Introducing myself

Hi Mary!  Sounds like fun.  Welcome!

Hi, thanks for the warm welcome.

Since Michael, and no doubt a few others, mention your love of history, I thought some people might be able to answer some questions for me. What should everyday life have been during the Armadas? Remember that there are several of them, all unsuccessful.

 Still, in spite of the Spanish's failings, the English surely did not expect it to just be a sea battle. My characters are not much concerned about this. The Spanish were the stronger army, and if they won the sea battle, they would invade. What were some preparations against this? I assume they used whatever they had in the peasant's revolt to limit travel, chains across the streets, inspecting all who entered, etc. Also people would have begun to hoard, and government would have been confiscating grain, so prices would be skyrocketing. I remember some of this mainly from Gone with the Wind and my mother's  stories of her own mother in WWI.

Also, and most important, my characters are Catholics. They are not pro-Spain; a more similar case is the Japanese who were rounded up in WWII here in America. They were English citizens, and their only crime was wanted to go to the church they believed in. That law said that they couldn't, but they felt that the law was wrong. So there is a lot of prejudice, a lot of arrests, whatever. This also means, for my priests, a lot of problems getting around a city that is inspecting passers-by. I seem to be okay figuring that problem that, but it is part of the scenery.

I'm not finding much other information about London preparing for a seige. Do I need anymore?

Thanks for any help you can give.

 Mary

Perhaps a 'look' at one of my 'ancestors' may help you mary? he was born, one of the Gerrards of Brynn (kingsley) which is in Wigan area of Lancashire from which I decended.

John Gerrard Jesuit Priest and scholar

John Gerard was born in 1564, the same year as a lad from Stratford, (Shakespear),whose later dramas in the Tudor playhouses obliquely reflected the struggles and defeats of his fellow Catholics. (Shakespears teenage life is little documented but it is believed that he spent a number of years ‘studying’ at Hoghton Tower Lancashire, a catholic ‘house’. the Hoghtons where related by marriage to the Gerrards of Brynn in Lanchashire, a large landowning family descended from otto fitz Gerald of Windsor who as a Norman Nobleman came with William the Conqueror in 1066. Fitz Gerald (Gerrard) was decended from the Gherardini family of Florence, the family that began the house of Hanover (Germany) from which Elizabeth II of England decended (as did the Russian Royal Family)

Already by 1584 John Gerrard  had been imprisoned in the Marshalsea, where he encountered several priests “who, with a light hearts, were awaiting sentence of death”. On his release he went to Rome where he was ordained a Jesuit; then in October 1588 he returned to England in the disguise of “a gentleman of moderate means”, landing on the Norfolk coast.
He ministered secretly as a priest in East Anglia until his arrest in 1594. In 1597 he was moved to the Tower, where he was tortured. It was in October 1597, while still recovering from the effects of being hung up for hours by his arms, that Gerard made his bold escape with the help of friends: a rope was slung across the Tower’s moat from the battlements on the roof above his cell; he and a fellow prisoner swung themselves across it and were spirited away down the Thames by boat. Amazingly, he evaded recapture and was able to continue his ministry in Northamptonshire for a further eight years. The Gunpowder Plot of 1606 forced him into exile; he died in Rome in 1637.
These are the bare bones of Gerard’s extraordinary career. His description of the life of a missionary priest in Tudor and Jacobean England provides the most vivid and detailed account we have of those days: the false personae priests adopted; the subterfuges they employed – such as Gerard’s smuggled messages from prison, written in lemon juice; the generosity of the recusant gentry; and the unsung bravery of so many Catholic servants. He was clearly cool-headed, resourceful and blessed with nerves of steel. He also had a powerful sense of the Providence of God working through him.
In this absorbing chronicle we encounter priest-martyrs such as Henry Garnet and Edward Oldcorne, whose zeal for souls was such that he once fasted for four days in order to convert one obdurate Protestant lady (he succeeded). St Anne Line, whose holy married life was immortalised by Shakespeare in his enigmatic poem The Phoenix and the Turtle, was at one time Gerard’s housekeeper. We also meet villains like Topcliffe, the notorious priest-hunter, whom Gerard says “spoke from the cesspool of his heart.” Above all there is Gerard himself, telling his torturers that “You can do with me what God allows you to do – more you cannot do” and never despairing, even after the Gunpowder Plot, when he writes, “Nearly all my friends were either in prison or so distressed that they could hardly look after themselves.” His final lines show his humility: “Hitherto I have been a sterile plant. I pray that at last I may begin to bear some fruit.”

 

Good evening everyone - I have literally joined this Forum within the past ten minutes so I haven't really found my feet in here at all as yet except to introduce myself very briefly here.

I live in a really lovely part of England - in Herefordshire, in Ledbury - in the eastern part of the county at the southern end of the Malvern Hills, close to the spot where the famous Three Counties meet up together - Herefordshire, Gloucestershire and Worcestershire.....Three Counties can mean different things to different people - be it the Three Counties Music Festival or the Three Counties Agricutural or Flower and Gardening Shows held at various times during the year.

Herefordshire is a very beautiful county scenically - very rural and containing Hereford city and a host of small towns and villages representing picturesque England at its very best.  Although it's so close to Wales it is essentially a very English county - black and white timbered buildings, lovely churches and villages full of charm and character.     Herefordshire is also very accessible and so is a convenient place to live for commuters as well as everyone else - Ledbury has direct train links to Birmingham and London, and lots of places in between, and the M50 motorway is only 4 miles from Ledbury.

The town I live in - Ledbury - is the birthplace of the former Poet laureate John Masefield and the Victorian writer Elizabeth Barrett Browning...and also William Langland, a writer and poet from the days of Old English in the 14th century.  The poet W H Auden got married here, and the American poet  Robert Frost lived just outside the town.    It has strong links with Sir Edward Elgar - he was born near Worcester and is buried seven miles away from Ledbury -  in West Malvern.

Needless to say Ledbury hosts a famous Poetry Festival every July - no connection at all with the Big Chill Pop Festival also held every July one and a half miles away at Eastnor Castle, the scene of many celebrity weddings! 

Herefordshire is looking especially glorious at the moment in all its early summer greenery, and recenty the weather has been truly spectacular with clear blue skies and very pleasant sunshine.....it's also been particularly dry so far this spring and early summer as well....it looks set for a wonderful summer this year!     I will do my best to post some pictures of Herefordshire as soon as i can.

Hi Sandy,

Welcome to the website. I look forward to seeing your pictures.

Ray.

Hi Sandy and welcomr from me.  Your area sounds lovely.  Looking forward to your pictures.

Michael, I absolutely LOVE the history.  It's great the way your family's geneaology has been preserved and researched like that.

Hello again, everyone!  It's another really lovely day in Herefordshire - plenty of sunshine and at 17C it's pleasantly cooler than the 27C we've had for the past few days.

This is where I live - just follow all the links and you will see a series of pictures my little town (population only 9,000+).   I am still getting to grips with computerisation (at my age of 71 I know less than the average 5 years old!) and I will have to find out how exactly I can post my own pictures in this Forum - I have a scanner but that's about it - I need to study the instructions a bit more in order to post them in here in the appropriate threads.

I've just been out to vote in the European Parliamentary Elections, took my little dog George to the vet to have a mobility problem sorted out (he is 12 and a half years old so sadly he is now older than I am in dog years !) -  and will take him out for a short walk through the nearby woods before lunch.

The black and white timbered Market House (it's actually supported on stilts!) has been there since before the days of William Shakespeare, and our local Town Council holds its weekly meetings in there) and in the space beneath it is where the Tuesday and Saturday street market is held, as well as in the surrounding High Street.

Debbie - I hope you and your husband enjoy your visit to England - and that the English weather will be the same as it is at present - I'm afraid I can't offer any guarantees at all as our climate is so unpredicable - it's a case of what you see is what you get most of the time, but when it's nice it can be really, really nice!

http://www.picturesofengland.com/England/Herefordshire/Ledbury/pictures/1065539