What have the Romans ever done for us?

Yesterday we visited the Roman Baths in Bath and it reminded me how much Britain lost when the legions left to fight barbarians in other bits of the Empire. Britain did not regain levels of comfort enjoyed during the Roman period until the twentieth century. That's 1500 years of catching up. The Romans had brick houses, running water and underfloor heating. When they left they took all their skills with them, including that of brick-making. I have always found it difficult to grasp that Vikings came AFTER the Romans and King Arthur came AFTER the Romans. I don't care what trendy people say about history, the fall of the Roman Empire ushered in a Dark Age. Imagine! No underfloor heating!

The large central bath in the Roman Baths. The water, gushing from deep in the earth, is very warm

If you would like to read more about Roman Britain and the fall of the Roman Empire, you can read Gibbon and then boast about your erudition or go for one of these more digestible books:

The Fall of Rome And the End of Civilization  by Bryan Ward-Perkins Under Another Sky: Journeys in Roman Britain by Charlotte Higgins I have read the first, but not the second yet. Here is a review of the second. When Gibbon (whom I haven't read) presented the second volume of  The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire to his patron, the Duke of Gloucester, his Grace remarked, “Another damn'd thick, square book! Always, scribble, scribble, scribble! Eh! Mr. Gibbon?" The day before yesterday we visited the British Museum and saw the Pompeii and Herculaneum exhibition. We are a bit exhibitioned out at the moment, so we didn't take up the offer of an audio-tour and I wandered around feeling inurred to novelty. Until of course I saw the statue of Pan having sex with a goat.  The Museum itself is something to behold. The Great Court, opened in 2000, lends a hallowed feel to the whole building.  The Queen Elizabeth II Great Court, designed by Foster and Partners

The Fall of Rome And the End of Civilization  by Bryan Ward-Perkins Under Another Sky: Journeys in Roman Britain by Charlotte Higgins I have read the first, but not the second yet. Here is a review of the second. When Gibbon (whom I haven't read) presented the second volume of  The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire to his patron, the Duke of Gloucester, his Grace remarked, “Another damn'd thick, square book! Always, scribble, scribble, scribble! Eh! Mr. Gibbon?" The day before yesterday we visited the British Museum and saw the Pompeii and Herculaneum exhibition. We are a bit exhibitioned out at the moment, so we didn't take up the offer of an audio-tour and I wandered around feeling inurred to novelty. Until of course I saw the statue of Pan having sex with a goat.  The Museum itself is something to behold. The Great Court, opened in 2000, lends a hallowed feel to the whole building.  The Queen Elizabeth II Great Court, designed by Foster and Partners

The Fall of Rome And the End of Civilization 
by Bryan Ward-Perkins

Under Another Sky: Journeys in Roman Britain

by Charlotte Higgins

I have read the first, but not the second yet. Here is a review of the second. When Gibbon (whom I haven't read) presented the second volume of  The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire to his patron, the Duke of Gloucester, his Grace remarked, “Another damn'd thick, square book! Always, scribble, scribble, scribble! Eh! Mr. Gibbon?"

The day before yesterday we visited the British Museum and saw the Pompeii and Herculaneum exhibition. We are a bit exhibitioned out at the moment, so we didn't take up the offer of an audio-tour and I wandered around feeling inurred to novelty. Until of course I saw the statue of Pan having sex with a goat. 

The Museum itself is something to behold. The Great Court, opened in 2000, lends a hallowed feel to the whole building. 

The Queen Elizabeth II Great Court, designed by Foster and Partners

Satin, pearls and pleats

Yesterday we walked through Green Park and Hyde Park to Kensington Palace to see an exhibition about Queen Victoria's private life, which can be summed up thus: miserable, happy, miserable. She had a difficult childhood and adolescence. Her father, the Duke of York, died when she was very young. Her mother was overprotective and overbearing, she slept in a bedroom with Victoria until Victoria became Queen. She wouldn't let Victoria walk down stairs by herself in case she fell. Ever. The first thing Victoria did when she became Queen was to banish her mother from the bedroom and assert her independence. Victoria was blissfully married to Albert and completely distraught, hysterical and unmanageable when he died in 1861. He was a great loss, as he was highly intelligent and greatly respected.

Photo taken at the exhibition of Victoria and her four oldest children.

The exhibition covered Victoria's whole life and featured the room in which she was born, which was a room in a Grace and Favour apartment in Kensington Palace. Living in a palace might sound glamourous, but the reality was often quite different. The people who were granted accommodation were often cash-strapped and the apartments might be hopelessly antiquated or impractical. It was all very well having a gargantuan ex-state room at your disposal, but staring day after day at a fire-place that caters for three-foot logs you can't afford would become rather depressing, I would think. 

From Parker, S.E; Grace and Favour The Hampton Court Palace Community 1750-1950 Historic Royal Palaces

The photo above is of the Wolsey rooms in Hampton Court Palace during Lady Georgiana Peel's occupation in around 1926. Ms Parker writes, "Lady Peel disliked her apartment finding the large rooms difficult to heat". Another resident, who died in 1949, lived at Hampton Court for the whole of her 105 years. She never had a bathroom.

Victoria and Albert married in 1840.  Here is a link to a previous exhibition at Kensington Palace, of royal wedding dresses.  Victoria's dress was made from white satin woven at Spitalfields in London and exquisite English lace. It was a relatively simple dress befitting a personal occasion. 

Contrast this with the magnificence of her Coronation gown:

Yesterday we visited the State Rooms at Buckingham Palace and saw Queen Elizabeth's Coronation gown, complete with wattle emblems:

The gown was designed by Norman Hartnell and I have always thought his designs a tad dowdy, to be honest. 

I have wondered why ermine appears as it does and yesterday I discovered that ermine is made from the white winter fur of the stoat and the black dashes are actually the tails, pinned to the white fur. Not very nice. Then again, the ermines on her Majesty's train will be remembered a lot longer than the chicken I ate for dinner last night. 

Before our tour of Buckingham Palace we saw an exhibition at the Queen's Gallery of Tudor period costume. There were very strict rules about what you could wear to Court and dressing the part could be ruinously expensive, with one cloak costing as much as a house. The outfit may only be worn a few times, so the sitter would sometimes have a portrait made while wearing it, I suppose so they could laugh at themselves. Here is a link to a costume with gold spangly bits and a funny hat that a woman thought looked Turkish in 1590. This link is to a close up of a portrait of Anne of Denmark, Queen Consort of King James I. The close-up shows the waist and the top of Anne's skirt, which was draped over a frame known as a farthingale. Each pleat that you see had to be sewn when the wearer was in the dress!!! So dressing could take hours!!! Anne was wedded to her complicated skirts and farthingales, so all the women at Court had to follow suit (or skirt) and as soon as she died the ladies happily cast away the farthingales and the pleats. 

The Ritz and Flowers

No, we are not staying at The Ritz. That is the preserve of Russian oligarchs, dying baronesses and Arabian oil merchants; but the hotel restaurant has a lunch deal, £47 for three courses. Here is a picture of the restaurant:

http://www.theritzlondon.com/restaurant/dining-en.html

which looks like an early scene from La Traviata, resplendent in vivid pink velvet and gilt. It is quite beautiful, if you like Fin de Siècle flamboyance. The waiters were beautiful too. All male, under 30 and European, two to a table, wearing tails. We were given four little amuse bouche before our entree, one of which we were told contained lobster and was pink and frothy and tasted like medicine. Very disconcerting. Entree was soup, red pepper soup and for me, tomato consommé with lobster (again) and heirloom tomatoes.

Both our mains were ordinary, but dessert was a gorgeous banana souffle with banana and rum ice cream. The food is presented with great pomp. The mains were brought out covered in little porcelain hats and removed simultaneously by the spunky waiters. I had to stop myself from saying, "ta DA!" and was a little underwhelmed when I saw the chicken breast in gravy with three veg on the plate. The turnip was a tiny nouvelle one, but still. Overall the experience was worth it, just to see the Ritz, which has such famous associations.

I first visited England in about 1995 for a conference in Liverpool. I stayed at a small hotel recommended by Vogue Australia while in London. It was on Warwick Way in Pimlico and happily the name escapes me. Breakfast was served in the basement in a low ceilinged room with florescent lighting. The tea was the colour of English women before the invention of the sun-bed, the toast was burnt and soggy, which is quite a feat when you think about it. Fortunately I was so beside myself with excitement to be in London that no small inconvenience mattered, but the memory lives on.

One of the flower beds at Hampton Court Palace 

I have been trying to determine whether the quality of English food improved with my budget or independently. It is definitely the latter. I don't know the reasons for this-I started googling, "why is English food..." and the predictive text finished the sentence with"so bad?" I actually wanted to type in "why is English food so much better" and came up with this article from a food blog. And this one from the Telegraph.

These beautiful hanging baskets are everywhere

On the way to Ede and Ravenscroft we wandered into St Clement Danes, a beautiful church designed by Sir Christopher Wren, which is the central church for the RAF. We passed three Wren churches between St James Square and Chancery Lane. Wren was enchanted by Versaille and wanted to create Baroque splendour throughout London. Coincidentally, the Great Fire of London happened in 1666 and paved the way (so to speak) for him to live the dream. Eighty-seven churches were destroyed by the fire, including St Paul's Cathedral, which was much, much bigger than the new one, designed by Wren, who also designed 51 other churches. He lived until he was 91, but I still suspect any invitation was greeted with the response, "Can't. Designing a church".

St Clement Danes

Today we passed a new memorial in Hyde Park, built in 2012 in honour of the bomber pilots of the Britain and the Commonwealth that did so much to save us in WWII:

Wagner, William III and wisdom teeth

When we were in Lucerne last week, we visited the Richard Wagner Museum. The composer lived in Lucerne for six years from 1866 to 1872 in this lovely house on a peninsula near the city centre:

I haven't written about it until now because I felt very ambivalent after our visit, which included watching a documentary narrated by Kenneth Branagh about Wagner's life and work. Wagner was rabidly anti-Semitic. I knew that already, but I didn't know he took a four year break from writing music to pen an antisemitic diatribe. His admirers divorce the man from the music, but I find that difficult to do. When I was standing in his sitting room, I kept imagining Wagner, surrounded by a circle of devotees, haranguing them about the Jewish problem. He was a vile person generally and I am not so in love with his music that I can ignore that fact. Although, now I am typing this I am thinking of the aching beauty of Siegfried's Funeral March and Wagner's portrayal of strong women and I am softening. It might be a good idea to watch Stephen Fry's documentary on his struggle with loving Wagner again or read this book I found by Marc Weiner. I also found this debate in the Wagner Journal, which I started reading until one of the authors mentioned Hegel, then my eyes crossed and I stopped.

The house is on a peninsula and looks toward the Grand National Hotel, where we were staying:

Here is the view of the peninsula from our hotel:

Wagner's house is on the peninsula with the yachts and poplars.

Here is one more link, to a recording of Leonard Bernstein conducting the overture to Tannhäuser.

Yesterday we spent more time looking around the Baroque part of Hampton Court Palace.

We learned a bit about William III and Mary II, about whom we formerly knew virtually nothing. They were first cousins and Mary cried on her wedding day, so aghast was she at having to marry William. He was Dutch, she was English and she went to live with him in Holland(? not sure, actually, somewhere that was not England). They grew to love each other and he was devastated when she died of smallpox. Mary's sister, Anne, hated William and referred to him as "that Dutch abortion". Anne became queen after William died.

William was often off fighting unsuccessful wars in France. When he was at home, he largely eschewed the pomp and ritual that the English imported from France, such as eating in front of a crowd of onlookers and dressing in the Royal Bedchamber which contained an incredibly expensive bed that the king rarely, if ever, slept in. Comparing the Tudor and Baroque State Rooms was very interesting. In Henry VIII's day, if you wanted to meet the king, you passed through the Great Hall and one other room until you reached a smaller room to see the king. In William III's day, you went through a succession of rooms, each more grandly appointed than the next, each containing a throne (really a red chair) under a canopy, until you got to a room with another red chair with no canopy, where you would find the king. You would bow to the thrones in all the rooms even though there was no one sitting in them. One of these rooms was called the Royal Bedchamber and contained a big bed, instead of a chair and the King and Queen would sometimes sit in the bed while onlookers stood behind an elaborate gilt barrier. Surreal.

William did not like these rituals, much preferring his much smaller private rooms on the floor below. When I say small, I am serious. I have seen quite a few great houses and even the "family rooms" used today are dauntingly large. William's private rooms are warmly panelled, the walls adorned with his favourite works of art, such as these fine paintings by Corregio:

Here is a picture of King George II's Royal Bedchamber bed. It costs more than 10 small houses to construct:

Here is a painting of George's mistress, Henrietta Howard. I love the simplicity of her dress and hair:

Back to William III. Ranged around his private dining room were a series of large portraits of beautiful women in his Court, by Godfrey Kneller. I commented to the young warden looking after the room on how much each subject looked alike. She dismissed me, saying, "they are actually quite different." I think not. Here is a sample of Kneller's work:

Duchess of Mazarin

Dorothy Mason

Same, are they not? Separated at birth? The warder told me the I've-just-had-my-wisdom-teeth-out look was in then and women put "plumpers" in their cheeks to achieve the look. The expression, "speaking with a plum in your mouth" came from this period.

15 August Hampton Court Palace

Henry VIII wasn't really interested in affairs of state when he became king and he spent much time hunting, jousting and playing tennis. He left running the country in the hands of trusted advisors, chief of whom was Cardinal Wolsey, who was not only held various bishoprics but was also Lord Chancellor. In 1514 Wolsey purchased a property at Hampton Court and commenced extravagant building works, financed by Henry's largesse.

Henry owned many properties but none on the scale of Wolsey's Palace and as Henry grew older and more interested in affairs of state, he cast an avaricious eye on Hampton Court Palace, saying things like, "I must pay you very well, Cardinal" and "I wish I had a palace as beautiful as this" etc until Wolsey gave it to him. As Wolsey's star dimmed, Henry successively stripped him of his other properties, most notably taking York Place, Wolsey's London residence and giving it to Anne Boleyn. York Place was extensively renovated and later called the Palace of Whitehall. 

Hampton Court Palace is really two palaces, that built by Cardinal Wolsey and improved by Henry and the second designed by Christopher Wren for co-regnants (and first cousins) William III and Mary II. The photo below shows where old meets new:

On the left is the Tudor building. If you zoom in you can see "ER 1568". I assume Elizabeth built or renovated this section. The right building was designed by Wren. Mary did no live to see it finished.

William and Mary wanted to demolish the Tudor Palace but fortunately they didn't have enough money. Henry built the last great medieval hall in England:

Henry and his retinue would move after weeks or months as the buildings became dirtier and more fetid. Henry owned 60 properties which he lived in from time to time, but Hampton Court Palace was his most sumptuous. He married his last wife, Catherine Parr, at Hampton Court. Jane Seymour gave birth to Edward VI here and died weeks later and Catherine Howard unsuccessfully ran though the room below to plead her case to Henry when accused of adultery. She was later beheaded. 

Henry and Catherine of Aragon's initials had been painstakingly carved into various moldings and cornices and when he married Anne Boleyn, Henry directed that Catherine's initials be expunged and Anne's substituted. There are various places where tradesmen neglected to carry out Henry's directive, whether deliberately or not, I don't know. 

Catherine had been a very popular queen because she was thoughtful, pious and kind. She bowed to the King in all but the "Great Matter" of a divorce. Anne, on the other hand, was haughty and vindictive and unable to stop herself from arguing with Henry. When she failed to produce a male heir and was put on trial for adultery, her father, Sir Thomas Boleyn and her very powerful uncle, the Duke of Norfolk did not defend her. The Duke of Norfolk was instrumental in bringing Anne to Henry's attention in the first place and he was one of those who found her guilty of treason (adultery) at the end. Norfolk was also instrumental in bringing another niece, Catherine Howard to Henry's attention. Norfolk carefully distanced himself from her when it became evident that Catherine had been granting favours to other men both before and after her marriage to Henry. The astonishing thing about Norfolk was that although he was central to two of Henry's most disastrous marriages, he survived and was only imprisoned for something else in 1546. 

Thomas Cromwell was not so lucky. He engineered an arranged marriage between Henry and Anne of Cleves in January 1540. Henry's previous wives had been well-educated, cultivated and physically attractive. Each could converse in more than one language and dressed splendidly as befitted royalty. Anne of Cleves spoke only High Dutch, wore an abundance of dowdy clothing and could boast no accomplishments. The match was arranged, sight unseen by Henry. All Henry knew of his bride were the descriptions of others and a portrait painted by Hans Holbein the Younger. Henry fell in love with this portrait, finding Anne enchanting:

Nope, I don't get it either. Anyway, when Henry finally met Anne he was most disappointed and told his courtiers, "I like her not!" He was always kind and solicitous to her face, however, and married her because jilting her would have caused a diplomatic row. 

The morning after the wedding, Thomas Cromwell nervously asked the King how he liked his new bride. Henry was very unhappy, saying, "she has evil smells about her". He engineered a divorce seven months later. It was the beginning of the end for Cromwell. 

If you are interested in reading more about Henry and his wives, I recommend the following books:

The Six Wives of Henry VIII

by Alison Weir

The Six Wives Of Henry VIII (Women In History)

by Antonia Fraser

13 August, Hampton Court Palace

This is where we are staying for the next couple of days:

Fish Court, at Hampton Court Palace:

Fish Court. The bedroom we are using is directly above the front door. It is very quiet at night. The door in the left foreground leads into Henry VIII's kitchen complex. 

Landmark Trust is a charity that buys and restores historic properties and then lets them out to people for holidays. I keep pinching myself that we are actually staying in the Palace itself. The flat is large enough for six people. The main floor contains two bathrooms, two bedrooms and the kitchen, then two separate staircases lead to three other bedrooms-ideal for families, because kids and adults can get some space. The accommodation is comfortable, but no mod cons-no television, radio or wi-fi and one of those weird hand-held showers. The flat has been available for holidays since 1993 and it is a delight to read the Log Books, full of long and enthusiastic entries, often by children. Here are some photos of the interior that don't appear in the web-site:

Main bedroom, looking over Tennis Court Road.

The kitchen contains all basic equipment. There is no freezer. 

The living room contains a bookshelf full of books about Hampton Court including biographies, histories, novels, reference books and children's books.

Landmark Trust also lets Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning's apartment in Florence, the apartment above the one Keats stayed in next to the Spanish Steps in Rome and a Palladian Villa, amongst others. 

We attended the morning service at the Chapel Royal this morning. As week-day services are small, they are held in a small chapel upstairs and today there were only four people in the congregation, including me and Trevor. The service was given by Reverend Canon Mullinar and was similar to this one. Cardinal Wolsey built the Chapel, Henry VIII and all subsequent monarchs worshipped there the King James bible was authorised there. Jane Seymour' died of puerperal fever at Hampton Court Palace and her heart may be interred in the Chapel. 

Chapel Royal Ceiling. 

The Palace fell out of favour with the monarchs in the late 18th Century. Suites of rooms were then granted to members of the royal family and personages, such as Professor Michael Faraday and Scott of the Antarctic, as "Grace and Favour" accommodation. There are only two Grace and Favour residents remaining, both elderly, and no further grants will be made. The Palace is also home to staff who keep the place running, for example the Keeper of the Vine, a horticulturalist who tends the grape vine planted in 1769 by Capability Brown. The vine is believed to be the largest and oldest in the world and it is still productive. 

Here is a page from the Log Book. I have seen so many happy little faces around the palace, it is a wonderful place for children.

Zurich, 11 August

Sitting in the lounge at the Zurich Airport Hilton. It is 4pm and we are catching a flight to London tomorrow morning. I am very content to be stranded far from sights for a few hours.

When I was little and living in Switzerland, Mum and Dad took me to see a castle. My sole memory of the castle was walking down stone spiral stairs inside a turret and that memory is fleeting. I didn't fall down the steps, nothing dramatic happened, so why would I remember that one moment rather than a suit of armour or a moat or a dungeon or something else that was .....memorable? I will never know and I will never know whether the castle Mum and Dad took me to was Chillon. There was one accessible turret staircase at Chillon, from the Dukes bedroom to the chapel, but it did not ring any bells. And if I had seen it before, surely I would have remembered the Duke's bedroom. This photo, borrowed from another blogger,

Attribution: http://fivemonthsabroad.com/2011/01/20/the-chateau-de-chillon/

gives the faintest idea of the splendour of the room in the 14th century. The ceiling was printed with gold crosses, the walls painted blue and printed with fleur de lis, probably gold (How did they touch up the paint? What poor serf had to freshen up each cross and fleur de lis?). Each wall was adorned with large paintings of animals, both real and legendary. Did the Duke, lying amidst vibrantly coloured mythical creatures, think of the prisoner languishing in the dungeon under his feet? 

The same Duke of Savoy that vastly enlarged and improved the fortress on the site of Chillon Castle, Peter II (1203 -May 15 1268), also built the Savoy Palace on The Strand in London. John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster, later lived there and the Palace burnt down during the Peasant's Revolt in 1381 because the English were so angry about a poll tax that had been imposed obliging each and every man to pay a flat tax. The Savoy Hotel was later built on the site.  The power of the Duchy of Savoy was once immense. Now Savoie is known for Chamonix and Mont Blanc. 

Yesterday we travelled from Montreux to Lucerne on the Goldenpass line, a train journey of three trains traversing truly spectacular scenery. You have to change trains twice and the journey is about five hours in total. Amazingly, confounding all we had heard about Swiss everything, the second AND third trains broke and we had to catch buses for the last leg of each trip. But also amazingly the buses got us to our final destination, Lucerne Bahnhof, within 15 minutes of the original scheduled arrival time. Despite the problems, the trip is really worth it. Here are some photos, taken from the train window:

Every time we passed a barn brimming with hay, I thought of Terri Garr in Young Frankenstein saying, "rrroll, rrroll, rrroll in ze hay! Rrroll, rroll, rroll in ze hay!" Weirdly, we only saw a few cows. The rest must be on summer holidays like the rest of Switzerland.