by Molly Owen | Mar 14, 2014 | Angelyn Schmid, Blog
When he wrote his famous history of the English Civil War, Lord Clarendon related the great ignominy that surrounded the execution of Charles I. He also noted that it was the great wish of the restored Charles II to have his father’s body exhumed from its burial in Windsor and reinterred in Westminster. This was thwarted when no one could be found who knew where the dead king lay. Those who had been present at the body’s internment in Henry VIII’s vault were confused by the desecration done to the chapel and the resulting repairs:
Charles I — they say some of his attendants helped him cut his hair to aid in his execution
“…so totally perplexed their memories, that they could not satisfy themselves in what place or what part of the church the royal body was interred.” The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England Volume 6 (1707)
The mystery of the king’s missing body went on until 1813. By then, the Prince Regent had set about his various building campaigns, enhancing his status as ruler, and one of his projects was the construction of a new burial vault at St. George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle. The workmen were tunneling under the choir, creating a passageway for the new vault, and uncovered a narrow aperture that allowed them to peer into what was known to be Henry VIII’s burial vault beneath the chapel, containing the bodies of the much-married king and Jane Seymour.
They saw not two, but three coffins.
The possibility Charles I’s body had been found was TOO MUCH for the Regent to bear. A convoluted point in history had to be cleared up and he authorized the opening of the vault. It wasn’t to be a public viewing however, for it was paramount the process be a discreet one. Clearly, the prince was concerned about the future of his royal person, that he should not be seen as eager to have done to others what he should not like to be done to himself.
So, when the old Duchess of Brunswick died and the Chapel floor opened to receive her body, His Highness, along with his brother and a few trusted attendants, descended into the vault. Also attending was Sir Henry Halford, physician to the Regency. He wrote an account of the exhumation, as well as of the autopsy the Prince commanded him to perform.
Upon opening the wooden coffin within the lead casing, they found such a quantity of cere cloth that it completely filled the decaying wood container. Cere cloth was fabric soaked in wax or gummy matter and used as a preserving shroud for dead bodies. It left behind a greasy substance that covered the head which, when removed, revealed it had been severed from the body. They recoiled upon seeing the left eye:
“in the first moment of exposure, was open and full, though it vanished almost immediately; and the pointed beard, so characteristic of the period of the reign of King Charles, was perfect.” — An account of what appeared on opening the coffin of king Charles the first, Sir Henry Halford (1813)
After a vertebrae from the severed king’s head had been taken from the body, they opened Henry VIII’s coffin to observe his remains. This was somewhat difficult as the top had been been bashed in, presumably when Charles I’s coffin had been lowered (dropped) on that of his predecessor. A skeleton was all that remained, along with some red hair. The coffins were resealed and the vertebrae was carried away as a relic.
Sir Halford duly reporting his findings in a scholarly report, with all the ambition of being discreet besides.
Who would have thought a Caricaturist would read such material, let alone publish it in his own inimical way? I’m glad he did. The result was one of the best comic illustrations of the Regency:
‘Aye, (the Regent says to Sir Halford) there’s great Harry–great indeed!!! for he got rid of many wives, whilst I, poor soul, can’t get rid of one.’
‘How queer King Charley looks without his head, doesn’t he?!!! (asks the hated Lord Castlereaugh) Faith and sure, and I wonder how WE shall look without our heads!’
reprinted from Social England under the Regency by John Ashton (1890)
by Molly Owen | Feb 14, 2014 | Angelyn Schmid, Blog
“In truth, he bore nothing of the name Christian; he was, as everyone knows, an ardent lover of women, and therefore unstable in all his actions.” — a Limousin monk, early 12th century
That was what they wrote about William IX of Aquitaine (1071 – 1126), “the first troubador.” If he had spent more time concentrating on his military endeavors (the First Crusade) he might have been a more successful campaigner in the army of God, so it was said. He certainly spent a good deal of time writing songs about love:
William IX of Aquitaine
watch those hands!
Great the joy that I take in love,
A joy where I can take my ease,
And then in joy turn as I please,
Once more with the best I move,
For I am honored, she’s above
The best that man can hear or see.
Woman. She will only get you into trouble. Particularly if her name is Dangerous.
Dangereuse de l’Isle Bouchard (1079 – 1151), also known as “Dangerosa” or “The Difficult” was the Viscountess of Chatellerault. She was married to Viscount Aimery and had borne him several children, of whom two daughters survived. William was travelling through the country, as troubadours are want to do, and the fateful meeting between “ram and ewe” occurred:
For she is whiter than ivory,
So there can be no other for me.
If there’s no help for this, and swiftly,
And my fine lady love me, goddamn,
I’ll die, by the head of Saint Gregory,
If she’ll not kiss me, wherever I am!
He knew he shouldn’t have her. He was married and so was she. Open adultery was being more vigorously prosecuted under Gregorian reforms. He ought not to risk the church’s wrath.
“La Dangereuse” as imagined by some Victorian romantic
Still…
For her I shiver and tremble,
Since with her I so in love am;
Never did any her resemble,
In beauty, since Eve knew Adam.
Thanks to the enthusiastic writings of medieval church chroniclers, we learn that William threw caution (and damnation) to the wind, giving in to his desire. He “abducted” Dangereuse, carrying her away from her husband. Not to some hidden lover’s bower, mind you. No, he installed her in plain view, in his castle in Poitiers. An entire tower, the Marborgeonne, was given over to her use. He even had the likeness of Dangereuse put on his shield, William of Malmsbury recorded in disgust.
In for a penny, in for a pound.
William of Malmsbury goes on to relate, this time in satisfaction, that the Duke of Aquitaine was excommunicated by none other than the papal legate himself. The duke’s response went something like this: “you’ll need a comb for your bald head before I repudiate my viscountess.” The church tried again to make the besotted lover see some sense, sending his own bishop of Poitiers to reconfirm the punishment. William drew his sword on the bishop, who responded by challenging his duke to strike him down.
William put away his sword with a quip: “If you are bound for heaven, expect no help from me.”
Ah, love.
Later, William’s legitimate son married Dangereuse’s legitimate daughter. Their granddaughter inherited the whole–Eleanor of Aquitaine.
“For the love of God, can’t we love each other just a little! That’s where peace begins.” — Lion in Winter
Sources:
Susanna Niiranen’s excellent article “I know how to be a whore and a thief,” as printed in Crime and Punishment in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Age (2012)
“The wives of the ‘first troubadour’, Duke William IX of Aquitaine”. Journal of Medieval History, Volume 19, Issue 4, 1993,pp. 307-325 by Ruth Harvey, professor at Royal Holloway, University of London (a wonderful place for the undergraduate study of English history).
by Molly Owen | Jan 14, 2014 | Angelyn Schmid, Blog
In Dowton Abbey, Tom, Downton’s agent, disagrees with Lord Grantham’s plan to sell off bits and pieces of land to pay the estate’s death taxes. Lady Mary considers his argument, and the inescapable conclusion that without the land, how will the cost of the house be borne? Tenant farmers pay rent–that’s how the great house pays its way.
The decline and eventual destruction of Downton Abbey is hypothetical, but the fact remains a great many country houses and estates in England suffered such a fate. At least 1200 and very likely more were lost in the twentieth century.
Sutton Scarsdale Hall. Photo licensed by Philip Thompson, This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.
What happens to houses and the humans who live in them during this period of change? Julian Fellowes has drawn on his own memories, mostly from the 1950s, when old retainers retired and new ones were not hired, the stables were empty of horses and there was nothing for it but to pack up the lot and sell it off:
“And you’d go into the attics of some of these houses and there would be lines of bedrooms, and in some cases, there’d be nameplates, and it would say ‘Mary’ on it, and inside was an old iron bedstead. And you had a real sense, then, of a life that you just missed. And sort of, cupboards lined with blue felt with nothing in them.” — interview with Julian Fellowes, Feb. 3, 2013
The first to sense an unease might be the guests who come for a shooting or hunt ball at the great country house. Remember poor Mabel Nesbitt from Fellowes’ other drama Gosford Park, wife of the Honorable (italics mine) Freddie Nesbitt. She had nothing to wear for formal events in the evenings but one frock, in green–“very tricky color.” What is not shown is her probable embarrassment before Elsie, the head housemaid who must stand in for the lady’s maid Mabel cannot afford, even though she was the heiress of a glove factory which went bankrupt.
By the 1930s, the great house had seemed very obsolete, even to its occupants, yet the Duke of Richmond recalled, “World War One didn’t make a lot of difference to life, except that people started disappearing.” Younger generations of owners liked their flats in London and wondered over the bother that came with the running of a great house in the country. Those that remained were clinging to the old ways or just needed a job in an era of high unemployment. The result was “spectral and superfluous” as noted by a guest visiting the Marquess of Bath in 1936. When he wished to go for a bicycle ride:
“A row of liveried footmen gathered in ranks on either side of the steps to see (the guest) bicycle away down the drive; one of them solemnly carried his bicycle to the front of the steps while his host stood at the top watching until he had vanished.” — Servants: A Downstairs History of Britain by Lucy Lethbridge
Newspapers and shoelaces were still smoothed every morning by flat irons heated in front of the fire. This and other observations were made by Margaret Powell, a cook and long-time servant, in her book Below Stairs. When others were making do with processed food like that newfangled margarine, the country house was still serving vast quantities of food from its home farm, including real butter in the servants’ quarters.
A strange warping of economies would occur, however. Feeding vast households was fine as long as one had the home farm, but paying for them was quite another. One lone baronet, served by ten servants, would demand the sixpence found in Christmas pudding be reused year after year. Everything was mended and even the thread used for such repairs had to be conserved.
How does it all end? One touching example is that of Holland House, whose last occupant was the dowager Lady Ilchester. An invalid, she still maintained a large staff, including a chauffeur, in what had used to be a house in the country, but now surrounded by London. One of her hall boys recorded the following as reprinted in Lethridge’s Servants:
“When I look back over my three and half years at Holland House, I can see now there was something particularly sad, almost unreal about them. We were propping up something that belonged to another age, trying to pretend that what had passed still existed or even if it didn’t that if we tried hard enough to keep the old order of things going, it might come back.”
Holland House was partially destroyed in the Blitz. Photo by Steve Cadman, originally on Flickr now licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.
by Molly Owen | Nov 14, 2013 | Angelyn Schmid, Blog
She had been raped as a teenager by an associate of her father. She was tortured to test the veracity of her accusation. She was physically examined in public to test the veracity of her virginity. She was also an artist.
Susanna and the Elders – painted when she was only seventeen
Artemisia Gentileschi (1593 – 1656) was of the school of Caravaggio, whose Biblical paintings featured raw realism. Much has been made of her life story, the rape and later forced marriage, single motherhood and the struggle to be professionally recognized. But these perspectives are modern ones and tend to overshadow her as a painter, and a “marvelous storyteller.”
Her technique was bold and expresses “raw violence and feeling.” Her first authenticated painting, Susanna and the Elders, features the aggressive palette coloring of Michelangelo. Susanna is being harassed by the village elders–she shows nothing of the coy nature earlier painters attributed to her. If she doesn’t acquiesce to their demands for sexual favors, she will be accused by them of adultery. Whatever they say will be taken as true. They have the power of testimony as they sit behind a carved wall that appears like a judge’s bench.
Then came the fury of Judith slaying Holofernes. This is perhaps her most famous painting, viewed as a feminist outcry by many modern critics. Perhaps this was an expression of frustrated impotence in the aftermath of rape and public trial. More to the point, it is a great work of art telling a great story. The bed with its luxurious fitted sheet, the rich brocade sheet falling away, the exquisite bracelet put on to entice the enemy. It is the hilt of the sword in Judith’s capable hand–she knows the weapon intimately. Is it hers or does it belong to the man she is beheading with almost expressionless determination?
“No one would have imagined it was the work of a woman.”
She enjoyed many wealthy patrons, notably the de Medici family and Charles I of England. It was the latter who commissioned the painting that brings us more of the artist than all of the images of women she had painted before. The king was so intrigued by Artemisia that he had her paint a picture of herself.
“The only woman in Italy who ever knew about painting, coloring, doughing and other fundamentals.”
by Molly Owen | Oct 14, 2013 | Angelyn Schmid, Blog
Virginia Clemm (1822-1847) was thirteen when she married her twenty-six-year-old cousin, Edgar Allan Poe.
“Mrs. Poe looked very young; she had large black eyes, and a pearly whiteness of complexion, which was a perfect pallor. Her pale face, her brilliant eyes, and her raven hair gave her an unearthly look. One felt that she was almost a disrobed spirit, and when she coughed it was made certain that she was rapidly passing away” (Mrs. Mary Gove Nichols, “Reminiscences of Edgar Allan Poe”)
Virginia Poe, painted hours after her death
She was never in good health but always supportive of her husband, keeping his writing pens neatly arranged and looking on adoringly as Poe wrote his stories of horror.
They had been married ten years when Poe wrote “The Raven.” It was an instant sensation and soon Poe was receiving letters of admiration, including amorous ones. Notable among these letter-writers were two women, both married and writers themselves.
Frances Sargent Osgood (1811 – 1850) was a member of a prominent New York writing circle and her poetry had received a rare accolade from Poe, who wrote columns as a literary critic. Her childlike demeanor and “invalidish” mannerisms resembled those of Poe’s wife, who was also suffering from tuberculosis. Virginia encouraged her husband’s acquaintance with Osgood and an exchange of passionate love poems ensued between the two.
The other woman was Elizabeth Ellet (1818 – 1877), author of the formidable Women of the American Revolution, still studied today. This lady also made amorous overtures to Poe but he scorned them all, “simply because she revolted me.” Nevertheless, Ellet gained access to the Poe residence and became acquainted with Virginia, who allowed her to view some of Osgood’s correspondence with Poe.
Ellet began an elaborate campaign to sow discord in Poe’s relationships, first advising Osgood that she ought to reclaim her letters to him before they found their way into the press. This was accomplished to Poe’s chagrin and he suggested with great venom that “Mrs. E” might had better look after her own letters.
Whether there were any letters from her or not, Ellet’s brother threatened to kill Poe. Then Virginia began to receive anonymous letters about her husband’s supposed indiscretions arrived. Rumors that Poe was insane and prone to fabricate liaisons between himself and married women began to surface in the press.
Virginia took all of these indignities to her deathbed, where she pronounced “Mrs. E. is my murderer.” Poe was distraught and took revenge on Ellet in his writing. The poem “Hop Frog – or the eight-chained orangutans” is a short story written about revenge a dwarf takes against his master who abused the girl he loved. Poe’s fury and grief was poured into his macabre tale, in which Ellet, represented by the king who struck a defenseless girl, is induced to dress up in a costume, along with her “friends” and hoisted in the air by means of trickery, is set ablaze in front of the court:
Elizabeth Ellet – “hell hath no fury”
“In less than half a minute the whole eight ourang-outangs were blazing fiercely, amid the shrieks of the multitude who gazed at them from below, horror-stricken, and without the power to render them the slightest assistance.”
Poe would visit his wife’s grave, frequently being found there in the snow and bitter cold of winter. His poems of dead or dying young women, and the lovers who mourn them, must have been inspired by Virginia. Osgood was later heard to say that his wife was the only woman Poe ever loved.
Years later, the cemetery where Virginia was buried was destroyed. A family friend happened upon the scene the very day the sexton was about to throw out her bones which he had scooped up on his shovel. The bones were gathered in a box and kept until the day Poe was reburied in a magnificent tomb. His wife’s little box laid alongside his left breast.
“The box!” vociferated Mr. Wyatt, still standing–“the box, I say! Captain Hardy, you cannot, you will not refuse me. Its weight will be but a trifle–it is nothing–mere nothing. By the mother who bore you–for the love of Heaven–by your hope of salvation, I implore you to put back for the box!”
— The Oblong Box, Edgar Allen Poe (1850) about an artist who would rather die than leave his wife’s body, sealed in a box, to go down in a shipwreck.
by Molly Owen | Sep 14, 2013 | Angelyn Schmid, Blog
They say she mixed with gypsies as a child. Mary Bateman (1768 – 1809) was born to a prosperous farmer and went into service at around age twelve. She was dismissed from her post for theft and soon employed her skill at concocting potions (and stealing on the side) to make a living. She made public displays of her skill, the most famous of which was her magical laying hen who produce eggs that said “Crist is coming.” It cost a penny to view them, these eggs that the hen would lay before one’s very eyes, appropriately labeled beforehand and inserted into the “unfortunate” hen.
Filip Maljković took this picture in 2006–he doesn’t ask for attribution, but he deserves it
She didn’t like children:
“One day, the whole family had been out for some time, when one of the children, a boy of about 7 years of age returned and found on the table a small cake; the mother and the others of the children soon after returned and partook of this cake, which they soon discovered had a very keen and pungent taste, this however did not prevent them from eating several mouthfuls of it; they soon after became sick to such a degree, as to render medical aid necessary.”
— Extraordinary Life and Character of Mary Bateman, the Yorkshire Witch (1809)
The trial of the Yorkshire witch was filled with a great cloud of witnesses, not unlike those old medieval proceedings immortalized in the minds of folks from the 70s thanks to Monty Python:
— John Rodgerson and Roger Stockdale – declared she had mysterious bags about her person.
— Thomas Gristy – was sent by the witch to procure poison, but then he was a wee lad at the time.
— Mr. Clough, Leeds surgeon — refused to allow two boys sent by the witch to procure arsenic, although the identity of said boys is not known as it has been several years hence
During preparation for trial, the witch was examined by a Mr. Hemingway, Solicitor, “a gentleman whose patient and laborious investigations contributed materially to the development of this dark and mysterious affair.” He recorded she denied poisoning anyone.
Nevertheless, the jury found her guilty and she was condemned to death. 
Curiously, it was her long record of fraud that the court dwelled upon:
“You entered into a long and premeditated system of fraud, of which you carried upon for a length of time, which is most astonishing..”
She pled a stay of execution by reason she was pregnant. The court appointed a group of matrons to examine her and when they returned a verdict of “not pregnant,” Mary Bateman was executed forthwith.
Her skeleton is on display today at Thakray Museum in Leeds.
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