I’m often asked why did I call my business “Essex Voices Past”.

Well, here’s the answer!

In 2011, at 3am one night, I was researching my Cambridge University masters’ dissertation on Great Dunmow. I attempted to decipher a chunk of handwriting written in the 1520s.

There was one line of Tudor text that was particularly perplexing and mysterious. It had puzzled me for days. So, I resorted to saying the text out loud. Phonetically.

The old Essex accent

As the words came out of my mouth, I found myself talking with the true old Essex country accent.

Loud and clear, I heard the voice of a long-dead Tudor parish-clerk emerging through the night-air. My baffling text was finally solved.

Essex Voices Past

It occurred to me in that moment, that the ancient documents I had been avidly studying contained not only the stories from Essex’s rich past, but also their voices. And thus, Essex Voices Past was born. Originally as a blog to record stories of Essex’s heritage. Now I, as Essex Voices Past, research stories of our past.

And now, finally, after nearly 10 years, my research that inspired me to start Essex Voices Past has now been published!

Nothing like lock-down to focus the mind and get stuff done!

Tudor Lives

Tudor Lives: Great Dunmow during the Reformation – the story of a town during the turbulent 16th century

Now available through Amazon. It’s on Kindle and paperback.

Click the book below to “Look Inside” my book on Amazon

The story of a north Essex town

This is book is a must read for anyone interested in Reformation history at a local level. Or anyone interested in the local history of an Essex town. It is also of interest for anyone with Tudor ancestors who hailed from Great Dunmow. Numerous local family names are detailed within the book.

During this period, society and religion were firmly interlinked. This study provides a narrative of one Essex town during the turbulent 16th century.

Post created: April 2020 © Kate J Cole | Essex Voices Past™ 2012-2020

If you are, you might be interested in my new book about Great Dunmow and the English Reformation.

It’s taken me nearly 10 years and a global pandemic to finally stop making excuses and just do it…

10 years ago I spent countless sleepless nights studying and writing. This was coupled with many trips to Cambridge University and Essex Record Office before I emerged triumphant. 

I had finally studied, researched and written up my dissertation for my Masters degree in local history. 

My topic? 

The impact of Henry VIII and his three children’s religious policy on Tudor town of Great Dunmow in Essex.

The hard work was worth it – it’s the “MSt” you will see after my name – “Master of Studies”.

I was awarded my masters degree at the end of 2011.

And, as I enjoyed my research so much, I immediately created my blog – Essex Voices Past so I could continue to write about Tudor Great Dunmow.

I have also given many talks across Essex about the happenings in Tudor Great Dunmow.

And there was some terrific “happenings”…  Anyone for the burning of an effigy of a Scottish Catholic Cardinal in the middle of not so sleepy Great Dunmow in 1546!

The effigy even had its very own mock-castle built so that local youths could practice their archery by shooting at it and the Cardinal!

Despite all the stories I discovered, my complete dissertation got put to one side. To rub salt in the wound – Cambridge University even sent me back their copies of my dissertation. They didn’t have the storage room to keep masters dissertations so back mine came.

For nearly 10 years, only I had my dissertation. No archive or library had a copy. Only various bits of it I’d had the time to post online on this blog, Essex Voices Past.

Until covid-19 and lockdown…

Nothing like a pandemic to focus to mind and return to the past. 

Both my past and Great Dunmow’s Tudor past.

I’ve spent lockdown days productively and have turned my dissertation into a Kindle book. That was a feat in itself! But thanks to covid-19, I finally had enough time to devote turning my dissertation into a book:

Tudor Lives: Great Dunmow during the Reformation – The story of an Essex town during the turbulent 16th century.

My book is a must read for anyone interested in the English Reformation at a local level.

Or anyone interested in the Tudor local history of an Essex town.

It is also of interest for anyone with Tudor ancestors who hailed from Great Dunmow.  Numerous local family names are detailed within the book.

Phew! I’ve finally done it! 

Here’s the link to my new book on Amazon… At the moment it’s only available on Kindle.

Tudor Lives: Great Dunmow during the Reformation – the story of an Essex town during the turbulent 16th century

Numerous other Essex towns and villages – along with their association to Great Dunmow – are also mentioned in my book.  These include Great Bardfield, Barnston, Bocking, Broxted, Great and Little Canfield, Great and Little Dunmow, Great and Little Easton, Good Easter, Hatfield Broad Oak, High Easter, The Rodings, Lindsell, Northend, Panfield, Rayne, Little Sailing, Shalford, Stebbing, and Thaxted.

My book also includes Tudor history from the 1520s for Maldon and Heybridge. Both towns had a strong connection and association to Great Dunmow by way of Tudor vicar, William Walton.  

If you purchase it and enjoy, please could you leave me a review on Amazon? It would help me tremendously to get more exposure if my book has reviews.

 

Post created: April 2020 © Kate J Cole | Essex Voices Past™ 2012-2020

As the days grow shorter and the nights become longer, our School Trip Fridays sometimes have to be done in the comfort of our home in front of a roaring log fire.  Even though we can’t get out and head for the hills, the computer is still switched off and our own unique style of learning about our country’s great heritage continues.

As an amateur historian, I am a firm advocate of our English heritage.  However, to understand our rich past, I feel that we have to have ‘pegs’ on which we can hang our historical information. For example, if you are looking at a grand half-timbered English building, how can you say ‘this is a beautiful Tudor building’ when you don’t know roughly what period ‘Tudor’ is!  Is Tudor before or after Georgian?  Is Regency 100 years ago or 500 years ago? Where do Victorians’ ‘Morals and Values’ come into all of this?…  Without realising it, we unconsciously use language about our rich past in our daily live. So what better ‘pegs’ are there then the long timeline of English/British monarchs!

However, because of my child’s complex educational needs, it is pointless me ‘teaching’ kings and queens in a traditional (or should I say, old-fashioned!) way.  I can’t quote facts and figures to him, and expect them to be regurgitated back to me parrot style.  For one, his poor memory means he won’t be able to do that with any level of success and for another, what’s the point in him learning meaningless information that has no relevance to him!  Our learning has to be hands-on, interactive and participative for both him and me.

And for a small child who loves collecting Top Trump cards, football cards and what-ever cards the local newsagent currently has in stock, what can be more interactive and hands-on then looking at the beautifully drawn and illustrated postcards and cigarette cards of a hundred years ago.  Our great-grandparents’ equivalent of pre-computer multi-media and Top Trumps game-cards!

So last week’s School Trip Friday was spent looking at images of the kings of England between 1066 and 1485 from the exquisitely illustrated set of postcards made by Tuck in 1902 and the handsome 1935 cigarette cards from Players.  What can be more beguiling and magnetic to a small child who can barely read and write then such fine pictures! (Sadly, our only medieval Empress/Queen Matilda was not acknowledged in either set.)

Raphael Tuck’s Kings and Queens of England postcards (1902) – Normans to Plantagenets

 

Player’s Kings and Queens of England cigarette cards (1935) – Normans to Plantagenets

History is all about the telling of stories from our past, and the picture below shows all the characters from one of the more murkier tales from English history.  By using these 5 cards, I was able to retell to my child the story of intrigue, treachery, treason and murder – and the last English king to die in battle.  And then bring that narrative right up to date with this summer’s remarkable discovery in a car park in Leicester.   But who was the villain of this story – the first of the Tudors, or the last of the Plantagenets?  Henry or Richard?  I know what we decided… How about you?

I asked my child who was his favourite king from all of the cards of Norman and Plantagenet kings.  My academically challenged child replied ‘whoever invented the longbow’.  Whilst he didn’t invent the longbow, this naturally brought us on to Henry V and Agincourt and watching the battle scenes from the BBC’s recent wonderful production of Shakespeare’s Henry V.  Very naughtily, I also told my child about the legend of the longbow archers and how it came about that the English always stick two-fingers up to their enemies.  History doesn’t have to be dry and dusty, our children can be taught the naughtier bits too – even if it might not be entirely true and more myth then fact!

 

Is my child academically challenged or a child whose school-teachers totally failed to engage him with traditional teaching methods?

 

“The time has come,” the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things:
Of shoes and ships and sealing wax
Of cabbages and kings
And why the sea is boiling hot
And whether pigs have wings.”

The Walrus and the Carpenter by Lewis Carroll

You may also be interested in
– School Trip Friday – Weald and Downland Open Air Museum
– School Trip Friday – Chapel of St Peter’s on the Wall, Bradwell
– School Trip Friday – Imperial War Museum Duxford

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 Edward’s Chair). Today’s post celebrates and marks her reign by publishing images connected to the coronations of Elizabeth II’s 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)

Postcard of the Burial chapel of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York, Westminster Abbey. Henry was crowned in Westminster Abbey on 30 October 1485.

Henry VIII (born 28 June 1491, died 28 January 1547)

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 Library’s explanation.  Was Henry anticipating his break with Rome?)

Edward VI (born 12 October 1537, died 6 July 1553)

Coronation procession of Edward VI along Cheapside, London. Edward’s 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)

 Coronation procession of Elizabeth. Her coronation took place on 15 January 1559.

Finally…
Not a coronation image but an image of the Queen at Epsom Races in 1974.  This weekend’s Jubilee Celebrations begin in Epsom as she watches the Derby.

Picture  © British Library Board.  This image is personal to me as I was born in Epsom and spent my first 12 years living in the town. The Queen visiting the races was very much a part of my childhood. Not least, because in those days the Derby was run mid-week, so we were always sent home from school early. I have many childhood memories of waiting by the Spread Eagle Pub in Epsom town centre and waving as the royal cars swept through the town.

Anyone reading my blog will understand that I have a great love, appreciation, and passion for Tudor England.  I can date the start of this passion back exactly to a time in the 1970s when the BBC did a lavish custom drama production of Mark Twain’s ‘The Prince & the Pauper’.  I was never quite sure if it caught my imagination so much because Nicholas Lydhurst (later to go onto fame as the much loved Rodney Trotter) was in the starring role, or if it was because of the story of a prince and a pauper swapping places had me hooked.

To Mark Twain (and Nicholas Lyndhurst!), I offer my thanks for starting me on my life-long passion for Tudor England with its plots, intrigues and scheming that no other period in English history has had since.

 

I’ve just discovered that the BBC production has been uploaded to YouTube. I’m going to spend the rest of my Thankful Thursday watching it! In YouTube, search for “Prince and the Pauper” and ‘Nicholas Lyndhurst’ to find it.

(My other great love of a particular period in history is for the Great War and the trenches of Flanders-field – but my tales of the Great War will have to wait for another day and another blog.)