Category Archives: January

Going Jacobite at Killiecrankie and Blair Atholl

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27 July 1689, James VII/II has been turfed off his throne to be replaced by his son-in-law, William of Orange, and James’ own daughter, Mary. Having been forced from his throne in December 1688, war erupted in Ireland in March 1689 while in Scotland John Graham of Claverhouse, better known as Bonnie Dundee, led his own rebellion against the new regime. It was the first Jacobite rebellion, which always comes as something of surprise since it’s the 1715 one that most people think of in the first instance.

General Hugh MacKay, William and Mary’s general led the Scots Brigade in the Low Countries. He was a seasoned commander but then, Dundee was also a professional soldier who fought for both the French and the Dutch before returning to Scotland in 1677 to serve James VII/II and suppress the Covenanters. His suppression of the men who refused to take an oath of loyalty to the king while he was Sheriff of Wigtown earned him deep unpopularity in some quarters as well as the title Viscount Dundee.

If the truth was told no one was that enthusiastic about another civil war in 1689. Many families sought to avoid taking part in any conflict. John Murray, Marquess of Atholl whose home was at Blair Castle took himself off to England to avoid taking part in proceedings. The fact that Patrick Stewart who occupied the castle for the Jacobites was a trusted family retainer is neither here nor there. Dundee was short of men and resources, even though support for the deposed king was growing in the Highlands. He hoped to win a battle that would increase support to his cause.

When John Murray, who was Atholl’s eldest son withdrew from the castle leaving the Jacobites in control, General MacKay moved north to support Murray. Blair Castle was to be besieged. Dundee saw an opportunity to intercept MacKay’s army, win a victory and garner support for the cause of James VII/II. MacKay may have had between 4,000 -5, 000 men who were accompanied by a baggage train and some ordinance. Dundee had about 3,000.

When MacKay entered the Pass of Killiecrankie on the track from Dunkeld he did not realise that he was being watched or that an ambush had been prepared. The track by the River Garry is the same path that government troops used in 1689. It is narrow and muddy. Iain Ban Beag Macrae, from Atholl, was observing MacKay’s men as they scrambled up the valley. When they were close enough he fired the first shot and killed an officer as he was crossing the river.

The Jacobites were on the ridge above the pass. MacKay knew that it would have been madness to order a charge so simply gave orders for his own men to shoot at the enemy. When Dundee gave orders to advance at about seven o’clock in the evening, as the sun began to set, Mackay’s men were subject to a Highland charge. They did not have time to fix bayonets (rifles could either fire or be used as bayonets at that time – not both). It meant that they were ill equipped for the fighting that followed. It was all over in a few minutes. MacKay’s men fled – one of them, Donald McBane, made an 18ft (that’s more than 5m) leap across the River Garry from one rock to another, to escape from the Jacobites. Other men were not so lucky and drowned. Mcbane published his memoirs in 1728 describing events at Killiecrankie and his dramatic escape.

Killiecrankie was a victory – unfortunately it came at the cost of the viscount’s life and a third of his men. The sword that Dundee is rusted to have used is on display at Killiecrankie while his armour, and the hole left by the musket ball, can be seen at Blair Castle. The bullet that killed Dundee was likely to have been a stray one, although tradition states that it was made from a silver button because only silver could harm the viscount. It’s a nice story. Taken together with the fact that he died with his men and that he was also related to John Graham, Marquess of Montrose who had become something of a hero since his execution by Parliament in 1650 meant that Dundee was soon the subject of ballads – the most famous one being ‘Bonnie Dundee’ by Sir Walter Scott which is still played by pipers. It was/is a popular regimental march for various Highland Regiments.

The only squirrel, red or otherwise, I have yet to see – despite lots of signs telling me about their presence!

On this day 9 January

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According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica Louis-Jacques Daguerre announced his invention of the daguerreotype today in 1839. This was the first commercially successful photographic format and a long way from the instant images so many of us snap these day.

However, while I’m staying in France, I’m taking us back to the Hundred Years War. On 9 January 1431 the trial of Joan of Arc began on this day in Rouen. Joan’s story began in 1415 at Domremy when she heard the voice of the angel, Saint Michael. By the end of that year, the English, led by Henry V, were only 20 miles from Paris and in 1420 Charles VI of France (who preferred the sobriquet believed but often gets lumbered with the mad because he thought he might shatter if anyone touched him) agreed to the terms of the Treaty of Tours which recognised Henry as Charles’ heir and to seal the deal handed dove this daughter Catherine of Valois in marriage. So far, not so good if you were French. Then in 1422 Henry died from dysentry and left an infant on England’s throne. Charles died the same year.

Henry VI, a baby of nine months, was the king of both England and France. Katherine of Valois’s brother had other ideas and promptly styled himself Charles VII of France. This was followed by lots of bloodshed – and I’m not going there, the French and the Burgundians all piled in and then in 1429 Joan turned up at Vacuoles and announced to the Duke of Lorraine, and anyone else who would listen her, that God had spoken to her.

The best way, it was decided, to test the 16-year-old was to send her off to Orleans to raise the siege there. She succeeded in less than a week proving to the French that God was on their side, or at least on Joan’s – something that the English might have found mildly irritating. Even more so when the French king was crowned at Rheims. By the autumn events were beginning to turn against Joan – and inevitably the French began to wonder if she was quite what she said she was- but it was May 1430 before Joan was captured by the Burgundians.

In November 1430 the English purchased her from the Burgundians for trial. The Church wanted to try her for breaking God’s laws – women had no place on the battle field, dressed in armour, winning battles. Apparently the Book of Deuteronomy had strong things to say about women wearing trousers. The clergy clearly felt that it wasn’t so much the battles as the clothing that was the problem. Nor did it hep that Joan said God had spoken to her – after all, aside from the fact that she was French – she was also a woman – and not a very wealthy one at that…obviously, if God was going to speak to anyone it wasn’t going to be a teenage female.

Joan would face several trials but the one that began on 9 January 1431 at Rouen, an important English centre in Normandy, was a heresy trial No one asked Joan anything about the matter until 21 February.

The image I have selected for this post is Joan of Arc, as street art in Sheffield, the artist is Elle Koziupa.

On this day… 3 January 1521

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Firstly, a very happy new year to everyone who enjoys the History Jar blog and thank you for your continued support. 2023 was something of a quiet year although the page underwent something of an overhaul towards the end of the year. I have further plans for 2024, although I am currently aware of a looming deadline for my fifth book with Pen and Sword! I have offered up the occasional ‘on this day in the past’ but this year it will make a more regular appearance.

On this day Pope Leo X excommunicated Martin Luther whose objections to some of the more corrupt practices of the Catholic Church at the time led to the Protestant Reformation in Europe. Luther’s 95 theses were nailed to the cathedral door at Wittenberg where the monk was a professor in October 1517 – he particularly objected to the sale of indulgences which meant people were able to buy a pardon from various sins. By the time he had refused to recant his views it was 1521.

In April 1521, Luther was called to the Diet of Worms to justify his views. The Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, declared him an outlaw but Luther found protection from German princes.

King Henry VIII got in on the act when he wrote a paper defending the seven sacraments -known as the Assertio (Assertio Septum Sanctorum) resulting in Henry being given the title Defender of the Faith by the Pope. When Henry split with Rome following his failure to gain an annulment of his marriage from Katherine of Aragon, he kept the title. It should also be noted that Henry, who saw himself as something of a top notch Renaissance Prince on the academic front, may have had a helping hand from his friend Sir Thomas More – Tom found himself in dire trouble in 1534 when he refused to accept Henry as the supreme head of the Church of England or to recognise Henry’s divorce from Katherine granted by the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1533.

Henry’s defence of the papacy had been a best seller for ten years by then and Luther had taken the time in 1522 to write an attack on Henry mocking the Church for needing a defender and pointing out that the English king was totally unqualified at any level to write the riposte to Luther’s objections to the church – not that it ever stopped Henry. Nor did the Tudor monarch appear to notice the irony of leaning more towards Protestantism in 1527 when Pope Clement VII first refused the king his request to annul his marriage.

Henry VIII pops his clogs

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henryholbeinOkay – so I’m a couple of days out.  On the plus side at the end of January 1547 the news of Henry VIII’s death was kept secret for two days following his demise on the 28th Janury at Whitehall so that arrangements could be made to move young King Edward VI to the Tower from Hoddesdon and so that Sir Edward Seymour and Sir William Paget could persuade the sixteen council members identified in Henry’s will that it would be far better if Edward Seymour, earl of Hertford shortly to be duke of Somerset would be an infinitely preferable choice as Lord Protector rather than a regency council of sixteen  as envisaged in Henry’s will.

This post coincides with the date  (30th Jan) that Chancellor Wriothesley cried buckets of crocodile tears in Parliament when he stood to announce that Henry was dead. He had been on the throne since 1509. The King is dead! Long live the King!

Cranmer had arrived in the nick of time from his home in Croydon to administer the last rites to his master after Sir Anthony Denny eventually plucked up the courage to tell Henry that he was dying. To predict the death of the king was treason – even when stating the obvious.  At that time Henry could speak but by the time Cranmer arrived having been delayed on icy roads Henry was beyond words and could only squeeze his archbishop’s hand to show that he trusted in his salvation through Christ.  And let’s face it if anyone had need of forgiveness then it was Henry who’d shuffled two wives off this mortal coil somewhat before their time as well as rather a lot of his nobility, his monastics and his thinkers as well as ordinary citizens who hadn’t gone along with his religious views, been in the wrong place at the wrong time or had the temerity to have a family tree that was rather more distinguished than his own.  And that’s before we get to the dissolution of the monasteries and the harassment of his first wife and the Princess Mary.

Weir suggests that Henry died of a pulmonary embolism (Weir, 502). Earlier writers suggested that his wives failure to produce sons, his ulcerated leg and his increasing paranoia were symptoms of syphilis although an article in the Journal of Medical Biography states that these factors are not evidence of syphilis and more specifically Henry was never treated for ‘the pox’.   It has even been suggested that the king famous for getting steadily bulkier with each passing year was suffering from malnutrition bought about by fasting- and certainly not eating his greens. Certainly his own physicians record him suffering from constipation. A more recent writer, whose name escapes me at the moment (sorry) suggests that the ulcerated leg could have been caused by an over tight garter. It has also been suggested that Henry’s jousting accident on 24 January 1536 which knocked him out cold (Anne Boleyn claimed her miscarriage of the male infant that would certainly have saved her life had it lived was the result of hearing the news) caused many of his health problems in later years.

Henry certainly had a series of strokes as he neared the end of his life.  In the last year of his life he was carried everywhere, he could be smelled a room before he arrived, was short-tempered and he showed symptoms of depression. It has also been suggested that he had Cushing’s Syndrome and that’s only the start of it.  Robert Hutchinson opts for renal and liver failure not to mention the effects of being so obese as the causes of Henry’s death at the age of fifty-five.  He’d been on the throne since his eighteenth year.

By the nineteenth century Henry’s death had been somewhat embroidered including the idea that Henry’s last conscious words were “Monks! Monks! Monks!” whilst staring manically into darkened corners where the spectres of  his monastic victims lurked. He’s also supposed to have cried out for Jane Seymour.  Whilst the former is a work of fiction the latter does have an element of truth in it if we look at his will.  He wished to be buried in Windsor next to his “true wife” – or in other words the one who’d provided a male heir.

I couldn’t really finish this post off without the gory story of Syon Abbey.  Henry’s body was popped into its casket which in turn was covered with blue velvet. On the journey to Windsor the king’s body rested overnight in Syon Abbey – rather unfortunately the contents leaked of the coffin dripped onto the stone floor beneath the trestle upon which it was resting. When the entourage turned up in the morning to continue their journey they saw a stray dog enjoying an unexpected early morning snack, er, let’s just say soup under the coffin.  Friar Peto, a loyal supporter of Katherine of Aragon, had preached a sermon in 1532 comparing Anne Boleyn to Jezabel and Henry to King Ahab.  When Ahab died wild dogs licked his blood.  Peto hadn’t won friends and influenced people- most specifically the king- when he suggested that the same fate would befall Henry if he set aside his lawful wife and broke with the Pope. Sadly it seems according to Alison Weir that this is yet another Victorian flight of fancy.

Want to know more? Click on the link to the Journal of Medical Biography.

Cohen J. Did blood cause Henry VIII’s madness and reproductive woes? March 4, 2011. History Web site. http://www.history.com/news/did-blood-cause-henry-viiis-madness-and-reproductive-woes.

Hutchinson, Robert (2005)  The Last Days of Henry VIII: Conspiracies, Treason and Heresy at the Court of the Dying Tyrant.

Keynes M. The personality and health of King Henry VIII (1491-1547). Journal of Medical Biography 2005;13:174.http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/096777200501300313

Weir, A. Henry VIII: King and Court, 2001.

The death of Katherine of Aragon

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catherine of aragonOn January 7 1536www.beautifulbritain.co.ukKatherine of Aragon died at Kimbolton Castle in Cambridgeshire. Sir Edward Chamberlain and Sir Edmund Beddingfield, the late queen’s, er, hosts, wrote to Cromwell detailing the events of the day and asking for further orders as well as requesting a plumber to ‘enclose the body in lead.’

Cromwell then set about organising the funeral as well as dealing with the usual missives about monasteries.  On the 7th of January he had a letter from the Abbot of Whitby who’d been accused of piracy and another from Sir Francis Bigod who’d encountered a monk from Roche Abbey in York Castle accused of treason because he’d denied the supremacy.

Meanwhile Eustace Chapuys sent an account of Katherine’s final days to her nephew Charles V.  He’d hurried to Kimbolton on the 30th December. Chapuys noted that he’d been accompanied by one of Cromwell’s men and that he and the queen ensured that they always had witnesses to their conversation.  Katherine was careful not to be accused of plotting against her erstwhile spouse:

After I had kissed hands she took occasion to thank me for the numerous services I had done her hitherto and the trouble I had taken to come and see her, a thing that she had very ardently desired… at all events, if it pleased God to take her, it would be a consolation to her to die under my guidance (entre mes braz) and not unprepared, like a beast…I gave her every hope, both of her health and otherwise, informing her of the offers the King had made me of what houses she would, and to cause her to be paid the remainder of certain arrears, adding, for her further consolation, that the King was very sorry for her illness; and on this I begged her to take heart and get well, if for no other consideration, because the union and peace of Christendom depended upon her life.

Chapuys may have arrived in England as the Imperial Ambassador – a professional diplomat but it is clear that he had become fond of Katherine. He spent the next four days at Kimbolton and believing that her health had rallied took his leave promising to do his best to have her moved to better accommodation:

“And seeing that she began to take a little sleep, and also that her stomach retained her food, and that she was better than she had been, she thought, and her physician agreed with her (considering her out of danger), that I should return, so as not to abuse the licence the King had given me, and also to request the King to give her a more convenient house, as he had promised me at my departure. I therefore took leave of her on Tuesday evening, leaving her very cheerful.”

It was only when Chapuys arrived back in London and asked Cromwell for an audience with the King that he learned of Katherine’s death:

“This has been the most cruel news that could come to me, especially as I fear the good Princess will die of grief, or that the concubine will hasten what she has long threatened to do, viz., to kill her; and it is to be feared that there is little help for it. I will do my best to comfort her, in which a letter from your Majesty would help greatly. I cannot relate in detail the circumstances of the Queen’s decease, nor how she has disposed of her affairs, for none of her servants has yet come. I know not if they have been detained.”

The letter also demonstrates Cromwell’s efficiency organising Katherine’s funeral.  He even arranged for Chapuys to have black cloth for his mourning garb.  Chapuys declined the offer preferring his own clothes for the occasion.

Katherine had disposed of her affairs.  Recognising the end was near she had taken steps to ensure that her will was written.  There was also the famous last letter penned on her death bed to Henry.  Sadly, Tremlett suggests it was a work of fiction – but he also recognises that the letter may well reflect her feelings (why do all the best bits turn out to be fictions, amends and fabrications?):

The hour of my death now approaching, I cannot choose but, out of the love I bear you, to advise you of your soul’s health, which you ought to prefer before all considerations of the world or flesh whatsoever. For which yet you have cast me into many calamities, and yourself into many troubles. But I forgive you all, and pray God to do so likewise. For the rest, I commend unto you Mary, our daughter, beseeching you to be a good father to her. I must entreat you also to look after my maids, and give them in marriage, which is not much, they being but three, and to all my other servants, a year’s pay besides their due, lest otherwise they should be unprovided for until they find new employment. Lastly, I want only one true thing, to make this vow: that, in this life, mine eyes desire you alone, May God protect you.

When news of Katherine’s demise arrived in London Henry and Anne celebrated, famously by wearing yellow, but it is said that later Anne cried – perhaps she recognised that there was no one standing between her and Henry’s wrath anymore. She was pregnant at the time but by the beginning of summer she had miscarried a boy and her days were numbered.

‘Henry VIII: January 1536, 6-10’, in Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 10, January-June 1536, ed. James Gairdner (London, 1887), pp. 12-26. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/letters-papers-hen8/vol10/pp12-26 [accessed 6 January 2017].

Tremlett, G. 2010  Catherine of Aragon: Henry’s Spanish Queen.