The
best actress in all of England
My friend Elizabeth Brydges had a most unusual job. She wore a very fancy blue dress and sat in an aviary day
in and day out in making friends with wild birds that were brought from all
over England. It was a large aviary and she had to sit in the middle of the
aviary and feed the birds by hand and get bird droppings all over her.
When she grew up Queen Elizabeth made her a Maid -of-honour for life as a reward for letting birds poop on her for about 12 years. Then when a woman asked what they had to do to become a maid of honor they were told they had to let a thousand birds poop on them for 12 years. It worked great and nobody wanted to be a maid-of-honour. I was looking at some paintings I found a painting of her (large version). It shocked me to see such a familiar face on the internet and it jolted me back 400+ years. That bird in the painting is a little touch of whimsy and so is the dog. That is the queen's dog and it loved her so much it would climb up on her whenever she sat down, even when sitting for a painting.
I
had to substitute for her a few times when she left town or her mother was sick.
The dress looked a lot like this one.
It was more blue (however this could have been the same dress but the blue may have faded from this painting).
She
had to change it after a few months and wear a dress that looked pretty similar
to this one.
She
had to wear a hat like this only it had flowers attached.
It did keep her hair from being fouled with bird droppings.
The birds were all wild birds that were caught very young. There were hundreds and in the summers they hauled in a thousand or more. We just had to sit and let them get used to us.
They
would land on us by the dozens and coat us in droppings. Now that was the
important part. The landing on us was the important part (not the droppings).
That way the birds would establish a relationship with the stately woman in
that hat and dress.
There have been saints throughout the ages that could tame the wildest animals.
Saint
Francis Assisi was one that befriended wild animals and many Christians prayed
to him. Since he had been from wealth the royalty of
The
Spanish claimed that Queen Elizabeth was a witch. The inquisitors had hundreds
of ways to turn anything you said or did back on you as proof that you were
a witch. There was only one defense against witchcraft at the time and that
was to be a saint. A person had to take the high road and leave the Catholic
Church behind on the low one.
Thus
royalty all over
She would wear a special dress like this one but with more navy blue however she inadvertently started a fad and lots of women started wearing dresses like it and they complained of attracting birds.
She
changed after a few months to wearing this kind of a dress when diplomats
came to court. Nobody else was allowed to wear a multi colored
dress like hers. After a few minutes in the garden she would make a very
difficult diplomatic proposal that would never be accepted under normal
circumstances. Then she would signal a person with her kerchief who might
trigger up to three more people and then a man around the corner would open
a cage and release 30-80 of those birds we had trained.
Suddenly
she would be surrounded by at least a dozen ‘wild' birds and a few would land on
her outstretched arm and she would ask an amazed ambassador if he had any
food since the birds could communicate their hunger to her. (The Queen
actually didn't like birds flying around her face and she never told anybody what made her that
way but she was a really great actress and never showed her feelings towards the birds.)
Of course
the birds would avoid the Ambassador even if he had food since they were
not trained to trust him. Soon she would have to chase the birds off so that she could close the deal.
She
almost always did and that is how she managed to get the best treaties made
in spite of Spanish threats to all who made treaties with England. These included
safe harbors all over
Who could ever refuse Saint Queen Elizabeth's anything after that kind of a show? I hope this gives you an idea about this person who we called our queen.
