'Never to see the like again in this world' - Pepys and the Coronation

by Deborah Swift

I've spent the last three years writing a trilogy about three different women that feature in Pepys' Diary. Now that rather epic journey has come to an end, and I'm leaving Pepys' Diary behind for research in pastures new.

Someone asked me which was my favourite episode in the diary, and the one that stands out for me is the Coronation of Charles II.

'it is impossible to relate the glory of this day'

So says Pepys, never one to be lost for words, and his fly-on-the-wall response to this massive overturning of national events fascinates me. The re-establishment of Charles II as a constitutional monarch changed the country from what amounted to a republic, back to a monarchy-led state with many immediate and long term effects. In these days of entrenched views on Brexit, we can see that populations can, and do, change their minds.

Pepys, who was initially brought up with Puritan leanings, was so taken up by the return of the exiled prince that he couldn't wait to be part of this sudden turn-around and even went over to the Hague to greet the prince and the fleet.

There were a few awkwardnesses though - in the transition from Cromwell's Parliament to the restitution of the monarchy, the old order had to be repealed and the new reinforced. Thus the ships in the fleet that had been named after Parliament victories, such as The Naseby had to be rapidly re-named The Royall Charles.

Whilst journeying back from the Hague, Pepys is treated to the prince's own version of his escape from Worcester. Many of our pubs retain the names 'The Royal Oak' (commemorating his escape from Worcester), and 'The King's Head',  from this era where the celebration of the monarchy was at its height. Pepys's later relationship with the King must have been cemented by the fact he made this extra effort to meet and greet him on his return.

On the day of the Coronation Parade, Pepys is up at the crack of dawn and putting on his new coat for the occasion -

Up early and made myself as fine as I could, and put on my velvet coat, the first day that I put it on, though made half a year ago.

 It seemed no expense had been spared for the procession through London,

The streets all gravelled, and the houses hung with carpets before them...
So glorious was the show with gold and silver, that we were not able to look at it, our eyes at last being so much overcome with it.

The Coronation Cavalcade passed through four specially constructed arches (see picture at the bottom of the post). The designs can be seen here and include titles for the arches like ' Garden of Plenty', 'Temple of Concord' and ''Return of the Monarchy'. That must have been a rush for the masons responsible!

Pepys got up at 4am the next day for the actual Coronation, and found himself a good view from a scaffold at the north end of Westminster Abbey. He had to wait until 11am to see Charles arrive.

And a great pleasure it was to see the Abbey raised in the middle, all covered with red, and a throne (that is a chair) and footstool on the top of it; and all the officers of all kinds, so much as the very fidlers, in red vests.

Unfortunately the crucial moment was lost to Pepys,

the King passed through all the ceremonies of the Coronacon, which to my great grief I and most in the Abbey could not see. The crown being put upon his head, a great shout begun, and he came forth to the throne

Afterwards silver commemorative medals were thrown to the congregation, but Pepys was unable to catch one. Pepys then has to go out to take a pee, but resumes his description of the outside of the Abbey, in which he says he saw '10,000 people, with the ground covered with blue cloth; and scaffolds all the way.' In a city of 40,000, that is a pretty good turn-out.

At one point in the feast afterwards, the King's Champion is brought out, 'all in armour on horseback, with his spear and targett carried before him' and a proclamation made:

And a Herald proclaims “That if any dare deny Charles Stewart to be lawful King of England, here was a Champion that would fight with him;” and with these words, the Champion flings down his gauntlet, and all this he do three times in his going up towards the King’s table.

Charles must have had quite a jittery moment then as he waited with baited breath to see if there would be any objection to him becoming King. But nobody objected, and no doubt the King's Champion was somewhat relieved also.

Once the day's events were over, ' it fell a-raining and thundering and lightening as I have not seen it do for some years' and Pepys tells us that the people set great store by this as an omen from above, though he himself dismisses the idea as 'a foolery to take too much notice of such things.'

Without Pepys's vibrant description, so much detail would have been lost to us. A picture doesn't give you the reaction of the people, and this is what is so appealing about Pepys's descriptions and opinions.

By the evening bonfires are burning all over the city to bathe it in an orange glow, and Pepys is dead drunk, so much so that he says, 'if ever I was foxed it was now, which I cannot say yet, because I fell asleep and slept till morning. Only when I waked I found myself wet with my spewing. Thus did the day end with joy every where.'

You can find the diary entry here: https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1661/04/

All pictures from Wikipedia unless linked.

Find my books www.deborahswift.com

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George Ravenscroft - 17th Century Pioneer in Glass

by Deborah Swift

I love the fact that writing historical fiction takes me up all sorts of byways. Whilst researching for my new book set in the mid 17th Century, I wondered what sort of glasses they might have drunk from, and whether by then, it would still be pewter or horn. When did glass make an appearance for the everyday person? Not early enough for my book apparently, for though glass for windows and chunky simple cups had been made in England since the 13th Century, the impurities in the glass made it brittle and unsuitable for fine tableware. Fine glass was imported, usually from Venice. But in the later 17th Century a new method was developed by George Ravenscroft - a method that would mean England could produce its own glass to rival that of the Italians.

Anglo-Venetian glass with Dutch engraving - National Gallery of Victoria

George Ravenscroft was a trader in goods such as currants, glass, and lace. During the years he was trading, and before he arrived in London in 1666, he lived in Venice. Being involved in the glass trade, he was able to observe the method used by glassmakers in Italy, but soon came up with his own version of glass manufacture, using a mixture which was produced with a high lead content. Experiments he made between 1674 and 1676 gave a brilliant transparent and hard-wearing heavy glass which we now know as 'lead crystal.'

Secret Formula

The circumstances surrounding Ravenscroft’s role in the invention of lead crystal are not very clear. 17th Century records of the manufacturing process are incomplete, but moreover, Ravenscroft was rather secretive about his ingredients and processes. He was wary, as one might expect, of competitors copying him.

It is thought he had assistance from Sir Robert Plot FRS, who had the idea of using flints from Oxfordshire river beds. In Murano, Italy, where the best glass of the era came from, very expensive white flints from the River Po were used. Historians cannot agree on how Ravenscroft was inspired to use lead in the production of glass. Was it an accident, or had he pinched the idea of adding lead oxides to the glass from the glassmakers of Venice? To add to the confusion, an Italian book about glass making - L'Arte Vetraria, written by Antonio Neri in 1612, was translated into English by Christopher Merrett in 1662. Here's a quotation from the book describing lead glass when molten:

"This sort of glass, lead glass, is so runny that were it not cooled, and taken up by turning to wind a gather, it would be impossible to work. It is so runny that it would not even hold onto the punty, because it is as loose as soup. This arises out of the lead calx causes it to become very fluid."

Crizzling

Adding lead oxide to the glass made it less viscous than ordinary glass when heated. Because of this, it could be worked for longer without re-heating. The early glass Ravenscroft made was subject to developing a crackled surface known as crizzling, (what a lovely word!) caused by too much potash in the mix. But by1676 Ravenscroft had improved the glass, making lead glass, which contained a higher quantity of lead oxide, thus preventing crizzling. Lead glass has a higher refraction that previous English glass, making it sparkle, and ring like a bell if you gently strike the edge.

A well-crizzled decanter from the V&A 

Unique Glass Patent
Ravenscroft was granted a patent from King Charles II in 1674 to be the sole manufacturer of lead crystal in England. His prices were one shilling for a claret glass, rising to one shilling and eight pence for the heavier beer glass. Ale at this time was a strong drink that required a bowl of four fluid ounces, whereas a wine glass held only two. Because of Ravenscroft's invention, the prices of glasses dropped steeply until by the end of the century it was six shillings a dozen.

A George Ravenscroft glass, also in the V&A

Ravenscroft's was a short but glittering career that lasted only five years,as he closed his manufacturing business in Henley-on-Thames in 1679. The following year he joined the Vauxhall glassworks, working with the company until his death in 1683. By the late seventeenth century, the trade in Venetian glass was in serious decline, whilst in England there was a boom in glass manufacture. The English couldn't get enough of this light, clear glass and it was produced in ever-growing quantities to meet burgeoning demand at home and abroad.

Read more about it from Glass Historian David C Watts

Sources:
English Drinking Glasses - L M Bickerton
History of Glass - Dan Klein and Ward Lloyd

Find my books at www.deborahswift.com
Follow me on Twitter @swiftstory
Latest book A Plague on Mr Pepys

Researching with Seventeenth Century Diaries

by Deborah Swift

One good thing about the internet is that I have access to many documents online, that previously were only available to me through archives. The most valuable sources for me are diaries, in which I get a first-hand account of seventeenth century life. I have linked all the diarists in this post to their online diaries.

Etching by Robert Spence

The first diary I used was that of the Quaker, George Fox, because he appears in my first novel, and like many diaries of the time his diary was written because of a religious impulse, in which he was documenting his relationship with God. The original journal was revised before it was published and I found both editions interesting to compare.

Fox's journal was first officially published in 1694, by which time it had been substantially edited, and cleaned up. Parts of the journal were not in fact by Fox at all but were re-constructed by his editors keen to spread a message of clean and godly living. References to meetings in taverns, and the dissent within the Quaker movement have been expunged from the narrative. The diary portrays Fox as rather more saintly than he probably was, and always vindicated by God's providence. This is the problem with diaries published later (particularly by Victorians) - the temptation is always to clean them up, thus losing value for researchers like me. Only recently have we been able to read the 'naughty bits' in Pepys' Diary.

Many diarists of the seventeenth century were religious men. Though the diary of Roger Lowe is very much the diary of the common man, it still shows his refusal to conform to the re-established church. It gives us insights into a seventeenth century mercer's apprentice living in a Lancashire village. In his entries we discover that literacy was unusual in his community, and somewhat prized, because he sometimes offered to write letters for his neighbours. In October 1663 his friend John Hasleden told him;

"that he loved a wench in Ireland, and so the day after I writ a love-letter for him into Ireland". 

Can't help wondering exactly what he put! His diaries reflect the concerns of a working class man, not a member of the aristorcacy, and as such are especially valuable:

"Friday. dyed Alexander Potter 3d son to Cozen John Potter de Lilly Lane who in his life time was nevr supposd to have any genius a meer child yet now att his death called father & mother & prayd forgivenes of his faults in cheating them of a half peny and wished them to live in peace & that his sister Ellin would leave off swearinge & so dyed & without question is now att rest." (25th June 1675)

The diary of Roger Lowe of Ashton in Makerfield is preserved in the Leyland Free Library and Museum, in Hindley, Lancashire. Here is a link to pictures and more extracts.

 

Samuel Pepys began his diary in 1660 and continued to write it for ten years. His diary is arguably the best-known resource we have on London in the 17th century. It provides us with a fly-on-the-wall account of daily life in the period just following the Restoration of King Charles II, and includes passages on The Plague and The Great Fire. Here's a bit from the Coronation of Charles II, in which he confesses that in the middle of the proceedings he has to answer a call of nature. This is the joy of Pepys; the personal and the political are intertwined.

"The King in his robes, bare headed, which was very fine. And after all had placed themselfs - there was a sermon and the service. And then in the Quire at the high altar he passed all the ceremonies of the Coronacion - which, to my very great grief, I and most of the Abbey could not see. The crowne being put upon his head, a great shout begun. And he came forth to the Throne and there passed more ceremonies: as, taking the oath and having things read to him by the Bishopp, and his lords (who put on their capps as soon as the King put on his Crowne) and Bishopps came and kneeled before him.....But I had so great a list to pisse, that I went out a little while before the King had done all his ceremonies and went round the abby to Westminster-hall, all the way within rayles, and 10000 people, with the ground coverd with blue cloth - and Scaffolds all the way. Into the hall I got - where it was very fine with hangings and scaffolds, one upon another, full of brave ladies. And my wife in one little one on the right hand."

An awareness of the importance of national events also seems to have encouraged Roger Morrice, who began to keep an 'entring book' in 1678 after the Popish Plot which aimed to re-establish the Catholic Church by assassinating Charles II. The Popish Plot was a fictitious conspiracy concocted by Titus Oates that between 1678 and 1681 created massive anti-Catholic hysteria. Like Pepys' Diary, Morrice's diary  was written in shorthand, and so was only translated this century, and runs to more than a million words. (See this article )His diary begins in 1677 and ends in 1691, and so covers the reigns of Charles II, James II, and William and Mary.

Morrice was a clergyman who had been expelled from his parish after Charles II returned from exile. He shows us many incidences of political or religious unrest, like this example from 1666 showing the persecution of the Quakers:

"Upon Lords day the 17th October at Leicester, the Quakers mett together. There are some Soldiers quartred in the Town, and a Black that is Kettle Drummer to one Company went into the Quakers Meeting, and did as they did, sign, groan, and sing, &c. A little after came in a Captain and three or foure Soldiers, who brought ale and Tobacco pipes with them and sate down and smoked and drunk. The Captain drank the King’s health to a Quaker; the Quaker answered I thirst not; the Captain said it thou drinkest not my Master’s health, I will Cuckold they wife before they eyes. With that, the Captain and Souldiers rose up, and drew their Swords, Shut the doores, and used and abused the women much. Some of the young Girles are so affrighted their recovery is questioned." 

Morrice had a friend who was a Privy councillor and so was able to comment on the death of Charles II, a report that is somewhat controversial and indicates a return to Catholicism.

"On Thursday night a priest came up the back way. It was believed by all that he confessed the king, gave him extreme unction and that His Majesty died a papist."

Death of Charles II

But what of the women of this period? I can recommend the diary of Anne Clifford, a stubborn and independent woman who travelled great distances in her attempt to regain her stolen inheritance - which included Skipton Castle in Yorkshire along with Pendragon Castle, Brough Castle, Appleby Castle and Brougham Castle, all in Westmorland. Her relationship with her husband was strained, but her love for her estates never wavered:

'Upon the 5th my Lord went up to my closet and saw how little money I had left, contrary to all that they had told him. Sometimes I had fair words from him and sometimes foul but I took all patiently and did strive to give him as much content and assurance of my love as I could possibly. Yet I always told him that I would never part with Westmoreland upon any condition whatsoever.'

Though not strictly a diary, though written in her lifetime, a source I really enjoyed reading was the memoir of Anne Fanshawe, a Royalist during the English Civil War. As was common in that period, she gave birth to 14 live children and had six miscarriages. When her husband was taken prisoner at the Battle of Worcester she stood outside his window in the middle of the night in the rain to talk to him.  She also wrote a book of cookery and her recipe for ice cream is thought to be the earliest recorded in Europe.

Anne Fanshawe's Recipe for ice cream

Here is a passage from her memoirs about the arrival of the King:

"We had by the States' order sent on board to the King's most eminent servants, great store of provisions: for our family we had sent on board the Speedwell a tierce of claret, a hogshead of Rhenish wine, six dozen of fowls, a dozen of gammons of bacon, a great basket of bread, and six sheep, two dozen of neats' tongues, and a great box of sweetmeats. Thus taking our leaves of those obliging persons we had conversed with in the Hague, we went on board upon the 23rd of May, about two o'clock in the afternoon. The King embarked at four of the clock, upon which we set sail, the shore being covered with people, and shouts from all places of a good voyage, which was seconded with many volleys of shot interchanged: so favourable was the wind, that the ships' wherries went from ship to ship to visit their friends all night long."

Anne Fanshawe

Other diarists worth considering from this period are John Evelyn, Ralph Josselin and Robert Hooke. For women, try Celia Fiennes the great traveller, or Lucy Hutchinson's account of the English Civil War. I hope you have enjoyed my small foray into the many seventeenth century diaries available to us, and I hope it fuels more research! My novels featuring the hidden lives of the women in Pepys' Diary are available now from Accent Press.

Do nudge me on twitter @swiftstory to chat, or find me on my website.
All pictures are from Wikipedia, unless linked.

Sugar and Spice and all things nice - the 17th Century Diet

by Deborah Swift

The concept of dieting would have been alien to our 17th Century forbears. In those days, the plumper you were, the better. Plumpness indicated wealth and class, and women aspired to be plump and white, rather than thin and tanned as is the fashion now. The 17th Century was when sugar became a major component of most people’s diet.

Still Life with Bread and Sweetmeats - Georg Flegel 

The Nouveau Riche 
The dissolution of the monasteries in the 1530s had led to new land ownership, and consequently to a new class of non-aristocratic landowners and despite the English Civil War, (or even because of it) this new class of landowners and rich merchants was here to stay. With political stability and the restoration of the King, came an increased desire for luxury goods and London soon became the richest supplier of foodstuffs in the country. Charles II's marriage to the Portuguese princess Catherine of Braganza in 1662, coupled with his long exile in France led foreign food to become all the rage, especially French food.

The ‘Kickshaws’ of French Cuisine 
French cuisine soon piqued the English palate, as their recipes included strong tastes such as anchovies, capers and wine. At this time the culinary words coulis, roux, ragouts and fricassé were introduced, and fancy French dishes were nicknamed kickshaws, after 'quelquechose', the French word for 'something'.

‘Service à la Française’ became the norm instead of the old medieval buffet style meal, with sets of cutlery laid out besides a personal plate and glass. Samuel Pepys was impressed to learn that his colleague the Earl of Sandwich was to employ a French chef, writing in his diary that the Earl had 'become a perfect courtier'.

Feasting in Charles’ court was renowned for excess. Once he had four huge pigs, dressed like a horse and cart, with sausages as reins and pulling a huge rag pudding like a coach behind it. When he had guests, Pepys too had meals of gigantic proportions;

'my dinner was great, and most neatly dressed by our own only maid. We had a fricasee of rabbits and chickens, a leg of mutton boiled, three carps in a dish, a great dish of a side of lamb, a dish of roasted pigeons, a dish of four lobsters, three tarts, a lamprey pie (a most rare pie), a dish of anchovies, good wine of several sorts, and all things mighty noble and to my great content.' Pepys Diary 1663

The East India company increased the cheapness of oriental goods such as sugar, spices and dried fruit. Of couse much of this bounty was based upon slave labour, but the human cost of sugar's production did not penetrate the consciousness of most Londoners.

The pages of 17th Century drama are full of references to sweet food, Dekker talks of ‘biskets’ 'carowayes' and 'marmilade', 'sugar-plums', 'pippin pies' and gingerbread, or of ‘sucking pigs – a fortnight fed with dates, and muskadine’. In the picture right at the top of this post you can see many sugar-coated objects. Two are obviously pears, but the others could be an onion ring, or...well, what? Often the sugar coating was on actual meat, and obviously judging by the picture, the sugar coating was quite thick!

There was also a fashion, as witnessed in Mary Fairfax’s diary for sugared flowers; she used violettes, marigiolds and roses, and even clover blossom in her puddings.  Below is a recipe for sugared roses.

Recipe and Revolution
This was the great age of 'Receipt' or Recipe books. Following the fall of the monarchy, many house chefs from the landed gentry were redundant or had lost their livelihood, and this is probably why so many new cookery books were published at this time. Literacy amongst women was lower than amongst men, so most 17th century cookery books were written by men, although the recipes themselves were often from the women of the house.

The publication of one of the first cookery manuals, Le Cuisinier François by François Pierre de la Varenne in 1651 caused a culinary revolution in France. La Varenne refines existing recipes, and suggests ways in which menus could be balanced, paving the way for a much more considered way of dining.

The first course consisted of  bowls of soups or stews, accompanied by prepared meats, the second of roast meats with salads and vegetables. Thanks to the French influence, the English realised that it was perfectly safe to consume vegetables raw, and began to enjoy 'salats' with their meals.

Tomás Hiepes - Sugared Fruits And Pastries 1640

The dessert (from desservir, French for ‘clear the table’), was often sugared fruit, and accompanied by 'sweet' entertainment such as music or dancing. Dessert often took place outdoors and in rich french households this course was laid out as a garden, complete with small buildings or statues in sugar-work. The idea spread to the English nobility with 'marchpane' (marzipan) sculptures. The towering sugared fruit was stacked as layers on dishes called 'pourcelaines', ornamental dishes on stands. With it, you would sip sweet, spiced wine, called hippocras.

Of course the poor never had such fare. Sheep’s trotters, sweetmeats; every bit of the slaughtered animal was used, and the cheapest unsavoury parts such as cow’s stomach – tripe – and the extremities like ears and tails, were the diet of the poor.

But for the well-to-do, the importance and status of costly food was such, that while the Great Fire of London grew ever closer, Pepys was desperate to save his bottles of wine and his parmesan cheese from the approaching inferno by burying them in his garden.

I am currently enjoying dining with Pepys in research for my trilogy of books based around the women in Pepys's Diary. A Plague on Mr Pepys will be out on 5th July from Accent Press.

Bibliography - 
The English at Table - John Hampson
Food in England -Dorothy Hartley
More about 17th Century Food from Food Historian Ivan Day

Find out more about my books at www.deborahswift.com

Destruction and Restitution - The Crown Jewels

‘I go from a corruptible to an incorruptible crown…’ 

Charles I before his execution in 1649.

Anyone visiting the Tower Of London to see the magnificent display of the Crown Jewels of England would never believe that they were once broken up and melted down. Yet after the execution of Charles I, they were destroyed because nobody thought there would ever be a monarchy again; that England would from now on be under the control of Cromwell's Protectorate.

Less than a week after the King's execution in 1649, the Rump Parliament voted to abolish the monarchy. The crown jewels were "symbolic of the detestable rule of kings"and "monuments of superstition and idolatry", so the vote was taken to sell them off. It was also a precaution against future rebellions or any future uprising of 'royalty.'

The most valuable object of them all to be lost was Henry VIII's Crown, worth then £1,100. Only two crowns survived - the crown of Margaret of York and the Crown of Princess Blanche, because they were used by the women for their weddings in Europe and had thus been taken out of England before the Civil War. Looking at the picture below, we can only imagine what it must have felt like to lay hands on such treasure.

The Crown of Princess Blanche

The Knave of Diamonds

The task of disposing of it all fell to Sir Henry Mildmay. Clarendon calls him  a "great flatterer of all persons in authority, and a spy in all places for them", which is hardly a recommendation! I have an interest in him because he was knighted at Kendal in Westmorland, which is my nearest town, and I'm always interested in history from my locality. 

By all accounts Mildmay was intent upon the good life and was made Master of the King's Jewels in 1620 before the Civil War. Not only was this prestigious, but ensured him a seat on the Privy Council, and servants, carriages and good accommodation whenever he travelled. This position also proved to be very convenient when he later abandoned his Royalist ideology and sided with Parliament in the English Civil War.

Mildmay was a judge at the King's Trial, although he did not sign the actual death warrant, so was not officially a 'regicide.' On the 9th August 1649 he was ordered to destroy the Coronation Regalia, break up the jewels and melt down the gold. This act was very unpopular with the general public, leading the Earl of Pembroke to call him the 'Knave of Diamonds'. The coronation and state regalia were melted down, the gemstones removed, and the gold was re-used to make hundreds of coins and keep the fledgeling Protectorate economy afloat.

Restitution
After Cromwell's death, and the Restoration of Charles II as King, new jewels were needed for the coronation, and keen to preserve tradition, they were based on old records of the ones that were lost. These were re-fabricated by the Royal Goldsmith, Sir Robert Vyner, at a cost of £12,184 7s 2d – an ernormous sum, as much as the cost of building and furnishing three warships. Vyner outsourced the work, which had to be done in haste, to a number of craftsmen, most of whom remain unidentified. Charles II was short of money though, and Vyner had to petition him frequently to pay up. By 1673 Vyner pleaded that he was close to bankruptcy. Despite this, the new reproductions of the medieval originals made in 1660 and 1661, form the nucleus of the Crown Jewels today.

Picture from the Daily Mail

They include St Edward's Crown, with which the current Queen was crowned (see this article about how she was re-united with it after 65 years of reign) two sceptres, an orb, and other regalia. A few medieval objects such as a silver-gilt anointing spoon were returned to the Crown by loyal subjects.

Public Humiliation
On 1 July 1661 Henry Mildmay was brought to the bar of the House of Commons, and after he had been made to confess his guilt of his presence at Charles I's trial, and the subsequent destruction of the Royal Regalia, he was stripped of his honours and titles and consigned to the Tower for life. In a weird addendum to this, there was the further proviso; that every year, on the anniversary of the king's sentence (27th January), he was to be dragged on a sledge through the streets and under the gallows at Tyburn, with a noose round his neck, as a public humiliation, before being dragged back to the Tower.

In a petition he sent to the House of Lords, he alleged that he was present at the trial only to seek some opportunity of saving the king's life.

If you believe that, you'll believe anything!

In March 1664 a warrant was issued for Mildmay's transportation to Tangier, which is where he died.

Sources:
Regalia, Robbers and Royal Corpses - Geoffrey Abbott
Dictionary of National Biography
https://www.hrp.org.uk/tower-of-london/history-and-stories/the-crown-jewels/
Stuart England - Blair Worden

Find Deborah's books here or chat with her on Twitter @swiftstory

Linda Porter discusses ROYAL RENEGADES with Elizabeth Fremantle

Acclaimed historical biographer, Linda Porter, has turned to the children of Charles I and the English Civil Wars for her latest book. 

An ambitious project with daunting scope Royal Renegades shines a light on a royal family swept away by political forces ultimately beyond their control. The combination of Porter's impeccable research, sharp sense of irony and fluent writing style transforms a period of history renowned for its dryness and impenetrability. The political and martial narrative is cast in a new light when set against the intimacy of the family story, which takes us out into parallel events in France and the Netherlands, allowing us to understand  the wider European impact of the conflict.

Both fascinating and, at times, deeply poignant, Royal Renegades will have you in its thrall until the final page.

Interview with the author:

EF: As with your previous book Crown of Thistles, the scope of Royal Renegades is vast, covering not only the period running up to the English Civil Wars, the wars themselves and the protectorate that followed, but also parallel events in both France and the Netherlands. Do you enjoy the challenge of depicting the ‘big picture’?

LP: Yes, I do. I think it is important to convey the wider backdrop of the story. Events in Europe had a significant impact on the lives of the Stuart royal children, especially after their father’s execution. It is also important to remember that their mother was French – their Bourbon inheritance is often overlooked. I also wanted to convey something of the complexity of the period, both within Charles I’s three kingdoms of England, Ireland and Scotland, and beyond. It is a wonderful period to write about, perhaps the richest in our history. I would have liked to write more about the eleven years of the English republic but it was beyond the scope of this book. However, I felt it necessary to include a chapter on the background to the restoration of Charles II because I had never really understood what happened in England after the death of Oliver Cromwell. I now feel that I do and hopefully readers of my book will as well.

EF: With your focus on the Royal children you manage to make the political highly personal and very poignant. What inspired you to approach this period of history in such a way?

LP: I think because it is very much an untold story. Most people I have spoken to about the book are unaware of the fact that Charles I had six children living at the time of his death, and know nothing about their fates, beyond the fact that Charles II was restored in 1660. It is also a story that mirrors that of many families during the Civil Wars – of dislocation and loss, of a world turned upside down. I don’t think even I had realized quite how sad it was before I began to work on it.

EF: I have the impression that you didn’t warm to Queen Henrietta. I wonder if you could explain why this is and whether you developed particular favourites from your cast of characters.

LP: You are right, I don’t care much for Henrietta Maria. This may be a little harsh. She has had a bad press – then and subsequently – but she is not an easy woman to like, though her husband came to adore her after a very rocky start to their marriage. In portraits of her in her twenties you can see something of the youthful charm that won him over. But she had no political sense at all, was always, at heart, contemptuous of the English and she was a very difficult mother. Her treatment of Prince Henry, her youngest son, was utterly deplorable. She was, however, a loyal wife and her many years in exile were stoically born.

EF: The Civil Wars are notorious for their complexity, yet you have managed to write about them in a way that is so clear. What were the particular challenges of achieving this?

LP: The main challenge was to digest a great mass of material without getting sucked into years of research. When I first had the idea for ‘Royal Renegades’ I thought it would be an easier topic than my previous book, ‘Crown of Thistles’, which was on the rivalry between the Tudors and the Stewarts in the previous century. After all, a book about six royal children should be relatively straightforward, or so I thought. This was naïve, to say the least. Nothing about the Civil Wars is straightforward. And I had not worked on the 17th century since I was an undergraduate, when I did my long essay (a seemingly quaint term these days for something that was actually not really the same as an undergraduate dissertation) on the Civil Wars. Scholarship on the period has changed beyond recognition in the years since then, and I like to reflect the latest scholarship in my books. I think it is something I owe to the reader.

EF: I have the sense that people are turning from the Tudors to the Stuarts. As someone who has written acclaimed works about Tudor figures would you agree with this and why do you think it is the case?

photo: Russell Harper

LP: Yes, I think there is a change. I certainly hope so. Charles Spencer has written about Prince Rupert and about the regicides to great effect. Anna Keay’s biography of the duke of Monmouth, Charles II’s illegitimate son, has led the way on reviving interest in the 17th century among women writers. It has previously been very much a male preserve. Leanda de Lisle, Anna Whitelock and Jessie Childs are also moving away from the Tudors. I think that we have just about reached saturation point with Tudormania though it may take a while before the media and even the general public catch on to this. The effect of Tudormania has been to give a very Anglocentric view of our history but the truth of the matter is that England was not a major player on the international stage in Tudor times and the compulsive fascination of Henry VIII and his six wives has skewed our understanding of our past. Having said that, I’ve just been working as historical consultant on Lucy Worsley’s upcoming BBC I series on Henry and his wives and it has quite a novel approach to the topic, which is what you would expect from Lucy, and I’m very much looking forward to seeing the end product.

EF: What’s next for you as a writer?

LP: I’m starting work on a companion volume to ‘Royal Renegades’ with the working title of ‘Godly People: the family and friends of Oliver Cromwell.’ And you haven’t asked, but, yes, I am at heart, a supporter of the other side. This is my chance to give them their due.

Royal Renegades will be published on 6th October by Macmillan and is available for pre-order.
You can read an extract from the book here.

Elizabeth Fremantle's latest novel The Girl in the Glass Tower is out now.

THE KING'S EVIL, by Y S Lee

Hello, HG readers. I’ve been reading Liza Picard’s juicy social history of Restoration London. It is GRIPPING! Until now, I had only a hazy overview of the period, acquired during an undergraduate course on Restoration and Eighteenth Century literature. I loved the course but apart from a few gossipy snippets about Aphra Behn and the Earl of Rochester, I’d shed most of the details.

So when I ran across the phrase “the King’s Evil” in Picard’s book, I tripped over it. The what? “The King’s Evil” is another name for scrofula, a swelling of the lymph nodes in the neck. It’s often associated with tuberculosis. Apparently, the swelling itself is not painful but it is disfiguring and is further associated with fever, chills, and weight loss. 

image via wikipedia

That’s interesting enough, but what has it to do with the king? Apparently, in both France and England, monarchs held ceremonies in which they laid healing hands on those suffering from scrofula. This was called “the royal touch”. It was both a demonstration of their paternal care for the people and an affirmation of their divine right to rule. The ceremonies included prayer and sometimes the gift of a gold coin or ribbon to the sufferer, a talisman of the king’s power.

Here’s an image of Charles II, England’s most enthusiastic practitioner of the royal touch. (This makes perfect sense: Charles II had a lot to prove, as a freshly restored king.) According to Picard, he held weekly ceremonies, kept up the practice when he travelled outside London, and touched about 4500 petitioners in each year of his reign!

Charles II, administering the royal touch

The last English monarch to practise the royal touch was Queen Anne. Her most famous “patient” was the young Samuel Johnson, who contracted scrofula as an infant. His family took him to St James’s Palace in March 1712, when he was two years old. Queen Anne took her healing duty seriously, usually fasting the day before the ceremony. 

Queen Anne, "healing" a subject. Edited: as Leslie Wilson observes in the comments, this can't possibly be Anne unless she's wearing fancy dress. It's Mary I. Apologies!

Predictably (to us), Queen Anne’s touched failed to cure Johnson. He later endured surgery that left him with permanent scars on his face and body.

To our minds, it might seem strange that so many people clamoured for the royal touch. There is a medical reason: scrofula is rarely fatal and often goes into remission on its own. If one’s remission coincides with the king’s touch, one has anecdotal proof that the royal hands can heal. If it doesn’t, one can always try the king again.

Beyond this, I’m fascinated by the royal touch because it’s a vivid reminder of how slowly popular beliefs change. By 1660, we’re well out of the Medieval era. Literary scholars would say that the “Early Modern” period is past, leaving us (presumably) in the modern world. Yet many traces of the Renaissance belief in magic remain. It’s a time when confusing things can be explained by mystery and miracle. The English people believe in astrology, witchcraft, divination – and the healing touch of a divinely appointed king.

Charles II by Eleanor Updale

There's no point in me re-telling Charles II's story here.  It's easy enough to find the basic facts on thousands of Internet sites. Instead, here are few thoughts from me about why he is my choice for the History Girls' birthday month. 

But first some material for your pub quiz:  Did you know that the Duke of Cambridge (Prince William) becomes King, he will be the first direct descendant of Charles II to reach the throne?

It's all because of his mother, Princess Diana, whose ancestors included two of Charles's mistresses: 

Barbara Palmer (Villers), 1st Duchess of Cleveland, Countess of Castlemaine who produced Henry Fitzroy, 1st Duke of Grafton, and Louise Renée de Penancoët de Kérouaille, Duchess of Portsmouth, mother of Charles Lennox, 1st Duke of Richmond.

The Duchess of Portsmouth (Squintabella to Nell Gynn) is also an ancestor of The Duchess of Cornwall (Camilla Parker-Bowles) and The Duchess of York (Fergie).

Charles’s recognition and ennoblement of his bastards has turned out to be the gift that keeps on giving.  And the potential Charles III has received two of the presents.

By the way, if you are near London before 30^th September, you can find out more about Charles’s women in an exhibition of portraits called The Beautiful and the Damned.  I haven’t been, so I can’t give an opinion on how good it is, but there is information here

http://www.hrp.org.uk/HamptonCourtPalace/WhatsOn/TheWildtheBeautifulandtheDamned

And while I'm being frivolous, let me admit that the women and the wigs are part of the attraction where I'm concerned.  I don't know about you, but I'm getting a bit fed up with living in a world where the press imagines we prefer to be ruled exclusively by people no one wants to sleep with. It simply must have been more fun to have a figurehead with a smile on his face and some fire in his loins after the dowdy Commonwealth years.

But, birthday or no birthday, this is a serious website, so here is my serious point.  The other reason I like Charles II, or rather am attracted to his story and his era, is precisely because, as a child an young man, he lived through the Civil War and interregnum, and had a more varied and uncertain life than might have been expected for him at birth.  It seems that the experiences of his youth profoundly affected the atmosphere he created around him as a monarch, and though he himself did some pretty contemptible things (Secret diplomacy, a cavalier [ha ha] approach to Parliament, etc) he enabled, in others, achievements of lasting value which laid the foundations for the Enlightenment.

It always strikes me as odd that the textbook accounts of Charles pay little attention to his early life.

 He was only 12 when the Civil War broke out, and 19 when his father was executed. 

Now, while it can't have been that uncomfortable lodging in France with his cousin Louis the Sun King, or with royal relations in the Low Countries, it's important to remember that Charles couldn't have known what a hash Richard Cromwell would make of government, or that he would ever be invited to return as King. He must have grown accustomed to living in a different relationship to politics and God than that of his father and grandfather. Just as important, many of those who supported him before and after his exile lived through even more violent swings of fortune, (not just in the material sense, but in the level of confidence that they would stay alive). All of them had been forced to contemplate, and most had actually experienced, a life with little money, and precious little social status. And they all must have had a sense of how quickly their roles might change again.  

In many ways, living through the mid to late seventeenth century must have been like living in Eastern Europe in the late 20th or the Arab world in the early 21st.  Which horse do you back? Where do you draw the line between principle and a quiet life? And, on a personal level, what is the point of existence? The prospect of death focuses the mind, and for some can engender higher thoughts, which in quieter times can be the source of remarkable work.  Eventually, if only temporarily, societies settle down, and sometimes they have a little cultural spasm to go with it (if only, these days, winning the Eurovision song contest).  In Charles's realm, people were ready to take the breaks off, and he both left them to it, and sometimes lent a hand.

It mattered that he supported the Royal Society of Wren, Hooke and Pepys, even if his attention span was limited when it came to studying their scientific endeavours. He even (fleetingly, and before the Great Fire) took an interest in plans to improve the appearance and air quality in London through building controls and restrictions on the burning of coal.  After the fire, his personal interest in the reconstruction (not unaffected by the desire to match Louis VIII in self-aggrandisement) and his insistance on massive nationwide taxes and donations of wood, meant that Wren and Hooke could plan on a grand scale.  Thanks to him (and the influence of his exile in France) we have St James’s Park, St Paul's, and much, much, more.  

It mattered that Charles’s patronage brought painters like Lely and Kneller to the attention of other patrons who paid their bills.  It mattered that he, and the parliaments that served him, relaxed the censorship laws and allowed the Restoration dramatists to thrive.  And it also mattered that (if only, perhaps, to avoid too much scrutiny of his own religious stance) his world was relatively free of the need for public expositions of sectarian faith.  If you read the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society from the time, and much of the correspondents between the Fellows, what is striking is that God just isn't there. He's not denied, nor discussed, nor celebrated.  He's just exempted from the language.  Religious argument continued elsewhere, of course, with as much passion as ever. But Charles didn't join in, and created an atmosphere in which others felt entitled to use their minds relatively freely to think outside the bounds of dogma.

Charles was still a flamboyant consumer extraordinaire, but he showed off by riding in the park, where his subjects could see him, and he posed by supporting creative talent rather than suppressing it. 

And he turned the lights back on.  it's easy to sneer at the Merry Monarch label, but it stuck because the tone he set was appreciated,

I have put the case for Charles too strongly.  You will be able to provide copious examples of him behaving monstrously. Without doubt, some of the freedoms enjoyed by his subjects were accidental. 

In one area there’s a comic parallel with today. As the postal service grew, Charles tried to implement a ferocious surveillance system.  By aiming to read everything, his spies ended up finding next to nothing.  The task was simply unmanageable.  How like our world, where we have more CCTV cameras than we have people to watch them, and where the best place for a terrorist to hide must surely be the endless queue for the cursory attention of security staff at an airport, or at any public event wearing a fluorescent yellow vest? 
Charles was no civil libertarian, but it’s worth reflecting that the worst attempts to deal with threats to the state by imposing imprisonment without charge, trial, or knowledge of the evidence for the prosecution happened under William III - in a reign often lauded (at least to the east of the Irish Sea) for its liberalism, simply because it began with something called the Bill of Rights.

I’m persuaded by John Evelyn’s verdict on Charles.  Acknowledging his extravagance, he nevertheless described him as ‘a prince of many virtues and many great imperfections, debonair, easy of access, not bloody or cruel.’

But this is a birthday month, so back to the party games.  Do I really like Charles because of the women and the wigs?  What would he look like with different hair?

Oh dear. Not my type, at all, it turns out.  Superficial, Moi?

www.eleanorupdale.com

Mirror, Mirror... by Eleanor Updale

I've just been sold on eBay.  I went for £99.55 (if you include the postage) which is an enormous relief.  I was scared that no one would bid.  It turns out that I'm worth 2% of Tracey Emin and 22% of Tim Minchin. Astounding.

I was part of an auction of self-portraits organised by the charity Children & the Arts. They sent us all a canvas and some paints and told us to get on with it.  The brief was to do a picture that summed what you did for a living, and that's how I found myself inside my laptop, with the keys spelling out my name.

I can't imagine why anyone would want the picture, and can only thank whichever relative or friend saved me from adding the shame of being unwanted to the embarrassment of painting the picture in the first place. At least some money has gone to a good cause.  And the episode has given me a topic for this month's post, because I want to send you all to see the largest collection of self-portraits I’ve ever come across, which is hidden away in the Vasari Corridor in Florence.

Should any of you have read my book Montmorency and the Assassins, you'll know about the Vasari Corridor.  It's a passageway running  from the Uffizi, across the Ponte Vecchio to the Pitti Palace. For more than half a mile it flows alongside, between, round and over all sorts of buildings; finally opening out at the bottom of the Boboli Gardens.  The corridor was built in the mid 16^th century to give the Medici rulers a secure route from one side of the Arno to the other, with a stop along the way for a private booth from which the Grand Duke could observe services in the church of Santa Felicita.

In my book, the corridor is the site of a frantic chase after a 19^th century anarchist.  In real life, it's been severed by Nazi mines, and damaged by a mafia bomb in 1993.  Now, restored, it is full of pictures hardly anyone sees.  The corridor is open on only a few days a year, and you have to book a pricey guided tour to get in, but it’s worth it.  I went there to work out how it fitted in to my story, not knowing about the self-portrait collection it houses. This includes pictures of (and, obviously, by) Rembrandt, Velazquez, Van Dyck, Durer, Van Gogh Corot, Ingres, Delacroix, Andy Warhol and many more. 

It's a funny thing, a self portrait.  Inherently vain  (even - perhaps especially - when intending to depict a humble, tortured soul) and sometimes unintentionally revealing, just as an autobiography or a castaway's choice of Desert Island Discs can be.  Do you go for warts and all, or spruce yourself up?  Do you paint an imaginary country estate in the background, or surround yourself with the trappings of learning? 

What follows is, as Peter Snow would say, Just A Bit of Fun...

For more than a century, artists aiming for a likeness have been able to construct self portraits using photographs as references, but in the days before the camera they must have used mirrors. So I wonder whether, to find out what they really looked like, we should look at mirror-images of their work, because that double flip would show us their faces as they appeared to those around them.

Would it make any difference?  It might.  After all, There is no such thing as a symmetrical face.  If there were, some people we know well might look very different. 

Here’s Charles II as we are used to seeing him:

Although his face looks pretty symmetrical, if both sides were exactly the same, he would either look like this (two right sides) :

Or this (two left sides):

So when an artist paints a self portrait using a mirror, they may be presenting the face they recognise as their own, but it won't be exactly the same face those around them see.  Obviously, the difference won't be as marked as in the examples above, because the two different halves of the face will still be there, but I've chosen a couple of self portraits at random to see whether the artists look any different turned round.

Do we feel any differently about Rembrandt as he saw himself…

Or as others saw him?

I fancy he looks older and sadder in the second picture.

How about Van Gogh?

 

 His self-portrait                                                               Flipped

Here, I think that beady little eye at the back somehow has more prominence in the second image.  Could it be that I read faces left to right (like print) and give more importance to what I see first? So in the Rembrandt picture the wrinkles in the 'big' side of the face (the right side in the first picture) are balanced out by the smaller side, whereas in the second picture, they dominate - not just because that side is bigger, but because I see it first.

And what about the sitters in ‘normal’ portraits? Surely, until very recently their most frequent (sometimes their only) source of self-image must have been the mirror; so when they saw themselves in portraits painted by people looking directly at them, they might have got a surprise (I suppose the nearest thing we have these days is our shock on hearing a recording of our own voice for the first time).

Perhaps, if we want to see what the sitters thought they looked like (rather than what everyone else saw) we should flip over their portraits.  

I can’t help thinking that Queen Anne might have had a higher opinion of her looks than those who saw her in the flesh or only knew her from this portrait.

In the mirror, she looks prettier, and a little more cheerful, at least to my eye:

Maybe that's because I'm seeing her 'good' side first.

Or perhaps I'm fooling myself.

Anyway, it’s been fun to play.  Have a go with some of your favourite historical characters.  And remember, if you happen to be in Florence on one of the rare occasions when  the Vasari Corridor is open, book yourself a place on a tour.

www.eleanorupdale.com