Category: English Nobility

Anthony Babington

20/9/2019

On 19th of September 1586, Anthony Babington, a one-time page in the household of George Talbot, wrote to Queen Elizabeth begging her for mercy despite the fact that he and his fellow conspirators had attempted to assassinate her and place her cousin, Mary Queen of Scots on the English throne.

When his plea fell on deaf ears he offered to pay for his release. All this was to no avail, and it was on this day that Babington was drawn on a hurdle from Tower Hill to St Giles in the Fields where he was to suffer the barbaric execution of hanging and quartering.

In the plot that now bears his name should we consider Babington as naive, an idealistic young man caught in the slip-stream of insurrection and dazzled by the thought of the rewards that would be lavished upon him when the deed was done or did he enter into this dangerous game with malice aforethought? Either way, Anthony Babington had been approached by John Ballard, a Catholic priest, who told him that the plot was supported by Spain, but what Babington didn't know was that Elizabeth's spymaster had already uncovered the plot.

0 Comments

The Death of Amy Robsart

8/9/2019

0 Comments

Victorian artist Edward Matthew Ward is famous for his English Civil War paintings, my favourite being The Concealment of the Fugitive by Alice Lisle, whose execution, I have written about before. His 1866 work 'Leicester and Amy Robsart at Cumnor Hall' covers an earlier time, depicting the relationship between Robert Dudley and his wife Amy Robsart. Ward takes his inspiration from Walter Scott's book Kenilworth.

Amy, as you can see, is depicted as a tragic, romantic heroine, whose true cause of death, on the 8th September in 1560, has never come to light.

Amy Robsart, as you will know was the wife of Elizabethan courtier Robert Dudley who sent away her servants from her house at Cumnor Place in Oxford, was later found dead at the foot of a flight of stairs with a broken neck and two wounds on her head. The coroner found that she had died from a fall downstairs; the verdict was 'misfortune' therefore an accidental death. History has looked at Amy's death three ways, she died as a result of an accident, she took her own life or she was murdered. The letter, dated the 24th August 1560 you see in the image below was written by Amy to her tailor in London which reads

'Edney, with my hearty commendations this shall be to desire you to take the pains for me as to make this gown of velvet which I send you with such a collar as you made my russet taffeta gown you sent me last, & I will see you discharged for all. I pray you let it be done with as much speed as you can & sent by … the carrier of Oxford, & thus I bid you most heartily farewell from Cumnor this 24th of August.'

Your assured friend,
Amye Duddley

Amy Robsart was dead fourteen days later, did she plan to take her own life, ordering a new dress as she does in the letter you could argue suggests not.

Is Amy's story been turned into a melodrama, but was there more to it than meets the eye?

0 Comments

Matthew Parker, The Duke of Wellington and the Great Exhibition

10/8/2015

0 Comments

What do they all have in Common?

Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury was born on 6th August in 1504.

Parker served as chaplain to Anne Boleyn, was involved in implementing the Thirty Nine Articles, a set of doctrines within the Church of England, he was also an avid book collector, salvaging medieval manuscripts that were set to be destroyed during the dissolution of the monasteries. His efforts meant he left us a priceless collection of manuscripts that are now housed at the Parker Library at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.

But did you know that Matthew Parker was the first 'Nosey Parker'?

A nosey parker as you will all know, means someone who pokes their nose into other peoples business. Allegedly, people thought Parker was far too inquisitive about church matters for his own good, they also thought he had rather a long nose.

Here's the man himself. His nose looks okay to me.

The term itself, sticking your nose into other people’s affairs, can be dated back the the late 1880's. Before then, anyone called nosey was just somebody with a big nose, like the Duke of Wellington, who had the nickname Old Nosey.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first citation of the statement was

“You’re a askin’ too many questions for me, there’s too much of Mr. Nosey Parker about you.”

My favourite has to be the 1907 'Adventures of Mr Nosey Parker' a set of postcards illustrating the antic's of a gentleman who never minded his own business.

Nosey Parker's origins may spring from the 1851 at the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park where a very large numbers of people attended the exhibition, so there would have been lots of opportunities for peeping Toms and eavesdroppers in the grounds.

Interestingly the word Parker is a medieval term, being used for an official in charge of a park, a park-keeper.

0 Comments

Death of Amy Robsart by William Fredrick Yeames.

8/9/2014

0 Comments

On the 8th of September 1560, Amy Robsart, wife of Robert Dudley was found dead at the bottom of the stairs at home in Oxford.

Robert Dudley, the younger son of John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland was handsome and quite ambitious and was more interested in the opportunities that were offered as a member of the queen's court than his young eighteen year old wife Amy Robsart. They had married on the 5th June 1550 at the royal palace of Sheen in Richmond. In the years that followed Dudley became the queen's favourite and in 1558 she bestowed on him the position of Master of the Horse, this, and the attention of the queen kept him away from Amy. Two years later, Amy sent away her servants from her house at Cumnor Place in Oxford and was later found dead at the foot of a flight of stairs with a broken neck and two wounds on her head. The coroner found that she had died from a fall downstairs; the verdict was 'misfortune' and therefore an accidental death. At the time Dudley was suspected of having ordered her death.

Elizabethan murder mystery or misfortune?

What then is Yeames implying in his 1877 painting? Are the two men in the shadows responsible for her death having pushed her down the stairs? Certainly, the younger man is shocked, maybe he wants to go to her aid but the older man is holding him back whilst looking for signs of movement? Or has the younger man just returned a few minutes after Amy's fall and has not yet realised that he standing with the murderer or are they both innocent of the alleged crime?

What do you think?

0 Comments

Anthony Babington

The Death of Amy Robsart

Matthew Parker, The Duke of Wellington and the Great Exhibition

What do they all have in Common?

Death of Amy Robsart by William Fredrick Yeames.

Archives

Categories