Showing posts with label 17th century England. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 17th century England. Show all posts

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A Coronation Feast, 23 April, 1685

by Margaret Porter


James II in 1685
Wikimedia Commons
 At about noontime on 6 February, 1685,  King Charles II breathed his last and his brother instantly succeeded him as King James II. In the midst of royal mourning and the many necessary changes within the royal household, thoughts quickly turned towards the planning of a coronation. The chosen date was 23 April, the Feast of St. George, England’s patron saint. Ten days after James's accession, the clerk of the Great Wardrobe was making lists of the “Necessaries” for such an event and researching earlier coronations.

 Officers of the Board of Greencloth were ordered to present to the Council “a particular account of the Dinner kept in Westminster-Hall at the Coronation of His Late Majesty King Charles the Second, and also that provided at the Coronation of his Royal Father, together with the whole Expense and Charge of each of the said Dinners.” They returned with the requested information, including the fact that Charles II's coronation dinner cost £1209 15s 7 ½d. But all records for Charles I’s coronation had been “lost in the Great War.”

Francis Sandford 1630-1694
By George Vertue
© National Portrait Gallery, London
We know every detail of James II's coronation day from Francis Sandford, the Lancaster Herald of Arms, whose very thorough, fully illustrated account of the proceedings was commissioned by the King. The planning, the pronouncements, the order of the service, its participants, what they wore, what they did and said . . . he recorded it all.

On the appointed day, the coronation began with a procession from Westminster Hall to the Collegiate Church of St. Peter—commonly known as Westminster Abbey.

The event was plagued by ill-omens: the staves of the royal canopy broke, and it nearly collapsed over the King as he entered the abbey. His newly-minted crown didn't quite fit and almost fell off as soon as it was placed upon his head. And, in a preview of conflicts to come, James—a convert to Roman Catholicism—refused to take communion by Anglican rite as required in the coronation ritual.
Diarist John Evelyn reported, “. . . to the greate sorrow of the people, no Sacrament, as ought to have ben . . . . Having ben present at the late King's Coronation, I was not ambitious of seeing this ceremonie.” Hard to say whether this reluctance was indicative of his opinion of James, or of his experience twenty-five years previously of a day-long event that stretched well into evening.

By five o’clock that day James and his consort Mary Beatrice had been crowned, and they processed out of the Abbey beneath their separate canopies. Wearing their purple velvet robes, carrying their regalia, accompanied by trumpeters, and hailed by the cheering populace, they returned to Westminster Hall for the grand feast.

Within the vast and ancient  hall the tables had been arranged and were already covered by all the banquet dishes that didn’t contain hot food—99 of them on the King and Queen’s table. These consisted of cold meat (flesh and fish) “excellently well Dressed and Ordered all manner of ways. In three very great Chargers and 14 large Basins, Dryed sweet-meats, and Plates of all sorts of Jellyes, Bla-mange etc., with Sallads of all kinds . . . Void places were left for the Hot Meat.” Sandford’s book shows each table and the placement of each dish—numbered, with a corresponding numbered list to indicate what was served and where.



The King and Queen occupied the high table and there were six additional tables, three on either side of the hall. On the west side was the First Table, for court officers and significant coronation participants, and the highest orders of the nobility from dukes and duchesses down to some of the earls and countesses. At the Second Table sat the remainder of the earls and countesses with the viscounts and viscountesses, The lowest table on that side was for barons and baronesses. On the east side was a table for the Lords Spiritual, judges, barons of the Cinque Ports, with a second table for sergeants of law, clerks and masters of Chancery, the Lord Mayor and Aldermen. And the lowest table was occupied by Kings’ Heralds (Francis Sandford was one of them) and Pursuivants of Arms. The King and Queen each had a carver and a cup-bearer, and every member of the nobility “had a servant of their own to wait upon them.” Quite a crowd, as evidenced by the illustration.


 The metrics of the feast are mind-boggling. The King and Queen had 145 dishes as a first course, with 30 more dishes of hot meat served in the second course, for a total of 175 dishes at the royal table. Each of the peers’ and peeresses’ tables had 213 dishes. A total of 1445 dishes was served!

What exactly were these dishes? Thanks to Sandford’s meticulous account, we know every single one of them. Here's a sampling of the more interesting or curious foods served to the King and Queen (period spelling preserved):

pistachio cream in glasses
custards
anchoviz
lamb stones
cocks combs, hot
marrow patie
sallet
stags tongues
sweet breads
patty pidgeon,  hot
cray fish, cold
bolonia sausages, cold
collops and eggs
frigase chicken, hot
rabbets ragou
oysters pickled
portugal eggs
Dutch beef
Andolioes
mushrooms, hot
veal
hogs tongues
cheese cakes
ciprus birds
tansy, hot
asparagus, hot
ragou of oysters, cold
scallops, cold
salmagundy
3 dozen glasses of Lemon jelly
5 neats tongues, cold
a whole salmon, cold
8 pheasants, cold
9 small pidgeon pyes, cold
24 fat chickens, hot
12 crabs, cold
24 partridges, hot
a dish of tarts
soles marinetted
4 fawns, hot
12 quails
10 oyster pyes, hot
pease
artichokes
Beef  a la Royal, hot
turkeys
bacon gammon
spinage
three pigs, hot
almond puff
a square pyramide rising from 4 large dishes on the angles and 4 lesser dishes on the sides, containing several fruits in season and all manner of sweet meats
4 dozen egg pyes, cold
A very large circular pyramide in the middle of the table rising from 12 dishes in the circumference, 6 of which were large and the other 6 less, containing several fruits in season and
all manner of sweet meats
6 mullets large souc’d
8 godwits
18 mincd pyes, cold
8 wild ducks marinated, hot
lampreys
shrimps
24 puffins, cold
smelts
truffles
4 dozen of petit paties, hot
morels
5 carps, cold
8 Ortelans
5 partridge pyes
12 lobsters, cold
12 leverets, hot
sturgeon, cold
24 ducklings, larded, hot
8 capons
8 geese 3 larded, hot
gerkins
soucd’d trout, cold
cabbadge pudding
french beans
periwinkles
cavear
olives
prawns
samphire
trotter pye
taffata tarts
parmezan
capers
whitings, marinated
cockles
mangoes
cardoons
3 dozen glasses of bla-mange, cold

After a 5-hour coronation ceremony, the diners must have been starving—but perhaps also too exhausted to do justice to such a feast. And the day's pageantry wasn't yet over.

During the interval between the first and second courses, the King’s Champion, Sir Charles Dymoke, rode into the hall on a “goodly white horse” with attendants. He declared to all present, “If any person, of what degree soever, shall deny or gainsay our Sovereign Lord, King James II . . . here is his Champion, who say that he lieth and is a false Traitor, being ready in person to combat with him.” The champion threw down the gauntlet, and after a respectable pause, it was returned to him by the herald, at which point he and his horse advanced further into the hall, repeating the challenge and throwing the gauntlet once more. And then again. When this spectacle concluded, the second course was served.

By virtue of his title of Baron of the Cinque Port of Sandwich, Samuel Pepys had marched beside the King in the coronation procession. As gourmand and convivial fellow he must have enjoyed the meats and fish served at his table, the first on the east side—and doubtless ate one of the 36 cheesecakes on the board.

At the conclusion of the feast, the amply-fed King and Queen processed out of the hall, with their regalia. The scheduled fireworks display on the River Thames at Whitehall Palace was postponed until the following night, “by the reason of the great fatigue of the day.” And when it did take place, the results were disastrous—a rocket misfired, an explosion ruined the illuminations, boats carrying spectators overturned, many were drowned.  Still more ill-omens clinging to the unfortunate King James II.

Francis Sandford’s book about the coronation day was so exhaustive that it took fully two years to compose and produce. It was not published until 1687, the year before James was denounced by his people and Parliament, de-throned by his son-in-law William of Orange, and sent into exile in France.

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Sources:

Sandford, Francis, The history of the coronation of the most high, most mighty, and most excellent monarch, James II by the grace of God, King of England, Scotland, France and Ireland, defender of the faith, &c. and of his royal consort Queen Mary: solemnized in the collegiate church of St. Peter in the city of Westminster, on Thursday the 23 of April, being the festival of St. George, in the year of our Lord 1685; with an exact account of the several preparations in order thereunto, Their Majesties most splendid processions, and their royal and magnificent feast in Westminster-Hall; the whole work illustrated with sculptures; by His Majesties especial command/ by Francis Sandford Esq; Lancaster herald of arms, The British Library.

Tomalin, Claire, Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self.

The Diary of John Evelyn.

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Margaret Porter is the award-winning and bestselling author of several historical fiction genres, and is also published in nonfiction and poetry. Various characters in her novel A Pledge of Better Times (April 2015) participate in James II's coronation. Margaret studied British history in the UK and the US. As historian, her areas of speciality are social, theatrical, and garden history of the 17th and 18th centuries, royal courts, and portraiture. A former actress, she gave up the stage and screen to devote herself to fiction writing, travel, and her rose gardens.

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The De Vere Family in the 17th Century

by Margaret Porter

The blood of the English de Veres, which still flows through the veins of Britain’s noble families—and some members of the present royal family—can be traced backwards in time to a Frenchman, Alberic de Vere. He accompanied William the Conqueror to England and in 1066 fought at the Battle of Hastings. Not long afterwards he was granted lands in Essex, the county most closely associated with his descendants. His grandson Aubrey, Count of Guines, was further ennobled as First Earl of Oxford by Empress Matilda when she was Queen of England. And down the centuries, through every reign, the de Veres were prominent as royal chamberlains, courtiers, and favourites.

Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford
The passage of five hundred years brings us to the 17th century and the waning days of the Seventeenth Earl—by far the most famous and illustrious member of his family. Edward de Vere was a shimmering star in Queen Elizabeth’s court, who referred to himself in his signature variously as "Oxford" or "Oxenford". For those who doubt that the genuine author of Shakespeare’s plays and poetry was a common glover’s son from Stratford, de Vere is most frequently proposed as their probable creator. He was a warrior-poet, in addition to being well-travelled, a gifted dancer, and a court officer. And, in the opinion of his wife Anne Cecil and her powerful father Lord Burghley, a terrible husband! It was his second wife, Elizabeth Trentham, who in 1593 provided an heir to his earldom.

Ten years later, at the death of his beloved Queen, Lord Oxford wrote to his brother-in-law of his grief, saying, “In this common shipwreck, mine is above all the rest.” On the accession of King James I, he asserted his hereditary claim as Lord Great Chamberlain and received from the King’s Wardrobe “forty yards of crimson velvet for the Earl’s own robes” to wear at the coronation on 25 July, 1603. Among his many duties on that date: delivering the uncrowned monarch's shirt, stockings, and underclothing to his bedchamber and dressing him for the coronation. As a perquisite, the Earl received “the bed on which the King had slept the night before the coronation and all his bedding, the coverlet, curtains, pillows, and hangings of the whole room, with the King’s nightgown.” During the coronation banquet, he presented the King's food. Oxford had but a year to enjoy his new possessions, for he died on 24 June, 1604.

Henry de Vere, 18th Earl of Oxford
His son and successor Henry was only eleven years old, the inheritor of a wasted estate. The boy's mother struggled to reclaim Hedingham, the de Veres’ ancestral castle in Essex, and other property in East Anglia. On attaining his majority he departed on a grand tour and spent five years in the Low Countries, France, and Italy. He later became Vice-Admiral of the Fleet, perhaps in order to keep him away from Parliament, where he was reportedly “one of the free-est speakers . . . .” He didn’t last long as a naval commander: disputes with the all-powerful Duke of Buckingham landed him in the Tower more than once. Like his father, he married a Cecil, but she bore him no children. He died at The Hague from a battle wound in 1625, two months after King James I, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

Robert de Vere, 19th Earl of Oxford
As preparations began for Charles I’s coronation, Henry’s cousin Robert’s right of succession was disputed by another lord, preventing the presumptive Nineteenth Earl from taking part in the ceremony. Nearly a year later the House of Lords affirmed Robert’s status, and he took his seat in April 1626. In February of the following year his countess, Beatrice van Hemmema of Friesland, delivered their son Aubrey.

History repeated—like Edward and Henry de Vere before him, Aubrey became an earl when very young after his father fell at the Siege of Maastricht. Inheriting his title at the age of five, the Twentieth Earl of Oxford spent his childhood and early adolescence in Friesland with his mother’s family.

Aubrey de Vere, 20th Earl of Oxford
By the time Aubrey returned to England at age fourteen with his mother and sister, the de Vere properties were nearly all lost. He attended university at Oxford and began his long and rather distinguished career as a soldier—he loved a good fight on and off the battlefield and was a notorious duelist. In 1647 he took as his bride the ten-year-old heiress Anne Bayning, who brought him much-needed funds and a life interest in her Essex estates. A bright and promising future was dimmed by the execution of Charles I. Aubrey, a devoted royalist, fled to the Netherlands to join the court in exile. His estate was sequestered in 1651. Three years later he returned to England and landed in the Tower after being accused of plotting against Cromwell. This did not deter him--after his release, under the code name "Mr Waller" he participated in further royalist conspiracies and in 1659 was again imprisoned. His wife voluntarily joined him in the Tower, sickened, and died there. He was released a fortnight afterwards.

With the fall of the Commonwealth, the widower Aubrey, premiere earl of the realm, was among the six peers who invited Charles II to return to England. His good friend, the king he’d supported in exile, made him a Knight of the Garter, Lord Lieutenant of Essex, and gave him command of the regiment that was known as the “Oxford Blues.” He became a Privy Councillor and a Gentleman of the Bedchamber.

Aubrey, “the first of his Dignity in the Realm tho’ low in fortune,” was a gallant and courtly man, a gambler, and as lusty as Charles II’s other cronies—in other words, a very typical nobleman of the Restoration court. He arranged a false marriage to an actress who stirred his lust, employing one of His Majesty’s trumpeters to serve as “priest”. Despite the deception, the lady remained with him and in 1664 bore him a son. The mother referred to the boy Lord Bolbec, the courtesy title granted to an Earl of Oxford’s heir apparent, although he was the product of an unlawful marriage. Not surprisingly, the liaison didn’t last.

Aubrey proved himself a friend of the theatre in another way, by loaning out his coronation robes for a production of Shakespeare's Henry IV!

Diana Kirke by Peter Lely
His next mistress of note was the beautiful and immoral Diana Kirke, daughter of Whitehall Palace’s keeper and granddaughter of Aurelian Townsend, who composed court masques for King Charles I and Queen Henrietta Maria. When Di fell pregnant, the King offered the couple an annual pension of £2000 if they married. And so they did, in April 1673. Their first child, Charlotte, arrived not many months later.  She and her brother Charles, the true Lord Bolbec, died very young. Of the Oxfords' three surviving daughters, only one had an unblemished reputation—Lady Diana, the future First Duchess of St. Albans, who married Charles II’s son by Nell Gwyn. Lady Mary and Lady Henrietta, who were very possibly sired by Di's paramours, were as scandalous as their mother but did not succeed in marrying any of their lovers.

At James II’s accession in 1685, Aubrey was appointed Privy Councillor. At the coronation on 23 April his responsibilities were the same as when Charles II was crowned, and his wife took precedence over the other countesses. The Lord Chamberlain's instructions for the coronation clearly outline their positions: In procession of Countesses, four abreast, excepting Diana Countess of Oxford, alone….In procession of His Majesties regalia: The Sword of State in the Scabbard, born by Aubrey de Vere Earl of Oxford, Premier Earl of England, in his Robes of Estate, and Collar of the Order. 

Aubrey and James eventually fell out—the Earl refused to submit to the new King’s pro-Catholic policies and his stubborn intention to abolish the Test Act. Aubrey and his regiment supported the Protestant cause embodied in Prince William of Orange, and he welcomed the Dutch invader to England. After the accession of William and Mary, Aubrey participated in their coronation (his daughter Diana was one of the Queen’s train-bearers), and his former offices and honours were restored to him. He and the Oxford Blues fought against James II’s forces in Ireland, most notably at the Battle of the Boyne. In 1700 and and the following year he was commissioned as Speaker of the House of Lords, serving until William III revoked his privilege in September 1701.

Queen Anne was the last of the many monarchs Aubrey helped to crown. He succumbed to a serious illness in the winter of 1703 and died at his house in Downing Street, aged seventy-six. He was buried with his first wife Anne and many of his ancestors in Westminster Abbey's Chapel of St. John the Evangelist. The historic earldom of Oxford (first creation) died with him, as he had no legitimate son.

His daughter Diana, Duchess of St Albans, was a renowned beauty. Not long after her father's death, a member of the Kit-Kat club (a Whig drinking and discussion society) paid tribute to her and the de Veres' martial exploits by engraving these verses on a toasting glass:

1st Duchess of St Albans, 1694
Author's Collection
The line of Vere, so long renown’d in arms,
Concludes with luster in St. Albans’s charms;
Her conquering eyes have made their race complete,
It rose in valor, and in beauty set. 

Through Diana, the de Vere bloodline extended through her numerous offspring (eight of her nine sons survived) to the present day. Although the Beauclerks are more often described as direct descendants of King Charles II, they are equally connected to Aubrey the great 17th century courtier and his forbears. Murray de Vere Beauclerk, the current and Fourteenth Duke of St Albans, bears the name that Alberic brought to England in the 11th century, as does his eldest son, an author--and biographer of their ancestress Nell Gwyn.

Members of the royal family who carry de Vere DNA are William, Duke of Cambridge (through his mother Diana, Princess of Wales) and his son Prince George.

Sources:

The de Veres of Castle Hedingham, Verily Anderson
Manuscript letters written by Aubrey de Vere, 20th Earl of Oxford, held by the British Library
Beauclerk family papers held by the London Metropolitan Archive
A Genealogical History of the Dormant, Abeyant, Forfeited, and Extinct Peerages of the British Empire, Sir Bernard Burke
The Diary of Samuel Pepys
The Fighting Veres, Sir Clements Robert Markham
Monstrous Adversary: The Life of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, Alan H. Nelson
Dictionary of National Biography

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Margaret Porter, who can claim a few tiny drops of de Vere blood, is the award-winning and bestselling author of several historical fiction genres, and is also published in nonfiction and poetry. A Pledge of Better Times, the story of courtiers Lady Diana de Vere and Charles Beauclerk, 1st Duke of St. Albans, and of Diana's father Aubrey de Vere, will be available in April 2015. Margaret studied British history in the UK and the US. As historian, her areas of speciality are social, theatrical, and garden history of the 17th and 18th centuries, royal courts, and portraiture. A former actress, she gave up the stage and screen to devote herself to fiction writing, travel, and her rose gardens.

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Witches and Midwives in Early Modern England

by Sam Thomas

English Historical Fiction Authors alum Sam Thomas is back to celebrate the launch of the third Midwife Mystery featuring Bridget Hodgson, The Witch Hunter's Tale. Return to Civil War York as Bridget faces enemies old and new, or if you're new to the series, pick up the first installment for just $2.99. But before you do that, here's the low-down on witches and midwives.

For many years, conventional wisdom has connected midwives and witches. The connection was first drawn in a 1487 book called Malleus Maleficarum (The Hammer of Witches) by a medieval clergyman named Heinrich Kramer. In Malleus, Kramer asserts the existence of “witch midwives, who surpass all other witches in their crimes… the number of them is so great that…it is thought they there is scarcely any tiny hamlet in which at least one is not to be found.” This accusation, coupled with a tiny number of cases in which midwives were accused of witchcraft, has cemented this into popular culture.

The problem is that the existence of the “midwife witch” is a myth – the number of midwives accused of witchcraft is vanishingly small. The truth is that midwives hunted witches, which is what I should like to discuss today.

The midwife’s connection to witches depends on a creature called the Devil’s Familiar, and even if you've never heard the phrase, you know what I mean. Imagine your typical Halloween witch. You know that black cat we envision hanging about with a witch? That’s the modern version of the Devil’s Familiar, Satan’s representative to the witch after she sells her soul. In the early modern period, the Familiar could be a cat, of course, but also a mouse, bird, mole, frog, or toad…nearly any small animal would do. According to demonologists, witches called on their familiars when they needed help, and some claimed that the witch could not practice magic without the familiar’s assistance. (Click on the image to the left for a closer look.)

So how does the midwife come into things?

According to common lore, in order to survive, the familiar had to suck from the “witch’s teat,” an unnatural growth usually found in a woman’s armpit or “secret places.” The teat’s existence was taken as evidence of a woman’s guilt, and who better to recognize such a growth than a midwife?

According to an account written in 1597, when a mother and daughter were jointly accused of witchcraft, the magistrates “agreed that certain women should search the mother and the daughter to see if they could find any such marks on them as are usually found on witches. The old woman they stripped, and found behind her right shoulder a thing much like the udder of an ewe that giveth suck, with two teats like unto two great warts, the one behind under her armhole, the other a handful off towards the top of her shoulder.”

This discovery – along with other evidence and the suspect’s confession – led officials to cast the poor woman into prison, where, “had she lived, she should have been executed.”

This is not of course to say that midwives made witch-hunting their primary business, for cases of witchcraft were both spectacular and rare. But it remains true that, as guardians of public well-being, midwives had an obligation to protect mothers and children, and in some cases that meant hunting witches.

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Sam Thomas is the author of the Midwife Mystery series. You can learn more about the history and mystery of midwifery at his website.
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