Mercator projections – changing navigation

Gerardus Mercator

Gerardus Mercator was a sixteenth century Belgian cartographer. In 1569 he created a world map based on straight lines of contstant course known as rhumb lines. He successfully presented a three dimensional object (the world) on a two dimension piece of paper. For the mathematical minded amongst you its a line that creates an arc on a constant course – I tend to think of it as cutting the world into sections straight through the middle of the planet like so many slices of cake at a constant angle (its not a right angle) but I have the feeling that I have horribly over simplified and may have become fixated on the cake part of the equation…but you get the gist.

Essentially Mercator used the rhumb lines which were constant to draw his charts and maps. He imagined the world, or a chart, as a piece of paper which was rolled into a scroll. This enabled him to link all the lines of latitude (east west lines) that we imagine going around the world. So far so good and on a small scale it works well. But a problem arises because the world is not a cylinder – it’s a sphere. This means that the lines of longitude (the north south lines) are distorted and if you draw countries based on the straightened out lines the countries at the top of the map like Antartica and Siberia look much bigger than they really are unless you draw the segments so that the top of the world looks like a series of fingers with white paper between them – which isn’t great if you’re trying to navigate somewhere. So having ruled that option out the Mercator projection makes Greenland looks huge – bigger than Africa and that folks is just not true! But Mercator was creating charts for sailors – the oceans needed to be right for them to make navigational decisions not so they could compare the relative size of land masses. Nor does it help that the world is ‘Old World’ centric – the sailors were setting off from the known world into the New World. Basically a world map based on Mercator Projections sees its priorities through sixteenth century eyes.

Essentially, anything past 70degrees latitude isn’t quite the right shape on a map created using Mercator’s projection. Corrections were made even in the sixteenth century but we’re not going there today because that’s more than enough for my brain to cope with in one go. Suffice it to say at the time it was an excellent step forward because it made navigation by mathematical means far easier.

Robert Dudley, calling himself the Duke of Northumberland and the Earl of Warwick was the first Englishman to create an atlas of the sea using mercator’s projections. It was published in 1646-1647 in Florence. It contained more than 100 beautifully engraved maps.

Sir Robert Dudley – son the the Earl of Leicester

Probably Sir Robert Dudley, illegitimate son of the Earl of Leicester NPG 2613
© National Portrait Gallery, London

The handsome young man in the image has been on my mind rather a lot in the past year. During lockdown I wrote a historical biography about him for Pen and Sword which is due to be released in July and which can now be pre-ordered.

Robert Dudley was related to Queen Elizabeth I via his mother Lady Douglas Howard (yes she was a girl). His uncle was Lord Howard of Effingham and his father was the queen’s own favourite Robert Dudley Earl of Leicester – which is why the circumstances of his birth and upbringing are rather sketchy.

Douglas was eventually discarded – complete with conspiracy theory- in favour of Lettice Knollys who was the widow of the Earl of Essex not to mention the queen’s beautiful younger cousin. Whereas Douglas had been content to live a life in the shadows, Lettice was not – there was an awful lot of screaming, swearing and boxing of ears when the queen discovered that her favourite was married. Lettice unlike Douglas was never forgiven nor permitted to return to court. Young Robert came to hold a special place in Elizabeth’s heart reminding her as he did of the earl. Lettice was not so sentimental and tried to prevent Robert from entering into his inheritance.

Dudley loved the sea and he wanted nothing more than to be an explorer – his boarding school was close to the sea and his father and Uncle the Earl of Warwick were investors in foreign exploration as well as having vessels of their own. Robert was at Tilbury with his father and heard the queen’s famous speech as well as being introduced to her there. After the earl’s death Robert came to court in the hope that he would be permitted to go a voyage of exploration. Elizabeth wasn’t so keen on letting the son of her favourite run the risk of drowning but he sailed the Caribbean and went in search of El Dorado a few months before the rather better publicised adventures of Sir Walter Raleigh; he was at Cadiz with his step-brother the Earl of Essex and was knighted in the street in Plymouth. He also took a small part in the Earl of Essex’s rebellion against the queen.

The problem for Robert was that he came to believe that he was legitimate and more than anything else he wanted his father and uncle’s titles. When it came to a show down with James I he found that he was the son of the wrong father- James held Leicester conveniently responsible for his mother’s execution. Nor did it help that he was something of a sea dog with a reputation for privateering and gallantry which ran counter to James’ need for peace with Spain.

Dudley left England with his young beautiful cousin and started afresh in Florence leaving a wife and a family of daughters at home to fend for themselves. He carved a career working for the Dukes of Tuscany and had a large family (who had their own adventures.) His life was a tale of treachery, skullduggery, piracy, exploration and love – he was beloved by his cousin, his wife and by Queen Elizabeth I. By the end of his life gentleman were ticking him off their list of things to see whilst on the grand tour. His enduring achievement was a six volume sea atlas containing many beautiful engravings as well as charts using mercator projections which took twelve years to write and have printed. The sea and mathematics were his passion. When he died he left his collection of navigational instruments to the Duke of Tuscany.

He even had a small part to play in the English Civil War thanks to a pamphlet he wrote for King James when he was trying to charm his way back into favour so that he could return home – not sure how his two families would have coped with that particular scenario!

He deserves to be so much more than an unremembered footnote.

The book can be pre-ordered from Pen and Sword here:

https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/The-Son-that-Elizabeth-I-Never-Had-Hardback/p/21463

Blowing up the bed…the queen and the plotter’s mother.

Elizabeth I – The Armada Portrait

In 1586 the younger brother of Sir Edward Stafford, the English ambassador in Paris, went to see the secretary of the French ambassador, a man called Leonard des Tappes. Stafford had a plan. Des Tappes informed his master – Chateauneuf.

Stafford explained that the plan was to blow up the queen’s bed with the queen in it. Unfortunately the queen was afraid of the dark and never slept without one of her ladies in waiting. Stafford’s own mother Lady Dorothy Stafford served Elizabeth faithfully. Although the job title Mistress of the Robes hadn’t yet been created it was what Dorothy did.

Lady Dorothy Stafford

The ambassador pointed out that the risk of blowing up Lady Dorothy was quite great. Stafford said that in that case it would probably be best to stab Elizabeth or possibly poison her.

Stafford was very swiftly arrested and escorted to the Tower as was Des Tappes. The ambassador was questioned and eventually admitted that he knew about the plot. What he should have done was to reveal to the Privy Council, to Cecil, to Walsingham…to any one who would listen really…that there was a dastardly plot afoot. He hadn’t blabbed which wrong footed him and effectively put him out of the complicated Anglo-French game of spies and intrigue for a significant month of two. He was placed under house arrest and thus unable to get anywhere near Mary Queen of Scots who was being quietly entrapped by Walsingham (Babbington Plot)

Elizabeth’s guard was doubled and she became much more wary of Mary Queen of Scots which was exactly what Walsingham hoped to achieve.

And Stafford, described in documents as “a lewd, discontented person?” His mother was very distressed at the thought that he might try to blow either her or the queen up so it’s unlikely that Elizabeth was aware that it was a ruse. Certainly he was in Walsingham’s pay as indeed had Moody been at various times.

The Spanish Ambassador wrote to Philip II telling the story. Apparently Lady Dorothy and her older son were not on good terms with little brother William but that William had pretended to be a Catholic and told the French that he would place a barrel of gunpowder in the bedroom and er, well – kerboom!

And whilst we’re on the subject of Dorothy Stafford her grandmother was Margaret Pole the 8th Countess of Salisbury – yes – that one. The daughter of the Duke of Clarence (the one drowned in a vat of Malmsey) married off to a member of Margaret Beaufort’s extended family and eventually executed without trial by Henry VIII in 1541 making her grand daughter Dorothy Stafford doubly related to some degree to Elizabeth I.

Margaret Pole Countess of Salisbury

Whitelock, Anna. The Queen’s Bed.

Dr Simon Forman – a Tudor version of Pepys…with magic and poison

Simon Forman was born on December 30, 1552, near Salisbury. Unlike Shakespeare for whom there is no evidence of attending grammar school we have Forman’s account of his teacher and his education which began when he was seven. Unfortunately Simon’s father died suddenly and the boy had to leave school taking employment with a merchant who sold herbs and drugs.

Ten years later Simon left Salisbury, apparently after an argument with his master’s wife, and went to Oxford to live with his cousins. It appears that although he was eager to continue his education that he was unhappy in Oxford so when back to Salisbury where he became a teacher.

In 1579 things changed, Simon became a prophet! “I did prophesy the truth of many things which afterwards came to pass…the very spirits were subject unto me”. He also moved to London where presumably there was more need for doctoring, astrology and magic – remember these three things weren’t at odds with one another during the Tudor period. What made the real difference to Forman’s career as a doctor was that he remained in London during the plagues of 1592 and 1594. As a result he became known for his skills and the publication in 1595 of a book entitled Discourses on the Plague. He claimed that he was able to work with plague cases because he had caught and recovered from the disease.

Unfortunately the Royal College of Physicians took umbrage because he lacked their training. They described his herbal medicines as “magical potions.” In short they determined that he was a quack, fined him and told him not to call himself a doctor. Forman ignored them but within nine months a man died soon after taking one of his prescriptions and he found himself in prison. He finally gained a licence from Cambridge University in 1603 despite the fact that he had never studied there.

Forman wrote a lot of books and kept a diary which recorded his own life as well as his consultations with people from all ranks of society. He recorded some of his womanising activities even though he’d married Jane Baker in 1599.

William Lilly

We even know how Forman died thanks to another astrologer, William Lilly. In September of 1611, Forman apparently told his wife that he was about to make his last prophesy, namely that he would die the next Thursday evening which he did whilst rowing on the Thames.

That wasn’t the end of Forman though. Frances Howard, Countess of Somerset went on trial in 1616 for the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury in 1613. Whilst she was still Lady Essex married to Robert Devereux. Frances had gone with her friend Anne Turner to see Forman for potions that would keep Lord Essex at arm’s length and another to attract the attentions of James I’s favourite Robert Carr as he seemed a better financial and political bet than the spouse that she had been required to marry when they were both children. Forman was also accused of providing the poison which added to some tarts killed Sir Thomas Overbury whilst he was in the Tower.

Frances Howard, Countess of Somerset

Ultimately Forman’s papers ended up in the care of Elias Ashmole, the founder of the Ashmolean in Oxford and thus his diary which includes visits to the theatre to see Macbeth and The Winter’s Tale survive – though not without some dispute as to their veracity.

Kassell, Lauren (2007) Medicine and Magic in Elizabethan London: Simon Forman: Astrologer, Alchemist, and Physician

Rowse, A.L. (1974) The Casebooks of Simon Forman

B

Candlemas on the borders

Edward III

Candlemas or the Feast of the Purification of Mary is February 2 and the date when the baby Jesus was supposed to be presented at the Temple. Jesus is the light of the world – there were ceremonies that involved processing with candles which were often then blessed. These candles were supposed to be helpful in time of illness – they would be decorated and kept throughout the following year. They were also supposed to protect dwellings from storms.

Candlemas is one of those feasts that turns up in a historical context to mark the time of year. It’s not a quarter day but it is an important feast. I’ve come across it most often when reading about the border between England and Scotland. George MacDonald Fraser made the feast famous with his novel The Candlemas Road a story set in the sixteenth century about Lady Margaret Dacre the heiress of Askerton Hall.

Essentially Candlemas was the feast that was half way between Christmas and the Spring Equinox. For the borderers this meant the “light at the end of the tunnel” so to speak – the reivers’ horses weren’t up to the task of raiding from that point onwards.

Portrait of Sir Robert Carey circa 1591 NT; (c) Montacute House; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

Raiding and reiving seems to have gone on all year but the cycle of the seasons made the winter months particularly noticeable. “The longer the nights grow the worse they will be,” notes Sir Robert Carey in his memoirs of his time as the Deputy Warden of the English West March. George MacDonald Fraser records that from September to November the land was dry and the cattle which had been in the meadows all summer were at their best i.e. it was good riding and the cattle were at their most valuable and thus a greater temptation. As the winter progressed the cattle grew weaker and the weather was often too bad to want to steal them in any case. By February 2nd – forty days after Christmas, the cattle were in their poorest condition and feed was more expensive so it was unlikely that many people would be feeding their horses the oats they required for hard riding – so if you were a law abiding soul you would probably sleep a little easier…until the better weather at any rate.

It should be noted that there is always an exception! The Scots won the Battle of Nesbit Moor in August 1355 before attacking and sacking Berwick-Upon-Tweed. Edward III was forced to bring an army north in order to defend the castle at Berwick which was under siege. The Scots decided that discretion was a sensible option and backed off before Edward arrived at his destination. Having met with Edward Balliol at Roxburgh, Edward decided to teach the Scots a lesson and in delivered his retribution in February 1356 in the Burned Candlemas Campaign. Basically Edward III set fire to the Lothians and what the English didn’t destroy the Scots did in a bid to force the English back with a burned earth policy. In the end this turned out to be justified as Edward’s fleet was destroyed in winter gales off North Berwick.

Edward expressed his irritation by destroying Haddington Monastery but was eventually forced to turn back.

‘Whitekirk and the ‘Burnt Candlemas’, Rev. Edward B. Rankin in the Scottish Historical Review Vol. 13, No. 50 (Jan., 1916), pp. 133-137

MacDonald-Fraser, George. The Steel Bonnets

Mortimer, Ian. (2008) The Perfect King: the life of Edward III

The Duke of Buckingham’s mistake

Edward_Stafford.jpgEdward Stafford the third Duke of Buckingham really should have known about the dangers of irritating monarchs.  His father the second duke was executed by Richard III and Edward a mere child of five was forced to flee into hiding having been dressed by his mother Katherine Woodville as a girl.

The problem was that Edward was descended thrice over from Edward III despite the fact that his mother was Katherine Woodville.  The Stafford family had been around for centuries whereas the Tudors were Johnny-Come-Late-lies.  This was so much the case that after the death of Prince Arthur in 1502 it was suggested in some quarters that the Duke of Buckingham might make an appropriate monarch.  Not only was Edward a Plantagenet with clear  and legitimate lines of descent but he had also benefitted from a royal upbringing having been made a ward of Margaret Beaufort.

Seven years later  when Edward discovered that his sister had become the king’s mistress he was absolutely furious.  He believed that his family was far to important for Anne to be the mistress of a mere Tudor, a marked contrast to the Duke of Norfolk who would spend most of his political career from the 1520s onwards dangling Howard girls under Henry’s nose.

Buckingham knew how the court worked under Henry VII – a man not admired for his lack of mistresses and had failed to notice that whilst the Plantagenets were first amongst equals – in a country where rulers appointed men to effectively rule their own regions that the Tudors centralised and appointed administrators – that they were absolute rulers for want of a better description.

Henry VII sought to use Edward’s Plantagenet blood in the marriage market when he suggested a marriage with Anne of Brittany but avarice won out when the Earl Northumberland offered the king £4000 for Edward to marry his daughter Eleanor.  By 1509 Edward Stafford had claimed the hereditary right of being Lord High Constable and was on Henry VIII’s newly appointed council having performed in a series of diplomatic and high status court roles.

Buckingham’s sense of self worth was probably reinforced when he received a licence to crenelate, i.e. to fortify a property.  He was treading the path of the fifteenth century over mighty subject who ruled his own domain. He had failed to spot that his second cousin   Henry VIII granted favours to his friends but woe betide them if they didn’t play by his rules.

Thus when Edward heard from Anne’s sister Elizabeth that Anne was conducting an affair with the king he thought that there would be no repercussions when he summoned his brother-in-law and removed Anne to a nunnery some sixty miles from court.  Even worse the affair became common knowledge.  Queen Katherine who was pregnant became very upset and Henry was embarrassed. Anne would return to court and the affair probably continued for another few years if Henry’s New Year’s gift list is anything to go by.  However, the damage was done – Henry knew how to carry a grudge.

In 1520 Buckingham was suspected of treason. It had become clear that Katherine of Aragon was not as fertile as her mother.  A child, Mary, had been born the pervious year but it was unthinkable that a girl might inherit – the Tudors were in danger of dying out.  Edward Stafford was the man, so he said, to take up the Crown –   Henry personally interviewed the witnesses. In April 1521 he was packed off to the Tower for imagining the death of the king and executed on the 17th May. The evidence was flimsy.

Jane Parker, Lady Rochford

Jane-Parker.jpgJane Parker or Mrs George Boleyn has gone down in history as the woman who accused her husband and sister-in-law of incest.  She was also the woman who connived to allow Katherine Howard to meet her lover  Thomas Culpepper- resulting in Katherine being executed and Henry VIII changing the law to allow for the execution of the insane so that Jane could share the same fate on the 13th February 1542.

The image at the start of the post is a Holbein. Recent consensus is that this particular Lady Parker is actually Grace Parker – nee Newport the wife of Jane’s brother Henry rather than Jane.

Jane was described by Henry as a “bawd” because she had helped Katherine to meet with Thomas, had passed on letters and kept watch whilst the pair conducted their assignations during the royal progress to York.. It can’t have come as a total surprise that Henry ordered her arrest when he discovered what had been going on. rather unreasonably Thomas Culpepper and Katherine Howard both tried to put the blame on Jane for orchestrating the meetings.  Jane had a nervous breakdown whilst in confinement.

So, what else do we know about her?  She was descended from Margaret Beauchamp of Bletsoe,  Margaret Beaufort’s mother – making Jane a distant Tudor relation which accounts for her court links. Her father was raised in Margaret Beaufort’s household. Jane first appears in the court records in 1520 pertaining to the Field of the Cloth of Gold.  She would have been about fifteen. She served in the households of Catherine of Aragon, her sister-in-law Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves  and also in Katherine Howard’s.  We know that she appeared in court masques and we know that in 1524 /25 she married George Boleyn.

Warnicke theorises that Jane and George were unhappily married  because of George’s sexuality- certainly something wasn’t right if Jane was prepared to send her husband to the block on some rather unpleasant charges.  The primary source evidence for this comes from George Cavendish’s account of Boleyn.  However to counter this it should be noted that Cavendish was loyal to Wolsey and there was little love lost between the Cardinal’s faction and the Boleyns. It should also be noted that George had a bit of a reputation with the ladies. The only bad thing that Chapuys, the Imperial Ambassador, could say about George was that he was very Protestant in his outlook.  It’s safe to say that had Chapuys got a whiff of George being homosexual that it would have been recorded in his letters.

Whatever the family relationship, in 1534 Jane helped Anne to get rid of an unnamed mistress of the king’s and that Jane was banished as a consequence.  This allowed Anne the opportunity to place another potential mistress under Henry’s nose – a Howard girl- possibly Madge Shelton and someone who was unlikely to be used by the conservative faction at court to weaken Anne’s position.  Jane herself was back at court the following year.

Popular history claims that Jane told the king that one of Anne’s lovers was George but whilst the primary sources talk about ‘one woman’ they don’t actually name Jane as the culprit and there is certainly no written evidence to support the idea although that doesn’t preclude the possibility of verbal evidence.  Like so much popular history we think we know what happened but the closer you look at the evidence the more elusive the truth becomes.

Julia Fox, Jane’s biographer states that Jane was only named during the reign of Elizabeth I.  Jane was long dead and who else cold have told such blatant lies – but a mad woman?  Alison Weir on the other hand concludes that Jane was probably instrumental in George’s execution.  It is also true to say that an anonymous Portuguese writer claimed a month after Anne’s execution that Jane was responsible for the incest accusation.  Weir deduces that Jane was jealous of the closeness that existed between her husband and Anne.

It is true though that the evidence of George’s trial points to Jane telling Cromwell that Anne Boleyn had talked of Henry VIII’s impotence which one imagines would have been more than enough to get Anne into serious hot water with her spouse.

Jane didn’t benefit from her husband’s death.  Thomas Boleyn refused to pay Jane’s jointure.  She was forced to write to Cromwell asking for help.

And whilst we’re at it we should perhaps also look at the idea that Jane was insane at the time of her execution.  Primary evidence supplied by Ottwell Johnson reveals a woman who went to her maker calmly and with dignity despite the fact that no one in her family had attempted to intervene on her behalf. Lord Morley (Jane’s father) and his son Henry perhaps realised the extent of Henry’s anger.

Finally – just to make life that little bit more interesting in 1519, the year before the first written account of Jane at court Henry VIII had a fling with  “Mistress Parker” or at least court rumour said he did.  At fourteen Jane fitted Henry’s liking for young mistresses best typified by Katherine Howard.  Jane like so many other of his mistresses was related to him and like many other of his mistresses a large wedding gift was given.  Alternatively maybe Mistress Parker was Jane’s mother Alice St John?

In 1519 Henry was in the midst of his affair with Bessie Blount the mother of his illegitimate son Henry Fitzroy. Mistress Parker was a diversion whilst Bessie was pregnant.  Could Alice have been Henry’s mistress and gained her daughter a place in Catherine of Aragon’s household?  It’s possible.

Alice outlived her daughter and like her husband she did not publicly mourn the death of Jane.

Fox. Julia,  (2008) Jane Boleyn: The Infamous Lady Rochford

Retha M. Warnicke “The Rise and Fall of Anne Boleyn: Family Politics at the Court of Henry VIII”

Anne Plantagenet and the duke of Norfolk

princess anne plantagenet framlinghamAnne was the fifth daughter of Elizabeth Woodville and Edward IV, born in 1475 had her father not died in April 1483 she would have found herself married to Philip of Burgundy.  However, Edward IV died unexpectedly and the treaty with Burgundy was never ratified.  Had she married Philip she would have gone to live in the court of her aunt Margaret of Burgundy.

Instead, Anne’s uncle Richard arranged a betrothal to Thomas Howard who would one day become the 3rd Duke of Norfolk.  Once Richard III was overthrown in 1485 Howard petitioned for the betrothal to stand – meanwhile Anne served her sister Elizabeth of York as a lady-in-waiting. She featured during the baptism of both Arthur and Margaret.  The problem was that the Howards were not supporters of the house of Lancaster.

John Howard, Thomas’s grandfather, served Edward IV and was knighted by him. Richard ennobled John making him the Duke of Norfolk on 28th June 1483 with Thomas’s father another Thomas, becoming the Earl of Surrey at the same time thus ensuring their continued loyalty.  In fact John, the 1st Howard Duke of Norfolk was killed at the Battle of Bosworth as he commanded the vanguard of Richard’s army by an arrow which struck him in the face.  The Earl of Surrey spent the next three years in the Tower until he convinced Henry VII of his loyalty.

3rd duke of norfolk framlinghamMeanwhile Anne married Thomas junior on 3rd February 1495. She was never the Duchess of Norfolk  Anne died in 1510 or 11 depending on the source.  It was only in 1514 that the Earl of Surrey was allowed to inherit his father’s title which had been made forfeit by his attainder following Bosworth.

Hans_Holbein_the_Younger_-_Thomas_Howard,_3rd_Duke_of_Norfolk_(Royal_Collection)As for Anne’s widower depicted above -Thomas junior- he would remarry Lady Elizabeth Stafford but would go down in history as the rather brutal third Duke of Norfolk, uncle of Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard and arch-Tudor politician.  Anne had a son who died young but the Howard heirs came from the third duke’s marriage to Elizabeth Stafford (the eldest daughter of the Duke of Buckingham who revolted against Richard III and Eleanor Percy the eldest daughter of the Duke of Northumberland – and thus having more sound Lancastrian credentials.)

Anne was buried originally in Thetford Priory but upon the Dissolution of the Monasteries she was reinterred in Framingham Church.  Thomas Howard 3rd Duke of Norfolk managed to survive both his nieces’ downfalls, topple Thomas Cromwell from power  and generally demonstrated more political wiliness than a cat with nine lives but he was ultimately charged with treason and was sent to the Tower to await his execution.  Henry VIII died the night before he was due to be executed.  He eventually died in 1554 having been freed by Mary Tudor.

His tomb is in Framingham next to Anne who lays on his righthand-side because she, as a princess, is more important than a mere duke.

 

The Church of St Michael Framingham guidebook

 

The man who made priest holes

DSC_0094.jpgYesterday I found myself in the garderobe, sliding into a small space, ducking my head to avoid a low beam and then straightening to find myself in a priest hole.  Fortunately for me no one was going to slam the lid back into place and leave me in total darkness until it was safe for me to emerge or I was discovered and dragged off to the Tower.  I was enjoying a sunny afternoon at Oxborough Hall.

 

DSC_0093.jpg

During the reign of Elizabeth I Jesuits priests were feared as enemies of the state and hunted down by pursuivants.  Catholic priests moved from Catholic household to catholic household, often purporting to be cousins or other distant relations.  Wealthy families built hiding places in their homes so that when the priest hunters came calling there was somewhere to hide their illicit guest.

DSC_0092.jpg

The most successful priest holes were built by Nicholas Owen – not that he built the hole at Oxborough. Owen, an Oxfordshire man, was born in 1562.  He had three siblings one was a Catholic priest and another printed illegal Catholic books.  The brothers’ father was a carpenter and Nicholas in his turn was apprenticed to a joiner.  By the time he was in his mid twenties he was working for Father Henry Garnet and had become a lay brother in the Jesuit order.  He suffered from ill health including a limp from a poorly set bone and a hernia. Despite his physical frailty he travelled from house to house constructing priest holes.   Most of the people he worked for didn’t know his real name – to them he was Little John.  He worked by night in total secrecy to create his hiding places.  Many of the priest holes were so well concealed that they were only discovered in later centuries when houses underwent renovation.  Unfortunately the occasional hole is still found with its occupant still in situ.

 

Owen’s favoured locations seem to have been behind fireplaces and under stairs.  The pursuivants were men who could judge if an interior wall looked shorter than an exterior wall so Owen had to be very careful as to where he located his priest holes.

 

Nicholas was a man strong in faith.  He was eventually captured in 1606 at Hindlip Hall in Worcestershire in the aftermath of the Gunpowder Plot.  It is thought he allowed himself to be captured in order to distract attention from Father Henry Garnet who was hiding nearby.

There were rules about torturing people with disabilities but this didn’t stop Robert Cecil from demanding that Owen be taken to the Tower and taxed about his knowledge by Topcliffe.  He was racked.  This caused his intestines to bulge out through his hernia.  Topcliffe ordered that they be secure by a metal plate. This cut into the hernia and he bled to death in his cell. He died rather than give away his secrets and the lives of the men who depended upon him keeping them.  The State announced that he had committed suicide.

St Nicholas Owen was canonised in 1970 and is the patron saint of illusionists and escape artists.

san-nicolas-owen.jpg

Hogge Alice.  God’s Secret Agents

Reynolds, Tony. (2014) St Nicholas Owen: Priest Hole Maker

https://soul-candy.info/2012/03/mar-22-st-nicholas-owen-sj-d-1606-martyr-artist-builder-of-hiding-places-for-priests/

Margaret Bostock Cavendish and daughters

250px-william_cavendish_c1547Have you noticed the way that wives simply don’t count in the historical record unless they bring oodles of cash or have heirs and spares?   Sometimes it really does look like “his story.” There certainly aren’t any pictures  of Margaret or her daughters so this post will have to make do with William Cavendish.  Margaret was William’s first wife.

Anyway, Margaret Bostock was born in Whatcroft in Cheshire. Margaret’s father, Edmund, came from a family that claimed its descent from the Norman Conquest.  She married William in 1532 as Cavendish began his career in the employment of Thomas Cromwell.  She died on 9th June 1540, the day before Cromwell was arrested. It should have made for a grim year for Sir William, instead he was promoted and sent to Ireland to survey the king’s lands.

The couple had five children but only three survived to adulthood:

  • Catherine married Thomas Brooke, the son of Lord Cobham which sounds very grand but he was son number four or five. Lord Cobham, a soldier and courtier, fathered fourteen legitimate children.  He was an associate of the Seymours and would benefit from the dissolution of the monasteries. When she married Thomas, Catherine became the sister-in-law of William Parr who was married to Thomas’s sister Elizabeth.  William was Queen Katherine Parr’s brother.  It demonstrates that William Cavendish or rather Bess of Hardwick  was upwardly mobile, associated with the New Learning of the period and knew how to find a husband which would improve those all important social and career prospects.  Even more noticeable, on further inspection, is the chain of kinship connections that Bess of Hardwick wrought between her children and the Cobhams.

Thomas managed to get himself sentenced to death twice – once for treason and then for piracy and was charged with a murder in Blackfriars.  He got himself caught up in Wyatt’s Rebellion in 1554 (it was a family affair given that Cobham was Wyatt’s cousin) and on his release set off for a life of adventure on the high seas – by which I mean piracy which didn’t amuse the Spanish very much. eventually he was re-arrested and sent back to the Tower where he was sentenced to death.  On this occasion he didn’t have to rely on the clemency of the monarch – he pleaded benefit of the clergy.  All of which is very Elizabethan, he could even claim a degree of kinship with Sir Walter Raleigh but there’s no sign of Catherine in the tale.

 

  • Mary died in 1547
  • Anne married Sir Henry Baynton in 1561. The Bayntons were a Wiltshire family.  The marriage was arranged by Bess of Hardwick, Anne’s step-mother. Sir Henry was actually the brother-in-law of Bess’s new husband William St Loe. Like Lord Cobham, Baynton’s father was a courtier to Henry VIII and had been present at the baptism of Prince Edward.