The Iceni Revolt – Colchester burned to the ground.

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In AD 60 King Prasutagus of the Iceni died. he was a client king and he decided to leave half his estate to the Emperor Nero to ensure that his wife Boudicca and his daughters would be allowed to continue ruling. Unfortunately the Romans who dealt with the matter plundered the kingdom, enslaved many of the Iceni, flogged Boudicca and raped her daughters. Tacitus wrote condemning the behaviour of the Romans involved but matters had gone beyond a strongly worded note.

The Iceni rose in rebellion and were joined by the Trinovantes who had had just about enough of the Romans. They headed for Colchester with its expensive temple dedicated to the Emperor Claudius and its triumphal arch…and no walls. The Roman army led by the provincial governor, Suetonius Paulinus, was on Anglesey and when the citizens of Colonia Victricensis sent to Londoninium for help there was only a small force available to assist.

It has to be supposed that the Roman villas outside the town were the first to be attacked and their inhabitants murdered. Then the Britons swept into the town, looting, destroying, killing and razing the colonia to the ground before it turned its attention to the hated Temple of Claudius. Today archeologists have their own name for that layer of soil – it’s the Boudicca destruction layer. Excavations have revealed smashed Samian ware pottery, glass that became so hot that it melted, carbonised dates and charred figs. The Fenwick Hoard tells the story of a panic stricken couple hiding their valuables beneath the floor of their home before fleeing. The fact that they never returned suggests that they were among the victims of the revolt. Oddly though, very few bodies have ever been discovered.

Tacitus recorded that those Romans who remained in Colchester sought sanctuary in the Temple of Claudius where they held out until they were finally overwhelmed and killed. Boudicca and the Britons swept through St Albans and on to London which also went up in flames. Suetonius and the Roman army dashed back towards London and in a set piece battle near St Albans, called the Battle of Watling Street, the Britons were defeated. Boudicca survived the battle and either died soon afterwards or took poison. No one knows where she is buried – and no its not under one of London’s railway stations.

For Colchester it meant the end of its time as the Roman capital. Even so, Colchester today reflects the lines of a Roman garrison and the first colonia in Britain. The town needed to be rebuilt and repopulated. Many of the houses were rebuilt on the same plots as before and most importantly the new town had walls. Today Colchester is proud of the fact it has the most complete Roman walls of any town or city in England. In places they were over six meters high and almost 2.5 meters thick – perhaps a case of bolting the stable door after the horse had well and truly bolted. A new theatre was built at Gosbecks, apparently capable of seating 5,000 people; a circus – the only one discovered thus far in this country; the Temple of Claudius was restored; more temples were built; workshops and shops sprang up; oysters from the region were exported across the empire.

During the next 350 years Colchester would see other uprisings and unrest. The third century saw inflation, a decline in the administrative system across the empire and increasing problems with raiders from outside the empire… more of that tomorrow. In the meantime when Colchester Town Hall was built, Boudicca, the queen who razed the town to the ground was commemorated by a statue and a stained glass window. The more famous statue is in London near Westminster Bridge, commissioned by Prince Albert, depicting the queen driving a war chariot like none that the Iceni would have driven…but its still one of my most favourite statues ever.

I’ve not read the MacKay book yet but am looking forward to doing so. Click on the image to open up the link in a new tab. And for those of you who like a more lighthearted moment, why not look up the wonderful Horrible Histories ‘Boudicca Song’ – what’s not to like?

Colchester – the first city in Britain

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Razumukhin, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

It’s quite a claim but Colchester has been inhabited for a very long time indeed. The Iron Age, which is well outside my usual time frame, began in about 700 BC. About 2000 years ago the inhabitants of modern day Colchester created a series of defensive dykes which stretch for between 12 and 15 miles depending upon which source you read. In either event it was a huge undertaking. It seems likely that the settlement was a high status agricultural estate. An additional benefit of the earthworks may have been to keep herds from straying. As well as the settlement at modern day Gosbecks there was a more industrial settlement at Sheepen.

In 55/54 BC Julius Caesar crossed the Channel. He wrote that the Trinovantes who lived in Essex and the southern parts of Suffolk were the strongest tribe in the southeast. The neighbouring tribe were the Catuvellauni (based in modern Hertfordshire). The visit established links with Rome and trading relations developed. British kings began to issue their own currency. By the time he returned in 54 BC the Trinovantes had been overtaken by the Catuvellauni. King Tasciovanus minted coins at St Albans and later at Colchester.

In 15 BC, or thereabouts, one of the high status individuals who lived in Colchester died and was buried in a tumulus with his possessions. The Lexden Tumulus contains many grave goods demonstrating the man’s status. Among them, 17 amphoras for storing wine. There is also a silver medal bearing the head of the Emperor Augustus. It is possible that it is the resting place of King Addeomaros of Camulodunum as Colchester was then known. Camulodunum means ‘fortress of the war god Camulos’.

In about AD 5 Cunobelin, or Cymbeline as Shakespeare called him, began to issue coins – and kept them coming for about the next thirty years. Colchester was his power base.

AD 40 Cunobelin dies.

AD 43 Emperor Claudius invades. The Roman army, under the command of Julius Plautius, heads for Colchester. Cunobelin’s son, Togodumnus is killed and his second son, Caratucus, rather than accept defeat continued fighting a guerrilla war for several years afterwards . He was eventually betrayed and sent to Rome with his family and lots of loot. He made a dramatic speech to the emperor and was pardoned. He and his family remained in exile in Rome. By then Claudius had accepted the submission of several British kings who become clients of the empire, including the Iceni tribe of present day Norfolk which meant that they retained some independence but were required to pay taxes. It left the Romans with a buffer zone between peaceable tribes and those who were actively hostile. The invasion and early Roman years of Colchester were described by Tacitus in his Annals and later by Dio Cassius.

AD 44 – Colchester became a legionary fortress. The XX legion, who originated from modern Germany, build their fort away from the Iron Age settlement on top of a hill near the River Colne. They continued to utilise the industrial site at Sheepen. In addition, the Romans started their own cemetery on the road leading south away from the garrison. There are two gravestones associated with the garrison in Colchester Castle. One is in memory of Marcus Favonius Facilis, a centurion with Legio XX. The other is dedicated to Longinus Sdapeze, an officer of the 1st squadron of the Thracian cavalry unit. His gravestone depicts him trembling a vanquished Briton beneath his horse (very similar to the one at Hexham).

AD 49 – As the Romans secured the southeast the need for an army in that part of Britain was reduced . It was decreed that Camulodunum should become a colonia. A colonia was a colony for retired army veterans who were entitled to land to support themselves and their family after 25 years service. If they were not already Roman citizens, they were also granted that status. In part, as Tacitus explains, they were there as a military reserve but the real reason for the establishment of colonia in vanquished regions was to Romanise the locals and provide a model of good Roman behaviour. And since the veterans were from the Legio XX it made sense to provide them with land in the newly established province rather than permitting the battle hardened soldiers to return to their own country where they might have turned their skills against the empire or to settle them in Italy. Colchester was the first colonia in Britain, and would remain so for 40 years, but it was joined by Lincoln, Gloucester and York. The fort was repurposed. Some of the barracks were reused, others were demolished and new buildings established.

The new Roman town was named Colonia Victricensis which differentiated it from Iron Age Camulodunum which remained at modern Gosbecks. The two were connected by a road. The Britons who lived there were clients of the Romans and watched over by a Roman fort. Because the inhabitants were part of the British elite they were expected to become more Romanised. This can be seen by the existence of a Romano-Celtic temple there. Little is known about the deity it was built to worship but it is likely to have been dedicated to Camulos-Mars. A theatre was added later. Even so, the burial site at Stanway, close to Gosbecks, reveals its inhabitants continued to be interred according to their own rituals. At Gosbecks it seems that the Romans were careful not to alienate the Britons and left them with their land. Elsewhere it was a different story.

The Roman temple dedicated to Claudius was built at about the same time. It was to the east of the site of the garrison and the defeated Britons were required to help fund its construction – it became symbolic of the power of Rome. Colchester, or Camulodunum, was now the capital of Roman Britain. There was even a monumental gateway built on the orders of Claudius to celebrate his victory over the British. This later became Colchester’s Balkerne Gateway but there weren’t any substantial defences around the colonia.

Tacitus recorded that the veterans of the colonia did not behave well to towards the Trinovantes. Many people were driven from their land and enslaved. It would not end well for the inhabitants of the colonia. More on that tomorrow.

Meanwhile during the course of my search for various texts I was tickled to come across the Colchester edition of Monopoly – I quite fancy owning the Balkerne Gate or the Roman circus, even if its only in a game! Click on the image if you’re tempted- to open the link in a new tab.

Nottinghamshire and the English Civil War

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Eljx1988, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

I’m researching the Little History of Nottinghamshire among other things at the moment and am having a dabble into the 17th century.

Charles I raised his standard at Nottingham Castle on 22 August 1641. It marked a call to arms and the start of the English Civil War. A little under four years later, the king surrendered to the Scottish Parliamentarian army at the Saracen’s Head at Southwell near Newark. He was moved from there to Kelham and ordered to write a letter requiring the surrender of Newark to Parliament.

Newark experienced three sieges through the course of the civil war. The town even produced its own siege money during the last siege which occurred in 1645-46 because cash was in such short supply. Inevitably after three sieges the town wasn’t in good shape and the population became ill with plague to add to the general misery. Inevitably after the surrender the church St Mary Magdalene, whose spire is said to have been damaged by a canon ball during the second siege of 1644, was badly damaged by victorious Parliamentarian soldiers.

The castles at Newark and Nottingham were both razed in the aftermath of the war. Meanwhile int he countryside a series of manor houses suffered the consequences of civil conflict. At Shelford the church tower was used by sharp shooters while the Manor House, which belonged to the Earl of Chesterfield, was provided with trenches and earthworks for the defence of almost 200 royalists. The earl’s son, Philip, was so badly wounded in the final battle that ended the siege that he died the following day and that seem evening Shelford Manor was destroyed in a fire. It was rebuilt after the Restoration.

Wiverton Hall, belonging to the Chaworth family, was a Tudor Manor House complete with a moat. Following the events of Shelford, its governor, Sir Robert Therrill, came to terms with the Parliamentarians and made the hall indefensible. Only the medieval gatehouse escaped demolition. Wollaton Hall near Nottingham had been damaged by a fire in 1642 and the Willoughby family lived at their home in Warwickshire so although the estate supported the garrisons a Wiverton and Shelford it did not suffer the consequences of being garrisoned.

Near Worksop, Wlebeck Abbey was the residence of the Earl of Newcastle. he would be rewarded with a dukedom upon the Restoration but his home became a garrison under the command of his eldest daughter Lady Jane Cavendish during the civil war. Some of the earl’s valuables were buried for safekeeping – in the time honoured manner – while both royalists and parliamentarians helped themselves to anything else. The duke and his second wife, Margaret Lucas, spent many years after the Restoration restoring the property and its estates.

While the Duke of Newcastle was the most prominent of Nottinghamshire’s royalists, the Byron family of Newstead Abbey also played a significant part. There were seven brothers who all joined the Royalist army and all of them are thought to have fought at Edgehill. Thomas Byron killed by one of his own men at Oxford in a dispute over pay. His brother John was at the battles of Newbury, Nantwich and Marston Moor where he commanded the right flank of the Royalist line. He would eventually die in exile in 1652. Robert Byran became the military governor of Liverpool but was forced to surrender when his Irish troops mutinied. He spent some time in custody, fought at Naseby and was rearrested as a royalist spy. After the war he returned to Ireland with a commission. William was knighted by the king on the very day that he surrendered to the Scots at Southwell. He was with his brother John Byron at the Siege of Carnarvon and afterwards he went into exile where he continued to work for the royalist cause.

Gilbert was the youngest of the brothers and he is known to have fought in the Bishops’ War in 1639 when he was part of the King’s Lifeguard. In 1640 he was in Europe fighting on behalf of the king’s sister, Elizabeth of Bohemia but by January 1642 he was back in England and was one of the men who went with Charles I to arrest five members of Parliament. He may have been at Marston Moor before going to Wales with his brother. Eventually he made his way to Pontefract but was captured when he sallied out of the castle in search of provisions with a band of men. Like other royalists he was required to pay a fine but his health appears to have been poor, perhaps because of wounds – I’m not sure- and he died in 1656 leaving a wife and two daughters.

During the second, short lived, civil war which broke out early in 1648 Nottinghamshire saw a small but important battle near Willoughby-on-the-Wolds. At the end of the encounter 100 or so royalists were dead including Michael Stanhope, the brother of Philip Stanhope. There is a brass commemorating him in Willoughby Church.

Interestingly one of the most interesting accounts of Nottinghamshire’s civil war comes from Lucy Hutchinson, the wife of Colonel John Hutchinson who held Nottingham for Parliament and was a regicide, having signed Charles I’s death warrant. Lucy, who was devoted to her husband and wrote his biography and while it’s not as famous as Margaret Cavendish’s biography about her husband it provides an insight into the war in and around Nottingham.

Click on the image to open the link to Amazon (Amazon Associate) – For kindle owners the biography is currently (at time of writing) 49p but rathe more expensive if you prefer a hard copy.

Wollaton and the Willoughbys

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Wollaton Hall, Enchufla Con Clave, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Prior to the Conquest Wollaton was known as Olaveston – medieval spelling and pronunciation resulted in the change of name. The manor was in the hands of Alfa the Saxon who paid Danegeld for about 180 acres of land. After 1066 the manor was granted to William Peverell and continued in his family until Henry II confiscated it and the land became Crown property. In 1174, Henry II gave it to his youngest son John. The land was held throughout by a tenant who paid a Knight’s fee in order to hold the manor.

During the thirteenth century a wool merchant named Ralph Bugge purchased lands in Willoughby-on-the-Wolds. Across the next hundred years the family, who changed their name to Willoughby, accrued more wealth, made judicious marriage alliances and ended up with the Wollaton estate on the outskirts of modern Nottingham. They also acquired Cossal and the following century added the estate of Middleton in Warwickshire to their portfolio. As they made good marriages and acquired land they became part of the gentry and served in various administrative capacities. In 1427, Hugh Willoughby served as one of Nottinghamshire’s MPs before becoming Sheriff of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. It helped that some of the Willoughbys’ land was sitting on coal seams. Sir Henry Willoughby, who lived at the end of the fifteenth century was regarded as a very wealthy man, who invested his income in land and through making judicious marriages for his children.

Sir Henry Willoughby looked to Lord Hastings as his patron and as a consequence fought for the Tudors at Bosworth in 1485. He was also on the field at Blackheath in 1497 and won favour from Henry VII. Not that Sir Henry was without blemish, in 1485 he abducted Jane Sacheverell who was both a widow and an heiress and forced her to marry his brother, Richard. The following year Jane was granted a divorce and married William Zouche, who she had been contracted to prior to her kidnap.

And now we come to Sir Francis Willoughby – who built Wollaton Hall. His father, (another Henry) married Anne Grey, the sister of the Duke of Suffolk. The Willoughbys were closely tied by marriage to the Greys several times over. When Francis was two, his father died. He and his brother became wards of their uncle. In 1554 Francis’ cousin Lady Jane Grey, was executed as was the duke. In 1559, Francis’ elder brother died and Francis became heir to his father’s estates.

Francis married Elizabeth Lyttleton when they were both in their teens. It was not a happy relationship. Eventually the Earl of Leicester adjudicated between the couple and they went their separate ways, although Francis was required to pay Elizabeth £200 per year.

Sir Francis initially tried to sell Bess of Hardwick land at Willoughby to try and raise funds to begin building Wollaton Hall. She told him his asking price was too mach and declined the offer. Instead, she leant him the money on the understanding that the land would be security for the debt. He began to build his hall with Ancaster stone from Lincolnshire, in 1580 and finished it in 1588. He died less than a decade after its completion and still in debt from the construction of the hall. It is thought that the building cost about £8,000. It did not help that he had six daughters who all required dowries.

In Derbyshire, Bess of Hardwick, watched the building take shape with keen interest, she even visited it when it was nearing completion on a journey home from London. In 1591 she signed Willoughby’s mason, John Roses, to complete the stonework on her own grand design at Hardwick which was designed, as was Wollaton, by Robert Smythson. Situated on a hill, with large windows covering the walls it has been described as a ‘lantern house’ which seems an appropriate description of both Wollaton and Hardwick.

Willoughby did not forget to emblazon his coat of arms above the front entrance but it was a nineteenth century extension designed by Jeffrey Wyatville, (real name Wyatt) who remodelled the interior of the hall, adding a large hall with a hammer-beam ceiling and rather gothic corbels and grotesques.

Francis had no sons so the estate passed to his eldest daughter and her husband – who also happened to be a cousin, named Sir Percival Willoughby.

There was a fire in 1641 which caused extensive damage, so the house was unoccupied for the better part of fifty years. When the Willoughbys returned, Cassandra Willoughby, Duchess of Chandos, ordered that the house should be changed on its exterior to reflect a more Italianate style with the addition of statues from Italy. Cassandra’s efforts to resurrect her family home included cataloguing the family papers.

In 1801 there was yet another fire which allowed Wyatville’s extensive remodelling.

Nottingham crept ever closer to the hall and its fourteenth century deer park. In 1881 the Willoughby family sold Wollaton to the Nottingham Corporation who turned it into a natural history museum.

Strauss, Sheila M., Wollaton and Wollaton Hall, A Short History (Nottingham: Nottingham City Council Leisure Department, 1989)

And it turns out that you can even buy a vintage travel poster for Wollaton Hall – just goes to show how popular visiting stately stacks and natural history museums can be!

Amazon Associate link – click on picture to open new tab.

Little History of Derbyshire – in the window!

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Well this is very exciting – I’m in the window of Waterstones in Derby! The History Press publication The Little History of Derbyshire is in the window…yes I did a little dance of happiness and have been photographed standing next to it.

Someone asked me how much I enjoyed writing it – and the answer is that I absolutely loved it the research process. I guess one of the things we’re all slightly guilty of is not visiting places on our own doorsteps, so it was a real pleasure to revisit locations I hadn’t been to for years and others that I’d never seen. I also became fascinated by the importance of geology and the development of infrastructure which impact on the prosperity of different locations as well as their evolution as settlements. Derbyshire is quite unusual in that there was no dominant noble family for many centuries after the de Ferrers earls of Derby blotted their copy books and Henry III ordered that Duffield Castle should be demolished, thus removing the county’s largest and most significant keep. Instead, more middling families assumed roles and responsibilities within the county working for the Dukes of Lancaster and, in due course, Lancastrian monarchs. By the fifteenth century Derbyshire’s gentry, of which there were about 30 families, were both prosperous and influential.

And the other thing I really enjoyed was turning my hand to some pen and ink drawings to illustrate the book. This pair didn’t make it into the book. It’s a quick sketch of the Thomas Cokayne and his wife Dorothy in St Oswald’s Church, Ashbourne. The Cokaynes were one of the gentry families who played a significant role in Medieval Derbyshire. Thomas was in the household of the 5th Earl of Shrewsbury, he took part in Henry VIII’s Rough Wooing in 1544 and was knighted by Edward Seymour for his part in it – notably the burning of Edinburgh. In 1587, he was one of the gentleman warders of Mary Queen of Scots on the orders of the 6th Earl of Shrewsbury. The following year, again on the orders of Shrewsbury, he joined other members of the Derbyshire gentry, as justices of the peace, recruiting men and arming them in preparation for the Spanish Armada.

The early difficulties of James VI and his regents

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Mary Queen of Scots was raised in France and preferred to read, write and speak the language of her adopted land. She was also Catholic and although she promised not to interfere in religious matters when she returned to Scotland following the death her husband, Francis II, in August 1561 it wasn’t long before she became embroiled in difficulties. The birth of her heir, by her second husband Henry Stewart, confirmed the Stuart dynasty and enhanced her claim to the English throne.

James was baptised at Stirling on 17 December 1566. Elizabeth I was one of his godmothers. She sent the Earl of Bedford, with a gold font for the boy to be received into the church. But Mary intended that her son would be a prince of the Catholic Church rather than the Presbyterian one of John Knox. It was the Archbishop of St Andrews who baptised the boy before he was proclaimed to the world by his full titles. The Earl of Bedford, having dropped off the font waited outside the Chapel Royal along with the earls of Moray, Huntly and Bothwell who were all reformers and deeply involved with the political shinanigans that bedevilled Mary’s rule. Jane Stewart, the Countess of Argyle held the baby, as Elizabeth I’s proxy, while he was baptised but was required to do penance later for participating in a papist ritual.

Nor were those the only difficulties. Mary’s relationship with her husband, Henry, Lord Darnley was strained since the murder of her secretary, David Rizzio and he still resented the fact that he wasn’t king. He was present in Stirling but refused to attend the baptism or the festivities that followed because he knew the English delegation would call him Lord Darnley rather than King Henry.

Things went from bad to worse for Mary while James remained in his nursery at Stirling where she herself had been raised during her early years as had James V. The murder of Darnley and Mary’s third marriage to the Earl of Bothwell resulted in civil conflict and her enforced abdication after an armed confrontation at Carberry Hill. On 29 July 1567 James was carried to the parish church at Stirling and was crowned King James V according to Protestant rites. John Knox preached the sermon on that occasion.

Mary’s departure from the throne did not end Scotland’s troubles. James grew up in one of Scotland’s most turbulent periods of civil unrest. Before he reached the age of five, his rule had been managed by three regents. James Stewart, Earl of Moray, the queen’s half brother, was murdered in 1570 at Linlithgow. James’ own grandfather, Matthew Stewart, 4th Earl of Lennox became regent in Moray’s stead. He was fatally shot during an attack on Stirling Castle by men who supported Mary in 1571. James’ guardian John Erskine, 1st Earl of Mar, was chosen to be the next regent. One of his first acts was to have the men who killed his predecessor executed by being broken on the wheel. He died in October 1572 in his own bed at Stirling after a short illness – even so, the job of regent wasn’t one which came with a long life expectancy, especially as the civil war continued unabated.

James Douglas, 4th Earl of Morton had helped Lord Darnley plan the murder of David Rizzio. He ended the civil war but faced continuing resentment from his peers who plotted to bring about his downfall. He resigned in 1578 and 11-year-old King James decided that he needed no more regents even though Morton retained much of his power as well as the favour of Queen Elizabeth I in England. A month later, in April, Morton regained control of the king, the council and Stirling Castle. As James’ nobles and the Scottish Church jockeyed for power, Morton was finally accused of being part of the plot to murder Henry Lord Darnley in 1567. He was arrested and tried in 1581 before being executed on 2 June by an early form of the guillotine known as ‘The Maiden’ – which was said to be modelled on the ‘Halifax gibbet.’ He was buried in Greyfriars.

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James V of Scotland and the road to Solway Moss

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James’ mother was Margaret Tudor, daughter of King Henry VII, who ruled as regent on behalf of her son when he ascended the throne aged 17 months after James IV was killed at the Battle of Flodden in 1513. The odds weren’t good. The previous four kings before James V had all died violently and let’s face it, appointing Margaret as the boy’s guardian wasn’t necessarily the smartest move – it was his uncle’s army who had killed the king. Not that Henry VIII of England was wildly delighted. He had gone on campaign to France in 1513 leaving Katherine of Aragon as his regent and it was the Earl of Surrey who had the victory.

There was intermittent border warfare and Henry VIII didn’t oppose the idea of a truce. In fact he suggested that there should be a marriage alliance between the two countries. He even offered his only legitimate child (at that point), Princess Mary as a bride. When his overtures were rejected, the border warfare stepped up a notch. Various towns and towers were burned by men loyal to one side or the other. BY 1528, James V was approaching adulthood and was heartily fed up of his mother’s second husband, Archibald Douglas, 6th Earl of Angus, nor was he that keen on the earl’s opponent, the Earl of Arran. Seizing an opportunity the king fled Falkland Palace for Stirling leaving Angus behind him. Without the king in his power, Angus’s control of James’ council collapsed. They soon found themselves under siege in Tantallon Castle and were forced to escape to England. A five year truce was agreed with Angus staying south of the border.

In 1530, James took on the border reivers, men belonging to clans like the Grahams and Armstrongs, determined to bring law and order to his domain. There were rathe a lot of executions that summer and the king got very shirty with his troublesome aristocracy. While this mad him popular with ordinary people it did nothing for the ruling class or the men who lived on the borders between England and Scotland and who were accustomed to the regular skirmishes that occurred there.

James somehow found time to take royal mistresses. One of the most notable was Margaret Erskine, the daughter of his guardian at Stirling Castle. In 1536 as the five year truce came to an end Henry VIII offered Princess Mary, no longer legitimate, as a bride once again. Although the Scottish king accepted the Order of the Garter from his uncle, and recognised the legitimacy of Henry’s divorce, he declined to take his cousin as a wife. Undeterred, Henry encouraged James to reform the Scottish Church and to dissolve the monasteries in Scotland.

Francis I of France watched affairs from a distance and was alarmed by the bonhomie that was starting to grow between the old enemies. He was keen to resurrect the so-called Auld Alliance between France and Scotland. With that end in mind he dusted down the Treaty of Rouen which offered James a French bride. Francis didn’t want to send his daughter Madeline so suggested another French princess, Marie de Bourbon. James wasn’t particularly interested as he would have happily married Margaret Erskine, who needed to get divorced from her husband and then the pair would need a papal dispensation – which the pope did not feel the need to give.

When James travelled to France, however, Francis seems to have grown to like the young king and suddenly agreed that he could marry Madeleine – and James despite his love for Margaret was a king who understood the importance of alliances, not to mention the need for very large dowries and Francis was offering 100,000 livers with his daughter’s hand. James married Francis’ daughter on 1 January 1537 at the Notre Dame – which did not go down well with Uncle Henry but he had his hands full in 1536 with the Pilgrimage of Grace and in early 1537 was taking reprisals against his subjects.

Madeline died within a few months of arriving in Scotland so King Francis suggested Mary of Guise who came with a sizable dowry and connections to an increasingly important family. The couple married in May 1538 by proxy and the bride arrived in her new country in June. So now the Scottish borderers had a grievance against the king, he wasn’t popular with his nobility and Uncle Henry was more irritated than ever.

In 1541, Henry suggested a summit in York – the English king went north with wife number five – Catherine Howard and waited there for a fortnight. James V failed to show up – oddly he didn’t fancy being kidnapped by his uncle but Henry didn’t see it that way and saw the whole episode as a huge insult. Meanwhile the borderers continued to knock nine bells from one another and to steal each other’s cattle. Even so, James did not want to go to war with the English and he certainly didn’t want to hand his uncle an excuse for a campaign north of the border not least because despite his alliance with France, the French did not have men to spare to send assistance – Henry however, was determined on a war and the Duke of York mustered an army at York. It was the usual fare of burning towers and towns. But the Scots refused to answer James’ summons.

As a consequence James raised an army lead by Lord Maxwell, then changed his mind and gave command to his favourite, Oliver Sinclair, and advanced on the English West March by crossing the Esk. The intention was to take reprisals on Carlisle. The English were hugely outnumbered -but the confusion in the leadership of the Scottish army, the soldiers loyalty to Maxwell rather than Sinclair and English tactics which were more akin to a skirmish than a pitched battle had unexpected consequences. The Scots left the field, leaving men like Maxwell as prisoners. For James V, who was already ill, the result was a disaster. On 8th December he received word that Mary of Guise had given birth to a daughter, not a son to replace two infant princes who died within hours of one another in 1541. He died on 14th December leaving his infant daughter to become the first regnant queen of Scots.

Power and the people – still going – the Enlightenment and beyond

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I seem to have been posting about authority and various challenges to it for months! It’s not surprising really since the GCSE covers 800 years of history. We’ve challenged authority from a feudal perspective, the Barons’ War versions 1 and 2; Simon de Montfort and the revolting Peasants with a quick dash through the Wars of the Roses. The Tudors saw us look at a couple of popular risings against the Tudor throne – focusing mainly on dissolving monasteries and the Pilgrimage of Grace. This led neatly to Divine Right and Parliamentary authority.

The English civil war saw the development of political radicalism – I didn’t spend much time on the Levellers although I did spend a while executing Charles I and looking at some of the negatives of the Commonwealth. Essentially the execution of Charles led to a new discussion about royal authority and the right to representation – hence the American Civil War. The French Revolution is another episode that saw changes in the relationship between the monarch and his people but thankfully its only the impact of the French Revolution on the British mindset that a student would be required to know. Absolute monarchy and dictatorship have much in common. Society’s structure was deemed unfair compounded by economic problems in an age of radicalism and enlightenment – hey presto and welcome to the republic swiftly followed by social and economic consequences in the UK and radical thinkers demanding a little bit more equality in Britain.

The Enlightenment saw people explore the idea of humanity, their relationship with God and the Church, and of course, liberty. We haven’t covered reform and although I will be coming back to it for the blog this week, my GCSE historian is rapidly running out of time. So just think of this as an introduction or a sprint to the finish depending on your frame of mind.

The Nineteenth century saw the extension of the franchise after radical groups protested. Radical speakers addressed huge rallies – 60,000 people attended one event in Manchester. The result was the Peterloo Massacre of 1819 and the government who was afraid of a French style revolution introduced various acts to prevent large gatherings. George III was afraid of reform – not only because of the French but because of the loss of America (he was king from 1760 and yes he’s the mad one and we don’t have time to discuss whether he was or not).

The most significant act is the Great Reform Act passed in 1832 but many of the working population were still excluded. Essentially before the reform act many urban areas did not have representation because industrialisation had changed population patterns; there were rotten boroughs – Old Sarum is the famous one – no one lived there but it had an MP. There were also things called pocket boroughs – that were in the pockets of rich men. Women didn’t get a vote, there was not secret ballot and working class men didn’t get a vote either, – and that remained true after the reform act. You had to have property worth £10 to vote and it still wasn’t a secret ballot.

This led to the Chartist movement which developed in London in about 1836 and was most active across the following decade until 1848. They were alarmed about the new machinery coming into factories as well as working conditions and their lack of representation. They wanted constituencies to be the same size, for there to be an election every year and all men to have the franchise. They also wanted a secret ballot. They also argued that MPS should have wages because up until that time you had to be wealthy. At first they were peaceful but in 1839 when their requests were rejected they became more violent.The secret ballot was achieved in 1872 but it was 1918 before all men got the vote.

Alongside all that GCSE students need to know about the Anti- Slave movement and abolitionism, the Corn laws and the Anti-Corn law league, social reform and factory reform, the development of trade unionism, the Tolpuddle Martyrs and the match Girls’ strike – and various dockers’ strikes. The corn laws were repealed in 1846 as a result of the potato famine – the first time that a government had acted in the interests of the poor rather than the wealthy.

They need to know about nineteenth century factory conditions, the development of workers’ rights and the General Strike of 1926 as well as the Industrial Relations Act of 1971, swiftly followed up by the so-called Winter of Discontent and the banning of flying pickets in the 1980s not to mention closed shops and the Miners’ Strike of 1985. If that weren’t enough, and remember there are other units of study, they also need to know about women’s suffrage, suffragists, suffragettes and the Pankhursts. And once they’ve got that under their belts they need to understand about the development of Britain’s multi-racial society and minority rights – protest comes in the form of the Brixton Riots (yes folks that’s on the history syllabus and isn’t current affairs anymore) and they also need to know about the Scarman Report.

Oh yes and having learned all of that, GCSE students have a question paper that lasts an hour, with 4 questions. The first question is about a source – it could be a cartoon or a document about any of the areas covered. The next question focuses on a specific topic e.g. the Brixton riots while the third question asks candidates to compare two different episodes. The fourth question is worth 16 marks and requires candidates to draw on their knowledge from across 800 years such as the question below which was asked I think in 2022. I think we can safely say that GCSE History has not become easier over the years!

Have ideas, such as equality and democracy, been the main reason for protest in
Britain?
Explain your answer with reference to ideas and other factors.
Use a range of examples from across your study of Power and the people: c1170 to
the present day.



Power and the People – getting a gallop on! The American Revolution

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Time is marching on! The execution of Charles I changed the relationship between monarchy and parliament. The challenge to authority had lasting consequences. By the eighteenth century there were 13 colonies in America that were subject to British rule. In 1763 expansion west was prohibited which irritated the colonists. They also stated that they would not pay taxes unless they received parliamentary representation in London. Essentially they objected to decisions being made 3,000 miles away that impacted on their prosperity. In London, Parliament required taxation to conduct its European wars (1756-63 the Seven Years War). They also wanted to take advantage of the American markets – they had to buy British goods which had heavy levies imposed upon them. In addition many people had gone to America because they wanted political and religious freedom.

The European war crossed the Atlantic to the Americas – British soldiers went to the colonies, there was war with the French in Canada and in Britain the colonists were required to pay for the soldiers sent to ‘protect’ them.

IN Britain no one paid attention to the increasing unrest and instead imposed the Stamp Act of 1765 and the Navigation Acts. The first meant there was a tax on official government paper (seriously) and the later meant that the colonists couldn’t trade with any other country than Britain. Colonial opposition hardened against the British – there was a Continental Congress which create new constitutions, men such as Samuel Adams, Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine’s booklet entitled Common Sense which advocated independence collected political and moral arguments to encourage ordinary people to join in the fight. At the time the population was 2.5 million and Paine’s book was an immediate best seller. Paine connected his ideas with Protestantism – which was of course why the Puritan Pilgrim Father’s left England- and gave it an American political identity. The people who wanted to do what Britain said had no answering response or anything that stirred similar passion.

The response in 1775 was the Boston Tea Party which saw British tea imports dumped into the harbour. Note in the image that the protesters dressed up with feather headdresses when they carried out their destruction. The British closed the harbour until compensation was paid but in March 1766 Britain repealed the Stamp Act. However, it was too late, tension turned to conflict. In 1783, America became independent – the resistance to Crown authority split British politics – there was a fear that the loss of America would reflect on British power in the world. And radicals started to exert the same demands in Britain as America that there should be no taxation without representation.

Right – feeling brave? G.C.S.E students should be able to explain how the American Revolution and the Peasants Revolt are similar. And the American Revolution might also fit into the question Has Government been the main factor in improving people’s rights in Britain.

Essentially there is always a question asking students to compare to events to look for similarities and consider their impact on government and authority. By now most of you will have decided that there is some one doing GCSE this year! You are quite right but time is running out – so tomorrow is going to be something of a timeline to get us from revolutionary Americans to modern day – eek!

If you’d like to know more about the American Revolution but need somewhere to start the very short histories have a book on the subject which provides an excellent summary before delving further in.

Amazon Associate – every purchase following a click on the link, whether it’s this book or another help pays to pay the blog fees. Many thanks to anyone who has supported the History Jar in this way.

Trial of Charles I – Power and the People

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MPS were divided how to deal with the king. Colonel Thomas Pride threw out 300 MPS who supported parliamentary negotiations with the king – this was known as Pride’s Purge and the ups who remained were known as The Rump. it meant that when the king was bought to trial there was no one on his side in the Houses of Parliament.
A special commission put the king on trial for treason. 68 commissioners arrived out of the 135 attendees. Among the men who did not arrive was General Thomas Fairfax. The men who did not arrive felt that things had gone too far, Charles refused to recognise the authority of the commission because he said a king could not be tried for treason. When he argued with John Bradshaw, the chief judge who was so scared of assassination that wore a special reinforced hat, the king was removed from the court while witness gave evidence against him. There were no witnesses to support Charles and he was found guilty.

Charles I was executed on 30th January 1649 at Whitehall and England became a republic – the Commonwealth. There was no monarchy during the protectorate which lasted for the next 11 years. Instead Cromwell, the army and Parliament ruled.

Government kept a strict control on many aspects of everyday life. It banned Christmas, closed all the theatres and forbade Mayday celebrations. The Commonwealth did not believe in free speech for everyone, the Levellers, a group that. believed in equality were imprisoned and their
leaders killed. And in Ireland, the Catholic population were treated appallingly. At Drogheda women and children were murdered. Land was taken from Catholics and given to Protestants. Ultimately, he disbanded Parliament and ruled through the army – which sounds remarkably like tyranny…..