Kings & Queens: Amazing & Extraordinary Facts

by Day, Malcolm

  Elizabeth had long heard tales of her wayward cousin’s adventures and in truth was a little jealous of her accomplishments. Already she had got through two husbands and probably a lover. And when it was decided that Mary should be held prisoner indefinitely, the English virgin queen was forever asking questions about her. Whose hair was finer? Which of the two was the more attractive?

  Relations slowly soured, however. When the Pope excommunicated Elizabeth in 1580 and called on all Catholics to strive to overthrow the Protestant heretic, Elizabeth became paranoid that Mary was the focus of every conspiracy. Eventually she decided the Scot was too dangerous to live and had her executed. So ended the relationship of the two royal cousins – who never did meet. Until, perhaps, in death when they were buried beside each other in Westminster Abbey.

  Faerie Queen from Broken Home

  Brave Queen Elizabeth never recovers

  A queen with less foreign blood than any previous monarch embodied the patriotic spirit of a nation. The amazing 45 year reign of Elizabeth I transformed a squabbling medieval state on the periphery of Europe into a unified, proud nation capable of defeating the mighty Spanish Armada and exploring the world.

  This queen at the helm has gone down in English history as perhaps the most remarkable leader the country has ever known. Yet the glittering success of poet Edmund Spenser’s ‘Gloriana’ belies the dreadful early years of her life – or perhaps they were the making of her life.

  Elizabeth came from a broken home. Her father, Henry VIII, had not only divorced her mother, Anne Boleyn, he had her executed and declared Elizabeth to be illegitimate. Unloved, unwanted, her childhood was dominated by tragedy, her fate varying with every alteration in her father’s politics.

  Her unhappiness continued into adolescence. Under the reign of her brother Edward VI, she came under suspicion after flirting with Thomas Seymour who was executed for treason. Her life took a serious downturn on the succession of her elder sister Mary who became convinced that Elizabeth lay at the heart of a Protestant rebellion.

  Elizabeth I was depicted as ‘The Faerie Queen’ by poet Edmund Spenser

  When taken captive to the Tower of London, she saw en route all the sorry evidence of a failed revolt – heads of executed traitors, for instance, displayed on pikes in the streets. For more than a year she was held in prison, fearing the executioner’s visit at any time.

  But as she languished there, hope sprang forth. Londoners everywhere secretly sided with Elizabeth. Treasonous notices were scattered in the streets pledging support for her against Mary. A dead cat dressed in a Catholic priest’s vestments was strung up on a gallows in Cheapside.

  Such signs declared that London was ready to embrace a regime change. A wave of revulsion had spread against its queen, her Spanish husband and their religion. The day Mary I died in 1558 turned Elizabeth’s fortunes for good.

  Suddenly the new queen could leave behind the baggage of a disturbed childhood and look forward to a time of peace and harmony. But above all, this lonely heart yearned for affection. She soon learned she had a gift for captivating her subjects, including William Shakespeare towards the end of her reign.

  Elizabeth made a point of travelling round the country every year to meet her people and lapped up their blessings. Once in Coventry the mayor presented her with a chalice filled with gold. Elizabeth was pleased: ‘I have but few such gifts.’ The mayor ventured to add, ‘If it please your Grace there is a great deal more in it – the hearts of your loving subjects.’ ‘We thank you’, she replied, ‘It is a great deal more indeed.’

  CULT OF THE FAERIE QUEEN

  Elizabeth employed court painters to promote the cult of ‘The Faerie Queen’, as Edmund Spenser entitled the poem dedicated to her. Its focus was the virgin queen-goddess, Gloriana. As Elizabeth grew older, she is said to have refused to look any more in a mirror, preferring instead to gaze upon the masterpieces of ‘faerie’ wonder created by her artists who could sustain the belief that her beauty would never fade.

  Here was a monarch with an exceptional personality: one of strength, wisdom, courage, yet one that knew its emotional weakness. The wounds of her youth ran deep. Perhaps it is no surprise that Elizabeth courted affection from subjects and suitors alike, that she was inordinately vain and accepted flattery with relish. Yet she would never allow anyone too close. ‘It shall be sufficient for me,’ she remarked, ‘that a marble stone shall declare that a queen, having reigned such a time, lived and died a virgin.’

  Eager Scot Opens Can of Worms

  James VI of Scotland has no idea what trials await him as James I of England

  Of his 59 year life, James was king for 58 of them. And he was King of Scotland for 36 years before even beginning his reign over England, the dual reign lasting another 22 years to 1625.

  When James VI of Scotland crossed the border in 1603, it was a momentous occasion. The last time a Scottish monarch had stepped on English soil was almost a century ago. For many Scots the accession to the English throne – by virtue of being great grandson to Henry VIII’s sister Margaret – was a conquest in itself. Others were less sure, thinking it may result in the Scots ceding control of their own affairs.

  With great excitement, and to much jubilation, James galloped south at tremendous speed, riding in one stretch 40 miles in under four hours, his entourage desperately trying to keep up.

  On arriving in London, though the people there also welcomed their new king and new Stuart dynasty, James would find much cause for anxiety.

  Unlike his healthy lifestyle north of the border, famine and destitution beset the capital. A massive outbreak of the bubonic plague had struck London in the year of his accession, killing 30,000 inhabitants, one-in-four of its population. On top of that, within a year he narrowly escaped an assassination attempt as the Gunpowder Plot aimed to blow him up at the state opening of Parliament. But perhaps his greatest challenge was fixing a Church riven by dissent.

  Puritan trouble

  A growing movement of Puritans petitioned the king to make radical reforms to the Church of England in line with their simpler Calvinist worship. They wanted to rid it of elements that smacked of Catholicism: music to be restricted, no bowing, an end to clerical vestments, and many other changes to ritual, which though might seem inconsequential, in sum would radically alter the nature of the Church of England.

  Never shy of intellectual debate, James convened a council at Hampton Court to try to settle the matter. He thought the best course to be compromise. But in making concessions to the Puritans, he upset his bishops. In an effort to reassure both camps, James authorized a new translation of the Bible that would be the fruit of both Puritans and Anglican bishops, and therefore bring unity to the Church. Writing in the language of everyday use, 54 scholars laboured for seven years to produce the version that has come down to us as The King James Bible, or Authorized Version. Unfortunately, despite its enduring value, the ‘Good Book’ probably caused more disagreement than harmony. Society was set on the road to civil war.

  Flight to New World

  Throwing up his arms in despair, the King came to consider the whole Puritan venture to be ‘unlawful, and to savour of tumult, sedition and violence’. His fear that it might cause widespread unrest soon prompted him to take a hard line on Puritan dissent. Unless they conformed, James pronounced, he would ‘harry them out of the land’. The King’s threats were heeded, and in 1608 persecution forced many pilgrims to flee to Holland in the hope of finding a freer life there.

  When this did not materialise, they returned briefly to prepare for what would be the famous migration aboard the Mayflower. In 1620 the ‘Pilgrim Fathers’ set sail across the Atlantic to become the founders of the New World. For two months the ship was home to 101 passengers. Of these, 35 were Puritan ‘saints’ and another 66 were ordinary folk driven by hardship to seek a better life. What these émigrés did not know, of course, was that within a generation a puritanical Commonwealth, led by Oliver Cromwell
, would be constituted in the old country.

  INVENTIONS

  During his long reign, first of Scotland, then also of England, James witnessed many important innovations. The first water closet was installed at a country home; a microscope was built in the Netherlands to magnify scientific discoveries; a Scottish mathematician discovered logarithms to eliminate tedious calculations. Galileo invented the thermometer and claimed to see mountains on the moon through the new telescope. Hand grenades and a rifle were designed. Even the first submarine appeared: a wooden framed vessel covered in greased leather skin was demonstrated in the Thames.

  So Good a Man, So Bad a King

  Failed experiment of the principled Charles I

  The young Charles I, unlike his father James I, was sober, dignified, handsome and courteous. It was said that he never violated a woman, nor struck a man, nor even spoke an evil word. He lacked his father’s intellect but appealed to a generation who valued his integrity.

  Charles was a small man; in some paintings he almost disappears into his riding boots. But he had a deep-rooted sense of his own dignity and importance. Set in a delicate frame with a feminine face, his melancholy air almost seemed to mark him out for tragedy.

  When Charles unexpectedly became heir after his elder brother Henry died, his awkwardness and shyness made him rely heavily on trusted advisors. But one of them, the Duke of Buckingham, led Charles disastrously to quarrel with Parliament. In truth, Buckingham probably brought out the King’s natural distaste for those beneath him endowed with power.

  He decried parliamentarians as having ‘the nature of cats’, which ‘ever grow cursed with age.’ Their demands for reform, he believed, would only result in war. So in 1629 he had done with them and abandoned parliamentary government altogether. Charles believed that kings had divine authority to rule. For the next eleven years he pursued a policy known as ‘Thorough’, a rule with select ministers for the mutual benefit of all his subjects, in effect a ‘benevolent dictatorship’.

  This policy worked for a time, but Charles was really only as good as his advisors. Some of them aroused enmity in the country. Thomas Wentworth, earl of Strafford, was nicknamed ‘Black Tom the Tyrant’ for his brutality in Ireland. When William Laud, archbishop of Canterbury, persuaded Charles to lead an army into Scotland in pursuance of his policy imposing the English Prayer Book on its people, the King came unstuck.

  Crowds gather outside Banqueting House to witness the first ever public execution of an English king

  In 1640, he was forced to recall Parliament. The King and his people were now at loggerheads. This time it was civil war. Charles fought for seven years for his throne before his forces suffered a decisive defeat at Naseby in 1645.

  Four years later Charles was convicted of treason in Oliver Cromwell’s parliament and beheaded outside Banqueting House in Whitehall. To the end Charels I was a man of principle, one who would not sacrifice his beliefs to save his crown.

  ENGLAND’S FIRST ARCHITECT

  Charles I’s declared aim was to create the most civilised court in Europe. He patronised all the leading artists – collecting 1400 paintings himself – and in Inigo Jones the King found the finest architect of his age. Jones transformed English architecture on Classical lines, creating a style whose influence would last 300 years. Among his masterpieces are the Banqueting Hall (on the steps of which Charles was beheaded) in Whitehall, the Queen’s House at Greenwich and St Paul’s Church, Covent Garden.

  Time of Gay Abandon Comes to Woeful End

  Charles II liberates devils from Puritan prison

  When Charles II came to the throne in 1660 England had suffered nearly two decades of unhappiness. First, a long civil war ended miserably with the execution of her king, then a puritanical Commonwealth ruled the nation, during which all manner of repression prevented the people from enjoying themselves. Virtually every outdoor recreation had been banned by the Puritans on the ground of being a distraction from the path of God.

  Come the Restoration and hunting, wrestling, animal-baiting, tennis, ice-skating and the earliest forms of organized football all reappeared in public. Horse-racing drew large crowds again – principally on the back of Charles’s personal patronage of Newmarket race course, where he kept several Arab horses.

  The arts flourished again. With the King’s encouragement theatres reopened to riotous abandon. New bawdy plays, subsequently known as Restoration Drama, were staged in which actresses were used for the first time, replacing boys who previously acted female roles. One of the first to hit the stage was Nell Gwynne, formerly an orange seller, who so delighted the King she became one of his many mistresses. Charles had set the tone for a lewd society on the very first night of his reign, when he slipped away from the celebrations to spend a little time with a mistress.

  ROYAL OBSERVATORY

  Stung by remarks about poor English navigation at a reception for a French visitor, Charles II boasted that his astronomers could chart the movement of the stars with great accuracy. When told that England’s equipment was not up to the task, the King ordered Christopher Wren to build an observatory that would outdo all rivals. Thus was produced the Royal Observatory near the Palace of Greenwich. From its Octagonal Room, ‘Greenwich Mean Time’ was established as the world’s temporal yardstick.

  Widespread relief at the relaxation of Puritan restrictions, however, meant members of society, like liberated felons, went about with gay abandon. Gambling, prostitution and promiscuity caused some to question the good of such freedom. Even the liberal-minded civil servant Samuel Pepys looked down his nose at ‘the lewdness and beggary of the court which I am feared will bring all to ruin again.’

  Not all spokesmen for the Puritan ideal had disappeared underground. When the poet, John Milton, retired from politics at the Restoration of the monarchy to concentrate on poetry, he produced one of the longest laments in the English language on the desperate state of society.

  With his eyes deteriorating into blindness, he dictated 10,500 lines in Paradise Lost to ‘justify the ways of God to men’, sadly conceding that Satan is the most beguiling of characters.

  Two calamities occurred at about the same time which confirmed to many the truth of the poet’s vision. For 18 months from the spring of 1665, England was in the grip of its worst outbreak of the plague since the Black Death three centuries earlier. At its peak, the epidemic was claiming 7,000 Londoners a week, and it spread mercilessly across the country.

  Scarcely had the plague died down than a second disaster struck, in the Great Fire of September 1666. Some with fervid imagination noted that without the first numeral of the year, the remaining figure pointed to the apocalyptic anti-Christ of The Revelation of St John. Perhaps the wrath of retribution was indeed being visited on this licentious land!

  Fleeing into Exile Disguised as a Girl

  The brief reign of James II

  When the Catholic James II came to the throne in 1685, aged 52, he had spent most of his life abroad in exile. As the second son, and one of six children, born to Charles I and the French Henrietta Maria, James spent his adolescence dodging anti-royalists in the Civil War.

  He escaped from house arrest in St James’s Palace disguised as a girl and fled first to Holland to be with his sister Mary, and then to Paris to be with his mother (the French king’s daughter), and finally to Scotland. Later he joined the French and Spanish armies, before at last retunring to England when his elder brother Charles II had restored the monarchy.

  However, James’s accession to the throne in 1685 was opposed by many in the Commons who feared the return of Catholicism in government (Roman Catholics had been excluded from the House of Commons since 1678). Coupled with a haughty arrogance, this meant James only lasted three years as king.

  The birth of his son, and therefore another Catholic heir, proved an unpalatable prospect for many parliamentarians, who instead invited an invasion from William of Orange, the Protestant son of James’s sister Mary, who had m
arried the sovereign prince of Holland.

  Declared abdicated, the king, with an all too vivid memory of what had happened to his father, soon fled into exile again – this time to the colourful French milieu of Louis XIV where he would live out much of his remaining life.

  JACOBITE REBELLIONS

  When Parliament forced James II to abdicate in favour of William of Orange, supporters of the old Stuart regime were bent on reversing their fortunes. Largely Catholic, though also including some Protestants who did not accept the new Orange regime, these supporters were known as Jacobites (after Jacobus, the Latin for James).

  A year after his dethronement, James attempted to recover the crown in 1689, landing in Ireland with a large French army, joined by numerous Jacobite sympathisers. On July 1, a Jacobite army of 21,000 mostly French and Irish troops massed on the south bank of the River Boyne outside Dublin, while William and his army of 35,000 confronted them from the north. The King’s superior forces proved too great, however, and James was forced to flee the bogs. The Orange Order still commemorates the victory, erroneously said to have occurred on July 12, hence their reference to ‘The Glorious Twelfth’.

  Any Jacobite hopes of reclaiming the English throne were thus stalled. James’s son, the ‘Old Pretender’, did join another doomed effort in 1715. The cause was then left to James’s grandson, the ‘Young Pretender’, Bonnie Prince Charlie, to take up the mantle in the ‘Forty-Five Rebellion’, but this brave effort eventually petered out after defeat at the Battle of Culloden in 1746.