Monday 28 March 2005

Little People at the Royal Court

Mention dwarfs and most people immediately think of Snow White, but dwarfs were a staple at most every royal court in history, and the courts of Britain were no exception. From the tales of Tom Thumb at the court of the legendary King Arthur to Coppernin, a German dwarf in the service of George III’s mother, Augusta, Princess of Wales, and the last court dwarf in England, dwarfs were just another part of court life in the British Isles. Unfortunately, court dwarfs are today frequently overlooked as the mere amusements of historical royalty; and while many were just that, several others managed to carve out a significant place for themselves at court and in history. Not least among these were three dwarfs (or “little people” in the modern vernacular) who started their careers at the court of King Charles I and Queen Henrietta Maria. 

The first and most well-known of these three little people was Jeffrey (or Geoffrey) Hudson, who was born in 1619 in Oakham, which is located in – of all places – England’s smallest county, Rutland, in the East Midlands. Jeffrey’s parents were both of normal size and his father was a butcher who served George Villiers, the 1^st Duke of Buckingham, as keeper of his baiting bulls. While the diminutive boy may have served as a page in the Duke of Buckingham’s household, it’s certain that he performed a more dramatic, if not demeaning, role in 1626 that changed the course of his life. 

Major events had taken place the previous year, including the death of James VI of Scotland and I of England and the succession of his son, Charles I, on March 27, 1625, and the marriage of the new king to the 15-year-old French Princess Henrietta Maria just a few months later. Some time after Charles’ coronation in February 1626, the new king and queen visited Charles’ favorite courtier, the Duke of Buckingham, at his country estate of Burley-on-the-Hill in Rutland, where they were thrown a lavish banquet. During the meal, a large cold pie – or “coffin” – was placed before the king and queen, but before the pie could be cut, an 18-inch man in a suit of armor burst out from the crust, stood before the queen and bowed.  

The little “man” was 7-year-old Jeffrey Hudson and he had played his role so well that the Duke of Buckingham gifted him to the enraptured queen, who made him a part of her entourage. But rather than simply serving as a court fool, Jeffrey became a trusted confidante of the queen and was soon dubbed “Lord Minimus” or “Sir” Jeffrey. The relationship between the two is perhaps not surprising when considered within the context of Henrietta Maria’s early life at the English court. Almost from day one, her relationships with both her adopted country and her husband were strained. As a Catholic, she was looked upon with suspicion by the government and the people of England – a situation that precluded her from being at her husband’s side during his coronation. Not that he seemed to want her there anyway. For his part, Charles appears to have found her far less interesting than the Duke of Buckingham, under whose control he largely resided. To make matters worse, early in their marriage, the king forced Henrietta Maria to send back many of her French servants, allowing her only her chaplain and two ladies-in-waiting, leaving a gap of friendly human contact for the queen that must have been filled nicely by Jeffrey.

By the time of the 1^st Duke of Buckingham’s death in 1628 – which opened the door for a better relationship between Charles and Henrietta Maria – Jeffrey was firmly established as a court favorite of the queen. During his 18 years as Henrietta Maria’s companion, Jeffrey made a name for himself in London society and had a number of unique experiences, including performing in a Ben Jonson masque and fighting in at least one duel. His status was important enough that he was even sent as an emissary to France to find a suitable mid-wife for the queen. He was also painted by a number of artists, including Sir Anthony Van Dyck, who, in 1633, painted 14-year-old Jeffrey with 24-year-old Henrietta Maria. (See the painting, entitled “Queen Henrietta Maria with Sir Jeffrey Hudson, her Dwarf,” online at http://www.nga.gov/cgi-bin/pimage?41378+0+0+gg4243.) At the time of the painting, it seems likely that Jeffrey was still only a diminutive 18 inches tall, a height he maintained until he was 30, when he suddenly grew to his full height of around three feet, nine inches. But the year that saw Jeffrey’s growth spurt, 1649, also found him in far different circumstances than when Van Dyck painted him with the queen.

In 1644, during the English Civil War, Jeffrey escaped with Henrietta Maria to France, although his service to her in her exiled court did not last out the year. History tells us that in the fall of that year, Jeffrey engaged in another duel, which, like the first, had been prompted by remarks about his size. This second critical duel was fought on horseback – a measure meant to put Jeffrey at roughly the same level as his opponent – with a man named Crofts, who apparently hadn’t taken the duel seriously and arrived armed only with a “squirt” or water gun, and ended when Jeffrey shot and killed him. As a result, he was forced to leave not only Henrietta Maria, but also France. It is here where the relatively scarce accounts of Jeffrey’s history seem to go awry, but his adventures, and misadventures, can be summed up with the following…

Between his departure from Henrietta Maria in 1644 and his death in 1682, Jeffrey fought in the English Civil War as a Captain of Horse, serving with enough valor to earn him the nickname of “Strenuous Jeffrey,” was captured by Turkish pirates and spent 25 years in slavery, returned to England and lived off of a pension provided by the 2^nd Duke of Buckingham, and, finally, in 1676, went back to London and the restored royal court before being accused of participating in a papist plot, which landed him in prison, where he died in 1682 at the age of 63. As is often the case, an ignominious end appears to have brought Jeffrey a more enduring remembrance than many of his peers. Sir Walter Scott wrote about Jeffrey and his adventures in his novel Peveril of the Peak in 1822. More recently, Oakham Ales – a brew-pub based in Peterborough but founded in Oakham – created Jeffrey Hudson Bitter (or JHB), which has won several awards, in honor of the dwarf. In addition, the six foot, nine inch author Michael Crichton ironically (and seemingly intentionally) used the pseudonym Jeffrey Hudson during the very early stages of his writing career. Modern visitors to Oakham can also see the 17^th century thatched cottage where Jeffrey was born.

In life at least, two of Charles and Henrietta Maria’s other court dwarfs fared better than poor Jeffrey, although their relative lack of infamy is reflected in the accordingly sparse information available about them today. The first of these, Richard Gibson, was also a court painter of – and I’m not making this up – miniatures. As ironic as that may sound, Richard’s artistic talent was not a mere amusement, but rather was quite good and much admired. In fact, one of his miniature paintings, a depiction of the biblical Parable of the Lost Sheep, was so valued by Charles I that the keeper of royal pictures, Abraham Van der Doort, committed suicide when he thought he had lost it.

Richard was born in Cumberland, England in 1615 and later became a page in a stately home in Mortlake (in what is now a part of the Greater London Borough of Richmond upon Thames), where his artistic talent was first discovered. The lady of the house apparently felt his talent was sufficient to place him under the instruction of a Mr. Francis Cleyn, who was the manager of the Mortlake Tapestry Works. It’s not quite clear exactly when Richard came into the court of Charles I, but when he did he served the court in the capacity of a page, at least until his artistic talent became predominant. Sometime around the mid to late 1630s, Henrietta Maria encouraged Richard to marry the third court dwarf in our story, Anne Shepherd.

Even less is known of Anne than is of Richard, but we do know that she was born in 1620 and was about the same height as her betrothed – approximately three feet, ten inches tall. Her official role at court was in the usual capacity of page, but she appears to have developed some sort of a bond with Lady Mary Villiers, daughter of the 1^st Duke of Buckingham. It was a relationship that seems to have mimicked that of Henrietta Maria and Jeffrey Hudson and, indeed, another portrait by Van Dyck entitled, “Lady Mary Villiers with Mrs. Gibson, her Dwarf,” and painted around the late 1630s, enforces this idea. (View the painting online at http://www.troplep.org/ephelia1.htm.) The similarities not only in the subject matter of the two paintings, but also in the poses of Henrietta Maria and Mary and their respective dwarfs are understandable since Mary and her siblings grew up at the court of Charles I after the death of their father in 1628. The young Mary was most certainly under the tutelage of Henrietta Maria and was known to emulate the queen in many ways.

In the wedding of the two court dwarfs, the king gave the bride away, the queen presented Anne with a diamond ring, and the poet Edmund Waller commemorated the marriage in a poem entitled, “Of the Marriage of the Dwarfs.” Part of the poem reads:

Thrice happy is that humble pair,
Beneath the level of all care!
Over whose heads those arrows fly
Of sad distrust and jealousy;                                   
Secured in as high extreme,
As if the world held none but them. (7-12)

Although the marriage of Richard and Anne appears to have been “arranged,” it was a happy one, and the couple had nine children of normal size, although only five survived to adulthood. At least three of the children inherited their father’s talents and became artists themselves, including Susan Penelope Rosse (1652-1700), who was also a painter of miniatures.

Richard must have also displayed skill in the art of diplomacy during the English Civil War and the Interregnum, since he earned the respect of Oliver Cromwell, whom he painted on several occasions. Upon the restoration, Richard returned to the royal courts – first with Charles II, then with James II, where he became drawing master to the Princesses Mary and Anne. Finally, when Princess Mary married the Prince of Orange in 1677, Richard (and, presumably, Anne) went with her and remained at her court until about 1688, shortly before she succeeded to the British throne. Richard died in London on July 23^rd, 1690 at the age of 75 and Anne died in 1709 at the age of 89 (some accounts claim she died before Richard, at the age of 80), and they were buried together at St. Paul’s Church in Covent Garden.

While Richard and Anne may have escaped the tragic fate of Jeffrey Hudson, at least one story about Richard Gibson seems to indicate that talent at the English court didn’t always consistently equate to full-blown respect. It seems that Gibson was also made to jump out of a pie, after which he had to walk across the table displaying portraits of the king and queen, which he had copied onto playing cards from Van Dyck’s paintings. Nevertheless, Richard’s legacy lives on today in the miniature paintings he created – many of which he signed using the initials D.G. for either "Dick" or "Dwarf" Gibson – as well as in a number of paintings of him, including several by Sir Peter Lely. One of Lely’s paintings, “Gibson and his Wife,” depicts Richard and Anne together and holding hands.

Tangentially, it seems that Charles and Henrietta Maria also had a court giant, William Evans, who was reportedly around eight feet tall. Each time he came to court, William carried a dwarf in his pocket because it “amused” the king. Little other information is readily available about William, but it’s possible that he was a Welshman who lived between 1599 and 1634 and was originally a porter to Charles I’s father, King James I of England. It’s also possible that the dwarf he carried in his pocket was Jeffrey Hudson, since at least one or two contemporary images existed of William and Jeffrey together.

Perhaps the final irony in all of this is that Charles I is listed in the Guinness Book of World’s Records as Britain’s shortest king (Queen Victoria holds the record for the shortest British monarch). Most accounts suggest that he was between five feet and five feet, four inches tall. Henrietta Maria was also short, with most estimates placing her at five feet or under. Although many people will point to the fact that, in general, people were shorter “back then,” both the king and queen were still remarkably short for their time.

As for Charles and Henrietta Maria’s three court dwarfs, they may have gotten their places at the royal court thanks to their unusually small size, but they certainly made their own places in history through their adventures and talents. In the end, the motto of Rutland, Jeffrey Hudson’s birthplace, perhaps sums up their stories the best – “multum in parvo” or “much in little.”

Until next time, 

- Tori Van Orden Martínez

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For more information on Jeffrey Hudson, I recommend, Lord Minimus: The Extraordinary Life of Britain’s Smallest Man, by Nick Page.

I also recommend viewing the following portraits: 

• A portrait of Jeffrey Hudson at the National Portrait Gallery
• A portrait of Richard Gibson at the National Portrait Gallery
• One of Richard Gibson’s miniatures at the National Portrait Gallery and several others at the University of Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum