the rich woman

+
preliminary thoughts.

I'm listening to 'Lady Rochfort" on CD in the car. It's another re-telling of the Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn saga, this time with the emphasis on Anne's sister-in-law. There is a lot of 'perhaps she saw', 'she may have known', and other evasions of the historical type - it's not really that good a history.

However, the author spends a great deal of time on lavish descriptions of the extremely lavish lifestyle of these royals. You want pearls, jewels and cloth of gold, it apparently was everywhere. Lady Rochfort and her husband, not even born royals, slept in a bed with gold statin and cloth of gold, under embroideried coverlets, etc.

Queen Anne had everything she desired. Food, music, dancing, clothes, jewels, deference.

And for such a short time.

I thought of using this as a story in the sermon - it could be Anne Boleyn, Napoleon's Josephine, Alexandra of Russia - all these women who felt the best was their due, and who fell because they did not see farther than their own comfort and imperial dignity. But their stories are not controlled by their own actions - in most cases they become pawns in a game played by men. Alexandra, the most tragic of all those names, is the one caught up in the most politically charged drama - the one who paid for her lifestyle with her life. (Anne paid with her life, but not for her wealth per se. Josephine 'retired' to a comfortable place, much reduced in circumstances, but not uncomfortable, until she died of cancer)

I'm fascinated and horrified in equal measures. How in smaller scale do we replicate those dynamics? Who, then, can be saved?
+