edenburned: 2013

Last night was fairly restless, largely due to some dude screaming in the street for what felt like forever, and the movements of the other people in and out of the dorm room, which often involved them failing to pull close the door behind them which, as it is a fire door, closes very slowly when left to its own devices, letting in all the clamorous noise of the staircase and common areas.

However, I did manage to get up in time to join the free walking tour when it left the hostel at 10. We were led to two other hostels and then to the tour meeting point by a fellow Canadian. Once there (at Covent Gardens) we met up with our tour guide proper, a lovely English man named Alan, and head out on our tour.

Brace yourselves. Theres about to be a lot of history coming your way.

Covent Gardens was once a large green area filled with gardens and crops which divided the City of London and the City of Westminster (fun fact: I have in fact spend a large portion of my time in London not in the City of London proper, but the City of Westminster).

The Gardens were tended to by the nuns of the Westminster Convent, however, during Henry VIII's attempt to eradicate Catholicism from England, the land was seized and granted to the Earls of Bedford in 1552. Since then it has been largely a market place, currently operating as a tourist location containing cafes, pubs, small shops, and a craft market.

From Covent Garden we walked up to Trafalgar Square.

Trafalgar Square is a public space and tourist attraction in central London, England, United Kingdom, built around the area formerly known as Charing Cross. It is situated in the borough of the City of Westminster. At its centre is Nelson's Column, which is guarded by four lion statues at its base. There are a number of commemorative statues and sculptures in the square, while one plinth, left empty since it was built in 1840, The Fourth Plinth, has been host to contemporary art since 1999. The square is also used for political demonstrations and community gatherings, such as the celebration of New Year's Eve.

See the blue cock for the example of contemporary art (a feminist piece by a German artist, the piece criticizes male posturing). It is especially appropriate considering how Admiral Lord Nelson - whose statue dominates the square - died (standing openly on the bow of the HMS Victory, awards and distinctions pinned proudly to his chest, in the middle of the Battle of Trafalgar).

The name of the square of course commemorates the Battle of Trafalgar, a British naval victory of the Napoleonic Wars over France which took place on 21 October 1805 off the coast of Cape Trafalgar. 27 British ships sailed against 33 French and Spanish ships - the Franco-Spanish fleet lost 22 ships, the British lost zero.

During the guide's explanation of this piece of British history, we were stood in front of a house covered in Canadian flags - the Canada House, part of the High Commission of Canada in London. The Canadian High Commission in London is Canada's oldest diplomatic posting, having been established in 1880. Canada House became the site mission in 1923. The posting of Sir John Rose in 1869 as a personal representative of Sir John A. Macdonald, which turned into a posting as high commissioner with Alexander Tilloch Galt in 1880, began the practice of members of the Commonwealth sending high commissioners rather than ambassadors to each other, which continues to this day.

From Trafalgar Square we headed down to The Athenaeum, a gentlemen's club, founded in 1824, which counts among its members Winston Churchill, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Joseph Conrad, Charles Darwin, Charles Dickens, TS Eliot, and Thomas Hardy.

In 2002 the members graciously voted to admit women. Wasn't that nice of them?

The club costs thousands of pounds to join, and is the typical classist, sexist, white rich boys club. Whatever.

There were several statues near the club (there are several statues near any place you go in London), including one of the Duke of York, who is said to have inspired this particular rhyme:

Oh, The grand old Duke of York,

He had ten thousand men;

He marched them up to the top of the hill,

And he marched them down again.

And when they were up, they were up,

And when they were down, they were down,

And when they were only half-way up,

They were neither up nor down.

This was due to his military failures as during the Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland in August 1799. However, he instigated great reform in the British army, and was well loved, to the point where, upon his death, all of the soldiers in the army went without pay for a day to fund the building of that particular statue.

The bronze post things above were apparently the first street lamps in the city.

We then headed up Pall Mall to St James's Palace, one of London's oldest palaces. Though no monarch has resided there for almost two centuries, it remains the official residence elf the sovereign, and the most senior royal palace in the UK. When it was built, the greatest way to show your wealth was to build out - if you were sensible, you should build a small base with a great big fireplace, then build up, so the entire building wold be heated with that one fire. However, if you wanted to show off, you would build out, thus necessitating lots of fireplaces (and lots of money) to heat the building - to the point where chimney pots were seen as a status symbol, and people began putting them up without an attached fireplace, to make themselves seem more affluent than they were (this changed, of course, when they began levying tax based on the number of chimney pots a person had).

We were then relegated to the full, sordid, and bloody history of Henry VIII. Henry, is, of course, most well known for his six wives, but is far more historically significant for creating his own church - the Church of England, and bringing Anglicanism (Protestantism) to the majority of England (whether they wanted it or not).

My tour guide threw in a couple of Beyonce references over the tour, my favourite of which was, undoubtably, that Anne Boleyn was like Beyonce Knowles - she knew "verily, if thou doest wantist it, thou must place a ring on it"

Henry had three children, the first of which, Edward VI, did not live past 17. He was succeeded by his older sister, Mary, a Catholic, who brought Catholicism back to England in a rather vicious manner, earning her the nickname Bloody Mary. However, her reign was short lived, and she was succeeded by her younger half-sister, Elizabeth I. Who, obviously, was Elizabeth I. You may have heard of her.

Known as the Virgin Queen, Elizabeth never married, and upon her death England thus asked King James VI of Scotland to come down and take over the English throne as well (his mother, Mary, Queen of Scots, had been executed by Elizabeth for attempting just that). However, he did, becoming King James I of England.

Leaving St James's Place, we headed up to Buckingham Palace. We just missed the changing of the guards, but they passed us on their way from Buckingham to St James's Palace (as it is winter, they are not wearing the typical red, but the warmer grey overcoat - though it was sunny, the wind was making it extremely chilly).

Buckingham is the official London residence and principal workplace of the monarch. The building was originally a large townhouse belonging to the Duke of Buckingham, however, when George III took a fancy to it, it ended up in the hands of the monarchy, becoming the official royal palace with the accession of Queen Victoria in 1837. The East front was added in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, that being the most famous side of the building.

Much of modern London can be credited to Queen Victoria, who became a national icon during her reign, which was characterized by industrial, cultural, political, scientific, and military change within the United Kingdom, and great expansion of the British Empire. She is also England's longest ruling monarch, with 63 years and seven months (also the longest reign of any female monarch in history). However, Elizabeth II is set to overtake her, currently being 61 years and 10 months into her reign.

Given the Queen Mother lived to be 101, my tour guide seemed fairly confident that Elizabeth II will live to be at least 150 or so.

While there have been a fair number of break ins to Buckingham Palace, one of the most notorious is the Michael Fagan incident in 1982.

The wikipedia page tells the story differently, but my tour guide's story was funnier, so I'm gonna relate that one:

Michael was a homeless drunk living in the park next to the Palace. One night he decided that he had had enough of sleeping rough, there ought to be room in the palace for him. So he broke in, evading the guards, and wandered around for a considerable amount of time, until he reached the pantry, where he found (and summarily drank) a bottle of wine. Quite hammered, he continued to wander around the palace. At this point he had tripped a huge number of the brand new security alarms just installed. However, the guard at the time, seeing a large number of alarms going off all at once in a part of the palace far removed from any valuables, logically concluded that no burglar would be that incompetent, and the alarm must be faulty. He called his supervisor, who agreed, and told him to restart the system, which would take some time.

Michael was still wandering around at that point, and, having broken a glass ashtray, was also now bleeding all over the place. He had decided he had enough though, and decided to try and find a bed.

There are 775 rooms in Buckingham Palace.

Guess which one he ended up in?

The Queen was quite alarmed to wake up and find a strange, drunk Irishman sat on the bottom of her bed, so she of course pushed her panic button. And pushed. And pushed. And pushed.

And pushed.

Not knowing what else to do, and being, of course, infallibly English, she struck up an extremely awkward conversation with Michael. At once point he asked if she happened to have a cigarette. She informed him no, not on me, but she could call down for some if he liked? He agreed, and she called down to the butler, asking for a pack of cigarettes and an ashtray. He replied, no offence ma'am, but its 4am and you don't smoke. She replied, yes, they're not for me, they're for the bloody drunk Irishman sat on the end of my bed.

That was when the guards came.

However, because at that point crown land, which is legally available to every citizen of the UK, he could not be charged with trespassing, but was instead charged with the theft of the bottle of wine (it was not until 2007 that breaking into the Queen's bedroom became a criminal offense).

Leaving Buckingham, we headed down to the Parliament buildings. This square was where the beach Volleyball was played in the Summer Olympics (fun fact). Called the Horse Guards parade, it is the site of the annual ceremonies of Trooping of the Colour, which commemorates the monarch's official birthday, and Beating Retreat.

You might recognize that balcony from pictures of the Queen waving at people during her birthday celebrations.

Horse Guards Parade was formerly the site of the Palace of Whitehall's tiltyard, where tournaments (including jousting) were held in the time of Henry VIII. It was also the scene of annual celebrations of the birthday of Queen Elizabeth I. The area has been used for a variety of reviews, parades and other ceremonies since the 17th century.

It was once the Headquarters of the British Army. Until they realized it wasn't super practical to have an entire army positioned in the centre of a very large city.

The square was blocked off after the IRA drove a white van into it and proceeded to shoot mortar shells into the government district.

10 Downing Street, the official residence of the Prime Minister.

The ugly building on the corner was a bunker built during WWII as a last place of retreat - as it never came to that, it was used as a centre for military intelligence during the war - and is now where the thousands of CCTV camera's films are sent for review. London, if you were not aware, is the most watched city in the world. Walking around today, I was likely caught on camera upwards of 300 times.

We then walked past the entrance of Winston Churchill's war rooms. He was both a complete bastard and also one of the greatest wartime leaders of the 20th century. People are complicated. He was funny though. Fed up with his misogyny, Nancy Astor, one of the first women in the British government, commented "Sir, if you were my husband, I would give you poison", to which Churchill responded "Madam, if I were your husband, I would take it".

We then proceeded up to Big Ben. Fun fact, the tower, formerly called Clock Tower, is now in fact named The Elizabeth Tower - renamed after Queen Elizabeth II on her Diamond Jubilee - the bell itself is what is called Big Ben. I told our tour guide not to tell the rest of the world that, we all think the whole thing is Big Ben (Big Ben, is named as such after the man largely in charge of its construction, who was rather a rather rotund man named Benjamin).

Our tour guide then informed us that the statues in this particular area are all people who have had a significant impact on democracy (hence the random Abe Lincoln).

We were then regaled with a full retelling of the Gunpowder Plot, which I'm going to directly quote the wikipedia for, because I have typed out rather a lot of information today:

The Gunpowder Plot of 1605, in earlier centuries often called the Gunpowder Treason Plot or the Jesuit Treason, was a failed assassination attempt against King James I of England and VI of Scotland by a group of provincial English Catholics led by Robert Catesby.

The plan was to blow up the House of Lords during the State Opening of England's Parliament on 5 November 1605, as the prelude to a popular revolt in the Midlands during which James's nine-year-old daughter, Princess Elizabeth, was to be installed as the Catholic head of state. Catesby may have embarked on the scheme after hopes of securing greater religious tolerance under King James had faded, leaving many English Catholics disappointed. The famous Guy Fawkes, who had 10 years of military experience fighting in the Spanish Netherlands in suppression of the Dutch Revolt, was given charge of the explosives.

The plot was revealed to the authorities in an anonymous letter sent to William Parker, 4th Baron Monteagle, on 26 October 1605. During a search of the House of Lords at about midnight on 4 November 1605, Fawkes was discovered guarding 36 barrels of gunpowder—enough to reduce the House of Lords to rubble—and arrested. Most of the conspirators fled from London as they learned of the plot's discovery, trying to enlist support along the way. Several made a stand against the pursuing Sheriff of Worcester and his men at Holbeche House; in the ensuing battle Catesby was one of those shot and killed. At their trial on 27 January 1606, eight of the survivors, including Fawkes, were convicted and sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered.

This particular method of execution involves being hung until just before death, cut down, castrated, disembowelled, and then pulled apart limb-from-limb by four horses.

Britian.

Although weakened by his torture, Fawkes managed to jump from the gallows and break his neck, thus avoiding the agony of the gruesome latter part of his execution. Angry that Fawkes had escaped full punishment, James had his body burned, leading to the tradition of Bonfire Night, in which towns and villages all over England set off fireworks for the explosion that never happened, and children make effigies of Guy Fawkes to burn on massive bonfires.

Britian.

The less heavily decorative building was in the front was what formed parliament at the time, and the target of their attack, which would have destroyed most of Westminster Abby as well.

The tour ended at this point, though most of us headed into a nearby pub for a late lunch. I then headed over to the Tower of London with two girls from the Netherlands, though we didn't go inside (£17!), but just walked around the outside, seeing the Tower Bridge and the Traitor's Gate.

The Tower of London was much less grim than I was expecting, given that most of what I know of its history is its role as a prison and a place where people were tortured. However, it is actually a Palace and Fortress, and not half as scary as I was expecting.