Blog Archives - Meandering Through Time

Sir Thomas Herriot

28/7/2016

‪The 27th of July 1586 is the date given for the arrival of tobacco in England, brought, it is said, by Sir Walter Raleigh from Virginia. Indeed, one legend tells of how Sir Walter’s servant, seeing him smoking a pipe for the first time, threw water over him, for fear that he was on fire. Raleigh is also credited as being responsible for our love of that round brown vegetable that we just love to chip, boil, roast, and mash - the potato.
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However, it is one Thomas Harriot, and not Raleigh who should get the credit.

On the 28th of July 1586, Sir Thomas Harriot disembarked from a ship in Plymouth harbour with a number of bags of potatoes, returning from Raleigh’s English colony on Roanoke Island, which today we know as North Carolina, where he had been studying wildlife.

Of this vegetable he would later write his "A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia" and in it would describe the potato as

“Openavk are kind of roots of round forme, some of the bignes of walnuts, some far greater, which are found in
moist & marish grounds growing many together one by another in ropes, or as thogh they were a string. Being boiled or
sodden they are very good meate.”

Harriot, who was born in Northumberland in 1564, was employed by Raleigh as his maths teacher, he was also friends with Henry Percy, 9th Earl of Northumberland, however, Raleigh's execution and Percy's connections with the Gunpowder Plotters saw his funding end, it was then he took up astronomy. This in turn led to him being credited as the first person to draw the moon, over four months before Galileo put ink to paper.

Sir John Talbot of Whitwick

20/7/2016

The tomb of Sir John Talbot lies in the north aisle of St John the Baptist, in the Leicestershire village of Whitwick.
A giant of a man by all accounts, John Talbot's effigy measures 6 foot 5 inches.

Photograph Credit: Aidan McRae Thomson

In 1321, Talbot was at odds with Henry Beaumont over Whitwick Castle, both claimed that the castle was theirs by right.

The Talbot family held lands in Leicestershire and Lincolnshire, John had received lands from his father Philip Talbot. Beaumont's claim to the castle was by right of his wife Alice Comyn.

In 1309, Beaumont had been granted vast sways of land in Lincolnshire by Edward II and in 1321 he had had also been granted a licence to crenellate Whitwick Castle.

Henricus de Bello Monte, Consanguineus Regis ... mansum ... Whitewyk, Leicestr.
(Licence for Henry de Bello Monte to crenellate his dwelling-place of Whitewyk, co. Leicester.)

On hearing this, Talbot raised a small army and forced Beaumont out of the castle and then razed the castle to the ground. Whitwick Castle was in ruins by the mid 15th century, and by 1800 only the foundations and the north wall were still visible.
Of Sir John Talbot's life there is very little to read, he died in 1365.

Of Beaumont's life there more, he went on to fight in a number of battles and lead an army to invade Scotland with Edward Balliol. He died in 1340.

Photograph Credit: Aidan McRae Thomson

Sir John Talbot

20/7/2016

The tomb of Sir John Talbot lies in the north aisle of St John the Baptist, in the Leicestershire village of Whitwick.
A giant of a man by all accounts, John Talbot's effigy measures 6 foot 5 inches.

In 1321, Talbot was at odds with Henry Beaumont over Whitwick Castle, both claimed that the castle was theirs by right.
The Talbot family held lands in Leicestershire and Lincolnshire, John had received lands from his father Philip Talbot. Beaumont's claim to the castle was by right of his wife Alice Comyn.

In 1309, Beaumont had been granted vast sways of land in Lincolnshire by Edward II and in 1321 he had had also been granted a licence to crenellate Whitwick Castle.

Henricus de Bello Monte, Consanguineus Regis ... mansum ... Whitewyk, Leicestr.
(Licence for Henry de Bello Monte to crenellate his dwelling-place of Whitewyk, Co. Leicester.)

On hearing this, Talbot raised a small army and forced Beaumont out of the castle and then raised the castle to the ground. Whitwick Castle was in ruins by the mid 15th century, and by 1800 only the foundations and the north wall were still visible.
Of Sir John Talbot's life there is very little, he died in 1365.

Of Beaumont's life there more, he went on to fight in a number of battles and lead an army to invade Scotland with
Edward Balliol. He died in 1340.

Photograph Credit Aidan McRae Thomson

Spanish Armada off the Coast of Cornwall

19/7/2016

It was in the May of 1588 that a great fleet of ships set sail from Spain for England. Known as the Spanish Armada they were a large invasion force under the Duke of Parma who had every intention of overthrowing protestant England.

Delayed by bad weather, four galleys and one of the galleons had to leave the fleet, these ships were spotted when they appeared off The Lizard in Cornwall. Once sighted, the news was conveyed to London by a system of beacons that had been built all the way along the south coast.

Trapped in Plymouth Harbour by the incoming tide, the English fleet could do nothing about this threat.

Eventually, with the turning of the tide, fifty-five English ships set sail, with Charles Howard as Admiral of the Fleet, and Francis Drake as his Vice Admiral.

On the evening of the 19th of July Howard wrote to Thomas Walsingham :

"whereupon, although the wind was very scant, we first warped out of harbour that night, and upon Saturday turned out very hardly, the wind being at South-West; and about three of the clock in the afternoon, descried the Spanish fleet, and did what
we could to work for the wind, which [by this] morning we had recovered, descrying their f[leet to] consist of 120 sail, whereof there are 4 g[alleasses] and many ships of great burden. At nine of the [clock] we gave them fight, which continued until one.
[In this] fight we made some of them to bear room to stop their leaks; notwithstanding we durst not adventure to put in
among them, their fleet being so strong. But there shall be nothing either neglected or unhazarded, that may work their overthrow. Sir, the captains in her Majesty's ships have behaved themselves most bravely and like men."

Charles Howard's, along with John Hawkin's and Martin Frobisher's part in this great historical moment are often forgotten, and in the story of the Spanish Armada, they rarely get a mention. It was Howard along with Drake who thought of and organised
the famous fire ships that burnt and finally destroyed the Spanish ships, yet it is Francis Drake who usually gets all the credit.

Drake, all cool, calm and collected, and handsome to boot, fits our romantic ideals as the perfect hero and what better story to demonstrate this is his famous game of bowls on Plymouth Hoe. On being told that Spanish ships had been spotted he famously remarked that there was plenty of time for him to finish his game.

Now, that is cool if he actually said it!

Death of Sir John Talbot

17/7/2016

Died at the Battle of Castillon this day in 1453 John Talbot, said to be the best general Henry VI had.

O, no; wherein Lord Talbot was o'erthrown:
The circumstance I'll tell you more at large.
The tenth of August last this dreadful lord,
Retiring from the siege of Orleans,
Having full scarce six thousand in his troop.
By three and twenty thousand of the French
Was round encompassed and set upon….
More than three hours the fight continued;
Where valiant Talbot above human thought
Enacted wonders with his sword and lance:
Hundreds he sent to hell, and none durst stand him;
Here, there, and every where, enraged he flew:
The French exclaim’d, the devil was in arms;
All the whole army stood agazed on him:
His soldiers spying his undaunted spirit
A Talbot! a Talbot! cried out amain
And rush’d into the bowels of the battle.
Henry VI Part One: Act 1, Scene 1

In Shakespeare's play John Talbot is seen as the last of the medieval heroes, a daring soldier loyal to his king while
most of the English nobles are fighting among themselves.

Anne Askew, Lincolnshire Born Protestant Martyr.

16/7/2016

Anne Askew was just twenty five when she was executed for her beliefs on the 16th July 1546.

Anne was born Anne Ayscough in Stallingborough, a village just south of Immingham in Lincolnshire in 1521, the daughter William Ayscough, a wealthy land owner, who was one of the jurors in the trial of those accused along side Anne Boleyn.

Anne grew up to be a strong willed, highly intelligent woman who refused to take her husband's name of Kyme on their marriage, which is seems was an unhappy one.

In 1544, Anne was forcibly evicted from the family home by her husband. A year later she was distributing bibles and preaching Protestantism in London. No doubt highly vocal, she eventually was arrested on charges of heresy. Anne was released, but soon found herself arrested once more, this time she was committed to Newgate Prison. From Newgate, Anne was taken to the Tower of London, where she is tortured on the rack but she refused to name anyone and therefore condemned to death.

The treatment of her within the tower walls was nothing less than barbaric, it left her unable to walk and on the 16th July, she had to be carried to her execution on a chair.

Anne Ayscough remained defiant as she was burned at the stake at Smithfield, just outside the cities wall.

The following is an excerpt about Anne's death from John Foxe’s Book of Martyrs

"The day of her execution being appointed, she was brought into Smithfield in a chair, because she could not go on her feet, by means of her great torments. When she was brought unto the stake, she was tied by the middle with a chain, that held
up her body. When all things were thus prepared to the fire, Dr. Shaxton, who was then appointed to preach, began his sermon. Anne Askew, hearing and answering again unto him, where he said well, confirmed the same; where he said amiss, “There,” said she, “he misseth, and speaketh without the book.”

The sermon being finished, the martyrs, standing there tied at three several stakes ready to their martyrdom, began their prayers. The multitude and concourse of the people was exceeding; the place where they stood being railed about to keep out the press. Upon the bench under St. Bartholomew’s church sat Wriothesley, Chancellor of England; the old Duke of Norfolk, the old Earl of Bedford, the Lord Mayor, with divers others. Before the fire should be set unto them, one of the bench, hearing that they had gunpowder about them, and being alarmed lest the faggots, by strength of the gunpowder, would come flying about their ears, began to be afraid: but the Earl of Bedford, declaring unto him how the gunpowder was not laid under the faggots, but only about their bodies, to rid them out of their pain, which having vent, there was no danger to them of the faggots, so diminished that fear.

Then Wriothesley, Lord Chancellor, sent to Anne Askew letters, offering to her the king’s pardon if she would recant; who, refusing once to look upon them, made this answer again, that she came not thither to deny her Lord and Master. Then were the letters likewise offered unto the others, who, in like manner, following the constancy of the woman, denied not only to receive them, but also to look upon them. Whereupon the lord mayor, commanding fire to be put unto them, cried with a loud voice, “Fiat Justitia.”

And thus the good Anne Askew, with these blessed martyrs, being troubled so many manner of ways, and having passed through so many torments, having now ended the long course of her agonies, being compassed in with flames of fire, as a blessed sacrifice unto God, she slept in the Lord A.D. 1546, leaving behind her a singular example of Christian constancy for all men to follow."

Robert the Bruce

11/7/2016

"Let Scotland's warcraft be this: footsoldiers, mountains and marshy ground; and let her woods, her bow and spear serve for barricades. Let menace lurk in all her narrow places among her warrior bands, and let her plains so burn with fire that her enemies flee away. Crying out in the night, let her men be on their guard, and her enemies in confusion will flee from hunger's sword. Surely it will be so, as we're guided by Robert, our lord."

Scotland's Strategy of Guerrilla Warfare c.1308

Photograph: Face Lab/Liverpool John Moores University

Robert the Bruce is thought to have been born at Turnberry Castle in Ayrshire Scotland on the 11th July 1274, into an aristocratic family. His mother was Marjorie of Carrick, his father Robert Bruce, Lord of Annandale, was distantly related to Scotland's royal family.

According to legend, Bruce was driven into exile and hiding in a cave, he sat and watched a small spider trying to make a web, the spider would fall and then climb slowly back up to try again.

This was Bruce's inspiration for his continued efforts to establish an independent Scotland, and along with William Wallace he is Scotland's national hero.

Robert Bruce had been elected guardian of Scotland in 1298, replacing William Wallace as the leader of the long campaign against the English attempt to conquer Scotland. After the devastating defeat of Wallace at Falkirk in 1298 and then Bruce’s own defeat at Methven in 1306, much of Bruce’s campaign took the form of guerrilla warfare. In this way he completely changed the balance of power in Scotland.

In February of that year, at the altar of Greyfriars Church in Dumfries Robert the Bruce killed John Comyn, a staunch supporter of the Balliol dynasty and head of the most powerful baronial families in Scotland.

Six weeks later, on the 25th March, Robert the Bruce was crowned King of Scotland at Scone in Perthshire, however many saw him as a violent usurper.

By 1314, just two major strategic fortresses remained in English hands on the border at Berwick and controlling the crossing
of the Forth at Stirling. But the Stirling garrison finally agreed to surrender if the English king did not arrive with a relieving
force by 24th June 1314. In response Edward II assembled an army of about 13,000 at Berwick, marching north in May and reaching Falkirk on the 22nd June.

Bruce deployed his forces in woodland south west of Stirling, through which the major road approached the town. He carefully prepared this chosen spot, beside the Bannock Burn and, as the English advanced against him, over two days of fighting achieved a dramatic victory.

Alan Beattie Herriot's robust, eighteen foot sculpture of the Scottish hero is testament to that fact, it stands in its
magnificence outside Marischal College Aberdeen. It is there to recognise the debt owed to Robert the Bruce as a
benefactor of the city's Common Good Fund which was developed as a direct result of a charter issued by him in 1319.

History, the Key to our Future

7/7/2016

The study of history is necessary to avoid repeating past mistakes and this has been summed up on more than one occasion in the statement "Those who don't remember history are doomed to repeat it" or words to that effect.

One of the more famous quotes "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" comes from the pen of novelist George Santayana in his 1905 work The Life of Reason. This particular saying has been widely used and often wrongly attributed to others, such as Edmund Burke and Winston Churchill.

Burke's politics were based on his hatred of injustice and the abuse of power. He is noted for his support of the American Colonies against British oppression, the plight of Catholics in his native Ireland and he was against the ideology of the French Revolution. It is in his political pamphlet Reflections on the Revolution in France, published in 1790, that we may find the first use of this terminology for this specific meaning. Burke wrote:

"People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors."

Winston Churchill is credited with the phrase, however he used his version of it in a speech in the
House of Commons in 1935.

“When the situation was manageable it was neglected, and now that it is thoroughly out of hand we apply too late the remedies which then might have effected a cure. There is nothing new in the story. It is as old as the sibylline books.
It falls into that long, dismal catalogue of the fruitlessness of experience and the confirmed unteachability of mankind.
Want of foresight, unwillingness to act when action would be simple and effective, lack of clear thinking, confusion of
counsel until the emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong these are the features which
constitute the endless repetition of history.”

Twenty four years later Aldous Huxley had the same idea when he said

"That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history."

All these great thinkers it seems are all singing from the same hymn sheet.

Samuel Taylor Colridge in 1831 said
"If men could learn from history, what lessons it might teach us. But passion and party blind our eyes, and the light which experience gives us is a lantern on the stern, which shines only on the waves behind us.”

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel in 1832
“What experience and history teaches us is that people and governments have never learned anything from history,
or acted on principles deduced from it.”

So here we are today with our parliament in chaos, the Brexit vote was a catastrophe for our country - we are a divided nation. We should take heed from these cautionary tales, and hope that we do learn from the experiences of others, because if we don't and to quote Dad's Army's Private Frazier.

"Were (actually are) all doomed"

Katherine Grey

6/7/2016

This miniature is of Katherine Grey with her son, Edward Seymour.

Katherine was the second daughter of Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk, and Lady Frances Brandon, whose mother was a
sister of Henry VIII and whose father was Charles Brandon one of Henry VIII's closest friends. After her elder sister
Lady Jane Grey's execution, according to the Will of Henry VIII, Katherine was third in line to the throne of England and because of this the subject of who she should marry was of great importance.

In 1560 Katherine married, in secret, the nephew of Henry VIII's third wife Jane Seymour, and when the queen found out she was furious. She imprisoned the pregnant Katherine and her husband in the Tower of London, on the 24th September 1561, Katherine gave birth to a son Edward. Elizabeth immediately announced her intention to have Edward 'declared a bastard by Parliament'

Queen Elizabeth had no liking for the Grey family and I've never really known why, they were the children of her cousin and had Tudor blood in their veins surely they were a better option for the throne than that of her 'rival' and cousin Mary Queen of Scots.

At this point in time, Elizabeth was a mixture of emotions, she was fiery, quick-tempered, and vain and had a jealous
streak that ran through her, and who could blame her? No real choice of husband for her, she wanted to marry Robert Dudley, but royal duties and her heart's desire were not compatible and in the end, she chose not to marry.

Was jealousy the reason for Elizabeth's anger against Katherine's marriage? Did she ask herself why her cousin should be able to marry for love and without her permission, and have a son and heir too?

Whilst in the Tower of London Katherine Grey gave birth to another son which enraged Elizabeth even more causing her to order Katherine's separation from Seymour and her younger son. Katherine, although released from the tower was never really free, for a while she was in the care of her uncle, Sir John Grey. After being in the care of two more 'jailers' she died aged twenty-seven in 1568.

What of Katherine's sons?

Elizabeth refused to recognise Katherine's marriage as valid or to recognise Katherine's two boys as legitimate therefore Edward, the baby in the miniature was passed over as Elizabeth's heir.

William Parker 11th Baron Monteagle

1/7/2016

William Parker, 11th Baron Monteagle's claim to fame is the part he played in the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot.
For this he was generously rewarded by a grateful James I, who awarded him £700 a year and lands to the value of £200
which in today's money is about £67,000, some of which he invested in projects abroad.

William Parker, was born in 1575 the son of Edward Parker, 12th Baron Morley and his wife Elizabeth Stanley.
He had married Elizabeth Tresham, the sister of Francis Treshem, who it is thought sent what is known as
the Monteagle Letter.

It was on the 26th October 1605 that Lord Monteagle received said letter from an 'anonymous' source warning him not to
attend parliament when it resumed in the next few days. The letter, with reference to the government stated

My lord, out of the love I bear to some of your friends, I have a care of your preservation, therefore
I would advise you as you tender your life to devise some excuse to shift your attendance at this
parliament, for God and man have concurred to punish the wickedness of this time, and think not
slightly of this advertisement, but retire yourself into your country, where you may expect the event
in safety, for though there be no appearance of any stir, yet I say they shall receive a terrible blow
this parliament and yet they shall not see who hurts them, this counsel is not to be condemned
because it may do you good and can do you no harm, for the danger is past as soon as you have
burnt the letter and I hope God will give you the grace to make good use of it, to whose holy
protection I commend you

Transcript of Letter to Lord Monteagle
26 October 1605

Monteagle left his home and passed this letter to the secretary of state Robert Cecil, who in searching the cellars under
the Palace of Westminster found evidence to the truth of the letter in the form of thirty six barrels of gunpowder,
and hiding among the barrels was one Guy Fawkes.

And the rest, they say, is history.