Boys in Drag

I recently found an old photo album of my husband as a young boy where in almost every picture he was dressed like Little Lord Fauntleroy on his way to a tea party. (Really...I would love to show just one picture but he would KILL me.) We all have some pretty scary childhood pictures lurking in our dust filled closets. Some day, our ancestors just might stumble upon these treasures and wonder why 70s jump suits are uncomfortably wedged into our bottoms or debate the aesthetic value of elbow pads.  Wait….Here comes the history part.

Consider the above 17^th century painting showing Charles I's children. On the left is the Prince of Wales, (later King Charles II), on the right is his sister Princess Mary and the pretty girl in the middle is the Duke of York (later King James II).  Why were boys and girls dressed identically? First, imagine the odds of your child surviving as only 1 in 3. Now imagine having lost several children already to anything as simple as a bad flu. With such high mortality rates, you might start to think of your child as gender neutral….sort of like a fern, or a pet rock, or a chia pet that has yet to grow hair. Boys were typically not viewed as male until they were allowed to wear pants or “breached” at about the age of seven.

Boys in dresses also echoed medical beliefs of the time. During the eighteenth century, philosophers like Rousseau preached on the importance of children having free movement in their dress. Since under-ware had yet to be invented, dresses let young lads air out their bits and were therefore more salubrious to their development. (Rousseau actually might have been on to something since we now know that those tighty whities can lower sperm count.)

Dresses were also more functional. Those easy zippers and convenient snaps had not been invented yet.  If you have ever had to wrestle a toddler to the ground and change a dirty diaper, then you might start wishing your boy wore a dress too.

Another reason for the lack of gender distinction was based on the superstition that clothing a precious boy in a dress would trick the grim reaper into thinking he was a useless girl. I guess the devil was welcome to the girls.

Ever wonder why boys wear blue and girls pink? Stay tuned for the answer...

Going Back to School - Renaissance Style

It’s that time of year when we kiss our little ones goodbye in front of that big, yellow school bus armed with new clothes, books, and hopes of higher education. Many parents are thrilled. The teachers have their work cut out for them. 400 years ago, minister and educator, Hezekiah Woodward complained, ‘now the parent doth just nothing, the master must do all, look to the child’s books and manners both.’ (1) Teachers today might argue that not much has changed. Education and manners may start at home, but our teachers are responsible for turning our offspring into model citizens.

In honor of the teachers that work so hard, here are just a few of history's peculiarities on educating children.


School Supplies
500 years ago, children didn’t trek off to school with piles of books, but they did have their handy hornbooks (shown above). Originating in the 15th century, a hornbook consisted of a wooden or metal paddle with a piece of parchment paper pasted on it demonstrating the alphabet or a lesson. They sometimes had a hole in the handle so they could hang from a child’s belt. It may seem counter-intuitive to arm a child with a learning device that doubles as a weapon-like paddle. Wouldn’t they just start smacking each other over the head during breaks? Probably not. It is a proven fact that Renaissance kids were far more behaved probably because they feared things like eternal damnation instead of being picked last for kick ball.

D is for Death
Pictorial alphabets created by Hans Holbein are a perfect example of how children might be taught their letters. One such pictorial alphabet was the Alphabet of Death where young children could learn their letters in the company of ghouls and skeletons. The message was clear: better learn your alphabet kids because death might be just around the corner. Cheery stuff.

If the death alphabet wasn’t your thing then you might be lucky enough to own a copy of the "The New English tutor...to which is added Milk for Babes" featuring illustrated poems ‘On Judgement’ or 'On Hell'. The book even included extra bonus illustrations of a naked Pope with each of his body parts marked as a vice. These were some of the first info graphics of their day. It’s no wonder that most affluent children were reading by the age of 4.

Discipline: Forget the time outs
Children were not given much credit to behave like little angels because it was believed that most of them were inherently evil.

Erasmus wrote;
“Nature has given small children as a special gift the ability to imitate; but the urge to imitate evil is considerable stronger that the urge to imitate the good.” (2)


The solution to keep them on a godly path was simple. Whack em' silly! In 16th century Cambridge, most schoolmasters would not be caught dead without their hymn book and birch rod. Teachers also had a funny way of warming up for the school year. Often, a poor boy was brought in from the village so that the teacher could beat him to prove that he was ready to handle his real students. Other 16th century forms of punishment included boxing the boy’s ears, forcing them to kneel on sharp wood, or the perennial favorite of wearing a fool’s cap.

Yet although beatings and humiliation were common, many schoolmasters rebelled against the stereotypical monster out of a Dickens novel. Many 16th century scholars believed that gentle admonishing was more effective than the rod. In The Education of young Gentlewomen, the author recommended that discipline be done with, ‘mildness than with vigour’ and further labeled beatings as “beastly.”

The royal whipping boy
But what if you were lucky enough to be royalty? Were you still punished with the rod? In 17th century England, a tutor was never allowed to spank a royal derriere because royalty was anointed by god and therefore could not be touched by mere mortals. Instead tutors had to find a substitute bottom to take the licks. Enter the whipping boy, an occupation long forgotten although the term still survives today. The whipping boy’s main job was to sit next to the royal pupil and take a few thumps every time the royal prince or king screwed up. Close friend and whipping boy, Will Murray got a beat down every time Charles I messed up his lessons. Sometimes whipping boys were even used by grown men. Henry IV’s ambassadors, D’Ossat and Du Perron served as his whipping boys when he adjured his Catholic faith. D’Ossat and Du Perron were forced to kneel before pope Clement VIII and be beaten over the shoulders with a switch in lieu of their king. But don’t feel too bad for the whipping boys because they often landed in cushiony jobs. Will Murray later became the Earl of Dysart. (1) D’Ossat and Du Perron later became cardinals.

So if your kids come home from school today complaining about homework and boring history (gasp!) remind them that at least they don't have to look at naked pictures of the pope all day or wear a fool's cap when they get an answer wrong.

Notes:
(1) Charlton, p. 192
(2) Charlton, p. 101
(3) 'Parishes: Petersham', A History of the County of Surrey: Volume 3 (1911), pp. 525-532.

Sources and Further Reading:
Hornbooks
Charlton, Kenneth. Women, religion and education in early modern England, Routledge, 1999.
Holbein's Alphabet
Robinson, Tony, The Worst Children's Job in History, Macmillian Children's Book, 2004.

Raucous Royal of the Month: Charles II

Welcome to our guest blogger, author Susan Holloway Scott. Take it away Susan....

Meet the “Merrie Monarch”: King Charles II
By Susan Holloway Scott

Tired of the Tudors? Had enough of Henry? Do I have another English king for you! Charles II (1630-1685)was a monarch so intriguing, so charming, and so historically hot that he doesn’t need Jonathan Rhys Meyers to boost his reputation.

Like all heirs to thrones, Charles II was welcomed into the world with fireworks and ringing church bells. He had an idyllic childhood, even for a royal prince: his father, Charles I, was an unusually devoted father, his mother adored him, and he’d six brothers and sisters to round out the close-knit family. There were trips to the menagerie at the Tower of London, portraits painted by Sir Anthony van Dyck, (shown below) and junkets on the Thames on the gilded royal barge.

But while Charles I was an excellent father, he was a miserable king. Hopelessly out of touch with his people, he tried to force an absolute monarchy on an unwilling Parliament. A long and bitter Civil War began in 1642, ending eventually in the trial and beheading of Charles I in 1649. In his place, a conservative army general, Oliver Cromwell, was made Lord Protector to rule with Parliament.

The nineteen-year-old Charles barely escaped to the Continent. Though nominally now Charles II, he was a king without a throne or a country, and perhaps more importantly, without any money. His mother and his younger brothers and sisters were scattered about various royal courts, poor relations that wore out their welcome. Charles himself became a wandering pauper-king in exile, his circumstances so straitened that he wore darned stockings, gave away his beloved dogs, and could only afford to dine on meat once a week.

Back in England, life under the Puritans was equally grim. In an effort to “purify” the country of its excesses, almost everything that was fun was outlawed by Parliament. Maypoles were burned, music, dancing, and theater forbidden, bright-colored clothing became illegal, and holidays scratched from the calendar. Church-going was about all that was permitted, and the Puritans made sure there wasn’t a scrap of pleasure there, either, smashing centuries-old stained-glass windows and forbidding music.

But by the time of Cromwell’s death in 1659, the English had become thoroughly weary of their Puritan Parliament. In retrospect a king didn’t seem so bad at all, and Charles was invited back. His return to the English throne gave his reign its name –– the “Restoration” –– and he was greeted with wild rejoicing and celebrations.

Riding into London on a white horse on his thirtieth birthday in 1660, Charles dazzled his people like a modern Hollywood star. He was tall (6’2”), dark, and handsome, lean and athletic and full of boundless energy. He wasn’t fair-haired-English-handsome, but favored his Italian grandmother, Marie de’Medici, with heavy-lidded, dark eyes, a sensual mouth, and long, black, curling hair. He was intelligent and well-spoken with a dry wit, and his own sufferings made him peculiarly sympathetic to his people, with a genuine kindness rare in kings. He had an appealing air of melancholy; in best RAUCOUS ROYALS tradition, the king known to posterity as the “Merrie Monarch” was in fact not very merry by nature (who can blame him?), but he surrounded himself with outrageously amusing friends that ensured his court was THE place to be.

That wasn’t all. Unlike most vengeance-crazed monarchs, Charles generously pardoned everyone except the men who’d signed his father’s death warrant, resulting in a country-wide sigh of relief. He brought back music, dancing, flirting, Christmas, and Maypoles. He reopened the theatres, and for the first time in English history, permitted actresses on the stage. He loved pretty women, fast horses, and dogs of every description. After a decade of Puritan dreariness, once again everyone began to dress to impress, and big-time partying was back in fashion. Was it any wonder that Charles was instantly, wildly popular?

And why not? While his cousin across the Channel, Louis XIV of France, kept himself aloof and distant in his grand palace at Versailles, Charles was always in the thick of things. He appreciated London all the more for having been exiled from it, and with a freedom that would horrify Secret Service agents today, he enjoyed the city like any other Londoner, and was infinitely accessible, even to his most humble people.

Every morning he rose early and walked briskly through St. James’s Park with his dogs (the King Charles spaniels so popular now are named after him) and any one who could keep pace with his long legs. He attended the theater as often as he could, cheering and jeering and buying over-priced fruit from the orange girls along with everyone else. He fed the ducks and swans in the park. He regularly swam naked in the Thames, even in the winter, and didn’t care who watched.

As one of his friends and part-time poet John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester (yes, the same Rochester played by Johnny Depp in the movie Libertine) noted with approval: “Nor are [the king’s] high desires above his strength/His scepter and his p**** are of a length.”


When London was devastated by the Great Fire in 1666, Charles didn’t simply do the 17th century version of a fly-over to survey the damage: he joined the bucket brigades, fighting the fires himself. His intellectual curiosity led him to keep a scientific “closet” in the palace for puttering about with chemicals and curiosities like two-headed snakes. An excellent horseman, he would ride in races with the professional jockeys at Newmarket, and often win from his skill and daring, not because he was the king. Afterwards he would drink with the jockeys and grooms, enjoying being a regular guy. Following a formal court reception, he’d shed the silk and ermine, change into plain clothes, and go carousing in low-rent rum shops and brothels with friends, often not coming home to the palace until nearly dawn.

Ah, the brothels. For while Charles didn’t swear, smoke, or drink or eat to excess (unlike Henry VIII, he remained flat-bellied and athletic until his death), he did have one enormous vice: he loved, loved, loved women, and women loved him. Though he often made fun of his own appearance, he was by all reports incredibly attractive to the opposite sex. From high-born ladies to lowly milkmaids, women of every rank found him pretty near irresistible. It wasn’t just that he was king, either, or a matter of royal conquest by that good-sized scepter. Charles genuinely liked women, particularly clever, amusing women who could entertain them with their wit as well as in his bed, and they clearly returned the favor many times over. Many, many, many times.

No one knows the exact number of women Charles had sex with in his lifetime. It was not uncommon for him to call upon one mistress in the afternoon, visit his queen’s bed in the evening, frolic with another mistress after that, and then wind up the night at a brothel. The man famously required almost no sleep. In addition to his wife and queen, Catherine of Braganza, (shown left) he kept three main mistresses over the course of his reign: Barbara Villiers Palmer, Duchess of Cleveland (shown right), a hot-tempered, passionate lady that he’d first met in exile; Nell Gwyn, (shown below left) a common-born actress who entertained him with her impertinent wit; and Louise de Keroualle, Duchess of Portsmouth, (shown below right) a luscious French-born virgin sent as a gift (and a spy) to Charles by his cousin Louis XIV. These were the women rewarded with titles, houses, estates, incomes, and jewels, and political power. There were far more who only received the pleasure of the royal person, and perhaps a coin or two besides.

Unlike Henry VIII, Charles never sent any of his lovers to the chopping-block. Instead he managed the rare trick of remaining friends with his mistresses even after they’d ceased their mistress-ly obligations, and all of them evidently stayed in love with him. (Both Nell Gwyn and Louise de Keroualle remained faithful to his memory, for neither took another lover after his death –– though Louise outlived him by 50 years.) Even his homely little queen loved Charles dearly despite his raging infidelities, and though he was repeatedly urged to set her aside when she proved barren (shades of Henry!) he refused to shame her with a royal divorce.

The greatest irony of Charles’s reign is that while he sired fourteen natural children (!) that he acknowledged with titles, his queen never bore him a legitimate son and heir. While most of the noble families of Britain today can count Charles as an ancestor (Diana, Princess of Wales, Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, and Sarah, Duchess of York are only a few of his descendents) at his death in 1684, Charles’s crown passed to his incompetent brother James, and the Glorious Revolution of 1688 followed soon after.

Of course Charles wasn’t perfect. He was often at odds with his Parliaments. His relative poverty as a king led him accept secret subsidies from the French, and his attempts at wars on the Continent were costly and unproductive. His Roman Catholic leanings were worrisome for the nominal head of the Anglican Church. His constant need for activity and his wandering inattention to detail would today probably be diagnosed as some form of ADD; his contemporaries simply called him lazy. Later historians, particularly the Victorians, were so repulsed by his promiscuity that they overlook his other qualities, and wrote instead of him “lolling idle” on his throne.

But to the people he ruled, Charles was their much-loved and very human king, and at his death the country was plunged into grief-stricken despair. If there had been political approval ratings in the 17th century, Charles’s would have been off the charts. He unified a country torn by civil war, restored its economy, and placed England firmly on the world stage. What’s a mistress or two compared to that?

Susan Holloway Scott freely admits to having spent way too much time in the company of Charles II, who appears in all four of her historical novels. Her next book, The French Mistress, features both Charles and his mistress Louise de Keroualle, and will be released in July. Susan will return next month to dish more on Charles, Louise, and the other royal mistresses – and to give away a copy of The French Mistress.

Her website: http://www.susanhollowayscott.com/

Death Masks

Last week's post briefly covered immortalizing the dead through death masks. A death mask is a plaster, wax or metal casting of the deceased’s face. With the Renaissance’s art movement toward naturalism, death masks were taken to create an exact likeness from which subsequent portraits could be made. But unlike portraiture, they were often a far more accurate representation of the deceased.

During the 16th century, funeral effigies of dead kings and queens were carved from oak or wax and placed on top of coffins. The image to the right is a wooden effigy of Henry VII covered with linen and stucco. Traces of paint still exist on the face and a wig once sat on the head. You will notice that the eyes are open, not closed. Although difficult to prove, the obvious realism of Henry’s effigy may have been achieved with the help of a death mask.

Sometimes little embellishments like paint, eyelashes and hair were added to create a more idealistic representation as can be seen in Mary Queen of Scots’ death mask shown here.*

As works of art themselves, death masks in the 16th -17th century had little value. They were viewed simply as a tool to assist in portraiture. And although unquestionably a macabre practice, the death mask was not designed to capture the subject in death, but to portray how the subject looked during life.

All of that changed when heads started to roll during the French Revolution. The Revolution's hatred was never satiated by the slice of the guillotine. The mob wanted an effigy to quench their thirst for blood. And that is when Marie Grosholtz , otherwise known as Marie Tussaud, found herself employed unwillingly by the angry Parisians of the Revolution. Marie made wax death mask of many famous victims of the revolution including Marie Antoinette, Louis XVI, Madame Elizabeth, Princess Lamballe, Robespierre, Danton, and Marat to name just a few.

To the right is the death mask taken of Marie Antoinette. Marie Tussaud did not attend Marie Antoinette’s execution, but she did see the queen go by in her tumbril on the way to the scaffold.

*It is doubtful that Mary's death mask was created at the time of her death.

With Halloween around the corner, here is how to make your own death mask using the 16th century techniques:

Materials:
Dead or Live subject
Plaster
String
Paint
Modeling clay

Steps:
1. Paint the hair over with a thick solution of modeling clay or oil so that the plaster will not adhere to it.
2. Ladle thin plaster over the face.
3. Place a thread from the bottom of the chin to the top of the forehead.
4. Ladle a thicker plaster over the face.
5. Before the second layer dries, remove the thread to divide the mask into two halves.
6. After the mold is hard, carefully remove it from the face. This step is hard. Be careful.
7. Fit the two halves together.
8. Clean the inside of the plaster mask and refill it with modeling clay and plaster to make the final model.
9. Add hair, eyelashes...glitter. Be creative. This is YOUR death mask.

Stay tuned for a future post on Marie Tussaud and her wax models.

Sources:
Benkard, Ernst. Kolbe, Georg. Green, M. Margaret. Undying Faces: A Collection of Death Masks. Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing, 2003