By Matthew Shelley
Would a queen wear knickers – and what did a gentleman keep in his codpiece? These are questions school history lessons never touched.
More’s the pity, as my only recollection of many wasted classroom years is of the dull thud of names and dates of distant wars with forgotten causes.
It amazes me how many middle-aged people like me survived the slings and arrows of outrageous boredom with an intact love of our heritage.
Bob and Hilary Holsman, heading the team of costumed characters who will show visitors round Stirling Castle’s newly refurbished Renaissance royal palace, want the past to be more memorable.
That involves making it about people – what they ate, how they dressed, the tunes they hummed, the games they played and the fates that befell them.
Last Saturday, the Holsmans were off to a re-enactors’ fair in Carlisle to pick up a few last props ahead of a weekend of celebrations, on 4 and 5 June, for the reopening of the palace.
Historic Scotland is staging the event, entitled Stirling Castle Presents – A Palace Fit For A Queen, to mark the completion of its £12 million project to return Britain’s most complete Renaissance royal palace to how it might have looked in the mid-16th century.
One item the Holsmans were on the lookout for at the fair was a reproduction pish pot of the right style – urine was very important, as it needed to be collected and stored for three weeks and then used to bleach clothes. Then, as now, you could be judged by the brightness of your whites.
The Crieff-based couple are avid collectors and researchers, delving into every aspect of our ancestors’ daily lives. They use what they gather to recreate characters from history, recapturing the reality of the worlds and societies they occupied.
Hilary is a talented costumier and former kiltmaker, who creates everything from hand-stitched velvet gowns to heralds’ tabards embroidered with coats of arms. At present, she is designing winter coats for the ladies in the team – these will be full-length, made of wool. They will also be trimmed with real fur, recycled from coats picked up in charity shops.
For months now, Bob and his eight or so colleagues have been preparing scenarios to entertain and educate the public as they tour the palace. These range from swordfights between nobles of rival factions, to chats by servants about getting their master or mistress up each morning and ready to appear at the royal court.
Hence the intimate knowledge of underwear and codpieces – known as pouches in Scotland. These, according to Bob Holsman, were great places to keep your handkerchief (a clean one was essential) and there is some suggestion that "yer pooch" was also a handy place to store snacks. These included nuts and fruit – presumably part of their five a day.
And indeed it seems there is some debate over the queen’s knickers, as they were just becoming fashionable for women at this time. Mary of Guise – dowager queen and widow of James V, who resided at the palace – was sporting them by the 1550s, but Stirling’s recreation is set in the 1540s.
At that point her relative, Catherine de Medici, was having them made for riding side-saddle in modesty, so it is possible that they were already in the wardrobe of the fashion-conscious – and eminently practical – Mary.
Bob Holsman and his colleagues will be permanent features of the palace experience, but for the opening weekend they will be joined by more than 50 other costumed performers.
These will offer a rumbustious combination of colour and frenetic activity including cannon-firing, jesters, dance, music, games, cookery, duels and much more, helping to recreate the atmosphere of a royal celebration circa 1546.
And while the Holsmans did not find exactly what they wanted in Carlisle, I have since seen Bob proudly polishing an exact replica of a pewter chamber pot found on the wreck of the Mary Rose.
– Dr Matthew Shelley is a freelance journalist currently working for Historic Scotland.
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