King Arthur - another lost Temple?

I was so excited on reading Michael Harrison's book (see yesterday's blog) to find some evidence of the veneration of King Arthur in London because it is in London that his story starts and if there was to be a temple to him anywhere it would be in London.  If Michael Harrison's identification of St Martin's as a key clue to identifying a temple of Artemis/Arthur (they probably shared temples as they are both represented by a bear) as suggested by the connection with St Martin's Vintry then another possible temple site would be further to the west at St Martin's in the Fields. 

This is a good candidate because it was on the banks of the river Tyburn, another of London's tributaries, the name of which is usually said to derive from the old welsh Ty Burn, burn still being a common name for a stream in Scotland and is therefore translated as 'House by the Stream'.  But, using Harrison's method, what if the corruption is actually from Ty Bruin ie the House of the Bear?  The site as potentially a temple to Arthur makes sense because it is at Westminster, then Thorney Island, that Arthur finds the all-important Sword in the Stone.  The temple would have looked across the river estuary towards the island where, if the story 'The Sword in the Stone' is accurate there was a temple to Merlin, later shared with the Christians.  You don't need me to tell you how closely Arthur and Merlin have always been connected.

Bearing in mind what Michael Harrison has to say about the continuity of London's history (which I would agree with) it is worth noting that this was the site of religious worship right through the Middle Ages.  Covent Garden, which lies right behind the church of St Martin's In the Fields, is a corruption of Convent Garden.  The nunnery at Tyburn lasted until the reformation.

It's a bit of a long-shot as this area of London has been thoroughly dug over what with the 17th century damming of the Tyburn to change its course and create the lake in St James's Park and the creation of the underground.  It's unlikely that any physical archaeology will provide us with substantial proof and it may be that the tenuous linguistic connection is all we will ever have but it might be worth some furtghher investigation so watch this space!

I should add that I disagree with Michael Harrison on one point, that is his identification of Billingsgate with the Roman war goddess Bellona.  I have found an early Tudor reference to 'Bolin's Gate' which seems to me much closer to 'Balin's Gate' as I suggest.  Balin is clearly an important Druid God as he has a whole section in 'The Sword of the Stone'.  He is the one who demonstrates the principle of free will, a crucial element in Druid and later Christian Druid theology.  It is natural that he would have a shrine adjacent to that of his brother Bran which archaeology does provide us with under the White Tower at the Tower of London.  Bellona does not make a contribution to British culture at all - most of the Celtic gods were war gods and they had at least three war goddesses of their own so she was hardly needed.

King Arthur's Lost Temples - Exciting new discovery

I have been reading Michael Harrison's book The London that Was Rome (George Allen & Unwin 1971) in which he introduces his 'new archaeology', a form of etymological archaeology by which means he is able to map Roman London through an analysis of surviving place names and their Latin roots.  Setting aside the purely Roman connections, using his method and information supplied his his book, I have been able to confirm my theory set out in my book The Wonderful History of the Sword in the Stone that a British-Celtic temples complex extended along the north bank of the Thames before, during and after the Roman period.  Below is a (very) rough sketch-plan of how this now looks.

 

Better than Jane Austen?

Today is the 200th anniversary of the publication of Jane Austen's 'Pride and Prejudice' probably known to most people through the recent films/TV series and the 'Bridget Jones' version than through people reading it.  I actually like 'Pride and Prejudice'.  The style is impeccable and the comedy first-rate although I am always disappointed in Jane Austen.  Her later books lost their comic touch and are irredeemably dull.  She never developed any intellectual  or stylistic ambition to compensate for the lack of sparkle.  At a time of huge social upheaval her books, as one critic put it, never move outside the park gates.

Those looking for good women novelists in the 19th century though have several to choose from.  I would recommend Maria Edgeworth whose 'Ormond' bravely tackles the tricky problem of Irish politics and is at least as good as anything written by her male contemporaries (it's 'Tom Jones' without the sex), George Eliot whose superb 'Middlemarch' is breath-taking in its ambition and range and Elizabeth Gaskell, best known for Cranford because it's most like Jane Austen in its subject matter but whose several books 'North and South', Mary Barton and the unfirnished (altough only just) 'Wives and Daughters' tackle the issues of social change in the mid-19th century.  The latter was a Minister's wife but she managed to combine decorum with a social conscience which Jane Austen never did, but she did write of herself 'people think I'm a communist but I think I'm just a Christian' which I love.

All of these novelists were in my opinion much better writers than Jane Austen because they combined style with substance,  If you want to kinow what is meant by the phrase 'style without substance' then read Jane Austen by all means.

Who saved Alfred the Great?

Next week on BBC Radio 4 historian Michael Wood is running a series of programmes about Alfred the Great, a subject dear to my heart as I have written a play Isle of Princes about his comeback after he was ousted in the Christmas coup.  This has, alas, so far failed to make it to the stage partly I fear that my theory that Alfred had assistance from his Frankish sister-in-law, Judith, thus denting the idea that he did it all by himself. Judith was the Duchess of Ghent but also technically still Queen of Wessex as she was the only early Anglo-Saxon queen to be crowned and anointed.  Anglo-Saxon queens of the period were generally regarded simply as 'the King's wife' but Judith was especially well-connected, her father being not only the French King but Holy Roman Emperor.

The section of Asser's life of Alfred, our principal source, which would relate to how Judith assisted Alfred has mysteriously been expunged.  It may have been damaged in the Cotton library fire but more likely male historians did not care to acknowledge that the paragon of English Kingship had to be rescued by a woman but if we look at what Alfred did after his restoration we have a couple of important clues as to who helped him get back his throne.

He founded two monasteries, one at Shaftesbury which I believe to be the site of 'Egbert's stone - the traditional siting to the far west makes no strategic sense - where his troops rallied prior to the march north to face Guthrum's army at Bratton Camp, and the other at Athelney, the Isle of Princes, where he found refuge after the coup.  What is interesting about the foundation at Athelney is that it was not for English scholars as you might expect but to provide a refuge for Flemish scholars fleeing Viking raids and seeking safety on this side of the channel, a thank-you to Flanders for the help given to him during his fight back.  The other significant act he performed immediately after his restoration was the betrothal of his new-born daughter to Judith's infant son, cementing the alliance between the two countries.  Alfred is given credit for founding the 'British Navy' but his purpose in doing so was not to defend Wessex but to protect the Scheldt estuary which was being harried by Viking fleets based in East Anglia.  The strong connection between Alfred and his sister-in-law are quite clear but in most histories poor Judith barely gets a mention.  Her erratic love-life (and her independence) was so disapproved of that she was almost completely excised from history.  We don't even know when she died but the 'English-speaking peoples' that Alfred rallied against the Vikings have good reason to be grateful to her. As am I, as she provides me with a great part for a leading actress in what would otherwise be a distinctly male-dominated play.

First music video

Yesterday I published my first music video on Youtube http://youtu.be/75id-GCT0PY title 'Winter Skies by Carol Richards'.  I have posted five other short films under youtube/satampix but this is the first one for which I have used one of my own songs as the soundtrack.  It occurred to me that this is a great way to publish some of my songs. The film is shot on a Blackberry Curve 8250 smartphone and put together with Windows Movie-maker as it is the esssence with these short films that they cost no money.