The Frank Skinner Show - Frank Skinner's Poetry Podcast: Ruth Padel

Episode Date: December 4, 2024

A poem by Ruth Padel results in Frank staring for 15 minutes, at an embroidery of an elephant. The poem referenced is 'Mary's Elephant, Elizabeth Spinet' from 'The Soho Leopard' by Ruth Padel. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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by adding your Visa Infinite Privilege Card to your OpenTable account. From there, you'll unlock first come, first serve at select-top restaurants when booking through OpenTable. Learn more at opentable.ca forward slash visa dining. Hello and welcome to Frank Skinner's Poetry Podcast. podcast. So picture me, if you will, in room 57 of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. It's about five past ten in the morning, there's no one else in the room. The room is dominated by a thing called the Great Bed of Wear, which is a massive four-poster bed from the 1590s, which could hold four couples, I didn't ask. There was no one to ask, of course. That's

not why I was there. Anyway, I was sitting on one of those seats they put for people to stare at exhibits for a long time in museums, and I was looking at embroidery. So there were three squares of embroidery at sort of eye level. One was a sort of menacing quail, the bird. That was one of the portrayals. And then on the other side was a very human looking monkey with pendulous breasts. And in the middle was an embroidered elephant.

Now this is what I'd come to see. It was a strange kind of an elephant but I was very very excited and happy to see it. It was one of the things I'd come to see. About, I don't know, ten feet behind me was a virginals which is a type of spinet or harpsichord, a 16th century keyboard instrument and I'd also come to see that. So why? Why, why had I come to see them? Well of course the answer is poetry and it's all down to a poet who I'm almost certain is called Ruth Padel. I say that because in my insecurity about the pronunciation of Ruth Padel's surname I've listened to a few audio things that name her. Michael

Rosen's podcast calls her Ruth Padel. Kirsty Lang on Front Row calls her Ruth Pardell. Kirsty Young, however, on Desert Island Discs calls her Ruth Pardell. I'm gonna go with democracy, it's two against one, and I'm gonna go with Pardell, hoping that I'm not left up Excrement Creek without a pardle, as it were. So, yes, there's a poem by Ruth Padel in a fabulous collection of hers from 2004 called The Soho Leopard. That's the name of the collection and it's quite an

adventure as poetry collections go. There's lots of wild animal mythology, deep dips into the belief systems of other civilizations and it's all mixed up with a sort of plastic pop culture of the 21st century. The poem I want to look at which is called Mary's elephant Elizabeth's spinet. Things are starting to fall into place aren't they? It's not I would say that representative, it's not as wild as a lot of the other stuff in the collection but I do love it and I do want to share it with you and I was so fascinated by it that I had to go and see those objects which inspired it.

So Mary's Elephant Elizabeth's Spanette. I'm going to read you the first bit. Some night in the 1580s she snaps the last knot off with her teeth by candlelight. One blob under the tail and she has him, in tent-stitch, startled king from Icones and Amalium, a beast she's never seen.' Right so some night in the 1580s I'm gonna tell you now that this section of the poem is based mainly on Mary's elephant and therefore Mary and the Mary is Mary Queen of Scots. And the elephant is an example of her embroidery. I should say, and Ruth Padel does like a helpful note, so if you go to the back of the book, it says that it is a paned linen hanging embroidered in tent stitch

By Mary Queen of Scots with the help of Elizabeth Tolbert, Countess of Shrewsbury Also known as Bess of Hardwick and Ladies of her Household. So it's a bit of a team event it seems and That section also explains Iconi's Anomalium, which is a book by C. Gesna of the period, which has got a lot of strange animals in it. It was that period where people sort of knew what wild animals looked like,

but it was a bit approximate. That makes the drawings even more fantastic, I think. Fantastic in all the senses of the word. You never know quite what you're going to get. So some night in the 1580s, some night sounds a bit vague on specific, but Mary Queen of Scots was a prisoner in various places in the North and Midlands, having escaped from Scotland where she was Queen. She was kept as a prisoner by Elizabeth I.

And so I suppose if you're a prisoner for 19 years the nights do melt into each other a bit. So some night in the 1580s that is one of the side effects of house arrest I guess. Some night in the 1580s she snaps the last knot off and then that kind of feels like an escape doesn't it but it's a mock escape of course she's not going to escape but this is her snapping the last knot off of the embroidery and it says she snaps the last knot off with her and there's a line break and then a one word line teeth. And we have a sense that she's dangerous in some way. Snap in this knot off with her teeth.

And she is dangerous, of course. She's incredibly dangerous to Elizabeth I. That's why she's been confined. She represents Catholicism and not a claim to the throne etc etc etc. I haven't finished the sentence yet. Some night in the 1580s she snaps the last knot off with her teeth by candlelight. One blob under the tail and she has him in tent stitch, startled king from Icones and Amalium, a beast she's never seen. So one blob onto the tail. I looked hard at this embroidery. I couldn't detect a blob, a particular blob onto the tail, but tent stitch is a series of small blobs, as I suppose is most

embroidery. Maybe she spotted one I couldn't see. Startled King from Iconis Anamalium. The embroidery was copied from an illustration of an elephant in Iconis Anamalium. And an elephant obviously is a powerful beast. It's a sort of king in its might and its strength. And this embroidered version of one, at least with its wide-eyed stillness, does look a bit startled. There's also a sense of a sort of monarch when it says she has him, a sort of captured monarch, I suppose, a monarch out of place, which is how Mary may well have felt. A startle king from Iconis, Anna Marliam, a beast she's never seen. She's never seen an elephant in the flesh and that of course feels very relevant to Mary Queen of Scots

because the beast perhaps in her life was Elizabeth the First. That's where all the tremendous threat came from and they never met incredibly even though history has made them quite a big-time double act. There is a film called Mary Queen of Scots made in 1971 with Vanessa Redgrave and Glenda Jackson where they meet twice but that is incorrect just in case you're about to dash off an email. Okay so that first stanza again, some night in the 1580s she snaps the last knot off with her teeth by candlelight. One blob under the tail and she has him, intent stitch, startled king from Iconis animalium, a beast she's never seen. And then we get a bit of a description of how this looks in the next stanza. Ears silver pink abalone feet lost in a webbed pool of bobbles blue motten fat peas She rests him on her lap,

writing letters in her head, unsendable as words for resin in Armenian acrolet. Her cousin knows everything she has to say already. It's been said, Outside the black on broken forest rides to London, wolves kill a row for cobs whose last descendant will be shot in Mary's realm 200 years down the line. Ears silver pink abalone. Abalone is a kind of a shellfish. She's describing now this embroidery and the ears do look like the inside of a shell and pinky. Obviously the embroidery has faded somewhat, but still you can feel those colours. Feet lost in a webbed pool of bubbles and that's exactly what it looks like. Like it's standing in this strange It's like bubble tea. That's what the and that's exactly what it looks like. Like it's standing in this strange...

It's like bubble tea. That's what the elephant seems to be standing in. But I don't know when this collection came out in 2004, whether bubble tea was an accessible image. I think it was not. I certainly hadn't discovered it myself. Feet lost in a webbed pool of bobbles blew mutton fat peas. Now I don't know if she meant marrow fat peas, which are the peas they used to make moshi peas, or whether she means peas cooked in mutton fat, which I've looked into and I can't find an example of that as a thing. But the stitches, the tenth stitch, do look like little

balls. And there are those blue peas which look a bit greyish. And there's a whole section around the elephant that could be a plate of blue, grey peas. So that's what I'm going for. She's describing what the actual embroidered picture looks like. Its physical texture. If there's any culinary types listening, forgive me my ignorance, but I can't be bothered to delve any deeper into food because I don't like it that much. She rests him on her lap.

So obviously she lays down this embroidery she's just finished on her lap. Now then, this is very Ruth Padel. Writing letters in her head on sendable as words for resin in Armenian Acrolet. And one thing I love about her poetry is, and I've said this before in the past, I think certainly about T.S. Eliot, that Ruth Pardell is not afraid to wear her brain on her sleeve. I've delved into Armenian Acrolect. Acrolect is a sort of the formal language of an area, the language that's seen as the most prestigious compared to other languages that are around. So it's a superior kind of a thing, Acrolect. Maybe in Armenian acrolect there are no words for resin

because it's too lowly a thing to be described in such a grand language. That's possible. I don't know. It's also true, of course, that words that are seen as not quite formal and proper enough for Acrolect. They are not worthy of Acrolect. That might be O Mary Queen of Scots. Words are seen by Elizabeth and her court unworthy of hearing or reading. She is beneath them and so Ruth Padel could have said this in a thousand ways but she says it in a Padelian way, unsendable as words for resin in Armenian acrobatics. Absolutely love it. Her cousin knows everything she has to say already. Her cousin obviously is Elizabeth the First. I should say by the way of Mary Queen of Scots that she had many languages at her fingertips. She spoke Latin, Greek,

French, Scots, Spanish. So her words would not be inferior in fact but this is how she would be judged. She only writes the letters in her head. I guess the truth is that embroidery is safer than writing letters although she says many things in the embroidery. I'll give you an example. I was at a book festival and I went to see a dear friend of mine called Denise Minor, the Scottish crimewriter and she had written a book called Ritio, which is about Mary Queen of Scots and I would absolutely recommend it. The prose... Ah, it sparkles. Anyway, I went to see her give a talk about about Rizio and there was a woman called

Claire Hunter sharing the bill with her and she had written a book about Mary Queen of Scots Embroidery called Embroidering Her Truth And I hadn't read this poem at the time and I thought oh I don't know if I want to listen to something about embroidery as it turned out it was utterly fascinating and one of the things that Claire Hunter said on the night was an image which appears in Mary Queen of Scots embroidery is a ginger cat taunting a small mouse and the suggestion is that a ginger cat taunting a small mouse.

And the suggestion is that the ginger cat, Elizabeth I was ginger, is Elizabeth I. And this poor put upon tortured mouse is Mary, Queen of Scots. And Claire Hunter said that in some of the sections of that image, And in some of the sections of that image, Mary's embroidery seems to be not as good as it normally is. And she thinks her embroidery skills have been impaired by rage as she portrays the way she's been treated by her cat-like cousin. Phew! You see, this is the thing with Ruth Pudell, once you go into one of

her poems it seems to trigger a thousand intellectual experiences. I don't know how but it does. Okay. So her cousin knows everything she has to say already. It's been said. So all Mary's protests, all her defences, all her pleading, it's all been ignored. Outside the black unbroken forest rides to London. So there's still a lot of forest obviously then in England. This is the 1580s remember. Rides to London, it continues to London to be ridden in I suppose. Wolves kill a roe, a deer, R-O-E, yes, a deer, a female, no, that's doe. Wolves kill a roe for cobs whose last descendant will be shot in Mary's realm 200 years down the line.

I look to Ruth Biddell's notes, what does it say about that? It says Britain's last wolf was probably shot in Scotland in the 1740s. So there you go. Wolves kill a row for cobs whose last descendant will be shot in Mary's realm 200 years down the line. So outside, and there's always this sense of menace in this poem in the, as far as Mary, Queen of Scots is concerned, and quite rightly and understandably because she was constantly under threat. And so there's an image of this going on outside. Wolves kill a roe, kill a deer, for cobs, so for their to feed their cobs, whose last descendant will be shot in Mary's realm, Scotland, in other words, 200 years down the line as explained in Ruth Padel's note. Right, so that is that bit. I just... oh, I love it. Last section of the Mary section before we get to what her cousin is up to down south. So of Mary. But she in these

walls is marigold, a heliotrope turning to sun that'll never warm her skin again, ransacking old books in Spanish for emblems of hope. Right. So she in these walls, but she in these walls, so forever imprisoned now is Marigold. Now she used that symbol. That was her, her symbol. used that symbol. That was her symbol. Again in the notes it says Mary combined her own emblem, the marigold, turning towards the sun with other emblems representing courage in adversity. And that's what she did in her embroidery. Almost everything you look at in the embroidery suggests someone who's been

put upon, someone who dreams of freedom, someone who feels ill-used and her thing is a marigold turning towards the Sun, a heliotrope as Ruth Padel of course describes it. Heliotrope is something which turns to the sun. And that is what she uses, one of the things she uses in embroidery to signify herself. But she in these walls is marigold. And marigold by the way,

also comes from the word Mary's gold, the phrase Mary's gold, which refers to the Virgin Mary, who didn't have any gold because she was quite poor, but her gold was her inner worth. And so I guess that suggests Mary's inner worth also. But she in these walls is Mary gold, a heliotrope turning to sun that'll never warm her skin again.

She is imprisoned. She is at least metaphorically constantly inside, on free if you like. I think also there's an element of Elizabeth as the sun that will never warm Mary's skin again but I'll come to that when we get into the Elizabeth section. Ransacking old books in Spanish for emblems of hope. So this is the point I was making which Claire Hunter made very brilliantly at that talk, that there's lots of imagery, there's the phoenix she uses, obviously rising from the ashes, as Mary hoped to do, the snail, slow, determined, patient progress to the goal in her case freedom. There's caterpillars attacking a flower, that imagery is fairly clear, the ginger cat and the mouse as I said. There's lots of it. She is dramatizing her own situation, ransacking old books in Spanish for emblems of hope.

So she's looking for emblems, these emblem books that used to have all sorts of imagery. And she is using them, they are inspiring her art. I think this is an image, by the way, of someone escaping reality, if you like, through art. Not necessarily escaping reality, but perhaps reframing it, interpreting it in her own way. Ransacking old books in Spanish for emblems of hope. Okay, now we get to the first Elizabeth section. Down south, remember Mary was always imprisoned in the North and Midlands, down south the keyboards come from Florian in Venice. Cousin E tries some birdian version of Only the Lonely, checks the guilt inlay,

Islamic painted whorls, the logo of Falcon and Scepter, her mums. She paid extra for that. This soundhole, a fretted bronze rose, is an eavesdropping sun. She's awaiting her spies. She can never give in. She has become her own grotesque. She sends men to the tropics. Men to death.

So this is Elizabeth now. She's on that keyboard I told you about, which I went to have a look at after I'd studied the embroidery. And it's in this glass case, obviously. And it's a beautiful thing. And it has all sorts of designs on it. Down south, the keyboards come from Florian in Venice.

So that's obviously the maker of this. As I say, it's called a spinet in the title of this poem. I think it's referred to as a virginals in the accompanying label at the V&A. I think those were somewhat interchangeable, spinet, harpsichord, virginals, I think and she explains of course in her notes if we want to get, here we go, it is called a virginals when enclosed like this one in a box without legs and she describes what we're actually looking at as a spinet a small harpsichord with oblique strings. Right I'm calling it a virginals

because that is what I feel the Virgin Queen should be playing. Down south the keyboards come from Flora and in Venicein E. And she likes to get relaxed and casual in the most dramatic moments in her poetry. She's always slightly undermining it with a bit of sort of street modernity, Ruth Paddell. Cousin E, which is obviously Queen Elizabeth I, the cousin of Mary, Queen of Scots. Cousin E tries some Byrdian version. Byrd was a very famous composer of the period. I'll give you

his dates 1540 to 1623. There's actually some phones at the side of the Virginals that you can pick up and listen to one of his pieces of music, Bird. So it's BYRD by the way if you want to check him out. Cosny tries some Birdian version of Only the Lonely. Only the Lonely in case you don't know is a 1960s, I'll call it a pop song, though it's a haunting, dark and heartbreaking tale by the king of heartbreak Roy Orbison. So again, a modern reference that she's happy to throw in. I'd love to read you more stuff from the Soho Leopard, but I'm constantly being told that I ramble on too much. I'll tell you what, I'm gonna read a very quick bit, I'm not even gonna give you any real explanation of it,

but just get a feel for the mix of the sort of brainy stuff, like reminiscent of the Armenian Acrolect, and the historical stuff, and the modern references all chucked in together. Just listen to this. This is a woman talking about her boyfriend. As if at sky-shutting-in time on the Rio Negro dunes, I found your stallion thudding from the forest of no horizon to place where two rivers meet, with blood on his empty saddle.

The crossbow you unsnapped knew from its box in my kitchen, oozing each tricksy part from the other's grooves and tried to string, lodging the tip in gaps between our tiles, he's slapping from the cantal, it's part of a saddle, scarring him and it's plastic handle, now get this, this is the plastic handle of a crossbow that he tried to string in a kitchen which is somehow on a horse which has ridden from the forest of no horizon, abandoned because he seems to be lost. Here we go. That, um, it's slapping from the cantal, scarring him. I'm taking a deep breath.

And it's plastic handle, just the acnid yellow-red of crystalline isotin, precipitated by oxidizing indigo to fake medieval sheen is cracked to its Teflon heart. I'm not doing that poem so I'm not going to analyse it but just reading it. Oh it's like a fabulous kiss. So Only the Lonely. So, Only the Lonely. Cosine tries some Byrdian version of Only the Lonely, checks the guilt inlay, Islamic painted whorls, these are things that you can see on that actual virginals. The logo of

Falcon and Scepter and you can see that and we get brackets, hurrah, her mom's, M-U-M apostrophe S. Again, this is of Anne Boleyn. Anne Ruth Padel does like to reduce the grand with a bit of colloquialism. So the logo of Falcon and Scepter is Anne Boleyn's logo, the mother of Elizabeth I, not treated terribly well by her husband, as I'm sure you know. So the logo of Falcon and Scepter, open brackets,

her mom, she paid extra for that, close brackets, so she had to pay to get her mom's logo put on it. This sound hole, now this is why I'm really glad I went to room 57 and had a look at these things. This sound hole, a fretted bronze rose is an eavesdropping song. On the top of this keyboard is a sound hole like you might get on a guitar, except it's covered in what looks like a

little sort of bronze manhole cover and with it's very ornate and it's got holes and designs but if you lower yourself to sort of keyboard level as if you were about to play perhaps. You can only see half of that circular sound hole, this fretted bronze rose and the half you can see has got two holes and a bit of ornamentation and it looks like two eyes on a face just peeping over a wall. That's what it looks like. This sound hole, a fretted bronze rose

is an eavesdropping sun. And it really looks like that if you get to the right angle, like one of those very ornate sun sons that you see painted in 16th century art but here it's just looking over a wall just looking at you watching what you're up to and it continues this section though I want to come back to the eavesdropping son she's awaiting her spies She's awaiting her spies. And Elizabeth the first famously had a whole network of spies. She became obsessed.

There were several attempts at her life to be fair. So you can understand why. She's awaiting her spies. She can never give in. She has become her own grotesque. She sends men to the tropics, men to death. So she's got this whole network of spies working for her, taking enormous risks.

She must know what's going on. Okay. I want to focus particularly on the eavesdropping son and she has become her own grotesque and the eavesdropping son and she has become her own grotesque and the eavesdropping son if you know anything about Elizabeth the first any mention of the son makes you think or makes me think certainly of the rainbow portrait which is a portrait you can have a look at on the internet and it's painted around 1600 and you might say yes but this is the 1580s but that's not really relevant because only the lonely came somewhat later than

this and that would never bother Ruth Padel and also the reference still works totally. The rainbow portrait is Elizabeth the first holding a rainbow in her hands or between her hands and there is a logo in Latin, but which means there can be no rainbow without the Sun. So she seems to represent the sun and so without her no rainbow. And the rainbow of course has got big Old Testament religious significance so it would mean no covenant with God, no protection for the people. The original rainbow came after the great flood and it was God saying,

I won't do that again. Noah has saved the people and Elizabeth the first seems to be shown in the same light the saviour of the people in that picture. And if she is the son, remember earlier it said that the son would never warm Mary's skin again and of course Elizabeth who is now totally turned against Mary will never see Mary and so Mary will never feel the rays of her greatness she will never have her skin warmed by Elizabeth's presence it also I suppose could be a reference to that candlelight that Mary was working in right at the beginning of the poem because she is left in darkness

because the sun has deserted her. Okay, she has become her own grotesque. Now, this seems to bring everything together. There is a grotesque is a term, an art term for a painting made of various things to produce figures and faces. The great master of this is a guy called Archimboldo, a painter and you will know some of his work. He makes faces out of fruit and flowers and stuff like that. They, I hate them on one level, but they're fabulously weird.

And in this painting, the rainbow portrait, Elizabeth, she's got a snake on one arm She's got flowers all over her and then her face and her hat looks like one of these Archimboldo paintings to me, but most amazingly this sort of spy master queen that I talked about this eavesdropping son, awaiting her spies she can never give in. The dress that she wears is decorated, wait for it, with eyes and ears. Human eyes and ears, not real ones, but pictures of them. It's a real freaky thing. Check out the rainbow portrait and it fits in neatly with the eavesdropping sun,

the idea of Elizabeth I as a son withdrawn from Mary and as a spymaster constantly with eyes and ears sent everywhere. She sends men to the tropics, men to death. They are all her eyes and ears. Next bit. When her blood says dance she will gavotte the night away with the Earl of Leicester. Are there tears at what she looks like now? For who on earth else may show up in her bed? When melancholy strikes, they see her turn to a pavan. Shadow bones, capitate, trichetral, lunate, stripe and flinch in the back of her hand. One frizzed hair, white and red, drifts down over black middle sea.

Wowee. Okay, dance. So when her blood says dance she will gavotte the night away with the Earl of Leicester. The Earl of Leicester, Robert Dodley. Incidentally, in Room 57, there is a very ornate box which was made for the Earl of Leicester. So all these things are gathered. Go to Room 57, the whole poem will spring to life, if I haven't done that already. When her blood says dance dance she will gavotte

the night away with the Earl of Leicester. A gavotte I'm told is a lively kissing dance. Yes, you can guess the rest. Are there tears at what she looks like now? For who on earth else may show up in her bed? She's getting older now at this point, Elizabeth, and she has had a whole line of suitors but has remained this unmarried Queen and now it looks like other than the Earl of Leicester Robert Dudley who's been loyal despite, you know, getting married and stuff like that. She becomes ever more lonely, perhaps that's why she plays only the lonely or its 16th century equivalent.

When her blood says down, she will gavotte the night away with the Earl of Leicester. Are there tears at what she looks like now? For who on earth else may show up in her bed? When melancholy strikes, they see her turn to a pavan. Okay, there was a note on this, I believe. Elizabeth was said to play excellently well when she was

solitary to shun melancholy. That is in Ruth Padel's notes. So when the Earl of Leicester and any other suitors aren't around, she turns, just like Mary turned to art as a form of, I don't want to say escape, but I guess that's what it is, an alternative reality, or some sort of owning the situation. That's what the embroidery did with all that symbolism and now the Virgin Queen plays her virginals alone melancholy music and

I listened to a per van on the one of these telephones at the side of the virginals at the V&A. It was pretty sad I must say. I love this section this is very Ruth Pardell because it's very technical and very learned but also absolutely beautiful. Shadow bones, this is a hand we're looking at now. Capitate, triketral, lunate, they are bones in the back of the hand. Stripe and flinch in the back of her hand. So we can see as she plays and as her fingers move on the keys, those bones in the back of her hand moving about. And what I like the way they're named technically like that, they are the wrist bones shared by all humans.

You don't have to be a queen to have them. The servants would also have a capitate, a trichetral, and a lunate. And it just makes her feel more vulnerable, more human. We can forget that Queen Elizabeth I is just a woman, ultimately, just a human being. Also, those visible bones make us think of an old hand, I think, this aging queen.

So they stripe and flinch on the back of her hand as she plays her virginals. And then this fabulous moment, oh Ruth I love you, one frizzed hair, frizzed, F-R-I-D-Z-E-D, so something that's been probably over brushed and worked and a bit curly to start off with. One frizzed hair, white and red. She was a redhead but she is becoming white now. Maybe she's dyed it and she's left the roots. But anyway this one frizzed hair, white and red, drifts down over black Middle Sea. So it just gradually drops from her head to the keyboard. OK, last bit. Last bit. And now we've left Mary and Elizabeth and now it's now. And this is the speaker in room 57 with whoever they are with.

Four lines. And if you and I held hands across this room, touched DNA of their touch, slowed off on this tusker, embroidered in velvet and lint, this Venice lacquer, Cyprus, ebony, we would join fingerprints that never met. So if you and I held hands across this room and you could just about do it, I suppose, if you really extended your arms and there was no glass case. You could touch, she says here, touch DNA of their touch, slowed off on this tosca, slowed sort of something

that's separated from living tissue. So I suppose like skin cells of Mary on the tosca, the elephant, embroidered in velvet and lint. And then she turns to the keyboard, this Venice lacquer, Cyprus ebony, so she will have obviously, Queen Elizabeth I will have touched that, we would join fingerprints that never met. So this famous, these two women who were paired together forever, both prisoners in a way, one a prisoner of Queen Hood, if that's a word, and the other a prisoner

of that Queen, her cousin. They're sort of imprisoned by each other in a strange way. They never met. This is a way they could touch each other. As I say, there was a lot of teamwork went into the embroidery and the little plat next to the keyboard says, several contemporaries recorded that she, i.e. Elizabeth I, was an excellent keyboard player and it is possible that she played on this very instrument. So of course the thing is with museums and I love museums but they all have to be a bit upfront and technical and so it might be that

Elizabeth didn't play this. It says it is possible that she played on this very instrument but it's got her crest and her mom's crest. Of course she played and it'd be sensible. Ah, I almost thought I'd got away with a podcast and no siren. It cannot be. This must have been the noise. If this was a Ruth Padel poem, this would be the noise that would frighten Mary, Queen of Scots most of all, because it's the police, even if they're from the 21st century, it's the police finally turning up to take her to her execution. Okay, so the speaker says at the end, if we could reach across the room, we could touch the skin cells on the embroidery

Obviously they could be from Lady Tolbert, but let's not go into that. This is a poem So we could touch Mary's skin cells her DNA on that embroidery We could touch Elizabeth the first's DNA on that keyboard and at last we could bring these two women together. And a lot of people, contemporaries, felt that if they just met that maybe things could have been sorted and Mary would not have been executed by Elizabeth in what I think was 1587. I love the poem. Read the poem and also if you can read the Soho Leopard collection there is a lot more in it and it dazzles as you will have hopefully

got from that little bit I read and if you're in the area do nip into room 57 it's great to see these things and I absolutely believe that Elizabeth played that keyboard and that those marrow fat grey peas whatever it was have been stitched in by Mary Queen of Scots herself. If you're a poetry fan sometimes the facts just aren't enough. Thank you for listening to Frank Skinner's Poetry Podcast. Don't forget to follow so you never miss an episode. See you next week. Thanks for watching!