The most incredible building you'll ever see?
Rushton Triangular Lodge and more!
Hi!
I hope you’ve had a wonderful week! Welcome to the weekly British History newsletter. As I send this we are almost at the end of our Online History Festival, The Stuart Summit, with the seventh and final talk, from Gareth Russell, followed by our closing event, a just-for-fun quiz and prize draw! The feedback has been fantastic and so we are looking to do a Spring Online History Festival.
Before I tell you about what’s in this week’s newsletter, I have a question I’d love for you to answer please:
In this week’s newsletter
Thomas Tresham and Catholic Devotion in Brick
Tudor Worcester
Did they or didn’t they? A discussion about Arthur Tudor and Katherine of Aragon on History After Dark
Tea Time History Chat Live (and altered time next week)
The Honours of Scotland (for paid subscribers, as an option)
Thomas Tresham and Catholic Devotion in Brick
This is Rushton Triangular Lodge, unlike any place you will have seen. Built ostensibly as a Rabbit Warrener’s Lodge but, even to our less well-trained eye for religious cryptography, it is obvious that that was not its real purpose.
Its designer was Thomas Tresham, a high-profile Catholic Recusant in Elizabethan England. Despite the Queen’s intentions to “not make windows into men’s souls” life for her Catholic subjects became increasingly difficult and dangerous as more evidence of a Catholic threat against Elizabeth came to light. Papal excommunication in 1570 pitted her against her Catholic subjects. Were they loyal to her or were they loyal to the Pope? This conflation of religious beliefs and attitudes to the Crown immediately raised the question of Catholics, are they traitors?
Thomas Tresham embodied the contradiction of this assumption. A loyal subject but a devoted Catholic, he was imprisoned for a large part of his life. He ‘decorated’ the room in which he was held at the Bishops Palace at Ely with religious cryptography and kept a record of the meanings of the designs. However, a record for the extensive cryptography at Rushton Triangular Lodge has not surfaced and much of it remains a mystery.
Start looking for the number 3 (representing the Holy Trinity) and you will notice it more and more; 3 sides, 3 floors, 3 gables each side, trefoils and so on. There is also evidence of the number 33 (the age of Jesus when he died on the cross) with a 33 character Latin texts on each side.
This month’s Patron Blog will be on Thomas Tresham and how he expressed his faith in architecture. Join my Patreon for exclusive monthly blogs, ad-free extended historian interviews and bonus images from the historical places I visit. For example, there will be more of the outside and inside of Rushton Triangular Lodge shared with Patrons.
Welcome to my new patrons over on Patreon!
Tudor Worcester
Tudor Worcester was the focus for Friday’s ‘Visiting Tudor Britain’ livestream, which I hosted on my Instagram channel. We chatted about Worcester Cathedral, where Arthur Tudor is buried, Greyfriars, which is an example of the wealth which grew in the more peaceful times which followed the beginning of Tudor rule, and The Commandery, which was a hospital linked to the Cathedral and was forced to close when the monastery was surrendered in 1540.
Did they or didn’t they? A discussion about Arthur Tudor and Katherine of Aragon on History After Dark
History After Dark is streamed live on Instagram and Youtube and is available to view again on @History.After.Dark on Instagram and ‘History_After_Dark’ on Youtube.
Watch on Instagram. Watch on Youtube.
Tea Time History Chat Live
This week I talked about; the death of Mary I, Elizabeth I becoming Queen, Lord Leycester Hospital and Thomas Tresham and faith in brick.
This week “Thursday” Tea Time Live will be on Wednesday! Click here to set a reminder on Youtube.
New Blog Available on Substack.
Each month I will also be sharing my exclusive monthly blog with paid subscribers to my Substack. This is the blog published also the Patrons on Patreon so if you are already a Patron you will get this anyway.
I wished to give the option of accessing my blog even if you don’t want to become a Patron. The normal email and podcast remain free.
If you are thinking of subscribing I will give you 7 days for free to see if it’s for you.
Until next week, all my best, Philippa
The queue for the Crown Jewels is almost guaranteed to be the longest one into any part of the Tower of London. People plan their day around seeing the jewels, such is the wait time if you hit that queue at the wrong time! After trailing back and forth through the queuing system (just feet away from the site where Anne Boleyn’s scaffold was erected in 1536) visitors pass through thick security doors and join a moving walkway that takes them slowly past an array of Crowns and Regalia, including the Crown Jewels. Anyone visiting this September would not have seen them of course, as they were set atop the late Queen Elizabeth II’s coffin. The Crown Jewels accompanied Her Majesty The Queen’s coffin until their ceremonial removal, before her coffin was lowered into a vault beneath St George’s Chapel. They were not, however, the same Crown Jewels that had accompanied the Queen’s coffin while she lay in state in Scotland for, those were the Scottish Crown Jewels. For many people this was the first time they had seen the Scottish Crown Jewels or perhaps even considered their existence.
In this blog you will find out more about the Scottish Crown Jewels and their very interesting tale of survival! I’ve also included the Stone of Destiny, otherwise known as the Stone of Scone or the Coronation Stone, as this is relevant to the coronation of King Charles III, in May 2023.
The ‘Honours of Scotland’, by which the Scottish Crown Jewels are referred, are on display at Edinburgh Castle alongside the ‘Stone of Destiny’, which we will come back to later. They have been on display there since their ‘rediscovery’ by Sir Walter Scott, in 1818, when The Prince Regent (who would later become George IV) gave Scott permission to search Edinburgh Castle where he believed the Honours had been stored since the Union of the countries. On the Union of Scotland and England, the Scottish Parliament was dissolved and the Honours, which had sat on display in the Parliament as a representation of the King’s presence, were stored away - only for their location to be forgotten!
A Crown, Sword and Sceptre make up the Honours. Let’s look at each item in more detail.
The Crown weighs 1.65kg, (3.64Ilbs) and was created sometime before 1540, when we know James V of Scotland had it remodelled from an earlier, heavier crown ready to wear at the coronation of his Queen Consort, Mary of Guise at Holyrood Abbey. The Gold Circlet is set with 22 gemstones and 20 precious stones from the earlier crown and also includes freshwater pearls from Scottish Rivers.
James V also had the Sceptre altered, including the addition of his own initials. The Sceptre had been presented to his father, James IV in 1494 by Pope Alexander VI. The Sceptre is made of Silver Gilt with the head of the sceptre holding a large, polished, rock crystal. Directly beneath the round crystal are what look like sea creatures and are, in fact, stylised dolphins, along with three figures. The three figures are depictions of the Virgin Mary and Child, St James and St Andrew. These sceptre also features the thistle, an emblem of Scotland.
In 1507, a subsequent Pope, Julius II presented James IV with the Sword of State. The blade is over a metre long and is adorned with engravings of St Peter and St Paul and Julius’ inscription, “JULIUS II PONT MAX”. The scabbard is decorated with dolphins, oak leaves, acorns, and grotesque masks. There is a break in the blade believed to be due to it being snapped in two when the Honours were hidden from Oliver Cromwell (more on that below).
The sword became an important part of the ceremony of induction into the highest order of chivalry in Scotland, The Order of the Thistle, established by James VII of Scotland in 1687. The sword is no longer used in ceremony as it is considered too delicate. The final time it was used was in 1987 at a ceremony to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the Order.
The Crown, Sword and Sceptre were used together for the first time at the Coronation of Mary, Queen of Scots, and since then, at that of her son, James VI, and her grandson, Charles I.
The Honours predate the English Crown Jewels, but only by virtue of the Scots successfully hiding them from an otherwise inevitable fate, their destruction (as happened in England). Cromwell failed to track down any of the Coronation Regalia, which was smuggled away from Scone Palace. It was at Scone Palace on 1 January 1651 that Prince Charles had been crowned Charles II in Scotland. He was the last monarch to have a coronation in Scotland and with the Scottish Regalia.
The ‘Honours’ were first taken North of Scone to Dunnottar Castle, which sits approximately 15 miles south of Aberdeen and is today in ruins. Soon the castle was under siege by Cromwell’s men in pursuit of these precious emblems of monarchy and the old order. The siege lasted for 8 months but it had become clear that they were going to have to eventually surrender. In a daring move, the crown, sword and sceptre were smuggled out of the Castle and taken 7 miles South, to Kinneff Church. The wives of the officer in charge of the castle, George Ogilvie of Barras and of the Church Reverend, James Grainger, were good friends and they seem to have been pivotal, if not behind, the plan to secure and hide the Scottish Crown Jewels.
Two versions of the story exist, one says that Mrs Grainger herself, along with an unnamed maid, concealed the Honours in bundles of flax and were able to leave the castle with them. The other, is that they were lowered down to a waiting boat below the castle. Onboard was a servant, or fisherwoman, pretending to gather seaweed, who collected the precious items.
The Reverend James Grainger received the Honours and, along with his wife, wrapped them in linen and buried them in the clay floor of the church. The couple would bring them out periodically to air them and make sure the damp hadn’t caused any damage.
On the Restoration of the Monarchy, in 1660, the Honours were dug up from the church floor for a final time and returned to Edinburgh Castle. Here they were used at Parliament to represent the presence of the King or Queen. This was the case until the Union in 1707 meant that there would now be one, combined Parliament, which would sit in London. This is when the crown, sword and sceptre were stored away in an oak chest within the safety of Edinburgh Castle.
The Honours were buried once again during World War II due to the threat of German bombing, this time in various locations around the Palace. In 1953, at a service of Thanksgiving at St Giles’, Edinburgh, HM The Queen was formally presented with the Honours. The Crown was used again in 2022 when it was set upon the Queen’s coffin as she Laid in State at St Giles’. The sword and sceptre were not present because they have been considered too fragile to be used in ceremony for a number of years.
There are calls from some areas for the Crown of Scotland to be used in the Coronation service of Charles III, on 6th May 2023. Whether that will happen or not I’m not certain, what is for certain is that the Stone of Destiny, also known as the Stone of Scone, will be brought down from Edinburgh Castle, to Westminster Abbey, to sit under the Coronation Chair when Charles is crowned.
The Stone, on which Scottish Kings had sat at their coronations for centuries, is a symbol of Scottish National identity. It was probably for this reason, in 1296, that Edward I ‘Hammer of the Scots’ took it to London where he had a Coronation Chair built to enclose the Stone beneath it, a sign of the subjugation of the Scots.
In 1996 the Stone was officially returned to Scotland where it is kept, alongside the Honours, at Edinburgh Castle but will return to London and to Westminster Abbey for the Coronation of King Charles III.
Written by Philippa Brewell
Sources and Further Reading
https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofScotland/The-Honours-of-Scotland/
https://www.royal.uk/charles-ii\
https://www.royal.uk/honours-scotland
https://www.kinneffoldchurch.co.uk/
https://www.edinburghcastle.scot/see-and-do/highlights/the-stone-of-destiny