Tudor Women day 5

Tudor Women day 5 Today we had an extra little trip to the Parish Church in Great Bedwyn to see where Jane Seymour’s father lies. She grew up around the village as her father was the warden of Severnake forest a minor branch of the great Seymour family. The main places to see today were the Vyne near Basingstoke followed by Syon House on the Thames opposite Kew gardens. We had arranged a private tour of the house with just us before the public got in. The Vyne was a great Tudor mansion and we know that Henry VIII stayed there on 4 occasions, twice with Catherine of Aragon and once with Anne Boleyn. The long gallery is the finest oak panelled gallery left intact from the Tudor period and has many carved motifs on the panels some rather curios, a Tudor rose and a pomegranate growing from the same stem for example. The other incredible thing at the Vyne are the stained glass windows in the chapel. There are of Henry Catherine and Henry’s sister Margaret each has their own panel and they are kneeling down with the own patron saint looking down on them. These windows actually come from the nearby church and were taken down during the civil war and hidden in a pond to prevent Cromwells troops from smashing them to pieces. They are said to be the finest in England outside the Kings college chapel in Cambridge. We then travelled up the M3into London to Syon house, the home of the Duke of Northumberland since 1547. Originally an Abbey dating from 1415, The place has been re-modelled a lot over the centuries and the long gallery has been transformed into a ladies withdrawing room. It was here that the Duke proclaimed Lady Jane Grey as Queen, she didn’t want the job and eventually paid with her life. I always try to talk to the room guides wherever we go and today something quite extraordinary happened. One of the guides turned out to the father of the bride who we saw coming out of St Peters chapel in the Tower of London on Saturday! How incredible is that!

Tudor women day 4

The sun shone a little today as we left Kenilworth and headed south to Warwick to see St Mary’s Church. In a magnificent Gothic Chapel lies Robert Dudley Earl of Leicester and favourite of Elizabeth I. The church is huge and Dudley lies with his second wife Lettice Knollys, also here lies Ambrose Roberts’s brother, and the brother of Katherine Parr who we shall see as we head south

Coughton Court, home of the Throckmorton family for over 600 years and will be for at least the next 300. The property is held now by the National Trust but the family had a lease for the next 300 years. The Throckmortons’ are a Catholic family and over the centuries who have been subjected to all sorts of abuse, arrest and ignominies. They have been at the centre of plots against the Sovereign and there is even a Throckmorton plot against Elizabeth I. Bess Throckmorton is perhaps the most well know of the family, she was the court favourite of Elizabeth until she got married to Sir Walter Raleigh and got banished from court. Sir Walter Raleigh got himself executed and Bess was said to have carried his mummified head around with her for the rest of her life in a silk sack another 25 years. His head is in the room of consequences.

Coughton has some beautiful gardens and an ornamental lake, sheep with a curious dark brown mottled fleece graze in the meadows all around the place. Heading further south we come to Sudeley castle the home of Katherine Parr, the last wife of Henry VIII. This year is the 500th birthday of Katherine and they have some special plans for September which we will hope to attend. For now there are some special exhibitions of Katherine and her time. She now resst peacefully in the chapel in the grounds the only Queen of England buried on private property. It wasn’t always thus,she has been disturbed over the centuries and items taken from her person including a tooth and a lock of her hair. These items are on display in the special exhibition in the castle. The castle was destroyed in our civil war and lay derelict for 200 years until the Victorian era when it was restored to something approaching its former glory by Emma Dent. Her descendants own the castle now. We got to stand in the ante rooms that Katherine Parr would have known, there is a costumed figure of Lady Herbert, Katherine’s sister standing in these rooms that looks quite ghostly from the outside. Katherine now lies peacefully in the church amid the well kept gardens.

Tudor Women day 3

Today it was Baddesley Clinton, hidden in the countryside a moated manor house dating back to the 1400’s. It was the home to the Ferrers family for over 500years and the house holds many artefacts of the family. One of the important artefacts is a tapestry made in 1585 that depicts the Grand royal progress of 1575 at Kenilworth castle. The Ferrers were a recusant Catholic family in the Tudor period and were constantly in danger of being summarily arrested or troops knocking on the door. There are a number of priest holes in the house, hidden places where priest could hide at a moment’s notice one was down a rope into the sewer. We know of one documented occasion that 9 priest hid there yeuk! But I suppose better there than the alternative of a grisly execution. From there the weather got better in the afternoon where we were at Kenilworth castle just a few miles away. A huge castle, mostly ruins courtesy of Oliver Cromwell , but very important in English history. It was here that Elizabeth was entertained by Robert Dudley in 1575. He spent millions in todays money to get Elizabeth to marry him but to no avail. The ruins are huge and to wander around parts of history and imagine what it would have been like. Dudley also added another wing to the castle and this wing also lies in ruins Cromwell did so much cultural damage. Not only were the buildings destroyed but records and all the family archives also went up in smoke. It’s easy to think that somewhere in these ruins a letter from Elizabeth to Robert Dudley that would have confirmed that they were lovers. I always try to talk to the room guides wherever we go and this time we were treated to an amazing story. The locals had used the castle as a ready source of building materials over the centuries and there are a couple of stained glass windows in the gate house that were returned some time ago but a couple of weeks ago a local resident brought back a large cannon ball. What was anybody doing with a cannonball in their house? The staff were grateful and surprised but they don’t know exactly what to do with it at the present time, Next time we go there I will find out.

Tudor Women day 2

Tudor Women day 2 Travelling north out of London we managed to find some sunshine for our visit to Hatfield House the home of Elizabeth I and the place where she was told that she was Queen of England. The big house was built in 1611 by Robert Cecil Elizabeth’s chief minister. King James swapped the Palace with him for Theobalds nearby and it has remained in the hands of the same family ever since. The house has many great portraits and tapestries including the Rainbow and Ermine portraits of Elizabeth. The place is used for filming too, Elizabeth starring Cate Blanchette was made here though the script writers made a complete hash of the Armada speech in that film. The great hall of the old palace still stands which is used for weddings and banquets now but the splendour of the building remains with it’s high beamed ceiling. The formal gardens are a delight to just wander around and some sculptures can be found all about you. We were very lucky and privileged to catch a little rehearsal time of the Hatfield chamber orchestra in St Ethelreda’s church right outside the gate by the old palace. The music was beautiful in that old church. Moving on we saw something a bit more energetic 2 masters of the game of Real tennis in one of the few real Tennis courts in the country. We had plenty of time to walk the parkland of the estate and see some magnificent old Oak trees that would not have been out of place in the Lord of the Rings. We headed off to Warwickshire for our next days sightseeing.

Tudor Women day 1

Westminster Abbey and the Tower of London The Olympic temperature is rising in London with banners on all the street lamps and rail stations No more so than Westminster Abbey, it was playing host to large groups of troops being guided around this great Church. The troops are there to help protect the Games and just before they have to go on duty they are being shown the great historical heritage that the capital city has. The weather was not too kind, a lot of rain showers, but we managed to dodge most of them going in and out of the separate exhibitions and other towers around the place . Tower bridge right next to the Tower has the Olympic rings logo suspended over the Thames, just to remind people in case they forget.

We managed to get the last Beefeater tour in the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula before it closed for a wedding. Not many people are entitled to get married in the Tower and this one was an officer in the Royal Fusilier regiment. Much later on in the afternoon, the sun shone a little bit and as luck would have it the happy couple came out of the church as we were nearby .For the first time I saw a ceremonial honour guard of officers holding their swords up for the couple to walk under. What photos they will have for their wedding album. One of the great new features of the Tower is the animal sculptures around the place, life sized animals just appear all over the place. Just as you walk along there might be Baboons, lions, a polar bear and even an elephant.

Later on after dinner at the George in Southwark, a place that both Shakespeare and Charles Dickens would have known, we had a gentle stroll along the Thames back to our hotel past some landmarks old and new like Southwark Cathedral, the Globe Theatre and the Shard.

Lady Jane Grey

July 10th 1553 Lady Jane Grey was proclaimed queen by her father in law the Duke of Northumberland in the Long gallery at Syon House. We will be going to Syon house next week on our Tudor Women tour so I'll talk about the place when we get there. Lady Jane Grey, the nine days Queen, a teenage pawn in the great survival game of powerful Tudor families. She had married Guidford Dudley only a couple of months ago but had not become pregnant yet. She didn't want the title believing that the Lady Mary was the rightful heir to Henry VIII after King Edward VI died in his teens. Edward had resolved that the Lady Jane was to be the heir and inherit the title so had the Act of Succession changed as he believed that Jane would be a good protestant Queen whereas Mary was a catholic and Edward didn't want the kingdom to revert to Rome. The Lady Mary, unsure of exactly what to do but gathering her forces at Framlingham in Suffolk and eventually marched on London. Support for Lady Jane fell away and she was arrested, held in the Tower of London and eventually executed some 10 months later. There are a couple of good films about Lady Jane Grey, one is with Helena Bonham Carter (Belatrix la Strange in Harry Potter)and Patrick Stewart. She appeared in a many films as sombody's daughter in costume epics.

Taming of the Shrew

We went to see The Taming of the Shrew at Shakespeare's Globe theatre yesterday. In bright sunshine we sat on the middle gallery and watched the matinee performance of the superb comedy one of Shakepeare's finest. The actors were excellent and action takes place all around the theatre. Characters were entering the hard and walking ammoung the groundlings, the groundlings are the people in the audience that stand all the time or lean on edge of the stage. It was an experience for some at the front when they were treated to a naked male backside, not a pretty sight at all. At one point the actress playing Kate was storming around the groundlings in a high dudgeon and the people were jumping out of her way. Kate was played by Samantha Spiro a double Olivier award winner and was great giving full voice to the part. Afterwards we were sitting at a bar along the River Thames and she walked past so I asked her to sign my program and yes I did feel like a bit of a groupie at that point. we finished the night with a great dinner at the swan at the Globe restaurant.

Defender Henry day 5

An amazing start to the day when I pulled back the curtains at the Queens hotel on Southsea Common and there was an Aircraft carrier going right past into the harbour, not a sight that you see every day.

We set off early to travel to Hampton Court Palace, the masterpiece that is the only one of more than 60 palaces that Henry VIII left us with.The place is huge and if you get in as the doors open and go straight to the Great hall there is a special magic about the place, it' so quiet that you whisper to each other even when there is no body else in the place. There are some magnificent tapestries hanging in the Hall, each one made cost the same as a battleship at the time for Henry VIII. We saw Henry about the palace, this time the theme of the day was Anne Boleyn being courted, none too sucessfully, by Henry. The characters are perfect, we chatted to Lady Rochford as she went about the palace trying to catch Anne Boleyn, talk to her husband and please the King all at the same time. There is a temporary exhibition of the Wild the Beautiful and the Damned. Potraits of King Charles II mistresses, there were a great many beautiful women at court in the late 1600's. Nell Gwynne was perhaps the most famous and she appears a few times both clothed and nude, no prudery in the Stuart court of King Charles II. The gardens of Hampton Court are delight to wander around and we had pleanty of time on a fine day to take in the sights and smells of the formal gardens and the privy gardens, there is even a floral tribute to her Majesty the Queen's diamond Jubilee laid out.

Onto Windsor where at the end of the day on a Friday is one of the best times to see the castle as all the tourists have left and we had little difficulty viewing the State apartments. The Queen was in residence as te Royal standsard was flying above the round tower. (we didn't see her though. Many fine Tudor portraits are on display but the real art is in the building and rooms themselves particularly the repaired great hall destroyed in the fire in 1997. The design and supervison of the renovation works was undertaken by the Duke of Edinburgh and he did a great job of it! We finished the last night of our tour at a great family run Greek restaurant in the heart of Windsor with some suitable Cypriot wine.

Defender Henry day 4

Defender Henry day 4 Portsmouth and Southsea A journey along the main south coast highway brought us to Portsmouth which is the home of the Royal Navy. First we saw Southsea castle which is part of the fortifications that Henry built all around the coast of England. Southsea castle is where Henry was standing when he saw the Mary Rose, the pride of Henry’s Navy, sink just a quarter of a mile off shore with a great loss of life. Today we saw a school group that were being entertained and enthralled by a group of live history players. These players had the children totally under rapt attention, the kids even curtseying to the Lord.

The players even fired a cannon in the keep and the gunsmoke hung around for a long time afterwards. They finished off with music and dance and the kids were led off in a long conga so we took our leave to go to the historic dockyard. The Mary Rose ship hall will be open to the public early next year to enable more of the 22,000 artefacts to be displayed on site. The ship hall will be magnificent and I can’t wait to see it, the half of the ship will be matched by a replica construction that you will be able to walk in and just turn to look at the existing ship Also in the Dockyard is HMS Victory, Nelson’s flagship at the battle of Trafalgar. HMS Warrior, the Navy’s first iron clad steam/ sail powered ship and the most powerful ship afloat in 1860. A visit to the clouds was next, just a short walk from the Dockyard stands the Spinnaker tower, 588 feet high with a viewing platform that you can see over 20 miles. The clouds were a bit low today so our viewing was down to 5 miles. The platform has a glass floor that you can see waht seems to be a mile stright down.

The day was finished off with fish and chips at the Still & West pub, built in 1700 right on the mouth of the harbour. We watched huge cross channel ferries sailing in and out so close that you felt that you could reach out and touch them. Not only that there was a group of Morris dancers on the courtyard, traditional folk dancing with bells on their knees.