Photo album Day 6!
https://photos.app.goo.gl/vRvg7ea9zTVc1SED6
First off, my sincerest apologies for not uploading photos yesterday, nor today. The wifi here has been rather difficult and spotty, so my photo backup has been slow or nonexistent. Once the photos are off my phone, I have to organize them into albums and link them here – if they’re not uploaded by the time I start typing for the evening, I don’t get it done until morning. I’m hoping that (a) I can get this post up after I finish it tonight, (b) I can get internet long enough to fix up my albums from today and yesterday, and (c) my neighbors eventually stop having sex on their squeaky mattress so I can sleep. [YES the internet works!]
Today’s adventures started late – on purpose!
We have been running early days the past week, and we all agreed last night to meet at 10am today, instead of 8:30. As probably the best decision to date according to my body, I woke up about 8:45 and headed out to breakfast with Shabana and Rachel. We found a small café around the corner from the hotel, and I picked up a granny smith apple juice (fresh as you can press, omg) and a yogurt parfait with honey, strawberries, and granola. To say it was lovely is to do it injustice. The yogurt was crisp and paired well with the tart juice, and honey-drizzled fruit and granola is probably the gods’ actual gift to humankind anyway, so combining the two in my own actual mouth made my day. I did make the mistake of not getting a coffee, but we rectified that after we joined up with the group.
We followed the online map to the Bayswater station and waited on the train. We’d seen a notice online that the Tube was holding trains at Paddington due to an electrical malfunction, but considering we were on the other side of the lines, we didn’t think it would make a difference.
Twenty minutes later, we walked to the Queensway station and riding the Red line to the Tower of London. I’m not sure when they finished the work (I was able to take the Gold line back home this afternoon), but it was more than five minutes after we left, I’m sure.
I took a bunch of pictures of the architecture on the walk from the station to the Tower. I’m consistently fascinated by the combination of buildings around. I couldn’t tell you what decade any was built in, but I can guess at the century, and the sheer number of them still astounds me after a week of basically living here. I even spotted a grotto that could have been the filming location for the “One does not simply walk into Mordor” scene in LOTR. I wish I’d taken a closer look, but I didn’t even think to ask (fogged brain) before we were past.
Once in the Tower proper, we decided to meet back up at the Prince Alfred pub again for a wrap-up discussion and supper together, then headed into the tour. The guides, guards, and historians living at the Tower – known locally as the “beef-eaters,” ran tours every so often, and our particular guide was both funny and intense, using his platform (literally, as he stood on raised concrete pads) to comment on the political state of the country, and the world, as well as poke gently at the “plastic” generation (I think he meant phone) and the 900 or so children a year they saw come through the tours.
He spent a good bit of time discussing the history of the Tower, both as the original single building known as the White Tower and the complex as a whole, both a living space for the royal families and as a prison for elevated individuals, all fascinating stuff. It ran about an hour, and he took us all about the grounds. I only just realized I didn’t actually take a picture of the Beheaded Queens memorial, which is unfortunate. The guide (I do wish I’d written down his name) referred to it as a modern art-style coffee table, which memorialized the general area of the sites of the six beheadings that happened on the greens there, including Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard (I believe?).
I did have a chance to ask him a few questions, one of which has been bothering me the entire trip – what’s the purpose of cutting the tree branches off? He explained the process is called “pollarding” and has to do with the root-ball of the trees themselves. Since so many of the larger ones are located close to buildings, they don’t want the root system to eventually undermine the foundations, but they also don’t want to remove the trees themselves. Since trees have root systems that generally measure the basic size of the branch system aboveground, if you cut the branches back, it somehow convinces the tree to shrink its root system because science. So the Brits regularly pollard (verb-izing and hoping it’s right!) these huge trees to keep them alive but also within the bounds of their spaces. There’s a lot to be said about controlling nature to that extent, but it’s an ingenious practice that looks like it’s been going on quite a few years. Across the countryside there seemed to be trees that were undergoing (or had previously undergone) the same process, and some were huge with teensy branches above. I think it’s a healthy way of controlling roots, but I’m also interested in reading into how they figured out how to properly perform the procedure, how they learned that it worked, and what the larger conversation about British culture is with regards to the process.
I also saw ravens for the first time – clearly, since I took so many pictures and videos of them. According to our guide, there are seven ravens living at the Tower complex, though they’re not descended from the same “original” birds of legend, as they have historically disappeared more than once. Ravens don’t live in Georgia, and the sheer size difference between them and crows is rather intimidating, actually. I tried to get a recording of their calls, but I don’t think I could catch them in time. It really is a croaky creaking sound.
After the tour we broke up into groups, and I stuck with Tanya, Maria, Shabana, Ahngeli, and Sarah. We found the Sir Walter Raleigh room, as well as the short program about the Princes in the Tower. We’d considered checking out the battlements, but decided to split again instead. I required I at least look inside the White Tower since it’s the oldest building on the property, and, as my Wordmoouth put it, “the symbol of oppression of my babies” (aka the Anglo-Saxons I study). We ended up going through the first two floors of the armory before we fell out from hunger. I did find a Norman fireplace, so that was cool, but I also knew if I went up another set of spiral stairs like the ones up the Princes’ tower I’d actually fall out, so we went to look for food. Shabana and Sarah headed toward Westminister Abbey, while Maria, Tanya, Rachel, and I headed for lunch at the cafeteria on-site. We’d originally wanted high tea, but since we weren’t finished with wandering, we decided that the food served at tea was more important than the experience, and so filled our plates. It was a bit pricey – I picked up an egg salad sandwich, a tea, scone, clotted cream, jam, and a “coronation cake” (two red velvet cupcakes stacked with cream cheese icing) for 12£ – but it was tasty, and basically theme park prices anyway, so I didn’t mind. It’d been a while since I’ve had scones and clotted cream, so I savored every raisin-filled bite.
After lunch, we headed out to find Anne Boleyn’s resting place. We asked the gentleman watching the entrance to the Crown Jewels gallery to point us the way toward her room, and he told us they’d torn down that particular place long ago, though she was buried in the chapel on-site. We asked for more information, and he told us, rather scathingly, that she was a traitor to the crown and deserved the burial she got – basically tossed in with the other 1500 bodies that had collected in the tomb under the chapel over the years. That touched a nerve in all of us (to put it mildly), so we stalked off to the chapel to see what we could find out.
While we didn’t see anything of her in the chapel, there was an art display up, covered in women’s faces and words. I still am not sure how to unpack everything going on – it was a huge piece, ten feet high or more in some places, and covered with messages of all sorts – but I definitely felt some kind of way when I walked off. I also found another beef-eater, and so asked him to tell us about Anne’s burial site, as we were rather hurt about the other gentleman’s tone and words.
This gent was very kind but a bit condescending at first (they get this a lot, thanks to Hollywood). His basic point was that the stories about her had been embellished. We had a good thirty-minute chat, so I’ll only summarize that he felt – as did many Brits – Anne had a part to play in Henry VIII’s schism from the Catholic Church, which caused undue strife across the country that still feels the ripples to this day. He did admit that Henry deserved most, if not all of the guilt, but had studied up a bit on the matter and understood that Anne had given him the Lutheran bible and had started him on the path, and so while she was wrongfully convicted of witchcraft, et al, she did deserve the title of “traitor.”
Originally, he said, the records showed the Tower guards didn’t actually expect Henry to go through with her execution. When he did and she was beheaded, they didn’t have a casket ready, so they buried her in an arrow storage box with her head alongside. When she and the more important/well-known dead were later disinterred, they moved her remains (identified by the box, as she’s the only one) to the left of the altar, where she’s marked with her coat of arms, alongside some of the more politically important dead of the time. I don’t remember what year he said this happened, though, but he did say the crypt was below and beyond the sleeping statues, as well as beneath the floor. Later, we discussed the conversation, and decided that it was a distinctly British perspective, as having someone at that pivotal moment in history do something so poignant (the giving of the Bible) was both convenient and necessary to placing blame for all of the religious turmoil they’ve since experienced. I can’t defend the position as I do empathize with Anne (she’s a product of her family and the times, after all), but I can neither deny the perspective itself, as it’s human to need to place blame for events so horrendous. And women are, after all, the perfect targets for that. Or something, I guess.
We’d also discussed Lady Jane Grey, as the gent pushed her as a figure more deserving of our empathy. She was sixteen, pushed on the king, and killed after only nine days reigning. I believe she watched her family’s (or at least husband?) execution from her window in the Tower, and her own noose being raised. I’m definitely looking into her life when I get home.
After this lovely history session, we went our separate ways. I wanted to see the Crown Jewels, while everyone else headed back to the hotel before the meet-up. The jewels were pretty, but not nearly as enthralling as I expected. Some were huge, most looked extremely heavy (I’m sure something something weight of the crown metaphor), and it was rather interesting to see the various instruments of power throughout history, including the banquet service. The only thing that really caught my attention, though, was the hand embroidery on Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation cloak. It’s unfortunate I couldn’t take pictures, but at the end of the day, I was either too tired or truly not very interested, so I didn’t stay long.
On my way back to the pub for our discussion, I found a sundial sculpture. I didn’t have time to read much of it, but I tried to take a bunch of pictures so I could look at in detail later. Originally I just took a shot of the dial itself, but after taking a closer look at its construction, I noticed it contained the history of London at its base. I wasn’t quite paying attention to the time markers as they related to the imagery, but I’m sure they’re related, and I’m hoping the photos I did take will give me a better idea.
The pub, or the wrap-up talk, was the same one we visited yesterday, and they both remembered us and took great care of us again. We had a large table in the back room that was fairly quiet, and spent a good hour and a half discussing the various plays we’d seen, how they fit together with one another and the theme of the course, and how we’d each had some major observations to discuss as a class. I took some notes, so I plan to go back over them and solidify my opinions in time to write the Class Assignment Post later next week.
Tomorrow is our Officially Recognized Archival Research Day. I’m headed to the British Library with Sarah and Rachel for sure, though I know others will join us – I’m just forgetful and it’s 1AM. Oops. After that, who knows? I may check out the V&A again, or visit another museum’s reading room, depending on the time.
And it sounds like my neighbors took their shower and went to sleep. Hooray!
The Crafty Medievalist 