h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Henry the Eighth The Globe Theatre 2010

If the grandeur of the costumes and the processions in 1613 were anything like the 2010 production, this must have been a real thrill. The play treats of the fall of Cardinal Wolsey and the trial and divorce of Henry’s first wife, Katherine of Aragon. Katherine is portrayed as a dutiful and honourable wife in the play and is given many scenes which must have tugged the heart strings of the audience.

Henry doesn’t come out of the situation with much credit. Much is made of the King’s crisis of conscience, having married his brother’s wife. Perhaps he should have checked with Claudius? Henry had an elder brother, Arthur, who was betrothed to Katherine but Arthur died after only twenty weeks and eventually Katherine was shunted into Henry’s bed. The laws on incest have always been open to interpretation, especially when the powerful were doing the interpreting. There are other factors operating on Henry at this time. The desire for a male heir, which Katherine was now too old to provide, and possibly even more pressing, the desire to get Anne Bullen out of her frock.

I am not up to speed on the rules in the 16th century but I don’t imagine they had changed much by the 19th century. Which is where I found a personal connection. I have a many times great grandfather named Ben Johnson. Which is as close to Shakespeare I can get unless I can trace a relationship with Thomas Johnson of Ealing whose wife Joan Johnson worked as a maid in the Belott’s house on Silver Street when Will lodged there.

Incest, as defined by the Church, was of two types. One was grounded in consanguinity, that is a blood relationship, aunt and nephew, cousins etc. The other was on grounds of affinity, brother and sister in law for example as we have in Ben Johnson's case. The problem with a man marrying his dead wife's sister was twofold. Firstly it was a popular event! Very often an unmarried sister would live with her married sister's family and would be on hand and available to care for the family in the event of a mother's early death.

Secondly, under church rules in an age when the government tended not to interfere with the church and morality, whilst these marriages were not strictly forbidden, they were not void in the legal parlance, they were voidable. An interesting concept. A voidable marriage was one that was perfectly legal and conferred all the normal rights and privileges to the husband, wife, and children, yet could be challenged in court by anyone at any time. And the court always pronounced in favour of the complainant.

You had a situation where at any moment your children could be disinherited by any one with enough spare cash to start a case and vindictive enough to want to do it. The marriage would be declared void and any children declared illegitimate. Amongst the better off sort it became a practice to get a friend to enter a case against them but then to allow the case to drag on and never get to court, because courts would only hear one complaint at a time, thus effectively blocking any other complainants.

By 1835 this situation was seen to be intolerable and the legislation was passed to rationalise the situation. Which it didn't. The law stated that as from 31st August 1835, marriages between a man and his dead wife's sister were forbidden, but any marriages undertaken before the Act came into force would be legitimised and could not be voided. What in fact happened was that people who had previously been open to vindictive complaints became fully protected but at the cost of all subsequent marriages between these degrees being unlawful.

This didn't seem to have a huge effect on the population. Figures show that in five districts of England between 1835 and 1848, there were 1,364 unions within the prohibited degrees and over twelve hundred of those were between men and their dead wife’s sister. Throughout the 19th century after 1835, the matter was constantly returning to Parliament and solutions to the problem sought. It wasn't until the passing of the Deceased Wife's Sister's Marriage Act of 1907 that these unions became lawful. The numbers suggest that most of the clergy and the general population were ignoring the law anyway. In true gender inequality fashion, the marriage of a widow to her dead husband’s brother wasn’t legalised until 1921.

Ben married Sarah Gibson in 1845 and they had a number of children before Sarah died in August 1867. In March 1868 Ben married Caroline Gibson and no doubt they lived happily ever after. Which is more than can be said for poor Anne. In the 2010 production, whether by design or happenstance, the actress playing Anne bears an uncanny resemblance to our own sweet Kate, Duchess of Cambridge, Gawd Bless Her.

The play certainly brought the house down on its first run in 1613. A piece of wadding from a prop cannon landed on the thatched roof and within minutes the theatre was ablaze. Luckily no one was badly injured, one man had his breeches catch fire but with great presence of mind doused the flame with the bottle of beer he was holding. It has been conjectured that the destruction of the theatre and the subsequent cost of rebuilding, with a tiled roof, was the spur for Will to retire to Stratford. There is no extant direct evidence to support or refute this claim. The modern Globe is the first building with a thatched roof allowed in London since the Great Fire in 1666.

Watching Shakespeare at the Globe is a delicious experience, you cannot possibly recreate what it may have been like in the 1600’s and possibly aromatically speaking you might not want too, but it is, for a bardophile, a thrill. At least once one should join with the groundlings, standing in the yard. Some advice however. You need to be reasonably fit to stand for up to three hours with a twenty minute break. If possible get in early enough to be up against the stage, and then you can lean on it and take the weight off. Alternatively head for the back of the yard and lean against the partitions in the seating area. (I write these journals in Word before transferring them to Hootoo, obviously I do a quick spell check. Mostly Bill Gates doesn’t know how to spell Elizabethan related words. However he did kindly suggest I might like to change ‘for a bardophile’ into ‘for a paedophile’. How very dare he.)

Take a hat and a supply of water. In summer it can get very warm in the enclosed space. Also in summer (this is England bless its soggy little head) take waterproofs for the rain (it raineth every day, warned Will) which doesn’t stop the performance, neither do the helicopters flying overhead. Actors get used to working outdoors. I once watched a performance of ‘The Merry Wives of Windsor’ in a castle grounds. In the middle of one scene there was a short sharp shower. The actors, professional to their soggy tights, didn’t miss a beat and continued through to ‘exeunt all’, at which point one looked up into the sky and muttered, ‘I really must get this roof fixed.’

Try to attend a matinee, which is the best time to watch as it recreates the time all outdoor shows were put on, there was no electricity in Elizabethan London as that wasn’t invented until after the Civil War. (Theatre history I know a bit, scientific history I’m a bit woollier on.) And the best way to get there is down river. Take a water bus from Westminster pier to the Bankside pier. It is probably the way the courtiers arrived from Whitehall, just up the road from Westminster.

Also remember to join in. The Globe has adopted a very Elizabethan attitude to the shows. There is much music beforehand, lots of extra comic stage business, and always a jig (well the actors bob up and down) at the end. It is also perfectly allowable to hiss the villains and coo at the lovers. I saw a production of ‘Much Ado’ as a groundling, naturally, and standing close by me was a group of pupils on a school trip who, with their fine coiffeurs and perfect skin and teeth, where obviously from an expensive academy for posh young ladies.

As is traditional for school trips they had rolled their uniform skirts up from the waist, to raise them from the regulation one inch above the knee to seriously dangerous for my heart, above the thigh. They ooohed and aaaahed almost in unison through all the vicissitudes of the love match twixt Benedick and Beatrice, and cheered heartily at the romantic conclusion.

I have forgotten what I was writing about. Time to go.

That took a while to post. It wouldn't fly in Pliny. Restarted in Brunel and it informed that it had a bad word in it. So naturally I amended the P file word. Still no joy. Not wishing to lose a joke I persevered with variations. Finally I worked out that it was my 19th century use of the word for illegitimate children that was the problem. What a bd.

Do schoolgirls still do that (roll their skirts up?) I'll bet our generation were the first to do it, thanks to Mary Quant (who was also post Civil War)

Deb

"Do schoolgirls still do that (roll their skirts up?)"

Yes they do.

I can endorse the recommendation to see something at the Globe as a groundling. A wonderful experience rain or shine. The standing up is fine, but standing still is what makes your legs ache. Move around a bit. And visit the gift shop afterwards.

I can also recommend a visit in January for the Twelfth Night events. I have no idea whether this really is what happened in Shakespeare's time (pebble?) but it's a lot of fun. Starts at the Globe, ends at the George Inn. Wrap up warm! 5th January 2014 http://www.thelionspart.co.uk/twelfthnight/

What a fascinating piece of research on marriage and legitimacy!

Coelacanth: Checked out the link and that looks like a lot of fun, I will note it for a possible 2015 visit

Some of the events appear to be pulled in from a general folk traditions but the bean and pea in a cake to select the king and queen are authentic.

Asteroid Lil: Yes, it was great fun. I was doing some ancestor tracking, interesting but not earth shattering, no highwaymen or mistresses of members of the Royal family. Found the two wives of greats granpa Ben and following up on their parentage discovered they were sisters.

Hamlet had already tipped me off that this sort of relationship was regarded by sensitive sons as incestuous so I checked it out and the result was what you read in the journal.

Genealogical research is fascinating stuff, especially with the resources now available on the interweb, but care needs to be taken, especially when you find very interesting characters.

I tracked one branch of my family back to German/Polish immigrants into the East End of London in 1844. One grand daughter from the family ended up living her adult life 'resident' in a convent which provided secure accomodation for young girls in moral danger. As she originally lived in the same area and at roughly the same period as Jack the Ripper, she possibly had a lucky escape.

Sadly subsequent research revealed that there were two people with the same name and birthdate and my ancestral line was the other one, whose family lead a boringly blameless life, and had never been to Germany!

[Amy P]