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fotheringhay

Castles in the Air, Part 2

22/07/2013 by J D Davies

Another installment of my personal ‘top twenty’ of castles that I’ve visited. Third and final part to come next week!

Devin and the Danube
Devin and the Danube

Devin Castle, Slovakia – A few years ago, some friends who were living in Bratislava at the time took us to visit Devin, which isn’t far from the city. It’s an evocative relic of the time when this was probably the most important frontier in Europe: the castle stands on a great cliff overlooking the confluence of the Danube and Morava rivers, so this was always a prime strategic position. Unsurprisingly, it changed hands many times, but since the fall of Communism, the castle has been sensitively maintained and various archaeological digs have taken place there.

Fotheringhay
Fotheringhay

Fotheringhay Castle, Northamptonshire – Fotheringhay is something of an exception in this list, as there’s nothing left of it. Well, that’s not strictly true; there’s a mound and some earthworks, and one surviving lump of masonry that’s now preserved behind stone railings. But two plaques on those railings tell you why Fotheringhay Castle deserves a place on any history lover’s ‘bucket list’. One records the birth here, in 1453, of King Richard III; the other remembers the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, in the castle’s great hall in 1587. For those who possess a strong historical imagination, standing on top of the mound, watching the river flow gently by, and then walking the few yards to the great collegiate church where Richard, Duke of York (father of Richard III and his brother Edward IV) and other members of the House of York lie buried, is a very good way to spend an hour or two.

Dolwyddelan
Dolwyddelan

Dolwyddelan Castle, Gwynedd, Wales – As I mentioned last week, I’ve deliberately omitted from this selection the great tourist-trap castles of North Wales – Beaumaris, Caernarfon, Conwy, Harlech and the rest. Architecturally, little Dolwyddelan isn’t in the same league; it’s little more than a square keep on a knoll in a Snowdonia valley. But this was a castle of the Welsh princes, not of the conquering English, and the difference in size  compared with Edward I’s vast fortresses speaks volumes about the relative resources available to the two sides. It also speaks volumes about differing strategic assumptions. Edward’s castles tend to be on the coast, where they could be resupplied by sea in the event of attack by the hostile locals, while Dolwyddelan is in the very heart of Snowdonia, both controlling the area around it and very much at the heart of the community. These days, of course, people go there for the stunning views, at least as good as those surrounding many of its better-known neighbours.

Chateau Gaillard, France – I saw a photograph of Chateau Gaillard in a book when I was quite young, and decided at once that I’d visit it one day. I’ve now been several times, partly because it’s quite close to Rouen, where my great uncle is buried; he was gassed at the end of August 1918 and died in a military hospital in Rouen a few days later, so there have been a number of family pilgrimages to his grave in the vast, immaculate Saint Sever military cemetery. As for Chateau Gaillard, it certainly didn’t disappoint. It dominates the valley of the Seine where the river flows beneath impressive chalk cliffs, and overlooks the town of Les Andelys – which I reference indirectly in the Quinton Journals, where Matthew’s friend Roger holds the title of Comte d’Andelys. Built by King Richard the Lionheart to defend his ancestral homeland of Normandy, the fall of the castle during the reign of his brother John presaged the loss of the duchy.

Chateau Gaillard
Chateau Gaillard
Dunstanburgh
Dunstanburgh

Dunstanburgh Castle, Northumberland – I’ve included Dunstanburgh to represent the other great castles of Northumberland, such as Bamburgh, Warkworth and Alnwick (of Harry Potter fame). It also happens to be the one I’ve visited most recently; we were on holiday in the area a couple of weeks ago, and did the glorious beach walk around Embleton Bay to the castle. Built by Edward II’s cousin, Dunstanburgh was actually something of a white elephant – covering an area so vast that, even in its heyday, most of the ground within its walls was unoccupied, the castle was designed essentially for show, even to the extent that a lake was constructed in the valley below simply to provide stunning reflections of the castle’s towers and pinnacles.

Sinclair Girnigoe
Sinclair Girnigoe

Castle Sinclair Girnigoe, Caithness, Scotland – OK, yes, another clifftop castle. But there are castles on cliffs, and then there are castles that seem to merge into the cliffs or to be in imminent danger of falling off them. The location of Sinclair Girnigoe is simply stunning, in the far north-east of Scotland not far south of John o’Groats. The castle was designed to fit a rocky headland that is very nearly an island, so it must always have seemed almost like a vast ship; and in a winter storm, it must sometimes have felt as though the entire edifice was about to tumble into the seas that lash the rocks. It was the seat of the Clan Sinclair, and perhaps it’s a sign of how slowly things change in that part of the world that a Sinclair is still the local MP!

Llansteffan Castle, Carmarthenshire, Wales – Very much an old haunt! I grew up a few miles from Llansteffan, which stands guard over the estuary of the River Tywi, the scene of one of the largest naval battles in Welsh waters (in 1044). The castle itself is relatively undistinguished and played little part in history, but it’s got a lot of resonance for me. My cousin owns a property almost directly across the estuary from it, the scene of many family get-togethers and barbeques over the years, and on a few days in the summer, the sun goes down directly behind Llansteffan Castle when viewed from the cottage. It’s a view to die for, made extra special by the knowledge that so few people have ever seen it from that location!

Sunset over Llansteffan
Sunset over Llansteffan

Filed Under: Castles, Uncategorized Tagged With: Chateau Gaillard, Devin Castle, Dolwyddelan, Dunstanburgh, fotheringhay, Llansteffan, Sinclair Girnigoe

Of Kings, Car Parks and Bandwagons

07/02/2013 by J D Davies

After the discovery of the remains of King Richard III, it seems to be obligatory for every history blogger, Tweeter and Facebooker to have their say on the matter, so for what it’s worth, here are a few of my thoughts. First, bouquets to Leicester University’s archaeologists for a stunning piece of work; second, brickbats to Channel 4 for producing such a dire documentary about it, analysed in this perceptive and funny account of ‘Richard III day’ . (As one Tweeter noted, though, the C-list status of some of those involved in the programme can probably be explained by the fact that no-one actually expected the dig to find anything, so why deploy the big guns for what was almost certain to be a non-event?) But no sooner has the dust settled on the previous set of big questions – is it really him? was he a hunchback? just how big was his parking fine? – than battle is being joined over the next set, notably where and how should he be buried.The existing memorial to Richard III, Leicester Cathedral

Before I jump on the bandwagon and join the massed ranks of those who’ve been pontificating on these matters, I should issue a few disclaimers. Firstly, I am not and never have been a member of the Richard III Society, to coin a phrase. I think members of the society have done a tremendous job both in funding the successful dig and, in the longer term, in revising historical assessments of many aspects of the fifteenth century. But as the documentary demonstrated, there’s sometimes been a tendency for some of its members to reject the historical record, to twist the facts, and to indulge in unhistorical wishful thinking; maybe there’s already a fundamentalist breakaway group out there who still can’t accept that their hero really did have a curved spine and are convinced that the skeleton must have been planted by a conspiracy of David Starkey, the Illuminati and Barack Obama. On the other hand, and despite sharing Welsh origins with them, I have little time for the Tudors, too. Frankly, I spent far too many years teaching the long haul from Henry VII to Elizabeth I to have much residual affection for any of them (besides, I’ve always preferred the Stuarts anyway). Moreover, the unwillingness of many Tudor historians to even consider new thinking about Richard III is, alas, typical of the complacent arrogance that characterises too many university history departments, whose members are often unwilling even to consider left-field thinking from outside their own ranks. For example, many years ago I used to show my students a televised trial of Richard III. The most convincing witnesses, and the most compelling evidence, came from the prosecution; but the jury acquitted, and as my students invariably said, that had to have been due largely to the unfortunate performance of the selfsame Dr Starkey, whose formidable command of the evidence was offset by his brusque manner, now a little (but only a little) mellowed by age, and unconcealed contempt for the defence case. So with all of that said…

1/ Where should he be buried? Within the last couple of days, the citizens of York have launched an e-petition insisting he should be buried there, and unsurprisingly, Leicester, already designated as the burial place by the Ministry of Justice, has launched a counter-petition. (A shame that Leicester City and York City are in different divisions of the Football League, really: it would be quite jolly to watch their fans arguing over their relative claims to bury a medieval monarch – ‘One Richard of York! There’s only one Richard of York!’ – rather than querying the eyesight and parentage of the referee.) Of course, Leicester and York can deploy formidably big battalions on their sides – large populations, ferocious civic pride, local councils keen to boost tourism, several MPs each, and so on. No such resources are available to another potential candidate for the royal burial, the tiny village of Fotheringhay in Northamptonshire,Fotheringhay church although a very few advocates for its case can be found on Twitter. Arguably, though, Fotheringhay has a better claim than either of the heavyweight cities: it’s where Richard was born, and where his parents are buried. The church was enlarged partly to serve as the mausoleum of the House of York, and although half of it disappeared in the reign of Richard’s great-nephew Henry VIII, it’s still a remarkably impressive and beautiful building. So before it all ends in tears, with enraged Yorkists rampaging through Leicester and vice-versa, might it not be worth at least considering the merits of an attractive and highly appropriate neutral location?

2/ How should he be buried? The debate over whether Richard should be buried according to Anglican or Catholic rites began almost as soon as the press conference at Leicester ended. I have no agenda here – again, I’m not and never have been an Anglican or a Roman Catholic. However, I think it’s worth pointing out that there is a precedent, which so far seems to have been almost entirely ignored or forgotten. In 1982 the remains of the Tudor warship Mary Rose, lost in 1545, were raised from the seabed, and the bones of one sailor were later reburied in Portsmouth Cathedral. I watched the service, and it was remarkably moving. But he was given a Catholic burial, according to the medieval Latin Sarum Rite (thanks to the Portsmouth Cathedral Twitter account via Ian Mortimer for that last piece of information). So if that was felt to be appropriate for an ordinary citizen of pre-Reformation England, why should it not be thought appropriate for an English head of state who was known to be deeply devout and who unquestioningly acknowledged the supremacy of the Pope?

3/ Should it be a state funeral? At the end of the day, this is all a question of semantics, although no doubt many in the Richard III Society won’t regard it as such. After all, if you did a straw poll in any high street in Britain and asked people if they thought Princess Diana had a state funeral, I suspect the vast majority would say yes. But she didn’t: she had a public funeral with royal honours. It’s entirely likely that politically correct and historically illiterate politicians and civil servants will oppose a state funeral, partly on grounds of cost and partly because of negative perceptions of Richard’s reputation. (If you think I’m being too harsh on our leaders, I refer you to the Deputy Prime Minister’s recent display of woeful ignorance about the history and significance of the Duchy of Lancaster.) However, there is no absolutely incontrovertible evidence of Richard’s guilt on any charge – and state, or at least full royal, honours have been accorded many times to more conclusively awful individuals. There is also a long royal tradition of showing respect to the remains of deposed or discredited predecessors: Richard himself had Henry VI reburied in St George’s Chapel, Windsor, while George III paid for a spectacular Canova monument to the Jacobite pretenders in St Peter’s, Rome,The Jacobite memorial, Rome and Queen Victoria paid for new tombs for her undistinguished ancestors Robert III and James III of Scots in Paisley and Cambuskenneth Abbeys respectively. (The exceptions to the rule were the Tudors and Charles II, although there were obviously extenuating circumstances for the latter’s violence towards the remains of Oliver Cromwell.) Other countries provide many other potential parallels: the remains of Tsar Nicholas II were buried with full honours in the Peter and Paul Cathedral, St Petersburg, in 1998, while in 2011, and despite the fact that Austria had been a republic for 93 years, the Archduke Otto, last Crown Prince of the Austro-Hungarian empire, was given the traditional funeral rites of the Imperial Habsburgs in Vienna. Ultimately, too, Richard III was the last King of England to die in battle, so to deny him at least a significant level of royal and military honours would be both an injustice to him and an act of singular disrespect to the history of the country itself. Thus, and regardless of whether one is a Ricardian or a ‘Tudorista’, anyone with a love of history should be supporting a spectacular royal funeral – a Catholic one, with the Latin mass – for King Richard III.

Filed Under: Historical research, Historical sources, Uncategorized Tagged With: fotheringhay, mary rose, richard iii

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