Prayers for Prince Arthur: Queen Elizabeth of York, March 1502

Over at the Mutual Enrichment blog of Father John Hunwicke, he posted a list of churches/shrines and benefices that Queen Elizabeth of York requested and made for the recovery of her son Prince Arthur of Wales in March, 1502. Arthur and his wife Catherine of Aragon had set up their household at Ludlow Castle in the Welsh Marches. They became ill of some unknown malady--perhaps the "sweating sickness" that Henry VIII would flee so often during his reign--and Arthur died on April 2, 1502,15-1/2 years old. Catherine of Aragon, the Princess of Wales, survived:

Here is an itinerary for a priest called Barton who was sent from the Court of Elizabeth of York in March 1502 to make offerings at shrines all over Middle England for the life of Prince Arthur her son, who, had he lived, would probably have been the first of a whole list of imperially-minded English Kings of that name. I give, in Old Money, the sums (some of them fractions of the Mark) he was to donate at each shrine (OL=Our Lady of):

OLWindsor, and S George at Windsor, and the Holy Cross there (2/6);
King Henry (2/6);
OLEton (1/8);
The Child of Grace at Reading (2/6);
OLCaversham (2/6);
OLCockthorpe (1/8);
Holy Blood of Hailes (1/8);
Prince Edward (5/-);
OLWorcester (5-);
Holy Rood at Northampton (5/-) and OLGrace there (2/6);
OLWalsingham (6/8);
OLSudbury (2/6);
OLWoolpit (1/8);
OLIpswich 3/4);

So Father Barton started in Windsor and ended in Ispwich, praying for Prince Arthur. Father Hunwicke notes two of the shrines Father Barton visited were (in bold italics above) for King Henry VI and his son Edward, Prince of Wales. So Father Hunwicke notes in another post:

On May 4, 1471, a battle decisive in English dynastic history: at Tewkesbury. It sticks in the memory because the conflict eventually burst into the Abbey Church, where the slaughter was only eventually ended when the Abbot took a Procession the the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar down to where the killing was happening.

Among those who died in those bloodied hours was the last heir of the the Lancastrian family, the seventeen year-old Prince Edward. He was buried, and still is, in that Abbey [now a Church of England place of prayer/worship]; the place of his burial is now marked by a Victorian brass tablet.

According to the Wikipedia article on Prince Edward, the plaque reads:

Hic jacet
Edwardus
princeps Wallie, crude
liter interfectus dum adhuc juvenis
anno dñi 1471 mense maie die quarto
eheu hominum furore Matris
tu sola lux es ⁊ gregis
ultima
spes

This can be translated into English as follows:[6]

"Here lies Edward, Prince of Wales, cruelly slain whilst but a youth. Anno Domini 1471, May fourth. Alas, the savagery of men. Thou art the sole light of thy Mother, and the last hope of thy race."

Of course, Prince Edward's mother was Queen Margaret of Anjou. Prince Edward is a character in Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part Three, the next history play we'll read aloud in our semi-quarterly Shakespeare reading group. The Folger Library describes him thus as depicted in the play:

Prince Edward, of the Lancastrian party, is the son of Henry VI and his Queen, Margaret. He is very much his mother’s son, haughty, stubborn, and quick to insult.

He pays little attention to his father, regarding him as a weakling, and rejecting his injunctions to restraint. Eager to fight for his rights, he is recklessly unwilling to bow to superior force, and even when captured by his enemies refuses to speak the slightest word that might imply a surrender, making his death at Yorkist hands even more certain than it ever was. He is slaughtered in front of his mother’s eyes. His ghost returns in Richard III.

James Northcote (1746-1831) painted the scene (Public Domain) from Shakespeare (Act Five, Scene 5) as Edward IV, George, the Duke of Clarence, and Richard, the Duke of Gloucester (the future Richard III), stab the young prince to death as his mother protests in horror. Other more contemporary sources indicate that Edward was slain in battle by Clarence. (Note that Northcote also depicted the murder of the Princes in the Tower from Richard III (Act Four, Scene 3.)

I know that Henry VII promoted the Cause of Henry VI, as noted here and here, but I did not know about any cult for Prince Edward of Wales. If you look at the comments for both of Father Hunwicke's posts, you'll notice some remarks by the Once I Was a Clever Boy blogger!

Of course, we know that Prince Arthur's death and Catherine of Aragon's subsequent marriage to his younger brother Henry, the future Henry VIII, are events tremendously important to the religious and dynastic history of England--to put it lightly!

 And, he posted another itinerary of prayers and alms for Prince Arthur!

I have read that Father Hunwicke is ill so please keep him in your prayers.

Image credit (Public Domain): Depicted person: Arthur Tudor (1486-1502), Prince of Wales was the first son of King Henry VII of England and Elizabeth of York. This portrait is regarded as the only surviving contemporary portrait of the sitter.

Blessed John Henry Newman's Feast at the English Oratories

Tomorrow is the memorial of Blessed John Henry Newman in the dioceses of England and Wales, but the Birmingham and Oxford Oratories begin their celebration of his feast today. The schedule for the Birmingham Oratory is detailed in the flyer pictured above: First Vespers, Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament and Benediction on the vigil and then several Masses on the feast of their founder.

According to the Oxford Oratory's bulletin/newsletter:

TRIDUUM BL. JOHN HENRY NEWMAN: From 6th to 8th October we mark a Triduum for Blessed John Henry Newman after the 6pm Mass. On 8th October at 7:45pm, there will be a Night Walk to Littlemore to mark his reception into the Church and on Friday 9th October at 6pm, we will celebrate a Solemn Mass for his feast, at which Fr John Saward (Priest-in-Charge at SS Gregory and Augustine, Oxford) will preach. 

John Whitehead provides some details about the Littlemore walk from last year on his blog, Once I Was a Clever Boy:

We began as usual at the Oxford Oratory and walked via sites associated with Newman - Trinity College, St Mary's Church, Oriel College, the site of the Angel Inn where Bl. Dominic arrived soaking wet from travelling on the roof of the stage coach in 1845, the site of old St Clement's Church where Newman was assistant curate in the 1820s, and reflected at Greyfriars on his lament for the loss of Catholicism in the University of his day by contrast with the era of Duns Scotus. We also paused at the two houses at Rose Hill on the way to Littlemore occupied by his mother and sisters in the 1830s.

At Littlemore we had a Holy Hour in the modern church of Bl.Dominic Barberi led by Fr Hancock, the parish priest, before processing to the College.

The London/Brompton Oratory does not indicate any celebration other than the daily Mass on the feast day. 

More tomorrow.

New Book about Syon Abbey

The Once I Was a Clever Boy blog features a post about a new book from Gracewing Publishing:

For those who do not know the story of Syon it can be summarised briefly as follows. In 1415 King Henry V - who was quite busy that year invading France - founded the only Bridgettine monastery in England. This was close to his palace at Sheen ( now Richmond) in Surrey and prospered until the reign of King Henry VIII. It was one of the mainsprings or wellsprings of late medieval English spirituality and devotion, influencing many members of the elite and beyond. The chaplain, St Richard Reynolds was one of the first martyrs of May 1535, and the house was dissolved four years later. Nothing daunted the Sisters went off to their family homes in groups and continued their common life. Returning to Syon in 1557 they were again dispersed in 1559, and left England with the retiring Spanish ambassador for Flanders. Forced by the Netherlandish revolt to seek refuge elsewhere they settled in Rouen until the victory of King Henri IV led this pro-Spanish community to seek refuge in Lisbon. There, always an English community in exile,they survived the Portuguese uprising against Spanish rule in 1640, the Earthquake of 1755, the Peninsular War, and desire some sisters leaving for England soon after the core community remained there until 1861 when they returned to England after more than three centuries. They settled first in Dorset and then Devon, latterly at South Brent. Tragically in recent decades the community has declined in numbers and they gave up their house in 2011 and now the two remaining sisters live the Bridgettine life within a home run by other religious in Plymouth.

Their archives are now at Exeter University where Prof Jones is based, and Exeter has made an important contribution to modern scholarship on this remarkable community.

From his book I discovered that one of the great treasures of Syon is now at the Catholic church at Heavitree near Exeter. This is one of the pinnacles from the original gatehouse at Syon, and presumably the one on which St Richard Reynolds head was impaled in 1535. This substantial relic has accompanied the sisters on their wanderings from Syon to Flanders, France, Portugal and back to England. They also, in token of ownership, retained the door key of the abbey buildings at Syon - the site now being occupied by Syon House, now the property of the Duke of Northumberland.

The book is handsomely illustrated and reflects academic research and the latest scholarship on the Order and the unique place of Syon on English Catholic history.

A comment on the post reveals there is a blog dedicated to the study of Syon Abbey presented by the Syon Abbey Society. 

St. Bridget of Sweden, pray for us! St. Richard Reynolds, pray for us!

Vestiges of Mary's Dowry: Reformation Iconoclasm

Once I Was A Clever Boy continues his series on English Reformation Iconoclasm, focused the destruction of Marian shrines and chapels:

Nothing so encapsulates English iconoclasm in the Reformation period and in subsequent centuries than the attack on the cult, on the veneration, on almost even the name, of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Mary's Dowry appeared more than anxious to expunge her from its collective life and worship.
I have already mentioned the 1538 burning of several famous statues of her as well as other devotional images, and in the first years of the Elizabethan settlement there were similar scenes - what I wonder did the good people of Sleaford in Lincolnshire think in 1560 when the Crucifix was taken out from their parish church of St Denys and burned in the market place outside?

Lady Chapels in churches attracted the attention of zealous reformers. At Ely cathedral the wondrous fourteenth century Lady Chapel lost all its glass and every statue in the canopy work around the arcades was meticulously decapitated. . . .

The English liturgy was purged of virtually all Marian devotions in 1548, and little survived beyond the feasts of her birth and, surprisingly perhaps, conception. In Oxford University the feast of the Assumption survived as a lesser commemoration, and as it still exists in the University Calendar.

In Oxford the University Church of St Mary the Virgin had a new porch built in 1636-37 by the mason Nicholas Stone at a cost of £230. This was adorned with a statue of the Virgin and Child, and in 1644 this was one of the capital charges brought against Archbishop Laud by the Parliamentarians, on the basis that Laud as Chancellor of the University had sanctioned this. The statue had attracted the respect and indeed devotion of some University students and was blasted by a Parliamentarian musket when the army left the city at the beginning of the Civil War. A modern replacement now occupies the niche.

Read the rest there.

Destruction and iconclasm in the English Reformation, continued

The Once I Was a Clever Boy blog continues his series on iconoclasm and the destruction of parish churches--but especially the great monasteries. This post includes models of the great monasteries like Glastonbury and Fountains as they would have looked before their destruction:

The fury of English iconoclasm came hard upon one of the most prodigious periods of church building in the history of the country. Of the parish churches which ministered to the needs of the faithful virtually none were unaffected by the fifteenth century, If not being rebuilt entirely they were being completed, or extended, or gaining new features, such as clerestories and towers, or chantries, or at very least a few new windows in the latest style. This all reflected the great prosperity of the century. Not until the nineteenth century was there to be such an outburst of church building and improvement. That link is not accidental - the fifteenth and later nineteenth centuries were the two times in English history when wages were consistently ahead of prices. People had money, and they had devotion.

Parish churches on the whole survived the reformation - the main exceptions were cities which witnessed the union of parishes such as York and Lincoln, and reflecting urban demographic changes.

For great churches - cathedrals, abbeys, collegiate foundations - the future was less certain. Here too there had been considerable building activity, and by 1500 English architects were displaying not only maturity and confidence, but a renewed inventiveness, as in King Henry VII's Chapel at Westminster. That virtuosity can also be seen in a building linked to it in style if not otherwise, the well chapel at Holywell in North Wales. I cite that both because of its architectural finesse , but also because it is in a fairly remote location, away from the south-east, although it was a popular destination for pilgrims both from the elite and the populace at large - and also because it was sufficiently remote to survive as a place of such pilgrimage through the recusant era.

Read the rest there.

Iconoclasm in the Long English Reformation

From Once I Was a Clever Boy, some notes on iconoclasm, the destruction of religious images, during the Long English Reformation (I corrected some typos):

I pointed to four main phases of iconoclasm in this country. These firstly are the period 1536-1539 when the monasteries were dissolved and there was the attack of shrines and relics, and especially on the cult of St Thomas of Canterbury. Secondly there is the period from 1548 to 1553 under the Edwardian reform which saw the attack on veneration of the Virgin Mary, the dissolution of the chantries, liturgical change with the imposition of the First and Second Prayer books in 1549 and 1552 and the expropriation of church goods in 1552. Thirdly there was an outbreak of image breaking in the period after 1559 when the Elizabethan settlement was brought in. This lasted until about 1562, but was followed by neglect and abandonment - notably the cessation of worship in the chancels of churches and their consequent appropriation for seating. The fourth phase is that in the First Civil War of 1642 to 1646, with attacks on cathedrals such as Canterbury, Lincoln, Peterborough, and Worchester, and the activities of people such as William Dowsing in East Anglia, who went round destroying the relics of Popery in the parish churches of the region.

All this was followed by two centuries of neglect, before the nineteenth century got to work restoring (sometimes too enthusiastically it has to be said) and conserving our medieval heritage.

This will be a series of posts, so follow it here.