Playing the Provinces: 18th Century Actors on the Move, Part 1 (Liverpool & Manchester)

by Margaret Porter
During the Georgian era, the performance season at Drury Lane and Covent Garden, London's two Theatres Royal, concluded in June. Actors and actresses therefore sought employment elsewhere, resulting in mass migration of theatrical personnel towards provincial theatres. During the summer months, England's most celebrated players augmented their income in the distant cities in which they had first honed their talents. From afar they also negotiated their terms for the next London season, commencing in September.

Liverpool

 

Ned Shuter

From the 1750s, Liverpool's Drury Lane Theatre offered summer entertainment to prosperous visitors flocking there for the bathing season. As no playbills are extant, little is known about its company or the performances. In 1756 the newspaper alerted the public to the arrival of 'Comedians from the Theatres Royal in London at the Theatre in Liverpool. During the months of June, July, and August next, will be perform'd variety of the best plays. N.B. The days of acting will be Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.' On 4th June the season opened with The Constant Couple, or a Trip to the Jubilee, followed by the farce The Virgin Unmask'd. Seats in the pit cost two shillings and the gallery one shilling. At that time there were no boxes, although they were added during a subsequent renovation, with seats offered at three shillings. For many years the theatre attracted London players, including famous comic actor Ned Shuter as well as John Palmer, Thomas King, and Miss Pope.

The fortunes of the Liverpool theatre improved in 1771 when, by Act of Parliament, a licence was granted. In the Letters Patent, the location of the Theatre Royal would be Williamson Square.

Williamson Square, Liverpool

Facade of the Theatre Royal

  

After the opening 5th June, 1772,  the summer season proceeded  with a company populated primarily by London performers. In 1775 Charles Macklin appeared as Shylock, his most famous character. Prior to his retirement from the stage the great David Garrick also trod the boards in Every Man in His Humour by Ben Jonson. The Georgian theatre repertory relied heavily on plays from prior centuries.

 

Macklin as Shylock, The Merchant of Venice

 
During late 1770s, Sarah Kemble Siddons was a mainstay of the theatre. The daughter of provincial players, she had disappointed them by becoming an actress and compounded her error by wedding an actor. She began her career in provincial theatres and eventually David Garrick of Drury Lane hired her. After her inauspicious debut and departure after a single London season, she accepted employment in Liverpool, where her brother John Philip Kemble joined her.

 

Sarah Siddons & John Philip Kemble in Macbeth

In 1782 her second attempt to establish herself in London was hugely successful. After her metropolitan triumph, on her way to a summer engagement in Dublin, she stopped to perform in Liverpool. She returned in 1785, 1789, 1797, and 1809.

The popular comedienne Mrs Jordan performed there in 1786. She delighted local audiences as Hippolyta in She Wou'd and She Wou'd Not, and in The Romp, one of her most popular roles. 

Mrs Jordan as Hippolyta

Kemble, who had risen to succeed Garrick as actor-manager at London's Drury Lane, spent the summer of 1786 in Liverpool. Three years later he became a co-lessee (with Francis Aickin) of the Theatre Royal. In his diary he records: 'This day [1st January] I agreed to take the Liverpool Theatre with Mr F. Aickin for several years. Our rent is to be 360 Pounds per ann. We are to use the Theatre for six months of the twelve and are to pay down twelve hundred pounds for the purchase of wardrobe, etc.' He was present on 15th June to open its summer season with an address, but due to his London responsibilities was an absent manager, leaving most responsibilities to Aickin. Their partnership failed, and after losing money Kemble gave it up.

Harriot Mellon

Another player of that period who achieved popularity in Liverpool was Harriot Mellon, who wrote, 'When I was a poor girl, working very hard for my thirty shillings a week, I went down to Liverpool during the holidays [from London's Drury Lane], where I was always kindly received.' Harriot later wed her devoted and elderly admirer, wealthy banker Thomas Coutts. After his death she chose the much younger, impoverished Duke of St Albans as her second husband.

By 1803 the Theatre Royal had been rebuilt and given a graceful curved facade, reopening in June of that year. Actor Charles Mathews left a rich description of the theatre and his experiences in the city:

The theatre is beautiful...the prices are now lowered, and we play to houses of £90 or £100, which is thought to be bad; the pit is usually well attended. They had little opinion of any actor who has not appeared in London...The town I like; the situation is beautiful. I have ridden seven miles on the sands; the sea on one side, the town and harbour on the other. The opposite Cheshire coast and distant Welsh mountains for altogether a most enchanting prospect. Prince William [of Gloucester] is here....He has bespoken plays three times.

The improved theatre continued to draw the most eminent players of the late Georgian and Regency periods: Edmund Kean, Charles Mayne Young, Robert Elliston, George Frederick Cooke, Master Betty ('The Young Roscius'), and Miss O'Neill.

In the waning days of his long career John Philip Kemble returned for a farewell performance as Corialanus. On 12 July, 1816, in his remarks at the conclusion of the performance, he expressed his appreciation of the Liverpool audiences, emotion overcoming him as he declared:

Ladies and gentlemen, I have tonight appeared before you for the last time, and cannot take my leave without expressing my high sense of the liberal support that I have always received from you....It was on this stage that I first adapted this play of Shakespeare's for representation, and the success which it met with in the fostering smile of your approbation encouraged me to persevere in my profession and determined me to pursue an industrious and methodical study of my art....Ladies and gentlemen, I wish you all a very good night, and every prosperity and happiness to this town.

There remains a theatre in Williamson Square in a slightly different location. The site of the 18th century one now looks like this:

 

Manchester

An early theatre located at King and Marsden Streets housed a repertory company and occasionally hosted concerts, oratorios, balls, and auctions. In the summer of 1762 it welcomed the first London actors, 'His Majesty's Servants from the Theatres Royal,' who performed three times a week from June to September, and every night during the August race meeting.

In 1764 the theatre was described by Thomas Wilks (sometimes Snagg) as 'plain and unadorned, having been newly built....the manager had a room to himself, the first male performer likewise a separate room; the useful plebians, of which I made one, a general apartment for habiting. The heroines and principal ladies had likewise an attiring room, and the underlings their cockloft....'  The following summer an actress relatively new to London's Drury Lane established herself in Manchester, Mrs Baddeley, whom Wilks admired as 'an extremely beautiful woman. She played the ladies in most comedies and operas, and I...was often allotted to be her lover before the curtain, which brought an intimacy, with many a cup of tea and private walk with her, where I have been charmed with her melodious voice...I'll venture to say she was the best and most beautiful Ophelia I ever saw.' Nearly a decade passed before London players returned to Manchester.

In 1775, Lord Lyttelton sponsored a bill for a licenced Theatre Royal in Manchester: 'to establish a Theatre in Manchester, to keep a company of comedians for His Majesty's service, and to act such Tragegies, Plays, Operas, and Entertainments only as had been or should be licenced by the Lord Chamberlain of His Majesty's Household.' The licence was granted to Joseph Younger and George Mattocks (managers of the Liverpool theatre), and subscriptions were raised to construct a brick building at the corner of York Street and Spring Gardens, with boxes, pit, and gallery. The season in Manchester was not intended to overlap the summer season in Liverpool. 

Manchester's Theatre Royal, York Street & Spring Gardens

 
The theatre opened June 5, 1775, with Othello--Younger playing the lead. Performance nights were Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. The regular season commenced the following October. Sarah Siddons and her brother John Kemble spent time at Manchester in the winter of 1776, as did Elizabeth Farren and Elizabeth Inchbald. All were destined to gain greater fame--and notoriety--in London. Farren left the Drury Lane stage to marry her lover, the Earl of Derby, and was transformed from actress to countess.

Elizabeth Farren

A German resident in the 1780s left a description of the theatre and its audiences:

The gallery is here, as everywhere in England, unbearably unashamed; they throw apples, pomegranates, nut-shells on the stage, in the pit and the boxes they cry out and make a lot of noise; I know people who refuse to sit in the front seat of the boxes. With ladies they are more polite. Many years ago a flask flew from the gallery into the pit, striking a man's skull. This shrieking and din and all this bad behaviour is difficult in the intervals...during the play itself the gallery is quieter than I have heard in any other place, and the applause and laughter in the middle of speeches does not last so long that one loses the thread or misses the climax...Of battles and murders they are especially fond.

The Liverpool company sometimes performed in Manchester during the summer, bringing with them luminaries from Drury Lane and Covent Garden. Those who turned up in Manchester included George Frederick Cooke and comedian Dicky Suett. John Philip Kemble returned in 1784 after achieving success in Dublin and prior to emulating his sister's fame in London. He reappeared periodically, whenever playing at Liverpool. In May 1785 his sister Sarah Siddons, by then London's leading actress, returned, prompting a sudden rise in prices for her two performances--to five, three, and two shillings for box, pit, and gallery respectively. 

Anna Maria Crouch

The Manchester theatre was rebuilt in 1790. The next year, playwright/librettist Charles Dibdin's son joined the company for its winter season. George Frederick Cooke was present, as he was in most years, for Race Week, and stayed on. In some years there was a brief September season. Kemble returned for Race Week in the summer of 1798. By this time, the theatre was often used in summer for special events--a one-off performance by a well-known player, or singers such as Charles Incledon, Michael Kelly, and Mrs Crouch, Mr and Mrs Charles Dibdin, and Madame Mara. 

Near the turn of the century John Ducrow 'The Flemish Hercules'--a clown who performed thrilling acrobatic feats--came to town. He posted a notice in the newspaper, informing the public of his intent in to display 'those wonderful leaps from the Trampoline in particular one over Eighteen Grenadiers, with shouldered firelocks and fixed bayonets; also through a hogshead of Real Fire, and will fly over a grand Pyramid of Light.'

A banking establishment was built on the site of Manchester's Theatre Royal, a building that has since become a restaurant.

Coming next: Part 2 of this article, featuring the theatres of York, Bristol and Bath, follows on 14 June 2016 and you can read it here.

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

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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Giveaway - Hope For Mr Darcy by Jeanna Ellsworth

Jeanna is giving away a kindle e-book of Hope for Mr Darcy:

Still shaken from his horrible proposal, Elizabeth Bennet falls ill at the Rosings Parsonage upon reading Fitzwilliam Darcy’s letter. In her increasingly delirious state, unfathomable influences inspire her to write an impulsive response. The letter gives Mr. Darcy hope in a way that nothing else could. 
As her illness progresses, Darcy is there at her side, crossing boundaries he has never crossed, declaring things he has never declared. A unique experience bridges them over their earlier misunderstandings, and they start to work out their differences. That is, until Elizabeth begins to recover. 
Suddenly, Elizabeth is left alone to wonder what exactly occurred between the two of them in her dreamlike state. And for the first time since meeting the man from Pemberley, she finds herself hoping for Mr. Darcy to return and rekindle what once was. 
Hope for Mr. Darcy is the first volume of the Hope Series Trilogy, a Regency variation series based on Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.  This trilogy promises hope will always light our way through the darkness of unrequited love, but eventually bringing tremendously gratifying outcomes for our three favorite characters: Mr. Darcy, Colonel Fitzwilliam, and Georgiana Darcy.

More about Jeanna Here


To enter the draw, please leave a comment below (draw will be made on Sunday June 12th 2016)

Canute - and that Tale of the Tide

By Helen Hollick

1016 is the 1000th anniversary of Cnut becoming King of England...

How many of us remember hearing that famous tale of a king who was so arrogant he thought himself better than God? To prove it he would command the tide to obey him. He sat there, by the shore, on his purple-cushioned throne resplendent in all his kingly robes and waited for the tide to come in. And come in it did.

“Halt!” he commanded. “Go back!” he ordered. Nothing happened; it came in, and in, and in. Failing to make his point, the king abandoned the experiment and went away humiliated and somewhat soggy.

1911 Illustration by William Balfour Ker
'King Canute forbids the tide to rise'.

I certainly remember the story as a child, because it struck me that this king must have been a very silly man, and not deserving of a throne – be it a dry or a wet one. What I did not know, until many years later while researching for my novel about Anglo Saxon Queen Emma (A Hollow Crown – UK title / The Forever Queen –  US title) was that this king was her husband, Cnut (or Knut, or Canute; spellings vary.) Her second husband actually.

Emma was the daughter of Richard I, Duke of Normandy. She was betrothed to Æthelred II (known  as ‘The Unready’) in 1002, probably in her early teens between the age of thirteen to fifteen. In my novel I have written that she detested her husband at first sight. I am probably right, although there is no substantial proof, except…

from the Encomium Emmae Reginae

When Emma later released her biography there was no mention of Æthelred, although her two sons by him were featured their father was conveniently airbrushed out of the picture. She also, apparently, had no qualms about abandoning these two boys into exile in Normandy, for what turned out to be many years, so that she could marry Cnut and retain her crown and title. It is also intriguing that Emma and the eldest of these two sons, Edward, disliked each other. One reason could have been because Emma’s firstborn was so alike the husband she despised for his blunders and weakness as a king. All of which is conjecture, but that is one of the exciting things about being an author of historical fiction – the very few known facts can be liberally explored and interpreted accordingly.

Edward, of course, went on to become King of England from 1042-1066 and was later dubbed Edward the Confessor. He was not a weak king like his father, but because of his exiled years his life would have been suited more as a monk of abbot than that of royal duties. He was not adept at decision making or leading an army. He was easily influenced and manipulated – first by his Norman friends and then by various members of the Godwin family (though I hate to admit this as I am a confirmed Godwinite) from Earl Godwin of Wessex himself, to Harold Godwinson, Tostig Godwinson and Edith Godwinsdaughter – who became his wife. He did, however, stand up for himself against his mother in her later years. Although he only won a skirmish, not the battle. Tired of her interfering in his life and the politics of the time, he had her wealth, which included not only her own lands, but the entire king’s treasury (always held by the queen at this stage of history) confiscated and ordered her into exile. She did not comply, but stayed in her Winchester ‘palace’ and retained her lands. However, very soon after the unpleasant altercation she passed away at an elderly age, so it was somewhat of a shallow victory for Edward.

But what of Cnut?

In all probability the Tide Tale is based on an actual event – but it has been distorted. He was not trying to show that he was greater than God, in fact he was attempting to show that he was not God, that he could not command the sea.

He had invaded England with his father, Swein Forkbeard in 1013, resulting in Æthelred, Emma and their children fleeing into exile. Fortunate for them, though, Swein died and that was the end of that little incursion by the Danes – until Cnut reorganised himself and tried again. He won a victory over the English, led by Edmund Ironside (a son of Æthelred by a previous marriage) at Ashingdon (actual site unidentified), where Edmund was wounded. The two agreed to divide the kingdom, but Edmund died and Cnut became King, consolidating his achievement by taking Emma as wife. It appears to have been a good, successful marriage (although not from the point of view of her children by Æthelred.) Cnut was everything Æthelred had not been, and it is said that after his conversion to Christianity (on or around the time of his coronation) Cnut ‘became more English than the English’.

His ‘right-hand-man’ was Earl Godwin of Wessex, who was also married to a Danish lady of noble birth, with her brother being married to Cnut’s sister. Cnut had an estate on the south coast of England in West Sussex opposite the small trade harbour of Bosham (pronounce it Bozzum). He gave substantial land here to Godwin, who rebuilt the church tower, which doubled as a watch tower for se-raiders. (Today, Bosham’s creeks and channels have silted up, but in the eleventh century the estuary was deeper.) Bosham is depicted twice on the Bayeux Tapestry, once where Harold and his brother are entering Holy Trinity Church, and again as they are setting sail for Normandy.

Harold and his brother enter Bosham church

Bosham historian, John Pollock, now sadly deceased, managed to prove that the present church and tower retains much of the 1066-era: the axis of the nave is clearly Saxon, as are the round windows, and the tower is now half its original width. John has shown that half of the outline of the double doors, depicted in the Tapestry, can still be seen in the existing masonry. Cnut’s daughter is believed to have been buried beneath the chancel arch – she drowned in Bosham’s millrace. (And there is a second, unexplained burial also beneath the Chancel arch – a headless torso with one leg missing. Cnut and Godwin were buried in Winchester, so this can only, logically, be the grave of Harold Godwinson himself – but more of that in another article.)

Bosham church

It has long been believed that Cnut might have made his dramatic gesture at Bosham. It was an estate he was fond of, he was often in residence when in England and the tide comes in fast and deep, as anyone who has parked their car on the causeway and not taken account of the incoming tide will know. The houses bordering the causeway and shoreline have high walls and steep steps – steps which were also there in the eleventh century, as shown on the Tapestry.

Harold descends the steps at Bosham
(Bayeux Tapestry)

A friend (James Hanna) sitting on some Bosham steps

John was a treasured friend of mine, and he enthused about my novels. I received a phone call from him one day soon after A Hollow Crown was published; he was full of excitement. “Where did you find the research for the Cnut and the tide scene?” he asked. “It’s marvellous!” he added. “Just what we need to show that legend is fact!” 

I didn’t like to tell him the full truth, that I made the whole scene up.

He was so enthusiastic, however, that he was determined to prove that Cnut could indeed have made his gesture and an accompanying speech at Bosham.

To be viable, a sturdy chair needed to be set at the foot of the steps, and someone needed to sit there as the tide was came in. John, as I understand it, did just that. It would also be necessary for bystanders and onlookers to witness the event, hear what the King announced and remain dryshod. The only practical place for a gathered crowd was on the nearby bridge across the millrace.

So there was John, in his chair, the tide lapping at his wellington boots. Meanwhile his wife stood on the bridge, and John read aloud the speech I had written for Cnut in my novel.

John telephoned me again. “She could hear every word!” he exclaimed, “every word, quite clearly! I am sure we’ve proven Bosham was the place!”

Well, maybe not proven, but a good possibility!

~~~~~~~~~~

A Hollow Crown (UK title)
The Forever Queen (US title)

Helen Hollick lives on a thirteen-acre farm in Devon, England. Born in London, Helen wrote pony stories as a teenager, moved to science-fiction and fantasy, and then discovered historical fiction. Published for over twenty years with her Arthurian Pendragon's Banner Trilogy, and the 1066 era, she became a USA Today bestseller with her novel about Queen Emma The Forever Queen (titled A Hollow Crown in the UK). She wrote the novel because, back in 2001, few people outside of academia had heard of Emma, and because she wanted to explore why this relationship between mother and son had turned so sour. The sequel is Harold the King (UK title) / I am the Chosen King (US title) the story of events that led to the Battle of Hastings in 1066, from the English point of view.
She also writes the Sea Witch Voyages, pirate-based adventures with a touch of fantasy.

As a supporter of Indie Authors she is Managing Editor for the Historical Novel Society Indie Reviews, and inaugurated the HNS Indie Award.

Website: www.helenhollick.net

Blog: www.ofhistoryandkings.blogspot.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/HelenHollickAuthor

Twitter: @HelenHollick

Author page on an Amazon near you :
 http://viewAuthor.at/HelenHollick

sources:
Cnut M.K.Lawson Longman
The Reign of Cnut ed Alexander R. Rumble  Leicester U.P.
Queen Emma and the Vikings  Harriet O'Brien Bloomsbury
Queen Emma and Queen Edith Pauline Stafford Blackwell
Encomium Emmae Reginae ed Alistair Campbell Camden
Æthelred the Unready Ann Williams Hambledon
Æthelred King of the English Ryan Lavelle Tempus

Editor's Weekly Round Up: June 5, 2016

By the EHFA Editors

In case you missed any of the articles posted on the blog, here is our weekly round up.

Wealth, Power and Influence in Later Anglo-Saxon England

by Annie Whitehead

The Life of the Governess, continued: Agnes Porter

by Lauren Gilbert

The Laddie in his Plaidie

by Kristin Gleeson

Swords, Seaxes and Saxons

by Matthew Harffy 

The Markhams: A study in betrayal, treachery and infidelity - 

Part Two: The Lady Anne Markham

by Linda Root

William Longchamp - Richard the Lionheart's Chancellor

by Charlene Newcomb -

William Longchamp – Richard the Lionheart’s Chancellor

by Charlene Newcomb

Richard I

Whilst preparing to depart on crusade in 1189, King Richard, the Lionheart, invested the authority to act in his name in the Bishop of Ely, William Longchamp. A cleric likely trained at Bologna, Longchamp had been a trusted advisor to Richard and had served him as chancellor of Aquitaine. Longchamp’s family was Norman and not of high birth, but his father had risen in power during the reign of Henry II and held lands in Normandy and in England.

To serve as co-justiciar with Longchamp, Richard named the Bishop of Durham, Hugh of Le Puiset; and three others, William Marshal, Hugh Bardolf, and William Briwerre, were named associate justiciars. Richard is not known as being a capable administrator and he failed to delineate the specific authority of these men, which led to major upheaval in 1190-91.

For the sum of £3000, Richard named Longchamp chancellor and asked the Pope to make him papal legate to England. To his contemporaries, William Longchamp became “a man with three titles and three heads,” exercising power as justiciar, chancellor, and papal legate. His critics claim he was greedy, ambitious, and unscrupulous and he eyed co-justiciar Le Puiset’s authority with envy. Longchamp did not know the language, did not adapt to English customs, and “openly professed his contempt for the English.” The author of a biography of the gentle Bishop Hugh of Lincoln writes that Richard “left behind a little lame, black foreigner, Longchamp…who had been adviser, schemer, general brain box and jackal to Lion-heart.” Perhaps Richard did not know Longchamp as well as he thought.

Contemporary sources note that Longchamp was short, had a limp, and “possessed the face of a dog.” It did not take the chancellor long to alienate his co-justiciars or the English barons after Richard left England behind. The chronicler Roger de Hoveden writes “the said bishop of Ely, legate of the Apostolic See, chancellor of our lord the king, and justiciary of England, oppressed the clergy and the people, confounding right and wrong; nor was there a person in the kingdom who dared to offer resistance to his authority, even in word.” The chancellor deposed Le Puiset, had him arrested and forcibly taken to London. He appointed numerous relatives to high positions, removed sheriffs and castellans, and suspended clergy.

Lincoln Castle

As Longchamp attempted to consolidate his own power, many barons turned to Richard’s brother John. John, who eyed Richard’s crown and expected to be named his heir, garnered the support of these men. When Longchamp removed Gerard de Camville as Sheriff of Lincolnshire, de Camville joined forces with John to take over Nottingham and Tickhill Castles, whilst his wife, Nichola de la Haye, held Lincoln Castle against Longchamp’s forces in a 40 day siege in 1191. Compromise was reached due to the efforts of Walter de Coutances, archbishop of Rouen, whom Richard had sent back to England from Sicily after hearing of the many complaints against Longchamp.

For a very brief period it appeared that Longchamp and John might come to a peaceful coexistence after John secured word that the chancellor would support him as heir should Richard not return from the crusade. But Longchamp made a fatal error, taking action against Richard’s half-brother Geoffrey, the archbishop of York, when he landed at Dover.

Dover Castle

Longchamp denied ordering the rough treatment against the archbishop, but his supporters physically dragged Geoffrey from the sanctuary of a church (recalling Beckett’s murder 20 years earlier). John and the justiciars called Longchamp to appear to explain his action, but he fled and barricaded himself in the Tower of London for three days before surrendering. The bishops excommunicated him and the justiciars removed him from office and ordered him to relinquish custody of his castles.

Longchamp attempted to flee and, according to one of his enemies, Bishop Hugh of Nonant, he was caught trying to board a boat in Dover dressed as a woman. De Hoveden writes that “He chose to hasten on foot from the heights of the castle down to the sea-shore, clothed in in a woman’s green gown of enormous length instead of the priest’s gown of azure colour… a hood on his head instead of mitre… [he] became so effeminate in mind… Having seated himself on the shore upon a rock, a fisherman, who immediately took him for a common woman, came up to him; and having come nearly naked up from the sea, perhaps wishing to be made warm, he ran up to the wretch, and embracing his neck … began pulling him about, upon which he discovered that he was a man.”

Incarcerated for several days, Longchamp was released and sailed to Flanders at the end of October 1191. Armed with a message from the Pope, he landed at Dover the following year and attempted to be reinstated to his former position, but was ordered by Queen Eleanor and the justiciars to leave the country.

When word of Richard’s imprisonment became public knowledge in 1193, Longchamp ended up at the king’s side in Germany, negotiating for terms with the Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI. He delivered information to the justiciars in England about the ransom agreed to by the king, bringing Richard’s instructions about collection and delivery of the money. Richard sent him to negotiate with King Philip and later with John. Longchamp was with the king when he released from captivity in Mainz in February 1194, and returned to England with him.

Longchamp continued to serve Richard on numerous diplomatic missions to Germany and France. His last task for the king was to go to Rome and ask the Pope to lift an interdict the Archbishop of Rouen had placed on Richard. Longchamp fell ill on the journey and died in January 1197.

Images

Richard being anointed during his coronation. by Unknown. - A 13th-century chronicle. Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15543148

Gate at Lincoln Castle. by Rodhullandemu - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5143923

Dover Castle. by Misterzee - Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4999617

Sources

Appleby, J.T. (1965). England Without Richard. Ithaca : Cornell University Press.

Lloyd, A. (1973). King John. Newton Abbot Eng.: David & Charles.

Marson, Charles L. (1901). Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln: a short story of one of the makers of Medieval England. London : Edward Arnold.

Norgate, K. (1902). John Lackland. London : Macmillan.

Turner, R.V. (2009). King John: England’s Evil King? Stroud, Gloucestershire : The History Press.

Turner, R.V. “Longchamp, William de (d. 1197)”, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2007 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/16980, accessed 24 April 2016]

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

About the Author

Charlene Newcomb is the author of Men of the Cross and For King and Country, two historical adventures set during the reign of King Richard I, the Lionheart. She is a member of the Historical Novel Society and a contributor and blog editor for English Historical Fiction Authors. Charlene lives, works, and writes in Kansas. She is an academic librarian by trade, a former U.S. Navy veteran, and has three grown children.

Connect with Char: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Amazon

The Markhams: A study in betrayal, treachery and infidelity - Part Two: The Lady Anne Markham

by Linda Root

(Part One: The Knight was published May 24, 2016.)

PART TWO: Lady Spy

From the time of her husband's banishment, Lady Markham had embarked upon a campaign to have him returned from exile. When the Gunpowder Treason was uncovered, she had something valuable to trade.  Even before the plot was discovered, the whereabouts of the Catholic clergy had become an issue for the king, who by an edict issued in February of 1604 ordered all ''Jesuits, Seminaries, and other Priests" to leave the kingdom by the 19th of March. Presumably, Lady Markham knew where many of them were and where they had been hiding. While there is no evidence that she sought relief directly from the king when he visited Harrowden in August of 1605, by the following autumn, she had established a remarkably personal correspondence with Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury.

There is much historical evidence suggesting Salisbury was the prime mover when it came to pinning the Gunpowder Treason on the Jesuits. He had compiled a list of the three 'most wanted.'  John Gerard's name was on the list, in spite of the fact he had been one of the priests who had exposed the Bye Plot. The only evidence against him was the fact he had conducted a mass which five of the conspirators attended after their initial meeting at the Duck and Drake, and that it may have been held in an adjacent set of rooms Gerard either owned or leased. There is no evidence he was aware of the oath the others had taken or the nature of the plot except in a confession under torture from one of the late comers to the conspiracy who sought to save his skin and later recanted his allegations against Gerard. He was not present at the oath taking. 

Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury

Correspondence flowed between Salisbury and Lady Markham, with assurances from the lady that she could deliver Gerard. On his part, Salisbury promised her efforts would be rewarded, and her husband's situation improved. Neither of them was entirely forthcoming with the other. After the principals in the treason had been killed or apprehended, Salisbury focused his efforts on the Jesuits. Lady Markham was quick to offer help. There were possibly two searches of Great Harrowden Hall in November with Lady Markham present. Anne had arrived with a large posse and a Sheriff's warrant in her clutches and hunkered back while the search party did their work. She later told Cecil they would have had Gerard had they continued their stake-out for a few more days. Then,  they returned for a second search. After a fruitless search lasting several days, they carried Eliza Roper to London Town for interrogation but did not find Gerard.

When Lady Markham failed to deliver results, her relationship with Salisbury cooled. The lady did not give up easily and continued to throw scraps Cecil's way. She told Salisbury that Gerard had left the area, and may have taken two of her servants along, young men who sought his sponsorship into the English Jesuit College in Rome. When they left her employ, she had extracted a promise from the men that they would send word of their arrival and whereabouts. She assured Cecil that disclosure of Gerard's hiding place was just a matter of time. She wrote to Cecil describing the men as follows:

'The painter is a black man, and taller than the embroiderer, whose hair is yellowish, and was called Christopher Parker by his true name. The painter was called Brian Hunston. I am bold to inform you thus largely of them because I verily suppose they attend their wandering friend and master, but where, till I either see them or hear some directions, I cannot imagine'. 

A few weeks later, she predicted they soon would deliver Gerard into her net. She wrote to Cecil as follows:

Now I find either necessity of their part or my two servants' credits hath given me so much power as I shall shortly see Mr. Gerard, but for the day or certain time they are too crafty to appoint, but whensoever I will do my best to keep him within my kenning till I hear from your lordship.

But Eliza Roper, the Dowager Lady Vaux, was a step ahead of her. She had been held in London under house arrest for a time, and when she was released, she did not return to Harrowden until Gerard was beyond the reach of Cecil and his watchers. He escaped from England in the entourage of the Spanish ambassador, who had come from the Hapsburg Netherlands to congratulate the King on his narrow escape from the Gunpowder conspirators. Eliza had financed the Jesuit's flight to the tune of five thousand florins and given him an extra thousand florins for spending money. He left England on May 3, 1606, the same day his mentor Father Henry Garnet was executed. References suggest Lady Anne remained active in attempts to end her husband's exile and that he made the channel crossing with little if any interference and whenever it suited him, a nice romantic twist that was either wishful thinking or did not last long.

The Further Adventures of Lady Markham:

Lady Markham's misadventures were not quite over when the Jesuit Mission to England went deeper underground. Her name appears on church roles and public records as being fined for refusing to take communion or for other offenses against the Chuch of England and she remained on lists of known recusants. In spite of her treachery and double-dealing, she continued to be a practicing Catholic.
Not long after the last of the hunted priests were apprehended, she ended up on the wrong side of the redoubtable Bess of Hardwick, by accusing her daughter Mary Talbot nee Cavendish (who had married Bess's stepson by her third marriage, Gilbert Talbot) of being implicated in the Gunpowder Treason.

Mary Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury

Bess of Hardwick, Dowager Countess

Mary Talbot, the Countess of Shrewsbury, sought a Writ against Lady Anne Markham and won a retraction and a public apology. It was not the last nor the most spectacular of her humiliations.

Lady Markham's Appearance at Saint Paul's Cross:

By 1618, Saint Paul's Cross in London had become a site of public penance in the most grievous cases of sexual misconduct, especially when it involved the aristocracy. When Lady Anne was called there, it was not as a recusant or a slanderer, but as a bigamist. After her husband's fourteen year exile, and knowing he was alive and well, she married another man and flaunted the relationship. His name was Gervais Sanford, and he was one of her household menservants, which added to the public outcry. Not long after that, Sir Griffin Markham died abroad; some said of shock over his wife's flagrant infidelity. In most cases, her bigamy would have carried a death sentence, but due to a legal technicality, the court extended leniency and settled for public humiliation and a fine. Had her hapless husband gone 'missing across the seas' for more than seven years, she could have had him declared legally dead and remarried with impunity. 

Due to the newness of the felony offense and the unsettled nature of the law, the court absolved her of the capital crime and settled for public penance, a fine and an apology. Her appearance at Paul's Cross in London, while draped in a white sheet, rather than letting her do penance in the diocese where she resided was meant to cause her increased scorn. Newsletters reached every corner of the kingdom outlining her misdeeds, and she and her 'husband' were displayed in several other settings. What happened to her after that is lost to history.

At the time of Lady Markham's last appearance on the Stuart stage, Eliza Roper, the Dowager Lady Vaux, was back at Great Harrowden, running a school for prospective Jesuits and Father Gerard was serving as the first Rector of a new religious school of theology and philosophy in Lieges.

Additional Reading and References 

Childs, Jessie, God’s Traitors: Terror and Faith in Elizabethan England, Oxford Press, N.Y. 2004.

deLisle, Leandra, After Elizabeth, The Rise of James of Scotland and the Struggle for the Throne of England, Ballantyne Books, NewYork, 2005.

Fraser, Antonia, The Gunpowder Plot: Terror and Faith in 1605, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1995. Also, see http://books.google.co.uk/books.

Gerard, John, S.J. The Autobiography of a Hunted Priest, Ignatius Press, San Francisco. Translated and edited by P.Carman, S.J., 195

Hogge, Alice, God’s Secret Agents, Queen Elizabeth’s Forbidden Priests and the Hatching of the Gunpowder Plot, Harper Perrenial, New York *London *Toronto*Sydney, 2005.

Lovell, Mary, Bess of Hardwick, Emprire Builder, W.W.Norton & Company, 2007.

Morris, John, S.J., Editor. The condition of Catholics Under James I, Father John Gerard’s Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot and Biography, 1871, London, a public domain book.

Morrisey, Mary, Politics and the Paul’s Cross Sermons, 1558-1642.

Patterson, W.B., King James VI and I and the Reunion of Christendom, Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History, Cambridge University Press 1997.

Wormald, Jenny, Gunpowder, Treason and Scots, Journal of British Studies, Vol.24, issue 2 April 1985, pp141-168.

___________1603: The men of the Bye Plot, but not those of the Main Plot, December 9th, 2010, The Headsmen, from Executed Today, http://www.executedtoday.com/2010/12/09/1603-william-watson-bye-plot-main-plot/

Additional materials from Wikipedia.

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About the Author: Linda Root is a historical fiction author writing in the 16th and 17th Century, whose books include The First Marie and the Queen of Scots, The Last Knight and the Queen of Scots, Unknown Princess, The Knight's Daughter, 1603: The Queen's Revenge; In the Shadow of the Gallows, with Deliverance of the Lamb to follow. She is a former major crimes prosecutor who lives in the California hi-desert Town of Yucca Valley. She has written a Scottish fantasy, the Green Woman, under the name J.D. Root and is currently writing a comedic mystery tentatively called The Hurricane and the Morongo Blonds.

Swords, Seaxes and Saxons

By Matthew Harffy

The Germanic tribes who settled in Britain from the 5th century onward, commonly known as the Anglo-Saxons, were a bellicose people. They put great stock in battle-prowess and dying in combat in the service of one's lord was the ideal death of a warrior. They were a people of tales and sagas told around hearth-fires in smoky halls. The story of Beowulf, a great warlord who later becomes a great king, harkens from sometime during this period. The eponymous character of the epic poem is typical of heroes of the time. He is brave, strong, honourable and his fame is known throughout the lands in which he travels. Warriors such as Beowulf measured their battle-fame and success in the quality of their weapons and armour. The Saxons are even named for their use of the single-edged knife or short sword called the seax.

High status warrior with pattern-welded sword

The period from the end of the Roman presence in Britain to the Norman Conquest is now known as the early medieval. However, it is more romantically, and much more commonly, known as the Dark Ages, and in many ways these centuries were dark. Literacy and education was very rare, so much of the history was not recorded in writing. As to remains for archaeologists to study, the Anglo-Saxons built their halls and houses of timber, leaving little in the way of visible marks on the landscape. The times were dark indeed for many who perished in the frequent bloody battles between the small kingdoms that divided Britain.

However, it was not all gloom and death. It was also a time of great craftsmen, who created some incredibly intricate work. Nowhere was this more apparent than when their love of war melded with their sense of the artistic in the creation of their sword blades and the ornate decorations that adorned their pommels and hilts. The Anglo-Saxons' skill in forging pattern welded blades was second to none. The discovery of the Bamburgh sword and the Staffordshire Hoard show the incredible workmanship that these craftsmen from the so-called Dark Ages were capable of.

Pattern welding

The best quality sword blades of the time were made using the forging technique that we now know as pattern welding.

Pattern welding involves forging together alternating twisted rods. These rods form complex patterns when forged into a blade. During the Anglo-Saxon period, sword manufacture reached a level where thin layers of steel were overlaid onto a soft iron core. This made the swords flexible with a springy strength that would prevent the blade bending or snapping in combat. The most sought after blades had pattern welding forged around an iron core.

Pattern-welded seax

Not only were these blades coveted due to their qualities, they were also things of beauty in their own right. One sword was described in Beowulf as "the woven snake-blade" and "marked with venom-stripes". It is likely that these descriptions came from the scop putting into words the fabulous, striped markings on the best pattern-welded blades.

Pattern-welded blade

Such blades would have been like the sports cars of their day, admired by many, owned by few. Both functional and beautiful, these incredible weapons were status symbols of kings, warlords and the richest of household warriors.

The Bamburgh Sword

One such fabulous pattern-welded sword is the Bamburgh Sword.

It was discovered at Bamburgh Castle in 1960 by Brian Hope-Taylor, who failed to identify it. It was only forty years later, following Dr Hope-Taylor's death, that a student found the blade in a suitcase that was going to be sent to landfill!

Luckily it was not destroyed, and subsequent studies of the blade showed it to be a unique seventh century sword made up of six separate strands of iron. No other sword has been found from the period with more than four rods in a pattern welded blade. It must have been fabulously valuable, perhaps even owned by a king.

It is now on display at Bamburgh Castle, along with a replica of what it would have looked like when it was new.

The Bamburgh Sword

The Staffordshire Hoard

The swords of noble warriors did not only have fine blades, their hilts were adorned with gold and garnet pommel caps, golden rings, and all manner of scroll work and runes. Nowhere can the quality of these items be seen more clearly or in greater quantity than in the huge number of pieces discovered in the Staffordshire Hoard.

Discovered by a metal detectorist in 2009 near Lichfield, it is the largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold and silver metalwork found to date, with a total of 5.1 kg of gold, 1.4 kg of silver and around 3,500 pieces of garnet cloisonné jewellery.

The Staffordshire Hoard

The hoard was most likely deposited sometime in the 8th century, though the exact date or indeed why such riches were abandoned, can only be speculated upon. However, many of the items were stripped from fine weapons, attesting perhaps to the hoard being spoils of war, or maybe payment from a defeated force containing many wealthy warriors of high standing. The level of detail on the items is really astounding, and shows that weapons were clearly status symbols in their own right and not merely tools for dealing death.

Burials with weapons

Another way we can see the importance of weapons to the Anglo-Saxons is by the objects they buried with their dead. Before Christianity took a firm hold on the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, men were often interred with swords, shields, spears and seaxes, not to mention other items that presumably they would have found useful in the afterlife.

Later in the Anglo-Saxon period the number of grave goods dwindled, perhaps due to pressure from the Christian church or maybe more prosaic reasons, such as inheritance and trade becoming more commonplace.

Anglo-Saxon swords

Estimating from the number of swords found in graves, only a small number of warriors owned a sword (most had to make do with a spear). However, the sword remained the symbol of the successful warrior. It was what all young men would aspire to own. Lords would gift swords to their most trusted warriors and blades were given names. They were the ultimate Dark Ages status symbol.

Nowadays, if someone wishes to show off at a dinner party they might mention what model of car they drive. If you met a Saxon warrior at a feast in a mead hall, he might boast of the quality of his sword’s blade and regale you with the tales of its exploits in battle.

Images:

Warrior: Copyright Stephen Weatherly, used with permission.

Staffordshire hoard: By David Rowan, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (Staffordshire hoard) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Anglo-Saxon Swords: By Internet Archive Book Images [No restrictions], via Wikimedia Commons

All other photos, Copyright Matthew Harffy

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Matthew Harffy is the author of the Bernicia Chronicles, a series of novels set in seventh century Britain. The first of the series, The Serpent Sword, was published by Aria, an imprint of Head of Zeus on 1st June 2016. The sequel, The Cross and The Curse will be released on 1st August 2016. Book three, By Blood and Blade, is due for publication in January 2017.

The Serpent Sword is available on Amazon, Kobo, Google Play, and all good online bookstores.

The Cross and the Curse is available for pre-order on Amazon and all good online bookstores.

Website: www.matthewharffy.com
Twitter: MatthewHarffy
Facebook: MatthewHarffyAuthor

The Laddie in his Plaidie

by Kristin Gleeson

If anyone is asked to picture a Scottish Highlander, one image is certain to come to mind. A man in a kilt. But did the Highlander always wear a kilt? Some may know that the kilt was outlawed after the final battle of the Jacobite rising at Culloden in 1746, when Bonnie Prince Charlie was defeated, only to rise to the height of fashion during Queen Victoria’s time when she visited Scotland and made it her place for her summer holidays.

But if we go back before the Jacobite rising, to the Tudor period, is it likely that Highlanders would be dressed in the kilts we so often see pictured? In truth there are just a few sources that give us hints at what a Highlander looked like, and there is no doubt about the impact. They dressed markedly different from the Lowland Scot, who wore for the most part the same clothes as their counterparts in England. The newly made Lowland earls in this time period were known to wear blue bonnets which later came to signify them. The bonnet, which was similar to the type seen in portraits of Henry VIII and others of the time, was saucer shaped and not like the bonnets women wore later in time.

The first look at a Highlander in the Tudor period is found in 1521 in John Major’s A History of Greater Britain:

From the middle of the thigh to the foot they have no covering for the leg, clothing themselves with a mantle instead of an upper garment and a shirt dyed with saffron. ...In time of war they cover their whole body with a shirt of mail or iron rings, and fight in that. The common people of the Highland Scots rush into battle having their body clothed with a linen garment manifoldly sewed and painted or daubed with pitch with a covering of deerskin.

It appears that the main source of covering was the mantle and the shirt and even later, in the 1570s, Lindsay of Piscottie referred to the ‘Reidschankis, or wyld Scottis...cloathed with ane mantle, with ane schirt saffroned after the Irisch maner, going bair legged to the knie.’

The Bishop of Ross also described the highland man in 1578 and pointed out the ‘long and flowing mantles’ that served as a cloak by day and a blanket by night. He also observed that some men wore a short woollen jacket with open sleeves and that the linen shirts were large, with numerous folds and wide sleeves sometimes sewn up with red and green silk thread. The shirts were also sometimes coloured with saffron and others were smeared with grease to preserve them.

But the colours of the plaid were a far cry from the vibrant hues now seen today in various kilts. When George Buchanan, a Stirlingshire historian published a description of the Highlander dress in 1582 he mentioned that they delighted in variegated and striped garments, some in blue and purple, which was ideal for concealing themselves in heather. The majority, however, favoured dark brown, ‘imitating nearly the leaves of the heather, that when lying upon the heath in the day, they may not be discovered by the appearance of their clothes.’

1594, when the highlanders went over to join the forces of Red Hugh O’Donnell in his fight against the English in 1594, and an Englishman observed them:

They are recognised among the Irish Soldiers by the distinction of their arms and clothing, their habits and language, for their exterior dress was mottled cloaks of many colours with a fringe to their shins and calves, their belts were over their loins outside their cloaks.

This entry is the first tangible suggestion of the presence of what was later called the ‘belted plaid’ or the ‘great plaid’ and eventually known as the kilt. This ‘great plaid’ was later described in 1689 by a chaplain who visited Scotland:

They are constant in their habit or way of clothing; pladds are most in use with ‘em which.. to only served them for cloaths by day in case of necessity were pallats or beds in the night at such time as they travelled.

These pladds are about seven or eight yards long differing in fineness according to the abilities or fancy of the wearers. They cover the whole body with ‘em from the neck to the kneese excepting the right arm, which theey mostly keep at liberty. Many of ‘em have nothing under these garments besides waistcoats and shirts, which descent no lower than the knees, and they so gird’em about the middle as to give’em the same length as the linen under ‘em and thereby supply the defect of drawers and breeches.

There is much discussion among scholars about when the kilt or belted plaid actually came into being because there is no clear evidence, only speculation. Antonia Fraser, in her iconic biography of Mary Queen of Scots clearly did not support the idea of the kilt when she discussed Mary’s love of wearing her national dress that ‘Scottish dress for a girl consisted merely of a series of wild animals’ skins draped about the person,’ and in her footnote wrote, ‘Plaid of a sort was already known at this date, and Mary later wore it in Scotland, but tartan, in the form we know it today, was not, and nor was the kilt.’

But in assessing the observers of the time and the use of the term ‘mantle’ which had no set length or size, it is possible to see that a length of plaid could be wrapped and draped in such a manner that it might be like the ‘great plaid’ or the early type of kilt. Each person would naturally have his own manner of wearing it, adapting it to his size and shape. But what is clear, however is that when writing a novel, there is no clear thought as to what they should wear. Within reason it is entirely plausible to dress the laddie in his plaiddie. This is what I chose to do in the first novel of my new series The Highland Ballad Series, The Hostage of Glenorchy.

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Originally from Philadelphia, Kristin Gleeson lives in Ireland, in the West Cork Gaeltacht, where she teaches art classes on occasion, plays harp, sings in an Irish choir and runs two book clubs for the village library.

She holds a Masters in Library Science and a Ph.D. in history, and for a time was an administrator of a national archives, library and museum in America. She has also worked as a public librarian in America and now in Ireland.

Connect with Kristin::
www.kristingleeson.com
www.facebook.com/kristingleeson1
Twitter: @krisgleeson

Buy links: 

Amazon: http://hyperurl.co/l6pkqk
Nook: http://bit.ly/1SdFR7q
Kobo: https://store.kobobooks.com/en-us/ebook/the-hostage-of-glenorchy
Itunes: http://apple.co/1SdFUA9