This room in the Hatfield House screams to me:
'I'M A RENAISSANCE THEATRE AND I WANNA PLAY, SO DON'T HIDE ME BEHIND THE MASQUE OF A MEDIEVAL GREAT HALL.'
Others might hear:
'I'M A RENAISSANCE OPERA HOUSE AND I WANT TO SING IT TO THE WORLD.'
Commercial theatres were always built tough and strong but they usually last less than 50 years for one reason or another. They were especially susceptible to fires, especially the fires set by Puritans. If not that then the wear and tear of massive numbers of often ill behaved or at least indulgent patrons almost always did them in rather quickly. Old residences were different. After 400 years there are still plenty of them around and some are in great shape. One in particular was owned by a bard who, like many modern day show biz people, installed a theatre in the home which she built with her husband. It still stands and it is in far better condition than any commercial theatre that is 50 years old or 20 years where customers have been allowed to smoke cigarettes. That is simply because it was a standard commercial theatre meant to serve about 12,000 patrons a month that was built on a private estate in the country where it rarely served more than 450 well mannered patrons a month.
I was wondering why nobody noticed the hall was a theatre since it was so obvious to me. So I looked for another example on the internet and was shocked to find the oldest theater that exists is from the late 18th century and the oldest drawing of an English stage is from the 1640's. No wonder it is not obvious to anyone what it is. Nobody has seen a Renaissance stage in probably 300 years but how do it explain it?
Renaissance theaters are in same category as this bird I guess: Do
you know what kind of bird this is? Not
everyone does when they see a picture of one. So no one
should ever be expected to know what it is when they see a picture
of it any more than they should know a Renaissance theater when they
see one such at the one at Hatfield House.It's a Dodo Bird. Now you know what it is since you have have read about it somewhere or learned about it in a class just like you have Renaissance theaters. Over 400 years ago every London school child not only knew what they were when they heard the name but they knew what they looked like by sight and they also knew the Dodo walk. Several children would waddle down the road in a straight line, following each other like Dodo's with their heads bobbing from side to side. It was unbelievably cute.  Two songs were written that
immediate became popular hits and when the
minstrels sang them they would do the Dodo walk. Yes, a lot like they
do in the video 'Walk like an
Egyptian'.The first ones they brought back created an incredible sensation. The dock had to be closed because it was jammed with people wanting to see 'the bird' and they were out on the London Bridge trying to just get a glimpse of it. Then they started charging and gate receipts were incredible as over 10,000 people in two days paid good money to crush one another to this monstrous bird which was said to be larger than 'all the London canaries put together'. Dodo Birds weighing 70 pounds beat by a large margin the Atlantic Puffin which had been the largest and strangest looking bird until then. And they were not as helpless as people think. They had a heavy 7 inch long beak. It was the largest and strongest of any bird in the world since it was used for tearing apart coconuts for the meat inside which is what they mainly ate which I was told gave them a nice coconut flavor when they were cooked.  It's beak was really
nothing more than an oversized
can openerlike this antique can opener which was modelled after the Dodo Bird's close relative the parrot.  Thought
it was much larger and more closely resembled a Halberd which
were all over England. Halberds had one blade for chopping people
into pieces unless they were wearing armor. The other side was often
shaped like the Dodo Birds beak and it was used for prying open suits
of armor which, if you really think about it, made it also an oversized
can opener.Dodo Birds would just reach right over and pop the top off of the brain case, stomach or more often remove the entire leg of any large dog that got too close, even ones that meant it no harm. It was too fast for anyone to prevent. They just didn't like dogs from the start. They liked and would preen and mother the puppies of the same dog they had just killed which really did a strange thing to my emotions.  They
were not smart, that is all there is too it. We got two Dodo Birds as
gifts when one of our ships brought them back per our request to 'not
eat two of the birds' as that is what the crew picked up at Mauritius Island
for food on the way back from India. The two of them cut the local dog
population in half in about two weeks. They would stand back to back
and let the dogs try to attack them but kill them instead in about two
seconds flat. Suddenly the neighbours realized their dogs were missing
and they tied up what dogs they had left when they were down to about
1/3 of what they had previously. For years those dogs trespassed and killed our animals including one sheep and kept all the other animal terrorized. They cornered and attacked one small Royal child which meant legally I was entitled to murder every dog within a days march from Hatfield in all directions, about 700 square miles and that meant probably 20,000 dogs. Unless I marched on the Summer Solstice which would have allowed me to almost double the distance which would include London and the would mean I could murder another 45,000 dogs as well. That would also include up and down the Thames 5 miles and that would entitle my dog killing army to murder probably in excess of 100,000 dogs. Those Dodo Birds were my champions and got even for me and all they wanted in return were their nightly coconuts. You had to throw the coconuts on the ground or they would bite your hand if you gave it to them since they did not know the difference, they were that dumb. When they saw you approach with a coconut you had to be quick or that powerful bill would be eating you too. They came with thousands of coconuts though. I was cleaning up one day in the garden and they were following me around. When I got to some coconut husks from their previous night's dinner I picked them up, walked right over to the big brick incinerator and without thinking I tossed them in and so went one of the Dodo right in too. One Dodo wasn't going to live very long alone with the dogs seeking vengeance so the London Tower got him as a gift in 1610 or early 1611. Thousands of visiting children learned the Dodo Walk from him. The warders had those long sharp Halberds which could reach out and touch a barking dog at 15 feet. Since barking dogs only stand at the most 12 feet away from a person there was not a dog within two blocks of the Tower and the Dodo was totally safe there as a result. The Dodo was quite welcome at the tower unlike ordinary birds which we will soon discuss. The tower served as the London zoo before zoo's existed. England was an island of farmers who were needed as sailors and explorers to invade other countries with trinkets to impress backwards civilizations and exotic animals were great inspirations for children who would soon take the role of explorer. England needed a lot more sailors to do it right. They never really got them so it ended up with characters that were a Bligh on the nation. The sailors were absolutely right about the magnificent coconut flavor of the barbecued soft tasty flesh of the Dodo Bird. Fear was not at all a part of a Dodo Birds emotions and knowing when to run away is very essential to survival unless you live on an island of birds like Mauritius. Bottom line, that is why they are now extinct. There must be a good lesson there. I don't see it yet but don't despair because there is another good one coming up in less than 30 seconds, unless you are a very slow reader. Then sailors who went by Mauritius Island would just walk along and the friendly Dodo birds would follow them right on to their ships to be killed later for fresh food during their voyage. In 50 years there was not a single Dodo left. Neither a Dodo or an original Renaissance theatre been seen in over 350 years. So I wouldn't expect you to know either one by sight. So don't feel bad for thinking that room was something other than a Renaissance theatre in the grandest of glory. |
This
is said the be one
of the earliest extant illustrations of the English Restoration stage',
Here.
I
have no idea what an 'English
Restoration stage'. is
since it came about after I died. It doesn't look at all like our stages.
There is just no connection at all between this,
the
earliest extant illustrations of the English Restoration stage,and
any Renaissance theatre including the one at Hatfield House.
(Or Dodo Birds either.)
I
think a bunch of Puritans burned down all the theatres in England because
they were an immoral influence (yes, called renaissance) and then the
theatres had to start all over again but that is all after I died
so obviously I know nothing about it other than what I read. I just
read a little about the English stage after I died and I found it very
depressing. In fact Medieval and exactly what I was really trying to
get people away from which is why I found it depressing so I stopped.
You don't know how really offended it made me feel.
It was over a year ago so it's logical that I should probably read some
more and see if I can connect the Renaissance
theatre at Hatfield House to more recent theatres.
Do
you want to know what I see when I look at photographs of this theatre
at Hatfield House?
The seating
is for about 200 which is near the upper limit of the size of a theatre
which the voice of a non trained actress could fill with ease.
Much larger and she would have to yell. With voice training an actress
can project her voice and fill about a 500 person theatre but this
theatre had to accommodate both so it was on the small side.
Filling up the room with sound is more important than you might think
in an unamplified performance. It gives a sense of personal involvement
to both the actor and the audience. When an actor or actress can't fill
the room then you in the audience feel like you are listening in on
a conversation. When the actor or actress fills the room then they are
talking to you or at least you feel like you are part of the conversation.
It works this way: When we say 'the room is filled with sound' it means
a significant amount of sound is reflected off of the walls. That is
how we know automatically that we are inside of a room. When we are
in a room most of the time we are part of any conversation that goes
on in the room. Therefore automatically we feel like we are part of
the play in a room that is filled with sound. Otherwise it just two
people conversing and since it could be anywhere except in a room and
they were more than 15 feet away we assume that we are just not
part of the conversation/play and we are doing something we were taught
not to. We are listening in on a private conversation.
The advent of amplified sound has destroyed this taboo and as a result
many now think they have a right to invade other peoples privacy and
everyone knows the pain and anguish that has caused.
(In order
to fill the 3000 person London theatres with sound we hired castrati,
castrated males who escaped from Catholic Choirs who played the female
roles in the bard's plays. Here That is
the only way that we could come anywhere near filling theatres like
the Globe before the invention of electronic sound amplification.)
Here
on the left are the box seats which should have given away the real purpose of the room if anything does. They were to be used
by Royalty who did not want their presence known. It's
obviously box seats for the theatre since it too narrow to be
anything else if you think about it. If it was anything other than the
Bard's private seating
then that room would have been built wider across.
On the
top photo you can see how box seat extends into the room.
Those are panels
that could be slid quietly open so nobody would even know anyone was inside.
There was also black gauze screens that could pulled into place to
be really certain that nobody saw inside from below. There
were some openings that were adjustable so that you could look
out and see the stage but not the audience.
The reason it extends out is because it was kind of an afterthought. It was added right when we were finishing up the house. It may have been actually added about two years later in 1613. It was for keeping the visits of King James a secret so it was made for him and one other person. Keeping certain visitors a secret was much more important than you might at first think.
King James kept most of his visits a secret so that he did not have to walk through the estate with 50 bodyguards. (Without his kingly attire he looked a lot like our gardener John Trancadent (the Elder) who was from north of York, near Scotland, so his accent was a pretty close match. King James enjoyed indulging visitors who thought he was the gardner by taking them on quite good and knowledgable tours of our gardens which for some reason it just upset me to no end! His invisibility was so complete and made him so happey that he visited an average of about once a week for quite a few years. Then again both Robert and I were involved in the top levels of England's government so he had a good excuse. However, protocol was such that we were supposed to go to the king and were happy to. it was not supposed to be the other way around. He would leave from London for his estate, Theobald's, and change to a plain carriage on the way. Then cut over to Hatfield House where no spies ever thought to look for him (or if they did they did not want to tangle with us Cecil's who were the spy masters of England).
Later
the most critical person that used it
was a visitor in the form of a young man named Louis. As long as
he was a child nobody gave him a second look but as he grew older he
had to hide who he was. Louis became King Louis
XIII, the just of France.
He secretly crossed the channel to have fun at his aunt and uncles
house at Hatfield. I was his aunt, twice removed, and you can read about how I was his
aunt here. More
about him to come on the next page about Hatfield House.
The theatre
style was from the Byzantine
Church in
Ravenna Italy, Sant
Apollinare Nuovo
(to see the ceiling and mosaic, scroll down) in Ravenna Italy with a
decor that tended toward a more sober Swiss style. Ostentatious Italian
with Swiss to keep it from being to overwrought and also to give it
some respectability. So that people felt unfettered but at the same
time men would keep their hands to themselves during darkened performances.
It's easy to see elements such as arches and murals on these
examples
and how the Hatfield marble floor resemble these
Italian marble floors of the 14 th century but of a simpler design. Those
are places that inspire this man,
an Berkeley Architecture Professor who designs hundreds of buildings
and also holds a masters in Architecture from Cambridge and a doctorate
from Harvard.
Matching
the interior of the hall with a still standing church is difficult since
certain elements at the Hatfield theatre have been changed. Just compare
a photo with the 1840 painting on the right or
this large version. Although the painting is incomplete, look at
the decorative
relief carved wood
false arches on the ceiling which are no longer there. I don't know
how much more I can locate than what is on this page. Matching buildings
after 400 has probably never been done before except ancient Greek and
Roman theatres but that is just rocks. Matching Venice and the Venetian
casino is presently easy but you wont find a single match in about 8
years when they tear down the Venetian
Casino so Disney can put up 'The Matterhorn Hotel, Casino and Disney
World'.
The actual style of a nearby church was usually used as a pattern for
the interior of both the theatre and Opera house in that city.
NOW I HAVE TO FIND THE
CHURCH I USED IN ITALY. (Let's hope the Yanks didn't bomb it in WWII.)
IT WASN'T. I cheated and actually used two churches.
Maybe the other one's in or near Switzerland. I went to Venice often
but l didn't like it as much as several other nearby churches like the
Byzantine church, Sant
Apollinare Nuovo,
in Ravenna.
Though anyone who was English was suspect of heresy I'd just wear black
when I talked with clergy and affect an Irish brogue, which is where
many English Catholics had moved to.
About
60% of the theatres had very large fireplaces like this one so this
was quite normal.
The
high ceiling gave it the proper acoustics for a theatre or an opera.
Also,the rounded or vaulted ceilings which can be seen on the photo
(left) are also typical of any room where sound quality was of
the utmost important such as most theatres, opera houses and cathedrals.
Now they often just carpet theatres from ceiling to floor but all the
good theatres and Opera houses used to be and still are made tall and
vaulted like the Hatfield House theatre.
Here is a Flash
comparison of the ceiling design and the wall mosaic at Hatfield House with the
same of the main sanctuary of Sant
Apollinare Nuovo
in Ravenna Italy, which is where most of the design for the Hatfield theater came from.
Perhaps you can more easily see the ceiling and the mosaics in the cathedral in this very large photo.
It's an early
Byzantine church dating from 530 AD.
If you are interested then you can see more of the mosaics at Sant Apollinare on
this web site.
The
mosaic's on the Hatfield Theater walls are 100% Marcus Gheeraerts.
He was in charge through the entire creative process from concept through
inception.
The floor must have worn out since it has been covered with a more recent brownish color material (which you can see in the above 'this very large photo').
However, underneath
that ugly brown is a black and white checkered pattern which is almost
identical to the floor of the Hatfield theater. The only proof I
can provide is the photo on the right taken of the chapel altar which of course would not wear out as much as the rest of the floor (found on this page).
So I used the walls, ceiling and the floor as the pattern for the Hatfield Theater without Sant Apollinare Nuovo which were not needed.
Do you realize they let me climb up there on some scaffolding they set
up for me to make close up drawing and measurements! I took up huge
pieces of mural canvas used for laying out murals and I'd place it on
the patterns and ran my arm across it making impressions of the patterns.
I had already sketched the patterns from the floor but I needed to the
angles correct so I could then reproduce them at Hatfield.. Not
the surrounding area, just the geometric patterns. I may have made them
all at half scale. Then I would just drop the cheap canvas and they
would float 40 feet to the floor. Then I would roll them later and take
them like that. The Monsignor they sent up to help me was an artist
and he was appalled . He was lucky to get one canvas the size of
a piece of today's notebook paper several times a year to paint
on and I didn't even paint on mine. He had never seen so much canvas
in his entire life and there I was just making a mockery of it's importance
to him.
I remember that I clambered around on the second of the three levels
of roofs/ledges looking in through windows to see the decorations on
the opposite walls from a level viewpoint. A bird suddenly flew out
from under a cornice and hit me in the face with an upward flap of his
wing which stunned me. I was standing right near the edge of a 30 fall
and when I came to my senses I looked over at the Monsignor who was
in the middle of very hastily apologizing for having to touch me when
he prevented me from falling head over heels from a great height to
my likely death by grabbing my arm. He was looking at his footing and
did not even see the bird and I recall a wing in front of my face but
that is all for awhile. There was blood everywhere and it was my blood.
It came from a 2 inch gash that left one heck of a scar which people
often preferred to stare at rather than look me in the eyes when conversing
with me. The Monsignor said it was probably one of the huge Ravens that
I was told the city (Ravenna) was named after them. It was famous for
them. I was told at one time they had breed the Ravens larger and larger
so they could raise and export them as pets.
It turned out the church was in great debt and since they were
not allowed to borrow money they had to get it from a criminal
group which was threatening them with violence and that appalled me.
It now sounds to me like the Mafia. I thought they were Sicilian and
more recent than that. Were they up near Venice then? They have had
loan sharks with strong arm hoodlums throughout history.
So I paid off that loan and their operating expenses for a little over
three years so that they would not have to go back to the criminals
for money. Then I told them to contact me again if they needed more
funds.
It was really nice in Ravenna and not too far from Florence, Rome and
Venice by sea for the young monks to go home to visit often. This
church was one that refused to have anything to do with castrati so
the family's knew it was safe to send their sons there without fear
of them being converted into boys for
the rest of their lives. So the church got stuck paying for housing,
clothing and feeding about 3 times as many novices as other church's.
They also did not support the dealing in indulgences which lessened
their income and the Vatican got upset at them for that too. Finally
the Vatican just ignored them completely which was fine with them except
for some reason I forgot it caused them to be even poorer (or else they
could not get loans from the Vatican). There were lots of decision
they made which made them more like an Anglican Church than a Catholic
Church which I fully approved of and that made me very proud to be associated
with these moral people. There were also many churches in the town of
Ravenna and it was not that big of a city so they had low attendance
and not enough donations to take care of all the monks (and they had
other young men there that were not your 'standard monk' but I don't
know what they were called).
I just thought it wasn't right that they should go broke from being
nice and then end up with their legs also getting broken for being nice.
Unable to show my appreciation directly to the Monsignor with money
since it just went to the church I shipped the canvas to him that I
had thrown on the floor after finishing with them and I sent him
some paints and a lot of some kind of hair they used to make brushes
that England was famous for.
 Later I
ended up with 50 of those ravens that they raised. They were very tame
and were sent to me as a
promotion for the churches export of pet ravens. I had no idea what
I could to do
to increase their sales which almost didn't exist. They knew I was
importing exotic products from the orient
and I guess they thought I should also be able to sell their
raven's. One problem was
that ravens never got positive press because of the plague which caused
them to become associated
with death. They were so smart that they were the
first birds that knew when a plague victim laying on the ground was
fully
dead, even before most people knew. Ravens would go stand
near or on the bodies to see if there was something to eat.
Since they were seen with the victims that formed the association with
death as the picture of the well dress raven will attest to if you
click on it. Many
Europeans thought they actually brought death. Since I can't read what
the drawing says on it I don't know if the picture shows the raven
bringing death or if it is just a messenger of death. In any case by the
early 1500's ravens had mostly fallen out of favor
as pets in Europe. So the church could not sell many pet ravens and
some years
they sold none at all. The French had a morbid fascination with death and often still bought pet ravens from that churches however the English had an aversion to them that was indelible and I couldn't get sell any of those birds. I sent a letter to the head of the Ravenna church and asked him if he wanted me to send them back. He said no 'we have far too many as it is'. I could not let them go free as I was not certain they would able to fend for themselves. They might figure out what was edible but so would the local dogs and being sheltered from birth they knew next to nothing about them. I knew people would fall in love with them once they got to know them. I had for the same reasons I knew others would, they really had great personalities (but they were totally immoral) and they were all very different, even more so than people are. So 30 went to the castle and about 20 of them made it to the tower where they won everyone over and were becoming really great pets the last that I heard. To be certain they were treated with respect I sent along this message: 'You must take good care of the crown's birds least England the kingdom might fall.' I knew the two warders that could read were very superstitious and paranoid which they had to be so they would believe the note. They seemed to be as comfortable walking as they were flying. They would visit every room some days, except the worst prisoners who I was told could not have visitors. Then one of the better prisoners killed and started to eat one of the ravens. Then then the warders would not let the ravens visit any of the prisoners after that since it was a raven that all them had liked a lot. The ravens stood at the door to the prison entrance (the work entrance of course) demanding their visitation rights but they had met a more stubborn being than they were. The captain of the warders never bent once he made a decision unless it was on the authority of the King so the ravens squawked about it for a week and then they finally gave up. They were notorious thieves, like I said they were immoral. I read they got into lot's of trouble it later on. Principally they like shiny object and they would fly into the astronomers always open window and quick as a wink grab the most shiny object, some costing months of wages, and fly off. The astronomer had the most shiny and expensive objects in the kingdom (except for the royal jeweller but the raven wasn't allowed in there). It was mainly one raven and the astronomer took him out with an object he used as a club, he was waiting for the raven who always came at a certain time. I guess after I died there was another raven who did the same thing and that time the astronomer complained to the 'new' king, Charles II. Legend has it that John Flamsteed (1646 - 1719), the 'astronomical observator' complained to King Charles II that the birds were interfering with his observations. The King therefore ordered their destruction only to be told that if the ravens left the Tower, the White Tower would fall and a great disaster befall the Kingdom. Sensibly the King changed his mind and decreed that at least six ravens should be kept at the Tower at all times to prevent disaster.Here I guess I actually started another legend. Of course what I said was absolutely the truth. The statement I made, 'You must take good care of the crown's birds least England might fall.' To make sure they were taken care of I sent that message. Re-read the sentence, there is no connection between taking care of the birds and England falling, is there? It doesn't say that, it just sounds like it. The warders just read too much into it as I knew they would. There was no connection either to the Ravens as I did not use the word ravens so message was not even necessarily a reference to those ravens or even to ravens. If I was caught I was going to say that the message was about the carrier pigeons in the tower which Henry VIII nicknamed 'the family retreat' since that is where all his family were told to run to so they could all be together if England was ever invaded. The pigeon rookery was in the tower belfry (now called the Bell Tower) and there are probably still some old rookery remains such as perches or at least the holes that were drilled in the walls or ceilings for the perches. The government would not have relied on telegram or phone because wires could be cut so they probably dismissed the pigeons about 1930's but perhaps left the set up fairly intact (in case those new fangled wireless systems don't work out and they needed to use pigeons again). (If you visit it you might wonder about the room Sir Thomas Moore was kept in. It's hogwash.* It was and I think it still is a top secret that they even existed. They were England's early warning system. It would only be because of them that troops could ever be mobilized faster than an invader could shuttle men across the channel in ~40 ships. The pigeons were the only way we would ever be able to throw invaders back into the sea (until the telegraph was invented). Yes there was a flag system but it did not work if an arrow was shot through the signal man or in bad weather. Being second to my husband Robert Cecil, the spy master of England, I was often in charge of making certain they were well tended and people often forgot about them in good weather. So yes, those birds were essential and what I sent to the warders was just another of my many reminders that they take care of the crown's birds least England might fall. Oh, I must have forgotten to sign it so didn't realize it involve the top secret pigeons and not the ravens which I sent along at the same time. They had two on going uses. If slavers came from Africa there were about 40 stations along the coast who would send two pigeons with that info to London Tower. As an example of how it worked: If the slavers took prisoners from the Isle Of Man then London would know 7 hours after the slave ship was first sighted. And Francis Drake in Plymouth would know in another 3 and set sail before another hour had passed in three ships. Not a single slave ship ever made it beck to Africa.
And if all else failed and I was caught trying to infest the Tower with my Ravens by commanding them to 'take care of the crown birds' as if I was the king then I could say that the ravens were never the crown's birds, they were my birds. It could never have concerned my ravens and had to be about the pigeons. I never gave the ravens to the Tower of London. I just sent them there. Why did they associate the note with those ravens? Maybe because I had only those boxes that had the kings crest on them to use to ship those pesky raven in. They had been old crates that King James had sent over from Theobald's with our possessions. Those were probably some of those that had the royal crest on them so the warders must have gotten the idea that the ravens were sent by King James instead of me. King James was Charles's father and Charles was not a man to conflict with his father so when he found out that dad had sent the Ravens to the Tower, with that very dire warning, he let them stay. It looks like they took better care of them than I could. Taking care of them had become an incredible burden. They were what we would now call high maintenance, like I used to be in that life, and it was more than I could deal with. If you let them they would work themselves into being a full time job for a man, like I used to be in that life. Maybe I should have warned them about that before they assigned a warder just to take care of those birds. Ravens have taken care of themselves for millions of years it's strange that people will fall for their helpless routine. They were far too mischievous, also like I used to be in that life, so consider them as a gift to the crown. The
reason I sent the ravens to the tower.
There were two types of prisoners. Those who were evil, knew they were doing wrong and did wrong anyway. They were incapable of repentance or mending their ways. They were too far gone on the path of the devil. They responded only to pain or the threat of it. Then there were those who had done stupid things. Those ravens did stupid things a lot. They were sent to help the warders separate the prisoners into two groups, at least in their minds. Then the warders might like the one group of prisoners and treat them nicer instead of threatening and being monsters to them all. Unlike the other group they had in them to repent but to do so they had to fight against their own anger and resentment. Harming them only increases those type of prisoners anger and resentment and stop the process they were incarcerated for. |
Vaulting gets expensive since it takes a lot of work and a lot more material than regular ceilings. This would never have been done for a great hall which went out of style hundreds of years earlier since. Even before Elizabethan times they were considered barbaric. There are a dozen other points showing it is not a Medieval grand hall such as the fireplace which would have been located at the end. That made everyone want to be close to the ruler who sat near it with his back against the wall and usually in the corner because he couldn't trust anyone. Like I said, barbaric.
Notice
that the
walls and ceiling are completely covered with murals. That is not
normally seen in houses but found in most Renaissance theatres and opera houses
however there are some excellent later examples which
most of us have seen. The murals also provide a gaiety that was only
found in rooms that were exclusively for entertainment. The mosaic on the right is also
from the Basilica
Sant Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna Italy. Compare the style to the upper
panels at the Hatfield House theatre. Specifically the gold sky and
wealth of plants. I think I actually used different mosaics in another
part of the church than this one so lets see if they survived
until now. 
The box seats in
the top photo and at right is patterned after these series arches at
Sant Apollinare Nuovo. This
isn't a good example or evidence as others had similar arches including
Barcelona and now even Venice Beach, California. The design on them is
specific to one particular set that I used as a model but where were
they, has the façade with that design been changed and are they
still even standing? In fact Barcelona sounds very familiar so I
probably took something for the theatre from a church there too.
Actually I think I dragged over a lot of stuff for the rest of the
house
from Italy and Spain and a bunch of other countries. Thank heavens I
didn't what all was available in India or we never would have finished
that house.
This Roman Arch is, well needless to say, Italian. I also got it from that area. It's unique and I should find where it came from or at least where I copied it from.
They say the marble
floor was done later than it was: .
The 2nd Marquess filled in the windows in 1834 and laid the marble floor.Here
That may have been in the other room but at least in the theatre it was installed at least by the 1620's. I know what happened. What happened was my son liked it so he put in other rooms after I died.
It certainly does not match the rest of the house at all so I did not put it anywhere else. It used to be for cathedrals and Renaissance theatres. That chequerboard black and white tile reeks of theatre, even today where it is mostly found in 1960's theatre toilets. A lot of the Italian theatres used marble and some that same black and white pattern marble floor as does this room. That chequerboard pattern allow seats to be set up very fast and at set distances. We would just tell the crew to put one seat every 4 squares and then go do something else and when I came back I would not have to move them to space them right and have to straighten the seats out. I remember I did have to tell them where to put the first one so there was space for the stage and to leave room for an aisle. That marble may be from Florence if I am not mistaken and if so that's going to be where most examples of it will probably be found. The works that supplied it may even still be in business. The source of the marble can easily be determined as they do it a lot for marble art work, as in, 'I don't care what the art dealer says if the marble is from China then it can't possibly be the original Venus de Milo'.
Has anyone seen the old seats? They were dark brown and looked like pews from a church that seated four people and they could be stacked so the hall could be used for a dance. Maybe a 'new' church nearby that was built in the 1700-1800's ended up with them. They might be seen in an old painting.
There were several stages that were used, each for about ten years. One were interlocking logs covered by large sheets of old oak (which Hatfield Estate is famous for). My husband surprised me with his creativity when he had the stage made. He drew out the design so that the 50 oak pieces interlocked into a huge jigsaw puzzle. It was a hit with everyone since it was the first jigsaw puzzle ever made. He got the idea from the maze we made in the garden.
Like the rest of the stage, the puzzle, could all be disassembled and the entire stage could be taken apart without any tools by 4 men in 20 minutes so that the room could also be used as a large hall. Putting the puzzle could take as long as three days if you did not know the puzzle pieces were marked on the side with spy master dots.Very tiny marks that nobody noticed. Oh, maybe you also had to also know the code. I'm not certain though the oak pieces were too heavy so I left it alone.
Are those doors I see at the end of the hall for actors to go on stage? In masques at least we did not use them. Masque's are sort of like audience participation stage plays. For at least those the actors sat in the front row and enjoyed the play with everyone else. Then when it came time for them to go on stage they usually just walked on. If they had to enter from the rear they went under the stage to get to it. However, exiting from the stage was almost always done to the rear, then they would come out under the stage and then sit in the front and watch the masque. I cant recall yet whether or not the actors and actresses entered and left regular plays the same way..
There are only two real differences between this and a typical small theatre of the era, ~1605. One is that the tapestries are better quality than the old ones because they were changed after a few years. The new one's had gold threads, since I could afford them.
Those look like the original tapestries on the walls. Do you know how to tell if they are the originals? Well you are now going to learn.
The original tapestries had a special weave for the absorption of sound. The fibers protruded directly outward rather than laying flat like most weaves. They were actually small loops of thread that stuck out from the tapestry that were later cut leaving the threads sticking straight out. When the threads stick out the noise gets trapped in them like heat does in fur so the sound gets absorbed. When the weave is just normal it lays flat and a lot of the sound get reflected.
 There is a second
theatre in Hatfield House.'Two theatres in one house?' Of course, what else would you expect to find in the bards' home? Hand puppets? (I did have about 100 of those, I just remembered. There are probably some still around somewhere.) They now call this small (mainly practice) stage/theatre the 'Armory' and that is ridiculous, don't you think? You tell me, is that an armory or a stage with two entrances? One on stage left and one on stage right. Especially with the false wood arch which only serves to frame the stage presentation. Same with the Roman arches that are useless except as a frame for the stage entrances. The room is actually a type of an open music practice room and stage for small plays (or masques) which could be used for a reading room of that era. Note: Today we have separate buildings for theatres and Opera houses/music halls. However 400 years ago they both used the same big hall. The play were performed in the daytime and opera was performed at night. It was the same with all the legitimate theaters everywhere in Europe (but not the bawdy houses). 17-05-06 Note:
One of the missing ceiling mural(s) may have been painted on this
ceiling too. I can't yet recall where they were painted. It was during
the plague of 1608. There were two of them and I am not certain if this
room was far enough along in 1608 for it to have been painted then. If
it was then one would have certainly been painted on this ceiling. |
On second glance I guess the new tapestries are not there any more. Good riddance, those were not the originals, they were replacements after the old ones got partly burned and singed when the fireplace got over stoked and was partly blocked off. The new ones were possibly silk and may have been moved to another room since they were really nice pieces of art. The old burned ones were tossed. What am saying 'old' and 'new' for? They are both over 3 1/2 centuries old.
Otherwise this is a typical early 17th century theatre.
The other difference were the murals on the walls (or the paint work) which were painted not by a muralist but by one of the best portrait painters in England and his assistant. I'm thinking of Marcus Gheeraerts but this is somewhere else at Hatfield House.
| There is another mural(s) somewhere that Marcus painted and it will
be much more obvious that he painted it than the stained glass window (below). We kept him busy when there was no work for him and that happened in falls, winters and during the plague (when he and others needed to get away from the city with it's flea infected rats which I knew was the cause before anyone) or other infectious outbreaks. The mural is on a rounded ceiling somewhat like the one at the Hatfield Restaurant. We had artists doing lots of work in obscure places just to give them work (read below here) like the Madonna Inn in the same town where I went to college, San Luis Obispo, California. The inn was built by a major contractor in town when times were slow. It had lots of hand carving done by carpenters in the back offices that nobody ever sees. There is another one somewhere else. Maybe I am thinking of the mosaic on the theater wall. (Give me a break, it's been 400 years and my memories is not perfect.) One key year was 1608-9 when an outbreak of the plague dumped 100 artists on our doorstep. They were basically geeks who needed a mother to lake care of them. (The other key year was in 1611 when we were finishing up Hatfield House.) Often the artists were subject to a 'three week itch'. After three weeks they had to act, sing, paint or sculpt and so they would be drawn to return to London to scratch that itch. So I had to keep them all occupied for three to five months or they would have all gone back to London to scratch their itch where about half of those who stayed (there or in any major city) ended up dying. I distinctly recall getting right in the middle of the road with Robert and stopping 25 of them from going back to London. They stayed. (For some reason I think I should add that other patrons of the arts donated literally tons of food for them while we supplied the housing and work. We had food for a year.) The plague was a real problem for painters. Half way through the outbreaks those people in London that were still alive suddenly realized how valuable life was and how it could suddenly end. Then they would decide they had to have their portrait painted immediately and they would go look for a painter. Some who had the plague and were dying also wanted a painting for their family and they never told him that they were dying. One died while Marcus was actually in the process of painting him. The real problem was that the plague could be spread by direct transmission and one single sneeze could bring down England's greatest painter.. From the middle of the outbreak on any painter could make a lot of money but half of them died doing so. How did I keep them from going back to London? There is at least one mural in a Greek style that Marcus painted in the
old Hatfield House. I think that one was Northern Greek from the
Hellenistic period (or was that the carvings that were in the middle of
the maze?
In the maze was some Greek intertwining statue of two people together
in what is now called Bacchic Art (a dirty Greek statue).Actually, if I am not mistaken they are all Bacchic Art. 
In 1606 I pretty much invented the Grand Tour of Europe in order to
locate the styles that I wanted for the theater. I spent several
months in central/northern Italy and wherever I went I kept seeing
recently finished murals of Annibale Carracci, which are two words for what I could never put in a play for fear of getting it and me condemned by the pope.Yet, this faux Greek Art for the sake of putting pornography on the ceilings of Italy flourished in the form of frescos throughout much of Italy. I first noticed his art in the Palazzo Fava in Bologna (about 20 miles from Sant Apollinare Nuovo near Ravenna) but the pope said nothing about it. When we visited four years later Annibale had painted his masterpiece. It was the far more exposing and spectacular Ceiling frescoes in the Palazzo Farnese in Rome (left) which was paid for by none other than Cardinal Odoardo Farnese and it was (and is) less than 2 km from that nosy condemning Pope. Yet the Vatican never said anything bad about all those pagan gods and godesses in a Cardinal's home so physically and politically near to the Holy See.  I thought if they can get away with The Loves of the Gods in Rome then I could put 3/4 naked men and women debauching themselves on my ceiling too. So that is exactly what I did but since we had children mine are a lot more innocent and far less graphic. My intention was to create the same images that you think of when you see my play A Midsummers Night Dream. Actually from a 20st century viewpoint I have to say a better match would be a Tolkienesque Middle Earth and by a 21st century viewpoint the video game World of Warcraft is the closest match (though it falls far short). I realized that I knew an painter whose technique was better than any of the Carracci brothers would ever be. He knew the human form about 50X what Annibale Carracci did. Frankly Marcus was almost as good in that area as DaVinci. Marcus Gheeraerts mainly did portraits and the only people who could afford him were aristocrats and royalty. None of them wanted to be painted nude so he had never done many nudes. This leads us back to how I kept Macus Gheeraerts and the other artists from returning to London to soon. I had to make it fun for him and lots of others so they would not go back to London where they could make more money but die of the plague and the promise of murals of nudes did it. That works on most men and Marcus was not an exception. The idea attracted him because nobody had ever asked him to do nudes before. He wasn't against it at all. There just wasn't any call for it at all among the elite of the royalty and aristocracy of England which were the only ones who could afford him. I got him to stay though. Mainly because there were about '20 other cats with similar stripes'. That's 400 year old slang meaning '20 other artist types'. 2/3 of those who stayed at Hatfield and nearby who came out from London were women and they were often quite willing to wear nothing but a thin scarf and a big smile in exchange for the great honor of posing for Marcus Gheeraerts. It was too great a challenge for him to resist.
I think there were two ceilings that Marcus got painted before it was
safe in London. Now
I recall, there were five ceilings with murals. Not one or two but five
ceilings so it should be much easier to locate at least one of them. I
had lots of money to pay artists to prevent them from killing
themselves by going back to London. It's absurd to paint them in the
old residences since we were abandoning it. Robert thought it was a
waste but we were not far enough along to be able to put them on the
ceilings in the new Hatfield House. I had half planned to to convert
the
old residence into a 'Worlds Fair' with exhibits from around the world
including a jungle in an all glass house. (They had precisely one
greenhouse in all of England and it was at either Oxford or Cambridge.
I did testing to make sure a ceiling of glass would warm up a room and
then I knew I could make a jungle in England.) However, it was too
far from London. I had everything for the Chinese room including a
rickshaw and 12 styles of traditional Chinese clothing from different
provinces. I had over 1000 sea shells from the Caribbean. It was
also going to have lots of art from each country and so the ceilings
would have been perfect for it. I think I had about 1/2 of everything I
needed to exhibit about 12 countries.i also wanted to make the Old Grand Hall which became a livery stable into a cathederal for the people in the area but there were never more than 100 that went to church on Sundays. I thought it would grow in population but the plague kept the population low and I could never justify it either. have more than 100 show up on Sundays. May 18, 2006 Let's be practical about finding out if I am right or not. Just use a power drill and 1/2 inch bit on a ceiling to drill a hole in the lath and plaster. Then use a pencil as a probe (or look with a flashlight) to find out if there is a second painted ceiling on the other side. If there is another ceiling then it warrants renting an endoscope to take a closer look inside. Also, collect the plaster chips to check for colored paint in it. The small hole can easily be patched in 5 minutes with a nickel's worth of plaster and no one will ever notice it. I think they would have just covered it over so it could be revealed later on, maybe 'when the children grew up' (or Queen Victoria died). Then they forgot about it. I really doubt they destroyed the murals because of their value and the fact it did not take a lot work to add a false ceiling to the pre-existing one. They don't make foolish Cecils and never have. (Oh they have their moment's like everyone else but it's spontaneous and even those moments are in the best interests of a broad section of society and it certainly still seems, though they may now be a bit 'hit and miss'. their intention is to be as beneficent as possible to society which is exactly how the family used to be.) I'm certain that all the murals are still on the ceilings and just covered over although some water damage may have resulted in loss. By that I mean there had already been some water damage near the edge of one of the murals (and near the corner of the room) by 1619 so there has probably been more water damage since. However, it was during that mini Ice Age and it was caused by the intense freezing that kept cracking the bricks and letting water in. That intense freezing was in the wane when I died so it may not have gotten much worse since then. By the way, if there is water damage then that would be a good place to start drilling to find out how deep it is safe to drill. Since the mural is already ruined in that location a drill won't do any more damage than has already been done. It's confusing trying to figure out which rooms the murals are in since I am in Arizona and it's 400 years later. There used to be a garden with lilies right outside one of the rooms, does that help? 400 years ago there was a well there too. Does that narrow it down? The sun only came in the windows of I think the other room in the mid afternoon because of the edge of a building and trees (I think) which may mean it was a southern exposure. (What I actually recall was I wished often that it had more light. It was too dark to see the murals or much of anything else.) They may have been on ceilings in ajacent rooms. You will never guess who came over from France when he found out about the murals being painted? Annibale Carracci himself. When the plague hit, it hit Italy first and hardest so everyone went far away. Annibale went to some French relatives to stay. He got bored and must have found out through the artist grapevine (or the newspaper whose office used to be near the Tower of London which wrote it up) so he came over. All he did was stand spechless for a long time. Then he remarked that if they were in a public building nobody would ever hire him. It destroyed him inside and he died about a year later. It made me feel horrible and I thought for two days about a way I could have changed it and prevented his demise but what could I have done? After 1606, Annibale was overcome by melancholia and gave up painting almost entirely. Wikipedia They say he was depressed for years but that does not make me feel more than about 1% better. He had lost his wife I think and due to the plague so I think his depression was death related and had not been going on for that long so I feel a little less bad. (Be grateful you don't recall past lives since you also recall all the hearbreaks. I give up, I can't hold this guilt over contributing to his death any longer. This is exactly why I have to live a very honest life. By that I mean that I cannot mislead others in regards to the truth but I must maintain complete integrity at all levels. For instance since murder is not resolvable emotionally in this or a future lifetime and since the emotions must absolutely be resolved to recall a past lifetime I could never support murder. Do you know that anguish that you feel when you recall something that you did wrong? I don't want to deal with it so I can't cause that kind of trouble. There are two other reasons I maintain honesty as well. One is that it's just not right to harm ohters and the other is that since I recall so many past lives I can relate to everyone so it's like harming myself if I do something unwarranted that is harmful to others.) However, there was nothng I could have done. Nobody invited him. He first went to the north of France since the plague came later. Then for the same reason he came to England. Then he stayed because during that outbreak we only had about half the victims that France and Italy had. (Cooler weather must prevent the growth of fleas.) More than that civilization literally broke down on the mainland for almost a half year. Then he came to Hatfield on his own with a young boy, I think his son. It's what I recall since there were boys around his age there like Prince Charles (future King Charles) who he could play with. I found Annibale looking at the murals on the ceilings. He had knocked on the door but since there were about 50 artists staying at Hatfield someone just let him in thinking he was one of the group. I assume he just walked around and found Marcus and his entourage (which then became his entourage). I did not know who he was and after standing spechless for a long time he remarked that 'if this was in a public building nobody would ever hire him again' since Marcus was better at technique since mercury and lead had destroyed Annibale fine hand control. Then he asked about a empty part of the ceiling and then if he could paint it. I thought either he knew what he was doing or I could paint it over later. Then he bent over and was picking up paintbrushes when Marcus's assistant introduced himself and In return received a 'Hello, my name in Annibale'. I thought, 'Shit! That's the man who took Bacchic Art to the extreme and it's the man whose work I am copying' so I snuck out of the room to regain my breath. I can't recall how much of the murals he painted though. I'll try to remember but I do know he painted at least part of one ceiling and that I had to show his son where the bathroom was and take him to where other boys his age were playing. I also remember being quite fond of Annibale, much to my husband's strange dismay. (He wasn't physically attractive at all which made it even worse for Robert to deal with. In fact he was almost an invalid due to his chronic misery and dismal outlook due to all the plague deaths. He was also very unkept and he had almost half starved to death from neglecting to eat but I am always attracted to creative people and he was something else. His different painting styles were what still amazes me even in this life.   Just look at Annibale's the beaneater (left) and realize that it is the first 'impressionist painting'. Notice the uncanny resemblence of it to Renoirs self portrait (right) even
though it preceeds it by an amazing 300 years. That is why I became a
giddy girl when he was around. Robert got kind of upset at my reaction
because I got flustered around him but never around kings, queens
or other royalty whereas most people were the opposite. He also had a
Degas style in some of his work but or what is now called Rubenesque style
as you can plainly see in some of his work. It was many years before
Ruben made this style famous. Maybe I have it turned around and all
those styles should be
named Annibale Carricci 1, Annibale Carricci 2, Annibale Carricci 3,
etc. The most interesting thing is that you can't tell his worki by
looking at it like you can Marcus Gheeraerts or even DaVinci's as the styles he paints
are just to different. (Like some of my writings, you would swear
they were done by four different people and they were men!)Annibale had to follow in the shadow of Leonardo Da Vinci or else people probably would have paid more attention to the other styles of painting which he developed. Da Vinci was a tough act to follow for anyone. Since we have all been exposed to impressionist art it's nearly impossible for a person now to understand how completely radical this style was then. It was a departure from the painting styles which were known. Previously they were all based on making the people (and usually everything) look as realistic as possible. To make a person appear unnatural was considered heretical by the church since it was a distortion of a person's God given appearance. Part of the genius of impressionism is the way it can symbolize how the subconscious mind (what we used to call the spiritual mind) interacts with the concious mind and modifies the end result of what we think we see. This was all unheard of then, so many people just said he had become crazy and syphlitic (which of course he did not have or he would have died long before he did) so they could just dismiss his genius and talent. He ended up mainly giving the mural's more direction and did not paint that much though. Now you can see why I keep saying there is probably $80 many million dollars under that plaster. Someone after I died must have been a prude (aka Victorian) and covered the murals with plaster. I'll take them if Lord Cecil, 7th Marquess of Salisbury doesn't want them. I think they would look nice on the ceiling of my apartment. At least one would look a lot nicer than they look under 1 1/2 inchs of lath and plaster. I made certain the plague had run it's course before I allowed anyone to go back to the city. It's a Greek style in any case and it was in 1608 that he stayed for a few months at Hatfield House. The plague was full bore and killing thousands a week but he wanted to work and ready to go back into the pestulence of the London plague outbreak though it would have likely meant his death. So we found work for him to do at Hatfield in the form of mural and various paintings such at the one of my son in the paragraph above this (and don't count the 'Eureka' sentence). I kept recalling that we hired him to paint murals on low ceilings in our house but for the life of me I could not figure out which room(s) we had him paint. That is because it was before what everyone thinks of as Hatfield House was even built. However, in 1608 'our home' was actually the old Hatfield castle which we had already torn down much of for the bricks to build our new home which everyone knows as Hatfield House. I am pretty certain either the restaurant or the gift shop (in the old Hatfield Castle) is going to have to relocate somewhere else while the plaster covering his mural(s) gets removed from the ceiling. I can guarantee that at least one of them will have to find some other room to move to on a more permanent basis. Until then the ceilings can be X rayed at night when the shops are closed. Cheap for the millions of dollars that are there. |
He was around so much that I can't recall when he painted all the murals but he painted lots of paintings of us and our friends. First there are the two paintings of Queen Elizabeth we hired him to paint (drop down below).
He painted Robert twice (which I need to locate) and me six times (4 are in my bio) one here, two here, three here and one here. Here is a son of mine that I had Marcus paint to keep him busy during the 1608 plague outbreak. Then here is one he painted of our son William Cecil.
The most awesome thing thing that shows me the power of God more than any other thing that I may have ever seen before is this fact. Most of his paintings of me and my family have survived. It's unexplainable. They are spread all over England and nobody knows who the woman is (most say 'unknown lady') so they were not kept together in a special location. People must have just like the paintings. Here is the real riddle of the situation. Marcus painted hundreds or thousands of portraits but half of those that survived are of me and my family! Other than the fact that God have meant for them to have survived so that I could use them I really can't find a way to explain the phenomenon using reason and logic. Can you explain it? It's quite humbling for me and I like that phenomenon too.
Marcus came and painted at a reduced rate not only when he was between jobs in London but also he came out for fresh air and to take a break.
He would work for a half day and then go hunt and play games with the women who were always around. It worked out quite well. I got a mural painted if I'm not mistaken by Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger which would make it worth about $80 million since it would likely be the only mural that he made in existence. Oh yes, my friend got a husband and three children. That was his assistant I think that she married. The memory is a little vague so I'd have to see a close up of the mural. Of course then I'd know if it was him right away. Look at the shadows on the small inanimate objects, he was always impeccable with them. I don't know how he got those right all the time and could see them in his mind. He might spend a whole day painting a person in the sunlight and give the entire painting a 2 pm shadow. It was remarkable and he also was great with children's faces. Very few were able to draw them as skilfully as they could adults. This should come as a pleasant surprise for my offspring.
It must have been Marcus (but I don't remember names, mainly I remember personalities) one of the best painters in Europe and his assistant because my friend had three children by him, not by any form of immaculate conception. (I looked it up and Marcus Gheeraerts's wife died about this time. This whole thing, the contract for painting in the country as well as numerous girlfriends that eventually got whittled down to a new wife may have been my therapy for him as he was both my husbands and my own dear friend.)
Note: Marcus
Gheeraerts the Younger was in charge of the layout of the stained glass work in the
Chapel.
However, about a dozen people did work on it. As I recall it
simply doesn't carry enough of his style to really stand out as being
his creation. I'd say it is about 1/4 his.It kind of made me upset. He was there much of the time and though he did about half the work the other half just subtracted from what he had done. I'd much rather had paid him to have done the entire stained glass himself. But hind sight is often perfect isn't it?
I think it will prove out that he designed it but did not do all the work.Is there any evidence at all that the overall layout of the stained glass was actually the product of more than one person? If the stained glass was the product of English, French and Flemish glass-painters' then you would have various styles. Perspective and no perspective, shadow and no shadow, straight lines drawn freehand vs using a guide and just various general looks. Most stain glass is much more stylized and this is realistic. OK, then where is a halo, just show me one halo. All the saints in the church stained glass in the 1500 and 1600's had halos. There is not much esoteric information in the above panel and it would have had lots if it was anyone other than Marcus that made it.
When I knew that Marcus was going to work in the chapel I'd invite single ladies over but pretend it was unplanned. I'd ask her to do me a favor and see how the work was coming along in the chapel windows and find out from Marcus when he wanted to eat. They would walk in to see Marcus bathed in a diffuse colored light beaming down fully on him from heaven looking like some etherical vision of half heaven and the other half Rembrandt working on the England's Sistine Chapel and turn right around and leave immediately feeling like they had interrupted a holy communion.
They would come back and report: "he's gorgeous, I mean the glass work is gorgeous'. I'd stare them right in the eyes and they would usually add 'him too!'
I'd ask, 'Could you stay around until our next chapel service and I will introduce you to Marcus Gheeraerts.'
They would scream 'that's him?' He was quite famous and a very honest man. Then they would go inspect the work some more and maybe this time find out when he wanted to take a break to eat. They would introduce themselves or often grab me and drag me in to the chapel to immediately introduce them to the artist.
He got to the second lady I introduced him to and got stuck. I had an initial list of about 40. I did get him to meet 11 more I think but he was stuck on number 2 and stayed stuck for 20 more years at least, then I died. (This could have been one of Marcus's relatives who worked with him as his assistant. There were several that did and at least one became famous too.)
I thought he would marry the third one. I had 100's of women who would have loved him but I was setting up the three that I thought were the most compatible,in reverse order, so that he would be comfortable by the time he met the third lady. The one he married was royalty and he was not even an aristocrat. I asked him if he wanted to be made a baron as King James was creating and giving them away at that time if you handed him a handkerchieff to blow his nose on James made about 40 new ones and he would have given one to Marcus. Marcus asked me in return, 'What will it cost me?' I told him nothing!' To which he replied indignantly 'What do you mean nothing, if the Spanish invade it will cost me my head.' He had a very good point.
He got a title somehow since he had to have one to be with her. It was technically illegal but it was only enforced in other countries like where she was from. Sweden and some small duchy which she kept secret. Since the two countries were at odds with each other it was wise just to keep quiet about the 'most likely to lose in a war' country. She was very young and I kind of got in trouble for it. She was almost 17 and the third was only three years older but that was a world of difference to the gossips. He was much older than either of them but as young as they were at heart. It only works for a man if the woman has a similar age at heart although most people don't know this. It was almost to a scandal. It just needed one thing out of the ordinary to happen between those two for it to have been a horrific scandal. Fortunately when it worked out the naysayers shut up. Oh, they watched it and waited for five years and were in disbelief as the children came forth at regular intervals proving they were doing fine. And I have no idea why I did it. It could have wipe me off the social map of England but as soon as I saw them together I knew it was worth whatever was going to happen to me. They worked together and she became his assistant. Five years later she was almost as good as he was and she became as good as he was.
The thing that I liked about Marcus Gheeraerts (and what most people hated) was that his paintings were always a true representation of yourself. You could not pay him enough to paint you 1/10 of a percent less ugly (or more pretty). In other words they like photographs.
He was used to drawing people as accurately as possible. From what I can see it seems to show just that. Look at the floor and ceiling, you usually you don't find such attention to perspective in stained glass or other mural work of that era.
One unique characteristic of his which is present is his forced-high-variation-color-balancing. He liked to use a bright color and then the same amount of the opposite color. one or both trine to it on the color wheel. In the stained glass panel you have four colors red-green-blue-gold. All are opposing each other on the color wheel. He used six colors sometimes. If he could get people to change their clothes all his paintings would have a similar balance.
Marcus was always looking for new challenges and this was one I am nearly certain. He like to do different things and experiment like with organic dyes he used that faded out in time leaving me with a blue face in the below painting.
It was probably Marcus Gheeraerts because he was a good friend. Robert even hired him to paint Queen Elizabeth during the start of a plague outbreak that failed to materialize but it was a time when nobody hired anybody:**
..."The Rainbow Portrait", painted
for
Robert Cecil by Marcus Gheeraerts, the Younger, c. 1600, formerly
attributed to Issac Oliver, on display at Hatfield House. HereWe also paid for 'The Ditchley Portrait'.
(In
1592),The
Ditchley portrait was commissioned by Sir Henry Lee, the Queen's
champion, in order to curry royal favour after he annoyed Elizabeth by
setting up house with his mistress at Ditchley in Oxfordshire; the
portrait affirms that his first love is Elizabeth. HereWe attributed it to Sir Henry Lee who was supposed to have paid for it assuage Queen Elizabeth's feelings because she was jealous of me since he was living with me in sin as Anne Vavasor when actually I had just gotten married to Robert Cecil and she made the match. The best part of the whole thing with Sir Henry Lee, who was exceedingly old, was when they wanted me to write both an epitaph and a eulogy. This is how I humorously got out of the last one by ruining the first one.
Marcus felt I was a good enough friend to experiment on with some new and 'entirely wonderful color' (those are direct quotes) adding that the pigments were new he then gave me this frightening blue hue to my skin. Or as Tate Gallery's Richard Cork called it:
Almost as white as a corpse, she can easily be imagined lying horizontally on a tomb.Here
I should write and tell him I did not die (ever) and it was just the pigments, probably they were organic dyes that oxidized and lightened too much. The painting looked fine for awhile it just glowed strangely in certain light (probably UV). Then after ten years Marcus noticed the flesh tones were just starting to fade in some other paintings he had done at the same time so he touched it up on the cheeks, chin and nose using his regular paints. In the last 400 it has faded a lot more and he is not around to touch it up. Someone then ended up with purple me. Marcus made a second one just like this one but with my children in it. The face in it was purple too but someone repaired it or hid our features by repainting it with a nice flesh color! Compare them here It's definitely me in both of them and that is easy to see by comparing the dresses.
I think the present owners got a good deal there as they may have the only 'entirely wonderful color' Marcus Gheeraerts stained glass window in the world. TREASURE ALERT!
Only one other thing set it apart from all the rest. The box seats were not typical except in one theatre in Paris, one in Rome and about six other theatres. It was something Robert was never certain about and I was never quite comfortable about. Hence it was made so that it could be dismantled in a week by two workmen. (Or about two hours by one fed up lady of the house with a sledge hammer.)
Private screening rooms (private theatres) are not that unusual. Wealthy people and especially those in the entertainment industry often have them in their homes for both themselves and their friends. Here is a news story about them.
Then there is Queen Elizabeth's Ermine Portrait which you can see near the right edge of the first photo. It was Queen Elizabeth's practical joke and a trap to catch her enemies. Of course a joke like that needed to end up on that wall. It added to the whimsy of the theatre if you are 'in the know'. Go immediately to this short page in my Queen Elizabeth section to get some 'in the know'.
Other rooms in Hatfield House and how it was built
As
ships got larger there was a real possibility of the outer wall being
breached by a ship with a long tree trunk protruding out the front like a
very long bow sprint. Using lines from the mast to support it made it like
construction crane (see right) or a suspension bridge so It could reach clear
over the moat, the two walls and almost to the white tower where the crown
jewels were kept. Please play the
