John Flamsteed was born in Denby in Derbyshire on the evening of 19 August 1646. Brought up by his father following the death of his mother when he was three years old, he became an enthusiastic reader from a young age. Starting off with romances, he moved on to histories and tragedies and began to absorb even more of the world around him, reading geography and classical books. At the age of 14, when his school friends made their next step to university, John became ill, and his father thought it best not to send him. During this time he managed to get hold of a copy of Sacrobosco's De Sphcera, a mathematical work written in Latin. Naturally curious about the night sky and encouraged by his father, John watched the stars and applied everything he had learned up to that point in attempting to understand the growing academic discipline of astronomy. 

John Flamsteed, Wellcome Collection. Public Domain

Gradually, he made links with other like-minded men, such as George Linacre and William Litchford. In 1665 a comet raced above London, and Charles II and his queen Catherine of Braganza stayed up to watch it. Samuel Pepys tried to see it too but grumbled that he could see only cloud. But Flamsteed in Derbyshire was watching too. He soon calculated timings of the year, the distance of the Earth from the Sun and catalogued 70 different stars. In his first paper for the Royal Society, established by Charles II on his accession, he apologised in advance for his ‘juvenile heat’ and published it under an alias. The Society loved it so much that they tracked him down and praised his work, Flamsteed travelling to London, where he was gifted a micrometer and ordered some telescope lenses. 

Flamsteed was quickly noticed by other eminent scientists of the era, such as Sir Isaac Newton and Sir Jonas Moore and completed the university education at Cambridge that had, as a teenager, been stalled. It was through his links with Moore, as well as his precise calculations concerning the stars and the moon, that Flamsteed was put in charge of the new Royal Observatory in Greenwich at the age of 29.

By 1675, Flamsteed was Astronomer Royal with a salary of £100 a year and lodging rooms within the observatory itself, built by Sir Christopher Wren. He worked incessantly. In 1683 he built a mural quadrant, privately instructed students on mathematics and astronomy and stared for long hours at the night sky. Between 1677 and 1689 he made 20,000 observations and in 1688 had an assistant to help him, called Abraham Sharp. Sharp also made instruments to assist Flamsteed in his observations and calculations, all which Flamsteed paid for, perhaps explaining why after his death, his widow hurried to the Observatory and took them all away.

In 1694 Sir Isaac Newton visited Flamsteed at the Observatory to discuss his recent theory of gravity and ask for help applying its findings to that of the moon. Newton calculated, while Flamsteed provided him with new observations. Newton urged his colleague to publish his findings on the stars, even though Flamsteed insisted his lists were not complete. They were eventually printed in 1707, although Flamsteed was not happy with them, considering them full of errors. By 1712 he was in ill-health, suffering from headaches and pain in the joints. In a letter, he wrote of finding himself so tired when travelling to church that he bought a sedan chair ‘and am carried thither in state on Sunday mornings and back’. He died on 31 December 1719 and was buried in Burstow Church in Surrey. He was 73 years old.

Not only had Flamsteed documented dozens of stars, made thousands of observations and assisted Newton with his work on gravity, he worked on the lunar cycles and the axis of the Sun. He worked at a time of great excitement in science and networked with some of the most well-known scientists and astronomers, and was known too to Charles II, William and Mary and Queen Anne. 

You might also like Oxford's Oldest Coffee Houses and How Charles II Dealt with the Plague Outbreak of 1665

Sources

Maunder, Edward Walter. The Royal Observatory, Greenwich; a glance at its history and work. The Religious Tract Society, London, 1900. 

Mary I, Queen of England, is often cast by historians and writers of period dramas as severe and serious, wearing dark colours and avoiding displays of excess. But the sources show a different woman who danced, wore costumes at masques and showed off a startling collection of jewels. 

An inventory of Mary's jewellery survives from her time as princess and it reveals something of her personality and tastes, along with her generosity to others and relationships within the court. Beginning in 1542, when Mary was around 26 years old, the inventory details items wrought in interesting shapes and with religious messages that may have resonated with her personally. Some are simply dazzling. The first item, a 'balas with one emerald, one ruby and one diamond crowned, with a great pearl pendant at the same, with three small stones on the backside' show the intricacy of Tudor jewellery and the skills of the craftsman that made them. A balas is a pink gemstone often likened to a ruby that was also favoured by her father Henry VIII earlier in his reign. There are a variety of other balas stones with ornaments and tablets. Another, 'one other balas set in a dolphin with one diamond table and a great pearl pendant at the same', shows more Tudor craftsmanship. 

Cropped image from Queen Mary blessing cramp rings. Oil painting by H. Hayman, 1916. Public Domain Mark. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Mary also liked flowers, and had jewels set in the shape of various floral designs, some unsurprisingly featuring roses and rubies and pearls to mark the red and white of the Tudor Rose symbol. She also owned 'a flower with five great diamonds, two rubies, one emerald and a great pearl pendant', and another 'with five diamonds, one ruby in the midst and three pearls pendant at the same'. These 'three pearls pendant' bring to mind the famous necklace of Anne Boleyn, the 'B' with the three pearls dangling below it, showing that Mary owned something similar but representing a flower instead of an initial. In any case these jewels would have sparkled and shone in the candlelight of the Tudor court. 

She also owned a diamond cross set with pearls and with a pearl pendant which was given to her as a diplomatic gift by 'Duke Philipe', which Henry VIII requested she pass on to him, which she did. There were also gold chains in her possession, one with pearls and diamonds, along with brooches and tablets. Many of these had religious depictions, such as a 'brooch of gold of the History of Moses set with two little diamonds'. Others depicted St John the Evangelist, the History of Suzanne and the Story of Solomon, among others. One of these, a brooch of gold 'enamelled black with an agate, of the Story of Abraham with four small rubies' was given by the princess to Sir Anthony Browne as a gift after he drew her as his Valentine. An especially touching depiction is recorded in a 'book of gold with the king's face and her grace mother's' showing that even after Katherine of Aragon died, she kept her likeness to wear. She also owned a similar depiction in enamel of the king and his third wife, Jane Seymour. 

Some of these jewels Mary gifted to courtiers, but her half-sister and half-brother Elizabeth and Edward also received some. A 'pomander of gold with a dial in it' was gifted to Elizabeth, while Edward, while king, received a ring. After Mary became queen, she gifted Elizabeth on 21 September 1553 with 'a brooch of the history of Pyramus and Thisbe with a fair table diamond garnished with four rubies'. On the same day she also gave her a string of beads of white coral, trimmed with gold. The message behind Pyramus and Thisbe's love story may be significant. An ancient story later used by Shakespeare in modelling his play Romeo and Juliet, the tale revolves around a forbidden love between the children of two warring families and the eventual demise of both partners for love's sake. Is it possible that Mary gave Elizabeth the gift in recognition of her friendship (sometimes believed to have been more than this) with Robert Dudley, son of the disgraced Duke of Northumberland who Mary had executed just four weeks before she gave her sister the gift. The execution and the downfall of the Dudleys would have been fresh in Elizabeth's mind, and it's possible that, regardless of Mary's intention, she perceived the gift as a hidden message to be wary of involvement with the family. At the time, Robert Dudley was languishing in the Tower of London awaiting judgement. Mary was her father's daughter and suspicious of Elizabeth's influence and support, the timing of this gift being just right to give her sister a gentle and subtle warning to stay in line. She would imprison Elizabeth six months later after suspecting her plotting against her.

Other recipients of Mary's generosity included Margaret Lennox, Frances Brandon, Anne Seymour (Stanhope) and various courtiers to mark weddings. Mary also received some of her jewellery as gifts. Katherine Parr gave her a 'pair of bracelets of gold set with diamond and rubies and in either of them one emerald, given by the Queen's grace shortly after her marriage'. Katherine married Henry VIII in July 1543. 

She also owned girdles, which were secured around the waist, and habiliments, strips of jewels (often including pearls) which decorated the border of a headdress or neckline. Among some of the more unusual jewels owned by Mary included agate, crystal, coral and lapiz lazuli. One in particular, a string of lapiz lazuli beads trimmed with gold must have been especially eye-catching and colourful. 

The inventories end in July 1546, the year Mary turned thirty, and five months before the death of her father. Although I'm not aware that any other inventories of Mary's jewels survive for her later years, this one is fascinating as it demonstrates that Mary did in fact love jewels - something that was also remarked on later by an ambassador when she was queen - and was not the dowdy, frumpy princess of Tudor history. 

Like this? You might also like Mary I and Philip of Spain Visit Reading, Philip of Spain Arrives at Southampton in 1554 and Tudor Wedding Dresses. 

Interested in Tudor history? You might also like my second book, Power Couples of the Tudor Era, published by Pen and Sword Books, which explores the contributions couples made to their own times as well as how they influenced our own. Katherine of Aragon and Henry VIII as well as Mary I and Philip of Spain are explored in their own dedicated chapters. Order your copy here. 

Source: Privy Purse Expenses of the Princess Mary, Daughter of King Henry the Eighth and Afterwards Queen Mary. Frederick Madden. William Pickering, London. 1831. 

In 1759 London was busy with merchants, businesspeople and trades, along with those going to work, visiting loved ones and attending church. As they all retreated into their homes on a late February evening they would have passed taverns lit with the flickering amber glow of candles and muffled laughter trickling from within. They would not have known, as they walked past Mrs Walker's house in Rotherhithe, South London, that there was anything wrong. But inside, she lay dead, killed by a single cut to her throat. 

The Annual Register, a volume published each year in the mid-eighteenth century and also into the nineteenth, contained a summary of the main news events from each year. It highlighted military action, reports from overseas and the movements of the royal family. But it also told the tale of Mrs Walker, a Southwark resident who was allegedly murdered by her niece.

unknown artist, A View of the Thames from Rotherhithe Stairs, 1789, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, B1977.14.15308. Public Domain.

Mrs Walker was the widow of a timber merchant, Leonard Walker, who lived in Rotherhithe near the Thames, in the Southwark area of London. Finding herself lonely after the death of her husband, and remembering that she had a young niece in Yorkshire, she suggested the girl come and stay in London with her. It's likely that in return for her companionship, Walker could offer the girl - a twenty-year old named Mary Edmonson - opportunities within the community for work or social elevation. Later evidence suggests that she came to London to gain experience of running a house before she was to be married, as she would soon have to oversee one of her own. However shortly after Mary's arrival Mrs Walker and Edmonson were reported to have encountered difficulties. The Register states that they clashed, with Mary 'not answering her aunt's expectation', probably an eighteenth century way of saying that her behaviour was not as she had expected and she perhaps engaged in crime or regularly argued with her aunt. Frustrated, the account records that Walker told Mary she should 'go to some service as soon as the spring came on'. This would have involved living in another family, perhaps as a servant. What happened next is a 300 year old mystery.

In early February 1759, the Register stated that Mary, one evening, 'went into the yard, and made a noise by throwing down the washing tubs, and then ran in and told her aunt that four men broke into the yard'. Walker and Mary made enquiries among their neighbours whether anyone saw the scuffle, but , perplexed, they told them they saw nothing. Two weeks later, on or shortly before 23 February between 7pm and 8pm, Mary was alleged to have once again gone into the yard of the house, making the same noises as before. Thinking the band of 'men' had returned and now unable to find her niece, Walker crept out into the darkness of the yard to make sure Mary was safe. As she did so, Mary allegedly lunged at her with a knife and cut her throat. She then dragged her aunt's body back into the house and into the parlour, where she took Walker's watch and some silver spoons. She hid them, with the murder weapon and her bloody clothes, under the water tub inside the wash house and in the yard.

Soon afterwards, Walker's neighbours found Mary with a cut on her hand, stumbling into the street and asking for help as her 'aunt was murdered by four men, who gagged her, and in endeavouring to save her aunt, they cut her across their wrist'. The neighbours however suspected not only that Mary had cut her own hand to back up her false story but that the murder was also committed by her. Detaining Mary, they questioned her and she was reported to have confessed to the whole crime. Promptly taken to a gaol in Southwark, she awaited her trial.

Next, however, the facts take a swing in the opposite direction. At the trial, Mary's brother-in-law testified that Mary 'had never behaved amiss, that she was soon to have been married to one Mr King, a clergyman, at Calverley, [in West Yorkshire], and that she was sent to London with her aunt to learn a little experience before she became his wife'. It emerged that Mary had never confessed to Walker's murder, as her neighbours had reported, but strongly denied any involvement in it. The cuts on her fingers, she argued, were made when she tried to open the door to her aunt's attackers and they forced it shut against her, jamming her fingers in the opening. The court however, made up their mind. Mary Edmonson was taken from the Stockhouse prison in Kingston to a place outside The Peacock in Kennington Lane, just before 10am on 2 April 1759. Carried to Kennington Common in a cart with the hangman's halter around her neck, she was said to have fiercely 'denied the murder, and died very unconcerned, never shedding a tear'. 

The writer and preacher Silas Told was present at Mary's execution and described the scene that she would have witnessed. He was shocked to see a 'turbulent mob... throwing out the most vile, terrible and blasphemous curses and oaths' at the young woman as he made his way to Mary, who was waiting in a nearby room. He urged her to confess to the crime before her death so that she would be 'clear before God', but Mary told him that she had already spoken the truth and would 'persevere in the same spirit to her last moment'. 

After spending some time in prayer she told the crowd 'it is now too late with God and you to trifle, and I assure you, I am innocent of the crime laid to my charge. I am very easy in my mind, and suffer with as much pleasure as if I was going to sleep.' She forgave her prosecutors and asked them to pray for her soul, mounting the steps to the gallows where Thomas Tollis, the executioner, was ready. He placed a handkerchief over her eyes, but she pushed it away. She was pronounced dead 12 minutes before 10am.

The justices of Georgian London certainly believed Mary was guilty of her aunt's murder, but looking at the case from a modern point of view there seem to be real and considerable doubt of her guilt. First, Mary's motive is not clear. She may have believed in the chance of some financial gain after the death of her aunt, but she was soon to be married in Yorkshire to a clergyman anyway, to begin a new life as a newlywed housewife. Silas Told noted that Mary would have inherited £200, a considerable sum in 1759, on her aunt's death. However, Mary's future was already secure. The alleged fight over their differences and Walker's statement that she should seek experience elsewhere was also a minor challenge and setback. And finally, just because the four men Mary said had attacked the home were never found, does not mean they never existed. In addition, Mary's calm demeanour at the time of her death, where she denied involvement in the murder as she stood at the gallows also casts doubt on her guilt. With death coming anyway, she had no reason to lie. In fact, it would have been the perfect opportunity to clap back at her accusers if she had carried out the crime. 

Mary's supporter Silas Told, who pointed out in his An Account of the Life, and Dealings with God in 1785 that Judge Dennison, who ruled over her case, had previously made an error in judgement and that 'no positive evidence against her could be produced'. Dennison, said Told, questioned Mary intensely during the proceedings, calling her a 'wretch' and telling her that her soul would be damned if she did not admit to the crime. Despite this, she still refused to confess, which angered Dennison further. Told wrote that the only evidence against her was that her bloodied apron and cap was found in the home, where she was alleged to have hidden it. The writer was also with Mary at her execution, and later insisted that based on his interactions with her, he had 'every reason to believe she was condemned innocent of the charge', especially as he argues that her cousin, who lived in Charing Cross, later admitted to murdering their aunt after he inherited £100 following her death. Afterwards, the cousin denied the confession, became a highway robber and was eventually deported.

Was Mary a calculating and premeditated murderer? Or the scapegoat of a horrific crime which ended in the death of a widow of the Rotherhithe community? Without further evidence it is almost impossible to say for sure.

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Charles I, anointed King of England and Scotland, stood at the scaffold at Whitehall. Although it was January, he didn’t shiver, wearing a double layer of clothing so that the crowd would not perceive any trembling from the wintry cold as fear. Before kneeling to place his head on the wooden block, he is said to have uttered, ‘I go from a corruptible to an incorruptible crown, where no disturbance can be, no disturbance in the world’, referring to the Civil War which in 1649 claimed his life. But there is another, more cryptic last word, a parting shot, that he uttered to his minister standing alongside him. The weary king, passing his medal of St George to William Juxon, Bishop of London, spoke the single word, ‘Remember’. Kneeling, his head was severed from his neck with an axe, and the monarchy's rule, which had existed for more than a thousand years, came to a bloody end.

Charles I, Metropolitan Museum, Public Domain

But what did Charles mean? He may have been referring to the solemnity of the event – a nation beheading its rightful king on charges of treason and for inciting war and dissension in the realm. It was unprecedented. Queens had been executed on the scaffold, two on charges of adultery and two for treason, but up until 1649 no king had suffered in this way. Alternatively, Charles may have been bidding a last goodbye, telling Juxon to remember this moment and any consequences that might follow. Charles was a stubborn and righteous king, who believed he ruled via Divine Right granted to him only by God. Answerable only to Him, the king angered his subjects and triggered increasingly hostile sanctions from Parliament. It is entirely logical that Charles considered his legal murder an affront to God, and believed that divine punishment would follow. 

By the end of the seventeenth century though, there was another explanation. The writer John Aubrey, who was twenty-three years of age at the time of Charles’ death, claimed that the king predicted that his son would come to the throne despite the Civil War’s abolishment of the monarchy and his own death sentence. ‘After King Charles the First was condemned’, wrote Aubrey, ‘he did tell Colonel Tomlinson that he 'believed the English Monarchy was now at an end.' About half an hour after, with a radiant countenance, and as if with a preternaturally assured manner, he affirmed to the Colonel, positively, that his son should reign after him. This information I had from Fabian Phillips, Esq., of the Inner Temple, who had the best authority for the truth of it.’ Was Juxon supposed to remember the occasion's futility, Charles believing that the monarchy would be once again restored under his son Charles II, which happened in 1660? 

A spooky prediction or significance given by Aubrey and others long after the event? What do you think? 

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Sipping a hot cup of coffee, I sat opposite our friend at his kitchen table. We had been chatting about one of our favourite books, Charles Spencer's The White Ship. 'Makes you wonder', he said philosophically, 'how history would have changed had that boat not sunk'. A thought trickled across his face as he shot up from the table, his voice trailing away as he disappeared into another room. 'If you liked that book, you'll love this one', he said, handing me a small faded paperback, the outside edge of its pages browned and vanilla-scented with age. The book's title shone, emblazoned in metallic copper foil. 

He was right. Tim Severin's 1978 book The Brendan Voyage was a fascinating read. It follows the story of St Brendan who sailed from Ireland in the sixth century in a small leather boat across the Atlantic Sea and reached the New World, the Americas. It had been a myth, told in an ancient manuscript called The Navigatio, and there was some debate among historians whether Brendan's trip could have been even possible, considering medieval technology and the challenges of such a long and dangerous mission across open sea. The tale told of the crew encountering pillars of crystal, sea monsters with teeth attacking one another and a blacksmith's island where they were pelted with hot pieces of coal before one of the crew members caught fire and died on the spot.

The book discusses the making of the boat in detail, and Severin's priority in using medieval methods and traditional techniques will make any history lover happy. The difficulties and challenges faced by the crew are given in life-like detail and with careful descriptions so you almost feel as if you're on the boat with them. Their journey not only confirmed that the sixth century trip was possible but tested out medieval boat-building techniques, food supplies and clothing. There's also a great sense of community as word spread via radio and in the press about the trip, and larger ships and control towers regularly make contact with Brendan to ensure they have enough food and batteries for their torches, a luxury the original Brendan wouldn't have had. I also found it interesting that Severin noted the crew's interaction with whales in context with whale populations. As he noted, back in St Brendan's day there would have been many more whales in the Atlantic than today, making it likely that they would have encountered larger numbers of them. 

The book is also easy to read - it's as if you're listening to Severin tell the story - and there are some great photographs captured on the boat during the trip, published throughout the pages in coloured sections. The research is valuable from a historical perspective too, and you can only admire the crew for their passion in setting out to complete such a dangerous and ground-breaking trip, along with their teamwork and good spirits throughout the journey. I'd definitely recommend this book. I think it's still in print in some places but there also seem to be many copies available second-hand. Give it a read and let me know what you think!

You might also like Women of Power in Anglo-Saxon England and Anglo-Saxon Law and Order: Was it Really Brutal and Chaotic? 

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A painting, in the collection of Royal Museums Greenwich, depicts the death of the heroic naval commander Lord Nelson, which took place on 21 October 1805. The work, completed in 1807 by William Arthur Devis, portrays a commotion around the leader as prominent men linked to the battle busy themselves as he lies pale and dazed on the floorboards of his ship, partly covered with a white sheet. They include Sir Thomas Masterman Hardy, the ship’s captain; William Beatty the surgeon and the ship’s chaplain, Dr Alexander Scott. There are around a dozen figures in all, but there is at least one notable person missing from the scene: Mary Watson...

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Copy of ‘The Death of Nelson’. Wellcome Collection, Wikimedia Commons