Mortlake

Map

The overlays that highlight 17th century London features are approximate and derived from Wenceslaus Hollar’s maps:

Open location in Google Maps: 51.467359, -0.260553

7 Annotations

First Reading

Pedro  •  Link

Mortlake.

As Charles and James used to race their yachts against each other, it could be of interest to note that Mortlake is the finish of the famous Oxford and Cambridge University boat race.

Second Reading

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

Mortlake ... where Dr John Dee lived, and where the famous Mortlake tapestries were made for Charles I. Of course, Cromwell shut down the factory, and Charles II promised to start their manufacture again, but never got around to it.

For a fascinating history of the area, written in 1792, see
https://www.british-history.ac.uk…

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

Since Charles II never reopened the Mortlake tapestry factory, and we don't have a page for tapestries, I'm at a loss to know where to post these pictures and information about the Solebay tapestry.

This entire post is a SPOILER:

The largest tapestry on display at the Royal Museums Greenwich illustrates the May 1672 battle off the coast of Southwold Bay, Suffolk. It is taken from a series of sketches made by a Dutch artist, Willem Van de Velde the Elder, who took up a position in a small boat in order to bear witness to the carnage.

Charles II had commissioned Van de Velde to do this, as he and James saw this battle as their own "Armada". I suspect there would have been no tapestries had they lost the Battle of Solebay.

Surrounding him were hundreds of warships. A Dutch fleet had sailed to engage a combined force of English and French ships, and Van de Velde was there to document the action.

The engagement became known as the Battle of Solebay. While both sides claimed victory, the outcome remained inconclusive.

The drawings Van de Velde made have shape how the battle was perceived, and eventually inspire a series of giant tapestries depicting the course of the conflict.

One of these tapestries is now in the collections of Royal Museums Greenwich.
Entitled "The Burning of the Royal James at the Battle of Solebay, 28 May 1672," it depicts the climax of the battle: the destruction of the English flagship Royal James and the death of Vice-Admiral Edward Montagu, 1st Earl of Sandwich.

Much like the outcome of the battle, the tapestry’s history is ambiguous.

For starters, where were they made? One part of the blog suggests: "The weaving of the Solebay tapestries is now thought to have taken place either at Clerkenwell or later at Hatton Garden in the workshops of Francis Poyntz.

"A skilled weaver, Poyntz was a Yeoman Arrarsworker in the Great Wardrobe, a position that involved producing new royal tapestry commissions as well as maintaining the existing tapestries in royal residences and collections.

"Francis Poyntz relied on skilled émigré weavers, many of whom were Catholic and had left the Dutch Commonwealth because of religious and economic turmoil."

For pictures and more details of its history, poke around here:
https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/top…

Third Reading

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

If you visit Mortlake and wander into the St. Mary’s church, you will find a plaque that reads: “Near this place lie the remains of John Dee MA, Clerk in Holy Orders 1527 ~ 1609. Astronomer, Geographer, Mathematician, Adviser to Queen Elizabeth I”

It was placed there by the John Dee of Mortlake Society in 2013 but is probably closer to the way Dee was regarded in his lifetime than the image we have of him today.

When he died in genteel poverty, John Dee didn’t have quite the reputation he was to acquire for later generations. He was renowned in academic circles as a highly respected scholar and for having had one of the biggest and best libraries in Europe. By merchants and explorers (he was a member of the Worshipful Company of Mercers) he was acclaimed for his work in navigation.

To ordinary people he was probably most famous for once having been Queen Elizabeth’s advisor and astrologer. True, there had always been claims made about his supernatural prowess which he refuted strongly, but men of science often attracted such at that time — his acquaintance Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, was known as ‘the Wizard Earl’.

In Dee’s hometown of Mortlake many people spoke fondly of him as a kind man and a good neighbor. Aubrey in his Brief Lives recalls: “Old goodwife Faldo (a native of Mortlake in Surrey), aged 80 or more (1672), did know Dr Dee, and told me he died at his house in Mortlake … He was a great peacemaker; if any of the neighbors fell out, he would never let them alone till he had made them friends. He was tall and slender. He wore a gown like an artist's gown, with hanging sleeves, and a slit. A mighty good man he was.”

The goodwife also mentioned that children dreaded him because he was accounted a conjurer. But children, then and now, say such things about old people who live in creepy houses. Clearly that was not the view of many of his adult neighbors.

It is possible, that if things had remained as they were at his death, we might today recall Dee mostly for his groundbreaking work in navigation; for his influential Mathematical Preface; for being the first to speak of a British Empire; or for his skill with cyphers. Perhaps we might have given little more thought today to John Dee’s alchemical and occult interests than we do to those of Sir Isaac Newton whose unpublished papers have revealed his passion for such.

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

CONCLUSION:

What really set in motion Dee’s reputation as a master of the occult was not something that occurred in his own lifetime, but 50 years later. The image of John Dee we have today was a product not of the 16th but of the 17th Century. Because, unlike Newton, whose secret occult experiments remained unexposed, John Dee’s were pulled into public awareness. That was done not to besmirch Dee’s reputation but to serve the propaganda purposes of another era: Dee’s diary was pressed into service to attack the Cromwellian regime.

In 1659 another renowned scholar named Méric Casaubon published a book. It had a catchy title as most books of the era tended to: “A true & faithful relation of what passed for many yeers between Dr. John Dee and some spirits: tending (had it succeeded) to a general alteration of most states and kingdomes in the world: his private conferences with Rodolphe Emperor of Germany, Stephen K. of Poland, and divers other princes about it: the particulars of his cause, as it was agitated in the Emperors court, by the Pope's intervention: his banishment and restoration in part: as also the letters of sundry great men and princes (some whereof were present at some of these conferences and apparitions of spirits) to the said D. Dee…”
... If you are interested, copies of it are widely available and you can find it to read for free at various locations online.

... John Dee died in 1609 and after his death his daughter, Katherine, held a sale of his remaining books and possessions. The rambling house in Mortlake, that was once home to his family and his library, stood empty for several years before it was turned into the famous Mortlake tapestry works.

But there were those who were sure that John Dee must have left secrets behind. Sir Robert Cotton (whose library contained such wonders as a copy of the Magna Carta with its seal still intact, the Lindisfarne Gospels and the only known original of Beowulf) dug in the grounds of the house like a treasure hunter. Apparently he found a chest containing some manuscripts, including the carefully kept record of John Dee’s attempts to communicate with angels.

MORE AT
https://www.andreazuvich.com/hist…

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References

Chart showing the number of references in each month of the diary’s entries.

1662

1665

1666

  • Aug