The Tudors and the Greenwich Church of the Observant Friars

This post ties in with our Son Rise Morning Show discussion today of the correspondence between Queen Catherine of England and Blessed John Forest because it demonstrates the close ties between the founder of the Tudor Dynasty, King Henry VII and the church or chapel of the Observant Friars at Greenwich. From the Medieval Manuscripts blog of the British Library, evidence of that linkage:

Greenwich Palace was a favourite of England’s Tudor monarchs. Beside the palace stood the church of the Observant Friars, founded in 1482. Being so close to a royal residence, the church played a regular part in royal ceremonies — Henry VIII, Mary I and Elizabeth I were all baptised there. This church had political and religious importance, which is reinforced by two manuscripts digitised for the Library’s Medieval and Renaissance Women project. Egerton MS 2341/1 and Egerton MS 2341/2 contain instructions for the glaziers creating the stained glass for the church’s East window. These instructions demonstrate how that window was designed to strengthen the new Tudor dynasty.

Probably originally a single roll, the two manuscripts are undated. They must have been written after 1489, when Margaret Tudor was born, as she is one of the individuals to be depicted in the window. In turn, they presumably pre-date the death of Elizabeth of York, Henry VII’s queen, in February 1503, as the text refers to her in the present tense. They may have been made in the early 1490s, and before the church was consecrated by April 1494.

The post goes on to describe the saints to be depicted in the stained glass windows, particularly all the Anglo-Saxon female saints and concludes:

By focusing on royal women from before the Norman Conquest, the window placed Henry, his queen and his daughter among a cohort of royal women stretching back over a thousand years. He could claim direct descent from St Margaret, the ancestor of every English king from Henry II onwards. She, in turn, was linked to several of these Saxon saints. This window presented a Tudor history that looked beyond the dynastic squabbles of the 15th century, using these women to emphasise Henry VII’s link to a more distant and less contentious Anglo-Saxon past.

This does make sense because Henry VII's claim to the throne was through his mother's lineage, not his father's. One of the saints featured was Saint Margaret of Scotland, wife of King Malcolm III. She was an English princess, according to the old Encyclopedia Britannica:

the daughter of the English prince Edward, son of Edmund Ironside, and sister of Edgar Ætheling, and was probably born in Hungary. In 1067 the widow and children of Edward fled from Northumberland with a large number of followers and sought the protection of the Scottish king. The marriage of Malcolm and Margaret soon took place and was followed by several invasions of Northumberland by the Scottish king, probably in support of the claims of his brother-in-law Edgar. These, however, had little result beyond the devastation of the province. Far more important were the effects of this alliance upon the history of Scotland. A considerable portion of the old Northumbrian kingdom had been reduced by the Scottish kings in the previous century, but up to this time the English population had little influence upon the ruling element of the kingdom. Malcolm’s marriage undoubtedly improved the condition of the English to a great extent, and under Margaret’s sons, Edgar, Alexander I. and David I., the Scottish court practically became anglicized. Margaret died on the 17th of November 1093, four days after her husband and her eldest son Edward, who were slain in an invasion of Northumberland. She rebuilt the monastery of Iona, and was canonized in 1251 on account of her great benefactions to the Church.

Her feast is celebrated on November 16. Most of her relics were lost (discarded) during the Scottish Reformation. One of her daughters, Maud or Matilda, married King Henry I of England, so she was good choice for Henry VII to highlight. As the blog post notes, not only his mother (Margaret Beaufort), but his eldest daughter was named Margaret too:

Another famous saint to be featured in the window was Margaret of Scotland, the granddaughter of Edmund Ironside and wife of Malcolm III, king of Scots. Their daughter, Maud (or Matilda), married Henry I of England, while Margaret’s great-grandson himself became king as Henry II. In an interesting historical parallel, Margaret, Henry VII’s daughter, who was to appear in the pane below St Margaret, would marry a Scottish king, like her saintly namesake, and have a great-grandson who would become king of England: James VI and I.

Saint Margaret of Scotland, pray for us!

Blessed and Venerable Martyrs of the Observant Franciscans of Greenwich, pray for us!

Parker and Jonson

Matthew Parker, the future Archbishop of Canterbury (1559-1575) was born during reign of Henry VII, on August 6, 1504. He attended the University of Cambridge at Corpus Christi college and was influenced by the Cambridge reformers, who were bringing Lutheran ideas of reform to England.

Anne Boleyn appointed Parker her chaplain and also made sure he received other preferments. He survived her fall and execution, and became one of Henry VIII's chaplains. He was a moderate reformer during the reign of Henry VIII; he accepted the more conservative reforms Henry demanded in 1539 and 1540.

When Henry VIII died, Parker got married; under Edward VI he supported the efforts of John Dudley, the Duke of Northumberland to continue the reformation. He became friends with Martin Bucer and preached his funeral sermon in 1551. When Mary I came to the throne, Parker lost all his benefices because he was married, but he was otherwise free and did not seek exile. Even though he had been close to Northumberland he was not arrested or harrassed in any way during Mary's reign.

Elizabeth I named him Archbishop of Canterbury in 1559; he was never involved in matters of state and never part of her Privy Counsel. He struggled throughout his tenure to maintain uniformity in the Church of England and against the puritan reformers who wished to eliminate any vestiges of Catholicism in the established Church. For instance, the issue of clerical vestments during Book of Common Prayer services involved Parker in controversy that he thought interferred with the true course of reform.

His friendship with Martin Bucer must have influenced him in this matter, for Bucer tried to stay out of the same type of controversies over vestments and the eucharist during his exile in England. As Pollard wrote of Parker in the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica: "He distrusted popular enthusiasm, and he wrote in horror of the idea that “the people” should be the reformers of the Church. He was not inspiring as a leader of religion; and no dogma, no original theory of church government, no prayer-book, not even a tract or a hymn is associated with his name. The 56 volumes published by the Parker Society include only one by its eponymous hero, and that is a volume of correspondence. He was a disciplinarian, a scholar, a modest and moderate man of genuine piety and irreproachable morals."

Thomas Tallis composed nine psalm tunes for Archbishop Parker's Psalter: Man blest no doubt (Psalm 1); Let God arise in majesty (Psalm 68); Why fum'th in Fight (Psalm 2); O come in one to praise the Lord (Psalm 95); E'en like the hunted hind (Psalm 42); Expend, O Lord, my plaint (Psalm 5); Why brag'st in malice high (Psalm 52); God grant with grace (Psalm 67); Come Holy Ghost, eternal God (Veni Creator). Ralph Vaughn Williams used the psalm tune for "Why Fum'th in Fight" in his "Fantasia on a theme of Thomas Tallis".

Matthew Parker, according to his alma mater, contributed greatly to Anglo-Saxon studies:

A benefactor to the University of Cambridge, Parker's greatest tangible legacy is his library of manuscripts and early printed books entrusted to Corpus Christi College in 1574. He was an avid book collector, salvaging medieval manuscripts dispersed at the dissolution of the monasteries; he was particularly keen to preserve materials relating to Anglo-Saxon England, motivated by his search for evidence of an ancient English-speaking Church independent of Rome. The extraordinary collection of documents that resulted from his efforts is still housed at Corpus Christi College, and consists of items spanning from the sixth-century Gospels of St. Augustine to sixteenth-century records relating to the English Reformation.

There's a website with many scans of materials in the Parker Library.

Ben Jonson, the poet and playwright, died on August 6, 1637. He was born circa June 11, 1572 and for 12 dangerous years, from the time he was imprisoned in 1598 until after King Henry IV of France was assassinated in 1610, Ben Jonson was a Catholic. He paid Recusancy fines, refused to take Communion in the Church of England, and faced accusations of "persuading to popery". Robert S. Miola explores Ben Jonson's conversion and recantation of his conversion in this 2001 article from Renaissance and Reformation. Miola notes that even after he began to take Communion in the Church of England, Jonson remained interested in Catholic theology and doctrine, with many Catholic books in his extensive private library, including Thomas Stapleton's book about St. Thomas the Apostle, St. Thomas a Becket, and Sir Thomas More (Tres Thomae). Jonson often referenced the Blessed Virgin Mary in distinctly Catholic tones and tropes, as in this poem for Queen Henrietta Maria, "An
Epigram to the Queen, Then Lying In" (1630):

Hail Mary, full of grace, it once was said,
And by an angel, to the blessed'st maid,
The mother of our Lord: why may not I
(Without profaneness) yet, a poet, cry
Hail Mary, full of honours, to my queen,
The mother of our prince? When was there seen
(Except the joy that the first Mary brought,
Whereby the safety of mankind was wrought)
So general a gladness to an isle,
To make the hearts of a whole nation smile,
As in this prince? Let it be lawful, so
To compare small with great, as still we owe
Glory to God. Then, hail to Mary! Spring
Of so much safety to the realm, and king.

After suffering a series of strokes, Jonson died on August 6 and was buried in Westminster Abbey on August 9, 1637. His poem "A Hymn to God the Father" is an appropriate remembrance:

Hear me, O God! 

A broken heart 

Is my best part. 

Use still thy rod, 

That I may prove 

Therein thy Love. 

If thou hadst not 

Been stern to me, 

But left me free, 

I had forgot 

Myself and thee. 

For sin's so sweet, 

As minds ill-bent 

Rarely repent, 

Until they meet 

Their punishment. 

Who more can crave 

Than thou hast done? 

That gav'st a Son, 

To free a slave, 

First made of nought; 

With all since bought. 

Sin, Death, and Hell 

His glorious name 

Quite overcame, 

Yet I rebel 

And slight the same. 

But I'll come in 

Before my loss 

Me farther toss, 

As sure to win 

Under His cross. 

Pearce on Belloc and Tolkien (and Chesterton?)

From The National Catholic Register:

Although Belloc and Tolkien had much in common, not least of which was their shared and impassioned Catholicism, it is intriguing that they should differ so profoundly on the importance of the Anglo-Saxons.

Belloc’s view of history, for the most part astute and penetrative, was always skewed by a less-than-balanced Francophilia and an almost shrill Germanophobia. This was evident in his dismissive disregard of the contribution to Christian culture of the Germanic tribes of England prior to the Norman Conquest and his lauding of the Conquest itself as having brought England into the fullness of Christendom which was always, for Belloc, synonymous with the influence of France.

In contrast, Tolkien considered Anglo-Saxon England to have been idyllically Christian. Had he had his “whole case very carefully prepared” to counter Belloc’s attack on the Anglo-Saxons, he might have shown that Anglo-Saxon England was profoundly Catholic, to such a degree that the saintly Englishman, Boniface, had helped to evangelize Pagan Europe, while his contemporary, the truly venerable Bede, had exhibited the high culture that Saxon England enjoyed in abundance.

Whilst the former converted the Germans to Christ, the latter excelled in Latin and Greek, and classical and patristic literature, as well as Hebrew, medicine and astronomy. Bede also wrote homilies, lives of saints, hymns, epigrams, works on chronology and grammar, commentaries on the Old and New Testament, and, most famously, his seminal Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum which was translated into Anglo-Saxon by King Alfred the Great. At the time of his death in 735 Bede had just finished translating the Gospel of St. John into Anglo-Saxon. Almost six hundred years later, Dante expressed his own admiration for Bede’s achievement by placing him in the Paradiso of his Divina Commedia.

Pearce doesn't mention it, but Chesterton must have been influenced by Belloc, in spite of his admiration for Alfred the Great. As Chesterton writes in his A Short History of England (from Chapter 5. "St. Edward and the Norman Kings") he presents a mixed view of the Anglo-Saxons, although he does praise them for "christening" England:

As I have indicated, there is some unreality in talking about the Anglo-Saxon at all. The Anglo-Saxon is a mythical and straddling giant, who has presumably left one footprint in England and the other in Saxony. But there was a community, or rather group of communities, living in Britain before the Conquest under what we call Saxon names, and of a blood probably more Germanic and certainly less French than the same communities after the Conquest. And they have a modern reputation which is exactly the reverse of their real one. The value of the Anglo-Saxon is exaggerated, and yet his virtues are ignored. Our Anglo-Saxon blood is supposed to be the practical part of us; but as a fact the Anglo-Saxons were more hopelessly unpractical than any Celt. Their racial influence is supposed to be healthy, or, what many think the same thing, heathen. But as a fact these "Teutons" were the mystics. The Anglo-Saxons did one thing, and one thing only, thoroughly well, as they were fitted to do it thoroughly well. They christened England. Indeed, they christened it before it was born. The one thing the Angles obviously and certainly could not manage to do was to become English. But they did become Christians, and indeed showed a particular disposition to become monks. Moderns who talk vaguely of them as our hardy ancestors never do justice to the real good they did us, by thus opening our history, as it were, with the fable of an age of innocence, and beginning all our chronicles, as so many chronicles began, with the golden initial of a saint. By becoming monks they served us in many very valuable and special capacities, but not notably, perhaps, in the capacity of ancestors.

Chesterton does admire Alfred the Great, of course, having written his great poem The Ballad of the White Horse about this Anglo-Saxon hero (from Chapter 4. "The Defeat of the Barbarians"):

There is, from the first, something humble and even accidental about Alfred. He was a great understudy. The interest of his early life lies in this: that he combined an almost commonplace coolness, and readiness for the ceaseless small bargains and shifting combinations of all that period, with the flaming patience of saints in times of persecution. While he would dare anything for the faith, he would bargain in anything except the faith. He was a conqueror, with no ambition; an author only too glad to be a translator; a simple, concentrated, wary man, watching the fortunes of one thing, which he piloted both boldly and cautiously, and which he saved at last.

He had disappeared after what appeared to be the final heathen triumph and settlement, and is supposed to have lurked like an outlaw in a lonely islet in the impenetrable marshlands of the Parret; towards those wild western lands to which aboriginal races are held to have been driven by fate itself. But Alfred, as he himself wrote in words that are his challenge to the period, held that a Christian man was unconcerned with fate. He began once more to draw to him the bows and spears of the broken levies of the western shires, especially the men of Somerset; and in the spring of 878 he flung them at the lines before the fenced camp of the victorious Danes at Ethandune. His sudden assault was as successful as that at Ashdown, and it was followed by a siege which was successful in a different and very definite sense. Guthrum, the conqueror of England, and all his important supports, were here penned behind their palisades, and when at last they surrendered the Danish conquest had come to an end. Guthrum was baptized, and the Treaty of Wedmore secured the clearance of Wessex. The modern reader will smile at the baptism, and turn with greater interest to the terms of the treaty. In this acute attitude the modern reader will be vitally and hopelessly wrong. He must support the tedium of frequent references to the religious element in this part of English history, for without it there would never have been any English history at all. And nothing could clinch this truth more than the case of the Danes. In all the facts that followed, the baptism of Guthrum is really much more important than the Treaty of Wedmore. The treaty itself was a compromise, and even as such did not endure; a century afterwards a Danish king like Canute was really ruling in England. But though the Dane got the crown, he did not get rid of the cross. It was precisely Alfred's religious exaction that remained unalterable. 

Hollywood History: Richard the Lionheart

On Wednesday last week, Turner Classic Movies showed a series of Medieval swashbucklers (plus of a couple of outliers (set during the reigns of Charles II of England and of Philip II of Spain)--among them three featuring Richard the Lionheart: The Adventures of Robin Hood, Ivanhoe, and King Richard and the Crusaders.

The first two pose a Hollywood historical problem: did Richard the Lionheart come home and confront his usurping brother John with the help of Robin Hood and his merry men or did he arrive during a tournament duel between Ivanhoe and De Bois-Guilbert? What both movie's Richard the Lionheart have in common is that he wants to create unity in England between Norman and Anglo-Saxon, restoring order and justice after removing his brother John and his followers.

As the BBC notes, however, Richard I had little interest in ruling over England and certainly forgave John for any attempts to usurp power while he was held for ransom:

As king, Richard's chief ambition was to join the Third Crusade, prompted by Saladin's capture of Jerusalem in 1187. To finance this, he sold sheriffdoms and other offices and in 1190 he departed for the Holy Land. In May, he reached Cyprus where he married Berengaria, daughter of the king of Navarre. Richard arrived in the Holy Land in June 1191 and Acre fell the following month. In September, his victory at Arsuf gave the crusaders possession of Joppa. Although he came close, Jerusalem, the crusade's main objective, eluded him. Moreover, fierce quarrels among the French, German and English contingents provided further troubles. After a year's stalemate, Richard made a truce with Saladin and started his journey home.

Bad weather drove him ashore near Venice and he was imprisoned by Duke Leopold of Austria before being handed over to the German emperor Henry VI, who ransomed him for the huge sum of 150,000 marks. The raising of the ransom was a remarkable achievement. In February 1194, Richard was released. He returned at once to England and was crowned for a second time, fearing that the ransom payment had compromised his independence. Yet a month later he went to Normandy, never to return. His last five years were spent in intermittent warfare against Philip II. While besieging the castle of Châlus in central France he was fatally wounded and died on 6 April 1199. He was succeeded by his younger brother John, who had spent the years of Richard's absence scheming against him.

The BBC also posts a discussion of whether Robin Hood and Richard I ever met.