Mary II of England: A Queen of Gardens

by Margaret Porter

“Her rooms should be abundantly furnished each day with all kinds of flowers.” – Prince William of Orange (later King William III), to his gardener Charles du Boisson.

“In Gardn’ing, especially Exoticks, she was particularly skilled.”– Stephen Switzer.

Mary of Orange, with citrus tree & pet parrot

Princess Mary of York, eventually Princess Mary of Orange, and ultimately England’s Queen Mary II was an enthusiastic plantswoman and garden-maker. From her early years, when her education was supervised by the botanically-minded cleric Henry Compton, she was an avid gardener. During her years in Holland she and her husband created extensive gardens at their palaces. And when the Glorious Revolution placed the couple on her deposed father’s throne, they imported Dutch styles for gardens and architecture to England.

From 1689 to 1696, the monarchs’ expenditure on their royal gardens totaled £83,000, in modern currency approximately £7,275,000 or $11,471,000. Three-fourths of the sum was spent at Hampton Court alone.

Hampton Court Palace, Surrey

Hampton Court Palace and Gardens, late 17th century

Because King William, an asthmatic, could not live comfortably at damp and draughty Whitehall Palace, he and Mary immediately settled on Hampton Court as their country palace.

They commissioned extensive alterations from Sir Christopher Wren. They also designated William’s Dutch confidant and Mary’s fellow plant collector, Willem Bentinck, Earl of Portland, as Superintendent of the Royal Gardens.

One of the Cibber urns

In 1689 Daniel Marot, responsible for some of the couple’s garden designs in Holland, and nurseryman George London laid out the first parterre on the East Front, filled with grass or coloured gravel in imitation of Le Notre’s work at Versailles. The large semi-circle was edged with lime trees for shade. The wrought iron gates by Tjou and great stone urns carved by Caius Gabriel Cibber remain, as does the Queen’s Bower, created by training wych elms over an arched tunnel one hundred yards in length, twenty feet tall, and twelve feet wide. The landscape was further adorned with thirteen fountains and numerous sculptures. The Privy Garden received a new parterre design. Names of the adjacent series of walled gardens indicate what grew there: the auricula quarter, the orange quarter, the flower garden, and so on. Tropicals and “exoticks” resided in specially designed glass cases.

Large sums were spent and great efforts made to fill the new hothouses and flower beds. As an example, records reveal a payment to “Jas. Road, Gardiner, for going to Virginia to make collections of plants, £234 11s 9d.” Dr. Leonard Plukenet, the botanical curator, received £200 per year, as specialist in “tropical and foreign plants, cuttings, roots or seeds.” In January 1691, the gardens consisted of patterns “laid in grass plats and borders…narrow rows of dwarf box in figures like lace patterns. In one of the lesser gardens a large greenhouse divided into several rooms, and all of them with stoves under them.”

Summer display of citrus and exotics, as in Mary's lifetime

These hothouses also contained the tender items brought over from Holland. The death of Gaspar Fagel, one of William’s advisors, coincided with the Glorious Revolution. His family sold the contents of his garden collection to William and Mary, which were transferred to Hampton Court over a period of two years. By September 1692 the last of the “orange trees, lemon trees, and other … trees” arrived in England. In 1892 some of the oranges were removed to Windsor. The rest of the collection survived in situ until 1921.

From mid-May throughout the summer Mary's arrangement of citrus trees, oleanders, olives, yuccas, and agaves—grown in large wooden tubs or in blue-and-white ceramic vases—is recreated on the terrace beside the former orangery. In colder months these are replaced with bay, laurustinus, holly, Portugal laurel, and Spanish broom.

Agave growing in 17th century reproduction tub

No attempt has been made to recreate Mary’s aviaries. She collected exotic birds as well as exotic plants—she had a pet parrot—and alleys of her bird cages were an attractive and melodic feature of her gardens.

Hampton Court Gardens in springtime, showing Queen Mary's Bower.

Kensington House, Kensington

From their joint desire for a compact “country palace” like the ones they had known and loved in Holland, William and Mary purchased Lord Nottingham’s residence at the edge of Hyde Park. As at Hampton Court, they commissioned alterations undertaken by Sir Christopher Wren. Mary expanded the original gardens to twelve acres, with flower beds arranged in formal Dutch style. New paths were laid and filled with gravel. The cost of adding trees, plants and flowers was £700, and the total cost of garden improvements (exclusive of labour) was £12,495. The house—not yet designated a palace—had a kitchen garden and an adjacent orchard. A visitor in the winter of 1691 reported that the grounds were not “abounding with fine plants,” as the citrus trees spent the cold months in Mr. London’s Brompton greenhouses a mile away, “But the walks and grass are laid very fine.”

Kensington House gardens, as they were circa 1690-91, in a later print.

Here, in the waning days of 1694, Mary died of smallpox. Her sister Queen Anne later added the orangery, now a popular restaurant. In Queen Victoria’s reign Kensington Gardens was developed as the extensive public park we know today, with water features and walkways and monuments.

Whitehall Palace, London

Despite their preference for other locations, this palace served as the monarchs’ official residence. Its Privy Garden, devised by Cardinal Wolsey, had been improved by Henry VIII and subsequent Tudor monarchs. Partly destroyed during the Interregnum, it was repaired and enhanced by the Stuarts. A typical pleasure ground, it consisted of grass squares with paths between, and contained a sundial of which Charles II was very proud. His mistress Barbara, Lady Castlemaine (later Duchess of Cleveland) spread her freshly laundered underthings there to dry, as noticed and remarked upon by Samuel Pepys.

When living at Whitehall, Mary seldom had leisure time for garden improvements. She served as Regent during her husband’s long absences in summer and autumn, when he waged annual war against Louis XIV’s armies in Flanders. Her days were filled with burdensome official duties and council meetings.

The King was abroad in April 1691 when fire consumed a portion of the palace. Stones and building material were salvaged to carry out a plan of Mary’s, as reported by Luttrell the diarist: “There is orders given for building a fine terras walk under the lodgings at Whitehall, toward the waterside.” In 1693 he writes, “The Queen’s terras walk . . . facing the Thames is now finished, and curiously adorn’d with greens which cost some thousands of pounds.” No matter the state of the Treasury, there was always money for Mary’s plants! During the winter of 1698 a far worse conflagration consumed the entire palace, leaving behind only the Banqueting House as a remnant and reminder of its former glories.



Arrangements and Art

Queen Mary’s fondness for flowers was evident not only in her gardens, but also in the elegant rooms of her residences. She and her husband patronised the great Dutch and Flemish botanical and floral artists, whose lush and colourful still life paintings decorated her rooms and became part of the royal art collection. She was sometimes observed watching Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer paint floral decorations at Kensington. And Mary’s own portraits often contain urns overflowing with flowers, or an orange tree.

Still life by Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer

Delft pagoda vases and planter, Kensington Palace

Mary was an innovator in flower display as well, commissioning various containers from the ceramic factory in Delft—in traditional forms and others made to her specifications. Samples of these distinctive blue-and-white glazed vessels can be seen at Hampton Court and Kensington Palace. Huge ceramic tubs held shrubs. Pyramids and pagodas were used to show off individual blooms—not only tulips, but all varieties of flowers. Arrangements in bowls tended to be asymmetrical and free-flowing, as seen in the botanical paintings, with only the leaves of the flower stalks as greenery.

Many Stuart-era formal gardens were eradicated by Capability Brown and his followers in the late 18^th century—at Hampton Court and elsewhere. Garden historians have made great strides replicating the designs that Mary and her artisans created, to the delight of palace visitors in every season.

Delft planter at Hampton Court

All photos from the author's personal archives. Period prints and paintings via Wikimedia Commons and Google Images.

This is an Editor's Choice, originally published August 24, 2015.

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Margaret Porter is the award-winning and bestselling author of twelve period novels, nonfiction and poetry. Queen Mary's garden pursuits are featured in 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 (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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The Tragic Life of Catherine Gordon

by Samantha Wilcoxson

Holyrood Palace, Edinburgh

Little is known about Catherine Gordon's early years, as history is much more careful about recording tragedy and scandal than everyday life. As a great-granddaughter of King James I of Scotland and daughter of the Earl of Huntley, Catherine likely enjoyed a charmed childhood and looked forward to a bright future. That vague dream of imminent prosperity became defined for her in a handsome young man proclaimed to be Richard of York.

Catherine is one of those women who would be wonderful to sit down to tea with and ask many of those questions that drive history enthusiasts mad. Did she think her Richard was truly Perkin Warbeck, the name later assigned to him by Henry VII? What was her impression of the first two Tudor kings? Catherine lived during fascinating times with close connections to some of the historical figures who continue to intrigue us the most. However, as with many who lived during the Tudor era, her life is a complex blend of joys and sorrows.

Perkin Warbeck

Whatever Catherine eventually ended up believing about her first husband, at the time of her marriage she would have been confident that she was marrying a Prince of England, one who was preparing to reclaim his kingdom with her at his side. The fact that Catherine was given to Warbeck in marriage is a significant indication of his belief in his claim.

While Warbeck was undoubtedly pleased with the status that Catherine gave him, he also seems to have been in love. A letter believed to be written by him states, "whoever sees her cannot choose but admire her, admiring cannot choose but love her, loving cannot choose but obey." Catherine appears to have returned his affection, accompanying him when he set out to invade England though she most likely was either pregnant or had a small child with her.

So began the string of tragedies in this lovely young woman's life.

Warbeck's 1497 invasion failed almost before it began, and Catherine was taken captive at St Michael's Mount where she awaited news of her husband's victory. Found wearing mourning clothes, it is believed that Catherine had suffered a miscarriage during her five weeks there. Records being unclear in the details, Catherine may have alternatively suffered the loss of a young child rather than a miscarriage. Either way, Catherine would bear no more children.

St Michael's Mount, Cornwall

Catherine was treated with respect by Henry and became an attendant for his wife, Elizabeth of York. She was informed that her husband was a pretender. What Catherine thought of all this, we can only imagine. The fact that records exist stating that "Henry was treating the couple well enough, but would not let them sleep together," indicate that Catherine still loved her husband, whoever he really was. She remained at the Tudor court, whether she was a well-treated prisoner as her great-grandfather had been or she chose this path is unknown.

In 1499, Warbeck was executed under suspicious circumstances, and Catherine found herself a childless widow of twenty-five at a foreign court. Catherine became close to the royal couple, serving as one of Queen Elizabeth's ladies and eventually mourner at her funeral in 1503. She remained with Henry after he lost his wife, indicating that she had forgiven him for any wrong she may have felt he had done to her or her first husband.

Catherine Gordon before Henry VII

After the first Tudor king's death, Catherine became a member of Katherine of Aragon's household. This Katherine had, too, already seen a small portion of the tragedy that her life would include. Already married and widowed by the first Tudor prince, Katherine of Aragon married the brother who had become Henry VIII.

Around this time, Catherine married her second husband. Little is known of James Strangeways besides the fact that he was Gentleman Usher of the King's Chamber and that he did not survive long after his marriage to Catherine. By the summer of 1517, Catherine was married a third time. This marriage and a role in Princess Mary's household took Catherine a greater distance away from the English court than she had been in twenty years.

Matthew Craddock was a Glamorganshire knight with holdings in Wales. Catherine was able to divide her time between Princess Mary's household at Ludlow and that of her husband. Catherine loved to explore her estates on horseback, and this is an activity she found great refuge in throughout her life. Based upon Catherine's will, written in 1537, Craddock held a special place in Catherine's heart. Though the document refers to Catherine as the "sometime wife" of Strangeways, Craddock is referred to as her "dear and well beloved husband."

Catherine served as Chief Lady of the Privy Chamber for Princess Mary while Margaret Pole served as Governess. These two women were of an age together and likely struck up a friendship at this point if they had not previously. They would be protective of their charge as the political environment deteriorated, causing the downfall of Mary's mother, friend of both women, Queen Katherine of Aragon. Catherine served in this role until 1530, but Margaret stayed until she was forced to leave in 1533.

In the meantime, Catherine had lost her third and gained a fourth husband. Craddock's death in 1531 may be an indication that Catherine had left Princess Mary's household when she did in order to care for him. It is not known precisely when Catherine married her final husband, but he would be the one to survive her.

Fyfield Parish Church
Final resting place of Catherine Gordon

Christopher Ashton, another Gentleman Usher, was from Berkshire, where Catherine held lands that had been gifted to her by Henry VII. When not at court before her move to Wales, this is where she had taken up residence. Her final marriage was brief and little is recorded of it besides Catherine's final will and resting place.

When Catherine died on October 14, 1537, she was sixty-three years old. A surviving monument to her exists within the Parish Church of Fyfield in Berkshire where she is buried. Another monument had been raised by Craddock in Swansea, indicating his doubts that she would remarry after his death. Her will makes no mention of her first husband, and there is no existing record of her discussing him at any point in her life after his death. Whatever she thought of Perkin Warbeck had died with him. Eventually, Ashton was the husband to be buried next to the much admired Scottish noblewoman when he died in 1561.    

Photo Credits:
Holyrood Palace: Cassell's History of England, 1901
Perkin Warbeck: Unknown Artist, Public Domain
St Michael's Mount: Cassell's History of England, 1901
Catherine Gordon before Henry VII: Cassell's History of England, 1901
Fyfield Church by Colin Bates [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Additional Reading:
The Last White Rose: Secret Wars of the Tudors by Desmond Seward
Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury by Hazel Pierce
Winter King: Henry VII and the Dawn of Tudor England by Thomas Penn

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About the Author:

Samantha Wilcoxson is a first generation American with British roots. She is passionate about reading, writing, and history, especially the Plantagenet dynasty. Her novel, Plantagenet Princess, Tudor Queen: The Story of Elizabeth of York has been recognized as a Historical Novel Society Editor's Choice.

The Plantagenet Embers series continues with Faithful Traitor: The Story of Margaret Pole and will conclude with Queen of Martyrs: The Story of Mary I in 2017.

Samantha has also published two middle grade novels, No Such Thing as Perfect and Over the Deep: A Titanic Adventure.

When not reading or writing, Samantha enjoys traveling and spending time at the lake with her husband and three children. You can connect with Samantha on her blog, Twitter, Goodreads, Booklikes, and Amazon.

The Isles' First Gold Rush

By J.S. Dunn

What was daily life like in prehistoric Prydain (Britain) or Eriu (Ireland)? Now that the Isles' academics are busily digging in their own back garden, rather than the Mideast or Greece per the 19th century, exciting local discoveries seem to pop up every week. A drastically revised picture of the ancient Isles emerges, and with it a new paradigm for the Isles that contrasts with the old construct for 'Celts' and the origin of Gaelic language and culture.  In order to write convincingly of that ancient setting, one should have an overview of the years 3000 BCE forward, well before the Iron Age or any Roman influence. The Isles' tribes were hardly the backward brutes depicted by Roman authors as of the late Iron Age. The neolithic era rocked! By around 3000 BCE, little Orkney held sway as a north Atlantic power center, at its massive temple complex of expertly fitted stone. Excavation at Orkney continues; exciting finds include painted walls and a humanistic figure (both firsts in Isles prehistory).

In fact, the Isles had sophisticated marine trade networks with the Continent as early as the neolithic. Jadeite stone axes from the Alps have been found in the UK and Ireland.  A cultural influence from Iberia was the megalith.  Megaliths played a focal role and dramatically changed the landscape. The passage mounds range from Iberia, to the Morbihan, and Bru na Boinne/Newgrange, and up to Maes Howe at Orkney. Megaliths erected during the neolithic reveal a culture of astronomy lovers. The intricately carved boulders and inner orthostats are acknowledged to be engineered observatories for movements of sun, moon, and constellations.

Image - public domain via Wikipedia

Most still accurately track celestial events of solstice, equinox, lunar phases, and other phenomena. The great passage inside Newgrange, the central mound at Bru na Boinne, runs over nineteen meters (60 feet) in length, and still welcomes the rays of winter solstice sunrise after more than 5,200 years. Stone circles such as Stonehenge reflect a later tradition emphasizing solstice, a solar event. Further study at Orkney may indicate why the culture shifted from emphasizing passage mounds and use of interior sunlight, to stone circles where the megalith casts a shadow. Obviously, more of the people could attend and witness an outdoor ritual than inside a passage mound chamber. Stonehenge has evidence of large feasts. We might not understand what the ancients believed or worshiped, but we can count the bones they left behind after feasting!

Note that at this time, Troy did not exist or was a few rudimentary huts; certainly, Carthage and Rome did not exist. The rivals for astronomy, if any, would be in Egypt but the Giza pyramids had not been constructed. Feel that paradigm shifting?

Around 2400 BCE, showy gold neckpieces – GOLD!– called lunulae due to the wide crescent shape, spread from Eriu to Wales and Cornwall,  and to Brittany and the Continent. One such lunula is shown below. A gold rush began in the Isles.  During that time the massive stone-lined passage mounds from Orkney, Newgrange, Anglesey/Ynys Mon, the Morbihan, and down to the Tagus river in Iberia, fell into disuse. What happened to the neolithic starwatchers?

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15931350
Author - Johnbod

The answer appears to be: warriors. Metal daggers of copper made their first appearance in the Isles, again in Eriu then along Wales and Cornwall coasts.  The introduction of metal smelting brought great social changes. Genetically, the metal-using newcomers have been identified with archaeology's Beaker people. They used distinctive flat-bottomed pots and drinking cups, the latter being part of a warrior's equipment. These brave lads jumped onto little more than a bread board in northern Spain and set off for Eriu and the Isles to scout for gold and copper and tin. The warrior culture they brought with their long knives of copper and bronze remained with the Isles up to the Iron Age.

Try this: imagine you stand on Iberia's northwest corner ( on the costa verde) looking due north. Sailing north lands your vessel on the southwest corner of Ireland.  That is where northern Europe's earliest copper mine, circa 2500 BCE, has been excavated. Shortly after the copper find, a flood of gold was moving around the Isles; from Irish sources and later, gold also in Wales and Cornwall. It is possible the early mariners moved along the Bay of Biscay and up around Brittany (Ar Mor) and then to Ireland's southwest.  At any rate, a Beaker pot when analyzed showed chemical traces from Brittany; that pot was found at Lough Lein, Ireland.

Welsh and Irish mythology, the oldest in western Europe, contain embedded clues to cultural origins and dating. These heroes are not ethereal figures lolling on clouds and directing the fate of mortals below; these are sweating, swearing, fornicating, men and women who live to the fullest. There is rebellious Cliodhna, who left the 'copper coast' of Eriu in a boat with a lover only to be drowned; her myth says the boat had a copper stern.  And the myth of the smith Lein, who worked at the Lake Of Many Hammers.  When archaeologist William O'Brien dug in at Lough Lein (Ross Lake) in county Kerry,  he discovered the oldest copper mine in the Isles.  The myths' references to copper dates to the second millennium or very ancient folk memory in Cork and Kerry; after around 1600 BCE copper was no longer mined there! That date is well before the prior paradigm for when Gaelic was spoken in Eriu or Wales. So what language was being spoken, by the newcomers who mixed with the indigenous tribes?

Linguist John Koch asserts, with others, that Gaelic language and culture were incubating in the Isles, and carried from the Isles to the Continent by marine traders. Gaelic thus began on the coasts, that is to say in the west and in the Isles.  Protogaelic language and culture moved from west to east.  Trade moved on rivers like the Loire from west to east.  Also, Gaelic developed much earlier than had been imagined by 19th century theorists; Gaelic developed during the Bronze Age from the early second millennium forward, and not during the later Iron Age.  Research by Koch on inscriptions in southwest Iberia has shown that rudimentary Gaelic was in use well before the Romans came along and prior to any 'invasion' of Celts.

Finally, the genetic evidence shows no big wave of invaders swamping the natives at any time.  There is a substrate from the neolithic; a new blip occurs on the genetic radar with the Beaker people in the mid third millennium BCE, and then no new genetic infusion until the Vikings and Saxons. Many areas of Ireland, and west Scotland and Wales, have retained a strong neolithic genetic signature.  If your father's or brother's genetic Y haplotype is R1b1b2 (also termed M269), congratulations: you're stone age.  The old model of waves-of-invading-Celts just doesn't hold up in the Isles or in Iberia.

Chasing down the details of prehistory need not be dull and not all the research is serious; for example, on the subject of the fulacht fiadh (pronounced foolah fee). This item is a wooden trough sunk into the earth and usually associated with a nearby pile of cracked and burned rocks. For years, academics debated whether the trough was used for a) cooking a joint of beef by adding red hot stones to hot water, or b) having a bath either after or in lieu of the beef feast, or c) brewing beer.  Since these cooking pits are almost all found in Ireland, research eventually explored option c, the brewing, with happy results duly written up and reported in a professional journal.

That grinding hum in the background is the old paradigm shifting. 'Celtic' as a term may survive with reference to a swirling, organic style of surface decoration that was widespread during Europe's Iron Age, and for certain US sports teams. Sir Barry Cunliffe, emeritus head of European Archaeology, Oxford, advocated for Celtic-from-the-west as a new model beginning in his 2001 volume, Facing The Ocean: The Atlantic and Its Peoples 8000BC-AD 1500.  Cunliffe's monograph is hefty and costly, but totally worth the read if not indispensable.  Reading old material on 'Celts' or prehistory of the Isles that was published prior to this decade is risky. The new finds in field archaeology, the archaeolinguistics, and archaeogenetics, are just that stunning and deserve awareness if not understanding. Similarly, it pays to keep up with current archaeology noting that individual sites and finds should be put into the larger context as they arise.

The gold said to be hidden in the Isles' ancient mounds can be seen as renewable, for it is the inspiration from the starwatchers and the brave marine voyagers.


[image of knife and shield courtesy of Both images courtesy of Neil Burridge, Cornwall bronze craftsman.
See Burridge website at  http://www.bronze-age-swords.com/]

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J. S. Dunn resided in Ireland during the past decade, and from there pursued early Bronze Age culture along the Atlantic coasts of Spain, France, Wales, Cornwall where the author poured a bronze sword, Orkney, and Ireland. The author is a huge fan of RyanAir for jetting around to unusual places.
Numerous archaeologists and experts vetted the details of BENDING THE BOYNE. A second novel set at 1600 BCE, STEALING TARA, is forthcoming.
See updates at:  https://www.facebook.com/BendingTheBoyne 

Entertainment Tonight--Regency Style

by M.M. Bennetts

Imagine it. Outside the temperature had dropped so low that the Thames was freezing; hoar frost had coated, white and deep, the red-tiled roofs of London's houses and churches. It was so bitter that even the city's notorious foists had taken the night off--perhaps their fingers were too stiff with cold for pinching purses?

Yet from through the large windows of one building at least--Covent Garden--a mellowed golden light shone out into the night and the sounds of a packed house of some 3000 people, all laughing, rose and fell. For inside, the cold forgot, the atmosphere rich with the smell of orange peel and burning wax, the crowd were entranced by the new pantomime they'd all come to see--Harlequin Asmodeus or Cupid on Crutches.

Nor was it the first of that evening's entertainments on Boxing Day 1810.

To begin there had been a performance of Shakespeare's As You Like It. Then they had been treated to a tragedy, a dismal thing called George Barnwell. (The critic Hazlitt called it "a piece of wretched cant.") And now, six hours into the evening's entertainment, now, out came the clown they'd all been waiting for--Grimaldi, known to them all as "Joe"--about to fight a bout of fisticuffs with a pile of animated vegetables...or rather a pile of vegetables which he had assembled into a kind of person which then, somehow, at the tap of a sword, had come to life.

Magic

And the night was still young. For after the mock fight which would see Grimaldi chased off the stage by the vegetable man, would come the pantomime, Harlequin Asmodeus, with its traditional story--generally speaking, two lovers kept apart, usually by unspeakable rivals or cruel parents, but who find happiness in each others' arms after the completion of a quest--and an equally traditional cast--Harlequin and his love, Columbine, and their enemies, the elderly miser Pantaloon and his servant Clown.

It would be explicit, satirical, and energetic, and set against a background that would feature many of the common sights of the metropolis itself, all of which would be transformed by a touch of Harlequin's wand into something different (by means of ingenious stagecraft)--just like the vegetable man--a sedan chair into a prison, for example.

Welcome to a night out at the theatre, Regency style.

London, during the early years of the 19th century, had three main theatres, Drury Lane, Covent Garden and Sadler's Wells in Islington. And during that period perhaps as many as 20,000 Londoners attended the theatre every night.

That number doesn't include the various concert halls or pleasure gardens, such as Vauxhall Gardens, either. The Theatre Royal in Drury Lane and Covent Garden confined their 'seasons' to the autumn and winter. Sadler's Wells filled in the gap during the spring and summer.

Long programmes, as described above, especially those with grand jaw-dropping spectacles--plays starring dogs, elephants, children, the lines between comedy and tragedy blurred---were the order of the day. And ever since war had broken out with France, there'd been a kind of national fervour on which the theatres played.

Reenactments of sea battles were especially popular--this was the day of the great hero, Lord Nelson, and all of England was navy-mad--so Sadler's Wells staged a recreation of Nelson's victory at the Nile called Naval Pillars. Later, they put on a recreation of the Franco-Spanish siege of Gibraltar--and for this, the management converted the theatre's cellars and stage into a vast water-tank and had the replicas made of the fleet of ships, using a one inch to one foot scale, and working miniature cannon.

Nor were grand tableaux all that drew the oohs and ahs of the packed houses, all sitting there amid the atmosphere of orange-peels and smoke, heckling, cat-calling and flirting, as other play-goers drifted in and out of their boxes or pushed onto the benches of the pit, all chatting and laughing during the long evenings' performances.

Among the other great draws was William Betty, a thirteen year old boy, also known as Master Betty or the "Child of Nature" (he was very beautiful), who made his debut at Covent Garden on 1 December 1804 in the happily forgotten drama, Barbarossa. (He was paid fifty guineas a performance.)

Tickets for that first performance were sold out in seven minutes, the cavalry were called out to lift fainting women from the crowd in the Piazza and carry them to safety, and in the hours before his first entrance, the audience had been roaring. Then he came on and an absolute hush fell over the auditorium.

Master Betty appeared at both Covent Garden and Drury Lane, went on to play Romeo, then Richard III and even Hamlet, and the audiences were wild for him with women fainting and crying...All of which lasted until his voice broke a couple of years later. (The tragedienne, Sarah Siddons, managed to be out of town or otherwise engaged for most of his London run.)

The downside to all this excitement, of course, was fire.

In the early hours of 20 September 1808, smoke and flame were seen coming from the Theatre Royal at Covent Garden. But by the time the Phoenix Fire Company arrived, the interior was already destroyed. 23 people died in the fire, many of them the firefighters, and the adjacent homes were also destroyed. John Philip Kemble, its owner, had lost everything.

But raising money, Kemble saw the foundation stone for a new Theatre Royal laid by the Prince Regent in December and the theatre reopened on 18 September 1809. To riots.

For Kemble and his financiers had decided that in order to pay for the rebuild, they'd put up the price of seats. Until after two months of riots--where insignias marked with OP for Old Prices were worn by growing numbers of Londoners--they gave way and brought back the lower fees.

But not far away, Drury Lane was levelled by fire on 24 February 1809 while its proprietor, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, watched from the window of the House of Commons. The theatre where Mrs. Siddons had captivated audiences was no more. And because of his own financial instability, Sheridan was unable to raise the funds to rebuild, so it didn't reopen for another three years...

And theatre itself was in a kind of a revolution, as the stilted declamatory style and tragic poses of 18th century actors gave way to a more natural, more intimate performance, such as that of Edmund Kean, changing old style caricatures into authentic credible characters. Kean opened his London stage career on 26 January 1814, playing Shylock to a packed house at Drury Lane and doing nothing as it had been done for the past hundred years.

Kean's Shylock was a human being, a man of genuine emotion--the critics were wowed, the audience stunned. His subsequent performances as Richard III, Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth and King Lear transformed performance. Previously, many of these Shakespearean tragedies had only been performed in their Bowdlerised versions--think King Lear with rhyming couplets and a happy ending.

And in between the tragedies featuring Kean, or the comedies which showed off a long-legged Mrs. Jordan in breeches-roles, the entr-acte ballets with their lovely limbed female dancers drew the young men of the pit, all ogling and hoping for more than a glimpse of ankle or perhaps a tryst arranged in the Green Room.

All this, and Grimaldi's antics too--a walking, tumbling, leaping, bawdy animated version of a Rowlandson or Gilray cartoon.

It's no wonder that, come rain, fog or frost, many Londoners, Beau Brummell among them, went to the theatre every night, now is it?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
M.M. Bennetts is a specialist in early nineteenth-century British and European history, and the author of two historical novels set in the period - May 1812 and Of Honest Fame. Find out

more at www.mmbennetts.com.

The Medieval Romances of Chrétien de Troyes

By E.M. Powell

The Accolade
Edmund Blair Leighton, 1901
Public Domain

If I were to ask you if you knew the story of Sir Lancelot, then I suspect you would answer in the affirmative. Chain mail. One of King Arthur’s knights. Caused all sorts of bother with Guinevere. Yes, you know all about him. But if I were to ask you who Chrétien de Troyes was, you might not have such a ready answer. It might surprise you to know that he is the medieval writer credited with bringing the legend of said Sir Lancelot along with the other Arthurian legends into the genre known as romance. And of course, writing about a British king, Chrétien was French.

It is frustrating that we know very little of Chrétien’s life. He was writing between 1160 and 1172, and it is suggested that he had a position as herald-at-arms at the court of his patroness in the city of Troyes. His patroness was the Countess Marie de Champagne, daughter of Louis VII and Eleanor of Aquitaine. Familiar to us all will be the notion of Courtly Love: this was also a concept running through Chrétien’s work.

Marie played a major part in taking this romantic ideal and promoting it as fashionable behaviour. Devotion and courtesy featured, but so did adulterous love. It should be remembered that adultery was considered amongst the gravest of sins by the medieval church. But Marie’s influence, and perhaps that of her mother, created a surge of interest amongst European aristocracy. (One commentator describes her as ‘this celebrated feudal dame’, a description which, to my eternal regret, conjured up a medieval Mae West on first reading.)

The End of the Song
Edmund Blair Leighton, 1902
Public Domain

Chrétien wrote in Old French, rather than Latin. He composed at least five romances and two lyric poems. The word ‘romance’ also comes to us from this period. The Old French word romanz was first used in a literary sense to distinguish words written in vernacular French (romanz) from those in Latin.

So how did Chrétien happen on tales of King Arthur for inspiration? It would seem that Chrétien, like all good writers of historical fiction, liked a bit of a borrow from the past. Irish, Welsh and Breton legends have some mentions. Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae, written in 1137, introduced the Arthurian legend to continental Europe.  This was a Latin history written in prose. Anglo-Norman poet Wace produced Roman de Brut in 1155, a version of the history now in French couplets.

King Arthur & the Knights of the Round Table
Michael Gantelet, 1472
Public Domain

Wace’s King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table (Wace’s is the first known mention of the Round Table; Chrétien has that for Camelot) were undoubtedly a more refined bunch than those written of previously. But they were still a group of fighters, rather than lovers. If his version were a historical novel, it would have swords and sandals on the cover, no question. It would take Chrétien to bring on the cover with the headless lady in the big dress.

In Chrétien’s romances we have knights riding out on adventures, fighting bravely against other warriors, monsters and magical creatures. And of course, the knights are also in pursuit of the love of their fair lady, often a love they lose, only to fight to get it back again. This latter storyline might be familiar to readers of the contemporary romance genre. But forget stereotypical images of swooning ladies.  Chrétien doesn’t hold with damsels in distress. His ladies can be just as courageous and daring as his knights. When one considers the powerful woman that was one of Chrétien’s patrons, along with other powerful female patrons, this is hardly surprising.

God Speed!
Edmund Blair Leighton, 1900
Public Domain

So what of the romances? First is Erec et Enide, with its straightforward tale of love, estrangement and reconciliation on an adventure-filled journey. It is set in Brittany and depicts King Arthur sitting on a throne emblazoned with a leopard. Such court scenes may have been inspired by Henry II’s  Christmas 1169  court at Nantes in Brittany.

Second is Cligès, which is written against the background of the Tristan and Iseut story. It is an adulterous tale in which Cligès falls in love with Fenice, his uncle’s wife. She feigns her death with a magic potion, so they can be together.

Third up is Lancelot, or The Knight with the Cart. By far the most famous romance of Chrétien’s, it is the first tale of the adulterous love between Lancelot and Queen Guinevere. Though she is cruel to him, he obeys her every command and wish. Readers may not be familiar with its name, The Knight with the Cart. It is so called because in his search for Guinevere, Lancelot rides in a cart meant for convicted criminals. He is concerned for his honour (albeit briefly), but she is very displeased that he would hesitate in his search for her.

The Parting of Sir Lancelot & Guinevere, 1874
Julie Margaret Cameron
Public Domain

Fourth is Perceval, a very lengthy yet not completed tale. Again, it introduces a story which has inspired so many, many more tales of searches and quests: the quest for the Grail.

Last, but by no means least, we have Yvain, or The Knight with the Lion. It is a spectacular romance and adventure, with a lion, a giant, a magic fountain and the widow who falls in love with Yvain, her husband’s killer.

In Time of Peril
Edmund Blair Leighton, 1903
Public Domain

Lancelot and Guinevere. The Grail. King Arthur. Camelot. Chivalrous knights. All part of the popular cultural imagination, thanks to Chrétien de Troyes. We may not know much about him. But my goodness: we know about his stories. We are still retelling them today.

References:
De Troyes, Chretien: Arthurian Romances, Penguin Classics (1991)
Encyclopaedia Brittanica: Chrétien de Troyes
Jones, Terry & Eriera, Alan: Medieval Lives, BBC Books (2004)
Lindahl, C., McNamara, J & Lindow, J. (eds.): Medieval Folklore, Oxford University Press (2002)
Norton Anthology of English Literature: Chrétien de Troyes: www.norton.com
Weir, Alison: Eleanor of Aquitaine: By the Wrath of God, Queen of England, Vintage Books (2007)

This is an Editor's Choice Post and was first published on February 1, 2015

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E.M. Powell’s medieval thrillers THE FIFTH KNIGHT and THE BLOOD OF THE FIFTH KNIGHT have been #1 Amazon bestsellers and a Bild bestseller in Germany. Book #3 in the series, THE LORD OF IRELAND, about John’s failed campaign in Ireland was published by Thomas & Mercer on April 5 2016. 

Born and raised in the Republic of Ireland into the family of Michael Collins (the legendary revolutionary and founder of the Irish Free State), she now lives in northwest England with her husband, daughter and a Facebook-friendly dog. 

As well as blogging and editing for EHFA, she is a contributing editor to International Thriller Writers The Big Thrill magazine, reviews fiction & non-fiction for the Historical Novel Society and is part of the HNS Social Media Team. Find out more by visiting www.empowell.com.

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Editors' Weekly Round-Up - October 2, 2016

by the EHFA Editors

If you missed the posts to the blog during the week, check out our weekly round-up:

The Seventeenth Century Library

by Deborah Swift

Henry VI: Part One

by Derek Birks

Setting the Pope on Fire – the Exclusion Crisis of 1678-1682

by Kate Braithwaite

A Notorious Divorcee and Her Abiding Legacy
by Anna Belfrage

Lady Elinor Fettiplace and Her Receipt Book
by Lauren Gilbert

Government in the Reigns of Edgar and Aethelred II
by Annie Whitehead

We are also running a giveaway until midnight Sunday, October 2, 2016

Alvar the Kingmaker by Annie Whitehead

Government in the Reigns of Edgar and Aethelred II

by Annie Whitehead

Neither Edgar (959-975) nor his son Aethelred (978-1016) came to the throne free from controversy. Both of them succeeded their elder brothers, who reigned only briefly. King Eadwig (Edwy) succeeded his uncle in 955, while his brother Edgar was declared king in Mercia and the Danelaw. With the existence of two royal courts it seems likely that civil war was not far away when Eadwig died on this day - 1st October - in 959. He had issued so many charters that a degree of irresponsibility is probable, and he had quarrelled with Abbot, later Archbishop, Dunstan and driven him into exile.

King Edgar

Aethelred was Edgar’s younger son, and succeeded his (step) brother Edward when he was murdered at Corfe. Throughout his reign he was never entirely able to escape from the fact that the murder had been committed for his sake.

King Aethelred

The youth of these kings produced an environment where faction could arise. Powerful ealdormen could be found influencing politics and the monarch, even changing the face of war, as was the case at the end of Aethelred’s reign.

This then was the political situation over which Edgar and Aethelred had to govern.

The king normally stayed in the south, and his presence in the north was made to be felt by his appointed ealdormen. Within the royal court there was a strict hierarchy, evidence of which comes from a scrutiny of the witness lists of Aethelred’s reign, where athelings, ealdormen, thegns and bishops subscribed in strict order of seniority. This order normally changed only when one subscriber died, but the witness lists of Aethelred’s reign show how powerful particular ealdormen could become. Eadric Streona headed the lists from 1009x12 to 1016, in the lifetime of other ealdormen who had once been his seniors. The king had no choice but to rely on these men for their cooperation and support, which was to some extent ensured by their attendance at the royal council, the Witan, where laws were deliberated upon and promulgated.

The Witan

Edgar relied heavily on the bishops and abbots within the Witan. He was the great patron of the monastic revival, overseen by bishops Oswald, Dunstan and Aethelwold. Many grants of land were made to the Church, and the ecclesiastical support thus ensured gave Edgar the means to check the power of the ealdormen. Oswald was given the triple-hundred* of Oswaldslow to the exclusion of Aelfhere of Mercia, and the leases of Oswald are an indication of his power. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that in 975 “Ealdorman Aelfhere had very many monasteries destroyed...” This action arose more out of political rivalry it seems, than anti-monasticism.

In contrast, the early years of Aethelred’s reign show him undoing much of Edgar’s work, with lands being taken away from religious foundations, such as Abingdon, Rochester and Winchester. Until 993 it seems that Aethelred was being led astray by ealdormen who took advantage of his youth and ignorance. Fortunately for the church, these lands were restored after 993, when, with different ealdormen emerging, Aethelred was seen to mend his ways with the restoration of the privileges of Abingdon.

A charter from Aethelred's reign

There was a long tradition of financial organisation in Anglo-Saxon England. In the tenth century traditional renders gave way to the Geld. The payment of Geld involved the handling of coinage; King Athelstan (924-939) decreed that each burh (borough/fortified town) would have a mint, and he attempted to limit the number of moneyers. Edgar reinforced this legislation in his own law codes. “There shall run one coinage throughout the realm.” [2]  Every borough was expected to issue coinage.

Edgar’s reforms set the standard and the system was continued under Aethelred. During his reign there were more than 60 mints in operation. Of course, there was a great increase in the output of the mints at this time because of the payment of the Danegeld, something with which Edgar was not confronted. It was probably at the instigation of Archbishop Sigeric after Byrhtnoth of Essex was killed at Maldon (991), that the decision was taken to pay the Danes in the hope that they would go away.

“In this year it was decided to pay tribute to the Danes … on this occasion it amounted to £10,000. This course was adopted on the advice of Archbishop Sigeric.” [3]

The payment of the Danegeld indicates two things: the amount of fluid wealth in England and the capacity of the English to tap it.

Another form of taxation (albeit strictly a military tax) was the Ship Soke. Most of the evidence we have for this comes from the reign of Aethelred. The much quoted entry for 1008 in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle tells us that

 “In this year the king gave orders that ships should be speedily built throughout the whole England: namely one large warship was to be provided from every 300 hides, and a a cutter from every ten hides, while every eight hides were to provide a helmet and a corselet.”

Aethelred was reacting sensibly to the Danish threat, but there is evidence to suggest that this was no innovation. FE Harmer (Anglo-Saxon Writs) pointed out that in 1003/4 Archbishop Aelfric made a bequest of ships and HPR Finberg [4] credited Edgar with the invention.  He cited the Triple Hundred of Oswaldslow created by Edgar, and said that Edgar organised efficient naval patrols around the shores of Britain.

The origin of the Hundred is somewhat hazy. Most of what we know about this administrative unit is derived from a document known as the Hundred Ordinance. Dated somewhere between 939 and 960, the Ordinance is the subject of controversy among historians who are unable to agree upon its author. But the Ordinance was definitely in existence by Edgar’s reign. It decrees that the hundred court should meet every four weeks, and that each man should do justice to other men there. II&III Edgar reinforces the Ordinance, by stating that the borough court is to be held thrice a year and the shire court twice, and the hundred court is to be attended as was ‘previously established.’

My very battered student copy of the translation of the Hundred Ordinance

Aethelred’s laws make frequent reference to the hundreds, in particular the importance of oath-taking. In III Aethelred, the ‘Wantage code’, which deals mainly with the Danelaw, we find what Finberg calls the earliest known reference to the sworn jury of presentment: “and the twelve leading thegns … are to come forward and swear on the relics which are put forward into their hands that they will accuse no innocent man nor conceal any guilty one.”

Edgar’s dealings with the Danelaw can be found in IV Edgar, the Wihbordesstan Code. It had often been said that Edgar was creating something new with this code. But technically speaking this is a letter to the Danes, showing Edgar eager to respect an autonomy which was already a fact.

It is probable that Edgar became king of England in 959 with the help of a powerful group of magnates who wanted a king who would not encroach on the customary law. Niels Lund [5] says that the whole point of the letter is to notify the Danelaw that he wishes a new law to apply to all his kingdom, that he knows that this is a violation of their privileges but nevertheless he asks them to accept it. Edgar stresses five times that he has every intention of respecting the Danelaw. It is possible that although IV Edgar is a recognition of established fact, Edgar himself created the Danelaw, as there are no earlier references to it. In all probability these privileges were granted by Edgar in 957, in gratitude for the support given him in the north against his brother Eadwig.

King Eadwig, who died 1st October, 959

It has been said that Aethelred also recognised the validity of the Danelaw, but in fact his dealings with these provinces sharply contrast with those of Edgar. In IV Edgar the king is careful not to offend the Danes to whom he owes a great deal. Aethelred was not so subtle. Whitelock suggests that he appointed to office men he had himself advanced, rather than men belonging to old established families. He was quick to seize lands in the Danelaw, for example those of the murdered Sigeferth and Morcar.

In the Wihtbordesstan code, sanctions against lawbreakers are left to be decided by the Danes, while Edgar and his councillors provide the rules for the rest of England. “And it is my will that secular rights be in force among the Danes according to as good laws as they can best decide upon. Among the English, however, that is to be in force which I and my councillors have added to the decrees of my ancestors.”

A comparison of Aethelred’s Wantage and Woodstock codes, shows that Aethelred on the other hand, attempted to impose English law on the Danelaw. Known respectively as III and I Aethelred, these codes were issued at more or less the same time, Wantage being specifically for the Danelaw.

I Aethelred says, “If, however he (the accused) is of bad reputation, he shall go to the triple ordeal.”
III Aethelred says, “And each man frequently accused is to go to the triple ordeal and pay four-fold.”

Not only did Aethelred set out the sanctions he imposed in the Danelaw, but he took a portion of the fines as well. Fines in the Danelaw were heavier than elsewhere in the country. It has been said that these measures show how much Aethelred was firmly in control of the Danelaw. Lund argues that rather it shows how Aethelred was attempting to gain firm control. He had no reason to think that he could rely on the north for support. On the contrary, he feared treachery, which led to his securing hostages from Northumbria in 991, and to the notorious massacre of St Brice’s day in 1002. His relations with the Danes are highlighted by the readiness with which the north accepted the Danish conquerors. The murdered Sigeferth and Morcar belonged to a northern family so powerful that Aethelred’s son Edmund Ironside’s marriage to Sigeferth’s widow gained him enough power to become the accepted king of the Five Boroughs. [6] It was people like these whom Aethelred, in total contrast to Edgar, managed to alienate by his attempts to impose English law on them.

Edmund 'Ironside'

Edgar’s was a peaceful reign, free from invasion. All he had to do was respect the Danelaw; he had already been shown their loyalty in 957. Aethelred on the other hand was plagued by raids from the sea. He had to pay tribute to the raiders from Denmark, and was never assured of the loyalty of the Danes in his own country. It is possible that Edgar introduced the Ship Soke, but is was certainly highlighted in Aethelred’s reign, because of the wretched situation in which he found himself. In short, the differences in the administration of these two kings stems from the difference in their reigns. One was always at peace; the other seemed permanently to be fighting off invasion.

[1] EHD (English  Historical Documents) 1 113
[2] II&III Edgar 59-963 EHD 1 40
[3] The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (E) 991
[4] The Formation of England 550-1042
[5] King Edgar and the Danelaw, Med. Scand. 9
[6] The five main towns of the Danelaw: Derby, Leicester, Lincoln, Nottingham, Derby
* Triple hundred - an area of land, three times the administrative unit of the hundred
(All above images are in the public domain)

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Annie Whitehead is a history graduate and prize-winning author. Her novel, To Be A Queen, is the story of Aethelflaed, daughter of Alfred the Great, who came to be known as the Lady of the Mercians. It was long-listed for the Historical Novel Society’s Indie Book of the Year 2016 and has been awarded an indieBRAG medallion. Her current release, Alvar the Kingmaker, which tells the story of politics, intrigue, deceit and murder in the time of King Edgar, has also been awarded an indieBRAG medallion. She has recently contributed to 1066 Turned Upside Down, an anthology of short stories in which nine authors re-imagine the events of 1066 and ask 'What If'.

Annie's Author Page

Alvar the Kingmaker

To Be A Queen

1066 Turned Upside Down

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