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Bettie's Books

A Stuga On the Cusp of the Orust Riviera, tucked away next to a hobbit hole in the woods.

The Essays: A Selection

The Essays: A Selection - Michel de Montaigne, M.A. Screech

bookshelves: radio-3, winter-20112012, fradio, france, play-dramatisation

Recommended for: Brazilliant Laura
Read from January 05 to 11, 2012

 

** spoiler alert ** From wiki - The Duke Francis helped to defeat the Huguenots at the Battle of Dreux, but he was assassinated shortly afterward, in 1563. His son, Henry of Guise, became the third Duke of Guise (1550–1588). He helped plan the infamous St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre and was responsible for the formation of the Catholic League. The death of the royal heir-presumptive, the Duc d'Anjou, in 1584, which made the Protestant King Henry of Navarre heir to the French throne, led to a new civil war, the War of the Three Henries, with King Henry III of France, King Henry III of Navarre, and Henry of Guise all fighting for control of France. Guise began the war by declaring the unacceptability of Navarre as King of France, and his control of the powerful Catholic League soon forced the French king to follow in his wake. Immensely ambitious, in 1588 Guise, with Spanish support, instigated a revolt against the king, taking control of the city of Paris and becoming the de facto ruler.



http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/...



blurb - In 1588, the essayist and landowner Michel de Montaigne, set out on a journey round the troubled kingdom of France. He was on a mission - to reconcile the Valois King Henri the Third, a Catholic, with his likely successor, the Bourbon King of Navarre, a Protestant. It's high stakes: intensified Civil War the consequence of failure.

Michel de Montaigne ..... Roger Allam
Peslier ..... James Norton
Catherine de Medici ..... Jane Lapotaire
Henri Navarre ..... Elliot Levey
Henri Valois ..... Sam Dale
Francoise de Montaigne ..... Sally Orrock
Marie de Gournay ..... Leah Brotherhead
Sergeant Soumillon ..... Adeel Akhtar
Captain Guyon ..... Lloyd Thomas
Courtier ..... Henry Devas

Directed by Jeremy Mortimer

Stephen Wakelam is a playwright, working first mainly in TV and now in radio. His TV work includes over twenty original films and plays, drama documentaries and adaptations. Amongst his recent radio plays are: the biographical What I Think of My Husband about the second Mrs Thomas Hardy (BBC Radio 4); The Pattern of Painful Adventures about Shakespeare (Radio 3); and A Dose of Fame about E.M. Forster (Radio 4). Other radio plays include: Answered Prayers; Two Men from Delft; and The Adulteries of a Provincial Wife. Stephen is the author of three stage plays, two of which premiered at the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs.