Rhubarb 2020

ST EDWARD’S r h u b a r b

A Marvel to Behold: Gold and Silver at the Court of Henry VIII By Tim Schroder (C, 1967-1971) Timothy Schroder was Curator of Decorative Arts at the Los Angeles County Museum and a Consultant Curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Current and recent roles

- to explore this lost collection and the light it sheds on the monarchy. While the focus is on plate and goldsmiths’ work, the context ranges from court ceremonial to rivalry between princes, the role of the church, the vulnerability of persons and institutions with covetable assets, and relations between the king and his own family. Bringing the existence and significance of these lost riches back to life, the book sheds new light on Henrician and Tudor court culture. The eminent historian Diarmaid MacCulloch has praised the book writing: ‘ This is an absorbing account of two lost worlds: one is a world of the mind, in which magnificence was as important to a monarch as a formidable army - the other a world of beautiful objects, nearly all of which have vanished. Timothy Schroder’s special achievement is to guide us through these lost worlds, and thereby enrich our understanding of Tudor England.’ In

B O O K S

include Prime Warden of the Goldsmiths’ Company, President of the Silver Society and a Trustee of the Wallace Collection. Publications include English Domestic Silver, The Gilbert Collection of Gold and Silver and British and Continental Gold and Silver in the Ashmolean Museum. Henry VIII amassed the most spectacular collection of gold and silver of any British monarch. Plate and jewels were hugely prominent in medieval and Renaissance courts and played an essential role in dynastic marriages and diplomacy as well as in cementing the bonds between king and court. This book makes use of the wealth of surviving documentation - inventories, drawings, lists of payments, dispatches by foreign ambassadors and other records

his review David Starkey commented: ‘Timothy Schroder recreates this lost world of magnificence with vivid prose, scholarly flare, and lavish and carefully chosen images… This is a jewel of a book.’ Recently published by Boydell and Brewer A Marvel to Behold is dedicated to Malcom Oxley (MCR, 1962-1999).

The Go (o)d Year By Simon Boreham (C, 1953-1958)

St Edward’s Martyrs in the Cricketer Cup 1969-2019 By Julian Lawton Smith (D, 1967-1971) To celebrate the 50th

Simon attended Teddies during the time of Warden Kendall, going on to study Economics and Political Science at Trinity College Dublin before emigrating to Canada in 1960. He has written a volume of poems, Fortunes of Love , and two novels available from Olympia Publishers, The Fisherman’s Story (2017) and The Go(o)d Year (2020). The Go(o)d Year is about twins, one an angry atheist who plans to kill the world’s religious leaders whilst the other seeks to be a joyfinder. The surprising PostScript also includes poetry. This is an extract from Chapter 1: “The twins were born in 2001 at the Maimonides Medical Center, Borough Park Brooklyn, during the aftermath of the September 11 attacks on the New York Twin Towers.

anniversary of the Martyrs’ participation in the Cricketer Cup in 2019, Julian has produced a book which records each of their 82 matches. As well as including a scorecard of each match, he has attempted to capture the spirit of the competition through recollections and anecdotes from those who played. See p35 for details. Copies of the book can be obtained from the OSE Office for £10 + £1.50 p&p.

As the terrorist attacks were unfolding in New York, Washington DC and near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, a hurricane was spinning off the north-east coast. A weather satellite image showed Hurricane Erin 500 miles east-south-east of New York with the smoke plume from the World Trade Center twin towers after they were hit. Winds out of the north-west blew smoke and debris from the disaster in Lower Manhattan into Brooklyn. Hurricane Erin would not make landfall in the north-east as the westerly winds gave Erin a final east-north-east shove. How different circumstances might have been on the fate of the Twin Towers and perhaps on the astrological chain of events affecting the birth of the twins if Hurricane Erin had taken a different path and made land fall over New York.” Available from Olympia Publishers, Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Waterstones. Simon is now writing The Joyfinder , an intimate review of his early life and final Coronvavirus days memoir, in the style of J D Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye .

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