Alof de Wignacourt (1547-1622), Grand Master of the Order of St. John. Malta

Olof de Wignacourt (1547-1622), Grand Master of the Order of St John, Malta

In 2024, I had the pleasure of staying at the House of W. in Nicholas Street, Valletta, Malta. When we booked, we didn’t realise the building's significance. Located in the heart of Valletta, just a short walk from the Grand Master's Palace and St John's Co-Cathedral (formerly the Conventual Church of St. John), the building appears unremarkable from the outside, similar to many others in Valletta. However, step inside, and you can feel Malta’s rich history come alive.

Most older Maltese houses have an open interior 
to let in light and for air circulation.

When Malta became the most bombed place on Earth during WWII, the building, like others nearby, was destroyed. After the new owners purchased the building, they aimed to restore it to emphasize its historical importance. Research in Malta’s archives uncovered plans showing that the building was once owned by none other than Grand Master Alof de Wignacourt, a key figure in Malta’s history.

Official portrait of de Wignacourt

Alof de Wignacourt was born in 1547 to a noble French family, and at just 17 years old, he answered the call to arms from France to defend the Maltese islands that had come under the control of the Order of Saint John in 1530 against the Ottoman invasion known as the Great Siege of Malta in 1565. At the time, the Knights' stronghold was in the Three Cities, particularly Birgu, where they built Fort St. Angelo on the site of a medieval castle. This bastioned fort, located at the centre of the Grand Harbour, overlooks the main battle that took place at Fort St Elmo on the Sceberras Peninsular It was during this time that de Wignacourt’s skill as an engineer came to the fore, After the Ottomans were defeated, Grand Master Jean de Valette decided to build the new city named La Vallette, (Valletta) in his honour and after only four years of joining the order, his prudence and courage, combined with his engineering skills were quickly put to use earning him a nomination as Lieutenant of the new city of Valletta.

A painting of The Great Siege of Malta showing galleys around Senglea, 
which was almost defeated, and Fort St Angelo in Birgu.

De Wignacourt's military and administrative skills were soon recognised, and he was appointed Grand Cross and head of the Langue of France. His outstanding merits and services rendered to the Order earned him the unanimous election to the Grand Magistry. With his election as Grand Master in 1601, the Order experienced a naval and military power rebirth, demonstrating their maritime supremacy in the Mediterranean by expanding the navy to include a great galleon commissioned by him in Austria at 60,000 gold scudi. In 1602, he dispatched galleys of the Order on an expedition against the corsairs of North Africa, seizing the town of Mahomet and expelling the corsairs. It must be noted that corsairs. Two years later, the island of Kos was taken, followed by Corinth in 1611.

A Maltese galley brings in a captured Ottoman galley

A painting showing Maltese galleys capturing an Ottoman 
vessel near Malta

By the beginning of the 17th century, the importance of corsairs in the Mediterranean cannot be underestimated. In an area mostly dominated by Ottomans or Spanish, switching from a military role to an economic, viable, and necessary one. Captured booty made these states wealthy, and with wealth came diverse trades. In fact, the Order’s fleet of private corsairs made them some of the most feared seamen in the Mediterranean.

De Wignacourt Coat of Arms on the 
reconstructed arch.

After the Maltese successfully defended the islands against another Turkish raid of 60 vessels carrying 5,000 men, efforts were made to build new coastal fortifications. Under the reign of Grand Master Martin Garzez, another military engineer, Giovanni Rinaldini, was asked to suggest improvements, but after Garzez died in 1601, de Wignacourt became Grand Master, and he set about building the defenses himself. These included the Wignacourt Tower at St Paul's Bay and St Julien's Tower at Marsaxlokk. Only four of the original six forts now survive. He also oversaw significant expansions and renovations to the fortifications and buildings of Malta, including the construction of the Wignacourt Aqueduct in 1616, which brought fresh water to the capital city of Valletta.

The Tower at St Paul's Bay

The Wignacourt Aqueduct

During his reign, de Wignacourt often defended the privileges of the Order, preserving peace among the knights of different Langues, which was mainly a cosmopolitan order. Despite the formal structure of the Langues, the linguistic landscape was complex. French was the dominant language and acted as the language of chivalry during the Middle Ages, though Italian, specifically Tuscan Italian, became the main language for official purposes after the Order settled in Malta. French remained in use for documentation and maps, especially due to the influence of notable French military engineers. Latin was also used in official documents and diplomatic correspondence, but French was initially preferred for administrative purposes.

Selmun Palace (villa)

The Mistra Gate (1760) is the main entrance to the 
large estate once owned by Caterina Vitale.

In 1607, Wignacourt established the Monte della Redenzione degli Schiavi after a Capuchin friar delivered a series of sermons about the plight of Christian slaves under Muslim captivity. The ransom for a Maltese slave was initially set at 70 scudi, but this later rose to 120 scudi. From 1707 onwards, the rate increased to 150 scudi. In the early years, the institution struggled to gather enough funds, but this improved when Caterina Vitalee, a noblewoman of Greek descent, bequeathed most of her estate to the Monte di Redenzione upon her passing in 1619. Some of her property was sold, and an extra 6,000 scudi was donated by Gio. Domenico Felici, who allowed the institution to begin operating. The Foundation continued until 1798, when, during the French occupation of Malta, it was taken over by the government, and the estates formerly belonging to the Monte di Redenzione became state property.

‘Portrait of Grand Master Alof de Wignacourt with
 a Page’ by Caravaggio

It was under Wignacourt's reign that the painter, Caravaggio, left for Malta. He travelled in July 1607 aboard a vessel of the Order and was enthusiastically accepted into the folds of the Order as a Knight of Obedience on 14 July 1608. The Grand Master was aware of Caravaggio’s dark past, when, in May 1606, whilst working in Rome, he killed a man named Ranuccio Tomassoni. This should have impeded the artist from entering the Order, yet de Wignacourt had managed to obtain papal permission to accept the artist within the Order and became his patron. Whilst in Malta, Caravaggio painted some of his most famous paintings, ‘The Beheading of St John the Baptist’ and ‘St Jerome Writing’, both of which are at St John’s Co-Cathedral. In 1608, he painted the ‘Portrait of Grand Master Alof de Wignacourt with a Page’, now in the Louvre, Paris. Unfortunately, Caravaggio’s period of relative calm was short-lived, as by late August, he was involved in yet another brawl. This time, several knights were wounded. He was immediately arrested and imprisoned in Fort St Angelo. Thoroughly disgraced, Caravaggio managed to escape before his trial and fled from Malta.

‘Beheading of St John the Baptist’ by Caravaggio.

On 1 December 1608, in a meeting of the Public Assembly held in the Oratory of St John’s Co-Cathedral, in front of his masterpiece, the ‘Beheading of St John the Baptist’, Caravaggio was “expelled and thrust forth like a rotten and fetid limb” from the Order. Although his period in Malta was short-lived, his work contributed to that period of the Order’s grandeur and might.

Parade armour of Wignacourt, displayed in the Palace Armoury, Valletta

Grand Master Alof de Wignacourt suffered a stroke in August 1622, while he was out hunting. He died on September 14 at the age of 75. Like his predecessors, he is buried in the crypt of St. John's Co-Cathedral. De Wignacourt’s armour now stands in the Armoury at the Grand Master’s Palace. It is beautifully engraved and in excellent condition.

Murder at the Palace by V.E.H. Masters

Sited at the other end of the Royal Mile to Edinburgh Castle stands Holyrood Palace. It's built on what remains of an Augustinian Priory and was the site of one of the most grim events of Mary Queen of Scots brief reign as queen of Scotland.

                                               

                                       Section of Holyrood Palace where Mary Queen of Scots lived

In the 1500s, which is when my series The Seton Chronicles is set, the palace stood outside the city walls. Inevitably it has been extended and 'modernised' over the centuries and is now considerably larger than it was in Mary's time.

In 1548 the five year old Mary was betrothed to the Dauphin of France and left for there soon after, evading a most determined effort by the English Crown to marry her to Prince Edward, son of Henry VIII.

It was a miracle that Mary arrived in France safely for the ship was beset by storms, with weather in August worthy of the worst of January, and a voyage which would normally have taken five days took fifteen. Scotland didn't want to let her queen go was the prevailing opinion.

In my book The Conversos I tell the story of this journey from the perspective of my character Will who, alongside John Knox, was a galley slave for nearly two years in punishment for their part in the siege of St Andrews Castle _ which is the subject of my first book The Castilians.

Here's an extract that gives a flavour of the journey – and they really did have to replace the rudder during a storm. 

The weather holds and they make good progress over the next few days. Ireland is behind them and they are off the Cape of Cornwall when the wind again strengthens and the sea makes a final attempt to hold them. Worse, they see ships appear – and soon it is shouted that English ships are giving chase. Will rows, looking out each time he’s in a standing position when the ship crests a wave. He feels a knot tight in his chest, knows he doesn’t want that bonnie wee lassie caught by English corsairs – even if it means he’s freed. Bung between his teeth, he pulls as hard as he can, and there’s no need for the sous-comite to ply his whip.

Another shout goes up after what feels like hours, but it is no more than one bell. The English are turning back. Will’s heart lifts, but only until he realises why... the wind is howling across the bare masts. Soon he is so lashed by the waves it’s as though he stands beneath a waterfall. Night falls and the seas rise higher and higher.

All around him men cry and shiver with fear as white spumes rush towards them out of the darkness.

The man at the wheel is roped on, so difficult is it to stay in place. Then there’s a thump and the ship shudders from stem to stern. They cease to make any headway and lie wallowing. The lamps from the escorting galleys disappear into the darkness and the stars are blacked out by the clouds.

A drag anchor is flung out to keep them pointing into wind, while the rumours run up and down the ship: they have hit a whale; they have holed on a reef; the ship is sinking. But then it transpires the rudder is broken and they cannot steer. The wind dies suddenly; they must be in the eye of the storm. It is eerily still, as the unquiet ghosts, who follow them, dance around in the darkness.

Men are hung over the lee side – Will cannot imagine anything more terrifying – and remarkably are able to replace the rudder.

This is the last attempt by God, or Satan, to prevent Mary reaching France. A few days later, after some easy sailing, they are moored off a town with a tall cathedral, a bishop’s palace, and a sandy beach. The wee queen disembarks with her coterie of small maids and ladies-in-waiting around her. She is a remarkable child, Will thinks. Not only pretty with her smooth skin and dainty manners but also a child of great courage and steadfastness. He fears she will need it in this precarious life and prays she will be safe and happy in France. He knows John Knox would not approve of Will’s sentiments but this is his queen and he owes her his allegiance, whatever her religion. 

Mary had a happy life in France. King Henri II was fond of her and she in turn of the royal family of which she was part. She returned to Scotland in 1561 aged nineteen dressed in white – the shade of mourning – because her husband, father-in-law and mother had all died within a year of one another. And she came from the warmth and luxury of Renaissance France to a bleak and chilly Scotland, which was experiencing a little ice age.

The chambers of Holyrood Palace were dull, dreary and comfortless but Mary didn't travel light. She brought with her forty five beds, five canopies, twenty coverings and twenty bolts of tapestry, plus paintings, jewellery and other furnishings. All of this was taken south by her son, James VI, when he became king of England, Ireland and Wales after Elizabeth I died.

Mary made the best of things which wasn't easy as a Catholic in a now Protestant Scotland. She was naturally drawn to people who shared her faith and love of music. David Rizzio, an Italian, became her secretary and close companion. 

Starved of entertainment in an austere Reformation Scotland where singing (apart from psalms), dancing and theatre were all disapproved of she, supported by Rizzio, provided it all within her court – for which the reformer John Knox openly castigated her, even having her in tears one day.

Rizzio (pictured below) was deeply unpopular with the Scottish courtiers who surrounded Mary, including her husband Lord Darnley. There were even rumours that Rizzio was the father of her unborn child. 

One night when she was having supper in the small room off her bed chamber with Rizzio and her ladies, a large group of men burst in including Darnley. Mary was six months pregnant at the time but they pushed her out of the way and grabbed Rizzio. He was dragged into the bedchamber where he was butchered in front of her. 

David Rizzio was stabbed fifty four times with Lord Darnley taking a lead in the attack. His blood stains the floor still – although I suspect it may have been occasionally re-reddenned over the subsequent centuries because it looked remarkably bright when I recently visited Holyrood Palace.

            Murder of David Rizzio by William Adams - painted significantly later in 1833

Mary gave birth a few months later in a small chamber in Edinburgh Castle with a number of men watching to verify the birth of the future monarch. Darnley was called to see his new son, who would become James VI, and gazed down as Mary held the babe in her arms.

'My Lord,' she said, 'God has given me a son begotten by none other than you.'

Darnley blushed, one would hope shamed by the accusation he'd made of Mary's adultery, and bent to kiss his son. She never forgave Darnley for Rizzio's murder and when Darnley in turn was murdered a few months later she was held partly responsible. He was a vile man and here's the re-telling of a quarrel had with Mary over dinner during a stay at Traquair House a few months after their son's birth and as reported by its owner.

Mary, who was feeling unwell, whispered in her husband's ear that she thought she may be with child again and could she be excused from the stag hunt on the morrow. 

Darnley replied, 'Never mind, if we lose this one we can make another.

The laird rebuked him sharply, saying he did not speak like a christian whereupon Darnley replied,

'What! Ought we not to work a mare when she is with foal?'

Holyrood Palace fell into disuse once Mary's son became king of England and removed there. By the 1800s, with the popularity of Sir Walter Scott's novels, Scotland became a place for those of romantic sensibilities to visit and the story of Mary Queen of Scots and Rizzio's murder drew visitors especially to Holyrood.

In the first year it opened there were over 67,000 visitors and they had to fence off her bed to stop people touching it. But of course it wasn't her actual bed and when Sir Walter Scott stage managed George IV's successful visit to Scotland the dilapidated bed was replaced by one of red damask. Indeed there is nothing much left of Mary's time beyond the audience room ceiling (pictured above) which was commissioned by Mary's mother, Mary of Guise, to celebrate Mary's betrothal… and, of course, Rizzio's blood stains are also to be found. 

V.E.H.Masters is the award wining and best selling author of The Seton Chronicles. She lives with her husband, and two cats, in the Scottish Borders.  You can find out more on her website here: https://vehmasters.com/, And there's also some short stories available there - free to download.

References

Mary Queen of Scots Bedchamber - a talk given at Holyrood Palace

Visit to Traquair House

Rizzio is the Scottish spelling of the Italian pronunciation. His name was actually spelt Riccio.

The Song of the Birds, Carol Drinkwater

 

                                                        Pablo Casals in 1917 at Carnegie Hall.

If you are reading this on the day I am publishing, it is Saint Stephen's Day (Boxing Day). In many Catholic countries, Saint Stephen's Day is a public holiday. In Ireland, certainly. As well in Catalonia. I single out Catalonia because below is a link to a very beautiful Christmas carol and lullaby from Catalonia. 

A song for peace. Its title is The Song of the Birds, or in the Catalan tongue,  El cant dels ocells. It was made famous outside Catalonia by the remarkable Catalan cellist, Pablo Casals. Or Pau Casals in his native tongue. Casals was born on 29th December 1876 in Tarragona, northern Spain, also Catalonia. His father was the organist in a local church. Although he was already playing several other instruments, Casals junior did not begin his studies for the cello until he was eleven years old, which is remarkable given that he is considered one of the modern masters of the instrument.

Here are two recordings of Casals playing this exquisite piece of music.  Do listen, they really are very moving. Casals described El Cant dels Ocells as 'The Soul of My Country: Catalonia'.

He played this music for Peace.

https://www.thestrad.com/video/pablo-casals-performs-the-song-of-the-birds/10365.article

This second recording was performed at the United Nations after forty year's of silence, of  Casals not playing in public.  His gesture of silence was his protest against war and fascism. This recording was made when he was in his mid-nineties.  He died a year later.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_T8DjwLt_c4&list=RD_T8DjwLt_c4&start_radio=1

When Casals was thirteen, in 1890, having already decided that he would dedicate his life to the cello, he was with his father in Barcelona. There,  in a second-hand music store, Pau made an extraordinary discovery. He found a tattered score copy of the Bach Cello Suites (composed between  1717 and 1723). The Suites were hardly known, infrequently performed, and might well have been lost forever had it not been for Casals. He spent eleven years practising the six suites before he felt ready to perform them in public in 1901. The music sheets he had unearthed had no phrase markings and, because this music was so rarely played, Casals had no references to fall back on or to help him discover how the music was intended to be interpreted.  He followed his own knowledge and instincts and the results are sublime.

Casals was the first cellist to record these suites, which he achieved in studios in Paris and London. In London at the Abbey Road studios, where decades later the Beatles recorded many of their timeless classics. Casals took three years from 1936 to 1939 to record all six of the Bach Cello suites.  It is entirely thanks to him that these instrumental pieces have been brought to the public's attention and are celebrated as part of Bach's immense legacy.

Here is a link to Casals playing the Cello Suites. (Beautifully remastered.)  I read that he practised at least one of these pieces every day throughout his long life.

https://www.radiofrance.fr/francemusique/podcasts/disques-de-legende/pablo-casals-joue-les-suites-pour-violoncelle-de-jean-sebastien-bach-2060270

Those three years, 1936 to 1939, were the years of the Spanish Civil War. 

During those three shockingly violent years, over one million Spanish lives were lost including one of my own favourite writers, the poet and playwright Federico Garcia Lorca who was shot in the back, murdered by Nationalist militia on 19th August 1936, probably on the road between Viznar and Alfacar. Lorca's remains have never been officially found but some claim that his family - in the dead of night - opened a public grave where many slaughtered Spaniards had been abandoned and took Lorca's body to a private family grave.

During my researches for my travel book The Olive Tree, I visited the site where it is believed Lorca was murdered. I stood alongside the olive tree that was possibly the murder spot. I also visited the Federico Garcia Lorca Park in Alfacar, Granada, inaugurated in 1986.

In 1939, after the Republicans had been defeated by the Nationalists and Franco took control of the country,  Casals became an exile in southern France. He swore he would not set foot again on his native soil until democracy had been restored. He settled in Prades, a small town in the Pyrénées-Orientales department of France, historically a Catalan region. Alas, Casals passed away on 22nd October 1973, two years before the end of Franco's's 36-year dictatorship. Franco died on 20th November 1975.

In that respect Casal's story is not dissimilar to another: the painter, titan of modern art, Pablo Picasso, who was originally from Malaga, down along the southern coast of Spain. Picasso vociferously denounced the Franco regime; he also had settled in France, spending his last years very close to where I live in Mougins. He died in Mougins at the age of 91  on 8th April 1973.

Franco outlived both these great artists. Tragically, neither Casals nor Picasso ever saw their mother country again.

Casals is remembered today not only as a consummate artist, for his extraordinary contribution to the world of music, but also for his voice as a pacifist, and his impassioned stand on human rights. He lived through two world wars as well as the Spanish Civil War. 

Should you ever find yourself in the small town of Prades, you might want to attend the Pablo Casals Festival. It was created by Casals in 1950 and is held annually from the end of July to mid-August. After the Spanish Civil War and the victory in Spain of fascism, Casals refused to play in public. It was his peace protest. In 1950, the bicentenary of the death of Johann Sebastian Bach, musicians from all over the world declared that if Casals would not play in public at concerts, they would come to him, to his village, his home. Thus was born the Festival pf Prades, now known as Festival Pablo Casals. It has drawn over the years the finest of the world's chamber musicians and audiences from everywhere.

I thought I would also mention, because for me it resonates after the preposterous renaming of the Kennedy Centre last week, that President John F Kennedy and his First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy invited Casals to play at the White House. He performed in the White House East Room on 13th November 1961.

I found this photo by Robert Knudsen on the internet. It was taken at the White House after Casal's concert. Thanks to the copyright owner.

I hope you have enjoyed a pleasant Christmas in the company of loved ones and that 2026 will bring peace to our deeply troubled world. I am writing this from Marseille where I am working on my next novel set predominantly during the Second World War. Marseille was a vital and vibrant hub for fugitives trying to escape Nazism. It was the last free port in France and became known as the Port of Exiles.

My most recent novel, (not a war story!), ONE SUMMER IN PROVENCE, is available as an e-book or paperback and can be found in all good bookshops. Here is a link to the Kindle edition:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/One-Summer-Provence-olives-Margolyes-ebook/dp/B0DQZS6ZCM/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0

As well as offering the above links to the magnificent pieces of music played by Casals, I would like to include a quote from Lorca: 

"I will always be on the side of people who have nothing and who are not even allowed to enjoy the nothing they have in peace."

It rings very true for today, doesn't it? 

I pray that 2026 brings an end to the wars we are witnessing and that several western governments are supporting, and that we can find resolutions to the escalating world conflicts. Might I also dare to pray for the world to be blessed with leaders who have their people's health and welfare at the heart of their policies?

Art, the arts, artists and their voices for peace, are vital lifelines in times of conflict and dissension. It takes courage to take a stand. My huge respect for those who do.

Happy New Year to you all. Peace on Earth. 

www.caroldrinkwater.com

Richard Dadd by Miranda Miller

 

   My seventh novel, The Fairy Visions of Richard Dadd, was first published by Peter Owen in 2013. Sadly, Peter Owen died in 2016 and I now own the rights of the four books of mine he published. This one is now out of print and my husband Gordon and I have decided to reprint it next summer to coincide with an exhibition of Richard Dadd’s work at the Royal Academy:Richard Dadd Beyond Bedlam 25 July - 25 October 2026. For nearly twenty years I’ve been fascinated by the tragic destiny of this man and by the remarkable work he produced, including  The Fairy Feller’s Masterstroke, the mysterious and compelling  painting on the cover of my novel.

Richard Dadd was born in 1817 in Chatham, in Kent. His father, Robert Dadd, was a chemist who lectured on Chemistry and Geology and was interested in both science and art. Richard was the fourth of seven children, four of whom were considered insane at the time of their death. When he was seven Richard’s mother died and his father remarried but his second wife also died, leaving two sons. As a widower with nine children Robert Dadd must have worried about money and about their future. Richard, in his early teens, showed signs of talent as an artist and it may have been because of his vicarious ambition for his son that in 1834, when Richard was 17, the family moved from Chatham to London. Robert Dadd bought a framing, gilding and bronzing business in Suffolk Street. After teaching himself to draw in the British Museum, Richard became a student at the Royal Academy schools, which had just moved from Somerset House to the very new National Gallery, a five minute walk from his family house. 

     As an art student at the prestigious Royal Academy Schools Richard was taught by Maclise, Etty, Landseer and Turner. He was considered exceptionally promising and won three silver medals, including one for the best life drawing. His closest friends were William Powell Frith and Augustus Egg, both of whom later had enormous success. 

                                                         Derby Day by William Powell Frith

    Frith’s paintings, Ramsgate Sands, The Railway Station and Derby Day were immensely popular as pictures of everyday life that were just sentimental enough to flatter the idea of themselves that middle class Victorians had. When they were first shown at the Royal Academy they attracted so many admirers that a railing had to to put up to keep the crowds back. In Derby Day, (1858), Richard Dadd appears in the crowd, wearing a fez. In my novel, which is set the previous year, Frith comes to visit Richard in the hospital. Augustus Egg’s most famous works, also painted in 1858, are three oil paintings called Past and Present, which show a woman who commits adultery and so falls from a state of married bliss, surrounded by her children, to become an outcast.This is the final painting. Didactic and moralistic, it appealed to Victorian taste. 

   In Tate Britain you can see Dadd’s The Fairy Feller’s Masterstroke, Frith’s Derby Day and  Egg’s Past and Present.  I think it’s very moving to imagine these three ambitious young art students in the 1840s, getting drunk together and criticising each other’s work, arguing furiously - and then, nearly two hundred years later, having their paintings hung in the same world famous gallery.

   Richard’s family couldn’t support him and when he finished his art course he had to struggle to survive. He was interested in imaginative art and was already painting fairies, and although he managed to get various commissions, then,as now, it was very hard to earn a living as an artist.  He never would have been able to afford any kind of grand tour by himself but a Welsh solicitor, Sir Thomas Phillips, who had just been knighted by Queen Victoria for shooting Chartists, invited Richard to accompany him as his pet artist. Twenty years later, of course, Phillips would have taken a camera. In July 1842 the two men set out on a ten month journey to Italy, Greece, Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, Palestine and Egypt. Here’s a drawing Richard did of his patron, all dressed up in traditional Arab robes.

      As Richard comments in my novel, Phillips looks more like a wet night in Pontypool than an Arabian one. This journey must have been fascinating, exhausting and confusing. Writing home to Frith, Richard said that when he lay down at the end of the day his imagination was “so full of wild vagaries that I have really and truly doubted of my own sanity.” He probably smoked hashish and it is now known that drugs can trigger schizophrenic episodes in vulnerable young people. Richard imagined that he was being persecuted by evil spirits who took on various forms: a sea captain, an old lady in the Vatican galleries in Rome and Phillips himself, and he became obsessed by the idea that he was a ‘catspaw’ of the Egyptian god Osiris. When they reached Paris, on the way home, Phillips wanted him to see a doctor but at the end of May 1843 Richard fled back to London.

   That summer Richard’s behaviour became increasingly strange and paranoid. His friends and family were naturally very worried about him and his landlady was terrified of him. Richard’s father, Robert, insisted that his son was suffering from sunstroke and needed rest and quiet. Soon after Richard’s twenty-sixth birthday, Robert Dadd took him to see Dr Alexander Sutherland, a famous ‘mad doctor’ at St Luke’s Hospital in Old Street, who told him that his son was very ill and should stay in the hospital. 

   Despite this Robert Dadd was convinced that he knew his son better than anyone else and that a trip to the country would help. Father and son set off together for Cobham, in Kent, to revisit the area where Richard had grown up. That night they went for a walk in the grounds of Cobham Park, where Richard stabbed and killed his father. 

   It was one of the most sensational Victorian murders. Richard had brought a spring knife, passport and money to Cobham with him, so the murder was clearly premeditated. After killing his father Richard fled abroad. He later told a doctor he was on his way to assassinate the Emperor of Austria and was soon arrested after he tried to cut the throat of a fellow passenger in a carriage in France. Eventually he was extradited and in August 1844 was confined for life to the criminal lunatic department of the Bethlem hospital, or Bedlam, which was in the building that is now the Imperial War Museum. 

                                                                        Dr Charles Hood

   The most impressive thing about those long years of incarceration is that they were not lost; Richard continued to draw and paint. When I was researching this novel, I expected to find that patients in a mental hospital in the 1850s were treated abominably but, when I visited the Bethlem archives at Eden Park in Kent, I discovered  that in 1853 a new young Resident Physician, Dr Charles Hood, was appointed. He carried out a number of reforms after a public scandal about the way the inmates were mistreated. Dr Hood abolished chains and other mechanical restraints and tried to make the wards comfortable. In 1857, the year my novel is set, an article in Household Words, the magazine Dickens edited, described a visit to the hospital and concluded hat “thousands of middle class homes contain nothing so pretty as a ward in Bedlam,” and that, “as to all the small comforts of life, patients in Bethlehem are as much at liberty to make provision for themselves as they would be at home”. Dr Hood removed bars from the windows and introduced aviaries, pets, plants and pictures to the wards. Keepers were given training and became more like nurses and patients were encouraged to occupy and entertain themselves.

   All the time I was writing about Richard Dadd this photograph of him haunted me and I looked at it constantly.

 

    It was taken in about 1857, the year my novel is set, and shows Dadd, aged 40, in the hospital at his easel, where the unfinished oval of Contradiction: Oberon and Titania (another of his fairy paintings) sits, waiting for the brush he holds to continue to bring it to life. He stares at the camera, at us, with recognition and warmth, looking more like an artist in his studio than a prisoner in his cell. 

   In fact, 1857 was the year when Dadd was moved from the grim, Home Office block at the back of the hospital, where the criminal lunatics were housed, to the main part of the hospital, where he was given a spacious room to paint in. He went, quite literally, from darkness to light and this resulted in his best work, although he had heroically carried on painting and drawing even during the thirteen years when he was incarcerated in the overcrowded and dungeon- like conditions of the criminal lunatic block. The doctors in the hospital encouraged and even collected his work. In 1863 he was transferred to the new Broadmoor hospital in Berkshire, where he remained until his death in 1886.

                                                      www.mirandamiller.info

IF IT'S CHRISTMAS IT MUST BE WINDSOR By Elizabeth Chadwick

 In the course of my research, I often have to know (if possible to know) where a particular English monarch was spending Christmas.  This has led me to a few other posts on the history girls regarding the festive whereabouts of King Henry I, his grandson King Henry II and his great grandson King John.  Henry I's  whereabouts are here. If it's Christmas it must be Westminster   For Henry II go here If it's Christmas it must be Chinon  and King John is here.  King John's Christmas Eve

I continue the tradition now with their many times descendent Edward III, scion of the fourteenth century, and his whereabouts at this time of year, if known.   Some such as Windsor were common to all, but many had different preferences, or itinerant residences.  Windsor itself seems to have been a particular favourite of Edward III when not engaged in warfare or travelling for business. 

King Edward III grants Aquitaine to his son Prince Edward Initial letter "E" of miniature, 1390

Lets have a look from 1327 onwards. 

1327 Edward was at Worcester

1328  Edward was again at Worcester 

1329  Kenilworth was the venue for all of December as it had been in November.  He finally moved on to Alcester on January 3rd. 

1

ruins of Kenilworth Castle.  Photo Rosemary Watson

330 Kingston Upon Thames

1331 Wells

1332 Now in Yorkshire at Beverley

1333 Wallingford

1334  Back up north at Roxburgh

1335 Newcastle On Tyne

1336 Hatfield, Yorkshire

1337 Guildford

1338 Abroad now in Antwerp where his second son Lionel was born

1339 Antwerp again

1340 Reading

1341 Melrose and Roxburgh

1342 Vannes

1343 Woodstock - a favourite pleasure palace of the Angevin kings and still in frequent favour

Print of Woodstock palace, demolished in the 18th Century 
to make way for Blenheim Palace. 

1344 Norwich

1345 Woodstock again 

1346 Across the Channel in Calais which was under English rule and control

1347 Guildford for the second time.  He'd been here 10 years ago in 1337

1348  Oxford - a one and only.  This was the year that the Black Death came to England.

1349 Havering atte Bowere

1350  Ludgershall 

1351 St Albans followed by Woodstock the next day

1352 St Albans again

1353 Eltham

1354 Hampstead Marshall - in an earlier century the home of the great William Marshal

1355  Newcastle on Tyne.  Last previous visit was in 1335, 20 years earlier

1356  Eltham

1357 Marlborough

1358 Havering atte Bowere - a favourite residence of his wife Queen Philippa of Hainault

1359 Abroad at Verzy

1360 Woodstock again.  From here on in, King Edward holds Christmas in the Home Counties within a shortish distance of London.

1361 Windsor.  Now we begin a consecutive run.

1362 Windsor

Modern Windsor Castle: author's personal photo collection

1363 Windsor

1364 Windsor

1365 Windsor

1366 Windsor

1367 Eltham

1368 Windsor

1369 King's Langley  - Queen Philippa died in the autumn of this year. 

1370 Sheen or King's Langley

1371 Eltham

1372 Eltham

1373 Woodstock

1374 King's Langley or Sheen

1375 King's Langley

1376 Havering atte Bowere

Tomb effigy of Edward III: Web Gallery of Art

Elizabeth Chadwick is a million selling author of historical fiction.  Her latest novels cover the life and times of Joan of Kent in The Royal Rebel and The Crownless Queen.  She is currently writing a novel about Katherine Swynford and her relationships with her husbands Hugh Swynford and John of Gaunt. 

.