Life and Death of the Wicked Lady Skelton

by Rowland Hughes

  3 The Ionic order is one of the three orders of classical architecture, the others being Doric and Corinthian. The Ionic order originally dates back to Greece in the 6th and 5th centuries BC, the political and cultural high-point of classical Athens. It is associated with slender columns, with a distinctive scroll-like volute or capital at the top of each column, and was a popular feature of neo-classical architecture in the eighteenth century.

  4 ‘Some foolishness’.

  5 Literally, ‘duck’, but it can also mean a ‘false rumour’, as it does here.

  6 ‘It matters little to me; I don’t care’.

  7 ‘Se’ennight’ or more commonly ‘sennight’ is another term for a week – ‘seven nights’. It has fallen out of usage, though we retain the related term ‘fortnight’. In this sentence, ‘Monday se’ennight’ means ‘a week on Monday’.

  8 A ‘drum’ – also known as a ‘kettle drum’ – was a large, informal tea party, held in the afternoon, at which tea, cake and sandwiches would be served. They were popular in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Guests would dress for daytime visiting, rather than in formal evening attire. The name possibly derives from the tea party’s colonial origins in parts of the British Empire such as India, when officer’s wives would host such parties in military camps, and regimental kettle drums would be used as substitute tables.

  9 An archaic spelling of ‘sat’.

  Part II

  1 The English Rogue, by Richard Head (1637–86) is one of the earliest examples of prose fiction in English, and one of the very first English works to be widely translated on the continent. A bawdy, picaresque account of the often criminal adventures of its protagonist, Meriton Latroon, it was initially denied a publication licence in 1665 for being too indecent, but became a bestseller when Head tempered its contents a little. The popularity of the work, when it was finally published in 1667, led to the production of several sequels or further volumes of the work, some of them authored by the bookseller Francis Kirkman. This chapter epigraph is taken from the frontispiece of the fifth volume, published in 1688, with the full title The English Rogue, Containing a Brief Discovery of the Most Eminent Cheats, Robberies & other Extravagancies, Committed by Him. This volume is really little more than an abridged summary of the previous four books. None of this volume was written by Head, who had died two years earlier. The presence of the epigraph suggests King-Hall’s knowledge of a long tradition of English and European fiction about criminals and highwaymen, and her desire to relate her novel to this.

  The Wedding

  1 From William Secker, A Wedding-Ring Fit for the Finger: Or, The Salve of Divinity on the Sore of Humanity (London: H. Hills, 1707), p. 15. This is the text of a sermon full of earnest Christian advice for husbands and wives, as this warning about choosing a wife for her beauty suggests.

  2 This is just one of many details of seventeenth-century marriage customs, food and fashions that King-Hall accurately portrays in the course of this chapter.

  3 Gilded rosemary was a fashionable choice for inclusion in wedding posies in the seventeenth century, to be carried by brides and bridesmaids. Often it would have been previously dipped in scented water. Rosemary was associated with memory and remembrance, and it reappears in this symbolic capacity in the final paragraphs of the novel.

  4 A coranto (also known by the French term ‘courante’) was a courtly dance dating from the sixteenth century, distinguished by a rapid pace (‘courante’ means ‘running’) and a pattern of short advances and retreats by the dancers.

  5 Two more dances from the period. The galliard was an intricate and athletic dance involving much leaping, jumping and hopping, said to have been a favourite of Queen Elizabeth I. The pavane, by contrast, was much slower, involving a formal procession by the dancers. All of the dances mentioned here were most popular in the sixteenth century, perhaps suggesting that Barbara’s wedding is rather old-fashioned, despite its extravagance.

  6 The cushion dance, or kissing dance, was a popular dance from the late sixteenth century, and common at weddings and parties. A dancer would choose a partner by kissing them, and once this dance was completed, the first dancer would retire while the second dancer would kiss a new partner, and so on, until everyone in the room had been kissed and had danced.

  Midday at Maryiot Cells

  1 This epigraph is from the poem ‘Absence’, or, as it is sometimes known, ‘That Time and Absence Proves Rather Helps than Hurts to Loves.’ The poem has often been credited to John Donne (1572–1631), though this attribution is uncertain. It first appeared in print in 1602, but it was not then associated with Donne, nor was it was included in any of the earliest editions of Donne’s works. It was not definitely linked to Donne’s name until as late as 1721, and the editors of the authoritative Variorum Edition of the Poetry of John Donne (1995) consider the poem to be “noncanonical”.

  2 Local law courts. Petty sessions were magistrates’ courts, and dealt with minor crimes which did not require a jury; while quarter sessions were presided over by at least two Justices of the Peace, and were held quarterly in the county seat, at Epiphany, Easter, Midsummer, and Michaelmas. However, King-Hall is guilty of a minor anachronism here, as petty sessions were not introduced until the beginning of the eighteenth century, to alleviate the burden on the quarter sessions.

  3 The Popish Plot of 1678–81 was a fictitious Catholic conspiracy to assassinate King Charles II and replace him with his brother, James. It was invented, and elaborated with ever more outrageous claims, by Titus Oates (1649–1705), and resulted in widespread anti-Catholic hysteria, the passage of numerous anti-Catholic laws by Parliament, and the imprisonment and execution of many prominent Catholics. Oates was eventually discredited and convicted of perjury, though later pardoned by King William III. The atmosphere fomented by Oates’ fabricated account of the plot contributed to the passage of the Exclusion Bill by Parliament, which excluded the overtly Catholic James from succession to the throne. The bill was ultimately defeated in the House of Lords, as the anti-Catholic fever began to die down in 1681. These events would certainly have been the focus of much speculation and gossip during the period.

  4 A type of clay used to bleach cloth and absorb grease or oil.

  5 The New Gardens, or New Spring Gardens, at Vauxhall, were one of London’s most popular sites for relaxation and entertainment, from shortly before the Restoration until the mid-nineteenth century. At this time, they would have consisted of several acres of ornamental trees and planting, with decorative fountains and numerous paths. They feature in many plays of the late seventeenth century, and the Gardens were often chosen as the site for romantic assignations. The New Exchange was a fashionable bazaar or shopping arcade, located on the south side of the Strand, which had been opened in 1608 by James I, but was extremely popular after the Restoration.

  6 A King of Arms is the most senior of the officers of arms, who are appointed by the Monarch to superintend ceremonies of state, supervise matters pertaining to armorial bearings, and maintain heraldic records. The Clarenceux King of Arms specifically has jurisdiction over England and Wales to the south of the River Trent.

  7 A word game based on the alphabet. The exact wording can vary, but the first participant usually starts by saying something like:

  I love my love with an A because he is attractive

  I hate my love with A because he is avaricious

  I took my love to Andover and fed him on asparagus and anchovies

  His name is Andrew and he lives in Aylesbury.

  The next player does the same for the letter B, and so on.

  8 A popular early-modern stringed instrument, played in a similar way to a modern guitar. It was light and portable and relatively easy to master.

  9 A complex three-player card game involving the taking of tricks, an ancestor of modern-day whist. Originating in Spain, the game became highly fashionable across Europe in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and was usually pla
yed for stakes. It plays a central part in Alexander Pope’s mock-epic poem The Rape of the Lock (1714), whose heroine Belinda is addicted to the game, much like Barbara.

  10 ‘St Nicholas’s clerks’ was a term used to describe thieves, robbers, and highwaymen. Saint Nicholas is the patron saint of repentant thieves (amongst other things). According to one legend, he persuaded a group of robbers to restore their stolen goods to their rightful owners.

  11 More commonly spelled ‘gleek’, this was a popular, thought complex, three-player card game from the sixteenth century to the early eighteenth century. It was played for stakes, and although the rules are too complicated to summarise easily, it had two main phases, the first having something in common with modern poker, and the second with modern whist. In the first phase, all cards were afforded a numerical value; players competed to gain the best ‘ruff’, or the highest score of cards in the same suit. Money would also change hands if players held a flush, a gleek (three of a kind), or a mourneval (four of a kind). Following a round of bidding and raising, as in poker, players then proceeded to play their cards for tricks, as in modern whist. Each phase of the game contributed points to an overall score.

  Midnight on Watling Street

  1 Charles G. Harper, Half-hours with the Highwaymen: Picturesque Biographies and Traditions of the “Knights of the Road” (London: Chapman Hall, 1908), Vol. 1, p. 134. Harper’s book offers an overview of outlaws and highwaymen in England, going all the way back to the legendary Robin Hood. Drawing heavily on early eighteenth-century sources, it also contains summaries of the careers of some of England’s most notorious highwaymen from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (though not including Katherine Ferrers, needless to say), and provides copious details of the various roads around London that were most prone to highway robbery, of Newgate prison, and of the Tyburn gallows. Much of this material informs King-Hall’s narrative.

  2 A mantua was a type of robe or over-gown, designed so that some of the petticoat beneath would be visible. Sultane is a type of twilled cloth made from a combination of silk and wool.

  3 Ancient road traversing England from Kent in the South East, up to London, and across in a north westerly direction through Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire and Herefordshire. It was a major artery of Roman Britain and remained an important route for travellers and commerce in the seventeenth century, although, just as King-Hall depicts, its condition was extremely poor. This led to the establishment of the first turnpike trust in the early eighteenth century, to raise funds for paving the road.

  4 Underworld slang term for a hangman’s noose or halter. Tyburn, which features later in the novel, was the area of London where criminals were hanged (on the site of modern-day Marble Arch). A tippet was a lady’s scarf.

  5 Beef tongues or ox tongues. ‘Neat’ is an archaic English word for a domestic cow or ox.

  First Kill

  1 William Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece, lines 918–9. In the original poem, the line refers to Tarquin’s rape of Lucrece, which robs her of her honour and leads to her death at her own hand. The reference is ironic, for Barbara has sacrificed her ‘honour’ voluntarily. It also hints satirically at the extent to which female virtue has been fetishized and commodified, as King-Hall transfers this description of metaphorical theft to her account of literal theft.

  2 Barbara Palmer, 1st Duchess of Cleveland, Countess of Castlemaine (1640–1709), commonly known as Lady Castlemaine. She was the mistress of King Charles I, by whom she had five children.

  3 A reference to the popular dice game called Hazard. One player (sometimes a banker representing the house in a gambling club), known as a ‘setter’, specifies the stake (in this instance £150) and also calls a ‘main’, which can be any number from 5 to 9. The other player, the ‘caster’, then rolls two dice in an effort to score the main and win the stake.

  4 Hortense Mancini, Duchesse Mazarin (1646–99), was one of five aristocratic Italian sisters, famed for their beauty, whose lives became entangled in various ways with some of the most powerful and wealthy men in Europe. King Charles had actually proposed to her in 1659, shortly before he was restored to the throne, but his proposal was rejected by her uncle and guardian, Cardinal Mazarin, who thought the exiled king had little prospect of regaining his throne. Some sixteen years later, fleeing from an unhappy marriage, she became King Charles’s mistress. She was notorious both for her promiscuity and her bisexuality, engaging in many love affairs with both men and women.

  5 A small prison on Poultry, a street in the City of London. One of its most famous inmates was the seventeenth-century highwayman Captain James Hind (1616–52), who was finally arrested when he unsuccessfully attempted to rob Oliver Cromwell. He was convicted of treason because of his avowedly Royalist sympathies, and was hanged, drawn and quartered in Worcester.

  The Lady and the Steward

  1 From William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Act 1, scene 7.

  2 The Biblical story of Susanna and the Elders is found in chapter 13 of the Book of Daniel. It concerns a virtuous young woman who is spied on by two lecherous old men, who then try to blackmail her, saying they will falsely accuse her of meeting a lover in the garden unless she agrees to have sex with them. Daniel intercedes just as she is about to be stoned to death for promiscuity, and after cross-examination of the elders it becomes clear that they are lying, and they are executed instead of Susanna. As an icon of falsely accused, virtuous womanhood (often represented in early modern art), Susanna is clearly an ironic choice of subject for Barbara’s embroidery. The story is also only considered to be canonical by the Roman Catholic church, so Barbara’s association with this story places her as far away, ideologically, from the Puritan Hogarth as it is possible to be.

  At the Sign of the Golden Glove

  1 Proverbs 2.18.

  2 A soft, delicate fabric, usually silk, used as a lining for dresses.

  3 The ‘Question Lay’ was the very specific form of robbery described in this passage. It seems not to have been very common, and there are very few references to this term, but it can be found in the Newgate Calendar (a compendium of accounts of notorious criminals from the late seventeenth to the late eighteenth centuries, available in various editions, and enormously popular with readers of the period) describing the career of one Moll Hawkins, who was executed at Tyburn on 22 December 1703. King-Hall’s description of the crime is nearly identical to that found in the Newgate Calendar, which was almost certainly her source for this detail. ‘Lay’ in this sense means ‘line of business’ or ‘adventure’ – see also note 4 to Part II, Chapter 1: Lovers’ Meeting.

  4 A type of needlepoint lace featuring elaborate designs, usually in gold or silver mixed with coloured silks. Although the name suggests it originated in Spain, it was most commonly worn at the court of King Louis XIV of France (reigned 1661–1715) and may well have been manufactured in France.

  5 A pinner was a small, close fitting lace cap worn by women to accessorise their hair, popular in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It had long flaps on either side which were either pinned up in the lady’s hair, or worn down and pinned to the breast. A double pinner or settee was a variant on this, in which two caps were worn in combination and the pinning was more elaborate.

  Dark Designments

  1 William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 2, scene 2.

  2 A selection of folk remedies for common ailments. Quinsy was an inflammation of the throat. ‘Rew’ is presumably a variant spelling of ‘rue’, a yellow-flowering shrub with strong-smelling feathery leaves, formerly much used for medicinal purposes. ‘Madragories’ is a variant of mandragora, or mandrake, a narcotic plant, the leaves and roots of which were often used to make a sedative or painkiller. ‘Featherfew’, more commonly known as ‘feverfew’, is a perennial plant with large, daisy-like flowers, traditionally used to treat all manner of ailments including headaches and fever (hence the name). ‘Burnet’ proba
bly refers to the burnet-saxifrage, which was used by herbalists to make a diuretic. ‘Dragons’ here refers to the flowering plant often known as dragonwort or common bistort, the roots of which were used to make an astringent similar to witch-hazel.

  3 ‘Holland’ is a type of linen manufactured in the Netherlands, also called Holland-cloth. A tippet is a strip of cloth or sometimes part of a dress, usually attached to the sleeve or hood, and worn as a scarf. ‘Frieze’ is a coarse woollen cloth with a raised nap on one side, consisting of raised and brushed fibres of the wool. ‘Pintado’ was a fine cotton cloth imported from India, similar to chintz; it was painted or dyed with patterns.

  4 ‘Sack’ was a type of white wine originating in Spain or the Canary Islands. ‘Manchet’ was bread made from flour of the highest quality, therefore considered a luxury only available to the wealthy. ‘A manchet of bread’ probably describes a small, flat bread roll made from this flour.

  5 ‘Paps and caudles’ were types of thin gruel made by mixing bread with water or milk, served to invalids or to babies. Caudles were usually fortified with wine or ale, and spices.

  6 In the New Testament, Dorcas (also known by her Aramaic name, Tabitha) is a Christian renowned for her kindness and charity. On her death, Peter visits Joppa, where she lived, and raises her back to life. The story is from Acts of the Apostles, chapter 9, verses 36–43.

  The Knot is Broken

  1 From the poem ‘Love and Life’ by John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester (1647–80).

  The Heavy Hill

  1 From ‘The Ballad of the Nut-Brown Maid’, an anonymously authored traditional English folk-ballad, dating back to the 15th century. It was included by Thomas Percy in his Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1765). The main theme of the poem is women’s fidelity; the maid of the title is an archetype of self-sacrificial love and devotion.