Tudor ramblings

I popped into the National Portrait Gallery yesterday after a job interview in London. (I had stashed a change of clothes in the museum's cloakroom prior to my interview which was just down the street so that I could spend the rest of my day out in London NOT in heels and a wool suit.)

As its name suggests, the museum is devoted exclusively to portraits. The oldest works in its collection are of the Tudor family, begining in the 1400s and including some Hans Holbein works--exactly the kind of thing I'm a sucker for. Floor map in hand, I headed directly for the Tudor gallery.

* * *

Elderly British woman 1: Ahh, this one is Catherine of Aragon.

Elderly British woman 2 (hobbling over with two canes, stopping to adjust bifocals): Yes, she was married to Henry VIII. Their marriage was to form an alliance between England and Spain. Henry cast her aside when she got old so that he could marry a younger woman, Anne Boleyn. He didn't cut her head off, but I think she spent the rest of her days in seclusion, at a nunnery or some sort.

EBW 1 (studying portrait more closely): Hmm. Is that right?

EBW2: You know, I really admire her. It couldn't have been easy, giving him all those years only to be disposed of. She was a virtuous woman.

[thoughtful pause]

My, how pale she looked--and from sunny Spain. Not much sun for her here, was there?

EBW 1: Which one was she? Was she his third wife?

EBW2: I'm not sure. Let's read the card.

Young American woman (aka me): She was his first.

EBW2 (smiling): Ah, yes. I get them all confused.

* * *

I don't know if you appreciate how much restraint it took for me not to say more, with Tudor History Geek Thrill pulsing through me. I didn't want to intrude, but did they realize that Henry's maneuvering to rid himself of Catherine is one of history's most exciting stories with no shortage of sordid details and political intrigue?

Catherine was originally intended as a bride for Henry's older brother, Arthur. They married in 1501, but six months into the marriage Arthur died suddenly. When Henry assumed the throne several years later, he married Catherine (historians generally agree that they were in love).

Catherine maintained that her marriage to Arthur had never been consummated due to their tender age, and this paved the way for her union with Henry. But after 24 years of marriage, itching to move onto a younger woman who could give him an heir, Henry did an about face. He petitioned Rome for an annulment, claiming that Catherine had in fact slept with Arthur, cementing Henry and Catherine's status as brother and sister and making their marriage incestuous and therefore illegal. To prove his point, he dug up stories of 14 year old Arthur bragging about his "sleepovers" with 15 year old Catherine to members of court. (Can you imagine?)

But Catherine did not go quietly. She refused to be supplanted by some upstart tramp. And she was protecting her daughter, Mary (if her marriage proved to be illegal, then Mary would be a bastard with grim future prospects). Conveniently, Catherine's nephew, Charles V, was Holy Roman Emperor and pressured (an understatement) the Pope not to grant Henry's wishes.

Nor did Anne Boleyn give up easily. She had Henry wrapped around her little finger and manipulated him artfully. For one, she didn't sleep with him as all his other mistresses had (including, previously, Anne's own sister). Yes, there was heavy petting--in one love letter Henry refers to her breasts, longingly, as "pritty duckys I trust shortly to kysse"-- but she held out going all the way with him--seven years--until it was certain Henry intended to leave Catherine.

Henry eventually broke from Rome and formed the Church of England, with himself as the head, in order to get his way. Catherine was banished, and Anne Boleyn took her place (though not for long).

Anne was fiery, opinionated, and a fervent supporter of the Reformation. It is thought that it was she who influenced Henry to establish a Protestant church in England, and after their marriage was very politically influential. But her political nature was regarded as inappropriate for a Queen, and she made many enemies within Henry's inner circle. These same advisors eventually turned Henry against her, fabricating evidence that Anne was carrying on several affairs, including with her own brother. She was convicted of treason and beheaded at the Tower of London.

Henry did not stop his philandering after marrying Anne, and some historians feel her failure to give him a son, and his infatuation with a new found marital prospect (one of Anne's ladies in waiting), contributed to Henry's willingness to plot against her.

Either way, eleven days after Anne's execution, Henry married wife number three, Jane Seymour.

Probably best I didn't lay the "pritty duckys" on those women, huh?

Detours

Yesterday on my way back home from running errands, I noticed a small sign for Wisley Church, and thought I'd check it out. It was out of my way, but I've been feeling a bit cooped up lately and thought exploration would be good for me. So glad I followed that instinct.

After following a progressively narrowing and winding road for a bit, I came upon an old Norman church, which I learned was originally founded in the 1100s.

For those of you whose early English history is a bit rusty, the Norman invasion of England, headed by William the Conqueror in 1066, changed the face of England in many ways, culturally, governmentally, linguistically, even in terms of the physical landscape (and, interestingly, it laid the foundation for hundreds of years of English-French conflict).

(Battle of Hastings, as depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry) As occupiers, the Normans were notoriously brutal. They sacked villages, confiscated land, and built imposing castles that served as humiliating reminders of Anglo-Saxon defeat. In fact, they busied themselves building lots of structures, including many rustic little country churches that still stand today.

Wisley church is petite and quiet. There wasn't much sunlight yesterday and so the interior was dim and shadowy. I sat for a little while, soaking in the quiet and the blueish, melancholy light. I love old stonework; like other artifacts--cooking utensils, tools, furniture, jewelry, textiles, weaponry--it is an intimate link to people long gone that, for me, fills in so many details of who they were, how they lived, what they were like. It was difficult to get any really good shots of the interior given how dark it was. But here's the exterior:
























And the very pretty path leading from the road:

























As I was leaving I met the Vicar, who seemed to eye me cautiously at first (I later learned the church was robbed last week) but lit up when he learned of my interest in Norman architecture. He directed me to another old church a few miles down the road, St. Nicholas.

This one was built in 1140, and unlike many churches which have Norman foundations but whose structures have been augmented over the centuries, St. Nicholas's structure is completely Norman. Caretakers also uncovered 12th century frescoes which, much like the original stonework, I find really touching.

They are apparently done in red ochre and depict the Passion and local pilgrims preparing to set sail for a pilgrimage to Spain.

Finally, here's a peaceful scene from the St. Nicholas graveyard:

History Matters

All across the country today, people are participating in "One Day in History," whereby ordinary citizens make entries on a "mass blog for the national record" (recording details of their day, their thoughts, etc.) which will be stored by the British Library as "a historical record of our national life."

It's part of the "History Matters" campaign run by a number of prominent historians and heritage organizations in England & Wales (e.g. the National Trust, the Council for British Archaeology, and the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, among many others).

It's a brilliant idea! You can read diary entries of people who've participated so far (some touching, some mundane, all probably fascinating to future generations). I can't wait to make my entry.

Before I started getting into history, including researching my own family's genealogy, I never considered all the public records that bear my name and personal information as part of any kind of historic record: things like tax records, a drivers license application, a voter registration card, the deed to our house in DC, etc. However, these are the tools historians use all the time, and, with the right amount of imagination, they can help us build fascinating accounts of otherwise ordinary people's lives.

Take Flossie Mae Buffington, my great-grandmother, the mother of my paternal grandmother.

Not being close with my father or his side of the family, I didn't even know her name until I officially requested my grandmother's social security card application from the 1940s, on which she recorded, in her own handwriting, her parents names.

Starting with this one clue, and progressing through a wide variety of public records, I was able to piece together Flossie Mae's life from her birth in the 1880s, to turn of the century Chicago where she met and married my great-grandfather, Harry Gerts, to the frontier of Saskatchewan, Canada, where she moved with her husband and his extended family (his 2 brothers, their wives, and his 50 year old father) to live as a homesteader, farming land given to them by the Canadian government (and now a town called Gallivan).

During my research, I regularly sent out dozens upon dozens of requests to various archives and civic entities. Every so often, an official envelope would arrive in my mailbox containing an old marriage certificate, death certificate, or something equally thrilling. With each little piece of information I filled in more and more of the picture.

Thanks to the archives of the Saskatchewan Dept. of Interior, I know that Harry and Flossie Mae lived that first season in a 17 X 30 sod house and had "2 mules, 1 horse, 2 mares, 1 colt, 1 sow, 5 cows and 5 calves." The transition to this new life could not have been easy for these native Chicagoans, used to street cars, electricity, telephones, theater, shopping, crowds. In all previous census records I found, Harry listed his occupation as "clerk." Could a city person who worked a white-collar desk job all his life really know what to expect out there in the Canadian wilderness? From what I've read about the area back then, it might as well have been Antarctica (and judging from a simple Google search, it doesn't seem to have developed much beyond that even today). What motivated Harry to leave the city and try his hand at farming in the first place? Was my great grandmother crazy to go with him? Naive? Really in love?

They were unlucky those first few years. To weed out land speculators, the government required each family to pass a probation period before being given the deed to the land--they had to prove they'd cultivated a certain amount of land and lived on it continuously for, I believe, at least two years. Judging from their homesteading records, by the second year deadline they hadn't met their obligations. It seems Harry's brother died the first year (1905) and Harry came down with Typhoid fever the following season, leaving my great-great-grandfather, Charles Gerts, to do the lionshare of the work. I was surprised to find myself teary eyed reading my great-great-grandfather's handwriting as he explained the reason they were behind. "My oldest boy died the first year."

And their luck does not seem to have improved.

By the 1920 census, Flossie Mae shows up as a member of her parents' household in Chicago, listed as widowed. I don't know when Harry died, but based on scraps of information I've collected, I know it wasn't until 1913 at the earliest. Flossie Mae had my grandmother, Dorothy, on the homestead in 1911, but her second child was born December 1913 in Chicago. Why did she travel more than 1,000 miles back to Chicago while pregnant? Does this mean that Harry had died by that point? Or was it simply to avoid a long, bitter winter with a newborn? My father once mentioned that that Harry died of influenza. Perhaps that was during the great pandemic of 1918-1919? That also fits with Flossie Mae being widowed in Chicago by 1920.

Regardless of when Harry died, the fact that Flossie Mae returned to Chicago makes me wonder how she felt about being a farmer, whether she missed city life, and how she got along with her husband's relatives. Wouldn't they have taken care of her and her children after she was widowed? Years earlier, after Harry's brother's death and during his bout with Typhoid, the family pulled together to keep their homestead afloat. So, why not this time? Were they too destitute to help her, or did she refuse their offer, preferring at that point to cut her losses? Why did she leave all that she had worked for? Would she have stayed if she liked her inlaws better? Were her chances of finding a new husband very poor in Saskatchewan? Was she just sick of having a dirt floor?

Unfortunately, this isn't the kind of information you can glean from public records, not usually anyway.

St. Mary's Church, Stoke D'Abernon

I visited St. Mary's Church in Stoke D'Abernon this afternoon and along with one other visitor I was treated to a fabulous, unexpected tour by one of the church guides. What a gem, this church. It is one of England's oldest surviving churches which has been in use since Saxon times, and based on constuction materials it is thought to date to the second half of the 7th century. One side of the facade shows Roman bricks taken from a ruin adjacent to the church yard--a Roman bath on the banks of the Mole river.

Additions were made in the 12th, 13th and 15th centuries as well as in Victorian times, and the church retains elements of all of these periods. The photo above shows part of a Norman arch (12 century) and the rich, intricate woodwork of the ceiling, which I think is Tudor.

The church is most well known for its brasses, such as this one of Sir John D'Abernon dating from 1277, the oldest of its kind in Britain (bottom figure). He is buried under this section of the church. The pictures don't do it justice--the detail of the chain mail, his lance and enameled shield (bearing the D'Abernon coat of arms) is really beautiful. (The church was dark so a lot of my photos are a little blurry.)

Caretakers uncovered a partial mural on one wall that dates from the 13th century and shows the "Adoration of the Lamb." Amazing:

Aunt Elsie & Uncle Charlie

Earlier this summer while visiting Scott's mom in New Hampshire, I photographed a trove of old family photos including many of Scott's great aunt & uncle, Elsie & Charlie. When Scott asked me to marry him last fall, he gave me Elsie's ring. Like us, they dated for 8 years before getting engaged and lived in Brooklyn. We're told they had a very happy, long marriage. One other similarity to present day Christie & Scott you might notice: is Scott not a dead ringer for Uncle Charlie? Eerily so? More importantly, how do we get Scott a suit like this??