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Monthly Archives: December 2008

Sancha de Ayala’s heritage: the Ayala palace, Quejana (exterior)

[Part of a series of posts and pages dedicated to Sancha de Ayala] The first of a series of photographs of the rural Ayala castle at Quejana, home of Sancha de Ayala’s mother Ines, daughter of Fernán Pérez de Ayala and Elvira de Ceballos (who are buried in the chapel, along with Sancha’s famous uncle […]

the bearth of all my Children was . . . (Andrews—Mackworth)

Heavy, thick and dark, this book. It’s actually four books in one: a Book of Common Prayer, a (Geneva) Bible, a Concordance, and paraphrases of the Psalms. All printed in London, 1599 and 1600. A typical omnibus for devout and plain, but respectable if not substantial folk: a quarto, period bound in blind-stamped leather, much […]

cousin Frederick Gordon Brownell, of the Stackallan Brownells

For years I only knew him as a correspondent of my mother’s cousin Dick Brownell. After cousin Dick had visited the old Brownell home-place at Stackallan, County Meath, Ireland, in the 1980s, he corresponded with far-flung members of the Brownell family in Ireland, England, Canada, and South Africa. Long ago Dick showed me (and I […]