Yew Tree Chronicles 11: The Glorious Revolution

 Such a beautiful day, it is so easy to get distracted when the Swifts are darting in and out of the church eves and my branches are bathed in the warmth of the sun. Glorious. Where were we in this marvellous account of my amazing life. Ah yes, so, the Restoration is now a distant memory and we are back to the comings and goings of hereditary King’s and Queens and religious intolerance for anything other than the thing YOU happen to believe in. Catholics are out and the Protestants are well and truly established as the ruling class religion.

We are all getting along with this idea, moreorless, when in 1685 Charles 2nd dies and James 2nd becomes King. All well and good you might think, except he marries a French woman and becomes a Catholic! Down here in this part of Wiltshire we remain pretty loyal to King James and resist the idea that Charles 2nd’s illegitimate and protestant son the Duke of Monmouth should usurp him. The Duke loses his head and frankly, we all collectively let out a sigh of relief. Catastrophe averted!

It was short lived. By 1688 the ruler of Holland William of Orange lands on the Devon coast and after a few skirmishes with James 2nd’s soldiers - notably one near Wincanton, on what you would now know as the A303, (and a bit too close for comfort as far as Tisburghers were concerned), the House of Lords invites William to become King and ‘save England form Catholicism’.

James the 2nd ups and legs it off to France leaving his loyal, and in these parts, mostly catholic subjects to face the fall out. But the village of Tisbury had one whopping card up it’s sleeve. William of Orange was married to Mary, who was James the 2nd’s protestant daughter and wait for it - the granddaughter of Edward Hyde of Hatch House! This put a glow over this area that we could all bask in. It didn’t end there. The next Queen was her sister Anne, so, as far as we were concerned these were local girls made good.

So Anne took the throne in 1702 and held it for 12 years. Sadly for her she was to be the last of the Stuart monarchs as not one of her 17 pregnancies resulted in a child that lived past childhood. What us poor females had to put up with in them days, not even a queen was immune from the rubbish healthcare.

In Tisbury harmony between the different religious sentiments continued during this time. The incumbent Arundells were good eggs and well known locally for their benevolence towards their tenants and their contributions to local infrastructure fostered goodwill among the broad community.

Local boy Chris Wren was up in London designing a large new Cathedral and although we were a long way from the big smoke we couldn’t help but feel we had friends in high places. And of course Tisburghers were shaking up the colonies as well, with the establishment of Tisbury and Chilmark on Martha’s Vineyard off the East Coast of America.

A visitor might have thought us a sleepy backwater but we were far from that. Tisbury folk were helping to shape the world. Not me of course, I just stood here. I am a tree after all.

Next time The Georgians