Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Anne Hyde/archive1


 * The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted by Ian Rose 17:55, 15 November 2012.

Anne Hyde

 * Nominator(s): Alexcoldcasefan (talk) 18:41, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

I am nominating this for featured article because, after being a GA for some time, I think it now meets the criteria for FA. Alexcoldcasefan (talk) 18:41, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Oppose. The prose of this article is too far below FA level. WP:FA Criteria requires that the writing be "engaging, even brilliant, and of a professional standard." But half the sentences in the article are problematic in some way: run-on sentences ("Anne's married life was sometimes problematic, and she was not very much liked at court and James was unfaithful"), lack of clarity ("Anne became James' first wife in 1660 after she fell pregnant by him, whereas James is said to have promised to marry her in 1659"), colloquialisms ("gave him a hard time," "turn a cold shoulder"), etc. Here's a detailed analysis of the shortest section, which is called "Death and legacy".

"Anne never quite recovered after the birth of her youngest son, Edgar; she was ill for fifteen months."
 * The time sequence is not clear. Maybe "After she gave birth to her youngest son Edward, Anne became ill for fifteenth months."

"After giving birth to one further child, Henrietta, in 1669, Anne gave birth to her youngest child in 1671, another daughter, whom she named Catherine."
 * Too many commas and embedded phrases. "One further child" sounds awkward.

"Anne never recovered from this last birth, her eighth."
 * The first sentence said she never quite recovered from her sixth birth, and now that she didn't recover from her eighth. Yet four years went by between the birth of Edward and the birth of Catherine. Maybe your two sources (Henslowe 1915 and then Gregg 1984) use the same formulation ("never quite receovered," "never recovered"), but the reader will still be confused. And since you mention "youngest child" in the previous sentence, there's no need to say that Catherine was Anne's "last birth." (Or you keep "last birth" and remove "youngest child" from the previous sentence.)

"Suffering from breast cancer, Anne died on 31 March 1671."
 * So did she die of breast cancer or because she didn't recover from childbirth? One question that's not about prose: has the diagnostic of breast cancer been confirmed by several sources? Because diagnostics of historical figures are so hard to ascertain, shouldn't we say that she "probably" died of breast cancer instead? Something else that applies to the entire article: to avoid having footnote markers in the middle of sentences, would you mind merging them into one at the end of the sentence? In this case, the new aggregated note would read: "Melville 2005, p. 32 (breast cancer); Weir 2008, p. 259 (date of death)."

"On her deathbed, her two brothers, Henry and Laurence, tried to bring an Anglican priest to give her communion, but Anne refused and furthermore, she received viaticum of the Roman Catholic Church."
 * Run-on sentence. You need two sentences, here, because "and furthermore" as a link between the two clauses is too weak. Once again, the two footnotes could be merged into one.

"Two days later, her embalmed body was interred into Westminster Abbey's Henry VII Chapel (precisely, into the vault of Mary, Queen of Scots)."
 * The sequence of sentences seems to imply that she was interred two days after receiving viaticum. Maybe talk about her deathbed before her death? And here there's no need for a parenthesis: "interred in the vault of Mary, Queen of Scots in Westminster Abbey's Henry VII Chapel" would be straighter and clearer.

"In June, her only surviving son, Edgar, died of natural causes and in December, Anne's youngest daughter, Catherine, also died, leaving Ladies Mary and Anne as the Duke of York's heiresses."
 * Sounds long too, with weak links between clauses ("X died and Y died, leaving..."). You can remove some of the commas. How about: "In June, Anne's only surviving son Edward died of natural causes, followed in December by her youngest daughter Catherine...").

"Two years after the loss of his first wife, James married a Catholic princess, Mary of Modena, who offered James his only son that survived to adulthood, James Francis Edward."
 * Here the topic shifts to James and his successors, so a new paragraph is needed. Not clear if Mary of Modena "offered" James his only son by adoption or by natural birth. Should be "...only son who survived..." (Incidentally, this sentence needs a reference.)

"During the Glorious Revolution, James was deposed and the throne was occupied by Anne's eldest daughter Mary and her husband."
 * Readers who don't know much about British history will wonder how James was deposed when he was only the Duke of York. So when and how did James Duke of York become James II? The year of the "Glorious Revolution" could be added too. And it's definitely worth mentioning that Anne's husband was William of Orange. After all, he was the one who overthrew James II with his Dutch army!

"After their respective deaths, Anne's youngest daughter, Anne, became the first sovereign of the Kingdom of Great Britain."
 * "Respective deaths" is too vague. Mary died in 1694 and William in 1702. And there are too many "Annes" in here. To avoid confusion, you might want to say something like "Anne Hyde' only surviving child ["youngest daughter" is youngest surviving daughter anyway], also named Anne, became..." A link to Queen Anne (maybe a piped link under "first sovereign") would also be helpful.

"After Anne's death, a portrait of her painted by Willem Wissing, commissioned by the future Mary II used to hang above the door of the Queen's Drawing Room of the Garden House at Windsor Castle."
 * Time sequence not clear. After 1714 (Anne's death), a portrait by Willem Wissing (1656-1689) commissioned by the future Mary II (who died in 1694) used to hang... This is confusing. "Commissioned by her sister Mary before she became Queen" would already be clearer. And replace "used to" with "was hung"?

I don't have time to do this for the whole article, but this shows there's a lot of work to do. I recommend you post the article at the Guild of Copy Editors and explain that it needs urgent attention. The Guild has a huge backlog, but they have a lot of devoted and competent people there who should be able to help! Cheers, Madalibi (talk) 06:13, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Image review
 * File:Anne_Hyde,_Duchess_of_York.jpg: source link is dead. Image has three of the same licensing tag, but lacks US PD tag.
 * File:The_Duke_and_Duchess_of_York_with_their_two_daughters..jpg: needs US PD tag, and should use creation rather than upload date. Nikkimaria (talk) 20:14, 10 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Oppose - I mirror other comments made here. The prose are not up to par: "Anne's married life was sometimes problematic,[22] and she was not very much liked at court[23]"? This isn't professionally written. Would need a vast prose improvement from a third party member.-- CallMe Nathan  &bull;  Talk2Me   09:00, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Delegate note -- without no acknowledgement/action after two weeks re. the earlier comments, I'm archiving this nomination; it can be renominated after comments have been addressed, or two weeks have passed (whichever is the latter). Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 17:47, 15 November 2012 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.