My real passion is the black presence in England and I've studied and written
talked about that since my oh my Open University where I
was introduced to a black Magus and the adoration scene in 1507 in the church in
Devon and that really caught my vision my passion and I've been talking and
writing and ranting about that ever since. We know he existed because they have
an image of him and we have a record; the image is on the Westminster tournament roll,
which is a spectacular document it's in the College of Arms in London and it
celebrates a tournament to celebrate the birth of Henry the Eighth's son to
Catherine of Aragon, New Year's Day that year, 1511, sadly the child died by the
end of that month, but the joust was there to celebrate the birth of the
child and it's extraordinary document it's 60 foot long and it celebrates the
entrance, when it's all the pomp and ceremony of the king arriving and John
Blanke appears twice, on entering and they come in, here comes the King literally
and his entourage and then at the end and somebody wrote about if you want
to understand the document, it'd be like the Olympic Games where the opening ceremony
was two weeks long, you had two days of games and they did a week of closing
ceremony, because this was pure pomp, this was the to the court presenting itself
and John, John Blanke is there, his image you see on twice in it in a troop of six
trumpeters and that presence is recorded in in the records and records in the
National Archive he appears several times book and if he was given
cloth for the tournament roll, you, he was also attending Henry the seventh's funeral and
he played at Henry the eighth's coronation, again it's all recorded cuz
it was, he was paid money, paid money, he was given cloth to take
part in the service and what's really interesting is
he was actually, he actually petitioned the king for a pay increase,
there's a petition where he says I want my wages to be doubled and I want it back-
dated because 'Dominic', one of the trumpeters, had died and I want to be... I should be
treated in the same manner and it's it's documented that Henry the Eighth signed it
and he was um increased from eight pence a day to a sixteen sixteen pence.
Catherine of Aragon had her lady of the bedchamber was a 'Catalina' she was a
black lady, a slave who looked after the most intimate details of
Catherine to do with the bedchamber and there's a was a really interesting
piece of history, she would have been there at the night when Catherine would
have supposed to consume the marriage consummate rather her marriage with
with with them Henry's brother who died and then and that's why Henry took that
and Henry married her so and he only married her because the marriage was not
consummated and and he wanted to divorce Catherine, because he said the marriage
was consummated, but she said it wasn't so the one person who would have known
would have been the lady of the bedchamber, she would have seen the sheets on the
night, but she disappears from history. In Magdeburg Cathedral, an extraordinary
picture, the artist created there's St Maurice, black St Maurice, clearly knew a
black person, it was depicted from life, we don't know who the black person is, we
don't know who the artist is, but 1250 or round about, or maybe a bit later but
the Emperor said he wanted a black Saint Maurice and that place appears there
so we can date him but in terms of who he was in terms of the person who
the artist was, we don't know and one of the debates about who he is perhaps a
prisoner or a slave or a friend or associate that they met in the Crusades,
and would've come back so I'm working on that because I think that it's
understanding the context and in terms of the the black presence is about
connections, you know the they did they didn't just wonder over here they came
through connections through trade, through the war, there was that there was
a definite root to them an understanding that you get the connection.