"The Rose Tree: A Best Friend's Revenge"
22 March 2009
Cambridge
(BBC) -- In the
final interview of a four-part segment, Alexandra Hawkins discusses
with BBC's Lydia Frost her historical discovery while she
was an exchange student at the University of Cambridge.
Frost: Well, here we are
once again, Ms. Hawkins. I must say, I am extremely excited to
hear the final chapter of this amazing story. Without delay,
let's get right into it. Tell me about the event that inspired
Jacobs's final fairy tale.
Hawkins:
I am
so happy to be back! This final historical event deals with a
royal murder.
Frost: Oh, sounds intriguing...
Hawkins: Indeed! Anyway, this
event deals once again with King James's wife Anne, but this time their
other two children are involved: Henry and Elizabeth. These two
were best friends at an early age and they did everything
together. Now Henry was a handsome boy and was dearly loved by
all who knew him. One of the girls in town especially had an eye for
the young prince. Her name was Rachel and she lived with her
elderly grandmother in town. From what other historians and
I could surmise, Rachel's mother was banished from the kingdom after
the death of Rachel's father. Although it is not fully known what
caused that event, references have alluded to the practice of
witchcraft.
Frost: (Interjecting) The plot
thickens!
Hawkins: (Laughing) Yes,
something like that. Well, Rachel had tried everything to get
Henry's attention, even appealing to Elizabeth to intercede on her
behalf. However, Elizabeth always respected her brother's wishes
and his decisions. A grand party was thrown in town one night to
honor King James I. All the people in the surrounding community
were invited to attend that grand celebration. Rachel wanted to
use that event as a means to get an audience with Henry. Finally,
she succeeded in her endeavor and attempted to explain her feelings to
the young prince. He rebuked her advances as politely as
possible, but Rachel was crushed. She decided to plot her
revenge. Sneaking home, she retrieved some poison that her
grandmother had concocted to kill the rats that invaded their home in
the winter time. She raced back to the celebration and under the
guise of offering an apology for her improper behavior; Rachel poured
the rest of the poison into the cup of Prince Henry. Scarcely an
hour later, the prince was lying in bed with a severe fever and a rash
on his body. He lay in bed sick for almost two weeks with
Elizabeth constantly by his side. In the end, the prince
succumbed to the poison. However, his death was ruled as having
been caused by typhoid.
Frost: Oh, that is
terrible! Rachel was a horrible woman.
Frost: Wow! This was the most
intense event of all. I would not want to cross someone like
Elizabeth.
Hawkins: I agree completely!
Frost: So how was Joseph Jacobs
able to turn this event into a fairy tale?
Hawkins: Jacobs makes
some serious changes to the event, but I think you will be able to see
how he managed it. In his fairy tale "The Rose Tree,"
Jacobs uses siblings, a boy and a girl as well. Instead of using
a love-scorned woman, Jacobs uses a jealous stepmother. In the
fairy tale, the stepmother who is envious of her step-daughter's beauty
decides to kill the girl. She chops off her head with an
axe! Then the evil woman puts the girl's liver in a stew and
feeds it to her husband and son, but the boy refuses to eat
it. Instead he runs out and buries his sister in a box under a
rose
tree. When the rose tree in the fairy tale blooms, a white bird
comes and sings a song about how the murder took place. It
travels all around to working men in the town, who admire its beautiful
song. After giving the bird the gifts it requests for singing,
the bird manages to use them to kill the stepmother! It is a
fantastic tale and Jacobs did a great job keeping some elements of the
historical event in his tale!
Frost: That is just
incredible! I cannot believe Jacobs was that creative.
Thank you, thank you so much, Ms. Hawkins for letting me interview you
these past four weeks. It has truly been a great honor!
Hawkins: No, Ms. Frost,
thank you and BBC for allowing me to tell people about this amazing
historical find! I only hope that people gain a new understanding
for Jacobs's fairy tales!
Author's Note: This
fairy tale was also rather difficult for me to turn into a
"historical" event. I wanted to keep a lot of the same elements
of the fairy tale, but did not know how I was going to be able to
incorporate
the magical aspects of the fairy tale.
Going back to King James’s family tree, I wanted to make sure
all of his
children were used in some aspect of my storybook.
When researching him before I started this
process, I made sure that he had enough family members that each one
could be
included in one of the “historical” events. His eldest son died when he
was
eighteen and since I made Prince Charles (King James’s youngest son) a
villain in
one story, I wanted to make Henry the perfect son that could take his
father’s
place. I decided to use the death of Prince Henry, which actually was
from typhoid, as a means to have someone seek revenge. At first,
I was
going
to have his sister plotting to kill the prince, but then decided that
they
should be similar to the siblings in the fairy tale. It was such
a
fascinating fairy tale to read and I wanted to make the "historical"
event just as fascinating. I am really
happy with the way it turned out.
Bibliography:
"The Rose Tree" By Joseph Jacobs, from English Fairy Tales (1890). Web
Source: Sacred
Texts
Image Information:
"BBC Logo"
Word Press
"Red Border"
Absolute Backgrounds
"Pink Rose Tree"
Brighter
Blooms
Henry, Prince of Whales (1594-1612) Eldest Son of King James I by
Robert Peake
Government
Art Collection
