On Friday, 26 February, we made another trip to London. This time, however, we would be given an extra special treat--the chance to see the ceremony of the Changing of the Guard from inside the gates of Buckingham Palace. The event turned out to be even more exciting than we had originally thought as we experienced a brief and distant brush with royalty. When we arrived at the palace--which is within a few blocks of both Trafalgar Square and Big Ben--our coach driver parked next to the palace as Dr. O'Shaughnessy and his friend John Warnaby went off to find our host. While we waited, the driver noticed that a royal car had emerged from the palace gates and would pass our coach on the right. So we all eagerly turned in that direction and caught sight of none other than Queen Elizabeth II herself.
After that exciting event, Dr. O’Shaughnessy and John Warnaby who had located our host, RQMS Piggott, an officer in the Coldstream Guards rejoined us. The Coldstream Guards are a regiment of the British Army's Foot Guards that dates back to the seventeenth century. Along with the Grenadier Guards, the Scots Guards, the Welsh Guards, and the Irish Guards, the regiment provides a battalion to serve in the Queen's Guard. The Queen's Guard is divided into two detachments which guard Buckingham Palace and St James's Palace, the most important London residences of the Royal Family.
The Changing of the Guard takes about one hour. In the winter months, it occurs every other day, and in the summer, the guard is changed every day. A number of sentries from the Queen's Guard are always posted at Buckingham Palace--four if the Queen is in residence at the palace and two if she is not. It is also possible to tell if the Queen is in residence or not by the flag that is flown above the palace. If the Union Jack is being flown, the Queen is not in residence. If the less familiar royal standard is being flown, Her Majesty is resident.
RQMS Piggott briefly discussed the Coldstream Guards and the ceremony and then our coach was driven through the front palace gates. We then took up the position in the forecourt from which we watched the ceremony. The Changing of the Guards begins with the Old Guard--the detachment that is about to be relieved--forming up in front of the palace. The Buckingham Palace detachment is soon joined by the Guard from St James's accompanied by a band and an ensign carrying the battalion's flag. Next, the New Guard enters the forecourt, also with a band and an ensign. The New Guard forms up on the opposite side of the court from the Old Guard and the captains of each meet in the middle. The Old Guard captain turns the key to the palace over to the captain of the New Guard, and both then enter the Guard Room of the palace to receive their orders. Meanwhile, the two ensigns patrol back and forth across the court, the sentries (who serve 2 hour shifts) are relieved by members of the New Guard, and the bands play a variety of music including such things as regimental songs, the national anthem "God Save the Queen," or perhaps some particularly British classical piece. When the captains have returned and the sentries have been relieved, the Old Guard exits the court and a detachment of the New Guard marches to St James's Palace. The ceremony concludes as the members of the New Guard who are not on sentry duty march to the Guard Room.
During the ceremony, RQMS Piggott was quite helpful in describing what was happening and answering our many questions. Afterward, he escorted us to Wellington Barracks, the headquarters of the five regiments of the Queen's Guard. He showed us around the headquarters of the Coldstream Guards, which is decorated with the many medals and honors earned by its members throughout the regiment's long history and with pictures of all its colonels. RQMS Piggott also showed us and allowed us to try on some examples of uniform tunics and the famous bearskin caps worn by the members of the regiment.
Shakespeare's
Globe--
On
26 February, we also visited the Globe, the reconstruction of the theater
used by acting company for which William Shakespeare wrote most of his
plays. The original Globe Theatre was built in 1599 on the south
bank of the River Thames away from the prying and disapproving eyes of
the Puritans in the City of London. It was for this theatre that
Shakespeare composed his most famous works, including the great tragedies
Hamlet, Othello, and Macbeth, and the late plays like
The Tempest and Cymbeline.
The
original Globe was an open-air theater and had many features typical of
Renaissance public playhouses including its galleries, thrust stage, and
elaborate paintings. The underside of the roof that covered the stage
was painted with the twelve signs of the Zodiac and was therefore called
the heavens. The area beneath the stage--from which demons and ghosts
could enter through a trap door--was called hell. An interesting
result of this is that the Globe can be seen as microcosm of the globe
with man existing between heaven and hell like the actors upon the stage-a
circumstance which is referred to in some of the plays: "O all you
host of heaven! O earth! What else? / And shall I couple hell?"
(Hamlet 1.5). Another feature of the Globe that is commented on in
Shakespeare’s plays is its circular shape which figures in the Chorus's
apology for the inadequacies of theatrical representation in Henry V:
pardon, gentles all,
The flat unraised spirit that hath dared
On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth
So great an object. Can this cock-pit hold
The vasty fields of France? Or may we cram
Within this wooden O the very casques
That did affright the air at Agincourt? (Prologue)
The new Globe is the realization of the dream of the American actor Sam Wanamaker. The reconstruction was funded in a number of ways including donations from ordinary people to famous Shakespearean actors like Sir Derek Jacobi, Kenneth Branagh, and Patrick Stewart, whose names are carved in stones which pave the plaza outside the theater and where Wanamaker's name is also inscribed. The Globe itself has been completed and was opened in 1997 with a production of Henry V which was attended not only by Hillary Clinton and Cherie Blair, wife of the British Prime Minister, but also by the Shakespeare Study Tour Students from UW Oshkosh. Funds are still being raised to complete the Education Centre and the Inigo Jones Theatre, an indoor theater which will not only mirror the private theater at Blackfriars which was used by Shakespeare's company, but will also allow the actors associated with the new Globe to stage plays year round.
The new Globe is constructed only a few hundred yards away from the site of the original and is completely authentic with the exception of minor changes to meet modern building and fire regulations. Modern building methods were not used; the theater is put together without nails using thousands of tapered wooden pegs. The audience either stands in the yard or sits in the galleries on wooden benches. The roof is thatched and the walls are plastered with wattle and daub, a mixture of mud and animal hair. The new Globe will be marking the four hundredth year since the building of the original Globe by staging a production of Julius Caesar beginning in May, 1999.