1 00:00:17,280 --> 00:00:22,920 Good morning, everybody, and I'm here, I suppose, well, because I was very generously invited, 2 00:00:22,920 --> 00:00:27,480 but I'm also here to provide a sort of historian's eye view. 3 00:00:27,480 --> 00:00:32,820 And by way of sort of disclaimers and caveats, I don't know anything about maps. 4 00:00:32,820 --> 00:00:40,560 I can't read them. I'm completely reliant on the sat nav when I drive and the little blue dots on my phone. 5 00:00:40,560 --> 00:00:47,440 But as Peter was speaking just then, you know, I learnt a lot in that in that paper. 6 00:00:47,440 --> 00:00:54,730 The context that we're thinking about together today rests a lot on words with double meanings. 7 00:00:54,730 --> 00:00:59,800 And I was thinking, Peaches, you're speaking about the double meanings around the word house. 8 00:00:59,800 --> 00:01:06,310 And when someone in the 16th century refers to a house, they're referring not only to their seat, 9 00:01:06,310 --> 00:01:11,140 their residence or one of their seats in residences, they're also referring to their family. 10 00:01:11,140 --> 00:01:17,650 So, you know, the House of Sheldon is western, but it's also his his forebears. 11 00:01:17,650 --> 00:01:24,890 So. So I think it's instructive just to hold that in our minds. 12 00:01:24,890 --> 00:01:31,220 So there they lack the credentials of Lancashire or Yorkshire as a Catholic stronghold, 13 00:01:31,220 --> 00:01:36,800 the Midlands were home to several prominent Catholic families in the 16th and 17th centuries. 14 00:01:36,800 --> 00:01:42,890 Accounts of the Gunpowder Plot tend to bury in biographical notes and conspiracy theories. 15 00:01:42,890 --> 00:01:46,370 The fact that the plot is, with the exception of Ambrose Rookwood, 16 00:01:46,370 --> 00:01:52,030 were kinsmen who hails from the Midlands and who had cut their teeth in an earlier thwarted rebellion. 17 00:01:52,030 --> 00:02:02,750 That's what the Earl of Essex in. What came to a head on the 5th of November six five was, in essence, a monster born of Elizabethan problems, 18 00:02:02,750 --> 00:02:08,510 albeit unleashed by Jacobean politicking that there were not the wild, ungovernable north. 19 00:02:08,510 --> 00:02:13,790 The Midlands then may be said to have had a certain notoriety. 20 00:02:13,790 --> 00:02:21,530 It was, after all, in the Midland County of Northamptonshire that Mary Queen of Scots was imprisoned at Fotheringham. 21 00:02:21,530 --> 00:02:25,250 And if a conspiracy can have a specific geographical locus, 22 00:02:25,250 --> 00:02:31,070 we can locate the Throckmorton and Babington plots two of the blockbuster conspiracies of Elizabeth's 23 00:02:31,070 --> 00:02:38,900 reign in the Midlands and indeed in the very kinship circles in which we find ourselves today. 24 00:02:38,900 --> 00:02:44,780 Yes, it was not the case that the region was overrun with families who'd held fast to the old face, 25 00:02:44,780 --> 00:02:48,490 as well as the myriad Catholic families I'm about to discuss. 26 00:02:48,490 --> 00:02:58,240 So the Midlands were home to some of Elizabeth's most trusted counsellors, most Orthodox adherence to the Protestant settlement. 27 00:02:58,240 --> 00:03:07,210 These include Sir Christopher Hatton at Kirby Hall and Home be sort of mild May at eight Thorpe and the Dudley SEALs of Warwick and Leicester. 28 00:03:07,210 --> 00:03:14,710 Even William Cecil would barely had his roots in the East Midlands and Stamford, Lincolnshire. 29 00:03:14,710 --> 00:03:20,230 Northamptonshire, as Bill Shields and more recently, Peter Lake of Shome was also home to a number, 30 00:03:20,230 --> 00:03:28,600 Pearsons was not there for the case that the English Catholics in the Midlands enjoyed anything resembling safety in numbers there. 31 00:03:28,600 --> 00:03:35,020 Rather, that they were a visible minority and it's that visibility that I want to talk to you about today. 32 00:03:35,020 --> 00:03:39,640 So in order to situate our discussion of the Shelden tapestries, 33 00:03:39,640 --> 00:03:45,700 I'd like to spend the next half an hour or so introducing the Catholic Midlands, offering local colour, if you will, 34 00:03:45,700 --> 00:03:51,460 the people on their society, and to give an impression of Catholic visual culture sharing some of my 35 00:03:51,460 --> 00:03:57,970 research on the building projects of Sir Thomas Trash and its Northamptonshire. 36 00:03:57,970 --> 00:04:04,690 So I'm going to start with geography, not my strong suit. 37 00:04:04,690 --> 00:04:09,220 These are one of the five sets of proof maps made for John Speed, 38 00:04:09,220 --> 00:04:12,940 about whom we've already heard a little, although I now think I should have chosen Sexton. 39 00:04:12,940 --> 00:04:24,400 But thankfully, due to the beneficence of another British university, we we have the digitised proof maps and they really are rather wonderful. 40 00:04:24,400 --> 00:04:29,110 So I hope that the Sexton experts will forgive me for choosing choosing speed instead. 41 00:04:29,110 --> 00:04:32,860 I just wanted to highlight that the portion of the Midlands that I'm going to focus on, 42 00:04:32,860 --> 00:04:40,610 it's this little sort of horizontal slice that gives this Worcestershire, Warwickshire and Northamptonshire. 43 00:04:40,610 --> 00:04:46,130 And I've also included to make up for my lack of expertise on maps and wonderful 44 00:04:46,130 --> 00:04:54,440 image images of these engraved maps that feature showing the counties and heraldry, 45 00:04:54,440 --> 00:05:01,130 which I'm going to speak about later a sort of language, a rather odd language, but a language of lineage. 46 00:05:01,130 --> 00:05:06,590 And if credit on it. And this is Northamptonshire. 47 00:05:06,590 --> 00:05:17,030 And that's a blank slide for now, the families I treat in this paper were related by marriage as well as by religion and by geography. 48 00:05:17,030 --> 00:05:18,410 In the mid 16th century, 49 00:05:18,410 --> 00:05:28,940 three of the daughters of Sir Robert Throckmorton of Coercion Course Workshop from his two marriages were paired with local Catholic gentlemen. 50 00:05:28,940 --> 00:05:33,810 And the families are Throckmorton, Kate Spade and Sheldon. 51 00:05:33,810 --> 00:05:37,560 Connected families is I'm going to show. 52 00:05:37,560 --> 00:05:50,550 That's Robert Throckmorton, might my GCSE and a.m. not wasted on me, Elizabeth Hussey and Muriel to his wife, had an emeritus, William Kate. 53 00:05:50,550 --> 00:05:56,420 Muriel, who marriage to Thomas Strachan. And Emma, who marries Ralph Sheldon. 54 00:05:56,420 --> 00:06:03,980 So these families are intimately connected, and these marriages happen within a couple of years of each other. 55 00:06:03,980 --> 00:06:12,950 They represented the doubling of family ties over several generations, in some cases going back as far as the 15th century. 56 00:06:12,950 --> 00:06:16,970 So why was it important that Catholic families strengthen the ties that bound 57 00:06:16,970 --> 00:06:22,880 them bonds between natal and marital kin provided essential support in moments 58 00:06:22,880 --> 00:06:28,400 of difficulty in a society which valued lineage and affinity following the 59 00:06:28,400 --> 00:06:33,440 terminology coined by John Bossi and his now canonical English Catholic community. 60 00:06:33,440 --> 00:06:38,150 Scholars have emphasised ties of unity and examples of steadfastness, 61 00:06:38,150 --> 00:06:43,940 and a focus on the missionary clergy and its politics has characterised internal divisions within this community, 62 00:06:43,940 --> 00:06:54,530 along factional lines drawn by particular clerical debates around the reticent sea or the organisation of an English arch Presbyterians. 63 00:06:54,530 --> 00:07:00,080 Contemporaries recognised the importance of strong marital bonds within the Catholic community. 64 00:07:00,080 --> 00:07:03,110 A successful marriage, might there certain hallmarks? 65 00:07:03,110 --> 00:07:11,600 Healthy children, especially males surviving to adulthood and the protection of a family's good name and estate. 66 00:07:11,600 --> 00:07:20,910 Other markers might include local standing and a reputation for piety, charity, good governance and generous entertainment. 67 00:07:20,910 --> 00:07:29,430 None of these was conventionally bounded, and indeed it was considerably easier to perform all of these duties if you were not constantly 68 00:07:29,430 --> 00:07:36,450 being hunted and fired by government officials who are worried about your Catholicism. 69 00:07:36,450 --> 00:07:40,830 Mutual support within Catholic circles, though, was sometimes hard won. 70 00:07:40,830 --> 00:07:45,870 The English Catholic community had both happy and unhappy families. 71 00:07:45,870 --> 00:07:55,140 Sacred bonds of shared religion and experience might be shaken by more earthly concerns over money and land and marriage. 72 00:07:55,140 --> 00:08:00,210 In this way, English Catholics were just like their Protestant counterparts. 73 00:08:00,210 --> 00:08:10,580 So what kinds of trials did English Catholics face, and I'll focus on the reign of Elizabeth, since that's the rain that showed a new best. 74 00:08:10,580 --> 00:08:16,400 Elizabeth's government established legislative and administrative ways of defining conformity and 75 00:08:16,400 --> 00:08:21,590 for exacting loyalty from her Catholic subjects in fifteen fifty nine and fifteen sixty three. 76 00:08:21,590 --> 00:08:28,490 With particular fervour from fifteen eighty one laws against Catholics hinged initially upon reticence, 77 00:08:28,490 --> 00:08:34,770 the most visible sign as nonconformist identity dramatically increased penalties for reticence. 78 00:08:34,770 --> 00:08:38,510 See an act of Parliament. Fifty one and ninety three, 79 00:08:38,510 --> 00:08:44,600 with refinements made to the receipt of fines in fifteen eighty seven intensified associations between reticence and 80 00:08:44,600 --> 00:08:52,070 disloyalty and made the decision to refuse to attend the services of the Church of England more and more consequential. 81 00:08:52,070 --> 00:08:58,100 From fifteen eighty one non-attendance would be punished by £20 fine per lunar month. 82 00:08:58,100 --> 00:09:06,080 So there are 13 lunar months in a year. I discovered in the course of writing my thesis, so they get an extra twenty pounds out of you, 83 00:09:06,080 --> 00:09:10,100 which is thousands and thousands of pounds in today's money. 84 00:09:10,100 --> 00:09:14,390 And offenders who persisted beyond 12 months have to present themselves to the 85 00:09:14,390 --> 00:09:20,150 appropriate authorities bound with two sufficient sureties in the sum of £200, 86 00:09:20,150 --> 00:09:24,590 at least to good behaviour by fifteen ninety three. 87 00:09:24,590 --> 00:09:29,780 Persuading others to pursue reckless since he was punishable by imprisonment until a public 88 00:09:29,780 --> 00:09:35,810 declaration of conformity was made and those who refused to do so would be made to abjure the realm. 89 00:09:35,810 --> 00:09:43,520 That is to say, to leave their home country and never to return unlicensed return or the refusal to adhere, 90 00:09:43,520 --> 00:09:52,520 and a corporal oath that is one sworn on a sacred object became a felony, which meant it carried a capital punishment. 91 00:09:52,520 --> 00:10:00,450 Is subject to any duration of the round. Forfeited their goods and their chattels in perpetuity if their children and their children's children. 92 00:10:00,450 --> 00:10:09,360 Until their death. A further act in the same year gave represents 40 days to return home and restricted their movement to within a five mile radius, 93 00:10:09,360 --> 00:10:17,700 which I like to think of the point of 15 90s equivalent of those electronic bracelets that they give to people with our space. 94 00:10:17,700 --> 00:10:23,580 Those without goods and chattels worth more than a certain amount would suffer maturation. 95 00:10:23,580 --> 00:10:30,060 And their attendance at church on Sundays and feast days have been mandated by the 15 59 settlement of religion, 96 00:10:30,060 --> 00:10:39,440 the religious policies the 50s and 60s had sought to manage the expectation of competing confessional groups and to mollify Catholics in particular. 97 00:10:39,440 --> 00:10:43,730 Legislative developments marked a concerted effort to place considerable economic and 98 00:10:43,730 --> 00:10:49,430 personal strictures on English Catholics to compel them to conform in each statute, 99 00:10:49,430 --> 00:10:55,190 the same point was made if the accused would attend church is the manifestation of their obedience. 100 00:10:55,190 --> 00:11:04,290 All would be forgiven. Evidently, then there were impossible choices to be made throughout an individual's life as a result of the seismic 101 00:11:04,290 --> 00:11:11,130 changes that we now call the English Reformation and the attendant refreshing of politics and culture. 102 00:11:11,130 --> 00:11:14,400 And is the brief overview of Catholic legislation above has, I hope, 103 00:11:14,400 --> 00:11:23,910 intimated a choice made in 15 59 might demand to be revisited in 50 and 70 in 15, 80 in 50 90. 104 00:11:23,910 --> 00:11:29,220 So for this reason, and I'm thinking I've had to return as work on off Sheldon. 105 00:11:29,220 --> 00:11:35,560 It's not satisfactory to group Catholics into the categories of either staunch reticent or quiescent sort of wheat. 106 00:11:35,560 --> 00:11:41,030 Flipped conformist just doesn't bear out. 107 00:11:41,030 --> 00:11:51,800 This lesson is particularly important in the case of Sheldon and the other families that I'm going to discuss in this period. 108 00:11:51,800 --> 00:11:57,620 We sometimes imagine wrongly I think of exemplary piety and personal sacrifice. 109 00:11:57,620 --> 00:12:01,780 No one was ever allowed to change their mind. 110 00:12:01,780 --> 00:12:09,310 And I should point out here that it's not simply about the categorisation of Catholics as particular kinds of Catholic. 111 00:12:09,310 --> 00:12:16,720 It's simply not satisfactory to describe a family as a Catholic family or not, said the Throckmorton. 112 00:12:16,720 --> 00:12:22,900 And what particularly interesting because they were so polarised they had amongst their number and very, 113 00:12:22,900 --> 00:12:29,290 very strongly convinced Puritans and very, very strongly convinced Catholics, even Catholic conspiracies. 114 00:12:29,290 --> 00:12:36,880 So really, you've got the whole spectrum of sort of confessional fidelity and belief and within this one family. 115 00:12:36,880 --> 00:12:41,320 And, you know, examples of marriages between Protestants and Catholics, 116 00:12:41,320 --> 00:12:48,040 notwithstanding my earlier claims about the fact that Catholics preferred to marry their children to other Catholics for 117 00:12:48,040 --> 00:12:54,850 support for the good of the faith and so that they could bring up Catholic children and nurture the next generation. 118 00:12:54,850 --> 00:13:02,560 It's very much the case that you have, you know, children turning against the religion of their parents and vice versa. 119 00:13:02,560 --> 00:13:06,700 Catholics drew support from Kith and Kin, neighbours and friends, 120 00:13:06,700 --> 00:13:11,890 but they also relied on the kinds of patronage relationships that governed early modern society. 121 00:13:11,890 --> 00:13:19,780 Wealthy and respected magnates could extend a degree of protection to their dependents, not only younger family members, but tenants and servants. 122 00:13:19,780 --> 00:13:25,960 And because of the survival of records and usually when we're talking about Catholics of this period, 123 00:13:25,960 --> 00:13:31,570 we're talking about elites talking about gentian ability simply because they leave behind records that we can use. 124 00:13:31,570 --> 00:13:40,060 And when we do have let it let us, not the surviving documents bearing the testimony of those lower down the sort of 125 00:13:40,060 --> 00:13:45,160 social strata that mediated because they're writing to someone in a position of power. 126 00:13:45,160 --> 00:13:49,330 So it's not so much that, you know, I'm saying only the experience of Catholic elites is important. 127 00:13:49,330 --> 00:13:56,710 It's that, you know, that's all I've got to go on. I prefer not to and obviously make things up. 128 00:13:56,710 --> 00:14:04,930 In turn, sympathetic acquaintances of high status and influence could be called upon to ease the experience of anti-Catholic legislation. 129 00:14:04,930 --> 00:14:12,220 Excellent correspondence demonstrates men and women writing letters of petition to privy councillors or to other courtiers, 130 00:14:12,220 --> 00:14:17,190 often those with whom they shared a keen relationship, however distant. 131 00:14:17,190 --> 00:14:24,000 Local ties could also be drawn upon in this regard. Prospective patrons needn't be sympathetic to Catholicism but the crypts, 132 00:14:24,000 --> 00:14:28,920 but the rumours of crypto Catholicism that followed men like Sir Christopher Hampton, 133 00:14:28,920 --> 00:14:38,540 I think unfairly was really because they supported Catholics, and this itself gave grist to the remnant. 134 00:14:38,540 --> 00:14:43,630 The social hierarchy was not always characterised by horizontal or downward beneficence, however, 135 00:14:43,630 --> 00:14:49,070 it is now commonplace that anti-Catholic legislation, especially the anti residency statutes, 136 00:14:49,070 --> 00:14:52,280 were inflicted incredibly haphazardly in the counties, 137 00:14:52,280 --> 00:14:59,240 depending on the particular zeal with which the justices of the peace were prepared to turn in their neighbours. 138 00:14:59,240 --> 00:15:03,590 And it's worth saying at this point that the eye watering sum of £20 per million a month, 139 00:15:03,590 --> 00:15:08,000 though it was ruinous to the financial and social health of several prominent families, 140 00:15:08,000 --> 00:15:12,920 was actually very rarely enforced consistently month after month, year after year. 141 00:15:12,920 --> 00:15:19,640 And Simon Haitis work on the exchequer records has actually shown that by the time Elisabeth died in sixty three, 142 00:15:19,640 --> 00:15:24,980 you can count on your two hands the number of families who are actually still paying this, 143 00:15:24,980 --> 00:15:30,170 this fine regularly and consistently and as Hillary has shown for shelter. 144 00:15:30,170 --> 00:15:37,160 You know, you can pay represent sea fines for small period of time, but that doesn't mean that you are always a wreck. 145 00:15:37,160 --> 00:15:46,000 Isn't that always being fined? It does, however, mean that you can still be a Catholic. 146 00:15:46,000 --> 00:15:51,520 Research by Susan Cogan and Laura Verna has gone some distance to mapping out the networks of influence, 147 00:15:51,520 --> 00:15:55,060 which base protected and scuppered Catholic prospects. 148 00:15:55,060 --> 00:16:02,020 It's Morton's Kate Spese and Chechens benefited from successful petition to Christopher Hatten and Robert Thomas Cecil. 149 00:16:02,020 --> 00:16:08,020 The sources, of course, were as responsible for punishing Catholics as helping them perhaps more responsible. 150 00:16:08,020 --> 00:16:15,070 So Walter Miles may already mentioned debates hope in the region was an enthusiastic anti-Catholic actor. 151 00:16:15,070 --> 00:16:18,670 It is clear and that the complex picture of Catholics and Protestants of various 152 00:16:18,670 --> 00:16:23,900 hues is a rather messy web one which would take several symposia to untangle, 153 00:16:23,900 --> 00:16:30,760 which has thankfully benefited from recent research by Catherine Ennis, Richard Cust, John Broadway, Susan Cogan and Laura Vernice. 154 00:16:30,760 --> 00:16:36,220 If you want to learn more. I strongly recommend you keep that published works. 155 00:16:36,220 --> 00:16:45,790 I'd like to move on now to talk about visual culture. You'll be pleased to hear and the religious symbolism employed in early modern visual arts, 156 00:16:45,790 --> 00:16:53,020 architecture and horticulture belong to a consideration of social, political, cultural and religious activities. 157 00:16:53,020 --> 00:17:01,470 In the political context of their creation, buildings could take on the qualities of resistance, and the obvious example here is the term stretching. 158 00:17:01,470 --> 00:17:05,640 The gentry in the military found that the improvement of their states through building and the commissioning of 159 00:17:05,640 --> 00:17:12,480 great works like shells and tapestries were significant vehicles for the values they and their peers held most dear. 160 00:17:12,480 --> 00:17:13,770 Throughout the 16th century, 161 00:17:13,770 --> 00:17:22,440 English men and women developed an appreciation of architecture as a form through which identity might be conveyed through travel and reading. 162 00:17:22,440 --> 00:17:27,420 English elites were able to learn about and be influenced by architectural fashions. 163 00:17:27,420 --> 00:17:35,910 It was incumbent upon them to inform themselves of the artistic, geometric and practical aspects of architectural design and the building process as 164 00:17:35,910 --> 00:17:40,770 part of the cultivation of gentility and the competent management of their estates, 165 00:17:40,770 --> 00:17:50,220 and on the nature of records. Since he found some examples of English Catholics who were just appalling with money abound. 166 00:17:50,220 --> 00:17:56,720 Thomas Kretschmann is not one of them. He was. He was actually really good with with money. 167 00:17:56,720 --> 00:18:00,650 Tom Strachan was part of this social and cultural milieu, 168 00:18:00,650 --> 00:18:06,110 and it was a sphere of local society and gentry culture in which he was able to participate at a time when 169 00:18:06,110 --> 00:18:17,280 his Catholicism closed off the usual avenues of involvement and advancement that brought an officeholder. 170 00:18:17,280 --> 00:18:27,840 He was unable to travel as his peers did, but he was able to travel through his books and he built the most astonishingly large library, 171 00:18:27,840 --> 00:18:35,710 which I don't have time to talk about today. The last. And in doing this, he he displayed his identity to his peers. 172 00:18:35,710 --> 00:18:40,930 He impressed them with his very erudite learning. 173 00:18:40,930 --> 00:18:45,730 And he also left a rather permanent mark on the local landscape. 174 00:18:45,730 --> 00:18:52,240 Is he really interested himself in the practical and mathematical elements behind these designs? 175 00:18:52,240 --> 00:18:57,040 It's not just that, you know, he commissioned an architect and wrote a check at the end, 176 00:18:57,040 --> 00:19:02,320 and we have his copy of Euclid's Elements of Geometry in Cambridge University Library, 177 00:19:02,320 --> 00:19:07,930 which is full of his marginalia, showing his really close engagement with the text. 178 00:19:07,930 --> 00:19:12,580 So the first example is of Catholic visual and material culture I'd like to show you is perhaps the most. 179 00:19:12,580 --> 00:19:19,660 What we would imagine is a more traditional Catholic form of artistic patronage. 180 00:19:19,660 --> 00:19:26,770 Oh drat, I forgot my maths. This is a map. Google Maps has provided yet again. 181 00:19:26,770 --> 00:19:33,760 I wanted just to show you these the families that I mentioned who married each other and where they are folks apart. 182 00:19:33,760 --> 00:19:38,110 And I don't have time to discuss the very, very close kin of the trash. 183 00:19:38,110 --> 00:19:49,160 And so. So they span quite a distance, actually. So he's a crucifixion scene now at Rushton Hall Hotel and Spa. 184 00:19:49,160 --> 00:19:57,190 You can go to afternoon tea there or play a round of golf or have a massage, as I'm sure Tom Strachan would have wanted. 185 00:19:57,190 --> 00:20:04,220 It's still in an oratory on the first floor, commissioned in 15 77. 186 00:20:04,220 --> 00:20:14,980 You can see the date at the top there. And it's important that we know that this was commissioned in 15 77 because all of our evidence for that 187 00:20:14,980 --> 00:20:21,250 time tells us that traction was probably conforming to the statutes on church attendance at that time. 188 00:20:21,250 --> 00:20:28,640 And yet he commissioned this painted plaster sculpture depicting the crucifixion likely to act as a barrier dance for an oratory at Rushton Hall, 189 00:20:28,640 --> 00:20:35,320 his principal residence of all the works of artistic or architectural patronage associated with oppression. 190 00:20:35,320 --> 00:20:41,710 It has received the least attention, perhaps because its interior location and its function make it the most private. 191 00:20:41,710 --> 00:20:46,780 Its hues of blues and greens with red for the garments in a contemporary red and black 192 00:20:46,780 --> 00:20:53,020 frame with pressions arms at the bottom six trifles incorporated into the base. 193 00:20:53,020 --> 00:20:58,570 A coat of arms is surrounded by the remnants of a motto which is now unfortunately indiscernible, discernible. 194 00:20:58,570 --> 00:21:07,120 So like crucifixion scenes, it shows Christ's passion its crosses central in the foreground, with the label nailed above his head by pirates. 195 00:21:07,120 --> 00:21:17,960 Jesus of Nazareth came the Jews, the two thieves crucified with him, or to either side with contrasting postures turning in to the crucified Christ. 196 00:21:17,960 --> 00:21:23,360 Their knees bend inwards to the centre of the scene and the gazes forward out of the picture. 197 00:21:23,360 --> 00:21:27,830 The dying Christ is nailed without ropes and is looking down at Mary Matalin. 198 00:21:27,830 --> 00:21:34,280 Centre left, three women stand aghast, supporting the fainting Virgin Mary with a force looking up at the cross. 199 00:21:34,280 --> 00:21:42,440 Mary Matalin kneels, clinging to the cross. Her eyes cost upwards. Christ in her head moves and uncovered in mourning to the right of the scene. 200 00:21:42,440 --> 00:21:47,210 Soldiers hold spears and the imperial speaker Boehner aloft. 201 00:21:47,210 --> 00:21:53,500 There are more soldiers on the extreme left also carrying Spears and the Imperial Eagle banner. 202 00:21:53,500 --> 00:21:58,970 See, you get the idea. The soldiers at the bottom cast lots for Christ's clothes, 203 00:21:58,970 --> 00:22:05,930 and a man gestures at Christ's tunic and red shown lying on the floor in the foreground with two coins beside it. 204 00:22:05,930 --> 00:22:10,730 And this rather bizarre Latin text in the middle describes the scene. 205 00:22:10,730 --> 00:22:17,900 I'm going to skip forward and not spend too much time discussing this because I'm aware we're running slightly behind schedule. 206 00:22:17,900 --> 00:22:22,340 But to say that as far as we know, this scene retains its original location and position. 207 00:22:22,340 --> 00:22:28,070 It seems to have been constructed in this appalling photograph I took with my phone. 208 00:22:28,070 --> 00:22:33,620 You can see that the event not original at the top on the glass screen, protecting it. 209 00:22:33,620 --> 00:22:40,160 It seems to fit perfectly the proportions of the room, even though there was a church St Peter's on the estate, 210 00:22:40,160 --> 00:22:45,980 which unfortunately they decided to level in the 18th century. Thanks, guys. 211 00:22:45,980 --> 00:22:52,220 The iconoclastic hinterland, then of Chesham sculpted crucifixion renders it an act of conscious disobedience. 212 00:22:52,220 --> 00:22:59,450 This would not have been acceptable to Elizabeth's bishops, even to Elizabeth herself. 213 00:22:59,450 --> 00:23:08,060 We know that she was a fan of material culture in her own chapel, and her reign had begun with iconoclasm, 214 00:23:08,060 --> 00:23:17,580 though not perhaps of the kind that we associate with Edward the Sex and later with the Civil War period. 215 00:23:17,580 --> 00:23:25,080 The decision to commission this new piece suggests the Chechen may have envisaged turning towards private domestic worship, 216 00:23:25,080 --> 00:23:30,660 and the sculpture is large but not as extravagant as, say, gilt plate or seeing carved in stone, 217 00:23:30,660 --> 00:23:37,980 and it perhaps suits a man possibly beginning to place more importance on private devotion to public worship. 218 00:23:37,980 --> 00:23:43,380 So that's one very sort of classical kind of Catholic artistic effort, and I now tend to a church. 219 00:23:43,380 --> 00:23:48,450 I think there's much closer relation to the show and tapestries in purpose, if not inform. 220 00:23:48,450 --> 00:23:57,270 And that's Russell Market Cross Unfinished begun a 15, 50, 50 and 70 75 78. 221 00:23:57,270 --> 00:24:03,100 And if I have time, I'm going to move on to talk about a painted cloth. 222 00:24:03,100 --> 00:24:05,770 So traction had been pictured a sheriff in 15, 223 00:24:05,770 --> 00:24:14,320 73 and knighted with his brothers in law by the Queen during her visit to Kenilworth Berkshire in fifteen seventy five by that year. 224 00:24:14,320 --> 00:24:21,760 He was also lauded the manner of wrathful began in fifteen seventy seven or eight the Market House or Market Cross at Rothwell. 225 00:24:21,760 --> 00:24:31,690 You can see it on the left today. It houses a Salvation Army charity shop and on on the right you can see an engraving 226 00:24:31,690 --> 00:24:38,320 done in the 18th century showing showing more clearly some of the heraldry, 227 00:24:38,320 --> 00:24:41,680 and you can see how it's sort of open to the elements type thing. 228 00:24:41,680 --> 00:24:48,220 In fact, it didn't have a roof until the local architect and architectural historian John Alfred got. 229 00:24:48,220 --> 00:24:56,580 Can't you put one on? Some scholars have suggested that further work towards its completion was undertaken in the 1880s, 230 00:24:56,580 --> 00:25:00,390 but it certainly remained roofless until the 19th century. 231 00:25:00,390 --> 00:25:06,780 And today I'd like to focus on elements of this declaration that speak most, I think, to the kind of effect this Sheldon was going for, 232 00:25:06,780 --> 00:25:18,320 which its inscription and the 89 coats of arms which adorn it was never worn when it came to decoration or the visual to do things by halves. 233 00:25:18,320 --> 00:25:24,950 The Crucible structure was built from stone given to tradition by Sir Christopher Hanson from his quarries at Wilden. 234 00:25:24,950 --> 00:25:33,100 And particularly striking architectural features include semi-circular arches on the lower storey, square headed malien windows on the upper story, 235 00:25:33,100 --> 00:25:40,020 the inscription on the last freeze and shields on the upper freeze and temperature of the arches is the most relevant here. 236 00:25:40,020 --> 00:25:44,200 I'm going to pause now to talk a bit about heraldry. 237 00:25:44,200 --> 00:25:52,300 It allowed a gentleman to demonstrate the honour, tradition and validity of his family, so it had a practical function allowing identification, 238 00:25:52,300 --> 00:25:56,560 proving claim, evidencing in claims of dissent, which might influence, for example, 239 00:25:56,560 --> 00:26:00,670 the possession of land and the right to bear arms was not taken lightly. 240 00:26:00,670 --> 00:26:07,740 To bear arms falsely had serious even capital consequences. 241 00:26:07,740 --> 00:26:14,600 So heraldry was supremely important as a signifier of social and familial identity. 242 00:26:14,600 --> 00:26:19,490 And employment of it was as much a natural impulse as it was a strategy for 243 00:26:19,490 --> 00:26:24,080 the friendship he declared to other almajiris families could be utilitarian. 244 00:26:24,080 --> 00:26:29,180 As a man recently knighted, he may have wished to advertise his membership as a county elite. 245 00:26:29,180 --> 00:26:31,820 Indeed, his father in law, Sir Robert Throckmorton, 246 00:26:31,820 --> 00:26:39,680 likewise asserted his family's rightful place amongst the local elite by commissioning classwork in fifteen seventy eight to nine, 247 00:26:39,680 --> 00:26:46,550 around exactly the same moment to honour recent alliances. Throckmorton son in law, freshman Kate Spee, 248 00:26:46,550 --> 00:26:53,000 had been elevated to knighthoods at the same time and a subsequent return back in 15 seventy 249 00:26:53,000 --> 00:26:58,340 to Kanye West and where they'd been knighted to attend the Earl of Warwick Folk Gravel. 250 00:26:58,340 --> 00:27:06,930 Unfortunately, these alliances had not yet borne fruit. Rothwell Cross represents Treasury's commitment to participating in local government. 251 00:27:06,930 --> 00:27:13,160 This dual purpose was not unusual, nor strengthens patronage unique. 252 00:27:13,160 --> 00:27:18,110 Gotch suggested that the design of the Market House intended an open market hall on the lower floor, 253 00:27:18,110 --> 00:27:25,130 the upper level probably as a public hall or town hall. Homes recently has suggested that the Market House may have been intended as a quarter 254 00:27:25,130 --> 00:27:31,100 sessions house and the title that piece Tillmans in the 18th century gives it a courthouse, 255 00:27:31,100 --> 00:27:45,430 I think gives this some credence. The decorative scheme then asserts family status and honour it, advertises local identity and kinship, 256 00:27:45,430 --> 00:27:50,380 and a pattern is discernible interactions choices around heraldic display on the market across. 257 00:27:50,380 --> 00:27:53,560 These were the families of athletes who have liked him recently attained local 258 00:27:53,560 --> 00:27:58,450 precedents and now took their place alongside the ancient nobility by enablement, 259 00:27:58,450 --> 00:28:04,210 inheritance, marriage or the purchase of land in the county or nearest neighbours. 260 00:28:04,210 --> 00:28:11,630 Just under half of the shields represent individuals who at that time held office. 261 00:28:11,630 --> 00:28:15,050 Session featured his own shield three times on its own, on the corner, 262 00:28:15,050 --> 00:28:27,220 says on the tympani of the arches and one large shield bearing the quartered arms of Trashman Throckmorton to represent his marriage to Muriel. 263 00:28:27,220 --> 00:28:35,200 And to skip over this part, to get to the Latin inscription, which I think I've included, this was the work of Thomas Chesham Knight. 264 00:28:35,200 --> 00:28:42,490 He erected it as a tribute to his sweet fatherland and county of Northampton, but chiefly to this town, his near neighbour. 265 00:28:42,490 --> 00:28:47,620 Nothing but the common wielded. He seek nothing but the perpetual honour of his friends. 266 00:28:47,620 --> 00:28:51,640 He, who puts in ill construction on this act, is scarcely worthy. 267 00:28:51,640 --> 00:28:56,740 So great benefit. So we don't really know what lies behind, 268 00:28:56,740 --> 00:29:01,630 but rather defensive final line may imply tension that direction expected to 269 00:29:01,630 --> 00:29:06,490 have his motives questioned or that he would be accused of self-aggrandisement. 270 00:29:06,490 --> 00:29:15,820 The inscription testify, civic duty, local loyalty and gentry on it may also belie local fiction, and this is an important consideration. 271 00:29:15,820 --> 00:29:23,560 How could neighbours of rival confessions live alongside each other in harmony? 272 00:29:23,560 --> 00:29:26,410 The shields, though, I don't have time to list them, 273 00:29:26,410 --> 00:29:35,260 perhaps it's rather good that I don't know is a large number and really displacement of national and even 274 00:29:35,260 --> 00:29:44,600 international standing and fidelity to Catholicism was by no means common to all of these families. 275 00:29:44,600 --> 00:29:53,270 I'm going to move on now just to talk, which is a very long discussion of shields that, alas, I don't have time to talk about the triangular lodge. 276 00:29:53,270 --> 00:30:01,720 Go and see it on the left lane. It's great fun. And if you want to know about the numbers, you can ask me over tea. 277 00:30:01,720 --> 00:30:06,820 The last thing I want to talk to is not interaction commissioner at all. 278 00:30:06,820 --> 00:30:14,710 That's more than commission the popular access keep in court, which is owned still by the strong Walton family. 279 00:30:14,710 --> 00:30:20,770 And we've heard already about some of the conservation implications. 280 00:30:20,770 --> 00:30:25,720 This is clearly intended to be displayed. But it's another example. 281 00:30:25,720 --> 00:30:34,310 And as a member of the Catholic elite who has experienced it's no it's no overstatement to call it persecution. 282 00:30:34,310 --> 00:30:49,780 Thomas more from oppression and shouting brother in law, advertising his family's lineage and their prominence and their status. 283 00:30:49,780 --> 00:30:55,490 He took the oath of allegiance in fifteen ninety two. He no, he didn't. 284 00:30:55,490 --> 00:31:02,770 The allegiance wasn't exactly 50 92. This was commissioned in fifty ninety two and finished in fifteen ninety six. 285 00:31:02,770 --> 00:31:10,480 He took the oath allegiance of allegiance at another time, a time revealed in the latter half of the sentence that I've copied and pasted. 286 00:31:10,480 --> 00:31:18,380 He probably took the Jacobean equivalent and sixty six as well. Probably the result of expediency rather than some highfalutin argument. 287 00:31:18,380 --> 00:31:26,110 And but it's a way, as Peter Marshall has taught us, of representing his Catholic dissidents, 288 00:31:26,110 --> 00:31:30,760 his family's Catholic identity to himself and to his inner circle. 289 00:31:30,760 --> 00:31:38,320 It's nine feet by seven feet. And it's based on an Elizabethan copy of mediaeval painting from the monastery at Ely, 290 00:31:38,320 --> 00:31:45,310 which depicts Ely Cathedral along with the pedigrees, abbots and bishops deans at the Kings and Queens of England. 291 00:31:45,310 --> 00:31:48,700 And there are also the arms of 14 knights stationed there. 292 00:31:48,700 --> 00:31:56,470 By winning the first location, copy fills its bottom third with seven grouped columns containing the Karasik Arms of all the knights and 293 00:31:56,470 --> 00:32:03,100 gentlemen who between 15 ninety and ninety six had been imprisoned for represent in the Episcopal Palace, 294 00:32:03,100 --> 00:32:08,350 at Ely and at Broughton and Banbury Castles in Oxfordshire, with the dates of their confinement and release. 295 00:32:08,350 --> 00:32:17,470 So there's a direct link here being made. I better draw things to a close there, but I hope that I've shown that I'm Catholic. 296 00:32:17,470 --> 00:32:29,170 Visual culture is not limited only to the more subtle doctrinal theological aspects of their faith, but also tied very closely to the social fabric. 297 00:32:29,170 --> 00:32:34,133 Thank you very much.