The Bridge and Chapel at St Ives

Turning from the theme, but not the itinerary, of the Pilgrimage a medieval pilgrim at Cambridge seeking to travel to the next stage at Coventry might have headed north west to cross the Great Ouse at St Ives before setting off across the Midlands. Had they done so exactly six hundred years ago they would have been amongst the first to cross the elegant new bridge and to pause for prayer and probably to pay the toll in the new chapel. 

The Bridge and Chapel at St Ives

Image: Wikipedia 

The bridge had been rebuilt in stone between 1414 and 1425, and the chapel of St Ledger at the mid-point was completed in 1426. Why the gruesomely martyred seventh century Merovingian bishop of Autun was selected as the patron is not apparently recorded or suggested. The choice may reflect the views of the community at Ramsey Abbey who were the owners of the bridge, or maybe that the new chapel was dedicated on the feast day of St Ledger (Leodegar) on October 2nd.

The not uneventful history of the bridge is set out in considerable detail by Wikipedia at St_Ives_Bridge

There is also an account of St Leger at Leodegar 

Two more articles from the National Churches Trust  at St Ives St Ledger Chapel and from St Ives 100 years ago at St Ives Bridge & Chapel  are virtually word for word the same, but one has illustrations. 

There is another account from r-l-p.co.uk at St. Ives Bridge Chapel, St. Ives, Huntingdonshire

The BBC News website reports on the anniversary and celebrations to mark it at St Ives 'gem' celebrates 600 years

Our Lady of Grace in Cambridge

The next stage of the Pilgrimage is in Cambridge with the statue of Our Lady in the Dominican friary church.

The site of the friary is now occupied by Emmanuel College, which was founded in 1584. The hall of the College is built on the foundations of the nave of the friar’s church. In 1850 a carved figure of the Virgin and Child was found in the College and given by it to the Catholic parish church, the immensely impressive masterpiece of Victorian gothic that is Our Lady and the English Martyrs. As a building that is very well worth while making a slight detour from the city centre to visit. Wikipedia has a history of the church at Our_Lady_and_the_English_Martyrs_Church

It is not entirely clear if this is the same statue that was venerated as Our Lady of Grace in Cambridge, but it is certainly a link to the monastery that housed the shrine.

The statue of the Virgin and Child found in Emmanuel College and now in Our Lady and the English Martyrs

Image: Wikipedia Commons

My post from last year with the links to those from previous years can be seen at Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Grace in Cambridge

May Our Lady of Grace in Cambridge pray for us and our intentions 

Jesu mercy, Mary pray

Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Oxford

 

The Pilgrimage moves away from London to visit the two ancient Universities, and begins with the older foundation in Oxford.

My post from last year with links to the notes from previous years can be seen at Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Oxford

   

For contemporary pilgrims the obvious destination is the Oxford Oratory. Here they can find the painting of Our Lady of Oxford Mother of Mercy. This was acquired, whilst she was serving as a Papal Chamberlain by Hartwell de la Garde Grissell during the pontificate of Pope Pius IX. He and the Pope were friends and in 1869 the Pope attached indulgences to the image. The painting came to Oxford with its owner and a great collection of relics. They were housed in a chapel in de la Garde Grissell’s house in the High, and then, on his death in 1907, he bequeathed it to the Archdiocese of Birmingham for display in St Aloysius’ Church, which since 1990 has been home to the Oxford Oratory.

The painting e now has an assigned feast day celebrated on the Saturday before the fourth Sunday in July. The original indulgences expired in 1969, but have been reinstated by the Apostolic Penitentiary. A partial indulgence is granted for reciting the Salve Regina or the Litany of Loreto before the image.

May Our Lady of Oxford intercede for us and our intentions

Jesu mercy, Mary pray

Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Muswell

Remaining for another day in what are now the northern suburbs of London the Pilgrimage now goes to the shrine of Our Lady of Muswell.

My post from last year, with links to ones from previous years can be seen at Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Muswell

The modern Catholic Church of Our Lady of Muswell 
built in 1938, is described on the Taking Stock website at Muswell Hill - Our Lady of Muswell

I see that the image I had on a previous post about the most prestigious pilgrim to the shrine, King Malcolm IV, has disappeared. I am therefore reproducing it again in this post. It is taken from a charter granted by the King to Kelso Abbey which was founded by his grandfather King David I.

King Malcolm IV

Image: Wikipedia 

May Our Lady of Muswell intercede for us and our intentions 

Jesu mercy, Mary pray

Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Willesden

The next stational shrine on the Pilgrimage is that of Our Lady of Willesden. 

My article from last year about this king established place of pilgrimage can be seen at Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Willesden

By following the links within it my additional comments can be read, adding to my account from 2021 of what is known of the history of the shrine can be read at Our Lady of Willesden 

Most of the evidence we have is from just before or during the sixteenth century religious upheavals, and apart from references to the statue in thirteenth century records there appears little evidence as to the pattern of devotion at that period.

The medieval church at Willesden appears to have been a small rural parish church with a nave and chancel, with a tower and south aisle and chapel added to the nave about 1400, and which was very considerably enlarged in the nineteenth century.

Willesden Church from the south before the nineteenth century restoration and extension 

Image: Willesden Local History Society

There is an illustrated account by Andrew Pink of the church and shrine at Our Lady of Willesden

 

Wikipedia also has a quite detailed article, but it is not without errors - for example St Paul’s Cathedral did not have monks attached to it in the medieval period. It can be seen at St_Mary's_Church,_Willesden

The Church of St Mary Willesden before being restored and enlarged in the nineteenth century 

Image: Andrew Pink

May Our Lady of Willesden intercede for us and our intentions

Jesu mercy, Mary pray

Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Islington

The Pilgrimage now travels north to the hills immediately to the north of London and to three Marian shrines. Today brings us to the first of these, Our Lady of Islington.

Not a great deal appears to be known about this devotion to a statue which seems to have originally been set in a tree in the churchyard. The medieval church, said to have been rebuilt in 1483, was replaced in the mid-eighteenth century by the present building, although much of that was destroyed in a bombing raid in 1940 and subsequently rebuilt.

My post from last year, with links to previous posts can be seen at Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Islington

 

The medieval church at Islington

Image: A London Inheritance 

There is more about the history of the church and parish in an illustrated article at St Mary Islington - A Tower with a View - A London Inheritance

Statues of Our Lady situated in tress were not uncommon and we shall visit another example, in Norwich, on this Pilgrimage. Apparitions of the Virgin standing in a tree are also recorded, as at Evesham at the beginning of the eighth century, and also on this Pilgrimage, and, most famously in the modern world, at Fatima in 1917. 

Quite coincidentally, but doubtless providentially, today I came across a reference to the Belgian shrine of Scherpenheuvel in Brabant which also originated with a statue of Our Lady that was in a tree. Wikipedia has two entries about the history of the shrine at Scherpenheuvel-Zichem and at Basilica_of_Our_Lady_of_Scherpenheuvel

May Our Lady of Islington pray for us and our intentions

Jesu mercy, Mary pray 

Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Grace by the Pillar in St Paul’s

The Pilgrimage now travels from Westminster along The Strand with its episcopal residences and the Inns of Court and of Chancery to Temple Bar and Ludgate before stopping at the now tragically lost medieval Cathedral of St Paul.

 

The nave of St Paul’s  - ‘Paul’s Walk’ - by Wenceslas Hollar 

The shrine was at the further end on the south side

Image: Wikipedia 

My post from last year together with links to previous post about this shrine can be seen at Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Grace by the Pillar in St Paul’s. In that post I explored in particular more about the devotion to Our Lady of Grace. That is a particular aspect of Our Lay which we will encounter at Ipswich and Cambridge on this Pilgrimage.

Situated as it was at the eastern end of the nave - the popular meeting place known as ‘Paul’s Walk’ - in the largest city in the realm - it was well placed to attract pilgrims and casual visitors. Certainly after the reformation ‘Paul’s Walk’ became a very popular place to meet and share news and do business, and there is reasonable evidence to suggest this was the case beforehand. Wikipedia has an account of its later usage at Paul's_walk. It seems to have been also a place for cut-purses to operate alongside beggars, and also where boys played football, with the occasional consequent damage to the stained glass. On occasion it was a place for heresy trials as well as public celebrations of treaties and agreements.This was, then, a place for all sorts and conditions.

As a place of public resort the space beside the shrine was also chosen for the public display of the body of King Henry VI in May1471 before his burial at Chertsey.

The Choir screen of St Paul’s by Wenceslas Hollar

The image of Our Lady of Grace was to the right just before the central tower.

Image:Wikimedia Commons

 

May Our Lady of Grace by the Pillar in St Paul’s intercede for us and our intentions 

Jesu mercy, Mary pray

Battle of Tewkesbury 555th anniversary

Today is the 555th anniversary of the battle of Tewkesbury on Saturday May 4th 1471. The comprehensive Yorkist victory cost the lives of many leading Lancastrians and probably led to the death in the Tower of London later that month of King Henry VI. The triumph of the Yorkists seemed virtually unequivocal, and what remained of the Lancastrian faction of relatively little concern in the grand scheme of things.

Nathan Amin, who has written a very readable and balanced account of the Beaufort family, has a post based on part of that book on his Substack site Hiraeth about the battle and the fate of Edmund Beaufort Duke of Somerset. The article which has some fine photographs of the spectacularly beautiful Tewkesbury Abbey, where many of the prominent casualties were buried, and can be seen at The Fall of The Beauforts

As Nathan Amin would be the first to point out, even if the direct male Beaufort line died with Edmund and his younger brother John - they are buried under what is now the Abbey gift shop - their cousin Margaret had a son in Henry, Earl of Richmond whose future and descendants were unimaginable in 1471. In addition their elder brother Henry had left an illegitimate son, Charles Somerset, upon whom fortune also looked kindly. As a result his direct male descendants are the Dukes of Beaufort, and, ironically, provided some of the crucial DNA male-line evidence to help identify King Richard III.

Apart from the Duke of Somerset the single most important casualty of the battle was King Henry VI’s son, Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales. This warlike seventeen year old was a more potent threat than his father, and without the Prince as a potential youthful challenger it was easy for King Edward IV to permanently remove King Henry upon his return to London.

The nearest thing to a contemporary painted portrait of Prince Edward is on the Oliver King panel from 1492-5  in St George’s Windsor. King had been secretary to the Prince, and then, like the future Cardinal Morton, with the seeming obliteration of the Lancastrians at Tewkesbury served King Edward IV, but then was to return to the service of the Lancastrian descended King Henry VII.

Edward Prince of Wales stands on the right hand side of the Oliver King panel in St George’s Windsor

Image: Dean and Canons of Windsor

The seal of Edward Prince of Wales

Image: The Heraldry Society 

In recent decades Tewkesbury has developed its annual Medieval Festival around the re-enactment of the battle into the largest such event in Europe. This year it will be held on July 11th and 12th. The website is accessible at Tewkesbury Medieval Festival

I have been several times and it is very stimulating and good fun. Tewkesbury itself is a delightful town with fine medieval and sixteenth century timber buildings, a good museum, and above all the Abbey. If you have not visited it I do urge you to do so.

Please join me in praying for the repose of those who were killed in the battle, executed afterwards, and all who participated.