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.
