“by plain tooth and nail”: Bear-baiting in Elizabethan London

by Dean Hamilton

Visscher's Panorama of London, 1616

If you glance at the famous Visscher's Panorama of London from 1616, you will see, tucked into the foreground of the picture, on the south bank of the Thames to the left of London Bridge, a pair of octagonal buildings. These are the now famous Globe Theatre and its less-famous but almost equally popular neighbour, the Bear Garden, also known as the Paris Garden.

The Bear Garden was a bear-baiting ring.

Blood sports were popular with the Elizabethans. Bear-baiting stood alongside theatre as a choice entertainment spectacle, alongside other animal blood “sports” such as bull-baiting, badger-baiting, rat-pits and cock-fighting. All of these activities, to modern eyes, were inhumane, cruel and vicious bloodsports that inflicted pain and suffering on multitudes of animals, for the amusement of paid spectators. And yet, they were immensely popular.

Bear-baiting “performances” were held seven days a week, including Sundays, a fact that often raised the ire of the church and the London Aldermen. The bear-baiting ring consisted of a design not very different than that of the London theatres – an octagonal ring with tiered galleries, surrounding a fenced in “yard” or enclosure. Costs for entry was a penny for the bottom tier, two pennies for higher tiers. At the centre of the ring a bear, chained to a post, would be placed. Dogs, usually large English mastiffs, would be released into the yard to fight and attack the bear. The “performance” would continue until the bear was exhausted with fresh dogs replacing the spent, injured or dead ones. Bears were valuable investments for the impresarios operating the bear-baiting rings, so care was generally taken that the bears not be killed, although in no case was the treatment even remotely humane by modern standards. Teeth were filed short, to reduce injuries to the dogs. Blind bears were whipped to amuse the crowds.

Queen Elizabeth was quite taken with bear-baiting, staging it regularly at the enclosed tiltyard at the palace of Whitehall, most notably for the French Ambassador in May, 1559. The ambassador was so taken by the spectacle, he and his retinue promptly headed over to Southwark and the public bear-baiting the very next day.

Bear Baiting, Abraham Hondius 1650

The Earl of Leicester, hosting Elizabeth’s Summer Progress at Kenilworth Castle in July, 1575, brought in 13 bears and innumerable dogs to provide a bloody afternoon of “entertainment” for Elizabeth and her Court. By all accounts it was a rousing success with “fending & proving, with plucking and tugging, scratching and biting, by plain tooth and nail on one side and the other, such expense of blood and leather [skin] was there between them, as a months licking (I think) will not recover” (from Robert Laneham's Letter).

Londoners flocked to the rings and certain bears soon achieved a modest level of “fame”, accompanied by nicknames such as Harry Hunks, George Stone, Ned Whiting and Harry of Thame. The bear most familiar to modern audiences is Sackerson, who was highlighted in William Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor:

Slender: ….Why do your dogs bark so? be there bears i’ the town?
Anne: I think there are, sir; I heard them talked of.
Slender: I love the sport well; but I shall as soon quarrel at it as any man in England. You are afraid, if you see the bear loose, are you not?
Anne: Ay, indeed, sir.
Slender: That’s meat and drink to me, now: I have seen Sackerson loose twenty times, and have taken him by the chain; but, I warrant you, the women have so cried and shrieked at it, that it passed: but women, indeed, cannot abide ’em; they are very ill-favoured rough things.

It would be nice to think Shakespeare had the bears of Southward in mind when he penned one of his most famous stage directions “Exit, pursued by a bear” in A Winter’s Tale.

Aside from mentions in plays and the general shape of the performance venue, bear-baiting and the Elizabethan theatre crossed over in several areas. Philip Henslowe, who built and owned The Rose theatre (the third of the permanent playhouses erected in London, and the first in Bankside) also dabbled in bearbaiting from 1594 onwards. In 1604 Henslowe purchased the position of “Master of Her Majesty’s Game at Paris Garden” and in 1613-14, he and his partner tore down the Bear Garden and replaced it with the Hope Theatre, a dual purpose playhouse / animal-baiting venue, although it soon became used primarily for bear-baiting and never really lost it’s Bear Garden identity in the eyes of Londoners.

Bear-baiting and other animal blood sports continued as a spectacle both in London and across England (and a number of other European nations). Bear-baiting as entertainment was not without its detractors. The Puritans in particular were hostile to the entertainment, although they were equally hostile to almost all other types of recreation. Only a handful of commentators expressed revulsion at the activity. It was finally brought to a halt in London in 1655 under the munificent Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell.

Oliver Cromwell
by Samuel Cooper

Cromwell’s appointed “Major-Generals” were instructed to “encourage and promote godliness and virtue” in their roles. As a result, Colonel Thomas Pride raided the Bear Garden at Bankside, personally killing all the bears and ordering his troops to wring the necks of the gamecocks across London. This was in addition to shuttering the theatres, closing ale houses and generally working to surpass “mirths and jollities” across the nation.

One prominent critic mused that the bear-baiting was ended by Cromwell, but not because of the vicious cruelties inflicted on the bears and the dogs, but rather because it gave to much pleasure to the spectators.

The ban on animal baiting of all types was a short-lived one, as it resumed with the Restoration. Samuel Pepys famously recorded a visit to the Bear Garden / Hope Theatre in 1666 deeming it "a rude and nasty pleasure." The last animal baiting recorded at the Bear Garden was in 1682. Bear-baiting, bull-baiting and other activities, though they waned in popularity in the 17th century, were finally ended and utterly banned in 1835 with the timely passage of the Cruelty to Animals Act.

The Bear Garden is commemorated now with a long narrow lane named for it, running towards Bankside and the Thames River, a block from the reconstructed Globe Theatre.

No bears are now in evidence.

Sources:
• Elizabeth’s London: Everyday Life in Elizabethan London, Liza Picard. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2003
• The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century, Ian Mortimer, Touchstone Press, 2011
• The Elizabethan Underworld, Gamini Salgado. Sutton Publishing, 2005
• Rebellion: The History of England from James I to the Glorious Revolution, Peter Ackroyd. Thomas Dunne Books, 2014

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

Dean Hamilton was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He spent the first half of his childhood chasing around the prairies and western Canada before relocating to Toronto, Ontario. He has three degrees (BA, MA & MBA), reads an unhealthy amount of history, works as a marketing professional by day and prowls the imaginary alleyways of the Elizabethan era in his off-hours. Much of his winter is spent hanging around hockey arenas and shouting at referees.

He is married with a son, a dog, four cats and a turtle named Tortuga. The Jesuit Letter is his first novel of a planned series The Tyburn Folios.

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Books:

The Jesuit Letter 
Ex-soldier turned play-actor Christopher Tyburn thought he had left bloodshed and violence behind him when he abandoned the war against the Spanish in Flanders, but fate has different and far bloodier plans waiting.
When Tyburn accidentally intercepts a coded latter from a hidden Jesuit priest in Warwickshire, he is entangled in a murderous and deadly conspiracy. Stalked by unknown enemies, he must race to uncover the conspiracy and hunt down the Jesuit to clear his name. . . or die a traitor's death. His only hope – an eleven-year old glover’s son named William Shakespeare.

Black Dog (novella)

Making Provision for Those That Shall Be Maimed In This Present War - Medical Care in the English Civil War

by MJ Logue

After the first battle of the English Civil War at Edgehill on 23^rd October 1642, the people of Warwickshire found themselves with an estimated butcher’s bill of between one and two thousand men injured in the fight.

Camp-followers and soldiers’ wives who followed the Army were able to care for their injured menfolk, but a casualty list of such magnitude was beyond either their capability or their resources. Most sword-cuts were not able to penetrate the sleeve of a buff-coat – but not every soldier owned a buff-coat. A musket-ball was an ounce of lead, and would break thinner bones, such as ribs; thicker bones, such as limbs, tended to be shattered on impact. Not, as you can imagine, the sort of injury with which the ordinary woman – or, indeed, the ordinary medic – would be greatly familiar with from a civilian existence!

It is not known whether either Army’s medics operated a triage system. What is known, however, is that after Edgehill as many casualties as possible were removed to a more stable environment to provide the best care. In the Army of Parliament both Lord Brooke and the Earl of Essex are documented as having provided funds for the ongoing care of their casualties by local people: a receipt presented by Katherine Hobson of Warwick, after the battle, shows that she received £25 for the care of around 150 men. (Kington being Kineton, ie Edgehill)

These are to certifie to all those whom these may any wayes concerne
That I Katherine Hobson of Warwicke dureing the time of wars imployed by the Lord Brooke in the Attendinge & dressing of the wounded soldiers that came from Kington battel (wh[i]ch said Souldiers were in number aboute Seaven score & the said battell was in The year of our Lorde God 1642) I say Rec[eive]d of Mr Richard Lacell then Bayleff of Warwicke the sume of Twenty five pounds, for the buying Of necessarys for the said Soldiers

It is not known whether the King’s troops enjoyed a similar care: the wholesale destruction of His Majesty’s always-lackadaisical administrative paperwork after the surrender at Oxford means that it is impossible to say with any certainty. It may be guessed from contemporary Royalist sources that perhaps it was not always the case; it was conceded by many that the Parliamentarian medical services were far superior to the King’s, despite having men such as the physicians Thomas Sydenham (1624-1689) "the English Hippocrates”, and Richard Wiseman (1625-1686), the greatest English surgeon of his day, in the ranks. These practitioners fought in opposing camps. Sydenham was a cavalry officer for the Parliamentary forces, whereas Wiseman was an ardent Royalist. Moreover, Wiseman became a personal friend of King Charles II, just as the pre-eminent physician William Harvey (1578-1657) had been a good friend (and hunting partner) of King Charles I.

Sydenham was enrolled at Magdalen College, Oxford, at the beginning of the war, and qualified as a Bachelor of Medicine in 1648 – presumably using some of the experience and knowledge gained in active service, in his practice. Wiseman wrote a book on field surgery, Several Surgical Treatises, and was an advocate of early amputation on the field of battle as well as an expert on gunshot wounds – also, presumably, using his field experience! He was of a similar age to Sydenham, but had entered the ranks of Barber-Surgeons just before the Civil War. (One of the main differences between doctors and barber-surgeons was that doctors were academically trained, and barber-surgeons were apprenticed.)

Edgehill seems to have been significant not only for the aftercare of its soldiers but for the fortunate coincidence of cold weather conditions which saved the life of many left on the battlefield unattended. The eminent physician to Charles I, William Harvey, who was present at the battle of Edgehill reported:

... that Sir Adrian Scrope was dangerously wounded there, and left for dead amongst the dead men, stript; which happened to be the saving of his life. It was cold clear weather, and a frost that night; which staunched his bleeding, and at about midnight, or some hours after his hurte, he awaked, and was faine to draw a dead body upon him for warmth-sake.” Harvey was also familiar with the best way of raising body temperature: “I remember he kept a pretty young wench to wayte on him, which I guess he made use of for warmth-sake as King David did, and he took care of her in his Will.

On 25 October 1642, within hours of the stalemate at Edgehill, Parliament passed an Act that for the first time acknowledged the State’s responsibility to provide for the welfare of its wounded soldiers and also for the widows and orphans of those killed -"An Ordinance of both Houses, declaring their Resolutions of making provision for those that shall be maimed in this present war, who are in the service of Parliament; and for the wives and children of those that shall be slaine". Three weeks later, on 14^th November with the pressure for care for the wounded rising, Parliament formed “The Committee for Sick and Maimed Soldiers” to rationalise the organisation and implementation of its aftercare arrangements.

Edgehill was significant not only as the battle which began the English Civil War, but, to a degree, the battle which began the concept of state responsibility for those hurt in its service. Diverse wounds and missing limbs often prevented returning soldiers from earning a living – these survivors seem to have been given a lump sum of £2 (in context, a colonel of horse in the New Model Army, three years later, would have received wages of a pound a week: £2 was a hefty lump sum, but not enough to retire on!) whilst a regular pension was agreed on. Significantly, widows and dependents of soldiers were also allowed to enter a claim for maintenance, provided they were able to provide relevant war records. Many of these widows were also in the position of having cared for injured soldiers who were wholly unrelated to them, after battle: Hester Whyte cared for wounded Parliamentarian soldiers after Edgehill, “who continued at her house in great misery by reason of their wounds for upwards of three months. She often sat up night and day with them, and in respect of her tenderness to the Parliament’s friends, laid out her own money in supply of their wants.” (Petition to the Committee of Safety for Warwick and Coventry)

There is much, much more to be said on the matter of Parliamentarian care of its soldiery – the hospital structure, the diet of sick and hurt soldiers, the value of opportunities afforded for women to be recognised in paid employment outside the home. In 1657 four women were interviewed for the single position of ward Sister at a London soldiers’ hospital. A nursing post in one of the London soldiers’ hospitals would have attracted a wage of 5s per week, with accomodation and food provided. (Set that against the widow’s pension of 4s per week, and it’s a much less impressive deal.)

That, however, is for another day entirely. On this anniversary of the battle of Edgehill, let us raise a toast to the Committee for Sick and Maimed Soldiers: the first of its kind in England.

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

MJ Logue can be found lurking at uncivilwars.blogspot.co.uk, , and the first three books in her bestselling series featuring the (mis)adventures of sweary Parliamentarian cavalry officer Hollie Babbitt and his rebel rabble are available here.

Pathways for the Sun – Britain’s Neolithic Monuments

By Lynne Kristine Thorsen

Ah, the sky. The sun signals the return of seasons. The stars provide direction. The moon is a harbinger of events, a teller of tales. We see so little of the celestial secrets today. But eons ago, the signals from the sky meant everything.

Consider the sun. With its warmth comes the seasons of planting, of fecundity. How could we, as early agronomists, know when to plant, know when the seasons would begin to change? And once we had that knowledge, how could we celebrate that change and encourage its continuation?

I started considering these questions the first time I saw Silbury Hill. It was in late June in 1991 and it was my first visit back to England in years. Silbury Hill is really quite startling. It’s obviously man-made and huge. It is part of the Avebury and Kennet Long Barrow group of Neolithic monuments. The day was drizzly and overcast, and I remember just standing and staring at the hill.

Silbury Hill

Silbury Hill is part of the neolith monuments around Avebury in Wiltshire, Britain. It is the tallest human-made prehistoric mound in Europe. Its construction dates to around 2500 BC, and calculations suggest it may have taken 500 men working for 15 years to deposit and shape the chalk and clay that it’s made from. It’s a mound. No tunnels have been found. It took technical skill and an amazing amount of labor to create this structure. It must have meant something.

Farming reached Britain around 4500 BC. It has been calculated that it took around 2000 years before farming spread across most parts of the British Isles. The advent of an agrarian society meant that people stayed pretty much where they were. They build settlements, defenses, and with agriculture, discovered new gods.

So, what does Silbury Hill look like? A mound -- a swollen belly – a pregnant earth? What could be more life-bringing than to actually see the earth as a pregnant source about to give birth to crops, to domesticated animals, to their own young. What could be a more important blessing – a visual prayer?

As crops took on a more important role so did ensuring, by whatever method they could, the best harvest. There was now time to consider how to best support this new lifestyle, how to more clearly celebrate and encourage its continuance. Something permanent and predictive was needed. Between 3200 B.C. and 2500 B.C., elaborate mounds with chambered central rooms and passageways were constructed all over Britain.

Maeshowe

Maeshowe is a Neolithic chambered cairn in the Orkney Islands. It is referred to as a burial tomb because a skull was found during early excavation. It was constructed around 2800 BC. The mound is 115 feet in diameter and rises to a height of 24 feet. There is a 45 foot long ditch that leads to the chambered mound. There is an entrance passage that is 36 feet long and leads to the central almost square chamber measuring about 15 feet on each side. The current height of the chamber is 12.5 feet high. The central chambers are built of carefully crafted slabs of flagstone weighing up to 30 tons each. Estimates of the amount of effort required to construct the cairn range from 39,000 to 100,000 man hours. That’s a lot of time.

Maeshowe Passage
Courtesy of Rob Burke
Creative Commons

Here’s the interesting bit. The mound is aligned so that the rear wall of its central chamber is illuminated during the winter solstice as the solstice sun passes down the entrance passage and into the chamber. So, not only did they have the manpower, drive, and technology to construct the cairn, they also had the calendric knowledge to allow it to serve as a signifier of the turning of the seasons, which clearly was of high significance for them.

A similar display occurs in Newgrange.

Newgrange

Newgrange is a prehistoric monument in County Meath, Ireland. It is also referred to as a passage tomb because of human bone fragments and ash that were found during the various excavations. It was built in the Neolithic period around 3200 BC, making it one of the oldest monuments of its kind. The site consists of a large circular mound with a stone passageway and interior chambers. The mound has a retaining wall at the front and is ringed by engraved kerbstones.

The mound is 249 ft across and 39 ft high. Within the mound is a chambered passage, which can be accessed by an entrance on the southeastern side of the monument. The passage stretches for 60 ft or about a third of the way into the center of the structure. At the end of the passage are three small chambers off a larger central chamber, with a high vault roof. It is estimated that it would have taken a workforce of 300 men 30 years to construct the monument.

Lit passage way during the
winter solstice at Newgrange
Courtesy of Dentp at Wikimedia

As with Maeshowe, once a year at the winter solstice, the rising sun shines directly along the long passage, illuminating the inner chamber and revealing the carvings inside, notably the spiral on the front wall of the chamber. This illumination lasts for about 17 minutes. Considerable planning and technical skill were required to construct this spectacular site.

And again, a similar observation, but this time during the summer solstice, is found at Bryn Celli Ddu on the Welsh island of Anglesey.

Bryn Celli Ddu

Maes Howe Burial Chamber
Photo courtesy of Stephen McKay
Creative Commons

Bryn Celli Ddu is a stone-chambered prehistoric monument on Anglesey in Wales. Again, it is generally referred to as a passage tomb. Bryn Celli Ddu was built with a complete passage and chamber that is buried under a mound or cairn. As it now stands, the passage is 28 ft long. The first 11 feet of the passage are not roofed. The formal entrance is flanked by a pair of portal stones.

The oldest archeological evidence from the site are ashes from postholes that date to 4000 B.C. These are thought to be the remnants of a wooden henge. Around 1000 years later, a stone henge supplanted the original wooden one. The passage monument followed, constructed around 2000 B.C.

Several unusual stones are at the site. Inside the burial chamber is a free-standing six foot high smooth stone pillar with a very rounded shape, which is quite rare.

Bryn Celli Ddu is accurately aligned to coincide with the rising sun on the longest day of the year. At dawn on midsummer solstice, shafts of light from the rising sun penetrate down the passageway to light the inner chamber. Norman Lockyer, who published the first systematic study of megalithic astronomy, was the first to notice the alignment. Later research conducted in 1997-1998 provided evidence that the site contained year-round alignments which allowed the site to be used as an agricultural calendar.

Bryn Celli Ddu
Courtesy of Wolfgang Sauber
Creative Commons

Precession of the Sun

These three separate illustrations of British Neolithic monuments designed as designators of the solstice of the seasons represent a few of the larger, more recognizable agrarian calendars. One can imagine that these sites were ceremonial, with displays and rituals to formally recognize the seasons. And one can just as easily imagine that there were many more sites with similar displays for smaller more remote communities that are no longer available. Many have been destroyed or forgotten. But some still standing may no longer function as a solar calendar.

During a full year, the sun traces a path through the stars known as the ecliptic. Anyone investigating possible architectural alignments upon the sun, moon, or planets would need to take into account the way the obliquity of the ecliptic of the sun changes over the centuries.

The last five thousand years represent a small segment of this cycle of the sun. During this time the obliquity has been gradually decreasing. One practical effect of this is that the ranges over which the rising and setting position of the sun swings during the year were somewhat wider in, say, Neolithic times. In particular, the rising and setting positions of the sun at the solstices were about one degree (two solar diameters) further away from each other then than now. In a more straightforward manner this means that smaller solstice markers would not mark the solstice today because of the difference of the position of the sun today as opposed to 5,000 years ago.

Not Burial Tombs

Significant time and effort created these monuments and many others like them. Ancient observers of the position of the sun as it related to the change of seasons knew, down to the minute, when the seasonal changes occurred. It was clearly important, extremely meaningful to their daily life, and needed to be consecrated in stone, in an immovable monument that would serve as a signifier for the ages to come.

Within and around these monuments, rituals would be performed and traditions passed down. And what could be more symbolic than a monument to the womb of the earth with a birth canal that leads out from the interior of the earth to the light of the sun. Imagine the shamans waiting inside the chamber for the solstice sun and then emerging, through the passage as if reborn, into the light of day.

It seems to be a world-wide practice among many archaeologists and laymen to label any historic puzzle that is not understood with the words, “It must have been religious.” And we tend to put our modern beliefs on top of past ritualistic sites that we don’t understand. “Oh, there are bones and ashes. It must be a tomb.” We believe in ritualistic burial, so they must have.

For me, a few bones and ashes do not turn these amazing structures into a place for the dead. It would be more appropriate to say, “Oh this was an example of their extraordinary research, science, and architecture.”

This could just be an argument about semantics. But, it illustrates a very important point, which is, as we approach the past we must discard the prejudices of the present. We need to reach back, as much as we can, and consider what their primary considerations might have been and how these considerations informed their lives and their landscape.

Sources

Ancient Astronomy, Obliquity of the ecliptic
Silbury Hill – Council for British Archeology, English Heritage, Wikipedia
Newgrange – World Heritage Ireland, Newgrange Stone Age Passage Tomb, Wikipedia
Maeshowe – Orkney’s finest chambered cairn, Wikipedia, A spectacular Neolithic chambered cairn
Bryn Celli Ddu – Cadw Welsh Government, Stones of Wales, Ancient Wisdom, Wikipedia

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

Lynn Kristine Thorsen’s two short story collections, “Fever Dreams” and “Mischief” will be published later this fall. She is also hard at work on an Elizabethan novel. She enjoys travel in Northern Wales, castles, the American Southwest, and good fiction.

How Much Did Stuff Cost in the Dark Ages?

By Kim Rendfeld

People who lived in early medieval times had a good idea of what something was worth, even if they rarely used money.

A 15th century illustration of a market

What someone paid in coin or barter depended on many factors: How plentiful was the harvest? Was food scarce because the army needed it for an invasion? How much did the buyer desire the object? How skilled were the buyer and seller at bargaining?

In other words, the real cost of food, fabric, livestock, and slaves was what the buyer was willing to pay. So I’ve used a price list Pierre Riche’s Daily Life in the World of Charlemagne as a starting point when my characters negotiate a purchase rather than an absolute. Still, the list gives us a glimpse into what people of different classes chose to eat, wear, and use for protection:

• Wheat bread cost almost twice as much as oat bread. No surprise, then, that the wealthy favored wheat while peasants might consume rye, barley, or oats.
• A cow, farm dog, and sheep cost about the same, but a bull was worth six times as much. So a pagan who killed a bull to thank a god for a victorious battle was making a true sacrifice.
• A horse cost 20 to 30 times more than a cow and two to three times a male slave. The type of horse is unknown here. A warhorse, used only in battle, was the most expensive animal of all.
• A sword, scabbard, and armor for a warrior cost the same as 20 sheep or more. A peasant family might have thought themselves well off if they had a mix of 16 sheep, cows, and pigs. So, commoners conscripted into the army typically opted for the less expensive spears.
• Apparently fur was a status symbol in early medieval times, too. A sheepskin cloak was about the same price as one living sheep. A sable-lined cloak was worth 10 sheepskin garments, and marten or otter fur cost three times as much as sable. This is why the aristocrats in my novels wear fur-lined cloaks while commoners and slaves use sheepskin garments to protect themselves from the elements.

Prices are not simply what things cost. They reveal what a society values.

Sources

Daily Life in the World of Charlemagne Pierre Riche

Daily Life in Medieval Times by Frances and Joseph Gies

Kim Rendfeld has written two novels set in eighth century Francia and is working on a third. The Cross and the Dragon is a story of a noblewoman contending with a jilted suitor and the premonition she will lose her husband in battle. The Ashes of Heaven’s Pillar is a tale of a mother who will go to great lengths to protect her children after she has lost everything else.

To read the first chapters of  Kim's published novels or learn more about her, visit kimrendfeld.com or her blog Outtakes of a Historical Novelist at kimrendfeld.wordpress.com. You can also like her on Facebook at facebook.com/authorkimrendfeld, follow her on Twitter at @kimrendfeld, or contact her at kim [at] kimrendfeld [dot] com.

Kim's book are available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other retailers.

Garden Guide for English Historical Authors: Autumn

by Margaret Porter

Autumn colour

Autumn in the English garden is a time of vibrant hues, gradual decay, tidying, and preparation for winter as well as spring. As gardener, garden historian and collector of gardening manuals, I tend to follow the advice of gardeners long past as often—perhaps more often—than current experts. As historical author, maintaining authenticity in terms of what was grown in a given period, and when it bloomed, is extremely important to me.

This is the second of four seasonal guides, with information taken from 17^th and 18^th century sources in my personal library. I shot the photographs either in historic gardens in England or in my own 21^st century gardens, in which I grow heritage plants. The previous entry is Garden Guide for English Historical Authors: Summer.

Vegetable & cutting garden, late September

SEPTEMBER

Autumn cabbages and greens

In the kitchen & herb gardens: Plant cauliflower on old melon or cucumber beds. Mid-month sow lettuce seeds under frames or glass, to be covered during severe frost. Sow lettuce, radish, turnip, cress, mustard, chervil in warm location. Make mushroom beds, laying the dried spore on a dung bed heaped up at least  3 weeks to a month prior. Weed beds of turnips, onions, spinach, carrots, cauliflower, and cabbages sown month before. Plant beans. Transplant aromatic herbs--rosemary, lavender--to take root before frost comes. Transplant cauliflower and broccoli plants. Harvest cabbages, carrots, artichokes, leeks, garlic, celery, endive, kidney beans, marrowfat peas, radishes, tomatoes, squash, burnet, thyme, basil, marjoram, hyssop, other herbs. Gather ripening seeds of hemp, pepper, saffron, cucumber, fennel, fenugreek, lettuce, lentil, lovage, flax, hops, millet, cress, parsley, elderberry, mustard, nightshade, and goldenrod, and spread on cloths to dry before storing.

Lavender in autumn

Fruit & vines: Take hardwood cuttings to root new plants. Gather ripening fruit early in the month, and late in the month harvest those that keep well over winter. Guard the grapes from birds. Transplant strawberries, raspberries, gooseberries, and currants. Plant cuttings of gooseberries and currants. Prune and train espalier fruit trees. Harvest apples, pears, peaches, plums, muscadine grapes and other ripe grapes, figs, walnuts, filberts, medlars, currants, Morello cherries.

In the flower garden: Dig borders and manure beds for planting hardy flowers. Transplant perennial and biennial flowers from the nursery. Plant early tulips, hyacinths, and anemones. Sow auricula and polyanthus seeds in pots or boxes of light, rich soil. Cut down stalks of decayed flowers. Late in the month transplant most types of hardy flowering trees and shrubs. Divide irises, peonies, aconites, lily of the valley, columbines, perennial poppy.

Poppy

Flowers in bloom: Stock gillyflowers, scabious, Marvel of Peru, China pinks, French Marigolds, Hollyhocks, chrysanthemums, lupines, sweet-scented peas, cyclamens, goldenrod, asters, spiderwort, snapdragon, candytuft, scarlet bean, sunflowers, mallow, hydrangea, nasturiums, jasmine, monthly rose, passionflower, honeysuckle, azalea, kalmia, tamarisk.

Aster

Nasturtium

Mallow

OCTOBER

Espalier pear tree

In the kitchen & herb gardens: Cut down asparagus plants. Hoe the weeds out of the beds. Transplant cabbage and lettuce plants to warm borders, frames, or beside walls for winter protection. Plant beans and peas upon dry ground in a warm place. Weed onion beds. Sow salad herbs on hot beds or under frames. Make hot beds to sow mint and tansy for use at Christmas. Protect mushroom beds from wet and frost with frames and glass, or thatch. Cut down stalks of mint, tarragon, and other perennial plants, clean beds of weeds. Harvest cabbages, cauliflower, some artichokes, carrots, parsnips, turnips, onions, leeks, potatoes, shallots, beets, salsify, celery, endive, cardoons, chervil, radish, mustard, cress, lettuce, spinach, sorrel, sage, rosemary, thyme, winter savory, pot marjoram, and other aromatic plants.

Ripened grapes

Fruit and vines: In the middle or late in the month prune peach trees, nectarines, apricots, and vines, so wounds will heal before hard frosts. Remove useless branches and shorten the remaining ones. Prune apples, pears, and plums. Gather vineyard grapes in dry weather when there is no moisture on the vines. Cut grapes for preserving over winter in clusters, to be hung in rows, not touching, in a warm room where a fire is kept going through the winter. Transplant fruit trees. Plant gooseberries, currants, raspberries, and strawberries so they can take root before winter. Harvest fruit for winter keeping, only when the trees are perfectly dry. Ripened fruits: peaches, grapes, figs, medlars, quinces, plums, walnuts, hazlenuts, almonds, pears, apples.

Figs

In the flower garden: Finish planting bulbs and roots such as tulips, ranunculus, crocus, jonquil, hyacinth, narcissus, iris, lily. Transplant hardy tuberous or tooted plants such as hollyhock, Canterbury bells, honeysuckles, columbines, monkshood, daisy, chrysanthemum, sweet william, asters, spiderwort, peonies, wallflower, thrift, rudbeckia, monarda. Clean borders of weeds and refresh with clean earth and well-rotted dung. Prune flowering shrubs. Transplant flowering shrubs: roses, honeysuckle, Spanish broom, laburnum, spirea, peach, almond, cherry, syringa. Clean walks and lawns of fallen leaves.

Flowers in bloom: French marigold, Marvel of Peru, Indian tobacco, autumn carnation, Michaelmas daisies, goldenrod, cyclamen, auriculas, heartsease, chrysanthemum, tuberoses, Guernsey lily, linaria, bugloss, feverfew, sunflowers, Spanish jasmine, autumn crocus, broad-leaved phlox, helenia, spiderwort, late honeysuckle, passion flower, monthly rose.

Quatre Saisons, Autumn Damask, the "Monthly Rose"

NOVEMBER

In the kitchen and herb gardens: Remove glass and frames from lettuce and cauliflower in warm, dry weather. Sow peas and plant beans in dry weather. Sow salad herbs on hot beds, to continuously supply the table. At beginning of the month sow carrots and radishes on warm borders. Harvest carrots, parsnips, potatoes, beets, and salsify towards the end of the month. Also red cabbage, onions, leeks, garlic, shallots, turnips, Jerusalem artichokes, sage, mushrooms, salad leaves and herbs.

Apples ready for picking

Fruit and vines: If weather is mild, continue pruning fruit trees and vines. Remove all ripe fruit from fig trees. At beginning of the month it is still safe to transplant fruit trees. If weather is mild, plant gooseberries, currants, raspberries, and strawberries. Keep beds well-weeded. Continue harvesting pears and apples on dry days, also almonds, chestnuts, hazlenuts, walnuts, medlars, and late grapes.

In the flower garden: Stake newly-planted trees. The boxes and pots of seedling bulbs and flower should be set in a warm, sunny location and screened from cold winds. If weather is mild, continue transplanting bulbous and fibrous-rooted plants and flowering shrubs as in October. Rake over borders and beds to prevent weeds and moss from growing.

Passionflower

Flowers in bloom: Goldenrod, white periwinkle, blue periwinkle, cranesbill, boarge, valerian, stock gillyflower, heartsease, pansies, perennial sunflowers, antirrhinum, helenias, arbutus, laurustinus, late musk rose, passionflower.

Plants recommended for adorning rooms during autumn: aramanth, asters, balsam, French marigolds, passionflower, Marvel-of-Peru, larkspur, honeysuckle, tuberoses, African and French marigolds, convulvulus, sunflowers, hollyhocks, double violets, spiderwort, poppies, candytuft, auriculas, polyanthus, stock gillyflowers, ripe apples and other fruits.

Amaranth

Marigolds

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Margaret Porter is the award-winning and bestselling author of twelve period novels, whose other publication credits include nonfiction and poetry. A Pledge of Better Times, her highly acclaimed novel of 17th century courtiers Lady Diana de Vere and Charles Beauclerk, 1st Duke of St. Albans, is her latest release, available in trade paperback and ebook. Margaret studied British history in the UK and the US. As historian, her areas of speciality are social, theatrical, and garden history of the 17th and 18th centuries, royal courts, and portraiture. A former actress, she gave up the stage and screen to devote herself to fiction writing, travel, and her rose gardens.

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Old Words – London Street Slang from the 1600s to the 1800s

by Catherine Thrush

Throughout history language has been powerful. Words shape ideas, and the words that a group of people choose to coin and use not only reveal their world view, but also form it. By looking at the language of London’s common folk of past centuries, we can learn a lot about the lives they lived, as well as their attitudes towards them.

In 1860 John Camden Hotten published a dictionary of modern street slang in use in London. The subject was cant language and slang, both used by the underclasses of society at the time, but for very different purposes.

Cant

Cant was a secret language, originally developed by Gypsies and thieves to communicate in front of the uninitiated without being understood. It must have proved a useful tool for the masses when dealing with the upper echelons of society, who often had undue power over them. A pair of accused thieves could get their stories straight in front of a policeman who would be none the wiser, or two costermongers could discuss how to fleece a “gent” of a few extra shillings in his presence. Cant was very like code. In fact, vagabonds and beggars developed a symbolic code that they scratched onto buildings and fences to let others of their kind know what sort of treatment they received at a certain place. Bone for example, was cant for good or excellent. The symbol ◊, the vagabond’s hieroglyphic for bone, or good, was chalked on houses and street corners as a hint to beggars who came after them. Cant, therefore, was ancient and slow to change, passing from generation to generation.

Slang

Slang, in contrast, is always modern, ever evolving, changing with fashion and taste. Slang demonstrates that a person is “in” or current with pop culture, or identifies the speaker as part of a group. Every social group had and has its own slang. Street slang is arguably the most colorful and the street slang of London from the 1600s to the 1800s displays the delightful sense of humor and whimsy of the “lower orders” as John Camden Hotten called them.

They may not have had much money or education, but the poor folk of London had a brilliant knack for descriptive and playful language. How could anyone not be charmed by such terms as dumpling depot for a stomach or painted peeper for a black eye? Dimber damber, meaning very pretty or chief of a gang, rolls off the tongue pleasingly. They were no strangers to sarcasm either. If they couldn’t afford mutton or duck for dinner, they called their sheep’s feet legs of mutton and their baked sheep’s head Field Lane duck, after the poor neighborhood Field Lane.

Often their feelings toward politics and the upper classes showed in the words they coined. Glasgow Magistrates for example was a slang term for salt herrings. One can’t help but wonder what the magistrates of that fair city did to deserve to be compared to dead fish. The slang phrase drunk as a lord was a common saying, probably referring to a rich man’s ability to afford such gratification and a sly sarcasm at the supposed habits of the upper class. And even today we can appreciate the term quockerwodger which was the proper term for a wooden toy figure, which, when pulled by a string, jerked its limbs about. In a slang sense it signified a pseudo-politician, one whose strings were pulled by someone else.

The street purveyors of slang even faced illness and death with a lively sense of humor. Someone on their last legs was a croaker and once gone they became a stiff ‘un. Their word for a stomach ache, mollygrubs or mulligrubs is particularly interesting because it also meant sorrow. They believed that the stomach was the seat of emotions, not the brain. A belief rooted no doubt in their experience of emotions and not the emerging science of the times. The term maggoty meant fanciful or fidgetty. Whims and fancies were termed maggots from the popular belief that a maggot in the brain was the cause of any odd notion a person might exhibit.

The Darker Side

While many of the slang words were charming and fun, some show us the darker side of life for the poor in those years. Some honest people were forced to do horrible things to make ends meet. Pure-finders collected dog dung and bone-grubbers hunted dust-holes and gutters for refuse bones to sell. Some beggars employed the “scaldrum dodge” burning their bodies with a mixture of acids and gunpowder, in order to look disabled and collect more sympathy and alms. Perhaps the saddest were the mud-larks, men and women who tucked their clothing above their knees and groveled through the mud on the banks of the Thames when the tide was low for silver spoons, pieces of iron, coal, or anything of value deposited by either passing ships or the sewers. The term drips with irony considering that a lark meant a bit of fun or entertainment.

It’s no wonder so many people turned to crime to make a living. Even here we see the whimsical as well as the darker side. On the lighter side, lully priggers were rogues who stole wet clothes hung on lines to dry, and cat and kitten sneaking meant stealing pint and quart pots from public-houses. Such activities must have happened on a fairly regular basis to earn their own slang names. On the dark side, a wind-stopper was a murderer who garroted his victims and to burke someone was to murder them by foul means. The term came from a man by the name of Burke, a notorious murderer, who waylaid people, killed them, and sold their bodies for dissection at the hospitals. It doesn’t get much darker than that.

If their language is any indication, violence was a part of everyday life. John Camden Hotten’s dictionary included eighty-eight words for striking or beating someone or something. That’s more than any other category in the book. Plus there’s another thirty-two words for getting the better of someone. It’s easy to see what was on people’s minds.

If language is indicative of world view, then the common folk, the street sellers, small shop owners, street urchins, Gypsies and thieves of London maintained their senses of humor despite the reality of violence and inequity in their lives. They faced circumstances of privation and hardship with sarcasm and wit. I wonder if the same will be said of our language in years to come.

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

A New Look at Old Words is a writer's and word-lover's categorized guide to the slang of pirates, street-sellers, Gypsies, thieves and more. Now find the perfect slang word to spice up the language and dialog of your work in progress. Based on A Dictionary of Modern Slang, Cant, and Vulgar Words written by John Camden Hotten in 1860.

Visit the Kickstarter for more info on A New Look at Old Words.

Catherine Thrush is a San Jose, Ca based historical fiction writer and the organizer, designer and illustrator of A New Look at Old Words. Her historical fiction novel Lady Blade will be coming soon.

Check out her blog at ladybladeblog.wordpress.com
Or like her facebook page facebook.com/LadyBladeNovel

Images from Wikipedia commons.

Chasing Francis Bacon Around the Winding Stair

by Anna Castle

Sir Francis Bacon

The philosopher Francis Bacon (b. 1561 - d. 1626) is the protagonist of my historical mystery series. The more I learn about him, the more I like him, but that hasn’t always been the common view. Bacon wrote, “All rising to great place is by a winding stair” (Of Great Place.) His reputation rose and fell during his own lifetime and has taken many twists and turns through the centuries since his death.

Start at the top

Bacon was recognized as exceptional from early childhood. His father, Sir Nicholas Bacon, was Queen Elizabeth’s Lord Keeper of the Great Seal. His mother, Lady Anne Bacon, was one of the five daughters of Sir Anthony Cooke, who were renowned for their intelligence and learning. The queen visited the Bacons in Gorhambury in 1572, when Francis was eleven. When she asked him how old he was, he replied, “Two years younger than Your Majesty’s happy reign.” The felicity of that response earned him the nickname ‘the little Lord Keeper.’

A sharp setback

Sir Nicholas died when Francis was 18, depriving him of crucial support in finding a place in government. His uncle, Lord Burghley, was the Lord Treasurer, but he held Francis at arm’s length throughout Elizabeth’s reign, probably to advance his own son, Robert Cecil, without competition from his brilliant cousin.

Bacon never stopped trying, though his early efforts were often clumsy and poorly received. We have a letter from him to his aunt, Lady Burghley, apologizing for some apparently over-ambitious request dated 1580 from Gray’s Inn. His colleagues at the Inns of Court complained about his poor social skills a few years later. He apologized for that too. His letters and others give us a portrait of a shy intellectual, more comfortable with a quill than in person.

A slow, laborious climb

The queen “pulled him across the bar” in 1582, making him one of the youngest barristers in Gray’s Inn history. She granted him the reversion of the office of the Clerk of the Counsel in Star Chamber in 1589, a post worth £1600 per annum -- except that he had to wait twenty years for the present office-holder to die. That’s all she and his powerful uncle ever did for him, other than exploiting his talents and his deeply ingrained sense of duty.

Bacon served as a translator during visits of the French ambassador, having spent his late adolescence studying civil law in France. He served on a commission to interview Catholic prisoners in jail in 1588. That must have been weary work, especially since one of his co-commissioners was Sir Richard Topcliffe (not yet notorious as a torturer.) In 1594, Elizabeth made him one of her Learned Counsel, a legal advisory body; yet another unpaid honor.

Bacon managed the correspondence of his brother Anthony, an intelligencer based in southern France. He attended upon the queen at court and wrote masques for the court’s entertainment on behalf of the gentlemen of Gray’s. He also wrote ‘advice literature,’ essays about current affairs read by the queen’s counselors. He never received payment for any of this work, though his writings were widely circulated. His extraordinary mental clarity shines through these works, urging moderation in all things and consideration of the needs of the common folk.

He was a Member of Parliament, participating in every session of the House of Commons from 1584 to 1601. He had the unfortunate habit of speaking his mind, whether it conformed with the queen’s wishes or not. In 1589 and 1593 he argued against increases in taxes, earning her wrath. Bacon was a persuasive and compelling speaker, often using humor to defuse contention. He introduced a bill against enclosures in 1597, arguing that “I should be sorry to see within this kingdom that piece of Ovid’s verse prove true, ‘jam seges ubi Troja fuit;’ in England nought but green fields, a shepherd, and a dog.” Ben Jonson wrote, "when he spoke his hearers could not cough or look aside without loss... The fear of every man that heard him was, lest he should make an end."

There was never a breach between Bacon and his uncle. Even so, it seems obvious to me that Lord Burghley did far less for his worthy nephew than he could have done; certainly far less than his sister-in-law, Lady Anne Bacon, thought he ought to do. Burghley seemed content to allow Bacon success with the confines of Gray’s Inn, but not one step beyond.

A rash and temerarious patron

2nd Earl of Essex

As Bacon entered his third decade, he began a friendship with Robert Devereux, the 2nd Earl of Essex and the queen’s rising favorite. Anthony Bacon also entered Essex’ service on his return from France in 1592, eventually moving into rooms in Essex House on the Strand. Anthony managed a network of intelligencers. Knowledge was indeed a form of power in those days, when information was so difficult to obtain. Every principal courtier had his own stable of spies and messengers.

Soon after Anthony returned, Francis wrote the oft-quoted letter to his uncle begging for some position to support his studies: “I confess that I have as vast contemplative ends, as I have moderate civil ends: for I have taken all knowledge to be my province.” No response to this plea has survived; perhaps none was offered. Essex was the brilliant Bacon brothers’ best hope of advancement at that time.

Essex sought an appointment for Francis to the position of Attorney General in 1594. The chief argument, again, was Bacon’s youth and inexperience. At 33, he had been a barrister nearly ten years, but had not argued a single case in court. He swiftly remedied that fault, taking three important cases and arguing them with an éclat that impressed everybody, including the queen. Copies of his arguments were circulated and read with interest. (We must remember that the Elizabethan’s loved rhetorical skill and had an enormous appetite for the spoken word.) In spite of this effort, the post was granted to the older and more experienced Sir Edward Coke.

Bacon had aspired to the lesser position of Solicitor General, but Essex wouldn’t have it. He wanted the best for his man and pressed his suit aggressively, irritating everyone, especially the queen. After Coke was granted the Attorney Generalship, Essex pushed Bacon for the alternate post, but by this time he had so infuriated the queen that she said she would “seek all England for a Solicitor” rather than grant Essex the favor.

Poor Francis! Who would want to be that tattered doll, tugged back and forth by two such forceful personalities? At least he recognized that their contention had nothing to do with him personally. He wrote to his brother, “my conceit is that I am the least part of my own matter...”

The young earl’s ambitions soon outgrew all bounds. Bacon urged him to moderate his behavior toward the queen. After Essex’ greatest moment of glory -- the victory at the Battle of Cadiz -- Bacon advised him to return to a quiet life of study and patient service, aspiring to some sober position such as Lord Privy Seal and withdrawing from military activity. No monarch likes to see a militaristic nobleman grow too popular. This prescient advice fell on deaf ears, as did so much of Bacon’s clear-eyed counsel.

Bacon well understood the hazards of his relationship with Essex. He told the queen, “A great many love me not because they think I have been against my Lord of Essex; and you love me not because you know that I have been for him; yet will I never repent me that I dealt in simplicity of heart towards you both.”

In 1601, the earl led an armed band into the streets, rebelling against the queen and sealing his own fate. The earl and his principal followers were tried for treason. Bacon had been excluded from Essex’ inner circle for some time before the fateful day, so the conspiracy came as a shock to him. As one of the Queen’s Counsel, he was obliged to serve on the legal team prosecuting the case, led by Sir Edward Coke. Bacon’s main job was the examination of witnesses. His hope, unrealized, was to obtain a pardon. The rebellious earl lost his head in the Tower yard.

A swift rise to the summit

Elizabeth died in 1603, succeeded by James VI of Scotland, and Bacon’s star began to rise. James knighted him in 1603 (along with 300 other gentlemen), made him Solicitor General in 1607, Attorney General in 1613, and Lord Keeper in 1617. He elevated Bacon to the peerage in 1618, creating him Baron Verulam. He raised him a step higher in 1621, making him Viscount St. Alban.

Now sixty years old, Bacon had reached the summit in all aspects of his life. He had published one of his major works, the Novum Organum, in which he introduced a new system of logic based on induction, building from facts toward general propositions, discovering facts by careful observation and rigorous experimentation. This is science as we know it today -- a radical idea back then. The work was received with eager appreciation at home and abroad.

On the legal front, he had cleared the enormous backlog of Chancery cases for the first time in living memory. Bacon was praised by his contemporaries both for his comprehensive knowledge of the law and the compassion with which he judged cases, arguing that Chancery must function as the court of the King’s conscience, offering remedy for the harshness of the Common Law.

Bacon persuaded the king to summon a Parliament, after a five year lag, and crafted an agenda that would improve the defenses of the realm, advance trade, address agricultural problems, and reform the law. He intended to initiate a program he’d been arguing for all his adult life: surveying all the legal statutes to identify and abrogate those which had become obsolete.

Duke of Buckingham

On the home front, his new mansion, designed to facilitate and display his philosophical researches, was almost complete. He had a circle of excellent friends, including playwright Ben Jonson, poet Thomas Campion, and many others. He had the ear of the king and more importantly, the king’s favorite: George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham. Thirty years older than the handsome and powerful duke, Francis considered himself a fond advisor and respectful tutor, and hoped Buckingham could be persuaded to advance the cause of the new science, aimed at the benefit of all mankind.

Pushed off the stair, straight to the bottom

Alas, Buckingham cared little for mankind and nothing for the future, apart from gathering power and money into the hands of his own kinsmen. The besotted king allowed him absolute control of patronage and Buckingham rewarded his supporters lavishly. Sir Henry Montagu paid £20,000 to be made Lord Treasurer. Sir Edward Coke, Bacon’s longtime rival, paid £30,000 for the privilege of marrying his daughter to Buckingham’s brother and regaining a seat on the Privy Council. He wanted the Chancellorship, but even more, he wanted Francis Bacon brought down.

Coke stirred up a committee in Parliament to levy charges of corruption against Bacon, accusing him of taking bribes from defendants with suits in his court. Bacon was shocked. Of course he had accepted bribes; everyone did. They were called ‘gifts’ and were a routine part of doing business in those times. He protested that gifts never influenced his decisions, which even the gift-givers attested to be true, but the damage was done.

Buckingham threw his counselor to the wolves. Francis spent a few days in the Tower. He endured a humiliating trial and confessed all his sins, turning the same searching light of truth on his own actions that he had applied to every other inquiry. He had allowed his servants (we would say, ‘his staff’) free rein, and they had taken advantage of it, soliciting secret bribes for favors granted and controlling access to Chancery behind Bacon’s back. “Sit down, my masters,” he said when they rose to greet him. “Your rise has been my fall.”

He correctly blamed himself for not managing them better, but that indulgence was his only real offense. Everyone knew it; nevertheless, Bacon was stripped of his viscountcy, banished from court, banned from all positions of authority, banned even from London, and confined to his house in Gorhambury. Buckingham took York House for himself. A fine of £40,000 was levied, although the King forgave him of it later, and Bacon was eventually allowed to return to Gray’s Inn. Those were the only helps James offered him, although he treated him with compassion during the trial. The king and his favorite wanted the people’s wrath to remain focused on Bacon, not turned toward their actions.

Most of us would have spent the rest of our lives either grumbling in a dark parlor or obsessively pursuing revenge against Coke and his minions. Not Francis Bacon. He had never been given to bitter recriminations about the past; like a true visionary, his focus was always toward the future. He went home and wrote the works that made him immortal. He died in 1626 of a chill caught during an experiment in refrigeration. He thought he might be able to preserve a chicken by storing it in snow.

And the stair just keeps on winding

Those who loved him, especially his secretary Sir Thomas Meautys, rushed to preserve Bacon’s letters and works for posterity. He had always known that he wrote for the ages. He considered himself a plowman, preparing a new field for others to sow and reap. “I have been content to tune the instruments of the muses, that they may play that have better hands.”

Statue of Francis Bacon

For two centuries after his death, his reputation rose. His legacy inspired the foundings of the Royal Society in England, the Imperial Academy in Germany, and the French Academy of Science, all during the latter half of the seventeenth century. John Milton, Robert Hooke, and Joseph Addison admired him. David Hume wrote that Bacon was “a man universally admired for the greatness of his genius and beloved for the courteousness and humanity of his behaviour.” In the eighteenth century, Thomas Jefferson wrote, “Bacon, Locke, and Newton. I consider them as the three greatest men that have ever lived, without any exception...”

But the stair wound back around, when anti-Stuart polemicists began writing ‘secret histories,’ purporting to tell the true stories of corruption and influence around the throne. Bacon once again became a pawn in their tales, portrayed as the ultimate schemer, the epitome of corruption and servile manipulation. Real historians like Addison and Jonathan Swift disdained these libelers, but as we know in our time, scandal travels faster and farther than its rebuttals.

By the eighteenth century, Bacon had become the avatar of the Tories among the more rabid Whig writers. I’ve never been able to keep my Whigs straight, but somehow Bacon was drawn into that conflict as well. In 1837, Whig politician Lord Macaulay published an influential essay in which he trotted out every vicious rumor invented by the seventeenth-century scandal-mongers. Bacon was reviled as the betrayer of noble Essex, the two-souled monster who schemed his way to power and was justly cast down by a democratic Parliament.

Victorian historian James Spedding devoted his life to a comprehensive and objective study of Bacon’s life and works, refuting every scrap of malicious gossip and eventually producing the fifteen volume edition that remains the authoritative source. Every subsequent historian has based their work on Spedding, but his rational voice continues to be overwhelmed.

Bacon was a versatile genius who spent most of his time serving in government posts. He wrote something wise and witty about nearly every topic known to his age. The multi-faceted nature of his abilities continues to fascinate people, just as the wildly divergent biographies continue to confuse them.

Some people think Francis Bacon wrote Shakespeare’s plays. (To me, this is like saying, “No, seriously; Woody Allen was the real director of Jaws.”) Some people think he never died, that he faked his death in 1626 and traveled secretly to the Continent, aided by his fellow Rosicrucians. Eventually he ascended to another plane in a castle in Transylvania where he lives forever. Ecofeminists blame him for the Gulf Oil Spill of 2010. And worse, now some irreverent Texan has expropriated his very character for the production of works that can only be regarded as frivolous.

References

Matthews, Nieves. 1996. Francis Bacon: The History of a Character Assassination. Yale University Press.

Spedding, James, ed. 1890. The Letters and the Life of Francis Bacon. Vol. I. London: Longmans, Green, and Co.

Wikipedia. 2015. “Occult theories about Francis Bacon.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occult_theories_about_Francis_Bacon

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

Anna Castle writes the Francis Bacon mysteries and the Lost Hat, Texas mysteries. She’s earned a series of degrees -- BA Classics, MS Computer Science, and PhD Linguistics -- and has had a corresponding series of careers -- waitressing, software engineering, assistant professor, and archivist. Writing fiction combines her lifelong love of stories and learning. Find out more at www.annacastle.com.

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The Problem of How to Kill Cromwell

by Alison Stuart

My latest release, The King's Man, is set in the year 1654 – bang in the middle of the Interregnum. Charles I has been dead five years and his son is drifting around in exile on the Continent.

Oliver Cromwell

For the loyal supporters of the King, it is quite possibly the blackest time of all. What is left of their estates has been confiscated or subjected to crippling fines, Cromwell is at the height of his power, and there is no likelihood of a restoration of the monarchy by peaceful means any time soon. It is no surprise that at this time little nests of royalists began to foment plots to overthrow Cromwell and restore the King.

John Thurloe

None were successful as John Thurloe, Cromwell’s Secretary of State, had a highly efficient and organised spy ring within the royalist circles, and no one sneezed without Thurloe knowing about it.

Charles II himself appeared to be ambivalent to much of the plotting. He did not believe that the assassination of Cromwell would necessarily result in his return to the throne, and in that he was probably correct. At that time Cromwell had able and loyal Lieutenants who would have stepped into his place.

Richard Willys

The most significant grouping of Royalists was formed toward the end of 1653 comprising Lords Bellasis and Loughborough, Sir William Compton, Colonels Russell and Villiers and Sir Richard Willys. This group would later form the basis of The Sealed Knot and be the only group to have the King’s official commission to operate. But the fate of The Sealed Knot is a post for another day.

In February of 1654, a small group of disaffected royalists were meeting regularly in the Ship Tavern in the Old Bailey, hatching a plot to seize Whitehall, St. James and the Tower and the guards about the city. A Captain Dutton was dispatched to garner support from known Royalists in the country, and it was decided Colonel Whiteley should go to France to get the support of the King in exile. An argument about payment of his expenses ensued with none of his co-conspirators willing to pay a farthing! Inevitably the plot was betrayed to Thurloe (by a Roger Cotes) and the conspirators were arrested at the Ship Inn. None of those concerned were ever brought to trial.

However it was during the course of examining these conspirators that the existence of The Sealed Knot came to light, and Thurloe’s interest was piqued.

In May of 1654 another plot headed by John Gerard was hatched. The plan was to seize Cromwell as he travelled between Whitehall and Hampton Court. Fortunately for Cromwell, Thurloe once again foiled the plot (it is believed in this case Thurloe’s agents may have been Thomas Henshaw and John Wildman). On the day planned for the execution of the plot (13 May), Cromwell took the water route. The annoyed conspirators set the 21 May for a surprise attack on the Whitehall chapel, but by then they had been betrayed and were in the Tower.

The plot was notable for its audacity. The conspirators planned to seize all horses in and around London, assassinate Cromwell and seize the guards at the Mews, St. James and Whitehall. Cromwell’s second in Command, John Lambert and Thurloe himself were possibly also on the assassination list.

Implicated in "Gerard's Plot" (as it came to be known) was an absurd character, a French emissary sent by Cardinal Mazarin to aid the French Ambassador, Bordeaux, in diplomatic negotiations with the English. De Baas was a Gascon whose brother Charles adopted his mother's name D'Artagnan and was the prototype of Dumas' hero (yes really!). De Baas was brash and overconfident and, with little understanding of the English, decided that Cromwell's regime was of no importance and could easily be overthrown. His arrogance was manifest in his refusal to uncover his head in the presence of the Lord Protector and his assertion that the soldiers who supported the regime were "feeble and dissipated". His grounds for this assertion? The sentinels on duty wore "nightcaps under their hats".

On the discovery of the plot the arrogant Frenchman was given three days to leave the country.

Gerard and a school teacher named Vowells were executed on 10 July; three other conspirators were sent to Barbados. Oddly, Wildman and Henshaw escaped.

There was a further scare toward the end of 1654, and The Sealed Knot was behind the failed uprisings in 1655, but it was these two idiotic plots (‘The Ship Inn’ Plot and ‘Gerard’s Plot’) that form the basis of The King’s Man. As an author I could not have made up a more inept and useless bunch of plotters and I had great fun writing the real life characters such as Thurloe, Willys, Gerard, Wildman and Henshaw, DeBaas, Bordeaux (and his English mistress) and the rest into the story.

Principal Sources: Antonia Fraser Cromwell Our Chief of Men, Philip Aubrey Mr. Secretary Thurloe and S.R. Gardiner History of the Commonwealth and Protectorate Vol 3.

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About The King's Man

The second in a tantalising trilogy from award-winning author Alison Stuart, about warriors, the wounds they carry, and the women that help them heal.

London 1654: Kit Lovell is one of the King’s men, a disillusioned Royalist who passes his time cheating at cards, living off his wealthy and attractive mistress, and plotting the death of Oliver Cromwell.
Penniless and friendless, Thamsine Granville has lost everything. Terrified, in pain, and alone, she hurls a piece of brick at the coach of Oliver Cromwell and earns herself an immediate death sentence. Only the quick thinking of a stranger saves her.
Far from the bored, benevolent rescuer that he seems, Kit plunges Thamsine into his world of espionage and betrayal – a world that has no room for falling in love.
Torn between Thamsine and loyalty to his master and King, Kit’s carefully constructed web of lies begins to unravel. He must make one last desperate gamble – the cost of which might be his life.

Buy The King's Man: Amazon, iBooks, and where all good eBooks are sold (see Escape Publishing for the full list)


To celebrate the launch of The King's Man, Alison is giving away a Kindle ereader to a lucky reader. Click HERE to enter the Rafflecopter contest.

Award winning Australian author, Alison Stuart learned her passion from history from her father. She has been writing stories since her teenage years, but it was not until 2007 that her first full length novel was published. Alison has now published 6 full length historical romances and a collection of her short stories. Her disposition for writing about soldier heroes may come from her varied career as a lawyer in the military and fire services. These days when she is not writing she is travelling and routinely drags her long suffering husband around battlefields and castles.

Connect with Alison at her website, Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads.