Enroute to Stornoway, we sailed past Fingal's Cave, the Isle of Skye and other, smaller islands. It felt like we were taking the sea route to Mordor.
Fingal’s Cave
Stornoway is famous for its black pudding and for being an integral part of the late night shipping forecast. It also has a long history of conflict, largely over land. It was occupied by the Vikings who called it Stjórnavágr, its main settlement being built around a natural harbour.
Stornoway and harbour
In later years it was controlled by Clan MacNicol, who were later dispossessed by Clan MacLeod who in turn struggled against the greed of other more legal minded Scots egged on by James VI who in 1598 ‘gave’ the island to a trading company, ‘The Fife Adventurers.’ Great name.
His great desire was the ‘de-Gaelicisation’ of the islands, demanding the ‘slauchter, mutilation, fyre-raising or utheris inconveniencies’ if necessary. As far as I can see, the Scots had little to learn from the English when it came to colonialism.
Stornoway successfully resisted, and in 1610, James, now King of England and Scotland ‘gave’ the island to the Mackenzie's of Kintail in the hope they’d prove more ruthless. Neil MacLeod was captured and taken to Edinburgh where, without irony, he was accused of fire raising, murder, piracy and theft, and beheaded. A noble would have been beheaded alive. A small mercy or perhaps final humiliation—Neil MacLeod was instead beheaded postmortem, his head put on a spike. The Mackenzies were quite ruthless in dispossessing tenants and ‘clearing’ the land, and the tradition continued when in 1844 Stornoway was bought for £500,000 by another Scotsman, James Matheson.
The English are sometimes blamed for the Highland Clearances – especially amongst Scottish Nationalists who now like to distance themselves from the great Imperial Adventure—as if they had no part in it but were in fact the victims. James Matheson hadn't been given the message. He made his fortune from the ‘Opium Trade’ and the naked bullying of a then weak China. Having bought Stornoway he proceeded to build Lewes Castle, clearing 500 families off the land by encouraging them to emigrate to Canada. The policy was encouraged further by the Highland potato famine which saw over a third of population of the western Highlands and Isles ‘move on.’
Lewes Castle. Victorian grandeur
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In 1918, Lord Leverhulme bought the Isles of Lewis and Harris. He had ambitious plans that would have
revolutionised the lives of those living there. Fisheries, efficient farming, roads, the works. The problem was local crofters wanted no part of it. And they were prepared to fight. Eventually Lord Leverhulme saw sense and abandoned the great project, though not without one final and generous flourish, returning the land and the castle itself to the people of Stornoway.
I remember getting my first pair of football boots. I was ten or eleven and had just come out of hospital and thus my football career began; badly, though I didn’t know it then. Instead, I was consumed with excitement like a medieval knight preparing for battle. Admittedly no armour or horse, not even a sword, but a brand new pair of leather football boots and a round tin of Dubbin.
Heraldry would be added at school in the form of white shorts and a heavy but brightly coloured football shirt. But first the squirearchal duties — dubbin the boots and leaving them to soak overnight. In the morning, supervised by my dad, I would buff them until they shone. That was the theory.
The following day, battle commenced on a damp and freezing field. The team captain knew my worth, or lack of it, putting me in defence for want of a better alternative. I hopped on the spot, tense with excitement. A whistle blew, and we were off. What happened next is a half-forgotten blur: balls were passed to me, and I kicked spiritedly at air as the ball sailed past. Sometimes I made contact but ending up passing it to the opposing side. I ran all over the place, up and down the pitch, sideways and back, nowhere in sight of a ball, but with the smartest pair of boots on the field. Eventually they put me in goal. An equally poor decision. And so ended my footballing career.
I was reminded of all this when, many years later, our son played his first football match for the school. He looked splendid in his gold-coloured shirt and white shorts, his shiny new boots I wanted to put dubbin on (withdrawal symptoms) but couldn’t. The boots were modern plastic or something. The pitch was freezing, noses running in cold, shouts of support and encouragement lost in a blistering wind.
Being more intelligent than me, our eleven-year-old son had an uncanny knack of knowing where the ball would be at any one moment (I think it’s called ‘reading the ball’) and so would be there waiting for it when it came. Cheers erupted—pleas—orders barked all of which our son ignored as he watched, with mild interest, the ball rolling by his feet. He’d ‘read the ball.’ What more did they want? I felt very proud of him. What could he not have done had there been dubbin on his boots?
One of my childhood cartoon heroes was Noggin the Nog and his eternal struggle with his villainous uncle, Nogbad the Bad.
Godfrey Charles Morgan
In contrast we have a real-life hero, ‘Godfrey the Good.’ Godfrey Charles Morgan, Ist Viscount Tredegar, Lord Lieutenant of Monmouth, 1831 – 1913, could have stepped from the pages of Anthony Trollope.
He embodied everything that Trollope valued: a profound belief in the responsibilities of landownership, continuity, reciprocal rights and duties; in short, he embodied the ideal of a landed gentleman.
In his youth he showed valour in the Crimean War, being one of the few survivors of the famed ‘Charge of the Light Brigade.’
He attributed his survival to his horse Briggs, later knighted and given the title of Sir Briggs by his grateful owner. Sir Briggs had been a champion racehorse in his day, which allowed him to jump over the Russian cannons, and he continued to race on his return home. Twenty years later, when he died, Godfrey buried him (reputedly standing up) in the grounds of Tredegar House.
Like a true Trollopian hero, Sir Godfrey Morgan was both decent and modest in his achievements:
‘I am sure the soldiers who fought with the Light Cavalry at Balaclava did not think themselves greater heroes than others in the Crimea who did their duty. Quite recently I read an article in a military magazine, it dealt with the question of the advance of cavalry and the arms which should be given them—the lance, the sword, and the rifle. The article commenced with the statement that it was the business of every soldier to go into action with the determination to try and kill someone. I suppose that is right in its way, but it was hardly the sentiment we went into action with. We went into action to try to defeat the enemy, but the fewer we killed the better. I have to confess that I tried to kill someone, but to this day I congratulate myself on the fact that I do not know whether I succeeded or no. In these days of long-range guns our consciences are saved a great deal, and so far as killing anyone goes I always give myself the benefit of the doubt, so that the charge of murder cannot be brought against me.’
Balaclava Dinner, Bassaleg,October 29th, 1910.
Tredegar House
The portrait shows Godfrey Charles Morgan with his favourite sky terrier 'Peeps,' so called because of the thick hair around his eyes from which he peeped out. When Peeps died, he was buried next to Sir Briggs.
As a great landowner, he took his responsibilities seriously, accepting the concept of reciprocal duties, endowing schools and hospitals and throwing himself wholeheartedly into both rural and urban activities.
‘I have always taken great interest in those who live on my property, it does not matter whether on agricultural land or in the bowels of the earth. A great landowner does not rest on a bed of roses. The loss to a landowner who only owns a small agricultural property, in days of agricultural depression when tenants cannot pay their rent, generally means a few hundred pounds and the reducing of all his expenses. But when it comes …. to owning the land on which our great ironworks, great tinworks, and collieries are situated…. when those interests are depressed, it means (the ruination of whole communities.) And it means occupying (ourselves) night and day in ascertaining how (we) can help to still carry on those great interests which have employed so many hands, and which are so necessary for the welfare of the population of the district.... '
Presentation to Lord Tredegar of Miners' Lampand Silver Medal at Risca Eisteddfod.
'It is true that I have had more than my share of this world's goods. There is one thing that has always comforted me when this has been thrown in my teeth, and that is that it was a young man who went away sorrowfully because he had great possessions. I believe I have tried, more or less successfully, to help those in difficulties, and to give to many comfort and happiness who otherwise would have been in much distress and suffering; but I am quite sure that there is no person in this hall who would not have done exactly the same under the same circumstances. I have no doubt that I shall be able to find a place in Tredegar House for this picture. It will, I hope, be a monument in Tredegar House to help those who come after me to try and do some good in their generation with the wealth which may be at their disposal. I thank you from the very bottom of my heart for this great tribute you have paid me.'
This Speech was made in December, 1907, in acknowledgment ofMonmouthshire's tribute to Lord Tredegar, which took theform of an oil painting of himself, a gold cup, an album,and £2,000, which his Lordship handed over to varioushospitals.
'I have arrived at the age when to clasp the waist of one of the opposite sex for three hours is not considered the height of human happiness. I remember, however, with pleasure, a time in my younger days when I thought it was so, and perhaps some of those who can indulge in a valse without feeling giddy, or a polka without being "blown," think so now.'
Servants' Ball,January 14th, 1889.
'I am happy to be able truly and honestly to say that I have not a word of difference with any servant of my establishment. Each year as it rolls onward finds me stiffer in the joints, shorter in the breath, and less able than formerly to perform the double shuffle, but there are others coming on—the younger members of the family—who will be able to kick up their heels as lightly as once I was able to do. As each year rolls round, too, there are always saddening memories, but on an occasion of this sort I will make no allusions to them, ... I hope you will stick to old fashions and old ways. You may be told of new-fangled ways, and be advised to get rid of the old, but I think it will be well if you do not pay too much attention to those advisers. England is like old Tredegar House, and you will find that the customs now prevailing have been in vogue for over 500 years. You will probably be told that the best way to make people happy is to make the poor rich and the rich poor; but, in truth, the richer people are, the better able they are to help the poor.'
Servants' Ball,January 7th, 1910.
House now and then
Like Trollope, Godfrey was a keen and committed huntsman:
'Nothing tends to brush away the cobwebs so much as a bracing run with the hounds. Fox hunting is an admirable sport, and my neighbours shall enjoy it as long as there is a fox to be found on my estate.'
At Tredegar House, October 30th, 1884.
'I am always delighted to see any member of the Corporation at the meet of my hounds. If they came out horrid Radicals they would go back half Tories.
"One touch of nature makes the whole world kin," and there is nothing like a meet in the open country for setting things right between friends and neighbours.'
Mayor's Banquet, Newport January 15th, 1884.
'A clever satirist has said that nature made the horse and hounds and threw in the fox as a connecting link. In my opinion, fox-hounds and hunting are the connecting links between the landlord and the tenant farmer.
I have made many pleasant acquaintances lately in my hunting expeditions, and I hope we shall always remain on the most amicable terms.'
Alas, like many in Trollope’s world he was succeeded by less worthy men, particular Lord Evan Morgan, pederast and satanist—who you can read about in the Gift Trilogy
In 1606 Nicholas Owen, a short carpenter with a limp after falling off a horse, was sent to the Tower of London, where he was tortured by being hung from chains with heavy weights attached to his feet. The weights proved too much for an untreated hernia and a section of his gut burst forth.
This proved a bit of a quandary for it was against English Common Law to torture one with a medical condition. The quandary didn’t last long. A metal plate was constructed and attached firmly to his stomach. Duly ‘cured’, Nicholas Owen was then placed on the Rack for an even more vigorous stretch. This proved more than his stomach could bear. It burst, his guts lacerated by the metal plate, and Nicholas Owen died in agony on March 2nd, 1606.
Who was Nicholas Owen?
John Gerard wrote this of him: ‘I verily think no man can be said to have done more good of those who laboured in the English vineyard. He was the immediate occasion of saving the lives of many hundreds of persons, both ecclesiastical and secular.’
And why was he tortured so savagely?
Nicholas Owen, known as ‘Little John,’ had a gift for constructing hidden spaces in cellars and attics and in between walls. For over twenty years he went from one country house to another, building these cunningly disguised priest holes, many never discovered and those that were, the result of treachery. Alternatively, priests were sometimes forced out through starvation or thirst.
When the authorities realised who they had – the man who knew exactly where the ‘priest-holes’ were, his fate was set in stone, the torture savage but entirely rational from their point of view.
I remembered Nicholas Owen when we visited Harvington Hall.
It is believed that Harvington Hall was built on an original bronze age site. The moat itself was quarried in 1270 and evidence suggests that a medieval H shaped hall was built on the moated island. In 1529 it was sold to a wealthy lawyer, Sir John Pakington, who was clearly quite somebody because he was allowed to wear his hat in the presence of the king—Henry VIII.
In 1578 Sir John’s great nephew, Humphrey Pakington inherited the manor and he rebuilt it in the new Elizabethan style. He and his family were devout Catholics and were thus fined £20 a month (in today’s money £1000 a month) for not going to church. He also thought it wise to hide visiting priests by building priest-holes – seven in all—and designed for the most part by Nicholas Owen.
Some fine examples of Elizabethan panelling.
But below are some of the priest holes created by Nicholas Owen.
Any idea where one might be here?
She knows. The narrow beam lifts up to reveal a wider space behind.
Somewhere in this grand flight of stairs is another priest hole.
Just about here. The step lifts up to reveal a hidden place beneath.
The Elizabethan kitchen. Two priestholes here.
Close examination of the mirror reveals a priest hole in the chimney above. But where is the other one?
This bread oven is surely too small to hide a priest. Even a small one.
But above that oven is yet another priest hole. A layer of earth provided some insulation against the heat.
The glass allows a view of another priest hole.
Lady Yate’s bed chamber.
The bedroom of Mary Pakington, (Lady Yate)who was the eldest daughter of Humphrey Pakington. In 1659, following the death of her husband Sir John Yate of Buckland, she returned to Harvington where she stayed until her death in 1696 aged 85 or more.
The first portrait was made when she was about twenty. The other was painted around 1660 when she was fifty. Unfortunately for the house itself, when Mary died her granddaughter inherited Harvington Hall. She was married to Sir Robert Throckmorton of Coughton Court so what was hers became his! With no time for or need of Harvington Hall, the Throckmortons ransacked it, taking everything of value to their house Coughton Court. This included the Great Staircase. What you see in the photo above is a carefully made replica.
There was also a toilet in the corner of the room leading down to the moat. It would have been hidden by a tapestry to cloak draughts and smell. This wasn't taken away by the Throckmortons.
The trouble with Edward III was his fecundity, with so many children there were going to be problems further down the line. The conflict between his two grandsons, Richard and Henry, was only the beginning.
Richard II was the legitimate king but unhinged.
The Wilton Diptych is a wonderful piece of art. It also illustrates the scale of Richard's sense of grandeur. It was a travelling altar piece commissoned by Richard at the time of his marriage to the six year old Isabella of France. The first picture shows Richard being presented to the Virgin and Child by the martyred king St Edmund, Edward the Confessor, and no less than John the Baptist
The panel below, shows his homage being received by the infant Christ and the angels of Heaven, all wearing the king's personal emblem of the White Hart.
His cousin, Henry, with less right to the throne was made for the job. When the increasingly tyrannical Richard banished Henry and seized his lands it quickly became a matter of life or death – for them both. Henry however prevailed, seizing what proved to be a poisoned chalice. Worn out by his exertions, Henry died in 1413. Deeply religious and consumed by guilt, he asked to be buried next to St. Thomas Becket in Canterbury.
But even in death, neither king was left in peace.
Henry and his queen, Joan of Navarre
Henry hadn't even been buried before rumours circulated. One in particular. En route to Canterbury a violent storm appeared from nowhere, threatening to overturn the barge carrying Henry’s coffin. Terrified, the boatmen threw the body into the Thames and the storm miraculously cleared. A judgement from God—a monk with a grudge duly noted—an empty coffin being buried at Canterbury.
The story was clearly absurd but in 1832, antiquarians with more time than sense decided to exhume the body just to make sure.
A section of the elmwood lid was sawn to allow a small cavity. Ropes of twisted hay used as packaging were removed. Beneath that lay a lead shroud in the form of a body. Two workmen removed an oval 7 x 4 inch section of lead only to find five layers of leather wrapping.The indefatigable antiquarians persisted.
The good news: they became the first people for over 400 years to see the face of Henry IV – the lower half at least: a rich auburn beard and a full set of teeth bar one at the front—probably knocked out in battle.
The bad news: an influx of air saw immediate decay, cartilage and nose withered, sank and vanished as they watched, though the embalmed skin remained moist and brown. Feeling cheated by not being able to see the top part of his face, one enterprising investigator wriggled his fingers in the small space remaining and ‘felt the orbits of the eyes prominent in their sockets.’
Over the years, Richard II's tomb in Westminster Abbey, fell into a gross state of repair. Five metal coats of arms had been stolen leaving behind five holes in the tomb. These remained unsealed for years, allowing anyone to put their hands inside and have a good grope.
In the 1870’s, under the auspices of Dean Stanley, everything was taken out piece by piece, labelled and catalogued. Queen Anne had more of her bones missing than her husband’s because most of the shield holes had been where she lay. Richard was less badly damaged, though his jawbone was missing.
In its place were random objects dropped in by visitors to the abbey or the boys of Westminster School: ‘marbles, three tobacco-pipe bowls, seventy-two copper coins, a peach stone; an iron buckle, a copper-gilt button, the bones of a bird; a small broken table-knife, the bell from a dog’s collar; parts of a leather ball.’
Only after meticulously restoring the tomb to its former glory did Dean Stanley receive a letter from a country vicar; it concerned a treasured heirloom passed down from father to son— King Richard II’s missing jawbone.
Back in the 1760s, his grandfather had been one of those sixteen year old schoolboys in Westminster. A fellow pupil had poked his hand through a hole in the tomb and dug a large piece of bone out and passed it out to the schoolboy in question. It had even been labelled ‘the jawbone of King Richard the Second taken out of his coffin by a Westminster scholar 1766’
Richard II, one suspects, would not have been amused.
I recently googled Record of a Baffled Spirit to access a previous post.
To my surprise, I discovered a whole new world: deep AI. I’ve been reading how AI is about to take over the world, at best make us all stupid, at worst terminate us one and all. I considered the options, considered I was fairly stupid anyway and clicked on the AI overview. My mind boggled. The amount of stuff it had dredged up on me—no dental records as yet—and all in semi-readable prose.
The world and its wife now belongs to AI—largely to our benefit though others may argue. But as AI becomes ever more powerful, where will it all end? At present, it has access to our past, but why stop there? Quantum AI will no doubt predict our future as well: a boon for Insurance Companies, care homes filling vacancies with maximum efficiency, and the euthanasia business looming on the horizon. All very gloomy for the likes of me who clicks out of idle curiosity and discovers he’s going to die next Tuesday- and no doubt being able to read a pre-written obituary
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