All Categories - Meandering Through Time

Isabella of Angouleme

1/10/2022

There seems to be a bit of a disagreement among historians as to the reasons King John married his second wife Isabella of Angouleme, some say it was born out of lust, others out of the need to control the areas that neighboured Angouleme.

John, it has been said, took an immediate fancy to Isabella, the daughter of Audemar the Count of Angouleme, and was quick to make a play for her. John certainly loved women, he was unfaithful to both his wives and kept numerous mistresses, some of them married women, so it is easy to believe that he was determined to have her and was not going to take no for an answer.

There was a big difference in their ages, John was nearly thirty-four and Isabella was about fifteen when they married on the 24th of August 1200. The birth of their firstborn suggests that the king may have respected her tender age and stayed out of the marriage bed until at least the end of 1206.

Following their marriage, the couple arrived back in England, where on this day, the 8th October 1200, Isabella was crowned at Westminster Abbey.

The view that most historians put forward, that King John was a tyrant and a thoroughly bad chap with absolutely no redeeming features, makes it difficult to find anything positive to say about his twelve-year marriage to Isabella, but from what I have read it looks to be an exact copy of that of John's parents Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine. John was a philanderer, so was Henry, Isabella a been a strong and forceful woman, so was Eleanor.

Soon after John's death in 1216, Isabella left her children, the youngest just a year old, in the care of the English court, and made a new life for herself with a new husband in her home of Angouleme.

Lea Seydoux as Isabella in the 2010 film Robin Hood.

Birth of Horatio Nelson

17/9/2022

On the 29th September in 1758, Horatio Nelson, the sixth child and third surviving son of Revd Edmund Nelson and Catherine Suckling, was born at Burnham Thorpe in Norfolk.

Nelson's mother, who died when he was nine, was the great-niece of Prime Minster Robert Walpole. She named her son after her second cousin, Horatio Walpole, who served as his godfather. In the baptism register of the parish church of Burnham All Saints, you can see that someone had entered information about his career.

At the age of ten, Nelson learned to row and sail a dinghy at Burnham Overy Staithe, a hamlet just a few miles away from his home. At the age of twelve, he finished his schooling at Sir John Paston's School at North Walsham and joined the navy as an ordinary seaman aboard the HMS Raisonnable. Thirty-five years later, as Horatio, Lord Nelson he would captain the HMS Victory.

The Battle of Trafalgar is what Horatio Nelson is remembered for. This battle resulted in the loss of nineteen French and Spanish ships and 6,953 enemy casualties. The English lost no ships but there were 1,690 casualties including Nelson himself.

meanderingthroughtime.weebly.com/history-blog/death-of-a-hero-horatio-nelson

Coronation of William Rufus

17/9/2022

According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, it was on this day in 1087, that William Rufus, the second son of William the Conquer was hastily crowned King William II at Westminster Abbey by Bishop Lanfranc. The records state that 'all the men in England bowed themselves before him and swore oaths.' That wasn’t entirely true.

William arrived in London two weeks after the death of his father, enough time, writes historian Franck Barlow for those English men of importance to have their say but not enough time for rebel barons to cross to Normandy, to muster support from Robert Curthose, Rufus's older brother.

On their father's death bed, Curthose and Rufus had agreed to be each other's heir, but this peace did not last long, by 1088 Curthose was on his way to join the rebellious barons and remove Rufus from the throne.

The Treaty of Saint Clair Sur Epte

14/9/2022

The Treaty of Saint Clair Sur Epte was signed in the autumn of 911, the signatories were Viking leader Rollo and the Frankish Charles the Simple. This treaty gave what is present-day Upper Normandy to Rollo and the City of Rouen to Charles.
Rollo would hold the title of Duke of Normandy and by 1020 his descendants, the ‘Normans’ would continue to conqueror lands west of the duchy that included the island of Mont Saint Michel.

The signing of this treaty was not a matter of sealing a document or signing a name along the dotted line, it was the swearing of allegiance to a king in an official ceremony. Rollo had to 'shake hands' with Charles after which the king is said to have offered Gisele, his daughter, in marriage to Rollo.

Legend has it that those officiating suggested that Rollo kiss the king’s foot, an act of submission which Rollo, it is said, did not take very well so one of Rollo's men did it for him. The story goes that this man lifted the king’s foot without bending down, causing the king to fall over amid much hilarity on the Viking's part no doubt.

The existence of Gisele is disputed, and this story is probably a myth, there was a lot of forced 'bending of the knee' in those days

You can read more about this period in time in my blog on my website at

meanderingthroughtime.weebly.com/tosny-of-normandy.html

Inheritance Tax

30/7/2022

On the 2nd August 1894, Sir William George Granville Venables Vernon Harcourt, Chancellor of the Exchequer and Home Secretary introduced the tax of Death Duty, we know this as Inheritance Tax.

This new law was introduced to raise money to pay off a four million pound government shortfall.

In the story of Downton Abbey, it was taxes and a medieval inheritance system that was the real root of the family's troubles.
Both together, these two things threatened to ruin the life that Earl of Grantham's ancestors had built up over many years.
Robert Crawley and his wife had daughters and no sons and because of the laws of primogeniture, none of them could inherit their father's title, house, or land. It was Robert's first cousin James and his son Patrick who stood to inherit, but when they died on the Titanic, it was Matthew Crawley, Robert's third cousin once removed, who became heir presumptive.

Primogeniture is centuries old however the taxation of a person's wealth at the time of their death dates from the end of the 17th century.

It's a good job a person wasn't taxed on the amount of names he had isn't it?

Henry Handley

11/7/2022

Henry Handley, entrepreneur and member of Parliament was described by one James Grant as

"a tall, stout, good-looking man. He has a jolly, countrified countenance, with a complexion redolent of health. His face is full, and his features are regular and pleasing. His hair is of a light brown, and he sports a pair of whiskers of which any Spanish Don might be proud."

Handley inherited his estates in Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire on the death of his father Benjamin Handley who had helped to establish the canalisation of the River Slea, known as the Sleaford Navigation, and who also founded the first bank in the town.

Following his move to Culverthorpe Hall, his new home just outside the town, Handley became interested in agricultural affairs and the plight of the land working people in regard to the Malt Tax stating

" it was impossible for the present system to continue long; the voice of the people must prevail...."

Proud of their son, the town erected a monument to commemorate the life of Henry Handley who had been born in the town in 1797.

Handley died in the June on 1846.

Birth of Edward I

17/6/2022

In the late evening of the 17th June 1239 Edward I was born to Henry III and Eleanor of Provence, he was probably named after Edward the Confessor.

On the death of his father in 1272, Edward inherited the English throne. He would build castles in Wales to subdue the Welsh and make his son the first Prince of Wales. By 1290, he moved on to Scotland and angered the Scottish nobility by deciding who would succeed to the Scottish throne. He chose John Balliol. In retaliation the Scottish deposed Balliol and formed an alliance with France. Edward then invaded Scotland, imprisoned Balliol in the Tower of London and placed the Scottish people under English rule. For this he was given the name of Hammer of the Scots.

Edward had a second nickname, that of Longshanks because of his height - he was six foot two. Historian Michael Prestwich wrote of this that Edward's

"Long arms gave him an advantage as a swordsman, long thighs one as a horseman'

Georgina Era: The Coffee House

5/6/2022

The Georgian era was an age of expansion, an age of inventions that brought changes in agriculture, textiles and in mining. It was also a time when coffee became a big thing. Coffee houses, an 17th century equivalent of Costa Coffee and Starbucks, were extremely popular.

I imagine these modern day cafes have writers, artists and scientists among their clientele, all chatting over their steaming coffees and slices of walnut cake, London Coffee houses had much the same. Frequenting these houses were the who's who of the day, Samuel Pepys, Alexander Pope and Isaac Newton. However, unlike today women were not found in these establishments.

Women took up the banner against the consumption of this drink in their Women’s Petition Against Coffee, in which it was claimed that the 'old tar turned men into effeminate, babbling, French layabouts.'

Pasque Rosee, a servant to a London merchant opened the first coffee house in London as a side line in 1652, he claimed in The Virtue of Coffee that it was 'the grain or berry called coffee that groweth upon little trees, only in the Deserts of Arabia' others likened to “syrup of soot and the essence of old shoes.”

I have to agree on that point.

Despite that, the taste for coffee hasn't lessened, in fact you cannot walk down the high street without seeing some one clutching a plastic coffee cup.

Give me tea in a china cup and saucer any day.

John Nevison

1/5/2022

John Nevison was a notorious highwayman who had been convicted of horse theft and highway robbery. He went to his death on the 4th May in 1684 following his conviction of the murder.

Nevison was rogue who had a reputation as a 'gentleman highwayman' a veritable Robin Hood who it was said never used violence against his victims, who was always polite and robbed only the wealthy. He was an ex-military man from a wealthy family who fell on hard times following the death of his father. Everyone knew about Nevison at the time, even King Charles II had heard of him.

In 1676 Nevison was tried on a charge of armed robbery that took place in Kent. Evidence was heard at his trial that he was in York at eight o'clock on the evening of the murder and therefore it was impossible for him to have been in Kent that morning because agreed that it was impossible to cover over two hundred miles in one day and therefore Nevison was acquitted.
This ride from Kent to York was later used the embellish the story of another highwayman - does it ring any bells?

John Nevison's name has faded into obscurity, his life story is similar to that of many men who resorted to highway robbery to earn a living, however certain aspects of his life have been attributed to a man who few knew of at the time, but whose story would become stuff legends are made of.

Dick Turpin was a violent troublemaker in Essex, a horse rustler, a sheep stealer in Lincolnshire whose past finally caught up with him. Turpin was sentenced to death by hanging and executed this day in 1739. It is said that he paid for professional mourners to follow him up the scaffold where he put on a great show for the large crowd.

Reality and storytelling came together in 1834 in the book Rookwood, where the author, either by mistake or design, merges the gentleman highwayman that was Nevison with the violent show off that was Turpin and added his own twist to the tale in the form of Turpin's horse Black Bess who he said to have died on exhaustion following Turpin's ride from London to York to establish an alibi.

Both these men lived a life of crime and were punished for it, but I cannot help feeling sorry for Nevison, the life he chose seems to have been born out of necessity whereas Tupin's, in his later crimes anyway, out of greed and profit.

Execution of Catherine Howard and Jane Boleyn.

8/2/2022

On the 13th February in 1542 the execution of Catherine Howard and Jane Boleyn.

Many people believe that it was Jane Parker, the wife of George Boleyn, who was to blame for initiating the downfall of her sister in law Anne in 1536, but there were other women in the court, Elizabeth Browne for instance, whose actions history might like to take a look at. However, it was the events of 1542 that were Jane's downfall.

In 1541, Catherine Howard, Henry VIII fifth wife, had begun a physical relationship with one of his favourite courtier, Thomas Culpepper, and Jane Boleyn went out of her way to encourage this relationship.

Catherine wrote to Culpepper in a letter that was to be all their undoing:

“praying you that you will come when my Lady Rochford is here”

If Jane had anything to do with Anne’s downfall she must have realised that she was lucky to escape in 1536, and if she didn’t, then she doesn't seem to have learnt anything from the whole affair. Jane must have known what would happen if Henry found out that she was involved with Catherine and Culpepper and when the affair was out in the open each woman blamed the other. Jane Boleyn walked right into the Culpepper affair with her eyes open.

Following their arrest, Jane was imprisoned in the Tower of London and Catherine Howard at Syon Abbey. The night before her execution, Catherine is said to have spent it practicing laying her head upon the block, and Jane was in the throes of a nervous breakdown.

Both women were beheaded with one blow of the executioners axe and their bodies buried in the chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula.

I often asked myself the question, were Catherine, Jane and Anne's 'crimes' so appalling that they warranted a death sentence? That, I think made little difference, once they stood before the justice's their fates were sealed, state trials weren't fair trials. Schauer and Schauer in their article Law as an Engine of State wrote " Laws, like armies, were an engine of state, not a mechanism for justice!" and in that lies the answer.