Ways of Dying in 1665

[TheScarlettPimpernel]

So I'm just copying out a weekly Bill of Mortality from London, 1665 (don't ask!)

Look at some of the ways of dying - anyone care to hazard a guess at what some of them might be?!

Plague - 7165 (IN A WEEK!!!)
Childbed - 42 - just goes to show, it's all very well bemoaning medicalised childbirth/interventions/CSs but look at the alternative
Grief - 3 (Not bloody surprising - wonder what the actual medical cause was?)
Griping in the Guts - 51!
Rising of the Lights - 11 (WTF was that then? In offal, are the lights the lungs, right?)
Kingsevil - 2 (Don't ask me how I know this, but I believe this to be scrofula)
Wormes - 15 (OH EM GEE, you could die of worms )
Impostume - 11 (what?!)
Frighted - 3 (three people scared to death in a week )
Winde - 3 (Oh yeah. FARTED TO DEATH)

I realise I am a bit morbid

Yes, you're right. Ok, she started and ended badly, but had a good bit in the middle! And a fair bit of England would agree H8 was a twat.

(Mind you, I think Anne Boleyn was too.)

Nah, Anne Boleyn rocked. Feel sorry for her, she was a bit mouthy but was used by her family for advancement and then when henry lost interest her family deserted her.

She would have been so proud of her daughter i'm sure.

I've posted this before but when Elizabeth 1st died a rig she always wore was found to open and inside was a picture of her mother

rig ring obviously!

Ring

I could have sworn Arthur and Catherine of Aragon were married by proxy, as children, but wikipedia says not. Hmm.

I do wonder what things would have been like if Catherine had been able to take the throne as her own, rather than marrying the king - she had the stronger claim, thanks to Henry VII's claim being "disallowed" due to illegitimacy.

They definitely were, two years before she came to England. I actually know that, because we had to do a project about various stages in their lives, and I had Catherine of Aragon's childhood.

"The two were married by proxy on 19 May 1499 and corresponded in Latin until Arthur turned fifteen, when it was decided that they were old enough to be married."

I suppose Anne's family did encourage her, but H8 had had affairs before, and as soon as he'd 'caught' the woman, he'd go back to Catherine. Anne wouldn't let herself be caught. I see her as a marriage wrecker I'm afraid.

Although I thought it was very hard of him to put her through a coronation when she was very pregnant.

This has got to be one of the most fascinating threads there has ever been on MN!

I'd be surprised if many girls of the upper orders still had an intact hymen by the time they were married if they rode horses, as it's not unusual to rupture the hymen while horseriding. Of course, if they only walked at a sedate pace, it wouldn't rupture it but a good open gallop might do the job. :)

I like the way we've meandered through the plague, Little Women, Romans, sympathetic treatments and are now stuck into the Tudors! It's a nice wander-y thread.

Excellent, clearly not as demented as I feared then! The little grey cells are still sparking, albeit feebly... :o

(Oops, forgot am incognito with a Dickens namechange) :o

Agree with Cazboldy, fascinating thread. I've bought two of the books mentioned, and see I'm not alone in this.

I have a Poirot ready for when I go to bed Rue

I'm part way through The Mysterious Affair at Styles as an audiobook, takes me back, think I was 10 when I first read it :o

I'm also part way through Year of Wonders as an ibook, thanks to this thread. I already own a hardcopy of Connie Willis's Doomsday Book, which is definitely an excellent read.

And now I want to visit Eyam. And the Museum of London. And Bodyworks.

I blame you lot :o

Oh Good Lord, we've come round to Agatha Christie

Radio 4 broadcast a dramatisation of Endless Night last week. It's not really a nice jolly murder mystery, more a fucking creepy psychological thriller. I read it at about 8 or 9 and arrived at school the next morning all creeped out and having had nightmares: the teacher was horrified

This has been the best thread ever

Thumb maybe that's why women rode side-saddle?

I quite like Catherine of Aragon for her defiance in not recognising H8's marriage to AB, even after she was seperated from Mary and under house arrest. Esp her last letter to him, addressing him as her husband and signing off as Catherine, Queen of England . Must have taken some guts in that time.

Good point megapixel! Forgot about that!
Although I don't think that's why the side-saddle was introduced (even though you may have been saying that tongue in cheek ); women weren't supposed to ride horses independently prior to the 14th C, they just rode behind their Man. The side-saddle for ladies to ride independently was developed after that, apparently. And I assume it was a sidesaddle initially because of the size and weight of their skirts (but it also meant they still couldn't control their own horse terribly well so had to be led along at a walk, no doubt by a man - couldn't have them riding off on their own, chattels that they were!)

As a devout Catholic Catherine would never have recognised her divorce, and she believed that her marriage to Henry was lawful in the eyes of the church; so it's not surprising that she held on to that belief. Wasn't there some Catholic plot after the dissolution of the monasteries to liberate Queen Catherine and do away with Henry? Or have I just imagined that?

I think it was thought to be indecent for them to have to ride with their legs apart

well yes, that too - but I reckon sheer practicality won out!

I've also just bought some Connie Willis books, they are fantastic! Am waiting for Doomsday to arrive.

Hmm, must have got confused with other plots, can't find anything to do with Catherine of Aragon - must have made that one up .

I always felt sorry for Catherine Parr. She was forced to marry Henry when he was old and smelly and horrible, he wasn't her first aged husband, she was in love with Thomas Seymour, she was nearly arrested, for heresy, then when H8 died and she finally got to marry the man she loved, he was an unfaithful little shit, and she died in childbirth!

And also her daughter, Mary Seymour. Nobody knows what happened to her.

yes she had a hard life, poor lady.