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The Arrest of Lord Hastings by John Gilbert

31/12/2016

Below you can see a rather amusing depiction of Richard III by Victorian artist Sir John Gilbert. Gilbert has Richard looking
like an old man whose lost his walking stick. As usual Richard is depicted as malicious, here he has an evil eye, he is
crooked and sinister but with a penchant for black fur and funny hats, and it seems unable to walk unaided!

Christies of London had it up for auction and its final selling price was £2875.

The painting is oil on canvas and is entitled The Arrest of Lord Hastings, it is signed by the artist and is dated 1871.

An inscription on the back reads

''The Arrest of Lord Hastings''/'Gloucester: Thou art a traitor:/Off with his head! Now, by Saint Paul I swear,/I will not dine
until I see the same./Lovel and Ratcliff, look that it be done: The rest, that love me, rise and follow me.' Richard III Act III
Scene 4.'

This work was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1836, a water colour by Gilbert with a similar title "The Arrest of Lord
Hasting by the Duke of Gloucester" was also in exhibited 1836 but in a less than grand Suffolk street exhibition.

Would I have bought it if I had more money than I knew what to do with? I would not!

Would you?

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Emperor Commodus

31/12/2016

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Marcus Aurelius Commodus Antoninus Augustus was born on the 31st August 161 in Rome to Marcus Aurelius and Faustina his cousin. He was a twin, but his brother died at the age of three.

Most of us will remember him as Commodus, he was Emperor of Rome from 180 to 192.

I know my Roman Emperors from Augustus to Nero, throw in Valerian, Trajan and Hadrian but after that I'm on shaky ground. I only know of Commodus from watching Ridley Scott's film Gladiator, in which Joaquin Phoenix depicts Commodus. In Scott's brilliant film, Commodus is viewed as a bad emperor, murdering his father, usurping the throne, lusting after his sister and worst of all he defiantly has it in for poor old Maximus, whom he is terribly jealous of.

So was Commodus as wicked as we see in the film? Well, according to Cassius Dio, in his History on Ancient Rome he was

"not naturally wicked but, on the contrary, as guileless as any man that ever lived. His great simplicity, however, together with his cowardice, made him the slave of his companions, and it was through them that he at first, out of ignorance, missed the better life and then was led on into lustful and cruel habits, which soon became second nature."

What I have read about him, I'm not so sure he was right!

Those plotting against him thought so too, Commodus died on the 31st of December 192 from a second attempt to assassinate him. His mistress poisoned his food but he managed to vomit it out of his system. He was eventually strangled later that day in his bath by his personal trainer on the order of his chamberlain.

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Family History: The Mohun and de Tracy Families.

29/12/2016

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While researching my medieval family history I have found numerous examples of the loss of reputation, land and
wealth - all that has taken one generation to accumulate, taken away by the next. The de Tracy and the Mohun family are
just one example. During the reign of King Stephen, the ancestors of William de Tracy, one of the murderers of Thomas Becket, feature in my family history, they benefited from the downfall of my ancestors, the Mohuns.

The de Tracy's held at least two baronies in Devon, that of Barnstaple and Bradninch. The Mohuns held the barony of Dunster
in Somerset.

For his part in an uprising in 1139, William Mohun has gone down in history as a man both hated and feared by the
population of the West Country, most of Williams ‘bad press’ appears in the ‘Gesta Stephani’ or ‘The Acts of Stephen’ a
12th century study of English history. According to this work, Mohun and other West Country rebels, ravaged the country
in order to obstruct the king.

He (King Stephen) also gave orders to Henry de Tracy, a skilled soldier, oft approved in the hazards of war, that acting
n his stead, because he was called away to other business, he should with all promptitude and diligence bestir himself
against the enemy. Henry therefore, in the Kings absence, set forth from Barnstaple, a town belonging to him and
enjoying privileges granted to him by the king, and made vigorous and determined attacks on his foes, so that he not
only restrained their wonted sallies and the unbridled, marauding raids in the neighbourhood, but also captured a hundred
and four horsemen in on cavalry encounter. At length, he so reduced and humbled William (Mohun) that he was able
to abandon further hostilities against him and to leave the country more peaceful and free from such disturbance"

My ancestor died in obscurity, and his family suffered as a direct result of the loss of 104 of his knights to Henry de Tracy.
As Mohun’s disgrace left the next generation to suffer the consequences of his actions, the De Tracy family were, for
a generation at least, rising stars, but like the Mohuns, the de Tracys too fell out of royal favour, William de Tracy, as we
have seen in a previous post, was one of the four men who had heard Henry II’s outburst "Will no one rid me of this t
urbulent priest?’ and then had gone on to murder Becket at Canterbury Cathedral, as a result the De Tracy lands in Devon
were forfeited to the crown.

In the image you can see Dunster Castle, that fell into disrepair, and its surrounding land during the time of the Anarchy.

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Dolly Pentreath

28/12/2016

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Dydh da, fatla genes?

Dolly Pentreath is said to be the last native Cornish speaker, she died on the 26th December in 1777.

By the nineteenth century, Cornish had died as a spoken community language, although records state that it was being spoken particularly at sea by Newlyn fishermen.

During this century there has been a revival of interest in Celtic culture which meant that Cornish attracted some academic attention. Plays of the middle Cornish period have been studied, and academics such as Edwin Norris and Whitley Stokes published them with commentaries and translations. It was not until early in the twentieth century that an attempt was made to revive the language.

My Cornish great great grandmother was Jane Pentreath, born in Paul, not too far from Newlyn, Dolly Pentreath was Jane's great aunt and, as already mentioned, the last person to speak fluent Cornish. However, the only sentence my grandfather could say was "Can you pass me that bag of nails" which was no use whatsoever unless you were in a hardware shop!

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History Bites: Richard I Captured

20/12/2016

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On this day in 1192, King Richard I was captured in the Austrian town of Vienna whilst on his way home from crusade by King Leopold V of Austria.

Following his departure from the Holy land in the October, Richard the Lionheart was travelling in a disguise when he was captured and imprisoned. The English king was held hostage until February 1194, a ransom was eventually paid to release the king, part of which was used to build the Austrian town Wiener Neusdadt.

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Sir Humphry Davy

17/12/2016

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On the 17th December 1778, one of Cornwall's famous sons, Sir Humphry Davy was born in Penzance.

Davy was educated in Cornwall's county town of Truro, and this was followed by an apprenticeship to a
Penzance surgeon. In 1797, Davy took up chemistry, and was taken on as an assistant at the Medical Pneumatic Institution
in Bristol. It was here he experimented with various new gases by inhaling them which nearly cost him his life on more than
one occasion, eventually though, this experimentation led to the discovery of the anesthetic effect that we know as
laughing gas.

In 1815, George Stephenson from Newcastle, claimed he was the inventor of a safety lamp for the use in coal mines but
it is Davy who is credited with the invention. This lamp allowed coal to be mined from deep coal seams reducing the dangers
of explosions from methane gas. The lamp, consisted of a wick with the flame enclosed inside a mesh screen, Davy
discovered that if the mesh was fine enough, it would not ignite the methane.

Sir Humphry Davy died in Geneva, Switzerland, on 29 May 1829

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The Arrest of Lord Hastings by John Gilbert

Emperor Commodus

Family History: The Mohun and de Tracy Families.

Dolly Pentreath

History Bites: Richard I Captured

﻿Sir Humphry Davy

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