The Bishop of Portsmouth

There has been a lot of interest in the blogosphere about the appointment, consecration and enthronement of the new Bishop of Portsmouth, Mgr Philip Egan. As his diocese extends as far north as Oxford, and  includes the parish of Holy Rood in Abingdon Road he is clearly of interest to Catholics here. There are a number of posts, with links, on the net about him and his consecration.

The Portsmouth diocesan website has videos and texts here.

There is a summary of the Archbishop of Westminster's sermon at Archbishop Nichols Welcomes Portsmouth Successor of the Apostles from the Zenit website.

Fr Blake has three posts Congratulations to Bishop Egan, Bishop Egan's address to his new diocese and Bishop Egan's Pictures .

Fr Tim Finigan has two - "I want to be a courageous orthodox bishop"  and May he indeed be a humble and holy, orthodox, crea...

St Michael the Archangel

Today is Michaelmas day, the feast of St Michael the Archangel.

Last year in St Michael the Archangel I posted about some images of him, and again last May in The apparition of St Michael the Archangel on the feast day commemorating his apparition at Monte Gargano.

There are informative online articles about his cult here with illustrations and links and. from the Catholic Encyclopedia, and also with links, here.

Altarpiece of St Michael
Gerard David c.1460-1523

Image:Wikipedia

Declining standards in teaching history

There is further and shocking evidence of declining educational standards in History in the Daily Telegraph and other newspapers today. It appears that Eton - yes, Eton - is producing pupils who, however seemingly successful in their later careers, leave the school knowing the date of Magna Carta, always associated with Runnymede just down the road from Eton, but not what the two words mean. This is disgraceful. It does not say very much for Citizenship Education. It does not say very much for PPEists with Firsts from Oxford. The Prime Minister should do something about it.

One of the four surviving copies of the original 1215 issue of Magna Carta
BL Cottonian MS Augustus II 106

Image:Wikipedia

Also in the Telegraph, and inspired by the issue, is an article by Terry Deary of the Horrible Histories series. Now from an interview with him which I read a while ago Mr Deary is more than inclined to a leftish, popularist attitiude to the past, but he does make some good points in his piece, which can be read here.
I like his point about history being about how people react to situations

However he does go off beam when he says that King John, who may not have been able to write, was idle and got his clerks to write out Magna Carta for him. I do not know if King John could practise the technical skill of writing, but he could read - the two skills may have been more disctinct in the middle ages - but of course he got his clerks to write out the multiple copies of the Great Charter - there must have been a great pile of them, given to the barons after they paid homage once again to the King at Runnymede, and sent out to privileged bodies and local communities. No more than we would expect the Queen or the Prime Minister to type out personally every Act of Parliament should we expect King John to have written out the text of Magna Carta himself. Messrs Cameron and Deary should both go and read Sir James Holt's standard book on Magna Carta - they might both profit by it.

St Wenceslas and the Crown of Bohemia

Today is the feast of St Wenceslas, patron of Bohemia and of the Bohemian monarchy. I posted about him last December in Good King Wenceslas  and  a year ago about the crown made in the fourteenth century which bears his name in The Crown of St Wenceslas. From 2010 there is  The Crown of St Wenceslas  which deals with the same topic ( and also the related post on Treasure from the age of Charles IV ). All these posts are illustrated and give accounts both of the life of the martyred ruler and also of the Bohemian regalia. The crown was made in 1347 and the last Bohemian coronation in 1836. There is an illustrtaed list of Dukes and Kings of Bohemia here.

The regalia is kept in its own strong room in St Vitus cathedral in Prague adjacent to the chapel of St Wenceslas in the south transept, and is relatively rarely on public display - unlike, for example, the Austrian or Hungarian regalia. Hence perhaps the making of the following films in recent years

Here from YouTube is a short film showing the Crown of St Wenceslas and the other regalia:

There are also three parts of a programme about a scientific examination and recording of the Bohemian regalia, which includes more close ups of the crown, orb and sceptre which can be viewed here:

Now all that is needed is to organise the coronation of the legitimate King of Bohemia, King Charles IV, or perhaps one should say King Karel IV.

Ordination in Norway tomorrow

Please pray for my good friend Martin Stamnestro who is to be ordained as a priest in his native Norway tomorrow. The ordination is in St Olav's cathedral in Oslo, and Martin will subsequently exercise his ministry in the university city of Aalesund, in western Norway.

I got to know Martin over a decade ago when he came to Pusey House as a D.Phil. student - his doctorate is on liturgical developments in the century preceding Vatican II. Brought up as a Norwegian Lutheran he had become an Anglo-Catholic and then in 2006 was received at the Brompton Ortaory as a Catholic.
I had hoped to attend his ordination, but that has not proved practicable, so I have sent him my prayers and good wishes and ask readers to join me in that.

The Newman Consort in concert

Next week there will be two concerts given in Oxford by the Newman Consort, who provide music for the Oxford Ordinariate Group and for the FSSP Masses at St William of York in Reading.

The first concert is on Thursday October 4th at 7.30 pm in Holy Rood church in Abingdon Road, Oxford, following the regular Ordinariate Mass there at 6.30 pm, and there will be refreshments afterwards.

The second concert is the following Saturday, October 6th at 2 pm in Exeter College Chapel.

The Newman Consort will be joined by Martin Kondziella, organist and Regens chori at the Institute of St Philip Neri's church of St Aphra in Berlin.

There is no admission charge for the concerts, but there will be a retiring collection on each occasion.

40 Days for Life in Oxford

Today marks the beginning of the 40 Days for Life anti-abortion witness in Oxford. The emphasis of the campaign is on prayer and fasting. There will also be a peaceful vigil mounted outside the John Radcliffe Hospital. The event continues until November 4th. There is more information about both the national campaign and events in Oxford here.

Imperial purple

I recently found on the internet these pictures of a spectacular dalmatic, which as the picture indicates, comes from south Germany and is dated to the first half of the fourteenth century. The fabric is Chinese purple damask of circa 1300.

Unfortunately the website does not indicate in which treasury or museum the dalmatic may be seen. However from the context it appears to be in the Kunsthistorische Museum, Vienna, and to be part of the Imperial vesture. The Imperial eagle and the crowned figures in the embroideries would all point to that. One can presume that it was made for an Emperor such as Henry VII, Louis IV or Charles IV. It is certainly a wonderful vestment.

Detail of the sleeve and embroidery

Images: virtue.to

Amiens at night

Writing about Amiens cathedral earlier reminded me that I had on file these pictures of the west front as it can be seen at night, when an idea of the original colour scheme of its painted statuary can be re-created by modern technology.

None of the great thirteenth century French Cathedrals has been repainted, but Amiens Cathedral offers its visitors a hint of its original beauty. On summer nights and special occasions, spotlights and lasers are projected at the façade, bathing the ornaments and statuary in bright colours.

 

Images amyinberlin

I also found on YouTube two short film sequences that give an idea of the spectacle Amiens affords on these occasions, and a reminder of just what medieval worshippers and pilgrims saw as they approached and entered the cathedral of Notre Dame:

St Firmin and his relics at Amiens - a late medieval view

Today is the feast of St Fermin (also spelt Firmin). There is an informative account of his life and cult here with expandable illustrations of the polychrome panels about his life, death and miracles in Amiens cathedral which are featured below.

According to legend St. Fermin, a native of Pamplona and a disciple of St. Saturninus of Toulouse, founded the first church in Amiens in the third century and was martyred there on September 25th 303. Not much is known about him and his biography considered to be mostly an invention of the eighth century.

The legend as it developed from the eighth century onwards the life of St. Fermin is told in these late Gothic polychromatic reliefs made between 1490 and 1530 and which ornament the tomb of Adrien de Henencourt, formerly Dean of the cathedral, in the south ambulatory.  They depict his story in terms of contemporary late medieval life, and with wonderful vigour and detail. The following series of photographs are, I think, considerably better than those attached to the online account I have linked to above.

Saint Firmin arrives in Amiens

Fermin being desperate to achieve martyrdom travelled from the south of France to the pagan areas of Gaul (northern France). He was arrested by the Roman authorities in Lisieux but for some reason the governor died and he was released. He then travelled to Amiens.

Saint Firmin Preaching




Detail of the scene above

Baptising the People of Amiens

where he established a large church, and where he converted and baptised many of the inhabitants.


Arrest and Beheading

The pagan priests are then supposed to have reported Fermin to visiting Roman officials, who had him arrested and beheaded.

The martyrdom of St Fermin

Image: Wikipedia

Exhumation of the Remains

At the begining of the seventh century the then bishop of Amiens, St Salve, got the people and clergy to pray for a sign as to where Fermin's body was buried. On the third day God sent a ray of the sun, which pierced the wall of the monastery where the body lay. When the faithful dig there they find the body of St Fermin. A sweet odour arose from the grave

Bringing the Relics To Amiens

As the body was carried through the streets of Amiens a number of miracles happen: the sweet odour from the relics causes ice ans snow to melt, trees and meadows flowered and came into leaf, trees inclined reverently towards the saint, the sick were healed, and the rich released their servants and serfs from servitude.

St Fermin's body is discovered and carried in procession

Image: Wikipedia

Unless otherwise indicated the images are from professor-moriarty.com, and I am very grateful  to Christopher Crockett of the Medieval Religion Discussion group for the link.

Our Lady of Walsingham

Today is the feast of Our Lady of Walsingham.

 

 

 

Our Lady of Walsingham

Statue in the Slipper Chapel

 

Image: Thorvaldsson on Wikipedia

 

 

Since 2001 today has been designated as her feast day, and it now surplants in England the feast of Our Lady of Ransom. It was this, originally Spanish devotion, which Pope Leo XIII adapted as the specific Marian feast for the ransoming of England and its conversion and hence its association with what had been England's premier Marian shrine. It was during his pontificate that interest began amongst Catholics in re-establishing it, both at the Red Tower chapel in King's Lynn and by the purchase of the Slipper Chapel at Walsingham itself. It was not however until the remarkable and inspired Vicar of Walsingham, Alfred Hope-Patten, established and caused to prosper the Anglican Shrine that the Catholic hierachy did much to develop the Catholic presence in the village.

 

I made a considerable number of pilgrimage visits there as an Anglican, and Walsingham is a remarkable and special place, a graced place, I came to know and love. In recent years I have had less opportunity to go there, a fact I regret and hope to remedy.

 

Last Saturday evening at the Ordinariate Vigil Mass - for the Ordinariate this counts as a Patronal solemnity and was transferred to Sunday in their calendar - Fr Hunwicke's sermon  raised an interesting historical possibility. He started by describing the shrine as it would have been in 1512 or 13, after the visits of two famous pilgrims.

 

 

Erasmus in 1517 by Quentin Mattys

 

Image: Royal Collection/arthistory.about.com

 

In 1513 Desiderius Erasmus (in my humble opinion a rather tiresome ghastly tedious little liberal, but who cares what I think) visited Walsingham and described the shrine of the Holy House thus: 

"When you look in you would say it is the abode of saints, so brilliantly does it shine on all sides with gems, gold and silver… Our Lady stands in the dark at the right side of the altar… a little image, remarkable neither for its size, material or workmanship."

 

He also added that the water from the Walsingham spring was "efficacious in curing pains of the head and stomach."

In the verses he wrote, in the best and latest Humanist style, in honour of Our Lady of Walsingham he referred to some of the reasons that pilgrims came to the shrine on pilgrimage. One was that men came to pray that their wives would conceive and bear them a son.

The previous year an illustrious pilgrim had come, and that may well have been in the forefront of his mind and intentions. King Henry VIII stayed at East Barsham Manor and then walked two miles - twice as long as usual pilgrims did from the Slipper Chapel - barefoot to Walsingham where he placed a "gold circlet round Our Lady's neck".

 

On 31 January 1510 Queen Catherine had given birth, prematurely, to a stillborn daughter. A son, Henry, Duke of Cornwall, was born on New Year's Day 1511. He lived for only 52 days. In October 1513 Catherine was to lose another son when Henry returned from France. He was either stillborn or died shortly after birth. In December 1514, she had another son, Prince Henry, who died shortly after his birth. Not until 18 February 1516 did the Queen deliver a healthy child, but a girl, the future Queen Mary I. In 1518, Catherine became pregnant for the last time. She gave birth to a daughter on 10 November, but the child was weak and lived either only a few hours or at most a week.

Fr Hunwicke speculated that Ersasmus may possibly have been aware that there was already an awareness of doubts about Queen Catherine's ability to produce the desired male heir to the throne, and hence King Henry's pilgrimage and long barefoot walk to Our Lady in the Holy House. An interesting thought.

A few years after the royal visit East Barsham was rebuilt  - did the owners perhaps anticipate another such pilgrimage?  It remains as an outstanding example of the early sixteenth century country house.

 

East Barsham Manor, dated to 1520-30

Image:stiffleaf on Flickr

St Maurice and the Theban Legion

Today is the feast, inter alia, of St Maurice and of his companions in the Theban legion. There is an account of the story of their martyrdom and a discussion as to its historical veracity in this online article which can be read here.

As a saint he was not an especial object of veneration in England - the one ancient church I recall dedicated to him was a small one outside Monk Bar in York which was rebuilt in the nineteenth century and demolished in the 1960s. On the continent however his cult was extensive within the Holy Roman Empire - where he was a patron of the Emperors - and in Switzerland, the scene of the martyrdom of the Legion, Italy, France and Spain. 

In the middle ages his African origins were often shown in representations of him, perhaps most famously in the thirteenth century statue in Magdeburg Cathedral in Germany:

St Maurice is shown wearing mail-suit and coat-of-plates in this statue in the cathedral of St Maurice and St Catherine in Magdeburg. It is next to the grave of  the Holy Roman Emperor Otto I. The statue was carved circa 1250 and is considered to be the first realistic depiction of an ethnic african in Europe. It is also an important source for knowledge of armour at the time of its creation. Unfortunately, the figure is no longer complete and lacks its lower legs and an item in the right hand, presumably a lance.

Image: Chris73/Wikimedia Commons

Later depictions tended to lose the African nature of the martyrs and they become European in appearance. Romulo Cincinnato's painting of the Legion's martyrdom from 1583 and in the Escorial places emphasis on the slaughter of the legion:

Image: Wikipedia

El Greco's painting of the scene, itself from 1580-82 and also at the Escorial, places St Maurice and his immediate companions in the foreground, and the executions in the background: 

Image: Wikipedia

The result is, dare one say it, one which suggests an incredibly polite occasion, almost a garden party of elegant young men politely waiting to be decapitated and engaged in edifying conversation whilst others of their group are martyred.

King Edward II

Today is the 685th anniversary of the date traditionally given as that of the murder of the deposed King Edward II at Berkeley castle.

 

 

The eeffigy of King Edward II at Gloucester

 

Image:theplantagenets.com

 

I am reliably informed that the method used - a red hot poker - comes from only one chronicle, and that one which rather liked to record deaths which peculiarly matched the life of the deceased, so maybe there is poetic, if gruesome, imagination at work here. Nevertheless the red hot poker is now firmly entrenched in the popular view of his death.

 

My college of Oriel was founded (strictly speaking refounded in his name) by the King in January1326 and we commemorate him as "our memorable founder" in the College prayer. According to college gossip (so it must be true) a few years ago there was a serious discussion in the Governing Body as to whether it was appropriate for the college to have the plant kniphofia - commonly known as Red Hot Pokers - growing in Garden Quad. I am pleased to say that the plants survived, and still, I think, flower in Oriel. 

 

On a more serious note in recent years a number of medieval historians have questioned whether or not King Edward was murdered and have inclined to the idea, noted in the fourteenth century, that he was conveyed out of the country and died many years alter in Italy. Ian Mortimer in his books on Roger Mortimer and on King Edward III writes about the matter.

 

I am not sure what I think - I respect the arguments advanced, but there are so many stories of royal prisoners escaping death on the battlefield or in prison from King Harold II surviving Hastings and ending his days as a hermit at Chester through King Sebastian of Portugal to King Louis XVII, and from Emperor Alexander I of Russia retreating to a hermitage in 1825 and to the career of Anna Anderson in the twentieth century posing as the surviving Grand Duchess Anastasia, all of which appear  to be at best the triumph of hope over grim reality, or simply fradulant.

 

As a result I rather fear that King Edward did not survive his time in Berkeley, but there may be more to be understood of a period when a lot of people would have been hedging their bets.

 

The reign of King Edward II has attracted a vast amount of scholarly attention, and retains its fascination as a period, with its clashes of personalities, its political upheavals and the insights it affords into medieval government.

 

One topic which may not have attracted as much attention is the matter of the King's beard. His very fine, if somewhat damaged, tomb effigy at Gloucester, erected a few years after his death, shows him with a luxuriant and splendidly curling beard. It has to be said that the very fine, but much less well known label-stop portrait of the King in the nave of St Albans, along with probably the best surviving one of Queen Isabella, suggests a less elaborate decoration of the royal chin. Nonetheless it is the Gloucester image which predominates in later representaions.

 

 

 

King Edward II

 

Image:piersperrotgaveston.blogspot

 

This begs the question - it it just the skill of the carver we are seeing, or is it the skill of the royal barber? The King's red, curling hair falls in ringlets in his moustache and beard such as to suggest the use of curling tongs, or did he sleep with curling papers in his beard? Both suggest a side of the King's toilette which gives pause for thought. Royal hairdressing over the centuries has often been a demanding art.

 

The King's effigy in profile

Image:theplantagenets.com

 

Whatever the exact date or nature of the King's death as a historian and as an Orielensis I remembered King Edward II in my intention at Mass this evening.

A Regal Reliquary

Further to my recent post about King Louis I of Hungary I have found pictures of another surviving art work from the court culture of the Anjevin Kings of Hungary. It is the Reliquary shrine donated by his mother Queen Elizabeth to the Convent of the Poor Clares at Óbuda which was was founded in 1334.

Made in Paris in the second quarter of the fourteenth century it is  attributed  to Jean de Touyl. It is now in New York in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cloisters (62.96)

The front of the Reliquary

The rear of the Reliquary

Detail of the central panel

Images: Art in Medieval Hungary  

Queen Elizabeth, daughter of  King Władysław I the Elbow-high of Poland, was born in 1305, married  King Charles I Robert of Hungary in 1320, the year her father was crowned as King of a reunited Poland, and died in 1380. It was through her that her son inherited the Polish crown in 1370. There is an account of her life which can be read at  Elizabeth of Poland

Queen Elizabeth with her five sons, Charles (1321), Ladislaus (Belgrade, 1 November 1324 – 24 February 1329), Louis I of Hungary (1326–1382),Andrew, Duke of Calabria (1327–1345) and Stephen, Duke of Slavonia (1332–1354).

The two wearing crowns are presumably King Louis and Andrew as consort of Queen Joanna I of Naples

 Image Wikipedia

New magazine from Una Voce

The Foederatio Internationalis Una Voce has launched a new magazine on the traditional liturgy entitled Gregorius Magnus.

It has been produced to mark the fifth anniversary of Summorum Pontificum and it is proposed to publish this magazine twice a year about the dates of the Feast of St. Gregory the Great (12th March) and the coming into effect of Summorum Pontificum (14th September). The magazine, which I have only seen online, looks interesting and containing scholarly articles.

In the introduction there is an  invitation to become a Friend of the Foederatio Internationalis Una Voce which is open to non-members.
The website of the Foederatio is at Una Voce.

St Theodore of Canterbury

Today is inter alia the feast of St Theodore of Canterbury, often known from his birthplace as Theodore of Tarsus (602-690). In addition to being the Archbishop who is credited with beginning the creation of  the parochial system in England in the years after his appointment to Canterbury in 669 his intellectual importance as a scholar before he came to England and its legacy has come to be appreciated in recent years thanks to the work of  Michael Lapidge in his 1995 study of Theodore. Lapidge's Oxford Dictionary of National Biography life of the saint can be read here. He emerges as a man with the qualities of a Lanfranc or an Anselm.

St Theodore of Canterbury

A modern icon from Aidan Hart Icons

Image: forallsaints.wordpress.com

Gravesite of  St Theodore at St. Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury

Image:Wikipedia
 

It was Sir Frank Stenton in his Anglo Saxon England who pointed to the cultural breadth of the Church at the time when he described the episcopal consecration in 685 at York by St Theodore, the last known student of the school of Athens, of one of the greatest, and last, products of the Hiberno-Scottish monastic tradition, St Cuthbert.

Thought for the Day - Plenitudo Potestatis

A discussion between some of us last night got on to the topic of Papal authority and I was citing Pope Grepry VII's Dictatus Papae and Pope Boniface VIII's Unam Sanctam - well, I would wouldn't I. Today one of the other members of the group has forwarded to us all the statement of Vatican I in 1870 as authoratative:

If anyone says that the Roman pontiff has merely an office of supervision and guidance, and not the full and supreme power of jurisdiction over the whole church, and this not only in matters of faith and morals, but also in those which concern the discipline and government of the church dispersed throughout the whole world; or that he has only the principal part, but not the absolute fullness, of this supreme power; or that this power of his is not ordinary and immediate both over all and each of the churches and over all and each of the pastors and faithful: let him be anathema.

Les Rois Maudits

My iPhone, which I was given recently, does all sorts of clever things which I scarcely understand, but I have worked out how to download items from YouTube. Having built up a little collection of archive film pieces, each of a few minutes duration, I found out last night that I can download whole episodes, indeed the whole series, of one of my favourite television costume dramas - indeed probably my favourite one.

It is the 1972-3  production of the marvellous series of novels by Maurice Druon (1918-2009)  Les Rois Maudits  about the political history of France between 1314 and 1340, and the origins of the Hundred Years War. There is an introductory article about them here.

As historical novels they are well researched, and come with end notes as to the sources used. Druon may take the most dramatic interpretation of events, but he produces a comprehensive and compelling narrative. The grand sweep of events is conveyed, but very much as the result of human choices and actions.

I think we can see more to the origins of the Hundred Years War than just the machinations of Robert of Artois, but the idea of the interplay of individuals makes for compelling reading or viewing.



Image: notrecinema.com

I saw the series twice when it was shown on BBC in the 1970s and enjoyed it immensely, the period and topic being one I had studied a few years earlier as an undergraduate.

The director presented the novels rather as one might well stage Shakespeare's history plays - it is all studio based, with emphasis on the actors and the intricacies of  the twists and turns of the plot. So it is theatrical, but very stylish, with some splendid performances in a narrative rich in intrigue, double dealing and conspiracy, and replete with royalty, religion, sex and violence - and all in the middle ages  - what more could you possibly ask for?

What was, and remains striking was the panache with which the actors conveyed the medieval world - as a friend remarked at the time they wore their costumes as if these were the clothes they were used to wearing. You sensed you were witnessing medieval people, not modern people trying to appear as such.

The series is available on video and DVD, and is, I gather, infinitely preferable to the 2005 remake.

Now I can not only see it all again and in colour but I can carry it with me in my pocket and retreat to the early fourteenth century whenever I like.

Shakespeare as historian and a few modern prejudices

I caught up today with an article in last Friday's Daily Telegraph by Allan Massie, inspired by the apparent discovery of the mortal remains of King Richard III making the fair point that for most people their image of fifteenth century English kings is one derived from Shakespeare's plays. His article can be read here.

However I think it can be argued that  Richard III is more than just a play about the events of a century earlier. Like Macbeth it is a play about tyranny as a medieval or sixteenth century audience would have understood it. Today we might, probably rightly, regard King Henry VIII as tyrannical, but he always proceeded under the form of law in his actions - which meant that it took rather along time - too long atime in fact - for the penny to drop with men like St John Fisher and St Thomas More. By contract King Richard III had acted outside law in usurping and then, at least in the eyes of many, killing his nephews. Like Macbeth, and never mind historical understanding, Shakespeare's King Richard is a tyrant because he acts outside the law.

Unfortunately when he gets on to the subject of King Henry V Mr Massie goes rather too politically correct, and correspondingly unhistorical in his understanding. We really must not judge the actions of those in the past by modern political, as opposed to moral, attitudes. Here is what he says:

" The real Henry V was a harsh bigot – Shakespeare made him a national hero, recycled in wartime by Laurence Olivier, pictured "

Image: RANK FILM DISTRIBUTORS/ Daily Telegraph

" Then there is Henry V. The real Henry was a harsh bigot and persecutor of the Lollard heresy, who resumed the dynastic Hundred Years’ War in his selfish ambition to seize the French throne. Shakespeare makes him a national hero whose scruples about the French War were satisfied by a dodgy dossier produced by the bishops. Then he gives him the common touch with his wandering through the camp on the eve of Agincourt, and his marvellous speech before the battle about “we few, we happy few, we band of brothers” , which becomes an expression of English patriotism that would be recycled by Churchill in 1940, with the Battle of Britain pilots the heirs of Agincourt. Laurence Olivier’s wartime film, Henry V, is a celebration also of Churchill’s “finest hour”."

To this I would respond as follows:

As Mr Clegg's speech writer found out the other day branding someone a bigot  because you do not like their opinions is merely to reveal one's own bigotry.

Persecuting the Lollards was what a pious King concerned for the spiritual and practical welfare of his subjects was what a ruler like King Henry V was expected to do in the early fifteenth century, and the Lollard uprising of 1414 showed that they were a potential menace.

Of course the Hundred Years was dynastic, and I imagine the King saw it as his duty and reponsibility to assert his claim - he was not being selfish. The English case was more than a dodgy dossier and his abilities as a ruler go far beyond having the common touch, though I suspect he may well have done.

Shakespeare's Henry V is not a fly-on-the-wall documentary and simplifies its narrative to suit the needs of the stage - a point made by the Herald as he guides the audience through the play - but it does depict an established image of the King. Nor, unlike Olivier's film, does it omit the Southampton Plot of 1415 and the fact of dissention at home.

To be blunt, Mr Massie ought to read something by contemporary historians of the period rather than indulging in anachronistic statements. The historical King Henry V was politically correct in his own day - his ideas were simply different from Allan Massie's ideas, but not wrong.

Remembering Dr Pusey

Today is the 130th anniversary of the death of  Edward Bouverie Pusey at the house of nuns he founded, the Society of the Most Holy Trinity, at Ascot Priory. He is buried in Christ Church cathedral in Oxford, and Pusey House was founded as a memorial to preserve both his library and his life work for future generations. 

Dr Pusey by Vanity Fair

Image: Nova Scotia Scott

As someone who owes a great deal to the Oxford Movement of which Pusey was a founder, and to Pusey House where I worshipped regularly from 1996 until 2004, and made many valued and enduring friendships there as well as using the library I feel I owe a great deal to Dr Pusey, and am happy to commemorate him and to pray for the repose of his soul.

Unlike Newman, who shared in the Victorian love of the camera Pusey refused to be photographed or to sit for his portrait. This I think stemmed from his self-abnegatory regime which he adopted following the death of his beloved wife Maria. Apart from his death-mask all the portraits we have are sketches made during sermons or done as pictures from memory. The one I reproduce below suggests something of the charm and cheerfulness in his faith which clearly marked  him as a spiritual director and sustained him in his long and often lonely years of leadership of the Puseyites after Newman's reception as a Catholic in 1845.

Dr Pusey

Image:explow.com