New & Noteworthy: October 20

Lots of news from our contributors this month! 

• Jessica Knauss's SEVEN NOBLE NIGHTS, the epic of family and betrayal in medieval Spain, will debut on December 15. You can enter now for a chance to win one of ten proof copies at Goodreads. 

• Blythe Gifford’s second Royal Wedding Story, WHISPERS AT COURT, took first place in the Historical/Regency category of the Book Buyers Best Contest, sponsored by the Orange County (California) Chapter of Romance Writers of America. RUMORS AT COURT, the third book in the series, will be released in May, 2017, in the U.S. and the U.K.

• Anita Davison announces her newest title, MURDER AT CLEVE ABBEY, the second instalment in the thrilling Flora Maguire Edwardian Cosy Mystery Series. More information at Amazon.co.uk 

• On 29 October, Alison Morton will be on the "Research for Creative Writers" panel at the SilverWood Writing Day, a fringe event at the Bristol Literary Festival, UK. Alison's specialist area will be writing in extreme circumstances - she does write historical thrillers, after all! Full details here. In addition, Alison's fourth book, AURELIA reached the final four for the Historical Novel Society's 2016 Indie Award. Not bad out of 400 possible winners!

 • Kim Rendfeld’s second novel, THE ASHES OF HEAVEN'S PILLAR, will be re-released Nov. 2 in print and ebook formats. Praised by reviewers, the novel is about a Saxon peasant who will go to great lengths to protect her children — after she has lost everything else. Preorders for the ebook are available at Amazon, Kobo, Barnes and Noble, and iTunes. If you would like a note when the print edition is available, email kim [at] kimrendfeld [dot] com.

New & Noteworthy: August 19

Anita Davison's latest novel MURDER ON THE MINNEAPOLIS will be re-released by Aria (an imprint of Head of Zeus) in October 2016. This is the first in a series of five novels featuring the adventures of amateur sleuth Flora Maguire. The second book, MURDER AT CLEEVE ABBEY, is due for release this December, with the rest to follow in 2017. MURDER ON THE MINNEAPOLIS is now available for pre-order at Amazon.

To celebrate the re-release of THE CROSS AND THE DRAGON, Kim Rendfeld is holding two giveaways: one for a signed paperback for U.S. residents via Goodreads, the other for an ebook open internationally via her blog. See Kim’s post for details.

NOTE: Heather Domin's blog tour at Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours promoting THE HEIRS OF FORTUNE has been postponed due to scheduling conflicts. As soon as it is rescheduled, the new date will be announced.

Open Topics: The Hon. Charles Stewart Rolls (1877 - 1910)

By Anita Davison

Whilst researching prominent Edwardian characters for my next cosy Mystery, Murder at St Philomena’s – which hasn’t been submitted to my publisher yet, but one can dream – I  came across an archetypal upper class young man whose name most people have heard of but little is known though his name graces the radiators of some of the most exclusive cars in the world.

The Hon Charles Stewart Rolls was an impressive 6ft 5ins tall, handsome and from a wealthy family. Instead of leading the life of an Edwardian aristocrat, he was an adventurer at heart, making a significant contribution to both aeronautics and transport.

Charles was the third son of John Allan Rolls, 1st Baron Llangattock, an Army officer, Justice of the Peace and High Sheriff of Monmouthshire. Their country home was The Hendre, [Welsh for Winter Dwelling or main house] near Monmouth.

Charles’ eldest brother, John Maclean Rolls was destined to be the 2nd Baron Llangattock but died of wounds received at the Battle of the Somme in 1916. The second son, Henry Allen Rolls, was a Lieutenant in the Royal Monmouthshire Royal Engineers (Militia) who was wounded in WWI and died Sussex, in 1916. A daughter, Eleanor Georgiana Rolls married Sir John Edward Shelley, the sixth Baronet Shelley and died in 1961.

Motoring

Charles was always fascinated with engines and electronics. In his teens installed a dynamo at The Hendre, and wired part of the house before entering Trinity College, Cambridge. At 18, Charles went to Paris, where, with his father's assistance he bought a 3 3/4 hp Peugeot Paris-Bordeaux Phaeton for £225 - the first ever car based in Cambridge and one of the most powerful available at the time. When he took the 140mile trip home to Monmouth in his new motor car, the townspeople waited two days and nights to catch a glimpse of him as he drove over Monnow Bridge- only the third car owned in Wales.

Rolls in his 8hp Panhard Lavassor 1900

Charles left university in 1898 with a degree in Mechanism and Applied Science, earning the nicknames "Dirty Rolls" and "Petrolls" because of his inclination to get oil on his hands from the engines. He worked on his father’s  steam yacht ‘Santa Maria’, after which he obtained a third engineer's (marine) certificate. He worked at the London and North Western Railway at their main locomotive engineering workshops, the largest limited company in the world at the time.

In 1896, he joined and a group of auto enthusiasts campaigned against the 4mph speed limit, after which it was increased to 12 mph. He was one of the founding members of the Automobile Club of Great Britain in 1897 where he served until his death. Rolls had a reputation for being very careful with money, didn’t over eat and drank alcohol in moderation. An enthusiastic racing driver, his first motor race was in France in 1899, finishing fourth in his class, driving an 8hp Panhard and Levassor.

Despite the inaugural London to Brighton Run in November 1896 there were still few automotive vehicles on the roads of Britain, so in 1900, Lord Northcliffe organised a ‘Reliability Run' over 1,000 miles from London to Edinburgh and back. This was intended to show detractors of the ‘horseless-carriage’ that the internal combustion engine could replace horse power.
The drivers had to deal with bumpy, unmade roads, with no signposts; in open cars whatever the weather. No windscreen, and little more than a pram-hood for the protection of the driver and passenger, who wore 'autocoats', hats and goggles. Charles drove his Panhard Levassor and won the gold medal for best car in any class. Frank Hedges Butler, wine merchant and 1st hon. Treasurer of the RAC, took part, accompanied by his daughter, Vera, who became Charles Roll’s girlfriend. In 1902, the pair were on a drive when they collided with a horse-drawn trap in traffic from the Barnet Fair!

Vera Hedges Butler, Charles Rolls Girlfriend

That same year, Charles started one of the first car dealerships in Britain. With £6,600 of financial backing provided by his father, C.S. Rolls and Co began importing and selling high-class French Peugeot and Belgian Minerva cars through their ‘showroom’ premises in Fulham, London.

In June 1902, Charles entered the  Paris-Vienna three-day race covering 990km - legendary as being one of the toughest because it included the Arlberg Pass, a 6000ft climb up a wagon road, crossed by drainage ditches; and a dangerous decent which burnt out brakes and caused more than a dozen accidents!

In February 1903 Rolls competed in the fateful Paris to Madrid town-to-town race which claimed the lives of thirty-four drivers and spectators. He held the unofficial land speed record in 1903 piloting his 80hp Mors, a French car which he imported and distributed, to nearly 83 mph along the course in the Duke of Portland’s Clipstone Park.

After a slow start, Rolls’ business was doing well and he opened a showroom in Brook Street in the West End of London. His friend John Scott Montagu, edited and owned a magazine called ‘Car Illustrated’. Rolls wrote for the magazine which ran advertisements for his cars.

In April 1903 the team GB Gordon-Bennett trials were held in Buckinghamshire, though Charles didn’t make the team. He entered the 800 mile race from Paris to Madrid in May which was intended to be a triumph of speed but ended at Bordeaux in chaos and disaster.

Despite starting the faster vehicles first, the disparity of speeds meant there was over-taking on the road. Due to a lack of rain, the first cars raised huge clouds of dust which hampered the vision of the following drivers but also the crowd, some of whom strayed onto the roads trying to get a better view of the oncoming cars and several were run down.

On 4 May 1904, Charles met Frederick Henry Royce at the Midland Hotel in Manchester to discuss selling Royce motor cars. Royce was fifteen years older and had worked hard all his life, unlike the wealthy Charles. Royce found he had little in common with the handsome aristocrat, yet they still became friends. Royce wanted to build the best cars, Charles wanted to sell the best, and both wanted them to be British.

Original Logo

Legend has it that when Royce showed Charles his motor car, he climbed aboard and asked Royce to go ahead and start her up, Royce replied, “My dear fellow, she’s already running!”

Charles borrowed one of Royce’s cars for his return journey to London; where he announced he had:-“...found the greatest motor engineer in the world”.

Thus Rolls-Royce was born; the first cars offered to the public in December 1904. Charles was appointed Technical Director at a salary of £750 per annum with 4% of any profits over £10,000. As a board member he provided financial backing as well as technical and business expertise.

In 1906 Rolls won the Tourist Trophy and also broke the Monte Carlo-to-London record.  When the staff at the Rolls-Royce plant in Derby heard the news, they hoisted Henry Royce aloft in triumph.

That same year, Rolls exhibited Rolls-Royce cars at the New York Motor Show and was introduced to the Wright Brothers.

Ballooning

Charles’ first ascent aboard a balloon, was on the ‘Wulfruna’  in 1896 on a sixteen mile flight from Crystal Palace to Epping Forest.

In 1901, Vera Hedges Butler had arranged a trip for her father, Frank,but before they were due to set out, Vera’s Renault 4.5 caught fire and the trip was cancelled. Instead, Charles suggested a trip with their friend Stanley Spencer in Spencer’s balloon, ‘City of New York’. They took off from Crystal Palace and whilst sipping champagne over Sidcup, Kent, discussed starting an Aero Club along the lines of the Royal Automobile Club, but allowing women as equal members. They leased a clubhouse at 119 Piccadilly, which it retained until 1961 and in 1910 became the Royal Aero Club.

Charles Rolls with Frank and Vera Butler Hedges

Every weekend, weather permitting, he and his friends, and his girlfriend, Vera, could be seen at The Hurlingham Club  at Ranelagh, or the Crystal Palace to ascend in balloons.

The Club membership quickly grew to nearly three hundred, The Hon. Lady Shelley – Charles Roll’s sister, Eleanor, was a member as well as being a keen motorist. The club owned three balloons where trips were charged at two guineas each. Races, contests, and exhibitions of aeronautic subjects and machines were held in the Club grounds.

Charles’ friend, Leslie Bucknall, invented a sport where balloons were chased by motor cars; originally intended to show the military that despatches could be moved more quickly by balloon.

In January 1903, Bucknall’s balloon Vivienne II, left from Prospect Park, Reading with Bucknall, Charles and Frank Hedges Butler on board. The pilot tried to bring the balloon down beneath the cloud cover so the cars could see to follow it. They descended too fast, only stopping in time to avert disaster to the passengers, although Vivienne II  was destroyed by the rough landing. Subsequently, Charles made over 170 balloon ascents and in 1903 won the Gordon Bennett Gold Medal for the longest single flight time and held the record for the Paris to Berlin flight.

His interest turned from balloons to powered flight, and in April 1910, he purchased the French Wright with a Wright Bariquand engine - not Rolls-Royce powered because Royce was yet to design a Rolls-Royce aero engine. Together with the Wright brothers in America and the Short brothers, balloon makers to the Club, Charles acquired a Wright license for the first aircraft production line in the world at Leysdown and later at nearby Eastchurch.

From 1910 the Royal Aero Club, issued Aviators Certificates, Charles Rolls was issued with Certificate No 1. The Club trained most military pilots up to 1915, when military schools took over.

On June 2nd, 1910, Rolls flew his Wright biplane across the English Channel to France, was spotted over French territory without permission, and returned to England without landing. The trip was the third Channel crossing by air, Bleriot having made the first, and Jacques de Lesseps the second. Charles became the first man to fly non-stop across the English Channel both ways.

On the 12 July 1910, around twenty of the world’s most famous aviators travelled to Hengistbury Head, at Christchurch, Dorset which attracted approximately 2,000 visitors.

With a gusting wing speed of 20 to 25 mph, Charles came in to land. He shut off his engine, intending to glide in a broad circle down onto the target spot. He saw he would undershoot, so pulled back the controls to lift the nose and began a turn, when a stiff wind hit his plane beam-on.

Witnesses report they heard a crack and saw the two rear rudders break loose from the tail plane which bent upwards, crumpled and snapped off. Parts splintered and fell from the aircraft as the tail boom broke away. The machine overturned and nose-dived into the ground.

Roll's Crashed Plane

Although Rolls fell only 20 feet, he fractured his skull, and died in the arms of a distraught friend, US colonel and aviator Sam Cody.   He was 33 years old

Charles was Britain`s first aircraft fatality in a powered aircraft, and the eleventh internationally. Lord Montague of Beaulieu interrupted his speech in the House of Lords to announce his death. Charles was buried at St. Cadoc's Church on 16 July 1910. He had a philosophical outlook towards the danger he courted, saying:

“All good engineering calls for casualties—so why not?”

As a symbol of mourning, the intertwined “RR” logo on the Rolls-Royce radiator plate was changed from red to black and his name retained as a mark of respect.

Sources:
http://www.monmouth.org.uk
http://www.cartage.org.lb
Rolls-Royce History
http://www.bentleyboys.com

New & Noteworthy: June 19

• Are you going to the Historical Novel Society Conference in Denver? Diana Gabaldon will moderate "Midwifery: Magic or Medicine?" a panel discussion on June 27. Panelists include Unusual Historicals contributors Lisa Yarde, Kim Rendfeld, and Judith Starkston, along with author Sam Thomas. If you can't make it to the conference, recordings of selected panels are usually made available for purchase - watch hns-conference.org/ for details.

• MURDER ON THE MINNEAPOLIS, the first title in Anita Davison's new Cosy Mystery series, will be available June 30 from Hale Books!

 Flora Maguire, a young governess, is on her way home on the SS Minneapolis after the wedding of her employer’s daughter. She meets the charming Bunny Harrington on deck on the first night, after having avoided the dining room, conscious of her status among the first-class passengers. Flora finds the body of a man at the bottom of a companionway, but when his death is pronounced an accident, she is not convinced, and, having experienced her own tragedy as a child in the form of her mother’s disappearance, is driven to find out the truth. Flora starts asking questions, but following threats, a near drowning during a storm and a second murder, the hunt is on in earnest for a killer. Time is running out as the Minneapolis approaches the English coast. Will Flora be able to protect Edward, her charge, as well as herself, and uncover the identity of the murderer? Is her burgeoning relationship with the handsome Bunny Harrington only a shipboard dalliance, or something more?

 Get more details on MURDER ON THE MINNEAPOLIS at HaleBooks.com. 

The Battlefield: The Monmouth Rebellion 1685

The rebellion grew out of the Exclusion Crisis of the late 1670s, when Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury instigated a Protestant movement to remove the Roman Catholic James, Duke of York, from succeeding his brother Charles II to the throne. Shaftesbury, along with Lord William Russell, Lord Essex and Sir Algernon Sydney, spent three years trying to push the bill through Parliament, but King Charles, sticking to the 'Divine Right of Kings' principle, refused to allow his brother to be disinherited.

James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth, the eldest of Charles II’s illegitimate sons, was the figurehead for this movement. Born in Rotterdam on 9th April 1649 to Lucy Walter, James arrived among controversy, in that his mother was believed to have been the mistress of Colonel Robert Sidney when she met Charles, so his parenthood was in question from the start. These rumours were believed to have been started by the Prince’s brother, James Duke of York, who feared Charles II might make James his heir as he had no legitimate children.

James Crofts

The young James' mother took him to London where she was arrested and imprisoned in the Tower of London. After questioning, allegedly by Cromwell himself, she was released and went to Flanders. This adventure apparently appalled Charles, who when James was eight, employed an agent to kidnap him. He was taken to Paris by Lord William Crofts, given his surname and lived at the Dowager Queen Henrietta Maria’s court, finally being brought to England when his father was restored to the throne at the age of fourteen. He never saw his mother again.

Charles II created him Duke of Monmouth, Earl of Doncaster, Baron Scott of Tynedale and appointed him a Knight of the Garter. Still only fourteen, James was married to the heiress Anne Scott, 4th Countess of Buccleuch. He took her name, and the couple were made Duke and Duchess of Buccleuch, Earl and Countess of Dalkeith, and Lord and Lady Scott of Whitchester and Eskdale.

At sixteen, Monmouth served under his uncle the Duke of York in the Second Anglo-Dutch War, and over the next fifteen years he distinguished himself as a brave and compassionate soldier – something which must have stuck in the craw of Uncle James of York.

Lord Shaftesbury urged King Charles II to recognise his son by the legitimisation of his marriage to Lucy Walters. The king refused, declaring before his council that had never been married to anyone except his queen, Catherine of Braganza. Monmouth always claimed his parents were married, a claim made by his mother, but which was never proved. A legend circulated of a ‘black box’ in which the marriage papers of Charles and Lucy Walters were hidden but these were never produced as evidence. Monmouth later confessed that his father had told him in private that he would have no legal right to the throne.

Monmouth was a popular Protestant figure, especially in the south west, and his army days had stood him in good stead for mixing with common people, a quality the aristocracy disapproved of.  He was implicated in the Popish Plot in 1679 and the Rye House Plot in 1683 to kill both the King and his brother. Although Monmouth was not involved, and was pardoned, he was banished from court and took refuge in the Netherlands early in 1684.

Despite their differences, James loved his father and apparently fell into an hysterical rage when he was told of Charles II's death in February 1685, even blaming his Uncle James of having poisoned him.

Shaftesbury was dead, but others, like Lord Ford Grey of Warke, and Archibald Campbell Earl of Argyll encouraged Monmouth to invade England and demand James II protect the English religion.

Argyll went to Scotland to raise a force there, while Monmouth, with eighty-two supporters, and men including Nathaniel Wade and Fletcher of Saltoun, sailed from Holland with three small ships, Anna, Sophia and David, four light field guns and 1500 muskets. They landed near  Lyme Regis on 11th June and quickly gathered another three hundred men.

However, Uncle James was on high alert for his errant nephew and all the ports were being watched. King James sent the Huguenot Louis Duras, earl Feversham and John Churchill, (later 1st Duke of Marlborough) to the west with his army.

Meanwhile in Lyme, recruits arrived in hundreds until Monmouth's army numbered a thousand foot and a hundred and fifty horse, mostly nonconformist, artisans and farm workers including, a young Daniel Foe, who later changed his name to Defoe.

Their Cavalry, composed of animals normally pulling ploughs, and poorly equipped men with outdated guns and farmyard tools; hence this was known as the pitchfork rebellion. Monmouth managed to gather 1500 troops, and although they were given limited training, they were hardly battle ready.

Ford Lord Grey

Monmouth declared himself the rightful king in Taunton Marketplace, as well as at Axminster, Chard and Ilminster, also accusing James II of poisoning his father. However his early triumphs were short-lived when most of the local landed gentry and the Anglican clergy proved unwilling to support Monmouth, though around a thousand cloth workers and peasants joined his growing army.

The warm summer weather had turned to heavy, relentless rain, and in need of men, money and horses, Monmouth created regiments armed with scythe blades mounted onto eight foot poles, while hatchets, pitchforks and clubs were pressed into service. He retreated to Bridgwater while the King's forces under Louis Duras, 2nd Earl of Feversham, and Colonel Kirke, had reached Somerset and were closing in.

Argyll, who had reached Campbeltown, failed to raise an army and was captured at Inchinnan on his way to Glasgow. By the 1st July he had already been executed in Edinburgh. Expected rebellions in Cheshire and East Anglia also failed to materialise, after which the morale of Monmouth's forces started to collapse and at least half his troops deserted and returned to their homes, while a reinforced Royal army cut off his route into both Exeter and Cornwall.

Monmouth climbed the tiny spiral staircase of the tower of St Mary’s Church, Bridgwater, where he surveyed the landscape of Sedgemoor where Feversham’s troops were encamped. The telescope he used is reputedly kept in the Blake Museum, Bridgwater. At midnight, Monmouth and his army set off through dark streets and onto the moor, with each man sworn to silence at the risk of being stabbed by the man beside him.

The two armies met on Sedgemoor in the early hours, but after getting lost between the ditches, Monmouth's makeshift force could not compete with the regular army, and was driven back, where the royal troops hunted them through the streets of Bridgwater.

Monmouth fled the battlefield in the company of Lord Grey and headed for Poole, and a ship to the continent. On reaching an Inn at Woodyates they split up, leaving their horses they proceeded across country singly and in disguise. Monmouth was discovered dressed as a shepherd and shivering in a ditch, under a hedge at Horton, Hampshire. He might have got away with it except that in his pocket he was carrying his ‘George’ the badge of the Order of the Garter.

Monmouth in Taunton from Micah Clarke

He was taken to London where he begged his uncle for mercy, and offered to convert to Catholicism, but James had always been jealous of his handsome nephew’s popularity and wanted his revenge.

Monmouth’s estranged wife, Anna was allowed to visit him, after having assured King James II she had had nothing to do with the rising, was allowed to continue her life. Bishops Turner of Ely and Ken of Bath and Wells withheld the eucharist as Monmouth refused to acknowledge that the rebellion or his relationship with Lady Wentworth had been sinful.

Monmouth mounted the scaffold on Tower Hill on 15th July 1685, where he tipped the headsman with the words, “Here are six guineas for you and do not hack me as you did my Lord Russell. I have heard you struck him four or five times; If you strike me twice, I cannot promise you not to stir.” This plea apparently destroyed Jack Ketch’s composure. The official Tower of London fact sheet says it took five blows to sever Monmouth’s head, though Charles Spencer, in his book Blenheim, claims it was seven. The mob were enraged and threatened to lynch Jack Ketch, who had to be removed under guard.

The Autumn Assizes of 1685 began at Winchester, led by Lord Chief Justice Jeffreys, a man suffering from painful kidney stones, which is often blamed for his viscous temper and the way he publicly harangued those on trial. The octogenarian Dame Alice Lyle was condemned to death for helping two rebels hide in her barn, though this could have been further retribution for the fact her husband, John Lisle signed Charles I’s death warrant.

At Dorchester between 300 and 350 rebels were accused. A few were acquitted, others fined or flogged, but the majority were publicly hanged, disemboweled and then quartered, their body parts dipped in pitch and salt, then sent to villages to be displayed on poles. Some had their sentences commuted to transportation, each man being worth about £12 to the crown, all of whom spent at least ten years in slavery in the West Indies.

Many rebels were whipped through all the towns in Dorset and the relatives of the schoolgirls, the Maids of Taunton who had presented Monmouth with a banner, were ransomed to their parents, the youngest being only ten.

Monmouth Grovels Before King James II

Around 200 people were sentenced to death and about 800 transported on The Happy Return, and the Betty, which sailed out of Poole to the West Indies. Jefferys also extorted money from many of the accused for their freedom. Lord Grey of Warke paid thirty thousand pounds for his pardon, and was seen dancing at a court ball by the autumn.

Most of those who survived their slavery received a free pardon in 1691.

Footnote: In 2012, a DNA test conducted on Monmouth's descendant Richard Montagu Douglas Scott, the 10th Duke of Buccleuch, showed that he shared the same Y-chromosome (inherited from father-to-son) as a distant Stewart cousin, providing strong evidence that Charles II was Monmouth's biological father.

More Information about James Scott and Sedgemoor 

http://www.zoylandheritage.co.uk
http://www.unofficialroyalty.com/april-9-1649-birth-of-james-scott-1st-duke-of-monmouth-illegitimate-son-of-king-charles-ii-of-england/
http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/content/imported-docs/p-t/sedgemoor.pdf
http://www.hampshire-history.com/dame-alice-lisle/
http://www.rupertwilloughby.co.uk/daniels-knowle/ 
http://www.thesealedknot.org.uk/

Great Buildings: The Cathedral Church of St Paul The Apostle, London

By Anita Davison

The 'new' statue of Queen Anne outside St Pauls

Behind a statue of Queen Anne on Ludgate Hill, at the base of which a disgruntled Jacobite once scrawled of the woman who took her father’s throne while he still lived: "With her face to the brandy-shop and her back to the church." lies the Cathedral Church of St Paul The Apostle above the River Thames. The statue is not the original, which was described as ‘mean’ and placed there in 1712, the current one was installed in 1885 and is considered a more imposing example.

The full story of this great cathedral is too long to fit here, so I’ll keep this post anecdotal with some of the more interesting facts I could find.

During the construction of the Cathedral of St Paul the reigning monarch, [who could have been Charles II, James II, William III or Queen Anne, no one is quite sure] was taken on a tour by Sir Christopher Wren and commented that the new building was ‘awful, pompous, and artificial’. Strangely, Wren was not insulted, because in the 1600s amusing meant amazing, awful meant awe-inspiring, and artificial meant artistic.

Old St Paul’s - During the era when the centurion, St. Alban was martyred, the Romans demolished a church on top of what is now Ludgate Hill and raised a temple to Diana on its ruins. During the reign of Edward III, a massive quantity of ox-skulls, stag-horns, and boars' tusks, and sacrificial vessels, were exhumed on this site. However, Sir Christopher Wren, during his excavations for the new cathedral in 1675 found no evidence of the goddess Diana.

Old St Pauls After 1561

Established by King Ethelbert and made of wood, the first church was erected in 604 AD, eight years after the first Christian mission under St. Augustine landed in Kent. Home to the first bishop of the East Saxons, Mellitus, it was destroyed by fire, and rebuilt by bishop Erkenwald in 675-85. Vikings destroyed the second St. Paul's in 962, then again in 1087.

In the 12th Century, King Henry I commanded that all material brought up the River Fleet for the cathedral be toll free, and gave Bishop Beaumis rights to all fish caught within the cathedral neighbourhood, as well as the tithes on venison taken in the County of Essex.

The medieval cathedral had a Norman triforium in the nave and a vaulted ceiling, known as "Paul's walk". The cathedral's stained glass included an exquisite Rose window at the east end, and a shrine adorned with gold, silver and precious stones.

Infested with beggars and thieves, “Paul's walk” was also a place to pick up gossip, topical jokes, and even prostitutes. Used as a marketplace during the 1381–1404 tenure of Bishop Braybrooke, he issued an open letter decrying the selling of "wares, as if it were a public market" and "others ... by the instigation of the Devil [using] stones and arrows to bring down the birds, jackdaws and pigeons which nestled in the walls and crevises of the building. Others play at ball ... breaking the beautiful and costly painted windows to the amazement of spectators." and goes on to threaten excommunication to all miscreants. By the 15th century, "News mongers", known as “Paul’s walkers” gathered at the cathedral to pass on the latest news and gossip.

During the reign of Henry VII, a young girl who, going to confess, was importuned by the monk. She escaped him by climbing the stairs of the great clock tower, raised the hammer of the clock bell as it had finished striking twelve, climbed onto the roof and eluded her assailant. The girl accused the monk publicly, which he denied. However she asked if anyone had heard the church bell ring thirteen times on that day, there were many witnesses who said they had heard it, and thus the monk was degraded.

Arthur, Prince of Wales, son of Henry VII, married Catharine of Aragon in St Paul's on November, 1501, although Arthur died five months later, at the age of 15. Richard II, Henry VI and Henry VII lay in state there before their funerals at Westminster Abbey. In Richard II’s case, displaying his body in a public place was to counter rumours that he was still alive. The walls were lined with the tombs of medieval bishops and nobility, a shrine to Erkenwald, Sebbi, King of the East Saxons, and Ethelred the Unready, two Anglo-Saxon kings were buried inside.

Prince Arthur

John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster, John Beauchamp, 3rd Baron Beauchamp de Somerset, also had monuments within the cathedral, and later  the tombs of the Crown minister Nicholas Bacon, the poet, courtier and soldier Sir Philip Sidney.

In the Tudor period an open-air pulpit called “Paul's Cross” was established by the south wall, where crowds gathered to hear controversial Protestant sermons. In 1549 the preachers incited a mob who rampaged through the interior, destroying the high altar and ravaging the tombs and wall-hangings.

Under Henry VIII and Edward VI, the Dissolution of the Monasteries and Chantries Acts led to the destruction of interior ornamentation and the cloisters, which were seized by the Crown and sold as shops and rental properties, especially to printers and booksellers, who were often Puritans.

On 4 June 1561 the spire caught fire and crashed through the nave roof, apparently struck by lightning. The bells melted and the lead covering the wooden spire "poured down like lava upon the roof", destroying it. Protestants and Catholics alike took this as a sign of God's displeasure. Queen Elizabeth contributed towards the cost of repairs as did the Bishop of London, Edmund Grindal, although the spire was never rebuilt. Only fifty years after the rebuilding, the roof was in a dangerous condition.

In May 1606 St. Paul's Churchyard saw the hanging of Father Garnet, one of the Gunpowder Plot conspirators. King James I appointed England's first classical architect, Inigo Jones, to restore the building. Jones added a classical-style portico to the cathedral's west front in the 1630s.

The poet John Donne, who coined the phrases ‘No man is an island’ and ‘For whom the bell tolls’, was dean of St Paul’s. He died in 1631, having posed for his own memorial statue where he is depicted wearing a shroud, ‘So God will recognise me’ and standing on a Greek urn. The statue survived the Great Fire as it was moved to safety and reinstated in the new cathedral – traces of scorching still exist on the urn.

John Evelyn

During the Civil Wars, Parliamentary troops used the nave as cavalry barracks, and it was rumoured that Cromwell had considered giving the building to London's returning Jewish community as a synagogue in the 1650’s.

Sir Christopher Wren - In 1660, Charles II appointed Christopher Wren to undertake major repairs to the building, but his work had just begun when, on September 4, 1666, fire broke out in a bakehouse in Pudding Lane. Fanned by a fierce wind, the fire raged for four days and spread through the close-packed streets of London. The city’s most valuable documents and treasures were taken to St Pauls for safety, but the intensity of the blaze melted the lead roof and the building collapsed in on itself.

Samuel Pepys recalls the fire in his diary:

Up by five o'clock, and blessed be God! find all well, and by water to Paul's Wharf. Walked thence and saw all the town burned, and a miserable sight of Paul's Church, with all the roof fallen, and the body of the choir fallen into St. Faith's; Paul's School also, Ludgate, and Fleet Street.

John Evelyn's account is more wordy:

September 3rd – I went and saw the whole south part of the City burning from Cheapeside to the Thames, and ... was now taking hold of St. Paule's Church, to which the scaffolds contributed exceedingly.

September 7th – I went this morning on foote from White-hall as far as London Bridge, thro' the late Fleete-streete, Ludgate Hill, by St. Paules ... At my returne I was infinitely concern'd to find that goodly Church St. Paules now a sad ruine, and that beautiful portico ... now rent in pieces, flakes of vast stone split asunder, and nothing now remaining intire but the inscription in the architrave, shewing by whom it was built, which had not one letter of it defac'd. It was astonishing to see what immense stones the heate had in a manner calcin'd, so that all the ornaments, columns, freezes, capitals, and projectures of massie Portland-stone flew off, even to the very roofe, where a sheet of lead covering a great space (no less than six akers by measure) was totally mealted; the ruines of the vaulted roofe falling broke into St. Faith's, which being fill'd with the magazines of bookes belonging to the Stationers, and carried thither for safety, they were all consum'd, burning for a weeke following. It is also observable that the lead over the altar at the East end was untouch'd, and among the divers monuments, the body of one Bishop remain'd intire. Thus lay in ashes that most venerable Church, one of the most antient pieces of early piety in the Christian world.

King Charles’ ‘tastes and vices’ were all French, and he had invited Perrault, one of the designers of the Louvre to design the new building. However, Charles chose Wren, who, with his friend John Evelyn, had prepared a new plan for turning London into a series of wide avenues and open piazzas. Charles approved but lacked the money to carry them out, and impatient Londoners had already begun rebuilding along the old street patterns. Instead, the king gave Wren the commission to rebuild the city churches with money raised via a tax levied on coal arriving at the port of London.

Charles II offered an annual contribution of £1,000 for the rebuilding of the cathedral, but this was rarely paid. Some claiming the money went to pay Nell Gwynne's losses at the gambling-table, or to feed the Duchess of Portsmouth's lap-dogs.

New St Paul’s  - In 1668, demolition of the Old Cathedral proved difficult as the stonework had been bonded together by molten lead, and some of the surviving walls were dangerously unstable. One side of the central tower was still 60 meters high, so Wren used gunpowder to remove them. A neglected charge exploded, sending a large stone through a window of a nearby building that almost hit a group of women working inside. Then a passer-by was killed by flying stones, and Wren was ordered to stop the blasting, so he resorted to using a battering ram.

While digging the foundations, Wren excavated to a depth of about twenty feet. He found Saxon stone coffins and tombs lined with slabs of chalk, together with ivory and box-wood skewers used to fasten the Saxons' woollen shrouds.  On the Cheapside corner of the churchyard lay Roman funeral urns and fragments of sacrificial vessels of Samian.

When a stone from the site was found marked with the Latin inscription "resurgam", "I shall rise again". Wren had the word inscribed on the pediment of the south door, beneath a carved phoenix.
Because so much Portland stone was needed, King Charles II issued a decree that none could be removed from that island on the south coast for any purpose other than the construction of St. Paul’s without Wren’s permission. Portland stone is soft, and suitable for carving, but it’s also vulnerable to staining by salt water, so conveying it along the coat was a tricky business.

Wren’s other assistants were Master woodcarver, Grinling Gibbons who made the choir stalls, the sanctuary gates added by wrought-iron genius Jean Tijou, who was also responsible for those at Hampton Court Palace. From 1684, Wren’s protégé, Nicholas Hawksmoor was Wren's principal assistant.

John Evelyn and Grinling Gibbons

Wren's friend and associate of the Royal Society, Robert Hooke, was appointed as one of three surveyors. He had experimented with sound-amplification and had already invented an ear trumpet to assist hearing and that sound could travel along a wire. Hooke designed and built the Monument to The Great Fire, as well as Burlington House, Bethlam Hospital, and The Royal College of Physicians. He designed the main room at Montague House in a proportion so that a whisper uttered at a wall one side would be heard at the other. Is it a coincidence then, that there is a Whispering Gallery at St Pauls?

In the early 1680’s, Charles II fell out with Henry Compton, Bishop of London over the Exclusion of the Duke of York from the line of succession due to his conversion to Catholicism. The building work on the cathedral halted, and the site remained untouched at one stage for over two years.

When James II came to the throne and approved of Wren’s catholic influenced style, funding was restored again. However, to prevent further criticism, Wren had hoardings erected all around the building so his work couldn’t be seen.

On 2 December 1697, the new cathedral was consecrated for use on the Thanksgiving Day for the Peace of Ryswick which humbled France and confirmed William III permanently on the throne. Against his will, the king was persuaded to stay at home by his courtiers, who dreaded armed Jacobites hiding among the crowds. Bishop Compton, who, dressed as a trooper, gave the sermon. Compton preached the sermon and the first regular service was held on the following Sunday.

In 1710, Wren's son and the body of Freemasons laid the highest stone of the lantern of the cupola. Wren's old friends were dead, and his enemies compelled him to pile the organ on the rood screen, though he had intended it to be under the north-east arch of the choir, where it now stands. Wren wanted to use mosaic for internal decoration, which was pronounced too costly, and in 1715, "a whig, low-church dominated committee inspired by a moral Anglican nationalism” gave the painting of the cupola to Hogarth's father-in-law, Sir James Thornhill. 

Sir James Thornhill

An anecdote the cathedral guides like to tell, is of when Thornhill had finished touching up one of the heads of the apostles and was about to step back on the wooden scaffold to get a better view of his brushwork. One of his friends was talking to him and Sir James continued to move backwards, forgetting that the scaffold had no handrails along the side.

Seeing that Thornhill was about to step into space, his friend grabbed a paint-filled brush and covered his delicate brushwork. Horrified, Sir James threw himself forward from the edge of the scaffold to save the painting from his friend’s apparently insane actions.

Truth or legend? Who knows, but it’s a lovely story and the painting on the dome are exquisite.

In 1718 a violent pamphlet appeared, accusing Wren's head workmen of pilfering timber and cracking the bells, which Wren proved to be malicious and untrue. They also accused Wren or his assistant of corruption and withheld part of his salary until the work was completed. Wren covered the cupola with lead when the committee were for more expensive copper and wrangled over the iron railings for the churchyard.

At eighty-six years old, and in the forty-ninth year of office, he was dismissed from his post of Surveyor of Public Works. The Hanoverian Court, hostile to all who had served the Stuarts, appointed William Benson, who erected a monument to John Milton in Westminster Abbey.

Wren retired to his house at Hampton Court, visiting St Pauls once a year to remind himself of his greatest achievement. He died in 1723, aged ninety-one and his grave was the first to be sunk inside his cathedral. His tomb lies beneath a Latin inscription that translates; "Reader, if you seek his memorial, look about you".

Queen Anne went seven times to St. Paul's to commemorate victories over France or Spain. Marlborough's triumph in the Low Countries in 1702, and Rooke's destruction of the Spanish fleet at Vigo. In 1704, the victory of Blenheim, in 1705, the forcing of the French lines at Tirlemont; in 1706, the battle of Ramillies and Lord Peterborough's successes in Spain; in 1707, more triumphs; in 1708, the battle of Oudenarde; and in 1713, the Peace of Utrecht, when the Queen was unable to attend. On this last day the charity children of London (4,000 in number) first attended outside the church.

Opinions of Wren's cathedral differed, with some loving it: Without, within, below, above, the eye / Is filled with unrestrained delight while others hated it: ...There was an air of Popery about the gilded capitals, the heavy arches...They were unfamiliar, un-English...

Memorials - These include several lists of servicemen who died in action, the most recent being the Gulf War. Florence Nightingale, J. M. W. Turner, Hubert Parry, T. E. Lawrence and Sir Alexander Fleming as well as  lists of the Bishops and cathedral Deans for the last thousand years. Other memorials to famous Britons include General Gordon, Earl Kitchener, Sir Joshua Reynolds, JMW Turner, and Samuel Johnson, who wrote: “When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life". Also the funerals of Sir Winston Churchill, George Mallory and Baroness Thatcher were held in the cathedral.

The cathedral was struck by bombs during the Blitz  in October 1940 and April 1941. In September 1940 a time-delayed bomb was successfully defused by a bomb disposal detachment of Royal Engineers. Later detonated in a remote location, the bomb left a 100 ft crater, so had it detonated, it would have totally destroyed the cathedral.

Reports of the strikes were played down by the papers as ‘near misses’ though on one occasion the dome was pierced leaving the high altar in ruin. Sir Winston Churchill telephoned the Guildhall during the air raid insisting all fire-fighting resources be directed at St Paul's. “The cathedral must be saved, damage to the fabric would sap the morale of the country."

The American Chapel is dedicated to the 28,000 US citizens stationed in the UK who died in WWII, while outside the cathedral's south wall is a memorial to the 32,000 Londoners killed in the same war. The story of the how the American chapel came about is worth reading-here

Ghosts - An apparition of an elderly clergyman accompanied by a high-pitched, tuneless whistling sound is said to haunt All Souls' Chapel, at the cathedral’s west end. In 1925 this chapel was dedicated to the memory of Field Marshal Lord Kitchener and to servicemen killed during the First World War. As it was being redesigned workmen discovered a small door concealed in the stonework, at the exact spot where the spectral clergyman would always fade into the wall.

On the accession of George I in 1715 the new king, princes, and princesses went in state to St. Paul's. Seventy years later,  in April, 1789, George III came to thank God for his temporary recovery from insanity with Queen Charlotte, the Prince of Wales, and the Duke of York Bishop Porteous preached the sermon, and 6,000 charity children joined in the service.

In 1797, King George and Horatio Nelson attended a thanksgiving for Lord Duncan's and Lord Howe's naval victories; French, Spanish, and Dutch flags waved above the procession.

In 1806, the Prince of Wales and all his brothers led a procession of nearly 8,000 soldiers for Nelson’s funeral. His coffin was made from a mast of the L'Orient—a vessel blown up at the battle of the Nile, and presented to Nelson by his friend, the captain of the Swiftsure. Nelson's flag was to have been placed over the coffin, but as it was about to be lowered, the sailors who had borne it, tore it in pieces, for relics. His black sarcophagus was originally intended for Cardinal Wolsey, and was also considered for Henry VIII.

The Duke of Wellington is buried in the crypt beside his magnificent funeral carriage, his statue astride his horse "Copenhagen". Objections to the notion of having a horse in the church prevented its installation until 1912.

December 1810 saw the cathedral’s only robbery where thieves broke open nine doors to get to the plate repository, valued at above £2,000 Chased silver-gilt covers of the large (1640) Bible, chalices, plates, tankards, and candlesticks were never recovered.

In June 2012, a new statue of John Donne was unveiled outside the cathedral
 

For some wonderful images of the cathedral interior – Click the links below

Wanderstories and Tipter

Anita Davison is a Historical Fiction Author whose latest release, ‘Royalist Rebel’ a biographical novel set in 17th Century England, is released by Claymore Books under the name Anita Seymour