From The Mind of Merc - Historical Pet Peeves

Sometimes I find my mind wandering over various eclectic topics and occasionally I am inspired to write some of them down. Today I was thinking over the errors that are made in films in the name of dramatic license.

Could I just clarify something? Dramatic license as I understand it means emphasising an emotion or event to make it more dramatic - it does not mean altering history so that it's a better fit with the writer's plot line.

Here are just a few examples of (often repeated) mistakes:

• When an actor with dark or brown hair is cast as Henry VIII. Especially when a redheaded girl is cast as Princess Elizabeth – hint: she didn’t get it from her mother
• When Catherine of Aragon is portrayed as having dark hair - check the portraits, people!
• When someone says Richard III murdered his nephews in the Tower - please give me one good reason why he would.  (And anyone who says they stood in his way please go and look up the Titulus Regius)
• When a precise figure is given for the victims/survivors of Titanic (given the number of stowaways and no-shows it is impossible to create a correct, exact figure)
• When someone says the TV series 'The Tudors' is historically accurate (why this point is wrong would take a whole blog to explain but I will just some it up in one word: Margaret!)
• When someone says Edward VI died aged 16 - he was born in Oct 1537 and died in Jul 1553 - you do the math. Also when they say Edward was a sickly child - he was a perfectly healthy child who contracted Tuberculosis in his teens. (Any ill health as a baby would have been commented on by ambassadors)
• When Mary Queen of Scots is referred to as Bloody Mary (Oh - so that’s not the queen who had almost 300 Protestants burned at the stake) Also when Mary Queen of Scots is portrayed with a Scottish accent - even though she spent the first 18 years of her life in France
• When 1501 is given as Anne Boleyn's birth year (this is a relatively new one but important - for further details see below *)
• When Anne Boleyn is claimed to be the older sister (ok - so this can't be proved but there are several pointers which suggest Mary was older - the most striking being that she was married off first)
• When it is suggested that Shakespeare didn’t write his own plays (even though all his contemporaries said he did). Also when it is suggested that Shakespeare was an unparalleled genius (as in BBC's Dr Who) – he wrote a lot more plays than his rivals – this doesn’t make him a genius, it just makes him prolific
• When Jack the Ripper is blamed for the death of Martha Tabram – different MO, guys
• When Marie Antoinette is credited with saying ‘Let them eat cake’ (when actually it was her mother Marie Therese)
• When people think the film 'Braveheart' is historically accurate - sure – had an affair with a 5-year-old, did he?
• When Thomas Becket is referred to as Thomas á Becket (guess again)
• When Queen Victoria is credited as having said ‘We are not amused’ (no record of her ever doing so) - hence the title of this blog

* Anne Boleyn birth year is mentioned by William Camden as being 1507 (and, before people start suggesting that a 1 was mistaken for a 7, it's written in Roman numerals). Jane Dormer, the Duchess of Feria also remarks in her memoirs that when Anne was executed in 1536 "she was not twenty-nine years of age"

From the Mind of Merc - Jack the Ripper's Diary

Sometimes I find my mind wandering over various eclectic topics and occasionally I am inspired to write some of them down. Today’s topic is the diary of 'Jack the Ripper'.

When I was at university, my final year dissertation was a psychoanalysis of a text which had been sensationalised as ‘The Diary of Jack the Ripper’. My project tutor advised me to refer to it in my report as the diary of James Maybrick - who was the purported author. Years later I am even more grateful for the advice as, after further consideration, I have come to the conclusion that - while I do believe that James Maybrick wrote the diary - I don’t believe that James Maybrick was Jack the Ripper.

There are some similarities between Maybrick and the Ripper which would explain his submission as a possible culprit. For example, he was known to keep a mistress in London – specifically in the Whitechapel area – who he visited on occasion whenever his business took him to London which means that he would have been familiar with the locality and its news and happenings.

Following his wife’s perceived betrayal after she indulged in an affair with a local businessman, Alfred Brierley, his behaviour is reported by those close to him to have displayed signs of intense indignation and outrage – possibly augmented by his steadily increasing dependence on arsenic which Maybrick had become addicted to following treatment for malaria. This could have led to an elevated sense of injustice, which could theoretically be a motive for the murders.

The final similarity comes from looking at certain examples from a collection of contemporary documents known as the ‘Letters from Hell’. When compared with the syntax and handwriting of the diary it becomes clear that some of them bear a striking resemblance particularly evident in the use of the phrase ‘ha ha’ which is often used in the diary. All of which suggests a link between Maybrick and the Ripper.

Yet none of these provides conclusive evidence that Maybrick was the culprit.

Firstly, he is hardly likely to have been alone in having business or a mistress in London and the fact that he did is hardly definitive proof that he was indeed the killer.  He is also unlikely to have been the only cuckold to seek a sense of retribution on his supposed offender and to have done so without choosing to exert this ire on random strangers. Also due to the volume of Letters from Hell received during the Ripper’s reign of terror it is clear that he was not the only perpetrator of these either.

There are also discrepancies between the diary and what is now known of the facts of the case such as recent discussion over the accuracy of including Liz Stride – the third canonical victim – in the list and the fact that the diary mentions two murders which are not linked with nor attributed to Jack the Ripper.

Also, it must considered that his abuse of the drug arsenic would have seriously impacted both his mental and physical capabilities eventually to the point where it would have to be questioned whether he would have been able to commit the crimes.

Instead, what I believe is that James Maybrick thought he was the Ripper and completed a diary to this end or in this disturbed state of mind. This would explain the similarity between the diary and some of the Letters from Hell as being sent by someone who believed or who had convinced themselves that they were the culprit (as in a False Confession) or even - out of a sense of misogyny from his perceived sense of betrayal - wanted to be the Ripper. This theory would also tie in nicely with other factors including explaining his possible mistakes regarding specific facts of the case and the debilitating effects of his continuing arsenic abuse which can include headaches, vomiting, stomach pains, convulsions and delirium or confusion which are, in fact, mentioned in the diary.

There is of course the issue of the diary itself to consider which has at various times since its discovery been either lauded as genuine or condemned as a hoax. There are many factors which supposedly support either side of the argument.

For example, those who detract the diary as a fake focus for the most part on the supposed questionable authenticity of the ink and the paper, which many believe are not contemporary with the killings or even with the Victorian period. This is, however, not entirely true as it has been subsequently proven that both were around at the time although perhaps not in as much abundance or as popularly or commonly used as other types of the same materials. However, this cannot consequently conclusively prove the diary to be a fake.

Another cause for concern is the missing pages at the front of the diary which appear to have been torn out and which doubters attribute to its forger removing previous ‘modern’ entries before creating the fake. However the missing pages do not prove this supposition, nor do they imply that Maybrick was not the author as they could just as easily be the actions of a disturbed individual who is seeking to eradicate his past (entries) as the effects of his drug abuse take hold or perhaps seeking to disassociate his current life from events of his past after the infidelity of his wife is revealed and his world – as he sees it – changes. It could also be said to fit with Maybrick’s gradual decline in health.

The final nail in the coffin of authenticity for the diary is supposedly that its finder - Michael Barrett - later retracted his affirmation that the diary was Jack the Ripper’s or even James Maybrick’s and ‘confessed’ to having created it himself. Aside from the issue of whether he was capable of doing such a thing, at the time of this statement the effects of the stress caused by being the focus of attention as owner and finder of such a remarkable and questionable diary had begun to take their toll on him and would eventually lead to his suffering a nervous breakdown. Any statement made under such conditions or in this state would have to be viewed as questionable and consequently do not disprove the diary’s identity or make his original statement any less plausible.

He was also alone in making the retraction as his wife continued to uphold the claim as to its identity and Barrett would himself at a later date retract his repudiation of the diary.

In support of the authenticity of the diary you have the fact that, unlike what is commonly believed, the ink and paper used were contemporary for the time – which disproves any doubts based on this fact.

Also, if one were to make a fake, why would one choose Maybrick as the focus of the diary? Maybrick was an insignificant Liverpudlian businessman with no previous link to Jack the Ripper or the Whitechapel murders and is surely not the most obvious target for a fake. Other more notorious or notable suspects could just as easily have been selected - such as Montague John Druitt or Frances Tumblety - so why pick Maybrick unless of course he wasn’t chosen to be the author but was in fact the actual author.

Finally, there are the previously mentioned similarities between the syntax and handwriting in the diary and certain samples of the letters from Hell. All of which to me suggests that the diary is a genuine Victorian artefact and that Maybrick is correctly credited as its author.

However, as I say I believe the diary is Maybrick’s but not the Ripper’s as, personally, when looking for the true culprit in the Jack the Ripper crimes, I think more attention should be paid to the artefact which is referred to as the Lusk letter. This letter was sent to the head of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee, George Lusk, and was famously accompanied a piece of human kidney which supposedly belonged to Catherine Eddowes - the Ripper’s fourth victim.

Analysis of the kidney showed that its owner had suffered from Bright’s Disease - which Catherine Eddowes was known to have had – and, in addition to this, the length of renal artery still attached to the kidney matched the length that was missing from Catherine Eddowes’ body. This for me provides conclusive proof that the kidney was indeed hers and consequently implies that the sender must have been the killer.

Also, as the syntax and the handwriting of the letter do not match either the diary or the letters containing the phrase ‘ha ha’, I think this shows that James Maybrick did not write them and consequently cannot have been the killer.

Sadly, without the possibility of handwriting comparison with the Lusk letter and that of possible suspects, and with so many facts and evidence concealed or lost in the mists of time, it is unlikely that the real identity of Jack the Ripper will ever be established or comprehensively proven. But maybe by eliminating false suspects we can take a step closer to a possible conclusion.