Died: Emperor Vitellius, beheaded at Rome, 69 A.D.;
Richard Plantagenet, alleged son of Richard III, 1550, Eastwell, Kent; Richard
Allein,
Nonconformist divine, 1681; Michael Baron, celebrated actor, 1729, Paris; Sir Philip Francis, reputed
author of Junius,
1818, London; Dr. James Cowles Prichard, distinguished ethnologist, 1848,
London; Rev. M. J. Routh, D.D., president of Magdalen College, Oxford, in his
100th year, 1854, Oxford.
Feast Day: St. Ischyrion, martyr, 253. Saints Cyril
and Methodius, confessors, end of 9th century.
THE ORIGINAL BLUEBEARD
For more than a century and a half, Bluebeard has been a
favourite melodramatic hero: favourite, that is, with those who wish to find a
tyrant as a foil to
some ill-used damsel or heroine; and the more savage he is, the more intense is
the interest felt in the story�by boys and girls, if not by children of larger
growth.' In this, as
in some other histories, the more thoughtful readers occasionally ask�Is it
true? There certainly was no real lady to say:
'Sister Anne, sister Anne, do you see anybody
coming?'
but nevertheless Mezeray, and other French writers, tell us
of a man who really suggested to Perrault the idea for the story of Bluebeard.
Giles de Laval, Seigneur de Retz, better known in French
history as Marshal de Retz, was born in or about the year 1396. Losing his
father in 1416, Giles
entered the service of his sovereign-prince, the Duc de Bretagne; and his name
is found mentioned in connection with events in 1420 and 1425. He next entered
the service of the
French king, Charles VII, and was actively engaged in the defensive war
maintained by that monarch against the English; distinguishing himself in many
engagements. In 1429, he was
one of the captains under the celebrated Joan of
Arc; and aided her in bringing provisions into Orleans.
We then hear of Giles, and his brother Rene, accompanying the king to Rheims;
and it is supposed that Giles was on this occasion created Marshal of France, in
recognition of his
military merits. It was he who carried the holy ampoule, at the consecration of
the king, from the abbey of St. Remi to the cathedral. He appears also at this
time to have been
counsellor and chamberlain to the king. Again we hear of him commanding troops
against the English in 1430 and 1433, in which last-named year his martial
services appear to have
terminated.
Now, there is nothing whatever in this career to denote a
cruel or depraved taste: on the contrary, Giles de Laval presents himself to us
as the Marshal de
Retz, a man of high birth, successful as a military commander, and in high
favour at the court of the king of France. Yet the French annals tell us that
this man, at the age of
thirty-seven, commenced the abominable course of life which has brought infamy
upon his name. When twenty years of age, he had inherited large estates from his
father; at
twenty-four, he had married Catherine de
Thouars, who brought him still larger property; and when his maternal
grandfather, Jean de Craon, died
in 1432, another set of estates fell to him: insomuch that Giles became the
richest subject in France. This immense fortune was the grand cause of his ruin.
He plunged into a
course of profligacy and debauchery which diminished his wealth rapidly; and he
sold one estate after another to defray his lavish expenses. He maintained a
guard of honour of two
hundred horsemen; and his suite, of fifty persons, comprised chaplains,
choristers, musicians, pages, and serviteurs; most of whom were made ministers
or accomplices in his acts of
libertinism. Yet, withal, he affected great pomp and magnificence in religious
ceremonies. His chapel was hung with cloth of gold and silk; the sacred vessels
were of gold, and
enriched with precious stones. His chaplains, habited in scarlet robes adorned
with fur, bore the titles of dean, chanter, arch-deacon, and bishop; and he even
sent a deputy to the
pope, to ask permission for a cross to be carried before him! These, and other
extravagances, made such inroads on his wealth that he began to dispose of his
estates one after
another. His family, alarmed at this prodigal waste of means, in which they all
had an interest, obtained a decree from the parliament of Paris, forbidding him
to make any further
alienations of his property.
Even at this stage we do not recognise in Giles de Retz what
the world would call a monster; we see in him only a profligate spendthrift, who
joined
licentiousness with religious observances in a way not at all unusual in the
middle ages. But the worst was approaching. Craving for wealth to supply his
extravagance, he had
recourse to alchemy. Failing, then, to discover the grand art of transmuting
base metals into gold, he next turned his attention to magic or sorcery, under
the guidance of an
Englishman, named Messire Jean, and an Italian, named Francisco Prelati. He is
reported to have now made a compact with Satan, offering to give, in return for
boundless wealth,
everything except his own life and soul: as regarded the lives and souls of
others, he felt no scruple. It was at this time, according to the accounts which
have descended to us,
that he began to immolate children�even while fulfilling his religious duties in
his chapel with careful precision. The poor little creatures, made the victims
of his iniquity in
various ways, were finally put to death, and their blood and hearts used as
charms in diabolical rites. His myrmidons inveigled boys and girls from the
neighbouring villages into
his castle, and they were never afterwards seen.
Other agents of his, during his tours from one to another of
his castles in Bretagne, were wont to persuade poor peasants, who had beautiful
children, to
intrust them to the care of the marshal, who promised to attend to their
advancement in life. The children were never again seen; and when outcries were
made in consequence, the
accomplices in De Retz's iniquities sought to stifle them by threats or bribery.
This continued so long, and the number of children who disappeared became so
large, that the matter
came under the notice and interference of the authorities. In 1440, the marshal
was arrested, together with two of his men, Henri and Etienne Corillant.
Confronted with his two
accomplices, Giles at first denied all knowledge of them; but a threat of the
torture having alarmed him, he made what is called a clean breast of it' by
revealing everything. The
judges were frozen with horror at the obscene and atrocious recital which he
made.
There is no doubt as to the authenticity of the horrible
transactions; and a biographer of the marshal, in the Biographic
Universelle, states that
manuscript reports of the trial (which lasted a month) exist in the
Biblioth�que Imperiale at Paris, and also among the archives of the
Chateau at Nantes. What the wretched
young victims (who varied from eight to eighteen years of age) were made to
endure before being put to death, cannot be described here. During a period of
at least eight years, and
at his several castles of Machecoul, Chantoc�, and Tiffanges, as well as in his
mansions at Nantes and Suze, were these atrocities carried on. In most cases he
burned the bodies;
but sufficient remains were found to indicate forty-six victims at Chantoc�, and
eighty at Machecoul. Giles did not boast of his atrocities; he confessed them,
and publicly asked
pardon of the parents of the murdered innocents. Condemned to be strangled, he
exhibited once more a characteristic of his strange nature, by begging that the
bishop of Nantes
would head the procession which was formed on this occasion. his execution took
place in 1440, about or a little before Christmas-day�some say December 22.
Probably on account of some personal peculiarity, Giles de
Laval became remembered as Barbe-bleue, whence our Bluebeard. It seems to have
speedily become a
name of terror; for Holinshed, speaking of the committal of the Duke of Suffolk
to the Tower, in the reign of Henry VI, says:
'This doing so much displeased the people, that if politic
provision had not been made, great mischief had immediately ensued. For the
commons, in sundry
places of the realm, assembled together in great companies, and chose to them
a captain, whom they called Bluebeard; but ere they had attempted any
enterprise, their leaders were
apprehended, so that the matter was pacified without any hurt committed.'
As to the children's Bluebeard, it was written by Perrault in
the time of Louis XIV, and has been translated from the French into nearly all
the languages
of Europe. This Bluebeard's propensity is not to kill children, but to marry
wife after wife in succession, kill them, and deposit them in the fatal closet
which curiosity would
not leave untouched. We all know how another victim was saved, and how Bluebeard
met his death.
RICHARD PLANTAGENET
December 22, 1550, died a poor workingman, named Richard
Plantagenet, who was believed to be a son of Richard III, king of England. The
story has been
preserved by Dr. Thomas Brett, who saw the entry of the man's death in the
parish register of Eastwell, and who, about 1720, obtained other particulars
from the Earl of Winchelsea
at Eastwell House.
Sir Thomas Moyle having, about 1545, purchased the estate of
Eastwell, began to build the mansion alluded to. He was surprised to observe
that one of the
bricklayers, a man well advanced in years, was accustomed, on leaving off work,
to take out a book and begin to read. Sir Thomas's curiosity was excited to know
what book occupied
the man's attention; but the extreme shyness of the student for some time
baffled his desires. At length, taking him by surprise, he found, to his
increased astonishment, that the
man perused a Latin book. He then inquired how he came to be able to read a book
in that language, and after some conversation, obtained from him a series of
particulars which he
said had hitherto been told to none.
He was, in his earliest years, boarded with a school-master,
and there was occasionally visited by a gentleman, who paid regularly for his
maintenance and
education, but who did not let him know his parentage. At length, when he was
about sixteen, this gentleman took him on a journey, and introduced him to a
stately house, where
another personage of distinguished appearance, and wearing a star and the Order of the
Garter, came to see
him, conversed kindly with him, and then dismissed him. Some time after, he was
conducted into Leicestershire, and brought before the king in his tent, in the
midst of an army, and
was surprised to find that the king was the same distinguished person whom he
had lately seen. Richard embraced him, acknowledged him as his son, and said
that if he should, as he
hoped, survive the battle about to be fought, the son should be duly provided
for; after which he was desired to take a position at some distance till the end
of the conflict. The
king also warned him, in the event of his defeat and death, to conceal the
relationship now acknowledged, as it would be sure to be fatal to him.
Finding the battle go against King Richard, he made his way
from the field, and as he entered Leicester, he saw a dead man brought in naked,
laid across a
horse, and learned that it was the monarch he had yesterday seen at the head of
a gallant army.
Chance directed him into the occupation of a bricklayer, in
which he had spent his life in contented obscurity.
Sir Thomas Moyle, feeling for the misfortunes of this scion
of royalty, built a small house for him on his grounds, and requested him to
take what food he
should henceforth require from his kitchen. But it would appear that the old man
did not live above three or four years in the enjoyment of the ease at last
accorded to him.
This story is of so romantic a nature, that it might well be
doubted. Mr. Jesse, however, in his Memoirs of King Richard III (8vo,
1861), expresses a
general faith in it, and shews several reasons for thinking it true.
'Anciently, when any person of noble family was interred at
Eastwell, it was the custom to affix a special mark against the name of the
deceased in the
register of burials. The fact is a significant one, that this aristocratic
symbol is prefixed to the name of Richard Plantagenet. At Eastwell, his story
still excites curiosity
and interest ... A well in Eastwell Park still bears his name; tradition
points to an uninscribed tomb in Eastwell churchyard as his last resting
place; and, lastly, the very
handwriting which, more than three centuries ago, recorded his interment, is
still in existence.'
In further connection with the subject of the Plantagenet
family, Sir Bernard Burke, in his work, entitled
Vicissitudes of
Families, remarks:
'What race in Europe surpassed in royal position, personal
achievement, or romantic adventure, our Plantagenets, equally wise as valiant,
no less renowned
in the cabinet than the field? Yet, as late as 1637, the great-grandson of
Margaret Plantagenet, herself daughter and heir of George, Duke of Clarence,
was following the cobbler
craft at Newport, in Shropshire. Among the lineal descendants of Edmund
Woodstock, Earl of Kent, son of Edward the First, entitled to quarter the
royal arms, occur a butcher and
a toll-gatherer, the first a Mr. Joseph Smart, of Hales Owen (Salop), the
latter Mr. G. Wymot, keeper of the turnpike-gate, Cooper's Bank, Dudley. Among
descendants of Thomas
'Plantagenet, Duke of Gloucester, son of Edward III, we discover Mr. Penny,
late sexton at St. George's, Hanover Square�a strange descent from sword and
sceptre to spade and
pick.'
MRS. MAPP, THE
BONE-SETTER
'Died last week, at her lodgings, near the Seven Dials, the
much-talked of Mrs. Mapps, the bone-setter, so miserably poor, that the parish
was obliged to
bury her.'�London Daily Post, 22nd December 1737.
The subject of this melancholy obituary notice was for a time
the object of popular wonder and enthusiasm. The daughter of a country
bone-setter, she had,
after wandering about from place to place, settled herself at Epsom, where she
soon became famed for wonder-working cures�cures apparently effected more by
boldness and personal
strength than skill. She married a mercer's servant, but the match seems to have
been an unfortunate one, for the Grub-Street Journal of April 19, 1736,
says:
'We hear that the husband of Mrs. Mapp, the famous
bone-setter at Epsom, ran away from her last week, taking with him upwards of
a hundred guineas, and
such other portable things as lay next to his hand. Several letters from Epsom
mention that the footman, whom the fair bone-setter married the week before,
had taken a sudden
journey from thence with what money his wife had earned; and that her concern
at first was very great, but as soon as the surprise was over, she grew gay;
and seems to think the
money well disposed of, as it was like to rid her of a husband.'
He must have been a bold man to marry her, and still bolder
to have ventured to incur her wrath, if her portrait does her justice�a more
ill-favoured, or a
stronger-framed woman, it would have been difficult to find.
Her professional success, however, must have gone far to
solace her for matrimonial failure. Besides driving a profitable trade at home,
she used to drive
to town once a week, in a coach-and-four, and return again bearing away the
crutches of her patients as trophies of honour. She held her levees at the
Grecian Coffee-house, where
she operated successfully upon a niece of Sir Hans Sloane. The same day, she
straightened the body of a man whose back had stuck
out two inches for nine years; and a gentleman who went into the house with one
shoe-heel six inches high, came out again cured of a lameness of twenty years'
standing, and with
both his legs of equal length. She was not always so successful. One Thomas
Barber, tallow-chandler, of Saffron Hill, thought proper to issue the following
warning to her would-be
patients:
'Whereas it has been industriously (I wish I could say
truly) reported that I had found great benefit from a certain female
bone-setter's performance, and
that it was from a want of resolution to undergo the operation that I did not
meet with a perfect cure;�This is to give notice, that any persons afflicted
with lameness (who are
willing to know what good and harm others may receive, before they venture on
desperate measures them-selves), will be welcome any morning to see the
dressing of my leg, which
was sound before the operation, and they will then be able to judge of the
performance, and to whom I owe my present unhappy confinement to my bed and
chair.'
The cure of Sir Hans Sloane's niece made Mrs. Mapp the
town-talk, and if it was only known that she intended to make one of the
audience, the theatre
favoured with her presence was sure to be crowded to excess. A comedy was
announced at the Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre, called The Husband's Relief, or
The Female Bone-setter and
the Worm-doctor. Mrs. Mapp attended the first night, and was gratified at
hearing a song in her praise, of which we give two verses as a specimen:
You surgeons of London who puzzle your pates,
To ride in your coaches and purchase estates;
Give over for shame, for your pride has a fall,
And the doctress of Epsom has outdone you all.
Dame Nature has given her a doctor's degree,
She gets all the patients and pockets the fee;
So if you don't instantly prove it a cheat,
She'll loll in a chariot whilst you walk the street.'
She seems to have been accompanied on this occasion by two
noted quacks�Ward the worm-doctor, and Taylor the oculist. A rhymster in the
Grub-street
Journal, alluding to this strange conjunction, says:
While Mapp to th' actors shewed a kind regard,
On one side sat Taylor, on th' other side Ward.
When their mock persons of the drama came,
Both Ward and Taylor thought it hurt their game.
'Wondering how Mapp could in good-humour be�
Zounds! cries the manly dame, it hurts not me,
Quacks, without art, may either blind or kill,
But demonstration shows that mine is skill.'
Mrs. Mapp soon afterwards removed from Epsom to Pall Mall,
but she did not forget her country friends. She gave a plate of ten guineas to
be run for at
Epsom, and went to see the race. Singularly enough, the first heat was won by a
mare called 'Mrs. Mapp,' which so delighted the doctress, that she gave the
jockey a guinea, and
promised to make it a hundred if he won the plate, but to his chagrin he failed
to do so. The fair bone-setter's career was but a brief one. In 1736, she was at
the height of her
prosperity, and at the end of 1737, she died in the miserable circumstances set
forth in our opening paragraph.