#Colchester castle

[martinlovell-actor]

Episode 2 of 11 of The Siege of Colchester - Siege Diaries. Starring me!

To mark the 375th anniversary of the Siege of Colchester, Colchester Museum (Colchester Castle) put together a series of videos; the fictional account of a Royalist soldier caught up in the siege, called 'Siege Diaries'.

Also marking the 375th anniversary will be the Siege of Colchester, reenacted by The English Civil War Society in Castle Park, Colchester on the 19th & 20th August 2023, an event that is completely free for the public to watch, comprising of an extensive Living History display, live firing musket volleys, cannons firing, pike fighting, potentially cavalry charges, and more!

To learn more, search for Sir Thomas Blackwell's

[tenth-sentence]

Ten reformers were killed at Colchester Castle for their faith in 1557, five of them women: Agnes Silverside, Helen Ewring a miller's wife, Elizabeth Folk a young maiden and servant, and Alice Munt burned with her husband, and her spinster daughter Rose Munt.

"Normal Women: 900 Years of Making History" - Philippa Gregory

[greekmythcomix]

(In response to @aeide saying they bought the Persephone print as leggings, in case those tags don’t who up above!)

No way you bought the leggings?! Thank you, I bet you look amazing 😁

Ok fun story about the print that Persephone is wearing:

TL/DR: my print is in a museum for a good cause!

I wanted Persephone’s dress to be really sweet and pretty but have a devastating print (because of course she would shop at Disturbia), so I made a really simple repeating pattern of skulls and pomegranates in a cross-cross, and put a semi-transparent layer of darkness over it. Then I just filled the whole dress - it reminded me of old Tintin comics where when he was wearing a check shirt the pattern was just perfect in the shape regardless of what way the figure was turning (ie: lazy!) The drawing was posted for ClassicsTober ‘22 and immediately a few people asked for the pattern, so I put it on my Redbubble, on both light and dark versions.

Later I got a DM from Karl Anthony Mercer, who was in the process of curating a case of objects looking at autism and neurodiversity in Colchester Museum's collections, of which there were basically none - literally 2 out of 200,000. So, being autistic himself, and working for CuratingForChange, and not having time for a big community celebration to develop an exhibit, they had decided to get Karl to put some of his own stuff in a case instead to start a discussion exhibit, and one of those things was a particular scarf, and did I mind if it went in?…

The scarf with Persephone’s Print on it of course went into the museum display. You don’t say no to that. Especially as this is how Karl described his reasons for wanting it in:

I wanted to include the pomegranate-skull scarf because thematically I want this case to be a katabasis of sorts - autistic lives, once hidden in the underworld, will be brought back to life and I think Persephone is a fantastic representation for that. She was not taken to the underworld of her own will, after all!

The display was called Un/Masked, looking at the absence of autistic and neurodiverse heritage in museums. And where was the display? Colchester Castle. Which was built on the foundations of the Roman Temple to Claudius, burned by Boudicca. Be still my heart.

And that’s how, very unexpectedly, a very unexpected piece of my work ended up in a freaking museum!! ❤️

Why I couldn’t possibly say no: I’m a member of Asterion, a group recently set up by neurodiverse Classicists to celebrate Neurodiversity in Classics. We aim to provide support, resources, and community.

Come see us at the link below:

You can find out more about Curating For Change here:

Persephone and Demeter meet for coffee.

(Originally for #Classicstober)

[mercerspoems]

Happy 10th Birthday Greek Myth Comix

Sunday 21st January 2024 marks a whole decade of the classics-inspired art, snark and sometimes bwark that is Greek Myth Comix. In order to celebrate I’m here to answer a simple question; What’s My Favourite and Why? My choice will come as no surprise to our esteemed artist: #ClassicsTober Day 22: MOTHER. Inspired by a tweet from another wonderful classicist, Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts, the…

[geofflewriter]

Camulodunum: A Bit Of An Anagram

[arebirthingofsorts]

the entirety of buzzfeed unsolved but the stories are in chronological order: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGGIwil6tMX95BMdYvMY8Co5Y2J8yxpe-

supernatural was very hard to do so under the cut i've added my reasons for some difficult episodes to list! if anyone has qualms with it or if you notice any mistakes in the playlist please let me know!

the london tombs, la llorona, and the voodoo episodes were difficult due to no real timeframe being known for when they began so i based the london tombs off of ryan saying the bridge has been around since ancient rome which is why it's one of the first videos in the playlist. la llorona required me to do my own research which led me to believe the story came about in the 1500s? possibly predating that but the first written versions were apparently from the 1500s. for the voodoo new orleans episode i did some research and based it on when it could have been brought to the area.

for bigfoot, mothman, and the men in black, i listed those based on the first encounters/evidence presented

many of the locations, i listed based on when they closed their operations or the owners passed before becoming noted haunted locations. (winchester house, sorrel-weed, villa montezuma, whaley house, old city jail, pythian castle, vulture mine, waverly hills, bellaire house, eastern state, rolling hills)

other haunted ones are currently still operating so i listed those based on when they first opened or got into the hands of the current owners (viaduct tavern, st. augustine, tombstone, goatman's bridge, the viper room, bobby mackey's, moon river)

dauphine orleans hotel was listed as the date ryan said a license to may bailey was given for the bordello. im very unsure about this one so if anyone has suggestions on how to list this one, please reach out EDIT: decided on 1775 because ryan mentioned that year as the site the hotel is on and i felt more sure about it that choice

farnsworth was listed as the year of the battle of gettysburg due to the house being named after a soldier who died in that battle + notable events happening and around the house

the bermuda triangle was tricky so i listed that as the date the term "bermuda triangle" was first coined EDIT: it's been moved to close to the top of the playlist due to the first alleged reporting of weird bermuda shit being by christopher columbus in 1492. this made more sense to me

colchester and morris-jumel are museums now so those were dated as when they were officially museums

the uss yorktown and the queen mary are listed as when they docked for good.

the alien abductions episode is in the 70s area of the playlist because 2/3 of the stories happened in the 70s.

the date the island of the dolls began is where i based "3 horrifying cases of ghosts and demons" since there are separate episodes for the winchester mansion and the sallie house

i based all the haunted locations on those things because i figured that the ghosties would appear after the notable deaths and wild events instead of listing all of them as when they first opened.

i hope all of this makes sense. enjoy.

[sourcreammachine]

ELECTION NIGHT ENGLAND 2024

composition of all councils circa 2023:

🌹Labour: 5609

🌳Tory: 5395

🕊️Liberal: 2804

🌻Green: 757

💩Reform: 10

🔥Liberal (1989): 5

🦋Transform: 4

💩SDP (1990): 2

Regionalists, RAs and Others: 1663

these numbers do not include changes over the past year or so – including a number of labour councillors who’ve left the party due to the centralist agenda and the leadership’s support for the genocide

TONIGHT’S ELECTIONS:

every mayor bar cambridgeshire and the “West of England”

every police commissioner

multiple district councils

london assembly

blackpool south byelection

borough mayor of salford

SEATS UP TONIGHT:

🌳Tory: 989

🌹Labour: 973

🕊️Liberal: 418

🌻Green: 107

Regionalists, RAs and Others: 172

ALLOUT ELECTIONS (all seats are to be elected, whole council can flip): Basildon, Brentwood, Bristol, Cannock Chase, Castle Point, Cheltenham, Dorset, Dudley, Epping Forest, Fareham, Gloucester, Harlow, Havant, North Herts, Maidstone, Nuneaton, Reddit, Rossendale, Rotherham, Stevenage, Stroud, Tandridge, Tunbridge Wells, North Tyne, Warrington, Wokingham, Worcester

PARTIAL / ROTATING ELECTIONS where enough seats are being contested to potentially flip the council, ignoring labour majority defences (bold/italic councils could only be changed to no overall control): Adur, Basingstoke, Bolton, Burnley, Cherwell, Colchester, Elmbridge, Hastings, Hart, Hyndburn, Norwich, Sheffield, Solihull, Stockport, Walsall, Hartlepool, Hull, Milton Keynes, Oxford, West Oxon, Pendle, Peterborough, Portsmouth, Rochford, Rugby, Southend, Tamworth, Thurrock, Welwyn Hatfield

[intolunarorbit]

About that spiral staircase myth

I saw a post on tumblr yesterday about the common misconception that medieval staircases spiral clockwise so that an attacker going up the stairs will have less space to swing their weapon due to the central pillar. I responded clarifying that this (very likely) was not the case but was asked to make a standalone post on it so this is that post (I'm also changing some information because I also got some details wrong in that response)

Disclaimer: I'm not a historian, my knowledge on the subject is based off of a blog post and my knowledge of medieval warfare from my high school history course on the Wars of the Roses and going to several castles. I'm primarily talking about castles in England and Wales but the things I'm saying are largely true throughout medieval Europe and I encourage people to give examples from other countries in the notes!

Firstly medieval staircases do NOT universally spiral clockwise, if it did provide a massive defensive boost then all spiral staircases would be clockwise. While the trend is for clockwise spirals, it's nowhere near universal (only about 70%), with several castles (such as caerphilly castle and the white tower in london) having both clockwise and counterclockwise. The spiral staircases were also not the only set of stairs in most castles, with them having internal stairs which were straight - or at least not as curved as spiral staircases. The purpose of the spiral staircase was mostly to get soldiers and supplies to and from the battlements; a potential attacker would be more likely to use the non-spiral staircases since they would be easier to climb

From a hand-to-hand combat perspective, the clockwise spiral staircase does not provide the defender with an advantage in combat. In melee combat the high ground is disadvantageous: you can reach much further up than you can down, and reaching down requires bending over, which in plate armour could risk your balance and would definitely make your head more exposed to attack. The placement of the walls and pillars also makes no difference, spiral staircases were either very spacious (such as in Colchester castle where the staircase's diameter was 5 metres (16ft)) which means there is very little concern for the walls or pillar while fighting, or very narrow (like the great tower of Goorich castle with only a diameter of 70cm (2.5ft)) where both parties will have to worry about hitting the wall or pillar either during the swing or recovery from it.

Most importantly, however is the fact that in the medieval period, knights did not fight within castles, and castles were not built with the expectation of knights fighting within them, with some castles even being built with no siege-readiness at all. In the next paragraph I will be talking purely about castles which were designed to be defended (such as a lot of the castles built during the conquest of Wales) but do note that a lot of them were not and were designed to house local nobility or for a government purpose like a courthouse or a prison.

A castle's role in combat was to be a safe place for an army to rest and re-supply, and typically if there was an attacking army approaching the castle the defenders would leave the castle and fight them head on in pitched combat. If they did not there would be a siege, where the attackers cut off the supply line to the castle and wait for either the defenders to surrender (due to starvation or negotiation), or for the defences to be breached with a siege weapon or through sabotage. Once attackers are within the castle the battle has been lost for the defenders as their defences are overrun. So this is why the interiors of castles were not designed to be defendable, as it's a futile effort.

And finally to talk about the history of the claim: no medieval sources have said that they did clockwise spirals for this purpose. To be fair this is largely because the people who built and designed castles typically could not read or write, but the point still stands that the claim that the spiral staircases were clockwise for this purpose is not supported by history. The earliest written example of this is in a 1902 architecture history book by Theodore Cook. Cook, being interested in fencing, saw clockwise spiral staircases and observed that it would be difficult to fence when going upstairs in a clockwise spiral, and concluded that this is why medieval castles use them.

This is part of the trend of Victorian historians asserting their assumptions of history as fact (as well as inventing facts of their own to add to the spectacle or intrigue of the past - you have them to thank for the myth that Vikings had horned helmets and that Columbus was trying to disprove that the earth was flat, not even beginning to touch on their views towards non-white culture and history), as well as the military-first view of castle designs. This myth has largely stuck around since there's very little evidence to propose an alternate reason for the particular direction of spiral staircases (as an aside: my personal assumption is that they made the staircases go in whatever direction made it best line up with the floors of the castle).

In summary, since spiral staircases aren't universally clockwise, are impractical to fight on for the defenders as well as the attackers, and would not have been fought on anyways due to the nature of castle warfare, the consensus is that spiral staircases did not spiral clockwise in order to give defenders an advantage.

[world-of-wales]

The Prince of Wales makes Peter Shilton, from Colchester a Commander of the Order of the British Empire for services to association football and to the prevention of gambling harm during an Investiture Ceremony at Windsor Castle || 8 MAY 2024

[damonalbarn]

Blur Q&A with journalists at the Colchester Castle, 19 May 2023

[martinlovell-actor]

Episode 1 of 11 of The Siege of Colchester - Siege Diaries. Starring me!

To mark the 375th anniversary of the Siege of Colchester, Colchester Museum have put together a series of videos; the fictional account of a Royalist soldier caught up in the siege, called 'Siege Diaries'.

Also marking the 375th anniversary will be the Siege of Colchester, reenacted by The English Civil War Society in Castle Park, Colchester on the 19th & 20th August 2023, an event that is completely free for the public to watch, comprising of a Living History display, muskets, cannons firing, pikes, cavalry, and more!

To learn more, search for Sir Thomas Blackwell's

[queenmarytudor]

Mary I's Fight For The Throne

24th July - Mary sets off on a royal progress

On the 24th July, after Mary "arranged with her chaplains that they should give thanks and pour forth prayers to Almighty God, the first and sole author of this victory" 1, the new queen of England leaves her castle of Framlingham for Ipswich.

Upon entering the city she is gifted "eleven pounds sterling in gold; with her unmatched kindness she accepted this sum with much gratitude. As soon as her Highness had entered the town, some pretty little boys presented her with a golden heart inscribed 'the heart of the people'." 2 There, Mary is reunited with her household servant Francis Englefield, imprisoned since February.

Various people flock to see Mary, offering fealty and begging pardon, including Elizabeth Howard, Duchess of Richmond and widow of Mary's half brother Henry Fitzroy. Mary refuses to see her "because of a letter she had rashly sent to the [Privy] Council, which mentioned the queen with little honour and scant respect." 3

After Ipswich Mary moves on to Colchester, lodging in the house of her mother's former lady, Muriel Christmas. Here in Colchester, she writes to Peter Carew and other esquires thanking them for their proclamations:

Trusty and right wellbeloved, we greet you well and your letter addressed hither perceive your diligence, your faithfulness and true hearts ready to serve and to have defended us against our traitors and rebels, who now God be thanked are under feet, and the chief thereof as the Duke of Northumberland and others admitted to ward in our Tower of London and other prisons. Wherefore as ye have well deserved we give you and all our good subjects in your company our right thanks, minding to consider the same to your comfort, requiring and praying you all this trouble now being overlaid, to desire our said subjects in God’s peace and ours to repair home to their dwelling places and there to remain till we shall need their further services, with continual prayer to God for his grace to preserve us and the coming wealth to his glory. Given under our signet at our town of Colchester, the first year of our reign 4

After leaving Colchester she returns to her palace at Beaulieu. Around 2am, Mary's cousin and Jane Grey's mother Frances, Duchess of Suffolk, arrives "to tell her that her husband had been the victim of an attempt to poison him, and that the Duke of Northumberland had done it. She then prayed for her husband's release from the Tower, where he had been imprisoned two days previously." 5 Mary is merciful and allows the Duke of Suffolk's sentence to be commuted to house arrest.

On the 28th, Mary finally meets with the Imperial ambassadors after sending "a special messenger to beg us to make haste and press on to our destination this same day." 6 After their arrival, between 10pm and midnight, she tells them the haste has been prompted by letters found on Henry Dudley "who was on his way back from France with letters from the King for the Lady Jane of Suffolk, whom he styled Queen of England." 7

Mary carries on her progress to London, meeting up with her sister Elizabeth at Wanstead. Elizabeth had wrote to her older sister "to congratulate her on her accession, and to beg her to let her know in what dress she desires to see her when she goes to salute her: whether her garb shall be mourning or not." 8

Now, the sisters reunite in the wake of their brothers death, and Mary welcomes her sister "with great warmth, even to kissing all her ladies." 9

Meanwhile...

On the 25th, at 3pm, the Duke of Northumberland arrives at the Tower. He, his sons and co-conspirators including Sir John Gates, Sir Thomas Palmer and Francis Hastings, earl of Huntingdon, are brought by the Earl of Arundel along "streets full of people, which cursed him and called him traitor without measure." 10

The Duchess of Northumberland is let out of prison and sets out to meet Mary, but "the Queen ordered her to return to London, and refused to give her audience." 11

After raising a rebellion to help Mary, on the 28th July Edward Hastings is sworn on to her Privy Council. A day after, his co-leader Sir Edmund Peckham is also sworn on. 12

Sources:

1.Vita Mariae Angliae Reginae of Robert Wingfield

2. Vita Mariae Angliae Reginae of Robert Wingfield

3. Vita Mariae Angliae Reginae of Robert Wingfield

4. Report on the records of the city of Exeter

5. Spanish State Papers, 2nd August 1553

6. Spanish State Papers, 29th July 1553

7. Spanish State Papers, 29th July 1553

8. Spanish State Papers, 22nd July 1553

9. Spanish State Papers, 6th August 1553

10. Wriothesley's Chronicle

11. Spanish State Papers, 29th July 1553

12. Acts of the Privy Council, Vol. 4 Appendix

[lanasheartshapeshades-blog]

(Castle Park, Colchester)

[camillasgirl]

Queen Camilla meets members of "Next Chapter" domestic abuse charity group during a visit to Colchester Castle, 07.03.2023

[thatshowthingstarted]

Colchester Vase

The Colchester Vase is an ancient Roman British vase made from local clay from Colchester, England dating to 175 AD, depicting a gladiator battle between two individuals: Memnon and Valentinus, which are believed to be stage names.

It was discovered in a Roman-era grave in 1853, which held the deceased's cremated remains.

It has currently held by the Colchester Castle Museum collection, and is renowned to be among the finest piece of Roman-British pottery.