Connections - Kings, Lords, Drabs, and Epitaphs

10th to the 18th April - a week of some interest (to me, at least). On the 10th I was privileged to attend the Lord Mayor of Westminster's farewell lunch for Lord Peter Imbert CVO,QPM,JP (the retiring Lord Lt of London) at Westminster City Hall. Good view from the 18th floor, overlooking Buck' House, drinking champagne and 'chillin'' with Lord Mayors (past and present), Black Rod and 'the great and the good'. Hey, I even had a 'pee' standing next to Robert Powell (ex 'Jesus of Nazareth'). So I'm a name dropper - I don't care. I've mentioned before that I have an interest in London and here I was mixing with all those titles and offices central to it's history. I had a long chat with Joe Trotter ex-Lord Mayor for Islington and a real Cockney. We had something in common - stories about the Krays (no, it's a long story).
Sunday back to London. Jenny and I watched the London Marathon (well a bit of it), visited the National Gallery and Portrait Gallery, shopping in Covent Garden.

The weather drove us to shelter in the Menier Chocolate Factory (theatre). A fortuitous Maria Friedman matinee filled two and a half hours. This is a wonderfully intimate theatre. The performance centred around the Arrangers of songs rather than any particular theme. Ms. Friedman 'sells' the songs expertly and the musicians ('all soloists in their own right') compliment the emotional 'tour de force'.

Later we stumbled across the 'Cross Bones' cemetery in Red Cross Way (near Borough Market). Not so much a cemetery now as a memorial on a gate to a London Transport depot. A memorial from the people of Southwark.

The medieval Bishop of Winchester had a bad reputation for consorting with and acting as a landlord for the drabs of Southwark and the prostitutes were described as "Winchester geese". Although "Winchester goose" has the meaning -'a prostitute', Andrew S. Cairncross, editor of the Arden edition of KING HENRY VI, defines it as "a swelling in the groin, the result of venereal disease," and "one so affected". Here's a quote from KING HENRY VI (Part 1)

WINCHESTER.Gloucester, thou wilt answer this before the Pope.

GLOUCESTER.Winchester goose, I cry, a rope! a rope! Now beat them hence; why do you let them stay? Thee I 'll chase hence, thou wolf in sheep's array. Out, tawny coats! out, scarlet hypocrite! (Here Gloucester's men beat out the Cardinal's men, and enter in the hurly-burly the Mayor of London and his Officers).

Hmmmm... the Mayor of London again!

I also found a modern quote and definition from an American ‘Urban Dictionary’'A condition in which an individual suffers from an inflated crotchal area. When suffering from 'the winchester goose', there is a significant swelling of the pelvic region. I quote from the Urban Dictionary -"Yo! that bitch has some wicked nasty winchester goose!! But it don’t look like it has nice cushion for the pushin’, it just looks fatnastay' (Not exactly Shakespeare but it is interesting to see a connection that traverses the centuries and continents.

The 'Geese' congregated in and around 'Cock Lane'. Peter Ackroyd comments that this area was known for 'continual riot and disorder' and 'the prostitutes of Bankside, practising their trade within the 'Liberty' of the Bishop of Winchester, were known as Winchester Geese' ('London ,the biography', 2000, page 690). It is recorded that they actually paid rent to the Bishop. So, presumably, he was living off immoral earnings! More information about the 'Cross Bones' can be found at:

http://www.into.org.uk/SouthwarkMysteries/CrossBonesGraveyard.htm

A short remembrance ceremony to honour 'the outcast dead' will take place on the 23 April at the site of the cemetery at 7pm.

Talking about Henry VI (above) brings me to last Tuesday when John and I ventured once more to the Roundhouse to see a production of Richard II (RSC). A thrilling production which led me to read, again about the Wars of the Roses, hence the tie to Henry VI and indeed to cemeteries.

Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs,
Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth.
Let's choose executors and talk of wills.
And yet not so -- for what can we bequeath,
Save our deposèd bodies to the ground?

Richard II Act III

Which leads me to yesterday and a visit to Moreton Cemetery (Dorset) and the grave of T E Lawrence (although by the time he died 'Lawrence' had changed his name by deed pole to T E Shaw) and then Cloudshill.

I have to confess that I have been defeated by the dense Victorian prose of the 'Seven Pillars of Wisdom' but am minded to try again. Above the door of Cloudshill (where he spent his latter years until his untimely death in 1935) he has had carved (in Greek) 'I don't care'. Perhaps he was a 'name dropper' too!