Castles, Customs, and Kings: True Tales by English Historical Fiction Authors (78 page)

Sources

Hasted, Edward. “The Parish and Town of Faversham.” Originally located in
The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent
,
Vol. 6
, 1798.
British History Online
.
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=62974
.

“History of Faversham, Kent.” Kentfind.Co.UK.
http://www.kentfind.co.uk/about/faversham/history.php
.

Percival, Arthur.
Old Faversham
. Rainham, Kent: Meresborough Books, 1988.

Turcan, Robert.
Faversham through Time
. Stroud, Gloucestershire: Amberley Publishing, 2010.

The Grosvenors

by Katherine Pym

T
he first Grosvenor, a nephew and favorite of William the Conqueror, was Gilbert d’Avranches. He accompanied William across the Channel to the Battle of Hastings in 1066.

(Many histories state that the first Grosvenor was actually Hugh d’Avranches, but the Grosvenor Estate professes Hugh was a relative of Gilbert, and not the nephew of William the Conqueror. I would have gone with “Hugh” but I figured the Grosvenor Estate knows its own family….)

As a result of his dedication to William, Gilbert received the Earldom of Chester, but he had to fight for it. It was very close to the Welsh border and a Saxon stronghold—Gilbert dealt with those who refused to be conquered in such a brutal manner that he became known as Lupus (wolf). One story holds he tortured and killed a young gypsy boy for poaching on his land. After he killed the young gypsy boy, the gypsies cursed Gilbert, saying
“that no son would follow father in the succession to the earldom.”

Along with the name of Lupus, Gilbert also received the nickname le Gros. Extremely fat, he loved wine, rich food, and women. He’s known to have sired upwards of twenty illegitimate children. Finally marrying Ermentrude of Clarement, he had a legitimate son, Richard, and a daughter, Matilda.

His real passion was hunting, however, and this is how Gilbert came to receive the name by which he would be known henceforth. Gilbert gained the name
Gros Veneur
, French for “Large Huntsman.” (The Grosvenor Estate translates it as: Chief Huntsman.)

Since Gilbert was obese, and later needed a hoist to set him onto the saddle for the hunt, one can say he was very “gros” or truly gross (boo, hiss, bad humor). He spent many hours in the saddle and had little humility or reverence before his Lord God. During one hunt, he kenneled his hounds in a church for the night. In the morning they were all found dead.

Toward the end of his life, Gilbert repented. Due to his gluttony, he had a difficult time walking. Afraid he would go to Hell for his debauchery, he
“founded the Benedictine Abby of St Werburgh, where the monks were to spend their lives in solemn prayer for the soul of their patron.”

In partial fulfillment of the gypsies’ curse, Gilbert’s son, Richard, succeeded him but died in 1120 without an heir. The Grosvenor curse continued to crop up again over the years.

The family did not play a prominent part in English history until 1385. There is mention that Sir Robert Grosvenor went with Richard II to fight the Scots. He was known to John of Gaunt and Henry IV.

In 1617, James I created Sir Richard Grosvenor a baron, and the “red hand” was added to the Grosvenor coat of arms. Despite this, Sir Richard resided in debtor’s prison for many years. He had cosigned a brother-in-law’s loans that went unpaid.

It was not until Sir Thomas Grosvenor (1655-1700), 3rd Baronet, that the family came closer to the household name we know today. Sir Thomas married Mary Davis, daughter of a scrivener, who had inherited 500 acres in the west end of London. It was considered a wet meadow, an area which we know as Mayfair, Pimlico, and Belgravia, now called the London Estate.

By the time of Sir Thomas, the Grosvenors had built a robust estate. They owned coal and lead mines and stone quarries in Wales. Sir Thomas had built and moved his family home from a castle-like affair with a moat to a large house on the present site of Eaton Hall.

But the Grosvenor curse continued. Thomas’ son, Sir Richard, 4th baronet (1689-1723), died without issue. Sir Thomas, 5th baronet (1693-1733), died in Naples unmarried.

Several Grosvenor generations avoided the curse even as their wealth and status grew, marking them Baron, Earl, then Marquess.

Hugh Lupus (1825-1899), created 1st Duke of Westminster, continued this streak of good fortune, but the curse was believed to have returned when in 1909 the four-year-old son of the 2nd Duke died. Even though the 2nd Duke married several times, he never sired another son.

William Grosvenor, the 3rd Duke of Westminster, was born brain damaged,
“and so small he was fed milk through a fountain pen filler”
. He died 1963 without an heir. The 4th Duke held the dukedom for only 4 years. He died of wounds received during combat in WW2.

The current Duke is Robert, 5th Duke of Westminster, and his wife, the Hon. Viola Lyttelton. They produced two male children, thus finally breaking the Grosvenor curse...hopefully for good.

Back in the 17th century...London at the time of Sir Thomas Grosvenor was exciting and full of motion. His prime of life was during a period when so much changed forever in England. For more on London (1662), please read my
Of Carrion Feathers
, a tale of espionage during the reign of King Charles II.

Sources

The Grosvenor Estate
.
http://www.grosvenorestate.com/
.

Sexton, Carole.
Tales of Old Cheshire
. Countryside Books, 2011.

Time: A Timeline of Clocks

By Deborah Swift

W
hen writing historical fiction, as well as going back in time to the period I am writing about, I often have to consider that the notion of how time was measured in previous times is very different from my own. In the 17th century poorer people still used sand-glasses or hour-glasses, and not everyone could afford a clock in their house. Churches rang the bells so that people had some sense of the time passing, but in general people were much less fixated on exact times than we are today.

The first clock was of course the sun, and the position of the stars in the night sky. The first recorded mention of the sun dial was in
742 B.C. There is, however, evidence of use of the sun dial as early as 2,000 B.C.!

By 330 A.D.,
sand-glasses were thought to be in use, although this is disputed because the hand-blown glass was very fragile, and no examples have survived. Sand-glasses used to be made in different sizes to measure different amounts of time. Some would be large enough to stand on the ground and require servants to lift and turn them.

Candles with the wax scored to mark the time were widely used in poorer households who could not afford a sand-glass, or sometimes candles were fixed to a marked plate. There is evidence that Alfred the Great used a candle clock in 885 A.D.

In 1490 the mainspring was invented by Peter Hele, or Henlein, a locksmith of Nuremburg. About this time the small domestic or table clock made its appearance, but these were expensive items and the previous more homespun methods of measuring the time continued to be used by most people.

Clocks gradually became more elaborate. A “masterpiece” clock (a requirement for admission to the guild of master clockmakers in Augsburg) struck the hours and quarters and displayed no less than three systems of counting hours: French hours (I–XII), Italian hours (1–24, beginning at sundown), and Nuremberg hours (divided into daylight and night hours, which vary in number according to the season of the year). Complex!

In 1541, an astronomical clock was fixed in one of the towers of Hampton Court Palace, and by 1610, glass was able to be moulded to form a protective cover for watch dials.

In 1657, Christiaan Huygens, a Dutch Physicist, made the first pendulum controlled clock, and grandfather clocks began to make their appearance in wealthier homes. The two kinds of movements are 30-hour and eight-day, which indicates how long before the clock has to be wound with a key. The melody, bell, chime, or gong sounds on the hour in the eight-day clocks and on the hour and half hour in the 30-hour clocks.

By 1765 the
centre Second hand became common. A lovely eight-day mahogany long-case clock dated around 1835 has a decorated arch dial. Often the painted dials depicted mythological scenes or the four seasons. The Met Museum has some nice examples (
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/clck/hd_clck.htm
).

Around the middle of the 1800s, the spring-powered movement developed, paving the way for a variety of smaller clock cases. Many different materials were used in clocks. Wood was popular, including mahogany, oak, pine, walnut, and cherry.

In 1858 the
British Horological Institute
was founded—an association of Clock and Watch Makers for the purpose of advancing their art, and
The Horological Journal
, the oldest periodical dealing with the craft, was started.

Greenwich Mean Time became the standard time for the whole of the United Kingdom in 1880.

Oh my word! Is that the time? Two thousand years has gone by and I hardly noticed. Must get on with some writing!

And just in case you’re interested in the English Civil War, orchids, obsession, adventure, and romance, my book
The Lady’s Slipper
is out now, featuring the turning of many sand-glasses, the occasional church chime, and the loud tick of a pendulum clock.

September in British History

by Karen Wasylowski

Give Us Back Our Eleven Days!

Did you know that absolutely nothing happened in Britain from 3 September to 13 September, 1752? It is a fact. Nothing.

The reason is pretty simple. The calendar used during this period was the Julian Calendar, based on a solar year of 365.25 days. Problem was, it ran a little over time and eventually the calendar fell out of line with the seasons.

The solution: Britain decided to dump the Julian Calendar and adopt the more favorable Gregorian Calendar, and September 3 instantly became September 14. Eleven days were gone, eliminated, abolished. People protested in the streets believing their lives would be shortened. They chanted: “
Give us our eleven days back
!”

September 24

September 24 was traditionally the start of the harvest time in medieval England and a lovely ceremony, a race to harvest, called “Calling the Mare.” As the very last of the crops were being brought in, the farmers would hurriedly fashion a straw horse then go to a neighboring farm that was still rushing to finish and throw the straw mare over his hedge. They would taunt “Mare, Mare,” and that farmer would gather his final crop and do the same to any other farmer still trying to harvest. The last man to finish had to keep the straw mare all year and have it on display to show he was the slowest of them all.

September 29

And when the tenauntes come

To paie their quarter’s rent,

They bring some fowle at Midsummer

A dish of fish in Lent

At Christmas, a capon,

At Michaelmas, a goose,

And somewhat else at New Yere’s tide

For feare the lease flie loose.

—George Gascoine, English poet, 1577

Michaelmas is the feast day of St. Michael the Archangel, the patron saint of the sea and boats, horses and horsemen. Michaelmas Day is the final day of the Harvest Season, and it was also the first day of the winter night curfew and the church bells would ring once for each night of the year until that point. The bells are still rung to this day in a city called Chertsey from Michaelmas Day, 29 September, to Lady Day, 25 March.

There are traditionally four “quarter days” in a year—Lady Day (25 March), Midsummer (24 June), Michaelmas (29 September), and Christmas (25 December). They are spaced three months apart, on religious festivals, usually close to the solstices or equinoxes. They were the four dates on which servants were hired, rents were due, or leases begun.

It used to be said that harvest had to be completed by Michaelmas, almost like the marking of the end of the productive season and the beginning of the new cycle of farming. It was the time at which new servants were hired or land was exchanged and debts were paid. This is how it came to be for Michaelmas to be the time for electing magistrates and also the beginning of legal and university terms. Some Michaelmas superstitions include:

• The devil stomps or spits on bramble bushes, so don’t pick blackberries after Michaelmas.
  
• Victorians believed trees planted on this day would grow really well.
  
• In Northern England and Ireland, if you eat goose this day you will have good luck for the rest of the year.
  
• In Ireland, if you found the ring hidden in the Michaelmas pie you would soon marry.
  

First Monday after September 4

In a town called Abbotts Bromley in Staffordshire a colorful tradition takes place. Six men carrying long sticks with horns attached to the top march down the street. Two sets of three men each, their horns painted blue on one team and white on the other, charge each other as if to fight, then they retreat, people dance, Maid Marion is there also, along with a boy with a bow and arrow, a triangle player, a musician, and a Fool.

September 14

On Holy Rood Day (rood is another name for cross) children were traditionally freed from school to gather nuts.

Other notable days in history

• September 2-6, 1666—The Great Fire of London
  
• September 7, 1533—Queen Elizabeth I born
  
• September 9, 1087—William the Conqueror dies
  
• September 28—St. Wenceslas Day
  
• September 29, 1758—Nelson is born