Kings, Commoners, and Homosexuality in the 17th Century

By Donna Scott

Before we can discuss homosexuality in 17th century England, we must remember that we cannot use our modern lenses through which to view it. The outrage many of us might feel regarding the inhumane treatment toward this segment of the population is natural as a 21st century reader.  But we have to remember to frame it within the religious and political mindsets of the time. After all, history has repeatedly shown us that no one can escape persecution for one reason or another—religion, ethnicity, race, gender, sexual-orientation, or otherwise.

The term homosexuality wasn’t coined until 1869. Related terms such as gay and queer are fairly modern, both arriving into the English lexicon in the mid to late 20th century.  A gay house—or brothel—had little to do with gender and everything to do with immorality or promiscuity.  Sodomite, which has Biblical references to Sodom and Gomorrah, had less to do with a person’s sexuality or gender role and more to do with his behavior. Although the term sodomite was most commonly used for male/male relationships prior to the late 19th century, it was also used to describe anyone who engaged in non-procreational sexual behavior, whether male or female. In early modern England, the words used to describe homosexual men were typically negative, as the acts associated with them were perceived as vile and deviant. In addition to those mentioned above, a long list of condemnatory adjectives was used in contemporary writings to describe the sin or vice: unnatural, detestable, unspeakable, filthy, unmentionable, wicked, foul, and abominable, just to name a few.

In England, the Buggery Act of 1533, which was passed by Parliament during King Henry VIII’s reign, proclaimed homosexual activity between men as a capital offense. Previously, such matters were dealt with by the church or ecclesiastical courts.  Naturally, due to the highly religious nature of the times, the fate of a perpetrator of sodomy or buggery was not especially pleasant. The Act states that convicted offenders should “suffer such pains of death and losses and penalties of their goods,  chattels, debts, lands, tenements, and hereditaments, as felons do according to the Common Laws of this Realm”. These punishments seem perfectly in line with Henry’s well-known interest in confiscating land and other possessions for his own benefit. Of course, losing one’s property was the least of the offenders’ problems. If convicted, death by hanging was a much greater concern.

Twenty years later when Queen Mary took the throne, she repealed the Act, believing that the matter was better left to the church and therefore returned it to the ecclesiastical courts to adjudicate. Subsequently when Elizabeth became queen, she re-enacted the Buggery Act and the crime of sodomy once again became a legal matter dealt with by the government. Regardless of whose hand was holding the gavel, openly gay behavior had to be hidden from watchful eyes, which meant sodomites had to devise ways in which their lifestyles remained discreet.

Of course, if one happened to be a king with such proclivities, this necessary discretion was almost impossible, considering the number of courtiers and servants who were continually present. That begs the question, with so many eyewitnesses, was a king more in danger of suffering the punishment decreed than a commoner? Scurrilous gossip about the bisexual habits of King James I of England abounded in his court, yet he remained untouched by the laws codified in the Buggery Act. Hypocritically, James continued until his death to impose harsh punishments against all subjects who participated in sodomy.

James I

In the early 1600s, it would have been difficult—not to mention dangerous—to accuse King James of being a sodomite, even though he was often openly affectionate with his many favourites, all of whom were young men. His queen bore him seven children, although only three survived their infancy, so the fact he impregnated his wife at least seven times was in clear juxtaposition to the argument he was a homosexual. They appeared married in every sense of the word. It was only after he and Anne argued about the raising of their eldest son Henry that their relationship began to sour and the question regarding his sexuality was brought into the limelight. At the same time, his attention strayed toward Robert Carr, a young blond athlete he met at a jousting match.  His outward affection toward the boy was quickly noticed by those around him, propagating further gossip. In 1607, Carr became a gentleman of the bedchamber, which required him to sleep within a close proximity to the king. Only after Carr was gifted an Earldom, did he become increasingly unwilling to do the king’s bidding and no longer joined the king at night. Consequently, this upset James and, for several reasons, Carr was exiled to the country and was quickly replaced with a new favourite, George Villiers.

George Villiers

With almost 27 years between them, Villiers caught the king’s eye with his sweet disposition and his lithe dancing and fencing. Courtiers exchanged glances as he, a mere gentleman, rapidly rose through the ranks of nobility, finally to be presented with the title of the 1st Duke of Buckingham. Their public display of affection—kissing and caressing—was performed carelessly and the public’s opinion of them both subsequently plummeted.  To this day, scholars argue as to whether or not their relationship ever became physical. In 1617, James was brought before the Privy Council and defended his love for Villiers as something pure, not “defective”. Yet, several of the king’s love letters to Villiers dated 1620-1623 mention his great affection as if they were a romantic couple:  “. . . that we may make at this Christmas a new marriage ever to be kept hereafter; for, God so love me, as I desire only to live in this world for your sake, and that I had rather live banished in any part of the earth with you than live a sorrowful widow’s life without you.” Those historians who purport James and Villiers did have a physical relationship, point to the presence of a secret passageway James had built that connected him to Villiers’s bedchamber. They also offer Villiers’s own words in a letter dated years later. He’d questioned, “whether you loved me now….better than at the time which I shall never forget at Farnham, where the bed’s head could not be found between the master and his dog”. Their affection for one another remained until James’s death in 1625. Ultimately, neither was punished under the laws against sodomy.

George Villiers’s letter to James I
in which he affectionately refers to
himself as the king’s slave and dog

To the contrary, had that amount of evidence been presented at the Old Bailey against a commoner, he would have undoubtedly been accused and convicted of the crime of sodomy and, ultimately, executed. In the 17th century, there are only a few recorded instances of criminal trials, but scholars agree that this might be due to the fact that out of self-preservation, homosexuals had become adept at hiding their personal relationships and sexual behaviors from the rest of society, knowing the punishment was death.

Painting depicting King James with Queen Anne perched above others.
  George Villiers stands below next to his wife, while King James reaches out for his hand.

Interestingly, lesbianism, or sex between women, was not considered illegal at the time. There are very few recorded legal cases of lesbian activity, however some cases identifying women cross-dressing as men were recorded in the 1700s and later. Women were subjected to the Buggery Act only if their non-procreational sexual participation was with a man.

Unlike the five English kings before King James I and one after him (and a queen) who were suspected of being either homosexual or bisexual and survived the accusations, their lovers often paid the price with their lives. Some, like Villiers, were stabbed by angry countrymen and others were hanged, drawn, and quartered. Today, flanked on either side of James’s tomb in Westminster Abbey are two of his great loves—his cousin Esme Stuart who was 24 years his senior and he adored from the time he was 13 and, of course, George Villiers.

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Donna Scott is an award-winning author of 17th and 18th century historical fiction.  Before embarking on a writing career, she spent her time in the world of academia.  She earned her BA in English from the University of Miami and her MS and EdD (ABD) from Florida International University.  She has two sons and lives in sunny South Florida with her husband.  Her first novel, Shame the Devil, received the first place Chaucer Award for historical fiction and a Best Book designation from Chanticleer International Book Reviews.  Her newest novel, The London Monster, will be released in January 2021.

Website: www.donnascott.net
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Sir Kenelm Digby and His Closet

By Lauren Gilbert

Earlier this month, author M. J. Logue wrote a fascinating article for this blog titled “Slipcoat Cheese” (HERE ) which referenced THE CLOSET OF SIR KENELM DIGBY KNIGHT OPENED. Having an interest in old cookbooks, I decided to look into this book and Sir Kenelm Digby himself. What an interesting character! The following is a brief sketch of Sir Kenelm’s life, and a glance at his Closet.

Sir Kenelm Digby. Line engraving by R. van Voerst,
1646, after Anton van Dyck

.
Sir Kenelm Digby was truly a renaissance man, not only because he was born during the Renaissance era, but because of his wide-ranging interests. He was born July 11, 1603 at Gayhurst (or Goathurst) in Buckinghamshire, England. His father was Sir Everard Digby of Drystoke, Rutland, England, and his mother Mary Mulshaw (or Mulsho) of Gayhurst. The family was Roman Catholic, and Sir Everard was executed in 1606 as a party to the Gunpowder Plot. It appears that Gayhurst came to the Digby’s through Mary, as James I allowed Kenelm to inherit the unconfiscated lands which brought him a significant income annually.

Gayhurst House at night - Brian Tomlinson Photography
(modern view)

In 1618, Kenelm entered Gloucester Hall at Oxford (Gloucester Hall is now Worcester College) where he studied the physical sciences under the tutelage of Thomas Allen, mathematician, astrologer and occultist. Allen left his books and manuscripts to Kenelm, who ultimately donated them to the Bodleian Library. Kenelm left Oxford in 1620 without a degree. At some point, it is thought that he met, fell in love with and wanted to marry Venitia Stanley but both families disapproved so he left to travel the Continent from 1620 to 1623. He met Charles, then Prince of Wales and subsequently Charles I, in Spain and joined his household. Kenelm returned to England and was dubbed a knight by James I. He was also granted an M. A. from Cambridge during the king’s visit.

Portrait of Lady Venitia Digby by Henri Toutin,
1637 after her death (Walters Gallery)

In 1625, Sir Kenelm married Venitia Stanley. She was a famous beauty, about whom Ben Johnson wrote poetry, and she was painted by Van Dyck several times. They were apparently much in love and happily married, producing four sons and a daughter. (Venitia did have a somewhat questionable reputation, but it did not seem to disturb their relationship, so we shall not address that here.)

In 1627, Sir Kenelm undertook privateering, venturing into the waters of Gibraltar, Algiers and Majorca among other places. Among his adventures were battles with French and Venetian ships. Subsequently, he returned to England and became a naval administrator, and at one point was a governor of Trinity House (responsible for beacons, markers, lighthouses etc. to warn ships of dangers).

During the period of his youth and young manhood, Sir Kenelm’s Roman Catholic faith lapsed. Venitia died suddenly on May 1, 1633 and was buried in Christ Church, Newgate. This blow led him to isolate himself in scientific studies at Gresham College and, at some point, to Paris and a renewal of his faith by 1636. In 1638, he wrote a treatise on religion, defending the Roman Catholic faith as the one true faith. Ironically, during the 1630’s, Sir Kenelm was also studying astrology, medical matters and alchemy. He returned to England in 1639.

Unfortunately, the climate was bad for Catholics; his activities roused Parliament and in 1643, Sir Kenelm’s property was confiscated and he was compelled to return to Paris. He wrote two philosophical treatises while in Paris, “The Nature of Bodies” and “On the Immortality of Reasonable Souls”, released in 1644. He met Queen Henrietta Maria while in France and became chancellor of her household and engaged in diplomatic missions to Pope Innocent X for the English crown. Sir Kenelm ultimately returned to England in 1654, where (rather surprisingly) he became an associate of Oliver Cromwell and he was engaged in several diplomatic ventures.

As a result of his situation with Henrietta Maria, Sir Kenelm was in favour at court after the Restoration. He continued his studies, corresponded with scientists, mathematicians and other intellectuals, and was one of the founding members of the Royal Society in 1662. In addition to the treatises mentioned here, Sir Kenelm wrote a number of works; a list many of them which can be read on line is available HERE . He did have difficulties with Charles II, and was finally banned from court for a while. He died June 11, 1665 at age 62 in Covent Garden, London, and was buried next to his wife.

This brings us to THE CLOSET OF SIR KENELM DIGBY KNIGHT OPENED. Although Sir Kenelm is shown as the author, it was actually published some years after his death (about 1669) and is considered to have been compiled by a gentleman named Georg Hartman, one of his servants. It contains fascinating recipes for a wide range of things ranging from meads (a large number), cosmetics, possets, soups and stews, plague-waters, puddings, roasts, savoury pies, cakes and sweets, and includes multiple recipes for the slip-coat cheese. However, one of the most fascinating recipes is in Appendix II and harks back to Sir Kenelm’s studies of medicine and, possibly, alchemy: the Powder of Sympathy.

The Powder of Sympathy is a magical healing powder derived from English vitriol, dissolved in water, filtered, boiled and set aside for a few days; when the liquid is then poured off, green crystals are found. These crystals are dried, exposed to the sun until white, then beaten to powder, which is the Powder of Sympathy. To cure a wound, one takes some blood on a cloth, puts some of the powder on the bloody cloth, wraps it up and keep it safely. The wound itself should be kept clean and wrapped in clean linen, and should heal without other medicinals or pain. As we can see, the Powder of Sympathy is not directly applied to the wound itself. There are further instructions for an inflamed wound and to stop bleeding. One has to wonder how efficacious this was. I would think any healing that might have been attributed to the Powder of Sympathy had more to do with keeping the wound clean than anything else.

SOURCES INCLUDE:

Digby, Kenelm. THE CLOSET OF SIR KENELM DIGBY KNIGHT OPENED. Introduction by Anne MacDonnell (Chelsea, 1910). Reprint 2019: Amazon Services, Inc. Columbia, SC

Britannica.com “Sir Kenelm Digby English Philosopher and Diplomat” by the Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. HERE

The Catholic Dictionary. “Sir Kenelm Digby” by Charles Boothman, 1908. HERE

JSTOR.org “Sir Kenelm Digby, Alchemist, Scholar, Courtier and Man of Adventure” by Wyndham Miles. Chymia, vol. 2, 1949, pp. 119–128. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/27757138 .

The Online Books Page. “On-line Books by Kenelm Digby (Digby, Kenelm, 1603-1665). HERE

ILLUSTRATIONS:

Sir Kenelm Digby. Line engraving by Robert van Voerst, 1646, after Anton Van Dyck. Creative Commons. HERE

Gayhurst House at night by Brian Tomlinson, Jan. 12, 2017. Creative Commons. HERE

Portrait of Lady Venitia Digby by Henri Toutin, 1637 (painted after her death). File provided to Wikimedia Commons by the Walters Gallery as part of a cooperation project. Creative Commons. HERE

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An avid reader, Lauren Gilbert was introduced to English authors early in life. Lauren has a bachelor of arts degree in liberal arts English with a minor in Art History. A long-time member of JASNA, she has presented various programs at the South Florida Region, and a breakout session at the the 2011 Annual General Meeting in Ft. Worth, TX. She lives in Florida with her husband. Her first book HEYERWOOD: A Novel is available. She is finishing a second novel, A RATIONAL ATTACHMENT for release in 2019, and doing research for a biography. For more information, visit her website HERE

Lady Spy

by Linda Fetterly Root

When the new Spanish ambassador Don Pedro de Zuniga arrived in London in the early autumn of 1605, he was given the names of seven individuals who were 'pensioners' of the King of Spain, presumably aristocrats who had rendered service to the Hapsburgs. The names were not made public nor were they presumed to have been revealed to King James.

THE LIST OF SEVEN 

Henry Howard, Earl of Northampton 

Charles Blount, Earl of Devonshire 

Thomas Sackville, Earl of Dorset 

Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, the king's First Minister. 

Catherine Howard, Countess of Suffolk, Chief Lady-in-Waiting to the queen; wife of a principal peer.

Sir William Monson, Diplomat

Jean Drummond, first lady of the Queen's Bedchamber

This was a time in English history when aligning with the Spanish was a precarious course of action. The years between the appearance of the Armada off the Lizard in 1588 and the peace overtures of 1604 were not nearly enough to erase the terrors of the Armada years from the collective English memory. And if that were not concern enough, two months after the list came into the ambassador's hands,  the Spanish threat emerged again in the wake of the Gunpowder Treason. Anti-Spanish sentiment was again stoked and the new ambassador was forced into self-imposed house arrest at Spanish Place, guarded by a cordon of English soldiers. It would not have served the fragile peace had it become know that seven strategically-placed personalities at the Stuart court were  in the pocket of the Spanish.

Of the seven on the list, two were women. Six were either participants or, as was the case with the Duchess of Suffolk, closely associated with principals in the negotiations of the Treaty of London of 1603, an instrument that ended hundreds of years of hostilities and decades of actual war between the English and the Spanish. If the seven names were to be made public, the first six could stand behind an argument that King Philip III was merely thanking them for the successful conclusion of an enterprise as beneficial to England as it was to Spain.

Seated at the English side of the negotiating table at Somerset House where the Treaty of London was signed were Thomas Sackville, Charles Blount, Henry Howard and none other than Sir Robert Cecil, who was considered one of England's vociferous critics of the Spanish. The only male of the seven missing from the table was Sir William Monson, who had gone to Flanders as escort to the retiring leader of the Spanish-Hapsburg delegation, Don Juan de Velasco, Duke of Frias, who while in the portrait, was too ill to participate in the negotiations. Monson had strong personal ties to the Hapsburgs and his status as a pensioner should come as no surprise. Nor is Catherine Howard's inclusion a puzzle. Long before the autumn of 1605, she was a well known conniver with a propensity to assert herself into most matters of consequence, a Howard, and the wife of one of England's highest ranking peers. Sir Thomas had the title but his Countess had the brains.

BUT, WHO WAS JANE DRUMMOND?

To the casual historian, there is no plausible explanation for the inclusion of the last name on the list unless she was a spy. Jane (Jean) Drummond, the only Scot on King Philip's secret list was an unmarried woman and the third child of a well regarded but remote Scottish Earl. What prestige she may have acquired as sister-in-law of Alexander Seton, the powerful Scottish Chancellor, faded when Seton set aside Lilias Drummond for the same reason Henry Tudor discarded Queen Catherine for Anne Boleyn. Yet, while Lady Jane seemed the least likely to be of value to the Hapsburgs, hers was among the largest grants. The grants were given at a time when Philip III was nearly bankrupt, which begs the question: what services did Lady Drummond perform to warrant extravagant gifts and an annual stipend of 2000 Felipes?

Unfortunately, one of the most comprehensive sources of information regarding the influence of Queen Anne's ladies, The Politics of Female Households: Ladies-in-waiting across Early Modern Europe, (an anthology edited by Nadine Akkerman and Birgit Houben) is priced out of the budget of most researchers. Also, as pointed out by Linda Porter in her journal article, The Politics of Female Households, (History Today, Vol. 64, Issue 6, June 2014), the anthology has the weaknesses of having been written by graduate students of varying talents and being poorly edited. However, the portion dealing with the household of Anne of Denmark has much to offer about Lady Jane which is not found elsewhere.

Nevertheless, it includes little of her history before Lady Jane Drummond accompanied Anne to England in 1603. For that, one must delve into the Scottish history of the years from the time of the King's marriage to Anne of Denmark and his ascension to the English crown when Elizabeth Tudor died in 1603. By then, Anne had already shown a preference for staffing her household with Catholics. Some modern historians argue that she did so with the king's knowledge and half-hearted consent. The popular opinion is he advised her to be discreet about it and agreed to look through his fingers if she kept her Catholic leanings in the closet.

The king's ambivalence toward his wife's Catholicism raises the question of just whose agent Lady Drummond may have been. Recent research suggests if not an agent, she was at least a conduit for exchanges between the Stuart monarchy and the Catholic kings of early modern Europe which James wished to seduce to the peace table.

Those who follow the politics of James Stuart's last few years as Scotland's resident king will recall he often lived apart from his Danish bride, Anne, whose sons were expected to live in separate households, a tradition which the queen found abhorrent and which caused an estrangement between the royals. When she was separated from her firstborn, Prince Henry Frederick, she launched an aborted attempt to kidnap him while James was occupied elsewhere. As was his nature, the king forgave her, but their relationship was never quite the same. As a part of her dowry, she had an entitlement to lands at Dunfermline and established a residence in the Abbey Palace where her second son, Charles I, was born. He was a sickly child, and thus there was no pressure from the Scottish lords to separate him from his mother. There was no political advantage and considerable risk in obtaining guardianship of a child who would likely die.

At the time of Charles Stuart's birth, the king's Scottish counselor and confidante, Alexander Seton, was still married to his first wife Lilias Drummond. They, too, had established a palatial residence at Dunfermline. It was likely during her confinement before the birth of her second son that the Queen met Lilias's sister Jane. At any rate, a few months after James Stuart's arrival in England to ascend the English throne in the spring of 1603, His Majesty ordered his consort to gather up their remarkable son Prince Henry Frederick and travel south, leaving unappealing, crippled Charles behind with his Chancellor and his second wife, Grizel Leslie. Queen Anne selected Jane Drummond to accompany her to Stirling to collect Prince Henry Frederick, heir-apparent to three kingdoms and a well-known crowd-pleaser.

By then she and Lady Jane were fast friends and co-conspirators. In the autumn of 1603 when the Queen arrived in London, one of Jane's first assigned duties was to staff the queen’s household with priests disguised as servants, with the queen’s confessor posing as her Majesty’s falconer.
 
According to research contained in the book edited by Nadine Akkerman, Lady Jane Drummond’s activities on behalf of the Hapsburgs and the Vatican were likely instigated by the queen and possibly sanctioned by the king, who possibly used them as a conduit to the Catholic kings with whom he wished to reconcile. This viewpoint is consistent with recent research indicating James I aspired to a legacy as the monarch who brought peace to the modern states of Europe by minimizing the religious differences between Protestant rulers and the Catholic kings. (see King James VI and I and the Reunion of Christendom, W. B. Patterson, Cambridge Studies in Earl Modern British History, Cambridge University Press, 1997).

Jane’s relationship with the Spanish and likely, the Pope, were not the least bit casual. She had even been assigned the code name Amadis, from a character in a medieval romance novel. She was a single woman and could not have gained her pension as a means of exerting pressure on a well-placed husband, for she did not marry reformed Scottish reiver-cum-courtier, Lord Robert Kerr (later Earl of Roxburgh) until 1614, after his first wife died. Her stock in trade was her actual or perceived influence over the queen. Before he was replaced by Don Pedro Zuniga in 1605, the Spanish ambassador Don Juan de Taxis, Count of Villa Medina, personally requested Philip III to grant a stipend to Lady Drummond, citing the numerous times she had passed on valuable secret information. While the extent of her disclosures are not known, it is likely she was also used to pass messages to the Spanish from James I when he himself could not.

Anne of Denmark

After the discovery of the Gunpowder Treason in November 1604, the queen found it politically astute to cut back on her Catholic leanings, which made Jane’s position critical insofar as it provided an avenue for the queen to maintain a clandestine contact with the Catholic European monarchies and the Vatican. However, the Queen and Jane had a a falling out in 1617 when Jane's husband, who was by then the Earl of Roxburghe, attempted to obtain the guardianship of Charles without first consulting either the king or the queen. The popular Henry Frederick had died in 1612, apparently of typhus, and control of adolescent Charles was indeed a power play characteristic of Lord Roxburghe. When Jane was expelled from the royal bedchamber, the Spanish discontinued the stipend, a rather clear statement of why it had been awarded in the first place.

Logically, this should be the end of the story, but it is not. Jane Drummond did not disappear from the world of power politics when her relationship with Anne ended. By then, she had already gained the favor of the heir-apparent Charles. When he married the Catholic French princess Henrietta Maria, Jane's stars were in ascendance. She remained an important figure in the Court of Charles I until her death. The circumstances of her last mission were not fully known until last year when its details were reported in The Guardian.

THE DRESS:

The year 1642 found Jane Drummond, Countess of Roxburghe, in the household of yet another Stuart consort, Henrietta Maria, wife of ill-fated Charles I. She had known Charles since he was an infant in the Scottish household of Alexander Seton. Between the Setons and his mother, he had spent most of his early life in the care of Catholics, until he was placed in the care of Sir Robert Carey and his wife, Dame Robert. At some point after his marriage, Charles I wished to make the Countess of Roxburghe governess of his heir, the future Charles II, but the anti-Catholic faction at the English court balked. Nevertheless, Jane Drummond was appointed governess of his other children. Charles and Henrietta Maria's marriage is said to have become a love match, and the royal household, however stressed, was a happy one. Unfortunately, domestic harmony did not save Charles I from his shortcomings or his inability to adapt to change.

King Charles, his consort and his children

Charles I and his allies (PD Art)

A scant few months before the outbreak of what became the English Civil War, the king's consort and a few of her most trusted ladies sailed from Dover to the Netherlands, ostensibly to deliver the princess Mary, who was five, to the protection of her betrothed, William of Orange. But that was not the true reason for the trip. Henrietta Marie was traveling to Europe to pawn the Crown Jewels, in order to finance a Royalist army. It was a highly dangerous mission, both practically and politically. Many of Charles's failings had been attributed to his Catholic consort. While the details of the mission are unclear, the fleet of twelve ships in the Consort's convoy was shipwrecked off the Dutch Island of Texel. The royal party either survived or was not at sea when the storm hit. Reports of the shipwreck are vague. With England soon to be at war, the event was overshadowed. However, in 2014, Dutch divers found the wreckage of one of the ships and among the items salvaged was an elegant dress, heavily embroidered in gold and silver threads and wonderfully preserved.

Courtesy of the Texil Museum

The discovery was not widely publicized until the origin of the items could be researched, but thanks to circumstantial evidence, a newly discovered letter from Charles I's sister Elizabeth of Bohemia, the Winter Queen, and the research of Nadine Akkerman and her colleague Helmer Helmers, the dress is accepted by most historians as a gown belonging to Jane Drummond, Countess of Roxburghe. The claim is largely based upon its dated style and large size.  At the time of the shipwreck, the Countess was 46 years old, stout, and no longer a fashion trend-setter.  Her inclusion on the mission is a testimony to the degree of trust and high esteem in which she was held by the Queen Consort and by King Charles, who sought to entrust her with his children.  If the mission to  pawn the Crown Jewels had been exposed, more than just gowns and trinkets would have been sacrificed. Jane Drummond, Countess of Roxburghe, died the following year.  King Charles was beheaded at Westminster on January 31, 1649.

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Linda Fetterly Root is the author of seven novels set in Marie Stuart's Scotland and early modern Britain. She lives in the Southern California high desert and is a retired major crimes prosecutor. She is a member of the Marie Stuart Society, the California Bar and the Bar of the Supreme Court.

The Markhams: A study in betrayal, treachery and infidelity. Part One: The Knight.

By Linda Root

Plots against the Scotsman who had become the King of England did not begin with Guido Fawkes and William Catesby in November of 1605, nor were they all the result of his religion.  For that matter, there was no consensus as to what exactly his religion was. In her article published in 1985 in the Journal of British Studies and entitled Gunpowder, Treason, and Scots, historian Jenny Wormald hypothesizes that there was just as much resistance to James VI stemming from his Scottishness as attributed to his Protestantism.

While the Armada threat had created more than a few Hispanophobes among the English, and the English and the Hapsburgs were hardly friends, a dislike of all things Spanish did not overshadow the English response to highly charged buzz words such as Bannockburn and Ancrum Moor. An enemy sitting tight in Madrid and Flanders was far more remote than the one entrenched on the far side of the Rivers Tweed and Clyde or along the Borders of the Middle Marches at places like Ferniehirst, where Scots a short step above barbarians had been known to play with severed English heads.

A young King James I

Sir Anthony Weldon put the sentiment to words, saying "Scotland was too guid for those that inhabit it, and too bad for others to be at the charge of conquering it. The ayre might be wholesome, but for the stinking people that inhabit it...Thair beastis be generallie small (women excepted) of which sort there are no greater in the world."  James banished him.for his anti-Scottish statements.

Those who favored the Spanish Infanta as an alternative candidate to James Charles Stuart, King of Scots had not all flocked to support Isabella Clara Eugenie because she was a Catholic. In spite of their denials, Elizabeth's First Minister William Cecil (Lord Burghley) and his son Robert, Earl of Salsbury, were among her sponsors. Nevertheless, Archduchess Isabella, who ruled the Spanish Netherlands alongside her husband, did not like the terms proposed by the Cecils, which included a pledge to work in harmony with England's protestant-dominated regime.

Archdukes Albert and Isabella (yes, she used the masculine!)

There was more to Isabella's lack of enthusiasm than her Catholicism. She and Archduke Albert had brought a Golden Age to the Netherlands and enjoyed a pleasant life, but even their luxurious salons did not explain it all.  Although her father Phillip II had willed the Southern Netherlands to her and Albert, it was a conditional grant. In effect, they served as Regents for the benefit of her brother Phillip III in the event Isabella died without issue. By the time Elizabeth Tudor was in extremis, the Infanta was thirty-six years old and probably barren. Nevertheless, she and Albert did not wish to do anything to cause a reversion prematurely. Adopting a position tolerant of Protestantism would be a dangerous move likely to alienate her brother.

Thus, in the Spring of 1603, Elizabeth lay dying and England was without a designated heir apparent. In that uncertain climate, the Queen's failing health and the fluctuating fortunes of Sir Walter Raleigh spawned two precursors to the Gunpowder Treason--the Bye Plot and the Main plot.  The target was King James, and the scapegoat was Sir Walter Raleigh.

SirWalter Raleigh

The Bye Plot and the Main Plot.

Enter stage right, Sir Griffin Markham.

In early 1603, many Catholics in England held out hopes of leniency towards Catholics on the part of James IV of Scotland. Thomas Percy, later one of the Gunpowder Conspirators, had stoked them. He was a second cousin and agent of Henry Percy, the Earl of Northumberland. Northumberland had sent him to Scotland to meet privately with James on the issue of his ascension.  Whether it was to gain status with his friends or because of a language barrier as some historians suggest (i.e., Antonia Fraser, The Gunpowder Plot), Tom  Percy had overstated the Scottish king's intentions on the issue of religion.

A widespread belief that Scottish James had grown tolerant of Catholicism did not seem so outlandish in light of evidence suggesting his consort Anne of Denmark had embraced Catholicism and both of his parents had been Catholic.  Rumors abounded in Europe that James himself intended to convert as soon as the English crown was sitting firmly on his head. In early 1603, Elizabeth died, James was tapped to succeed her, and he and a parade of ambitious Scots crossed into England in the Spring, just what many of the Protestant English feared.

Coronation of James I

But when his first Parliament was convened, the royal agenda was aimed at a union of the nations as well as the crowns.In June 1604 the national parliaments of both Scotland and England passed acts appointing commissioners to explore the possibility of "a more perfect union". James closed the final session of his first parliament with a rebuke to his opponents in the House of Commons — "Here all things suspected...He merits to be buried in the bottom of the sea that shall but think of separation, where God had made such a Union". Nothing was said about a reconciliation of religions, and during his first months in office, he took a harsh stand against the open practice of Catholicism.

The Bye Plot.

The first plot to threaten the monarchy has been referred to as the harebrained scheme of two disgruntled priests--William Watson and  William Clark. The pair planned to kidnap "the King and all his cubbes" from their lodging in Greenwich and carry them to the Tower. Next,  they would force the King 1) to pardon them; 2) to adopt a policy of  'tolleration of relligion;' and,  3) to place Catholics in 'places of credit' in the government. Since the two priests lacked the muscle to carry it off, they recruited some men who knew how to wield a sword and promised them a place in the pro-Catholic government they had conjured.

According to their plan,  Watson would be Lord Keeper (of the Privy Seal); their co-conspirator Lord Grey would be Earl Marshall;  Brooke would be Lord Treasurer (referring either to Henry Brooke, Lord Cobham, or his brother George),  and Sir Griffin Markham would be Secretary.  The plot was uncovered separately by two different Jesuit priests, one of whom promptly blew the whistle. The subtler of the two was the aristocrat-turned-Jesuit  Father John Gerard who engaged his brethren to put a stop to the foolishness. In investigating the affair, the interrogators got Cobham talking, and he exposed the Main Plot and implicated Raleigh.

The Main Plot.

The Main Plot was more ambitious and deadlier and was believed to have the financial backing of the Spanish government. Its objective was to eliminate the king and replace him with his hapless paternal cousin Arabella Stuart.

When those named by Cobham, including Raleigh, who was almost certainly innocent, were brought before the King, James was faced with a cause celebre. Raleigh was a well established English hero with no reason to fall in with the likes of the others charged.  He certainly would not have looked to Spain for money, since he had already deprived the Spanish treasuries of most of its New World gold. The likes of Raleigh and Drake had greatly relieved the English people of their tax burdens through their privateering, and not even James wished to see him hanged and gutted.  What followed is one of the most bizarre execution stories in the history of what James was referring to as Great Britain.

Raleigh's heroics  at Trinidad

The Execution Comedy.

After a series of joint and separate trials of those arrested in each of the plots, and in spite of the lack of any evidence against Sir Walter Raleigh, all of the prisoners were condemned. The two priests who designed the ridiculous Bye Plot were the first to die. They climbed the scaffold the 29th of November, 1603. Next in line were the remaining Bye conspirators, Cobham, Grey, and Sir Griffin Markham, who was a Midland Catholic from a family of known recusants. His wife Anne was a friend and neighbor to Eliza Roper, the redoubtable Dowager Lady Vaux (See my post The Undaunted Eliza Roper, Dowager Lady Vaux, supra.).

 In planning the event, King James revealed a talent for stagecraft that even the Bard could not have surpassed. Surprisingly, he kept the script very close to the chest. Not even the families of the victims or the Queen knew what James had planned. Each of the condemned men had been housed separately. They were to die one at a time. Markham was the first to mount the scaffold, to be followed at intervals by Grey and Cobham.  At the last minute, Markham, who was visibly disconcerted with good reason,  was told he did not appear ready to die, and would be given time to make his peace. He was escorted from the scaffold, unbeknownst to the remaining two, who thought him dead.

When Grey ascended the scaffold and made his peace with God,  he was told the order of executions had been changed,  and he, too, was escorted to his cell. The routine repeated itself with all three, each thinking the worst as to the fate of the others, and fearing the worst for himself, until the Sheriff offered them the Kings pardon and announced the king would do the same for Raleigh, who had been scheduled to die the following Monday. According to eyewitness accounts, the outcries of God Save the King were deafening.

In spite of overtures to the contrary to the crowd at the aborted execution, Raleigh, though spared, was not released.  He spent the rest of his life in a Tower Suite. He was executed many years later after he finally fell into the trap and committed treason. One could hardly blame him.

Sir Griffin Markham and the others were allowed to leave the scaffold with their lives, but little else. Markham was stripped of his lands and his knighthood and banished from the kingdom. From that time forward, the fortunes of the Markhams' feel into the hands of his wife, Lady Anne. While there is scarce information as to how she accomplished it, she quickly made friends with people in high places. Her name was already familiar to Cecil, who heard her mentioned by a turncoat Jesuit as someone who knew Gerard from his enthusiasm for hunting in the Midlands. In any event, the lady's circumstances did not remain dire for long.  By November 1604, her husband's attained property was ordered delivered to her care. A portion of  Markham's debts had been assumed by a cousin, John Harington, who was imprisoned when he could not pay them, but James forgave the debt and made Harington a Knight of the Bath.

Meanwhile, Markham, who was living in the Spanish Netherlands, found lucrative employment in the households of wealthy exiles there, probably as a spy.  By November 1605, his wife Anne was still living well, mixing with Midland society. Free of her husband's debts, she maintained an adequate household staff and resumed her formal lifestyle. She had been a long-time friend of the recusant Vaux of Harrowden and was a welcome visitor at Great Harrowden Hall.  By the time of the Gunpowder Conspiracy, she had made a new friend of Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, the King's right-hand man.  Her absentee husband was not the only spy in the family.

Part 2 of this post, The Lady Spy, will be published on this blog on Friday, June 03 2016.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Additional Reading and References

Childs, Jessie, God’s Traitors: Terror and Faith in Elizabethan England, Oxford Press, N.Y. 2004.
deLisle, Leandra, After Elizabeth, The Rise of James o fScotland and the Struggle for the Throne of England, Ballantyne Books, NewYork, 2005.
Fraser, Antonia, The Gunpowder Plot: Terror and Faith in 1605, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1995. Also, see http://books.google.co.uk/books.
Gerard, John, S.J. The Autobiography of a Hunted Priest, Ignatius Press, San Francisco, Translated and edited by P.Carman, S.J., 195
Hogge, Alice, God’s Secret Agents, Queen Elizabeth’s Forbidden Priests and the Hatching of the Gunpowder Plot, Harper Perrenial, New York *London *Tronto*Sydney, 2005
Lovell, Mary, Bess of Hardwick, Empire Builder, W.W.Norton & Company,2007
Morris, John, S.J., Editor. The condition of Catholics Under James I, Father John Gerard’sNarrative of the Gunpowder Plot and Biography, 1871, London, a public domain book.
Morrisey, Mary, Politics and the Paul’s Cross Sermons,1558-1642
Patterson, W.B., King James VI and I and the Reunion of Christendom, Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History, Cambridge University Press 1997.
Wormald, Jenny, Gunpowder, Treason and Scots, Journal of British Studies, Vol.24, issue 2 April 1985,pp141-168.
___________1603: The men of the Bye Plot,but not those of the Main Plot, December 9th, 2010, The Headsmen,from Executed Today, http://www.executedtoday.com/2010/12/09/1603-william-watson-bye-plot-main-plot/
Additional materials from Wikipedia.

About the Author:

Linda Root is a historical fiction author writing in the 16th and 17th Century, whose books include The First Marie and the Queen of Scots, The Last Knight and the Queen of Scots, Unknown Princess, The Knight's Daughter, 1603: The Queen's Revenge; In the Shadow of the Gallow, with Deliverance of the Lamb to follow. She is a former major crimes prosecutor who lives in the California hi-desert Town of Yucca Valley. She has written a Scottish fantasy, the Green Woman, under the name J.D.Root and is currently writing a comedic mystery tentatively called The Hurricane and the Morongo Blonds.

Bonfire Night - Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot of 1605

by Maggi Andersen

This post is an EHFA Editor's choice. It was first published on 15th June, 2012

The same year that the first Plays Act was passed, Guy Fawkes was discovered trying to blow up the King and the Houses of Parliament in the ill-fated Gunpowder Plot.

A contemporary engraving of eight of the thirteen conspirators, by Crispijn van de Passe. Fawkes is third from the right.

Guy Fawkes (13 April 1570 – 31 January 1606), also known as Guido Fawkes – the name he adopted while fighting for the Spanish in the Low Countries – belonged to a group of provincial English Catholics who planned the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605.

Fawkes was baptised at the church of St. Michael le Belfrey

Fawkes was born and educated in York. His father died when Fawkes was eight years old, after which his mother married a recusant Catholic. Fawkes later converted to Catholicism and left for the continent, where he fought in the Eighty Years' War on the side of Catholic Spain against Protestant Dutch reformers. He travelled to Spain to seek support for a Catholic rebellion in England but was unsuccessful. He later met Thomas Wintour, with whom he returned to England.

Wintour introduced Fawkes to Robert Catesby, who planned to assassinate King James I and restore a Catholic monarch to the throne. The plotters secured the lease to an undercroft beneath the House of Lords, and Fawkes was placed in charge of the gunpowder they stockpiled there.

Discovery of the Gunpowder Plot (c. 1823), Henry Perronet Brigg

Prompted by the receipt of an anonymous letter, the authorities searched Westminster Palace during the early hours of 5 November, and found Fawkes guarding the explosives.

Fawkes being interrogated

Over the next few days, he was questioned and tortured, and eventually he broke. His signature of "Guido" made soon after his torture, is a barely evident scrawl.

Immediately before his execution on 31 January, Fawkes jumped from the scaffold where he was to be hanged and broke his neck, thus avoiding the agony of the mutilation that followed.

A 1606 etching by Claes (Nicolaes) Jansz Visscher, depicting Fawkes's execution

As a result the Observance of 5th November Act was passed, which required the people of England to celebrate ‘with unfeigned thankfulness … this joyful day of deliverance’ as a ‘perpetual remembrance … for all ages to come’. This meant that you were supposed to go to church where prayers of thanksgiving were to be said, ‘and there to abide orderly and soberly at the time of the said prayers, preaching or other service of God’.

This law made it compulsory to celebrate the arrest of Guy Fawkes and stayed in force in England until 1859.

However, there is one law concerning bonfire night still in force which says it is only permissible for children to go door to door collecting ‘a penny for the guy’ with the written permission of the local chief constable of police – no mention of ‘trick or treat’ on Halloween without his consent.

Though long dead, there is still debate as to whether Guy Fawkes was a hero or villain. His adversary was King James I of England, and he planned to kill the queen, and elder son, Henry too. Before ascending the English throne (following the death of the Virgin Queen Elizabeth), James became the King of Scotland at the tender age of 13 years. The boy king was under constant threat. People around him were always looking to seize power.

James I was a man of integrity and new ideas. One of his greatest achievements was the translation of the scriptures.

The Monteagle letter

He ruled during a time when the Church and State were same and brought about various changes. There were two factions within the church: the Bishops, who had supreme power, used the Bishop’s Bible which was the sole religious text for the British. The Puritans had faith in the Scriptures and used the Geneva Bible. King James I felt that the Bishop’s Bible was a lazy work while the Geneva Bible had footnotes with political inclinations. He made the decision to give the English a new Bible. He formed a committee that worked for seven years to come up with King James Bible. England thrived under King James I’s leadership. But the old Roman Catholic followers were not happy with the radical thoughts of their king.

The plot led to renewed penal legislation against Catholics in 1606, and increased Protestant fears of popish conspiracies.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Maggi Andersen writes historical romances set in the Georgian, Regency and Victorian periods.
Find her novels at Amazon.

Author website: maggiandersenauthor.com
Facebook: Maggi Andersen Author
Twitter: @maggiandersen

Research: 

The Strange Laws of Old England, Nigel Cawthorne. Piatkus.
The Cambridge Historical Encyclopedia of Great Britain and Ireland. Guild Publishing, London.
Wikipedia

Illustrations: All are in the Public Domain with additional attributions req: 

Church of St Michael le Belfrey: Source=http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=156011512&context=set-72057594119141960&size=o |Date=28 May 2006 |Author=Andrew Dyer |Permission={{cc-by-sa-2.0}

Mrs Gaskell's Tower Part II - Illegitimacy in History

By Annie Whitehead

A few weeks ago, I was at the enchanting village of Silverdale in Lancashire, situated on the northern tip of Morecambe Bay and nestled in an AONB (Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty). I envisaged another photo tour, as I've done before on these pages, but, whilst along with some stunning scenery and some rather large houses with Maseratis parked on the drives, there's plenty here of historical note, there is not much else to connect Mrs Gaskell with the place.

However, it was while staying here that she wrote her novel Ruth and this book is noted for its subject matter - that of illegitimacy. A discussion of this theme in literature would probably be enlightening, but is not for the pages of this blog. Instead I began to think about 'bastards' in history generally; how they fared, whether their illegitimacy hindered them and whether in fact we would know of them today had their parents been married.

Henry I's bastards were many in number and have not remained, to be a bit 1066 and All That, "memorable", but the fact that his only legitimate son drowned had a long-lasting impact on the country, resulting in the civil war between Henry's daughter, Matilda, and his nephew, Stephen, which ultimately saw the Plantagenets ruling until there was a bit of a skirmish in a field near Bosworth in 1485. And speaking of Plantagenets, it's still a matter of fevered speculation that Edward IV might have been a bastard - his mother Cecily seems almost to have confessed as much - but at the time it didn't seem to harm his career. No, what made folks a bit po-faced about him was his marriage to the 'commoner' Elizabeth Woodville. Still, she had the last laugh, as there was more of her blood in subsequent kings and queens than Edward's, if rumours about his mother are true (Elizabeth's daughter married Henry Tudor).

Chucking a bastard son or two into the mix is always bound to muddy the waters - there are those who argue vociferously that Richard I, he with the Lionheart, was homosexual. And yet, Phillip of Cognac was his illegitimate son and may not have been the only one.
While we're on the subject of homosexuality, James I seemed happy to flaunt his preference for men but managed to sire two sons, so perhaps that argument against Richard I's generally accepted proclivities doesn't hold much water.

Conjecture also surrounds the legitimacy of Charles II's most famous 'bastard', James, Duke of Monmouth. Charles was not above acknowledging his offspring and handsomely endowing his children and mistresses with lands and titles. But, like Henry I, he had no legitimate male heir, he was getting old, and trouble was brewing. The problem hinged upon the details of Charles' relationship with Monmouth's mother, Lucy Walter, and the existence, or not, of a piece of paper that would prove the couple was officially married - a marriage certificate kept in a secret Black Box, the existence of which was denied by Charles. Whether or not he believed himself to be illegitimate, (he claimed he wasn't), it didn't stop Monmouth making a bid for the throne upon the death of Charles II. Religion being another 'slight' problem, many people preferred the 'bastard protestant' Monmouth to any legitimate but Catholic offspring of Charles' legal heir, his brother James II.

So, the history of the English monarchy is fairly well sprinkled with bastards, some of whom - like Henry VII's 'natural' son - gained no more notoriety than to be awarded the constable-ship of Beaumaris on the island of Anglesey and some of whom attempted, unsuccessfully, to change the line of succession in their favour.

Of course, a few weeks ago in October, we 'celebrated' the anniversary of one of the most famous battles in English history, and we can say without doubt that illegitimacy was no hindrance to William the Conqueror, or William the Bastard, to give him his proper name. A couple of days ago it was Christmas Day, a significant date for William, for that was when he was crowned in Westminster.

Say what you like about William (and I frequently do), a nice little footnote is that unlike most of his successors, he seems to have remained completely faithful to his wife. Was he a loving husband, or was he simply anxious that no child of his should be taunted by the tilt-yard bullies?

Annie Whitehead is an historian and author of To Be a Queen. She also writes articles for various magazines.
Find her at her blog: Casting Light upon the Shadow
and find details of her novel HERE









illustrations: Mrs Gaskell's tower - author's own photograph
all others licensed under Public Domain via 'commons':
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Henry1.jpg#/media/File:Henry1.jpg
Richard I - author Adam Bishop
Monmouth - portrait by Messing
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bayeuxtapestrywilliamliftshishelm.jpg#/media/File:Bayeuxtapestrywilliamliftshishelm.jpg

The Spare Child of James I of England: a Tragedy in the Making

by Linda Root

Charles I {{PD-Art}}

Somehow in the last several years the phrase 'an heir and a spare' has become a popular term to describe the ideal dynastic plan.  The press has been peppered with it recently, partially due to the high visibility of the current favorite  spare, the fascinating and unpredictable Prince Harry, and the recent announcement that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge  are expecting a second child.  Under current law, whether the child is male or female, it still will be that coveted spare child likely to insure the preservation of the dynasty, assuming the monarchy itself survives.  Such was not the case in 1600.

At the end of the Sixteenth Century,  King James VI of Scotland and his Danish bride Anne had one son and one daughter.  The heir was Henry Frederick Stuart, Duke of Rothesay, born in February 1594, and what an heir he was!  He was robust and alert, and by God, he was male!  His sister Elizabeth followed in August 1596.  Anne’s next child was another daughter, Margaret, who died shortly after her first birthday.  Anne was obviously capable of producing children and had  many child bearing years ahead.  There was no cause for alarm.

Henry Frederick {{PD-Art}}

Anne of Denmark {{PD-Art}}

The Duke of Rothesay was the ideal prince. One thinks of England’s Arthur Tudor, Prince of Wales. But James VI and I was no more content to risk his dynasty on the survival of a single son than Henry VII had been.

Dunfermline Palace, Engraving by William .Miller {{PD-Art}}

And thus, on November 19 of 1600 at Dunfermline, the second son was born, and in December he was christened Duke of Albany in the chapel royal at Holyrood with far less pomp than had accompanied his older brother's legendary baptism at Sterling.  Another lavish christening such as James himself had been given by his mother the Queen of Scots and which he had sought to equal for Henry Frederick would have bankrupted Scotland.

DunfermlineAbbey {{Wikimedia}}

Although James had his coveted second son, the birth of the spare did little to insure the dynasty.  The infant Charles was a sickly, fragile bairn who in the present day might be termed a 'failure to thrive' child. There were subsequent royal pregnancies, and none of the infants including a third son Robert lived more than two years. The queen had suffered at least two miscarriages even before Elizabeth Tudor died in the spring of 1603.

Some historians suggest at least one of them was provoked by her husband’s failure to allow her to take custody of her eldest son Prince Henry, who was living in Stirling under the supervision of the Countess and Earl of Mar as was the Scottish custom.  James had been raised at Stirling under the guardianship of a previous Earl of Mar, and like Anne, his mother Marie Stuart, Queen of Scots, had been denied his custody in April of 1567.

The last time Marie Stuart, Queen of Scots saw her infant son was when Mar allowed her a few hours of supervised visitation. On the way home from Stirling, the Queen of Scots was carried off to Dunbar by the Earl of Bothwell and was either raped or merely seduced.  Her trip to collect her heir did not end well.  Anne's similar defeat was far less tragic in the long term. In 1603 when Elizabeth Tudor died and James VI traveled south to claim his crown, he took the Earl of Mar along while Queen Anne remained in Scotland. She took advantage of their absences and marched on Stirling to take physical custody of the prince, but Mar's relatives suppressed and repelled her assault, and in May she suffered a miscarriage.

James VI and I-  {{PD Art}}

Finally James gave in and allowed Queen Anne to travel south with his nine-year-old heir. Charles did not join the entourage.  He was adjudged too sickly to endure the journey. At age three, the little Duke of Albany neither walked nor talked.

One wonders if the decision to leave him in Scotland with Seton was made in part to keep the slow developer from raining on his older brother's parade.  And indeed, a parade it was. Anne was a flashy woman, and at age nine, Prince Henry Frederick was already magnificent to behold.  People traveled across England just for a glimpse of them as they journeyed south to meet the king.

Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales {{PD-Art

THE EARLY CHILDHOOD OF PRINCE CHARLES

In 1600 when Charles was born, Queen Anne was not denied the close association with her second son she had so desperately wanted with her firstborn. She would never need to arrange an armed confrontation to gain his custody. No one else particularly wanted him.

His survival was uncertain and no aristocrats vied for the responsibility of having a dead royal on their hands.

By then Anne had made Dunfermline Abbey in Fife her home and established a royal palace adjoining the abbey. The supervision of Charles's early training was placed in the hands of the queen's friend Alexander Seton,  Lord Fyvie, who later became Earl of Dunfermline. The queen's new apartments were remodeled and embellished by the queen's favorite William Schaw, the same architect who had upgraded Stirling for the lavish Christening of Henry Frederick.

Alexander Seton {{PD art}}

From 1603 until the autumn of 1604, Charles was left at Dunfermline in the custody of Alexander Seton, a cautious Catholic who was a member of Queen Anne's inner circle and who was soon to become Scotland’s Chancellor.  Seton was happy  to be ensconced in Dunfermline, which was closer to the centers of power than his newly acquired estates at Fyvie.

Anne could have selected worse in terms of the quality of the  education and care Seton provided,  but leaving him in Seton's Catholic household may have helped seal his ultimate fate.  By then, Anne herself was considered a closet Catholic, and Seton was a known adherent of the auld religion.  He was just wise enough not to flaunt it.

At the time of Elizabeth Tudor’s death, Sir Robert Carey, her first cousin once removed, a grandchild of her aunt Mary Boleyn, was representing Northumberland in the English Parliament, and living in the English north.

Carey  had been Warden of the East Marches during a portion of the final decade of  the Sixteenth Century and was the person who rode to Scotland to inform James of Elizabeth Tudor’s death. The year after  his queen and his heir arrived at Windsor,  the king sent Carey to Dunfermline to report on Charles’s development. Sir Robert engaged a new physician who declared the Duke of Albany able to travel after a demonstration in which young Charles was able to stagger across the Great Hall at Dunfermline.

THE SECOND SON COMES TO ENGLAND

The Careys ~ {{PD-Art}} Wikimedia

If the new doctor exaggerated his ward’s recovery, Seton did not complain. Being guardian to a royal was a thankless task. Keeping Charles at Dunfermline was confining and expensive. Elaborate arrangements were made for the journey south, with Carey and Seton leading the entourage.  In February 1605, Sir Robert and his formidable wife Dame Robert were made his guardians. Within months, Dame Robert had him walking unaided and talking, albeit with a stammer. Charles was slight of build, and while he apparently recovered physically under Dame Robert’s care, he never cut the same swashbuckling image as his flamboyant and staunchly protestant older brother.  According to his caregivers, he was given to displays of temper which he never entirely outgrew.

THE SPARE BECOMES THE HEIR

While Charles is said to have idolized Prince Henry Frederick, there is at least one  incident reported in which his older brother publicly humiliated him.  There were religious undertones to the insult. The affair is used to support an allegation that Henry Frederick had scant affection for his brother. It is just as likely a single incident seized upon by historians who wished to separate the image of the glorious heir who died from the unpopular young sibling who survived. Whatever the Prince of Wales’ attitude to his less auspicious young brother may have been, when Henry Frederick died apparently of typhoid in November 1612, Charles was the chief mourner at his funeral.  King James disliked funerals and refused to attend. At least outwardly, Henry Frederick had resisted the Stuart dynasty's love affair with the concept of Divine Right Monarchy.  He also had the gumption and independent spirit to openly defy his royal father on occasion. There is evidence James had grown afraid of him.

The twelve year old second son of England’s first Stuart king never captured the imagination of the English people in the way his brother had. The glory and hope of England had died an early death. As heir apparent, at least Charles finally gained the attention of his parents. One wonders if the king did not feel some relief for having an heir who was less a rival.

However, by 1612 when the Prince of Wales died,  the king’s own fiscal policies, his personal extravagance and his friendly relationship with Spain had eroded his support both with the parliament and the common people . Charles, the erstwhile spare, became the heir to an already brewing tragedy. James made the further mistake of forsaking his promise to the Scots to stay close to Scottish politics. Instead, in his only trip to Scotland after he became the king of England, all he did was  try to force a high Anglican prayer book on the Scottish kirk, an act which caused a religious division that became a precursor of civil war.

THE SPANISH MATCH

Then James and his Queen did the unthinkable.  They sought a Spanish marriage for their son. James, to his credit, dreamed of bringing peace to Europe, but his logic was flawed in thinking he could achieve it through a marriage of his second son to the Spanish Infanta. Prince Charles, in the company of the overreaching Duke of Buckingham, traveled to Spain in hopes of negotiating a formal betrothal. The English people and the Parliament, however, had not forgotten what occurred when Queen Mary Tudor married Philip of Spain.  They also remembered the words of Henry Frederick who had scoffed when such a plan was proposed to him. The ardent protestant Henry Frederick  declared there would never be two religions sleeping in his royal bed. Later when Charles married the French Catholic daughter of Henry IV and Marie de Medici, Henrietta Maria, the English were not impressed.

Prince Charles, however, was a Divine Right Monarchist to the core and had inherited his father’s disdain of Parliament, considering it an advisory body, a toy to be put aside at will. He no doubt thought the dynasty was secure when he and his French Catholic wife Henrietta Maria, sister of the French king, produced two sons, Charles and James, although it took eight years to do so.  He was not particularly troubled when his French wife raised them as Catholics. The English people were not as accommodating as their king. There was widespread belief that Charles also had but a single religion in the royal bed—and not the one the English were prepared to tolerate.

When one explores the writings of Robert Carey, often regarded  the first modern English autobiographer, and the memoirs of Alexander Seton, Earl of Dunfermline, one wonders if Charles was not marked to be a victim from the time of his birth.  What Charles did not realize at the time of his ascension when his father died was the English people also had a spare in incubation.

His name was Oliver Cromwell.

Portrait said to be Charles by unknown artist

SOME THOUGHTS ON THE EARLY LIFE OF CHARLES I

It is difficult not to feel empathy for the little Duke of Albany, left behind when his mother and brother traveled to England in glory. There are qualities to be admired in young Charles. With Dame Robert Carey's help, he overcame his physical infirmities. presumably caused by Rickets.  His recuperation must have been physically and mentally painful. At one point the king had wanted to put him in iron boots, and Lady Carey would not stand still for it.  Soon after she had her royal ward walking. It is not surprising throughout his early reign, he often sought advice from her.  In a sense she was his surrogate mother and his greatest champion.

Under the guidance of Dame Robert, the  once crippled child learned to enjoy sports, especially the hunt.  Charles seemed to emulate the family life characteristic of the Careys. He and Henrietta Maria came to love one another. He sired nine children, five of  whom survived.  He took great pride in his family. He exceeded the expectations of those who had attended his birth simply by living.

I read somewhere when Henry Frederick was on his death bed, Charles braved the risk of contagion and brought him a little metal horse as gift in hopes it would cheer him.  He was the chief mourner at a funeral his father did not choose to attend.  There is something profoundly sad about a child who struggled so hard merely to endure only to suffer so ignomious an end.

The beheading of Charles Stuart, King of England , Scotland and Ireland

Author's note:

Thank you for joining me.   The young Charles Stuart and Dame Robert Carey appear in  my Scottish fantasy The Green Woman in which he is kidnapped by the Wizard Earl of Bothwell, Frances Stuart, in collusion with the Goddess Nyx and sleeps through the entire adventure.

Charles is also the focus of my conventional historical novel in progress, In the Shadow of the Gallows, in which he briefly appears as a potential target of Gunpowder plotter Thomas Percy in an effort to kidnap Charles and place him as a puppet on the English throne under a Regency by Percy's relative Northumberland or some other peer sympathetic to the Catholic cause.  Fortunately, due to suspiciously delayed action of the Earl of Salisbury, Robert Cecil, the infamous explosion did not ignite other than in the imaginations of the British people and generations of historians and historical novelists.

Linda Root is the author of  The First Marie and the Queen of Scots, the story of the Queen's relationship with her cousin Marie Flemyng, whose love affair with William Maitland stunned the Queen and rocked the Scottish court; and The Last Knight and the Queen of Scots, the embellished adventures of Sir William Kirkcaldy of Grange.  Kirkcaldy's death after holding Edinburgh Castle as the last fortress to fly the banner of the captive Queen of Scots inspired the series The Legacy of the Queen of Scots, including The Midwife's Secret:The Mystery of the Hidden Princess.  Its sequels The Other Daughter, and 1603, the Queen's Revenge and her current work in progress In The Shadow of the Gallows feature Kirkcaldy's posthumous bastard daughter Daisy and Lord James Hepburn's bastard son William Hepburn who is an actual character but about whom little is recorded. Root and her husband Chris live in the Morongo Basin area of San Bernardino County where they are leasing space in a house governed by their giant Alaskan Malamutes Maxx and Maya. Linda is a retired major crimes prosecutor and Supervising Deputy District Attorney.