Graves, Grangerising and a man who wore Green

Portland, Wimborne and Shaftesbury are the largest places covered by the eighth edition of Hutchin’s Extra Illustrated.

The additions for Wimborne include a newspaper article detailing the celebrations held in the town when King George III recovered from his madness.

There are also many drawings of the inside of the minster, including one of the famous chained library, a picture of the monument in memory of King Aethelred (the brother of King Alfred, not the unready) and some drawings of the tomb of John Beaufort, 1^st Duke of Somerset, and his wife, Margaret, the maternal grandparents of Henry VII.

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These are not the only royal graves featured in this volume. There are also additions relating to the grave of Queen Joan, wife of Alexander II of Scotland.

Joan, who was the daughter of King John, was born in 1210 and her marriage to Alexander of Scotland was first arranged when she was two, but her father changed his mind and arranged a betrothal to Hugh X of Lusignan in southern France.

At the age of seven Joan was sent to live with her fiancée accompanied by her mother, who had been widowed in 1216. Hugh soon decided that he would rather marry the young widow than wait for Joan to grow up and he and Isabelle were married in 1220.

The plan to marry Joan to Alexander of Scotland was now resurrected but could not go ahead until her mother and Hugh returned her to England. They did this eventually, but without her dowry, which they kept.

Joan married Alexander on 19^th June 1221 in York. She was aged 11, whilst Alexander was 23. Her brother, King Henry III, arranged and paid for 3 days of celebrations. After this she went to live in Scotland in a court that was rumoured to be dominated by her new mother in law, Queen Ermengarde.

John was reported to have had a close relationship with her brother and several letters survive between the two of them. She may have helped the relationship between the two countries, at least in the first ten years of her marriage, but as time went on and she failed to produce an heir the marriage may have become strained. At the same time relations between England and Scotland became cooler.

Following a meeting between the kings in 1237 Joan travelled with Henry III’s wife Eleanor, who was also without an heir, to Canterbury on a pilgrimage. Following this she returned to spend Christmas at the English court, where she fell ill and died aged just 27 in the arms of her brothers.

Joan requested that she be buried at the nunnery at Tarrant Abbey. In 1252 Henry III ordered an image of the queen in marble to be placed on her tomb. Nothing of this monument or the Abbey Church survives today as it was destroyed in the reformation.

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In the second edition of Hutchins there is a colourful description of Henry Hastings of Horton. This description was supposedly written by his neighbour Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper. Hastings was born in 1638 and was the son, brother and uncle to the Earl of Huntingdon. He loved hunting and according to the description always wore green clothes ‘never worth, when new, five pounds.’ It goes on to say he ‘bestowed all his time on these sports (hunting and fishing), but what he borrowed to caress his neighbours wives and daughters, there being not a woman in all his walks, of the degree of a yeoman’s wife, or under, and under the age of forty, but it was her own fault if he was not intimately acquainted with her. This made him very popular; always speaking kindly to the husband, brother or father, who was to boot very welcome in his house.’ The passage finishes by saying:

‘He lived to be an hundred, and never lost his eye-sight, but always wrote and read without spectacles, and got on horseback without help. Until past fourscore, he rode to the death of a stag as well as any.’

A portrait of Hastings has been added to the illustrated edition.

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Finally, we couldn’t finish this blog without mentioning the marvellously titled pamphlet ‘Granger, Grangerizing and Grangerizers. A preface to Granger Grangerized by a Grangerizer’. Grangerizing is the name given to the process of adding pictures, letters and other documents to bound volumes. This booklet was written by A M Broadley, who grangerized this edition of Hutchins’ History and Antiquities of Dorset.

Grangerizing is named after the Rev James Granger, who was born in Shaftesbury. Granger was a collector of portraits and author of the ‘Biographical History of England from Egbert the Great to the Revolution’, but never grangerised any books. His name seems to have become associated with the practice due to the number of copies of his publication that had illustrations added to them. His portrait has been added to this volume.

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This blog is part of our monthly series on the 12 extra-illustrated volumes of “Hutchins’ History and Antiquities of Dorset.”

Part one: An introduction to the history and antiquities of Dorset.

Part two: The Pitt family, a piano player, and a plague of caterpillars.

Part three: Coastline, Castles and Catastrophe

Part four: A Phenomenon, Fake News and a Philanthropist

Part five: Antiquities, Adventurers, and an Actress

Part six: A Gaol, a Guide and a Man of Great Girth

Part seven: Physicians, fires and false allegations