The olfactory sense of History

The  Daily Telegraph has a quite lengthy and scholarly article by the standards of even the contemporary ‘quality’ press which originates with the latest film about King Henry VIII. The fact that whilst filming the set was sprayed with a scent designed to simulate the odours which it was thought would have accompanied the aging monarch with his infected leg ulcers and associated sickroom smells is the starting point for an examination of how sixteenth century people and their predecessors accommodated such odours. It can be read at what is actually a slightly misleadingly entitled article at Yes, Henry VIII really was that disgusting

The article challenges both the idea that everything in the period was rank and gross - a point I have made here on the blog quite a few times - and that covering malodorous airs with pleasing ones was standard practice. It also looks at the fact that people did wash regularly, and change their clothes, so as to avoid giving offence. The fear of bad air as a carrier or vector of disease was well established as health advice. As the article shows King Henry had bathrooms at his palaces, as had his predecessors for at least two centuries. Earlier still King John liked to have a warm bath each day when travelling. What was possible for the monarch might indeed not be available to many, but the use of half casks from the wine trade as baths is frequently shown in illuminated manuscripts or referred to quite far down the social scale. The fact that people did try to make themselves pleasant and presentable is clear, as in the numerous Books of Courtesy to which I alluded recently in discussing Daniel of Beccles’ poem the Book of the Civilised Man.of advice to young men from about 1200.in How to get on in Society in Angevin England

Keeping yourself clean was a way of keeping your clothes clean, and that when the range of most people’s wardrobes was far less than that of today. Ordinary fabrics ran the risk of colour loss with much washing, and washing was not practicable for luxury fabrics. 

The article makes the point that urban streets were often dirty in the period, but that was not for want of civic ordinances against nuisances left or dumped in the streets by traders and householders, and people were apparently quite vociferous in complaining such matters.

Modern bathing facilities are just that, modern. You do not have to look far back to see a society with far more limited resources. They may not have had power-showers seventy odd years ago, but it does not mean that people did not try their best with the resources available to be clean and to present themselves well. That applies for much earlier periods, and survivals of personal grooming tools, and not just combs, bears this out back to the Anglo-Saxon period.

We might well be shaken were we to encounter the aromas of the past, but we should remember their absence from our lives is a very modern thing.

Camping out on campaign with King Henry VIII

In March the British Library Medieval manuscripts blog had an interesting article about a Cottonian manuscript which depicts the layout for King Henry VIII’s mobile military court when he was on campaign. It can be seen at Henry VIII’s pastry tent

It is not clear if this illustrates the King’s French invasion of 1513 or his later one in 1544. In many ways it probably resembles the layout on his grandfather King Edward IV’s anticlimactic expedition of 1475. The tents as depicted resemble in many cases others shown in manuscripts of the same period which depict tents with richly decorated colourful exteriors and of a similar structure. It was not just for military campaigns that Kings and their couriers occupied tented accommodation. From the contemporary account of Niclas von Popplau it is clear that King Richard III was in staying an impressive tent when visiting York, staying in the Minster Close, in the early autumn of 1483. That may well have been taken over from the late King Edward.  In 1541 King Henry VIII and Queen Catherine and their entourage occupied tents set up in the grounds of the recently suppressed abbey of St Mary in the city. Tents were clearly an important element in the accommodation for the Field of Cloth of Gold in 1520, although on that occasion King Henry and his Queen occupied a temporary residence constructed from timber and canvas designed to look like a permanent structure. 

To what extent a tented court was set up at each stop on such journeys is not clear as various royal or duchy castles such Nottingham and Pontefract were utilised as stopping places. Maybe the tented accommodation was set up for a major halt on such journeys, although, as with a military campaign, the total numbers involved would have been considerable with the retinues attendant on the monarch, his secretariat, his nobles and gentry, and their servants. Billeting the court on a small town would have been a major logistical issue, when the population might literally overnight. Tents would obviate that if the necessary arrangements could be made to send them on ahead whilst the monarch and courtiers perhaps had an opportunity for hunting and the use of proffered or commandeered lodgings before the next principal halt.

Operating a military campaign, especially on enemy territory, might well mean there was less concern about causing offence when occupying accommodation in towns. Nevertheless whatever the circumstances the time involved in setting up and then dismantling and moving forward must have been a considerable concern when doing forward planning, let alone when it had to be actually done, resources packed, carts loaded, animals harnessed, people marshalled, and routes scouted. A royal progress in peacetime might have less urgency but would in its own way be equally stressful.

The Cottonian MS also shows specifically military preparations in progress in relation at a distance from the royal accommodation with not only swords but artillery as a feature, food preparation to feed the army and the tents for the services and officers who supported the troops. When the King went forth to war, or on a peaceful domestic or diplomatic progress, a sizeable part of his kingdom went with him.

Jousting

There is an article on the Daily Telegraph online website about the degree of fitness that was required for a medieval jouster, and comparing it with that of modern athletes.

It can be read in two versions at Study reveals jousters are as fit as today's top athletes and at What it takes to be a jouster, the fittest sportsman of them all

It confirms what I have always suspected, that the men who competed in the lists, Kings and princes, aristocrats and knights, were physically very fit indeed. That it was in part training for warfare - just as modern equestrian sports derive from military training in more recent centuries for the cavalry - as indeed was hunting, is true, but, as with the chase, some practitioners were keener and more committed than others, and may well have spent a great deal of time training and keeping physically fit. It was not a hobby you could just indulge in without considerable, and expensive, preparation.

King Henry IV was a noted jouster in the 1390s and McNiven argues in a well-known article which seeks to give an analysis of the King's health, and its decline from fairly soon after his accession, that the King may have suffered from being unable to maintain his customary level of fitness but put on weight and that like some modern athletes suffered health problems as a consequence of his enforced idleness of retirement from physical competition.

It has also been suggested that King Henry VIII's last years were shaped in part by the consequences of injuries he had received  in the lists or conditions which developed as a result of jousting. Robert Hutchinson has written about this in The Last Days of Henry VIII:Conspiracies, Treason, and Heresy at the Court of the Dying Tyrant

That said, of course, both these English Kings came off better that King Henri II of France who died as a result of a joust in 1559. No amount of fitness can prepare you for something like his fate.

St Thomas Becket and King Henry VIII

Today is the feast of the martyrdom of St Thomas of Canterbury.

A recent post by Stephanie A. Mann at Supremacy and Survival: The English Reformation
dealt with the fact that it was the destruction of the shrine of St Thomas that was the last straw for Pope Paul III and led to the publication of the excommunication of King Henry VIII. It can be viewed at St. Thomas a Becket and the Long Delayed Excommunication of Henry VIII

There is a useful account by J.C.Wall from his Shrines of British Saints, published in 1905, of the shrine and its decoration, with contemporary illustrations and descriptions as well as an account of the Translation of the relics in 1220 which can be accessed at http://www.historyfish.net/shrines/cw_shrines_four4.html#thomas

The Shrine of St. Thomas of Canterbury.   

Cottonian MS., Tib. E. viii. f. 269.

Image:http://www.historyfish.net/shrines/cw_shrines_four4.html#thomas

Stephanie Mann  has posted today about the events of December 29th 1170 and contemporary reactions to St Thomas in The Murder in the Cathedral

Raising one's hat for St George

My attention was drawn to the existence of this early sixteenth century hat badge with the image of St George by Dr Steve Gunn in his fascinating series of Ford Lectures last term.

Image;pininterest.com/Royal Collection Trust

The badge is in the Royal Collection, although not recorded there earlier than the reign of King George IV. It is usually presumed to have been made for or owned by King Henry VIII, or possibly one of the Knights of the Garter he created, but the following desdcription from the Royal Collection Trust website offers an alternative theory:

Description

High-relief figure of St. George on horseback, facing right, slaying the dragon. He holds a sword with seed-pearl handle high over his head. 'Crimped' gold ribbons and crescents form a pattern on his opaque blue-grey armour and on the translucent red enamel of the horse's caparison. The dragon below is covered with opaque blue and white enamel and has yellow legs and claws. In the background to the left is a walled town in opaque white and blue. To the right is the Princess, kneeling in prayer and wearing an opaque grey dress. The scene is surrounded by a raised frame with scale-like ornament in black enamel and gold.

The reverse has arabesque-style ornament of 'crimped' gold ribbons inset with stylised gold rosettes on translucent green enamel. There are large areas of loss to the enamel on the surrounding frame; parts of the dragon have been restored with cold enamel.

This jewel has long been identified as belonging to a homogeneous group of small gold reliefs (émail en ronde bosse), distinguished by their style and enamelling technique. The workshop where the pieces were made can be dated c.1500-20 and several hypotheses exist regarding location, ranging from Spain and southern Germany to the Danube region. More recent and convincing are arguments ascribing the group to the Southern Netherlands in the wake of the great Burgundian tradition of enamelling.

The badge reveals an unusual iconography. St George is usually represented as a young beardless knight with helmet. Here he has a full beard and an abundance of richly curled hair. These features correspond almost exactly to those of Frederick Barbarossa (r.1152-90), as shown in the print on the title page of his biography written by Johannes Adelphus and published by Johannes Grunung in Strasburg in 1520. In this book, which was reprinted eight times between 1520 and 1629, Barbarossa is depicted as the epitome of the virtuous knightly warrior-emperor. The book appeared at a moment of Humanist interest in the glories of the Staufer emperors and encouraged by Maximilian I of Habsburg, Holy Roman Emperor (r.1493-1519), to enhance his own political status. After his marriage to Maria of Burgundy in 1477 Maximilian I became ruler of the Southern Netherlands. In the light of this sixteenth century revival, it may be that this representation of St George, with the features of the great emperor, was intentional. Moreover, Maximilian himself was referred to as der letzte Ritter (the last warrior) and was frequently commemorated 'in the guise of the gallant St George in armour'.

Maximilian died in 1519 and it is known that Charles V, his grandson and successor, was in Antwerp in 1520. It is just possible that this badge was executed on this occasion as a means of honouring the Habsburgs by alluding to the virtues of their Staufer predecessors and their imperial ideal.

The link with Maximilian is strengthened by a curious tradition attached to this jewel: it was known as the 'Holbein George' and was traditionally believed to have been worn by Henry VIII. There is no means of verifying the tradition that this was the 'riche brooch with ye image of sainet George' worn by Henry VIII which may have been presented to him by Maximilian. There is, however, no evidence that any of Henry VIII's jewellery has survived in the Royal Collection and the tradition may have become attached to the jewel while in private ownership.

Whilst it is not known when the badge entered the Royal Collection, it is exactly the type of jewel George IV acquired from Rundell, Bridge & Rundell the Royal goldsmiths from 1797 to 1840. It was probably the 'curious ancient enamelled Badge of the Garter, in glass case' listed in an inventory of jewels at Windsor Castle in 1830 and the 'ancient Badge Tudor' recorded there in 1837.

Text adapted from Ancient and Modern Gems and Jewels in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen, London, 2008

Provenance

Whilst it is not known when the badge entered the Royal Collection, it is exactly the type of jewel George IV acquired from Rundell, Bridge & Rundell, the Royal goldsmiths from 1797 to 1840. Possibly the 'curious ancient enamelled Badge of the Garter, ... in glass case' listed at Windsor Castle in 1830 (WCIJ 1830, f.13) and the 'ancient Badge Tudor' recorded there in 1837 (QVIJ 1837, f. 3).

By tradition Henry VIII; first apparently recorded in the Royal Collection in 1830 (copy list by Rundell, Bridge & Co, 16 September 1830 RCIN 1114749, fig.13)

Image; pinterest.com/Royal Collection Trust website

Whether it was made for King Henry VIII or for one of the Habsburg Emperors, both of whom were Knights of the Garter, it is clear that King Henry VIII was a keen devotee of St George. It was in his reign that the chapel of St Heorge was completed at Windsor in 1528, the same period that the King issued coins bearing the image of St George - the gold George Noble - a device not used again intil the end of the reign of King George III. It is from the King reign that there survives the splendid Black Book of the Order of the Garter, that the King chartered teh Guild of St George that evolve dinto the Honorable Artillery Company, and the King chose to be buried at the chapel of St George in Windsor.


My previous posts about St George and his cult can be viewed at  St George's Day, Orders of the Day, Hymn to St George from 2010, St George from 2011, St George and the Dragon, St George at Fordington from 2012, Praying to St George, St George in art - dragon slaying and martyrdom, Relics of St George, St George Altarpiece, Medieval Wall paintings uncovered in Wales from 2013, The Martyrdom of St George, Devotion to St George and English Iconoclasm II - the fate of the cult of St George from last year.

St George pray for us

A book from the library of King Henry VIII

A friend has passed on to me this link to an article in The Guardian about the discovery of one of King Henry VIII's books - a printed copy from 1495 of work by the fourteenth century English Franciscan William of Ockham - and the possible part it played in formulating the King's case for his divorce from Queen Catherine of Aragon. It can be viewed here.

Prof Carley, who identified the volume, is someone I have met and know. Reconstructing past Royal libraries is his current field of research, and a topic on which I have heard him speak. Previous to this he has made a major contribution to our understanding of the intellectual life of Glastonbury abbey in the middle ages.

Ford Lectures 2015

Last Friday afternoon I attended the first of this year's Ford Lectures. This year the series is on " The English People at War in the age of Henry VIII" and the lectures are being given by Dr Steven Gunn of Merton.

King Henry VIII in a German print of 1545

The king fought many wars, but how did they affect his subjects? How much did they think about war or talk about war? How did communities cope with the pressures war placed upon them? How did military service relate to the social power and self-image of the landed elite? How did war affect the economy? What weapons did people own, did they know how to use them, were they ready to kill and how many of them died? And how did engagement in war shape his subjects’ relationship with the king and their sense of being English? This year’s Ford lectures will ask all these questions in the context of the century of military, political and social change that lay between Henry’s grandfather Edward IV’s invasion of France in 1475 in the afterglow of the Hundred Years War and his daughter Elizabeth’s attempts to shape a trained militia and a powerful navy to defend England in a Europe increasingly polarised by religion.

30 January – Wars and rumours of wars

6 February – Towns and villages

13 February – Noblemen and gentlemen

20 February – Trade and tillage

27 February – Killing and dying

6 March – Kings and peoples

Fridays of Weeks 2 – 7 of Hilary Term

5pm Examination Schools, South School

 

Image and text: Oxford History Faculty website

His chosen era is rather longer than the King's reign, being the period from 1475 through to the 1570s. This was indeed a time of wars, but they tens to be ones which are not well remembered or studied in the way that the earlier and later campaigns of the Hundred Years War or of the Spanish War and the Civil Wars respectively are.

As Dr Gunn pointed out in his introductory lecture there are detailed studies of individual aspects of campaigns and of military procurement and provisioning, but as yet there is no synthesis of the place and contribution of war in and to English life in the period comparable to the continuing reassessment of the impact of the reformation on national life.

In his first lecture he explored the popular, at various levels of society, awareness of war and rumours of wars, of conflict and its consequences, through news reports and private correspondence. From the surviving evidence people were indeed interested in what was happening in military matters and information was to hand for the English as to what was happening in France, Flanders and Scotland.

I look forward to attending the rest of the series.

Espionage at the early Tudor court

I saw on the BBC News website a piece about the history of music recorded by the singers Alamire which has reached no 2 in the classical charts. The music was composed or compiled by the Bavarian-born Petrus Alamire and presented in a prestigious choir book to King Henry VIII in 1516. The manuscript is now in the British Library.

Alamire was more than just a talented court musician - he was also a spy, using his privileged position to glean information. Apparently recruited to do this on behalf of the King by infiltrating the household of the exiled Yorkist claimant Richard de la Pole -King Richard IV in his own eyes- and reporting back to London. This Alamire did, but then apparently turned into a double agent for Pole.

Richard de la Pole was killed fighting with the French forces at the battle of Pavia in 1525, and his claim died with him.

The article can be read at Henry VIII, the choir book and Alamire the spy

Thinking about it I suppose it puts the activities of Anthony Blunt in a historical context - it is not so new after all to have double agents working in the Royal household.

More historic discoveries in the news

As I said in my previous post the Daily Mail often has interesting articles about historic and archaological finds, and here are two links from the article about Rendlesham that are interesting in their own right.(Both discoveries may affect house prices in the vicinity)

The first is in the field of Biblical pre-history: World's oldest crown which is more than 6,000 years old and was found in a remote cave near the Dead Sea goes on display for the first time

The second story is about the discovery of what is apparently a piece of Tudor court furniture, which would be a remarkable survival, whatever may or may not have occured within it:  Is this the bed which launched the Tudors: Dumped in a hotel car park this four poster could be where Henry VIII was conceived and is worth £20million

Nonsuch

I mentioned in my previous post that I had been close to the site of Nonsuch, the palace built by King Henry VIII in the years after 1538. It was demolished for the sake of selling off the rubble as building materials, so as to pay her gambling debts, in 1682-3 by Barbara Villiers, Duchess of Cleveland, who had been given the house by King Charles II

Although often termed a palace Nonsuch was perhaps more a very opulent hunting lodge, being only a third of the size of Hampton Court, which lies a few miles to the north. In one way it may have been similar in its status as a royal retreat to the function of the Grand Trianon or Marly to Versailles for King Louis XIV.

Begun on the anniversary of the King's accession, April 22nd, in 1538, the building very soon had gained its distinctive name, there being none such a structure in the country. It is often compared with Chambord, and seen as a response to King Francis I's palace; the seventeenth century, the English Catholic priest Richard Lassels (1603?–68), in his posthumously published The Voyage of Italy, however referred to Fontainbleau as ‘the Nonsuch of France’.

Sometimes described as arguably the first Renaissance building in England Nonsuch appear to me too eclectic for such a description. It incorporated Renaissance features - notably its stucco decoration - and the gardens may well have been the first truly Italianate landscape feature in England.  Much of it was however fairly typical of the late Perpendicular domestic style of the age, and the two towers on the south front wondrous pieces of exuberance. In many ways it was King Henry VIII's late medieval fantasy toy castle - inspired by perhaps by Arthurian romances and the like. It was the King's equivalent of the Brighton Pavilion created by King George IV around a place for royal recreation. In both cases the expenditure to create them was lavish, and the emphasis on the exotic.

Like the Brighton Pavilion Nonsuch was less favoured by the King's successors. It was leased by King Edward VI and sold by Queen Mary I, but was reacquired by Queen Elizabeth I in 1596, and in her last years she liked it as much as any of her other residences.  Under the early Stuarts it was used occasionally, housed the Exchequer after the Fire of London and in 1670 was given to to Lady Castlemaine, only for her to destroy it a little over decade later. It's loss is, of course, to be greatly deprecated. Only a four contemporary pictures survive of the building, but the excavation of the site in 1959 revealed the plan. The excavation was also important in establishing archaeological investigation of post-medieval sites as an important means of recovering the past.

There is an illustrated online history of Nonsuch here, and there is another online article about the Palace from a local history group, which has more detail as to its history, here. 

From the same group is an illustrated account of the gardens, which appear to have been both lavish and spectacular and with strong Italianate influences alongside the formal knot gardens of the era. That site can be viewed here.

In addition to that link there is now also, I find, a very fine reconstruction model of the Palace by Ben Taggart on display at Cheam. There is a splendid illustrated article about it here.  It is also featured, with basically the same illustrations, in a Daily Mail article from 2011 which can be viewed here. These include details of the stucco decoration of the inner courtyard.

I have selected two of the pictures to give an idea of both the model and of what has been lost. I think an excursion to see the reconstruction is definitely called for.

Nonsuch

Image: countrylifeimages.co.uk



The south front of Nonsuch

Image: Copyright Roger Poynter/ Friends of Nonsuch

Woodvilles and Boleyns

With one of the students I am teaching this term I am looking at the life and times of Anne Boleyn. In today's tutorial we considered her background and upbringing, and her time at the Burgundian-Habsburg court of Margaret of Austria and at the French court.

A point which occurred to me some time ago, and which I made in our meeting, was the similarity between Elizabeth Woodville and her family and Anne Boleyn and hers. The physical similarities between King Edward IV and his grandson King Henry VIII are clear, and also the fact that both became King at the age of eighteen - with possibly no few consequences attendant thereupon. Both had continental ambitions that remained fundamentally unrealised.

Elizabeth Woodville

Image: Wikipedia

The similarities between Elizabeth and Anne are interesting and noteworthy. Elizabeth was half Burgundian through her mother Jaquetta, Anne had lived at the court in Brussels as a girl. In both cases previous marriages or pr-contacts by their husbands shaped their rise or fall. Both resisted becoming the King's mistress, both were highly controversial choices as Queen consort, both, inevitably, advanced the position of their family. Both their families were far from popular, if not cordially loathed, by others in the political establishment, and both paid a bloody price - Elizabreth Woodville lost her father, two brothers and a son by her previous marriage to the headsman as well, of course, as the disappearance of her sons by King Edward IV; Anne Boleyn lost her own head, as did her brother George his, and the family never recovered its influence.

Anne Boleyn
Later copy of a portrait of circa 1534

Image: Wikipedia

Anthony Woodville, Earl Rivers and George Boleyn Viscount Rochford can be seen to have been more considerable figures than might have been supposed the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography lives of them bring this out. That of Rivers, by Michael Hicks, can be read here and that of Rochford by Joseph Block is here.

Both were accomplished in courtly and diplomatic arts, and men of learning with a recognised interest in learning and religious ideas. There is more about Rivers' literary patronage here  and George Boleyn was anxious to advance the evangelical reformist ideas that gained ground with his sister's elevation.

Earl Rivers and William Caxton presenting a book to King Edward IV,
Queen Elizabeth and Edward Prince of Wales, later King Edward V.

The figures between the King and Earl Rivers may be the Duke of Buckingham and Cardinal Bourchier of Canterbury.

Image: Luminarium.org

What strikes me in this similarity is the point that the world of the 1460,70s and 80s was very similar to that of the 1520s and 30s, though clearly the religious controversies of the latter were new in themselves.  The late-medievalist in me tends to see the period as a unity - another reason for not seeing Bosworth as either an ending or a beginning.

The Harry Crown reconstructed

I saw on the internet today that a reconstruction has been made and will go on show at Hampton Court the end of the month of the crown known to have been worn by King Henry VIII and his successors. The original was destroyed in 1649 by the Commonwealth. The article can be read at Henry VIII's "crowne of golde" to go on show in UK.

Looking further I found a much more detailed and informative article in the Guardian (intriguing in itself) about it which has more details and a video of the crown - all of which can be seen here.

 

The reconstructed Harry Crown

Image: Historic Royal Palaces - Hampton Court

This looks very interesting, but I wonder if the original crown, described in a 1521 inventory was not rather earlier in date than the article implies, and that the "Harry Crown" as it was also known dated from the time of King Henry V rather than King Henry VII as the Guardian article suggests. I will keep my powder dry on this one for a while, but will return to the topic.

I was interested to see that an Oriel friend, Kent Rawlinson, had a part in researching the inventories that have descriptions of the original crown.

I really must go and see this when I can - it is very many years since I visited Hampton Court, and this is an incentive.

Our Lady of Walsingham

Today is the feast of Our Lady of Walsingham.

 

 

 

Our Lady of Walsingham

Statue in the Slipper Chapel

 

Image: Thorvaldsson on Wikipedia

 

 

Since 2001 today has been designated as her feast day, and it now surplants in England the feast of Our Lady of Ransom. It was this, originally Spanish devotion, which Pope Leo XIII adapted as the specific Marian feast for the ransoming of England and its conversion and hence its association with what had been England's premier Marian shrine. It was during his pontificate that interest began amongst Catholics in re-establishing it, both at the Red Tower chapel in King's Lynn and by the purchase of the Slipper Chapel at Walsingham itself. It was not however until the remarkable and inspired Vicar of Walsingham, Alfred Hope-Patten, established and caused to prosper the Anglican Shrine that the Catholic hierachy did much to develop the Catholic presence in the village.

 

I made a considerable number of pilgrimage visits there as an Anglican, and Walsingham is a remarkable and special place, a graced place, I came to know and love. In recent years I have had less opportunity to go there, a fact I regret and hope to remedy.

 

Last Saturday evening at the Ordinariate Vigil Mass - for the Ordinariate this counts as a Patronal solemnity and was transferred to Sunday in their calendar - Fr Hunwicke's sermon  raised an interesting historical possibility. He started by describing the shrine as it would have been in 1512 or 13, after the visits of two famous pilgrims.

 

 

Erasmus in 1517 by Quentin Mattys

 

Image: Royal Collection/arthistory.about.com

 

In 1513 Desiderius Erasmus (in my humble opinion a rather tiresome ghastly tedious little liberal, but who cares what I think) visited Walsingham and described the shrine of the Holy House thus: 

"When you look in you would say it is the abode of saints, so brilliantly does it shine on all sides with gems, gold and silver… Our Lady stands in the dark at the right side of the altar… a little image, remarkable neither for its size, material or workmanship."

 

He also added that the water from the Walsingham spring was "efficacious in curing pains of the head and stomach."

In the verses he wrote, in the best and latest Humanist style, in honour of Our Lady of Walsingham he referred to some of the reasons that pilgrims came to the shrine on pilgrimage. One was that men came to pray that their wives would conceive and bear them a son.

The previous year an illustrious pilgrim had come, and that may well have been in the forefront of his mind and intentions. King Henry VIII stayed at East Barsham Manor and then walked two miles - twice as long as usual pilgrims did from the Slipper Chapel - barefoot to Walsingham where he placed a "gold circlet round Our Lady's neck".

 

On 31 January 1510 Queen Catherine had given birth, prematurely, to a stillborn daughter. A son, Henry, Duke of Cornwall, was born on New Year's Day 1511. He lived for only 52 days. In October 1513 Catherine was to lose another son when Henry returned from France. He was either stillborn or died shortly after birth. In December 1514, she had another son, Prince Henry, who died shortly after his birth. Not until 18 February 1516 did the Queen deliver a healthy child, but a girl, the future Queen Mary I. In 1518, Catherine became pregnant for the last time. She gave birth to a daughter on 10 November, but the child was weak and lived either only a few hours or at most a week.

Fr Hunwicke speculated that Ersasmus may possibly have been aware that there was already an awareness of doubts about Queen Catherine's ability to produce the desired male heir to the throne, and hence King Henry's pilgrimage and long barefoot walk to Our Lady in the Holy House. An interesting thought.

A few years after the royal visit East Barsham was rebuilt  - did the owners perhaps anticipate another such pilgrimage?  It remains as an outstanding example of the early sixteenth century country house.

 

East Barsham Manor, dated to 1520-30

Image:stiffleaf on Flickr

Arthur Prince of Wales

Today is the anniversary of the death at Ludlow Castle in 1502, 510 years ago, of Arthur Prince of Wales, the eldest son and heir of King Henry VII.

Arthur Prince of Wales

Image: Wikipedia from a private collection

Although the Prince, who was fifteen remains a somewhat anonymous figure, his death was to prove one of the most momentous or portentious in English history. As a result the succession passed to his brother, the future King Henry VIII, and even more significantly, led to that King's marriage to Arthur's widow, Catherine of Aragon.

There is an online life of the Prince here and the Oxford DNB life by Rosemary Horrox can be read here.

From his surviving portraits the Prince sometimes appears, like his younger brother, to have taken after his mother's family in his appearance and as an adult King Henry VIII looks to have resembled King Edward IV. However in thos portrait there is also a resemblance to King Henry VI:

Prince Arthur circa 1500

Image:Wikipedia from the Royal Collection

To stand in Prince Arthur's chantry at Worcester, its elegrant limestone gothic cage surrounding the plain marble tomb-chest, is to feel very close to events which changed this country, and indeed much of the world forever. Nothing sums up more quickly the impact of the changes that ensued than the mustilated figures, including St George, on the reredos of the chapel. Installed to elicit prayers for the Prince they were defaced under his nephew King Edward VI, and when his neice Queen Elizabeth I visited Worcester in 1575 they were plastered over and the blank wall decorated with a painting of the Royal arms. Not until the nineteenth century were the figures revealed in their battered state.

The interior of the Prince's chantry at Worcester cathedral

Image:whub.org.uk

There is the mildly intriguing question, given the way that the choice of his name associated the Prince with King Arthur, and the bearing of arms attributed to Welsh and British rulers of the past at the Prince's funeral, as well as the general enthusiasm for all things Arthurian at the time, if he had lived and succeeded his father whether he would have been King Arthur I or King Arthur II.

The Abdication of King Edward VIII

Seventy five years ago today there occured the abdication of King Edward VIII. At the time it was a profound shock to Britain and her Empire, and remains a subject of fascination, and an event with a continuing legacy for the monarchy.

The Instrument of Abdication

It took a day for the necessary legislation to pass through Parliament here and in the Dominions

Image: Wikipedia

Both Crown and subjects were fortunate in that King George VI and Queen Elizabeth were to prove so faithful and conscientious in the exercise of kingship, and to have transmitted that tradition to the Queen and through her to the next generations.

There have been many accounts of the abdication crisis which make for interesting reading, but I was struck by this portrait of the King by his former secretary Sir Alan Lascelles which I found on the internet "Prince Charmless: A damning portrait of Edward VIII".

Lascelles expressed his view of Edward that "for some hereditary or physiological reason his normal mental development stopped dead when he reached adolescence."

There are varying interpretations of the life and character of King Edward VIII and Lascelles' view may not be definitive, even if as a former Private Secretary it tends to the authoratative. There is an interesting similarity to a view I have seen of the other English King who was the eighth of his name* - King Henry VIII has been presented as a monarch whose accession at the age of almost eighteen had the effect of stunting his development - not that he was not intelligent, but that he stopped developing emotionally. An interesting, if coincidental, similarity perhaps - and in both cases matrimonial difficulties were to follow.

* In reality there have been eleven English Kings called Edward and nine called Henry (ten if you are a Jacobite) - there are three Kings Edward before the Norman Conquest, and Henry The Young King 1170-83 as co-ruler with his father.