A very warm welcome was given to Mistress Valerie and her husband Ian as the speaker at our last coffee morning on 19th October, Valerie gave an in depth talk on Tudor Times and gave the group lots of interesting facts about living during that time period, she arrived in traditional female Tudor dress. Surprisingly, we were told that the average age that male and female lived to during this period was 65, and that the average height of the male was 5 feet 7 inches and for females 5 feet 2 inches.
Well known sayings that we know today came from that period,i.e. straight laced, derived from how a woman laced her clothing. A frog in the throat, when a frog was actually used to cure a sore throat. Bringing home the bacon, Upper crust, Rock a bye baby, Rule of thumb and countless more where explained.
The climate and weather changed dramatically during the 1500’s, from the Thames freezing over to severe heat with very little rain for 9 months, this being followed by floods, and amazingly a 4 year drought during which time horsemen rode their horses along the Thames river bed, the hot summers were followed by storms with extremely large hailstones.
The population increased in London by 350% from 1520 to 1603 creating illnesses and plagues, we were told how the doctors known then as Quacks dealt with these situations, and also how Astrology was important during the period.
Valerie also brought along some props from the 1500’s which were passed around and finally ended with questions and answers from the group.