Noble Gas

I previously promised to write about Arundel Castle. I have been bombarded with cards and letters, hounding me for that report.

Obviously, I am lying. People want to hear a tourist describe his castle trip about as much as Bluto welcomed a 1960s beatnik to a toga party.

But Arundel Castle is different. It’s freaky.

Why freaky? Let’s start with where it is located. It is in West Sussex. You no doubt imagine that West Sussex will be . . . in the west. It is not. It is in England’s south.

Just to West Sussex’s right we find East Sussex. “Ah,” you think, while considering South Dakota and West Virginia. “That explains everything!” But you are ignoring a more fundamental question: What the hell is a Sussex? Is it something done to create more Suses?

This is where it starts getting interesting.

“Sussex” comes from the Old English Suþseaxe, meaning “South Saxons.”

The Saxons were a group of Germanic tribes. They, along with another Germanic tribe called the “Angles,” sailed across the North Sea and settled in what is now southern England. If Gary Larson is to believed, the Saxons did not suffer fools gladly.

The Anglo-Saxons had a fascinating judicial system. If you were an Anglo-Saxon accused of committing a crime against your neighbor, you might be forced to cradle a scalding-hot pot and carry it a fixed distance. If your wounds festered, you were guilty and would need to compensate the neighbor.

Some might say trial by ordeal is barbaric cruelty founded in superstition, but it negated the need for lawyers, so it wasn’t all bad.

Still, you may think this an absurd way to settle disputes. The Normans agreed. They were descendants of Vikings (“North Men” became “Normans”) who made a deal with the French king, Charles the Simple, who was the son of Louis the Stammerer, and who took the throne after the death of Charles the Fat. I’m really getting lost in the weeds here, but when history records names as hilarious as these, am I supposed to just skip over them?

Anyway, Charles the Simple gave the Normans French land in exchange for a promise not to raid the rest of France. The Viking descendants could no longer conquer lands to the East, North, or South. So, in 1066 a Norman king named William the Conqueror invaded England and imposed a new system of governance. Rather than the barbaric trial by ordeal, there now could be trial by combat. So, that dispute with the neighbor could be settled by you kicking his goddamn ass. If your neighbor was bigger than you, you could appoint a champion to fight in your stead.

Thus, the Normans introduced to English common law the concept of lawyers.

I know you are thinking, “What does this have to do with Arundel Castle?” Well, I was just about to get to that.

While William was conquering England someone had to keep the proverbial hounds at bay in France. William’s cousin, Roger the Great, who I am sure picked out his own nickname, did that for William. William rewarded Roger by giving him large swaths of land in England. Whereupon, Roger immediately built Arundel Castle.

Roger’s descendants lost the castle in 1102 when they unsuccessfully rebelled against King Henry I. For four hundred years the castle and its lands became a focal point of English civil wars, and its title sometimes changed from one family to another based upon whether they backed the winning horse. But in 1555 title vested in Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk.

This is where it gets really interesting.

Thomas Howard, a Catholic, conspired to topple Protestant Queen Elizabeth I in favor of Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots, who Howard was to then marry. Elizabeth discovered the plot and had Howard’s head chopped off. His lands and titles reverted to the crown. His son, Philip, a committed Catholic, was imprisoned in the Tower of London until his death in 1595.

And that, you might well imagine, was the end of a noble family; but you would be wrong. Elizabeth’s successor, James I, wanted to heal wounds and unite Catholics and Protestants, and assuage Scotland’s resentments. He restored title and lands to Thomas’s grandson, also named Thomas Howard. This proved a shrewd move as this Thomas Howard, and his descendants, were fiercely loyal to the crown. Arundel Castle has remained in the Howard family ever since.

You are thinking, “I suppose that’s kind of interesting, in a history nerd sort of way, but it’s not what I would call ‘freaky.’ You said the castle was freaky.”

I’ll get to that now.

As you tour the castle you see portraits of eighteen Dukes of Norfolk. They all were painted by the very best portrait artists of their generations, including Van Dyck, Gainsborough, and Reynolds. If the artists endeavored to flatter their patrons they were constrained by the merciless limits of reality. The Howards tended not to be a photogenic lot.

Imagine for a moment that you are raised in this giant castle, on these magnificent grounds, and every day you look at your ancestors’ portraits, including the ones beheaded or imprisoned for treason, going back 600 years, most of the ancestors homely as oatmeal, but all of them dressed to the nines and adopting regal poses. That, I submit, is freaky.

But it is freakier than just that. The portraiture includes children, especially little girls, whose images obviously were skewed to make them look like miniature adults. They did this to perpetuate the myth that the elite are not ordinary, and do not have ordinary children.

Take for example this image of Lady Adeliza Matilda Fitzalan-Howard, daughter of the 14th Duke of Norfolk. She has the tiny feet of a child, but her face lacks the softness of a child’s mien. The nobility wanted their children to look like they popped out of the womb ready to rule if called upon to do so. They are special. They are noble. That was the artist’s message to the world.

But I think the artistic changes make the children look doll-like, and remind me of this guy (on the next page):