Temperance wrote:

Could Catigern possibly be right - was Henry Tudor hailed as a "liberator"? Were the people of England actually sick to death of the Plantagenets and their incessant, murderous squabbles?

 It wasn't a democracy Temp, where the people of England had a say in who ruled. I doubt whether they really cared one way or another whose self important bum was in the big chair, just as long as they were left in peace to get on with their own lives.

Possibly the nobles or elite were sick to death of the Plantagenets though, but even saying that would be a generalisation. Obviously 'some' were fed up, or Tudor would not have had any support.

True, but being dragged off to fight every time there was a muster can't have been much fun. However, if Shakespeare is to be believed, there was a handsome profit to be made for the corrupt official. Those who could bribed their way out of forced military service. Falstaff's and Justice Shallow's "mustering the troops" is very funny (see Henry IV part II, Act III sc ii), but you have to feel sorry for poor Mouldy ("In very truth, sir, I had as lief  be hanged, sir, as go..."), Shadow, Wart, Feeble and Bullcalf - the names say it all - extremely reluctant heroes!


If I be not ashamed of my soldiers, I am a soused gurnet. I have misused the king's press damnably. I have got, in exchange of a hundred and fifty soldiers, three hundred and odd pounds. I press me none but good house-holders, yeoman's sons; inquire me out contracted bachelors, such as had been asked twice on the banns; such a commodity of warm slaves, as had as lieve hear the devil as a drum; such as fear the report of a caliver worse than a struck fowl or a hurt wild-duck. I pressed me none but such toasts-and-butter, with hearts in their bellies no bigger than pins' heads, and they have bought out their services; and now my whole charge consists of ancients, corporals, lieutenants, gentlemen of companies, slaves as ragged as Lazarus in the painted cloth, where the glutton's dogs licked his sores; and such as indeed were never soldiers, but discarded unjust serving-men, younger sons to younger brothers, revolted tapsters and ostlers trade-fallen, the cankers of a calm world and a long peace, ten times more dishonourable ragged than an old faced ancient: and such have I, to fill up the rooms of them that have bought out their services, that you would think that I had a hundred and fifty tattered prodigals lately come from swine-keeping, from eating draff and husks. A mad fellow met me on the way and told me I had unloaded all the gibbets and pressed the dead bodies. No eye hath seen such scarecrows. I'll not march through Coventry with them, that's flat: nay, and the villains march wide betwixt the legs, as if they had gyves on; for indeed I had the most of them out of prison. There's but a shirt and a half in all my company; and the half shirt is two napkins tacked together and thrown over the shoulders like an herald's coat without sleeves; and the shirt, to say the truth, stolen from my host at Saint Alban's, or the red-nose innkeeper of Daventry. But that's all one; they'll find linen enough on every hedge.

I receive emails each week about our Saturday morning radio which consists of long interviews with particular people.  This week the first 3/4 hour one says:

Dr Jo Appleby, from the University of Leicester, is the lead osteo-archealogist on the project team that solved the 500-year-old mystery around the remains of Richard III, extracting the DNA sample from the skeleton unearthed under a council carpark in Leicester. She is visiting New Zealand as a guest of The British Council and Ancestry.com.au to present the story of the investigation, at the NZ Family History Fair in Auckland (2-4 August). http://www.ancestry.com.au


Our presenter, Kim Hill, is a very bright, sharp woman, so I will be interested in what she asks and what the answers are.  But I suppose it will be mostly an information-seeking interview, rather than a probing one for controversy.  The only problem from my pov is that my nephew, his girlfriend and her friend are coming to stay for a couple of nights, and I have learnt that young people do not appreciate long speaking interviews on the radio.  Still it's from 8.15 - 9am - maybe we can keep them in bed till then. Oh, and 9am is when the annual car rally takes off from the middle of my town.  Might have to listen to it later.

A coffin discovered at the site of the RIII burial, has been opened and will finally be investigated.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2378085/Stone-coffin-Richard-III-site-opened--ANOTHER-mystery-lead-coffin.html

I missed this, ID - and I usually peruse the Mail with an eagle eye! (A pathetic habit, I know, but somehow I can't help myself.  )

Thank you for posting the link.

Well, I had hoped that someone would rise to the bait of my suggesting that Richard of Gloucester was guilty. Nothing like a bit of (faked) apostasy (usually) for getting people foaming at the mouth, but it doesn't seem to have worked this time...

Thank you for the reminder Caro, I enjoyed it, hope this works.

http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player/2563586

Thank you so much for that, Gran and Caro - I've only had time to listen to part of the interview, but it is so interesting. I had no idea that "bunchback" was the usual medieval word for deformity of the spine, and that it was Shakespeare who first used the word "hunchback". (Also crookback, of course, which - if I heard correctly - Dr Appleby said was used specifically to describe the curvature of the spine caused by scoliosis.)

I look forward to hearing the whole interview later today. Thank you again!

I'll try and listen to this properly too, but it won't be for a week, since I am off to see son, dil and grandson (who is starting to talk! says mumma and dadda).

Did Shakepeare invent the word "hunchback" or was it simply a printer's error for the more usual "bunchback"? Found this excellent article from the TLS:

http://www.the-tls.co.uk/tls/public/article1208757.ece

The OED’s first recorded use of “hunch-backed” is the second quarto of Richard III (1598), 4.iv, when Queen Elizabeth calls him “that foule hunch-backt toade” (“bunch-backt” in the first quarto; Q2’s variation is retained in later quartos). In one sense at least, it is plausible that Shakespeare (or perhaps one of his printers) is the inventor of the hunch-backed Richard, and that this term stems either from a typesetting error or from a misreading. If so, it is indicative of how influential Shakespeare’s version of Richard’s body has been.

Whole piece is fascinating - also this bit of info from Nicolas Udall:

Nicolas Udall’s translation of Erasmus’s Apophthegms (1542) gives us a little anthology of common early modern terms for spinal deformities in an anecdote about one Galba, who had “a bodye misshapen with a great bunche which bossyng out made him crookebacked”.

Also this, from Amboise Pare (the doctor who tried to save Mary Queen of Scots' sad little husband in 1560):

A seventeenth-century translation of the works of the French royal surgeon Ambroise Paré categorizes spinal deformities as follows:

“A dislocated vertebra, standing forth and making a bunch, is termed in Greeke Cyphosis, (Those thus affected we may call, Bunch-backt.) But when it is depressed, it is named Lordosis, (Such we may terme, Saddle-backt.) But when the same is luxated to the right or left side, it maketh a Scoliosis (or Crookednesse,) which wresting the spine, drawes it into the similitude of this letter S.”

The Greek terms derive from Hippocrates and Galen, and their appearances in English here predate the OED’s first recorded usages by seventy years or more.

Does anyone know anything about Edmund Crouchback, one of the sons of Henry III (and so an ancestor of Richard III)? I have been told that "Crouchback" is nothing to do with spinal deformity, but is something to do with going on a crusade. Is this absolutely definite, or is it something that historians could change their minds about? I just wondered because scoliosis is an hereditary condition, and "crouchback" and "crookeback" can be confused.

EDIT: Apparently there is a reference to Edmund and an "alleged deformity" in John Hardyng's Chronicle, but this is all very confused - something about a rumour begun by John of Gaunt?? Crouchback could have meant "broken back". I'm still googling away on this, but am getting nowhere.

One interpretation relates to the fact that Edmund was the younger brother of Edward 'Longshanks'. That nickname would suggest a tall and presumably proud bearing. In this way Edmund's nickname could be seen as being in contrast with that of his elder brother and the nickname 'Crouchback' (rather that referring to a crusading honour or even to a physical deformity) might perhaps suggest a somewhat obsequious bearing on Edmund's part.

As far as I know Edmund wasn't an ancestor of Richard III. He was, however, the great-great-grandfather of Harry Hotspur.

Temperance wrote:

Were the people of England actually sick to death of the Plantagenets and their incessant, murderous squabbles?

 Hmmm, Temperance, I wonder if you're dwelling unnecessarily on the emergence of the 'new' Tudor surname within the Lancastrian faction...   Henry the Liberator's core support came from those who had inherited or acquired a degree of partiality towards the Lancastrian   cause, rather than third parties who saw him as an alternative to Yorkist   /Lancastrian   feuding.
Also, the popularity of the cult of Henry VI is something we might bear in mind...  

I blame the damn Ricardians for dwelling on Dickon Kiddiethrottle's vague claim to the Plantagenet surname in a pathetic attempt to associate the Yorkists more closely with the past than the post-Henry VI Lancastrians ...

Hi Catty - yes the cult of Henry VI is interesting. I'm sure you've read this article by Leigh Ann Craig:

http://www.questia.com/library/1G1-109026671/royalty-virtue-and-adversity-the-cult-of-king-henry

Modern historians have generally dismissed this cult as a political phenomenon, created and used by the Tudors as they sought legitimacy. While there is some truth in that assessment, political allegiance was only a part of the impetus for the participation of Henry's devotees in the cult.



Was moving poor old Henry's body to Windsor simply a cynical, politically motivated ploy by Richard - a shrewd move appreciated and later exploited by Henry VII - or was our man genuinely ridden with guilt about his part in the murder of yet another "innocent"? We tend to view religious sentiment with jaundiced eyes these days, assuming perhaps that medieval folk - the thinking ones anyway - were as cynical as we are. That's surely a mistake? Richard was considered to be a genuinely pious man, was he not - and Henry VII too? The latter's frantic attempts - as he approached death - to make some kind of peace with God (if Fisher is to be believed) suggest real fear of hellfire and damnation. Henry had a lot on his conscience, I think, but then didn't they all? Perhaps ghosts, Holy and otherwise, did haunt the dreams of both kings...

Of course family and friends of the Sopranos were all good Catholics too - all those Mafia men wore nice little crucifixes. It's a rum tum Tugger world all right.

My observations on religious devotion has been jaded by living among devote folk and my realising it was definitely a hedging of one's bets in the jostle for good seating  in the afterlife. Prayer beads - assorted faiths - are an outward sign of this. Venturing remark on such was not good form - or rather  the path to social exclusion.
I therefore read of  ancient piety in the light of this experience. Ah well, on the other hand if God really is an Englishman he must be keeping  Gold Star and House Mark charts, of course. ....Himself the Dictator being away we are spared a Reith lecture on this matter.

Well, I rather enjoy His Great Big Wussiness's Reith Lectures on religion, and Tim's valiant ripostes. I've learnt an awful lot from the pair of them. How these clever men love to argue! But things were surely a bit different - or simpler (?) - 500 years ago. How people managed to murder and steal and adulterate (have I made that word up?) the way they did when damnation stared them in the face I do not know. But they did.

I know it's bad form to say this, but not everyone who is a - I hesitate to use the word Christian, Priscilla, because I have been told in no uncertain terms that I am not a Christian, but a neo-Platonist which sounds very grand indeed - not everyone who is a believer regards belief as an insurance option for safety and security in the "afterlife". I can't really be a N-P because I secretly rather look forward to total oblivion when I die (I lost the Plotinus a long time ago, unfortunately): I'm more concerned with the hell we manage to create here on earth. I wonder if Christ and/or (some of) the Greek philosophers were too? I don't know. I wouldn't presume to say - perhaps I should presume more. But I have to admit that I think old Strabo's comments about hell and such were probably correct:

The first-century-B.C.E. Greek geographer and philosopher Strabo discussed the value of such myths, noting that “the states and the lawgivers had sanctioned them as a useful expedient.” He went on to explain that people “are deterred from evil courses when, either through descriptions or through typical representations of objects unseen, they learn of divine punishments, terrors, and threats.” In dealing with the unruly, reason or exhortation alone is not enough, wrote Strabo; “there is need of religious fear also, and this cannot be aroused without myths and marvels. . . . The founders of states gave their sanction to these things as bugbears wherewith to scare the simple-minded”.



But I digress. Back to Richard III and Henry and Mental Margaret. How did they square their professed beliefs with their actions? And poor "daft Harry": was he a saint, or simply an incompetent loser?

I guess they were able to do all those things because they were then able to go to confession, and 3 hail Mary's sorted out the guilt and the problem, the King (Any King) would have had his personal confessor who knew what he was doing anyway.

I supposed adulterate meant to dilute - as in adulterated/beer, spices, certain fiction and so on; a civil crime but not spirtually sinful. Yours is a new slant.
  And in the White Queen we had the awful Margaret give a baleful glance at the new baby; it's a wonder they did not give her a blackened tooth, Terry Thomas style just in case we missed her long term  intent. Just curious, Temp, where was Margaret B buried then? By a grateful son it would be somewhere better than a monastic back yard, I guess.... or was she a pain to him also?

Westminster Abbey, Priscilla - along with all the rest of the great and the good.

She was a pain to all and sundry - ran the whole show after 1485, signing herself as Margaret R. (supposed to be "R" for Richmond, but...). She was given the grand title of The King's Mother. Poor Elizabeth of York.

Temperance wrote:

How people managed to murder and steal and adulterate (have I made that word up?) the way they did when damnation stared them in the face I do not know. But they did.

The same way people do it today I'd imagine Temp, with a lot of self justification and (as Gran said above) confession is a great invention, wipes the imaginary slate clean before the next round of sinning, which will simply be confessed away again. I think you're looking at it (understandably) too much from the Victorian straight laced CofE perspective, try and compare attitudes toward sinning in Catholic countries like Italy, France and Spain for an idea of how it might have been.

Although I'm doubtful that most people were particularly religious anyway, it wasn't until your average Joe was able to read the bible himself that things started to go haywire in that respect. But even then, if you look at earlier marriage and baptism records, a hell of a lot of people set up house, copulated and gave birth without the need for church approval. Nor with any particular need to bring their children into 'the club' by way of baptism.

The points you make about pre-Reformation attitudes to sin, guilt and absolution have got me thinking, ID and Gran. The role of the confessor - interesting. I've no time today, but I hope we can discuss these ideas later this week.

Must dash.

This confession business - could a priest give absolution if a murder - or repeated murder - was confessed? I thought  there was no absolution for a mortal sin - am I wrong about that? Would giving the order for murder count as a sin, if the act or acts were committed by others (a loophole?)?

The Bishop of Rochester, the learned Fisher, who was executed, like More, for his defiance of Henry VIII, must have heard some tales in the confessional. Fisher had been, during the previous  reign, chaplain and confessor to Margaret Beaufort. He was present when Henry VII died, and his account of that king's journey into the darkness makes for harrowing reading.

According to Cranmer, an unconscious Henry VIII died a good Protestant, indicating (even though he was probably already in an uraemic coma) by a slight pressure on the Archbishop's hand an affirmative answer to the question - did he put his trust in the saving mercy of Christ? That was all that was necessary for salvation - no Last Rites required. Cranmer must have been very confused when he learned that Henry had, in his will, indicated that, like a good Catholic, he wanted his soul to  be prayed for and masses said for it, to release it sooner from Purgatory. The king had actually abolished Purgatory, but no matter - one might as well be on the safe side, and Henry had never learned that he could not eat his cake and have it.

Having been brought up CofE and then decided for myself from an early age that I was atheist, I am certainly not the best person to answer you Temp (although I did date a roman catholic priest for about 4 years  )....
 
..... nevertheless, re confession, I always understood that absolution could only be given if the sinner REALLY exhibited repentence and a true desire to change their ways. Confession/absolution was never intended as a sort of "get out of Hell free card". But at the same time no sin was too great if the sinner really, truely repented - and with no fingers crossed behind their back etc! Also probably in the past but most certainly nowadays, if a serious crime has been committed, I believe the sanctity of the confessional is most definitely not allowed as an excuse for silence or cover-up.

I personally think that the catholic confessional system: of admitting one's guilt/truely realising and rueing the consequences/ and then being given a cautious chance to start again ... is not at all bad ... in theory. But it is rather open to interpretation and abuse.

But as I say, what do I know about it all.

Mortal sin is simply a sin so grievous that it automatically consigns a person to hell (no purgatory) if they die without having repented it, according to Catholic theology. If it is repented it can of course be absolved by the confessor acting as their common god's intermediary. However absolution means only that one is back in the running for a purgatory place - it has nothing to do with being innocent. The penance imposed can, and often does, entail fessing up to the secular authorities. In other words a public acknowledgement of one's guilt can be the condition on which one's prospect of getting back in your god's good books depends.

When the confessor's paymaster confesses to a mortal sin then, as the historical evidence suggests, this attitude to penance can become very flexible indeed. Kings and tyrants can fess up to murder, priests to child abuse, and there seems never to have been any compunction on the church's part to make the penitent, however penitent they actually might be, hand themselves over to the authorities.

Absolute bullshit, in other words. Any theory that fails so drastically in its prime application is a crap theory. The notion that one can "start again" presumes that one has actually stopped. The confessional is a proven failure in detecting such stoppage, let alone enforcing it or even encouraging it. It has however proven to be a great source of encouragement on the other hand to simply carry on, with a sense of justification for one's aberrant actions just to make the whole thing even more vile.

Temperance wrote:

Would giving the order for murder count as a sin, if the act or acts were committed by others (a loophole?)?

 Yep, giving the order for murder makes you just as sinful as doing the deed yourself. Henry II's horror at the murder of Thomas A Becket might be a good example, and didn't he walk barefoot as a penitant to Becket's tomb to beg forgiveness? Although how much of that was politics rather than genuine regret is anyone's guess I suppose. Probably a mixture of both.

And as well as confession and absolution, there were also crusades, pilgrimages and the building of and dedication of churches, monestaries or nunneries, all seen as ways to buy yourself out of eternal damnation. Plus, for a king, murder and sinning all come with their own self justifications to ease the guilty conscience. If the church tells you that you are doing god's work, or the act is in god's name, or you are sitting on the throne by divine right blah blah, then almost anything is possible.

But again, did a medieval person see murder as we see it today? We see the killing of anyone as murder, but there were different degrees back then, clearly the killing of a Bishop in a church was a very big no no, and to a far lesser degree the killing of kings, queens, the nobility and going down the scale until we get to the peasantry. Would a king have viewed the murder of a peasant in the same light as the murder of a bishop? I doubt he would have seen the former as murder at all.

Sorry this is all very muddled, I've been mulling your questions since yesterday Temp and thoughts are still not in order.

A Murder cocktail is gin & tonic with absinthe while an Absolution cocktail is 1 part vodka and 5 parts champagne. But what does one order if you've drowned your brother in a barrel of Malmsey wine?

nordmann wrote:

Absolute bullshit in other words.

Mmm, bullshit is rather too mild a word, I think. Had I been brought up a Catholic, I'm sure I would be quite lapsed by now. The hypocrisy of (some of) the great ones in the Church(es), past and present, does indeed justify the anger so many people feel and have felt, but then the hypocrisy of the Temple and synagogue leaders enraged Christ too. Things don't change. I'm sorry, but I'm going to quote a long passage from St. Matthew here (but will then return speedily to history):

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples,  “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat,  so do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do. For they preach, but do not practise. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger. They do all their deeds to be seen by others. For they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, and they love the place of honour at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces and being called rabbi by others. But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers. And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven.  Neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Christ. The greatest among you shall be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.
But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves."

The whole of Chapter 23 is worth reading - verse 33 is particularly strong: "You snakes! You brood of vipers!"

No wonder translations of the Bible were forbidden for so long...

But delivering oneself up to the secular authorities must have been difficult if one was a king. If you are the ultimate secular authority, how do you deliver yourself up to yourself? A farce indeed, and even worse if you are the supreme head of everything, spiritual and temporal.

Lord Dacre - the one who got away, being the peer who secured an acquittal, that very rare achievement in the annals of Tudor treason trials - once pointed out the absurdity of this to Henry VIII. Dacre dared (according to Richard Rex) to reply with breath-taking insolence to a question put to him by the king. When asked what he thought about the establishment of the royal supremecy, the Catholic lord coolly answered: "Hereafter, then, when your Majesty offendeth, you may absolve yourself."

Does anyone know (Minette?) who was Richard III's confessor?

ID, the penance of Henry II is very interesting, but, as you say, how genuine it all was is anyone's guess. I only know about Becket from T.S. Eliot and the Jean Anouilh play.

PS MM, re your dating a Roman Catholic priest for four years -     - you really are the most delightfully wicked person I have come across for ages (despite regular church attendance). You keep trying to shock me, I know, but it's not working (yet!).

Forgot - the excellent Josephine Wilkinson (proper historian, not a nutter), has a new book coming out in October: "The Princes in the Tower: did Richard III Kill His Nephews, Edward V and Richard of York?".
Should be good if her previous book on Richard is anything to go by. The second part of her work on Richard is being published at the end of this month. Goody - something decent to look forward to after all the White Queen crap.

Temperance wrote:

Does anyone know (Minette?) who was Richard III's confessor?

 I know, because I'm directly descended from his brother  . His name was Father Catty, and he was my n*great-uncle. He kept a diary   of confessions which he always intended to destroy, but it ended up in the hands of his brother (my ancestor) and has been passed down within the family. I've transcribed and translated   it, but I'm keeping it under my hat while I negotiate   a publishing deal, so I can't say too much here. Anyway, the big story is that Father Catty records how Dickon admitted personally to murdering Henry VI, the Ickle Pwintheth, and several other young boys whom he practised on beforehand. He also asked for several counts of sheep-worrying   to be taken into account. He duly received a penance, but, according to the diary, never carried it out, so we can be sure that Tricky Dicky is roasting as I type as he didn't die in a state of grace.

Catigern wrote:

... so we can be sure that Tricky Dicky is roasting as I type as he didn't die in a state of grace.

Well, all those "Dear Diary" entries from Father Catty would apparently have got him excommunicated, defrocked and disgraced. Canon 21 of the Fourth Council of the Lateran (1215)  laid down the obligation of secrecy thus:

Let the priest absolutely beware that he does not by word or sign or by any manner whatever in any way betray the sinner: but if he should happen to need wiser counsel let him cautiously seek the same without any mention of person. For whoever shall dare to reveal a sin disclosed to him in the tribunal of penance we decree that he shall be not only deposed from the priestly office but that he shall also be sent into the confinement of a monastery to do perpetual penance.

This is only Wiki, but I found it interesting:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priest%E2%80%93penitent_privilege_in_pre-Reformation_England

. The Council of Durham (1220) declared as follows:


Ne sacerdos revelet confessionem-Nullus ira, vel odio, vel Ecclesiæ metu vel mortis in aliquo audeat revelare confessiones, signo vel verbo generali vel speciali ut dicendo 'Ego scio quales vos estis', sub periculo ordinis et beneficii, et si convictus fuerit, absque misericordia degradabitur, i.e. A priest shall not reveal a confession-let none dare from anger or hatred or fear of the Church or of death, in any way to reveal confessions, by sign or word, general or special, as (for instance), by saying 'I know what manner of men ye are' under peril of his Order and Benefice, and if he shall be convicted thereof he shall be degraded without mercy.

— Wilkins ,  Concilia, I, 577, 595

An excellent article on medieval charnel chapels, which ties rather nicely with an aspect of your musings on sin, confession, and penance Temp.


Charnel chapels also exhibit a definitive link to confession, penance and prayer. The charnel chapel at Exeter Cathedral was built as a penance for murder, and it was dedicated to Edward the Confessor (Orme 1991).  It is recorded that one of the chantry priest’s duty there was to help in hearing confession and imposing penances on parishioners.

http://www.pasthorizonspr.com/index.php/archives/08/2013/the-rothwell-charnel-chapel-and-ossuary-project

Islanddawn wrote:

An excellent article on medieval charnel chappels, which ties rather in nicely with an aspect of your musings on sin, confession, and penance Temp.


Charnel chapels also exhibit a definitive link to confession, penance and prayer. The charnel chapel at Exeter Cathedral was built as a penance for murder, and it was dedicated to Edward the Confessor (Orme 1991).  It is recorded that one of the chantry priest’s duty there was to help in hearing confession and imposing penances on parishioners.

Oh, thank you for that link, ID. Really good article.

Incidentally, here's some info about that murder in Exeter Cathedral Close. I often stare out at the Close when I'm eating a pizza (and having a good muse) in Pizza Express (this eaterie has lovely views of the Cathedral):

In 1283, a local man named John Pycot managed to get himself elected Dean of Exeter under somewhat dubious circumstances. The Bishop, Peter Quinel, did not approve and tried to have him removed. The ensuing quarrels split the chapter and the town and eventually led to the murder of one of the Bishop's supporters, the precenter, Walter Lechlade. He was seen as a heavy-weight threat by Pycot's followers who hunted him down after matins and stabbed him to death in the Cathedral Close. The precenter's family brought legal proceedings against Pycot, his associate, Mayor Alured de la Porte, and nineteen others; but little was resolved and the case dragged on for two years before the Bishop asked the King to personally intercede. King Edward I, Queen Eleanor and three of their daughters arrived in Exeter in late December 1285. Though they stayed at the castle, they would, no doubt, have celebrated mass in the Cathedral on Christmas Day: the only break which the King permitted himself from sitting in judgement upon the accused. Five laymen, including the mayor, were hanged, but the clergy escaped with lesser penalties.

Temperance wrote:

Well, all those "Dear Diary" entries from Father Catty would apparently have got him excommunicated, defrocked and disgraced

 So Uncle Catty was a sinner - big deal! He's still a very interesting and informative source  . It also transpires that the Sparrow who killed Cock Robin was acting under Richard's orders, and it was the Richard III Society that kidnapped Shergar and bumped off Princess Diana .

You've missed out Bambi's mum.

Hello! Just felt like passing through and thought, poor God.
We blame him for everything. WE interpret the Bible, Koran, Torah etc., and speaking as a very bad Christian, I know no Aramaic, Greek, Sanscrit, Hebrew and my Latin is awful, and there are Bibles for every taste from the Bishop's Bible to the King James, the Good News, the Jerusalem etc.. On top of which Jesus had more than four "disciples" and yet only Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are officially used, so who on Earth can possibly say it's "God's Word" for sure, let alone use interpretations "literally"? It's been up to us, to do the disgusting things people do in "God's" name. 
I feel very proud to say that once some Jehovah Witnesses came, I wasn't in a good mood, and after a while, I lost track of time, they said they had to go! Is this a first? Hurrah!

I don't know if anyone watches the wonderful, "Newsroom" but it's tackled the Tea Party and, I've felt this for years, a reporter rants, that she's fed up with loonies hi-jacking Christianity, bit like the US and UK governments using "Terrorism" to hack phones, arrest dodgy looking people and hold them in torturous conditions for years and years. Our interpretation is a man made, usually politically motivated, construct. 
I'm sticking with the Sermon on the Mount and what Puddleglum said, I'd rather live in my belief zone of attempting kindness, understanding and hope than the vengeful, spiteful, doom-ridden one, some oddballs seem to prefer, even if I can't prove it. Back to Douglas Adams and the Babel Fish, the universal interpreters, different peoples, could stick in their ears and so keep the peace through understanding everything. This proved that God did exist but because He said he wouldn't, he had to accept that He did and so disappeared in a puff of logic.
Is this a rant? So much weirdness in the world. Seeing my eldest graduate this year and seeing so many girls in full Hijabs with mortar boards waft across the stage, my gay brother mumbled, "wouldn't it be more economical for straight Muslim men to simply wear blindfolds"? Yep. But he's an untouchable although Christian fundamentalists High and Low don't seem to be able to grasp that God seems to have said nothing about Gayness, look to David and Johnathen, only hypocracy, rape and venerating children's innocence. Laviticus, the famous nutter, would have been adored by Hitler (had he not been Jewish) for insisting we stone to death the deformed, the ugly, the odd, prostitutes, the list is endless, in a veritable blood bath of Christian Faith, Hope and Charity. One of Henry VIII's favourite ecclesiastics! So to madness and the Tudors, it's hard to extricate them...I'm cutting this rant in two not to arouse too much bordom/derision.

Deleted.

So who started it?! The Lancastrians. Back to basics, Henry IV, son of John of Gaunt and Blanche of Lancaster deposed then usurped the throne from Richard II whom he then killed. He spent his reign fighting off the Welsh under Owain Glyndwr and the powerful Percy and Mortimer families. It was during this time that good prince Hal, got an arrow in the face, (never in the bawdy houses of Southwark) this frightening youth, ("I am the hand of God!")which had to be cut out. Hence at a time when kings were being painted in perspective, he only ever shows the left profile. (Art A'Level wasn't such a mistake! Sorry, self-indulgent) but as all politicians do when in trouble, after inheriting daddy's unpopular throne, HV went abroad, to France to finish off the over, 100 Year War. He lost many battles, killed thousands of French (does it matter?!) and won the splendid Battle of Agincourt, having developed dysentry. This splendid king, met Charles VI of France (the mad or Le Imbecile as he was known to the French), married his daughter Katherine de Valois and it was agreed that upon the French king's death, Henry V would be king of France! Hurrah! But there were problems.

Due to dysentry, Henry V died before Charles VI, a catatonic scitzophrenic who believed he was made of glass, and as we know today it was also an inherited illness. Katherine who was just past twenty, bore HV a son, HVI who was nine months old when daddy died. "Woe to thee oh country when thou king is but a childe". And so from 1422 until 1461,for 39 years, England would be ruled by a power vacuum. At first the royal brothers Bedford and Gloucester would rule France and England'nWales, then when HVI married Margaret of Anjou the games began. The dukes of Gloucester and Bedford were the first to go. The Beauforts became "favourites" of the queen if not the country at large and ruled with little or no regard for the people.
Tempers were frayed, the old nobility and the people did not like the the power of the "legitimized" Beauforts and here's the rub.The seeds for the "Wars of the Roses" were being sown, but who actually won?
John of Gaunt liked marrying rich women. After Blanche came Constanza of Castille, John liked to be called "my king of Leon" at Court but had also provoked the Peasants Revolt of 1381 by persuading Richard II to tax the peasants for having heads, not the nobility or Church. This "taille" tax would later cause the French Revolution. But we all love John O'Gaunt! "This sceptered Isle, set in a silver sea" thanks to Shakespeare. Alison Weir loves him for his taste in soft furnishings. Meanwhile, he was having a torrid and wonderfully romantic love affair with nanny Katherine Swynford and during their time together they had the Beaufort children. Unfortunately Katherine was also married when this affair took off, to one Sir Hugh Swynford who died in 1372, which was the very same year that the oldest Beaufort son was born, John, later Earl of Somerset, grandfather of Margaret Beaufort. It would be through him, her grandfather and great grandfather, John O'Gaunt, that Margaret Beaufort and son Henry Tudor would claim to be descended from Edward III. But there was a problem.          
 
John O'Gaunt married Katherine Swynford just before his death in 1399 even though Constanza died in 1394. No romantic rush. However, he also accepted the three other children of their relationship, Henry Cardinal Beaufort, Thomas duke of Exeter and Joan who were born four, five and eight years later which leaves a large question mark over IF he believed John, grandfather of Margaret Beaufort was actually his son or that of Hugh Swynford's. Why didn't he recognize him sooner? He had been conceived when Hugh was still living and he has sometimes been referred to as Swynford. If this is so it blows all we have been told to believe about the Legitimized Beauforts apart! We have always been told that the Beauforts were the legitimized offspring of John O'Gaunt, fourth son of Edward III and Katherine Swynford (some "historians" omit the Swynford and refer to her maiden name of Roet)  his later wife. The Beauforts were "legitimized" by Richard II and later by Henry IV if the did not claim the throne, if they did, they were bastards again. However, the most important and oldest Beaufort, John, grandfather of Margaret Beaufort and great grandfather of Henry VII, may not have been descended from John O'Gaunt at all.      
In short, Henry Tudor, later crowned Henry VII, had not even a legitimized drop of English royal blood running through his veins.It seems extremely likely that he was descended from Sir Hugh Swynford, a point rarely even mentioned by mainstream historians. But we do know that he had royal French blood in his ancestry, just as we know French soldiers backed his march upon Bosworth Field.

No one knows what Margaret Beaufort's relationship was with God! If she was dillusional and believed herself to be another Joan of Arc, what we do know is that how she became an heiress was dodgy in the extreme and she was very odd. If I was dyeing I would pray and think NOT call in debts owed to my grandfather, as she seems to have done.

Dear Meles Meles!
I like you! What I attempted to say, badly, sorry, is/was that any "beliefs" are entirely your own. You probably don't remember Dave Allen, I have an idea you may, but may your God go with you. It's personal. More at home sitting in a country churchyard, getting a seat with a table! On a train you've just caught leaving Paddington or your goldfish has survived fin-rot yet again! It is all so complicated. But there is a still small voice of calm, I think. It is kind. At the moment whenever I go to play Scrabble I find someone has died! A message is terrifying!
I'm a heterosexual whose been thrown into the Gay World when AIDS was all over the place. A cruel place. NOT because of gayness but because of people's attitudes. So many Gay friends of my age and my children, thrown out with bin bags. I don't get it. Sexual orientation is so dull. What I care about is cruelty and hypocracy.
My ex-mother-in-law, a Born again Christian, who held Bible Study Groups in her lounge, lost her "Faith" having been burgled twice, almost three times. I still don't understand this evangelical thing. I've lost many close family members, more this year, but God knows why, I'm lucky, I may miss them and feel guilty but was I lucky to have them in my life. There will be a large welcoming committee for me at some stage and I think it may be due to my not expecting much. Well at least here. We haven't been "here" for billions of years, and we won't be "here" for billions more! We're a drop in the sea. And I believe in souls.
We've all met gorgeous people and then we speak to them and there's "no one home"! Daisy my dog, knows what I want or will do before I act. Weird. As a vicar's daughter, brought up by unconventional parents I met all sorts of people before I was aware of class, gender, states of mind, "gentlemen of the road" sharpened knives on the doorstep eating sandwiches and drinking mugs of tea and we'll all say how marvelous to have such sharp knives again. They were were happy and we were happy. Could it happen today? If not why?
Occum has a brush as well! Under the carpet, don't talk about it! Been to Rome, didn't like St Peter's but the Trevi Fointain! Such noise and thunder and LIFE! I'm not wise but you do yourself a diservice MM. All I can say is simply,that still small voice of calm. I don't blame you for being scepetical, so much to be sceptical about, but beneath the man made layers....I am not good at this but I really do see what you mean. And yet I would be wrong to say that I didn't believe we all have a conscience and eventually, over years, "it" wins, heavy! Sorry.You must care MM. And it's all there. Really.Just take it is it comes and Defend the poor!( Like Richard III!Lol) Minettet xxxxx . (I really like you, in a nice way! Hug! And I sound like a real prat. Sorry. When will I get something right?)

MM threw me somewhat, my point is that we should get back to History! Philippa Greogty, Alison Weiry and the rest will distract you from facts. It is time to go back. When was marriage illegal between a dowager queen and a Welshman! Edmund and Jasper were never Legitimate unless the Pope of the time was paid enough.
And have you ever come across the slightest thing which made you believe that Margaret Beaufort ever loved anyone but herself? Let alone Jasper Twdwr? I know Gregoty has married three times but really, her problems and lusts are not those of Margaret Beauforts. Let's attempt to be objective. Please.

LOl. SST, just been looking at the Cathedral pics. Welles Cathedral nether regions in all its glory but the Early English window seems to be having a nervous breakdown! Not formal, not quite Rose, so what happened? There must be a story here. Do you know what?
Cheers, Minette.
p.s.
Laurance Olivier is not wearing real ermine.
We had some at home at the tails are never as long as that.

Minette Minor wrote:

My ex-mother-in-law, a Born again Christian, who held Bible Study Groups in her lounge, lost her "Faith" having been burgled twice, almost three times.

Oh, Minette, Minette, I cannot tell you how much that made me laugh - although I'm sure I shouldn't have. But I suppose we can't all be Job-like in our sufferings. Couldn't she claim on the insurance?

Seriously, I agree with what you say - and Dave Allen. Religion and all that is a personal thing and I, for one, should learn to keep my big mouth shut - here and elsewhere.

So, back to history...

PS Are you a peeress of the realm with your ermine, or did you keep one as a pet? Vicious little things, I believe.

PPS I was very distressed to learn your goldfish had tail-rot. What a dreadful affliction for a fish.

PPPS It's Exeter Cathedral!

Minette Minor wrote:

So who started it?! The Lancastrians. ... Henry IV, ...spent his reign fighting off the Welsh under Owain Glyndwr ... daddy's unpopular throne, HV went abroad, to France to finish off the over, 100 Year War. He lost many battles, killed thousands of French (does it matter?!) and won the splendid Battle of Agincourt, having developed dysentry...., England would be ruled by a power vacuum. At first the royal brothers Bedford and Gloucester would rule France and England'nWales, ... the old nobility and the people did not like the the power of the "legitimized" Beauforts ... leaves a large question mark over IF he believed John, grandfather of Margaret Beaufort was actually his son or that of Hugh Swynford's. ...In short, Henry Tudor, later crowned Henry VII, had not even a legitimized drop of English royal blood running through his veins.It seems extremely likely that he was descended from Sir Hugh Swynford,

What utter nonsense   you post, Minette! Do you even notice how you slip through a stream of 'if's and 'it is possible's into 'it is likely', and then to certainties, without offering any evidence  , let alone proof, for any of your string of unsupported speculations?  

And , so, to social mobility... As for the Lancastrians 'starting it', the ordinary folk not liking people you deem 'upstarts' and Henry VII not having royal blood, this is also all utter tripe  . How on earth do you think the Plantagenets came to the throne in the first place, if not by fighting   and politicking  ? And royal status is something that must, logically, be attainable by any de facto king  , or else whence did the first kings' 'authority' stem? Thus Henry VII was supremely royal  , if only from Bosworth onwards, just like William the Conqueror  . Also, please shove your stupid notions of 'umble folk liking their betters to come from 'old' families somewhere where the sun doesn't shine. I understand why you sneer at social climbers: you fancy your family as being a bit posh (hence all the pathetic name-dropping and dishonest attempts on your part to claim some sort of association with the University of Oxford), but are acutely aware that you personally have never got very far on merit, and so you resent the demotion of your own line that meritocracy demands  

According to Philippa Gregory in "The White Queen", Richard III was innocent of this crime, and it was a conspiracy between Queen Anne Nevill, Henry Stafford Duke of Buckingham, and Margaret Beaufort mother of Henry Tudor....

She missed a trick. If she'd traced the crime back to the 7th Earl of Ormond then she could have concluded that the Butler did it.

Mmm. I know your remark is a joke, nordmann, but the involvement of the Irish in all the Tudor/Plantagenet plottings has perhaps been underestimated; it's usually only mentioned briefly in posts about Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbeck. I'm not suggesting he had anything to do with the disappearance of the PITT, but Thomas Butler, described as "a good friend of Henry VII", was an interesting character all right. Had all his lands restored to him in 1485, I believe.

http://www.susanhigginbotham.com/subpages/lettermargaret.html

PS I've always been a bit shocked by Margaret Beaufort's comment  in her letter to Thomas Butler (Jones and Underwood call it a "weighted jibe against the pretensions of her great rival, Richard III's sister") about the ladies of Burgundy being "great" or "big" - a rather nasty remark for such a devout lady like Margaret Beaufort to have made. Margaret of Burgundy, nee Plantagenet (who, not surprisingly, loathed the Tudors, even though her niece was married to one), doesn't look particularly large in in her portraits, quite the opposite in fact; her build is like that of her brother, Richard - rather slight and slender. Perhaps MP didn't have small, delicate hands like MB, or perhaps the Countess of Richmond's deliciously bitchy remark just means Margaret of Burgundy had got too big for her boots (or gloves rather).

Reminds me though of Vivien Merchant's famous comment about Antonia Fraser having great big feet (after Fraser had run off with Merchant's husband, Harold Pinter).

PS Elizabeth Tudor, who so much resembled her great-grandmother, Margaret Beaufort,  was also inordinately vain about her beautiful hands: it was noted how ET liked to display her long, elegant fingers whenever possible.

As so exquisitely and sensitively portrayed in an earlier BBC adaptation:

The present one has a way with fingers too ...

You can mock, nordmann, but Queenie is an important source. Dr Susan Doran uses the famous line: "Everyone seems to get married but me"  at the beginning of Monarchy and Matrimony: The Courtships of Elizabeth I (a dead hard book written for proper historians). So there.

Since when did 'proper historians' obsess over Tudor courtships...? That's girly nonsense - real Historians   write about battles'n'stuff!  

No wonder Susan Doran is stuck in grim, pokey little Jesus...

Catigern, dearest,
Gosh I come in here for a bit of R and R and in you stomp! I sound like such a pompous bunch backed toad! If I apologize for existing will that do? I'm not posh at all, my family have been sliding down any sort of ladder you'd like to name since I can remember and anyway we talk about what we know about? Why have you such an enormous chip, nay chips on your shoulders? Aren't they heavy? Just been watching Margaret Thatcher, "Downing Street Years" and her chips drove her potty eventually! 

I don't understand, "Who do you think you are"? Because I was a nosey child, always asking about "the olden days". Sitting in a dry rot ridden, wet, damp, cold, dark, spooky vicarage where
I sprouted, full of ghosts and huge furniture, wearing hand me down clothes, which I liked, especially the tap shoes, Ivy Watkins gave them to us as Susan grew, I was happy! I don't think you'll ever understand Vicarage kids. You don't want to. We didn't know we were poor. Everyone was poor. Proud to say I met Cliff Morgan once in the Porth, we lived in grim Cymmer up the hill/mountain, a place which hasn't become less bleak even now! As I've said I know things because I was nosey, thank God, so many have died since. Then to England where everyone was rich it seemed. This Rectory didn't have ghosts. Mum told me later that there had been a mining disaster in a coal seam beneath the Vicarage and bodies hadn't been found. Maybe I was right. I knew that the skies were big and fruit grew on trees and the village school was nice but rubbish! No one knew anything compared to Cymmer! Of course you must bear in mind that I am ancient and then the 11 Plus mattered more in Wales than England. In Wales it was mental and written Arithmatic, an essay and verbal reasoning. In England it was only multiple choice verbal reasoning! Der! I never got why?
Education mattered to the Welsh.
A few days ago my step uncle vicar who went to Cambridge, suddenly turned up. After Welsh hugs he said, "books! Mind you your father was the only man I've known who could read the Bible in Greek and Hebrew, a scholar priest". Did I cry? No! Was I proud? Yes! So up yours Catigern. I may be a gibbering idiot but my dad wasn't, neither was his father or my mother's father. All scholarship boys! Money is far less important than brains. I used to think you funny but nice but you aren't. And so must tell you this. A friend of mine went to Oxford whom dad tutored to do Greats. I said, "when you were at Magdelane.." He said Good God...I'm not that brainy I went to Merton"! You teach post grads there....what? I suppose it depends on the weather when your chips are not too sodden.    
         
If you can be pleasant in future I may be tempted to answer your rants. At the moment you simply bore me. But you won't go away. Like an irritating fly. To think I once liked you. Such is life.