The Future Queen Anne Stuart

Three of my novels set in the reign of Queen Anne have been published and I plan to write another one.

Sometimes, when I mention Queen Anne, people think I refer to Queen Anne Boleyn. In fact, I am referring to Queen Anne Stuart, so I decided to post about the future Queen of England who reigned from 1702 - 1714.

 

The Cinderella Princess

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At the birth of the future Queen Anne, Sturart on the 6^th February, 1665 neither her uncle, the second King Charles, nor her father, James, and heir, imagined she would become the last of the Stuart monarchs. After all, Charles’ seven bastards proved his virility, and there was every reason to believe he and his queen of three years would have legitimate heirs to the throne. However, in the unlikely event of their not producing one, his brother and sister-in-law, James and Anne, the Duke and Duchess of York, had produced an elder brother and sister for the latest addition to their nursery, Baby Anne.

 

In those days infant mortality was high. The son ‘Cinderella’s’ mother carried when she married only lived for six months. Fortunately, Anne and her older sister, Mary, survived the Great Plague, which broke out in the year of her birth. The little princesses grew up in their nursery but their brother James, another brother and two little sisters died. One can imagine the effects of these deaths on ‘Cinderella’, a small girl with poor health whose weak eyes watered constantly.

 

Doubtless, it was with the best of intentions that with the consent of ‘Cinderella’s’ uncle, the king, her parents sent the four year old to her grandmother, widow of the executed first Charles, who now lived in France.

 

A portrait of the Anne as a small girl painted by an unknown artist at the French Court depicts a  plump, adorable little girl, dressed in brocade and playing with a King Charles spaniel. Yet her eyes, set in an oval face with a mouth shaped in a perfect cupid’s bow, are wary.

Hatfield House

Hatfield House

A fortnight ago I visited Hatfield House with a friend and made notes.

When visiting a stately home, personal items always make a great impression on me. In one of the display cases are Queen Elizabeth I’s straw garden hat which has an intricate pattern, a pair of her gloves and a pair of silk stockings, which are believed to be the first pair made of silk to be worn in England. In another display case I saw a small, round silver box labelled as King Charles II’s counter box. Such personal items bring historical personalities to life, and so did Queen Anne’s coronation chair. The chair is of particular interest to me because I researched Queen Anne’s life and times for my novel Tangled Love set in her reign. The chair is ornately carved and padded with red and white fabric. Unfortunately, because it is cordoned off, I could not examine it in detail.

Visits to houses such as Hatfield House are inspirational. When I tread not only in the footsteps of the famous, but also in those of their guests, relatives and servants, I imagine my characters in similar places.

From the grand rooms to the re-created Victorian kitchen and scullery and the grounds, which include a modern day organic garden, everything delights the visitor.

The history of Hatfield House stretches far back in time. The original manor was given by the Anglo Saxon King Edgar to the church of Ely. The old palace at Hatfield, a residence of the Bishop of Ely, was built between 1480 and 1497.

The bishop’s old palace, a quadrangle, was one of the first brick buildings. Today, only the banqueting hall or Great Hall, with its oak and chestnut roof and arched windows set high in the walls remains. (The bricks from the rest of the building were used to build Hatfield House.)

After the dissolution of the monasteries, Henry VIII appropriated the Bishop of Ely’s palace and used it as a residence for his children.

In my mind’s eye I can visualise Mary, daughter of Henry and his late brother’s wife, Katherine of Aragon, waving from the tower to her father Henry, when he rode past Hatfield house looking the other way after he divorced her mother.

At first Mary’s half sister, Elizabeth, lived a wretched life at Hatfield House after her mother, Anne Boleyn’s execution. At one time, she outgrew her clothes and new ones were not provided by her father. Fortunately, Henry VIII relented and her childhood and that of her younger brother Edward were happy.

The Lady Elizabeth, survived Protestant Edward and unpopular Roman Catholic Mary, but not without facing ‘trials and tribulations’.

Perhaps Hatfield House is best known for the occasion on which Protestant Elizabeth sat reading under an oak tree when she received the news that she had become queen. “It is the Lord’s doing” she said, “and it is marvellous in our eyes.”

There are two portraits of Queen Elizabeth I at Hatfield House, the famous rainbow portrait, in which she wears a gown embroidered with eyes and ears, which symbolise that she saw and heard everything in her kingdom. The other is the ermine portrait, named for the gold-crowned live ermine, a symbol of purity and virginity.

When I looked at the pale, inscrutable face of the queen in each portrait, I asked myself if, in spite of the many non fiction and fiction books and films about her, if anyone knows what Elizabeth the woman was really like.

James VI of Scotland and I of England succeeded to the throne and exchanged Hatfield Palace for Theobalds, the residence of his own and the late Queen Elizabeth’s first minister, William Cecil’s son Robert Cecil.

Small, sickly Robert had a crooked back and a passion for building. With bricks from three sides of Hatfield Palace he had Hatfield House built. No expense was spared to create the stately home which I and my friend enjoyed visiting.

Rosemary Morris
Forthcoming releases from Muse Publishing
Tangled Love set in Queen Anne’s reign. 27.01.2012
Sunday’s Child set in the Regency era. June.2012

www.rosemarymorris.co.uk
http://rosemarymorrisblogspot.com

Retro Centre and Samuel pepys

Retro Centre and Samuel Pepys

I always enjoy visiting St Albans. Yesterday I visited a treasure house of items from times past at a Retro Centre, which I will visit again, and I shall attend the Retro Fair next weekend.

The Retro Centre is divided into sections where different sellers arrange their wares. China, glass, curios, soft furnishings, clothes and a treasure house of books.

As I went round I yearned to own a country cottage with oak beams which I could decorate with colourful china, lace edged throws, embroidered tablecloths, traycloths, framed tapestries and embroidered or tapestry cushions. Having admired, picked up and put down various items I found the book section after I rummaged through clothes and admired costume jewellery.

This is the year when I’m supposed to be saving money but I couldn’t resist three books by one of my favourite historians, Arthur Bryant, Samuel Pepys The Man in The Making, Samuel Pepys The Years of Peril and Samuel Pepys The Saviour of The Navy.

I have collected a number of Arthur Bryant’s books and always enjoy his style. Samuel Pepys, The Man in the Making begins: - “North of Cambridge lie the Fens. The sea from which they arose laps at their northern boundaries, and north and east great rivers lazily wind across them, drawing black cattle to drink among the sedges at their brink. This land would be one of silence were it not for the innumerable company of larks, of bittern, coot and moorhen, of sedge warblers and reed sparrow, which ever provides it with a faint and not discordant music. In summer it is still, as the monk William of Huntingdon remembered it, a land of clouds and orchards and golden corn. Yet it is so only by right of battle waged ceaselessly by its invading armies of water. Whenever civilization has receded – when Roman legion fell back or monastery bell was silenced-the waters have taken back their own. Salt tides have swept in with winter gales through forsaken walls, and the rivers have flowed out, cold and remorseless, over the fields and houses of man.

“.…On this land came the Pepys’s. For centuries they had grazed and ploughed, haggled at markets over country wares and peered at the Fen skies…”

Although Samuel Pepys was first published in 1933 it has not dated and is full of fascinating information, and I the preface very interesting.

“…Samuel Pepys was the creator of three remarkable, and still surviving things. The first, in the order of their making, was his Diary. The second was the civil administration of the Admiralty-the rule –and order that still give permanence to the material form, fighting traditions and transmitted knowledge of the Royal Navy. …Lord Barham testified that there was not a department of the Admiralty that was not governed by he rules Samuel Pepys had laid down in the 17th century. It was Pepys who made the scabbard for the sword that Nelson, and the heirs of Nelson used.

“Pepys third creative achievement sprang from the second. He has bee described as the father of the Civil Service. Here, too, his orders hold. The rules he laid down and the administrative principles he elucidated have become part of the continuing life of his country…”

I am writing a light-hearted novel set in the Restoration period when Charles Second came to England after his exile which followed his father’s execution. I always try to ensure that my novels are as well-researched as possible and Arthur Bryant’s trilogy about Pepys will be invaluable.



Forthcoming release. Tangled Love 27.01.2012 Muse It Up Publisher.
www.rosemarymorris.co.uk

http://rosemarymorris.blogspot.com

Historical Fiction - Research

I have begun a Restoration Novel set soon after Charles II was crowned King of England.

My bedside table is piled high with reading material about the period. Another, smaller pile of books borrowed from the library are in a heap on my desk in the spare room. I woke up at 5 30 a.m. and decided tecord the tit-bits about customs, fashion, food, gardens, husbandry etc.

Recreating times past to the best of my ability requires meticulous research which I enjoy.

Our well-to-do ancestors ate well. In one book asparagus, Spanish cardoons, grapes and figs are mentioned.