rhubarb – an international traveller

Illustration from http://wildyorkshire.blog/2020/01/rhubarb-animation/ – Home to the wonderful Richard Bell’s illustrations.

The pond is now awaiting plants and water feature. The raised veggie bed has been planted – at this rate the garden is soon going to look immaculate.

Any way, today’s post is about rhubarb. Apparently it’s a bit of a new comer being only about two centuries old on our plates before that it was used as a drug with purgative qualities – which means than my ancestral rhubarb must be fairly close to the first flowering of rhubarb as a pudding rather than a useful asset for any physician. Each generation on my mother’s side of the family is issued with a crown of rhubarb when they set up home for themselves. My rhubarb has come with me wherever I’ve lived- a crown divided and carefully replanted in a new location. I know for sure that it originated from my great-grandfather’s garden – an unusual piece of family history but there you go.

I should note that the Romans thought that anyone who ate rhubarb was a barbarian – not sure where or why that idea came about but it’s a thought to toy with next time you tuck into your crumble.

Chinese rhubarb has its first mention in 2700 BC where it was listed as a drug. It seems to have travelled to Europe during the fourteenth century – it’s description as East Indian rhubarb describes the route it travelled by. And yes it does bring Marco Polo into the equation. Someone once sent Thomas Cromwell – Henry VIII’s Putney minister- a rhubarb seed as a valuable gift. In 1542 rhubarb was worth ten times the value of cinnamon and four times the value of saffron. Apparently physicians wanted dramatic effects so that their patients knew they were getting value for money – think we’ll move swiftly on from that particular image.

In 1653 China opened its borders with Russia and the Russians began to trade in rhubarb – it all sounds very exotic doesn’t it? In 1704 the Russians listed rhubarb as something that they had the trading monopoly on. It was heavily regulated. By the 1860s the bottom had dropped out of the market.

The culture of rhubarb as a plant rather than imported as a drug began in Padua. It arrived in England in it’s plant form as a seed during the reign of Charles I and was cultivated from root division from 1777 onwards. As well it might have been because for part of the seventeenth century it was more expensive than opium. Cultivation gradually extended across the country – most famously to the rhubarb triangle of Yorkshire, thanks in part to the development of cookery during the Georgian period.

And now the sun has come out for the first time today and my garden is looking nicely hydrated. I’ve just got a path to put in using rescued edging stones and an Alnwick rose to move to somewhere that it will be happier – but who would have thought so many historic people could have been lurking in a rhubarb bed.

Prior, Mary. (2009) Rhubarbaria. Prospect Books

Political discord – 1647 style

charles i full lengthIn January the Scots handed King Charles I over to the English.  He had surrendered to the Scots int he hope that they would treat him better than the English and as a strategy for sowing political disharmony amongst his enemies.  The Scots sold him to the English for £40,000.

On the 15th March Harlech Castle surrendered after a ten month siege.  The constable of the castle had been in post since 1644.  His name was William Owen who originated from Shropshire. Harlech itself had always been in the possession of the king.  Perhaps because it wasn’t readily accessible to artillery it remained unchallenged until the final months of the civil war. This was probably just as well as Owen’s garrison comprised just fifteen men.  Owen took himself off to Scotland and after the Royalist defeat found himself in Nottingham Castle.  He was required to pay a fine of £400 before being allowed home. However he wasn’t required to pay one tenth of his income in tax as many other Royalists were required to do.

 

All that remained was to negotiate a settlement with the King and set up a series of laws for the good governance of the three kingdoms – even though no one could accuse what was happening in Ireland of being peaceful.  Generals Ireton and Lambert drafted something called the Heads of Proposals.  Essentially England would become Presbyterian, Parliament would have control of the armed forces and Royalists would not be allowed to hold office for five years.

Oliver_Cromwell_by_Samuel_CooperMany army officers and soldiers were unhappy about the fact that Parliament would even consider negotiating with the king. It was one of the causal factors that led to the Putney Debates.  The so-called “Grandees” who had negotiated with the king were seen as having failed the Parliamentarian cause.  By August five radical cavalry regiments had elected agitators to state their views.  One of their demands was for universal male suffrage, i.e. a levelling.  The Grandees, Cromwell amongst them, invited the radicals to debate their demands – resulting in the Putney Debates which started on the 28th October and lasted for three days.

Unfortunately Cromwell became alarmed at the extent of the radical ideas expressed so the debaters were ordered back to their regiments. A document was drawn up to replace the one which the Levellers had presented.  This did not go down well in the radical regiments. On the 15th November there was almost a mutiny which had to be suppressed before matters got out of hand.

Meanwhile – in June Parliament decided that Christmas was a nasty superstitious sort of event.  They also banned Easter and Whitsun. As a result when Christmas came around rather than conforming with the new rules there were riots in Kent which swiftly evolved into the Second English Civil War.

The king had decided that he didn’t like the turn of events, the Levellers’ plan didn’t leave much room for a king and he became convinced that he would be assassinated. So he decided to escape Parliament.  There was also the small matter of a constitutional monarchy.  On November 11th Charles escaped from Hampton Court in the direction of the New Forest – where he became lost.  He had aimed to make for Jersey but ended up on the Isle of Wight where he was recaptured.

The Book of Sport V The Player’s Scourge

prynneThe Book of Sport was issued initially by James I.  It identified the need to go to church in the morning and enjoy yourself in the afternoon.  Charles I reissued it in 1633.  The Norton Anthology of English Literature states that Charles probably republished the text in response to William Prynne’s Histrio-Mastix.

Histrio-Mastix was subtitled the Player’s Scourge or Actor’s Tragedy.  It had taken Prynne the better part of ten years to write the book which was essentially an attack on the theatre, Christmas and dancing.  Prynne was not complimentary about women actors – in particular French ones and unfortunately this was taken as an insult on Henrietta Maria rather than french actresses.  Prynne was hauled up in front of the Star Chamber on charges of seditious libel in 1634.

I’d like to say that the judges in the case were measured.  Unfortunately Prynne found himself being pilloried – twice.  He was imprisoned for life, fined £5,000, his book was burned by the hangman, chucked out of his university, had his ears cut off and was stopped from being a lawyer.

Unfortunately despite the heavy hint to stop writing Prynne continued and wrote a series of anonymous pamphlets which his friends arranged to have published for him.  When it was discovered that he had been writing inflammatory things about the Church and Archbishop Laud the rest of his ears were cut off and  his cheeks were branded with the letters SL and his nose was slit.

And where does the Book of Sport fit in?  Charles was essentially saying that by conforming to the Church of England and going to church in the morning you were entitled to enjoy yourself in the afternoon in appropriate and proper pursuits.   The Book goes on to suggest that if Puritans didn’t like English laws and the Church’s canons that they were free to clear off elsewhere.

The list of approved actives included:

“such as dancing, either men or women; archery for men, leaping, vaulting, or any other such harmless recreation, nor from having of May-games, Whitsun-ales, and Morris-dances; and the setting up of May-poles and other sports therewith used: so as the same be had in due and convenient time, without impediment or neglect of divine service: and that women shall have leave to carry rushes to the church for the decorating of it, according to their old custom; but withal we do here account still as prohibited all unlawful games to be used upon Sundays only, as bear and bull-baitings, interludes, and at all times in the meaner sort of people by law prohibited, bowling.”

I must admit to being slightly puzzled by the inclusion of bowling – never having considered it a hot-bed of sinfulness for the “meaner sort” but perhaps I missed something.  The Puritans of whom Prynne was one, as you may have already deduced, declared the Book of Sports to be The Devil’s Book as all recreation, presumably including bowls, was sinful.

For Puritans, and Presbyterians come to that, strict observance of the Sabbath was politicised.  Some non-conformists chose to leave the country, others chose to write pamphlets on the subject. Prynne’s first trial didn’t make many waves but his exile to the Channel Islands in 1637 caused a bit of a furore as did his return in 1640.  The second trial when his writings against Laud had been punished had turned him into a Puritan martyr.

Helmer, J. Helmers. (2016) The Royalist Republic: Literature, Politics and Religion in the Anglo-Dutch Public Sphere, 1639-1660

 

 

 

Charles I and his parliament 1625

charles i full lengthMost of Charles I’s problems with Parliament during the first years of his reign stemmed from financial difficulties. Sir Thomas Crewe, the speaker at Charle’s first parliament, was delighted not only that Parliament had been summoned but that Charles expressed the desire to regain the Palatinate.

Charles soon found the whole process frustrating.  He understood Parliament to be for the provision of money.  He did not understand why Parliament which had agreed to England’s alliance with other Protestant countries against the Hapsburgs  refused to grant him the money to go to war against Spain. Parliament had been enthusiastic in its support of the Palatinate and Elizabeth of Bohemia, the so-called Winter Queen, but was critical of the Duke of Buckingham as a commander and felt that whilst war was desirable there should be a better plan than the vague proposals presented.  In addition to which taxes had been levied only shortly before and it seemed to many Parliamentarians that the money had not been used wisely.  There had been no account given Sir Robert Philipps stated  of money or men and there was already a heavy burden on people- “We no yet of no war nor of any enemy.”  Taking these three things into consideration Parliament did not vote Charles tonnage and poundage for life as had become normal with the ascent of a new monarch to the throne but for a year only.

edward-coke.jpg

Sir Edward Coke (former Attorney General and Chief Justice) – whose daughter Frances had been married off to Viscount Purbeck – George Villiers brother John.  The marriage had lasted less than a year before Viscountess Purbeck ran away with Sir Robert Howard whose father was the Earl of Suffolk – it is hard to know which George was more offended about, the fact that Frances had run away from his brother or that she had run to the son of his political rival.

Sir Edward Coke, who had been James I’s Chief Justice had fallen from favour (thanks to Bacon and Buckingham) and now used his legal knowledge to advantage in Parliament.  He noted that tonnage – the tax levied on the tuns of wine imported into the country and poundage – the tax on imports and exports- equalled £160,000 annually and was within the gift of parliament rather than being a royal right. Parliament wanted to discuss the book of rates which needed reform. The question of monopolies needed addressing (Coke argued that only new processes/items should require licences and that the practise of introducing new license requirements for “old”  things was illegal).

There was also the question of Buckingham’s competence to consider. Buckingham had been the power behind the throne since 1618. Since 1621 his  impact on royal policy and his monopoly of offices meant that he was a de facto prime minister – even though the office hadn’t yet been invented.  This would end only with his assassination in 1628.

george villiers

George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham also known as “Steenie.”

 

Limited royal funds gave Parliament leverage over the king.  MPs felt that they held a financial carrot, or possibly stick, by which they could make Charles enforce the recusancy laws. Charles actually refused to sign the bill that granted him subsidies for a year.  He regarded them as his right and he maintained that he was entitled to them for his lifetime.  He claimed that it was his right to collect the customs dues until such time as Parliament passed the necessary bill. He did not regard himself as doing anything illegal.

Parliament was adjourned on account of an outbreak in Plague in London but reconvened in Oxford on 1st August 1625.  Charles once again insisted that Parliament was called to aid him in his war against Spain.  He estimated that the war would cost £700,000.  Parliament felt free to discuss where the king’s income was being wasted and mismanaged and the fact that Buckingham had so many different offices and monopolies.  Charles promptly dissolved parliament in order to avoid difficult questions about the Duke of Buckingham, it had sat for only two weeks.

Essentially Charles’ first parliament identified the difficulty which faced England during this period. Charles was applying the theory of absolute monarchy to his interactions whilst Parliament, with Common Law behind it, increasingly saw itself as a representative body – which is odd really as Charles did not have all the powers of an absolute monarch.  Nor could Parliament be described as representative of the whole population.  Charles clung to what he believed was his by right and royal prerogative  whilst Parliament clarified and expanded on what they believed to be their rights and privileges.

Taken together with the Thirty Years War, conflict over religion and the radical viewpoint of some of the members of Parliament it is not surprising that Charles’ determination upon personal rule was ultimately destined for disaster.

 

 

 

The children of Charles I and Henrietta Maria

The_children_of_Charles_I_of_England-painting_by_Sir_Anthony_van_Dyck_in_1637Henrietta Maria became a mother for the first time in 1629.  She had been married for four years but had been only pregnant for six months when she went into labour.  The Greenwich midwife was summoned.  Upon discovering who it was and that the baby was breech she promptly fainted and had to be removed from the bedchamber, unlike Charles who insisted on staying and resolved to save his wife rather than his unborn child when asked saying, “He could have other children, please God.”  The baby was born alive but having been hastily baptised died and was buried with all ceremony in Westminster Abbey. Henrietta went on to have nine more children of whom six survived infancy. The five eldest are pictured above in the portrait after Van Dyck.

A year after the death of her first child, Henrietta was pregnant once again. Madame Peronne, Marie de Medici’s midwife was sent for along with other Frenchwomen – although they were captured en route by pirates based in Dunkirk  but released after some negotiating.

charles IIOn the 29th May 1630 Henrietta gave birth to another baby boy in St James’ Palace.  Like his short-lived brother he was called Charles. The baby was baptised into the Anglican church – another flouting of the marriage treaty. In truth, as Whittaker points out, this was not actually the case.  Whether Henrietta Maria’s children would be raised Protestant or Catholic had been left deliberately vague.  The treaty only said that they would be in their mother’s care until the age of thirteen.mary-stuart

On the 4th November the following year the Princess Mary Henrietta was born, followed in 1633 by James, 1635 by Elizabeth and in 1637 Princess Ann joined the nursery but died three years later.  All of them were born in St James’ Palace and on each occasion Madame Peronne and the french nurses were summoned. In 1640 Henry was born at Oatlands in Surrey and in 1644 Henrietta Ann known as Minette arrived on the scene – a child of war.

For those of you who like to know these things:

Mary married William II of Orange.  She’d been given the title Princess Royal in 1642, a year after her marriage had been celebrated.  She was nine and her husband was six years older. The following year Henrietta Maria took her daughter to Holland – and purchased guns and mercenaries for Charles I.  No matter what one thinks of the monarch who raised his standard in Nottingham that same year it is hard not to feel sympathy for the father who rode along the cliffs of Dover waving his hat until his wife and daughter were out of sight. William III was born in 1650 a few days after his father’s death.  Mary was only nineteen. William III married his cousin Mary the daughter of James II. For more on Mary click here.

james2James was the Duke of York from birth and after the death of his elder brother became King James II.  And yes, he’s the pretty child in the dress with the red jacket between Mary and Charles. He married Anne Hyde, who was Protestant, when she became pregnant.  His daughters Mary (who married her cousin William III of Orange) and Anne would rule in their turn after James was deposed in 1688 following the birth a male heir James Francis Edward who became History’s Old Pretender. When Anne Hyde died James, who was a Catholic, took a Catholic bride, Mary of Modena.  The birth of  James Francis Edward who would undoubtedly be raised a Catholic proved too much for the English gentry and the Glorious Revolution of 1688 followed. For more about Mary and the problems that led to the Glorious Revolution click here.

elizabethElizabeth died in Carisbrook Castle in 1650. I have posted about her short life  before.  Click here to open a new window.

henry stuart oatlandsHenry, who was the Duke of Gloucester died in 1660 from smallpox.  After 1649 he was a potential heir to the throne.  Prior to his execution Charles I explained to Henry, who was just eight years old, that he must not let Parliament crown him as the kingdom belonged to his brother Charles. After the execution of Charles I it was suggested that the two children, Elizabeth and Henry, should be allowed to join their sister Mary in Holland but instead of this they were put into the custody of the Earl of Leicester at Penshurst in Kent. From there the pair were sent to the Isle of White. Elizabeth did not want to go, her health was failing. She died on 8 September 1650.  After the death of Elizabeth there was talk that Henry would be allowed to join his aunt Elizabeth of Bohemia – the Winter Queen- but nothing came of it.  In the end Henry petitioned the Council of State himself.  Cromwell agreed to release Henry into the care of his sister Mary.  From Holland he journeyed to Paris.  Unfortunately by then Henry was very Protestant and fell out with his mother who was very Catholic. He became a  successful career soldier joining his brother James in France’s military campaigns.

henrietta anneMinette who had been born in Exeter on 16th June 1644 married Philip of Bourbon, the Duc d’Orleans having been taken from England to France in 1646. She and her mother lived in exile in the Louvre and she was raised a Catholic. Minette’s marriage caused some raised eyebrows as Philip was a bisexual and there were also suggestions that Minette’s first child Marie was not fathered by Philip who had his own share of sexual scandals. On her death bed she would say that she had never been unfaithful to the Duke.  The Duke, however, had become increasingly jealous of Minette’s admirers and imported his own lover into the familial home. Minette had a series of still born children, her mother died and relations with her husband deteriorated still further. Small wonder that Minette turned to art collecting, gardening and engineering diplomacy between England and France. Both Charles II and Louis XIV trusted her knowledge and her skills which she used to help facilitate the secret Treaty of Dover in 1670. She died the same year on 30th June believing that she had been poisoned.

Porter, Linda. (2016) Royal Renegades. London: Pan MacMillan

Whitaker, Katie. (2010) A Royal Passion London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson

The battle for the bed chamber – Henrietta Maria

henrietta maria 2Henrietta Maria has undoubtedly had a bad press in English History – in the past she has either been fitted into the pattern of she-wolf or interfering wife. And yet prior to arrival in England in 1625 and in the weeks afterwards she was praised for her youth and her beauty.  Her arrival was, after all, the beginning of an Anglo-French partnership. Not that every was wildly happy about a French Catholic becoming queen.

The power of a consort was very indirect so far as most Stuart kings of England are concerned.  Henrietta is the best known of the Stuart wives and she undoubtedly arrived with an agenda.  Pope Urban VIII had made her a member of the order of the Golden Rose prior to her departure for England. She wrote to her brother, Louis XIII, saying that she would improve the lot of Catholics in England.  She made no secret of the fact that she was a good Catholic princess.  Her pilgrimage to Marble Arch and Tyburn where Catholics had been executed caused consternation amongst her Protestant subjects.  Yet, she was also supposed to engineer a firm Anglo-French alliance.  She was fifteen and it was a very tall order.

george villiersGriffey explains that her presence in England quickly became a political liability so far as Buckingham was concerned.  In the first instance she was French and Catholic so did nothing to enhance Buckingham’s popularity at home given that he brokered the match and secondly Charles was predisposed to love his bride. In terms of the first Buckingham broke the escrit secret that he had agreed promising to suspend the recusancy laws, declaring it was nothing but a trick to get the French to agree to the marriage and in the second he sought to impose his various female relations upon Henrietta not to mention the female relatives of men who owed their ascent at court to him so that he could control who had access to her. The effect of both was to leave her feeling embattled and isolated – which in turn made her more determinedly Catholic in her outlook.  She refused to be crowned because it was a Protestant ceremony.  The same applied to Garter events and other events. It did nothing for the royal marriage either as Charles became ever more resentful of her lack of obedience to his husbandly requests – though apparently the fact that her sixteenth birthday passed unremarked was neither here nor there as indeed was the fact that he was flagrantly breaking the promises that he made prior to their marriage.

charles i full lengthCharles came to believe that her household was keeping her too French and too intransigent. In part her relationship with her confessors did have that effect and whilst there were few English women in her household she had no need to speak the language – indeed I  imagine that girls around the country were being tutored in French in the hopes that they might get a place in her household.   Charles came most of all, it would appear, to blame Jeanne St George.  Madame St George or Mamie as she was known had been with Henrietta since the princess was a child. She had unintentionally caused a diplomatic incident when Charles and Buckingham insisted on travelling in Henrietta’s coach to Canterbury from Dover along with Buckingham’s mother and wife.  There had been no space for Mamie which was a serious breach of French etiquette. The whole affair was repeated when the royal couple fled the plague that summer. Buckingham was offended at the suggestion that his family should not travel with the queen.

Gradually the household of four hundred was eroded.  Henrietta took up the lute. Her lutist was arrested as a spy and packed off to the Tower, some other household members were arrested under the recusancy laws which were very much in force. Matters came to a head for Henrietta when her entire household was sent back to France in 1626 – Charles having forcibly separated his wife from their company.  It was a total breach of the marriage treaty. It left her hysterical and a virtual prisoner.  She was unable to write any letters unless an English lady-in-waiting supervised its content.

Henrietta who still did not speak English now found herself surrounded by the Duke of Buckingham’s female relatives including his niece Susan who slept in her bedchamber.  Lucy Hay, Countess of Carlisle was imposed on her.  Lucy was beautiful and witty and Buckingham’s sometime mistress. There is evidence to suggest that Buckingham was planning to set Lucy up as Charles I’s mistress but the king was a loyal husband – not that Henrietta would have initially known that.  Instead she might have thought of her own father with his more than forty mistresses as well as the court of her brother.  No wonder she was hostile to Lucy – and her rather colourful reputation.

Ultimately the two women became friends and allies whilst it suited them both. Lucy was older than Henrietta and she was able to fulfil a role as mentor – which was as alarming to most Puritans as the thought of Mamie St George. Their relationship sums up the informal nature of female Stuart politics.  It was based on personal relationships and favour.  Interestingly Lady Carlisle only fell from favour when her husband became Pro-Spanish in sympathy.

The reorganisation of Henrietta’s household structure in 1627 at Charles’ behest meant that access to the bedchamber and personal spaces of the queen were more limited than they had been under previous monarch and consorts. A distinction was drawn between the bedchamber and the privy chamber in a way that it hadn’t been before.  The extended hierarchy was Charles I’s preference.  He disliked the free and easy way that Henrietta associated with her French ladies and wanted to impose more regulation upon the whole proceeding so that it mirrored his own household.

She was angered that he had imposed his will on her independence.  She pointed out, quite reasonably, that his mother had ordered her own affairs but Charles said that was a different matter entirely. At which point Henrietta lost her temper and proclaimed that she was a daughter of France whilst Charles’ mother was only from Denmark.  It wasn’t tactful but it’s hard not to feel some sympathy for Henrietta  at this point.

 

The limiting of access with its heightened powers of influence initially  seemed to work to Buckingham’s advantage as the key jobs were given to his people but after his death in 1629 it meant that access to Henrietta was still limited.  The difference was that Henrietta who had rushed to console her husband on Buckingham’s death had much more influence than anyone could have anticipated. The lack of range of voices and opinions surrounding Henrietta and Charles would be one of the factors that led husband and wife down a dangerous path.

Men have always blamed evil councillors when they revolt against their monarchs.  The death of Buckingham removed a hated advisor so it was perhaps only to be expected that Parliament began blaming Henrietta Maria for Charles’ actions – she was after all a foreigner ( a French one at that), a Catholic…and a woman!

 

Erin Griffey (ed) Henrietta Maria: Piety, Politics and Patronage

Wolfson, Sara J. The Female Bedchamber of Queen Henrietta Maria: Politics, Familial Networks and Policy, 1626–40  in The Politics of Female Households: Ladies-in-waiting across Early Modern Europe

 

 

 

Queen Henry arrives in England

HenriettaMariaofFrance02.jpgHenrietta Maria was fifteen when she married King Charles I – she didn’t speak any English. When she set sail for her new home Marie de Medici, gave her a letter to keep with her. It was a manual for how a good queen and Catholic should behave. Essentially she was to ensure protocol was maintained, not displease her husband and labour ensure he became a good Catholic in order to care most effectively for her new subjects.

There was also the small matter of her retinue.  Her confessor was horrified that in order to please her husband she ate on a fast day.  Her ladies were horrified when she travelled to Canterbury from Dover in a carriage containing the king and some of the Duke of Buckingham’s female relations – thus flouting French etiquette.  Who would have thought the simple matter of a short journey through Kent could  cause a diplomatic incident?

Personally the royal pair seemed well enough pleased with one another but the problems soon came crowding in and the honeymooners became distinctly disgruntled.  Charles had promised that Henrietta should be served only by Catholics.  He appointed some Protestants to her household – which did not please the French nor for that matter were there any Catholic chapels in any of her new homes.  Charles had promised her the right to worship as she chose in the privacy of whichever residence they happened to be in. The Escrit Secret which Charles had agreed along with the public marriage contract also promised a suspension of the recusancy laws.  It can’t have been very reassuring when some of Henrietta’s own servants were arrested under the laws which had most definitely not been suspended.

Meanwhile MPs were concerned that the king had married a Catholic princess which they felt was the thin end of the wedge.  It wouldn’t be long, they reasoned, before Protestantism would suffer.  The marriage treaty (not the secret one) had not been made fully public so they were suspicious about its contents. They wondered what Buckingham had agreed.  They were not happy about the presence of Catholic priests.

Unfortunately the name Henrietta Maria was too foreign sounding and so the queen was anglicised and prayed for every Sunday. At first there was an attempt to call her Queen Henry but ultimately Queen Mary was settled upon, reminding everyone of the previous Queen Mary and the fires at Smithfield where Protestant martyrs were killed.  Somewhat optimistically there was a hope that the queen would convert- but it rapidly became clear that she was staunch in her beliefs – in fact it wasn’t long before the rumour mill was talking about excess devotion, such as penitential bare feet, that was quite frankly not very queenly to a Protestant mindset.

In London the plague broke out and the Duke of Buckingham tried to have his mother and wife appointed to the Queen’s household. There were more complaints about who was travelling in the royal coach. The French, once the court had arrived at its chosen destination, objected to Buckingham’s wife because she was Protestant and somewhat bizarrely Charles objected to Buckingham’s mother because she was Catholic.  Buckingham became exasperated and insulted the French.  It was not a good sign that the King’s favourite and his wife were at odds with one another. The private matter might have been resolved had Parliament suspended the recusancy laws when it next sat but it didn’t.

It was very clear to Henrietta that Buckingham was a bit of a weasel. Buckingham had now managed to irritate everyone in this post apart from his mother and King Charles. The latter would dissolve parliament rather than risk his friend’s arrest. Meanwhile the French, as a whole, were disgruntled not only about the whole coach travel business but about the way that the marriage treaty had been metaphorically ridden over by a coach and horses.   Henrietta’s confessor, Father Bérule, had come to believe that he and Henrietta were surrounded by heretics – so he encouraged her to become ever more pious and austere in her faith.  She had after all been taught by Carmelite nuns.

Henrietta was fed up of trundling around the countryside to escape the plague and having arguments about who should travel with her. It probably didn’t help that assorted  Catholic priests and subjects approached her with tales of  unfair treatment.

She now gave Charles a very cold shoulder indeed or as Charles termed it “eschewing my company.”  Even in that instance things could perhaps have been resolved had the Duke of Buckingham not taken it upon himself to enter the queen’s bedchamber late at night to  berate her for her lack of wifely duty…on more than one occasion.

Marie de Medici sent a letter telling her daughter to behave a little more diplomatically. Father Bérule was sent back to France but in his stead Father Sancy was appointed.  On one rather epic occasion, whilst staying in Titchfield, Charles’ chaplain started to say grace but was interrupted by Sancy with his grace. Grace descended into a prayer and shoving contest which Charles eventually resolved by rising from the table, taking his wife by the hand and leaving the clerics to their squabble.

It did not bode well.

 

Whitaker, Katie. (2010) A Royal Passion. London: Orion

 

HenriettaMariaofFrance02.jpg

habeas corpus versus divine right

Habeas CorpusCharles I believed in the Divine Right of Kings – that is to say the absolute power of the monarch based on the so-called Great Chain of Being which essentially placed the king at the top of the food chain, next only to God – who had, after all, placed the king in the position and everyone else in their allotted place as well.  The concept of Divine Right was written about by James I of England VI of Scotland in a book entitled The True Law of Free Monarchies in 1598 (before he became King of England).  In the book James who clearly saw himself as something of a political theorist stated:

they make and unmake their subjects, they have power of raising and casting down, of life and death.

Taking that as a model Charles I was clearly well inside his self-perceived rights to lock up anyone who failed to do as he asked.  Thus he did not feel it unreasonable in 1627 when he levied a forced loan to arrest the men who failed to pay. Further to this it was clearly established that a “king must live of his own,” except in case of war when taxes would be levied by Parliament to pay for the aforementioned wars. Charles believed that the State had a duty to pay for the war and in levying the loan he was merely bypassing parliament which had unhelpfully tried to impeach his foremost adviser – the Duke of Buckingham. Not only that but Charles felt grieved that Parliament had not voted him the subsidies that were traditionally granted when a new monarch ascended the throne – they had given them to him for a limited time only.  The relationship between Crown and State was changing.

The previous three posts have dealt with the Five Knights Case.  Today, bypassing Sir Edmund Hampden (who shouldn’t be confused with John Hampden who was also locked up for refusal to pay the loan) we will finish the case with a very brief look at Sir Thomas Darnel or Darnell.  The Five Knights case is sometimes referred to as Darnel’s Case. Essentially like the other gentlemen Darnel, who was from Lincolnshire, was arrested because he failed to pay the King’s forced loan.  Like the other gentlemen he was called to the Privy Council and when he refused to pay the loan was confined to the Fleet Prison from where he sought a writ of habeas corpus to test the legality of his imprisonment.

 

The reason given for  Darnel’s arrest lay in the ubiquitous “reasons of state.” Essentially it was not illegal not to pay the forced loan because it had not been enshrined in law by Parliament – because Parliament had been dissolved in order to prevent the impeachment of the Duke of Buckingham.  The judges in the case did not wish to look too closely at the way in which Charles was using a medieval Royal prerogative  but stated that the arrests were legal because the authority of the Crown was in itself sufficient and with precedent.  Lord Hyde the King’s Justice stated that he was sworn to uphold the king’s rights and if the king said that he had arrested more than seventy gentlemen across the country for reasons of state it wasn’t up to Lord Hyde to say otherwise. It should also be noted that the judiciary had previously been threatened with dismissal by Charles when they initially questioned the legality of the forced loan.

Realistically Charles couldn’t conduct the war without raising taxation of some kind or other. The fact that Lord Hyde didn’t make a judgement on the matter which would have then become part of Common Law and open to challenge but issued his verdict as a “rule of court,” caused both Charles and his administration to be regarded with suspicion by parliament and increasing numbers of his subjects who didn’t take kindly to the forced loans in any event.

Unsurprisingly when Parliament was recalled in 1628 it drew up a Petition of Right which drew on the arguments that the five knights had made referencing Magna Carta and the right of habeas corpus which states that when arrested a person has the right to be tried to test whether the arrest is legal or not. The debate that followed aired the rights and liberties of  subjects against the Crown.  In asserting those rights Parliament had removed the lid from Pandora’s box so that when Charles went on to rule for elven years without Parliament using medieval rights in order to raise revenue the reason for discontent within the state had already been rehearsed and only became more heated with the passage of time.

Sir John Heveningham, another knight and his son William – regicide.

Charles_I_in_Three_Positions_1635-36Sir John was born in 1577 to a Norfolk family with a colourful pedigree – the Heveninghams claimed to be descended from one of the men who guarded Christ’s tomb.  More realistically they originated from Suffolk.

Suffice it to say the Heveninghams did all the usual things associated with county gentry i.e. education (in this case Cambridge), study of the law, JP, sheriff and member of parliament.

In January 1627, John Heveningham was summoned to appear before the Privy Council for his failure to pay Charles I’s forced loan.  He was packed off to the Marshalsea.  Being a gentleman it was assumed that he wouldn’t skip town so was allowed, in July, to take himself back to Norfolk to put his affairs in order.  Having done that he was placed under house arrest in Shropshire before being moved back to London once again for a stint in the Fleet Prison.

It was from the Fleet that Heveningham petitioned the King’s Bench for a bill of habeas corpus which would have tested whether or not he was being legally detained.  The matter was not resolved legally on account of the fact that the bench had no desire to alienate the king but Heveningham and his four companions were released at the beginning of 1628.

Heveningham found that becoming a jailbird had done his “street cred” the world of good in Norfolk where the king’s forced loan was deeply resented.  He was returned to Parliament on a wave of popular support.

Sir William HeveninghamHeveningham died in 1633. He was succeeded by his son William who was returned to Parliament in 1640.  He served on the committee of the Eastern Association during the English Civil War so was in all respects a parliament man until it came to signing the death warrant of Charles I – which he refused to do in his capacity of commissioner to the high court. Despite this William did agree the execution of the king in his role as member of parliament which was sufficient to make him a regicide.

Having disposed of the king William took a back seat in the running of the country but did manage to acquire rather a lot of sequestrated estates during the Commonwealth period.  Unfortunately for Heveningham the monarchy was restored in 1660 and whilst many things were conveniently forgotten regicide was not.  Heveningham surrendered himself, was put on trial and found guilty of treason for his part in Charles I’s death.  The fact that he had not signed the death warrant itself, together with his wife’s determined petitioning saw him being packed off to Windsor Castle where he remained until he died in 1678.

If you want an interesting and unexpected historical fact then it must be that Sir John Heveningham was a trustee of the Paston estate – his wife Bridget was a Paston – as in the fifteenth century letters family- demonstrating the small pool of  landed families in each county that intermarried over the centuries to create a tight knit network or a smouldering keg of interfamilial feuding.

As for William Heveningham, he married in 1650 to Mary Carey the daughter of the Earl of Dover. The earl was John Carey, a son of Henry  Lord Hunsdon – the son of Mary Boleyn…and potentially Henry VIII.

 

https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1604-1629/member/heveningham-sir-john-1577-1633

Walter Erle – knight

charles i full lengthWalter Erle is the second of the five knights who found themselves incarcerated in 1627.  There were only four men in Dorset who didn’t pay the forced loan demanded by Charles I in order to pay for his wars against the Spanish and the French. The other three were Sir John Strangeways, William Savidge and a man called Tregonwell. All four were arrested but none were put on trial as Charles I did not want the controversy of a judge disagreeing with his right to arrest people because they refused to lend him money. Savidge was sent to Clerkenwell Prison whilst the other three, inclusion Erle, were sent to the Fleet Prison.

Oxford educated Erle had also studied law at the Middle Temple which must have been helpful when he became  a JP and also Sheriff of Dorset. Charles I’s commissioner in Dorset, the Earl of Suffolk, might reasonably have expected Erle’s support in the collection of the loan but Erle had a reputation as a strong Parliament man ever since his election as an MP – when Charles I dissolved parliament in 1626 in order to avoid the Duke of Buckingham’s impeachment Erle was the MP for Lyme Regis.  Thus far his credentials are similar to almost any other member of the gentry.  It’s also worth noting that he invested in the Virginia Company.

Erle was one of the five knights who took a case of habeas corpus before the bench which stated that they should be tried by the court to ensure that they had been lawfully detained. Erle was released in January 1628 the judge in the case, Lord Hyde, having accepted the arrest on grounds of matters of state. The full story of  Erle’s deletion can be found in Walter Yonge’s diary.

Given his experiences it is perhaps not surprising that Erle was a Parliamentarian. He took part in the English Civil War, notably the Siege of Corfe Castle which was defended by Lady Mary Bankes.  Erle and is men took part in the looting and slighting of the castle.  Sir Ralph Bankes pursued the matter through the court once peace was restored and although Erle admitted that five or six cart loads of timber and masonry had come into his hands he denied that Bankes should expect restitution.

 

http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1660-1690/member/erle-sir-walter-1586-1665

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