With the Olympic Bell chiming Friday 27 July 2012…
This info is a cameo of the kind of conversation i might have had with a few friends on a rainy evening in the Rodney bar by the fireplace, or in the barn that was the Youth Club when Clodgah Rogers was singing Raggedy Doll or someone brought the 45 single Knock Three Times to play on the record player…all those years ago (we were a bit geekish!!) …if they were still around, might go a little like this…(we were allowed in the pub at 18 and hung around the ‘offi’ – off licence window earlier!
Some italics are back in the present time
The original owner of Wollaton or Olaveston according to the British History online records was …Morteyn probably because the local water had Gypsum in it … (even De Montford was involved somewhere with Queen Isabella and her affair and Nottingham Castle …and of course the de Bugges)
Also the name of the people who made the original Big Ben were Warner’s…
is that a film company name 20th Century etc etc…
So…lets let the imagination go wild…
In the old courtier days, Henry Willoughby being an executor of Henry vii and Henry viii (and buried in St Leonard’s the village church…always there? Possibly his tomb was originally in the Chantry of St Anthony?) …and also being a Knight of the Body to both monarchs, would have been party to all kinds of intrigue (jiggery pokery) going on in and around the Royal Court, several Royal Courts in fact.
…is 2012 above all that kind of thing?…
The Romans had their Calligua’s, history has it’s Borgia’s and De Medici’s…what intrigue could we weave in this ‘modern world’…
What’s the modern equivalent of the Tudors, Beaufort’s, Guise’s, Valois, Navarre’s, Burgandy’s, Aragon’s, Castille’s, Borgia’s, de Medici’s, the Swedish King’s – who were part of the whole era of modernising europe hundreds of years ago. Who from this county in the UK played their part?…
just going back a step..any further info on this mention/thread of Warner particularly ref films etc is very tenuous and quite wide in lateral thinking terms, but could go like this – maybe we should make a ‘spoof’ film
The previous Lord Middleton has recently passed away. There has been (and is ongoing) a Royal Diamond Jubilee, there has been a Royal Wedding.
The Middleton name (one of our junior schools in fact) is in the news.
The old Clifton family and the Middleton (Willoughby) family may have changed places in history or intermarried (long time ago) a son of Henry’s….a Hugh married Isobel Clifton. One family at Wollaton, one at Clifton just a small hop to the river and on the opposite bank…
And, the lastest addition to the Royal family (forgive the conjecture please- freedom of speech etc) has a similar family name.
Jump backward a few decades and the previous King (before the Her Majesty The Queen’s father), who was to have been crowned in Westminster Abbey but wasn’t, was known to have had an affair with a Nottingham woman who was married…(long intriguing story) and now it’s also known that the present HRHs the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were together at University because we followed their romance in the news too.
…but it’s quite important here to us in Wollaton to establish that the local park isn’t confused with either the present Lord Middleton, or the HRH Duke and Duchess of Cambridge..
Building on all that…in both Henry vii time and our time …here’s another history intrigue thought (purely a fictional concept but researchable) to further send our imagination flowing, there’s a Scottish link from centuries ago too and quite a dodgy one, ie. St Andrews, the Lennox family (Earls Darnley) , who were married into the Clifton family , possible swaps of the Countess of Lennox in Henry vii time with his dau Margaret …did Henry vii go to uni??
then theres Katherine Clifton of Leighton Bromsgrove a local heiress …Gervase Clifton’s daughter (this Clifton was fined an extraordinary sum for assisting Charles I?) and these same Nottm Cliftons were Catholic, at least for a time….
and believe it or not the Clifton’s took their turn in even earlier centuries as the baddy Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hoods time (fictional character or not?)
So what’s in a name…
(with apologies)…today theres the present Archbishop of Canterbury: (and the earlier ones (Archbishops) and Thos Cromwell the man who engineered part of the divorce for Henry viii from Catherine of Aragon (our Henry Willoughby was around court then) these folk were part of the UK history web of changes …so the current Archbishop as Lord Clifton of Mar (no idea why that is relevant except he married Katherine Middleton and HRH Prince William (to be Duke Althorpe?) in front of all the wealthy and royal and heads of state in the world and on telly) (equity cards??) , Gracious what was the news like in Tudor times compared with now…
Goodness, theres a Rowan Atkinson type theme that we could have fun with…
then there’s a fact that here in the 1960s the old Lord Clifton line ceased, but might possibly have revert to Middleton (but not Willoughby- a different branch via a Hugh, but not a Simpson!)
theres Edward viii, the Duke of Newcastle under Lyne who made a toll on everything passing through the City, whose house was Clumber Park Hall thats now gone (one of the later ones had a wife named Diana) then there’s the Portlands and the family at Keddlestone (the Curzon family whose ancestor was the Viceroy of India and his wife Mary Leiter from a wealthy Chicago family I think – my family ‘looked after’ them provisions-wise at Walmer Castle! …and the ‘new’ money industrialists Players, Bowdens, Boots and Birkins, Freda Dudley Ward is nee Birkin and the Wights (Susan the daughter married Major Ferguson – she was born at Bramcote and lived at Ruddington and later married Mr H Barrantes and was the Mother-in-Law of HRH Prince Andrew)…the famous Mrs Simpson (“dear dear Earnest, so lonely” etc etc) who lived with King George V elder brother (they borrowed Lord Clifton’s Holme Farm near Clifton Bridge – were they married there in different names?)
Even more…Althorpe, Stuarts, our lovely Princess etc etc
Wow…back to old history, Bosworth, East Stoke, losing French lands, courtiers, lines of succession, religious conflicts, European royal court alliances…it’s powerful stuff.
So hope that constructing fictional 21st Century intrigue isnt treasonable
Here’s where we catch our breath….
It seems there’s always a possibility that all these kinds of things (class, royalty, religion) can come to light when the world’s focus is on the Olympics as we have so many nations with so many different cultures, politics, religions etc...isn’t that why the Olympics are held:- to rise above differences.
and of course in the USA and wherever its released the hopefully mega buck blockbuster movie event…The Dark Knight etc, with perfect timing release date…(the sinking of the Mary Rose?)…
…and when this land has a Royal family and some other country’s just don’t and would see the UK or England without its royals (posh frightened voice please) “we are shrinking”… (apologies again)
in the 21st century do we have to change our systems should we? Besides which we might be forgiven for thinking these historical intrigues are just exactly what has created the UK of today and its fascinating!!
However considering the generation of 2012 unless info is presented in things they can see:- the buildings, the factories, the old industrial sites its difficult to visualise how the people lived and the ‘normal’ things of the day. It’s hard to think outside the facts to what made the popularity, the wealth the fame the fortune, the estates etc it’s easier to assimilate visual history in museums and places and people info eg trades if its living history rather than through books…
so much could be forgotten why couldn’t we put all the info in a film (reference?) or a computer game (thats modern entertaining type learning)…so we could all enjoy…we could have Royalty and religion as part of the furniture…in the background, always there, comfy but not necessarily the style the 21st Century kids want (like the kids of the 14th and 15th cent…what was their media)….
and these days we could consider the film release code and date after the neo-reformation?… …
So our plan could take in the fact there’s a Diamond Jubilee and the succession. And the Olympic’s on telly …
so for the record, an aside note…Just as long as our community and city and local park in particular aren’t brought into any cases of mistaken history or family connections or scandal that could break out in the future or change of religion or mistaken id with the Middleton name we reserve our right to conjecture!! and also enjoy our local history along the way…when and if we want to get our heads round it… …
And then in this spoof…the Thatcher talk history references… … those kind of the-Iron-Duke-Wellington days and Victoria…
Plus up to date, the days of Big Ben and bell ringing (and making?) on Friday 27 July 2012 with the commencing of the Greek Olympic tradition ( feeling as if the theme tune to that film Chariots of Fire should now fades in, in the background…immense national pride etc etc…) …
To be quite honest, you could capture it all in about a 30 min vid with subtitles…
Who knows what Martin Creed has in mind for his Bell Chiming Artwork on Friday. Pure Fun it seems
And then banging on along similar lines…theres currently the question of an elected House of Lords…
Oh and of course…Olive Oil was a cartoon character popular at the time of Wallace (Wallace for goodness sake?!!) Simpson’s marriage to HRH Duke of Windsor, so she deserves a cameo role…
It’s just shades of pub talk…
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court….remember that old movie…
(after watching the Borgia’s on telly and Henry IV…and reading Henry V we could have a really intense intrigue spoof. ..possibly even making sense of the reformation…if you know a little history background of course) maybe a little Tolkein like with our ancient Middletons as extraordinarily brave hobbits!!
For example…What if…Lucrecia Borgia, was really Catherine of Aragon and vice versa (and therefore the Holy Roman Emperors grand daughter, but was here married to Arthur and Henry Tudor!!) and Archbish Thomas Cromwell was really Guido Borgia….and maybe Arthur (Prince Wales at the time…like 1512ish) had a child with Lucrecia-Catharine who escaped to Rome….and the Aragons were Moors? (well it was Spain)
Were these Walton (night jim-bob, night mary-jane across Hampden Court Palace or a wooden Wollaton Hall when they came to stay??) type Tudors working together as a family, or against each other to rule??
Could we ask a Monty Python type film maker to make a film of it all and the centuries up to now?? Could it rival ‘The life of Brian’
Would we call it…
Duc-ing and W-eve-ing??
Who would star in it…could it be really, really funny???
It’s just not popular enough for a mega buck movie…maybe at Monaco??
and just to round off…
Theres the story of the Bells (what are Bells about we wonder Notre Dame? …some connection with who pays for them and the Church benefactors perhaps)
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=22170http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=22170
Oh …and the Princess of Wales whom the land lost…
Then perhaps we could start again with a fun vid about the women who made the Bayeux Tapestry…the ‘film makers’ of their day.
And round it all off with a scene taking the mickey out of the film crew for T-Dark-K-R who use the place as a “location” …Whisk them into the melting pot of Croc Dundee type characters.
We need a Story Board and/or a Mind Map!!
We had the pub barn as a youth club at one time!
Then there was ‘is the Church the old Hall – check the windows and roof?’
‘Is the current village built over Olaveston or was it Sutton Passeys?’
‘Did the Tottlebrook or the Lind used to run through the village and down the church hill?’
Queue Time Team …
studying A level Political History in Europe from Henry vii to 1848 and Geography and Geology and English Literature including Lawrence was fun. Did you know Chaucer was Catherine De Roet’s (later Catherine Swynford – john of Gaunt’s mistress mum of Margaret Beaufort if my memory is correct) brother in law and they came from Lincolnshire AND theres a strong possibility Henry Willoughby’s (or was it Hugh) wife (Griffiths) was Catherine Swynfords sister!!
Deliciously intriguing, and could so easily be either history written incorrectly etc etc
ie Theres a record at the British History online of the Mary Rose warship sailing all over the place – telly history correct or not?
Our best ‘ordinary’ fact site to verify stuff if its a rainy day.
http://www.britannia.com/history/timelines.html
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=76829&strquery=willoughbylloughby”> http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=76829&strquery=willoughby
(search Willoughby then choose Wollaton)
Then there is:
The Swedish Royal at the time of Henry viii
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustav_I_of_Sweden
A similar story!!
Italics are possibly back in the ‘present’
Cor!
and Anne Bolyn could have been Catherine of Aragon and Arthurs daughter, transferred to be adopted and registered as Katherine Tudor, Henry v111’s youngest ‘sister’… .maybe sent back to France where she grew up in 1539ish… with a Percy? After linking the branches with Elizabeth I
Maybe
The Monarchs of Europe:-
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/euru/hd_euru.htm
The Percy’s – a Norman family
The King of France, Francis I daughter marries King James v Scotland in 1537 – Madeline about the time Anne Bolyn meets her ‘end’ King James then marry’s Mary of Guise a widow
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madeleine_of_Valois
Such cool info
Henry viii letters to Ann Bolyn, except one, are in French, thèy are in the vatican according to a telly programme
Commonfolk arent in the know?
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