Prince and the Pauper (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (31 page)

Among the more eminent Blue Coat Boys are Joshua Barnes, editor of Anacreon and Euripides; Jeremiah Markland, the eminent critic, particularly in Greek literature; Camden, the antiquary; Bishop Stillingfleet; Samuel Richardson, the novelist; Thomas Mitchell, the translator of Aristophanes; Thomas Barnes, many years editor of the London Times; Coleridge, Charles Lamb, and Leigh Hunt.

No boy is admitted before he is seven years old, or after he is nine; and no boy can remain in the school after he is fifteen, King’s boys and “Grecians” alone excepted. There are about 500 Governors, at the head of whom are the Sovereign and the Prince of Wales. The qualification for a Governor is payment of £500.—Ibid.

 

 

ONE hears much about the
“hideous
Blue-Laws
of Connecticut
,
” and
is
accustomed to shudder piously when they are mentioned. There are people
in
America
—
and
even in
England!
—
who
imagine that they were a very monument of malignity,
pitilessness,
and inhumanity; whereas, in reality they were about the first SWEEPING DEPARTURE FROM JUDICIAL ATROCITY which the “civilized” world had seen. This humane and kindly Blue-Law code, of two hundred and forty years ago, stands all by
itself, with ages of bloody law on the further side of it, and a century and three-quarters of bloody English law on THIS side of it.

There has never been a time
—
under the Blue-Laws or any other
—when above FOURTEEN crimes were punishable by death in Connecticut. But in England, within the memory
of men
who are still hale in body and mind, TWO HUNDRED AND TWENTY-THREE crimes were punishable by death!
^au
These facts are worth
knowing
—
and worth
thinking
about, too.

1
(p. 11) the new baby, Edward Tudor, Prince
of
Wales: Tudor is the name of the royal family that ruled England from 1485 to 1603. Edward Tudor (1537-1553), who became King Edward VI, was the son and successor of Henry VIII. Although referred to here as the Prince of Wales, he would never formally assume the title; male heirs to the English throne are not born with the title but are invested with it, usually in their late teens.

2
(p. 14) around the Maypole in
Cheapside:
Cheapside, a busy commercial street in London (cheap is an old term for “barter”), was frequently the site of fairs and celebrations; a maypole, a tall pole decorated with flowers and greens, was erected there to celebrate with songs and dances the advent of spring (May Day).

3
(p. 14) poor
Anne Askew:
An early English protestant martyr, Anne Askew (1521-1546) was convicted of heresy for refusing to recant her opinions on transubstantiation (the Roman Catholic doctrine that holds that the bread and wine in a Mass become the body and blood of Christ); she was burned at the stake at the age of twenty-five.

4
(p. 15) Mincing Lane and Little East Cheap: These streets in London’s East End were noted for almshouses (poorhouses), cookshops (which served cooked food), and public houses (bars).

5
(p. 17) Temple
Bar:
The western gateway to the City of London, the Temple Bar was one of the entrances through which sovereigns returned to the city; in Tom’s day, it was crossed by a bar or chain.

6
(p. 17)
Charing Village
... at the beautiful cross built there
by
a bereaved king
of
earlier days: Now a part of central London, Charing Village was a bucolic suburb of the city in the sixteenth century, and the site of one of the crosses erected by Edward I to mark the funeral procession of his beloved queen, Eleanor of Castile (1246-1290).

7
(p. 17) mighty and majestic
palace ... Westminster:
Then the most important palace in London, Westminster was home to the English monarchs from the Middle Ages through the end of the Tudor dynasty.

8
(p. 19)
“the Tower”:
The Tower of London was London’s great fortress and frequently the place of imprisonment for famous, infamous, or particularly dangerous foes of the regime.

9
(p. 20)
“The Lady Elizabeth, ...
the
Lady Jane
Grey, ... the Lady Mary, with her gloomy
mien”:
Elizabeth, Edward’s half sister, would ascend the throne in 1558 as Queen Elizabeth I of England. The Lady Jane Grey (1537-1554), Edward’s cousin, would reign for just nine days following his early death. The Lady Mary refers to Edward’s half sister, Mary I (1516-1558); upon her ascension to the throne in 1553, she would forcefully attempt the reconversion of England to Catholicism; because of the religious persecutions of Protestants during her reign, she was dubbed “Bloody Mary.”

10
(p. 21)
“Punch-and-Judy shows”:
These puppet shows were an English variant on the Italian commedia dell‘arte character Pulcinella. The shows were violent, though humorous, and frequently but slyly critical of authority and those in power.

11
(p. 25)
“Grey Friars’ church,
which the king
my father
hath taken from the monks and
given for
a
bome forever for
poor
and forsaken
children, and new-named it Christ’s
Church”:
Grey Friars’ was a large and powerful Franciscan house in central London that Henry VIII appropriated when he dissolved the order in 1538. The house was later renamed Christ Church. It was not, however, turned into a refuge for children until well into the reign of Edward VI himself.

12
(p. 28) “Gone stark mad as any Tom
o’ Bedlam!”:
Bedlam is a corruption of “Bethlehem,” a reference to London’s notorious asylum for the insane, Hospital of St. Mary of Bethlehem (later called Bethlehem Hospital). Tom
o’ Bedlam
was a nickname for inmates of the asylum.

13
(p. 29) great lords
of Norfolk
and Surrey: The reference is to Thomas Howard (1473-1554), third duke of Norfolk, and his son, Henry Howard (1517-1547), earl of Surrey; both were charged with treason and imprisoned in the Tower of London in 1546; it is widely thought they were victims of political intrigue. Henry was beheaded in 1547; Thomas was saved by the king’s death.

14
(p.34)
“Lord Hertford”:
Edward Seymour (1506?-1552), earl of Hertford, was Edward’s ambitious, unscrupulous uncle. He served as protector of the realm during Edward’s reign, making him a de facto king, but he fell from favor and was beheaded on a felony charge in 1552.

15
(p. 39) the Lord
Mayor’s banquet:
Lord Mayor is the title of the mayor (principal administrator) of the City of London; he presides over the primary governing bodies, the Court of Aldermen, and the Court of Common Council.

16
(p. 39) Lord
Guilford
Dudley: A Twain anachronism: Dudley would have been about thirteen years old at this time. In 1553 he would marry Lady Jane Grey (see note 9).

17
(p. 40) Sir William
Herbert:
The brother-in-law of the reigning queen, Catherine Parr (1512-1548), Henry VIII’s sixth and last wife, Sir William (1501?-1570) was a close adviser to the king.

18
(p. 43) Its furniture was all
of massy
gold,
and...
priceless, since they were the work
of Benvenuto:
Benvenuto Cellini (1500-1571) was an Italian goldsmith and sculptor whose decorative objects have been highly prized from his own day to ours; his highly entertaining Autobiography is today considered a classic.

19
(p. 45) Madam Parr, the
queen:
The reference is to Catherine Parr (1512-1548), Henry VIII’s sixth and last wife.

20
(p. 47) the Lord
Chancellor:
Thomas Wriothesley (1505-1550) was lord chancellor of England (1544-1547) and, as such, a leading legal authority in the kingdom. He was lord keeper of the Great Seal, which will play such an important role in this book.

21
(p. 51) Garter king-at-arms: This is the title of the chief of the official heralds of England and of the Order of the Garter (see note 23).

22
(p. 52) Duke of
Somerset:
Another title for Sir William Herbert (see note 17).

23
(p. 52)
“order of the Garter”:
The highest of all the orders of chivalry, the Order of the Garter was always conferred on the Prince of Wales.

24
(p. 60)
Southwark
Bridge: Southwark (pronounced “SUTH-ark”) is a borough of London situated on the south bank of the Thames River.

25
(p. 62) At
Guildhall:
The seat of London government, the Guildhall was large and grand enough to serve as the site of lavish banquets and celebrations.

26
(p. 62) Arrived
at Dowgate, the fleet
was towed up the limpid Walbrook, whose
channel
has
now been for two centuries buried out of sight under acres of buildings, to ... the center of the ancient city
of London:
Until it was filled in during the reign of Elizabeth I, the Walbrook was a navigable stream penetrating central London; it emptied into the Thames River at Dowgate, a dock and wharf complex.

27
(p. 62)
Old, jewry:
This was the principal Jewish quarter of old London.

28
(p. 64) The speaker was a sort of Don
Cæsar de
Bazan in dress, aspect, and
bearing:
This is a considerable Twain anachronism: The reference is to the penniless, but dashing seventeenth-century Spanish nobleman in Don
Cesar
de Bazan (1844), by French dramatist Adolphe-Philippe d’Ennery.

29
(p. 86) there was
no
Protector as yet: The Earl of Hertford had not yet been named protector of young Edward VI (see note 14).

30
(p. 87)
“the fish-market, by Billingsgate”:
In Tudor times, this large fishmarket was situated on the banks of the Thames, near Billingsgate Wharf

31
(p. 88) his “elder
sister”—afterward
the
“Bloody
Mary” of
history:
“Bloody Mary” would become the derogatory nickname for Edward’s half sister (see note 9).

32
(p. 97)
“the
hamlet of
Islington”-
Once a salubrious village on the outskirts of northern London, Islington is now a part of the central city.

33
(p. 98)
“Wapping
Old
Stairs”:
This is a district of the City of London on the banks of the Thames.

34
(p. 106) he
supped at the
Tabard inn: Situated on the south bank of the Thames, the Tabard was an ancient and famous hostelry in English history, the inn from which English poet Geoffrey Chaucer’s pilgrims set out for Canterbury in his fourteenth-century masterpiece The Canterbury Tales. The inn was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666, but was rebuilt and existed well into the nineteenth century.

35
(p. 127)
“Another
English king... in a bygone
time ... the great Alfred...
let the cakes
burn”:
The reference is to Alfred the Great (849-899), the Anglo-Saxon king of Wessex who saved his kingdom from Viking invasions. Legend has it that during one incursion Alfred was forced to flee in disguise and sought refuge in the house of a peasant woman. Not recognizing the king, she set him to menial chores, one of which was to watch over some oat cakes that were baking on the fire; so caught up was the king in his own weighty thoughts that he allowed the cakes to burn, but he did not pull rank when his hostess subjected him to a severe tongue-lashing.

36
(p. 167)
“The
late king is to be buried at
Windsor”:
Massive eleventh-century Windsor Castle, built by William the Conqueror to protect the western approaches to London, remains an official residence of the English monarch; it is the largest occupied castle in the world. Many English kings and queens, including Henry VIII, are interred in Windsor’s St. George’s Chapel.

37
(p. 182) the tall pile called the White
Tower:
A principal bastion of the Tower of London (see note 8), the White Tower is an imposing turreted building in the center of the complex.

38
(p. 184) The chronicler says,
... “and
the
whole
pageant was framed with wreaths of roses, red and
white”:
This paragraph is an elaborate reference to the War of the Roses (1455-1485), a series of civil wars fought between the noble houses of York (whose badge was a white rose) and Lancaster (with the badge of a red rose) for control of the throne of England. In 1485 Henry Tudor (associated with the house of Lancaster) killed King Richard III at Bosworth Field and became King Henry VII, thus establishing the Tudor dynasty.

39
(p. 189)
Westminster Abbey
... this memorable Coronation Day: A church of ancient foundation in Westminster, London, the Abbey has been the scene of every English coronation since 1066. It is the resting place of British kings and queens, and of renowned martial and cultural figures. Edward VI was crowned there in 1547.

40
(p. 189) Within the seat of the throne is inclosed a rough flat
rock
—
the
stone of
Scone
—
which
many generations of Scottish kings sat on to be
crowned:
The Stone of Scone, also called the Stone of Destiny, was the traditional stone upon which the kings of Scotland were crowned. It was taken to England by King Edward I and inserted into the English coronation throne at Westminster Abbey, signifying England’s hegemony over Scotland. The stone was the source of much resentment on the part of the Scots until it was returned to Scotland in 1996.