Wessex Tales Wessex Tales Wessex Tales is an 1888 collection of tales written by English novelist and poet Thomas Hardy, many of which are set before Hardy's birth in 1840. In the various short stories, Hardy writes of the true nature of nineteenth-century marriage and its inherent restrictions, the use of grammar as a diluted form of thought, the disparities created by the role of class status in determining societal rank, the stance of women in society and the severity of even minor diseases causing the rapid onset of fatal symptoms prior to the introduction of sufficient medicinal practices. A focal point
House of Wessex of the House of Wessex in the female line, something that contemporary English commentators noted with approval. For a family tree of the House of Wessex from Cerdic down to the children of King Alfred the Great, see: A continuation into the 10th and 11th centuries can be found at A coat of arms was attributed by medieval heralds to the Kings of Wessex. These arms appear in a manuscript of the thirteenth century, and are blazoned as "Azure, a cross patonce" (sometimes a "cross fleury" or "cross moline") "between four martlets Or". The assigning of arms to the West