The Stuarts in 100 Facts

by Andrea Zuvich

  The Barbary Pirates were by no means the only pirates on the seas, and others were just as menacing. English pirate John Ward was the most notorious pirate of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, and was so infamous that several ballads were written about him. Captain Kidd was hanged in London in 1701, and his body was kept in an iron cage as a warning to others not to go into piracy. However, the Golden Age of piracy was by then in full swing. Daniel Defoe wrote A General History of Pyrates; in this, he stated that it was dangerous for ‘governments to be negligent, and not take an early care in suppressing these sea bandits before they gather strength’.

  52. BOYS WORE SKIRTS UNTIL ‘BREECHED’; WOMEN SOMETIMES DRESSED LIKE MEN

  In many portraits of young aristocratic families during the Stuart period, it can appear as though there are no boys; even the toddlers are wearing skirts or dresses. This would be because it was customary for boys to wear skirts, much like girls, until they were ‘breeched’ or given their first pair of breeches. This was a symbolic event, showing that they were moving from the world of being looked after by women and towards becoming men, and would usually take place between the ages of six and eight. After the Stuart era, this age grew younger and younger until the tradition stopped.

  There are many portraits from the Restoration on that depict aristocratic women wearing men’s clothing. The two most famous paintings that feature this include the Simon Verelst portrait of Mary of Modena, c. 1675 and Simon Cooper portrait of Frances Stuart from the mid-1660s. In both, each lady is wearing a male periwig and cravat – both of which were thoroughly masculine. Stuart, in the buff coat, has the plainer outfit of the two, as Mary of Modena’s appears heavily embroidered. Trends come and go, and in this period of Stuart history, it was the height of fashion for women in the highest echelons of society to wear masculine attire when out hunting or riding. The rest of the time it really wasn’t the done thing to dress like a man, but some women did anyway, such as Hortense Mancini and Queen Christina of Sweden. These ladies usually did whatever they wanted anyway.

  53. DANIEL DEFOE KEPT GETTING INTO HOT WATER

  Daniel Defoe, or De Foe (c. 1660–1731), is now only remembered for his popular and exciting novels. A Journal of a Plague Year follows one man’s experiences through life during the plague outbreak of 1665. Robinson Crusoe, a tale of the sole survivor of a shipwreck, is a well-loved children’s adventure classic. Moll Flanders and Roxana were remarkable, for Defoe wrote from a fallen woman’s perspective. What most people don’t know is that he ran into a lot of trouble during his seventy-odd years on Earth.

  Born in London, and prohibited from attending a university because he was of a Dissenting family, Defoe nevertheless received a good education from Morton’s Academy in the Stoke Newington area. When he was still a young man, Defoe joined the Monmouth Rebellion of 1685 as a rebel. It wasn’t all he thought it would be, and when King James II issued a Royal Pardon a few weeks later, he took advantage of it and left (thus sparing himself the horrors of the Battle of Sedgemoor and the Bloody Assizes). He must have believed there was something in Monmouth’s claims of legitimacy, because later on he wrote a pamphlet on the possibility of a succession through Monmouth’s children.

  Throughout his lifetime he was plagued by serious financial troubles, which landed him in prison a couple more times. Defoe moved around quite a bit (being chased by his creditors could have had something to do with this). He rented a house in Stoke Newington and then leased a house in Colchester, Essex. He is also believed to have lived in Tooting (then known as Tooting Graveney) at some point. Oddly enough, for someone with a consistently poor track record when it came to personal finances, he wrote about economics several times!

  Not one to let past troubles get in his way, Defoe became a political pamphleteer. A staunch supporter of William and Mary and the Glorious Revolution that had placed them on the throne, Defoe wasn’t the type to sit idly by when other writers began attacking William because he was a foreigner. Defoe hit back at William’s critics with the hugely popular The True-Born Englishman: A Satire of 1701. During the reign of Queen Anne, Defoe was placed in a pillory as punishment for seditious pamphleteering. There, instead of having rotten food (or worse) thrown at him, he was pelted with flowers.

  Once the Georgians were on the throne, he faced another problem; some people accused him of supporting the Jacobites. This he vehemently denied in the 1715 pamphlet, Appeal to Honour and Justice, in which he wrote, ‘No man in this nation ever had a more riveted aversion to the Pretender and to all the family he pretended to come of, than I; a man that had been in arms under the Duke of Monmouth, against the cruelty and arbitrary government of his pretended father; that for twenty years had to my utmost opposed him (King James II) and his party after his abdication.’

  54. STUART GARDENS WERE BAROQUE-TASTIC

  The early Stuart period was known as the Jacobean period, and during this time gardens shifted from the popular knot gardens of the Tudor age to more practical Jacobean gardens. These gardens weren’t completely about aesthetics, as many gardens contained herbs which would were used to treat a variety of physical ailments. There were also kitchen gardens, in which vegetables were grown for the preparation of food. One of the most well-preserved Jacobean gardens (and houses, for that matter) is Chastleton House, near Moreton-in-Marsh in Oxfordshire.

  Most fashions throughout the seventeenth century came largely from France, and the French fashion for elaborate formal gardens was no exception. The French influence upon gardens stems from the highly popular gardens at Versailles, with their ornate formal parterres. Earlier in the seventeenth century, in the Dutch Republic, the exotic tulip set off a craze known as ‘Tulip Mania’. In this spectacular example of an early economic bubble, a single tulip bulb was worth a stupendous amount of money. But when the bubble burst, a tulip bulb became worthless. A similar fate did not happen to pineapples, but they were used as status symbols. The first pineapple grown in England was presented to King Charles II by the royal gardener, Mr Rose. The late 1670s painting Charles II Presented with a Pineapple, which is in the Royal Collection, depicts this scene.

  France had some competition, however, in their great enemy the Dutch. The most important aspects of Late Stuart gardens are symmetry, formality, and beauty. Box (Buxus sempervirens) was one of the most commonly used hedges for Baroque gardens as it was easy to trim. Geometric shapes played a major role in these types of gardens and one usually sees conical-shaped topiaries in such a design. Sometimes animal figures were created from the topiaries. These heavily manicured gardens required an immense amount of maintenance.

  During William and Mary’s reign, Kensington Palace’s gardens were updated to this new Baroque type of garden, but in a Dutch style, which was not as ostentatious as the French. The maze at Hampton Court Palace, so often misattributed to Henry VIII’s time, was an addition made during William III’s reign (1689–1702). Mazes, as well as fountains, were a popular feature in Baroque gardens. Mary was an avid collector of both blue-and-white porcelain and exotic plants. The latter was shipped over following her and William’s rise to power in 1689 and a greenhouse/orangery was constructed at Hampton Court Palace to accommodate these plants.

  Notable examples of Baroque gardens include the recently renovated gardens at Paleis Het Loo in The Netherlands. Het Loo was one of the homes built for William and Mary in the late seventeenth century. In England, the Privy Garden of William III is as it would have looked back in 1702. Baroque gardens were often found at some of the grandest homes. At Chatsworth House, the first Duke of Devonshire had variety of Baroque structures added to his gardens, such as the Cascade and the Cascade House.

  55. THERE WERE MORE PLOTS IN THE STUART ERA THAN IN A SOAP OPERA

  And that’s not a good thing! From the Gunpowder Plot in 1605 to the Rye House Plot in 1683, there were many plots, scandals and intrigues in between. The Overbury Poisoning Scandal ruined Robert Carr’s position as favourite to King Ja
mes I. Lady Frances, Countess of Somerset was young and gorgeous and already married to the 3rd Earl of Essex. This marriage was annulled on the grounds of not being consummated, leaving Frances free to marry again. Overbury was a poet and Robert’s friend and he didn’t like Frances, and this compelled him to write the poem ‘A Wife’. It was an obvious attack on Frances and she was one ticked-off woman. She plotted to get him incarcerated in the Tower and there she had him poisoned over a period of time. When Overbury died, everyone assumed it had been of natural causes. Francis married Robert, and somehow the poisoning element got out and the couple were found guilty and sentenced to death, though the king commuted this sentence to imprisonment in the Tower.

  The Popish Plot in the late 1670s was an elaborate conspiracy theory maliciously concocted by Titus Oates and Israel Tonge that stated that there was a plot by the Catholics, to assassinate Charles II. When Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey, the magistrate looking into Oates’ and Tonge’s allegations, was found dead in a ditch, his own sword sticking out of his body, it whipped people up into an anti-Catholic frenzy. Edward Coleman was a secretary for the Duke and Duchess of York and he was one of several (probably innocent) men who were accused of and executed for treason. Catherine of Braganza, the queen herself, was accused of being privy to the plans to assassinate her husband.

  The Rye House Plot of 1683 soon followed the Popish Plot. This plot was to assassinate King Charles II and his brother, James, Duke of York (later James II) on their way back from the racing at Newmarket. They were to be set upon at one of the toll stops and assassinated, opening the way for a truly Protestant succession, with the Duke of Monmouth likely becoming king. This plot followed hard upon the Exclusion Crisis, which began in the late 1670s and was spurred on by fears that Charles’s eventual death would lead to his Catholic brother James, Duke of York, becoming king. The Exclusion Bill to prevent James from coming to the throne was led predominantly by Anthony Ashley Cooper, the 1st Earl of Shaftesbury. Several notable figures of the day were implicated in the Rye House Plot, including the Duke of Monmouth and Lord Russell. The latter was subjected to execution by beheading, which was lamentably carried out by the soon-to-be-notorious Jack Ketch, who bungled it, requiring three chops of the axe before Russell’s head was severed from his body. Under William and Mary, Russell was given a posthumous pardon – much good that did him!

  56. WE REALLY CAN’T BLAME A MOLE FOR WILLIAM III’S DEATH

  There are a number of myths that have sprung up about the Late Stuarts, more so than about the earlier ones. One of these is that William III was instantly killed in a horse riding accident. While King William III did die following an accident, the real culprit was plain old pneumonia. William’s lungs were already in a poor state as he had suffered from chronic asthma throughout his life. On 21 February 1702, the king went for a ride out on Home Park at Hampton Court Palace. There, his horse stumbled upon a molehill, which threw the king off violently, whereupon he landed on the ground and broke his collarbone. This was the reason why many Jacobites toasted to the ‘little gentleman in the black velvet waistcoat’ (the mole).

  After his broken collar bone had been set, he demanded to be taken to Kensington Palace, which is approximately 12 miles away from Hampton Court Palace and where he had a meeting scheduled with his ministers that evening. The carriage ride there was bone-jolting, and William must have been in great pain because the bone had to be re-set upon arrival at Kensington. After this, he took a few turns around what is now The King’s Gallery and sat down and fell asleep by an open window (it was a cold February day), which overlooked the elegant parterres of his Baroque gardens. His fall was not especially bad; his injuries were not life-threatening, and after all, this was a man who had sustained musket-ball grazes and the like upon his many experiences upon the battlefields of Europe.

  William awoke feverish and feeling ill (no surprise there, falling asleep in front of an icy draught!). Over the next few days his condition deteriorated, but he was able to continue to work and hold meetings with his advisors. Soon enough, however, it became clear that the king was at death’s door. His favourite, Arnold Joost Van Keppel, was by his side when he became very ill in March. At this point, the King asked for his old friend Hans Bentinck, with whom he had fallen out a few years earlier. Bentinck arrived shortly before William breathed his last – ‘Je tire vers ma fin,’ or ‘I draw towards my end.’

  And so, William Henry, Prince of Orange, Stadtholder of the Dutch Republic, and King of England, Scotland and Ireland died on 8 March, 1702, around eight or nine o’clock in the morning. As he had been born in November of 1650, he was only fifty-one years old. The post-mortem examination, which was carried out by a group of eminent physicians (including Dr Bidloo and Dr Richardson), revealed the broken bone was in the process of healing (and therefore not the cause of death), but the lungs displayed clear evidence of pneumonia; it was that which killed the king, not a mole! William’s coffin was placed beside that of his wife, Mary II, in a vault in Westminster Abbey.

  57. DOGS WERE POPULAR WITH KINGS AND KITCHEN STAFF ALIKE

  It is often said that a dog is a man’s best friend, and indeed, traditional British culture has an inherently strong love for the animal. This was pretty much the case in Stuart Britain. The royals of the Stuart era were very fond of dogs – Charles II was known for his many spaniels (which came to be known as King Charles Cavalier spaniels), and William and Mary for their pugs. Mary II loved her dog, True, so much that upon his death she had the poet Matthew Prior compose a poem in his honour. Prior did write a poem and entitled it An Epitaph on True, Her Majesty’s Dog. Dogs accompanied their masters on the hunt, and they are often seen in portraits of the aristocracy. The most popular seen in Stuart portraits include breeds such as the papillon, poodle, maltese, whippet, greyhound, spaniel, and pug.

  Most high-tech Stuart kitchens needed a dog to function. These dogs would run on a wheel contraption that would turn the spit so that roasts could cook evenly without a person having to manually turn the spit. That being said, dogs weren’t always looked upon so kindly. There was dog-fighting, which, like cock-fighting, pitted dog against dog while humans stood around cheering and placing bets. During the Great Plague, however, thousands of dogs (and cats) were killed in order to prevent further spread of the dreadful disease. They were also susceptible to intestinal worms that could pass to humans. Bigger dogs, such as mastiffs, were useful as guard dogs, while other dogs were used as food for other animals, such as hawks.

  58. THE 2ND DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM DUELLED OVER A MARRIED WOMAN … AND WON

  George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, was one of the most debauched of the Restoration rakes. As the son of the murdered first Duke of Buckingham and the rich heiress Katherine Manners, he was born into privilege and elite social rank. This was, however, of short duration for the English Civil Wars thrust him and his younger brother, Francis, into war. Francis was killed in battle, and eventually George and other Royalists like him had no choice but to flee the country and go into exile.

  As soon as the Restoration began, Villiers soon married Mary Fairfax – the daughter of the major Parliamentarian leader, Sir Thomas Fairfax. Villiers’ interesting choice of wife (she was considered plain) – and the fact that her father consented – is surprising. Sadly for his wife, it was not long before Villiers started to indulge in extramarital affairs, and one of these liaisons was with an already married woman; a woman who developed a reputation for being a femme fatale.

  Countess Anna Maria, wife of Francis Talbot, 11th Earl of Shrewsbury, was a very beautiful woman who was considerably younger than her husband. Once married to Shrewsbury, the French-born beauty soon had several Restoration rakes buzzing around her like bees to honey, including the notorious rakes Henry Jermyn and Harry Killigrew. Anna Maria’s flirtatious manner with the various would-be lovers didn’t help matters, and some very crude poems were written about her and Jermyn. When the handsome and dashing George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buck
ingham, began his pursuit of the countess, Anna Maria was unable to resist his charms and their adulterous union began. The two lovers were not very good at keeping their amour clandestine. Indeed, they were quite open about the whole thing and the affair was on the lips of everyone at court. Unsurprisingly, Anna Maria’s husband couldn’t stomach being made a cuckold – especially in so public a manner. Understandably enraged and dishonoured, the Earl of Shaftesbury demanded a duel with the Duke of Buckingham in 1668.

  In an ironic twist of fate, George ended up killing Francis in the duel, and the newly widowed Anna Maria moved in with George and his wife! Mary was shocked and dismayed by the unwelcome addition of her husband’s shameless mistress into their marital home, and when she protested against it, Buckingham was believed to have told her he could send her (his wife) back to her father instead! From this point, they lived in a presumably awkward ménage-a-trois. Anna Maria gave birth to Buckingham’s son, who died soon after. A few years later, Buckingham tired of Anna Maria and he died in miserable circumstances, alone. Anna Maria, on the other hand, her reputation long having been in tatters, went into a convent but then married again. No duels or scandals plagued this marriage, and she died in 1702. Charles Talbot, Anna Maria’s son by her slain husband, became the much-respected 1st Duke of Shrewsbury, who served William III, Anne, and George I.

  59. ENGLISH ARCHITECTURE SHIFTED FROM LATE RENAISSANCE TO EXUBERANT BAROQUE

  The Elizabethan style of Renaissance architecture led to the Jacobean style, which maintained many elements that typified the former. Some of the best examples of Elizabethan architecture are Longleat and Burghley House.