New images reveal Tamworth’s Warrior Queen taking shape

From Tamworth Informed

Tamworth's landmark ‘Warrior Queen’ statue is taking shape, with latest images of the work in progress revealing a little glimpse of just how impressive and magnificent the new sculpture will be.

After several weeks of back-breaking labour by artist and sculptor Luke Perry, work to create a steel statue of the iconic Lady Aethelflaed has reached the halfway point.

Once complete, the Saxon Queen will rise six metres above the ground on the Offa Drive/Saxon Drive roundabout, outside Tamworth Railway Station, where she will greet visitors as they step off the train, and point them towards the town centre.

Also known as Tamworth’s ‘Lady of the Mercians’, Queen Aethelflaed, played a pivotal role in English history by building a chain of fortifications against Viking invaders throughout the Kingdom of Mercia. Her fortification of Tamworth in 913 AD became the forerunner to Tamworth Castle. Daughter of Alfred the Great, Aethelflaed’s accession as a female ruler has been described as one of the most unique events in early medieval history.

Noblewomen in the Wars of the Roses by Lauren Johnson

I chanced upon this rather informative blog post by Lauren Johnson (October 2013) regarding the status of noblewomen who lived through those turbulent times known as The Wars of the Roses. It formed part of her masters thesis The impact of the Wars of the Roses on Noblewomen, 1450-1509 (October 2007).

Here is a little teaser:

However, for every man directly involved in the Wars of the Roses there were numerous female relatives who were not only themselves affected by the conflict, but played an active part in it. 

On the contrary, efforts to claw lands back to one’s family by battling through the law courts or pleading with prominent powerholders were deemed essential to those involved, and at a time when many men found themselves on the wrong side of the law or battlefield, and thus lost their authority (or their life), it fell to their wives and mothers to try to save their estates.

Read more of this and other interesting posts @ Lauren's Blog

Is this Eleanor, the Secret Queen?

Facial reconstruction aims to help determine identity of remains found in Norwich - News - Eastern Daily Press

She is regarded by some as the secret queen who helped put Richard III on the throne and – inadvertently, at least – sealed the fate of the princes in the tower.

Now, new research aims to help determine whether remains discovered in Norwich are of Lady Eleanor Talbot.

Lady Eleanor played a pivotal role in the Wars of the Roses during the fifteenth century, when her alleged marriage to Edward IV led to his children – the princes in the tower – being declared illegitimate after his death, in 1483.
That saw the crown pass 
to Edward’s brother, Richard III, during whose reign the boys disappeared.

Tomorrow, historian John Ashdown-Hill will unveil a facial reconstruction based on remains excavated at Whitefriars in 1958.  He is hoping that it will help to better establish whether they belonged to Lady Eleanor.

Manchester Female Reformers At Peterloo Massacre

From the Guardian:
The Peterloo massacre  on Monday 16 August 1819 - 193 years ago tomorrow - took place when a peaceful crowd, assembled to demand the reform of Parliament, was attacked by armed soldiers and yeomanry, leading to many deaths and injuries. The events of the day have been the subject of many books, novels, prints and poems, but the role of women has often been overlooked.

As the reform movement gathered momentum in the spring of 1819, women stepped onto the public stage, setting up Female Reform Societies  in a number of towns. Blackburn women led the way. On 5 July the Female Reformers, described as "very neatly dressed for the occasion", and each wearing a green favour in her bonnet or cap, attended an outdoor public meeting, at which they presented a Cap of Liberty made of scarlet silk to the chair, John Knight.

At least 18 people were killed on the field or died later of their injuries, of whom four were women. These were Margaret Downes – sabred; Mary Heys - trampled by cavalry; Sarah Jones – truncheoned on the head by special constables; and Martha Partington, – crushed to death in a cellar. Of the 654 people listed as being injured, 168 were women.

Sexual History of London

From Pop Matters:

When it comes to sex, London has always had a bit of a reputation. One scrap of manuscript, dating from 1058, shows a young woman of Southwark, seated on a clapped-out mule, her hair falling over her shoulders. She is exciting the attention of travellers on the highways by means of her indiscreet clothing, and holding a little gilt rod in her hand, to indicate her profession. This is the first picture of a prostitute actively soliciting on the streets of London, and it gives some indication of the state of affairs even then. Of course, this early version of the permissive society had its critics.

The "Real" Iron Ladies

From the Chesterfield Post:

A group of women who were the 'Real Iron Ladies' during the Miner's strike have taken part in a protest outside Chesterfield Cineworld this lunchtime - rallying against what they say is the misrepresentation of former PM Margaret Thatcher by scriptwriters in the newly released film 'The Iron Lady'

However Margaret Thatcher's time in power is not remembered so fondly locally and around 30 'Women’s Action group' ex-activists led the protest this morning, and received support from politicians and council leaders who were also in attendance.

"Hollywood is not the place to sentimentalise what is a difficult period in Britain's history. The women here today are the real Iron Ladies, who stood by and supported their men during the strike."

By the Winter Sea

From Skegness Standard:

CAMERA crews are set to pop up all over the local area in the coming days after work got underway on a new short film about the life of an Anderby Creek land girl.

Wartime Lincolnshire and the experiences of ‘Ada’, who worked a Lincolnshire coastal farm during World War Two.

“The 10 minute film entitled ‘By the Winter Sea’, is being made on behalf of the Lincolnshire Coastal Country Park project by Red Dog Film,” said a spokesperson for Lincolnshire County Council.

“It shows how London city girl Ada found the rural life and hard physical work a shock initially, but she gradually overcame her inexperience and grew to love her life as a land girl.

“The film is based on actual events – director Phil Stevens discovered the story in a book called ‘Lincolnshire Women at War’.

“The book is a compilation of letters from women who came from all over the country to work in Lincolnshire during WWII,” they added.

Wallis Simpson - That Woman

From the Sydney Morning Herald:

ALMOST everyone knows the story of King Edward VIII's abdication to marry the American divorcee Wallis Simpson but few have read the mountain of books about the saga. That Woman, the first biography by a woman of Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor, is for them.

Anne Sebba's intention "to humanise not demonise" the woman works, no doubt to the chagrin of those who still detest her.

It works because of the material discovered in the King's Proctor's files at the National Archives in London but most of all because, as a woman, Sebba could get into Wallis's mind the way male authors could not. So hats off to Sebba for turning a complex slice of history into a gripping yarn.

Rogues Gallery of Restoration Actresses

From the Guardian:

The emergence of the actress on the Restoration stage was revolutionary. As every pupil of Shakespeare knows, it was men in drag who took the ladies' parts before. Imagine the frisson, then, when Nell Gwyn first showed herself aged 14 to a packed house at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, in 1664. This unprecedented female exhibition provoked salacious frenzy, which theatre companies hoped to harness to their profit.

The showcasing of beauties in "breeches roles" exploded ideas of decorum. Actresses welcomed the chance to demonstrate the virtuosity demanded by parts such as Viola and Rosalind. But the display of their shapely legs was condemned as an exercise in "brazenness" which confirmed the shameless immodesty and sexual availability of the actress. That both theatre-land and prostitution had their metropolis in Covent Garden was not lost on the press. From the first, the "actress" of popular imagination was a shimmering mixture of whore, coquette, talent and celebrity.

A new exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, The First Actresses: Nell Gwyn to Sarah Siddons, investigates the concept of the "actress" in all its troubling contradictions. The artists include Reynolds, Gainsborough, Hoppner, Lawrence, Zoffany and Gillray.

The exhibition is the brainchild of Gill Perry. When she was writing her book Spectacular Flirtations: Viewing the Actress in Eighteenth Century Art and Culture, she realised that the NPG had an exceptional collection of early actress portraits – "And not only that they are in Covent Garden," she says.

When modern critics rate a female performance on whether it's theatrical Viagra or doubt that a woman is thin enough to play Juliet, they invoke a long and dishonourable tradition. "Modern actors should see the first actresses as trailblazers, fighting prejudice and innuendo," Perry concludes. Certainly women today might take comfort that so many of their forebears managed to seize the public relations initiative and shape the culture that so objectified them.

Elizabeth I - Virgin Queen? She was a right royal minx!

From Mail Online:

The England that the first Queen Elizabeth reigned over so gloriously for 45 years was obsessed with sex and awash with promiscuity. This unrestrained bawdiness was surprising for a nation that worshipped its head of state as an unblemished virgin.

By the standards of later ages — and even today — society then was especially open in its use of sexual language. Shakespeare’s plays are full of nudge-nudge references to rutting, scrambling, sluicing, ravening and lock-picking.

The playwright’s work mirrored and fed the erotic obsessions of the age. This was a land where prostitutes were known as Winchester geese because the Bishop of Winchester owned much of the property that housed London’s dens of vice.

Monogamy, chastity and celibacy must have been practised by some Elizabethans, but they were hardly the norm. And yet, at the helm of this vibrant and exciting nation — growing, getting richer, reaching out to new worlds — was a woman who suppressed her own desires.

She would not marry or have children, and remained for the 45 years of her reign the unassailable Virgin Queen.

An Anglo-Indian Tale

From IBN Live:

During the earlier period of the East India Company in India, it was a common practice for British men to take Indian women as wives, for the lack of British women in the country. The children of such inter-racial marriages were known as Eurasians. But as the 19th century progressed, British women began arriving at the sub continent, and the trend of inter-cultural marriages came to an abrupt halt. As a result, such Eurasians, also known as Anglo Indians, were neglected by both Indians and British.

This was among the interesting information that contoured the lecture on Anglo Indians as part of the Madras Week Celebration, held at the GRT Grand Days. Harry Mclure and Richard O Connor from Anglos in the Wind, a national Anglo Indian magazine, read out articles published in the magazine over the last 10 years, that capture the history and essence of Anglo Indians in Madras, especially in areas of Santhome, Royapuram, Perambur, Pallavaram. The lecture was an insight as to how a new community evolved and marginalised later with unfriendly environment.

Rotha Lintorn-Orman - Female Fuhrer

For those interested in this long forgotten part of British history, please visit "History Planet" to read this article in its entirity.  A snippet to whet the appetite:

Female Fuhrer

The History of British Fascism tends to be dominated by Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists, itself a very a-typical fascist organisation. However Baronet Mosley’s (touted as future British Prime Minister during his tenure in both the Labour and Conservative parties) conversion to Fascism didn’t occur until 1931 when he visited Mussolini in Italy and the British Union of Fascists wasn’t formed until 1932 a full ten years after Il Duce’s march on Rome and 6 years after Hitler had published Mein Kampf.

Rotha was the daughter of a British army major, but her grandfather was Field Marshall Sir John Lintorn Arabin Simmons and she grew up in a minor gentry household able to afford a servant. When World War One broke out like many women Rotha went to work, but unlike most she did it by joining the army as an ambulance driver serving in the Reserve Ambulance Corp and later the Scottish Women’s Hospital Corps with whom she won Croix du Chairite twice for bravery, serving on the Drins Front in Serbia. In 1917 she was invalided back home with malaria where she joined the Red Cross and became commandant of the Motor School at Devonshire House in charge of training ambulance drivers.

Online: 17th Century Witch Chronicle

From Yahoo News:

A 350-year-old notebook which documents the trials of women convicted of witchcraft in England during the 17th century has been published online.

The notebook written by Nehemiah Wallington, an English Puritan, recounts the fate of women accused of having relationships with the devil at a time when England was embroiled in a bitter civil war.

The document reveals the details of a witchcraft trial held in Chelmsford in July 1645, when more than a hundred suspected witches were serving time in Essex and Suffolk according to his account.

"Divers (many) of them voluntarily and without any forcing or compulsion freely declare that they have made a covenant with the Devill," he wrote.

"Som Christians have been killed by their meanes," he added.

Of the 30 women on trial in Chelmsford, 14 were hanged.

Wallington also recounts the experiences of Rebecca West, a suspected witch who confessed to sleeping with the devil when she was tortured because "she found her selfe in such extremity of torture and amazement that she would not enure (endure) it againe for the world." Her confession spared her.

Carol Burrows, who managed the notebook's digitization, on Thursday told Reuters that Wallington's journal was important because of its connections to the civil war.

View the Notebook here: http:/chiccmanchester.wordpress.com/

Lost Diary of Queen Victoria's Final Companion

From the Telegraph:

'I am so very fond of him. He is so good and gentle and understanding… and is a real comfort to me.”

These were the words of Queen Victoria speaking to her daughter-in-law, Louise, Duchess of Connaught, on November 3, 1888, at Balmoral. Perhaps surprising, though, is who she was talking about – not her beloved husband, Albert, who had died in 1861. Nor John Brown, her loyal Scottish ghillie, who in many ways filled the void left by Albert, since Brown had died in 1883.

Instead, Queen Victoria was referring to Abdul Karim, her 24-year-old Indian servant.

Her relationship with Karim was one that sent shockwaves through the royal court – and ended up being one of the most scandalous periods of her 64-year reign.

Indeed, such was the ill-feeling that when Victoria died, her son King Edward ordered all records of their relationship, including correspondence and photographs, to be destroyed.

Criminal Records of Victorian Women Online

From the Times of Malta:

Thousands of Victorian criminal records giving details of female convicts, including a teenager jailed for five years for stealing an umbrella, were published online for the first time.

Family history website Ancestry.co.uk said more than 4,400 criminal records and 500 mugshots will be included in the collection.

Women and young girls featured in the records include Mary Richards, who was jailed for five years in 1880 at the age 59 for stealing 130 oysters valued at eight shillings; Elizabeth Murphy, 19, sentenced to five years of hard labour in 1884 and seven years of police supervision for stealing an umbrella; and Dorcas Mary Snell, 45, who was sentenced to five years of imprisonment with hard labour in 1883 for the theft of a single piece of bacon, although she was paroled two years later.

The website said the records, the originals of which are held by the National Archives, provide a picture of the “harsh” British judicial system at the time.

The site’s international content director Dan Jones said: “Crime is more often associated with men; however, these intriguing records shed light on some rather colourful female lawbreakers of their day and, given the petty nature of many of their crimes, also serves as a reminder of how harsh our judicial system was not so very long ago.”

The Sisterhood of Avalon

From the Record:

The sisterhood, a Celtic tradition, is exclusive to women in which followers honour five goddesses who each represent a station in a cycle of healing.

The sisterhood is about “gathering the tools for self-empowerment,’’ said Lazic, a holistic therapist in private practice, who meditates several times a week and journeys to Avalon in her mind twice a month.

Pagan faiths, often described as earth-based religions, adhere to ritual practices and follow different mythologies including Celtic, Norse and ancient Greek traditions.

Some follow the phases the moon, celebrating equinoxes and solstices. They practice in groups, alone or today more commonly on the internet in covens, circles or hearths.

Common forms of paganism include Wicca and witchcraft. Paganism was a label European Christians gave to villagers who followed traditional folk practices outside the mainstream religions.

The Sisterhood of Avalon is a mix of Arthurian legend, folklore, stories passed on from the druids and goddess spirituality. It’s not known if Avalon really existed but its followers believe the spiritual energy of ancient times remains alive today.

Within history, Avalon is a place with pagan and Christian roots. According to Arthurian legend, a mortally wounded King Arthur was healed on Avalon and the island is his final resting place.

Legend also has it that Joseph of Arimathea, Jesus’ uncle, returned to Glastonbury after the death of Jesus to establish the first Christian church in the British Isles. It is said that Joseph brought Jesus with him on trips to the British Isles.

The Lady Chapel in Glastonbury is dedicated to Jesus’ mother Mary and still exists today. The tower of Saint Michael, that stands on Glastonbury Tor, is the remains of the second church built there in the 15th century.

The Discovery of Jeanne Baret

From the Winnipeg Free Press:

TO hide her identity from the men around her, she docked her hair, bound her breasts so tightly she could hardly breathe and gritted her teeth against starvation and seasickness for 18 months at sea.

For all these trials, the passage of nearly 250 years has relegated Jeanne Baret's story to a curious historical footnote: in the mid-18th century, on an expedition ship led by famous French explorer Louis-Antoine de Bougainville, Baret hid her gender and became the first woman known to circumnavigate the globe.

Until recently, that was where Baret's place in history began and ended. But in her second book, British academic Glynis Ridley scoured fragments of historical evidence to uncover a deeper tale: one of a poor but brilliant French herb-woman who, working alongside the prominent man she loved, left a lasting mark on modern botany.

The book: The Discovery of Jeanne Baret - A Story of Science, the High Seas, and the First Woman to Circumnavigate the Globe by Glynis Ridley

Margaret Thatcher & the Indian Mystic

From the Telegraph:

The Iron Lady, who was renowned for her no-nonsense direct approach, conversed with self-proclaimed faith healer and preacher Sri Chandraswamy in 1975 in her Commons office.

And the future Prime Minister was so impressed with his apparent powers that she agreed to his request to wear a special red dress and a battered talisman around her wrist to a second meeting.

There, it is claimed the bearded guru correctly predicted that she would come to power within four years and remain there for more than a decade.

Details of the extraordinary meetings were revealed by former Indian Foreign Minister Shri Natwar Singh, who was present when they took place.

In 1975 he was India’s Deputy High Commissioner to the UK when Mr Chandraswamy arrived in London and apparently demanded a meeting with Mrs Thatcher.

Vikings: Alive & Well in NW England

From 24dash.com:

The Vikings are alive and well and living in the North West of England! That’s the revelation in a new book on an epic research project into the genetic footprint of the Scandinavian invaders.

‘Viking DNA: The Wirral and West Lancashire Project’ is the culmination of several years of research by biochemists and geneticists, by Wirral-raised Professor Steve Harding from The University of Nottingham and Professor Mark Jobling and Dr Turi King from the University of Leicester. It shows the power of modern DNA methods to probe ancestry using the North West of England as an example.

The North West has long been known to have special links with the Vikings going back over a thousand years, through archaeological evidence, ancient manuscripts, local surnames and placenames such as ‘Thingwall’ from the Old Norse ‘ping-vollr’ meaning ‘meeting place’. It’s believed many of the Vikings, of mainly Norwegian origin, ended up in the region after being expelled from Ireland in AD902.

The new book tells the story of how 21st century genetic methods have been used in conjunction with historical and linguistic evidence to investigate the Viking ancestry of Wirral and neighbouring West Lancashire. Rigorous DNA analysis of samples of the local population, focusing on people who had surnames present in the regions prior to 1600, has scientifically proved that the Vikings settled heavily in the area and left a huge genetic legacy which survives and continues today.

Why We Should Always Give The Crown To A Women.

From the Mail Online:

Given the impatience with which the Coalition has set about reforming everything from local government to the NHS, perhaps it’s not surprising that ministers have now got their teeth into the monarchy.

As the Mail reported earlier this week, it is considering amending the 1701 Act of ­Settlement so that a first-born girl can succeed the throne. Which means that if Prince William and Kate Middleton’s first child is a daughter, that baby would be our future queen.

Constitutional conservatives are up in arms — yet throughout our long royal history, the female of the species has generally proved far more competent than the male.