Long Remembered.

 

 Interior of Jerusalemkerk with the monumental tomb in the
foreground.

 As mentioned in my previous blog, the news that the monumental memorial tomb of Anselmus Adornes and his wife, Margriet van der Banck, in Jerusalemkerk is currently under much-needed renovation in Antwerp, brought me to consider the astonishing length of time which the name of Anselm Adornes has remained in the public eye. Born in Brugge in 1424, Anselm was the fifth generation of a Bruges-based noble family originally from Genoa; he regularly fulfilled all kinds of functions in Bruges City council, and on behalf of the central authority of the Duke of Burgundy. The Adornes family was pious and had an enduring connection to, and reverence for, Jerusalem. Pieter 11 and his brother, Jacob Adornes, began the building of Jerusalemkerk in 1428, inspired by the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and, though unfinished, it was consecrated in 1429. The architecture and layout provide an exceptional illustration of the great reverence of the Adornes family for Jerusalem while the

Stained glass window in Jeerusalemkerk showing
Anselm Adornes and his wife, Margriet van der Banck.

beautiful stained glass, the monumental grave itself and its relic of the Holy Cross, are unique. Anselm, often credited erroneously with having built the church, merely completed the work started by his father, Pieter, and uncle, Jacob.

Anselm lived a public and adventurous life. He became a merchant, patron, politician and diplomat. and, in concert with the family tradition of public duty, filled many prestigious functions on the City Council between 1447/8 and 50/51. He became Comptroller in 1459-1460 and Mayor of the Council 1475-6, surviving accusations of theft from the City Treasury, with several other notables, during the infamous Brugge riots. Alone in retaining his possessions, a pointer, perhaps, to lesser guilt [the other two accused lost everything and were forced to retire to a monastery for life], in May 1477, he nonetheless had to parade publicly, barefoot and bareheaded, confessing his guilt and asking for forgiveness. Adornes had to repay four times the amount he had allegedly stolen, and was disbarred from future public office. All of this turmoil occurred during a period of civil unrest and riots in Brugge and when eventually peace was restored, lords like Adornes were honoured again though he never held public office in Brugge afterwards.

Urban jousts in the Middle Ages..

From 1444-1449 he took part in the jousts organised by the knightly company of the White Bear. His
public life, more or less coincided with his marriage to Margriet van der Banck in 1443 and the couple went on to have 16 children. The family lived in a large complex on Vervesdijk in the midst of the important Scottish merchant community until a sudden decision by the Scottish Parliament to forbid trade with Flanders caused the Scots to leave Brugge altogether in 1468. Adornes headed delegations to Scotland to try to restore the previous mutually-beneficial Scots-Bruges trade and it was during this period that he established a positive relationship with James 111, leading to a restoration of the Scots’ merchant presence in Bruges with the attendant trade, in 1470.. His status was elevated by this success particularly when King James made him a Knight of the Order of the Unicorn in Scotland in 1468. On 14 June 1470, Adornes was appointed Curator of Scottish Privileges in the realm of the Duke of Burgundy and was effectively Ambassador for the Duke of Burgundy to the court of James 111.

Close-up of the Adornes tomb.

In 1470 Adornes left on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem accompanied by his oldest son, Jan, eventual Canon of St. Peter’s Chapter in Lille, and after their return, the completion of Jerusalemkerk was accomplished with some added “Eastern” flourishes to the architecture, fashioning the little church into more of a true copy of the Holy Sepulchre Chapel in Jerusalem as originally intended. It is believed that the idea of the monumental tomb originated with Anselm himself at this time, and with the central importance of the funerary monument, this succeeded in moving the identity of little church into that of a mausoleum.

Tommaso Portinari.

In 1472 Edward 1V and James 111 of Scotland authorised Anselm to represent the Scottish Court in Rome and “among the Muslims of the East.” He acted as intermediary between Hugo van der Goes and King James for the portrait of the King and his wife, now kept in the National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh. In the 1460s and 1470s Adornes fulfilled many assignments for Charles the Bold, including important advice, based on his first-hand knowledge of Jerusalem, on a proposed Crusade. He led negotiations in 1473 for Bruges, to try to regain the Tommaso Portinari ship, the San Matteo, high-jacked and taken to Gdansk in Poland. The ship had been laden with precious goods including a large painting by Hans Memling depicting The Last Judgement. Adornes’ subsequent failure to retrieve the ship and its contents.

King James 111 and his wife, Margaret of Denmark.
Painted by Hugo van der Goes.
National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh.

 means that the painting is still in Gdansk today!

Anselm Adornes’ strong relationship with King James 111 was further evidenced in the years 1477,1479 and 1480 when he made the long and arduous trips to Scotland to contact, and be of service to, the king. In 1482, again to Scotland where he led a military expedition on the King’s behalf in Linlithgow, and then, on a pilgrimage subsequently, he stayed in a monastery in North Berwick where he was ambushed on January 23, 1483, by an armed gang and killed. His body is interred at Linlithgow but his heart was subsequently returned to Brugge and installed inside the monumental tomb in Jerusalemkerk where his wife already lay, having died in 1480.

The life of Anselm Adornes lasted less than sixty
years but it was hugely influential and high-achieving. In addition to his varied and important public life in Bruges, Flanders and in Scotland, he taught himself Latin to further his interest in manuscripts and literary texts; he delved into contacts with humanists and polyphonic religious music and in 1472, commissioned by King James of Scotland, trained a lute player. This was an extraordinary life of action and service; learning and leading. Adornes’ highly original and magnetic personality managed to exert a profound influence both

The White Bear on the 
Poorters Loge where the company
of the White Bear met.

locally and internationally 
accounting, at least in part, for the enduring fame of his name.

Jerusalemkerk.

Digging Up Brugge.

 

 I have not exactly grumbled properly, because I do approve of what the Commune is doing.

Jan van Eyckplein under seige.

That is the restoration and repair of many streets in the town including the underlying cables and pipes. It is just that one cannot turn a corner now without finding the way is closed by trenches in the road and multiple piles of cobblestones. I applaud the fact that the City Elders are taking advantage of the negative effects of the pandemic to use the unparalleled opportunity to renovate while the streets are more or less empty of tourists. It is just the tiny inconveniences and larger efforts to circumnavigate that occasionally irritate!

Sint Annarei. 13th century foundations.

However, an unlooked-for side effect of this massive regeneration project [for such it is] is the archaeological benefit. Several really interesting finds have occurred over the past few months within the Egg, unsurprising given the age of that august space. Perhaps the most interesting is along Sint Annarei; the discovery in March 2021, of the foundations of the former brewery, Den Hert plus the remains of a 13^th century wall. Den Hert had stood at numbers 17-18, from 1580-1921 with another brewery, Den Arend, at 23-27 Sint Annarei nearby. 13^th century foundations and walls of several houses have also appeared. Five large wooden vats with diameters of more than 1. 8 metres, have been

St Annarei and the present archaeological site showing
the disappeared street. Marcus Gerards' 1562 map

recovered and there is analysis currently to determine what the contents were. These pre-date the brewery

and it is expected that they may well indicate use by crafts such as those of dyers, tanners and fullers, given that traces of similar crafts have been discovered along Vervesdijk on the opposite, western side of the canal. The area would have been well suited to such activities given the slight distance from the centre, in case of unpleasant odours, and the proximity of running water. Signs of a disappeared street, marked on the Marcus Gerards' map of 1562  have also been located.

Sint Amanduskapel on the Marcus map 1562

Hand water pump which replaced the church, 
demolished in 1817.

Burial vault with wall decoration beneath the      
former Sint Amanduskapel.

In Feb 2021 workmen, working on the town water supply, discovered brick foundations, a fieldstone wall and a burial vault in Sint Amandstraat.

 A skull and shards of highly-decorated Brugge pottery, judged to be from the period 1250-1325, were also found. An old chapel, Sint AmandusKapel, probably founded by Sint Amand in the 8th century, had stood there from 1562, the chapel of the craft of herbs and groceries.  Presumably, eventually less used, it had been sold in 1798 and demolished in 1817 to be replaced in 1820, by the very large water pump still there.

The Anselm Adornes tomb in Jerusalemkerk

Unrelated to the incidental archaeological activity in Brugge but echoing these ancient links to the past, is the news that the monumental tomb of Anselm Adornes and his wife, Margriet van der Banck, in Jerusalemkerk has been removed for urgent restoration in Antwerp. It is estimated that in September 2022 it will be re-installed in its original important space in the family church. Anselm Adornes, born of a patrician family in Brugge, in 1424 and descended from Genoese merchants, became a merchant, patron, politician and diplomat. He had an extraordinary life ending, prematurely with his murder in Linlithgow, in Scotland in 1483 where he is buried; his heart was sent back to Brugge for interring in the impressive memorial tomb currently under renovation.

The following blog will outline details of this extraordinary man’s life.

A footnote to thank Kristien Boulinguez, in case she reads more than one blog! Just to ask her to contact me if she actually does visit Brugge on her historical quest for mediaeval Brugge. Would love to meet Kristien.

Rare Commentary.

Four year old Philip

Princess Alice with her son
1924

I am, relatively speaking, not interested in the British Royal Family but then again, not especially hostile to it either, though do believe that a country which retains Royalty and the attendant aristocracy, cannot truly be a democracy. That said, when Philip died last week, at almost 100, it was not a great personal loss though it seems, from across the Channel, that the media has, as usual, gone overboard with non stop comment and endless ‘features’. Plus ca change ……

Philip's sisters, 1922.

I have always considered Philip as physically gorgeous, when young, and unfailingly supportive to the Queen even when he let rip with racialist, colonial-type gaffes which caused offence and hilarity in equal volumes and over which remarks, Elizabeth generally sailed, serenely on. I believe he was probably a briskly-impatient father who heaped some suffering on his eldest, Charles, who followed his father's educational path but who hated Cheam Prep. School and Gordonstoun ["Colditz in kilts"!] in equal horrified measure. I do remember, too, that Edward was frog-marched into the Marines I think, when he was rather more drawn to the theatre! One didn’t need to read about the Royals to judge that Anne was awfully like her father in temperament and that they were probably great pals!

However, mea culpa, it is only now that I have learned more about Philip’s early life and feel uncomfortable that I hadn’t been interested enough to discover more when he was alive; it would have

Philip's mother became a nun. She was also recognised by Israel
as Righteous among the Nations for sheltering Jews
during WW2 in Greece. Profoundly deaf, she had a tragic but heroic life.

made me more tolerant of him. Born in Corfu in 1921 eight years after the assassination of his grandfather, King George of Greece, and youngest child of Prince Andrew of Greece and Princess Alice of Battenberg. The family was exiled when Philip was one and led a somewhat itinerant life which no doubt contributed to the nervous breakdown of his mother in 1930 when she was hospitalised. Philip did not see his mother at all between 1932 and 1937. He went briefly to live in Paris but soon landed safely chez Uncle George, the Marquess of Milford Haven who became his active guardian. Philip’s own father seems to have drifted off without contact with his son. Uncle George’s son, David, became Philip’s great friend and eventual best man at his wedding.

In keeping with the class system regarding education, Philip was sent to Cheam Preparatory School which fostered a tough, independent ethos for its boys. He grew to love it there where his sporting

Kurt Hahn, German educator and
inspired educational innovator.

talent and competitive spirit had full rein. Similarly, after Cheam, came Gordonstoun, founded by Kurt Hahn as a deliberately Spartan establishment with a heavy emphasis on sports and education for leadership. Philip, who had long decided to banish introspection and adopt a resolutely cheerful and independent spirit as a way of dealing with the chaos and loss of his earlier life, flourished, eventually rising to become Head Boy. The school gave him a secure, stable, challenging environment which compensated for his earlier rootlessness. During his years there, Cecilie, one of his four sisters who had all married when Philip was young, was killed with her family in a plane crash in 1937. His headmaster said, approvingly, that Philip took the dreadful news “like a 

George, 2nd Marquess of
Milford Haven.

man.” Six months later, his guardian died at 45 from cancer. George of Milford Haven had been very interested in engineering and was technically ingenious and had passed on this interest to Philip. This aptitude became embedded in Philip’s enquiring mind and a fascination with how things worked, became one of the hallmarks of his subsequent life.

George’s younger brother, Louis Mountbatten, took up the guardian reins and it was he, ever ambitious for his name, who arranged for Philip, then a student at the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, to show around Princess Elizabeth and her sister, Margaret. The enduring rumour that the 13 year old Elizabeth fell in love with him then, may well be true though such early puppy love does not usually endure and produce a marriage of 73 years. He proposed during the Summer of 1946 but George V1 was not pleased; the Court was suspicious of Philip with Louis behind him; Louis was considered “unsound” with odd habits of friendship with Labour politicians! But Philip’s early losses are poignantly echoed in a letter he sent to Queen Elizabeth after he had stayed with them, thanking her for “...the simple enjoyment of family pleasures and amusements and the feeling that I am welcome to share them.”

Engaged couple, 1946.

Philip at Gordonstoun.

Young family with Charles and baby Anne.

Towards the end. No sign here of that indomitable
spirit withering or a challenge unmet.

I obtained much of the above information from a BBC News website  which was, itself, based on the book:

Young Prince Philip: His Turbulent Early Life by Philip Eade.

The Psychology of Owning a Car Parking Space

 

Feathers a little ruffled here!

I do not own a car but I live in a building of eight apartments with a side offering of a small car park. There are marked spaces plus two or three more available nearby in a garage. Once a year the owners of the apartments meet, this year on the ubiquitous Zoom, to discuss various relevant items. I do not attend as I am a tenant; of the owners, three live here [soon to be four] in three apartments and only one

is a car owner; the other five are absentee landlords, presumably with cars. The recent meeting apparently resulted in a very heated discussion about …. car parking. Of the absentee landlords, one lives in California; one in Monaco; one on the Belgian coast. The others live in Belgium but not in Brugge. I would guess that landlord visits by car to the building are not weekly. However, one Belgium-based owner had visited recently and his car parking space had been filled with someone else’s car. Reportedly, the fury that this aroused, presumably in the initial encounter, and certainly in the subsequent meeting, was considerable. Among the tasks allotted for the Syndic to carry out, was to discover if I had had guests. When family or friends visit for a few days, I had been told I could allow them to park in an available space and this I have done with the minority of my visitors with a car.

I received a phone call from the Syndic which began with the question, Do you have a visitor at the moment? In Covid I live at least 95+% of my time alone and cannot have visitors, residential or not. I spent Christmas alone fortified, as is my usual week, by Facetime chats. I was astonished at the question [because of Covid] but did soon discover that it was rooted in the Parking Problem. There is no need for further tedious explication though I have to admit, that my feathers were ruffled!!

And so to my question: What IS it about a private, personal parking space that can ignite the passions

in a way that a group of adults with untroubled lives, will spend a long, angry time on ‘discussion’? [“I will clamp your wheels!] I have mentioned this to a few friends and each had a story involving car parking and anger! Humans are territorial anyway and the car feels personal when one is in one’s own, driving along. It IS a personal space where one can be untidy, or store clothes and possessions, even money!. Somehow one’s car links up to the narcissist within! I can do what I like; it’s my car! The inner narcissist released! Perhaps this strong feeling of ownership is extended to include the parking space one owns too? I pay for that; it’s MINE! So the ego feels challenged, violated, when a stranger parks there without my permission [which will never be given!] I have observed that people who “blow up” quickly over something, often seem to have other anger issues; a clutch of other elements in their lives which they feel somehow diminishes them as people, and hurts them enough to cause anger. But can all the people angry about their misused parking space be SO angry? We aren’t talking cancer or heart attack or Long Covid here; just somebody parking in my space! To this car-less, car parking space-less person, it all seems incredibly petty and destructive of self and others.

Astridpark tulips

Home again after 5 months' quarantine

But in the meantime, there are tulips out in Astridpark; the swans of Brugge are out of quarantine [protection from bird 'flu] and gracing the canals again; a new rhododendron, President Roosevelt, graces my terrace and begins the annual beautification of that space; Mah Jong for three of us continues to provide a companionable few hours each week with both intellectual and sociable stimulation while my other Zoom and Facetime interludes serve to keep me in touch and connected. Feathers remain unruffled even stroked!

President Roosevelt in bloom.

Four rather refined ladies playing Mah Jong

New Plan for Immigration

Dr Maya Goodfellow
Research Fellow, Sheffield University.

Just when I am in full flow about the awfulness of the Republican Party’s gross rush to pass legislation suppressing voters in 43 States in the U.S., [ over 350 separate pieces of legislation, and counting…] I bought a New York Times yesterday [2/04/2021] and the lead political column on the front page was entitled: A Britain Now Built On Cruelty. The writer, Maya Goodfellow, a Research Fellow at Sheffield University, was commenting on the new immigration plan put forward by the ghastly Priti Patel, Home Secretary. Maya describes its proposals as “deeply sinister

Priti Patel.

”. Apparently, Priti, [I suspect a deeply authoritarian upbringing here!], proposes to welcome immigrants only coming via re-settlement schemes [fewer than 1% globally]. Others taking the only ways open to them of paying huge sums to people-smugglers, hiding on boats or on/under lorries, risking all, including loss of life, to reach Britain from non-E.U. countries, will be blocked from State support if they successfully arrive, given diminished family rights and be permanently liable for removal even if granted asylum.

Since Boris et al came to power, the UK immigration system has hardened. From January 1 this year, a points-based system was introduced which applies to both E.U and non-E.U. countries, thereby extending the unjustness of the non E.U. immigration rules to

Europeans, who before Brexit could go to live freely anywhere in the UK. Thus, there are now outrageously high immigration fees; limited or no access to basic state support; annual high fees to use the National Health Service [whether or not individuals pay taxes] In addition there is the new points system; thus 20 points if an immigrant has a job offer from a Government-approved firm;

Boris with flag collage.

10 points for a job-appropriate PhD; minimum income offered of £25,000 per annum; plus certain mandatory, job-specific skills. Effectively, low-paid workers are excluded. This increasingly immigrant-hostile system, since the General Election in 2019, has enabled Govt. representatives to ignore strong advice from a variety of civic organisations, to ensure all migrants were protected from Covid19, regardless of status, including access to health care and other public services. Some immigrants have remained locked in detention centres in spite of Covid outbreaks in some, and while ample travel advice and warnings against international travel have been available to the general population, immigrants have continued to be detained and many to be deported, often removed from family in Britain. Over 20 deportation flights took place during 2020, as boasted by Boris. There is, obviously, no safety net for the many who are already in the U.K. who dare not seek health advice or treatment in case of official apprehension and deportation.

It makes me even more ashamed to be British to learn from Maya that this anti-immigrant rhetoric and context, which I have vaguely heard but not considered, has been official policy for decades, at least since the 1968 Commonwealth Immigrants Act aimed at making it more difficult for people of colour to go to the UK to live and work. This links uncomfortably but surely to the wretched colonial system which enriched Britain among others, while draining wealth from the colonies. Boris et al are simply taking it to the next level; interesting, nay, enraging, how a self-proclaimed liberal bon viveur, often a stranger to the truth, will tighten the screws on the unprotected once he has the power to do so.

And meantime, I have been waxing indignant, not to say furious, at the Republican cult, ignoring a basic principle that electors choose their political representatives, as the G.O.P. seeks through law to choose its preferred electors and disenfranchise the unwanted, the poor and the blacks, all in the ‘game’ of acquiring, and keeping, power.. Quite apart from other considerations, it is irritating not to be able to feel a tiny bit more superior to the racist former slave states but, thanks to Boris et al, I cannot.

I always shudder, inwardly, at American racism, especially visible in the Southern States, and the strong American belief in its own exceptionalism. And now with Boris and the Brexiteers firmly in control in the UK, I am dismayed, indeed horrified, to witness the degree of anti-immigrant legislation and open hostility of the Government towards migrants. Plus, there are Conservative murmurs of British exceptionalism and ……….unbelievably ………talk of flags on municipal buildings. Horror of horrors! The leading taken-for-granted facet of American life which never fails to repel is the way ALL politicians have to affirm their belief in God [the Christian one, obviously] AND in patriotism. And I haven't even mentioned Trump who gave permission for, encouragement to, people to display their worst inclinations.

Trump mania intermixed with religiosity.
Frightening combination.

Difficult to get rid of the imperialist mindset.

Maya Goodfellow is the author of, Hostile Environment: How Immigrants Became Scapegoats.

Catching My Eye.

 

The incomparable Yo Yo Ma and his cello.

  Two or three news items have recently caught my eye plus, a local bakery’s innovation deserves mention.

The first one a week or two ago, featured world-famous cellist, Yo Yo Ma who took along his cherished cello when he attended the Berkshire Community College for his second Covid19 vaccination. He had, no doubt, cased the joint as they say, on his first visit so, after his jab, he sat in the entrance hall for maximum listening availability and played for fifteen minutes, calming down the background chatter and clatter, and delighting the listeners who had, by chance, happened upon a mini spontaneous concert of rare beauty. He subsequently said that he wanted to give something back. I thought how lovely his gesture had been but what totally cracked me up was the comment of Lesley Drage, lead clinical manager of the vaccination site. She thoughtfully ruminated, “So weird how peaceful the whole building became, just having a little bit of music in the background!” Would guess, Yo Yo, that the lucky audience really appreciated your little bit of background music and would like to join me in thanking you for your wonderful and generous idea..

And now, today, the news that the Thornton’s
sweet and chocolate shops are all to close, the latest victim of the change in shopping habits and customer taste. At its heyday in the 60s and 70s, Thornton’s had 450 shops and had tried repeatedly over the last decade, as it gradually closed some shops, to diversify with cafes and ice cream but to no avail. The remaining 61 shops will close with the loss of 600 jobs. Immediately I saw the name, I vividly remembered my mother always buying my children for their Christmas stockings, a flat metal tin of Thornton’s toffee complete with little metal hammer for the subsequent, satisfying smashing of the almost impenetrable adamantine goo. Anything from Thornton’s was a Treat with its ‘handmade’ Continental chocolates and delicious toffee but I suppose, looking back, it never essentially up-dated its product or experimented with its produce. It was light years away from the chic, elegant, unexpected offerings of, for example, Hotel Chocolat. I suppose that the British palate has also moved much more to dark chocolate than the overwhelming milk chocolate so popular in the 60s and 70s. And, unnoticed, the British palette has become more sophisticated, not a phrase I ever expected to write!!

Jeanine Pirro fulminating against anything said
by Immigration Attorney, David Leopold

Today, during what I always consider ‘a well-earned’ coffee break, I idly looked at my phone. Chanced across an extract from the David Packham Show featuring a clip from the dreaded Fox News,

Fox News H.Q. New York.
Unlikely to the choice of thinking people.

Justice With Judge Jeanine.. The interviewer who seemed permanently intoxicated with rage, was opining that Biden was sending all these immigrants infected with Covid across the Southern borders. Her guest was an Immigration Attorney, David Leopold, whose quiet answers seemed in danger of being swamped by the interviewer, Jeanine Pirro. He simply answered questions factually, when allowed, about the current refugee and Covid situations but truly and finally set his hostess alight when he veered into opinion and said calmly that it was Biden who was doing so much and making America great again. Complete immolation of hostess Jeanine who promptly cut him off, after thanking him “for nothing”, saying [hilariously] “I don’t tolerate lies on my show!” Beyond parody! Apparently the millions of Trump [or “Former Guy 45” as Tony Dortie now refers to him] supporters watch Fox. Apart from initially wondering why, I do understand that it is because opinion, often inflamed opinion, is presented as Fact and the audience chiefly knows no better, that the deeply-flawed Fox News is felt to be authentic and satisfying. It can safely be relied upon to support, encourage and inflame feelings of White extremism, racism, uncompromising, Godly Right Wingery and distrust/dislike/fear of Government. America, perhaps much of the world, has a huge problem if millions do not understand the difference between opinion and fact, AND moreover, do not wish to know the difference.

And finally …………… a tribute to my local bakery, Sint Paulus, who, as well as selling a fab range of breads, also has cakes/tarts, milk, yoghurt, eggs, jams and cheeses for sale, introduced a small range of Gin during Lockdown. Not sure if this was out of concern for the all-round mental health of its customers, or simply a worthy attempt to distract from the restrictions of Lockdown. Whatever! Seems inspired. Sint Paulus is one of the many reasons why I so love living here!

Customer eye's view of Sint Paulus

Pure Pink Gin
Royal Premium
No Nonsense Gin.
The inspired latest offering from the wonderful
local bakery!

A lovely addition to a nearby building
which may open as a cafe\
Eventually.

Upstart Crow.

Maggie O'Farrell.

 My son recently sent me a copy of Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell, the winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2020. It is an extraordinary novel, its prose is often lyrical and beautifully sustained in describing emotions and events, funeral rituals and detailing the journey of the plague. Sometimes its story is unbearable. The heroine is Anne Hathaway, rechristened as directed by her father in his will, as Agnes. She is a woman in her mid twenties from a family of affluent yeoman farmers, old, then, to be unmarried; she married the 18 year old son of a brutish Stratford glove-maker, a bully and an unpopular man. The son, never named, has had a good education and has become a Latin tutor to the children of the wealthier citizens of Stratford, those with pretensions. When they wed, she is pregnant and six months later, gives birth to Susanna; two years along the road, identical twins Hamnet and Judith [named after friends and neighbours of the couple] appear…

William Shakespeare 
April 23rd 1564-
April 23rd 1616.
He was 52, quite old in an age when
the average age of death was 35.

Agnes dominates the narrative; her husband is never named and she appears not to notice, or to dismiss, his gradual success as a playwright and the leader of a theatre company, appearing at Court from time to time. Chiefly, he lives in London. The gradual wealth he earns and sends home, is never discussed even when it permits the removal of the family into a huge and beautiful new home in Stratford. Everyone seems mystified as to how the Shakespeares have managed to become wealthy. The prescient details of how the plague spreads from a cabin boy and a monkey in Alexandria by degrees and chance encounters, to Stratford is brilliantly observed and should offer pause for thought to anti-vaxxers now. Twin Judith is infected but despite all, it is her twin Hamnet who catches the plague from her and dies at 11. The grief of both mother and twin is overwhelming but it is the grievous loss to the oft-absent father which is even more moving. He writes Hamlet three years after his much-loved son’s death in a sort of atonement and perhaps to demonstrate to his wife and himself the overwhelming grief he feels over their loss. Hamnet and Hamlet were “entirely interchangeable” names as seen in parish records in Stratford during the late

Globe Theatre, built by Shakespeare's company of players,
1599,destroyed by fire.
   June 29th 1613.

16^th and early 17^th centuries.

Having just been moved with sadness and admiration for Maggie O’Farrell’s lyrical re-imagining of the death of Hamnet and the Shakespeare story. I happened to see the phrase, “upstart crow” somewhere and I remembered the Shakespearean connection. In fact the description is the title of Ben Elton’s adaptation of the critically-acclaimed BBC TV sitcom starring David Mitchell which moved to the Gielgud Theatre in February 2020. It is a satirical Black-Adderesque comedy which has been much-lauded. I hadn’t known that the description came from one of Shakespeare’s rivals, Robert Greene, who published, “at his dyeing request”, a tract called Greene’s Groats-Worth of Witte bought with a million of Repentance. It describes” the follie of youth, the falsehood of make-shifte flatterers, the miserie of the negligent, and mischiefes of deceiuing Courtezans” and makes public criticism of his many enemies. Its singular title quotes, “an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers” and this is meant for Shakespeare. It is the first mention of Shakespeare in print [September 20, 1592.], and is both an accusation of his plagiarism and the intellectual disparagement of Shakespeare as someone who had not attended university. [Greene had attended both Oxford and Cambridge!] Greene also refers to Shakespeare as “an absolute Johannes fac totum” [or Jack-of-all-trades] a reference to the fact that Shakespeare was an actor-manager as well as a playwright.

Kenneth Branagh as Will
in All Is True.

/Ben Elton

A timely footnote is that I happened across Kenneth Branagh’s All Is True [2018] on Netflix the other evening; it is a story suffused with melancholy as it tells the elegiac tale of Shakespeare’s retirement in 1610 after the complete destruction by fire of the Globe Theatre. He sets about trying to establish himself as part of the Stratford household he knows so little, and re-designing his large garden as he ponders his life, often regretting past events. The narrative is imagined differently from Hamnet in some ways, in particular Hamnet’s death, and the portrayal of Anne/Agnes, but the stoical sadness of Anne, his wife, and the clear unhappiness of his daughter Susanna in her marriage, and of Judith, Hamnet’s twin, who lives with her parents, suffuses his life. Interestingly, the script-writer for both Upstart Crow and All Is True is Ben Elton who seems to be developing a Shakespearian monopoly. His script-writing is impeccable.

Globe interior.

Robert Greene's Groats-worth of Witte

Southwark where Shakespeare spent much
of his life and wrote most of his body of work

Cover of Maggie O'Farrell's
extraordinary book.