the TUDOR TUTOR
Your cheeky guide to the dynastyArchive for Murder and mayhem
How the Mighty Have Fallen
Warning: Incidents of a graphic nature are contained in this post, but this issue is so far under my skin I can’t ignore it today.
High Holy Coach Joe Paterno was fired last night. Let me take out my wee violin for this 84-year-old guy who can no longer coach a sainted college football team. You would think that is the true crime, compared to holding little boys against a shower wall and having your way with them, as the former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky did –while Paterno and quite a few others at Penn State conveniently looked the other way after having done the bare minimum, if anything at all.
Let me be clear on this: When you witness and/or know of a child rape situation, you call emergency services and the police. You don’t give a toss about a university’s insular “chain of command.” You may or may not “approach” the perv-criminal on your own as well. Take that how you wish.
Just how many higher-ups at the university knew about this? Just what were these crimes against young boys? If you have the stomach for it, or just want to feel justified in the immense anger this should stir up, here is the grand jury report. Again, be warned of graphic and extremely disturbing details.
Sandusky should be spending a good long time in prison (and hey, enjoy your showers there, Jerry. I hear they’re quite cosy.) Assistant Coach Mike McQueary was the grad assistant who witnessed the aforementioned incident and yet did not slam this child rapist against the shower wall and hold him there while calling 9-1-1. (Instead, this tall, strapping 28-year-old fled the scene and — are you ready? – told his own dad.)
And yet new coach as of today, Tom Bradley (@TomBradleyPSU, if you care to tweet him), who can call all the shots at this point, maintains that McQueary will coach this Saturday. This coward-witness is easy to pick out, due to his bright ginger hair. That might be a huge negative for McQueary as he stands on the sidelines on Saturday. I’m just sayin’. No, that’s not a threat. Not from me, anyway.
As a lot of you know, although I love Britain and its history, I’m not British. I’m American. In fact, I grew up in South Jersey, a few hours east of this part of rural Pennsylvania that might as well be called The Kingdom of Penn State University, as it is so deeply dependent on the college for financial and status reasons. Seemingly untouchable. Even if it harbors, you know, kid touchers.
We’ve seen this “the higher the mountain, the further the fall” thing numerous times in Tudor history. Cardinal Wolsey, Thomas More, Anne Boleyn, Katherine Howard, Thomas Cromwell, the Brothers Seymour, Lady Jane Grey, Thomas Cranmer, Mary Queen of Scots … all held positions of great power for varying lengths of time, all experienced a devastating and humilating downfall. Even Henry VIII went from Prince of Awesomesauce to Paranoid and Obese King of Legal Homicide.
Thankfully, child rape wasn’t involved for the dynasty. Well, there was the whole Thomas Seymour / Princess Elizabeth thing, but even that isn’t comparable.
Is it a sense of schadenfreude (oooh, that’s just fun to say. Say it with me: SHAY-den-froyd) that winds us up when we watch the once-powerful crash and burn? From the ups and downs of the Tudor dynasty to this week’s horrific findings in the Penn State hierarchy, that might be the case. We’ve yet to learn how history will treat Joe Paterno and the rest of the Penn State Pederast Protection Team. In my opinion, there’s no execution punishment harsh enough.
Her Grace Under Pressure
On Friday morning, the 19th of May 1536, that maid of the marvellous moxie took her place at the scaffold inside the Tower walls. Was she unhinged and flipping out, as portrayed in “The Other Boleyn Girl”?
Not from most accounts. Although it was said she looked absolutely wiped (lack of sleep can do that) and kept checking over her shoulder (perhaps for a last-minute reprieve?), she is said to have been the picture of composure and strength. That’s why I’m partial to Natalie Dormer’s portrayal from “The Tudors” and think that scene is so very touching.
Onlookers described Anne as having “a devilish walk” and “never look[ing] more beautiful,” “full of much joy and pleasure.” Her final speech was heartfelt yet professional.
And because the swordsman hid his sword in the straw and distracted Anne with the infamous “Hey, what’s that over there?” trick, she never saw it coming. Her Grace was poised to the end.
It Could Be Worse
Today in 1536, four men went on trial and were to come out on the short end of the stick, for sure. Henry Norris, William Brererton, Francis Weston, and Mark Smeaton were all found guilty of having their trousers around their ankles in the company of Queen Anne Boleyn.
Their trial was at Westminister Hall; Anne and her brother George, however, would be tried by their peers in a separate event because of their social standing. So although the siblings had to endure humiliating charges against them, at least there was more dignity in the setting than for the other four men.
And what of the sentence? Norris, Brereton, Weston, and Smeaton were meant to be part of a veritable circus of horrors before they actually died. They would individually be dragged by a horse-drawn cart to a scaffold where they’d be hanged…almost. The executioner would take them down just before the rope actually killed them, only to chop off their naughty bits and then hack them into quarters. Such drama!
Fortunately (?), Henry VIII commuted all their sentences to just beheading. Whew! Aristocratic Anne and George were of course given the privilege of beheading as well. And not one of those Tower Hill executions in front of the riff raff, but a private execution on Tower Green. Prestige has its rewards, no?
Not only would Anne enjoy the dignity of a beheading, she would be beheaded by The Best: a master swordsman sent from France. Merci!
Scary Little Secret
Image via Wikipedia
One probably shouldn’t admit this, but I am fascinated by torture chambers and such. I don’t condone torture, of course, and I’m horrified that it went on. It still does in some cases and places, I’m afraid. But there is just some forbidden pull (no pun intended) from those twisted instruments and their history. Thumbscrews, the iron maiden, the Catherine wheel, the coffin: they are horrific and amazing all at once — perhaps in a “How could humans do such dreadful things to fellow humans?” kind of way.
The torture tools on the Tudor-era menu could simply extract a confession or humiliate the victim, or instead be just the opening act to certain death. (That last bit was against the formal “rules.” Whatever. ) A sampling of some of these include manacles, the dunking stool, and the rack.
Manacles (above) were handcuff-like gadgets hanging from the ceiling, which would then be clamped around the wrists and hands of the accused so that they too would be hanging from said ceiling. Which doesn’t sound like that big a deal when compared to, say, being stretched from here to kingdom come.
But Father John Gerard described his 1597 experience with manacles as such: “It seemed to me that all the blood in my body rushed up my arms into my hands; and I was under the impression at the time that the blood actually burst forth from my fingers and at the back of my hands. This was, however, a mistake; the sensation was caused by the swelling of the flesh over the iron that bound it.” So, not quite the field trip you’d think.
The dunking stool (above), as you can imagine from the name, would dunk the victim into water repeatedly until they drowned. Its cousin is waterboarding, and I’m not going to go there.
The rack (main photo, at top of this post) was also called the Duke of Exeter’s Daughter, after a 15th-century constable of the Tower, John Holland, 2nd Duke of Exeter. You may recall that one Anne Askew took a ride on the rack before being burned at the stake. Mark Smeaton supposedly spent four hours on the darn thing.
I suppose I can’t be the only person morbidly fascinated by this subject, not when there is The Big Book of Pain on Amazon. At least I’m in good (??) company.
Ye Olde Smoking Gun
Image via Wikipedia
Aren’t historical documents fascinating? I always find myself starstruck at these aged pieces of paper with the signatures of monarchs, governors, co-conspirators, future headless people, and the like.
To mark the 424th anniversary of Mary Queen of Scots’ execution, I give you the smoking gun in the Babington Plot. Once Walsingham had this signed piece of paper in his hot little hands, she was as good as in the ground.
After she’d been imprisoned, Mary communicated with her allies in code, which can be seen here. Not that it mattered: Her letters were routinely intercepted by a double agent. Several months later, Elizabeth I grudgingly signed her death warrant and off to the block at Fotheringhay Castle went the Queen of Scots.
Fashionably Doomed
Image via Wikipedia
Today marks the anniversary of Anne Boleyn’s execution in 1536 and the question on everyone’s lips is the same, I’m sure: “What does one wear to such an occasion?”
Henry’s second queen was not about to just throw on any old thing for the last morning of her life. Her choices were deliberate, if deliciously fashionable as well. To start with, Anne wore a heavy black damask robe for her “small, private” audience of about a thousand people. The damask she wore would have been a thick fabric made of silk (or possibly linen or wool) embroidered with a shiny satin pattern over top.
The robe was trimmed in ermine. Ermine is that white fur (sometimes with little black spots) so often seen in frou-frou portraits of nobility. There is even a portrait of Elizabeth I called “The Ermine Portrait,” in which the little critter is sitting on her arm instead of woven into her clothing.
The ermine, a type of weasel, is a symbol of royalty. You can interpret that as you like. Heck, even the members of the House of Lords wear robes trimmed in ermine today. Anyway, Anne certainly broke out the ermine to drive home the point that she was still the queen, damn it.
Underneath the weasel-trimmed threads, Anne wore a rich red petticoat. Red symbolized martyrdom at that time, so she was making a statement about her innocence. This message would have gotten across loud and clear to everyone watching.
Some accounts describe her as wearing a gable hood, that early-to-mid 16th-century fashion I find so strange and off-putting as it looks like there is a roof on your head. Beneath this, she wore a netted coif to keep her locks from getting in the swordsman’s way, because no one wants to hit a speedbump during a beheading.
Witness say she strutted to the scaffold in a composed way, with a bit of sass, even. (Well why not, in those clothes?) After she kneeled and her ladies removed her headdress, she prayed aloud for Christ to take her soul, and was distracted by the executioner’s call for his sword. Her pretty head turned, the man whipped the weapon from its hiding place in the straw on the scaffold, and that was the last this fashion plate and strong woman knew of this life.
Was Thomas Culpepper Really Such a Violent S.O.B.??
It’s a new season of “The Tudors” on Showtime, and there are new historical figures to grab our fancy and learn about! I would say the most notable personality in question from tonight’s season premiere is Thomas Culpepper, future partner-in-adultery to Katherine Howard.
Here’s what Tudorswiki has to say about the scandal. Apparently, Thomas and his brother, Thomas (named identically like many young noble men at the time, in case one died and the family needed a back-up) were both at court at the time. The younger one was the member of Henry’s Privy Chamber and Kitty’s flirtation target. According to this source, “There is some documentary evidence that one of the Culpepper brothers raped a parkkeeper’s wife and murdered the man who came to her assistance … most historical texts seem to indicate that it was” our man from tonight’s episode. Eeeesh. (But although it looks “likely,” remember that it’s not a definite.)
(Just for fun, here’s where he lay for the final time).
CSI: Tudor England
Was Amy Dudley murdered? Or was her tragic death an accident? The wife of Robert Dudley (the first Earl of Leicester, who always appeared to be the guy-on-the-side for Elizabeth I) took a fatal spill down a flight of stairs in September of 1560. Take a listen to this three-minute audio clip, released today, unearthing the coroner’s report on this centuries-old mystery.
