The Tudors ruled the kingdom for almost 120 years, and in that time
you can imagine there are some weird and wonderful tales.
Henry VII, Henry VIII, Mary I, Elizabeth I all monarchs with a story to tell.
However, away from court, the people led an active life, one
at times which was just downright dangerous and unhealthy to say the least.
Join me now as we take a look at some tales of misfortune,
calamity and failure as we count down this top ten of Tudor tradegies!
The profession of "gong farmer" begins to sound quite positive and upbeat
until you realise it was the term
used by the Tudors to refer to people paid to clean out cesspits.
A Gong Farmer was a term used in Tudor England to refer to someone
who excavated and removed human excrement from gutters and cesspits.
Both the ditch and its contents were referred to as "gongs."
Due to the work being considered unclean and repulsive to the community, gong
farmers were only authorised to work at night, earning them
the nickname "nightmen." The waste
they collected, dubbed night soil, had to be wheeled outside the city
and the surrounding boundaries or disposed of at designated dumps.
How do we explain the drunken Cambridge baker who,
on June 2, 1523, fell into a cesspool while going to the bathroom?
He was literally up to his neck in it, and finally died.
Some people at the scene were said to have look flushed while another gong farmer
quit his job, explaining eneough was enough
and he was in fact just going through the motions.
Normally a quick shower after work is not a matter of life or death.
I have a friend who tried
to take a selfie in the shower, but the image was too blurry.
He has selfie steam issues.
However, the Tudor post-work scrub entailed utilising
nature's nearby facility in the form of a pond or river.
It demonstrates unequivocally that working
people preferred to keep themselves fresh.
But unfortunately on this occasion it just didnt go to plan.
Upon first hearing these stories I was quite upset, a friend of mine said
cheer up, it could have been you in an underground hole full of water,
I know he meant well.
On 2 June 1558, Thomas Staple, a labourer from Kent, went into Mr Mayne's
pond to soak and cool off, but slipped into the deepest depths and drowned.
John Joplyn and George Lee drowned in the same summer while washing in rivers
near Cambridge and Leicester, one after becoming trapped
by trees and shrubs and another after plunging into a whirlpool.
There was another guy who refused to wash,
he was eventually captured and arrested for fragrancy.
Thomas Alsopp of Coventry was standing in the former cemetery of the Coventry
Greyfriars under a stone wall on 26 April 1558 when a maypole fell over.
A maypole is a tall wooden pole erected as a part of various European
folk festivals, around which a maypole dance often takes place.
The festival generally take place on May 1st a day to welcome the oncoming summer.
So how significant is the may pole in our next story?
Well, injuries caused by the pole are infrequent to say
the least, and even on this occasion it was only partially to blame.
The pole fell and then hit the city wall and knocked a stone out of the top of it,
which hit Thomas on the left part of his head, killing him instantly.
Yes he was unlucky, very unlucky but these things happen!
In my own experience people keep telling me that juggling stones
was a bad idea. Then it hit me!
We all know why a cow wears a bell,
because its horns dont work!
However, on this particular occasion
they did work and to the detriment of a man just going for a walk.
Some would say cows are one of natures more pleasant creatures to behold,
as for our next man William, he would have said pull the udder one!
William was the owner of a farm in Lincolnshire, on a day
in March 1557 a man was walking through one of his fields
when all of a sudden he was set upon by one of Williams cows.
The cow gored our man to death with her horns.
But funnily enough the man who died was later named Robert Calf.
It's just another crazy Tudor tale of man versus beast, with the beast
certainly coming out on top in this high steaks confrontation.
A farmer once asked me if I could help round up 18 cows,
I replied 'of course,
that'll be 20 cows.'
If you're going to crush anything over the Christmas period
may I suggest Brazil nuts, of course
with the correct nut cracker in hand.
As for a certain John Hypper, well,
he was playing some sort of Christmas game
with the locals on boxing day 1563.
For reasons unknown he somehow managed to get himself crushed
and at the same time his testicles were also damaged in the accident.
What game was he playing I hear you ask?
Well thats unknown, maybe they should have played "Silent Tennis."
It's like regular Tennis, but without the racquet.
However, for poor old John he became ill and died on 28th December.
I guess the moral of the story is dont play any extra testicular
activities over Christmas!
Bread is like the sun.
It rises in the yeast
and sets in the waist.
Nows here a question for you.
How is it possible that baking a loaf could result in a fatal accident?
There is no need to be concerned about a conventional oven
or some other new device, since none had indeed been discovered.
But on the 29 January 1558, Elizabeth Bennet, spinster, was baking
bread at the home of Matilda Nanfan, widow, in Worcestershire.
She stepped across to the moat
in pursuit of cabbage leaves to place underneath the bread she was baking.
The fence began to collapse, she fell and drowned in the moat.
Weird really, one day, you're the best thing since slice bread....
the next, you're toast.
I recently took up blindfolded
archery, you'd enjoy it,
you don't know what your missing!
But this next accidental mishap is really off target.
How would you get your own bow and shoot yourself in the head?
Henry Pert, a gent from Welbeck, Nottinghamshire, managed to draw his bow
to its maximum length in 1552 only with intention of shooting
straight high into the air. The ladies were all of a quiver!
But then the arrow had become
jammed up in the bow and was released while he stood over to glance.
The very next day, he fell victim to his injuries.
I've always fancied shooting an apple off someones head
with a bow and arrow, maybe one day, time Will Tell.
What's the difference between a women and a gun?
You can put a silencer on a gun.
As early as 1519, a coroner's court had to deal
with the novel problem of a fatal shooting accident
following the death of a woman in Welton, near Hull.
The assailant was a French
bookbinder named Peter Frenchman, who possessed a beguiling Tudor wit.
Without realising the obtrusive device was there, the victim was shot
as she walked out in front of the weapon.
Peter denied it and he was sticking to his guns.
In Tottenham, London in 1557 the Duke of Norfolk's
horse slipped on the street, his gun discharged, killing a servant.
By the 1560s, guns were killing more people
than longbows, demonstrating the incredible advances in technology.
I once knew a guy
who had accidentally been shot
with an upholstery gun, don't worry he's fully recovered!
I recently got invited
to the annual archery champions dinner, a friend of mine asked how I manged
to get tickets, to which i replied well, I had to pull a few strings.
But this leads us into our next Tudor tradegy.
Archery was quite a risky activity for both players and fans.
Coroner's evidence show 56 unintentional deaths caused
by people getting to close to the targets as well as those
who went to retrieve the fired arrows just at wrong moment.
Although there were some bad choices taken.
On a pleasant June evening in 1556, Thomas Curteys of Bildeston,
Suffolk, had been trying to master archery when he lifted his hat and appointed
another archer named Richard Lyrence to try to shoot it with an arrow.
However no prizes for guessing what transpired after that.
Its just a case of arrow dynamics!
Medical examiners even made mention of the depth of the injuries.
The unwelcome record is held by Nicholas Wyborne, who'd been lying on the floor
close to the target as he was hit by a falling arrow
that punctured him to a depth of six inches. OUCH!
I was once accused of putting
glue on my friends arrows,
I said you just cant let it go can you!
Do you know the difference
between a Black bear and a Grizzly bear, well if you climb a tree to escape,
the Black bear will climb the tree
and eat you, a Grizzly will knock the tree down............... and eat you.
But not all bears were thought of in this way in the Tudor
period, many were used for perfomances
while others were used in bear baiting a savage amusement of the day.
A bear in a purpose-built bear garden would've
been chained up inside an enclosed pit and attacked by dogs.
Henry VIII built his very own royal venue in Whitehall.
They did, however, occasionally escape.
In 1563, Lord Bergavenny's bear killed a widow named Agnes Rapte
when it managed to escape from his residence.
Agnes Owen, from Herefordshire, had also been brutally killed in her bed
by a rogue bear.
When a bear killed a man in Oxford in 1565, the bear wasn't
even put to death, and was instead taken into royal custody.
Apparently it's because it was good enough to justify the 26 shillings
and 8 pence - approximately six months' pay for a workman back in the day.
So how many bears would Bear Grylls grill, if Bear Grylls grilled bears?
The man who wrote that has just been arrested
I think he'll recieve a tough sentence!
I hope you've enjoyed this rundown
of accidental, strange and quite frankly bizarre tudor tragedies?
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I'll see you all again soon.