Histoire de Melody Nell Gwynn

When I was a student of French history many years ago, the teacher, a gloomy and ineffectually etiolated somewhat resembling a Harlequin by Picasso, would always pronounce Edict of Nantes as 'Edith' of Nantes due to the addition of an extremely sibilant lisp to his - in my mind at least - extensive catalogue of personal and professional failings.
Still, Edith of Nantes, this was something for my young brain to conjure with while the lanky fool scrawled on his miserable chalkboard: who was this lady of iron doctrine who forced the Huguenots to flee France? I drew a picture, now, alas, lost.
Later, while his class trudged through unreadably tedious textbook descriptions of human experience towards the modern era, I amused myself by inventing yet more females who had played prominent and decisive roles in history's most recordable moments. There was the formidible Warsaw Pat, of course, and the incredibly bureaucratic North Atlantic Tracey Organisation, naturally. Working backwards, Magna Carla, I decided, would certainly repay further study. And there were many others I've undoubtedly forgotten.
Even later, as you may remember from an earlier post, the school finally expelled me because I refused to answer to the name "Etienne" when called upon to answer questions in my French language class.
Education? Do it at home.

Comments

[Quicquid]

Warsaw Pat? Magna Carla? These sound like drag queen names, just a notch above Shenita Job and Helen Pumps. Come to think of it, Etienne sounds like a drag queen name too. No wonder you wouldn't answer to it.

[stephenesque]

Etienne was supposedly the French equivalent of Stephen. My point was that my name wouldn't change just because I was speaking a foreign language. For this reasonable stance I was thrown out of school!

[Fcb]

She was Magda Carter in my primary school history lessons.

[Bleak Mouse]

Seems a perfectly reasonable stance to me, Esque.

If they'd tried similar nonsense with me when I was at school, I would have made detailed plans that night, and returned the following morning with assault weapons-- However, my teachers knew enough to leave me well alone when I assumed a Reasonable Stance. ("He's in The Stance again, Miss Ponsonby. We find it works out best all around if we just leave him be...")

I was, however, nearly thrown out of college for skipping classes -- well, whole courses, truth to tell. But I quit before they could toss me; had a good laugh over that one. I leave it to your imagination to figure what this "academic probe" they threatened me with was all about; I surely wasn't waiting around to find out.

[R J Keefe]

"who was this lady of iron doctrine who forced the Huguenots to flee France?"

I'm afraid that you've confused the Edith of Nantes with the Revelation of the Edith of Nantes.