though. as i have finished this i will now get ready for a day of classes and a new british heritage and culture teacher where we shall be going to the national portrait gallery tomorrow which i might write on, so until later
from london with love