Once I was a clever boy learning the arts of Oxford... is a quotation from the verses written by Bishop Richard Fleming (c.1385-1431) for his tomb in Lincoln Cathedral. Fleming, the founder of Lincoln College in Oxford, is the subject of my research for a D. Phil., and, like me, a son of the West Riding. I have remarked in the past that I have a deeply meaningful on-going relationship with a dead fifteenth century bishop... it was Fleming who, in effect, enabled me to come to Oxford and to learn its arts, and for that I am immensely grateful.


Thursday 4 June 2020

Cardinal York


Fr Hunwicke posted today on his blog about the establishment in his titular church of Sta Maria in Porticu by the then Cardinal York of perpetual prayers for the reconciliation of the English to the Catholic Church. It can be read at LIBERATION



 Henry Benedict Stuart, Cardinal York
Image: Wikipedia 

This led me to a portion of the Jacobite Gazzetteer on the Jacobite Heritage website. This discusses and illustrates the many benefactions made by the Cardinal to his cathedral at Frascati whilst he held that Cardinal Episcopal See between 1761 and 1803. It also features the tombs in the cathedral which were made for the Cardinal and his brother, and where they were buried before their removal to St Peter’s. It can be seen at A Jacobite Gazetteer - Frascati - Cattedrale di San Pietro. It illustrates inter alia how after 1788 by a subtle choice of wording he indicated his claim to the throne without being so tactless as to actually say so...


The arms of the Cardinal Duke of York (1747-1788)
Image: Wikipedia

After 1788 he used a royal crown on his achievement of arms as can be seen on two wall hanging from his palace which are now at Carlton Towers in Yorkshire.

There is more about him his arms and titles at a post from the community at Papa Stronsay. This shows his arms with a Cardinal’s hat over a King’s crown rather than the coronet of a royal duke, but then fails to remove the crescent argent as a sign of difference as a second son from the shield! The post can be seen at Cardinal King Henry IX.

Incidentally today is the anniversary of the abdication as King of Sardinia in 1802 of the next Jacobite claimant to the British throne. King Charles Emmanuel IV of Sardinia retired to Rome and Naples, spending time at Frascati with his Stuart relative. Five years after this abdication he inherited the Cardinal’s claims upon his death, becoming the titular King Charles IV and they passed on his own death in 1819 to his brother Victor, and from him to the houses of Modena and Bavaria. In 1815 he took simple vows as a Jesuit lay brother. There is a life of him at Charles Emmanuel IV of Sardinia

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