Knights Templar - Culture and Mindset By Scott Higginbotham

The Knights Templar held fast to the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.  Austerity was the hallmark of their lives, even going as far as disavowing their families and loved ones when they joined the order.  Fellow knights in this fraternity were referred to as brethren, effectively creating a strict, yet rather large extended family that followed The Rule.  “The rule enjoins severe devotional exercises, self-mortification, fasting, and prayer, and a constant attendance at matins, vespers, and on all the services of the church, 'that being refreshed and satisfied with heavenly food, instructed and stablished with heavenly precepts, after the consummation of the divine mysteries,' none might be afraid of the fight, but be prepared for the crown.”¹  Among the many restrictions of the 72 chapter Rule, feminine contact was strictly forbidden! 

Image by Scott Higginbotham

However, there was a reasoning to what modern people would call this madness.  In addition to constant training, a newly-inducted Knight Templar was stripped of all vestiges of his former life.  One would be “broken down”, then remade into the Templar mold.  Looking back to the preceding quote, the harshness of their lives and how they lived as brothers served to create a culture that resulted in fearlessness in battle, unity of mind, order, and obedience, even unto death where they would receive their heavenly crown.    

These well-disciplined soldiers could be likened to the present day US Navy SEALS or the British SAS based on their military bearing and quiet confidence - soldiers who have been remade for a specific purpose.  “An eye-witness of the conduct of the Templars in the field tells us that they were always foremost in the fight and the last in the retreat; that they proceeded to battle with the greatest order, silence, and circumspection, and carefully attended to the commands of their Master.”² 

Moreover, concerning a Templar who had been captured by Saladin around 1180 A.D., Charles G. Addison provides some illumination into the brotherhood’s proud culture: “Saladin offered Odo de St. Amand his liberty in exchange for the freedom of his own nephew, who was a prisoner in the hands of the Templars; but the Master of the Temple haughtily replied, that he would never, by his example, encourage any of his knights to be mean enough to surrender, that a Templar ought either to vanquish or die, and that he had nothing to give for his ransom but his girdle and his knife. The proud spirit of Odo de St. Amand could but ill brook confinement; he languished and died in the dungeons of Damascus, and was succeeded by Brother Arnold de Torroge, who had filled some of the chief situations of the order in Europe.”³

But, these formidable knights were still constrained by human limitations.  There were harsh consequences for cowardice or even having its appearance.  Breaking faith on the field of battle brought disunity and disorder, potentially poisoning the ranks.  Offenders were shunned and penance was meted: “If any one of them should by chance turn back, or bear himself less manfully than he ought, the white mantle, the emblem of their order, is ignominiously stripped off his shoulders, the cross worn by the fraternity is taken away from him, and he is cast out from the fellowship of the brethren; he is compelled to eat on the ground without a napkin or a table-cloth for the space of one year; and the dogs who gather around him and torment him he is not permitted to drive away. At the expiration of the year, if he be truly penitent, the Master and the brethren restore to him the military girdle and his pristine habit and cross, and receive him again into the fellowship and community of the brethren.”⁴

Photo by Scott Higginbotham

It took a special breed to become a Knight Templar; you were stripped of all earthly trappings, yet your induction into the order gave you entrance into a unique brotherhood.  There was strict adherence to one’s religious duties, The Rule, and you had to be fearless unto death.  Capture meant that you would likely die imprisoned as surrender was not an option.  Additionally, feminine contact, whether romantic or filial was anathema.  However, for those that embraced this band of brothers and their ideals, history is not lacking in tales of their sacrifices; modern special operations groups have too many similarities to say that the legacy and military culture of the Knights Templar has ever died.

Play the short video below for some dramatized "Templar" action and see just a glimpse of history's most fearless knights and how they pressed into the fray.  Bear in mind that the scenes are violent, yet, the actors portray the discipline, zeal, and military precision previously described.  

 

Scott Higginbotham is the author of A Soul’s Ransom, a novel set in the fourteenth century where William de Courtenay’s mettle is tested, weighed, and refined, and For A Thousand Generations, where Edward Leaver navigates a world where his purpose is defined with an eye to the future.

¹Addison, Charles G. (2012-01-17). The History of the Knights Templars, the Temple Church, and the Temple (Kindle Locations 339-342).  Kindle Edition.

²Addison, Charles G. (2012-01-17). The History of the Knights Templars, the Temple Church, and the Temple (Kindle Locations 1099-1103).  Kindle Edition.

³Addison, Charles G. (2012-01-17). The History of the Knights Templars, the Temple Church, and the Temple (Kindle Locations 1160-1165).  Kindle Edition.

⁴Addison, Charles G. (2012-01-17). The History of the Knights Templars, the Temple Church, and the Temple (Kindle Locations 1094-1096).  Kindle Edition

Old London Bridge

Frost Fair with Old Bridge in Background

by Katherine Pym

Old London Bridge was a world unto itself. Not considered London, it was a Liberty, or suburb.  People were born, lived, married, and died there, some without stepping off the Bridge the whole of their lives. 

Built in the years between 1176-1209, begun by King Henry II, the first Plantagenet king of England, it was finished during the reign of King John (who was forced to sign the Magna Carta).  A massive structure that acted like a dam, it stood stalwart against heavy tides and ice during cold winters, and prevented invading ships to pass upriver.

So strongly built, the Old London Bridge lasted 622 years before being pulled down in 1830's. (The location of the current London Bridge is some 180 feet upriver from the old.) It was a stone structure of 19 arches and a wooden drawbridge. Houses, shops, churches and other assorted buildings stood on the bridge.

The anchors holding the bridge in place were called starlings. Massive and feet-like, they were comprised of broken stones and rubble. The starlings compressed the river flow into one-third of its width, causing the tides to rush through the arches like heavy waterfalls. The rush of water going out to sea could be as high as 6-8 feet, depending on the phase of the moon.

It brought out the reckless, usually young men, to 'shoot the bridge'. Boats would gain speed and if the water wasn't too high wherein heads scraped the tops of the arches, or be drowned, they'd fly through and shoot out the other side, over London Pool. After a moment or two dangling over the Pool they'd drop like a rock to the below water. Many died upon a wager, or from mishap by getting pulled into the fast current.

Generally, the wherriman pulled his boat to the river's edge, and his passenger got out to walk around the bridge. He'd catch another wherry in London Pool and finish his journey down river.

The bridge had a row of houses on either side of its length with shops at road level. This made the actual road from London to Southwark no more than 12 feet across. It was so narrow, the Bridge gridlocked with traffic. Coaches and dray wagons would meet and could not pass. Fist fights ensued, with blackened eyes and teeth knocked out.   

I will return to the discussion of Bridge architecture now...  Sources state there were about 138 shops at one time, the two story chapel of St Thomas a Becket, Nonesuch House, and the gatehouse. The bridge with its heavy flow used waterwheels, corn mills, and on the London side sported the water works.

Then, there was the gateway at the Southwark side where heads of traitors were displayed. The Keeper of the Heads had full managerial control over this section of the Bridge. He impaled newly removed heads on pikes, and tossed the old ones into the river. When the original bridge was pulled down, workers found skulls in the mud.

Sometimes, when researching, one comes upon some strange things. I came across the following which I'd like to share with you. (truth or fiction?):

When King Henry VIII demanded Catholicism no longer be the favorite religion of the land, Sir Thomas More refused to follow his liege. As a result he was beheaded.  His body was placed in a coffin and his head put on a pike above London Bridge. After the allowable time frame wherein the Keeper of the Heads knew gulls had feasted and nothing should remain but putrid flesh and hollow eye sockets, Sir Thomas' daughter beseeched the Keeper not to throw her father's head in the river. Instead, she requested he give her the head so she may join it with the body, and they be interred together.

The Keeper agreed, but was amazed when he removed the head, for it remained pink and whole as if only sleeping and still alive...

For more information on the Old London Bridge, see my novels of London 1660's. You can find them in most formats at: http://www.amazon.com/Katherine-Pym/e/B004GILIAS

Reference: Old London Bridge, the Story of the Longest Inhabited Bridge in Europe by Patricia Pierce, Headline Book Publishing, 2001.

Ablutions - Privies and Baths in Country Houses By Maggi Andersen

Until the last half of the eighteenth century, sanitation in country houses was extremely elementary. In fact, it remained fairly unsatisfactory until the end of the nineteenth century. 

 18th Century Bath

Carshalton House, Surrey. The bathroom in the water tower (1719-20)

 (Above left) The cistern tower at Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire

(Above right) A conduit house at Bowden Hill, Wiltshire. Water was supplied from it to Lacock Abbey.

 

Lacock Abbey

 Rainwater was put to good use. In the alterations made by Lord Lumley to Lumley Castle around 1570, the roof drains were connected to cisterns which fed two lavatory basins in alcoves to either side of the hall porch.

 Hardwick Old Hall

At Hardwick Old Hall, a stone down-pipe ran from the flat roof of the Hill Great Chamber (built in 1588) and fed a stone trough in the kitchen. Rainwater was such an obvious source of supply that it would be surprising if more examples of its use at this and earlier periods did not come to light: it was usually the only, if highly variable, means by which water could be brought without inconvenience to upper floors. Houses supplied by conduit seldom had a head of water sufficient to carry the supply above the ground floor. A hand pump, such as seems to have been installed at Hardwick, could only raise water about fifteen feet, and in very limited amounts. It could supply the kitchen, but little else.  

A good many sixteenth-century houses acquired new water supplies, rather than taking over old ones. The most ambitious system was that which finally brought running water to Windsor Castle from Blackmore Park, five miles from the castle.  It took at least four years to construct, between about 1551 and 1555. The water was piped in a lead conduit and the head of water brought it up the castle hill to a great lead cistern in the upper court. From there, more conduits distributed it to other points in the castle.

Some first-hand accounts:

Longford Castle, Wilts: Nay, art here hath so well traced Nature in the most ignoble conveyances (which are no less needful than the most visible conveniences) as to furnish every story with private conduits for the suillage of the house, which are washed by every shower that falls from the gutters, and so hath vent from the very foundations to the top for the discharge of noisesome vapours, by a contrivance not enough followed elsewhere in England, tho’ recommended by architects.

Pelate, A Longford Manuscript, 1678

 

(Above left) A buffet of 1704 originally at Chatsworth but now at Thornbridge Hall, Derbyshire.

(Above right) The buffet of 1703 at Swangrove, Gloucestershire.  

 The grotto at Chatsworth

Chatsworth, Derbs: There is a fine grotto all stone pavement roof and sides, this is designed to supply all the house with water besides several fancyes to make diversion; within this is a batheing room, the walls all with blew and white marble the pavement mix’d one stone white another black another of the red rance marble; the bath is one entire marble all white finely veined with blew and is made smooth, but had it been as finely polished as some, it would have been the finest marble that could be seen; it was as deep as one’s middle on the outside and you went down steps into the bath big enough for two people; at the upper end are two cocks to let in one hott the other cold water to attemper it as persons please; the windows are all private glass.

Celia Fiennes, The Journeys of, 1697

Wentworth Woodhouse, Yorks: There is a little skittle ground for the youth to divert themselves, not to omit a beautiful temple to Cloacina with a portico round it, supported by columns made of the natural trunks of trees.

Richard Pococke, Journey into England, 1750

Woburn Abbey, Beds: Men’s time at day’s work for His Grace the Duke of Bedford from November 15^th to the 22^nd, 1760 To squaring and setting Dutch tiles in His Grace’s water closet in the garden.

Woburn Abbey Accounts, 1760

I breakfasted the day before yesterday at Aelia Laelia Chudleigh’s … of all curiosities, are the Conveniences in ever bedchamber; great mahogany projections, as big as her own bubbies, with the holes, with brass handles, and cocks, etc. I could not help saying it was the loosest family I ever saw! Never was such an intimate union of love and a closestool! Adieu!

Horace Walpole to George Montagu, 27.3.1760

Elizabeth, 1^st Duchess of Northumberland was deliciously candid about the sanitary arrangements, or the lack of them, in the various grand country houses she visited during the age of elegance.

At Hopetoun House: The housekeeper sent me into the Closet to look for a Chamber pot but it being in a Box I could not find it.

Elizabeth, 1^st Duchess of Northumberland, Travel Journals (unpubl.) 1771

But at Harewood she was only too easily directed to ‘a water closet which stinks all over the house’.

As for personal cleanliness before the days of hip baths and running water even Dukes were often grubby.

 Moccas Court  

The numerous visitors to Moccas included:

The old Duke of Norfolk (in his old coach and four black horses) who always drank like a fish, and it was said that he used to make a compromise with his coachman, saying ‘John, you must be sober tonight, I shall be drunk,” or vice versa. Sometimes he slept at Moccas, but never brought a clean shirt with him and came down to breakfast next morning with a portwine spotted shirt, generally himself unwashed. The servants considered him a dear man, as he never wanted any water in his bedroom.

Lady Duff Gordon to her niece, Mrs. A.C.Master (unpubl.) 20.11.1872

Research: The Country House Compiled by James Lees-Milne, Small Oxford Books

Life in the English Country House, Mark Girouard, Yale University Press

Maggi Andersen is an author of historical romance, mysteries, and young adult novels. Website: http://www.maggiandersenauthor.com

The Martyr of the Solway

The Martyr of the Solway by Millais

by Anita Davison

It is summer 1637, and the cathedral of St. Giles in Edinburgh is packed, among the congregation are serving women, seated on three-legged stools keeping places for their mistresses. Dean John Hanna appears carrying a brown leather bound copy of the English Prayer Book, dressed in a white surplice, not the black Geneva gown approved of by the Reformed Church.

The murmurs begin and a servant girl named Jenny Geddes hurls her folding-stool at the pulpit screeching "Daur ye say mass in my lug" (Dare you say mass in my ear). Her stool is followed by others, until the church is in uproar and the Dean pulls off his surplice for fear of being torn to pieces. David Lindsay, recently appointed Bishop of Edinburgh, tries to quieten the crowd, but beneath a tumult of sticks and stones, the Dean and the Bishop take cover in the vestry.

This demonstration seems ludicrous today, but for the citizens of Edinburgh it was in deadly earnest. King Charles I believed the Divine Right of the Monarch made him the spiritual head of the Church of Scotland. The Scots believed this was a position only Jesus Christ could hold.

In February 1638, a large crowd gathered in the graveyard of the old church of the Greyfriars, pressed round a flat tombstone to sign a parchment scroll. Some weep as they write, some use blood drawn from their own arms. This is the National Covenant, a solemn pact that swears the signatories to loyalty to the Church of Scotland, and to resist all measures by the English Government to alter its prayer-book or its ceremonies.

These were the Covenanters, who named 300,000 within months. Charles II, a tolerant easy going man who did not believe men should be persecuted for their religion, signed the National Covenant in 1651 when he sought Scots support against Cromwell. However when he returned from exile to Whitehall in May 1660, he was forced to abandon this pledge as the Government believed it was necessary to enforce the supremacy of the King as head of the church in England and Scotland.

In some areas of Scotland, the Kings’ Judges and Magistrates were ruthless in punishing those who clung to the old Covenanting spirit. The most trivial acts of disloyalty  were punishable by death, such as refusal to drink the King’s health, and many were shot on the spot for ‘fanaticism’.

1637 Prayer Book Riot at St Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh

This is the story of the Two Margarets

In 1684, Gilbert Wilson, a Wigtonshire farmer and his wife attended conformist services. However, their children, Margaret 18, Thomas 16, and Agnes 13, became attracted to the teaching of the Covenanters and attended illegal ‘conventicles’. Mr Wilson was fined for his childrens’ nonconformity, and the three Wilson children fled into the hills of upper Galloway to hide from the troopers.

Charles II died in February 1685, and the new king, James II, himself a Catholic, tried to introduce relaxation of the laws against Dissenters. The Anglican Church and Parliament fought him all the way.

Margaret and Agnes Wilson left their hiding places and went to Wigton to visit some fellow Covenanters, including the aged Margaret McLauchlan, a Presbyterian widow in her sixties. Their brother Thomas, stayed in the mountains and was lost to history.

Reputedly betrayed by a man named Patrick Stuart, the two Margarets and Agnes were arrested by troopers and ordered to demonstrate their loyalty to the King’s authority and swear an oath of abjuration. All three refused and were brought to trial before Sir Robert Grierson, of Lagg, Colonel David Graham (brother to the bloody Claverhouse), Major Windram, Captain Strachan, and Provost Cultrain at Wigton, on the 13th of April 1685.

After the mockery of a trial, at which the girls were accused of attending the Battle of Bothwell Bridge when they were children, they were sentenced to death by drowning. This was to take place in Wigtown Bay, a leg of the Solway, where the wide sands extend two miles out. They were to be tied to stakes fixed in the sand so the incoming tide would drown them.

Gilbert Wilson sold almost everything he owned and borrowed from friends and family, managing to raise a hundred pounds, a vast sum. He rode to Edinburgh to buy his daughters’ pardon, but was forced to choose between the girls. He chose the youngest, Agnes.

Troopers marched the two women down to the sand, where Margaret MacLachlan was tied to a stake far out in the firth, so that the younger girl, made to watch her friend drown, might recant.

The cold sea waters engulfed the old woman while Margaret Wilson, tied to the stone stake further in shore, sang the stirring words of Psalm 25.

When the water reached the young Margaret’s head, the soldiers loosened her cords and held her above the water so she might, ‘Pray for the King. For he is supreme over all persons of the church’.

Margaret said she would pray for the salvation of all men as she wished no one to be condemned. The soldiers pushed her head under the water and tried again, even the crowd begged her to say the oath and save her life, but Margaret remained firm. The soldiers waded back onto shore and left her to drown in the incoming tide.

The bodies of the two Margarets were buried in the churchyard of Wigton, where a flat stone memorial lies.

 ‘Within the sea, tied to a stake
She suffered for Christ Jesus sake.’

The Pre-Raphaelite artist John Everett Millais painted Margaret Wilson in 1871. An x-ray shows the picture was originally a nude, the clothing added later to placate delicate Victorian sensibilities. ‘The Martyr of the Solway’ hangs in the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool.

The Emperor Invades England

by Diane Scott Lewis


In the summer of 1815, Plymouth, England received startling news. A ship had entered the sound with the notorious Corsican Ogre on board. England had fought different coalition wars with General Bonaparte (the government refused to accept him as in emperor) on and off since 1796, and defeated him at Waterloo on June 18, 1815.

In the aftermath of Waterloo, the 74-gun, third rate ship, HMS Bellerophon, was assigned to blockade the French Atlantic port of Rochefort. The ship had served during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. In July, finding escape to America barred by the blockading Bellerophon, Napoleon came aboard "the ship that had dogged his steps for twenty years" to finally surrender to the British.

Napoleon had thought he would be granted asylum in England, but the British government knew it would never work. He’d still be too close to France, and many in the French military were still loyal to their defeated emperor. Rebellion in France was feared. Britain had to protect the fledgling government of the unpopular Louis XVIII.

On July 26th the Bellerophon entered Plymouth Sound. A multitude of small boats, full of curious people, quickly surrounded the ship. The boats grew so thick that hardly any space of water could be seen between them. Women in bright hats, along with men and children, called out "Bonaparte."

Napoleon accommodated them by showing himself at the ship’s rail and tipping his hat to the ladies. Here he was in the flesh, the man who had menaced the continent for nearly two decades. Napoleon was heard to remark about the English ladies, "what pretty women you have here."

The British officials dreaded the sympathy their relentless enemy was garnering among the common people, and ordered the boats pushed away from the vessel. Skiffs from the ship, with armed sailors, rudely shoved back the spectators, causing some of the smaller boats to capsize, injuring the people inside, and at least one person drowned.

George Keith Elphinstone, 1st Viscount Keith, was at Plymouth when Napoleon arrived. The decisions of the British government were expressed through him to the fallen Emperor. Lord Keith refused to be led into disputes, and confined himself to declaring steadily that he had his orders to obey. He was not much impressed by the appearance of his illustrious charge and thought that the airs of Napoleon and his suite were ridiculous. He also grumbled that if the Prince Regent spent a half hour with Napoleon, they would be the best of friends.

The Duke of Sussex, the sixth son of George III—the king debilitated by madness since 1810—spoke in Napoleon’s favor. Allow him to remain. But the British government was adamant: Bonaparte, and everyone in his entourage, would not be allowed on England’s soil.

On July 31st, Lord Keith informed Napoleon that he would be exiled to the far, South Atlantic island of St. Helena. Under duress, Napoleon was transferred to the HMS Northumberland for the ten week voyage. He would die on the island six years later. Plymouth returned to the routine of a harbor town.

It was Bellerophon's last seagoing service. She was paid off and converted to a prison ship later in 1815, and renamed Captivity.

 Sources: Wikipedia; In Napoleon’s Shadow, by Louis-Joseph Marchand, and my own research.

In my novel Elysium, I explore Napoleon’s exile on St. Helena, with an "Alternate History" twist at the end.


Visit my website for more information about my books:
http://www.dianescottlewis.org

　

Midwives, Infanticide, and the Law

by Sam Thomas

While we often (correctly) associate midwives with childbirth, one of the factors that makes them such compelling figures both in history and in fiction is that their responsibilities did not end at the delivery-room door. In addition to being the most important female medical practitioners, midwives were central to the maintenance of law and order, as they investigated cases, questioned suspects, and examined condemned women to ensure that no pregnant women were executed.

While midwives could become involved in any case involving women, their role was largest in cases of infanticide. When legal officials suspected that an infant had been murdered, they would essentially deputize the midwife, and let her conduct the search for the child’s body and identify the murderer.

According to Susan Topham, when the constable suspected a case of infanticide he “required [me] and other neighborhood wives…to search Mary Broughton.” Upon the discovery of a dead child in the parish of Hawksweek, the constable was given a warrant “to summon and charge several grave matrons to enquire after and search all women…that they should any way suspect to be guilty of the late private bearing of a child.” 

Unlike modern “whodunnits,” in cases of infanticide there was usually not much doubt as to the guilty party. When an infant’s body was discovered, suspicion fell upon unmarried women who had been (or were rumored to be) pregnant. The midwife would then examine the mother’s body, checking her breasts for milk and searching her ‘privities’ for signs that she’d recently given birth. In these activities, we see why midwives would need to have a certain strength of character in order to succeed. Not only did midwives have to control the delivery room, they had to unearth the community’s darkest secrets, often against stiff resistance.

The women charged with investigating a possible infanticide in Dalton, Cumberland ran into just such resistance when they attempted to search the body of a servant named Anne Nicholson. The investigators were resisted not by Nicholson, but by her mistress, Mary Holme. Initially, Holme did her best to keep her servant’s pregnancy a secret, and when word got out she attempted to prevent Nicholson’s interrogation. When parish women attempted to search Nicholson’s body, Holme “replied to them saying – Let’s see who dare be so bold as view her maids breasts without her consent.” A midwife who could not overcome this sort of resistance would not get very far in her investigations.

Once a suspect had been identified (and isolated), it then fell to the midwife to extract a confession. In some cases, suspects responded violently, as in the case of Jane Cooper. When Dorothy Lister accused Jane of being with child, “Jane called her a whore and beat her with her own hat.”

In most cases, however, the accused could do little except endure a humiliating interrogation and search of her body. What chance did a poor, unmarried woman have against a dozen or so of her powerful neighbors? We see this in the case of Mary Riley, who was questioned by the town midwife and a dozen other women who would not take “No” for an answer. After the constable arrested her, he, “carried her before the said Grace wife widow Toppan where there was a dozen more women or there abouts and they searched her bodie…” The women found signs that Mary had given birth, and they “pressed her farther and again till at last…Mary Ryley did confess that she bore a Child.”

Thus, while midwives delivered some women in labor, they delivered others to the gallows.

For more on the legal side of midwives’ work, including their role finding witches, wander over to A Bloody Good Read.

__________________________

Sam Thomas is the author of The Midwife's Tale: A Mystery from Minotaur/St.Martin's. Want to pre-order a copy? Click here. For more on midwifery and childbirth visit his website. You can also like him on Facebook  and follow him on Twitter.

To Die For: A Novel of Anne Boleyn by Sandra Byrd

Sandra Byrd is giving away a copy of To Die For: A Novel of Anne Boleyn. Please read more about the book HERE and then comment on this page to enter the drawing. Be sure to leave your contact information!

Mary Queen of Scots and a Kingdom Lost

by Barbara Kyle


This is the story of how Mary Queen of Scots lost her kingdom. Twice.

 



Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, about age 15

       Mary Stuart was crowned Queen of Scotland when she was five days old. At the age of six she was sent to France to join the French royal family in preparation for her marrying the king's heir, Francois. The two teenagers were wed, and a year later, in 1560, Francois became king. Mary, at seventeen, was queen of France. 

 



Elizabeth 1 of England

At this time the young English queen, Elizabeth Tudor, was in the first year of her reign. She feared a French invasion through Scotland, and to prevent it she sent an army to back Scottish rebels who had risen up against their mighty overlords, the French. A leader of the Scottish rebels was Mary’s half-brother, the Protestant Earl of Moray, and with Elizabeth’s help he and his fighters beat the French army, ending French domination in Scotland and putting a Protestant government in power.

 

Elizabeth’s victory over the French in Scotland was a turning point in her fledgling reign. By gambling on intervention she had defied France, elevating her status at home and in the eyes of all Europe, whose leaders had to acknowledge her as a formidable ruler. She did this at the age of twenty-six.

 

Elizabeth could not have realized that her problems with Mary Stuart had just begun. The two were cousins: Henry VII, the first Tudor monarch, was Elizabeth’s grandfather and Mary’s great-grandfather. With untainted Tudor blood Mary publicly maintained her claim to the throne of England.

 

In 1561 Mary’s husband, the young French king, died. A widow at eighteen, she came back to Scotland to take up her birthright as its queen. 

 

She found a country that had undergone the Protestant Reformation in her absence. Her return upset the balance of power among the Scottish nobility, setting off a sporadic civil war between her supporters, who were mostly Catholic, and those of her Protestant half-brother, the Earl of Moray, the de facto head of the government. For six years this unrest smoldered.  

Henry, Lord Darnley

     Mary fell in love with a young Englishman, Lord Darnley, and against the advice of her council she married him. She gave birth to a son, James, but the marriage quickly turned sour. Everyone at court knew that Mary and Darnley were fighting. 

 

Mary began to rely on a tough, soldierly man on her council, the Earl of Bothwell. Many whispered that the relationship was adulterous.
 

The Earl of Bothwell

 

In the winter of 1567 the rivalry between the power-seeking factions came to a head when Darnley was killed in an explosion: the house he was staying in was blown up with gunpowder. Three months later Mary wed Bothwell. Suspicion for Darnley’s death fell on them both. Moray acted quickly to take power. He indicted Mary for masterminding her husband’s murder, took charge of her baby son, and imprisoned her. Bothwell fled to Denmark.


  Mary Queen of Scots, at age twenty-four, had lost her kingdom.

 

Mary’s prison tower rose from an isolated fortress, a castle on an island in Loch Leven. She had been a captive for ten months when one of her young supporters helped her slip out of the castle dressed as a country woman. He rowed her the mile across the lake. Waiting on the other side were her loyal nobles.

All of Europe gasped at the news of Mary’s escape. She was notorious for the scandals that had swirled around her: Was she a murdering adulteress who had deserved to be deposed, or an innocent victim horribly wronged? Everyone had an opinion – and waited to see what would happen next. It held enormous significance for every leader. The kings of Spain and France, fiercely Catholic, were eager to see Moray’s Protestant government destroyed. If Mary ventured to reclaim her throne it could start an international war. Elizabeth, once again, feared invasion.

Mary quickly gathered an army. So did Moray. They faced each other on the Glasgow moor near the village of Langside. As Mary looked on from a hilltop her commander, Lord Herries, led a cavalry charge that forced Moray’s men to retreat. But when another of the Queen’s commanders led his infantry through the village’s narrow street they met close fire from hackbutters (arquebusiers) that Moray had placed behind cottages and hedges. Hundreds of the Queen’s men fell under the gunfire. Moray’s main force, moments ago in retreat from Herries’ cavalry charge, turned and attacked. Mary’s demoralized men began to flee, deserting. Moray’s men chased them. The Battle of Langside was over in less than an hour.

 

Mary had lost her kingdom for a second time.

She panicked. She galloped down the slope, terrified of being captured again. Several lords loyal to her rode after her, begging her to take flight for France, but Mary galloped south. In her terror she wanted to put Scotland behind her as quickly as she could. She rode for England.

 

It was the worst decision of her life. She would never see Scotland again.

         Her arrival in England, and her pleas to Elizabeth to help restore her to her throne, put Elizabeth in a terrible quandary. She sympathized with Mary for they were cousins, and fellow queens. But the Scots would not have Mary back and Elizabeth was not going to foist her on them by force of arms. Besides, Elizabeth needed Moray's Protestant government in Edinburgh as a bulwark against possible invasion by France through Scotland. However, neither could she afford to let Mary move freely around England, because Mary attracted powerful Catholics to her who wanted to see her on England's throne. 

         Elizabeth's solution was to keep Mary under house arrest. It was a comfortable captivity befitting her royal status, but captivity nevertheless. Mary's incarceration lasted for nineteen years, and during those years she was the focus of many schemes to overthrow Elizabeth. Finally, in 1587 evidence of her plotting Elizabeth's assassination was uncovered. Elizabeth, in the hardest decision of her life, signed Mary's death warrant. Mary was beheaded. 

James 1 of England

      The quirk of history is that at Elizabeth's death sixteen years later her throne passed to Mary's son. Legitimately and peacefully, James VI of Scotland was crowned James I of England. In death, Mary's claim was vindicated.

        Yet James was devoutly Protestant, a defender of the Reformation doctrine that Mary had abhored. It was he who authorized the epochal King James version of the Bible.

        So perhaps, in some measure, both queens won.

 

*   *   *   *   *

 

Barbara Kyle is the author of The Queen's Gamble, The Queen's Captive, The King's Daughter, and The Queen's Lady which follow the rise of an English middle-class family, the Thornleighs, through three tumultuous Tudor reigns.

 

The Queen's Gamble was an "Editor's Choice" of the Historical Novel Society's

 HNS Review

 

 

Barbara's new book, Blood Between Queens
the fifth "Thornleigh" novel
will be released in May 2013

It features Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots






Visit Barbara's website at www.BarbaraKyle.com

 

If you'd like to receive Barbara's occassional newsletters Click here.

 

 

 

The London Stone.

by Grace Elliot

Behind this metal grating lies the London Stone.

Have you heard of the London Stone?  A post by Grace Elliot.

The London Stone is believed by some to be the most historically significant piece of masonry in the city and yet hundreds of commuters walk past it everyday without seeing it.

Whatever the claims for the London Stone, it is certainly one of the oldest building stones to be found above ground. References to it extend back through the centuries and one 16th century chronicler, John Stow, claimed to find it mentioned in a book dating back to the Saxon king Ethelstane (925-940). There are numerous casual references throughout the centuries and although its exact history is unknown, there are several conjectures as to its historical importance.



The London Stone.

The first and oldest story about the stone is that it was used by the Romans as the central milestone from which all distances in England were measured, and that it marked the exact centre of the ancient city of Londinium. If this is true or not, it was certainly an important landmark for it was said people met at the London Stone to settle debts, to pin important notices or indeed that it was the last remaining stone of the first Lord Mayor's house.

Wilder theories imbue the London Stone with mythical powers, including the stone embodying the soul of the city and that if it is destroyed, London will fall. The origin of this theory perhaps comes from stories of the stone being the last evidence of a sacred monolith (a sort of London Stonehenge), or brought by Brutus when he founded the city.

 

Legends concerning the stone are many and varied but one of my favourites concerns the significance of 'striking the stone.' In Shakespeare's Henry VI, part 2, the leader of the Kentish Rebellion, Jack Cade, strikes the stone with his sword and declares:

"Now is Mortimer lord of this city."

This goes in some way to back an ancient belief that striking the stone was a key part of a ritual which legitimized a leader's claim to authority (echoes of King Arthur and the sword in the stone?), in particular the idea that no Lord Mayor could take office without striking the stone with his sword.

 

So considering the rich history surrounding the London Stone, what became of it?

Is it royally housed in a shrine, surrounded by security cameras and subdued lighting? Sadly, not. It sits sadly overlooked, embedded in the wall of a betting shop in Cannon Street, behind dirty glass and shielded from the pavement by an iron screen. Come to think of it, perhaps hiding it in plain sight is a good idea - a great way to disguise mythical powers…don’t you think…

The London Stone, Canon Street -
currently residing in the wall of a bookmakers.



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