The Duke Who Was a Butler, A Late Jacobite, RIP

Or, if you prefer, the Butler who was a Duke: James FitzJames Butler, 2nd Duke of Ormonde, an Irish Protestant statesman, at first served King James II, then switched sides to William and Mary, switching back again after Anne died and George I of Hanover succeeded during the '15. According to the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica he was born in Dublin on April 29, 1665 and educated in France and then at Christ Church, Oxford. Then:

He obtained command of a cavalry regiment in Ireland in 1684, and having received an appointment at court on the accession of James II., he served against the duke of Monmouth. Having succeeded his grandfather as duke of Ormonde in 1688, he joined William of Orange, by whom he was made colonel of a regiment of horse-guards, which he commanded at the battle of the Boyne. In 1691 he served on the continent under William, and after the accession of Anne he was placed in command of the land forces co-operating with Sir George Rooke in Spain. Having been made a privy councillor, Ormonde succeeded Rochester as viceroy of Ireland in 1703, a post which he held till 1707. On the dismissal of the duke of Marlborough in 1711, Ormonde was appointed captain general in his place, and allowed himself to be made the tool of the Tory ministry, whose policy was to carry on the war in the Netherlands while giving secret orders to Ormonde to take no active part in supporting their allies under Prince Eugene. Ormonde's position as captain-general made him a personage of much importance in the crisis brought about by the death of Queen Anne. Though he had supported the revolution of 1688, he was traditionally a Tory, and Lord Bolingbroke was his political leader. During the last years of Queen Anne he almost certainly had Jacobite leanings, and corresponded with the duke of Berwick. He joined Bolingbroke and Oxford, however, in signing the proclamation of King George I., by whom he was nevertheless deprived of the captain-generalship. In June 1715 he was impeached, and fled to France, where he for some time resided with Bolingbroke, and in 1716 his immense estates were confiscated to the crown by act of parliament, though by a subsequent act his brother, Charles Butler, earl of Arran, was enabled to repurchase them. After taking part in the Jacobite invasion in 1715, Ormonde settled in Spain, where he was in favour at court and enjoyed a pension from the crown. Towards the end of his life he resided much at Avignon, where he was seen in 1733 by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Ormonde died on the 16th of November 1745, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

With little of his grandfather's ability, and inferior to him in elevation of character, Ormonde was nevertheless one of the great figures of his time. Handsome, dignified, magnanimous and open-handed, and free from the meanness, treachery and venality of many of his leading contemporaries, he enjoyed a popularity which, with greater stability of purpose, might have enabled him to exercise commanding influence over events.

According to the Westminster Abbey website, James Butler was interred in the family

vault on 22nd May 1746. His first wife was Lady Anne Hyde, daughter of Lawrence, 1st Earl of Rochester. Two young children by her were buried in the vault (Elisabeth and Mary). His second wife was Mary Somerset, daughter of Henry, Duke of Beaufort. She is said never to have seen her husband during his exile and she was buried on 25th November 1733. Their son Thomas was buried 1689, daughter Henrietta in 1701 and Elizabeth(who died unmarried) in 1750.

Coincidentally: Three Births on October 14

On October 14, 1630, Sophia of Hanover,  the twelfth child of Frederick V, the Elector Palatinate and Elizabeth, the Queen of Bohemia (and James I/VI's daughter) was born.

On October 14, 1633, James, the Duke of York, and future King James II, second son of King Charles I and Queen Henrietta Maria,  was born.

On October 14, 1644, William Penn, son of Sir William Penn and his wife Margaret, was born.

All very coincidental at the time when each of these three were born, but portentous for the future, especially in matters of the English succession and religious toleration.

Sophia of Hanover replaced the direct descendants of James II in the line of succession after his daughter Mary and son-in-law William invaded England and he was declared deposed. She is pictured on the right (wikipedia source) in an Indian costume, painted by her older sister Louise. Sophia of Hanover was chosen by Parliament in 1701 because she was the closest Stuart heir who was NOT Catholic--even her elder brother Edward's children could not succeed to the throne because they were Catholic (he had married a Catholic princess and converted). This Act of Succession was necessary because William and Mary had no children (and Mary was dead by 1701 and William would not remarry), and Princess Anne Stuart's only child to survive infancy, William, Duke of Gloucester, died in 1700. James II's son, James Francis Edward, considered by his supporters to be the Prince of Wales and by his detractors, the Old Pretender, were completely shut out, of course, because what had the Glorious Revolution of 1688 been for, after all! (BTW, Sophia's elder sister Louise, the artist, had also become Catholic and a Cistercian nun and abbess!)

James II converted to Catholicism in about 1668; he succeeded his brother Charles II because Charles had no legitimate heirs. The English Parliament was opposed to his succession from the start and his son's birth and fears of another Catholic Stuart succeeding led to the so-called Glorious Revolution of 1688. His connection with William Penn comes because they were allies in King James' efforts to promote the Declaration of Indulgence and religious toleration in England for dissenters from the Church of England.  As this book explored the issue:

This is a critical study of the astonishing friendship between William Penn and James II—"two cardinal personalities of the modern era, authoritative men who deflected the political current of their time and left lasting influences that still can be felt on both sides of the Atlantic." Their friendship is no mere sidelight to seventeenth-century English history; indeed, it is not so much the friendship of a Quaker and a Catholic that intrigues us but, rather, the closeness of a Quaker leader and a Catholic monarch, standing together at the center of power in England for three decisive years.

Vincent Buranelli introduces his problem thus: "Nothing else in the life of William Penn has puzzled the biographers and historians so much as his persistent loyalty to James II. The antithesis between Catholic monarch and Quaker subject would seem to make any real understanding between the two men improbable; their presumed inability to speak to one another is compounded by the customary interpretation of James as a would-be tyrant and of Penn as an apostle of religious liberty; and yet Penn was not only a courtier throughout his reign but also a friend, possibly the best friend, of the King. . . . James II is one of the most reviled figures of modern history. William Penn is one of the most revered. How is their steadfast friendship to be explained?"

"Penn was loyal to James II, and he was right," argues Buranelli. His book texts (sic) this hypothesis and, in doing so, makes sense of a hitherto baffling side of William Penn.

Limited Toleration in England, 1689

The Act of Toleration, after being passed in Parliament, was approved on May 24, 1689 by William and Mary (1 Will & Mary c 18). The long title of the Act reveals its limited scope: An Act for Exempting their Majesties Protestant Subjects dissenting from the Church of England from the Penalties of Certain Laws (modern spelling). It was limited to allowing some freedom of worship to some dissenters. Catholics and Unitarians were excluded from the Act of Toleration.

The Protestants who dissented from the Church of England (Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, etc.) were not "granted" freedom of religion and the Church of England remained the established church--its members had all the privileges of citizenship. England would certainly be protected from the dangers of Catholicism, as this paragraph emphasizes:

Be it enacted by the King's and Queen's most excellent majesties, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and the Commons, in this present Parliament assembled and by the authority of the same, That neither the statute made in the three and twentieth year of the reign of the late Queen Elizabeth, entitled, An act to retain the Queen's majesty's subjects in their due obedience; nor the statute made in the twenty ninth year of the said Queen, entitled, An act for the more speedy and due execution of certain branches of the statute made in the three and twentieth year of the Queen's majesty's reign viz. the aforesaid act; nor that branch or clause of a statute made in the first year of the reign of the said Queen, entitled, An act for the uniformity of common prayer and service in the church, and administration of the sacraments; whereby all persons, having no lawful or reasonable excuse to be absent, are required to resort to their parish church or chapel, or some usual place where the common prayer shall be used, upon pain or punishment by the censures of the church, and also upon pain that every person so offending shall forfeit for every such offence twelve pence; nor the statute made in the third year of the reign of the late King James the First, entitled, An act for the better discovering and repressing popish recusants; nor that other statute made in the same year, entitled, An act to prevent and avoid dangers which may grow by popish recusants; nor any other law or statute of this realm made against papists or popish recusants, except the statute made in the five and twentieth year of King Charles the Second, entitled, An act for preventing dangers which may happen from popish recusants; and except also the statute made in the thirtieth year of the said King Charles the Second, entitled, An act for the more effectual preserving the King's person and government, by disabling papists from sitting in either house of parliament; shall be construed to extend to any person or persons dissenting from the Church of England, that shall take the oaths mentioned in a statute made this present Parliament, entitled, An act for removing and preventing all questions and disputes concerning the assembling and sitting of this present Parliament; and shall make and subscribe the declaration mentioned in a statute made in the thirtieth year of the reign of King Charles the Second, entitled, An act to prevent papists from sitting in either house of Parliament; which oaths and declaration the justices of peace at the general sessions of the peace, to be held for the county or place where such person shall live, are hereby required to tender and administer to such persons as shall offer themselves to take, make, and subscribe the same, and thereof to keep a register: and likewise none of the persons aforesaid shall give or pay, as any fee or reward, to any officer or officers belonging to the court aforesaid, above the sum of six pence, nor that more than once, for his of their entry of his taking the said oaths, and making and subscribing the said declaration; nor above the further sum of six pence for any certificate of the same, to be made out and signed by the officer or officers of the said court.

If that wasn't clear enough, article XIV reiterated:

Provided always and bee it further enacted by the authorities aforesaid That neither this Act nor any Clause Article or Thing herein contained shall extend or be construed to extend to give any ease benefit or advantage to any Papist or Popish Recusant whatsoever or any person that shall deny in his Preaching or Writing the Doctrine of the Blessed Trinity as it is declared in the aforesaid Articles of Religion.

This book explores the progress of religious toleration through the seventeenth century in England:

The seventeenth century is traditionally regarded as a period of expanding and extended liberalism, when superstition and received truth were overthrown. The book questions how far England moved towards becoming a liberal society at that time and whether or not the end of the century crowned a period of progress, or if one set of intolerant orthodoxies had simply been replaced by another.

The book examines what toleration means now and meant then, explaining why some early modern thinkers supported persecution and how a growing number came to advocate toleration. Introduced with a survey of concepts and theory, the book then studies the practice of toleration at the time of Elizabeth I and the Stuarts, the Puritan Revolution and the Restoration. The seventeenth century emerges as a turning point after which, for the first time, a good Christian society also had to be a tolerant one.

Persecution and Toleration is a critical addition to the study of early modern Britain and to religious and political history.

But the difficulty for such an argument is that Catholics and Quakers were so completely shut out of the progress for toleration--except for under James II's Declaration of Toleration (1687 and 1688) which opened England up to freedom of religion:

We do likewise declare, that it is our royal will and pleasure, that from henceforth the execution of all and all manner of penal laws in matters ecclesiastical, for not coming to church, or not receiving the Sacrament, or for any other nonconformity to the religion established, or for or by reason of the exercise of religion in any manner whatsoever, be immediately suspended; and the further execution of the said penal laws and every of them is hereby suspended.

And to the end that by the liberty hereby granted, the peace and security of our government in the practice thereof may not be endangered, we have thought fit, and do hereby straightly charge and command all our loving subjects, that as we do freely give them leave to meet and serve God after their own way and manner, be it in private houses or in places purposely hired or built for that use, so that they take especial care, that nothing be preached or taught amongst them which may any ways tend to alienate the hearts of our people from us or our government; and that their meetings and assemblies be peaceably, openly, and publicly held, and all persons freely admitted to them; and that they do signify and make known to some one or more of the next justices of the peace what place or places they set apart for those uses.

And that all our subjects may enjoy such their religious assemblies with greater assurance and protection, we have thought it requisite, and do hereby command, that no disturbance of any kind be made or given unto them, under pain of our displeasure, and to be further proceeded against with the uttermost severity. (from the 1687 version)

And yet, John Coffey gives only ten (10) pages to considering James II and Toleration in his book (according to the Table of Contents)!

Making a Mountain Out of a Molehill: William III, RIP

William III of England died on March 8, 1702 and his sister-in-law Anne succeeded him. This blogger and author, Andrea Zuvich, takes great issue with the commonly accepted idea that he died because of a fall from his horse:

“William III died in a riding accident.” How many times have I heard this? According to the evidence, this was almost certainly not the case. William III had a constant battle with his lungs and it was a problem with his lungs that lead to his death – not merely falling from his horse. . . .

She presents evidence from his autopsy and concludes:

In plain English, he died from pneumonia: his lungs were in a terrible state. He had suffered from chronic asthma throughout his life, and as we know, pneumonia is most likely to occur in those who are elderly, very young, or chronically ill. William was chronically ill. Even in our own time, people die from pneumonia regularly throughout the world.

So, what about the broken bone which has constantly been attributed to his death? . . .

It had been set and was okay:

Nonetheless, the Jacobites (followers of King James II) merrily toasted to the mole as the “gentleman in the black velvet waistcoat,” for pushing William towards the Grim Reaper – something they had attempted but been unable to do.

I feel quite sorry for William. By the time of his death, he had ruled alone as King since his wife Mary’s untimely death in 1694 and he had been the target of several unsuccessful assassination attempts. He knew he was despised because he was a foreigner – a Dutchman on the throne of England. He felt more comfortable around his fellow Dutchmen, but this only served to make him all the more unpopular. . . .

By 1702, of course, the Jacobites were backing James II's male heir, James Francis Edward Stuart, whom King Louis XIV of France recognized as King James III of England and VIII of Scotland when James II died in 1701.

She concludes with this detail:

In the event, William’s death garnered little attention. He was buried in Westminster Abbey, apparently in the middle of the night, without any great ceremony. His body was placed beside that of his wife in the same vault.

Charles II's Deathbed Conversion

Apologizing that it was taking him so long, Charles II died on February 6, 1685. He had suffered a fit of apoplexy on February 2 (O.S.) and had asked his brother James the Duke of York to take care of his mistresses (no word about his wife?) and certainly "let not poor Nelly starve."

Before he died Charles' brother and his wife Catherine of Braganza arranged to have the priest Father John Huddleston who had saved him in England after the defeat at Worcester come into the Royal Sickroom. The Bishop of Bath, Thomas Ken (future nonjuror) and all the other Anglicans left the room. The line attributed to James was that the priest who had saved his body was there to help save his soul--and Charles II was received into the Catholic Church and received Holy Communion as Viaticum.

Then when the Bishop and other clergy and nobility came back into the room, Charles did not receive Anglican communion. When he was buried at Westminster Abbey on February 14, his funeral ceremonies were rather restrained, possibly by the knowledge that he had "Poped" before he died.

Charles had ruled alone after dissolving Parliament in 1681, the conflict with Parliament, caused at partially (as it had been for his father) by religious matters. After the furor of the Popish Plot he had restored his brother to the position of High Admiral in violation of Parliament's Test Act and he had begun again to rely on France for funds. He might have been heading for another Civil War, but what some have called his love of ease, his laziness, might have pulled him back so he would avoid exile once again. He was not so dedicated to Catholic faith as James, and would have been more politic, just as waiting until at the point of death to convert he delayed his promised conversion.

Father John Huddleston was a Benedictine monk; he was born in Lancashire into a Catholic family and studied at St. Omer's and at the English College in Rome, being ordained in Rome at St. John Lateran in 1637 and returned to England in 1639. The Catholic Encyclopedia explains how he saved the future Charles II:

In 1651 he was residing at Moseley, Staffordshire, as chaplain to the Whitgreave family. After the defeat at Worcester on 3 September, 1651, Charles II was conducted by Colonel Gyfford to Whiteladies, where he was sheltered by the Penderell family, and it was while seeking for some safer hiding place for the king that John Penderell happened to meet Father Huddleston. Accordingly Charles was disguised as a peasant and removed to Moseley during the night of Sunday, 7 September. To guard against surprise Huddleston was constantly in attendance on the king; his three pupils were stationed as sentinels at upper windows and Thomas Whitgreave patrolled the garden. On Tuesday, 9 September, Cromwell's soldiers came to search the house. The king and Huddleston were hurriedly shut away in the priest's hiding place, and the troops, after first seizing Whitgreave as a fugitive cavalier from Worcester, were eventually convinced that he had not left the house for some weeks and were persuaded to depart without searching the mansion. That night the king left for Bentley, after promising to befriend Huddleston when restored to his throne.

While Charles was in exile, Huddleston became a Benedictine. Once Charles II restored the monarchy, Father Huddleston served first the Dowager Queen Henrietta Maria and then Queen Catherine of Braganza. Charles II helped all those who had helped him, protecting them for example, during the Popish Plot crisis: 

During the disturbances produced by Titus Oates's pretended revelations the House of Lords, by a vote on 7 December, 1678, ordered that Huddleston, Thomas Whitgreave, the brothers Penderell, and others instrumental in the preservation of his Majesty's person after the battle of Worcester, should for their said service live as freely as any of the king's Protestant subjects, without being liable to the penalties of any of the laws relating to Popish recusants.

Father Huddleston's "mind failed" before he died and Louis de Duras, 2nd Earl of Feversham, one of the French nobles of the Duke of York's household/James II's court--who had been present when Father Huddleston received Charles II into the Church--took care of him. Father Huddleston was buried in St. Mary-Le-Strand on September 13, 1698.

"Tudors v. Stuarts" or "Crown of Thistles"

Deep as I am in Jessie Childs' God's Traitors, reading about the Babington Plot and the Vaux family connections to the eponymous plotter, and Mary Stuart's role in the plot to depose "the usurper" so she could be free and reign in England--reading about Linda Porter's new book about the Tudors and the Stuarts resonated immediately.

From the U.K. publisher, with the U.K. title:

Mary Queen of Scots fervently believed she had a right to the English throne - a belief that cost her her head. A vivid account of why she came to this belief from an acclaimed Tudor historian

The struggle between the fecund Stewarts and the barren Tudors is generally seen only in terms of the relationship between Elizabeth I and her cousin, Mary Queen of Scots. But very little has been said about the background to their intense rivalry. Here, Linda Porter examines the ancient and intractable power struggle between England and Scotland, a struggle intensified during the reigns of Elizabeth and Mary's grandfathers. Henry VII aimed to provide stability when he married his daughter, Margaret, to James IV of Scotland in 1503. But he must also have known that Margaret's descendants might seek to rule the entire island. Crown of Thistles is the story of a divided family, of flamboyant kings and queens, cultured courts and tribal hatreds, blood feuds, rape and sexual licence on a breath-taking scale, and violent deaths. It also brings alive a neglected aspect of British history - the blood-spattered steps of two small countries on the fringes of Europe towards an awkward unity that would ultimately forge a great nation. Beginning with the unlikely and dramatic victories of two usurping kings, one a rank outsider and the other a fourteen-year-old boy who rebelled against his own father, the book sheds new light on Henry VIII, his daughter, Elizabeth, and on his great-niece, Mary Queen of Scots, still seductive more than 400 years after her death.

 

From the U.S. publisher with the U.S. title:

 

The war between the fertile Stewarts and the barren Tudors was crucial to the history of the British Isles in the sixteenth century. The legendary struggle, most famously embodied by the relationship between Elizabeth I and her cousin, Mary Queen of Scots, was fuelled by three generations of powerful Tudor and Stewart monarchs. It was the marriage of Margaret Tudor, elder sister of Henry VIII, to James IV of Scotland in 1503 that gave the Tudors a claim to the English throne—a claim which became the acknowledged ambition of Mary Queen of Scots and a major factor in her downfall.

Here is the story of divided families, of flamboyant kings and queens, cultured courts and tribal hatreds, blood feuds, rape and sexual license, of battles and violent deaths. It brings alive a neglected aspect of British history—the blood-spattered steps of two small countries on the northern fringes of Europe towards the union of their crowns. Beginning with the dramatic victories of two usurpers, Henry VII in England and James IV in Scotland, in the late fifteenth century, Linda Porter's Tudors Versus Stewarts sheds new light on Henry VIII, his daughter Elizabeth I and on his great-niece, Mary Queen of Scots, still seductive more than 400 years after her death.

 

It's interesting to note, not only the change in title for the U.S. audience, but the subtle changes in wording for the U.S. blurb (fertile vs. fecund!)--not to mention the different spellings of the same word (licence/license). The original title is much more evocative--the "crown of thistles" Mary of Scotland inherited contains an allusion to the "crown of thorns"; but I presume the publishers judged that U.S. audiences wouldn't get the meaning, or know that the thistle is the symbol of Scotland as the shamrock is the symbol of Ireland.

 

I also find it so fascinating now that there is a school, almost, of Tudor-Stuart biographers and historians available to review each other's works: Linda Porter, Leanda de Lisle, John Guy, Alison Weir, Giles Tremlett, etc. Here's a link to Leanda de Lisle's review of Crown of Thistles, summarized thusly:

 

In giving us the history of family rivalry to Mary’s reign and fall, Linda Porter has found a fresh approach to her biography, and told it with grace and humanity. She brings alive a thrilling story of cultured courts and violent deaths, of ambitious kings and tragic queens: executed on Elizabeth’s orders in 1587, Mary’s family’s past had indeed proved a fatal inheritance. 

The Stuarts In Italy

According to Cambridge University Press, the blurb for The Stuarts in Italy, 1719–1766: A Royal Court in Permanent Exile by Edward Corp:

For nearly half of the eighteenth century, the exiled Stuart court provided an important British presence in Rome. It acted as a surrogate embassy for the many Grand Tourists passing through the city – Hanoverian Whigs as well as Tories and Jacobites – and as a significant social and cultural centre. This book presents the first complete study of the court of the exiled Stuart King James III, offering a significant reassessment of its importance and of the lives of the Stuarts and their courtiers, and their relations with the Popes, cardinals and princely families of Rome. Edward Corp's interdisciplinary approach also reveals the Stuarts' patronage of leading portrait painters, their influence on the development of Italian opera, and the impact of their court buildings on relations with their supporters. This book will be essential reading for everyone with an interest in Jacobitism, Italian culture and the eighteenth-century Grand Tour.

~This is the first ever study of the exiled Stuart Court in Italy
~Provides a great deal of new information about the lives of all four members of the Stuart royal family; James III and his Polish wife Queen Clementina, and the upbringing of their two children (Bonnie Prince Charlie and Cardinal York)
~Makes comprehensive use of previously unexploited Italian archives


This is a sequel to Corp's work on the Stuart exiles in France, A Court in Exile: The Stuarts in France, 1689–1718, which I reviewed here.
This study of "a court in exile" covers all aspects of the grandeur of court life. When King James II was deposed during the "Glorious Revolution" of 1688-89, he came with his family to France, where his cousin, Louis XIV allowed him to establish a large court-in-exile in the Château of Saint-Germain near Versailles. The book describes the magnificent setting of the court, the way it was organized, and how the exiled courtiers lived. Particular attention is given to the close relationships between the British and French royal families.

~The first full study of the Stuart court in exile in France, following the 'Glorious Revolution' of 1688/89
~Covers all aspects of the court - social, financial, cultural - and not merely the political background
~Emphasises cultural and patronage issues, breaking new ground in describing the painting, poetry and music of the court

The emphasis in the new book on music and art, with chapters on "The Stuarts and Italian operatic life", and "The Stuarts and Italian music", as well as on the portraits of the court, looks particularly fascinating.

David Starkey's "Music and Monarchy"

 

This Christmas, my husband gave me a copy of the DVD set of the BBC's series, "David Starkey's Music & Monarchy", a beautifully produced overview of musical history in England, considering the influence of the monarchy on mostly ceremonial church music.

 

Starkey begins with Henry V, who even wrote music for parts of the Mass, and ends the series with the coronation of Elizabeth II in 1953. During the four episodes, choirs and ensembles perform great music by well known composers like Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, Orlando Gibbons, Henry Purcell, George Handel, Thomas Arne, Hubert Parry, Charles Villiers Stanford, Edward Elgar, and Ralph Vaughan Williams. Also, there are works by lesser known composers like Thomas Tomkins, William Lawes, Henry Lawes, Pelham Humphrey, William Croft, and Albert, Prince Consort of Queen Victoria. Eton College, King's College, Cambridge, Westminster Abbey, St. Paul's Cathedral, and Canterbury Cathedral are among the venues, while the Choirs of Eton, King's College, Canterbury Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, and St. Paul's Cathedral perform in situ. Fretwork, Alamire, the Academy of Ancient Music, The Parley of Instruments, The Band of the Life Guards, and several soloists also perform.

 

The musical selections and the performance are uniformly excellent, and Starkey's narration and his interviews with performers, conductors, and music historians are enlightening. The story of English music and monarchy basically follows, from Henry VIII on, the outline of English Reformation history during the Tudor dynasty, with the repercussions of religious division during the Stuart Dynasty, the Interregnum, Restoration, Glorious Revolution, Protestant succession through the House of Hanover, the Victorian and Edwardian eras, and finally, the House of Windsor succeeding. In the latter part of the history, Starkey considers the impact of the Oxford Movement on English church music, but he really does not consider the impact of secularization on English church music.

 

There were a couple of very great surprises: that Willliam and Mary dissolved the Chapel Royal and ended Henry Purcell's career as a royal composer of religious music--and that Thomas Arne wrote both "Rule, Britannia" and "God Save the King" in the midst of conflict between George II and his estranged son, Frederick the Prince of Wales (who was the father of King George III). Arne wrote "Rule, Britannia" for Frederick as part of a masque honoring King Alfred the Great and supporting the expansion of the British Navy, and then wrote "God Save the King" to support George II.

 

To me, the most noticeable gap is how little he considers the crucial restoration of Tudor church music during the reign of Mary I--when Tallis and Byrd and others were able to write polyphony again. That gap also means that Starkey does not consider the influence of great Spanish composers like Victoria, de Monte and Guerrero on English polyphony, or the exile of Catholic composers like Peter Philips, John Bull, and others. Starkey would only have had to consult Harry Christophers and The Sixteen to explore that crucial period through their CD The Flowering of Genius. Instead, Starkey skips over that period, perhaps because it does not fit his rather Whiggish narrative of English history.

 

That issue aside, the musical performances and the venues make this two-disc set a prized possession. As my husband commented, we could watch the first episode over and over again:

 

Henry Purcell, RIP

Henry Purcell died on November 21, 1695. The wikipedia article on this great English Baroque composer includes some excerpts from his compositions, while this "Online Gallery" from the British Library features portraits and excerpts. Like the sixteenth composers Tallis and Byrd, Purcell lived through dynastic changes that effected changes in his music style and career.

This biography from The Purcell Society describes some of those changes:

During the 1680s, Purcell was frequently called upon to compose a large-scale ode or ‘welcome song’ to mark a special event in the royal calendar. In 1682, he was appointed as a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal, and, in the following year, his first published collection appeared. This was the Sonnata's of III. Parts, for two violins, bass viol and continuo. His best-known composition, the dramatic entertainment Dido and Aeneas, was also written during the 1680s, though it is not certain when the first performance took place.

In 1689, William and Mary were crowned King and Queen, and there seem to have been fewer opportunities at court for composers than under their predecessors, Charles II and James II. Purcell turned to the theatre, writing four large-scale operatic works between 1690 and 1695, as well as incidental music for numerous plays. He continued to write court odes, however, including one each year between 1689 and 1694 to mark the birthday of Queen Mary. He also composed music for her state funeral, which took place in March 1695. Just a few months later, on 21 November 1695, Purcell himself died.

Since he wrote music both to celebrate her birthday and to commemorate her passing, this recording by the Choir of King's College Cambridge and the Academy of Ancient Music, conducted by Stephen Cleobury, looks like an interesting collection.

Gerard Manley Hopkins praised Purcell in verse:

The poet wishes well to the divine genius of Purcell and praises him that, whereas other musicians have given utterance to the moods of man’s mind, he has, beyond that, uttered in notes the very make and species of man as created both in him and in all men generally.

HAVE, fair fallen, O fair, fair have fallen, so dear
To me, so arch-especial a spirit as heaves in Henry Purcell,
An age is now since passed, since parted; with the reversal
Of the outward sentence low lays him, listed to a heresy, here.

Not mood in him nor meaning, proud fire or sacred fear,
Or love or pity or all that sweet notes not his might nursle:
It is the forgèd feature finds me; it is the rehearsal
Of own, of abrupt self there so thrusts on, so throngs the ear.

Let him Oh! with his air of angels then lift me, lay me! only I’ll
Have an eye to the sakes of him, quaint moonmarks, to his pelted plumage under
Wings: so some great stormfowl, whenever he has walked his while

The thunder-purple seabeach plumèd purple-of-thunder,
If a wuthering of his palmy snow-pinions scatter a colossal smile
Off him, but meaning motion fans fresh our wits with wonder.

Henry VIII's Niece, Lady Margaret Douglas, in "History Today"

Leanda de Lisle has published an article on Lady Margaret Douglas, Henry VIII's niece (his elder sister Margaret's daughter) in the August issue of History Today:

Lady Margaret Douglas, a favourite of Henry VIII, negotiated the shady politics and shifting alliances of the courts of four Tudor monarchs. Leanda de Lisle tells the story of the ‘progenitor of princes’, whose grandson, James VI of Scotland, became the first Stuart king of England.

Henry VIII ordered a dress from his Great Wardrobe for ‘our niece’, Lady Margaret Douglas, to welcome her arrival at court in April 1530. The 14-year-old princess was destined to be a player in key events over four Tudor reigns. Her youthful romances would see her caught up in the fall of two of Henry’s queens, she would be arrested at least four times, imprisoned in the Tower twice and plot – ultimately successfully – for her heirs to inherit Elizabeth I’s throne. In Margaret’s will of 1578 she still remembered her uncle fondly, listing a picture of Henry among her treasured possessions. Yet her dramatic life story and dynastic significance has been obscured by the story of a quarrel between them that never was.

Margaret Douglas was the child of Henry’s elder sister, Margaret Tudor (1489-1541), Queen of Scots by her second husband Archibald Douglas, Earl of Angus. As such she was third in line to the English throne in 1530, following her elder half-brother, the 16-year-old James V of Scots, and Henry’s daughter, Mary Tudor, who was four months her junior. Her parents’ unhappy marriage had been annulled in 1527. The following year her father sought to flee his step-son, who hated him. Archibald had kidnapped Margaret and sent her to Henry as a goodwill gesture, hoping to gain free passage to England in return.

Read the rest here.

The Stuart Link to Hanover

Sophia of Hanover was born on October 14, 1630, the twelfth child of Frederick V, the Elector Palatinate and Elizabeth, the Queen of Bohemia (and James I/VI's daughter). She would provide the link between the English Stuarts and the German Hanoverians because of her marriage to Ernest Augustus, Elector of Brunswick-Lüneburg. She is pictured on the right (wikipedia source) in an Indian costume, painted by her older sister Louise). Also according to the wikipedia article:

Sophia of the Palatinate (commonly referred to as Sophia of Hanover; 14 October 1630 – 8 June 1714[2]) was the Electress of Hanover from 1692 to 1698. She was also an heiress to the crowns of England (later Great Britain) and Ireland, countries she never visited. She was declared heiress presumptive to Queen Anne of England and Ireland by the Act of Settlement 1701, which was passed by the English parliament, and therefore only applied to the Kingdom of England (which included Wales) and the Kingdom of Ireland. A few years later, the Kingdom of Scotland agreed to accept the Hanoverian succession for the new single throne of a new country, the Kingdom of Great Britain that Scotland and England had agreed to unite as, and which came into being under the Acts of Union, 1707. Sophia, a granddaughter of James VI and I, died less than two months before she would have become queen; her claim to the thrones passed on to her eldest son, George Louis, Elector of Hanover, who ascended them as George I on 1 August 1714 Old Style.

Sophia of Hanover was chosen by Parliament in 1701 because she was the closest Stuart heir who was NOT Catholic--even her elder brother Edward's children could not succeed to the throne because they were Catholic. This Act of Succession was necessary because William and Mary had no children (and Mary was dead by 1701 and William would not remarry), and Princess Anne Stuart's only child to survive infancy, William, Duke of Gloucester, died in 1700. James II's son, James Francis Edward, considered by his supporters to be the Prince of Wales and by his detractors, the Old Pretender, were completely shut out, of course, because what had the Glorious Revolution of 1688 been for, after all! (BTW, Sophia's elder sister Louise, the artist, had also become Catholic and a Cistercian nun and abbess!)

She was opposed to her eldest son's marriage to Sophia Dorothea of Celle, even though she had arranged it! The two Sophias did not get along at all and Sophia Dorothea was unhappy in her marriage to the heir-Elector. Although she bore him two children, the future George II and Sophia Dorothea, who married Frederick William I of Prussia (and was the mother of Frederick the Great). Helen Simpson's novel, Saraband for Dead Lovers was adapted by Ealing Studios as a lovely historical movie starring Joan Greenwood and Stewart Granger, with Peter Bull as George.

The Tudors and Torture

Nancy Bilyeau, author of The Crown, provides some information on torture in Tudor and early Stuart England on the English Historical Fiction Authors blog:

It was in the 16th century that prisoners were unquestionably tortured in the Tower of London. The royal family rarely used the fortress on the Thames as a residence; more and more, its stone buildings contained prisoners. And while the Tudor monarchs seem glittering successes to us now, in their own time they were beset by insecurities: rebellions, conspiracies and other threats both domestic and foreign. There was a willingness at the top of the government to override the law to obtain certain ends. This created a perfect storm for torture.

"It was during the time of the Tudors that the use of torture reached its height," wrote historian L.A. Parry in his 1933 book The History of Torture in England. "Under Henry VIII it was frequently employed; it was only used in a small number of cases in the reigns of Edward VI and of Mary. It was whilst Elizabeth sat on the throne that it was made use of more than in any other period of history."

Bilyeau mentions the Little Ease, a cell in which the occupant, if normal size, could not either stand upright or lay down completely, and some other forms of torture:

Besides Little Ease, the most-used torture devices were the rack, manacles, and a horrific creation called the Scavenger’s Daughter. For many prisoners, solitary confinement, repeated interrogation, and the threat of physical pain were enough to make them tell their tormentors anything they wanted to know.

The Scavenger's Daughter was the opposite of the Duke of Exeter's Daughter, aka the rack--instead of stretching the victim, it compressed the body. Blessed Thomas Cottam, executed on May 30, 1582, endured both the Duke's and the Scavenger's Daughters while in the Tower. Prisoners were also laden with chains and heavy fetters; starved and refused water; left to endure exposure, and had pins stuck up under their fingernails.

Richard Topcliffe, Good Queen Bess's personal priest-hunter and appointed torturer, devised the famous method of hanging the victim by the wrists. Father John Gerard described it thus:

I fell on my knees for a moment's prayer. Then they took me to a big upright pillar, one of the wooden posts which held the roof of this huge underground chamber. Driven into the top of it were iron staples for supporting heavy weights. Then they put my wrists into iron gauntlets and ordered me to climb two or three wicker steps.

My arms were then lifted up and an iron bar was passed through the rings of one gauntlet, then through the staple and rings to the second gauntlet. This done, they fastened the bar with a pin to prevent it from slipping, and then, removing the wicker steps one by one from under my feet, they left me hanging by my hands and arms fastened above my head. The tips of my toes, however, still touched the ground, and they had to dig the earth away from under them. They had hung me up from the highest staple in the pillar and could not raise me any higher, without driving in another staple.

Hanging like this I began to pray. The gentlemen standing around me asked me whether I was willing to confess now.


'I cannot and I will not,' I answered.


But I could hardly utter the words, such a gripping pain came over me. It was worst in my chest and belly, my hands and arms. All the blood in my body seemed to rush up into my arms and hands and I thought that blood was oozing from the ends of my fingers and the pores of my skin. But it was only a sensation caused by my flesh swelling above the irons holding them.


The pain was so intense that I thought I could not possibly endure it, and added to it, I had an interior temptation. Yet I did not feel any inclination or wish to give them the information they wanted. The Lord saw my weakness with the eyes of His mercy, and did not permit me to be tempted beyond my strength. With the temptation He sent me relief. Seeing my agony and the struggle going on in my mind, He gave me this most merciful thought: the utmost and worst they can do is to kill you, and you have often wanted to give your life for your Lord God. The Lord God sees all you are enduring - He can do all things. You are in God's keeping.


With these thoughts, God in His infinite goodness and mercy gave me the grace of resignation, and with a desire to die and a hope (I admit) that I would, I offered Him myself to do with me as He wished. From that moment the conflict in my soul ceased, and even the physical pain seemed much more bearable than before, though it must, in fact, I am sure, have been greater with the growing strain and weariness of my body...

At the end of her post, Bilyeau states that these forms of torture ended during the reign of Charles I--and that is true. But during his son's reign, the Popish Plot hysteria revived some of these terrors, especially the use of chains and fetters.

Yet Another Historical Novel: "The Spanish Match"

Sophia Institute Press announces a new historical novel, The Spanish Match, telling the story of the proposed marriage between Charles, James I's son and heir, and the Infanta of Spain:

Murder, mayhem, and religion fustrate the royal courtship that, through love, seeks to make peace between warring enemies England and Spain:
A novel based on actual events.

In 1623 Charles, heir to the throne of England, dons a disguise, crosses the Channel, rides horseback across France, and sneaks into Madrid, capital of England’s proud Catholic enemy, Spain.

His mission? To woo the lovely María, sister of the King of Spain, and accomplish by marriage what decades of war have failed to do: reconcile the two embittered nations.

Once Charles and María meet, neither palace intrigues nor bloody murders cool their growing attraction. One thing alone prevents their union: María’s Catholic Faith . . . which she will not abandon and England cannot abide.

Yes, Charles’s marriage to Catholic María would briefy unite the kingdoms, but could soon destroy the monarchy. Outraged at the prospect of a Catholic queen, Charles’s Puritan subjects are sure to rise up and take from him not only his throne, but even his life . . . and María’s . . . plunging Europe into warfare greater than any seen before.

From detailed records of this actual love’s gambit author Brennan Pursell has crafted a moving novel of faith, courage, danger, and hope, a tale in which the fate of nations hangs on the love of two young people: Prince Charles of England and Princess María of Spain.

Here is an interview with the author and here is an excerpt from novel.

There is a connection for the Sunday Shrine series--the Queen's Chapel at the Palace/Court of St. James, originally built for the use of the Infanta, but then used by Henrietta Maria, Charles I's French Queen. It was designed by Inigo Jones, but Henrietta Maria supervised some Baroque decoration. Diane Purkiss discusses the Catholic Reformation motives behind these improvements in her book, The English Civil War: Papists, Gentlewomen, Soldiers, and Witchfinders in the Birth of Modern Britain starting on page 30 in this preview from Google Books.

Book Review: Tudors and Stuarts on Film: Historical Perspectives

This book is edited by Susan Doran and Thomas S. Freeman. From the publisher: Film can be an invaluable teaching resource. Tudors and Stuarts on Film provides analyses of films about the Tudor and Stuart period from leading historians. The accuracy of each film is assessed, and they are also placed within the context of the period in which they were made, and the influence they have had on popular conceptions of early modern England.

Contents:

List of Illustrations (14)
Acknowledgements
Notes on the Contributors

1. Introduction: It's Only a Movie--T.Freeman & S.Doran
2. A Tyrant for All Seasons: Henry VIII on Film--T.Freeman
3. Saints and Cinemas: A Man for All Seasons--P.Marshall
4. Anne of a Thousand Days--G. Richardson
5. Lady Jane Grey on Film--C.Levin
6. From Hatfield to Hollywood: Elizabeth I on Film--S.Doran
7. Ladies in Waiting: Young Elizabeth Tudor on Film--J.Richards
8. Kapur's Elizabeth--C.Haigh
9. Mary Queen of Scots (1971)--J.Guy
10. The Armada, War and Propaganda in the Cinema--W.Coster
11. Elizabeth: The Golden Age: A Sign of the Times?--V. Westbrook
12. Shakespeare in Love: Elizabeth I as dea ex machina--B.Usher
13. The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex and the Romanticization of Eliabethan Politics--P.Hammer
14. Oliver Cromwell and the Civil Wars--J.Morrill
15. The Unfilmed Oliver Cromwell--D.Smith
16. Winstanley--C.Durston
17. Why Don't the Stuarts Get Filmed?--R.Hutton

Notes
Index

You might notice immediately that Mary, the First Queen Regnant of England isn't even mentioned in a chapter title, although she does show up on the chapters on the Tudors; only one of Henry's wives has merited a chapter. Of course, this because of Hollywood's (standing for all film production) choices of whose story works on film. Perhaps it's a good thing Mary I has not been portrayed extensively on film--those fires of Smithfield! Elizabeth I dominates: eight of the chapters, including the chapter on her cousin Mary, Queen of Scotland and her 1971 movie, discuss the presentation of the last Tudor monarch on screen.

What these distinguished authors have done is not only analyze the historical accuracy of the films (and they all take certain liberties with the facts) but explore the reasons for the film makers' choices. Perhaps the best two chapters for this analysis are the two on the Shekar Kapur Elizabeth films. The anti-Catholic, really misogynist views the director and his screenwriter have taken of her reign are really disturbing, totally anti-feminine, twisting facts, playing with the timeline and creating plots and events that really don't fit with the history we know. Now, there's that disclaimer in the introduction, "it's only a movie" but the film makers, including the actors, are presenting their film as "a" truth, a plausible, dramatic, and effective presentation to move the audience: move them to think or feel something about events in the past. From these two movies the audience will certainly think that all Catholics in sixteenth century England were treasonous villains, ready to murder, but not really ready to suffer (Westbrook comments that "the torture sequences were hardly shocking. Apparently, Catholics were prepared to give it all up for a few pokes with a torch and the loss of body hair"!) We certainly know that's not true--at least the Catholic priests like St. Edmund Campion, St. Alexander Briant, St. Robert Southwell, and St. Henry Walpole, to name just a few, suffered the most excruciating and unrelenting torture Topcliffe and Elizabeth's other torturers could devise and deliver!

The last chapter, on the Stuarts, is really a gem in the book. Ronald Hutton immediately admits that his chapter title is completely misleading, because the Stuarts have been filmed, of course. He says the real title should be two questions, "Why don't the Stuarts get filmed as often as the Tudors?" and "Why don't the Stuarts get filmed memorably?" In answering those questions, he introduced me to a film I've never heard of but would love to see, The Exile, with Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. Hutton also mentioned Forever Amber with Linda Darnell (I remember finding my mother's copy of that "scandalous" novel, printed in double columns to save paper during WWII, hidden in the front closet and reading all about the plague!) TCM has the fun note that The Exile was released in sepia tone and came out at the same time as Forever Amber so that it was nicknamed "Forever Dark Brown"!

I read this book primarily because I am preparing a presentation series for the Eighth Day Institute here in Wichita, Kansas. I want to examine the changes in how the history of the English Reformation has been presented, from the Whig interpretations to the revisionist views I summarize in Supremacy and Survival: How Catholics Endured the English Reformation. I plan to use a historical novel, By What Authority? by Robert Hugh Benson to represent a Catholic interpretation and a movie, Fire Over England by Alexander Korda to represent a nationalistic, Whig view--both focused on the reign of Elizabeth I.

Beyond that purpose, for which the chapter on "The Armada, War and Propaganda in the Cinema" was most useful to me, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It satisfies my love of history, truth, and great movies, especially movies from the great days of Hollywood. The other book (perhaps a guilty pleasure?) that satisfies those interests is George MacDonald Fraser's The Hollywood History of the World From One Million Years B.C. to Apocalypse Now! Fraser was a real fan of Charlton Heston, I recall. He also highlighted one movie in particular which I've seen at least once on TCM: Saraband for Dead Lovers, with Stewart Granger and Joan Greenwood, who must have had the most distinctive voice of any actress in her era. I can never decide which performance of hers I enjoy more: in Kind Hearts and Coronets or The Importance of Being Earnest.