Showing posts with label Queen Victoria. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Queen Victoria. Show all posts

Monday, September 26, 2022

Queen Victoria--Tricia McGill

Find all my books on my BWL author page here.

As we move into a new era after the passing of our beloved Queen Elizabeth who lies in state as I write, prior to her funeral in a few days’ time, my thoughts returned to another long serving Monarch. Until her death in 1901 Queen Victoria’s reign of 63 years and 7 months was longer than that of any previous British Monarch. What was known as the Victorian Era was a period of industrial, political and scientific, not to mention military change within the United Kingdom. This era was marked by a great expansion of the British Empire and in 1876 the British Parliament voted to grant Queen Victoria the additional title of Empress of India.

Victoria was the daughter of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn who was the 4th son of King George111 and Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. Raised under the close supervision of her mother and comptroller John Conroy, Victoria did not have a particularly happy childhood. Inheriting the throne at the age of 18 she attempted to influence government policy and ministerial appointments. She was identified as having strict standards of personal morality. In later years Victoria described her childhood as melancholy under her mother’s set of rules and protocols devised along with the Duchess by Sir John who was rumoured to be the Duchess’s lover. Their main aim was to render her totally dependent on them.

Victoria married her first cousin Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha on 10th February 1840 in the Chapel Royal of St James’s Palace and was apparently completely love-struck. She wrote in her diary the evening after their wedding: “I Never, never spent such an evening! My dearest dear Albert—his excessive love and affection gave me feelings of heavenly love and happiness I never could have hoped to have felt before. He clasped me in his arms and we kissed each other again and again. His beauty, his sweetness and gentleness—really how can I ever be thankful enough to have such a husband! To be called by names of tenderness I have never yet heard used to me before was bliss beyond belief. Oh! This was the happiest day of my life.”

During Victoria's first pregnancy in 1840, in the first few months of the marriage, 18-year-old Edward Oxford  attempted to assassinate her while she was riding in a carriage with Prince Albert on her way to visit her mother. Oxford fired twice, but either both bullets missed or, as he later claimed, the guns had no shot. He was tried for high treason, found not guilty by reason of insanity, committed to an insane asylum indefinitely, and later sent to live in Australia. 

Her first daughter, also named Victoria, was born in November 1840. The Queen apparently hated being pregnant, viewed breast-feeding with disgust, and thought new born babies were ugly. Nevertheless, over the following seventeen years, she and Albert had a further eight children: Albert, Alice, Alfred, Helena, Louise, Arthur, Leopold and Beatrice.



After Albert’s death in 1861, Victoria plunged into deep mourning, avoiding the public. She came to rely increasingly on a Scottish manservant, John Brown. Rumours appeared in print of a romantic connection between the two, and some articles even went as far as calling her Mrs. Brown. Their relationship was the subject of the movie Mrs. Brown. Victoria praised Brown highly in the book she published titled ‘Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands.’


After her death in 1901 Victoria was succeeded by her son Edward V11 of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. As a last request, her favourite pet Pomeranian Turi was laid upon her deathbed. Among the mementos that she requested be put alongside her in her coffin was one of Albert’s dressing gowns, plus a plaster cast of his hand. A lock of John Brown’s hair along with a picture of him was placed in her left hand and concealed by a bunch of flowers. There was also a ring owned by John Brown’s mother that was given to her by Brown.

 


More information of her long and eventful life can be found here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Victoria


Tricia McGill Web page


Monday, January 29, 2018

Ada Lovelace, a cameo in “Victoria”




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261 years young & still delighting audiences...


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Ada’s cameo in “Victoria”



Like other history fans, I’ve been watching Masterpiece Theater’s latest offering, Victoria, wand marveling over the sets, costumes, as well as admiring the work of the actors. Here, in the title role, Jenna Coleman, (who I was not a great fan of during her Dr. Who days,) shows what she can do—and, let’s face it, anyone with a neck like she has deserves all the starring roles she acquire!

Much of “Victoria” is concerned with the royal family's sturm und drang. At simplest, the series is a high-minded and elegantly dressed soap opera, but it's also a wonderful entertainment for history junkies like myself. Beyond the scope of this television series, the Queen’s lengthy reign--only recently surpassed by that of her descendant, Elizabeth II—ranged from the birth of railways and wide scale industrial development, through the time of Industrial Robber Barons,  and all the way to 1901.

“Victoria” has been giving me fascinating glimpses of politicians whose doings I studied for “O” and “A” levels, figures like Victoria’s first Prime Ministers, the aristocratic, old-school Lord Melbourne, and his opposite, Sir Robert Peel, son of a wealthy industrialist. Peel, a Liberal in Tory clothing, championed modern criminal laws and policing, and even managed to pass a “radical” 3% income tax upon the rich. Although he did not do so quickly enough to have much impact on the horror of the Irish famine, he eventually repealed the protectionist, onerous-to-the-poor Corn Laws.

I was beyond delighted the other night , however, when Charles Babbage and his friend, Countess Ada Lovelace, and appeared on the scene. In “Victoria,” Lady Lovelace and Charles Babbage speak with the Queen while Babbage's complex and never completed “Difference Machine” (a forerunner of the calculator) is on display.



Ada was a rare bird in her time, an aristocratic woman who joyfully engaged with mathematics and logic. She has been credited, along with her mentor and friend, the inventor Charles Babbage, with having laid the groundwork for modern computing.  (Babbage’s scientific fame initially came from his work creating a book of Logarithm tables, a handy resource that until recently, every engineer kept close at hand.)
The Difference Machine, a calculator, hand cranked and hand-made, 
2,000 brass parts now resides in Science Museum of London. 
This too makes a brief, cameo appearance in "Victoria."

Babbage was working on an “Analytical Engine,” a machine which could do long computations mechanically, thereby removing the risk of human error. After he’d spoken before an Italian Scientific Society about his plan, one of the attendees, Luigi Menabrea, wrote a long in-depth article describing it from copious notes he’d taken. Ada enters the story when she offered to translate the article from Italian for Babbage.

Charles Babbage by Samuel Laurence (Wikipedia)

I’ll now quote Stephan Wolfram, mathematician and famed creator of Mathematica
   
“As something of a favor to Babbage, she (Ada) wrote an exposition of the Analytical Engine, and in doing so she developed a more abstract understanding of it than Babbage had — and got a glimpse of the incredibly powerful idea of universal computation.”*

“Ada Lovelace was the first person ever to glimpse with any clarity what has become a defining phenomenon of our technology and even our civilization: the notion of universal computation.”

As pleasurable to me as was the scene of the meeting between Ada and the Queen--as well as introducing Prince Albert into the equation (he was a patron of the sciences and all the new technologies)--well--my inner researcher/a.k.a. KILLJOY simply had to discover whether this had actually happened. That led me to Professor Wolfram’s comprehensive Wired article. Sadly, like many tantalizing scenes from historical movies, it transpired that neither Ada nor Babbage ever met Victoria or her forward-thinking husband in any sort of semi-informal, discursive social situation. 

Still, I'm grateful to the creators of "Victoria" that they gave us a warm, sympathetic glimpse of Ada, Countess of Lovelace, who has been justly elevated to be one of the 19th Century heroines of science. She's a fascinating human interest story for any little girls who are about to begin tackling math and science in elementary school.  

Who knows what Ada and Charles might have devised together had she lived-- and had been able to keep the roving interest of her polymath mentor focused on the Analytical Engine? But instead, tragically, and at what loss to science we shall never know, Ada died at 36 of ovarian cancer. Stephen Wolfram, in the article linked below, was sufficiently intrigued to speculate about what might have happened if she's survived as far into the century as her mentor Babbage. What a subject for any writer of alternate history!

Florence Nightingle, nursing pioneer and another of Ada's famous friends, wrote: “They said she could not possibly have lived so long, were it not for the tremendous vitality of the brain, that would not die.”




Ada, The "first software programmer," from iQ UK


If you are interested in learning more about Ada, check out these articles:

 iQ
https://iq.intel.co.uk/ada-lovelace-the-first-computer-programmer/

Wired(c), Untangling the Tale of Ada Lovelace by Stephen Wolfram, 12.22.15

The Mathematica site, for Wolfram's revolutionary mathematical "assistant":

http://www.wolfram.com/mathematica/




~~Juliet Waldron
See all my historical novels @
https:www.julietwaldron.com






Thursday, January 26, 2017

God save the Queen--Tricia McGill

Find all Tricia McGill's Books We Love titles HERE

It amazes me how even today a vast majority of people are fascinated by the British Monarchy. Magazines make a lot of money publishing pictures and anecdotes of members of the Royal Family, be they British or otherwise. I, personally, am a monarchist. Arguments go on here in Australia about whether or not we should become a Republic. http://www.republic.org.au/ If it isn’t broken don’t fix it is my motto. I admire and respect Queen Elizabeth, who has done a marvelous job throughout her long reign, and I do hope she can continue until the day she passes on. Just my humble opinion.

One of my brothers met Queen Elizabeth at Portsmouth when she visited one of her Royal Navy minesweepers that he served on after WW11. His only comment I can recall was that she was tiny and had lovely skin. My eldest sister, Doris, also met Her Majesty here in Australia on one of the Queen’s early visits. I seem to recall my sister was more worried about one of the other waitresses who had the audacity to be showing an inch of her under slip. That just didn’t do in front of the Queen. Doris was introduced to the Queen, which gave her something to talk about for years.

Another monarch who has fascinated me over the years is Queen Victoria who ruled the United Kingdom of Gt Britain and Ireland from 1837 to 1901. Many authors are also intrigued by the Victorian Era, as shown by the books set in that period. Mind you, it is not so much Victoria who holds my interest as her large family. And being a romantic at heart I pictured this idyllic love affair between her and her beloved Prince Albert, and their perfect life surrounded by their many children conceived through that love.

Alas, my previous opinions concerning Queen Victoria were completely shattered recently when a programme aired on BBC TV; Queen Victoria’s Children. What a fascinating insight into that royal family.
And what an eye-opener. Far from being this devoted family, wholly content within their blissful cocoon, they were what today might be considered dysfunctional to say the least.

My heartfelt thanks to historian Jane Ridley for some of the following facts, mainly taken from her book Bertie: A Life of Edward V11, published by Chatto & Windus:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/sep/14/bertie-life-edward-vii-jane-ridley-review  

Victoria and Albert’s marriage was a love match of course, but in time their picture of perfect domesticity was proved a lie. The four sons and five daughters were born due to Victoria’s insatiable infatuation for her prince. The façade shown to the world proved to be so different to the actual facts.

Because, in the 17 years of their marriage, Victoria was pregnant a lot of the time, the Prince ably took on her heavy workload. This annoyed hell out of her and they were caught in this power struggle, which caused endless rows, some shaking the walls of the palace as she stormed about slamming doors. This makes her more human to me, as my husband and I had many a door-slamming argument even though we dearly loved each other. Poor Victoria, although she loved her prince she must have been madly jealous when he made such a good job of the tasks he took on. Albert became terrified of these temper outbursts of hers and doubtless considered at times that she might have inherited the madness of George 111.

Truth was, Victoria detested being pregnant, even though she enjoyed the initial act of conceiving the babies. And over time she hated almost every one of her offspring. She brought in a wet nurse as she considered breast feeding ‘disgusting’. Her breasts were more for Albert’s pleasure than to satisfy her baby’s hunger. In her documented letters to several of her children and friends she admitted her dislike for her children. To be honest, she was a battle-axe of a mother, domineering and unlikable, never caring or soft. It seems most of them couldn’t wait to get married and away from her.
Bertie, the eldest, who later ruled as Edward V11 (and by all accounts made a not too bad job of it) was disliked, and even bullied, by both parents for his philandering ways. They both considered him a half-wit. Imagine! The story of his “fall from grace” when, while training with the army in Ireland, he smuggled a prostitute into his bed, is well known. Victoria and Albert must have been beside themselves with chagrin.
Victoria blamed Bertie for Alfred’s premature death because, after her husband visited his son at Cambridge where they took a long walk in the rain, Albert took sick. He died three weeks later, but it is probable the rain soaking had nothing to do with it. The cause of death was likely typhoid. Victoria could not bear to have Bertie near her and for the next 40 years of her life wore black as she mourned her Prince. The public saw her as a pathetic grief-stricken widow. We now know the story is very different.
In fact her pathological need to exact control of her large family caused her to send informers and spies out to report back to her on all of her offspring. I found it inconceivable to hear that after Bertie married Princess Alexandra, Victoria went so far as to get the doctor to report back on everything, even Alexandra’s menstrual cycle.
Victoria once remarked that Bertie was like her. Obviously she was right, for Bertie was highly sexed, and had a bad temper. His saving grace was that he was charming. At least he has been praised for the way, in later years, he modernized the British monarchy.
Victoria’s other sons didn’t fare much better with their mother. Dear Leopold, a hemophiliac, was described by Victoria as "a very common-looking child". What kind of mother can’t stand the looks of her son? She did her best to wrap him in a cocoon as if he was an invalid, appointing a bully of a servant to look after him. Leopold won the chance to study at Oxford after a long battle with her. He was only 30 when he died. What a miserable existence he must have endured.
The only son who was anything like his father was Arthur, later the Duke of Connaught. He was her favorite, simply because he obeyed her.
As for the girls, Vicky, the eldest daughter, couldn’t escape her mother’s interference even after she married Fritz, the heir to the throne of Prussia. Victoria wrote to her daughter almost every day, trying to manipulate their lives in Germany. And when Vicky became pregnant what did her mother say? The “horrid” news upset her dreadfully.
Thank goodness Vicky, and her sister Alice, also married to a German prince, decided to defy their mother and secretly breastfed their babies. Of course Victoria found out and was furious. I imagine all the children were scared of their mother at any given time. Because she was also their sovereign they were compelled in some way to obey her.
The youngest child Beatrice (known as Baby) was kept at home. Baby was terrified of her mother. Victoria refused to speak to her for 6 months after Beatrice told her that she had become engaged to be married to her own German Prince. Thank goodness there was one daughter with the courage to rebel. Feisty Louise refused to marry her mother’s choice, and chose Lord Lorne, the son of the Duke of Argyll instead. Sadly this proved a bad choice as it was a disastrous, unhappy marriage.
Perhaps I should not be so harsh on Victoria, for she herself was brought up by an overbearing mother who designed “The Kensington System”.
This consisted of a strict set of rules concerning the upbringing of the future Queen. Victoria grew to hate her mother, who was strict to the point of being brutal. Victoria also hated her mother’s lady-in-waiting Lady Flora Hastings.  Doubtless Victoria felt released from her mother’s clutches when she married her handsome Prince Albert. But then all these babies began to come along, putting a curb on her own pleasures, presumably fostering her resentment. They often say a bully breeds a bully. Hopefully this trait wasn’t passed on to her offspring. I can't help but wonder just why she didn't look more kindly on her children considering her own miserable childhood.

Queen Victoria’s letters are available in some form from most online book sellers.
Find her scrapbook here: http://www.queen-victorias-scrapbook.org/contents/3-3.html  

Tuesday, July 26, 2016

Extraordinary women—Tricia McGill

I recently watched the movie “Queen of the Desert” starring Nicole Kidman. It chronicled part of the life of Gertrude Bell, traveler, explorer, archaeologist, writer, linguist, and the greatest female mountaineer of her age. To be honest I had no idea who this woman was, but the movie had me intrigued about her amazing life and exploits. Her bravery and astonishing thirst for life left me breathless. After reading up on her I came to realize that the movie just skimmed over a very small part of her life story.

Gertrude Margaret Lowthian Bell was born on July 14 1868 in Washington, Co Durham. 
Her family were iron masters. In 1886, Bell went up to Oxford, where she became the first woman to win a first-class degree in modern history. She taught herself Persian and traveled to Iran in 1892, where her uncle was British ambassador. Gertrude became political attaché for the British Empire at the dawn of the twentieth century. Her trips into the desert with just a few trusty men and camels were undertaken with aplomb, and without a trace of fear for her own safety. Gertrude immersed herself in tribal politics and in 1914 made a dangerous journey to Hail, a town in northern Arabia that was the headquarters of a bitter enemy of Britain's new ally, the founder of Saudi Arabia, Abdul Aziz ibn Saud. In 1921 in Baghdad she drew the boundaries of what was known as Mesopotamia that became Iraq.

The movie depicted her as a rich woman who was unlucky in love and rather unhappy. Her first love affair ended in tragedy when her father rejected her lover. According to James Buchan she did have other lovers throughout her life but the movie only centered on two of them, and both affairs ended badly. She traveled around the world twice and gained renown for surviving 53 hours on a rope on the unclimbed north-east face of the Finsteraarhorn, when her expedition was caught in a blizzard in the summer of 1902. Gertrude died suddenly on July 12th 1926. The story was that she ran out of physical energy after spending so much of her life beneath the heat of the desert, but in truth she died of an overdose of sleeping pills, whether by accident of intention no one knows. She is buried in Baghdad, which seems fitting.


On researching strong women to match Gertrude through history I found many, but the following are just a few who stand out for me, mostly thanks to my history lessons at school.

Queen Elizabeth 1st of England was born in 1533 and died in 1603.

Elizabeth I, the long-ruling queen of England, governed with relative stability and prosperity for 44 years. More than a few movies have covered various parts of her life and reign. The Elizabethan era is named for her. Queen Elizabeth was born in Greenwich England. She was a princess, but declared illegitimate through political machinations. She eventually claimed the throne at the age of 25 and steered England through wars, and political and religious turmoil.

Elizabeth I, remains perhaps England's most famous monarch, apart from the present day Elizabeth. She grew up in complex and doubtlessly difficult circumstances. The daughter of King Henry VIII and his second wife, Anne Boleyn, she was just 2 when Anne Boleyn was beheaded on the orders of her husband, based on questionable charges of adultery and conspiracy. Elizabeth and her older half-sister Mary were declared to be illegitimate as Henry sought to pave the way for a male heir. They were later reinstated as potential heirs.

Elizabeth was raised like any other royal child, and received tutoring. She excelled at languages and music. After her father's death in 1547, Elizabeth’s succession became another pressing issue once she took the throne. She showed her talents as a diplomat, managing a number of suitors and potential royal matches during her reign. Queen Elizabeth died at Richmond Palace in Surrey. With her death came the end of the house of Tudor, a royal family that had ruled England since the late 1400s. The son of her former rival, Mary Stuart, succeeded her on the throne as James I. Although the end of her reign was difficult, Elizabeth has largely been remembered as being a queen who supported her people. Her lengthy time on the throne provided her subjects with stability and consistency. Sometimes referred to as the “Golden Age”, the arts had a chance to blossom with Elizabeth's support.


Catherine II of Russia was born in 1729 and died in 1796

Renowned as Catherine the Great, Empress of all the Russias, this remarkable woman was neither Russian nor originally named Catherine. She was born Sophie Friederike Auguste from Anhalt-Zerbst. Although a princess, she came from an obscure and impoverished German duchy. Her mother had royal connections, which resulted in a winter journey by 14 year old Sophie to St. Petersburg at the invitation of the childless Empress Elizabeth, who was seeking a bride for her heir, Peter.  On 21 August 1745, sixteen year old Sophie married Peter, then seventeen. Peter was also German-born, but the couple had little else in common. Peter was eccentric and loathed the country into which he was imported as child heir. He remained a supporter of all Prussian, especially the Prussian military, whereas Sophie came to Russia committed to doing whatever had to be done in order to qualify for the crown. She learned to speak Russian, converted to Orthodoxy, whereby she received the name Catherine, and with charm and determination cultivated long-term relationships with the powerful and well-connected.

After the death of Elizabeth in 1762, a swift and bloodless palace coup was all it took to remove the hapless Peter from the throne which he’d sat on for a mere six months. He was replaced by Catherine, and so this German princess with no Russian blood in her veins, and no legal right to rule, became the sole occupant of the Empire's throne. She governed for the next thirty-four years—longer than any of the country's other female sovereigns. We’ve all heard of Catherine's romantic liaisons, but in fact Catherine had about a dozen "favorites". The most famous were Grigory Orlov, an instrumental member in the coup that brought her to power, and Grigory Potemkin, a diplomat and military leader who may have secretly married her. Catherine was known for the generosity she showed her favorites, and was also smart at parting with them so there was little animosity. She died of a stroke at the age of sixty-seven, the oldest of any Romanov monarch, and is buried in the Cathedral of the Peter and Paul Fortress.


Queen Victoria was born in 1819 and died in 1901

Queen Victoria served as Queen of Great Britain and Ireland from 1837, and as empress of India from 1877, until her death. Born Alexandrina Victoria on May 24th in London, England, she was the only child of George III's fourth son, Edward, and Victoria Maria Louisa of Saxe-Coburg, sister of Leopold, king of the Belgians. Victoria’s father died when she was a baby and her mother became a domineering influence in her life. As a child, she was said to be warm-hearted and lively. She married her first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, in 1840. They had nine children who later married into royal or noble families across Europe which earned her the title of “The Grandmother of Europe”. Victoria went into deep mourning after Albert’s death in 1861.

Victoria became not only the most powerful woman in history being the Queen of Britain, but also head of a vast colonial Empire. She ruled for 63 years and despite having to share her power with the British Parliament, exerted a large amount of power over political decisions. She contributed to large political and social reforms, one being the Third Reform Act granting the right to vote to all male householders, thereby extending the vote to most British men.


Emmeline Pankhurst was born in 1858 and died in 1928.

Born Emmeline Goulden in Manchester, England she was the eldest daughter of ten children and grew up in a politically active environment. Her parents were both abolitionists and supporters of female suffrage. Emmeline was fourteen when her mother took her to her first women’s suffrage meeting. She chafed at the fact that her parents prioritized their sons' education and advancement over hers

In 1903, she founded the Women's Social and Political Union, which used militant tactics to agitate for women's suffrage. Imprisoned many times Pankhurst supported the war effort after World War I broke out. Parliament granted British women limited suffrage in 1918. Pankhurst died shortly before women were given full voting rights.


Joan of Arc was born in 1412 and died in 1431

Joan of Arc, nicknamed "The Maid of Orléans," was born in Domrémy, Bar, France. The daughter of poor tenant farmers Jacques d’ Arc and his wife, Isabelle, also known as Romée, Joan learned piety and domestic skills and never ventured far from home, taking care of the animals, and also becoming skilled as a seamstress. At the time of her birth, France was embroiled in a long-running war with England known as the Hundred Years’ War. This dispute began over who would be the heir to the French throne. By the early 15th century, northern France was a lawless frontier.

At the age of eighteen, military leader Joan of Arc, acting under divine guidance, led the French army to victory over the British at Orléans and became a national heroine of France. Captured a year later, Joan was burned at the stake as a heretic by the English and their French collaborators. She was canonized as a Roman Catholic saint more than 500 years later, on May 16, 1920.


Queen Boudica or Boadicea 
as she is more commonly known, ruled the Iceni tribe of East Anglia alongside her husband, King Prasutagus, at the time of the Roman conquest of southern Britain. Boudica was a striking looking woman, very tall, with a fierce look in her eyes. Her great mass of red hair fell down to her hips. Her appearance was said to be terrifying. She secured a place of notoriety in British folk history, mostly remembered for her courage as “The Warrior Queen” who fought the might of Rome. In 1902 a bronze statue of her riding high in her chariot, was placed on the Thames embankment next to the Houses of Parliament in the old Roman capital of Britain, Londinium.

Britain has produced many fierce, noble warriors down the ages who have fought to keep Britain free, but this formidable lady’s name will never be forgotten. She and her allies gave no quarter in their victories and when Londinium and Verulamium (St. Albans) were stormed, the defenders fled and the towns were sacked and burned. Famously, Boudica and her daughters drove round in her chariot before the battle, exhorting them to be brave. She declared that she was descended from mighty men, but was fighting as an ordinary person for her lost freedom, and her outraged daughters. She is said to have asked the men in the ranks to: “Win the battle or perish” as that is what she would do. If they wished to live in slavery they could do just that. But Boudica was not killed in the battle. She took poison rather than be taken alive by the Romans.


So, there you have it. By watching a movie that started me thinking on how women have made their mark in history I went in search of some other women who made a huge impression and in their own way proved a match for any man. And there are dozens more out there who proved to be just as brave, powerful, and inspiring as these few.
To read excerpts from this series and all my other BWL books please visit my website 




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