Accidents: Oh, the Humanity!

By Delia DeLeest

It was the equivalent of riding in a cruise ship in the air. You could take an airplane if you wanted to, but it was so much more elegant and comfortable taking a dirigible. The most famous dirigibles were made by Zeppelin and its newest ship was called The Hindenburg.

Zeppelin was very proud of its ships safety history. Its flagship, the LZ127 Graf Zeppelin, during its nine year career, traveled 1.5 million miles (590 flights) with a perfect passenger safety record. The Hindenburg had already made its maiden voyage from Frankfurt, Germany to Rio de Janeiro back in March of 1936, and then it was heading to Manchester, New Jersey. It was time to land in its final destination.

It was 7:25pm on May 6, 1937. Though it was capable of handling seventy passengers, it was only half full, with a passenger list of thirty-six people being serviced by a crew of sixty-one. Its return trip was fully booked, with many people were heading to Europe for the coronation of England's new king, George VI. At 803 feet long and 103 feet in diameter, the huge, silver ship was beautiful.

Bad weather, forced the ship to circle the landing field for three hours before it began its final descent. Times were sure different then. Can you imagine the fuss people would make now days if they were forced to circle the airport for three hours before their plane landed? But, then again, The Hindenburg was a whole lot more comfortable than today's 747s.

The crew had finally dropped the mooring lines to the grounds men below when disaster struck. Nobody is sure what exactly happened, though there are many theories, including sabotage, lightning, and incendiary paint. The most common conclusion is that a combination of static electricity, created by the bad weather, and a leak in a cell of hydrogen--the lighter-than-air gas used to float the mighty ship.

The whys and hows don't really matter now. What is known is that at 7:25pm, as it was landing, The Hindenburg burst into flames. The fire started in the rear of the vessel--whether on the port or starboard side is debated, as there were conflicting accounts--and quickly spread through the entire ship. In about thirty-five seconds from start to finish, the entire ship was engulfed in flames and crashed to the ground.

Though hydrogen is relatively harmless on its own, it becomes highly flammable when mixed with oxygen. Within ninety seconds of it igniting, the ship's entire supply had been burned up. The rest of the ship burned for several hours after the crash. With an outer skin of cotton cloth covered with a plasticized lacquer, The Hindenburg was a firebomb looking for a place to happen.

In my eyes, the most fascinating aspect of the entire Hindenburg disaster is the low fatality count. Though it took only about forty-five seconds for the entire crash and burn, only thirteen passengers were killed, with the majority of those seated on the starboard side of the craft. Along with the passengers, there were twenty-two Hindenburg crew members killed and one man on the ground crew--in all, slightly more than one third of the number of people traveling on the Hindenburg, and an unknown number of people on the ground both working as crew and spectators (the landing of the mighty Zeppelin was a big event, even without its subsequent crash).

Though there were at least five moving picture cameras at the scene, none of them was trained on the vessel when it burst into flames. The famous Herbert Morrison radio broadcast is the only live record of the actual event. His commentary later became the first recorded radio news report to be nationally broadcast by NBC. Later, Morrison's poignant report was streamed with video footage of the catastrophe taken both before and after the disaster and makes for some incredibly heart-touching viewing.


So, what really happened to The Hindenburg? No one will probably ever know. But, what we do know is that the tragedy undermined the public's confidence in the huge airships, that along with the development of Pan American Airlines, ushered in the end of the age of huge passenger airships. In 1987, on the fiftieth anniversary of the tragedy, a bronze plaque surrounded by a chain was dedicated at the scene of the crash at Lakehurst Navel Air Station.

Delia DeLeest is fascinated by all things 1920s. She suspects she was once a flapper or, more probably, a bootlegger in a previous life. Her third 1920s era book, NOT LOOKING FOR TROUBLE, is being released from The Wild Rose Press at the end of October.

Tragic Tales: The Elephant Man

By Jennifer Linforth

As soon as I type his name readers will know the tragedy of this man. An image will pop into their heads and they will nod, but it was not his outward appearance that made him a tragic tale of the 19th Century, but the brilliant mind the world would never embrace.

Joseph Carey Merrick, the "Elephant Man."

As a child, Mr. Merrick's story was the first that fascinated me. Like all children I was drawn to the difference setting him apart. As I grew older I understood more about him and he was far more than a deformity and medical marvel.

He was a quiet, brilliant man--though many assumed otherwise.

His doctor, Frederick Treves, first met Merrick at a freak show. His descriptions of what he saw of Merrick are horrifying and fascinating. (This I had a particular interest in, for it is said Gaston Leroux may have been influenced by Merrick's sideshow years when he crafted The Phantom of the Opera.) But the tragedy lies here in what Treves writes of the man behind the monster:

I supposed that Merrick was an imbecile and he had been an imbecile from birth. The fact that his face was incapable of expression, that his speech was a mere spluttering, and his attitude that of one whose mind was void of all emotions and concerns gave ground for this belief.

From: The Joseph Carey Merrick Tribute Website

This is an easy thing to assume for times have not changed. The world is still judged by outward appearance (Does anyone recall Susan Boyle and the audience reaction when she first walked on stage and spoke?) Furthermore Treves shows us this:

It was not until I came to know that Merrick was highly intelligent, that he possessed an acute sensibility and--worse than all--a romantic imagination that I realized the overwhelming tragedy of his life.

From: The Joseph Carey Merrick Tribute Website

That part of Merrick's life echoed with me again while writing The Madrigals, for Gaston Leroux wrote of Erik, the horribly deformed but genius Phantom, "...all he wanted was to be loved for himself."

For a topic on tragic tales I could have gone into Merrick's life, what he looked like and how he lived. Most of the world knows this. Instead I went with how he made me feel. His story is just a brilliant tale--the tragedy lies in the assumptions left in its wake.

Tragic Tales: Lady Jane Grey

By Lisa Marie Wilkinson

English history is filled with tragic tales of political pawns and religious martyrs. The markers along the path of the bloody Tudor dynasty include individuals like Anne Boleyn, whose ambition to become Queen of England proved to be the instrument of her own destruction, and Lady Jane Grey, who succumbed to the executioner’s axe after being pressured to accept a crown she did not covet.

The daughter of Henry Grey, the Duke of Suffolk, and Lady Frances Brandon, Jane was the grand niece of Henry VIII of England and cousin to the ill-fated young King Edward VI, son of Henry and Jane Seymour.

Jane was an unassuming young woman who excelled at her studies and aspired to please her demanding parents. Subject to treatment by Lady Frances that would be condemned as abuse by modern standards, Jane once told a visitor:

"For when I am in the presence of either Father or Mother, whether I speak, keep silence, sit, stand or go, eat, drink, be merry or sad, be sewing, playing, dancing, or doing anything else, I must do it as it were in such weight, measure and number, even so perfectly as God made the world; or else I am so sharply taunted, so cruelly threatened, yes presently sometimes with pinches, nips and bobs and other ways...that I think myself in hell."

Jane's father sought the most politically advantageous marriage possible for his daughter and eventually settled upon Lord Guildford Dudley, whose father--the Duke of Northumberland--was considered the most powerful man in England, as Jane's prospective husband. Jane balked at the arrangement, but married Dudley at the insistence of her parents on May 21, 1553.

When King Edward VI lay dying, Northumberland persuaded the doomed young monarch to set aside his half sisters Mary and Elizabeth in favor of Jane Grey because Jane was a devout Protestant. Without Northumberland's interference, the crown would have passed to Mary, the Catholic elder daughter of Henry VIII upon Edward's death. Instead, in a will drawn upon his deathbed and in his "Device of the Succession," Edward effectively left the throne to his cousin, Lady Jane Grey, who, like Edward, was a staunch Protestant.

After months of illness, changes in Edward's condition had been closely monitored and reported. In anticipation of Edward’s death, Mary decided to relocate to Kenninghall in Norfolk, where she would be surrounded by supporters.

Edward died at age 15 on July 6, 1553. Northumberland had to act quickly before all England learned of Edward's death if he was to become the father-in-law of the Queen of England. Not the least of his tasks was convincing a reluctant Jane to accept the crown. Jane had fainted upon hearing the news that Edward had died and named her as his successor.

Northumberland sent soldiers to capture Mary as she fled north, but his attempt to prevent Mary from reaching her Catholic supporters was unsuccessful. Mary reached Kenninghall on July 9th, where she confirmed her brother’s death, gathered her followers around her and promptly declared herself Queen of England.

Northumberland had Lady Jane Grey proclaimed Queen of England and Ireland after she was sequestered in the Tower of London as was customary for monarchs awaiting coronation. Jane marched in a coronation procession through the streets of London on July 10, 1553.

Unfortunately for Jane, when Mary raised her standard as queen, she had the support of 15,000 men. As the eldest daughter of Henry VIII, her countrymen felt Mary had a valid claim to the throne, and the people soon began to rally around her, buoyed by her promise to make no changes to the religious structure of England, a falsehood which earned her Protestant as well as Catholic supporters.

When Mary demanded that Jane renounce her title, Jane willingly did as requested, explaining that she had only accepted the title out of respect for her parents and her father-in-law, who had pressured her to accept the role. Mary was proclaimed the Queen of England on July 19th amid great celebration, while Jane and her husband were imprisoned in the Tower of London. Jane's rule of England--nine days--was the shortest in England's history.

The Duke of Northumberland was executed on August 22, 1553 for treason, and the following month, Parliament named Mary the rightful queen and declared Jane a usurper.

Jane and Guildford Dudley were tried on charges of high treason on November 13, 1553 and sentenced to death. It is widely believed that Mary intended to spare Jane's life, but when Jane's father participated in Wyatt's Rebellion in February of 1554--a revolt against the rule of Queen Mary--he sealed his daughter’s fate. Wyatt's Rebellion was a popular rebellion protesting Mary's planned marriage to Prince Philip of Spain.

Facing pressure from the Spanish court to put an end to the unrest by removing the Protestant threat, Mary signed the orders for execution and both Jane and Dudley were beheaded on February 12, 1554. Dudley was executed first in a public event at Tower Hill, and then Jane was taken out to Tower Green inside the Tower of London and beheaded in private. Private executions were usually reserved for members of royalty, therefore Mary's order for a private execution was viewed as a sign of respect for her cousin. Jane was just 16.

Lady Jane Grey and Guildford Dudley are buried in the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula, the parish church of the Tower of London.

Tragic Tales: How Poppaea Sabina Thought She'd Conquered the World

By Michelle Styles

Herein lies a tale of the perils of being a WAG in Rome.

In the early days of the Roman Empire, in 30 AD, a young woman named Poppaea Sabina grew up around the Pompeii area. The exact location of her family house has been lost but it is supposed to be the House of Menander. Her family had wealth and she had extreme beauty with flame-coloured hair and a winning manner. She had also inherited her father's drive. Some commentators like Josephus describe her as a deeply religious woman, possibly with Jewish sympathies. But others such as Tacitus describe her as the ultimate schemer.

Her father was an ambitious man from a humble background. According to Tacitus, her mother was one of the most beautiful women of her generation. In 47 her mother committed suicide, the innocent victim of the intrigues of the Empress Valeria Messalina. Her mother had been accused of having an adulterous relationship. It is not known how this affected the 17-year-old Poppaea Sabina, as she had been married to Rufrius Crispinus when she was 14.

Rufrius was a much older man of humble origin, possibly Egyptian, who had risen to become head of the praetorian guard under Claudius and was a great friend of the Empress Messalina. Poppaea bore him a son before they divorced. The reasons for the divorce are not known but Poppea was determined to succeed. For her next marriage, she married Otho, the boyhood friend of Nero. Seven years younger than Poppaea, Nero in the early years of his reign was considered to be a good emperor and indeed the hope of a new dawning of Roman brilliance.

There is speculation that she married Otho so that she could become close to Nero, as she was a girl with an eye on the main prize. Otho was bandy-legged and had a horror of hair on his body, but he was a close friend of Nero's. Other accounts state that Otho brought her to Nero's notice when he boasted of his wife's beauty. It doesn't matter how the affair started but it did. And it was an all-consuming affair. In 58 Poppaea became Nero's acknowledged mistress. Otho was divorced and sent away to govern Luisitania. Poppaea now had the world at her feet, but the position of a mistress is precariously and Poppaea wanted more. She wanted her younger lover to prove his devotion to her rather than to his mother. She encouraged him to think for himself and to live like an Emperor should do.

Nero's chief claim to the Roman throne was through his then-wife, Octavia, the daughter of the late Emperor Claudius. In 59, due to Poppea's urging, Nero divorced Octavia and broke with his mother Aggrippina. Some historians claim that Poppaea organised the murder so she could marry Nero and consolidate her own power. Others state there were political motives and Poppaea was an easy target.

Nero and Poppaea married and she became empress. Nero gave her the title of Augusta after their daughter was born. Not bad for a girl from Pompeii who didn't have any connections. Having achieved her ambition, Poppea set about spending the entire Roman treasury. What is the point of being Empress unless you can flaunt it? However, this tale does not have a Happily Ever After.

Her triumph did not last as Nero began to spiral into madness. She began to worry about losing her looks and having another take her place. She and Nero fought bitterly over many things, including the time he spent at the races away from her. Things came to a head in 65, when heavily pregnant, Poppaea began to scream at Nero. A knock-down drag-out fight occurred. He apparently kicked her in the stomach. Although some accounts state he repeatedly jumped on her stomach until she was dead, modern historians think she might have had a late miscarriage. Shortly afterward Nero had her son by Rufrius put to death.

After Poppaea's death, Nero descended into complete madness, including dressing up a male slave as Poppaea and pretending that she remained alive. Monteverdi later made the tale into the tragic opera Poppaea which scandalised Venetian opera goers in the early 17th century.
The tale of Poppaea does go to show that the Romans really did know how to do scandal well.

Michelle Styles writes in the Roman, Viking, Regency, and early Victorian era for Harlequin Historical. Long-ago gossip is one of the bonuses of doing research. You can read more about her books on her website.

Tragic Tales: John of Eltham, Earl of Cornwall

By Blythe Gifford

This month's theme, Tragic Tales, summons visions of monumental disasters, but sometimes, history's tragedies whisper, rather than shout.

Such was the story of John of Eltham, brother of King Edward III of England. He was a man of great promise, who committed bad acts and achieved great victories, died unmarried at twenty, was slandered after, and has since been forgotten.

I discovered him in writing HIS BORDER BRIDE. Because I feature characters born on the wrong side of the royal blanket, I needed a plausible parent for my hero. In researching the war between England and Scotland in the early 14th century, I discovered that John played an instrumental military role in the conflict. In fact, he spent many months in Scotland, certainly long enough to father a son.

He was four years younger than his brother the king and born in the Castle of Eltham, hence his moniker. He was named Earl of Cornwall at the age of 12, the last son of a king to die an earl instead of a duke.

Caught in the throes of the war between his father, Edward II, and mother Isabella, his growing years were turbulent. He was passed between his parents and even held in the Tower of London for a time before his brother, at age 17, led a coup against their father and assumed the power that went with his kingly title of Edward III.

Information on John is scant, but what we do know suggests he was highly competent, and highly trusted by Edward.

He was named "Guardian of the Realm" when Edward III was out of the country; was asked to open Parliament in Edward's absence, and was named Warden of the northern Marches, which gave him virtual autonomy in that portion of England.

At 17 he was a key commander in the Battle of Halidon Hill, a devastating defeat for the Scots. Later he commanded an army in the southwest of Scotland that put down resistance to Edward Bailliol, the Scots king supported by his brother.

But all these "heroic" acts were recorded by historians on the southern side of the border. The Scottish saw him differently. So differently, in fact, that historian Tom Beaumont James writes that the tale of his death "challenges the distinction between history and story."
To the Scots he was a ruthless destroyer, who, among other crimes, burned the beautiful Lesmahagow Abbey when it was filled with people who had sought sanctuary from the wrath of the English troops. As Scottish chronicler tells it, this violation of the sacred laws of sanctuary so enraged King Edward that he killed his own brother in fury.

A tragic tale. One that my hero was told about his father. One that made him fear he had inherited the same bad blood.

One that, as near as we can now tell, was not true.

John did die, suddenly, at age 20, probably from a fever. Edward buried his brother with all honors in a beautiful tomb in Westminster Abbey and had masses said for his soul regularly, hardly the act of a man who had killed his brother.

And there was one other fact about John of Eltham, Earl of Cornwall, that peaked my romantic imagination. Half a dozen brides had been proposed for him, including daughters of the king of France and of the king of Castile and Leon, but he never married and died without "legitimate issue."

Ah! But what about illegitimate issue? History records none, so I was free to create one: a man who must face the terrible truth about his past and learn to make peace with it.

A small tragedy of history that I tried to make right.

Tragic Tales: Samuel Coleridge-Taylor

By Zoe Archer

Born in London in 1875, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was the son of an African man from Sierra Leone and an Englishwoman. His father, Daniel Taylor, was a London-trained doctor who lived five years in England. Britain, unlike the United States at this time, had no formalized segregation, and Dr. Taylor studied medicine at King's College in London, later qualifying as a member of the Royal College of Surgeons, England. By contrast, Coleridge-Taylor's mother was the illegitimate daughter of a domestic servant. There is no evidence that Dr. Taylor and Alice Holmans ever married, but they did have a romantic relationship. She gave birth to Samuel on August 15, 1875.

It's worth noting that, during the Victorian period, interracial relationships were far more common in Britain than in the United States and the Caribbean--and, due to migration patterns and other factors, the majority of these interracial couples were comprised of black men and white women. The greater concern arose from Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's possible illegitimacy rather than his biracial heritage, a fact which later biographers attempted to obscure.

Seven months before Samuel's birth, his father left England. It's entirely possible he never knew Alice was pregnant, and he never had any communication with his son. Samuel was raised by his mother and maternal grandfather in Croydon, a suburb of London. A family member was a professional musician, and music lessons were provided for the boy. Coleridge-Taylor showed an unusual aptitude for music, and was sponsored to the Royal College of Music at the age of fifteen. Despite this sponsorship, a large social gap existed between him and the other students, living, as he did, next to the railroad tracks and downwind from the slaughterhouse, and had never played a single note on a piano until he entered the college. Most of the other students had homes with their own pianos. Even after he began attendance, Coleridge-Taylor's instruments, such as his violin, were loaned to him.

He continued to show an exceptional musical ability, and in 1891, his composition In Thee, O Lord was published by the music publisher Novello. The company went on to publish a series of Coleridge-Taylor's pieces. He began to conduct the Croydon Conservatory Orchestra in 1895, and, following his graduation a year later, taught privately in Croydon, at Trinity College and at the Rochester Choral Society. The next few years saw Coleridge-Taylor producing a number of celebrated musical works, including Ballade in A Minor for the Gloucester Three Choirs Festival, which also received tremendous acclaim for its London premier at the Crystal Palace.

Only weeks later, Coleridge-Taylor's piece Hiawatha's Wedding Feast premiered at the Royal College of Music. An ill Sir Arthur Sullivan, of Gilbert & Sullivan, pushed himself to attend. The performance of Hiawatha's Wedding Feast made Coleridge-Taylor an international celebrity virtually overnight. Unfortunately, he never earned any royalty payments. Little knowing the success the piece would have, he had already sold the rights to Novello for the paltry sum of fifteen guineas.

Coleridge-Taylor composed two companion pieces to form the Hiawatha Trilogy, known as The Song of Hiawatha. His popularity continued to rise, and his original works were performed both in Britain and abroad. He took on numerous teaching, writing, composing, festival judging and performance engagements, as well as becoming a Professor of Composition at Trinity College of Music in London and conductor to the Handel Society. In the midst of this whirlwind of activity, he married Jessie Fleetwood-Walmisely (though her family objected to his mixed-race heritage), and the couple had two children, including a son aptly named Hiawatha.

He toured extensively in the United States, meeting privately with President Roosevelt, and was hailed by the black American community as a symbol of hope over oppression. He worked continuously in his many roles as teacher, composer, conductor and adjudicator.

In 1912, Coleridge-Taylor collapsed on the West Croydon train platform. He managed to make it home, but four days later, he succumbed to pneumonia brought about by exhaustion. At the time of his death, he was only 37. Hundreds turned out for his funeral, but because royalty payments to composers were both slight and rare, a memorial concert was held to raise money for his widow and children.

Jessie Coleridge-Taylor insisted that Novello refused to reliably grant her royalties on The Song of Hiawatha, her late husband's most commercially successful work. Two years later, the Performing Rights Society was formed in Great Britain. Its goal was to ensure musicians were paid fairly for their work. King George V granted Jessie Coleridge-Taylor an annual Civil List Pension of £100.

From 1928 until 1939, The Song of Hiawatha was lavishly performed every summer at the Royal Albert Hall. Coleridge-Taylor's reputation faded over the years, his work dismissed as "too commercial," but recently new attention and appreciation has arisen for the man hailed as "the Black Mahler."

Tragic Tales: The Lovesick Maidens of Hangzhou

By Jeannie Lin

I first learned of the lovesick maidens of Hangzhou when reading Lisa See's Peony in Love, a hauntingly imaginative ghost story in which three women find their voice through the interpretation of the famous Ming Dynasty opera, The Peony Pavilion.

Written by poet Tang Xianzu(1550-1616) in the late 16th century, The Peony Pavilion is known for its nuanced lyrics and use of symbolism and metaphor. It is often compared to Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet in terms of the shared theme of dying for love and also in terms of its literary and social influence. Young women were known to become obsessed with The Peony Pavilion, so much so that they wasted away and died of lovesickness, captivated by the mere idea of romantic love so strong that it transcended life and death.

The most amazing part of Lisa See's tale was the historical basis. A subset of these afflicted ladies, termed the lovesick maidens of Hangzhou, composed beautiful poetry influenced by the ideals of romantic love in the opera. Such a phenomenon is significant when we consider that this was a small literary movement that budded during a time known for footbinding and the subordination of women.

The heroines of Peony in Love were based on three women who together wrote The Three Wives Commentary, published 1694, about The Peony Pavilion. The commentary was one of the first works of literary criticism written and published by women as it was funded by the last of the wives.

Hangzhou is known for its romantic tradition of which these lovesick maidens were a part. The history of the maidens can be found in discussions regarding the literary significance of the Three Wives Commentary. In Teachers of the Inner Chambers: Women and Culture in 17th Century China, Dorothy Ko remarks on how the popularity of The Peony Pavilion among women reached "legendary proportions." But these women were more than swooning fans. The play provided a "common vocabulary" and discourse among women.

Many of these poets died before their words became known--this was definitely the case of two of the three wives--the idea of romantic love captivating young women so completely that they wasted away in contemplation of it, is poetically tragic.

These women wrote. They wrote and discussed romance in a literary and social context and wasted away because their ideas of love consumed them. Perhaps some connection could be made to Virginia Woolf's parable of Shakespeare's exceptionally gifted sister in A Room of One's Own. A woman, with the fire of poetry in her, living in a time and place with no possible outlet to exercise her creativity; would meet only frustration and ruin, would wither away, would die with her genius unsung.

Footnote: Shakespeare and Tang Xianzu were contemporaries, both writing plays on opposite sides of the world. Romeo and Juliet was first published in 1597. The Peony Pavilion was first performed in 1598.

Tragic Tales: Ludwig Loses His Hearing

By Carrie Lofty

Composer and musician Ludwig van Beethoven was only 26 years old when he began to lose his hearing. By this time he had already established himself as a fine pianist and teacher, but he had only published a few piano sonatas. His first symphony would not be published and performed until 1801. Thus his early-onset deafness affected almost the entire span of his musical career.

His symptoms began as a minor annoyance but developed into full-blown tinnitus, a ringing noise medically defined as "the perception of sound within the human ear in the absence of corresponding external sound" (Wikipedia). Historians and doctors have since debated the cause of his tinnitus, which could have originated with syphilis, typhus, lupus, or even lead poisoning.

(I adore this picture of Gary Oldman as Beethoven from Immortal Beloved. It helped inspire my June 2010 Carina Press release, SONG OF SEDUCTION. There is nothing sexier than a man consumed by his passions!)

Beethoven admitted to his growing deafness as early as 1801, when he described the difficulties he had in appreciating music and following conversations. After retreating to Austria in an to attempt to come to terms with his condition, he wrote to his brothers--the famous Heiligenstadt Testament, in which he vowed to live life through his art. This initiated his prolific and profound "Middle Period" of composition, but marked a significant decline in his ability to perform in public.

Because public performances and piano competition had been a lucrative part of his income--a financial mainstay of his contemporaries--he suffered lapses into poverty when between patrons. Frustration and embarrassment may have contributed to his reputation for being grumpy, loud, unmanned, and generally unpleasant. His close friends knew the cause, but few others did.

After a disastrous interpretation of his 5th Symphony in 1811, Beethoven never played in public again. He was completely deaf by 1814. Quite famously, he could not hear the overwhelming applause when his masterful 9th Symphony was debuted in 1824. Here the scene is portrayed in Immortal Beloved:


Although Beethoven left us with a staggering catalog of some of the best music ever composed, he was unable to appreciate his creations as we do. He heard his music only in his mind. To communicate with people, he used notebooks that continue to offer musical scholars priceless insight into his opinions and thought processes. But Anton Schindler, an associate and early biographer of Beethoven, burned 264 of the 400 notebooks in an attempt to clean up the composer's image and maintain a sense of aura around his process--so not even that aspect of Beethoven's tale escaped a tragic ending.

Tragic Tales: The Lost Children of Charles I

By Anita Davison

Born in 1635, Princess Elizabeth was called "Temperance" due to her kind nature. When she was seven, her father, Charles I marched into the House of Commons with troops to demand the arrest of five MPs. London was soon in open revolt and the royal family forced to flee for their safety.

Princess Elizabeth's Tomb Sculpted by Carlo Marochetti
The King and two elder sons, Charles and James, established a new royalist government at Oxford, but the Commons refused permission for Elizabeth and two-year-old Henry, Duke of Gloucester to join their parents, keeping them virtual prisoners at St. James's Palace. Their mother and baby sister, Henriette Anne, born in 1644, eventually fled to the continent, but Elizabeth never saw her mother again.

A sickly child, Elizabeth broke her leg in 1643 and was moved to Chelsea with her brother and tutored by the female scholar, Bathsua Makin. At eight, she could read and write Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Italian and French and the scriptures in their original tongues.

When Elizabeth was ten, her hostess, the Countess of Dorset, died and she and Henry were placed in the care of the Duke of Newcastle in a house on the Thames. James, Duke of York, was allowed to visit, but Elizabeth was concerned about him being around the king's enemies for any length of time and provided the clothes and perhaps the plan for his escape to the continent.

In 1647 Elizabeth and Henry were living at the country home of the Countess of Leicester. The French ambassador described her as a "budding young beauty" characterised by grace, dignity, sensibility and intelligence. Unlike her father she could judge different characters and understand different points of view. But she was powerless, distraught and saddened as the tragedy of the English revolution unfolded. As parliamentary prejudice hardened the Countess of Leicester was ordered to treat her royal charges without special privileges.

In January 1649, when Charles was tried, found guilty of treason and condemned to death, Elizabeth wrote a long letter to parliament requesting permission to join her sister, Princess Mary in Holland. This request was refused until after the execution had taken place.

On the day after Elizabeth's 13th birthday, King Charles was allowed one last meeting with Elizabeth and Henry. The prematurely aged king told her not to grieve as he would die a martyr and he gave her a Bible, which she kept close at hand for the rest of her short life.

The royal children were stripped of their titles and no one was allowed to kiss their hands or treat them as royal. Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester, was now merely "Mr. Harry". Parliament continued to treat then with consideration, but the myth that they planned to marry Elizabeth to a commoner and apprentice Henry to a trade was royalist propaganda.

In July 1650, the ruling Council of State decided to move Elizabeth and Henry to their father's former prison, Carisbrooke Castle. Elizabeth complained that her health was not equal to moving, but it went ahead anyway. They were taken there by the king's former servant Anthony Mildmay, described as, "at heart a knave".

Elizabeth had always suffered ill health, possibly including rickets. On the Monday after her arrival she caught a chill, that developed into a fever which turned into headaches and fitting. On the morning of Sunday the 11th September 1650, Elizabeth was found dead, her head resting on the open Bible that had been her father's parting gift. Ironically three days later, unaware of the tragedy, the Council of State decided on her release so that she could join her elder sister Mary in the Netherlands. (Henry was released to Mary in early 1653.)

Elizabeth's coffin was laid in a vault under the floor of St Thomas Church in Newport, Isle of Wight, with a stone marked "E.S." for Elizabeth Stuart as her only memorial. She was fourteen years old.

In the 1850s Victoria and Albert, whose holiday home, Osborne House, is on the Isle of Wight, hired Carlo Marochetti, an Italian sculptor to complete a new tomb for Elizabeth in Carrara marble. Completed in 1856, Queen Victoria was so impressed with the result, she hired the same sculptor to carve the mausoleum statue for herself and Albert.

Henry, Duke of Gloucester joined his two brothers in exile and in May 1660 returned to England with the new King Charles II. In September, he died of smallpox at age 20.

Henry Duke of Gloucester 1653 aged 10

Tragic Tales: The Tenements and the Muckraker

By Karen Mercury

Jacob Riis emigrated to New York in 1870 from Denmark. Unable to find work, he was forced to spend the night in police station lodging houses. His experiences led to ground-breaking writing with the New York Evening Sun, establishing our version of "muckracking" journalism, busting things open before the public was even aware of them. "The poor were the victims rather than the makers of their fate."

Riis went into the slums of New York City at night. He was the first to use "flash powder" to light up the interiors of these dark dens. Teddy Roosevelt, the NYC Police Commissioner, read Riis's How the Other Half Lives, a monumental life's work, and shut down lodging houses. Thus although the conditions he reported were indeed tragic, Riis's commitment to social reform helped re-shape how politicians and the well-to-do viewed their responsibility toward the city's poorest citizens. He wrote:

It was the stir and bustle of the trade, together with the tremendous immigration that followed upon the year of 1812 that dislodged them. Large rooms were partitioned into several smaller ones, without regard to light or ventilation, the rate of rent being lower in proportion to space or height from the street; and they soon became filled from cellar to garret with a class of tenantry living from hand to mouth, loose in morals, improvident in habits, degraded, and squalid as beggary itself.

While reckless slovenliness, discontent, privation, and ignorance were left to work out their invariable results, until the entire premises reached the level of tenant-house dilapidation, containing, but sheltering not, the miserable hordes that crowded beneath mouldering, water-rotted roofs or burrowed among the rats of clammy cellars.

The proprietors frequently urged the filthy habits of the tenants as an excuse for the condition of their property, utterly losing sight of the fact that it was the tolerance of those habits which was the real evil, and that for this they themselves were alone responsible.

Tragic Tales: Baby Doe

By Elizabeth Lane

Horace "Haw" Tabor may not have been long on talent or ambition, but he made up for it with sheer dumb luck. The year 1878 found the 48-year-old Tabor running a store in Leadville, Colorado, while his loyal wife, Augusta, kept a boarding house. Storekeepers at the time had the option of providing a "grubstake" for miners on their way to the wilds for a shot at fortune. In return, the storekeeper was entitled to one-third of any riches the miners discovered.

That spring, Tabor grubstaked a pair of sorry-looking miners named August Rische and George Hook. They didn't seem to know much about prospecting, but the two of them wandered into the hills and, by chance, dug into a vein of pure silver. Their Little Pittsburgh Mine yielded $20,000 a week. Haw Tabor's $60 investment earned him $2 million in the first year alone without getting his hands dirty. In short order he became mayor of boomtown Leadville and lieutenant governor of Colorado. Augusta, unable to adjust to her husband's meteoric rise, became more and more reclusive.

Enter Baby Doe. Born Elizabeth Bonduel McCourt, and newly divorced from her slacker husband, Harvey Doe, she was blue-eyed, blond, spunky, and irresistible. In 1879 she met the newly-rich Haw Tabor. Despite their 26-year age difference, the two fell in love. Over the next few years, as Tabor's relationship with Augusta became more distant, his liaison with Baby Doe became increasingly public. In 1881, Tabor quietly obtained a backwoods divorce from his wife (without bothering to inform her). At some point he and Baby Doe were quietly married.

Eventually word of the secret divorce reached Augusta Tabor. She hauled her ex-husband into court and received a million dollar settlement.

In 1883 Tabor was appointed to fill a 30-day vacancy as U.S. Senator from Colorado. He and Baby Doe took advantage of the chance to stage a lavish Washington wedding, attended by no less a person than President Chester A. Arthur. Soon, however, the gossip caught up with them. The priest who'd performed the ceremony declared the marriage illegal because both parties had been divorced. But since they'd already married each other earlier, it didn't make any difference. The wedding had been pure theater.

That was the end of Tabor's political career. Although he and Baby Doe lived well for a time, and he attempted to run for governor and senator, public opinion had turned against him.

In 1893 the final blow cam when the federal government announced that it was going to stop buying silver for its currency and convert to the gold standard. The crash ruined Tabor. Everything he had was sold, but nothing he could do was enough to support Baby Doe and their two daughters. In 1899 he died of appendicitis in the single room he shared with his family. Shortly before his death, he reportedly told his wife to "hang onto the Matchless Mine."

Baby Doe spent the remaining thirty-five years of her life in a cabin outside the Matchless Mine in Leadville. Still beautiful, she could have easily remarried. She chose instead to "hold onto the Matchless."

In early March of 1935, her frozen body was discovered on the floor of her cabin. Deserted by her daughters, she had passed into legend. Her life has been the subject of two books, a Hollywood movie, two operas, a screen play, a one-woman show and countless other books and articles.

Tragic Tales: Victoria & Albert

By Isabel Roman

I was going to do something much less well known but scheduled myself for the Tuesday after RWA. Now it's 8am on Monday and do I have anything? Nope. This'll teach me!

Prince Albert (1819-1861), the consort of Queen Victoria. Theirs was a love affair that enchants us even now. Witness the success of the movie, The Young Victoria. Even though the people of Great Britain didn't really like Albert, and he wasn't granted the title of Prince Consort until 17 years after his marriage to Victoria, he was extremely intelligent and far-thinking.

Without him, we wouldn't have had The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations of 1851. He was an excellent diplomat and statesman, as well as someone who valued the history of his adopted country.

But it's his death on December 14, 1861 that caused a shift in what is commonly referred to as The Victorian Era. Two things happened because of his death:

1. Victoria entered into mourning and never exited, thereby establishing a stringent mourning ritual that lasted decades.
2. England sprouted monuments to him that stand to this day, including the Victoria & Albert Museum.

The official cause of death was typhoid fever, though there were no other reported cases. There has been speculation that Albert died of stomach cancer.

Benjamin Disraeli, a future prime minister, declared, "With Prince Albert we have buried our Sovereign. This German Prince has governed England for twenty-one years with a wisdom and energy such as none of our kings has ever shown."

Tragic Tales: Fatty Arbuckle

By Lorelie Brown

Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and...Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle? Who the heck is that?

While almost everyone has heard of the first two, Arbuckle has all but faded from public memory, and it was all because of one woman’s death.


Fatty Arbuckle (he supposedly hated the nickname Fatty, but I can hardly make myself think of him by any other name) started in Vaudeville as a fairly young kid. He moved to motion pictures in 1909. But he didn't get his really big break until he moved to Universal Pictures in 1913 and starred in the Keystone Kops franchise. After those, Arbuckle became huge--his fame grew to match his very large body type. Arbuckle was somewhere between 250 and 300 pounds, but the remarkable part of him was that everyone remembered him as having a light graceful step that belied his large size. Along with helping to mentor Chaplin and Keaton, he also helped out Bob Hope by hooking him up with Hollywood contacts.

By 1921, Arbuckle was on top of the world, career wise. He'd moved to Paramount Studios for a then-amazing $1 million per year. Arbuckle and two friends drove up to San Francisco for Labor Day weekend and rented a total of three rooms at the St. Francis Hotel. After a few calls, illegal booze and catered food were both delivered and a party was in full swing.

Among the guests were Virginia Rappe and Maude Delmont. Though Rappe would later be described in newspapers a sweet and innocent girl, that was far from the truth. She'd clung to the outskirts of Hollywood for years, occasionally getting tiny roles and more frequently showing up at Hollywood parties. Delmont was even worse, being known for intentionally seducing men for the sole purpose of later blackmailing them.

Rappe took sick. That much is for sure. Beyond that, things are fuzzy. Arbuckle claimed he retired to his room to change clothes and found an obviously-ill Rappe in his bedroom. People were called in, ice was placed on her midsection and most everyone said she was ill from drinking too much alcohol. Several doctors treated Rappe in the hotel, and most agreed with the alcohol poisoning diagnosis. (Though what always makes my eyebrows go up is that one doc gave her morphine. For alcohol poisoning! Totally normal at the time, but now the idea of treating that with a depressant makes little sense to non-medically-educated me.) After four days in the hotel, Rappe was moved to a local hospital. She died there on 9 September of peritonitis and infection from a torn bladder.

Delmont, however, claimed that Arbuckle had raped her friend. It would be her claims that carried the day. The San Francisco Prosecutor at the time, Matthew Brady, was very ambitious and seemed to think he could ride a conviction of Arbuckle all the way to being governor of California. Prosecutors decided that Rappe's bladder had been torn by the very large Arbuckle's weight bearing down on her during the alleged rape. (In reality, Rappe's bladder was probably damaged by a botched abortion she had days before joining the Arbuckle party in San Francisco.)

Arbuckle was tried three times for Rappe's death. The first trial ended with a hung jury that was locked up at 10 to 2 for acquittal. The second was 10 to 2 for conviction. The third ended in a complete acquittal and the jury even went so far as to write Arbuckle a letter of apology that he had been put through so much.

But the damage was already done. In an ironic twist considering William Randolph Hearst's role in suppressing the 1924 Ince scandal, newspapers owned by Hearst pushed Arbuckle's guilt. Headlines had pretty much already convicted him. Articles carried lurid details and didn't hesitate to pass along rumors that Arbuckle had violated Rappe with foreign objects such as a coca-cola or champagne bottle.

Arbuckle's career was sacrificed on the pyre of public opinion. He was banned from movies for the better part of a year, but even after the ban was lifted he was never as famous again. He had a little comeback at the end of the 20s but it didn't last long. He died before he could really make it to the top again. And our collective memory lost a great actor.