Lydia > Recent Status Updates

Part 4: Aleina and their baby rendezvous with Jack in Paris (they name their baby Tommy); Jack is given the gift of the Weeping Madonna by a Saracen in Spain, which he plans on taking to Kingsbridge. Jack picks up the latest architectural knowledge in France. Jack also names himself Master Builder of the cathedral. He also meets his extended paternal relations in France. His father's name is Jacques Cherbourg.

Part III ends with the death of cathedral builder Tom, who never told Prior Philip or his child Jonathan that he was his father. William Hamleigh and his knights sack the city of Kingsbridge. William also destroys Aleina's stockpile of wool. A fight with Alfred leads to Jack Jack to find out that his father was hanged for thievery. Jack agrees to become a monk under threat of banishment by Prior Philip.

At the end of Chapter 5, the US has used its tactical weapons on China; Russia has reclaimed its territory; the Iranians threaten the Strait of Hormuz; an Indian cargo ship has been taken over the elements of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Officials in China and India have made some observations about Americans and their leaders.

Completion of Chpt 2 saw the Naval inquiry of Capt. Sarah Hughes, the sinking of her flotilla, including her flagship John Paul Jones by the Chinese Navy and the capture of Maj. Chris Mitchell by the Iranians.

Chapter 1: A US Navy Capt. Sarah Hunt, commodore of Destroyer Squadron 21, is patrolling the international waters of the South China Sea with a small flotilla of her Squadron when the unit comes across a supposed unflagged fishing trawler, with suspicious equipment Meanwhile, Maj. Chris "Wedge" Mitchell is testing new aerial surveillance equipment in the skies near the Iranian border in the Strait of Hormuz.

Finished Chapter 1

Started reading "A Room with a View" on 2025 July 11.

I have finished "Howards End." Of this volume it's 271 pages for the novel, with the final 96 being "A Room with a View."

On pg. 189, the end of Chapter XXVII of this 271 pg version of “Howards End.” The Schglel children, now adults, are forced to leave their longtime home of Wickham Place, Howards End, the longtime home of the striving Wilcox clan is up for lease also. Although not available to them, Meg Schglel agrees to marry Henry Wilcox to the dismay of his children and siblings of Meg, Helen and Tibby.

Howard's End Finished Chapter 11, pg. 71 of the 271 page version of the novel. The 11 chapters are in introductions to London-based Schlegels, ancestry Germans and country based Wilcoxes, who are the inhabitants of Howard's End, a home that principally belongs to Ruth Wilcox, family matriarch. It is her death, which takes everyone by surprise and is the catalyst for this novel.

Have read through Chapter 8 and the dismantling of gains by blacks from Civil War through Reconstruction. The compromise by whites lead of a change from the Republican Party in the South to the Democratic Party and the beginning of "states rights" in dealing with its black citizens. Rutherford B Hayes was elected President due to this compromise. The Jim Crow era is about to begin.

Part V: Catherine Parr is now a widow (again). Henry VII has passed on and is buried with the only wife he may have loved, Jane Seymour in St. George's Chapel, Windsor.

Completed Part IV: Anna of Cleves and Katherine Howard

Very short reigns as Queen for both young women. Anna was very lucky and Katherine, not so much.

Completed Part III: Jane Seymour

Completed Part II Anne Boleyn

Wife #1: Catherine of Aragon (Spain)