The big chief Editor: King Henry VIII The Features Editor: Henry Tudor The History Editor: Edward Tudor The Picture Editor: Elizabeth Tudor The Photographer: All of us. The Features writers: YOU. The Letters page: YOU. Email Email Email Email Email Email [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Welcome to the new magazine “The Tudor Dynasty” Just send in your story or picture to the appropriate editor and we will review it for publication. We do have some simple rules that you should adhere to: Henry’s 10 Rules. 1. If you are under the age of 18 get your parent’s permission to contact the magazine. 2. No swearing or sexual words can be published in this magazine. 3. There are many children using the website in which this magazine is published, please keep the wording simple and explain with as many diagrams or pictures you can muster. 4. Do not use your full name, never give your full address, e.g. Ben from Yorkshire is sufficient. 5. Do not show your face in any picture. 6. Do not show any other children’s faces without their parent’s permission. We will blank out faces if we think there might be a problem. 7. This magazine is free for anybody to read and so must respect all religions, beliefs, races and handicaps. 8. Any article sent to the magazine is for free publication; any copying of the articles by a third party for financial gain will breach the laws of Copyright. 9. If you have a strong opinion about any article, please be respectful to the author and accept they have the right of their viewpoint as much as you have yours. 10. Keep your articles to the point; don’t wander off into cloud cuckoo-land. King Henry VIII Chief Publisher Honcho and Bling designer.

In this month’s issue: 1.

The bad side of working in a real Tudor House. Anon.

2.

Being a Courtier.

By Peter Blakely 3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

In the mirror, are some of our national treasures the wrong way round?

By Ray Irving Queen Mary I. By Pam Seres Travelling for Henry. How does Henry do it?

By Bob Richards By Henry Tudor In search of Edmund Moody By Cliff Moody Looking for Miles Standish. By Bill Walker Recommended websites Want your own website? No webmaster but you, for only £30, then you must read this.

The Henry Vill cartoon series.

Working in a Real Tudor House, the bad side.

The public are generally good natured, they wander around the Hall and take the tour in a happy mood. There are exceptions to the norm though and I must say, usually a lady. That is not me prejudicing the female sex because I too am female, it’s a fact. Always about the cost of entering the house, or the bric-a-brac was last week and they missed it, why is it the hall’s fault? We only charge £3.00 to enter the hall, the Sunday tour is free, people can even come in free if they are only going to the restaurant. The Hall does not belong to the bottomless pit of the National trust, it has to survive on the desk receipts, a new roof will be £250,000 it is a grade 1 listed building where would that money come from without the £3.00 entrance fee? Put £3.00 into perspective, how much petrol, cigarettes, food, entertainment would it buy? Not a lot. It is a small price to pay to help keep my Hall going, I say my Hall because that’s how we volunteers view this wonderful piece of History sitting there at odds with the local environment, at odds with the opinions of people who cannot see the whole picture. I hope one day that people will think before they open their mouths, consider the feelings of the unpaid, ex-professional people who keep our heritage alive for them to visit and think about how much they spend each week helping others.

Name supplied but not published.

Being a Courtier

When should I laugh when the King of England is talking to his court? If I laugh at the wrong time would it insult the King or ruin his punch line, if I don’t laugh at all will it also to the same? So what should I do?

If I wait for others to laugh first, they may be doing the same thing, if I laugh first and am correct then I will be seen as on the same wavelength as the King. If however I’m wrong it could mean demotion down the ranks. I have been told that I should learn the King’s faces and be able to read his mood, and when the punch-line is about to be told. But, we are not supposed to stare at the King directly! I’ve seen King Henry on one of his bad days, we all scattered and hid away from his view, I cannot see myself becoming a favoured, close courtier without losing my head.

The food here in the Palace of Hampton Court is very grand, lots of choices and plenty of volume. The accommodation is good too, I do not even have to share a room and my wife can live here with me. She keeps away from the Court and looks after our son, who I would like one day to serve the King, it would be a good career for him to aim for.

Must go now, the Kings on his way over the courtyard near the clock, and I must look busy or he will stop to ask why I’m not working.

Peter

Dining with the court

In the mirror.

This is a very human error, one that seems to have gone unnoticed for centuries and a complete surprise to even the teacher’s of History.

Some of our national portraits are in mirror-image!

It takes the eyes of a person who looks through archives, websites and books for pictures to gain the Historical Knowledge they need for their profession. A person like me for instance, who stands up and talks History in 2 hour stretches to audiences of keen historians.

I discovered the error one day whilst collecting pictures off the internet for a store of portraits. I noticed I had collected the same pose of King Henry VIII twice but one was right handed and the other left handed. I knew from talking to experts that Henry was left handed so I assumed that the website the right-hander had come from was in error.

But then I found an Elizabeth I portrait in reverse too, then a castle tower. So something is amiss.

The answer came in a thrilling way, from the mouth of the highest expert in Holbein in Hampton Court and possibly the world. He told me about the Holbein cartoons which were punched holes in copies of the original painting, these copies were sent around the country for other artists to carbonise them onto new canvasses for the people to see the King. Trouble is, someone put the cartoon the wrong way up and produced a carbon copy in mirror image, thus producing the right0handed Henry. My next question was simple, did Henry go mad about this foul up? No! He liked the result, thought it looked really accurate, then he would wouldn’t he because he only ever saw himself in a MIRROR.

Ray, Lancashire, England See the hat and dagger

See what I mean!

Look at the hat angle

Queen Mary I I, Queen Mary I, was born on February 18, 1516. I was the only surviving child of King Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon.

My father doted on me. I remember many years being very happy as the Princess Mary. My father, the King, called me "the greatest pearl in the kingdom." I had the best of everything in my childhood. In 1527 things started to change for me. I soon learned that my father wanted to annul his marriage to my mother. In 1531 my father sent my mother away from court. After realizing that the pope would never grant a divorce from my mother, Queen Catherine, King Henry VIII split from the Catholic church, made his own Church of England and had his marriage to my mother declared invalid. My father went on to marry his second wife, Anne Boleyn, who gave birth to a daughter, Princess Elizabeth in 1533. I was no longer my father’s beloved daughter and Princess. I was to be called "the lady Mary". Like my mother, I refused this change no matter how angry it made my father and King. When I was 18, I had to go live in my half sister, Princess Elizabeth’s household. I was treated badly and my father never let me visit my mother.

My mother, Queen Catherine, died in 1536. I was very sad. My father, King Henry VIII, went on to marry four more wives after he had Anne Boleyn beheaded. My father, King Henry VIII, died in 1547. Despite what had happened in the last few years, I still remembered the father that loved me.

Upon his death my young sickly nine-year old brother, Edward, became King Edward VI. Edward and I always had a difference on our religious beliefs thanks to our father. On my brother’s early expected deathbed he disinherited me in favour of our teen age cousin, Lady Jane Grey.

But, that didn’t matter, because after a lifetime of sorrow and danger, I, Mary Tudor at 37, became Queen and the most powerful person in England.

Despite all that happened to me, I loved all my family, even my father, Henry VIII. I saw later when I was Queen, He did the best he could with the power He was given.

When I died in 1558, I passed the crown to my half-sister, Queen Elizabeth I. I had a great sense of peace when I passed on that Elizabeth would do very well.

Pam Seres

From time to time- in reality almost every weekend-I go travelling. These days, when I do this I keep my eyes open for Tudor influences, houses, stately homes, in short anything of interest.

without historic interest, though some are quite well hidden and found only under unusual circumstances.

Take the case of Stretton Watermill, for example, not far from Malpas and Chester. The authentic wooden mechanism within only too pleased to give a very knowledgeable account of how the mill worked. Details are available as shown below. http://www.strettonwatermill.org.uk/history.htm

The odd thing here is that when I approached the area I thought I was going into a bring-and buy sale of policemen…they were at all junctions (on very minor roads) and in major numbers…and I couldn’t work out why they were there at all.

Then I saw the helicopters and eventually I found the answers. the Professional Circuit were departing back to their hotels after a day’s competition.

As I drove away I wondered what Henry would have made of this, the use of police, the helicopters, the importance of the event….then I remembered… he did the equivalent of this every time he went on a ‘Progress’ with the added result of keeping his Nobles in check – by living in their stately homes at their expense… He would certainly have got the best helicopter and the best hotel….but I like to think he might have looked in on the Mill

Just how does Henry do it?

Running a giant website which is updated daily; travelling all over the UK to work in schools, Castles, Banquets, Film sets; Collecting photographs from Castles all over the country, strange pictures, meeting Historical experts; Presiding over weddings, taking tours around Samlesbury Hall, visiting W.I. to give talks, writing for newspapers and magazines; collecting materials for activities, making and mending suits, finding and ordering accessories? Not the job for a worn out teacher!

I have great friends, they help. Bob travels the country and collects pictures as does Bill, they come with me on far away gigs as does my wife. I use a caravan and the caravan club network of sites, this give me privacy and home comforts. My two friends are Historians and Geography experts they know how to write good interesting facts in a way that everybody can read it. My own abilities apart from being a Henry Double is my memory, it is phenomenal, I have 100% recall with Historical facts, I visit all the scenes of the facts and then transform the knowledge into a dreamlike experience. My talks are as if I have done the deeds and I tell them as Henry would have. I have high computer skills and graphic ability that give the website that ring of quality. I have no nerves about standing in front of large crowds and capturing their attention, I thrive on this challenge. I never write a speech, my memory is capable of holding a speech or script for a two hour stretch without repeating myself. Lastly I like to think I am a good actor, my facial expressions can silence a room, my walk looks right and my attitude is very Royal.

Now put all this together and I work 50 hours per week, am away from home a lot, travel 20,000 miles per year for Henry, wear out cars and clothes, strain my voice box. That’s how it’s done.

Henry

IN SEARCH OF EDMUND MOODY Once upon a time, about twenty-five years or so ago, my family and I visited the annual Renaissance Pleasure Faire held here in Northern California. It was quite fascinating to see so many people dressed up in their colourful Tudor period costumes strolling down winding streets filled with village shops and businesses offering an array of goods and services. One such shop that I entered upon provided a genealogical service as well as finding ones family coat of arms. When the shop keeper showed me what my family coat of arms looked like, I asked him how I could be certain that those arms were truly mine and those of my ancestors. The answer he gave was simple and to the point. “You would have to study your family history to verify that coat of arms was in fact granted to a family ancestor” came his reply. I was absolutely captivated by the prospects of tracing my family lineage, not only to find out if my direct lineage had in fact a coat of arms, but if so, for what reason was such a coat of arms granted. Thus, began my personal quest for who am I and where I came from. To try and answer these questions, I have travelled down many roads and many paths, with patronizing many libraries and consulting with many family members along the way, in hopes of understanding my ancestral roots and how my family came to where they are today.

Not many years after my encounter with the shop keeper at the renaissance faire, I found to my amazement that my family descended from a man named Edmund Moody of Bury St Edmunds who was born in 1495. And as fate would have it, the only reason why we even know anything about Edmund Moody today is because of what happened back in the winter of 1525 near a small market town called Hitchin, in the county of Hertfordshire. It was then that King Henry VIII, who was quite an athlete and loved all sorts of sports, was engaged in one of his favourite activities, hawking. One day, while he was out following his hawk, he came upon a ditch filled with water which he tried jumping across a on a pole. Unfortunately for the king, the pole broke and the king went straight down into the muddy water getting his head stuck in the clay. When Edmund Moody, a footman to the king, saw what had happened, he straightway jumped into the waters and lifted up the king’s head, thus saving the kings life from drowning. This story is recounted by the famous English Chronicler, Edward Hall in his work; “The Union of the Noble and Illustre Famelies of Lancastre and York, commonly called Hall's Chronicle, was first published in 1542.

Continued overleaf

Sixteen years later on Thursday, October 6, 1541, Edmund was granted a coat of arms, lands and manorial houses in the counties of Wiltshire and Suffolk and probably even in Huntingdon, as further reward for his exploits near Hitchin in 1525. Edmund Moody lived during the height of the Tudor Age in England. It was a time of political change and religious reformation, a time of war and a time of peace. It was a time of rebirth that brought about global exploration, scientific discoveries and social changes that are still with us today. If we could go back into time, and talk with Edmund, we would see a man that wasn't simply a footman and loyal subject of the crown, but one who carried with him the aspirations of all of England as enshrined by her enduring history, love of country, faith in God, an ever abiding hope in her future.

Who would have ever thought that if it wasn’t for a lowly footman, how different history may have been. Though no will, baptismal or marriage record has survived, not even a simple gravestone remains, that would lend further evidence to Edmund's earthly life, nevertheless Edmund Moody, though somewhat obscure, did live and helped changed the course of British history, if the not the course of the world, by his single act of valor that autumn day in 1525 when he saved the life of England's most celebrated monarch, King Henry VIII, from drowning. For if Edmund hadn't saved the king’s life, Mary I (Bloody Mary) would have become Queen at age eight. She was devoutly Catholic and England would have remained Catholic as long as she reigned, presumably until 1558. The Act of Supremacy would not have occurred nor the dissolution of the monasteries. England may have never become a protestant nation and the political powers and alliances of Europe would have been forever altered.

Cliff Moody, California

“Looking for Myles Standish” A local hero?

Even at some five centuries distance, there is much known about great Tudor personalities like Henry VIII. Other figures, just as real, enchanting or fascinating may have very low profiles in the remaining records. Even Sir Francis Drake’s progress is largely uncharted before 1565. Myles Standish is another figure, reasonably well profiled after 1620 but mysteriously and enigmatically cloaked as regards his Tudor origins.

Most readers will know that Myles Standish was a resourceful and brave military adviser who accompanied the Pilgrim Fathers to New Plymouth and helped to found the colonies in America. He is a noted and venerated figure for Americans, having a very tall memorial in Duxbury, New England and many sites named after him. In his homeland of Britain he is usually a footnote in general histories but his origins periodically excite much debate and even passion!

When was he born? There are copies of a portrait of him which kindly suggest his birth date was in 1587. Sadly, however, there is some doubt about the portrait’s provenance, not least because, well into Stuart times, a gentleman in Tudor dress is claimed to be its subject. A group of Myles’ nineteenth century American descendants claimed he was born in 1584; they allege that his baptism was erased from the Chorley St Laurence parish records for that year. Unfortunately the alleged erased record could simply be a result of normal wear and weathering evident elsewhere in the same register. Equally the lieutenant’s commission that is also said to have included his birth date, has disappeared since last seen around 1846.

At least we know when he died, in 1656, for the clerk to New Plymouth colony recorded it Myles also left a will which would seem to describe if not date his family origins. The key clause runs: “

I give unto my son and heire apparent Allexander Standish all my lands as heire apparent by lawfull Decent in Ormistick Borsconge Wrightington Maudsley Newburrow Crawston and the Ile of man and given to me as right heire by lawful Decent but surruptuously Detained from mee my great G(ran)dfather beinga 2cond or younger brither from the house of Standish of Standish March the 7th 1655 by mee Myles Standish.”

Continued overleaf

So we know he claimed to be in the line of Standish of Standish- even if he employed a curious spelling of Ormskirk! However there were at least six landed Standish families around Chorley in the sixteenth century. He may indeed have simply been a Standish of Standish but their records contain no Myles, although there was one Roger Standish who was born in 1584 and disappeared later. He just possibly may have used the name “Myles” but this is doubtful given that Myles never admitted such, even at the end of his life when such a revelation would have greatly favoured his heir. Alternatively could he be a Standish of Ormskirk and the Isle of Man as the lands listed in the will suggest? There is just possibly a Myles sized gap in the records of these Standishes around the end of the sixteenth century, such a son would be a third (if not

second

) son of a Standish of Standish and this family had lost their Lancashire lands (“

surruptuously detained

?) by this date. However there is no written record of a Myles and we know from recently transcribed documents that these lost lands had been legally sold well before Myles’ birth. We probably need to look elsewhere.

On the eastern seaboard of America, Myles himself named his own farm, and emerging township, “Duxburrow” or “Duxbury”. The Lancashire Duxbury estate, some six thousand acres around Chorley, was large enough to be worth claiming in the will. It also changed hands from one Duxbury cousin to another in 1647 (another hint at “

surruptuously detained

”?) The Standishes of Duxbury worshipped at and were buried at the nearby parish church of St. Laurence. Myles’ nineteenth century descendants always claimed the Duxbury estate was indeed Myles’ birthright. (Well they would wouldn’t they?).

Myles Standish himself did not help the future historian. His scant reference to his origins are enigmatic and confusing. Is this possibly a sign of his own ignorance, wishful thinking or even chicanery? Currently, the Historical Society of St. Laurence, Chorley is currently conducting a research project into the whole issue of Myles’ origins. As yet, like everyone else, they have found no recorded “Myles Standish”. However family trees of all possible Standish families have recently been recovered or constructed. Fascinatingly the Standishes of Peterborough had exactly the same coat of arms as Standish of Duxbury. It is now known that there could be at least three Standish of Duxbury families Myles could have hailed from- or not! There are known local Standish male descendants who bear a remarkable likeness to the contemporary descriptions of Myles. Remarkably a DNA test done in 2004 shows a 23/25 match between known American descendants of Myles and a known descendant of Lancashire Standishes in the United Kingdom.

Yet still no written record of Myles’ in his home country. The hunt goes on. Could Alexander Standish of London, buried in 1586, be his father? Could Myles Nightingale, an ordinary tenant in Duxbury in 1582, be father to an upwardly mobile man who later adopted a useful surname? Would a DNA test involving known Myles’ descendants and the Standish forebears lying at rest in St. Laurence’s crypt prove a definite descent?

There are obvious advantages, not least in stimulating an economically useful tourist trade, for the locality which may eventually claim Myles. Equally, those associated with the St. Laurence Historical Society simply want to know or know as far as it is humanly possible so to do. Bill Walker.

Websites worth a visit: We all find good websites in our daily routines, some are big corporations such as the BBC who have over 1 Million web pages, but some are one-person operated and have that spark of genius that stands out from the crowd. Here are a few sparks to warm you up.

1.

2.

www.whisperscastle.com/ graphics I have ever seen. The best historical users.tinyonline.co.uk/gswithenbank/sayindex.htm

A great source of olde sayings and their meanings. 3.

4.

5.

www.sapphireandsage.com/ A fantastic lady who will make you any period piece of jewellery.

www.behindthename.com/nmc/eng.html

the origins of your name here. Find out members.aol.com/donnandlee/SiteIndex.html

A fantastic website full of freebies for Students and Teachers.

Have your own website.

I have been using this company now for nearly one year, they are human, they are very clever and helpful but most of all their product frees you from the webmasters who charge the earth and are slow to change your sight. Use this company and you get the following: 1.

It cost only £30 2.

3.

Buy in on line and it’s running that day!

It cost only £25 per year after the first year has elapsed.

4.

You are the webmaster, if you can type and take pictures then you can do it.

This is not an advertisement, I receive no money to write this. It is a recommendation you must check out.

www.Mrsite.co.uk

Get on with it!

The Henry Vill Cartoon series, always based on factual history, never using bad language but giving you an insight into our hero, King Henry VIII.

Next Issue 14

th

March 2006.