A Great Queen And A Wonderful Woman

“Elizabeth: The golden age” is a great movie. Many things called my attention. First, the way she ruled. That is to say, the way she manage the power she had. Even though she was a woman, she knew how to be respected. She had a counselor who was in charge of giving her advices about what was the best thing to do or not to do. She was independent and she received those suggestions very well, but she decided on her own. That is why she was called “The virgin queen”. She never got married and she didn’t have children. Every one told her that she had to get marry because she would need someone besides her. She proved that was not true. She governed by herself and she did it pretty well.

Another important topic for me was Mary Stuart, her cousin. She tried really hard to be the queen of England although she was in prison. Elizabeth attitude called my attention because even though Mary tried to kill her, Elizabeth, against her will, gave the order to cut Mary’s head.

The battle began after that episode. Philip II, king of Spain, sent the Spanish armada to England. This whole war started because of the differences those countries had in term of religion. While Spain was a Catholic country ruled by a Catholic King, England was ruled by a Protestant queen. England was divided because of this religious issue. Elizabeth didn’t want to force her people to be protestant; she wanted them to believe in what they wanted.
I believed that Philip II attacked England not only for religion problems, but also for interest. I looked for more information and I realised that he wanted Elizabeth to be his wife, but she rejected him many times. He wanted a more powerful empire, but at the end he left Spain with nothing but debts. Elizabeth defended her kingdom because she was a fair queen and she wanted the best for her people.

The movie is great, but I only have one disagreement with it. I looked for information and I realised that many aspects of the movie were changed. For example; Infanta Isabel of Spain, Philip II’s daughter, was depicted as a child, but in reality she was 21. Some more differences were that not a single ship was lost during the battle, and that Mary Stuart was half French and half Scottish, and it is presumed that her accent was more French because she lived there from the age of 5 until the age of 19.

The Stonehenge Mystery

For most people, they are only a bunch of stones, but for those who have gave their lives to study this monument, are something more important. Why was this built? What was the reason to create this monument? What is it importance in British history?

Some Archaeologists think they have solved this mystery. They think that this monument was created for people who wanted to be made well. That is to say, this monument was a “Healing Center”, were people who helped the ones who were ill were also cure. The Archaeologists believe this, because in their excavation they found some blue stones. This stones were used as amulet, and the people who wanted to be healthy were the ones who wore them.
You know what I think? Perhaps this stones were put there just because. Maybe the people, who put those stones, only did it because of what they will mean in the future.

I think we will never know the truth about these special stones, but I’m sure about one thing, this monument contributes to the Great Britain’s history. Adding different events is how we created Great Britain’s history, this is one of those events.

The ages of English

Many things happened during the 11th century, not only in terms of historical events, but also about language development. The Norman Conquest was one of those events. The battle of Hastings ended with William of Normandy in the power. William of Normandy invades England founding a new social and language era. During this time, William established French as a powerful language, although English continues to be the main language and continues to be used by the majority of people. Another important issue was that the Normans introduced feudalism to England and they also created the “Doomsday book” which was a book in which they administrated the taxes that the people had to pay to the king.

Due to the Norman intervention, English began to change. Grammar, word order, the creation of “had” and “shall” as auxiliary verbs, all these aspect changed because of the intervention of the Normans in England.

After reading this article I realised that the origins of English is really varied. A bit of different cultures helped to create the English that we are learning now and the English that we will teach in the future.