Not to worry - it's only 80 days to Christmas! :)
But before that, naturally, we have to take in Halloween and Firework Night, November 5th.
The first, of course, is left over from our primeval past- All Hallows Eve, when ghosties and ghoulies and things that go bump in your nighty, are allowed to roam the earth. When the boundary between the living and the dead thins for a night and we can all, so it's said, feel the presence of the otherworld more keenly.
Harvington Hall..a place where ghosties and ghoulies might be found.
No sooner do we get this over and done with than we have Bonfire Night.
Now I am not a killjoy. I am all for people having fun. But not at others' expense. November the fifth, and it seems, two weeks either side of it are just plain hell for some. Especially for our four legged friends. There are also a few people who, heedless of the inconvenience to others, will let off their fireworks at an ungodly hour of the night. There is a rule that it all has to be over by 10p.m. but some will just flout the rule.
I do not like November 5th.
I dislike it for the reason given above and I hate it because it glorifies an incident in our National History which I think it's best, if not forgotten then properly understood..
History is not considered relevant to modern life! Children in school in the U.K. learn tiny pockets of sugar coated history which are divorced from each other and as a result they have no concept of where they themselves, appear in the grand scheme of things, nor of the continuity of National life and why the today we experience is 'how it is' and how it came to be so.
Peacock Butterfly in the grounds of Coughton Manor
How many people celebrating Bonfire Night know what they are actually doing? Under half I expect. And those will be of a certain age. < Ahem >.
I cannot in all honesty celebrate, with a smile and a toffee apple, an event so steeped in blood and so fundamentally nasty as The Gunpowder plot.
Not that I am with the Plotters. Though my sentiments I have to say steer that way, today in the cold light of the 21st century. And its politicians. :)
Coughton Manor one of the Recusant family homes
And because we are 17th century enthusiasts ( with a smidgeon of the late 16th century thrown in ) we are great studiers of the 'Gunpowder Plot.'
Over the next year or so we are making it our business to go to every place associated with the plot, the people and the places.
And many still exist.
Coughton Court. To this house the plotters escaped but rode on.
For those who may be reading this who are not familiar with The Plot - here is a potted version.
Henry VIII in about 1533 wanted a new wife...the old one was too old to give him a male heir.
Henry got his way by divorcing ( unheard of !) his old wife Katharine of Aragon and marrying a young bit of floosie Anne Boleyn.
The Pope who was boss of everybody- and soul, excommunicated him..ie: told him that he was a very naughty boy and he would never go to Heaven.
Henry retaliated by forming his own Church with himself at the head. Effectively he was an English Pope. He rejected a lot of the mumbo jumbo of the Catholic church ( his words not mine ), and made up a lot of new mumbo jumbo to replace it. Many of his courtiers followed suit, many didn't.
A lot got their heads cut off, a lot more lost money and lands.
Henry got rid of the Monasteries - think of all that lovely money he could release - and did.
Things jog along a while. Anne Boleyn is beheaded - Henry still hasn't got a male heir. At least he gets one with Jane Seymour his third wife ( who dies ) and, after a few more wives Henry dies happy. His heir Edward is only a boy. But he is a very Protestant boy with big ideas about the New Church of England. He comes down pretty hard on all the Catholics left high and dry with no church to complain to, here in England.
Oh dearie me.... Edward dies too. His sister ( daughter of Katharine of Aragon ) becomes Queen and is Catholic -ALL CHANGE!
Back comes the original church and all the Protestants are now in deep water or more likely Fire!
She wasn't called Bloody Mary for nothing.
Mary too kicks the bucket. Now it gets really interesting. Waiting in the wings is Elizabeth 1st - Good Queen Bess, ( daughter of Anne Boleyn ). She too is Protestant- ALL CHANGE. Now the Catholics are in for it again.
Elizabeth doesn't want to rock the boat too much. She thinks it might be ok to be a Catholic if you keep quiet about it but some of her courtiers have other ideas. " But Madam! The plots..the Catholics are so good at fomenting plots..they want you off the throne and they want Catholic Mary Queen of Scots' little bum on the seat instead!"
After a while and a few plots, Elizabeth tightens up on Catholics.
And the Catholics, as they would, pull up their chausibles, brandish their rosaries, take a deep breath and...plot.
By the end of Elizabeth's reign ( end of the 1500's ) there is real trouble brewing. A lot of Catholic men have been sent abroad to study.....how to be secret priests. They come back to England and fan out to minister to the scattered flock of what is left of England's Catholics. Elizabeth's cronies hunt them down one by one. But more come. People welcome them into their homes, they build priest holes for them to hide in when houses are searched. Some are found, other aren't. All very clever and well...Romantic isn't it?
Elizabeth dies. James 1st comes down from Scotland. ( Son of Mary Queen of Scots ).But unlike his Mum he is Protestant too - with a capital P. He carries on the work, chasing Catholics.
It's getting rather too hot for Catholics now. They can't DO anything. Anything at all. They get promises of this and that but nothing ever happens.
And so, one day a few of them get together and they...yes...they PLOT!
Enter ( shall we call him ) Guy Fawkes. It may not have been his real name and he had lots of names but history knows him best as this. He and few friends get this idea that it would be a fine thing to blow up the houses of Parliament ( not the one that is there now, that is 19th century ) - with all the courtiers, bishops and archbishops and members of Parliament in it. VLADA BA BOOM. NO more Government. AT ALL.
So they manage to get together a lot of gunpowder and a few armaments and they hide them in the cellars of the Wesminster Building.
Poor deluded fools. They are a bit naive, actually they are INCREDIBLY naive and truly they don't have a workable plan at all. I mean...would you dry out sopping wet gunpowder in front of a roaring fire?
Oh yes they did.
They had no real plan of what might happen afterwards, no idea how to escape should it all go tits up.
Inevitably they were betrayed.
Hunted down.
Caught.
Tortured.
And executed in one of the foulest ways possible. ( No I won't go there...look it up ).
SO that is why I cannot celebrate November 5th.
Part of me says...what a pity they didn't succeed...I wonder what it might have been like now as a result?
Part of me says - the destruction would have been colossal. Not just Parliament but ordinary homes, plenty of innocent people would have perished too, men,women, children and don't forget the dogs. There were a lot of dogs in London then ;) How awful.
But mostly I just think of the state of mind of these poor people driven to such an act by desperation. Naive yes, but brave, single minded, honest, devoted people who just wanted to be left alone with their religious conscience, to run their lives.
I have no religion. No faith, no creed at all.
But when I go to the places where these people plotted, walked, hid themselves in absolute fear and terror of being caught and eventually died.....I am totally in awe of them and of their conviction, their total commitment - come what may, their tenacity and their sheer bravery.
Val and I went to Harvington Hall and Coughton Manor both places associated with Catholic families in or around the PLOT.
Harvington Hall. Here are to be found some of the finest priest holes to have been made by Nicholas Owen
Lovely idyllic places filled with flower gardens.
So it's not ALL horrible :)
The courtyard at Harvington.
ALL photos courtesy of Valerie Drew.
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