Two Legends: Two Outlaws

by Elizabeth Ashworth

In the Middle Ages, an outlaw was a wanted man who had literally been placed beyond the law. Only men over the age of 14 could be outlawed. Women were ‘waived’ – although the outcome was much the same for them.

A person could be declared an outlaw in their absence by a civil as well as a criminal court, but most people were outlawed for serious criminal offences such as murder, treason, rebellion or conspiracy. Outlaws were forced to live outside society. Their possessions, and lands if they owned them, would be confiscated. No one was allowed to give them food or shelter. If they did, it was a crime and they were in danger of being outlawed themselves.


Probably the best known of all the medieval outlaws is the English folk hero, Robin Hood. The stories of his exploits have been told many times over the centuries from A Lyttell Geste of Robin Hood which was printed in the early 1500s to the more recent BBC television series and the film starring Russell Crowe.


The popular version of the Robin Hood legend is set in the year 1193 and names Robin as the Earl of Huntingdon, the trusted friend of Richard the Lionheart. Whilst King Richard was away fighting in Palestine, Prince John outlawed Robin and seized his lands, forcing him to live in Sherwood Forest with his band of ‘merry men’ and possibly ‘Maid Marion’. Whilst being ruthlessly pursued by the Sheriff of Nottingham, Robin spent much of his time robbing from the rich to give to the poor and became the hero of the Saxon peasants against their Norman overlords.


The Geste records the story of an outlaw who lived in the forest at Barnsdale and who had many adventures. He gave money to an impoverished knight who was in debt to the monks of St Mary’s Abbey in York and later in the story Robin takes back twice as much from a monk who is travelling with some of the abbey’s wealth. He later enters the service of the king, but pines for the Greenwood and returns without permission to the forest.


The story ends by telling how Robin dies at Kirklees Priory. He goes there in old age, possibly because he is ill, and the prioress, who may be his cousin, bleeds him. Bleeding was a well-known medical procedure at that time, but because Robin has criticised the corruption within the church, this prioress, in cahoots with her lover Red Roger of Doncaster, allows him to bleed to death. But before he dies he manages to summon Little John by blowing his hunting horn and then he shoots an arrow from the window of the gatehouse and asks to be buried where it lands.


Although there is no compelling evidence that a real Robin Hood ever existed, one of the most popular searches on my website is for ‘Robin Hood’s Grave’ and, a short walk from what remains of the priory gatehouse of Kirkless, there is a grave hidden amongst the yew trees. It is inscribed:

Here underneath dis laitl stean
Laz Robert Earl of Huntingtun
Ne'er arcir ver as hie sa geud
An pipl kauld im Robin Heud
Sick utlawz as him as iz men
Vil England nivr si agen
Obit. 24. Kal Dekembris, 1247.

The gravestone was placed here in 1850 by Sir George Armytage II who was then the landowner and is based on an earlier inscription from 1631. The grave was originally discovered by John Leland, Henry VIII's librarian and chief antiquarian, who visited Kirklees in 1542 during the Dissolution of the Monasteries. He saw the grave and recorded that: ‘Resting under this monument lies buried Robin Hood that nobleman who was beyond the law.’

However, the earliest stories about Robin Hood are not set in the reign of Richard the Lionheart, but mention ‘Edward, our comely king’ which may point to these events taking place in the reign of Edward II when there was also unrest across England. A succession of very wet summers from 1315 to 1317 led to crops rotting in the fields. There was widespread famine as food shortages and high prices led to starvation. There were accusations of bad government and in Lancashire some of the local knights decided to take the law into their own hands.

Sir Adam Banastre and Sir William Bradshaigh led a local rebellion against their overlord, Thomas, Earl of Lancaster. In preparation for what is now called the Banastre Rebellion, these leaders and their confederates rode around Lancashire seeking supplies. This resulted in a man named Sir Henry de Bury being killed and his horse and other goods stolen. Sir William was accused of sheltering the perpetrators of these crimes and was summoned to court. He didn’t attend because by this time the rebels had faced a battle at Preston, on the banks of the River Ribble, against the deputy sheriff of Lancashire, Sir Edmund Neville where they were defeated and had to flee for their lives.

Accused of treason and also wanted in relation to the murder inquiry, Sir William was declared an outlaw. His lands at Haigh, which were his wife Mabel’s inheritance, were confiscated by the king and he was forced to go into hiding, probably in the forest around Charnock. If you ever travel on the M6 motorway you will pass a service station named Charnock Richard which is near to this area.

However a document dated at Westminster on the 21 May 1318 records that William received a pardon:

“Pardon to William de Bradeshagh, knight, of his outlawry in the county of Lancaster, for non-appearance before Robert de Lathom and his fellows, justices, assigned to enquire touching the death of Henry de Bury, knight, killed by Stephen Scallard and John de Walton, as is alleged, when charged with assenting thereto.” (Cal. Pat. 1317-21, p.145)

Whether he was still outlawed for his part in the rebellion is unclear, but he did not return home and in 1319 his wife, Mabel, declared that he was dead. The story of Lady Mabel and Sir William has been handed down over the years and is known as the legend of Mab’s Cross, which records that William was fighting in Palestine rather than being an outlaw. It also tells that Lady Mabel remarried, although there is no documentary evidence for this, and that when her husband eventually returned home she performed a penance for her adultery by walking barefoot from her home at Haigh Hall to a wayside cross in Wigan. The remains of the cross can still be seen outside Mab’s Cross Primary School in the town.

And, like Robin Hood, Sir William also has a marked grave, although it is more likely that this one is genuine and he is really buried in Wigan Parish Church where his effigy can be seen.



Elizabeth Ashworth is the author of two historical novels: The de Lacy Inheritance, set in the reign of Richard I and An Honourable Estate, set in the reign of Edward II. An Honourable Estate draws on stories of outlaws and sheriffs, the case of Sir William Bradshaigh and the legend of Mab’s Cross.

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Relic in the Valley

AT the time of the crucifixion, when darkness swallowed the world, a great earthquake struck the Vale of Ewyas, ripping a chunk from the side of the mountain above Cwmiou.

Today, nestled among ash, alder and beech, the church of St. Martin seems to erupt from the undergrowth, the gravestones heaving and swaying in waves of bending grass. From the top of the graveyard, where the ancient stones stagger like an old man’s teeth, it looks as if the church has come to life and is lumbering off down the hill. And the feeling of disorientation does not end when you push open the heavy oak door and step inside.

The silence swallows you, the aroma of mildew and a thousand years of Christian faith seep from yellow internal walls that twist and buckle like a living thing making your feet run off of their own accord as you progress along the Welsh flag-stoned aisle. As your brain battles to make sense of the odd angles it is uncannily like being aboard ship. I expect you are wondering why.

The name 'Cwmiou' or 'Cwmyoy' translates as ‘the valley of the yoke’ and refers to the shape of the mountain above, which resembles an oxen’s yoke.

The nature of the geology of the Honddu valley has caused the land to slowly shift and slide and it is this land slippage, upon which the church was built, that has endowed St Martin’s with its matchless charm.

There are no right angles at St Martin’s, the tower lurches north (5. 2” out of perpendicular), while the chancel arch and east window tilt alarmingly to the right. Consequently it confuses the mind, confounds the senses but there are other reasons besides this, for visiting.

The church itself is a simple structure, consisting of nave, chancel, tower and porch dating from the 13^th to 16^th centuries. An original 15-16th century window bears some wonderful scrollwork and a small stone stairway in the chancel leads to the remains of a rood loft, which was destroyed during the Reformation. (Just a little drive up the road at St Issui’s church at Patricio there is a superb example of a 15^th century rood loft and screen that you should really not miss if you ever make this journey.)

19^th century restoration work saw some of the windows at St Martin’s replaced and it is believed that the plaster ceilings were removed at that time, but some examples of the original survives in the porch. To prevent further slippage the church is now buttressed at the west end and large iron stays were added in the 1960’s.

 The church houses examples of the work of the Brute family, master masons from Llanbedr, who were active from the 1720s through to the 1840s. Thomas, Aaron and John Brute worked in a distinctive style of artisan Rococo and there are a fine collection of tombstones and memorials in this local tradition. Some examples are painted as well as carved, the fat little cherubs surrounded by Rococo wreaths of leaves and flowers.

Look out for some memorable epitaphs too, like the one on the grave of Thomas Price, who died in 1682.

Thomas Price he takes his nap

In our common mother lap

Waiting to heare the Bridegroome say

“Awake my dear and come away.”

Also of interest at St Martin’s is a medieval stone cross that was dug up on a nearby farm in the 19^th century. The cross is believed to be post-Norman, possibly a copy from an earlier cross or the design taken from a manuscript. It may well have been a cross marking the pilgrim’s route along the valley to Brecon and on to the cathedral at St David’s. The font is also early medieval and the marks of the mason’s chisel still plainly to be seen.

In this area of unspoiled medieval churches Cwmiou would be unremarkable were it not for its structural irregularities. I have never experienced a building like it and it really is an experience.

The journey to Cwmiou is a pilgrimage in itself. Although it is not far from the busy market town of Abergavenny, you will need to watch out for stray sheep as you drive through sleepy hamlets and along corkscrewing, almost perpendicular lanes and, as the sunlight flickers through the trees and you turn the last bend and glimpse the staggering walls of St Martin’s peeking from the woods, you will know in that instant that you were right to come.

The Regency Review III, by Lady A~, Authoress of 'The Bath Novels of Lady A~'.

Having been quite stuck up a chimney in my last Regency review-of-two, it is fitting that my third little amble through the period should now wind its way down the more refined lanes of English architecture. Fashioned more out of individual taste than by popular demand, and largely owing to the singular style of its architects, the Regency became a landmark era of architectural design; and elegance was its very fitting catchword. From the modest houses of the 'residential squares' of spa resorts to the sweeping prospects of John Nash's grand terraces in town, the finessing of architectural detail spurned a host of theatrical effects. And from classical moldings and cupolas to 'vistas of white or cream-coloured stucco', the evolution of Regency architecture soon singled out its select group of architects-extraordinaire. John Buonarotti Papworth was one such gentleman early admitted to this group, and was renowned for both his views of elegance, coupled with an acute sense of social awareness. Here he expounds his novel theories upon the improvement of laborers' cottages in his work Rural Residences:

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"The habitations of the labouring poor may be rendered ornamental, and the comforts of them increased, at a very trifling charge beyond the cost of common buildings; towards this purpose the annexed plate is designed for four cottages, connected with each other, and under one roof; a mode of building that admits a considerable saving of expense...

The porch in which the husbandman rests after the fatigues of the day, ornamented by some flowering creeper, at once affords him shade and repose; neatness and cleanliness ... bespeak that elasticity of mind, and spring of action, which produce industry and cheerfulness..."

Whether or not the fatigued husbandman did indeed rediscover the 'spring' in his step from such commodious order, Papworth was soon bounding off in another direction, fashioning rural retreats for the gentry. Here he extols his thoughts upon a 'cottage orne':

"The cottage orne is a new species of building, ... and subject to its own laws of fitness and propriety. It is not the habitation of the labourers, but of the affluent; of the man of study, of science, or of leisure; it is often the rallying point of domestic comfort, and, in this age of elegant refinement, a mere cottage would be incongruous with the nature of its occupancy. The lawn, the shrubberies, the gravel walks, and the polish that is given to the garden scenery, connected with such habitations, require an edifice in which is to be found a correspondence of tasteful care: perhaps it is essential that this building should be small, and certainly not to exceed two stories; that it should combine properly with the surrounding objects and appear to be native to the spot, and not one of those crude rule-and-square excrescences of the environs of London, the illegitimate family of town and country."

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Other acclaimed architects associated with the Regency were George Basevi, Decimus Burton, Sir John Soane and Henry Holland. Though the latter died in 1806 (before the Regency began) he has a distinct association with the era. As the son-in-law of  'Capability' Brown, the celebrated landscape gardener, Holland built Claremont [in Esher, Surrey], the house in which Princess Charlotte spent her married life, and the famed Whig men's club, Brooks's, in St James's Street. It was through his association to Brooks's that he was introduced to the Prince of Wales and this brought about Holland's next commission: the rebuilding of Carlton House, the Prince's London residence. Holland also had a hand in redesigning the Royal Pavilion at Brighton, which was later designed again, and there his distinct cupola paid tribute to the 'Indian domes of Repton and Nash'.

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The nonpareil of Regency architecture is, undoubtedly, John Nash. As the architect to the Prince Regent, he began his illustrious career in the office of Sir Robert Taylor. After going bankrupt in 1783, he re-established himself designing country houses in 'classical, Gothic and picturesque styles', and in 1796 entered into a partnership with Humphry Repton, who became one of the Regency's most notable landscape gardeners. In 1798 Nash acquired the Prince Regent's patronage and in 1811, as one of his most significant works, he developed Regent's Park into a preeminent residential area. Incorporated into this grand scheme were 'Regent's Canal, churches, artisans' houses, shops and arcades, and the layout of many surrounding streets'.

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Tom Moore, the poet, wrote:

"[The Prince] is to have a villa upon Primrose Hill, connected by a fine street with Carlton House, and is so pleased with this magnificent plan, that he has been heard to say 'it will quite eclipse Napoleon'. "

The villa was never built, but Crabb Robinson, the noted diarist, recorded his opinion upon Regent's Park:

"I really think this enclosure, with the new street leading to it from Carlton House, will give a sort of glory to the Regent's government, which will be more felt by remote posterity than the victories of Trafalgar and Waterloo."

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Nash was made Deputy Surveyor-General between 1813-15, and had also become the Prince Regent's personal architect during that time. Between 1815-1823 he set to work on giving the Regent's palace at Brighton, the Royal Pavilion, an ornate makeover in the 'Hindoo' style, at a cost of nearly two-hundred thousand pounds. The extensions and additions incorporated the Great Kitchen and the Long Gallery (and its staircase). In 1817, the Music and Banqueting Rooms were added. After a 'new sixty-ton dome' was fashioned for the palace, and the entire center part of the building reworked, some critical commentary followed the progress. Mr. Croker of the Admiralty stolidly remarked:

"It is not so much changed as I had been told ... But in the place of the two rooms which stood at angles ... with the rest of the building ... have been erected two immense rooms, sixty feet by forty; one for a music-room and the other for a dining-room. They both have domes; an immense dragon suspends the lustre of one of them. The music-room is most splendid, but I think the other handsomer. They are both too handsome for Brighton, and in an excessive degree too fine for the extent of His Royal Highness's premises. It is a great pity that the whole of this suite of rooms was not solidly built in or near London. The outside is said to be taken from the Kremlin at Moscow; it seems to me to be copied from its own stables, which perhaps were borrowed from the Kremlin. It is, I think, an absurd waste of money, and will be a ruin in half a century or sooner."

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Fortunately Mr. C's foreboding of rack and ruin was itself waylaid to dust, and a Victorian critic made due account of the chinoiserie-styled music-room in proper praise:

"No verbal description, however elaborate, can convey to the mind or imagination of the reader an appropriate idea of the magnificence of this apartment...
 
The windows, which are so contrived as to be illuminated from the exterior, are enriched with stained glass displaying numerous Chinese devices, and similar decorations, in green gold, surround them...

At the [cupola's] apex, expanding in bold relief and vivid colouring, is a vast foliated ornament, bearing a general resemblance to a sunflower, with many smaller flowers issuing from it in all luxuriancy of seeming cultivation. From this, apparently projected from the calyx, depends a very beautiful lustre of cut glass, designed in the pagoda style, and sustaining by its chain-work an immense lamp in the form of the ... water-lily. The upper leaves are of white, ground glass edged with gold, and enriched with transparent devices derived from the mythology of the Chinese; the lower leaves are of a pale crimson hue. At the bottom are the golden dragons in attitudes of flight..."

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The erstwhile critic, Mr. Croker, did however set his seal of approval upon the Pavilion's new kitchens:

"The kitchen and larder are admirable -- such contrivances for roasting, boiling, baking, stewing, frying, steaming and heating; hot plates, hot closets, hot air, and hot hearths, with all manner of cocks for hot water and cold water and warm water and steam, and twenty saucepans all ticketed and labelled, placed up to their necks in a vapour bath."

In 1819, the last improvements to the Pavilion came in the additions of the King's Apartments, and in 1821, Buckingham House became Nash's next palatial project, never to be completed. After it was ordered that it be rebuilt as a royal palace, time ran out on George IV (formerly the Regent) and his personal architect. In 1830 the King died amidst a great groundswell of personal unpopularity, which likewise, and predictably, underwrote Mr. Nash's (regally affiliated) professional demise.

But fond friends despair not! Before dear Prinny goes up in a veritable puff of smoke in his palace, alongside his gifted architect and his glorious era, I shall, in my next review, continue to meander into the Regent's imaginative and extravagant world. I invite you all, most cordially, to join me there, at a later date, in unveiling the politics of  landscape gardening, the Picturesque movement, and the fashions and pleasures of the affluent in both town and country.

Source: Richardson J., The Regency, (Collins, 1973.)
Images courtesy Wikimedia Commons

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A Tribute to John Keats

by Wanda Luce 

I must confess I don’t have time to wade through a perusal of every article ever posted on our blog to see if someone already talked of John Keats (1795-1821), so my apologies to those of you who are knowledgeable fans, acknowledged critics, or formerly be-knowledged blog readers.  He seems to be in my mind today.

A few years ago as I cruised past the maze of dumb, dumber, and dumbest movies at our local movie rental store hoping—no, dreaming (hoping implies that there is hope, dreaming implies that one wishes for something that is rarely possible)—of finding a romantic chick flick akin to the excellent productions based on the works of Jane Austen, I spied a movie titled “Bright Star.”  I was ecstatic when I read the back and discovered it to be about the life of John Keats.  Of course, being a Friday night, I took it home, popped up a large, buttery bowl of popcorn, and, with husband and sons running for cover, took possession of the couch.  All were invited.  None accepted.  So…I snuggled into a pile of pillows and enjoyed every minute (except the cry at the end).

A contemporary of Lord Byron and Percy Shelley, his poems were generally not well-received during his short life, but by the end of the 19^th century, he became one of England’s most beloved poets.

Although Keats’s parents did not possess the financial resources to educate him at Eton or Harrow, he was sent to board at John Clarke’s school in Enfield near the home of his grandparents.  Here he developed an interest in classics and history.  Some described Keats as “always in extremes," given to indolence and fighting (Gittings 1987, 1-3).  By the age of 13, however, he began to focus on reading and study, and in 1809 he won his first academic prize.

Some of you may be surprised to know that his first career pursuits were not in poetry but in medicine.  In 1816 he received his apothecary’s license and became eligible to practice as an apothecary, physician, and surgeon (Kelvin Everest, “Keats, John”, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University  Press).   Struggling beneath the weight of his family’s financial crises yet full of a great desire to be a poet, he suffered bouts of depression.   Keats became more and more involved in his writing and in friendships with other poets and at last gave up medicine to pursue his poetry.  Sadly, he owed a great deal in loans for his education.

If suffering and tragedy are the foods of creativity--at least of certain types of it-- then Keats received more than an ample portion of both.  In 1804 his father died of a concussion.  His mother remarried two months later but left her second husband soon after.  Tuberculosis took his mother in 1810, his brother Tom in 1818, and him in 1821.  He fought vigorously over the four years before his death to distinguish himself, but, in spite of some success, felt himself largely a failure.

One of the greatest blows to his career came after the release of Endymion.  It was damned by the critics and described by John Lockhart in the 1818 edition of The Quarterly Review as “imperturbable driveling idiocy.”  Lockhart also furthered his jab at Keats by saying, “It is a better and a wiser thing to be a starved apothecary than a starved poet; so back to the shop Mr. John (Keats), back to plaster, pills, and  ointment boxes.”  Oh how critics like to puff out their feathers and with a self-congratulatory pat on their own backs shred the work of those who dare to bare their souls and try to create.  Any author who is reading this understands what it is to have their hundreds of hours of heart-wrenching toil dismissed with a cold, thoughtless, and often arrogant wave of the hand by those who erect a mental monument to themselves in a cruel act they name honesty.  Is it really so easy to see so little good in so much work?  Now that I write, I understand a man like Keats in a whole new way.

    

By September of 1819, Keats was very short of money and in a state of despair.  He wrote to Fanny Brawne, his great love, in February 1820 when he knew he was dying, “I have left no immortal work behind me—nothing to make my friends proud of  my memory—but I have lov’d the principle of beauty in all things, and if I had had time, I would have made myself remember’d.”  To Fanny he also wrote, “My love has made me selfish. I cannot exist without you. I am forgetful of every thing but seeing you again. My life seems to stop there.”

This is but the merest, bare-bones sketch written not by an academician but by someone who stopped to imagine what he went through and to enjoy what beauty he left behind.  He died of tuberculosis after months of extreme suffering from pain, being starved and bled, and vomiting blood.  But Joseph Severn, who nursed him during those last months in Rome, wrote, “Keats  raves till I am in a complete tremble for him…about four, the approaches of death came on…I lifted him up into my arms…(at) eleven…he gradually sank into death, so quiet, that I still thought he slept.”

In closing, I would like to quote his poem after which the film was named.

Bright Star

Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art—

Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night

And watching, with eternal lids apart,

Like Nature’s patient, sleepless Eremite,

The moving waters at their priestlike task

Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores,

Or grazing on the new soft-fallen mask

Of snow upon the mountains and the moors—

No—yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,

Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast,

To feel for ever its soft swell and fall,

Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,

Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,

And so live ever—or else swoon to death.

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The First Word in English

In 1929 an RAF crew took aerial shots of the site of the old Roman town of Venta Icenorum around the church of Caistor St Edmund near Norwich. The photographs revealed an extensive road network and soon the archaeologists moved in. During their excavations they came across a large early Anglo-Saxon cemetery with burials dating from the 5th century.

In the cemetery they found some cremation urns as well as pots with possessions in. One of these was full of bones – but they were not human remains. Most were sheep knuckle bones and probably dice or other game pieces. But amongst them was  a bone that was and still is of historical importance.

It was a bone from a Roe deer and upon it there were runic inscriptions:

The runes were old German/ old english runes and spelt this word:

Which means Raihan. What is Raihan?  Well the ‘an’ in old German meant  ”belonging to or from” and the Raih is believed to be a very early version of the word ROE. So this inscription which has been dated to circa 420 AD means “from a roe”.

It is not uncomon in the Saxon period to find similar bones from other animals with writing telling us which beast it is from.

So what we have here are the possessions of a man or woman from the VERY first years of Anglo-Saxon settlement of East Anglia buried in a cemetery that would have been very new within or close to a decaying Roman town. What we also have is the VERY FIRST word written in what would one day become England in the language which would one day be called English.

What we see here are the scrapings of one of the first of the mercenaries who crossed the north sea on hearing the call from the Britons for fighters to help protect Britannia from the Picts and Irish. He and thousands like him stayed on to carve out a nation.

There is more on this word and 99 other ones that form part of our history in The Story of English in 100 words by David Crystal. Its a fascinating book and I very much recommend it.

I find this evidence of the first written word in English fascinating and quite romantic really. I write novels about the early Anglo-Saxon period - always striving to bring back to live people who died 14 centuries ago. This to me is a tangible relic of one of those people.  To find out more about my books click here.

Walk to Paradise Garden by John B. Campbell

John B. Campbell is giving away a copy of Walk to Paradise Garden. This giveaway ends at midnight, August 19th. To see more information about the book, please click HERE. Comment here to enter the drawing, and be sure to leave your contact information.

Sir Thomas Wyatt: poet, lover, courtier

Allington Castle from across the River Medway. Photo by Prioryman.

Last of the late medieval court poets, Thomas Wyatt was born in 1503 at the dreamy-looking Allington Castle in Kent. From the first, he was destined to become a courtier like his father, Sir Henry, and to serve royalty at the highest level.

Presented at court at the tender age of thirteen, young Thomas went on to study at Cambridge and married Elizabeth Brooke in 1520; it was a prestigious match, Elizabeth being the daughter of a Baron, Lord Cobham. Quickly made an Esquire and Clerk of the King's Jewels, Thomas Wyatt travelled abroad on diplomatic business and pursued an ambitious career at court whilst continuing his lifelong interest in writing and translating verse.

Francesco Petrarch, whose courtly Italian love sonnets inspired Wyatt - and generations of English poets after him, including William Shakespeare.

A man of European tastes, Wyatt's chief role model among the poets was the Italian poet Petrarch, whose work he translated with great originality and aplomb, introducing the unfamiliar "sonnet" to the English court.

Sadly, Wyatt's early marriage foundered after the birth of his two children, Thomas and Frances. He finally divorced Elizabeth in the mid-1520s, claiming she had been unfaithful. (Her name was later closely linked with Henry VIII's, so this may not have been untrue.) Despite this personal set-back, Wyatt enjoyed increasing status at court. He was made Marshal of Calais twice, Justice of the Peace, and even stood in for his father at the marriage of Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn in 1533, where he served as Chief Ewer to the royal couple.

Although Thomas Wyatt was suspected of an affair with Queen Anne, Henry VIII was also later suspected of taking Wyatt's estranged wife Elizabeth as his mistress. Tit for tat?

Over the next few years, Wyatt was knighted, granted an estate in Yorkshire, and licensed to command soldiers and keep twenty men in livery. A more glittering career it would be hard to imagine. Yet as one of his poems suggests, life at court could be dangerous too, like a 'slippery' top step where a man might easily lose his footing.

'Stand whoso list upon the slipper top
Of court's estate,'

wrote Wyatt, remarking how he preferred to avoid court's 'brackish joys', where friends could suddenly die 'dazed, with dreadful face.' In another similar poem, Wyatt eschews the courtly life for a quiet home in the country, describing how

'The bell tower showed me such sight
That in my head sticks day and night.
There did I learn out of a grate,
For all favour, glory, or might,
That yet circa Regna tonat.

The phrase 'circa Regna tonat' means 'About the throne, thunder rolls.' In other words, the court is not a safe place to be.

Queen Anne, née Boleyn, was accused of adultery. If true, was one of her lovers the poet Thomas Wyatt?

Many consider such admonitory poems to refer to the execution of Anne Boleyn, with whose name Sir Thomas Wyatt is often romantically linked. His version of Petrarch's poem 'Whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hind' suggests evidence for such a risky affair, ending with this warning: 'Graven in diamonds with letters plain,/There is written her fair neck round about,/Noli me tangere for Caesar's I am.' (Noli me tangere means 'Do not touch me.')

We have no proof that Wyatt's imprisonment in the grim Tower of London in 1536 was connected to the simultaneous arrest of several other young courtiers. But it is likely that Wyatt too was suspected of being one of the Queen's lovers. Whatever his offence, he was lucky to escape the death sentence meted out soon afterwards to five fellow courtiers and to Anne herself. Many believe Wyatt witnessed the Queen's execution from his window, a terrible sight which left him a changed man, whose letters to his teenage son the following year urged caution and humility above the allure of ambition.

In his later years, Wyatt had another son with his mistress, Elizabeth Darrell, and served as a diplomat on many occasions. He did not follow his own advice, however, continuing to veer between days of glory at court and imprisonment for one offence or other. It is possible that he only escaped execution on one charge of treason by agreeing to return to his estranged wife.

Sent to greet the Spanish envoy at Falmouth in 1542, Sir Thomas Wyatt fell ill with a sudden fever. Resting at a friend's house in Dorset, he died and was buried there a few days later, the poet never having made his poems public but only circulated them in manuscript form.

Sadly, his son - also Sir Thomas Wyatt - did not heed his father's advice either, and later led a rebellion against Mary I which ended in his execution. Even under torture, however, Wyatt the Younger refused to implicate the Lady Elizabeth in his rebellion, and so probably saved the life of Anne Boleyn's daughter.

Victoria Lamb's Tudor court novel THE QUEEN'S SECRET is set at Kenilworth Castle during Elizabeth I's visit in 1575, and is published by Bantam. It is currently on a special promotion at £2.84 for the Kindle edition.


Her paranormal romance WITCHSTRUCK is set during the reign of Mary I, and is published by Corgi Books, the first of a Tudor Witch series.

Honiton Lace

by Jenna Dawlish

Honiton is a small market town in the eastern part of Devon. Just a 20 minute drive outside Exeter, it is most famous for being the historic base of lace-making which dates back to the 16th Century.

Map of major towns in Devon

Lace was made in and around this area for centuries by women for just a few pence a day - by Victorian times a woman could get about 5p a day for her work. Many women would work from dusk to dawn on their pieces. Usually women worked in their home, would complete a piece of lace and take it to a local trader who would then have them sewn together and then sold as a larger piece. A lace-maker could usually produce about an inch square of lace every day.

Although Honiton Lace was the name, the work could come from surrounding towns and villages: Branscombe, Axminster, Beer etc. It became known as Honiton Lace because that is where the merchants who sold the lace to traders were based. Often the work would be sold to wealthy ladies in London. Honiton Lace had a reputation of being one of the best in Britain.

Honiton Lace's most famous customer was Queen Victoria, who demanded her wedding veil was made of it. She also ordered a lace trim for her eldest child's Christening gown which was also used for her other children. Princess Diana also had a small amount of Honiton Lace on her wedding dress in 1981.

Queen Victoria in her wedding dress

The lace was often used for handkerchiefs, for dresses, table decorations, but very often for veils. Not all lace was white - plenty of black lace was made for mourning garments.

Today there is a small museum in Honiton that has a large display of lace. 

All Hallows Museum, Honiton contains a large amount of Honiton lace.

There are still lace-makers in Honiton, though most of the workers do it for pleasure, but there is a strong drive to pass on the lace-making skills so that the skill is not lost forever. 

The Extraordinary Clandestine Activities of a Nineteenth Century Diplomat

by Maggi Andersen

Part British diplomat and part spy, relatively little has been written about Charles Stuart, Lord Stuart de Rothesay (later 1^st Baron Stuart de Rothesay) 1779-1845. 

Headstrong, daring and never lacking personal courage or conviction, Charles Stuart was in many respects a product of his age, but in others he, and his like, also helped to shape that age, and consequently the fact of Europe as we know it today.  The Book Guild Ltd.

Charles was no ordinary diplomat. His story is also the story of the British intelligence service coming of age. Britain’s secret service came of age in the 19^th Century, when it was developed as a key weapon in both politics and war. 

Portrait by Francis Gerard 1830

This portrait of him has him holding a pair of gloves which could easily be imagined to be a dagger. It’s not difficult to understand why he chose his profession, his paternal grandfather, John Stuart, 3^rd Earl of Bute, was one of the two Secretaries of State in the days when those great functionaries controlled the country’s Secret Service, chiefly through the agency of the Post Office. As Prime Minister, Lord Bute’s greatest achievement was to bring the Seven Years’ War to an end, bribing Members of Parliament; it’s reputed, from secret funds.

Charles’ father, General Sir Charles Stuart, a distinguished soldier, could not rely on official sources for intelligence as the Army had no intelligence service until 1803 when the Depot of Military Knowledge was set up. He learned the ways and means of intelligence-gathering when he saw active service in the American War of Independence. 

Young Charles was at Eton until 16 years age in 1795. Two years later he went up to Christ Church, Oxford. During those two years he traveled with his father and kept a journal: Travels in Germany and the Imperial Hereditary States, 1795-1797. At Weimar he sat at the feet of Goethe and Schiller, and penned descriptions of these great men in letters. His letters to his father revealed his burgeoning interest in the political situation: “…the Prussians are exceedingly busy in fortifying all their frontier places towards Galacia in the newly acquired part of Poland. Some people say ware is declared; I must confess it appears to me very odd that the House of Austria should take such a step after being so weakened as she certainly has been in the French war. Everything in this country has a very war-like appearance though few people seem to know how it will turn out.”

His travels left him restless. After a year at Oxford, he moved to Glasgow University. In 1801 his father died. Admitted to Lincoln’s Inn, Charles began to read for the Bar, but was unable to settle. He considered politics and proposed himself as Member of Parliament for Poole, in Dorset, a borough that his father had represented for many years. But Lord Hobart found him a place in the Diplomatic Service. He was to be Secretary of Legation at Vienna, but he had time to spare and decided to see something of Russia. It was the summer of 1801 and Europe was in a state of suspended animation: the French Revolutionary War was over, but the Peace of Amiens had not yet come into being.

When the Second Coalition against France crumbled, England was alone. Charles set out in July traveling through Prussia, Berlin, partitioned Poland and St. Petersburg. In Vienna, he kept a journal again, Journal, Northern Europe 1801, and this time he recorded what he saw and heard as a budding diplomat, rather than a student or the dutiful son of a British officer.

Between 1810 and 1814 he served as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Portugal and Brazil.

In 1812 he was appointed a Knight of the Order of Bath (KB) and was sworn of the Privy Council in 1814.

Knight of the The Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath 1812

In 1815 he was made Knight Grand Cross of the Ode of the Bath and appointed British Ambassador to France during Napoleon’s Hundred Days he left Paris and was in Brussels at the start of the Waterloo Campaign.

After the fall of Napoleon he returned to Paris as the Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Portugal and Brazil.

One of the English visitors to Paris, Lady Granville, observed of him: “He discovers what others re about or would be about to a degree that must be very useful to him in his present situation.”

Charles felt some responsibility for the safety of Wellington and Castlereagh – which was made more difficult due to the fact that neither man was over-concerned for himself. There were at least two attempts on Wellington’s life during this period and other may have been prevented by Charles’ vigilance. Nobody was punished for either of the best-known attempts on Wellington’s life. One attempt was carried out by an old soldier, devoted to Napoleon. He was arrested, but was not convicted, despite the fact that there was no doubt of his guilt. The court held that the evidence was not strong enough. Charles suspected a political motive and sent one of his agents, a man called Darby, to the trial. He took notes, which were sent to Castlereagh, and whether or not on the Foreign Secretary’s instructions, he lodged an official complaint.

Two events, one in England and one in France dominated Charles’ private and secret work during the second half of his first term as ambassador at Paris. In January 1820 George III died, and the accession of the Prince Regent as George IV made his wife, Caroline, Queen of England; in February 1820 the Duc de Berri, second in line of succession to the French throne, was assassinated, and public reaction brought power to the ultraroyalists. He also had to contend with Castlereagh’s death in 1822, when Canning became Foreign Secretary again. Neither George IV nor Canning was well known or trusted by the sovereigns and statesmen of Europe.

The Prince of Wales’ marriage to Caroline of Brunswick had been a disaster from the first, and the Princess had been living abroad for several years. Now that they were king and queen, George wanted to divorce her, but his ministers were anxious to avoid a divorce because as much mud would stick to him as to her and the Monarchy would suffer. Charles Stuart was drawn into the affair officially as one of the King’s ministers abroad, and unofficially as a private investigator.

When Caroline returned to England and proved to be more popular than the king, Stuart worked to bring to light Caroline’s sexual relationship with her servant, Pergami, but he failed. He had several agents working on the case, and there was no doubt that Pergami had lived with the lady, but they found no evidence that she had provided him with more than board and lodging. The trial duly took place, but it had an inconclusive ending. The bill was withdrawn but Caroline was never given the recognition that she craved, and she died less than a year later.

Charles was created Count of Machico in 1825 and Marquess of Angra in Brazil in 1825.

  

In 1825 the Portuguese King John VI named Stuart his plenipotentiary with powers to negotiate and sign with Brazil a Treaty on the recognition of that country's independence. Invested with those powers, Stuart signed the treaty recognizing Brazilian independence on 29 August 1825, and on 15 November of the same year the Portuguese King ratified the treaty.

Painted in Paris by George Hayter 1830.

 In January 1828 he was once again appointed Ambassador to France and was raised to the peerage Baron Stuart de Rothesay, of the Isle of Bute, at the same time. He continued as Ambassador to France until 1831. In 1841 he was made Ambassador to Russia, a post he held until 1844.

Charles Stuart is suspected of having been involved in the escape of the Comte de Lavalette from the prison of the Conciergerie the day before he was to be executed.

Painted in Paris by George Hayter 1830. 

Lord Stuart de Rothesay married Lady Elizabeth Margaret, daughter of Philip Yorke, 3rd Earl of Hardwicke, on 6 February 1816. They had two daughters: 

Hon.Charlotte Stuart (21817-1861, wife of Charles Canning, 1st Earl Canning.

Hon. Louisa Anne Stuart (1818-1891), wife of Henry Beresfor, 3rd Marquess of Waterford.

Highcliffe Castle at Highcliffe, Dorset.

Copyright Mike Searle and licenced for re-use under this Creative Commons licence.

Between 1831 and 1835 Lord Stuart de Rothesay constructed Highcliffe Castle at Highcliffe, Dorset. The estate had previously been sold by his father.  With his wife at his side, Lord Stuart de Rothesay died there most likely from cerebro-vascular disease in November 1845, aged 66, when the barony became extinct. Lady Stuart de Rothesay remained a widow until her death in June 1867.

Maggi Andersen

A Baron in Her Bed ~ The Spies of Mayfair Series, Book One, coming 6^th September to the UK. 

KNOX ROBINSON PUBLISHING

AMAZON UK BUY LINK: 

Resource: PRIVATE & SECRET by Robert Franklin

Images: Wikipedia

Author website: AUTHOR WEBSITE:

The Great ‘What If’. What if Edward Bruce had succeeded in Ireland ?

by Arthur Russell

The early years of England’s King Edward II reign were dogged by many difficulties. First he had to fight his barons who wanted to increase their own power at the expense of Royal power. Of even more significance, he had inherited a disastrous war with Robert Bruce in Scotland arising from his father’s claim (Edward I, nicknamed “Longshanks”) to the throne of Scotland. This was effectively ended with the decisive battle of Bannockburn in 1314, which was a defeat for English arms.

King Edward’s Scottish troubles did not end with Bannockburn. The victorious Bruce had been invited by an alliance of Irish chieftains to take over the vacant throne of Ard-Rí and felt strong enough to do just that in hopes of opening a second war front against the English by forming a pan Celtic alliance which he hoped would attract support not just from Ireland but from dissident elements in Wales. There was much talk of a “Celtic Empire of the West” which potentially would have created a strong counterbalance to the still embryonic power of London and a future British Empire.

On May 26th 1314, a huge army of Scottish soldiers (gallowglasses) landed at Larne in Co Antrim under the leadership of Bruce’s younger brother Edward, the man chosen to assume the title of Ard-Rí (High King). For over 3 years, the Scottish invasion defeated every effort of the English colonists to resist them. Among the English who fought him were Justiciar Edward deBoteler and Sir Roger Mortimer, Earl of Wigmore, who was also Lord of Trim by virtue of his marriage to a scion of the deLacy’s. Mortimer was lucky to escape from the Scots after the decisive battle of Kells in November 1315 which left the whole of Ireland, with the exception of the city of Dublin and a few castled towns; under the control of the invader. Edward Bruce was crowned Ard-Rí of Ireland at Knocknamellan, near Dundalk, in May 1316.

The weather played a vital role in the progress of war. Not for the first (or last!) time, North Western Europe was hit by a succession of wet and windy Summers which impacted on the ability of the land to produce enough to feed the population. Add to this the impact of a hungry invading army intent on starving all opposition into compliance; it created the ideal environment for famine and famine related pestilence that ravaged most of Ireland during those turbulent years. It meant that Bruce could never move too far away from his northern base which was supplied from Scotland. It also caused many Irish allies to blame the Scots for most of the damage that was being done to Ireland’s food supply and to withhold their support for his cause. Bruce’s Gaelic allies also failed to win Papal recognition for the newly crowned Ard-Rí, which further eroded support for the invasion.

The war dragged on until 1318 when the English King finally put together the men and resources to roll back the Scottish advance. Sir Roger Mortimer landed with a huge army at Youghal and succeeded in pinning the Scots back into Ulster where they awaited the arrival of promised reinforcements from King Robert later in the year. The next battle would decide the fate of the invasion and Ireland for centuries. Against all the advice of all his own commanders as well his remaining Irish allies; Bruce insisted on taking to the field at Faughart near Dundalk on October 14th 1318, days before his brother’s army, which had by then arrived in Ireland, could help him. Due to rivalry that existed between the brothers, Edward wanted to win this last deciding battle without Robert’s help. Seriously outnumbered, the Scots were defeated.

Edward Bruce and many leading Scottish nobles were killed at the battle of Faughart.

This battle was the end of Scotland’s interest in Irish affairs and the dream of a strong alliance of Celtic nations that could challenge England’s hegemony. Sir Roger Mortimer, who is rightly credited with being the main architect of the defeat of the Bruces’ invasion of Ireland, subsequently went on to play a significant part in England’s history. (Ref – ‘The Greatest Traitor’ by Ian Mortimer).

The Great what ifs - What if Edward had waited for his brother at Faughart? What if he had won and succeeded in establishing a strong Irish Royal dynasty allied to Scotland? How different would subsequent Irish, Scottish and English history have been?

Gaelic Ireland

The Bruce invasion of Ireland provides the historical backdrop to the novel ‘Morgallion’ which takes its title from the marchland barony of the same name. It was here that the remains of an ancient lake or “crannóg” settlement was uncovered 20 years ago beside Moynagh Lough in Co Meath. This site was subject of an extensive archaeological excavation led by John Bradley from the National University of Ireland Maynooth, who traced its origins to Neolithic times; and its continued development right into the Middle Ages. Moynagh’s crannóg Gaelic community was therefore on the frontier of Norman-English and Gaelic cultures after the Norman invasion, and inevitably had to endure all the inherent dangers and traumas that living in such a precarious location entailed.

It is also on record that Edward Bruce’s invading army occupied the nearby caput town of Nobber for several weeks on his way to his victory over Sir Roger Mortimer at the battle of Kells in November 1315. In common with every other district in the front-line of the invading army’s advance, its people suffered dreadfully from famine, disease and the ravages of war.

These are some of the “pegs” of historical fact on which the story of ‘Morgallion’ hangs. While it is fiction, it portrays how the lives of ordinary people might have been impacted by events that washed over and around them. The book is an attempt to put some ‘flesh on the bones’ of what scant historic records tell us. The research and writing of the book began twenty years ago and was finally brought to completion in April 2012.

More information on the book and the context of its story, can be found on the website ‘www.morgallion.com’.

Author of ‘Morgallion’ – Arthur Russell

Arthur Russell is a native of Nobber, Co Meath, Ireland, where he grew up on his father’s farm beside Moynagh Lough and its recently discovered crannog settlement, which features in his book ‘Morgallion’.

By profession he is an Agriculturalist and since 1972 has worked extensively in many parts of Ireland. Since 1992 he has worked professionally in a number of Eastern European and Former Soviet Union countries. He has just completed a three year support project funded by the European Union with the Ministry of Agriculture in Ashgabad, Turkmenistan. He lives with his wife Mary, in Navan, Co Meath. They have four children and three grandchildren.

‘Morgallion’ is his first book.