Bad King John? (Done different)

THAT'S A RAP JOHN - the unveiling, speeches and the rap.

Bronze Statue of King John to be placed in the town centre
KLFM blogpost and video of the event (scroll down to Oct 12 on Si's blog)
THE BALLAD OF BADASS KING JOHN video

Hear the studio version of The Ballad of Badass King John 

The poem is published in Doin Different )

BBC TV LOOK EAST NEWS FEATURE  (including a clip of the live rap and interview wth yours truly) 12 minutes in

Hear the Hunstanton Millennium Anthem (Calway-Sims, 2000, live at the Town hall) my previous essay in civic service

Does he have a special relationship with Lynn? Lynn News interview with Dr Paul Richards
King John's part in the history of Lynn from its beginnings until Stuart times is depicted below by schoolchildren taking part in 'The Murals in the Town' project in 2004. The 2004 King John Charter celebration was managed by the '800th Anniversary Committee' (Cllrs + Aldermen + reps from KLF and other town cultural bodies) set up by the Council and chaired by Sir Jeremy Bagge. The QEH was involved also and the murals now adorn a corridor there.

Before 1204

 King John's charter (pictured to his left) after which we were Bishop's Lynn (Lynn Episcopi)

 The King who put the King in King's Lynn- shifting his allegiance from the church (which he stripped of wealth and its social role in the town) to the Protestant merchants

Stuart Lynn, with witch burnings and a thriving trade well worth securing for the Parliamentarian side in the Civil War.


Some extra facts from Dr Richards I didn't have room to include in the published Lynn News features:
Bishop Losinga (of Norwich), was the original ruler and founder of Lynn and bishops of Norwich controlled Lynn as part of its diocese - all of Norfolk and Suffolk in those days. Norwich had 100 Benedictine monks and St Margaret's priory, Lynn,  was where they sent the troublesome ones!

The King John Cup (which like the Sword you can see in the Town hall) was made in Flanders in the C14 and its beautiful workmanship has deservedly been toured all over Europe.

The King John sword dates from Henry VIII's reign and like the Cup surfaced in ceremonials relating to the Charter. The names of both link the object with the king the Great Guild probably saw as their (1204) founder.  

These are symbolic links - John did not carry the sword or drink from the cup as is often believed - but nevertheless a powerful one.

The man who really put the 'King' into King's Lynn was Henry VIII who deprived the church of wealth and a social role in the port-town in 1537, 'to have an end to our Lord of Norwich.' This was partly grist to the dissolution and Reformation mill, partly Henry's personal hatred for the Norwich bishop of the time, Bishop Nix. After the fall of Katherine of Aragon, Henry threw in his lot with a great and lucrative rival to the church's power, the Protestant merchants and the rule of Lynn was given to them.

The association of the King in King's Lynn with it being a royalist town during the Civil War is nonsense - it was called King's Lynn from 1537 (Henry VIII) and anyway, the town had elected Parliamentarians as its two MPs and mayor and the royalist coup d'etat staged by Hamon Lestrange and his backwoods cavaliers was very short-lived (August-September 1643).

King John was buried (as a monk) at Worcester Cathedral - he was still intact until they crowbarred off the lid off his tomb in the last century upon which exposure to the air he disintegrated. He was buried there at his own request because St Wulfstan, to which Worcester Cathedral is dedicated, was his favourite saint.

Paul used my Ballad of Badass King John to introduce his True's Yard talk 'Is there a special relationship between King John and Lynn' (Sep 29, 2016) 

Lynn News Review of that talk here.

The Angevins were Very Bad,

And Worst of All was John:

As foul as hell is, it’s defiled

By Eleanor’s Little One.

Usurped his Lionhearted Bro,

The One Good Angevin;

Jugged Merry Freeborn English (yay!)

Forest-flying Robin.

Villain of the Good/Bad History

School and book and song,

‘Inadequate with some Capone’

John. King John. …Bad King John.

In 1216 at all time low,

His ‘soft sword’ half advanced,

His shrunk-crown empire Richard-pawned,

Normandy lost to France, (pah!)

Despised by all those Magna barons

Carting him to heel

Flinging him to French invaders

And Abdullah’s deal:

England given to Mohammed!

A rock moored off Morocco,

Hapless John at bay and 4 years

Excommunicado.

Villain of the Good/Bad History

School and book and song,

‘Inadequate with some Capone’

John. King John. …Bad King John.

From Lynn, he armied up to Lincoln

As the Wellstream rose,

Despised by Emperor, peasant, guild;

His Rome-rule churches closed;

3000 men, wheels coming off,

Up creek without a guide;

The royal dosh lost in the Wash -

He never lost our pride.

Three wheels on my wagon

And I'm still rolling along,

I'm wicked, selfish, lecherous, cruel,

You learned about me in your school,

Now I'm under the cosh, lost my dosh in the Wash

But I'm singing a happy song.

For out in Norfolk we do different,

And his haven, it was Lynn,

Their domain he made our borough

Gallant little Linnet king.

Victim of the Good/Bad History

School and book and song,

His Brother’s Bad Book Good Book Keeper

John. King John. …Good King John.

pic (and Trespass pic above) by Pat Jones

Double reviews of our Cromwell/Siege of Lynn double header Sep 3 2014!!

Smile - you're the 250+ person to read this post...

"September 3rd. On the banks of West Lynn stood an army of vengeful Parliamentarians, led by Oliver Cromwell. Cannons fired over the Great Ouse…

 

Exactly 371 years later, a sell-out crowd gathered at Marriott’s Warehouse. The Siege of Lynn and the Civil War were revived by eminent historian Dr Paul Richards and the writer and raconteur Gareth Calway.

 

Dr Richards delivered a talk on the Siege, with various fascinating diversions. He set out a compelling case that Lynn’s politics were influenced more by mercantile interests than spiritual convictions.

 

Part 2, presented by Gareth Calway, starred Cromwell’s decapitated head. In this amusing monologue, fact was stranger, and more macabre, than fiction. We were treated to more puns than we could count (eyes rolled, not unlike the heads!). This consummate performance was a novel way to present the past.

The evening’s entertainment was fit for a King - or a Lord Protector!"  Helen Thirkettle

 

 

 

Need a second opinion?

 

Read this alternative review on the Lynn News website

here. Lots of other readers have!

Historic gem set for bright future (my EDP feature published 24 September 2013)

This feature draws attention to a Tudor warehouse on the South Quay in King's Lynn currently spearheading a drive to develop the Great Ouse waterfront. See also my earlier post 'Marriott's Warehouse' (first published in the Lynn News) and also on this blog. Don't miss the lecture series!

Marriott’s Warehouse– A History Of King’s Lynn In One Building

King’s Lynn has an unrivalled series of historic warehouses reflecting its status as a leading English port with a rich maritime heritage. Yet while historic York has no less than three heritage officers, guess how many Lynn, the Hanseatic capital of England has? Yes that’s right. None

The historical value of Lynn was not lost on the makers of the film Revolution, in which it represented New York circa 1776. But it often seems to have been lost on town planners.

Until now.

Lynn’s waterfront of Hanseatic buildings along the canalised Great Ouse, - waterfronts which in cities like Norwich or Bristol would have been celebrated as a vibrant cultural and heritage centres decades ago - is having a renaissance. And Marriott’s Warehouse on the old South Quay is leading it.

It is not the first renaissance to come to the port. It was during the Renaissance (in about 1450) that the land on which Marriott’s Warehouse stands was first reclaimed from the Great Ouse– it was just a landing stage then.

Though named after John and Thomas Marriott, Victorian business men with various properties on the South Quay, including a lease on part of the Hanse House, Marriott’s Warehouse was built during an upturn in the Tudor economy in the 1570s and ’80s, facing St Margaret’s Church.

It was this upturn that prompted Lynn developer Thomas Clayborne, a dealer in salt, corn and wine and the premier Lynn businessman of the time, that he needed a new warehouse for his merchandise.

The whole town was known then as ‘The Warehouse on the Wash.’ Wool, corn, salt, coal, wine, timber, fish filled the ships and Fenland lighters that sailed in and out of the great port of the Ouse, with access to the counties via the Great Ouse river system. Lynn’s merchants rebuilt their warehouses and mansions along the riverside streets and lanes in brick between 1580 and 1620 from the wealth generated by this trade.

But the foundations of this wealth were laid a Tudor generation earlier by the man who put the ‘King’ into King’s Lynn. Henry VIII

He wrested ‘Bishop’s Lynn’ from the control of the Bishop of Norwich in 1537; granted King’s Lynn permission to hold two weekly markets on Tuesdays and Saturdays, the two Tudor market places around which still define the look of this town; established the February Mart, which ran for nearly 500 years and founded King’s Lynn Grammar School, now KES, in 1510. His portrait still dominates its Great Hall.

And his royal hand is certainly visible in the frontage of Marriott’s Warehouse. The upper half is that famous Tudor brick; the lower is carboniferous limestone blocks, prime (and very expensive) building material in a Norfolk always short on natural building stone.

Only the Church could afford to buy and cart it in. Which they did to build the thriving mediaeval friaries of Whitefriars, Greyfriars and Lynn Priory, (where the Lynn visionary Margery Kempe dictated her famous Book). Until Henry knocked them down.

Henry’s Dissolution of the Monasteries brought demolished Church stone onto the market as part of the Tudor building boom. You can still see how some of the stones used in Marriott’s frontage in about 1570 have been shaped by their previous building use. They can also be found in other Lynn warehouses by the waterside like Clifton House.

The timbers in the ground floor/ceiling were felled in 1498/9 so were probably taken from dismantled friary buildings too. Other beams felled in 1569/70 and 1583/4 show that the building was almost certainly raised or built up in the 1580s when trade was booming.

Stand on the ground floor of Marriott’s today and you looking at an oak joist that was a sapling during the Black Death – the death rate in Norfolk was 50%, one of the worst hit areas. But don’t get your feet wet- you would be standing in the river itself back then! The shoreline was much nearer St Margaret’s Church than now.

The oak for that sapling was felled around the time Henry father, Henry VII, was arranging for Richard III to be buried under what is now a Leicester city car park.

Another ground floor joist - clearly re-used - may be a survivor from a building destroyed in the Great Fire of Lynn in 1414, in which Lynnites believed the prayers of Margery Kempe saved St Margaret’s from destruction

Before the quay was raised in modern times against the continuing risk of floods, the water actually lapped against the warehouse at high tide. In the floods of 1613, flood water stretched all the way from King’s Lynn to Terrington St Clement and 1000 people were drowned along with their livestock.

Even today, sandbags are piled inside the doorways of Lynn’s heritage shore as far as King St (called Stockfish St until renamed in 1809) and beyond. The impressive and unspoiled riverside buildings of this historic street follow the curve of what was once the strand of the mediaeval river - since removed by reclaimed and built-up land.


The Ouse remained Lynn’s lifeblood for centuries. Only the railways could rob Lynn of its position as a major English port, taking away much of its river and coastal traffic in the mid-19th century.

A hint of the good times returned after the burgeoning of trade between the UK and the EU in the 1970s as the balance tipped back from the Atlantic ports of Bristol and Liverpool. And the Russian voices that fill the night air of a modern Lynn evening are a reminder of the Hanseatic links that once defined the port.

In 1999/2000 Marriott’s Warehouse was restored as a visitor centre with a trust dedicated to environmental issues but the ending of Council grant made a rethink necessary - the emphasis is now on Lynn's exceptional historic built environment - particularly merchant houses and warehouses.

And now, as Trustees and Friends of Marriott’s Warehouse work together to bring these riches more into public view as part of a general development of the south quay, we enter a new and hopeful time for heritage in Lynn.



Warehouse Wisdom
A series of keynote autumn lectures will give an academic underpinning to the Trust’s popular history of Lynn.
Dr Simon Thurley tackles ‘Building in England’ on 3rd October and weekly Thursday night lectures by John Selby, Phil Haslam, Bryan Howling, Robin Stevenson, Professor Sandy Heslop and Susan Maddock will follow on Norfolk’s brick buildings; managing sustainable seas; the River Great Ouse in Lynn’s history; ‘rock and roll’ (about ballast); West Norfolk church-building and Streets and Records of Mediaeval Lynn.
A less formal companion series, Pleasant Sunday Afternoons (which began with Dr Richards’ fascinating talk on the German Hanse in Lynn 1271-1757 on Sunday 22) given by Bryan Howling, Dr Clive Bond, Robin Stevenson, Professor Fred Cooke, Fr Peter Rollings and Anne Whiting will explore salt production in Eastern England; the Origins of King’s Lynn; the building stones and geology of Marriott’s Warehouse; the Wash rivers from Roman times until present; Pilgrimage and the Port of Lynn; Mediaeval Castle Rising and Norman stone houses.
All talks will take place in the upper floor auditorium of the refurbished Marriott’s Warehouse. Trust Chairman Dr Paul Richards says “I am grateful to the distinguished speakers who have agreed to contribute to the re-launch of the educational activities of the Trust. The Trust’s charitable objectives are educational and it wants to increase understanding of its mission to the wider public. It is hoped the exciting new lecture programme will go some way to achieve this.”
For all Trust enquiries tel 07582 037301 .


© Gareth Calway 2013. Gareth’s stand up poetry show ‘From Creation to Cromer’ plays Elsing Village Hall on Oct 26; his ‘Beat Music It Was 50 Years Ago Today’ (Spoken word celebration of Beatlemania with guitar by John William) comes to Great Massingham Social Club and live Folkspot radio broadcast on Nov 10. His play Tom and Harry (about Norfolk-born Anne Boleyn) comes to Marriott’s Warehouse on Nov 28.

Marriott's Warehouse, King's Lynn

The text of my Lynn News article, published in the Lynn News on 07/06/2013 12:00

(pic and online link: http://www.lynnnews.co.uk/news/business-news/new-era-at-green-quay-s-marriott-s-warehouse-1-5170771)

Local historian, author and True’s Yard trustee Dr Paul Richards has launched an exciting new era for Lynn’s Marriott’s Warehouse.

Speaking to an audience of 36 potential “friends” in the spacious third-floor meeting room overlooking the river that once placed Lynn in the charmed circle of the 14th century Hanseatic League, Dr Richards, chairman of the Marriott’s Warehouse Trust, enthused about the rich heritage of Lynn in general and its warehouses in particular.

This is a phoenix moment for the beautiful old building, which along with conference room, now houses a newly appointed exhibition space on its first floor and a thriving ground floor restaurant.

Despite having arguably the best location in the town in terms of its Tudor heritage and a waterside that other ports – like Bristol or Norwich– have turned into vibrant cultural centres, the previous Green Quay cafe, and exhibition centre had to close on September 30 last year due to the economic downturn and a poor summer.

At that time, six people unfortunately lost their jobs. The re-launch has brought in a business partner to run the restaurant –it was buzzing with business and atmosphere two floors below as Mr Richards spoke. It has secured agreement for the name of the building to revert to its original and to integrate Marriott’s Warehouse into a general development of the South Quay as a tourist attraction.

The development includes six pontoons for pleasure boaters and an indoor market and bar with cafe at nearby Hanse House.

Dr Richards said: “Marriott’s Warehouse Trust’s mission will be to use this historic building to interpret and exemplify the history of the working port of Lynn over the centuries through the main themes of River, Trade, Buildings and People.

“This will be achieved through the establishment of a permanent exhibition on the first floor called The Warehouse on the Wash using many artistic media to demonstrate to the public how Lynn grew in trade, what the wealth of the port was based on as well as the natural setting of The Wash and the
characters involved along the way.

“The other floors of the building will also contain exhibition space, with the top floor being used as a conference and meeting room by the Trust, and the ground floor licensed as a restaurant.”

Dr Richards added: “Recruiting new friends to the old building is seen by the Trustees as a vital way to keep the community involvement with Marriott’s Warehouse as well as help with fundraising and creating a core audience for the series of lectures and events planned for later in 2013.”

A six-week series of evening lectures from the end of September will include Simon Thurley, chief executive of English Heritage.

“Pleasant Sunday Afternoon” talks from September 22 will explore the broader themes in the long history of King’s Lynn, reviving an activity first popular in the town in 1890.

For further information about the new venture, contact: friends@marriottswarehousetrust.co.uk