by Albert Jack
All this paid off and in 1614, at the age of twenty-two, Villiers – described as the ‘handsomest-bodied man in all of England’ – had made his way into the court of King James I. The following year he was given the somewhat worrying title of Gentleman of the Bedchamber, and indeed rumour had it he and the king were more than just good friends. It certainly would explain why within another two years he had been made first an earl and then a marquess. Five years later, aged just thirty-one, Villiers became the 1st Duke of Buckingham – the highest-ranking subject outside the royal family – proving quite clearly that the king’s bedchamber was the place to be for any aspiring career nobleman in the early seventeenth century.
Yet Villiers was also known for his partiality to the opposite sex. Indeed, the nursery rhyme ‘Georgie Porgie’ is said to mock him for this and in particular the way he abused his position, forcing any woman at court he fancied to sleep with him (he ‘kissed the girls and made them cry’), which caused resentment all round. His luck finally ran out when he started switching his allegiance from the ageing king to his heir, Charles. The prince and duke, in disguise, set off on a mission to woo a Spanish princess (see THE ELEPHANT AND CASTLE).
The complete collapse of the negotiations was blamed on Buckingham’s crass behaviour: to such an extent that the Spanish ambassador asked James to have him executed in Madrid. On his return, Buckingham tried to deflect this by insisting that war be declared on the Spanish. He then became embroiled in a series of disastrous military campaigns, including an attempt to repeat Drake’s success in Cadiz (see THE GOLDEN HIND) which went wrong when his soldiers captured a wine warehouse and stopped to drink it dry, giving the Spanish the advantage.
When a furious House of Commons tried to punish Buckingham for his failures, James I simply dissolved Parliament. The final straw came when the former rent-boy-made-good accidentally lost over 4,000 men out of an army of 7,000 in the siege of St Martin de Ré. On his return to Portsmouth in August 1628, he was stabbed to death by John Felton, an army officer who had been wounded and was furious at his commander’s lack of military judgement and at the loss of so many of his English comrades.
And so that was the end of the most famous Duke of Buckingham, hero to a few but sordid fool to many more. In Portsmouth, the place of his demise, a pub called the Duke of Buckingham commemorates him – one of many throughout the country.
Meanwhile the Buckingham Arms in Westminister is, rather aptly, not far from St James’s Park. Any assocations with Buckingham Palace, right next to the park, must be quickly discounted, however. The Queen’s residence was originally the home of a different gentleman entirely – John Sheffield, 1st Duke of Buckingham and Normandy – who built the house for his family in 1703. Sold to King George III in 1761 for the princely sum of £21,000, it was later to become the most famous royal palace in the world.
The Duke of York
NO ANGEL OF THE NORTH?
The city of Eboracum was founded in AD 71 as a military fort, or walled city, by the occupying Roman army. One hundred and fifty years later, Eboracum became the capital city of the BRITANNIA Inferior (Lower Britain – ‘lower’ in the sense of ‘further away from Rome’), a subdivision of Britannia, in the north of the province. After the Romans finally left Britannia in 410, it became the turn of the Vikings to rampage across our island, murdering and pillaging everything in sight, and the city was renamed Jorvik by the invading armies. Eleven years later, Halfdan Ragnarsson conquered a large area of northern Britannia (mainly Yorkshire and Northumbria), and promptly declared himself the first King of Jorvik. But in 954, soon after the last king, Erik Bloodaxe, had been driven out of town, the native English re-established their control over the lands. In the process they anglicized its name to York – the capital of the north of England.
The title Duke of York was first created in the official Peerage of England for Edmund Langley, the fourth son of King Edward III. After the Wars of the Roses, in which York had fought Lancaster for the crown (see the THE ROSE AND CROWN), the title was then recreated as the title of the second son of the ruling monarch. The Dukes of York have been a pretty eccentric bunch, judging by the strong competition there is for which of them actually inspired the well-known nursery rhyme ‘The Grand Old Duke of York’ and pub names all over Britain.
My favourite contender for the duke behind the rhyme is Prince Frederick Augustus (1763–1827). In 1793 this Duke of York was appointed field marshal of the British army and given one simple brief, to invade France. But Frederick was never a great military leader and despite a minor victory over the French forces at Beaumont in April 1794, he failed to earn the trust and confidence of his men. This was compounded when his troops were hammered at Tourcoing in May and the duke was consequently relieved of his position. The hill he is supposed to have marched his men up and down in the rhyme, before having them accidently massacred, is thought to be Mont Cassell, in northern France, standing nearly six hundred feet above the Flanders coastal plain.
In the twentieth century there have been only three Dukes of York. The first was Queen Victoria’s grandson George (1865–1936), who changed the royal surname from Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to Windsor when he became King George V in 1910. As war with Germany was looming, this gave the royal family a desirably English air. The following Duke of York reluctantly became King George VI to save the day with the British people when Edward VIII scandalously abdicated in order to marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson against the wishes of either the royal family or Parliament. Prince Andrew, once notorious for a string of girlfriends with a colourful past, became the current Duke of York in 1986. But now all eyes are on the future Duke of York, Prince Harry, and how he will shape up.
The Duke’s Head
THE UBIQUITOUS ARISTOCRAT
A generic title generally used by pubs that have changed their name more than once to honour whichever war hero was fashionable at the time. In Great Yarmouth the Duke of Cumberland became the Duke of Clarence, then the Duke of Wellington (see THE IRON DUKE) before settling on the name encompassing all dukes, and many pubs in England have done the same over the years.
Meanwhile, the Duke Without a Head, which used to stand at Wateringbury, near Maidstone in Kent before being demolished in 1990, acquired its name when the licence was transferred in 1940 from the old Duke’s Head, located right next to it and now a private house. The local magistrate’s order allowing the licence to be transferred stated: ‘Permission is given to remove the Duke’s Head’, reading like a royal death warrant (see also THE KING’S HEAD). The humour in this was not lost on the new owners, who named their new establishment accordingly.
The Eagle and Child
BABIES DELIVERED BY BIRDS OF PREY? PULL THE OTHER ONE…
The origin of this pub name can be traced to the fourteenth century. Sir Thomas Latham, who lived near to Lytham St Annes in Lancashire, had one legitimate child, Isabel. His wife failed to fall pregnant with his desired son and heir and, as so often the case with the great families of England, the maid soon fell pregnant instead and bore the healthy son her master wanted.
Desperate for a son to succeed him, Sir Thomas devised a plan to persuade his wife to adopt the boy as her own, legitimizing him in the process. He arranged for the child to be left at the base of a tree where he had recently observed eagles nesting. His plan was to claim the baby had been abandoned by the birds, a story that his wife apparently accepted, adopting the boy soon afterwards. But after Sir Thomas died it was his daughter, Isabel, who inherited the estate.
Locals were said to have commemorated this story of man’s inability to really fool his wife by naming a local tavern the Eagle and Child, and several other establishments were similarly named in successive years across the country. The most famous inn by this name is in St Giles, Oxford, once the Royalist capital during the English Civil War (1641–51). It is claimed that the Chancellor of the Exchequer lodged there during the conflict and the building served as the paymaster’s quarters for the
Royalist army, their horses being fed and watered in the courtyard. The pub also has strong literary connections: C. S. Lewis (author of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and the rest of the Narnia books) and J. R. R. Tolkien (The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, both featuring child-sized hobbits being rescued by giant eagles) met at the Eagle and Child every Friday between 1939 and 1962 for drinks and conversation.
These days the pub is affectionately known by those wacky university students – destined to be running the nation’s judiciary, industry and even government, God help us all – as the Bird and Bastard, the Bustard and Bastard, the Fowl and Foetus and, most ridiculous of all, the Bird and Brat. (For more on the symbol of the eagle in pub names, see THE SPREAD EAGLE.)
The Elephant and Castle
A SPANISH PRINCESS OR EMBLEM OF A WEAPON-MAKER TO THE KING?
The most common theory behind the origin of the Elephant and Castle is that it evolved from the name of Eleanor of Castile (1241–90), the much loved wife of Edward I. When she died outside Lincoln, the grief-stricken king erected a series of twelve crosses across the country, marking each place her body rested overnight on its final journey to Westminster Abbey. The final Eleanor Cross gave a new name to an area of London, Charing – a mangling of Chère Reine, ‘Dear Queen’ – Cross, so it’s easy to see how her full name, Eleanor of Castile, might be thought to account for why another area of London, Elephant and Castle, is so called. Sadly, historians can trace no connection between her and south-east London.
Another theory runs that the name is a corruption of Infanta de Castile, the title traditionally given to the eldest daughter of the King of Castile. Some have argued that this was also Eleanor, but she was only one of a number of Spanish princesses associated with English royalty, including Catherine of Aragon (see THE CAT AND FIDDLE) and Maria, an infanta briefly and controversially engaged to Charles I in 1623. The young prince and his adviser (see THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM) travelled to Spain in disguise to try to arrange the marriage but things went so badly wrong that Charles returned to England brideless while Buckingham then tried to insist on war being declared against Spain. The rather cheeky argument ran that all Charles had really needed to do to find love was take the easier journey to south London and the much more welcoming arms of the Elephant and Castle.
Others have claimed the unusual name derives from a vision a man had on London Bridge in which he claimed to have seen an elephant with a castle on its back walking through the mist and clouds from the direction of the south. Although that sounds like something my granddad would have told me (he was from around that way), the story did become folklore in Newington during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
But there is another, much more sensible reason. A record found in the Court Leet Book of the Manor of Walworth, a nearby London district, shows that on 21 March 1765 the council met at ‘the Elephant and Castle in Newington’. The public house in question had been built on a site previously occupied by a smithy that had borne the same name and sign. The smithy had had connections with the Worshipful Company of Cutlers, whose coat of arms included an elephant with a castle (a howdah, or seat traditionally used by hunters in India) on its back.
Trading in knives, scissors and surgical instruments, the Worshipful Company of Cutlers is one of the livery companies of the City of London (see also THE GOAT AND COMPASSES and THE SWAN WITH TWO NECKS). On 4 December 1416 it received a royal charter from King Henry V in recognition of the weapons supplied for the Battle of Agincourt the previous year. The coat of arms was first granted to the company around 1476 and in 1622 this was modified to its current design. The crest includes two elephants (a reference to the Indian elephant ivory used as handles for knives and swords) and a shield decorated with three pairs of crossed swords (a reference to the demand for weapons most cutlers fulfilled). Standing proudly at the top of the crest is the famous elephant with its castle.
The Flying Bedstead
(Hucknall, Nottinghamshire)
BEDKNOBS AND JOYSTICKS
In 1953 Hucknall Aerodrome in Nottinghamshire was the home of research into the world’s first vertical take-off and landing aircraft (VTOL) using engine thrust alone, unaided by wings and rotors. The Rolls-Royce Thrust-Measuring Rig (TMR) was the forerunner of the Lunar Landing Research Vehicle (LLRV). Developed in America for the Apollo Space programme, the LLRV was used by astronauts as part of their training for controlling the Lunar Module when descending to the surface of the moon, although the entire programme came under threat after Commander Neil Armstrong was nearly killed when his LLRV crashed during testing. Both VTOLs consisted of a simple platform with four legs, resembling a bed, and both were nicknamed the ‘Flying Bedstead’ during development.
In 1957 a test pilot, Air Commodore Larsen, also crashed during testing at Hucknall Aerodrome, resulting in a fatal accident. These early research and development flights are commemorated by the nearby pub, also called the Flying Bedstead.
The Flying Dutchman
THE GHOSTLY CAPTAIN AND HIS CREW CONDEMNED TO SAIL THE SEAS FOR EVER
There are many Flying Dutchman pubs throughout Britain and as many theories supporting the origin of the name. Steam-train enthusiasts will point to the legendary locomotive of the same name operating mainly along the London to Exeter route between 1849 and 1892, although, in fact, like many steam trains of the period, it was named after a famous racehorse. Bred in Yorkshire, the Flying Dutchman triumphed in every race he entered, bar one, including the Derby and the St Leger in 1849, the year the train was first launched. (If that’s what you do with trains.) Both the locomotive and the racehorse may well have inspired a few inns and taverns to bear their name (see also ‘Pubs Named in Honour of Famous Racehorses’). But the name itself goes back much further, to events alleged to have taken place four centuries ago, somewhere near the Cape of Good Hope at the tip of South Africa.
The most celebrated ghost ship the world has ever known takes its name from a Dutch captain, a man called Van Something or Other (opinions vary), who was famous for the speed at which he was able to travel between Holland and the Far East along the trade routes of the seventeenth century. Legend has it that on one return journey he ordered his crew to tackle the Cape of Good Hope in the teeth of a storm, instead of taking shelter in nearby False Bay. His crew, suspecting the belligerent captain to be more interested in his own reputation than the safety of his men, pleaded with the old seadog, but Captain van Cantankerous refused to change course. As he left the quarterdeck, he swore a blasphemous oath, challenging the might of God, and then attacked a man who had dared question his decision, running him through with his cutlass and throwing him overboard.
The moment the body hit the water, the dead sailor immediately reappeared on deck and Captain van Reckless drew his pistol, only for it to explode in his hand. The ghostly fellow now spoke: ‘As a result of your actions you are now condemned to sail the oceans for eternity with a crew of dead men, bringing death to all who sight your spectral ship. You will never again make land or know a moment’s peace.’
And ever since, the ghostly Flying Dutchman has been trying to sail around the Cape into the teeth of fierce winds, or leading other ships on to the rocks, condemning to death any sailor who lays eyes upon her and, strangely enough (according to those who lived to tell the tale), passing on letters addressed to people long dead.
There have been many supposed sightings of the ghost ship, including one by a young midshipman who later became King George V and who recorded, on 11 July 1881, exactly what he and the duty lookout had witnessed on that dark night: ‘A strange red light, as of a phantom ship all aglow, in the midst of which light the mast, spars and sails of a brig two hundred yards distant stood out in strong relief.’ And yes, apparently they did speak to each other like that in those days. Unfortunately for the lookout, he was to suffer the curse of the Flying Dutchman and fell to his death from the mast. As for the royal midshipman, well, he probably spent the rest of the night tucked u
p in his silk dressing gown and Indian cotton sheets, having his brow stroked by his butler.
Dozens of other sightings have been reported over the years, including one in 1939 by an entire beach full of people who described almost exactly the same thing. Despite not knowing their tall ships from their elbows, they could still describe in minute detail what they had apparently seen.
Another version of the legend tells of a different Dutch captain, also Captain van Something or Other, who rounded the Cape mulling over his idea of establishing a trading post in the area where Dutch trade ships could take on fresh water and other provisions (now known as Cape Town). So deep was he in thought that he failed to notice a big rock and sailed straight into it. As Captain van Shipwreck began to sink, he called out: ‘I will round this cape even if I have to sail round it until doomsday.’ Legend has it that whenever you look into the eye of the storm at the Cape you will see Captain van Perseverance still trying to sail around it. Now, I have stood at the Cape many, many times but I have never seen anything looking remotely like a tall ship, seventeenth-century or otherwise. I have seen a few pleasure cruisers that are so old they look like they might have been designed for Alfred the Great, but never the Flying Dutchman.
