Margaretta’s London – stench, pyre-sootened skies and social unrest
The burning of John Rogers, 4th February 1555.
Margaretta’s London – stench, pyre-sootened skies and social unrest
The London in which Margaretta Morgan, the assistant to John Dee in The Conjuror’s Apprentice, would have walked was not a comfortable place. By 1555, the reign of Queen Mary was causing such political and social havoc that rebellions had already been raised.
This upheaval began two years prior when Mary rode triumphant into London to claim the throne and put to an end the nine-day reign of Lady Jane Grey. The streets rang with celebration that right had been done and King Harry’s daughter would continue the Tudor reign. But Mary had ambitions driven by her early years and her belief that Catholicism was the only true faith. Within a month, celebration turned to concern as all Protestant Bishops were arrested and replaced with their Catholic rivals. Rioting started within days when Catholic priests entered the churches and the congregations, now used to Protestantism being a fully accepted faith, turned on them.
Anger spread across the country and Wyatt started a rebellion in the West Country. It was huge and reached the walls of London before being supressed. Punishment was merciless and Mary made herself even more unpopular when she put her own sister, the much loved Elizabeth, in the Tower of London.
Alarm increased in December 1554 when Mary revived the Heresy Laws making all Protestants heretics. Her fanatical Bishops - Bonner, Gardiner and Tunstall - set up a court no less fierce than the Inquisition and within days of the Heresy Act being pushed through parliament in January 1555, the trials began – and the punishment was terrible. The first ‘martyr’ was John Rogers, a clergyman and bible translator. He was dragged to Smithfield, past his wife and ten children, tied to a stake and faggots of wood set alight. His slow and agonising death was met with grace – and the crowd turned on their queen. The burnings were relentless and with each martyr, anger and horror grew.
Concern turned to fury, when Mary announced that she would marry and make King, Philip of Spain and cement her ties with Philip’s father, bringing England under the influence of the Holy Roman Empire. Parliament petitioned against it, advisors fretted in Court. But Mary was determined to create a Catholic Royal Family [link to blog on Mary] and the plan went ahead. Here began the hatred of the Spanish with racism abounding. Spanish visitors were not trusted, not spoken with and generally seen as invaders.
So what would Margaretta have experienced as she walked through London?
Today, the streets of London are busy, noisy, well-lit and clean. Not in 1555. In Maryan England, cities were filthy, smelly, rough and dangerous.
Margaretta would have walked along narrow, cobbled streets, made darker by the overhangs of half-timbered buildings and the washing which was strewn between the upper floors. On the ground would be a mess of dropped rubbish, animal dung, rotting food and sometimes human excrement thrown from upper windows, though this was illegal. While the slaughterhouses were outside the city walls, meat and fish were brought into city markets. But there would not be the daily sluicing down we see in Smithfield Market today. If food dropped it just rotted in the heat. We can only imagine that the warmer months meant that stench was the scent of the streets.
She would see hawkers of pies and merchants on the main streets. The noise would be only of people shouting, wooden cart wheels clattering over cobbles and animals being droved through streets. At times of prayer, bells would ring out. Beggars were everywhere as inflation had put up prices and the actions of Henry VIII in destroying the church in the Reformation had also removed the monasteries and religious charities which had for centuries looked after the sick, the lame and the desperate. Without these they sat on every street corner with their hands out.
There would be no street lighting and night travel was dangerous. If you had the money then a link boy could be hired to walk ahead of you with a candle lamp, but this was no security against robbers and pick-pockets.
And what of the general talk? It was a miserable time. Inflation had meant a general grumbling and fear of rising prices – no different than what we hear today. A year of rain and storms had destroyed the harvest and so food was both scarcer and more expensive. Add to this a general sense of fear. We often think of medieval people being hardened to execution and even seeing it as entertainment. But when executions were for belief rather than crime, when they were so cruel, when they were becoming a weekly event, then the hardest of minds begin to feel sickened. There was also the wider persecution. Authorities could raid your house and take away books or anything else perceived and possibly seditious. Lord Englefield began his campaign to root out conjurers and those suspected of witchcraft. There was a general feeling that no-one was safe, save those fanatical Catholics close to the queen.
So Margaretta would also have felt the growing hatred of Mary. It would be seen in the pamphlets coming out of hidden presses, it would be muttered in houses and taverns, it would come out in gossip. In May 1555 the streets would be humming with talk of Mary’s pregnancy and the growing belief that it was a fantasy. Gossip abounded of high-born men trying to buy new-born boys; that Mary had given birth to a dog; that Mary was in fact dead and Philip taking England into the Holy Roman Empire.
So Margaretta would walk through a general atmosphere of fear, anger, horror of the pyres and hatred of the ever growing community of Spaniards. London was not a happy place in 1555 – but it would get worse before it would get better.
Further reading
Though set in Elizabethan times which started three years after 1555, The Time Traveller’s Guide to Elizabethan England. Ian Mortimer. ISBN: 9780099542070 gives an excellent insight into life in the mid 1500s