A Cursed House? by Maggie Brookes

Could a house be unlucky? 

I'm not sure I believe in such things, but something prickled the back of my neck when I was researching the history of Forty Hall in Enfield, and I began to wonder...  

Things seemed to go badly wrong for just about every owner. There were so many deaths, plus gambling debts, childlessness, and connections to enslavement and the enclosure of common land, which caused misery to others.

Back in 1629, King Charles 1st was on the throne, and the bricklayers had just laid the foundation stone for a new country house for the wealthy merchant Nicholas Raynton (or Rainton.) He was the third son of a Lincolnshire farmer, who made his money importing silk and taffeta from Florence and velvet from Genoa. I picture him standing outside the building site, watching the sweating labourers bringing brick and tiles from the kilns on nearby Clay Hill, filled with glee at how far he had risen.

Nicholas and his family moved in to Forty Hall around 1632, which was also when he was elected Lord Mayor of London, and subsequently knighted. So it was a pretty good year for him! He must have felt invincible as he set off from his new home every day in his liveried coach, with coachmen and outriders, clattering through Enfield to the city of London.  As well as building the house, he began the gardens, possibly planting two Cedar of Lebanon trees and orange, lemon and myrtle trees in the green house. There are references to an orchard, and a garden of 2 acres enclosed by a brick wall. 

But as we know, wealth and fame don't always guarantee happiness. Sir Nicholas had no children, (which must have been a sorrow) but took care of his brother's son and five living grandchildren after his brother's death. So the house must have rung with children's voices, though by the time Sir Nicholas died in 1646, his wife, nephew, nephew's wife and many of their children had died. 

I hope that the gardens gave Sir Nicholas some comfort in all his losses. 

Forty Hall was inherited by the great-nephew he'd 'adopted', also called Nicholas Rainton. At this time  it was fashionable to enclose common land, creating elegant landscapes around country houses. This met with furious local opposition. In 1672 two local men drove a large flock of sheep onto Nicholas's newly sown crops on stolen common land, destroying 20 acres of produce. But of course they were seen as the criminals. 

Nicholas was also responsible for demolishing the remains of the great Tudor palace of Elsyng, said to rival Hampton Court, to create the great park of Forty Hall. 

But the second Nicholas also died without a son to leave the house to,  and it went to his grandson Nicholas Wolstenholme. 

Perhaps it's the ghosts of Elsyng or the beleaguered commoners who haunt Forty Hall?

The location of Elsyng Palace.

Nicholas Wolstenhome and his wife Grace decided to remodel the house, replacing the Tudor windows with fashionable Georgian sashes and adding an extension. Some of these works may have been carried out following a fire. These alterations were expensive, and the couple was also embroiled in a cripplingly expensive legal battle, so by 1707 they were heavily in debt. Nicholas was imprisoned in the Fleet prison, where he died four years later. Sometimes the history of Forty Hall seems like Hogarth's prints of The Rake's Progress.

A Rake's Progress - debtor's prison.

Mostly the women who lived and worked in great houses are invisible to history, but women had a big part to play in the history of Forty Hall in the 18th century. When Nicholas Wolstenholme died, his widow Grace remarried Lord Hundson, which hopefully solved her financial problems. Again there were no children to inherit, and when Grace died, the Hall passed to his nieces Elizabeth and Mary. Elizabeth married Eliab Breton, though her sister Mary continued to live at Forty Hall with them.

But Elizabeth too had a tough life. Three of her children died in infancy, which must have been a terrible grief, though two boys grew to manhood. Her husband died in 1785, and 2 years later Elizabeth was forced to sell Forty Hall owing to the 'misconduct of her offspring'. We don't know what that misconduct was, but possibly gambling debts or unwise investments? All we know is that she didn't leave them anything in her will!

In 1787 the house was sold for £8,800 to the self-styled 'Captain' Edmund Armstrong, who doesn't appear to have had any genuine rank, but appointed himself to the gentry. Armstrong had a wife and daughter who died – another sorrow for the house – but he remarried and produced two sons. At last, you'd think, some sons to inherit...

It wasn't to be. As we know, there are dark sides to the rise of these great country houses, and the worst of these was enslavement. 'Captain' Armstrong was in charge of charging a plantation tax on goods imported from Barbados plantations: the cotton, sugar and tobacco grown by enslaved people. remarried Perhaps in karma, or as payback for his own hubris, Armstong died with massive debts and his son was forced to sell the house.

As we've seen, as well as the evil of enslavement, the owners of England's great houses were guilty of enclosing common land and calling it their own. At Forty Hall this included the first two Nicholases, Lord Hunsdon who married Grace and is noted as having 'improved the estate,' and in 1800 Forty Hall was bought by James Meyer, who 'added land to the estate.' Enclosure of common land was fought in the courts and in pitched battles in the fields themselves, but of course the rich landowners won. Here the hardship was not in the house itself but in the cottages of neighbouring labourers who depended on the common land for grazing.

During the 19th Century Forty Hall continued to change hands. It was owned by a brother and then a nephew and another son of the Meyer family. Geoffrey Gillam's history of the house says that one of them married 4 times and 'produced' nine children. I fear that means four women had babies in the house, and three of the women died, possibly in childbirth. Is this the curse of the house striking again or just a sign of the times?  I wonder how many babies were conceived, born, and how many people died in this room?

At the end of the 19th century the house was bought for Henry Ferryman Bowles, who immediately began to carry out improvements. Water closets made it no longer necessary for the servants to scurry up and down stairs to empty chamber pots into cesspits. Running water was installed, so the poor housemaids no longer had to carry it from the wells. Candle light was replaced with electricity. 

Henry Bowles was a man of parts: a barrister, an MP, High Sheriff of Middlesex, and he became the County Commandant during WWW1.

Henry had no sons, but it is very likely that he encouraged boys and men from the house and estate to go and fight in the trenches. There are 40 names on the war memorial at Jesus Church, over the road from Forty Hall. This is an extraordinary number of deaths from a small rural parish without even a village. I am still investigating whether they were in a 'pals' regiment and all died together. We can only begin to imagine the grief of their mothers, wives, sweethearts in the house itself and all around the estate of Forty Hall.

 

Henry of-course survived. 

Between the wars, with Henry and his family in residence, it was still a grand house, with a butler, two footmen, a lady's maid, 3 housemaids, a cook, a housekeeper, a kitchen maid and a scullery maid. Outside the house there was a chauffeur, a handyman, two carpenters, a painter, head gardener, several assistant gardeners, a cowman, several farmhands and a gamekeeper. They had a dairy herd, a few sheep, some pigs and chickens.

 

In 1943 Henry Bowles – by then a Baronet – died, and the house was inherited by his grandson. But this is the final chapter in the bad luck of those who owned this house, because his grandson was 'not well enough' to live there. I'm guessing that's an early 20th century euphemism for having poor mental health, or perhaps a condition like epilepsy. 

In 1951 the Bowles family sold it to Enfield Urban District Council for £43,000. Thankfully, it is now thriving, and was beautifully restored with a Heritage Lottery Fund in 2012. 

 

It's fanciful perhaps (I am a novelist and poet!) but seems as though the house, gardens and land are happy to be back in public ownership. The gardens and woods are now open to everyone and the long gallery is alive with music and words to be enjoyed by all. The commons are finally restored to the people.

 

  

Maggie Brookes, author of The Prisoner's Wife and Acts of Love and War and Wishes, new and selected poems.

Refs:

Gillam, Geoffrey (1997). Forty Hall, Enfield, 1629–1997: house, courtyards, walled kitchen garden, pleasure grounds, park & home farm. Enfield: Enfield Archaeological Society. ISBN 0950187720

Forty Hall Estate 2018

Minoan Textiles by Kathryn Gauci

 

 Minoan Textiles

 

For millennia, women in particular sat together, spinning, weaving and sewing, but because textiles are perishable, early textiles are not easy to find. Even when we look back at Egypt, Mesopotamia and Greece, very few ancient literary records are devoted to women, so we have few sources to consult. The Minoans are an exception. 

The Minoans flourished during the Bronze Age (3300-1200 BC) and belong to the group of civilisations archaeologists sometimes refer to as “island cultures”, in that they were protected by sea, or, in the case of Egypt, a desert. Malta and Easter Island also belong to these categories.

Secure in their environment, they were able to develop and prosper. By 2300 BC, the people of Crete had developed textiles into a major art form. Before this, flax had been in use since Paleolithic times, whereas wool as we know it today – woolly sheep as opposed to hairy or kempy ones – was only introduced around 3500 BC. The people of Crete turned the herding of these new woolly sheep into a major part of their economy, and from this, a flourishing textile trade grew.

The first evidence of weaving manufacture in Crete comes from the archaeological site of Myrtos in the South. Clay spindle whorls were found in many rooms as though women were spinning everywhere, just as they have done in rural Greece for centuries.

For most people, spindle whorls don’t look like much at all, but as far as archeologists are concerned, they are a spectacular find. In one room, archeologists also found evidence of shallow clay dishes specifically designed for wetting linen thread as it is being worked. The ancient Egyptians used such bowls as do the Japanese today. They also unearthed clay loom weights, and significantly, these were not scattered throughout the dwellings as were the spindle whorls. For whatever reason, Myrtos burnt down, and charred oak beams were unearthed at the site. Because of the way some were found, it is believed that looms with oak beams were set up on the flat rooftops. The looms were the upright ones with clay weights, as the weaving loom with heddles that most people associate with cloth-weaving would not be in wide use until much later. Having said that, the Egyptians did sometimes use them alongside the upright loom.

They exported their woollen textile goods to the Middle East and other Mediterranean islands, in particular, Egypt. We can see just how much the Minoans developed their textile skills from the tablets unearthed around the palace of Knossos. Almost 2000 of these mentioned textile production. The D-series at Knossos, which documents shepherds and their flocks, contains 984 fragments of tablets and 231 record cloth manufacture, 171 record textile workers and 84 record wool. At Pylos, cloth via taxation is also documented along with flax production. Through this Linear B documentation, we can follow textile crops, the birth of lambs, targets for wool yields per animal, collectors’ work, the assignment of wool to workers, the receipt of finished fabrics, distribution of cloth and the storage in palatial magazines. The records are so detailed, we can deduce how many km a year could be spun, given that a spinner worked 10 hours a day for 300 days a year - 14,025 km yarn/year spun on an 18g spindle whorl. Quite mind-boggling! Minoan Crete was quite literally a super powerhouse when it came to textiles, particularly of wool.    

As Minoan trade flourished, the people developed their dyeing skills. The main colours used were red, blue, yellow and white. Natural plant dyes such as madder will give an orange-red, whereas the red from the Kermes beetle gives an intense crimson. The excavations at Myrtos show that oak was used for timber, strongly suggesting the presence of the Kermes beetle. Yellow was obtained from the saffron lily, which was found on many Aegean islands, particularly the island of Thera (present-day Santorini).

Vat dyes are more complicated to produce than natural dyes. Indigo Blue is one such colour, and it wasn’t widely known for centuries, so it’s likely that the Minoans used woad. Woad was already known to the ancient Egyptians, who used it to dye the cloth wrappings for the mummies, and for years it was assumed to be Indian Indigo. Woad is a flowering plant, and the blue dye is produced from the leaves. Although it is native to the steppe and desert zones of the Caucasus and Central Asia, woad has been cultivated throughout Europe, especially in Western and Southern Europe, since ancient times,

There is also Royal purple obtained from several varieties of seashells such as murex. Excavations on Crete have unearthed many shell heaps. Each little mollusk produces only a single drop of this beautiful dye, so we can only imagine how many were needed to dye a single piece of cloth. Some earthen floors have been found to contain crushed murex shells as aggregate—an example of recycling from about 1500 BC.

The Egyptians mostly wore clothing made of flax, which is harder to dye than wool, so naturally, this was a boom market for the Minoans. We can see from paintings in Egyptian tombs from 2000 BC onwards that the most popular patterns were blue heart-spirals with a red diamond between each pair of double hearts on a white ground. Diagonal spirals with red and blue rosettes were also popular. They must have been beautiful, as these patterns existed long after the decline of the Minoans.

When it comes to dress, we get a glimpse of just how beautiful and decorative Minoan costumes were from ceramics, figurines, the paintings in Egyptian tombs, and the wall paintings of Akrotiri on Thera. These paintings show just how advanced the Minoan civilisation had become. The Palace of Knossos also shows the sophistication of the time, but it is from Akrotiri that we see the finer details.

The predominance of female figures in authoritative and ritualistic roles over male ones seems to indicate that Minoan society was, in all likelihood, matriarchal. Certainly, the fact that the men were often away trading meant that women took care of the home and did agricultural work at the same time, which gave them tremendous power. For centuries, Cretan men wore simple loincloths, sometimes with fancy borders and always fastened with cinch belts, and it was the women who shone as far as costumes went. In fact, they were extremely fashionable and would have been the Parisiennes of their day. From early figurines of women, we see the bell-shaped dress and open-top bodice, also with a cinch belt, but it is generally thought that this is a representation. Two famous Minoan snake goddess figurines from Knossos show bodices that circle their breasts. These striking figures are probably goddesses, priestesses, or devotees, as they are dressed differently from the way normal Cretan women dressed.

From pieces like the Agia Triada Sarcophagus at Knossos, we see that Minoan women normally covered their breasts and priestesses in religious contexts were probably the exception. The fact that women wore such elaborate costumes shows us that women played a very important role in textiles and society in general. While they wove and created them, the men traded them, especially to Egypt. This trade brought back not only physical wealth but ideas, most notably in the way the Minoans started to richly decorate their palaces and villas. These wall paintings show that even the plainest of dresses were striped, while the finest display a mind-boggling array of all-over patterns, including interlocking grids of motifs, fringing, tassels and embroidery, which were obviously advanced. Thick sashes, colourful hair-bands, sculpted aprons, hats, and jewellery add to this astonishing array of beauty.

With the decline of the Minoans, textiles and costume changed, reflecting yet another era in civilisation.  During the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age, women lost their social status, and by the dawn of the Classical Age, were almost second-class citizens. They rarely went out of the house except for religious festivals, and a maidservant did the shopping. With women sequestered, the development of textiles, from a commercial point of view, was taken up by men.

 

Cardinal Beaton: Villain or Statesman? by V.E.H. Masters

 A day out in Edinburgh recently and walking through the Cowgate, I passed this sign.

Few figures in sixteenth-century Scotland aroused stronger opinions than Cardinal David Beaton. To his supporters he was a skilled diplomat and defender of Scotland’s independence and Catholic faith. To his enemies he was a corrupt churchman whose death marked the beginning of the Scottish Reformation.

Born around 1494 into the powerful Beaton family of Fife, David Beaton rose rapidly through the Church and royal administration. Educated at St Andrews University and in France, he became an accomplished diplomat, serving James V before being appointed Cardinal in 1538, making him Scotland’s most influential churchman - and a very wealthy man. The house referred to above was only one amongst many which he owned.

Beaton was also Archbishop of St Andrews and it was as such that we were told about him in primary school – for I grew up in St Andrews, Scotland. His Bishop's palace was St Andrews Castle, the ruins of which were very exciting to visit especially because of its long siege tunnel.

                                           St Andrews Castle

Beaton was a determined opponent of Protestant reform and a staunch defender of Scotland’s alliance with France. These policies brought him into direct conflict with Henry VIII, who had broken with Rome and sought to dominate Scotland through the proposed marriage of his son Edward to the infant Mary, Queen of Scots – both of whom were only small children at the time.

Henry regarded Beaton as one of his greatest obstacles. English agents closely followed the Cardinal’s activities, and the English government viewed him as the chief architect of resistance to English influence in Scotland.

                                                       King Henry VIII

Determined that the marriage would happen, Henry conducted a campaign of raids into Scotland known as the Rough Wooing. He also had a number of Scottish supporters, referred to as his 'pensioners' who he paid for their backing.

Cardinal Beaton, as he moved around his domain, was aware of how vulnerable he was. Here's an exert from my novel, The Castilians which explains more fully.

Out Bethia goes into the twilight in time to see Cardinal Beaton’s entourage returning to St Andrews. He’s not there, no doubt ridden ahead with his guard of soldiers tight about him, the townsfolk made to line the streets and bow as he passes. The baggage train, although well guarded, will travel too slow for his safety. She’d heard it was recently attacked but, not finding the Cardinal, the ruffians indulged in a spot of thievery, stealing a chest full of gold coin.

A small crowd is still there. They’ve seen it many times, for the Cardinal never travels lightly, but the wonder of the long line of carts carrying food, fine wine, bedding, clothing, silver plates, fuel, a hundred servants both French and Scots, and the final crowning glory, his four- poster bed perched upon a broad cart, never fails to entertain – although she can hear angry muttering too. She turns to leave, after the passing of the bed, and finds the lanky figure of her brother behind her, his face dark with anger.

‘You know it is his fault.’

‘What is?’ she says, wearily. She’s cold, and in no mood to stand listening to another of Will’s rants, as well as fearful someone might overhear him.

‘Come, let me show you.’

He turns and marches for home and she trails behind. Waving her to wait, he disappears up the spiral to the attics. She stands warming herself, her back to the fire, longing for the unseasonably wintry May to pass. She can hear Will rummaging in the room above, boards creaking, and then he’s thundering back down the stairs, bursting into the room waving a paper.

He kicks the door shut, flapping it in front of her face. 

It’s a notice. She can see the hole where it was once pinned to a church door or a tree, or, most likely, a Mercat cross. She tilts it, trying to read in the firelight.

‘You may thank your Cardinal for this...’ it begins.

She looks at Will questioningly.

‘When Henry Tudor’s troops sacked Haddington and all the other towns, and even burnt the kirk at St Monans, over the past two years, they left a notice each time with these words,’ he explains.

She feels the fear, like a punch to her belly. ‘And how is it that the King of England invades our country and it becomes the fault of our Cardinal, who has been the great defender of Scotland? Take care, Will, this is anglophile talk, and treason forby.’

‘It was us who broke the treaty promising our infant queen in matrimony to King Henry’s son,’ he mumbles, looking down at his feet.

‘It is a too rough wooing of our wee Queen Mary,’ she says angrily.

‘Why can’t you understand Bethia – we must have reform of the church, and Cardinal Beaton blocks it. And he’s all about supporting French interests, for they align with his own.’

She reaches up and touches his face. ‘Will, please don’t listen to those lairds. Father says they are not good men.’

He knocks her hand away and leaves the room, slamming the heavy door behind him. 

Cardinal Beaton is most widely remembered for ordering the execution of the reformer George Wishart for heresy.  Wishart was burned outside the walls of St Andrews Castle in March 1546. According to some accounts, Beaton watched the execution from a castle window, wrapped against the cold. Yet he did order that Wishart, once he was tied at the stake, be draped in gunpowder so when the fire caught it would explode and Wishart's torment would be over swiftly.

                                                      George Wishart

One of the reasons Beaton had Wishart killed was Wishart's advocacy, amongst other ecclesiastical reforms, for the right of clergy to marry. The Cardinal staunchly defended the principle of clerical celibacy and yet had a long term relationship with Marion Ogilvy with whom he had eight children.

Increasingly fearful for his life, Cardinal Beaton ordered the strengthening of St Andrew's Castle defences. In late May 1546, barely three months after Wishart's death, a group of Protestant lairds, taking advantage of the work being carried out, disguised themselves as stone masons and entered the castle in the early morning. 

Taken unawares, Beaton was stabbed to death in his chamber and his naked body hung from the ramparts so that all would know that these men were now in control. They called themselves The Castilians, as in holders of the castle – hence the title of my book.

                                            Geddy Map of St Andrews, 1580

In school, we were always told the men who took the castle were the good guys because they were the Protestants. But many were in the pay of Henry VIII and they ran amok in St Andrews during the fourteen months in which they held the castle.

These dramatic events form the backdrop to my novel The Castilians, which follows ordinary men and women of St Andrews caught up in the chain of events that led to Beaton's assassination and the long siege which followed. 

To Protestant reformers, Beaton was a symbol of corruption and tyranny. Modern historians tend to see a more complex figure: an able diplomat, a determined statesman, a flawed churchman and a man attempting to preserve a political and religious order that was already beginning to collapse.

Nearly five centuries after his death, Cardinal Beaton remains one of the most fascinating and controversial figures of the Scottish Reformation.

References:

Sanderson, Margaret H. B, Cardinal of Scotland: David Beaton c.1494–1546.

Dawson, Jane E. A., Scotland Re-Formed, 1488–1587

Donaldson, Gordon, The Scottish Reformation

Knox, John, History of the Reformation in Scotland.

Author Bio

V.E.H. Masters is the best selling author of the award winning Seton Chronicles, which follows a Scottish family caught up in the religious and political upheavals of sixteenth century Europe. She grew up on a farm near St Andrews and drew on her own experience of farming life when writing her most recent, and contemporary, novel Keeping Distance. She lives in the Scottish Borders with her husband and two cats.

For three free short stories which tell more of the Seton Family visit www.vehmasters.com and pick up your copies of A Bonny Lass, Sounds of Silence and A Long Wait.