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Chronicle of a Bourgeois of Valenciennes
Récits d’un bourgeois de Valenciennes aka The Chronicle of a Bourgeois of Valenciennes is a vivid 14th-century vernacular chronicle written by an anonymous urban chronicler from Valenciennes in the County of Hainaut. It survives in a manuscript that describes local and regional history from about 1253 to 1366, blending chronology, narrative episodes, and eyewitness-style accounts of political, military, and social events in medieval France, Flanders, and the Low Countries. The work begins with a chronological framework of events affecting Valenciennes and its region under rulers such as King Philip VI of France and the shifting allegiances of local nobility. It includes accounts of conflicts, sieges, diplomatic manoeuvres, and the impact of broader struggles like the Hundred Years’ War on urban life in Hainaut. Written from the perspective of a burgher (bourgeois) rather than a monastery or royal court, the chronicle offers a rare lay viewpoint on high politics and warfare, reflecting how merchants, townspeople, and civic institutions experienced the turbulence of the 13th and 14th centuries. Its narrative style combines straightforward reporting of events with moral and civic observations, making it a valuable source for readers interested in medieval urban society, regional politics, and the lived experience of war and governance in pre-modern Europe.
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Sunday Morning Star is in Newspapers.
Divorced Duke (age 49) and Duchess (age 53) Entertain Together
It is getting to be so that a thing like a divorce seems to amount to nothing here in England. For example, the other night, the Duke of Westminster and his first wife, who is now the spouse of Captain James Fitzpatrick Lewis, acted as joint host and hostess at & ball given in honour of their daughter, Lady Mary Grosvenor (age 18), on the occasion of her debut1.
The ball was a very grand affair in the ancient town house of the Duke of Westminster, which the lady (once his duchess) had not entered since some time before she divorced him several years ago.
London has rarely seen a more brilliant and fashionable assemblage and the most interesting part of it was that couple standing at the top of the great stairway to receive their guests. Their charming daugher, Lady Mary Grosvenor, seemed quite at ease in spite of this astonishing detail of her coming out ball, and it is noteworthy that all the very brilliant and blue blooded‘ members of the smartest set in the world who were guests, took it as if they thought it quite a matter of course for a divorced couple, one of them remarried, to be standing side by side bowing and smiling at their friends. The Duke and Duchess were divorced in in 1910. They have met in public many times since then and always have seemed to be the very best of friends in spite of their agreement to disagree. The Duke is one of the richest men in the world, being surely worth $100,000,000. He spends much of his time on a vast estate in France which is stocked for the hunting of wild boar, or on his wonderful yacht, on which he cruises much in the Mediterrancan. This divorce was not his first experience of the kind. Before he married the lady who received with him the other night, he had made one unsatisfactory matrimonial venture.
Note 1. Lady Mary's 18th Birthday was on the 27th June.
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