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Calorogus Shark Media. Hello and welcome to Palace Intry Game.
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Your host Mark Francis, now that with love, Meghan has
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joined the pantheon of great holiday specials. Tadler wondered, for
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all the royals who have presided over Christmas through the centuries,
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who really was the greatest royal host of them all?
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To answer that, we have to go back a very
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long way. For the British monarchy, Christmas and power have
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been intertwined from the start. The institution in the form
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we recognize today was effectively born on Christmas Day ten
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sixty six, when William the Conqueror chose that date and
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Westminster Abbey, the same abbey where King Charles the Third
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was crowned to be anointed King of England. From that
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moment on, the festive season became a stage on which
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monarch's signaled power, piety, wealth, or simple appetite. Over nearly
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one thousand years, Christmas at court has swung from raucous
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feasting and roaring fires to quiet family rituals and carefully
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decorated fur trees. In the Middle Ages, Christmas could be vast, noisy,
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and unapologetically extravagant, Henry the second even built a winter
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palace in Dublin purely for his Christmas rebels, where guests
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dined on crane, heron and peacock. Gift giving was often
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saved for New Year or Twelfth Night. Some of the
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presents were almost surreal. In thirteen ninety two, the citizens
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of London presented Richard the Second with a pelican and
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a one humped camel as Christmas offerings. This was not,
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one suspects, a minimalist decourse sort of household. Even the
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much maligned Richard the third knew how to throw a party.
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One contemporary, the Croyle and Chronicler sniff that during this
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feast of the Nativity, far too much attention was given
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to dancing and gaiety at Richard's court. That line could
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almost be pasted into a modern column about influencer Christmas
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excess minus thee mine. But for all the colorful plan
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aagonets and Tudors, Tattle's verdict, and it is a persuasive one,
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is that two names stand above the rest as truly
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great royal celebrators of Christmas, James the First and Queen Victoria,
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very much the king and Queen of two quite different
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festive worlds. James the First is in many ways the
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original go big or go home Christmas monarch. Raised in
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the relatively austere, often puritanical atmosphere of the Scottish court,
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he had to tread carefully in his early years at Sterling,
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Surrounded by strict religious opinion. He sometimes had to adopt
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a severe tone on Christmas observance to satisfy more rigid
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elements around him. But as his reign in Scotland wore
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on and he looked south towards England, he detected a
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strong appetite for something rather more indulgent. By the time
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he became king of both realms in sixteen o three,
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all that pent up festive energy was ready to explode
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once safely on the English throne. James was famous for
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his generosity, and critics would say his spendthrift nature. The
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beginnings of his reign and life was marked by heavy
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spending on celebrations and gifts, particularly for his Scottish favorites,
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a habit that alarmed his more hard headed English advisers.
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Christmas under James was initially centred on Hampton Court Palace, where,
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only six months after he took the English crown. He
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presided over his first English Christmas. There were great feasts, dancing,
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and crucially theater. One of the plays performed in that
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first season was a work called A Play of Robin Goodfellow,
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which we now know better as A Midsummer Night's Dream.
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Among the actors treading the boards was a certain William Shakespeare.
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As the rain went on, Whitehall Palace became the main
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stage for Christmas. Sprawling, messy and perched on the Thames,
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it was perfectly placed to impress foreign ambassadors and English
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courtiers alike. Its great banqueting house, later adorned with a
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ceiling by Rubens, was fitted out for elaborate masks, semi
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theatrical entertainments of music, dance, and dazzling costumes. The space
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could be transformed one configuration for court masks at Christmas,
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another for more brutal entertainments such as bear baiting with
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mastiffs with nets hung to protect the spectators. The floor
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was covered in green bays for dancing, creating a striking
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contrast under candlelight and enough grip for the performers as
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they moved through the intricate steps of the mask. Jacoby
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and Christmas Tide typically culminated in such a mask around
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Twelfth Night, works with titles like The Vision of the
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Twelve Goddesses, The Golden Age Restored and Christmas his Mask.
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James himself did not usually take to the floor. By
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the height of the season, over indulgence and age were
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catching up with him. Christmas under James was not just
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about excess. It retained a strong charitable moral to mention
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the rich were expected to give to the poor, and
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stories chosen for performance sometimes carried pointed messages. On Saint
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Stephen's Day, in sixteen o six, the court watched Shakespeare's
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King Lear, the tale of a monarch stripped of his
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power and reduced to the status of a beggar. For
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a king who had survived the Gunpowder Plot only a
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year earlier, it must have been an unsettling reminder of
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how quickly fortunes can turn. And yet for many of us,
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our mental picture of a proper royal Christmas is not
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Jacobean but Victorian, snow dusted evergreens, candle lit trees and
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a family gathered around a table at windsor Well Palace.
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In just a moment. If James the First is the
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patron saint of the riotous, boozy Christmas. Queen Victoria and
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Prince Albert are the architects of the cozy domestic one.
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Victoria grew up at Kensington Palace, where she relished Christmas
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from an early age. On Christmas Eve eighteen thirty two,
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as a young princess, she confided in her journal how
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much she was looking forward to the celebrations, a feeling
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that only deepened over time. She became queen in eighteen
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thirty seven and in eighteen forty married Prince Albert of Saxe,
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Coburg and the Gotha, whose influence on the British Christmas
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is hard to overstate. The Christmas tree, often lazily credited
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to Albert that alone, had in fact appeared earlier. The
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German born Queen Charlotte, consort of George the Third, had
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introduced the custom to the royal family, usually using you
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rather than fur, but it was Albert Victoria's enthusiasm that
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truly popularized the tree across Britain. Engravings of the royal
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couple and their children standing around a decorated tree at
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Windsor appeared in publications such as The Illustrated London News.
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In the late eighteen forties, and middle class families swiftly
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copied what they saw. In the early years of Victoria's reign,
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Christmas was generally celebrated at Windsor Castle. Albert, ever, the
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meticulous organizer, often took charge of decorating the trees himself.
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To a Victoria's own tree, ornaments later given to a
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courtier have survived. Unsurprisingly, they are utterly charming. Very quickly,
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a whole industry sprung up. Shops advertised ornaments, candles, suites
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and small trinkets to hang from the branches Christmas trees,
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once a curious foreign import, became a fixed feature of
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the British festive season. Victoria and Albert spent every one
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of their twenty married Christmases together at Windsor. After Albert's
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death in eighteen sixty one, the queen found it too
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painful to face Christmas there and shifted the celebration to
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Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, while maintaining his
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traditions as a way of keeping his memory alive. Their
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Christmases were not merely decorative. They were intensely family centered.
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Gifts for children, relatives, and favored servants were laid out
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on tables decorated with greenery, sometimes with individual miniature trees
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adorned with candles and sweets. In keeping with Albert's German roots,
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presents were exchanged on Christmas Eve rather than Christmas Day.
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The gifts were often deeply personal, commemorating travels, special events.
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We shared interests, frequently in art and jewelry. One of
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the very first Christmas gifts exchanged between the couple captures
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the mood perfectly. Albert presented Victoria with a broach depicting
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their first child, Vicki, born in November eighteen forty. The
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miniature showed Vicki holding a ruby crucifix wings set with sapphires, diamonds, topazes,
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and rubies. Victoria wrote in her journal, the workmanship and
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design are quite exquisite, and dear Albert was so pleased
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at my delight over its having been entirely his own
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idea and taste. It's set the tone. Christmas for Victoria
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and Albert was about sentiment, artistry, and above all family.
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Another famous present was a gold bracelet composed of interchangeable segments,
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each containing a portrait of one of their children at
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the age of four, with a lock of that child's
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hair on the reverse. By the time all nine links
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were completed, the bracelet was too large to wear unless
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she swapped children in and out. Victoria never lost her
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sense of wonder at Christmas. On Christmas Eve eighteen forty one,
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she wrote, Christmas I always look upon as the most
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dear happy time, also for Albert, who enjoyed it naturally
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still more in his happy home. The very smell of
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the Christmas trees, of pleasant memories. To think we have
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already two children now, and one who already enjoys the site,
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it seems like a dream. There was nothing minimal about
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the food and drink either. Christmas Dinner at Windsor often
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began around nine in the evening, featuring dishes on a
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frankly industrial scale. A famous woodcock pie contained one hundred birds.
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Barrens of beef were cut from oxen Albert had reared
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at Windsor and roasted in front of an open range
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for some fifteen hours. The medieval ritual of displaying a
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boar's head carried on into Victoria's rain. It took pride
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of place on the sideboard for every meal over the
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Christmas week, only being carved on the twenty fifth itself.
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Viscount Torrington, a Lieutenant in waiting, recorded visiting the kitchens
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and seeing the roasting in the kitchen of turkeys, geese
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and beef, a mighty sight at least fifty turkeys before
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one fire. If James Court specialized in theatrical excess, the
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Victorian Court specialized in emotional abundance, trees, trinkets, photographs, hair
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lockets and bracelets, family portraits, and the care we choreographed
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rituals of gift giving. It was Christmas as we now
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imagine it, and Stepier turns intimate, domestic, and sentimental. Even
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if the scale of the roasting joints was anything but modest,
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then there you have it. If you like to email
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as who addresses the Palace Intrigue at gmail dot com,
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please follow us on Spotify, Apple or the app of
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your choice. I Mark Francis my thanks to John McDermott.
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This is Palace Intrigue and good Dames