Romancing the Tower of London: William Harrison Ainsworth

By Nancy Bilyeau

On a December night in 1840, a sizable group of writers, editors, publishers, printers and illustrators gathered at the Sussex Hotel, in the fashionable town of Royal Tunbridge Wells, for a dinner party. It is possible that Charles Dickens, the young author of Oliver Twist and The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, was invited to the party. Most definitely in attendance was George Cruikshank, the talented illustrator of Oliver Twist.

The host of this lavish affair was the famed 35-year-old novelist William Harrison Ainsworth. The occasion: the successful serialization over the last year of his fifth novel, The Tower of London: A Historical Romance, which told the story of the tragic Lady Jane Grey, beginning with her arrival by barge at the Tower to launch her nine-day-reign and ending with her decapitation on Tower Green on July 10, 1553.

William Harrison Ainsworth

The novelist was sure to have cut quite the dash at his own party: He was tall, slim and dark, with a fondness for stylish clothes that earned him the description dandy. From the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: "Lady Blessington, whose salon he attended, said he and Count D'Orsay were the two handsomest men in London."

In a passage accepted as autobiographical, a character in one of Ainsworth's novels says, "Some people told me I was handsome, and my tailor (excellent authority, it must be admitted) extolled the symmetry of my figure, and urged me to go into the Life Guards."

Ainsworth was at perhaps the zenith of his career in 1840. He was a friendly rival to Dickens; in fact, his 1839 novel Jack Shepard outsold Oliver Twist in early editions, and Ainsworth had recently replaced Dickens as editor of Bentley's Miscellany, the predominant fiction magazine.

The rivalry with Dickens would not last; nor would the friendship. Dickens would become a colossus as Ainsworth slowly sank into oblivion. His 39 historical novels, all of them romances and adventures, were astoundingly popular with the reading public of Victorian England, but not with the critics. Although Ainsworth was himself a genial and generous man, he was often on the receiving end of literary volleys almost hysterical in their dislike. When his books no longer sold as well, he had no circle of supporters to buoy him. Quite the opposite. One writer said of him in 1870: "Let us start with an opinion fearlessly expressed as it is earnestly felt, that the existence of this writer is an event to be deplored." Ainsworth was still alive when this sentiment was published, and in reduced circumstances.

That dazzling night at Royal Tunbridge Wells, Ainsworth, mercifully, could not know that his books would go out of print, that fellow writers such as Edgar Allan Poe would describe his prose as "turgid pretension."

Yet he is not without a legacy. The book celebrated that night, The Tower of London: A Historical Romance, triggered a new kind of interest in William the Conqueror's castle keep. It was an interest that deepened through the Victorian age, and is part of the reason visitors pour into the Tower, to the tune of 2 million a year.

Ainsworth was born on February 4, 1805, in Manchester, as the city became the center of the industrial movement. Thomas Ainsworth was a prominent lawyer and pressured his oldest son to follow him in that profession, which he did for a time, but without much enthusiasm. There was a younger son, Thomas Gilbert Ainsworth, who at university suffered a "brain fever" and was incapicitated by mental illness his entire life.

Two years after the father died, Ainsworth, newly married, published his first novel, the romance Sir John Chiverton. It brought him to the attention of Walter Scott, who befriended Ainsworth but privately referred to him as an "imitator." His next two books, the historical novels Rockwood and Jack Schepard, both featuring famous outlaws, were tremendous successes. Yet some criticized the romanticizing of criminals, a complaint Dickens was also hearing with Oliver Twist.

It was time to try something different.

When Ainsworth, along with his illustrator, George Cruikshank, researched the Tower of London, it was far from the smoothly operating tourism operation of today. It had been two centuries since the last monarch, Charles II, resided there. Dickens wrote: "Once a fortress, a royal residence, a court of justice and a prison, {the Tower} is now a government storehouse and armory." An outbreak of disease caused by poor water supply (and blamed on the filthy moat) killed three men of the garrison.

A visitor in 1851 wrote:

"Every one must be struck with the incivility and want of accommodation therein. Upon entering the gates this afternoon I found some hundreds of persons, male and female, huddled together, striving to obtain tickets from a window under a portico where no two persons can pass abreast, and the scene there reminded me of what might be expected at the gallery entrance of a theatre on boxing night. After waiting just one hour we obtained our tickets and were ordered into what is called the ante or refreshment room. This room is about 12ft. by 18ft., with a counter containing ginger pop, buns, &c., immediately behind which are two waterclosets (I understand recently erected). I will not attempt to describe the stench one had to contend with, the place being completely crammed with persons waiting their turns or numbers to be called, but merely add that this room seems to be the resort of pickpockets, two ladies having been eased of their purses, containing some pounds, during the half hour I was present therein."

Ainsworth opened the door to a more illustrious period in the Tower's history. It's true that the novel's prose is melodramatic ("heaving bosoms," "piercing black eyes" and "sinister smiles") and the pages are crowded with Gothic characters (not one or two but three supporting characters who are giants--and a dwarf!) along with august personages of the past. But Ainsworth's diligent research brings to life the grounds, the kitchens, the passageways, the prison cells and the beautiful chapels of the Tower. He made full, imaginative use of the Tower of London, as a setting for a story of high drama. And Cruikshank's 40 engravings and 58 woodcuts play their suggestive part.

Cruikshank's depiction of Lady Jane Grey

And in the center of it all is Lady Jane Grey, a character of undeniable pathos, surrounded by conspiracies. Ainsworth invests the Spanish ambassador, Simon Renard, with the malevolent abilities of a Blofeld straight from Bond. Northumberland is formidable indeed.There is an energy to the book, and an eerie, even frightening atmosphere. The rack, the Scavenger's Daughter and the infamous Little Ease are all present and accounted for.

The current official Historical Royal Palaces Tower of London "fact sheet" on torture emphasizes how little actual torture has taken place within its walls: "Myth-making reached its peak in the 19th century, spurred on by novelists who wished to evoke the Tower of London in its former days as an ancient fortress and stronghold e.g. Ainsworth’s The Tower of London." Ainsworth may have put the devices of torture to Gothic uses, but they were very much present in the 16th century. Ironically, government-approved torture of prisoners ebbed during the reigns of Edward VI, Jane Grey, and Mary, only to rise to highest levels during reign of Elizabeth.

After The Tower of London, Ainsworth's career went on for more than thirty years. The characters in his books were not dimensional; bosoms continued to heave and black eyes to snap. R.H. Horne, Dickens' friend and collaborator, described Ainsworth as "a reviver of old clothes" whose novels are "generally dull except when revolting." Punch satirized Ainsworth as an aging Tudoresque dandy with the caption "The Greatest Axe-and-Neck Romancer of Our Time."

By the time of the Punch jab, Ainsworth, a widower, was responsible for his mentally ill brother. He had accepted a government pension because...he needed it. A year after a dinner in his honor in Manchester, arguably the only place where he was still esteemed, William Harrison Ainsworth died at the age of 77.

But the Tower felt the lingering impact of Ainsworth. In the foreword of his book, he had called for the opening to the public of Beauchamp Tower, the place of imprisonment of the Lady Jane Grey, where she is thought to have written on the wall of her cell. The cause was taken up by powerful patrons, including Prince Albert. Beauchamp was restored by architects and made available to visitors; other buildings were opened too.

Ainsworth's influence, as explained in The Tower of London: The Official Illustrated History:

"In The Tower of London: A Historical Romance, the Tower was first and foremost the setting for an endless series of heart-rending events and foul play. The author tells of dungeons though in fact the Tower has very few basement rooms and of a time when Tower Hill boasted a scaffold and "its soil was dyed with the richest and best blood in the land.” Such fantasies, backed by the relentless march of the romantic movement, helped create and fuel an ever-increasing demand to see and experience such events.”

No matter how much the novel's violence veers into fantasy, the faintly menacing image of the Tower that draws the throngs of the curious today was created in part by William Harrison Ainsworth. He was the greatest neck-and-axe romancer of his time...and perhaps of ours too.

This article is an Editor's Choice and was originally published August 19, 2012. 

~~~~~~~~~~

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.

Little Ease and the Tower of London

by Nancy Bilyeau

In 1534, a man and woman hurried past a row of cottages on the outer grounds of the Tower of London. They had almost reached the gateway to Tower Hill and, not far beyond it, the city of London, when a group of yeomen warders on night watch appeared in their path.

In response the young couple turned toward each other, in what seemed a lover’s embrace. But something about the man caught the attention of a yeoman warder. He held his lantern higher and within seconds recognized the pair. The man was a fellow yeoman warder, John Bawd, and the woman was Alice Tankerville, a condemned thief and prisoner.

So ended the Tower’s first known escape attempt by a woman. But Alice’s accomplice and admirer, the guard John Bawd, was destined to enter the Tower record books too, and for the grimmest of reasons—he is the first known occupant of a peculiar torture cell used during the reigns of the Tudors and early Stuarts. The windowless cell measured 1.2m (4 square feet) and bore the faintly prim name of Little Ease. The prisoner within it could not stand nor sit nor lie down but crouched over, in increasing agony, until freed from the suffocating, dark space.

In 1215 England outlawed torture through the passage of Magna Carta, except by royal warrant. The first king to authorize it, reluctantly, was Edward II. He submitted to intense pressure from the Pope to follow the lead of the king of France and demolish the Order of the Knights Templar, part of a tradition begun during the Crusades. King Philip IV of France, jealous of the Templars’ wealth and power, charged them with heresy, obscene rituals, idolatry and other offenses. The French knights denied all, and were duly tortured. Some who broke down and “confessed” were released; all who denied wrongdoing were burned at the stake.

Once Edward II had ordered imprisonment of members of the English chapter, French monks arrived in London bearing their instruments of torture. In 1311 the Knights Templar “were questioned and examined in the presence of notaries while suffering under the torments of the rack” within the Tower of London as well as prisons of Aldgate, Ludgate, Newgate and Bishopgate, according to The History of the Knights Templar, the Temple Church, and the Temple, by Charles G. Addison. And so the Tower—principally a royal residence, military stronghold, armory, and menagerie up until that time—was baptized in torture.

Did the instruments remain after the Knights Templars were crushed, to be used on other prisoners? We cannot be certain, although there is no record of it. The next mention of a rack within the Tower is a startling one—an unsavory nobleman made Constable of the Tower pushed for one to be installed. John Holland, third duke of Exeter, arranged for a rack to be brought into the Tower. It is not known if men were stretched upon it or if it was merely used to frighten. In any case, this rack is known to history as the Duke of Exeter’s Daughter.

It was in the 16th century that prisoners were unquestionably tortured in the Tower of London. The royal family rarely used the fortress on the Thames as a residence; more and more, its stone buildings contained prisoners. And while the Tudor monarchs seem glittering successes to us now, in their own time they were beset by insecurities: rebellions, conspiracies and other threats both domestic and foreign. There was a willingness at the top of the government to override the law to obtain certain ends. This created a perfect storm for torture.

“It was during the time of the Tudors that the use of torture reached its height,” wrote historian L.A. Parry in his 1933 book The History of Torture in England. “Under Henry VIII it was frequently employed; it was only used in a small number of cases in the reigns of Edward VI and of Mary. It was whilst Elizabeth sat on the throne that it was made use of more than in any other period of history.”

Yeoman Warder John Bawd admitted he had planned the escape of Alice Tankerville “for the love and affection he bore her.” Unmoved, the Lieutenant of the Tower ordered Bawd into Little Ease, where he crouched, in growing agony. The lovers were condemned to horrible deaths for trying to escape. According to a letter in the State Papers of Lord Lisle, written on March 28, Alice Tankerville was “hanged in chains at low water mark upon the Thames on Tuesday. John Bawd is in Little Ease cell in the Tower and is to be racked and hanged.”

Today no one knows exactly where Little Ease was located. One theory: within the nooks and crannies of the White Tower. Another: in the basement of the old Flint Tower. No visitor sees it today; it was torn down or walled up long ago. Besides Little Ease, the most-used torture devices were the rack, manacles, and a horrific creation called the Scavenger’s Daughter. For many prisoners, solitary confinement, repeated interrogation, and the threat of physical pain were enough to make them tell their tormentors anything they wanted to know.

Often the victims ended up in the Tower for religious reasons. Anne Askew was tortured and killed for her Protestant beliefs; Edmund Campion for his Catholic ones. But the crimes varied. “The majority of the prisoners were charged with high treason, but murder, robbery, embezzling the Queen’s plate, and failure to carry out proclamations against state players were among the offenses,” wrote Parry. The monarch did not need to sign off on torture requests, although sometime he or she did. Elizabeth I personally directed that torture be used on the members of the Babington Conspiracy, a group that plotted to depose her and replace her with Mary Queen of Scots. But usually these initiatives went through the Privy Council or tapped the powers of the Star Chamber. It is believed that in some cases, permission was never sought at all.

Over and over, names pop up in state papers of those confined to Little Ease:

“On 3 May 1555: Stephen Happes, for his lewd behavior and obstinacy, committed this day to the Tower to remain in Little Ease for two or three days till he may be further examined.”

“10 January 1591: Richard Topcliffe is to take part in an examination in the Tower of George Beesley, seminary priest, and Robert Humberson, his companion. And if you shall see good cause by their obstinate refusal to declare the truth of such things as shall be laid to their charge in Her Majesty’s behalf, then shall you by authority hereof commit them to the prison called Little Ease or to such other ordinary place of punishment as hath been accustomed to be used in those cases, and to certify proceedings from time to time.”

After the death of Elizabeth and succession of James I came the most famous prisoner of them all to be held in Little Ease, Guy Fawkes. Charged with plotting to blow up the king and Parliament, Fawkes was subjected to both manacles and rack to obtain his confession and the names of his fellow conspirators. After he had told his questioners everything they asked, Fawkes was still shackled hand and foot in Little Ease and left there for a number of days.

And after that final burst of savagery, Little Ease was no more. A House of Commons committee reported the same year as Fawkes’ execution that the room was “disused.” In 1640, during the reign of Charles I, torture was abolished forever; there would be no more forcing prisoners to crouch for days in dark airless rooms, no more rack or hanging from chains.

And so, mercifully, closed one of the darkest chapters in England’s history.


This article is an Editor's Choice and was originally posted May 7, 2012. 

~~~~~~~~~~

Nancy Bilyeau has written five novels of historical suspense. She is the author of the best-selling art and porcelain thriller “The Blue,” set in 18th century England, and the Tudor trilogy “The Crown,” “The Chalice,” and “The Tapestry,” on sale in nine countries. Nancy is a magazine editor who has lived in the United States and Canada and worked on the staffs of “InStyle,” “Good Housekeeping,” and “Rolling Stone.” She is currently the deputy editor of the Center on Media, Crime and Justice at the Research Foundation of CUNY and a regular contributing writer to “Town & Country" and "Mystery Scene Magazine."

Nancy’s mind is always in past centuries but she currently lives with her husband and two children in Forest Hills in the borough of Queens. "Dreamland," coming out in January 2020, is her first novel set in her adopted hometown of New York City. For more info on "Dreamland," go to https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/47812578-dreamland

Editor's Weekly Round-up, November 11, 2018

by the EHFA Editors

Join us every week on English Historical Fiction Authors. We have saints and sinners, politics and war. Read about kings, queens, the common man and woman, and legends from ancient to post-WWII.

Linda Root takes the spotlight in this week's round-up. Enjoy!

The Man in the Tower Suite ~ 

Henry Percy, the Ninth Earl of Northumberland 

by Linda Root

The Man in the Tower Suite ~ Henry Percy, the Ninth Earl of Northumberland

by Linda Root

Henry Percy, Ninth Earl of Northumberland, {{PD-Art}}

For seventeen years (1605-1622)  the Martin Tower Suite in the Tower of London complex housed a most illustrious guest. He was a gentleman of high fashion,  undisputed good looks, and a keen intellect, loyal to his friends and congenial to his hosts. We can hardly call his keepers jailers since they went to considerable lengths to assure his comfort and entertainment.

There are 21 towers in the complex known as the Tower of London and vague records as to which prisoners were housed in which ones. However, the Ninth Earl of Northumberland Henry Percy's occupancy of the Martin Tower was well known. Apparently, his rooms occupied most if not all of it.  He entertained often and lavishly and used it as the center of operations for his widespread business enterprises. Among his frequent guests were his son and heir, his pet fox and Sir Walter Raleigh. From his arrival at his lodgings on the 27th of November, 1605, the man his contemporaries called The Wizard Earl made himself very much at home. November 1605 was the month of the Gunpowder Treason, which brought Northumberland to the Tower. If rumors circulating in 1622 held a modicum of truth, when he was released, he was loathed to leave.

At one point the Northumberland apartment housed much of his celebrated library. His was one of the largest collections of books in Britain. They covered a broad range of topics, many related to his strong interest in alchemy.  His interest in natural philosophy, what we call science, earned him the moniker The Wizard Earl.

By the time of his arrest in 1605, Percy had adopted an urban lifestyle and made Sion House in Isleworth, a London suburb, his principal residence.  The magnificent mansion was inherited through his wife Dorothy Devereux, daughter of the Earl of Essex.  It remains in the family to this day.

Wikimedia-{{PD-Art}}

Earlier, as a young man living in Paris, he had been captured by a young man's traditional fancies--the riding, the hunt, the gaming, and the many mistresses, he confessed.  But he professed to having returned to  England with only one mistress claiming him, and that was Knowledge.

Northumberland was drawn into the Gunpowder Treason investigation due to his association with his second cousin Thomas Percy, indisputably one of the principals in the plot.  1605 was not the first time the earl's conduct regarding Cousin Tom got him into trouble.  He had made him Constable of Alnwyck, the Percy ancestral home in Northumberland, with it many acres of adjoining farm land. Alnwyck was but one of many of his real estate holdings in Northumberland, an income producing enterprise for the Earl.

Wikimedia Commons

No one is quite certain as to why Northumberland chose Thomas Percy as its overseer. In addition to making him his Constable, he gave Thomas Percy control over his accounts and the responsibility for collecting revenues and land rents.  Accusations from the tenants of misappropriation of rents and other acts of overreaching abounded, but the earl did not investigate. Charges were actually brought against Thomas by his benefactor's tenants, and they, too, were overlooked.

J.M.W. Turner -Wikimedia Commons -{{PD-=Art}}

Tom Percy was also involved with Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex in a failed murder plot targeting the warden of the Scottish Middle Marches, none other than the firebrand reiver laird Robert Kerr of Cessford, who later became Baron Roxburghe, one of King James I's favorites. Sir Robert Kerr of Cessford was both anti-Catholic and anti-Marian, which put him at odds with Percy and Essex.

In spite of his controversial conduct, in 1601 Thomas accompanied Northumberland on a military expedition to the Low Countries where he is said to have comported himself well. Northumberland received some criticism, possibly from Lord Robert Cecil, for having given Percy positions for which he should have been vetted without requiring him to attest to his religion or sign a Declaration of Faith. Thus, even before the Gunpowder Treason was uncovered, Northumberland's lenient treatment of his cousin had placed him at odds with Cecil, an avid anti-papist like his father Lord Burghley had been.

Northumberland had been raised in his aunt's house as a Protestant but was believed by many to be sympathetic to the Catholic cause. There were also rumors that Cousin Thomas was more than a cousin, perhaps an illegitimate brother. Thomas Percy, like the other principals in the Gunpowder Treason, was a militant Papist to a degree his powerful cousin either did not admit or truly did not realize.

For those unfamiliar with the scheme, the purpose behind the Gunpowder Plot was to replace King James I with a sovereign sympathetic to the Catholic cause but palatable enough to English Protestants to avoid civil war. That pointed to another Stuart. There is no direct evidence that Northumberland was personally involved in the conspiracy, but there is a strong suspicion the plotters had reserved a role for him in their pro-Catholic post-Jacobean government.

The Gunpowder plotters had settled on the king's daughter Elisabeth, who was nine as a replacement for her father.  Her older brother Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, was eleven, a student at Oxford, and already an outspoken Protestant with a priggish moral sense, critical of his father's religious tolerance and his mother's thinly veiled Catholicism. The conspirators expected him to be in the royal entourage at the opening of Parliament and would die along with his father. The nine-year-old princess lived in the country and was not expected to attend. Her younger brother Charles, Duke of York was a slow-developing child who failed to thrive at birth and at age five had only recently begun to walk and talk, albeit with a shuffle and a stutter,  living in relative seclusion in the home of Robert Carey. He was sufficiently lackluster to earn no consideration from anyone, including the plotters.  Elisabeth, being female, could be made a puppet of the Catholic faction and eventually married off to an appropriate Catholic European prince.  While she was herself a Protestant, so young a female would be malleable and easily controlled by an appropriate Regent. Northumberland was the logical nominee.

The question perplexing modern scholars is the same one that kept him in the Tower Suite instead of laying headless on the Tower Green. No one could prove he was in on it.

Without revisiting the failure of the plot, what confined Northumberland to the Tower of London was not so much what happened on the infamous November 5, but what happened on the day before, November 4, 1605. On that day, Thomas Percy visited the earl at Sion House, ostensibly on business.  He had all of those cumbersome accounts from Northumberlandshire to review.  Whether he was really there to warn his kinsman from attending the opening of Parliament is open to conjecture. It is difficult to believe that he was spending the day before the big event reviewing ledgers with his kinsman, but there is no proof to the contrary.

When Percy arrived,  Northumberland was entertaining another guest, Thomas Hariot, a noted scholar, mathematician and astronomer who lived at Sion House and enjoyed Northumberland's patronage.  The three gentlemen had a pleasant late lunch together and thereafter, Percy left.  He next met with Catesby, the mastermind behind the plot, and thereafter left for the country to kidnap Princess Elisabeth. That evening Guy Fawkes, the plotter with the most military experience and knowledge of explosives, was discovered with the gunpowder in a search of the underpinnings of the Houses of Parliament, and the jig was up. When news reached the countryside, Tom Percy found himself running for his life, which did not last long.
When the law caught up with Thomas Percy and a cluster of the others who escaped the city, he soon was dead of a sniper's shot and unavailable to confirm or deny his cousin's complicity. Astute Northumberland was admitting nothing.

Engraving of Henry Percy-{{PD-Art}}

Fortunately for the earl,  his friend Thomas Hariot confirmed Northumberland's averments concerning the subject matter discussed at lunch on November 4th. There had been no talk of explosions or plots to kill the king. It may well be Hariot's presence thwarted Thomas's plan to warn his cousin off. Whatever the truth may have been, by the end of the week Thomas Percy's tongue was silenced. Thus, what ultimately saved Northumberland from the headsman was a lack of evidence. No one could dispute his planned attendance at the opening of Parliament on the following day.

The Earl remained out of custody until November 27th while he and others, including his personal secretary, his wife, and his friends, were interrogated. By December, Robert Cecil's focus had shifted to blaming the plot on Jesuits. When Northumberland was finally charged it was not with treason, but contempt. And there he languished.
Or did he?

Richard Lomas in A Power In The Land (Tuckwell Press, 1999) and other sources on the fate of the Gunpowder plotters speaks of the Earl's suite in the Martin Tower as having multiple dining rooms, a drawing room, gardens with access to a  tennis court, and enough space to accommodate twenty servants. And of course, there was the essential addition of a bowling alley.  His scholarly friends including Thomas Hariot maintained apartments at Sion House so they could appropriately tutor Northumberland's children.  Servants ran from Sion House to the Martin Tower with the latest imported delicacies.

While the Earl of Northumberland perfected his games of Ten Pins and read his beloved books, poured fine wine and smoked tobacco with Walter Raleigh and later dined and gambled with his fellow prisoners Lord Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset and his murderous countess Lady Frances Howard, Jesuit priests were convicted on scant evidence often gleaned from torture and treated to grisly deaths. Cecil had his scapegoats, the plotters got their just deserts, and the Earl had spare time to devote to the pursuit of knowledge and the management of his vast estates, and when he needed a distraction, he played tennis.

This article is an Editor's Choice and was originally published on August 19, 2014.

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

Linda Root is the author of The First Marie and the Queen of Scots, a tale of the life and love of Lady Marie Flemyng, The Last Knight and the Queen of Scots,  the fictionalized adventures of the colorful Sir William Kirkcaldy of Grange to whom the queen surrendered at Carberry, and the books in The Legacy of the Queen of  Scots Series, The Midwife's Secret: the Mystery of the Hidden Princess,  The Other Daughter, and 1603: The Queen's Revenge. 
She recently has written a paranormal historical fantasy The Green Woman under the name J.D. Root.
Root lives in the high desert community of Yucca Valley, above Palm Springs, with her husband Chris and her two mixed giant woolly Alaskan Malamutes. The Legacy of the Queen of Scots, and is presently working on the fourth book in the legacy series, In the Shadow of the Gallows.

Margaret Pole’s Wild Ride on Fortune’s Wheel

by Samantha Wilcoxson

Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, is possibly best known for her botched execution. One of the last victims of Henry VIII’s temper and insecurities, Margaret was sent to her death without trial at the age of sixty-seven. However, if that is all you know of this dynamic woman, you are missing out on an adventurous story.

Painting of unknown woman
believed to be Margaret Pole

In the late medieval world, faith was an important element of daily life but it was sprinkled with superstition. One of these philosophies related to Rota Fortunae or the Wheel of Fortune that was blindly spun and could drastically affect the life of any person, great or small. We might call it twists of fate or destiny, but the idea is the same. While the poor might pray for an unexpected rise in fortune, the great could be quickly brought low. Few endured greater shifts in fortune than Margaret Pole.

Boccaccio's De Casibus Virorum Illustrium showing Lady Fortune spinning her wheel.

She was born August 14, 1473, to George of Clarence and Isabel Neville. He was the brother of King Edward IV, and she was the oldest daughter of the Earl of Warwick, the man most credited with placing Edward upon the throne. George was no longer heir presumptive, since Elizabeth Woodville had recently presented Edward with one son and another would join him within days of Margaret’s birth. Still, George’s position was a favorable one, and Margaret had every reason to anticipate a bright future.

George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence

Before Margaret was old enough to know what was happening, the Wheel of Fortune made the first of many turns in her life. The Duke of Clarence had betrayed his brother even before Margaret’s birth, but he had always been forgiven. In 1477, the king was pushed too far. Wild with grief over his wife’s death after childbirth that he convinced himself was a poisoning, George once again rebelled. By the spring of 1478, Margaret and her younger brother Edward were orphans. Many theories revolve around George of Clarence’s execution, but to these small children the only thing that mattered was that their father was gone, executed by his own brother.

Despite their status as the orphaned children of an attainted traitor, Margaret and Edward enjoyed the remainder of the Plantagenet dynasty within households of royal cousins and may have believed that Fortune’s Wheel was creeping its way back upward. Then came the year 1485.

After Henry Tudor was victorious at Bosworth, the royal children who had been tucked away at Sheriff Hutton were brought south to London. Margaret and Edward were among them. We have no way of knowing whether their cousin, Elizabeth of York, was eager to meet the new king to whom she was betrothed, but all of the York children must have been anxious to learn what the future would hold and which way Fortune’s Wheel would turn for them.

At this point Margaret’s path veered away from her brother’s. Edward was imprisoned in the Tower for his excess of royal blood, while Margaret was married to a distant relative of Margaret Beaufort. Richard Pole was a faithful supporter of Henry Tudor, and, as such, he and Margaret were soon sent to serve Prince Arthur at Ludlow. During this time, Margaret formed a close relationship with Arthur’s bride, Catherine of Aragon.

Edward, never more than a pawn in older men’s games, had been executed in 1499 in order to clear the way for Catherine’s arrival, but Margaret does not seem to have held it against her. The two remained lifelong friends well beyond the brief time at Ludlow. After the deaths of their husbands, Margaret and Catherine shared a low point on the Wheel of Fortune. Both women, accustomed to rich lifestyles, were left in relative poverty by King Henry VII. Gifts from his wife, Elizabeth of York, would help ease their burden that was only to be lifted with the ascension of Henry VIII.

King Henry VIII
by unknown Anglo-Netherlandish artist, NPG 4690

By marrying Catherine and bestowing an old family title upon Margaret, Henry VIII appeared to be the women’s savior. For a time. The Countess of Salisbury thrived during this high point on Fortune’s Wheel. Building projects, advantageous marriages for her children, and a coveted place at the queen’s side occupied her time. She mourned with Catherine over the loss of the queen’s babies, one after another, until the birth of a healthy auburn haired girl. In a few years, Margaret became Princess Mary’s governess.

Queen Mary I

by Master John, NPG 428 

Her place must have seemed entirely secure when the whispering began in the mid-1520s. Henry had a new love. He did not believe that Catherine could give him the son he wanted. Needed. Margaret had a decision to make. Stand by her queen and the princess she had grown to love as much as her own children, or look to her own future and rally to the side of her cousin the king?

She attempted a balancing act, which worked for some time. Margaret would not give up her friend or her religion, but neither did she antagonize the king. That job was left to her son.

Reginald Pole had enjoyed the patronage of both Henry Tudors, and the education that they had provided him with placed him close to the Pope. Henry hoped that Reginald would support his case and convince the pope to approve his divorce. Instead, Reginald took advantage of the safety provided to him by his distance from England to speak vociferously against Henry’s Great Matter, eventual multiple marriages, and self-proclaimed status as Head of the Church of England.

Henry’s rage could not bring Reginald within his reach, so he lashed out at his family instead in a devastating turn of the Wheel of Fortune for Margaret Pole. The final blow began with the arrest of her youngest son, Geoffrey, and grew into the legalized mass murder known as the Exeter Conspiracy in 1538. In this vicious blow against the York remnant, Henry executed Margaret’s oldest son, Lord Montague, along with several others. Montague’s son, a young boy named Henry, was also taken to the Tower, never to be seen again. Geoffrey attempted to commit suicide.

Margaret was first placed under house arrest, then taken to the Tower herself, though no charges were ever brought against her. There she would endure this low point, knowing that her family was being torn apart, until she was informed that Henry was done with her. On May 27, 1541, Margaret was informed that her execution would take place that morning. She had committed no crime and been given no trial, yet she prepared herself with the royal dignity she was born to.

Tower of London

After her brutal beheading by an unprepared and inexperienced executioner, these words were found on the wall of Margaret’s Tower cell:
For traitors on the block should die;
I am no traitor, no, not I!
My faithfulness stands fast and so,
Towards the block I shall not go!
Nor make one step, as you shall see;
Christ in Thy Mercy, save Thou me! 

Margaret Pole Memorial

Additional Reading:
Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury 1473-1541: Loyalty, Lineage and Leadership by Hazel Pierce

Image credits:

Painting of unknown woman believed to be Margaret Pole. Public Domain(?),  by Unknown

Boccaccio's De Casibus Virorum Illustrium showing Lady Fortune spinning her wheel. Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=466545, FortuneWheel.

George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence, by Lucas Cornelisz - [1], Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7500733

King Henry VIII, by unknown Anglo-Netherlandish artist, NPG 4690, CC BY-NC-ND

Queen Mary I, by Master John, NPG 428, CC BY-NC-ND

Tower of London. Author's personal photo

Margaret Pole Memorial. Author's personal photo

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

Author Bio:
Samantha Wilcoxson is a first generation American with British roots. She is passionate about reading, writing, and history. Her novel, Plantagenet Princess, Tudor Queen: The Story of Elizabeth of York has been recognized as an Editors’ Choice by the Historical Novel Society. Her next book, Faithful Traitor: The Story of Margaret Pole, is currently available for pre-order and will be released June 14, 2016.

Samantha has also published two middle grade novels, No Such Thing as Perfect and Over the Deep: A Titanic Adventure.

When not involved in reading or writing, Samantha enjoys traveling and spending time at the lake with her husband and three children. You can connect with Samantha on her Blog, Twitter,  Goodreads, Booklikes, and Amazon.
Pre-Order Faithful Traitor
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Medieval Menagerie

by E.M. Powell

Collections of exotic and curious animals have a long history, with Menageries known from ancient times. Yet most medieval people had never seen such animals in real life. They knew they existed, having heard of them from the Bible, or seeing them represented in carvings or pictures. The other source of knowledge about animals came from bestiaries. A Bestiary is a collection of descriptions of a wide variety of animals, birds and fish- real and imaginary. And because this was the medieval period, each description contained a hefty dollop of moralising explanation (of which more later).

Yet from the 12th century, people were looking increasingly to other lands. The Crusades, long-distance pilgrimages and international diplomacy, along with ever-expanding trade routes made for experiences that were out of the ordinary. And this applied to animals, too.

Elephant & Hare

Now those creatures that had previously been out of reach could be brought back to Europe from far-flung countries. Their rarity made them a luxury and a means to display huge amounts of wealth and the highest status. These displays of exotic animals were not something to be shared with the public in many cases, but to impress other rulers or aristocracy who came to visit.

Medieval royal menageries existed in France, Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, Poland- and England. William the Conqueror had a collection of exotic beasts. But it was his son, Henry I, who would house the collections at Woodstock Palace in Oxfordshire. What he held there may surprise you. In around 1110, Henry enclosed a park to keep lions, leopards, lynxes, camels and a porcupine.

Norman Lion on Cloak
(C) E.M. Powell

I did mention earlier that, for the medievals, each animal had to be put in a moral context as well as a physical one. Lions were on the A-list. They were used as symbol for God and of course a winged Lion is used to represent St. Mark, one of the four Evangelists. They were often shown in pictures as sleeping with open eyes, an image which implied vigilance and to symbolise Christ’s continued life after the crucifixion.

Norman Lion on Cloak
(C) E.M. Powell

Lions of course were also the ultimate status symbol. The lion was believed to rule the animal kingdom. The Aberdeen Bestiary (written and illuminated in England around 1200) states with great authority:
“The lion is the mightiest of the beasts; he will quail at the approach of none.”

So if you were a man who could keep a lion, captured and within your power, then it must surely have added to your powerful image. (Perhaps a bit like the modern equivalent of driving a very expensive, fast car.) To be said to have lion-like features was to signify bravery. In Arthurian romances, the lion is presented as being a suitable companion for a chivalric knight.

Leopards and female lions were often confused with each other in their pictorial representation. But as regards their moral context: lions, they are not. The Aberdeen Bestiary has this:
“The leopard is a spotted wild animal who is very swift.”

Leopard

So far, so good.  Then:

It is produced by the adultery between a lioness and a pard. Of the pard: the pard is a species which has a mottled skin, is extremely swift and thirsts for blood; for it kills at a single bound… Their mating produces a third species. As Pliny says in his Natural History: the lion mates with the pard, or the pard with the lioness, and from both degenerate.

Many of you will be asking, what’s a pard? My only answer can be Leo + pard. See? And it was all going on in those pens at Woodstock. Woodstock, where we also had lynxes in the pens.

Today, we know lynxes as members of the cat family. They are traditionally linked with keenness of sight. The expression lynx-eyed is recorded from the late 16th century. For a medieval knight with excellent eyesight, the lynx was an ideal animal to put on his coat of arms.

Lynx

But the lynx was known to the medievals for something else, too: the lynx stone. A lynx stone (or Ligurium/ Lyngurium) was used in an obscure type of medieval and early modern medicine: the therapeutic application of gemstones. Now, curing yourself by deft application of a diamond or two sounds like it might be quite nice.  Unfortunately, the lynx stone was a gem stone made of frozen lynx urine.

The Aberdeen Bestiary knows all about it:

Ligurium comes from the urine of the lynx. You can see through the middle of the stone as through glass. The beast hides its urine in the sand lest it should be found. The virtue of ligurium is that it takes away stomach-ache and staunches.

In case anyone has tummy trouble and are thinking of heading for the nearest lynx: please don’t. Although the lynx is represented over and over with its little gem of wee beneath its hairy self, the lynx stone *whispers* isn’t real.

Camel

Woodstock had camels, too. Because of the Crusades, these animals were becoming increasingly well-known. Many Crusaders appreciated them as a working animal.  This writer of a bestiary was still a bit sniffy about them however: “Camels can become unrestrained with lust.”

Porcupine

Even our last named resident at Woodstock, the porcupine, wasn’t let off the hook. Most of the accounts in bestiaries claim that porcupines simply spear fruit to bring home to their families. Others prefer a more robust use of porcupine quills. One is that the quills can be symbolically pointing towards one’s enemies. The other is that the porcupine is a symbol for sin, and just as when a sinner is challenged and presents denial, the porcupine rolls into a ball and presents even more sharp points.  It says a lot about the medieval mindset that even a poor old porcupine can be drafted in as a representation for sin. (I do hope hedgehogs were let off.)

But it was all change in 1210. For here, we find that the Royal Menagerie is setting up shop at none other than the Tower of London and the first lions are recorded here in that year.

The Tower of London
(C) E.M. Powell

In 1235, King Henry III received three lions from the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick II. These three beasts were soon depicted on the King of England’s arms, but were referred to as leopards, not lions. They were most likely lions, as Norman lions were not usually depicted with manes.

It wasn’t only lions at the Tower. King Haakon of Norway sent Henry III a ‘white bear’ in 1252, and it is believed that this was a polar bear.  The bear was taken to the Thames to swim and to catch fish.

Even if it was a polar bear, many medieval people were still familiar with bears as animals, either as animals to be hunted or used in the hideous amusement of bearbaiting. One could not say that the new arrival in Lent 1255 was in any way familiar: a male African elephant, gifted to Henry III by King Louis IX of France.

Benedictine chronicler Matthew Paris hastened to the Tower to witness this astounding beast for himself, along with those who flocked to see the novel sight.” According to Matthew the elephant was:

ten years old and ten feet high, was greyish-black, and had no fur but a very hard, rough hide. It was ponderous and robust, and indeed was a prodigious and monstrous animal. It used its trunk to obtain food and drink, and had small eyes in the upper part of its head.

He then drew it, too.

Elephant, by Matthew Paris

The Aberdeen Bestiary also has its say on elephants: “The elephant strikes fear into bulls, yet fears the mouse.” And charmingly, if strangely: “The little elephant has this characteristic, that when some of its hair and bones have been burnt, nothing evil approaches, not even a dragon.” Phew.

But whatever the fate of a little elephant, its big brother at the Tower did not survive for long. It is recorded that he died on 14 February 1257, just two short years later. One cannot imagine that his ‘grooms’ (despite being extremely well-paid) had much of an idea of how to properly care for him. His life in his cramped surroundings must have been bewildering and wretched. It can’t have been much better for the polar bear, led to swim in the crowded and noisy Thames, or for any of the other creatures who lived there.

Royal Beasts- Polar Bear
Jonathan Cardy- Public Domain

Regrettably, none of the Menagerie’s animals lived for very long, although the Menagerie itself continued to grow over the centuries. In the 1830s, it finally left the Tower for its new home at Regent’s Park. In 2011, Historic Royal Palaces commissioned artist Kendra Haste to recreate some of the animals in sculpture. The installation, Royal Beasts, will be in place until 2021. The beasts are back.

References:

The Aberdeen Bestiary: https://www.abdn.ac.uk/bestiary/ (Note: you can view the whole Bestiary online & I highly recommend it.)

Cassidy, Richard & Clasby, Michael: http://www.finerollshenry3.org.uk/redist/pdf/fm-06-2012.pdf 
Curl, James S, & Wilson, Susan, The Oxford Dictionary of Architecture. Oxford University Press (3^rd ed) online 2015

Historic Royal Palaces: Experience the Tower of London (2013)

http://www.hrp.org.uk/TowerofLondon/Stories/Palacehighlights/RoyalBeasts/Menageriehistory

James Stevens  and Susan Wilson

Resl, Brigitte, ed., A Cultural History of Animals in the Medieval Age. Berg (2007)
Walton, Steven . http://www.academia.edu/574602/Theophrastus_on_lyngurium_Medieval_and_early_modern_lore_from_the_classical_lapidary_tradition

All images are in the Public Domain

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

E.M. Powell’s medieval thrillers The Fifth Knight and The Blood of the Fifth Knight have been #1 Amazon bestsellers. Born and raised in the Republic of Ireland into the family of Michael Collins (the legendary revolutionary and founder of the Irish Free State), she lives in northwest England with her husband, daughter and a Facebook-friendly dog. She blogs for EHFA, reviews for the Historical Novel Society and contributes to The Big Thrill.

Book #3 in the series, The Lord of Ireland, based on the Lord John's disastrous 1185 campaign, will be published by Thomas & Mercer in 2016. Find out more at www.empowell.com.


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The Princess in the Tower

by Barbara Kyle

Princess Elizabeth, age 14

They came for her at dawn.

Princess Elizabeth, daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, was twenty years old. For three weeks her bitter half-sister, Queen Mary, had kept her a prisoner in a remote corner room of Whitehall Palace. Music and laughter from distant banqueting rooms had reached Elizabeth faintly, like echoes of the life she had lost. It was March, 1554.

The men who came for her were Henry Radcliffe, Earl of Sussex, and William Paulet, the sixty-year-old Marquis of Winchester. They led her out into the cold spring rain and took her down the Thames toward the Tower. Terrified, Elizabeth sat shivering in the barge. She was sure she was on her way to die.

Sir Thomas Wyatt

She had been arrested at her country home at Ashridge, and when they had brought her into London she had seen the grisly evidence of her sister’s justice in the wake of Sir Thomas Wyatt's failed rebellion. Gallows heavy with decomposing rebel corpses stood at every one of the city’s gates and in the market squares. Body parts of rebels who had been hanged, drawn and quartered were strung up along the city walls, a nightmare vision of dismembered arms and legs, the stench making the street dogs howl.

London Bridge

The river, squeezed between the viaduct’s twenty huge arches, roiled in treacherous rapids, and the bargemen squared their feet wide, preparing to "shoot the Bridge." Elizabeth gripped the gunwale to steady herself. The barge rocked and pitched in the angry water as it tumbled through the cavern of the stone arch. The barge shot out the other side, wallowing in the confused currents, jolting Elizabeth’s neck and knocking her knee against the hull.

Reaching the Tower, she implored the lords not to take her in by Traitor’s Gate. "I am her Majesty’s true subject," she said, "no traitor."

In fact, the tide was with her. The low water made it impossible to enter by Traitor’s Gate, a water gate. Instead the bargemen were rowing for Tower Wharf.

Tower of London

Queen Mary I

As Elizabeth's escort walked her into the Tower precincts she glimpsed, across the courtyard, the scaffold on Tower Green. Just weeks ago her cousin, Lady Jane Gray – queen for nine chaotic days – had stumbled up the steps of that scaffold. Trembling, she had groped in confusion for the block on which to lay her head and the Queen’s executioner had brought his axe thundering down. Pitiful, bewildered Jane, just seventeen years old. Yet Wyatt's rebels had not fought in her name but in Elizabeth’s. How much more cause, then, did Mary have to hate Elizabeth?

Mary’s hate was a deep well that Wyatt’s treason had merely topped up. Its wellspring had been Elizabeth’s mother, Anne Boleyn, despised by Mary for supplanting her own mother, Catherine, as their father's queen. Mary’s years of suffering before coming to the throne all stemmed from Anne. Now, as Queen, she was going to make Anne’s daughter pay.

The place Elizabeth was taken to was not a dungeon or a filthy cell but a fine room in the ancient royal palace in the Tower's inner ward. This was the very place where her mother, condemned by the king her husband, had been lodged before he had executed her. Elizabeth had been three years old. Later, she had heard the tales of her mother’s reckless courage in those days. Knowing that the axe of an English executioner sometimes hacked two or three times to finish his grisly job, Anne had demanded that an expert French swordsman be imported to make one clean cut.

Now, Elizabeth tried to muster her mother’s courage. She believed she would be the next to die . . .

But she was not executed. Two months later, reluctantly bowing to the people's love of the Princess Elizabeth, Mary released her, but kept her under house arrest at the moldy old "palace" of Woodstock for almost a year.

In 1558 Mary died, childless after a failed and unhappy reign, having been virtually abandoned by her husband, Philip II of Spain.

Elizabeth ascended the throne at age twenty-five. She ruled for forty-three years, one of England's wiliest and most successful monarchs.

Elizabeth I

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

My novel, The Queen's Captive, opens with Elizabeth taking that terrifying barge journey to the Tower. It's the third book in my Thornleigh Saga which follows a middle-class English family’s rise through three tumultuous Tudor reigns during which they make hard choices about loyalty, duty, family and love.

The most recent book in the series is The Queen's Exiles.

For information about all my books, please visit my website: www.BarbaraKyle.com