Royal Progress Day 14

Day 14 Rochester There has been a church on the site of Rochester Cathedral since 604AD. The present cathedral building dates from the late 1100s. It has some of the oldest choir stalls in England but the Victorian restoration around the choir and chancel has changed the character of the place a little. As cathedrals go it’s not very large but it’s still third in the hierarchy of the Church of England. It was in the Bishops Palace on 1 January 1540 that Henry VIII first set eyes on Anne of Cleves. He was in disguise and she was not informed as to how she should react. To say that Henry was not best pleased was an understatement and he stormed out, shouting “I like her not!” He came back in a few minutes later and you can imagine that he must have had a face like thunder. Right next door to the cathedral is Rochester Castle. It was built around the same time and besieged by King John in during the Barons War which led to Magna Carta. He managed to undermine the castle keep by setting fire to pit props which had been smeared with the fat of 40 pigs and the heat made the side of the keep come crashing down. As an aside Rochester is famous for Charles Dickens. It seems that every shop in the High St is Great Expectations this, and Sweet Expectations that or Mrs Peagotti tea rooms. There are old buildings that have plaques stating they are as described in Dicken’s works. A couple of miles away from Rochester lies Upnor Castle, the only Castle Elizabeth ordered to be built during her entire 45 years on the throne. The castle is very small and saw real action in the Dutch raid of 1667 when the Dutch fleet blew the Royal Navy out of the water as they were anchored in the river Medway. The main first floor block house room is used today as a wedding venue where guests watch the wedding ceremony whilst sitting on barrels of gunpowder (empty of course!) The thought of exploding guests made us laugh out loud. The poor bride would have had to have walked through the ground floor barrack room past exhibits of cannons and more barrels of gunpowder before climbing a narrow wooden spiral staircase. Not to be undertaken if she’s wearing full wedding skirts! We had a beer in the delightful Kings Arms before heading back for our second night in the Astor Wing at Hever Castle.

Royal Progress Day 13

Day 13 Hever and Penshurst place Travelling south east out of London to Hever Castle, the childhood home of Anne Boleyn. Set on the edge of the High Weald in Kent, we are taking advantage of the recent development of the Astor Wing of the Castle now offering B&B for the casual visitor. The ornamental gardens at Hever were set up by J J Astor in 1910 and are superb. The formal ornate Italian gardens are so called because Astor imported many sculptures and stone features from Italy. They are to be found all around the gardens leading to the huge lake. Even in October there were still flowers in bloom and grapes on the vines. It’s rather special, as a resident, to be able to walk around the gardens before the tourists are allowed in. You can easily appreciate the special magic that these gardens have. The Castle itself is quite small and had many owners in its time, before and after the Boleyn family. It was even given to Anne of Cleves as part of her divorce settlement but it lay derelict for over a century before Astor come along and saved it by renovating it to a high standard. It has some artefacts belonging to Anne Boleyn including two of her prayer books, one of which is supposed to have been held by her on the way to the scaffold. Just a few miles away lies Penshurst Place, which for me is the southern pleasure palace of Queen Elizabeth I. Henry VIII confiscated it from the Duke of Buckingham and so it was a royal palace until 1556 when Edward VI gave it to the Sidney family. It has been their family home ever. We know that Elizabeth came here many times and it was here in the Solar where the infamous painting depicts her dancing the scandalous La Volta with Robert Dudley. There are some hugely important women in the Sidney family such as Lady Mary Wroth, poet, writer, literary leader and, some arguments had it, actually wrote Shakespeare’s plays. Just outside the gates of Penshurst is a wonderful old church. In the Sidney chapel lies someone who is not usually recorded in history tales, Anne Boleyn’s younger brother Thomas, who died in infancy. Anne’s father was superintendent at Penshurst when it was a royal palace and when Thomas was born. We had a beer in the Leicester Arms in Penshurst village before heading back to Hever Castle for the evening where we had dinner in the Wheatsheaf pub surrounded by an eclectic mixture of collectables from around the world.

Royal progress day 12

Day 12 Hampton Court Palace The world knows this Palace to be the home of Henry VIII. We were staying right across the road from the main gates of the Palace. We had an early appointment for a “real” tennis lesson, the game that Henry played on this very court! We were first in when the doors opened and headed straight for the Great Hall with its fantastic tapestries that Henry commissioned. Each one cost as much as a battleship at the time! We were the only ones in there for a few moments and the place was silent. It has a special magic when no one else is there: so much so that you actually whisper to each other, not wanting to break the spell. The Great Hall is the centrepiece of the Tudor Palace that still remains. It has a fantastic hammer-beam roof with painted eave droppers: human faces that look down on you just as a reminder that there are eyes and ears all about the Palace so be careful what you say. Today’s series of plays was all about a peace treaty between France and Henry in October of 1546. It featured some new characters: his daughter Mary, the French Ambassador and the Spanish Ambassador. The final playlet of the day involved Henry wearing his crown. This crown has been specially recreated from paintings and tapestries and is an incredible work of art. The crown was on display in the Royal Pew, part of the Chapel Royal but only for an hour. It was a privilege to view it though and I hope it will be on display for many months yet. The ornamental and privy gardens are fantastic and there was still a lot of colour to be seen. Many flowers were late blooming including wild strawberries and roses. The world famous Hampton Court maze is today only a quarter of the size it used to be but this being half-term there were lots of children running around, lost. But I know the secret of how to find your way!

Royal Progress day 11

Day 11 The Vyne and Syon House The Vyne is set in deepest Hampshire in peaceful countryside the house just appears out of the woods as you drive along narrow roads of the county. The Vyne is a Tudor mansion and home to the Sandys family, Henry VIII visited here at least four times during his lifetime and the oak panelled long gallery has many emblems of Henry and Catherine Of Aragon carved and intertwined. It takes little imagination to see Henry VIII and Catherine being very pleased indeed to see this gallery on their visits. The Chapel has some fine stained glass windows that predate the great windows of Kings College chapel in Cambridge. The windows at the Vyne are of Henry VIII Catherine of Aragon and Henry’s sister Margaret praying to their respective patron saints. The detail on these windows is incredible and it’s a wonder they have survived to this day. In fact there is a story that these were in a local church and were taken down, hidden on a pond so that Oliver Cromwell’s troops could not smash them up after the Civil war in the 1640’s. The place we see today is only one sixth of what was there in Tudor times, Tastes change, living standards improved and there was no need for a house to be a defensive structure either. On to Syon House on the river Thames only 16 miles form the centre of London. Syon is a very important place in Tudor time. Originally an Abbey founded by Henry V in 1415 it was taken over during the dissolution. Anne Boleyn was said to have railed against the nuns for their wonton habits. Lady Jane Grey was proclaimed Queen here in the Long gallery by her Uncle the Duke of Northumberland. Catherine Howard was imprisoned here for a few days on her way to the Tower of London. Henry VIII’s body rested here on his final journey to Windsor, his coffin burst open and some dogs licked his leaking blood a gruesome tale indeed yeuk! We finished the day with a pub meal in the Kings Arms hotel right outside the park gates of Hampton Court Palace

Royal Progress day 10

Day 10 Windsor Windsor Castle is huge, it’s the largest inhabited castle in the world and the home to our present Queen though she wasn’t in today. We were lucky enough to see the semi State Apartments a series of rooms that the Queen will use privately for entertaining visitors. These rooms are not generally open and this is only the second time I have been in there. Richly decorated and rebuilt after the fire in 1992 and with great views over Windsor great park. Viewing these rooms made up for a slight disappointment that many of the Tudor portraits have been moved to special exhibition at the Queens Gallery in Buckingham palace. St Georges Chapel is where many of our Sovereigns are buried up to the present day. Henry VIII is here in a vault in the centre of the quire. There is only a plain black marble slab with brass lettering in the floor to mark the place here perhaps England’s greatest king lies alongside his favourite wife Jane Seymour. The chapel is a grand building with a high vaulted ceiling but in comparison with Kings College Cambridge is not as grand. We had a dinner in a great family run Greek restaurant in Windsor and walking around Windsor at night we realised that the Queen is now in residence as the Royal Standard is flyimng over the great Round tower.

Royal progress day 9

Day 9 Peterborough Cathedral and Cambridge Peterborough Cathedral is where Catherine of Aragon was buried, her grave was destroyed by Cromwell’s troops but in the 1800’s a national newspaper led a campaign and asked all women called Catherine to donate a penny to build a better memorial and now there’s a suitable place for a Queen of England. The people loved her when she was alive and the people love her still, hardly a day goes by that there isn’t some fresh flowers on her grave. We took a sprig of Rosemary sprig of rosemary from Catherine’s garden at Buckden and laid it on her grave. Kings College chapel Cambridge is my personal favourite single building left to us by Henry VIII. It was started 100 years before Henry but he finished it and I some style. It has the largest fan vaulted roof in the world and has the most fantastic stained glass windows. There is a guide book just for the windows. I could stay in the building for hours and when the organ is playing there is almost a sensory overload. There is evidence of two of Henry’s wives here, Anne Boleyn’s initials can be found carved in the provosts stall and Catherine Howard can be seen in one of the stained glass windows looking up at Henry. Her initials are also to be found high up on the great east window. We went into Trinity college chapel and were privileged to be allowed into the chapel built in 1555 and has some stained glass windows to Elizabeth, Mary, Edward VI and even Isaac Newton. He was the chair of Mathematics here. There is an apple tree a daughter descended from the original tree where Newton realised what gravity was. We ended the day in Windsor and our by now customary wander around a few hostelries.

Royal Progress day 8

Day 8 Kenilworth Castle & Buckden Towers Kenilworth castle, the largest ruined castle in England and is significant In English history for several important events. Henry V was here in 1415 when the French King sent him a present of tennis balls an insult that led to Henry defeating the French at the battle of Agincourt. The centrepiece now is the privy garden English Heritage have faithfully recreated that Robert Dudley built to amuse Elizabeth I in that grand progress of 1575. He spent millions in today’s money to get Elizabeth to marry him all to no avail. She remained the Virgin queen married to England. The castle was destroyed after our civil war by Oliver Cromwell to prevent it being used as a rallying point for Royalist forces. Everywhere you look there are spectacular views if the ruins, angles and arches, empty windows and great stone walls. Onto Buckden Towers a tranquil jewel once a bishops palace and is where Catherine of Aragon was held for nearly two years before being moved on by Henry VIII. Once again the place is in the ownership of the church, The Claretian missionaries now own it after many years in private hands. The friends of Buckden have created a replica knot garden of type that Catherine would have known. It’s a beautiful peaceful setting and somehow a fitting tribute to Buckden’s most famous resident. We finished the day with a stroll around the Town of Stamford visiting a few hostelries before having dinner in our hotel. The George claiming to be the oldest hotel in England dating from 947. A hotel of great character and where our guests enjoyed their first taste of Pimms

Royal Progress day 7

St Mary’s Church Warwick dominates the whole town with it’s square tower at 174 feet high, you can see it on any approach to the town. The church can trace it’s history back to Norman times and the crypt under the high alter hold a number of tombs as well as a medieval ducking stool. There are many tombs here among them is the brother of Katherine Parr on the high alter but in the Beauchamp chapels lies the Dudley brothers. Robert and Ambrose, Robert the court favourite of Elizabeth lies with his second wife Lettice in very grand style and Ambrose also in a style befitting a great land owner in the county. Lord Leyster Hospital endowed by Robert Dudley in 1571 for the retirement of the Queens old soldiers and still in use as such today. Looking at the building it is a wonder that it still stands. It survived the fire in 1698 that destroyed a large part of the town including half of St Mary’s church. The Timber of the hospital has warped over the centuries and the building leans over the pavement. In the tearoom there is a a fraction of a curtain and a needlepoint embroidery of the Bear with the Ragged Staff sewn by Amy Robsart Robert Dudley’s first wife. We spent the rest of the day at Warwick castle, now owned by the Merlin entertainments group, it’s good for kids not for the real study of history. I think it’s very expensive for families, as after you have paid your entrance fee you find that there are other places that charge entry, it must make for some disappointed kids and unhappy parents who have to keep digging into their pockets. The castle does have a few redeeming features, it was the first building in England to be powered by hydro-electricity and the machinery is still there dating back to 1902. The huge trebuchet catapult, a copy of a medieval siege machine fired a fire ball, it was fantastic to see a huge fire ball arcing across the sky and yes it does sound like it does on the movies. We finished the day by visiting a few more pubs around old Kenilworth before having dinner in the Famous Virgins and Castle pub dating from the 1540’s

Royal Progress day 6

Day 6 Sudeley and Baddesley Clinton Sudeley Home of Katherine Parr after Henry VIII died and she married Thomas Seymour. It was here that she died a few days after childbirth. Sudeley is a delightful place partly in ruins after Oliver Cromwell troops destroyed it during our civil war and the family home of the Ashcroft family. This year is a special year, the 500th anniversary of Katherine’s birth so there are many special items on display like her prayer book and a copy of the book she wrote and one of her teeth and a lock of her hair taken from her grave in the late 1700’s (a very odd story). Katherine now lies peacefully in the church within the grounds of the Castle in a splendid tomb befitting a queen of England and only Queen of England to be buried on private land. Onto Baddesley Clinton, one of the very few fully moated manor houses left in England. It dates from the late 1400’s and was home to the Ferrers family, a Catholic family though not one involved is plots like the Throckmortons. The place does have three priest holes for hiding in and who knows there may be more to be found in the future. The family has had some characters in the past and we were entertained by stories of the “Quartet” two men and two women who lived in the house in what we can only describe as an unconventional relationship! We finished the day with a minor pub crawl around Old Kenilworth in Warwickshire where we are staying for the next two nights in a hotel built around an Oak tree in 1538 and there are some great old pubs.

Royal Progress day 5

Day 5 Coughton Court Today was a single visit to Coughton court (pronounced coat-en) the home of the Throckmorton family for over 600 years and they still live there. The family is one of the principal Catholic families in the land and have been implicated in plots against the king or Queen, indeed the Throckmorton plot was one of the plots to assassinate Elizabeth I. The family was also involved in the Gunpowder plot in 1605, still commemorated to this day in the 5th November fireworks and Bonfire night. The family has had some formidable and notable women down the centuries perhaps the most famous being Bess Throckmorton, one time favourite lady in waiting to Elizabeth I until she secretly married Sir Walter Raleigh and was banished from court. Walter was locked up in the Tower of London for a long time until King James got tired of his writing and had him executed. Now a strange tale takes place in that Bess was said to have carried Walter’s embalmed head in a silk sack around with her for the rest of her life another 21 years! Sir Walters Head can be found in the room of consequence, I kid you not! one person jumped and on seeing a head in a sack.( it's not real) Coughton has many features that are worth a mention, it is a great Tudor manor house and all the rooms have been given names like the room of hope and the room of requirements… but to my mind the best room in the house is the one where the chemise that Mary Queen of Scots wore at her execution and a bishops mantle sewn by Catherine of Aragon and her court ladies. It is a magnificent piece of work all velvet and gold with Catherine’s personal symbol of a pomegranate sewn on, it gave me palpitations the first time I saw it and it’s still exciting to see it. We finished the day with a pub crawl around Stow on the Wold the highest town on the Cotswolds, we had dinner in the Queens head and great pub that you will find on trip advisor.

Royal Progress day 4

Day 4 Oxford Colleges Walking around the city of dreaming spires on a Saturday is quite and experience. There is a great deal of street theatre and to be encouraged by people dressed as tigers, alligators, dragons and zebras to give money for Meningitis research was a bit surreal. But we cam to see the Oxford Colleges and first up was Magdalen. It was here that a young master Wolsey went to school and the president here was the chap who was sent to escort Catherine of Aragon from Spain to marry Prince Arthur. They have a tapestry of that event but it’s behind where the public are allowed to go and they won’t let me see it. The college chapel has the largest sepia stained glass window I know of and it tells the story of life everlasting. Christchurch College perhaps the most famous of them all, originally an Abbey and endowed by Cardinal Wolsey as a college but he never got to finish it. Henry VIII carried it on and called it Kings college but it then changed to what we know now ad Christ Church. It has many famous people associated with it. In The Cathedral, there is a stained glass window, part of the shrine to Thomas a Beckett. Henry VIII ordered all such shrines to be destroyed in 1538. The face of Thomas was just removed and the rest remains. Elizabeth I stayed here. Other famous people are King Charles I he lodged here when Oxford was his capital during our civil war in the 1640’s. Lewis Carrol author of Alice in wonderland was her and there is a stained glass window of all the characters in the books. Walking along further In the middle of Cornmarket street there is a monument to Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley, burnt at the stake by bloody Mary for refusing to covert back to the true faith. Oxford also has the oldest museum and library in the world and there are many other things to see but tucked away in a church which today was surrounded by scaffolding and undergoing major restoration work, on the alter steps is a simple slab showing the last resting place of Amy Robsart, first wife of Robert Dudley, did she fall or was she pushed? the enduring mystery of her death lasts to this day and we shall here more of her later in the week.

Royal Progress day 3

Hatfield Old Palace, Houses of Parliament and Banquet. Hatifield Old Palace, the home of Elizabeth I and where she held her first Privy council meeting after being informed that she was now finally queen. The great Hall is magnificent, It is all that remains of the old palace and is still in great demand today for weddings and banquets, it is silent today as we were the only people in there and our footsteps echoed on the bare oak floor. We were very lucky to be allowed to go into the knot garden and see intricate designs layout of the garden. Just outside the gates of the old place is St Ethereda’s church, quite an odd church that holds one of the most strangest tombs I have seen. It’s Robert Cecil Elizabeth’s chief minister otherwise known as the elf because he was so small. It’s a white marble tomb with four angels holding a canopy over a bare skeleton, really very odd indeed. After we got back to London we had an hour in the national portrait gallery, and just lost ourselves in the Tudor room, nothing but Tudor portraits and I love going there as the exhibition changes often so you never know what you are going to see which I think id great. Today we saw Anne Boleyn, Robert Dudley several of Elizabeth and of course Henry VIII. We had a special guided tour of the Houses of Parliament, courtesy of our local MP and it’s a great sensation to stand in places where history took place. The House of Lords is all red coloured and the House of Commons is all Green and where the sovereign is allowed to go, has blue carpet. The chambers themselves are much smaller than they look on TV or the movies and to go ‘backstage’ was a real, privilege. The day was rounded off by a medieval banquet held in crypt near top the tower of London, it was great entertainment, with jugglers dancers, singers, acrobats and of course some very good sword fighting, well almost a brawl really. Henry VIII himself presided over the festivities, a larger than life character in more ways than one.

Royal Progress Day 2

Day 2 Westminster Abbey & the Tower of London Westminster, the nation’s parish church, has stood on this spot for over a thousand years and all the kings and queens of England have been crowned here except 1 since 1066. Intertwined with the nation’s history there are over 450 tombs here and all started by Edward the Confessor, his shrine built by Henry III stands in pride of place just behind the high alter and it was a rare privilege to be allowed to go up to the shrine and sit for a while and listen to a short service. Elizabeth I and Mary are buried here in the lady chapel and opposite lies Mary Queen of Scots, in a much grander tomb, she must be having the last chuckle on history I think. Many of our Sovereigns are here, Henry VII and his grandson Edward VI lie in the lady chapel. Anne of Cleves is very hard to find just some simple gold lettering on a wall at the side of the high alter. We travelled down to the Tower of London by river as Royalty would have done and saw traitors gate from water level as Elizabeth I her mother Anne Boleyn and countless others would have done. The Tower is in fact many towers around two concentric walls but the largest and most is the White tower that holds some great exhibitions of Henry VIII armour and weapons. Unfortunately we couldn’t go into the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincular as they were tuning the organ. Inside are the graves of Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard and Lady Jane grey all three queens of England and all three executed on tower green. The day was finished off with fish and chips in The George, and old coaching Inn known and the oldest galleried pub in London to be frequented by Shakespeare and Charles Dickens.

Royal Progress day 1

On a warm autumn afternoon we started the tour with a slow stroll around London just north of the Thames into Holborn and Lincoln Inn fields. Lincoln Inn is where Sir Thomas more practiced law and there is a quiet calm around the one of the Inns of Court. We visited the Old Curiosity Shop, made famous by Charles Dickens and Sir John Soanes museum. A place so individual it almost defies a description, he was an architect of some talent and grandeur and his collection of artefacts and paintings is unrivalled. A single room holds original Canneletto, Turner and Hogarth paintings. We completed a pub crawl of Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese a pub frequented by Samuel Johnson he who wrote the first English dictionary. The Citie of Yorke London’s oldest pub dating from 1540, the Mitre dating from 1546 just off Hatton Garden, the Punch Tavern on Fleet street the haunt of journalists, finally the Black Friar a pub just by Blackfriars bridge , it is the site of Baynard’s castle where Catherine of Aragon had her marriage annulment trial. A good start to a long Royal Progress tour