David Tucker writes…
Specially prepared.
For those who are going on Wednesday’s or Sunday’s Tower of London Tour.
In the blurb for the Tower
tour we call William the Conqueror – who gave us the Tower – the bastard. Which
he was.
But I think of him as the Squitterer
In Chief. For two reasons.
1.
Because of his brood of male offspring. Four unforgettable – nose clothes-pin
at the ready? – results of his squittering. And
2. Because of his, William’s –
THREE-LINE WHIP HERE, APPLY NOSE CLOTHES-PIN AT ONCE – death.
Especially what he did after
he entered the long night.
A final forget-me-not.
Still wondering? Haven’t
looked it up?
Squitter means – thanks for
sharing this with me, OED – “to void thin excrement.”
Ok, let’s get stuck in.
A lot of talk about
dysfunctional families the last few days. The Windsors. The Markles. King Lear
and his family. (Lear in connection with great director Richard Eyre’s eagerly
anticipated, about-to-open production of the play.*)
But the Windsors, the Markles,
even Lear’s – they’re just toddlers, rank amateurs in the matter of showing the
world what a truly dysfunctional family looks like.
Ok, here we go. Keep some of
this in mind when you’re in there looking at the White Tower – William the
Conqueror’s mailed fist of a building – on that tour.
William the Conqueror had
four sons. His squitterings.
The eldest – of the three who
reached adulthood – was Robert Curthose.
While the cat’s away…
Yeah, that’s right. Robert
Curthose wanted the house for himself. Wanted dad’s native Normandy. Staged a
rebellion.
Dad’s reaction? “I’ll sort
that little shit out.” (Aside: little’s another mot juste. It’s in that name Curthose. Robert was fat and had short
legs. Didn’t keep him from helping himself to “the beautiful mistress of an old
priest.” Or from fathering a few bastards of his own.
Dad didn’t kill sonny. He
probably should have done. Or at least locked him up – as Robert’s younger
brothers did. For 28 years.
Because the lot of them –
this was the dysfunctional family of all time, remember – quarrelled and
bickered incessantly. With international consequences.
Out of control, the lot of
them. But Robert might well take the cake. Tearaway. Rebellion after rebellion.
Forever burning through his funds.
Doing for his father.
Big bad dad (the bastard,
William the C) – now grotesquely fat – has to head back over to Normandy to
sort out another rebellion. Iron fist brought down on the rebellious town of
Mantes. And then – for good measure – he torches it. Having Zippo’d Mantes,
William thought he’d take a show-‘em-who’s-boss ride through the town that he’d
turned into a pyre. His horse stepped on a red hot ember. Hot footed, the horse
reared. William the C, partridge plump, went up off the saddle like Humpty
Dumpty on a trampoline. Came down hard. On the iron saddle horn, the pommel.
Terrible internal injuries to his beachball stomach. Died in agony a few days
later. His peeps stripped the jubbly stiff – yeah, I know – and cleared out.
Funeral time. More fun time.
A few monks tried to stuff the bloated corpse into a small sarcophagus, like trying
to get a beached whale into a suitcase.
Corpse splits open. Erupts.
Talk about squittering. Stench like a convention of country and western
festival portaloos fresh from the field of battle.
And that wafts us to second
grown-up son, William Rufus. Who everybody loathed (and feared). Ticked pretty
much all the boxes in the 11th century’s This Was One Nasty Piece of
Work Checklist. He was a tyrant; he was an indiscriminate lecher (swung both
ways); despite being anything but easy on the eyes he was vain: short (his
mother was only just over four feet tall), thickset, blonde, red-faced (ergo
that handle Rufus), ponced around in short tunics and shoes with long points
which curled like scorpions’ tails; pissed on his aforementioned brother
Curthose (visiting Robert C. he went up onto a balcony and urinated down on the
heads of Robert and Robert’s chums);
he was bad news for the church; his punitive taxes were right at the top of the
“let me show you how its done, son” league; the nobles couldn’t stomach his
extravagance, let alone his homosexuality; he put 50 innocent Englishmen to the
ordeal of the hot iron; and on it goes.
Was killed – arrow in the
heart – in a hunting “accident”. There’s been considerable historical
speculation that it wasn’t in the least an accident – that his devoted little
brother Henri “arranged it”. Think
you that meets the highest standards of dysfunctional familydom? Does by my
books.
That said, this mob had form
in these matters. Richard, the fourth brother – the one who didn’t make it into
adulthood, who’s barely a footnote – was also mistaken for game – a young deer
or perhaps a small boar? – and ushered into the long night at the point and
shaft of a well aimed arrow.
Two for four. In baseball
terms – a batting percentage –that’s world class.
Before we leave Rufus – no
doubt rampaging, spoiling it for everybody – in the long night, anything to be
said for Rufus? Sure is: Westminster Hall. The greatest medieval hall in Europe.
Easy to imagine him thinking he’d torch his father’s memory: “White Tower? I’ll
show that stinking bastard how you build an impressive building.”
Oh and he was supposed to be
witty. The which is an elastic term, of course. Rufus may well have thought
that anointing his brother and his brother’s friends with the yellow stuff was
witty. Most people probably wouldn’t.
And that leaves Henri. Henry.
Henry Beauclerc (because he was the only one of the four of them who could read
and write). Henry I in the annals of English kingship. If he did in fact
engineer his brother’s death – fratricide and regicide all rolled up into one –
well, that’s setting the mark pretty high.
To that you can add his
fathering, on a harem of mistresses, more bastard children – 20+ and counting –
than any other English king. Eat your heart out Charles II.
And on that note, enjoy your tour. And make of it what you will that – thanks
to London Walks – you’ll never be able to watch an old episode of My Three Sons (Fred MacMurray, anybody
remember him?) without thinking about the Bastard’s bastards (and their
bastards).
*King Lear and his mob have
to be the most dysfunctional family in all of dramatic literature. And what –
fascinating, this – has bearing on that is Shakespeare’s living with – he was
their lodger – a hugely dysfunctional family of Huguenot immigrants when he
wrote King Lear. RSC actor Steve Noonan opens that
episode up to view on Sunday afternoon when he’s guiding the Shakespeare (and
Dickens) walk and gets his walkers into that neighbourhood.
Tour The Tower of London with London Walks on Wednesdays and Sundays.
A
London Walk costs £10 – £8 concession. To join a London Walk, simply meet your
guide at the designated tube station at the appointed time. Details of all
London Walks can be found at www.walks.com.