Episode Transcript
[00:00:21] Speaker A: The Tudor History and Travel show is a podcast that brings Tudor history to life by exploring Tudor places and artefacts in the flesh.
You will be travelling through time with Sarah Morris, the Tudor Travel Guide, uncovering the stories behind some of the most amazing Tudor locations and objects in the uk.
Because when you visit a Tudor building, it is only time and not space which separates you from the past.
And now, over to your host, Sarah Morris.
[00:00:54] Speaker B: Hello, my time travelling friends.
When this podcast was first recorded, it originally lived behind a paywall as part of the Tudor Travel Guide membership.
At the time, full episodes were available exclusively to subscribers, with shorter versions released more widely.
That is no longer the case.
I've since made the decision to open up that archive and begin releasing these previously member only episodes to everyone, freely and with great pleasure, so that the wider Tudor community can enjoy them.
As you listen, though, you may hear references to dates, events or up and coming moments that have now passed.
But at the heart of the episode, the stories, the research and the passion for Tudor history remain just as relevant today.
Going forward, Alongside my usual monthly podcast, at the beginning of each month, I'll also be releasing one of these archive episodes roughly once a month until we've shared them all.
And if this episode whets your appetite for more Tudor history, you'll find a vast and ever growing library of articles over at the Tudor Travel Guide blog just waiting for you to explore them.
Or if you'd like to go a step further and actually walk in the footsteps of the Tudors, you can find details of my immersive historical tours over@simplytudortours www.simplytudortours.com.
but for now, buckle up, sit back and enjoy this episode from the vaults.
[00:02:42] Speaker C: Well, very recently, I headed to Norfolk, to the city of Norwich.
Now, back in the medieval and Tudor period, Norwich was an extremely important trading center and in fact, it was the second only city to London. Now, I had not been there before, so I was, well, looking forward to exploring its charms and seeing what history I could unearth. And it was even more exciting because I was to meet up with with historian Aidan Norrie, who will introduce himself in a moment. But as I mentioned at the top of this podcast, Aidan has a particular interest in Elizabeth I and the pageantry and iconography that surrounds her.
And so I thought no better person to help us unpack and learn about Elizabeth's historic 1578 progress to Norfolk.
Now, in a moment, we'll go over and we'll meet Aidan outside the Church of St Stephen in Norwich city centre.
Indeed, it was even within the city walls during the Tudor period. And we will pick up the story of the progress there.
So let's not tarry any longer. It's time to go on progress.
[00:04:07] Speaker D: So, hello, dear listeners, and for those of you who happen to be watching us on YouTube, you will find a recording, this podcast, on my YouTube channel, Tudor Talk. But I have come to Norfolk, actually, for this recording, and I'm in the city of the fair city of Norwich. A first for me, actually, I have to say. And of course, back in Tudor times, Norfolk was part of East Anglia, and I am here to explore a very special event related to Norfolk. But I'm not on my own. I have a guest with me today, Aidan. Hello. Aiden. Norrie. Hi. Nice to see you.
[00:04:42] Speaker A: Thanks for having me.
[00:04:43] Speaker D: Yeah. So, Aidan, you're from the university campus, North Lincolnshire. Yes. Okay. And I know we've been chatting and the event that we're talking about today is particular interest.
[00:04:53] Speaker A: It is, it is.
[00:04:55] Speaker D: So maybe you just want to introduce yourself and. And what we're here to talk about today.
[00:04:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
So I'm a historian, primarily of Elizabeth the First, so anything to do with her reign, I'm there.
Brace yourself. There is a good chance I will just refer to her as BAE in the podcast, because I do that. It just lives out, it happens.
But I really get interested in anything to do with her public performances and that kind of thing. So civic pageantry is right up there when it comes to that kind of thing.
[00:05:24] Speaker D: Yeah. And this was a big progress, wasn't it?
[00:05:26] Speaker A: It was. It was one of the biggest of her reign, certainly, both in terms of length and distance traveled.
It's not this the only time she went even anywhere close to this part of the country. I need to. I've never been able to confirm her, but depending on the route that she took around, it might actually be the furthest north she went as well.
[00:05:45] Speaker D: Ah, okay. All right. Well, there's going to be lots to explore. And I will just say, for folk who are tuning in and listening, we are filming in the middle of Norwich. It's a Saturday morning jubilee weekend, actually, when we happen to recording this, there's lots going on and you will hear sound. You will hear. Sorry, dear listeners, you will hear sounds of life going on around us. Hopefully that won't detract for your enjoyment of this, though. Okay, so shall we just talk first a little bit about royal progresses, particularly Elizabeth's progresses? She was famous, wasn't she?
[00:06:15] Speaker A: She was.
[00:06:16] Speaker D: Can you talk about them in general? Why did they Happen, Yeah.
[00:06:20] Speaker A: So a big part of it was to get out of London during the summer.
Go on, go in progress when someone else has. Has to pay for your lodgings, your food, all of that. Elizabeth was famously tight with money.
Whether that means she was good with money is another thing entirely. But it does mean while you're on progress, other people pay for your living expenses.
But Elizabeth, being a royal family of one, was very big on showing herself, actually much like the current Queen. The whole. The idea of I must be seen to be believed that kind of thing was there's a very Elizabeth I first attitude.
And she traveled a lot. Not as far as some of her predecessors, like never went to York, like both her father and grandfather did. But in terms of miles, miles covered and places visited, she's by far the most traveled of the Tudors.
They're really good for tying royal authority to her present, her presence, her person, particularly if something slightly naughty has happened in a place and they need to be reminded of their place.
Nothing like having the Queen come through to remind them of the.
Of their duty, really.
[00:07:31] Speaker D: Yes. And I guess that's something she did borrow from her father and grandfather.
[00:07:34] Speaker A: Very much so, yeah, absolutely.
[00:07:36] Speaker D: So how did you get into Elizabeth's progresses and particularly this one here to Norwich?
[00:07:42] Speaker A: I did my mphil on child actors in civic pageantry, and there are lots of child actors in the Norwich one.
But more importantly, I was really interested in this one because it's the first of Elizabeth's progresses to have two separate published accounts.
The first is only in 1574 in Bristol, also by Thomas Churchyard, who wrote one of the ones for this. So it's a relatively new kind of phenomenon, almost.
But the fact that there's two and they clearly didn't get along, shall we say. The printed accounts contain various kind of snipes at each other.
When things go wrong for the other person, the other one gleefully records it. But when you put them together, you get a really nice kind of almost day by day account of what goes on.
[00:08:29] Speaker D: And that's wonderful, isn't it? Because I love it. You know, having researched a couple of progresses before in my time, the detail, when you find some of the detail, it can be quite rare, but when you do, it's really, really illuminating. Lets your imagination just run wild.
[00:08:43] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:44] Speaker D: So I don't think we've mentioned the year that. No, I came here, so maybe we should put that in context.
[00:08:49] Speaker A: We should, yeah. So 1578 in summer, not that far. I mean, looking at the weather today, this is not that far from what she would have experienced, there's not this progress was known for being rained out a lot, lots and lots of rain.
But yeah. So 1578, during summer, Elizabeth goes in progress through East Anglia and sort of meanders her way slowly up to. Up eventually to Norwich.
Gets here on the 16th of August.
So proper English summer there.
[00:09:23] Speaker D: Proper English summer. And you're quite right, it's, it's a very blustery grey day, isn't it, here today? And I think rain is forecast to tomorrow, which, yeah, I can see I was leading a little bit of the account and I, I know one of the days at least was rained on, so I think that's going to happen here for us tomorrow anyway. Okay, good. So she arrives here middle of August, 1578. Is there any particular reason why she makes this progress?
[00:09:47] Speaker A: Yes, I mean, Elizabeth never travels anywhere without a purpose. But Norwich in particular is a really weird mix.
Lots of. And lots of Catholic recusants here. I mean, so the Duke of Norfolk has only been executed six years previous for his role in the Ridolfi plot. And putting Mary Queen of Scots on the throne, and having such a high ranking Catholic magnate in the place had meant that lots of Catholics had been preferred. They were in lots of different positions of authority around the county, so they were embedded. And then Norwich itself, itself has been a hotbed of Puritan radicalism really since the Edwardian period, since the reign of Edward vi.
So you get this really weird mix of Catholics versus more radical Protestants, which Elizabeth is happy with neither.
And we've had a new bishop in Norwich who is not very good at handling the two.
And that causes all sorts of problems. And essentially before the progress, the Privy Council, obviously, with Elizabeth's approval, rules that the bishop needs to crack down on both Catholics and Puritans with equal severity. And the progress is essentially Elizabeth literalizing the decision. I made this decision, you're going to follow it.
And we'll see that as part of the pageant entertainment. You know, the city recognizes that they've got in trouble for it and they do want to make up for it and make amends.
[00:11:16] Speaker D: And that's what we're going to do, aren't we? We're going to, we're here, we've arrived and we'll talk about the church that we can see behind us for those people who are watching on YouTube in a moment. But we're here really to follow in Elizabeth's footsteps as she arrives at the city of Norwich and makes her way towards where she was going to be staying during her time here.
So maybe could you tell us a little bit about Norwich, the city? You know, what did it look like at the time? What. What would Elizabeth have seen if she'd arrived here?
[00:11:46] Speaker A: It's almost incredible to think about, but for much of the early modern period, Norwich was England's second city. It was the second largest. I mean, London has a population of about 200,000 and Norwich is about 16,000.
So nothing like what we're used to today. But in terms of size, it's the second largest. It's a massive exporting powerhouse in terms of wool, silk, that kind of thing.
The industry is really bolstered by the arrival of Protestant refugees from the Low Countries fleeing the revolt in the Netherlands.
They bring their far superior skills and quickly outdo the English merchants, but in typical English fashion, they get on board with it and very quickly intermarry and
[00:12:37] Speaker D: assimilate the whole culture.
[00:12:38] Speaker A: Yeah. Want to get in on the action.
[00:12:40] Speaker D: Fantastic.
Now, I did, obviously, my little bit of reading before meeting you today, and I understand Norwich was at. Well, it's a bit of a tip in certain places.
[00:12:49] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:50] Speaker D: Before she arrived.
[00:12:52] Speaker A: It's hilarious. So reading through all the.
The city accounts of all the stuff that they had to very quickly clean up and all the dung heaps that had to be taken away, all the rules that had to be applied about you need to stop emptying your latrines into the street, butchers need to be cleaner, you know, no animals, just wandering around, very, very panicked for that kind of six weeks before she arrives to just get everything done.
Although not much changes. It's quite funny, the idea that the front of the houses need to be clean, but if the back of it's not that, that's fine. Fine. Because no one's going to see that.
[00:13:29] Speaker D: It's all for show, isn't it? So they get about six, six, eight weeks or something.
[00:13:33] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:13:34] Speaker D: For this. They pour money into it, don't they, in terms of all the decorating, as you say, the cleaning, the decorating and.
[00:13:39] Speaker A: Yeah. So the council decides to borrow somewhere between 400 and 500 pounds. And we don't know if they actually do and what the amount is, but that's going to be equivalent to almost a million pounds today.
So they're borrowing a lot of money
[00:13:52] Speaker D: for how many days did she spend a week?
[00:13:56] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:13:56] Speaker D: It's just incredible, isn't it? I bet they were in debt for quite a long time after that.
[00:14:01] Speaker A: Well, that's the thing. It'd be interesting. We'll Never know. But it would be interesting where they got the money from, you know, if it was local people, local merchants who were able to fund us, or if they had to go further afield.
[00:14:10] Speaker D: Yeah, interesting. So she approaches the city from the southwest, she's been through Suffolk, she arrives in Norfolk. So where is she greeted?
[00:14:19] Speaker A: So she arrives one o' clock in the afternoon just outside St Stephen's Gate. So just over there she's met by the mayor of Norwich, all the aldermen and lots of, they're called bachelors, young sort of men of the city who are worthy, shall we say.
She gets met by a lovely and lengthy Latin oration, is given a gold cup garter is very clear that it's worth about a hundred pounds. So that's about £25,000 today.
[00:14:50] Speaker D: Wow, that's a nice little welcoming gift, isn't it? So, for those people who are listening and maybe not so familiar with Norwich, St Stephen's Gate. In fact, many of the walls and gates of Norwich have now long gone. I think there was a concerted effort I was reading to, to take them down in the sort of late 18th, early 19th century. So we're really not left with any of the gates. And in fact, St. Stephen's Gate would have stood where a large roundabout stands today. So Aidan and I figured, dear listeners, that we weren't going to stand in the middle of a roundabout doing the first part of this, of this podcast here today. So, in fact, we've come slightly further into the city. So we're inside the city walls now, or what would have been the city walls, and we are standing. And for those of you who are watching on YouTube, you will be able to see that we're standing in front of a church and this is St. Stephen's Church. Now, why have we come here?
[00:15:42] Speaker A: So she is welcomed outside of St. Stephen's Gate. And it being England, it starts raining, so she has to make haste and she shelters in the gate during the rain. And while she's there, she's entertained by the City Waits, by lovely music, apparently. So, yeah, the City Waits are essentially an orchestra band who are on the city's payroll and just come out whenever the city needs to play relevant music.
But so once the rain has stopped, she comes down the street to the first pageant of her progress, which is staged outside the church here.
[00:16:15] Speaker D: Right outside. Now, today it's a very busy street. We've got the local buses are plowing through, so we've taken refuge in the churchyard at the back of the church.
Can you Tell us about this particular pageant. And pageants were really big, weren't they, in this particular progress?
[00:16:31] Speaker A: Yeah. So this is the first pageant, so it would have served as a kind of a welcome officially from the city.
So we had the mayor's oration. You know, a lengthy Latin piece is not really the most welcoming of speeches. It's actually quite interesting just on that.
So one of the. The pageant writers, Berna Garter, who's hired by the city, includes English translations, which is unusual, and clearly he just knew that his readers would be just. They would just switch off when they saw such a large amount of Latin.
But very good translation. Just.
It's not a hack translation, which I think is very interesting. But, yeah, so this would have been the kind of. The city's welcome. And we really see here the benefits of the.
Of the refugees from the Low Countries here. So it's all about showing off the.
The wool and textile industry that Norwich has now. So big stage set up, and on it there are 17 children.
What's particularly special about this is that 16 of them are girls, which is. I think it's unique.
It might not be because we don't have all the records, but as far as I can tell, it's the only pageant during Elizabeth's reign that so prominently features girl actors.
And so they're on the stage, eight of them are knitting and eight of them are spinning, kind of showing off the textile industry.
And then there's a boy at the front who kind of pronounces the pageant's meaning for Elizabeth to make sure that it can't be missed. But as you can guess from having all the spinning and the knitting on, it's all about the economic prosperity, because at the end of the day, Elizabeth had to allow the refugees to settle there.
So there is a kind of, you know, thank you for letting this happen, but also a gentle reminder that a lot of the prosperity that Elizabeth has does come from the import taxes and duties that come from all this kind of stuff.
[00:18:34] Speaker D: I love these kind of subversive themes that seem to get snuck under the wire.
Do we know how Elizabeth reacted to that particular paddle?
[00:18:43] Speaker A: Garter records that at the end she said, this device is fine, the royal seal of approval.
[00:18:50] Speaker D: Don't get too excited, Mum.
But. But, yeah, that sounds great. So now, one of the things I just wanted to point out, in case we forget to talk about this, that there was a mile, wasn't there, between Elizabeth arriving at St. Stephen's Gate and getting to her final destination? But it's Took an enormous amount of time. So when you said that these orations were long. They were long, weren't they?
[00:19:15] Speaker A: Well, the. So she arrives at her lodgings by evening and if she's arriving at 1pm, that's at least, you know, if we're saying evening is even 4 o', clock, that's still four hours to go like one mile. Yeah.
[00:19:29] Speaker D: And you've got to admire her stamina, haven't you? Really?
[00:19:33] Speaker A: You can see why she started out the ghost only about five miles from here. Didn't want a lot. She knew it was going to be a hard slog.
[00:19:41] Speaker D: Yeah, maybe, yeah. She was well used to this. So she knew what to expect and girded her loins appropriately.
[00:19:47] Speaker A: What's really interesting, we don't know where, but she stopped somewhere during those five miles to get changed and get dressed and get ready.
[00:19:52] Speaker D: Wow.
[00:19:53] Speaker A: So yeah, she was clearly. Clearly on it.
[00:19:55] Speaker D: Yeah, clearly on it. So where do we go from here? Where's the next stop?
[00:19:58] Speaker A: Just outside the market.
[00:19:59] Speaker D: Okay. Oh, the marketplace. I'm looking for to seeing the marketplace. Apparently it's really lovely. So why don't we go? Yes, okay, let's go.
So, Aidan, we've arrived in Norwich Marketplace here. This was the second major pageant.
[00:20:45] Speaker A: Yeah.
Elizabeth would have come down the street behind us, probably would have been met by a, an arch that had been specially built for the occasion. As we mentioned, Norwich was not the tidiest of places before her arrival. So it seems like they had built something to distract a little bit from it.
[00:21:04] Speaker D: Okay.
[00:21:05] Speaker A: So yeah, it was two pageants here, one just outside.
And I have to admit it's my favorite of the pageants mainly because it has biblical figures in it. And my work really does revolve around biblical figures. So in it there are five people playing women. It's not clear whether they are actually women or men playing the role, but three biblical figures. So Deborah the judge, the widow Judith and Queen Esther.
And then there's a representation of the city of Norwich. And then Marcia, the daughter in law of the mythical king Gergant who was supposed to have built Norwich Castle.
[00:21:40] Speaker D: Okay. Which by the way viewers, you can see directly behind us over our shoulder here. Okay, so some names that I've never heard of.
[00:21:50] Speaker A: You're not the first person to, to say that. I realize that my interest in biblical figures is not a shared interest with a lot of people.
But we have to remember that people in early modern England, their biblical literacy, for lack of a better phrase, was incredible. Even just me saying the name Deborah, they would have totally understood what I was talking about, what the meaning of it.
So if we think about what I said earlier about all of the religious strife, shall we say, that had caused Elizabeth to visit, not at all surprising that three different famous biblical women were used to not only talk about the city's, you know, they recognized that they were in the wrong, but also to realize that they just wanted God to be worshipped truly, and that's all they wanted.
[00:22:41] Speaker D: So it's a little bit dangerous here. We've. We worked out in the middle of this marketplace because we've nearly been run over by cars and bikes and all sorts. So forgive us viewers if you see us moving around a little bit. Won't be affecting those people listening to the podcast, though. So the message was here just to summarise.
[00:22:55] Speaker A: The message for Elizabeth was, we're sorry for being naughty. We'll do better.
And yes, we'll stop being so Catholic and so puritan.
[00:23:04] Speaker D: Okay. By the way, did they succeed in this?
[00:23:08] Speaker A: Not really.
The bishop still get. Is still getting in trouble years later for not fixing the problem.
Ends up getting into a messy legal dispute with his chancellor because his chancellor's much more puritan. So, yeah, so it's all for show
[00:23:24] Speaker D: a dollar flim flam and not much action going on. Okay. Right, I got it. Okay, so anything else we need to know about this pageant before we move on to our next stop on the progress?
No, I think we're ready to move on. Okay, so. Well, we're moving a bit faster than Elizabeth, most definitely. Why do we need to go next?
[00:23:43] Speaker A: So that the next pageant is inside the market.
It does seem to be a little bit of a walk, so I'm assuming it's kind of over there. Okay, so.
[00:23:53] Speaker D: So in the direction item, there's a beautiful looking church. I don't think it's consecrated anymore, but we're gonna head in that direction and see if we can find this spot. So we're going to go on an adventure. Let's go and see if we can find it. Okay, let's go.
So for those of you who are watching, we are now outside this glorious building, which is an early 15th century guildhall, so not the deconsecrated church that I thought it was. But we've come here because, Aidan, you and I were postulating that this just could be kind of area that the first pageant happens.
[00:24:23] Speaker A: So the third pageant takes place on a scaffold set up outside of the worthy Alderman's house. Mr. Peck, there was a good chance it was about there.
[00:24:33] Speaker D: Okay, right. So in this area. So what do we need to know about this pageant?
[00:24:37] Speaker A: So this is the first pageant not devised by Garter. So this progress is unique in that it has two different accounts because two different pageant devisers were involved. So the first was Norwich local boy Thomas Churchyard, whose other claim to fame is that he was responsible for the 1574 progress in Bristol, which is the first published progress in early modern England. So if you just count Elizabeth's coronation procession, it is the first surviving civic entertainment publication. So he gets hired again by his hometown to devise some pageants. But then later on, the city starts to panic for some reason that the they won't be good enough, so they hire a second person, Bernard Garter from London. So Garter devised the first two pageants we've just talked about, but Churchyard is responsible for this one. The third one, it's quite funny because with their separate accounts, he kind of makes out that this is the first one.
After the mayor's welcome, he kind of implies that they just walked kind of straight here and nothing happened in between. Yeah.
As you would do when it's not your own pageant.
[00:25:46] Speaker D: Sorry, we're laughing because I've almost just been run over by a car trying to park. We're taking our lives in our hands here, guys, to bring you this on location podcast. Anyway, so sorry to interrupt, Aidan. Do carry on.
[00:25:58] Speaker A: So I do admit that the second pageant is my favorite, but this third one comes a close second because it features a boy who is dressed up essentially as a ridiculous Turkish caricature. He's in a ridiculous taffeta gown with a big turban on.
It's a total kind of stereotype almost.
It doesn't resemble anything even close to what the Ottomans were wearing.
But given that the Elizabethans were trying to make a trade deal with the Ottomans and in fact signed one the year later in 1579, it's perhaps not that surprising that they decided to go down that route.
[00:26:36] Speaker D: Okay, wow. So can you feel the difference between the two men who created these different pageants? Did they look and feel very different, do you think?
[00:26:45] Speaker A: I wouldn't have said yes when I first started looking at them. They feel very similar, but given how familiar I am with them now, I can tell Garter is much more.
I almost want to say toast the party line in a way.
You know, here's a much more. You know, there is a reason he has the welcome pageant. You know, the one where we're sorry for being naughty.
I don't think Churchill Would have done it or done it as well.
Although we can see sort of almost an improvement. I mean, Churchyard's abilities compared to the Bristol pageant from 1574. He's definitely got better at it this time around.
But again, not surprised that the city decided that they wanted someone else to kind of help out a little bit.
I think he's good for cha cha is good for entertaining kind of tableaus that are about performance rather than anything deep and meaningful.
[00:27:41] Speaker D: Right, okay. Righty ho. And again, do we have any record of what Elizabeth was feeling or saying at this point?
[00:27:47] Speaker A: So this one is quite funny. So we were a bit delayed because she was listening to the music of the weights, which she was loving.
Churchyard says the music was sweet and good, so she didn't notice the pageant at first. And then Garter gets really, really annoyed because there's an overzealous bell ringer somewhere just totally going off, ringing the bells in excitement, which makes it very difficult to hear anything.
Of course, Churchyard is very upset by this, but you can't help it. It's a once in a lifetime opportunity. The Queen is here.
So, yeah, someone somewhere is ringing bells very loudly and very incessantly.
Finally, when they get everything under control, they get to hear the boy's speech.
And he, at the end of it, he's wearing a laurel crown on top of his turban because as you do. And he throws it up in the air at the end. And Elizabeth is very pleased with everything.
[00:28:41] Speaker D: Okay, great. Good. We have a happy queen. Excellent. And I'm about to get run over yet again.
So I think this is probably a good cue to move on to our next pageant. Where are we going next, Ada?
[00:28:52] Speaker A: We're heading towards the cathedral.
[00:28:54] Speaker D: Oh, lovely. Excellent. Really right in the heart of the city and close to where Elizabeth was going to be staying. Exactly. Let's make our way there. Okay, let's go,
[00:29:12] Speaker A: Sam.
[00:29:49] Speaker D: Okay, Aidan. We've kind of come through some of the very old part of Norwich and we're here outside the cathedral precinct. So what have we got behind us and. And why are we here?
[00:29:59] Speaker A: So this is one of the main gates to the cathedral. It dates from the medieval period.
Not 100% sure which gate Elizabeth came through, but I think it's likely to be this one purely because it's the entry to the cathedral. It makes sense that that's the approach you would take. Okay, this is another really interesting example of the panic that her visit engendered because the gates were derelict, it was dirty, it was messy, and so the Cathedral shelled out quite a bit of money to get everything spruced up and ready to go.
[00:30:31] Speaker D: I'd love to have seen those few weeks. It must have been utter mayhem and chaos, huh?
[00:30:35] Speaker A: It's great. So cities picky at, like Norwich had rules saying you could only use tradesmen from the town. And they suspended those rules up until the end of August to try and get everyone to try and get people in to come and help.
The city offered to pay expenses or reasonable expenses. They were properly desperate, probably going out
[00:30:56] Speaker D: of the their way. Excellent. Great time to be a workman in medieval Tudor England here. Okay, so we're going to go inside and have a look at the cathedral and talk a little bit more about the next stage of the progress. Okay, let's go inside.
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[00:32:18] Speaker A: Ram.
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[00:34:27] Speaker D: Here we are in the cloisters at Norwich Cathedral, and I was reading that these particular paintings, murals, were put here for the visit of Elizabeth on the north side of the cloister. So some beautiful artwork here. I'd love to know who all these coats of arms are, but I think this is the royal coat.
[00:34:44] Speaker A: It is, right? It most definitely is.
[00:34:46] Speaker D: And right in the center, which makes. Which makes a lot of sense.
[00:34:49] Speaker A: It does.
[00:34:50] Speaker D: The centerpiece, I guess.
[00:34:51] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:34:52] Speaker D: Of Elizabeth's arrival in the. The city.
[00:34:54] Speaker A: Yeah. So she arrives on a Saturday, but they have a big Thanksgiving service where they do it because they arrive evening time, so probably in time for evening prayer.
Elizabeth is slightly on the pious side of things, so it makes sense that they did something like that.
[00:35:14] Speaker D: So I guess you would have been welcomed here at the gates.
I guess the Bishop of Norwich.
[00:35:20] Speaker A: By the bishop, the dean in the chapter, because she stayed in the bishop's palace while she was here. And the poor bishop probably got evicted for her stay, although we're not sure.
But yeah. So she stayed for much of her time here in the cathedral precinct.
[00:35:35] Speaker D: Now, there's one very special record of how Elizabeth.
Where she sat within the church to hear this mass. Can you tell us about that?
[00:35:45] Speaker A: Yeah. So there is a Boleyn family tomb, essentially, and coat of arms near the nave. And Elizabeth was sat in sight of that.
Her grandfather's arms were there.
So a nice little visual reminder there.
Even if no one else knew, she would have known.
[00:36:06] Speaker D: Absolutely. I was just speaking to Tracy Borman, who's been writing about Elizabeth and Anne, just saying that was a real kind of statement of her acceptance and her love for her Berlin family. So it's a lovely thing to think about. I think it is. So the Challenge, I think, when you come to Norwich is to go and try and find that spot and go and try and find the Berlin Chapel, as both you and I have done yesterday, because we arrived yesterday, didn't we?
So it's not that easy to find.
[00:36:30] Speaker A: No, it's really not.
And that's one of the things it wouldn't have.
It wouldn't have been that public a statement, shall we say, because there would have been a lot of people who couldn't see it or wouldn't have known it was there.
[00:36:42] Speaker D: Yeah, right. Yeah. But if anybody is watching on this, on YouTube, you'll be able to see some shots that we managed to get at the chapel and look, get to the high altar and look up to your right and you'll see all the shields and you'll see the Berlin crest of the bulls with the chevron. So once, you know, once you get tuned in, you can find it, can't you? And then I think the next challenge is the. To find the missing brass, the ledger for the tomb of Anhu. Who's. I think Anne's is Elizabeth's great, great grandmother, I think.
[00:37:12] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's right.
[00:37:13] Speaker D: Or is it great grandmother?
[00:37:14] Speaker A: I think it's good grace.
[00:37:17] Speaker D: So let's do it. Let's get this right. So obviously Anne's father, Thomas, and his father was William Boleyn, and then it was his mother, Anne, who.
So I think that must be great. Great. Okay.
[00:37:29] Speaker A: We were right.
[00:37:31] Speaker D: Okay, cool. So, yeah, that's a bit of a challenge yet to find that brass.
[00:37:34] Speaker A: Yeah, same.
[00:37:35] Speaker D: So maybe later on today. We've come into the. The cathedral very early this morning. It's very quiet at the moment, so now might be a good time to go and see if we can find it. It's exciting, isn't it, Aidan? It is. We've just found the. The tomb ledger for an. Who. Which. Who was the great.
Great grandmother of Elizabeth the first. Yes, Great grandmother, of course, of Amberlynn. Now, we've had a wonderfully helpful person show us this tomb because it's not easy to find. It's behind the high altar. It's not where the original Bullen chapel would have been.
But you've still got the outline of obviously, Anne and. Who. Anne Boleyn, as she was. As her married name. And then all the shields. And you were saying, Aiden, you think you could probably take some rubbing.
[00:38:20] Speaker A: Yeah. You can feel, you know, I can feel there are flowers here.
It would be very interesting. I'm sure someone has done it. I hope someone has Done it.
[00:38:28] Speaker D: Well, that would be good, wouldn't it? But we should say it's, it's not in situ, it's been moved. So this is not the actual final resting place of Anhu.
The Berlin chapel is up to the right hand side of the high altar here, but wonderful to find.
[00:38:43] Speaker A: Yeah, definitely.
[00:38:46] Speaker D: So we've come up to the high altar here. We're very fortunate to be able to look at the Berlin chapels here. So what do you think? What's your impression?
[00:38:55] Speaker A: Incredible. The heraldry is just great. Like seeing it all, the Berlin family seeing that Elizabeth, what Elizabeth would have seen sitting probably there looking up at it.
[00:39:07] Speaker D: So, so, you know, literally, again, if you're to trying, just listening on podcast, we are standing right next to the high altar on, well, facing the high altar to the left of the high altar. And this is somewhere around here was where Elizabeth's chair was placed and she would have been looking directly onto these, this Berlin chantry chapel where of course, her, as we were saying, her great, great grandmother and her great grandfather.
[00:39:36] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:39:36] Speaker D: Were both buried.
Wow.
[00:39:39] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:39:39] Speaker D: It just blows your mind. It does.
[00:39:40] Speaker A: It's incredible.
[00:39:41] Speaker D: It's so exciting.
I think this has got to be the highlight, don't you? It's pretty cool.
[00:39:47] Speaker A: Very cool.
[00:39:47] Speaker D: Yeah. You got the tingles.
[00:39:49] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:39:50] Speaker D: Okay, great. Anything else we need to know about her reception here in the cathedral? Or did she just hear mass and then simply make her way over to the bishop's palace?
[00:39:59] Speaker A: Essentially it would have been a long day and I think, I think would have been quite tired by the end of it.
[00:40:03] Speaker D: She must have been exhausted. I'm exhausted just thinking about it. So that's going to be the next and final leg of our journey, so I think we should probably meander over there.
[00:40:12] Speaker A: Sounds good.
[00:40:13] Speaker D: Okay, let's go.
So we've come outside the cathedral, we're outside the great west doors, which are just over to my left here. And adjacent to the cathedral is the old archbishop's palace. Now today it's the school.
Of course, school is out at the moment, so it's nice and quite lucky for us.
But this is where Elizabeth stayed the duration of her stay here in Norwich.
[00:40:37] Speaker A: Yeah. So the bishop's palace was, as its name suggests, for the bishop, assuming that Norwich Castle wasn't quite as hospitable for a queen. Probably much more actually defensive than comfortable.
[00:40:52] Speaker D: But yeah, can I just interrupt you on that because it's a good point because Norwich Castle is, is still there, isn't it? And it's quite impressive.
[00:40:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:40:58] Speaker D: But outdated.
[00:40:59] Speaker A: I Guess by that time, well, if it didn't. If it wasn't used to having state visits and the like, it's not going to be kitted out for it.
As I said, probably more defensive than actual. For comfort. Whereas this was meant to be lived in and the like had space for all the courtiers, the counselors, all that as well.
[00:41:18] Speaker D: Luxurious lodgings. Of course. The bishop had lodging. Luxurious lodgings.
And it was right adjacent to the cathedral. So we were just looking at an old kind of reconstruction of Norwich Cathedral. It's quite clear that the Oats. The bishop's palace, not uncommonly was directly connected to the body of the church. So I'm thinking this is another good thing for Elizabeth because she. If it was at the castle, she would have had to progress back.
[00:41:41] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:41:42] Speaker D: Through the town.
By this time she was probably like, just, let's get these to the lodging. So she could have gone from. In privacy without having left the cathedral. Straight into the archbishop's lodging.
[00:41:51] Speaker A: Yeah. Because there's still a door that we walked past.
[00:41:54] Speaker D: Ah, yeah.
[00:41:55] Speaker A: Which I'm assuming would have lined up to that.
[00:41:58] Speaker D: Yeah. And you can see today, actually, that part of the. The bit that joins the old Dutch bishop's palace to the body of the cathedral has been lost. They've obvious somebody's torn that down at some point. You get the kind of. The ragged end of the palace today.
So anyway, Elizabeth retires.
What goes on at the bishop's palace? Do we have any records of that?
[00:42:16] Speaker A: Not a lot. It does seem to have genuinely been. She wanted a rest.
It was a.
So she arrives on a Saturday.
So then the next day being a Sunday, she also had church.
Churchyard. Makes an excellent quip about her being pious and attending church, which is quite funny given that the Sunday before she'd gone and watched some local dancing. So only pious when it suits her.
But. And then on the Monday, the day was completely rained out, so they had a privy council meeting in the bishop's palace.
[00:42:49] Speaker D: I bet they know where that privy council meeting happened.
[00:42:51] Speaker A: I hope so.
[00:42:52] Speaker D: I'd love to get into that room. Whether it still exists in that form is another thing. But anyway. Yes. What else happened?
[00:42:58] Speaker A: Yeah. So it's funny. The only one who worked on the Sunday seems to have been Burley, checking over his list of gentlemen in the county and whether they needed to go check up on them.
[00:43:07] Speaker D: Okay.
[00:43:08] Speaker A: Of course, it was Burleigh being the one working.
[00:43:10] Speaker D: Ever industrious.
[00:43:12] Speaker A: Yes. Never sleeping.
But yeah. So as would kind of be the case for a lot of the week, Rain on and off Churchyard did manage to stage a small device before supper on Monday evening. It featured mercury.
Elizabeth seems to have been a bit meh about it because there's no congratulatory or, you know, saying it was a good device or anything. So I think either she didn't care or was still very tired.
[00:43:39] Speaker D: I see. Right, okay. Okay. So she said Elizabeth stayed here for what, a week or. Yeah, okay. So. And she did get out and about a little bit.
[00:43:47] Speaker A: She did.
[00:43:47] Speaker D: So maybe you could just tell us a few of the highlights.
[00:43:50] Speaker A: Yeah, the main one I think is on the Tuesday. So the weather cleared and she was able to go hunting on the estate of Lady Jerningham in Cottesay. So a couple miles west that way.
Lady Jerningham was a Catholic, so was less than impressed to have Elizabeth there hunting.
But she seems to have kept quiet enough and no trouble came of her, thankfully. But on the way back she came past the old Blackfriars church which had been given to the Dutch Protestants. So I said the Protestant refugees from the Low Countries that come over, well, they've been given the old church to use.
And she was met by the minister who also gave a nice oration and gave Elizabeth a cup.
This cup seems to have. Elizabeth seems to have at least treasured it slightly because unlike the cup that was given to her by the mayor at the start, the cup that was given by the Dutch was still in her treasury in 1597.
[00:44:44] Speaker D: Oh, fantastic. That's lovely, isn't it? I don't suppose we know what happened to it though.
[00:44:48] Speaker A: No, I mean, problem is when it's gold, it probably would have been melted
[00:44:51] Speaker D: down probably by the Commonwealth at the Civil War.
[00:44:54] Speaker A: Probably A lot of this stuff was also re gifted.
So that's probably what happened with the cup from the mayor.
[00:45:00] Speaker D: Okay. Yeah. Well, it's so sad to think about that. There you go. So she left here what day?
[00:45:05] Speaker A: The Friday.
The farewell seems to have been a drawn out process. Lots of people were knighted, including the mayor. I became Sir Robert Wood. It seems to have dragged on quite a way.
She was supposed to have a farewell from the mayor at the. At the city bounds of Norwich, about three miles.
But by then it was 7pm and they still had five miles to ride.
[00:45:29] Speaker D: Oh my goodness.
[00:45:30] Speaker A: So they decided to skip the farewell, just say a quick farewell and then ride off.
[00:45:34] Speaker D: Enough is enough. I'm done. Let me get out of here.
[00:45:37] Speaker A: I mean five miles, that's still going to take a.
[00:45:40] Speaker D: That's a lot if you think the progress per day is like between 10 and 15 miles a day. That's like a third of a day's progress, minimum. Crikey. So that was it. That was the end of the Progress. Is there any lasting legacy of Elizabeth's visit to Norwich or anything that happened after she left?
[00:45:58] Speaker A: The most exciting thing, particularly for scholars, is that the idea of the Virgin Queen first emerged at this Progress. Both garter and churchyard gave, and they had pageants that used the idea of the Virgin Queen for the first time.
[00:46:14] Speaker D: Is that right? And are you saying, therefore, that at that point, Elizabeth hadn't adopted that, or were they mirroring what they'd seen emerge? I'm really interested in that point.
[00:46:24] Speaker A: It was not a formal thing. There is some debate, and I'm sympathetic to this. So this is around the time that. That the Anjou match is starting to kick off, as it were. In fact, the Progress is joined by some French ambassadors. I don't think they had anything to do necessarily with the negotiations, but we're just kind of. We're here, we're reminding you. And so whether the kind of the Virgin Queen ideas were about sort of saying no to marriage or just recognizing that when your queen is, what, in her late 40s, it's probably not the best idea to marry and try and have kids, because.
[00:47:01] Speaker D: I see. That's interesting, because I'm often asking scholars, when did this Virgin Queen idea come about? Did Elizabeth concoct it up, you know, sitting one day in her own company? But that's a really interesting. I hadn't heard that before.
[00:47:13] Speaker A: It's very likely that it was foisted on her. And we do have to remember that sort of chastity and virginity were important kind of iconographic devices in this period. So it wasn't necessarily a.
It wasn't anything necessarily needed to be thought through in the sense that it was useful to explain why.
But also, too, she is a virgin, so there is a level to it. It is. It's a literal description of her state.
[00:47:45] Speaker D: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Now, I also read that there was.
This is a fact that plague hit Norwich quite hard, didn't it?
[00:47:52] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:47:52] Speaker D: And there's some sort of debate. Did Elizabeth and her entourage bring plague to the city? What do you think about that?
[00:48:00] Speaker A: I mean, it's perfectly possible because people were. Obviously, the court was still in London, so messengers were traveling back and forth to all the ambassadors were sending dispatches, because obviously they didn't know where the Queen would be, so they sent it to London and then the messenger would go out. So very possible. But Given that it didn't seem to
[00:48:20] Speaker D: follow them around, it just may have been a coincidence.
[00:48:25] Speaker A: I think a coincidence is likely.
[00:48:27] Speaker D: Well, let's hope so, because a lot of people lost their lives. It would be a shame to think it happened on the back of that. I think it was some ridiculous like third of the population of Norwich or something.
Okay. Right. Well, we have been on the trail of Elizabeth, Elizabeth I and the 1578 progress for the last couple of hours or so from quite early this morning.
[00:48:48] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:48:48] Speaker D: So I don't know about you, Aidan, but I'm looking forward to my brunch and a cup of tea. And I think that's maybe where we should go now just to use all that we have seen and heard.
[00:48:56] Speaker A: Oh, thank you.
[00:48:57] Speaker D: Well, thank you so much for joining us. It's been really fun. It has.
[00:49:01] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:49:03] Speaker C: Well, I do hope you enjoyed that particular adventure in time. I. I must admit it's such a thrill to follow a monarch, a Tudor monarch, from place to place and see an event unfolding.
And it was particularly thrilling for me. And I think I can say the same for Aidan to go in search of the Berlin Chantry Chapel and in particular that very tricky to find tomb ledger of the feisty and formidable An Hou.
It strikes me that it's not hard to see where Anne Boleyn and Elizabeth I got their role model of being a feisty and formidable female force of nature. There's a few Fs in a row for you.
[00:49:50] Speaker D: Okay, my friends.
[00:49:51] Speaker C: Well, I think that closes out the podcast. Thank you so much for becoming a patron.
I am very grateful for your support and of course, I look forward to forward to seeing you on the next podcast.
So wherever you are, take care, have a lovely few weeks and I'll see you again here on the Tudor History and Travel show very soon.
[00:50:27] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:50:39] Speaker C: Thank you for tuning in to today's episode of the Tudor History and Travel Show. If you've loved the show, please take a moment to subscribe like and rate this podcast so that we can spread the Tudor love.
Until next time, my friends. All that remains for me to say is happy time traveling,
[00:51:18] Speaker A: Sam.
