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.


Wednesday, 19 May 2021

Queen Anne Boleyn’s Books of Hours


Today is the anniversary of the execution of Queen Anne Boleyn on Tower Green in 1536. Few figures in English history have generated so much enthusiasm or opprobrium, or been the centre of so much debate. Controversial in life she still has the ability to be controversial 485 years after the Calais swordsman decapitated her.

Despite that furious debate new facts do still emerge and the inews website has marked her anniversary with a report about research into two Books of Hours that belonged to the Queen and contain notes in her hand. She is believed to have carried them to the scaffold on her last day. They are now at Hever Castle. 



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