So, a random but hopefully interesting segue. I’ve been writing the next chapter of TBM, which involves Cromwell’s invasion of the New Netherlands, and I came across an strange factoid- apparently, everyone on the continent thought that the English had tails. It’s one of these strange things which appears to rise spontaneously across Europe, and with no definite source; the earliest surviving reference is in 1150 but refers to it in a very casual way that suggests it’s a well-known ‘fact’. Four hundred years later John Bale was complaining that “
...an Englishman now cannot travel in another land, but it is most contumeliously thrown in his teeth that he has a tail.”
Why? Nobody’s sure- there are obvious demonic overtones to the whole thing, but the trait is also referred to in a sexual way. There’s a vague legend about Saxon apostates throwing bits of fish at St Augustine and God giving them tails as punishment, but this seems to be restricted to Scotland. Maybe it was brought to the continent by Scottish mercenaries sometime in the 100 Years' War. The other theory is that people arrived at the idea via the whole Angles/Angels pun; fallen angels probably had tails, after all. Interestingly the 14th century Myreur des Histors of Jean d'Outremeuse, relates that the original Angles had tails like beasts, that their name comes from 'Engle', a piece of land near the tower of Babel, and that they are (obviously) descended from Cain.
Whatever the reason, the belief in tailed-Englishmen gradually died out in most of Europe during the 16th century, but for some reason the one place where it persisted was the Netherlands. As a result, every single contemporary Dutch cartoon of Oliver Cromwell makes him look like a furry.
Take this woodcut from the Anglo-Dutch War; Cromwell (A) is vomiting all his stolen Royal treasure while being struck on the arse with lightning, while at the same time Robert Blake (E) violently expels the Parliamentary Navy from his arse, which a helpful Dutchman is prodding. They’re doing this while sporting lovely tails.
Here's another, from 1652 and entitled "
The Horrible Tail-Man"; a slightly camp Cromwell is trying to dissuade an English Royalist, a Scotsman and an Irishman (which sounds like the beginning of a bad joke- presumably the punchline is "why the long tail?") from cutting off his most impressive attribute. This, he explains, is what he has used to oppress his enemies, and keep the Three Kingdoms under his control;
Perhaps as a result of these cartoons, Cromwell was repeatedly referred to as "
the Tail Man" in Dutch discourse during the Commonwealth period (he was also accused on one occasion of being a werewolf, which neatly fits the beastly theme). The exact form of the tail he has varies- most of the time, as a shifty foreigner, he has a fox tail, which links into a Dutch proverb about a Fox preaching the passion; other times, he has a wolf's tail (as a sheep in wolf's clothing), and on occasion he is portrayed as Hercules, his Lion mantle providing the neccesary tail.
The Dutch image of the Englishman with the tail gradually disappears with the restoration, shifting instead to the more generic image of Englishmen as dogs (although still, generally, with their tails being chopped off. It didn't quite die with Cromwell though; the last genuine example of the trend is seen during the second Anglo-Dutch war, where a cartoon was published showing Charles II with a long tail, which a Bishop is carrying like a trail on a dress. The caption warns the bishop that '
he who serves the Tail will be rewarded with merely a stink'.
