On the 2nd June 1953, our Queen, Elizabeth II, was crowned with great solemnity and ceremony in Westminster Abbey whilst seated in the ancient Coronation Chair (King Edwardâs Chair). Todayâs post celebrates and marks her reign by publishing images connected to the coronations of Elizabeth IIâs Tudor predecessors.
Coronation Chair, with and without the Stone of Scone (The Stone of Destiny)
Henry VII (born 28 January 1457, died 21 April 1509)
Edward VI (born 12 October 1537, died 6 July 1553) Coronation procession of Edward VI along Cheapside, London. Edwardâs coronation was on 20 February 1547.
Mary I (born 18 February 1516, died 17 November 1558)
Crowned 1 October 1553.
Elizabeth I (born 7 September 1533, died 24 March 1603) Â Coronation procession of Elizabeth. Her coronation took place on 15 January 1559.
This weekend Britain celebrates the Diamond Jubilee of our Queen, Elizabeth II. It therefore seems appropriate that my posts this weekend are about the visit of her Tudor namesake and ancestor, Queen Elizabeth I, who progressed through the town of Great Dunmow in the Summer of 1561. Â This was mere 20 months after she became Queen on the 17th November 1558 – her East Anglian progress was of vital importance to convey her image of royalty to her subjects.
There is only one very brief reference relating to Queen Elizabeth Iâs 1561 visit to Great Dunmow within the Tudor churchwardensâ accounts.
[Itm payd to the the good wyfe barker for ale for those yet dyd rynge when ye Quenes grace cam thorow ye parysshe 8d] Great Dunmowâs churchwarden accounts â folio 45v.
Previous records from the churchwardenâs accounts show that the going rate in the 1520s for a dayâs labour for a man was about 4d to 6d. So the bell-ringers of the church of St Mary the Virgin, Great Dunmow, consumed the equivalent of nearly 2 days wages in ale! This must have been some celebration…
Unfortunately, no other record survives of Queen Elizabethâs progress through the town – the church records have no other details. Elizabeth’s half-sister, Mary, had granted Great Dunmow borough status in 1555. Therefore, any expenses that the town incurred during Elizabeth’s visit would have been entered into the borough records – which have not survived.
However, by examining the primary and secondary sources on Elizabethâs Summer Progress of 1561, it can be stated with considerable certainty that she progressed through the town sometime during the day of Monday 25th August 1561. Elizabeth had been a guest at the home of Lord Rich at nearby Leez Priory 21-25 August; and then stayed at Lord Moreleyâs estate in the Hertfordshire village of Great Hallingbury on the night of the 25th. Therefore, she must have come through Great Dunmow sometime during the day of the 25th.
Her route would have been along the Roman Stane Street (now known most romantically as the âOld A120â) from Leez Priory to Great Dunmow and then through the town’s High Street. My map of Tudor Great Dunmow illustrates her likely route through the parish. The postcards below show Great Dunmow in the early 20th Century – the Edwardian High Street of Great Dunmow looks very much as it does now. (Tudor town hall on left of 1st two postcards and on right of next 2.)
Many of todayâs shops in Great Dunmow originate from medieval and Tudor houses. Therefore, the town of Great Dunmow probably looked very similar 400 years previously in the Elizabethan era. The Town/Guild Hall was built during the 16th century so was probably there in 1561 when Elizabeth progressed through the town. The pale (white) double-roofed building 2nd from the left in the two postcards below is thought to have been a pre-Reformation Catholic priest house which served the townâs small pre-Reformation Chapel. This Chapel was probably closed and destroyed as part of Edward VIâs reforms but itâs priest-house remains and is now a clothes shop.
The town must have extensively and jubilantly celebrated their Queen’s progress. Was there the  equivalent of todayâs bunting and streamers be-decking the streets of Tudor Great Dunmow? How did the ordinary towns-folk of Great Dunmow celebrate the exciting event of their monarchâs presence in their town?
âEvery spring and summer of her 44 years as queen, Elizabeth I insisted that her court go with her on âprogressâ, a series of royal visits to town and aristocratic homes in sourthern England. Between 1558 and 1603 her visits to over 400 individual and civic hosts provided the only direct contact most people had with a monarch who made popularity a cornerstone of her reign. These visits gave the queen a public stage on which to present herself as the peopleâs sovereign and to interact with her subjects in a calculated attempt to keep their support.â
Mary Hill Cole, The portable queen : Elizabeth I and the politics of ceremony (Massachusetts, 1999), p1.
Griff Rhys Jones, in the BBCâs new series on the Britainâs Lost Routes, has charted Elizabethâs 1570s progresses from Windsor Castle to Bristol. Rhys Jones re-enacted the queenâs progress with modern-day people and their cars. He states that accompanying the queen were
All told, according Rhys Jones, there were 350 people in hundreds of wagons, carts and on horseback. The whole procession was about one mile in length and included all that a fully mobile queen required â from her kitchen to her court documents. This procession travelled at approximately 3 miles per hour as it wound its way through the Elizabethan countryside.  The queen often rode ahead of this procession in the type of litter shown in the first picture above.  But before her went her âHabingersâ who rode ahead to prepare her subjects (and her hosts!) for her presence.
The distance from Leez Priory to Great Dunmow is approximately 6 miles â so it would have taken Elizabeth’s procession two hours just to get to the town.  After that was her  slow and steady progress through the town.  It must have been a day of great celebration for the townsfolk of Great Dunmow!  Do watch Griff Rhys Jones’ Britainâs Lost Routes about the west country progress of Elizabeth to understand how she might have progressed through Essex and Suffolk in 1561.
Images – All postcards on this page are in the personal collection of The Narrator and may not be reproduced without permission.
–Â Procession portrait of Elizabeth I of England (Robert Peake the Elder, 1551â1619).
– âA hermit sitting outside a tavern drinking ale; the alewife approaches him with a flagonâ from Decretals of Gregory IX with glossa ordinaria (the ‘Smithfield Decretals‘), (France, last quarter 13th century or 1st quarter 14th century), shelfmark Royal 10 EIV f.114v, (c) British Library Board.
– John Nichols, The Progresses & Public Processions of Queen Elizabeth, (London, 1788-1823).
Notes about Great Dunmowâs churchwarden accounts
Great Dunmow’s original churchwardens’ accounts (1526-1621) are kept in Essex Record Office (E.R.O.), Chelmsford, Essex, D/P 11/5/1. All digital images of the accounts within this blog appear by courtesy of Essex Record Office and may not be reproduced. Examining these records from this Essex parish gives the modern reader a remarkable view  into the lives and times of some of Henry VIIIâs subjects and provides an interpretation into the local history of Tudor Great Dunmow.
The Tudor Narrator has been doing some 21st Century house-keeping…
Below are the WordPress stats for the number of views each of my blog posts have received since I started this blog back in January. The Home Page has been configured to show approximately 5 posts on one page, so the stats for this pages hides the fact that my readers could be reading several posts on the same page.
Itâs interesting to see that my posts on âInterpreting primary sourcesâ and âUnwitting Testimonyâ are up there at the top.  I know from several emails that many readers are using these posts as resources for teaching historical research to students. Thank you to the Open University for teaching the techniques to me.
Please do leave comments on any of my posts. At the moment it feels rather a one-way conversation with my readers and I would love to read your opinions on my blog and the topics I am covering.
William Shakespeare (bapt 26 Apri 1564, died 23 April 1616 Today is also the anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death. Â Below are the words of the great man on England:
‘Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, Or close the wall up with our English dead. In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man As modest stillness and humility; But when the blast of war blows in our ears, Then imitate the action of the tiger; Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, Disguise fair nature with hard-favour’d rage; Then lend the eye a terrible aspect; Let it pry through the portage of the head Like the brass cannon; let the brow o’erwhelm it As fearfully as does a galled rock O’erhang and jutty his confounded base, Swill’d with the wild and wasteful ocean. Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide, Hold hard the breath, and bend up every spirit To his full height. On, on, you noblest English, Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof! Fathers that, like so many Alexanders, Have in these parts from morn till even fought, And sheath’d their swords for lack of argument. Dishonour not your mothers; now attest That those whom you call’d fathers did beget you. Be copy now to men of grosser blood, And teach them how to war. And you, good yeomen, Whose limbs were made in England, show us here The mettle of your pasture; let us swear That you are worth your breeding, which I doubt not; For there is none of you so mean and base, That hath not noble lustre in your eyes. I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, Straining upon the start. The game’s afoot! Follow your spirit, and upon this charge Cry, “God for Harry! England and Saint George!”‘
William Shakespeare, Henry V, Act III, Scene 1.
This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, demi-paradise, This fortress built by Nature for herself Against infection and the hand of war, This happy breed of men, this little world, This precious stone set in the silver sea, Which serves it in the office of a wall Or as a moat defensive to a house, Against the envy of less happier lands,– This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.
William Shakespeare, Richard II, Act II, Scene 1.
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The B184 is the busy main road north out of Great Dunmow which leads onto the pretty town of Thaxted. Â Clearly visible from this road, in the fields surrounding the River Chelmer, is a series of Second World War Pill Boxes.
Parsonage Downs is an area in the north of the town of Great Dunmow. Â As these pictures shows, it is one of the prettiest areas of Great Dunmow.
In medieval times, the area was dominated by the manor of Newton Hall (owned then by Mr Kynwelmarshe).  In more recent times, in the first part of the twentieth century, Newton Hall was owned by Julian Byng, 1st Viscount Byng of Vimy.  Lord Byng unveiled Great Dunmow’s War Memorial in July 1921.  Today, many younger Great Dunmowians will know this  area very well as the site of their school – the Helena Romanes Secondary School.
Edwardian Parsonage Downs, Great Dunmow. Â All postcards below are in the personal collection of The Narrator. Â Newton Hall postcard was posted in 1905. Â The second postcard below is a similar view to the second photo above.
My post today is about trusting your own judgement when you researching â whether your research is for a local history topic or is a genealogical project. Just because you have read something by someone else â even if it is in a published book by an academic â if you donât agree with othersâ interpretations and theories, then have the courage to follow your own line of thorough and comprehensive research.  Because, unfortunately, sometimes the suppositions of one historian (or genealogist) can, overtime, become the established âtruthâ.
Secondary literature interest in Great Dunmowâs churchwardensâ accounts When I was researching my dissertation, I spent a great deal of time tracking down, reading and researching all the secondary sources that had cited Great Dunmowâs churchwardensâ accounts. Because the accounts are such a rich and fruitful source, there are countless academic books and journal articles whose authors have used them. The secondary source interest had started in the 1870s when the then vicar of Great Dunmow, W. T. Scott, wrote a small book on the history of the church of St Mary the Virgin. At that time, the accounts were still in the parish chest in the church at Great Dunmow. I have in my mindsâ eye a vivid picture of our Victorian vicar, Scott, night-by-night sitting in front of the blazing vicarage fire, reading and scrutinizing each folio by candle-light and puzzling over the writings of his predecessors from 350 years earlier. During my research, I found his book, Antiquities of an Essex Parish: Or pages from the history of Great Dunmow(1), to be one of the most accurate in terms of using the churchwardensâ accounts in building a reasonably correct history of both Great Dunmowâs church and the parish. However, unfortunately there are some incorrect suppositions in his book that, over time, have been picked up and reused by other researchers.
My own, much-loved and much-read, copy of
W T Scott’s 1873 history of Great Dunmow
Whilst Scottâs book was a local history book, other commentators and historians have also used the churchwardensâ accounts for their own research too. In particular, because of the accountsâ extensive entries for Corpus Christi plays, historians of medieval drama have much cited and quoted the accounts for hypothesises on early English drama and pre-Shakespearean plays.
During my own research phase, I daily read folios from the churchwardensâ accounts alongside reading the secondary literature. To my surprise, I found that I very rarely agreed with any modern-day interpretations of the accounts. I read section after section of the accounts directly from the originals written 500 hundred years ago. Then I read the secondary literature. The originals simply did not tie up with secondary sources. I was puzzled and baffled by this. It took me some time to realise that I should trust my own reading of the primary sources. Just because the secondary sources were in published books and academic journals, it didnât necessary mean that these historians interpretations were correct â particularly as only a few of the historians had gone back to the original primary source. Unfortunately, the suppositions of Scott had, over time, become the hard-facts of others.
The church steepleâs scaffolding For instance, in Clifford Davidsonâs 2007 book Festivals and plays in late medieval Britain, Davidson cites the entries in the churchwardensâ accounts regarding Great Dunmowâs Corpus Christi Plays and quotes the earlier research of both W. A. Mepham, (a 1930s/1940s historian of Essex drama) and the 1972 research of John C Coldeway. Davidson comments:
âAlready in 1526-1527 there is a mention of a scaffold that may have been used for playing [ie Corpus Christi plays](2), perhaps in a single location in the village since, as W.A. Mepham notes, Great Dunmow âwas not sufficiently extensive to warrant the use of moveable pageants.(3)ââ(4)
Leaving aside that the date is slightly incorrect â the entries for the scaffolding was in 1525-6 (folio 4r and folio 5v) â by only examining the drama elements within the churchwardensâ accounts, the entries for scaffolding have been taken out of context.  As we have seen on folio 4r, there was an entry for money received in by the church for scaffolding, not paid out by the church â which it would have been if it was scaffolding used for the churchâs regular Corpus Christi plays.  On folio 5v (still in the same year) we have also seen that there were several items for the making of scaffolding and the building of a windlass.  Putting the entries for scaffolding back into context, we know that a great deal of scaffolding was used to help the construction of the new church steeple. The same steeple which had been paid for by the entire parish in the 1525-6 parish collection (fos. 2r–4r Thus, any entries in the churchwardensâ accounts for scaffolding cannot be used to support a hypothesis that the Corpus Christi plays were played in one fixed place in the town.
This doesnât mean to say that there wasnât a fixed âplaying areaâ (or stage) of sorts assembled in the town. Indeed, my own hypothesis (to be explored in later posts), is that there was most certainly one central area in the town where the plays were performed â and this could quite possibly have been on a fixed scaffold/stage. Moreover, my hypothesis is that villagers from the surrounding villages from miles around came into Great Dunmow to watch the Corpus Christi plays in this one central area (which directly conflicts with both Scottâs and Mephamâs interpretations).  However, putting the entries for the scaffolding properly back into their original context means that any entries for scaffolding in the 1520s churchwardensâ accounts must not be used to support a hypothesis of a fixed playing area or stage for Corpus Christi plays within Great Dunmow. The scaffolding documented in the churchwardensâ accounts was, quite simply, just for the construction of the new church steeple.
Corpus Christi Moveable Pageants In the extract above, 1930s historian Mepham (whose work, as can be seen above, is still quoted today) said that Great Dunmow was not big enough to have a moveable pageant. I donât know where Mepham lived in the 1930s but he almost certainly could not have paid a visit to Great Dunmow! If he had, he would have known that Great Dunow was (and always has been) large enough to have had moving pageants passing through the town. As we have seen from the 1525-6 parish collection for the church steeple, several areas of the parish are identified. Then, as it is now, the parish church in Church End was nearly one mile distant from the townâs High Street. Ample room for a moving pageant, if there was one, to pass through from the starting point of the townâs small pre-Reformation chapel (located in the High Street), moving through the ancient Causeway (the road is still there today) and down through Church End via Lime Tree Hill (again, this road is still there) and onto the church. When my son was a baby, I walked this precise route (from the town to the church) many many times trying to get him to go to sleep.  I can assure you there was/is certainly room enough for any size of  moving pageant whether a walking pageant or one on horseback and horse-drawn wagon!
Indeed, in modern times, every year the same route is used by the September Dunmow Carnival with movable (and very large) lorries and floats. Moreover, every four years there is a very large moving walking procession around the entire town area of Great Dunmow when the ancient custom of the Dunmow Flitch is performed. Again, all the roads used by the modern-day September Carnival and Dunmow Flitch procession existed during the Tudor period â as demonstrated by the entries in Great Dunmowâs churchwardensâ accounts for the 1520s parish collections.
Conclusion So the moral to my post is that sometimes peoplesâ suppositions and theories unfortunately end up becoming the historical truth.  Trust your own instincts when you are conducting your own research. Always research othersâ theories, but if they donât âadd-upâ, then, provided you have performed your own high-quality, thorough and diligent research, believe in your own work.
The other morals to this story is,
If possible, always always always go back to any original primary sources; and
If your research is connected to local history (or the genealogy of a family based in a certain location), always physically walk the area you researching â particular if the geography of the area has been used in any secondary literature or someone elseâs research. If you canât physically walk it, then use Google maps and/or a contemporary map to help research your area . Or, better still, make contact with someone that does live in the area and ask them to walk the high-ways and by-ways for you!
Bibliography and Further reading 1) Scott. W.T., Antiquities of an Essex Parish: Or pages from the history of Great Dunmow (London, 1873).
2) Coldewey, J. C., âEarly English Drama: A History of its rise and fall, and a Theory regarding the Digby Playsâ Unpublished PhD dissertation (University of Colorado, 1972).
3) Mepham, W.A., âVillages Plays at Dunmow, Essex, in the sixteenth centuryâ, Notes and Queries, 166 (May 1934), 345-348 and 362-366.
4) Davidson, C., Festivals and plays in late medieval Britain (Aldershot, 2007), p.55.
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If you want to read more from my blog, please do subscribe either by using the Subscribe via Email button top right of my blog, or the button at the very bottom.  If you’ve enjoyed reading this post, then please do Like it with the Facebook button and/or leave a comment below.
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Coronation Oath of Henry VIII with his own annotations (crowned 24 June 1509), shelfmark Cotton Ms. Tiberius D viii, f.89, © British Library Board. (For more information on his changes, see the British Libraryâs explanation.  Was Henry anticipating his break with Rome?)
Coronation procession of Edward VI along Cheapside, London. Edwardâs coronation was on 20 February 1547.
 Coronation procession of Elizabeth. Her coronation took place on 15 January 1559.
[Itm payd to the the good wyfe barker for ale for those yet dyd rynge when ye Quenes grace cam thorow ye parysshe 8d] Great Dunmowâs churchwarden accounts â folio 45v.
