Time Team: The 98 series

Programme 1: Richmond

The 1998 series of Time Team began on Sunday, 4 January and promises to be the most exciting in the five years that the programme has been running. It's also the longest, with eight programmes instead of the usual six.

The series kicked off with an excavation – beneath a pristine croquet lawn – of the privy lodgings of Elizabeth I at Richmond Palace, which she inherited from her father Henry VIII and where she died.

This reconstruction of Richmond Palace was created by Steve Breeze at Creative TV Facilities.

We now have an animated reconstruction of Richmond Palace... no plug-ins required! (120k)

Mystery object

Is this the face of a peasant, a nobleman, a cardinal or Mick on a bad day? What exactly is this thing that Phil excavated from the rubble that was once the north wall of Richmond Palace?

It is the neck of a Bellarmine jug, also known as a 'greybeard', a large Flemish gotch – ie a corpulent beer jug of some strong ware – originally made in Flanders in ridicule of Cardinal Robert Bellarmine, the great persecutor of the reformed party there. These jugs had at the neck a rude likeness of the cardinal with his large, square, ecclesiastical beard.

The following quotation from Oxoniana tells how these jugs got their nickname:

One of the Fellows of Exeter (College), when Dr Prideaux was rector, sent his servitor, after nine o'clock at night, with a large bottle to fetch some ale from the alehouse. When he was coming home with it under his gown the proctor met him, and asked him what he did out so late, and what he had under his gown? The man answered that his master had sent him to the stationers to borrow Bellarmine, which book he had under his arm; and so he went home. Whence a bottle with a big belly is called a Bellarmine to this day, 1667.

Robert Francis Romulus Bellarmine (1542-1621) was a distinguished Jesuit theologian, writer and cardinal. His book De Controversiis (1581-93) was the earliest attempt to systematise the various religious controversies of the time, and was subject to harsh criticism by Protestants in Germany and England. With the advent of the Oath of Allegiance in 1606, which British Catholics were required to take even though it condemned the authority of the pope in civil affairs as 'impious and heretical', Bellarmine entered into a written slanging match with James I, with books and treatises being issued by both sides. In 1615, it was Bellarmine's responsibility to tell Galileo that the Catholic Church had condemned his heliocentric theory and to have the scientist submit to the will of the Church. Despite being ridiculed by pottery, the cardinal was canonised as a saint in 1930.

Resources

Books

Royal Palaces of Tudor England by Simon Thurley (Yale University Press, 1993) hardback £40
A beautifully illustrated exploration of royal architecture and court life in the reign of Henry VIII, reflecting the richness and splendour of the Tudor lifestyle.

Palaces and Parks of Richmond and Kew (2 vols) by John Cloake (1995)
Work that formed the initial basis for the Time Team investigation.

Queen Elizabeth I at Richmond Palace by Stephen Pasmore (Richmond Local History Society, 1992) paperback £8.75
A fascinating selection of Elizabeth's letters written at Richmond Palace. Her subjects range from preparing to defeat the Spanish Armada to complaining about her toothache to the Swedish ambassador.

What's Left of Henry VIII? by Deborah Jaffé (Dial House, 1995) paperback £9.99
Combines the story of Henry's life and reign with a discussion of those artefacts and buildings associated with him that still survive.

Brick Building in Britain by R W Brunskill (Gollancz, 1997) paperback £16.99
The manufacture of brick, its use in historic buildings and the changing styles of brick-based construction and decoration are all described in this well-illustrated book.

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