The Duchess and the Necromancers

By Nancy Bilyeau

On Monday, November 19th, 1441, the people of London lined the streets to observe an act of public penance. That morning a woman, perhaps forty years of age, bare-headed, plainly dressed, was rowed in a barge to Temple Stairs off the Thames. She stepped off the barge and proceeded to walk all the way to St. Paul's Cathedral, carrying before her a wax taper of two pounds. Once she made it to St. Paul's, she offered the taper to the High Altar.

The woman was Eleanor Cobham, mistress-turned-wife to Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, only surviving uncle to the childless Henry VI and thus the heir to the throne. The duchess had been tried and condemned for heresy and witchcraft. This was the first of three days of ordered pilgrimages to churches, showing a "meke and a demure countenance." Afterward, she would be forced to separate from her husband and live in genteel prison for the rest of her life.

The Penance of Eleanor, painted in 1900

The downfall of Eleanor Cobham was a shocking event in the 15th century, and it's disturbing today. Certain elements of her life echo Katherine Swynford's, the longtime mistress of John of Gaunt who eventually became his third wife. A bold beauty marries a royal--it's a maneuver seen again, and much more famously, in the following century with Elizabeth Woodville and Anne Boleyn. But while rumors of witchcraft swirled around both of those queens, they are, historians now agree, not based in reality. While Eleanor Cobham most probably did traffic in what were called the black arts. And the most serious of such crimes was to seek to know--or perhaps even alter--the future, through the practice of necromancy.

Ever since the age of Homer, necromancers have flitted in the darkest shadows of society. They were believed to possess the secrets to unlocking the power of the underworld to divine the future. (See my earlier blog post, From Homer to The Hobbit: The History of the Necromancer.) No matter the results—or lack thereof—necromancers did a brisk business in the Greek and Roman world. It was only by following their secret and ornate rituals, they said, could the boundaries be dissolved between the living and the dead.

Page from the Munich Manual

After Rome fell, the early Christian popes struggled to extinguish the pagan practices of not only necromancy but witchcraft, astrology and alchemy. But these practices survived through the Middle Ages, in one form or another, and in the Renaissance, as scholars pored through ancient texts, experienced something of a rebirth. Some popes employed their own astrologers. The Munich Manual of Demonic Magic, a textbook in Latin, was compiled in the 15th century. Necromancy became, if anything, more far-reaching. After drawing a series of magic circles, saying conjurings, and making sacrifices, necromancers claim a demon would appear to assist: see the future, drive a man to love or hatred, discern where secret things were hidden, such as treasure.

During the 15th century, England was an orthodox kingdom of devout Catholics--and yet superstition ran amok. In 1456, 12 men petitioned Henry VI for permission to practice alchemy, among them two of the king's own physicians. Some courtiers owned astrological books. What was heresy and what was knowledge linked to the fashionable pursuit of ancient texts? It was not always possible to know what was forbidden--until you made a mistake.

The stage was set for Eleanor Cobham and her ambitious play for love, power and glory.

The daughter of Sir Reginald Cobham, Eleanor in her early twenties entered the service of the highborn and illustrious Jacqueline, Countess of Hanault. Jacqueline repudiated her husband, John of Brabant, and fled to England in search of champions, marrying the youngest brother of Henry V: Humphrey, duke of Gloucester.

At some point over the next five years, Eleanor herself became the mistress of the duke. After a failed war in Hainault, Humphrey abandoned his wife; the pope annulled the marriage because of legalities to do with her first husband. Later, when John of Brabant died, Humphrey could have remarried Jacqueline. But instead he married her lady in waiting, Eleanor.

His nickname of "Good Duke Humphrey" notwithstanding, Gloucester was a complex figure. Well educated, he supported learning more than most aristocrats and was a devoted patron of the arts. An enthusiastic soldier, devoted to his oldest brother, Henry V, he was a champion of the people. But Humphrey was also impulsive, vengeful, and unable to sustain a political policy. There is little doubt he was, in addition, a womanizer. After the death of his brother the king, he claimed the right to be regent for his infant nephew. His claims were supported in the dead king's will. But Cardinal Henry Beaufort and the rest of the Beauforts opposed Gloucester. The two branches of the Lancaster family fought for power for the rest of Humphrey's life.

Humphrey, youngest son of Henry IV

Eleanor did not make Humphrey more popular. She was criticized for her immoral history with Gloucester and for her ostentation. Historian Ralph Griffiths says, "One chronicler noted how she flaunted her pride and her position by riding through the streets of London, glitteringly dressed and suitably escorted by men of noble birth." She is thought to have shared her husband's sophisticated tastes in literature.

The unmarried Henry VI, passive and easily led, was fond of his aunt and uncle. He gave Eleanor beautiful presents. Historians believe a decision was made in the Beaufort camp to permanently weaken the duke of Gloucester, and the key to this was his wife.

A young Henry VI

In late June 1441, word spread through London that two men had been arrested for conspiring against the king--divining the king's future through the use of necromancy and concluding that he would soon suffer a serious illness. The accused were two clerks, Roger Bolingbroke, an Oxford priest, and Thomas Southwell, a canon. (Those who practiced necromancy were often low-level clericals, because they possessed the knowledge of Latin necessary to read forbidden books and learn the rites.) The men were sent to the Tower of London and possibly tortured. Bolingbroke told his interrogators that he had been prompted to look into the future of the king by the duchess of Gloucester.

Eleanor did not behave like someone innocent of all crime. She fled to Westminster, seeking sanctuary. Later, when she was set to appear before an ecclesiastical court, she tried to escape onto the Thames river, but was caught. The investigation went deeper. A witch was produced, Marjorie Jourdemayne, who said she procured love potions for the duchess to make Gloucester marry her. In her trial, Eleanor denied seeking to know the future of the king through necromancy, but she "did acknowledge recourse to the Black Art." It is believed she turned to the necromancers and witch to try to bear a child. Eventually, Eleanor abjured her heresies.

Eleanor's co-conspirators were condemned and executed--Margaret Jourdemayne was burned at Smithfield. One of the clerks was hanged, drawn, and quartered. Eleanor spent the rest of her life confined in various castles: Kenilworth, the Isle of Man, and in 1449, Beaumaris Castle, where she died in 1452. Her husband Humphrey, who, to the puzzlement of many, had done little publicly to free her—he "said little"—died five years before Eleanor. His wife's disgrace had finished him as an important man of the kingdom.

Did Eleanor turn to the dark arts to try to bring about the death of Henry VI so that her husband could become king and she become queen? Most historians doubt she went that far; more likely, she dabbled in the same forbidden practices that other court ladies did. But in the tense and treacherous political climate of the Lancastrian court, where rivalries were soon to explode into the War of the Roses, a mistake in judgment could cost one everything. As was learned by Eleanor Cobham.

This article is part of my series of necromancy. To read more, see From Homer to the Hobbit: The History of the Necromancer, Conversations with Angels: The Strange Life of Edward Kelley, and Henry VII and the Curse of Prophesy.

This is an Editor's Choice and was originally published January 29, 2013. 

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Nancy Bilyeau is a historical novelist and magazine editor based in New York. She wrote the Joanna Stafford trilogy, a trio of thrillers set in Henry VIII’s England, for Simon & Schuster. Her fourth novel is The Blue, an 18th century thriller revolving around the art & porcelain world. Her latest novel is Dreamland, set in Coney Island of 1911, is published by Endeavour Quill. A former staff editor at Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, and InStyle, Nancy is currently the deputy editor at the Center on Media, Crime and Justice at John Jay College and contributes to Town & Country, CrimeReads, and Mystery Scene magazine.

For more information, visit www.nancybilyeau.com.

Herbalist, astrologer, republican and altruist - meet the talented Mr Culpeper

by Anna Belfrage

Some people are born with a major interest in flowers and such. Take my eldest son, who at the tender age of fourteen months methodically chomped his way through every single one of my hundred odd tulips, leaving half chewed petals in his wake. Or take Nicholas Culpeper, whose interest in flora was somewhat more scientific. I don’t think he ever ate a tulip – but that may have been more out of parsimony than disinclination, as tulips were rare plants indeed during Nicholas’ lifetime.

My son no longer remembers what tulips tasted like, and seeing as these plants – or at least their bulbs – are mildly poisonous, he was never given an opportunity to repeat his gastronomical excursions. Culpeper tells us nothing of the tulip in his writings. I guess we can conclude that Culpeper wasn’t all that interested in flowers that were “merely” beautiful.

There are very few authors around who can boast at having their book in constant publication for more than 350 years. Obviously, this is to some extent due to the fact that very few authors live long enough to experience such a long print run, but leaving witticisms aside, Nicholas Culpeper is one of the few authors around whose book has been in constant demand since it was first published, back in 1652.

So what was so great about his book? Did he reveal the secrets of alchemy? Was he perhaps an early George R.R. Martin, riveting people to their seats by a complex and convoluted tale involving dragons, feuding kings and resilient damsels? Nope – although Nicholas’ own life contained enough adventure to fill a book or two, what with the times he lived in. But what Nicholas experienced in life resulted in an entirely different kind of book; Nicholas published an herbal, The English Physitian, a DIY manual to keeping hale and hearty in a time where what medicines were to be found came from plants.

If we start at the beginning, Nicholas was born in 1616, the posthumous son of Reverend Nicholas Culpeper, lord of Ockley manor in Surrey. The manor slipped through baby Nicholas’ fingers, and instead he was raised by his maternal grandfather, yet another reverend. By the time he was ten, little Nicholas had a good grounding in Greek and Latin, was familiar with both astrology and medical tracts and was well on his way to becoming a master herbalist. One must assume this passion for plants came from his grandfather, and I have this image of two figures, one stout and leaning on a cane, the other agile and all legs and arms, standing side by side as they inspect a stand of digitalis.

At the age of sixteen, Nicholas was sent to Cambridge to study divinities. He wasn’t all that interested – he wanted to study medicine – and as a consequence he never graduated. Besides, Nicholas had other plans. Since childhood, he had held a special fondness for Judith Rivers, a well-to-do heiress, and the two young lovers were committed to a life together. Judith’s parents disapproved. Nicholas was not a catch, and their precious Judith could do better. I imagine Judith wept. She trailed her mother like a whipped puppy and begged her parents to reconsider – she loved Nicholas, would love no other. Mr and Mrs Rivers remained unmoved. Judith  was meant for other, richer, men.

Well, we all know what teenage fools do for love, right? Faced with her parents’ continued opposition, Judith and Nicholas devised a plan. They were to elope to Holland (Gretna Green had not come into the vogue yet) and stay there until the furore died down. As an aside, parental consent was not required for marriage in the 17th century, but to wed without Mama’s and Papa’s approval was to risk ending up being disinherited. I suppose Judith was hoping that old adage “distance makes the heart grow fonder” would apply to her parents as well.

Whatever the case, Judith and Nicholas were not destined for a happily ever after. On her way to her rendezvous with Nicholas, Judith’s carriage was struck by lightning, and she died. With one bolt of thunder, Nicholas’ hopes of a rosy future were obliterated – even more so when his grandfather decided to disinherit him, so shamed was he by Nicholas’ actions.

Nicholas was now in dire straits. There was no money to pay for his education, there was no bride, no welcoming home. After rousing himself from grief-induced depression, Nicholas apprenticed himself to an apothecary in London. He taught his employer Latin, his employer taught Nicholas everything he knew about plants.

In 1635, Nicholas took over his former master’s apothecary shop on Threadneedle Street. Due to his extensive reading and an inquisitive mind, Culpeper’s education was as extensive as that of a physician - but it was an informal education, and as such of very little value professionally. To his medical interests, Culpeper added astrology, blending these two disciplines into a holistic approach to healing. The Royal College of Physicians was not pleased with this interloper. Nicholas Culpeper retaliated by describing the physicians as “bloodsuckers, true vampires” – not the basis for a long-lasting loving relationship.

In 1640, several years after the sad affair with Judith, Nicholas married Alice Field. His new wife had recently inherited a considerable fortune after her merchant father, and using her money the couple established themselves in Spitalfields, far enough from London proper to allow Nicholas to continue with his healing endeavours despite not being an accredited member of the Royal College of Physicians. In Spitalfields, Nicholas opened the doors of his practise to everyone who needed his help. (How fortunate his wife was rich.)

A cure against rabid dogs...

Most of Nicholas cures were based on herbs. Some were true advancements in medical science, as when he documents the use of foxgloves to treat heart conditions (definitely works. The dosage, however, is somewhat tricky, and if too high will kill your patient). Some sound decidedly strange, such as boiling your bedstraw in oil to make an aphrodisiac. Otherwise, he shares that willow can be used to stem the bleeding of wounds, roses can alleviate the discomfort of menses , raspberries and strawberries are excellent ways of ridding your teeth of “tartarous concretions” (plaque?). The seeds of nettles can be used against the bites of rabid dogs (I think not), meadow-sweet is recommended against fevers (works, as meadow-sweet contains high doses of salicylic acid) and flea-bane helps with bites from venomous beasts. Hmm.  My general conclusion after browsing through Nicholas’ suggested cures is to take them with a pinch of salt – and to make sure I have a herbal with me to ensure I’m picking the right plant!

Our innovative healer did more than just list plants. He combined his herbal lore with his other passion, astrology, and borrowed heavily from Galen’s humoral philosophy, which is why in his herbal the plants are sorted by planets. Some belong to Venus, others to Mars and yet others to Saturn or Jupiter. He adds to all this his own comments – like when he dismisses black currants as having a “stinking and somewhat loathing savour”, thereby dismissing a plant we know to contain very high levels of vitamin C as well as a number of anti-inflammatory agents.

Foxglove

After some years of contented calm in Spitalfields, things were to change yet again for our intrepid healer. By now, the ravages of the Civil War were upon the people of England. Culpeper was a radical republican and wanted to do his thing for the cause. Besides, there was the matter of a slanderous accusation for witchcraft, plus an increasingly more infected relationship with both the Royal College of Physicians and the Society of Apothecaries. These august bodies disliked Culpeper’s translations of medical texts from Latin to English, making hitherto restricted knowledge available to the broader masses. It sort of undermined their business concept...

Nicholas kissed his wife goodbye, may have stooped over a cradle to coo at one of the many children his wife was to give him – puny little things that all but one died young – and rode off to fight for Parliament. The recruiting officer was less than flattering regarding Nicholas’ physique, but more than impressed when he heard Culpeper’s credentials, and instead of fighting, Nicholas was put to work as a field surgeon.  He attended the wounded at the battle of Edgehill, joined in the initial fighting at the battle of Newbury but was quickly called upon to use his medical skills instead.  Culpeper was operating on an injured soldier when a stray musket ball wounded him severely in the chest, effectively ending his military ambitions.

Back in London, Nicholas returned to treating the poor. His own health was deteriorating rapidly through a combination of too much work, his unhealed injury and tuberculosis. It didn’t help that his children kept on dying, causing both Nicholas and his wife more than their share of grief. On top of this, Nicholas took up a one man crusade against the “closed shop” policies of the Royal College of Physicians and the Society of Apothecaries. This “closed shop” policy was effectively a monopoly, based on the fact that so many of the guidelines to making medicines and treating diseases were only in Latin and only available to a few.

Nicholas made it his purpose in life to crush this monopoly. He translated one text after the other, he wrote treatises on diseases, on midwifery, on the properties of plants. He translated Galen into English, he devoted time to his destitute patients, and in all this he also managed to produce his masterpiece, The English Physitian – a giant handbook on what herbs to use for what diseases.

By now, Nicholas knew he was dying. He was burning his candle both ends as life gasped and fluttered within him, driven by a need to write down as much as possible to help his fellowman. And he was clearly very productive, because when he finally did die, in January of 1654, his wife wrote that her husband had left her “79 books of his own making or translating in my hands.”

Nicholas Culpeper was an idealist. He was a man who combined compassion and passion into a constant endeavour to help the sick and ailing. He considered it a human right to have access to medical care – a precursor of the future welfare state – and like Don Quijote he was not afraid to take on an army of windmills while fighting for what he thought was right. In difference to Don Quijote, Culpeper fought using pen and ink rather than lance. And the fact that his book is still there, is still being read, is a testament to his success.

The English Physitian quickly became very popular. Housewives all over wanted a copy, and when people set off for the wild unknown of the New World, many of them carried with them a precious copy of Culpeper’s book, hoping to find cures for whatever ills might afflict them in their new homeland within the covers. I think Nicholas would have been pleased. I also think he would have liked my tulips – no matter that they have very few medicinal uses.

Editor's Choice: This article was originally published on June 24, 2014. 
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Had Anna Belfrage been allowed to choose, she’d have become a professional time-traveller. As such a profession does not exist, she became a financial professional with two absorbing interests, namely history and writing.

Presently, Anna is hard at work with The King’s Greatest Enemy, a series set in the 1320s featuring Adam de Guirande, his wife Kit, and their adventures and misfortunes in connection with Roger Mortimer’s rise to power. And yes, Hugh Despenser plays a central role.The first book, In The Shadow of the Storm was published in 2015, the second, Days of Sun and Glory, will be published in July 2016.

When Anna is not stuck in the 14th century, she's probably visiting in the 17th century, specifically with Alex and Matthew Graham, the protagonists of the acclaimed The Graham Saga. This is the story of two people who should never have met – not when she was born three centuries after him.

The Amazing Mrs Somerville (1780-1872) ~ Queen of Nineteenth Century Science

by Linda Root

Engraving from bust of  Mary Somerville

There is an institution of higher learning at Oxford University known as Somerville College, named in honor of an astronomer-mathematician born on the grounds of Jedburgh Abbey in Roxburghshire in the year 1780. The child was born in Jedburgh quite by accident. William George Fairfax,  a high-ranking naval officer,  was stationed in London but deployed at the time of its birth, possibly serving in the Americas during the latter phases of the rebellion of the Colonies. His heavily pregnant wife Margaret Charters Fairfax was headed for their home in Musselburgh in Fifeshire for her lying-in.

She had stopped in Jedburgh to visit her sister, Martha Somerville when Margaret went into labor and soon gave birth to a daughter. Margaret Fairfax did not easily recover, and unable to continue her homeward journey. Fortunately, her sister Martha had recently given birth to a daughter of her own, and was available to serve as her newborn niece's wet nurse during their stay on the Borders.  She was christened Mary, and as soon as her mother was well enough to travel, she was hauled to the shores of the Firth of Forth to begin her incredible life.

Somerville College viewed from the Quad, Oxford University

As an adult in her middle years, Mary Fairfax Somerville was dubbed the Queen of Nineteenth Century Science by one of her distinguished peers. Among her lifetime achievements, she inspired John Couch Adams to hypothesize and locate the existence of the planet Neptune by observing the orbital perturbation of newly discovered Uranus, no mean feat  for a Fifeshire female child  whose parents disapproved of their marriageable daughter's attraction to what was known as  'natural philosophy' and sent her to a private school to learn embroidery and needlework.

Property of the Jedburgh Historical Walks

Many years later when Mary Fairfax Somerville was almost thirty and a widow, she married Doctor William Somerville, son of her favorite aunt and uncle.  It was a love match. Mary's daughter Martha Somerville recalls her mother's frequent jokes about having been suckled at birth by her future mother-in-law. Although she was a Fifeshire lass, Jedburgh lays claim to her as one of their famous residents. Her birth in Jedburgh is commemorated in a recently erected blue plaque placed at the site of Somerville House, honoring its famous if temporary occupant.

Mary Fairfax Somerville,  along with Caroline Herschel, became the first females admitted to the Royal Astronomical Society. She was a recognized mathematician and geographer and an enthusiastic geologist.  However, her successes did not come easily.  Once when she was wee, her father returned from sea duty and discovered that  Mary had been taught to read, but she had not been taught to write.  He ordered the deficiency addressed because bookkeepers made the best gudewives.

Vice-Admiral Wm. George Fairfax

The Making of a Proper Young Lady

Mary Fairfax displayed a love of the physical world of Burntisland in Fifeshire, but she was equally enchanted by the knowledge of her brother’s tutors, a luxury to which she was not entitled in her own right. She began to take a particular interest in mathematics. According to legend, one evening when Mary was less than ten years old, she found an unsolved algebraic equation left on a chalkboard when her brother’s tutor had been unable to solve it. When he came back the following morning for another try, he discovered she had solved it overnight. Mary tells it less dramatically, but from that time forward, he included her in her brother’s lessons when he could get away with it, and soon realized she was his equal. Soon she was better at it than he was, and her parents balked.

Mary’s youthful academic pursuits were discouraged by a family grooming her for a position in British society. Her father was alarmed when Mary surreptitiously acquired and copied Euclid’s Elements of Geometry when she should have been preparing herself for marriage, and decided to take action. He and Mary’s mother shared a common belief held even by educated Scots: women’s constitutions were too fragile to withstand the stresses of the more challenging academic pursuits. When they interceded and shipped her to Miss Primrose's Boarding School in Musselburgh, they did so with her best interests at heart. She later acknowledged they thought they were saving her from an early death. She, however, saw it differently, In her biography, she described it as going 'from perfect liberty to perpetual restraint.' For whatever reason, she only lasted a year, and when she left there, she felt   'like a wild animal freed of its cage.'

Licensed by Mary Somerville Welcome to Wikimedia via  Creative Commons.

Mary's return to Burntisland was a reprieve, but not a victory. She was sent to a  local school to study needlework. It is not too surprising that she displayed a talent for it, and continued to enjoy embroidery and needlepoint throughout her life. When the family took a house in Edinburgh as a part-time residence when Mary was entering her teens, she was given art lessons by accomplished artist Alexander Nasmyth. .

Of the many portraits, busts and cartoon sketches made of Mary Somerville during her life, my favorite a is a self-portrait that hangs at Somerville College, Oxford. Nasmyth obviously had a talented pupil.. When she felt frustrated by the limitations placed on her studies occasioned by her sex, she visited  Jedburgh, where her uncle, Thomas Somerville encouraged her interests in the world around her and taught her Latin.   Doctor Somerville was a minister of the powerful Scottish Kirk and a historian who appreciated the genius of his petite and unimposing niece.  He must have been delighted when as a young widow, she married his son. 

But I am getting ahead of the story.  There were obstacles young Mary Fairfax had yet to overcome, and some of them were personal.

The Russian Consul and His  Dutiful Wife, Mary Fairfax Greig

Painting and needlework were not the only art forms at which Mary Somerville excelled.  She was a proficient musician and practiced the piano almost every morning.   During the winter months when the family lived in Edinburgh, Mary took dancing lessons.  She had many friends among the educated young people in the city.  Mary had grown into a very pretty young woman who was referred to in Edinburgh society as the Rose of Jedwood.  When her daughter Martha Somerville annotated her mother's memoirs to co-author her biography, she included her mother's light-hearted lament that no artist had painted her portrait or sculpted her likeness until she was famous.  She wished they had taken note of her when she was young and lovely. However, by consensus, even at age ninety she was a handsome woman who always appeared years younger than her age.  At age 24, other than her family's lack of wealth, she was an ideal candidate on the marriage market,  possessed of the good looks, pedigree, manners, and skills becoming in a perfect wife.  Her only fault was her genius, which her family encouraged her to keep hidden least she drive her suitors off.  Had they been successful, we would not have heard of her.

When Mary was twenty-four, she met and soon married her mother's cousin Samuel Greig, the son of the Samuel Greig often dubbed the Father of the Russian Navy.  The senior Samuel Greig had been summoned to Russia by Catherine the Great to upgrade her navy.  When Mary met his son, he was a commissioner of the Russian navy and Russian Consul for Britain. At some point, Captain Greig sailed a frigate into the Firth of Forth and disembarked to pay a visit to his Scottish cousin Mrs. Fairfax. When Captain Greig sought the hand of his cousin's daughter Mary, her parents were delighted. Although William George Fairfax has been knighted for his part in the naval victory over the Dutch at the Battle of Camperdown, his only monetary award was a  pension of a size unlikely to attract suitors for his daughters.  The only stipulation they imposed upon the prospective bridegroom was that he establish a permanent residence in London and promise not to carry their daughter off to the Steppes of what had become an unruly Russia after Catherine’s death.  At the time of the marriage, it is unlikely that Mary knew of her husband’s disdain of women and his total lack of interest in mathematics and the physical sciences.

 On the way to London as a bride, Mary had a small amount of money her mother had pressed into her hand, knowing she left with an unimpressive trousseau and lacked the gowns expected of a young society wife in London. En route, Mary happened upon a painting in a shop window that depicted the surrender of the Dutch Admiral de Winter to her father's commander Admiral Duncan, with her father shown in the background.  She bought the painting and forewent the gown.

Surrender at of the Dutch at the naval battle at Camperdown{PD-Art}

 It would be unfair to call Mary’s time in London as Mrs. Samuel Grief as an unhappy interlude.

 She enjoyed the company of other educated women, most of them interested in the arts.  

The couple started their marriage in a small but well-situated house.  At first, money was sparse, and Mary lacked the wardrobe to attend the balls popular with her friends.  Eventually, her brother-in-law visited from Russian and provided her with luxurious furs, and her husband came into a substantial sum of money. She resumed taking art lessons and became a highly regarded amateur landscape artist. Between her arrival in London and her husband’s death in 1807, she gave birth to a daughter and two sons, one of whom became a well-known Scottish barrister, government official, and scholar. The second son died young. Other than tending to her children, her mornings were free, and she resumed her study of mathematics.  She purchased a comprehensive scientific library. She also learned to speak rudimentary French, and enjoyed riding with her friends. 

A young woman of Mary’s background could move about freely in London society. Although she shunned the life of a socialite, she made friends of both sexes in the scientific community.  From her writing and other sources, it appears her husband did not order her to cease her academic pursuits as long as he was not expected to support them or partake. After his death in 1807, she said of him:
 'He had a very low opinion of the capacity of my sex, and had neither knowledge of, nor interest in, science of any kind.'

Enter, the incredible Mrs Somersville:

When Samuel Greig died in London in 1807, she returned to Scotland as a widow of considerable means,  free to resume her prior studies.  Her second marriage to Doctor Thomas  Somerville, the son of the mentor of her early youth and the aunt who suckled her was a happy one.  Doctor Somerville had an academic bent of his own, and he gave Mary his wholehearted support.  Her biography is filled with memoirs of their travels, their shared love of nature, and their affection for one another.  They had five children including Martha, who co-authored the biography that has provided too many anecdotes to incorporated in a post. I shall include but a few below.

Mary Somerville always referred to her husband as Somerville and herself as Mrs.Somerville.  They were a successful team.  With her career approaching its Zenith, she willingly left London because of his health, extending their time together by twenty years, just as he had always let her needs supersede his own.  For both of them, the best was yet to come. They endured wars in Tuscany, volcanic eruptions, storms on Lake Como, and the Napoleonic Wars. Their friends included crowned heads of Europe and innovative thinkers in virtually every field and on many continents. In summary, theirs was a love match.

Memories from childhood in Burntisland:

Mary’s father was a horticulturist by hobby. He loved his garden.  He often came back from his maritime adventures toting sacks of tulips and other bulbous plants from Holland. Mary often stood by while he culled plants with blooms he considered imperfect. Any curling of a leaf, misalignment of petals or discoloration and the specimen would be removed. At the time, England was ruled by George the Third, who was very popular with the Fifeshire Scots. There was a tradition in Burntisland to put a nosegay in every window on June 4^th in celebration of the King’s birthday, In the Fairfax household, the occasion was usually followed on June 5th by a rude awakening to a ravaged garden.

Mary remembered playing in the tall grasses that grew on the edge of a meadow when flocks of wild geese flew over and the well-fed, fat domestic geese they kept in their yard struggled but failed to join them.  She also remarks in her memoirs how much she loved birds.  During the cruel winters along the Firth of Forth, she would open the shutters so robins could come in to feed.

Scenes from the Life of Mrs. Somersville: 

 Doctor Somerville was a great friend and admirer of the Marquis d’ LaFayette.  When the Somervilles were in France, the visited with LaFayette’s two daughters who had stayed with him during his long stint in prison.  According to Mary, her husband was much intrigued by the girls' warmth and lively gesticulation, so different from the cold manner of the Scots.

When Mary was in Rome, she was invited to a dinner party to meet an American writer who wished an introduction, and who in Mary’s report of the occasion remains unnamed   When Mary arrived, she was introduced to the woman who had been so eager to meet her, but was quickly brushed aside.  The host had seated the two women together so they could talk, but again, Mary was ignored and snubbed. Having endured enough abuse, Mary left the table and moved to another location where she made the acquaintance of the celebrated poetess Elizabeth Barrett Browning, who became her friend for the remainder of Elizabeth's short life.

Following the death of her second husband, Mary’s wealth and reputation allowed her to continue to pursue her interests into her waning years and also afforded her opportunities to advocate higher education for women.  One of the most notable scientists of her day remarked to her when she was inducted into the Royal Society that she and her co-inductee Caroline Herschel and a third woman of which he knew nothing were the only women whose works revealed a mastery of his arguments. The mystery woman, he confessed, was an elusive woman named Madame Grieg.  He had no idea what had become of her, he said, unaware that  Mary Greig and Mrs.Somerville were one and the same. Among the many tributes to her multi-faceted genius, several historical sites, many institutions of learning including Somerville College at Oxford, an Island in the Barrow Straits and an asteroid bear her name.

The Sunset Years in Italy:

During her last decade in Italy following her husband’s death in 1860. Mary Somerville wrote: Age has not abated my zeal for the emancipation of my sex from the unreasonable prejudice too prevalent in Great Britain against a literary and scientific education for women.  She, without a degree, campaigned vigorously to allow women into advanced degree programs.  Her petitions were denied, but her passions lingered.

Shortly before her death, she discussed in her Personal Reflections such topics as her lifelong fear of the dark, her love of birds, and her excitement at the eruption of Vesuvius.  Her daughters trekked up the mountain to observe the lava flow, but Mrs. Somerville, at nearly 92, delegated the task to them.

Said her daughter Martha, who was with her at the end: Her pure spirit passed away so gently that those around her scarcely perceived when she left them. It was the beautiful and painless close of a noble and a happy life. 

Wikimedia, English Cemetery in Naples, with statue of Mrs. Somerville in the background

No recitation of her scientific awards and publications tells the story of the amazing woman buried in a Naples Garden.  Although her name has been given to a crater on the Moon and a mid-belt asteroid, she grieved the passing of a single starling, spoke against the inhumanity of slavery and opened her shutters in winter so the robins could come inside to forage. Thank you for joining me in my glimpse of a most amazing woman.

Author's note:  Personal anecdotes are from Somerville, Mary (2012-05-12). Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville (p. 230).  . Kindle Edition.

About the Author:  Linda Root is the author of The First Marie and the Queen of Scots, The Last Knight and the Queen of Scots, and four books in The Legacy of the Queen of Scots series.  The fifth, Deliverance of the Lamb, is coming in early 2016.  She lives in the Southern California high desert community of Yucca Valley with her husband Chris and two giant wooly Alaskan Malamutes, Maxx and Maya.  She is a retired major crimes prosecutor, a member of the Marie Stuart Society, and of the California State Bar and the Bar of the Supreme Court of the United States. Her books can be found on Amazon.

Superstitions and Bodily Health

by Diane Scott Lewis

Before modern medicine lay people and some physicians held the belief that transferring the ailment to another object could cure you of disease. Since antiquity, and well into the eighteenth century, people believed that men reflected aspects of the natural world. It was a dominant strategy that explained the mysteries beyond the ken of the science of the day.

A man in late seventeenth century Somerset claimed that his brother was cured of a rupture by being passed through a slit cut in a young ash tree, three times on three Monday mornings before dawn. When the tree was later cut down, his brother grew ill again.

To cure jaundice, you took the patient’s urine, mix it with ashes and make three equal balls. Put these before a fire, and when they dried out, the disease leaves and he’s cured. In Devon, to cure the quartan ague, you baked the patient’s urine into a cake, then fed the cake to a dog, who would take on the disease.

Even Richard Wiseman—a Barber Surgeon—who wrote Chirurgicall Treatises during the time of Charles II, believed to remove warts you rub them with a slice of beef, then bury the beef.

Color as well played a part in how health was viewed. “Yellow” remedies were used to cure jaundice: saffron, celandine with yellow flowers, turmeric, and lemon rind. John Wesley, who wrote Primitive Physick, in the mid-eighteenth century, suggested that sufferers of this illness wear celandine leaves under their feet.

Health was also governed by astrological explanations. Manuals intended for physicians and apothecaries included this “otherwordly” advice. Nicholas Culpeper detailed which herbs were presided over by which planets in his famous health text, Culpeper’s Complete Herbal. For example, if a headache was caused by the actions of Venus, then fleabane (an herb of Mars) would cure the malady.

However, the Vox Stellarum, the most popular almanac in the eighteenth century, took a more moderate view: “Men may be inclin’d but not compell’d to do good or evil by the influence of the stars.” Yet this same almanac, in 1740, listed which diseases were prevalent in certain months—a vestigial form of astrological medicine.

 

Thank goodness more enlightened physicians, such as brothers William (a leading anatomist and renown obstetrician) and John Hunter (one of the most distinguished scientists and surgeons of his day) in the eighteenth century, came along to bring medical thinking into the modern world. Though superstition among the lay people remained.

I delved into this research for a character, a young physician, in my still unpublished novel, Ring of Stone. Information taken from, Patients, Power, and the Poor in Eighteenth Century Bristol, by Mary E. Fissell, 1991.

To learn more about my novels: http://www.dianescottlewis.org

Lady Hester Stanhope: Expatriat, Astrologer, Eccentric

Lady Hester Stanhope was an adventurous woman of the early 19^th century who chose to leave her native England and spend her life, first traveling around Europe, and then living the remainder of it in an abandoned monastery on a mountaintop in Lebanon among the Arabians. As a female expatriate living in an patriarchal culture, Lady Hester used her money and influence to live an unmolested life; however when her luxurious lifestyle outstripped the pension granted her by the British crown, her ability to purchase security ended.

However, Lady Hester, brilliant and innovative, or as some would accusingly say...disturbingly deluded, or even slightly insane, managed to otherwise survive and maintain to some degree, her eccentric lifestyle. Lady Heather, through either self-deluded insanity, intelligent design or genuine talent, convinced the natives that she could read the stars, and used their awe and their fear to maintain a position of power among the common people that lived in the hills and valleys surrounding her adopted home.

Presumably, Lady Hester's supposed talents were in constant demand by her neighbors. History tells us that she utilized their belief in her abilities to calm the passions of the violent; induce the unjust and the oppressor to make reparation for their wrong-doings; and other good uses, of which the following anecdote, related by herself, will furnish an example: 
 
“An Arab suspected his wife of talking too much with strangers in his absence, and one of his neighbors confirmed his suspicions. He went home, proceeded to strangle the unfortunate woman, and, when she became insensible, he dragged her to some distance, and commenced interring her: the first heap of sand which he threw upon her recalled sensation; she manifested symptoms of life, and he repented of his vengeance; he brought her to me half dead; told the story of her supposed guilt, but owned he was premature in strangling her, as he should have first got me to consult her star, to ascertain if she really deserved to die or not. I sent the woman to the harem, had her bled, and taken care of till she recovered, and then I summoned the man before me. ‘My good friend,’ said I, ‘your wife’s star has been consulted; take her back in peace, and thank God you have her; for it is written in the stars, “On vain surmises thou shalt not strangle thy wife, neither shalt thou hearken to the slanderers of her honor.”’ The man immediately held out his hand to his gentle rib; she kissed it, and forth he walked, desiring her to follow him, with the most perfect indifference. I asked the woman if she were afraid of another act of violence. She calmly replied, ‘Is he not my husband? Has he not a right to kill me, if he suspects me of doing wrong?’”

Lady Hester believed in the science of astrology to the fullest extent. She believed that we are all children of some one of the celestial fires which presided at our birth, and of which the happy or malignant influence is written in our eyes, on our foreheads, in our fortunes, in the lines of our hands, in the form of our feet, in our gesture, in our walk. She believed that, from these various elements, she could read the character and destiny of any individual who was but for a few moments in her presence. In accordance with her belief, she thought that skillful astrologers should be appointed to every district, to consult the heavenly bodies at the birth of every child and the nature of each natal star to be registered by them.

Either through self-delusion or genuine talent, Lady Hester retained her power over the commoners by manipulating their superstitious fears. However, the neighboring chiefs chose not to believe in her abilities and subjected her to robbery and harassment.   It may be assumed that greed, rather than disbelief, was more of a motivational factor for this change of heart since the chiefs resented the fact that Lady Hester could no longer pay the generous tribute to which they had grown accustomed before her fortunes dwindled.

Lady Hester was quite the eccentric, especially given the position of women in the times which she lived. She lived an outstandingly unusual life, and became quite the legend in her own time. A traveler, who, in 1832, was allowed to visit her—a favor rarely granted to Europeans, described a visit with Lady Stanhope:

“I was introduced into her cabinet by a little negro child. It was so extremely dark, that it was with difficulty I could distinguish her noble, grave, yet mild and majestic features, clad in an Oriental costume. She rose from the divan, advanced, and offered me her hand. She appeared to be about fifty years of age; but she possessed those personal traits which years cannot alter. Freshness, color, and grace, depart with youth; but when beauty resides in the form itself, in purity of expression, in dignity, in majesty, and a thoughtful countenance, whether in man or woman, this beauty may change with the different periods of life, but it does not pass away—it eminently characterized the person of Lady Hester Stanhope.

“She wore a white turban, and on her forehead was a purple-colored woolen fillet, which fell on each side of her head as low as her shoulders. A long, yellow Cashmere shawl, and an immense Turkish robe of white silk, with flowing sleeves, enveloped all her person in simple and majestic folds, while an opening of these folds upon the bosom displayed a tunic of rich Persian stuff, covered with flowers, which was attached round the neck by a clasp of pearls. Turkish yellow morocco boots, embroidered with silk, completed this beautiful Oriental costume, which she wore with that freedom and grace, as if she had never used any other from her youth.”

A variety of motives have been ascribed to the unusual conduct of Lady Hester: eccentric imagination, a turn for adventure, a love of power, an intolerance for the constricted life of an England lady in her homeland, or simply because she could. Lady Hester Stanhope—simply eccentric or something more...you be the judge.

To read more about Lady Hester Stanhope, and her adventures and delusions, please see my blog post from September 27, 2011.

Compiled From Sources In The Public Domain.


Smiles and Good Reading,
Teresa Thomas Bohannon
Author of the Old-Fashioned Regency Romance Novel
A Very Merry Chase
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