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Execution of Charles I

30/1/2020

The weather in January of 1649 was bitterly cold, it was not a good day for an execution, especially when the man standing on the scaffold was the king of England.

On the 30th King Charles waited inside the Banqueting House in Whitehall for the doors to be opened so that he might make his way to the scaffold that had been erected outside. Maybe there was ice on the windows, as history tells us Charles asked to wear two heavy shirts so that he might not shiver in the cold. Charles did not wish that his people think that he was afraid.

Charles I was beheaded that day - he said:

"... truly I desire their liberty and freedom as much as anybody whomsoever; but I must tell you that their liberty and freedom consist in having of government, those laws by which their life and their goods may be most their own. It is not for having share in government, sirs; that is nothing pertaining to them; a subject and a sovereign are clear different things. And therefore until they do that, I mean that you do put the people in that liberty, as I say, certainly they will never enjoy themselves. Sirs, it was for this that now I am come here. If I would have given way to an arbitrary way, for to have all laws changed according to the power of the sword, I needed not to have come here; and therefore I tell you (and I pray God it be not laid to your charge) that I am the martyr of the people..."

An observer in the crowd said of the execution:

'There was such a groan by the thousands then present as I never heard before and desire I may never hear again’.

Poor Charles, yes he was his own worst enemy, but did he deserve a death such as this?

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The Hardy Tree

29/1/2020

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What have Thomas Hardy, Charles Dickens, and an old Ash tree got in common?

The answer is St Pancras Old Churchyard in London.

This wonderful and rather odd Ash tree is known as The Hardy Tree, it grows in the churchyard of St Pancras Old Church in London, and as you can see hundreds of old gravestones encircle it. The coffins were taken from the grave and reinterred elsewhere and the headstones were placed in this circular pattern, over the years the tree has grown and parts of the stones have disappeared into the trunk itself.

Its history is interesting, in the mid-eighteen hundreds the Midland Railway line was being built over part of the original St. Pancras Churchyard and architect Arthur Blomfield was commissioned by the Bishop of London to supervise the proper exhumation of human remains and dismantling of tombs, unable to fulfil this task he passed it to one Thomas Hardy who was studying under Blomfield between 1862 and 1867. It was left to Hardy to oversee the removal of the bodies.

This churchyard must have been the inspiration for his 1882 poem The Levelled Churchyard.

"O passenger, pray list and catch
Our sighs and piteous groans,
Half stifled in this jumbled patch
Of wrenched memorial stones!
"We late-lamented, resting here,
Are mixed to human jam,
And each to each exclaims in fear,
'I know not which I am!'
"The wicked people have annexed
The verses on the good;
A roaring drunkard sports the text
Teetotal Tommy should!
"Where we are huddled none can trace,
And if our names remain,
They pave some path or p-ing place
Where we have never lain!
"There's not a modest maiden elf
But dreads the final Trumpet,
Lest half of her should rise herself,
And half some local strumpet!
"From restorations of Thy fane,
From smoothings of Thy sward,
From zealous Churchmen's pick and plane
Deliver us O Lord! Amen!"

Hardy was known not to like London and by the end of 1867 his health had deteriorated, and this prompted his move back to his home county of Dorset. The churchyard was reopened in June 1877 as St Pancras Gardens. This followed a campaign to allow the conversion of disused burial grounds into public gardens.

Hardy's reference to this churchyard was not the first by a notable author, in 1859 Charles Dickens used it in his 1859 book The Tale of Two Cities, where one of his characters was buried and another was known to have dabbled in body snatching.

NB Since writing this post it has come to my attention that The Hardy Tree has fallen due to bad storms in the December of 2020 - this is such sad news. You can read about it here:

Thomas Hardy: Gravestone-encircled tree falls in Camden - BBC News

Image Credit: Simon Lamrock

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Death of Henry VIII

28/1/2020

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For someone like me who has trouble with dyslexia and the getting of numbers in the right order, the birth of Henry VII and the death of his son can be somewhat confusing. Henry VII was born on this day 1457, and on this day in 1547 his second son, Henry VIII died - that's exactly ninety years later.

Anyway, I seem to have got my sums right and the numbers are in the correct order so let's get on with a bit of information about the infamous Tudor king's final years.

Most of you will already know that Henry went into a physical and mental decline following a riding accident in the January of 1536. Henry was unconsciousness for two hours and his courtiers thought him dead. It was all downhill for the king after that, ulcerated legs, weight gain and an increased tendency to be irritable and quick to temper.

As his girth increased his courtiers began dressing in heavily padded clothes in an attempt to flatter him, and who can blame them, would you want to get on the wrong side of a grumpy monarch? Despite being grossly overweight Henry was still in search of a bride, on the 12th July 1543 he found one, the twice-married Catherine Parr. Catherine nursed, cared for and finally outlived him. On his death, he was succeeded by his son, Edward VI - he wasn't much fun either.

Henry was buried next to Jane Seymour, the wife who gave him his heir at St. George's Chapel at Windsor Castle.

There more about Henry in Tracy Boreman's article in this month's History Extra entitled Five things you (probably) didn't know about Henry VIII.

www.historyextra.com/period/tudor/king-henry-viii-facts-wives-spouse-execution-weight-reformation-cromwell/?fbclid=IwAR2XUlKbmSbIIKT5KmkYDtgJxJF1Zv49ucjVzBttIIiONVN4xX1oeQrEKRo

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Birth of Henry VII

28/1/2020

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On this day in 1457 Henry of Richmond, later Henry VII was born at Pembroke Castle to Margaret Beaufort and Edmund Tudor.

In 1455, at the age of just twelve years old Henry's mother, a wealthy heiress had married Edmund Tudor, the son of a commoner who had climbed into the bed of a queen of England. Margaret was soon pregnant.

Henry was born into a country that was divided by conflict and civil war.

Margaret Beaufort was just a child herself and Henry's birth did irreparable damage, this could account for the fact that she never gave birth again, however she turned out to be an influential and dominant figure throughout Henry's life. Margaret was also aware of her son's vulnerability and because of this sent him into the care of his uncle, Jasper Tudor. Following the Battle of Tewkesbury in the May of 1471 Jasper and Henry fled to Brittany and then finally into France. Henry spent, in total, fourteen years of his life in exile.

His return to England in 1485 has been much written about, and most of you will know that he was aided at the Battle of Bosworth by Thomas Stanley, his mother's husband and his brother William.

Henry of Richmond became king of England on the 22nd August in 1485.

I, of course, am a Ricardian and see Henry as a usurper, whose claim to the throne is a tenuous one to say the least, however, Richard and Henry's stories are real and to understand Henry, Richard and the Wars of the Roses it is always best to read widely with the aim to gain an understanding of both sides of story, therefore I add this paragraph taken from the Henry Tudor Society about Henry.

"He is a king often accused of being parsimonious, miserly, ruthless, severe and avaricious to the extreme, cold to his wife and cruel to friend and foe alike. The study of Henry’s life, from his beginnings through to the exile, and from his early reign to the tragic end, put forward a different man. It is this man, the real Henry, not the mythical Henry, that we aim to bring to the fore. A man who had an astounding tenacity to survive, to cling to his throne and to pass his crown to his son in a peaceful manner, something which eluded several monarchs before him."

Here a link to the Henry Tudor Society -

henrytudorsociety.com/?fbclid=IwAR2DEEbRVuKvHsmExFXibyQXSiXNnOvKz-5ARFeP31VIqfD2S7sFQKwzT84

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Medieval Women: Philippa of Hainault

24/1/2020

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On this day in 1328, King Edward III of England married Philippa of Hainault at York Minster, just eleven months after Edward had become king of England.

Edward III - St Mary's Church Shrewsbury

Edward's father, King Edward II had sent the Bishop of Exeter to Hainaut to check out the four daughters of William, Count of Hainaut. In a letter to the king the Bishop writes of his impression of the fourteen-year-old Philippa. In the letter, he describes her as a child but it has been argued that the description is of Philippa's older sister Margaret.

A description of Philippa can be found the register of the Bishop of Exeter which reads:

"The lady whom we saw has not uncomely hair, betwixt blue-black and brown. Her head is clean-shaped; her forehead high and broad, and standing somewhat forward. Her face narrows between the eyes, and the lower part of her face is still more narrow and slender than her forehead. Her eyes are blackish-brown and deep. Her nose is fairly smooth and even, save that it is somewhat broad at the tip and also flattened, and yet it is no snub-nose. Her nostrils are also broad, her mouth fairly wide. Her lips somewhat full, and especially the lower lip. Her teeth which have fallen and grown again are white enough, but the rest are not so white. The lower teeth project a little beyond the upper, yet this is but little seen. Her ears and chin are comely enough. Her neck, shoulders, and all her body are well set and unmaimed; and nought is amiss so far as a man may see. Moreover, she is brown of skin all over, and much like her father; and in all things, she is pleasant enough, as it seems to us. And the damsel will be of the age of nine years on St. John's day next to come, as her mother saith. She is neither too tall nor too short for such an age; she is of fair carriage, and well taught in all that becometh her rank, and highly esteemed and well-beloved of her father and mother and of all her meinie, in so far as we could inquire and learn the truth."

Phillipa and Edward were married for forty years, she gave Edward thirteen children, three of them died as a result of the Black Death in 1348.

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Anne of Bohemia

20/1/2020

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On this day in 1382, the marriage of Richard II to Anne of Bohemia, Richard was eight months younger than Anne, they were both fifteen years of age.

Image: Manuscript held at the Bodleian Library shows Richard with Anne.

Anne was the daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV and Elizabeth of Pomerania and was described at the time of her marriage by a Westminster chronicler as a ' tiny scrap of humanity'

Criticism of the match began when the king was forced to pay Wenceslas of Bohemia, Anne's brother, £4,000,000 (in today's money) for the right to marry his sister. Adding insult to injury Anne brought no dowry and her large entourage was paid for, in part, by the king.

Anne was crowned queen of England two days later.

Their twelve-year marriage was considered to have been a happy one but despite that there were no children and therefore no heir. Following Anne's death of the plague at the Sheen in 1394 Richard had the building demolished.

In 1396 Richard would marry the seven-year-old Isabella of Valois.

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Tudor Women: Jane Dormer

13/1/2020

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On this day in 1612 the death of Jane Dormer, Duchess of Feria. Jane was a long time friend of Queen Mary I.

Jane's family were not strangers in the royal court, her maternal grandfather William Sidney had been a tutor to Edward VI and her father William Dormer had been in the service of Thomas Cromwell.

On the death of her mother, Jane was cared for by her paternal grandmother, also named Jane. It was from her home that Jane was sent to be a member of the household of Princess Mary to whom she would become a lady in waiting. Loyal to the queen until her death, Jane was at Mary's bedside when she died in 1558 and it was into her hands that Mary placed her jewellery to be passed to her sister Elizabeth.

Considered a beauty, Jane was courted by a number of English nobles, but after Mary's death, she married Gomez Suarez de Figueroa of Cordova, the Duke of Feria who had accompanied Philip of Spain when he arrived in England to marry Mary. However, following Mary's death and the accession to the throne of Elizabeth, the duke was replaced as an ambassador and the couple left for Spain.

In 1609 the seventy-one-year-old duchess broke her arm and over the next few years her health slowly deteriorated. Anticipating death Jane Dormer wore a death's head, a terminal bead attached to her rosary and ordered a coffin to be made which she kept in the house. She was buried at the monastery of Santa Clara in Zafra in Spain twelve days following her death.

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Battle of Reading

4/1/2020

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In the January of 871, three battles took place between the forces of King Ethelred against an invading Danish army, the first on this day, was outside the Berkshire town of Reading.

King Ethelred had ascended the throne of England on the death of his brother Ethelbert in 865, that was the same year that the men of the north arrived on our countries shores. Within five years the Vikings had defeated the forces of the king of Mercia and were making their way to Ethelred's Wessex.

It was on the 4th of January that Ethelred took on the enemy at the Battle of Reading. This battle ended with a defeat for Ethelred's army enabling the Vikings to take the town which they used as their base.

Within days they continued their advance into Wessex and by the 8th of January, the two forces battled on the Berkshire Downs just the south-west of Ashbury village. Ethelred's scattered army had reformed, and he had placed his forces in two units, one under his command the other under his brother Alfred on either side of a ridge. A delay on Ethelred's part to order a charge forced Alfred to make his attack, Ethelred followed, eventually, the Viking army was defeated.

The final battle in January took place at Basing on the 22nd where Ethelred's army was once again defeated but there were heavy losses to both sides. Exactly two months later on the 22nd of March at Marton, the forces of the Anglo-Saxon's and the Danish army met again at a site that has never been confirmed (up to five sites have been suggested) that was another loss for Ethelred. In the April King Ethelred is thought to have died from wounds inflicted at Marton.

Taking up Ethelred's sword against the Vikings would be Alfred named the Great, who according to English historian Edward Freeman was "the most perfect character in history.’

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