History Lessons (eBook)

In 2010 the Redland Hotel in Chester was undergoing redevelopment. The bed from the honeymoon suite had seen better days, so was dismantled and placed in the car park to be auctioned. Advertised as a ‘Victorian four poster bed’, it was purchased for £2,000 by someone who suspected the provenance of the bed might be earlier. Dendrochronology, the scientific method of dating tree rings, confirmed that not only was this bed made in the 1480s, but it was made for the marriage of Henry VII, the first Tudor king, and Elizabeth of York, who tied the knot at Westminster Abbey in 1486. This ‘state bed’ is one of the few early Tudor furnishings we have, as so much of it was destroyed by anti-royalists during the English Civil War of the 1640s. It is ironic that this bed was intended to celebrate a royal couple, while its alleged disappearance was fuelled by negativity against royals so sharp that Charles I lost his head. Paint analysis reminds us of the wealth of this period and how connected the world continued to be, with the blue identified as lapis lazuli, originating from Afghanistan and worth more than gold at the time.

The wedding feast likely had a menu that left little to the imagination, with more subtle servings of chestnuts, pistachios and pine nuts thought to stimulate one’s libido, in addition to the inclusion of phallic-shaped food like asparagus. The final event of the night was the infamous bedding ceremony, where blessings would be given, followed by both parties consuming a drink of wine and spices thought to provide the ‘necessary’ strength. The onlookers, including musicians, attendants and priests, might not have left until they saw the couple’s naked legs touching, a reflection of how their privacy was secondary to the realm’s investment in the heirs it was hoped the couple would have. It’s likely that Henry VIII was conceived on this bed, meaning it’s now valued at around £20 million. It may also have been where their daughter Margaret was conceived, the Tudor that Queen Elizabeth II’s lineage can be traced through.

Why start with the state bed? Marriages are almost synonymous with the word Tudor. The first six decades of the Tudor reign saw an abundance of royal weddings, mostly thanks to one man, while the last four significantly saw none, despite the number of proposals that came Elizabeth I’s way. This chapter will touch on, but won’t centre around, such marital dramas. Instead, we’ll reach beyond the palaces and tournaments to show how surprisingly vast the world of the Tudors really was.

Henry VIII was the spare

Henry VII ruled for 24 years as the first monarch of the House of Tudor, until his death in 1509. His marriage with Elizabeth of York was seen as successful, and the couple had their first child, Arthur, in 1486. When Henry VII died, however, it was not Arthur who inherited the crown. Why? Arthur had been struck down with an unknown illness in 1502 at the age of fifteen. Therefore, the ‘spare’ was now next in line to the throne, in the form of second son Henry. A prince not destined to be king was now firmly placed on that path. Arthur had been married for less than six months when he died. His wife was Catherine, daughter of Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon. Their marriage was a strategic one, with this Anglo–Spanish union seen as a helpful bulwark against the French by both sides.

Seventeen-year-old King Henry VIII inherited a wealthy and relatively stable kingdom from his father. At this point in his life he was the epitome of health, towering at 6 feet and 2 inches, with a 42-inch chest and 31-inch waist. Within eight weeks of his father’s death he married his ex-sister-in-law, Catherine. Their marriage was given the green light after a papal dispensation confirmed that her first marriage had not been consummated. Henry VIII claimed he was simply fulfilling his dying father’s final wish. We all know what happens next. In the classroom the wives of Henry VIII are usually reduced to one word: ‘Divorced, beheaded, died; divorced, beheaded, survived’.

In 1511, Catherine of Aragon gave birth to a baby boy named Henry. To honour this occasion, Henry VIII held two days of celebrations and commissioned a parchment to record the event.

The Black Tudor trumpeter who knew his worth

The parchment, known as the Westminster Roll, shows six trumpeters, one of whom we now know to be John Blanke. He is Black and wearing a brown and gold turban. The turban itself suggests he may have been Muslim, with the flat shape similar to North African styles of the time. African presence was far more limited in England than it was in the rest of Europe at this time, particularly Spain, or even Scotland, where Peter the Moor, for example, was paid a pension by King James IV between 1501 and 1504, enjoying perks of the job like travelling to France.

Blanke likely came to England as one of the African attendants of Catherine of Aragon, when she first came to the country in 1501. The Spanish court she was brought up in would have been fairly multicultural, due to its proximity to Moorish North Africa. Blanke was present at many significant events of the early Tudor period. For example, he was given a new black outfit for the funeral of Henry VII in 1509. A few weeks later, Blanke played at the joint coronation of Henry VIII and Queen Catherine and was given four and a half yards of cloth, which he used to make a gown and hood. The colour he was given was scarlet, to symbolise that he was a high-ranking servant.

Blanke was one of fifteen trumpeters who would have been working solidly for the two days of the tournament celebrating the birth of Henry, an event that would have cost two hundred times the amount of Blanke’s wages. One of the final tasks for the trumpeters was to welcome the King and Queen to the post-tournament banquet.

Sadly, the first-born child of Henry VIII and Catherine died only 53 days after his birth, less than a fortnight after the extravagant tournament that had been organised in his honour. Catherine was pregnant six times during her marriage to Henry, with only one, Mary, surviving.

Written records show wages being given to ‘John Blanke, the Black trumpeter’. He was paid 8d a day, the wages parallel to those earned by skilled craftsmen. Blanke petitioned Henry VIII for a pay rise, arguing that he was being paid less than the previous trumpeter. During this time wages were based loosely on experience, which by this point Blanke had in spades. Henry VIII clearly thought so and his wages were swiftly doubled. In 1512, Blanke got married and Henry VIII gave him a wedding present of a gown of violet cloth as well as a bonnet and a hat. We know that it was customary to do this, with Henry VIII issuing various gifts to servants depending on the sort of job they had. After the document noting the wedding present, Blanke disappears from the records.

Irrespective of the mystery surrounding the later part of his life, what we do know is that he lived in Britain in the 1500s, was a Black Tudor, had a job in the service of Henry VIII and decided to marry here. He was treated just as other servants were, shown by the wedding gift he received. The pay rise petition provides us with an intriguing insight into his character: he knew his worth. His ethnic origin does not appear to have impacted his ability to be in such close proximity to royalty; he played a part in events of real significance, from funerals to coronations. He clearly disrupts our traditional understanding of Tudor England. We will be meeting more Black Tudors throughout this chapter, although Blanke remains the only one for which we have a definitive image. Out of the hundreds of people of African origin we know lived in England and Scotland during this period, his is the only face we can be absolutely sure of.

Christopher Columbus did not ‘discover’ America

Finish the sentence that starts with ‘Christopher Columbus …’ Most people will go with ‘… discovered America’. This, of course, negates the reality that approximately a hundred million people already lived in the Americas, roughly the same population as Europe at the time. The more accurate term would be that Columbus landed on the Americas. He wasn’t the first European to do so, however; Viking Leif Erikson’s voyage to Newfoundland likely takes that award.

Columbus, an Italian merchant with dreams of maximising riches from abroad, shopped around the royal courts of Europe, determined to find someone to sponsor his endeavour to sail westwards and reach Asia. As we already know, the Silk Roads had long connected Europe with Asia. Columbus was hoping he could find a route to Asia across the seas that essentially cut out the middlemen along the way. Of course, what Columbus didn’t know was that there was a rather large land mass that lay west, and maps like the one from 1489 by German cartographer Henricus Martellus would radically shift as a result of Columbus’ voyage.

Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Castile, Catherine of Aragon’s parents, gave Columbus the green light, and in 1492 he sailed west, bound for the Indies, assuming he would reach China. He set sail with three ships and around a hundred men. After six weeks or so, land was spotted, much to the joy of those aboard, as supplies were running low. The island they landed on was promptly ‘claimed’ as Spanish territory and was named San Salvador (translated as ‘Holy Saviour’). It was assumed this was an island in Asia, hence they referred to the indigenous people...