Prince Leopold's Women

by Anita Davison

King Leopold I of the Belgians circa 1831

King Leopold I of the Belgians has a place in English history as the beloved Uncle of Queen Victoria, her advisor and mentor during her early reign, and the man who encouraged her marriage to his nephew, Albert.  He was once married to the daughter of the Prince Regent, Princess Charlotte, whose tragic death followed a scandalous mis-management of her pregnancy.  Heartbroken Leopold continued to live at Cleremont until he was invited to be King of the Belgians – but what kind of man was Leopold apart from a handsome, Germanic Regency character loved by a princess? I found a good deal about his prowess as a soldier, his qualities as a diplomat and his work on developing Belgium - but what of Leopold’s personal life?

Leopold George Christian Frederick was one of the ten children born to Francis, reigning Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, and Countess August Reuss. He was born on 16th December 1790 at Ehrenburg Palace in Coburg, Bavaria, the city palace of the Coburg dukes, and raised during the dangerous period following the French Revolution and Napoleon's rise to power. His father died when he was not yet sixteen, propelling his elder brother, Ernst, into a premature role as the duchy’s ruler.

Hortense de Beauharnais

Napoleon invaded the duchy in 1806, confiscating much of the family's property, for which Duke Ernst I obtained restitution. To thank Napoleon, Ernst and Leopold went to Paris, where the handsome Leopold turned down Bonaparte’s offer to be his adjutant, but whilst there conquered several young ladies’ hearts. He was also rumoured to have had an affair with Hortense de Beauharnais, Empress Josephine's daughter and wife of Napoleon's brother, Prince Louis Bonaparte.

At seventeen Leopold entered the Tsar's army and by twenty-three was Major-General of the Cavalry. His eldest sister, Duchess Juliane, had married Grand Duke Constantine of Russia, Tsar Alexander's brother, thus Leopold learned that family fortunes could depend upon a well-connected marriage.

Princess Charlotte of Wales

Leopold became a favourite of Alexander and his sister, Catherine of Oldenburg. He led his own regiment to victory of the Battle of Kulm and participated in the French Campaign which brought him to Paris during the triumphal entry of the allies in spring 1814. During his travels around European capitals he first met Princess Charlotte.

At nineteen Charlotte was tall for a woman, and voluptuous with expressive blue eyes and abundant light brown hair. She was admired wherever she went, the perfect foil to her unattractive, squabbling parents.

Her mother, Caroline of Brunswick, had been banished from England when her daughter was twelve due to her lax morals and because the prince considered her ugly, coarse, and she refused to bathe. Thus Charlotte was removed from the care of her disreputable and eccentric mother, and handed over to her extravagant and selfish father.

Charlotte was a kind if impetuous child given too much freedom by the standards of the day, and would shake hands in a mannish way. When taken on board ship, she stood with her feet apart and hands clasped behind her back. [Very unladylike for a Regency miss.] She had a radiant outgoing vitality, but she also suffered behavioural and unpredictable mood swings, perhaps due to the bitter and intractable quarrel between her parents who gave her little love, and possibly because her father was jealous of her popularity.

At seventeen she had already been the subject of rumours concerning a supposed relationship with Captain Charles Hesse, an army lieutenant who was said to be the illegitimate son of the Duke of York. Possibly to tame her, the Prince Regent arranged Charlotte’s engagement to William, Prince of Orange, but when she met Prince Frederick Augustus, the King of Prussia's nineteen-year-old nephew, at a dinner party at Carlton House, she fell in love with him, and resolved to break off her engagement.

When the allied sovereigns arrived in London in June 1814 to celebrate their victory over Napoleon, Prince Leopold was among them. He met Princess Charlotte in the lobby of a hotel and escorted her to her carriage. He also cancelled a visit to the opera in order to pay a call on her.

Perhaps the ambitious Leopold had his eye on the throne of England at this stage, as he made several attempts to attract Charlotte’s notice, but she was still infatuated with Prince Frederick, and Leopold made little impression. However, Prince Frederick had returned all Charlotte’s gifts, her engagement was over and at twenty one she wanted her freedom, therefore she turned to her other suitor, Leopold.

Leopold and Charlotte's Wedding at Carlton House

Leopold's penury and lack of royal connections prejudiced him in the Prince Regent’s eyes, though he finally relented, and the couple were married at Carlton House in the Crimson State Room on the evening of May 2, 1816 in the presence of fifty privileged guests.

The couple took up residence at Claremont House near Esher with Camelford House on the corner of Oxford Street and Park Lane as their London town home. They led a domestic and scandal-free life, their sobriety making them popular among the London crowds after the excesses of Charlotte’s parents.

At twenty-six, Prince Leopold’s character was very different from his wife’s. A friend of Leopold said of Charlotte, ‘she's like a boy in petticoats’. Charlotte was  outspoken, roared with laughter, and her manners were abominable, causing continual friction. Leopold was considered cold and formal, a successful soldier and diplomat, but he soon dominated the wild, impetuous, generous Charlotte.

Their every confrontation ended in the same way, with her standing before Leopold, her body pushed forward, hands behind her back, with flaming cheeks and sparkling eyes, she would declare. "If you wish it, I will do it," she would say. "I want nothing for myself." He would then respond: "When I press something on you, it is from a conviction that it is for your interest and for your good."

Unusually for a Regency couple, they went everywhere together, visiting the poor and attending church. Charlotte combed her husband’s hair, folded his cravats and linens, and ensured his bath was prepared when he came home from hunting. She even prepared refreshments for him, which he relished knowing she made them. Leopold, for his part grew a moustache when she asked him to.

Charlotte mentioned to a friend that Leopold insisted on taking her to the opera when he was not feeling well because he knew she wanted to go. When she became agitated or excited, Leopold would whisper, "Doucement, Cherie, Doucement." Thus her nickname for him was ‘Doucement’.

Christian Friedrich Baron Stockmar, Leopold’s friend, personal physician and advisor, said of them: "My master is the best of all husbands in all of the four quarters of the globe, and his wife bears him an amount of love, the greatness of which can only be compare with the English national debt."

Things were not always perfect in that Leopold apparently caused a rift between his wife and her long-term friend, Margaret Elphinstone when he disapproved of her husband. Charles Joseph, Comte de Flahaut, aide-de-camp to Napoleon Bonaparte, had taken refuge in England at the Bourbon Restoration. Margaret was Charlotte’s confidant, though her position created rumours, later refuted, that she betrayed the princess's secrets to the Prince Regent.

Princess Charlotte miscarried twice in the early months of her marriage. Her physicians, such a they were, feared she would not carry her third pregnancy to term, and prescribed bleeding and limiting her diet. Not surprisingly, Charlotte experienced complications and grew very weak. Her subsequent tragic death has been recorded in detail elsewhere so I shan’t repeat it here, however, Leopold was truly devastated and Charlotte’s loss had a large impact on the rest of his life. Sir Richard Croft, the doctor who had made the decision to wait for nature to take its course with a no intervention policy later killed himself. The Princess was buried, her son at her feet, in St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle on 19 November 1817.

A month after her death, a portrait she had commissioned before she gave birth was delivered on Leopold's birthday as she had intended. Leopold was visibly shaken and the entire household burst into tears. He took the painting with him to Belgium and became very emotional whenever he looked at it. He named his daughter by Louise Marie d’Orleans, Charlotte, but he was never as devoted to his own child as he had been to his first wife.

Caroline Bauer

Eleven years later, during which his close friends said he still grieved for Charlotte, Leopold saw an actress called Caroline Bauer who cannily resembled Princess Charlotte. Leopold sent his chamberlain to ask permission to call on her and within days he had proposed marriage. This action was totally out of character for the cautious, somewhat cold Leopold, however, Caroline came to England with her mother and took up residence at Longwood House, a few miles from Cleremont. By mid-1829 the liaison was over, and the actress and her mother returned to Berlin where Caroline resumed her career.

Caroline claimed she and Leopold had married, and he had created her Countess of Montgomery – a claim strongly denied by her cousin Baron Stockmar. Caroline married in 1863 and died by suicide in Zurich fourteen years later.

Louise-Marie d'Orleans, Queen of the Belgians

In 1830, Leopold was offered, but refused, the crown of Greece, but he accepted the Belgian throne.  At that time, Belgium consisted of Dutch-speaking Flemings in the north, French-speaking Walloons in the south and a small number of Germans in the east. Originally part of the Netherlands, the Belgians revolted in 1830 due to the differences between the large Catholic French speaking population and the Protestant Dutch.

On August 9 1832, King Leopold married the eldest daughter of the King of the French, Princess Louise-Marie Therese Charlotte Isabelle d'Orleans. A descendant of Philippe d'Orléans, Regent for Louis XV, Madame de Montespan, and of Louis XIV and Philippe I, Duke of Orléans both sons of Louis XIII on her father’s side, and on her mother's a descendant of Maria Theresa of Austria and Catherine de' Medici.

Blonde, fair skinned, blue-eyed Louise Marie was a shy, innocent girl of twenty. She had dreaded the idea of becoming Queen, and had cried inconsolably at the thought of separation from her large family. Leopold was a handsome seasoned soldier and statesman, a widower and an experienced lover at forty-two, an ambitious man of the world, somewhat hardened by past sorrows and disappointments. He was also a Lutheran, and, reputedly, a Freemason, whereas Louise-Marie was a devout and pious Catholic.

Leopold confided to a friend "I'm delighted with my good little Queen: she is the sweetest creature you ever saw, and she has plenty of spirit."

Despite her initial reluctance, Louise-Marie fell deeply in love with her husband and became a devoted wife and loving mother. Very shy, she was only seen in public when Leopold insisted, but became very popular at the Belgian court with her generosity and beauty.

Leopold I with Louise-Marie and their Children

At this time, Flanders was stricken by famine, and poverty ran rampant throughout Belgium. Louise-Marie became patroness of many philanthropic, religious and educational institutions. Her friends, servants, and entourage knew her as a gentle and forgiving mistress whose charity was ‘inexhaustible’, and her popularity grew in direct proportion to criticism for Leopold’s infidelities.

Louise-Marie personally handed out clothing for the poor in inclement weather, organised recurring lotteries on behalf of the poor, and gave household items to any exhibition where the poor would benefit. When a farmer once said in her hearing that he admired a pedigree cow and that one like that would transform his life, Louise-Marie allegedly sent him two of the creatures as a gift.

In Brussels and in the provinces alike, when people heard a tale of hardship, they exclaimed: "If only the Queen knew!" which after her death became: "If only the Queen were still alive!"

Leopold and Louise-Marie had four children: Louis-Philippe who died a year after his birth, Philippe Eugene, whose son Albert I was the third King of Belgians and reigned during World War I, and Marie-Charlotte, who married Archduke Maximilian I of Austria and became the Empress of Mexico.

Arcadia Claret-Meyer

In 1840, Leopold was instrumental is arranging the marriage of his niece, Queen Victoria, the daughter of his sister, Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld and Edward Duke of Kent, to his nephew, Prince Albert, son of his brother, Duke Ernest I. Leopold had offered Victoria advice in the early days of her monarchy, although she asserted her independence early in her reign.

In 1844, Leopold met the eighteen-year-old Arcadia Eugenia Claret-Meyer – he was fifty-three. He housed her in a mansion at No. 47 Rue Royale with a staff of servants who wore his livery.

Their son, George Frederick Ferdinand Henry, was born in the convent of St. Joseph Girls, Cross Street Louvrex Liège.

Leopold then purchased Chateau Stuyvenberg for Arcadia, where she gave birth to their second son, Christian Frederick Arthur. Leopold asked his nephew, Ernest II, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to create his second family titles. These sons were made Baron von Eppinghoven and Arcadia was made Baronin von Eppinghoven with an income and property to go with it.

After the Revolution of February 1848, Queen Louise-Marie’s father, King Louis Philippe, abdicated and his family fled to England. They remained in exile at Cleremont, where he died in August 1850.

Marie d'Orleans

The death of Louise-Marie’s brother, Ferdinand-Philippe, Duc d'Orléans, in a coaching accident at the age of 31 and of her sister Princess Marie of consumption at 25, had been terrible blows, as had the loss of her first born son at a year old. By the time of her father's death, Louise-Marie was already very ill with consumption.

She died in Ostend two months later, on 11 October 1850 at the age of 38. King Leopold never returned Louise Marie’s passionate devotion and he wasn’t faithful, but he sincerely mourned her and paid her this touching tribute: "Her death was saintly, like her life."

On December 10, 1865, at the Palace of Laeken, in Brussels, Leopold was on his death bed, calling:

"Charlotte...Charlotte..." although no one was sure as to whether he was calling to his daughter, the Empress of Mexico, or to his first wife, Princess Charlotte.

Leopold I in Later Life

His daughter-in-law Marie-Henriette, the wife of Leopold II, asked, "In the name of the love you bear for the Queen's memory, will you not be converted to her religion so that you may meet her again in Heaven?"

"Nein..." he whispered, then died.

I am convinced it was his first love he called for, because before she died, Princess Charlotte had asked that Leopold be buried beside her when his time came. Leopold instructed that a space be made for him in her tomb in St George’s Chapel at Windsor, and asked Queen Victoria again before his own final illness; a request which strangely was not granted.

Louise-Marie wanted to be buried in Laeken, so Leopold had the church of Our Lady Of Laeken in Brussels constructed in her memory. The first stone was laid by Leopold I in 1854. The church was consecrated in 1872, but not completed until 1909. The crypt holds the tombs of the Belgian royal family, including those of all the former Belgian kings.

Sources - For those interested in the historic trials and troubles Catholic Belgian Royal Family, I recommend an excellent blog called, The Cross of Laeken

Accounts of Princess Charlotte’s labour and death
Jane Austens World Blog
Death of Charlotte
Princess Charlotte and Leopold

Charlotte and Leopold are also featured in The Companion of Lady Holmeshire by Debra Brown.

Anita Davison is a Historical Fiction Author whose latest release, ‘Royalist Rebel’ a biographical novel set in 17th Century England, is released by Pen and Sword Books under the name Anita Seymour
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Take The Duke of Wellington Tour

by Kristine Hughes

The Duke of Wellington’s lifetime spanned the Georgian, Regency and Victorian eras – Wellington served four monarchs, defeated Napoleon, served as Prime Minister and knew most of the famous and infamous personalities of the periods. Kristine Hughes and Victoria Hinshaw, authors and bloggers at Number One London, have taken all the best bits of Wellington’s life and incorporated them into The Duke of Wellington Tour, September 2014, with stops in London, Kent, Brighton, Hampshire and Windsor.

The Duke of Wellington Tour will take in many of the sites associated with the Duke’s lifetime, including a selection of diverse and visually stunning stately homes in England – Apsley House, Walmer Castle, the Brighton Pavilion, the Regency Town House, Stratfield Saye, Basildon Park, Highclere Castle, Frogmore House and Windsor Castle. Each of these properties will afford us with a unique perspective on the daily lives of those who lived in, worked in and visited these homes. Here are the highlights, and literary connections, of just a few of the stops on the Tour.

Apsley House - The house became familiarly known as Number One, London as it was the first house after the Knightsbridge toll gates upon entering London. Originally a red brick building, the House was built between 1781-1787 by architect Robert Adam for Baron Apsley, later the second Earl Bathurst. It was purchased by Marquess Wellesley, elder brother to Arthur Wellesley, in 1807, who ran into financial difficulties soon after. Needing a base of operations and residence in London, and seeking to ease his brother's financial burdens, the ever practical Duke purchased the house in 1817 and then hired Benjamin Wyatt to carry out restorations to Apsley House. Many elements of Adam’s and Wyatt’s work remain and we’ll have the opportunity to see many examples of Regency architecture as we tour rooms that have also been visited by the Prince Regent, Queen Victoria, the Marquess of Angelsey and a host of Waterloo veterans who returned each year to attend Wellington’s famous Waterloo Banquets.

We’ll also be amongst the first to see the recent renovations made in order to return the Entrance Hall to its original designs, though we’ll be far from the first tourists to desire a peek into the interior – the Duke of Wellington had the following notice posted outside Apsley House: “Those desirous of seeing the Interior of the HOUSE are requested to ring at the door of entrance and to express their desire. It is wished that the practice of stopping on the paved walk to look in the windows should be discontinued.”

The Brighton Pavilion – The embodiment of the excesses of the Regency era, the Royal Pavilion was the Prince Regent’s seaside pleasure palace where the likes of Beau Brummell, Mrs. Fitzherbert and Lady Jersey held sway. No expense was spared when the Prince hired John Nash to turn a Marine Pavilion completed by Henry Holland in 1787 into a fantastical building that has inspired many a wry comment down the centuries. Sydney Smith remarked upon seeing the Pavilion, "It looks like St. Paul’s Cathedral came down and pupped,” whilst Princess Lieven recorded the Duke of Wellington's reaction to his first visit to the Pavilion in 1822: “I wish you were here to laugh. You cannot imagine how astonished the Duke of Wellington is. He had not been here before, and I thoroughly enjoy noting the kind of remark and the kind of surprise that the whole household evokes in a new-comer. I do not believe that, since the days of Heliogabalus, there have been such magnificence and such luxury. There is something effeminate in it which is disgusting. One spends the evening half-lying on cushions; the lights are dazzling; there are perfumes, music, liquers – 'Devil take me, I think I must have got into bad company.' You can guess who said that, and the tone in which it was said.”

The Prince Regent engaged the celebrated French chef,
Antonin Carême, to cook for his guests and a tour of
the Pavilion’s period kitchens will be a highlight of our visit.

Basildon Park – This stunning Georgian mansion, once home to the Fane and, afterwards, the Sykes family, was derelict when rescued in the 1950’s by Lord and Lady Iliffe, who scoured the country salvaging 18th-century architectural fixtures and fittings to replace those lost by time and while the house was used in the war effort. When the building work was done, Lord and Lady Iliffe filled the home with period paintings, fabrics and furniture, as can be seen today, along with a fully fitted 1950’s kitchen.

A testament to the authentic restoration of the house is that it has frequently been used as a film setting, appearing as Netherfield Park during the filming of the 2005 version of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice and as a set for another Keira Knightley film, The Duchess, in 2008. The interiors of Basildon Park were most recently used as the Crawley family’s London residence, Grantham House.

However, the grounds are also of interest, as this passage from a letter written by Elizabeth Montagu in August 23, 1747, explains: "The situation is, like most grottoes, placed where a grotto would not be looked for: it joins to the house. Now having told its only defect, I will go on to the rest. The first room is fitted up entirely with shells, the sides and ceiling in beautiful mosaic, a rich cornice of flowers in baskets and cornucopias, and the little yellow sea snail is so disposed in shades as to resemble knots of ribbon which seem to tye up some of the bunches of flowers. There is a bed for the Hermit, which is composed of rich shells, and so shaded that the curtain seems folded and flowing. . . . The room adjoining it is the true and proper style for a grotto; it is composed of rough rock work in a very bold taste, the water falls down it into a cold bath. This grotto is about 50 yards from the Thames, to which the descent is very precipitate.”

Full Itinerary and Details for the Duke of Wellington Tour can be found here.

The New Anglo-Saxon Room at the British Museum

By Richard Denning

 Room 41 of the British Museum has been closed for a long spell whilst it was redecorated and a new permanent display brought in. The  now reopened gallery houses what is surely the finest collection of Anglo-Saxon artifacts anywhere as well as the most prestigious items from the famous Sutton Hoo burial of King Redwald of East Anglia. In April when I was at the London Book Fair I took the opportunity to visit and take some images.
 

Pride of place goes to this helmet. It belonged to King Redwald and was buried with him around 626 AD. It is one of only four helmets that survive from the Anglo-Saxon period--a reminder that what we know of these people is based often on limited records or finds.

The Franks Casket was made around AD 700 in Northumbria. It contains scenes in which the fairly new Christian Faith and the older Pagan tradition were side by side as the people tried to maintain the best of both worlds. It also shows many runes and is one of the examples of evidence we can turn to to show what the early Anglo-Saxons believed and how they wrote. Alongside these magnificent artifacts are more mundane but sometimes more striking pieces. Examples of grave goods are shown.

 This cabinet shows typical artifacts found in female graves.  Examples include bone or clay weaving equipment like loom weights and whorls and iron batterns. Also shown is a needle box. Male graves might contain weapons, buckles from belts, game pieces and sometimes money.

In the graves of men and women we might find items used to keep clean and groomed. Here is a razor, tweezers and bone comb.

 There are many replica items and reconstructed artifacts, an example being this shield:

   

For anyone interested in history this reopened hall is worth a visit but for those of us with a more specific interest in the period there are many items here worthy of study.

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Richard Denning is a historical fiction author whose main period of interest is the Early Anglo-Saxon Era. His Northern Crown series explores the late 6th and early 7th centuries through the eyes of a young Saxon lord. www.richarddenning.co.uk

England and Flanders: A Love Story

By Rosanne E. Lortz

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below....

Nowadays, the place name “Flanders” typically evokes the World War I poem by John McCrae and the sadness and loss that war brings. But in the Middle Ages, Flanders evoked a far different image—a bustling county renowned for its clothiers and its commercial ties with England.

Medieval Flanders, when juxtaposed with a modern map, overlaps the top right corner of France and a portion of Belgium and the Netherlands. The territory was part of the Carolingian domain under Charlemagne, but interestingly enough, its foundation as a County in its own right came about because of an English princess—or rather, a Carolingian princess who had been sent to England and then returned to her homeland.

When Alfred the Great was seven years old, his father Æthelwulf formed an alliance with the French king Charles the Bald by marrying his daughter Judith, a girl of no more than fourteen years old. In his History of Flanders, Charles Vanderhaegen describes Judith's unfortunate situation:

...Judith…was married off to the Anglo-Saxon king Ethelwolf, who was over 50 years old. 18 months later she became a widow and was married off again, this time to Ethelbald, a son to Ethelwolf from a previous marriage. He also died a few years later and Judith was promptly accused of incestuous relations to her stepson and expelled from England. Just like all kings from that time, Karel de Kale [Charles the Bald] sacrificed everything, including his daughter, for his political plans. So he locked her up in the castle only to free her for a future beneficial marriage.

At this point, while still imprisoned in a castle, Judith attracted the attention of a visiting nobleman named Baldwin. Although she had already had two husbands, Judith was not more than twenty years old and was reputed to be a beauty. Baldwin and Judith fell in love. Vanderhaegen writes:

Boudewijn [Baldwin] did not really count on getting Karel De Kale's [Charles the Bald’s] approval to marry his daughter as he was a mere subordinate. He therefore decided to free Judith from her prison by abducting her. He was aided by her younger brother prince Lodewijk, later to become Louis II of France, nicknamed the Stutterer. For some unknown reason he favoured a marriage between his sister with Boudewijn. Louis informed Judith of Boudewijn's marriage plans and in a specific night, sometime in 860, Judith disguised herself and escaped her guards. She left the castle and met Boudewijn outside the gates. Together they returned to Boudewijn's home.

But the star-cross’d lovers were not to have their happily ever after quite so easily. Charles the Bald was enraged by his daughter’s disobedience, and they were forced to flee to the neighboring kingdom of Lorraine.

Judith’s father demanded that the king of Lorraine (a cousin from the Carolingian line) return his daughter and her “husband”. To apply pressure on the couple, Charles confiscated all of Baldwin’s property and convinced the Carolingian clergy to excommunicate him.

But according to Vanderhaegen, Baldwin was not so easily intimidated: “He communicated to Karel [Charles] that if he was not reinstated and if Karel did not acknowledge his marriage, he would make a treaty with the Norsemen who had invaded the Frankish empire around 800 and who pillaged northwards and took power over that area.”

Although Charles chose to ignore this threat, the local clergy did not. The Archbishop of Reims alerted the pope about this very serious matter. The lovers went to Rome to present their case and won the pope over to their side.

However much it might have galled him, Charles was not powerful enough to go against the pope. A settlement was reached. Charles acknowledged the marriage and even presented Baldwin with a dowry of land.

Institution of Baldwin I, the first count of Flanders by Charles the Bald, the Frankish king.

Baldwin proved himself to be, if not the son-in-law that Charles wanted, then at least the son-in-law that Charles needed. Instead of going over to the “dark side” as he had threatened, he earned the nickname Ferreus (“Iron Arm”) by protecting the Carolingian kingdom against Viking incursions. Through Charles' begrudging generosity and his own prowess, he became the first Count of Flanders, ruling a County that would last for hundreds of years and become an important power on the continent.

Not much is known about the couple in the succeeding years, but Judith, who had been childless in her previous two marriages, gave birth to at least three sons and one daughter. And as if Judith’s connections with the royal line in England had not been tangled enough, her son Baldwin II ended up marrying Ælfthryth, the daughter of Alfred the Great (who had been Judith’s stepson/brother-in-law).

A century and a half later, there came another English connection. William soon-to-be-the-Conqueror married Matilda of Flanders (although one story of their courtship—of William dragging Matilda by the hair after she refused to marry him—is not quite as romantic as the story of Baldwin and Judith…).

As the centuries went by, the County of Flanders became an increasingly important player in French affairs. In the latter part of the twelfth century, the Flemish Count held as much territory as the French king held directly, and Flanders enjoyed a period of great prosperity.

The bulk of this prosperity was due to the thriving commerce between Flanders and England. And the bulk of the commerce was due to English sheep and Flemish looms. Historian Elizabeth Hallam writes that beginning in the eleventh century, “wool accounted for half the wealth in England.” Some of this wool was exported to Italian weavers, but most of it went to Flanders. Hallam says:

The stimulus for the wool trade came from Flanders, whose powerful counts had in the 11th century imposed a long period of peace on the region. With peace came prosperity and a rise in population: food shortages resulted and many Flemings emigrated. Others moved to the burgeoning Flemish cities, where they worked in the region’s rising industry, cloth manufacture…. English wool production expanded to meet [this demand]. As early as 1194 England grazed around six million sheep, and produced up to 50,000 sacks of wool a year. 

This mutually beneficial relationship between Flanders and England lasted for several hundred years—until the English Edwards killed the goose that laid the golden eggs by putting too high a tariff on wool export.

As the English began to make their own cloth (and as the Black Death spread across Europe), the County of Flanders went into a decline. In 1369, the Duke of Burgundy took possession of Flanders as part of his wife’s dowry, and from that point onward the County of Flanders was no longer independent.

In terms of size, the County of Flanders was not a large piece of medieval Europe, but the part it played in England’s economy was a pivotal one. And while the symbiotic relationship that English shepherds and Flemish weavers shared across four centuries is not quite as dramatic a love story as that of Judith and Baldwin, it is still a romance worth reading about—a romance that contributed to the success of a country that had half of its money wrapped up in wool.

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Rosanne E. Lortz is the author of two books: I Serve: A Novel of the Black Prince, a historical adventure/romance set during the Hundred Years' War, and Road from the West: Book I of the Chronicles of Tancred, the beginning of a trilogy which takes place during the First Crusade.

You can learn more about Rosanne's books at her Official Author Website where she also blogs about writing, mothering, and things historical.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Hallam, Elizabeth, ed. Chronicles of the Age of Chivalry. London: Salamander Books, Ltd., 2002.

Vanderhaegen, Charles. The History of Flanders. Trans. Herman Boel. http://www.hermanboel.eu/en-dossiers-hist03.htm (Accessed June 4, 2014).

England and St. George

By Helena P. Schrader

“Follow your spirit; and upon this charge cry: ‘God for Harry, England and St. George!”

Henry V, Act III, Scene II

By William Shakespeare

God for Harry, England and St. George! Wait a minute. Where did St. George come from? According to my Encyclopedia of Saints, St. George was from Cappadocia or Anatolia in what is now Turkey. He was a high-ranking officer in the Roman army. He slew a dragon in what is now Libya, and he was martyred and buried in Lydda, now Lod in modern-day Israel. That’s all a long ways from England!

Furthermore, St. George is one of the most revered saints is some places even more distant from England — for example Ethiopia (my current place of residence).

  Three depictions of St. George for Ethiopian Church Art.

Yet the Cross of St. George has been a symbol of England possibly since the reign of Richard I, when Richard put his crusade under the protection of St. George and apparently ordered his troops to wear and his ships to fly the Cross of St. George (red cross on a white field). Certainly, Edward III made St. George the patron saint of the Knights of the Garter and used pennants with the cross of St. George during his campaigns in France.

St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle

By the 17^th Century, the Cross of St. George was so closely associated with England that the cross of St. George was combined with the crosses of St. Andrew and St. Patrick to create the Union Jack.

But how and why did St. George become England’s patron saint? Nobody really knows but there is clearly a strong “crusader connection.” St. George had his roots in the Eastern Mediterranean, either being born in what is now Turkey or directly in Lydda, now in Israel. And indeed, the legend of him slaying the dragon may have been a classic case of Christians adapting earlier pagan legends, for only a few miles from Lydda, St. George’s last resting place, is Jaffa — the city where according to Greek/Roman legend Perseus slew a sea monster and freed the virgin princess Andromeda.

19^th Century Statue Depicting Perseus and Andromeda by PJ Ropes

In any case, St. George's first great appearance (at least in recorded history) was at the Battle of Antioch during the First Crusade. Here he was “seen” fighting beside the crusaders on a white horse — and to this day St. George is always depicted on a white horse at least in Ethiopian art, and apparently most other art based on a quick internet search. The key to St. George’s subsequent popularity therefore maybe that he was a fighting saint, a mounted saint, and hence the kind of saint to appeal to the knightly class. Certainly, he became the patron saint of soldiers, crusaders and more explicitly cavalry/chivalry.

As a fighting man’s saint, and a crusader’s saint, it is clear why Richard I would adopt him as his patron and put his entire crusade under St. George’s protection. The ties between St. George and Richard were undoubtedly reinforced by the fact that one of Richard’s greatest victories in the Holy Land was at Jaffa, a city he largely rebuilt, and less than fifteen miles from Lydda and the shrine of St. George (not to mention being the location of the Perseus/Andromeda legend!).

The Crusader Church of St. George, build on the site of earlier 
Byzantine churches, survives to this day beside a mosque in Lod, Israel.

Given Richard’s popularity in English medieval lore (starting with Robin Hood and regardless of what modern historians think about him as a "bad" king), it is not surprising that later Plantagenet kings wanted to tap into that popularity by adopting symbols associated with Richard I. John, maybe not, but certainly Edward I, who himself undertook a crusade to the Holy Land. Edward I and his equally martial grandson Edward III clearly saw Richard I as a role-model and intentionally used his symbols.

By the time the Tudors came to power, St. George was too much a part of English identity to be expunged. And today, in an age of devolution and growing separatist sentiment, the Cross of St. George — cleaned of the Crosses of St. Andrew and St. Patrick — has again become a popular symbol of England (as opposed to Great Britain or the United Kingdom) among many segments of the English population.

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

Helena P. Schrader is the author of both non-fiction history and historical fiction. She is currently working on a series of novels -- not necessarily inter-related -- set in the Age of Chivalry. Read more at: Tales of Chivalry or follow her blogspot: Defending the Crusader Kingdoms.

Her most recent release was: St. Louis Knight:

A crusader in search of faith

A lame lady in search of revenge

And a king who would be saint.

St. Louis' Knight takes you to the Holy Land in the mid-13th century -- a world filled with nobles, knights, prophets and assassins.

Buy now on amazon.com.

Colonial Ambitions and Log Cabins

by Anna Belfrage

Sweden hasn’t given American culture all that much: one very famous hymn (How Great Thou Art), one so-and-so famous revolutionary (Joe Hill), and one most emblematic building (the log cabin).  The log cabin? I see American readers wrinkling their brows. Isn’t the log cabin a home grown invention? Nope. It’s as Swedish as zippers (oh, yes) and dynamite (sadly, yes).

But let’s take it from the beginning, shall we?

In the 17th century, every country that aspired to greatness needed a colony. It all started in the 15th century. After years of vicious bickering between Spain and Portugal, in 1493 Pope Alexander IV decided enough was enough and divided up the world between these two countries by establishing a dividing meridian 100 leagues west of Cape Verde. Portugal wasn’t too happy with the pope (who was Spanish and therefore, as per Portugal, biased) and after a lot of noise, the Portuguese king and Their Most Catholic majesties of Spain signed the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494.

"I hereby claim..."

As per this treaty, Spain and Portugal divided up the non-Christian world, establishing a separating meridian approximately 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde islands. Anything west of that line befell to the Spanish – should they want it. They most certainly did, blatantly claiming everything beyond as theirs. And it was so easy to claim, wasn’t it? They just planted a flag in the sand and said “this is ours” – a bit like Eddie Izzard does in that wonderful sketch of his “do you have a flag?”

What the original inhabitants might have thought of all this was neither here nor there – at least as per the Europeans. In fact, the Spanish argued they were doing these poor savages a favour by bringing them the word of God! With God came measles and smallpox and slavery, but hey, small price to save for eternal salvation, right?

While Spain was busy sinking teeth and claws into the newly discovered continents to the west, Portugal was hogging everything else, from Africa to the Far East.

However, claiming and holding on to are two very different things. The Dutch had no intention of leaving all of Asia or Africa to the Portuguese. After all, the Dutch were as great a  nation of seafarers and merchants as the Portuguese, and where they sailed, so did the Dutch. Nor did the Dutch intend to leave all of America to Spain and Portugal.

If the Dutch could do it, so could the English. Men like Raleigh and Drake set their eyes on North America, and with them came shiploads of their compatriots. Any self-respecting Frenchman knew that what the English could do, they could do better, so off they went to claim their share of this new continent.

By the first decades of the 17th century, that old Treaty of Tordesillas was a dead duck in the water. Yes, the Spanish still insisted all of America was theirs, but with French colonies here, English colonies there, the odd Dutch outpost somewhere else, it was apparent even to the Spaniards that they were fighting a losing battle in North America. Instead, the Spanish government decided to concentrate its resources on defending South America and Mexico (that was where the gold was).

Gustavus Adolphus

Some European countries felt very left out. Take Sweden, which at the time was suffering from severe megalomaniac delusions. Had not that magnificent Swedish warrior king, Gustavus Adolphus more or less singlehandedly conquered all of Europe? (No. But us Swedes like to think he did…) And yet, something was missing, a je-ne-sais-quoi to raise Sweden to a station equivalent to that of Spain or France.  After some consideration, it dawned on the Swedes that what they needed was a colony.

Now for those of you familiar with Swedes, you know we dither a long time over taking decisions (it’s called “creating consensus”) but are amazingly effective in implementing once the decision is taken. So once the Swedish Government had decided to go for a colony, off we went, and as Swedes can be quite pragmatic when necessary, in this case Sweden decided to hire a Dutch guy to find a colony for them.

Buying Manhattan

The Dutch guy in question was Peter Minuit, a true colonial veteran. This, after all, was the man credited with buying all of Manhattan from the natives for the equivalent of 60 Dutch guilders. Not only had he been governor of New Amsterdam, he had also been a director of the Dutch West India Company, and therefore very familiar with who was claiming what where.

After some consideration, Peter Minuit directed the two Swedish ships, Kalmar Nyckel and Fågel Grip to the Delaware River, where they anchored just off present day Wilmington. Somewhat devious, as this effectively meant he was infringing on land claimed by the Dutch. Not that Peter Minuit cared; he had fish to fry with his former colleagues in the Dutch West India Company, still more than disgruntled at having been ousted from the job as governor. Besides, Minuit insisted the Dutch only had deeds to the eastern shore of the Delaware River, and upon arrival in March of 1638, Minuit immediately assembled the local Indian chiefs and had them sign deeds which effectively gave Sweden the western shore.

P. Minuit

The Dutch protested loudly. I dare say a bottle or two of genever must have been thrown to crash against a wall as angered Dutchmen cursed Minuit for his treachery. Minuit shrugged and went on with organising his little colony – at least until he drowned, a year or so later.

A fort was hastily constructed and named Fort Christina after Sweden’s twelve-year-old queen. I imagine Christina celebrated this event by exclaiming a rousing “huzzah!”  At last the young Swedish queen could hold her head up high among her royal peers; she too had a colony now.

Two years after that first landing, a further 600 immigrants arrived in New Sweden. Towns were established, an embryonic administration was created, and the little colony thrived. Although the Dutch continued to grumble and moan, they had other concerns, even if now and then they glanced at New Sweden with covetous eyes. The English were as irritated as the Dutch by these Nordic latecomers to the party, but England was engulfed by the initial stages of the Civil War, and so Sweden’s little piece of America was left alone. For now.

Swedish colonists

The Swedish colonists were used to living in dense forests. Most of them grew up with trees standing thick around them, and what land they cleared, they cleared by the slash-and-burn method – as effective in their new home as in their old. The trees they felled, they used to build log cabins in the tradition of their homelands, constructions where dovetailed logs were stacked into four walls, often topped by a shingle roof.

The benefit of the log cabin is that it is relatively quick to build and very robust. Chinks between the logs would generally be filled with moss or clay, and the resulting sturdy structure did as well in Delaware winters as it had done in Swedish winters – or should I say Scandinavian winters? This is probably an opportune moment to come clean. You see, a very large part of those Swedish immigrants who arrived in Delaware in the 1640’s were not really Swedish. They were Forest Finns, a derogatory word used by Swedes to describe the Finns that were forcibly transferred from Finland to Sweden to clear land in Western Sweden.

These Forest Finns leaped at the chance of going to the New World. Few of them had any warmer feelings for Sweden, where they were often treated with scorn. None of them remembered Finland – they were second or third generation poor immigrants by the 17th century – and all of them knew they would never be allowed to return to Finland. (Sweden was doing its own form of ethnic cleansing by moving stubborn Finns to Sweden, oppositional Danes to Finland, truly obstructive people to the Baltic States, Baltic people to Sweden – in brief, stirring the pot so that local loyalties were effectively disarmed) Having to settle for second best, the Forest Finns opted for New Sweden.

Lower Swedish Cabin, 1640s, PA

I suppose this means that the emblematic log cabin is as much a Finnish invention as a Swedish one. If you ask a Norwegian, he’ll tell you they’ve been building log cabins since the Ice Age. So maybe we should agree on the log cabin being a Scandinavian contribution to the American architecture – but introduced in the land of the free and brave by the colonial ambitions of Sweden.

Mijnheer Stuyvesant

Sweden’s forage into the world of colonial matters was destined to be brief. After some years of uneasy if not unfriendly cohabitation, the Dutch decided to build a fort of their own, Fort Casimir, uncomfortably close to Swedish land. In a rash act of daring, the dashing governor of New Sweden, Johan Rising captured Fort Casimir in 1654. In doing so, he inadvertently signed New Sweden’s death sentence. Enraged, the powerful Governor of New Netherlands, Peter Stuyvesant, attacked New Sweden in 1655. In a matter of weeks, the Swedish governor was forced to surrender, and with that the Swedish foothold on the American continent was gone.

Or was it? During the 17 years that Sweden had its colony, close to 1 000 settlers had come over from Sweden. No matter that the Dutch now controlled the area the settlers were still there, still speaking Swedish (or Finnish) to each other, still holding to customs and traditions. Their Dutch overlords didn’t mind, and everyone seems to have rubbed together quite happily for a decade or so. I guess the Dutch and the Swedes could meet over their common love of herring (and genever).

Dashing Duke of York

In the early 1660’s, the English were done with their Civil War. Peace was restored, the king was back on his throne, and the English government at last found the time to study the situation in America. What they saw, they did not like. Like a huge sore thumb between the northern English colonies such as Massachusetts, Rhode Island and present day Connecticut, and the southern colonies, Virginia and Maryland, was New Netherlands.

“Well, we can’t have that, can we?” uttered the Duke of York, and so the English set out in force to take control over “their” continent.

By 1664, Delaware – together with the rest of New Netherlands – was taken over by the English. With the English came new colonial administration, new laws – and a new, more practical language. (Already back then, Swedish suffered from being a language VERY few speak) The original settlers held on to their antiquated Swedish when at home or in church, but as the years passed their language and those traditions and customs they’d carried with them from their homeland faded into obscurity – except for one small and utilitarian building: the log cabin.

Nothnagle log house, Swedesboro ( lower part  fr 1640)

Over time, this ingenious and simple little piece of architecture would go walk-about all over the North American continent, home to an endless number of intrepid settlers who, just like the 17th century Swedes (and Finns) came to America in search of a better life. Not a bad contribution, all in all. On the other hand, neither is “How Great Thou Art” …

Anna Belfrage is the author of five published books, all of them part of The Graham Saga. Set in 17th century Scotland, Virginia and Maryland, The Graham Saga is the story of Matthew Graham and his wife, Alex Lind - two people who should never have met, not when she was born three centuries after him. 

The next instalment in the series, Revenge and Retribution, is due for publication in June/July of 2014

For more information about Anna and her books, please visit her website! If not on her website, Anna can mostly be found on her blog or on FB

Tudor Martyr of Reformer, King and Saint: John Frith

by Beth von Staats

John Frith going to his martyrdom, July 4, 1533
(Credit: Universal Images Group)

________________________________________

Merciful God, who hast made all men, and hatest nothing that thou has made, nor wouldest the death of a sinner, but rather that he should be converted and live; have mercy upon all Jews, Turks, Infidels and heretics, and take from them all ignorance, hardness of heart, and contempt of thy word: and so fetch them home, blessed Lord, to thy flock, that they may be saved among the remnant of the true Isrealites, and be made one fold under one shepherd, Jesus Christ our Lord...

-- Thomas Cranmer, The Book of Common Prayer, 1549 --

________________________________________

In 16th century Tudor Era England and Wales, religion was serious business. Unfortunately for the subjects of the realm, just what religion one was to adhere to changed with the theological whims of the reigning monarchs and was particularly confusing during the reign of King Henry VIII. Overstep the mark of the King's ever changing religious philosophies, and a person would very quickly become the victim of judicial murder.

During the course of King Henry VIII's reign, hundreds and perhaps thousands of people were executed for belief in their chosen faiths. Roman Catholics with one notable exception, Blessed John Forest, were executed for treason, while Evangelicals most commonly were executed for heresy.

Were convicted Roman Catholics actually traitors or convicted Evangelicals really heretics? Well that all depended on the King's religious beliefs at any given point of his 37 year reign. What was treason or heresy today changed tomorrow.

Whether Saint Thomas More was Lord Chancellor or Thomas Cranmer was Archbishop was irrelevant. Revered by many as great martyrs themselves, people were executed for their religious beliefs at the hands of both men -- those convicted of heresy typically burned at the stake, those convicted of treason, commonly hanged, drawn and quartered. Convicted women were burned at the stake to prevent the disrobing necessary of the "traitor's death" or were simply hanged to death or decapitated.

Saint Thomas More (Holbein)

When we think of Saint Thomas More, his religious beliefs are straight forward, and thus his life choices and the rationale for his decisions are easily grasped and understood. A staunch Roman Catholic his entire life, there is no gray in any decision he made.

To More, Roman Catholicism was the one and only true religion. Those who did not accept the true religion and papal authority were heretics. It was that simple.

Thomas Cranmer's religious beliefs, on the other hand, are far more complex in sorting out, because this was a man whose religious theology evolved over time. While a young Cambridge don, he was a humanist Roman Catholic with similar beliefs to Thomas More.

Incrementally over time, however, Thomas Cranmer's theology became increasingly Evangelical and ultimately Protestant. Thus, while Cranmer was Archbishop, people were convicted of heresy and burned at the stake for exercising the very same beliefs Cranmer would later embrace himself.

Though Saint Thomas More and Archbishop Thomas Cranmer were steadfast rivals, disagreeing vehemently regarding the sanctity of marriage, the justification of papal authority, King Henry's break with Rome, and the King's ultimate Supremacy over the Church of England, the two men came together with their beloved King to defend the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and in so doing, hold joint responsibility with Henry VIII for the tragic martyrdom of Evangelical Reformer John Frith.

The story of John Frith began long before Thomas More was appointed Lord Chancellor and later Thomas Cranmer consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury. Educated at Eton College and later Cambridge University, John Frith was ordained a priest in 1525.

While still a student at Cambridge, Frith began meeting with Thomas Bilney, a graduate student at Trinity Hall. Bilney organized a group of scholars that met at the White Horse Inn to study scripture and theology through the reading of the Greek New Testament.

It is believed that John Frith first met William Tyndale in these group meetings. Tyndale greatly influenced Frith's theological beliefs that became decidedly Evangelical in leaning.

Upon ordination, John Frith was recruited to became a junior canon at Thomas Wolsey's new Cardinal College in Oxford. While at Oxford, he was arrested with nine other men hiding in a cellar that stored fish for possessing books considered "heretical" by the university. In close confinement in unsanitary conditions for six months, four of the men died.

John Frith survived the torment and was eventually released. He wisely fled to Europe, joining William Tyndale in Antwerp, Belgium in 1528. There, Frith assisted Tyndale in his scripture translations into English and subsequent publications.

While in Antwerp, John Frith translated the Latin work of the Scottish Evangelical martyr Patrick Hamilton. Patrick's Places became the first explanation of Reformation Doctrine published in the English language.

Soon after, Frith translated an assortment of other religious articles, including A Pistle to the Christian Reader: The Revelation of the Anti-Christ and An Antithesis Between Christ and the Pope. These historic works originally penned by an unknown author were the first anti-papal works printed in the English language.

Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex  (Holbein)

While completing these translations, both William Tyndale and John Frith secretly met with English merchant Stephen Vaughan, agent and suspected smuggler and spy to Thomas Cromwell. Authorized by King Henry VIII, Cromwell through Vaughan offered both Tyndale and Frith safe haven back in England. Suspecting a trap, neither man accepted the offer.

Unknown to both, some historians conjecture that Stephen Vaughan smuggled Evangelical and Lutheran works to Thomas Cromwell, both men highly Evangelical themselves. Cromwell's admiration of Tyndale in particular is well documented. Whether this was actually a missed opportunity for both Tyndale and Frith is lost to history.

Instead, Frith stayed in Antwerp, married and entered with Tyndale into a spirited debate with Saint Thomas More, Saint John Fisher and John Rastell. His original work, Disputation of Purgatory Divided Into Three Books, disputed the existence of purgatory to each Roman Catholic scholar in turn.

Although neither More or Fisher were swayed, Rastell was so persuaded that he was won over to the Evangelical cause. Ironically, Rastell was More's brother-in-law. More's opinions of the conversion can be easily imagined.

In 1532, John Frith decided to return to England, while William Tyndale remained in Europe. Irrespective of their individual decisions, both men eventually perished for practice of their faith. Upon returning home, Frith was quickly arrested in Reading, mistaken for a vagabond. He was released with the assistance and persuasion of school master Leonard Cox, who was impressed with his obvious scholarship. From there, Frith traveled secretly from place to place, preaching the gospel.

Learning John Frith was in England, Saint Thomas More issued a warrant for Frith's arrest, offering a large reward for his apprehension. On the run, Frith was ultimately arrested by More's agents and local authorities while attempting to board a ship bound to Antwerp.

Imprisoned in the Tower of London, Frith was charged by Saint Thomas More in his role as Lord Chancellor with heresy. Against his mentor Tyndale's advice and all reasonable caution, Frith began writing comprehensively of his views of purgatory and more alarmingly his denial of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

Concurrent with Frith's substantiated Evangelical writings becoming increasingly pronounced and obvious, Saint Thomas More resigned his Lord Chancellorship upon the clergy's ultimate submission to King Henry VIII's authority. Soon thereafter, Archbishop William Warham died.

Archbishop Thomas Cranmer (Flicke)

It is within this context and timeline that Thomas Audley was appointed Lord Chancellor. Soon thereafter Thomas Cranmer was consecrated Archbishop, leaving both men to inherit the unenviable task of dealing with John Frith's controversial theology, most pointedly Cranmer.

Although secretly married himself and becoming increasingly Reformist in theology, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer in 1533 agreed with Saint Thomas More, King Henry VIII, Pope Clement V and Martin Luther of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Consequently, John Frith was summonsed to Cranmer's palaces at Lambeth and Croydon for several intense interrogations about his "sacramentarian" Eucharist theology.

Thomas Cranmer attempted repeatedly to counsel John Frith to alter his Eucharist theology to those of the King to no avail. Per Cranmer in frustration, Frith "... looketh every day to go unto the fire." 

Interestingly, Thomas Cranmer never labeled any Evangelical a heretic openly, but his opinion regarding John Frith's religious interpretations was clearly documented in a letter to his friend Nicholas Hawkins.

"His said opinion is of such nature, that he thought it not necessary to be believed as an article of our faith, that there is a very corporal presence of Christ within the host and sacrament of the altar, and holdeth of this point... And surely I myself sent for him three or four times to persuade him to leave that to his imagination; but for all that we could do therein, he would not apply to any counsel."

With Cranmer unable to convert John Frith's views, the law of England inevitably proceeded in due course through the offices of the new Lord Chancellor Thomas Audley. On July 4, 1533, by command of King Henry VIII, John Frith was burned at the stake for heresy.

In 1535, Saint Thomas More refused to take the Oath of Supremacy in accordance with his religious beliefs. As a Roman Catholic, he was charged and convicted of treason, then executed. Though not charged with heresy or burned at the stake, he is a martyr to his faith, as were many Roman Catholics executed during the reigns of King Henry VIII and Queen Elizabeth I.

Already in agreement with John Frith's views of the non-existence of purgatory, thirteen years after Frith burned at the stake, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer's views of the Eucharist took a dramatic shift. Now Protestant in his beliefs, Cranmer's views of the Eucharist ultimately mirrored those of the man he, King Henry VIII and Saint Thomas More together martyred.

King Henry VIII dead and no longer an impediment, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer's sweeping Protestant reforms during the reign of King Edward VI personified the beliefs John Frith embodied. The premature death of the young king, however, resulted in a return of a Roman Catholic monarch.

In 1556, at the command of Queen Mary I, like John Frith before him, Thomas Cranmer was burned at the stake for heresy, a martyr to the Protestant beliefs he ironically and ultimately shared with the man he once steadfastly attempted to convert.

Today, Thomas Cranmer and John Frith, once greatly divided in theological beliefs, together are considered among England's most cherished Protestant Martyrs.

___________________________________________

SOURCES

Ashdown, A.G., Roman Catholic and Protestant Martyrs Contrasted.

Author Unidentified, A Puritan's Mind, John Frith.

Graves, Dan, John Frith Burned for Beliefs, Christianity.com.

MacCulloch, Diarmaid, Thomas Cranmer, A Life, Yale University Press, 1996.

Samworth, Dr. Herbert, John Firth: Forging the English Reformation, Grace Solar Foundation, Inc.

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Beth von Staats is a short story historical fiction writer and administrator of 

Queen Anne Boleyn Historical Writers.

 REVELATION: Tudor Era Short Stories by Beth von Staats

                                               

___________________________________________

Giveaway: Of Honest Fame by M. M. Bennetts

M. M. Bennetts is giving away an ecopy of Of Honest Fame to an international winner. You can read about the book HERE. Please comment below to enter the drawing. Be sure to leave contact information.

To Sacrifice a Prince: King Charles I's harrowing choice

by Ella March Chase

History is filled with tales of the lengths kings will go to secure an heir to the throne. King Henry VIII risked hell for a son, splitting with the pope in Rome, killing his advisors and his friends to secure a divorce from the wife who had given him only one living daughter.

Even reformer Martin Luther said women should bear children until they died of it. That was what God had created them for. To love.

Harsh as this sounds to modern sensibilities, in the brutal world of royal politics, a king's legitimate son staved off the horrors of war.

A queen's first duty was to bear healthy princes to carry on the royal dynasty. A wife-- even a much-loved one-- was an expendable commodity. Europe was full of princesses eager to be queens should a monarch's wife die.

Henrietta Maria

That is why what happened in the confinement chamber in Greenwich Palace, May 12, 1629 is one of the most remarkable moments in the history of royal marriage. After three years without conceiving, and talk from council member of annulling the marriage and sending her back to France as barren goods, French Catholic Queen Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I, went into labor for the first time.

The marriage had a rocky beginning largely due to Charles I's charismatic, divisive favorite, George Villiers, the Duke of Buckingham. But after the Duke's assassination, the queen had run to her husband to comfort him. The aloof, agonizingly shy king then turned all of the love he had given Buckingham to his wife.

Charles I and Henrietta Maria

Soon after--possibly because the tension Buckingham fostered between the couple had eased-- Henrietta Maria gave the king the news they had prayed for. She was carrying the king's child. The couple rejoiced. The kingdom was divided in opinion-- many concerned about the influence the Catholic queen had on the king. France was at war with England, Henrietta Maria's brother England's great enemy. When England received news that a peace treaty had been struck, the Queen's happiness overflowed. Her joy was shattered when she went into premature labor, an event her doctors attributed to the shock of having been attacked by a pair of large dogs while walking in the gallery at Greenwich.

Old Palace of Greenwich

None of the preparations for a royal birth had been completed. Even the French royal midwife her mother promised to send hadn't arrived yet. In fact, there were no royal midwives at Greenwich at the time.

As the terrified young queen labored to give birth, Charles defied custom and never left her side. When a midwife was found and brought to the queen's chamber, the woman discovered that the baby-- obviously as surprised as everyone else by the onset of labor-- was turned "athwart" in her belly. The midwife fainted at the idea of tending the queen in such extremis.

Realizing that his wife and child were both in deadly danger, the king sent for a famous surgeon, Dr. Peter Chamberlen. Most surgeons of the time would have performed a caesarean section, fatal to the mother, or used a hook to drag the child from the mother's womb, killing the child if it were, by chance, still alive. But Chamberlen had actually delivered babies alive with the aid of the tools he had developed and that his family would keep secret for a hundred more years: a forceps, a fillet (a long pole with a noose attached to the end) and the vectis, a lever used to turn the baby into a better position for birth.

Yet even Chamberlen could not perform the miracle Charles needed. After examining the queen, Chamberlen told the king he must choose: He could save the mother or the child. In any case, the trauma to the queen would be such that it was unlikely she would bear another child.

Henrietta Maria's enemies must have rejoiced at the prospect of ridding themselves of the troublesome French catholic queen. No one could have doubted what the king's decision must be. Save the child. Yet, Charles said there could be other children. Henrietta Maria was irreplaceable.

The children of Charles I

Chamberlen delivered a tiny prince who lived only one hour. Charles was devastated by the loss of his son, but Henrietta Maria surprised everyone, regaining her health swiftly, showing courage that heartened her husband. Though she grieved the loss of her child, she had gained proof her husband loved her enough to forget his royal duty. He had put her survival before that of a royal heir with no guarantee she could ever produce another one. In time, Henrietta Maria would present Charles with seven children, including the bright, merry "black eyed boy" who would become Charles II. The royal family would share ten years of familial bliss despite the unrest beyond the palace walls that presaged civil war.

It is possible Charles I loved his wife too well, listening to her advice that he not bow to the demands of his courtiers and subjects, rigidly holding him to James I's dictates on the divine right of kings.

But no English royal couple faced more treacherous times with such a united front. Known as 'the she-generalissima', Henrietta Maria braved skirmishes, pawned the royal jewels and rallied royalist troops to support her husband's war efforts. She fled to France at his command, yet when she learned of his imprisonment and upcoming trial, she wrote a letter to his captors, begging to be allowed to join Charles and share his fate. The letter was not opened until long after the king's execution. We will never know how the course of history might have been changed if Charles I had told Dr. Chamberlen to save the unborn prince that fateful day in 1629 and Henrietta Maria had died. We do know that Charles I and Henrietta Maria loved with uncommon devotion and that Henrietta Maria grieved for her beloved husband until the day she died.

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Ella March Chase cannot remember a time she did not want to write historical fiction. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois. She lives in a house filled with books and music and is lovingly herded by a loyal Shetland sheepdog named Oliver. Chase is the author of The Virgin Queen’s Daughter and Three Maids for a Crown, a story of the Grey Sisters. She invites you to visit her at her website: www.ellamarchchase.com



The Queen's Dwarf
Amazon US
Amazon UK

Coming soon: Crown of Mist, Gather the Stars and Angel's Fall by Ella March Chase, writing as Kimberly Cates.