00:16Hello and welcome to Kent Chronicles live here on KMTV where we turn back time on all of Kent's
00:22history from the Mesolithic era to the Industrial Revolution and everything in between. I'm Lucy
00:28Keane and join me as we turn back time and discuss all things history. This week we will be exploring
00:34the stories of the past as we look at the world of literature and its history here in the county.
00:40First this week our reporter Corey Miller spoke to Kate McCaffery, a researcher at Hever Castle,
00:46to tell us a bit more about women's literature in the Tudor times. So let's take a look at this
00:52week's Alluring Artifacts.
01:01What are the Book of Ours and why were they special to Tudor women?
01:05Books of Ours were a medieval bestseller. They were one of the most popular books during the Middle Ages
01:13and they were a traditionally Catholic prayer book so they were based on the scripture and they were
01:20meant to make the kind of rigid daily prayer cycles of monasteries more accessible just to your average
01:27laity. So they became really popular during the medieval period and then into the early Tudor period
01:33as well. They had a very special relationship with women I think because they were seen as
01:40quite an appropriate outlet for female religious engagement and also literary engagement. You know,
01:47they were discouraged from reading things like novels or frivolous literature so books of ours were
01:53quite an appropriate book for them. What was in Anne Boleyn's book and what does it tell us about her
01:59life?
01:59Anne actually has at least three books of ours that have survived to the present day and two of those
02:06are at Hiva where I'm lucky enough to work. So one of them in particular is the focus of my
02:11research
02:12and that's a printed Book of Ours from around 1527 and it was made in Paris and it contains a
02:19fairly
02:20standard kind of liturgical text. Books of Ours followed the eight canonical hours of the day, hence the name.
02:27Who else was connected to Anne's Book of Ours?
02:29In my research I managed to connect it to two other copies of the same edition that were owned by
02:36other
02:37famous names of the time, one being her great rival, Catherine of Aragon, who was Henry VIII's first wife,
02:44and another being another rival of hers in the end, Thomas Cromwell, who was ironically the man who
02:50brought both Catherine and Anne down. So the fact that they all owned the same copy of the same printed
02:56prayer book is really quite interesting and Anne's was the most highly decorated by far. So it's quite
03:03an exciting insight into that very specific moment in time where the Henrician court is really changing
03:10in structure and Anne's star is very much on the rise because her prayer book is decorated to a much
03:16higher level than the Queen of England's, than Catherine of Aragon.
03:27Next, our reporter Oberfemi O'Demeyo headed down to Rochester to learn more about the writer Charles
03:33Dickens and his links to the county. Here is this week's A Town Through Time.
03:40For this week's Town Through Time, I have come to Rochester to learn more about Charles Dickens,
03:45who not only spent his early life here, but also returned after he became the famous Charles Dickens
03:50we know today. Despite being born in the greater Portsmouth region, Dickens' father was posted at the
03:56dockyards in Chatham around 1817. He didn't come alone, he brought his family, which included his son,
04:02Charles, and for the next five years Dickens greatly enjoyed his time here and later credited it as the
04:09birthplace of his fancy, a place where his creativity and imagination thrived. I have come to Rochester
04:15at the Guildhall Museum to speak with Jeremy Clark, the museum's education officer. One of the wonderful
04:22things that we get from Dickens' relationship with Medway is the work Great Expectations, his penultimate
04:31completed novel, written just after he had moved back permanently to North Kent, and it is the story
04:39of a man who grew up in this part of the world and is looking back to his childhood just
04:46like Dickens was
04:47at the time. So the whole narrative, the whole story is informed with this feeling of nostalgia and even
04:56melancholy as he looks back at himself as a child and realises how much he has changed in the present.
05:03One of the important things about Dickens' relationship with this part of the world,
05:07it's not even so much that he lived here, but that he lived here twice. He lived here as a
05:12child,
05:13went away, became rich and famous in London, and at the end of his life, looking for a new start,
05:20it's Medway, it's North Kent that he thought of. So he came back here. And it's that relationship
05:27with his own memory that makes his writing at the end of his life, especially his writing about North
05:33Kent, particularly moving.
05:41Now, are you ready to test your history knowledge? Our reporter Zach Smith went down to Canterbury to
05:47see if anyone could answer this week's Tea Time Trivia.
05:54We are here in Canterbury today to see if people can answer this week's Tea Time Trivia.
05:59The question. Which famous fictional bear was created in Canterbury in the 1920s?
06:05In Canterbury? I don't know. I don't know.
06:10I think that might have been Rupert Bear.
06:13Winnie the Pooh? I'd say Rupert Bear.
06:17The answer. Rupert Bear.
06:20Oh really? I didn't know it was Canterbury.
06:22Rupert Bear was created by Herbert and Mary Tortell on November 8, 1920.
06:27They wrote and illustrated the comic from their home in Canterbury.
06:31The famous bear first appeared in the Daily Express newspaper as a single panel comic,
06:35before becoming a popular series with its own books and television shows.
06:39That's all the trivia we have planned for this week,
06:41but bear with us as we'll be back next week with even more Tea Time Trivia.
06:48Next, for this week's long-standing landmark, we will be delving into the history of the
06:53picturesque Godmarsham Park and exploring its links to this week's topic of literature.
06:58Earlier, I sat down with our reporter Mandrosh Sohota to find out more.
07:08Thank you so much for joining us. And my first question about this week's long-standing landmark
07:13is, can you tell us a little bit about its origins?
07:15It was built in 1732. It was constructed for Canterbury MP Thomas Knight. Upon his death in 1781,
07:22he was inherited by son Thomas, who then passed it onto his adopted son, Edward Austen,
07:27the brother of author Jane Austen. After being inherited by son in 1852, he then later sold to
07:36Mr. John Cunliffe Listerkay. He then passed through several more owners before being bought
07:43by the Sondlay family in 1983. I see. And what links does it have to literature specifically?
07:50As I've just mentioned, it was inherited by Edward Austen, the brother of Jane Austen, in 1794,
07:55during the time that he occupied the estate. Jane was a frequent visitor to the home between the
08:01years of 1798 and 1813. It is reported that Austen's time there served as the inspiration for her
08:09critically acclaimed 1814 novel, Mansfield Park. In fact, much of the novel was written in its library.
08:16And finally, what are some elements within Mansfield Park that we can point to as having
08:20been inspired by Godmanshire Park? Yes. The social environment of the affluent
08:25Kent society, which Austen observed during the estate, served as the backdrop for the novel's
08:30societal structure. Furthermore, the vibrant atmosphere of the house, with people constantly
08:35arriving and departing, was darkly imported from the observation of a brother's home.
08:40One final fact is that Godmanshire Park has been depicted on the front of the
08:45temple beneath the portrait of the monarch since 2017, with Jane Austen herself being depicted on the back.
08:54Wow. Well, thank you so much for this insight and the little fun fact at the end. Thank you.
09:06And finally, I spoke to Rory Loughnan to get more of an insight on Christopher Marlowe,
09:11this week's Periodic Profile. Let's see what he had to share with us.
09:24I suppose my first question today would be, who is Christopher Marlowe and what was he known for?
09:30Okay. So, well, Christopher Marlowe is a poet, a dramatist and a translator. He was born in Canterbury
09:38and baptised here in February 1564. He's about eight weeks older than Shakespeare,
09:44and he makes his name in the same emerging dramatic scene occurring in London in the late 1580s and
09:51early 1590s. So he's a figure of great significance for early modern English writing, particularly in drama.
09:59Could you tell us a bit more about his connections to Kent?
10:02Absolutely. So, well, he was born and raised here in Canterbury and he proceeds to undertake
10:08schooling at the King's School, which is still here in Canterbury. And then from there,
10:12he moves to Corpus Christi College in Cambridge before, in his early 20s, after graduating BA and MA,
10:19he begins writing for the theatres. He's someone who never lost his Kent connections. I think that
10:25extends even to his works as well. We can see it, for example, in his writing of parts of Henry
10:31VI,
10:31part two. It centres on the rebellion of the Kent rebels, Jack Cade in the fourth act. And Marlow seems
10:39to have been responsible for most of that writing. Perhaps he's best known nowadays for writing Dr. Faustus.
10:45And how has he been able to have a lasting impact? Unlike Shakespeare, his plays and poems and
10:51translations weren't all put together into some sort of first folio collection after he died,
10:57but rather his works were quite dispersed. So there is an editorial tradition, which is set to kind of
11:02collect and compose and put together his works. There is, fittingly, a Marlow theatre. And yes,
11:09there's a statue as well. And then Nemezine, the mother of the muses, how Marlow was inspired,
11:14which features four of Marlow's characters.
11:22Well, it looks like that was one for the history books. You've been watching Kent Chronicles live on
11:27KMTV. Don't forget, though, there's always history happening around us. And if you have a story you
11:32think we should be covering, then please get in touch. But from me, have a very good evening and goodbye.
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