Back near my London hotel, I relished a quiet dinner at an airy Thai restaurant on Hugh Street. Ordering my standard Pimms & Lemonade, I eased back, enjoying the teak woods and fresh décor, sea blue on white. I was wrangling with how to rationalize spending so much time on characters so flagrantly and wastefully wealthy. Mary’s staff numbered over 100. In addition to her 10 maids of honor and bedchamber women, she had a full-time doctor, ushers, waiters, pages, coachmen, footmen, grooms, chairmen, watermen, postilions, cooks, a seamstress, a starcher, a laundress, and a lace mender. But it was just so damn fun to read, visualizing the luxury and beauty, the colors and textures.
If I ever need to reconcile the need for sharing Mary’s story, I only have to remind myself that despite the excess and decadence, no matter how acceptable it was for a queen to be subjugated to public birth, it is nonetheless humiliating and denigrating in any century, the ultimate show of power and powerlessness. What started out with four close women witnesses ended with a circus filled to standing room with members of the king’s court, including the Privy Council. There had been no screen around the bed and the side curtains were open. Mrs. Dawson, the first to arrive, shared that in full labor Mary asked the king to “hide her face with his head and periwig,” which he did, for she said she “could not be brought to bed and have so many men look on her.” All of the [19-member] council stood close at the bed’s feet and the Lord Chancellor on the step. At the king’s ensuing enquiry, forty-five witnesses, some very embarrassed, gave evidence. They were embarrassed? Politically, James II needed the birth to be well-documented. Mary would have known this. But shit. Indeed, the ultimate show of power and powerlessness. Poor thing.
Padma, the restaurant’s owner, strolled by. She told me I was beautiful. Will this be the last time I hear that from someone besides my sweet Tony? I guess I was still coming to terms with the aging process and the invisibility it brings, after all. I’ll get there. Exiting, I found a pay phone—yes, in an iconic red ‘telephone box’—right around the corner and called Tony. It was great to talk to him. He sounded well. Damn, I love the sound of his voice, sweet and southern. One of his brothers was there helping him move furniture. Tony was replacing disgusting dog-dirty carpet in our bedroom with hardwood floors—a major item on his “honey-do before I get home” list. Having a man who can build a house is very sexy. Doesn’t sound enlightened but it’s true.
Thursday morning, after another nightmare, I was off to Windsor Castle. What is it with these dreams? I was wandering through London with my heavy backpack when I ran into a former difficult student with his family. The shy older brother ignored me, the younger sister had her hair straightened, the father’s face was plastered with white zinc oxide due to sunburn.
I rose to a guidebook challenge that Windsor Palace, southwest of London, and Hampton Court, in Richmond—20 miles away—are difficult to see in one day, not because I wanted to rush, but because I only had five weeks to gather information. I needed to be focused on what I saw and why I saw it. I was lucky in London with the weather, because the summer was proving to be a wet one. Rain dodging. The train to Windsor was quick and easy, changing once at Slough.
I walked up Castle Hill to Windsor Castle. Being a weekday, the mood was mellow. The breeze was perfect. Windsor has a special, charming vibe. Raising my face to the sun, again I felt moments of gratitude. The royal family was not in residence, having departed the week before, after celebrating Garter Day. [4] Had the queen been there, Windsor Castle would have been closed to the public. I would have missed my chance to take in exquisite State Rooms.
Windsor Castle is the oldest and largest occupied castle in the world—from Norman fortress, through medieval expansion, from Protectorate headquarters and military prison, to home for Charles II after 11 years in French, Belgian, and Dutch exile. What would it feel like to return home—home to where your murdered father was laid to rest and thenactually redesign it into an English Versailles? Diarist Samuel Pepys called it, “the most Romantique castle that is in the world.”
Walking up Castle Hill, past gardens restored for Queen Elizabeth II’s previous Jubilee, I listened to the now familiar and pleasing introductory narration by Charles, Prince of Wales, that opened each audio tour. He found a niche in celebrating ancient architecture and sounded genuinely sincere, welcoming those who share his passion for antiquity.
Imagine Italian murals by Antonio Verrio [6] on twenty-three ceilings, black-and-white marble floors in a new great hall, and dazzling compositions in carved limewood by famed Dutch woodcarver Grinling Gibbons. [7]
The richness remains everywhere—expensive textiles, fringed velvets, magnificent tapestries, and works of art by master painters. Keep in mind that both Charles II and James II spent their childhoods in exile. The French influence was ever present in their renovations.
“English palaces were laden in color: Oriental cabinets, scarlet, black, blue, green and yellow stood on elaborately carved and gilded stands. Fine veneering and marquetry were displayed. There were silver-mounted tables and sconces and candelabra and cabinets of ebony and laburnum, and glazed bookcases.” (Oman)
I sat in the narrow St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle as students on a field trip tried to keep still and listen to their docent. I stayed for quite a while after they exited, imagining the religious controversy surrounding Mary and James in this very room. Crests of deceased knights mounted the walls, and flags of the current hung above the chapel benches. A perfect a place to sit and think.
I ran into the field-trippers outside of the chapel. Their harried middle-school teacher was begging for attention. I giggled to myself, grateful that I was just a tourist today and not in charge of unruly twelve-year-olds. Later, as I was leaving the Middle Ward Shop, I watched her scolding four or five pre-adolescent boys.
Long day, I mused sympathetically, remembering a local field trip to Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage just outside if Nashville. Some of our students were so terrible, we teachers feared we wouldn’t be welcome ever again. It happens. Before leaving the Windsor Castle grounds, I watched a palace gardener at work in the once moated area. The castle’s grandeur took a homey spin. I relished my time there. I had been snooty about “looking like a tourist.” But then watching Prince Philip’s funeral, a sense of space shared for a brief momenet. There is a reason why people visit.
I walked back to the Windsor train platform. Leaning against a metal railing, wind the only noise, I lifted my face to the sun and waited for the next train back to Waterloo station and Richmond, home of Hampton Court.
I felt good. I felt strong.
Notes:
4 The Most Noble Order of the Garter is an order of chivalry, one of the most senior order of knighthood, founded in the 14th century. On the annual iconic Garter Day procession, Queen Elizabeth II and the Knights process in grand velvet robes, insignia, and plumed hats. It is s one of the most traditional ceremonies in the Queen’s calendar.
5 In a Baroque palace, access down an enfilade suite of state rooms was determined by the rank of the visitor. The first rooms were more public, making way to the bedroom. Protocol dictated that servants escorted visitors down the enfilade to the farthest room their status allowed. If the visitor was of equal or higher access, the host would meet his guest before taking him back to the bedroom. At parting, the same ritual would be observed.
6 Verrio (c. 1636 –1707) was responsible for introducing Baroque mural painting into England. He served the Crown over a thirty-year period. Celia Fiennes called Verrio “the best hand in England.” It took him
12 years to complete the Windsor murals.
7 Grinling Gibbons, the Michaelangelo of Wood, was the most celebrated British woodcarver of the 17th century. Gibbons emigrated to London from Rotterdam and quickly attracted attention. He was given his first royal commission by Charles II to produce decorative carving for Windsor Castle. His subsequent decorative work at Windsor Castle took 6 years and set the seal of royal approval on the ornate style. It established his fame. Evelyn wrote: ‘[I] saw him about such a work, as for the curiosity of handling, drawing and studious exactness, I never in my life had seene before in all my travells.’
