Charlegmagne----Davis

 

Once Upon a Time.. . . .

 

Princess and the Pea

Although I've loved historical fiction my whole life, I was always especially fond of medieval history. As a child, Princess and the Pea was my favorite story and I often tried to prove I was a princess because my skin was so easily irritated by stiff fabrics, tags in the back and hair brushes. I even went so far as to put things under my mattress to see if I could feel them: I did not. Over the years, I leaned toward the King Arthur legend, Charlemagne and the Crusades.  

Although genealogy has been a hobby of mine for 50 years, I have never been on a quest to find famous people in our family. I was content with finding where our ancestor came from. Recently I've tried a new web site that I'd only "visited" briefly over the years.  It's the Wikitree site which has a "World Tree".  The concept is we all add to the same tree.  There are problems galore when thousands (millions?) of genealogists around the world are contributing. But, we are supposed to provide proof for our additions not hearsay or family legends.

So, I spent several weeks entering information (with sources), and then I found "gateway ancestors" which aligned my tree with royalty and nobility.  The royals have been genealogists for centuries so they aren't marrying too many cousins (like the Hapsburg line did).  With a "gateway ancestors", they've introduced me to family on every throne throughout Western Europe for centuries---most are cousins (King Charles III is our 16th cousin) and uncles, but several are indeed royal ancestors. 

Charlemagne

I think the first "royal" I found in our direct line was Charlemagne (748-814)  who is also known as Charles the Great.  It's been suggested that every person of European descent has Charlemagne as their ancestor. For many years, I've considered him the greatest king of all time. When I taught, I often told the story of Charlemagne learning to read because he knew the power of reading.  He encouraged education, opening schools and promoted legible writing including the widespread use of the question mark.  He always had a book under his pillow.  We have 76,759 paths to Charlemagne.He's my 33 and 36 great grandfather through my father LeRoy Long which makes him 35 and 38 greats for my grandchildren.  I sat stunned probably for about a week with the news.

He was the first emperor of the Carolingian empire consisting of what is today France, Germany, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland, Netherlands, Luxembourg,  and part of Italy and Czech Republic.  He is often called the The Father of Europe. He was very large even by today's standards 6"2".  The photo above is his reliquary located in Aachen, Germany.

Charlemagne had over 20 children with numerous wives and mistresses.  He insisted that all of the children receive a liberal arts education in addition to needlework for the girls and riding and weaponry for the boys.  I descend from two of them for sure : Bertha and Hlodowic (Louis). Others have some degree of uncertainty in the lineage.

Hlodowic

Hlodowic (Louis/Ludwig) was Charlemagne's heir becoming King of the Franks and King of Aquitaine. He is sometimes known as Louis the Pious, Louis the Fair and my favorite: Louis the Debonaire.  We descend from his daughter Gisela who was known for her virtue and piety.  She dedicated her life to educating her children with her husband Eberhard who became St. Eberhard. (We descend from at least three saints: St. Eberhard, St. Margaret of Scotland and San Fernando)

None of Charlemagne's daughters married---he feared their husbands would become political rivals.  It didn't stop them from having long-term relationships and children. But, it shows the political importance of marriages at this time.  Bertha is praised in particular for "having critical discernment and an appreciation for poetry".  

When her father died, she and her sisters went to live in convents which their father left them.  It's unknown which convent she entered but it was probably St. Riquier where her partner Angilbert had become the lay-abbot.

So, now when the tag in my shirt hurts, I nod and think, "It's just my Princess gene".

St. Margaret of Scotland

My cousins and I  loved visiting our grandparents flat  at 39th street and Flad in St. Louis.  Coming up the stairs was a huge hall area with an old skylight showing its age: the glass was more "frosted" than clear and often had leaves resting on it.  We immediately got to the top of the steps and looked around to see if our other cousins were there. If not, then we sat quietly reading a book or playing with Uncle Ron's old toys.

But, if the cousins were already there, the race began! Our favorite game began---CHASE! The boys (Bob and Steve) usually led the chase but  sometimes I did which occasionally resulting in injury for my taller cousins: I was able to run under tables they were too tall for.  It was a great game running through the butler's pantry into the kitchen, into the dining room sometimes waiting under the lace table cloth, waiting for my victims.  But sometimes they saw me and the race was on again out to the huge hall, through the pantry, kitchen and dining room.  We were a happy, but noisy trio of cousins.  

Our parents tried to slow us down fearful that someone (Steve) would get hurt.  But, nothing slowed us down until we heard the Westminster chimes of the church across the street: St. Margaret's of Scotland.  Our grandmother Vivian Maupin Long loved  to hold us to listen to the chimes.  She had us try to repeat them and on the hour, count the chimes to know what time it was.  To live across the street with chimes going off every 15 minutes, she must have loved them.

To this day those chimes are soothing to me:  I sit back and can feel myself relax as the chimes bathe over me. Once after the chimes, I looked outside and saw all of these people going to church and asked my grandmother why we didn't go there to church.  She explained that we weren't Catholic but Methodist.  Our church was Lafayette Park Methodist Church which we needed to take a bus or a street car to get to.  I wanted to just step inside to see what the church was like on the inside, but she told me I couldn't because I wasn't Catholic.

Years later, after I'd retired, Dave and I drove through that old neighborhood .  My grandparents flat was still there with the balcony my grandmother was afraid would collapse.  Then, I looked across to St. Margaret's  and was happy to see it is still a bustling active congregation.  

Imagine my surprise to find that St. Margaret of Scotland was my 28th grandmother (she's the 30th for my grandchildren).  With some research I found that she was a Saxon princess who married King Malcom (the Great) of Scotland.  As the Queen of Scotland, she was loved and revered by many for her pious ways and her generous nature.  

I found a historical fiction book about her marriage to Malcom and her life as Queen of Scotland: Queen Hereafter by Susan Fraser King.  In that book I discovered Lady MacBeth was her contemporary.  I checked and can say we do NOT descend from Lady MacBeth. I am very proud to have St. Margaret of Scotland as one of my ancestors.  

I keep thinking about my grandmother (her 26th granddaughter) living across the street from a church with her ancestor and she never knew it. Grandma was the kindest and most generous woman like her ancestor Margaret. Maybe those chimes were a voice from her distant past tolling in sisterhood.