Petition to the Sun King

Dear almighty Sun King Louis XIV,

I have recently been informed of your ever-so-important revoking of the Edict of Nantes. This Edict or decision was originally created by  the previous King, Henry IV, who we all have come to realize was French protestant before converting to Catholicism in order to cause no trouble while taking the throne of France. You are obviously the best king of all though, and I’m sure that you have very good and important reasons for revoking such a long-lasting document.

 The real reason for me to write this letter, or petition, to you is to present to you the idea that you should consider bringing back the edict entirely. Now, I’m sure that this fact of me having the tenacity to suggest such a thing may be frustrating, but I promise you that I shall not waste your time as I tell you the reasoning behind my thinking. There are several people in France that I know of that practice French Protestantism such as I do, and we believe that it is unfair that you would force us, Huguenots, to leave the country of France due to the judgment of the dominant religion, Catholicism.

   

Not to mention that fact that if we do abide by this religion even so, you as a King has declared that we may not sell our properties or any of the objects we own in order to gain some sort of profit while entering into new lands. I think that you do this in vain in order to prevent us from leaving your beloved country and so that we are left with the one option of converting to the dominant religion.

One flaw in your thinking is that the majority of the people you are forcing to leave are not only hard-working but have managed to compile enough wealth to leave your country with ease, regardless of whether or not you are allowing for their properties to be sold. Even if you did have the Edict revoked, that is not going to stop the French Protestants of France from moving in order for them to avoid persecution.

And with that, I propose to you this petition that, from the amount of people to sign this, will prove to you that you need to keep the Edict in effect so that your people will not only stay but be loyal to you. The choice is yours all powerful one, and I mean no harm or harshness throughout what I have said. I only wish for what is best for all of the people in France, including yourself. So if you’d be so kind and consider heeding my words that is all I ask of you.

Sincerely,

One of your educated Huguenots

Pictography: "Edict of Nantes." Wikipedia Commons. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/31/Edit_de_Nantes_Avril_1598.jpg/330px-Edit_de_Nantes_Avril_1598.jpg

Executions and Blood-letting, Nothing new

London, England, January 15th 1664


This post represents how daily life might of been as a common folk in 17th century England.


I awoke at dawn to what seemed as though another rather uninteresting day, or at least it had been the normal day layout to me. At a fairly quick pace, I rose out of my mattress and began to dress myself for the day to come. Once I had put on my knee breeches as well as my waistcoat and long jacket, I put on my insect-infested wig due to some whit hairs on my head and strolled out of the door post haste, not eating anything anything before I left.

Luckily, several events occurred that peeked my interest. I started the morning off by witnessing the execution of a man, most likely a criminal or fugitive, whilst everyone in the town was gathered around. Once the head of the man had been sliced off of the rest of his body, the executioner took out the heart of the man's now lifeless body, for all the people of the crowd to see. This excruciatingly brutal act entertained the majority of the people that had huddled to spectate the event, but that wasn't anything new.

Although, the streets of our very own London seemed to be equally as gruesome. The aroma you smelt the instant you had stepped on the roads was enough to drive you right back into your abode. On top of that, dead corpses of stray cats, dogs, and other various animals filled the streets which caused an awful feeling in your stomach causing you to almost regurgitate. There were also very few sewers for the surface water, resulting in a all-around unpleasant jog down the street. But, as terrible as it appeared, it was normal and home. I mean, men and women's hygiene wasn't something to be proud of either..

Regardless, I carried myself through the day and walked past the other events going on around me. One time, I stopped to look inside of a small house which from what I could tell was that of a doctor's, even though he honestly looked as though he has as much knowledge as me when it came to medicine. I watched as he slowly slit a cut with a cleaned off knife into the arm of another citizen, who from afar I could tell needed the bloodletting in order to help him.

The next thing I happened to get a glance of was a man among the other common folk who looked as though he was attempting to flirt with a nice maiden. You could very easily tell that she was uninterested in him, and that he was being frowned upon by the several people in the vicinity of him. It was very uncommon of people , not just common folk, but people as a general whole to hint at or especially do sexual acts that would result in illegitimate births. After taking a moment to appreciate the fact that I hadn't ended up like him, I continued on my way.

By now it was beginning to get dark, around mid-day, and by then I had endeavored in other entertaining activities such as walking in a royal park and observing the ever-so-fun sport of bear-baiting. Now I decided to treat myself and eat a very delectable dinner. There was an wide array of meats, fish, vegetables, and a side of weak beer. This feast took me a while to devour entirely, but after a bit of time I had swallowed everything down. Once that was over with, I had ended the day early and gotten myself into bed once again. Although it was very average, this was fairly good day in comparison to what could have happened.

Bibliography:
Picard, Lisa. "Sex, Lice, and Chamber Potsin Pepys' London." 17 February 2011. British Broadcasting Company. http://tinyurl.com/LondonDayintheLife.

Pictography:
"17th Century London." Drawing illustrating 17th Century Life in England. Blopspot.com. http://sphotos-g.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/581052_343706905737819_447989164_n.jpg

The Journey of the Pilgrims

Currently within our Honors History 9 class, we have begun to divulge the history of the Mayflower and what life was exactly like for the pilgrims. In order to do this, we were given an assignment that has to do with the book Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War by Nathaniel Philbrick. As a class, all of the students were divided into groups and each individual student was given a role that included them to complete certain tasks as we read two chapters titled "The Heart of Winter" & "In a Dark and Dismal Swamp" from the book. Then, once each of us completed our tasks and read both chapters, we got back into our groups we had formed to discuss our personal findings and opinions about the book. 

After Reading the first two chapters found within the book, I noticed that a few certain things stood out to me about the book. Some of the key topics or information I have found throughout the chapters were the exceptionally large death toll from illness and the harsh conditions, as well as the pilgrims overall relationships and connections between them and the Native Americans they had stumbled across. Overall I would say that the author stated details and facts very clearly so that it was easy to follow along and understand. But, I thought that the author lacked giving the book a sort of story style telling to it, resulting in the passages being fairly boring and just filled with facts rather than from any perspectives of the pilgrims or Native Americans.

As far as the author's particular style of writing and how he wrote the book, I would say that Nathaniel did a great job to give readers a detailed insight into what actually happened to the pilgrims through various historical facts. Keeping that in mind, one thing that I disliked about the author's writing was how Nathaniel didn't show much emotion or empathy a all throughout the entirety of the passages. This made any tragic events or any important moments within the book seem quite boring or insignificant. I felt that although he did give us the information we were looking for, that he needed to add some perspectives or feelings of people within the chapters to grab our attention or make us immersed in the story.

Overall though, I would recommend the book to anyone who wants to be well acquainted with the knowledge of the true story of the pilgrims. But if the person enjoys sort of an action filled or fast paced story line, I think that you should most likely look elsewhere for a more interesting book about the Mayflower. I, on the other-hand, enjoyed the book enough so that I will consider reading more chapters within it. If i had to give a rating for this book, I would give it about 2.5 or 3 stars out of 5.