Vanessa Collingridge and the team answer listenerâs historical queries and celebrate the way in which we all âmakeâ history.
Programme 6
4 November 2008
Vanessa Collingridge and the team explore themes from Britainâs past thanks to queries raised by listenerâs own historical research.
Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester
Could this central figure in Elizabethan politics have been murdered?
A Making History listener notes that Dudley seemed to be alive and busy helping to organise the English land army in preparation from an attack by the Spanish Armada and then suddenly he dies from an illness that no one is quite sure about. Making History turned to our leading authority on Dudley, Dr Simon Adams Reader in History at the University of Strathclyde.
Elizabeth and Robert Dudley were certainly life-long friends if not lovers. Whether they met in the Tower however, after he had been caught up in raising an army against Mary at Kingâs Lynn, is unlikely. Elizabeth did attend the marriage ceremony between Robert Dudley and Amy Robsart.
Any chance that the two might have enjoyed anything more than a friendly relationship was probably scuppered when Amy was found dead at the foot of the stairs of their home in Berkshire. Some suspected Dudley but it is more likely that she was suffering from breast cancer, though we cannot be sure whether she actually took her own life.
Whatever the reasons for her tragic end in 1560, there was a cloud over Dudleyâs reputation which meant that the Queen could not get openly involved in a relationship with him.
At Court however, the feeling was that Dudley stood in the way of any matchmaking that the various interested groups had in store for Elizabeth. Dudley had a relationship with Lady Sheffield (who bore him a son) and with Lady Lettice Knollys, widow of the Earl of Essex who Elizabeth despised.
Despite this, the monarch and Dudley remained close right up until his death and it is said that she kept his last letter to her closeby for the rest of her life.
As for his murder? Simon Adams thinks this is unlikely. Sure he made enemies but such was politics in Elizabethan England. We know that Dudley had been visiting spas to take the waters and it is thought that, worn down by his military duties, he succumbed to a malarial illness in the summer of 1588.
Further Reading
The Earl of Leicester and Elizabethan Court Politics (Politics, Culture & Society in Early Modern Britain) by Simon Adams. Manchester University Press, 2002. ISBN-10: 0719053250 ISBN-13: 978-0719053252
Simon is presently finishing a new book on Elizabeth 1st which is to be published by Random House in January 2008.
Daniel of Beccles and the Urbanus Magnus
Anne Deed Frith is typical of the many Making History listeners who are absorbed in researching the past of the community in which they live. She lives in Beccles in Suffolk and a couple of years ago whilst reading a book about the Magna Carta she was taken by references to a Daniel of Beccles. No one had heard of him but after a good deal of research she discovered that Daniel was the author of possibly our first book of manners, a twelfth century poem which was quite widely referred to. Four more or less complete Medieval manuscripts survive in Trinity college Dublin, Worcester Cathedral, Gonville and Caius College Cambridge and the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris.
It is thought that Daniel was a Knight or a monk or maybe a teacher and he was connected to the Abbey at Bury St Edmunds. Much of the advice is familiar today and ranges from table manners to dissuading readers from bad habits like picking your nose in public.
Anne believes that this fascinating insight into Medieval society is a direct result of new found wealth in England in the late 12th and early 13th centuries. This was the age when chimneys were being built to take smoke out of grand houses and cutlery was provided by hosts. People would have travelled more widely and a code of conduct became necessary.
Further reading
A booklet on Daniel of Beccles was published in 2007. More information can be found at The Beccles and District Museum, Leman House, Ballygate. Beccles. Suffolk. NR34 9ND. The ISBN for the booklet is 978 0 9515985 5 9
Whaling in Poole
A Making History listener contacted the programme after reading about a whaling industry in Poole. We associate whaling with fishing ports like Dundee, Hull and Great Yarmouth â but Dorset? Making History consulted Bob Headland at the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge and Professor David Munro MBE two of our leading whaling historians.
Image: Professor David Munro MBE in âBlubbertownâ better known as Dundee.
The British whaling industry was probably at its height for the 150 years before the middle of the nineteenth century. Whaling was first carried out in the Atlantic and then gradually ships ventured into Arctic waters near Greenland. It was given a financial fillip by a government bonus in the eighteenth century such was the demand for oil. Initially the Right Whale was the prime species targeted, largely because it floated when killed and this helped in the recovery of the blubber which was packed into barrels and then processed on shore.
Bob Headland pointed out that Poole was indeed an important whaling port and that specialisation seems to have followed from the interests or skills of particular families. Furthermore, the Quakers were very influential in the whaling industry and many families fled wars in North America to set up a business in the UK.
Dundee is perhaps our best known whaling port and it enjoyed something of a boom through into the final years of the nineteenth century and up until the First World War. The reason for this was that Dundee was also home to a shipbuilding industry that was quick to seize the benefits of steam. Mechanically powered whalers were better equipped to tackle the harsh waters near Greenland. Furthermore, the jute industry ensured that there was plenty of investment capital in the city.
Today, though there is little evidence in the landscape for this important industry. A few street names and that is all. The best source of evidence is to be found from maps and local harbour records.
Vanessa has presentedÌęscience and current affairs programmes for ±«Óătv, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and Discovery and has presented for ±«Óătv Radio 4 & Five Live and a regular contributor to the Daily Telegraph and the Mail on Sunday, Scotsman and Sunday Herald.Ìę
Contact Making History
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Vanessa has presentedÌęscience and current affairs programmes for ±«Óătv, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and Discovery and has presented for ±«Óătv Radio 4 & Five Live and a regular contributor to the Daily Telegraph and the Mail on Sunday, Scotsman and Sunday Herald.Ìę