The bearskin necessities
QUESTION At Remembrance Day, the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards pipe band wore black bearskins, except for one drummer who wore a white bearskin with a red plume. Why was this?
The Royal Scots Dragoon Guards are Scotland’s senior regiment and only regular cavalry regiment.
The regiment was formed in 1971 by the amalgamation of the 3rd Carabiniers and the Royal Scots Greys (2nd Dragoons). The Pipes and Drums of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards were established in 1946.
The story goes that i n 1894, Tsar Nicholas II, emperor of Russia, was appointed the first Colonel-in-Chief of the Royal Scots Greys during his wedding celebrations to Alexandra Feodorovna, a granddaughter of Queen Victoria.
In honour of his appointment, he presented the Royal Scots Greys with a white bearskin with red plume and thereafter this was worn by the regimental drummer in his honour.
This tale has been repeated so often that it has come to be accepted as fact and even features in regimental histories. however, there is no official record of this presentation and, in fact, there is evidence to the contrary.
A photograph of Drummer A. e. Booth on the celebrated regimental drumhorse Plum Duff was taken at Dundalk in 1889, five years before the Tsar’s wedding.
Booth wears the famous white headpiece with a red plume curved over the top, though back then it was goatskin rather than bearskin.
A photo taken in 1892 shows Booth wearing a black bearskin, so it seems they were interchangeable.
In A history Of The Uniforms Of The British Army, Cecil C. P. Lawson charts how a number of regiments adopted white fur caps in the 18th century.
In 1765, the 14th Regiment of Foot called for the grenadiers to have black bearskin caps and ‘drummers caps the same, but of white bearskin’.
The 13th Regiment of Foot made a similar order. In 1768, the 3rd Regiment of Foot Guards called for their drummers to have white fur caps.
This may have been a reflection of a drummer’s importance. The Scots Greys had drummers since their formation in 1678 and they performed the vital function of transmitting the commander’s orders and so followed closely behind the colonel or troop leader into the field.
In Those Terrible Grey horses: An Illustrated history Of The Royal Scots, Stephen Wood attributes the adoption of the white cap to Lt John Torrens, who was band president in the 1880s. Other sources suggest it was adopted to mark Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee of 1887.
The white cap was discontinued after the Boer War, but revived in the 1930s.
Though the Tsar probably had nothing to do with the white cap, he is commemorated by the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards by the playing of the Russian Imperial anthem at important mess functions.
James Sheriff, Lincoln.
QUESTION Was the term tragicomedy coined by the Ancient Greeks?
TRAGICOMEDY is a dramatic work incorporating tragic and comic elements. The term was not coined by the Greeks, but by the Roman dramatist Plautus in the 2nd century BC in the prologue to his play Amphitryon.
Almost apologetically, he explains it is a play in which gods and men, masters and slaves reverse roles. The gods and heroes act in comic burlesque and the slaves adopt a tragic dignity.
During the Renaissance, tragi-comedy developed as a deviation from classical tragedy. The term was used to define a play that moves towards a tragic climax, but an unexpected turn of events brings about a happy ending.
The plot is moved forward by mistaken identities, averted catastrophes and timely recognitions that prevent disaster. examples include William Shakespeare’s measure For measure and John Fletcher’s The Faithful Shepherdess.
Rose Williams, Bromsgrove, Worcs.
QUESTION Was the executioner of Anne Boleyn a Frenchman?
ON MAY 19, 1536, Anne Boleyn, the second wife of henry VIII, was executed on the grounds of adultery, witchcraft and treason. She was beheaded by the single swing of a sword.
Little is known about her executioner, though it is thought he came from France, possibly from a town under english control.
The Chronicle Of Calais 1536 simply calls him ‘the hangman of Calais’.
A letter from mary of hungary (then governor of the habsburg Netherlands) to Ferdinand King Of the Romans (Ferdinand I, holy Roman emperor) had: ‘I hope the english will not do much against us now, as we are free from his lady, who was a good Frenchwoman.
‘That the vengeance might be executed by the emperor’s subjects, he sent for the executioner of Saint-Omer, as there were none in england good enough.’
Records from the French Rolls suggest he could have been Jean Rombaud, known for carrying out executions in Saint-Omer and the surrounding area of northern France. however, this can’t be certain. Anonymity was important to protect against retribution from his victim’s families.
henry chose not to burn Anne at the stake, which was customary for a female traitor. The choice of a sword is also interesting. It is not known if Anne requested this method as opposed to the axe or if henry had a crisis of conscience and asked for the more humane method. execution by sword was usually reserved for men of high birth.
An executioner’s sword was a twohanded weapon with a double- edged blade and squared- off end. Anne’s executioner was paid well: £23 6s 8d, two years’ wages at the time.
Henry Taylor, Welshpool, Powys.
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