Tag Archives: Lady Jane Grey

British Hall Chairs: Putting Visitors in Their Place

If you turned up at the entrance to a grand home in Britain without an invitation, you’d likely be told to go around to the servants’ entrance. If you were obviously respectable and had a convincing story, you might be shown into the drawing room to wait for the master or mistress. But if the maid or butler was not sure whether you were fish or fowl, you’d be told to cool your heels on a hall chair. The one above is at Attingham, a Georgian mansion near Shrewsbury.

Hall chairs were often custom-made for grand homes, the style carefully considered to reflect the wealth and taste of the owner. The one above is from Penrhyn, an over-the-top 19th-century stone pile built to resemble a medieval Norman castle. It’s in North Wales, and in its heyday it was a favorite haunt of Bertie, Prince of Wales.

At Plas Newydd, also in North Wales, hall chairs boast the family’s coat of arms.

A hall chair can be steeped in history. This chair, at Nunnington Hall in Yorkshire, has the emblems of one of the many owners over the years. I’m not sure whose emblems they are. But the oldest part of the existing mansion was built by William Parr, the brother of Catherine Parr, the only one of Henry VIII’s six wives to outlive him. William lost his title and Nunnington in 1553 when he made the big mistake of plumping for Lady Jane Grey as Queen. After her nine days on the throne, he was convicted of treason and sentenced to death. But a pardon allowed him to keep his head. Eventually, Elizabeth I restored his title, but not his mansion or his hall chairs.

This chair, at Castle Howard in Yorkshire, looks like a spot to squirm in discomfort. But then comfort is not the point in hall chairs. They almost never have arms. This one barely has a seat.

Hall chairs are almost never padded or upholstered. A docent explained to me that a visitor relegated to a hall chair might have fleas. Hall chairs had to be easy to sanitize.

If you were lucky enough to be invited into a drawing room and dared to sit down, you might feel comfy on an upholstered chair, like one of these at Attingham. But if you were kept in the entry hall, you might have a long wait perched on a hard chair. I suspect that often a servant would be delegated to watch you as well, to be sure you didn’t make off with a silver candlestick.

At Sandringham House, the private home of the Royal Family in Norfolk, paying visitors are welcome to see a few rooms when the Queen is not in residence.

Everybody enters through this door. But photographs inside are strictly forbidden.

It seemed all right to take a picture of one of the Queen’s very elegant hall chairs just inside. But I didn’t quite dare to sit down.

In refreshing contrast to aristocratic chair rules, stately and historic homes run by the National Trust often have special non-historic chairs set aside for weary visitors to take a load off. This one, at Standen near East Grinstead, even has an inviting pillow. Standen is entirely done up in William Morris style, which was all about beauty, comfort and practicality. Sit down? Thank you! I don’t mind if I do.

Join me next time for more explorations in the art and history of Europe and the British Isles!

Why I Love England: A Garden is More Than a Garden

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It seems that anyone in England who owns a patch of ground, large or small, is compelled to make it into a thing of beauty or an expression of taste. English gardeners use flowers as a painter uses color.

And an English garden is more than just pretty flowers. It’s also a place to display the imagination and wit of the gardener. Do you have an unsightly stump with a horizontal lean to it? Turn it into a six-foot earthworm to greet your guests. This one is at the entrance to The Vyne, a National Trust house from the Tudor era. I’m pretty sure the earthworm was a modern gardener’s idea.

Maybe your stump is more vertical. The Queen turned one of hers into a giant squirrel at Sandringham, the private country estate of the Royal Family near King’s Lynn. The squirrel stands about eight feet tall. Do children climb on it? There’s nothing to stop them except decorum–maybe the Queen will walk by.

Do you have a boring expanse of lawn? How about a creepy-crawly spider? This one, about a thousand times larger than life-size, is at Sudeley Castle.

Sometimes garden ornaments touchingly describe history. Sudeley Castle has exquisite ivy garden sculptures depicting Queen Catherine Parr and her younger relative Lady Jane Grey, two queens who lived at Sudeley together for a time. Later, Lady Jane reigned as Queen for only nine days. The political machinations that put her on the throne brought her down quickly and she lost her head. Queen Catherine was the only wife to survive Henry VIII. She is buried in the nearby chapel where she and Lady Jane went daily to pray.

History is everywhere in English gardens. At Sudeley, antique roses are lovingly cultivated outside the castle where the 15-year-old Elizabeth, later Queen Elizabeth I, once had to fend off the advances of Thomas Seymour. Baron Seymour, always on the lookout for the main chance, eventually married Queen Catherine Parr after Henry VIII died. Sadly, Baron Seymour’s ambition proved his undoing and he was later executed for treason. It seems that Elizabeth wisely avoided him after Catherine died. Elizabeth had suitors enough without this particular bad boy.

If your brother was the fabulously rich Baron de Rothschild and he built himself a French chateau in the English countryside, then put you in charge of the grounds, what would you come up with?

Baron de Rothschild’s sister Alice invented “vertical gardening” at Waddesdon Manor. This bird, studded with colored plants in early spring, is about 8 feet tall. Like her mega-rich brother, Alice liked to do things in a big way.

I’d love to be wandering in an English garden right now, looking for discoveries through the next garden gate. Join me next time for more explorations in the art and history of Europe and the British Isles!

Visiting Sudeley Castle

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I don’t know if I’d care to have several separate funerals with crowds of strangers as mourners, but then I’m not an English Queen who was born 500 years ago and survived marriage to King Henry VIII. Katherine Parr, the 6th wife of Henry VIII, was honored last September with not one but two re-enactments of her funeral on the anniversary of her birth. She had already had at least one funeral when she died, plus another one when her coffin was rediscovered following the ruin of her burial place during the English Civil War, plus another one when her tomb was renovated to its present state. An excellent article about the most recent funerals is at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/uk/9474364/Sudeley-Castle-the-curious-life-and-death-of-Katherine-Parr.html.

Sudeley Castle with ruins of banqueting hall

Sudeley Castle is one of the most interesting and evocative historic sites to visit in England. Its origins date from around the 12th century. It has passed in and out of royal possession several times, depending on politics and the outcome of battles. It has been the scene of intrigue and rebellion. Most famously, it was home to three Queens at the same time: Katherine Parr, Elizabeth I, and the ill-fated Lady Jane Grey. The castle is mainly a private home, owned since the 19th century by the Dent-Broklehurst family. They open large parts of the grounds and building for visits at certain times. However, English Heritage members receive a 20% discount.

St. Mary’s Chapel at Sudeley

The chapel is still part of a Church of England parish. Services still take place there–mostly, I think, on Sunday afternoons. According to the castle website, Sudeley Castle is open from
mid-March to early November
from 10.30am-5.00pm daily. On certain days of the week, it is possible to pay an extra fee and tour parts of the family’s private quarters. I would go out of my way to take the private tour. (Children under 12 are not allowed in the private quarters). There are also special garden tours on certain days. I would always check the opening times before driving out to the Castle, though. Weddings or private events could interfere interfere with parts of the Castle and grounds. I would call.

If the place were open, though, I would cheerfully spend about half a day wandering the grounds, touring the castle and chapel, and having lunch on the terrace or in the very nice indoor restaurant. Since I was there last, the Tudor rooms occupied by the three Queens have been restored. There are museum-quality exhibits of exquisite personal possessions of Katherine Parr–and, somewhat ghoulishly, a blackened tooth taken from her coffin. I also remember seeing a very interesting exhibit about a Victorian ancestor of the present owners, Emma Dent. Possibly the exhibit about Katherine Parr occupies that exhibition space at the moment.

The nearby village of Winchcombe is very pretty and not nearly as crowded or touristy as more well-known towns in the Cotswolds. I once stayed in one of the Sudeley Cottages between the Castle and Winchcombe. The Cottages formerly housed some of the help at the castle. They sleep 2-6. They are well-equipped, charming and affordable. WInchcombe is my favorite base in the Cotswolds. It feels like a regular town where actual people go about their lives as they have for centuries.

Time to start planning an English itinerary!

Sudeley Castle: Home of Three Queens

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Katherine Parr, Public Domain

King Henry VIII died in January of 1547, leaving his 6th wife, Katherine Parr, a generous settlement. Within a few months of Henry’s death, Katherine secretly married Thomas Seymour. There was a bit of a scandal because of the unseemly haste and secrecy of the wedding, but they rode it out. Thomas was the brother of Henry’s 3rd wife, Jane Seymour. She had married Henry after Anne Boleyn’s execution. She died after giving birth to Henry’s long-awaited male heir, Edward. Many people believed that Katherine had planned to marry Thomas Seymour all along, and had only married Henry out of a sense of duty to her monarch. (I have to wonder whether anyone ever got away with saying “no” to Henry about anything, including marriage).

Henry had entrusted Katherine with the care and education of Elizabeth, the orphaned daughter of Henry and the unfortunate Ann Boleyn. Thomas Seymour, who had high political ambitions, became the guardian of young Lady Jane Grey, who was a minor and cousin of the late Henry. (Later, Thomas was part of a plot to place the innocent pawn Jane Grey on the throne. The doomed plot cost Lady Jane her head at age 17). For awhile, though, the couple and their young charges lived in apparent harmony at Sudeley Castle. I can imagine the two young women and their older guardian studying together in the sunny rooms and peaceful Queen’s Garden.

The harmony did not last long. Soon rumors flew that Thomas Seymour was overly interested in the young Elizabeth, and she in him. She was packed off to live elsewhere.

Katherine died a few days after giving birth to her first and only child in 1548. Thomas Seymour was off to bigger and better things. He abandoned the infant daughter, who was taken in by a friend of Katherine’s and essentially never heard from again. Katherine was buried in St. Mary’s Chapel at Sudeley, mourned mainly by young Lady Jane Grey. But a hundred years later, during the Civil War, the chapel was ruined and her body was lost. A farmer found her coffin in 1782. He opened it, found her body well-preserved, took a lock of hair, and reburied her. The coffin was dug up again and reburied several more times, once upside-down by drunken hooligans. Finally, in 1817, her body was moved back to Sudeley, the chapel was rebuilt, and eventually a magnificent tomb was built as a final resting place for Katherine.

A ghost adds immeasurably to the elegance of any castle, especially a royal ghost. Sudeley’s is believed to be Katherine Parr. Tour guides report that a lady dressed in green has appeared to numerous people. I doubt I will ever see the ghost, but I have seen a Green Lady–or, rather, two of them. On the pathway from the castle to the chapel stand topiary figures of Katherine and her dear companion, the young Lady Jane Grey. Tour guides explain that the two women attended chapel every day during the short time they had together.

Royal or not, women in the Tudor and Elizabethan era lived in perilous times. Between political machinations controlled by men, and the dangers of childbirth controlled by no one, they often lived short and tragic lives. I’m looking forward to a new historical fiction account of Katherine Parr’s life, Queen’s Gambit, by Elizabeth Fremantle. I’m sure it will relate the stories of Lady Jane Grey and the young Elizabeth to Katherine Parr’s life. A Wall Street Journal article about the writer’s process of telling this remarkable woman’s story is at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323610704578627820370655036.html.

Join me next time for more on the art, history and literature of Europe and the British Isles!