Our February meeting was a return visit by David Templeman, on the subject of  'Two Queens and a Countess'

David gave an impressive talk about three powerful, formidable and important ladies of the 16th century, their lives, loves and the comparisons and connections between them.
All of them had unfortunate beginnings to their lives, but they all rose above them despite living in an age where women were held in very low regard as a rule, being considered the weaker sex and encouraged by the church to adopt a servile role.
Queen Elizabeth the 1st was born in 1533 the daughter of King Henry the VIII and Anne Boleyn, but she lost her mother at the age of three when she was executed. Later she was declared illegitimate by her father. She was passed around from stepmother to stepmother until, due to the kind intervention of Henry’s last wife Catherine Parr she was reinstated into the line of accession to the throne.
Queen Mary Stewart (of the Scots) was born in Scotland in 1542 the daughter of King James V of Scotland and Mary of Guise, she lost her father when she was 5 years old and King Henry wanted her to go to London to be brought up as a protestant, so her mother – a devout Catholic who was now ruling Scotland - sent Mary to France, where she was groomed to be the wife of the French Dauphin.
Bess of Hardwick was born to a wealthy family who had connections to the royal family, but she lost her parents when she was very young and due to ‘Wardship’ rules, two thirds of their estate was taken to be managed by the crown until her brother was mature enough to manage it himself. This made the family very poor.
    Despite the troubles and turbulence in their early lives and the lack of formal education, neither of them let this hinder them. They were all intelligent and learned quickly despite being, on the whole, self taught.
Elizabeth was an avid reader and was able to speak Latin and other languages fluently; her tutor said that she was equal to any man.
Mary was brought up in France but she was indoctrinated to believe that she was the rightful Queen of England, because she was Catholics and they didn’t recognise Henry’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon and considered all subsequent marriages to be illegal.
Bess learned from life and all of her four husbands, she grew into an astute business women and was very good and property management and accounts.
    The main difference between the three women was their marriages.
Elizabeth never married, perhaps she had seen enough of the mess her father made of marriage or perhaps she thought that she could make a better job of monarch on her own, as marriage would have relieved her of some of her power. She did have a long relationship with Robert Dudley her childhood friend, but he was married and when his wife died in mysterious circumstances, she severed all connections with him. She acceded the throne in 1558 after the deaths of her brother Edward VI and her sister Mary I (Bloody Mary) and restored the protestant faith after Mary Tudor had attempted by cruelty to restore England to Catholicism. Elizabeth began her 45 years of reign, marred by the thorn in her side, her cousin Mary Stewart.
Mary was first married to the dauphin of France when he was 14 and she was 16years old. She was widowed by 18 and returned to Scotland and married her cousin, Lord Darnley, who was mysteriously killed. The man believed to have murdered him was Lord Bothwell, Mary’s secretary Lord Bothwell. When Mary, not long after married Bothwell Queen Elizabeth was very angry with her cousin. Her behaviour also shocked the protestant Lords of Scotland, who already held it against her that she was Catholic and as a result of this Mary fled for her safely to Elizabeth and through her self onto her mercy.
Bess had four husbands, who were her stepping stones to success. Her first was Robert Barlow, who was a sick young man she was caring for. He only lived three months. Then she married William Cavendish and had eight children to him, the beginning of the Chatsworth dynasty, the Dukes of Devonshire and Newcastle. He died after 11years of marriage, but taught her a great deal. Her next husband was Sir William Loe, a very wealthy man who was poisoned by his own brother. Finally and the most prestigious was her marriage to George Talbert, the 6th Earl of Shrewsbury, giving her the title of Countess.
    These three women who were connected by the era, their gender and their sense of determination, purpose and power and they were now drawn together by the events of history.
    Mary fled to Elizabeth, who didn’t know what to do with her, so she chose a couple of people who she respected and trusted, the Earl and Countess of Shrewsbury to be her minders and in effect her jailers. Mary was shunted about from Castle to Castle to Stately Home. Bess and Mary had a common interest in needlework and some of the tapestries they worked on together are to be seen at Hardwick Hall. But Mary was an embarrassment to Elizabeth as she refused to renounce her claim to the throne and she reluctantly allowed her to be tried and executed for treason in 1587. Elizabeth became a powerful queen and took England from a very weak state to be a dominant power in Europe, through conquering Spain, a then super-power, in the Spanish Armada.
The cost of housing Mary put a strain on the finances and the marriage of George and Bess and he died in 1590, but Bess continued with her empire building until her death in 1608 outliving her queen by 5years.
David’s talk was interesting, enthralling and delivered with professionalism. This is obviously a subject he knows and loves.

Our January meeting was 'The history of Sheffield newspapers', a talk by Suzanne Bingham, a local historian from Sheffield and a previous visiting speaker for the group.

A good turnout braved the cold snap that seemed to have descended on us to enjoy a fascinating insight into the development of local newspapers, taking sheffield as a good example.  Suzanne divided the development of local papers into three periods - the earliest papers from the late 17th century up to around 1840,  the Victorian period up to around the great war, and the modern period.

It was remarkable to learn how the earliest newspapers from around the mid-late 1600's crammed as much information as possible into three or four pages of dense type in order to avoid the expense of what was then relatively highly-taxed paper. These early papers were produced only weekly, as information took a long time to circulate, and it wasn't until around the late 18th century, with a reduction in tax that newspapers began to expand both in number of pages and in size.

It was equally interesting to learn how these early newspapers served a very different audience to that of today, a paper in a city such as Sheffield serving an area that covered Yorkshire, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, because the potential readership was only that small proportion of the population who could read and could afford to buy the paper.  This also meant that the paper covered the topics of interest of that well-to-do section of the population that made up the 'gentry', the propertied and professional classes, so while 'standards' such as marriage announcements and obituaries appeared early on, they might cover 'society' people from as far away as London and rarely mention local people or events, although crime news always seems to have been a popular feature.

It wasn't until the end of the 19th century that this really changed, when the effects of the 1870  Education Act meant that by the 1890's most of the population could read. By this time local papers were truly 'local', covering events of interest to their target area andreflecting the appeal of major sporting events and the performance of local teams.

All of this was well-illustrated with examples gleaned from the archives, from which it could be seen how the way in which the public were informed changed over time, for example about things like the progress of the two major wars of the 20th century.

Today of course we have 'instant' information by radio, television and increasingly the internet, and there are real concerns that local papers are disappearing. It will be sad if this turns out to be the case, because these archives offer a tantalising glimpse into our past that could so easily be lost in an age of 'electronic records'.