Tag Archives: Henry VIII

Lady Eleanor Brandon

Posted on by
1

Brandon,Eleonor01The Act of Settlement in 1701 ensured a Protestant succession upon the deaths of King William III (That’s the William in William and Mary) and his niece Princess Anne who would become the last Stuart monarch dying in 1714. Since then, the title of princess has been clearly designated. The daughter of a monarch is a princess. The daughter of a prince is a princess. The daughter of a princess on the other hand is not a princess unless her father is one of the above.

 

Before the advent of the Hanoverians the title was less regularly used and it was not always clear how diluted royal blood was deemed to have become. Mary Tudor was undoubtedly a princess being the daughter of King Henry VII of England. She was also the Dowager-Queen of France having been married off for political reasons to the elderly Louis XII of France who expired three months after the wedding – the moral here being don’t marry a bride more than thirty years your junior… perhaps. However, although Mary was known throughout her life as ‘The French Queen,’  and whilst her daughters Francis and Eleanor were important in terms of the Tudor dynasty they were not, by Hanoverian standards princesses because their father was neither a prince nor a king.

 

After Louis XII died Mary batted off a number of suitors and married the man she’d fallen in love with whilst she was a princess back at home in England. Charles Brandon was the Duke of Suffolk. His father had been Henry VII’s standard-bearer at the Battle of Bosworth. Following the death of his father at Bosworth Charles was raised at court. He was a favourite of young Henry and was described in one letter as a ‘second king.’ Even so the pair of star struck lovers had enough common sense to undergo a private ceremony in France before returning home and then to get Cardinal Wolsey to break the news to Henry VIII that his sister, whom he had promised could marry whosoever she wished, was married to Brandon. He was not amused. The pair ended up giving the grasping Henry all her dowry and plate as well as agreeing to pay £1000 each year for the next twenty-four years.

 

Eleanor was their second daughter and at that time was so unimportant that her birth was not recorded accurately – so sometime between 1518 and 1521. In 1533 she was contracted to marry, Henry Clifford, First Earl of Cumberland who was also a second cousin through the maternal line. An account is given in that same year of Eleanor and her sister Frances as mourners at their mother’s funeral.

 

The marriage between Eleanor and Henry Clifford, like most noble matches was about land and power.  The pair, who spent much of their married life at Brougham Castle, seem to have been genuinely fond of one another – she refers to him as “dear heart” in her letters. As for Henry Clifford, he celebrated his marriage into the Tudor family by extending Skipton Castle with the addition of a tower and a gallery.  After all, its not everyday you marry into royalty.

 

In 1536, Eleanor acted as chief mourner at Catherine of Aragon’s funeral, as her cousin the Princess Mary was refused permission to attend because of her intransigence in the matter of her personal beliefs and her determination to uphold her mother’s wishes. It suggests that Eleanor was as close as her mother had been to Catherine of Aragon. This is confirmed by the circumstantial evidence that she does not seem to have had any role in the households of any of Henry’s queens apart from Katherine Parr – perhaps it was the northern link.

 

Alternatively it may be that Eleanor was not in robust health. We know that she bore three children – two of whom, Henry and Charles, died young. There are letters from her father, her husband and one from her which contain information about her own poor health:

Dear heart,
After my most hearty commendations, this shall be to certify you that since your departure from me I have been very sick and at this present my water is very red, whereby I suppose I have the jaundice and the ague both, for I have none abide [no appetite for] meat and I have such pains in my side and towards my back as I had at Brougham, where it began with me first. Wherefore I desire you to help me to a physician and that this bearer my bring him with him, for now in the beginning I trust I may have good remedy, and the longer it is delayed, the worse it will be. Also my sister Powys Anne Brandon is come to me and very desirous to see you, which I trust shall be the sooner at this time, and thus Jesus send us both health.

At my lodge at Carlton, the 14th of February.
And, dear heart, I pray you send for Dr Stephens, for he knoweth best my complexion for such causes.
By your assured loving wife, Eleanor Cumberland

 

 

In the same year that Catherine of Aragon died Eleanor was staying in Bolton Priory with her infant son, when the Pilgrimage of Grace erupted around her.  Skipton Castle was besieged and the pilgrims threatened to use Eleanor as a hostage. To ensure that Henry Clifford did what they wanted of him – the message, according to Stickland, was that if Clifford failed to comply  with the pilgrims demands then Eleanor would be handed over to ‘ruffians.’ Being a Victorian lady writer Agnes Strickland passes over the terror of that particular fate.  Fortunately for Eleanor there was a knight errant at hand. Robert Aske, leader of the Pilgrimage of grace, had a brother called Christopher. It was he who offered Eleanor protection.   Along with the Vicar of Skipton he escorted Eleanor and her son through the camp and across the moor to safety under cover of darkness.

 

The religious uncertainites of the period seem to have haunted Eleanor once more at a later stage of her life when she was mentioned as having a connection to Anne Askew. Fortunately for Eleanor it would appear that Anne approached her but nothing came of it.

 

Henry VIII died in 1547 as did Eleanor who passed away whilst residing in Brougham Castle. She was buried in Holy Trinity Church, Skipton. It is interesting the at the wording of Eleanor’s epitaph gives her the title “Grace” – a reminder, perhaps, that to her family and to her people she was a princess.  Henry Clifford was, apparently, bereft for months afterwards to the point that his household thought that he had died and set about laying him out.  He recovered sufficiently to remarry. Henry VIII, as might be expected of a man who turned his kingdom upside down, wrote a will which identified the order in which his children would inherit the throne. If they did not survive he identified the children of Lady Frances Grey, Countess of Dorset and then those of Lady Eleanor, Countess of Cumberland to follow after him- bypassing the children of his other sister , Margaret Tudor, completely. It was perhaps fortunate that Eleanor did not live long enough to know the fate that befell her niece Lady Jane Grey or the difficulties that her only surviving child, Margaret, would face as a result of their Tudor blood and Henry VIII’s will.

Nicholas Kratzer

Posted on by
1
NPG 5245; Nicholas Kratzer after Hans Holbein the Younger

after Hans Holbein the Younger, oil on panel, late 16th century (1528) – click on picture to open a new window in the NPG catalogue.

Nicholas Kratzer, born in Munich in 1487, was a friend of Hans Holbein. In fact, Kratzer’s was one of the first portraits that Holbein painted when he came first to England. But who was Kratzer?

 

He was a mathematician and astronomer  who invented the polyhedral sundial. He arrived in England in 1516 from Cologne to teach mathematics at Corpus Christi College, Oxford. He was about thirty at the time. He went on to be employed by Henry VIII as Court Astronomer in 1520 to make clocks and sundials. The clock at Hampton Court is is work. Wolsey also gave commissions to Kratzer for similar items. Both men were demonstrating that they were renaissance men. It wasn’t enough to know languages (both ancient and modern) it was also essential to be seen as a man of science. Inevitably Henry’s courtiers also sought out Kratzer to demonstrate their own learning and to keep up with the Tudors and their cronies. One of Kratzer’s sundials was uncovered at Iron Acton Court near Bristol which is now in the hands of English Heritage but once belonged to Nicholas Poyntz – demonstrating that the trend for horology spread far beyond the court setting.

 

Kratzer moved in the England’s leading intellectual circles. He tutored Sir Thomas More’s children and this was where Holbein seems to have first met him. More writes of Kratzer in a letter to his family:

 

But I think you have no longer any need of Master Nicholas [Kratzer], since you have learned whatever he had to teach you about astronomy. I hear you are so far advanced in that science that you can not only point out the polar star or the dog star, or any of the ordinary stars, but are able also…to distinguish the sun from the moon! Onward then in that new and admirable science by which you ascend to the stars!

 

Holbein’s original portrait of Sir Thomas More’s family no longer survives but the original sketch which was presented to Erasmus as a gift by More is still in existence. Each member of the family is carefully annotated in a hand that is not Holbein’s – it is Kratzer who not only knew More, Erasmus and Holbein but also Durer who wrote that Kratzer has provided invaluable assistance in technical matters. Kratzer also knew Thomas Cromwell who was an astute man of business with many German links.

 

Kratzer provided Holbein with technical information. Experts believe that the mathematical instruments and dials depicted in Holbein’s The Ambassadors were provided by Kratzer. The men worked together for the décor of the Banqueting House at Greenwich in 1527. It was a temporary building designed to allow the king to show off his wealth, splendor and just how learned he was – iconography was incredibly important in the sixteenth century so Kratzer’s advice was essential.  They collaborated in the making of maps.

It is interesting to note that his death is written as circa 1550 and even his birth is based on guesswork derived from how old he looks in Holbein’s portrait which was painted in 1528. The painting in the National Portrait Gallery is not Holbein’s original, that hangs in The Louvre.

 

 

 

Barnard Castle, Anne Beauchamp and oriel windows.

Posted on by
2

IMG_6617Barnard Castle was built by the Baliol family. It remained in their hands until the reign of King Edward I when it was confiscated and passed into the ownership of the Earl of Warwick. Two centuries later it was in the hands of the Neville family but the Earl of Warwick at that time- the Kingmaker- ultimately backed the wrong monarch and managed to get himself killed at the Battle of Barnet in April 1471 as was his brother John.

Warwick left two daughters who became joint heiresses to the title and estates. Isabel Neville, the older daughter, was married to George, Duke of Clarence (brother of Edward IV) while her younger sister Anne had been married off to Prince Edward, son of Henry VI and Margaret of Anjou demonstrating the Kingmaker’s ability to swap the colour of the rose in his lapel at the drop of.. er…a rose.

Detail from door grill leading to the vault where George Duke of Clarence and his wife Isobel Neville are buried in Tewkesbury Abbey.

Detail from door grill leading to the vault where George Duke of Clarence and his wife Isobel Neville are buried in Tewkesbury Abbey.

Anyway, to cut a long story short Prince Edward got himself killed scarcely a month after his father-in-law at the Battle of Tewkesbury on the 4th of May 1471. Anne was placed, by Edward IV, in the custody of her brother-in-law.  George calmly tried to ensure all the titles, estates and loots ended up in his fat little paws. It arrived at the point where Anne was hidden in the kitchen as a maid of work to prevent Richard, Duke of Gloucester and George’s little brother, from finding her. If you’re a romantic Richard and Anne had liked one another since childhood when Richard was part of Warwick’s household. If you’re a pragmatist – an heiress at the altar is a bankable asset. So Richard married Anne and there followed an undignified squabble about which husband was getting what – Richard landed Barnard Castle amongst other Northern estates. After George managed to get himself drowned in a vat of Malmsey in 1478 (two years after Isobel died) the rest of the Warwick inheritance found its way into Richard’s keeping along with his small nephew Edward and niece Margaret. Tewkesbury Abbey continued to play its role in the history of the period by being the final resting place for both George and his wife, due in part to the fact that Isobel’s grandmother was the last Despenser heiress. Tewkesbury has strong links to the Despenser family.

You have to feel a degree of sympathy for Warwick’s widow, Anne Beauchamp, who was actually the daughter of Richard Beauchamp, the previous Earl of Warwick and his wife Isobel Despenser. Her brother died in 1446 and her niece died in 1449 making her husband- Richard Neville- the Earl of Warwick. So, actually neither of her daughters should have inherited anything at that point because it was Anne – the widow of the Earl of Warwick- who came with the lands and titles. Not to worry, Edward IV swiftly ensured that for legal purposes poor Anne was declared legally dead allowing his brothers to divide up the Warwick estates between them despite the assortment of letters that Anne Neville nee Beauchamp wrote from Beaulieu Abbey demanding that her rights be recognised.

Ultimately Anne emerged from sanctuary and was handed into the care of her son-in-law Richard – we have no idea how she felt about her daughters or indeed their respective spouses.  Rous, no supporter of Richard, wrote that Anne was kept in close confinement but there is other evidence that demonstrates that the countess must have had an allowance and must have travelled around the northern estates that had once been hers.

It wasn’t until 1486 that Anne had some restitution for the loss of her money and lands and that came from the Tudors. Henry VII granted her 500 marks a year and the following year Parliament gave her estates back which she promptly gifted to the king….which suggests some shady double dealing somewhere along the line or perhaps a bid to keep her grandson the young Earl of Warwick, Isabel and George’s son safe. He was after all in protective custody in The Tower at that point.

DSC_0014Having gone all around the houses – or castles- it’s back to Barnard Castle which overlooks the Tees. Richard seems to have spent a lot of time at Barnard Castle.  He also carried out renovation and extension works.  His tenure is evidenced in the remnants of the great hall. He added an oriel window – a bay window supported by corbels- on the first floor and caused a white boar to be engraved in the ceiling above it – where it can still, just about, be seen today as can an English Heritage artist’s interpretation of what it might have looked like originally.DSC_0012

The Abbot’s Lodging

Posted on by
4

IMG_1614Abbots of larger monasteries were on a similar social status to a temporal lord – indeed there was every chance that they were the younger sons of the nobility. Their role within local and national society required that they should have quarters fit for entertaining their peers and if Cromwell’s list of misdeeds recorded by his commissioners during their Visitation of 1536 are anything to go by sufficient privacy to entertain numerous ladies of ill-repute.

Sometimes the abbot’s quarters were built into the west range above the cellarium (an undercroft where provisions were stored – think very large pantry). The abbot would have his own chapel, a hall for entertaining and two or three other rooms.

DSC_0044Elsewhere, and as time progressed, the abbot might expect to have his own separate dwelling – sometimes with a private necessarium as at Netley Abbey near Southampton (abbot’s lodging shown at the start of this paragraph). There is no particular rule as to where the lodgings might be. Cistercians tend to put their lodgings to the south of the cloister, though strictly speaking Cistercian abbots had no business being anywhere other than the dormitory with the rest of the monks. As well as a garderobe an abbot’s lodging might reasonably be expected to include a fireplace to warm distinguished guests, in some cases they had their own kitchen and stables. The fireplace shown at the opening at the post can be found at Monk Bretton Priory – the remnants of a Cluniac foundation.  In Kirkstall a rather grand staircase led to the abbot’s lodging and at Fountains there was a monastic prison in the basement complete with three cells and means of restraining prisoners.  At Fountains the abbot’s ‘modest dwelling’ underwent considerable expansion at the beginning of the sixteenth century on the orders of Abbot Huby who added an office and bay windows.

In Carlisle, which had a bishop so the abbot was technically a prior there was a pele tower where the prior and his officers could flee in the event of marauding Scots.DSCF1133

The abbot’s lodging often survived the dissolution of the monasteries in the guise of a manor house.  In York the abbot’s lodging of St Mary’s Abbey was retained by Henry VIII and used during his visit north.  It played host to King Charles I and is now part of the University of York.DSC_0107-6

Sir George Carey, Second Baron Hunsdon

Posted on by
2

george_carey_by_nicholas_hilliard_16014Henry Carey was the son of Mary Boleyn. He may or may not have been the son of Henry VIII. He in his turn married Anne Morgan and went on to father ten children with his wife and to work loyally for his royal cousin Elizabeth I.

George Carey, pictured here in 1601 by Nicholas Hilliard the celebrated miniaturist,  was born in 1547. One of his younger brothers was Robert Carey who wrote an account of his time as warden on the marches between England and Scotland. He is without a shadow of a doubt my most favourite Tudor, so it was with delight that I discovered that big brother George who went on to become the second Baron Hunsdon upon his father’s death was the governor of Carisbrooke Castle for some twenty years.

George, a graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge began working on his royal cousin’s (or possibly royal auntie if you think that Henry was the illegitimate son of Henry VIII) behalf in his early teens when he travelled north for the baptism of the infant Prince James of Scotland who would one day become King James I of England. He turns up in Scotland again to discuss the possible marriage between Mary Queen of Scots and the Duke of Norfolk and later during the Rebellion of the Northern Earls when he assisted his father in cleansing the borders of undesirables. He was knighted in the field and went on campaign in the Netherlands. In short he did all the ‘Flasheartish’ things that Tudor gentlemen were supposed to do including a spot of light‘privateering.’

In 1599, he accompanied the Earl of Essex on his ill-fated trip to Ireland. His job was treasurer and he seems to have done rather well out of the whole venture, certainly he came home substantially richer than when he set out. Interestingly he was part of the Cecil faction – so quite what he was doing tagging along with the Earl of Essex is a matter for speculation as the two groups did not see eye to eye.

He also served as an MP on several occasions. His interest in Mary Queen of Scots seems to have continued as he is recorded as being part of the committee that discussed her fate.

George became governor of the Isle of Wight and captain-general of Hampshire. His period in office lasted for twenty years and included the Spanish Armada threat. Carey was known for his hospitality and his concerns about the defence of the island. He was, it turns out, unpopular with the local gentry. A chap called Robert Dillington took umbridge about his use of the title governor and his high-handed approach to getting what he wanted. A list of complaints was compiled. However Dillington’s timing was poor. England was being menaced by the Spanish Armada. The Privy Council sided with Carey and the following year Dillington found himself incarcerated in the Fleet.

George and his wife, a relation of the poet Edmund Spenser, had one daughter called Elizabeth to whom he left most of his wealth when he expired according to Wikipaedia of venereal disease and mercury poisoning in 1603–which is I suppose still rather Flasheartish.

(http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1558-1603/member/carey-sir-george-1547-1603 accessed 7/7/2015 21:24)

Quarr Abbey

Posted on by
1

DSC_0202According to the Wotton Bridge Historical website medieval Quarr Abbey on the Isle of Wight was originally called the Abbey of our Lady of the Quarry because there was a stone quarry in the nearby Binstead. Also according to the website, and quite interestingly, Quarr stone was used in the Tower of London, Winchester Cathedral and Chichester Cathedral.

Baldwin de Redvers, Earl of Exeter and fourth lord of the Isle of Wight founded the abbey in 1132. The abbey was founded originally as a daughter house of Savigny. Savignac monks joined with the Cistercians in 1147 -white monks on the Isle of Wight. Their monastery, the largest on the island, was enclosed by a wall which stretched around the thirty-acre site- much of the wall still stands. Part of the reason for the sturdy wall, which can be seen from the sea, was the monastery’s maritime nature. Ready to offer care to passing mariners the monks were also prepared to defend themselves from passing marauders- principally fourteenth century French types. The wall apparently contains two of the earliest gunports in Britain (http://www.gatehouse-gazetteer.info/English%20sites/1571.html accessed 2/7/2015 21:59).

It is a matter of contention as to whether Princess Cecily, daughter of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville was buried in Quarr Abbey. She was married first to Viscount Welles (if we discount the marriage that Uncle Richard III arranged to Ralph Scrope which was annulled in 1485 so that Henry VII could marry her off to his adherent).  Her second marriage was to Thomas Kyme of the Isle of Wight unfortunately this love match irritated Henry VII because Thomas was no match for a Plantagenet princess especially when she hadn’t asked nicely first. However, apparently, Cecily got on very well with Margaret Beaufort –Henry’s illustrious mother. She intervened on Cecily’s behalf. The problem is that Thomas Kyme’s links to the Isle of Wight are unclear and Cecily died on the mainland in 1507 – in Hatfield.

More practically demonstrable is the fact that in June 1513 Lord Howard, in command of the Mary Rose took station off Quarr.

DSC_0203

At its height there were fishponds, granges and extensive abbey buildings of which very little remains today. In 1535 the annual net income of the abbey was valued at £134. It’s value meant that it was suppressed in 1536. The islanders tried to save the abbey by demonstrating to the commissioners that the monks who lived there did much to relieve the poor as well as offering food and shelter to passing seamen.  Their words fell on stony ground.  By 1540 the abbey had been completely demolished and the stone used to build new coastal fortifications at East and West Cowes. There are few remains of the monastic buildings apart from a section of the lay brothers’ dormitory which is now part of a barn.DSC_0205

Church styles – a beginning.

Posted on by
Reply

 

Tiles from Muchelney AbbeyThe invasion of 1066 was a crusade.  William, Duke of Normandy, persuaded Pope Alexander II to approve his attempt on the English throne because of his reputation as a supporter of the Church and a builder of monasteries.

Following the conquest the next century saw the majority of medieval churches being founded.  Church building had begun in England circa 900 but the Normans often rebuilt – perhaps to leave their mark on the landscape they now owned.   Consequentially there aren’t many Saxon churches – though there’s always the possibility of a surprising remnant tucked away in a corner, or in the case of Ripon Cathedral, down in the crypt.

Early Norman  churches, though sometimes built from stone, were often wooden.  The Domesday Book of 1086 notes some churches but is not a comprehensive audit of churches and monastic buildings. From 1100 onwards parish churches were rebuilt and enlarged, nearly always in stone.  The later medieval period saw churches being enlarged depending upon the wealth of each congregation and noble patronage.  Following the death of Thomas Becket in 1170, Jenkins makes the point, that many parish churches and monastic foundations were supported by Henry II.

Many churches rebuilt on older sites of worship used pre-existing dressed stone as well as carved stones dating from Roman, Saxon and Viking periods of habitation.  Hexham Abbey is a particularly good example of this.

 

The last quarter of the twelfth century saw architectural change with the arrival from France of the Gothic and the pointed arch.  Churches and cathedrals became lighter and airier as well as becoming more ornate.  Masons perfected fan vaulting and flying buttresses.  Jenkins comments on the windows.  It was during this period that rose windows and fanciful tracery became an essential part of any new church of note.

 

The Black Death left its mark on church buildings and so too did wool sales. Styles changed from Gothic to Perpendicular once again the style is best shown by the shape of the windows and the size of the churches.  Perpendicular tends to be big with tall towers.  They also have lots of tombs and monuments – largely on account of folk getting themselves needlessly slaughtered during the Wars of the Roses.  This is of course rather a simplification but I did title the post a beginning.  Norman and Gothic are styles that I recognise quite happily but  I will have to confer with my consultant about later styles  and no doubt do much more reading.

The Tudor period saw huge changes to the patterns of worship and belief.  The interiors of churches underwent huge changes as the bright colours of the medieval period gave way to more austere whitewash of puritan belief.  Henry VIII also encouraged the destruction of anything to do with Thomas Becket – taking his distant ancestor’s view that the cleric was a treacherous malcontent.

The Jacobean period saw the introduction of pews and pulpits as well as the return of altars which had been ripped out during the Reformation to be replaced with communion tables- to this day pre-Reformation tone altar slabs are being uncovered from the places where they were hidden when news of Protestant reform arrived ahead of the king’s men .

The nineteenth century saw many churches being restored  and extended as well as new parish churches being built in industrial areas.  The Gothic style was much favoured during this period.  Seventeenth century box pews fell into disfavour and were often ripped out.

Muchelney Abbey

Posted on by
Reply

Tiles from Muchelney AbbeyMuchelney Abbey on the Somerset Levels was founded by the Saxon Kings of Wessex.  Unfortunately it is impossible to be precise about which one, as some of the charters granting land to Muchelney are medieval forgeries.  Evidence does suggest that King Ine of Wessex founded the abbey and then King Athelstan refounded it when he gave gifts to the abbey – in thanks for his victory over the Vikings at Brunanburgh or possibly as an ‘oops I’ve been a bit of a naughty boy’ offering in relation to his involvement in the murder of the Atheling Edwin in 933. The confusion about the abbey’s foundation may be because the area suffered under the Vikings.  After all, Muchelney is in the vicinity of the hovel where Alfred the Great burnt the cakes. Wedmore, where there was once a royal palace and where Alfred made a treaty with Guthrum is just up the road.

 

The ruins that remain today date from the twelfth century and reflect the Norman desire to found or support existing monastic houses.  There is also a very smart sixteenth century staircase in the abbot’s residence that must have looked a bit out of place when it became a farm house after the dissolution as well as some wonderful recumbent lions over the fireplace which date from a century earlier.

 

Muchelney is mentioned in the Domesday Book.  It turns up again some five hundred years later in Thomas Cromwell’s Valor Ecclesiasticus as being worth £447 with eight monks in addition to the abbot and prior. It had never been a large monastery – Glastonbury was too close for that to happen.

 

There were earlier visitations. The Victoria County History for Somerset mentions a visit in 1335 when the Bishop of Shrewsbury found the Benedictine monks sleeping in richly covered beds and going off for their meals on horseback rather than eating in the monastery itself. In addition the cloisters were being polluted with the presence of the laity – and not just men either. The Bishop also noted that the church was in a bad state of repair. The monastery was swiftly reformed by a new abbot but it didn’t spare the monks from a visit by the Black Death.

 

Cromwell’s commissioners also sent many letters about Muchelney.  The commissioner who arrived in January 1538 was Thomas Leigh (he made himself deeply unpopular during the first phase of the dissolution in Yorkshire.)   By 1538 Leigh had a handy assortment of damning phrases with which to write to his master. He described the abbot as being of “doubtful character” and the monks “unlernyd.” Unlearned or not the brethren at Muchelney could see which way the wind was blowing and swiftly surrendered the abbey into Leigh’s hands.

Henry VIII granted the abbey to his brother-in-law the Earl of Hertford.  The Earl, Edward Seymour whose sister Jane Seymour married the king two years earlier, went on to become Protector of England during his nephew Edward VI’s minority.

Seymour kept the abbot’s lodging turning it into a farm house which he let out to tenants. He used the rest of the monastery as a quarry.

When Seymour was executed for treason Muchelney returned to the Crown where it remained until 1614 when it was sold off by James I.

The church of Muchelney which stood next door to the abbey was not part of the abbey itself – so Seymour couldn’t strip the lead from the roof or take away its dressed stone!  However, the abbey had the living for the church. This meant that they could appoint the priest. An informative display also mentions the fact that the abbey was responsible for providing the vicar with bread and ale every day, meat twice a week, and eggs and fish on the other five days.

 

Victorian excavation of Mucheleny Abbey revealed medieval floor tiles belonging to the Lady Chapel. These were placed inside the church where they remain today as a reminder of how beautiful English abbeys must have once been.

 

 

 

The last abbot

Posted on by
Reply

Glastonbury AbbeyGlastonbury Abbey was the richest abbey in Somerset. Pilgrims came to see the graves of King Arthur and Guinevere and to hear the story of the Holy Grail, Joseph of Arimathea and the Glastonbury thorn. So, the Abbot of Glastonbury, Richard Whiting, didn’t initially have anything to fear when Cromwell started the process of dissolving the minor monasteries. Gradually the reformation gathered pace and the elderly abbot must have prayed for guidance.  In 1537 monks, implicated in the Pilgrimage of Grace, were executed – amongst their number the Abbots of Sawley, Jervaulx and of Fountains.

Two years later on 15 November 1539 the last abbot of Glastonbury Abbey, an old man in his seventies, followed his brothers when he lost his life on Tor Hill following two trials and having spent some time in the Tower of London.

 

Richard Whiting had been a young man when the Tudors came to power.  He’d been a student in Cambridge at the time of the Battle of Bosworth and was ordained at the beginning of the sixteenth century. Wolsey nominated him when the position of abbot fell vacant noting his upright character. John Leland, Whiting’s friend, described him as “truly upright”.

His life might have passed peacefully had it not been for Henry VIII’s desire for a son and his determination to divorce Catherine of Aragon. Unlike Sir Thomas More, Whiting signed the 1534 Act of Supremacy along with the monks of Glastonbury. The following year Cromwell sent his commissioners around every monastic house in the country. The Valor Ecclesiasticus was an inventory of monastic wealth as well as a monastic fault-finding tour. At Glastonbury the monks were kept upon the straight and narrow by their abbot – the commissioner Richard Layton found nothing to fault (he apologised to Cromwell for his error in a later letter.)

 

In 1539 the act was passed suppressing all the remaining monasteries in the country by then Glastonbury was the last remaining abbey in Somerset.  The National Archives houses a positive flurry of letters sent from the abbot and his supporters to Cromwell.  Ink, paper, fair words – none of them mattered a jot.  Cromwell had plans for Glastonbury.   The commissioners returned. They found a copy of the life of Thomas Becket and a book in support of Catherine of Aragon in the abbot’s quarters. It was enough to send him to the Tower.

 

While the elderly abbot languished in a dungeon, Cromwell’s men got to work. They uncovered financial irregularities and further evidence of Whiting’s treasonable opinions – which have conveniently been lost in the following centuries. Letters to Cromwell quoted in the Victoria County History of Somerset reported that three hundred pounds of cash was uncovered along with a gold chalice and parcels of plate which the “we think he ought to make his hand by this untruth to his King’s Majesty.” Their discovery would see the abbey’s treasurer share his abbot’s fate.

Whiting was tried in London, on evidence that was never made public, and found guilty. Then he was shipped back to Wells where he was tried for a second time in the Palace of the Bishop of Bath and Wells. His judges included men who had, in former times, written on his behalf to Cromwell. It was a show trial with a catalogue of people coming forward to testify against him. The abbot was not permitted to defend himself or question his accusers.

 

It was a show execution as well. The elderly man, nearly eighty by some reckoning, was forced to walk barefoot from Wells to Glastonbury – a distance of some seven miles. He was then tied to a hurdle and dragged through the town, by the gateway of his abbey and up onto the tor where a gibbet awaited him and two other of his brothers. They each faced a traitor’s death. Whiting’s head ended on a spike looking out over his own gateway.

 

A captain, a cupboard and a viking – a cupboard full of Hubbards

Posted on by
15

charlesCaptain John Hubbard served upon seven royal naval vessels during the reign of Charles II when the country was at war with the Dutch.  In 1665 he commanded the Happy Return at the Battle of Lowestoft which saw a great victory.  In 1666 he was made captain of the Royal Charles, previously known as the Naseby (and one of Cromwell’s most prized vessels).   The following year he  joined the Rupert; then the Plymouth, the Milford, and the Assistance.  It was while on the Assistance that Captain John Hubbard was killed in action against some Algerine corsairs.  Pepys talks about Hubbard being killed as a result of being overly brave.

The Royal Charles became one of the Royal Navy’s biggest shames.  The Dutch fleet sailed up the Thames to Chatham in 1667.  They cut the flagship from the fleet and carried it away.  The ship was the Royal Charles.

But on to Old Mother Hubbard who went to the cupboard.  According to the rhyme she was going to fetch her doggy a bone. Of course the cupboard was bare.   Apparently Old Mother Hubbard was, in fact, Cardinal Wolsey, making the cupboard in this instance the Catholic Church.  The doggy (a.k.a. King Henry VIII) wanted an annulment from his queen – Katherine of Aragon – which was not forthcoming because the Pope found himself under the watchful eye of Katherine’s nephew.

That just leaves the viking.  Hubba the Horrible or Ubba was a brother of Ivar the Boneless and Halfdan. There is another school of thought that says it is a name that made its appearance with the Normans.  Whatever the case Internet research suggests that anyone with the surname Hubbard, Hubbert or Hobart is descended from one John Hubba who is recorded as living in Suffolk in 1274.  His family possibly descended from “Euro, filius Huberti” who can be found in the Domesday Book and who appear to have some familial link to William the Conqueror but I need to do much more research as yet.

All exciting stuff – but made even more so by the fact that, in so far as I can rely on parish records,  Captain John Hubbard is my eight times great grandfather…