Category: London

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London Before London and DNA

Photo of the Petrous part of the temporal bone

I have just given a guided walk and a virtual tour of London in the prehistoric period. I rashly promised, as follow-up, a booklist. I have many books that I have found pivotal in shaping my own opinions, but I find myself very reluctant to recommend them in the light of the remarkable new, and recent, DNA discoveries.

The cause of this ‘revolution’ is the Petrous Bone – a small bone in/near the ear from which scientists can extract, without too much damage to ancient skeletons, a reliable source of ancient DNA. Previous studies were done on modern DNA and extrapolating backwards. Now, archaeologists can, relatively cheaply, investigate (and often debunk) archaeological theories about the spread of human cultures.

It is a salutary story. Early archaeologists had, what you might call, a colonial, diffusionist model of the past. So when a new culture was identified, normally on the back of the arrival of a new form of pottery. It was interpreted as being spread by diffusion, normally from the ‘civilised’ fertile crescent to barbaric pre-literate Europe. Hence, Stonehenge was thought to be built by a prince from Mycenae, on the basis of the Lion Gate in Mycenae having vague similarities with the Trilithons at Stonehenge (and other diffused cultural markers). And with a viewpoint, that the uncivilised Britons would not be able to build something so amazing!

Archaeologists in the 1970s rejected this imperialist model and preferred to think that cultures need not depend on advances from their betters, nor should ‘invasion’ be allowed to be the main means of technical and cultural advancement. The advent of Radio Carbon Dating profoundly affected how the past was dated, and showed that diffusionist chronologies, often, did not stand up. And thus Stonehenge was freed from cultural imperialism, and we Brits could take all the credit. And Prehistory lost a whole host of ‘invasions’ and ‘migrations’, and a start was also made on diminishing the centrality of the ‘invasions’ at the core of the Anglo/Saxon/Viking migrations into Briton.

Along comes the petrous bone and the development of the study of Ancient DNA, and we discover, in the last couple of years, that:

  1. The ancestors of Britons were dark to black skinned
  2. Farming was indeed introduced from the Continent, around 4000BC and the DNA of the UK was largely (but not completely) replaced by incomers. So it was not the Mesolithic hunter gathers who adopted farming but the ‘Western Neolithic’ people who settled bringing in sheep, cows, goats, pigs, wheat, oats, rye, barley, polished axes and pottery.
  3. The Beaker Folk, DNA now tells us, came from abroad around 2,500 BC. Originally from the Steppes via the Netherlands, and their DNA replaced all but 10% of the Western Neolithic DNA. This happened at about the same time as Stonehenge was remodelled with the giant Trilithons.
  4. Another influx of people from around 1300BC to 800BC replaced around 50% of the DNA of Britain.

So we now have at least 3 major population replacements before the coming of the Romans, Saxons, Vikings and Normans. Very annoying to find that those old-fashioned imperial archaeologists of the early 20th Century had it more correct than the enlightened archaeologists of the Late 20th Century.

London before the Romans
View of London from the SE as it might have looked before the Roman Invasion

So to my book list. Firstly, you will have noted above that I have linked the stories to reliable websites, so you can get further information. Here are a few other important websites:

Neolithic Houses at the Horton site at the Wessex archaeology site

Archaeology of Heathrow Terminal 5 https://framearch.co.uk/

Bronze Age Bridges at Dorney: https://heritageportal.buckinghamshire.gov.uk

Vauxhall Mesolithic and Bronze Ages Structures: https://www.vauxhallandkennington.org.uk/

Principle Place Feasting Site?: https://www.independent.co.uk/

Hill forts in the London Area: https://hillforts.arch.ox.ac.uk/

As to books, I suggest the best start is to read Mike Parker Pearson’s ‘Stonehenge A Brief History, Bloomsbury Academic 2023’ because it is up-to-date and Pearson has considered the DNA studies noted above.

For similar reasons and for a more general introduction to Britain in the Prehistoric period, you could try:

Roberts, Alice ‘Ancestors: A Prehistory Of Britain In Seven Burials ‘ Publisher: Simon & Schuster Ltd 2022

which has good reviews, but I have not yet read it.

I know that neither is about London, but the only ‘book’ on Prehistoric London I have is:

Merriman, N ‘Prehistoric London’ Museum Of London, 1991

And this is more of a booklet than a full academic book. There is another book, but then it was published in 1914:

Prehistoric London : its mounds and circles / by E.O. Gordon ; with appendices by John Griffith. Volume c.1 1914

For the period just before the Roman Invasion, I would highly recommend reading Julius Caesar’s opinions on Prehistoric Britain.

Caesar, Julius (ed Anne & Peter Wiseman). ‘The Battle For Gaul’ Chatto And Windus Ltd, London 1989

Peter Wiseman was my Professor at University, and it is an excellent introduction, still available new but also cheaply second hand at Abebooks.

You will find some interesting, relevant passages in my book:

Flude, Kevin ‘In Their Own Words – A Literary Companion To The Origins Of London’ D A Horizons, 2009

You can buy a hardback copy from me for £5 plus postage (email me, kpflude@chr.org.uk) or from Amazon in a Kindle version.

I will add more as I find them!

Cover of Kevin Flude's 'In their Own Words'
A Literary Companion to the origins of London
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The End of Hardy’s tree

From the Guardian Article

I published the following post about Hardy’s Tree on 28th December 2022. Here, follows the original post and an update which suggests the tree and the gravestones were not erected by Thomas Hardy.

This is the day that Herod ordered the slaughter of the Innocents, or Childermas, and I am glad to see that my Grandson is now older than Herod’s prescription.

Hardy’s Tree in St Pancras Church, Camden, London has fallen down. Hardy was an architect and worked in London for a while, where one of his jobs was to supervise the clearance of the graveyard. Several poems of Hardy refer to the removal of graves from their original positions and in this case, the gravestones were set around an Ash tree that inspires many, including my Central St Martin’s students who used it in a project recently. So, I was shocked to read a Guardian article (since deleted) which noted the sad demise of the Tree.

Extracts from one of several Hardy Poems about moving graves and gravestones follow, but I need to update the post about the connection to Hardy. The Guardian has now got an article which suggests the connection with Hardy is a more recent one than previously thought (Guardian article).

I (and I think the Guardian) were alerted to this by the work of Lester Hillman, who wrote a Churchyard Guide and a recent pamphlet about the Tree, which is reported in ‘Context ISSN 1462-7574’. This is the Journal of the City of London Archaeological Society. Evidence proves that the Ash Tree dates to the 1930s, and that the mound of gravestones is from burials relocated from St Giles in the Fields, and therefore unlikely to have been in St Pancras at the time Hardy was responsible for clearing it.

So it is not ‘the’ Hardy Tree, but then nor was the tree at Sycamore Gap anything to do with Robin Hood. What it was, was a beautiful piece of nature, in a poignant setting. May she rest in peace.

The Levelled Churchyard
Thomas Hardy

O Passenger, pray list and catch
Our sighs and piteous groans,
Half stifled in this jumbled patch
Of wrenched memorial stones!

We late-lamented, resting here,
Are mixed to human jam,
And each to each exclaimed in fear,
I know not which I am.

Where we are huddled none can trace,
And if our names remain,
They pave some path or porch or place
Where we have never lain!

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15th July Festival of Castor and Pollux

The Ashwini kumaras twins, sons of the sun god Surya. Vedic gods representing the brightness of sunrise and sunset Wikipedia

I have been away leading a tour of Quintessential Britain for Road Scholar and have fallen behind. And I had a few almanac days waiting for the right day to come! And now they have passed. But, I need them in the Almanac, so here is the beginning of a July catching up exercise.

The Divine Twins, aka the Dioscuri, were horsemen, patrons of calvary, athletes and sailors, one of many indo-european twin gods.   Pollux is the son of Zeus and Leda (raped by Zeus in the guise of a swan). His twin brother has a different and mortal father, the King of Sparta to the same mother, Leda.  So they are examples of heteropaternal superfecundation as Mary Poppins probably didn’t sing.

One is therefore immortal and the other isn’t.   They had many adventures including sailing with Jason as Argonauts.

According to some version of the story Castor was mortally wounded, and Zeus gave Pollux the option of letting his brother die while he spent his eternity on Mount Olympus. The alternative was to share his immortality with his brother. He did the good thing, and the twins spend half their year as the Constellation of Gemini and the rest, immortal on Mount Olympus.  Thus, they are the epitome of brotherly love.

Their sisters were, no less than Helen of Troy, and Clytemnestra. They were also twins, Helen the divine daughter of Zeus and, Clytemnestra, mortal daughter of the King of Sparta. The Swan was being pursued by an eagle, so Leda protected the Swan and took it to bed on the same night she slept with her husband Tyndareus of Sparta. Two eggs were fertilised, each split in two to give two sets of twins.

Leda and the Swan, 16th-century copy after the lost painting by Michelangelo

Neither mind the Brothers, what Sisters! Helen you know but Clytemnestra was the wife of Agamemnon, the arrogant leader of the Greeks.  On the way to retrieve Helen from Troy, the Greek Fleet is becalmed. So Agamemnon sacrifices his own daughter, Iphigenia, on the island of Aulis to get a fair wind to Troy. (read Iphigenia at Aulis by Aeschylus, a great play which I studied in Classical Studies at University)

painting of Clytemnestra after she has slaughtered her husband Agamemnon _by_John_Collier,_1882 (Wikipedia Guildhall Museum)
Clytemnestra_by_John_Collier,_1882 (Wikipedia Guildhall Museum)

Meanwhile, Queen Clytemnestra, abandoned at home broods on her husband’s heartless fillicide. She takes a lover. After 10 years of war Agamemnon comes back, in triumph from the destruction of Troy, with his prize the Trojan Princess, Cassandra. Strutting with arrogance he demands Clytemnestra prepare him a bath and she gives him the hottest bath possible and, with the help of her lover, hacks Agamemnon to pieces. 

Cassandra prophesizes that she too  will be killed, but she has been cursed with ability of accurate prophecy twinned with the inability to get anyone to believe her. So she is also slaughtered.

I visit John Collier’s painting regularly and am fascinated by her grim expression. (Sadly she has recently come off display at the Guildhall Art Gallery).

In the 18th/19th Century rich people were into ‘attitudes’.  For example, Emma Hart, later Lady Hamilton, would be invited to present an attitude in front of a dinner party of mostly male aristocrats.  She would dress up in a flowing revealing unstructured classical gown and stand on a table presenting herself as: Helen or Andromache or some other classical beauty.  She would assume an appropriate facial expression and posture to everyone’s pleasure. 

Detail of Emma Hart modelling as Iphigenia by George Romney in ‘Cimon and Iphigenia’

Clytemnestra is more difficult! I imagine Collier’s model being  prompted to look both sad at the loss of the daughter; outraged at the arrogance of the husband; horror at the gore of the murder but overall to portray a grim satisfaction that the bastard got exactly what he deserved.

Lord Leighton had a famous model who was exceptionally skilled at adopting poses for his paintings. He determined to help her with an acting career. As part of the plan he helped improve her cockney accent and it is said this inspired Bernard Shaw’s story Pygmalion which, in turn, inspired My Fair Lady and Eliza Doolittle. 

The model was called Dorothy Dene.  She became a famous actress, outstripping the fame of Ellen Terry and Lily Langtry. She modelled for the famous painting ‘Flaming June’ which sold 500,000 print copies in 1895.  Lord Leighton went somewhat out of fashion and the original painting was purchased for £50 by the rather marvellously named Museo de Ponce, Puerto Rico where she still resides.

I have one of those half million prints on my bedroom wall.

Print of Flaming June by Lord Leighton

Before we finish do have a look at John Collier’s Wikipedia because he is the most ridiculously well connected painter you can imagine! Related to half the Cabinet and married to TWO daughters of Darwin’s Bulldog T.H.Huxley (grandfather of Aldous Huxley).

European Twin Gods

It is suggested that twin male gods are a feature of indo-european religions, and that the Twins are associated with horses/chariots and are responsible for moving the Sun and the Moon. Their use of a horse above the water means that they can rescue  people lost at sea.   St Elmo’s fire was said to be the way they manifested their divinity to sailors.   Diodorus Siculus records that the Twins were Argonauts with Heracles, Telamon, and Orpheus. Further, he tells us in the fourth book of Bibliotheca historica, that the Celts who dwelt along the ocean worshipped the Dioscuroi “more than the other gods”.

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27th June 1967 World’s First ATM Honoured. Digital Heritage –

Screenshot from Londonist Web Page

On the 10th April 2023, Heritage England announced on its webpage, that they had listed a Bank which contained the world’s first ATM Machine. Barclays Bank choose its Enfield Branch for this honour which opened on 27th June 1967. Above, you will see local celebrity, Reg Varney (in hat), a star of a very popular and ‘corny’ sitcom called ‘On the Buses.’ opening the new machine. It miraculously delivered a £10 note without any human intervention, and offered access to money after banking hours.

1967 Ten pound note

Barclay’s had previously launched the UK’s first credit card, and selected Enfield to be the place where they launched an automatic machine to dispense money – nicknamed ‘money machines’ in the UK. The customer was issued a ‘punched card’ and had to enter a PIN for the magic to be initiated. Barclays were developing the idea of a magnetic strip on a card at the same time.

Google Street View image of the Enfield Barclays Bank (screenprinted 15/07/23)
Google Street View image of the Enfield Barclays Bank (screenprinted 15/07/23)

The building, which has a plaque and a gold-painted modern ATM, is Grade II listed and so should be protected from development in future. The building itself is an interesting, almost typical, late Victorian red brick commercial building, with fine details in the Flemish Renaissance style by William Gilbee Scott. Scott lived in Enfield.

I look forward to visiting it on my next visit to Enfield Lock on my narrow boat Mrs Towser.

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June 24th Festival of St John the Baptist

St John the Baptist Church Walbrook. London from the online
St John the Baptist Church, Walbrook. London. From the online Agas Map

On my post of June 3rd I wrote about the street festivals in the Tudor City of London to celebrate the feast day of saints. I promised to continue the story on the Feast day of St John (24th June). This is set out in full below. It includes the Feast Day of St Peter and Paul (29th June) What is amazing is the scale and the expense of the celebrations.

These Saints are some of the most important in the Christian Calendar. John being the forerunner to Jesus and his cousin, and Peter and Paul being the apostles who, more than anyone else, created the Christian Church.

There are also pagan rituals associated with the Feast of St John. Here is an example of French pagan solstice fires:

“They were lit at the crossroads in the fields to prevent witches and sorceresses from passing through during the night; herbs gathered on Saint John’s Day were sometimes burned to ward off lightning, thunder and storms, and it was thought that these fumigations would ward off demons and tumults.”

For more information, have a look at ‘French Moments’ here:

The Feast of St John is often described as being on the Summer Solstice, it isn’t by modern reckoning, but nor is December 25th the Winter Solstice. But they were celebrated as such by Christians, and the Solstice can be thought of as spread over 3 or 4 days (or more if taking into account Solstice Old style. The major events of the sun and the moon were linked into Christian theology and symbolism. Jesus, son of God, would clearly have arrived on the auspicious time of the Winter Solstice. His cousin, John the Baptist, came to tell the world about the coming of Jesus and so his birthday was exactly 6 months before at the Summer Solstice.

St John is also special as most Saint’s Days are linked to the day of their death, but June 24th is the birthday of St John. His beheading by Herod is commemorated on 29th August.

St John the Baptist upon Walbrook in the City of London is first mentioned in the 12th Century, burnt down and not rebuilt after the Great Fire of London. The parish was united with St Antholin, Budge Row, The Graveyard survived until 1884 when the District Line destroyed most of the Graveyard and the bones were reinterred below a monument, which can still be seen in Cloak Lane.

Here is what John Stow tells us about the processions on the night before the feast of St John (24th June) and St Peter and Paul (29th June):

On the vigil of St. John the Baptist, and on St. Peter and Paul the Apostles, every man’s door being shadowed with green birch, long fennel, St. John’s wort, orpin, white lilies, and such like, garnished upon with garlands of beautiful flowers, had also lamps of glass, with oil burning in them all the night; some hung out branches of iron curiously wrought, containing hundreds of lamps alight at once, which made a goodly show, namely in New Fish street, Thames street, etc.

Then had ye besides the standing watches all in bright harness, in every ward and street of this city and suburbs, a marching watch, that passed through the principal streets thereof, to wit, from the little conduit by Paule’s gate to West Cheape, by the stocks through Cornhill, by Leaden hall to Aldgate, then back down Fenchurch street, by Grasse church, about Grasse church conduit, and up Grasse church street into Cornhill, and through it into West Cheape again.

Grasse Church Street is Gracechurch Street.

The whole way for this marching watch extendeth to three thousand two hundred tailor’s yards of assize; for the furniture whereof with lights, there were appointed seven hundred cressets, five hundred of them being found by the companies, the other two hundred by the chamber of London.

Note a cresset is: a ‘metal container of oil, grease, wood, or coal set alight for illumination and typically mounted on a pole’ (Wikipedia).

Besides the which lights every constable in London, in number more than two hundred and forty, had his cresset: the charge of every cresset was in light two shillings and four pence, and every cresset had two men, one to bear or hold it, another to bear a bag with light, and to serve it, so that the poor men pertaining to the cressets, taking wages, besides that every one had a straw hat, with a badge painted, and his breakfast in the mornings amounted in number to almost two thousand.

The marching watch contained in number about two thousand men, part of them being old soldiers of skill, to be captains, lieutenants, serjeants, corporals, etc., wiflers, drummers, and fifes, standard and ensign bearers, sword players, trumpeters on horseback, demilances on great horses, gunners with hand guns, or half hakes, archers in coats of white fustian, signed on the breast and back with the arms of the city, their bows bent in their hands, with sheaves of arrows by their sides, pike-men in bright corslets, burganets, etc., halberds, the like bill-men in almaine rivets, and apernes of mail in great number;

there were also divers pageants, morris dancers, constables, the one-half, which was one hundred and twenty, on St. John’s eve, the other half on St. Peter’s eve, in bright harness, some overgilt, and every one a jornet of scarlet thereupon, and a chain of gold, his henchman following him, his minstrels before him, and his cresset light passing by him, the waits of the city, the mayor’s officers for his guard before him, all in a livery of worsted, or say jackets party-coloured, the mayor himself well mounted on horseback, the swordbearer before him in fair armour well mounted also, the mayor’s footmen, and the like torch bearers about him, henchmen twain upon great stirring horses, following him.

The sheriffs’ watches came one after the other in like order, but not so large in number as the mayor’s; for where the mayor had besides his giant three pageants, each of the sheriffs had besides their giants but two pageants, each their morris dance, and one henchman, their officers in jackets of worsted or say, party-coloured, differing from the mayor’s, and each from other, but having harnessed men a great many, etc

John Stow, author of the ‘Survey of London‘ first published in 1598. Available at the wonderful Project Gutenberg: ‘https://www.gutenberg.org/files/42959/42959-h/42959-h.htm’

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Digital Heritage – the Picture Room at the Sir John Soane Museum

Screen Shot of the Virtual Tour of the Sir John Soane Museum showing the approach to the Paintings Room
Screen Shot of the Virtual Tour of the Sir John Soane Museum

The Sir John Soane Museum is my second favourite London Museum. It’s the place I choose to take people who don’t know London. What I like about it is the atmosphere. It’s not a place I go because of the collection, it’s a place I go because I’m just awestruck when I enter the doors.

Architect Soane, made a Museum of his house, filling it with architectural and sculptural pieces but also some stupendous Art, particularly paintings by William Hogarth. But that isn’t my motivation to keep going back. It’s the Picture Room (and the domed ceilings). Soane had a great collection of paintings, but not enough walls. What he did was to design the Paintings Room. When you visit you go in, admire the paintings on the wall, and the attendant comes in, opens a shutter, and behind the great paintings are another wall of great paintings. And then he opens another set of shutters, and there, is another feast for your eyes.

Now, they have made high quality digital images of the rooms, and put them together using photogrammetry into a digital model which you can explore.

So, feast your eyes on it here: (choose Picture Room from the three options).

It’s not quite as user-friendly as it might be. Firstly, when the tour delivers you to the Picture Room, you have to take over control to go in and explore the 360 degree image of the room. Unfortunately, the pictures are not clickable, so you cannot get information about them from here. Also, the ‘hot spots’ which allow you to open the shutters, only reveal themselves, on my computer, if you approach them at a certain angle.

But don’t let this put you off, I’m sure you will find your way around. So go into the Room, look around, move the cursus, and you will see little signs pop up which open and close the shutters. Really, do try it! There are a couple of other rooms to explore too.

Here is a link to descriptions of the Picture Room and the paintings.

Oh, and the Dome Ceilings? Soane was a specialist in buildings that didn’t want windows in normal places. He was the architect of the Bank of England where windows in the walls were a security risk, and also of London’s first purpose built art gallery – the Dulwich Picture Gallery. Windows reduced the space for paintings, so he designed special low domed ceilings, and the Soane Museum is full of his experimentation in the form.

Scara Brae Three D Model

Another delight is the 3D model of Scara Brae which allows you to explore the Neolithic village, and walk around it. There are labels on this one, so you do get information too.

https://www.historicenvironment.scot/about-us/news/new-digital-model-of-skara-brae-welcomes-virtual-visitors/

360 Degree Panorama Virtual Tours. My part in their development.

I was an early adopter of this form of virtual reality, setting up virtual tours of the Old Operating Theatre Museum in the 1990’s. I have a draft post of this which I have been awaiting time to finish, which I hope to finish soon….

Thanks to the Museum’s Journal article on Photogrametry of May/June 2022 for the two examples above.

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June & July – Street Parties in London on the Vigils of Feast Days

Image from the Agas Map of London Civitas Londinum is a bird’s-eye view of London first printed from woodblocks in about 1561
Civitas Londinum is a bird’s-eye view of London first printed from woodblocks in about 1561

John Stow, author of the ‘Survey of London‘ first published in 1598, tells us that there were bonfires and street parties in the City throughout June and July on the Vigils of Festivals. The Vigil is the evening before a festival. A custom that might owe a little to the Celtic choice of dusk as the beginning of the new day.

Front cover of the Survey of London by John Stow
Front cover of the Survey of London by John Stow

Stow does not give a list of the vigils thus celebrated and only mentions those of St John the Baptist and of St Paul and St Peter, (which fall later in June, when I will post about them). But I would guess it would include prominent Saints in the Catholic Calendar, and also Saints with London Churches or Chapels named after them. These might include: St Botolph, St Alban, St James, St Thomas, St Margaret, St Wilgerfortis, St. Mary Magdalen, St Bridget, St James, as well as Saints John, Peter, and Paul. I’m guessing that City wide celebration would be reserved for the most important Saints, and with local celebrations for the Saint on the local Church. I am assuming these celebrations were ended or much reduced after the Reformation.

Here is his introduction to the Vigil celebrations.

‘In the months of June and July, on the vigils of festival days, and on the same festival days in the evenings after the sun setting, there were usually made bonfires in the streets, every man bestowing wood or labour towards them; the wealthier sort also, before their doors near to the said bonfires, would set out tables on the vigils, furnished with sweet bread and good drink, and on the festival days with meats and drinks plentifully, whereunto they would invite their neighbours and passengers also to sit and be merry with them in great familiarity, praising God for his benefits bestowed on them. These were called bonfires as well of good amity amongst neighbours that being before at controversy, were there, by the labour of others, reconciled, and made of bitter enemies loving friends; and also for the virtue that a great fire hath to purge the infection of the air. ‘

He goes on to describe a large scale City wide celebration, which is probably a description of the Midsummer festivities, which I will present on the 21st June.

John Stow is one of the most important sources for Tudor and Medieval London. He was a Londoner, buried in St Andrews Undershaft (see map above), who wrote up all he could glean about London. I use him all the time – for example, on my Wolf Hall Tudor London Walk, which I am doing tomorrow. Stow’s Survey of London can be accessed online, in full, here: or via the wonderful online Agas Map, from which the map above came from.

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May Gifts & New Brooms

May – Hawthorn Flowers

It’s bad luck to buy, make or use a new broom in May because:

Sweep with a broom that is cut in May
You’ll sweep the head of the house away.

But you can give good luck to a friend by leaving a branch of hawthorn flowers on the doorstep. But other woody messages were not so friendly according to traditional verses:

Alder for a scrowler; pear for the fair
Nut for a Slut; plum for the glum
Bramble if she ramble; gorse for the whores

It is basically rhyming slang, so no great wisdom involved, also I’m not sure quite how some of the rhymes work, and it does seem rather at the expense of women.

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May 3rd – Roodmas, the True Cross and the Coronation

cutting from the Shropshire News article on the True Cross and the Coronation
Shropshire News article on the True Cross and the Coronation

I was just finishing my piece on Roodmas and the True Cross, starting to look up the history of the piece of the Cross that was held by the Duke of Buckingham in the 17th Century, when I came across this amazing story in the Shropshire News!

It seems two pieces of the True Cross have been given to Charles by the Pope! They have been put into a cross called the Welsh Cross which will take part in the Coronation Procession and then the King is giving the Cross (I assume with the pieces of the Holy Cross) to the Church in Wales. Let the Shropshire News tell the story:

Shropshire News article on the True Cross and the Coronation
Part 2 Shropshire News article on the True Cross and the Coronation

This is quite extraordinarily medieval, and fits in with the news that we have been asked to take an oath of allegiance to the new King.

I, (Insert full name), do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to His Majesty King Charles, his heirs and successors, according to law. So help me God.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/royals/swearing-allegiance-king-charles-its-29861318

It is a clear reminder that we are subjects not citizens and news that we still set store by superstitions. Its a delicate time because many non-natural-Royalists, like me, thought the Queen did a great job as a non-political Head of State. We remain unsure about Charles. We have heard calls to modernise the Royal Family. But this seems to be doing the opposite. Time will tell.

Roodmas is celebrated on May 3rd and September 14th, although the Church of England aligned itself with the Catholic Church’s main celebration on September 14th.

Rood is another word for the Cross. Parish Churches used to have a Rood Screen separating the holy Choir from the more secular Nave. This screen was topped with a statue of the Crucified Jesus.

The two dates of Roodmas reflects that it commemorates two events:

The Discovery of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem in 326 by Queen Helena, wife of Constantius Chlorus and mother of Constantine the Great. Most of the Cross was sent back to the care of Constantine the Great.

The part of the Holy Cross that was left in Jerusalem was taken by Persians but recovered by the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius in 628 in a peace treaty.

Queen Helena found the Cross with the nails, and the crown of thorns. She authenticated it by placing the Cross in contact with a deathly sick women who was revived by the timber of the Cross.

Over the years the Cross was shivered into ever smaller pieces as Emperors, Kings, Dukes, Counts, Popes, Bishops, Abbots, and Abbesses swapped relics with each other. The fragments were cased in beautiful reliquaries and had enormous power for those of faith and those who could be helped by healing by faith.

The Duke of Buckingham had a piece in his collection in the 17th Century, which I think he must have acquired from the aftermath of the destruction of the Reformation.

But I will be saving more about the Legend of the True Cross on September 14th.

For the story of Stratford-upon-Avon and the Legend of the True Cross click here:

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May 2nd. This Stinking Idol & the End of May Day

An Imagined Scene at the Maypole at St Andrew Undershaft
An Imagined Scene at the Maypole at St Andrew Undershaft

Philip Stubbes, in his Anatomy of Abuses of 1583, fired a broadside into the tradition of dancing around the Maypole when he wrote a vitriolic attack on pagan practices. He said they had ‘as Superintendent and Lord ouer their pastimes and sportes: namely, Sathan Prince of Hell’ as they erected ‘this stinking Idoll’. Stubbes suggested that of the maids that went out to the woods on May Eve less than one-third returned ‘undefiled’.

The Maypole was stored at St Andrew Cornhill, which became known as St Andrew Undershaft. In 1517 it was attacked during the Evil May Day riot, which the Recorder of the time, Thomas More, helped quell. (300 were arrested and one hanged). The shaft was then kept under the eves of the houses in Shaft Alley but apparently banned from being raised.

But in 1549 the curate of nearby St Katharine Cree Church made an inflammatory speech which lead to a Puritan mob cutting the shaft into pieces and burning it. I always imagine the Curate’s sermons to be along the same lines as Phillip Stubbes attack on the Maypole:

‘But their chiefest iewel they bring from thence is the Maie-poale,
which they bring home with great veneration, as thus: They haue
twentie, or fourtie yoake of Oxen, euery Oxe hauing a sweete
Nosegaie of flowers tyed on the tip of his homes, and these Oxen
drawe home this Maie-poale (this stinking ldoll rather) which is
couered all ouer with Flowers and Hearbes, bound round about
with strings from the top to the bottome, and sometimes painted
with variable collours, with two or three hundred men, women and
children following it, with great deuotion. And thus being reared
vp, with handkerchiefes and flagges streaming on the top, they
strawe the ground round about, bind green boughes about it, set
vp Summer Haules, Bowers, and Arbours hard by it. And then fa!
they to banquet and feast, to leape and daunce about it, as the
a Heathen people did, at the dedication of their ldolles, whereof this
is a perfect patteme, or rather the thing it selfe. I haue heard it
crediblie reported (and that viua voce) by men of great grauity,
credite, and reputation, that of fourtie, threescore, or a hundred Maides,
going to the wood ouemight, there haue scarcely the third part of them returned home againe vndefiled.‘

Phillip Stubbes from ‘A CRITICAL EDITION OF PHILIP STUBBES’S ANATOMIE OF ABUSES‘ by MARGARET JANE KIDNIE

The Maypole in the Strand seems to have survived until the beginning of the Civil War, (1644) when it was destroyed. But at the Restoration of Charles II another huge Maypole was joyously erected 134 ft high (41 metres) there and danced around till 1713 when it was replaced. And sold to Isaac Newton who used it to support the biggest telescope in Europe which was erected in Wanstead by a friend.

And that, my friends, is how you get from Superstition to Science in one easy story.

Old Print of Isaac Newton
Old Print of Isaac Newton

Postscript. I have always said that the sermon that led to the destruction of the Shaft in 1549 was made at St Paul but cannot remember where I read this. The suggestion that the Maypole in Cornhill was not used after 1517 seems strange because why then would it rouse a crowd to riot in 1549? Of the sources I have at hand, the London Encyclopedia mentions the riot of 1517 in its entry on St Andrew Undershaft but says nothing to say how St Andrew was involved while ‘Layers of London’ says ‘It was last raised in 1517 when ensuing riots led to the celebration being banned.’ which is definitive sounding. But is it? I wonder, if it was banned for a year or two then allowed again?