#Chief Constable Giles

[contributing-a-verse]

Just watched What Lies Buried and excuse while I go sob.

Lowkey I already loved Giles bc he ignores Murdoch's Main Character-ness and is like 'can you please give me Evidence and not just a gut feeling pls' and as soon as it is proved that Julia was being framed, he fully helped them like.

I love him. I love Hodge. I love them both.

But legit Giles is prob the most Fascinating character so far, actor being amazing with his microexpressions oh my gosh. I want so much more of him dammit.

[wattsandroot]

Confession: i always got these two confused for another (their name not appearance)

[4beaniebabies]

I support this analysis 100%

This has a demographic of about seven people, so I hope they enjoy it

[canadachronicles]

I was heartbroken. You see, Detective, Peter Reid was not a prostitute whose services I was using. He was the man with whom I was infatuated. (...) Because I was a fool. He seduced me with his charm and wit...and beauty. That's what made it so pathetic. I was blind. And when that flash went off, my eyes were finally open to the fact of my own craven stupidity. (...) Of course it was a trap! And while you may think that I pursued the photographer with vengeance in mind, the truth is that... I wept. While the man I loved... While my lover got dressed and left. He was the last man I ever took to bed. I don't know why I'm telling you all this. It's hardly relevant.

Chief Constable Percival Giles (Nigel Bennett) to Detective William Murdoch, in What Lies Buried [S8E07].

I had skipped this episode in my Murdoch Re-Watch so far, because it makes me weep, too! But tonight, after a day that was a roller-coaster of emotions, I did feel like watching it again! I wept liberally, of course; but I don’t regret it!

[buga-lugs]

the other day i had a dream where watts met chief constable giles and they sat together and talked about being gay

[terapsina]

So, I’ve been watching Murdoch Mysteries with my sister. And I just saw What Lies Buried and... wow okay, that was really painful.

I already loved Chief Constable Giles, even when he was antagonistic he was a clearly good person and it was hard not to like him. But in this episode, yeah in this episode his story broke my heart.

I hate it when cop shows do this. Introduce a murder and then reveal that the killer was a person or people we know and like and the victim a dirtbag not worthy of any spilled tears. But then have to see ‘justice’ be served when it doesn’t feel like any justice at all.

And in this case for said victim to be a homophobic dirtbag made it all the more awful.

Anyway the entire series of interrogation scenes between Murdoch and Giles were so very hard to watch.

And in the end to know that the accessory to the manslaughter would almost certainly get a much longer prison sentence than the person that actually killed that worm, just because the man in question is gay makes it just... so much more awful.

I mean the episode was brilliant. It really was, but damn did it hurt.

I do hope Giles makes another appearance (and that it’s not as depressing a scene (though I realize how unlikely that last part is)).

[torontoscoroner]

the way giles’ whole “redemption arc” was him being gay and friends with hodge was pretty funny

[mey-rin-is-fabulous]

So I've been watching Murdoch Mysteries , I'm at s7 probably near the end. I got to kung fu crabtree and I'm just thinking about modern changtree maybe even a reincarnation modern thing. George deserves to be happy with someone especially considering all the crap they put him through. Like I liked George and Emily but then the whole Leslie thing happened and goddang why are they so mean to the best boy.

[nevcolleil]

My headcanon is Giles keeps sending messages to Murdoch, yadda yadda yadda, "Grandpa Giles" ends up wherever Anna and Harry are and that's where he'll live out his days, probably be set up by Anna with some nice man and shadowed by Harry.

sorry not sorry giles has been one of my favourites since he was first introduced and i am such a sucker for this shit. like.

“oh, you hated me for freeing a criminal because it was morally right? well, too bad: this time i’m gonna free your criminal ass because it’s morally right. now take my gun i need to look like a Martyr™ who has been punished for his sins.”

for real, these are some of the tropes you can pry out of my cold, dead hands.

[murdochwatching]

Giles is free after being in prison for 7 seasons!!! Let’s not forget he was betrayed by his lover, buried a body for his best friend, held the trauma secret while acting chief constable, lost his job and was outed, served a longer prison sentence than necessary, and will have his love life forever ostracized.

And Watts never got to meet him :(

[thelastifntdragonrider]

k, they always act as if Chief Constable Giles is a villain, but really he’s a pretty chill dude 

and he gay 

[david-sankey]

Burdett-Coutts sundial and lesbianism and transgender history

https://photos.app.goo.gl/U9etP6rDSdJ1EKBn8

https://photos.app.goo.gl/f47wPs52KbHvHK7Z7

https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1113250 (History + Details, below)

History

The public gardens around the St Pancras Old Church were opened in 1877,after the churchyard was closed for burials in 1850.The gardens are made up of part of the old churchyard for the church of St Pancras,enlarged in 1800,and a separate burial ground for St Giles-in-the-Fields,added 1803.It was a preferred burial place for Catholics,with an area devoted to French émigrés.The burial ground and churchyard were partially destroyed by the development of the Midland Railway;the company formed a cutting in 1865 for the construction of the railway lines from St Pancras Station.The clearances of tombs and bodies was highly controversial and caused considerable protest;the graves were dug up at night,behind screens,a process overseen by Thomas Hardy,then an apprentice architect,and many years later recorded in a poem,‘The Levelled Churchyard’(1882).The grandest tombs survived,including the tomb to Sir John Soane(d 1837)and his wife(d 1815),but others were moved.The ground was levelled and the headstones were placed in mounds or around the walls.In 1875 the remaining land was acquired by the St Pancras Vestry for use as public space,and the gardens were opened to the public in June 1877;Baroness Burdett-Coutts laid the foundation stone of the monument she had presented,to commemorate the graves disturbed in the construction of the railway.The gardens were laid out in their present form in 1890-1 by the Vestry,in conjunction with the Midlands Railway Company. Angela Georgina Burdett, suo jure Baroness Burdett-Coutts(1814-1906)was a prominent philanthropist who is estimated to have given away between £3 and £4 million.As described by her biographer Edna Healey,in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography,Burdett-Coutts set a new standard in philanthropy:prompt and practical,her charity was given with style and without condescension.In her time she was an honoured institution and most of her enterprises bore lasting fruit.Even her visionary schemes that did not survive–Columbia market and Columbia Square–served as models for the shopping precincts and housing estates of a later era.In the breadth and sincerity of her sympathies and in the variety of her social and intellectual interests she has had no rival among philanthropists before or since.Her example not only provided an immense stimulus to charitable work among the rich and fashionable but also suggested solutions to many social problems.She was the first woman to be given a peerage,in 1871,and was thus described by Edward VII:‘after my mother the most remarkable woman in the country’.Burdett-Coutts lived with her companion and partner Hannah Brown for 52 years,after whose death,she married her protégé,William Lehman Ashmead Bartlett;it was called the ‘mad marriage’ by Queen Victoria,for Burdett-Coutts was 66,and Bartlett 29. Burdett-Coutts commissioned this memorial to commemorate a diverse group of people whose graves had been destroyed by the development of the railway.Among the names included on the memorial is that of the Chevalier d’Eon,who was a celebrated French spy and diplomat in the eighteenth century.The Chevalier lived the first part of their life as a man and the latter as a woman.Their gender was widely speculated about,and they were written about in many satires and pamphlets.D’Eon used female pronouns in later life,and signed their name as Mademoiselle d’Eon. Numerous other significant historic figures are noted on the memorial, including Sir Edward Walpole, Sir John Soane, and sculptor Thomas Flaxman, whose tomb (q.v.) stands nearby. The burial of Sidly Effendi, the Turkish Ambassador, presumably a Muslim, is quite unusual. In line with Burdett-Coutts’s humanitarian principles, a special dedication is made to the ‘memory of those whose graves are now unseen, or the record of whose names may have become obliterated’.

Details

Memorial sundial,1877-1879.Designed by George Highton of Brixton for Baroness Burdett-Coutts, and manufactured by H Daniel and Co,cemetery masons of Highgate;relief carvings by Signor Facigna.MATERIALS:constructed from Portland stone,with marble and granite dressings and mosaic detail,a red Mansfield stone base and wrought ironwork.DESCRIPTION:the memorial is a tall square shaft in decorated Gothic style,standing on a square plinth and a three-tiered octagonal base.The shaft has angle colonnettes in pink and grey granite,which rise on each side to a trefoil head to a recessed panel with inscriptions in applied lettering.Four tall,richly-moulded gables surround a crocketed spire with corner pinnacles.The SW side faces the entrance to the gardens.The trefoil contains a marble plaque beneath a relief carving of St Pancras with a palm and book,above a marble panel with a two-part inscription:the first is the beatitudes from St Matthew V,3-9 (verses 4 and 5 in reversed order),and the second is a religious poem,the author of which is unknown.In the gable above is an iron sundial,with the words ‘TEMPUS EDAX RERUM’ –time devours all things.The SE and NW sides have relief carvings of Morning,represented by a woman with a cockerel upon her head,and Night,represented by a robed figure with a star and crescent moon. The panels contain lists of names of eminent people once buried in the churchyards.On the NE is St Giles,whose panel has a dedication to those people whose graves were disturbed but whose names were not recorded.The names are listed thus:SE side:‘CHARLES LOUIS VICOR DE BROGLIE 1765/CHEVALIER D’EON,1810/FRENCH MINISTER PLENIPOTINTIARY/JOSEPH FRANCIS XAVIER DE HASLANG,1783/COUNT D’HERVILLY,1795 MARSHAL OF FRANCE/PASCHALIS DE PAOLI,1807 OF CORSICA/COMTE DE PONTCARRE,1810 /MICHAEL JOANNED BAPTISTA,BARON DE WENZEL,1790/OCCULIST TO THE COURT OF HUNGARY/LORD CHARLES DILLON,1741:LADY DILLON, 1751/ARCHIBISHOP DILLON,1806/GENERAL SIR RUFANCE DONKIN,KCB,GCH 1841/MISS FRANCES DOUGHTY,1763/DAUGHTER OF SIR HENRY TICHNORNE/GUY HENRY MARIE DU VAL, MARQUIS BE BONNEEVAL, 1863 /REV.JOSEPH DUNCAN,1797/SIDLY EFFENDI,1811/ TURKISH AMBASSADOR TO THIS COUNTRY/JOHN FLAXMAN,1826 SCULPTOR/SIR JOHN FLEETWOOD,1741/PHILLIPPO NEPUMUCENO FONTANAE,1793/AMBASSADOR FROM THE COURT OF SARDINIA/TO THAT OF SPAIN/FRANCIS PIETRI FOZANO,1838/CLAUDE JOSEPH GABRIEL,CISCOUNT LE VAULX,1809 / MARSHAL OF FRANCE/BONAVENTURA GIFFARD,1734 AND ANDREA GIFFARD,1714 /JOHN ERNEST GRABE D.D.1711/ANTOINE FRANCOISE,COMTE BE GRAMONT,1795/SIR JOHN GURNEY,1845/FORMERLY THE CHIEF BARON OF THE EXCHEQUER/SAMUEL HARRISON,MUSICIAN 1812/THE HON ESME HOWARD OF NORFOLK,1728/YOUNGEST SON OF HENRY,EARL OF ARUNDEL AND SURREY/AND HIS WIFE MARGARET,1716 /COUNT LA MARCHE,1806 BISHOP OF LEON’(33)NW side:‘HIS EXCELLENCY PHILLIP ST MARTIN/COUNT DE FRONT,1812./MORRIS LEIVESLEY,1849,/54 YEARS SECRETARY OF THE FOUNDLING HOSPITAL./ JAMES LEONI,1746, ARCHITECT./COUNT FERDINAND LUCHESSE,1806, ENVOY FROM NAPLES/ANDRES MARSHALL,1813,PHYSICIAN./MAURICE MARGAROT,1815,AND HIS WIFE ELIZABETH,1841 / THOMAS MAZZINGHI,1775,VIOLINIST./FATHER OF JOSPEH MAZZINGHI,THE COMPOSER./THE HON:ISAAC OGDEN,1819./REVD FATHER O’LEARY,1802./DON JOSEPH ALONZO ORTIZ,1813,/CONSUL GENERAL OF SPAIN./STEPHEN PAXTON,1787,MUSICIAN./ PETER PASQUALINO,1766,MUSICIAN./MADELINE ANTOINETTER PULCHERIE,MARQUISE DE TOURVILLE,1837./SENORA DONA MARIA MANUELA RAPAOL,1839,/NATIVE OF CORDOVA./SIMON FRANCIS RAVENET,1764,ENGRAVER./LADY SLINGSBY,1693,AN ACTRESS./SIR JOHN SOANE,R.A.F.R.S. 1837,/ARCHITECT OF THE BANK OF ENGLAND/JEREMIAH LE SOUEF,1837,/FOR 20 YEARS VICE CONSUL OF THE UNITED STATES./SIR CHARLES HENRY TALBOT,1798,/HIS WIFE AND OTHER MEMBERS OF THE TALBOT FAMILY./SIR HENRY TEMPEST,1753./MANOEL VIERA,1783 PORTUGUESE MERCHANT./JOHN WALKER,1807/AUTHOR OF THE PRONOUNCING DICTIONARY./EDWARD WALPOLE,1740./SIR JOHN WEBB,1797,/AND HIS WIFE BARBARA,1740.’(29)NE side,beneath the dedication:‘RT:HON’ MARY DOWAGER LADY ABERGAVENNY,1699./FRANCIS CLAUD AMOS 1800./THE HON:COUNT ARUNDELL,1752 AND HIS WIFE ANN,1778./LOUIS CLAUD BIGOT,1803/MINISTER PLENIPOTENTIARY FOR THE KING OF FRANE IN SWEDEN./LADY BOWYER 1802,RELICT OF SIR WILLIAM BOWYER,BART/WILLIAM BRETT,1828,ARTIST./HENRY BURDETT,1736, GOLDSMITH./MARY BURKE,1846./WIFE OF JOHN BURKE,AUTHOR OF “THE PEERAGE”./THE HON:ELIZABETH BUTLER,1823,/DAUGHTER OF LORD LANGDALE./RT:HON:ELIZABETH,COUNTESS OF CASTLEHAVEN,1743,DAUGHTER OF LORD ARUNDELL./TIBERIUS CAVALLOW,1809, SCIENTIST./THE HON AMEY CONSTABLE,1783,/DAUGHTER OF LORD CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEY./CATHERINE CONSTABLE,1783/WILLIAM CUMMINGS,1833,GENERAL OF H.M.FORCES./JOHN DANBY,1798,MUSICIAN./ALEXANDER CAESAR D’ANTERROCHES,1793,/BISHOP OF CONDORN./JOSEPH CAYETANO DE BERNALES,1825,SPANISH MERCHANT,/ AND HIS WIFE ELIZABETH,1823.’(24)The square plinth has four corner posts linked by foliate ironwork.The Mansfield stone octagonal base has three tiers of troughs,with the outer face of each containing intricate mosaic and relief moulded panels depicting flowers,foliate symbols and the seasons.The troughs are filled with plants.C20 cast-iron railings enclose the monument,and in line with the corners are four stone statues:two of seated dogs,said to have been modelled on Burdett-Coutts’s collie,and two lions.Johann Christian Bach’s plain pauper’s plaque stands on the NW edge of the railings.

Amongst people commemorated is the Chevalier d'Eon (1728 – 1810) , an 18th century French spy, diplomat and freemason whose gender transition was recognised in French and English law.

For 33 years, from 1777, d'Éon dressed as a woman, claiming to have been female at birth. Doctors who examined d'Éon's body after d'Éon's death discovered that d'Éon would have actually been designated male at birth.

Source: Burrows, Simon (October 2006). Blackmail, scandal and revolution London's French libellistes, 1758–92. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press. 9780719065262.

[nevcolleil]

Yes to all of this. I really wish we would have seen Murdoch sticking up for him more and the parallels between their characters explored further. There was such potential for them to develop a sort of camaraderie, based in their similar struggles to balance a commitment to the law with a passion for justice.

I want to riot after the fact for Chief Constable Percival Giles.

[latristereina]

On this day in history (June 30, 1478) the long awaited male heir of the Catholic Monarchs, John of Aragon and Castile, was born at Seville.

Now everyone was waiting to see what would happen, a full eight years after she had given birth to Isabella. ‘One single hope for the future shone brightly in the hearts of Castilians, the long-desired delivery of Queen Isabella’s child,’ wrote Palencia, who said Isabella hoped for a son. Ferdinand, conscious that he would soon be king of Aragon, also prayed hard for a son – but he worried more about his wife. ‘As the pregnancy looked as if it might run the danger of a miscarriage, the king was especially anguished, moved by his indescribable love for his wife, preferring above all outcomes that she should emerge safely from the experience.’ Others might have put the birth of a male heir first. Perhaps Ferdinand was frightened by the size of Isabella’s expanding womb and the dangers that pregnancy and childbirth brought to her. A rumour spread that he had ordered the beheading of a man who had joked that the Queen would ‘either give birth or explode’.

- Giles Tremlett, Isabella of Castile: Europe’s First Great Queen

In March, a letter from an agent of Juan of Aragón to Fernando conveyed a general atmosphere of expectation and the widespread hope that the royal child would be a boy: ‘It is good, Your Excellency, for here is the most grave and grand matter of Spain, and nothing is more necessary or desired.…’ The hope was fulfilled. On the morning of June 30,1478, Isabel gave birth to a son and heir. Present as the child was born was a midwife and, by royal order, numerous courtiers and city officials, for it was a state occasion and there was to be no question that the child was the queen’s. Court and city celebrated for three days and nights. That Isabel’s second child was male crowned the successes of those years and was widely interpreted as a sign from God of his approval, and of yet greater victories to come.

Seville resounded with fiesta. On July 9, the baptismal procession made its way from the palace to the cathedral through thronged streets, the prince nestled in brocade cloth in the arms of his well-born nurse, Maria de Guzmán, the mule she rode flanked by eight councilmen bearing staffs of office and wearing great cloaks of black velvet ‘provided by the city.’ Alvaro de Stúñiga, the late great rebel, walked directly behind. Three of the queen’s pages strode along at the head of the procession. One held a gold jar, another a gold cup; the third, carrying the customary candle, baby cap, and money offering on a tray, was “so small that he bore the tray on his head, holding on to it with both hands.” All the nobles at court accompanied child and nurse, on foot; so did many knights and other people. Silver crosses gleamed above, and trumpets, hornpipes, and sackbutts played ceaselessly.

The prince was baptized Juan in the cathedral, ‘very triumphantly.’ That observation was made within the description of those proceedings by a new chronicler of a new sort, Andrés Bernáldez, a militant Andalusian chaplain much less concerned with political relations, much less critical of anyone both orthodox and powerful than Isabel’s earlier chroniclers could on occasion be; Bernáldez exuded a crusading patriotism. Officiating at the baptism was Seville’s archbishop, Pedro González de Mendoza, chief among courtiers. The godparents were the constable, Benavente, Nicolò Franco, the papal legate, and Leonor de Mendoza, duchess of Medina Sidonia. A second procession, even grander, took place a month later, on August 9, when the queen went ‘to present the prince to the temple as was the custom of Holy Mother Church. She had waited until then as was also customary, for a woman was not to enter a church after childbirth until “being purified of her blood.’ Fernando led the way on a small silver-grey horse. He was opulently regal, wearing heavy brocade lined in gold and trimmed in gold and black velvet, and a broad hat also lined in cloth of gold. (It was sweltering midsummer in Andalusia; little wonder that Fernando reputedly said that all he wished to his enemies were winters in Burgos and summers in Seville.) At the center of that procession rode Isabel, dressed in brocade shimmering with pearls, mounted high upon a white trotter, its saddle of gold encrusted with more gold and with silver. Accompanying her on foot were most of the city’s council and many nobles. The constable, Haro, held the right-hand bridle rein of her horse; Benavente held the rein on her left. The infant prince, again swathed in brocade, also rode, carried by his nurse upon a mule with a saddle of velvet. Musicians kept pace, playing trumpets and hornpipes and many other instruments.

She centered much affection and her dynastic hopes on her son and heir, Juan. She paid great attention to his education and did not stint on his court, his activities, his clothing, and his retinues, nor on his participation in court pageantry and festivities. He was given his own household and there waited upon as befitted a great prince, with exact protocol maintained from rising to retiring. A hierarchy of servants made a ritual of dressing and undressing him; grandes attended him. She attached to his household her own mentors: Gonzalo Chácon, now known as el viejo—the old one—and whose grandson of the same name was one of Juan’s companions, and Gutierre de Cárdenas as Juan’s mayordomo mayor and contador. Juan’s tutor, Diego de Deza, who had taught theology at Salamanca, was a nephew of yet another of her longtime comptrollers, Rodrigo de Ulloa. She arranged her son’s daily routine. Each morning there were prayers with Deza, then mass, then lessons. Since Juan particularly enjoyed music, she would often send to him during his daily two-hour rest period her music master and four or five choirboys, and he would sing with them, tenor. He was given his own musicians as well and he owned and played a number of instruments, among them the first Spanish claviorgano, a combination of organ and plucked string instrument, made by one Mofévrez, a Muslim grandmaster from Zaragoza; it was a present from his half-brother, young Alfonso de Aragón, archbishop of Zaragoza, Fernando’s son. Yet Juan’s health was always delicate. Isabel had his diet and regimen carefully monitored. Each morning doctors visited and he reported to them on how he had slept, and on his digestion and bodily functions. Münzer, indicating physical disability, wrote of having saluted the prince in Latin and of Juan’s understanding it but ordering Deza to reply for him since, said Münzer, he suffered from a weakness of the lower lip and tongue that impeded his answering plainly. Isabel spoke of her son as ‘my angel’, and had him sent treats considered good for digestion: strawberry conserves, lemon blossom candies, other sugared sweets, and jars of quincemeat from what she referred to as ‘Valencia del Cid.’ Juan’s upbringing tells a good deal about Isabel. One of his pages later recalled that in his education the queen had cared as much for letters as for other abilities and, above all, for virtue. Manly virtue included proficiency in arms. Juan was given a master of arms, and the prince slept with a sword at the head of his bed and was instructed in its use. His father had knighted him before Granada. His mother had even earlier provided as companions for him ten knights, five mature, five young, ‘a species of colegio.’ One, who had fought at Granada, dedicated to the boy a translation into Castilian of Caesar’s commentaries, avowedly to convey that arms would not benefit him without good counsel. Juan corresponded with the humanist Marineo Sículo and with the poet Juan del Encina, who adjudged him as learned in sciencia as in empire. Juan was, that is, raised in the atmosphere then permeating the royal court and compounded of a fervent and militant piety, a resurgent chivalry, and a rising vogue for humanistic classicism. Isabel gave much thought to Juan’s education, designing what she conceived to be the ideal upbringing for a Christian prince. She followed principles akin to those of the Siete Partidas and the mirrors of princes as though glossed by current usages and humanist studies, but their essential base and hers was orthodox religion. That unusual attention to his education and her ideas about what constituted it were reflected in a treatise written by a courtier close to her, Alonso Ortiz. Ortiz composed the work as a dialogue between the queen and Cardinal Mendoza. Surely echoing her own concerns, the principal question the treatise raised was how to achieve the spiritual health of the prince; the answer it gave was through learning good habits in childhood. In that treatise, Mendoza presents a highly traditional Christian rationale with some humanistic overlay. Thus he cites a Christian Platonist and somewhat Pythagorean understanding of purification in stating that the stars incline us and the wiles of the demons push us toward vices, that original sin infected everyone, corrupting the flesh and weighing on the soul; that the flesh submitted to the influence of the stars but the will remained free, subject only to God, yet needed instruction in order to gain wisdom. Training in will power, he explained, would develop natural abilities and correct bad inclinations; it could purify. Accordingly, he advised an education consonant with the stages advocated by Plato and Aristotle, an education leading to virtue both moral and intellectual, and so to the happy mean. Virtue and vice he declared within human power, life a pilgrimage toward blessedness and bliss, toward the eternal life of which Saint John speaks. That dialogue was itself a guide for a prince’s education, as it simply assumed much of what such guides had heretofore customarily stated, that the monarch’s spiritual health was the same as the common good. Taking for granted the importance of the prince, it concentrated on this specific prince’s personal development in wisdom, justice, moral qualities, and high character. In passing it revealed a good deal about humanistic education as understood at the Spanish court in the 1490s.

- Peggy K. Liss, Isabel the Queen: Life and Times

[blackthxrntree]

god season 5 is on alibi rn and my unadulterated hatred for chief constable giles persists (5.01 was such a good ep tho I love detective crabtree)