So many of our Christmas traditions come from England, I thought it would be fun to do a British version. However modern yuletime meals are nearly identical to our Thanksgiving. So lets make believe!
A proper roast beast anchors this celebration. Some easy to do tasty horseradish sauce, twice-baked potato, pigs in a blanket (heritage version) and a bit of roasted asparagus. Then read about the life and demise of a rather naughty King.
Start cooking the night before!
Baked Potatoes
3 russet potatoes
Preheat the oven to 375˚. Scrub the potatoes clean and dry them, then prick them all over with a fork.
Rub them all over with oil and bake until they are cooked thoroughly and soft in the center, about 1 hour.
DO NOT wrap with foil! This will create steam and make the insides and skin soggy.
When soft to the touch, remove from oven and let cool.
I like to cook the bacon at the same time, just pull the slices at the half hour mark.
Horseradish sauce
5oz container of plain non fat Greek style yogurt
½ tsp salt
2 TBS prepared horseradish
2 Tbsp cider vinegar
½ tsp “better than bullion” beef flavor
½ tsp sugar
Combine all ingredients. Stir until sugar is dissolved. Cover, will keep several days.
You can roll up the pigs in blanket, cover with wrap and keep overnight.
Pigs in Blankets
These are not like what you find here in the states.
Ingredients:
12 breakfast sausage links
6 slices bacon
If the links you find are longer than 4 inches, cut each in half. Cut each slice of bacon in half. Wrap the sausage with bacon and place with ends down to hold them. Wrap up the platter full and refrigerate overnight.
Christmas Day: Start abut 3 hours before dinner
Beef Roast
One 3¼ lbs trimmed and eye of round beef roast
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
Preheat the oven to 400°.
Set a rack in a large, foil lined roasting pan and place the beef roast on the rack. Reduce heat to 375.
Roast in the lower third of the oven for about 45 mins, until an instant-read thermometer inserted in the center of the roast registers 125°.
Raise oven back to 400 degrees.
Transfer the roast to a cutting board and let rest for at least 20 minutes.
Twice baked potatoes:
3 pieces bacon cooked & chopped
½ cup shredded cheese
5oz container plain non fat Greek style yogurt
Cut open each potato and scoop out the insides. In a large bowl mix this with the pieces of bacon, yogurt and shredded cheese. Spoon each potato skin until very full of the mixture. Place on a lined pie pan in the already heated oven to completely reheat and blend flavors.
To cook pigs in a blanket :
Lightly grease a baking tray and cover with baking parchment.
Lay the wrapped sausage on the prepared baking tray with the seam underneath.
Rinse and cut the stems off the asparagus and toss with oil.
Scatter around the pigs in a blanket
Slide this tray into the oven along with the twice baked potatoes (on a pie pan – takes up less room to just heat them up! Cook for about 25 minutes or until the bacon is crisp and golden and the sausage is cooked through.
All should be done between 25 to 30 mins.
Now carve the roast beast! Serve each with a scoop of horseradish sauce. A few pigs in blankets, a twice-baked potato and some roasted asparagus will fill out your rather heavy Christmas table.
What a wonderful chance for me to serve my Master Indy with an English Feast!
I shall send a plate to a neighbor.
For our music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbtFu1nWN6s With a Thankful Heart
socialslave
To satisfy and restore.
To nourish, support and maintain.
To gratify, spoil, comfort and please,
to nurture, assist, and sustain
…..I cook!
Please buy slave's cookbook:
The Little Black Book of Indiscreet Recipes by Dan White http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F315Y4I/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_vAT4sb0934RTM via @amazon
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Edward II, who ruled from 1307-1327, is one of England’s less fondly remembered kings. History is written by the victors, and Edward II hasn’t fared too well in that regard.
Historically, his reign consisted of feuds with his barons, a failed invasion of Scotland in 1314, the murders of his two male lovers and an invasion by a political rival that led to him being replaced rather gruesomely by his son, Edward III.
Edward II will always be known as the gay king. But his story is a little more complicated.
Edward was born in Wales of 1284, and became King of England in 1307 – the sixth in the Norman-French Plantagenet line. He reigned until he was deposed and killed in 1327 by his wife, Isabella. He was 43 at the time of his death.
In his letters, he shows a quirky sense of humor, joking about sending unsatisfactory animals to his friends, such as horses who disliked carrying their riders, or lazy hunting dogs too slow to catch rabbits.
Edward grew up to be tall and muscular, and was considered good-looking. He had a reputation as a great public speaker and was known for his generosity to household staff. Unusually, he enjoyed associating with laborers and other lower-class workers. This behavior was not considered normal for the nobility of the period and attracted criticism from contemporaries.
Edward became close to Piers Gaveston. Gaveston was the son of one of the king's household knights whose lands lay adjacent to Gascony, and had himself joined Prince Edward's household in 1300, possibly on Edward I's instruction. The two got on well; Gaveston became a squire and was soon being referred to as a close companion of Edward, before being knighted by the king during the Feast of the Swans in 1306.
The possibility that Edward had a sexual relationship with Gaveston or his later favorites has been extensively discussed by historians. Ancient Christianity accepted homosexuality, (In the 12th century the king of France elevated his lover to high office) but by the mid 13th century life was harder on gays and Edward was made an example. Homosexuality was fiercely condemned by the Church by the 14th century, which equated it with heresy, but engaging in sex with another man did not necessarily define an individual's personal identity in the same way that it might in the 21st century.
Both men had sexual relationships with their wives, who bore them children.
The contemporary evidence supporting their homosexual relationship comes primarily from an anonymous chronicler in the 1320s who described how Edward "felt such love" for Gaveston that "he entered into a covenant of constancy, and bound himself with him before all other mortals with a bond of indissoluble love, firmly drawn up and fastened with a knot".
In 1334, the Bishop of Winchester, was accused of having stated in 1326 that Edward was a "sodomite". The bishop defended himself by arguing that he had meant that Edward's advisor, Hugh Despenser, was a sodomite, rather than the late king. The Meaux Chronicle from the 1390s simply notes that Edward gave himself "too much to the vice of sodomy."
Contemporary chronicler comments are vaguely worded and were at least in part politically motivated. They are very similar to the highly politicized sodomy allegations made against Pope Boniface VIII and the Knights Templar in 1303 and 1308 respectively.
Neither the contemporary Church, Edward's father nor his father-in-law appear to have made any adverse comments about Edward's sexual behavior.
A “Bromance”?
A more recent theory, suggests that Edward and Gaveston entered into a bond of adoptive brotherhood. These have the participants pledged to support each other in a form of "brotherhood-in-arms", were not unknown between close male friends in the Middle Ages.
While his passion for men seems to be confirmed by numerous contemporary sources, Edward did father at least five children. So we know he was good at that duty of being a King.
After Piers Gaveston was murdered by courtiers, Edward “constantly had prayers said for Gaveston’s soul; and spent a lot of money on an elaborate tomb.
Edward's difficulties were made much worse by weather and agriculture. This was part of a wider phenomenon in northern Europe known as the Great Famine. It began with torrential rains in late 1314, followed by a very cold winter and heavy rains the following spring that killed many sheep and cattle. The bad weather continued, almost unabated, for seven years, resulting in a string of bad harvests.
Revenues from the exports of wool plummeted and the price of food rose, despite attempts by Edward's government to control prices. Edward called for hoarders to release food, and tried to encourage both internal trade and the importation of grain, but with little success. The requisitioning of provisions for the royal court during the famine years only added to tensions.
Compared to the strong reigns of his father Edward I and his son Edward III, the reign of Edward II is generally considered to have been disastrous – most notable for the defeat of his army, which ended English control over Scotland.
At that time, marriages were an important and strategic business. In 1308 – in a move to bolster alliances with France – Edward married Isabella, the daughter of King Philip IV.
While Edward focused on securing the alliance with France, he appointed his lover Gaveston as regent - a key position of power. Gaveston’s elevation caused resentment within the ranks of England’s barons. In 1312, Gaveston was captured by the Earl of Warwick and killed. Edward was devastated by the death of his lover.
By the early 1320s, England’s court was deeply embroiled in political intrigues and shifting alliances as various factions sought to build their power and control.
His second affair, with Hugh le Despenser, ended with the Barons arresting and imprisoning them both.
Around this time, a dispute developed between France and England over the territory of Gascony. Edward sent his wife Isabella to France to negotiate peace terms. As part of the peace negotiations, Edward also sent his eldest son to pay homage to the French king, Charles – Isabella’s brother. This proved to be a tactical blunder. Isabella, with her son now beside her, refused to return to England.
Isabella’s next move was to join forces with Roger Mortimer. Mortimer was the 1st Earl of March. He was wealthy and powerful. Mortimer was one of the leading forces that hated the power and influence Edward had bestowed on Hugh Despenser. Mortimer had led a rebellion against Edward in 1321. After being defeated by Edward’s forces, Mortimer was imprisoned but later escaped and fled to France.
Five years latter, the combined forces of Isabella and Mortimer invaded England. Their aim was to remove Edward from the throne.
The invasion by Isabella and Mortimer quickly gathered momentum and support - Edward and Despenser were left isolated. They abandoned London in October 1326, heading to South Wales .
Having failed to raise an army or really any sort of defense, on 16 November 1326, Edward and Despenser were captured.
Despenser was brutally executed on 24 November 1326. Executions at that time were often public affairs, however Despenser’s demise seems to have been elevated to a public spectacle. Le Despenser publicly had his genitals cut off and burned in front of him and was then beheaded. His other body parts were dispersed throughout England.
Edward was imprisoned in Kenilworth Castle. In January of 1327, he was forced to abdicate in favor of his son – Edward III. Edward III was 14 at the time, and controlled by Isabella and her ally Mortimer.
How did Edward II die?
While he remained alive, Edward II posed a threat to the rule of Isabella. On 11 October 1327, Edward was murdered at Berkeley Castle near Gloucester and buried in the Gloucester Cathedral.
At that time it was a very tricky business to kill a king. These rulers were considered a bit more than human. There could be no marks left on the body! However the successors wanted to imprint how horrible it was that this ruler happened to be gay. It was the beginning of the wave of homophobia that swept England. So accordingly reports of events in that hidden chamber were morbid. The guards took turns raping the deposed monarch, then shoved a red hot poker up the anus so that no marks were visible.
While a few contemporary chroniclers suggest that Edward was suffocated or strangled, the poker story became the popular version. While this form of torture is a graphic and horrific way to end a King’s life, it’s likely that this is anti-Edward propaganda playing on his sexuality – with the intention to discredit his reputation and memory.
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