Thursday 29 November 2012

THE ANTIQUARIAN: Sir Bartholomew Burghersh & Cormicy Castle

A legacy of William the Conqueror, who became King of England in 1066 while still Duke of Normandy, the Hundred Years’ War was a conflict waged for control of the throne of France.  The war began in 1337 when Edward III refused to pay homage to Phillip VI of France.  The French king responded by confiscating Edward’s lands in Aquitaine.  As a result, Edward III (who was the son of Isabella, the daughter of Phillip IV of France) declared that he was the rightful heir to the French throne; with this challenge to the legal succession of the Kingdom of France, the first phase of the conflict began and only ended in 1453.

One of the most distinguished soldiers to have participated in the conflict was Sir Bartholomew Burghersh, the younger.  He was the son of Lord Bartholomew Burghersh, the elder, who laid the family’s esteemed foundation as both a man of military and diplomatic genius.  The younger Burghersh’s career rivaled his father’s and began in 1339 when he accompanied Edward III on his expedition to Flanders.  The younger Burghersh participated in such campaigns as Brittany, Crecy, Gascony and the siege of Calais.  His personal letters have provided scholars with one of the few trusted eyewitness accounts of the famed Battle of Poitiers and in 1350 he was chosen “to be one of the first knights companions” in the newly instituted Order of the Garter (Stephen, 335).   

Considered one of the great Barons of his age, an event involving Sir Bartholomew Burghersh at the Seige of Rheims is recorded by Sir John Froissart in his chronicle on the history of England.   After reconnoitering the great Castle of Cormicy and concluding that it could not be taken by assault, Froissart reports that Burghersh ordered the undermining of the castle’s most formidable defensive structure, a large square tower “whose walls were very thick”(Froissart, 128).  Starting at a great distance from the tower, so as to keep the operation secret, the miners worked night and day to advance to a great depth under the tower and so, unnoticed, push upward.  When the miners had secretly replaced the secure footings of the tower with their own wooden props and the report was sent back to Burghersh that the tower could be thrown down at his command, the great knight mounted his horse and advanced to the castle.    The defender of the castle was Sir Henry de Vauix, the black armoured knight of Champagne, and after being summoned by his guards at the request of Burghersh, the French knight came forward and called down from the battlements, asking the English knight what he wanted. “’I want you to surrender,’ replied Burghersh” (Froissart, 128).  Laughing, Sir Henry de Vauix inquired what would possess Burghersh to suppose they would surrender from such an impregnable fortress as Cormicy.  To this the English knight responded, “if you were truly informed what your situation is, you would surrender instantly…” (Froissart, 128).  De Vauix, still skeptical, was then persuaded, on Burghersh’s assurance of safety, to come down and witness the true nature of the great tower’s precarious situation.  When de Vauix saw that the castle’s strongest defensive position was now only held up by wooden props in the control of the English, he thanked Burghersh for his gallant offer of surrender and the entire garrison was taken prisoner.  Without a single loss of life, England gained possession of the great castle of Cormicy.

Sir Bartholomew Burghersh died in 1369 and was buried in the lady chapel of Walsingham Abbey.


"No really...I think, you are going to want to see this!"





Froissart, Jean et al.  Chronicles of England, France, Spain & the Adjoining Countries. Trans. Thomas Johnes.  New York: John B. Alden, 1884.

Stephen, Leslie and Sidney Lee.  Dictionary of National Biography.  Vol. 7.  London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1886.

Monday 19 November 2012

LITERARY CORNER: "The Planter's Daughter"


When night stirred at sea
And the fire brought a crowd in,
They say that her beauty
Was music in mouth
And few in the candlelight
Thought her too proud,
For the house of the planter
Is known by the trees.

Men that had seen her
Drank deep and were silent,
The women were speaking
Wherever she went---
As a bell that is rung
Or a wonder told shyly,
And O she was the Sunday
In every week.

-         Austin Clarke


"So what do you think the Poet is trying to say?"








Note: For an interesting discussion on the above poem, go to

Clarke, Austin. “The Planter’s Daughter.”  The Celtic Quest: An Anthology from Merlin
            To Van Morrison.  Ed. Jane Lahr.  New York: Welcome Books, 2007.

Monday 12 November 2012

THE ANTIQUARIAN: The Blarney Stone & Castle

An iconic symbol of Ireland, Blarney Castle has become the most famous of the many strongholds of the MacCarthy family.  In his record of the MacCarthys, Daniel MacCarthy Glas said of this illustrious family: “Their history commences with the first page of authentic Irish records and is as well attested as the history of any royal house in Christendom.”  The Annals of the Four Masters records that ““thirty of the Kings of Ireland and sixty-one of her Saints descended from the MacCarthys, and to them belongs the matchless glory of producing the first Christian King in Ireland…”

There is a tradition that prior to the Anglo-Norman invasion Dermot MacCarthy Mor, King of Desmond, had a timber hunting lodge built on the present site of Blarney Castle; in the twelfth century, this was followed by the building of a stone structure.  However, the first identifiable archeological evidence places the site’s current structure with the powerful cadet branch of the senior MacCarthy Mor line known as the Lords of Muskerry.  Construction of the castle is dated to the mid fifteenth century, with its builder most widely believed to be Cormac ‘Laidir’ mac Taidgh, the MacCarthy lord of Muskerry. 


North side of Blarney Castle with projecting oriel window from the Earl's Chamber (Photo by Mike Schenk)

The legend of the Blarney Stone is intimately linked to both the castle and the family that possessed it.  The actual stone “is a block of limestone a metre long, mounted high up on the wall of the keep, just below the battlements on the south side” (Castleden, 102).  Various legends have been attached to the origins of the stone. Believed by many to be one half of the Stone of Scone, one legend reports that King Robert the Bruce of Scotland gifted Cormac Mor MacCarthy, Prince of Desmond, the stone in recognition of his having sent 5000 infantry to aid the Scottish king at the Battle of Bannockburn.  Another idea is that since the Stone of Scone originated in Ireland, the Blarney Stone may simply be that part of the stone that never left and so acted as a crowning stone for the EĆ³ghanacht Irish kings. 

Harkening back to Celtic Ireland’s ancient past, more magical myths of the Blarney Stone exist.  One explanatory myth takes place in the eighth century and involves a powerful druid who has two daughters, Cleena and Aoival (Samuel et al, 71).  As the story goes, Cleena is “exceptionally eloquent and beautiful and is the ‘Queen of the Fairies in South Munster’”(Sameul et al, 71).  She falls in love with one of the MacCarthy chieftains who does not return her love.  After he is killed in battle, “she finds he has fallen on a stone on the side of the Lee, into which his blood has soaked [and] because she spends many hours there weeping and kissing the stone” her magic gifts are “transferred to it “(Samuel et al, 71).  A continuation of this particular myth involves the builder of Blarney Castle, Cormac ‘Laidir’ mac Taidgh, who is worried about a litigation he is involved in.  Cliodhna, Queen of the Fairies, visits the worried Lord in the night and instructs him to “kiss the stone he will see facing him when he first wakes up and goes out (Samuel et al, 71).  Unbeknownst to him, the stone is the same one that his ancestor had died upon and so it had been brought up from the banks of the Lee.  Cormac ‘Laidir’ does as Cliodhna instructs and wins the court case.  “He then carries the stone to the top of the castle and hides it so that no one else will be able to match him in eloquence” (Samuel et al, 71). 

This connection between the stone and eloquence is enhanced by a historical episode that occurred in the 16th century.  Wanting all the chiefs of Ireland to occupy their lands under title from her, Elizabeth I became exasperated by the cunning way in which Cormac Teige MacCarthy, the then lord Muskerry, continued to tactfully agree to do so whilst cleverly avoiding any actual legal concession.  After yet another round of negotiation and more brilliant political maneuvering by Lord Muskerry, it is reported that in a frustrated rage the Queen stormed from the room and shouted, “Blarney!  What he says he never means.  It’s the usual Blarney!”(Castleden, 103).

 

"You want me to do what to the stone?!"




Castleden, Rodney.  Castles of Britian & Ireland. London: Quercus, 2012.

MacCarthy Glas, Daniel.  Historical Pedigree of the Sliochd Feidlimidh, The MacCarthys Of Gleanmacroim. England: Exeter, 1849.

Samuel, Mark and Kate Hamlyn.  Blarney Castle: Its History, Development and Purpose. Cork: Cork University Press, 2007.