Category: Cathedrals

Funeral of Horatio Nelson

9/1/2021

Horatio Nelson died on board the HMS Victory on the 21st October 1805. Of this Vice Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood wrote

'a victory, such a this, has never been achieved, but at such an expense, in the loss of the most gallant of men, and best of friends, as renders it to me a victory I never wished to have witnessed'

The body of the hero of the Battle of Trafalgar had been preserved in a 'cask of brandy mixed with camphor and myrrh for preservation' and transported to Gibraltar onboard the Victory. Nelson’s body finally arrived at Greenwich Hospital on 23rd December 1805, and from the 5th January it lay in state for three days. Four days later his coffin, made from the timbers of Napoleon's flagship L'Orient, was carried from Greenwich in 'one of the greatest aquatic processions that ever was beheld on the River Thames' and then escorted by ten-thousand soldiers to St Pauls. Following a four-hour service, Nelson was laid to rest in a crypt within a sarcophagus that was originally carved for Cardinal Wolsey.

Nelson's death was received by the nation as a personal grief, much like that of the death of the Princess of Wales in 1997. Just like that day, hundreds of thousands of people turned out to get a glimpse of his coffin as it passed by them carried on a monumental funeral car modelled on the Victory.

On the 9th January in 1806, Nelson's funeral took place at St Paul's Cathedral in London. He was the first commoner to have been given a State Funeral.

There's more about Horatio Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar here

meanderingthroughtime.weebly.com/history-blog/death-of-a-hero-horatio-nelson

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Battle of Tettenhall

5/8/2019

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In 910 a large Viking army raided England's shores, they were defeated by an allied army from Mercia and Wessex under the leadership of Aethelflaed and her brother Edward, the children of Alfred the Great.

On the 5th of August, the Battle of Tettenhall, in modern-day Wolverhampton, would be the last major Norse invasion of England.

Aethelflaed's husband was Athelred, King of Mercia, it was on his death in 911 that Aethelflaed took the title of "Lady of the Mercians." Her succession has been described as the 'only case of a female ruler of a kingdom in Anglo-Saxon history' and 'one of the most unique events in early medieval history.'

Some twenty years earlier Aethelflaed had founded an abbey in Gloucester not too far from the original 7th century St Peter's Abbey. In 909, following a Saxon and Mercian raid into Lindsey, a Danish territory, they seized the remains of Saint Oswald. This relic had rested at Bardney Abbey in Lincolnshire since 642, it was taken to St Peter's Abbey in Gloucester were Aethelflaed renamed it St Oswald’s Priory.

Following the Battle of Maserfield, also on the 5th August, St Oswald's remains arrived in Bardney in Lincolnshire, you can read how the abbey's monks refused them entry here.

meanderingthroughtime.weebly.com/history-blog/battle-of-maserfield-and-the-death-of-oswald-of-northumbria

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Funeral of Catherine of Aragon

29/1/2018

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Catherine of Aragon died in the first week of January 1536 it was on this day she was laid to rest at Peterborough Cathedral.

Catherine was Henry VIII's first and 'true wife,' abandoned when she was no longer any use to him. In the furore that surrounded Henry's relationship with Anne Boleyn, it was said that Anne poisoned Catherine. Today, however, it is widely considered that she died of cancer, and most probably a broken heart.

Catherine had written of her fears to Charles V in the November of the previous year

"My tribulations are so great, my life so disturbed by the plans daily invented to further the king's wicked intention, the surprises which the king gives me, with certain persons of his council, are so mortal, and my treatment is what God knows, that it is enough to shorten ten lives, much more mine."

Henry did not attend Catherine's funeral, and in one last cruel act against his wife, he also forbade their daughter Mary to attend. It was written that the queens funeral waggon was

"was covered with black velvet, in the midst of which was a great silver cross; and within, as one looked upon the corpse, was stretched a cloth of gold frieze with a cross of crimson velvet, and before and behind the said waggon stood two gentlemen ushers with mourning hoods looking into the waggon, round which the said four banners were carried by four heralds and the standards with the representations by four gentlemen." and once inside the cathedral Catherine's coffin was "placed under the chapelle ardente which was prepared for it there, upon eight pillars of beautiful fashion and roundness, upon which were placed about 1,000 candles, both little and middle-sized, and round about the said chapel 18 banners waved.”

Below you can see the tomb of Catherine at Peterborough Cathedral if you look closely you can see that people are still leaving pomegranates in remembrance of her.

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Thomas Becket

29/12/2017

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The subject of the life and death of Thomas Becket is one the most written about and studied in history, and nearly everybody knows of this man's death at the hands of four murderous knights.

Stained glass window of Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral

Thomas Becket was the son of wealthy city merchant Gilbert Becket, who saw to it that his son was well educated. Becket became Chancellor and good friend of Henry II. His patron was Theobald of Bec, Archbishop of Canterbury. Only a few months following Theobald's death in 1161 Becket was nominated as Archbishop of Canterbury and took up this position following the conformation by royal council on the 23rd May of 1162. As Archbishop of Canterbury, he became a strong defender of the Church and the rights of those under him and this was the beginning of his fall from grace.

His quarrel over the role of church and crown with Henry II ended in his horrific death at the altar of Canterbury Cathedral. It was on this very day in 1170 that Hugh de Morville, Reginald FitzUrse, Richard le Brito and William de Tracey, knights of Henry's court stormed into Canterbury Cathedral and murdered Becket, slashing him repeatedly with their swords.

At the time Becket's death provoked widespread outrage, but soon he had a cult following and there was talk of miracles.

The four knights had misinterpreted Henry's angry rantings as an order for sanctioned murder and it is still unclear whether it was Henry's intention to have Becket killed or not, but the blame for his death did land firmly on his shoulders. In punishment, Henry was banned from taking Mass until he had completed a penance and following this, the king promised to provide money for two hundred knights to go on Crusade.

The four knights who took Becket's life left for Scotland were excommunicated on the 25th March 1171 and exiled to Jerusalem after which they disappear. It is thought that after nearly fifteen years fighting in the holy land they each returned home to their respective manors, other stories have them being buried at a Templar church on the site of the Temple of Solomon.

In the three images above you can see depictions of the death of Becket, the first can be found on the south porch of Chartres Cathedral. The carving is dated to between 1194 and 1230. The second is an ivory representation of Becket's martyrdom dated to around 1400 and the third can be found in a manuscript held by the British Library.

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King Henry I

30/11/2016

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Henry of Huntington, the 12th century English chronicler wrote that Henry I was endowed with three gifts, that of wisdom,
victory and riches, but he also writes that these were offset with three vices, avarice, cruelty and lust.

Henry was cruel, on one occasion he sanctioned an act of vengeance, ordering the blinding of his own granddaughters when
he discovered a similar atrocity had befallen the son of one of his courtiers. In 1124, he had 44 thieves hanged on the same day. Henry the lustful he most certainly was, however, Henry the romantic he was not despite the stories we've heard of the Welsh beauty Nest ferch Rhys and his long-term mistress Sybil Corbit. Henry worked his way through a stream of women, from other men's wives to abbesses. He did acknowledge fifteen illegitimate children, the sons he placed in important positions and the daughters he married off to wealthy nobles, the others, another nine or so he had little or no time for.

Henry's ability to father children goes without question, it is a puzzle then, that with his first wife Matilda, he only fathered two children in their eighteen-year marriage and he fathered none with his second wife, the very young and beautiful Adeliza of Louvain in their fifteen years of marriage.

Henry was a good administrator, and as we have seen he was cruel and harsh, he demanded loyalty but was known to return
the latter to those who served him well, the result of which was from 1103 until his death, there were no significant uprisings during his reign.

The beginning of the end of Henry's thirty-five years on the throne of England came in the November of 1135 at a hunting
lodge at Lyons la Foret in France when death knocked on his door. According to his doctors, Henry had been well, but Henry
of Huntingdon wrote the king became ill during the night after

he partook of some lampreys, of which he was fond, though they always disagreed with him; and though his physician recommended him to abstain, the king would not submit to his salutary advice… This repast bringing on ill humours,
and violently exciting similar symptoms, caused a sudden and extreme disturbance, under which his aged frame sunk
into adeathly torpor

A few days later, on the 1st December the king was dead, as was the stability of his realm.

Henry I was buried at Reading Abbey.

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The Burial of George Duke of Clarence: A Sad End to a Sorry Tale

31/5/2015

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Three of the four sons of Richard Duke of York and Cecily Neville died a gruesome death. Two died at the hands of their enemies, one tucked up in his bed and one, George, by the hand of an executioner.

The Duke of Clarence did not make life easy for anyone, least of all himself, he was self centered, treacherous, a turncoat and eventually a groveler when he realised that his previous actions were going to cost him his life. Clarence's execution took place in private, on the 18th February 1478. It is commonly thought that he went to a death of his own choosing, probably beheading, but those who believe that remains of a body, with the head intact, that lies at Tewkesbury Abbey is Clarence would disagree on that point I think. The most famous tale of his death, however, is by drowning in a barrel of red wine.

Illustration by kind permission of Alice Povey from The Children's Book of Richard III by Rosalind Adam

Just like the deaths of the sons of York, their burials to have caused a bit of a stir. We know that Edmund's remains lie in the family vault at Fotheringhay, Edward is buried at St George's Chapel, Windsor and Richard is newly interred at the Cathedral Church of St Martin's in Leicester, but what of George's mortal remains?

It is a particular set of remains that lie in the vault of Tewkesbury Abbey that are said to belong to George and his wife Isabel Neville. The Duke of Clarence received the manor of Tewkesbury when he married Isabel. In 1439 it had passed down through the Beauchamp family and then had passed to the Nevilles from Anne, Countess of Warwick. On George's death, it passed to his son, but eventually, it was returned to the countess and partially held by her until her death in 1490 when it was made over to the crown.

The vault, which lies behind the high altar within Gloucestershire's Tewkesbury Abbey, has been opened at least eight times since 1478. The vault into which Clarence was placed was first opened in 1477 for the burial of Isabel and then again for the burial of Clarence the following year. Records show that it was opened again three times between 1709 and 1753 to place the remains of Alderman Hawling and his family, after which it was said to have remained closed for over seventy years. At the beginning of the new century, the vault was entered once more and two skulls and assorted bones were found. An article written about this opening states:

"between the burial of George of Clarence and Alderman Hawling there had been the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Henry VIII had every intention of stripping the Abbey of everything of value and then leaving it to fall into decay. This was averted when the townspeople bought the abbey from the crown. However, before the purchase Henry's henchmen would have stripped out anything of value and the vault had been ransacked. It was at this point that the coffins of George and Isabel, especially if the were decorated with gold or silver plates or handles, could have been opened and the bodies removed."

In 1829 the vault was opened again, this time to remove the bodies of the Hawlings family to a new place of burial. The bones, assumed to be those of George and Isabel, were then deposited in a stone coffin. Thirty years later Tewkesbury suffered a flood and parts of the abbey were damaged, this maybe the reason, when the stone coffin was opened, it was full of water. In 1830 records show that a glass case was made, but there is no mention of the remains of Clarence ever being placed in it.

Poor "false, fleeting, perjur'd Clarence's" remains would lie undisturbed for the next one hundred and fifty years. At some point, the bones, taken to be that of Clarence and Isabel, were removed for examination and 'cleaning.' What was found were:

'Two separate partial skeletons in poor condition. The male skeleton consisted of most of the leg and hip bone, the upper left arm, left shoulder and upper part of the skull. The man had what amounted to mild arthritic changes and a degree of cranial closure consistent with the late middle age 40 - 60 years. His height was approximately 5ft 3ins. The female remains consisted of almost the entire legs minus the feet, hips, upper and half of the lower right arm and the upper skull. Examination found advanced localised osteoarthritis and a degree of suture obliteration of the skull which suggests an age between 50 - 70 years. The height was approximately 5ft 4ins.'

The examined remains were replaced with the glass case.

Photograph + two above by Karen Ladniuk

The glass case, as you can see is attached to the wall, presenting unidentified remains like this just adds weight to a false claim and reminds me of the old advertising slogan "It does exactly what it says on the tin" which is basically saying look no further. The case of the so-called remains of Princes in the Tower is a very good example of this. Look how magnificent that engraved container is, we've been insisting they are the remains of the sons of Edward IV since 1674.

All human remains within the vault are known to have been thrown about by Henry VIII's lackeys probably in an effort to destroy any Plantagenet relics or they were unceremoniously scattered when the vault was searched for anything of value.

We know that Clarence held the manor of Tewkesbury on his death, so there is little doubt that both his and Isabel's remains both lie in the Abbey, but I would say that the remains you see in the glass box are not those of George Duke of Clarence and Isabel Neville. The chances of correctly collecting two whole skeletons are slim, to say the least. If the boxed dis-articulated remains are not of the Duke of Clarence then perhaps the remains that were exhumed from the Tower of London and taken to lie in Tewkesbury Abbey might be, but that's just speculation, it has never been proved that either set of remains belongs the Clarence.

What is left of George Duke of Clarence is destined to spend eternity as his brother King Richard III had one done, lost to us.

It is a sad end to a sorry affair

Duke of Clarence Memorial Plaque at Tewkesbury Abby 2019

More on the Duke of Clarence and 'remains' of the Princes in the Tower can be found on another of my blogs

meanderingthroughtime.weebly.com/wars-of-the-roses-blog/1487-the-trial-and-execution-of-george-duke-of-clarence

http://meanderingthroughtime.weebly.com/blog/1674-the-remains-of-the-princes-in-the-tower

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Funeral of Horatio Nelson

Battle of Tettenhall

Funeral of Catherine of Aragon

Thomas Becket

King Henry I

The Burial of George Duke of Clarence: A Sad End to a Sorry Tale

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