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, 14 May 2023

Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Clare


The Pilgrimage remains in the borderlands of Suffolk when it leads the pilgrim to another historic town, that of Clare. My note from last year is linked to that from the previous year and they give some links to material about the shrine of Our Lady and its twentieth century restoration. They can be accessed at Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Clare

In this Coronation year it is worth noting not just that Clare gives its name not only to the great family of the medieval Earls of Gloucester but to the Dukedom of Clarence, first granted in 1362 by King Edward III to his second surviving son Lionel. Duke Lionel is buried at the friary in Clare. As progenitor of the claim of the House of York he is thus an ancestor of the Yorkist kings and of all monarchs since 1509. Although there has not been a Duke of Clarence since 1892 descendants of two other Dukes were to be seen on television a week ago at the Coronation - the Earl of Loudon, who was exercising his hereditary right to carry one of the spurs, is descended from George Duke of Clarence who died in 1478, and the former Prime Minister David Cameron who is descended from King William IV.

Our Lady of Clare pray for The King and The Queen and for us all.


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