The Stuarts in 100 Facts

by Andrea Zuvich

  Yale University, on the other hand, was founded in the Colony of Connecticut in 1701, near the end of King William III’s reign. This colony was, like the Massachusetts Bay Colony, founded by English puritans in 1638. Although it took over sixty years before the university was founded, there were some members of the colony who were interested in establishing a college back in the 1640s. The college at Saybrook was given the name ‘Yale’ later on during the reign of George I in 1718 in honour of Elihu Yale. This man was in the British East India Company and had travelled around the world in his profession, and he left a generous contribution to the university in his will.

  In 1693, British sovereigns William III and Mary II founded the College of William & Mary in Virginia, making it the second oldest educational institution in America. The Wren Building is the oldest building at the College of William and Mary and is named after Sir Christopher Wren. Several Presidents of the United States have attended the College of William & Mary, including the third president, Thomas Jefferson. After his time as the first president, George Washington became the college Chancellor. The College of William & Mary remains a thriving and much-loved university.

  81. NOTORIOUS PARTY-BOY POET JOHN WILMOT ENDED UP IN A VERY BAD WAY

  His poetry was profane, his lifestyle promiscuous, his beauty angelic, and his actions reckless and debauched. John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester was, in the mere thirty-three years of his life, one of the most dissolute, wild, cocksure members of Charles II’s so-called Merry Gang. Pepys didn’t think much of him, thinking it shameful that the king could associate with ‘so idle a rogue’ as Wilmot. He entered the University of Oxford when he was just twelve, and it is there (as it is often said) where he fell into the world of debauchery. He wrote a poem entitled Against Constancy, and true to his word, although he was married to the wealthy Elizabeth Malet, he had so many mistresses and lovers that I couldn’t possibly give you a number. Among these was Elizabeth Barry, one of the first actresses of the English stage. He is believed to have taken a bet to make Barry into a great actress; he coached her and she did indeed become a popular actress, also giving birth to Wilmot’s daughter.

  Wilmot wrote several explicit poems, including ‘Signior Dildo’, about, you guessed it, a dildo. His most famous lines were about King Charles II and his mistresses. ‘Restless he rolls about from whore to whore, A merry monarch, scandalous and poor.’ There was also an epitaph (the king was very much alive at the time): ‘Here lies our Sovereign Lord the King, Whose word no man relies on, Who never said a foolish thing, Nor ever did a wise one.’ Wilmot pushed the whole mockery thing a bit too far with Charles and he eventually found himself out of favour.

  Bizarrely, Wilmot had a spell as a quack doctor, taking on the guise of a ‘Mrs Bendo’ and giving treatments to infertile couples – and it is believed by some that he may have been the sperm-donor. Sex was a major part of Wilmot’s life.

  So, how did it end for this lusty libertine? Not well. You might have been wondering why he only lived until he was thirty-three, and in fact he died from a body riddled with all sorts of venereal diseases – most notably syphilis, and probably gonorrhoea. He lost his handsome looks – his nose was eaten away by syphilis and he had become blind and incontinent. His alcoholism had pickled his innards. He died on 26 July 1680, in Woodstock, Oxfordshire (this is the town right on the doorstep of Blenheim Palace, which at that time had not yet been built for the 1st Duke of Marlborough). Rochester apparently (if we can believe Gilbert Burnet, who was prone to exaggeration) had a deathbed conversion back to Christianity, and he may well have done this because he had been suffering for months due to his ailments. Who knows?

  82. STUART-ERA PLAYS WERE ALL THE RAGE

  The Stuart era boasted an array of highly talented playwrights, who are well worth looking into. Across Europe, various countries experienced a ‘Golden Age’ of the arts, including Spain, France and England. The Elizabethan and Jacobean periods were when John Fletcher was hugely successful in his time. Not only did Fletcher rival Shakespeare, he is believed to have also collaborated with the Bard on the play Cardenio in 1613, which was sadly lost. Ben Jonson wrote masques and popular plays such as Volpone, or The Foxe (1605) and The Alchemist (1610). John Ford was the author of ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore and The Broken Heart. Plays were all the rage because anyone could go to see them at playhouses such as the Rose or the Globe.

  Unfortunately, great drama came to an end once the Puritans took power during the Interregnum period under Oliver Cromwell. Readers of William Prynne’s angry Histriomastix will understand that puritans generally believed the playhouses were obscene places that attracted whores and lewd persons and that the plays themselves had the capacity to debauch those viewing them. As a result, theatres were closed down, including the second Globe (the first was destroyed by fire in 1613). The second Globe was eventually torn down in 1644. It was a mercy that many of the great playwrights of the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras were no longer around to see this happen. By the late 1640s, Massinger, Ford, Fletcher and Jonson were all dead.

  Happily for theatre-lovers, the Restoration of 1660 meant that the theatres – and playwrights – were back in business. The arts flourished once again. Restoration plays are interesting in that they could be quite explicit and controversial. William Wycherley’s The Country Wife from 1675 was shocking for its sexual content. Sir George Etherege’s Love in a Tub and The Man of Mode proved to be popular Restoration comedies. Thomas Shadwell’s 1676 satire The Virtuoso ridiculed the experiments of the Royal Society, which proved to be a mortifying experience for some of the members. It was also during the Restoration that the first female playwright, Aphra Behn, came to prominence with plays such as the The Rover in 1677. Behn also wrote the 1679 play The Feign’d Curtizans, which she dedicated to Nell Gwynn.

  In Spain, there were several notable playwrights. Lope de Vega was a prolific writer of poems and plays – his most famous being Castigo sin Venganza from 1631. In France, Molière, Corneille, and Racine were putting their marks upon French literature. Molière is widely considered to be one of the greatest comedic playwrights in history, and with good reason. He wrote Tartuffe. Jean-Baptiste Lully, Italian-born creator of some of the most extravagant French Baroque music, composed incidental music to some of these plays, most famously for Molière’s Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme.

  The plays that were created and performed during this era remain popular, especially as theatres such as the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse at the Globe usually features plays and musical events from the Stuart period.

  83. JAMES I’S DAUGHTER ELIZABETH WAS THE ‘WINTER QUEEN’

  Elizabeth Stuart was born in Scotland to King James VI/I and his queen, Anne of Denmark. Elizabeth, named after her godmother, Queen Elizabeth I, had a life full of political intrigue, beginning when she was a small child and the Gunpowder plotters were to place her on the throne when they succeeded in assassinating her father. Of course, this didn’t end up happening.

  In 1612, the tall, auburn-haired beauty was deemed old enough to marry, and her father decided upon the Protestant prince Frederick V Elector Palatine – a choice Elizabeth’s mother strongly disapproved of. Elizabeth’s beloved older brother Henry suddenly died, throwing Elizabeth and the rest of the family into grief and shock. The marriage, which had been so agreeable to Henry, finally took place on Valentine’s Day the following year in 1613 (although her mother refused to attend, claiming she had an attack of gout). Happily, the political match turned into a romantic one as Frederick and Elizabeth fell in love. Their union would produce several children, including Rupert of the Rhine and Sophia, who later became the Electress of Hanover.

  After they wed, Frederick took his new bride back home to Heidelberg. Religious tensions were brewing across the Holy Roman Empire and these weren’t improved by the openly Catholic Ferdinand of Styra becoming King of Bohemia in 1617. During an important meeting in 1618, three men (two Catholic officials and their secretary) were thrown out of the
window. The event, known as the Defenestration of Prague, was just the beginning of a series of troubles that would plague Europe – the Thirty Years War. After anguishing over the matter, Frederick decided to accept the crown of Bohemia, and the couple was given a magnificent coronation ceremony in Prague; shortly thereafter, Elizabeth gave birth to their third child, Rupert.

  Their time as King and Queen of Bohemia was not to last. With the Battle of White Mountain on 8 November 1620, the Catholics once again took power. In fear of their lives, Elizabeth and Frederick left in such a hurry that baby Rupert was nearly left behind. Now in exile, Frederick and Elizabeth became mockingly referred to as the Winter King and Queen. Concerned about his sister’s plight, Charles tried to obtain a marriage to the Spanish Infanta, hoping that by this he could get Spanish assistance to help Elizabeth and Frederick. It was to no avail.

  In the autumn of 1632, Elizabeth’s world fell apart with the death of her beloved Frederick. He had been not only her lover and companion, but also her best friend. The still-exiled widow remained in the Dutch Republic and grew fond of her eldest niece Mary, Princess Royal and Princess of Orange. Thirty years after Frederick’s death, Elizabeth died on 13 February 1662, on the eve of what would have been their forty-ninth wedding anniversary. It was Elizabeth’s descendants, through her daughter Sophia (sometimes referred to as the Winter Princess), that became the Hanoverians, or Georgians. Elizabeth’s grandson, George Ludwig, became King George I and ultimately took over the rule of Britain following Queen Anne’s death in 1714.

  84. PURITANS REALLY WEREN’T MUCH FUN

  If you enjoy going to the theatres, dancing, and celebrating Christmas or Easter, you probably wouldn’t have enjoyed living in Britain during the Republic because these things, and more, were banned. Even before the decade of the 1640s was out, puritanism had made its way to the top and several laws were passed.

  In April 1644, An Ordinance for the better observation of the Lords-Day was passed and in this, maypoles were prohibited because they were heathenish and wicked. It also stated that copies of King Charles’s The Kings Majesties Declaration to his Subjects, concerning lawful Sports to be used were to be burned. Why was this? Well, both James I and Charles I thought certain sports and activities were perfectly acceptable after church during the Sabbath day (Sunday), and published a Book of Sports to clearly list these. The puritans strongly disagreed with this because they believed it was sinful to play sports on such a day. The 1644 ordinance stipulated that wrestling, bowling, exercise, dancing, game playing and any sport (including the national favourite, football) was completely prohibited and anyone not observing this would be fined five shillings for each offence. Church organs were removed and destroyed as per May 1644’s Ordinance for the further demolishing of Idolatry and Superstition.

  Monarchists were unhappy because the new government had abolished the monarchy and had the king executed and the rest of the royal family were across the Channel in exile. Prostitution, long considered a ‘necessary evil’, was banned and whorehouses closed down. In 1654, horse-racing was prohibited in An Ordinance prohibiting Horse-Races for Six Months. Bear-baiting, cock-fighting, dog-fighting were all prohibited.

  Least popular of all, Christmas was banned – but it must be said that despite the prevailing myth that states it was Cromwell’s doing, it wasn’t. As the Puritans gained power in England during the early Seventeenth-century, so did their distaste and abhorrence for the practice of celebrating Christ’s birth with drunkenness and gluttony, and doing so on a pagan feast/festival day. On 19 December 1644, a public notice was given stating that Christmas was to be a fast day and not a day for ‘carnal and sensual delights’. If you were caught roasting a Christmas turkey, you’d be in receipt of a fine. Some people simply didn’t accept this, and pro-Christmas riots broke out in a few towns, but were quashed quickly. So, next time you cook up your Christmas dinner, think about how that was once prohibited.

  85. FRINGE RELIGIOUS GROUPS WERE NOT TO BE IGNORED

  Ever since Martin Luther’s movement created a split from the Roman Catholic Church in the sixteenth century, numerous sects splintered off from this break, creating even more tumult. As more and more fringe groups began to form, each vociferously believing theirs was the true religion, they simply could not be ignored.

  Arminianism was probably one of the most divisive religious movements in the early Stuart period. King Charles I quite liked Arminianism and in 1633, he controversially selected William Laud to be the Archbishop of Canterbury – a major position. Arminians had a great deal of ritual and ceremony – facts which irritated both the Anglicans (Church of England) and the more radical Puritans, who both thought Arminianism was nothing less than thinly-veiled Catholicism (that old Bogeyman). John Pym was one of the leading critics of Arminianism and he argued for the need to reform the episcopacy.

  Although they weren’t exactly a fringe group, the Covenanters were definitely a force to be reckoned with. The Presbyterian (Scottish Protestant) church, or the Kirk, didn’t take kindly to King Charles foisting a new prayer book onto them. Everyone who was against the introduction of the prayer book signed a covenant in 1638. Now labelled the Covenanters, they played a major role in the outbreak of the civil wars.

  The Fifth Monarchists were a militant Christian group who believed that they needed to overthrow the government to make way for Christ’s Second Coming. This ideology came to a head in Venner’s Uprising of 166,1 when Thomas Venner, a London cooper, and fifty or so men broke into St Paul’s Cathedral. These Fifth Monarchists, with their manifesto, ‘A Door of Hope’, declared that Christ, not Charles II, was king – and one man who disagreed was shot and killed. Fights broke out on the streets and about forty people were killed in the melee. Venner and his associates were caught and condemned. Venner was subjected to the well-known hanging, drawing, and quartering. Several of the other Fifth Monarchists who were involved in the uprising were also executed – including Thomas Tonge, a relative of Israel Tonge (of Popish Plot infamy).

  The Quakers, also known as the Society of Friends, were a Protestant Christian movement that was begun in the 1640s by George Fox. The Quakers believed that the sexes were equal and that slavery should be abolished – both things were considered extraordinary in the Stuart era. The most well-known seventeenth-century Quaker was one William Penn, Jr, son of Admiral William Penn. William Penn famously refused to take off his hat in front of King Charles II, and so the king light-heartedly removed his own instead. Penn gave his name to some land in the colonies – Pennsylvania, meaning ‘Penn’s Woods’.

  Finally we have the Ranters, a group which likely existed (it’s a source of debate among historians). This radical group advocated free love, and they didn’t believe there was any need for ministers or even Scripture. They became so notorious that it apparently led to the Blasphemy Act of 1650 to be passed.

  86. NORTHAMPTON HAD ITS VERY OWN GREAT FIRE

  Northampton is a major town renowned for its shoe manufacturing, and is located in the beautiful Midlands county of Northamptonshire. This county is home to some great historic buildings including Althorp (ancestral home of the Spencer family), Holdenby House (where King Charles I was held prisoner), Fawsley Hall (where Elizabeth I once stayed) and, of course, Fotheringhay Castle (in which Mary Queen of Scots was beheaded). During the English Civil Wars, Northampton was greatly divided between those who supported Parliament and those who supported the King, but the town eventually supported the former. Northampton Castle, although it was already a ruin, was torn down even more as a kind of retribution from Charles II for siding with Parliament during the war.

  It was near this castle that the Great Fire of Northampton broke out in 1675 – which had similarly devastating consequences to that of London. The fire of 1675 was by no means the town’s first, for it had another major fire in 1516. This time most of the town was destroyed, leaving hundreds of families homeless. A collection was set up and the nation generously donated £25,000 (a h
uge sum) in order to rebuild the devastated town. All Saints’ Church, which is reputed to have been designed by Sir Christopher Wren, was, according to Wren biographer Adrian Tinniswood, more likely designed by Henry Bell and Edward Edwards. This church opened in 1680. Regardless of which person actually designed it, All Saints’ Church has a statue of Charles II outside above the entrance – which is always a pleasure to behold.

  87. STUART PERSONAL HYGIENE WAS NOT VERY HYGIENIC

  Hygiene in the Stuart age left much to be desired. Streets were mucky, covered with carcasses of dead animals and human and animal excrement. People ended up wearing pattens, wooden platform overshoes that they would slip on over their shoes. This helped to avoid getting one’s feet completely covered in filth.

  So what did the typical Stuart-era person do with regard to their personal hygiene? Not nearly as much as we do now! Joking aside, everyone smelt really bad, and so body odour would have been so much a fact of life that most folks would have a higher tolerance of foul smells. The diarist Samuel Pepys used to rub his body with a cloth. This could have been a cloth immersed in water and wrung out before use, but we can’t know for certain. His friend John Evelyn washed his head once … yearly! And almost nothing stopped people from all walks of life the joys of the ubiquitous parasite.