Just call me Brother by Laurie Graham

In the late summer of 2021, I gained a new moniker: I became, without recourse to surgery, hormone treatment or religious vows, Brother Laurie of the London Charterhouse. Those who are aware of the Charterhouse’s fabulous location ask me how I wangled such an enviable crib. Those who know of it only as an almshouse wonder how I ever came to such a pass.

In brief, widowed, off-loaded by my publisher and impoverished by years of nursing home fees, I was in the fast lane to destitution. The silver lining to this sad story is that I was judged to be a potentially suitable addition to the community of forty Charterhouse Brothers and so began a six-month probationary residence. I am now, yippee, a fully-fledged Brother.

 The Charterhouse has been an almshouse since the early 17^th century, but its style has evolved. The Brothers used to sleep in dormitories. Now, though we still eat communally, we have small, private apartments. Until six years ago it was a strictly male establishment, a walled and gated place of mystery in Clerkenwell. Then, under the leadership of Ann Kenrick, its first female Master, women were considered for admission  -  there are currently six Lady Brothers  -  and, better yet, the Charterhouse began opening its doors to the public. This has brought me the unexpected bonus of a new occupation. I have become a tour guide.

We live here thanks to beneficence of our founder, Thomas Sutton, and to the good management of his legacy. In return we are expected to contribute to the prosperity and happiness of our community, and as I’m unskilled at organ-playing, magazine layout or small talk, and unlicensed to steer wheelchairs, conducting guided tours seemed like my best bet. We offer two kinds of tour: those led by professional guides who really know their facts and figures, and those led by Brothers who, inevitably, add a personal, insider perspective to the mix.

Faced with 650 years’ worth of history and a regrettable inability to remember dates, I decided to put on my writer’s hat in order to design my tour. It tells, in chronological order, the story of the Charterhouse’s four incarnations. From 14^th century plague cemetery and Carthusian monastery, through neglected, post-Dissolution lumber room, then Tudor mansion, then almshouse and school, culminating in today’s architectural mash-up, tourist attraction and, paradoxically, central London oasis. The school has moved up in the world and out into Surrey. The almshouse remains.

In terms of the Charterhouse’s history, I find there are three sites in particular that enchant visitors. First, the atmospheric Norfolk Cloister. It is almost all that survives of the monastery and is named after Thomas Howard, 4^th Duke of Norfolk, who did some home improvements on it during one of his periods of house arrest. He lived in dangerous times.

Higgledy-piggledy Wash House Court is the stuff of a film location scout’s dreams, part medieval stone, part red Tudor brick and accessed through tunnel-like slypes. It was formerly the engine room of the monastery, the location of its laundry and bakehouse and living quarters of the lay brothers. Appropriately enough it still houses our launderette and the back entrance to our kitchens. 

 

And then there is the jewel in our crown, the Great Chamber.

During the stewardship of Sir Edward North, the Great Chamber was the place where the newly proclaimed Elizabeth I broke her journey from Hatfield House to London and held a Privy Council. She stayed five nights. We don’t know where she and her 1,000-strong entourage actually slept but we may imagine Sir Edward’s financial pain.

Elizabeth was to return to the property on several occasions during its occupancy by her doomed cousin, Thomas Howard, and Thomas’s heir had the similarly dubious honour of hosting a Privy Council held by James VI of Scotland on his way to be crowned James I of England.  The Great Chamber (now available to hire for weddings, bar mitzvahs and corporate jollies) has seen a lot of history.

Brothers in gowns

Of course, a Brother’s Tour encourages a more mundane type of curiosity. What is life like in the Charterhouse today? Do we have to wear uniform gowns, as in olden days? No, we dress as we please. Are we allowed out? You bet. Are we summoned by bells? Sometimes, but responding is optional, as long as it’s not the fire alarm.  And do they feed us gruel? Absolutely not. When you come to visit, I’ll be happy to show you our very superior menu for the week.

The Charterhouse, equidistant between Farringdon and Barbican stations, is open to the public Tuesday-Saturday. We have a small, well-curated museum and a gift shop and our tours, open gardens and other events can be booked through the website, https://thecharterhouse.org

 

 

We are very grateful to ex-History Girl Laurie Graham for this post. The HG who should have posted yesterday has left the group without telling anyone.

'Ten Handy Ways to Poison your Spouse - Part 3' by Karen Maitland

Poisoning of Queen Bona of Poland (1528-1572)

Artist: Jan Matejko (1838-1893)

The queen was murdered by her trusted officer

on the orders of King Philip II of Spain.

We are now in the Dog-days of summer, when the dog-star, Sirius, rises with the sun and was once thought to increase the sun’s heat “making dogs mad, women wanton and men commit foul crimes.” So, this seems a good month to add another Top Ten to my list of ‘Ways to Poison your Spouse.’ (8 June 2016). This month we look the bizarre means by which murderers in history have attempted to introduce the poison to their victims.

Poisoning your victim’s food or drink is most obvious method, but you have to have access to the food intended for the victim, which is not easy if you are attempting regicide. And what if the victim can’t be relied upon to eat that cake you sent them, without offering a first slice to someone else?

1) Poisoned Chalice – Rather than poison the food or drink, why not make the goblet or trencher itself poisonous, so that any innocuous food or liquid served in it becomes lethal. That was the goal of François Belot, a member of the French King’s bodyguard in the 17th century. He claimed to have devised a method that would make a silver vessel permanently lethal so that no matter how many times it was washed or how many victims drank from it, it would still kill. His method involved stuffing arsenic into a live toad, then crushing the toad in the vessel, while reciting spells. Unlikely as it seems, he was believed and acquired a great reputation for procuring the means of murder. Even the Commissioners of the Chambre Ardent or Chamber of Poisons, thought him guilty, and in 1679, sentenced him to be executed by being broken on the wheel. Though by then Belot was protesting he’d merely done it as a means of obtaining silver cups and trenchers.

2) Poisoned Flower – This was a medieval fiction, which in later centuries was not thought possible, except that there have been two cases which might make it seem more credible. In 1909 in Austria, suspicions were aroused when a ‘pious’ prisoner kept demanding flowers to put on an altar he’d made in his cell. It transpired that he had instructed his wife to obtain atropine or hyoscyamine, put it in a quill and insert the quill into the calyx of a carnation, binding it with thread as a florist would do. The poison did reach him by this method.

In the 1930’s, a London lavender seller was found to be hallucinating and taken to hospital where he died. His pocket contained a bottle of oil of mirbane (nitrobenzene) which he had sprinkled on the lavender he was selling to increase the perfume. It was thought that he’d inhaled the toxic vapours given off and poisoned himself.

Catherine of Medici (1519-1589)

Artist: Workshop of Frances Clouet (1510-1572)

Musee Carnavalet

3) Poisoned Dagger – Obviously the simplest method is simply to coat the blade in poison, thereby ensuring that even a flesh wound is fatal. But more subtle were the knives made in the late 16th and 17th century, designed to murder the user of the knife. The knives had a mechanism concealed inside the handle. When pressure was exerted on the cutting edge, three sharp spikes sprang out of the handle and pricked the hand or fingers of the person holding the knife. The moment the pressure was relaxed or the knife dropped, the spikes vanished. If the murderer was lucky, the spikes might even inject the poison straight into a vein.

4) Poisoned Bed – In 1908, Mary Kelliher went on trial in Boston, charged with the murder by poison of her husband, three children, sister and sister-in-law over a period of three years. After the death of her daughter, all the other family members were exhumed and found to have died of arsenic poisoning. No one knew how it had been administered until the bed was examined in which all the victims had at some time slept. The mattress was found stuffed with hair impregnated with arsenic which, the prosecution claimed, had been deliberately put there by Mary, so that her victims would absorb it while they slept. But the jury weren’t convinced and Mary was acquitted, though only after she been held for 15 long months.

Hercules poisoned by the Shirt of Nessus

Painting 1413-1415

5) Poisoned Marriage – According to an Indian legend, the Queen of Ganore murdered Rajah Bukht by impregnating his marriage robes with poison, which, when he sweated in the intense heat, caused severe and fatal burns. There are many legends of poisoned robe murders in India, which are probably more allegorical than literal, similar to the classical tale of Hercules and the shirt of Nessus. Nevertheless, forensic researchers in India have shown than impregnating cloth with cantharidin, which in India is extracted from the telini fly, can cause severe blistering, excruciating pain and necrosis resulting in death from shock.

6) Poisoned Glove Box – In 16th century France, the fear of poisoning had reached epidemic proportions. It was suspected in almost any death where the cause was not immediately obvious, and while most stories were unfounded, they do reveal that the rich and noble were almost afraid to touch anything in case it might prove fatal. For example, when Jeanne d’Albret, mother of Henry IV of France, died after a four-day illness, rumour spread that she had been murdered by Catherine de’ Medici who sent her a pair of gloves in a box with a false bottom containing belladonna, henbane, opium and a few other nasties, which not only poisoned the gloves, but released a fatal vapour while poor Jeanne slept. But an autopsy revealed Jeanne died of natural causes.

Jeanne d'Albret, Queen of Navarre (1528-1572)

Portail des collections des musees de France.

7) Poisoned Gold – Cardinal of Lorraine was another supposed poison victim of Catherine de’ Medici. He was rumoured to have sicken and died after handling gold coins on which nicotine had been smeared, though more likely he died of respiratory illness brought on by walking barefoot in a procession.

8) Poisoned Candle – Pope Clement VII is said to have been poisoned by an arsenic-impregnated torch or candle carried in front of him in the procession. This has long since been discredited, but in 1810, Michel Eugene Chevreul invented a process for making cheap composition candles. In 1835/36 these were very popular in England, until a Professor Everitt, working late one night, noticed a strong garlic odour from the candles, indicative of heated arsenic, which subsequent testing proved to one of the ingredients. Not healthy to breathe in, though amount it released probably wouldn’t kill you. But perhaps inspired by this, Edgar Allan Poe, in The Imp of the Perverse (1845) had the narrator murder his victim with the fumes from a poisoned candle.

9) Poisoned Shoe – Legend has it that John, King of Castile, died after wearing a pair of boots impregnated by poison by a Turk. This is undoubtedly pure fiction, but more recently a man did accidently poison himself with his footwear. In 1904, a young man became unconscious and died four hours after going to a dance. It was found he’d been poisoned but no knew how, until bottle of shoe blacking was discovered in his room. He had cleaned his shoes and as he danced, the blacking had soaked onto his socks and been absorbed into his skin via his feet and ankles. The blacking had contained nitrobenzene, which had passed rapidly through hot, sweaty skin.

The Wanstead or Welbeck Portrait of Elizabeth I

C.1580-1585

Artist: Marcus Gheeraerts the Elder 

10) Poisoned Saddle – Edward Squire, a scrivener from Greenwich, was persuaded by a Jesuit, Richard Walpole, to try to kill Queen Elizabeth I. Squire was instructed to take a bladder of poison concealed in his gloved hand, prick it and press it down on the pommel of the Queen’s saddle, where she would be sure to rest her hands and afterwards would transfer the poison to her mouth and nose by touching her face. He did as instructed, but the plot failed, because the queen didn’t arrive at the stables. Having inveigled his way aboard a ship with Robert Devereux, the Earl of Essex, Squire then smeared the rest of the poison on the wooden arms of the dinning chair used by the Earl in an attempt to murder him, only to find it had no effect. Nevertheless, he was denounced, and hanged, drawn and quartered for his attempts.

Cabinet of Curiosities by Charlotte Wightwick - Ministerial 'Red Boxes'

Tomorrow is a big day for me. After nearly 18 years, it will be my last day as a civil servant. I’ve spent most of that time advising ministers on their policy ideas and helping turn them from ideas to reality – it’s been a job that I’ve (mostly) loved, although it can be demanding, exhilarating and frustrating in equal measure.

But what does that mean for the Cabinet of Curiosities, I hear you ask? Well, the object I’d like to include this month is a symbol of my time as a civil servant: the ministerial Red Box.

Ministerial 'Red Box', made by Barrow, Hepburn & Gale

The Red Box is exactly that: every minister in government has one (or rather several, to allow for times when one is in transit): bright red ‘boxes’ – essentially oversized briefcases. The outside is red leather with a gold crest and lettering, lined with darker leather. They’re made from wood and lead (depending on who you believe, so that they would sink if thrown overboard from a ship in time of war and/ or to stop them from being x-rayed) and so weigh a ton. (They are also sturdy enough, in contravention of many health and safety rules I’m sure, to be used as a handy step-stool for vertically-challenged civil servants needing to get something off the top shelf.)

The idea of a ‘despatch box’ (as they are officially known) apparently goes back at least to Queen Elizabeth I, and the same company has been making them for the government since the eighteenth century. There seems to be a debate about whether the red colour again came from Elizabeth I’s reign, or as a result of Prince Albert’s preference, but it is clear that the ‘red box’ has a long and distinguished pedigree. They’re used to transport sensitive papers securely (you can get less obvious black ones if a minister needs discretion e.g. if they are travelling by public transport). The most famous one is Gladstone’s, which the Chancellor has traditionally held up on Budget day before the assembled press – although the original is now too fragile to come out each year.

Gladstone's famous red box, held up outside HM Treasury 

by many a Chancellor on Budget Day. Source: Wikimedia Commons

But for a civil servant, ‘The Box’ is a concept as well as a physical object. When submitting papers to a minister, the ‘box time’ is all-important. ‘When does the box go’ means ‘what’s my deadline for getting this to you?’ Sometimes it is just that – a euphemism for ‘deadline’ and no more. But often it still is a reality. Papers really do get put in ‘The Box’, and once it is gone, that’s that. On Fridays, the Box can be sent to the Minister’s home address by post (there are special arrangements with the post office to make sure they’re secure). Alternatively, The Box leaves with the Minister, or can be taken to


 wherever she/ he is. Of course, the most urgent things can now be sent by secure email, but for routine work, The Box remains all-important.

‘The Box’ is therefore also something that the Minister ‘does’. It is their homework, the decisions that need making, the papers that have to be read, between one day and the next. Whatever your views on individual politicians, most ministers work incredibly hard; long hours in the office and in Parliament, and then home with a box full of papers to look at overnight. I’ve seen official papers come back covered in curry (‘I didn’t get home until after 10 so I got a takeaway and ate while I was working’) and jammy handprints (‘I was doing the box at breakfast and the five-year old got hold of it, sorry’).

And of course, it also means that ‘The Box comes back’. Decisions – sometimes partially obscured by curry or jam – are typically handwritten across the papers, and private secretaries diligently decode their ministers’ handwriting and email out to the relevant officials in the wider department for them to be taken forward.

It’s a system which may seem a little old-fashioned, but it works. There’s evidence that people take in more information when they read on paper, rather than on screen (see for instance https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/reading-paper-screens/) – so it makes sense to me that The Box should stay to help ministers make the best decisions they can.

They’re decisions that I won’t be as directly involved in, in the future. It is something I’m both sad about and relieved by – I will no longer be clock watching, wondering if I’ll make the box deadline or not, ruled by the tyranny of when a briefcase will leave the building - but nor will I have the undoubted privilege of helping ministers to make decisions which impact us all.

Goodbye to Whitehall - the gift traditionally given to

departing Private Secretaries, signed by the Ministers 

you worked directly for. Mine - from earlier in my 

career - includes the Rt Hon (now Lord) Alistair Darling

The Importance of Libraries by L. J. MacWhirter

Author photo by Kate Gren

L.J. MacWhirter was born just outside London, grew up in the North of England and today lives in Edinburgh with her husband and family. After studying English Literature, Liz went on to become an award-winning copywriter. Black Snow Falling is her début novel for young adults and up. It draws on her fascination with the inner workings of minds and mechanical machines, and how people can be controlled by cultural dynamics. Black Snow Falling launches on 1 August 2018 and is nominated for the First Book Award at the Edinburgh International Book Festival.

www.ljmacwhirter.com

Facebook @LJMacWhirter

Twitter and Instagram @LizMacWhirter


Without libraries, I doubt I’d have written my début novel for young adults, Black Snow Falling. I doubt I’d even be a writer. I spent my childhood with my nose in books, many from our local library in Bramhall. When I had the idea for this novel, I burrowed into the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh. Yellow request slips piled up as high as my thumb. Numerous notes became compost. I discovered that the 16th century was the perfect time to locate this story about hopes and dreams snatched away. The book research also revealed key facts that shaped the story.

 “The Rainbow Portrait” of Elizabeth I, which is featured in Black Snow Falling. Photo: Hatfield House

A number of books also feature strongly in the story of Black Snow Falling. Ruth smuggles a book to Silas, her secret love, when they meet in their hiding place in Crowbury woods. Silas is a stable hand who longs for more in life; his hunger is fed by her books. “The words show me other worlds, Ruth,” he says, and it’s driving him to leave Crowbury.

Ruth’s wealthy family possess a whole library, together with a Cabinet of Curiosities from the New World and an Armillary Sphere from Italy.

The Armillary Sphere in Black Snow Falling, representing the geocentric understanding of the heavens.

I decided to make Ruth one of the very few privileged educated young women because this unmasks the sexism of the age. Not only is she to be forced into marriage at the age of 15, but she is to be denied her books, too. My library research had revealed that, at the time, it was actually believed that reading made women infertile – as if using their minds would ruin their wombs. Talk about patriarchal control. A thinking woman was a threat. Dress all the young women in red and you’d be one step away from Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale.

Linking reading with fertility is, of course, as nonsensical as the geocentric belief that the earth was at the centre of the universe, which was upheld across the Western world until hundreds of years later.

The 1593 geocentric Armillary Sphere at the Museo Galileo, Florence, which helped to inspire Black Snow Falling

This brings me to another plot-changing fact I found. Everyone has heard of Copernicus and Galileo who proposed that the earth was turning around the sun – the heretical theory of heliocentricity. But I, for one, had never heard of Thomas Digges, who also quietly published a book in 1576 proposing the same. I found this modern copy of his book, The Prognostication Everlasting of Right Good Effect in the National Library of Scotland. I’d only ordered it up from the stacks because I liked the title.

The Prognostication Everlasting of Right Good Effect by Leonard Digges and Thomas Digges 1576, The National Library of Scotland

Perhaps it’s no surprise that Thomas Digges was the ward of John Dee, who owned the second biggest library in the country. Dee’s library numbered over 4,000 books when both Cambridge and Oxford Universities had fewer than 900 between them.

Connecting this to Black Snow Falling, Dee and Digges would have lived at the same time as Ruth and they could have known her adventurous father, the merchant-turned-noble, Earl of Crowbury. So I put Dee and Digges in Black Snow Falling, as one of Ruth’s flashbacks. It was a significant meeting for her because she knew that Copernicus and Digges were both so radical and heretical, her father had to keep their books secret. Their ideas – printed and disseminated – were seen as a threat to the establishment.

Mid the umpteenth draft of the novel, I went with some visiting friends to an Open Day at the Royal Observatory of Edinburgh, just a mile from where I live. Incredibly, there I saw Copernicus’s original book from 1543, De Revolutionibus (On the Revolution of the Heavenly Orbs) in a private library called the Crawford Collection. It is one of only 276 surviving copies. This book shook the world.

 On the Revolution of the Heavenly Orbs by Nicolas Copernicus, 1543, The Crawford Collection, Royal Observatory of Edinburgh

“Books did have a habit of turning things on their head,” as Ruth says in Black Snow Falling.

Copernicus’ heliocentric theory, placing the sun at the centre of the heavens. The Crawford Collection, Royal Observatory of Edinburgh.

Because she is educated through her love of books, my character Ruth is even more terrified by the prospect of her world snapping shut. The novel is about her struggle to somehow find agency.

At the risk of stating the obvious, the freedom to follow the question, to think, is vital for us individually and for the health of society as a whole. To do this, we all need broad access to books and content to help us see beyond our own horizons. At this time when libraries are closing all over the country, it’s more than doors that are being shut. It will almost certainly close minds, as well.

Black Snow Falling will be published in hardback by Scotland Street Press on 1 August 2018.

The Lost Library of John Dee by Mary Hoffman

I must declare an interest. I based a character in my Stravaganza series on John Dee. William Dethridge is an Elizabethan alchemist, mathematician and calendarist, who started the whole business of "stravagation" in time and space through an alchemical accident with a copper dish.

By 1594, the date of this portrait of John Dee (artist unknown), William Dethridge had made his last stravagation, to avoid execution in Elizabeth's England and was a permanent resident in Talia, my version of Italy in another dimension, in the sixteenth century.

So you can imagine how thrilled I was to discover there was an exhibition about John Dee in London, perhaps surprisingly at the Royal College of Physicians. I hotfooted it there on its first day and was immediately impressed by how beautifully curated it was.

Unlike the Celts exhibition, which I wrote about on 1st February and which I saw on the same day, it was not marred by woozy sub-Enya massage room music. The signage and labels are a model of clarity and they have managed to make a modestly-sized display of real interest.

Kate Birkwood has pieced together the life of John Dee (1527 -1609) through the annotations of his books - a feat all the more remarkable since his library was ransacked and dispersed in 1583, when he left England for the continent and stayed away five years.

At  over 3,000 books and 1,000 manuscripts it was a library worth ransacking, unusually large for the period as a private collection. About a hundred of the volumes stolen from his house in Mortlake are now in the hands of the RCP, complete with their marginalia.

Dee's copy of Quintilian Institutiorum Oratoriarum 1540

Arnaldus de Villanova Opera 1527

Many of the pilfered books ended up in the possession of one Nicholas Saunder (1563 - 1649), but it isn't certain that he was the thief. Whether or not he was, he certainly knew the books had belonged to Dee, since he tried to obliterate the older man's signature and other marks. Saunder's collection passed to Henry Pierrepoint, Marquis of Dorchester (1606 - 1680), who was another bibliophile. Upon Dorchester's death his family presented them to the RCP.

Cicero Omnia Opera vol 2

Trinity College, Cambridge and the British Library each hold a copy of John Dee's library catalogue, made before 1583. Dee had been a student at St. John's, Cambridge and became a founding Fellow of Trinity in 1546, under Henry Vlll. Some of these books, including the Cicero above, date from his student days, when, "I was so vehemently bent to studie that ... I did inviolably keepe this order: only to sleepe four houres every night."

Something today's students might find familiar, for other reasons. And who hasn't doodled in the margins of a text book?

He had two famous patrons: William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, who some think was the Mr W. H., dedicatee of Shakespeare's sonnets, and Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, who certainly was Elizabeth the First's favourite. It was Dudley who introduced Dee to the queen and he took the astrologer's advice about the most auspicious date for her coronation - 15 January 1559.

John Dee performing an experiment in front of Elizabeth l

This is a painting by the 19th century artist Henry Gillard Glindoni. It has been X-rayed to reveal that Dee is standing within a circle of skulls! It's not known whether this is based on some now lost information about the queen's visit to Dee's house in Mortlake or was a product of Glindoni's imagination. But the later decision to removed the circle of skulls and other alchemical objects must have been an attempt to tone down the "black magic" aspects of Dee's reputation.

They were what got him into trouble with an earlier queen, Mary Tudor. He was arrested for witchcraft in May 1555, accused of casting the horoscopes of the queen and others of her family but was never convicted. He had in fact entered the Tudor court four years earlier, as a young man, and we know he received a pension from Edward Vl. Remarkable really that he survived through four monarchs, technically five, since he lived till 1609, six years after James l of England and Vl of Scotland took the throne. But by then John Dee's own star had waned and he played no part in the Jacobean court.

As well as the books and marginalia, there are some lovely objects in this exhibition:

John Dee's crystal Science Museum, London

Magical disc, Trustees of the British Museum

But to return to the books, I learned something completely new about John Dee - he was the first person to suggest that there might be a national library! In fact he petitioned Queen Mary in 1556 to start one but, perhaps because of his earlier arrest, she did not grant his request.

Scholar, courtier, magician, as the exhibition labels him, and a supporter of libraries. No wonder I was always interested in him.

For anyone who can't get down to London before 29th July this year, I recommend Benjamin Woolley's book The Queen's Conjuror: The Science and Magic of Dr Dee (HarperCollins 2001).

Anyone for snowballs? by H.M. Castor

 

Detail from Allegory of Winter by Ambrogio Lorenzetti (1285-1348)
[Public Domain] via Wikimedia Commons

Though financial paperwork would not usually be a favourite topic of mine, accounts made centuries ago can be fascinating. In the case of the Tudors – my current area of study – they can give us marvellous details of pageants, feasts, orders of clothing and equipment, and even the layout of rooms (“Made anew in the Queen’s dining chamber a great carrall window on the west side, with new leaning places, and a halpace [half-pace/half-step] underfoot, new made... A jakes made at the north end of the Queen's dining chamber” – this at the Tower of London in 1532, in preparation for Anne Boleyn's coronation) – and they can, in the case of a single person’s accounts, give us tantalising glimpses of what he (or she) got up to, and where.

They can also, of course, be puzzling. One of my favourite examples – and one for which I haven’t yet found a satisfactory explanation (can anyone help?) – is amongst Anne Boleyn’s last purchases for her daughter, the future Elizabeth I, who was two and a half at the time:

20 Feb. [1536]: “A pair of pyrwykes” for my lady Princess, delivered to my lady mistress [i.e. Elizabeth's governess].

The word “pyrwykes” has been left in quotation marks, and without a footnote, in the transcript of these accounts, I assume because the (Victorian) editors could not explain it. Fascinatingly, pyrwykes or pilliwinks originally meant “thumbscrews” – an instrument of torture – which surely guarantees that, in its use here, it was a nickname… but for what? The late Eric Ives suggested finger-straighteners, but as far as I can tell that was simply a guess, and I cannot find further evidence elsewhere to help one way or another. Yes, Elizabeth I grew up to be very proud of her long fingers, but were unstraight fingers really a concern in aristocratic circles at the time? 

Thankfully, other information deriving from accounts is more straightforward. The personal accounts for Henry Courtenay, Earl of Devon, for example, for the early part of 1519 give details that are still vivid for us today. Courtenay was a first cousin of Henry VIII (their mothers had been sisters) and a great favourite of the King’s too, at least at this time. By 1519 Courtenay was, the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography tells us, “one of the select band [amongst Henry’s friends] afforded daily livery and apartments within the royal household”. And thus his accounts give us a glimpse of what life in this innermost circle of the court involved.

4 Feb. For playing money in the Queen’s chamber, 40s.; at shuffleboard, 2s.

…the Queen at this time was Catherine of Aragon…

5 Mar. To a poor man at Greenwich, for helping to walk horses on the day my lord rode at the tilt at Eltham, 1d.

27 Feb. For eggs, bread, drink, and oranges in my lord of Burganye’s chamber for my lord when they were there masking before the King, 12d.

…though why it was Courtenay who paid for the food on this occasion I don’t know…

18 Feb. For costs of the King’s tennis court at Richmond when my lord played there with young Mr. Care, 2s. 8d.; to young Care for my lord’s losses at tennis, 8s.

My favourite entry, however, has to be this one:

25 Jan. To a lad at Charleton, for lending his cap to my lord when the King and his lords threw snowballs, 4d.

Henry VIII – king already for almost ten years – played snowballs! How very nearly might we not have known this, had not Courtenay borrowed that cap?

Would you have dared to hit the King (surely a sizeable target, even at this early point)? Courtenay had a good few years still to come of royal favour, though finally – after tangling with Thomas Cromwell – he was sent by Henry to the block. (Indeed, most of the King’s close buddies from this time – those who didn’t succumb to illness – eventually got the chop.)

But let’s focus on that earlier, happier image… the King and his friends laughing (I think we can safely imagine) in the snow. A lovely reminder that human beings – whoever they are, and in every age – have always had a great deal in common. Some wonderful portrayals of ancient games of snowballs, in paintings and frescoes, can be found here.

If it's wintertime wherever in the world you are, happy playing!

Giant snowball - Oxford, by Kamyar Adl
(Flickr) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

H.M. Castor's novel VIII - a new take on the life of Henry VIII, for teenagers and adults - is currently on the longlists for the Carnegie Medal and the UKLA Book Award. It is published by Templar in the UK, by Penguin in Australia, and will be published in the US by Simon & Schuster in 2013.

H.M. Castor's website is here.

Royal River Pageants by Eve Edwards

Today we should be treated to one of those very British moments: the Diamond Jubilee River Thames Pageant.  I'm guessing you are probably not even reading this blog post on the day as you will either be tackling the challenging logistics of finding a spot of the riverbank to view the spectacle or watching the whole thing from the comfort of your sofa.

Or perhaps you are reading this from somewhere else in the world and wondering what all the fuss is about. In the UK we are celebrating a whole year (yes, an entire year of flag waving) for the Queen's sixty years on the throne.  I suppose the party began with the royal wedding last year and has carried on to peak with the maximum viewing opportunity of the Thames pageant with the Queen heading a flotilla of over a thousand boats.  Queen Elizabeth II has certainly done us proud, not seriously stumbling over the decades, which is no doubt why she is still head of state for sixteen countries worldwide.  Inherited monarchy maybe a strange system for a democracy but I am not one to quarrel with the results.

Rainbow Portrait - a rather flattering likeness!

As a History Girl, my thoughts went to that earlier Elizabeth who also recognised the importance of pageantry.  You could argue the heart of Good Queen Bess' power was her grasp on her image.  A natural publicist, I think she was unmatched until the modern age of celebrity worship.  There was much more to the Tudor monarch, of course, than the Lilliputian stars who are nothing but image, yet the handling and moulding of their public reception is scarily similar - from the airbrushed portraits to the carefully staged public appearances.  And though I don't remember Bess entering any talent competitions, surviving her sister's reign was a little like a macabre version 'I'm a Protestant, get me out of here'.

A trip up and down the Thames was a necessity for Elizabeth I as the river connected many of her key royal residences - Windsor, Hampton Court, Richmond, Westminster, Greenwich.  The court would move often as a matter of convenience - when the *cough* conveniences were full, they upped and left for the next palace, leaving the cleaning out to the servants left behind (something I discovered when researching The Queen's Lady). There were other reasons too, of course, but I rather like this very practical one of the Queen running away from the blocked loos.

Windsor Castle

I had fun describing one of Elizabeth's ceremonial arrivals at Windsor for my first book: The Other Countess.  She didn't quite travel with a thousand boats but she was accompanied by yeoman of the guard, serjeants-at-arms and gentleman pensioners, ladies of the bedchamber and maids of honour musicians, two dwarf ladies, jesters and whichever politician or favourite she ordered to accompany her.  I have my hero calculating how much the display cost as it is largely from the accounts that we know the details of her household.  In similarly cash-strapped times, our present queen seems to have taken a leaf from her predecessor's book.  The original Bess expected her ministers to fund the 'civil service' such as it was often out of their own purse and pay for the honour of putting her up on her royal progresses.  I note that the pageant today is paid for by private funds.

Like our present queen, Bess also knew how to dress for practical impact.  I have been reading in The Week (an excellent news digest magazine)how the Queen chooses solid bright colours (like the yellow above) so she can be seen easily.  Shoes are worn in by attendants so the long hours on her feet don't result in blisters (and I think we can allow her one or two foibles like this at her age - I am amazed she still does so much meeting-and-greeting).  Bess demanded her ladies wore white or black so she could shine like a jewel in their midst.  I don't know about shoes but she was extremely demanding, losing her temper if they tried to rival her.  She boxed the ears of one noble lady for her presumptuous clothes and banished her from court.  Thankfully Queen Elizabeth II is far more tactful with her subjects.

There's a fun timeline of other Thames pageants here and an exhibition in at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, on the subject if you can get there.

www.eve-edwards.co.uk

The New Elizabethans by Mary Hoffman

BBC Radio 4 is asking listeners to send in suggestions for the most influential and important people of the second Queen Elizabeth's reign, to celebrate her Diamond Jubilee this year here. 

Jim Naughtie will run a series of radio programmes about 60 such nominees from June onwards. Sixty names for the 60 years of ER2's reign. They don't have to be British, just to have had an influence on British life.

I'm sure there will be the usual dreary list of Prime Ministers, sportsmen and pop musicians; Naughtie has already suggested that Rupert Murdoch might be such a name. Well, there's no denying he has had an influence!

You have till 9th March to make your nominations to the official Radio 4  site. So far listeners have suggested:
Barbara Castle, John Rutter, Professor Sir Alec Jeffreys, Rose Heilbron QC, Raymond Damadian, Vivienne Westwood, Elizabeth David, Ted Hughes, Leo Baxendale, Tim Berners Lee, Richard Attenborough, Stephen Fry, Professor Brian Cox, Richard Dawkins, Alistair Campbell, JK Rowling, Russell T Davies and Paul McCartney among others. 


But this is The History Girls and we can make our own rules. I thought I'd consider who were the great names of the first Elizabethan era and see if we could come up with equivalents.

Elizabeth 1 - well, of course she has her equivalent on the throne now but times are very different. The first Queen Elizabeth could speak Latin, Greek, French, Spanish and Welsh. I have heard our present queen speak French and she did it, though grammatically accurately, just exactly in the same accent as she speaks English. Fortunately there are no recordings of Queen Bess's linguistic skills. She was a great orator; her distant successor's annual Christmas Speech is perhaps not a fair comparison.

But the first Elizabeth's greatest accomplishment was staying alive!  She survived many rebellions and plots and did well even to survives scandals and questioning in the Tower before she even reached the throne. Our present queen's ascension was tame by comparison though no-one would suggest it was easy for her to take up the crown in her twenties, after George V1's sudden death.

The first Elizabeth could - and did - send traitors to the block.  ER2 lost the power to execute for treason as late as 1998 though she never exercised it. (Capital punishment for murder stopped in 1969, though the last hangings were in 1964).

A quick trawl through the intellectual life of both reigns suggests that they were equally rich in scheming politicians and advisers.  On poets I reckon the score is roughly equal, if you leave out Shakespeare. Sir Philip Sydney and Thomas Wyatt versus T.S.Eliot, W.H. Auden, Ted Hughes.

Musically the great trio of Byrd, Tallis and Gibbons to be offset by Britten, Tippett, John Tavener, John Rutter. Artists: well only really the miniaturist Nicholas Hilliard to put alongside Lucian Freud and David Hockney, John Piper, Barbara Hepworth, Jacob Epstein, Henry Moore, Elizabeth Frink. I think the New Elizabethans do rather well out of that comparison.

Playwrights? Well, we have to bow our heads before the towering dominant genius of the first Elizabeth's time and as well as him there was Christopher Marlowe. It seems absurd to talk about  John Osborne in comparison! Though we do have Alan Bennett, Tom Stoppard, Micahel Frayn. What about the actors in the plays? We can't know how great Richard Burbage, Edward Alleyn or Will Kemp actually were but ER2 has had a wonderful bunch to choose from, from Gielgud, Richardson, Olivier, Ashcroft, Tyzack through to the Redgraves, McKellen and the amazing Mark Rylance. I think perhaps the moderns have it.

Science and philosophy: Would you like to square up Francis Bacon against Stephen Hawking, John Dee against Richard Dawkins? (Actually I think Tim Berners-Lee is the best equivalent to John Dee.) But I'm afraid both lists so far are heavily weighted towards males.

So here is my challenge: suggest some equivalents to the following Old Elizabethans.

Mary, Queen of Scots
Bess of Hardwick
Arbella Stuart
Elizabeth Bathory


John Dee
Sir Francis Bacon
Sir Walter Ralegh
Inigo Jones

Or any others that take your fancy.

As for my Radio 4 recommendations, I won't give you 60 but I think David rather than Richard Attenborough because he's the modern equivalent of a global explorer, T.S. Eliot, Benjamin Britten - oh, quick, some women: Shirley Williams, Diana Wynne Jones, Hilary Mantel, Judi Dench, Elizabeth David, Angela Carter, Jill Tweedy, Lynne Truss.

Also Rosalind Franklin, Alistair Cooke (born in Salford; his Letter from America was a big influence in British radio), Thomas Heatherwick, Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, The Incredible String Band and the Beatles, Kenneth Branagh, Steptoe and Edwards, Tom Watson.... You will see this is rather random.