Prince Albert and the great diamond debacle by Karla Stover

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The entire diamond business rests on two supports—vanity and greed.

                                                              1997, anonymous

In 1850, James Andrew Broun-Ramsay. Earl of Dalhousie and India’s governor-general had the Koh-i-Noor diamond “sewn and double-sewn into a belt secured around his waist, one fastened of the best to a chain around my neck,” and left Lahore for Bombay where the gem would start its journey to England. “My stars! What a relief to get rid of it,” he wrote a friend.

Though it may be older, in 1304 the diamond is known to have belonged to Allaudin Khiliji, the Emperor of Dehli. Five years later, records written in Hindu reveal a curse was place on it—to wit: “He who owns this diamond will own the world but will also know all its misfortunes. Only God, or a woman, can wear it with impunity.” The gem was returned to its place of origin, Samarkand, in 1339.
Curse or not, the diamond was gifted by the Sultan Ibrahim Lodi to Babur Muhammad, founder and first Emperor of the Mughal dynasty. One of Babur’s descendants, protected the diamond and passed it on to his heirs.

Sadly, the dynasty was weakening and in 1739, the Persian general Nadir Shah went to India intending to conquer the throne. The reigning sultan lost a decisive battle and surrendered to Nadir. It was Nadir who first called the diamond Koh-i-noor, meaning Mountain of Light. After his assassination in 1747, he lost the “Light,” and Generals, Ahmad Shah Durrani became the next owner. In 1813, his descendants, Shah Shuja Durrani took the stone back to India and gave it to Ranjit Singh, Maharaja of Punjab and founder of the Sikh Empire.

Enter Great Britain whose forces defeated those of the Punjab and confiscated their properties. The Koh-i-noor was transferred to the treasury of the British East India Company in Lahore. The diamond was shipped to Britain on a ship where a story goes that cholera broke out and the keeper of the diamond lost it for some days before his servant returned it. On July 3, 1850, the diamond was handed to Queen Victoria. Shortly after, and in keeping with the curse, a man named Robert Pate struck her in the head while she was riding in her carriage.

In 1850, while the queen was giving birth to Prince Arthur, getting a diamond, and getting hit, her husband Prince Albert was working on the Great Exhibition, the first-ever international exhibition of manufactured products. People wanted to see the famed diamond, so it was put on display. A near riot ensued when crowds mobbed the building in which it was housed. For their efforts, the people were met with disappointment. Indian diamond cutters polished to preserve size not for maximum brilliance, and the Koh-i-Noor just didn’t sparkle.

Prince Albert undertook the task of making the stone more attractive to the western eye. He called in experts to examine the diamond and eventually chose a Dutch firm. In 1843, Queen Victoria made the House of Garrard the court’s Crown Jewelers. First, a small steam engine was assembled there, the cutters arrived from Holland, and the Duke of Wellington rode up on a white charger to watch. The engine driving the grinding wheel was fired up. The protective wrap made of lead was removed to reveal the first bit of the stone that was to be ground off. The price put the gem on the diamond Scaife grinding machine and the first angle was made.

All in all, it took 38 days for the Koh-i-Noor to “reduce the diamond from 186 carats to 108.03. Prince Albert was dismayed at the loss of weight, and rumors of the curse were repeated. In the end, Queen Victoria only wore the diamond occasionally. Her will stipulated that only a female queen should wear the Koh-i-noor, or if the head of state was a man, his wife would have to carry the diamond. After her death, the Koh-i-noor became part of the Crown Jewels.

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Vjaya Schartz' newest release from BWL Publishing Inc. Angel Mine an Fantasy Adventure sizzling with romance

Angel Mine

by Vijaya Schartz

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Setting Goals and Achieving Them...

 Off The Grid - by Rita Karnopp ~ Living in the woods, surrounded by nature, is a fantasy of those living within the unethical confines of society.  But when you’re seventeen, even thinking about walking through the woods conjures up ghastly visions.

   Taylar must forgive her father’s intentional betrayal of bringing her family to live in the remote Bob Marshall Wilderness in Montana.  Hundreds of miles from civilization, she must put aside her fears and do her part to help her family survive the challenges of dense wilderness, mountain lions, bear, rattlesnakes, and the worst animal of all – man.

Will their father realize that their neighbors aren’t what they appear to be . . . before it’s too late?  Will her almost sixteen-year-old sister, Brook, who loves hunting and nature, have what it takes to guide them out of the untamed wilderness and back to civilization?

I'm often asked how I work full-time and write several books a year ... and my quick response is ... I set goals. 

I firmly believe if you set a goal ... you can achieve anything.  Some days it's a struggle and others ... not so bad ... even good.  But the feeling you get from reaching that goal is beyond rewarding.

Here are three simple steps on setting goals and achieving them.  Setting a goal is important – in every aspect of your life.  Personally and professionally.  For most of us, creating a goal brings about a positive change. The bottom line is when you write down a goal, you’re creating a challenge for yourself. There are three things you need to remember when setting goals.

First, you must write It Down -  Once you’ve written that goal on a piece of paper … you’ve made a commitment.  Put that goal somewhere you’ll look at it often, or pass by several times a day. Like your refrigerator or on your computer.  It’s important to remember … write your goal in the positive.  For instance, don’t write, “I need to lose twenty pounds.”  Instead write, “I'm excited to lose twenty pounds by July 1^st, 2018.  Now you have a defined goal and a deadline date.  Keep in mind – a goal should be written in a short, easy sentence.

Second, break down your goal … so it’s manageable.   Maybe you’ve set a goal to lose twenty pounds.  Saying I’m going to lose twenty pounds not only sounds horrifying … the reality is it’s going to be a difficult thing to accomplish.  That's why you need to break your goal down into its different parts, because smaller goals are easier to handle. Losing twenty pounds seems overwhelming, but losing a pound a month for ten months is doable.

The third part of setting goals is to read your goal at least once … even twice a day.
Let’s face it, we get busy and your goals can sometimes be a nuisance … or you just don’t feel like striving toward that goal.  Unacceptable.  You’ve written down your goal and you’ve posted them where you know you’ll see them often. Your fridge, bathroom mirror, or on your computer.  Now it’s time to reinforce that goal.  Read your goal with enthusiasm, out loud, and with commitment.

This one sentence reminder can help you reach those goals … and it will change your life.  I have proof … I’m forty-two pounds lighter and I just finished my 19^th book, Secrets of Echo Cave (releasing in September 2018).  Without goal setting … I doubt I’d have achieved any of it.

Does Explicit Sex Sell Books? by June Gadsby

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Explicit sex – yes or no. Does it sell books? This is the question that’s been bugging me for years. And my husband has been begging me ever since we met to put more sex in my stories. In a bookshop he picked up a copy of Jackie Collins’ “Hollywood Wives” and told the shopkeeper: “My wife could write like this!” “You lucky man!” was the shopkeeper’s response. My husband bought the book – the only one I’ve ever known him to buy, read it at great speed and remarked that I could do better than that. Me? I’ve shied away from writing sex in my novels or reading sexy books all my life.

But let’s face it. Books that contain sex – especially the explicit kind and plenty of it – sell, and the author becomes famous. The reading public seem to love it. From Lady Chatterley’s Lover to 50 Shades of Grey, people get as passionate as the characters in the books. And they buy. You hear of a book that hasn’t hit the marketplace yet, but word is out that the sex content is pretty hot, so it becomes an immediate best-seller before anybody has read it.

Admittedly, one or two of my books contain gentle, inoffensive sexual or sensuous scenes, but I’ve never been comfortable with the explicit side of sex. At my age it may be too late to change, but having taken some time out from writing and just about everything else that was my normal life, thanks to some health problems, my brain has been working on the new planned novel, “Forbidden”. Well, the title just cries out for explicit sex of one kind or another and while I worked out the story in my head because I couldn’t sit at the computer, little pockets of explicit sex wove their way into the jungle of words that will one day soon flow from my brain to my fingers and then to the keyboard and screen.

Suddenly, I want to be up there with the sexy writers who give more readers than I have what they want. Dare I do it? Why not? It’s not, after all, ‘forbidden’.

JUNE GADSBY.

Looking for Love with Terri Richards

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Love is ON the Air

                What woman hasn’t called, texted, or met with a friend to discuss how a date went or how a relationship is or isn’t progressing? From the time we are still in grade school, when we ask “Do you think he likes you? What did he say to you?” it seems we are programmed to love hearing about love.

                Maybe that’s why there’ve been countless movies, books, and TV shows with a relationship at their center. However, in 2002, reality TV took romance to a whole other level with its show The Bachelor. ABC actually passed on the idea when it was first presented to them, but when the creators said they thought they could get a proposal at the end, ABC decided to take a chance. It worked out well for the network. Twenty-two seasons later, the show has become one of television’s biggest successes. It averages eight million viewers in the US, and there are variations in eighteen countries that include the Middle East, South America, Australia and Russia. The US also has The Bachelorette, Bachelor in Paradise, and The Bachelor Winter Games.

                Bachelor Nation, as it now likes to call itself, has spawned fantasy leagues, drinking games, and viewing parties. In just one US season, The Bachelor garnered more than 22 million dollars in advertising revenue. And it seems that there is not a day that goes by in which some current or former Bachelor contestant is featured in articles on the Internet. Yet, ironically, only two of the twenty-one US Bachelor pairs are still together. The Bachelorette has a little better statistics with 6 of the 13 still a couple. By this time, it’s clear, that for most, the perfect romance will sour soon after the final credits. So why do we still watch in such huge numbers?

                Some have speculated it’s because of our innate interest in dating stories. We like to hear about, read about, and talk about romance that is unfolding. Even if we’re not sure what we’re seeing on the show is completely real, it feels as if we get to tag along on fantasy dates and watch developing relationships filled with both romantic promise and tearful frustration. 

                Some say The Bachelor franchise is so popular because men talk about their feelings and emotions on the show. In real life, it’s often hard to get men to do that, so women are fascinated to hear the show’s hunks let themselves be vulnerable and express their emotions freely.

                Knowing how popular the whole franchise is now, I wondered what it might have been like to first imagine such a reality show and then pitch it to get it on the air. Though my new novel, Looking for Love, is in no way related to The Bachelor, it was a lot of fun to create characters who were a part of a crazy journey into reality TV romance. It was interesting to envision no real budget or developed plan for what would happen once the show got the okay. In the end, I think Looking for Love shows readers that romance is and is not what we expect it to be.

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Getting to Know Rosemary Morris

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After hours, during which I write and deal with writerly matters, gardening provides welcome fresh air and exercise.

A keen organic gardener, apart from ornamental flower, trees and shrubs, I grow a wide variety of vegetables. I also grow herbs which I use for medicinal purposes to make tea – hot or cold peppermint is one of my favourites - and to flavour food.

I utilise the front and back gardens to grow vegetables, herbs and fruit in the style of an English cottage garden. This week I replanted my strawberries in the front garden near them are several rhubarb plants.

Rhubarb, my first crop this year, has flourished. Sometimes, I have a bowl of stewed rhubarb and plain organic yoghurt for breakfast, or a rhubarb crumble or pie for dessert. If the crop is bountiful I make rhubarb chutney.

In the back garden there are raspberry canes, black currant, redcurrant and gooseberry bushes and fruit trees – three dessert apples, a cooking apple, two pear trees, a plum, greengage, damson and peach tree. Blueberries grow in large pots of ericaceous compost. In large containers placed against a wall at the back of the house are a kiwi and a grape vine. (Mind you, when I planted the kiwi I didn’t know it would be seven years before it fruited.)

Every year some crops fail and some flourish. Last year I stored apples and ate the last ones in December. This year, in early spring, heavy snow fell then, after which, apart from four days of very high temperatures, it has been cold, wet and windy. Even during breaks in the unseasonable weather, when the sun shines the wind chills me. An onslaught of overnight rain ripped the blossom from the plum tree, which produced approximately fifty pounds of fruit last year.

The greenhouse is full of plants waiting to be transplanted when the soil is warm, and although seeds will be sown later than usual I hope the garden will reward me. By the end of the year there should be home grown vegetables in the freezer and shelves of homemade jams, jellies, chutneys and pickles on shelves in the cupboard.

As well as being a keen gardener, I am a dedicated vegetarian cook. So, is the hard work worthwhile? Yes, the flavour of organic, homegrown food is superb. The taste of a sun warmed strawberry or tomato is superior to those bought in shops.

A family favourite is my homemade ice cream for which the recipe is quick and easy. I have an ice cream maker but provided the mixture doesn’t become too thick to pour out it can be made in a blender.

Ice Cream

8 ounces of soft fruit e.g. strawberries or ripe mango (which does not grow in England).

6 ounces of sugar

3 quarters of a pint of full fat milk.

A quarter pint of double cream.

Blend the ingredients. Either tip the mixture into a container and freeze it or tip it into the ice cream maker and freeze it when it is ready.

The Pot and Pineapple aka Gunters

In 1757, Italian pastry cook, Domenico Negri had set up business. His Italian style ice cream and water ices soon became popular, and so did his ready-made savoury and sweet confections, such as Cedrati and Bergamet Chips, Naples Divolini, biscuits, marshmallows and other treats.

In 1777 James Gunter became Negri’s business partner and by 1799 he was the sole proprietor the owner in the late eighteenth century his pastries, sweets and ice creams became famous.

By the Regency era, Gunters, a famous confectioner’s shop, opened in Mayfair, on the east side of Berkeley Square 

Famed for sweetmeats, pastries and fruit ices, members of the fashionable beau monde ordered desserts from Gunters to be served at their balls and large parties.

To keep up with the demand there was an enormous ice house underneath his premises, so he was able to offer a wide variety of ice cream which included varieties such as elderflower, orange and lemon and parmesan cheese.

Ladies did not go for a drive with gentlemen in closed carriages, but they could go for one open ones. Respectable females neither dined nor partook of refreshments in hotels, pie shops or patisseries. So, resourceful gentlemen parked their vehicles by the railings in Berkeley Square, and crossed the road to ice cream from Gunter’s. On busy days, waiters dodged the traffic to serve the patrons.

Gunters’ popularity continued in the Victorian period, was patronised by royalty, and supplied the wedding cake for Queen Victoria’s daughter, Princess Louise.

The end of an era came after the east side of Berkeley Square was demolished between 1936 and 1937.

Gunters moved to Curzon Street and in 1956 the tea shop closed but the catering business continued until 1976.

Ice Buckets and Iced Puddings

The cream custard for iced pudding or ice cream mixture was poured into a container which was placed in a pewter ice bucket filled with pounded ice and salt. After rotating the bucket with a handle for ten minutes, the frozen mixture around the edge of the container was scraped off with a spatula. The process continued until the pudding or ice cream was smooth and firm enough to be put in a mould and put into the ice bucket. To serve, the mould was dipped in warm water to loosen the pudding which was tipped onto a dish.

Sunday’s Child

Heroine’s Born on Different Days of the Week

Book One – Back  Cover

Georgianne Whitley’s beloved father and brothers died in the war against Napoleon Bonaparte. While she is grieving for them, she must deal with her unpredictable mother’s sorrow, and her younger sisters’ situation caused by it.

Georgianne’s problems increase when the arrogant, wealthy but elderly Earl of Pennington, proposes marriage to her for the sole purpose of being provided with an heir. At first, she is tempted by his proposal, but something is not quite right about him. She rejects him not suspecting it will lead to unwelcome repercussions.

Once, Georgianne had wanted to marry an army officer. Now, she decides never to marry ‘a military man’ for fear he will be killed on the battlefield. However, Georgianne still dreams of a happy marriage before unexpected violence forces her to relinquish the chance to participate in a London Season sponsored by her aunt.

Shocked and in pain, Georgianne goes to the inn where her cousin Sarah’s step-brother, Major Tarrant, is staying, while waiting for the blacksmith to return to the village and shoe his horse. Recently, she has been reacquainted with Tarrant—whom she knew when in the nursery—at the vicarage where Sarah lives with her husband Reverend Stanton.

The war in the Iberian Peninsula is nearly at an end so, after his older brother’s death, Tarrant, who was wounded, returns to England where his father asks him to marry and produce an heir.

To please his father, Tarrant agrees to marry, but due to a personal tragedy he has decided never to father a child.

When Georgianne, arrives at the inn, quixotic Tarrant sympathises with her unhappy situation. Moreover, he is shocked by the unforgivably brutal treatment she has suffered.

Full of admiration for her beauty and courage Tarrant decides to help Georgianne.

At heart I am a historian, so Sunday’s Child is rich in historical detail.

Novels by Rosemary Morris

Early 18^th Century novels

Tangled Love, Far Beyond Rubies, The Captain and The Countess

Regency Novels

False Pretences, Sunday’s Child, Monday’s Child, Tuesday’s Child, Wednesday’s Child, Thursday’s Child – to be published in July 2018

Mediaeval Novel

Yvonne Lady of Cassio. The Lovages of Cassio Book One

www.rosemarymorris.co.uk

http://bookswelove.net/authors/morris-rosemary

Hangman Jack Ketch by Katherine Pym

Buy Here

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~****~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tyburn Tree

Hangmen have been hated throughout history. After all, they killed people. Some of these men found their calling so appealing, they took their jobs to a new level. Jack Ketch was one of them.

Little is known of the man except he was married to a woman named Katherine. Almost always drunk on and off the job, he was a sadist and an artisan in his field.

He loved torture and knew how to delay death. He’d purposefully botch jobs. When at a hanging, he tied the noose around the victim’s neck so that the knot was awry. Once the prisoner was shoved off the back end of a cart, their necks wouldn’t break and the person would dance the jig while he choked to death. Loved ones would run under the gallows to aide in their deaths or pay Jack to bring a quick end. They hung on the body until the trachea snapped.   

A Gibbet

Other lucrative perks included: Payment to torture a person. He’d receive monies when he sent corpses to Surgeon’s Hall for dissection. He auctioned off lengths of the noose at a nearby tavern, sell the dead body’s shoes and clothing.

For the dead who committed treason, Ketch quartered them beneath the gallows. When he gibbeted corpses, he’d retreat to his chambers (later called Ketch’s Kitchen) in Newgate Prison, where he parboiled the cadavers then covered them in pitch to keep the flesh from rotting too quickly. These gibbets, a large cage, were hung at crossroads or busy byways as a warning to passersby.  

Ketch was not a good executioner. He preferred other methods than the axe. Maybe, he wasn’t burly enough to wield one, or he did not look handsome as he swung it toward a person’s neck.

Lord Russell saying goodbye

Lord Russell, executed for high treason.

Ketch chopped on Russell’s neck so often, missing his mark or only maiming him, (One stroke hit his shoulder.) that those who watched became incensed by his cruelty. Later, Ketch felt impelled to write an apology.

“'The Apologie of John Ketch, Esquire in vindication of himself as to the execution of the late Lord Russell, 21 July 1683.' Ketch repudiated the charge that he had been given 'twenty guineas the night before that after the first blow my lord should say, "You dog, did I give you ten guineas to use me so inhumanly?..”

This exchange must have thrown off Ketch’s aim, but it does not explain how he could have bungled the execution so badly. John Evelyn who wrote a journal during this time, described the messy affair as done in a ‘butcherly fashion’. 

Duke of Monmouth

When it came to the Duke of Monmouth in 1685, Ketch had not improved his disposition or attempts to make a clean kill.

“At Monmouth's execution, 15 July 1685, Ketch played a prominent part. Monmouth, in his address to him on the scaffold, alluded to his treatment of Russell, and this appears to have totally unnerved him. After three ineffectual blows he threw down the axe with the words, 'I can't do it,' and was only induced to complete his task by the threats of the sheriffs. Sir John Bramston {Autobiog. p. 192) and others confirm the fact that Ketch dealt at least five strokes, and even then, according to Macaulay, he had recourse to a knife to completely sever the head from the trunk (Macaulay, Hist.; Somers Tracts, x. 264-5).”

John Evelyn again at the execution, he wrote that the crowds would have torn Ketch to pieces had he not been guarded.

Ketch not quite getting it right

Ketch died in 1686 or 1687.

~*~*~*~

Thanks to:

Wikicommons, public domain

https://londonhistorians.wordpress.com/2011/04/19/jack-ketch-bodgy-axeman/

https://www.express.co.uk/expressyourself/95619/The-vilest-prison-in-Britain

Hanson, Neil, The Great Fire of London, in that Apocalypic Year, 1666, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., NJ USA 2002

Sidney Lee, editor, Dictionary of National Biography, Vol XXXI, Kennett-Lambart, Macmillan and Co. NY, London, 1892