Category: Women

Margaret Roper, Daughter of Thomas More

13/6/2015

Margaret Roper was born in October 1505 and grew up to be a highly intelligent, well educated and knowledgeable woman, this was due as much to her willingness to learn as it was her father educating her to a standard very rare for a girl of this time. She studied Latin and Greek and read astronomy, philosophy, theology, geometry, and arithmetic.

Affectionately called Meg by her father, she was the favourite of all his children, he carried letters from her when he travelled, proudly reading them out loud to his friends. She had married in 1521 and lived in her fathers house with her husband William Roper, whose interest in the teaching of Martin Luther, caused friction within the household. When Margaret's became pregnant, More said

'if it be a girl' then it should make up for the inferiority of her sex by her zeal to imitate her mother's virtue and learning’.

Twelve years later Thomas More was arrested for his refusal to support the King's annulment and take the Oath of Supremacy, being found guilty the date of his execution was set for the 6 July 1535. Margaret was allowed to visit him whilst he was in the tower, but no one really knows what was said between the two of them.
Margaret's husband, who wrote a biography of More ten years after the her death, never mentions any dialogue between father and daughter during his time in the Tower of London.

Margaret struggled with her feelings whilst More was incarcerated and is said to have 'pushed through the crowd and the guard, embraced her father, and asked his blessing.' whilst he walked to the scaffold.

Charles Landseer's 1839 painting depicts the story, that is often repeated, of how Margaret retrieved More's head from a spike on London Bridge and kept it until the day she died.

Margaret lasted only nine years without her father, dying in 1544.

Margaret Roper work such as The Four Last Thynges and her 1523 translations of Erasmus's works are lost, only a few of her letters remain.

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Once Upon a Time

29/4/2015

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Many of the tales read to us in our childhood begin with "Once upon a time" and interestingly this phrase has been used in storytelling since the late fourteenth century. This statement leads us into the narrative of the fairy tale, a tale that has passed down verbally from generation to generation, each story a little different but generally they contain the same set of characters, the handsome prince, the charming heroine, and the evil enchantress.

We now see in the modern interpretation of these fairy tales that the characters of both the heroine and the stepmother are nothing like the ones we all knew as children. The other evening I watched Snow White and the Huntsman, I was struck how the image of the heroine has changed over the years. The ever lovely Snow White, is no longer the rosy cheeked innocent of my day, but a self confident, sword carrying, feisty teenager, and by the end of the film I realised that the character of the step mother had actually changed too. She is no longer two characters, gone is the horrid hooked nosed, cackling, hand ringing gorgon that frightened the little eight year old girl that was me. She has morphed into one character and is in no need of a ugly disguise. The modern wicked queen and evil step mother are now beautiful in their ugliness, they are stunning medieval enchantresses, a temptress and femme fatales, a metaphorical evil step parent who's main objective is to ruin the lives of their new husbands children just to boost their own or a vengeful and powerful queen who is a cross between beauty and age, either way they are both maleficent.

Incidentally the word step is derived from the old English word Steop meaning related by marriage rather than blood and interestingly this word describes much of what the fairy tale step mother represents.....second best, a woman stepping into someone else's shoes.

Maleficent, is the latest wicked queen to arrive to our screens, she appears in the retelling of the fairy tale Sleeping Beauty. She is not unlike Disney's animated character, she is still dramatic, a Gothic, horn headed wicked queen with a difference. In this new film we learn of the events in her past that has made her the villainess she has become, and if we know this will we know not be frightened of her...don't let your guard down just yet?

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Elizabeth Barton: Saint or Deluded Heretic?

12/2/2015

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When I look at the two images below I see a vulnerable young woman at the mercy of those who wish to further their own ends.

This poor girl is Elizabeth Barton, Maid of Kent.

It is difficult to believe that a naive nineteen year old country girl was a threat to Henry VIII alone isn't it?

We have to ask ourselves, was she used to further the purposes of others?

It was probably Edward Bocking who first saw Elizabeth 'potential' as a weapon against Protestantism suggesting that she enter a convent, a place where he knew her visions would intensify. Then there's Fisher and More, did they believe in her or was she used by them to intimidate the king. Cromwell and Cranmer also used her as a means to an end.

Whilst lying in her sick bed, Elizabeth Barton had a vision telling her that it was the will of God that King Henry VIII should not marry Ann Boleyn. It was 1525, Elizabeth was nineteen years old and a servant in the small village of Aldington in Kent. She had been ill, and it was during this time that she was said to fall in and out of a trance like state. Her local priest who was convinced that her visions were genuine, informed William Warham, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who sent a three clergy, including Edward Bocking to examine her.

When Elizabeth's suddenly recovered her health after a prediction that the Virgin Mary would cure her, she began a journey that would ultimately end her life.

Elizabeth was sent into the Convent of St. Sepulchre in Canterbury where she later became a nun. Over the following ten years her visions increased, she was also becoming increasingly vocal, she had written to the pope and been interviewed by the most eminent men at court including Bishop John Fisher and Cardinal Wolsey, even the king himself was said to have spoken to her. By 1533 Elizabeth's reputation as an opponent of Henry's divorce had grown, so much so that both Thomas Cromwell and Thomas Cranmer took her seriously. By 1534 she was becoming a real threat and Elizabeth was arrested along with those who had first seen her in 1525. Many of her followers and both Fisher and More were also arrested.

This document lists charges against Elizabeth Barton (SP 1/80, f.118) National Archives

During her incarceration, Elizabeth admitted to have lied about her visions, but this was only made under torture. After a trial, Elizabeth, thirteen of her followers, Bocking, and the parish priest plus the two clergy were sentenced to death, More managed to escape any form of punishment and Fisher was imprisoned.

Elizabeth Barton was beheaded at Tyburn on the 20th April, 1534 . Her head was put on a spike on London Bridge, she was the first woman in history to be degraded in this way.

She is buried at Greyfriars.

Of Elizabeth herself, she was a young girl with no education, a sincere, faithful innocent. She believed in her visions but at the hands of the unscrupulous became a deluded hysteric.

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Elizabeth Stuart: Death of a Princess

5/2/2015

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After the execution of their father in the January of 1649, both Charles and James, later Charles II and James II fled to France, the two younger children guardianship were given to noble families, families who really didn't want them, who accepted money granted for this purpose and then fobbed them off on someone else.

King Charles I was executed in 1649 on the order of the English parliament for crimes against the state, that is his refusal to abide by government policy, and his total belief in absolutism. The English government may have solved their problems by murdering a king with the full backing of the law but what where they to do with his children?

Elizabeth Stuart, Charles's second daughter's story was a sad one indeed.

On their last meeting before his execution Charles told Elizabeth not to "grieve and torment herself for him" but this fell on deaf ears. Distraught at his death, Elizabeth asked for permission to travel to Holland to be with her sister Mary, the wife of the Dutch prince, William of Orange, but this request was denied. Along with her brother, Henry, Duke of Gloucester they were sent to live in the care of the Earl of Northumberland's son, Lord Lisle. The next year saw Elizabeth and Henry pass from one family to another. Lord Lisle didn't want them, neither did the Harringtons, finally they were sent into the care of the Earl of Leicester, Robert Sidney and contrary to the instructions from parliament that they were 'not be indulged' they were treated kindly, but it was here, at Penhurst Place, that Elizabeth became sick.

Elizabeth's next placement was probably not due to the fact that she was unwanted but that she was a useful pawn in the latest saga of parliament versus monarchy. Elizabeth's brother Charles was heading for Scotland in the hope that the Scots would aid in the restoration of the English monarchy and poor Elizabeth was forced move to the Isle of Wight to be used as a hostage, this last journey cost her her life.

In 1649 Elizabeth had requested that she be sent to live with her sister Mary in Holland and had sent a letter to this effect. She arrived on the Isle of Wight but she was already sickly, she quickly developed pneumonia and died on 8 September 1650, she was just fifteen years old. Sadly, only two days after her death a letter arrived granting Elizabeth's request so her mortal remains where interred where she died.

With just the initials E S to mark her tomb at St Thomas's Church, Newport, her grave lay unnoticed and uncared for for just over two hundred years, but when Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1837 and made Osborne House on the Isle of Wight her home she commissioned Carlo Marochetti to sculpt a monument in memory of Elizabeth.

As you can see, not only is it a beautiful representation of a daughter of a king but also poignant reminder of abandonment. Elizabeth lies with her cheek on a bible open to Gospel of Matthew just as, it is said, she was found, clutching the book her father had given her the last time he saw her.

Victoria had the following words carved in black marble on the side of her tomb:

"To the memory of The Princess Elizabeth, daughter of King Charles I, who died at Carisbrooke Castle on 8
September 1650, and is interred beneath the chancel of this church, this monument is erected as a token of
respect for her virtues and of sympathy for her misfortunes, by Victoria R., 1856."

Not only did Queen Victoria want us to read of Elizabeth's misfortunes, she wanted a visual representation too, caved above the stature is a grate which tells us Elizabeth was held against her will, but they are broken, so we can see that at last Elizabeth, is free.

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What Women Want

28/1/2015

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Apart from Dr Suzannah Lipscomb's The Last Days of Ann Boleyn which was shown in January, and Helen Castors She Wolves in 2012 there have been few documentaries on our screens about the lives and talents of women. We never seem to see much about the lives of women much past Elizabeth I.

However other two programmes I do recall are Lucy Worsley's Harlots, Housewives and Heroines: A 17th Century History for Girls which was a fascinating study of women in Restoration England and the most recent, last year in fact was The Story of Women and Art which was presented by Amanda Vickery.

In Lucy's programme it was Aphra Behn, the first professional female writer who I remember most and in Amanda's programme it was two women who lived on the peripheries of the art world but whose work was equal to their male contemporaries. These women were Angelica Kauffman and Anne Seymour Darmer.

Angelica Kauffman, was a woman who forged herself a successful career in the male dominated world of historical art. Angelica cleverly spotted a 'niche market' that was historical art through a woman's perspective. Secondly, there was sculptress Anne Seymour Darmer, an only child of doting parents, who employed noted sculptors to instruct her, but whose budding new career was damaged by her inheritance spending, drunken, womanising husband.

These two women were brilliant artists so why is it that we not know little about their talents? Florence Hallett, art writer and critic explains:

" the truth is that those of us who do not believe that women lack the talent to become artists have by and large fallen for a bigger and more pernicious lie, that women artists have barely existed at all, so successfully were they shut out from the male realms of education, training and business."

All these women had to work in a world that was predominantly male, and as it has quite rightly been put "misogynistic and medieval in its outlook."

Wouldn't it be nice to see a little bit, no a lot more of the achievements of women on our screens more often.

Thanks to both Lucy and Amanda, please keep up the good work.

Angelina Kauffman: A Self Portrait

Anne Seymour Darmer

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Heroines: Amazing Women in History.

10/12/2014

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In its introduction to Women's History, English Heritage writes

'Women's achievements and experience have left a deep impression on the historic environment. Once exposed, this can help fill in the gaps left by previous generations' recording of history to reveal a host of fascinating and inspirational stories.'

I was amazed to discover recently via Lucy Worsley's Harlots Housewives and Heroines, a 17th Century History for Girls, that the reason women give birth on their backs was because of the intervention of men, this of course lead to midwives being outed from this important role, but also their role in history has been forgotten too. Angelique-Marguerite Le Boursier du Coudray was a eighteenth century French midwife whose book, Abrege de lart de Accouchements or the Art of Delivery was published in 1759, this amazing woman also designed and made a set of fabric anatomical demonstration aids to help teach other women her skills.

Angelique and her fabric mannequins

Women whose work was historically important, like that of Angelique's, have gone unnoticed, their names are not written into history books. Today though, more and more we are hearing about the lives of unknown women whose achievements are now being brought to us by women themselves. Many of these women we know of already from our school days, historians such as Helen Castor in her She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth talk of women who stood up to their male counterparts and the above-mentioned Lucy Worsley has written of other not so famous women, such as Aphra Behn, playwright and spy!

One of my heroines is Matilda who fought with her cousin for the throne of England, she was more than capable of being an effective ruler, but her downfall was simply the fact that she acted like a king, and as Helen Castor in her book writes

'Haughty' and 'intolerably proud' these are the adjectives associated with her name, phrases coined in those few months of her life when she tried to exercise power as a monarch in her own right'

This was not what men thought a woman should be, it was unwomanly behaviour, but they were the qualities expected of a king.

Matilda flees her captors.

Eleanor of Aquitaine, wife of Henry II, went on Crusade, where she led an army of women dressed in armour and was later imprisoned for supporting her son's revolt. And then there is Isabella of France, the She Wolf herself, who paraded her lover
and with him took up arms against the weak rule of her husband Edward II. There's Boudicca, Catherine of Aragon (another
of my favourites) Anne Boleyn, Queen Elizabeth, Florence Nightingale, Marie Stopes they are all icons because their story stands out. But what of the women of the Wars of the Roses, left behind to manage great estates and left vulnerable to the attack of marauding armies, the 'everyday' women, those who were not monarchs or achievers of the daring do or pioneering scientists.

Women in the past have been placed in all sorts of different categories, the pious lady, the nun, the wench and the scold. Women in literature and art are often depicted as a virgin or a whore, even this is not correct, prostitutes were more widely accepted in medieval times and nuns weren't always as saintly as we are led to believe, and as mentioned before, living quietly among them are other strong women, the ones the world knows little about. One fine example of a capable early medieval woman was my very own ancestor Margery, a descendant and kinswoman of the mighty Norman lords, the Earls of Surrey. Margery saw very early on in her marriage that all the lands held by her husband's family were gained purely by right of marriage, the vast lands of her mother-in-law and sister-in-law had been thrown into a large melting pot. Margery had no intention of this happening to her ancestral lands or her property! Margery's son was under age on the death of her husband and she feared, quite rightly, that the boy would become a ward of his paternal uncles and the lands that were hers by right would soon be managed, and finally taken by her in-laws. So angry at the thought of this she disinherited her own son rather than see her lands end up as part of the vast estates of her dead husband's family. In a very unusual move for the time she gifted her lands to a woman, who at present, seems unrelated. What Margery foresaw, turned out to be quite right, nearly all the lands owned by her husband's families descendants, for nearly four centuries, were gained by marriages to wealthy heiresses.

Holding onto what is rightfully yours.

One woman who worked in the field of medicine was Felicie de Almania who spoke of the need for women doctors to treat women patients, arguing that women received better treatment from a female physician and testifying that she had been able to cure women of ailments that male doctors had failed to do. Felicie bravely continued to practice medicine without a licence even after she was excommunicated. In the world of business were a Mrs Rutinger and a Rose of Burford, both thirteenth-century women who were successful in business and traders in wool, both ran businesses after the deaths of their husbands and in the case of Rose persistently visited the court of Edward II, insisting he pay monies owed to her late husband, eventually
suggesting that the debt be settled in refunds on export duties. There is German-born astronomer, Caroline Herschel, who discovered several comets, one of which is named after her. Then there is Lavinia Fontana a commissioned artist, who painted anything from portraits to female nudes to religious art, a confident woman who didn't work within the confines of what society saw as befitting her rank, free to paint and live her life as she pleased.

Lavinia Fontana

Between 1939 and 1945 there were women who worked in secret, looking for and breaking codes in military intelligence and whose story a recent television drama, The Bletchley Circle, is based. It is the story of four bright women who worked as code breakers during the second world war whose efforts saved the lives of hundreds if not thousands of people, who later used their skills to track down a psychotic killer who preyed on women. Apart from being a story of murder and the rape of women, it tells of how women were not taken seriously by those in authority and how they were abandoned by their own country. It was not only clever women with a talent for mathematics, all the women who 'broke their backs' doing their bit for the war effort, the
ones who worked in the fields and the ones who worked in the factories, and once the war was over and they were no longer needed, their jobs given to the returning men. The women of Bletchley signed the official secrets act and therefore were unable to tell anyone what they did during that time. This led to them being frustrated, angry and bored with their present lives and left them wanting more, but they were living with men who expected them to be happy with the role of wife and mother and didn't understand that for many it wasn't enough.

Says it all, doesn't it?

This brings us up to the present day woman, she has so much more freedom than that of her female ancestors, who had restrictions placed on them by their family, the church and their husbands and for many women, this was their lot, but as we
have seen some women cut through these ties. Girls today may have none of these things but it was said to me recently that society has 'subtle and complex ways that disadvantage and discriminate against women” and this is no surprise. I am concerned for young women when they are humiliated and harassed. I worry how they cope when all they hear is that they
are lesser beings and then I’m irritated when I see scantly clad young ladies standing in front of Formula 1 cars or parading themselves in front of darts champions. I am never quite sure whether these young women do it because they want to and are therefore empowered and confident or do it because that’s what they feel men want to see. Girls are continually bombarded
with impossible physical standards that dictate the right weight, the right shape and the right clothes to wear, leaving them to struggle with insecurities and low self-confidence. Today, women have a different sort of pressure than those of their ancestors, but it is pressure non the less. Twenty-first century women are criticised about the choices they make whether it is a career or whether it be motherhood and this can make many women's lives an unhappy one, women of the past knew what was expected of them and these restrictions made many of their lives an unhappy one too.

We've not moved on too much, have we?

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Forward>>

Margaret Roper, Daughter of Thomas More

Once Upon a Time

Elizabeth Barton: Saint or Deluded Heretic?

Elizabeth Stuart: Death of a Princess

What Women Want

Heroines: Amazing Women in History.

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