Tuesday 5 March 2024

England: Old St. Chad's; Shrewsbury

 This church fell down at the end of the 18th century, leaving only a small side-chapel standing.



 Repairs to the fabric of this are currently under way, and this week I was able to persuade the workmen to let me in for a brief look round. Here are some phographs I was able to take. The font is ancient and very simple, and the heraldic hatchments are particularly fine, though some are ruined beyond repair.









Many  of these hatchments feature a raven, or crow, which was the coat of arms of the Corbet family, who were powerful in north Shropshire. Since the name for this bird in old English or Scots was a "corbie", this is an example of a "canting" coat of arms, which make a pun on the family's name.

Fortunately, the finest work at old St Chad's was removed in 1788, before the building collapsed, and installed at the nearby church of St. Mary the Virgin. This is the great mid-14th century Jesse window.


The architect George Stewart was commissioned to build a replacement church (see an earlier post)

Monday 26 February 2024

Wednesday 7 February 2024

Lord Staines fights a duel

(This is an episode from my online historical novel, "The memoirs of Charles Huntingdon", set in Britain in the 1760s. The complete novel can be found by following the link to the right, through "view my complete profile"

    One day that spring I was seated at a table in Brown’s club when Staines entered in a state of great agitation. He brandished a paper at me, and asked me whether I had read it. He was in such a fury I had never seen in him before, so that his hands shook as I took it from him.

   I found that it contained a scandalous attack on him, or rather on a certain L**d S*****s, who was further described as “the catamite of L**d G****e S*******e”, “the coward of Minden”. Although the names were disguised in this manner, anyone who was acquainted with public affairs could have no doubt as to whom was meant. I remembered what Lord Staines had told me, at our very first meeting, about the unfortunate events at Minden, in consequence of which Lord George Sackville had been publicly disgraced and Staines had resigned his commission. So much had befallen me since that it all seemed a very long time ago.

    I asked if he knew who had written it. He told me that it was anonymous, but he was certain that the author was Mr John Wilkes, whose name he pronounced with great anger. “He libels anyone who dares attack Pitt, and he knows I am for a swift conclusion to the war. Scoundrel!” he added.

  I knew Wilkes as the silent Member of Parliament for Aylesbury, though everyone had heard rumours that he frequented a notorious assembly known as the Hellfire Club.

   I told Lord Staines that such low degraded stuff was beneath his attention, and best ignored; and that I was sure that his father would have given the same advice. But he told me that he had approached Wilkes, demanding an apology for this insult to his honour; and, not having received a satisfactory reply, he had issued a challenge to a duel. Staines requested me to be his second. I was reluctant to accede to this, but nothing I could say deterred him.

   Accordingly, soon after sunrise a few days later we took a coach out to Putney Heath. It was a bright morning, but cold. Dew lay heavy on the grass, and glittered on cobwebs on the bushes. There was no-one in sight except our opponent and his second, and another man I did not know. I was told his name was Doctor Blake, who was there in the event of any serious injury.

   It was my first sight of Mr Wilkes, who was shortly to become a most celebrated person; loved by some but hated by others. He was well dressed and slender of build, but his face was disfigured by the most violent squint, which caused his eyes to point in clean different directions. I wondered how, with this handicap, he could ever aim a pistol with any accuracy. He talked merrily, and appeared entirely unperturbed by the peril of his situation. His second was a large, burly fellow; and I was astonished to discover that under his cloak he wore a clergyman’s gown. I was informed that this was the Reverend Charles Churchill, the popular poet. Hogarth once depicted him as a bear, clutching a foaming pot of beer and an immense club, which I thought very apt.

   Doctor Blake then asked whether the two gentlemen were determined to proceed with the duel. Lord Staines replied, with no little heat, that his honour had been most grossly traduced, and that nothing but the most profuse and abject apology would satisfy him. He kept muttering violent epithets under his breath, whereas Mr Wilkes appeared to make light of the whole matter. He said that Lord Staines had produced no evidence that he, Wilkes, was the author of the offending article, but having read it, his opinion was that it contained more than a grain of truth; and, furthermore, since Lord Staines had seen fit publicly to dub him a liar and a scoundrel, he was the one entitled to an apology. These words angered Lord Staines even more, which was undoubtedly Wilkes’s intention.  

   A case was produced and opened, containing a brace of very fine silver-mounted pistols. Churchill and I checked that they were properly loaded. I attempted to hold my hands steady: it was the first time I had ever witnessed a duel and I was alarmed; for if someone was killed, might I be held to be an accessory to murder?  

   Lord Staines and Mr Wilkes walked twelve paces apart, then turned and presented their pistols. Lord Staines fired first, and grazed his opponent’s coat, but did no further harm. Mr Wilkes then raised his pistol and aimed it steadily at Staines’s breast, for what seemed like an age. Staines looked pale in the face, but did not flinch. Suddenly Wilkes laughed, lowered his pistol and deliberately fired at the ground, so that his bullet skipped across the earth some distance from Lord Staines’s feet. He then advanced towards his opponent with his hand extended.

   “Sir,” he said, “You have shown yourself to be a gentleman of courage, as befits an officer of the crown. I regret that you might feel I have offended you, and would be honoured if I might now be considered your friend.” 

   Staines, however, was by no means reconciled. He said this was no kind of apology, refused to take Wilkes’s proffered hand and ordered the pistols to be reloaded for a second firing. Mr Churchill now announced that, in his decided opinion, sufficient satisfaction had been given and that the business had been ended with perfect honour to both parties. I agreed with this, and so did Doctor Blake; but Lord Staines, ignoring Wilkes, departed forthwith, without giving me a glance. While I admired my friend’s courage, I could only be disappointed by his surly conduct afterwards.

   Doctor Blake did not stay long, but I remained at the tavern with Wilkes and Churchill for the remainder of the morning. Wilkes, aware of how alarmed I had been, told me that it was rare for duels these days to lead to any bloodshed. I asked him how the challenge to the duel had come about. He told me:

   “Lord Staines burst into my room in an agony of passion, brandishing the paper and demanding to know whether or not I was the author. I said that I was a free and independent English gentleman and that I refused to be catechised in this fashion. He then produced a brace of pistols and demanded immediate satisfaction. Finally, he calmed to the extent of agreeing to postpone the duel until three days later, with the result that you know.”

   He recounted how he had recently fought a duel with Lord Talbot, who, like Staines, had felt that he had been insulted.

   “We met at Bagshot. We both fired, but happily there was no shedding of blood, for neither took effect. I walked up immediately to Lord Talbot and said that I regretted that I had offended him. His lordship paid me the highest compliments on my courage, said he would declare everywhere that I was a noble fellow, and desired that we should now be good friends and retire to the inn to drink a bottle of claret together, which we did with great good humour. That is how duels should end. It is a pity that your young friend could not show the same magnanimous spirit.”

  I found Mr Wilkes the most engaging of companions. For his part, on discovering that I was new to political life, he suggested that I might enjoy reading a certain weekly paper known as the “North Briton”. I promised to look for it, and we shook hands and parted.

 

                                           (John Wilkes, by Hogarth)

   

Thursday 1 February 2024

Donald Trump and James Bond

Wouldn’t Donald Trump make a splendid James Bond villain, on the lines of Goldfinger or Blofeld? He not only looks the part, but talks and acts it as well!


But why is he going to such lengths to undermine trust in the American political and judicial systems? Is it merely to satisfy his personal ambitions? Or is some shadowy organisation, based abroad, behind it? When James Bond is sent to investigate, he finds himself in the greatest peril he has yet faced …..

 


Sunday 14 January 2024

The mystery of the headless skeleton

There is a strange link between this mid-Victorian window and the 13th- century tomb of Simon de Leybourne, which are both to be found in the Trinity Chapel of the church of St. Mary the Virgin in Shrewsbury.





The king depicted on the window is Alfred the Great with his laws, but the shield above him, the blue lion on gold, is the coat of arms of Thomas Percy, Earl of Worcester. Why is it there?

   Worcester was the uncle of Henry Percy, "Harry Hotspur", who led the rebel army at the battle of Shrewsbury in 1403. Hotspur was killed and afterwards Worcester was beheaded in the centre of Shrewsbury. His head would have been taken to London to be publicly displayed, but what happened to his body? 

   When floor tiles were laid in the chapel in the 19th century, a number of skeletons were found, one of which was wrapped in leather to preserve it, and had no head. Was the headless person the Earl of Worcester? The legend was that, after Worcester's execution, his supporters secretly removed his body and brought it to the church, where they forced open the Leybourne tomb and deposited it there. This story is retold in the historical novel "A bloody field by Shrewsbury" by Edith Pargeter (who is also known as Ellis Peters). I'm not sure which came first: the legend or the discovery of the headless skeleton.

Nowadays it's not generally believed that the Earl of Worcester was buried here, but the window serves to perpetuate the legend.

Friday 22 December 2023

Christmas: the three kings

 This mid-19th century window, in the church of St. Mary the Virgin in Shrewsbury, is a copy of a painting by the Spanish artist Murillo, depicting the adoration of the Kings.

 


St. Matthew, who tells the story, only mentions "wise nen from the East", and it is only the fact that that they give three gifts suggests that they were three in number. But over the centuries various traditions grew up: that they were Kings, then they were given names, and then that one was a European, one was a Syrian and one was an African, to symbolise the three continents bowing down before the baby Jesus. Note that the African King, on the right, is dressed every bit of gorgeously as the others! And none of this has any basis in the Bible!


Monday 11 December 2023

Photocartoon

 Margaret Dumont: "I believe Donald Trump was sent by God."

Groucho Marx: "Why? Had he run out of locusts?"