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.
Visiting Oxford?
Allow me to be your guide... and discover the history of Oxford with an Oxford historian.
I offer a wide range of guided walks around the city and university. These can be a general introduction to the history and architecture or looking at specific themes and subjects.
I am a Catholic and a historian based in Oxford, where I am a member of Oriel College. My research, for a long delayed D.Phil., is a study of Richard Fleming, Bishop of Lincoln in the second decade of the fifteenth century. I also work as a freelance tutor in History and as an independent tour guide.
I was received into the Church in 2005 and am a Brother of the External Oratory of St Philip Neri at the Oxford Oratory.
My good people
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Wise people who frequent the exquisite little Penlee Gallery in Penzance
will be familiar with one of its prize exhibits: The rain it raineth every
day (1...
Saint Gabriel
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The angels call for our veneration and awe as part of God’s creation. Part
of the destructive modernism of the 1970s included advice to Catholic
school t...
The Lord’s descent into the underworld
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At Matins/the Office of Readings on Holy Saturday the Church gives us this
'ancient homily', I find it incredibly moving, it is about Holy Saturday,
about ...
The Tewkesbury Battlefield Society series of posts on the events of 1471 continues today with a summary of events in the north and the attempt by the Bastard of Fauconberg to cross the Thames by the bridge at Kingston:
King Edward, still in Coventry, was concerned about rebellions brewing in the north and south of the country and deciding which way to take his army was a problem. His problem was resolved, though, with news from the north that the rebellion there had evaporated. The Earl of Northumberland had decided that his future lay with the Yorkists and there was no other focus for the malcontents. The city of York promised obedience to the King. The rebel leaders were arrested. He couldn’t have wished for a better outcome.
Things were not as rosy in the south, though. Fauconberg changed his approach, leading his men west to Kingston Bridge, the next crossing point, so that he could make his way north and possibly attack the city from another direction with the help of reinforcements from Essex. The city defenders saw the danger and sent men up the river to defend the crossing. There was a parley on the bridge which somehow persuaded Fauconberg to give up the effort.
Warkworth’s Chronicle describes this episode, highlighting the potential dangers from Fauconberg’s army but suggesting that the rebels had been easily outwitted:
The Lord Scales, and diverse other of King Edward’s counsel that were in London, saw that the Bastard and his host went westward, and that it should be a greater jeopardy to King Edward than was Barnet field or Tewkesbury field, wherefor they promised to the Bastard, and to diverse other that were about him, and in especial to one Nicholas Faunt, Mayor of Canterbury, that he should entreat him to turn homeward again. And for as much as fair words and promises make fools fain, the Bastard commanded all his host to turn to Blackheath again
Fauconberg did abandon the attempt, returning his troops to Southwark, where they lined St George’s Fields in battle array, ready for the morrow.
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