HISTORICAL OBJECTS JACOBEAN LIFE

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WHIP AND TOP• This was a game of skill – youhad to wind the top with thewhip and then keep the top goingby whipping it.

• The ‘top’ was often made ofwood and shaped so that itbalanced on the point.

• The ‘whip’ was wrapped aroundgrooves in the top before beingjerked away to set the topspinning.

• Children’s toys and games wereusually simple and cheap. Some,like hopscotch and marbles, arestill played today.

BREECHES• Young boys wore dresses untilthey were about six years oldwhen they were ‘breeched’.

• Being breeched meant that theywere given their first set ofbreeches (short knee-lengthtrousers). This was a big step in aboy’s life.

• A boy might also have his firsthaircut when he was breeched.

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SWADDLING CLOTH• Young babies up to about 12months old were wrapped inlinen bandages or ‘swaddled’.

• Swaddling clothes were used notonly to keep babies warm butwrapping their limbs up tightlywas also thought to keep babiessafe – because they couldn’tmove.

• It was also believed that babies’arms and legs needed to be keptstraight so that they would growproperly.

NINE MEN’S MORRIS BOARD• Nine Men’s Morris is one of theworld’s oldest board games.

• Each player has nine pieces, or‘men’, which move among theboard’s twenty-four spots.

• The object of the game is to leavethe opposing player with fewerthan three men.

• Nine Men’s Morris boards wereoften engraved on tables in pubs– some have even been found inchurches.

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FOOTBALL• Pigs’ bladders were blown up tomake footballs.

• King James I banned people fromplaying football, thinking it a"rough and violent" game.

• Football was then a very viciousgame, with no teams and norules. People liked playing itthough and its popularitycontinued.

BIRCH ROD• Birching meant beating a personacross the backside with a bundleof birch twigs.

• It was once a commonpunishment in schools, usually justfor boys, but it could take place incourts for minor offences.

• Birching was not abolished inBritain until 1948.

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HORN BOOKS• Hornbooks were used bychildren who were learning to read and were common in the classroom.

• A sheet of paper, with thealphabet or times tables writtenon it, was mounted onto awooden board with a handle.

• The paper was protected by athin layer of clear animal horn.

• Children learned by ‘rote’ –where you learn something by simply repeating it over and over again.

TYBURN TREE• The Tyburn Tree was a hugetriangular construction fromwhich criminals were hanged – itwas an agonising death.

• 100,000 people might bewatching – hangings were a bigpublic festival!

• The rich rented upper-storeyrooms in houses and pubs so thatthey could get the best views.

• When the hangman had done thehanging he would sell the rope.This is maybe where we get thesaying ‘money for old rope’.

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DUCKING STOOL• Ducking was a form ofpunishment for things such as ‘scolding’ or ‘backbiting’ and particularly for supposed witches.

• The victim was tied to a chairand hung from ropes above apond or a river, then loweredinto the water.

• Accused witches were dunkedinto a river, to see if they wereinnocent or guilty. If they floated,they were considered guilty andexecuted. If they sank, they wereinnocent but died by drowning.

PILLORY• All kinds of crimes were punishedin public and the pillory was acommon punishment.

• The culprit’s head, wrists, andsometimes ankles were clampedinto a wooden frame standing in apublic place, like a market.

• The victim would be ridiculed bypassers-by who might throwrotten food or even stones atthem.

• We probably get our modernword ‘pilloried’, where someoneis verbally attacked or ridiculedpublicly, from this punishment.

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GIBBET• A gibbet was a metal frame inwhich the bodies of executedcriminals were displayed.

• The general idea behind publicexecutions was to set anexample to everyone else.

• The worst method was 'livegibbeting', when the criminal,usually a murderer, wassuspended in the cage and left tostarve to death.

RACK• The rack was used to torturepeople by tying or chaining themby their wrists and feet so whenthe torturer turned a handle thebody of the victim would bestretched – causing terrible painand even breaking bones.

• Forcing prisoners to watchsomeone else being subjected tothe rack was a powerful methodof making them confess.

• Guy Fawkes was put to the rack for his part in theGunpowder Plot.

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WATTLED HURDLE• A wattled hurdle is a frame or sledge made of woven twigs or branches.

• One of the plotters, EverardDigby, was found guilty of hightreason and dragged on a wattledhurdle through the streets ofLondon, to his place of execution.

GUNPOWDER BARREL• In 1605, 13 men decided to attackKing James I and his governmentin the Houses of Parliament.

• The plan was to do it onNovember 5th as it was the stateopening of Parliament.

• The gang rented a cellarunderneath the Houses ofParliament. Guy Fawkes hid 36barrels of gunpowder in the cellar.

• The barrels held around 2,500 kgof gunpowder which would havecompletely destroyed Parliament.

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THE MONTEAGLE LETTER• On the night of 26th of October1605 an anonymous and crypticletter was delivered to theCatholic Lord Monteagle.

• The letter warned him to avoidParliament on the day it was dueto be blown up.

• This anonymous letter foiled theplot and has led to a number ofconspiracy theories. It is evenrumoured that the letter waswritten by one of the plotters.

PRIEST HOLES• Anybody found carrying symbolsof the Catholic religion, or takingpart in Catholic mass, was finedor imprisoned.

• Catholic priests were oftentortured, and if found guilty oftreason, were executed.

• Many wealthy Catholic familiescelebrated mass in secret in theirhomes, hiding priests in speciallyconstructed hiding places toprotect them.

• Priests used aliases to protectthemselves and the families whohid them.

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PRINCESS ELIZABETH• The plotters planned to makePrincess Elizabeth the new headof state to replace King James I.

• This portrait was painted whenshe was seven.

• Women wore frames undertheir dresses which gave them aunique shape.

• Royalty dressed to impress.Clothes were an importantstatus symbol. Dresses weredecorated with needlework,embroidery and with jewels.

• A fan was used to ward off foul smells!

ROSARY• Rosaries are a symbol of theCatholic faith.

• It was illegal to practiseCatholicism but Catholics inEngland had expected James to bemore tolerant of them. Jameshowever, continued to imprisonCatholics for their faith.

• This so angered some Catholicsthat they decided to kill Jamesand put his daughter Elizabeth onthe throne.

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GUNPOWDER• Gunpowder was invented inChina over a thousand years ago.

• Charcoal, sulphur and saltpetrewere used to make gunpowder.

• To celebrate surviving the plot,James I ordered that thereshould be a great bonfire on November 5th.

• It was traditional to burn adummy of the Pope, rather thanGuy Fawkes, on top of the fire.

SIR FRANCIS DRAKE• Sir Francis Drake is the mostfamous of all English seafarers. Hewas an explorer and pirate whosailed around the World, raidingthe Spanish and helping to defeatthe Spanish Armada in 1588.

• Drake’s adventures made him intoa living legend.

• This portrait was painted after hewas knighted by Queen ElizabethI for his 3 year circumnavigationof the globe.

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WATCH• Watches were still quite rare inthis period and owned only bythe upper-class.

• Early pocket watches were veryheavy and incredibly inaccurateas they only had an hour-hand –there was no hand for theminutes.

• Guy Fawkes was supposedlypresented with a watch by theplotter Robert Keyes so that hecould time the fuse which wouldset off the explosion.

VEILED LANTERN• Guy Fawkes is said to have beencarrying a lantern on his arrest inthe cellars of the Houses ofParliament when the GunpowderPlot was discovered.

• The lantern was made of sheetiron with a holder for a candleinside and a hinged door. Thedoor had a window made of hornin it, through which the lightwould glow.

• The lantern has an inner cylinderwhich could be rotated in orderto conceal the light, and also theuser!

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FREE MONARCHIES• The True Law of Free Monarchieswas a book written by James Iwhich set out the ‘doctrine’ ofthe divine right of Kings.

• Put simply, the divine right meantthat the King could do absolutelyanything he wanted, and nobodycould criticise him!

ROYAL WAX SEAL• Wax seals were used to prevent aletter from being tampered withor opened by the wrong person.

• They were also used to identifythe sender of the letter ordocument. Seals were oftenstamped with the sender’s initialsor insignia.

• Communication was slow andmessages and letters onlytravelled at the speed of thefastest horses.

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PORTRAIT OF KING JAMES I• James became King of Scotlandat the age of thirteen months.

• He was crowned King of Englandin 1603 which united the twocountries.

• He was highly-educated andintelligent. Catholics hoped Jamesmight be more tolerant towardsthem because of his education.

• James didn’t like having hisportrait painted which is whythere are so few portraits of him.

COINS• Coins were made from metalslike gold and silver. The value ofeach coin depended on theamount of metal from which itwas made.

• There were different types ofcoins: shillings, sixpences, halfgroats, pennies and halfpennies toname a few.

• Some merchants made their owncoins out of brass or lead but notevery shop would accept them.

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LITTER• Roads were poor – more liketracks than the roads we havetoday, so it was difficult totransport goods from place to place.

• People could travel by horse ifthey owned one, or be carriedaround in a litter, but for mostpeople the only way to getaround was on foot.

• You could also hire a carriage toget around the streets ofLondon. But there were onlyfour carriages available when theservice started in 1588!

UNION FLAG• When King James VI of Scotlandbecame King James I of England,he decided that he needed a newflag to be a symbol of the twocountries.

• The English flag, a red cross on awhite background, and theScottish flag, a diagonal whitecross on a blue background werecombined.

• Designing the flag took severalattempts – there werearguments about whose flag wasto be on top!

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BLACK RAT• Rats are blamed for helping tospread the plague that ravagedEurope – but it was the fleas onthem that actually carried thedisease.

• The plague arrived in Europe atthe beginning of the 14th centuryand there were continuedoutbreaks until the middle of the17th century.

• Anyone who caught the diseasehad roughly a 50% chance ofdying.

• The plague is also often called‘the Black Death’.

CABBAGE• Meat was a luxury and peopleonly had one cooked meal a day,usually made from grain andvegetables. It was a bit likeporridge but called pottage.

• Carrots were white until muchlater when they were dyedorange by the Dutch.

• Raw fruit was believed to causesickness. Oranges were cooked asthey were thought to bepoisonous.

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POTATOES• The potato, which was firstgrown in South America, wasbrought from the West Indiesback to England by Spanishsailors.

• People were suspicious ofpotatoes because they lookedlike the plant ‘deadly nightshade’,and so were fed only to theanimals.

DEADLY NIGHTSHADE• Before modern medicine, herbsand plants were often used tocure people. Some of theseworked but many of the cureswere dangerous or just silly.

• If you had a headache you mightbe told to rub your forehead withrope that had been used to hanga criminal.

• Deadly Nightshade is poisonousbut women used eye drops madefrom the plant to make their eyesbright – they thought that madethem look more attractive.

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LEECHES• If you were ill you wouldprobably have visited anapothecary or physician.Sometimes the physician wouldrecommend ‘bleeding’.

• Either leeches would be put onyour skin and allowed to suckblood, or you would have a veincut and the blood allowed toflow until it had filled a cup.

• Modern medicine has begun tostart using leeches again – as theyhelp stop blood clots formingduring surgery.

BEER BARREL• Most people, including children,drank beer as their normaleveryday drink as water could notbe trusted to be safe.

• The main ingredients were barley,water and yeast – possibly withsome herbs for flavouring.

• Boiling the ingredients to makethe beer killed the bacteria so itwas a lot less dangerous thandrinking water.

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TRAGEDY OF MACBETH• The Tragedy of Macbeth is a play by William Shakespearewritten sometime between 1603 and 1607.

• It is believed that it was written in honour of James I and thatShakespeare included referencesto the Gunpowder Plot withinthe play.

• William Shakespeare wrote atleast 37 plays during his life.

• The only pictures of Shakespearethat exist were all created afterhe died, so we don’t really knowwhat he looked like.

CHAMBER POT• Most buildings did not have atoilet as we’d know it today.People used chamber pots whenthey wanted to go to the toilet.

• The chamber pot was thenemptied into a ‘privy’ in thebackyard. Or sometimes justthrown out of the window intothe street!

• People emptied chamber pots outof bedroom windows with a cryof ‘gardey loo!’ – this is said to bea corruption of the French‘regardez l’eau’ meaning ‘look outfor the water’.

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QUILL AND INK• A quill and ink were used forwriting. The feathers wereremoved and a ‘nib’ cut into oneend, which was then dipped intoan inkpot for writing.

• The poor did not get aneducation. By the end of theseventeenth century only about athird of men could read, and only1 in 10 women.

• It was very difficult to write witha quill – the quill would notchange direction easily and theink would leave blots on thepaper.

WELL• Water from a tap in your housewould have been a dream for theJacobeans – they had to fetchwater from a well or the river.

• Unfortunately, people emptiedtheir waste water into the riveras well, so drinking water was asource of infection and disease.

• It was actually safer to drink beer– as the water in the beer wasboiled and free from bacteria.

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CLAY PIPE• Men and women, rich and poor,would all smoke – using long-stemmed clay pipes.

• Tobacco was viewed as amedicine and people thoughtsmoking was good for theirhealth!

• James I was strongly opposed to people smoking – he said itwas ‘hateful to the nose, harmfulto the brain and dangerous tothe lungs’.

FORK AND SPOON• People didn’t begin to eat withforks until the early 17th century.

• There was a lot of resistance tothe fork – it was considered anew-fangled invention fromabroad!

• Most people ate with theirfingers, and carried around theirown knife if they needed to cutthings up.

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SUGAR• Sugar was extremely expensiveas it had to be brought in to thecountry. It was a luxury item onlyfor the very rich.

• If you had black teeth at thetime, it showed that you wererich enough to eat sugar. Somepeople intentionally blackenedtheir teeth as a fashion statementand to appear richer than theyreally were!

• Most people used honey insteadas it was far less expensive – itjust required bees to make it!

MACE• The Mace symbolises the royalauthority by which Parliamentmeets and also the authority of the Speaker, who is the chiefofficer and highest authority ofthe House of Commons.

• A mace is carried in and out of the Commons and Lords Chambers at the head of the Speaker's procession at the beginning and end of each day.

• In the United Kingdom, theHouses of the Parliament cannot lawfully meet without the mace present.

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