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.


Sunday 28 November 2021

The Jacobite Kennington Martyrs


Today. November 28th, is the 275th anniversary of the last of the three sets of executions of Jacobite officers at Kennington in London. Other executions of more rank and file participants in the Rising took place at York, Carlisle and Penrith.

The 1745 Association has been meeting online via Zoom with a series of monthly talks which are then uploaded to YouTube. Last month we had an excellent talk by Steven Robb about the fate of the men who were tried in London and who went to the gallows at Kennington. Of note in the illustrations were several anti-Jacobite prints of considerable elegance and remarkable ingenuity of imagination.

The video of the talk can be seen at The Kennington Martyrs

The remains of most of the men were interred at St George’s Gardens in the King’s Cross area and there is a video of the Association’s annual commemoration event there this year at St George's Gardens Commemoration August 2021

The head of Col. Francis Towneley was rescued from Temple Bar and eventually found its way to the family vault in Burnley church. I posted about his posthumous fate last year in 

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