William and John: Part 6) Outlaws and Villains

We return to the story of Sir William Neville and his partner Sir John Clanvowe. Last time we concentrated on Sir John’s writings, specifically my theory that he wrote the original version of the Robin Hood ballad later printed as “The Geste of Robyn Hode”, the basis of every film and television version that are familiar today.

Today we look at characters in “The Geste” and discover how some of them can be connected to Sir John and Sir William.

First of all, forget about the characters who don’t appear in “The Geste” – Prince John, King Richard, Maid Marian, and Friar Tuck. They were added to the legends later. So, which of the remaining characters are connected to Sir John and Sir William? Below is a family tree to help explain those connections.

THE HIGH SHERIFF OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

The man who appears in "The Geste" is the High Sheriff of Nottinghamshire, not the Sheriff of Nottingham. (See here for my own connection to the real Sheriff of Nottingham.) He is never mentioned by name, though historians suggest he may have been modelled on Sir Henry Fauconberg. When King Edward II visited Nottingham in 1324 to pardon outlaws, an event which features in “The Geste”, Sir Henry Fauconberg was the High Sheriff.

The Fauconberg family were related to the Nevilles. Sir William Neville’s aunt was married to Sir Walter Fauconberg, whose father leased a manor in Holderness, East Yorkshire, to his second-cousin (i.e. they shared one set of great-grandparents), who the father of High Sheriff Sir Henry Fauconberg.

As a supporter of King Edward in a rebellion of 1322 Sir Henry was rewarded by being appointed Commissioner of Array for Yorkshire, responsible for raising troops for battle. However, he got this appointment at the expense of his predecessor, Lord Waleys, the grandfather of Sir William Neville’s wife, Elizabeth. Lord Waleys’ manors were seized by the Crown and he had to pay a large fine. Even though he was pardoned by King Edward at Nottingham (as Robin Hood was in “The Geste”) in 1324 and had his manors returned, his appointments weren’t and he would have had no good feelings towards Sir Henry Fauconberg.

Other High Sheriffs have also been suggested as the model for Robin Hood’s archenemy.

LITTLE JOHN

In "The Geste" Little John says he is the disinherited heir of a manor in Holderness. Sir Henry Fauconberg had an older brother called Sir John who, for reasons that are not clear, was deprived of manors in both Holderness and Sherwood. However, there is an absence of any recognition between Little John and the High Sheriff when they meet in “The Geste”, though Little John was in disguise at the time and probably didn’t want to be recognised.

GUY OF GISBORNE

This character who doesn’t appear in “The Geste” yet is now an integral part of the legend and can be linked to the Fauconbergs. He first appears in a separate manuscript ballad dated to around 1475.

Historians suggest that Gisborne refers to a town in Lancashire just over the Yorkshire border. However, others have pointed out that in Sir John Clanvowe’s lifetime, Gisborne was also a name applied to the town of Guisborough in Northumberland. Guisborough was a familiar to Sir John Clanvowe and the Neville family as they would have passed through it on their way to the Neville estates in the north, and the lords of Guisborough at the time were the Fauconbergs. So, I believe Guy of Gisborne should today be called Guy of Guisborough.

Bearing in mind that Guy of Gisborne was a bounty hunter it would be the High Sheriff to whom he would have handed Robin Hood. With his Fauconberg connection Guy would be another suitably villainous addition to the ballads. Which makes me wonder, is the earliest surviving manuscript of “Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne” copied from one that Sir John Clanvowe wrote a century earlier?

SIR ROGER OF DONCASTER AND THE PRIORESS OF KIRKLEES

Sir Roger of Doncaster and his mistress the Prioress of Kirklees murder Robin Hood in “The Geste”.

Doncaster is a Yorkshire town (and my birthplace) between Barnsdale and Sherwood. A family called de Doncastre lived in the area during the 1300s and some of them held judicial and manorial offices. For instance, Sir John de Doncastre was steward to the Abbot of St. Mary’s in York, an abbott from whom Robin Hood stole in “The Geste”.  Being in the abbot’s service, this would place Sir John, named as Sir Roger of Doncaster in “The Geste”, on the villains list. Sir John was also Steward of Wakefield in 1324, where manorial rolls include the name of a Robert Hode (Robert and Robin were interchangeable names).

Moving on to the Prioress of Kirklees, a noted historian called Joseph Hunter (1783-1861) formulated a theory about her in the 1830s. He said that Robin Hood was based on Robert Hode of Wakefield. "The Geste" says that the Prioress was “nye was of his kin", i.e. near kin to Robert Hode. Hunter suggested that the Prioress of Kirklees was called Elizabeth de Stainton, and that she was step-sister to Robert Hode's wife, Matilda.

The Staintons were landowners in Tickhill, a town 7 miles from Doncaster. It is interesting to note that one Sir John de Doncastre was Constable of Tickhill Castle from 1304, very likely the same man who was Steward of Wakefield, so he would have known the Staintons as well as Robert Hode of Wakefield.

There’s no contemporary record naming Elizabeth de Stainton as a Prioress of Kirklees. It has been assumed that she was appointed during a gap in the records between 1328 and 1350. But there’s a problem. The only records which mention an Elizabeth de Stainton say she was under 12 years old in 1347, making it impossible for her to be the Prioress of Kirklees between the above dates. Perhaps Joseph Hunter was wrong, or that the prioress is a general composite character.

SIR RICHARD AT THE LEE

Sir Richard at the Lee is a major character in later parts of "The Geste". He gives refuge to Robin Hood and his Merry Men after a battle with the High Sheriff. From this point until the end of the ballad Sir Richard is a companion of Robin Hood. A similar scenario had already appeared in the poem "Fulk le Fitz Waryn" dating from 1260. As mentioned in Part 5, Sir John Clanvowe was familiar with the legend of Fulk le Fitz Waryn and clearly used it as the basis for the story of Sir Richard at the Lee.

GILBERT OF THE WHITE HANDS

This character only appears briefly twice in "The Geste" as one of the Merry Men taking part in two archery contests; the famous contest at Nottingham Castle and one later in the forest against the king. "The Geste" implies Gilbert is the second best marksman in England after Robin Hood. It is surprising, therefore, that Gilbert doesn’t appear have his own set of folk tales and ballads. So, who was he?

I think the answer lies in "the White Hands". Among the many different feudal services in England was the presentation of white leather gloves (white hands?) at the coronation of the monarch by the Furnival family as lords of Farnham Royal in Buckinghamshire. After 1379 this hereditary service was vested in Joan Furnival who married Sir Thomas Neville, Sir William's nephew. During the visits of King Richard II to Nottingham Castle during the 1380s, when Sir William was its Constable, the Furnivals would have been expected to be present, as they were also the lords of Worksop in north Nottinghamshire.

Alternatively, could "white hands" actually be "white hounds"? In the 14th century "hand" and "hound" were often spelt and pronounced the same. Could the first printers of "The Geste" (c.1492-1534) have misinterpreted the word from the original manuscript and the actual name should read “Gilbert of the White Hounds”? This also fits the Furnivals. They had to give two white hunting hounds to the king as part of their feudal service as lords of Worksop. What better time and place to present them than during a royal visit to Nottingham Castle. But the Furnivals don't provide us with a Gilbert. However...

A white hound was the livery badge of the Talbot family, and this type of hound became so associated with them that it was named after them – talbot. The word talbot is still used in heraldry for a hunting dog and still appears as the Talbot’s crest. The feudal presentation to the king of white hounds, and also that of white gloves, passed from Joan Neville to her son-in-law, Sir John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury (whose father was Sir John Clanvowe’s cousin). There were three Gilberts in the Talbot family tree - the 1st, 3rd and 5th Barons.

Perhaps one of these Gilberts, even both the 3rd Baron Talbot and the young, future 5th Baron, was present with their famous white hounds when Sir John Clanvowe, as I believe, presented his ballad for the first time in front of the king and court at Nottingham Castle in the mid 1380s.

Perhaps we’ll never know if my theory is correct, but there’s a lot of circumstantial evidence to suggest to me that I’m right.

That’s enough speculation. We return to established fact in the next and final part of the lives of Sir William Neville and Sir John Clanvowe, in which we encounter pirates of the Mediterranean.

William and John: Part 4) Nottingham

Nottingham Castle gatehouse, part of the medieval castle that survives.

Nottingham Castle reopened to the public last month after a £30 million pound make-over (of the parts not protected by law). As regular readers may recall, I worked there for seven years as a gallery assistant and tour guide (winning the Best Guided Tour in the UK award in 2003 by “Good Britain Guide”).

2021 is an anniversary year for Nottingham Castle, because 640 years ago Sir William Neville was appointed Constable of Nottingham Castle. In the previous chapter I described how he and his partner Sir John Clanvowe acquired positions at the court of King Richard II. Today I’ll explore their connection to Nottingham.

Sir William’s first appointment which brought him to Nottingham was as Justice of the Forest North of the Trent in May 1381. The office, one of two English Justices of the Forest (the other being South of the Trent) were the chief magistrates of forest law. Sir William's appointment covered the forests of Sherwood in Nottinghamshire, and Knaresborough and Inglewood Forests in Yorkshire.

The medieval idea of a forest is different to ours today. A forest was not just trees, as you imagine Sherwood Forest to be. The word derives from the Latin for “outside”, so a forest included open fields, meadows, rivers, villages, and occasionally a small town. What united them was that the area covered by forest law, where the king had sole rights of hunting, hence they are called royal forests.

Being Justice of the Forest meant you only had to carry out your duties once every three years, but the actual performance of these duties would take many months as the Justice was required to sit and judge the accumulated violations of forest law and review the forest’s administration. If anyone poached deer or took wood for fire without permission within a royal forest, the Justice presided over their case. In modern versions of Robin Hood it is often the Sheriff of Nottingham who arrests and presides over the court in Sherwood Forest, but in real life he had no authority there. He couldn’t arrest Robin Hood for any law he broke in Sherwood Forest. That was the job of the Foresters. In 1387 Sir William Neville resigned from this appointment.

Often accompanying the office of Justice of the Forest North of the Trent was the constableship of Nottingham Castle. Unlike the Justice, this was a full-time position. Sir William Neville was appointed as Constable in November 1381. Nottingham was a royal castle and his appointment was a further sign of the king's favour, and William was appointed for life. Sir William would travel between Nottingham and his Yorkshire estates all the time.

But what is a constable? Basically, it’s the general manager of a castle. He kept the castle running when the king wasn’t in residence, and ensured that everything the king wanted when he was in residence was available. As a royal residence Nottingham Castle was visited by King Richard II every year that Sir William was Constable.

One of the most well-known events of King Richard's reign was the Peasant's Revolt of June 1381. Neither Sir William nor his partner Sir John Clanvowe had any real part in it. The revolt was partly a response to the changing social make-up after the Black Death, and partly due to growing support for Lollardy, an early form of Protestantism. There was also a political move against the king who was giving too much importance to his friends and advisers. By 1385 a political group called the Lords Appellant had been formed which openly criticised the king.

Through the influence of the Lords Appellant the parliament of 1386 took away the powers of the 19-year-old King Richard and put them into the hands of commissioners. Richard retaliated by going on a journey around the country to gather support against the commission. At Nottingham Castle in August 1387 he gathered his supporters at a Great Council. A group of judges pronounced the Lords Appellant commission as treasonable.

The king made an error of judgement in thinking that the supporters who gathered at Nottingham Castle were powerful enough to defeat the Lords Appellant, who issued a reciprocal accusation of treason against members of the court, including Archbishop Alexander Neville, the younger brother of Sir William Neville. Sir William had neither the political power nor resources to openly support his brother against the charge. Sir William Neville was wise to not openly declare his own views, which would be to his advantage. As constable of a royal residence he was required to support the king, but he was perhaps remembering the earlier crisis surrounding the impeachment of his brother Lord Neville for the failure of the military campaign in northern France in 1376.

The king reluctantly agreed to arrest the named traitors and bring them to trial at the so-called "Merciless Parliament" in February 1388. Archbishop Neville was found guilty of treason. Only his position as a clergyman protected him from execution. He ended his days in exile as a parish priest in France.

Several courtiers who weren’t charged with treason were, however, banished from court. Sir John Clanvowe was one of them. He disappears from court records for a while, perhaps returning to estates in Herefordshire and Wales. Sir William, however, earned the trust of the victorious Lords Appellant. They awarded him an annuity out of the forfeited estates of the traitors.

The power of the Lords Appellant lasted less than two years. After Richard II regained his personal rule on reaching 21 years of age, Sir John Clanvowe and Sir William Neville were again regular attendees at court, and for a few brief years Richard was secure on his throne.

Earlier I mentioned Lollardy as being a cause of the Peasants Revolt. Both Sir William Neville and Sir John Clanvowe were prominent Lollard supporters, members of a small group of courtiers called the Lollard Knights. I wrote about this several years ago, so I’ll direct you over to those articles where you can read more.

While visiting his royal residence in Nottingham King Richard II would have been entertained with lavish banquets, jousts and entertainment. Sir John Clanvowe was a poet and it is my belief that on one occasion he produced a new ballad to be recited in front of the king and the court at one of those banquets. It featured a well-known character in a new setting, not unlike modern reboots of films and television series. Sir John used personal knowledge and the family backgrounds of himself, Sir William Neville, and the king to give local interest to his ballad. That well-known character was Robin Hood. Most of what is familiar to us about this legendary outlaw comes from the ballad I believe was written by Sir John Clanvowe, and I’ll explain more about it in the next chapter of the lives of Sir William and Sir John.

However, you’ll have to wait a while for that. I’ll explain why in a couple of weeks, but look out for 26th October, Robin Hood Day, when his connection to Sir John Clanvowe and Sir William Neville will be explained.

William and John: Part 1) Childhood

The gatehouse of Nottingham Castle

Today is International Museum Day, and next month Nottingham Castle Museum and Art Gallery will reopen after two years of redevelopment. I worked at Nottingham Castle for seven years as a tour guide and gallery attendant and the owners of the castle, the city council, never showed any understanding of heritage. They even banned Robin Hood for a few years because he “set a bad example”! So I have little hope that the castle will be “improved” in any way. From what they’ve already shown us I expect and that everything is dumbed down to their level of intelligence.

My links to Nottingham Castle merge with its lgbt heritage through Sir William Neville (c.1341-1391) who was appointed Constable of Nottingham Castle in 1381. I descend from his brother.

Sir William Neville and his partner, Sir John Clanvowe, has been mentioned on this blog several times over the years. To mark the 640th anniversary of Sir William’s appointment and the castle’s reopening I’d like to fill in some of the gaps in their story. Let’s start at the beginning and look at their childhood.

Sir William Neville was born in or around 1341 at Raby Castle, County Durham, into one of the most powerful, and ancient families in northern England. William was the fifth and youngest son of Sir Ralph Neville, 2nd Baron Neville of Raby (c.1291-1367), and his wife Alice (c.1300-1374).

The 2nd Baron, or Lord, Neville was an important courtier during the first years of the reign of King Edward III (the king who made St. George the patron saint of England). Several of Sir William's brothers also went on to become influential, and several of his six sisters married influential lords. William’s eldest brother John Neville (my ancestor), inherited the family title and was a soldier and ambassador. The next brother Alexander became Archbishop of York. William himself became a favoured courtier of King Richard II and received high appointments.

Sir William’s mother, Alice, was the widow of Lord Greystoke and a niece of the Mortimer family who had feudal links to Sir John Clanvowe’s family. Alice had a young son by Lord Greystoke who become 2nd Baron Greystoke when she became widowed in 1323, and he became stepson and ward to Lord Neville.

Our William Neville, being the youngest son of a large family, had little chance of inheriting much from his father's estates so Lord Neville, an ambitious man, came up with a plan.

By the 1340s it looked as if his ward Lord Greystoke, although married and in his 20s, would remain childless. Lord Neville seized the opportunity to ensure that the Greystoke estates would be inherited by one of his children. He entered into an agreement with Lord Greystoke whereby all of the Greystoke estates would be inherited by one of the younger Neville sons if Lord Greystoke died without children. William Neville was about 3 years old at the time and it’s likely that he was being considered as the Greystoke heir. Whichever of the sons inherited the Greystoke lands would be required to adopt the Greystoke name and coat of arms in place of Neville. This was common practice in a lot of aristocratic families. As it happened, Lord Greystoke eventually fathered a healthy son and heir in 1352, and Lord Neville's hopes of providing lands for his younger sons were dashed, and it looked as if young William Neville would be left penniless and landless.

That’s Sir William Neville’s family background. Now let’s look at Sir John Clanvowe’s.

There’s a great deal of uncertainty in establishing Sir John's parentage. His father may have been another John Clanvowe, a Knight of the Shire, a wealthy landowner elected by other landowners to represent Herefordshire in the English parliament of 1347-8.

I believe the family takes its names from Llanveau (or Llanedw), a hamlet near the Welsh coast just four miles east of Cardiff. To me the way the name Clanvowe is spelt obviously derives from the English pronunciation of Llanveau (the Welsh pronunciation of the double “L” sounds very much like “CL”). The first person to have used this English spelling seems to have been Sir Philip Clanvowe. I believe he was our Sir John's grandfather.

The Clanvowes had manorial ties with the most important family of the Welsh borders, the Mortimers. For several generations the Clanvowes had been hereditary bailiffs, the manorial estate managers, of the Mortimer's manor at Gladestry over the border in England, 22 miles from Hereford. Through this strong link to the manor I believe our Sir John Clanvowe may have been born in Gladestry in around 1341, making him the same age as William Neville.

It is not improbable that Sir William Neville and Sir John Clanvowe met when they were children. William's mother was the niece of the Mortimers, and the Clanvowes were bailiffs in one of their manors. During the 1340s and 1350s there would have been several gatherings and celebrations where the Mortimers, the Nevilles, and the Clanvowes would have been able to meet. It is known that tournaments were often held at Hereford Castle and they would be the ideal place for lords and their families to network and form alliances.

During their childhood William Neville and John Clanvowe were exposed to the Black Death, the biggest pandemic which ravaged Europe in the late 1340s. It is shown from medieval records that wealthy families had a better chance of survival than those from poorer backgrounds. But it appears that young William and John were also fortunate to survive because to their age. Analysis by Professor J. C. Russell in 1948 of a sample group of death records show that the young were actually the most likely to survive the plague. This has an echo in our present covid pandemic. Russell calculated that the highest mortality rate, unsurprisingly, was 46% among those over 56 years old. Children between the ages of 6 and 10, which included both John Clanvowe and William Neville, had the best chance of survival. The mortality rate for their age group was just 7%, the lowest of them all. The mortality rate for the 10 to 56 year old age group was 28%.

So, having survived childhood, next month I’ll look at the adult career of Sir John Clanvowe as he became a soldier and fought in the Hundred Years War. The month after that I’ll look at Sir William Neville’s career at the court of the English king.

Around the World in Another 80 Gays : Part 26) Singing Out of His Tree

Previously on 80 Gays : 53) Dame Carol Ann Duffy (b.1955) is the UK’s Poet Laureate, a title reminding us of the practice in Ancient Greece of awarding laurel wreaths to winners of song contests, as written about by 54) Theocritus of Syracuse (c.300 BC-c.260 BC), and the modern-day versions of such contests makes stars out of singers like 55) Clay Aiken (b.1978).

55) Clay Aiken was baptised Clayton Holmes Grissom. Clayton and Holmes are the names of his two grandmothers’ families. Aiken is his mother’s family name. Clay’s parents, Vernon Grissom and his second wife Nancy Faye Aiken, separated in the 1990s. When he was 19 Clay decided to legally change his surname from Grissom to Aiken.

One feature I noticed was the dominance of North Carolina in Clay’s ancestry. This is by no means unique. Other research shows dominance of other states in other people’s ancestries. Usually, however, there is a variety of geographical backgrounds in American ancestries, including some of those I’ve featured previously on this blog.

Below is a comparison. I’ve selected another famous “American Idol” contestant, Adam Lambert, whose paternal ancestry I have researched. The bottom row of each chart gives the singer’s name. Above that are rows representing the previous five generations. Each ancestor is given a colour to indicate a state of origin. The more colours, the more states appear in the ancestry. Ancestors I haven’t yet researched are blank. 

The first thing to notice is blue in Clay Aiken’s ancestry table. This represents North Carolina. Adam Lambert’s ancestry, even if less research has been done, shows more variation, though the blue representing North Carolina appears in his chart also.

Clay Aiken’s immediate ancestry reveals his musical heritage. His autobiography “Learning to Sing” relates his great-grandfather and great-great-uncle were talented musicians who were recorded by Duke University as part of a folk culture project. Another musical connection appears in one of Clay’s distance cousins Lynn Breedlove (b.1965). Lynn, also Lynnee, was founder and lead singer of the queer punk band Tribe 8.

The Breedloves and the Grissoms reveal a dark chapter found in many American ancestries, the American Civil War. Both families fought for the Confederates.

In 1861 the Confederates formed an infantry regiment that was later nicknamed the Granville Targeteers because it was largely composed of men from Granville County, North Carolina. Along with other families in Clay’s ancestry the Breedloves and Grissoms had lived in Granville County for several generations. There’s no indication that any of Clay’s direct ancestors enlisted with the Confederates although his ancestors’ brother and cousins did. No less than five Breedlove brothers, nephews of Clay’s ancestor Shelton Breedlove, enlisted in the army or navy.

Also serving in the Granville Targeteers was Alexander Grissom, the brother of Clay’s great-great-grandfather. Alexander rose to the rank of 1st Corporal in 1862 and was killed on the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863. Through another Granville County family, the Bennetts, it looks probable that one of Clay’s ancestral uncles was Richard Bennett, Governor of Virginia 1652-5. Governor Bennett was an ancestor of Robert E. Lee.

Yet another Granville County family caught my attention because they are my ancestors as well, the Spiveys. Clay descends from Littleton Spivey (c.1700-1761). My connection comes in the 17th century when Clay’s Spivey ancestors migrated to America from Nottinghamshire. That’s where my Spivey ancestors came from and I’ve been digging in the county archives to find out if we’re related.

Among Clay’s other colonial ancestors are several families who were involved in one of the earliest colonial rebellions, Bacon’s Rebellion of 1676. Its causes and effects are complex and too lengthy to go into here, but ultimately it led to the growth of the persecution of Native Americans, the American slave trade, white supremacy in US politics, and the American Dream. A brief description of the rebellion is given in this video.

Among Clay’s ancestors known to have been involved in the rebellion are George Proctor, a Tidewater aristocrat who supported the rebellion, and William Rowland, one of the rebels.

That’s just a snapshot of Clay Aiken’s ancestry. Let’s jump forward to look at Clay’s rise to fame.

Having been a singer and musician in public from childhood Clay got the chance to record a demo album thanks to a birthday present from his mother. After the first series of “American Idol” proved to be a success Clay was persuaded to audition for the second series in 2002. He surprised the judges with his talent and the rest, as they say, is history. Even though he lost to Ruben Studdard in the final Clay was a popular contestant. Along with many other contestants he recorded “American Idol Season 2: All-time Classic American Love Songs”. A solo album followed.

The “American Idol” album was recorded in the Larrabee West recording studio in West Hollywood. Larrabee West wasn’t built or designed as a recording studio. It was built in 1922 as a bank. But it’s what happened after it was a recording studio which takes us further on our “80 Gays” journey. In 2007 the Larrabee West studio was turned into a gay nightclub and restaurant called Eleven. Its co-owner was 56) Richard Grossi.

Next time : We go clubbing and pull a few strings in order to continue on a musical journey via the Gay Games.

Chain Males : Part 1

Following on from my article on female mayors in March I bring a look at members of the lgbt community who have held mayoral office. We begin with a small group who have held the office of Lord Mayor.

Let’s being, though, with a definition of a Lord Mayor. The office is most associated with the UK. Towns with mayors may receive letters patent from the sovereign granting or confirming the status of Lord Mayor onto the town mayor. This usually happens when the town is simultaneously elevated to city status. Even though cities existed before 1893 by being the seat of a bishopric, only London and York had Lords Mayor before that year.

The title of Lord does not give them a place in the House of Lords. “Lord” is a term used to signify special recognition from the Crown (as also in Lord Lieutenant and Lord Justice) and indicates the office not the person. As such, any female holder of the office is also called Lord Mayor, not Lady Mayor or Lady Mayoress (which is a traditional courtesy title given to the wife of a mayor). Lords Mayor are civic heads of their city, the “Chief Citizen”, and not the head of the governing city council (usually titled the Leader of the Council) though are selected by their council from one of their elected members.

By the way, the Lord Mayor of London and the Mayor of London are two different titles. The Lord Mayor is the civic head of the old City of London, and the Mayor is the elected political head of the larger Greater London area covering many towns, cities and boroughs of which the City of London is just one part.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way lets turn to the lgbt Lords Mayor themselves. The illustration below shows you their locations. All of them in England were entitled to use the coat of arms of their city during their term of office. In Australia, Wollongong has no coat of arms, and in Melbourne the named office holder was Deputy Lord Mayor and not entitled to use the city arms.

Here is a list of the Lords Mayor in chronological order:

David Campbell – Wollongong, Australia, 1991-9.
Robert Davis – Westminster, UK, 1996-7.
Gary Singer – Melbourne (Deputy), Australia, 2004-6.
Colin Inglis – Kingston-upon-Hull, UK, 2011-12.
Leon Unczur – Nottingham, UK, 2012-12.
Gary Millar – Liverpool, UK, 2013-14.
Carl Austin-Behan – Manchester, UK, 2016-17.

Immediately, it is clear that all of them are male. There has not yet been any female Lords Mayor from the lgbt community to my knowledge. All of the men listed, with the exception of Robert Davis in 1997, were openly gay before they took office.

Robert Davis came out in 2007 when he and his partner announced their Civil Partnership. Here is another example of the confusion that can arise with the London mayors. Robert and his partner Simon Milton (d.2011) were publicly elected Westminster city councillors. The council appointed Robert Lord Mayor of Westminster in 1996. In 2008 Simon (by now Sir Simon) was appointed Deputy Mayor of London, the larger London that covers many boroughs as well as the cities of London and Westminster. Confusing? It is to a lot of Londoners as well! Having said that, Robert and Sir Simon are the only lgbt couple who have both held mayoral office, though not simultaneously.

Of the other Lords Mayor on the list I have mentioned Leon Unzcur several times on my blog before, mainly because he was also the first openly gay Sheriff of Nottingham and because I know him quite well. Unfortunately he has suffering from parkinson’s disease and I don’t see him around very often.

Perhaps the most surprising connection is the appointment of Carl Austin-Behan. He has been a Manchester city councillor since 2011, but his earlier claim to fame was as Mr. Gay UK 2001. His term of office as Lord Mayor ends officially in the next few days.

In the next Chain Male article I look at the international mayors (mayors in the USA will be looked at later in the year).

Heritage Spotlight : The Galleries of Justice

In a couple of months the award-winning Galleries of Justice in Nottingham will be relaunched as the National Justice Museum. Before it undergoes some physical transformations the last exhibition at the Galleries was held earlier this month. It was held to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Sexual Offences Act which partly decriminalised homosexual acts.

The Galleries of Justice are housed in the former Nottingham County jail, Shire Hall and county police headquarters. The current building dates from 1770 but there was a court house on this site from before 1375. The oldest surviving part of this early building at the caves underneath the building which were used as prison cells from 1449.

The recent exhibition at the Galleries also commemorated the 120th anniversary of Oscar Wilde’s release from Reading Jail. Oscar Wilde was no stranger to Nottingham himself. His first boyfriend was the son of a local vicar and he later gave several lectures in the city. There’s no evidence that he set foot in the Galleries of Justice while it was the Shire Hall and county court. However, several items in the Galleries’ collection are very solidly connected to him. First is the actual door of his cell from Reading Jail which has been housed at the Galleries of Justice for several years, as well as the dock from the old Bow Street magistrate’s court behind which Wilde stood when charged with gross indecency. This is the same dock behind which Sir Roger Casement stood when accused of treason.

One more physical link to Oscar Wilde is his grandson and biographer Merlin Holland who is a patron of the Galleries of Justice and has visited several times.

In 1902 a man called John Wood was appointed as a court bailiff. His son was Karl Wood (1988-1958), one of the thousands of men who were convicted of homosexual offences before the Sexual Offences Act came into force in 1967. Just 4 weeks ago a pardon was granted to all of them and Karl was pardoned posthumously along with Oscar Wilde. For a decade Karl actually lived 100 meters away from the Galleries of Justice before he volunteered for service in World War I.

Karl Wood’s trial was held in Lincoln because he was living in Lincolnshire at that time, but Nottingham has seen more than its fair share of prosecutions against local gay men.

In 1910 two men were charged with gross indecency at the Nottingham assizes held at the old Shire Hall. One was a local navvy (a general manual labourer) and the other was a 20-year-old Music Hall entertainer who went by the stage name of Mysterious Mabel. Fortunately, it took the jury an hour and a half to find them both not guilty.

Not so fortunate were a group of men who were convicted en masse in the largest group prosecution ever held in the England for gross indecency. A total of 23 men pleaded guilty in court on 21st November 1963. Sentences ranged from 3 years in prison to 1 year’s probation. The men were all visitors to a house in a local town in which regular gay parties were held. The men’s ages ranged from an un-named 16-year-old to a retired 70-year-old. One of those convicted was a cousin of my ex-partner.

The Galleries of Justice in Nottingham.

On a more pleasant note the Galleries of Justice is staffed by a group of people who are enthusiastic about revealing the hidden history behind England’s court system. One of the current employees, Rebecca Buck, is also a successful novelist and has used the Galleries of Justice as a setting.

Rebecca’s novels are historically-based romantic lesbian novels, generally set in the period of Jane Austen and the Brontes. One novel called “The Locket and the Flintlock” is set in my own old stomping ground of North Nottinghamshire and involves the love story of a young noblewoman and a masked highwayman who turns out to be a woman (another personal link here, in the research into my above-mentioned ex-partner’s family tree I discovered he had an ancestral uncle who was hanged as a highwayman just a few short miles from where Rebecca’s novel is set, and during the same period).

As parts of the Galleries of Justice close down for the transformation into the National Justice Museum we commemorate the building’s place in lgbt history and celebrate in the pardon granted to all those men who stood in the dock accused of nothing more than being themselves.

Mumbling Knights and Vanishing Priests : Part 2

Last week I wrote about the “mumbling” Lollards and their influence in Nottingham. Today we learn about how that influence made one priest vanish!

The 1380s were a troubling time for King Richard II of England. He had come to the throne at the age of 10. Various factions in positions of power began vying to get the upper hand. Most of Richard’s closest advisers, hand-picked by himself, were not from the traditional pool of courtiers and were not trusted by the established powers. Even the king’s uncles and regents didn’t trust them.

Soon the competence of the king was being openly questioned. The parliament of 1386 took away most of his powers and put them in the hands of a group of barons called the Lords Appellant, most of whom were known to be his critics and anti-Lollard. King Richard had lost the Lollard-supporting influence of his mother who had died in 1385. Many of his closest personal advisers, however, were still Lollard Knights.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, William Courtenay, excommunicated all Lollard preachers in the archdiocese. One of these was Nicholas Hereford. Hereford arrived in Nottingham in January 1387. By all accounts Nottingham and the east Midlands was an area of strong Lollard support. Technically he was outside Courtenay's ecclesiastical jurisdiction as Nottingham came under that of the archdiocese of York.

The Archbishop of York was Alexander Neville, none other than Sir William Neville’s brother. Considering the Catholic Church’s opposition of Lollardy William's support seems to bring him into direct conflict with his brother, but this does not appear to have been the case. The brothers enjoyed a mutual friendship with the king and the archbishop's Catholic beliefs may not have been as orthodox as that of other clergymen at the time. He certainly enjoyed an uneasy relationship with his more orthodox southern counterpart and superior, Archbishop Courtenay.

Courtenay may not have relied on Archbishop Neville to issue a similar excommunication against Hereford so he issued an arrest warrant against him instead for preaching heresy. He was arrested and imprisoned in Nottingham’s town jail. Shortly afterwards Sir William Neville, the Constable of Nottingham Castle, petitioned for him to be transferred into his custody, "faithfully promising to keep him so safe that he shall not walk abroad, nor preach errors, nor publish unlawful sermons contrary to the faith of the Church", as his petition said. William's petition was accepted and Hereford entered the castle in February 1387.

The gatehouse of Nottingham Castle.

By this time King Richard was going around the country gathering support against the Lords Appellant. He arrived in Nottingham in August. There he found his supporters waiting. What he didn’t find was the preacher Nicholas Hereford. He had vanished. It wasn’t long before he was found safe and well and living with Sir William Neville’s friend and fellow Lollard Knight Sir John Montagu in Hertfordshire. Someone had let his escape. I wonder who? It wasn't as grim an imprisonment as would be imposed upon an ordinary criminal, familiar in Hollywood movies. Nicholas Hereford wasn’t held in chains in a dungeon. Under a kind of house arrest he would have been allowed to move within the inner castle precincts under watch.

Sir William escaped punishment for letting his prisoner escape, despite breaking the assurances he had made in his petition. The king concentrated on his main problem and called a Great Council at Nottingham castle at which the Lords Appellant were declared traitors. On the king’s return to London the Lords Appellant issued their own declaration of treason against some of the royal advisers, including Archbishop Neville. The king’s supporter were overwhelmed by that of the Lords Appellant and he agreed to arrest the traitors. Archbishop Neville was found guilty and removed from office. Only his position as a clergyman saved him from execution.

Sir William Neville escaped censure but his partner, Sir John Clanvowe, didn’t He was impeached and banished from the court. Very soon afterwards he returned, as the king reached the age of majority within a year and was able to rule alone. From then on Sir William and Sir John, once again, enjoyed the friendship of the king.

Nottingham, however, was still seen as a hotbed of Lollard heresy. New warrants were issued to the burgesses, which included my own ancestors I referred to in Part 1. The only good piece of news for the Church that was coming from Nottingham was the progress of the rebuilding of St. Mary’s church.

Before the church was completed Sir William Neville and Sir John Clanvowe travelled to Constantinople, perhaps on another secret mission for the king. There they met their untimely ends and they never got to se the new St. Mary’s. As I mentioned in Part 1, Sir William was commemorated in a stained glass that showed the shields of arms of the church’s patrons.

Mumbling Knights and Vanishing Priests : Part 1

This is the first of two articles dealing with people and places involved in one of the major religious disputes in Medieval England with which I have very personal connections. These connections will become apparent as you read them. The connections are that I live in Nottingham and worked at Nottingham Castle for seven years; my direct ancestor is John Tansley; and I am also descended from Sir William Neville’s older brother and sister. So, I hope you will forgive this little indulgence.

Long-time readers of this blog will be familiar with the name Sir William Neville, and that of his partner Sir John Clanvowe. They were friends and confidantes of the king and they lived at Nottingham Castle from 1381 to 1391. They were also a highly respected same-sex couple and were buried together as such.

During the reign of King Richard II in the late 1300s there arose a group of supporters of the religious reformer John Wycliff, an Oxford theologian who believed that all church authority derives from the Bible, not from Rome, and that everyone had the right to read the Bible in their own language.

Wycliff's followers were called Lollards, a name derived from a Dutch word for someone who mumbles (as in the act of praying). Wycliff's most senior sympathisers included the beautiful Joan, Princess of Wales, King Richard II's mother, known as the Fair Maid of Kent. King Richard himself was not a supporter but he was opposed to their persecution in the early years, no doubt through his mother's influence and because many of his friends and courtiers were Lollard sympathisers.

In 1385 some of the so-called Lollard Knights were appointed to attend upon the Fair Maid of Kent. Sir John Clanvowe and Sir William Neville were among them. When Princess Joan died later that year some of these knights, including both Sir John and Sir William, were her executors.

As time passed Lollards were declared to be heretics. Less than ten years later there were condemned to be burnt at the stake. Fortunately, by that time (1402) Sir John Clanvowe and Sir William Neville, as well as Richard II, had died.

Sir John Clanvowe wrote a religious tract known as "The Two Ways". Although this work does not mention either Lollardy or Wycliffe by name it sets down the choices a man can make - the way to heaven or the way to hell. One aspect of Lollard doctrine is shown in the fact that "The Two Ways" was written in English not Latin. When Sir John Clanvowe died in Constantinople in 1391 he had his manuscript of "The Two Ways" with him. It is fortunate that his companions on that journey thought fit to bring the manuscript back to England such a work written by a layman is rare enough, but "The Two Ways" is unique in that it is the only written record by a Lollard Knight that contains Lollard ideas.

Sir William Neville didn’t leave any public declarations of his support for Lollardism like his partner. Yet, in his own way, Sir William exerted some Lollard influence in Nottingham, particularly in its main church, St. Mary’s.

During the 1380s when Sir William was Constable of Nottingham Castle, St. Mary’s church was undergoing an extensive rebuild. It is only in the past thirty years or so that it’s historical significance has been revealed. For many centuries Winchester cathedral had been put forward as the earliest major church in the English Perpendicular style, yet St. Mary’s in Nottingham has now been recognised as predating it by at least a decade.

A famous county historian of the 17^th century noted some of the ancient stained glass which contained four heraldic shields. These offer clues to the date and benefactors of the rebuilding work. The shields were identified as those of 1) the royal arms of England, 2) King Richard II combined with his wife, 3) Archbishop Thomas Arundel of York, and 4) the Neville family. For a long time no-one could identify which member of the Neville family this represented. It must have been someone who was around after 1388 (the appointment of Archbishop Arundel) and before 1394 (the death of the queen). Today we know that the only Neville with a connection to Nottingham who fits those dates in Sir William.

The stone masons working on the rebuilding work would have probably been the same ones working on the repairs to Nottingham Castle during the same period. As a Lollard Sir William would have been in favour of a clear, non-ostentatious decoration that appeared in the regular Gothic architecture at the time. A simple style was in keeping with Lollardism. A simple, unfussy style of English Perpendicular is what we see at St. Mary’s, much of which survives to this day.


St. Mary's church, Nottingham, as it is today, very much as it was when
it was rebuilt  in the late 1300s.

One interesting thing to consider is the date on which the new church could have been dedicated. In the 16^th century St. Mary’s celebrated its anniversary on the first Sunday in October. You’d think that they would have chosen one of the feast days of their patron saint, but they didn’t. We’ll never for sure why the date was chosen, but think about this – both Sir William Neville and Sir John Clanvowe died in the first week of October 1391. Could the dedication of St. Mary’s church have taken place a year or two later on the anniversary of their death? That’s speculation, nothing more.

Sir William Neville wasn’t the only local benefactor to the rebuilding of St. Mary’s. A lot of gentry and wealthy burgesses did so also. Two of these were town mayors and Members of Parliament John Tansley (my ancestor) and his grandson John Samon. When they died they were buried in St. Mary’s. Their tombs can still be seen today. Both would have known Sir William Neville and Sir John Clanvowe and, as leading citizens, may also have met King Richard II.

So, Sir William Neville and Sir John Clanvowe were members of the “mumbling” Lollard Knights. But what about the “Vanishing Priest” of this article’s title? For him you’ll have to wait till next week for Part II.

Clothes Maketh the Man

On this International Museum Day I want to reflect on someone in the museum service I had the pleasure of working with. I’ve worked in several historic buildings and museums over the past 28 years – Epworth Old Rectory, Gainsborough Old Hall and Nottingham Castle. I’ve worked with a lot of interesting people and have taken even more interesting visitors on guided tours (from 200 Methodists bishops to the Dandy Warhols).

My last museum job was in 2005 at the Museum of Costume and Textiles here in Nottingham (pictured below). Since then my connection to the world of heritage has concentrated on lgbt history.

My last “boss” was a man I wish I had talked with more often. He had the official title of Keeper of the Costume and Textiles Collection of Nottingham City Council. His name was Jeremy Farrell (1947-2008), and a more gently soul I have rarely met. When I worked with him he was based in the costume museum, his baby, so to speak, which opened its doors to the public 40 years ago this June. Unfortunately, by the time I arrived the museum had been closed for several years. More of that later.

Jeremy William Farrell was born in 1947 and studied modern history at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. In 1970 he was appointed to the Costume and Textiles position in Nottingham.

At one time Nottingham was world-renowned as a leading centre of textile manufacture. Many innovations originated here. The framework knitting machine was invented nearby in 1589. In the 1770s Sir Richard Arkwright built the world’s first cotton mill just a few hundred metres from where I now live (it was a gay bar in the 1990s and early 2000s called The Mill and its interior kept the original wooden floorings, brickwork in the walls, and massive iron support beams – it’s now luxury apartments). Then lace-making factories were built in the surrounding streets. These mills and the machines were the target of the Luddites, championed by Lord Byron. The machines have gone, the factories are now apartments, studios and multi-storey car parks, but the area is still called The Lace Market. Nottingham lace is still sought after, though not much is made here any more.

With this rich heritage it was natural that Nottingham should have its own museum dedicated to textiles. The politicians at Nottingham city hall preferred not to. When Jeremy Farrell took up his post as Keeper the collection was housed at Nottingham Castle. Very little of it was on display amongst the many decorative and fine art galleries. Jeremy decided that a new museum would showcase the collection better.

After a lot of persuasion Jeremy convinced the city council to create the museum of costume. The photo above is of the Georgian terraced houses just across the road from Nottingham Castle that was chosen for the new museum. The first galleries were open to the public in June 1976. The museum was completed in 1983.

The layout remained virtually the same when I began working there in 2005. There were three floors, and 6 of the rooms were recreated in period style, each displaying costumes from that period. They also exhibited items from the decorative and fine arts collections to make the rooms look more authentic. In some of the other rooms were cases and cabinets which displayed everything from parasols to plimsolls, and from lace collars to corsets. On the top 2 floors were the offices, workrooms and stores where Jeremy was based.

The museum was extremely successful, and through Jeremy’s hard work and eye for a significant addition the collection grew very quickly into one of the most important costume and textile collections in the country.

Jeremy was also a writer of definitive books on umbrellas and parasols, and socks and stockings. He wrote many articles for textile publications.

In 2003 the museum was forced to close because it couldn’t be adapted for complete wheelchair access. As a Grade II listed building a lift could not be built. This was a hard blow to Jeremy. However, the collection remained on display and the museum was only open by prior arrangement for schools and academic groups. It had become a ghost of its former self. Nottingham city council also decided to go back to the old days and have the costumes at the Castle Museum. At that time I was working at the Castle and it was generally felt, though not openly expressed, that the city’s Labour politicians weren’t interested in preserving heritage (they preferred to spend it on a massive new HQ for themselves, and the city’s 5^th art gallery). This was the same Labour council who several years before wanted to ban Robin Hood because having a robber as a hero gave the city a bad image!

The council tried to convince people that they were going to rehouse the costume collection in a new purposely-designed building, but everyone knew they weren’t interested.

When I arrived at the Costume Museum there were only 3 people working there – Jeremy himself, his partner David working as a volunteer, and a university intern. It never had any other full-time staff was always staffed by employees borrowed part-time from other council sites.

My work with Jeremy was to re-catalogue the collection. Much of the work had already been done but it was also slow work. Thousands of index cards had to be put onto computer. Jeremy quickly recognised my skills in research and gave me the extra task of doing additional research into the owners and families of the items in the collection. I was able to re-attribute several items which led to them being re-dated by Jeremy.

Jeremy’s kindness at what was a difficult time for me can never be over-emphasised. He never had a bad word to say about anyone and never judged them. I spent many hours with Jeremy up in the top attic stores re-boxing and examining hundreds of items. With every box Jeremy had a story to tell about its contents. His partner David often expanded on these with his own extensive knowledge.

I left Nottingham City Council and its museum service in November 2005 (not from choice). I tried to keep in touch with my former colleagues and it was on a regular visit to the Castle in 2008 that I learnt that Jeremy had died suddenly from cancer.

Jeremy Farrell will be remembered by all of us who worked with him as the kind of person you don’t want to leave. There was always something you wanted to go back and talk to him about, and he never disappointed. He told me so much that I’ve forgotten most of it. But what he taught me about the history of costume and textiles, in Nottingham specifically, was priceless.